Our Neighbours in the Corner House CHAPTER 23.
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In the early morning, I took a horse and buggy, and drove to the Insane Asylum, located about two miles from the city. I did not know the Superintendent personally; but his reputation as a wise, humane, and honorable man, precluded all question as to his right conduct in the case of Mrs. Congreve, should she have been placed in his care. He was above the suspicion of being accessory to any scheme of iniquitous incarceration. If I found her there, I did not doubt of my ability to secure her almost immediate dismissal. But on gaining an interview with the Superintendent, I was satisfied that Mrs. Congreve was not there. I explained to him the way in which she had been removed, and described her person, so that if she were brought there during the day, he might understand the case, and treat it with the judicious care it required. He seemed indignant at the outrage which had been committed, and said, that if the object were to give to a temporary aberration of mind, a permanent condition — no surer way could have been adopted.
During the day, I communicated with the Chief of Police, and in the afternoon visited the asylum again. But I could learn nothing of Mr. Congreve. I now began to fear that she had been taken from the city, by one of the early morning trains. The probability of this being done had been suggested to my mind on the night before, but I had reasoned against it on the ground that such an attempt would not be made, as Mrs. Congreve, on becoming sensible, would violently expose her husband. He would not hazard, I had said to myself, the doubtful experiment of conveying her from the city in a car or steamboat. Now, it occurred to me, that he might have rendered her quite sedated by drugs, and while in this condition, removed her without attracting attention.
I returned from my late afternoon visit to the asylum, in a troubled and despondent state of mind. The twilight was falling as I stood at my own door. In going through the hall, I noticed, in a side glance, a man sitting in the parlor. I kept on to the end of the hall, where I removed my hat and coat.
"Who is in the parlor?" I inquired of a servant.
She replied that she didn't know. The gentleman had asked for my wife, but on learning that she was out, had asked to see me. He had not given his name. I learned from the servant that my wife was still absent. So I went into the parlor to see who was there, and what the visitor wanted.
The man arose, in the twilight of the room extending his hand, and calling me by name. I took the offered hand, and strained my eyes in the dusky atmosphere, but could not make out his face.
"You don't know me, I see," he remarked.
I now detected something familiar in the voice. My eyes were getting used to the feeble light in the room, and I perceived his face more distinctly. I had seen the lineaments before, but where and when, I was not able to recall.
"You do not know me," he repeated, seeing that I continued to look at him in a doubtful way.
"My memory is certainly at fault," I answered.
"I am changed since we met last, and not much wonder." His voice fell to a low key. "I am Edgar Holman!"
My hand closed on his with an eager grip. Till then, it had been lying loosely in my clasp, as when he laid it there.
"Oh, Edgar!"! exclaimed. "It is you indeed!"
He had not, evidently, anticipated anything so cordial as this recognition, nor would he have received it, but for my full assurance of his innocence, gained through the story of Mrs. Congreve.
"Yes, or at least what is left of me," he replied.
We sat down, face to face, and I looked at him attentively. The old expression and the old outline of his countenance were gone. I would scarcely have known him. He had passed through the fire, and the signs of its terrible power were visible.
"Alice is not home?" he asked.
"No," I replied. "She is in at one of our neighbors; but will return soon."
It then occurred to my mind, that it would be best for me to see my wife first, and take a little counsel with her in regard to Edgar, so I added:
"If you will excuse me for a moment, I will go for Alice."
I found her with Aunt Mary, who was waiting in a most anxious state of mind for my arrival, hoping that some news of Edith would reach her through me. But I brought her neither light nor comfort.
The few moments of hurried thought which I was able to give to the subject, led me to the conclusion that Aunt Mary ought now to be made acquainted with our relationship to Edgar Holman; and also with the fact that he had arrived at this most important crisis. His aid in discovering Mrs. Congreve, would be invaluable. Yet the question as to whether he should be informed on the subject, was the one of most difficult solution. In approaching the matter with Aunt Mary, I said:
"You are aware that Mrs. Congreve related her history to my wife?"
"Yes," she answered.
"And that we have shown a very decided interest in her?"
"Yes."
"An interest that may have occasioned you some surprise."
"It has. We were only strangers, and in a doubtful attitude."
"There was a reason for it," I said. "She had a picture clasped in her hand on the night we found her so near to the door of death. I saw the face, and so did my wife, on that occasion."
"It was the picture of Edgar Holman," said Aunt Mary.
"And Edgar Holman is my wife's cousin."
Aunt Mary laid her hand quickly across her bosom, and looking at my wife, said —
"Can that be possible!"
"It is even so," she replied.
"And I have one more communication to make. He is here!"
"Edgar?" exclaimed my wife.
"Yes, Edgar!"
"Where?"
"At our house. I found him there on my arrival at home, just now."
The new complication of affairs which this appearance of Edgar was likely to occasion, suggested itself to both Aunt Mary and my wife, and kept them silent. Their minds seemed to be in a maze of doubt.
"I mention this now," I said, "in order that we three may take counsel on the subject before my wife sees her cousin. The question is, shall he be informed of your proximity, and the existing state of things. My own mind is not clear."
"Better wait for a little while," replied Aunt Mary, without hesitation. "Listen first to what he will relate, and gain from what he says, some knowledge of his state of mind. We can then more easily decide what it will be right for us to do."
I saw that this was the correct view, and at once assented.
We found Edgar in a feverish state of mind. He had arrived from the West that afternoon, and was in pursuit of Mr. Congreve, having got upon his track, after being baffled for a month, by false indications, which led him always in an opposite direction from the true one. He related the story of his love for Edith, with a tenderness of feeling which melted us to tears; of his arrest, trial, condemnation, and long imprisonment, with such vivid portraitures of his agonized mental state, that we seemed to be passing through the fiery trial ourselves; of his fierce indignation against Mr. Congreve when the full knowledge of his complicity became known to him, in such strong words, that we found ourselves carried away by his wild spirit of vengeance.
How weak I felt before this strongly agitated man, with the memory of such cruel wrongs spurring him on, single-handed to retribution; and yet my duty was to lead him to a better way than the one he was dashing forward in with headlong fury. How was this to be done? I felt so weak, that I prayed for wisdom and strength. I looked upwards, and said —"Lord teach me!"
As we sat together on the next morning, I said:
"This deep provocation, Edgar, has blinded your reason. You do not see clearly."
"I have not pretended to see for some time," he answered. "I only feel."
"We must walk by sight, if we would reach the goal of our wishes; not with shut eyes, nor in the darkness. No real good is secured, if sought in violation of human or divine laws. The wrong you have suffered, cannot be righted through another wrong."
"The wrong is too great," he answered, "for adjustment by ordinary modes of redress. Mr. Congreve has removed the question from judicial grounds, and now it is only to be settled at a higher-law tribunal."
"There are two commandments," I said, "which are included in both civil and divine codes, by which external and internal order are maintained. Now you, in the blindness of passion, deliberately propose to break one or both of these laws. There is murder in your heart — and there is, also, the firm intent to possess yourself of another man's wife. I put the issue in words without disguise."
"She is not his wife!" Edgar answered indignantly. "He gained possession of her through a wicked fraud. Her heart is mine, not his."
"She gave her hand to him," I replied calmly, "of her own free will, and promised to be faithful to him before God and man. He is legally her husband, and he is also the father of her child. Here are the plain, ultimate facts, which cannot be altered. Do not, let me implore you most solemnly, attempt to go past them. You and Edith have been wretchedenough in the past; do not make the future doubly wretched."
He did not answer for some time after I made this appeal. At last he said, taking firm hold upon my arm, and speaking in a voice from which the late fierceness was gone —
"I have had no counselor but my own wildly throbbing heart, and perhaps that is leading me astray. It would be no wonder!"
"It is, Edgar — assuredly it is! Lean on me for the present. Trust in me. Be patient and enduring for a while longer. Dawn has come after the black night season, and the morning will break. Oh, wait for the morning — wait in the patience of hope, that when it comes, it find not all the ground desolate."
He seemed much softened by this appeal, and I went on, trying to lead him into a better state, where rational thought could have power over him, and I was in a small degree successful.
Edgar only knew that Mr. Congreve had come East. Beyond this, he was yet uninformed. There did not seem to be in his mind, the remotest idea of the family's immediate proximity.
For months, since his release from prison, he had been an excited wanderer from place to place, his mind eager in the pursuit of one object. There had been no rest, no opportunity for reflection, no retreat from the outside world, into which he could retire, and find calmer influences, than those by which he was surrounded. He had, in a word, no home. In supplying these, we gained just so much on the right side. He had turned aside from the world, and entered the sphere of home, and I could see that its power over him was felt.
The closer I observed him, and the more I thought upon the subject — the clearer it became that he must not be informed of what was then going on. A knowledge of the fact that Mr. Congreve had carried off his wife, and that she was now, in all probability, in some mad-house in the vicinity, in danger of becoming a confirmed maniac — would have set his whole being on fire. He would have become doubly desperate. And so, as greatly as we needed his aid — as greatly as we might have profited by his undying ardor in the case — we dared not let him into the secret.
Securing his promise to remain with us for a few days at least, and without making any attempt to prosecute his searches in our city for the present, I left Edgar with my wife, and started forth early, to obtain, if possible, some intelligence of Mrs. Congreve. As she had been taken away in a carriage, I set on foot, through aid of the police, inquiries among carriage-drivers, with intimations of a reward; but up to the evening of the second day, no one was found who would admit having been employed on the occasion of Mrs. Congreve's forcible removal. Two other asylums were visited, but without finding the object of my search.
What was to be done? Every passing hour, made the danger to Mrs. Congreve more imminent. If reason were not already permanently dethroned, the utter prostration of her mind was almost inevitable, if a much longer time elapsed before her restoration to Aunt Mary and her child. By aid of the telegraph and police, I had made inquiries in neighboring cities; but so far without any result.
"This last act on the part of Mr. Congreve," said I to Aunt Mary, as we sat in gloomy conference that night, "throws him beyond the pale of consideration. He has gone a step too far, and risked too much. We must give this matter to the public by advertisement, let the consequences be what they may."
She did not reply immediately. The suggestion was new, and she was giving it some consideration.
"What good will follow?" she asked, at length.
"It may lead to the discovery of Mrs. Congreve."
"And, at the same time, expose everything to Edgar," replied Aunt Mary. "Is there not more to be lost than gained?"
"The greatest loss is Mrs. Congreve's reason," said I.
"No." She simply uttered the word.
"What greater loss in this case?" I asked.
"Can you not see?"
I signed a negative without speaking.
"There is something of higher account than reason. A stained soul is more to be dreaded, than a shattered intellect. It may be as well that Edith was removed just at this time. She is not strong enough to hold back, should Edgar reach out his arms for her with the passionate appeal he once made. Attracted on one side so strongly, and repelled with equal force on the other — she would have no adequate power of resistance. Poor child! poor child! It were better, perhaps, that the worst we have feared for her should take place. I could accept that, before the other and more direful consequence."
This was taking a new view of the case, and one against which I offered no argument.
"You think, then," I said, "that public notoriety should for the present be avoided?"
"Under the circumstances, I do."
"In the nature of things, Edgar cannot remain very long in his present ignorance," I suggested.
"No, but we can wait until the veil shall fall by itself, so to speak, or in better words, until Providence shall permit it to fall. That, let us believe, will be the best time. For the present, when all is dark before us, we had better keep back our rash hands."
"There is reason in what you say," I remarked. "But what if inaction is to be added to suspense?"
"Let us do what we can, in the way our best judgment dictates," said the even-toned woman, "and try to have patience for the result. There is a way above our ways — aProvidence which works beyond men's evil deeds — to the accomplishment of the highest remaining good. Our dear Edith is in the hands of One who will not depart from her, even in this hour of darkness. He will preserve in her, that which is most precious and eternally enduring. I rest the matter here in unwavering confidence. I have no other hope — and cling, in my weakness and sorrow, to this."
I answered nothing. What could I say?
"In patience and hope, wait for tomorrow," I said, as I held her hand in parting that night.
"There will be a tomorrow," she answered, yet her lips quivered, and her eyes were full of tears.
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