Alcott, Louisa May - SSC 15 (44 page)

 
          
“Early
this morning; you don’t remember because you were put to sleep before being
fetched, to save trouble.”

 
          
“Ah,
that wine! Who brought me here?”

 
          
“Dr.
Karnac, miss.”

 
          
“Alone?”

 
          
“Yes,
miss; you were easier to manage asleep than awake, he said.” I shook with
anger, yet still restrained myself, hoping to fathom the mystery of this
nocturnal journey.

 
          
“What
is your name, please?” I meekly asked.

 
          
“You
can call me Hannah.”

 
          
“Well,
Hannah, there is a strange mistake somewhere. I am not ill— you see I am
not—and I wish to go away at once to the friend I was to meet today. Get me a
carriage and have my baggage taken out.”

 
          
“It
can’t be done, miss. We are a mile from town, and have no carriages here;
besides, you couldn’t go if I had a dozen. I have my orders, and shall obey
’em.”

 
          
“But
Dr. Karnac has no right to bring or keep me here.”

 
          
“Your
uncle sent you. The doctor has the care of you, and that is all I know about
it. Now I have kept my promise, do you keep yours, miss, and eat your
breakfast, else I can’t trust you again.”

 
          
“But
what is the matter with me? How can I be ill and not know or feel it?” I
demanded, more and more bewildered.

 
          
“You
look it, and that’s enough for them as is wise in such matters. You’d have had
a fever, if it hadn’t been seen to in time.”

 
          
 “Who
cut my hair off?”

 
          
“I
did; the doctor ordered it.”

 
          
“How
dared he? I hate that man, and never will obey him.”

 
          
“Hush,
miss, don’t clench your hands and look in that way, for I shall have to report
everything you say and do to him, and it won’t be pleasant to tell that sort of
thing.”

 
          
The
woman was civil, but grim and cool. Her eye was unsympathetic, her manner
businesslike, her tone such as one uses to a refractory child, half soothing,
half commanding. I conceived a dislike to her at once, and resolved to escape
at all hazards, for my uncle’s inexplicable movements filled me with alarm.
Hannah had left my door
open,
a quick glance showed me
another door also ajar at the end of a wide hall, a glimpse of green, and a
gate. My plan was desperately simple, and I executed it without delay.
Affecting to eat, I presently asked the woman for my handkerchief from the bed.
She crossed the room to get it. I darted out, down the passage, along the walk,
and tugged vigorously at the great bolt of the gate, but it was also locked. In
despair I flew into the garden, but a high wall enclosed it on every side; and
as I ran round and round, vainly looking for some outlet, I saw Hannah,
accompanied by a man as gray and grim as
herself
,
coming leisurely toward me, with no appearance of excitement or displeasure.
Back I would not go; and inspired with a sudden hope, swung myself into one of
the firs that grew close against the wall. The branches snapped under me, the
slender tree swayed perilously, but up I struggled, till the wide coping of the
wall was gained. There I paused and looked back. The woman was hurrying through
the gate to intercept my descent on the other side, and close behind me the
man, sternly calling me to stop. I looked down; a stony ditch was below, but I
would rather risk my life than tamely lose my liberty, and with a flying leap
tried to reach the bank; failed, fell heavily among the stones, felt an awful
crash, and then came an utter blank.

 
          
For
many weeks I lay burning in a fever, fitfully conscious of Dr. Karnac and the
woman’s presence; once I fancied I saw my uncle, but was never sure, and
rose
at last a shadow of my former self, feeling pitifully
broken, both mentally and physically. I was in a better room now, wintry winds
howled without, but a generous fire glowed behind the high closed fender, and
books lay on my table.

 
          
I
saw no one but Hannah, yet could wring no intelligence from her beyond what she
had already told, and no sign of interest reached me from the outer world. I
seemed utterly deserted and forlorn, my spirit was crushed, my strength gone,
my freedom lost, and for a time I succumbed to despair, letting one day follow
another without energy or hope. It is hard to live with no object to give zest
to life, especially for those still blessed with youth, and even in my prison
house I soon found one quite in keeping with the mystery that surrounded me.

 
          
As
I sat reading by day or lay awake at night, I became aware that the room above
my own was occupied by some inmate whom I never saw. A peculiar person it
seemed to be; for I heard steps going to and fro, hour after hour, in a
tireless march that wore upon my nerves, as many a harsher sound would not have
done. I could neither tease nor surprise Hannah into any explanation of the
thing, and day after day I listened to it, till I longed to cover up my ears
and implore the unknown walker to stop, for heaven's sake. Other sounds I heard
and fretted over: a low monotonous murmur, as of someone singing a lullaby; a
fitful tapping, like a cradle rocked on a carpetless floor; and at rare
intervals cries of suffering, sharp but brief, as if forcibly suppressed. These
sounds, combined with the solitude, the confinement, and the books I read, a
collection of ghostly tales and weird fancies, soon wrought my nerves to a
state of terrible irritability, and wore upon my health so visibly that I was
allowed at last to leave my room.

 
          
The
house was so well guarded that I soon relinquished all hope of escape, and
listlessly amused myself by roaming through the unfurnished rooms and echoing
halls, seldom venturing into Hannahs domain; for there her husband sat, surrounded
by chemical apparatus, poring over crucibles and retorts. He never spoke to me,
and I dreaded the glance of his cold eye, for it looked unsoftened by a ray of
pity at the little figure that sometimes paused a moment on his threshold, wan
and wasted as the ghost of departed hope.

 
          
The
chief interest of these dreary walks centered in the door of the room above my
own, for a great hound lay before it, eyeing me savagely as he rejected all
advances, and uttering his deep bay if I approached too near. To me this room
possessed an irresistible fascination. I could not keep away from it by day, I
dreamed of it by night, it haunted me continually, and soon became a sort of
monomania, which I condemned, yet could not control, till at length I found
myself pacing to and fro as those invisible feet paced overhead. Hannah came
and stopped me, and a few hours later Dr. Karnac appeared. I was so changed
that I feared him with a deadly fear. He seemed to enjoy it; for in the pride
of youth and beauty I had shown him contempt and defiance at my uncle's, and he
took an ungenerous satisfaction in annoying me by a display of power. He never
answered my questions or entreaties, regarded me as being without sense or
will, insisted on my trying various mixtures and experiments in diet, gave me
strange books to read, and weekly received Hannah’s report of all that passed.
That day he came, looked at me, said, “Let her walk,” and went away, smiling
that hateful smile of his.

 
          
Soon
after this I took to walking in my sleep, and more than once woke to find
myself roving lampless through that haunted house in the dead of night. I
concealed these unconscious wanderings for a time, but an ominous event broke
them up at last and betrayed them to Hannah.

 
          
I
had followed the steps one day for several hours, walking below as they walked
above; had peopled that mysterious room with every mournful shape my disordered
fancy could conjure up; had woven tragical romances about it, and brooded over
the one subject of interest my unnatural life possessed with the intensity of a
mind upon which its uncanny influence was telling with perilous rapidity. At
midnight
I woke to find myself standing in a streak
of moonlight, opposite the door whose threshold I had never crossed. The April
night was warm, a single pane of glass high up in that closed door was drawn
aside, as if for air; and as I stood dreamily collecting my sleep-drunken
senses, I saw a ghostly hand emerge and beckon, as if to me. It startled me
broad awake, with a faint exclamation and a shudder from head to foot. A cloud
swept over the moon, and when it passed the hand was gone, but shrill through
the keyhole came a whisper that chilled me to the marrow of my bones, so
terribly distinct and imploring was it.

 
          
“Find
it! For God’s sake find it before it is too late!”

 
          
The
hound sprang up with an angry growl; I heard Hannah leave her bed nearby; and
with an inspiration strange as the moment, I paced slowly on with open eyes and
lips apart, as I had seen Amina in the happy days when kind old Madame took me
to the theater, whose mimic horrors I had never thought to equal with such
veritable ones. Hannah appeared at her door with a light, but on I went in a
trance of fear; for I was only kept from dropping in a swoon by the blind
longing to fly from that spectral voice and hand. Past Hannah I went, she
following; and as I slowly laid myself in bed, I heard her say to her husband,
who just then came up, “Sleepwalking, John; its getting worse and worse, as the
doctor foretold; she’ll settle down like the other presently, but she must be
locked up at night, else the dog will do her a mischief.”

 
          
The
man yawned and grumbled; then they went, leaving me to spend hours of
unspeakable suffering, which aged me more than years. What was I to find? Where
was I to look? And when would it be too late? These questions tormented me; for
I could find no answers to them, divine
no
meaning,
see no course to pursue. Why was I here? What motive induced my uncle to commit
such an act? And when should I be liberated?
were
equally unanswerable, equally tormenting, and they haunted me like ghosts. I
had no power to exorcise or forget. After that I walked no more, because I
slept no more; sleep seemed scared away, and waking dreams harassed me with
their terrors. Night after night I paced my room in utter darkness—for I was
allowed no lamp—night after night I wept bitter tears wrung from me by anguish,
for which I had no name; and night after night the steps kept time to mine, and
the faint lullaby came down to me as if to soothe and comfort my distress. I
felt that my health was going, my mind growing confused and weak; my thoughts
wandered vaguely, memory began to fail, and idiocy or madness seemed my
inevitable fate; but through it all my heart clung to Guy, yearning for him
with a hunger that would not be appeased.

 
          
At
rare intervals I was allowed to walk in the neglected garden, where no flowers
bloomed, no birds sang, no companion came to me but surly John, who followed
with his book or pipe, stopping when I stopped, walking when I walked, keeping
a vigilant eye upon me, yet seldom speaking except to decline answering my
questions. These walks did me no good, for the air was damp and heavy with
vapors from the marsh; for the house stood near a half-dried lake, and hills
shut it in on every side. No fresh winds from upland moor or distant ocean ever
blew across the narrow valley; no human creature visited the place, and nothing
but a vague hope that my birthday might bring some change, some help, sustained
me. It did bring help, but of such an unexpected sort that its effects remained
through
all my
afterlife. My birthday came, and with
it my uncle. I was in my room, walking restlessly—for the habit was a confirmed
one now—when the door opened, and Hannah, Dr. Karnac, my uncle, and a gentleman
whom I knew to be his lawyer entered, and surveyed me as if I were a spectacle.
I saw my uncle start and turn pale; I had never seen myself since I came, but
if I had not suspected that I was a melancholy wreck of my former self, I
should have known it then, such sudden pain and pity softened his ruthless
countenance for a single instant. Dr. Karnac’s eye had a magnetic power over
me; I had always felt it, but in my present feeble state I dreaded, yet
submitted to it with a helpless fear that should have touched his heart—it was
on me then, I could not resist it, and paused fixed and fascinated by that
repellent yet potent glance.

 
          
Hannah
pointed to the carpet worn to shreds by my weary march, to the walls which I
had covered with weird, grotesque, or tragic figures to while away the heavy
hours, lastly to myself, mute, motionless, and scared, saying, as if in
confirmation of some previous assertion, “You see, gentlemen, she is, as I
said, quiet, but quite hopeless.”