Part 38 (1/2)
She came back and sat down again, and again looked at the sleeping face, and she admitted for the hundredth time that evening, that Beatrice was very beautiful.
”If he could see us now!” she exclaimed aloud.
The thought suggested something to her. She would like to see herself beside this other woman and compare the beauty he loved with the beauty that could not touch him. It was very easy. She found a small mirror, and set it up upon the back of the sofa, on a level with Beatrice's head. Then she changed the position of the lamp and looked at herself, and touched her hair, and smoothed her brow, and loosened the black lace about her white throat. And she looked from herself to Beatrice, and back to herself again, many times.
”It is strange that black should suit us both so well--she so dark and I so fair!” she said. ”She will look well when she is dead.”
She gazed again for many seconds at the sleeping woman.
”But he will not see her, then,” she added, rising to her feet and laying the mirror on the table.
She began to walk up and down the room as was her habit when in deep thought, turning over in her mind the deed to be done and the surest and best way of doing it. It never occurred to her that Beatrice could be allowed to live beyond that night. If the woman had been but an unconscious obstacle in her path Unorna would have spared her life, but as matters stood, she had no inclination to be merciful.
There was nothing to prevent the possibility of a meeting between Beatrice and the Wanderer, if Beatrice remained alive. They were in the same city together, and their paths might cross at any moment.
The Wanderer had forgotten, but it was not sure that the artificial forgetfulness would be proof against an actual sight of the woman once so dearly loved. The same consideration was true of Beatrice. She, too, might be made to forget, though it was always an experiment of uncertain issue and of more than uncertain result, even when successful, so far as duration was concerned. Unorna reasoned coldly with herself, recalling all that Keyork Arabian had told her and all that she had read. She tried to admit that Beatrice might be disposed of in some other way, but the difficulties seemed to be insurmountable. To effect such a disappearance Unorna must find some safe place in which the wretched woman might drag out her existence undiscovered. But Beatrice was not like the old beggar who in his hundredth year had leaned against Unorna's door, unnoticed and uncared for, and had been taken in and had never been seen again. The case was different. The aged scholar, too, had been cared for as he could not have been cared for elsewhere, and, in the event of an inquiry being made, he could be produced at any moment, and would even afford a brilliant example of Unorna's charitable doings. But Beatrice was a stranger and a person of some importance in the world. The Cardinal Archbishop himself had directed the nuns to receive her, and they were responsible for her safety. To spirit her away in the night would be a dangerous thing. Wherever she was to be taken, Unorna would have to lead her there alone. Unorna would herself be missed. Sister Paul already suspected that the name of Witch was more than a mere appellation. There would be a search made, and suspicion might easily fall upon Unorna, who would have been obliged, of course, to conceal her enemy in her own house for lack of any other convenient place.
There was no escape from the deed. Beatrice must die. Unorna could produce death in a form which could leave no trace, and it would be attributed to a weakness of the heart. Does any one account otherwise for those sudden deaths which are no longer unfrequent in the world?
A man, a woman, is to all appearances in perfect health. He or she was last seen by a friend, who describes the conversation accurately, and expresses astonishment at the catastrophe which followed so closely upon the visit. He, or she, is found alone by a servant, or a third person, in a profound lethargy from which neither restoratives nor violent shocks upon the nerves can produce any awakening. In one hour, or a few hours, it is over. There is an examination, and the authorities p.r.o.nounce an ambiguous verdict--death from a syncope of the heart. Such things happen, they say, with a shake of the head. And, indeed, they know that such things really do happen, and they suspect that they do not happen naturally; but there is no evidence, not even so much as may be detected in a clever case of vegetable poisoning. The heart has stopped beating, and death has followed. There are wise men by the score to-day who do not ask ”What made it stop?” but ”Who made it stop?” But they have no evidence to bring, and the new jurisprudence, which in some countries covers the cases of thefts and frauds committed under hypnotic suggestion, cannot as yet lay down the law for cases where a man has been told to die, and dies--from ”weakness of the heart.” And yet it is known, and well known, that by hypnotic suggestion the pulse can be made to fall to the lowest number of beatings consistent with life, and that the temperature of the body can be commanded beforehand to stand at a certain degree and fraction of a degree at a certain hour, high or low, as may be desired. Let those who do not believe read the accounts of what is done from day to day in the great European seats of learning, accounts of which every one bears the name of some man speaking with authority and responsible to the world of science for every word he speaks, and doubly so for every word he writes. A few believe in the antiquated doctrine of electric animal currents, the vast majority are firm in the belief that the influence is a moral one--all admit that whatever force, or influence, lies at the root of hypnotism, the effects it can produce are practically unlimited, terrible in their comprehensiveness, and almost entirely unprovided for in the scheme of modern criminal law.
Unorna was sure of herself, and of her strength to perform what she contemplated. There lay the dark beauty in the corner of the sofa, where she had sat and talked so long, and told her last story, the story of her life which was now to end. A few determined words spoken in her ear, a pressure of the hand upon the brow and the heart, and she would never wake again. She would lie there still, until they found her, hour after hour, the pulse growing weaker and weaker, the delicate hands colder, the face more set. At the last, there would be a convulsive s.h.i.+ver of the queenly form, and that would be the end. The physicians and the authorities would come and would speak of a weakness of the heart, and there would be ma.s.ses sung for her soul, and she would rest in peace.
Her soul? In peace? Unorna stood still. Was that to be all her vengeance upon the woman who stood between her and happiness? Was there to be nothing but that, nothing but the painless pa.s.sing of the pure young spirit from earth to heaven? Was no one to suffer for all Unorna's pain?
It was not enough. There must be more than that. And yet, what more?
That was the question. What imaginable wealth of agony would be a just retribution for her existence? Unorna could lead her, as she had led Israel Kafka, through the life and death of a martyr, through a life of wretchedness and a death of shame, but then, the moment must come at last, since this was to be death indeed, and her spotless soul would be beyond Unorna's reach forever. No, that was not enough. Since she could not be allowed to live to be tormented, vengeance must follow her beyond the end of life.
Unorna stood still and an awful light of evil came into her face. A thought of which the enormity would have terrified a common being had entered her mind and taken possession of it. Beatrice was in her power.
Beatrice should die in mortal sin, and her soul would be lost for ever.
For a long time she did not move, but stood looking down at the calm and lovely face of her sleeping enemy, devising a crime to be imposed upon her for her eternal destruction. Unorna was very superst.i.tious, or the hideous scheme could never have presented itself to her. To her mind the deed was everything, whatever it was to be, and the intention or the unconsciousness in doing it could have nothing to do with the consequences to the soul of the doer. She made no theological distinctions. Beatrice should commit some terrible crime and should die in committing it. Then she would be lost, and devils would do in h.e.l.l the worst torment which Unorna could not do on earth. A crime--a robbery, a murder--it must be done in the convent. Unorna hesitated, bending her brows and poring in imagination over the dark catalogue of all imaginable evil.
A momentary and vague terror cast its shadow on her thoughts. By some accident of connection between two ideas, her mind went back a month, and reviewed as in a flash of light all that she had thought and done since that day. She had greatly changed since then. She could think calmly now of deeds which even she would not have dared then. She thought of the evening when she had cried aloud that she would give her soul to know the Wanderer safe, of the quick answer that had followed, and of Keyork Arabian's face. Was he a devil, indeed, as she sometimes fancied, and had there been a reality and a binding meaning in that contract?
Keyork Arabian! He, indeed, possessed the key to all evil. What would he have done with Beatrice? Would he make her rob the church--murder the abbess in her sleep? Bad, but not bad enough.
Unorna started. A deed suggested itself so h.e.l.lish, so horrible in its enormity, so far beyond all conceivable human sin, that for one moment her brain reeled. She shuddered again and again, and groped for support and leaned against the wall in a bodily weakness of terror. For one moment she, who feared nothing, was shaken by fear from head to foot, her face turned white, her knees shook, her sight failed her, her teeth chattered, her lips moved hysterically.
But she was strong still. The thing she had sought had come to her suddenly. She set her teeth, and thought of it again and again, till she could face the horror of it without quaking. Is there any limit to the hardening of the human heart?
The distant bells rang out the call to midnight prayer. Unorna stopped and listened. She had not known how quickly time was pa.s.sing. But it was better so. She was glad it was so late, and she said so to herself, but the evil smile that was sometimes in her face was not there now. She had thought a thought that left a mark on her forehead. Was there any reality in that jesting contract with Keyork Arabian?
She must wait before she did the deed. The nuns would go down into the lighted church, and kneel and pray before the altar. It would last some time, the midnight lessons, the psalms, the prayers--and she must be sure that all was quiet, for the deed could not be done in the room where Beatrice was sleeping.
She was conscious of the time now, and every minute seemed an hour, and every second was full of that one deed, done over and over again before her eyes, until every awful detail of the awful whole was stamped indelibly upon her brain. She had sat down now, and leaning forwards, was watching the innocent woman and wondering how she would look when she was doing it. But she was calm now, as she felt that she had never been in her life. Her breath came evenly, her heart beat naturally, she thought connectedly of what she was about to do. But the time seemed endless.
The distant clocks chimed the half hour, three-quarters, past midnight.
Still she waited. At the stroke of one she rose from her seat, and standing beside Beatrice laid her hand upon the dark brow.
A few questions, a few answers followed. She must a.s.sure herself that her victim was in the right state to execute minutely all her commands.
Then she opened the door upon the corridor and listened. Not a sound broke the intense stillness, and all was dark. The hanging lamp had been extinguished and the nuns had all returned from the midnight service to their cells. No one would be stirring now until four o'clock, and half an hour was all that Unorna needed.