Ellen Percy; or, The Memoirs of an Actress — page 125: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

112 ELLEN PERCY; OB, THE MEMOIRS OF AN ACTRESS. I offended you? Have you no kind word for me? —Have you forgotten that I have been absent from home since yesterday morning ¢ “ Ah, indeed! I had forgotten it,” said Mary. “T am glad to see you, dear Hllen:”’—and she kissed my cheek with as much coldness as if it were a marble statue that had been inspired with a single moment’s life in order to bestow that kiss; and the mere contact of the glacial lips froze the blood in my veins. I did not say another word then and there. I saw that there was something horribly, fearfully wrong. I was afraid of engendering a conversa- tion which might be heard by the domestics, and which it would be most undesirable that they should hear. I therefore followed Mary in silence up the staircase. She actually did not seem to be aware that I] was behind her; she took no notice of me—she looked not to the right nor to the left —she appeared to be walking mechanically as if it were inadream. My heart kept tightening and tightening ; my brain too felt as if there were a cord being drawn around it: my mind experienced a hideous suspense—an appalling conviction of some stupendous calamity having overtaken the unhappy girl in whom I was so deeply interested. She walked straight up to her bedchamber : she had no light in her hand—but I had brought a lamp which had been standing on a table on the drawing-room landing; and as I placed it on the drawers, Mary’s eyes rested upon me. “And have you bought the estate, Ellen?” she asked, as she put off her bonnet and mantle; and her tone was cold, level, monotonous, as if there were completest apathy in her heart, and as if the question were only put because it was the first that rose to her lips, and not because she expe- rienced any interest in what she was saying. “No, Mary,” I answered, “I did not go to purchase it—I merely went to look at it in the first instance.” “Ah, true! I recollect now,” she said. “But it is not my intention to purchase the property,” I continued. “In the first place it is not eligible: in the second place a dreadful occur- rence has taken place there ‘4 “ Ah, indeed! a dreadful occurrence ?”?—but cold as ice was the tone. “Yes, Mary; and I am sure that you will be very much astonished when [I tell you that we encountered Lord Frederick Ravenscliffe at the very house which we went to inspect oH “Ah, Lord Frederick Ravenscliffe— Juliet’s husband. Yes—I know him.” “And he is dead, Mary,” I continued: “he died a horrible death ? “Poor man! A horrible death!’’—but it was an ice-statue that was speaking. “ Frightful—terrible!” I ejaculated with vehe- mence. ‘‘ But good heavens, Mary! what is the matter with you? Oh, do, do tell me, I beseech you! Surely, surely you will not keep a secret from the best and dearest friend that you have upon the face of the earth ?” Mary had just begun to loosen her apparel as a preliminary towards undressing herself: she now desisted—and sat down upon an ottoman by the side of the bed, her gaze fixed upon me as if with the vacant expression of a person that was won- dering who I was and why I was there. And yet there was not anything like idiocy in her gaze: it rather struck me as being the fixity of silent rigid despair. Good heaven! what awful calamity could have fallen upon her head within so short a time P—or what could she have done that might possibly produce a grief so hopelessly profound—a desperation that could dream of no redemption ? “ Mary,” I said, gazing fondly and entreatingly up into her countenance, ‘‘I conjure you to speak tome! Tell me what ails you ?” “ Nothing, Ellen—I am perfectly well,” was the answer given in a voice of ice. “And yet you are deadly pale, Mary—there is no colour on your cheeks—your lips are ashy e “And yet I am quite well,” she said: and she was still speaking in that cold, level montony of voice which seemed to indicate the completest apathy, and as if neither the heart nor the ima- gination had anything to do with the words that were uttered from the lips. * Mary,” I said, “do not afflict me thus! Some- thing has happened! All this is most unnatural! You were never so before!—no, not even when you lost your mother—nor when you found that Herbert Dalrymple was your half-brother!” I said these things in the hope of exciting Mary Glentworth; for I felt that it would be even better to plunge a dagger into her heart, so to speak, in order to startle her from this apathy, than to leave her thus entombed in it. It was with this same view that I had previously told her about Lord Frederick Ravenscliffe in the hope of galvanizing her feelings: I was now. repeating the attempt, but in a stronger manner and through a more powerful medium. All was use- less. There she sat, motionless as a statue—look- ing the picture of silent, ineffable despair. Yet there was something about her—I can scarcely de- scribe what— but a something which convinced me that her mind was not altogether shattered— that the lamp of reason had not been extinguished in the sanctuary of her brain! “ Mary, Mary,” I passionately cried, seizing her hands and pressing them in my own; “tell me what has happened, my dear friend!—tell me, dearest Mary !—I adjure you by everything sacred to tell me!” “T have nothing to tell you, Ellen,” she an- swered: and withdrawing her hands, she placed them one above the other on her knee—her form slightly inclining forward—her eyes bent down— and the expression of her countenance still that of mute ineffable despair. “Shall L hasten for medical assistance?” in- quired a whispering voice from the other side of the bed ; it was Beda who spoke, and who having glided into the room, was not immediately per- ceived by me. “TI do not know—I am bewildered what to think, to say, or do:” and then I glanced at Mary: but finding her motionless and apathetic as before, I again caught her vehemently by the hands, ex- claiming, “ Mary, this cannot last! You alarm— you frighten me! Are you ill, my dear friend? Speak! Are you ill? Will you have medical ad- vice ?” “ Medical advice:”—and if was with a smile icily scornful that Mary repeated the words: the next moment the smile was gone—her counte- nance as rigid as before. (C (E©) Go book