“Of course I have no business to call you that, but then you see this is not a real letter, and you will never get it, for I shall post it presently in the fire; I am only playing at writing to you. Henry, my darling, my lover, my husband—you can see now that I am playing, or I shouldn’t call you that, should I?—I am very ill, I think that I am going to die, and I hope that I shall die quickly, quickly, and melt away into nothingness, to be blown about the world with the wind, or perhaps to bloom in a flower on my own grave, a flower for you to pick, my own. Henry, I saw you this afternoon; I wore that cloak your sister was choosing, and I think that I should have spoken to you, only she forbade me, and looked so fierce that she frightened me. Wasn’t it strange—it makes me laugh now, though I could have cried then to think of my standing there before you with that mantle on my shoulders, and of your looking at it, and taking no more notice of me than if I were a dressmaker’s shape? Perhaps that is what you took me for; and oh! I wish I was, for then I couldn’t feel. But I haven’t told you my secret yet, and perhaps you would like to know it. I am going to have a child, Henry—a child with big blue eyes, like yours. I was ashamed about it at first, and it frightened me. I used to dream at nights that everybody I knew was hunting me through the streets, pointing and gibbering at me, with my aunt, Mrs. Gillingwater, at the head of them. Now I’m not ashamed any more. I don’t care: why should I? Nobody will bother because a nameless girl has a nameless baby nobody except me; and I shall love it, and love it, and love it almost as much as I love you, my dear. But I forgot: I am going to die—kiss me when I am dead, Henry—pale lips for you to kiss, my own! so there will be no child after all, and that is a pity, for you won’t be able to see it. If it is born at all it will be born in heaven, or wherever poor girls who have gone wrong are sent to. I wonder what is the meaning of it, Henry; I wonder, not why I should love you, for I was bred to that, that was my birth-luck, but why I should suffer so because I love you? Is it my fault, or somebody else’s?—I don’t mean yours, dear, or is it simply a punishment because I am wicked?—because, if so, it seems curious. You see, if I had taken you at your word and married you, then I shouldn’t have been wicked—that is, in the eyes of others—and I shouldn’t have suffered. I should have been as good as all married women are, and oh! a great deal happier than most of them. But because I couldn’t think of marrying you, knowing that it would be your ruin, I am wicked and I suffer; at least I can guess no other reason. Well, Henry, I don’t mind suffering so long as you are happy, and I hope that you will always be happy. But I am selfish too: When I am dead, I hope that you will think of me at times —yes, and of the baby that wasn’t born—and if I can, I shall try to wander into your sleep now and again, and you will see me there white robed, and with my hair spread out—for you used to praise my hair holding the dream-baby in my arms. And at last you will die also and come to find me; not that you will need to seek, for though I am a sinner God will be good and pitiful to me because I have endured so much, and I shall be waiting at your bedside to draw your passing spirit to my breast. Oh! I have been lonely, so dreadfully lonely; I have felt as though I stood by myself in a world where nobody understood me and everybody scorned and hated me. But I know now that this was only because I could not see you. If only I could see you I should die happy. Oh! my darling, my darling, if only I could see you, and you were kind to me for one short hour, I would——”
Here Joan’s letter came to an abrupt termination, for the simple reason that the agony in her head grew so sharp that she fainted for a moment, then, recovering herself, staggered to her bed, forgetting all about the disjointed and half-crazy epistle which it had been her fancy to write.
A few minutes later Mrs. Bird entered the room accompanied by a doctor—not a “red lamp” doctor, but a very clever and rising man from the hospital, who made a rapid examination of the patient.
“Um!” he said, after taking her temperature, “looks very like the beginnings of what you would call ‘brain fever,’ though it may be only bad influenza; but I can’t tell you much about it at present. What do you know of the history of the case, Mrs. Bird?”
She told him, and even repeated the confession that Joan had made to her.
“When did she say all this?” he asked.
“About an hour and a half ago, sir.”
“Then you must not pay much attention to it. She is in a state of cerebral excitement with high fever, and was very likely wandering at the time. I have known people invent all sorts of strange stories under such conditions. However, it is clear that she is seriously ill, though a woman with such a splendid physique ought to pull through all right. Indeed, I do not feel anxious about her. What a beautiful girl she is, by the way! You’ll sit up with her to-night, I suppose? I’ll be round by eight o’clock to-morrow morning, and I will send you something in half an hour that I hope will keep her quiet till then.”
Mrs. Bird did not go to bed that night, the most of which she spent by Joan’s side, leaving her now and again to rest herself awhile upon the sofa in the sitting-room. As she was in the act of lying down upon this sofa for the first time, her eye fell upon the written sheets of Joan’s unfinished letter. She took them up and glanced at them, but seeing from its opening words that the letter was of a strictly confidential character, she put it down and tried to go to sleep. The attempt, however, was not successful, for whenever Mrs. Bird closed her eyes she saw those passionate words, and a great desire seized her to learn to whom they were addressed, and whether or no the document threw any light upon the story that Joan had told her. Now, if Mrs. Bird had a weak point it was curiosity; and after many struggles of conscience, the end of it was, that in this instance temptation got the better of her. From time to time glancing guiltily over her shoulder, as though she feared to see the indignant writer rise from the bed where she lay in semi-torpor, she perused the sheets from beginning to end.
“Well, I never did!” she said, as she finished them— “no, not in all my born days. To think of the poor girl being able to write like that: not but what it is mad enough, in all conscience, though there’s a kind of sense in the madness, and plenty of feeling too. I declare I could cry over it myself for sixpence, yes, that I could, with all this silly talk about a babe unborn. She seems to have thought that she is going to die, but I hope that isn’t true; it would be dreadful to have her die here, like the late accountant, let alone that we are all so fond of her. Well, I know her aunt’s name now, for it’s in the letter; and if things go bad I shall just take the liberty to write and tell her. Yes, and I’m by no means sure that I won’t write to this Mr. Graves too, just to harrow him up a bit and let him know what he has done. If he’s got the feelings of a man, he’ll marry her straight away after this—that is, if she’s left alive to marry him. Anyhow I’ll make bold to keep this for a while, until I know which way things are going.” And she placed the sheets in an envelope, which she hid in the bosom of her dress.