CHAPTER XXIX. — BEATRICE’S JOURNAL.
October 30, 1848.—My recovery has been slow, and I am still far from well. I stay in my room almost altogether. Why should I do otherwise? Day succeeds day, and each day is a blank.
My window looks on the sea, and I can sit there and feed my heart on the memories which that sea calls up. It is company for me in my solitude. It is music, though I can not hear its voice. Oh, how I should rejoice if I could get down by its margin and touch its waters! Oh how I should rejoice if those waters would flow over me forever!
November 15.—Why I should write any thing now I do not know. This uneventful life offers nothing to record. Mrs. Compton is as timid, as gentle, and as affectionate as ever. Philips, poor, timorous, kindly soul, sends me flowers by her. Poor wretch, how did he ever get here? How did Mrs. Compton?
December 28.—In spite of my quiet habits and constant seclusion I feel that I am under some surveillance, not from Mrs. Compton, but from others. I have been out twice during the last fortnight and perceived this plainly. Men in the walks who were at work quietly followed me with their eyes. I see that I am watched. I did not know that I was of sufficient importance.
Yesterday a strange incident occurred. Mrs. Compton was with me, and by some means or other my thoughts turned to one about whom I have often tried to form conjectures—my mother. How could she ever have married a man like my father? What could she have been like? Suddenly I turned to Mrs. Compton, and said:
“Did you ever see my mother?”
What there could have been in my question I can not tell, but she trembled and looked at me with greater fear in her face than I had ever seen there before. This time she seemed to be afraid of me. I myself felt a cold chill run through my frame. That awful thought which I had once before known flashed across my mind.