Moondyne/Woman's Love and Hatred
On the later days of Captain Draper's illness he moaned and tumbled restlessly. One of the worst symptoms of the fever was its persistent hold on the brain. The sick man raved constantly, carried on excited conversations, gave orders to the sailors, and, in the midst of these wanderings, again and again reverted to one dark subject that seemed to haunt his inflamed mind.
He lived over and over again, day after day, terrible scenes, that had surely been rehearsed in his mind before the sickness. In his fantasy he was standing by the rail of the ship, while a boat was slowly lowered, in which sat Sheridan. As the boat swung over the raging sea, suspended by a rope at bow and stern, the bow rope parted, the boat fell perpendicularly, and Sheridan was flung into the ocean, and drowned.
During this series of mental pictures, the action of the raving man plainly showed that his hand had cut the rope; and his exultation at the completion of the murder was horrible to see. He would turn his face to the partition, away from the light, and chuckle with a vile sound, rubbing his hands in devilish delight.
One day Mr. Wyville sat beside the bed, intending to relieve the tireless Harriet for a few hours. But Harriet still lingered in the room.
Draper had gone once more through the hideous pantomime, accompanying every act with words expressing the baleful intention. Mr. Wyville sat regarding him with compressed lips. When the horrible culmination had come, and the wretch chuckled over his success, Mr. Wyville looked up and met Harriet's fearful gaze.
"Curse him!" whispered Draper, "he was always in my way. I meant it always—but this was the best plan. Ha! ha! better than pistol or poison—accident—ha! ha! drowned by accident!"
"Do you know of whom be speaks?" asked Mr. Wyville of Harriet.
"A man named Sheridan," she answered; he talks of him a great deal."
"A man named Sheridan!" repeated Mr. Wyville to himself. "She speaks as if she did not know him."
He sat silent for a time, his eyes fixed on the guilty man before him, who was unconsciously laying bare the foul secrets of his heart. At last he turned to Harriet and said—
"Do you not know this man named Sheridan?"
"No."
The answer surprised him, and he became silent again. Presently he sent Harriet to her rest.
"I do not see the end," he wearily murmured, when he was alone with the sick man; "but I forebode darkly. Providence has kept this miscreant from a deeper crime than he has yet committed. Heaven grantthat he has also been preserved for repentance and atonement!"
Mr. Wyville had resolved to be at Draper's side when the hour of sanity returned, and to keep his unfortunate wife out of sight until he had prepared him for her presence.
It was midnight when that moment arrived. Draper had slept soundly for several hours. Mr. Wyville first knew that he had returned to consciousness by the movement of his hands. Presently he spoke, in a feeble voice.
"I have been sick, haven't I? How many days?"
"Six days."
"Are we still becalmed?
"No; we are in the Southern trades."
Draper said no more. He moved his head from side to side, trying to look around the room. Mr. Wyville remained still and silent.
"Have you been here with me?" he asked, at length. "You couldn't have been here all the time."
"Not all the time."
"I suppose I spoke aloud, and—and—raved about people?"
Mr. Wyville looked suddenly at him, and caught the reptilian eye that watched the effect of the question. He was impelled to speak sooner than he had intended, by the cunning of the fellow.
"Yes," he said, keeping his powerful look on Draper's face, as if he addressed his inner soul as well as outward sense; "you have told the whole villainous purpose of your heart. If you recover, you may thank God for striking you with sickness to keep you from murder and the murderer's doom. Had you carried out your design, nothing could have saved you; for there are others here who knew your history and your motive."
Draper did not answer, but lay like a scotched snake, perfectly still, hardly breathing, but watching Mr. Wyville with a cold eye.
"Do you know who has nursed you through your sickness?"
Draper moved his head negatively.
"Would you like to know?"
He only looked more keenly at Mr. Wyville, but there was a light of alarm in the look.
"You have been cared for by one whom you have blighted who owed you nothing but curses. Day and night she has been with you, and she has saved your life."
Still Draper did not move or speak, but only looked.
"You know of whom I speak," said Mr. Wyville; "are you ready now to meet your unhappy wife, and to ask her forgiveness?"
He had risen as he spoke—Draper's eyes followed his face. The strength of manhood, even of facial deceit, having been drained by the fever, there was nothing left of Draper's real self but his wily nature.
As Mr. Wyville rose, the door opened slowly, and Harriet entered, advanced a few steps, and stood still in fear. She looked at her husband's face; for one instant his cold eye from Mr. Wyville and took her in, then returned to its former direction.
Harriet's heart seemed to stop beating. A cold and despairing numbness began to creep over her. She foresaw the nature of the meeting—she knew now what would be her reception. Her limbs slowly failed her, and she sank on the floor, not heavily, but hopelessly and dumb. Mr. Wyville, hearing the slight sound, turned, and read the story of despair like an open page. With a rush of indignation in his blood, almost a mounting to wrath, he regarded Draper.
"Remember," he said, sternly, "your guilt is known. You still have one chance to escape the punishment you deserve. It lies in her hands."
He turned from the bed, and left the room. Draper lay motionless for several minutes, knowing that his victim and wife was grovelling in the room, waiting for his word.
"Come here," he said at length, in a voice all the colder for its weakness.
Harriet crept to the bed, and laid her head near his hand. But he did not touch her.
"I want to see you," he said.
The poor woman raised her miserable face until their eyes met. Hers were streaming with bitter tears. His were as cold and dry as a snake's. She would have cried out his name but the freezing glitter of his eyes shivered her impulse, and fixed her in terrified fascination.
"You and he!" he said slowly, as if thinking aloud, "And after all, you would have been left. And so, I'm in your power at last?"
It was appalling to see the lips wasted lower face of the man twist into a smile, while the serpent glance above was intensified.
Poor Harriet sank down slowly, the slow shudder creeping over her once more. Her blood had ceased to course in her veins at the cruel reception. She had no thoughts: she only felt there was no hope for her.
The first love of some women is mysteriously tenacious. It ceases to be a passion, and becomes a principle of life. It is never destroyed until life ceases. It may change into a torture—it may become excited like a white-hot iron, burning the heart it binds; or it may take on a lesser fire, and change into red hatred; but it never grows cold—it never loses its power to command at a thrill the deepest motives of her nature.
Through all phases but one had passed the love of Harriet Draper. She knew that her husband was a villain, that her hideous degradation had come from his hand; that he hated her now and would be rid of her; and the knowledge had only changed her love to a torture without killing it.
But the change from white heat to fierce red is not infinite. It is a transition rapidly made. At the white heat, the woman's love burns herself; at the red, it burns the man she loves. A woman's hatred is only her love on fire.
"I didn't think it was you," said Draper, making no pretence to deceive her; "I thought you were dead years ago."
Something stirred in Harriet's heart at the emphasis—something like a grain of resentment. She had forgotten self; she now thought of herself, and of what she had gone through for this man's sake.
"How did you come here?" he asked. "Did— he bring you here? Oh, curse you, you've got me in the trap. Well, we'll see."
"I have made no trap," said Harriet; "no one brought me here but myself and—you. I am a prisoner."
Draper was evidently surprised at this news; but it only momentarily checked his rancour.
"I suppose you robbed someone, or mur—?" As he spoke, Harriet struggled to her knees with a pitiful gulping sound, and clutched at the bedclothes, trying to gain her feet. Draper looked at her a moment and then continued slowly—
"I suppose you robbed someone, or murdered—" With a spring like a tiger, and a terrible low cry, Harriet was on her feet, the coverlet in her clenched hands, her flaming eyes on her husband's face.
"Dare!" she hissed, "and I will tear the tongue from your cruel mouth!"
For half a minute the two regarded each other. In that half minute, the white heat of Harriet's love became red. Hitherto, she had hated the one for whom Draper had deserted her, and had hated herself. Now, for the first time, she hated him.
"Villain! monster!" she cried, throwing the coverlet from her with fierce revulsion; "you speak of murder to the murderess you made? Oh, God, God! is there no lightning to strike this man dead! Murder I have done in madness"—she paused with upraised hands, as if she saw a vision—"Oh, merciful God! that innocent one!"
Harriet staggered across the room at the first dreadful thought of the bitter suffering endured by another for her crime. She had partially repented, it is true; but, secretly, she knew that she had never pitied her rival. Now, she could have suddenly died with grief for her wrong.
Harriet did not know that a strong hand upheld her as she fell, and supported her from the room. She recovered in the open air, and looked about her as if awakening from a terrible dream. Sister Cecilia came and led her back to her old solitary quarters in the hospital.
Mr. Wyville and the doctor stood beside Draper's bed. He had swooned.
"Is he dead?"
"No," said the doctor; "he has come out of the fever quite strong. He will recover, unless something unforeseen interfere. He is out of danger."