EVELYN’S BOOK

LATE that day, came a letter and a parcel from Evelyn to Dorothy. In the letter the girl wrote:—

Dorothy faithfully delivered Evelyn’s peculiarly reserved message to Kilgariff, whereupon the young gentleman declared his purpose of returning to Petersburg on the third day following, that being the earliest return that Arthur, as his surgeon, would permit.

“But I shall call at Branton to see Evelyn first,” he added. This brought a queer look into Dorothy’s eyes, but whether it was a look of pleasure, or of regret, or of simple surprise, he could not make out. “After all,” he thought, “it doesn’t matter. I have decided to take this affair into my own hands. And they shall be strong hands too—not weak and irresolute, as they have been hitherto.”

Before opening the manuscript, Dorothy sent off a young negro to Branton, with a little note to Evelyn, in which she wrote:—

I shall not read a line of what you have written until I have told you how much gratified I am that you have wanted in this way to tell me about yourself. It means much to me that you wish to tell me those things, whatever they may be, that concern you. Another thing I want to say to you before reading your manuscript, and that is that no matter what it may reveal, I shall love and cherish you just the same. You remember what I said to you once—that I know you, and that no fact or circumstance of the past can in the least alter my feelings toward you. Be very sure of that. Now I am going to read your manuscript.

She began the task at once. This is what she read:—

EVELYN’S BOOK

WRITTEN FOR DOROTHY AND NOBODY ELSE

Preface

I AM going to tell you all about myself in this book, Dorothy—or at least all that I know. I have wanted to tell you, ever since you began being so good to me, and I began to love you. I reckon you won’t like some of the things I must tell, but I can’t help that: I must tell you all of them anyhow, because it is right that I should. I couldn’t tell you so long as I thought I had sworn not to. Now that you have explained to me about a parole, I am going to do it. But I am going to put it in writing, because I can tell it better that way. And besides, I might forget some things if I tried to tell them all with my tongue. And there are some of the things which you may want to read about more than once, so as to make up your mind about them.

Now that is all of the preface.

Chapter the First

I DON’T know where I was born. I reckon it must have been somewhere in Virginia, because, when I first saw you and heard you speak, I felt as if I had got back home again after a long stay away. Your voice and the way you pronounced your words seemed so natural to me that I think the people about me when I was a child must have talked in the same way. You know how quickly I fell into the Virginia way of speaking. That was because it all seemed so natural to me.

So I think I must have been born in Virginia. At any rate I had a black mammy. I remember her very well. She was very, very big—taller than a tall man, and very broad across her back. I know that, because she used to get down on the floor and let me ride on her back, making believe she was a horse.

Her name was Juliet. When I read about Romeo and Juliet years afterward, I remember laughing at Shakespeare for not knowing that Juliet was big and strong and black. That must have been while I was still a little child, or I should have understood better. Besides, I remember where I was when I read the play, and I know I was only a little child when I was there.

That is all I remember about my life in Virginia, if it was in Virginia that I was born. There must have been other people besides Juliet around me at that time, but I do not remember anything about them. I cannot recall what kind of a house we lived in; but I do remember playing on a beautiful lawn under big trees. And I recollect that there were a great many squirrels there, just as there are in the trees in your Wyanoke grounds. It is strange, isn’t it, that I should remember the squirrels and not the people? But perhaps that is because I used to feed the squirrels and play with them, and one day one of them bit me painfully. I must have been treating it badly.

Chapter the Second

THE next thing that I remember is being in a large city somewhere. We lived in a hotel. My father and mother were with me, and a great many men came to see my father, and talked with him about business things. I didn’t know then, but I think now that my father was engaged in some kind of speculation, and these men had something to do with it. At any rate, my father was a speculator always, and I think he sometimes gambled, for I heard some one say afterward that he would “gamble on anything from the turn of a card to the wrecking of a railroad.” That was long after, however, and I didn’t understand what the words meant. I reckon I don’t quite understand even now, but at any rate I know that my father was always busy; that he had something to do with a water-works, and some railroads, and some steamboats, and some stores, and many other things. Sometimes he seemed to have more money than he knew what to do with, and sometimes he was very poor. My mother used to cry a good deal, though I reckon my father never treated her badly, as I never heard him scold her in any way. When she would cry, it seemed to distress him terribly. He would go away, sometimes for days at a time, and when he came back he would put a large pile of money in her lap and beg her to cheer up and believe in him.

I didn’t know at that time what my father’s name was. Everybody called him “Jack,” and that was all I heard. I was a very little girl at that time, and if I ever heard his full name in those days, I can’t remember the fact. But I loved him very much. He was always very good to me, and he laughed a great deal in a way that I liked. I didn’t like to see my mother cry so much, so I loved my father far better than I did my mother.

Chapter the Third

THERE seems to be a gap in my memory at this point. I know I must have been a very little girl at the time I have spoken of—only four or five years old at most. The next thing I remember is that we landed from a big ship that had big sails, and a good many people and a cow on the top, and a great many pumps.

My father wasn’t with us, and as I can’t remember thinking about his absence, I suppose I hadn’t seen him for a long time. There were only my mother and my grandmother, and me—or should I say “I”?—I don’t know.

I reckon I must have been six or seven years old then.

When the ship landed, a man named Campbell met us at the landing. His name wasn’t really Campbell, as I have since found out, but he was called by that name. I remembered him in a vague way. He had been one of those who came to see my father when we lived in the hotel. My father called him his partner, and once, when my father suddenly became very poor, he called Campbell a swindler and a scoundrel, and said he had ruined all of us. I didn’t know at that time what the words “swindler” and “scoundrel” meant, but from the way in which my father spoke them I knew they were something very bad; so I hated Campbell.

That was the only time I ever heard my father and mother quarrel. I remember it, because it frightened me terribly. They seemed to be quarrelling about Campbell. When my father called him by bad names, my mother, as I now understand, seemed to defend him, and that made my father angrier than ever.

So, when Campbell met us at the ship and seemed so glad to see my mother, I thought of my father, and I hated Campbell. I remembered the names my father used to call him, though I still didn’t know what the words meant. So, when Campbell tried to pet me, I resented it in my childish fashion, saying:—

“You’re a swindler, you know, and a scoundrel. I don’t want you to talk to me.”

He pretended to laugh, but I know now that he was very angry with me.

Some time after that (I don’t know how long, but it was probably not long) my mother and Campbell got married, out in a Western city somewhere, and went away for a time, leaving me with my grandmother.

I couldn’t understand it, and I said so. Just before they started away on a train, my mother told me in the railroad station that Campbell was my new papa, and that I must love him very much. I remember what I said in reply. I asked:—

“Is my father dead?”

“Don’t talk about that, dear,” said my mother, trying to hush me. But I asked the question again:—

“Is my father dead?”

“No, dear, but your father has gone away, and we’ll never see him again. So you mustn’t think about him.”

“Then you have two husbands at once,” I answered. “How can you have two husbands at once?”

She tried to explain it by telling me that my father was no longer her husband, but I couldn’t understand. And, Dorothy, I don’t understand it now. Of course I know now that my parents had been divorced, but I don’t and can’t understand how a woman who has been a man’s wife can make up her mind to be any other man’s wife so long as her first husband lives. I suppose I was a very uncompromising little girl at that time, and I was very apt to say what I thought about things without any flinching from ugly truths. So, when they went on trying to hush me by telling me that Campbell was now my papa, I flew into a great rage. I took hold of my hair and tore out great locks of it. I tried to tear off my clothes, and all the time I was saying things that caused all the passengers in the station to gather about us; some of them laughing, and some looking on very solemnly, as I shrieked:—

“I won’t have him for my new papa! He’s a swindler and a scoundrel! My papa told you so a long time ago! I hate him, and I’m going to hate you now and for ever, amen!”

I didn’t know what the words meant, but they had been strongly impressed upon my memory by the vehemence with which my father had uttered them long before. As for the final phrase, with the “amen” at the end of it, I had heard it in church, and had somehow got the impression that it was some kind of highly exalted curse.

Campbell was angry almost beyond control. I think he would have liked to kill me, and I think he would have done so but for all those people standing by while I so bitterly vituperated him. As he could not do that, he said angrily to my grandmother:—

“Take her away! Take her away quick!”

My grandmother then threw my little cloak over my head to suppress my voice, and hurried me into a carriage. To some woman who drove with us to our hotel, my grandmother said, thinking I would not understand:—

“I’m seriously afraid the child is right.”

I understood, and I liked my grandmother better than ever, after that.

Chapter the Fourth

WHEN Campbell and my mother came back from their journey, he seemed determined to placate me. He brought me many toys. Among them was a big doll that could open and shut its eyes and cry. I did not utter a word of thanks. I didn’t feel any gratitude or pleasure. I took the toys, and dealt with them in my own way. A very bad man had been hanged in the town a little while before, and I had heard the matter talked of a great deal. So I got a string, tied it around the doll’s neck, and proceeded to hang it to the limb of a tree in our yard. The rest of the toys I threw into a little stream near our house. When all was done, I returned to the house and marched into the drawing-room, where a good many people had gathered to greet my mother and her new husband. Everybody grew silent when I entered the room. They had all heard of the scene I had made at the railroad station, and they now held their breath to wait for what I might say or do.

I walked straight up to Campbell and said, as loudly as I could:—

“I have hanged that doll you gave me, and I’ve pitched the other things into the creek. You’re a swindler and a scoundrel, and I hate you.”

There was a great commotion, but I gave no heed to that or anything else. Before anybody could think of what was best to be done, I turned about and marched out of the room with all the dignity I could muster.

I am not sorry or ashamed over these things, Dorothy. I think I was right, and I am glad I did as I did. But that was the beginning of trouble for me.

Chapter the Fifth

WE were living then in Campbell’s big house, in some Western city. It was a very fine and costly place, I reckon. A little bedroom had been furnished for me, opening off the suite of rooms that Campbell and my mother were to occupy. If it had been in anybody’s house but Campbell’s, I should have loved that beautiful bedroom. As it was, I hated it with all my soul. My grandmother and I had gone to the house on the day before my mother’s return, and that night—the night before they came back—I was put to bed in my room. I lay there with my eyes wide open till I knew that everybody else in the house was asleep. Then I slipped out of bed, crept downstairs, and out over the wet grass to a kennel that had been assigned to my own big Saint Bernard dog, Prince. I crept in, and slept beside the big, shaggy fellow till morning, when a great outcry was raised because I was missing from my room.

All the servants said my behaviour was due to my loneliness in the great house. That wasn’t so. I was never lonely in my life, because whenever I began to feel lonely I always called the fairy people to me, and they were glad to come. I had created them in my own fancy, and they loved me very much. But I wouldn’t invite them into that room or that house. So I went to Prince, as my only other friend.

But after my outbreak in the drawing-room, a servant was directed to take me to my room and lock me in. I sat there in the window-seat for a long time, wondering what would be done to me next, and wondering how I was to escape from my prison; for I fully intended to escape, even if I should find no other way than by leaping out of my second-story window.

After a while, the door was opened and Campbell came in. I could see that he was very angry, and I was particularly glad of that, because it showed me that my words had hurt his feelings very much. That was what I intended.

He had a little switch in his hand, and, as he stood over me, glowering in order to scare me before speaking, I saw it. I instantly seized a heavy hair-brush that a maid kept to brush my thick hair with.

“You mustn’t strike me.” That was all I said.

“I’m going to teach you better manners,” he began.

“You’d better not try,” I answered. “If you strike me, I’ll kill you.”

I meant that, Dorothy; and when, a minute later, he struck me with the switch, meaning to give me a dozen blows, I reckon, I leaped at him—slender, frail little child that I was—and with all the strength my baby arm had, I struck him full in the face with the edge of the heavy brush. I fully intended that the blow should brain him. It only broke his nose, but it made him groan with pain.

Now I want to be absolutely truthful with you, Dorothy. You mustn’t excuse my attempt to kill that man, on the ground that I was a mere child and did not know what I was doing. I was a mere child, of course, but I knew what I was doing or trying to do, and I felt no sort of regret afterward, when he had to send for a surgeon to mend his nose bone, and had to lie abed for a fortnight with a fever. Or, rather, I did feel regret; but it was only regret over the fact that I had done so little. I had meant to kill him, and I was very sorry that I had not succeeded. That is the fact, and you must know it. And more than that, it is the fact, that even now, when I am a grown-up woman and have thought out a code of morals for myself, I still cannot feel any regret over what I did, except that I didn’t succeed in doing more. I would do now what I tried to do then, if the situation could repeat itself.

I don’t know what you will think about all this. But I don’t want you to think about it without knowing that I am not sorry for it, but justify it in my own mind. I am trying to be perfectly honest and truthful with you; so that if you love me at all after reading my book, it shall be with full knowledge of all that is worst in me. If you don’t love me after you know all, I shall go away quickly and not pain you with my presence.

Now, Dorothy, I want you to stop reading this book and put it away for a few hours—long enough for you to think about what I have written, and make up your mind about this part of my story. After that, you can read the rest of it and make up your mind about that.

Dorothy complied with this request. She laid the book aside for two hours. Then she came back to the reading; but before beginning again, she scribbled this paragraph at the bottom of the page last read:—

I have taken two hours of recess from the reading. There was no need of that. My whole soul sympathises with that poor, persecuted little creature. So far from condemning her words or acts, I rejoice in them. I approve them, absolutely and altogether. I see nothing to condemn, nothing to excuse.

Dorothy.