Much Darker Days | Page 6

was indeed, as
Mrs. Thompson had said, 'as mad as a hatter.' Whatever she might have
done did not count, and was all right. We would plead insanity.
She had fallen a victim to a mental disease, the source of which I have
no hesitation in saying has not yet been properly investigated. So far as
I know there is no monograph on the subject, or certainly I would have
read it up carefully for the purpose of this Christmas Annual. I cannot
get on without a mad woman in my stories, and if I can't find a proper
case in the medical books, why, I invent one, or take it from the French.
This one I have invented.
The details of Philippa's case, though of vast and momentous

professional interest, I shall reserve for a communication to some
journal of Science.
As for the treatment, I measured out no less than sixty drops of
laudanum, with an equal amount of very old brandy, in a separate
vessel. But preparing a dose and getting a patient like this to take it, are
two different things. I succeeded by the following device.
I sent for some hot water and sugar and a lemon. I mixed the boiling
element carefully with the brandy, and (separately) with the laudanum.
I took a little of the former beverage. Philippa with unaffected interest
beheld me repeat this action again and again. A softer, more contented
look stole over her beautiful face. I seized the moment. Once more I
pressed the potion (the other potion) upon her.
This time successfully.
Softly murmuring 'More sugar,' Philippa sank into a sleep--sound as the
sleep of death.
Philippa might awaken, I hoped, with her memory free from the events
of the day.
As Princess Toto, in the weird old Elizabethan tragedy, quite forgot the
circumstance of her Marriage, so Philippa might entirely forget her
Murder.
When we remember what women are, the latter instance of
obliviousness appears the more probable.
CHAPTER V.
--The White Groom.
I SHALL, I am sure, scarcely be credited when I say that Philippa's
unconsciousness lasted for sixteen days. I had wished her to sleep so
long that the memory of her deeds on the awful night should fade from

her memory. She seemed likely to do so.
All the time she slept I felt more and more secure, because the snow
never ceased falling. It must have been thirty feet deep above all that
was mortal of Sir Runan Errand. The deeper the better. The baronet
was never missed by any one, curious to say. No inquiries were made;
and this might have puzzled a person less unacquainted than myself
with the manners of baronets and their friends.
Sometimes an awful fascination led me along the road where I had
found the broken, battered mass. I fancied I could see the very drift
where the thing lay, and a dreary temptation (dating probably from the
old times when I had some wild beasts in the exhibition) urged me to
'stir it up with a long pole.' I resisted it, and, bitterly weeping, I turned
away towards Philippa's bedside.
As I walked I met Mrs. Thompson.
'Does she hate him?' she asked suddenly.
'Forgiveness is a Christian virtue,' I answered evasively.
I could not trust this woman.
'Listen,' she said, 'and try to understand. If I thought she hated him, I
would tell her something. If she thought you hated them, he would tell
me something. If ye or you thought he hated her, I would tell him
something. I will wait and see.'
She left me to make the best (which was not much) of her enigmatical
words.
She was evidently a strange woman.
I felt that she was mixed up in Sir Runan's early life, and that we were
mixed up in Sir Runan's early death--in fact, that everything was very
mixed indeed.
She came back. 'Give me your name and college,' she said, 'not

necessarily for publication,' and I divined that she had once been a
proctor at Girton. I gave her my address at the public-house round the
corner, and we parted, Mrs. Thompson whispering that she 'would
write.'
On reaching home I leaped to Philippa's apartment.
A great change had come over her.
She was awake!
I became at once a prey to the wildest anxiety.
The difficulties of my position for the first time revealed themselves to
me. If Philippa remained insane, how was I to remove her from the
scene of her--alas! of her crime? If Philippa had become sane, her
position under my roof was extremely compromising. Again, if she
were insane, a jury might acquit her, when the snow melted and
revealed all that was left of the baronet. But, in that case, what pleasure
or profit could I