Evelyn Byrd

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

XXV

MORE OF EVELYN’S BOOK

WHEN Dorothy resumed her reading, her sympathies were keenly alive and responsive. She had thought out the matter, and reached a definite conclusion which entirely satisfied her conscience.

“Ordinarily,” she thought, “I should think it excessively wrong to sympathise with a desire to kill, or even to tolerate it in my mind. But I see clearly that in that matter, as in most others, there are questions of circumstance to be considered. Every human being has a right to kill in self-defence. Both law and morals recognise that. In a state of nature, I suppose, every man is constantly at war on his own private account, and he has an entire right to make war in defence of himself and his family. The only reason he hasn’t that right in a state of civilisation is that society protects him, in return for his giving up his right to make private war. But when society, as represented by the state, refuses to protect him, or when the state cannot protect him, he has his right of private war in full force again.

“That was Evelyn’s case. She was a helpless child in the hands of a brute. There was no way in which she could secure protection from any wrong he might see fit to do her. So, when he came with evident intent to do her harm, she had a perfect right, I think, to fight for herself in any way she could. No human being is under obligation to submit to an insult or a blow.

“Besides – well, never mind that. I was thinking of the way in which we all recognise killing in war as entirely legitimate. But that is a large subject, which I haven’t thought out to the end as yet. For the present purpose it is enough to know that Evelyn had a right to make such war as she could – poor little mite of a girl that she was – upon that brutal man. I should have done the same under like circumstances. Yes; I heartily approve her conduct.”

With that, Dorothy turned again to the manuscript, and read what follows: —

Chapter the Sixth

I HAD hurt Campbell very badly indeed. I had shattered the bridge of his nose to bits, and there was a great commotion in the house – sending for a lot of doctors, and all that. My mother thought of nothing but staunching the blood and getting the doctors there. The servants were all excited and running about bringing hot water and towels and so forth, so that no attention was paid to me.

I took advantage of the confusion. I put on a little cloak and my sun-bonnet, and quietly slipped out through one of the back doors into the grounds. Then I called my dog, Prince, to go with me, and in the gloaming – for it was nearly nightfall – he and I waded across the little creek that ran at the back of the place. The house stood at the extreme edge of the little city, and there was no town on the farther side of the creek. So Prince and I went on down the road, meeting nobody.

My grandmother had left the town that day, to go back to her home somewhere in the East, so I made up my mind to walk toward the East every day till I should come to the village where she lived. I knew the name of the village, but I didn’t know what State it was in or how far away it might be; still, I hoped to find it after a while, by inquiring of people. But I feared a search would be made for me, so I decided not to reveal myself by making inquiries till I should be far away from the town where Campbell and my mother lived.

After walking along the road for what seemed to me many hours, Prince and I climbed over a fence and went far into the woods. There we hid ourselves in a clump of pawpaw bushes and went to sleep.

When we woke, there was a heavy rain falling, and we were very, very hungry. So we set out to find a road somewhere, so that we might come to a house and ask for something to eat. But there didn’t seem to be any end to the woods. We went on and on and on, without coming out anywhere. I ate two pawpaws that I found on the bushes, but poor Prince couldn’t eat pawpaws, so he had to go starving.

At last we grew so tired that we stopped to rest, and I fell asleep. When I waked, it was still raining hard, and my clothing was very wet, and I was very cold, and it was nearly night again. So I told Prince we must hurry, and find a house before it should grow dark.

But when I tried to hurry, my feet wouldn’t do as I wanted them to. My knees seemed to give way under me, and I grew very hot. My head ached for the first time in my life, and my eyes bulged so that I couldn’t see straight. Finally I seemed to forget who I was, or where I was trying to go. Then I went to sleep.

When I waked, I was lying in that bedroom in Campbell’s house, and a nurse was sitting by me. I tried to get up, but couldn’t. So I went off to sleep again, and when I waked once more, I understood that I was very ill and had been so for a considerable time. I asked somebody if Prince had been fed, and learned that he had. I never asked another question about the matter, and to this day I do not know how long I lay unconscious in the woods, or who found me there, or how, or anything about it.

I must have taken a good while to get well; for I remember how every morning I planned to run away again the following night, and how before night came I found myself still unable to do anything but lie in bed and take my medicine.

When at last I was able to sit in a rocking-chair for an hour or two at a time, my mother undertook to chide me a little about my conduct. I reckon she didn’t accomplish much, because she began at the wrong end of the affair.

“You hurt Mr. Campbell very badly,” she said.