“o death, death, death, thou ever floating cloud,
there are enough unhappy on this earth,
pass by the happy souls that love to live:
i pray thee pass before my light of life
and shadow all my soul that i may die.
thou weighest heavy on the heart within,
weigh heavy on my eyelids: let me die.”
?none.
this was the letter the little boy gave to the young lady in the arbour, and which without moving from her seat she opened and read. it was addressed outside correctly enough to “mrs. baldwin.” it was the first letter she had ever received from ralph! she read it slowly, though it was short enough, dwelling on each phrase, each word, with the sort of hungry eagerness with which we strain our ears to catch each last precious whisper from loved lips which we know shall soon, very soon, be silent for ever.
“marion,” it began, “my dearest, for i may call you that in the only letter i shall ever write to you. i said just now it was as if one of us were dying—will you try to receive what i am going to say to you as if indeed it were a dying man’s request? it may seem cruel and heartless to ask it just now, but it is my last chance; and afterwards, though you may reject it just now, my earnest entreaty may come back to your mind. what i would ask of you, my poor child, is to try to be happy. for the sake of the love you have had for me, for the sake of the love you well know i have for you, let me leave you trusting that some day you may again be at least as happy, as you were today when i so rudely destroyed the poor little fabric you had begun to build up.
you are so young, my child, so young and sweet-natured, and your husband you tell me is good and kind. i have seen him, and i believe he is so. happiness cannot but to some extent return to you, if only you do not repel it by dwelling on the past or by undeserved self-reproach. let me trust you will not do this; let me urge on you with more earnestness than i know how to put in words not to refuse or shut out from you the sunshine which will still come into your life. to know that you are happy is the one remaining great wish of my life.
for me it is very different. i am not young and i have been accustomed to live alone. you are the only being i ever took into my life; and i must now return to the old loneliness, only a little drearier and darker than before, for having known one short blessed glimpse of light.
god bless you, my dearest, and lighten to you the terrible trial it has been my bitter fate to bring upon you. leave me the hope that some day you may be able to think of me without suffering. forget all about me except that you had never a truer friend, or one who would more gladly sacrifice himself to ensure your well-being, than
“ralph severn.”
she read it slowly and quietly. no one observing her would have guessed from the expression of her face that its contents were of more than ordinary interest. in point of fact she hardly as yet understood it. she was still stunned and bewildered: otherwise it is probable that her first sensation on reading ralph’s letter would have been of indignation, bitter anger at him for daring to speak to her of such a mockery as “happiness,” for thinking it possible that a human being could bear such torture as hers and live.
but as yet no such reflection occurred to her, no definite thought of any kind was at present possible for her. the short-lived strength which had enabled her to think and decide rightly both for herself and ralph, had already deserted her. she was literally crushed; unable even to realize what had taken place; in a dull stupor of suffering, which to natures like hers comes instead of the physical unconsciousness, in weaker organisations succeeding to extremity of nervous tension and over-excitement.
after a time she grew chilly, and the sensation roused her somewhat to a consciousness of the outer world.
she wondered why she shivered and trembled with cold, for the sun was still shining outside, and all looked bright and warm. then the thought occurred to her that soon geoffrey would be returning from bexley, and she wished she could reach her room unobserved by him or her maid. once there, it would be easy to say she felt ill, and thus obtain some hours’ quiet and solitude in which to brace herself for what lay before her. for what lay before her, she repeated to herself. words easy to say, but in her case what did they mean? she could not tell, could not even attempt to consider.
she rose from her seat, first folding and concealing the precious letter, and began slowly to walk towards the house. her steps at first tottered a little, but gradually became steadier. there was no one about the door as she approached it, so she took courage, and succeeded in gaining her own room without meeting any one but a stupid, unobservant servant or two, who noticed nothing unusual in her appearance.
she looked at her face in the queer, old-fashioned toilet glass. it was pale as death, and her lips looked blue. so she drank some water, and drew down the blinds, and then in her old childish fashion threw herself down on the side of the bed, hiding her face in the pillow.
“now,” she said to herself,” i will begin to think. what must i do? how can meet geoffrey? what ought i to tell him?”
hopeless questions; unanswerable at least by the poor child in the state she was in. she thought it all over, again and again, that strange scene in the garden. there was a terrible fascination about it. she reminded herself of every word he had uttered, every glance and gesture through the whole of the interview. she could not force herself to think of anything else. geoffrey, her future life, everything but this one remembrance seemed of little consequence.
gradually she found herself thinking of it all as if it had happened to some one else and not to her; as if she had seen it acted on the stage, or read it in a book; and then she seemed to have known it always. it was nothing new—the arbour, and the flowers, and the sunshine, the dark figure in the doorway, their mutual amazement, the mingled anguish and joy of their meeting, the agony of their farewell—all seemed to have been a part of her whole life; she had never been separate from it; she would evermore exist in the thought of it.
then the images became confused. she was no longer herself, but some one else, who, she could not decide. ralph, still standing in the doorway, grew strangely like geoffrey. again a change—the whole was a dream. she was back at altes, with cissy and ralph on the terrace, and ralph was smiling on her lovingly while she recounted to him the terrible dream that had visited her. she was asleep! from very exhaustion, both mental and physical, from extremity of suffering, though compressed into the short space of a few hours, she was for the time laid to rest in the peaceful unconsciousness, which, though the waking therefrom may be bitter, is yet, at such times, an unspeakable mercy. i am not learned in medical matters, but i believe this sleep saved her from a brain fever or worse.
geoffrey came in from his visit to the stables, which had been prolonged beyond his intentions. not finding his wife in the little sitting-room appropriated to their use, he came along the passage to seek her in her bedroom. he was not a light stepper, and his boots creaked loudly as he approached the room. but the sound did not disturb her, nor did his tap on the door. he repeated it, but with no effect. then, imagining she must be in the garden, he opened the door, merely to glance in and satisfy himself as to her absence. the room was very dark, all the blinds drawn down, and a general air of sombreness and desertedness. no, there was her hat on the floor, and a glance at the bed revealed herself. in no very comfortable attitude, just as she had flung herself down, but fast asleep, breathing soft and regularly as an infant, and, as he looked more closely, with a sweet smile on her lips, though her face looked paler than its wont.
“my poor darling,” murmured geoffrey to himself, “she has been tired with her long morning alone. i must not leave her again for so long. she looks pale too. i trust she has not been ill.”
and very gently he drew the bed-curtains so as to shade her still more from the light, closed the door with noiseless hand, and softly crept back along the passage to occupy himself as best he could without her, till she awoke.
already he had grown very dependent upon her. indoors especially. he never felt quite in his element in the house, his life for many years past having literally been almost altogether spent in the open air.
but now it was very different. indoors meant marion and cheerful talk, flowers and work, and books even in moderation now and then; a sweet face, and a graceful flitting figure, and tea at all hours of the day, and pipes only on sufferance! it was all so new to him, so wonderfully pretty and delicate, this atmosphere of womanhood for the first time really brought home to him, great rough clod-hopper as he called himself. and if so unspeakably charming here, in a strange, unhomelike house, what would it not be at the manor farm, where this sweet presence was to take root and bloom for evermore? “till death u do part!” came into geoffrey’s mind that afternoon, as he fidgeted about, not knowing what to do with himself, wishing she would wake, and yet afraid to go near her for fear of disturbing her. “till death us do part!” he thought to himself. “a queer sort of life it would be without her!” after an hour or two’s patience he crept back again to her room to see if she were awake. but she was still asleep. he stood beside her for a minute or two. just as he was turning away she awoke: awoke from her dream that the real was a dream; awoke from her sweet vision of ralph’s dark eyes gazing down on her tenderly, to find herself back in the hateful world of facts, and geoffrey baldwin, her husband whom she did not love, standing at her side with a happy smile on his honest face. she glanced at him for an instant, then with a recoil of something very like actual aversion, turned from him, and closed her eyes again, as if she wished to shut out him and all beside from her sight.
geoffrey did not read correctly the expression of her face, fortunately for him. he fancied only she was wearied, or in pain, and his voice sounded anxious as he spoke to her.
“have i disturbed you, marion dear? i was in the room more than an hour ago, but went away for fear of waking you. you don’t look well, but i hoped this sleep would have refreshed you. you are not in pain, my darling, are you?”
“yes,” she said, without moving, or opening her eyes.
considerably alarmed, geoffrey asked eagerly “where? how? what was the matter? was it her head? had she been out in the sun? where was the pain?”
“everywhere,” she replied, in the same tone.
awful visions of rheumatic fever, neuralgia, every sort of illness of which, his experience being of the smallest, his horror was correspondingly great—flitted before poor geoffrey’s vision. he carefully covered marion with the shawl she had tossed aside, and, without speaking, turned to leave the room.
his step across the floor roused her.
“where are you going, geoffrey?” she asked, in a sharp, impatient tone, so unlike her own, that it increased his alarm.
“to call bentley, in the first place,” he answered, hesitatingly; “and then—”
“well, what then?” she persisted.
“to go or send for a doctor,” he replied.
“a doctor!” she repeated, contemptuously, muttering to herself; “a clever doctor, truly, he would be who could cure me. a doctor!” she repeated aloud. “how can you be so foolish, geoffrey? i don’t interfere with you, why should you interfere with me? am i not to have liberty to rest for an hour or two, without you making yourself and me absurd by talking of doctors?”
“but you said you were in pain remonstrated her husband, considerably relieved, and yet not a little amazed by this sudden and uncalled-for ebullition of petulance.
“well, and if i did?” she replied, wearily, but more gently. “surely, geoffrey, you can understand there are pains and pains! i am weary and exhausted, but i want no doctor. leave me, i beg of you, leave me alone. i want to go to sleep—and to dream,” she added, to herself.
geoffrey left her, without saying more.
then, when she heard his steps receding down the passage, there visited her the first of a long chain of tormentors, who from that day became no strangers to her. a pang of self-reproach darted through her, for having so cruelly wounded the heart whose only fault was its devotion to her.
“i have vexed him,” she thought, “vexed and hurt him for the first time since, since—that terrible mistake of ours! it is all a part of the wretched whole.” and then the ungenerous thought occurred to her—“it is his own fault. he has brought it on himself by persisting as he did. save for that—.” and she hardened her heart against him.
but not for long. she had wronged him, wronged him cruelly, in thinking those few petulant words of hers would have had power, even temporarily, to chill or alienate him.
in five minutes he was back again, with a fragrant cup of tea and a delicate slice of bread and butter, which (forgive me, romantic readers) marion was in her heart not sorry to see. she had eaten nothing since early morning, and violent emotion consumes the physical “tissue” no less surely than it exhausts the mental powers.
she drank the tea eagerly, for her throat felt parched and dry. then with a sudden revulsion of deep pity for the man whom she began to see she had so grievously deceived, she said timidly, glancing up at him with a world of conflicting feelings in her eyes—
“thank you, geoffrey. you are very good. are you vexed with me for being so cross?”
“vexed with you, my darling!” he replied, as he had done once before; “vexed with you! no, never fancy anything so impossible.” and he stooped and kissed her on the forehead.
that was more than she had expected. she shrank back, half raising her hand, as if to repel him. geoffrey looked surprised and concerned, but not hurt. the change in her would take a long time to come home to his unsuspecting heart.
“i did not mean to tease you,” he said. “is your head aching? i fear, my poor dear, you are suffering very much.”
“yes,” she said, “i am suffering very much. but don’t begin again about a doctor, geoffrey,” she went on, growing excited. “i won’t see a doctor. there is nothing the matter with me that a doctor is needed for. i shall be well again by the morning, you’ll see. i won’t see a doctor.”
“very well,” he said, “you know best, i suppose. what will you do? won’t you get up a little and come into the other room? you can be quite quiet there, and i should be horribly dull by myself,” he added, wistfully, half smiling at himself as he spoke.
but no answering smile broke on marion’s face. she moved impatiently, and answered coldly—
“i don’t know if i shall get up or not. leave me, any way, for the present and go and smoke or something. perhaps i will get up in a while; but oh, do go.”
so he went. and then, when alone, she cried with remorse for her unkindness.
“but i can’t help it,” she said—“i can’t help it. i don’t want to be wicked, but i am forced into it. i shall grow worse and worse, till i die. oh, if only i might die now!”
there was something consolatory in the idea, and it did not seem wicked to wish for her own death! it seemed an escape from the unbearable present, and in the thought she found a strange sort of calm. she felt sure she was going to be very ill. after all, geoffrey would not be troubled with her long. in the meantime she need not grudge what pleasure it was in her power to afford him. so after a while she got up, rang the bell for her maid, who was full of sympathy for her mistress’s bad headache, and smoothed her hair and arranged her dress; so that when she rejoined geoffrey in the sitting-room, he delightedly congratulated her on looking “all right again.”
she did her best to be patient that evening, to endure her husband’s tender words and caresses. but it was hard work; and, oh, she was thankful when night fell, and she could again, for a time at least, forget the agony which she hoped was killing her. but in the morning, greatly to her surprise, she was better. she felt terribly disappointed that it was so; she had counted so surely on a return of the so-called low fever, of which she felt pretty certain a second attack would prove fatal. but she did not understand her own constitution. no sudden, short-lived emotion, however violent, would have power to prostrate one naturally so healthy; what rather was to be dreaded for her was a long course of suspense or suffering, such as already she had under-tone. discontent, anxiety, uncongenial surroundings might gradually undermine the springs of her life; but she was too young and, physically, to elastic, to give way at a sudden, sharp assault.
nevertheless, yesterday’s events had left their mark on her. besides the suffering woven with many threads which henceforth must envelop her life, the actual, temporary excitement had been too violent not to affect her for some time to come. she was irritable and nervous to a miserable extent. geoffrey’s creaking boots, the hasty closing of a door, even his voice, not always modulated to a nicety, nearly drove her frantic. then sharp words were followed by bitter self-reproach and abasement. it was so undignified, so lowering, she said to herself, thus to bear her trial. if she had been called upon to do something great or heroic—to throw herself into fire or water to save the husband she did not love, it would have been easy. but to feel herself tied to him in this matter-of-fact way, to know that it was her duty to listen with patience, if not interest, to his commonplace conversation, his stupid talk of weather and crops or his anticipations of the coming season’s hunting—oh, this indeed was martyrdom, all but unendurable. for in these days she was far, very far from doing justice to the real character of the man she had married.
they did not stay long at the peacock. the place grew hateful to her. at first there was a sort of fascination about the old arbour in the garden; she had a childish unreasoning fancy that some day ralph would appear there again; that finding his life unendurable without her he would return in very recklessness of misery to see her again, if but for a moment. but he never came, and she learnt to loathe the place associated with such ever-recurring disappointment. there were times when she blamed herself bitterly for her behaviour to him during that last interview. she had been cold, repellent; she had belied herself in concealing from him, as she fancied she had, the depth, the intensity of her devotion, the anguish of parting from him forever. he had gone away, she thought, suffering in himself, terribly no doubt, but with no conception of the awfulness of the misery which he was leaving her to bear alone. had he realised it would he have left her?—would he not, he was wise and far-seeing, have devised some means of freeing her from this terrible bondage, of even now joining her life to his, where alone it would be worthy of the name?
she had told him once she could not love him so entirely did she not know there was one thing he cared for more than her. “doing right” she had called it in her silly childish ignorance and inexperience. but what was right? could this, the life she was leading of misery to herself and sooner or later to her husband also, utter stagnation intellectually, and certain deterioration morally, could this be right? was not her case altogether exceptional; were there not, must there not, be in-stances where the so-called right and wrong of other, more happily commonplace lives, changed places—in which it was worse than obstinate folly, actual suicide, to bow to the laws formed but with reference to every-day circumstances and individuals? these suggestions tormented her at her very worst times. in such moments i think, truly, the tempter himself had her.
geoffrey, who remained sturdily convinced that physical suffering alone was to be blamed for her strange moodiness and irritability, agreed gladly to trying the effect of change of scene. for some weeks they never rested, hardly arrived at one place before mrs. baldwin took a dislike to it, and insisted on rushing off to another, with equally unsatisfactory results. in one thing, however, geoffrey had his way. marion found herself obliged to give in to consulting a doctor. a kindly and sensible man happened to be the one they lit upon, and what little was in his power he did for her. that something beyond his reach was at fault he suspected, though he wisely kept his ideas on the subject to himself. the young husband’s anxiety he was able, with perfect honesty, to relieve. mrs. baldwin was suffering physically from nothing but a certain amount of nervous prostration, consequent, in all probability, upon the long illness some months previously, of which geoffrey told him. time and care would alone set her “quite right.” to marion herself he spoke more plainly. he judged that she could bear his doing so, and be, probably, “none the worse of it.”
“you are not really ill at present, my dear madam,” he said, “but you are fast going the way to make yourself so. not seriously, not dangerously, at least,” he added hastily, misinterpreting the start with which marion looked up at his words, “fretting and repining don’t kill. at least they take a good while about it, and an uncommonly disagreeable process it is. but what i wish to warn you of is, that continued yielding to mental depression or discomfort, such as i can see you are at present suffering from, ends, in nine cases out of ten, in chronic ill-health. a worse trial, my dear young lady, than you at your age and with your evidently small experience of sickness, can have any notion of. you have had your share of trouble in your short life—perhaps more than your share—but let me beseech you not to add to it, as you are too surely doing. trouble is hard to bear at the best of times; but none the easier, i assure you, when our physical strength has failed us.”
“no one can understand other people’s troubles,” said marion coldly, sullenly almost, if so ugly a word can be applied to such gentle tones. “you can prescribe for bodily illness, i have no doubt; but you can’t order a patient to get well. neither can any one make himself happy at command.”
“certainly not,” replied the kind old man; “but, unfortunately, it is in your power, as in mine, and every one else’s, to make ourselves more unhappy.”
marion did not reply, and he went on.
“i am not prying into your sorrows, my dear young lady. i can quite believe that, notwithstanding the blessings you possess, your troubles have been very great. the more earnest, therefore, must be the effort to live them down in the best sense. but i have been talking more like a clergyman than a doctor—you must forgive me. can i see your husband for a moment? i am anxious to tell him that so far there is nothing much amiss. he, i think, is inclined to err on the side of spoiling you, is he not? must i give him a hint that a little scolding now and then would do you no harm?”
“i wish you would,” she replied; “he is far too good and patient, and i am very bad.” she looked up as she spoke with a half smile, but her eyes were full of tears; and something in the tone of her voice haunted the good doctor for many a day to come.
his word, however, more than his medicine, acted upon her to some extent as a tonic. her health improved, her nervousness and irritability decreased. geoffrey was enchanted with the success of his first exertion of marital authority.
“you are looking ever so much better, my darling,” he exclaimed joyfully, “that old fellow was a regular brick. by jove, i wish i had doubled his fee! you won’t be looking ill after all when i take you home next week. how thankful i am! what would the world be to me without you, my dearest?” and his voice grew husky as he looked at her and tenderly raised her face to his.
but she could not return his gaze of loving, devotion, could not meet his honest eyes, bright with pleasure at her improved and spirits. for, with returning strength, and powers of self-control, a new misery had come upon her—the growing consciousness of how grievously, though unintentionally, she had deceived geoffrey baldwin when she told him that at least what heart was left her was free to give to him, that the old love was dead, “dead and buried for ever.” in the first selfishness of her overpowering wretchedness this feeling had somewhat fallen into the background: now that her powers were regaining their balance it revived with redoubled force. it was agony to her to receive geoffrey’s constant expressions of trusting, almost reverential love. a hundred times she had it on her lips to confess to him, not the whole, but so much of her secret as she felt it due to him to own. only the thought of what this knowledge would be to him, of his happiness wrecked as well as her own, withheld her.
but she felt that before long it must come. whatever misery it might entail, it must be done; for she could not live with him feeling that systematically and deliberately she was deceiving him. she grew strangely silent, and absent in manner. geoffrey feared she was growing ill again, and hastened their return home.
“once in our own house, dear, with all home comforts about you, you’ll feel so different,” he said; “this constant travelling is really very tiring. no wonder you’re done up. how delightful it will be to see you at the old farm i shall then feel quite sure that you really belong to me, my dearest.”
she did not answer. he drew round her averted face. to his amazement she was in tears.
“marion,” he exclaimed in astonishment, “my dearest, what is the matter?”
she seized his hand convulsively and held it fast. then restraining with difficulty the hysterical weeping which she felt coming upon her, she spoke, fast and excitedly, to her bewildered listener.
“geoffrey,” she said, “i cannot bear it. all these weeks you have borne with me—with all my strange fancies and wayward tempers. you have been very good to me, for truly i have been very trying. you must have thought me strangely unlike what you fancied me. i am strangely unlike what i was, sadly changed from my old self, for i used to be gentle and sweet tempered, geoffrey. i must tell you the truth, cost what it may, for otherwise i cannot live beside you. geoffrey, poor geoffrey, it is dreadful for me to say, and dreadful for you to hear. i told you a falsehood that day—the day i promised to marry you. i said at least you had now no rival. i told you i no longer loved that other whom i had loved so intensely. it was no intentional falsehood. i believed it myself; but for all that it was not true. i did still love him, geoffrey, then when i said i did not. i did love him even then, with all the love of my nature. and, oh, geoffrey, i love him now. forgive me, for i am most miserable —pity me, for i cannot forgive myself.”
there was not the slightest sound. the hand she still held tightly clasped was not withdrawn, but geoffrey spoke not a word.
marion went on. “i will tell you all about it. all at least that you ought to know. how i found it out i mean. it was a fortnight after we were married. that day, do you remember, at the peacock when you thought i was ill? i—”
“hush!” said her husband, “you need not tell me. i have no need to hear what it must cost you much to tell. you saw him, i suppose, saw him, or heard from him—it does not matter which. there had been some mistake, i suppose. he was not married as you had been told?”
“yes,” she said, repeating his very words mechanically, “there had been a mistake. he was not married.”
“ah!” muttered geoffrey. it sounded like a groan.
“i will tell you”—she began again, but he stopped her again.
“no,” he said, “do not tell me. do not treat me as if i were a judge and you a culprit at the bar. heaven knows, i have heard enough. and god knows, i trust you, marion, trust you utterly and entirely. were you less worthy of my trust this might be easier to bear. i can’t quite see it yet. i can’t get it plain to myself. but that will come, i suppose. only do not ever tell me any more. it need never again be mentioned between us. i think —i think i should thank you for telling me. it was right, i suppose, but i can’t quite see it yet. for my part in it all, for what i did wrong—the persisting in trying to win you, i mean—i ask you to forgive me.”
“forgive you?” she exclaimed; “oh, geoffrey, your asking it crushes me.”
“i do not wish to pain you,” he said, gently but resolutely withdrawing the hand she still held.
“but you must remember it is rather hard on me—all this. i cannot just yet get accustomed to it. so if in any way i fain you, you must forgive me.”
then he got up and strolled to the window. it was a beautiful summer evening—a picture of peace and calm loveliness.
“it is hard upon me,” he murmured to him-self, “very hard upon me. but, good god, how she must have suffered! how she must suffer still, tied to a rough boor like me! that other, i don’t want to know who he is, i should pity him too, i suppose, but i’m not quite good enough for that; for i can’t see that his case is as bad as mine. heaven knows, though he may be a hundred times my superior in every-thing else he can’t love her better. and to think —! my darling, how you must have suffered!”
if only geoffrey could have uttered his thoughts, his generous, unselfish thoughts aloud, who knows what even then might have been the result?
but he could not. a strange reserve had fallen upon this naturally open and outspoken being. gentle and attentive as ever to marion, she was yet utterly changed. he avoided most pointedly the slightest demonstration of the affection with which his very heart was bursting; not a word of endearment, not a gesture of fondness did he allow himself. it was what marion had been wishing for, and yet it pained her. but gradually she grew accustomed to it; and slowly but surely began that lamentable drifting apart so sad to see in two lives which should be as one. henceforth she felt free to live yet more entirely in the past and in herself; for she was no longer fettered by the necessity of maintaining a semblance of affection. geoffrey, she fancied, had felt it much less than she had feared. he would soon be absorbed and happy in his home-life and country pursuits.
so she did not trouble herself very much about him. “he was not after all,” she decided, “a man of very deep feeling. his dogs and horses would soon make up to him for any disappointment he might have experienced in a wife.”
yet being a woman, with all a woman’s illogical “contrariness,” the reflection was not without a certain amount of bitterness.
