When a honeymoon has been thus disturbed the idyll is over, and the only
safe thing for the two human creatures who have thus played too long the
dangerous drama of Love in Idleness is to get back with as little delay
as possible to common life and work. Most frequently it is the woman who
retards this salutary change of scene, hoping fondly that the idyll may
come back, and fearing the ordinary routine which must separate to some
extent the two existences. But Isabel was not in the innocent, primitive
position which could render such a delusion possible. She had thought
that this alone was life, and that all that went before was a dream; but
every day, as it went on, made her more and more aware that the past was
no dream, that it could not be severed from her soul, or sink into
annihilation, however rapturous and vivid the present might be. She sat
at the window of her lodging and did her fancy work, and watched her
husband’s moods, and longed to be back. Oh, to be back!--if he were but
a labouring man in a cottage going out to his wholesome work, coming in
to find everything prepared for him, his wife and his house bright with
smiles at his approach--instead of the lounging, the caressing, the
vacancy, the fits of fondness and fits of sullenness, and anxious
watching of the changes of his face.
‘Did not you once speak of a farm, Horace?’ she said with a hesitation
that was almost timidity, when he had himself burst forth into an angry
exclamation about the dullness of the place.
‘I hate this country,’ he said, with impatience; ‘but if you have made
up your mind you won’t go to America----’
‘Indeed I never said so.’
‘No, of course you never did; but it comes to the same thing. And by the
way, I bought some of Smeaton’s stock.’ he said; ‘I thought I might have
to wait and kick my heels at your door, Isabel, longer than you made me
do. You were kinder than I expected. I thought I might have had to wait,
and that I had better be doing something. I had forgotten all about
that.’
He thought he might have had to wait! The tone in which he said it was
not unkind, but there was in it that note of incipient scorn which a
woman’s ear is so fine to catch. She had yielded sooner than he
expected. She had been an easy conquest after all his wrongs to her! The
arrow went through and through Isabel’s heart. Sudden shame and
humiliation so penetrated her that all power of speech was gone for the
moment. No wonder her friends, the country-side, all who knew her,
should disapprove and look on her coldly--when even he----
‘Was it a farm in our own parish you thought of?’ she cried, faltering,
after a pause.
‘I thought of offering for Smeaton’s once,’ he said; ‘but that was on
account of you. Now I have got you, it is a different matter; but hang
it, Isabel, we can’t go on like this, you know. A man is bored to death
here. Will you make up your mind, like a brave girl, to come with me
directly and get it over, or shall we go back to Kilcranion, or
somewhere, and wait till spring? By that time you ought to have made up
your mind.’
‘Horace,’ she said, still speaking very low, ‘to every thing but one
thing I can make up my mind at once, and that one thing I can never
do--never! Don’t ask me. I cannot leave my baby behind.’
‘But, by Jove, if I insist upon it, you _must_!’ he cried, with a
certain bravado in his tone.
She got up and went to him with a glow as of hidden fire in her eyes. ‘I
will not!’ she said. ‘I will do anything--everything else you ask me,
but not this!’
With her the crisis had reached the point of desperation. But as for
Stapylton, he gazed at her for a moment, and, struck by her passion,
turned round with a shrug of his shoulders, and what he meant to be an
air of indifference. ‘For Heaven’s sake don’t make a fuss,’ he said. ‘I
hate women who make a fuss--though I think you’ve always had rather a
turn that way, Isabel. Well, never mind. It is better to wait for
spring, anyhow. I’ll run over to Kilcranion to-morrow, and engage one of
the sea-bathing houses till April. They should be cheap enough.’
‘But, Horace,’ said Isabel, with parched and trembling lips, ‘you must
understand--not then nor now, can I leave her behind me. It is but one
thing. I will do whatever you wish--whatever you tell me, except this.’
He stood eyeing her for a moment, as if uncertain how to deal with this
obstinacy. Then he turned away with once more that careless shrug of his
shoulders.
‘Of course it is the only thing I do ask,’ he said, ‘as is always the
way with women. But never mind: May is better for a long voyage than
December; and something may have happened by that time to change the
circumstances--or you may have changed your mind.’
‘What could happen, Horace? and I will never change my mind.’
‘Well, well, say no more about it,’ he said, ‘and we shall see when the
time comes.’
Next day she was left alone to think over all this, and exaggerate all
her difficulties in her own silent mind, closed up from all possibility
of help or sympathy. Stapylton went off to Kilcranion in the morning, to
look, as he said, for a house. He did not ask her to go with him, but
took it for granted that she should remain behind with her fancy work,
and be ready to receive him when he arrived by the evening boat. When
she had watched the morning boat depart which conveyed him away, and
found herself alone standing on the shore in this strange place where
she knew no one, Isabel felt herself seized upon by the strangest tumult
of feeling. She was free. His back was turned who was dearest to her,
and yet whom she had begun to fear. Oh, if she had wings like a dove to
flee to her baby! Oh, to go to Margaret!
A yearning came over her such as she could not restrain. She cried
aloud, as the sheep do on the hill, in mournfullest bleating, for the
lost lambs. Oh, her baby!--her nursling, taken out of her bosom! not by
God, which must be borne; but by a caprice--a mistake--the unkind will
of a man.
‘Will he no be in to his dinner?’ said the landlady, coming with a sharp
knock to the door, and disturbing all Isabel’s thoughts.
‘Not till the evening,’ said Isabel, hastily drying her eyes. ‘Mr.
Stapylton is coming back by the last boat.’
‘But ye’ll hae your dinner yoursel,’ said the woman. ‘Fasting’s ill for
a’body, especially for the like of you. Eh, but you’re red een, Mrs.
Stapylton! Him and you have had a little tiff afore he left.’
‘No, indeed--nothing of the sort,’ said Isabel, indignantly. ‘And I
don’t want anything, thank you. I shall not want anything till Mr.
Stapylton comes back.’
‘I never heard of a couple yet but what had a tiff whiles,’ said the
landlady, with philosophical calm; ‘especially when the man is about
the house a’ day, and naething to do. You’re no to think too much o’ ‘t.
But dry your een, like a bonnie leddy, and gie him a smile when he comes
hame.’
‘Indeed you are quite mistaken, I assure you,’ cried Isabel, half crying
in her excitement, but trying to smile.
‘I have seen an awfu’ heap o’ couples in my day,’ said the woman,
shaking her head in the composure of superior penetration. ‘And the
fonder they are of ilk ither, ay the more like to have a tiff; but
you’ll see it will a’ be blown past if ye gie him ane o’ your bonnie
smiles when he comes hame.’
If there is anything which can intensify the gloom of one of those
tragic contentions which sometimes rend man and wife asunder, it is this
gleam of kindly, consolatory ridicule from without, throwing over the
deadly combat the _fausse air_ of a lovers’ quarrel. Poor Isabel could
not cry after this interruption. How far had she floated beyond the
light and pleasant time when a lovers’ quarrel, with its fond offence
and fonder reconciliation, was possible! She took up her worsted work,
poor mortal rag into which she had woven so many painful fancies, and
sat down by the window, and tried to make out for herself some plan of
action. But her thoughts went away from her like so many deserters, some
to follow Horace, and wonder what intentions might be in his mind in
respect to the future, and what his feelings really were towards her
child; some to haunt the well-known place in which the baby was, and
imagine every little detail of its existence. The little rooms at the
Glebe came before her like an island of calm in the stormy ocean upon
which she had launched herself; should she ever recover that peace, or
such peace as that--should she ever come to have any security in her
life again? And then her mind, which was so running over with thought as
to be incapable of thinking, suddenly turned and caught at the poor
landlady’s homely bit of philosophy: ‘Dry your een, like a bonnie leddy,
and gie him a smile when he comes hame.’ Yes, she would give him a
smile; she would crush down every suspicion--every terror; she would
take it for granted--absolutely for granted--that he meant all good and
no evil. She would smile upon him, and ignore everything that was not
love and kindness--and surely love would conquer in the end.
This she said to herself, with a pathetic smile, wiping away the
moisture which would come to the corners of her eyes; and then went out
anxious, abject, ready to put herself under his feet, to meet the lord
and master whose yoke she had wilfully taken upon her. She took a walk
first against the wind with the unconscious craft of weakness, until the
colour was kindled in her cheek, and the light brightened in her eyes.
He was more fond of her when she looked best. This strange,
half-flattering, half-humiliating fact Isabel had already found out. And
she must use every weapon now for the struggle which was a matter of
life and death.
The effort was rewarded. When she went to the boat, like any Odalisque,
having done all she knew to heighten the effect of her simple beauty,
she perceived by her husband’s first glance that she had succeeded. He
looked at her with a fondness which had begun to die out of his eyes.
‘What have you been doing to yourself?’ he said; ‘you are looking quite
lovely. You have not suffered much from my absence. It is nice, after
all, to have such a little wife to come home to. Come, and I’ll tell you
all I’ve been about.’
And they sauntered down, arm in arm, towards their lodging, feeling,
after all, as if it had been only a ‘tiff.’ Only a lovers’ quarrel! was
that all? and no harm in the heart of the fond young husband, nor fear
in that of the wife?
‘Shouldn’t you like to go to the old place?’ he said, ‘first? You can go
if you like while I settle some other affairs. I’ll take you to-morrow
if you like, and bring a gig for you to take you to Kilcranion in the
evening. Will that please you? You see I am not so bad as you thought.’
‘Oh, Horace, as if I ever thought you were bad; as if you ever were
anything but good to me, and full of love and kindness!’ said Isabel,
like a slave, trembling and glowing with happiness and with tears in her
eyes.
‘You may be sure that is what I always mean,’ he said, in his lordly,
condescending way; ‘and now you know how to make me do anything you
like. Look as lovely as you are looking now and be sweet to me, and you
can’t think how much I’ll do to please you, my pretty darling!’ He
looked down upon her with such glowing eyes that Isabel was confused
with the sudden revulsion. Could she doubt him after this? She clasped
her hands on his arm and lifted her face to his, full of beseeching,
flattering, appealing tenderness. If that was how to win him, then it
should be that way; and if there was a little vague pang of she knew not
what mingled with the sweetness, why then it must be herself who was to
blame? Thus the transition from the old minister’s princess to the young
husband’s ‘pretty darling’ was made in a confusing, bewildering sort of
way. Una changed into Scheherazade or Zuleika all at once, without any
preparation, no doubt would have felt the change bewildering. And so
did Isabel. But he was very tender to her and full of caressing
fondness, and she was to be taken to her baby to-morrow. Was not that
happiness enough to obliterate all lesser evils?