ONE BODY AND ONE SPIRIT
NEXT week Zachariah found it necessary to consult with Caillaud again.
The Major was to be there. The intended meeting was announced to Mrs.
Coleman by her husband at breakfast on the day before, and he informed
her that he should probably be late, and that no supper need be kept for
him.
“Why do you never meet here, Zachariah? Why must it always be at
Caillaud’s?”
“Did you not say that they should not come to this house again?”
“Yes; but I meant I did not want to see them as friends. On business
there is no reason why Caillaud should not come.”
“I cannot draw the line.”
“Zachariah, do you mean to call unconverted infidels your friends?”
They were his friends—he felt they were—and they were dear to him; but he
was hardly able as yet to confess it, even to himself.
“It will not do,” he said. “Besides, Caillaud will be sure to bring his
daughter.”
“She will not be so bold as to come if she is not asked. Do _I_ go with
you anywhere except when I am asked?”
“She has always been used to go out with her father wherever he goes.
She knows all his affairs, and is very useful to him.”
“So it seems. She must be _very_ useful. Well, if it must be so, and it
is on business, invite her too.”
“I think still it will be better at Caillaud’s; there more room. There
would be five of us.”
“How do you make five?”
“There is the Major. And why, by the way, do you object to Caillaud and
Pauline more than the Major? He is not converted.”
“There is plenty of room here. I didn’t say I didn’t object to the
Major. Besides, there is a difference between French infidels and
English people, even if they are not church members. But I see how it
is. You want to go there, and you will go. I am of no use to you. You
care nothing for me. You can talk to such dreadful creatures as Caillaud
and that woman who lives with him, and you never talk to me. Oh, I wish
Mr. Bradshaw were here, or I were back again at home! What would Mr.
Bradshaw say?”
Mrs. Coleman covered her face in her hands. Zachariah felt no pity. His
anger was roused. He was able to say hard things at times, and there was
even a touch of brutality in him.
“Whose fault is it that I do not talk to you? When did I ever get any
help from you? What do you understand about what concerns me, and when
have you ever tried to understand anything? Your home is no home to me.
My life is blasted, and it might have been different. The meeting shall
not be here, and I will do as I please.”
He went out of the room in a rage, and downstairs into the street, going
straight to his work. It is a terrible moment when the first bitter
quarrel takes place, and when hatred, even if it be hatred for the moment
only first finds expression. That moment can never be recalled! Is it
ever really forgotten, or really forgiven? Some of us can call to mind a
word, just one word, spoken, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years ago,
which rings in our ears even to-day as distinctly as when it was uttered,
and forces the blood into the head as it did then. When Zachariah
returned that night he and his wife spoke to each other as if nothing had
happened, but they spoke only about indifferent things. The next day
Mrs. Coleman wondered whether, after all, he would repent; but the
evening came and she waited and waited in vain. The poor woman for hours
and hours had thought one thought and one thought only, until at last she
could bear it no longer. At about eight o’clock she rose, put on her
cloak, and went out of doors. She made straight for Caillaud’s house.
It was cold, and the sky was clear at intervals, with masses of clouds
sweeping over the nearly full moon. What she was to do when she got to
Caillaud’s had not entered her head. She came to the door and stopped.
It had just begun to rain heavily. The sitting-room was on the
ground-floor, abutting on the pavement. The blind was drawn down, but
not closely, and she could see inside. Caillaud, Pauline, and Zachariah
were there, but not the Major. Caillaud was sitting by the fireside; her
husband and Pauline were talking earnestly across the table. Apparently
both of them were much interested, and his face was lighted up as she
never saw it when he was with her. She was fascinated, and could not
move. It was a dull lonely street and nobody was to be seen that wet
night. She had no protection from the weather but her cloak, and in ten
minutes, as the rain came down more heavily, she was wet through and
shivering from head to foot—she who was usually so careful, so precise,
so singularly averse from anything like disorder. Still she
watched—watched every movement of those two—every smile, every gesture;
and when Caillaud went out of the room, perhaps to fetch something, she
watched with increasing and self-forgetting intensity. She had not heard
footsteps approaching. The wind had risen; the storm was ever fiercer
and fiercer, and the feverish energy which poured itself into her eyes
had drained and deadened every other sense.
“Well, my good woman, what do you want?”
She turned with a start, and it was the Major!
“Mrs. Coleman! Good God! what are you doing here? You are soaked. Why
don’t you come in?”
“Oh no, Major Maitland indeed I cannot. I—I had been out, and I had just
stopped a moment. I didn’t know it was going to rain.”
“But I say you are dripping. Come in and see your husband; he will go
with you.”
“Oh no, Major, please don’t; please don’t mention it to him; oh no,
please don’t; he would be very vexed. I shall be all right; I will go on
at once and dry myself.”
“You cannot go alone. I will see you as far as your house. Here, take
my coat and put it over your shoulders.”
The Major took off a heavy cloak with capes, wrapped it round her, drew
her arm through his, and they went to her lodgings. She forgot
Zachariah, Caillaud, and Pauline. When they arrived she returned the
cloak and thanked him. She dared not ask him upstairs and he made no
offer to stay.
“Please say nothing to my husband; promise you will not. He would be in
such a way if he thought I had been out; but I could not help it.”
“Oh, certainly not, Mrs. Coleman, if you wish it; though I am sure he
wouldn’t, he couldn’t be angry with you.”
She lingered as he took the coat.
“Come inside and put it on, Major Maitland; why, it is you who are
dripping now. You will not wear that over your sopped clothes. Cannot I
lend you something? Won’t you have something hot to drink?”
“No, thank you. I think not; it is not so bad as all that.”
He shook hands with her and had gone.
She went upstairs into her dark room. The fire was out. She lighted no
candle, but sat down just as she was, put her head on the table, and
sobbed as if her heart would break. She was very seldom overcome by
emotion of this kind, and used to be proud that she had never once in her
life fainted, and was not given to hysterics. Checked at last by a
deadly shivering which came over her, she took off her wet garments,
threw them over a chair, and crept into bed, revolving in her mind the
explanation which she could give to her husband. When she saw him, and
he inquired about her clothes, she offered some trifling excuse, which
seemed very readily to satisfy him, for he made scarcely any reply, and
was soon asleep. This time it was her turn to lie awake, and the morning
found her restless, and with every symptom of a serious illness
approaching.