It is a curious task to enquire into the motives of Considine. Without
doubt he felt under some obligation to the family of Hewish, and
particularly to that dead lady Gabrielle's mother, and it is
conceivable that he had known enough of Jocelyn during their eighteen
years' acquaintance to have separated his good points from his
weakness, and even to respect him. But the conditions of his
dependence on the Roscarna family can hardly be said to have included
the fathering of its errors, and no degree of respect for Jocelyn could
have made him think it his duty to marry the daughter. Was it,
perhaps, a sense of religious duty that compelled him? It is difficult
to think of marriage with a creature of Gabrielle's physical
attractions as a mortification of the flesh; and though the ceremony of
marriage is supposed to save the reputation of a person in Gabrielle's
position, there was no religious dogma which decreed that marriage with
a clergyman could save her soul.
Then was it a matter of sheer Quixotism! That vice, indeed, might
conceivably have smouldered in the mind of this queer stick of a man, a
lonely fellow cherishing in solitude exaggerated ideals of womankind
and quick to rise to a point of honour. Even this will not do. There
is nothing in the rest of Considine's history that suggests the
sentimentalist. For a parson he was decidedly a man of the world, with
a good business head, a sense of proportion, and a keen, if deliberate
humour. In matters of sentiment I should imagine him reliable.
Only one other cause for his conduct suggests itself, and that I
believe to be the true explanation. He married Gabrielle Hewish
because he wanted to do so; because he loved her. And that is not
difficult to imagine since he had known her intimately ever since she
was born, had helped and witnessed the whole awakening of her
intelligence; had found in her company his principal diversion; had
watched her growing beauty, and seen its final perfection. He knew her
so well, body and mind, that, whatever might have happened, he could
not help believing in her complete innocence--so well that he could
afford to disregard conventional prejudices in looking at her
misfortune.
It is even possible that he may have dreamed of marrying her before the
misfortune came, waiting, in his leisurely way, for the suitable
moment. At Roscarna he had no great cause to fear any rival in love;
and since an ugly providence had obligingly removed the intruder
Radway, there was no reason why he should not benefit by Radway's
death. Considine was a man of forty, full of vigour and not too old
for passion. The prospect of a fruitful marriage was doubtless part of
the programme which he had mapped out for himself. Nor must it be
forgotten that he was a poor man and Gabrielle her father's only
daughter.
With Gabrielle herself the problem is more difficult still. It is not
easy to imagine her submitting to the embraces of her tutor, however
deep and ardent his affection may have been, within a few months of the
catastrophe that had overwhelmed her first love. We may take it for
certain that she did not then, nor at any time, love Considine. It is
impossible that she should have thought of him in the character of a
lover, though I have little doubt but that she would have preferred him
to any of the swarm of Joyces whom Biddy was ready to produce.
Perhaps she was offered the alternative,--I cannot tell. It is certain
that Jocelyn and Biddy told her, in different ways, that marriage was a
necessity to her virtue, and since she was compelled by threats and
blandishments and entreaties to make a virtue of necessity, she chose,
no doubt the course that was least distasteful to her. One cannot even
be certain, in the light of after events, that she understood the
meaning of marriage, or anything about it save that it was the only
thing that could make an honest woman of her. She was so young, so
lonely, so numbed and overwhelmed by her misfortune. I do not suppose
that she minded very much what they did with her as long as they left
her at last in peace. That she was impressed by the serious persuasion
of Biddy Joyce goes without saying, for there was no other woman by
whom she could set her standard of conduct. No doubt the distress of
Jocelyn, who was now something of a pathetic figure, moved her too. It
must have given her pleasure of a sort to see the way in which he was
relieved by her acceptance of the Considine plan--if anything so
passive can be called an acceptance. The shame of the moment had so
broken him that his sudden recovery of spirits must have been
affecting. It must have seemed to her that she had saved her father's
life.
When once the matter was settled Jocelyn became almost light-hearted,
trying by little tokens of affection and an attitude that was almost
jocular, to pretend that nothing had happened and that the marriage was
no more than the happy conclusion of a normal courtship. On the eve of
the wedding he gave her the contents of her mother's jewel-box, which
included some beautiful ornaments of early Celtic work. He kissed her
and fondled her and hoped she would be happy, but she could not smile.
He dressed elaborately for the ceremony, and when he had left her
behind with Considine, feasted solemnly at Roscarna until Biddy and the
coachman carried him upstairs. Never in the history of Roscarna was
such a tragic bride.
The married couple settled down at Clonderriff in the small grey house
that Considine inhabited. In his bachelor days it had been a
comfortless place, but Jocelyn had seen to it that it was furnished
with some of the lumber of Roscarna: the presses were filled with fine
Hewish linen and the plate engraved with the Hewish crest.
Jocelyn had hoped, in the beginning, that Considine would forsake his
village and come to live at Roscarna. He himself, he said, needed no
more in his old age than a couple of rooms; his daughter and his
son-in-law might take a wing to themselves and do what they liked with
it. He had counted a good deal on the attraction to Considine of the
Roscarna library. His offer was refused. Considine already had his
plans cut and dried. Quite apart from the fact that his parochial
duties tied him to Clonderriff, he had decided that it would be better
for Gabrielle to be separated from all her old associations. Like
everything else he undertook, whether it were catching a trout or
reclaiming a drunkard, the plan was carefully reasoned. Gabrielle was
embarking on a new life that would, presumably, always be that of a
country parson's wife. He had caught her young--it was unfortunate, of
course, that he hadn't caught her three months younger--but in any case
she was still young enough to be plastic and amenable to marital
influence. It seemed to him that he had a good chance of moulding her
into the shape that would suit his purpose, and it was obvious that the
process would be easier if she were isolated from the free and easy
manners of Roscarna which had--so very nearly--proved her ruin, and
particularly those of Biddy Joyce, who was not only a Catholic, but the
possessor of an unvarnishable past in which his father-in-law had a
share.
Considine's decision was final, and Jocelyn perforce submitted to it.
Indeed, Jocelyn was far too feeble in these days to pit himself against
Considine's more vigorous personality, even if he had not recognised
the fact that he was in Considine's debt; so he went on living at
Roscarna, wholly dependent on Biddy for his creature comforts, and on
the dogs for his amusement. It was a mild and placid sunset.
Meanwhile Gabrielle, innocent of all domestic accomplishments,
struggled with the complications of her husband's housekeeping, and
Considine returned, like a giant refreshed, to the composition of his
doctor's thesis.
The estate of matrimony suited Considine. In the soft clean climate of
Galway a man ages slowly, and this marriage renewed his youth. It made
him full of new energies and enthusiasms, and revealed a boyish aspect
in his character that seemed to Gabrielle a little grotesque, or even
frightening. He wanted to express himself boisterously, flagrantly,
and the proceeding was extraordinary in the case of a man who had
always been so self-contained. Lacking any other outlet for these
ebullitions he threw himself energetically into his theological
writings and worked off his surplus physical steam in the management of
the Roscarna estate, for which Jocelyn was gradually becoming more and
more unfitted. In this, as in most things that he undertook, Considine
showed himself efficient, and Jocelyn began to congratulate himself on
the fact that he had secured a son-in-law with a genuine passion for
the land that meant so much to him.
During all this time Gabrielle remained the same indefinitely tragic
figure. There was nothing physically repulsive in Considine, but even
if there had been, I do not suppose that she would have felt it
acutely. She had become passive. The abruptness of the first tragedy
had numbed her so completely that nothing less than another emotional
catastrophe could awaken her to consciousness.
In this expectant hallucinated state she passed through the early
months of her married life, faithfully performing her domestic duties,
sad, yet almost complacent in her sadness. Autumn swept over the
countryside. Mists rising from the Corrib at dawn lapped the feet of
the hills on which Clonderriff stood, mingling, at last, with the
melancholy vapour of white fog rolling in from sea. Leaves began to
fall in the parsonage garden, and the lawn was frosted at daybreak with
cold dew. The hint of chilliness in the air only stimulated Considine
to fresh energies, sending him out on long tramps with his gun. He
seemed to think it strange that Gabrielle, in her new state, should
hate the sight, and above all, the sound of firearms. He tried to joke
her out of it--he would never treat her as anything but a child--but to
her it was not a subject on which jokes could be made.
Biddy was a frequent and puzzled visitor at Clonderriff, puzzled, and a
little disappointed because her physiological prophecies did not seem
to be approaching fulfilment. By the time that Gabrielle had been
married a couple of months it became questionable whether there had
been any social necessity for the hurried ceremony; but though she had
her own doubts on the subject, Biddy was far too cunning to give this
away to her own discredit, and when Jocelyn or Considine consulted her
as to how these matters were proceeding, she armed herself with
inscrutable feminine mystery trusting to luck and assuring them it was
only a question of time. After all, probabilities were on her side,
and no doubt it came as a great relief to her when, in due course, the
doctor from Galway confirmed her diagnosis. With this vindication of
her judgment she became more and more attentive to Gabrielle, walking
over two or three times a week to Clonderriff and instructing her in
the traditional duties of motherhood as they are taught in the west.
All through the days of autumn Gabrielle sat at her window looking over
the misty lawn and making the clothes for her baby. It is not
surprising, under the circumstances, that Considine did not show any
symptoms of paternal pride. This, it must be confessed, was the most
unpleasant condition of his bargain. Still, he had undertaken it
deliberately, and meant to go through with it like a man. He looked
forward to the time when it should be over and done with. Then they
would be able to make a new start; Gabrielle would be wholly his, and
Radway, he confidently expected, forgotten.
In the meantime, having, in the flush of marriage completed his
theological thesis and sent it off to the university from which he
expected a doctor's degree, he determined to enjoy the sporting
possibilities of Roscarna to the full. His shooting took him far
afield, and he saw very little of Gabrielle in the daytime. He kept
away deliberately, for her condition made her strange and irritable at
times, and he did not consider that devotion to her in a difficulty for
which he had not been responsible was part of his contract. Later, no
doubt, his turn would come. For the present, moreover, he felt that he
could not quite trust himself, and the fear that his suppressed
grudging might make him lose control of his temper made him anxious to
avoid the risk. Gabrielle was thankful for this. She never felt
unkindly towards him, and yet she was glad when she could feel sure of
not seeing him for a time. In the dusk he would return, too drugged
with air and exercise to take much notice of her, and for this also she
was thankful.
One evening in February, when Gabrielle was sitting in a dream over her
turf fire, Considine came home from a day's blackcock shooting in the
woods on the edge of the lake. She did not hear him coming, for the
garden path was now deep in fallen leaves. As he turned to open the
house door Considine saw a small shadow moving under the garden hedge.
He thought it was a rabbit, and quickly, without considering, he
slipped a cartridge into his gun, aimed at it, and fired. The sound of
a shattering report at close quarters broke Gabrielle's dream,
recalling an old horror. She jumped to her feet and cried out.
Considine, hearing her cry, dropped his gun and ran into the house. He
found her standing with her hands pressed to her eyes and trembling
violently. She did not see him when he called her name, and then,
still shaken like a poplar in a storm, she turned on him with eyes full
of hate and let loose on him a flood of language such as she must have
learned from the Roscarna stable-boys, words that she couldn't possibly
have spoken if she were sane. He apologised for his carelessness and
tried to soothe her, and when she had stopped abusing him and broken
down into desolate tears he picked her up in his arms, carried her to
their bedroom, and sent a messenger riding to Roscarna for Biddy Joyce.
She lay on the bed quivering, and Considine, white and harassed, stayed
beside her. He did not dare to leave her alone, even though she would
not look at him. By the time that Biddy arrived in a fluster,
Gabrielle's child had been prematurely born. There was never any
question of independent life. The case remained in Biddy's hands, and
whether the child were Radway's or Considine's, nobody in the world but
Biddy Joyce and Gabrielle ever knew. There is no doubt that Biddy
would have committed herself to any lie rather than lose her reputation
as an authority, for Biddy was a Joyce. Personally I cherish the
passionate belief that no man but Considine was the father.