Even in the first flush and transport of her love-dream Pollie could not
wholly divest herself of the dread that Bertram Devereux might in
England have loved with all the depth of his nature some one who even
now had claims upon him. In vain she asked herself why such a thought
should have passed through her mind. She could not tell. But, to her
deep unrest, it remained to arise and torment her at intervals, like an
unquiet spirit. On the subject of his feminine correspondence she had
noticed, as she thought, a departure from his usual calmness, a studied
air of carelessness. What if her surmises should be true, that he was
either engaged or had been the victim of one of those absorbing,
soul-engrossing attachments which leave the heart of man a burnt-out
volcano--barren, lifeless, dead to all succeeding influences? She would
ask him. The torment of doubt on such a subject was too acute for
endurance. Yet so far had she softened towards him, so far was her whole
nature in a malleable state, that if he had but made frank confession
she could have forgiven him.
And one day accident led up to the subject of previous attachment.
Having disclaimed, on her part, the slightest tenderness in the past to
living man, she looked her lover full in the face, as was her wont when
aroused, and said--
'You have had my disclaimer, but tell me now, Bertram, if there lives
any woman in the land you have left who is able to say, "That is my
lover. This is the man whose vows, if kept, would bind him to me till
death. He has broken faith and betrayed love in deserting me now."
Answer me truly, on your soul's peril, and the subject shall be buried
for evermore.'
As she realised in her own mind the slow torture, the melancholy days,
the 'dead unhappy nights' to which a woman is doomed who waits in vain
for him whom she loves, hoping against hope, refusing the sad truth,
until all limit of credence be passed, so vehement an indignation fired
her every feeling against the imaginary recreant that she looked like an
inspired vestal denouncing the sins of a nation. 'Tell me truly,
Bertram,' she said, 'that there is no hateful ghost of a dead love
between you and my soul's devotion.'
A thrill passed through his inmost heart as he thought how nearly her
random shaft had touched the dark secret of his life. Yet his eyes met
hers fully and fairly. With men he had ever been exact and truthful,
even to bluntness, but in the school of ethics in which he had been
reared it was held no dishonour to lie frankly where a woman was
concerned. So he bore himself accordingly.
'I scarcely think,' he said slowly, 'that a man is bound to lay bare the
whole of his former life to the woman he is about to marry, nor is she
wise to ask it. But,' and here he looked steadily into her innocent,
trustful eyes, 'if it comforts you to think that you are the sole
possessor of this invaluable heart of mine, I give you my word that no
other woman has the shadow of a claim upon it.'
'I believe you,' she said; 'it removes my last lingering doubt as to our
perfect happiness. In sickness, in health, in poverty or riches, by land
or sea, never had man a truer mate than you will find in me.'
He drew her to his side in silence, even then repenting of his falsehood
to this trusting, easily deceived creature. Still, what good would it do
her to know? Why pain her sensitive heart? And was there any--the
remotest--chance of his deceit being exposed? An ocean rolled between
him and that passionate, headstrong woman whom he had loved with the
unreflecting ardour of youth. Circumstances had certainly tended of late
years to favour the idea that she would be free. In that event he had
sworn a thousand times to make her his wife. But it was a contingency
which might never arise. In the meantime was he to give up a career such
as was now opening before him? A lovely, loving bride, who would be an
envied possession wherever they went? A fortune which would enable him
to satisfy all desires and tastes hitherto ungratified? Was all this to
be sacrificed--for what? For a passion of which he had overrated the
force and permanence in the days of inexperience? The price was too
great to pay.
* * * * *
The marriage was fixed for the ensuing November, the first summer month.
They would leave the hot plains of the North-West for New Zealand, after
visiting the Australian capitals. Side by side they would revel in the
glories of Rotomahana, sail on the magic lake, and marvel over the fairy
terraces, returning only with the last month of autumn, when the
peerless winter of the interior would be before them. A year's peaceful
enjoyment of the quiet Corindah life would prepare them for the
momentous, unutterably delicious expedition to the Old World, when the
dream of Pollie's life would be realised and an elysium of bliss, a
paradise, intellectual, social and material, would open before her.
'You romantic child!' Bertram said, looking almost pityingly at her, as
in one of her imaginative flights she was, like an improvisatrice,
picturing vividly a long list of pleasures to come. 'And so you believe
in happiness! I only trust you will not be disillusioned when we reach
this wonderful dream England of yours. And yet it may be so,' he said,
smoothing her bright hair as one placates a child. 'In your company, O
my sweet, I shall renew the youth I have been in danger of losing.'
Whatever might have been Mr. Bertram Devereux's secret thoughts on the
subject of his prospects, he appeared to have improved outwardly, as all
the neighbours and employees agreed. The alteration extended to his
general demeanour. He threw off in great part the reserve which had
marked his earlier tone, and assumed a genial _role_ which no one could,
when he liked, sustain better than himself. He took occasion to visit
Wannonbah more frequently. He identified himself with the local
interests and occupations of the district. He utilised his exceptional
gifts and attainments to such purpose that all envy at his good fortune
disappeared. He was finally voted by the younger squatters and the
Wannonbah society generally to be a 'deuced good fellow' (when you came
to know him), who would take his position among them, and be an
acquisition to the district.
Harold Atherstone had gone away for change of air about the time when
his arm was recovering its strength, and did not return until the
engagement between Pollie and her cousin was matter of general comment.
He heard of it, indeed, before he left town, at his club. What his
sensations were at the announcement none ever knew. A man who bore his
griefs and failures in secret, he disclosed none of his deeper feelings.
When he met Pollie Devereux in her own home, it was with an untroubled
brow. The kind, brave face, the wise, steadfast eyes, which she had
known from childhood, were unaltered.
Pollie herself had vague misgivings that her all-important step would
not meet with his approbation. Knowing that she needed not to hold
herself responsible to him or any other, she yet feared lest a kind of
indefinable injustice had been done by forsaking so loyal a friend. She
would have felt unspeakably relieved by his full approbation and
consent.
'You have heard of my engagement,' she said, as he held her hand at
their first meeting after his return. 'Are you not going to give me joy
and congratulate me on my happiness?'
'I may congratulate _him_' he said, a little sadly. 'My wishes for your
happiness need no renewal. They do not date from to-day, as you well
know. Whatever renders you happy and preserves you so will always be a
part of my joy in life. May God bless you, dear, and keep you from
sorrow evermore!'
In a half-unconscious way he drew the girl towards him, and kissed her
as might a brother--tenderly, but without passion. Then he turned and
left her, while she walked slowly and pensively towards the house. She
felt that he had forgiven her; that he was too noble to harbour envy or
resentment. But with woman's quickness she divined that he was grieved
to the heart, and that all his self-command was needed to enable him to
appear unmoved. Again and again she asked herself whether she had done
wisely in following the passion-cries of her heart rather than the
dictates of reason. A vain wish that she could have combined both
agitated her. Of how many women and men might the same tale be told!
Mrs. Devereux was rather resigned to the arrangement as inevitable and
impossible to amend than wholly approving. More acute and experienced,
she had noticed the smaller defects of character in Bertram Devereux
which had escaped the eye of her daughter. Not that Pollie would have
suffered them to influence her. But the unconscious selfishness, the
irritability, the ignoring of the tastes of others, which she had
observed in her future son-in-law, did not, in her estimation, augur
well for her child's happiness. When she thought of Harold Atherstone's
long, unrewarded devotion, she could scarcely repress her vexation.
'What fools we women are!' she said bitterly to herself. 'We trample on
pearls and gems of manhood, only to prize some glittering pebble without
intrinsic value or beauty. When, as in my case, one is blessed with a
husband who unites all the qualities which women love and men respect,
Fate steps in and deprives her of him. How little real happiness there
seems to be in this world of ours!'
While poor Mrs. Devereux thus bemoaned herself over the anomalies of
life, the weeks of the short spring and early summer passed quickly
along the flowery track, which, even in the Waste, is fair with wealth
of leaf and blossom, with joyous birds and tempered sunshine, with high
hope and joy and expectation of the coming year. The season had again
been favourable. Wealth was flowing into Corindah and the neighbouring
stations after the abundant fashion which, during a succession of good
years, obtains in Australia Deserta. After her child was gone, Mrs.
Devereux thought she would sell out and take up her abode in Europe for
good. After tasting the glories and social splendours of the Old World,
which she would fully appreciate, Pollie would not choose to return to
Australia. Men sometimes came back to the land of spur and snaffle and
wide-acred freedom, weary of cities and the artificial European life;
but women, in her experience, never. They had reached across the ocean a
fairy realm, where the supreme social luxuries were purchasable and
abundant; servants and equipages, households and surroundings, music and
the drama, art and literature, society at once congenial and
aristocratic, travel and excitement--all these things were to be had for
money. This they possessed. Why should they return to a land where much
of this enticing catalogue did not exist, where a tithe of civilisation
was difficult, the rest impossible to obtain?
So Mrs. Devereux sadly looked forward to passing the close of her days
in England--a foreign land, as far as she was concerned--far from the
home, the friends, the associations of her youth, her whole life indeed,
up to this stage. To her the prospect was simply one of exile and
endurance.
It had been arranged that the marriage was to take place in Sydney early
in November. Mrs. Devereux would go thither with her daughter
immediately after that important annual ceremony, the shearing at
Corindah, was concluded. The good lady preferred in a general way to
manage her own affairs. She signed her own cheques, which during
September and October were like the sands of the sea for multitude. Mr.
Gateward was economical and loyal. Still, it was always worth while to
attend to one's own business, she thought. So that, although Bertram had
pleaded for an earlier day, the month of November was fixed for the
wedding, principally on account of the said shearing and its
responsibilities--which he had come to loathe in consequence as a
comparatively trifling, but none the less vexatious, obstacle.
So when the October mail-steamer arrived he was still at Corindah, and
thither his letters came. He happened to be away on the day of arrival,
and Pollie, emptying on the hall table the well-filled Corindah
mail-bag, sorted out the different addresses to 'Bertram Devereux, Esq.,
Corindah, Wannonbah, New South Wales, Australia,' as was the general
superscription of his European letters. Among them Pollie descried two
letters in the feminine handwriting which she had before remarked. One
was addressed to her lover, one to herself.
Yes, there could be no mistake. 'Miss Devereux, Corindah, Wannonbah, New
South Wales, Australia.' It was doubtless from her good, motherly cousin
Eleanor, in congratulation. It was very kind of her. She had had only
just time to write, too. Had the marriage been in the month of October
as Bertram wished, she would have been too late.
So, with smiling eyes and unsuspicious eagerness to behold the kindly,
unfamiliar lines from the probable kinswoman, Pollie opened the letter.
A painter would have seized the moment for a priceless portrait, had he
been at hand to mark the instantaneous changes of expression--first wild
surprise, then horror; the slow, expressive alteration from trusting
confidence and loving hope to disappointment unspeakable, dismay,
despair.
This was the fatal sheet upon which her eyes, first flashing indignant
surprise, then fell:--
Wynton Hall, _9th August 188-._
I should owe you an apology, Miss Devereux, for thus addressing
you, would the occasion admit of unnecessary courtesy or delay.
If the lifelong happiness or misery of two women--of yourself
or me--be sufficient reason for disregarding ceremony, you will
hold me excused, nay, bless me in the future, whatever may be
the shock to your present feelings. I have accidentally
discovered, what before I only surmised, that Bertram and
yourself are about to be married. _He_ was careful not to give
me a hint of his plot--for such I must consider it to be. An
Australian gentleman, a Mr. Charteris, however, happened to be
staying in the house where I was visiting, and mentioned that
his friend Bertram Devereux was about to be married to the
beautiful heiress of Corindah. He had just heard the news from
a correspondent. From what I have heard of your character, I
assume that you would prefer to know the truth at all hazards.
You would not be willing, as are some weak women, to pardon in
the man of your choice shameless falsehood, base betrayal, and
broken vows.
I swear to you now, as God shall judge me at the Great Day,
that Bertram Devereux is _mine_--mine by every vow, by every
tie, which can bind man to woman. Whoso accepts him, virtually
takes another woman's husband with her eyes open. As events are
shaping themselves I shall be shortly free. No legal obstacle
to his fulfilment of the promise which he has a hundred times
made, will exist. You will wonder that I choose to hold him to
his bond after his proved faithlessness. May you long be free
from the forbidden knowledge which would enlighten you! That I
love him still is one proof more, were it needed, of the wild
inconsistency of a woman's heart. I have told him of the letter
to you. I fear him not; nothing earthly has power to daunt me
now.
You are free to take your own course, but you are now warned
against the sacrifice of your own happiness and that of the
wretched and desperate woman who calls herself--
SYBIL DE WYNTON.
Holding the letter in her hand, the girl walked feebly and uncertainly,
like one in a dream, to her own room. She saw through the open window a
horseman riding across the plain towards the entrance gate. A few short
moments since she would have flown to meet him. Now all was changed. It
was the loveliest afternoon. The air was warm, yet free from the least
excess of heat. A sighing breeze swept along the course of the now
full-fed stream, and over the vast breadth of prairie, waving with
profuse vegetation. But 'cloudless skies had lost their power to cheer.'
A wintry blight had fallen upon the summer scene, banished its gladness,
and turned the bright-hued landscape into a scene of desolation and
despair.
Sweet love was dead. In the heart of the maiden was fixed an immovable
sense of disaster--life-wreck, woe unutterable. So, when the word of
doom is pronounced by the couch of those near and dear, all know that no
hope or amendment, no recovery or reparation is possible for evermore.
Such was the fatal effect in the girl's mind. She had no further thought
or speculation in the matter. Nothing was possible. All was at an end
between them. Her life-dream was over. He had deceived her. He had
betrayed and had planned to desert this other woman. In her innocent
eyes it was guilt of a blackness and criminality inconceivable. All that
had gone before was like an evil dream of hairbreadth escape amid
avalanche and precipice, from which the sleeper starts, breathing
gratitude for life and safe awakening.
She locked the door of her room, and casting herself upon the bed, 'all
her o'er-laden heart gave way, and she wept and lamented.' The evening
brought a partial calmness. The half-instinctive sorrow abated its
poignant agony; but a dull, hopeless heartache, almost physical,
remained. When the bell rang for the evening meal a maid-servant came to
inquire if she had heard the summons. Her she despatched to her mother,
who soon appeared with alarm and surprise in every line of her face.
'My darling, what has happened?' she exclaimed. 'Bertram and I were
wondering what kept you. He has had such a pleasant day.'
'Has he read his letters?' demanded the girl, with an air of half-veiled
bitterness.
'Oh, no! he said he should devote the morning to them. Most of them were
family epistles, he expected, of no great consequence.'
'Oh, mother, my heart is broken! I shall die!' cried the girl, with
sudden abandonment, as she threw her arms round the elder woman's neck.
'Read this, oh, mother, mother!' Here she produced the fatal letter.
As Mrs. Devereux commenced to cast her eyes over the sheet they seemed
to dilate like those of one who sees suddenly an object of horror and
loathing. When the end was reached she threw down the letter, as if it
had been a clinging serpent, and made as though she would trample upon
it.
'Let it lie there!' she said, her ordinarily serene countenance changed
as the girl had seldom seen it. 'Not that I have any bitter feeling
towards the miserable woman that has wrought this woe to us. No! my
heart is filled with indignation against the man who has acted so
deceitful, so treacherous a part, who so nearly succeeded in ruining
your happiness, my darling. That you would have been unhappy, who can
doubt?'
'Unhappy!' cried the girl. 'If I had come to the knowledge of his
deceit, his wickedness, his cruelty in abandoning one to whom he had
sworn faith, I think I should have died; all belief in truth and honour
would have deserted me. I should have hated my own existence.'
'Let us thank God, my darling, that our eyes have been opened in time,
ere it was too late. I never heartily approved of the affair. But Heaven
knows, though I had a kind of intuitive distrust of him, I never dreamt
of anything like this. And now I must give Mary her orders.'
'Oh, mother, don't leave me.'
'I will only tell her to say that neither of us will be down, that you
are not well, and that I have retired for the night. She can bring up a
cup of tea, which is all that either of us is likely to need.'