"ONCE MORE THE GATE BEHIND ME FALLS."
All through the autumnal months, all through the dreary winter, George
Gilbert's wife endured her existence, and hated it. The days were all
alike, all "dark and cold and dreary;" and her life was "dark and cold
and dreary" like the days. She did not write a novel. She did not
accomplish any task, or carry out any intention; but she began a great
many undertakings, and grew tired of them, and gave them up in despair.
She wrote a few chapters of a novel; a wild weird work of fiction, in
which Mr. Roland Lansdell reigned paramount over all the rules of
Lindley Murray, and was always nominative when he ought to have been
objective, and _vice versa_, and did altogether small credit to the
university at which he was described to have gained an impossible
conglomeration of honours. Mrs. Gilbert very soon got tired of the
novel, though it was pleasant to imagine it in a complete form taking
the town by storm. _He_ would read it, and would know that she had
written it. Was there not a minute description of Lord Thurston's oak in
the very first chapter? It was pleasant to think of the romance, neatly
bound in three volumes. But Mrs. Gilbert never got beyond a few random
chapters, in which the grand crisis of the work--the first meeting of
the hero and heroine, the death of the latter by drowning and of the
former by rupture of a blood-vessel, and so on--were described. She
could not do the every-day work; she could erect a fairy palace, and
scatter lavish splendour in its spacious halls; but she could not lay
down the stair-carpets, or fit the window-blinds, or arrange the planned
furniture. She tore up her manuscript; and then for a little time she
thought that she would be very good; kind to the poor, affectionate to
her husband, and attentive to the morning and afternoon sermons at
Graybridge church. She made a little book out of letter-paper, and took
notes of the vicar's and the curate's discourses; but both those
gentlemen had a fancy for discussing abstruse points of doctrine far
beyond Mrs. Gilbert's comprehension, and the Doctor's Wife found the
business of a reporter very difficult work. She made her poor little
unaided effort to repent of her sins, and to do good. She cut up her
shabbiest dresses and made them into frocks for some poor children, and
she procured a packet of limp tracts from a Conventford bookseller, and
distributed them with the frocks; having a vague idea that no charitable
benefaction was complete unless accompanied by a tract.
Alas for this poor sentimental child! the effort to be good, and pious,
and practical did not sit well upon her. She got on very well with some
of the cottagers' daughters, who had been educated at the national
school, and were as fond of reading novels as herself; she fraternized
with these damsels, and lent them odd volumes out of her little library,
and even read aloud to them on occasion; and the vicar of Graybridge,
entering one day a cottage where she was sitting, was pleased to hear a
humming noise, as of the human voice, and praised Mrs. Gilbert for her
devotion to the good cause. He might not have been quite so well pleased
had he heard the subject of her lecture, winch had relation to a
gentleman of loose principles and buccaneering propensities--a gentleman
who
"Left a Corsair's name to other times,
Link'd with one virtue and a thousand crimes."
But even these feeble attempts to be good-ah! how short a time it seemed
since Isabel Gilbert had been a child, subject to have her ears boxed by
the second Mrs. Sleaford! how short a time since to "be good" meant to
be willing to wash the teacups and saucers, or to darn a three-cornered
rent in a hobbledehoy's jacket!--even these feeble efforts ceased
by-and-by, and Mrs. Gilbert abandoned herself to the dull monotony of
her life, and solaced herself with the thought of Roland Lansdell as an
opium-eater beguiles his listless days with the splendid visions that
glorify his besotted stupor. She resigned herself to her life, and was
very obedient to her husband, and read novels as long as she could get
one to read, and was for ever thinking of what might have been--if she
had been free, and if Roland Lansdell had loved her. Alas! he had only
too plainly proved that he did not love her, and had never loved her. He
had made this manifest by cruelly indisputable evidence at the very time
when she was beginning to be unutterably happy in the thought that she
was somehow or another nearer and dearer to him than she ought to have
been.
The dull autumn days and the dark winter days dragged themselves out,
and Mr. Gilbert came in and went out, and attended to his duties, and
ate his dinner, and rode Brown Molly between the leafless hedgerows,
beside the frozen streams, as contentedly as he had done in the bright
summer time, when his rides had lain through a perpetual garden. His was
one of those happy natures which are undisturbed by any wild yearnings
after the unattainable. He had an idea of exchanging his Graybridge
practice for a better one by-and-by, and he used to talk to Isabel of
this ambitious design, but she took little interest in the subject. She
had evinced very little interest in it from the first, and she displayed
less now. What would be the use of such a change? It could only bring
her a new kind of dreariness; and it was something to stand shivering on
the little bridge under Lord Thurston's oak, so bare and leafless now;
it was something to see even the chimney-pots of Mordred, the wonderful
clusters of dark red-brick chimneys, warm against the chill December
sky.
Mrs. Gilbert did not forget that passage in Roland Lansdell's letter, in
which he had placed the Mordred library at her disposal. But she was
very slow to avail herself of the privilege thus offered to her. She
shrank away shyly from the thought of entering _his_ house, even though
there was no chance of meeting him in the beautiful rooms; even though
he was at the other end of Europe, gay and happy, and forgetful of her.
It was only by-and-by, when Mr. Lansdell had been gone some months, and
when the dulness of her life had grown day by day more oppressive, that
Isabel Gilbert took courage to enter the noble gates of Mordred. Of
course she told her husband whither she was going--was it not her duty
so to do?--and George good-naturedly approving--"though I'm sure you've
got books enough already," he said; "for you seem to be reading all
day"--she set out upon a wintry afternoon and walked alone to the
Priory. The old housekeeper received her very cordially.
"I've been expecting to see you every day, ma'am, since Mr Lansdell left
us," the worthy woman exclaimed: "for he said as you were rare and fond
of books, and was to take away any that you fancied; and John's to carry
them for you, ma'am; and I was to pay you every attention. But I was
beginning to think you didn't mean to come at all, ma'am."
There were fires in many of the rooms, for Mr. Lansdell's servants had a
wholesome terror of that fatal blue mould which damp engenders upon the
surface of a picture. The firelight glimmered upon golden frames, and
glowed here and there in the ruby depths of rich Bohemian glass, and
flashed in fitful gleams upon rare porcelain vases and groups of
stainless marble; but the rooms had a desolate look, somehow, in spite
of the warmth and light and splendour.
Mrs. Warman, the housekeeper, told Isabel of Mr. Lansdell's whereabouts.
He was at Milan, Lady Gwendoline Pomphrey had been good enough to tell
Mrs. Warman; somewheres in Italy that was, the housekeeper believed; and
he was to spend the rest of the winter in Rome, and then he was going on
to Constantinople, and goodness knows where! For there never was such a
traveller, or any one so restless-like.
"Isn't it a pity he don't marry his cousin, Lady Gwendoline, and settle
down like his pa?" said Mrs. Warman. "It do seem a shame for such a
place as this to be shut up from year's end to year's end, till the very
pictures get quite a ghastly way with them, and seem to stare at one
reproachful-like, as if they was asking, over and over again, 'Where is
he? Why don't he come home?'"
Isabel was standing with her back to the chill wintry sky outside the
window, and the housekeeper did not perceive the effect of her
discourse. That simple talk was very painful to Mrs. Gilbert. It seemed
to her as if Roland Lansdell's image receded farther and farther from
her in this grand place, where all the attributes of his wealth and
station were a standing evidence of the great gulf between them.
"What am I to him?" she thought. "What can such a despicable wretch as I
am ever be to him? If he comes home it will be to marry Lady Gwendoline.
Perhaps he will tell her how he used to meet me by the mill-stream, and
they will laugh together about me."
Had her conduct been shameless and unwomanly, and would he remember her
only to despise her? She hoped that if Roland Lansdell ever returned to
Midlandshire it would be to find her dead. He could not despise her if
she was dead. The only pleasant thought she had that afternoon was the
fancy that Mr. Lansdell might come back to Mordred, and engage himself
to his cousin, and the marriage would take place at Graybridge church;
and as he was leading his bride along the quiet avenue, he would start
back, anguish-stricken, at the sight of a newly-erected headstone--"To
the memory of Isabel Gilbert, aged 20." 20! that seemed quite old, Mrs.
Gilbert thought. She had always fancied that the next best thing to
marrying a duke would be to fade into an early grave before the age of
eighteen.
The first visit to Mordred made the Doctor's Wife very unhappy. Was it
not a reopening of all the old wounds? Did it not bring too vividly back
to her the happy summer day when _he_ had sat beside her at luncheon,
and bent his handsome head and subdued his deep voice as he talked to
her?
Having broken the ice, however, she went very often to the Priory; and
on one or two occasions even condescended to take an early cup of tea
with Mrs. Warman, the housekeeper, though she felt that by so doing she
in some small measure widened the gulf between Mr. Lansdell and herself.
Little by little she grew to feel quite at home in the splendid rooms.
It was very pleasant to sit in a low easy-chair in the library,--_his_
easy-chair,--with a pile of books on the little reading-table by her
side, and the glow of the great fire subdued by a noble screen of
ground-glass and brazen scroll-work. Mrs. Gilbert was honestly fond of
reading, and in the library at Mordred her life seemed less bitter than
elsewhere. She read a great deal of the lighter literature upon Mr.
Lansdell's book-shelves,--poems and popular histories, biographies and
autobiographies, letters, and travels in bright romantic lands. To read
of the countries through which Mr. Lansdell wandered seemed almost like
following him.
As Mrs. Gilbert grew more and more familiar with the grand old mansion,
and more and more friendly with Mrs. Warman the housekeeper, she took to
wandering in and out of all the rooms at pleasure, sometimes pausing
before one picture, sometimes sitting before another for half an hour at
a time lost in reverie. She knew all the pictures, and had learned their
histories from Mrs. Warman, and ascertained which of them were most
valued by Mr. Lansdell. She took some of the noble folios from the lower
shelves of the library, and read the lives of her favourite painters,
and stiff translations of Italian disquisitions on art. Her mind
expanded amongst all the beautiful things around her, and the graver
thoughts engendered out of grave books pushed away many of her most
childish fancies, her simple sentimental yearnings. Until now she had
lived too entirely amongst poets and romancers; but now grave volumes of
biography opened to her a new picture of life. She read the stories of
real men and women, who had lived and suffered real sorrows, prosaic
anguish, hard commonplace trial and misery. Do you remember how, when
young Caxton's heart had been wrung by youth's bitterest sorrows, the
father sends his son to the "Life of Robert Hall" for comfort? Isabel,
very foolish and blind as compared with the son of Austin Caxton, was
yet able to take some comfort from the stories of good men's sorrows.
The consciousness of her ignorance increased as she became less
ignorant; and there were times when this romantic girl was almost
sensible, and became resigned to the fact that Roland Lansdell could
have no part in the story of her life. If the drowsy life, the quiet
afternoons in the deserted chambers of the Priory, could have gone
smoothly on for ever, Isabel Gilbert might have, little by little,
developed into a clever and sensible woman; but the current of her
existence was not to glide with one dull motion to the end. There were
to be storms and peril of shipwreck, and fear and anguish, before the
waters flowed into a quiet haven, and the story of her life was ended.
One day in March, one bleak day, when the big fires in the rooms at
Mordred seemed especially comfortable, Mrs. Gilbert carried her books
into an inner apartment, half boudoir, half drawing-room, at the end of
a long suite of splendid chambers. She took off her bonnet and shawl,
and smoothed her dark hair before the glass. She had altered a little
since the autumn, and the face that looked out at her to-day was thinner
and older than that passionate tear-blotted face which she had seen in
the glass on the night of Roland Lansdell's departure. Her sorrow had
not been the less real because it was weak and childish, and had told
considerably upon her appearance. But she was getting over it. She was
almost sorry to think that it was so. She was almost grieved to find
that her grief was less keen than it had been six months ago, and that
the splendour of Roland Lansdell's image was perhaps a trifle faded.
But to-day Mrs. Warman was destined to undo the good work so newly
effected by grave books, and to awaken all Isabel's regrets for the
missing squire of Mordred. The worthy housekeeper had received a letter
from her master, which she brought in triumph to Mrs. Gilbert. It was a
very brief epistle, enclosing cheques for divers payments, and giving a
few directions about the gardens and stables. "See that pines and grapes
are sent to Lord Ruysdale's, whenever he likes to have them; and I shall
be glad if you send hothouse fruit and flowers occasionally to Mr.
Gilbert, the surgeon of Graybridge. He was very kind to some of my
people. Be sure that every attention is shown to Mrs. Gilbert whenever
she comes to Mordred."
Isabel's eyes grew dim as she read this part of the letter. He thought
of her far away--at the other end of the world almost, as it seemed to
her, for his letter was dated from Corfu; he remembered her existence,
and was anxious for her happiness! The books were no use to her that
day. She sat, with a volume open in her lap, staring at the fire, and
thinking of _him_. She went back into the old italics again. His image
shone out upon her in all its ancient splendour. Oh, dreary, dreary life
where he was not! How was she to endure her existence? She clasped her
hands in a wild rapture. "Oh, my darling, if you could know how I love
you!" she whispered, and then started, confused and blushing. Never
until that moment had she dared to put her passion into words. The
Priory clocks struck three succeeding hours, but Mrs. Gilbert sat in the
same attitude, thinking of Roland Lansdell. The thought of going home
and facing her daily life again was unutterably painful to her. That
fatal letter--so commonplace to a common reader--had revived all the old
exaltation of feeling. Once more Isabel Gilbert floated away upon the
wings of sentiment and fancy, into that unreal region where the young
squire of Mordred reigned supreme, beautiful as a prince in a fairy
tale, grand as a demigod in some classic legend.
The French clock on the mantel-piece chimed the half-hour after four,
and Mrs. Gilbert looked up, aroused for a moment from her reverie.
"Half-past four," she thought; "it will be dark at six, and I have a
long walk home."
Home! she shuddered at the simple monosyllable which it is the special
glory of our language to possess. The word is very beautiful, no doubt;
especially so to a wealthy country magnate,--happy owner of a grand old
English mansion, with fair lands and coverts, home-farm and model-farm
buildings, shadowy park and sunlit pleasaunce, and wonderful dairies
lined with majolica ware, and musical with the plashing of a fountain.
But for Mrs. Gilbert "home" meant a square-built house in a dusty lane,
and was never likely to mean anything better or brighter. She got up
from her low seat, and breathed a long-drawn sigh as she took her bonnet
and shawl from a table near her, and began to put them on before the
glass.
"The parlour at home always looks ugliest and barest and shabbiest when
I have been here," she thought, as she turned away from the glass and
moved towards the door.
She paused suddenly. The door of the boudoir was ajar; all the other
doors in the long range of rooms were open, and she heard a footstep
coming rapidly towards her: a man's footstep! Was it one of the
servants? No; no servant's foot ever touched the ground with that firm
and stately tread. It was a stranger's footstep, of course. Who should
come there that day except a stranger? _He_ was far away--at the other
end of the world almost. It was not within the limits of possibility
that _his_ foot-fall should sound on the floors of Mordred Priory.
And yet! and yet! Isabel stopped, with her heart beating violently, her
hands clasped, her lips apart and tremulous. And in the next moment the
step was close to the threshold, the door was pushed open, and she was
face to face with Roland Lansdell; Roland Lansdell, whom she never
thought to see again upon this earth! Roland Lansdell, whose face had
looked at her in her dreams by day and night any time within these last
six months!
"Isabel--Mrs. Gilbert!" he said, holding out both his hands, and taking
hers, which were as cold as death.
She tried to speak, but no sound came from her tremulous lips. She could
utter no word of welcome to this restless wanderer, but stood before him
breathless and trembling. Mr. Lansdell drew a chair towards her, and
made her sit down.
"I startled you," he said; "you did not expect to see me. I had no right
to come to you so suddenly; but they told me you were here, and I wanted
so much to see you,--I wanted so much to speak to you."
The words were insignificant enough, but there was a warmth and
earnestness in the tones that was new to Isabel. Faint blushes flickered
into her cheeks, so deathly pale a few moments before; her eyelids fell
over the dark unfathomable eyes; a look of sudden happiness spread
itself upon her face and made it luminous.
"I thought you were at Corfu," she said. "I thought you would never,
never, never come back again."
"I have been at Corfu, and in Italy, and in innumerable places. I meant
to stay away; but--but I changed my mind, and I came back. I hope you
are glad to see me again."
What could she say to him? Her terror of saying too much kept her
silent; the beating of her heart sounded in her ears, and she was afraid
that he too must hear that tell-tale sound. She dared not raise her
eyes, and yet she knew that he was looking at her earnestly,
scrutinizingly even.
"Tell me that you are glad to see me," he said. "Ah, if you knew why I
went away--why I tried so hard to stay away--why I have come back after
all--after all--so many resolutions made and broken--so many
deliberations--so much doubt and hesitation! Isabel! tell me you are
glad to see me once more!"
She tried to speak, and faltered out a word or two, and broke down, and
turned away from him. And then she looked round at him again with a
sudden impulse, as innocently and childishly us Zuleika may have looked
at Selim; forgetful for a moment of the square-built house in the dusty
lane, of George Gilbert, and all the duties of her life.
"I have been so unhappy," she exclaimed: "I have been so miserable; and
you will go away again by-and-by, and I shall never, never see you any
more!"
Her voice broke, and she burst into tears; and then, remembering the
surgeon all in a moment, she brushed them hastily away with her
handkerchief.
"You frightened me so, Mr. Lansdell," she said: "and I'm very late, and
I was just going home, and my husband will be waiting for me. He comes
to meet me sometimes when he can spare time. Good-bye."
She held out her hand, looking at Roland nervously as she did so. Did he
despise her very much? she wondered. No doubt he had come home to marry
Lady Gwendoline Pomphrey, and there would be a fine wedding in the
bright May weather. There was just time to go into a consumption between
March and May, Mrs. Gilbert thought; and her tombstone might be ready
for the occasion, if the gods who bestow upon their special favourites
the boon of early death would only be kind to her.
"Good-bye, Mr. Lansdell," she repeated.
"Let me walk with you a little way. Ah, if you knew how I have travelled
night and day; if you knew how I have languished for this hour, and for
the sight of----"
For the sight of what? Roland Lansdell was looking down at the pale face
of the Doctor's Wife as he uttered that unfinished sentence. But amongst
all the wonders that ever made the story of a woman's life wonderful, it
could never surely come to pass that a demigod would descend from the
ethereal regions which were his common habitation, on _her_ account,
Mrs. Gilbert thought. She went home in the chill March twilight; but not
through the bleak and common atmosphere which other people breathed that
afternoon; for Mr. Lansdell walked by her side, and, not encountering
the surgeon, went all the way to Graybridge, and only left Mrs. Gilbert
at the end of the dusty lane in which the doctor's red lamp already
glimmered faintly in the dusk. Would the master of Mordred Priory have
been stricken with any sense of shame if he had met George Gilbert?
There was an air of decision in Lansdell's manner which seemed like that
of a man who acts upon a settled purpose, and has no thought of shame.