A man may love a woman perfectly,
And yet by no means ignorantly maintain
A thousand women have not larger eyes;
Enough that she alone has looked at him
With eyes that, large or small, have won his soul.
_Aurora Leigh._
Elsa Brabourne had been transformed into Elsa Percivale with the
assistance of two bishops and a dean. Drawings of her _trousseau_ and of
her bridesmaids' dresses had appeared in the ladies' newspapers. Her
aunts had given a reception to about a hundred people of whom they had
never heard before, and who, in return, had presented the bride with
much costly rubbish which she did not want; and at last Leon had carried
off his wife, in an ultra-fashionable tailor-made travelling dress, to
Folkestone _en route_ for the Continent and Schwannberg.
Claud Cranmer had officiated, somewhat gloomily as best man at this
wedding, the courtship of which had been so romantic, the realization so
entirely Philistine.
All the technicality and elaboration of this modern London ceremony had
been most trying to Percivale, who, as has been said, hated coming
before the public as a central figure; and, at this particular marriage,
the mysterious bridegroom had, contrary to custom, attracted quite as
much notice as the lovely bride.
The young man was beginning dimly to realize that Claud had spoken truly
when he said that life now-a-days could be neither a dream nor an ideal.
There seemed so much that was commonplace and technical to take the
bloom off his romance. He literally panted for his Bavarian home--for
foaming river, wide lake, rugged steep, glittering horizon of
snow-peaked Alps in which to realize the happiness that he so fervently
anticipated. As to Elsa's mental state on her wedding-day, it must be
owned that, when the excitement was over--when the admiring crowds were
left behind, and she found herself alone with her husband, she was a
good deal frightened. She did not understand him in the least. Her
nature was so utterly devoid of the least spark of romance or sentiment
that she could not interpret his thoughts or his desires. There was a
still firmness about him which awed her. Docile as he was, subjugated as
he was, there yet had been times during their short engagement when she
experienced great uneasiness. Chief of these was the evening when he
heard of Osmond Allonby's disappearance. There had been something then
in the low, repressed intensity of his manner which had made her quail.
True, she had been able to change his mood in a moment. A couple of her
easily-shed tears, lying on her eye-lashes, had brought him to his knees
in an agony of repentance. But still there remained always in her mind a
kind of rankling conviction that her lover expected of her something
which she could not give, because she did not know what it was. When
Percivale gave rein to the poetic side of his nature, and talked of
sympathies, of high aims, of beauty in one's daily life, he spoke to
deaf ears. Vaguely she comforted herself with the reflection that this
would last only for a little while. Men had a way of talking like that
when they were in love; but, while it lasted, it give her a feeling of
discomfort. She could never be at her ease whilst she was in a state of
such uncertainty; for uncertainty begets fear.
Her depression was increased by the serious words which her godfather
had spoken to her on her wedding-morning. She hated to be spoken to
seriously. It was like being scolded--it carried her back to the unloved
memories of her dull childhood. Why could he not have given her her gold
necklace with a gay declaration that most jewels adorned a white neck,
but that in her case the neck would adorn the jewel--or some other such
speech--the kind to which her ears were now daily accustomed.
Why did he think it necessary to entreat her never to allow her husband
to be disappointed in her? Was it likely that any man could ever be
disappointed in her? It seemed more probable that she might one day come
to feel bored by him, handsome and eligible though he was.
Somehow, being engaged to him had not quite fulfilled her expectations.
More than once she had felt--not exactly consciously, but none the less
really--that she was more in touch with Captain St. Quentin, or others
of the well-born ordinary young men of the day who formed her set, than
with the idealist Leon. He was a creature from another sphere, his
thoughts and aims were different, she knew; and, as her own inclinations
became daily more clearly defined, she could not help feeling that they
grew daily more unlike his.
"But she is so young, he will be able to mould her," said Claud,
hopefully to himself. He guessed, more clearly than any one else, that
Percivale was mismated; and foresaw with a dim foreboding that a bad
time was in store for him when he should discover the fact; but, on his
friend's wedding-day, he would not be a skeleton at the feast. He was
willing to hope for the best.
Slowly he turned from the shoe-flinging and rice-scattering which formed
the tag-end of the wedding. Leon's face haunted him. The expression of
it, as he spoke the oath which bound him to Elaine, had been so intense,
so holy in the purity of its chivalrous devotion, that it had awed and
impressed even the crowd of frivolous triflers who lounged and chatted
in the church, whispering scandal, and criticizing each other's
appearance as others like them did at Romney Leigh's wedding. There was
in fact something about this day which recalled the poem forcibly to
Claud's mind: not, of course, the ghastly _denouement_, but the
character of the man, the same loftiness of aim, the same terrible
earnestness in its view of life.
Something, too, about his friend's farewell had struck him with a
sadness for which he could scarcely account.
A little, trifling slip of Percivale's tongue, dwelt in his memory in a
manner altogether disproportionate. In the hurry and bustle of the
departure, as he grasped Claud's hand, instead of saying, "Good-bye," as
he meant to, Leon had said, "Good-night."
He was unconscious of it himself, and in an absent way he had repeated
it, in that still voice which always seemed to convey so much meaning.
"Good-night, Claud, good-night."
Now that he was gone, the words rang in Cranmer's ears, as Romney's
words lingered in Aurora's. As he turned back into the house and slowly
went upstairs, he was repeating softly to himself the line,
"And all night long I thought _Good-night_," said he.
Walking into the drawing-room with its showy display of wedding-gifts,
its fading flowers and vacant, desolate aspect, he was confronted by
Henry Fowler.
They had hardly spoken before, as Henry had only arrived in town late
the preceding night. Now they stood face to face, and the elder man was
painfully struck by the haggard aspect of the younger.
Wynifred Allonby had now been for some weeks at Edge Willoughby, and his
only way of hearing of her was from the two Misses Willoughby who were
in town, for the little house in Mansfield Road was shut up. Hilda was
with her sister in Devonshire, Jacqueline staying with her future
relations, Osmond still in Paris, his address unknown, his letters few
and unsatisfactory.
"Well?" said Mr. Fowler, interrogatively.
"Well," said Claud, defiantly, "I am glad to have the chance of speaking
to you, Fowler. I will begin with putting a straight question. Are you
engaged to--to Miss Allonby?"
"No, lad; that question is soon answered. She will not see me."
"Well, then, I give you fair warning, I am coming down to the Combe. I
can bear this suspense no longer."
"Come as soon as you will, and stay as long as you can; but she will not
see you. She will see nobody. She seems well, they say; her strength is
coming back, she can walk, and eats pretty well; but she is sadly
changed, her pretty sister tells me. She does not seem to care to talk.
She will sit silent for hours, and they are afraid she does not sleep.
She will go nowhere and speak to no one. If you call upon her, she will
decline to see you."
"I shall not give her the chance to decline or to consent. I shall
insist upon seeing her," said Claud, calmly. "Fowler, some words you
said to me that night at the Langham have been with me ever since:
'There comes a time to every man when the only clean and honorable
course is to go straight forward.' I have passed beyond that. For me
now, the only _possible_ course is to go straight forward. I _will_ see
and speak to her, if only to ask a forgiveness from her. I have piled on
the sack-cloth and ashes this Lent, Fowler. I have found out at last
what I really am; and for a time the knowledge simply crushed me. But
now I am beginning to struggle up. I have grown to believe in the truth
of the saying that men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves
to higher things. If--if I could have _her_ for my own, I honestly think
I might yet be a useful man. Now you know my intentions, sir, as well as
I know them myself. You can't be mad enough to ask such a declared rival
down to stay with you."
"Mad or sane, I must have you to stay with me. Can you start to-morrow?"
"With the best heart in the world; but, Fowler, I don't understand you."
"See here, lad. I trust Miss Allonby entirely. She will not have you if
she does not love you; and if she does love you, I am willing she should
have you, for my life's aim is her happiness, whether she find it in me
or in another man. Ah! you are young; no wonder you think me mad. Time
was when I should have felt, as you do now, that the thing was a blind
necessity, that either she and I must come together, or the world must
end for me. In those days there was a woman,"--he halted a moment, then
went on serenely, "there was a woman made for me. I was the only man to
make her happy; but she chose another. It was then I knew what
desolation meant. Now I can feel tenderness but not passion. I can wish
for Wynifred's happiness more fervently than I desire my own; I do not
feel, as you feel, that her happiness and mine are one and the self-same
thing. Yours is the love that should overcome, I am sure of that, now.
It is the love that will tear down barriers and uproot obstructions; the
only love a man should dare to lay at the feet of a woman like Wynifred
Allonby."