"Poor Mrs. Gervase Norgate, she must have been so put about to have to
go away with her husband last night. How the scamp got into the
drawing-room I cannot tell; but he could do nothing but lean against the
wall: he could not have bitten his fingers to save his life. She did not
show her mortification unless by going away immediately. A wonderful
amount of countenance has that poor young woman; but I take it she will
not go out with him again if she can help it--and she need not, she need
not, Lady Metcalfe. I can tell you he shall not be asked within my doors
again; but I shall be very glad if you will always remember to send her
a card, poor thing: she can go out without him, it must come to that
eventually. It is not a mere kindness; she is really a credit and an
ornament to your parties, to the county set altogether. But the sooner
she learns to go out without him, and keep him in the background, the
better for all parties. She has the command of a good income still, with
a very tolerable jointure behind it, and Ashpound is a pretty place; not
a fine place, like my lord's, but a very pretty place for a sensible
woman's management and enjoyment."
One of Gervase Norgate's oldest neighbours, a fussy but good-natured,
middle-aged baronet, pronounced this judgment.
There was nothing left for Diana but to resign Gervase to his fate, and
gather up the gains which were left her. The most impartial authorities
decided so. The gains would have sufficed for many a woman. Mrs. Gervase
Norgate had comparative riches, after the cash scramble in which she had
been brought up. Gervase had not succeeded in wasting above one-third of
his fortune, and would doubtless end his career before he made away with
the whole. Mrs. Gervase was the mistress of Ashpound, and most people
would have valued it as what newspapers describe as a most desirable
residence, a most eligible investment. If she ever had a child--a son,
though she shuddered at the idea,--he would be the young Squire, the
heir of Ashpound. In the meantime, Gervase Norgate was not a churl: he
did not dream of stinting his wife in her perquisites, though he was not
fond of her, and they now no longer lived comfortably together. She
might have out his mother's carriage every day, or she might have
another built for her, and drive it with a pair of ponies if she chose;
she had a well-bred, fine-mounted, thin-legged, glossy-coated
saddle-horse kept for her sole use, and she might have a second bred and
broken for her any year she liked. She could even employ her own
discretion in the income to be spent in the housekeeping. Ready money
was becoming short with him; but his sense of her rights, and his faith
in her prudence, had not failed. She had only to draw on his banker or
agent to have her draught honoured. Whatever sums she might devote to
her personal pleasures, her prodigal husband would not call in question.
She might indulge in fine clothes, recherché jewellery, embellishments
and ornaments for her rooms; she might take up art or literature, or
heaths, or melons, or poultry, or flannel petticoating and soup-making
for the poor (Sunday-schools and district visiting were hardly in
fashion), and pursue one, or other, or all, for occupation and
amusement, without impairing her resources; and she claimed a very
respectable circle of friends as Mrs. Gervase Norgate, though she had
been friendless, and getting always more friendless, as Miss Baring. The
world had put its veto on the risk of her marriage with Gervase Norgate,
in so far as its excusable element--the reformation of Gervase
Norgate--was concerned; but with commendable elasticity it had allowed
itself to be considerably influenced by the advantages which the
marriage had obtained and secured for Diana, as well as by her conduct
in their possession, and had awarded her the diploma of its esteem. A
handsome, ladylike, sensible, well-disposed, sufficiently-agreeable,
though quiet young matron, almost too wise and forbearing for her years,
was its verdict. It was wonderful how well she had turned out,
considering how she had been exposed; for every one knew John
Fitzwilliam Baring, and how little fitted he was for the care of a
motherless daughter. The more tender-hearted and sentimental world began
to look upon Mrs. Gervase Norgate's bad husband, whom she had married in
the face of his offence, as one of her merits,--a chief merit, to make
of her a popular victim and martyr, no matter that she was not naturally
constituted for the _rôle_, was not frank enough for popularity, not
meek enough for martyrdom.
Even Miss Tabitha, who had still a friendly feeling for the culprit, had
nothing to say against Mrs. Gervase, except that she was too good for
him. Poor Miles listened wistfully for his master's reeling step, and
went out in the night air, risking his rheumatism, for which Mr. Gervase
had always cared, making sure that the old boy had a screen to his
pantry, and shutters to his garret. He watched lest his master should
make his bed of the cold ground and catch a deadly chill; caring for the
besotted man, when he found him, with reverence and tenderness, as for
the chubby boy who had bidden so fair to be a good and happy man, worthy
of all honour, when Miles had first known him as his young master. Miles
resented feebly the perishing of the forlorn hope of a rescue, and
muttered fatuously the cart had been put before the horse, and the reins
taken out of the whip hand, and that'd never do. What could come of the
unnatural process but a crashing spill?
Diana could not accept the solution. Nineteen women out of twenty, who
had acted as she had done, would have taken the compensations, perhaps
been content with the indemnifications of her lot; but Diana was the
twentieth. Whether the cost of his mercenary marriage was far beyond
what she had estimated it, she lost heart and hope and heed of the
world's opinion, and was on the high road to loss of conscience, from
the moment she was convinced that Gervase Norgate was lost.
Diana gave up going into the society which was so willing to welcome
her, which thought so well of her. She relinquished all pride in
personal dignity and propriety, as she had never done when she had
locked her doors to shut out the jingling rattle of the bones, and,
occasionally, the curses, not loud but deep, which broke in upon the
repose of the long nights at Newton-le-Moor. She ceased to exert herself
to regulate the expenditure of the house, to preserve its
respectability, to wipe out the signs of its master's ruin. Old Miles
might strive to keep up appearances, but his mistress no longer aided
and abetted him. It had become a matter of indifference to Mrs. Gervase
whether the dragged carpet, the wrenched-down curtain, the shattered
chair, were removed or repaired, or not: she took no notice.
By the time Ashpound was budding in spring, Mrs. Gervase Norgate had
fallen away, and changed rapidly for the worse, to the disappointment
and with the condemnation of her acquaintances. She lay in bed half the
morning, dawdled over her breakfast, and trailed her way from place to
place, ageing too, with marvellous celerity.
Sunk in the mire as Gervase was, he noted the transformation in his wife
with discomposure and vexation. It fretted him always, and infuriated
him at times, to discover that she was likely to justify his contempt by
proving a poor wife after all. Her rule ended, her energy exhausted,
given over to an unprincipled, destructive listlessness and,
carelessness, such a prospect did not make Gervase amend the error of
his ways: but it caused his road to ruin to be harder to tread, it
caused the fruits of his vice to be more bitter between his teeth, it
drove him at times to reflect when it was madness to reflect. She would
not take the luxuries which she had bought dearly, which he wanted her
to take. Her person, drawing-room, flower-garden were fast showing
neglect and cheerlessness, in spite of him, or to spite him, as he vowed
savagely. Here was his sin cropping out and meeting him in the life of
another, and that other a woman. She was going to ruin with him as truly
and faithfully as if they had been a pair of fond lovers. The shy
goodwill of Gervase Norgate's early married life had waned into
discontent and dislike, and was fast settling into rooted hatred.
"Lawk!" Dolly the dairymaid reflected indignantly, "Madam is become as
careless and trolloping-like as master is wild. If we don't take care,
no one will continue to call on us and hinvite us with our equals. For
that matter, the mistress has denied herself to every morning caller
this spring, and it is my opingen she never so much as sends hapologies
to them dinner cards as she twists into matches. If it were me, now,
wouldn't I cut a dash of myself? She didn't care a bit of cheese-curd
for him, folks say, when she had him to begin with, so why she should
pine for his misdeeds now, is more than I can compass."
It was on a clear, fragrant evening in June, when the world was all in
flower, that a whispering, and pulling of skirts and sleeves, and
throwing up of hands and eyes, arose among the servants at Ashpound, at
a sight that was seen there. The servants' hall were gathered secretly
at a side-door and a lobby-window, and were watching Mrs. Gervase
Norgate feeling her way, like a blind woman, her tall figure bent down,
crouched together, swaying, along the pleached alley from the garden.
One or two of the more sensitive of the women covered their faces and
wrung their hands. Old Miles tugged at his tufts of red hair and smote
his hands together distractedly. The new shame was too open for
concealment; he could only cry, "God ha' mercy; there is not one to mend
another; what will we do?"
As living among men and women given up to delusions begets delusions in
rational minds with a dire infectiousness, so living with Gervase
Norgate, and day by day regarding the evil which could not be stayed,
Diana had caught the fell disease.
A whisper of the culminating misfortunes of Ashpound spread abroad like
wild-fire, soon ceased to be a whisper, and became a loud scandal; and
Diana lost her credit as summarily as she had acquired it. It was--"That
wretched Mrs. Gervase Norgate came of an evil stock, though drinking was
not Mr. Baring's vice. They were an ill-fated race, these Barings, with
a curse--the curse of ruined men--upon them. Who knew, indeed, but if
poor Gervase Norgate, come of honest people at least, had gone into
another family--one which he could have respected, which could have
shown him a good example and remonstrated with him with authority--he
might have been reclaimed?"
About the middle of summer there came a seasonably rainy period, such as
frequently precedes a fine harvest. But Gervase Norgate was so ailing
that he could not go out and look at his fields, where the corn in the
ear was filling rarely, and the growth of second clover was knee-deep.
He was forced to keep the house. He loathed food, and his sleep had
become a horror to him. He had fits of deadly sickness and of shaking
like an aspen. His only resource, all the life that was left to him, was
to be found in his cellar; and even Miles, seeing his master's
extremity, brought out and piteously pressed the brandy upon him.
Gervase's cronies had never come about his house since his marriage.
There had been something in Diana which had held them at arm's length;
and although they had heard and scoffed at her fall, they had not the
wit to discern that it clean removed the obstacle to their harbouring
about the place as they had done before her reign and abdication. They
might come and go now by day and night without feeling themselves too
much for Mrs. Gervase Norgate, or being compelled to regard her as a
being apart from them. But they did not comprehend the bearing of the
common degradation, and they had not returned to their haunt as they
might have done.
Gervase had declined into such a state of fractiousness and sullenness,
that he was very poor company even for illiterate country-bred men like
himself. He was something of a ghastly spectacle, as he sat there, with
his glass three-fourths empty, and part of its contents spilt around
him, trying to smoke, trying to warm himself, with the soles of his
boots burnt from being pressed on the top of the wood fire, his teeth
chattering, at intervals, notwithstanding, as he cast furtive, dark
glances behind him.
Gervase was alone. Mrs. Gervase was dozing on a drawing-room couch, not
troubling to order a fire, though the room was on the ground-floor,--a
pleasant room in sunshine, but looking dull and dismal in wet and gloom.
She had lain there all the evening, with her hair, tumbled by the
posture, fallen down and straying in dim tresses on her shoulders.
Overcome by illness, Gervase at last defied his shrinking from his room
and bed, and retired for the night. His uneven footsteps and the closing
of his door had not long sounded through the house, which might have
been so cheery and was so dreary and silent, when Mrs. Gervase, cold and
comfortless, rose and proceeded to the study. She was drawn by the fire
and the light, but she was drawn more irresistibly by the subtle, potent
odour in the air. She came on like a sleep-walker. She sank down in the
chair which her husband had occupied, and stretched out her fine white
hand to the decanters which Miles had not removed. She had raised one,
and was about to pour its contents into a glass, when a noise at the
door startled her, and caused her to hold her arm suspended. Gervase,
returning for the bottle she grasped, stood in the doorway.
Ruined husband and ruined wife confronted each other on their stained
hearthstone. His weakness, replaced by failing strength, gathered up and
increased tenfold by horror and rage. Her eyes glared defiance, and her
presence there, in her white dress, with the crimson spots on each
cheek, and the fair hair scattered around her, was a presence of ominous
beauty, the hectic beauty of the fall. A feather's weight might have
turned the scale whether Gervase should totter forward and deal Diana a
deadly blow which should finish the misfortunes of that generation at
Ashpound, and brand Ashpound itself with the inhuman mark of an awful
crime; or whether he should melt in his misery, weep a man's scalding
tears, and bemoan their misery together. Diana's words were the
feather's weight: she broke God's unbearable silence, and by God's power
and mercy saved both. She cried out, not so much in self-defence, for
she was a daring, intrepid woman, as in righteous accusation, "You dare
not blame me, for you taught me, you brought me to it."
Through his undone condition he owned the truth of the accusation, and
the old spring of manliness in him welled up to protect the woman who
spoke the truth and impeached him justly of her ruin as well as his own.
"No, I dare not blame you. We are two miserable sinners, Die." And he
let his arms fall on the table and bowed his head over them.
He had spared her, he had not taunted her, and he had not called her Die
for many a day before. She put down the decanter and cowered back with
a sense of guilt which made her glowing beauty pale, fade, wither, like
the sere leaf washed by the heavy tears of a November night's rain.
When Gervase Norgate lifted up his bent head again, all the generosity
that had ever looked out of his comely face reappeared in its changed
features for a moment. "I have smitten you when you came and tried to
cure me, Die. And I cannot cure myself. I believe, before God, if I can
get no more drink, I shall go to-night; but I shall go soon, anyhow, no
mistake, and I ought to do something to save you, when I brought you to
it. So, do you see, Die? here go the drink and me together." And with
that he took up the decanters and dashed them, one after the other, on
the hearthstone, the wine and brandy running like life-blood in bubbling
red streams across the floor. He summoned Miles, and demanded his
keys--all the keys of closet and cellar in the house. And when the old
man, flustered and scared, did not venture to dispute his will, he
caught up the keys, cast them into the white core of the wood-fire,
piled the blazing logs upon them, and stamped them down, sending showers
flying up the wide chimney.
Then the blaze of passion died away from Gervase's brow, the force of
self-devotion ebbed out of him, his unfastened vest and shirt collar did
not allow him air enough, and he fell back, gasping and quaking and
calling the devils were upon him.
Old Miles wrung his hands, and shouted "Help," and cried the Master was
dying, was dead.
But Diana pushed the old servant aside, put her arms round Gervase, and
raised him on her breast, telling him, "Do not think of dying for me,
Gervase; I am not worthy. You must not die, I will not have you die. Oh,
God! spare him till I kneel at his feet and beg him to forgive all my
disdainful pity, and we repent together."
Gervase Norgate did not die that night: it might have been easier for
him if he had, for he lay, sat, walked in the sunshine deadly sick for
months. When men like him are saved, it is only as by fire, by letting a
part of the penal fire pass over them, and enduring, as David did, the
pains of hell.
But all the time Die did not leave him. Night and day she stood by him,
renouncing her own sin for ever. She shared vicariously its revolting
anguish and agonizing fruits, in his pangs. And the woman learned to
love the man as she would have learned to love a child whom she had
tended every hour for what looked like a lifetime, whom she had brought
back from a horrible disease and from the brink of the grave, to whose
recovery she had given herself body and soul, in a way she had never
dreamt of when she first undertook the task. She had lulled him to sleep
as with cradle songs, she had fed him with her hands, ministered to him
with her spirit. She learned to love him exceedingly.
Other summer suns shone on Ashpound. Gervase and Diana had come back
from a lengthened sojourn abroad. Gervase, going on a visit to his
faithful old Aunt Tabby, looked behind him, to say, half-shamefacedly,
half-yearningly, "I wish you would come with me, Die; I do not think I
can pay the visit without you." And she exclaimed, with a little laugh,
beneath which ran an undercurrent of feeling, still and deep, "Ah! you
see you cannot do without me, sir." And he rejoined, laughing too, but a
little wistfully, "I wish I could flatter myself that you could not do
without me, madam."
She assured him, with a sudden sedateness which hid itself shyly on his
breast, "Of course I could not do without you to save me from being a
pillar of salt, to make me a loving, happy woman."
"God help you, happy Die!"
"Yes, Gervase; it is those who have been tried that can be trusted, and
I have been in the deep pit, and all clogged with the mire along with
you, and He who brought us out will not suffer us to fall back and be
lost after all."
The neighbours about Ashpound were slow to discover, as erring men and
women are always slow to discover, that God is more merciful than they,
and that he can bring good out of evil, light out of darkness; but they
discovered it at last, and, after a probation, took Mr. and Mrs. Gervase
Norgate back into society and its esteem and regard, and the family at
Ashpound became eventually as well considered, and as much sought after
in friendship and marriage, as any family among the southern moors, long
after John Fitzwilliam Baring had dressed for dinner, and taken a fit
with a cue in his hand.
As for Aunt Tabby and old Miles, they said, "All's well that ends well."
But old Miles stood out stubbornly, "That it is not a many carts afore
the horses as comes in at the journey's end, and it ain't dootiful-like
in them when they does do it, though I'm content." And Aunt Tabby
argued, "It is shockingly against morality to conclude that her
fall--and who'd have thought a strong woman like her would fall?--has
been for his rising again."