THE VIRGIN MARTYR
Dorothy, in her note to Ernest that he received by the mail previous to
the one that brought the letters which at a single blow laid the hope
and promise of his life in the dust, it may be remembered, had stated
her intention of going to see Eva in order to plead Ernest’s cause; but
what with one thing and another, her visit was considerably delayed.
Twice she was on the point of going, and twice something occurred to
prevent her. The fact of the matter was, the errand was distasteful,
and she was in no hurry to execute it. She loved Ernest herself, and,
however deep that love might be trampled down, however fast it might be
chained in the dungeons of her secret thoughts, it was still there, a
living thing, an immortal thing. She could tread it down and chain it;
she could not kill it. Its shade would rise and walk in the upper
chambers of her heart, and wring its hands and cry to her, telling what
it suffered in those subterranean places, whispering how bitterly it
envied the bright and happy life which moved in the free air, and had
usurped the love it claimed. It was hard to have to ignore those
pleadings, to disregard those cries for pity, and to say that there was
no hope, that it must always be chained, till time ate away the chains.
It was harder still to have to be one of the actual ministers to the
suffering. Still, she meant to go. Her duty to Ernest was not to be
forsaken because it was a painful duty.
On two or three occasions she met Eva, but got no opportunity of
speaking to her. Either her sister Florence was with her, or she was
obliged to return immediately. The truth was that, after the scene
described in the last chapter, Eva was subjected to the closest
espionage. At home, Florence watched her as a cat watches a mouse;
abroad, Mr. Plowden seemed to be constantly hovering on her flank, or,
if he was not there, then she became aware of the presence of the
ancient and contemplative mariner who traded in Dutch cheeses. Mr.
Plowden feared lest she should run away, and so cheat him of his prize;
Florence, lest she should confide in Dorothy, or possibly Mr. Cardus,
and, supported by them, find the courage to assert herself and defraud
her of her revenge. So they watched her every movement.
At last Dorothy made up her mind to wait no longer for opportunities,
but to go and see Eva at her own home. She knew nothing of the Plowden
imbroglio; but it did strike her as curious that no one had said
anything about Ernest. He had written; it was scarcely likely the
letter had miscarried. How was it that Eva had not said anything on the
subject? Little did Dorothy guess that, even as these thoughts were
passing through her mind, a great vessel was steaming out of
Southampton docks, bearing those epistles of final renunciation which
Ernest, very little to his satisfaction, received in due course.
Full of these reflections, Dorothy found herself one lovely spring
afternoon knocking at the door of the Cottage. Eva was at home, and she
was at once ushered into her presence. She was sitting on a low
chair—the same on which Ernest always pictured her with that confounded
Skye terrier she was so fond of kissing—an open book upon her knee, and
looking out at the little garden and the sea beyond. She looked pale
and thin, Dorothy thought.
On her visitor’s entrance, Eva rose and kissed her.
“I am so glad to see you,” she said; “I was feeling lonely.”
“Lonely!” answered Dorothy, in her straightforward way; “why, I have
been trying to find you alone for the last fortnight, and have never
succeeded.”
Eva coloured. “One may be lonely with ever so many people round one.”
Then for a minute or so they talked about the weather; so persistently
did they discuss it, indeed, that the womanly instinct of each told her
that the other was fencing.
After all, it was Eva who broke the ice first.
“Have you heard from Ernest lately?” she said, nervously.
“Yes; I got a note by last mall.”
“Oh,” said Eva, clasping her hands involuntarily, “what did he say?”
“Nothing much. But I got a letter by the mail before that, in which he
said a good deal. Among other things, he said he had written to you.
Did you get the letter?”
Eva coloured to her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered.
Dorothy rose, and seated herself again on a footstool by Eva’s feet,
and wondered at the trouble in her eyes. How could she be troubled when
she had heard from Ernest—“like that?”
“What did you answer him, dear?”
Eva covered her face with her hands.
“Do not talk about it,” she said; “it is too dreadful to me!”
“What can you mean? He tells me you are engaged to him.”
“Yes—that is, no. I was half engaged. Now I am engaged to Mr. Plowden.”
Dorothy gave a gasp of horrified astonishment.
“Engaged to that man when you were engaged to Ernest! You must be
joking.”
“O Dorothy, I am not joking; I wish to Heaven I were. I am engaged to
him. I am to marry him in less than a month. O, pity me, I am
wretched.”
“You mean to tell me,” said Dorothy rising, “that you are engaged to
Mr. Plowden when you love Ernest?”
“Yes, oh yes; I cannot help—”
At that moment the door opened, and Florence entered, attended by Mr.
Plowden.
Her keen eyes saw at once that something was wrong, and her
intelligence told her what it was. After her bold fashion, she
determined to take the bull by the horns. Unless something were done,
with Dorothy at her back, Eva might prove obdurate after all.
Advancing, she shook Dorothy cordially by the hand.
“I see from your face,” she said, “that you have just heard the good
news. Mr. Plowden is so shy that he would not consent to announce it
before; but here he is to receive your congratulations.”
Mr. Plowden took the cue, and advanced effusively on Dorothy with
outstretched hand. “Yes, Miss Jones, I am sure you will congratulate
me; and I ought to be congratulated. I am the luckiest—”
Here he broke off. It really was very awkward. His hand remained limply
hanging in the air before Dorothy, but not the slightest sign did that
dignified little lady show of taking it. On the contrary, she drew
herself up to her full height—which was not very tall—and fixing her
steady blue eyes on the clergyman’s shifty orbs, deliberately placed
her right hand behind her back.
“I do not shake hands with people who play such tricks,” she said,
quietly.
Mr. Plowden’s hand fell to his side, and he stepped back. He did not
expect such courage in anything so small. Florence, however, sailed in
to the rescue.
“Really, Dorothy, we do not quite understand.”
“O yes, I think you do, Florence, or if you do not, then I will
explain. Eva here was engaged to marry Ernest Kershaw. Eva here has
just with her own lips told me that she still loves Ernest, but that
she is obliged to marry—that man;” and she pointed with her little
forefinger at Mr. Plowden, who recoiled another step. “Is not that
true, Eva?”
Eva bowed her head by way of answer. She still sat in the low chair,
with her hands over her face.
“Really, Dorothy, I fail to see what right you have to interfere in
this matter,” said Florence.
“I have the right of common justice, Florence—the right a friend has to
protect the absent. Are you not ashamed of such a wicked plot to wrong
an absent man? Is there no way” (addressing Mr. Plowden) “in which I
can appeal to your feelings, to induce you to free this wretched girl
you have entrapped?”
“I only ask my own,” said Mr. Plowden, sulkily.
“For shame! for shame! and you a minister of God’s Word! And you too,
Florence! Oh, now I can read your heart, and see the bad thoughts
looking from your eyes!”
Florence for a moment was abashed, and turned her face aside.
“And you, Eva—how can you become a party to such a shameful thing? You,
a good girl, to sell yourself away from dear Ernest to such a man as
that;” and again she pointed contemptuously at Mr. Plowden.
“Oh, don’t, Dorothy, don’t; it is my duty. You don’t understand.”
“Yes, Eva, I do understand. I understand that it is your duty to drown
yourself before you do such a thing, I am a woman as well as you, and
though I am not beautiful, I have a heart and a conscience, and I
understand only too well.”
“You will be lost if you drown yourself—I mean it is very wicked,” said
Mr. Plowden to Eva, suddenly assuming his clerical character as most
likely to be effective. The suggestion alarmed him. He had bargained
for a live Eva.
“Yes, Mr. Plowden,” went on Dorothy, “you are right: it would be
wicked, but not so wicked as to marry you. God gave us women our lives,
but He put a spirit in our hearts which tells us that we should rather
throw them away than suffer ourselves to be degraded. Oh, Eva, tell me
that you will not do this shameful thing. No, do not whisper to her,
Florence.”
“Dorothy, Dorothy,” said Eva, rising and wringing her hands, “it is all
useless. Do not break my heart with your cruel words. I must marry him.
I have fallen into the power of people who do not know what mercy is.”
“Thank you,” said Florence.
Mr. Plowden scowled darkly.
“Then I have done;” and Dorothy walked towards the door. Before she
reached it she paused and turned. “One word, and I will trouble you no
more. What do you all expect will come of this wicked marriage?”
There was no answer. Then Dorothy went.
But her efforts did not stop there. She made her way straight to Mr.
Cardus’s office.
“O Reginald,” she said, “I have such dreadful news for you. There, let
me cry a little first, and I will tell you.”
And she did, telling him the whole story from beginning to end. It was
entirely new to him, and he listened with some astonishment, and with a
feeling of something like indignation against Ernest. He had intended
that young gentleman to fall in love with Dorothy, and behold, he had
fallen in love with Eva. Alas for the perversity of youth!
“Well,” he said, when she had done, “and what do you wish me to do? It
seems that you have to do with a heartless scheming woman, a clerical
cad, and a beautiful fool. One might deal with the schemer and the
fool, but no power on earth can soften the cad. At least, that is my
experience. Besides, I think the whole thing is much better left alone.
I should be very sorry to see Ernest married to a woman so worthless as
this Eva must be. She is handsome, it is true, and that is about all
she is, as far as I can see. Don’t distress yourself, my dear; he will
get over it, and after he has had his fling out there, and lived down
that duel business, he will come home, and if he is wise, I know where
he will look for consolation.”
Dorothy tossed her head and coloured.
“It is not a question of consolation,” she said; “it is a question of
Ernest’s happiness in life.”
“Don’t alarm yourself, Dorothy; people’s happiness is not so easily
affected. He will forget all about her in a year.”
“I think that men always talk of each other like that, Reginald,” said
Dorothy, resting her head upon her hands, and looking straight at the
old gentleman. “Each of you likes to think that he has a monopoly of
feeling, and that the rest of his kind are as shallow as a milk-pan.
And yet it was only last night that you were talking to me about my
mother. You told me, you remember, that life had been a worthless thing
to you since she was torn from you, which no success had been able to
render pleasant. You said more: you said that you hoped that the end
was not far off; that you had suffered enough and waited enough; and
that, though you had not seen her face for five-and-twenty years, you
loved her as wildly as you did the day when she first promised to
become your wife.”
Mr. Cardus had risen, and was looking through the glass door at the
blooming orchids. Dorothy got up, and, following him, laid her hand
upon his shoulder.
“Reginald,” she said, “think! Ernest is about to be robbed of his wife
under circumstances curiously like those by which you were robbed of
yours. Unless it is prevented, what you have suffered all your life
that he will suffer also. Remember you are of the same blood, and,
allowing for the difference between your ages, of very much the same
temperament too. Think how different life would have been to you if any
one had staved off your disaster, and then I am sure you will do all
you can to stave off his.”
“Life would have been non-existent for you,” he answered, “for you
would never have been born.”
“Ah, well,” she said, with a little sigh, “I am sure I should have got
on very well without. I could have spared myself.”
Mr. Cardus was a keen man, and could see as far into the human heart as
most.
“Girl,” he said, contracting his white eyebrows and suddenly turning
round upon her, “you love Ernest yourself. I have often suspected it;
now I am sure you do.”
Dorothy flinched.
“Yes,” she answered, “I do love him. What then?”
“And yet you are advocating my interference to secure his marriage with
another woman, a worthless creature who does not know her own mind. You
cannot really care about him.”
“Care about him!” and she turned her sweet blue eyes upwards. “I love
him with all my heart and soul and strength. I have always loved him; I
always shall love him. I love him so well that I can do my duty to him,
Reginald. It is my duty to strain every nerve to prevent this marriage.
I had rather that my heart should ache than Ernest’s. I implore of you
to help me.”
“Dorothy, it has always been my dearest wish that you should marry
Ernest. I told him so just before that unhappy duel. I love you both.
All the fibres of my heart that are left alive have wound themselves
around you. Jeremy I could never care for. Indeed, I fear that I used
sometimes to treat the boy harshly. He reminds me so of his father. And
do you know, my dear, I sometimes think that on that point I am not
quite sane. But because you have asked me to do it, and because you
have quoted your dear mother—may peace be with her!—I will do what I
can. This girl Eva is of age, and I will write and offer her a home.
She need fear no persecution here.”
“You are kind and good, Reginald, and I thank you.”
“The letter shall go by to-night’s post. But run away now; I see my
friend De Talor coming to speak to me;” and the white eyebrows drew
near together in a way that it would have been unpleasant for the great
De Talor to behold. “That business is drawing towards its end.”
“O Reginald,” answered Dorothy, shaking her forefinger at him in her
old childish way, “haven’t you given up those ideas yet? They are very
wrong.”
“Never mind, Dorothy. I shall give them up soon, when I have squared
accounts with De Talor. A year or two more—a stern chase is a long
chase, you know—and the thing will be done, and then I shall become a
good Christian again.”
The letter was written. It offered Eva a home and protection.
In due course an answer, signed by Eva herself, came back. It thanked
him for his kindness, and regretted that circumstances and “her sense
of duty” prevented her from accepting the offer.
Then Dorothy felt that she had done all that in her lay, and gave the
matter up.
It was about this time that Florence drew another picture. It
represented Eva as Andromeda gazing hopelessly in the dim light of a
ghastly dawn out across a glassy sea; and far away in the oily depths
there was a ripple, and beneath the ripple a form travelling towards
the chained maiden. The form had a human head and cold gray eyes, and
its features were those of Mr. Plowden.
And so, day by day, Destiny, throned in space, shot her flaming shuttle
from darkness into darkness, and the time passed on, as the time must
pass, till the inevitable end of all things is attained.
Eva existed and suffered, and that was all she did. She scarcely ate,
or drank, or slept. But still she lived; she was not brave enough to
die, and the chains were riveted too tight round her tender wrists to
let her flee away. Poor nineteenth-century Andromeda! No Perseus shall
come to save you.
The sun rose and set in his appointed course, the flowers bloomed and
died, children were born, and the allotted portion of mankind passed
onwards to its rest; but no godlike Perseus came flying out of the
golden east.
Once more the sun rose. The dragon heaved his head above the quiet
waters, and she was lost. By her own act, of her own folly and
weakness, she was undone. Behold her! the wedding is over. The echoes
of the loud mockery of the bells have scarcely died upon the noonday
air, and in her chamber, the chamber of her free and happy maiden-hood,
the virgin martyr stands alone.
It is done. There lie the sickly scented flowers; there, too, the
bride’s white robe. It is done. Oh, that life were done too, that she
might once press her lips to his and die!
The door opens, and Florence stands before her, pale, triumphant,
awe-inspiring.
“I must congratulate you, my dear Eva. You really went through the
ceremony very well; only you looked like a statue.”
“Florence, why do you come to mock me?”
“Mock you, Eva, mock you! I come to wish you joy as Mr. Plowden’s wife.
I hope that you will be happy.”
“Happy! I shall never be happy. I detest him!”
“You detest him, and you marry him; there must be some mistake.”
“There is no mistake. O Ernest, my darling!”
Florence smiled.
“If Ernest is your darling, why did you not marry Ernest?”
“How could I marry him when you forced me into this?”
“Forced you! A free woman of full age cannot be forced. You married Mr.
Plowden of your own will. You might have married Ernest Kershaw if you
chose—he is in many ways a more desirable match than Mr. Plowden—but
you did not choose.”
“Florence, what do you mean? You always said it was impossible. Is this
all some cruel plot of yours?”
“Impossible! there is nothing impossible to those who have courage.
Yes,” and she turned upon her sister fiercely, “it _was_ a plot, and
you shall know it, you poor weak fool! _I_ loved Ernest Kershaw, and
_you_ robbed me of him, although you promised to leave him alone; and
so I have revenged myself upon you. I despise you, I tell you; you are
quite contemptible, and yet he could prefer you to me. Well, he has got
his reward. You have deserted him when he was absent and in trouble,
and you have outraged his love and your own. You have fallen very low
indeed, Eva, and presently you will fall lower yet. I know you well.
You will sink, till at last you even lose the sense of your own
humiliation. Don’t you wonder what Ernest must think of you now? There
is Mr. Plowden calling you. Come, it is time for you to be going.”
Eva listened aghast, and then sank against the wall, sobbing
despairingly.