Next day Lady Margaret came to my room to say good-bye, telling me she
had only stayed at Castle Raa to keep house and make ready for me, and
must now return to her own home, which was in London.
I was sorry, for my heart had warmed to her, and when I stood at the
door and saw her drive off with my husband to catch the afternoon
steamer, I felt I had lost both sympathy and protection.
Alma's feelings were less troubled, and as we turned back into the house
I could see that she was saying to herself:
"Thank goodness, _she's_ gone away."
A day or two later Doctor Conrad came, according to my father's
instructions, and I was glad to see his close-cropped iron-grey head
coming up the stairs towards my room.
Naturally our first conversation was about Martin, who had written to
tell his parents of our meeting in London and to announce his intended
visit. It was all very exciting, and now his mother was working morning
and night at the old cottage, to prepare for the arrival of her son.
Such scrubbing and scouring! Such taking up of carpets and laying them
down again, as if the darling old thing were expecting a prince!
"It ought to be Sunny Lodge indeed before she's done with it," said the
Doctor.
"I'm sure it will," I said. "It always was, and it always will be."
"And how are we ourselves," said the doctor. "A little below par, eh?
Any sickness? No? Nausea? No? Headache and a feeling of lassitude, then?
No?"
After other questions and tests, the old doctor was looking puzzled,
when, not finding it in my heart to keep him in the dark any longer, I
told him there was nothing amiss with my health, but I was unhappy and
had been so since the time of my marriage.
"I see," he said. "It's your mind and not your body that is sick?"
"Yes."
"I'll speak to Father Dan," he said. "Good-bye! God bless you!"
Less than half an hour after he had gone, Alma came to me in her softest
mode, saying the doctor had said I was suffering from extreme nervous
exhaustion and ought to be kept from worries and anxieties of every
kind.
"So if there's anything I can do while I'm here, dearest, . . . such as
looking after the house and the servants. . . . No, no, don't deny me;
it will be a pleasure, I assure you. . . . So we'll say that's settled,
shall we? . . . You dear, sweet darling creature!"
I was too much out of heart to care what happened, but inside two days I
realised that Alma had taken possession of the house, and was ordering
and controlling everything.
Apparently this pleased such of the servants as had anything to gain by
it--the housekeeper in particular--for Alma was no skinflint and she was
making my husband's money flow like water, but it was less agreeable to
my maid, who said:
"This is a nice place to be sure, where the mistress takes no interest
in anything, and the guest walks over everybody. She'll walk over the
mistress herself before long--mark my word but she will."
It would be about a week after our arrival at Castle Raa that Price came
to my room to say that a priest was asking for me, and he was such a
strange-looking thing that she was puzzled to know if his face was that
of a child, a woman or a dear old man.
I knew in a moment it must be Father Dan, so I went flying downstairs
and found him in the hall, wearing the same sack coat (or so it seemed)
as when I was a child and made cupboards of its vertical pockets,
carrying the same funny little bag which he had taken to Rome and used
for his surplice at funerals, and mopping his forehead and flicking his
boots with a red print handkerchief, for the day was hot and the roads
were dusty.
He was as glad to see me as I to see him, and when I asked if he would
have tea, he said Yes, for he had walked all the way from the
Presbytery, after fasting the day before; and when I asked if he would
not stay overnight he said Yes to that, too, "if it would not be
troublesome and inconvenient."
So I took his bag and gave it to a maid, telling her to take it to the
guest's room on my landing, and to bring tea to my boudoir immediately.
But hardly had I taken him upstairs and we had got seated in my private
room, when the maid knocked at the door to say that the housekeeper
wished to speak with me, and on going out, and closing the door behind
me, I found her on the landing, a prim little flinty person with quick
eyes, thin lips and an upward lift of her head.
"Sorry, my lady, but it won't be convenient for his reverence to stay in
the house to-night," she said.
"Why so?" I said.
"Because Madame has ordered all the rooms to be got ready for the
house-party, and this one," (pointing to the guest's room opposite) "is
prepared for Mr. and Mrs. Eastcliff, and we don't know how soon they may
arrive."
I felt myself flushing up to the eyes at the woman's impudence, and it
added to my anger that Alma herself was standing at the head of the
stairs, looking on and listening. So with a little spurt of injured
pride I turned severely on the one while really speaking to the other,
and said:
"Be good enough to make this room ready for his reverence without one
moment's delay, and please remember for the future, that I am mistress
in this house, and your duty is to obey me and nobody else whatever."
As I said this and turned back to my boudoir, I saw that Alma's deep
eyes had a sullen look, and I felt that she meant to square accounts
with me some day; but what she did was done at once, for going
downstairs (as I afterwards heard from Price) she met my husband in the
hall, where, woman-like, she opened her battery upon him at his weakest
spot, saying:
"Oh, I didn't know your wife was priest-ridden."
"Priest-ridden?"
"Precisely," and then followed an explanation of what had happened, with
astonishing embellishments which made my husband pale with fury.
Meantime I was alone with Father Dan in my room, and while I poured out
his tea and served him with bread and butter, he talked first about
Martin (as everybody seemed to do when speaking to me), saying:
"He was always my golden-headed boy, and it's a mighty proud man I am
entirely to hear the good news of him."
More of the same kind there was, all music to my ears, and then Father
Dan came to closer quarters, saying Doctor Conrad had dropped a hint
that I was not very happy.
"Tell your old priest everything, my child, and if there is anything he
can do. . . ."
Without waiting for more words I sank to my knees at his feet, and
poured out all my troubles--telling him my marriage had been a failure;
that the sanctifying grace which he had foretold as the result of the
sacrament of holy wedlock had not come to pass; that not only did I not
love my husband, but my husband loved another woman, who was living here
with us in this very house.
Father Dan was dreadfully distressed. More than once while I was
speaking he crossed himself and said, "Lord and His Holy Mother love
us;" and when I came to an end he began to reproach himself for
everything, saying that he ought to have known that our lad (meaning
Martin) did not write those terrible letters without being certain they
were true, and that from the first day my husband came to our parish the
sun had been darkened by his shadow.
"But take care," he said. "I've told nobody about the compact we made
with your husband--nobody but our Blessed Lady herself--and you mustn't
think of that as a way out of your marriage. No, nor of any other way,
no matter what, which the world, and the children of the world, may talk
about."
"But I can't bear it, I can't bear it," I cried.
"Hush! Hush! Don't say that, my daughter. Think of it as one of the
misfortunes of life which we all have to suffer. How many poor women
have to bear the sickness and poverty, not to speak of the drunkenness
and death, of their husbands! Do they think they have a right to run
away from all that--to break the sacred vows of their marriage on
account of it? No, my child, no, and neither must you. Some day it will
all come right. You'll see it will. And meantime by the memory of your
mother--that blessed saint whom the Lord has made one of his own. . . ."
"Then what can I do?"
"Pray, my child, pray for strength to bear your trials and to resist all
temptation. Say a rosary for the Blessed Virgin every morning before
breaking your fast. I'll say a rosary, too. You'll see yet this is only
God's love for you, and you'll welcome His holy will."
While my dear father and friend was counselling me so I heard my husband
speaking in his loud, grating tones on the landing outside, and before I
could rise from my knees he had burst open the door and entered the
room.
His face was deadly white and he was like a man out of his right mind.
"Mary," he said, looking down at me where I knelt with my hands crossed
on my bosom, "when did I give you permission to introduce a priest into
my house? Isn't it enough for a man to have a wife who is a Catholic
without having the church and its ministers shunted into his home
without his permission?"
I was so taken aback by this furious assault that at first I could not
speak, but Father Dan interposed to defend me, saying with beautiful
patience, that his visit had been quite unexpected on my part, and that
I had asked him to stay overnight only because he was an old man, and
had had a long walk from his parish.
"I'm much obliged to your reverence," said my husband, who was quivering
with fury, "but my wife is perfectly capable of answering for herself
without your assistance, and as for your parish you would have done
better to stay there instead of coming to meddle in this one."
"Aren't you measuring me by your own yard, sir?" said Father Dan, and at
that straight thrust my husband broke into ungovernable rage.
"Everybody knows what a Popish priest is," he said. "A meddlesome
busybody who pokes his nose into other men's secrets. But priest or no
priest, I'll have no man coming to my house to make mischief between
husband and wife."
"Are you sure," said Father Dan, "that some woman isn't in your house
already, making mischief between wife and husband?"
That thrust too went home. My husband looked at me with flashing eyes
and then said:
"As I thought! You've been sent for to help my wife to make a great
to-do of her imaginary grievances. You're to stay in the house too, and
before long we'll have you setting up as master here and giving orders
to my servants! But not if I know it! . . . Your reverence, if you have
any respect for your penitent, you'll please be good enough to leave my
wife to _my_ protection."
I saw that Father Dan had to gulp down his gathering anger, but he only
said:
"Say no more, my lord. No true priest ever comes between a man and the
wife whom God has given him. It's his business to unite people, not to
put them apart. As for this dear child, I have loved her since she was
an infant in arms, and never so much as at the present speaking, so I
don't need to learn my duty from one who appears to care no more for her
than for the rind of a lemon. I'll go, sir," said the old man, drawing
himself up like a wounded lion, "but it's not to your protection I
leave her--it's to that of God's blessed and holy love and will."
My husband had gone before the last words were spoken, but I think they
must have followed him as he went lunging down the stairs.
During this humiliating scene a hot flush of shame had come to my cheeks
and I wanted to tell Father Dan not to let it grieve him, but I could do
nothing but stoop and kiss his hand.
Meantime two or three of the servants had gathered on the landing at the
sound of my husband's voice, and among them was the flinty housekeeper
holding the Father's little bag, and she gave it back to him as he
passed her.
Then, all being over, the woman came into my room, with an expression of
victorious mischief in her eyes and said:
"Your ladyship had better have listened to them as knows, you see."
I was too benumbed by that cruel stroke to reply, but Price said enough
for both of us.
"If them as knows," she said, "don't get out of this room inside two
seconds they'll get their ugly faces slapped."
* * * * *
I thought I had reached the end of my power of endurance, and that
night, before going to bed, while my maid was taking down my hair, and I
was thinking of Martin and asking myself if I should put up with my
husband's brutalities any longer, I heard her say:
"If I were a lady married to the wrong man, I'd have the right one if I
had to go through the divorce court for him."
Now that was so exactly the thought that was running riot in my own
tormented mind, that I flew at her like a wild cat, asking her how she
dared to say anything so abominably wicked, and telling her to take her
notice there and then.
But hardly had she left the room, when my heart was in my mouth again,
and I was trembling with fear lest she should take me at my word and
then the last of my friends would be gone.