I felt sure that Alma hated me with an implacable hatred, and that she
was trying to drive me away, thinking that would be the easiest means to
gain her own ends. For this reason, among others, the woman in me would
not let me fly, so I remained and went through a purgatory of suffering.
Price, too, who had reconciled herself to my revelation, was always
urging me to remain, saying:
"Why should you go, my lady? You are your husband's wife, aren't you?
Fight it out, I say. Ladies do so every day. Why shouldn't you?"
Before long the whole island seemed to be astir about our reception.
Every day the insular newspapers devoted columns to the event, giving
elaborate accounts of what limitless wealth could accomplish for a
single night's entertainment. In these descriptions there was much
eulogy of my father as "the uncrowned king of Ellan," as well as praise
of Alma, who was "displaying such daring originality," but little or no
mention of myself.
Nevertheless everybody seemed to understand the inner meaning of the
forthcoming reception, and in the primitive candour of our insular
manners some of the visits I received were painfully embarrassing.
One of the first to come was my father's advocate, Mr. Curphy, who
smiled his usual bland smile and combed his long beard while he thanked
me for acting on his advice not to allow a fit of pique to break up a
marriage which was so suitable from points of property and position.
"How happy your father must be to see the fulfilment of his hopes," he
said. "Just when his health is failing him, too! How good! How
gratifying!"
The next to come was the Bishop, who, smooth and suave as ever,
congratulated me on putting aside all thoughts of divorce, so that the
object of my marriage might be fulfilled and a good Catholic become the
heir of Castle Raa.
More delicate, but also more distressing, was a letter from Father Dan,
saying he had been forbidden my husband's house and therefore could not
visit me, but having heard an angel's whisper of the sweet joy that was
coming to me, he prayed the Lord and His Holy Mother to carry me safely
through.
"I have said a rosary for you every day since you were here, my dear
child, that you might be saved from a great temptation. And now I know
you have been, and the sacrament of your holy marriage has fulfilled its
mission, as I always knew it would. So God bless you, my daughter, and
keep you pure and fit for eternal union with that blessed saint, your
mother, whom the Lord has made His own."
More than ever after this letter I felt that I must fly from my
husband's house, but, thinking of Alma, my wounded pride, my outraged
vanity (as I say, the _woman_ in me), would not let me go.
Three weeks passed.
The pavilion had been built and was being hung with gaily painted
bannerets to give the effect of the Colosseum as seen at sunset. A
covered corridor connecting the theatre with the house was being lined
with immense hydrangeas and lit from the roof by lamps that resembled
stars.
A few days before the day fixed for the event Alma, who had been too
much occupied to see me every day in the boudoir to which I confined
myself, came up to give me my instructions.
The entertainment was to begin at ten o'clock. I was to be dressed as
Cleopatra and to receive my guests in the drawing-room. At the sound of
a fanfare of trumpets I was to go into the theatre preceded by a line of
pages, and accompanied by my husband. After we had taken our places in a
private box a great ballet, brought specially from a London music-hall,
was to give a performance lasting until midnight. Then there was to be a
cotillon, led by Alma herself with my husband, and after supper the
dancing was to be resumed and kept up until sunrise, when a basketful of
butterflies and doves (sent from the South of France) were to be
liberated from cages, and to rise in a multicoloured cloud through the
sunlit space.
I was sick and ashamed when I thought of this vain and gaudy scene and
the object which I supposed it was intended to serve.
The end of it all was that I wrote to my father, concealing the real
cause of my suffering, but telling him he could not possibly be aware of
what was being done in his name and with his money, and begging him to
put an end to the entertainment altogether.
The only answer I received was a visit from Nessy MacLeod. I can see her
still as she came into my room, the tall gaunt figure with red hair and
irregular features.
"Cousin Mary," she said, seating herself stiffly on the only
stiff-backed chair, and speaking in an impassive tone, "your letter has
been received, but your father has not seen it, his health being such as
makes it highly undesirable that he should be disturbed by unnecessary
worries."
I answered with some warmth that my letter had not been unnecessary, but
urgent and important, and if she persisted in withholding it from my
father I should deliver it myself.
"Cousin Mary," said Nessy, "I know perfectly what your letter is, having
opened and read it, and while I am as little as yourself in sympathy
with what is going on here, I happen to know that your father has set
his heart on this entertainment, and therefore I do not choose that it
shall be put off."
I replied hotly that in opening my letter to my father she had taken an
unwarrantable liberty, and then (losing myself a little) I asked her by
what right did she, who had entered my father's house as a dependent,
dare to keep his daughter's letter from him.
"Cousin Mary," said Nessy, in the same impassive tone, "you were always
self-willed, selfish, and most insulting as a child, and I am sorry to
see that neither marriage nor education at a convent has chastened your
ungovernable temper. But I have told you that I do not choose that you
shall injure your father's health by disturbing his plans, and you shall
certainly not do so."
"Then take care," I answered, "that in protecting my father's health you
do not destroy it altogether."
In spite of her cold and savourless nature, she understood my meaning,
for after a moment of silence she said:
"Cousin Mary, you may do exactly as you please. Your conduct in the
future, whatever it may be, will be no affair of mine, and I shall not
consider that I am in any way responsible for it."
At last I began to receive anonymous letters. They came from various
parts of Ellan and appeared to be in different handwritings. Some of
them advised me to fly from the island, and others enclosed a list of
steamers' sailings.
Only a woman who has been the victim of this species of cowardly torture
can have any idea of the shame of it, and again and again I asked myself
if I ought not to escape from my husband's house before he returned.
But Price seemed to find a secret joy in the anonymous letters, saying
she believed she knew the source of them: and one evening towards the
end, she came running into my room with a shawl over her head, a look of
triumph in her face, and an unopened letter in her hand.
"There!" she said. "It's all up with Madame now. You've got the game in
your own hands, my lady, and can send them all packing."
The letter was addressed to my husband in London. Price had seized the
arm of Alma's maid in the act of posting it, and under threat of the law
(not to speak of instant personal chastisement) the girl had confessed
that both this letter and others had been written by our housekeeper
under the inspiration of her mistress.
Without any compunction Price broke the seal of the intercepted letter
and read it aloud to me. It was a shocking thing, accusing me with
Martin, and taunting my husband with the falseness of the forthcoming
entertainment.
Feeling too degraded to speak, I took the letter in silence out of my
maid's hands, and while I was in the act of locking it away in a drawer
Alma came up with a telegram from my husband, saying he was leaving
London by the early train the following morning and would arrive at
Blackwater at half-past three in the afternoon.
"Dear old Jimmy!" she said, "what a surprise you have in store for him!
But of course you've told him already, haven't you? . . . No? Ah, I see,
you've been saving it all up to tell him face to face. Oh, happy, happy
you!"
It was too late to leave now. The hour of my trial had come. There was
no possibility of escape. It was just as if Satan had been holding me in
the net of my sin, so that I could not fly away.
At three o'clock next day (which was the day before the day fixed for
the reception) I heard the motor-car going off to meet my husband at
Blackwater. At four o'clock I heard it return. A few minutes afterwards
I heard my husband's voice in the hall. I thought he would come up to me
directly, but he did not do so, and I did not attempt to go down. When,
after a while, I asked what had become of him, I was told that he was in
the library with Alma, and that they were alone.
Two hours passed.
To justify and fortify myself I thought how badly my husband had behaved
to me. I remembered that he had married me from the most mercenary
motives; that he had paid off his mistress with the money that came
through me; that he had killed by cruelty the efforts I had made to love
him; that he had humiliated me by gross infidelities committed on my
honeymoon. I recalled the scenes in Rome, the scenes in Paris, and the
insults I had received under my own roof.
It was all in vain. Whether God means it that the woman's fault in
breaking her marriage vows (whatever her sufferings and excuse) shall be
greater than that of the man I do not know. I only know that I was
trembling like a prisoner before her judge when, being dressed for
dinner and waiting for the sound of the bell, I heard my husband's
footsteps approach my door.
I was standing by the fire at that moment, and I held on to the
mantelpiece as my husband came into the room.