I had such a beautiful convalescence. For the major operations of the
Great Surgeon an anæsthetic has not yet been found, but within a week I
was sitting up again, mutilated, perhaps, but gloriously alive and
without the whisper of a cry.
By this time Father Dan had gone back to Ellan (parting from me with a
solemn face as he said, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in
peace"), and Sister Mildred had obtained permission to give up one of
her rooms to me as long as I should need it.
Martin came to see me every day, first for five minutes, then ten, and
finally for a quarter and even half an hour. He brought such an
atmosphere of health with him, that merely to hold his hand seemed to
give me new strength--being so pale and bloodless now that I thought the
sun might have shone through me as through a sea-gull.
I could scarcely believe it was not a dream that he was sitting by my
side, and sometimes I felt as if I had to touch him to make sure he was
there.
How he talked to keep up my spirits! It was nearly always about his
expedition (never about me or my experiences, for that seemed a dark
scene from which he would not draw the curtain), and I was all
a-tremble as I listened to the story of his hair-breadth escapes, though
he laughed and made so light of them.
It nearly broke my heart that he had not got down to the Pole; and when
he told me that it was the sense of my voice calling to him which had
brought him back from the 88th latitude, I felt as if I had been a
coward, unworthy of the man who loved me.
Sometimes he talked about baby--he called her "Girlie"--telling a funny
story of how he had carried her off from Ilford, where the bricklayer
had suddenly conceived such a surprising affection for my child ("what
he might go so far as to call a fatherly feeling") that he had been
unwilling to part with her until soothed down by a few sovereigns--not
to say frightened by a grasp of Martin's iron hand which had nearly
broken his wrist.
"She's as right as a trivet now, though," said Martin, "and I'll run
down to Chevening every other day to see how she's getting on."
My darling was in great demand from the first, but when he could not be
with me in the flesh he was with me in the spirit, by means of the
newspapers which Mildred brought up in armfuls.
I liked the illustrated ones best, with their pictures of scenes in the
Expedition, particularly the portraits of Martin himself in his
Antarctic outfit, with his broad throat, determined lips, clear eyes,
and that general resemblance to the people we all know which makes us
feel that the great men of every age are brothers of one family.
But what literary tributes there were, too! What interviews, what
articles! A member of the scientific staff had said that "down there,"
with Nature in her wrath, where science was nothing and even physical
strength was not all, only one thing really counted, and that was the
heroic soul, and because Martin had it, he had always been the born
leader of them all.
And then, summing up the tangible gains of the Expedition, the _Times_
said its real value was moral and spiritual, because it showed that in
an age when one half of the world seemed to be thinking of nothing but
the acquisition of wealth (that made me think of my father) and the
other half of nothing but the pursuit of pleasure (that reminded me of
my husband and Alma), there could be found men like Martin Conrad and
his dauntless comrades who had faced death for the sake of an ideal and
were ready to do so again.
Oh dear! what showers of tears I shed over those newspapers! But the
personal honours that were bestowed on Martin touched me most of all.
First, the Royal Geographical Society held a meeting at the Albert Hall,
where the Gold Medal was presented to him. I was in a fever of anxiety
on the night of that function, I remember, until Dr. O'Sullivan (heaven
bless, him!) came flying upstairs, to tell me that it had been a
"splendid success," and Martin's speech (he hadn't prepared a word of
it) "a perfect triumph."
Then some of the Universities conferred degrees on my darling, which was
a source of inexpressible amusement to him, especially when (after
coming back from Edinburgh) he marched up and down my room in his
Doctor's cap and gown, and I asked him to spell "promise" and he
couldn't.
Oh, the joy of it all! It was so great a joy that at length it became a
pain.
The climax came when the Home Secretary wrote to say that the King had
been graciously pleased to confer a Knighthood upon Martin, in
recognition of his splendid courage and the substantial contribution he
had already made to the material welfare of the world.
That frightened me terribly, though only a woman would know why. It was
one thing to share the honours of the man I loved (however secretly and
as it were by stealth), but quite another thing to feel that they were
carrying him away from me, drawing him off, lifting him up, and leaving
me far below.
When the sense of this became acute I used to sit at night, when Mildred
was out at her work, by the lofty window of her room, looking down on
the precincts of Piccadilly, and wondering how much my darling really
knew about the impulse that took me there, and how nearly (but for the
grace of God) its awful vortex had swallowed me up.
It was then that I began to write these notes (having persuaded Mildred
to buy me this big book with its silver clasp and key), not intending at
first to tell the whole story of my life, but only to explain to him for
whom everything has been written (what I could not bring myself to say
face to face), how it came to pass that I was tempted to that sin which
is the most awful crime against her sex that a woman can commit.
Three months had gone by this time, the spring was coming and I was
beginning to feel that Martin (who had not yet been home) was being kept
in London on my account, when Dr. O'Sullivan announced that I was well
enough to be moved, and that a little of my native air would do me good.
Oh, the thrill that came with that prospect! I suppose there is a sort
of call to one's heart from the soil that gave one birth, but in my case
it was coupled with a chilling thought of the poor welcome I should
receive there, my father's house being closed to me and my husband's
abandoned for ever.
The very next morning, however, there came a letter from Father Dan,
giving me all the news of Ellan: some of it sad enough, God knows (about
the downfall of my father's financial schemes); some of it deliciously
wicked, such as it would have required an angel not to rejoice in (about
the bad odour in which Alma and my husband were now held, making the
pendulum of popular feeling swing back in my direction); and some of it
utterly heart-breaking in its assurances of the love still felt for me
in my native place.
Of course the sweetest part of that came from Christian Ann, who, after
a stiff fight with her moral principles, had said that whatever I had
done I was as "pure as the mountain turf," and, who then charged Father
Dan with the message that "Mary O'Neill's little room" was waiting for
her still.
This settled everything--everything except one thing, and that was the
greatest thing of all. But when Martin came later the same day, having
received the same message, and declared his intention of taking me home,
there seemed to be nothing left to wish for in earth or heaven.
Nevertheless I shouldn't have been a woman If I had not coquetted with
my great happiness, so when Martin had finished I said:
"But dare you?"
"Dare I--what?" said Martin.
"Dare you go home . . . with _me_?"