‘IT WAS THY LOVE PROVED FALSE AND FRAIL.’
A cloud had fallen upon that quiet household at Combhaven. A sharper
pain than Naomi’s sense of loss had crept into the breast of Naomi’s
father, and gnawed it in secret, while the strong man kept silence,
ashamed of his suffering--nay, angry at the human weakness which made
it possible for him so to suffer.
That little scene with Cynthia--that unexplained mystery about the
book called _Werther_--had not been without its influence upon Joshua
Haggard’s mind. He might have forgotten it, and gone on trusting
implicitly--as it was his nature to trust where he confided at
all--had he been true to his own instincts; but this privilege--the
melancholy privilege of being happy and deceived--had not been
allowed him. Judith had hinted, and whispered, and looked, and
insinuated, and, without committing herself to any direct statement,
had contrived to poison her brother’s mind with a shapeless
suspicion of his wife’s purity.
Cynthia had drooped somewhat after that evening on which she sobbed
out her despair upon her husband’s breast. The pale cheek had not
regained its wild-rose bloom; the sweet blue eyes had grown dull and
languid. The young wife looked like one who sickened under the burden
of some secret sorrow. She was not strong enough to suppress the
outward signs of a heart ill at ease.
Joshua saw the change; at first wondered at it, and then, enlightened
by Judith’s hints, began to suspect.
Cynthia was not happy. It was no bodily sickness which oppressed her,
but a secret grief.
Was it that she regretted her marriage with him--that she had chosen
him hastily, mistaking religious fervour for love? This seemed likely
enough.
‘How should she love me?’ he asked himself. ‘A man more than twice
her age; grave--full of cares for serious things. Is it natural
that she should find happiness in my society or in the life she
leads here? Naomi is different; she has been brought up to this
quiet life--to see all things in the same sober light. Cynthia was a
wanderer, used to motion and variety--to crowds and noise. How can
she help it if the longing for the old gipsy life comes back to her?
How can I blame her if she wearies of my dull home?’
This is how he would have explained the change to himself; but
Judith’s oracular sentences hinted at something darker.
‘What is it that you mean, Judith?’ he asked one day, with a burst of
anger; ‘you and my wife speak fairly enough to each other’s faces,
and seem to live peacefully together; but there is something lurking
in your mind--there is something underneath all this smoothness. Is
it Christianlike to deal in hints and dark looks?’
‘I should think it was Christianlike to stand by my brother,’
answered Judith, with her injured air, ‘and to consider him before
everybody.’
‘Is it a sign of consideration for me to speak unkindly of my wife?’
‘What have I said that is unkind? Perhaps it might be kindness to
say more. There’s things that can’t go on without bringing misery to
more than you, brother; but it isn’t my business to talk about ’em if
you’ve no eyes to see ’em for yourself.’
‘What do you mean, woman?’
‘Yes; things must have come to a pretty pass when my only brother,
that I’ve toiled for and served faithfully all my life, calls me
names. A minister, too, who preaches against bad language. But I
knew what it would be when that young woman crossed this threshold.
Good-bye family affection! The man who is led away by a pretty face
turns his back upon blood-relations. He’s bound to follow where his
new fancy leads him.’
With these random arrows of speech did Miss Haggard harass her victim
and relieve her own feelings.
‘Judith, do you want to drive me mad?’ he cried, with exasperation,
‘or to make me think that you are fit for a madhouse yourself? How
has my wife offended you? What evil have you ever seen in her?’
He stood with his back against the parlour-door, facing his sister,
with a resolute look in his dark eyes--resolute even to fierceness,
which told her that a crisis had come. She would be obliged to speak
out; and to speak out was the very last thing she desired. Never
before had she seen that sombre fire in Joshua’s dark eyes. She
quailed before the unknown demon she had raised.
‘What is amiss?’ he demanded savagely; ‘how has my wife sinned
against purity, or against me?’
‘I am not accusing her of sin,’ faltered Judith. ‘You shouldn’t be
so hot-tempered, brother; it isn’t becoming in a Christian minister.
I do not accuse her of sin; but there’s foolishness which brings
young women to the threshold of sin; and, once there, it is easy to
cross over to fire and brimstone. I say that a girl of nineteen is no
wife for a man of your age; that Providence must have meant her for
a trial of your patience; that’s what I’ve always thought and shall
always say, as willingly before her face as behind her back.’
‘Is this all you have to say? You might have said as much the night I
brought my wife home. Is this the upshot of all your dark looks and
insinuations? You have kept me on thorns for the last three weeks;
and, driven into a corner, you can only beat about the bush like
this.’
His scornful tone stung her. To be ridiculed--to be made of no
account in her brother’s household--was more than Judith Haggard
could bear. Whatever wealth of affection there was in her nature
had been given to Joshua. He was the one man she believed in and
honoured, even when least respectful in her attitude towards him.
She could not tamely see him wronged; and her jealousy of Cynthia
was quick to suspect and imagine wrong. She had seen and heard
enough to give force and meaning to her suspicions; and her bosom
had been labouring with the weight of that secret knowledge. She
wanted to tell Joshua--she wanted not to tell him. The secret gave
her a sense of power. It was as if she held a thunderbolt which she
might launch at any moment on the heads of the household; but the
bolt once launched and the domestic sky darkened, her power would be
gone. Pity for Joshua she had none, although she loved him. He had
wronged her love too deeply in marrying a nameless girl. It would do
her good to see him suffer through his wife. She would stand by him
afterwards--stand by him and console him, comfort him with her love,
instead of Cynthia’s. But Providence--and Judith as an instrument of
Providence--meant him to suffer this ordeal.
‘You’ve no call to make light of me,’ she said; ‘I’m not one to speak
without authority. I can hold my tongue, as I’ve held it for the last
twelvemonth. Do you want me to speak plainly? Do you want me to say
all I know?’
‘All--to the last word,’ said Joshua, livid with rage.
‘Don’t turn round upon me afterwards and say it would have been
better if I’d kept my counsel.’
‘Say your say, woman, and make an end of it.’
‘Well, brother, I’ve seen a change in Mr. Pentreath ever since his
father’s death; absent looks, and smothered sighs, and restlessness,
and no pleasure in life. Grief for his father, you’ll say, perhaps;
but is it likely he’d give way like that for an old man, that kept
him short of money, and hadn’t anybody’s good word? It isn’t in
nature.’
‘Who made you a judge of nature? But go on.’
‘Well, brother, I had my own ideas, and I kept ’em to myself, and
should have so kept ’em as long as I lived, if I’d had no stronger
cause for suspicion. But when I see a young man on his knees at a
young woman’s feet, and hear him asking her to pity him because he’s
miserable for love of her, and threatening to shoot himself, and the
young woman sobbing as if her heart would break all the time--and
that young woman my brother’s wife--when things came to such a pass
as this, I think it’s my duty to speak.’
‘Lies!--lies!’ gasped Joshua. ‘You see my happiness, and envy me! You
hate my wife because she is lovely, as you never were--passionately
loved, as you never were.’
Judith laughed hysterically.
‘I don’t know about beauty,’ she said; ‘but I had a high colour and
jet-black hair, with a natural curl, when I was a young woman--and
that used to be thought good looks enough for any girl in my
time--and I might have married a hundred and fifty acres of land
and a flour-mill. But I’m sorry to see you so beside yourself with
passion, Joshua, because I speak plainly for your own good.’
‘Is it for my good to tell me lies? My wife listening to Oswald
Pentreath’s wicked love! No--I’ll never believe it.’
‘Turn it over in your own mind a little more before you call your
only sister a liar. Have you forgotten the last afternoon Mr.
Pentreath was here--when Naomi was lying down with a sick headache,
and those two--Mrs. Haggard and the young Squire--were alone together
from dinner till tea. And you came home and found your wife all in a
flutter and as white as a sheet of paper; and I accused her to her
face of reading a wicked book; and you turned against me to take her
part; and she burst into tears in the middle of tea, and told you she
was grateful to you and would do her duty by you. What was that but
a guilty conscience? Why, a mole could have seen through it! But a
man of your age, who marries a young woman for the sake of her pretty
face, is blinder than the blindest mole. He has not eyes to see
anything but the prettiness.’
Joshua wiped the sweat-drops from his forehead with a broad
muscular hand that shook like a leaf. Never had his manhood been
so shaken--never in all the trials of his early life, when to hold
fast by his thorny path had cost him many a struggle, had he felt
the hot blood surging in his brain as it surged to-day. There was a
fiery cloud before his eyes. He could scarcely see his sister’s face,
looking at him full of angry eagerness, intent to prove her own case,
to assert her own dignity, and with but little consideration for his
anguish.
‘Judith,’ he said falteringly--and that strong voice of his so rarely
faltered that its weakness had a touch of deepest pathos--‘you are my
own and only sister. I cannot think that you would tell me lies on
purpose to make me miserable. Forgive me for what I said just now.
No, I cannot believe my sister a liar. I will not believe my wife
unfaithful to me by so much as a thought. But this young man is a
weak vessel. Tell me--plainly--all you saw and heard.’
‘That’s easily told. He had been reading that book to her--what’s his
name--Werther. I went in and out to fetch my thimble and suchlike,
and whenever I went in it was the same story--“Didst thou but know
how I love thee,” and “Charlotte, it is decided--I must die;” and
such rubbish. And there sat your wife, with her work crumpled up in
her lap, staring straight at him with tears in her eyes. It was close
upon tea-time, and I was going in again when I heard something that
stopped me. The door stood a little way ajar--it’s an old box-lock,
and the catch is always giving way, as you know, Joshua--and I waited
outside just to find out what it all meant; for I felt that I was
bound to do that much by my duty to you. I could just see into the
room. He was on his knees, holding her hands, and she sobbing as if
her heart would break. He told her how he loved her, and asked her
to pity him; and she never said him nay, only went on crying, and
presently told him he was cruel, and O, why did he read such a book
to her? Because it was his own story, he said, and the only way he
could find of telling her his love.’
‘And she did not cry out against such iniquity?’ cried Joshua; ‘she
did not reprove him for such wickedness--rise up before him in her
dignity as an offended woman and my true and loyal wife?’
‘I heard myself called in the shop just at that moment, and I was
obliged to go,’ answered Judith. ‘When I came back to the parlour
Sally was laying the tea-things.’
‘I will answer for my wife’s truth and honour,’ said Joshua firmly.
‘I will pledge myself that she repulsed and upbraided this guilty
young man as he deserved--that she looks upon his wicked passion with
abhorrence. That was why she looked so pale--shocked to the heart,
my gentle one; that was why she clung to me so piteously, seeking
sanctuary in my affection. My lily! no villain shall sully thy purity
while I am near to shield thee! My dearest! has the tempter assailed
thee so soon, sin’s poisoned breath so soon tarnished thy soul’s
whiteness? I will love thee all the more, guard thee more closely,
honour thee more deeply, because thou hast been in danger!’
Judith stared at her brother in dumb amazement. Against such
infatuation as this the voice of reason was powerless. It almost
tempted her to believe in witchcraft--a superstition by no means
extinct in this Western world. Judith had put the thought behind her
hitherto, as a delusion of the dark ages unworthy of a strong-minded
woman. But here, surely, was a case of demoniac possession, an
example of something more foolish than mortal folly.
‘But as for him,’ continued Joshua, with clenched fist, ‘for the
tempter--the would-be seducer--he shall never cross this threshold
again; and let him beware how he crosses my path, lest I should slay
him in my righteous rage, as Moses slew the Egyptian.’
‘And Naomi’s engagement,’ suggested Judith timidly. There was a power
in her brother’s look which awed her.
‘Naomi’s engagement is cancelled from this hour. My daughter shall
marry no double-dealer, swearing to be true to her at God’s altar
with lips that are defiled by the avowal of love for another man’s
wife. My daughter shall go unmarried to her grave rather than be wife
of such a man, were his place the highest in the land.’
‘It was a very grand match for her,’ said Judith, with a
propitiating air; ‘but for my part I never saw happiness come from an
unequal marriage, and I’ve seen many such in my time. But I’m afraid
Naomi will take it to heart.’
‘Poor child!’ sighed the father. ‘Is it my sin that I have brought
this sorrow upon her? How could I know that her lover would prove so
base? Poor child! she must bear her burden--she must carry her cross.’
He was deadly pale; and now that the angry light had gone out of his
eyes, his face had a faded look, as if the anguish of many years had
aged him within the last half-hour.
‘I can’t but remember what Jabez Long said the day the Dolphin went
down: “No good ever came of saving a drowning man; he’s bound to do
you wrong afterwards.” It’s come true, you see,’ said Judith.
‘Do you think I believe that heathen superstition any more because
Oswald Pentreath has proved a villain? I thought you had more sense,
Judith.’
‘Well, I don’t say I believe it; but, to say the least, it’s
curious. However, I never did think much of young Mr. Pentreath, or
of the stock he comes from. But it seems hard upon Naomi. Shall you
tell her the reason?’
‘Tell her that a villain has insulted my wife? No, Judith. My
daughter will obey me, though I bid her sacrifice her heart’s
desire, as Jephthah’s daughter obeyed when she laid down her life in
fulfilment of her father’s promise.’
‘Ah!’ sighed Judith, with suppressed gusto, ‘it’s a world of trouble.’
She felt more in her element now that things were going wrong, and
that she was at the helm once more, in a manner. Her little world had
been given over to two girls, and she had felt herself, in her own
language, a cipher.
It was hardly in Joshua’s nature to be slow to act, however painful
the business which duty imposed upon him. On that very evening he
found Naomi alone in the wilderness, on her knees before a craggy
bank, planting some wild flowers which she had discovered in her
afternoon rambles.
She looked up from her clustering ferns and humble wayside blossoms
with a smile, as her father approached; but the troubled expression
of his face alarmed her, and she rose quickly and came to him.
‘Dear father, is anything wrong?’
She had not seen him since his interview with Judith; and that aged
and altered look in his face, which had struck the sister, alarmed
the daughter.
‘Yes, my dear, there is something very wrong. Providence bids me
inflict pain upon one I fondly love--upon you, my Naomi.’
He drew her towards him, looking down at her with tender pity. It
seemed very hard that she should suffer--that this young life was so
soon to be clouded.
‘Dear father, what has happened?’ cried Naomi, tremulous in her
agitation. ‘It is about Oswald! The evening post has just come; you
have had a letter--is he ill? Yes, yes, I can see that it is about
him!’
‘He is well enough, my love; I have heard nothing to the contrary. I
am very sorry that he is so dear to you.’
‘Why, dear father?’
‘Because I have learned lately that he is unworthy of your affection;
and I must desire you, as you are my true and obedient daughter, to
give up all thought of marrying him.’
The girl’s face blanched, her eyelids closed for a moment, and the
slender figure swayed against Joshua’s arm as if it would have
fallen. But only for a moment. Naomi was not made of feeble stuff,
nor prone to fainting. She lifted her eyelids, and looked at her
father steadily, holding his arm with fingers that tightened upon it
almost convulsively in that moment of pain.
‘What have you heard against him, father, and from whom?’ she asked
resolutely. ‘You are bound to tell me that, in common justice. It is
my duty to obey you, but not blindly. I am not a child; I can bear to
know the worst. What has he done, my love, my dearest--too gentle to
hurt a worm--what evil thing has he done that you should turn against
him?’
‘That I cannot tell you, Naomi; and in this matter you must obey me
blindly as a child. He has sinned; and his sin proves him alike
false and feeble--a broken reed, a man not to be relied on--unworthy
of a woman’s trust. Naomi, believe me, your father, who never
deceived you, that if I inflict pain upon you to-day, in forbidding
this marriage, I spare you ten thousandfold of misery in days to
come. It is not possible that you could be happy as Oswald’s wife!’
‘Let me be the judge of that. It is my venture--it is my happiness
that is at stake. Let me be the judge. What is his sin?’
‘Again I say I cannot tell you. You must trust me and obey me, Naomi,
or you cease to be my daughter. Oswald Pentreath will never cross my
threshold again with my sanction. I shall never more speak to him in
friendship.’
‘Father, is this Christianlike?’
‘It is my duty to myself as a man.’
‘How has he offended you?’
‘By his sin.’
‘But he has not sinned against me,’ said Naomi piteously. ‘Why am I
to renounce him?’
‘He has sinned against you and against God.’
‘If he has sinned, he has so much the more need of my love. Am I to
forsake him in his sorrow--I, who would die for him?’
‘He does not need your love, Naomi, or desire it. It is for the
happiness of both that you should be parted.’
‘For his happiness?’ faltered Naomi, with a look of acute pain.
It was as if all her vague doubts of the past few months were
suddenly condensed into a horrible certainty.
‘Do you mean that Oswald has ceased to love me?’
‘Yes, Naomi. At the beginning I was doubtful of his stability. I
feared that his was a character in which impressions are quick to
come and go. I stipulated for delay, in order that your lover’s
constancy might be tested. The event has proved my doubts but too
well grounded.’
‘I offered to release him only a little while ago,’ said Naomi, ‘and
he would not be set free. He assured me of his unchanging love.’
‘He was a liar!’ cried Joshua fiercely; and his daughter recoiled
before the fury in that dark face. Never had she seen such anger
there till to-day--never had she believed him capable of such
passion. The revelation shocked her; the father whom she so tenderly
loved was degraded in her eyes by this un-Christianlike resentment.
‘Why are you so angry, father?’ she asked pleadingly.
‘Because I hate falsehood, treachery, double-dealing, a fair face
and a foul heart. I can say no more, Naomi. I have said enough to
warn you; it is for you to accept or reject my warning. Marry Oswald
Pentreath if you choose; but remember that from the hour of your
marriage you cease to be my daughter. I will never acknowledge that
man as my son. I will never acknowledge that man’s wife as my flesh
and blood. It is for you to choose between us.’
‘Father, you know I have no choice; you know that you are first--have
always held the first place in my heart. There is no one else whose
love I could weigh against yours--not even Oswald, though I love him
dearly--must love him to the end--love him all the more for his
weakness--for his sorrow. I am your true and loyal daughter, dearest;
and I give you up my heart, as I would give up my life--yes, dear
father, freely, gladly, for your sake.’
‘That’s my own brave Naomi! It is for your own welfare, believe me,
dearest, however hard the trial may be to bear just now. The man is
not true; there could be no happiness for you with him.’
‘Do not say anything more against him, father,’ pleaded Naomi gently.
‘I give him up; but let me honour him as much as I can--let him hold
a high place in my thoughts. It is easier to bear the pain of parting
from him if I can keep his image in my heart undefiled.’
‘I will say no more, Naomi. You will write to him, and tell him your
engagement is ended, at my desire. A few decided words will say all
that is needful. His own heart will tell him the reason. I do not
think that he will question or plead against your decision.’
‘I will write, father.’
Joshua folded her in his arms and kissed the pale sad brow, drawn
with pain.
‘May God bless and comfort you, dearest, and give you joy in this
sacrifice!’ he said solemnly. ‘On my honour, as your father and your
pastor, it is for the best.’
And so he left her, standing in her desolated wilderness, from which
the beauty had gone forth for ever. Her ferns and hedgerow blossoms
smiled at her in the rosy evening light--feathery mosses, trailing
periwinkle, opalescent dog-roses steeped in golden glory, purple
foxgloves towering from a sea of fern--all the sweet wild things she
had gathered together looked at her, and gave her no comfort in this
hour of bitter agony. She cast herself, face downward, on the grassy
path, and gave herself up, body and soul, to despair.
Yes, she had known it, long ago; he loved her no more. She had tried
to put away the thought. She had made her direct appeal to him, and
been reassured by his loving reply. But the aching pain had lingered
at the bottom of her heart. She had not been happy.
Better so; better, as her father said, to renounce him altogether--to
give him back his freedom--than to let him chain himself in a
loveless wedlock. Better anything than the humiliation of an unloved
wife.
But this sin which her father spoke of with such deep
resentment--this offence which had kindled such unseemly anger in a
Christian’s breast--what was this deadly and desperate error? Herein
lay the bitterest trial of all--to be kept in the dark, not to be
able to comfort or succour the sinner.