Going Fishing.
A chilly evening. The hot days of August have passed away; this is
October, and the night is turning out raw and misty. But in Mrs.
Chester's house warmth and light reign, at least in the inhabited
rooms of it.
In one of them, a moderate-sized, comfortable apartment, whose windows
opened to the ground, the large fire had burned down to a red glow,
after rendering the atmosphere unpleasantly warm; and a lady, seated
in a lounging chair, had pushed it quite back, so that she was in the
shade both from the light and the fire. A look of perplexity, of care,
sat on her face, young and lovely though it was; even in her hands, as
they lay listless on her lap, there was an air of abandonment. But
that the room was growing dusk and dim in the autumn twilight, that
sadness might not have been suffered to show itself, although she was
alone.
It was Clara Lake. Her thoughts were buried in a painful
retrospect--the retrospect of only the two past months. They had
brought grief to her: as the summer did to the unhappy girl, told of
in that beautiful ballad Anna Chester sometimes sung, "The Banks of
Allan Water."
Had any one warned Clara Lake the previous August, when she came to
Mrs. Chester's for a two days' visit, that the sojourn would not be
one of days but months, she had simply disbelieved it. Even when the
term was extended to a proposed fortnight--a fortnight in all--she
would have laughed at the idea of staying longer. But she had stayed.
She was here still. Nevertheless, things had so turned out; all easily
and naturally, as it seemed, to look back upon. As it seemed to her
now, sitting in her chair, and tracing the course of past events.
The alteration in their house at Katterley, as proposed by Mr. Lake,
and which was to be completed in ten days or a fortnight, was begun in
due course--the throwing out of the dining-room by means of a bay
window. He and his wife went over one day to see the progress of the
work. It was then suggested--whether by the builder, by her husband,
by herself, or by all three jointly, Clara could not to this hour
recollect--that, to make a complete job of it, the window in the
chamber above should also be thrown out. The additional expense would
be comparatively little, the improvement great; and it was agreed to
on the spot. Orders were also given for the drawing-room and their own
chamber to be painted, repapered, and decorated.
"Won't it take a long time?" Clara suddenly asked.
"About a month, if they work well; certainly not more," replied Mr.
Lake.
He must have known little of workmen, to speak so confidently.
Builders, carpenters, painters, decorators, are not famous for working
themselves thin through over-hurry. The popular saying, "If once you
get them into your house, you never get them out," seemed to be
exemplified in this one instance. Here was October come in, and
Katterley Lodge was as far off being ready for reception as ever.
It would have been a slight grievance, the detention, to Mr. and Mrs.
Lake--not any, in fact, to him--for Mrs. Chester's house was an
agreeable one, and they had no home ties; but Lady Ellis was making
the stay insupportable to Mr. Lake's wife.
Tolerably young, showy, very handsome according to the taste of many,
exacting attention, living but in admiration, and not scrupulous how
she obtained it provided she got it, Lady Ellis had begun to cast her
charming toils on the careless and attractive Robert Lake in the very
first hour of their meeting. Not to eat him up; not intending
certainly to be eaten herself; only to be her temporary slave, pour
faire passer le temps. In that dull country house, where there was no
noise or excitement but what arose from its children, Lady Ellis
wanted something to make the time pass.
Mr. Lake was perfectly ready to meet her halfway. One of those men
who, wife or no wife, consider a flirtation with a pretty woman--and
with one not pretty, for the matter of that--a legitimate occupation
in their idle life, he responded to her advances gallantly. Neither of
them had any idea of plunging into shoals and quicksands; let us so
far give both their due. A rather impressive clasp of the hand; a
prolonged walk in the glowing beauty of the summer's day; an
interchange of confidential talk, meaning nothing--that was the worst,
thought of by either. But then, you see, the mischief is, that when
once these things are fairly embarked in, the course entered upon and
its midway post reached, down you glide, swimmingly, unwittingly; and
it is an exceedingly difficult matter to turn back. Good chance (to
call it so here), generally sends the opportunity, but it is not
always seized upon.
The flirtation began. There were walks in the morning sun, shady
garden chairs for rest at noontide, lingerings in the open air by
twilight, that grateful hour after a sultry day. There were meetings
indoors, meetings out; singing, talking, netting, idling. Mr. Lake
went fishing, his favourite pastime just now, and my Lady Ellis would
carry his luncheon to him; or stroll down later, wait until the day's
sport was at an end, and stroll home with him. One or other of the
children was often with her, serving to satisfy the requisites of
propriety, had friends been difficult.
None were so. For a whole month this agreeable life went on, and
nobody gave it a care or a thought. Certainly Clara did not. She was
accustomed to see her husband's light admiration given to others;
never yet had a suspicion crossed her mind that he had more than
admiration to give. That his love was exclusively hers, to be hers for
ever, she believed in as fully as she believed in heaven.
Well, the month passed, August; and September was entered upon. The
flirtation (to call it so for want of a better word), had grown pretty
deep. The morning walks were frequent; the noontide restings were
confidential, the twilight lingerings were prolonged to starlight. The
songs became duets, the conversation whispers; the netting was as
often in his hands as hers, and the silk purse did not progress. Mr.
Lake drove Lady Ellis out in the stylish little open carriage,
conveniently made for two persons and no more, that he was fond of
hiring at Guild. One day Fanny Chester went with them; my lady's dress
got crushed, and of course the inconvenience could not be allowed to
occur again. Twice a week she rode with him, requiring very much of
his care in the open country, for she said she was a timid horsewoman.
In short, they had plunged into a whirligig round of days that was
highly agreeable to the two concerned.
Sharp-eyed Mrs. Chester--nearly as sharp as Lady Ellis herself, but
more honest--saw quite well what was going on. "Don't you go and make
a fool of yourself with that woman, Robert!" she said to him one day,
which sent Mr. Lake into a fit of laughter. He thought himself just
the last man to do it. And on went the time again.
Imperceptibly--she could not remember how or when it first arose--a
shade of annoyance, of vexation, stole upon Mrs. Lake. Her husband was
always with Lady Ellis; except at meals and at night, he was never
with her; and she began to think it was not quite right that it should
be so. Crafty Mrs. Chester--honest enough in the main, but treacherous
in this one matter--was on thorns lest Clara should take alarm and
cause an outbreak; which would not have done at all. She did what she
could to keep alarm off, and would have to reconcile it to her
conscience in later days. Mr. and Mrs. Lake paid her well, and that
was also a consideration.
"Clara, dear, it is so good of your husband to help me," she would
say, or words similar. "He has never been a true brother to me until
now. Were it not for him I am sure Lady Ellis would die of ennui in
this place. He keeps her amused for me, doing what he can to make her
days pass pleasantly. I shall be ever thankful to him."
Once, and once only, Clara went to the fishing stream after them. It
was a mile and a half away, the one they had gone fishing in that day.
They! Lady Ellis had a costly little rod now, bought for her by Mr.
Lake, and went with him. Clara, having nothing better to do in the
afternoon, uneasily conscious of the advent of incipient jealousy
arising in her heart, thought she would join the party. Her husband
had never asked her to do so at any time; upon her hinting that she
should like to fish too, he had stopped the idea at once: "No, she
would be too fatigued." Mrs. Lake, it was true, was not strong; heat
and fatigue knocked her up. Mrs. Chester had been crafty from the
first. One day in the early stage of the affair, seeing her husband
and Lady Ellis sitting together in the shade at noontide, Clara was
innocently stepping out at the window to sit too, when Mrs. Chester
interposed to prevent it. "Good gracious, Clara! don't go stealing out
like that. They may think you want to hear what they are saying--out
of jealousy." And the word "jealousy" only caused an amusing laugh to
Clara Lake then; but she remained indoors. Well, on this afternoon,
she started for the stream, taking Master James Chester in her hand
Master James abandoned her _en route_, going off on his own devices,
and she was alone when she reached them. A deliciously shady place she
found it; the chance passers-by beyond the trees at the back few and
far between. Both were sitting on the bank, attending to their lines,
which were deep in the water. They looked round with surprise, and
Lady Ellis was the first to speak.
"Have you come to look after us, Mrs. Lake?"
Innocent words, sufficiently courteous in themselves, but not in the
tone with which they were spoken. There was a mocking undercurrent in
it, implying much; at least, Clara fancied so, and it brought the red
flush of shame to her cheeks. Open, candid, ultra-refined herself, to
spy upon others would have been against her very nature. It seemed to
her that in that light she was looked upon, as a spy, and inwardly
resolved not to intrude again.
James Chester made his appearance in the course of time, and Clara set
off home with him. They asked her to stay until the sport was at an
end; her husband pressed it; but she could not get over that tone, and
said she would walk very quietly on, that they might overtake her.
Master James went off as before, and Clara thought of the interview.
"There was no harm; there can be none; they were only fishing," she
murmured to herself. "What a stupid thing I was!"
"Where's Jemmy?" asked Mrs. Chester, coming forth to meet her.
"I'm sure I can't tell. He ran away from me both in going and
returning. It was not my fault. He does not mind anybody a bit, you
know."
"Why did you not wait to come home with Robert and Lady Ellis?"
"I don't know. I wanted to get back, for one thing; I was tired. And I
don't much think Lady Ellis liked my going."
"My dear Clara, you must not take up vague fancies," spoke Mrs.
Chester, after a pause. "One would think you were growing jealous, as
the boys and girls do. Nothing can be in worse taste for a lady, even
when there may be apparent grounds for it. In this case the very
thought would be absurd; Lady Ellis is ten years older than your
husband."
And so, what with one thing and another, Clara was subdued to passive
quietness, and Mr. Lake and Lady Ellis had it all their own way. But
her suspicions that they were growing rather too fond of each other's
company had been aroused, and she naturally, perhaps unconsciously,
watched, not in the unfounded fancy of an angry woman, a jealous wife,
but in the sick fear of a loving one. She saw the flirtation (again I
must apologize for the name) grow into sentiment, if not to passion;
she saw it lapse into concealment--which is a very bad sign. And now
that October had come in and was passing, Clara Lake's whole inward
life was one scene of pain, of conflict, of wild jealousy preying upon
her very heartstrings. She had loved her husband with all the fervour
of a deeply imaginative nature; had believed in him with the perfect
trustingness of an innocent-hearted, honest English girl.
She sat in her chair there in the drawing-room, drawn away from the
fire's heat, her eyes fixed on vacancy, her pretty hands lying weary.
What was that heat compared to the heat that raged within, the mind's
fever?
"If it could but end!" she murmured to herself; "if we could but go
back to our home at Katterley!"
Strange to say--and yet perhaps not strange, for the natural working
out of a course of events is often hidden to the chief actor in
it--the dream and its superstitious dread had faded away from Clara's
memory. Of course she had not forgotten the fact; whenever she thought
of it, as she did at odd times, its features presented themselves to
her as vividly as ever. But the dread of it was gone. When day
succeeded day, week succeeded week, bringing no appearance of any
tragic end for her, accident or else, that could put her into a
hearse, the foreboding fear quite subsided. Besides, Clara Lake looked
upon the accident to the railway-train that Sunday night as the one
that would have killed her had she only been in it. So the dream and
its superstition had become as a thing of the past.
Lonely, dispirited, unusually low, felt she this afternoon. Mr. Lake
had gone over in the morning to Katterley to see how their house was
progressing, and she began to wonder that he was not back. They had
taken dinner early that day, and Lady Ellis had disappeared after it.
When Mr. Lake was away she would invariably go up to her room after
dinner, saying she had letters to write. Shrewd Fanny Chester, taking
after her quick mother, said my lady went up to get a nap, not to
write. Mrs. Chester was in the nursery, where she had a dressmaker at
work, making clothes for her children; Anna was helping; and Clara was
alone.
It may as well be mentioned that the mystery attaching to the cause of
the railway accident had not been solved yet. The coroner and jury had
met regularly once a fortnight since, and as regularly adjourned the
inquest. In the teeth of Colonel West's most positive testimony, it
was impossible to bring in a verdict against Cooper, the driver; in
the teeth of Oliver Jupp's, it was equally impossible to exonerate
him. No other witnesses, save the parties interested, appeared to have
seen the lights that night. The public were fairly nonplussed, the
coroner and jury sick to death of the affair. The young person now
working for Mrs. Chester was Cooper's sister.
The red embers were fading down nearly to blackness, when Fanny
Chester came bursting into the room to Clara in her rather boisterous
manner. Clara aroused herself, glad perhaps of the interruption to her
thoughts.
"Is it you, Fanny? Where are they all, dear?"
"Mamma's at work in the nursery. She's running the seams, and showing
Miss Cooper how she wants the bodies cut. Anna's there too. Have you
seen Uncle Robert?"
"Uncle Robert is not back yet, Fanny."
"Yes, he is," replied the young lady, who at all times was fond of her
own opinion.
"You are mistaken," said Clara. "He would have come in to me the first
thing."
"But I saw him. I saw him in the garden ever so long ago. Lady Ellis
was with him. They were at the back there, walking towards the
shrubbery."
Indisputable testimony; and Clara Lake could have bitten her tongue
for saying "He would have come to me the first thing," although her
audience consisted only of a child. Mr. Lake was to have brought her
some book from home that he had forgotten the previous time; she was
ardently longing for it, and thought he would at least have come
straight to her and delivered it.
"Will you please reach me one of those old newspapers up there,"
proceeded Fanny. "Mamma sent me for it. She wants to cut a pattern."
Giving the child the newspaper she asked for, Mrs. Lake shut the door
after her and drew to the window, her heart beating rebelliously. "So
he was back ever so long ago, and solacing himself with the sweet
companionship of Lady Ellis." As she stood there, looking out on the
darkening gloom--fit type of the gloom within--Clara asked herself the
serious question, Was this constant seeking of each other's society
but the result of accident; of a nonsensical liking which meant really
nothing, and would pass away; or was it that they were really in love
with each other, and _she_ losing her place in her husband's heart?
An impulse--a wild impulse--which she could not restrain, and perhaps
did not try to, led her to open the glass doors and step out: some
vague feeling in her unhappy mind, making itself heard amidst the
inward tumult of wishing to see with her own eyes whether the child's
information was true. It might _not_ have been her husband; it might
have been the curate, or Oliver Jupp, or that big Mr. Winterton, all
of whom were fond of coming and of walking with Lady Ellis when they
got the chance; and she would go and see. Pretty sophist! Poor Clara
knew in her inmost heart that it was Robert Lake, and no other:
instinct told her so. Had she given herself a moment's time for
reflection, she would probably not have gone. To an honourable
nature--and Clara Lake's was essentially such--the very idea of
looking after even a recreant husband is abhorrent. But jealousy is
the strongest passion that can assail the human heart, whether of man
or woman. Under its influence we do not stop to raise questions of
expediency.
The raw fog pervading the air struck upon her with a chill as she came
out of the heated room. She had nothing on but a thin muslin body, and
shivered quite unconsciously. What cared she for the cold or the heat?
Had she been plunged into a bath of ice she would not have felt it
then. On she went, sweeping round the lawn in the dusky twilight; for
it was not dark yet--keeping close to the trees, that their friendly
shade might shelter her from chance eyes. Fanny Chester's words,
"Going towards the shrubbery," serving for her guide unconsciously,
she made for the same place.
Well, what did she find or see? Nothing very dreadful, taking it in
the abstract; but quite enough to fan the jealous indignation of a
wife, especially of one who _loves_ her husband.
The shrubbery appeared to be empty; and Clara had, gone half way down
it, past one of its cross openings, when, from that very opening,
sounds of voices and footsteps advancing struck upon her ear. Retreat
was not expedient: they might see her pass; and she darted into a deep
alcove the shrubs had been trained to make, before which ran a bench.
Cowering almost into the very laurels, she stood there in sick fear.
Never had she intended to get so near, and almost wished for the earth
to open and bury her alive rather than she should be seen. Her heart
beating with a wild shame, as if she had been caught in some great
crime, there she had to stay.
On they came in their supreme unconsciousness, turning into the
shrubbery, and alas! towards the verdant alcove. Clara's eyes were
strained to look, and her poor breath came in gasps.
They were arm-in-arm; and Mr. Lake held one of my lady's hands,
lightly toying with its fingers. He was speaking in low, tender
tones--the same tones which had been given to _her_ before their
marriage, and had won her heart for ever. What he was saying she could
not in her agitation tell, but as they were passing her, going from
the house, you understand, not to it, Lady Ellis spoke.
"Robert, it is getting dark and cold."
Robert! Had she known his wife was listening! It might have made no
difference.
"The dark will not hurt you," he said, louder. "You are with me."
"But it is damp also. Indeed, since I returned from India, I feel both
the damp and cold very much."
She spoke in a timid, gentle tone: as different from her natural
tones, as different from those she used to any _but_ him, as can well
be imagined. That she had set herself out to gain his love seemed a
sure fact. How far Lady Ellis contemplated going, or Mr. Lake either,
and what they may have anticipated would be the final upshot, how or
where it was to end, was best known to themselves. Let it lie with
them.
"There's a shawl of yours, I think, Angeline, in the summer-house. Sit
you there while I get it."
He left her on the bench, behind which his wife was standing: they
touched each other within an inch or two. Clara drew in her breath,
and wished the earth _would_ open. Lady Ellis began a scrap of a song,
as if she did not like being alone in the darkness. Her voice, whether
in singing or speaking, was loud and shrill, though she modified it
for Mr. Lake. An antediluvian sort of song: goodness knows where she
could have picked it up. Perhaps the stars, beginning to twinkle
above, suggested its recollection to her.
"As many bright stars as appeared in the sky,
As many young lovers were caught by my eye;
And I was a beauty then, oh then,
And I was a beauty then.
"But now that I'm married, good what, good what!
I'm tied to a proud and fantastical fop,
Who follows another and cares for me not.
"But when I'm a widow I'll live at my ease,
I'll go all about, and I'll do as I please,
And take care how I marry again, again;
And take care how I marry again."
She had time to sing the three stanzas through, repeating the last
line of the first and third verses as a refrain.
Mr. Lake came back swinging the shawl on his arm--a warm grey woollen
one. "All right at last, Angeline. I could not find it, and had to
strike a fusee for a light. It had slipped behind the seat. I began to
think you must have carried it away today."
"I did not know it was there," she answered.
"Don't you remember throwing it off last evening when we were sitting
there, saying you felt hot? Now be quiet: I'll wrap you up myself.
Have you any pins?"
She had risen, and he put the shawl on her head and shoulders; then
turned her round and pinned it under her chin, so that only her face
was visible. With such care!--oh, with such care!
"You are taking as much trouble as though I were going to stay out for
an hour!"
"I wish we were."
"Do you? What would your wife say?"
"Nothing. And if she did--what then? There, you can't feel the cold
now."
"No; I don't think I can."
"But what am I to have for my pains?"
She made no answer. In truth, he did not wait for it. Bending his own
face on the one he held up, he left a kiss and a loving word upon it:
"My dearest!" A long and passionate kiss, as it sounded in his wife's
ear.
Lady Ellis, perhaps not prepared for so demonstrative a proceeding,
spoke a rebuke. He only laughed. They moved away; he retaining his arm
around her for a lingering moment, as though to keep the shawl in its
place; and their voices were dropped again to a soft sweet whisper,
that scarcely disturbed the stillness of the murky autumn night.
Very different from the tone of that wail--had any been near to note
it--when Clara Lake left her hiding-place; a low wail, as of a
breaking heart, that came forth and mingled with the inclement evening
air.
Some writer has remarked--and I believe it was Bulwer Lytton, in his
"Student"--that to the vulgar there is but one infidelity in love. It
is perfectly true; but I think the word "vulgar" is there misplaced,
unless we may apply it to all, whether inmates of the palace
or the cottage, whose temperament is not of the ultra-refined.
_Ultra_-refined, mind! they of the sensitive, proud, impassioned
nature, whose inward life, its thoughts, its workings, can never be
betrayed to the world, any more than they themselves can be understood
by it. Alas for them! They are hardly fit to dwell on this earth, to
do battle with its sins and its cares; for their spirit is more
exalted than is well: it may be said, more etherealized. The gold too
highly refined, remember, is not adapted for general use. That the
broad, vulgar idea conveyed by the word infidelity, is not their
infidelity, is very certain. It is the unfaithfulness of the spirit,
the wandering of the heart's truth to another, that constitutes
infidelity for them; and where such comes, it shatters the heart's
life as effectually as a blast of lightning shatters the tree it falls
on. _This_ was the infidelity that wrought the misery of Clara Lake:
that other infidelity, whether it was or was not to have place in the
future, she barely glanced at. Her husband's love had left her: it was
given to another; and what mattered aught else? The world had closed to
her; never again could she have, as it seemed, any place in it.
Henceforth life would be a mockery.
She returned shivering to the house--not apparently with the cold from
without, but from the chill within--entering by the glass doors. The
fire was nearly out; it wanted stirring and replenishing. She never
saw it, never noticed it; but crept upstairs to her own room to hide
herself. We cannot follow her; for you may not doubt that the quarter
of an hour she stopped in it she had _need_ to be alone, away from the
wondering eyes of men.
Only a quarter of an hour. Clara Lake was not one of your loud women,
who like their wrongs to be proclaimed to the world, and punished
accordingly. In her sensitive reticence, she dreaded their betrayal
more than any earthly thing. So she rose from her knees, and lifted
her head from the chair, where it had lain in utter abandonment of
spirit, and smoothed her hair, and went out of her room again to
disarm suspicion, and was her calm self once more. At that same
moment, though she knew it not, Mr. Lake and Lady Ellis were slowly
strolling across the grass to enter by the same glass doors, their
promenade, which they had been taking up and down the broad walk since
quitting the shrubbery, having come to a decorous end.