MAGDALEN. IN VALEDICTION
It was July of the same year, and the time drew towards evening. The
bright, westering sun was shining into the library at the Red
Gables. In one of the deep window-seats, Eleanor and Michael sat
side by side, and hand in hand. It seemed as if he had just returned
from some journey, for there were signs about the room of a
traveller’s recent arrival; and she, it would appear, had not even
yet done bidding him welcome, her eyes dwelling still, with
undiminished light of affection upon a face beloved. They had been
man and wife for three weeks, and after a short ten days of
honeymoon, he had brought her home, and left her there, while he
went to London, to attend to the innumerable affairs connected with
his brother’s business, will, and death. Ten minutes ago he had come
in, and she was asking him for his news, which he seemed almost
unwilling to enter upon.
‘There are letters for me, I perceive,’ he said at last. ‘That is
from Roger. When did it come?’
‘This morning only.’
‘Let me have it.’
‘No. I have read it. It will keep, because it contains good news. I
want to know first all you have not told me. The good news for the
last.’
‘I have told you almost everything, my child. It has been a sad
business; sad from beginning to end. I have settled it all up—all
poor Gilbert’s affairs. He was different from me; no doubt of that.
I learnt a lesson or two.’
‘In what way?’
‘Why, Eleanor, it is simply the old story, that a man often seems
much worse than he is. I never for a moment realised that _I_ could
have been in fault. I always saw his sin so large; it blotted out
everything else. We will talk it all over another time. There was no
difficulty in settling his affairs; disorder was abhorrent to his
very soul. When I think of that, and of his painstaking, methodical,
perfect system of doing things, and then remember my own
scatterbrained practices, and remember how young he was, too, I feel
as if now, by the light of all these other troubles and experiences,
I can understand the temptation that beset him then, to keep things
safe—the returning prosperity which he had built up with so much
trouble—to keep me from squandering it, as he felt sure I should.
Yes; I can see it. By George! What an opinion I must have had in
those days of my own perfection and freedom from flaw of any kind.
It is incredible.’
‘But, Michael, it was wrong of him.’
‘Yes, it was wrong of him, and as wrong of me. Roger knew that.
Roger was very unhappy because of what I did. We were both about as
wrong as we could be, I suppose.’
Eleanor was silent. She would not gainsay him, but she did not
agree; and it was hardly to be expected that she should at that
stage of the proceedings.
‘His will, Eleanor, will surprise you. It was made since that
Christmas when you and he were together at Thorsgarth; when Magdalen
and Otho became engaged. And he has left his money rather
curiously,—half to Magdalen, in case she marries Otho, to be settled
upon her and her children if she should have any, as strictly as it
can possibly be done; and half to you, in case you marry—whom, do
you suppose?’
‘Not himself?’ she asked, pale and breathless.
Michael laughed.
‘No, madam, but your present husband.’
‘Michael! And what if——’
‘If neither of those marriages really took place, it all came to me,
except an annuity to Magdalen of five hundred a year.’
‘To Magdalen!’
‘Yes. I, too, was surprised at first. And then I seemed to
comprehend that too. It was for the sake of old times, when we were
young together. He and Magdalen in a cool, curious sort of way,
always understood one another; and when he was over here, he several
times spoke to me about her, and seemed distressed at the idea of
the great change and reverse that had come over her. “She is not a
high-minded woman,” he said to me once, “but she has had every hope
crushed, and has lived in a kind of tomb with that old woman all the
best of her life.” So that was the way he took, I suppose, of
expressing his sympathy.’
‘It is wonderful,’ said Eleanor, in a low voice, feeling humbled,
puzzled, and ashamed. This view of Magdalen’s life had never
intruded itself into her mind. And it was as if she heard a voice
echoing in the air about her, ‘Judge not!’
‘Yes, it is wonderful, and very humbling to me. And to you also, he
left this ring.’
He took a case from his breast-pocket, and gave it to her. It
contained a ring set with a large pearl of unusual size and beauty,
surrounded by brilliants, in a fine and delicate small pattern.
‘He wished you to wear it always,’ said Michael in a low voice.
‘This was in a private letter to me, half finished, which he must
have left amongst his other papers when he came down here with Otho,
just before that wedding. He said it was more like his idea of you
than anything he had ever seen.’
Eleanor was weeping silently as Michael placed this ring upon her
hand.
‘Why did he think of me in that way?’ she whispered, between her
tears. ‘It was so wrong, so unlike the truth. It makes me afraid. I
shall always feel that I am a renegade when I look at it.’
‘It made him a great deal happier, at any rate,’ said Michael,
gently. ‘And now, Eleanor, something else. I saw Otho while I was in
town.’
‘Yes?’ she said, in a slow, reluctant whisper.
‘Well, he is indeed a broken man. His sins have come home to him,
and Ada avenged herself fearfully; but how, do you suppose?’
She shook her head.
‘Not by her own death; he hardly alluded to it. That whole
connection with Ada was the merest freak. It is, as it were, by
chance alone—that awful chance which we call Destiny—that that
caprice has had such effects for us all. It is, through Gilbert’s
death, and his alone. It sounds odd to say such a thing of the
regard of one man for another, but one might almost say that his
affection for Gilbert has been the one love of his life——’
‘I know what you mean; and it is so, in a way. Gilbert had more of
his heart and soul than any one else—even Magdalen.’
‘Yes, even Magdalen; for he trifled and played with her, and in
fact, mastered her even in coming round to her wishes; but Gilbert,
never. It was like the love of a dog for its master. It has knocked
him down completely; he has no spirit left. He said there was
nothing to live for when a fellow’s friend was gone, and he gave
some dark hint as to being Gilbert’s murderer. I did not stay long
with him. I don’t know what will become of him. It was absolutely
necessary that I should see him on business; so I saw him, and had
done with him.’
‘Did he say nothing about Ada’s little child, and its death?’
‘Not a word; and I did not, either. It seemed to me a desecration to
mention such things to him.’
‘Yes. Let us not speak of him. We cannot do anything for him. He
would not let us; and for years to come I do not think I could bear
to look upon his face. That is all I want to know. Let us read
Roger’s letter now. He has got a great post, and is going to take a
long holiday with us in the autumn; and then he is going to South
America to manage a business there for the people he is now with.’
‘Ah! His career, that I have prophesied for him, is beginning then,’
said Michael, as he read Roger’s letter with her, seated beside her,
each of them holding a leaf. And as they sat thus, with that
softened look upon their faces which comes with thoughts of a
much-loved absent one, the door opened, and the servant announced
Miss Wynter.
They both looked up in surprise as she entered. She walked up to the
table and stood looking at them with a keen, searching gaze, and her
lips quivered a little as she saw the attitude of entire trust, and
the look of peace and of rest upon both faces. Magdalen, like the
others, was in black; she was still clad in the deep mourning she
had been wearing for Miss Strangforth; perhaps in her soul she was
not sorry that circumstances allowed her to wear a garb so well
according with her own feelings. But it struck Eleanor that she was
equipped for a longer journey than that from Balder Hall to the Red
Gables. Her face was very pale, but there was no abatement—there
never had been any abatement—in the pride of its expression.
Whatever Magdalen’s fate, she would always carry it, to all outward
seeming, with the stateliness of a queen who wears her crown.
‘You were so absorbed, you scarcely heard my name,’ she said, in her
clear, rather sarcastic tones, and with a slight cool smile. ‘I am
glad to find you in. I heard that Michael was coming home to-day,
and I did not wish to go away without saying good-bye.’
‘You are going away?’ said Eleanor. ‘Are you going for long?’
‘Most likely I shall never see you again,’ Magdalen pursued. ‘It is
not probable that our paths will ever cross. Indeed, I shall make it
my object to prevent them from doing so.’
‘Magdalen——’
But Michael, a little better acquainted with human nature, and
especially with Magdalen’s nature, than was his wife, had already
guessed, and his eyes were fixed upon Miss Wynter’s face,
scrutinisingly, but with little surprise.
‘I am going to London,’ said Magdalen. ‘I intend travelling there by
the south mail this evening. I have sent my things on, and called to
see you on my way to the station.’
‘To London——’ began Eleanor.
Magdalen’s eyebrows contracted. She gave a short, impatient laugh.
‘How long you are in comprehending! I see Michael understood at
once. Ah, Michael, if you had understood me as well seven years
ago!... Well, Eleanor, I am going to Otho.’
‘To Otho!’
‘Yes, to Otho. When I promised to marry him, I swore that when the
time came, I would follow him faithfully, no matter how or where. He
said we should both know when it had come. It has come now. Since he
saw you in town, Michael, I have heard from him. He has taken some
rooms for me, and I shall go and stay there; and as soon as I have
been there long enough, we shall be married.’
Eleanor was silent at first. Then she began tremulously—
‘Have you thought seriously about it? After what has happened, he
can have no claim upon you; and you surely do not dare to go to
him.’
‘Dare—I dare, most certainly, go to him, and stay with him. I am not
afraid of him. I never was. If some other people had been as little
afraid of him as I was, perhaps he might not have made such a
hideous bungle as he has done, of his life. But if I were afraid of
him, I should go to him all the more, after what I swore to him,
lest he should do me some hurt if I disobeyed him.’
‘But, Magdalen——’
‘But, Eleanor!’ said the other, in a deep, stern voice. ‘Let me
explain myself, and then, if you fail to understand, it will not be
my fault. I am going to him now, first because of my promise, which
meant, that when there should be nothing to prevent me from marrying
him, I would be his wife. And what is there to prevent me now?’
‘There is himself!’ cried Eleanor, passionately. ‘Michael, tell
her—explain to her that she must not tie——’
‘Wait! She has not finished yet,’ said Michael.
‘No, I have not,’ Magdalen assented. ‘First, because of my promise
to him. You think that because himself, as you call it, frightened
and repelled you, it must, of course, be the same with every one
else. Well, while I am about it, I will tell you the whole truth. He
has not a friend in the world, I suppose, now that Gilbert is gone,
except me. I am in the same case. While my poor old aunt still
lived, there was always some one who believed in me, and thought I
was an angel. There is no one now. Himself—such as he is—loves me,
with such love as he has to give; clings to me, and wants me. And
I—such as I am—infinitely beneath you, I confess’ (with a mocking
smile and bow), ‘love him, with what heart has not been crushed out
of me. Yes, and such as he is,’ she added, raising herself before
them, and looking at them with a kind of defiance on her scornful
face—‘such as he is, I think it worth while to go to him, and try to
save him from destruction. Perhaps I shall not succeed. That doesn’t
matter. I want something to do, and there it is, ready to my
hand.... And also, I shall then have kept a promise to one man, at
any rate.’
Eleanor stared at her, half-fascinated, half-repelled.
‘One word to you, Michael,’ added Magdalen. ‘You look happy now, as
I have never seen you look before; and I firmly believe you will be
happy. You must have forgiven me long ago for not having married
you; and now I should think you join thankfulness to forgiveness.
But I wish to tell you that I know I behaved vilely to you—not in
breaking off our engagement, but in ever making it; and you treated
me better than most men would treat a woman who has cheated them,
and then made a mess of her affairs. I wronged you, and I deserve
what I have got for it. That is more than I would own to any one
else in the world. It will serve as my wedding present to you,
Eleanor; there is no testimony to goodness so strong as that which
is offered by what is—not goodness. And now,’ she added, looking at
the clock, ‘it is time for me to go. I should like to shake hands
with you both, and wish you good-bye.’
In her attitude, as she turned towards them, there was something
imposing. There was neither softness, nor benignity, nor true
nobility—the nobility of soul, that is—in any of her looks or
gestures; but there was a certain still, unbending pride, and a
dauntless, unquailing gaze into the iron eyes of misfortune which
thrilled them both. Eleanor took her hand between both her own, and
looked long, earnestly, speechlessly into her face, saying at last—
‘Magdalen, why do you delight to make yourself out a worse woman
than you are? Is it nothing that you have done, to live with Miss
Strangforth as you did, and treat her so that she thought you an
angel? nothing in what you are going to do? For it is a martyrdom to
which you doom yourself, say what you please.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ said Magdalen, with a harsh laugh, looking with a
curious expression into Eleanor’s eyes. ‘That’s why I am not a good
woman, Eleanor. It is no martyrdom at all. I am glad, I am _glad_ I
am going—going to get away from this hateful place, and be married
to Otho. And if I had got married to Michael, long before he ever
saw you, child, I should have been a miserable woman, and should
most likely have done something outrageous, sooner or later. That’s
where the badness comes in. Good-bye, Michael.’
‘Let me come to the train and see you off,’ he said.
‘No, certainly not. You mean to be kind, I know; but I am going
alone. If I fancied you were looking after me, I might look back,
and not be so delighted with my future as I ought.’
‘Then, Magdalen, give it up, and stay with——’ began Eleanor eagerly,
as she stepped forward with outstretched hands. But the other had
gone swiftly out of the room, without looking back, and had closed
the door after her.
Eleanor turned to her husband, who was looking at her. They
confronted each other for a moment or two, till she asked—
‘Is she a heroine, or is she—Michael, what is she?’
‘She is Magdalen Wynter,’ he answered. ‘I don’t know what she is;
but there is certainly some heroine in her.’
‘To marry Otho!’ murmured Eleanor.
‘I think she is just doing what she said herself, going to work with
the thing nearest her hand—anything to get away from here. And it
takes the shape of heroism, because, you know, she will never let
him sink; at least, she will be always struggling to keep him
straight—what they call straight,’ said Michael, and his voice was
not quite steady. ‘Magdalen always laughed at heroism,’ he added.
‘God help her!’ said Eleanor, in a low voice.
* * * * *
The factories by the river have now been long disused. Most likely
Michael will some time follow the once despised advice of honest Sir
Thomas Winthrop, and pull them down. As they stand now, silent and
quiet, footsteps echo through the passage which leads to the bridge,
and Tees goes murmuring past the spot, telling, as it seems to our
imperfect ears, the same story exactly that it has been telling for
so many hundred years. Whether what we call inanimate nature stands
blindly by, without taking any impress from the scenes which
humanity acts in the arena she prepares for them, is one of the
mysteries which we cannot solve. To us, the trees appear the same
each year, and the voice of the river changes only with the seasons,
and with periods of drought or flood. A shriek, once uttered, is
lost, and death is the end of all things.
Long letters come from Roger to the friends at the Red Gables,
telling of prosperity and advancement, speaking of love unchanged to
them and theirs, but never hinting at any thoughts of returning to
his native land.
Ada’s child, which pined and died not long after she did, is buried
in her grave; and Gilbert also sleeps in Bradstane churchyard.
As for the two who were left alone of all this company who had been
young at the same time, the years brought changes in their life, and
ofttimes in their habitations. But since this chronicle professes
only to deal with that part of their lives which was played out in
the Borderland where they dwelt, it is not necessary to follow those
changes, but only to say that they still speak of Bradstane and the
Red Gables as ‘home.’ For humane and kindly hearts always find loves
and interests; hopes and occupations spring thickly around them, on
every side and in every soil; and so it was with these two. Human
interests and hopes, keen and deep, bind them to the old spot. There
are those there, both old and young, whom they love, and who love
them, and from whose vicinity they would not, if they could, tear
themselves altogether. These things, and a certain righteousness of
thought and deed in their own lives, have mercifully dimmed and
blurred the memories of one or two tragic years, and have restored
most of its loveliness and much of its freshness to life; have done
for their bitterer remembrances exactly what the abundant ivy and
the gracious growth of flowers and ferns have done for the naked
grimness of the castle ruins which stand on the cliff above the
river.
THE END
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Transcriber’s Note
Certain compound words appear both with and without hyphens:
dogcart, hearthrug, bulldog, scatterbrained. Where the hyphen
appears on a line break, it is retained or removed based on other
occurences of the word.
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected,
and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the
original.
21.11 a decide[d]ly horsey, slangy young fellow Inserted.
26.24 you know,[’] Added.
43.9 we used to go in to tea?[’] Inserted.
54.21 remarkably observant,[’] Added.
78.21 [‘]After that Added.
86.24 he is exactly sly,[’] Added.
94.19 though[t] he does not know it. Removed.
116.1 his own ple[a]santry Inserted.
165.33 ‘Oh, with pleasure[,]’ Added.
233.7 of the right stuff.[’] Added.
239.1 at any of the balls?[’] Added.
253.2 [‘/“]Fancy their faces ... Replaced.
253.5 ... just to look at them.[’/”] Replaced.
261.25 ‘Do you![’] exclaimed Ada, Added.
261.26 [‘]Well, I never![’] Added.
264.19 higher and better.[’] Added.
271.14 [‘]I am sorry Added.
271.29 [‘]Treat you in this way! Removed.
311.14 are always accidents,[’] Added.
313.12 every one and everything.[’] Added.
313.29 the tune of it.[’] Added.
323.6 before you go,[’] Added.
326.12 [‘]I should have done Added.
368.8 about life and other[s] things Removed.