What she craved, and really felt herself entitled to, was
a situation in which the noblest attitude should also be the
easiest.--EDITH WHARTON.
On a stormy night, towards the end of March, Magdalen was lying awake
listening to the wind. Her tranquil mind travelled to a great distance
away from that active, monotonous, daily life which seemed to absorb
her, which had monopolised her energies but never her thoughts for so
many years past.
Suddenly she started slightly and sat up. A storm was coming. A tearing
wind drowned all other sounds, but nevertheless she seemed to listen
intently.
Then she slowly got out of bed, lit her candle, stole down the passage
to Fay's door, and listened again. No sound within. At least none that
could be distinguished through the trampling of the wind over the
groaning old house.
She opened the door and went in. A little figure was crouching over the
dim fire, swaying itself to and fro. It was Fay.
Magdalen put down her candle, and went softly to her, holding out her
arms.
Fay raised a wild, wan face out of her hands and said harshly:
"Aren't you afraid I shall push you away again like I did last time?"
Then with a cry she threw herself into the outstretched arms.
Magdalen held the little creature closely to her, trembling almost as
much as Fay.
Outside the storm broke, and beat in wild tears against the pane.
Within, another storm had broken in a passion of tears.
Fay gasped a few words between the paroxysms of sobbing.
"I was coming to you, Magdalen,--I was trying to come--and I couldn't--I
had pushed you away when you came before--and I thought perhaps you
would push _me_ away--no--no--I didn't, but I said to myself you would.
I hardened myself against you. But I was just coming, all the same
because--because,"--Fay's voice went thinner and thinner into a
strangled whimper, "because I can't bear it alone any more."
"Tell me about it."
But Fay tore herself out of her sister's arms and threw herself face
downwards on the bed.
"I can't," she gasped. "I must and I can't. I must and I can't."
Magdalen remained standing in the middle of the room. She knew that the
breaking moment had come and she waited.
She waited a long time.
The storm without spent itself before the storm within had spent itself.
At last Fay sat up.
Then Magdalen moved quietly to the dying fire. She put on some coal, she
blew the dim embers to a glow.
Fay watched her.
Magdalen did not look at her. She sat down by the fire, keeping her eyes
fixed upon it.
"I have done something very wicked," said Fay in a hollow voice from the
bed. "If I tell you all about it will you promise, will you swear to me
that you will never tell anybody?"
"I promise," said Magdalen after a moment.
"Swear it."
"I swear."
Fay made several false starts and then said:
"I was very unhappy with Andrea."
Magdalen became perceptibly paler and then very red.
"He never cared for me," continued Fay, slipping off the bed, and
kneeling down before the fire. "It's a dreadful thing to marry a man who
does not really care. I sometimes think men can't care. They are too
selfish. They don't know what love is. I was very young. I did not know
anything about life. He was kind, but he never understood me."
Magdalen's eyes filled with tears. In the room at the end of the passage
she had listened to her mother's faint voice in nights of wakeful
weakness speaking of her unhappy marriage. Did all women who failed to
love deep enough say the same things? And as Magdalen had listened in
silence then so she listened in silence now.
"He did not trust me. And then I had no children, and he was dreadfully
disappointed. And he kept things to himself. There was no real
confidence between us, as there ought to be between husband and wife,
those whom God has joined together. Andrea never seemed to remember
that. And gradually his conduct had its natural effect. I grew not to
care for him, and--he brought it on himself--I'm not excusing myself,
Magdalen--I see now that I was to blame too--I ended by caring for
someone else--someone who _did_ love me, who always had since we were
boy and girl together."
"Not Michael!"
"Yes. Michael. And when he came out to Rome it began all over again. It
never would have done if Andrea had been a good husband. I did my best.
I tried to stave it off, but I was too miserable and lonely and I cared
at last. And he was madly in love with me. He worshipped me."
Fay paused. She was looking earnestly into her recollections. She was so
far withholding nothing. As she knelt before the fire making her
confession Magdalen saw that according to her lights she was speaking
the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
"Of course he found it out at last and--and we agreed to part. We
decided that he must leave Rome. He wished to see me once to say
good-bye. Was it _very_ wrong of me to let him come once,--just once?"
"It was perhaps natural. And after Michael had said good-bye why did not
he leave Rome?"
"He was arrested the same night," faltered Fay. "I said good-bye to him
in the garden, and then the garden was surrounded because they were
looking for the murderer of the Marchese, and Michael could not get out.
And he was afraid of being seen for fear of compromising me. So he hid
behind the screen in my room. And then--you know the rest--the police
came in and searched my rooms, and Michael came out and confessed to the
murder, and said I had let him hide in my room. It was the only thing to
do to save my reputation, and he did it."
"And what did you say?"
"Nothing. What could I say? Besides, I was too faint to speak."
"And later on when you were not too faint?"
"I never said anything later on either." Fay's voice had become almost
inaudible. "I hoped the real murderer would confess."
"But when he did not confess?"
"I have always clung to the hope. I have prayed day and night that he
might still confess. Sinners do repent sometimes, Magdalen."
There was a terrible silence, during which several fixtures in
Magdalen's mind had to be painfully and swiftly moved, and carefully
safeguarded into new positions. Magdalen became very white in the
process.
At last she said, "Did Andrea _know_ that Michael was innocent of the
murder?"
"I never thought so at the time, but just before he died he said
something cruel to me which shewed he knew Michael's innocence for
certain, had known it from the first."
"Then if he knew Michael had not murdered the Marchese, how do you
suppose he accounted for his being hidden in your rooms at midnight,
after he had ostensibly left the house?"
Fay stared at her sister aghast.
"I never thought of that," she said.
"What _can_ Andrea have thought of that?"
"Andrea was very secretive," faltered Fay. "You never could tell what he
was thinking. And I was the last person he ever told things to. Roman
Catholics are like that. The priest knows everything instead of the
wife."
There was another silence.
Magdalen's question vaguely alarmed Fay. Natures such as hers if given
time will unconsciously whittle away all the sinister little incidents
that traverse and render untenable the position in which they have taken
refuge. They do not purposely ignore these conflicting memories, but
they don't know what has weight and what has not, and they refuse to
weigh them because they cannot weigh anything. Their minds, quickly
confused at the best of times, instinctively select and retain all they
remember that upholds their own view of the situation and--discard the
rest.
Fay could not answer Magdalen's trenchant question. She could only
restate her own view of her husband's character.
Magdalen did not make large demands on the truthfulness of others if
they had very little of it. She did not repeat her question. She waited
a moment, and then said:
"You seem to think that Andrea never guessed the attachment between
yourself and Michael. But he must have done so. And if he had not
guessed it till Michael was found in your rooms, at any rate he knew it
_then_--for certain. _For certain_, Fay. Remember that is settled. There
was no other possible explanation of Michael's presence there, if you
bar the murder explanation, which is barred as far as Andrea is
concerned. Now from first to last Andrea retained his respect for
Michael and his belief in your innocence in circumstances which would
have ruined you in the eyes of most husbands. You say Andrea did not
understand you or do you justice. On the contrary, it seems to me he
acted towards you with great nobility and delicacy."
Fay was vaguely troubled. Her deep, long-fostered dislike of her husband
must not be shaken in this way. She could not endure to have any
fixtures in her mind displaced. So much depended on keeping the whole
tightly wedged fabric in position.
"You don't know what cruel words he said to me on his deathbed," she
said. "I don't call it nobility and delicacy never to give me the least
hint till the day he died that he knew why Michael was in prison."
"Perhaps he hoped--hoped against hope--that----" Magdalen did not finish
her sentence. She fixed her eyes on Fay's. A great love shone in them,
and a great longing. Then, with a kind of withdrawal into herself, she
went on. "Andrea was loyal to you to the last. He went away without a
word to anyone except, it seems, to you. I always liked him, but I see
now that I never did him justice. I did not know with his Italian
hereditary distrust of woman's honour that he could have risen to such a
height as that. Think of it, Fay. What grovelling and sordid suspicions
he might have had of you, must inevitably have had of you and Michael if
he had not followed a very noble instinct, that of entire trust in you
both in the face of overwhelming proof to the contrary. Dear Fay, the
proof was overwhelming."
Fay was silent.
"Just as we all believed in Michael's innocence of the murder, so Andrea
believed in your innocence of a crime even greater, never faltered in
his belief, and went to his grave without a word of doubt. Oh! Fay, Fay,
do you suppose there are many men like that?"
And Magdalen, who so seldom wept, suddenly burst into tears. Perhaps the
thought forced itself through her mind, "If only once long ago I had met
with one little shred of such tender faith!"
"Andrea was better than I thought," Fay faltered. The admission made her
uneasy. She wished he had not been better, that her previous view of him
had not been disturbed.
Magdalen's tears passed quickly. She glanced again at Fay through a veil
of them, looking earnestly for something she did not find.
"And Michael," she went on gently. "Dear, dear Michael. He gave himself
for you, spent in one moment, not counting the cost, his life, his
future, his good name--for your sake. And he goes on day by day, month
by month, year in year out, enduring a living death without a word--for
your sake. How long has Michael been in prison?"
"Two years." Fay's voice was almost inaudible.
"Two years! Is it only two? To him it must seem like a hundred. But if
his strength remains he will go on for thirteen more. Oh! Fay, was any
man since the world began so loyal to any woman as your husband and your
lover have been to you? You said just now that men were selfish and
could not love. I have heard many women say the same. But _you_! How can
_you_ say such a thing! To have met one man who was ready to love and
serve them is not the lot of many women. Very few of us ever find
anything more than a craving to be loved in the stubborn material of
men's hearts. And we are thankful enough when we find that. But to have
stood between two such men who must have crushed you between them if
either of them had had one dishonouring thought of you. A momentary
selfishness, a momentary jealousy in either of them, and--where would
_you_ have been?"
"No one knows how good Michael is better than I do," said Fay, "but what
you don't seem to realise is how awful these years have been for _me_.
He has suffered, but sometimes I think I have suffered more than he has.
No, I don't _think_ it, I _know_ it. He can't have suffered as much as I
have."
Magdalen put out her hand, and touched Fay's rough head with a
tenderness that seemed new even to Fay, to whom she had been always
tender.
"You have suffered more than Michael," she said. "I have endured certain
things in my life, but I could never have endured as you have done the
loss of my peace of mind. How have you lived through these two years?
What days and nights upon the rack it must have meant!"
Oh! the relief of those words. Fay leaned her head against her sister's
knee, and poured forth the endless story of her agony. She had someone
to confide in at last, and the person she loved best, at least whom she
loved a little. She who had never borne a mosquito bite in silence, but
had always shewn it to the first person she met, after rubbing it to a
more prominent red, with a plaintive appeal for sympathy, was now able
to tell her sister everything.
The recital took hours. A few minutes had been enough on the subject of
the duke and Michael, but when Fay came to dilate on her own sufferings,
when the autobiographical flood-gates were opened, it seemed as if the
rush of confidences would never cease. Magdalen listened hour by hour.
Is it given even to the wisest of us ever to speak a true word about
ourselves? Do our whispered or published autobiographies ever deceive
anyone except ourselves? We alone seem unable to read between the lines
of our self-revelations. We alone seem unable to perceive that sinister
ghost-like figure of ourselves which we have unconsciously conjured up
from our pages for all to see; the cruelly faithful reflection of one
whom we have never known. Those who love us and have kept so tenderly
for years the secret of our egotism or our false humility or our
meanness, how can they endure to hear us unconsciously proclaim to the
world what only Love may safely know concerning us?
Magdalen heard, till her heart ached to hear them, all the endless
bolstered-up reasons why Fay was not responsible for Michael's fate. She
heard all about the real murderer not confessing. She heard much that
Fay would have died rather than admit. Gradually she realised that it
was misery that had driven Fay to a partial confession, not as yet
repentance, not the desire to save Michael. Misery starves us out of our
prisons sometimes, tortures us into opening the doors of our cells
bolted from within, but as a rule we make a long weary business of
leaving our cells when only misery urges us forth. I think that
Magdalen's heart must have sunk many times, but whenever Fay looked up
she met the same tender, benignant look bent down upon her.
"Oh! why didn't I tell you before?" she said at last. "I always wanted
to, but I thought--at least I felt--I see I did you an injustice--I
thought you might press me to--to----"
"_To confess_," said Magdalen, her low voice piercing to Fay's very
soul.
"Y-yes, at least to say something to a policeman or someone, so that
Michael might be let out. I was afraid if I told you you would never
give me any peace till Michael was released."
"Have you _had_ any peace since he was put into prison?"
Fay shook her head.
"Make your mind easy, Fay, I shall never urge you to"--Magdalen
hesitated--"to go against your conscience."
"What would you have done in my place?" said Fay hastily.
"I should have had to speak."
"You are better than me, Magdalen, more religious. You always have
been."
"I should have had to speak, not because I am better or worse than you,
but simply because I could not have endured the misery of silence. It
would have broken me in two. And if I had not had the courage to speak
in Andrea's lifetime, I would have spoken directly he was dead, and have
released Michael and married him. You have not told me why you did not
do that."
"I never thought of it. I somehow regarded it as all finished. And I
have never even _thought_ of marrying Michael or anyone when I was left
a widow. I was much too miserable. I had had enough of being married."
There was a difficult silence.
"I should never have a moment's peace if--if I _did_ speak," said Fay at
last.
"Yes, you would," said Magdalen with sudden intensity. "That is where
peace lies."
Fay raised herself to her knees and looked into Magdalen's eyes. The
dawn had come up long ago, and in its austere light Magdalen's face
showed very sharp and white in a certain tender fixity and compassion.
She had seen that look once before in her husband's dying eyes. Now that
she was suddenly brought face to face with it again she understood it
for the first time. Had not Andrea's last prayer been that she might be
given peace!