The dawn broke dim on Rose Mary's soul--
No hill-crown's heavenly aureole,
But a wild gleam on a shaken shoal.
--D. G. ROSSETTI.
If Fay's progress through life could have been drawn with a pencil it
would have resembled the ups and downs, like the teeth of a saw, of a
fever chart.
To Magdalen it appeared as if Fay could undergo the same feelings with
the same impotent results of remorse or depression a hundred times. They
seemed to find her the same and leave her the same. But nevertheless she
did move, imperceptibly, unconsciously--no, not quite unconsciously. The
sense--common to all weak natures--not of being guided, but of being
pushed was upon her.
Once again she tried to extricate herself from the pressure of some
mysterious current. There seemed no refuge left in Magdalen. There
seemed very few comfortable people left in the world, to whom a
miserable woman might turn. Only Wentworth. _He did not know._
Perhaps Fay would never have turned to him if she had not first confided
in and then shrunk from Magdalen. For the second time in her life she
longed feverishly to get away from home, the home to which only a year
ago she had been so glad to hurry back, when she had been so restlessly
anxious to get away from Italy. Wentworth was beginning to look like a
means of escape. The duke had at one time worn that aspect. Later on
Michael had looked extremely like it for a moment. Now Wentworth was
assuming that aspect in a more solid manner than either of his
predecessors. She was slipping into love with him, half unconsciously,
half with _malice prepense_. She told herself continually that she did
not want to marry him or anyone, that she hated the very idea of
marriage.
But her manner to Wentworth seemed hardly to be the outward reflection
of these inward communings. And why did she conceal from Magdalen her
now constant meetings with him?
Wentworth had by this time tested and found correct all his intimate
knowledge of Woman, that knowledge which at first had not seemed to work
out quite smoothly.
Nothing could be more flattering, more essentially womanly than Fay's
demeanour to him had become since he had set her mind at rest as to his
intentions on that idyllic afternoon after the storm. (How he had set
her mind at rest on that occasion he knew best.) It seemed this
exquisite nature only needed the sunshine of his unspoken assurance to
respond with delighted tenderness to his refined, his cultured advances.
He was already beginning to write imaginary letters to his friends, on
the theme of his engagement: semi-humourous academic effusions as to how
he, who had so long remained immune, had succumbed at last to feminine
charm; how he, the determined celibate--Wentworth always called himself
a celibate--had been taken captive after all. To judge by the letters
which Wentworth conned over in his after-dinner mind, and especially one
to Grenfell, the conclusion was irresistible to the meanest intellect
that he had long waged a frightful struggle with the opposite sex to
have remained a bachelor--a celibate, I mean--so long.
We have all different ways of enjoying ourselves. In the composition of
these imaginary letters Wentworth tasted joy.
* * * * *
In these days Fay's boxes of primroses jostled each other in the
postman's cart, on their way to cheer patients on their beds of pain in
London hospitals.
Fay read the hurried, grateful notes of busy matrons, over and over
again. They were a kind of anodyne.
On a blowing afternoon in the middle of April she made her way across
the down with her basket to a distant hazel coppice to which she had not
been as yet.
A fever of unrest possessed her. She had thought when she confessed to
Magdalen that her misery had reached its lowest depths. But it had not
been so. Her wretchedness, momentarily relieved, had since gone a step
deeper, that was all. She had endeavoured to allay her thirst with a cup
of salt water, which had only increased it to the point of agony.
As she walked a bare tree stretched out its naked arms to waylay her. It
was the very tree under which Michael and she had kissed each other, six
spring-tides ago. She recognised it suddenly, and turned her eyes away,
as if a corpse were hanging in chains from one of its branches. Her
averted eyes fell upon a seagull wheeling against the blue, the
incarnation of freedom and the joy of life. She turned away her eyes
again and hurried on, looking neither to right nor left.
A light wind went with her, drawing her like a "kind constraining hand."
She stumbled across the bare shoulder of the down to the wood below.
Magdalen came by the same way soon afterwards, but not to gather
primroses. Magdalen usually so serene was becoming daily more troubled.
The thought of Michael in prison ground her to the earth. Fay's obvious
wayward misery, which yet seemed to bring her no nearer to repentance,
preyed upon her. She was crushed beneath her own promise of secrecy.
Every day as it passed seemed to cast yet another stone on the heap
under which she lay.
Could she dare to keep that promise? How much longer could she dare to
keep it? And yet if she broke it, what would breaking it avail?
Certainly not Michael's release. No creature would believe her
unsupported word. She had not even been in Italy at the time. She would
only appear to be mad. The utmost she might achieve would be to cast a
malignant shadow over her sister. Even if Fay herself confessed the
difficulties of obtaining Michael's release after this lapse of time
would be very great. Unless the confession came from her they would be
insuperable.
As Magdalen walked her strong heart quailed within her. Long ago in her
passionate youth she had met anguish and had vanquished it alone. But
how to bear the burden of another's sin without sharing the sin? How to
help Fay and Michael? Fay had indeed cast her burden upon her. She knew
not how to endure it, she who had endured so much.
She reached the wood, and entered one of the many aimless paths that
wandered through it. The uneven ground sloped downwards to the south,
and through the manifold branches of the undergrowth of budding hazels
the sea lay deeply blue, far away. The primroses were everywhere among
the trees. A winding side path beckoned to her. She walked a few steps
along it, and came suddenly upon a clearing in the coppice.
She stood still, dazed.
The primroses had taken it for their own, had laid tender hold upon that
little space, cleared and forgotten in the heart of the wood.
Young shoots of hazel and ash pricked up here and there from ivy-grown
stumps, moss gleamed where it could, through the flood of primroses. The
wild green of the mercury, holding its strong shield to the sun, the
violets, and the virgin white of the anemones were drowned in the uneven
waves and billows and shallows of that sea of primroses. They who come
in meekness year by year to roadside hedgerow and homely meadow had come
in power. The meek had inherited the earth.
The light wind impotently came, and vainly went. Overhead a lark sang
and sang in the blue. But none heeded them. The wind and the song were
but a shadow and an echo. They that are the very core of spring hung
forgotten on her garments' fringe. All the passion of the world was
gathered into the still, upturned faces of the primroses, glowing with a
pale light from within. All the love that ever had been, or could be,
all rapture of aspiration and service and self-surrender were mirrored
there.
* * * * *
Magdalen wept for Fay, as once in bygone years she had wept for Everard:
as perhaps some woman of Palestine may have wept when Jesus of Nazareth
passed by, speaking as never man spake, and her lover went with him a
little way and then turned back.
* * * * *
"There is no sorrow," said the primroses. "There is neither sorrow nor
sin. You are of one blood with us. You have come through into light, as
we have done, and those others are coming, too. There is no sorrow, only
a little pressure through the brown earth. There is no sin, only a
little waking and stirring in the dark. Why then grieve, oh little
faith! They are all waking and coming. For the Hand that made us made
them. The Whisper that waked us, wakes them. The Sun that draws us,
draws them. The Sun will have us come."
* * * * *
Fay had already passed by that way, had picked a few primroses, and had
gone on. _Was she never to be at peace again?_ Was she never to know
what it is to lie down in peace at night, never to know what it is to be
without fear. Her whole soul yearned for peace, as the sick man yearns
for sleep. Andrea had prayed that she might find peace. Magdalen had
told her where peace lay. But all that she had found was despair.
On her way homewards she came again upon the clearing and stopped short.
The place seemed to have undergone some subtle change. A tall figure
was standing motionless in it. The face was turned away, but Fay
recognised it instantly. As she came close Magdalen turned. For a moment
Fay saw that she did not recognise her, that she was withdrawn into a
great peace and light.
Then recognition dawned in Magdalen's eyes and with it came a look of
tenderness unspeakable.
"Fay," she said in a great compassion. "How much longer will you torture
yourself and Michael? How much longer will you keep him in prison?"
Fay was transfixed.
Those were the same words that Andrea had said on his deathbed. Those
words were alive, though he was dead. Never to any living creature, not
even to Magdalen, had she repeated them. Yet Magdalen was saying them.
She could not withstand them any longer. The very stones would shriek
them out next.
She fell at Magdalen's feet with a cry.
"I will speak," she gasped in mortal terror. "I will speak." And she
clung for very life to her sister's knees, and hid her face in her
gown.