A CLIMAX.
She was alone in the drawing-room. She heard the bell ring, and the
sound of some one being let in by the front door. Then there was a man's
step in the passage outside. The craven heart grew still with dread.
But it was with a great gentleness that he came forward to her, and took
both of her trembling hands, and said,--
"Gerty, you do not think that I have come to be angry with you--not
that!"
He could not but see with those anxious, pained, tender eyes of his that
she was very pale; and her heart was now beating so fast--after the
first shock of fright--that for a second or two she could not answer
him. She withdrew her hands. And all this time he was regarding her face
with an eager, wistful intensity.
"It is--so strange--for me to see you again," said he, almost in a
bewildered way. "The days have been very long without you--I had almost
forgotten what you were like. And now--and now--oh, Gerty, you are not
angry with me for troubling you?"
She withdrew a step and sat down.
"There is a chair," said she. He did not seem to understand what she
meant. He was trying to read her thoughts in her eyes, in her manner, in
the pale face; and his earnest gaze did not leave her for a moment.
"I know you must be greatly troubled and worried, Gerty; and--and I
tried not to come; but your last letter was like the end of the world
for me. I thought everything might go then. But then I said, 'Are you a
man, and to be cast down by that? She is bewildered by some passing
doubt; her mind is sick for the moment; you must go to her, and recall
her, and awake her to herself; and you will see her laugh again!' And so
I am here, Gerty; and if I am troubling you at a bad time--well, it is
only for a moment or two; and you will not mind that? You and I are so
different, Gerty! You are all-perfect. You do not want the sympathy of
any one. You are satisfied with your own thinkings; you are a world to
yourself. But I cannot live without being in sympathy with you. It is a
craving--it is like a fire--Well, I did not come here to talk about
myself."
"I am sorry you took so much trouble," she said, in a low voice--and
there was a nervous restraint in her manner. "You might have answered my
letter, instead."
"Your letter!" he exclaimed. "Why Gerty, I could not talk to the letter.
It was not yourself. It was no more part of yourself than a glove. You
will forget that letter, and all the letters that ever you wrote; let
them go away like the leaves of former autumns that are quite forgotten;
and instead of the letters, be yourself--as I see you now--proud-spirited
and noble--my beautiful Gerty--my wife!"
He make a step forward and caught her hand. She did not see that there
were sudden tears in the imploring eyes. She only knew that this
vehemence seemed to suffocate her.
"Keith," said she, and she gently disengaged her hand, "will you sit
down, and we can talk over this matter calmly, if you please; but I
think it would have been better if you left us both to explain ourselves
in writing. It is difficult to say certain things without giving
pain--and you know I don't wish to do that--"
"I know," said he, with an absent look on his face; and he took the
chair she had indicated, and sat down beside her; and now he was no
longer regarding her eyes.
"It is quite true that you and I are different," said she, with a
certain resolution in her tone, as if she was determined to get through
with a painful task--"very seriously different in everything--in our
natures, and habits, and opinions, and all the rest of it. How we ever
became acquainted I don't know; I am afraid it was not a fortunate
accident for either of us. Well--"
Here she stopped. She had not prepared any speech; and she suddenly
found herself without a word to say, when words, words, words were all
she eagerly wanted in order to cover her retreat. And as for him, he
gave her no help. He sat silent--his eyes downcast--a tired and haggard
look on his face.
"Well," she resumed, with a violent effort, "I was saying, perhaps we
made a mistake in our estimates of each other. That is a very common
thing; and sometimes people find out in time, and sometimes they don't.
I am sure you agree with me, Keith?"
"Oh yes, Gerty," he answered, absently.
"And then--and then--I am quite ready to confess that I may have been
mistaken about myself; and I am afraid you encouraged the mistake. You
know, I am quite sure, I am not the heroic person you tried to make me
believe I was. I have found myself out, Keith; and just in time before
making a terrible blunder. I am very glad that it is myself I have to
blame. I have got very little resolution. 'Unstable as water'--that is
the phrase: perhaps I should not like other people to apply it to me;
but I am quite ready to apply it to myself; for I know it to be true;
and it would be a great pity if any one's life were made miserable
through my fault. Of course, I thought for a time that I was a very
courageous and resolute person--you flattered me into believing it; but
I have found myself out since. Don't you understand, Keith?"
He gave a sign of assent; his silence was more embarrassing than any
protest or appeal.
"Oh, I could choose such a wife for you, Keith!--a wife worthy of you--a
woman as womanly as you are manly; and I can think of her being proud to
be your wife, and how all the people who came to your house would admire
and love her--"
He looked up in a bewildered way.
"Gerty," he said, "I don't quite know what it is you are speaking about.
You are speaking as if some strange thing had come between us; and I was
to go one way, and you another, through all the years to come. Why, that
is all nonsense! See! I can take your hand--that is the hand that gave
me the red rose. You said you loved me, then; you cannot have changed
already. I have not changed. What is there that would try to separate
us? Only words, Gerty!--a cloud of words humming round the ears and
confusing one. Oh, I have grown heart-sick of them in your letters,
Gerty; until I put the letters away altogether, and I said, 'They are no
more than the leaves of last autumn: when I see Gerty, and take her
hand, all the words will disappear then.' Your hand is not made of
words, Gerty; it is warm and kind, and gentle--it is a woman's hand. Do
you think words are able to make me let go my grasp of it? I put them
away--I do not hear any more of them. I only know that you are beside
me, Gerty; and I hold your hand!"
He was no longer the imploring lover: there was a strange elation, a
sort of triumph, in his tone.
"Why, Gerty, do you know why I have come to London? It is to carry you
off--not with the pipes yelling to drown your screams, as Flora
Macdonald's mother was carried off by her lover, but taking you by the
hand, and waiting for the smile on your face. That is the way out of all
our troubles, Gerty: we shall be plagued with no more words then. Oh, I
understand it all, sweetheart--your doubts of yourself, and your
thinking about the stage: it is all a return of the old and evil
influences that you and I thought had been shaken off forever. Perhaps
that was a little mistake; but no matter. You will shake them off now,
Gerty. You will show yourself to have the courage of a woman. It is but
one step, and you are free! Gerty," said he, with a smile on his face,
"do you know what that is?"
He took from his pocket a printed document, and opened it. Certain
words there that caught her eye caused her to turn even paler than she
had been; and she would not even touch the paper. He put it back.
"Are you frightened, sweetheart? No! You will take this one step, and
you will see how all those fancies and doubts will disappear forever!
Oh, Gerty, when I got this paper into my pocket to-day, and came out
into the street, I was laughing to myself; and a poor woman said, 'You
are very merry, sir; will you give a poor old woman a copper?' 'Well,' I
said, 'here is a sovereign for you, and perhaps you will be merry
too?'--and I would have given every one a sovereign, if I had had it to
give. But do you know what I was laughing at?--I was laughing to think
what Captain Macallum would do when you went on board as my wife. For he
put up the flags for you when you were only a visitor coming to Dare;
but when I take you by the hand, Gerty, as you are going along the
gangway, and when we get on to the paddle-box, and Captain Macallum
comes forward, and when I tell him that you are now my wife, why, he
will not know what to do to welcome you! And Hamish, too--I think Hamish
will go mad that day. And then, sweetheart, you will go along to
Erraidh, and you will go up to the signal-house on the rocks, and we
will fire a cannon to tell the men at Dubh-Artach to look out. And what
will be the message you will signal to them, Gerty, with the great white
boards? Will you send them your compliments, which is the English way?
Ah, but I know what they will answer to you. They will answer in the
Gaelic; and this will be the answer that will come to you from the
lighthouse--'_A hundred thousand welcomes to the young bride!_' And you
will soon learn the Gaelic, too; and you will get used to our rough
ways: and you will no longer have any fear of the sea. Some day you will
get so used to us that you will think the very sea-birds to be your
friends, and that they know when you are going away and when you are
coming back, and that they know you will not allow any one to shoot at
them or steal their eggs in the springtime. But if you would rather not
have our rough ways, Gerty, I will go with you wherever you please--did
I not say that to you, sweetheart? There are many fine houses in
Essex--I saw them when I went down to Woodford with Major Stuart. And
for your sake I would give up the sea altogether; and I would think no
more about boats; and I would go to Essex with you if I was never to
see one of the sea-birds again. That is what I will do for your sake,
Gerty, if you wish; though I thought you would be kind to the poor
people around us at Dare, and be proud of their love for you, and get
used to our homely ways. But I will go into Essex, if you like,
Gerty--so that the sea shall not frighten you; and you will never be
asked to go into one of our rough boats any more. It shall be just as
you wish, Gerty; whether you want to go away into Essex, or whether you
will come away with me to the North, that I will say to Captain
Macallum, 'Captain Macallum, what will you do, now that the English lady
has been brave enough to leave her home and her friends to live with us?
and what are we to do now to show that we are proud and glad of her
coming?'"
Well, tears did gather in her eyes as she listened to this wild,
despairing cry, and her hands were working nervously with a book she had
taken from the table; but what answer could she make. In self-defence
against this vehemence she adopted an injured air.
"Really, Keith," said she, in a low voice, "you do not seem to pay any
attention to anything I say or write. Surely I have prepared you to
understand that my consent to what you propose is quite impossible--for
the present, at least? I asked for time to consider."
"I know--I know," said he. "You would wait, and let those doubts close
in upon you. But here is a way to defeat them all. Sweetheart, why do
you not rise and give me your hand, and say 'Yes?' There would be no
more doubts at all!"
"But surely, Keith, you must understand me when I say that rushing into
a marriage in this mad way is a very dangerous thing. You won't look or
listen to anything I suggest. And really--well, I think you should have
some little consideration for me--"
He regarded her for a moment with a look almost of wonder; and then he
said, hastily,--
"Perhaps you are right, Gerty; I should not have been so selfish.
But--but you cannot tell how I have suffered--all through the
night-time, thinking and thinking--and saying to myself that surely you
could not be going away from me--and in the morning, oh! the emptiness
of all the sea and the sky, and you not there to be asked whether you
would go out to Colonsay, or round to Loch Scridain, or go to see the
rock-pigeons fly out of the caves. It is not a long time since you were
with us Gerty; but to me it seems longer than half a dozen of winters;
for in the winter I said to myself, 'Ah, well, she is now working off
the term of her imprisonment in the theatre; and when the days get long
again, and the blue skies come again, she will use the first of her
freedom to come and see the sea-birds about Dare.' But this last time,
Gerty--well, I had strange doubts and misgivings; and sometimes I
dreamed in the night-time that you were going away from me
altogether--on board a ship--and I called to you and you would not even
turn your head. Oh, Gerty, I can see you now as you were then--your head
turned partly aside; and strangers round you; and the ship was going
farther and farther away; and if I jumped into the sea, how could I
overtake you? But at least the waves would come over me, and I should
have forgetfulness."
"Yes, but you seem to think that my letters to you had no meaning
whatever," said she, almost petulantly. "Surely I tried to explain
clearly enough what our relative positions were?"
"You had got back to the influence of the theatre, Gerty--I would not
believe the things you wrote. I said, 'You will go now and rescue her
from herself. She is only a girl; she is timid; she believes the foolish
things that are said by the people around her.' And then, do you know,
sweetheart," said he, with a sad smile on his face, "I thought if I were
to go and get this paper, and suddenly show it to you--well, it is not
the old romantic way, but I thought you would frankly say 'Yes!' and
have an end of all this pain. Why, Gerty, you have been many a romantic
heroine in the theatre; and you know they are not long in making up
their minds. And the heroines in our old songs, too: do you know the
song of Lizzie Lindsay, who 'kilted her coats o' green satin,' and was
off to the Highlands before any one could interfere with her? That is
the way to put an end to doubts. Gerty, be a brave woman! Be worthy of
yourself! Sweetheart, have you the courage now to 'kilt your coats o'
green satin?' And I know that in the Highlands you will have as proud a
welcome as ever Lord Ronald Macdonald gave his bride from the South."
Then the strange smile went away from his face.
"I am tiring you, Gerty," said he.
"Well, you are very much excited, Keith," said she; "and you won't
listen to what I have to say. I think your coming to London was a
mistake. You are giving both of us a great deal of pain; and, as far as
I can see, to no purpose. We could much better have arrived at a proper
notion of each other's feelings by writing; and the matter is so serious
as to require consideration. If it is the business of a heroine to
plunge two people into lifelong misery, without thinking twice about it,
then I am not a heroine. Her 'coats o' green satin!'--I should like to
know what was the end of that story. Now really, dear Keith, you must
bear with me if I say that I have a little more prudence than you, and I
must put a check on your headstrong wishes. Now I know there is no use
in our continuing this conversation: you are too anxious and eager to
mind anything I say. I will write to you."
"Gerty," said he, slowly, "I know you are not a selfish or cruel woman;
and I do not think you would willingly pain any one. But if you came to
me and said, 'Answer my question, for it is a question of life or death
to me,' I should not answer that I would write a letter to you."
"You may call me selfish, if you like," said she, with some show of
temper, "but I tell you once for all that I cannot bear the fatigue of
interviews such as this, and I think it was very inconsiderate of you to
force it on me. And as for answering a question, the position we are in
is not to be explained with a 'Yes' or a 'No'--it is mere romance and
folly to speak of people running away and getting married; for I suppose
that is what you mean. I will write to you if you like, and give you
every explanation in my power. But I don't think we shall arrive at any
better understanding by your accusing me of selfishness or cruelty."
"Gerty!"
"And if it comes to that," she continued, with a flush of angry daring
in her face, "perhaps I could bring a similar charge against you, with
some better show of reason."
"That I was ever selfish or cruel as regards you!" said he, with a vague
wonder, as if he had not heard aright.
"Shall I tell you, then," said she, "as you seem bent on recriminations?
Perhaps you thought I did not understand?--that I was too frightened to
understand? Oh, I knew very well!"
"I don't know what you mean!" said he, in absolute bewilderment.
"What!--not the night we were caught in the storm in crossing to
Iona?--and when I clung to your arm, you shook me off, so that you
should be free to strike for yourself if we were thrown into the water?
Oh, I don't blame you! It was only natural. But I think you should be
cautious in accusing others of selfishness."
For a moment he stood looking at her, with something like fear in his
eyes--fear and horror, and a doubt as to whether this thing was
possible; and then came the hopeless cry of a breaking heart,--
"Oh God, Gerty! I thought you loved me--and you believed _that!"_