THE TRIBUNAL
After that day there was not a day but rich presents were showered on me
by the Dawsons, which reminded me of the decking of a victim led to the
sacrifice.
What did I care about the jewels and furs and laces that my bridegroom
brought me? About his promise of what he should give me when I was his?
Garret Dawson used to eye me with a grim approval: and I heard him say
to my grandfather once that he could have had rank and wealth and beauty
for his son, and that I would bring him nothing; but that he and Rick
knew a unique thing when they saw it and were prepared to pay any price
for it. At which speech my poor grandfather bowed with a look as though
he felt it hard to endure.
Mrs. Dawson took me in her kind, old, motherly arms when she came to see
me, and said humbly that she could never be grateful enough to me for
consenting to marry her son; and what she said afterwards had something
significant in it if I had not been too miserable to notice it.
"He'll make you a good husband, dear," she said. "He's a good boy at
heart, although he has been a bit wild. And, listen, dear, you may have
your feelings about the way Dawson made his money and I'm not saying you
wouldn't be right. But, my dear, there's many a thing Dawson did--hard
and cruel things, you understand, dear--that Rick never knew of. The
love of money's not in him any more than it's in me; and he has done
many a kind thing."
I was able to return the poor soul's kiss because I liked her, and
always shall, and was sorry for her.
Indeed, I wanted new friends, for the old were angry with me or held
aloof from me.
When my engagement was announced my godmother had come in hot haste from
her cousin's dying bed, which now she hardly left, to remonstrate with
my grandfather and grandmother. She had urged and pleaded with them, had
done all she could, seeing that she was, as she said to me, desperately
sorry for them, and had finally left them in a coldness.
"You poor child!" she said to me when I met her in the avenue, she
driving her fast mare in the smart dog-cart which was her favourite
equipage, I on foot. She jumped down and held the reins over her arm
while she talked. "What a face for a bride! Why, Bawn, you are older by
ten years than the child I used to know. They are mad, mad, poor dear
souls, to let Garret Dawson frighten them; and I am helpless, because
they will tell me nothing. Couldn't you stand out, Bawn?"
I shook my head.
"If only Theobald were here!" she said, in a helpless passion. "If only
Theobald were here! To think that they should rob him of his sweetheart
because they are caught in Dawson's spider's web. Their own grandchild!
It seems unnatural. And you two lovers from your cradles!"
I don't know what impelled me to tell her the truth, but the words came
to my lips and I spoke them.
"I never loved Theobald and he never loved me," I said. "They have not
that at their doors. I should not have married Theobald."
"Why, God bless me, child!" she said, staring at me. "You will be
telling me next that you are in love with Richard Dawson. But I shall
not believe it, not with that face."
She went away with a look of hopeless bewilderment.
I fared less well with Maureen, who was bitterly angry with me and said
things to me that I could not have borne if she had been always
responsible for what she said.
"A fine husband you'll be getting, Miss Bawn," she said. "There's no
accounting for ladies' tastes, and by all accounts there are a good many
ladies who are fond of Master Richard. Ask Lady Ardaragh. There isn't
much she wouldn't give him, they say. If half the stories are true,
there are many that have a better right to him than you, Miss Bawn. And
to think you've thrown over my darling boy for Garret Dawson's son!"
I must have looked frightened, for she became suddenly contrite, and,
throwing her arms about me, rated herself for the things she had said,
saying that she knew I wasn't to blame, and that it was only her love
for me and Theobald which made her so bitter.
Then her mood changed; and snatching up my hand with Richard Dawson's
ring on it she burst into a harsh laugh.
"What was over him at all," she said, "to give you the like o' that?
Didn't he know the green was unlucky? Sure, 'tis unlucky for him it'll
be, and you'll never marry him. My dream'll come true, and you'll be
saved in time, Miss Bawn. The ill luck is for him, not for you."
Indeed, I found it hard in those days to meet the eyes of the
neighbours, gentle and simple, who could not know why I had consented to
marry Richard Dawson. I felt that the county buzzed with it, castle and
cabin alike, and it made me shrink away from those who had always been
kind to me. I was ashamed to go down the village street, for I knew the
people would come to their doors and look after me, and say, "Isn't it a
wonder for Miss Bawn that she'd marry a Dawson? and the family always so
proud, too."
I noticed that none of the people who came to call were effusive in
their congratulations except Lady Ardaragh, and she congratulated me
with a high colour and an exaggeration of speech which did not ring
true.
The Misses Chenevix called one day, and, while Miss Henrietta sat
unhappily looking down at her lap, Miss Bride congratulated me in a
voice which had no congratulation in it.
"I wish you happiness, Bawn," she said. "Not that I ever think marriage
a subject for congratulation, but rather for condolence."
A somewhat dreary sense of the humour of the speech made me answer that
I thought I agreed with her, whereupon she snapped me up and said that,
to be sure, some people must be married, though she for her part thought
the world would get on very well without marriage; but then, of course,
she was old-fashioned.
"And if you had to marry, Bawn," she went on, "why didn't you wait for
your cousin? The county always expected you to marry your cousin; and,
if you must be married, Theobald would have suited you better than Mr.
Dawson. You're not the girl I thought you, Bawn."
I wondered what Theobald would think of me. I had left it to my
grandparents to explain to Theobald, and his letters to me had gone
unanswered now for three weeks or more.
But, after all, it was not Theobald who was my tribunal; it was not from
Theobald's judgment I shrank.
It was Anthony Cardew I feared most. When I endured the ignominy of
Richard Dawson's kisses, when he would hold me in his arms with his
face against mine and I felt that nothing worse could happen to me, I
used to keep wondering all the time what Anthony Cardew would think of
me when he knew.
The thought made me desperate. I could have slit my nose and chin,
defaced myself like St. Ursula and her maidens, so that I should cease
to be desirable to Richard Dawson. But there were my grandparents, and
the disgrace which I must buy back for them by giving myself.
Then one day, being in great misery, it occurred to me that I would
write a letter to Anthony Cardew. I was quite sure that I should be dead
before he received it, for I knew I should not live long with Richard
Dawson as his wife, if indeed I were not saved before that. I was glad
to think that I was growing thin; that I was languid on the least
exertion, and had no appetite for my food. I hoped that God would be
merciful to me, and that I should just save them and die. And presently
Theobald would come home to them and they would be happy.
And so I thought that I would write a letter to Anthony Cardew, so that
when I was dead he would understand and be sorry for me. And I sat down
and wrote it. For I could not bear that he should think me unworthy and
shameful, seeing that I loved him with all my heart and soul.