“Could Love part thus? was it not
well to speak? To have spoken once?
It could not but be well.
* * * * * *
O then like those, who clench their nerves to rush
Upon their dissolution, we two rose,
There—closing like an individual life—
In one blind cry of passion and of pain,
Like bitter accusation ev’n to death,
Caught up the whole of love and utter’d it,
And bade adieu for ever.”
LOVE AND DUTY.
THERE was a terrible silence in the little arbour.
Outside, in the garden, the sun and the flowers, the birds and the
insects, went on with their song of rejoicing as before, but it reached
no longer the ears of the two human beings who but now had re-echoed it
in their hearts.
Was it hours or only minutes that it lasted —this silence as of death.
At last Ralph spoke, quietly—so very quietly, that though Marion could
not see his face, his voice made her start with a strange, unknown
terror.
“And who did this thing?” he asked. “Who forced you into this hideous
mockery of a marriage?”
“No one,” she replied; “no one did it but myself. You can’t understand.
Ralph;” and the anguish of appeal and remorse in her voice made it sound
like a wailing cry. “You can never know all I have endured. I was so
wretched, so very wretched; so utterly, utterly desolate and alone. And
then I heard that of you, and I lost my trust, and it nearly killed me.
Your own words had warned me not to build too securely on what might be
beyond your power to achieve.” Ralph ground his teeth, but she went on:
“I thought I was going to die, and I was glad. But I did not die, and he
was kind and gentle to me, and I was alone. And I thought—oh! I thought,
Ralph, till this very morning, that I had torn you out of my heart. The
scar, I knew, would be always there, but the love itself, I thought it
was dead and buried; and only just now I sat here thinking to myself in
my blindness and folly, that I could even see the grass be ginning to
grow on the grave.”
“And your husband?” Ralph asked, in the same dead, hard, feelingless
tone. “Your husband—I forget the name you told me—do you then care for
him? Do you love him?”
“Love him!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Ralph, have mercy! I did not mean to
deceive him! I told him I could not give him what he gave me; for he, I
know, loves me. He is good and true, and very kind to me. And he urged
it very much, and said he was not afraid; he would be content with what
I said, what I thought I could give him. For remember, Ralph, that other
I thought was dead—dead and buried for ever. I care for him too much to
have yielded had I known it was not so. But ‘love him!’ When I think of
the days when first I learnt what that word means, when you taught it
me, Ralph—you, and no other! And now you ask me, calmly, if I love him!
You of all!” She stopped suddenly, as if horrified at herself; and then,
her excitement changed to bitter shame and self-reproach, she cried
in an anguish, “Oh! what am I saying? Why has it all come back when I
thought it was gone? You are making me wicked to Geoffrey. Ralph! Ralph!
why do you mock me with these cruel questions? Have mercy! Have a little
mercy!”
“Mercy!” said Ralph, turning from the door-post on which he had been
leaning, and rising to his full height as he spoke. Standing right in
front of her, and with a strange change in his voice. “ ‘Mercy!’ you
ask? Yes child, I will have mercy. Mercy on you and on myself, who have
done nothing, either of us, deserving of this hideous torment. You are
‘married’ you tell me—married to another man—but I tell you, you are
not. That was a blasphemous mockery of a marriage! I am your husband, I,
and no other! You are mine, Marion, and no one else’s! My wife! my own!
Come away with me, child, now, this very moment, and have done at once
and for ever with this horrible night-mare that is killing me. For I
cannot lose you again! Oh, my God! I cannot!” And as he spoke, he tried
to draw her towards him, not gently, but roughly, violently almost, in
sore passion of anguish which was enraging him.
Hitherto, since he had begun to speak, Marion had allowed him to hold
her clasped hand in his. But now, as she felt the hold of his fingers
tighten, and as the full meaning of his wild, mad words broke upon her,
with a sudden movement she rose from the bench on which she was sitting,
and tore herself from his grasp, growing at the same moment as if by
magic, perfectly, icily calm.
But only for an instant did her instinct of indignation against him
last. One glance at the dark, passionate, storm-tossed face beside
her—so changed, so terribly, sadly changed in its expression from its
usual calm, gentle kindliness—and her mood softened. She laid her hand
trustingly on his arm.
“Ralph,” she said, “poor Ralph, hush! If you are for a moment weak,
I must be strong for both. This is terrible that has come upon us—so
terrible that just now I do not see that I can bear it and live. For
you know all my heart, and you can judge if it is not to the full as
terrible for me as for you.” (This she said in her innocent instinct of
appealing to his pity for her.) “You at least are alone—are bound by no
vows to another, and that other, alas, so good and kind. I had rather,
ten thousand times rather, he were hard and unloving and cruel! But
though just now I can see nothing else, this one thing I see plainly—you
must go Ralph, you must leave me now at once, and we must never, never
see each other again. There is just one little glimpse of light left in
the thought that hitherto we have neither of us done anything to forfeit
the other’s respect—unless indeed that deceit of mine?—but no,” she
added, glancing at his face, “I know you have not thought worse of me
for that. Do not let us destroy this poor little rag of comfort left us,
Ralph. Let me still think of you as good and brave—yes, as the best and
bravest. And do not tempt me, Ralph, to say at this terrible moment what
in calmer times might cause me shame and remorse to remember.” And she
raised her face to his with a very agony of appeal in the grey eyes he
loved so fervently.
“Child,” he said, still with the hard look on his face, “child, are you
an angel or a stone? Have you a heart or have you none? If after all you
are just like other women; utterly incapable of entering into the depths
a man’s one love; at least you should pity what you cannot understand,
instead of maddening me with that conventional humbug about mutual
respect and so on. Who but a woman would talk so at such a time? But I
will do as you wish,” he went on, lashing himself into fury against her,
“I will not stay here longer to tempt you by my evil presence to outrage
your delicate sense of propriety, or to say one word which hereafter
you might consider it had not been perfectly ‘correct’ or ‘ladylike’ to
utter. Good God! what a fool I have been! I had imagined you somewhat
different from other women, but I see my mistake. It shall be as you
wish. Good bye. You shall not again be distressed by the sight of me.
Truly you do well to despise me.”
And with a bitter sneer in his voice, he turned away. It was at last too
much. The girl threw herself down recklessly on the rough garden-seat.
She shed no tears, she was not the sort of woman to weep in such dire
extremity of anguish. She shook and quivered as she lay there, but that
was all.
But soon the thought came over her “was it not better so?” Better that
Ralph should thus cruelly misjudge her, for in the end it might help him
to forget her. Forget her—yes. This was what she must now pray for, if
her love for him were worthy of the name.
“Ah but he might have said good-bye gently,” broke forth again from the
over-charged heart. “He might have spoken kindly when it was for the
last, last time.”
As the wish crossed her thoughts, and she half unconsciously murmured
it in words, she felt that some one was beside her. An arm raised her
gently and replaced her on the seat. It was Ralph again. Something in
his touch soothed and quieted her. She did not this time shrink from
him in alarm, but for a moment leant her throbbing head restfully on his
shoulder.
“Marion, my poor child. Marion, my lost darling, forgive me.”
“Forgive you, Ralph? Yes, a thousand times, yes,” she replied. “But do
not so grievously misjudge me. It is no conventional humbug, as you call
it. It is the old plain question of right and wrong.”
As she said the words there flashed across her mind—or was it some
mocking imp that whispered it?—the remembrance of some other scene, when
this same phrase, “a plain question of right and wrong,” had been used
by herself or another. When was it? Ah yes! Long, long ago, the first
morning in the little house at Altes. She recalled it all perfectly.
The room in which they sat, the position of their chairs. And she heard
Cissy’s voice saying, timidly, “I don’t pretend to be as wise as you,
May, but are you quite sure there is not a plain question of right and
wrong in the matter?” And, to add to her misery, the thought darted into
her mind—what if she had then allowed herself to see it thus? If instead
of acting as she had done to screen him, she had encouraged Harry
bravely to appeal to her father, how different might all have been?
This terrible complication avoided, her life and Ralph’s saved from this
irremediable agony? Could it indeed be that this terrible punishment had
come upon her for this?
Well for us is it, truly, that our sins and mistakes are not judged as
in such times of morbid misery and exaggerated self reproach we are apt
to imagine!
The remembrance of that bygone scene at Altes flashed through Marion’s
mind in an instant, but not too quickly to add its sting to her
suffering. And, half mechanically, she repeated:
“Yes, the old plain question of right and wrong.”
“I know it is,” said Ralph, “and I knew it in my heart when you just now
said it. I was mad, I think, doubly mad. First, to torture you with my
wild, wicked words, and then to turn upon you with my sneers. So I have
come back to you for a moment, just for one little last moment, child,
to ask you to forgive me and say goodbye. Look up at me, dear, and let
me see that you forgive me.”
She looked up at him; looked with her true, clear eyes into his, while
he gazed down on her—oh, with what an agony of earnestness, as if he
would burn her face into his brain for ever!
For a moment neither spoke.
Then he said:
“It is as if one of us were dying, Marion, though that I think would be
easy to bear compared with this. ‘The bitterness of death’ they talk of!
All, they little know! Good-bye, my own true darling. My one love, my
life’s love—goodbye.” And as he said the words he stooped and kissed
her—gently, but long and fervently, on the forehead.
Poor Ralph! It was the first time.
Was it wrong of her to allow it? Those who think so may judge her, and I
for one shall not argue it with them.
She stood with bent head, motionless, staring at the ground, but seeing
nothing. Then she looked up hastily, with eyes for the first time
blinded with burning, slow-coming tears. Tears that bring no relief,
wrung from the sore agony of a bleeding heart.
But he was gone!
And so “the old, old story” was over for ever for these two; as for how
many others, whose suffering is never suspected!
Ralph walked back slowly to the inn, along the very garden path which
half-an-hour before, half a lifetime it seemed to him, he had paced so
light-heartedly. The same little stiff box-edging he had noticed before,
the same scent from the roses and honeysuckle, the same sun and sky and
air. Then, he remembered he had said to himself, it was all sweet and
bright and fair. Could he have said so? Was the change in himself only?
“Could it indeed be,” he asked, as we all do at these awful times,
beating our poor bruised wings against the bars of the inexorable “it
is”—“could it be that nature should remain thus unmoved and indifferent
when human beings were riven in agony?”
And a feeling of intensest disgust, amounting almost to rage, seized
him at the sight of the hateful, heartless, beautiful world! But when he
found this mood coming over him he checked it violently.
“I shall go mad,” he thought, “if I yield to this just now. I must not
think of my part of it yet. Time enough for that soon— Time enough,
surely, in the desolation of the long years stretching away before me.”
And he writhed at the thought. “What can I do?” he asked himself, “what
can I do to lighten it to her, or to strengthen her to bear it? Oh,
my darling, my darling. I that would have sheltered you from sorrow as
never yet woman was sheltered. And to think that of all living beings on
this earth, I am the one who must ever to you be less than nothing! But
I am maddening myself again.”
A sudden idea struck him.
“Yes,” he thought. “I should like to see him. One glance at his face
would give me a better notion of him than anything I could gather by
hearsay. And it will be a sort of satisfaction to know in whose hands my
poor child’s future lies.”
But on thinking it over he remembered that actually he had heard and
asked nothing about this same “him.” In the absorbing personal interest
of his interview with Marion he had forgotten all but themselves.
Whom she had married, what his station, where they had met—was utterly
unknown to him. Nor, indeed, if she had attempted to tell would he have
cared to listen. All, in that first bitter, bewildering agony, was to
him comprised in the fact that she did in truth belong to another.
He walked on slowly through the garden, the hot sun beating on his head,
trying as he went to recall the name which he half fancied had been once
mentioned by Marion. But in vain. When he got to the house he was seized
upon by the landlord and obliged to listen to a long string of apologies
for the over-done state of the unfortunate chop. Various emissaries had
been despatched, it appeared, to inform him that his “something in
the way of lunch” was ready, but had all failed in their mission. “Not
expectin’, sir, as you would have strolled beyond the garden, which as
being so you must please excuse.”
“Certainly,” replied poor Ralph, feeling that indeed his cup had not
been full if he were now to be called upon to partake of this wretched
chop in the presence of landlord, waiters, and stable boys, as appeared
to be their intention. But he succeeded in dismissing them; and,
thankful for silence and solitude, sat down to his semblance of a meal
in the little parlour opening out of the hall.
While eating, or making a pretence of so doing, he kept his mind
directed to the consideration of his present object; a sight for himself
of the “him,” the husband who possessed for him so strange an interest.
After a time he rang the bell, intending to enter into conversation with
the waiter, and to gather from him indirectly the information he sought.
In the meantime, however, a new arrival had distracted the attention of
the household of the Peacock, and his summons was not at once obeyed.
While waiting he turned to the window and stared out vacantly, as we so
often do when utterly indifferent to all passing around us. But Ralph’s
indifference was not of long duration. A carriage drove into the little
court-yard, drew up at the door, and a gentleman alighted—jumped out
in a light-hearted, boyish fashion, hardly waiting till the horse had
stopped. He was smoking, and had several letters in his hand, one of
which he appeared to be in the act of reading. He stood still for a
moment, then sauntered leisurely into the porch and remained there while
he finished the perusal of his letter. It was Geoffrey.
From where Ralph stood at the parlour window, he had an excellent view
of the young man, whom he no sooner caught sight of than he felt an
intuitive conviction that here before him was Marion’s husband.
Geoffrey for a wonder was in a thoughtful mood, or looked so at least,
as he stood there reading his letter under the shade of the honeysuckle
and clematis climbing over the porch, the sunlight between the branches
falling softly on his bright brown hair. A pleasant picture truly; and
so Ralph owned to himself as he looked at him. The tall, manly figure,
the fair, almost boyish face, made an attractive whole. It was a strange
position. The two men, as to years nearly of an age, but in all else so
marvellously dissimilar. And yet though utter strangers to each other,
with the one absorbing interest in common. Ralph, from his concealment,
gazed at the young man, standing in perfect unconsciousness full in his
view, as if he would read every smallest characteristic, every hidden
feeling of his heart. Never did anxious mother scan more narrowly the
man to whom she was asked to confide her darling’s happiness, than did
Ralph the countenance of his unconscious rival, the being who had robbed
him of all that made life worth having.
Just then some one from within came to the door and spoke to Geoffrey.
It was only a servant with some trivial message, but Ralph, still
watching earnestly, noticed the gentle courtesy, the smile sunnying over
the clear, honest eyes and mouth, the frank, bright readiness with which
the young man looked up and answered. Then refolding the letter he
had been reading, replaced it in his pocket, and sauntered away in an
opposite direction.
“Yes,” thought Ralph, “I am satisfied she spoke truly. He is ‘good and
true and kind.’ And attractive too, personally, very. Most women would
not find it difficult to love that man. But then, alas, my poor child is
not like most women! Come what may however, I don’t think that man
will ever be unkind to her. Heaven knows I am not vain, but it would be
nonsense to pretend to myself that I think she will ever come to feel
for him, good fellow though I don’t doubt he is, what I know she has
felt for me. But yet, in time and when totally separated from all
associations connected with me, I trust a sort of moonlight happiness
may yet be in store for her.”
Here Ralph’s reflections were interrupted by the tardy entrance of the
servant, who waited to receive his orders.
“How soon will the horses be ready?” asked he.
“Whenever you please, Sir,” replied the man. “In a quarter of an hour at
most your carriage can be round.”
“Very well,” said Ralph, “you can order it to come round in twenty
minutes from now. In the meantime, bring me pens and ink and paper, as
I have a letter to write,” adding as the man was leaving the room,
“By-the-by, who is the gentleman that drove in just now?”
“Mr. Baldwin, Sir. Comes from Brentshire, I believe. Least-ways the
lady’s maid does. Mrs. Baldwin is here too, Sir. A walkin’ in the garden
she is, I believe. Were you wishing to speak to Mr. Baldwin, Sir? He
has just stepped round to look at a horse which the ostler was thinking
might carry the lady while here, but I can run after him if so be you
wish to see him, Sir.”
“I; oh dear no, not at all,” replied Ralph, who began to think a more
appropriate sign for the little inn would have been “The Magpie.” “Only
be so good as bring in the writing materials at once.”
When they were brought, he sat down and wrote; quickly and
unhesitatingly, as if perfectly prepared with what he had to say. His
letter folded and directed, he sauntered out into the garden again.
“There’s just a chance,” he thought, “that I may get it unobserved into
her own hands, otherwise I must post it, which, however, I would much
prefer not to risk.”
Looking about he spied a small boy busy weeding. He called the child to
him and led him, to the top of the long narrow path, at the end of which
was the green with the peacock bush in the centre, and the old arbour
at the side. He felt no doubt that Marion was still there, her husband
fortunately having gone to the stables.
“Now, my boy,” said he, “run as fast as you can to the summer-house down
there and give this letter to the lady you’ll see there. If she is gone
bring it back to me. Be as quick as you can and I’ll have a shilling
ready for you when you come back.”
The child was soon back again.
“Was the lady still there?” asked Ralph.
“Yes, Sir,” said the little messenger, glowing with delight at the
thought of a day’s wages so easily earned. “Yes, Sir, the young lady
were there, and she said, ‘Thank you, and would I give this to the
gentleman,’ ” holding out a little turquoise ring, as he spoke. A
simple, common little ring enough. She had had it from childhood. He
had often seen it on her little finger. He seized it eagerly, and turned
away. Then recollecting himself, he gave the boy the promised reward,
thanked him quietly, and returned to the house.
At the door the post-chaise stood waiting, and in another minute he was
gone, thankful at last to feel free to think over, as he phrased it,
his part of the day’s tragedy. Think of it! Did he ever not think of it
during that weary day and night, and many a weary day and night to come?
Women say men do not know what it is to be broken-hearted! That little
turquoise ring might have told a different tale.
“I wonder,” thought Ralph as he drove along on his solitary hopeless
journey. “I wonder what she will think it right to do. She said her part
was the worse to bear. I fear it is. She is stronger and more unselfish
than most women, but, on the other hand, she is truthful and ingenuous.
Will she be strong enough for his sake to leave things as they are, to
let him think that at least she is giving him no less than she promised?
Or will it be impossible for her to live with him without to some extent
confiding in him, even though by so doing she wrecks, for the time
at least, his happiness, poor fellow, and what chance she has of any
herself? I see no distinct right or wrong in the case, but I wonder what
she will do. Oh, if I could have saved her this! Suffering for myself I
can bear. If only I could have borne it all, my burden would have seemed
lighter!”
He caught the express at Bexley and went on in it to London. For no
reason, with no object, save that he felt it would be a relief to him
to escape the unendurable cross-questioning which would certainly have
awaited him, had he returned straight to Friar’s Springs.
Late in the evening, as he travelled on through the twilight into the
intense darkness of a moon-less midsummer night, a strange feeling came
over him, bringing with it a faint, slight breath of consolation.
“She said truly,” he thought, “that I was more fortunate than she in
that I am free and unfettered, bound by no uncongenial ties to another.
For me at least it is no sin to love her still, for I know it is not in
my nature ever to replace her by any other woman. And who knows but what
some day in the far future, though I may never see her again, I may in
some way be able to serve her, to lighten the lot it is so bitter to
me to think I have been the means of darkening.” And somehow there came
into his mind the remembrance of a well-known, simple little German
ballad, that years and years ago, as a mere boy, he had liked and
been struck by. For he had been peculiar as a boy—dreamy, morbid and
sentimental. The two last verses rang in his ears that night, over and
over again he heard them. And ever after they were associated with what
this bitter day had brought to pass. And the face of the dead maiden on
the bier grew to him like that of his own lost love.
These were the words that thus haunted him—
“Der dritte hub ihnDer dritte hub ihn wieder sogleich
Und kusste sie an den Mund so bleich.”
“Dich liebt’ ich immer, dich lieb ich noch heut,
Und werde dich lieben in Ewigkeit.”
From London a day or two later he wrote to his mother, telling her
simply, and in as few words as possible, that the hopes he had confided
to her, were utterly and for ever at an end. He begged her to spare him
the pain of entering into useless particulars, and enjoined her never,
if she valued his peace and comfort, to allude to the affair directly or
indirectly to him or anyone else.
Lady Severn obeyed him implicitly, and only in the recesses of her own
heart, as I said, abused “Sir Archibald’s niece” for the sorrow she had
brought upon her son.
Late in the autumn, after seeing his mother and nieces comfortably
re-established at Medhurst, and assisting at the gorgeous nuptials of
Florence Vyse and Mr. Chepstow, Sir Ralph left England for an indefinite
time: to travel in strange and distant lands, in search—not of
happiness—but of interest and occupation sufficient to make life
endurable.