We were married at the end of the month, and when I brought my
beautiful bride back to Elmore Court, I thought myself the happiest
man in the world. I had reason indeed to think so; for I had marked in
Geraldine a depth and earnestness of passion which I felt time would
deepen and make still more earnest. And yet what was there about her
that forced me into light musings, of which I was hardly conscious of
the tenor? Of course, I deemed her love genuine, and I knew afterwards
that it was genuine. Yet there was about it a suggestion of oddness,
a hint of some sombre presence, which my instincts surely felt, if my
heart did not at first recognise.
But her beauty was of the radiant type that sheds a universal lustre on
the character. It transfigured her in my eyes. It threw a veil of light
over her nature, and hid from my sight those features which a lesser
grace must have discovered. My love was apt to give names of its own to
the qualities it detected. To me, there seemed no violation of reason
in calling her artless, wayward, childlike. I found her capricious
conversation fascinating, not perplexing. Her habit of breaking off
in her grave speech to chase some irrelevant and simple fancy charmed
me. Her composite character suggested the two extremes of womanly
sense and childlike innocence, and her beauty filled with light the
void that divided them. So that I took no notice of the want of those
connecting links, those pauses and gradations of mind, which in reality
are as needful to the intellectual character as the middle keys of an
instrument are essential to its capacity for producing harmony.
I had proposed that we should spend our honeymoon abroad; but she
would not listen to our leaving Elmore Court. She said it was now in
the fulness of its beauty, and where should we find abroad so lovely
and quiet an abode? "Did I not tell you, naughty boy, that I would not
leave this house?" she had said. "It is the very perfection of a home,
in my eyes. We know no one. We can have all the long days to ourselves.
I can work in the garden without minding my dress. I should hate to
have to keep myself tidy to receive callers--stupid people, who would
come to envy and go away to tell stories. Look at my hair now--if I
were anywhere else I should have to keep it dressed."
And she pointed at her reflection in the glass, which showed her yellow
hair negligently looped behind with a piece of blue ribbon, with stray
curls sunning over her white forehead, and streaming down her back.
She seemed, and she was, I am sure, perfectly happy. The gardeners
took to her at once; and I would often see one or the other of them
following her about to listen to her directions, touching his cap so
often as he received her wishes; and yet, spite of his respectful
manner, hinting by his behaviour that he thought her rather more of a
child than a woman.
She had wanted to bring her own maid Lucy along with her, but the two
servants and Mrs. Williams were enough for our wants. So Lucy returned
to the village with the promise of filling the next vacancy in Elmore
Court.
I purchased a phaeton and a smart little mare, and would drive
Geraldine long excursions into the country. The memory of those days
is very fresh. She seems to be at my side while I write, her large
luminous eyes fixed on my face, her small white hand on my neck,
interrupting me with the musical lilt of her voice to tell me of a
bright-plumed bird that is drinking at the fountain.
You do not ask me what had become of the fine resolutions that had
brought me to Cliffegate. You know, for you have doubtless experienced,
that love is too absorbing a business to admit of any other occupation.
The living freshness of my wife's society made my library a kind of
mausoleum; and if I preferred basking in the luxury of her beauty
to handling the dusty skeletons which lined the shelves, you will
not be surprised. At the time of forming my resolutions I had never
contemplated marrying; and now that I _had_ married, my wife, for the
time being at all events, fully satisfied the craving for occupation,
for something to live for, which I had hoped ambition might have
appeased. Yet I did not despair of waking one morning with a strong
impulse to study. The fact of my life being no longer companionless
would disarm the fears of ambition; and I felt that, should I fail in
the attempt to distinguish myself hereafter, disappointment would be
qualified, if indeed not obviated, by the knowledge that I had always
by my side some one to love and who loved me, and whose happiness it
would be a joyous occupation to minister to.
Her dislike of society had at first surprised me; but it made me love
her the more. It argued, I thought, her ignorance of her fascination;
for I could not doubt, had she known her powers of delighting, that she
would never have buried them in so dead a retreat as Cliffegate. She
was twenty-seven, a period of a woman's life when her love of pleasure
and admiration is strong; though, it must be owned, that this love
very often strengthens in proportion as time makes its gratification
more difficult. Marrying her as I had, without a deep knowledge of her
character, it would not have surprised me had she expressed a desire
to change her solitude for a life of pleasure. The dull time she had
passed would certainly have justified the wish. Her eagerness therefore
to remain hidden from the world pleased me. It illustrated a nature
pure and unsophisticated; a heart innocent and sincere. And it made me
happy to believe I could always think of her as my own, without having
the calmness of my devotion sullied by those breezes of jealousy which
society sometimes brings with it, and which one's particular friends
generally take care shall increase to gales.
We passed our time almost wholly together. She did not like that I
should ever be from her side. She would call me from a book or a
letter, to come and watch her watering some favourite plants, or any
other work she might be at. And when such an excuse would be wanting,
she would sit by me, take my hand, and so remain quiet, rubbing her
cheek against my shoulder, and by her action and eloquent breathing
suggesting the grace and purring of a kitten.
It was strange that I should have inspired such a love. This narrative
has, I fear, given you but an imperfect conception of my character; yet
you may infer enough from the crude sketch to make you wonder that
any one so commonplace as I, should have given such life and movement
to the deepest and most latent instincts of this beautiful creature's
nature.
She had well said she was born to be loved. Her sensibilities were
singularly acute; her nature warm and sudden; her sympathies too
powerful; for they agitated her with more joy and grief than the
occasion that bred the emotion justified. Her spirit, made tameless by
solitude, desired the corrective of love; her fancies needed sobering;
her longings wanted interpreting; her whole nature demanded the warmth
of imparted passion to give life to slumbering powers, nourishment to
sickly instincts, sap and vigour to the drooping qualities which had
developed in loneliness and blossomed in sorrow.
Such were the speculations on her character I _then_ indulged in;
and from the standpoint I occupied they were just. But when some time
had passed, and I got to penetrate her character more deeply, the
undefinable feeling about her I have before spoken of became more
definite.
I remember well the pain and horror that accompanied the suspicion when
it first flashed upon me. I endeavoured to reason the conjecture away;
but the very arguments I brought to bear against it turned traitor
and marshalled themselves on the other side. I reviewed her conduct;
I recalled her actions, her language, her moods. They increased my
apprehension.
Now that love no longer consented to blind me, now that I suffered
myself to be possessed with suspicion, I knew that the truest
confirmation of my fear was to be sought and found in her eyes. The
light that sometimes leaped from their depths, the vacant dullness
that sometimes made them lustreless, were not always the sparkle or the
shadow of the mood then on her.
I was alone when I first fell into this train of thinking. She had not
left me long; and I heard her singing in the drawing-room as she sought
in her portfolio for a sketch which she announced her intention to
finish. I threw down the book I held and went to the library. My mood
was a strange one: a curiosity and a despair--a feverish wish to know
the truth, with a terror of that truth. I strode to and fro, dreading
that my face (which I could never force to mask my feelings) would
provoke her questioning, and striving to master the miserable doubts
that had seized me. But she soon missed me and came to the library,
peeping in as was her wont, and then, bounding forward with a movement
graceful as a child's.
"You shall not read," said she, taking my hand and pulling me to the
door. "I want you to watch me finish my drawing of our home."
"Leave me a little, Geraldine; I will be with you soon."
"Why not now?" she asked, pouting her under lip. And then, coming in
front of me, she looked right up in my face.
"Arthur," she whispered, "you look now as you look when you are asleep."
"What kind of look is that, Geraldine?" I said, forcing a smile.
"Come with me and I will tell you."
When we were in the parlour she took a penknife and began to sharpen a
pencil. She frowned over her task and then laughed, but so quietly that
the sound died in a breath.
"Now, tell me how I look in my sleep."
She laid knife and pencil on the table, and knelt before me, resting
her hands on my knees.
"Did you ever know I watched you in your sleep, Arthur?"
"No."
"Not by moonlight-though the moon shines bright sometimes; but never
bright enough for me to see you. But when you are sleeping soundly
I steal out of bed, and light the candle and watch you. But first I
listen to your breathing. If it is calm then I watch; but if it is
disturbed I go to sleep. Shall I tell you why?"
"Yes."
"Because I never know whether you are dreaming of me or not. If you
breathe short and troubled, the expression of your face might give me
pain--it would be troubled, too; and if I were to think at such a time
that you were dreaming of me it would make me wretched." She sighed.
"And when I breathe calmly?"
"Then I love to look at you; for you may be dreaming of me. I watch you
much longer than you can tell; but I do not look at you too long at a
time for fear my eyes should awaken you."
"But what makes you do this?"
"Do I not tell you? Besides," and she averted her face and gave me a
sweet shy look, "my watching might make you dream of me."
"But could not I dream of you as well when you are by my side?"
She shook her head. "No. You can make people dream of you by looking at
them in their sleep."
"Nonsense, Geraldine," I exclaimed, a little warmly; "this is some
crazy old woman's belief: you must not think such things."
I saw her upturned eyes slowly cloud with tears. Her beauty, too,
suddenly took the same intensely plaintive and piteous expression I had
marked in her when I had seen her walking in her sleep.
"You are angry with me, Arthur."
"No, dearest," I answered, kissing the tears from her eyes, "I am
not angry with you. I only think you should not indulge such foolish
fancies."
She smiled. It was like an April sunbeam shining after a shower.
Springing from her knees, "Now for my drawing!" she exclaimed. She drew
a chair to the table and went to work at once.
Some time after this, in going upstairs I met Mrs. Williams. She
stepped aside to let me pass, but I paused on the landing. I had an
idea that she was a much shrewder woman than her calm, pleasant, but
not highly intelligent countenance would have suggested. I called
her to the window on the landing and pointed to the front garden.
Geraldine stood at the fountain making a cup of her hands to receive
one of the silver threads of water which fell into the brimming basin.
"She seems as happy as a child here, does she not?" I said.
"She is like a child, Sir; innocent and gay as any little girl of five."
"And yet she is very womanly too; and it is this combination of gravity
and simplicity that makes her so fascinating. Do you often talk with
her, Mrs. Williams?"
"Sometimes, Sir."
"What do you talk about?"
"Oh, of different things."
"I dare say she puzzles your plain understanding?" I said, with a
laugh, whose artificiality made it worse than my gravity. "She has
a way of breaking off in her speech, of jumping from one idea to
another, that must make her sometimes difficult for you to understand,
eh?"
She glanced at me and quickly averted her eyes to the garden.
"Mistress," she said, "doesn't always talk quite collectedly."
"You have hit it exactly. She is sometimes a little incoherent."
"She is, Sir; but that comes, I am sure, from too much good spirits.
She's as bright and brisk as a bird which the eye can't always follow."
"Do you really think this way of hers comes from her good spirits?"
"I beg you'll excuse me, Sir," she remarked, folding her hands, "but I
should like to know what you think."
"No, Mrs. Williams, I question you. Pray be perfectly frank with me.
You must see I have a motive in asking you these questions. I have
faith in your judgment, and I am anxious to hear your opinion of Mrs.
Thorburn."
Her fingers worked nervously, and something like an expression of
distress entered her face. She remained silent. I looked through the
window; Geraldine was gone.
"Mrs. Williams, I am going to ask you a question. The fact of my asking
it will convince you of the high opinion I have of your character
and how much I appreciate your conduct since you have been in my
service. It will imply also the confidence I possess in your truth and
secrecy--in your truth to give me an honest downright answer, and in
your secrecy to conceal whatever discovery you may make. Do you think
my wife sane?"
The answer came reluctantly: "No, Sir."
"What makes you doubt her sanity?"
"Her manners, Sir, and her behaviour, and sometimes a look she has in
her eyes; but her conversation, principally."
"Have you had any experience of mad people?"
"Yes, Sir. Father once took charge of a niece of his that was mad."
"What form did her madness take?"
"She was very cunning. Her mind was full of crazy thoughts; but she
seemed to know that if she spoke them she would be thought mad. But she
couldn't always hide them. And she was very artful. She would steal
things and hide them so that nobody could find them. She was taken
worse after she had been with us a year, and we had to send her to an
asylum over at Barnstock, where she died raving."
"You would be more likely, after such an experience, to know madness
when you saw it than I?"
"Yes, Sir."
"And do you seriously and truly think Mrs. Thorburn mad?"
"You ask me, Sir--it's painful to say--but I would swear there is
madness in her."
"When did you make the discovery?"
"I didn't make it suddenly. I had my suspicions after she had been in
the house two or three days. But I became sure when, not long after she
had been here, she came to me and told me she had seen a shadow in the
air of a hand holding a knife."
"She told you this?" I exclaimed, with a start.
"Yes, Sir. She spoke in a whisper, looking around her, like one who
tells a great secret. Her eyes were all alight, but her cheeks were
pale. She told me not to tell you."
"And you kept your promise?" I said, bitterly. "Why did you not tell
me?"
"I hadn't the heart, Sir. I saw how you loved her--how you loved each
other--and I couldn't speak. Besides, I thought it might be some wild
notion she had brought away with her from her home. She led a dull
life, and I guessed all sorts of strange fancies might have taken her
in her loneliness. And to speak the truth, Sir, though I feared that
her mind was not right, I thought your company would bring her back to
herself."
"And do you think she has improved?"
"I am afraid not, Sir."
"What am I to do, Mrs. Williams? how do you advise me to act?"
Just then I heard my wife singing as she mounted the stairs, and we
broke off our conversation. I put on a cheerful look; and when she saw
me she came bounding up, with lighted eyes and outstretched hands,
her face brilliant with a smile. Mrs. Williams had left the landing
before Geraldine reached me; and for my part, I appeared in the act of
descending. She caught my hand and kissed it, a frequent action with
her, but she did it with an exquisite grace, as one would do who had
learnt her attitudes from nature.
She had a little story to tell me; how, deep in the shadows of the
orchard, she had been watching a green and purple insect crawl from a
hole in a tree to a stone, under which it vanished; and when she turned
the stone over with a stick a thousand strange things wriggled away.
"It taught me something! it taught me something!" she cried.
I asked her what.
"I said to myself," she answered gravely, "that green and purple insect
is a lie, and I who follow it am the world; for its colours please
me and I can't help pursuing it. And the stone it has crept under is
corruption, where a thousand other falsehoods, some pretty and some
very ugly, lie hid; and when I turn it over, I am like a reformer, who
floods corruption with the blaze of heaven, and all the foul things
rush from the light of truth. Is not that pretty, Arthur?"
"Yes, dearest; but do you know what your little fable typifies?"
"What?"
"The Reformation. You were Luther, the stone was Rome, the wriggling
insects the priests."
"No, no! There never was a Reformation; there was a wicked schism."
"Well, don't let us argue," I said, with a cheerless laugh.
She had descended the stairs with me, forgetting the purpose for which
she had mounted them. The harshness of my laugh struck her.
"What is the matter, Arthur?"
"Nothing, darling."
"You do not look as you used. You look frightened."
"Of what should I be frightened?"
"You are; your eyes are scared. Now am I not sharp, to read your face
so quickly? Oh, but I know every line in it! I can see the slightest
shadow pass over it. It lies quite transparent. It is like the water
in the marble basin. I was watching the water not long ago. I saw
the tiniest bird, mirrored deep, deep down. Do you know, Arthur, I
sometimes think I could fly? I feel so light--so light--I am sure I
should only have to put out my arms to rise."
"You would become an angel before your time, Geraldine."
"But I would never fly away from you, Arthur."
"I hope not, for I don't know how I should be able to pursue you."
She laughed. I passed my arm through hers, and we entered the garden.