Mr. and Mrs. Herbert.
The stealthy influence of distrust fastens its hold on the mind by
slow degrees. Little by little it reaches its fatal end, and disguises
delusion successfully under the garb of truth.
Day after day, the false conviction grew on Sydney’s mind that Herbert
Linley was comparing the life he led now with the happier life which
he remembered at Mount Morven. Day after day, her unreasoning fear
contemplated the time when Herbert Linley would leave her friendless,
in the world that had no place in it for women like herself.
Delusion--fatal delusion that looked like truth! Morally weak as he
might be, the man whom she feared to trust had not yet entirely lost the
sense which birth and breeding had firmly fastened in him--the sense
of honor. Acting under that influence, he was (if the expression may
be permitted) consistent even in inconsistency. With equal sincerity of
feeling, he reproached himself for his infidelity toward the woman whom
he had deserted, and devoted himself to his duty toward the woman
whom he had misled. In Sydney’s presence--suffer as he might under
the struggle to maintain his resolution when he was alone--he kept his
intercourse with her studiously gentle in manner, and considerate in
language; his conduct offered assurances for the future which she could
only see through the falsifying medium of her own distrust.
In the delusion that now possessed her she read, over and over again,
the letter which Captain Bennydeck had addressed to her father; she saw,
more and more clearly, the circumstances which associated her situation
with the situation of the poor girl who had closed her wasted life among
the nuns in a French convent.
Two results followed on this state of things.
When Herbert asked to what part of England they should go, on leaving
London, she mentioned Sandyseal as a place that she had heard of, and
felt some curiosity to see. The same day--bent on pleasing her, careless
where he lived now, at home or abroad--he wrote to engage rooms at the
hotel.
A time followed, during which they were obliged to wait until rooms were
free. In this interval, brooding over the melancholy absence of a friend
or relative in whom she could confide, her morbid dread of the future
decided her on completing the parallel between herself and that
other lost creature of whom she had read. Sydney opened communication
anonymously with the Benedictine community at Sandyseal.
She addressed the Mother Superior; telling the truth about herself with
but one concealment, the concealment of names. She revealed her isolated
position among her fellow-creatures; she declared her fervent desire to
repent of her wickedness, and to lead a religious life; she acknowledged
her misfortune in having been brought up by persons careless of
religion, and she confessed to having attended a Protestant place of
worship, as a mere matter of form connected with the duties of a teacher
at a school. “The religion of any Christian woman who will help me to
be more like herself,” she wrote, “is the religion to which I am willing
and eager to belong. If I come to you in my distress, will you receive
me?” To that simple appeal, she added a request that an answer might be
addressed to “S.W., Post-office, Sandyseal.”
When Captain Bennydeck and Sydney Westerfield passed each other as
strangers, in the hall of the hotel, that letter had been posted in
London a week since.
The servant showed “Mr. and Mrs. Herbert” into their sitting-room, and
begged that they would be so good as to wait for a few minutes, while
the other rooms were being prepared for them.
Sydney seated herself in silence. She was thinking of her letter, and
wondering whether a reply was waiting for her at the post-office.
Moving toward the window to look at the view, Herbert paused to examine
some prints hanging on the walls, which were superior as works of art to
the customary decorations of a room at a hotel. If he had gone straight
to the window he might have seen his divorced wife, his child, and his
wife’s mother, getting into the carriage which took them to the railway
station.
“Come, Sydney,” he said, “and look at the sea.”
She joined him wearily, with a faint smile. It was a calm, sunny day.
Bathing machines were on the beach; children were playing here and
there; and white sails of pleasure boats were visible in the offing. The
dullness of Sandyseal wore a quiet homely aspect which was pleasant to
the eyes of strangers. Sydney said, absently, “I think I shall like the
place.” And Herbert added: “Let us hope that the air will make you feel
stronger.” He meant it and said it kindly--but, instead of looking at
her while he spoke, he continued to look at the view. A woman sure of
her position would not have allowed this trifling circumstance, even if
she had observed it, to disturb her. Sydney thought of the day in London
when he had persisted in looking out at the street, and returned in
silence to her chair.
Had he been so unfortunate as to offend her? And in what way? As that
doubt occurred to Herbert his mind turned to Catherine. _She_ never
took offense at trifles; a word of kindness from him, no matter how
unimportant it might be, always claimed affectionate acknowledgment
in the days when he was living with his wife. In another moment he had
dismissed that remembrance, and could trust himself to return to Sydney.
“If you find that Sandyseal confirms your first impression,” he said,
“let me know it in time, so that I may make arrangements for a longer
stay. I have only taken the rooms here for a fortnight.”
“Thank you, Herbert; I think a fortnight will be long enough.”
“Long enough for you?” he asked.
Her morbid sensitiveness mistook him again; she fancied there was an
undernote of irony in his tone.
“Long enough for both of us,” she replied.
He drew a chair to her side. “Do you take it for granted,” he said,
smiling, “that I shall get tired of the place first?”
She shrank, poor creature, even from his smile. There was, as she
thought, something contemptuous in the good-humor of it.
“We have been to many places,” she reminded him, “and we have got tired
of them together.”
“Is that my fault?”
“I didn’t say it was.”
He got up and approached the bell. “I think the journey has a little
over-tired you,” he resumed. “Would you like to go to your room?”
“I will go to my room, if you wish it.”
He waited a little, and answered her as quietly as ever. “What I really
wish,” he said, “is that we had consulted a doctor while we were in
London. You seem to be very easily irritated of late. I observe a change
in you, which I willingly attribute to the state of your health--”
She interrupted him. “What change do you mean?”
“It’s quite possible I may be mistaken, Sydney. But I have more than
once, as I think, seen something in your manner which suggests that you
distrust me.”
“I distrust the evil life we are leading,” she burst out, “and I see the
end of it coming. Oh, I don’t blame you! You are kind and considerate,
you do your best to hide it; but you have lived long enough with me to
regret the woman whom you have lost. You begin to feel the sacrifice you
have made--and no wonder. Say the word, Herbert, and I release you.”
“I will never say the word!”
She hesitated--first inclined, then afraid, to believe him. “I have
grace enough left in me,” she went on, “to feel the bitterest repentance
for the wrong that I have done to Mrs. Linley. When it ends, as it must
end, in our parting, will you ask your wife--?”
Even his patience began to fail him; he refused--firmly, not angrily--to
hear more. “She is no longer my wife,” he said.
Sydney’s bitterness and Sydney’s penitence were mingled, as opposite
emotions only _can_ be mingled in a woman’s breast. “Will you ask your
wife to forgive you?” she persisted.
“After we have been divorced at her petition?” He pointed to the window
as he said it. “Look at the sea. If I was drowning out yonder, I might
as well ask the sea to forgive me.”
He produced no effect on her. She ignored the Divorce; her passionate
remorse asserted itself as obstinately as ever. “Mrs. Linley is a good
woman,” she insisted; “Mrs. Linley is a Christian woman.”
“I have lost all claim on her--even the claim to remember her virtues,”
he answered, sternly. “No more of it, Sydney! I am sorry I have
disappointed you; I am sorry if you are weary of me.”
At those last words her manner changed. “Wound me as cruelly as you
please,” she said, humbly. “I will try to bear it.”
“I wouldn’t wound you for the world! Why do you persist in distressing
me? Why do you feel suspicion of me which I have not deserved?” He
stopped, and held out his hand. “Don’t let us quarrel, Sydney. Which
will you do? Keep your bad opinion of me, or give me a fair trial?”
She loved him dearly; she was so young--and the young are so ready to
hope! Still, she struggled against herself. “Herbert! is it your pity
for me that is speaking now?”
He left her in despair. “It’s useless!” he said, sadly. “Nothing will
conquer your inveterate distrust.”
She followed him. With a faint cry of entreaty she made him turn to her,
and held him in a trembling embrace, and rested her head on his bosom.
“Forgive me--be patient with me--love me.” That was all she could say.
He attempted to calm her agitation by speaking lightly. “At last,
Sydney, we are friends again!” he said.
Friends? All the woman in her recoiled from that insufficient word. “Are
we Lovers?” she whispered.
“Yes!”
With that assurance her anxious heart was content. She smiled; she
looked out at the sea with a new appreciation of the view. “The air of
this place will do me good now,” she said. “Are my eyes red, Herbert?
Let me go and bathe them, and make myself fit to be seen.”
She rang the bell. The chambermaid answered it, ready to show the other
rooms. She turned round at the door.
“Let’s try to make our sitting-room look like home,” she suggested.
“How dismal, how dreadfully like a thing that doesn’t belong to us, that
empty table looks! Put some of your books and my keepsakes on it, while
I am away. I’ll bring my work with me when I come back.”
He had left his travelers’ bag on a chair, when he first came in. Now
that he was alone, and under no restraint, he sighed as he unlocked
the bag. “Home?” he repeated; “we have no home. Poor girl! poor unhappy
girl! Let me help her to deceive herself.”
He opened the bag. The little fragile presents, which she called her
“keepsakes,” had been placed by her own hands in the upper part of the
bag, so that the books should not weigh on them, and had been carefully
protected by wrappings of cotton wool. Taking them out, one by one,
Herbert found a delicate china candlestick (intended to hold a wax
taper) broken into two pieces, in spite of the care that had been taken
to preserve it. Of no great value in itself, old associations made the
candlestick precious to Sydney. It had been broken at the stem and could
be easily mended so as to keep the accident concealed. Consulting the
waiter, Herbert discovered that the fracture could be repaired at the
nearest town, and that the place would be within reach when he went out
for a walk. In fear of another disaster, if he put it back in the bag,
he opened a drawer in the table, and laid the two fragments carefully
inside, at the further end. In doing this, his hand touched something
that had been already placed in the drawer. He drew it out, and found
that it was a book--the same book that Mrs. Presty (surely the evil
genius of the family again!) had hidden from Randal’s notice, and had
forgotten when she left the hotel.
Herbert instantly recognized the gilding on the cover, imitated from a
design invented by himself. He remembered the inscription, and yet he
read it again:
“To dear Catherine, from Herbert, on the anniversary of our marriage.”
The book dropped from his hand on the table, as if it had been a new
discovery, torturing him with a new pain.
His wife (he persisted in thinking of her as his wife) must have
occupied the room--might perhaps have been the person whom he had
succeeded, as a guest at the hotel. Did she still value his present to
her, in remembrance of old times? No! She valued it so little that she
had evidently forgotten it. Perhaps her maid might have included it
among the small articles of luggage when they left home, or dear little
Kitty might have put it into one of her mother’s trunks. In any case,
there it was now, abandoned in the drawer of a table at a hotel.
“Oh,” he thought bitterly, “if I could only feel as coldly toward
Catherine as she feels toward me!” His resolution had resisted much; but
this final trial of his self-control was more than he could sustain.
He dropped into a chair--his pride of manhood recoiled from the
contemptible weakness of crying--he tried to remember that she had
divorced him, and taken his child from him. In vain! in vain! He burst
into tears.