AT THE SWORD'S POINT
Dagworthy in these days could scarcely be deemed a man, with humanity's
plenitude of interacting motives, of contrasting impulses, of varying
affections. He was become one passion, a personified appetite. He went
through his routine, at the mill and elsewhere, in a mechanical way; all
the time his instincts and habits subjugated themselves to the frenzy
which chafed at the centres of his life. In his face you saw the
monomaniac. His eyes were bloodshot; his lips had a parched yellowness
of tone; his skin seemed dry and burning. Through the day he talked,
gave orders, wrote letters, and, by mere force of lifelong habit, much
in his usual way; at night he wandered about the Heath, now at a great
pace, driven by his passions, now loitering, stumbling. Between dark and
dawn he was fifty times in front of the Hoods' house; he watched the
extinguishing of the lights in window after window, and, when all were
gone, made away with curses on his lips, only to return an hour later,
to torture himself with conjecture which room might be Emily's. His
sufferings were unutterable. What devil--he groaned--had sent upon him
this torment? He wished he were as in former days, when the indifference
he felt towards his wife's undeniable beauty had, as it seemed, involved
all womankind. In those times he could not have conceived a madness such
as this. How had it arisen? Was it a physical illness? Was it madness in
truth, or the beginning of it? Why had it not taken him four months ago,
when he met this girl at the Baxendales'? But he remembered that even
then she had attracted him strangely; he had quitted the others to talk
to her. He must have been prepared to conceive this frantic passion on
coming together with her again.
Love alone, so felt and so frustrated, would have been bad enough; it
was the added pang of jealousy that made it a fierce agony. It was well
that the man she had chosen was not within his reach; his mood was that
of a murderer. The very heat and vigour of his physical frame, the
native violence of his temper, disposed him to brute fury, if an
instinct such as this once became acute; and the imaginative energy
which lurked in him, a sort of undeveloped genius, was another source of
suffering beyond that which ordinary men endure. He was a fine creature
in these hours, colossal, tragic; it needed this experience to bring out
all there was of great and exceptional in his character. He was not of
those who can quit the scene of their fruitless misery and find
forgetfulness at a distance. Every searing stroke drove him more
desperately in pursuit of his end. He was further from abandoning it,
now that he knew another stood in his way, than he would have been if
Emily had merely rejected him. He would not yield her to another man; he
swore to himself that he would not, let it cost him and her what it
might.
He had seen her again, with his glass, from the windows of the mill, had
scarcely moved his eyes from her for an hour. A hope came to him that
she might by chance walk at evening on the Heath, but he was
disappointed; Emily, indeed, had long shunned walks in that direction.
He had no other means of meeting her, yet he anguished for a moment's
glimpse of her face.
To-day he knew a cruel assuagement of his torture. He had returned from
his short absence with a resolve to risk an attempt which was only not
entirely base by virtue of the passion which inspired it, and it
appeared to him that his stratagem had succeeded. Scruples he had indeed
known, but not at all of the weight they would have possessed for most
men, and this not only because of his reckless determination to win by
any means; his birth and breeding enabled him to accept meanness as
almost a virtue in many of the relations and transactions of life. The
trickery and low cunning of the mercantile world was in his blood; it
would come out when great occasion saw use for it, even in the service
of love. He believed it was leading him to success. Certainly the first
result that he aimed at was assured, and he could not imagine a
subsequent obstacle. He would not have admitted that he was wronging the
man whom he made his tool; if honesty failed under temptation it was
honesty's own look-out. Ten to one he himself would have fallen into
such a trap, in similar circumstances; he was quite free from
pharisaical prejudice; had he not reckoned on mere human nature in
devising his plan? Nor would the result be cruel, for he had it in his
power to repay a hundredfold all temporary pain. There were no limits to
the kindness he was capable of, when once he had Emily for his wife; she
and hers should be overwhelmed with the fruits of his devotion. It was
to no gross or commonplace future that the mill-owner looked forward.
There were things in him of which he was beginning to be conscious,
which would lead him he could not yet see whither. Dunfield was no home
for Emily; he knew it, and felt that he, too, would henceforth have need
of a larger circle of life. He was rich enough, and by transferring his
business to other hands he could become yet richer, gaining freedom at
the same time. No disappointment would be in store for him as in his
former marriage; looking back on that he saw now how boyish he had been,
how easily duped. There was not even the excuse of love.
He held her gained. What choice would she have, with the alternative to
be put before her? It was strange that, in spite of what should have
been sympathetic intelligence, he made a slight account of that love
which, as she told him, she had already bestowed. In fact, he refused to
dwell upon the thought of it; it would have maddened him in earnest. Who
could say? It was very possible she had told him a falsehood; it was
quite allowable in any woman, to escape from a difficult position. In
his heart he did not believe this, knowing her better, though his
practical knowledge of her was so slight; but it was one of the devices
by which he mitigated his suffering now and then. If the engagement
existed, it was probably one of those which contemplated years of
waiting, otherwise why should she have kept silence about it at home? In
any case he held her; how could she escape him? He did not fear appeals
to his compassion; against such assaults he was well armed. Emily
pleading at his feet would not be a picture likely to induce him to
relax his purpose. She could not take to flight, the very terms of his
control restrained her. There might be flaws in his case, legally
speaking, but the Hoods were in no position to profit by these, seeing
that, in order to do so, they must begin by facing ruin. Emily was
assuredly his.
To-day was Friday. He knew, from talk with the Cartwrights, that
Jessie's lessons were on alternate days, and as he had seen the two in
the garden this morning, there would be no lesson on the morrow. It was
not easy to devise a plot for a private interview with Emily, yet he
must see her tomorrow, and of course alone. A few words with her would
suffice. To call upon her at the house would be only his last resource.
He felt assured that she had not spoken to her parents of the scene in
the garden; several reasons supported this belief, especially the
reflection that Emily would desire to spare her father the anxieties of
a difficult position. Taking this for granted, his relations with her
must still be kept secret in order to avoid risking his impunity in the
tactics he counted upon. His hope was that she would leave the house
alone in the course of the morning.
It has been mentioned that a railway bridge crossed the road a short
distance beyond the Hoods' house. On the embankment beyond this bridge,
twenty or thirty yards from the road, was a cluster of small trees and
shrubs, railed in from the grass which elsewhere grew upon the slope,
and from the field at its foot. Here, just hidden behind a hawthorn bush
and a climbing bramble, Dagworthy placed himself shortly before eight
o'clock on Saturday morning, having approached the spot by a long
circuit of trespass; from this position he had a complete view of the
house he wished to watch. He came thus early because he thought it
possible that Emily accompanied her father on his morning's walk into
Dunfield; in which case he would follow at a distance, and find his
opportunity as the girl returned. There had been rain in the night, and
his passage through the bushes covered him with moisture; the thick
grass, too, in which he stood, was so wet that before long his feet grew
damp and cold. He was little mindful of bodily discomfort; never moving
his eyes for a moment from the door which would give Emily to his view,
he knew nothing but the impatience which made it incredible that his
watch could keep pace with time; he seemed to have been waiting for
hours when yet it was only half-past eight. But at length the door
opened. He strained his sight across the distance, but with no reward.
Hood left the house alone, and walked off quickly in the direction of
Dunfield.
He must wait. It might happen that Emily would not quit home at all
during the early part of the day, but he must wait on the chance. He
dreaded lest rain should fall, which would naturally keep her within
doors, but by nine o'clock the sky had cleared, and he saw the leaves
above him drying in the sunlight. Inactivity was at all times
intolerable to him to stand thus for hours was an exercise of impatient
patience which only his relentless passion made possible; his body
yielded to a sort of numbness, whilst the suffering expectancy of his
mind only grew keener. He durst not avert his eyes from the door for an
instant; his sight ached and dazzled. Still he waited.
At eleven o'clock Emily came forth. A savage delight seized him as he
watched her cross the patch of garden. At the gate she hesitated a
moment, then took the way neither to the Heath nor to Dunfield, but
crossed to the lane which led to Pendal. From his hiding-place Dagworthy
could follow her so far, and with ecstasy he told himself that she must
be going to the Castle Hill. She carried a book in her hand.
At length he moved. His limbs had stiffened; it was with difficulty that
he climbed to the top of the embankment. Thence he could see the whole
track of the lane, which went, indeed, almost parallel with the railway
line. He walked in the same direction, keeping at some distance behind
Emily. Before reaching the village of Pendal, he had to cross a field,
and enter the lane itself. There was now the danger that the girl might
look back. But she did not. She was reading as she walked, and continued
to do so the whole way to the stile which led into the Castle Hill. But
now it mattered little if she turned her head.
He let her pass the stile, and himself paused before following. He was
agitated; that which he was about to do seemed harder than he had
imagined; he had a horrible fear lest his resolution might fail at the
last moment. The brute in him for an instant almost slept. The woman in
the field yonder was not only the object of his vehement desire; all the
nobler possibilities of his nature united to worship her, as the highest
and holiest he knew. In his heart was a subtle temptation, the voice of
very love bidding him cast himself at her feet and sue but for the grace
of so much human kindness as would make life without her endurable. He
remembered the self-abasement which had come upon him when he tried to
tell her of his love; the offering had seemed so gross, so unworthy to
be brought before her. Would it not be the same now? He dreaded her
power to protect herself, the secret might of purity which made him
shrink at her steady gaze. But he had gone through much in the last
fortnight the brute forces had grown strong by habit of self-assertion.
He looked up, and the fact that Emily had gone from his sight stung him
into pursuit.
She was sitting where she had sat with Wilfrid, on the fallen tree; the
book lay at her side, and she was giving herself to memory. Treading on
the grass, he did not attract her attention till he almost stood before
her; then she looked at him, and at once rose. He expected signs of
apprehension or embarrassment, but she seemed calm. She had accustomed
herself to think of him, and could no longer be taken by surprise. She
was self-possessed, too, in the strength of the thoughts which he had
disturbed.
He fed his eyes upon her, and kept so long silent that Emily's cheek
coloured, and she half turned away. Then he spoke abruptly, yet with
humility, which the consciousness of his purpose could not overcome.
'You know that I have been away since I saw you last. I tried to put you
out of my mind. I couldn't do it, and I am driven back to you.'
'I hoped we should not meet again like this, Mr. Dagworthy,' Emily
replied, in a low voice, but firmly. She felt that her self-respect was
to be tested to the uttermost, but she was better able to control
herself than at the last interview. The sense of being passionately
sought cannot but enhance a woman's dignity in her own eyes, and Emily
was not without perception of the features in Dagworthy's character
which made him anything but a lover to be contemned. She dreaded him,
and could not turn away as from one who tormented her out of mere
ill-breeding.
'I cannot ask you to pardon me,' he returned, 'for however often you
asked me to leave you, I should pay no heed. I am here because I can't
help myself; I mean what I say--I can't, I can't help it! Since you told
me there was no hope, I seem to have been in hell. These are not words
to use to you--I know it. It isn't that I don't respect you, but because
I must speak what I feel. Look--I am worn out with suffering; I feel as
if it would take but a little more to kill me, strong man as I am. You
don't think I find a pleasure in coming and facing that look you have? I
don't know that I ever saw the man I couldn't meet, but before you I
feel--I can't put it into words, but I feel I should like to hide my
face. Still, I have come, I have followed you here. It's more than I can
do to give you up.'
At the last words he half sobbed. Her fear of him would not allow Emily
to feel deep distress, but she was awed by the terrible evidence of what
he endured. She could not at once find words for reply.
'Will you sit down?' he said. 'I will stand here, but I have more to say
to you before I go.'
'Why should you say more?' Emily urged. 'Can you not think how very
painful it is to hear you speak in this way? What purpose can it serve
to speak to me when I may not listen?'
'You must listen. I can't be sent away as you would another man; no
other on earth can love you as I do, no one. No one would do for you all
that I would do. My love gives me a claim upon you. It is you that have
brought me to this state; a woman owes a man something who is driven mad
by her. I have a right to be here and to say all I feel.'
He was struggling with a dread of the words he had come to utter; a wild
hope sprang in him that he might yet win her in other ways; he used
language recklessly, half believing that his arguments would seem of
force. His passion was in the death-grapple with reason and humanity.
'If your regard for me is so strong,' Emily replied, 'should you not
shrink from causing me pain? And indeed you have no such right as you
claim. Have I in any way sought to win your affection? Is it manly to
press upon me a suit which you know it is out of my power to favour? You
say you respect me; your words are not consistent with respect. I owe
you nothing, Mr. Dagworthy, and it is certainly my right to demand that
you will cease to distress and trouble me.'
He stood with his eyes on the ground.
'That is all you have to say?' he asked, almost sullenly.
'What more can I say? Surely you should not have compelled me to say
even so much. I appeal to your kindness, to your sense of what is due
from a man to a woman, to let me leave you now, and to make no further
attempt to see me. If you refuse, you take advantage of my
powerlessness. I am sure you are not capable of that.'
'Yes, I am capable of more than you think,' he replied, the words coming
between his teeth. His evil demon, not himself, was speaking; in finding
utterance at length it made him deadly pale, and brought a cold sweat to
his brow. 'When you think afterwards of what I say now, remember that it
was love of you that made me desperate. A chance you little dream of has
put power into my hands, and I am going to use it. I care for nothing on
this earth but to make you my wife--and I can do so.'
Terror weighed upon her heart. His tone was that of a man who would
stick at nothing, and his words would bear no futile meaning. Her
thoughts were at once of her father; through him alone could he have
power over her. She waited, sick with agonised anticipation, for what
would follow.
'Your father--'
The gulf between purpose and execution once passed, he had become cruel;
human nature has often enough exemplified the law in prominent
instances. As he pronounced the words, he eyed her deliberately, and,
before proceeding, paused just long enough to see the anguish flutter in
her breast.
'Your father has been guilty of dishonesty; he has taken money from the
mill. Any day that I choose I can convict him.'
She half closed her eyes and shook, as if under a blow. Then the blood
rushed to her face, and, to his astonishment, she uttered a strange
laugh.
'_That_ is your power over me!' she exclaimed, with all the scorn her
voice could express. 'Now I know that you are indeed capable of shameful
things. You think I shall believe that of my father?'
Dagworthy knew what it was to feel despicable. He would, in this moment,
have relinquished all his hope to be able to retract those words. He was
like a beaten dog before her; and the excess of his degradation made him
brutal.
'Believe it or not, as you choose. All I have to say is that your father
put into his pocket yesterday morning a ten-pound note of mine, which he
found in a ledger he took out of my room. He had to go to Hebsworth on
business, and there he changed the note to buy himself a new hat; I have
a witness of it. When he came back hoof course had nothing to say about
the money; in fact, he had stolen it.'
She heard, and there came into her mind the story of Cheeseman's debt.
That was of ten pounds. The purchase her father had been obliged to
make, of that also she had heard. Last night, and again this morning,
her mother had incessantly marvelled at this money having been at length
returned; it was an incredible thing, she had said; only the sight of
the coins could convince her of its truth. Emily's mind worked over the
details of the previous evening with terrible rapidity and insight. To
her directly her father had spoken not a word of the repayment; he had
bidden her keep in another room while he informed her mother of it; he
had shown disinclination to return to the subject when, later, they all
sat together. 'Well, here it is,' he had said, 'and we'll talk no more
about it.' She heard those words exactly as they were spoken, and she
knew their tone was not natural; even at the time that had struck her,
but her thought had not dwelt upon it.
She almost forgot Dagworthy's presence; he and his threats were of small
account in this shaking of the depths of her nature. She was awakened by
his voice.
'Do you think I am lying to you for my own purposes?'
'I cannot say,' she answered, with unnatural calm. 'It is more likely
than that what you say is true.'
He, by now, had attained a self-control which would not desert him. So
far in crime, there was no turning back; he could even enjoy the
anticipation of each new move in the game, certain of winning. He could
be cruel now for cruelty's sake; it was a form of fruition.
'Well,' he said, 'it is your own concern whether you believe me or not.
If you wish for evidence, you shall have it, the completest. What I have
to say is this. From now till Monday morning your father is free.
Whether I have him arrested then or not depends upon yourself. If you
consent to become my wife as soon as it is possible for us to be
married, neither you nor he will ever hear another word of the matter.
What's more, I will at once put him in a position of comfort. If you
refuse, there will be a policeman ready to arrest him as soon as he
comes to the mill; if he tries to escape, a warrant will be issued. In
any case he will be ruined.'
Then, after a pause--
'So you have till to-morrow night to make up your mind. You can either
send me a note or come and see me; I shall be at home whenever you
come.'
Emily stood in silence.
'I hope you quite understand what I mean,' Dagworthy continued, as if
discussing an ordinary matter of business. 'No one will ever dream that
your father has done anything to be ashamed of. After all, it is not so
impossible that you should marry me for my own sake;'--he said it with
bitterness. 'People will see nothing to wonder at. Fortunately, no one
knows of that--of what you told me. Your father and mother will be easy
for the rest of their lives, and without a suspicion that there has been
anything but what appears on the surface. I needn't say how things are
likely to look in the other event.'
Still she stood silent.
'I don't expect an answer now--'
Emily shook her head.
'But,' he continued, 'you mustn't leave it after to-morrow night. It
will be too late.'
She began to move away from him. With a step or two he followed her; she
turned, with a passionate movement of repulsion, terror, and hate
transfiguring her countenance, made for the expression of all sweet and
tender and noble things.
Dagworthy checked himself, turned about, and walked quickly from the
place.