MRS. WESTERN PREPARES TO LEAVE.
Cecilia, when she first read her husband's letter, did not clearly
understand it. It could not be that he intended to leave her for
ever! They had been married but a few months,--a few months of
inexpressible love and confidence; and it was impossible that he
should intend that they should be thus parted. But when she had read
it again and again, she began to perceive that it was so; "Pray
believe it. We have now parted for ever." Had he stopped there her
belief would have only been half-hearted. She would not in truth
have thought that he had been in earnest in dooming her to eternal
separation. But he had gone on with shocking coolness to tell her how
he had arranged his plans for the future. "Half my income you shall
have." "You shall live here in this house, if it be thought well for
you." "Your lawyer had better see my lawyers." It was, in truth, his
intention that it should be so. And she had already begun to have
some knowledge of the persistency of his character. She was already
aware that he was a man not likely to be moved from his word. He had
gone, and it was his intention to go. And he had declared with a
magnanimity which she now felt to be odious, and almost mean, what
liberal arrangements he had made for her maintenance. She was in no
want of income. She told herself that she would rather starve in the
street than eat his bread, unless she might eat it from the same loaf
with him; that she would rather perish in the cold than enjoy the
shelter of his roof, unless she might enjoy it with him.
There she remained the whole day by herself, thinking that something
must occur to mitigate the severity of the sentence which he had
pronounced against her. It could not be that he should leave her
thus,--he whose every word, whose every tone, whose every look, whose
every touch had hitherto been so full of tenderness. If he had loved
as she had loved how could he live without her? He had explained
his idea of a wife, and though he had spoken the words in his anger,
still she had been proud. But now it seemed as though he would have
her believe that she was wholly unnecessary to him. It could not be
so. He could not so have deceived her. It must be that he would want
her as she wanted him, and that he must return to her to satisfy the
cravings of his own heart.
But as time went on her tenderness gradually turned to anger. He had
pronounced the sentence, the heaviest sentence which his mind could
invent against her whom he had made his own. Was that sentence just?
She told herself again and again that it was most unjust. The fault
which she had committed deserved no such punishment. She confessed to
herself that she had promised to become the wife of a man unworthy of
her; but when she had done so she had not known her present husband.
He at least had no cause of anger with her in regard to that. And
she, as soon as she had found out her mistake and the man's character
had become in part revealed to her, had with a terrible courage taken
the bull by the horns and broken away from the engagement which
outward circumstances at any rate made attractive. Then with her
mother she had gone abroad, and there she had met with Mr. Western.
At the moment of their meeting she had been at any rate innocent in
regard to him. From that moment she had performed her duty to him,
and had been sincere in her love, even as such a man as Mr. Western
could desire,--with the one exception of her silence. It was true
that she should have told him of Sir Francis Geraldine; of her folly
in accepting him and her courage in repudiating him. Day by day the
days had gone by, and there had been some cause for fresh delay, that
cause having ever reference to his immediate comfort. Did she not
know that had she told him, his offer, his love, his marriage would
have been the same? And now, was she to be turned adrift and thrown
aside, rejected and got rid of at an instant's notice, because,
for his comfort, the telling of her story had been delayed? The
injustice, the cruelty, the inhumanity of such a punishment were very
plain to her.
Could he do it? As her husband had he a right so to dismiss her
from his bosom? And his money? Perish his money! And his house! The
remembrance of the offers which he made to her aggravated her wrath
bitterly. As his wife she had a right to his care, to his presence,
and to his tenderness. She had not married him simply to be
maintained and housed. Nor was that the meaning of their marriage
contract. Before God he had no right to send her away from him, and
to bid her live and die alone.
But though he had no right he had the power. She could not force him
to be her companion. The law would give her only those things which
she did not care to claim. He already offered more than the law would
exact, and she despised his generosity. As long as he supported her
the law could not bring him back and force him to give her to eat of
his own loaf, and to drink of his own cup. The law would not oblige
him to encircle her in his arms. The law would not compel him to
let her rest upon his bosom. None of those privileges which were
undoubtedly her own could the law obtain for her. He had said that he
had gone, and would not return, and the law could not bring him back
again. Then she sat and wept, and told herself how much better for
her would have been that single life of which Miss Altifiorla had
preached to her the advantages.
The second day since his departure had passed and she had taken no
step. Alone she had given way to sorrow and to indignation, but as
yet had decided on nothing. She had waited, still thinking that
something would be done to soften her sorrow; but nothing had been
done. The servants around her moved slowly, solemnly, and as though
struck with awe. Her own maid had tried to say a word once and again,
but had been silenced by the manner of her mistress. Cecilia, though
she felt the weight of the silence, could not bring herself to tell
the girl that her husband had left her for ever. The servants no
doubt knew it all, but she could not bring herself to tell them that
it was so. He had told her that her cheques on his bankers would be
paid, but she had declared that on no account should such cheque
be drawn by her. If he had made up his mind to desert her, and had
already left her without intending further communication, she must
provide for herself. She must go back to her mother, where the eyes
of all Exeter would see her. But she must in the first instance write
to her mother; and how could she explain to her mother all that had
happened? Would even her own mother believe her when she said that
she was already deserted by her husband for ever and ever because she
had not told him the story respecting Sir Francis Geraldine?
On the third morning she resolved that she would write to her
husband. It was not fit, so she told herself, that she should leave
his house without some further word of instruction from him. But how
to address him she was ignorant. He was gone, but she did not know
whither. The servants, no doubt, knew where, but she could not bring
herself to ask them. On the third day she wrote as follows. The
reader will remember that that short scrawl which she addressed to
him from her bedroom had not been sent.
DEAR GEORGE,--This is the first letter I have written to
you as your wife, and it will be very sad. I do not think
that you can have remembered that yours would be the first
which I had ever received from my husband.
Your order has crushed me altogether. It shall,
nevertheless, be obeyed as far as I am able to obey it.
You say something as to your means, and something also as
to your house. In that you cannot be obeyed. It is not
possible that I should take your money or live in your
house unless I am allowed to do so as your wife. The law,
I think, says that I may do so. But the law, of course,
cannot compel a man to be a loving, tender husband, or
even to accept the tenderness of a loving wife. I know
what you owe me, but I know also that I cannot exact it
unless you can give it with all your heart. Your money and
your house I will not have unless I can have them together
with yourself. Your bread would choke me. Your roof would
not shelter me. Your good things would be poison to
me,--unless you were here to make me feel that they were
yours also as well as mine. If you mean to insist on the
severity of your order, you will have to get rid of me
altogether. I shall then have come across two men of which
I do not know whether to wonder most at the baseness of
the one or the cruelty of the other. In that case I can
only return to my mother. In that case you will not, I
think, care much what may become of me; but as I shall
still bear your name, it is, I suppose, proper that you
should know where I purpose living.
But, dear George, dearest George,--I wish you could know
how much dearer to me in spite of your cruelty than all
the world besides,--I cannot even yet bring myself to
believe that we can for ever be separated. Dear George,
endeavour to think how small has been my offence and
how tremendous is the punishment which you propose. The
offence is so small that I will not let myself down by
asking your pardon. Had you said a word sitting beside me,
even a word of anger, then I could have done so. I think I
could have made you believe how altogether accidental it
had been. But I will not do so now. I should aggravate
my own fault till it would appear to you that I had done
something of which I ought to be ashamed, and which
perhaps you ought not to forgive. I have done nothing of
which I am ashamed, and nothing certainly which you ought
even to think it necessary to pardon.
When she had got so far she sat for a while thinking whether she
would or would not tell him of the cause and the manner of her
silence. Should she refer him to his sister, who understood so well
how that silence had been produced? Should she explain to him that
she had in the first case hesitated to tell him her story because
her story had been so like to his own? But as she thought of it all,
she declared to herself that were she to do so she would in truth
condescend to ask his pardon. What she required of him was that he
should acknowledge her nature, her character, her truth to be such
that he had made a grievous mistake in attributing to her aught that
was a just cause of anger. "You stupid girl, you foolish girl, to
have given yourself and me such cause for discomfort!" That he should
have said to her, with his arm round her waist; that and nothing
more. Thinking of all this she resolved not to go into that subject.
Should she ever do so it must be when he had come back to her, and
was sitting there with his arm around her waist. She ended her
letter, therefore, very shortly.
As I must wait here till I hear from you, and cannot even
write to my mother till I do so, I must beg you to answer
my letter quickly. I shall endeavour to go on without
drawing any cheques. If I find it necessary I shall have
to write to my mother for money.
Your most affectionate wife,
CECILIA WESTERN.
Oh, George, if you knew how I love you!
Then, as she did not like to send the letter out among the servants
without any address, and thus to confess to them that she did not
know where her husband had gone, she directed the letter to him at
his club in London.
During the next day or two the pity of her servants, the silent,
unexpressed pity, was very hard to bear. As each morning came her
punishment seemed to become more and more intolerable to her. She
could not read. There were none among her friends, not even her
mother, to whom she could write. It was still her hope,--her faintest
hope, that she need confess to none of them the fact that her husband
had quarrelled with her. She could only sit and ponder over the
tyranny of the man who by his mere suspicions could subject a woman
to so cruel a fate. But on the evening of the third day she was told
that a gentleman had called to see her. Mr. Gray sent his card in to
her, and she at once recognised Mr. Gray as her husband's attorney.
She was sitting at the open window of her own bedroom, looking into
the garden, and she was aware that she had been weeping. "I will be
down at once," she said to the maid, "if Mr. Gray will wait."
"Oh, ma'am, you do take on so dreadfully!" said the girl.
"Never mind, Mary. I will come down and see Mr. Gray if you will
leave me."
"Oh, ma'am, oh, Miss Holt, I have known you so long, may I not say a
word to you?"
"I am not Miss Holt. I am still entitled to bear my husband's name."
Then the girl, feeling herself to have been rebuked, was leaving
the room, when her mistress jumped up from her seat, took her in
her arms, and kissed her. "Oh, Mary," she said, "I am unhappy, so
unhappy! But pray do not tell them. It is true that you have known me
long, and I can trust you." Then the girl, crying much more bitterly
than her mistress, left the room.
In a few minutes Cecilia followed her, and entered the parlour into
which Mr. Gray had been shown, without a sign of tears upon her
cheeks. She had been able to assume a look of injured feminine
dignity, of almost magnificent innocence, by which the lawyer was
much startled. She was resolved at any rate to confess no injury done
by herself to her husband, and to say nothing to Mr. Gray of any
injury done by him to her. Mr. Gray, too, was a gentleman, a man over
fifty years of age, who had been solicitor to Mr. Western's father.
He knew the husband in this case well, but he had as yet known
nothing of the wife. He had been simply told by Mr. Western to
understand that he, Mr. Western, had no fault to find with the lady;
that he had not a word to say against her; but that unfortunately
circumstances had so turned out that all married happiness was
impossible for him. Mr. Gray had endeavoured to learn the facts;
but he had been aware that Mr. Western was a man who would not bear
pumping. A question or two he had asked, and had represented to his
client how dreadful was the condition to which he was condemning both
the lady and himself. But his observations were received with that
peculiar cold civility which the man's manner assumed when he felt
that interference was taken in matters which were essentially private
to himself. "It is so, Mr. Gray, that in this case it cannot be
avoided. I wish you to understand, that all pecuniary arrangements
are to be made for Mrs. Western which she herself may desire. Were
she to ask for everything I possess she must have it,--down to the
barest pittance." But at this moment he had not received his wife's
letter.
There was a majesty of beauty about Mrs. Western by which Mr. Gray
was startled, but which he came to recognise before the interview was
over. I cannot say that he understood the cause of the quarrel, but
he had become aware that there was much in the lady very much on a
par with her husband's character. And she, when she found out, as she
did instinctively, that she had to deal with a gentleman, dropped
something of the hauteur of her silence. But she said not a word
as to the cause of their disagreement. Mr. Gray asked the question
in the simplest language. "Can you not tell me why you two have
quarrelled so quickly after your marriage?" But she simply referred
him to her husband. "I think you must ask Mr. Western about that."
Mr. Gray renewed the question, feeling how important it was that
he should know. But she only smiled, and again referred him to her
husband. But when he came to speak to her about money arrangements
she smiled no longer. "It will not be necessary," she said.
"But it is Mr. Western's wish."
"It will not be necessary. Mr. Western has decided that we
must--part. On that matter I have nothing to say. But there will be
nothing for any lawyer to do on my behalf. If Mr. Western has made
up his mind, I will return to my mother. I can assure you that no
steps need be taken as to money." "No steps will be possible," she
added with all that feminine majesty which was peculiar to her. "I
understand from you that Mr. Western's mind is made up. You can
tell him that I shall be ready to leave this house for my mother's,
in--let me say a week." Mr. Gray went back to town having been able
to make no other arrangement. He might pay the servants' wages,--when
they were due; and the tradesmen's bills; but for herself and her
own peculiar wants Mrs. Western would take no money. "You may tell
Mr. Western," she said, "that I shall not have to encroach on his
liberality." So Mr. Gray went back to town; and Mrs. Western carried
herself through the interview without the shedding of a tear, without
the utterance of a word of tenderness,--so that the lawyer on leaving
her hardly knew what her wishes were.
"Nevertheless I think it is his doing," he said to himself. "I think
she loves him."