"SO SHALL YE ALSO REAP."
For some time Nan's life hung in the balance. It seemed as though a
straw either way would suffice to turn the scales. Dead silence reigned
in the house in Thurloe Square: the street outside was ankle-deep in
straw: doctors and nurses took possession of Nan's pretty rooms, where
all her graceful devices and gentle handicrafts were set aside, and
their places filled with a grim array of medicaments. The servants, who
loved their mistress, went about with melancholy faces and muffled
voices; and the master of the house, hitherto so confident and
self-reliant, presented to the world a stony front of silent desolation,
for which nobody would have given Sydney Campion credit.
"Over-exertion or mental shock must have brought it on," said the
doctor, when questioned by Lady Pynsent as to the cause of Mrs.
Campion's illness.
"She can't have had a mental shock," said Lady Pynsent, decidedly. "She
must have over-excited herself. Do you know how she did it, Sydney?"
"She fainted at my feet almost as soon as I saw her," said Sydney. "I
don't know what she had been doing all the afternoon."
Nobody else seemed to know, either. The maid bore witness that her
mistress had insisted on going downstairs, and it was generally supposed
that this expedition had been too much for her strength. Only Sydney
knew better, and he would not confide his knowledge to Lady Pynsent,
although he spoke with more freedom to the doctor.
"Yes, she had bad news which distressed her. She fainted upon hearing
it."
"That did the mischief. She was not in a condition to bear excitement,"
said the doctor, rather sharply; but he was sorry for his words, when he
noted the distressed look on Sydney's face. He was the more sorry for
him when it was discovered that he could not be admitted to the
sick-room, for his appearance sent Nan's pulse up to fever-height at
once, although she did not openly confess her agitation. The only thing
that Sydney could do was to retire, baffled and disconsolate, to his
study, where he passed the night in a state of indescribable anxiety and
excitement.
When the fever abated, Nan fell into such prostration of strength that
it was difficult to believe she would ever rise from her bed again.
Weaker than a baby, she could move neither hand nor foot: she had to be
fed like an infant, at intervals of a few minutes, lest the flame of
life, which had sunk so low, should suddenly go out altogether. It was
at this point of her illness that she fainted when Sydney once persuaded
the doctor to let him enter her room, and the nurses had great
difficulty in bringing her back to consciousness. After which, there was
no more talk of visits from her husband, and Sydney had to resign
himself to obtaining news of her from the doctor and the nurses, who, he
fancied, looked at him askance, as blaming him in their hearts for his
wife's illness.
"I can't make Nan out," said Lady Pynsent to him one day. "She is so
depressed--she cries if one looks at her almost--and yet the very thing
that I expected her to be unhappy about does not affect her in the
least."
"What do you mean?" said Sydney.
"Why, her disappointment about her baby, of course. I said something
about it, and she just whispered, 'I'm very glad.' I suppose it is
simply that she feels so weak, otherwise I should have thought it
unnatural in Nan, who was always so fond of children."
Sydney made no answer. He was beginning to find this state of things
intolerable. After all, he asked himself, what had he done that his wife
should be almost killed by the shock of finding out that he had
behaved--as other men behaved? But that sort of reasoning would not do.
His behavior to Milly had been, as he knew, singularly heartless; and he
had happened to marry a girl whose greatest charm to him had been her
tenderness of heart, her innocent candor, and that purity of mind which
comes of hatred--not ignorance--of sin. A worldlier woman would not have
been so shocked; but he had never desired less crystalline transparency
of mind--less exquisite whiteness of soul, for Nan. No; that was the
worst of it: the very qualities that he admired and respected in her
bore witness against him now.
He remembered the last hours of his father's life--how they had been
embittered by his selfish anger, for which he had never been able to
make amends. Was his wife also to die without giving him a word of
forgiveness, or hearing him ask her pardon? If she died, he knew that he
would have slain her as surely as if he had struck her to the ground
with his strong right hand. For almost the first time in his life Sydney
found himself utterly unnerved by his anxiety. His love for Nan was the
truest and strongest emotion that he had ever felt. And that his love
for her should be sullied in her eyes by comparison with the transient
influence which Milly had exercised over him was an intolerable outrage
on his best and holiest affections and on hers. "What must she think of
me?" he said to himself; and he was fain to confess that she could not
think much worse of him than he deserved. It was a bitter harvest that
he was reaping from seed that he himself had sown.
He was almost incapable of work during those terrible days when he did
not know whether Nan would live or die. He got through as much as was
absolutely imperative; but he dreaded being away from the house, lest
that "change," of which the nurses spoke, should come during his
absence; and he managed to stay at home for many hours of the day.
But at last the corner was turned: a little return of strength was
reported, and by and by the doctor assured him that, although his
patient still required very great care, the immediate danger was past,
and there was at least a fair hope of her ultimate recovery. But he
might not see her--yet.
So much was gained; but Sydney's spirits did not rise at once. He was
conscious of some relief from the agony of suspense, but black care and
anxiety sat behind him still. He was freer to come and go, however, than
he had been for some time, and the first use he made of his liberty was
to go to the very person whom he had once vowed never to see again--his
sister Lettice.
She had written to him since his interview with her at Bute Lodge. She
had told him of Alan's departure, and--to some extent--of its cause: she
had given him the address of the lodgings to which she was now going
(for a continued residence at Bute Lodge was beyond her means), and she
sent him her sisterly love--and that was all. She had not condescended
to any justification of her own conduct, nor had she alluded to the
accusations that he had made, nor to his own discomfiture. But there had
been enough quiet warmth in the letter to make him conscious that he
might count on her forgiveness and affection if he desired it. And he
did desire it. In the long hours of those sleepless nights and weary
days in which he had waited for better news of Nan, it was astonishing
to find how clearly the years of his boyhood had come back to him--those
quiet, peaceful years in which he had known nothing of the darker sides
of life, when the serene atmosphere of the rectory and the village had
been dear to his heart, and Lettice had been his cherished companion and
trusty comrade in work or play. It was like going back into another
world--a purer and a truer world than the one in which he lived now.
And in these hours of retrospect, he came to clearer and truer
conclusions respecting Lettice's character and course of action than he
had been able to do before he was himself smitten by the hand of Fate.
Lettice was interpreted to him by Nan. There _were_ women in the world,
it seemed, who had consciences, and pure hearts, and generous emotions:
it was not for him to deny it now. And he had been very hard on Lettice
in days gone by. He turned to her now with a stirring of affection which
he had not known for years.
But when he entered Lettice's room, and she came to meet him, gravely,
and with a certain inquiry in her look, he suddenly felt that he had no
reason to give for his appearance there.
"Sydney!" she had exclaimed in surprise. Then, after the first long
glance, and with a quick change of tone: "Sydney, are you ill?"
For he was haggard and worn, as she had never seen him, with dark lines
under his eyes, and an air of prostration and fatigue.
"No, I'm very well. It's Nan--my wife," he said, avoiding her alarmed
gaze.
"I am sorry--very sorry. Is she----"
"She has been on the brink of death. There is some hope now. I don't
know why I came here unless it was to tell you so," said Sydney, with an
odd abruptness which seemed to be assumed in order to mask some
unusually strong feeling. "I suppose you know that the man Johnson came
to see me----"
"Yes: they have gone," said Lettice, quickly. "They were married
yesterday, and sailed this morning."
"Ah! Well, _she_ was in the room when he--made his communication to me.
I did not know it--Johnson never knew it at all. She had been
asleep--but she woke and heard what he said. She fainted--and she has
been ill ever since." He added a few words concerning the technicalities
of his wife's case.
"Oh, Sydney!--my poor Sydney! I am so sorry," said Lettice, her eyes
full of tears. For she saw, by his changed manner, something of what his
trouble had been, and she instantly forgot all causes of complaint
against him. He was sitting sideways on a chair, with his head on his
hand; and when she put her arms round his neck and kissed him, he did
not repulse her--indeed, he kissed her in return, and seemed comforted
by her caress.
"I can't even see her," he went on. "She faints if I go into the room.
How long do you think it will last, Lettice? Will she ever get over it,
do you think?"
"If she loves you, I think she will, Sydney. But you must give her time.
No doubt it was a great shock to her," said Lettice.
He looked at her assentingly, and then stared out of the window as if
absorbed in thought. The result of his reflections seemed to be summed
up in a short sentence which, certainly, Lettice had never expected to
hear from Sydney's lips:--
"I can't think how I came to be such a damned fool. I beg your pardon,
Lettice; but it's true."
"Can I be of any use to you--or to her?"
"Thank you, I don't think so--just yet. I don't know--"
heavily--"whether she will want you some day to tell her all you know."
"Oh, no, Sydney!"
"You must do just what you think best about it. I shall put no barriers
in the way. Perhaps she had better know everything now."
Then he roused himself a little and looked at her kindly.
"How are you getting on?" he said. "Writing as usual?"
"Yes, I am busy, and doing very well."
"You look thin and fagged."
"Oh, Sydney, if you could but see yourself!"
He smiled at this, and then rose to go.
"But you will stay and have tea with me? Do, Sydney--if only," and
Lettice's voice grew low and deep, "if only in token that there is peace
between us."
So he stayed; and, although they spoke no more of the matters that were
dearest to their hearts, Lettice's bitterness of feeling towards her
brother disappeared, and Sydney felt vaguely comforted in his trouble by
her sympathy.
She did not tell him of the strange marriage-scene which she had
witnessed the day before--when Milly, almost hysterical from
over-wrought feeling, had vowed to be a true and faithful wife to the
man who had pitied and succored her in the time of her sorest need: of
Johnson's stolid demeanor, covering a totally unexpected fund of
good-feeling and romance; or of his extraordinary desire, which Lettice
had seen carried out, that the baby should be present at its mother's
wedding, and should receive--poor little mite--a fatherly kiss from him
as soon as he had kissed the forlorn and trembling bride. For Milly,
although she professed to like and respect Michael Johnson, shrank
somewhat from the prospect of life in another country, and was nervous
and excitable to a degree which rather alarmed her mistress. Lettice
confessed on reflection, however, that Johnson knew exactly how to
manage poor little Milly; and that he had called smiles to her face in
the very midst of a last flood of tears; and that she had no fear for
the girl's ultimate happiness. Johnson had behaved in a very
straightforward, manly and considerate way; and in new surroundings, in
a new country, with a kind husband and good prospects, Milly was likely
to lead a very happy and comfortable life. Lettice was glad to think so;
and was more sorry to see the baby go than to part from Milly. Indeed,
she had offered to adopt it; but Johnson was so indignant, and Milly so
tearful, at the idea, that she had been forced to relinquish her desire.
All this, however, she withheld from Sydney; as also her expedition to
the station to see the little party start for Liverpool, and Milly's
grief at parting with the forbearing mistress whom she had once
deceived, and who had been, after all, her truest friend.
* * * * *
Nan began, very slowly, but surely, to amend; and Sydney, going back to
his usual pursuits, seemed busier than ever.
But, in spite of himself, he was haunted night and day by the fear of
what would happen next; of what Nan meant to do when she grew strong.
Would she ever forgive him? And if she did not forgive him, what would
she do? Tell the whole story to Sir John, and insist on returning to her
brother's house? That would be an extreme thing, and Sir John--who was a
man of the world--would probably pooh pooh her virtuous indignation; but
Nan had a way of carrying out her resolves whether Sir John pooh-poohed
them or not. And supposing that Nan separated herself from him, Sydney
could not but see that a very serious imputation would be thrown on his
character, even if the true story were not known in all its details.
That mock marriage--which he had not at first supposed that Milly had
taken seriously--had a very ugly sound. And he had made too many enemies
for the thing to be allowed to drop if once it came to the light.
His career was simply at the mercy of two women--the Johnsons were not,
he thought, likely to break silence--and if either of them should prove
to be indiscreet or vindictive, he was a ruined man. He had injured and
insulted his sister: he had shocked and horrified his wife. What Nan
though of him he could not tell. He had always believed that women were
too small-minded to forget an injury, to forgive an insult, or to keep
silence regarding their husbands' transgressions. If Nan once enlisted
Sir John's sympathies on her side, he knew that, although he might
ultimately recover from the blow inflicted by his brother-in-law's
offense and anger, his chance of success in life would be diminished.
And for what a cause? He writhed as he thought of the passing,
contemptuous fancy, for the indulgence of which he might have to
sacrifice so much and had already sacrificed part of what was dearest in
life to him. Yes, he told himself, he was at Nan's mercy, and he had not
hitherto found women very ready to hold their hands when weapons had
been put into them, and all the instincts of outraged vanity made them
strike.
Sydney Campion prided himself on a wide experience of men and women, and
a large acquaintance with human nature. But he did not yet know Nan.
* * * * *
The story which had been so suddenly unfolded to her had struck her to
the earth with the force of a blow, for more than one reason, but
chiefly because she had trusted Sydney so completely. She was not so
ignorant of the ways of men as to believe that their lives were always
free from stain; indeed she knew more than most girls of the weakness
and wickedness of mankind, partly because she was well acquainted with
many Vanebury working-people, who were her tenants, partly because Lady
Pynsent was a woman of the world and did not choose that Nan should go
about with her eyes closed, and partly because she read widely and had
never been restricted in the choice of books. She was not a mere
ignorant child, shrinking from knowledge as if it were contamination,
and blindly believing in the goodness and innocence of all men. But this
theoretical acquaintance with the world had not saved her from the error
into which women are apt to fall--the error of setting up her lover on a
pedestal and believing that he was not as other men. She was punished
for her mistake, she told herself bitterly, by finding that he was even
worse, not better, than other men, whose weaknesses she had contemned.
For there had been a strain of meanness and cruelty in Sydney's behavior
to the girl whom he had ruined which cut his wife to the heart. She had
been taught, and she had tried--with some misgiving--to believe that she
ought to be prepared to condone a certain amount of levity, of
"wildness," even, in her husband's past; but here she saw deliberate
treachery, cold-blooded selfishness, which startled her from her dream
of happiness. Nan was a little too logical for her own peace of mind.
She could not look at an action as an isolated fact in a man's life: it
was an outcome of character. What Sydney had done showed Sydney as he
was. And, oh, what a fall was there! how different from the ideal that
she had hoped to see realized in him!
It never once occurred to Nan to take either Sir John or Lady Pynsent
into her confidence. Sydney was quite mistaken in thinking that she
would fly to them for consolation. She would have shrunk sensitively
from telling them any story to his discredit. Besides, she shrewdly
suspected that they would not share her disappointment, her sense of
disillusion; Sir John had more than once laughed in an oddly amused way
when she dropped a word in praise of Sydney's high-mindedness and
generous zeal for others. "Campion knows which side his bread's
buttered," he had once made her angry by saying. She had not the
slightest inclination to talk to them of Sydney's past life and
character.
Besides, she knew well enough that she had no actual cause of complaint
in the eyes of the world. Her husband was not bound to tell her all that
happened to him before he met her; and he had severed all connection
with that unhappy young woman before he asked her, Anna Pynsent, to be
his wife. Nan's grievance was one of those intangible grievances which
bring the lines into so many women's faces and the pathos into their
eyes--the grievance of having set up an idol and seen it fall. The
Sydney Campion who had deceived and wronged a trusting girl was not the
man that she had known and loved. That was all. It was nothing that
could be told to the outer world, nothing that in itself constituted a
reason for her leaving him and making him a mark for arrows of scandal
and curiosity; but it simply killed outright the love that she had
hitherto borne him, so that her heart lay cold and heavy in her bosom as
a stone.
So frozen and hard it seemed to her, that she could not bring herself to
acknowledge that certain words spoken to her husband by the stranger had
had any effect on her at all. In the old days, as she said to herself,
they would have hurt her terribly. "_You cruelly deserted her because
you wanted to marry a rich woman._" She, Nan, was the rich woman for
whom Sydney Campion had deserted another. It was cruel to have made
_her_ the cause of Sydney's treachery--the instrument of his fall. She
had never wished to wrong anyone, nor that anyone should be wronged for
her sake. She would not, she thought, have married Sydney if she had
known this story earlier. Why had he married her?--ah, there came in the
sting of the sentence which she had overheard: "You wanted to marry a
rich woman." Yes, she was rich. Sydney had not even paid her the very
poor compliment of deserting another woman because he loved her best--he
had loved her wealth and committed a base deed to gain it, that was all.
She was unjust to Sydney in this; but it was almost impossible that she
should not be unjust. The remembrance of his burden of debt came back to
her, of the bill that he could not meet, of the list of his liabilities
which he had been so loath to give her, and she told herself that he had
desired nothing but her wealth and the position that she could give him.
To attain his own ends he had made a stepping-stone of her. He was
welcome to do so. She would make it easy for him to use her money, so
that he need never know the humiliation of applying to her for it. Now
that she understood what he wanted, she would never again make the
mistake of supposing that he cared for her. But it was hard on her--hard
to think that she had given the love of her youth to a man who valued
her only for her gold; hard to know that the dream of happiness was
over, and that the brightness of her life was gone. It was no wonder
that Nan's recovery was slow, when she lay, day after day, night after
night, the slow tears creeping down her cheeks, thinking such thoughts
as these. The blow seemed to have broken her heart and her will to live.
It would have been a relief to her to be told that she must die.
Her weakness was probably responsible for part of the depth and darkness
of her despair. She was a puzzle to her sister-in-law, who had been used
to find in Nan a never-failing spring of brightness and gentle mirth.
Lady Pynsent began to see signs of something more than a physical
ailment. She said one day, more seriously than usual,
"I hope, Nan, you have not quarreled with your husband."
"Oh no, no," said Nan, starting and flushing guilty; "I never quarrel
with Sydney."
"I fancied there was something amiss. Take my advice, Nan, and don't
stand on your dignity with your husband. A man is ready enough to
console himself with somebody else if his wife isn't nice to him. I
would make it up if I were you, if there has been anything wrong."
Nan kept silence.
"He is very anxious about you. Don't you think you are well enough to
see him to-day?" For Sydney had not entered Nan's room since that
unlucky time when she fainted at his appearance.
"Oh no, no--not to-day," said Nan. And then, collecting herself, she
added, "At least--not just yet--a little later in the afternoon, I
mean."
"I'll tell him to look in at four," said Lady Pynsent.
So at four Sydney was admitted, and it would have been hard to say
whether husband or wife felt the more embarrassment. Sydney tried hard
to behave as though nothing were amiss between them. He kissed her and
asked after her well-being; but he did so with an inward tremor and a
great uncertainty as to the reception that he should meet with. But she
allowed him to kiss her; she even kissed him in return and smiled a very
little, more than once, while he was talking to her; and he, feeling his
heart grow lighter while she smiled, fancied that the shadow of sadness
in her eyes, the lifelessness of her voice and hand, came simply from
bodily weakness and from no deeper cause.
After this first visit, he saw her each day for longer intervals, and
realized very quickly that she had no intention of shunning him or
punishing him before the world, as he had feared that she would do. She
was so quiet, so gentle to him, that, with all a man's obtuseness where
women are concerned, he congratulated himself on being let off so
easily, and thought that the matter was to be buried in oblivion. He
even wondered a little at Nan's _savoir-faire_, and felt a vague sense
of disappointment mingling with his relief. Was he to hear no more about
it, although she had been struck down and brought almost to death's door
by the discovery of his wretched story?
It seemed to be so, indeed. For some time he was kept in continual
suspense, expecting her to speak to him on the subject; but he waited in
vain. Then, with great reluctance, he himself made some slight approach,
some slight reference to it; a reference so slight that if, as he
sometimes fancied, her illness _had_ destroyed her memory of the
conversation which she had overheard in the study, he need not betray
himself. But there was no trace of lack of memory in Nan's face, when he
brought out the words which he hoped would lead to some fuller
understanding between them. She turned scarlet and then white as snow.
Turning her face aside, she said, in a low but very distinct voice,
"I want to hear no more about it, Sydney."
"But, Nan----"
"_Please_ say no more," she interrupted. And something in her tone made
him keep silence. He looked at her for a minute or two, but she would
not look at him and so he got up and left her, with a sense of mingled
injury and defeat.
No, she had not forgotten: she was not oblivious; and he doubted whether
she had forgiven him as he thought. The prohibition to speak on the
subject chafed him, although he had previously said to himself that it
was next to impossible for him to mention it to her. And he was puzzled,
for he had not followed the workings of Nan's mind in the least, and the
words, concerning his marriage with her and his reasons for it had
slipped past him unheeded, while his thoughts were fixed upon other
things.