CHAPTER II.
AMONG the guests whom the rector met was a gentleman named Rambert, asingle man of large fortune, well known in the neighborhood of Penliddyas the owner of a noble country-seat and the possessor of a magnificentlibrary.
Mr. Rambert (with whom Mr. Carling was well acquainted) greeted him atthe dinner-party with friendly expressions of regret at the time thathad elapsed since they had last seen each other, and mentioned thathe had recently been adding to his collection of books some rare oldvolumes of theology, which he thought the rector might find it usefulto look over. Mr. Carling, with the necessity of finishing hispamphlet uppermost in his mind, replied, jestingly, that the species ofliterature which he was just then most interested in examining happenedto be precisely of the sort which (excepting novels, perhaps) had leastaffinity to theological writing. The necessary explanation followed thisavowal as a matter of course, and, to Mr. Carling's great delight, hisfriend turned on him gayly with the most surprising and satisfactory ofanswers:
"You don't know half the resources of my miles of bookshelves," he said,"or you would never have thought of going to London for what you canget from me. A whole side of one of my rooms upstairs is devoted toperiodical literature. I have reviews, magazines, and three weeklynewspapers, bound, in each case, from the first number; and, what isjust now more to your purpose, I have the _Times_ for the last fifteenyears in huge half-yearly volumes. Give me the date to-night, and youshall have the volume you want by two o'clock to-morrow afternoon."
The necessary information was given at once, and, with a great senseof relief, so far as his literary anxieties were concerned, Mr. Carlingwent home early to see what the quieting medicine had done for his wife.
She had dozed a little, but had not slept. However, she was evidentlybetter, for she was able to take an interest in the sayings and doingsat the dinner-party, and questioned her husband about the guests and theconversation with all a woman's curiosity about the minutest matters.She lay with her face turned toward him and her eyes meeting his, untilthe course of her inquiries drew an answer from him, which informed herof his fortunate discovery in relation to Mr. Rambert's library, and ofthe prospect it afforded of his resuming his labors the next day.
When he mentioned this circumstance, she suddenly turned her head on thepillow so that her face was hidden from him, and he could see throughthe counterpane that the shivering, which he had observed when herillness had seized her in the morning, had returned again.
"I am only cold," she said, in a hurried way, with her face under theclothes.
He rang for the maid, and had a fresh covering placed on the bed.Observing that she seemed unwilling to be disturbed, he did not removethe clothes from her face when he wished her goodnight, but pressed hislips on her head, and patted it gently with his hand. She shrank atthe touch as if it hurt her, light as it was, and he went downstairs,resolved to send for the doctor again if she did not get to rest onbeing left quiet. In less than half an hour afterward the maid came downand relieved his anxiety by reporting that her mistress was asleep.
The next morning he found her in better spirits. Her eyes, she said,felt too weak to bear the light, so she kept the bedroom darkened. Butin other respects she had little to complain of.
After answering her husband's first inquiries, she questioned him abouthis plans for the day. He had letters to write which would occupy himuntil twelve o'clock. At two o'clock he expected the volume of the_Times_ to arrive, and he should then devote the rest of the afternoonto his work. After hearing what his plans were, Mrs. Carling suggestedthat he should ride out after he had done his letters, so as to get someexercise at the fine part of the day; and she then reminded him that alonger time than usual had elapsed since he had been to see a certainold pensioner of his, who had nursed him as a child, and who was nowbedridden, in a village at some distance, called Tringweighton. Althoughthe rector saw no immediate necessity for making this charitablevisit, the more especially as the ride to the village and back, and theintermediate time devoted to gossip, would occupy at least two hours anda half, he assented to his wife's proposal, perceiving that she urged itwith unusual earnestness, and being unwilling to thwart her, even in atrifle, at a time when she was ill.
Accordingly, his horse was at the door at twelve precisely. Impatient toget back to the precious volume of the _Times,_ he rode so much fasterthan usual, and so shortened his visit to the old woman, that he washome again by a quarter past two. Ascertaining from the servant whoopened the door that the volume had been left by Mr. Rambert's messengerpunctually at two, he ran up to his wife's room to tell her about hisvisit before he secluded himself for the rest of the afternoon over hiswork. On entering the bedroom he found it still darkened, and he wasstruck by a smell of burned paper in it.
His wife (who was now dressed in her wrapper and lying on the sofa)accounted for the smell by telling him that she had fancied the roomfelt close, and that she had burned some paper--being afraid of the coldair if she opened the window--to fumigate it. Her eyes were evidentlystill weak, for she kept her hand over them while she spoke. Afterremaining with her long enough to relate the few trivial events of hisride, Mr. Carling descended to his study to occupy himself at last withthe volume of the _Times_.
It lay on his table in the shape of a large flat brown paper package.On proceeding to undo the covering, he observed that it had been verycarelessly tied up. The strings were crooked and loosely knotted, andthe direction bearing his name and address, instead of being in themiddle of the paper, was awkwardly folded over at the edge of thevolume. However, his business was with the inside of the parcel; sohe tossed away the covering and the string, and began at once to huntthrough the volume for the particular number of the paper which hewished first to consult.
He soon found it, with the report of the speeches delivered by themembers of the deputation, and the answer returned by the minister.After reading through the report, and putting a mark in the place whereit occurred, he turned to the next day's number of the paper, to seewhat further hints on the subject the letters addressed to the editormight happen to contain.
To his inexpressible vexation and amazement, he found that one number ofthe paper was missing.
He bent the two sides of the volume back, looked closely between theleaves, and saw immediately that the missing number had been cut out.
A vague sense of something like alarm began to mingle with his firstfeeling of disappointment. He wrote at once to Mr. Rambert, mentioningthe discovery he had just made, and sent the note off by his groom, withorders to the man to wait for an answer.
The reply with which the servant returned was almost insolent in theshortness and coolness of its tone. Mr. Rambert had no books in hislibrary which were not in perfect condition. The volume of the _Times_had left his house perfect, and whatever blame might attach to themutilation of it rested therefore on other shoulders than those of theowner.
Like many other weak men, Mr. Carling was secretly touchy on the subjectof his dignity. After reading the note and questioning his servants, whowere certain that the volume had not been touched till he had opened it,he resolved that the missing number of the _Times_ should be procuredat any expense and inserted in its place; that the volume should be sentback instantly without a word of comment; and that no more books fromMr. Rambert's library should enter his house.
He walked up and down the study considering what first step he shouldtake to effect the purpose in view. Under the quickening influence ofhis irritation, an idea occurred to him, which, if it had only enteredhis mind the day before, might probably have proved the means of savinghim from placing himself under an obligation to Mr. Rambert. He resolvedto write immediately to his bookseller and publisher in London (who knewhim well as an old and excellent customer), mentioning the date ofthe back number of the _Times_ that was required, and authorizing thepublisher to offer any reward he judged necessary to any person whomight have the means of procuring it at the office of the paper orelsewhere. T
his letter he wrote and dispatched in good time for theLondon post, and then went upstairs to see his wife and to tell her whathad happened. Her room was still darkened and she was still on thesofa. On the subject of the missing number she said nothing, but ofMr. Rambert and his note she spoke with the most sovereign contempt. Ofcourse the pompous old fool was mistaken, and the proper thing to do wasto send back the volume instantly and take no more notice of him.
"It shall be sent back," said Mr. Carling, "but not till the missingnumber is replaced." And he then told her what he had done.
The effect of that simple piece of information on Mrs. Carling was soextraordinary and so unaccountable that her husband fairly stood aghast.For the first time since their marriage he saw her temper suddenly in aflame. She started up from the sofa and walked about the room as ifshe had lost her senses, upbraiding him for making the weakest ofconcessions to Mr. Rambert's insolent assumption that the rector was toblame. If she could only have laid hands on that letter, she would haveconsulted her husband's dignity and independence by putting it in thefire! She hoped and prayed the number of the paper might not be found!In fact, it was certain that the number, after all these years, couldnot possibly be hunted up. The idea of his acknowledging himself to bein the wrong in that way, when he knew himself to be in the right! Itwas almost ridiculous--no, it was _quite_ ridiculous! And she threwherself back on the sofa, and suddenly burst out laughing.
At the first word of remonstrance which fell from her husband's lips hermood changed again in an instant. She sprang up once more, kissed himpassionately, with the tears streaming from her eyes, and implored himto leave her alone to recover herself. He quitted the room so seriouslyalarmed about her that he resolved to go to the doctor privately andquestion him on the spot. There was an unspeakable dread in his mindthat the nervous attack from which she had been pronounced to besuffering might be a mere phrase intended to prepare him for the futuredisclosure of something infinitely and indescribably worse.
The doctor, on hearing Mr. Carling's report, exhibited no surpriseand held to his opinion. Her nervous system was out of order, and herhusband had been needlessly frightened by a hysterical paroxysm. If shedid not get better in a week, change of scene might then be tried. Inthe meantime, there was not the least cause for alarm.
On the next day she was quieter, but she hardly spoke at all. At nightshe slept well, and Mr. Carling's faith in the medical man revivedagain.
The morning after was the morning which would bring the answer from thepublisher in London. The rector's study was on the ground floor, andwhen he heard the postman's knock, being especially anxious that morningabout his correspondence, he went out into the hall to receive hisletters the moment they were put on the table.
It was not the footman who had answered the door, as usual, but Mrs.Carling's maid. She had taken the letters from the postman, and she wasgoing away with them upstairs.
He stopped her, and asked her why she did not put the letters on thehall table as usual. The maid, looking very much confused, said that hermistress had desired that whatever the postman had brought that morningshould be carried up to her room. He took the letters abruptly from thegirl, without asking any more questions, and went back into his study.
Up to this time no shadow of a suspicion had fallen on his mind.Hitherto there had been a simple obvious explanation for every unusualevent that had occurred during the last three or four days; but thislast circumstance in connection with the letters was not to be accountedfor. Nevertheless, even now, it was not distrust of his wife that wasbusy at his mind--he was too fond of her and too proud of her to feelit--the sensation was more like uneasy surprise. He longed to go andquestion her, and get a satisfactory answer, and have done with it. Butthere was a voice speaking within him that had never made itself heardbefore--a voice with a persistent warning in it, that said, Wait; andlook at your letters first.
He spread them out on the table with hands that trembled he knew notwhy. Among them was the back number of the _Times_ for which he hadwritten to London, with a letter from the publisher explaining the meansby which the copy had been procured.
He opened the newspaper with a vague feeling of alarm at finding thatthose letters to the editor which he had been so eager to read, andthat perfecting of the mutilated volume which he had been so anxious toaccomplish, had become objects of secondary importance in his mind. Aninexplicable curiosity about the general contents of the paper was nowthe one moving influence which asserted itself within him, he spreadopen the broad sheet on the table.
The first page on which his eye fell was the page on the right-handside. It contained those very letters--three in number--which he hadonce been so anxious to see. He tried to read them, but no effort couldfix his wandering attention. He looked aside to the opposite page, onthe left hand. It was the page that contained the leading articles.
They were three in number. The first was on foreign politics; the secondwas a sarcastic commentary on a recent division in the House of Lords;the third was one of those articles on social subjects which havegreatly and honorably helped to raise the reputation of the _Times_above all contest and all rivalry.
The lines of this third article which first caught his eye comprised theopening sentence of the second paragraph, and contained these words:
It appears, from the narrative which will be found in another part ofour columns, that this unfortunate woman married, in the spring ofthe year 18--, one Mr. Fergus Duncan, of Glendarn, in the Highlands ofScotland...
The letters swam and mingled together under his eyes before he couldgo on to the next sentence. His wife exhibited as an object for publiccompassion in the _Times_ newspaper! On the brink of the dreadfuldiscovery that was advancing on him, his mind reeled back, and a deadlyfaintness came over him. There was water on a side-table--he drank adeep draught of it--roused himself--seized on the newspaper with bothhands, as if it had been a living thing that could feel the desperateresolution of his grasp, and read the article through, sentence bysentence, word by word.
The subject was the Law of Divorce, and the example quoted was theexample of his wife.
At that time England stood disgracefully alone as the one civilizedcountry in the world having a divorce law for the husband which was notalso a divorce law for the wife. The writer in the _Times_ boldly andeloquently exposed this discreditable anomaly in the administration ofjustice; hinted delicately at the unutterable wrongs suffered by Mrs.Duncan; and plainly showed that she was indebted to the accident ofhaving been married in Scotland, and to her consequent right of appealto the Scotch tribunals, for a full and final release from the tie thatbound her to the vilest of husbands, which the English law of that daywould have mercilessly refused.
He read that. Other men might have gone on to the narrative extractedfrom the Scotch newspaper. But at the last word of the article _he_stopped.
The newspaper, and the unread details which it contained, lost all holdon his attention in an instant, and in their stead, living and burningon his mind, like the Letters of Doom on the walls of Belshazzar, thererose up in judgment against him the last words of a verse in the Gospelof Saint Luke--
_"Whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband, commitethadultery."_
He had preached from these words, he had warned his hearers, with thewhole strength of the fanatical sincerity that was in him, to beware ofprevaricating with the prohibition which that verse contained, and toaccept it as literally, unreservedly, finally forbidding the marriage ofa divorced woman. He had insisted on that plain interpretation of plainwords in terms which had made his congregation tremble. And now he stoodalone in the secrecy of his own chamber self-convicted of the deadly sinwhich he had denounced--he stood, as he had told the wicked among hishearers that they would stand at the Last Day, before the Judgment Seat.
He was unconscious of the lapse of time; he never knew whether it wasmany minutes or few before the door of his room was suddenly and softlyopened. It did open, and his wife ca
me in.
In her white dress, with a white shawl thrown over her shoulders; herdark hair, so neat and glossy at other times, hanging tangled about hercolorless cheeks, and heightening the glassy brightness of terror inher eyes--so he saw her; the woman put away from her husband--the womanwhose love had made his life happy and had stained his soul with adeadly sin.
She came on to within a few paces of him without a word or a tear, ora shadow of change passing over the dreadful rigidity of her face. Shelooked at him with a strange look; she pointed to the newspaper crumpledin his hand with a strange gesture; she spoke to him in a strange voice.
"You know it!" she said.
His eyes met hers--she shrank from them--turned--and laid her arms andher head heavily against the wall.
"Oh, Alfred," she said, "I was so lonely in the world, and I was so fondof you!"
The woman's delicacy, the woman's trembling tenderness welled up fromher heart, and touched her voice with a tone of its old sweetness as shemurmured those simple words.
She said no more. Her confession of her fault, her appeal to their pastlove for pardon, were both poured forth in that one sentence. She leftit to his own heart to tell him the rest. How anxiously her vigilantlove had followed his every word and treasured up his every opinion inthe days when they first met; how weakly and falsely, and yet with howtrue an affection for him, she had shrunk from the disclosure which sheknew but too well would have separated them even at the church door;how desperately she had fought against the coming discovery whichthreatened to tear her from the bosom she clung to, and to cast her outinto the world with the shadow of her own shame to darken her life tothe end--all this she left him to feel; for the moment which mightpart them forever was the moment when she knew best how truly, howpassionately he had loved her.
His lips trembled as he stood looking at her in silence, and the slow,burning tears dropped heavily, one by one, down his cheeks. The naturalhuman remembrance of the golden days of their companionship, of thenights and nights when that dear head--turned away from him now inunutterable misery and shame--had nestled itself so fondly and sohappily on his breast, fought hard to silence his conscience, to rootout his dreadful sense of guilt, to tear the words of Judgment fromtheir ruthless hold on his mind, to claim him in the sweet names of Pityand of Love. If she had turned and looked at him at that moment,their next words would have been spoken in each other's arms. But theoppression of her despair under his silence was too heavy for her, andshe never moved.
He forced himself to look away from her; he struggled hard to break thesilence between them.
"God forgive you, Emily!" he said.
As her name passed his lips, his voice failed him, and the torture athis heart burst its way out in sobs. He hurried to the door to spareher the terrible reproof of the grief that had now mastered him. When hepassed her she turned toward him with a faint cry.
He caught her as she sank forward, and saved her from dropping on thefloor. For the last time his arms closed round her. For the last timehis lips touched hers--cold and insensible to him now. He laid her onthe sofa and went out.
One of the female servants was crossing the hall. The girl started asshe met him, and turned pale at the sight of his face. He could notspeak to her, but he pointed to the study door. He saw her go into theroom, and then left the house.
He never entered it more, and he and his wife never met again.
Later on that last day, a sister of Mr. Carling's--a married womanliving in the town--came to the rectory. She brought an open note withher, addressed to the unhappy mistress of the house. It contained thesefew lines, blotted and stained with tears:
May God grant us both the time for repentance! If I had loved you less,I might have trusted myself to see you again. Forgive me, and pityme, and remember me in your prayers, as I shall forgive, and pity, andremember you.
He had tried to write more, but the pen had dropped from his hand. Hissister's entreaties had not moved him. After giving her the note todeliver, he had solemnly charged her to be gentle in communicating thetidings that she bore, and had departed alone for London. He heard allremonstrances with patience. He did not deny that the deception of whichhis wife had been guilty was the most pardonable of all concealments ofthe truth, because it sprang from her love for him; but he had the samehopeless answer for every one who tried to plead with him--the versefrom the Gospel of Saint Luke.
His purpose in traveling to London was to make the necessaryarrangements for his wife's future existence, and then to get employmentwhich would separate him from his home and from all its associations.A missionary expedition to one of the Pacific Islands accepted him as avolunteer. Broken in body and spirit, his last look of England from thedeck of the ship was his last look at land. A fortnight afterward, hisbrethren read the burial-service over him on a calm, cloudless eveningat sea. Before he was committed to the deep, his little pocket Bible,which had been a present from his wife, was, in accordance with hisdying wishes, placed open on his breast, so that the inscription, "To mydear Husband," might rest over his heart.
His unhappy wife still lives. When the farewell lines of her husband'swriting reached her she was incapable of comprehending them. The mentalprostration which had followed the parting scene was soon complicatedby physical suffering--by fever on the brain. To the surprise of all whoattended her, she lived through the shock, recovering with the completeloss of one faculty, which, in her situation, poor thing, was a mercyand a gain to her--the faculty of memory. From that time to this she hasnever had the slightest gleam of recollection of anything that happenedbefore her illness. In her happy oblivion, the veriest trifles are asnew and as interesting to her as if she was beginning her existenceagain. Under the tender care of the friends who now protect her, shelives contentedly the life of a child. When her last hour comes, may shedie with nothing on her memory but the recollection of their kindness!
THE EIGHTH DAY.
THE wind that I saw in the sky yesterday has come. It sweeps down ourlittle valley in angry howling gusts, and drives the heavy showersbefore it in great sheets of spray.
There are some people who find a strangely exciting effect produced ontheir spirits by the noise, and rush, and tumult of the elements on astormy day. It has never been so with me, and it is less so than evernow. I can hardly bear to think of my son at sea in such a tempest asthis. While I can still get no news of his ship, morbid fancies besetme which I vainly try to shake off. I see the trees through my windowbending before the wind. Are the masts of the good ship bending likethem at this moment? I hear the wash of the driving rain. Is _he_hearing the thunder of the raging waves? If he had only come back lastnight!--it is vain to dwell on it, but the thought will haunt me--if hehad only come back last night!
I tried to speak cautiously about him again to Jessie, as Owen hadadvised me; but I am so old and feeble now that this ill-omened stormhas upset me, and I could not feel sure enough of my own self-control toventure on matching myself to-day against a light-hearted, lively girl,with all her wits about her. It is so important that I should not betrayGeorge--it would be so inexcusable on my part if his interests suffered,even accidentally, in my hands.
This was a trying day for our guest. Her few trifling indoor resourceshad, as I could see, begun to lose their attractions for her at last.If we were not now getting to the end of the stories, and to the end,therefore, of the Ten Days also, our chance of keeping her much longerat the Glen Tower would be a very poor one.
It was, I think, a great relief for us all to be summoned together thisevening for a definite purpose. The wind had fallen a little as it goton toward dusk. To hear it growing gradually fainter and fainter inthe valley below added immeasurably to the comforting influence of theblazing fire and the cheerful lights when the shutters were closed forthe night.
The number drawn happened to be the last of the series--Ten--and thelast also of the stories which I had written. There were now but twonumbers left in the bowl. Owen and Morgan had each o
ne reading more toaccomplish before our guest's stay came to an end, and the manuscriptsin the Purple Volume were all exhausted.
"This new story of mine," I said, "is not, like the story I last read,a narrative of adventure happening to myself, but of adventures thathappened to a lady of my acquaintance. I was brought into contact, inthe first instance, with one of her male relatives, and, in the secondinstance, with the lady herself, by certain professional circumstanceswhich I need not particularly describe. They involved a dry questionof wills and title-deeds in no way connected with this story, butsufficiently important to interest me as a lawyer. The case came totrial at the Assizes on my circuit, and I won it in the face of somevery strong points, very well put, on the other side. I was in poorhealth at the time, and my exertions so completely knocked me up that Iwas confined to bed in my lodgings for a week or more--"
"And the grateful lady came and nursed you, I suppose," said the Queenof Hearts, in her smart, off-hand way.
"The grateful lady did something much more natural in her position, andmuch more useful in mine," I answered--"she sent her servant to attendon me. He was an elderly man, who had been in her service since thetime of her first marriage, and he was also one of the most sensible andwell-informed persons whom I have ever met with in his station of life.From hints which he dropped while he was at my bedside, I discoveredfor the first time that his mistress had been unfortunate in her secondmarriage, and that the troubles of that period of her life had endedin one of the most singular events which had happened in that part ofEngland for many a long day past. It is hardly necessary to say that,before I allowed the man to enter into any particulars, I stipulatedthat he should obtain his mistress's leave to communicate what he knew.Having gained this, and having further surprised me by mentioning thathe had been himself connected with all the circumstances, he told me thewhole story in the fullest detail. I have now tried to reproduce it asnearly as I could in his own language. Imagine, therefore, that I amjust languidly recovering in bed, and that a respectable elderly man, inquiet black costume, is sitting at my pillow and speaking to me in theseterms--"
Thus ending my little preface, I opened the manuscript and began my laststory.
BROTHER GRIFFITH'S STORY of A PLOT IN PRIVATE LIFE.
The Queen of Hearts Page 21