by Hugh Conway
Yet it was a rapture not unmodified by doubts and fears. It may be that my character lacked that very useful trait called by some self-confidence and by others conceit. The more I saw to love and admire in Pauline, the more I asked myself how I could dare to expect that so peerless a creature would condescend to accept the love and the life I wished to offer her. Who was I to win her? I was rich, it is true, but I felt sure that riches would not buy her affection—besides, as I had not told her that her own wealth was swept away, she fancied her fortune was as large as my own. She was young, beautiful, and, so far as she knew, free and amply provided for. No, I had nothing to offer her which was worthy of her acceptance.
I quite dreaded to look forward to the moment which must sooner or later come—the moment when I must, ignoring the past, ask her once more to be my wife. On her answer would hang the whole of my future life. No wonder I decided to postpone the ordeal until I felt quite certain that the result of it would be favourable to me. No wonder that when with Pauline, and realizing the value of the prize I aimed at, I grew quite humble and depreciatory of what merits I may have possessed. No wonder that at times I wished that I were gifted with that pleasing assurance which sits so well on many men, and, time and opportunity being given, seems to go a long way toward winning a woman’s heart.
Time and opportunity at least were not wanting in my case.
I had taken up my quarters near to her, and from morn to night we were in each other’s company. We wandered through the narrow Devonshire lanes, with the luxuriant banks of ferns on either side. We climbed the rugged tors. We fished with more or less success the rapid streams. We drove together. We read and sketched—but as yet we had not talked of love; though all the while my wedding-ring was on her finger.
It required all my authority to prevent Priscilla telling Pauline the truth. On this point I was firm. Unless the past came back of its own accord, I would hear her say she loved me before my lips revealed it to her. Perhaps it was the idea which at times came to me, that Pauline remembered more than she would own to, kept me steadfast in this resolution.
It was curious the way in which she at once fell into friendly, unconstrained intercourse with me. We might have known each other from childhood, so perfectly natural and unembarrassed was her manner when we were together. She made no demur when I begged her to call me by my Christian name, nor did she object to my making use of her own. Had she done so I cannot think in what form I should have addressed her. Although I had instructed Priscilla to call her Miss March, the old woman stoutly objected to this, and compounded matters by speaking to her and of her as Miss Pauline.
The days slipped by—the happiest days my life had as yet known. Morn, noon and eve we were together; and I fear were objects of great curiosity to our neighbours, who no doubt wondered what relation existed between me and the beautiful girl at whose side I ever was.
I soon found that Pauline’s natural disposition was gay and bright. It was too soon yet to expect it to reassert itself, yet I was not without hopes that before long that look, telling of sad memories, which so often crossed her face, would fade away forever. Now and again a pleased smile lit up her face, and merry words slipped from her lips. Although, when reason first returned to her, it seemed as if her brother’s death had occurred but the day before, I felt sure that, after a while, she understood that years had passed since the fatal night. These years were to her wrapped in a mist; they seemed as dreams. She was trying to recall them, beginning at the beginning; and I need not say with what alacrity I lent my aid.
By common consent we avoided the future, but of the past, or all the past in which I was not concerned, we spoke freely. All the events of her early years she now remembered perfectly; she could account for everything up to the time when her brother was struck down—after that came mistiness; from which she emerged to find herself in a strange room, ill, and being nursed by a strange nurse.
Several days passed before Pauline questioned me as to the part I had played in her clouded life. One evening we stood on the top of a thickly wooded hill, from which we could just catch a glimpse of the sea, now reddened by a glorious sunset. We had been silent for some time, and who can say that our thoughts were not more in unison than any words we could have spoken while our strange and uncertain relations continued. I looked at the western sky until the glowing tints began to fade, then turning to my companion I found her dark eyes gazing at me with almost painful earnestness.
‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘tell me what I shall find when that lost time comes back to me?’
Her fingers, as she spoke, were playing with her wedding ring. She still wore it, and the diamond keeper I had placed above it; but she had not as yet asked me why it was on her hand.
‘Will it come back, Pauline, do you think?’ I asked.
‘I hope so—or should I hope so? Tell me, will it bring me joy or sorrow?’
‘Who can say—the two are always mingled.’
She sighed and turned her eyes to the ground. Presently she raised them to mine.
‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘how and when did you come into my life—why did I dream of you?’
‘You saw me so often when you were ill.’
‘Why did I wake and find your old servant taking care of me?’
‘Your uncle gave you into my charge. I promised to watch over you during his absence.’
‘And he will never return. He is punished for his crime—for standing by when the poor boy was murdered.’
She pressed her hands to her eyes, as if to shut out the light.
‘Pauline,’ I said, wishing to change the current of her thoughts, ‘tell me how you saw me in dreams; what you dreamed of me?’
She shuddered. ‘I dreamed that you were standing by me—in the very room—that you saw the deed. Yet I knew that it could not be so.’
‘And then?’
‘I saw your face many times—it was always travelling, travelling through clouds. I saw your lips move and you seemed to say, ‘I am going to learn the truth—so I waited patiently till you returned.’
‘You never dreamed of me before?’
It was growing dusk. I was uncertain whether it was the deepening shade from the trees which made her cheeks look darker, or whether it was a blush. My heart was beating madly.
‘I cannot tell! I don’t know! Don’t ask me!’ she said in a troubled voice. Then she turned. ‘It grows dark and chilly. Let us go in.’
I followed her. It was so completely the rule for me to spend the evening with her that I did not even wait for an invitation. It was our custom to play and sing together for an hour or two. Pauline’s first expressed desire after her recovery had been for a piano. Believing herself to be an heiress she had felt no scruple in asking for all she wanted, and my instructions to Priscilla being that no money was to be spared in ministering to her comforts, a piano had been sent from the nearest town.
All her skill had returned to her. Her voice had come back even stronger and more sweet than of old. Again and again she held me entranced as she had held me once before, when I little expected the fearful ending to her song, or that my fate and the singer’s were so closely interwoven.
I was surprised, therefore, when this evening she turned on the doorstep and said, ‘Not tonight. Leave me, please, for tonight.’
I urged no objection. I took her hand and bade her farewell until the morrow. I would go and wander by starlight and think of her.
As we parted she looked at me strangely, almost solemnly.
‘Gilbert,’ she said, speaking in Italian; for Priscilla was now standing at the open door—‘shall I pray for the past to return or that I should never remember it? Which will be the best for me—and for you?’
Without waiting to hear my reply, she glided past Priscilla, who stood waiting for me to follow her.
‘Good night, Priscilla,’ I said, ‘I am not coming in.’
‘Not coming in, Master Gilbert! Miss Pauline will be vexed.’
Priscilla came out to the doorstep and closed the door behind her. There was something in her manner which told me she meant on this particular occasion to resume what she could of that authority she had been delegated to exercise over me during my tender years—an authority I did not dare to dispute until long after I had been invested with jackets and trousers. I have no doubt but she would have liked to have seized me by the collar and given me a sound shaking. As it was she was obliged to content herself with throwing a world of sorrowful indignation into her voice.
‘She may easily feel ill, poor young lady, when her husband lives at one house and she at another, and here’s everybody round about trying to find what relation you two are to each other—asking me all sorts of questions, and I mustn’t say you are husband and wife.’
‘No—not yet.’
‘Well, I am going to, Master Gilbert. If you won’t tell the poor young lady, I shall. I’ll tell her how you brought her home and sent for me to take care of her—how you tended her and waited on her all day long—how you shut yourself up for her sake, never seeing an old friend’s face. Oh, yes, Master Gilbert, I’ll tell her all; and I’ll tell her how you went into her room and kissed her ere you started on that fool’s journey, wherever it was. She’ll remember everything fast enough then.’
‘I command you to say nothing.’
‘I’ve heeded too many commands of yours, Master Gilbert, to mind breaking one for your sake. I’ll do it and take the consequences.’
Feeling that the explanation, if made by Priscilla, would not only sweep away a great deal of romance, but also might precipitate matters and make them far more difficult to adjust to my own satisfaction, I was bound to prevent her carrying out her threat. Knowing from old experience that although the good soul could not be driven, she could be led, I was obliged to resort to cajolery. So I said, as one asking a boon—
‘You won’t if I entreat and beg you not to, my old friend. You love me too much to do anything against my wishes.’
Priscilla was not proof against this appeal, but she urged me to proclaim the true state of affairs as soon as possible.
‘And don’t be too sure, Master Gilbert,’ she concluded, ‘as to what she remembers or doesn’t. Sometimes I think she knows a good deal more than you suppose.’
Then she left me, and I went wandering about, thinking as to what meaning to attach to Pauline’s parting words.
‘Which will be the best for me—and for you?’—to forget or to recall? How much did she forget—how much did she recall? Had those rings on her hand not shown her that she was a wife? Could she help suspecting whose wife she was? Even if she remembered nothing about our strange hurried marriage, nothing about our subsequent life together, she found herself after that interval of oblivion, as it were, under my charge; found that I knew all the tragic circumstances of her brother’s end, that I had now returned from a journey of thousands of miles, undertaken to learn the fatal particulars. Although she might not be able to account for it, she must by this time know the truth. Keeping the ring on her finger showed that she did not dispute the fact that, somehow, she was wedded. Who could be her husband except me?
Yes, by the evidence the situation offered, I determined that she had arrived at the right conclusion; and the hour was at hand when I should learn if the knowledge would bring her joy or sorrow.
Tomorrow I would tell her all. I would tell her how strangely our lives became linked. I would plead for her love more passionately than ever man yet pleaded. I would prove to her how innocently I had fallen into Ceneri’s schemes, how free from blame I was in wedding her whilst her mental state was such that she was unable to refuse consent. All this she should learn, and then I would hear my doom from her lips.
I would urge no plea based upon my legal right to my wife. So far as I could make her she should be free. Nothing should bind her to me except love. If she had none to give me, I would tear myself from her, and at her wish see if steps could not be taken to annul the marriage—but whether she elected to remain my wife in name, to become my wife in reality, or to sever every tie, her future life, with or without her knowledge, should be my care. By this time tomorrow my fate should be known.
Having settled this I should have retired to rest, but I was in no mood for sleep. Again and again I recalled her last words and commenced one of those weighings of hopes and fears which always means self-torture. Why, if Pauline had guessed the truth, had she not asked me about it? How could she spend hour after hour with me, knowing she was my wife yet not knowing how she became so? Would her words admit of the interpretation that she dreaded what she had to learn? Did she wish for freedom and continual forgetfulness? So, on and on until I made myself quite miserable.
Many a man on the eve of learning whether his love is to be accepted or rejected has been racked as I was that night, but surely no lover save myself ever lived, who was to receive the momentous answer from the lips of a woman who was already his wife.
The hour was late when I returned from my solitary walk. I passed Pauline’s window and standing gazing up at it I wondered if she, too, were lying awake and thinking and deciding about our future lives. Ah well, tomorrow would put us both out of suspense!
The night being still and warm her window was open at the top. Before I turned away a fancy seized me. I picked a rose from a bush in the garden and managed to toss it through the open sash. She might find it in the morning, and guessing from whom it came might wear it. It would be a good omen.
The blind shivered as the rosebud struck it: then, fearing discovery, I turned and fled.
The morning broke fair. I rose with hope in my heart and scouted the fears of the night. At the earliest moment I could hope to find her I started in search of Pauline. She had just gone out. I ascertained in which way and followed her.
I found her walking slowly, with her head bent. She greeted me with her usual quiet sweetness, and we walked on side by side. I looked in vain for my rose; and was fain to comfort myself by thinking it must have fallen where she could not see it. Nevertheless, I was troubled.
And there was worse in store for me. Her hands, ungloved and with the fingers interlaced, were carried in front of her. I was walking on her left side, and I saw that the hand nearest me was denuded of its rings. The golden circlet which had shone until now like a beacon of hope, had disappeared. My heart sank. The meaning was only too clear: when coupled with her words of last night, who could fail to understand it? Although she knew herself to be my wife she wished to throw the yoke aside. Pauline loved me not—the truth which was gradually creeping from the misty past would bring her sorrow—now that she remembered, she wished to forget. The rings were cast aside to show me, if possible, without words, that she was not to be my wife.
How could I speak now? The answer had been given before the question had been put.
She saw me looking at that little white hand of hers, but simply dropped her lashes and said nothing. No doubt she wished me to spare her the pain of an explanation. If I could nerve myself to it, perhaps the best thing would be to leave her as speedily as possible—leave her to return no more.
Moody and despondent as I felt at the discovery just made, it was not long before I found a great change in Pauline’s manner. She was not the same. Something had come between us, something which entirely dispelled the old friendly intercourse; changing it into little more than conventional politeness. Shyness and restraint now made themselves manifest in every word and action—perhaps in mine also. We spent the day together as usual, but the companionship must have been irksome to both, so greatly was its footing changed for the worse. That night I went to bed wretched. The prize I had striven for seemed to be snatched away just as I had hoped to win it!
So several days passed. Pauline made no sign, or certainly none I could construe favourably. I could bear this state of things no longer. Priscilla, whose sharp
eyes saw that something was amiss, pestered me beyond endurance; and spoke her mind so roundly that I began to suspect she had already executed her threat of telling Pauline everything; and I felt inclined to attribute my failure to the old woman’s officiousness in making a premature revelation. All might have gone well had I been given another week or a fortnight to win my wife’s heart. I began to believe that she was growing unhappy; that my presence troubled her. Not that she evinced any wish to avoid me; indeed, she came so surely at my beck and call as to suggest a shadow of the obedience she had always given during those days upon which I now dreaded to dwell. But I felt she would be happier and more at ease in my absence. So I resolved to depart.
I knew that my only way was to carry out my determination at once. Having made the resolve, I would act upon it next day. I packed up my things in readiness. I arranged by which coach to go. I should have three hours in the morning to give Priscilla my final instructions and to bid my wife adieu forever.
I could not go without explaining some things to her. I need not pain her by alluding to our relationship, but I must inform her that she was not the heiress she believed. I must tell her she had plenty to live upon without saying that I, her husband, would supply it. When this was arranged, farewell for ever!
As soon as I had finished my pretence at a breakfast, I walked across to the house where Pauline lodged. As yet she knew nothing of my purpose. I held her hand rather longer than usual, and by a desperate effort forced words to my lips.
‘I am come to say goodbye. I go to London today.’
She answered not a word, but I felt her hand tremble in my own. Her eyes I could not see.
‘Yes, I have loitered here long enough,’ I continued, attempting to speak easily, ‘a great many things call me to town.’
Pauline was not looking in the best of health this morning Her cheek was paler than it had been since my arrival. She looked languid and depressed. Doubtless my presence had worried her. Poor girl, she would soon be relieved of that!