Foxglove Manor, Volume III (of III)

When she returned up the avenue, I was standing outside my den, waiting for her.

She came up smiling, with her air of perfect innocence. Wrapped from head to foot in furs, and wearing the prettiest of fur caps à la Russe, she looked her very best and brightest. The sun was shining clearly on the snow, and, as she came, she left soft footprints behind her.

“What is my Bear doing,” she cried, “out in the cold, and without his great coat, too?”

“The day looked so bright that I was tempted out. Where have you been?”

“Only for a little stroll,” she replied; “it is so pleasant out of doors. By-the-bye, dear, they are skating down on Omberley Pond. I think I shall drive over. Will you come?”

“Not to-day, Nell.”

She did not look sorry, I thought, at my refusal.

“Is there a party?” I asked carelessly.

“I don’t know; but I heard the Armstrongs were going, and some of the people from the Abbey.”

“And Mr. Santley, I suppose?”

She flushed slightly, but answered without hesitation —

“Perhaps he will be there; but I need not speak to him, if you forbid it. I will stay at home if you wish it, dear.”

“I don’t wish it,” I said. “Go and amuse yourself.”

“Won’t you come?” she murmured, hesitating.

I shook my head, and turned back to my den. She looked after me, and sighed; then walked slowly towards the house. What a sullen beast she must have thought me! But I was irritated beyond measure by what I had seen at the lodge. Not a word of the letter!

Half an hour afterwards I saw the pony-carriage waiting for her, and presently she drove off, looking (as I thought) bright and happy enough. No sooner had she gone than I was mad with myself for not having accompanied her. Was it a rendezvous? Had she gone, of set purpose, to meet him? I cursed my stupidity, my sullenness. At a word from me she would have remained. I had almost made up my mind to walk over, when in came Baptisto. He was wrapped up to the chin in an old travelling cloak, and his nose was blue with cold.

“Have you any message in the village, senor?” he asked. “I am going there.”

I could not resist the temptation, though I hated myself for setting a spy upon her.

“No, I have no message. Stay, though! While you are there, pass by the skating-pond, and see if any of our friends are there.”

He understood me perfectly, and went away, well satisfied at the commission. More and more, as the days go on, the rascal intrudes himself into my confidence, with silent looks of sympathy, dumb signs of devotion. He says nothing, but his looks are ever significant. Sometimes I long, in my irritation, to get rid of him for ever; but no, I may find him useful. I know he would go through fire and water for my sake.

In about two hours he returned with his report.

“Well?” I said, scowling at him.

“The pond is covered, senor, with gentlemen and ladies. His lordship is there, and they are very gay. It is pretty to see them gliding about the ice, the ladies and the gentlemen hand in hand. Sometimes the ladies slip, and the gentlemen catch them in their arms, and then all laugh! It is a pity that you are not there; you would be amused.”

“Is this all you have to tell me?”

“Yes, senor, except that my mistress is among them. She bade me tell you – ”

“Yes! yes!”

“That she was enjoying herself so much, and would not be home for lunch.” He stood with head bent gently, respectful and submissive, but his face wore the expression which had often irritated me before – an expression which said, as plainly as words, “How far will you let them go? Cannot you perceive what is going on? It is no affair of mine, but is it possible that you will endure so much and so long?” I read all this, I say, in the fellow’s face.

“Very well,” I said sternly, dismissing him with a wave of the hand.

He went lingeringly, knowing I would be certain to call him back. As I did.

“Was Mr. Santley there?”

Baptisto smiled – darkly, malignantly.

“Oh yes, senor, of course!”

I could have struck him.

Damn him! does he think I am already ornamented, like Falstaff, with an ugly pair of horns? I shall have to get rid of him, after all. He saw the expression on my face, and was gone in a moment; but he had left his poison to work.

All the devil was awake within me. I could not work, I could not read, I could not rest in any place. When the lunch-bell sounded, I went in, and drank a couple of glasses of wine, but ate nothing. Then for some hours I flitted about like a ghost, from room to room, from the house to the laboratory, upstairs and down. I went into her boudoir. The rosy curtains were drawn, and the air was still sweet with perfumes, with the very breath of her body. I am afraid I was mean enough to play the spy – to open drawers, to look into her work-basket; nay, I even went so far as to inspect her wardrobe, and examine the pocket of the dress she had worn that morning.

I wanted that letter.

If I could have found it, and read in it any confirmation of my suspicions, I would have taken instant action. But I could not find it.

In the drawer of the work-table, however, I found something.

A sheet of paper, carefully folded up. I opened it, and found it covered with writing in a man’s hand. At the top was written – “I think these are the verses you wanted? I have transcribed them for you. – C. S.” The verses followed – some twaddle about the meeting in heaven of those who have lived on earth; with incredible images of cherubs sitting on clouds (blowing their own trumpets, I suppose, with angelic self-satisfaction); descriptions of impossible habitations, with roofs of gold and silver, and inspired rhymes of “love” and “dove,” “eyes” and “paradise.” The paper was the pinkest of pinks, and delicately perfumed; the writing beautiful, with ethereal curves and upsweeps, exquisite punctuation, and a liberal supply of points of exclamation. I put the rubbish back in its place. It had obviously been lying there for some time, and was not at all the sort of document of which I was in search. So I quitted the boudoir, not much wiser than when I entered it, and resumed my uneasy ramblings about the house.

About four in the afternoon, I heard wheels coming up the avenue. I looked out, and was just in time to see the pony-carriage pass. What was my amazement, however, when I beheld, calmly driving the carriage, with my wife seated at his side, the clergyman himself.

My head went round, and I felt positively bloodthirsty. Seizing my hat, I hastened round, and arrived just as Santley was carrying Ellen up the steps into the house. Yes, actually carrying her in his arms! I could scarcely believe my eyes; but, coming up close, I saw that she was ghastly pale, and that something unusual must have occurred.

He had placed her on a chair in the lobby, and was bending over her just as I followed. I am afraid that the expression of my face was sinister and agitated enough; I stood glaring at the two, like one gasping for breath.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said, meeting my eyes. “There has been a slight accident, that is all. Mrs. Haldane slipped on the ice, and, falling, sprained her ankle.”

Ellen, who seemed in great pain, looked up at me with a beseeching expression; for she at least read my suspicion in my face.

“It was so stupid of me!” she murmured, forcing a faint smile, and reaching out her hand. “I could not come home alone – I was in such pain – and Mr. Santley kindly volunteered to bring me.”

What could I do? I could not knock a man down for having performed what appeared a simple act of courtesy. I could not exhibit any anger, without looking like an idiot or a boor. Santley had merely done what any other gentleman would have done under the circumstances. For all that, I had an uneasy sense of being humbugged.

“Let me look at your foot,” I said gruffly.

She pushed, it from underneath her dress. The boot had been taken off, and a white silk handkerchief tightly wrapped about the ankle.

“Mr. Santley bound it up,” she explained.

I took the foot in my hand, and in my secret fury, I think I was a little rough, for she uttered a cry.

“Take care!” cried the clergyman. “It is very tender.”

I looked up at him with a scowl, but said nothing.

“Shall I carry you into the drawingroom?” he said, with tender solicitude.

“No; I am better now, and George will give me his arm. Pray do not stay.”

She rose with difficulty, and, resting all her weight upon her left foot, leant upon me. In this manner she managed to limp into the drawing-room, and to place herself upon a couch. Her pallor still continued, and I felt sorry, for I hate to see a woman suffer. Santley, who had followed us, and was watching her with extraordinary sympathy, now bent softly over her.

“Are you still in pain?” he murmured.

“A little; but – ”

“Shall I send Doctor Spruce over? I shall be passing the surgery on my way back. If he is not at home, I will procure some remedies, and bring them on myself.”

Here I interposed.

“Pray do not trouble yourself,” I said, with a sneer. “A sprained ankle is a trifle, and I can attend to it. Unless my wife is in need of religious ministration, you need not remain.”

I spoke brutally, as I felt; and, meeting the man’s pale, sad, astonished gaze, I became secretly humiliated. A husband, I perceive, is a ridiculous animal, and always at a disadvantage. I begin to understand how the poets, from Molière downwards, have made married men their shuttlecocks. A jealous lover has dignity; a jealous husband, none. Nobody sympathizes with my lord of Rimini, while all the world weeps for Lancelot and Francesca. Even Ford, ere he turns the tables on Sir John, poses as an ass. All the right was on my side, all the offended dignity, all the outraged honesty; yet somehow I felt, at that moment, like an ill-conditioned cur.

“I am not here in a religious capacity,” he replied courteously, “so your sneer is hardly fair. However, since I can be of no further service, I will go.”

He turned softly to Ellen, holding out his hand.

“Good-bye. I hope you will be better to-morrow.”

“Good-bye, and thank you,” she replied. “It was so good of you to bring me home.”

And so, with a courteous bow to me, which I returned with a nod, he retired victoriously. Yes, he had the best of it for the time being. For some minutes after he left, and while the scent of his perfumed handkerchief still filled the air, I stood moodily waiting. At last Ellen spoke.

“I hope you are not angry. What could I do? I could not come home in such pain, and no one else offered to escort me.”

“I did not ask you to excuse yourself,” I said coldly.

I saw the tears standing in her eyes. Her voice trembled as she murmured —

“I did not think you could have been so unkind!”

As I did not answer, she continued —

“Of late you have not been like yourself. You used to trust me; we used to be so happy! If this is to go on, we had better separate; it makes my life a misery.”

She had touched the wrong chord, if she thought to move my pity. My jealous brain was at work at once. She was thinking of a separation, then? Perhaps she wished it; and perhaps the true reason was her love for that man?

I spoke out in the heat of the moment —

“If you wish to separate, it can be arranged.”

She looked at me so pleadingly, so piteously, that I had to turn my eyes away. In encounters of this kind the man has no chance against the woman, especially if he is magnanimous. What are all his arguments, all his indignation, against her battery of woeful looks, her tears, her pseudo-innocence, and real helplessness? One feels like a coward, too, in such an encounter. I did, I know.

Nevertheless, I was ready to give her the coup de grace.

“Show me that letter,” I said suddenly.

“What letter?” she asked, as if she did not comprehend.

“The letter you received from that man this morning.”

For a moment her cheeks went scarlet, then became deadly pale again.

“Pray do not attempt any subterfuge,” I continued. “I know that you have been in correspondence. Where is that last letter? I demand to see it.”

She replied without hesitation.

“You cannot see it.”

“Why?”

“Because I have burned it.”

At this admission I lost my self-command, and uttered an execration.

“There was nothing in it,” she said sorrowfully; “it was a mere request for an interview. You have no right to be so violent.”

“No right, woman!” I cried.

“There is nothing between us to make me ashamed. If I were the most guilty woman in the world, you could not treat me more cruelly. You have no pity, none. It is my fault, my punishment, to have married a man without sympathy, without religion.”

Religion again! How I hated the word! It stung me into retorting fiercely —

“It is my misfortune, rather, to have married a sentimental hypocrite!”

I had gone too far. Her proud spirit rose against me. Pale and indignant, she tried to rise to her feet. But she had forgotten her sprained ankle. Her face was contracted with sudden torture, and, with a low cry of pain, she fainted away upon the floor.

December 23. – In two more days the Christmas bells will ring, with their merry tidings of peace, good will, and plum-pudding to all the world. Well, mine is likely to be a cheerful Christmas Day. The snow is still on the ground, and more is falling; and outside the Manor, as I write, the dreariest of dreary winds is wailing. Here, inside, there is even greater gloom. A cheerless hearth, a husband and wife estranged. Bah! the old story.

Things have come to a crisis at last between us. I know now that I must either strike a cruel blow, or lose my wife for ever. Any mere armistice is impossible. Either I must assault my enemy’s camp, get him by the throat, and cover him with punishment and confusion; or haul down my matrimonial flag, capitulate, and let the Church and the devil come in to take possession.

CHAPTER XXXIV. BAITING A MOUSE-TRAP (FROM THE NOTEBOOK)

Let me write down, as calmly as I can, exactly what has taken place.

Yesterday, after that little scene, I carried my swooning-wife up to her room, placed her on the bed, and sent her maid to attend to her. Then I walked off to my den, to have my dark hour alone; for I was thoroughly miserable. So far, I felt, I had been beaten with my own weapons. Ellen was going to pose as a Christian martyr, and I had committed the indiscretion of showing the full extent of my jealousy. It would have been far better, on the whole, if, instead of storming and grumbling, I had quietly kicked the clergyman out of my house; but then, I could hardly deal in that way with a man who had simply, on the face of it, performed an act of common civility. The time for kicking had gone past; I had stupidly let it slip. If, when I caught him in the act of trying to embrace my Ellen, and of addressing her softly by her Christian name, I had calmly and decisively thrashed him, he could hardly have accused me of impoliteness; nor would he have been able, without exposing his own fatuity, to noise the affair about.

Now, I was not only angry with my wife for her indiscretion, I was in a rage with myself for having behaved with so much brutality. The picture of her pale, suffering face followed me to my den, and haunted me reproachfully. She had really met with an accident, and was in sharp physical pain; and I, who at another time would have cut off my right hand to prevent her little finger from aching, had chosen the time of her suffering to come upon her like a woman-eating tiger. Just the husband’s luck again – always at a disadvantage; for precisely to the degree in which she felt herself treated unkindly and ungently by me, would rise her sympathy for the man who had been so zealous and so tender. Damn him, again!

The night passed wretchedly enough.

I sat up working till nearly daybreak. When I went upstairs, and entered my dressing-room, I felt guilty and ashamed, yet angry still. But she was asleep – I could hear her soft breathing from the adjoining bedchamber. Lamp in hand, I crept in. Yes, there she lay, soundly slumbering, her eyes red with weeping, her dark hair falling wildly around her pallid face, her neck and throat bare, her arms outside the coverlid, which rose and fell with her breathing. As I bent over her, my shadow crossed her soul in sleep, and she moaned and stirred. Poor child! I longed to kiss her, but I was ashamed.

I think we men, the strongest and coldest of us even, are weak as water, where a woman is concerned. I used to fancy once that, if a wife of mine failed in faith, or fell away from me in sin, I could strike her dead without pity; or if I suffered her to live, pass an eternity with no thought but loathing and detestation. But as I bent over that sad bed, I seemed to understand how it was that husbands, in the fulness of time, had pardoned even that, the foulest and deadliest of infidelities; how, with a love stronger than sin, and a hope stronger than death, they had welcomed back the penitent, in forgiveness, sorrow, and despair – even as a father would take back an erring child, part of the very blood and life within his veins. Weakness, I know; but weak as water, in virtue of its very strength, is Love.

It was horrible, horrible, this falling away from each other. I wished, just then, that I had had religion; perhaps then we might have been happier together. Women love a sort of matrimonial Village Blacksmith, who asks no questions, works hard all the week, and goes three times to church, in an irreproachably white shirt, on Sunday. They cannot bear revolt in any shape. They were the last to cling to the old gods, and they will be last to cling to the dead Christ. Does the law which works for righteousness, somehow or other, justify them? Was my dear wife’s alienation a curse upon me for dealing in occult scientific mysteries, like an old necromancer, and forgetting, if I ever learned, the sweet religion of the heart? Somehow, last night, I felt as if it were so. There she lay, white as snow. I knew she had prayed to God before sleeping; and I – I could not pray. I was an outcast, an unbeliever; “atheist! atheist!” said the preacher.

I crept away to my own solitary bed, feeling more sad and lonely than I had ever done in all my life.

Till midday to-day, she kept her room; but after lunch, she managed to get downstairs. I had returned to my den, and we did not meet; nor was I in the mood for meeting, for the gentle impulses of overnight had passed away, and the morning had found me gloomy, quarrelsome, and atrabilious. She did not send for me, though I secretly hoped that she might do so. I learned from Baptisto that she was stretched upon the drawing-room sofa, which was drawn close to the window, and was reading some religious book.

Restless and wretched, I took my hat and walked out into the snow. The great fir trees, loaded with the leaden whiteness, were ranged like grim sentinels on each side of the dreary avenue, and beyond these the leafless woods stretched white and cold. The sun had gone in, and the air was full of a heavy lowering sadness – a sort of darkness visible. It was cheerless weather; and as I thought of my domestic misery, and of the clouded world, with all its sins and sorrows, I was more miserable than ever.

Nevertheless, I walked on rapidly, till I came out among the frozen fields of the open country. How desolate looked the snowy meadows, with broad patches of green, thaw-like mildew, and the fallow fields, with snow thick in the furrows and wretched low-lying hedges on every side! Here and there a few miserable small birds were fluttering, starved robins for the most part; and a kestrel was hunting the furrow, hovering in a slow, dejected way, as if field-mice were scarce, and his whole occupation, like the weather, cruelly forlorn.

Before four o’clock it was quite dark.

Through the windy darkness I made my way back to the Manor. By that time I had thought it all over. Conquered by the utter desolation within and without me, I had said to myself, “Life like this is worse than death. I will try one way more; I will go to her, I will take her to my heart, I will beg her to love and trust me, and to accept my tender forgiveness. Perhaps I have been too hard, too taciturn and sullen. She has mistaken my sorrow for coldness, my pride for cruelty and pertinacity. There shall be an end to this. She shall understand the full tenderness of my love, once and for ever.” With these thoughts struggling wildly within me, I hastened home.

Then, as the devil would have it, I saw Baptisto, waiting on the threshold of my den. The moment I appeared he crept up to me, and clutched my arm.

“Senor, senor! where have you been? I have been waiting for you.”

“What is it, man?” I asked, startled by his manner.

“Come and see!”

He led me towards the house. I walked a few steps, then paused nervously.

“What has happened?” I asked.

“Nothing, senor; but the clergyman is here again, with my lady.”

That was enough. It turned my tenderness into anger, my lethargy into passion. Shaking off the fellow’s touch, I hastened to the house. As I went I saw lights in the drawing-room; and, instead of entering the house door, I ascended the flight of iron steps which leads to the terrace. Then, with the cunning of jealousy, cold enough to subdue the fever of rage, I crept along the terrace till I reached the folding doors of the drawing-room. The doors were closed, the curtains and blinds were drawn, but there was one small space through which I could see into the room.

I looked in.

For a moment my eyes, clouded by the darkness, were dazzled by the light of the room within; but despite the loud crying of the wind around me, I heard a murmur of voices. Then I distinguished the form of my wife on a sofa drawn up before the fire, and, bending over her, the form of the minister. Her back was turned to me, but I saw his face, noticed the burning eyes fixed eagerly on hers.

What were they saying – doing? I strained my eyes, my ears. At last I caught a sound. “Go now!” she was saying; “go now, I beseech you!”

Even as she spoke, he flung himself wildly on his knees, placing his arms around her.

“Oh, you are mad, mad!” she cried.

“Not mad, but desperate,” he answered. “I have thought it all over; I have struggled and struggled, but it is in vain. Ellen, have pity! There is no peace or happiness for me, in this world or the next, without your love. My darling! my angel!”

“Silence, for God’s sake! Oh, if you should be heard – ”

“I do not care who hears me. I am beyond fear. As for that man, your husband, he is busy, no doubt, with his blasphemous books, his sinful investigations. Oh, my darling, that you should be linked to such a man! A man without religion – a man without God! It was that which first made me pity you, and pity is akin to love. You owe him no duty. He is a heretic – an atheist, as you know.”

As he clung to her and embraced her, she struggled nervously. Carried beyond himself, he covered her hands-with kisses, and would have kissed her lips, but she drew back.

“Go, go!” she moaned. “Hark! I hear footsteps. If you do not go now, I will never speak to you again.”

He rose to his feet, hot, flushed, and trembling like a leaf.

“I will go, since you wish it,” he said. “Good night, my darling!”

He stooped over, and – kissed her? Yes, I was sure he kissed her, though I think she shrunk away, with her face nervously turned to the door, dreading a surprise. Then I saw his shadow cross the room, and vanish through the door, which was closed behind him.

I was about to force open the French windows and enter, when a curious impulse possessed me to delay a little, and see what she would do when left alone. So I watched her. She sat trembling on her seat; then, reaching to the table, took a flask of eau-de-cologne, poured some upon her handkerchief, and bathed her face. Then, with momentary glances at the door, she smoothed down her straggling hair, and adjusted the bosom of her dress. Finally, she contrived, though not without pain, to rise to her feet, and, leaning on the marble mantelpiece, to look at her face in the mirror. I could see her face reflected, all flushed and warm, and her eyes gleaming with unusual brightness. After again smoothing her hair, she got back to the sofa, posed herself prettily, and, not without another glance at the door, took up a book and pretended to read.