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diff --git a/old/14597-8.txt b/old/14597-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2219ea3 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14597-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,28926 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Woman Thou Gavest Me, by Hall Caine + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Woman Thou Gavest Me + Being the Story of Mary O'Neill + +Author: Hall Caine + +Release Date: January 4, 2005 [EBook #14597] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOMAN THOU GAVEST ME *** + + + + +Produced by Rick Niles, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +The Woman +Thou Gavest Me + +Being the Story of Mary O'Neill + +By HALL CAINE + +Author of "The Prodigal Son," Etc. + +[Illustration] + +Published August, 1913 + + + + +THE AUTHOR TO THE READER + +_How much of the story of Mary O'Neill is a work of my own imagination, +and how much comes from an authentic source I do not consider it +necessary to say. But as I have in this instance drawn more largely and +directly from fact than is usually the practice of the novelist, I have +thought it my duty to defeat all possible attempts at personal +identification by altering and disguising the more important scenes and +characters. Therefore this novel is not to be understood as referring to +any living person or persons, and the convent school described in it is +not to be identified with any similar educational institution in Rome_. + + + + +MARTIN CONRAD TO THE AUTHOR + +_Here are the Memoranda we have talked about. Do as you like with them. +Alter, amend, add to or take away from them, exactly as you think best. +They were written in the first instance for my own eye alone, and hence +they take much for granted which may need explanation before they can be +put to the more general uses you have designed for them. Make such +explanation in any way you consider suitable. It is my wish that in this +matter your judgment should be accepted as mine. The deep feeling you +could not conceal when I told you the story of my dear one's life gives +me confidence in your discretion. + +Whatever the immediate effect may be, I feel that in the end I shall be +justified--fully justified--in allowing the public to look for a little +while into the sacred confessional of my darling's stainless heart. + +I heard her voice again to-day. She was right--love is immortal. God +bless her! My ever lovely and beloved one!_ + + + + +CONTENTS + +THE NARRATIVE OF MARY O'NEILL + + PAGE + FIRST PART: MY GIRLHOOD 1 + SECOND PART: MY MARRIAGE 97 + THIRD PART: MY HONEYMOON 135 + FOURTH PART: I FALL IN LOVE 210 + FIFTH PART: I BECOME A MOTHER 308 + SIXTH PART: I AM LOST 401 + SEVENTH PART: I AM FOUND 505 + + + + +AUTHOR'S NOTE: _The name Raa (of Celtic origin with many variations +among Celtic races) is pronounced Rah in Ellan._ + + + + +THE NARRATIVE OF MARY O'NEILL + + +FIRST PART + +MY GIRLHOOD + +FIRST CHAPTER + + +"Out of the depths, O Lord, out of the depths," begins the most +beautiful of the services of our church, and it is out of the depths of +my life that I must bring the incidents of this story. + +I was an unwanted child--unwanted as a girl at all events. Father Dan +Donovan, our parish priest, told me all about it. I was born in October. +It had been raining heavily all day long. The rain was beating hard +against the front of our house and running in rivers down the +window-panes. Towards four in the afternoon the wind rose and then the +yellow leaves of the chestnuts in the long drive rustled noisily, and +the sea, which is a mile away, moaned like a dog in pain. + +In my father's room, on the ground floor, Father Dan sat by the fire, +fingering his beads and listening to every sound that came from my +mother's room, which was immediately overhead. My father himself, with +his heavy step that made the house tremble, was tramping to and fro, +from the window to the ingle, from the ingle to the opposite wall. +Sometimes Aunt Bridget came down to say that everything was going on +well, and at intervals of half an hour Doctor Conrad entered in his +noiseless way and sat in silence by the fire, took a few puffs from a +long clay pipe and then returned to his charge upstairs. + +My father's impatience was consuming him. + +"It's long," he said, searching the doctor's face. + +"Don't worry--above all don't worry," said Father Dan. + +"There's no need," said Doctor Conrad. + +"Then hustle back and get it over," said my father. "It will be five +hundred dollars to you if this comes off all right." + +I think my father was a great man at that time. I think he is still a +great man. Hard and cruel as he may have been to me, I feel bound to +say that for him. If he had been born a king, he would have made his +nation feared and perhaps respected throughout the world. He was born a +peasant, the poorest of peasants, a crofter. The little homestead of his +family, with its whitewashed walls and straw-thatched roof, still stands +on the bleak ayre-lands of Ellan, like a herd of mottled cattle +crouching together in a storm. + +His own father had been a wild creature, full of daring dreams, and the +chief of them had centred in himself. Although brought up in a mud +cabin, and known as Daniel Neale, he believed that he belonged by lineal +descent to the highest aristocracy of his island, the O'Neills of the +Mansion House (commonly called the Big House) and the Barons of Castle +Raa. To prove his claim he spent his days in searching the registers of +the parish churches, and his nights in talking loudly in the village +inn. Half in jest and half in earnest, people called him "Neale the +Lord." One day he was brought home dead, killed in a drunken quarrel +with Captain O'Neill, a dissolute braggart, who had struck him over the +temple with a stick. His wife, my grandmother, hung a herring net across +the only room of her house to hide his body from the children who slept +in the other bed. + +There were six of them, and after the death of her husband she had to +fend for all. The little croft was hungry land, and to make a sufficient +living she used to weed for her more prosperous neighbours. It was +ill-paid labour--ninepence a day fine days and sixpence all weathers, +with a can of milk twice a week and a lump of butter thrown in now and +then. The ways were hard and the children were the first to feel them. +Five of them died. "They weren't willing to stay with me," she used to +say. My father alone was left to her, and he was another Daniel. As he +grew up he was a great help to his mother. I feel sure he loved her. +Difficult as it may be to believe it now, I really and truly think that +his natural disposition was lovable and generous to begin with. + +There is a story of his boyhood which it would be wrong of me not to +tell. His mother and he had been up in the mountains cutting gorse and +ling, which with turf from the Curragh used to be the crofter's only +fuel. They were dragging down a prickly pile of it by a straw rope when, +dipping into the high road by a bridge, they crossed the path of a +splendid carriage which swirled suddenly out of the drive of the Big +House behind two high-spirited bays driven by an English coachman in +gorgeous livery. The horses reared and shied at the bundle of kindling, +whereupon a gentleman inside the carriage leaned out and swore, and then +the brutal coachman, lashing out at the bare-headed woman with his whip, +struck the boy on his naked legs. + +At the next moment the carriage had gone. It had belonged to the head of +the O'Neills, Lord Raa of Castle Raa, whose nearest kinsman, Captain +O'Neill, had killed my grandfather, so my poor grandmother said nothing. +But her little son, as soon as his smarting legs would allow, wiped his +eyes with his ragged sleeve and said: + +"Never mind, mammy. You shall have a carriage of your own when I am a +man, and then nobody shall never lash you." + +His mother died. He was twenty years of age at that time, a +large-limbed, lusty-lunged fellow, almost destitute of education but +with a big brain and an unconquerable will; so he strapped his chest and +emigrated to America. What work he found at first I never rightly knew. +I can only remember to have heard that it was something dangerous to +human life and that the hands above him dropped off rapidly. Within two +years he was a foreman. Within five years he was a partner. In ten years +he was a rich man. At the end of five-and-twenty years he was a +millionaire, controlling trusts and corporations and carrying out great +combines. + +I once heard him say that the money tumbled into his chest like crushed +oats out of a crown shaft, but what happened at last was never fully +explained to me. Something I heard of a collision with the law and of a +forced assignment of his interests. All that is material to my story is +that at forty-five years of age he returned to Ellan. He was then a +changed man, with a hard tongue, a stern mouth, and a masterful lift of +the eyebrows. His passion for wealth had left its mark upon him, but the +whole island went down before his face like a flood, and the people who +had made game of his father came crawling to his feet like cockroaches. + +The first thing he did on coming home was to buy up his mother's croft, +re-thatch the old house, and put in a poor person to take care of it. + +"Guess it may come handy some day," he said. + +His next act was worthy of the son of "Neale the Lord." Finding that +Captain O'Neill had fallen deeply into debt, he bought up the braggart's +mortgages, turned him out of the Big House, and took up his own abode in +it. + +Twelve months later he made amends, after his own manner, by marrying +one of the Captain's daughters. There were two of them. Isabel, the +elder, was a gentle and beautiful girl, very delicate, very timid, and +most sweet when most submissive, like the woodland herbs which give out +their sweetest fragrance when they are trodden on and crushed. Bridget, +the younger, was rather homely, rather common, proud of her strength of +mind and will. + +To the deep chagrin of the younger sister, my father selected the elder +one. I have never heard that my mother's wishes were consulted. Her +father and my father dealt with the marriage as a question of business, +and that was an end of the matter. On the wedding day my father did two +things that were highly significant. He signed the parish register in +the name of Daniel O'Neill by right of Letters Patent; and on taking his +bride back to her early home, he hoisted over the tower of his chill +grey house the stars and stripes of his once adopted country stitched to +the flag of his native island. He had talked less than "Neale the Lord," +but he had thought and acted more. + +Two years passed without offspring, and my father made no disguise of +his disappointment, which almost amounted to disgust. Hitherto he had +occupied himself with improvements in his house and estate, but now his +restless energies required a wider field, and he began to look about +him. Ellan was then a primitive place, and its inhabitants, half +landsmen, half seamen, were a simple pious race living in a sweet +poverty which rarely descended into want. But my father had magnificent +schemes for it. By push, energy and enterprise he would galvanise the +island into new life, build hotels, theatres, casinos, drinking halls +and dancing palaces, lay out race-courses, construct electric railways +to the tops of the mountains, and otherwise transform the place into a +holiday resort for the people of the United Kingdom. + +"We'll just sail in and make this old island hum," he said, and a number +of his neighbours, nothing loth to be made rich by magic--advocates, +bankers and insular councillors--joined hands with him in his +adventurous schemes. + +But hardly had he begun when a startling incident happened. The old Lord +Raa of Castle Raa, head of the O'Neills, the same that had sworn at my +grandmother, after many years in which he had lived a bad life abroad +where he had contracted fatal maladies, returned to Ellan to die. Being +a bachelor, his heir would have been Captain O'Neill, but my mother's +father had died during the previous winter, and in the absence of direct +male issue it seemed likely that both title and inheritance (which, by +the conditions of an old Patent, might have descended to the nearest +living male through the female line) would go to a distant relative, a +boy, fourteen years of age, a Protestant, who was then at school at +Eton. + +More than ever now my father chewed the cud of his great disappointment. +But it is the unexpected that oftenest happens, and one day in the +spring, Doctor Conrad, being called to see my mother, who was +indisposed, announced that she was about to bear a child. + +My father's delight was almost delirious, though at first his happiness +was tempered by the fear that the child that was to be born to him might +not prove a boy. Even this danger disappeared from his mind after a +time, and before long his vanity and his unconquerable will had so +triumphed over his common sense that he began to speak of his unborn +child as a son, just as if the birth of a male child had been +prearranged. With my mother, with Doctor Conrad, and above all with +Father Dan, he sometimes went the length of discussing his son's name. +It was to be Hugh, because that had been the name of the heads of the +O'Neills through all the ages, as far back as the legendary days in +which, as it was believed, they had been the Kings of Ellan. + +My mother was no less overjoyed. She had justified herself at last, and +if she was happy enough at the beginning in the tingling delight of the +woman who is about to know the sweetest of human joys, the joy of +bearing a child, she acquiesced at length in the accepted idea that her +child would be a boy. Perhaps she was moved to this merely by a desire +to submit to her husband's will, and to realise his hopes and +expectations. Or perhaps she had another reason, a secret reason, a +reason that came of her own weakness and timidity as a woman, namely, +that the man child to be born of her would be strong and brave and free. + +All went well down to the end of autumn, and then alarming news came +from Castle Raa. The old lord had developed some further malady and was +believed to be sinking rapidly. Doctor Conrad was consulted and he gave +it as his opinion that the patient could not live beyond the year. This +threw my father into a fever of anxiety. Sending for his advocate, he +took counsel both with him and with Father Dan. + +"Come now, let us get the hang of this business," he said; and when he +realised that (according to the terms of the ancient Patent) if the old +lord died before his child was born, his high-built hopes would be in +the dust, his eagerness became a consuming fire. + +For the first time in his life his excitement took forms of religion and +benevolence. He promised that if everything went well he would give a +new altar to Our Lady's Chapel in the parish church of St. Mary, a ton +of coals to every poor person within a radius of five miles, and a +supper to every inhabitant of the neighbouring village who was more than +sixty years of age. It was even rumoured that he went so far in secret +as to provide funds for the fireworks with which some of his flatterers +were to celebrate the forthcoming event, and that one form of +illumination was a gigantic frame which, set upon the Sky Hill, +immediately in front of our house, was intended to display in brilliant +lights the glowing words "God Bless the Happy Heir." Certainly the birth +was to be announced by the ringing of the big bell of the tower as +signal to the country round about that the appointed festivities might +begin. + +Day by day through September into October, news came from Castle Raa by +secret channels. Morning by morning, Doctor Conrad was sent for to see +my mother. Never had the sun looked down on a more gruesome spectacle. +It was a race between the angel of death and the angel of life, with my +father's masterful soul between, struggling to keep back the one and to +hasten on the other. + +My father's impatience affected everybody about him. Especially it +communicated itself to the person chiefly concerned. The result was just +what might have been expected. My mother was brought to bed prematurely, +a full month before her time. + + + + +SECOND CHAPTER + + +By six o'clock the wind had risen to the force of a hurricane. The last +of the withered leaves of the trees in the drive had fallen and the bare +branches were beating together like bundles of rods. The sea was louder +than ever, and the bell on St. Mary's Rock, a mile away from the shore, +was tolling like a knell under the surging of the waves. Sometimes the +clashing of the rain against the window-panes was like the wash of +billows over the port-holes of a ship at sea. + +"Pity for the poor folk with their fireworks," said Father Dan. + +"They'll eat their suppers for all that," said my father. + +It was now dark, but my father would not allow the lamps to be lighted. +There was therefore no light in his gaunt room except a sullen glow from +the fire of peat and logs. Sometimes, in a momentary lull of the storm, +an intermittent moan would come from the room above, followed by a dull +hum of voices. + +"Guess it can't be long now," my father would say. + +"Praise the Lord," Father Dan would answer. + +By seven the storm was at its height. The roaring of the wind in the +wide chimney was as loud as thunder. Save for this the thunderous noise +of the sea served to drown all sounds on the land. Nevertheless, in the +midst of the clamour a loud rapping was heard at the front door. One of +the maid-servants would have answered it, but my father called her back +and, taking up a lantern, went to the door himself. As quietly as he +could for the rush of wind without, he opened it, and pulling it after +him, he stepped into the porch. + +A man in livery was there on horseback, with another saddled horse +beside him. He was drenched through, but steaming with sweat as if he +had ridden long and hard. Shouting above the roar of the storm, he said: + +"Doctor Conrad is here, is he?" + +"He is--what of it?" said my father. + +"Tell him he's wanted and must come away with me at once." + +"Who says he must?" + +"Lord Raa. His lordship is dangerously ill. He wishes to see the doctor +immediately." + +I think my father must then have gone through a moment of fierce +conflict between his desire to keep the old lord alive and his hope of +the immediate birth of his offspring. But his choice was quickly made. + +"Tell the lord," he cried, "that a woman is here in child-birth, and +until she's delivered the doctor cannot come to him." + +"But I've brought a horse, and the doctor is to go back with me." + +"Give the lord my message and say it is Daniel O'Neill who sends it." + +"But his lordship is dying and unless the doctor is there to tap him, he +may not live till morning." + +"Unless the doctor is here to deliver my wife, my child may be dead +before midnight." + +"What is the birth of your child to the death of his lordship?" cried +the man; but, before the words were well out of his mouth, my father, in +his great strength, had laid hold of the reins and swung both horse and +rider round about. + +"Get yourself to the other side of my gate, or I'll fling you into the +road," he cried; and then, returning to the porch, he re-entered the +house and clashed the door behind him. + +Father Dan used to say that for some moments more the groom from Castle +Raa could be heard shouting the name of the doctor to the lighted +windows of my mother's room. But his voice was swirled away in the +whistling of the wind, and after a while the hoofs of his horses went +champing over the gravel in the direction of the gate. + +When my father returned to his room, shaking the rain from his hair and +beard, he was fuming with indignation. Perhaps a memory of forty years +ago was seething in his excited brain. + +"The old scoundrel," he said. "He'd like it, wouldn't he? They'd all +like it! Which of them wants a son of mine amongst them?" + +The roaring night outside became yet more terrible. So loud was the +noise from the shore that it was almost as if a wild beast were trying +to liberate itself from the womb of the sea. At one moment Aunt Bridget +came downstairs to say that the storm was frightening my mother. All the +servants of the house were gathered in the hall, full of fear, and +telling each other superstitious stories. + +Suddenly there came a lull. Rain and wind seemed to cease in an instant. +The clamour of the sea became less and the tolling of the bell on St. +Mary's Rock died away in the distance. It was almost as if the world, +which had been whirling through space, suddenly stood still. + +In that moment of silence a deeper moan than usual came from the room +overhead. My father dropped into a chair, clasped his hands and closed +his eyes. Father Dan rattled his pearl beads and moved his lips, but +uttered no sound. + +Then a faint sound came from the room overhead. My father opened his +eyes and listened. Father Dan held his breath. The sound was repeated, +but louder, clearer, shriller than before. There could be no mistaking +it now. It was Nature's eternal signal that out of the womb of silence a +living soul had been born into the world. + +"It's over," said my father. + +"Glory be to God and all the Saints!" said Father Dan. + +"That'll beat 'em," cried my father, and he leapt to his feet and +laughed. + +Going to the door of the room, he flung it open. The servants in the +hall were now whispering eagerly, and one of them, the gardener, Tom +Dug, commonly called Tommy the Mate, stepped out and asked if he ought +to ring the big bell. + +"Certainly," said my father. "Isn't that what you've been standing by +for?" + +A few minutes later the bell of the tower began to ring, and it was +followed almost immediately by the bell of our parish church, which rang +out a merry peal. + +"That'll beat 'em, I say," cried my father, and laughing in his triumph +he tramped the flagged floor with a firmer step than ever. + +All at once the crying of the child ceased and there was a confused +rumble of voices overhead. My father stopped, his face straightened, and +his voice, which had rung out like a horn, wheezed back like a whistle. + +"What's going doing? Where's Conrad? Why doesn't Conrad come to me?" + +"Don't worry. He'll be down presently," said Father Dan. + +A few minutes passed, in which nothing was said and nothing heard, and +then, unable to bear the suspense any longer, my father went to the foot +of the staircase and shouted the doctor's name. + +A moment later the doctor's footsteps were heard on the stone stairs. +They were hesitating, halting, dragging footsteps. Then the doctor +entered my father's room. Even in the sullen light of the peat fire his +face was white, ashen white. He did not speak at first, and there was an +instant of silence, dead silence. Then my father said: + +"Well, what is it?" + +"It is . . ." + +"Speak man! . . . Do you mean it is . . . _dead?_" + +"No! Oh no! Not that." + +"What then?" + +"It is a girl." + +"A gir . . . Did you say a girl?" + +"Yes. + +"My God!" said my father, and he dropped back into the chair. His lips +were parted and his eyes which had been blazing with joy, became fixed +on the dying fire in a stupid stare. + +Father Dan tried to console him. There were thistles in everybody's +crop, and after all it was a good thing to have begotten a girl. Girls +were the flowers of life, the joy and comfort of man in his earthly +pilgrimage, and many a father who bemoaned his fate when a daughter had +been born to him, had lived to thank the Lord for her. + +All this time the joy bells had been ringing, and now the room began to +be illuminated by fitful flashes of variegated light from the +firework-frame on the top of Sky Hill, which (as well as it could for +the rain that had soaked it) was sputtering out its mocking legend, "God +Bless the Happy Heir." + +In his soft Irish voice, which was like a river running over smooth +stones, Father Dan went on with his comforting. + +"Yes, women are the salt of the earth, God bless them, and when I think +of what they suffer that the world may go on, that the generations may +not fail, I feel as if I want to go down on my knees and kiss the feet +of the first woman I meet in the street. What would the world be without +women? Think of St. Theresa! Think of the Blessed Margaret Mary! Think +of the Holy Virgin herself. . . ." + +"Oh, stow this stuff," cried my father, and leaping to his feet, he +began to curse and swear. + +"Stop that accursed bell! Is the fool going to ring for ever? Put out +those damnable lights, too. Put them out. Are the devils of hell trying +to laugh at me?" + +With that, and an oath at himself for his folly, my father strode out of +the room. + +My mother had heard him. Through the unceiled timbers of the floor +between them the words of his rage had reached her. She was ashamed. She +felt as if she were a guilty thing, and with a low cry of pain she +turned to the wall and fainted. + +The old lord died the same night. Somewhere towards the dead reaches of +the dawn his wicked spirit went to its reckoning, and a month afterwards +the new Lord Raa, a boy in an Eton jacket, came over to take possession +of his inheritance. + +But long before that my father, scoring out his disappointment like an +account that was closed, had got to work with his advocates, bankers and +insular councillors on his great schemes for galvanising the old island +into new life. + + + + +THIRD CHAPTER + + +Out of the mist and veil of my own memory, as distinguished from Father +Dan's, there comes first the recollection of a big room containing a big +bed, a big wardrobe, a big dressing table, a big praying-stool with an +image of Our Lady on the wall above it, and an open window to which a +sparrow used to come in the mornings and chirp. + +When I came to recognise and to classify I realised that this was my +mother's room, and that the sweet somebody who used to catch me up in +her arms when I went tottering on voyages of discovery round the vast +place was my mother herself, and that she would comfort me when I fell, +and stroke my head with her thin white hand, while she sang softly and +rocked me to and fro. + +As I have no recollection of ever having seen my mother in any other +part of our house, or indeed in any other place except our carriage when +we drove out in the sunshine, I conclude that from the time of my birth +she had been an invalid. + +Certainly the faces which first emerge from the islands of my memory are +the cheerful and sunny ones of Doctor Conrad and Father Dan. I recall +the soft voice of the one as he used to enter our room after breakfast +saying, "How are we this morning ma'am?" And I remember the still softer +voice of the other as he said "And how is my daughter to-day?" + +I loved both of them, but especially Father Dan, who used to call me his +Nanny and say I was the plague and pet of his life, being as full of +mischief as a goat. He must have been an old child himself, for I have +clear recollection of how, immediately after confessing my mother, he +would go down on all fours with me on the floor and play at +hide-and-seek around the legs of the big bed, amid squeals and squeaks +of laughter. I remember, too, that he wore a long sack coat which +buttoned close at the neck and hung loose at the skirts, where there +were two large vertical pockets, and that these pockets were my +cupboards and drawers, for I put my toys and my doll and even the +remnants of my cakes into them to be kept in safe custody until wanted +again. + +My mother called me Mally veen (Mary dear) and out of love of her only +child she must have weaned me late, for I have vague memories of her +soft white breasts filled with milk. I slept in a little wickerwork cot +placed near her bed, so that she could reach me if I uncovered myself in +the night. She used to say I was like a bird, having something birdlike +in my small dark head and the way I held it up. Certainly I remember +myself as a swift little thing, always darting to and fro on tiptoe, and +chirping about our chill and rather cheerless house. + +If I was like a bird my mother was like a flower. Her head, which was +small and fair, and her face, which was nearly always tinged with +colour, drooped forward from her delicate body like a rose from its +stalk. She was generally dressed in black, I remember, but she wore a +white lace collar as well as a coif such as we see in old pictures, and +when I call her back to my mind, with her large liquid eyes and her +sweet soft mouth, I think it cannot be my affection alone, or the magic +of my childish memory, which makes me think, after all these years and +all the countries I have travelled in, and all the women I have seen, +that my darling mother, though so little known and so little loved, was +the most beautiful woman in the world. + +Even yet I cannot but wonder that other people, my father especially, +did not see her with my eyes. I think he was fond of her after his own +fashion, but there was a kind of involuntary contempt in his affection, +which could not conceal itself from my quick little eyes. She was +visibly afraid of him, and was always nervous and timid when he came +into our room with his customary salutation, + +"How now, Isabel? And how's this child of yours?" + +From my earliest childhood I noticed that he always spoke of me as if I +had been my mother's child, not his, and perhaps this affected my +feeling for him from the first. + +I was in terror of his loud voice and rough manner, the big bearded man +with the iron grey head and the smell of the fresh air about his thick +serge clothes. It was almost as if I had conceived this fear before my +birth, and had brought it out of the tremulous silence of my mother's +womb. + +My earliest recollections are of his muffled shout from the room below, +"Keep your child quiet, will you?" when I was disturbing him over his +papers by leaping and skipping about the floor. If he came upstairs when +I was in bed I would dive under the bedclothes, as a duck dives under +water, and only come to the surface when he was gone. I am sure I never +kissed my father or climbed on to his knee, and that during his short +visits to our room I used to hold my breath and hide my head behind my +mother's gown. + +I think my mother must have suffered both from my fear of my father and +from my father's indifference to me, for she made many efforts to +reconcile him to my existence. Some of her innocent schemes, as I recall +them now, seem very sweet but very pitiful. She took pride, for +instance, in my hair, which was jet black even when I was a child, and +she used to part it in the middle and brush it smooth over my forehead +in the manner of the Madonna, and one day, when my father was with us, +she drew me forward and said: + +"Don't you think our Mary is going to be very pretty? A little like the +pictures of Our Lady, perhaps--don't you think so, Daniel?" + +Whereupon my father laughed rather derisively and answered: + +"Pretty, is she? Like the Virgin, eh? Well, well!" + +I was always fond of music, and my mother used to teach me to sing to a +little upright piano which she was allowed to keep in her room, and on +another day she said: + +"Do you know our Mary has such a beautiful voice, dear? So sweet and +pure that when I close my eyes I could almost think it is an angel +singing." + +Whereupon my father laughed as before, and answered: + +"A voice, has she? Like an angel's, is it? What next, I wonder?" + +My mother made most of my clothes. There was no need for her to do so, +but in the absence of household duties I suppose it stimulated the +tenderness which all mothers feel in covering the little limbs they +love; and one day, having made a velvet frock for me, from a design in +an old pattern book of coloured prints, which left the legs and neck and +arms very bare, she said: + +"Isn't our Mary a little lady? But she will always look like a lady, +whatever she is dressed in." + +And then my father laughed still more contemptuously and replied, + +"Her grandmother weeded turnips in the fields though--ninepence a day +dry days, and sixpence all weathers." + +My mother was deeply religious, never allowing a day to pass without +kneeling on her prayer-stool before the image of the Virgin, and one day +I heard her tell my father that when I was a little mite, scarcely able +to speak, she found me kneeling in my cot with my doll perched up before +me, moving my lips as if saying my prayers and looking up at the ceiling +with a rapt expression. + +"But she has always had such big, beautiful, religious eyes, and I +shouldn't wonder if she becomes a Nun some day!" + +"A nun, eh? Maybe so. But I take no stock in the nun business anyway," +said my father. + +Whereupon my mother's lips moved as if she were saying "No, dearest," +but her dear, sweet pride was crushed and she could go no farther. + + + + +FOURTH CHAPTER + + +There was a whole colony on the ground floor of our house who, like my +father, could not reconcile themselves to my existence, and the head of +them was Aunt Bridget. + +She had been married, soon after the marriage of my mother, to one +Colonel MacLeod, a middle-aged officer on half-pay, a widower, a Belfast +Irishman, and a tavern companion of my maternal grandfather. But the +Colonel had died within a year, leaving Aunt Bridget with one child of +her own, a girl, as well as a daughter of his wife by the former +marriage. As this happened about the time of my birth, when it became +obvious that my mother was to be an invalid, my father invited Aunt +Bridget to come to his house as housekeeper, and she came, and brought +her children with her. + +Her rule from the outset had been as hard as might have been expected +from one who prided herself on her self-command--a quality that covered +everybody, including my mother and me, and was only subject to softening +in favour of her own offspring. + +Aunt Bridget's own daughter, a year older than myself, was a fair child +with light grey eyes, round cheeks of the colour of ripe apples, and +long yellow hair that was carefully combed and curled. Her name was +Betsy, which was extended by her mother to Betsy Beauty. She was usually +dressed in a muslin frock with a sash of light blue ribbon, and being +understood to be delicate was constantly indulged and nearly always +eating, and giving herself generally the airs of the daughter of the +house. + +Aunt Bridget's step-daughter, ten years older, was a gaunt, ungainly +girl with red hair and irregular features. Her name was Nessy, and, +having an instinctive sense of her dependent position, she was very +humble and subservient and, as Tommy the Mate used to say, "as smooth as +an old threepenny bit" to the ruling powers, which always meant my Aunt, +but spiteful, insolent, and acrid to anybody who was outside my Aunt's +favour, which usually meant me. + +Between my cousin and myself there were constant feuds, in which Nessy +MacLeod never failed to take the side of Betsy Beauty, while my poor +mother became a target for the shafts of Aunt Bridget, who said I was a +wilful, wicked, underhand little vixen, and no wonder, seeing how +disgracefully I was indulged, and how shockingly I was being brought up. + +These skirmishes went on for a considerable time without consequences, +but they came at last to a foolish climax which led to serious results. + +Even my mother's life had its gleams of sunshine, and flowers were a +constant joy to her. Old Tommy, the gardener, was aware of this, and +every morning sent up a bunch of them, freshly cut and wet with the dew. +But one day in the spring he could not do so, being out in the dubs of +the Curragh, cutting peat for the fires. Therefore I undertook to supply +the deficiency, having already, with the large solemnity of six, begun +to consider it my duty to take charge of my mother. + +"Never mind, mammy, I'll setch some slowers sor you," I said (every _f_ +being an _s_ in those days), and armed with a pair of scissors I skipped +down to the garden. + +I had chosen a bed of annuals because they were bright and fragrant, and +was beginning to cut some "gilvers" when Nessy MacLeod, who had been +watching from a window, came bouncing down me. + +"Mary O'Neill, how dare you?" cried Nessy. "You wilful, wicked, +underhand little vixen, what will your Aunt Bridget say? Don't you know +this is Betsy Beauty's bed, and nobody else is to touch it?" + +I began to excuse myself on the ground of my mother and Tommy the Mate, +but Nessy would hear no such explanation. + +"Your mamma has nothing to do with it. You know quite well that your +Aunt Bridget manages everything in this house, and nothing can be done +without her." + +Small as I was that was too much for me. Somewhere in my little heart +there had long been a secret pang of mortified pride--how born I do not +know--at seeing Aunt Bridget take the place of my mother, and now, +choking with vexation but without saying a word, I swept off the heads +of all the flowers in the bed, and with my arms full of them--ten times +more than I wanted--I sailed back to my mother's room. + +Inside two minutes there was a fearful tumult. I thought I was doomed to +punishment when I heard the big bunch of keys, which Aunt Bridget kept +suspended from her waist, come jingling up the stairs, but it was my +poor mother who paid the penalty. + +"Isabel," cried Aunt Bridget, "I hope you are satisfied with your child +at last." + +"What has Mary been doing now, dear?" said my mother. + +"Don't ask me what she has been doing. You know quite well, or if you +don't you ought to." + +My mother glanced at the flowers and she seemed to understand what had +happened, for her face fell and she said submissively, + +"Mary has done wrong, but I am sure she is sorry and will never do it +again." + +"Sorry, indeed!" cried my Aunt. "Not she sorry. And she'll do it again +at the very next opportunity. The vixen! The little wilful, underhand +vixen! But what wonder if children go wrong when their own mothers +neglect to correct them." + +"I daresay you are quite right, dear Bridget--you are always right," +said my mother in a low, grave voice. "But then I'm not very well, and +Mary is all I have, you know." + +My mother was in tears by this time, but Aunt Bridget was not content +with her triumph. Sweeping downstairs she carried her complaint to my +father, who ordered that I was to be taken out of my mother's charge on +the ground that she was incapable of attending to my upbringing--a task +which, being assigned to my Aunt Bridget, provided that I should +henceforward live on the ground floor and eat oaten cake and barley +bonnag and sleep alone in the cold room over the hall while Betsy Beauty +ate wheaten bread and apple tart and slept with her mother in the room +over the kitchen in which they always kept a fire. + + + + +FIFTH CHAPTER + + +The altered arrangements were a cause of grief to my mother, but I am +bound to confess that for me they had certain compensations. One of them +was the greater ease with which I could slip out to Tommy the Mate, who +had been a sailor before he was a gardener, and was still a fine old +salt, with grizzled beard and shaggy eyebrows, and a merry twinkle in +what he called his "starboard" eye. + +I think Tommy was one of the few about my father's house who were really +fond of me, but perhaps that was mainly because he loathed aunt Bridget. +He used to call her the Big Woman, meaning that she was the master and +mistress of everything and everybody about the place. When he was told +of any special piece of her tyranny to servant or farmhand he used to +say: "Aw, well, she'll die for all"; and when he heard how she had +separated me from my mother, who had nothing else to love or live for, +he spat sideways out of his mouth and said: + +"Our Big Woman is a wicked devil, I'm thinking, and I wouldn't trust +[shouldn't wonder] but she'll burn in hell." + +What definite idea I attached to this denunciation I do not now recall, +but I remember that it impressed me deeply, and that many a night +afterwards, during the miserable half-hours before I fell asleep with my +head under the clothes in the cold bedroom over the hall to which (as +Nessy MacLeod had told me) the bad fairies came for bad children, I +repeated the strange words again and again. + +Another compensation was the greater opportunity I had for cultivating +an acquaintance which I had recently made with the doctor's son, when he +came with his father on visits to my mother. As soon as the hoofs of the +horse were heard on the gravel, and before the bell could be rung, I +used to dart away on tiptoe, fly through the porch, climb into the gig +and help the boy to hold the reins while his father was upstairs. + +This led to what I thought a great discovery. It was about my mother. I +had always known my mother was sick, but now I got a "skute" (as old +Tommy used to say) into the cause of her illness. It was a matter of +milk. The doctor's boy had heard his father saying so. If my mother +could only have milk morning, noon and night, every day and all day, +"there wouldn't be nothing the matter with her." + +This, too, impressed me deeply, and the form it took in my mind was that +"mammy wasn't sed enough," a conclusion that gained colour from the fact +that I saw Betsy Beauty perched up in a high chair in the dining-room +twice or thrice a day, drinking nice warm milk fresh from the cow. We +had three cows, I remember, and to correct the mischief of my mother's +illness, I determined that henceforth she should not have merely more of +our milk--she should have all of it. + +Losing no time in carrying my intentions into effect, I crept into the +dairy as soon as the dairymaid had brought in the afternoon's milking. +There it was, still frothing and bubbling in three great bowls, and +taking up the first of them in my little thin arms--goodness knows +how--I made straight for my mother's room. + +But hardly had I climbed half-way up the stairs, puffing and panting +under my burden, when I met Nessy MacLeod coming down, and she fell on +me with her usual reproaches. + +"Mary O'Neill, you wilful, underhand little vixen, whatever are you +doing with the milk?" + +Being in no mood for explanations I tried to push past, but Nessy +prevented me. + +"No, indeed, you shan't go a step further. What will your Aunt Bridget +say? Take the milk back, miss, this very minute." + +Nessy's loud protest brought Betsy Beauty out of the dining-room, and in +a moment my cousin, looking more than ever like a painted doll in her +white muslin dress with a large blue bow in her yellow hair, had run +upstairs to assist her step-sister. + +I was now between the two, the one above and the other below, and they +laid hold of my bowl to take it from me. They tugged and I resisted and +there was a struggle in which the milk was in danger of being spilled. + +"She's a stubborn little thing and she ought to be whipped," cried +Nessy. + +"She's stealing my milk, and I'll tell mamma," said Betsy. + +"Tell her then," I cried, and in a burst of anger at finding myself +unable to recover control of my bowl I swept it round and flung its +contents over my cousin's head, thereby drenching her with the frothing +milk and making the staircase to run like a river of whitewash. + +Of course there was a fearful clamour. Betsy Beauty shrieked and Nessy +bellowed, whereupon Aunt Bridget came racing from her parlour, while my +mother, white and trembling, halted to the door of her room. + +"Mally, Mally, what have you done?" cried my mother, but Aunt Bridget +found no need of questions. After running upstairs to her dripping +daughter, wiping her down with a handkerchief, calling her "my poor +darling," and saying, "Didn't I tell you to have nothing more to do with +that little vixen?" she fell on my mother with bitter upbraidings. + +"Isabel, I hope you see now what your minx of a child is--the little +spiteful fury!" + +By this time I had dropped my empty bowl on the stairs and taken refuge +behind my mother's gown, but I heard her timid voice trying to excuse +me, and saying something about my cousin and a childish quarrel. + +"Childish quarrel, indeed!" cried my Aunt; "there's nothing childish +about that little imp, nothing. And what's more, I shall be obliged to +you, Isabel, if you will never again have the assurance to speak of my +Betsy Beauty in the same breath with a child of yours." + +That was more than I could hear. My little heart was afire at the +humiliation put upon my mother. So stepping out to the head of the +stairs, I shouted down in my shrillest treble: + +"Your Betsy Beauty is a wicked devil, and I wouldn't trust but she'll +burn in hell!" + +Never, to the last hour of my life, shall I forget the effect of that +pronouncement. One moment Aunt Bridget stood speechless in the middle of +the stairs, as if all breath had been broken out of her. Then, ghastly +white and without a word, she came flying up at me, and, before I could +recover my usual refuge, she caught me, slapped me on the cheek and +boxed both my ears. + +I do not remember if I cried, but I know my mother did, and that in the +midst of the general tumult my father came out of his room and demanded +in a loud voice, which seemed to shake the whole house, to be told what +was going on. + +Aunt Bridget told him, with various embellishments, which my mother did +not attempt to correct, and then, knowing she was in the wrong, she +began to wipe her eyes with her wet handkerchief, and to say she could +not live any longer where a child was encouraged to insult her. + +"I have to leave this house--I have to leave it to-morrow," she said. + +"You don't have to do no such thing," cried my father. "But I'm just +crazy to see if a man can't be captain in his own claim. These children +must go to school. They must all go--the darned lot of 'em." + + + + +SIXTH CHAPTER + + +Before I speak of what happened at school, I must say how and when I +first became known to the doctor's boy. + +It was during the previous Christmastide. On Christmas Eve I awoke in +the dead of night with the sense of awakening in another world. The +church-bells were ringing, and there was singing outside our house, +under the window of my mother's room. After listening for a little while +I made my voice as soft as I could and said: + +"Mamma, what is it'?" + +"Hush, dear! It is the Waits. Lie still and listen," said my mother. + +I lay as long as my patience would permit, and then creeping over to the +window I saw a circle of men and women, with lanterns, and the frosty +air smoking about their red faces. After a while they stopped singing, +and then the chain of our front door rattled, and I heard my father's +loud voice asking the singers into the house. + +They came in, and when I was back in bed, I heard them talking and then +laughing in the room below, with Aunt Bridget louder than all the rest, +and when I asked what she was doing my mother told me she was serving +out bunloaf and sherry-wine. + +I fell asleep before the incident was over, but as soon as I awoke in +the morning I conceived the idea of singing the Waits myself. Being an +artful little thing I knew that my plan would be opposed, so I said +nothing about it, but I got my mother to play and sing the carol I had +heard overnight, until my quick ear had mastered both tune and words, +and when darkness fell on Christmas night I proceeded to carry out my +intention. + +In the heat of my impatience I forgot to put on cloak or hat, and +stealing out of the house I found myself in the carriage drive with +nothing on but a pair of thin slippers and the velvet frock that left my +neck and arms so bare. It was snowing, and the snow-flakes were whirling +round me and making me dizzy, for in the light from my mother's window +they seemed to come up from the ground as well as down from the sky. + +When I got out of the light of the window, it was very dark, and I could +only see that the chestnuts in the drive seemed to have white blankets +on them which looked as if they had been hung out to dry. It was a long +time before I got to the gate, and then I had begun to be nervous and to +have half a mind to turn back. But the thought of the bunloaf and the +sherry-wine buoyed me up, and presently I found myself on the high road, +crossing a bridge and turning down a lane that led to the sea, whose +moaning a mile away was the only sound I could hear. + +I knew quite well where I was going to. I was going to the doctor's +house. It was called Sunny Lodge, and it was on the edge of Yellow Gorse +Farm. I had seen it more than once when I had driven out in the carriage +with my mother, and had thought how sweet it looked with its whitewashed +walls and brown thatched roof and the red and white roses which grew +over the porch. + +I was fearfully cold before I got there. The snow was in my slippers and +down my neck and among the thickening masses of my hair. At one moment I +came upon some sheep and lambs that were sheltering under a hedge, and +they bleated in the silence of the night. + +But at last I saw the warm red windows of the doctor's cottage, and +coming to the wicket gate, I pushed it open though it was clogged with +snow, and stepped up to the porch. My teeth were now chattering with +cold, but as well as I could I began to sing, and in my thin and creachy +voice I had got as far as-- + + "_Ch'ist was born in Bef-lem, + Ch'ist was born in Bef-lem, + Ch'ist was born in Bef-lem, + An' in a manger laid_. . . ." + +when I heard a rumbling noise inside the house. + +Immediately afterwards the door was opened upon me, and a woman whom I +knew to be the doctor's wife looked down into my face with an expression +of bewilderment, and then cried: + +"Goodness gracious me, doctor--if it isn't little Mary O'Neill, God +bless her!" + +"Bring her in at once, then," said the voice of Doctor Conrad from +within, and at the next moment I found myself in a sort of +kitchen-parlour which was warm with a glowing turf fire that had a +kettle singing over it, and cosy and bright with a ragwork hearth-rug, a +dresser full of blue pottery and a sofa settle covered with red cloth. + +I suppose the sudden change to a warm room must have caused me to faint, +for I have no recollection of what happened next, except that I was +sitting on somebody's lap and that she was calling me _boght millish_ +(little sweet) and _veg-veen_ (little dear) while she rubbed my +half-frozen limbs and did other things that were, I am sure, all womanly +and good. + +When I came to myself Doctor Conrad was saying I would have to sleep +there that night, and he must go over to the Big House and tell my +mother what had happened. He went, and by the time he came back, I had +been bathed in a dolly-tub placed in front of the fire, and was being +carried upstairs (in a nightdress many sizes too large for me) to a +little dimity-white bedroom, where the sweet smelling "scraas" under the +sloping thatch of the roof came down almost to my face. + +I know nothing of what happened during the night, except that I was +feeling very hot, and that as often as I opened my eyes the doctor's +wife was leaning over me and speaking in a soft voice that seemed far +away. But next day I felt cooler and then Aunt Bridget came in her satin +mantle and big black hat, and said something, while standing at the end +of my bed, about people paying the penalty when they did things that +were sly and underhand. + +Towards evening I was much easier, and when the doctor came in to see me +at night he said: + +"How are we this evening? Ah, better, I see. Distinctly better!" + +And then turning to his wife he said: + +"No need to stay up with her to-night, Christian Ann." + +"But won't the _boght millish_ be afraid to be left alone?" she asked. + +I said I shouldn't, and she kissed me and told me to knock at the wall +if I wanted anything. And then, with her husband's arm about her waist, +the good soul left me to myself. + +I don't know how I knew, but I did know that that house was a home of +love. I don't know how I knew, but I did know, that that sweet woman, +who had been the daughter of a well-to-do man, had chosen the doctor out +of all the men in the world when he was only a medical student fresh +from Germany or Switzerland. I don't know how I knew, but I did know, +that leaving father and mother and a sheltered home she had followed her +young husband when he first came to Ellan without friends or +connections, and though poor then and poor still, she had never +regretted it. I don't know how I knew, but I did know, that all this was +the opposite of what had happened to my own dear mother, who having +everything yet had nothing, while this good creature having nothing yet +had all. + + + + +SEVENTH CHAPTER + + +When I awoke next morning the sun was shining, and, after my hair had +been brushed smooth over my forehead, I was sitting up in bed, eating +for breakfast the smallest of bantam eggs with the smallest of silver +spoons, when the door opened with a bang and a small figure tumbled into +my room. + +It was a boy, two years older than myself. He wore a grey Norfolk jacket +and knickerbockers, but the peculiarity of his dress was a white felt +hat of enormous size, which, being soiled and turned down in the brim, +and having a hole in the crown with a crop of his brown hair sticking +through it, gave him the appearance of a damaged mushroom. + +Except that on entering he tipped up his head so that I saw his face, +which was far from beautiful and yet had two big blue eyes--as blue as +the bluest sea--he took no notice of my presence, but tossed a +somersault in the middle of the floor, screwed his legs over the back of +a chair, vaulted over a table and finally stood on his hands with his +legs against the wall opposite to my bed, and his inverted countenance +close to the carpet. + +In this position, in which he was clearly making a point of remaining as +long as possible, while his face grew very red, we held our first +conversation. I had hitherto sat propped up as quiet as a mouse, but now +I said: + +"Little boy, what's your name?" + +"Mart," was the answer. + +"Where do you come from?" + +"Spitzbergen." + +I cannot remember that this intelligence astonished me, for when the +inverted face had become scarlet, and the legs went down and the head +came up, and my visitor tossed several somersaults over the end of my +bed, to the danger of my breakfast tray, and then, without a word more, +tumbled out of the room, I was still watching in astonishment. + +I did not know at that time that these were the ways which since the +beginning of the world have always been employed by savages and boys +when they desire to commend themselves to the female of their kind, so +that when the doctor's wife came smiling upstairs I asked her if the +little boy who had been to see me was not quite well. + +"Bless you, yes, dear, but that's his way," she said, and then she told +me all about him. + +His name was Martin Conrad and he was her only child. His hat, which had +awakened my interest, was an old one of his father's, and it was the +last thing he took off when he undressed for bed at night and the first +thing he put on in the morning. When the hole came into its crown his +mother had tried to hide it away but he had always found it, and when +she threw it into the river he had fished it out again. + +He was the strangest boy, full of the funniest fancies. He used to say +that before he was born he lived in a tree and was the fellow who turned +on the rain. It was with difficulty that he could be educated, and every +morning on being awakened, he said he was "sorry he ever started this +going to school." As a consequence he could not read or write as well as +other boys of his age, and his grammar was still that of the peasant +people with whom he loved to associate. + +Chief among these was our gardener, old Tommy the Mate, who lived in a +mud cabin on the shore and passed the doctor's house on his way to work. +Long ago Tommy had told the boy a tremendous story. It was about Arctic +exploration and an expedition he had joined in search of Franklin. This +had made an overpowering impression on Martin, who for mouths afterwards +would stand waiting at the gate until Tommy was going by, and then say: + +"Been to the North Pole to-day, Tommy?" + +Whereupon Tommy's "starboard eye" would blink and he would answer: + +"Not to-day boy. I don't go to the North Pole more nor twice a day now." + +"Don't you, though?" the boy would say, and this would happen every +morning. + +But later on Martin conceived the idea that the North Pole was the +locality immediately surrounding his father's house, and every day he +would set out on voyages of exploration over the garden, the road and +the shore, finding, by his own account, a vast world of mysterious +things and undiscovered places. By some means--nobody knew how--the boy +who could not learn his lessons studied his father's German atlas, and +there was not a name in it north of Spitzbergen which he had not got by +heart. He transferred them all to Ellan, so that the Sky Hill became +Greenland, and the Black Head became Franz Josef Land, and the Nun's +Well became Behring Strait, and Martha's Gullet became New Siberia, and +St. Mary's Rock, with the bell anchored on it, became the pivot of the +earth itself. + +He could swim like a fish and climb a rock like a lizard, and he kept a +log-book, on the back pages of the Doctor's book of visits, which he +called his "diarrhea." And now if you lost him you had only to look up +to the ridge of the roof, or perhaps on to the chimney stack, which he +called his crow's nest, and there you found him, spying through his +father's telescope and crying out: + +"Look-out ahead! Ice floes from eighty-six latitude fourteen point +north, five knots to the starboard bow." + +His mother laughed until she cried when she told me all this, but there +is no solemnity like that of a child, and to me it was a marvellous +story. I conceived a deep admiration for the doctor's boy, and saw +myself with eyes of worship walking reverently by his side. I suppose my +poor lonely heart was hungering after comradeship, for being a +sentimental little ninny I decided to offer myself to the doctor's boy +as his sister. + +The opportunity was dreadfully long in coming. It did not come until the +next morning, when the door of my room flew open with a yet louder bang +than before, and the boy entered in a soap-box on wheels, supposed to be +a sledge, and drawn by a dog, an Irish terrier, which being red had been +called William Rufus. His hat was tied over his ears with a tape from +his mother's apron, and he wore a long pair of his father's knitted +stockings which covered his boots and came up to his thighs. + +He did not at first take any more notice of me than on the previous day, +but steering his sledge round the room he shouted to his dog that the +chair by the side of my bed was a glacier and the sheep-skin rug was +floating ice. + +After a while we began to talk, and then, thinking my time had come, I +tried to approach my subject. Being such a clever little woman I went +artfully to work, speaking first about my father, my mother, my cousin, +Nessy MacLeod, and even Aunt Bridget, with the intention of showing how +rich I was in relations, so that he might see how poor he was himself. + +I felt myself a bit of a hypocrite in all this, but the doctor's boy did +not know that, and I noticed that as I passed my people in review he +only said "Is she any good?" or "Is he a stunner?" + +At length my great moment came and with a fluttering heart I took it. + +"Haven't you got a sister?" I said. + +"Not _me_!" said the doctor's boy, with a dig of emphasis on the last +word which cut me to the quick. + +"Wouldn't you like to have one?" + +"Sisters isn't no good," said the doctor's boy, and he instanced "chaps" +at school--Jimmy Christopher and others--whose sisters were afraid of +everything--lobsters and crabs and even the sea. + +I knew I was as timid as a hare myself, but my lonely little heart was +beginning to bleed, and as well as I could for my throat which was +choking me, I said: + +"I'm not afraid of the sea--not crabs neither." + +In a moment the big mushroom hat was tipped aside and the sea-blue eyes +looked aslant at me. + +"Isn't you, though?" + +"No." + +That did it. I could see it did. And when a minute afterwards, I invited +the doctor's boy into bed, he came in, stockings and all, and sat by my +right side, while William Rufus, who had formed an instant attachment +for me, lay on my left with his muzzle on my lap. + +Later the same day, my bedroom door being open, so that I might call +downstairs to the kitchen, I heard the doctor's boy telling his mother +what I was. I was a "stunner." + + + + +EIGHTH CHAPTER + + +From that day forward the doctor's boy considered that I belonged to +him, but not until I was sent to school, with my cousin and her +stepsister, did he feel called upon to claim his property. + +It was a mixed day-school in the village, and it was controlled by a +Board which had the village butcher as its chairman. The only teacher +was a tall woman of thirty, who plaited her hair, which was of the +colour of flax, into a ridiculous-looking crown on the top of her head. +But her expression, I remember, was one of perpetual severity, and when +she spoke through her thin lips she clipped her words with great +rapidity, as if they had been rolls of bread which were being chopped in +a charity school. + +Afterwards I heard that she owed her position to Aunt Bridget, who had +exercised her influence through the chairman, by means of his account +with the Big House. Perhaps she thought it her duty to display her +gratitude. Certainly she lost no time in showing me that my character +had gone to school before me, for in order that I might be directly +under her eye, she placed me in the last seat in the lowest class, +although my mother's daily teaching would have entitled me to go higher. + +I dare say I was, as Father Dan used to say, as full of mischief as a +goat, and I know I was a chatterbox, but I do not think I deserved the +fate that followed. + +One day, not more than a week after we had been sent to school. I held +my slate in front of my face while I whispered something to the girl +beside and the girl behind me. Both began to titter. + +"Silence!" cried the schoolmistress, who was sitting at her desk, but I +went on whispering and the girls began to choke with laughter. + +I think the schoolmistress must have thought I was saying something +about herself--making game, perhaps, of her personal appearance--for +after a moment she said, in her rapid accents: + +"Mary O'Neill, please repeat what you have just been saying." + +I held my slate yet closer to my face and made no answer. + +"Don't you hear, miss? Speak! You've a tongue in your head, haven't +you?" + +But still I did not answer, and then the schoolmistress said: + +"Mary O'Neill, come forward." + +She had commanded me like a dog, and like a dog I was about to obey when +I caught sight of Betsy Beauty's face, which, beaming with satisfaction, +seemed to be saying: "Now, we shall see." + +I would not stir after that, and the schoolmistress, leaving her desk, +came towards me, and looking darkly into my face, said: + +"You wilful little vixen, do you think you can trifle with me? Come out, +miss, this very moment." + +I knew where that language came from, so I made no movement. + +"Don't you hear? Or do you suppose that because you are pampered and +spoiled by a foolish person at home, you can defy _me_?" + +That reflection on my mother settled everything. I sat as rigid as a +rock. + +Then pale as a whitewashed wall, and with her thin lips tightly +compressed, the schoolmistress took hold of me to drag me out of my +seat, but with my little nervous fingers I clung to the desk in front of +me, and as often as she tore one of my hands open the other fixed itself +afresh. + +"You minx! We'll see who's mistress here. . . . Will none of you big +girls come and help me?" + +With the utmost alacrity one big girl from a back bench came rushing to +the schoolmistress' assistance. It was Nessy MacLeod, and together, +after a fierce struggle, they tore me from my desk, like an ivy branch +from a tree, and dragged me into the open space in front of the classes. +By this time the schoolmistress' hands, and I think her neck were +scratched, and from that cause also she was quivering with passion. + +"Stand there, miss," she said, "and move from that spot at your peril." + +My own fury was now spent, and in the dead silence which had fallen on +the entire school, I was beginning to feel the shame of my ignominious +position. + +"Children," cried the schoolmistress, addressing the whole of the +scholars, "put down your slates and listen." + +Then, as soon as she had recovered her breath she said, standing by my +side and pointing down to me: + +"This child came to school with the character of a wilful, wicked little +vixen, and she has not belied her character. By gross disobedience she +has brought herself to where you see her. 'Spare the rod, spoil the +child,' is a scriptural maxim, and the foolish parents who ruin their +children by overindulgence deserve all that comes to them. But there is +no reason why other people should suffer, and, small as this child is +she has made the life of her excellent aunt intolerable by her +unlovable, unsociable, and unchildlike disposition. Children, she was +sent to school to be corrected of her faults, and I order you to stop +your lessons while she is publicly punished. . . ." + +With this parade of the spirit of justice, the schoolmistress stepped +back and left me. I knew what she was doing--she was taking her cane out +of her desk which stood by the wall. I heard the desk opened with an +impatient clash and then closed with an angry bang. I was as sure as if +I had had eyes in the back of my head, that the schoolmistress was +holding the cane in both hands and bending it to see if it was lithe and +limber. + +I felt utterly humiliated. Standing there with all eyes upon me I was +conscious of the worst pain that enters into a child's experience--the +pain of knowing that other children are looking upon her degradation. I +thought of Aunt Bridget and my little heart choked with anger. Then I +thought of my mother and my throat throbbed with shame. I remembered +what my mother had said, of her little Mary being always a little lady, +and I felt crushed at the thought that I was about to be whipped before +all the village children. + +At home I had been protected if only by my mother's tears, but here I +was alone, and felt myself to be so little and helpless. But just as my +lip was beginning to drop, at the thought of what my mother would suffer +if she saw me in this position of infamy, and I was about to cry out to +the schoolmistress: "Don't beat me! Oh! please don't beat me!" a strange +thing happened, which turned my shame into surprise and triumph. + +Through the mist which had gathered before my eyes I saw a boy coming +out of the boys' class at the end of the long room. It was Martin +Conrad, and I remember that he rolled as he walked like old Tommy the +gardener. Everybody saw him, and the schoolmistress said in her sharp +voice: + +"Martin Conrad, what right have you to leave your place without +permission? Go back, sir, this very moment." + +Instead of going back Martin came on, and as he did so he dragged his +big soft hat out of the belt of his Norfolk jacket and with both hands +pulled it down hard on his head. + +"Go back, sir!" cried the schoolmistress, and I saw her step towards him +with the cane poised and switching in the air, as if about to strike. + +The boy said nothing, but just shaking himself like a big dog he dropped +his head and butted at the schoolmistress as she approached him, struck +her somewhere in the waist and sent her staggering and gasping against +the wall. + +Then, without a word, he took my hand, as something that belonged to +him, and before the schoolmistress could recover her breath, or the +scholars awake from their astonishment, he marched me, as if his little +stocky figure had been sixteen feet tall, in stately silence out of the +school. + + + + +NINTH CHAPTER + + +I was never sent back to school, and I heard that Martin, by order of +the butcher, was publicly expelled. This was a cause of distress to our +mothers, who thought the future of our lives had been permanently +darkened, but I cannot say that it ever stood between us and our +sunshine. On the contrary it occurred that--Aunt Bridget having washed +her hands of me, and Martin's father being unable to make up his mind +what to do with him--we found ourselves for some time at large and were +nothing loth to take advantage of our liberty, until a day came which +brought a great disaster. + +One morning I found Martin with old Tommy the Mate in his potting-shed, +deep in the discussion of their usual subject--the perils and pains of +Arctic exploration, when you have little food in your wallet and not too +much in your stomach. + +"But you has lots of things when you gets there--hams and flitches and +oranges and things--hasn't you?" said Martin. + +"Never a ha'p'orth," said Tommy. "Nothing but glory. You just takes your +Alping stock and your sleeping sack and your bit o' biscuit and away you +go over crevaxes deeper nor Martha's gullet and mountains higher nor +Mount Blank and never think o' nothing but doing something that nobody's +never done before. My goodness, yes, boy, that's the way of it when +you're out asploring. 'Glory's waiting for me' says you, and on you go." + +At that great word I saw Martin's blue eyes glisten like the sea when +the sun is shining on it; and then, seeing me for the first time, he +turned back to old Tommy and said: + +"I s'pose you lets women go with you when you're out asploring--women +and girls?" + +"Never a woman," said Tommy. + +"Not never--not if they're stunners?" said Martin. + +"Well," says Tommy, glancing down at me, while his starboard eye +twinkled, "I won't say never--not if they're stunners." + +Next day Martin, attended by William Rufus, arrived at our house with a +big corn sack on his shoulder, a long broom-handle in his hand, a +lemonade bottle half filled with milk, a large sea biscuit and a small +Union Jack which came from the confectioner's on the occasion of his +last birthday. + +"Glory's waiting for me--come along, shipmate," he said in a mysterious +whisper, and without a word of inquiry, I obeyed. + +He gave me the biscuit and I put it in the pocket of my frock, and the +bottle of milk, and I tied it to my belt, and then off we went, with the +dog bounding before us. + +I knew he was going to the sea, and my heart was in my mouth, for of all +the things I was afraid of I feared the sea most--a terror born with me, +perhaps, on the fearful night of my birth. But I had to live up to the +character I had given myself when Martin became my brother, and the one +dread of my life was that, finding me as timid as other girls, he might +want me no more. + +We reached the sea by a little bay, called Murphy's Mouth, which had a +mud cabin that stood back to the cliff and a small boat that was moored +to a post on the shore. Both belonged to Tommy the Mate, who was a +"widow man" living alone, and therefore there were none to see us when +we launched the boat and set out on our voyage. It was then two o'clock +in the afternoon, the sun was shining, and the tide, which was at the +turn, was beginning to flow. + +I had never been in a boat before, but I dared not say anything about +that, and after Martin had fixed the bow oar for me and taken the stroke +himself, I spluttered and plunged and made many blunders. I had never +been on the sea either, and almost as soon as we shot clear of the shore +and were lifted on to the big waves, I began to feel dizzy, and dropped +my oar, with the result that it slipped through the rollocks and was +washed away. Martin saw what had happened as we swung round to his +rowing, but when I expected him to scold me, he only said: + +"Never mind, shipmate! I was just thinking we would do better with one," +and, shipping his own oar in the stern of the boat, he began to scull. + +My throat was hurting me, and partly from shame and partly from fear, I +now sat forward, with William Rufus on my lap, and said as little as +possible. But Martin was in high spirits, and while his stout little +body rolled to the rocking of the boat he whistled and sang and shouted +messages to me over his shoulder. + +"My gracious! Isn't this what you call ripping?" he cried, and though my +teeth were chattering, I answered that it was. + +"Some girls--Jimmy Christopher's sister and Nessy MacLeod and Betsy +Beauty--would be frightened to come asploring, wouldn't they?" + +"Wouldn't they?" I said, and I laughed, though I was trembling down to +the soles of my shoes. + +We must have been half an hour out, and the shore seemed so far away +that Murphy's Mouth and Tommy's cabin and even the trees of the Big +House looked like something I had seen through the wrong end of a +telescope, when he turned his head, with a wild light in his eyes, and +said: + +"See the North Pole out yonder?" + +"Don't I?" I answered, though I was such a practical little person, and +had not an ounce of "dream" in me. + +I knew quite well where he was going to. He was going to St. Mary's +Rock, and of all the places on land or sea, it was the place I was most +afraid of, being so big and frowning, an ugly black mass, standing +twenty to thirty feet out of the water, draped like a coffin in a pall, +with long fronds of sea-weed, and covered, save at high water, by a +multitude of hungry sea-fowl. + +A white cloud of the birds rose from their sleep as we approached, and +wheeled and whistled and screamed and beat their wings over our heads. I +wanted to scream too, but Martin said: + +"My gracious, isn't this splendiferous?" + +"Isn't it?" I answered, and, little hypocrite that I was, I began to +sing. + +I remember that I sang one of Tommy's sailor-songs, "Sally," because its +jolly doggerel was set to such a jaunty tune-- + + "_Oh Sally's the gel for me, + Our Sally's the gel for me, + I'll marry the gel that I love best + When I come back from sea_." + +My pretence of happiness was shortlived, for at the next moment I made +another mistake. Drawing up his boat to a ledge of the rock, and laying +hold of our painter, Martin leapt ashore, and then held out his hand to +me to follow him, but in fear of a big wave I held back when I ought to +have jumped, and he was drenched from head to foot. I was ashamed, and +thought he would have scolded me, but he only shook himself and said: + +"That's nothing! We don't mind a bit of wet when we're out asploring." + +My throat was hurting me again and I could not speak, but without +waiting for me to answer he coiled the rope about my right arm, and told +me to stay where I was, and hold fast to the boat, while he climbed the +rock and took possession of it in the name of the king. + +"Do or die we allus does that when we're out asploring," he said, and +with his sack over his shoulder, his broom-handle in his hand and his +little Union Jack sticking out of the hole in the crown of his hat, he +clambered up the crag and disappeared over the top of it. + +Being left alone, for the dog had followed him, my nervousness increased +tenfold, and thinking at last that the rising tide was about to submerge +the ledge on which I stood, I tried in my fright to climb the cliff. But +hardly had I taken three steps when my foot slipped and I clutched the +seaweed to save myself from falling, with the result that the boat's +rope slid from my arm, and went rip-rip-ripping down the rock until it +fell with a splash into the sea. + +I saw what I had done, and I screamed, and then Martin's head appeared +after a moment on the ledge above me. But it was too late for him to do +anything, for the boat had already drifted six yards away, and just when +I thought he would have shrieked at me for cutting off our only +connection with the shore, he said: + +"Never mind, shipmate! We allus expecs to lose a boat or two when we're +out asploring." + +I was silent from shame, but Martin, having hauled me up the rock by +help of the broom handle, rattled away as if nothing had +happened--pointing proudly to a rust-eaten triangle with a bell +suspended inside of it and his little flag floating on top. + +"But, oh dear, what are we to do now?" I whimpered. + +"Don't you worrit about that," he said. "We'll just signal back to the +next base--we call them bases when we're out asploring." + +I understood from this that he was going to ring the bell which, being +heard on the land, would bring somebody to our relief. But the bell was +big, only meant to be put in motion on stormy nights by the shock and +surging of an angry sea, and when Martin had tied a string to its tongue +it was a feeble sound he struck from it. + +Half an hour passed, an hour, two hours, and still I saw nothing on the +water but our own empty boat rocking its way back to the shore. + +"Will they ever come?" I faltered. + +"Ra--ther! Just you wait and you'll see them coming. And when they take +us ashore there'll be crowds and crowds with bugles and bands and things +to take us home. My goodness, yes," he said, with the same wild look, +"hundreds and tons of them!" + +But the sun set over the sea behind us, the land in front grew dim, the +moaning tide rose around the quaking rock and even the screaming +sea-fowl deserted us, and still there was no sign of relief. My heart +was quivering through my clothes by this time, but Martin, who had +whistled and sung, began to talk about being hungry. + +"My goodness yes, I'm that hungry I could eat. . . . I could eat a +dog--we allus eats our dogs when we're out asploring." + +This reminded me of the biscuit, but putting my hand to the pocket of my +frock I found to my dismay that it was gone, having fallen out, perhaps, +when I slipped in my climbing. My lip fell and I looked up at him with +eyes of fear, but he only said: + +"No matter! We never minds a bit of hungry when we're out asploring." + +I did not know then, what now I know, that my little boy who could not +learn his lessons and had always been in disgrace, was a born gentleman, +but my throat was thick and my eyes were swimming and to hide my emotion +I pretended to be ill. + +"I know," said Martin. "Dizzingtory! [dysentery]. We allus has +dizzingtory when we're out asploring." + +There was one infallible cure for that, though--milk! + +"I allus drinks a drink of milk, and away goes the dizzingtory in a +jiffy." + +This recalled the bottle, but when I twisted it round on my belt, hoping +to make amends for the lost biscuit, I found to my confusion that it had +suffered from the same misadventure, being cracked in the bottom, and +every drop of the contents gone. + +That was the last straw, and the tears leapt to my eyes, but Martin went +on whistling and singing and ringing the big bell as if nothing had +happened. + +The darkness deepened, the breath of night came sweeping over the sea, +the boom of the billows on the rock became still more terrible, and I +began to shiver. + +"The sack!" cried Martin. "We allus sleeps in sacks when we're out +asploring." + +I let him do what he liked with me now, but when he had packed me up in +the sack, and put me to lie at the foot of the triangle, telling me I +was as right as ninepence, I began to think of something I had read in a +storybook, and half choking with sobs I said: + +"Martin!" + +"What now, shipmate?" + +"It's all my fault . . . and I'm just as frightened as Jimmy +Christopher's sister and Nessy MacLeod and Betsy Beauty . . . and I'm +not a stunner . . . and you'll have to give me up . . . and leave me +here and save yourself and . . ." + +But Martin stopped me with a shout and a crack of laughter. + +"Not _me_! Not much! We never leaves a pal when we're out asploring. +Long as we lives we never does it. Not never!" + +That finished me. I blubbered like a baby, and William Rufus, who was +sitting by my side, lifted his nose and joined in my howling. + +What happened next I never rightly knew. I was only aware, though my +back was to him, that Martin, impatient of his string, had leapt up to +the bell and was swinging his little body from the tongue to make a +louder clamour. One loud clang I heard, and then came a crash and a +crack, and then silence. + +"What is it?" I cried, but at first there was no answer. + +"Have you hurt yourself?" + +And then through the thunderous boom of the rising sea on the rock, +came the breaking voice of my boy (he had broken his right arm) mingled +with the sobs which his unconquered and unconquerable little soul was +struggling to suppress-- + +"We never minds a bit of hurt . . . we never minds _nothing_ when we're +out asploring!" + +Meantime on shore there was a great commotion. My father was railing at +Aunt Bridget, who was upbraiding my mother, who was crying for Father +Dan, who was flying off for Doctor Conrad, who was putting his horse +into his gig and scouring the parish in search of the two lost children. + +But Tommy the Mate, who remembered the conversation in the potting-shed +and thought he heard the tinkle of a bell at sea, hurried off to the +shore, where he found his boat bobbing on the beach, and thereby came to +his own conclusions. + +By the light of a lantern he pulled out to St. Mary's Rock, and there, +guided by the howling of the dog, he came upon the great little +explorers, hardly more than three feet above high water, lying together +in the corn sack, locked in each other's arms and fast asleep. + +There were no crowds and bands of music waiting for us when Tommy +brought us ashore, and after leaving Martin with his broken limb in his +mother's arms at the gate of Sunny Lodge, he took me over to the +Presbytery in order that Father Dan might carry me home and so stand +between me and my father's wrath and Aunt Bridget's birch. + +Unhappily there was no need for this precaution. The Big House, when we +reached it, was in great confusion. My mother had broken a blood vessel. + + + + +TENTH CHAPTER + + +During the fortnight in which my mother was confined to bed I was her +constant companion and attendant. With the mighty eagerness of a child +who knew nothing of what the solemn time foreboded I flew about the +house on tiptoe, fetching my mother's medicine and her milk and the ice +to cool it, and always praising myself for my industry and thinking I +was quite indispensable. + +"You couldn't do without your little Mally, could you, mammy?" I would +say, and my mother would smooth my hair lovingly with her thin white +hand and answer: + +"No, indeed, I couldn't do without my little Mally." And then my little +bird-like beak would rise proudly in the air. + +All this time I saw nothing of Martin, and only heard through Doctor +Conrad in his conversations with my mother, that the boy's broken arm +had been set, and that as soon as it was better, he was to be sent to +King George's College, which was at the other end of Ellan. What was to +be done with myself I never inquired, being so satisfied that my mother +could not get on without me. + +I was partly aware that big letters, bearing foreign postage-stamps and +seals and coats of arms, with pictures of crosses and hearts, were +coming to our house. I was also aware that at intervals, while my mother +was in bed, there was the sound of voices, as if in eager and sometimes +heated conference, in the room below, and that my mother would raise her +pale face from her pillow and stop my chattering with "Hush!" when my +father's voice was louder and sterner than usual. But it never occurred +to me to connect these incidents with myself, until the afternoon of the +day on which my mother got up for the first time. + +She was sitting before the fire, for autumn was stealing on, and I was +bustling about her, fixing the rug about her knees and telling her if +she wanted anything she was to be sure and call her little Mally, when a +timid knock came to the door and Father Dan entered the room. I can see +his fair head and short figure still, and hear his soft Irish voice, as +he stepped forward and said: + +"Now don't worry, my daughter. Above all, don't worry." + +By long experience my mother knew this for a sign of the dear Father's +own perturbation, and I saw her lower lip tremble as she asked: + +"Hadn't Mary better run down to the garden?" + +"No! Oh no!" said Father Dan. "It is about Mary I come to speak, so our +little pet may as well remain." + +Then at a signal from my mother I went over to her and stood by her +side, and she embraced my waist with a trembling arm, while the Father +took a seat by her side, and, fumbling the little silver cross on his +chain, delivered his message. + +After long and anxious thought--and he might say prayer--it had been +decided that I should be sent away to a Convent. It was to be a Convent +of the Sacred Heart in Rome. He was to take me to Rome himself and see +me safely settled there. And they (meaning my father and Aunt Bridget) +had promised him--faithfully promised him--that when the holidays came +round he should be sent to bring me home again. So there was nothing to +fear, nothing to worry about, nothing to . . . to . . . + +My mother listened as long as she could, and then--her beautiful white +face distorted by pain--she broke in on the Father's message with a cry +of protest. + +"But she is so young! Such a child! Only seven years old! How can any +one think of sending such a little one away from home?" + +Father Dan tried to pacify her. It was true I was very young, but then +the Reverend Mother was such a good woman. She would love me and care +for me as if I were her own child. And then the good nuns, God bless +their holy souls. . . . + +"But Mary is all I have," cried my mother, "and if they take her away +from me I shall be broken-hearted. At such a time too! How cruel they +are! They know quite well what the doctor says. Can't they wait a little +longer?" + +I could see that Father Dan was arguing against himself, for his eyes +filled as he said: + +"It's hard, I know it's hard for you, my daughter. But perhaps it's best +for the child that she should go away from home--perhaps it's all God's +blessed and holy will. Remember there's a certain person here who isn't +kind to our little innocent, and is making her a cause of trouble. Not +that I think she is actuated by evil intentions. . . ." + +"But she is, she is," cried my mother, who was growing more and more +excited. + +"Then all the more reason why Mary should go to the convent--for a time +at all events." + +My mother began to waver, and she said: + +"Let her be sent to a Convent in the island then." + +"I thought of that, but there isn't one," said Father Dan. + +"Then . . . then . . . then take her to the Presbytery," said my mother. +"Dear, dear Father," she pleaded, "let her live with you, and have +somebody to teach her, and then she can come to see me every day, or +twice a week, or even once a week--I am not unreasonable." + +"It would be beautiful," said Father Dan, reaching over to touch my arm. +"To have our little Mary in my dull old house would be like having the +sun there always. But there are reasons why a young girl should not be +brought up in the home of a priest, so it is better that our little +precious should go to Rome." + +My mother was breaking down and Father Dan followed up his advantage. + +"Then wisha, my daughter, think what a good thing it will be for the +child. She will be one of the children of the Infant Jesus first, then a +child of Mary, and then of the Sacred heart itself. And then remember, +Rome! The holy city! The city of the Holy Father! Why, who knows, she +may even see himself some day!" + +"Yes, yes, I know," said my mother, and then turning with her melting +eyes to me she said: + +"Would my Mary like to go--leaving her mamma but coming home in the +holidays--would she?" + +I was going to say I would not, because mamma could not possibly get on +without me, but before I could reply Aunt Bridget, with her bunch of +keys at her waist, came jingling into the room, and catching my mother's +last words, said, in her harsh, high-pitched voice. + +"Isabel! You astonish me! To defer to the will of a child! Such a child +too! So stubborn and spoiled and self-willed! If _we_ say it is good for +her to go she _must_ go!" + +I could feel through my mother's arm, which was still about my waist, +that she was trembling from head to foot, but at first she did not speak +and Aunt Bridget, in her peremptory way, went on: + +"We say it is good for you, too, Isabel, if she is not to hasten your +death by preying on your nerves and causing you to break more blood +vessels. So we are consulting your welfare as well as the girl's in +sending her away." + +My mother's timid soul could bear no more. I think it must have been the +only moment of anger her gentle spirit ever knew, but, gathering all her +strength, she turned upon Aunt Bridget in ungovernable excitement. + +"Bridget," she said, "you are doing nothing of the kind. You know you +are not. You are only trying to separate me from my child and my child +from me. When you came to my house I thought you would be kinder to my +child than a anybody else, but you have not been, you have been cruel to +her, and shut your heart against her, and while I have been helpless +here, and in bed, you have never shown her one moment of love and +kindness. No, you have no feeling except for your own, and it never +occurs to you that having brought your own child into my house you are +trying to turn my child out of it." + +"So that's how you look at it, is it?" said Aunt Bridget, with a flash +of her cold grey eyes. "I thought I came to this house--your house as +you call it--only out of the best intentions, just to spare you trouble +when you were ill and unable, to attend to your duties as a wife. But +because I correct your child when she is wilful and sly and +wicked. . . ." + +"Correct your own child, Bridget O'Neill!" cried my mother, "and leave +mine to me. She's all I have and it isn't long I shall have her. You +know quite well how much she has cost me, and that I haven't had a very +happy married life, but instead of helping me with her father. . . ." + +"Say no more," said Aunt Bridget, "we don't want you to hurt yourself +again, and to allow this ill-conditioned child to be the cause of +another hemorrhage." + +"Bridget O'Neill," cried my mother, rising up from her chair, "you are a +hard-hearted woman with a bad disposition. You know as well as I do that +it wasn't Mary who made me ill, but you--you, who reproached me and +taunted me about my child until my heart itself had to bleed. For seven +years you have been doing that, and now you are disposing of my darling +over my head without consulting me. Has a mother no rights in her own +child--the child she has suffered for, and loved and lived for--that +other people who care nothing for it should take it away from her and +send it into a foreign country where she may never see it again? But you +shall not do that! No, you shall not'! As long as there's breath in my +body you shall not do it, and if you attempt. . . ." + +In her wild excitement my mother had lifted one of her trembling hands +into Aunt Bridget's face while the other was still clasped about me, +when suddenly, with a look of fear on her face, she stopped speaking. +She had heard a heavy step on the stairs. It was my father. He entered +the room with his knotty forehead more compressed than usual and said: + +"What's this she shall not do?" + +My mother dropped back into her seat in silence, and Aunt Bridget, +wiping' her eyes on her black apron--she only wept when my father was +present--proceeded to explain. + +It seems I am a hard-hearted woman with a bad disposition and though, +I've been up early and late and made myself a servant for seven years +I'm only in this house to turn my sister's child out of it. It seems +too, that we have no business--none of us have--to say what ought to be +done for this girl--her mother being the only person who has any rights +in the child, and if we attempt . . ." + +"What's that?" + +In his anger and impatience my father could listen no longer and in his +loud voice he said: + +"Since when has a father lost control of his own daughter? He has to +provide for her, hasn't he? If she wants anything it's to him she has to +look for it, isn't it? That's the law I guess, eh? Always has been, all +the world over. Then what's all this hustling about?" + +My mother made a feeble effort to answer him. + +"I was only saying, Daniel . . ." + +"You were saying something foolish and stupid. I reckon a man can do +what he likes with his own, can't he? If this girl is my child and I say +she is to go somewhere, she is to go." And saying this my father brought +down his thick hand with a thump on to a table. + +It was the first time he had laid claim to me, and perhaps that acted on +my mother, as she said, submissively: + +"Very well, dear. _You_ know best what is best for Mary, and if you +say--you and Bridget and . . . and Father Dan. . . ." + +"I do say, and that's enough. So just go to work and fix up this Convent +scheme without future notice. And hark here, let me see for the future +if a man can't have peace from these two-cent trifles for his important +business." + +My mother was crushed. Her lips moved again, but she said nothing aloud, +and my father turned on his heel, and left the room, shaking the floor +at every step under the weight of his sixteen stone. At the next moment, +Aunt Bridget, jingling her keys, went tripping after him. + +Hardly had they gone when my mother broke into a long fit of coughing, +and when it was over she lay back exhausted, with her white face and her +tired eyes turned upwards. Then I clasped her about the neck, and Father +Dan, whose cheeks were wet with tears patted her drooping hand. + +My darling mother! Never once have I thought of her without the greatest +affection, but now that I know for myself what she must have suffered I +love best to think of her as she was that day--my sweet, beautiful, +timid angel--standing up for one brief moment, not only against Aunt +Bridget, but against the cruelty of all the ages, in the divine right of +her outraged motherhood. + + + + +ELEVENTH CHAPTER + + +My mother's submission was complete. Within twenty-four hours she was +busy preparing clothes for my journey to Rome. The old coloured pattern +book was brought out again, material was sent for, a sewing-maid was +engaged from the village, and above all, in my view, an order was +dispatched to Blackwater for a small squirrel-skin scarf, a large +squirrel-skin muff, and a close-fitting squirrel-skin hat with a feather +on the side of it. + +A child's heart is a running brook, and it would wrong the truth to say +that I grieved much in the midst of these busy preparations. On the +contrary I felt a sort of pride in them, poor innocent that I was, as in +something that gave me a certain high superiority over Betsy Beauty and +Nessy MacLeod, and entitled me to treat them with condescension. + +Father Dan, who came more frequently than ever, fostered this feeling +without intending to do so, by telling me, whenever we were alone, that +I must be a good girl to everybody now, and especially to my mother. + +"My little woman would be sorry to worry mamma, wouldn't she?" he would +whisper, and when I answered that I would be sorrier than sorry, he +would say: + +"Wisha then, she must be brave. She must keep up. She must not grieve +about going away or cry when the time comes for parting." + +I said "yes" and "yes" to all this, feeling very confidential and +courageous, but I dare say the good Father gave the same counsel to my +mother also, for she and I had many games of make-believe, I remember, +in which we laughed and chattered and sang, though I do not think I ever +suspected that the part we played was easier to me than to her. + +It dawned on me at last, though, when in the middle of the night, near +to the time of my going away, I was awakened by a bad fit of my mother's +coughing, and heard her say to herself in the deep breathing that +followed: + +"My poor child! What is to become of her?" + +Nevertheless all went well down to the day of my departure. It had been +arranged that I was to sail to Liverpool by the first of the two daily +steamers, and without any awakening I leapt out of bed at the first +sign of daylight. So great was my delight that I began to dance in my +nightdress to an invisible skipping rope, forgetting my father, who +always rose at dawn and was at breakfast in the room below. + +My mother and I breakfasted in bed, and then there was great commotion. +It chiefly consisted for me in putting on my new clothes, including my +furs, and then turning round and round on tiptoe and smiling at myself +in a mirror. I was doing this while my mother was telling me to write to +her as often as I was allowed, and while she knelt at her prayer stool, +which she used as a desk, to make a copy of the address for my letters. + +Then I noticed that the first line of her superscription "Mrs. Daniel +O'Neill" was blurred by the tears that were dropping from her eyes, and +my throat began to hurt me dreadfully. But I remembered what Father Dan +had told me to do, so I said: + +"Never mind, mammy. Don't worry--I'll be home for the holidays." + +Soon afterwards we heard the carriage wheels passing under the window, +and then Father Dan came up in a white knitted muffler, and with a funny +bag which he used for his surplice at funerals, and said, through a +little cloud of white breath, that everything was ready. + +I saw that my mother was turning round and taking out her +pocket-handkerchief, and I was snuffling a little myself, but at a sign +from Father Dan, who was standing at the threshold. I squeezed back the +water in my eyes and cried: + +"Good-bye mammy. I'll be back for Christmas," and then darted across to +the door. + +I was just passing through it when I heard my mother say "Mary" in a +strange low voice, and I turned and saw her--I can see her still--with +her beautiful pale face all broken up, and her arms held out to me. + +Then I rushed back to her, and she clasped me to her breast crying, +"Mally veen! My Mally veen!" and I could feel her heart beating through +her dress and hear the husky rattle in her throat, and then all our poor +little game of make-believe broke down utterly. + +At the next moment my father was calling upstairs that I should be late +for the steamer, so my mother dried her own eyes and then mine, and let +me go. + +Father Dan was gone when I reached the head of the stairs but seeing +Nessy MacLeod and Betsy Beauty at the bottom of them I soon recovered my +composure, and sailing down in my finery I passed them in stately +silence with my little bird-like head in the air. + +I intended to do the same with Aunt Bridget, who was standing with a +shawl over her shoulders by the open door, but she touched me and said: + +"Aren't you going to kiss me good-bye, then?" + +"No," I answered, drawing my little body to its utmost height. + +"And why not?" + +"Because you've been unkind to mamma and cruel to me, and because you +think there's nobody but Betsy Beauty. And I'll tell them at the Convent +that you are making mamma ill, and you're as bad as . . . as bad as the +bad women in the Bible!" + +"My gracious!" said Aunt Bridget, and she tried to laugh, but I could +see that her face became as white as a whitewashed wall. This did not +trouble me in the least until I reached the carriage, when Father Dan, +who was sitting inside, said: + +"My little Mary won't leave home like that--without kissing her aunt and +saying good-bye to her cousins." + +So I returned and shook hands with Nessy MacLeod and Betsy Beauty, and +lifted my little face to my Aunt Bridget. + +"That's better," she said, after she had kissed me, but when I had +passed her my quick little ear caught the words: + +"Good thing she's going, though." + +During this time my father, with the morning mist playing like +hoar-frost about his iron-grey hair, had been tramping the gravel and +saying the horses were getting cold, so without more ado he bundled me +into the carriage and banged the door on me. + +But hardly had we started when Father Dan, who was blinking his little +eyes and pretending to blow his nose on his coloured print handkerchief, +said, "Look!" and pointed up to my mother's room. + +There she was again, waving and kissing her hand to me through her open +window, and she continued to do so until we swirled round some trees and +I lost the sight of her. + +What happened in my mother's room when her window was closed I do not +know, but I well remember that, creeping into a corner of the carriage. +I forgot all about the glory and grandeur of going away, and that it +did not help me to remember when half way down the drive a boy with a +dog darted from under the chestnuts and raced alongside of us. + +It was Martin, and though his right arm was in a sling, he leapt up to +the step and held on to the open window by his left hand while he pushed +his head into the carriage and made signs to me to take out of his mouth +a big red apple which he held in his teeth by the stalk. I took it, and +then he dropped to the ground, without uttering a word, and I could +laugh now to think of the gruesome expression of his face with its +lagging lower lip and bloodshot eyes. I had no temptation to do so then, +however, and least of all when I looked back and saw his little +one-armed figure in the big mushroom hat, standing on the top of the +high wall of the bridge, with William Rufus beside him. + +We reached Blackwater in good tithe for the boat, and when the funnels +had ceased trumpeting and we were well away, I saw that we were sitting +in one of two private cabins on the upper deck; and then Father Dan told +me that the other was occupied by the young Lord Raa, and his guardian, +and that they were going up together for the first time to Oxford. + +I am sure this did not interest me in the least at that moment, so false +is it that fate forewarns us when momentous events are about to occur. +And now that I had time to think, a dreadful truth was beginning to dawn +on me, so that when Father Dan, who was much excited, went off to pay +his respects to the great people, I crudled up in the corner of the +cabin that was nearest to the door and told myself that after all I had +been turned out of my father's house, and would never see my mother and +Martin any more. + +I was sitting so, with my hands in my big muff and my face to the stern, +making the tiniest occasional sniff as the mountains of my home faded +away in the sunlight, which was now tipping the hilltops with a feathery +crest, when my cabin was darkened by somebody who stood in the doorway. + +It was a tail boy, almost a man, and I knew in a moment who he was. He +was the young Lord Raa. And at first I thought how handsome and well +dressed he was as he looked down at me and smiled. After a moment he +stepped into the cabin and sat in front of me and said: + +"So you are little Mary O'Neill, are you?" + +I did not speak. I was thinking he was not so very handsome after all, +having two big front teeth like Betsy Beauty. + +"The girl who ought to have been a boy and put my nose out, eh?" + +Still I did not speak. I was thinking his voice was like Nessy +MacLeod's--shrill and harsh and grating. + +"Poor little mite! Going all the way to Rome to a Convent, isn't she?" + +Even yet I did not speak. I was thinking his eyes were like Aunt +Bridget's--cold and grey and piercing. + +"So silent and demure, though! Quite a little nun already. A deuced +pretty one, too, if anybody asks me." + +I was beginning to have a great contempt for him. + +"Where did you get those big angel eyes from? Stole them from some +picture of the Madonna, I'll swear." + +By this time I had concluded that he was not worth speaking to, so I +turned my head and I was looking back at the sea, when I heard him say: + +"I suppose you are going to give me a kiss, you nice little woman, +aren't you?" + +"No." + +"Oh, but you must--we are relations, you know." + +"I won't." + +He laughed at that, and rising from his seat, he reached over to kiss +me, whereupon I drew one of my hands out of my muff and doubling my +little mittened fist, I struck him in the face. + +Being, as I afterwards learned, a young autocrat, much indulged by +servants and generally tyrannising over them, he was surprised and +angry. + +"The spitfire!" he said. "Who would have believed it? The face of a nun +and the temper of a devil! But you'll have to make amends for this, my +lady." + +With that he went away and I saw no more of him until the steamer was +drawing up at the landing stage at Liverpool, and then, while the +passengers were gathering up their luggage, he came back with Father +Dan, and the tall sallow man who was his guardian, and said: + +"Going to give me that kiss to make amends, or are you to owe me a +grudge for the rest of your life, my lady?" + +"My little Mary couldn't owe a grudge to anybody," said Father Dan. +"She'll kiss his lordship and make amends; I'm certain." + +And then I did to the young Lord Raa what I had done to Aunt Bridget--I +held up my face and he kissed me. + +It was a little, simple, trivial incident, but it led with other things +to the most lamentable fact of my life, and when I think of it I +sometimes wonder how it comes to pass that He who numbers the flowers of +the field and counts the sparrows as they fall has no handwriting with +which to warn His children that their footsteps may not fail. + + + + +TWELFTH CHAPTER + + +Of our journey to Rome nothing remains to me but the memory of sleeping +in different beds in different towns, of trains screaming through +tunnels and slowing down in glass-roofed railway stations, of endless +crowds of people moving here and there in a sort of maze, nothing but +this, and the sense of being very little and very helpless and of having +to be careful not to lose sight of Father Dan, for fear of being +lost--until the afternoon of the fourth day after we left home. + +We were then crossing a wide rolling plain that was almost destitute of +trees, and looked, from the moving train, like green billows of the sea +with grass growing over them. Father Dan was reading his breviary for +the following day, not knowing what he would have to do in it, when the +sun set in a great blaze of red beyond the horizon, and then suddenly a +big round black ball, like a captive balloon, seemed to rise in the +midst of the glory. + +I called Father Dan's attention to this, and in a moment he was +fearfully excited. + +"Don't worry, my child," he cried, while tears of joy sprang to his +eyes. "Do you know what that is? That's the dome of St. Peter's! Rome, +my child, Rome!" + +It was nine o'clock when we arrived at our destination, and in the midst +of a great confusion I walked by Father Dan's side and held on to his +vertical pocket, while he carried his own bag, and a basket of mine, +down the crowded platform to an open cab outside the station. + +Then Father Dan wiped his forehead with his print handkerchief and I sat +close up to him, and the driver cracked his long whip and shouted at the +pedestrians while we rattled on and on over stony streets, which seemed +to be full of statues and fountains that were lit up by a great white +light that was not moonlight and yet looked like it. + +But at last we stopped at a little door of a big house which seemed to +stand, with a church beside it, on a high shelf overlooking the city, +for I could see many domes like that of St. Peter lying below us. + +A grill in the little door was first opened and then a lady in a black +habit, with a black band round her forehead and white bands down each +side of her face, opened the door itself, and asked us to step in, and +when we had done so, she took us down a long passage into a warm room, +where another lady, dressed in the same way, only a little grander, sat +in a big red arm-chair. + +Father Dan, who was still wearing his knitted muffler, bowed very low to +this lady, calling her the Reverend Mother Magdalene, and she answered +him in English but with a funny sound which I afterwards knew to be a +foreign accent. + +I remember that I thought she was very beautiful, nearly as beautiful as +my mother, and when Father Dan told me to kiss her hand I did so, and +then she put me to sit in a chair and looked at me. + +"What is her age?" she asked, whereupon Father Dan said he thought I +would be eight that month, which was right, being October. + +"Small, isn't she?" said the lady, and then Father Dan said something +about poor mamma which I cannot remember. + +After that they talked about other things, and I looked at the pictures +on the walls--pictures of Saints and Popes and, above all, a picture of +Jesus with His heart open in His bosom. + +"The child will be hungry," said the lady. "She must have something to +eat before she goes to bed--the other children have gone already." + +Then she rang a hand-bell, and when the first lady came back she said: + +"Ask Sister Angela to come to me immediately." + +A few minutes later Sister Angela came into the room, and she was quite +young, almost a girl, with such a sweet sad face that I loved her +instantly. + +"This is little Mary O'Neill. Take her to the Refectory and give her +whatever she wants, and don't leave her until she is quiet and +comfortable." + +"Very well, Mother," said Sister Angela, and taking my hand she +whispered: "Come, Mary, you look tired." + +I rose to go with her, but at the same moment Father Dan rose too, and I +heard him say he must lose no time in finding an hotel, for his Bishop +had given him only one day to remain in Rome, and he had to catch an +early train home the following morning. + +This fell on me like a thunderbolt. I hardly know what I had led myself +to expect, but certainly the idea of being left alone in Rome had never +once occurred to me. + +My little heart was fluttering, and dropping the Sister's hand I stepped +back and took Father Dan's and said: + +"You are not going to leave your little Mary are you, Father?" + +It was harder for the dear Father than for me, for I remember that, +fearfully flurried, he stammered in a thick voice something about the +Reverend Mother taking good care of me, and how he was sure to come back +at Christmas, according to my father's faithful promise, to take me home +for the holidays. + +After that Sister Angela led me, sniffing a little still, to the +Refectory, which was a large, echoing room, with rows of plain deal +tables and forms, ranged in front of a reading desk that had another and +much larger picture of the Sacred Heart on the wall above it. Only one +gasjet was burning, and I sat under it to eat my supper, and after I had +taken a basin of soup I felt more comforted. + +Then Sister Angela lit a lamp and taking my hand she led me up a stone +staircase to the Dormitory, which was a similar room, but not so silent, +because it was full of beds, and the breathing of the girls, who were +all asleep, made it sound like the watchmaker's shop in our village, +only more church-like and solemn. + +My bed was near to the door, and after Sister Angela had helped me to +undress, and tucked me in, she made her voice very low, and said I would +be quite comfortable now, and she was sure I was going to be a good +little girl and a dear child of the Infant Jesus; and then I could not +help taking my arms out again and clasping her round the neck and +drawing her head down and kissing her. + +After that she took the lamp and went away to a cubicle which was +partitioned off the end of the Dormitory and there I could see her +prepare to go to bed herself--taking the white bands off her cheeks and +the black band off her forehead, and letting her long light hair fall +in beautiful wavy masses about her face, which made her look so sweet +and home like. + +But oh, I was so lonely! Never in my life since--no, not even when I was +in my lowest depths--have I felt so little and helpless and alone. After +the Sister had gone to bed and everything was quiet in the Dormitory +save for the breathing of the girls--all strangers to me and I to +them--from mere loneliness I covered up my head in the clothes just as I +used to do when I was a little thing and my father came into my mother's +room. + +I try not to think bitterly of my father, but even yet I am at a loss to +know how he could have cast me away so lightly. Was it merely that he +wanted peace for his business and saw no chance of securing it in his +own home except by removing the chief cause of Aunt Bridget's jealousy? +Or was it that his old grudge against Fate for making me a girl made him +wish to rid himself of the sight of me? + +I do not know. I cannot say. But in either case I try in vain to see how +he could have thought he had a right, caring nothing for me, to tear me +from the mother who loved me and had paid for me so dear; or how he +could have believed that because he was my father, charged with the care +of my poor little body, he had control over the little bleeding heart +which was not his to make to suffer. + +He is my father--God help me to think the best of him. + + + + +THIRTEENTH CHAPTER + + +At half past six in the morning I was awakened by the loud ringing of +the getting-up bell, and as soon as I could rouse myself from the deep +sleep of childhood I saw that a middle-aged nun with a severe face was +saying a prayer, and that all the girls in the dormitory were kneeling +in their beds while they made the responses. + +A few minutes later, when the girls were chattering and laughing as they +dressed, making the room tingle with twittering sounds like a tree full +of linnets in the spring, a big girl came up to me and said: + +"I am Mildred Bankes and Sister Angela says I am to look after you +to-day." + +She was about fifteen years of age, and had a long plain-featured face +which reminded me of one of my father's horses that was badly used by +the farm boys; but there was something sweet in her smile that made me +like her instantly. + +She helped me to dress in my brown velvet frock, but said that one of +her first duties would be to take me to the lay sisters who made the +black habits which all the girls in the convent wore. + +It was still so early that the darkness of the room was just broken by +pale shafts of light from the windows, but I could see that the children +of my own age were only seven or eight altogether, while the majority of +the girls were several years older, and Mildred explained this by +telling me that the children of the Infant Jesus, like myself, were so +few that they had been put into the dormitory of the children of the +Sacred Heart. + +In a quarter of an hour everybody was washed and dressed, and then, at a +word from Sister Angela, the girls went leaping and laughing downstairs +to the Meeting Room, which was a large hail, with a platform at the +farther end of it and another picture of the Sacred Heart, pierced with +sharp thorns, on the wall. + +The Reverend Mother was there with the other nuns of the Convent, all +pale-faced and slow eyed women wearing rosaries, and she said a long +prayer, to which the scholars (there were seventy or eighty altogether) +made responses, and then there was silence for five minutes, which were +supposed to be devoted to meditation, although I could not help seeing +that some of the big girls were whispering to each other while their +heads were down. + +After that, and Mass in the Church, we went scurrying away to the +Refectory, which was now warm with the steam from our breakfast and +bubbling with cheerful voices, making a noise that was like water +boiling in a saucepan. + +I was so absorbed by all I saw that I forgot to eat until Mildred nudged +me to do so, and even when my spoon was half way to my mouth something +happened which brought it down again. + +At the tinkle of a hand-bell one of the big girls had stepped up to the +reading-desk and begun to read from a book which I afterwards knew to be +"The Imitation of Christ." She was about sixteen years of age, and her +face was so vivid that I could not take my eyes off it. + +Her complexion was fair and her hair was auburn, but her eyes were so +dark and searching that when she raised her head, as she often did, they +seemed to look through and through you. + +"Who is she?" I whispered. + +"Alma Lier," Mildred whispered back, and when breakfast was over, and we +were trooping off to lessons, she told me something about her. + +Alma was an American. Her father was very rich and his home was in New +York. But her mother lived in Paris, though she was staying at an hotel +in Rome at present, and sometimes she came in a carriage to take her +daughter for a drive. + +Alma was the cleverest girl in the school too, and sometimes at the end +of terms, when parents and friends came to the Convent and one of the +Cardinals distributed the prizes, she had so many books to take away +that she could hardly carry them down from the platform. + +I listened to this with admiring awe, thinking Alma the most wonderful +and worshipful of all creatures, and when I remember it now, after all +these years, and the bitter experiences which have come with them, I +hardly know whether to laugh or cry at the thought that such was the +impression she first made on me. + +My class was with the youngest of the children, and Sister Angela was my +teacher. She was so sweet to me that her encouragement was like a kiss +and her reproof like a caress; but I could think of nothing but Alma, +and at noon, when the bell rang for lunch and Mildred took me back to +the Refectory, I wondered if the same girl would read again. + +She did, but this time in a foreign language, French as Mildred +whispered--from the letters of the Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque--and +my admiration for Alma went up tenfold. I wondered if it could possibly +occur that I should ever come to know her. + +There is no worship like that of a child, and life for me, which had +seemed so cold and dark the day before, became warm and bright with a +new splendour. + +I was impatient of everything that took me away from the opportunity of +meeting with Alma--the visit to the lay-sisters to be measured for my +new black clothes, the three o'clock "rosary," when the nuns walked with +their classes in the sunshine and, above all, the voluntary visit to the +Blessed Sacrament in the Church of the Convent, which seemed to me +large and gorgeous, though divided across the middle by an open bronze +screen, called a Cancello--the inner half, as Mildred whispered, being +for the inmates of the school, while the outer half was for the +congregation which came on Sunday to Benediction. + +But at four o'clock we had dinner, when Alma read again--this time in +Italian--from the writings of Saint Francis of Sales--and then, to my +infinite delight, came a long recreation, when all the girls scampered +out into the Convent garden, which was still bright with afternoon +sunshine and as merry with laughter and shouts as the seashore on a +windy summer morning. + +The garden was a large bare enclosure, bounded on two sides by the +convent buildings and on the other two by a yellow wall and an avenue +made by a line of stone pines with heads like open umbrellas, but it had +no other foliage except an old tree which reminded me of Tommy the Mate, +having gnarled and sprawling limbs, and standing like a weather-beaten +old sailor, four-square in the middle. + +A number of the girls were singing and dancing around this tree, and I +felt so happy just then that I should have loved to join them, but I was +consumed by a desire to come to close quarters with the object of my +devotion, so I looked eagerly about me and asked Mildred if Alma was +likely to be there. + +"Sure to be," said Mildred, and hardly were the words out of her mouth +when Alma herself came straight down in our direction, surrounded by a +group of admiring girls, who were hanging on to her and laughing at +everything she said. + +My heart began to thump, and without knowing what I was doing I stopped +dead short, while Mildred went on a pace or two ahead of me. + +Then I noticed that Alma had stopped too, and that her great searching +eyes were looking down at me. In my nervousness, I tried to smile, but +Alma continued to stare, and at length, in the tone of one who had +accidentally turned up something with her toe that was little and +ridiculous, she said: + +"Goodness, girls, what's this?" + +Then she burst into a fit of laughter, in which the other girls joined, +and looking me up and down they all laughed together. + +I knew what they were laughing at--the clothes my mother had made for me +and I had felt so proud of. That burnt me like iron, and I think my lip +must have dropped, but Alma showed no mercy. + +"Dare say the little doll thinks herself pretty, though," she said. And +then she passed on, and the girls with her, and as they went off they +looked back over their shoulders and laughed again. + +Never since has any human creature--not even Alma herself--made me +suffer more than I suffered at that moment. My throat felt tight, tears +leapt to my eyes, disappointment, humiliation, and shame swept over me +like a flood, and I stood squeezing my little handkerchief in my hand +and feeling as if I could have died. + +At the next moment Mildred stepped back to me, and putting her arm about +my waist she said: + +"Never mind, Mary. She's a heartless thing. Don't have anything to do +with her." + +But all the sunshine had gone out of the day for me now and I cried for +hours. I was still crying, silently but bitterly, when, at eight +o'clock, we were saying the night prayers, and I saw Alma, who was in +the opposite benches, whispering to one of the girls who sat next to her +and then looking straight across at me. + +And at nine o'clock when we went to bed I was crying more than ever, so +that after the good-night-bell had been rung and the lights had been put +down, Sister Angela, not knowing the cause of my sorrow, stepped up to +my bed before going down stairs for her own studies, and whispered: + +"You mustn't fret for home, Mary. You will soon get used to it." + +But hardly had I been left alone, with the dull pain I could find no +ease for, when somebody touched me on the shoulder, and, looking up, I +saw a girl in her nightdress standing beside me. It was Alma and she +said: + +"Say, little girl, is your name O'Neill?" + +Trembling with nervousness I answered that it was. + +"Do you belong to the O'Neills of Ellan?" + +Still trembling I told her that I did. + +"My!" she said in quite another tone, and then I saw that by some means +I had begun to look different in her eyes. + +After a moment she sat on the side of my bed and asked questions about +my home--if it was not large and very old, with big stone staircases, +and great open fireplaces, and broad terraces, and beautiful walks going +down to the sea. + +I was so filled with the joy of finding myself looking grand in Alma's +eyes that I answered "yes" and "yes" without thinking too closely about +her questions, and my tears were all brushed away when she said: + +"I knew somebody who lived in your house once, and I'll tell her all +about you." + +She stayed a few moments longer, and when going off she whispered: + +"Hope you don't feel badly about my laughing in the garden to-day. I +didn't mean a thing. But if any of the girls laugh again just say you're +Alma Lier's friend and she's going to take care of you." + +I could hardly believe my ears. Some great new splendour had suddenly +dawned upon me and I was very happy. + +I did not know then that the house which Alma had been talking of was +not my father's house, but Castle Raa. I did not know then that the +person who had lived there was her mother, and that in her comely and +reckless youth she had been something to the bad Lord Raa who had lashed +my father and sworn at my grandmother. + +I did not know anything that was dead and buried in the past, or +shrouded and veiled in the future. I only knew that Alma had called +herself my friend and promised to take care of me. So with a glad heart +I went to sleep. + + + + +FOURTEENTH CHAPTER + + +Alma kept her word, though perhaps her method of protection was such as +would have commended itself only to the heart of a child. + +It consisted in calling me Margaret Mary after our patron saint of the +Sacred Heart, in taking me round the garden during recreation as if I +had been a pet poodle, and, above all, in making my bed the scene of the +conversaziones which some of the girls held at night when they were +supposed to be asleep. + +The secrecy of these gatherings flattered me, and when the unclouded +moon, in the depths of the deep blue Italian sky, looked in on my group +of girls in their nightdresses, bunched together on my bed, with my own +little body between, I had a feeling of dignity as well as solemnity and +awe. + +Of course Alma was the chief spokeswoman at these whispered +conferences. Sometimes she told us of her drives into the Borghese +Gardens, where she saw the King and Queen, or to the Hunt on the +Campagna, where she met the flower of the aristocracy, or to the Pincio, +where the Municipal band played in the pavilion, while ladies sat in +their carriages in the sunshine, and officers in blue cloaks saluted +them and smiled. + +Sometimes she indicated her intentions for the future, which was +certainly not to be devoted to retreats and novenas, or to witness +another black dress as long as she lived, and if she married (which was +uncertain) it was not to be to an American, but to a Frenchman, because +Frenchmen had "family" and "blood," or perhaps to an Englishman, if he +was a member of the House of Lords, in which case she would attend all +the race-meetings and Coronations, and take tea at the Carlton, where +she would eat _méringues glacés_ every day and have as many _éclairs_ as +she liked. + +And sometimes she would tell us the stories of the novels which she +bribed one of the washing-women to smuggle into the convent--stories of +ladies and their lovers, and of intoxicating dreams of kissing and +fondling, at which the bigger girls, with far-off suggestions of sexual +mysteries still unexplored, would laugh and shudder, and then Alma would +say: + +"But hush, girls! Margaret Mary will be shocked." + +Occasionally these conferences would be interrupted by Mildred's voice +from the other end of the dormitory, where she would raise her head from +her pillow and say: + +"Alma Lier, you ought to be ashamed of yourself--keeping that child up +when she ought to be asleep, instead of listening to your wicked +stories." + +"Helloa, Mother Mildred, is that you?" Alma would answer, and then the +girls would laugh, and Mildred was supposed to be covered with +confusion. + +One night Sister Angela's footsteps were heard on the stairs, and then +the girls flew back to their beds, where, with the furtive instinct of +their age and sex, they pretended to be sleeping soundly when the Sister +entered the room. But the Sister was not deceived, and walking up the +aisle between the beds she said in an angry tone: + +"Alma Lier, if this ever occurs again I'll step down to the Reverend +Mother and tell her all about you." + +Little as I was, I saw that between Alma and Sister Angela there was a +secret feud, which must soon break into open rupture, but for my own +part I was entirely happy, being still proud of Alma's protection and +only feeling any misgivings when Mildred's melancholy eyes were looking +at me. + +Thus week followed week until we were close upon Christmas, and the +girls, who were to be permitted to go home before the Feast, began to +count the days to the holidays. I counted them too, and when anybody +talked of her brother I thought of Martin Conrad, though his faithful +little figure was fading away from me, and when anybody spoke of her +parents I remembered my mother, for whom my affection never failed. + +But, within a week from the time for breaking up, the Reverend Mother +sent for me, and with a sinking heart I went to her room, knowing well +what she was going to say. + +"You are not to go home for the holidays this time, my child. You are to +remain here, and Sister Angela is to stay to take care of you." + +She had a letter from Father Dan, telling her that my mother was still +unwell, and for this and other reasons it was considered best that I +should not return at Christmas. + +Father Dan had written a letter to me also, beginning, "My dear daughter +in Jesus" and ending "Yours in Xt," saying it was not his fault that he +could not fulfil his promise, but my father was much from home +now-a-days and Aunt Bridget was more difficult than ever, so perhaps I +should be happier at the Convent. + +It was a bitter blow, though the bitterest part of it lay in the fear +that the girls would think I was of so little importance to my people +that they did not care to see me. + +But the girls were too eager about their own concerns to care much about +me, and even on the very last day and at the very last moment, when +everything was bustle and joy, and boxes were being carried downstairs, +and everybody was kissing everybody else and wishing each other a Happy +Christmas, and then flying away like mad things, and I alone was being +left, Alma herself, before she stepped into a carriage in which a stout +lady wearing furs was waiting to receive her, only said: + +"By-by, Margaret Mary! Take care of Sister Angela." + +Next day the Reverend Mother went off to her cottage at Nemi, and the +other nuns and novices to their friends in the country, and then Sister +Angela and I were alone in the big empty, echoing convent--save for two +elderly lay Sisters, who cooked and cleaned for us, and the Chaplain, +who lived by himself in a little white hut like a cell which stood at +the farthest corner of the garden. + +We moved our quarters to a room in the front of the house, so as to look +out over the city, and down into the piazza which was full of traffic, +and after a while we had many cheerful hours together. + +During the days before Christmas we spent our mornings in visiting the +churches and basilicas where there were little illuminated models of the +Nativity, with the Virgin and the Infant Jesus in the stable among the +straw. The afternoons we spent at home in the garden, where the +Chaplain, in his black soutane and biretta, was always sitting under the +old tree, reading his breviary. + +His name was Father Giovanni and he was a tall young man with a long, +thin, pale face, and when Sister Angela first took me up to him she +said: + +"This is our Margaret Mary." + +Then his sad face broke into warm sunshine, and he stroked my head, and +sent me away to skip with my skipping-rope, while he and Sister Angela +sat together under the tree, and afterwards walked to and fro in the +avenue between the stone pines and the wall, until they came to his cell +in the corner, where she craned her neck at the open door as if she +would have liked to go in and make things more tidy and comfortable. + +On Christmas Day we had currant cake in honour of the feast, and Sister +Angela asked Father Giovanni to come to tea, and he came, and was quite +cheerful, so that when the Sister, who was also very happy, signalled to +me to take some mistletoe from the bottom of a picture I held it over +his head and kissed him from behind. Then he snatched me up in his arms +and kissed me back, and we had a great romp round the chairs and tables. + +But the Ave Maria began to ring from the churches, and Father Giovanni +(according to the rule of our Convent) having to go, he kissed me again, +and then I said: + +"Why don't you kiss Sister Angela too?" + +At that they only looked at each other and laughed, but after a moment +he kissed her hand, and then she went downstairs to see him out into the +garden. + +When she came back her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were flushed, +and, that night, when she took away her black and white whimple and +gorget on going to bed, she stood before a looking-glass and wound her +beautiful light hair round her finger and curled it over her forehead +in the way it was worn by the ladies we saw in the streets. + +I think it was two nights later that she told me I was to go to bed +early because Father Giovanni was not well and she would have to go over +to see him. + +She went, and I got into bed, but I could not sleep, and while I lay +waiting for Sister Angela I listened to some men who as they crossed the +piazza were singing, in tremulous voices, to their mandolines and +guitars, what I believed to be love songs, for I had begun to learn +Italian. + + "_Oh bella Napoli. Oh suol beato + Onde soiridere volta il creato_." + +It was late when Sister Angela came back and then she was breathing hard +as if she had been running. I asked if Father Giovanni's sickness was +worse, and she said no, it was better, and I was to say nothing about +it. But she could not rest and at last she said: + +"Didn't we forget to say our prayers, Mary?" + +So I got up again and Sister Angela said one of the beautiful prayers +out of our prayer-book. But her voice was very low and when she came to +the words: + +"O Father of all mankind, forgive all sinners who repent of their sins," +she broke down altogether. + +I thought she was ill, but she said it was only a cold she had caught in +crossing the garden and I was to go to sleep like a good girl and think +no more about her. + +But in the middle of the night I awoke, and Sister Angela was crying. + + + + +FIFTEENTH CHAPTER + + +Most of the girls were depressed when they returned to school, but Alma +was in high spirits, and on the first night of the term she crept over +to my bed and asked what we had been doing during the holidays. + +"Not a thing, eh?" + +I answered that we had done lots of things and been very happy. + +"Happy? In this gloomy old convent? You and Sister Angela alone?" + +I told her we had two lay sisters-and then there was Father Giovanni. + +"Father Giovanni? That serious old cross-bones?" + +I said he was not always serious, and that on Christmas Day he had come +to tea and kissed me under the mistletoe. + +"Kissed you under the mistletoe!" said Alma, and then she whispered +eagerly, + +"He didn't kiss Sister Angela, did he?" + +I suppose I was flattered by her interest, and this loosened my tongue, +for I answered: + +"He kissed her hand, though." + +"Kissed her hand? My! . . . Of course she was very angry . . . wasn't +she angry?" + +I answered no, and in my simplicity I proceeded to prove this by +explaining that Sister Angela had taken Father Giovanni down to the +door, and when he was ill she had nursed him. + +"Nursed him? In his own house, you mean?" + +"Yes, at night, too, and she stayed until he was better, and caught a +cold coming back." + +"Well, I never!" said Alma, and I remember that I was very pleased with +myself during this interview, for by the moonlight which was then +shining into the room, I could see that Alma's eyes were sparkling. + +The next night we recommenced our conferences in bed, when Alma told us +all about her holiday, which she had spent "way up in St. Moritz," among +deep snow and thick ice, skating, bobbing, lugging, and above all riding +astride, and dragging a man on skis behind her. + +"Such lots of fun," she said. And the best of it was at night when there +were dances and fancy-dress balls with company which included all the +smart people in Europe, and men who gave a girl such a good time if she +happened to be pretty and was likely to have a dot. + +Alma had talked so eagerly and the girls had listened so intently, that +nobody was aware that Sister Angela had returned to the room until she +stepped forward and said: + +"Alma Lier, I'm ashamed of you. Go back to your bed, miss, this very +minute." + +The other girls crept away and I half covered my face with my +bed-clothes, but Alma stood up to Sister Angela and answered her back. + +"Go to bed yourself, and don't speak to me like that, or you'll pay for +your presumption." + +"Pay? Presumption? You insolent thing, you are corrupting the whole +school and are an utter disgrace to it. I warned you that I would tell +the Reverend Mother what you are and now I've a great mind to do it." + +"Do it. I dare you to do it. Do it to-night, and to-morrow morning _I_ +will do something." + +"What will you do, you brazen hussy?" said Sister Angela, but I could +see that her lip was trembling. + +"Never mind what. If I'm a hussy I'm not a hypocrite, and as for +corrupting the school, and being a disgrace to it, I'll leave the +Reverend Mother to say who is doing that." + +Low as the light was I could see that Sister Angela was deadly pale. +There was a moment of silence in which I thought she glanced in my +direction, and then stammering something which I did not hear, she left +the dormitory. + +It was long before she returned and when she did so I saw her creep into +her cubicle and sit there for quite a great time before going to bed. My +heart was thumping hard, for I had a vague feeling that I had been +partly to blame for what had occurred, but after a while I fell asleep +and remembered no more until I was awakened in the middle of the night +by somebody kissing me in my sleep. + +It was Sister Angela, and she was turning away, but I called her back, +and she knelt by my bed and whispered: + +"Hush! I know what has happened, but I don't blame you for it." + +I noticed that she was wearing her out-door cloak, and that she was +breathing rapidly, just as she did on the night she came from the +chaplain's quarters, and when I asked if she was going anywhere she said +yes, and if I ever heard anything against Sister Angela I was to think +the best of her. + +"But you are so good. . . ." + +"No, I am not good. I am very wicked. I should never have thought of +being a nun, but I'm glad now that I'm only a novice and have never +taken the vows." + +After that she told me to go to sleep, and then she kissed me again, and +I thought she was going to cry, but she rose hurriedly and left the +room. + +Next morning after the getting-up bell had been rung, and I had roused +myself to full consciousness, I found that four or five nuns were +standing together near the door of the dormitory talking about something +that had happened during the night--Sister Angela had gone! + +Half an hour afterwards when full of this exciting event, the girls went +bursting down to the Meeting Room they found the nuns in great +agitation over an incident of still deeper gravity--Father Giovanni also +had disappeared! + +A convent school is like a shell on the shore of a creek, always +rumbling with the rumour of the little sea it lives under; and by noon +the girls, who had been palpitating with curiosity, thought they knew +everything that had happened--how at four in the morning Father Giovanni +and Sister Angela had been seen to come out of the little door which +connected the garden with the street; how at seven they had entered a +clothing emporium in the Corso, where going in at one door as priest and +nun they had come out at another as ordinary civilians; how at eight +they had taken the first train to Civita Vecchia, arriving in time to +catch a steamer sailing at ten, and how they were now on their way to +England. + +By some mysterious instinct of their sex the girls had gathered with +glistening eyes in front of the chaplain's deserted quarters, where Alma +leaned against the wall with her insteps crossed and while the others +talked she smiled, as much as to say, "I told you so." + +As for me I was utterly wretched, and being now quite certain that I was +the sole cause of Sister Angela's misfortune, I was sitting under the +tree in the middle of the garden, when Alma, surrounded by her usual +group of girls, came down on me. + +"What's this?" she said. "Margaret Mary crying? Feeling badly for Sister +Angela, is she? Why, you little silly, you needn't cry for her. She's +having the time of her life, she is!" + +At this the girls laughed and shuddered, as they used to do when Alma +told them stories, but just at that moment the nun with the stern face +(she was the Mother of the Novices) came up and said, solemnly: + +"Alma Lier, the Reverend Mother wishes to speak to you." + +"To me?" said Alma, in a tone of surprise, but at the next moment she +went off jauntily. + +Hours passed and Alma did not return, and nothing occurred until +afternoon "rosary," when the Mother of the Novices came again and taking +me by the hand said: + +"Come with me, my child." + +I knew quite well where we were going to, and my lip was trembling when +we entered the Reverend Mother's room, for Alma was there, sitting by +the stove, and close beside her, with an angry look, was the stout lady +in furs whom I had seen in the carriage at the beginning of the +holidays. + +"Don't be afraid," said the Reverend Mother, and drawing me to her side +she asked me to tell her what I had told Alma about Sister Angela. + +I repeated our conversation as nearly as I could remember it, and more +than once Alma nodded her head as if in assent, but the Reverend +Mother's face grew darker at every word and, seeing this, I said: + +"But if Sister Angela did anything wrong I'm sure she was very sorry, +for when she came back she said her prayers, and when she got to 'Father +of all mankind, forgive all sinners . . .'" + +"Yes, yes, that will do," said the Reverend Mother, and then she handed +me back to the Mother of the Novices, telling her to warn me to say +nothing to the other children. + +Alma did not return to us at dinner, or at recreation, or at chapel +(when another chaplain said vespers), or even at nine o'clock, when we +went to bed. But next morning, almost as soon as the Mother of the +Novices had left the dormitory, she burst into the room saying: + +"I'm leaving this silly old convent, girls. Mother has brought the +carriage, and I've only come to gather up my belongings." + +Nobody spoke, and while she wrapped up her brushes and combs in her +nightdress, she joked about Sister Angela and Father Giovanni and then +about Mildred Bankes, whom she called "Reverend Mother Mildred," saying +it would be her turn next. + +Then she tipped up her mattress, and taking a novel from under it she +threw the book on to my bed, saying: + +"Margaret Mary will have to be your story-teller now. By-by, girls!" + +Nobody laughed. For the first time Alma's humour had failed her, and +when we went downstairs to the Meeting Room it was with sedate and quiet +steps. + +The nuns were all there, with their rosaries and crosses, looking as +calm as if nothing had occurred, but the girls were thinking of Alma, +and when, after prayers, during the five minutes of silence for +meditation, we heard the wheels of a carriage going off outside, we knew +what had happened--Alma had gone. + +We were rising to go to Mass when the Reverend Mother said, + +"Children, I have a word to say to you. You all know that one of our +novices has left us. You also know that one of our scholars has just +gone. It is my wish that you should forget both of them, and I shall +look upon it as an act of disobedience if any girl in the Convent ever +mentions their names again." + +All that day I was in deep distress, and when, night coming, I took my +troubles to bed, telling myself I had now lost Alma also, and it was all +my fault, somebody put her arms about me in the darkness and whispered: + +"Mary O'Neill, are you awake?" + +It was Mildred, and I suppose my snuffling answered her, for she said: + +"You mustn't cry for Alma Lier. She was no friend of yours, and it was +the best thing that ever happened to you when she was turned out of the +convent." + + + + +SIXTEENTH CHAPTER + + +A child lives from hour to hour, and almost at the same moment that my +heart was made desolate by the loss of my two friends it was quickened +to a new interest. + +Immediately after the departure of Sister Angela and Alma we were all +gathered in the Meeting Room for our weekly rehearsal of the music of +the Benediction--the girls, the novices, the nuns, the Reverend Mother, +and a Maestro from the Pope's choir, a short fat man, who wore a black +soutane and a short lace tippet. + +Benediction was the only service of our church which I knew, being the +one my mother loved best and could do most of for herself in the +solitude of her invalid room, but the form used in the Convent differed +from that to which I had been accustomed, and even the _Tantum ergo_ and +the _O Salutaris Hostia_ I could not sing. + +On this occasion a litany was added which I had heard before, and then +came a hymn of the Blessed Virgin which I remembered well. My mother +sang it herself and taught me to sing it, so that when the Maestro, +swinging his little ivory baton, began in his alto voice-- + + "_Ave maris stella, + Dei Mater alma--_" + +I joined in with the rest, but sang in English instead of Latin Of all +appeals to the memory that of music is the strongest, and after a moment +I forgot that I was at school in Rome, being back in my mother's room in +Ellan, standing by her piano and singing while she played. I think I +must have let my little voice go, just as I used to do at home, when it +rang up to the wooden rafters, for utterly lost to my surroundings I had +got as far as-- + + "_Virgin of all virgins, + To thy shelter take us--_" + +when suddenly I became aware that I alone was singing, the children +about me being silent, and even the Maestro's baton slowing down. Then I +saw that all eyes were turned in my direction, and overwhelmed with +confusion I stopped, for my voice broke and slittered into silence. + +"Go on, little angel," said the Maestro, but I was trembling all over by +this time and could not utter a sound. + +Nevertheless the Reverend Mother said: "Let Mary O'Neill sing the hymn +in church in future." + +As soon as I had conquered my nervousness at singing in the presence of +the girls, I did so, singing the first line of each verse alone, and I +remember to have heard that the congregations on Sunday afternoons grew +larger and larger, until, within a few weeks, the church was densely +crowded. + +Perhaps my childish heart was stirred by vanity in all this, for I +remember that ladies in beautiful dresses would crowd to the bronze +screen that separated us from the public and whisper among themselves, +"Which is she?" "The little one in the green scarf with the big eyes!" +"God bless her!" + +But surely it was a good thing that at length life had began to have a +certain joy for me, for as time went on I became absorbed in the life of +the Convent, and particularly in the services of the church, so that +home itself began to fade away, and when the holidays came round and +excuses were received for not sending for me, the pain of my +disappointment became less and less until at last it disappeared +altogether. + +If ever a child loved her mother I did, and there were moments when I +reproached myself with not thinking of her for a whole day. These were +the moments when a letter came from Father Dan, telling me she was less +well than before and her spark of life had to be coaxed and trimmed or +it would splutter out altogether. + +But the effect of such warnings was wiped away when my mother wrote +herself, saying I was to be happy as she was happy, because she knew +that though so long separated we should soon be together, and the time +would not seem long. + +Not understanding the deeper meaning that lay behind words like these, I +was nothing loath to put aside the thought of home until little by +little it faded away from me in the distance, just as the island itself +had done on the day when I sailed out with Martin Conrad on our great +voyage of exploration to St. Mary's Rock. + +Thus two years and a half passed since I arrived in Rome before the +great fact befell me which was to wipe all other facts out of my +remembrance. + +It was Holy Week, the season of all seasons for devotion to the Sacred +Heart, and our Convent was palpitating with the joy of its spiritual +duties, the many offices, the masses for the repose of the souls in +Purgatory, the preparations for Tenebrae, with the chanting of the +Miserere, and for Holy Saturday and Easter Day, with the singing of the +Gloria and the return of the Alleluia. + +But beyond all this for me were the arrangements for my first +confession, which, coming a little late, I made with ten or twelve other +girls of my sodality, feeling so faint when I took my turn and knelt by +the grating, and heard the whispering voice within, like something from +the unseen, something supernatural, something divine, that I forgot all +I had come to say and the priest had to prompt me. + +And beyond that again were the arrangements for my first communion, +which was to take place on Easter morning, when I was to walk in +procession with the other girls, dressed all in white, behind a gilded +figure of the Virgin, singing "Ave maris stella," through the piazza +into the church, where one of the Cardinals, in the presence of the +fathers and mothers of the other children, was to put the Holy Wafer on +our tongues and we were to know for the first time the joy of communion +with our Lord. + +But that was not to be for me. + +On the morning of Holy Wednesday the blow fell. The luminous grey of the +Italian dawn was filtering through the windows of the dormitory, like +the light in a tomb, and a multitude of little birds on the old tree in +the garden were making a noise like water falling on small stones in a +fountain, when the Mother of the Novices came to my bedside and said: + +"You are to go to the Reverend Mother as soon as possible, my child." + +Her voice, usually severe, was so soft that I knew something had +happened, and when I went downstairs I also knew, before the Reverend +Mother had spoken, what she was going to say. + +"Mary," she said, "I am Sorry to tell you that your mother is ill." + +I listened intently, fearing that worse would follow. + +"She is very ill--very seriously ill, and she wishes to see you. +Therefore you are to go home immediately." + +The tears sprang to my eyes, and the Reverend Mother drew me to her side +and laid my head on her breast and comforted me, saying my dear mother +had lived the life of a good Christian and could safely trust in the +redeeming blood of our Blessed Saviour. But I thought she must have some +knowledge of the conditions of my life at home, for she told me that +whatever happened I was to come back to her. + +"Tell your father you _wish_ to come back to me," she said, and then she +explained the arrangements that were being made for my journey. + +I was to travel alone by the Paris express which left Rome at six +o'clock that evening. The Mother of the Novices was to put me in a +sleeping car and see that the greatest care would be taken of me until I +arrived at Calais, where Father Donovan was to meet the train and take +me home. + +I cried a great deal, I remember, but everybody in the Convent was kind, +and when, of my own choice, I returned to the girls at recreation, the +sinister sense of dignity which by some strange irony of fate comes to +all children when the Angel of Death is hovering over them, came to me +also--poor, helpless innocent--and I felt a certain distinction in my +sorrow. + +At five o'clock the omnibus of the Convent had been brought round to the +door, and I was seated in one corner of it, with the Mother of the +Novices in front of me, when Mildred Bankes came running breathlessly +downstairs to say that the Reverend Mother had given her permission to +see me off. + +Half an hour later Mildred and I were sitting in a compartment of the +Wagon-Lit, while the Mother was talking to the conductor on the +platform. + +Mildred, whose eyes were wet, was saying something about herself which +seems pitiful enough now in the light of what has happened since. + +She was to leave the Convent soon, and before I returned to it she would +be gone. She was poor and an orphan, both her parents being dead, and if +she had her own way she would become a nun. In any case our +circumstances would be so different, our ways of life so far apart, that +we might never meet again; but if . . . + +Before she had finished a bell rang on the platform, and a moment or two +afterwards the train slid out of the station. + +Then for the first time I began to realise the weight of the blow that +had fallen on me. I was sitting alone in my big compartment, we were +running into the Campagna, the heavens were ablaze with the glory of the +sunset, which was like fields of glistening fire, but darkness seemed to +have fallen on all the world. + + + + +SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER + + +Early on Good Friday I arrived at Calais. It was a misty, rimy, clammy +morning, and a thick fog was lying over the Channel. + +Almost before the train stopped I saw Father Dan, with his coat collar +turned up, waiting for me on the platform. I could see that he was +greatly moved at the sight of me, but was trying hard to maintain his +composure. + +"Now don't worry, my child, don't worry," he said. "It will be all +ri. . . . But how well you are looking! And how you have grown! And +how glad your poor mother will be to see you!" + +I tried to ask how she was. "Is she . . ." + +"Yes, thank God, she's alive, and while there's life there's hope." + +We travelled straight through without stopping and arrived at Blackwater +at seven the same evening. There we took train, for railways were +running in Ellan now, and down the sweet valleys that used to be green +with grass, and through the little crofts that used to be red with +fuchsia, there was a long raw welt of upturned earth. + +At the station of our village my father's carriage was waiting for us +and a strange footman shrugged his shoulders in answer to some whispered +question of Father Dan's, and from that I gathered that my mother's +condition was unchanged. + +We reached home at dusk, just as somebody was lighting a line of new +electric lamps that had been set up in the drive to show the way for the +carriage under the chestnuts in which the rooks used to build and caw. + +I knew the turn of the path from which the house could be first seen, +and I looked for it, remembering the last glimpse I had of my mother at +her window. Father Dan looked, too, but for another reason--to see if +the blinds were down. + +Aunt Bridget was in the hall, and when Father Dan, who had grown more +and more excited as we approached the end of our journey, asked how my +mother was now, poor thing, she answered: + +"Worse; distinctly worse; past recognising anybody; so all this trouble +and expense has been wasted." + +As she had barely recognised me I ran upstairs with a timid and quiet +step and without waiting to take off my outer clothes made my way to my +mother's bedroom. + +I remember the heavy atmosphere of the room as I opened the door. I +remember the sense I had of its being lower and smaller than I thought. +I remember the black four-foot bedstead with the rosary hanging on a +brass nail at the pillow end. I remember my little cot which still stood +in the same place and contained some of the clothes I had worn as a +child, and even some of the toys I had played with. + +A strange woman, in the costume of a nurse, turned to look at me as I +entered, but I did not at first see my mother, and when at length I did +see her, with her eyes closed, she looked so white and small as to be +almost hidden in the big white bed. + +Presently Father Dan came in, followed by Doctor Conrad and Aunt +Bridget, and finally my father, who was in his shirt sleeves and had a +pen in his ear, I remember. + +Then Father Dan, who was trembling very much, took me by the hand and +led me to my mother's side, where stooping over her, and making his +voice very low, yet speaking as one who was calling into a long tunnel, +he said: + +"My daughter! My daughter! Here is our little Mary. She has come home to +see you." + +Never shall I forget what followed. First, my mother's long lashes +parted and she looked at me with a dazed expression as if still in a +sort of dream. Then her big eyes began to blaze like torches in dark +hollows, and then (though they had thought her strength was gone and her +voice would never be heard again) she raised herself in her bed, +stretched out her arms to me, and cried in loud strong tones: + +"Mally veen! My Mally veen!" + +How long I lay with my arms about my mother, and my mother's arms about +me I do not know. I only know that over my head I heard Father Dan +saying, as if speaking to a child: + +"You are happy now, are you not?" + +"Yes, yes, I am happy now," my mother answered. + +"You have everything you want?" + +"Everything--everything!" + +Then came my father's voice, saying: + +"Well, you've got your girl, Isabel. You wanted her, so we sent for her, +and here she is." + +"You have been very good to me, Daniel," said my mother, who was kissing +my forehead and crying in her joy. + +When I raised my head I found Father Dan in great excitement. + +"Did you see that then?" he was saying to Doctor Conrad. + +"I would have gone on my knees all the way to Blackwater to see it." + +"I couldn't have believed it possible," the Doctor replied. + +"Ah, what children we are, entirely. God confounds all our reckoning. We +can't count with His miracles. And the greatest of all miracles is a +mother's love for her child." + +"Let us leave her now, though," said the Doctor. "She's like herself +again, but still . . ." + +"Yes, let us leave them together," whispered Father Dan, and having +swept everybody out before him (I thought Aunt Bridget went away +ashamed) he stepped off himself on tiptoe, as if treading on holy +ground. + +Then my mother, who was holding my hand and sometimes putting it to her +lips, said: + +"Tell me everything that has happened." + +As soon as my little tongue was loosed I told her all about my life at +the Convent--about the Reverend Mother and the nuns and the novices and +the girls (all except Sister Angela and Alma) and the singing of the +hymn to the Virgin--talking on and on and on, without observing that, +after a while, my mother's eyes had closed again, and that her hand had +become cold and moist. + +At length she said: "Is it getting dark, Mary?" + +I told her it was night and the lamp was burning. + +"Is it going out then?" she asked, and when I answered that it was not +she did not seem to hear, so I stopped talking, and for some time there +was silence in which I heard nothing but the ticking of the clock on the +mantelpiece, the barking of a sheep dog a long way off, and the husky +breathing in my mother's throat. + +I was beginning to be afraid when the nurse returned. She was going to +speak quite cheerfully, but after a glance at my mother she went out +quickly and came back in a moment with Doctor Conrad and Father Dan. + +I heard the doctor say something about a change, whereupon Father Dan +hurried away, and in a moment there was much confusion. The nurse spoke +of taking me to another room but the doctor said: + +"No, our little woman will be brave," and then leading me aside he +whispered that God was sending for my mother and I must be quiet and not +cry. + +Partly undressing I climbed into my cot and lay still for the next half +hour, while the doctor held his hand on my mother's pulse and the nurse +spread a linen cloth over a table and put four or five lighted candles +on it. + +I remember that I was thinking that if "God sending for my mother" meant +that she was to be put into a box and buried under the ground it was +terrible and cruel, and perhaps if I prayed to our Lady He would not +find it in His heart to do so. I was trying to do this, beginning under +my breath, "O Holy Virgin, thou art so lovely, thou art so gracious . . ." +when the nurse said: + +"Here they are back again." + +Then I heard footsteps outside, and going to the window I saw a sight +not unlike that which I had seen on the night of the Waits. + +A group of men were coming towards the house, with Father Dan in the +middle of them. Father Dan, with his coat hung over his arms like a +cloak, was carrying something white in both hands, and the men were +carrying torches to light him on his way. + +I knew what it was--it was the Blessed Sacrament, which they were +bringing to my mother, and when Father Dan had come into the room, +saying "Peace be to this house," and laid a little white box on the +table, and thrown off his coat, he was wearing his priest's vestments +underneath. + +Then the whole of my father's household--all except my father +himself--came into my mother's room, including Aunt Bridget, who sat +with folded arms in the darkness by the wall, and the servants, who +knelt in a group by the door. + +Father Dan roused my mother by calling to her again, and after she had +opened her eyes he began to read. Sometimes his voice seemed to be +choked with sobs, as if the heart of the man were suffering, and +sometimes it pealed out loudly as if the soul of the priest were +inspiring him. + +After Communion he gave my mother Extreme Unction--anointing the sweet +eyes which had seen no evil, the dear lips which had uttered no wrong, +and the feet which had walked in the ways of God. + +All this time there was a solemn hush in the house like that of a +church--no sound within except my father's measured tread in the room +below, and none without except the muffled murmur which the sea makes +when it is far away and going out. + +When all was over my mother seemed more at ease, and after asking for me +and being told I was in the cot, she said: + +"You must all go and rest. Mary and I will be quite right now." + +A few minutes afterwards my mother and I were alone once more, and then +she called me into her bed and clasped her arms about me and I lay with +my face hidden in her neck. + +What happened thereafter seems to be too sacred to write of, almost too +sacred to think about, yet it is all as a memory of yesterday, while +other events of my life have floated away to the ocean of things that +are forgotten and lost. + +"Listen, darling," she said, and then, speaking in whispers, she told me +she had heard all I had said about the Convent, and wondered if I would +not like to live there always, becoming one of the good and holy nuns. + +I must have made some kind of protest, for she went on to say how hard +the world was to a woman and how difficult she had found it. + +"Not that your father has been to blame--you must never think that, +Mary, yet still . . ." + +But tears from her tender heart were stealing down her face and she had +to stop. + +Even yet I had not realised all that the solemn time foreboded, for I +said something about staying with my mother; and then in her sweet +voice, she told me nervously, breaking the news to me gently, that she +was going to leave me, that she was going to heaven, but she would +think of me when she was there, and if God permitted she would watch +over me, or, if that might not be, she would ask our Lady to do so. + +"So you see we shall never be parted, never really. We shall always be +together. Something tells me that wherever you are, and whatever you are +doing, I shall know all about it." + +This comforted me, and I think it comforted my mother also, though God +knows if it would have done so, if, with her dying eyes, she could have +seen what was waiting for her child. + +It fills my heart brimful to think of what happened next. + +She told me to say a _De Profundis_ for her sometimes, and to think of +her when I sang the hymn to the Virgin. Then she kissed me and told me +to go to sleep, saying she was going to sleep too, and if it should +prove to be the eternal sleep, it would be only like going to sleep at +night and awaking in the morning, and then we should be together again, +and "the time between would not seem long." + +"So good-night, darling, and God bless you," she said. + +And as well as I could I answered her "Good-night!" + + * * * * * + +When I awoke from the profound slumber of childhood it was noon of the +next day and the sun was shining. Doctor Conrad was lifting me out of +bed, and Father Dan, who had just thrown open the window, was saying in +a tremulous voice: + +"Your dear mother has gone to God." + +I began to cry, but he checked me and said: + +"Don't call her back. She's on her way to God's beautiful Paradise after +all her suffering. Let her go!" + +So I lost her, my mother, my saint, my angel. + +It was Easter Eve, and the church bells were ringing the Gloria. + + + + +EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER + + +After my mother's death there was no place left for me in my father's +house. + +Betsy Beauty (who was now called Miss Betsy and gave herself more than +ever the airs of the daughter of the family) occupied half her days with +the governess who had been engaged to teach her, and the other half in +driving, dressed in beautiful clothes, to the houses of the gentry round +about. + +Nessy MacLeod, called the young mistress, had become my father's +secretary, and spent most of her time in his private room, a privilege +which enlarged her pride without improving her manners. + +Martin Conrad I did not see, for in reward for some success at school +the doctor had allowed him to spend his Easter holidays in London in +order to look at Nansen's ship, the _Fram_, which had just then arrived +in the Thames. + +Hence it happened that though home made a certain tug at me, with its +familiar sights and sounds, and more than once I turned with timid steps +towards my father's busy room, intending to say, "Please, father, don't +send me back to school," I made no demur when, six or seven days after +the funeral, Aunt Bridget began to prepare for my departure. + +"There's odds of women," said Tommy the Mate, when I went into the +garden to say good bye to him "They're like sheep's broth, is women. If +there's a head and a heart in them they're good, and if there isn't you +might as well be supping hot water. Our Big Woman is hot water--but +she'll die for all." + +Within a fortnight I was back at the Convent, and there the Reverend +Mother atoned to me for every neglect. + +"I knew you would come back to me," she said, and from that hour onward +she seemed to be trying to make up to me for the mother I had lost. + +I became deeply devoted to her. As a consequence her spirit became my +spirit, and, little by little, the religious side of the life of the +Convent took complete possession of me. + +At first I loved the church and its services because the Reverend Mother +loved them, and perhaps also for the sake of the music, the incense, the +flowers and the lights on the altar; but after I had taken my communion, +the mysteries of our religion took hold of me--the Confessional with its +sense of cleansing and the unutterable sweetness of the Mass. + +For a long time there was nothing to disturb this religious side of my +mind. My father never sent for me, and as often as the holidays came +round the Reverend Mother took me with her to her country home at Nemi. + +That was a beautiful place--a sweet white cottage, some twenty +kilometres from Rome, at the foot of Monte Cavo, in the middle of the +remains of a medięval village which contained a castle and a monastery, +and had a little blue lake lying like an emerald among the green and red +of the grass and poppies in the valley below. + +In the hot months of summer the place was like a Paradise to me, with +its roses growing wild by the wayside; its green lizards running on the +rocks; its goats; its sheep; its vineyards; its brown-faced boys in +velvet, and its gleesome girls in smart red petticoats and gorgeous +outside stays; its shrines and its blazing sunsets, which seemed to +girdle the heavens with quivering bands of purple and gold. + +Years went by without my being aware of their going, for after a while I +became entirely happy. + +I heard frequently from home. Occasionally it was from Betsy Beauty, who +had not much to say beyond stories of balls at Government House, where +she had danced with the young Lord Raa, and of hunts at which she had +ridden with him. More rarely it was from Aunt Bridget, who usually began +by complaining of the ever-increasing cost of my convent clothes and +ended with accounts of her daughter's last new costume and how well she +looked in it. + +From Nessy MacLeod and my father I never heard at all, but Father Dan +was my constant correspondent and he told me everything. + +First of my father himself--that he had carried out many of his great +enterprises, his marine works, electric railways, drinking and dancing +palaces, which had brought tens of thousands of visitors and hundreds of +thousands of pounds to Ellan, though the good Father doubted the +advantage of such innovations and lamented the decline of piety which +had followed on the lust for wealth. + +Next of Aunt Bridget--that she was bringing up her daughter in the ways +of worldly vanity and cherishing a serpent in her bosom (meaning Nessy +MacLeod) who would poison her heart some day. + +Next, of Tommy the Mate--that he sent his "best respec's" to the +"lil-missy" but thought she was well out of the way of the Big Woman who +"was getting that highty-tighty" that "you couldn't say Tom to a cat +before her but she was agate of you to make it Thomas." + +Then of Martin Conrad--that he was at college "studying for a doctor," +but his heart was still at the North Pole and he was "like a sea-gull in +the nest of a wood pigeon," always longing to be out on the wild waves. + +Finally of the young Lord Raa--that the devil's dues must be in the man, +for after being "sent down" from Oxford he had wasted his substance in +riotous living in London and his guardian had been heard to say he must +marry a rich wife soon or his estates would go to the hammer. + +Such was the substance of the news that reached me over a period of six +years. Yet welcome as were Father Dan's letters the life they described +seemed less and less important to me as time went on, for the outer +world was slipping away from me altogether and I was becoming more and +more immersed in my spiritual exercises. + +I spent much of my time reading religious books--the life of Saint +Teresa, the meditations of Saint Francis of Sales, and, above all, the +letters and prayers of our Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque, whose love of +the Sacred Heart was like a flaming torch to my excited spirit. + +The soul of Rome, too, seemed to enter into my soul--not the new Rome, +for of that I knew nothing, but the old Rome, the holy city, that could +speak to me in the silence of the night within the walls of my +convent-school, with its bells of the Dominican and Franciscan +monasteries on either side, its stories of miracles performed on the +sick and dying by the various shrines of the Madonna, its accounts of +the vast multitudes of the faithful who came from all ends of the earth +to the ceremonials at St. Peter's, and, above all, its sense of the +immediate presence of the Pope, half a mile away, the Vicar and +mouthpiece of God Himself. + +The end of it all was that I wished to become a nun. I said nothing of +my desire to anybody, not even to the Reverend Mother, but day by day my +resolution grew. + +Perhaps it was natural that the orphaned and homeless girl should plunge +with all this passion into the aurora of a new spiritual life; but when +I think how my nature was made for love, human love, the love of husband +and children, I cannot but wonder with a thrill of the heart whether my +mother in heaven, who, while she was on earth, had fought so hard with +my father for the body of her child, was now fighting with him for her +soul. + +I was just eighteen years of age when my desire to become a nun reached +its highest point, and then received its final overthrow. + +Mildred Bankes, who had returned to Rome, and was living as a novice +with the Little Sisters of the Poor, was about to make her vows, and the +Reverend Mother took me to see the ceremony. + +Never shall I forget the effect of it. The sweet summer morning, +tingling with snow-white sunshine, the little white chapel in the +garden of the Convent, covered with flowers, the altar with its lighted +tapers, the friends from without clad in gay costumes as for a festival, +the bishop in his bright vestments, and then, Mildred herself, dressed +as a bride in a beautiful white gown with a long white veil and attended +by other novices as bridesmaids. + +It was just like a marriage to look upon, except for the absence of a +visible bridegroom, the invisible one being Christ. And the taking of +the vows was like a marriage service too--only more solemn and sacred +and touching--the bride receiving the ring on her finger, and promising +to serve and worship her celestial lover from that day forward, for +better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, as +long as life should last and through the eternity that was to follow it. + +I cried all through the ceremony for sheer joy of its loveliness; and +when it was over and we went into the refectory, and Mildred told me she +was returning to England to work among the fallen girls of London, I +vowed in my heart, though I hardly understood what she was going to do, +that I would follow her example. + +It was something of a jar to go back into the streets, so full of noise +and bustle; and all the way home with the Reverend Mother I was forming +the resolution of telling her that very night that I meant to be a nun, +for, stirred to the depths of my soul by what I had seen and remembering +what my poor mother had wished for me, I determined that no other life +would I live under any circumstances. + +Then came the shock. + +As we drew up at our door a postman was delivering letters. One of them +was for the Reverend Mother and I saw in a moment that it was in my +father's handwriting. She read it in silence, and in silence she handed +it to me. It ran: + +"_Madam, + +"I have come to Rome to take back my daughter. I believe her education +will now be finished, and I reckon the time has arrived to prepare her +for the change in life that is before her. + +"The Bishop of our diocese has come with me, and we propose to pay our +respects to you at ten o'clock prompt to-morrow morning. + +"Yours, Madam_, + +"DANIEL O'NEILL." + + + + +NINETEENTH CHAPTER + + +I saw, as by a flash of light, what was before me, and my whole soul +rose in rebellion against it. That my father after all the years during +which he had neglected me, should come to me now, when my plans were +formed, and change the whole current of my life, was an outrage--an +iniquity. It might be his right--his natural right--but if so his +natural right was a spiritual wrong--and I would resist it--to my last +breath and my last hour I would resist it. + +Such were the brave thoughts with which I passed that night, but at ten +o'clock next morning, when I was summoned to meet my father himself, it +was on trembling limbs and with a quivering heart that I went down to +the Reverend Mother's room. + +Except that his hair was whiter than before my father was not much +changed. He rose as I entered, saying, "Here she is herself," and when I +went up to him he put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my face. + +"Quite a little Italian woman grown! Like your mother though," he said, +and then speaking over my head to the Bishop, who sat on the other side +of the room, he added: + +"Guess this will do, Bishop, eh?" + +"Perfectly," said the Bishop. + +I was colouring in confusion at the continued scrutiny, with a feeling +of being looked over for some unexplained purpose, when the Reverend +Mother called me, and turning to go to her I saw, by the look of pain on +her face that she, too, had been hurt by it. + +She put me to sit on a stool by the side of her chair, and taking my +right hand she laid it in her lap and held it there during the whole of +the interview. + +The Bishop, whom I had never seen before, was the first to speak. He was +a type of the fashionable ecclesiastic, suave, smiling, faultlessly +dressed in silk soutane and silver buckled shoes, and wearing a heavy +gold chain with a jewelled cross. + +"Reverend Mother," he said, "you would gather from Mr. O'Neill's letter +that he wishes to remove his daughter immediately--I presume there will +be no difficulty in his doing so?" + +The Reverend Mother did not speak, but I think she must have bent her +head. + +"Naturally," said the Bishop, "there will be a certain delay while +suitable clothes are being made for her, but I have no doubt you will +give Mr. O'Neill your help in these preparations." + +My head was down, and I did not see if the Reverend Mother bowed again. +But the two gentlemen, apparently satisfied with her silence, began to +talk of the best date for my removal, and just when I was quivering with +fear that without a word of protest I was to be taken away, the Reverend +Mother said: + +"Monsignor!" + +"Reverend Mother!" + +"You are aware that this child"--here she patted my trembling hand--"has +been with me for ten years?" + +"I am given to understand so." + +"And that during that time she has only once been home?" + +"I was not aware--but no doubt it is as you say." + +"In short, that during the greater part of her life she has been left to +my undivided care?" + +"You have been very good to her, very, and I'm sure her family are +extremely grateful." + +"In that case, Monsignor, doesn't it seem to you that I am entitled to +know why she is being so suddenly taken away from me, and what is the +change in life which Mr. O'Neill referred to in his letter?" + +The smile which had been playing upon the Bishop's face was smitten away +from it by that question, and he looked anxiously across at my father. + +"Tell her," said my father, and then, while my heart thumped in my bosom +and the Reverend Mother stroked my hand to compose me, the Bishop gave a +brief explanation. + +The time had not come when it would be prudent to be more definite, but +he might say that Mr. O'Neill was trying to arrange a happy and enviable +future for his daughter, and therefore he wished her to return home to +prepare for it. + +"Does that mean marriage?" said the Reverend Mother. + +"It may be so. I am not quite prepared to . . ." + +"And that a husband has already been found for her?" + +"That too perhaps. I will not say . . ." + +"Monsignor," said the Reverend Mother, sitting up with dignity "is that +fair?" + +"Fair?" + +"Is it fair that after ten years in which her father has done nothing +for her, he should determine what her life is to be, without regard to +her wish and will?" + +I raised my eyes and saw that the Bishop looked aghast. + +"Reverend Mother, you surprise me," he said. "Since when has a father +ceased to be the natural guardian of his child? Has he not been so since +the beginning of the world? Doesn't the Church itself build its laws on +that foundation?" + +"Does it?" said the Reverend Mother shortly. And then (I could feel her +hand trembling as she spoke): "Some of its servants do, I know. But when +did the Church say that anybody--no matter who--a father or anybody +else--should take the soul of another, and control it and govern it, and +put it in prison? . . ." + +"My good lady," said the Bishop, "would you call it putting the girl in +prison to marry her into an illustrious family, to give her an historic +name, to surround her with the dignity and distinction . . ." + +"Bishop," said my father, raising his hand, "I guess it's my right to +butt in here, isn't it?" + +I saw that my father's face had been darkening while the Reverend Mother +spoke, and now, rolling his heavy body in his chair so as to face her, +he said: + +"Excuse me, ma'am, but when you say I've done nothing for my gel here I +suppose you'll allow I've kept her and educated her?" + +"You've kept and educated your dogs and horses, also, I dare say, but do +you claim the same rights over a human being?" + +"I do, ma'am--I think I do. And when the human being happens to be my +own daughter I don't allow that anybody else has anything to say." + +"If her mother were alive would _she_ have nothing to say?" + +I thought my father winced at that word, but he answered: + +"Her mother would agree to anything I thought best." + +"Her mother, so far as I can see, was a most unselfish, most submissive, +most unhappy woman," said the Reverend Mother. + +My father glanced quickly at me and then, after a moment, he said: + +"I'm obliged to you, ma'am, much obliged. But as I'm not a man to throw +words away I'll ask you to tell me what all this means. Does it mean +that you've made plans of your own for my daughter without consulting +me?" + +"No, sir." + +"Then perhaps it means that the gel herself . . ." + +"That may be so or not--I cannot say. But when you sent your daughter to +a convent-school . . ." + +"Wrong, ma'am, wrong for once. It was my wife's sister--who thinks the +gel disobedient and rebellious and unruly . . ." + +"Then your wife's sister is either a very stupid or a very bad-hearted +woman." + +"Ma'am?" + +"I have known your daughter longer than she has, and there isn't a word +of truth in what she says." + +It was as much as I could do not to fall on the Reverend Mother's neck, +but I clung to her hand with a convulsive grasp. + +"May be so, ma'am, may be no," said my father. "But when you talk about +my sending my daughter to a convent-school I would have you know that +I've been so busy with my business . . ." + +"That you haven't had time to take care of the most precious thing God +gave you." + +"Ma'am," said my father, rising to his feet, "may I ask what right you +have to speak to me as if . . ." + +"The right of one who for ten years has been a mother to your motherless +child, sir, while you have neglected and forgotten her." + +At that my father, whose bushy eyebrows were heavily contracted, turned +to the Bishop. + +"Bishop," he said, "is this what I've been paying my money for? Ten +years' fees, and middling high ones too, I'm thinking?" + +And then the Bishop, apparently hoping to make peace, said suavely: + +"But aren't we crossing the river before we reach the bridge? The girl +herself may have no such objections. Have you?" he asked, turning to me. + +I was trembling more than ever now, and at first I could not reply. + +"Don't you wish to go back home with your father?" + +"No, sir," I answered. + +"And why not, please?" + +"Because my father's home is no home to me--because my aunt has always +been unkind to me, and because my father has never cared for me or +protected me, and because . . ." + +"Well, what else?" + +"Because . . . because I wish to become a nun." + +There was silence for a moment, and then my father broke into bitter +laughter. + +"So that's it, is it? I thought as much. You want to go into partnership +with the Mother in the nun business, eh?" + +"My mother wished me to become a nun, and I wish it myself, sir." + +"Your mother was a baby--that's what she was." + +"My mother was an angel, sir," I said, bridling up, "and when she was +dying she hoped I should become a nun, and I can never become anything +else under any circumstance." + +"Bah!" said my father, with a contemptuous lift of the hand, and then +turning to the Reverend Mother he said: + +"Hark here, ma'am. There's an easy way and a hard way in most +everything. I take the easy way first, and if it won't work I take the +hard way next, and then it's stiff pulling for the people who pull +against me. I came to Rome to take my daughter home. I don't feel called +upon to explain why I want to take her home, or what I'm going to do +with her when I get her there. I believe I've got the rights of a father +to do what I mean to do, and that it will be an ugly business for +anybody who aids and abets my daughter in resisting her father's will. +So I'll leave her here a week longer, and when I come back, I'll expect +her to be ready and waiting and willing--ready and waiting and willing, +mind you--to go along with me." + +After saying this my father faced about and with his heavy flat step +went out of the room, whereupon the Bishop bowed to the Reverend Mother +and followed him. + +My heart was by this time in fierce rebellion--all that the pacifying +life of the convent-school had done for me in ten years being suddenly +swept away--and I cried: + +"I won't do it! I won't do it!" + +But I had seen that the Reverend Mother's face had suddenly become very +white while my father spoke to her at the end and now she said, in a +timid, almost frightened tone: + +"Mary, we'll go out to Nemi to-day. I have something to say to you." + + + + +TWENTIETH CHAPTER + + +In the late afternoon of the same day we were sitting together for the +last time on the terrace of the Reverend Mother's villa. + +It was a peaceful evening, a sweet and holy time. Not a leaf was +stirring, not a breath of wind was in the air; but the voice of a young +boy, singing a love-song, came up from somewhere among the rocky ledges +of the vineyards below, and while the bell of the monastic church behind +us was ringing the Ave Maria, the far-off bell of the convent church at +Gonzano was answering from the other side of the lake--like angels +calling to each other from long distances in the sky. + +"Mary," said the Reverend Mother, "I want to tell you a story. It is the +story of my own life--mine and my sister's and my father's." + +I was sitting by her side and she was holding my hand in her lap, and +patting it, as she had done during the interview of the morning. + +"They say the reason so few women become nuns is that a woman is too +attached to her home to enter the holy life until she has suffered +shipwreck in the world. That may be so with most women. It was not so +with me. + +"My father was what is called a self-made man. But his fortune did not +content him. He wanted to found a family. If he had had a son this might +have been easy. Having only two daughters, he saw no way but that of +marrying one of us into the Italian nobility. + +"My sister was the first to disappoint him. She fell in love with a +young Roman musician. The first time the young man asked for my sister +he was contemptuously refused; the second time he was insulted; the +third time he was flung out of the house. His nature was headstrong and +passionate, and so was my father's. If either had been different the +result might not have been the same. Yet who knows? Who can say?" + +The Reverend Mother paused for a moment. The boy's voice in the vineyard +was going on. + +"To remove my sister from the scene of temptation my father took her +from Rome to our villa in the hills above Albano. But the young musician +followed her. Since my father would not permit him to marry her he was +determined that she should fly with him, and when she hesitated to do so +he threatened her. If she did not meet him at a certain hour on a +certain night my father would be dead in the morning." + +The Reverend Mother paused again. The boy's voice had ceased; the +daylight was dying out. + +"My sister could not bring herself to sacrifice either her father or +her lover. Hence she saw only one way left--to sacrifice herself." + +"Herself?" + +The Reverend Mother patted my hand. "Isn't that what women in tragic +circumstances are always doing?" she said. + +"By some excuse--I don't know what--she persuaded our father to change +rooms with her that night--he going upstairs to her bedroom in the +tower, and she to his on the ground floor at the back, opening on to the +garden and the pine forest that goes up the hill. + +"What happened after that nobody ever knew exactly. In the middle of the +night the servants heard two pistol shots, and next morning my sister +was found dead--shot to the heart through an open window as she lay in +my father's bed. + +"The authorities tried in vain to trace the criminal. Only one person +had any idea of his identity. That was my father, and in his fierce +anger he asked himself what he ought to do in order to punish the man +who had killed his daughter. + +"Then a strange thing happened. On the day before the funeral the young +musician walked into my father's room. His face was white and wasted, +and his eyes were red and swollen. He had come to ask if he might be +allowed to be one of those to carry the coffin. My father consented. +'I'll leave him alone,' he thought. 'The man is punished enough.' + +"All the people of Albano came to the funeral and there was not a dry +eye as the cortčge passed from our chapel to the grave. Everybody knew +the story of my sister's hopeless love, but only two in the world knew +the secret of her tragic death--her young lover, who was sobbing aloud +as he staggered along with her body on his shoulder, and her old father, +who was walking bareheaded and in silence, behind him." + +My heart was beating audibly and the Reverend Mother stroked my hand to +compose me--perhaps to compose herself also. It was now quite dark, the +stars were coming out, and the bells of the two monasteries on opposite +sides of the lake were ringing the first hour of night. + +"That's my sister's story, Mary," said the Reverend Mother after a +while, "and the moral of my own is the same, though the incidents are +different. + +"I was now my father's only child and all his remaining hopes centred in +me. So he set himself to find a husband for me before the time came when +I should form an attachment for myself. His choice fell on a +middle-aged Roman noble of distinguished but impoverished family. + +"'He has a great name; you will have a great fortune--what more do you +want?' said my father. + +"We were back in Rome by this time, and there--at school or elsewhere--I +had formed the conviction that a girl must passionately love the man she +marries, and I did not love the Roman noble. I had also been led to +believe that a girl should be the first and only passion of the man who +marries her, and, young as I was, I knew that my middle-aged lover had +had other domestic relations. + +"Consequently I demurred, but my father threatened and stormed, and +then, remembering my sister's fate, I pretended to agree, and I was +formally engaged. + +"I never meant to keep my promise, and I began to think out schemes by +which to escape from it. Only one way seemed open to me then, and +cherishing the thought of it in secret, I waited and watched and made +preparations for carrying out my purpose. + +"At length the moment came to me. It was mid-Lent, and a masked ball was +given by my fiancé's friends in one of the old Roman palaces. I can see +it still--the great hall, ablaze with glowing frescoes, beautiful +Venetian candelabras, gilded furniture, red and yellow damask and +velvet, and then the throng of handsome men in many uniforms and +beautiful women with rows of pearls falling from their naked throats. + +"I had dressed myself as a Bacchante in a white tunic embroidered in +gold, with bracelets on my bare arms, a tiger-skin band over my +forehead, and a cluster of grapes in my hair. + +"I danced every dance, I remember, most of them with my middle-aged +lover, and I suppose no one seemed so gay and happy and heedless. At +three o'clock in the morning I returned home in my father's carriage. At +six I had entered a convent. + +"Nobody in the outer world ever knew what had become of me, and neither +did I know what happened at home after I left it. The rule of the +convent was very strict. Sometimes, after morning prayers, the Superior +would say, 'The mother of one of you is dead--pray for her soul,' and +that was all we ever heard of the world outside. + +"But nature is a mighty thing, my child, and after five years I became +restless and unhappy. I began to have misgivings about my vocation, but +the Mother, who was wise and human, saw what was going on in my heart. +'You are thinking about your father,' she said, 'that he is growing old, +and needing a daughter to take care of him. Go out, and nurse him, and +then come back to your cell and pray.' + +"I went, but when I reached my father's house a great shock awaited me. +A strange man was in the porter's lodge, and our beautiful palace was +let out in apartments. My father was dead--three years dead and buried. +After my disappearance he had shut himself up in his shame and grief, +for, little as I had suspected it and hard and cruel as I had thought +him, he had really and truly loved me. During his last days his mind had +failed him and he had given away all his fortune--scattered it, no one +knew how, as something that was quite useless--and then he died, alone +and broken-hearted." + +That was the end of the Reverend Mother's narrative. She did not try to +explain or justify or condemn her own or her sister's conduct, neither +did she attempt to apply the moral of her story to my own circumstances. +She left me to do that for myself. + +I had been spell-bound while she spoke, creeping closer and closer to +her until my head was on her breast. + +For some time longer we sat like this in the soft Italian night, while +the fire-flies came out in clouds among the unseen flowers of the garden +and the dark air seemed to be alive with sparks of light. + +When the time came to go to bed the Reverend Mother took me to my room, +and after some cheerful words she left me. But hardly had I lain down, +shaken to the heart's core by what I had heard, and telling myself that +the obedience of a daughter to her father, whatever he might demand of +her, was an everlasting and irreversible duty, imposed by no human +law-giver, and that marriage was a necessity, which was forced upon most +women by a mysterious and unyielding law of God, when the door opened +and the Reverend Mother, with a lamp in her hand, came in again. + +"Mary," she said, "I forgot to tell you that I am leaving the Sacred +Heart. The Sisters of my old convent have asked me to go back as +Superior. I have obtained permission to do so and am going shortly, so +that in any case we should have been parted soon. It is the Convent +of. . . ." + +Here she gave me the name of a private society of cloistered nuns in the +heart of Rome. + +"I hope you will write to me as often as possible, and come to see me +whenever you can. . . . And if it should ever occur that . . . but no, I +will not think of that. Marriage is a sacred tie, too, and under proper +conditions God blesses and hallows it." + +With that she left me in the darkness. The church bell was ringing, the +monks of the Passionist monastery were getting up for their midnight +offices. + + + + +TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER + + +A week later I was living with my father in the Hotel Europa on the edge +of the Piazza di Spagna. + +He was kinder to me than he had ever been before, but he did not tell me +what the plans were which he had formed for my future, and I was left to +discover them for myself. + +Our apartment was constantly visited by ecclesiastics--Monsignori, +Archbishops, even one of the Cardinals of the Propaganda, brought there +by Bishop Walsh (the Bishop of our own diocese), and I could not help +but hear portions of their conversation. + +"It will be difficult, extremely difficult," the Cardinal would say. +"Such marriages are not encouraged by the Church, which holds that they +are usually attended by the worst consequences to both wife and husband. +Still--under the exceptional circumstances--that the bridegroom's family +was Catholic before it was Protestant--it is possible, just +possible. . . ." + +"Cardinal," my father would answer, while his strong face was darkening, +"excuse me, sir, but I'm kind of curious to get the hang of this +business. Either it can be done or it can't. If it can, we'll just sail +in and do it. But if it can't, I believe I'll go home quick and spend my +money another way." + +Then there would be earnest assurances that in the end all would be +right, only Rome moved slowly, and it would be necessary to have +patience and wait. + +My father waited three weeks, and meantime he occupied himself in seeing +the sights of the old city. + +But the mighty remains which are the luminous light-houses of the +past--the Forum with the broken columns of its dead centuries; the +Coliseum with its gigantic ruins, like the desolate crater of a moon; +the Campagna with its hollow, crumbling tombs and shattered +aqueducts,--only vexed and irritated him. + +"Guess if I had my way," he said, "I would just clean out this old +stone-yard of monuments to dead men, and make it more fit for living +ones." + +At length the Bishop came to say that the necessary business had been +completed, and that to mark its satisfactory settlement the Pope had +signified his willingness to receive in private audience both my father +and myself. + +This threw me into a state of the greatest nervousness, for I had begun +to realise that my father's business concerned myself, so that when, +early the following morning (clad according to instructions, my father +in evening dress and I in a long black mantilla), we set out for the +Vatican, I was in a condition of intense excitement. + +What happened after we got out of the carriage at the bronze gate near +St. Peter's I can only describe from a vague and feverish memory. I +remember going up a great staircase, past soldiers in many-coloured +coats, into a vast corridor, where there were other soldiers in other +costumes. I remember going on and on, through salon after salon, each +larger and more luxurious than the last, and occupied by guards still +more gorgeously dressed than the guards we had left behind. I remember +coming at length to a door at which a Chamberlain, wearing a sword, +knelt and knocked softly, and upon its being opened announced our names. +And then I remember that after all this grandeur as of a medięval court +I found myself in a plain room like a library with a simple white figure +before me, and . . . I was in the presence of the Holy Father himself. + +Can I ever forget that moment? + +I had always been taught in the Convent to think of the Pope with a +reverence only second to that which was due to the Saints, so at first I +thought I should faint, and how I reached the Holy Father's feet I do +not know. I only know that he was very sweet and kind to me, holding out +the delicate white hand on which he wore the fisherman's emerald ring, +and smoothing my head after I had kissed it. + +When I recovered myself sufficiently to look up I saw that he was an old +man, with a very pale and saintly face; and when he spoke it was in such +a soft and fatherly voice that I loved and worshipped him. + +"So this is the little lady," he said, "who is to be the instrument in +the hands of Providence in bringing back an erring family into the folds +of Mother Church." + +Somebody answered him, and then he spoke to me about marriage, saying it +was a holy state, instituted by the Almighty under a natural law and +sanctioned by our divine Redeemer into the dignity of a Sacrament, so +that those who entered it might live together in peace and love. + +"It is a spiritual and sacred union, my child," he said, "a type of the +holy mystery of Christ's relation to His Church." + +Then he told me I was to make the best possible preparation for marriage +in order to obtain the abundant graces of God, and to approach the altar +only after penance and communion. + +"And when you leave the church, my daughter," he said, "do not profane +the day of your marriage by any sinful thought or act, but remember to +bear yourself as if Jesus Christ Himself were with you, as He was at the +marriage-feast in Cana of Galilee." + +Then he warned me that when I entered into the solemn contract of holy +matrimony I was to do so in the full consciousness that it could not be +broken but by death. + +"Whom God has joined together let no man put asunder--remember that, +too, my daughter." + +Finally he said something about children--that a Catholic marrying a +person of another religion must not enter into any agreement whereby any +of her children should be brought up in any other than the Catholic +faith. + +After that, and something said to my father which I cannot recall, he +gave me his blessing, in words so beautiful and a voice so sweet that it +fell on me like the soft breeze that comes out of the rising sun on a +summer morning. + +"May the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob be with +you, my daughter. May your marriage be a yoke of love and peace, and may +you see your children's children to the third and fourth generation." + +Then he raised me to my feet, and at a touch from the Chamberlain, I +backed out of the room. + +When the door had closed on me I drew a deep breath, feeling as if I had +come out of the Holy of Holies, and when I reached the Piazza of St. +Peter's and came again upon the sight and sound of common things--the +cabs and electric cars--it was the same as if I had suddenly descended +from heaven to earth. + +After my audience with the Pope, following on the Reverend Mother's +story, all my objections to marriage had gone, and I wished to tell my +father so, but an opportunity did not arise until late the same night +and then it was he who was the first to speak. + +Being in good spirits, after a dinner to the ecclesiastics, he said, as +soon as his guests had gone--speaking in the tone of one who believed he +was doing a great thing for me-- + +"Mary, matters are not quite settled yet, but you might as well know +right here what we're trying to fix up for you." + +Then he told me. + +I was to marry the young Lord Raa! + +I was stunned. It was just as if the power of thought had been smitten +out of me. + + + + +TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER + + +That night, and during the greater part of the following day, I felt, +without quite knowing why, as if I were living under the dark cloud of a +gathering thunderstorm. All my fear of the world, and my desire to +escape from it, had fallen upon me afresh. Hence it was not altogether +by the blind leading of fate that half an hour before Ave Maria I +entered the church of the Convent which the Reverend Mother had given me +the name of. + +The church was empty when I pushed past the leather hanging that covered +the door, but the sacristan was lighting the candles for Benediction, so +I went up to the bronze screen, the Cancello, that divides the public +part from the part occupied by the Sisters, and knelt on the nearest +step. + +After a while the church-bell rang overhead, and then (the congregation +having gathered in the meantime) the nuns came in by way of a corridor +which seemed to issue out of the darkness from under a figure of the +Virgin and Child. + +They were all in white, snow-white from head to foot, with a glimmer of +blue scapular beneath their outer garment, and they wore long thick +veils which entirely concealed their features when they entered but were +raised when they reached their seats and faced the altar. + +Familiar as I was with similar scenes this one moved me as I had never +before been moved--the silent white figures, with hands clasped on their +breasts, coming in one by one with noiseless and unhurried footsteps, +like a line of wraiths from another world. + +But a still deeper emotion was to come to me. + +As the last of the nuns entered, the Superior as I knew she would be, I +recognised her instantly. It was my own Reverend Mother herself; and +when, after kneeling to the altar, she came down to her seat nearest to +the screen, immediately in front of the place where I knelt, I knew by +the tremor of the clasped hands which held the rosary, that she had seen +and recognised me. + +I trembled and my heart thumped against my breast. + +Then the priest entered and the Litany began. It was sung throughout. +Almost the whole of the service was sung. Never had Benediction seemed +so beautiful, so pathetic, so appealing, so irresistible. + +By the time the _Tantum ergo_ had been reached and the sweet female +voices, over the soft swell of the organ, were rising to the vaulted +roof in sorrowful reparation for the sins of all sinners in the world +who did not pray for themselves, the religious life was calling to me as +it had never called before. + +"Come away from the world," it seemed to say. "Obedience to your +heavenly Father cancels all duty to your earthly one. Leave everything +you fear behind you, and find peace and light and love." + +The service was over, the nuns had dropped their veils and gone out as +slowly and noiselessly as they had come in (the last of them with her +head down): the sacristan with his long rod was extinguishing the +candles on the altar; the church was growing dark and a lay-sister in +black was rattling a bunch of keys at the door behind me before I moved +from my place beside the rails. + +Then I awoke as from a dream, and looking longingly back at the dark +corridor down which the nuns had disappeared, I was turning to go when I +became aware that a young man was standing beside me and smiling into my +face. + +"Mally," he said very softly, and he held out his hand. + +Something in the voice made me giddy, something in the blue eyes made me +tremble. I looked at him but did not speak. + +"Don't you know me, Mally?" he said. + +I felt as if a rosy veil were falling over my face and neck. A flood of +joy was sweeping through me. At last I knew who it was. + +It was Martin Conrad, grown to be a man, a tall, powerful, manly man, +but with the same face still--an elusive ghost of the boy's face I used +to look up to and love. + +A few minutes later we were out on the piazza in front of the church, +and with a nervous rush of joyous words he was telling me what had +brought him to Rome. + +Having just "scraped through" his examinations, and taken his +degree--couldn't have done so if the examiners had not been "jolly good" +to him--he had heard that Lieut. . . .--was going down to the great ice +barrier that bounds the South Pole, to investigate the sources of winds +and tides, so he had offered himself as doctor to the expedition and +been accepted. + +Sailing from the Thames ten days ago they had put into Naples that +morning for coal, and taking advantage of the opportunity he had run up +to Rome, remembering that I was at school here, but never expecting to +see me, and coming upon me by the merest accident in the +world--something having said to him, "Let's go in here and look at this +queer old church." + +He had to leave to-morrow at two, though, having to sail the same night, +but of course it would be luck to go farther south than Charcot and make +another attack on the Antarctic night. + +I could see that life was full of faith and hope and all good things for +him, and remembering some episodes of the past I said: + +"So you are going 'asploring' in earnest at last?" + +"At last," he answered, and we looked into each other's eyes and laughed +as we stood together on the church steps, with little tender waves of +feeling from our childhood sweeping to our feet. + +"And you?" he said. "You look just the same. I knew you instantly. Yet +you are changed too. So grown and so . . . so wonderfully. . . ." + +I knew what he meant to say, and being too much of a child to pretend +not to know, and too much of a woman (notwithstanding my nun-like +impulses) not to find joy in it, I said I was glad. + +"You've left the Convent, I see. When did that happen?" + +I told him three weeks ago--that my father had come for me and we were +going back to Ellan. + +"And then? What are you going to do then?" he asked. + +For a moment I felt ashamed to answer, but at last I told him that I was +going home to be married. + +"Married? When? To whom?" + +I said I did not know when, but it was to be to the young Lord Raa. + +"Raa? Did you say Raa? That . . . Good G----But surely you know. . . ." + +He did not finish what he was going to say, so I told him I did not know +anything, not having seen Lord Raa since I came to school, and +everything having been arranged for me by my father. + +"Not seen him since . . . everything arranged by your father?" + +"Yes." + +Then he asked me abruptly where I was staying, and when I told him he +said he would walk back with me to the hotel. + +His manner had suddenly changed, and several times as we walked together +up the Tritoni and along the Du Marcelli he began to say something and +then stopped. + +"Surely your father knows. . . ." + +"If he does, I cannot possibly understand. . . ." + +I did not pay as much attention to his broken exclamations as I should +have done but for the surprise and confusion of coming so suddenly upon +him again; and when, as we reached the hotel, he said: + +"I wonder if your father will allow me to speak. . . ." + +"I'm sure he'll be delighted," I said, and then, in my great impatience, +I ran upstairs ahead of him and burst into my father's room, crying: + +"Father, whom do you think I have brought to see you--look!" + +To my concern and discomfiture my father's reception of Martin was very +cool, and at first he did not even seem to know him. + +"You don't remember me, sir?" said Martin. + +"I'm afraid I can't just place you," said my father. + +After I had made them known to each other they sat talking about the +South Pole expedition, but it was a chill and cheerless interview, and +after a few minutes Martin rose to go. + +"I find it kind of hard to figure you fellows out," said my father. "No +money that I know of has ever been made in the Unknown, as you call it, +and if you discover both Poles I don't just see how they're to be worth +a two-cent stamp to you. But you know best, so good-bye and good luck to +you!" + +I went out to the lift with Martin, who asked if he could take me for a +walk in the morning. I answered yes, and inquired what hour he would +call for me. + +"Twelve o'clock," he replied, and I said that would suit me exactly. + +The Bishop came to dine with us that night, and after dinner, when I had +gone to the window to look out over the city for the three lights on the +Loggia of the Vatican, he and my father talked together for a long time +in a low tone. They were still talking when I left them to go to bed. + + + + +TWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER + + +At breakfast next morning my father told me that something unexpected +had occurred to require that we should return home immediately, and +therefore he had sent over to Cook's for seats by the noon express. + +I was deeply disappointed, but I knew my father too well to demur, so I +slipped away to my room and sent a letter to Martin, explaining the +change in our plans and saying good-bye to him. + +When we reached the station, however, I found Martin waiting on the +platform in front of the compartment that was labelled with our name. + +I thought my father was even more brusque with him than before, and the +Bishop, who was to travel with us, was curt almost to rudeness. But +Martin did not seem to mind that this morning, for his lower lip had the +stiff setting which I had seen in it when he was a boy, and after I +stepped into the carriage he stepped in after me, leaving the two men on +the platform. + +"Shall you be long away?" I asked. + +"Too long unfortunately. Six months, nine--perhaps twelve, worse luck! +Wish I hadn't to go at all," he answered. + +I was surprised and asked why, whereupon he stammered some excuse, and +then said abruptly: + +"I suppose you'll not be married for some time at all events?" + +I told him I did not know, everything depending on my father. + +"Anyhow, you'll see and hear for yourself when you reach home, and then +perhaps you'll. . . ." + +I answered that I should have to do what my father desired, being a +girl, and therefore. . . . + +"But surely a girl has some rights of her own," he said, and then I was +silent and a little ashamed, having a sense of female helplessness +which I had never felt before and could find no words for. + +"I'll write to your father," he said, and just at that moment the bell +rang, and my father came into the compartment, saying: + +"Now then, young man, if you don't want to be taken up to the North Pole +instead of going down to the South one. . . ." + +"That's all right, sir. Don't you trouble about _me_. I can take care of +myself," said Martin. + +Something in his tone must have said more than his words to my father +and the Bishop, for I saw that they looked at each other with surprise. + +Then the bell rang again, the engine throbbed, and Martin said, +"Good-bye! Good-bye!" + +While the train moved out of the station he stood bareheaded on the +platform with such a woebegone face that looking back at him my throat +began to hurt me as it used to do when I was a child. + +I was very sad that day as we travelled north. My adopted country had +become dear to me during my ten years' exile from home, and I thought I +was seeing the last of my beautiful Italy, crowned with sunshine and +decked with flowers. + +But there was another cause of my sadness, and that was the thought of +Martin's uneasiness about my marriage the feeling that if he had +anything to say to my father he ought to have said it then. + +And there was yet another cause of which I was quite unconscious--that +like every other girl before love dawns on her, half of my nature was +still asleep, the half that makes life lovely and the world dear. + +To think that Martin Conrad was the one person who could have wakened my +sleeping heart! That a word, a look, a smile from him that day could +have changed the whole current of my life, and that. . . . + +But no, I will not reproach him. Have I not known since the day on St. +Mary's Rock that above all else he is a born gentleman? + +And yet. . . . And yet. . . . + + + + +MEMORANDUM BY MARTIN CONRAD + + +And yet I was a fool, or in spite of everything I should have spoken to +Daniel O'Neill before he left Rome. I should have said to him: + +"Do you know that the man to whom you are going to marry your daughter +is a profligate and a reprobate? If you _do_ know this, are you +deliberately selling her, body and soul, to gratify your lust of rank +and power and all the rest of your rotten aspirations?" + +That is what I ought to have done, but didn't do. I was afraid of being +thought to have personal motives--of interfering where I wasn't wanted, +of butting in when I had no right. + +Yet I felt I _had_ a right, and I had half a mind to throw up everything +and go back to Ellan. But the expedition was the big chance I had been +looking forward to and I could not give it up. + +So I resolved to write. But writing isn't exactly my job, and it took me +a fortnight to get anything done to my satisfaction. By that time we +were at Port Said, and from there I posted three letters,--the first to +Daniel O'Neill, the second to Bishop Walsh, the third to Father Dan. + +Would they reach in time? If so, would they be read and considered or +resented and destroyed? + +I did not know. I could not guess. And then I was going down into the +deep Antarctic night, where no sound from the living world could reach +me. + +What would happen before I could get back? Only God could say. + + M.C. + + + + +SECOND PART + +MY MARRIAGE + +TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER + + +Notwithstanding my father's anxiety to leave Rome we travelled slowly +and it was a week before we reached Ellan. By that time my depression +had disappeared, and I was quivering with mingled curiosity and fear at +the thought of meeting the man who was to be my husband. + +My father, for reasons of his own, was equally excited, and as we sailed +into the bay at Blackwater he pointed out the developments which had +been made under his direction--the hotels, theatres, dancing palaces and +boarding houses that lined the sea-front, and the electric railways that +ran up to the tops of the mountains. + +"See that?" he cried. "I told them I could make this old island hum." + +On a great stone pier that stood deep into the bay, a crowd of people +were waiting for the arrival of the steamer. + +"That's nothing," said my father. "Nothing to what you see at the height +of the season." + +As soon as we had drawn up alongside the pier, and before the passengers +had landed, four gentlemen came aboard, and my heart thumped with the +thought that my intended husband would be one of them; but he was not, +and the first words spoken to my father were-- + +"His lordship's apologies, sir. He has an engagement to-day, but hopes +to see you at your own house to-morrow morning." + +I recognised the speaker as the guardian (grown greyer and even less +prepossessing) who had crossed with the young Lord Raa when he was going +up to Oxford; and his companions were a smooth-faced man with searching +eyes who was introduced as his lordship's solicitor from London, a Mr. +Curphy, whom I knew to be my father's advocate, and my dear old Father +Dan. + +I was surprised to find Father Dan a smaller man than I had thought him, +very plain and provincial, a little country parish priest, but he had +the tender smile I always remembered, and the sweet Irish roll of the +vowels that I could never forget. + +"God bless you," he said. "How well you're looking! And how like your +mother, Lord rest her soul! I knew the Blessed Virgin would take care of +you, and she has, she has." + +Three conveyances were waiting for us--a grand brougham for the Bishop, +a big motor-car for the guardian and the London lawyer, and a still +bigger one for ourselves. + +"Well, s'long until to-morrow then," cried my father, getting up into +the front row of his own ear, with the advocate beside him and Father +Dan and myself behind. + +On the way home Father Dan talked of the business that had brought me +back, saying I was not to think too much of anything he might have said +of Lord Raa in his letters, seeing that he had spoken from hearsay, and +the world was so censorious--and then there was no measuring the +miraculous influence that might be exercised by a good woman. + +He said this with a certain constraint, and was more at ease when he +spoke of the joy that ought to come into a girl's life at her +marriage--her first love, her first love-letter, her wedding-day and her +first baby, all the sweet and wonderful things of a new existence which +a man could never know. + +"Even an old priest may see that," he said, with a laugh and a pat of my +hand. + +We dropped Mr. Curphy at his house in Holmtown, and then my father sat +with us at the back, and talked with tremendous energy of what he had +done, of what he was going to do, and of all the splendours that were +before me. + +"You'll be the big woman of the island, gel, and there won't be a +mother's son that dare say boo to you." + +I noticed that, in his excitement, his tongue, dropping the suggestion +of his adopted country, reverted to the racy speech of his native soil; +and I had a sense of being with him before I was born, when he returned +home from America with millions of dollars at his back, and the people +who had made game of his father went down before his face like a flood. + +Such of them as had not done so then (being of the "aristocracy" of the +island and remembering the humble stock he came from) were to do so now, +for in the second generation, and by means of his daughter's marriage, +he was going to triumph over them all. + +"We'll beat 'em, gel! My gough, yes, we'll beat 'em!" he cried, with a +flash of his black eyes and a masterful lift of his eyebrows. + +As we ran by the mansions of the great people of Ellan, he pointed them +out to me with a fling of the arm and spoke of the families in a tone of +contempt. + +"See that? That's Christian of Balla-Christian. The man snubbed me six +months ago. He'll know better six months to come. . . . That's Eyreton. +His missus was too big to call on your mother--she'll call on you, +though, you go bail. See yonder big tower in the trees? That's +Folksdale, where the Farragans live. The daughters have been walking +over the world like peacocks, but they'll crawl on it like cockroaches +. . . Hulloh, here's ould Balgean of Eagle Hill, in his grand carriage +with his English coachman. . . . See that, though? See him doff his hat +to you, the ould hypocrite? He knows something. He's got an inkling. +Things travel. We'll beat 'em, gel, we'll beat 'em! They'll be round us +like bees about a honeypot." + +It was impossible not to catch the contagion of my father's triumphant +spirits, and in my different way I found myself tingling with delight as +I recognised the scenes associated with my childhood--the village, the +bridge, the lane to Sunny Lodge and Murphy's Mouth, and the trees that +bordered our drive. + +Nearly everything looked smaller or narrower or lower than I had +thought, but I had forgotten how lovely they all were, lying so snugly +under the hill and with the sea in front of them. + +Our house alone when we drove up to it seemed larger than I had +expected, but my father explained this by saying: + +"Improvements, gel! I'll show you over them to-morrow morning." + +Aunt Bridget (white-headed now and wearing spectacles and a white cap), +Betsy Beauty (grown tall and round, with a kind of country comeliness) +and Nessy MacLeod (looking like a premature old maid who was doing her +best to be a girl) were waiting at the open porch when our car drew up, +and they received me with surprising cordiality. + +"Here she is at last!" said Aunt Bridget. + +"And such luck as she has come home to!" said Betsy Beauty. + +There were compliments on the improvement in my appearance (Aunt Bridget +declaring she could not have believed it, she really could not), and +then Nessy undertook to take me to my room. + +"It's the same room still, Mary," said my Aunt, calling to me as I went +upstairs. "When they were changing everything else I remembered your +poor dear mother and wouldn't hear of their changing that. It isn't a +bit altered." + +It was not. Everything was exactly as I remembered it. But just as I was +beginning for the first time in my life to feel grateful to Aunt +Bridget, Nessy said: + +"No thanks to her, though. If she'd had her way, she would have wiped +out every trace of your mother, and arranged this marriage for her own +daughter instead." + +More of the same kind she said which left me with the impression that my +father was now the god of her idolatry, and that my return was not too +welcome to my aunt and cousin; but as soon as she was gone, and I was +left alone, home began to speak to me in soft and entrancing whispers. + +How my pulses beat, how my nerves tingled! Home! Home! Home! + +From that dear spot everything seemed to be the same, and everything had +something to say to me. What sweet and tender and touching memories! + +Here was the big black four-post bed, with the rosary hanging at its +head; and here was the praying-stool with the figure of Our Lady on the +wall above it. + +I threw up the window, and there was the salt breath of the sea in the +crisp island air; there was the sea itself glistening in the afternoon +sunshine; there was St Mary's Rock draped in its garment of sea-weed, +and there were the clouds of white sea-gulls whirling about it. + +Taking off my hat and coat I stepped downstairs and out of the +house--going first into the farm-yard where the spring-less carts were +still clattering over the cobble-stones; then into the cow-house, where +the milkmaids were still sitting on low stools with their heads against +the sides of the slow-eyed Brownies, and the milk rattling in their +noisy pails; then into the farm-kitchen, where the air was full of the +odour of burning turf and the still sweeter smell of cakes baking on a +griddle; and finally into the potting-shed in the garden, where Tommy +the Mate (more than ever like a weather-beaten old salt) was still +working as before. + +The old man looked round with his "starboard eye," and recognised me +instantly. + +"God bless my sowl," he cried, "if it isn't the lil' missy! Well, well! +Well, well! And she's a woman grown! A real lady too! My gracious; yes," +he said, after a second and longer look, "and there hasn't been the +match of her on this island since they laid her mother under the sod!" + +I wanted to ask him a hundred questions, but Aunt Bridget, who had been +watching from a window, called from the house to say she was "mashing" a +cup of tea for me, so I returned to the drawing-room where (my father +being busy with his letters in the library) Betsy Beauty talked for half +an hour about Lord Raa, his good looks, distinguished manners and +general accomplishments. + +"But aren't you just dying to see him?" she said. + +I saw him the following morning. + + + + +TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER + + +I was sitting in my own room, writing to the Reverend Mother, to tell +her of my return home, when I heard the toot of a horn and raising my +eyes saw a motor-car coming up the drive. It contained three gentlemen, +one of them wore goggles and carried a silver-haired terrier on his +knees. + +A little later Nessy MacLeod came to tell me that Lord Raa and his party +had arrived and I was wanted immediately. + +I went downstairs hesitatingly, with a haunting sense of coming trouble. +Reaching the door of the drawing-room I saw my intended husband for the +first time--there being nothing in his appearance to awaken in me the +memory of ever having seen him before. + +He was on the hearthrug in front of the fire, talking to Betsy Beauty, +who was laughing immoderately. To get a better look at him, and at the +same time to compose myself, I stopped for a moment to speak to the +three gentlemen (the two lawyers and Lord Raa's trustee or guardian) who +were standing with my father in the middle of the floor. + +He was undoubtedly well-dressed and had a certain air of breeding, but +even to my girlish eyes he betrayed at that first sight the character of +a man who had lived an irregular, perhaps a dissipated life. + +His face was pale, almost puffy, his grey eyes were slow and heavy, his +moustache was dark and small, his hair was thin over his forehead, and +he had a general appearance of being much older than his years, which I +knew to be thirty-three. + +His manners, when I approached him, were courteous and gentle, almost +playful and indulgent, but through all their softness there pierced a +certain hardness, not to say brutality, which I afterwards learned (when +life had had its tug at me) to associate with a man who has spent much +of his time among women of loose character. + +Betsy Beauty made a great matter of introducing us; but in a drawling +voice, and with a certain play of humour, he told her it was quite +unnecessary, since we were very old friends, having made each other's +acquaintance as far back as ten years ago, when I was the prettiest +little woman in the world, he remembered, though perhaps my manners were +not quite cordial. + +"We had a slight difference on the subject of kisses. Don't you remember +it?" + +Happily there was no necessity to reply, for my father came to say that +he wished to show his lordship the improvements he had been making, and +the rest of us were at liberty to follow them. + +The improvements consisted chiefly of a new wing to the old house, +containing a dining room, still unfurnished, which had been modelled, as +I found later, on the corresponding room in Castle Raa. + +With a proud lift of his white head my father pointed out the beauties +of his new possession, while my intended husband, with his monocle to +his eye, looked on with a certain condescension, and answered with a +languid humour that narrowly bordered on contempt. + +"Oak, sir, solid oak," said my father, rapping with his knuckles on the +tall, dark, heavy wainscoting. + +"As old as our hearts and as hard as our heads, I suppose," said Lord +Raa. + +"Harder than some, sir," said my father. + +"Exactly," said Lord Raa in his slow drawl, and then there was general +laughter. + +The bell rang for luncheon, and we went into the plain old dining room, +where Aunt Bridget placed her principal guest on her right and told him +all about her late husband, the Colonel, his honours and military +achievements. + +I could see that Lord Raa was soon very weary of this, and more than +once, sitting by his side, I caught the cynical and rather supercilious +responses to which, under the gloss of his gracious manners, Aunt +Bridget seemed quite oblivious. + +I was so nervous and embarrassed that I spoke very little during +luncheon, and even Aunt Bridget observed this at last. + +"Mary, dear, why don't you speak?" she said. + +But without waiting for my reply she proceeded to explain to his +lordship that the strangest change had come over me since I was a child, +when I had been the sauciest little chatterbox in the world, whereas now +I was so shy that it was nearly impossible to get a word out of me. + +"Hope I shall be able to get one word out of her, at least," said his +lordship, whereupon Aunt Bridget smiled significantly and Betsy Beauty +burst into fits of laughter. + +Almost before the meal was over, my father rose from his seat at the +head of the table, and indicating the lawyers who sat near to him, he +said: + +"These gentlemen and I have business to fix up--money matters and all +that--so I guess we'll step into the library and leave you young people +to look after yourselves." + +Everybody rose to leave the room. + +"All back for tea-time," said Aunt Bridget. + +"Of course you don't want _me_," said Betsy Beauty with a giggle, and at +the next moment I was alone with his lordship, who drew a long breath +that was almost like a yawn, and said: + +"Is there no quiet place we can slip away to?" + +There was the glen at the back of the house (the Cape Flora of Martin +Conrad), so I took him into that, not without an increasing sense of +embarrassment. It was a clear October day, the glen was dry, and the air +under the shadow of the thinning trees was full of the soft light of the +late autumn. + +"Ah, this is better," said his lordship. + +He lit a cigar and walked for some time by my side without speaking, +merely flicking the seeding heads off the dying thistles with his +walking stick, and then ruckling it through the withered leaves with +which the path was strewn. + +But half way up the glen he began to look aslant at me through his +monocle, and then to talk about my life in Rome, wondering how I could +have been content to stay so long at the Convent, and hinting at a +rumour which had reached him that I had actually wished to stay there +altogether. + +"Extraordinary! 'Pon my word, extraordinary! It's well enough for women +who have suffered shipwreck in their lives to live in such places, but +for a young gal with any fortune, any looks . . . why I wonder she +doesn't die of _ennui_." + +I was still too nervous and embarrassed to make much protest, so he went +on to tell me with what difficulty he supported the boredom of his own +life even in London, with its clubs, its race-meetings, its dances, its +theatres and music halls, and the amusement to be got out of some of the +ladies of society, not to speak of certain well-known professional +beauties. + +One of his great friends--his name was Eastcliff--was going to marry the +most famous of the latter class (a foreign dancer at the "Empire"), and +since he was rich and could afford to please himself, why shouldn't he? + +When we reached the waterfall at the top of the glen (it had been the +North Cape of Martin Conrad), we sat on a rustic seat which stands +there, and then, to my still deeper embarrassment, his lordship's +conversation came to close quarters. + +Throwing away his cigar and taking his silver-haired terrier on his lap +he said: + +"Of course you know what the business is which the gentlemen are +discussing in the library?" + +As well as I could for the nervousness that was stifling me, I answered +that I knew. + +He stroked the dog with one hand, prodded his stick into the gravel with +the other, and said: + +"Well, I don't know what your views about marriage are. Mine, I may say, +are liberal." + +I listened without attempting to reply. + +"I think nine-tenths of the trouble that attends married life--the +breakdowns and what not--come of an irrational effort to tighten the +marriage knot." + +Still I said nothing. + +"To imagine that two independent human beings can be tied together like +a couple of Siamese twins, neither to move without the other, living +precisely the same life, year in, year out . . . why, it's silly, +positively silly." + +In my ignorance I could find nothing to say, and after another moment my +intended husband swished the loosened gravel with his stick and said: + +"I believe in married people leaving each other free--each going his and +her own way--what do you think?" + +I must have stammered some kind of answer--I don't know what--for I +remember that he said next: + +"Quite so, that's my view of matrimony, and I'm glad to see you appear +to share it. . . . Tell the truth, I was afraid you wouldn't," he added, +with something more about the nuns and the convent. + +I wanted to say that I didn't, but my nervousness was increasing every +moment, and before I could find words in which to protest he was +speaking to me again. + +"Our friends in the library seem to think that you and I could get along +together, and I'm disposed to think they're right--aren't you?" + +In my ignorance and helplessness, and with the consciousness of what I +was expected to do, I merely looked at him without speaking. + +Then he fixed his monocle afresh, and, looking back at me in a curious +way, he said: + +"I don't think I should bore you, my dear. In fact, I should be rather +proud of having a good-looking woman for my wife, and I fancy I could +give you a good time. In any case"--this with a certain +condescension--"my _name_ might be of some use to you." + +A sort of shame was creeping over me. The dog was yawning in my face. My +intended husband threw it off his knee. + +"Shall we consider it a settled thing, then?" he asked, and when in my +confusion I still made no reply (having nothing which I felt myself +entitled to say), he said something about Aunt Bridget and what she had +told him at luncheon about my silence and shyness, and then rising to +his feet he put my arm through his own, and turned our faces towards +home. + +That was all. As I am a truthful woman, that was everything. Not a word +from me, nay, not half a word, merely a passive act of silent +acquiescence, and in my youthful and almost criminal innocence I was +committed to the most momentous incident of my life. + +But if there was no love-making, no fondling, no kissing, no courtship +of any kind, and none of the delirious rapture which used to be +described in Alma's novels, I was really grateful for that, and +immensely relieved to find that matters could he completed without them. + +When we reached the house, the bell was ringing for tea and my father +was coming out of the library, followed by the lawyers. + +"So that's all right, gentlemen?" he was saying. + +"Yes, that's all right, sir," they were answering; and then, seeing us +as we entered, my father said to Lord Raa: + +"And what about you two?" + +"We're all right also," said his lordship in his drawling voice. + +"Good!" said my father, and he slapped his lordship sharply on the back, +to his surprise, and I think, discomfiture. + +Then with a cackle of light laughter among the men, we all trooped into +the drawing room. + +Aunt Bridget in her gold-rimmed spectacles and new white cap, poured out +the tea from our best silver tea-pot, while Nessy MacLeod with a +geranium in her red hair, and Betsy Beauty, with large red roses in her +bosom, handed round the cups. After a moment, my father, with a radiant +face, standing back to the fire, said in a loud voice: + +"Friends all, I have something to tell you." + +Everybody except myself looked up and listened, though everybody knew +what was coming. + +"We've had a stiff tussle in the library this afternoon, but everything +is settled satisfactory--and the marriage is as good as made." + +There was a chorus of congratulations for me, and a few for his +lordship, and then my father said again: + +"Of course there'll be deeds to draw up, and I want things done correct, +even if it costs me a bit of money. But we've only one thing more to fix +up to-day, and then we're through--the wedding. When is it to come off?" + +An appeal was made to me, but I felt it was only formal, so I glanced +across to Lord Raa without speaking. + +"Come now," said my father, looking from one to the other. "The clean +cut is the short cut, you know, and when I'm sot on doing a thing, I +can't take rest till it's done. What do you say to this day next month?" + +I bowed and my intended husband, in his languid way, said: + +"Agreed!" + +A few minutes afterwards the motor was ordered round, and the gentlemen +prepared to go. Then the silver-haired terrier was missed, and for the +first time that day his lordship betrayed a vivid interest, telling us +its price and pedigree and how much he would give rather than lose it. +But at the last moment Tommy appeared with the dog in his arms and +dropped it into the car, whereupon my intended husband thanked him +effusively. + +"Yes," said Tommy, "I thought you set store by _that_, sir." + +At the next moment the car was gone. + +"Well, you _are_ a lucky girl," said Betsy Beauty; and Aunt Bridget +began to take credit to herself for all that had come to pass, and to +indicate the methods by which she meant to manage Castle Raa as soon as +ever I became mistress of it. + +Thus in my youth, my helplessness, my ignorance, and my inexperience I +became engaged to the man who had been found and courted for me. If I +acquiesced, I had certainly not been consulted. My father had not +consulted me. My intended husband had not consulted me. Nobody consulted +me. I am not even sure that I thought anybody was under any obligation +to consult me. Love had not spoken to me, sex was still asleep in me, +and my marriage was arranged before my deeper nature knew what was being +done. + + + + +TWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTER + + +The next weeks were full of hurry, hubbub and perturbation. Our house +was turned upside down. Milliners, sewing-maids and dressmakers were +working day and night. Flowers, feathers and silk remnants were flowing +like sea-wrack into every room. Orders were given, orders were retracted +and given again, and then again retracted. + +Such flying up and down stairs! Everybody so breathless! Everybody so +happy! Every face wearing a smile! Every tongue rippling with laughter! +The big grey mansion which used to seem so chill and cold felt for the +first time like a house of joy. + +In the midst of these busy preparations I had no time to think. My +senses were excited. I was dazed, stunned, wrapped round by a kind of +warm air of hot-house happiness, and this condition of moral +intoxication increased as the passing of the days brought fresh +developments. + +Our neighbours began to visit us. My father had been right about the +great people of the island. Though they had stood off so long, they +found their account in my good fortune, and as soon as my marriage was +announced they came in troops to offer their congratulations. + +Never, according to Tommy the Mate, had the gravel of our carriage drive +been so rucked up by the pawing feet of high-bred horses. But their +owners were no less restless. It was almost pitiful to see their +shamefacedness as they entered our house for the first time, and to +watch the shifts they were put to in order to account for the fact that +they had never been there before. + +Aunt Bridget's vanity was too much uplifted by their presence to be +particular about their excuses, but my father's contempt of their +subterfuges was naked and undisguised, and I hardly know whether to feel +amused or ashamed when I think of how he scored off them, how he lashed +them to the bone, with what irony and sarcasm he scorched their +time-serving little souls. + +When they were very great folks, the "aristocracy" of Ellan, he +pretended not to know who they were, and asked their names, their +father's names, and what parishes they came from. + +"Some of the Christians of Balla-Christian, are you? Think of that now. +And me a born Ellanman, and not knowing you from Adam!" + +When they were very near neighbours, with lands that made boundary with +our own, he pretended to think they had been twenty years abroad, or +perhaps sick, or even dead and buried. + +"Too bad, ma'am, too bad," he would say. "And me thinking you were under +the sod through all the lonely years my poor wife was ill and dying." + +But when they were insular officials, who "walked on the stars," and +sometimes snubbed him in public, the rapier of ridicule was too light +for his heavy hand, and he took up the sledge-hammer, telling them he +was the same man to-day as yesterday, and only his circumstances were +different--his daughter being about to become the lady of the first +house in the island, and none of them being big enough to be left out of +it. + +After such scenes Aunt Bridget, for all her despotism within her own +doors, used to tremble with dread of our neighbours taking lasting +offence, but my father would say: + +"Chut, woman, they'll come again, and make no more faces about it." + +They did, and if they were shy of my father they were gracious enough +to me, saying it was such a good thing for society in the island that +Castle Raa was to have a lady, a real lady, at the head of it at last. + +Then came their wedding presents--pictures, books, silver ornaments, +gold ornaments, clocks, watches, chains, jewellery, until my bedroom was +blocked up with them. As each fresh parcel arrived there would be a rush +of all the female members of our household to open it, after which Betsy +Beauty would say: + +"What a lucky girl you are!" + +I began to think I was. I found it impossible to remain unaffected by +the whirlwind of joyous turmoil in which I lived. The refulgence of the +present hour wiped out the past, which seemed to fade away altogether. +After the first few days I was flying about from place to place, and +wherever I went I was a subject for congratulation and envy. + +If there were moments of misgiving, when, like the cold wind out of a +tunnel, there came the memory of the Reverend Mother and the story she +had told me at Nemi, there were other moments when I felt quite sure +that, in marrying Lord Raa, I should be doing a self-sacrificing thing +and a kind of solemn duty. + +One such moment was when Mr. Curphy, my father's advocate, who with his +clammy hands always made me think of an over-fatted fish, came to tell +him that, after serious legal difficulties, the civil documents had been +agreed to, for, after he had finished with my father, he drew me aside +and said, as he smoothed his long brown beard: + +"You ought to be a happy girl, Mary. I suppose you know what you are +doing for your father? You are wiping out the greatest disappointment of +his life, and rectifying the cruelty--the inevitable cruelty--of the +law, when you were born a daughter after he had expected a son." + +Another such moment was when the Bishop came, in his grand carriage, to +say that after much discussion he had persuaded his lordship to sign the +necessary declaration that all the children of our union, irrespective +of sex, should be brought up as Catholics, for taking me aside, as the +advocate had done the day before, he said, in his suave voice, fingering +his jewelled cross: + +"I congratulate you, my child. Yours is a great and precious +privilege--the privilege of bringing back to the Church a family which +has been estranged from it for nineteen years." + +At the end of a fortnight we signed the marriage settlement. The little +ceremony took place in the drawing-room of my father's house. My +intended husband, who had not been to see me in the meantime, brought +with him (as well as his trustee and lawyer) a lady and a gentleman. + +The lady was his maiden aunt, Lady Margaret Anslem, a fair woman of +about forty, fashionably dressed, redolent of perfume, and (except to +me, to whom she talked quite amicably) rather reserved and haughty, as +if the marriage of her nephew into our family were a bitter pill which +she had compelled herself to swallow. + +The gentleman was a tall young man wearing a very high collar and +cravat, and using a handkerchief with embroidered initials in the corner +of it. He turned out to be the Hon. Edward Eastcliff--the great friend +who, being rich enough to please himself, was about to marry the +professional beauty. + +I noticed that Aunt Bridget, with something of the instinct of the fly +about the flame, immediately fixed herself upon the one, and that Betsy +Beauty attached herself to the other. + +Lord Raa himself looked as tired as before, and for the first half-hour +he behaved as if he did not quite know what to do with himself for +wretchedness and _ennui_. + +Then the deeds were opened and spread out on a table, and though the +gentlemen seemed to be trying not to discuss the contents aloud I could +not help hearing some of the arrangements that had been made for the +payment of my intended husband's debts, and certain details of his +annual allowance. + +Looking back upon that ugly hour, I wonder why, under the circumstances, +I should have been so wounded, but I remember that a sense of discomfort +amounting to shame came upon me at sight of the sorry bargaining. It +seemed to have so little to do with the spiritual union of souls, which +I had been taught to think marriage should be. But I had no time to +think more about that before my father, who had signed the documents +himself in his large, heavy hand, was saying. + +"Now, gel, come along, we're waiting for your signature." + +I cannot remember that I read anything. I cannot remember that anything +was read to me. I was told where to sign, and I signed, thinking what +must be must be, and that was all I had to do with the matter. + +I was feeling a little sick, nevertheless, and standing by the tire +with one foot on the fender, when Lord Raa came up to me at the end, and +said in his drawling voice: + +"So it's done." + +"Yes, it's done," I answered. + +After a moment he talked of where we were to live, saying we must of +course pass most of our time in London. + +"But have you any choice about the honeymoon," he said, "where we should +spend it, I mean?" + +I answered that he would know best, but when he insisted on my choosing, +saying it was my right to do so, I remembered that during my time in the +Convent the one country in the world I had most desired to see was the +Holy Land. + +Never as long as I live shall I forget the look in his lordship's grey +eyes when I gave this as my selection. + +"You mean Jerusalem--Nazareth--the Dead Sea and all that?" he asked. + +I felt my face growing red as at a frightful _faux pas_, but his +lordship only laughed, called me his "little nun," and said that since I +had been willing to leave the choice to him he would suggest Egypt and +Italy, and Berlin and Paris on the way back, with the condition that we +left Ellan for London on the day of our marriage. + +After the party from Castle Raa had gone, leaving some of their family +lace and pearls behind for the bride to wear at her wedding, and after +Aunt Bridget had hoped that "that woman" (meaning Lady Margaret) didn't +intend to live at the Castle after my marriage, because such a thing +would not fit in with her plans "at all, at all," I mentioned the +arrangements for the honeymoon, whereupon Betsy Beauty, to whom Italy +was paradise, and London glimmered in an atmosphere of vermillion and +gold, cried out as usual: + +"What a lucky, lucky girl you are!" + +But the excitement which had hitherto buoyed me up was partly dispelled +by this time, and I was beginning to feel some doubt of it. + + + + +TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER + + +As my wedding-day approached and time ran short, the air of joy which +had pervaded our house was driven out by an atmosphere of irritation. We +were all living on our nerves. The smiles that used to be at everybody's +service gave place to frowns, and, in Aunt Bridget's case, to angry +words which were distributed on all sides and on all occasions. + +As a consequence I took refuge in my room, and sat long hours there in +my dressing-gown and slippers, hearing the hubbub that was going on in +the rest of the house, but taking as little part in it as possible. In +this semi-conventual silence and solitude, the excitement which had +swept me along for three weeks subsided rapidly. + +I began to think, and above all to feel, and the one thing I felt beyond +everything else was a sense of something wanting. + +I remembered the beautiful words of the Pope about marriage as a mystic +relation, a sacred union of souls, a bond of love such as Christ's love +for His Church, and I asked myself if I felt any such love for the man +who was to become my husband. + +I knew I did not. I reminded myself that I had had nearly no +conversation with him, that our intercourse had been of the briefest, +that I had seen him only three times altogether, and that I scarcely +knew him at all. + +And yet I was going to marry him! In a few days more I should be his +wife, and we should be bound together as long as life should last! + +Then I remembered what Father Dan had said about a girl's first love, +her first love-letter, and all the sweet, good things that should come +to her at the time of her marriage. + +None of them had come to me. I do not think my thoughts of love were +ever disturbed by any expectation of the delights of the heart--languors +of tenderness, long embraces, sighs and kisses, and the joys and fevers +of the flesh--for I knew nothing about them. But, nevertheless, I asked +myself if I had mistaken the matter altogether. Was love really +necessary? In all their busy preparations neither my father, nor my +husband, nor the lawyers, nor the Bishop himself, had said anything +about that. + +I began to sleep badly and to dream. It was always the same dream. I was +in a frozen region of the far north or south, living in a ship which was +stuck fast in the ice, and had a great frowning barrier before it that +was full of dangerous crevasses. Then for some reason I wanted to write +a letter, but was unable to do so, because somebody had trodden on my +pen and broken it. + +It seems strange to me now as I look back upon that time, that I did not +know what angel was troubling the waters of my soul--that Nature was +whispering to me, as it whispers to every girl at the first great crisis +of her life. But neither did I know what angel was leading my footsteps +when, three mornings before my wedding-day, I got up early and went out +to walk in the crisp salt air. + +Almost without thinking I turned down the lane that led to the shore, +and before I was conscious of where I was going, I found myself near +Sunny Lodge. The chimney was smoking for breakfast, and there was a +smell of burning turf coming from the house, which was so pretty and +unchanged, with the last of the year's roses creeping over the porch and +round the windows of the room in which I had slept when a child. + +Somebody was digging in the garden. It was the doctor in his shirt +sleeves. + +"Good morning, doctor," I called, speaking over the fence. + +He rested on his spade and looked up, but did not speak for a moment. + +"Don't you know who I am?" I asked. + +"Why yes, of course; you must be. . . ." + +Without finishing he turned his head towards the porch and cried: + +"Mother! Mother! Come and see who's here at last!" + +Martin's mother came out of the porch, a little smaller, I thought, but +with the same dear womanly face over her light print frock, which was as +sweet as may-blossom. + +She held up both hands at sight of me and cried: + +"There, now! What did I tell you, doctor! Didn't I say they might marry +her to fifty lords, but she wouldn't forget her old friends!" + +I laughed, the doctor laughed, and then she laughed, and the sweetest +part of it was that she did not know what we were laughing at. + +Then I opened the gate and stepped up and held out my hand, and +involuntarily she wiped her own hand (which was covered with meal from +the porridge she was making) before taking mine. + +"Goodness me, it's Mary O'Neill." + +"Yes, it's I." + +"But let me have a right look at you," she said, taking me now by both +hands. "They were saying such wonderful things about the young misthress +that I wasn't willing to believe them. But, no, no," she said, after a +moment, "they didn't tell me the half." + +I was still laughing, but it was as much as I could do not to cry, so I +said: + +"May I come in?" + +"My goodness yes, and welcome," she said, and calling to the doctor to +wash his hands and follow us, she led the way into the kitchen-parlour, +where the kettle was singing from the "slowery" and a porridge-pot was +bubbling over the fire. + +"Sit down. Take the elbow-chair in the chiollagh [the hearth place]. +There! That's nice. Aw, yes, you know the house." + +Being by this time unable to speak for a lump in my throat that was +hurting me, I looked round the room, so sweet, so homely, so closely +linked with tender memories of my childhood, while Martin's mother +(herself a little nervous and with a touching softness in her face) went +on talking while she stirred the porridge with a porridge-stick. + +"Well, well! To think of all the years since you came singing carols to +my door! You remember it, don't you? . . . Of course you do. 'Doctor,' I +said, 'don't talk foolish. _She'll_ not forget. _I_ know Mary O'Neill. +She may be going to be a great lady, but haven't I nursed her on my +knee?'" + +"Then you've heard what's to happen?" I asked. + +"Aw yes, woman, yes," she answered in a sadder tone, I thought. +"Everybody's bound to hear it--what with the bands practising for the +procession, and the bullocks roasting for the poor, and the fireworks +and the illuminations, and I don't know what." + +She was silent for a moment after that, and then in her simple way she +said: + +"But it's all as one if you love the man, even if he _is_ a lord." + +"You think that's necessary, don't you?" + +"What, _millish?_" + +"Love. You think it's necessary to love one's husband?" + +"Goodness sakes, girl, yes. If you don't have love, what have you? +What's to keep the pot boiling when the fire's getting low and the +winter's coming on, maybe? The doctor's telling me some of the fine +ladies in London are marrying without it--just for money and titles and +all to that. But I can't believe it, I really can't! They've got their +troubles same as ourselves, poor things, and what's the use of their +fine clothes and grand carriages when the dark days come and the night's +falling on them?" + +It was harder than ever to speak now, so I got up to look at some silver +cups that stood on the mantelpiece. + +"Martin's," said his mother, to whom they were precious as rubies. "He +won them at swimming and running and leaping and climbing and all to +that. Aw, yes, yes! He was always grand at games, if he couldn't learn +his lessons, poor boy. And now he's gone away from us--looking for South +Poles somewheres." + +"I know--I saw him in Rome," said I. + +She dropped her porridge-stick and looked at me with big eyes. + +"Saw him? In Rome, you say? After he sailed, you mean?" + +I nodded, and then she cried excitedly to the doctor who was just then +coming into the house, after washing his hands under the pump. + +"Father, she saw himself in Rome after he sailed." + +There was only one _himself_ in that house, therefore it was not +difficult for the doctor to know who was meant. And so great was the +eagerness of the old people to hear the last news of the son who was the +apple of their eye that I had to stay to breakfast and tell them all +about our meeting. + +While Martin's mother laid the tables with oat-cake and honey and bowls +of milk and deep plates for the porridge, I told the little there was to +tell, and then listened to their simple comments. + +"There now, doctor! Think of that! Those two meeting in foreign parts +that used to be such friends when they were children! Like brother and +sister, you might say. And whiles and whiles we were thinking that some +day . . . but we'll say no more about that now, doctor." + +"No, we'll say no more about that now, Christian Ann," said the doctor. + +Then there was a moment of silence, and it was just as if they had been +rummaging among half-forgotten things in a dark corner of their house, +and had come upon a cradle, and the child that had lived in it was dead. + +It was sweet, but it was also painful to stay long in that house of +love, and as soon as I had eaten my oat-cake and honey I got up to go. +The two good souls saw me to the door saying I was not to expect either +of them at the Big House on my wedding-day, because she was no woman for +smart clothes, and the doctor, who was growing rheumatic, had given up +his night-calls, and therefore his gig, so as to keep down expenses. + +"We'll be at the church, though," said Martin's mother. "And if we +don't see you to speak to, you'll know we're there and wishing you +happiness in our hearts." + +I could not utter a word when I left them; but after I had walked a +little way I looked back, intending to wave my farewell, and there they +were together at the gate still, and one of her hands was on the +doctor's shoulder--the sweet woman who had chosen love against the +world, and did not regret it, even now when the night was falling on +her. + +I had to pass the Presbytery on my way home, and as I did so, I saw +Father Dan in his study. He threw up the window sash and called in a +soft voice, asking me to wait until he came down to me. + +He came down hurriedly, just as he was, in his worn and discoloured +cassock and biretta, and walked up the road by my side, breathing +rapidly and obviously much agitated. + +"The Bishop is staying with me over the wedding, and he is in such a +fury that . . . Don't worry. It will be all right. But . . ." + +"Yes?" + +"Did you see young Martin Conrad while you were in Rome?" + +I answered that I did. + +"And did anything pass between you . . . about your marriage, I mean?" + +I told him all that I had said to Martin, and all that Martin had said +to me. + +"Because he has written a long letter to the Bishop denouncing it, and +calling on him to stop it." + +"To stop it?" + +"That's so. He says it is nothing but trade and barter, and if the +Church is willing to give its blessing to such rank commercialism, let +it bless the Stock Exchange, let it sanctify the slave market." + +"Well?" + +"The Bishop threatens to tell your father. 'Who is this young man,' he +says, 'who dares to . . .' But if I thought there was nothing more to +your marriage than . . . If I imagined that what occurred in the case of +your dear mother . . . But that's not all." + +"Not all?" + +"No. Martin has written to me too, saying worse--far worse." + +"What does he say, Father Dan?" + +"I don't really know if I ought to tell you, I really don't. Yet if it's +true . . . if there's anything in it . . ." + +I was trembling, but I begged him to tell me what Martin had said. He +told me. It was about my intended husband--that he was a man of +irregular life, a notorious loose liver, who kept up a connection with +somebody in London, a kind of actress who was practically his wife +already, and therefore his marriage with me would be--so Martin had +said--nothing but "legalised and sanctified concubinage." + +With many breaks and pauses my dear old priest told me this story, as if +it were something so infamous that his simple and innocent heart could +scarcely credit it. + +"If I really thought it was true," he said, "that a man living such a +life could come here to marry my little . . . But no, God could not +suffer a thing like that. I must ask, though. I must make sure. We live +so far away in this little island that . . . But I must go back now. The +Bishop will be calling for me." + +Still deeply agitated, Father Dan left me by the bridge, and at the gate +of our drive I found Tommy the Mate on a ladder, covering, with flowers +from the conservatory, a triumphal arch which the joiner had hammered up +the day before. + +The old man hardly noticed me as I passed through, and this prompted me +to look up and speak to him. + +"Tommy," I said, "do you know you are the only one who hasn't said a +good word to me about my marriage?" + +"Am I, missy?" he answered, without looking down. "Then maybe that's +because I've had so many bad ones to say to other people." + +I asked which other people. + +"Old Johnny Christopher, for one. I met him last night at the 'Horse and +Saddle.' 'Grand doings at the Big House, they're telling me,' says +Johnny. 'I won't say no,' I says. 'It'll be a proud day for the +grand-daughter of Neill the Lord when she's mistress of Castle Raa,' +says Johnny. 'Maybe so,' I says, 'but it'll be a prouder day for Castle +Raa when she sets her clane little foot in it.'" + + + + +TWENTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER + + +I should find it difficult now, after all that has happened since, to +convey an adequate idea of the sense of shame and personal dishonour +which was produced in me by Father Dan's account of the contents of +Martin's letter. It was like opening a door out of a beautiful garden +into a stagnant ditch. + +That Martin's story was true I had never one moment's doubt, first +because Martin had told it, and next because it agreed at all points +with the little I had learned of Lord Raa in the only real conversation +I had yet had with him. + +Obviously he cared for the other woman, and if, like his friend +Eastcliff, he had been rich enough to please himself, he would have +married her; but being in debt, and therefore in need of an allowance, +he was marrying me in return for my father's money. + +It was shocking. It was sinful. I could not believe that my father, the +lawyers and the Bishop knew anything about it. + +I determined to tell them, but how to do so, being what I was, a young +girl out of a convent, I did not know. + +Never before had I felt so deeply the need of my mother. If she had been +alive I should have gone to her, and with my arms about her neck and my +face in her breast, I should have told her all my trouble. + +There was nobody but Aunt Bridget, and little as I had ever expected to +go to her under any circumstances, with many misgivings and after much +hesitation I went. + +It was the morning before the day of my marriage. I followed my aunt as +she passed through the house like a biting March wind, scolding +everybody, until I found her in her own room. + +She was ironing her new white cap, and as I entered (looking pale, I +suppose) she flopped down her flat iron on to its stand and cried: + +"Goodness me, girl, what's amiss? Caught a cold with your morning walks, +eh? Haven't I enough on my hands without that? We must send for the +doctor straight. We can't have _you_ laid up now, after all this trouble +and expense." + +"It isn't that, Auntie." + +"Then in the name of goodness what is it?" + +I told her, as well as I could for the cold grey eyes that kept looking +at me through their gold-rimmed spectacles. At first my aunt listened +with amazement, and then she laughed outright. + +"So _you've_ heard that story, have you? Mary O'Neill," she said, with a +thump of her flat iron, "I'm surprised at you." + +I asked if she thought it wasn't true. + +"How do I know if it's true? And what do I care whether it is or isn't? +Young men will be young men, I suppose." + +She went on with her ironing as she added: + +"Did you expect you were marrying a virgin? If every woman asked for +that there would be a nice lot of old maids in the world, wouldn't +there?" + +I felt myself flushing up to the forehead, yet I managed to say: + +"But if he is practically married to the other woman. . . ." + +"Not he married. Whoever thinks about marriage in company like that? You +might as well talk about marriage in the hen coop." + +"But all the same if he cares for her, Auntie. . . ." + +"Who says he cares for her? And if he does he'll settle her off and get +rid of her before he marries you." + +"But will that be right?" I said, whereupon my aunt rested her iron and +looked at me as if I had said something shameful. + +"Mary O'Neill, what do you mean? Of course it will be right. He +shouldn't have two women, should he? Do you think the man's a barn-door +rooster?" + +My confusion was increasing, but I said that in any case my intended +husband could not care for _me_, or he would have seen more of me. + +"Oh, you'll see enough of him by and by. Don't you worry about that." + +I said I was not sure that he had made me care much for him. + +"Time enough for that, too. You can't expect the man to work miracles." + +Then, with what courage was left me, I tried to say that I had been +taught to think of marriage as a sacrament, instituted by the Almighty +so that those who entered it might live together in union, peace and +love, whereas . . . + +But I had to stop, for Aunt Bridget, who had been looking at me with her +hard lip curled, said: + +"Tut! That's all right to go to church with on Sunday, but on weekdays +marriage is no moonshine, I can tell you. It's a practical matter. Just +an arrangement for making a home, and getting a family, and bringing up +children--that's what marriage is, if you ask me." + +"But don't you think love is necessary?" + +"Depends what you mean by love. If you mean what they talk about in +poetry and songs--bleeding hearts and sighs and kisses and all that +nonsense--no!" said my aunt, with a heavy bang on her ironing. + +"That's what people mean when they talk about marrying for love, and it +generally ends in poverty and misery, and sensible women have nothing to +do with it. Look at me," she said, spitting on the bottom of her iron, +"do you think I married for love when I married the colonel? No indeed! +'Here's a quiet respectable man with a nice income,' I said, 'and if I +put my little bit to his little bit we'll get along comfortably if he +_is_ a taste in years,' I said. Look at your mother, though. She was one +of the marrying-for-love kind, and if we had let her have her way where +would she have been afterwards with her fifteen years as an invalid? And +where would you have been by this time? No," said Aunt Bridget, bringing +down her flat-iron with a still heavier bang, "a common-sense marriage, +founded on suitability of position and property, and all that, is the +only proper sort of match. And that's what's before you now, girl, so +for goodness' sake don't go about like the parish pan, letting every +busybody make mischief with you. My Betsy wouldn't if she had your +chance--I can tell you that much, my lady." + +I did not speak. There was another bang or two of the flat-iron, and +then, + +"Besides, love will come. Of course it will. It will come in time. If +you don't exactly love your husband when you marry him you'll love him +later on. A wife ought to teach herself to love her husband. I know I +had to, and if. . . ." + +"But if she can't, Auntie?" + +"Then she ought to be ashamed of herself, and say nothing about it." + +It was useless to say more, so I rose to go. + +"Yes, go," said Aunt Bridget. "I'm so bothered with other people's +business that my head's all through-others. And, Mary O'Neill," she +said, looking after me as I passed through the door, "for mercy's sake +do brighten up a hit, and don't look as if marrying a husband was like +taking a dose of jalap. It isn't as bad as that, anyway." + +It served me right. I should have known better. My aunt and I spoke +different languages; we stood on different ground. + +Returning to my room I found a letter from Father Dan. It ran-- + +_"Dear Daughter in Jesus, + +"I have been afraid to go far into the story we spoke about from fear of +offending my Bishop, but I have inquired of your father and he assures +me that there is not a word of truth in it. + +"So I am compelled to believe that our good Martin must have been +misinformed, and am dismissing the matter from my mind. Trusting you +will dismiss it from your mind also, + +"Yours in Xt., + +"D.D."_ + + + + +TWENTY-NINTH CHAPTER + + +I could not do as Father Dan advised, being now enmeshed in the threads +of innumerable impulses unknown to myself, and therefore firmly +convinced that Martin's story was not only true, but a part of the whole +sordid business whereby a husband was being bought for me. + +With this thought I went about all day, asking myself what I could do +even yet, but finding no answer until nine o'clock at night, when, +immediately after supper (we lived country fashion), Aunt Bridget said: + +"Now then, off to bed, girls. Everybody must be stirring early in the +morning." + +And then I slipped upstairs to my room, and replied to Father Dan. + +Never had I written such a letter before. I poured my whole heart on to +the paper, saying what marriage meant to me, as the Pope himself had +explained it, a sacrament implying and requiring love as the very soul +of it, and since I did not feel this love for the man I was about to +marry, and had no grounds for thinking he felt it for me, and being sure +that other reasons had operated to bring us together, I begged Father +Dan, by his memory of my mother, and his affection for me, and his +desire to see me good and happy, to intervene with my father and the +Bishop, even at this late hour, and at the church door itself to stop +the ceremony. + +It was late before I finished, and I thought the household was asleep, +but just as I was coming to an end I heard my father moving in the room +below, and then a sudden impulse came to me, and with a new thought I +went downstairs and knocked at his door. + +"Who's there?" he cried. "Come in." + +He was sitting in his shirt sleeves, shaving before a looking-glass +which was propped up against two ledgers. The lather on his upper lip +gave his face a fierce if rather grotesque expression. + +"Oh, it's you," he said. "Sit down. Got to do this to-night--goodness +knows if I'll have time for it in the morning." + +I took the seat in the ingle which Father Dan occupied on the night of +my birth. The fire had nearly burnt out. + +"Thought you were in bed by this time. Guess I should have been in bed +myself but for this business. Look there"--he pointed with the handle of +his razor to the table littered with papers--"that's a bit of what I've +had to do for you. I kind o' think you ought to be grateful to your +father, my gel." + +I told him he was very kind, and then, very nervously, said: + +"But are you sure it's quite right, sir?" + +Not catching my meaning he laughed. + +"Right?" he said, holding the point of his nose aside between the tips +of his left thumb and first finger. "Guess it's about as right as law +and wax can make it." + +"I don't mean that, sir. I mean. . . ." + +"What?" he said, facing round. + +Then trembling and stammering I told him. I did not love Lord Raa. Lord +Raa did not love me. Therefore I begged him for my sake, for his sake, +for everybody's sake (I think I said for my mother's sake also) to +postpone our marriage. + +At first my father seemed unable to believe his own ears. + +"Postpone? Now? After all this money spent? And everything signed and +sealed and witnessed!" + +"Yes, if you please, sir, because. . . ." + +I got no farther, for flinging down his razor my father rose in a +towering rage. + +"Are you mad? Has somebody been putting the evil eye on you? The +greatest match this island has ever seen, and you say postpone--put it +off, stop it, that's what you mean. Do you want to make a fool of a man? +At the last moment, too. Just when there's nothing left but to go to the +High Bailiff and the Church! . . . But I see--I see what it is. It's +that young Conrad--he's been writing to you." + +I tried to say no, but my father bore me down. + +"Don't go to deny it, ma'am. He has been writing to every one--the +Bishop, Father Dan, myself even. Denouncing the marriage if you plaze." + +My father, in his great excitement, was breaking with withering scorn +into his native speech. + +"Aw yes, though, denouncing and damning it, they're telling me! Mighty +neighbourly of him, I'm sure! Just a neighbour lad without a penny at +his back to take all that throuble! If I had known he felt like that +about it I might have axed his consent! The imperence, though! The +imperence of sin! A father has no rights, it seems! A daughter is a +separate being, and all to that! Well, well! Amazing thick, isn't it?" + +He was walking up and down the room with his heavy tread, making the +floor shake. + +"Then that woman in Rome--I wouldn't trust but she has been putting +notions into your head, too. All the new-fangled fooleries, I'll go +bail. Women and men equal, not a ha'p'orth of difference between them! +The blatherskites!" + +I was silenced, and I must have covered my face and cried, for after a +while my father softened, and touching my shoulder he asked me if a man +of sixty-five was not likely to know better than a girl of nineteen what +was good for her, and whether I supposed he had not satisfied himself +that this marriage was a good thing for me and for him and for +everybody. + +"Do you think I'm not doing my best for you, gel--my very best?" + +I must have made some kind of assent, for he said: + +"Then don't moither me any more, and don't let your Aunt Bridget moither +me--telling me and telling me what I might have done for her own +daughter instead." + +At last, with a kind of rough tenderness, he took me by the arm and +raised me to my feet. + +"There, there, go to bed and get some sleep. We'll have to start off for +the high Bailiff's early in the morning." + +My will was broken down. I could resist no longer. Without a word more I +left him. + +Returning to my room I took the letter I had been writing to Father Dan +and tore it up piece by piece. As I did so I felt as if I were tearing +up a living thing--something of myself, my heart and all that was +contained in it. + +Then I threw open the window and leant out. I could hear the murmur of +the sea. I felt as if it were calling to me, though I could not +interpret its voice. The salt air was damp and it refreshed my eyelids. + +At length I got into bed, shivering with cold. When I had put out the +light I noticed that the moon, which was near the full, had a big yellow +ring of luminous vapour around it. + + + + +THIRTIETH CHAPTER + + +My sleep that night was much troubled by dreams. It was the same dream +as before, again and again repeated--the dream of frozen regions and of +the great ice barrier, and then of the broken pen. + +When I awoke in the hazy light of the dawn I thought of what the Pope +had said about beginning my wedding-day with penance and communion, so I +rose at once to go to church. + +The dawn was broadening, but the household was still asleep, only the +servants in the kitchen stirring when I stepped through a side door, and +set out across the fields. + +The dew was thick on the grass, and under the gloom of a heavy sky the +day looked cold and cheerless. A wind from the south-east had risen +during the night, the sea was white with breakers, and from St. Mary's +Rock there came the far-off moaning of surging waves. + +The church, too, when I reached it, looked empty and chill. The +sacristan in the dim choir was arranging lilies and marguerites about +the high altar, and only one poor woman, with a little red and black +shawl over her head and shoulders, was kneeling in the side chapel where +Father Dan was saying Mass, with a sleepy little boy in clogs to serve +him. + +The woman was quite young, almost as young as myself, but she was +already a widow, having lately lost her husband "at the herrings" +somewhere up by Stornoway, where he had gone down in a gale, leaving her +with one child, a year old, and another soon to come. + +All this she told me the moment I knelt near her. The poor thing seemed +to think I ought to have remembered her, for she had been at school with +me in the village. + +"I'm Bella Quark that was," she whispered. "I married Willie Shimmin of +the Lhen, you recollect. It's only a month this morning since he was +lost, but it seems like years and years. There isn't nothing in the +world like it." + +She knew about my marriage, and said she wished me joy, though the world +was "so dark and lonely for some." Then she said something about her +"lil Willie." She had left him asleep in her cottage on the Curragh, and +he might awake and cry before she got back, so she hoped Father Dan +wouldn't keep her long. + +I was so touched by the poor thing's trouble that I almost forgot my +own, and creeping up to her side I put my arm through hers as we knelt +together, and that was how the Father found us when he turned to put the +holy wafer on our tongues. + +The wind must have risen higher while I was in the church, for when I +was returning across the fields it lashed my skirts about my legs so +that I could scarcely walk. A mist had come down and made a sort of +monotonous movement in the mountains where they touched the vague line +of the heavy sky. + +I should be afraid to say that Nature was still trying to speak to me in +her strange inarticulate voice, but I cannot forget that a flock of +yearlings, which had been sheltering under a hedge, followed me bleating +to the last fence, and that the moaning of the sea about St. Mary's Rock +was the last sound I heard as I re-entered the house. + +Everything there was running like a mill-race by this time. The servants +were flying to and fro, my cousins were calling downstairs in accents of +alarm, Aunt Bridget was answering them in tones of vexation, and my +father was opening doors with a heavy push and closing them with a +clash. + +They were all so suddenly pacified when I appeared that it flashed upon +me at the moment that they must have thought I had run away. + +"Goodness gracious me, girl, where have you been?" said Aunt Bridget. + +I told her, and she was beginning to reproach me for not ordering round +the carriage, instead of making my boots and stockings damp by traipsing +across the grass, when my father said: + +"That'll do, that'll do! Change them and take a snack of something. I +guess we're due at Holmtown in half an hour." + +I ate my breakfast standing, the car was brought round, and by eight +o'clock my father and I arrived at the house of the High Bailiff, who +had to perform the civil ceremony of my marriage according to the +conditions required by law. + +The High Bailiff was on one knee before the fire in his office, holding +a newspaper in front of it to make it burn. + +"Nobody else here yet?" asked my father. + +"Traa dy liooar" (time enough), the High Bailiff muttered. + +He was an elderly man of intemperate habits who spent his nights at the +"Crown and Mitre," and was apparently out of humour at having been +brought out of bed so early. + +His office was a room of his private house. It had a high desk, a stool +and a revolving chair. Placards were pinned on the walls, one over +another, and a Testament, with the binding much worn, lay on a table. +The place looked half like a doctor's consulting room, and half like a +small police court. + +Presently Mr. Curphy, my father's advocate, came in, rather irritatingly +cheerful in that chill atmosphere, and, half an hour late, my intended +husband arrived, with his London lawyer and his friend Eastcliff. + +My mind was far from clear and I had a sense of seeing things by flashes +only, but I remember that I thought Lord Raa was very nervous, and it +even occurred to me that early as it was he had been drinking. + +"Beastly nuisance, isn't it?" he said to me aside, and then there was +something about "this legal fuss and fuddlement." + +With the air of a man with a grievance the High Bailiff took a big book +out of the desk, and a smaller one off a shelf, and then we sat in a +half circle, and the ceremony began. + +It was very brief and cold like a matter of business. As far as I can +remember it consisted of two declarations which Lord Raa and I made +first to the witnesses present and afterwards to each other. One of them +stated that we knew of no lawful impediment why we should not be joined +together in matrimony, and the other declared that we were there and +then so joined. + +I remember that I repeated the words automatically, as the High Bailiff +in his thick alcoholic voice read them out of the smaller of his books, +and that Lord Raa, in tones of obvious impatience, did the same. + +Then the High Bailiff opened the bigger of his books, and after writing +something in it himself he asked Lord Raa to sign his name, and this +being done he asked me also. + +"Am I to sign, too?" I asked, vacantly. + +"Well, who else do you think?" said Mr. Curphy with a laugh. "Betsy +Beauty perhaps, eh?" + +"Come, gel, come," said my father, sharply, and then I signed. + +I had no longer any will of my own. In this as in everything I did +whatever was asked of me. + +It was all as dreary and lifeless as an empty house. I can remember that +it made no sensible impression upon my heart. My father gave some money +(a few shillings I think) to the High Bailiff, who then tore a piece of +perforated blue paper out of the bigger of his books and offered it to +me, saying: + +"This belongs to you." + +"To me?" I said. + +"Who else?" said Mr. Curphy, who was laughing again, and then something +was said by somebody about marriage lines and no one knowing when a wise +woman might not want to use them. + +The civil ceremony of my marriage was now over, and Lord Raa, who had +been very restless, rose to his feet, saying: + +"Beastly early drive. Anything in the house to steady one's nerves, High +Bailiff?" + +The High Bailiff made some reply, at which the men laughed, all except +my father. Then they left me and went into another room, the +dining-room, and I heard the jingling of glasses and the drinking of +healths while I sat before the fire with my foot on the fender and my +marriage lines in my hand. + +My brain was still numbed. I felt as one might feel if drowned in the +sea and descending, without quite losing consciousness, to the depths of +its abyss. + +I remember I thought that what I had just gone through differed in no +respect from the signing of my marriage settlement, except that in the +one case I had given my husband rights over my money, my father's money, +whereas in this case I seemed to have given him rights over myself. + +Otherwise it was all so cold, so drear, so dead, so unaffecting. + +The blue paper had slipped out of my hand on to the worn hearthrug when +my helpless meditations were interrupted by the thrumming and throbbing +of the motor-car outside, and by my father, who was at the office door, +saying in his loud, commanding voice: + +"Come, gel, guess it's time for you to be back." + +Half an hour afterwards I was in my own room at home, and given over to +the dressmakers. I was still being moved automatically--a creature +without strength or will. + + + + +THIRTY-FIRST CHAPTER + + +I have only an indefinite memory of floating vaguely through the sights +and sounds of the next two hours--of everybody except myself being +wildly excited; of my cousins railing repeatedly from unseen regions of +the house: of Aunt Bridget scolding indiscriminately; of the dressmakers +chattering without ceasing as they fitted on my wedding dress; of their +standing off from me at intervals with cries of delight at the success +of their efforts; of the wind roaring in the chimney; of the +church-bells ringing in the distance; of the ever-increasing moaning of +the sea about St. Mary's Rock; and finally of the rumbling of the rubber +wheels of several carriages and the plash of horses' hoofs on the gravel +of the drive. + +When the dressmakers were done with me I was wearing an ivory satin +dress, embroidered in silver, with a coronal of myrtle and orange +blossoms under the old Limerick lace of the family veil, as well as a +string of pearls and one big diamond of the noble house I was marrying +into. I remember they said my black hair shone with a blue lustre +against the sparkling gem, and I dare say I looked gay on the outside +anyway. + +At last I heard a fluttering of silk outside my room, and a running +stream of chatter going down the stairs, followed by the banging of +carriage doors, and then my father's deep voice, saying: + +"Bride ready? Good! Time to go, I guess." + +He alone had made no effort to dress himself up, for he was still +wearing his every-day serge and his usual heavy boots. There was not +even a flower in his button-hole. + +We did not speak very much on our way to church, but I found a certain +comfort in his big warm presence as we sat together in the carriage with +the windows shut, for the rising storm was beginning to frighten me. + +"It will be nothing," said my father. "Just a puff of wind and a slant +of rain maybe." + +The little church was thronged with people. Even the galleries were full +of the children from the village school. There was a twittering overhead +like that of young birds in a tree, and as I walked up the nave on my +father's arm I could not help but hear over the sound of the organ the +whispered words of the people in the pews on either side of us. + +"Dear heart alive, the straight like her mother she is, bless her!" + +"Goodness yes, it's the poor misfortunate mother come to life again." + +"Deed, but the daughter's in luck, though." + +Lord Raa was waiting for me by the communion rail. He looked yet more +nervous than in the morning, and, though he was trying to bear himself +with his usual composure, there was (or I thought there was) a certain +expression of fear in his face which I had never seen before. + +His friend and witness, Mr. Eastcliff, wearing a carnation button-hole, +was by his side, and his aunt, Lady Margaret, carrying a sheaf of +beautiful white flowers, was standing near. + +My own witnesses and bridesmaids, Betsy Beauty and Nessy MacLeod, in +large hats, with soaring black feathers, were behind me. I could hear +the rustle of their rose-coloured skirts and the indistinct buzz of +their whispered conversation, as well as the more audible reproofs of +Aunt Bridget, who in a crinkly black silk dress and a bonnet like a half +moon, was telling them to be silent and to look placid. + +At the next moment I was conscious that a bell had been rung in the +chancel; that the organ had stopped; that the coughing and hemming in +the church had ceased; that somebody was saying "Stand here, my lord"; +that Lord Raa, with a nervous laugh, was asking "Here?" and taking a +place by my side; that the lighted altar, laden with flowers, was in +front of me; and that the Bishop in his vestments, Father Dan in his +surplice and white stole, and a clerk carrying a book and a vessel of +holy water were beginning the service. + +Surely never was there a sadder ceremony. Never did any girl under +similar circumstances feel a more vivid presentiment of the pains and +penalties that follow on a forced and ill-assorted marriage. And yet +there came to me in the course of the service such a startling change of +thought as wiped out for a while all my sadness, made me forget the +compulsion that had been put upon me, and lifted me into a realm of +spiritual ecstasy. + +The Bishop began with a short litany which asked God's blessing on the +ceremony which was to join together two of His children in the bonds of +holy wedlock. While that was going on I was conscious of nothing except +the howling of the wind about the church windows and the far-off tolling +of the bell on St. Mary's Rock--nothing but this and a voice within me +which seemed to say again and again, "I don't love him! I don't love +him!" + +But hardly had the actual ceremony commenced when I began to be overawed +by the solemnity and divine power of the service, and by the sense of +God leaning over my littleness and guiding me according to His will. + +What did it matter how unworthy were the preparations that had led up +to this marriage if God was making it? God makes all marriages that are +blessed by His Church, and therefore He overrules to His own good ends +all human impulses, however sordid or selfish they may be. + +After that thought came to me nothing else seemed to matter, and +nothing, however jarring or incongruous, was able to lower the +exaltation of my spirit. + +But the service, which had this effect upon me, appeared to have an +exactly opposite effect on Lord Raa. His nervousness increased visibly, +though he did his best to conceal it by a lightness of manner that +sometimes looked like derision. + +Thus when the Bishop stepped down to us and said: + +"James Charles Munster, wilt thou take Mary here present for thy lawful +wife, according to the rite of our holy Mother the Church," my husband +halted and stammered over his answer, saying beneath his breath, "I +thought I was a heretic." + +But when the corresponding question was put to me, and Father Dan +thinking I must be nervous, leaned over me and whispered, "Don't worry, +child, take your time," I replied a loud, clear, unfaltering voice: + +"I will." + +And again, when my husband had to put the ring and the gold and silver +on the salver (he fumbled and dropped them as he did so, and fumbled and +dropped them a second time when he had to take them up after they had +been blessed, laughing too audibly at his own awkwardness), and then +repeat after the Bishop: + +"With this ring I thee wed; this gold and silver I thee give; with my +body I thee worship; and with all my worldly goods I thee endow," he +tendered the ring slowly and with an obvious effort. + +But I took it without trembling, because I was thinking that, in spite +of all I had heard of his ways of life, this solemn and sacred sacrament +made him mine and no one else's. + +It is all very mysterious; I cannot account for it; I only know it was +so, and that, everything considered, it was perhaps the strangest fact +of all my life. + +I remember that more than once during the ceremony Father Dan spoke to +me softly and caressingly, as if to a child, but I felt no need of his +comforting, for my strength was from a higher source. + +I also remember that it was afterwards said that all through the +ceremony the eyes of the newly-wedded couple seemed sedulously to shun +each other, but if I did not look at my husband it was because my +marriage was like a prayer to me, carrying me back, with its sense of +purity and sanctity, to the little sunlit church in Rome where Mildred +Bankes had taken her vows. + +After the marriage service there was Nuptial Mass and Benediction +(special dispensation from Rome), and that raised to a still higher +pitch the spiritual exaltation which sustained me. + +Father Dan read the Epistle beginning "Let wives be subject to their +husbands," and then the Bishop read the Gospel, concluding, "Therefore +now they are not two, but one flesh: what therefore God hath joined +together, let not man put asunder." + +I had trembled when I thought of these solemn and sonorous words in the +solitude of my own room, but now that they were spoken before the +congregation I had no fear, no misgiving, nothing but a sense of rapture +and consecration. + +The last words being spoken and Lord Raa and I being man and wife, we +stepped into the sacristy to sign the register, and not even there did +my spirit fail me. I took up the pen and signed my name without a +tremor. But hardly had I done so when I heard a rumbling murmur of +voices about me--first the Bishop's voice (in such a worldly tone) and +then my father's and then my husband's, and then the voices of many +others, in light conversation mingled with trills of laughter. And then, +in a moment, in a twinkling, as fast as a snowflake melts upon a stream, +the spell of the marriage service seemed to break. + +I have heard since that my eyes were wet at that moment and I seemed to +have been crying all through the ceremony. I know nothing about that, +but I do know that I felt a kind of internal shudder and that it was +just as if my soul had suddenly awakened from an intoxicating drug. + +The organ began to play the Wedding March, and my husband, putting my +arm through his, said, "Come." + +There was much audible whispering among the people waiting for us in the +church, and as we walked towards the door I saw ghostly faces smiling at +me on every side, and heard ghostly voices speaking in whispers that +were like the backward plash of wavelets on the shore. + +"Sakes alive, how white's she's looking, though," said somebody, and +then somebody else said--I could not help but hear it-- + +"Dear heart knows if her father has done right for all that." + +I did not look at anybody, but I saw Martin's mother at the back, and +she was wiping her eyes and saying to some one by her side--it must have +been the doctor-- + +"God bless her for the sweet child veen she always was, anyway." + +The storm had increased during the service; and the sacristan, who was +opening the door for us, had as much as he could do to hold it against +the wind, which came with such a rush upon us when we stepped into the +porch that my veil and the coronal of myrtle and orange blossoms were +torn off my head and blown back into the church. + +"God bless my sowl," said somebody--it was Tommy's friend, Johnny +Christopher--"there's some ones would he calling that bad luck, though." + +A band of village musicians, who were ranged up in the road, struck up +"The Black and Grey" as we stepped out of the churchyard, and the next +thing I knew was that my husband and I were in the carriage going home. + +He had so far recovered from the frightening effects of the marriage +service that he was making light of it, and saying: + +"When will this mummery come to an end, I wonder?" + +The windows of the carriage were rattling with the wind, and my husband +had begun to talk of the storm when we came upon the trunk of a young +tree which had been torn up by the roots and was lying across the road, +so that our coachman had to get down and remove it. + +"Beastly bad crossing, I'm afraid. Hope you're a good sailor. Must be in +London to-morrow morning, you know." + +The band was playing behind us. The leafless trees were beating their +bare boughs in front. The wedding bells were pealing. The storm was +thundering through the running sky. The sea was very loud. + +At my father's gate Tommy the Mate, with a serious face, was standing, +cap in hand, under his triumphal arch, which (as well as it could for +the wind that was tearing its flowers and scattering them on the ground) +spelled out the words "God bless the Happy Bride." + +When we reached the open door of the house a group of maids were +waiting for us. They were holding on to their white caps and trying to +control their aprons, which were swirling about their black frocks. As I +stepped out of the carriage they addressed me as "My lady" and "Your +ladyship." The seagulls, driven up from the sea, were screaming about +the house. + +My husband and I went into the drawing-room, and as we stood together on +the hearthrug I caught a glimpse of my face in the glass over the +mantelpiece. It was deadly white, and had big staring eyes and a look of +faded sunshine. I fixed afresh the pearls about my neck and the diamond +in my hair, which was much disordered. + +Almost immediately the other carriages returned, and relatives and +guests began to pour into the room and offer us their congratulations. +First came my cousins, who were too much troubled about their own +bedraggled appearance to pay much attention to mine. Then Aunt Bridget, +holding on to her half-moon bonnet and crying: + +"You happy, happy child! But what a wind! There's been nothing like it +since the day you were born." + +My father came next, like a gale of wind himself, saying: + +"I'm proud of you, gel. Right proud I am. You done well." + +Then came Lady Margaret, who kissed me without saying many words, and +finally a large and varied company of gaily-dressed friends and +neighbours, chiefly the "aristocracy" of our island, who lavished many +unnecessary "ladyships" upon me, as if the great name reflected a +certain glory upon themselves. + +I remember that as I stood on the hearthrug with my husband, receiving +their rather crude compliments, a vague gaiety came over me, and I +smiled and laughed, although my heart was growing sick, for the effect +of the wedding-service was ebbing away into a cold darkness like that of +a night tide when the moonlight has left it. + +It did not comfort me that my husband, without failing in good manners, +was taking the whole scene and company with a certain scarcely-veiled +contempt which I could not help but see. + +And neither did it allay my uneasiness to glance at my father, where he +stood at the end of the room, watching, with a look of triumph in his +glistening black eyes, his proud guests coming up to me one by one, and +seeming to say to himself, "They're here at last! I've bet them! Yes, +by gough, I've bet them!" + +Many a time since I have wondered if his conscience did not stir within +him as he looked across at his daughter in the jewels of the noble house +he had married her into--the pale bride with the bridegroom he had +bought for her--and thought of the mockery of a sacred union which he +had brought about to gratify his pride, his vanity, perhaps his revenge. + +But it was all over now. I was married to Lord Raa. In the eyes equally +of the law, the world and the Church, the knot between us was +irrevocably tied. + + +MEMORANDUM BY MARTIN CONRAD + +I am no mystic and no spiritualist, and I only mention it as one of the +mysteries of human sympathy between far-distant friends, that during a +part of the time when my dear one was going through the fierce struggle +she describes, and was dreaming of frozen regions and a broken pen, the +ship I sailed on had got itself stuck fast in a field of pack ice in +latitude 76, under the ice barrier by Charcot Bay, and that while we +were lying like helpless logs, cut off from communication with the +world, unable to do anything but groan and swear and kick our heels in +our bunks at every fresh grinding of our crunching sides, my own mind, +sleeping and waking, was for ever swinging back, with a sort of yearning +prayer to my darling not to yield to the pressure which I felt so +damnably sure was being brought to bear on her. + + M.C. + + + + +THIRD PART + +MY HONEYMOON + +THIRTY-SECOND CHAPTER + + +When the Bishop and Father Dan arrived, the bell was rung and we went in +to breakfast. + +We breakfasted in the new dining-room, which was now finished and being +used for the first time. + +It was a gorgeous chamber beblazoned with large candelabra, huge +mirrors, and pictures in gold frames--resembling the room it was +intended to imitate, yet not resembling it, as a woman over-dressed +resembles a well-dressed woman. + +My father sat at the head of his table with the Bishop, Lady Margaret +and Aunt Bridget on his right, and myself, my husband, Betsy Beauty and +Mr. Eastcliff on his left. The lawyers and the trustee were midway down, +Father Dan with Nessy MacLeod was at the end, and a large company of our +friends and neighbours, wearing highly-coloured flowers on their breasts +and in their buttonholes, sat between. + +The meal was very long, and much of the food was very large--large fish, +large roasts of venison, veal, beef and mutton, large puddings and large +cheeses, all cut on the table and served by waiters from Blackwater. +There were two long black lines of them--a waiter behind the chair of +nearly every other guest. + +All through the breakfast the storm raged outside. More than once it +drowned the voices of the people at the table, roaring like a wild beast +in the great throat of the wide chimney, swirling about the lantern +light, licking and lashing and leaping at the outsides of the walls like +lofty waves breaking against a breakwater, and sending up a thunderous +noise from the sea itself, where the big bell of St. Mary's Rock was +still tolling like a knell. + +Somebody--it must have been Aunt Bridget again--said there had been +nothing like it since the day of my birth, and it must be "fate." + +"Chut, woman!" said my father. "We're living in the twentieth century. +Who's houlding with such ould wife's wonders now?" + +He was intensely excited, and, his excitement betrayed itself, as usual, +in reversion to his native speech. Sometimes he surveyed in silence, +with the old masterful lift of his eyebrows, his magnificent room and +the great guests who were gathered within it; sometimes he whispered to +the waiters to be smarter with the serving of the dishes; and sometimes +he pitched his voice above the noises within and without and shouted, in +country-fashion, to his friends at various points of the table to know +how they were faring. + +"How are you doing, Mr. Curphy, sir?" + +"Doing well, sir. Are you doing well yourself, Mr. O'Neill, sir?" + +"Lord-a-massy yes, sir. I'm always doing well, sir." + +Never had anybody in Ellan seen so strange a mixture of grandeur and +country style. My husband seemed to be divided between amused contempt +for it, and a sense of being compromised by its pretence. More than once +I saw him, with his monocle in his eye, look round at his friend +Eastcliff, but he helped himself frequently from a large decanter of +brandy and drank healths with everybody. + +There were the usual marriage pleasantries, facetious compliments and +chaff, in which to my surprise (the solemnity of the service being still +upon me) the Bishop permitted himself to join. + +I was now very nervous, and yet I kept up a forced gaiety, though my +heart was cold and sick. I remember that I had a preternatural power of +hearing at the same time nearly every conversation that was going on at +the table, and that I joined in nearly all the laughter. + +At a more than usually loud burst of wind somebody said it would be a +mercy if the storm did not lift the roof off. + +"Chut, man!" cried my father. "Solid oak and wrought iron here. None of +your mouldy old monuments that have enough to do to keep their tiles +on." + +"Then nobody," said my husband with a glance at his friend, "need be +afraid of losing his head in your house, sir?" + +"Not if he's got one to come in with, sir." + +Betsy Beauty, sitting next to Mr. Eastcliff, was wondering if he would +do us the honour to visit the island oftener now that his friend had +married into it. + +"But, my dear Betsy," said my husband, "who would live in this +God-forsaken place if he could help it?" + +"God-forsaken, is it?" said my father. "Maybe so, sir--but that's what +the cuckoo said after he had eaten the eggs out of the thrush's nest and +left a mess in it." + +Aunt Bridget was talking in doleful tones to Lady Margaret about my +mother, saying she had promised her on her death-bed to take care of her +child and had been as good as her word, always putting me before her own +daughter, although her ladyship would admit that Betsy was a handsome +girl, and, now that his lordship was married, there were few in the +island that were fit for her. + +"Why no, Mrs. MacLeod," said my husband, after another significant +glance at his friend, "I dare say you've not got many who can make +enough to keep a carriage?" + +"Truth enough, sir," said my father. "We've got hundreds and tons that +can make debts though." + +The breakfast came to an end at length, and almost before the last of +the waiters had left the room my father rose to speak. + +"Friends all," he said, "the young married couple have to leave us for +the afternoon steamer." + +"In this weather?" said somebody, pointing up to the lantern light +through which the sky was now darkening. + +"Chut! A puff of wind and a slant of rain, as I've been saying to my gel +here. But my son-in-law, Lord Raa," (loud cheers followed this +description, with some laughter and much hammering on the table), "my +son-in-law says he has to be in London to-morrow, and this morning my +daughter has sworn obedience. . . . What's that, Monsignor? Not +obedience exactly? Something like it then, so she's bound to go along +with him. So fill up your glasses to the brim and drink to the bride and +bridegroom." + +As soon as the noise made by the passing of decanters had died down my +father spoke again. + +"This is the proudest day of my life. It's the day I've worked for and +slaved for and saved for, and it's come to pass at last." + +There was another chorus of applause. + +"What's that you were saying in church, Mr. Curphy, sir? Time brings in +its revenges? It does too. Look at me." + +My father put his thumbs in the arm-pits of his waistcoat. + +"You all know what I am, and where I come from." + +My husband put his monocle to his eye and looked up. + +"I come from a mud cabin on the Curragh, not a hundred miles from here. +My father was kill . . . but never mind about that now. When he left us +it was middling hard collar work, I can tell you--what with me working +the bit of a croft and the mother weeding for some of you--some of your +fathers I mane--ninepence a day dry days, and sixpence all weathers. +When I was a lump of a lad I was sworn at in the high road by a +gentleman driving in his grand carriage, and the mother was lashed by +his . . . but never mind about that neither. I guess I've hustled round +considerable since then, and this morning I've married my daughter into +the first family in the island." + +There was another burst of cheering at this, but it was almost drowned +by the loud rattling of the rain which was now falling on the lantern +light. + +"Monsignor," cried my father, pitching his voice still higher, "what's +that you were saying in Rome about the mills of God?" + +Fumbling his jewelled cross and smiling blandly the Bishop gave my +father the familiar quotation. + +"Truth enough, too. The mills of God grind slowly but they're grinding +exceeding small. Nineteen years ago I thought I was as sure of what I +wanted as when I got out of bed this morning. If my gel here had been +born a boy, my son would have sat where his lordship is now sitting. But +all's well that ends well! If I haven't got a son I've got a son-in-law, +and when I get a grandson he'll be the richest man that ever stepped +into Castle Raa, and the uncrowned king of Ellan." + +At that there was a tempest of cheers, which, mingling with the clamour +of the storm, made a deafening tumult. + +"They're saying a dale nowadays about fathers and children--daughters +being separate beings, and all to that. But show me the daughter that +could do better for herself than my gel's father has done for her. She +has a big fortune, and her husband has a big name, and what more do they +want in this world anyway?" + +"Nothing at all," came from various parts of the room. + +"Neighbours," said my father, looking round him with a satisfied smile, +"I'm laying you dry as herrings in a hould, but before I call on you to +drink this toast I'll ask the Bishop to spake to you. He's a grand man +is the Bishop, and in fixing up this marriage I don't in the world know +what I could have done without him." + +The Bishop, still fingering his jewelled cross and smiling, spoke in his +usual suave voice. He firmly believed that the Church had that morning +blessed a most propitious and happy union. Something might be said +against mixed marriages, but under proper circumstances the Church had +never forbidden them and his lordship (this with a deep bow to my +husband) had behaved with great liberality of mind. + +As for what their genial and rugged host had said of certain foolish and +dangerous notions about the relations of father and child, he was +reminded that there were still more foolish and dangerous ones about the +relations of husband and wife. + +From the earliest ages of the Church, however, those relations had been +exactly defined. "Let wives be subject to their husbands," said the +Epistle we had read this morning, and no less conclusive had been our +closing prayer, asking that the wife keep true faith with her husband, +being lovely in his eyes even as was Rachel, wise as was Rebecca, and +dutiful as was Sara. + +"Beautiful!" whispered Aunt Bridget to Lady Margaret. "It's what I +always was myself in the days of the dear Colonel." + +"And now," said the Bishop, "before you drink this toast and call upon +the noble bridegroom to respond to it," (another deep bow to my +husband), "I will ask for a few words from the two legal gentlemen who +have carried out the admirably judicious financial arrangements without +which this happy marriage would have been difficult if not impossible." + +Then my husband's lawyer, with a supercilious smile on his clean-shaven +face, said it had been an honour to him to assist in preparing the way +for the "uncrowned king of Ellan." ("It _has_, sir," cried my father in +a loud voice which straightened the gentleman's face instantly); and +finally Mr. Curphy, speaking through his long beard, congratulated my +father and my husband equally on the marriage, and gave it as his +opinion that there could be no better use for wealth than to come to the +rescue of an historic family which had fallen on evil times and only +required a little money to set it on its feet again. + +"The bride and bridegroom!" cried my father; and then everybody rose and +there was much cheering, with cries of "His lordship," "His lordship." + +All through the speech-making my husband had rolled uneasily in his +chair. He had also helped himself frequently from the decanter, so that +when he got up to reply he was scarcely sober. + +In his drawling voice he thanked the Bishop, and said that having made +up his mind to the marriage he had never dreamt of raising difficulties +about religion. As to the modern notions about the relations of husband +and wife, he did not think a girl brought up in a convent would give him +much trouble on that subject. + +"Not likely," cried my father. "I'll clear her of that anyway." + +"So I thank you for myself and for my family," continued my husband, +"and . . . Oh, yes, of course," (this to Lady Margaret). "I thank you +for my wife also, and . . . and that's all." + +I felt sick and cold and ashamed. A rush of blood came under the skin of +my face that must have made me red to the roots of my hair. + +In all this speaking about my marriage there had not been one word about +myself--myself really, a living soul with all her future happiness at +stake. I cannot say what vague impulse took possession of me, but I +remember that when my husband sat down I made a forced laugh, though I +knew well that I wanted to cry. + +In an agony of shame I was beginning to feel a wild desire to escape +from the room and even from the house, that I might breathe in some of +the free wind outside, when all at once I became aware that somebody +else was speaking. + +It was Father Dan. He had risen unannounced from his seat at the end of +the table. I saw his sack coat which was much worn at the seams; I saw +his round face which was flushed; I heard the vibrating note in his soft +Irish voice which told me he was deeply moved; and then I dropped my +head, for I knew what was coming. + + + + +THIRTY-THIRD CHAPTER + + +"Mr. O'Neill," said Father Dan, "may your parish priest take the liberty +of speaking without being spoken to?" + +My father made some response, and then a hush fell over the dining-room. +Either the storm ceased for a time, or in my great agitation it seemed +to do so, for I did not hear it. + +"We have heard a great deal about the marriage we have celebrated +to-day, but have we not forgotten something? What _is_ marriage? Is it +the execution of a contract? Is it the signing of a register? Is it even +the taking of an oath before an altar? No. Marriage is the sacred +covenant which two souls make with each other, the woman with the man, +the man with the woman, when she chooses him from all other men, when he +chooses her from all other women, to belong to each other for ever, so +that no misfortune, no storm of life, no sin on either side shall ever +put them apart. That's what marriage is, and all we have been doing +to-day is to call on God and man to bear witness to that holy bond." + +My heart was beating high. I raised my head, and I think my eyes must +have been shining. I looked across at the Bishop. His face was showing +signs of vexation. + +"Mr. O'Neill, sir," cried Father Dan, raising his trembling voice, "you +say your daughter has a big fortune and her husband has a big name, and +what more do they want in this world? I'll tell you what they want, sir. +They want love, love on both sides, if they are to be good and happy, +and if they've got that they've got something which neither wealth nor +rank can buy." + +I had dropped my head again, but under my eyelashes I could see that the +company were sitting spell-bound. Only my husband was shuffling in his +seat, and the Bishop was plucking at his gold chain. + +"My Bishop," said Father Dan, "has told us of the submission a wife owes +to her husband, and of her duty to be lovely and wise and faithful in +his eyes. But isn't it the answering thought that the husband on his +part owes something to the wife? Aren't we told that he shall put away +everything and everybody for her sake, and cleave to her and cling to +her and they shall be one flesh? Isn't that, too, a divine commandment?" + +My heart was throbbing so loud by this time that the next words were +lost to me. When I came to myself again Father Dan was saying: + +"Think what marriage means to a woman--a young girl especially. It means +the breaking of old ties, the beginning of a new life, the setting out +into an unknown world on a voyage from which there can be no return. In +her weakness and her helplessness she leaves one dependency for another, +the shelter of a father for the shelter of a husband. What does she +bring to the man she marries? Herself, everything she is, everything +she can be, to be made or marred by him, and never, never, never to be +the same to any other man whatsoever as long as life shall last." + +More than ever now, but for other reasons, I wanted to fly from the +room. + +"Friends," cried Father Dan, "we don't know much of the bridegroom in +this parish, but we know the bride. We've known her all her life. We +know what she is. I do, anyway. If you are her father, Mr. O'Neill, sir, +I am her father also. I was in this house when she was born. I baptized +her. I took her out of the arms of the angel who bore her. So she's my +child too, God bless her. . . ." + +His voice was breaking--I was sobbing--though he was speaking so loudly +I could scarcely hear him--I could scarcely see him--I only knew that he +was facing about in our direction and raising his trembling hand to my +husband. + +"She is my child, too, I say, and now that she is leaving us, now that +you are taking her away from us, I charge you, my lord, to be good and +faithful to her, as you will have to answer for her soul some day." + +What else he said I do not know. From that moment I was blind and deaf +to everything. Nevertheless I was conscious that after Father Dan had +ceased to speak there was a painful silence. I thought the company +seemed to be startled and even a little annoyed by the emotion so +suddenly shot into their midst. The Bishop looked vexed, my father +looked uncomfortable, and my husband, who had been drinking glass after +glass of brandy, was muttering something about "a sermon." + +It had been intended that Mr. Eastcliff should speak for the +bridesmaids, and I was afterwards told by Betsy Beauty that he had +prepared himself with many clever epigrams, but everybody felt there +could be no more speaking of any kind now. After a few awkward moments +my father looked at his watch and said it was about time for us to start +if we were to catch the steamer, so I was hurried upstairs to change for +our journey. + +When I came down again, in my tailor-made travelling dress with sables, +the whole company was in the hall and everybody seemed to be talking at +the same time, making a noise like water in a weir. + +I was taken possession of by each in turn. Nessy MacLeod told me in an +aside what an excellent father I had. Betsy Beauty whispered that Mr. +Eastcliff was so handsome and their tastes were so similar that she +hoped I would invite him to Castle Raa as soon as I came back. Aunt +Bridget, surrounded by a group of sympathising ladies (including Lady +Margaret, who was making an obvious effort to be gracious) was wiping +her eyes and saying I had always been her favourite and she had +faithfully done her duty by me. + +"Mary, my love," she said, catching my eye, "I'm just telling her +ladyship I don't know in the world what I'll do when you are gone." + +My husband was there too, wearing a heavy overcoat with the collar up, +and receiving from a group of insular gentlemen their cheerful +prognostics of a bad passage. + +"'Deed, but I'm fearing it will be a dirty passage, my lord." + +"Chut!" said my father. "The wind's from the south-west. They'll soon +get shelter." + +The first of our two cars came round and my husband's valet went off in +advance with our luggage. Then the second car arrived, and the time came +for our departure. I think I kissed everybody. Everybody seemed to be +crying--everybody except myself, for my tears were all gone by this +time. + +Just as we were about to start, the storm, which must certainly have +fallen for a while, sprang up suddenly, and when Tommy the Mate (barely +recognisable in borrowed black garments) opened the door the wind came +rushing into the house with a long-drawn whirr. + +I had said good-bye to the old man, and was stepping into the porch when +I remembered Father Dan. He was standing in his shabby sack coat with a +sorrowful face in a dark corner by the door, as if he had placed himself +there to see the last of me. I wanted to put my arms around his neck, +but I knew that would be wrong, so I dropped to my knees and kissed his +hand and he gave me his blessing. + +My husband, who was waiting by the side of the throbbing automobile, +said impatiently: + +"Come, come, dear, don't keep me in the rain." + +I got into the landaulette, my husband got in after me, the car began to +move, there were cries from within the house ("Good-bye!" "Good luck") +which sounded like stifled shrieks as they were carried off by the wind +without, and then we were under weigh. + +As we turned the corner of the drive something prompted me to look back +at my mother's window--with its memories of my first going to school. + +At the next moment we were crossing the bridge--with its memories of +Martin Conrad and William Rufus. + +At the next we were on the road. + + + + +THIRTY-FOURTH CHAPTER + + +"Thank God, that's over," said my husband. Then, half apologetically, he +added: "You didn't seem to enjoy it any more than myself, my dear." + +At the entrance to our village a number of men stood firing guns; in the +middle a group of girls were stretching a rope across the road; a number +of small flags, torn by the wind and wet with the rain, were rattling on +flagstaffs hung out from some of the window sills; a few women, with +shawls over their heads, were sheltering on the weather side of their +porches to see us pass. + +My husband was impatient of our simple island customs. Once or twice he +lowered the window of the car, threw out a handful of silver and at the +same time urged the chauffeur to drive quicker. As soon as we were clear +of the village he fell back in his seat, saying: + +"Heavens, how sleepy I am! No wonder either! Late going to bed last +night and up so early this morning." + +After a moment he began to yawn, and almost before he could have been +aware of it he had closed his eyes. At the next moment he was asleep. + +It was a painful, almost a hideous sleep. His cheeks swelled and sank; +his lips parted, he was breathing heavily, and sometimes gaping like a +carp out of water. + +I could not detach my eyes from his face, which, without eyes to relieve +it, seemed to be almost repulsive now. It would be difficult to describe +my sensations. I felt dreadfully humiliated. Even my personal pride was +wounded. I remembered what Father Dan had said about husband and wife +being one flesh, and told myself that _this_ was what I belonged to, +what belonged to me--_this!_ Then I tried to reproach and reprove +myself, but in order to do so I had to turn my eyes away. + +Our road to Blackwater lay over the ridge of a hill much exposed to the +wind from the south-west. When we reached this point the clouds seemed +to roll up from the sea like tempestuous battalions. Torrential rain +fell on the car and came dripping in from the juncture of the +landaulette roof. Some of it fell on the sleeper and he awoke with a +start. + +"Damn--" + +He stopped, as if, caught in guilt, and began to apologise again. + +"Was I asleep? I really think I must have been. Stupid, isn't it? Excuse +me." + +He blinked his eyes as if to empty them of sleep, looked me over for a +moment or two in silence, and then said with a smile which made me +shudder: + +"So you and I are man and wife, my dear!" + +I made no answer, and, still looking fixedly at me, he said: + +"Well, worse things might have happened after all--what do _you_ think?" + +Still I did not answer him, feeling a certain shame, not to say disgust. +Then he began to pay me some compliments on my appearance. + +"Do you know you're charming, my dear, really charming!" + +That stung me, and made me shudder, I don't know why, unless it was +because the words gave me the sense of having been used before to other +women. I turned my eyes away again. + +"Don't turn away, dear. Let me see those big black eyes of yours. I +adore black eyes. They always pierce me like a gimlet." + +He reached forward as he spoke and drew me to him. I felt frightened and +pushed him off. + +"What's this?" he said, as if surprised. + +But after another moment he laughed, and in the tone of a man who had +had much to do with women and thought he knew how to deal with them, he +said: + +"Wants to be coaxed, does she? They all do, bless them!" + +Saying this he pulled me closer to him, putting his arm about my waist, +but once more I drew and forcibly pushed him from me. + +His face darkened for an instant, and then cleared again. + +"Oh, I see," he said. "Offended, is she? Paying me out for having paid +so little court to her? Well, she's right there too, bless her! But +never mind! You're a decidedly good-looking little woman, my dear, and +if I have neglected you thus far, I intend to make up for it during the +honeymoon. So come, little gal, let's be friends." + +Taking hold of me again, he tried to kiss me, putting at the same time +his hand on the bosom of my dress, but I twisted my face aside and +prevented him. + +"Oh! Oh! Hurt her modesty, have I?" he said, laughing like a man who was +quite sure both of himself and of me. "But my little nun will get over +that by and by. Wait awhile! Wait awhile!" + +By this time I was trembling with the shock of a terror that was +entirely new to me. I could not explain to myself the nature of it, but +it was there, and I could not escape from it. + +Hitherto, when I had thought of my marriage to Lord Raa I had been +troubled by the absence of love between us; and what I meant to myself +by love--the love of husband and wife--was the kind of feeling I had for +the Reverend Mother, heightened and deepened and spiritualised, as I +believed, by the fact (with all its mysterious significance) that the +one was a man and the other a woman. + +But this was something quite different. Not having found in marriage +what I had expected, I was finding something else, for there could be no +mistaking my husband's meaning when he looked at me with his passionate +eyes and said, "Wait awhile!" + +I saw what was before me, and in fear of it I found myself wishing that +something might happen to save me. I was so frightened that if I could +have escaped from the car I should have done so. The only thing I could +hope for was that we should arrive at Blackwater too late for the +steamer, or that the storm would prevent it from sailing. What relief +from my situation I should find in that, beyond the delay of one day, +one night (in which I imagined I might be allowed to return home), I did +not know. But none the less on that account I began to watch the clouds +with a feverish interest. + +They were wilder than ever now--rolling up from the south-west in huge +black whorls which enveloped the mountains and engulfed the valleys. The +wind, too, was howling at intervals like a beast being slaughtered. It +was terrible, but not so terrible as the thing I was thinking of. I was +afraid of the storm, and yet I was fearfully, frightfully glad of it. + +My husband, who, after my repulse, had dropped back into his own corner +of the car, was very angry. He talked again of our "God-forsaken +island," and the folly of living in it, said our passage would be a long +one in any case, and we might lose our connection to London. + +"Damnably inconvenient if we do. I've special reasons for being there in +the morning," he said. + +At a sharp turn of the road the wind smote the car as with an invisible +wing. One of the windows was blown in, and to prevent the rain from +driving on to us my husband had to hold up a cushion in the gap. + +This occupied him until we ran into Blackwater, and then he dropped the +cushion and put his head out, although the rain was falling heavily, to +catch the first glimpse of the water in the bay. + +It was in terrific turmoil. My heart leapt up at the sight of it. My +husband swore. + +We drew up on the drenched and naked pier. My husband's valet, in +waterproofs, came to the sheltered side of the car, and, shouting above +the noises of the wind in the rigging of the steamer, he said: + +"Captain will not sail to-day, my lord. Inshore wind. Says he couldn't +get safely out of the harbour." + +My husband swore violently. I was unused to oaths at that time and they +cut me like whipcord, but all the same my pulse was bounding joyfully. + +"Bad luck, my lord, but only one thing to do now," shouted the valet. + +"What's that?" said my husband, growling. + +"Sleep in Blackwater to-night, in hopes of weather mending in the +morning." + +Anticipating this course, he had already engaged rooms for us at the +"Fort George." + +My heart fell, and I waited for my husband's answer. I was stifling. + +"All right, Hobson. If it must be, it must," he answered. + +I wanted to speak, but I did not know what to say. There seemed to be +nothing that I could say. + +A quarter of an hour afterwards we arrived at the hotel, where the +proprietor, attended by the manageress and the waiters, received us with +rather familiar smiles. + + + + +THIRTY-FIFTH CHAPTER + + +When I began to write I determined to tell the truth and the whole +truth. But now I find that the whole truth will require that I should +invade some of the most sacred intimacies of human experience. At this +moment I feel as if I were on the threshold of one of the sanctuaries +of a woman's life, and I ask myself if it is necessary and inevitable +that I should enter it. + +I have concluded that it _is_ necessary and inevitable--necessary to the +sequence of my narrative, inevitable for the motive with which I am +writing it. + +Four times already I have written what is to follow. In the first case I +found that I had said too much. In the second I had said too little. In +the third I was startled and shocked by the portrait I had presented of +myself and could not believe it to be true. In the fourth I saw with a +thrill of the heart that the portrait was not only true, but too true. +Let me try again. + +I entered our rooms at the hotel, my husband's room and mine, with a +sense of fear, almost of shame. My sensations at that moment had nothing +in common with the warm flood of feeling which comes to a woman when she +finds herself alone for the first time with the man she loves, in a +little room which holds everything that is of any account to her in the +world. They were rather those of a young girl who, walking with a candle +through the dark corridors of an empty house at night, is suddenly +confronted by a strange face. I was the young girl with the candle; the +strange face was my husband's. + +We had three rooms, all communicating, a sitting-room in the middle with +bedrooms right and left. The bedroom on the right was large and it +contained a huge bed with a covered top and tail-boards. That on the +left was small, and it had a plain brass and iron bedstead, which had +evidently been meant for a lady's maid. I had no maid yet. It was +intended that I should engage a French one in London. + +Almost immediately on entering the sitting-room my husband, who had not +yet recovered from his disappointment, left me to go downstairs, saying +with something like a growl that he had telegrams to send to London and +instructions to give to his man Hobson. + +Without taking off my outer things I stepped up to the windows, which +were encrusted with salt from the flying spray. The hotel stood on a +rocky ledge above the harbour, and the sound of the sea, beating on the +outer side of the pier, came up with a deafening roar. The red-funnelled +steamer we should have sailed by lay on the pier's sheltered side, +letting down steam, swaying to her creaking hawsers, and heaving to the +foam that was surging against her bow. + +I was so nervous, so flurried, so preoccupied by vague fears that I +hardly saw or heard anything. Porters came up with our trunks and asked +me where they were to place them, but I scarcely know how I answered +them, although I was aware that everything--both my husband's luggage +and mine--was being taken into the large bedroom. A maid asked if she +ought to put a light to the fire, and I said "Yes . . . no . . . yes," +and presently I heard the fire crackling. + +After awhile my husband came back in a better temper and said: + +"Confounded nuisance, but I suppose we must make the best of it." + +He laughed as he said this, and coming closer and looking me over with a +smile which was at the same time passionate and proud, he whispered: + +"Dare say we'll not find the time long until to-morrow morning. What do +_you_ think, my little beauty?" + +Something in his voice rather than in his question made my heart beat, +and I could feel my face growing hot. + +"Not taken off your things yet?" he said. "Come, let me help you." + +I drew out my hat-pins and removed my hat. At the same moment my husband +removed my sables and cloak, and as he did so he put his arms about me, +and held me close to him. + +I shuddered. I tried not to, but I could not help it. My husband laughed +again, and said: + +"Not got over it yet, little woman? Perhaps that's only because you are +not quite used to me." + +Still laughing he pulled me still closer to him, and putting one of his +hands under my chin he kissed me on the mouth. + +It will be difficult and perhaps it will be ridiculous to say how my +husband's first kiss shocked me. My mouth felt parched, I had a sense of +intense disgust, and before I was quite aware of what I was doing I had +put up both hands to push him off. + +"Come, come, this is going too far," he said, in a tone that was half +playful, half serious. "It was all very well in the automobile; but +here, in your own rooms, you know. . . ." + +He broke off and laughed again, saying that if my modesty only meant +that nobody had ever kissed me before it made me all the more charming +for him. + +I could not help feeling a little ashamed of my embarrassment, and +crossing in front of my husband I seated myself in a chair before the +fire. He looked after me with a smile that made my heart tremble, and +then, coming behind my chair, he put his arms about my shoulders and +kissed my neck. + +A shiver ran through me. I felt as if I had suffered a kind of +indecency. I got up and changed my place. My husband watched me with the +look of a man who wanted to roar with laughter. It was the proud and +insolent as well as passionate look of one who had never so much as +contemplated resistance. + +"Well, this is funny," he said. "But we'll see presently! We'll see!" + +A waiter came in for orders, and early as it was my husband asked for +dinner to be served immediately. My heart was fluttering excitedly by +this time and I was glad of the relief which the presence of other +people gave me. + +While the table was being laid my husband talked of the doings of the +day. He asked who was "the seedy old priest" who had given us "the +sermon" at the wedding breakfast--he had evidently forgotten that he had +seen the Father before. + +I told him the "seedy old priest" was Father Dan, and he was a saint if +ever there was one. + +"A saint, is he?" said my husband. "Wish saint were not synonymous with +simpleton, though." + +Then he gave me his own views of "the holy state of matrimony." By +holding people together who ought to be apart it often caused more +misery and degradation of character than a dozen entirely natural +adulteries and desertions, which a man had sometimes to repair by +marriage or else allow himself to be regarded as a seducer and a +scoundrel. + +I do not think my husband was conscious of the naive coarseness of all +this, as spoken to a young girl who had only just become his wife. I am +sure he was not aware that he was betraying himself to me in every word +he uttered and making the repugnance I had begun to feel for him deepen +into horror. + +My palms became moist, and again and again I had to dry them with my +handkerchief. I was feeling more frightened and more ashamed than I had +ever felt before, but nevertheless when we sat down to dinner I tried to +compose myself. Partly for the sake of appearance before the servants, +and partly because I was taking myself to task for the repugnance I +felt towards my husband, I found something to say, though my voice +shook. + +My husband ate ravenously and drank a good deal. Once or twice, when he +insisted on pouring out champagne for me, I clinked glasses with him. +Although every moment at table was increasing my fear and disgust, I +sometimes allowed myself to laugh. + +Encouraged by this he renewed his endearments even before the waiters +had left the room, and when they had gone, with orders not to return +until he rang, and the door was closed behind them, he switched off the +lights, pushed a sofa in front of the fire, put me to sit on it, sat +down beside me and redoubled his tenderness. + +"How's my demure little nun now?" he said. "Frightened, wasn't she? +They're all frightened at first, bless them!" + +I could smell the liquor he had been drinking. I could see by the +firelight the prominent front tooth (partly hidden by his moustache) +which I had noticed when I saw him first, and the down of soft hair +which grew as low on his hands as his knuckles. Above all I thought I +could feel the atmosphere of other women about him--loose women, bad +women as it seemed to me--and my fear and disgust began to be mixed with +a kind of physical horror. + +For a little while I tried to fight against this feeling, but when he +began to put his arms about me, calling me by endearing names, +complaining of my coldness, telling me not to be afraid of him, +reminding me that I belonged to him now, and must do as he wished, a +faintness came over me, I trembled from head to foot and made some +effort to rise. + +"Let me go," I said. + +"Nonsense," he said, laughing and holding me to my seat. "You bewitching +little woman! You're only teasing me. How they love to tease, these +charming little women!" + +The pupils of his eyes were glistening. I closed my own eyes in order to +avoid his look. At the next moment I felt his hand stray down my body +and in a fury of indignation I broke out of his arms and leapt to my +feet. + +When I recovered my self-possession I was again looking out of the +window, and my husband, who was behind me, was saying in a tone of anger +and annoyance: + +"What's the matter with you? I can't understand. What have I done? Good +heavens, we are man and wife, aren't we?" + +I made no answer. My heart which had been hot with rage was becoming +cold with dread. It seemed to me that I had suffered an outrage on my +natural modesty as a human being, a sort of offence against my dignity +as a woman. + +It was now dark. With my face to the window I could see nothing. The +rain was beating against the glass. The sea was booming on the rocks. I +wanted to fly, but I felt caged--morally and physically caged. + +My husband had lit a cigarette and was walking up and down the +sitting-room, apparently trying to think things out. After awhile he +approached me, out his hand on my shoulder and said: + +"I see how it is. You're tired, and no wonder. You've had a long and +exhausting day. Better go to bed. We'll have to be up early." + +Glad to escape from his presence I allowed him to lead me to the large +bedroom. As I was crossing the threshold he told me to undress and get +into bed, and after that he said something about waiting. Then he closed +the door softly and I was alone. + + + + +THIRTY-SIXTH CHAPTER + + +There was a fire in the bedroom and I sat down in front of it. Many +forces were warring within me. I was trying to fix my thoughts and found +it difficult to do so. + +Some time passed. My husband's man came in with the noiseless step of +all such persons, opened one of the portmanteaux and laid out his +master's combs and brushes on the dressing table and his sleeping suit +on the bed. A maid of the hotel followed him, and taking my own sleeping +things out of the top tray of my trunk she laid them out beside my +husband's. + +"Good-night, my lady," they said in their low voices as they went out on +tiptoe. + +I hardly heard them. My mind, at first numb, was now going at lightning +speed. Brought face to face for the first time with one of the greatest +facts of a woman's life I was asking myself why I had not reckoned with +it before. + +I had not even thought of it. My whole soul had been so much occupied +with one great spiritual issue--that I did not love my husband (as I +understood love), that my husband did not love me--that I had never once +plainly confronted, even in my own mind, the physical fact that is the +first condition of matrimony, and nobody had mentioned it to me or even +hinted at it. + +I could not plead that I did not know of this condition. I was young but +I was not a child. I had been brought up in a convent, but a convent is +not a nursery. Then why had I not thought of it? + +While sitting before the fire, gathering together these dark thoughts, I +was in such fear that I was always conscious of my husband's movements +in the adjoining room. At one moment there was the jingling of his glass +against the decanter, at another moment the smell of his cigarette +smoke. From time to time he came to the door and called to me in a sort +of husky whisper, asking if I was in bed. + +"Don't keep me long, little girl." + +I shuddered but made no reply. + +At last he knocked softly and said he was coming in. I was still +crouching over the fire as he came up behind me. + +"Not in bed yet?" he said. "Then I must put you to bed." + +Before I could prevent him he had lifted me in his arms, dragged me on +to his knee and was pulling down my hair, laughing as he did so, calling +me by coarse endearing names and telling me not to fight and struggle. + +But the next thing I knew I was back in the sitting-room, where I had +switched up the lights, and my husband, whose face was distorted by +passion, was blazing out at me. + +"What do you mean?" he said. "I'm your husband, am I not? You are my +wife, aren't you? What did you marry for? Good heavens, can it be +possible that you don't know what the conditions of matrimony are? Is +that what comes of being brought up in a convent? But has your father +allowed you to marry without. . . . And your Aunt--what in God's name +has the woman been doing?" + +I crossed towards the smaller bedroom intending to enter it, but my +husband intercepted me. + +"Don't be a fool," he said, catching at my wrist. "Think of the +servants. Think what they'd say. Think what the whole island would say. +Do you want to make a laughing stock of both of us?" + +I returned and sat by the table. My husband lit another cigarette. +Nervously flicking the ends off with the index finger of his left hand, +and speaking quickly, as if the words scorched his lips, he told me I +was mistaken if I supposed that he wanted a scene like this. He thought +he could spend his time better. I was equally mistaken if I imagined +that he had desired our marriage at all. Something quite different might +have happened if he could have afforded to please himself. + +He had made sacrifices to marry me, too. Perhaps I had not thought of +that, but did I suppose a man of his class wanted a person like my +father for his father-in-law. And then my Aunt and my cousins--ugh! + +The Bishop, too! Was it nothing that a man had been compelled to make +all those ridiculous declarations? Children to be brought up Catholics! +Wife not to be influenced! Even to keep an open mind himself to all the +muss and mummery of the Church! + +It wasn't over either. That seedy old "saint" was probably my confessor. +Did any rational man want another man to come between him and his +wife--knowing all he did and said, and everything about him? + +I was heart-sick as I listened to all this. Apparently the moral of it +was that if I had been allowed to marry without being instructed in the +first conditions of married life my husband had suffered a gross and +shocking injustice. + +The disgust I felt was choking me. It was horribly humiliating and +degrading to see my marriage from my husband's point of view, and when I +remembered that I was bound fast to the man who talked to me like this, +and that he could claim rights in me, to-night, to-morrow, as long as I +lived, until death parted us, a wild impulse of impotent anger at +everybody and everything made me drop my head on to the table and burst +into tears. + +My husband misunderstood this, as he misunderstood everything. Taking my +crying for the last remnant of my resistance he put his arms round my +shoulders again and renewed his fondling. + +"Come, don't let us have any more conjugal scenes," he said. "The people +of the hotel will hear us presently, and there will be all sorts of +ridiculous rumours. If your family are rather common people you are a +different pair of shoes altogether." + +He was laughing again, kissing my neck (in spite of my shuddering) and +saying: + +"You really please me very much, you do indeed, and if they've kept you +in ignorance, what matter? Come now, my sweet little woman, we'll soon +repair that." + +I could bear no more. I _must_ speak and I did. Leaping up and facing +round on him I told him my side of the story--how I had been married +against my will, and had not wanted him any more than he had wanted me; +how all my objections had been overruled, all my compunctions borne +down; how everybody had been in a conspiracy to compel me, and I had +been bought and sold like a slave. + +"But you can't go any farther than that," I said. "Between you, you have +forced me to marry you, but nobody can force me to obey you, because I +won't." + +I saw his face grow paler and paler as I spoke, and when I had finished +it was ashen-white. + +"So that's how it is, is it?" he said, and for some minutes more he +tramped about the room, muttering inaudible words, as if trying to +account to himself for my conduct. At length he approached me again and +said, in the tone of one who thought he was making peace: + +"Look here, Mary. I think I understand you at last. You have some other +attachment--that's it, I suppose. Oh, don't think I'm blaming you. I may +be in the same case myself for all you know to the contrary. But +circumstances have been too strong for us and here we are. Well, we're +in it, and we've got to make the best of it and why shouldn't we? Lots +of people in my class are in the same position, and yet they get along +all right. Why can't we do the same? I'll not be too particular. Neither +will you. For the rest of our lives let each of us go his and her own +way. But that's no reason why we should be strangers exactly. Not on our +wedding-day at all events. You're a damned pretty woman and I'm. . . . +Well, I'm not an ogre, I suppose. We are man and wife, too. So look +here, we won't expect too much affection from each other--but let's stop +this fooling and be good friends for a little while anyway. Come, now." + +Once more he took hold of me, as if to draw me back, kissing my hands as +he did so, but his gross misinterpretation of my resistance and the +immoral position he was putting me into were stifling me, and I cried: + +"No, I will not. Don't you see that I hate and loathe you?" + +There could be no mistaking me this time. The truth had fallen on my +husband with a shock. I think it was the last thing his pride had +expected. His face became shockingly distorted. But after a moment, +recovering himself with a cruel laugh that made my hot blood run cold, +he said: + +"Nevertheless, you shall do as I wish. You are my wife, and as such you +belong to me. The law allows me to compel you and I will." + +The words went shrieking through and through me. He was coming towards +me with outstretched arms, his teeth set, and his pupils fixed. In the +drunkenness of his rage he was laughing brutally. + +But all my fear had left me. I felt an almost murderous impulse. I +wanted to strike him on the face. + +"If you attempt to touch me I will throw myself out of the window," I +said. + +"No fear of that," he said, catching me quickly in his arms. + +"If you do not take your hands off me I'll shriek the house down," I +cried. + +That was enough. He let me go and dropped back from me. At the next +moment I was breathing with a sense of freedom. Without resistance on my +husband's part I entered the little bedroom to the left and locked the +door behind me. + + + + +THIRTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER + + +Some further time passed. I sat by the fireless grate with my chin in my +hand. If the storm outside was still raging I did not hear it. I was +listening to the confused sounds that came from the sitting-room. + +My husband was pacing to and fro, muttering oaths, knocking against the +furniture, breaking things. At one moment there was a crash of glass, as +if he had helped himself to brandy and then in his ungovernable passion +flung the decanter into the fire grate. + +Somebody knocked at the sitting-room. It must have been a waiter, for +through the wall I heard the muffled sound of a voice asking if there +had been an accident. My husband swore at the man and sent him off. +Hadn't he told him not to come until he was rung for? + +At length, after half an hour perhaps, my husband knocked at the door of +my little room. + +"Are you there?" he asked. + +I made no answer. + +"Open the door." + +I sat motionless. + +"You needn't be afraid. I'm not going to do anything. I've something to +say." + +Still I made no reply. My husband went away for a moment and then came +back. + +"If you are determined not to open the door I must say what I've got to +say from here. Are you listening?" + +Sitting painfully rigid I answered that I was. + +Then he told me that what I was doing would entitle him to annul our +marriage--in the eyes of the Church at all events. + +If he thought that threat would intimidate me he was mistaken--a wave of +secret joy coursed through me. + +"It won't matter much to me--I'll take care it won't--but it will be a +degrading business for you--invalidity and all that. Are you prepared +for it?" + +I continued to sit silent and motionless. + +"I daresay we shall both be laughed at, but I cannot help that. We can't +possibly live together on terms like these." + +Another wave of joy coursed through me. + +"Anyhow I intend to know before I leave the island how things are to be. +I'm not going to take you away until I get some satisfaction. You +understand?" + +I listened, almost without breathing, but I did not reply. + +"I'm think of writing a letter to your father, and sending Hobson with +it in the car immediately. Do you hear me?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, you know what your father is. Unless I'm much mistaken he's not a +man to have much patience with your semi-romantic, semi-religious +sentiments. Are you quite satisfied?" + +"Quite." + +"Very well! That's what I'll do, then." + +After this there was a period of quiet in which I assumed that my +husband was writing his letter. Then I heard a bell ring somewhere in +the corridor, and shortly afterwards there was a second voice in the +sitting-room, but I could not hear the words that were spoken. I suppose +it was Hobson's low voice, for after another short interval of silence +there came the thrum and throb of a motor-car and the rumble of +india-rubber wheels on the wet gravel of the courtyard in front of the +hotel. + +Then my husband knocked at my door again. + +"I've written that letter and Hobson is waiting to take it. Your father +will probably get it before he goes to bed. It will be a bad break on +the festivities he was preparing for the village people. But you are +still of the same mind, I suppose?" + +I did not speak, but I rose and went over to the window. For some reason +difficult to explain, that reference to the festivities had cut me to +the quick. + +My husband must have been fuming at my apparent indifference, and I felt +as if I could see him looking at me, passionate and proud. + +"Between the lot of you I think you've done me a great injustice. Have +you nothing to say?" + +Even then I did not answer. + +"All right! As you please." + +A few minutes afterwards I heard the motor-car turning and driving away. + +The wind had fallen, the waves were rolling into the harbour with that +monotonous moan which is the sea's memory of a storm, and a full moon, +like a white-robed queen, was riding through a troubled sky. + + + + +THIRTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER + + +The moon had died out; a new day had dawned; the sea was lying as quiet +as a sleeping child; far out on the level horizon the sky was crimsoning +before the rising sun, and clouds of white sea-gulls were swirling and +jabbering above the rocks in the harbour below the house before I lay +down to sleep. + +I was awakened by a hurried knocking at my door, and by an impatient +voice crying: + +"Mary! Mary! Get up! Let me in!" + +It was Aunt Bridget who had arrived in my husband's automobile. When I +opened the door to her she came sailing into the room with her new +half-moon bonnet a little awry, as if she had put it on hurriedly in the +dim light of early morning, and, looking at me with her cold grey eyes +behind their gold-rimmed spectacles, she began to bombard me with +mingled ridicule and indignant protest. + +"Goodness me, girl, what's all this fuss about? You little simpleton, +tell me what has happened!" + +She was laughing. I had hardly ever heard Aunt Bridget laugh before. But +her vexation soon got the better of her merriment. + +"His lordship's letter arrived in the middle of the night and nearly +frightened us out of our senses. Your father was for coming away +straight, and it would have been worse for you if he had. But I said: +'No, this is work for a woman, I'll go,' and here I am. And now tell me, +what in the name of goodness does this ridiculous trouble mean?" + +It was hard to say anything on such a subject under such circumstances, +especially when so challenged, but Aunt Bridget, without waiting for my +reply, proceeded to indicate the substance of my husband's letter. + +From this I gathered that he had chosen (probably to save his pride) to +set down my resistance to ignorance of the first conditions of +matrimony, and had charged my father first and Aunt Bridget afterwards +with doing him a shocking injustice in permitting me to be married to +him without telling me what every girl who becomes a wife ought to know. + +"But, good gracious," said my Aunt Bridget, "who would have imagined you +_didn't_ know. I thought every girl in the world knew before she put up +her hair and came out of short frocks. My Betsy did, I'm sure of that. +And to think that you--you whom we thought so cute, so cunning. . . . +Mary O'Neill, I'm ashamed of you. I really, really am! Why, you goose" +(Aunt Bridget was again trying to laugh), "how did you suppose the world +went on?" + +The coarse ridicule of what was supposed to be my maidenly modesty cut +me like a knife, but I could not permit myself to explain, so my Aunt +Bridget ran on talking. + +"I see how it has been. It's the fault of that Reverend Mother at the +convent. What sort of a woman is she? Is she a woman at all, I wonder, +or only a piece of stucco that ought to be put up in a church corner! To +think she could have you nine years and never say one word about. . . . +Well, well! What has she been doing with you? Talking about the +mysteries, I suppose--prayers and retreats and novenas, and the +spiritual bridegroom and the rest of it, while all the while. . . . But +you must put the convent out of your head, my girl. You are a married +woman now. You've got to think of your husband, and a husband isn't a +spiritual bridegroom I can tell you. He's flesh and blood, that's what a +husband is, and you can't expect _him_ to spend his time talking about +eternity and the rosary. Not on his wedding-day, anyway." + +I was hot in my absurd embarrassment, and I dare say my face was +scarlet, but Aunt Bridget showed me no mercy. + +"The way you have behaved is too silly for anything. . . . It really is. +A husband's a husband, and a wife's a wife. The wife has to obey her +husband. Of course she has. Every wife has to. Some don't like it. I +can't say that I liked it very much myself. But to think of anybody +objecting. Why, it's shocking! Nobody ever heard of such a thing." + +I must have flushed up to my forehead, for I became conscious that in my +Aunt Bridget's eyes there had been a kind of indecency in my conduct. + +"But, come," she said, "we must be sensible. It's timidity, that's what +it is. I was a little timid myself when I was first married, but I soon +got over it. Once get over your timidity and you will be all right. +Sakes alive, yes, you'll be as happy as the day is long, and before this +time to-morrow you'll wonder what on earth you made all this fuss +about." + +I tried to say that what she predicted could never be, because I did not +love my husband, and therefore . . . but my Aunt Bridget broke in on me, +saying: + +"Mary O'Neill, don't be a fool. Your maiden days are over now, and you +ought to know what your husband will do if you persist." + +I jumped at the thought that she meant he would annul our marriage, but +that was not what she was thinking of. + +"He'll find somebody else--that's what he'll do. Serve you right, too. +You'll only have yourself to blame for it. Perhaps you think you'll be +able to do the same, but you won't. Women can't. He'll be happy enough, +and you'll be the only one to suffer, so don't make a fool of yourself. +Accept the situation. You may not like your husband too much. I can't +say I liked the Colonel particularly. He took snuff, and no woman in the +world could keep him in clean pocket handkerchiefs. But when a sensible +person has got something at stake, she puts up with things. And that's +what you must do. He who wants fresh eggs must raise his own chickens, +you know." + +Aunt Bridget ran on for some time longer, telling me of my father's +anger, which was not a matter for much surprise, seeing how he had built +himself upon my marriage, and how he had expected that I should have a +child, a son, to carry on the family. + +"Do you mean to disappoint him after all he has done for you? It would +be too silly, too stupid. You'd be the laughing-stock of the whole +island. So get up and get dressed and be ready and willing to go with +his lordship when he sails by this afternoon's steamer." + +"I can't," I said. + +"You can't? You mean you won't?" + +"Very well, Auntie, I won't." + +At that Aunt Bridget stormed at me for several minutes, telling me that +if my stubborn determination not to leave the island with my husband +meant that I intended to return home she might inform me at once that I +was not wanted there and I need not come. + +"I've enough on my hands in that house already, what with Betsy +unmarried, and your father doing nothing for her, and that nasty Nessy +MacLeod making up to him. You ungrateful minx! You are ruining +everything! After all I've done for you too! But no matter! If you +_will_ make your bed I shall take care that you lie on it." + +With that, and the peak of her half-moon bonnet almost dancing over her +angry face, Aunt Bridget flounced out of my room. + +Half an hour afterwards, when I went into the sitting-room, I found my +father's advocate, Mr. Curphy, waiting for me. He looked down at me with +an indulgent and significant smile, which brought the colour rushing +back to my face, put me to sit by his side, touched my arm with one of +his large white clammy hands, stroked his long brown beard with the +other, and then in the half-reproving tone which a Sunday-school teacher +might have used to a wayward child, he began to tell me what the +consequences would be if I persisted in my present conduct. + +They would be serious. The law was very clear on marital rights. If a +wife refused to live with her husband, except on a plea of cruelty or +something equally plausible, he could apply to the court and compel her +to do so; and if she declined, if she removed herself from his abode, or +having removed, refused to return, the Court might punish her--it might +even imprison her. + +"So you see, the man is the top dog in a case like this, my dear, and he +can compel the woman to obey him." + +"Do you mean," I said, "that he can use force to compel her?" + +"Reasonable force, yes. I think that's so. And quite right, too, when +you come to think of it. The woman has entered into a serious contract, +and it is the duty of the law to see that she fulfills the conditions of +it." + +I remembered how little I had known of the conditions of the contract I +had entered into, but I was too heart-sick and ashamed to say anything +about that. + +"Aw yes, that's so," said the advocate, "force, reasonable force! You +may say it puts a woman in a worse position as a wife than she would be +if she were a mistress. That's true, but it's the law, and once a woman +has married a man, the only escape from this condition of submission is +imprisonment." + +"Then I would rather that--a thousand times rather," I said, for I was +hot with anger and indignation. + +Again the advocate smiled indulgently, patted my arm, and answered me as +if I were a child. + +"Tut, tut, my dear, tut, tut! You've made a marriage that is founded on +suitability of position, property and education, and everything will +come right by and by. Don't act on a fit of pique or spleen, and so +destroy your happiness, and that of everybody about you. Think of your +father. Remember what he has done to make this marriage. I may tell you +that he has paid forty thousand pounds to discharge your husband's debts +and undertaken responsibility for an allowance of six thousand a year +beside. Do you want him to lose all that money?" + +I was so sick with disgust at hearing this that I could not speak, and +the advocate, who, in his different way, was as dead to my real feelings +as my husband had been, went on to say: + +"Come, be reasonable. You may have suffered some slight, some indignity. +No doubt you have. Your husband is proud and he has peculiarities of +temper which we have all to make allowances for. But even if you could +establish a charge of cruelty against him and so secure a +separation--which you can't--what good would that do you? None at +all--worse than none! The financial arrangements would remain the same. +Your father would be a frightful loser. And what would you be? A married +widow! The worst condition in the world for a woman--especially if she +is young and attractive, and subject to temptations. Ask anybody who +knows--anybody." + +I felt as if I would suffocate with shame. + +"Come now," said the advocate in his superior way, taking my hand as if +he were going to lead me like a child to my husband, "let us put an end +to this little trouble. His lordship is downstairs and he has +consented--kindly and generously consented--to wait an hour for your +answer. But he must leave the island by the afternoon steamer, and +if. . . ." + +"Then tell him he must leave it without me," I said, as well as I could +for the anger that was choking me. + +The advocate looked steadily into my face. I think he understood the +situation at last. + +"You mean that--really and truly mean it?" he asked. + +"I do," I answered, and unable to say or hear any more without breaking +out on him altogether I left the room. + + + + +THIRTY-NINTH CHAPTER + + +Down to this moment I had put on a brave front though my very heart had +been trembling; but now I felt that all the weight of law, custom, +parental authority and even religion was bearing me down, down, down, +and unless help came I must submit in the long run. + +I was back in the small bedroom, with my hot forehead against the cold +glass of the window, looking out yet seeing nothing, when somebody +knocked at the door, softly almost timidly. It was Father Dan, and the +sight of his dear face, broken up with emotion, was the same to me as +the last plank of a foundering ship to a sailor drowning at sea. + +My heart was so full that, though I knew I ought not, I threw my arms +about his neck and burst into a flood of tears. The good old priest did +not put me away. He smoothed my drooping head and patted my shoulders +and in his sweet and simple way he tried to comfort me. + +"Don't cry! Don't worry! It will be all right in the end, my child." + +There was something almost grotesque in his appearance. Under his soft +clerical outdoor hat he was wearing his faded old cassock, as if he had +come away hurriedly at a sudden call. I could see what had happened--my +family had sent him to reprove me and remonstrate with me. + +He sat on a chair by my bed and I knelt on the floor at his feet, just +as my mother used to do when I was a child and she was making her +confession. Perhaps he thought of that at the same moment as myself, for +the golden light of my mother's memory lay always about him. For some +moments we did not speak. I think we were both weeping. + +At length I tried to tell him what had happened--hiding nothing, +softening nothing, speaking the simple and naked truth. I found it +impossible to do so. My odd-sounding voice was not like my own, and even +my words seemed to be somebody else's. But Father Dan understood +everything. + +"I know! I know!" he said, and then, to my great relief, interrupting my +halting explanations, he gave his own interpretation of my husband's +letter. + +There was a higher love and there was a lower love and both were +necessary to God's plans and purposes. But the higher love must come +first, or else the lower one would seem to be cruel and gross and +against nature. + +Nature was kind to a young girl. Left to itself it awakened her sex very +gently. First with love, which came to her like a whisper in a dream, +like the touch of an angel on her sleeping eyelids, so that when she +awoke to the laws of life the mysteries of sex did not startle or appal +her. + +But sex in me had been awakened rudely and ruthlessly. Married without +love I had been suddenly confronted by the lower passion. What wonder +that I had found it brutal and barbarous? + +"That's it, my child! That's it! I know! I know!" + +Then he began to blame himself for everything, saying it was all his +fault and that he should have held out longer. When he saw how things +stood between me and my husband he should have said to my father, to the +Bishop, and to the lawyers, notwithstanding all their bargainings: "This +marriage must not go on. It will lead to disaster. It begins to end +badly." + +"But now it is all over, my child, and there's no help for it." + +I think the real strength of my resistance to Aunt Bridget's coarse +ridicule and the advocate's callous remonstrance must have been the +memory of my husband's threat when he talked about the possible +annulment of our marriage. The thought of that came back to me now, and +half afraid, half ashamed, with a fluttering of the heart, I tried to +mention it. + +"Is there no way out?" I asked. + +"What way can there be?" said Father Dan. "God knows I know what +pressure was put upon you; but you are married, you have made your vows, +you have given your promises. That's all the world sees or cares about, +and in the eyes of the law and the Church you are responsible for all +that has happened." + +With my head still buried in Father Dan's cassock I got it out at last. + +"But annulment! Isn't that possible--under the circumstances?" I asked. + +The good old priest seemed to be too confused to speak for a moment. +Then he explained that what I hoped for was quite out of the question. + +"I don't say that in the history of the Church marriages have not been +annulled on equally uncertain grounds, but in this case the civil law +would require proof--something to justify nullity. Failing that there +would have to be collusion either on one side or both, and that is not +possible--not to you, my child, not to the daughter of your mother, that +dear saint who suffered so long and was silent." + +More than ever now I felt like a ship-broken man with the last plank +sinking under him. The cold mysterious dread of my husband was creeping +back, and the future of my life with him stood before me with startling +vividness. In spite of all my struggling and fighting of the night +before I saw myself that very night, the next night, and the next, and +every night and day of my life thereafter, a victim of the same +sickening terror. + +"Must I submit, then?" I said. + +Father Dan smoothed my head and told me in his soft voice that +submission was the lot of all women. It always had been so in the +history of the world, and perhaps it always would be. + +"Remember the Epistle we read in church yesterday morning: 'Wives submit +yourselves to your husbands.'" + +With a choking sensation in my throat I asked if he thought I ought to +go away with my husband when he left the island by the afternoon +steamer. + +"I see no escape from it, my poor child. They sent me to reprove you. I +can't do that, but neither can I encourage you to resist. It would be +wrong. It would be cruel. It would only lead you into further trouble." + +My mouth felt parched, but I contrived to say: + +"Then you can hold out no hope for me?" + +"God knows I can't." + +"Although I do not love this man I must live with him as his wife?" + +"It is hard, very hard, but there seems to be no help for it." + +I rose to my feet, and went back to the window. A wild impulse of +rebellion was coming over me. + +"I shall feel like a bad woman," I said. + +"Don't say that," said Father Dan. "You are married to the man anyway." + +"All the same I shall feel like my husband's mistress--his married +mistress, his harlot." + +Father Dan was shocked, and the moment the words were out of my mouth I +was more frightened than I had ever been before, for something within +seemed to have forced them out of me. + +When I recovered possession of my senses Father Dan, nervously fumbling +with the silver cross that hung over his cassock, was talking of the +supernatural effect of the sacrament of marriage. It was God Who joined +people together, and whom God joined together no man might put asunder. +No circumstances either, no trial or tribulation. Could it be thought +that a bond so sacred, so indissoluble, was ever made without good +effect? No, the Almighty had His own ways with His children, and this +great mystery of holy wedlock was one of them. + +"So don't lose heart, my child. Who knows what may happen yet? God works +miracles now just as He did in the old days. You may come . . . yes, you +may come to love your husband, and then--then all will be well." + +Suddenly out of my despair and my defiance a new thought came to me. It +came with the memory of the emotion I had experienced during the +marriage service, and it thrilled me through and through. + +"Father Dan?" I said, with a nervous cry, for my heart was fluttering +again. + +"What is it, my child?" + +It was hard to say what I was thinking about, but with a great effort I +stammered it out at last. I should be willing to leave the island with +my husband, and live under the same roof with him, and bear his name, so +that there might be no trouble, or scandal, and nobody except ourselves +might ever know that there was anything dividing us, any difference of +any kind between us, if he, on his part, would promise--firmly and +faithfully promise--that unless and until I came to love him he would +never claim my submission as a wife. + +While I spoke I hardly dared to look at Father Dan, fearing he would +shake his head again, perhaps reprove me, perhaps laugh at me. But his +eyes which had been moist began to sparkle and smile. + +"You mean that?" he asked. + +"Yes." + +"And you will go away with him on that condition?" + +"Yes, yes." + +"Then he must agree to it." + +The pure-minded old priest saw no difficulties, no dangers, no risks of +breakdown in my girlish scheme. Already my husband had got all he had +bargained for. He had got my father's money in exchange for his noble +name, and if he wanted more, if he wanted the love of his wife, let him +earn it, let him win it. + +"That's only right, only fair. It will be worth winning, too--better +worth winning than all your father's gold and silver ten times over. I +can tell him that much anyway." + +He had risen to his feet in his excitement, the simple old priest with +his pure heart and his beautiful faith in me. + +"And you, my child, you'll try to love him in return--promise you will." + +A shiver ran through me when Father Dan said that--a sense of the +repugnance I felt for my husband almost stifled me. + +"Promise me," said Father Dan, and though my face must have been +scarlet, I promised him. + +"That's right. That alone will make him a better man. He may be all that +people say, but who can measure the miraculous influence of a good +woman?" + +He was making for the door. + +"I must go downstairs now and speak to your husband. But he'll agree. +Why shouldn't he? I know he's afraid of a public scandal, and if he +attempts to refuse I'll tell him that. . . . But no, that will be quite +unnecessary. Good-bye, my child! If I don't come back you'll know that +everything has been settled satisfactorily. You'll be happy yet. I'm +sure you will. Ah, what did I say about the mysterious power of that +solemn and sacred sacrament? Good-bye!" + +I meant what I had said. I meant to do what I had promised. God knows I +did. But does a woman ever know her own heart? Or is heaven alone the +judge of it? + +At four o'clock that afternoon my husband left Ellan for England. I went +with him. + + + + +FORTIETH CHAPTER + + +Having made my bargain I set myself to fulfil the conditions of it. I +had faithfully promised to try to love my husband and I prepared to do +so. + +Did not love require that a wife should look up to and respect and even +reverence the man she had married? I made up my mind to do that by +shutting my eyes to my husband's obvious faults and seeing only his +better qualities. + +What disappointments were in store for me! What crushing and humiliating +disillusionments! + +On the night of our arrival in London we put up at a fashionable hotel +in a quiet but well-known part of the West-end, which is inhabited +chiefly by consulting physicians and celebrated surgeons. Here, to my +surprise, we were immediately discovered, and lines of visitors waited +upon my husband the following morning. + +I thought they were his friends, and a ridiculous little spurt of pride +came to me from heaven knows where with the idea that my husband must be +a man of some importance in the metropolis. + +But I discovered they were his creditors, money-lenders and bookmakers, +to whom he owed debts of "honour" which he had been unable or unwilling +to disclose to my father and his advocate. + +One of my husband's visitors was a pertinacious little man who came +early and stayed late. He was a solicitor, and my husband was obviously +in some fear of him. The interviews between them, while they were +closeted together morning after morning in one of our two sitting-rooms, +were long and apparently unpleasant, for more than once I caught the +sound of angry words on both sides, with oaths and heavy blows upon the +table. + +But towards the end of the week, my husband's lawyer arrived in London, +and after that the conversations became more pacific. + +One morning, as I sat writing a letter in the adjoining room, I heard +laughter, the popping of corks, the jingling of glasses, and the +drinking of healths, and I judged that the, difficult and disagreeable +business had been concluded. + +At the close of the interview I heard the door opened and my husband +going into the outer corridor to see his visitors to the lift, and then +something prompted me--God alone knows what--to step into the room they +had just vacated. + +It was thick with tobacco smoke. An empty bottle of champagne (with +three empty wine glasses) was on the table, and on a desk by the window +were various papers, including a sheet of foolscap which bore a seal and +several signatures, and a thick packet of old letters bound together +with a piece of purple ribbon. + +Hardly had I had time to recognise these documents when my husband +returned to the room, and by the dark expression of his face I saw +instantly that he thought I had looked at them. + +"No matter!" he said, without any preamble. "I might as well tell you at +once and have done with it." + +He told me. The letters were his. They had been written to a woman whom +he had promised to marry, and he had had to buy them back from her. +Although for three years he had spent a fortune on the creature she had +shown him no mercy. Through her solicitor, who was a scoundrel, she had +threatened him, saying in plain words that if he married anybody else +she would take proceedings against him immediately. That was why, in +spite of the storm, we had to come up to London on the day after our +wedding. + +"Now you know," said my husband. "Look here" (holding out the sheet of +foolscap), "five thousand pounds--that's the price I've had to pay for +marrying." + +I can give no idea of the proud imperiousness and the impression of +injury with which my husband told his brutal story. But neither can I +convey a sense of the crushing shame with which I listened to it. There +was not a hint of any consciousness on his part of my side of the case. +Not a suggestion of the clear fact that the woman he had promised to +marry had been paid off by money which had come through me. Not a +thought of the humiliation he had imposed upon his wife in dragging her +up to London at the demand of his cast-off mistress. + +When my husband had finished speaking I could not utter a word. I was +afraid that my voice would betray the anger that was boiling in me. But +I was also degraded to the very dust in my own eyes, and to prevent an +outburst of hysterical tears I ran back to my room and hid my face in my +pillow. + +What was the good of trying to make myself in love with a man who was +separated from me by a moral chasm that could never be passed? What was +the good? What was the good? + + + + +FORTY-FIRST CHAPTER + + +But next morning, having had time to think things out in my simple and +ignorant way, I tried to reconcile myself to my position. Remembering +what Aunt Bridget had said, both before my marriage and after it, about +the different moralities of men and women, I told myself I had placed my +standard too high. + +Perhaps a husband was not a superior being, to be regarded with respect +and reverence, but a sort of grown-up child whom it was the duty of a +wife to comfort, coax, submit to and serve. + +I determined to do this. Still clinging to the hope of falling in love +with my husband, I set myself to please him by every means within my +power, even to the length of simulating sentiments which I did not feel. + +But what a task I was setting myself! What a steep and stony Calvary I +was attempting to climb! + +After the degrading business with the other woman had been concluded I +thought we should have left England immediately on the honeymoon tour +which my husband had mapped out for us, but he told me that would not be +convenient and we must remain in London a little longer. We stayed six +weeks altogether, and never did a young wife pass a more cheerless and +weary time. + +I had no friends of my own within reach, and to my deep if secret +mortification no woman of my husband's circle called upon me. But a few +of his male friends were constantly with us, including Mr. Eastcliff, +who had speedily followed us from Ellan, and a Mr. Vivian, who, though +the brother of a Cabinet Minister, seemed to me a very vain and vapid +person, with the eyes of a mole, a vacant smile, a stupid expression, an +abrupt way of speaking through his teeth, and a shrill voice which gave +the impression of screeching against the wind. + +With these two men, and others of a similar kind, we passed many hours +of nearly every day, lunching with them, dining with them, walking with +them, driving with them, and above all playing bridge with them in one +of our sitting rooms in the hotel. + +I knew nothing of the game to begin with, never having touched a card in +my life, but in accordance with the theories which I believed to be +right and the duties I had imposed upon myself, I took a hand with my +husband when he could find nobody better to be his partner. + +The results were very disheartening. In spite of my desire to please I +was slow to learn, and my husband's impatience with my mistakes, which +confused and intimidated me, led to some painful humiliations. First he +laughed, next he sneered, then he snapped me up in the midst of my +explanations and apologies, and finally, at a moment of loss, he broke +out on me with brutal derision, saying he had never had much opinion of +my intellect, but was now quite sure that I had no more brains than a +rabbit and could not say Boo to a goose. + +One day when we were alone, and he was lying on the couch with his +vicious little terrier by his side, I offered to sing to him. +Remembering how my voice had been praised, I thought it would be +pleasant to my husband to see that there was something I really could +do. But nine years in a convent had left me with next to no music but +memories of the long-breathed harmonies of some of the beautiful masses +of our Church, and hardly had I begun on these when my husband cried: + +"Oh, stop, stop, for heaven's sake stop, or I shall think we're +attending a funeral." + +Another day I offered to read to him. The Reverend Mother used to say I +was the best reader she had ever heard, but perhaps it was not +altogether my husband's fault if he formed a different opinion. And +indeed I cannot but think that the holy saints themselves would have +laughed if they had heard me reading aloud, in the voice and intonation +which I had assumed for the meditations of St. Francis of Assisi, the +mystic allusions to "certs," and "bookies," and "punters," and "evens," +and "scratchings," which formed the substance of the sporting journals +that were my husband's only literature. + +"Oh, stop it, stop it," he cried again. "You read the 'Winning Post' as +if it were the Book of Revelation." + +As time passed the gulf that separated me from my husband became still +greater. If I could have entertained him with any kind of gossip we +might have got on better. But I had no conversation that interested him, +and he had little or none that I could pretend to understand. He loved +the town; I loved the country; he loved the night and the blaze of +electric lights; I loved the morning and the sweetness of the sun. + +At the bottom of my heart I knew that his mind was common, low and +narrow, and that his tastes were gross and vulgar, but I was determined +to conquer the repulsion I felt for him. + +It was impossible. If I could have struck one spark from the flint of +his heart the relations between us might have been different. If his +look could have met my look in a single glance of understanding I could +have borne with his impatience and struggled on. + +But nothing of this kind ever happened, and when one dreary night after +grumbling at the servants, cursing his fate and abusing everybody and +everything, he put on his hat and went out saying he had "better have +married Lena [the other woman] after all," for in that case he would +have had "some sort of society anyway," the revulsion I had felt on the +night of my marriage came sweeping over me like a wave of the sea, and I +asked myself again, "What's the good? What's the good?" + + + + +FORTY-SECOND CHAPTER + + +Nevertheless next day I found myself taking my husband's side against +myself. + +If he had sacrificed anything in order to marry me it was my duty to +make it up to him. + +I resolved that I _should_ make it up to him. I would study my husband's +likes and dislikes in every little thing. I would share in his pleasures +and enter into his life. I would show him that a wife was something +other and better than any hired woman in the world, and that when she +cast in her lot with her husband it was for his own sake only and not +for any fortune he could spend on her. + +"Yes, yes, that's what I'll do," I thought, and I became more solicitous +of my husband's happiness than if I had really and truly loved him. + +A woman would smile at the efforts which I made in my inexperience to +make my husband forget his cast-off mistress, and indeed some of them +were very childish. + +The first was a ridiculous failure. + +My husband's birthday was approaching and I wished to make him a +present. It was difficult to know what to select, for I knew little or +nothing of his tastes or wants; but walking one day in a street off +Oxford Street I saw, in the window of a shop for the sale of objects of +ecclesiastical _vertu_, among crosses and crucifixes and rosaries, a +little ivory ink-stand and paper-holder, which was surmounted by a +figure of the Virgin. + +I cannot for the life of me conceive why I thought this would be a +suitable present for my husband, except that the face of Our Lady was so +young, so sweet, so beautiful, and so exquisitely feminine that it +seemed impossible that any man in the world should not love her. But +however that might be I bought her, and carrying her home in a cab, I +set her on my husband's desk without a word, and then stood by, like the +mother of Moses, to watch the result. + +There was no result--at first at all events. My husband was several +hours in the room with my treasure without appearing to be aware of its +presence. But towards evening his two principal friends came to play +bridge with him, and then, from the ambush of my own apartments, I heard +the screechy voice of Mr. Vivian saying: + +"Dash it all, Jimmy, you don't say you're going to be a Pape?" + +"Don't fret yourself, old fellow," replied my husband. "That's my wife's +little flutter. Dare say the poor fool has had to promise her priest to +make me a 'vert.'" + +My next experiment was perhaps equally childish but certainly more +successful. + +Seeing that my husband was fond of flowers, and was rarely without a +rose in his buttonhole, I conceived the idea of filling his room with +them in honour of his birthday. With this view I got up very early, +before anybody in the hotel was stirring, and hurried off to Covent +Garden, through the empty and echoing streets, while the air of London +was fresh with the breath of morning and the big city within its +high-built walls seemed to dream of the green fields beyond. + +I arrived at the busy and noisy square just as the waggons were rolling +in from the country with huge crates of red and white roses, bright with +the sunshine and sparkling with the dew. Then buying the largest and +loveliest and costliest bunch of them (a great armful, as much as I +could hold), I hurried back to the hotel and set them in vases and +glasses in every part of my husband's room--his desk, his sideboard, his +mantelpiece, and above all his table, which a waiter was laying for +breakfast--until the whole place was like a bridal bower. + +"Ah, this is something like," I heard my husband say as he came out of +his bedroom an hour or two afterwards with his vicious terrier at his +heels. + +I heard no more until he had finished breakfast, and then, while drawing +on his gloves for his morning walk, he said to the waiter, who was +clearing the table, + +"Tell your Manageress I am much obliged to her for the charming flowers +with which she has decorated my room this morning." + +"But it wasn't the manageress, my lord," said the waiter. + +"Then who was it?" + +"It was her . . . her ladyship," said the waiter. + +"O-oh!" said my husband in a softer, if more insinuating tone, and a few +minutes afterwards he went out whistling. + +God knows that was small reward for the trouble I had taken, but I was +so uplifted by the success of my experiment that I determined to go +farther, and when towards evening of the same day a group of my +husband's friends came to tell him that they had booked a box at a +well-known musical comedy theatre, I begged to be permitted to join +them. + +"Nonsense, my dear! Brompton Oratory would suit you better," said my +husband, chucking me under the chin. + +But I persisted in my importunities, and at length Mr. Eastcliff said: + +"Let her come. Why shouldn't she?" + +"Very well," said my husband, pinching my cheek. "As you please. But if +you don't like it don't blame _me_." + +It did not escape me that as a result of my change of front my husband +had risen in his own esteem, and that he was behaving towards me as one +who thought he had conquered my first repugnance, or perhaps +triumphantly ridden over it. But in my simplicity I was so fixed in my +determination to make my husband forget the loss of his mistress that I +had no fear of his familiarities and no misgivings about his mistakes. + +All that was to come later, with a fresh access of revulsion and +disgust. + + + + +FORTY-THIRD CHAPTER + + +I had seen enough of London by this time to know that the dresses which +had been made for me at home were by no means the _mode_; but after I +had put on the best-fitting of my simple quaker-like costumes with a +string of the family pearls about my neck and another about my head, not +all the teaching of the good women of the convent could prevent me from +thinking that my husband and his friends would have no reason to be +ashamed of me. + +We were a party of six in all, whereof I was the only woman, and we +occupied a large box on the first tier near the stage, a position of +prominence which caused me a certain embarrassment, when, as happened +at one moment of indefinable misery, the opera glasses of the people in +the dress-circle and stalls were turned in our direction. + +I cannot say that the theatre impressed me. Certainly the building +itself did not do so, although it was beautifully decorated in white and +gold, for I had seen the churches of Rome, and in my eyes they were much +more gorgeous. + +Neither did the audience impress me, for though I had never before seen +so many well-dressed people in one place, I thought too many of the men, +when past middle life, seemed fat and overfed, and too many of the +women, with their plump arms and bare shoulders, looked as if they +thought of nothing but what to eat and what to put on. + +Nor did the performers impress me, for though when the curtain rose, +disclosing the stage full of people, chiefly girls, in delicate and +beautiful toilettes, I thought I had never before seen so many lovely +and happy faces, after a while, when the faces fell into repose, I +thought they were not really lovely and not really happy, but hard and +strained and painful, as if life had been very cruel. + +And, above all, I was not impressed by the play, for I thought, in my +ignorance of such productions, that I had never heard anything so +frivolous and foolish, and more than once I found myself wondering +whether my good nuns, if they could have been present, would not have +concluded that the whole company had taken leave of their senses. + +There was, however, one thing which did impress me, and that was the +leading actor. It was a woman, and when she first came on to the stage I +thought I had never in my life seen anybody so beautiful, with her +lovely soft round figure, her black eyes, her red lips, her pearly white +teeth, and a smile so sunny that it had the effect of making everybody +in the audience smile with her. + +But the strange thing was--I could not account for it--that after a few +minutes I thought her extremely ugly and repellent, for her face seemed +to be distorted by malice and envy and hatred and nearly every other bad +passion. + +Nevertheless she was a general favourite, for not only was she applauded +before she did anything, but everything she said, though it was +sometimes very silly, was accompanied by a great deal of laughter, and +everything she sang, though her voice was no great matter, was followed +by a chorus of applause. + +Seeing this, and feeling that her appearance had caused a flutter of +interest in the box behind me, I laughed and applauded also, in +accordance with the plan I had prepared for myself, of sharing my +husband's pleasures and entering into his life, although at the bottom +of my heart I really thought the joy was not very joyful or the mirth +very merry. + +This went on for nearly an hour, and then a strange thing happened. I +was leaning forward on the velvet barrier of the box in front of me, +laughing and clapping my hands with the rest, when all at once I became +aware that the lady had wheeled about, and, walking down the stage in +the direction of our box, was looking boldly back at me. + +I could not at first believe it to be so, and even now I cannot say +whether it was something in her face, or something whispered at my back +which flashed it upon my mind that this was the woman my husband ought +to have married, the woman whose place I had taken, the woman of the +foolscap document and the letters in the purple ribbon. + +After that I could play my poor little part no longer, and though I +continued to lean on the yellow velvet of the barrier in front of me I +dropped my eyes as often as that woman was on the stage, and hoped and +prayed for the end of the performance. + +It came at length with a crash of instruments and voices, and a few +minutes afterwards my husband and I were in the cab on our way back to +the hotel. + +I was choking with mingled anger and shame--anger at my husband for +permitting me to come to a place in which I could be exposed to a public +affront from his cast-off mistress, shame at the memory of the pitiful +scheme for entering into his life which had fallen to such a welter of +wreck and ruin. + +But my husband himself was only choking with laughter. + +"It was as good as a play," he said. "Upon my soul it was! I never saw +anything funnier in the whole course of my life." + +That served him, repeated again and again, until we reached the hotel, +when he ordered a bottle of wine to be sent upstairs, and then shook +with suppressed laughter as we went up in the lift. + +Coming to our floor I turned towards my bedroom, wishing to be alone +with my outraged feelings, but my husband drew me into one of our +sitting-rooms, telling me he had something to say. + +He put me to sit in an arm-chair, threw off his overcoat, lit a +cigarette, as well as he could for the spurts and gusts of his laughter, +and then, standing back to the fire-place, with one hand in his pocket +and his coat-tail over his arm, he told me the cause of his merriment. + +"I don't mind telling you that was Lena," he said. "The good-looking +girl in the scarlet dress and the big diamonds. She spotted me the +moment she stepped on to the stage. Must have guessed who you were, too. +Did you see how she looked at you? Thought I had brought you there to +walk over her. I'm sure she did!" + +There was another gust of laughter and then-- + +"She'd been going about saying I had married an old frump for the sake +of her fortune, and when she saw that you could wipe her off the face of +the earth without a gown that was worth wearing, she was ready to die +with fury." + +There was another gust of laughter through the smoke that was spurting +from his mouth and then-- + +"And you, too, my dear! Laughing and applauding! She thought you were +trying to crow over her! On her own particular barn-door, too! Upon my +soul, it was too amusing. I wonder she didn't throw something at you. +She's like that when she's in her tantrums." + +The waiter came in with the wine and my husband poured out a glass for +me. + +"Have a drink. No? Well, here's to your health, my dear. I can't get +over it. I really can't. Lena's too funny for anything. Why, what else +do you think she's been saying? She's been saying I'll come back to her +yet. Yes, 'I'll give him six months to come crawling back to me,' she +said to Eastcliff and Vivian and some of the other fellows at the Club. +Wonder if she thinks so now? . . . I wonder?" + +He threw away his cigarette, drank another glass of the wine, came close +up to me and said in a lower tone, which made my skin creep as with +cold. + +"Whether she's right or wrong depends on you, though." + +"On me?" + +"Why, yes, of course. That's only natural. One may have all the goodwill +in the world, but a man's a man, you know." + +I felt my lips quivering with anger, and in an effort to control myself +I rose to go, but my husband drew me back into my chair and sat on the +arm of it. + +"Don't go yet. By the way, dear, I've never thanked you for the +beautiful flowers with which you decorated my room this morning. +Charming! But I always knew you would soon come round to it." + +"Come round to what?" I said, but it was just as if somebody else were +speaking. + +"_You_ know. Of course you know. When that simple old priest proposed +that ridiculous compact I agreed, but I knew quite well that it would +soon break down. Not on my side, though. Why should it? A man can afford +to wait. But I felt sure you would soon tire of your resistance. And you +have, haven't you? Oh, I'm not blind. I've seen what's been going on, +though I've said nothing about it." + +Again I tried to rise, and again my husband held me to my seat, saying: + +"Don't be ashamed. There's no reason for that. You were rather hard on +me, you know, but I'm going to forget all about it. Why shouldn't I? +I've got the loveliest little woman in the world, so I mean to meet her +half way, and she's going to get over her convent-bred ideas and be my +dear little darling wife. Now isn't she?" + +I could have died of confusion and the utter degradation of shame. To +think that my poor efforts to please him, my vain attempts to look up to +him and reverence him, my bankrupt appeals to the spiritual woman in me +that I might bring myself to love him, as I thought it was my duty to +do, should have been perverted by his gross and vulgar mind into +overtures to the animal man in him--this was more than I could bear. I +felt the tears gushing to my eyes, but I kept them back, for my +self-pity was not so strong as my wrath. + +I rose this time without being aware of his resistance. + +"Let me go to bed," I said. + +"Certainly! Most certainly, my dear, but. . . ." + +"Let me go to bed," I said again, and at the next moment I stepped into +my room. + +He did not attempt to follow me. I saw in a mirror in front what was +taking place behind me. + +My husband was standing where I had left him with a look first of +amazement and then of rage. + +"I can't understand you," he said. "Upon my soul I can't! There isn't a +man in the world who could." After that he strode into his own bedroom +and clashed the door after him. + +"Oh, what's the good?" I thought again. + +It was impossible to make myself in love with my husband. It was no use +trying. + + + + +FORTY-FOURTH CHAPTER + + +I must leave it to those who know better than I do the way to read the +deep mysteries of a woman's heart, to explain how it came to pass that +the only result of this incident was to make me sure that if we remained +in London much longer my husband would go back to the other woman, and +to say why (seeing that I did not love him) I should have become +feverishly anxious to remove him from the range of this temptation. + +Yet so it was, for the very next morning, I wrote to my father saying I +had been unwell and begging him to use his influence with my husband to +set out on the Egyptian trip without further delay. + +My father's answer was prompt. What he had read between the lines of my +letter I do not know; what he said was this-- + + "Daughter--Certainly! I am writing to son-in-law telling him to + quit London quick. I guess you've been too long there already. And + while you are away you can draw on me yourself for as much as you + please, for where it is a matter of money you must never let nobody + walk over you. + + Yours--&c." + +The letter to my husband produced an immediate result. Within +twenty-four hours, the telephone was at work with inquiries about trains +and berths on steamers; and within a week we were on our way to +Marseilles to join the ship that was to take us to Port Said. + +Our state-rooms were on the promenade deck of the steamer with a +passage-way between them. This admitted of entirely separate existences, +which was well, for knowing or guessing my share in our altered +arrangements, my husband had become even more morose than before, and no +conversation could be sustained between us. + +He spent the greater part of his time in his state-room, grumbling at +the steward, abusing his valet, beating his bad-tempered terrier and +cursing the luck that had brought him on this senseless voyage. + +More than ever now I felt the gulf that divided us. I could not pass one +single hour with him in comfort. My life was becoming as cold as an +empty house, and I was beginning to regret the eagerness with which I +had removed my husband from a scene in which he had at least lived the +life of a rational creature, when an unexpected event brought me a +thrill of passing pleasure. + +Our seats in the saloon were at the top of the doctor's table, and the +doctor himself was a young Irishman of three or four-and-twenty, as +bright and breezy as a March morning and as racy of the soil as new-cut +peat. + +Hearing that I was from Ellan he started me by asking if by chance I +knew Martin Conrad. + +"Martin Conrad?" I repeated, feeling (I hardly knew why) as if a rosy +veil were falling over my face and neck. + +"Yes, Mart Conrad, as we call him. The young man who has gone out as +doctor with Lieutenant ----'s expedition to the South Pole?" + +A wave of tender feeling from my childhood came surging up to my throat +and I said: + +"He was the first of my boy friends--in fact the only one." + +The young doctor's eyes sparkled and he looked as if he wanted to throw +down his soup-spoon, jump up, and grasp me by both hands. + +"God bless me, is that so?" he said. + +It turned out that Martin and he had been friends at Dublin University. +They had worked together, "roomed" together, and taken their degrees at +the same time. + +"So you know Mart? Lord alive, the way things come out!" + +It was easy to see that Martin was not only his friend but his hero. He +talked of him with a passionate love and admiration with which men, +whatever they feel, rarely speak of each other. + +Martin was the salt of the earth. He was the finest fellow and the +staunchest friend and the bravest-hearted chap that walked under the +stars of God. + +"The greatest chum I have in the world, too, and by the holy Immaculate +Mother I'm destroyed at being away from him." + +It was like music to hear him speak. A flood of joy went sweeping +through me at every word of praise he gave to Martin. And yet--I cannot +explain why, unless it was the woman in me, the Irish-woman, or +something like it--but I began to depreciate Martin, in order to "hoosh" +him on, so that he might say more on the same subject. + +"Then he _did_ take his degree," I said. "He was never very clever at +his lessons, I remember, and I heard that he was only just able to +scrape through his examinations." + +The young doctor fell to my bait like a darling. With a flaming face and +a nervous rush of racy words which made me think that if I closed my +eyes I should be back on the steps of the church in Rome talking to +Martin himself, he told me I was mistaken if I thought his friend was a +numskull, for he had had "the biggest brain-pan in College Green," and +the way he could learn things when he wanted to was wonderful. + +He might be a bit shaky in his spelling, and perhaps he couldn't lick +the world in Latin, but his heart was always in exploring, and the way +he knew geography, especially the part of it they call the "Unknown," +the Arctic, and the Antarctic, and what Charcot had done there, and +Biscoe and Bellamy and D'Urville and Greely and Nansen and Shackleton +and Peary, was enough to make the provost and professors look like fools +of the earth by the side of him. + +"Why, what do you think?" said the doctor. "When he went to London to +apply for his billet, the Lieutenant said to him: 'You must have been +down there before, young man.' 'No such luck,' said Martin. 'But you +know as much about the Antarctic already as the whole boiling of us put +together,' said the Lieutenant. Yes, by St. Patrick and St. Thomas, he's +a geographer any way." + +I admitted that much, and to encourage the doctor to go on I told him +where I had seen Martin last, and what he had said of his expedition. + +"In Rome you say?" said the doctor, with a note of jealousy. "You beat +me there then. I saw him off from London, though. A few of us Dublin +boys, being in town at the time, went down to Tilbury to see him sail, +and when they were lifting anchor and the tug was hitching on, we stood +on the pier--sixteen strong--and set up some of our college songs. 'Stop +your noising, boys,' said he, 'the Lieutenant will be hearing you.' But +not a bit of it. We sang away as long as we could see him going out with +the tide, and then we went back in the train, smoking our pipes like so +many Vauxhall chimneys, and narra a word out of the one of us. . . . +Yes, yes, there are some men like that. They come like the stars of +night and go like the light of heaven. Same as there are some women who +walk the world like the sun, and leave the grass growing green wherever +their feet have trod." + +It was very ridiculous, I did not then understand why it should be so, +but the tears came gushing into my eyes while the doctor spoke, and it +was as much as I could do to preserve my composure. + +What interpretation my husband put upon my emotion I do not know, but I +saw that his face darkened, and when the doctor turned to him to ask if +he also knew Martin he answered curtly and brusquely, + +"Not I. No loss either, I should say." + +"No loss?" said the doctor. "Show me the man under the stars of God +that's fit to hold a candle to Martin Conrad, and by the angel Gabriel +I'll go fifty miles out of my way to put a sight on him." + +More than ever after this talk about Martin Conrad I was feeling +defenceless, and at the mercy of my husband's wishes and whims, when +something happened which seemed to change his character altogether. + +The third day out, on a bright and quiet morning, we called at Malta, +and while my husband went ashore to visit some friends in the garrison, +I sat on deck watching the life of the little port and looking at the +big warships anchored in the bay. + +A Maltese woman came on board to sell souvenirs of the island, and +picking out of her tray a tiny twisted thing in coral, I asked what it +was. + +"That's a charm, my lady," said the woman. + +"A charm for what?" + +"To make my lady's husband love her." + +I felt my face becoming crimson, but my heart was sore, so in my +simplicity I bought the charm and was smuggling it into my bag when I +became aware that one of my fellow-passengers, a lady, was looking down +at me. + +She was a tall, singularly handsome woman, fashionably and (although on +shipboard) almost sumptuously dressed. A look in her face was haunting +me with a memory I could not fix when she stooped and said: + +"Aren't you Mary O'Neill?" + +The voice completed the identification, and I knew who it was. It was +Alma Lier. + +She was now about seven-and-twenty and in the prime of her young +womanhood. Her beautiful auburn hair lay low over her broad forehead, +almost descending to her long sable-coloured eyebrows. Her cheeks were +very white, (rather beyond the whiteness of nature, I thought), and her +lips were more than commonly red, with the upper one a little thin and +the lower slightly set forward. But her eyes were still her +distinguishing feature, being larger and blacker than before and having +that vivid gaze that looked through and through you and made you feel +that few women and no man in the world would have the power to resist +her. + +Her movements were almost noiseless, and as she sank into the chair by +my side there was a certain over-sweetness in the soft succulent tones +of the voice with which she began to tell me what had happened to her +since I had seen her last. + +It was a rather painful story. After two or three years in a girls' +college in her own country she had set out with her mother for a long +tour of the European capitals. In Berlin, at what was falsely called a +Charity Ball, she had met a young Russian Count who was understood to be +rich and related to one of the Grand Ducal families. Against the +protests of her father (a shrewd American banker), she had married the +Count, and they had returned to New York, where her mother had social +ambitions. + +There they had suffered a serious shock. It turned out that her husband +had deceived them, and that he was really a poor and quite nameless +person, only remotely related to the family he claimed to belong to. + +Nevertheless Alma had "won out" at last. By digging deep into her +father's treasury she got rid of her treacherous husband, and going "way +out west," she had been able, in due time, to divorce him. + +Since then she had resumed her family name, being known as Madame Lier, +and now she was on her way to Egypt to spend the season at Cairo. + +"And you?" she said. "You stayed long at the convent--yes?" + +I answered that I had, and then in my fluttering voice (for some of the +old spell of her presence had come sweeping back upon me) I replied one +by one to the questions she asked about the Reverend Mother, the +"Reverend Mother Mildred," Sister Angela and Father Giovanni, not to +speak of myself, whom she had always thought of as "Margaret Mary" +because I had looked so innocent and nun-like. + +"And now you are married!" she said. "Married so splendidly, too! We +heard all about it. Mother was so interested. What a lucky girl you are! +Everybody says your husband is so handsome and charming. He is, isn't +he?" + +I was doing my utmost to put the best face upon my condition without +betraying the facts or simulating sentiments which I could not feel, +when a boat from the shore pulled up at the ship's side, and my husband +stepped on to the deck. + +In his usual morose manner he was about to pass without speaking on his +way to his state-room, when his eyes fell on Alma sitting beside me. +Then he stopped and looked at us, and, stepping up, he said, in a tone I +had never heard from him before: + +"Mary, my dear, will you not present me to your friend?" + +I hesitated, and then with a quivering of the lips I did so. But +something told me as I introduced my husband to Alma, and Alma to my +husband, and they stood looking into each other's eyes and holding each +other's hands (for Alma had risen and I was sitting between them), that +this was the most momentous incident of my life thus far--that for good +or ill my hour had struck and I could almost hear the bell. + + + + +FORTY-FIFTH CHAPTER + + +From that hour forward my husband was a changed man. His manner to me, +so brusque before, became courteous, kind, almost affectionate. Every +morning he would knock at the door of my state-room to ask if I had +slept well, or if the movement of the steamer had disturbed me. + +His manner to Alma was charming. He was up before breakfast every day, +promenading the deck with her in the fresh salt air. I would slide back +my window and hear their laughter as they passed, above the throb of the +engines and the wash of the sea. Sometimes they would look in upon me +and joke, and Alma would say: + +"And how's Margaret Mary this morning?" + +Our seats in the saloon had been changed. Now we sat with Alma at the +Captain's table, and though I sorely missed the doctor's racy talk about +Martin Conrad I was charmed by Alma's bright wit and the fund of her +personal anecdotes. She seemed to know nearly everybody. My husband knew +everybody also, and their conversation never flagged. + +Something of the wonderful and worshipful feeling I had had for Alma at +the Sacred Heart came back to me, and as for my husband it seemed to me +that I was seeing him for the first time. + +He persuaded the Captain to give a dance on our last night at sea, so +the awnings were spread, the electric lights were turned on, and the +deck of the ship became a scene of enchantment. + +My husband and Alma led off. He danced beautifully and she was dressed +to perfection. Not being a dancer myself I stood with the Captain in the +darkness outside, looking in on them in the bright and dazzling circle, +while the moon-rays were sweeping the waters like a silver fan and the +little waves were beating the ship's side with friendly pats. + +I was almost happy. In my simplicity I was feeling grateful to Alma for +having wrought this extraordinary change, so that when, on our arrival +at Port Said, my husband said, + +"Your friend Madame Lier has made no arrangements for her rooms at +Cairo--hadn't I better telegraph to our hotel, dear?" I answered, "Yes," +and wondered why he had asked me. + +Our hotel was an oriental building, situated on an island at the further +side of the Nile. Formerly the palace of a dead Khedive, who had built +it in honour of the visit of an Empress, it had a vast reception hall +with a great staircase. + +There, with separated rooms, as in London, we remained for three months. +I was enthralled. Too young and inexperienced to be conscious of the +darker side of the picture before me, I found everything beautiful. I +was seeing fashionable life for the first time, and it was entrancing. + +Lovely and richly-dressed ladies in silk, velvet, lace, and no limit of +jewellery--the dark French women, the blonde German women, the stately +English women, and the American women with their flexuous grace. And +then the British soldiers in their various uniforms, the semi-Turks in +their red tarbooshes, and the diplomats of all nationalities, Italian, +Austrian, French, German--what a cosmopolitan world it was, what a +meeting-place of all nations! + +Every hour had its interest, but I liked best the hour of tea on the +terrace, for that was the glorious hour of woman, when every condition +invested her dress with added beauty and her smile with greater charm. + +Such a blaze of colour in the sunshine! Such a sea of muslin, flowers, +and feathers! Such lovely female figures in diaphanous clouds of +toilettes, delicate as gossamer and varied as the colours in the +rainbow! They were like a living bouquet, as they sat under the shade of +the verandah, with the green lawns and the palm trees in front, the +red-coated orchestra behind, and the noiseless forms of swarthy +Bednouins and Nubians moving to and fro. + +Although I had been brought up in such a different world altogether I +could not help being carried away by all this beauty. My senses +burgeoned out and my heart seemed to expand. + +As for Alma and my husband, they seemed to belong to the scene of +themselves. She would sit at one of the tea-tables, swishing away the +buzzing flies with a little whip of cord and cowries, and making +comments on the crowd in soft undertones which he alone seemed to catch. +Her vivid and searching eyes, with their constant suggestion of +laughter, seemed to be picking out absurdities on every side and finding +nearly everybody funny. + +She found me funny also. My innocence and my convent-bred ideas were a +constant subject of jest with her. + +"What does our dear little Margaret Mary think of that?" she would say +with a significant smile, at sights that seemed to me quite harmless. + +After a while I began to have a feeling of indefinable uneasiness about +Alma. She was daily redoubling her cordiality, always calling me her +"dearest sweetest girl," and "the oldest friend she had in the world." +But little by little I became conscious of a certain commerce between +her and my husband in which I had no part. Sometimes I saw her eyes +seeking his, and occasionally I heard them exchange a few words about me +in French, which (because I did not speak it, being uncertain of my +accent) they thought I did not understand. + +Perhaps this helped to sharpen my wits, for I began to see that I had +gone the wrong way to work with my husband. Instead of trying to make +myself fall in love with my husband, I should have tried to make my +husband fall in love with me. + +When I asked myself how this was to be done I found one obvious +answer--I must become the sort of woman my husband admired and liked; in +short I must imitate Alma. + +I resolved to do this, and after all that has happened since I feel a +little ashamed to tell of the efforts I made to play a part for which I +was so ill-fitted by nature and education. + +Some of them were silly enough perhaps, but some were almost pathetic, +and I am not afraid that any good woman will laugh at the futile shifts +I was put to, in my girlish ignorance, to make my husband love me. + +"I must do it," I thought. "I must, I must!" + + + + +FORTY-SIXTH CHAPTER + + +Hitherto I had attended to myself, but now I determined to have a maid. +I found one without much difficulty. Her name was Price. She was a very +plain woman of thirty, with piercing black eyes; and when I engaged her +she seemed anxious above all else to make me understand that she "never +saw anything." + +I soon discovered that she saw everything, especially the relations +between myself and my husband, and that she put her own interpretation +(not a very flattering one) on our separated apartments. She also saw +the position of Alma, and putting her own interpretation upon that also, +she tortured me with many pin-pricks. + +Under the guidance of my maid I began to haunt the shops of the +dressmakers, the milliners and the jewellers. It did not require the +memory of my father's letter to make me spend his money--I spent it like +water. Feeling ashamed of my quaker-cut costumes (Alma had a costume for +every day of the week, and wore a large gold snake on her arm), I bought +the most costly toilettes, and loaded myself with bracelets, rings and +necklaces. + +I was dressing for my husband, and for him I did many things I had never +dreamt of doing before. For him I filed my nails, put cream on my skin, +perfume on my handkerchief, and even rouge on my lips. Although I did +not allow myself to think of it so, I was running a race with Alma. + +My maid knew that before I did, and the first night she put me into one +of my uncomfortable new gowns she stood off from me and said: + +"His lordship must be a strange gentleman if he can resist you _now_." + +I felt ashamed, yet pleased too, and went downstairs with a certain +confidence. + +The result was disappointing. My husband smiled rather condescendingly, +and though Alma praised me beyond measure I saw that she was secretly +laughing as she said: + +"Our Margaret Mary is coming out, isn't she?" + +Nevertheless I persevered. Without too much preparation for so perilous +an enterprise, I threw myself into the gaieties of Cairo, attending polo +matches, race-meetings, picnics at the Pyramids, dances at the different +hotels, and on the island of Roda, where according to tradition, +Pharaoh's daughter found Moses in the bulrushes. + +I think I may say that I drew the eyes of other men upon me, +particularly those of the colonel commanding on the Citadel, a fine type +of Scotsman, who paid me the most worshipful attention. But I thought of +nobody but my husband, being determined to make him forget Alma and fall +in love with me. + +It was a hopeless task, and I had some heart-breaking hours. One day, +calling at a jeweller's to see a diamond necklace which I greatly +coveted, I was told in confidence that my husband had been pricing it, +but had had to give it up because it was a thousand francs too dear for +him. I was foolish enough to pay the thousand francs myself, under a +pledge of secrecy, and to tell the jeweller to send the necklace to my +husband, feeling sure in my simplicity that it had been meant for me. + +Next night I saw it on Alma's neck, and could have died of mortification +and shame. + +I daresay it was all very weak and very childish, but I really think my +last attempt, if rather ridiculous, was also very pitiful. + +Towards the end of our stay the proprietors of the hotel gave a +Cotillon. As this was the event of the season, and nearly every woman +was giving a dinner in honour of it, I resolved that I too would give +one, inviting the gayest of the gay acquaintances I had made in Cairo. + +Feeling that it would be my last battle, and that so much depended upon +it, I dressed myself with feverish care, in a soft white satin gown, +which was cut lower than I had ever worn before, with slippers to match, +a tight band of pearls about my throat and another about my head. + +When Price had finished dressing me she said: + +"Well, if his lordship prefers anybody else in the world to-night I +shan't know where he puts his eyes." + +The compliment was a crude one, but I had no time to think of that, for +my heart was fluttering with hopes and fears, and I think any woman +would forgive me under the circumstances if I told myself, as I passed +the tall mirrors on the stairs, that I too was beautiful. + +The dining-room was crowded when I entered it with my guests, and seeing +that we were much observed it flashed upon me that my husband and I had +become a subject of gossip. Partly for that reason I strangled the ugly +thing that was writhing in my bosom, and put Alma (who had flown to me +with affectionate rapture) next to my husband, and the colonel +commanding on the Citadel in the seat beside me. + +Throughout the dinner, which was very long, I was very nervous, and +though I did my best to keep up conversation with the colonel, I knew +quite well that I was listening to what was being said at the other side +of my big round table, and as often as any mention was made of "Margaret +Mary" I heard it. + +More than once Alma lifted her glass with a gracious nod and smile, +crying, "Mary dearest!" and then in another moment gave my husband one +of her knowing glances which seemed to me to say, "Look at that foolish +little wife of yours!" + +By the time we returned to the hall for coffee we were rather a noisy +party, and even the eyes of the ladies betrayed the fact that they had +dined. The talk, which had grown louder, was also a little more free, +and God forgive me, I joined in it, being feverishly anxious to outdo +Alma, and be looked upon as a woman of the world. + +Towards eleven o'clock, the red-coated orchestra began to play a waltz, +and then the whole variegated company of ladies, soldiers, and diplomats +stood up to dance, and the colonel asked me to join him. + +I was ashamed to tell him that I had never danced except with a +schoolgirl, so I took his hand and started. But hardly had we begun, +when I made mistakes, which I thought everybody saw (I am sure Alma saw +them), and before we had taken many turns my partner had to stop, +whereupon I retired to my seat with a forced laugh and a sense of +confusion. + +It was nearly twelve when they began the Cotillon, which Alma and my +husband led with supreme self-possession. As one of the hostesses I sat +in the front row of the square, and when I was taken out I made further +mistakes, which also Alma saw and communicated by smiles to my husband. + +Before the Cotillon came to an end the night was far spent and then the +company, which had become very boisterous, began to look for some new +excitement, no matter how foolish. One or other started "turkey trot" +and "grizzly bear" and finally Alma, with memories of the winter sports +at St. Moritz, proposed that they should toboggan down the great +staircase. + +The suggestion was welcomed with a shout, and a broad board was +immediately laid on the first long flight of stairs for people to slide +on. + +Soldiers went first, and then there were calls for the ladies, when Alma +took her turn, tucking her dress under her at the top and alighting +safely on her feet at the bottom. Other ladies followed her example, +with similar good fortune, and then Alma, who had been saying "Such fun! +Such lots of fun!" set up a cry of "Margaret Mary." + +I refused at first, feeling ashamed of even looking at such unwomanly +folly, but something Alma said to my husband and something that was +conveyed by my husband's glance at me set my heart afire and, poor +feverish and entangled fool that I was, I determined to defy them. + +So running up to the top and seating myself on the toboggan I set it in +motion. But hardly had I done so when it swayed, reeled, twisted and +threw me off, with the result that I rolled downstairs to the bottom. + +Of course there were shrieks of laughter, and if I had been in the +spirit of the time and place I suppose I should have laughed too, and +there would have been an end of the matter. But I had been playing a +part, a tragic part, and feeling that I had failed and covered myself +with ridicule, I was overwhelmed with confusion. + +I thought my husband would be angry with me, and feel compromised by my +foolishness, but he was not; he was amused, and when at last I saw his +face it was running in rivulets from the laughter he could not restrain. + +That was the end of all things, and when Alma came up to me, saying +everything that was affectionate and insincere, about her "poor dear +unfortunate Margaret Mary" (only women know how to wound each other so), +I brushed her aside, went off to my bedroom, and lay face down on the +sofa, feeling that I was utterly beaten and could fight no more. + +Half an hour afterwards my husband came in, and though I did not look up +I heard him say, in a tone of indulgent sympathy that cut me to the +quick: + +"You've been playing the wrong part, my child. A Madonna, yes, but a +Venus, no! It's not your _métier_." + +"What's the good? What's the good? What's the good?" I asked myself. + +I thought my heart was broken. + + + + +FORTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER + + +With inexpressible relief I heard the following day that we were to +leave for Rome immediately. + +Alma was to go with us, but that did not matter to me in the least. +Outside the atmosphere of this place, so artificial, so unrelated to +nature, her power over my husband would be gone. Once in the Holy City +everything would be different. Alma would be different, I should be +different, above all my husband would be different. I should take him to +the churches and basilicas; I should show him the shrines and papal +processions, and he would see me in my true "part" at last! + +But what a deep disappointment awaited me! + +On reaching Rome we put up at a fashionable hotel in the new quarter of +the Ludovisi, and although that was only a few hundred yards from the +spot on which I had spent nine happy years it seemed to belong to +another world altogether. Instead of the church domes and the monastery +bells, there were the harsh clang of electric trams, the thrum and throb +of automobiles, the rattle of cars and the tramp of soldiers. + +Then I realised that there were two Romes--an old Rome and a new one, +and that the Rome we had come to hardly differed from the Cairo we had +left behind. + +There was the same varied company of people of all nations, English, +Americans, French, German; the same nomad tribes of the rich and +dissolute, pitching their tents season by season in the sunny resorts of +Europe; the same aimless society, the same debauch of fashion, the same +callous and wicked luxury, the same thirst for selfish pleasures, the +same busy idleness, the same corruption of character and sex. + +This made me very unhappy, but from first to last Alma was in the +highest spirits. Everybody seemed to be in Rome that spring, and +everybody seemed to be known either to her or to my husband. For Alma's +sake we were invited everywhere, and thus we saw not only the life of +the foreign people of the hotels but that of a part (not the better +part) of the Roman aristocracy. + +Alma was a great success. She had the homage of all the men, and being +understood to be rich, and having the gift of making every man believe +he was her special favourite, she was rarely without a group of Italian +noblemen about her chair. + +With sharper eyes the Italian women saw that her real reckoning lay with +my husband, but they seemed to think no worse of her for that. They +seemed to think no worse of him either. It was nothing against him that, +having married me (as everybody appeared to know) for the settlement of +his financial difficulties, he had transferred his attentions, even on +his honeymoon, to this brilliant and alluring creature. + +As for me, I was made to realise that I was a person of a different +class altogether. When people wished to be kind they called me +_spirituelle_, and when they were tempted to be the reverse they voted +me insipid. + +As a result I became very miserable in this company, and I can well +believe that I may have seemed awkward and shy and stupid when I was in +some of their grey old palaces full of tapestry and bronze, for I +sometimes found the talk there so free (especially among the women) that +the poisoned jokes went quivering through me. + +Things I had been taught to think sacred were so often derided that I +had to ask myself if it could be Rome, my holy and beloved Rome--this +city of license and unbelief. + +But Alma was entirely happy, especially when the talk turned on conjugal +fidelity, and the faithful husband was held up to ridicule. This +happened very often in one house we used to go to--that of a Countess of +ancient family who was said to have her husband and her lover at either +side of her when she sat down to dinner. + +She was a large and handsome person of middle age, with a great mass of +fair hair, and she gave me the feeling that in her case the body of a +woman was inhabited by the soul of a man. + +She christened me her little Irish _bambino_, meaning her child; and one +night in her drawing-room, after dinner, before the men had joined us, +she called me to her side on the couch, lit a cigarette, crossed her +legs, and gave us with startling candour her views of the marriage bond. + +"What can you expect, you women?" she said. "You run after the men for +their titles--they've very little else, except debts, poor things--and +what is the result? The first result is that though you have bought them +you belong to them. Yes, your husband owns his beautiful woman, just as +he owns his beautiful horse or his beautiful dog." + +This was so pointed that I felt my face growing crimson, but Alma and +the other women only laughed, so the Countess went on: + +"What then? Once in a blue moon each goes his and her own way without +sin. You agree to a sort of partnership for mutual advantage in which +you live together in chastity under the same roof. What a life! What an +ice-house!" + +Again the other women laughed, but I felt myself blushing deeply. + +"But in the majority of cases it is quite otherwise. The business +purpose served, each is open to other emotions. The man becomes +unfaithful, and the woman, if she has any spirit, pays him out tit for +tat--and why shouldn't she?" + +After that I could bear no more, and before I knew what I was saying I +blurted out: + +"But I find that wrong and wicked. Infidelity on the part of the man +does not justify infidelity in the woman. The prayer-book says so." + +Alma burst out laughing, and the Countess smiled and continued: + +"Once in a hundred years there comes a great passion--Dante and +Beatrice, Petrarch and Laura. The woman meets the right man too late. +What a tragedy! What a daily and hourly crucifixion! Unless," said the +Countess with emphasis, "she is prepared to renounce the law and reject +society and live a life of complete emancipation. But in a Catholic +country, where there is no divorce, what woman can afford to do that? +Nobody in the higher classes can--especially if she has to sacrifice her +title. So the wise woman avoids scandal, keeps her little affair with +her lover to herself, and . . . and that's marriage, my dears." + +A twitter of approval, led by Alma, came from the other women, but I was +quivering with anger and I said: + +"Then marriage is an hypocrisy and an imposture. If I found I loved +somebody better than my husband, I should go to him in spite of the law, +and society, and title and . . . and everything." + +"Of course you would, my dear," said the Countess, smiling at me as at a +child, "but that's because you are such a sweet, simple, innocent little +Irish _bambino_." + +It must have been a day or two after this that we were invited to the +Roman Hunt. I had no wish to go, but Alma who had begun to use me in +order to "save her face" in relation to my husband, induced me to drive +them out in a motor-car to the place on the Campagna where they were to +mount their horses. + +"Dear sweet girl!" said Alma. "How could we possibly go without you?" + +It was Sunday, and I sat between Alma in her riding habit and my husband +in his riding breeches, while we ran through the Porta San Giovanni, and +past the _osterie_ where the pleasure-loving Italian people were playing +under the pergolas with their children, until we came to the +meeting-ground of the Hunt, by the Trappist monastery of Tre Fontane. + +A large company of the Roman aristocracy were gathered there with their +horses and hounds, and they received Alma and my husband with great +cordiality. What they thought of me I do not know, except that I was a +childish and complacent wife; and when at the sound of the horn the hunt +began, and my husband and Alma went prancing off with the rest, without +once looking back, I asked myself in my shame and distress if I could +bear my humiliation much longer. + +But then came a moment of unexpected pleasure. A cheerful voice on the +other side of the car said: + +"Good morning, Lady Raa." + +It was the young Irish doctor from the steamer. His ship had put into +Naples for two days, and, like Martin Conrad before my marriage, he had +run up to look at Rome. + +"But have you heard the news?" he cried. + +"What news?" + +"About the South Pole Expedition--they're on their way home." + +"So soon?" + +"Yes, they reached New Zealand on Saturday was a week." + +"And . . . and . . . and Martin Conrad?" + +"He's well, and what's better, he has distinguished himself." + +"I . . . I . . . I knew he would." + +"So did I! The way I was never fearing that if they gave Mart half a +chance he would come out top! Do or die--that was his watch-word." + +"I know! I know!" + +His eyes were sparkling and so I suppose were mine, while with a joyous +rush of racy words, (punctuated by me with "Yes," "Yes," "Yes") he told +of a long despatch from the Lieutenant published by one of the London +papers, in which Martin had been specially mentioned--how he had been +put in command of some difficult and perilous expedition, and had worked +wonders. + +"How splendid! How glorious! How perfectly magnificent!" I said. + +"Isn't it?" said the doctor, and for a few moments more we bandied quick +questions and replies like children playing at battledore and +shuttlecock. Then he said: + +"But I'm after thinking it's mortal strange I never heard him mention +you. There was only one chum at home he used to talk about and that was +a man--a boy, I mean. Mally he was calling him--that's short for +Maloney, I suppose." + +"For Mary," I said. + +"Mary, is it? Why, by the saints, so it is! Where in the name of St. +Patrick has been the Irish head at me that I never thought of that +before? And you were . . . Yes? Well, by the powers, ye've a right to be +proud of him, for he was thinking pearls and diamonds of you. I was +mortal jealous of Mally, I remember. 'Mally's a stunner,' he used to +say. 'Follow you anywhere, if you wanted it, in spite of the devil and +hell.'" + +The sparkling eyes were growing misty by this time but the woman in me +made me say--I couldn't help it-- + +"I dare say he's had many girl friends since my time, though?" + +"Narra a one. The girls used to be putting a glime on him in +Dublin--they're the queens of the world too, those Dublin girls--but +never a skute of the eye was he giving to the one of them. I used to +think it was work, but maybe it wasn't . . . maybe it was. . . ." + +I dare not let him finish what I saw he was going to say--I didn't know +what would happen to me if he did--so I jumped in by telling him that, +if he would step into the car, I would drive him back to Rome. + +He did so, and all the way he talked of Martin, his courage and resource +and the hardships he had gone through, until (with backward thoughts of +Alma and my husband riding away over the Campagna) my heart, which had +been leaping like a lamb, began to ache and ache. + +We returned by the Old Appian Way, where the birds were building their +nests among the crumbling tombs, through the Porta San Paolo, and past +the grave of the "young English poet" of whom I have always thought it +was not so sad that he died of consumption as in the bitterness of a +broken heart. + +All this time I was so much at home with the young Irish doctor, who was +Martin's friend, that it was not until I was putting him down at his +hotel that I remembered I did not even know his name. + +It was O'Sullivan. + + + + +FORTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER + + +Every day during our visit to Rome I had reminded myself of the Reverend +Mother's invitation to call on her, and a sense of moral taint had +prevented me, but now I determined to see her at least by going to +Benediction at her Convent church the very next day. + +It happened, however, that this was the time when the Artists' Club of +Rome were giving a Veglione (a kind of fancy-dress ball), and as Alma +and my husband desired to go to it, and were still in the way of using +me to keep themselves in countenance, I consented to accompany them on +condition that I did not dress or dance, and that they would go with me +to Benediction the following day. + +"Dear sweet girl!" said Alma. "We'll do whatever you like. Of course we +will." + +I wore my soft satin without any ornaments, and my husband merely put +scarlet facings on the lapels of his evening coat, but Alma was clad in +a gorgeous dress of old gold, with Oriental skirts which showed her +limbs in front but had a long train behind, and made her look like a +great vampire bat. + +It was eleven o'clock before we reached the theatre, but already the +auditorium was full, and so well had the artists done their work of +decoration, making the air alive with floating specks of many-coloured +lights, like the fire-flies at Nemi, that the scene was one of +enchantment. + +It was difficult to believe that on the other side of the walls was the +street, with the clanging electric bells and people hurrying by with +their collars up, for the night was cold, and it had begun to rain as we +came in, and one poor woman, with a child under her shawl, was standing +by the entrance trying to sell evening papers. + +I sat alone in a box on the ground tier while Alma and my husband and +their friends were below on the level of the _poltroni_ (the stalls) +that had been arranged for the dancing, which began immediately after we +arrived and went on without a break until long after midnight. + +Then there was supper on the stage, and those who did not eat drank a +good deal until nearly everybody seemed to be under the influence of +alcohol. As a consequence many of the people, especially some of the +women (not good women I fear), seemed to lose all control of themselves, +singing snatches of noisy songs, sipping out of the men's glasses, +taking the smoke of cigarettes out of the men's mouths, sitting on the +men's knees, and even riding astride on the men's arms and shoulders. + +I bore these sights as long as I could, making many fruitless appeals to +my husband to take me home; and I was just about to leave of myself, +being sick of the degradation of my sex, when a kind of rostrum, with an +empty chair on top of it, was carried in on the shoulders of a number of +men. + +This was for the enthronement of the Queen of Beauty, and as it passed +round the arena, with the mock judges in paper coronets, walking ahead +to make their choice, some of the women, lost to all sense of modesty, +were shouting "Take _me_! Take _me_!" + +I felt sure they would take Alma, so I reached forward to get a better +view of her, where she stood below my box; but as they approached her, +with the chair still empty, I saw her make a movement in my direction +and say something to the judges about "the little nun," which made my +husband nod his head and then laugh uproariously. + +At the next moment, before I knew what they were doing, six or seven men +jumped into my box, lifted me on to the rostrum and placed me in the +chair, whereupon the whole noisy company in the theatre broke into wild +shouts of salutation and pelted me with flowers and confetti. + +If there was any pride there was more mortification in the position to +which Alma and my husband had exposed me, for as I was being carried +round the arena, with the sea of foaming faces below me, all screaming +out of their hot and open mouths, I heard the men cry: + +"Smile, Signorina!" + +"Not so serious, Mademoiselle!" + +It would do no good to say what memories of other scenes flashed back +on my mind as I was being borne along in the mad procession. I felt as +if it would last for ever. But it came to an end at length, and as soon +as I was released, I begged my husband again to take me home, and when +he said, "Not yet; we'll all be going by-and-by," I stole away by +myself, found a cab, and drove back to the hotel. + +The day was dawning as I passed through the stony streets, and when I +reached my room, and pulled down my dark green blinds, the bell of the +Capuchin monastery in the Via Veneto was ringing and the monks were +saying the first of their offices. + +I must have been some time in bed, hiding my hot face in the +bed-clothes, when Price, my maid, came in to apologise for not having +seen me come back alone. The pain of the woman's scrutiny was more than +I could bear at that moment, so I tried to dismiss her, but I could not +get her to go, and at last she said: + +"If you please, my lady, I want to say something." + +I gave her no encouragement, yet she continued. + +"I daresay it's as much as my place is worth, but I'm bound to say it." + +Still I said nothing, yet she went on: + +"His Lordship and Madame have also arrived. . . . They came back half an +hour ago. And just now . . . I saw his lordship . . . coming out of +Madame's room." + +"Go away, woman, go away," I cried in the fierce agony of my shame, and +she went out at last, closing the door noisily behind her. + + * * * * * + +We did not go next day to Benediction at the Reverend Mother's church. +But late the same night, when it was quite dark, I crept out of my room +into the noisy streets, hardly knowing where my footsteps were leading +me, until I found myself in the piazza of the Convent of the Sacred +Heart. + +It was quiet enough there. Only the Carabinieri were walking on the +paved way with measured steps, and the bell of the Dominican monastery +was slowly ringing under the silent stars. I could see the light on the +Pope's loggia at the Vatican and hear the clock of St. Peter's striking +nine. + +There were lights in the windows of some of the dormitories also, and by +that I knew that the younger children, the children of the Infant Jesus, +were going to bed. There was a light too, in the large window of the +church, and that told me that the bigger girls were saying their night +prayers. + +Creeping close to the convent wall I heard the girls' voices rising and +falling, and then through the closed door of the church came the muffled +sound of their evening hymn-- + + "_Ave maris stella + Dei Mater Alma--_" + +I did not know why I was putting myself wilfully to this bitter +pain--the pain of remembering the happy years in which I myself was a +girl singing so, and then telling myself that other girls were there now +who knew nothing of me. + +I thought of the Reverend Mother, and then of my own mother, my saint, +my angel, who had told me to think of her when I sang that hymn; and +then I remembered where I was and what had happened to me. + + "_Virgin of all virgins, + To thy shelter take me_." + +I felt like an outcast. A stifling sensation came into my throat and I +dropped to my knees in the darkness. I thought I was broken-hearted. + + + + +FORTY-NINTH CHAPTER + + +Not long after that we left Italy on our return to England. We were to +reach home by easy stages so as to see some of the great capitals of +Europe, but I had no interest in the journey. + +Our first stay was at Monte Carlo, that sweet garden of the +Mediterranean which God seems to smile upon and man to curse. + +If I had been allowed to contemplate the beautiful spectacle of nature I +think I could have been content, but Alma, with her honeyed and +insincere words, took me to the Casino on the usual plea of keeping her +in countenance. + +I hated the place from the first, with its stale air, its chink of louis +d'or, its cry of the croupiers, its strained faces about the tables, and +its general atmosphere of wasted hopes and fears and needless misery and +despair. + +As often as I could I crept out to look at the flower fźtes in the +streets, or to climb the hill of La Turbie and think I was on my native +rocks with Martin Conrad, or even to sit in my room and watch the poor +wounded pigeons from the pigeon-traps as they tumbled and ducked into +the sea after the shots fired, by cruel and unsportsmanlike sportsmen, +from the rifle-range below. + +In Monte Carlo my husband's vices seemed to me to grow rank and fast. +The gambling fever took complete possession of him. At first he won and +then he drank heavily, but afterwards he lost and then his nature became +still more ugly and repulsive. + +One evening towards eight o'clock, I was in my room, trying to comfort a +broken-winged pigeon which had come floundering through the open window, +when my husband entered with wild eyes. + +"The red's coming up at all the tables," he cried breathlessly. "Give me +some money, quick!" + +I told him I had no money except the few gold pieces in my purse. + +"You've a cheque book--give me a cheque, then." + +I told him that even if I gave him a cheque he could not cash it that +night, the banks being closed. + +"The jewellers are open though, and you have jewels, haven't you? Stop +fooling with that creature, and let me have some of them to pawn." + +The situation was too abject for discussion, so I pointed to the drawer +in which my jewels were kept, and he tore it open, took what he wanted +and went out hurriedly without more words. + +After that I saw no more of him for two days, when with black rings +about his eyes he came in to say he must leave "this accursed place" +immediately or we should all be ruined. + +Our last stopping-place was Paris, and in my ignorance of the great +French capital which has done so much for the world, I thought it must +be the sink of every kind of corruption. + +We put up at a well-known hotel in the Champs Elysées, and there (as +well as in the cafés in the Bois and at the races at Longchamps on +Sundays) we met the same people again, most of them English and +Americans on their way home after the winter. It seemed to me strange +that there should be so many men and women in the world with nothing to +do, merely loafing round it like tramps--the richest being the idlest, +and the idlest the most immoral. + +My husband knew many Frenchmen of the upper classes, and I think he +spent several hours every day at their clubs, but (perhaps at Alma's +instigation) he made us wallow through the filth of Paris by night. + +"It will be lots of fun," said Alma. "And then who is to know us in +places like those?" + +I tolerated this for a little while, and then refused to be dragged +around any longer as a cloak for Alma's pleasures. Telling myself that +if I continued to share my husband's habits of life, for any reason or +under any pretext, I should become like him, and my soul would rot inch +by inch, I resolved to be clean in my own eyes and to resist the +contaminations of his company. + +As a consequence, he became more and more reckless, and Alma made no +efforts to restrain him, so that it came to pass at last that they went +together to a scandalous entertainment which was for a while the talk of +the society papers throughout Europe. + +I know no more of this entertainment than I afterwards learned from +those sources--that it was given by a notorious woman, who was not shut +out of society because she was "the good friend" of a King; that she did +the honours with clever imitative elegance; that her salon that night +was crowded with such male guests as one might see at the court of a +queen--princes, dukes, marquises, counts, English noblemen and members +of parliament, as well as some reputable women of my own and other +countries; that the tables were laid for supper at four o'clock with +every delicacy of the season and wines of the rarest vintage; that after +supper dancing was resumed with increased animation; and that the +dazzling and improper spectacle terminated with a _Chaīne diabolique_ at +seven in the morning, when the sun was streaming through the windows and +the bells of the surrounding churches were ringing for early mass. + +I had myself risen early that morning to go to communion at the +Madeleine, and never shall I forget the effect of cleansing produced +upon me by the sacred sacrament. From the moment when--the priest +standing at the foot of the altar--the choir sang the _Kyrie eleison_, +down to the solemn silence of the elevation, I had a sense of being +washed from all the taint of the contaminating days since my marriage. + +The music was Perosi's, I remember, and the voices in the _Gloria in +excelsis_, which I used to sing myself, seemed to carry up the cry of my +sorrowful heart to the very feet of the Virgin whose gracious figure +hung above me. + +"Cleanse me and intercede for me, O Mother of my God." + +It was as though our Blessed Lady did so, for as I walked out of the +church and down the broad steps in front of it, I had a feeling of +purity and lightness that I had never known since my time at the Sacred +Heart. + +It was a beautiful day, with all the freshness and fragrance of early +morning in summer, when the white stone houses of Paris seem to blush in +the sunrise; and as I walked up the Champs Elysées on my way back to the +hotel, I met under the chestnut trees, which were then in bloom, a +little company of young girls returning to school after their first +communion. + +How sweet they looked! In their white muslin frocks, white shoes and +stockings and gloves, white veils and coronets of white flowers, they +were twittering away as merrily as the little birds that were singing +unseen in the leaves above them. + +It made me feel like a child myself to look at their sweet faces; but +turning into the hotel I felt like a woman too, for I thought the great +and holy mystery, the sacrament of union and love, had given me such +strength that I could meet any further wrong I might have to endure in +my walk through the world with charity and forgiveness. + +But how little a woman knows of her heart until it is tried in the fires +of passion! + +As I entered the salon which (as usual) divided my husband's bedroom +from mine, I came upon my maid, Price, listening intently at my +husband's closed door. This seemed to me so improper that I was +beginning to reprove her, when she put her finger to her lip and coming +over to me with her black eyes ablaze she said: + +"I know you will pack me off for what I'm going to say, yet I can't help +that. You've stood too much already, my lady, but if you are a woman and +have any pride in yourself as a wife, go and listen at that door and see +if you can stand any more." + +With that she went out of the salon, and I tried to go to my own room, +but I could not stir. Something held me to the spot on which I stood, +and I found myself listening to the voices which I could distinctly hear +in my husband's bedroom. + +There were two voices, one a man's, loud and reckless, the other a +woman's soft and cautious. + +There was no need to tell myself whose voices they were, and neither did +I ask myself any questions. I did not put to my mind the pros and cons +of the case for myself or the case for my husband. I only thought and +felt and behaved as any other wife would think and feel and behave at +such a moment. An ugly and depraved thing, which my pride or my +self-respect had never hitherto permitted me to believe in, suddenly +leapt into life. + +I was outraged. I was a victim of the treachery, the duplicity, the +disloyalty, and the smothered secrecy of husband and friend. + +My heart and soul were aflame with a sense of wrong. All the sweetening +and softening and purifying effects of the sacrament were gone in an +instant, and, moving stealthily across the carpet towards my husband's +door, I swiftly turned the handle. + +The door was locked. + +I heard a movement inside the room and in a moment I hurried from the +salon into the corridor, intending to enter by another door. As I was +about to do so I heard the lock turned back by a cautious hand within. +Then I swung the door open and boldly entered the room. + +Nobody was there except my husband. + +But I was just in time to catch the sound of rustling skirts in the +adjoining apartment and to see a door closed gently behind them. + +I looked around. Although the sun was shining, the blinds were down and +the air was full of a rank odour of stale tobacco such as might have +been brought back in people's clothes from that shameless woman's salon. + +My husband, who had clearly been drinking, was looking at me with a +half-senseless grin. His thin hair was a little disordered. His +prominent front teeth showed hideously. I saw that he was trying to +carry things off with an air. + +"This _is_ an unexpected pleasure. I think it must be the first +time . . . the very first time that. . . ." + +I felt deadly cold; I almost swooned; I could scarcely breathe, but I +said: + +"Is that all you've got to say to me?" + +"All? What else, my dear? I don't understand. . . ." + +"You understand quite well," I answered, and then looking towards the +door of the adjoining apartment, I said, "both of you understand." + +My husband began to laugh--a drunken, idiotic laugh. + +"Oh, you mean that . . . perhaps you imagine that. . . ." + +"Listen," I said. "This is the end of everything between you and me." + +"The end? Why, I thought that was long ago. In fact I thought everything +ended before it began." + +"I mean. . . ." I knew I was faltering . . . "I mean that I can no +longer keep up the farce of being your wife." + +"Farce!" Again he laughed. "I congratulate you, my dear. Farce is +exactly the word for it. Our relations have been a farce ever since the +day we were married, and if anything has gone wrong you have only +yourself to blame for it. What's a man to do whose wife is no company +for anybody but the saints and angels?" + +His coarse ridicule cut me to the quick. I was humiliated by the thought +that after all in his own gross way my husband had something to say for +himself. + +Knowing I was no match for him I wanted to crawl away without another +word. But my silence or the helpless expression of my face must have +been more powerful than my speech, for after a few seconds in which he +went on saying in his drawling way that I had been no wife to him, and +if anything had happened I had brought it on myself, he stopped, and +neither of us spoke for a moment. + +Then feeling that if I stayed any longer in that room I should faint, I +turned to go, and he opened the door for me and bowed low, perhaps in +mockery, as I passed out. + +When I reached my own bedroom I was so weak that I almost dropped, and +so cold that my maid had to give me brandy and put hot bottles to my +feet. + +And then the tears came and I cried like a child. + + + + +FIFTIETH CHAPTER + + +I was far from well next morning and Price wished to keep me in bed, but +I got up immediately when I heard that my husband was talking of +returning to London. + +Our journey was quite uneventful. We three sat together in the railway +carriage and in the private cabin on the steamer, with no other company +than Bimbo, my husband's terrier, and Prue, Alma's Pekinese spaniel. + +Although he made no apology for his conduct of the day before my husband +was quiet and conciliatory, and being sober he looked almost afraid, as +if telling himself that he might have to meet my father soon--the one +man in the world of whom he seemed to stand in fear. + +Alma looked equally frightened, but she carried off her nervousness with +a great show of affection, saying she was sorry I was feeling "badly," +that France and the South did not agree with me, and that I should be +ever so much better when I was "way up north." + +We put up at a well-known hotel near Trafalgar Square, the same that in +our girlhood had been the subject of Alma's dreams of future bliss, and +I could not help observing that while my husband was selecting our rooms +she made a rather ostentatious point of asking for an apartment on +another floor. + +It was late when we arrived, so I went to bed immediately, being also +anxious to be alone that I might think out my course of action. + +I was then firmly resolved that one way or other my life with my husband +should come to an end; that I would no longer be befouled by the mire he +had been dragging me through; that I should live a clean life and drink +a pure draught, and oh, how my very soul seemed to thirst for it! + +This was the mood in which I went to sleep, but when I awoke in the +morning, almost before the dawn, the strength of my resolution ebbed +away. I listened to the rumble of the rubber-bound wheels of the +carriages and motor-cars that passed under my window and, remembering +that I had not a friend in London, I felt small and helpless. What could +I do alone? Where could I turn for assistance? + +Instinctively I knew it would be of no use to appeal to my father, for +though it was possible that he might knock my husband down, it was not +conceivable that he would encourage me to separate from him. + +In my loneliness and helplessness I felt like a shipwrecked sailor, who, +having broken away from the foundering vessel that would have sucked him +under, is yet tossing on a raft with the threatening ocean on every +side, and looking vainly for a sail. + +At last I thought of Mr. Curphy, my father's advocate, and decided to +send a telegram to him asking for the name of some solicitor in London +to whom I could apply for advice. + +To carry out this intention I went down to the hall about nine o'clock, +when people were passing into the breakfast-room, and visitors were +calling at the bureau, and livened page-boys were shouting names in the +corridors. + +There was a little writing-room at one side of the hall and I sat there +to write my telegram. It ran-- + +"Please send name and address reliable solicitor London whom I can +consult on important business." + +I was holding the telegraph-form in my hand and reading my message again +and again to make sure that it would lead to no mischief, when I began +to think of Martin Conrad. + +It seemed to me that some one had mentioned his name, but I told myself +that must have been a mistake,--that, being so helpless and so much in +need of a friend at that moment, my heart and not my ears had heard it. + +Nevertheless as I sat holding my telegraph-form I became conscious of +somebody who was moving about me. It was a man, for I could smell the +sweet peaty odour of his Harris tweeds. + +At length with that thrill which only the human voice can bring to us +when it is the voice of one from whom we have been long parted, I heard +somebody say, from the other side of the desk: + +"Mary, is it you?" + +I looked up, the blood rushed to my face and a dazzling mist floated +before my eyes, so that for a moment I could hardly see who was there. +But I _knew_ who it was--it was Martin himself. + +He came down on me like a breeze from the mountain, took me by both +hands, telegram and all, and said: + +"My goodness, this is stunning!" + +I answered, as well as I could for the confusion that overwhelmed me. + +"I'm so glad, so glad!" + +"How well you are looking! A little thin, perhaps, but such a colour!" + +"I'm so glad, so glad!" I repeated, though I knew I was only blushing. + +"When did you arrive?" + +I told him, and he said: + +"_We_ came into port only yesterday. And to think that you and I should +come to the same hotel and meet on the very first morning! It's like a +fate, as our people in the island say. But it's stunning, perfectly +stunning!" + +A warm tide of joy was coursing through me and taking away my breath, +but I managed to say: + +"I've heard about your expedition. You had great hardships." + +"That was nothing! Just a little pleasure-trip down to the eighty-sixth +latitude." + +"And great successes?" + +"That was nothing either. The chief was jolly good, and the boys were +bricks." + +"I'm so glad, so glad!" I said again, for a kind of dumb joy had taken +possession of me, and I went on saying the same thing over and over +again, as people do when they are very happy. + +For two full minutes I felt happier than I had ever been in my life +before; and then an icy chill came over me, for I remembered that I had +been married since I saw Martin Conrad last and I did not know how I was +to break the news to him. + +Just then my husband and Alma came down the lift, and seeing me with a +stranger, as they crossed the hall to go into the breakfast-room, they +came up and spoke. + +I had to introduce them and it was hard to do, for it was necessary to +reveal everything in a word. I looked at Martin Conrad when I presented +him to my husband and he did not move a muscle. Then I looked at my +husband and under a very small bow his face grew dark. + +I could not help seeing the difference between the two men as they stood +together--Martin with his sea-blue eyes and his look of splendid health, +and my husband with his sallow cheeks and his appearance of wasted +strength--and somehow from some unsearchable depths of my soul the +contrast humbled me. + +When I introduced Alma she took Martin's hand and held it while she +gazed searchingly into his eyes from under her eyebrows, as she always +did when she was being presented to a man; but I saw that in this +instance her glance fell with no more effect on its object than a +lighted vesta on a running stream. + +After the usual banal phrases my husband inquired if Martin was staying +in the house, and then asked if he would dine with us some day. + +"Certainly! Delighted! With all the pleasure in the world," said Martin. + +"Then," said my husband with rather frigid politeness, "you will see +more of your friend Mary." + +"Yes," said Alma, in a way that meant much, "you will see more of your +friend Mary." + +"Don't you worry about that, ma'am. You _bet_ I will," said Martin, +looking straight into Alma's eyes; and though she laughed as she passed +into the breakfast-room with my husband, I could see that for the first +time in her life a man's face had frightened her. + +"Then you knew?" I said, when they were gone. + +"Yes; a friend of mine who met you abroad came down to see us into port +and he . . ." + +"Dr. O'Sullivan?" + +"That's the man! Isn't he a boy? And, my gracious, the way he speaks of +you! But now . . . now you must go to breakfast yourself, and I must be +off about my business." + +"Don't go yet," I said. + +"I'll stay all day if you want me to; but I promised to meet the +Lieutenant on the ship in half an hour, and . . ." + +"Then you must go." + +"Not yet. Sit down again. Five minutes will do no harm. And by the way, +now that I look at you again, I'm not so sure that you . . . Italy, +Egypt, there's enough sun down there, but you're pale . . . a little +pale, aren't you?" + +I tried to make light of my pallor but Martin looked uneasy, and after a +moment he asked: + +"How long are you staying in London?" + +I told him I did not know, whereupon he said: + +"Well, I'm to be here a month, making charts and tables and reports for +the Royal Geographical Society, but if you want me for anything . . . do +you want me now?" + +"No-o, no, not now," I answered. + +"Well, if you _do_ want me for anything--anything at all, mind, just +pass the word and the charts and the tables and the reports and the +Royal Geographical Society may go to the . . . Well, somewhere." + +I laughed and rose and told him he ought to go, though at the bottom of +my heart I was wishing him to stay, and thinking how little and lonely I +was, while here was a big brave man who could protect me from every +danger. + +We walked together to the door, and there I took his hand and held it, +feeling, like a child, that if I let him go he might be lost in the +human ocean outside and I should see no more of him. + +At last, struggling hard with a lump that was gathering in my throat, I +said: + +"Martin, I have been so happy to see you. I've never been so happy to +see anybody in my life. You'll let me see you again, won't you?" + +"Won't I? Bet your life I will," he said, and then, as if seeing that my +lip was trembling and my eyes were beginning to fill, he broke into a +cheerful little burst of our native tongue, so as to give me a "heise" +as we say in Ellan and to make me laugh at the last moment. + +"Look here--keep to-morrow for me, will ye? If them ones" (my husband +and Alma) "is afther axing ye to do anything else just tell them there's +an ould shipmate ashore, and he's wanting ye to go 'asploring.' See? +So-long!" + +It had been like a dream, a beautiful dream, and as soon as I came to +myself in the hall, with the visitors calling at the bureau and the +page-boys shouting in the corridors, I found that my telegraph-form, +crumpled and crushed, was still in the palm of my left hand. + +I tore it up and went in to breakfast. + + + + +FOURTH PART + +I FALL IN LOVE + +FIFTY-FIRST CHAPTER + + +During our first day in London my husband had many visitors, including +Mr. Eastcliff and Mr. Vivian, who had much to tell and arrange about. + +I dare say a great many events had happened during our six months' +absence from England; but the only thing I heard of was that Mr. +Eastcliff had married his dancing-girl, that she had retired from the +stage, and that her public appearances were now confined to the box-seat +of a four-in-hand coach, which he drove from London to Brighton. + +This expensive toy he proposed to bring round to the hotel the following +day, which chanced to be Derby Day, when a party was to be made up for +the races. + +In the preparations for the party, Alma, who, as usual, attracted +universal admiration, was of course included, but I did not observe that +any provision was made for me, though that circumstance did not distress +me in the least, because I was waiting for Martin's message. + +It came early next morning in the person of Martin himself, who, running +into our sitting-room like a breath of wind from the sea, said his +fellow officers were separating that day, each going to his own home, +and their commander had invited me to lunch with them on their ship, +which was lying off Tilbury. + +It did not escape me that my husband looked relieved at this news, and +that Alma's face brightened as she said in her most succulent tones: + +"I should go if I were you, Mary. The breeze on the river will do you a +world of good, dear." + +I was nothing loath to take them at their word, so I let them go off in +their four-in-hand coach, a big and bustling party, while with a +fast-beating heart I made ready to spend the day with Martin, having, as +I thought, so much and such serious things to say to him. + +A steam launch from the ship was waiting for us at the Westminster +Pier, and from the moment I stepped into it I felt like another woman. +It was a radiant day in May, when the climate of our much-maligned +London is the brightest and best, and the biggest city in the world is +also the most beautiful. + +How I loved it that day! The sunlight, the moving river, the soft air of +early summer, the passing panorama of buildings, old and new--what a joy +it was to me I sat on a side seat, dipping my hand over the gunwale into +the cool water, while Martin, with a rush of racy words, was pointing +out and naming everything. + +St. Paul's was soon past, with the sun glistening off the golden cross +on its dome; then London Bridge; then the Tower, with its Traitors' +Gate; then the new Thames Bridge; and then we were in the region of the +barges and wharfs and warehouses, with their colliers and coasting +traders, and with the scum of coal and refuse floating on the surface of +the stream. + +After that came uglier things still, which we did not mind, and then the +great docks with the hammering of rivets and the cranking noise of the +lightermen's donkey engines, loading and unloading the big steamers and +sailing ships; and then the broad reaches of the river where the great +liners, looking so high as we steamed under them, lay at anchor to their +rusty cable-chains, with their port-holes gleaming in the sun like rows +of eyes, as Martin said, in the bodies of gigantic fish. + +At last we came out in a fresh breadth of water, with marshes on either +side and a far view of the sea, and there, heaving a little to the +flowing tide, and with a sea-gull floating over her mizzen mast, lay +Martin's ship. + +She was a wooden schooner, once a Dundee whaler called the _Mary_ but +now re-christened the _Scotia_, and it would be silly to say how my eyes +filled at sight of her, just because she had taken Martin down into the +deep Antarctic and brought him safely back again. + +"She's a beauty, isn't she?" said Martin. + +"Isn't she?" I answered, and in spite of all my troubles I felt entirely +happy. + +We had steamed down against a strong tide, so we were half an hour late +for luncheon, and the officers had gone down to the saloon, but it was +worth being a little after time to see the way they all leapt up and +received me like a queen--making me feel, as I never felt before, the +difference between the politeness of the fashionable idlers and the +manners of the men who do things. + +"Holloa!" they cried. + +"Excuse us, won't you? We thought something had happened and perhaps you +were not coming," said the commander, and then he put me to sit between +himself and Martin. + +The strange thing was that I was at home in that company in a moment, +and if anybody imagines that I must have been embarrassed because I was +the only member of my sex among so many men he does not know the heart +of a woman. + +They were such big, bronzed manly fellows with the note of health and +the sense of space about them--large space--as if they had come out of +the heroic youth of the world, that they set my blood a-tingling to look +at them. + +They were very nice to me too, though I knew that I only stood for the +womankind that each had got at home and was soon to go back to, but none +the less it was delightful to feel as if I were taking the first fruits +of their love for them. + +So it came to pass that within a few minutes I, who had been called +insipid and was supposed to have no conversation, was chattering away +softly and happily, making remarks about the things around me and asking +all sorts of questions. + +Of course I asked many foolish ones, which made the men laugh very much; +but their laughter did not hurt me the least bit in the world, because +everybody laughed on that ship, even the sailors who served the dishes, +and especially one grizzly old salt, a cockney from Wapping, who for +some unexplained reason was called Treacle. + +It made me happy to see how they all deferred to Martin, saying: "Isn't +that so, Doctor?" or "Don't you agree, Doctor?" and though it was +strange and new to hear Martin (my "Mart of Spitzbergen") called +"Doctor," it was also very charming. + +After luncheon was over, and while coffee was being served, the +commander sent Treacle to his cabin for a photograph of all hands which +had been taken when they were at the foot of Mount Erebus; and when it +came I was called upon to identify one by one, the shaggy, tousled, +unkempt, bearded, middle-aged men in the picture with the smart, +clean-shaven young officers who sat round me at the table. + +Naturally I made shockingly bad shots, and the worst of them was when I +associated Treacle with the commander, which made the latter rock in +his seat and the former shake and shout so much that he spilled the +coffee. + +"But what about the fourth man in the front row from the left?" asked +the commander. + +"Oh, I should recognise him if I were blindfolded," I answered. + +"By what?" + +"By his eyes," I said, and after this truly Irish and feminine answer +the men shrieked with laughter. + +"She's got you there, doc," cried somebody. + +"She has sure," said Martin, who had said very little down to that +moment, but was looking supremely happy. + +At length the time came for the men to go, and I went up on deck to see +them off by the launch, and then nobody was left on the ship except +Martin and myself, with the cook, the cabin-boy and a few of the crew, +including Treacle. + +I knew that that was the right time to speak, but I was too greedy of +every moment of happiness to break in on it with the story of my +troubles, so when Martin proposed to show me over the ship, away I went +with him to look at the theodolites and chronometers and sextants, and +sledges and skis, and the aeronautic outfit and the captive balloon, and +the double-barrelled guns, and the place where they kept the petroleum +and the gun cotton for blasting the ice, and the hold forward for the +men's provisions in hermetically-sealed tins, and the hold aft for the +dried fish and biscuit that were the food for the Siberian dogs, and the +empty cage for the dogs themselves, which had just been sent up to the +Zoo to be taken care of. + +Last of all he showed me his own cabin, which interested me more than +anything else, being such a snug little place (though I thought I should +like to tidy it up a bit), with his medical outfit, his books, his bed +like a shelf, and one pretty photograph of his mother's cottage with the +roses growing over it, that I almost felt as if I would not mind going +to the Antarctic myself if I could live in such comfortable quarters. + +Two hours passed in this way, though they had flown like five minutes, +when the cabin-boy came to say that tea was served in the saloon, and +then I skipped down to it as if the ship belonged to me. And no sooner +had I screwed myself into the commander's chair, which was fixed to the +floor at the head of the narrow table, and found the tea-tray almost on +my lap, than a wave of memory from our childhood came sweeping back on +me, and I could not help giving way to the coquetry which lies hidden in +every girl's heart so as to find out how much Martin had been thinking +of me. + +"I'll bet you anything," I said, (I had caught Martin's style) "you +can't remember where you and I first saw each other." + +He could--it was in the little dimity-white room in his mother's house +with its sweet-smelling "scraas" under the sloping thatch. + +"Well, you don't remember what you were doing when we held our first +conversation?" + +He did--he was standing on his hands with his feet against the wall and +his inverted head close to the carpet. + +"But you've forgotten what happened next?" + +He hadn't--I had invited William Rufus and himself into bed, and they +had sat up on either side of me. + +Poor William Rufus! I heard at last what had become of him. He had died +of distemper soon after I was sent to school. His master had buried him +in the back-garden, and, thinking I should be as sorry as he was for the +loss of our comrade, he had set up a stone with an inscription in our +joint names--all of his own inditing. It ran--he spelled it out to me-- + + "HERE LICE WILYAM ROOFUS WRECKTED + BY IZ OLE FRENS MARTIN CONRAD + AND MARY O'NEILL." + +Two big blinding beads came into my eyes at that story, but they were +soon dashed away by Martin who saw them coming and broke into the +vernacular. I broke into it, too, (hardly knowing that the well of my +native speech was still there until I began to tap it), and we talked of +Tommy the Mate and his "starboard eye," called each other "bogh mulish," +said things were "middling," spoke of the "threes" (trees) and the +"tunder" (thunder), and remembered that "our Big Woman was a wicked +devil and we wouldn't trust but she'd burn in hell." + +How we laughed! We laughed at everything; we laughed at nothing; we +laughed until we cried; but I have often thought since that this was +partly because we knew in our secret hearts that we were always hovering +on the edge of tragic things. + +Martin never once mentioned my husband or my marriage, or his letters to +my father, the Bishop and Father Dan, which had turned out so terribly +true; but we had our serious moments for all that, and one of them was +when we were bending over a large chart which he had spread out on the +table to show me the course of the ship through the Great Unknown, +leaning shoulder to shoulder, so close that our heads almost touched, +and I could see myself in his eyes as he turned to speak to me. + +"You were a little under the weather yesterday, shipmate--what was the +cause of it?" he asked. + +"Oh, we . . . we can talk of that another time, can't we?" I answered, +and then we both laughed again, goodness knows why, unless it was +because we felt we were on the verge of unlocking the doors of each +other's souls. + +Oh that joyful, wonderful, heart-swelling day! But no day ever passed so +quickly. At half-past six Martin said we must be going back, or I should +be late for dinner, and a few minutes afterwards we were in the launch, +which had returned to fetch us. + +I had had such a happy time on the ship that as we were steaming off I +kissed my hand to her, whereupon Treacle, who was standing at the top of +the companion, taking the compliment to himself, returned the salute +with affectionate interest, which sent Martin and me into our last wild +shriek of laughter. + +The return trip was just as delightful as the coming out had been, +everything looking different the other way round, for the sunset was +like a great celestial fire which had been lighted in the western sky, +and the big darkening city seemed to have turned its face to it. + +Martin talked all the way back about a scheme he had afoot for going +down to the region of the Pole again in order to set up some machinery +that was to save life and otherwise serve humanity, and while I sat +close up to him, looking into his flashing eyes--they were still as blue +as the bluest sea--I said, again and again: "How splendid! How glorious! +What a great, great thing it will be for the world." + +"Won't it?" he said, and his eyes sparkled like a boy's. + +Thus the time passed without our being aware how it was going, and we +were back at Westminster Pier before I bethought me that of the sad and +serious subject I had intended to speak about I had said nothing at +all. + +But all London seemed to have been taking holiday that day, for as we +drove in a taxi up Parliament Street streams of vehicles full of happy +people were returning from the Derby, including costers' donkey carts in +which the girls were carrying huge boughs of May blossom, and the boys +were wearing the girls' feathery hats, and at the top of their lusty +lungs they were waking the echoes of the stately avenue with the +"Honeysuckle and the Bee." + + "_Yew aw the enny, Oi em ther bee, + Oi'd like ter sip ther enny from those red lips, yew see_." + +As we came near our hotel we saw a rather showy four-in-hand coach, +called the "Phoebus," drawing up at the covered way in front of it, and +a lady on top, in a motor veil, waving her hand to us. + +It was Alma, with my husband's and Mr. Eastcliff's party back from the +races, and as soon as we met on the pavement she began to pay me high +compliments on my improved appearance. + +"Didn't I say the river air would do you good, dearest?" she said, and +then she added something else, which would have been very sweet if it +had been meant sweetly, about there being no surer way to make a girl +beautiful than to make her happy. + +There was some talk of our dining together that night, but I excused +myself, and taking leave of Martin, who gave my hand a gentle pressure, +I ran upstairs without waiting for the lift, being anxious to get to my +own room that I might be alone and go over everything in my mind. + +I did so, ever so many times, recalling all that had been said and done +by the commander and his comrades, and even by Treacle, but above all by +Martin, and laughing softly to myself as I lived my day over again in a +world of dream. + +My maid came in once or twice, with accounts of the gorgeous Derby +dinner that was going on downstairs, but that did not matter to me in +the least, and as soon as I had swallowed a little food I went to bed +early--partly in order to get rid of Price that I might go over +everything again and yet again. + +I must have done so far into the night, and even when the wings of my +memory were weary of their fluttering and I was dropping off at last, I +thought I heard Martin calling "shipmate," and I said "Yes," quite loud, +as if he had been with me still in that vague and beautiful shadow-land +which lies on the frontier of sleep. + +How mysterious, how magical, how wonderful! + +Looking back I cannot but think it strange that even down to that moment +I did not really know what was happening to me, being only conscious of +a great flood of joy. I cannot but think it strange that, though Nature +had been whispering to me for months, I did not know what it had been +saying. I cannot but think it strange that, though I had been looking +for love so long without finding it, I did not recognise it immediately +when it had come to me of itself. + +But when I awoke early in the morning, very early, while the sunrise was +filling my bedroom with a rosy flush, and the thought of Martin was the +first that was springing from the mists of sleep to my conscious mind, +and I was asking myself how it happened that I was feeling so glad, +while I had so many causes for grief, then suddenly--suddenly as the sun +streams through the cloud-scud over the sea--I knew that what had long +been predestined had happened, that the wondrous new birth, the great +revelation, the joyous mystery which comes to every happy woman in the +world had come at last to me. + +I was in love. + +I was in love with Martin Conrad. + + + + +FIFTY-SECOND CHAPTER + + +My joy was short-lived. No sooner had I become aware that I loved Martin +Conrad, than my conscience told me I had no right to do so. I was +married, and to love another than my husband was sin. + +It would be impossible to say with what terror this thought possessed +me. It took all the sunlight out of my sky, which a moment before had +seemed so bright. It came on me like a storm of thunder and lightning, +sweeping my happiness into the abyss. + +All my religion, everything I had been taught about the sanctity of the +sacrament of marriage seemed to rise up and accuse me. It was not that I +was conscious of any sin against my husband. I was thinking only of my +sin against God. + +The first effect was to make me realise that it was no longer possible +for me to speak to Martin about my husband and Alma. To do this now +that I knew I loved him would be deceitful, mean, almost treacherous. + +The next effect was to make me see that all thought of a separation must +now be given up. How could I accuse my husband when I was myself in the +same position? If he loved another woman, I loved another man. + +In my distress and fright I saw only one means of escape either from the +filthy burden to which I was bound or the consciousness of a sinful +heart, and that was to cure myself of my passion. I determined to do so. +I determined to fight against my love for Martin Conrad, to conquer it +and to crush it. + +My first attempt to do this was feeble enough. It was an effort to keep +myself out of the reach of temptation by refusing to see Martin alone. + +For three or four days I did my best to carry out this purpose, making +one poor excuse after another, when (as happened several times a day) he +came down to see me--that I was just going out or had just come in, or +was tired or unwell. + +It was tearing my heart out to deny myself so, but I think I could have +borne the pain if I had not realised that I was causing pain to him +also. + +My maid, whose head was always running on Martin, would come hack to my +room, after delivering one of my lying excuses, and say: + +"You should have seen his face, when I told him you were ill. It was +just as if I'd driven a knife into him." + +Everybody seemed to be in a conspiracy to push me into Martin's +arms--Alma above all others. Being a woman she read my secret, and I +could see from the first that she wished to justify her own conduct in +relation to my husband by putting me into the same position with Martin. + +"Seen Mr. Conrad to-day?" she would ask. + +"Not to-day," I would answer. + +"Really? And you such old friends! And staying in the same hotel, too!" + +When she saw that I was struggling hard she reminded my husband of his +intention of asking Martin to dinner, and thereupon a night was fixed +and a party invited. + +Martin came, and I was only too happy to meet him in company, though the +pain and humiliation of the contrast between him and my husband and his +friends, and the difference of the atmosphere in which he lived from +that to which I thought I was doomed for ever, was almost more than I +could bear. + +I think they must have felt it themselves, for though their usual +conversation was of horses and dogs and race-meetings, I noticed they +were silent while Martin in his rugged, racy poetic way (for all +explorers are poets) talked of the beauty of the great Polar night, the +cloudless Polar day, the midnight calm and the moonlight on the +glaciers, which was the loveliest, weirdest, most desolate, yet most +entrancing light the world could show. + +"I wonder you don't think of going back to the Antarctic, if it's so +fascinating," said Alma. + +"I do. Bet your life I do," said Martin, and then he told them what he +had told me on the launch, but more fully and even more rapturously--the +story of his great scheme for saving life and otherwise benefiting +humanity. + +For hundreds of years man, prompted merely by the love of adventure, the +praise of achievement, and the desire to know the globe he lived on, had +been shouldering his way to the hitherto inviolable regions of the +Poles; but now the time had come to turn his knowledge to account. + +"How?" said my husband. + +"By putting himself into such a position," said Martin, "that he will be +able to predict, six, eight, ten days ahead, the weather of a vast part +of the navigable and habitable world--by establishing installations of +wireless telegraphy as near as possible to the long ice-barrier about +the Pole from which ice-floes and icebergs and blizzards come, so that +we can say in ten minutes from the side of Mount Erebus to half the +southern hemisphere, 'Look out. It's coming down,' and thus save +millions of lives from shipwreck, and hundreds of millions of money." + +"Splendid, by Jove!" said Mr. Eastcliff. + +"Yes, ripping, by jingo!" said Mr. Vivian. + +"A ridiculous dream!" muttered my husband, but not until Martin had +gone, and then Alma, seeing that I was all aglow, said: + +"What a lovely man! I wonder you don't see more of him, Mary, my love. +He'll be going to the ends of the earth soon, and then you'll be sorry +you missed the chance." + +Her words hurt me like the sting of a wasp, but I could not resist them, +and when some days later Martin called to take me to the Geographical +Society, where his commander, Lieutenant ---- was to give an account of +their expedition, I could not find it in my heart to refuse to go. + +Oh, the difference of this world from that in which I had been living +for the past six months! All that was best in England seemed to be +there, the men who were doing the work of the world, and the women who +were their wives and partners. + +The theatre was like the inside of a dish, and I sat by Martin's side on +the bottom row of seats, just in front of the platform and face to face +with the commander. + +His lecture, which was illustrated by many photographic lantern slides +of the exploring party, (including the one that had been shown to me on +the ship) was very interesting, but terribly pathetic; and when he +described the hardships they had gone through in a prolonged blizzard on +a high plateau, with food and fuel running low, and no certainty that +they would ever see home again, I found myself feeling for Martin's hand +to make sure that he was there. + +Towards the end the commander spoke very modestly of himself, saying he +could never have reached the 87th parallel if he had not had a crew of +the finest comrades that ever sailed on a ship. + +"And though they're all splendid fellows," he said, "there's one I can +specially mention without doing any wrong to the rest, and that's the +young doctor of our expedition--Martin Conrad. Martin has a scheme of +his own for going down to the Antarctic again to make a great experiment +in the interests of humanity, and if and when he goes I say, 'Good luck +to him and God bless him!'" + +At these generous words there was much applause, during which Martin sat +blushing like a big boy when he is introduced to the girl friends of his +sister. + +As for me I did not think any speech could have been so beautiful, and I +felt as if I could have cried for joy. + +When I got back to the hotel I _did_ cry, but it was for another reason. +I was thinking of my father and wondering why he did not wait. + +"Why, why, why?" I asked myself. + + + + +FIFTY-THIRD CHAPTER + + +Next day, Martin came rushing down to my sitting-room with a sheaf of +letters in his hand, saying: + +"That was jolly good of the boss, but look what he has let me in for?" + +They were requests from various newspapers for portraits and interviews, +and particularly from one great London journal for a special article to +contain an account of the nature and object of the proposed experiment. + +"What am I to do?" he said. "I'm all right for stringing gabble, but I +couldn't _write_ anything to save my soul. Now, you could. I'm sure you +could. You could write like Robinson Crusoe. Why shouldn't you write the +article and I'll tell you what to put into it?" + +There was no resisting that. And down at the bottom of my secret heart I +was glad of the excuse to my conscience that I could not any longer run +away from Martin because I was necessary to help him. + +So we sat together all day long, and though it was like shooting the +rapids to follow Martin's impetuous and imaginative speech, I did my +best to translate his disconnected outbursts into more connected words, +and when the article was written and read aloud to him he was delighted. + +"Stunning! Didn't I say you could write like Robinson Crusoe?" + +In due course it was published and made a deep impression, for wherever +I went people were talking of it, and though some said "Fudge!" and +others, like my husband, said "Dreams!" the practical result was that +the great newspaper started a public subscription with the object of +providing funds for the realisation of Martin's scheme. + +This brought him an immense correspondence, so that every morning he +came down with an armful of letters and piteous appeals to me to help +him to reply to them. + +I knew it would be dangerous to put myself in the way of so much +temptation, but the end of it was that day after day we sat together in +my sitting-room, answering the inquiries of the sceptical, the +congratulations of the convinced, and the offers of assistance that came +from people who wished to join in the expedition. + +What a joy it was! It was like the dawn of a new life to me. But the +highest happiness of all was to protect Martin against himself, to save +him from his over-generous impulses--in a word, to mother him. + +Many of the letters he received were mere mendicancy. He was not rich, +yet he could not resist a pitiful appeal, especially if it came from a +woman, and it was as much as I could do to restrain him from ruining +himself. + +Sometimes I would see him smuggle a letter into his side pocket, with-- + +"H'm! That will do later." + +"What is it?" I would ask. + +"Oh, nothing, nothing!" he would answer. + +"Hand it out, sir," I would say, and then I would find a fierce delight +in sending six freezing words of refusal to some impudent woman who was +trying to play upon the tender side of my big-hearted boy. + +Oh, it was delightful! My whole being seemed to be renewed. If only the +dear sweet hours could go on and on for ever! + +Sometimes my husband and Alma would look in upon us at our work, and +then, while the colour mounted to my eyes, Martin would say: + +"I'm fishing with another man's floats, you see." + +"I see," my husband would reply, fixing his monocle and showing his +front teeth in a painful grin. + +"Just what dear Mary loves, though," Alma would say. "I do believe she +would rather he sitting in this sunless room, writing letters for Mr. +Conrad, than wearing her coronet at a King's coronation." + +"Just so, ma'am; there _are_ women like that," Martin would answer, +looking hard at her; and when she had gone, (laughing lightly but with +the frightened look I had seen before) he would say, as if speaking to +himself: + +"I hate that woman. She's like a snake. I feel as if I want to put my +foot on it." + +At length the climax came. One day Martin rushed downstairs almost +beside himself in his boyish joy, to say that all the money he needed +had been subscribed, and that in honour of the maturing of the scheme +the proprietor of the newspaper was to give a public luncheon at one of +the hotels, and though no women were to be present at the "feed" a few +ladies were to occupy seats in a gallery, and I was to be one of them. + +I had played with my temptation too long by this time to shrink from the +dangerous exaltation which I knew the occasion would cause, so when the +day came I went to the hotel in a fever of pleasure and pride. + +The luncheon was nearly over, the speeches were about to begin, and the +ladies' gallery was buzzing like a hive of bees, when I took my seat in +it. Two bright young American women sitting next to me were almost as +excited as myself, and looking down at the men through a pair of +opera-glasses they were asking each other which was Martin, whereupon my +vanity, not to speak of my sense of possession, was so lifted up that I +pointed him out to them, and then borrowed their glasses to look at the +chairman. + +He seemed to me to have that light of imagination in his eyes which was +always blazing in Martin's, and when he began to speak I thought I +caught the note of the same wild passion. + +He said they were that day opening a new chapter in the wonderful book +of man's story, and though the dangers of the great deep might never be +entirely overcome, and the wind would continue to blow as it listed, yet +the perils of the one and the movements of the other were going to be +known to, and therefore checked by, the human family. + +After that, and a beautiful tribute to Martin as a man, (that everybody +who had met him had come to love him, and that there must be something +in the great solitudes of the silent white world to make men simple and +strong and great, as the sea made them staunch and true) he drank to the +success of the expedition, and called on Martin to respond to the toast. + +There was a great deal of cheering when Martin rose, but I was so +nervous that I hardly heard it. He was nervous too, as I could plainly +see, for after a few words of thanks, he began to fumble the sheets of a +speech which he and I had prepared together, trying to read it, but +losing his place and even dropping his papers. + +Beads of perspiration were starting from my forehead and I knew I was +making noises in my throat, when all at once Martin threw his papers on +the table and said, in quite another voice: + +"Ship-mates, I mean gentlemen, I never could write a speech in my life, +and you see I can't read one, but I know what I want to say and if +you'll take it as it comes here goes." + +Then in the simple style of a sailor, not always even grammatical yet +splendidly clear and bold and natural, blundering along as he used to do +when he was a boy at school and could not learn his lessons, but with +his blue eyes ablaze, he told of his aims and his expectations. + +And when he came to the end he said: + +"His lordship, the chairman, has said something about the good effects +of the solitudes of Nature on a man's character. I can testify to that. +And I tell you this--whatever you are when you're up here and have +everything you want, it's wonderful strange the way you're asking the +Lord to stretch out His hand and help you when you're down there, all +alone and with an empty hungry stomach. + +"I don't know where you were last Christmas Day, shipmates . . . I mean +gentlemen, but I know where I was. I was in the 85th latitude, longitude +163, four miles south and thirty west of Mount Darwin. It was my own bit +of an expedition that my commander has made too much of, and I believe +in my heart my mates had had enough of it. When we got out of our +sleeping bags that morning there was nothing in sight but miles and +miles of rolling waves of snow, seven thousand feet up on a windy +plateau, with glaciers full of crevasses shutting us off from the sea, +and not a living thing in sight as far as the eye could reach. + +"We were six in company and none of us were too good for Paradise, and +one--he was an old Wapping sailor, we called him Treacle--had the name +of being a shocking old rip ashore. But we remembered what day it was, +and we wanted to feel that we weren't cut off entirely from the world of +Christian men--our brothers and sisters who would be going to church at +home. So I dug out my little prayer-book that my mother put in my kit +going away, and we all stood round bare-headed in the snow--a shaggy old +lot I can tell you, with chins that hadn't seen a razor for a month--and +I read the prayers for the day, the first and second Vespers, and +Laudate Dominum and then the De Profundis. + +"I think we felt better doing that, but they say the comical and the +tragical are always chasing each other, which can get in first, and it +was so with us, for just as I had got to an end with the solemn words, +'Out of the depths we cry unto thee, O Lord, Lord hear our cry,' in +jumps old Treacle in his thickest cockney, 'And Gawd bless our pore ole +wives and sweethearts fur a-wye.'" + +If Martin said any more nobody heard it. The men below were blowing +their noses, and the women in the gallery were crying openly. + +"Well, the man who can talk like that may open all my letters and +telegrams," said one of the young American women, who was wiping her +eyes without shame. + +What I was doing, and what I was looking like, I did not know until the +lady, who had lent me the opera-glasses leaned over to me and said: + +"Excuse me, but are you his wife, may I ask?" + +"Oh no, no," I said nervously and eagerly, but only God knows how the +word went through and through me. + +I had taken the wrong course, and I knew it. My pride, my joy, my +happiness were all accusing me, and when I went to bed that night I felt +as if I had been a guilty woman. + + + + +FIFTY-FOURTH CHAPTER + + +I tried to take refuge in religion. Every day and all day I humbly +besought the pardon of heaven for the sin of loving Martin Conrad. + +The little religious duties which I had neglected since my marriage +(such as crossing myself at rising from the table) I began to observe +afresh, and being reminded by Martin's story that I had promised my +mother to say a De Profundis for her occasionally I now said one every +day. I thought these exercises would bring me a certain relief, but they +did not. + +I searched my Missal for words that applied to my sinful state, and +every night on going to bed I prayed to God to take from me all unholy +thoughts, all earthly affections. But what was the use of my prayers +when in the first dream of the first sleep I was rushing into Martin's +arms? + +It was true that my love for Martin was what the world would call a pure +love; it had no alloy of any kind; but all the same I thought I was +living in a condition of adultery--adultery of the heart. + +Early every morning I went to mass, but the sense I used to have of +returning from the divine sacrifice to the ordinary occupations of life +with a new spirit and a clean heart I could feel no longer. + +I went oftener to confession than I had done before--twice a week to +begin with, then every other day, then every day. But the old joy, the +sense of purity and cleansing, did not come. I thought at first the +fault might be with my Confessor, for though I knew I was in the +presence of God, the whispering voice behind the grating, which used to +thrill me with a feeling of the supernatural, was that of a young man, +and I asked myself what a young priest could know by experience of the +deep temptations of human love. + +This was at the new Cathedral at Westminster, so I changed to a little +Catholic church in a kind of mews in Mayfair, and there my Confessor was +an older man whose quivering voice seemed to search the very depths of +my being. He was deeply alarmed at my condition and counselled me to +pray to God night and day to strengthen me against temptation. + +"The Evil One is besieging your soul, my child," he said. "Fight with +him, my daughter." + +I tried to follow my ghostly father's direction, but how hard it was to +do so! Martin had only to take my hand and look into my eyes and all my +good resolutions were gone in a moment. + +As a result of the fierce struggle between my heart and my soul my +health began to fail me. From necessity now, and not from design, I had +to keep my room, but even there my love for Martin was always hanging +like a threatening sword over my head. + +My maid Price was for ever singing his praises. He was so bright, so +cheerful, so strong, so manly; in fact, he was perfect, and any woman in +the world might be forgiven if she fell in love with him. + +Her words were like music in my ears, and sometimes I felt as if I +wanted to throw my arms about her neck and kiss her. But at other +moments I reproved her, telling her it was very wicked of her to think +so much of the creature instead of fixing her mind on the Creator--a +piece of counsel which made Price, who was all woman, open her sparkling +black eyes in bewilderment. + +Nearly every morning she brought me a bunch of flowers, which Martin had +bought at Covent Garden, all glittering from the sunshine and damp with +the dew. I loved to have them near me, but, finding they tempted me to +think more tenderly of him who sent them, I always contrived by one +excuse or another to send them into the sitting-room that they might be +out of my sight at all events. + +After a while Price, remembering my former artifice, began to believe +that I was only pretending to be ill, in order to draw Martin on, and +then taking a certain liberty with me, as with a child, she reproved me. + +"If I were a lady I couldn't have the heart," she said, "I really +couldn't. It's all very well for us women, but men don't understand such +ways. They're only children, men are, when you come to know them." + +I began to look upon poor Price as a honeyed fiend sent by Satan to +seduce me, and to say the truth she sometimes acted up to the character. +One day she said: + +"If I was tied to a man I didn't love, and who didn't love me, and +somebody else, worth ten of him was ready and waiting, I would take the +sweet with the bitter, I would. We women must follow our hearts, and why +shouldn't we?" + +Then I scolded her dreadfully, asking if she had forgotten that she was +speaking to her mistress, and a married woman; but all the while I knew +that it was myself, not my maid, I was angry with, for she had only been +giving voice to the thoughts that were secretly tormenting me. + +I had been in bed about a week when Price came with a letter in her hand +and a look of triumph in her black eyes and said: + +"There, my lady! What did I tell you? You've had it all your own way and +now you've driven him off. He has left the hotel and gone to live on his +ship." + +This frightened me terribly, and partly for that reason I ordered her +out of the room, telling her she must leave me altogether if she ever +took such liberties again. But I'm sure she saw me, as she was going +through the door, take up Martin's letter, which I had thrown on to the +table, and press it to my lips. + +The letter was of no consequence, it was merely to tell me that he was +going down to Tilbury for a few days, to take possession of his old ship +in the name of his company, but it said in a postscript: + +"If there's anything I can do for you, pass me the word and I'll come up +like quick-sticks." + +"What can I do? What can I do?" I thought. Everything my heart desired +my soul condemned as sinful, and religion had done nothing to liberate +me from the pains of my guilty passion. + +All this time my husband and Alma were busy with the gaieties of the +London season, which was then in full swing, with the houses in Mayfair +being ablaze every night, the blinds up and the windows open to cool the +overheated rooms in which men and women could be seen dancing in +closely-packed crowds. + +One night, after Alma and my husband had gone to a reception in +Grosvenor Square, I had a sudden attack of heart-strain and had to be +put to bed, whereupon Price, who had realised that I was really ill, +told Hobson, my husband's valet, to go after his master and bring him +back immediately. + +"It'll be all as one, but I'll go if you like," said Hobson. + +In half an hour he came back with my husband's answer. "Send for a +doctor." + +This put Price into a fever of mingled anger and perplexity, and not +knowing what else to do she telegraphed to Martin on his ship, telling +him that I was ill and asking what doctor she ought to call in to see +me. + +Inside an hour a reply came not from Tilbury but from Portsmouth saying: + +"Call Doctor ---- of Brook Street. Am coming up at once." + +All this I heard for the first time when Price, with another triumphant +look, came into my bedroom flourishing Martin's telegram as something +she had reason to be proud of. + +"You don't mean to say that you telegraphed to Mr. Conrad?" I said. + +"Why _not?_" said Price. "When a lady is ill and her husband pays no +attention to her, and there's somebody else not far off who would give +his two eyes to save her a pain in her little finger, what is a woman to +do?" + +I told her what she was _not_ to do. She was not to call the doctor +under any circumstances, and when Martin came she was to make it plain +to him that she had acted on her own responsibility. + +Towards midnight he arrived, and Price brought him into my room in a +long ulster covered with dust. I blushed and trembled at sight of him, +for his face betrayed the strain and anxiety he had gone through on my +account, and when he smiled at seeing that I was not as ill as he had +thought, I was ashamed to the bottom of my heart. + +"You'll be sorry you've made such a long journey now that you see +there's so little amiss with me," I said. + +"Sorry?" he said. "By the holy saints, I would take a longer one every +night of my life to see you looking so well at the end of it." + +His blue eyes were shining like the sun from behind a cloud, and the +cruellest looks could not have hurt me more. + +I tried to keep my face from expressing the emotion I desired to +conceal, and asked if he had caught a train easily from Portsmouth, +seeing he had arrived so early. + +"No. Oh no, there was no train up until eleven o'clock," he said. + +"Then how did you get here so soon?" I asked, and though he would not +tell me at first I got it out of him at last--he had hired a motor-car +and travelled the ninety miles to London in two hours and a half. + +That crushed me. I could not speak. I thought I should have choked. +Lying there with Martin at arm's length of me, I was afraid of myself, +and did not know what I might do next. But at last, with a great effort +to control myself, I took his hand and kissed it, and then turned my +face to the wall. + + + + +FIFTY-FIFTH CHAPTER + + +That was the beginning of the end, and when, next day towards noon, my +husband came with drowsy eyes to make a kind of ungracious apology, +saying he supposed the doctor had been sent for, I said: + +"James, I want you to take me home." + +"Home? You mean . . . Castle Raa?" + +"Y-es." + +He hesitated, and I began to plead with him, earnestly and eagerly, not +to deny me what I asked. + +"Take me home, I beg, I pray." + +At length, seeming to think I must be homesick, he said: + +"Well, you know my views about that God-forsaken place, but the season's +nearly at an end, and I don't mind going back on one condition--that you +raise no objection to my inviting a few friends to liven it up a bit?" + +"It is your house," I said. "You must do as you please in it." + +"Very good; that's settled," he said, getting up to go. "And I dare say +it will do you no harm to be out of the way of all this church-going and +confessing to priests, who are always depressing people even when +they're not making mischief." + +Hardly had my husband left me when Alma came into my sitting-room in the +most affectionate and insincere of her moods. + +"My poor, dear sweet child," she said. "If I'd had the least idea you +were feeling so badly I shouldn't have allowed Jimmy to stay another +minute at that tiresome reception. But how good it was of Mr. Conrad to +come all that way to see you! That's what I call being a friend now!" + +Then came the real object of her visit--I saw it coming. + +"I hear you're to have a house-party at Castle Raa. Jimmy's in his room +writing piles of invitations. He has asked me and I should love to go, +but of course I cannot do so without _you_ wish it. Do you?" + +What could I say? What I _did_ say I scarcely know. I only know that at +the next minute Alma's arms were round my neck, and she was saying: + +"You dear, sweet, unselfish little soul! Come let me kiss you." + +It was done. I had committed myself. After all what right had I to raise +myself on a moral pinnacle now? And what did it matter, anyway? I was +flying from the danger of my own infidelities, not to save my husband +from his. + +Price had been in the room during this interview and when it was over I +was ashamed to look at her. + +"I can't understand you, my lady; I really can't," she said. + +Next day I wrote a little letter to Martin on the _Scotia_ telling him +of our change of plans, but forbidding him to trouble to come up to say +good-bye, yet half hoping he would disregard my injunction. + +He did. Before I left my bedroom next morning I heard his voice in the +sitting-room talking to Price, who with considerable emphasis was giving +her views of Alma. + +When I joined him I thought his face (which had grown to be very +powerful) looked hard and strained; but his voice was as soft as ever +while he said I was doing right in going home and that my native air +must be good for me. + +"But what's this Price tells me--that Madame is going with you?" + +I tried to make light of that, but I broke down badly, for his eyes were +on me, and I could see that he thought I was concealing the truth. + +For some minutes he looked perplexed, as if trying to understand how it +came to pass that sickening, as he believed I was, at the sight of my +husband's infidelities I was yet carrying the provocative cause of them +away with me, and then he said again: + +"I hate that woman. She's like a snake. I feel as if I want to put my +foot on it. I will, too, one of these days--bet your life I will." + +It hurt me to hide anything from him, but how could I tell him that it +was not from Alma I was flying but from himself? + +When the day came for our departure I hoped I might get away without +seeing Martin again. We did get out of the hotel and into the railway +station, yet no sooner was I seated in the carriage than (in the cruel +war that was going on within me) I felt dreadfully down that he was not +there to see me off. + +But at the very last moment, just as Alma with her spaniel under her +arm, and my husband with his terrier on a strap, were about to step into +the train, up came Martin like a gust of mountain wind. + +"Helloa!" he cried. "I shall be seeing you soon. Everything's settled +about the expedition. We're to sail the first week in September, so as +to get the summer months in the Antarctic. But before that I must go +over to the island to say good-bye to the old folks, and I'll see you at +your father's I suppose." + +Then Alma gave my husband a significant glance and said: + +"But, Mary, my love, wouldn't it be better for Mr. Conrad to come to +Castle Raa? You won't be able to go about very much. Remember your +delicate condition, you know." + +"Of course, why of course," said my husband. "That's quite true, and if +Mr. Conrad will do me the honour to accept my hospitality for a few +days. . . ." + +It was what I wanted above everything on earth, and yet I said: + +"No, no! It wouldn't be fair. Martin will be too busy at the last +moment." + +But Martin himself jumped in eagerly with: + +"Certainly! Delighted! Greatest pleasure in the world." + +And then, while Alma gave my husband a look of arch triumph to which he +replied with a painful smile, Martin leaned over to me and whispered" + +"Hush! I want to! I must!" though what he meant by that I never knew. + +He continued to look at me with a tender expression until we said +good-bye; but after the carriage door had been closed and the engine had +throbbed, and the guard had whistled, I thought I had never seen his +strong face so stern as when the train moved from the platform. + + + + +FIFTY-SIXTH CHAPTER + + +We reached Ellan towards the close of the following day. It was the +height of the holiday season, and the island seemed to be ablaze with +lights. + +Two motor-cars were waiting for us at the pier, and in a little while we +were driving out of Blackwater through congested masses of people who +were rambling aimlessly through the principal streets. + +Our way was across a stone bridge that crossed the harbour at its inner +end, and then up a hill that led to a headland overlooking the sea. +Within half an hour we drew up at a pair of large gate posts which were +much decayed and leaning heavily out of the perpendicular. + +The chauffeur of the first of our ears got down to open the gate, and +after it had clashed to behind us, we began to ascend a very steep drive +that was bordered by tall elm trees. It was now almost dark, and the +rooks, which had not yet gone off to the mountains, were making their +evening clamour. + +"Well, my dear, you're at home at last, and much good may it do you," +said my husband. + +I made no answer to this ungracious speech, but Alma was all excitement. + +"So this is Castle Raa! What a fascinating old place!" she said, and as +we drove through the park she reached out of the car to catch a first +glimpse of the broad terraces and winding ways to the sea which had been +reflected in her memory since she was a child. + +I felt no such anxiety. Never did a young bride approach the home of her +husband with less curiosity, but as our motor-car toiled up the drive I +could not help seeing the neglected condition of the land, with boughs +of trees lying where they had fallen in the storms, as well as broken +gates half off their hinges and swinging to the wind. + +The house itself, when we came in sight of it, was a large castellated +building with many lesser turrets and one lofty octagonal tower, covered +entirely with ivy, which, being apparently unshorn for years, hung in +long trailers down the walls, and gave the whole pile the appearance of +a huge moss-covered rock of the sea planted on a promontory of the land. + +As our car went thundering up to the great hall door nearly the whole of +the servants and some of the tenant farmers (under the direction of the +tall, sallow man who had been my husband's guardian in former days, and +was now his steward) were waiting to welcome us, as well as Lady +Margaret Anselm, who was still reserved and haughty in her manner, +though pleasant enough with me. + +My husband nodded to all, shook hands with some, presented Alma to his +aunt as "one of Mary's old school friends," (a designation which, as I +could see, had gone ahead of her) and then we passed into the house. + +I found the inside corresponded with the outside in its appearance of +neglect and decay, the big square hall having rusty and disjointed +armour on its wainscotted walls and the mark of water on the floor, +which had come from a glass dome over the well of the stairs, for it had +rained while we were on the sea. + +The drawing-room had faded curtains over the windows, faded velvet on +the square sofa and stiff chairs, faded carpets, faded samplers, and +faded embroidery on faded screens. + +The dining-room (the sedate original of my father's rather garish copy) +was a panelled chamber, hung round with rubicund portraits of the male +O'Neills from the early ones of the family who had been Lords of Ellan +down to the "bad Lord Raa," who had sworn at my grandmother on the high +road. + +I felt as if no woman could have made her home here for at least a +hundred years, and I thought the general atmosphere of the house was +that of the days when spendthrift noblemen, making the island a refuge +from debt, spent their days in gambling and their nights in drinking +bumpers from bowls of whiskey punch to the nameless beauties they had +left "in town." + +They were all gone, all dead as the wood of the worm-eaten wainscotting, +but the sound of their noisy merry-making seemed to cling to the rafters +still, and as I went up to my rooms the broad oaken staircase seemed to +be creaking under their drunken footsteps. + +My own apartments, to which Lady Margaret conducted me, were on the +southern side of the house--a rather stuffy bedroom with walls covered +by a kind of pleated chintz, and a boudoir with a stone balcony that had +a flight of steps going down to a terrace of the garden, which +overlooked a glen and had a far view of the sea. + +On the opposite side of the landing outside (which was not immediately +off the great staircase though open to the view of it) there was a +similar suite of rooms which I thought might be my husband's, but I was +told they were kept for a guest. + +Being left alone I had taken off my outer things and was standing on my +balcony, listening to the dull hum of the water in the glen, the rustle +of the trees above it, the surge of the sea on the rocks below, the +creaking of a rusty weathercock and the striking of a court-yard clock, +when I also heard the toot and throb of another motor-car, and as soon +as it came up I saw that it contained Aunt Bridget in the half-moon +bonnet and Betsy Beauty, who was looking more than ever like a country +belle. + +When I went down to the drawing-room Lady Margaret was pouring out tea +for them, and at sight of me Aunt Bridget cried, + +"Sakes alive, here she is herself!" + +"But how pale and pinched and thin!" said Betsy Beauty. + +"Nonsense, girl, that's only natural," said my Aunt Bridget, with +something like a wink; and then she went on to say that she had just +been telling her ladyship that if I felt lonely and a little helpless on +first coming home Betsy would be pleased to visit me. + +Before I could reply my husband came in, followed shortly by Alma, who +was presented as before, as "Mary's old school-fellow"; and then, while +Betsy talked to Alma and my husband to his kinswoman, Aunt Bridget, in +an undertone, addressed herself to me. + +"You're that way, aren't you? . . . No? Goodness me, girl, your father +_will_ be disappointed!" + +Just then a third motor-car came throbbing up to the house, and Betsy +who was standing by the window cried: + +"It's Uncle Daniel with Mr. Curphy and Nessy." + +"Nessy, of course," said Aunt Bridget grumpily, and then she told me in +a confidential whisper that she was a much-injured woman in regard to +"that ungrateful step-daughter," who was making her understand the words +of Scripture about the pang that was sharper than a serpent's tooth. + +As the new-comers entered I saw that Nessy had developed an old maid's +idea of smartness, and that my father's lawyer was more than ever like +an over-fatted fish; but my father himself (except that his hair was +whiter) was the same man still, with the same heavy step, the same loud +voice and the same tempestuous gaiety. + +"All here? Good! Glad to be home, I guess! Strong and well and hearty, I +suppose? . . . Yes, sir, yes! I'm middling myself, sir. Middling, sir, +middling!" + +During these rugged salutations I saw that Alma, with the bad manners of +a certain type of society woman, looked on with a slightly impertinent +air of amused superiority, until she encountered my father's masterful +eyes, which nobody in the world could withstand. + +After a moment my father addressed himself to me. + +"Well, gel," he said, taking me by the shoulders, as he did in Rome, +"you must have cut a dash in Egypt, I guess. Made the money fly, didn't +you? No matter! My gold was as good as anybody else's, and I didn't +grudge it. You'll clear me of that, anyway." + +Then there was some general talk about our travels, about affairs on the +island (Mr. Curphy saying, with a laugh and a glance in my direction, +that things were going so well with my father that if all his schemes +matured he would have no need to wait for a descendant to become the +"uncrowned King of Ellan"), and finally about Martin Conrad, whose great +exploits had become known even in his native country. + +"Extraordinary! Extraordinary!" said my father. "I wouldn't have +believed it of him. I wouldn't really. Just a neighbour lad without a +penny at him. And now the world's trusting him with fifty thousand +pounds, they're telling me!" + +"Well, many are called but few are chosen," said Mr. Curphy with another +laugh. + +After that, and some broken conversation, Aunt Bridget expressed a +desire to see the house, as the evening was closing in and they must +soon be going back. + +Lady Margaret thereupon took her, followed by the rest of us, over the +principal rooms of the Castle; and it was interesting to see the awe +with which she looked upon everything--her voice dropping to a whisper +in the dining-room. I remember, as if the scene of carousing of the old +roysterers had been a sort of sanctuary. + +My father, less impressed, saw nothing but a house in bad repair, and +turning to my husband, who had been obviously ill at ease, he said: + +"Go on like this much longer, son-in-law, and you'll be charging +two-pence a head to look at your ruins. Guess I must send my architect +over to see what he can do for you." + +Then taking me aside he made his loud voice as low as he could and said: + +"What's this your Aunt Bridget tells me? Nine months married and no +sign yet? Tut, tut! That won't do, gel, that won't do." + +I tried to tell him not to spend money on the Castle if he intended to +do so in expectation of an heir, but my heart was in my mouth and what I +really said I do not know. I only know that my father looked at me for a +moment as if perplexed, and then burst into laughter. + +"I see! I see!" he said. "It's a doctor you want. I must send Conrad to +put a sight on you. It'll be all right, gel, it'll be all right! Your +mother was like that when you were coming." + +As we returned to the hall Betsy Beauty whispered that she was surprised +Mr. Eastcliff had married, but she heard from Madame that we were to +have a house-party soon, and she hoped I would not forget her. + +Then Aunt Bridget, who had been eyeing Alma darkly, asked me who and +what she was and where she came from, whereupon I (trying to put the +best face on things) explained that she was the daughter of a rich New +York banker. After that Aunt Bridget's countenance cleared perceptibly +and she said: + +"Ah, yes, of course! I thought she had a quality toss with her." + +The two motor-cars had been drawn up to the door, and the two parties +had taken their seats in them when my father, looking about him, said to +my husband: + +"Your garden is as rough as a thornbush, son-in-law. I must send Tommy +the Mate to smarten it up a bit. So long! So long!" + +At the next moment they were gone, and I was looking longingly after +them. God knows my father's house had never been more than a +stepmother's home to me, but at that moment I yearned to return to it +and felt like a child who was being left behind at school. + +What had I gained, by running away from London? Nothing at all. Already +I knew I had brought my hopeless passion with me. + +And now I was alone. + + + + +FIFTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER + + +Next day Lady Margaret came to my room to say good-bye, telling me she +had only stayed at Castle Raa to keep house and make ready for me, and +must now return to her own home, which was in London. + +I was sorry, for my heart had warmed to her, and when I stood at the +door and saw her drive off with my husband to catch the afternoon +steamer, I felt I had lost both sympathy and protection. + +Alma's feelings were less troubled, and as we turned back into the house +I could see that she was saying to herself: + +"Thank goodness, _she's_ gone away." + +A day or two later Doctor Conrad came, according to my father's +instructions, and I was glad to see his close-cropped iron-grey head +coming up the stairs towards my room. + +Naturally our first conversation was about Martin, who had written to +tell his parents of our meeting in London and to announce his intended +visit. It was all very exciting, and now his mother was working morning +and night at the old cottage, to prepare for the arrival of her son. +Such scrubbing and scouring! Such taking up of carpets and laying them +down again, as if the darling old thing were expecting a prince! + +"It ought to be Sunny Lodge indeed before she's done with it," said the +Doctor. + +"I'm sure it will," I said. "It always was, and it always will be." + +"And how are we ourselves," said the doctor. "A little below par, eh? +Any sickness? No? Nausea? No? Headache and a feeling of lassitude, then? +No?" + +After other questions and tests, the old doctor was looking puzzled, +when, not finding it in my heart to keep him in the dark any longer, I +told him there was nothing amiss with my health, but I was unhappy and +had been so since the time of my marriage. + +"I see," he said. "It's your mind and not your body that is sick?" + +"Yes." + +"I'll speak to Father Dan," he said. "Good-bye! God bless you!" + +Less than half an hour after he had gone, Alma came to me in her softest +mode, saying the doctor had said I was suffering from extreme nervous +exhaustion and ought to be kept from worries and anxieties of every +kind. + +"So if there's anything I can do while I'm here, dearest, . . . such as +looking after the house and the servants. . . . No, no, don't deny me; +it will be a pleasure, I assure you. . . . So we'll say that's settled, +shall we? . . . You dear, sweet darling creature!" + +I was too much out of heart to care what happened, but inside two days I +realised that Alma had taken possession of the house, and was ordering +and controlling everything. + +Apparently this pleased such of the servants as had anything to gain by +it--the housekeeper in particular--for Alma was no skinflint and she was +making my husband's money flow like water, but it was less agreeable to +my maid, who said: + +"This is a nice place to be sure, where the mistress takes no interest +in anything, and the guest walks over everybody. She'll walk over the +mistress herself before long--mark my word but she will." + +It would be about a week after our arrival at Castle Raa that Price came +to my room to say that a priest was asking for me, and he was such a +strange-looking thing that she was puzzled to know if his face was that +of a child, a woman or a dear old man. + +I knew in a moment it must be Father Dan, so I went flying downstairs +and found him in the hall, wearing the same sack coat (or so it seemed) +as when I was a child and made cupboards of its vertical pockets, +carrying the same funny little bag which he had taken to Rome and used +for his surplice at funerals, and mopping his forehead and flicking his +boots with a red print handkerchief, for the day was hot and the roads +were dusty. + +He was as glad to see me as I to see him, and when I asked if he would +have tea, he said Yes, for he had walked all the way from the +Presbytery, after fasting the day before; and when I asked if he would +not stay overnight he said Yes to that, too, "if it would not be +troublesome and inconvenient." + +So I took his bag and gave it to a maid, telling her to take it to the +guest's room on my landing, and to bring tea to my boudoir immediately. + +But hardly had I taken him upstairs and we had got seated in my private +room, when the maid knocked at the door to say that the housekeeper +wished to speak with me, and on going out, and closing the door behind +me, I found her on the landing, a prim little flinty person with quick +eyes, thin lips and an upward lift of her head. + +"Sorry, my lady, but it won't be convenient for his reverence to stay in +the house to-night," she said. + +"Why so?" I said. + +"Because Madame has ordered all the rooms to be got ready for the +house-party, and this one," (pointing to the guest's room opposite) "is +prepared for Mr. and Mrs. Eastcliff, and we don't know how soon they may +arrive." + +I felt myself flushing up to the eyes at the woman's impudence, and it +added to my anger that Alma herself was standing at the head of the +stairs, looking on and listening. So with a little spurt of injured +pride I turned severely on the one while really speaking to the other, +and said: + +"Be good enough to make this room ready for his reverence without one +moment's delay, and please remember for the future, that I am mistress +in this house, and your duty is to obey me and nobody else whatever." + +As I said this and turned back to my boudoir, I saw that Alma's deep +eyes had a sullen look, and I felt that she meant to square accounts +with me some day; but what she did was done at once, for going +downstairs (as I afterwards heard from Price) she met my husband in the +hall, where, woman-like, she opened her battery upon him at his weakest +spot, saying: + +"Oh, I didn't know your wife was priest-ridden." + +"Priest-ridden?" + +"Precisely," and then followed an explanation of what had happened, with +astonishing embellishments which made my husband pale with fury. + +Meantime I was alone with Father Dan in my room, and while I poured out +his tea and served him with bread and butter, he talked first about +Martin (as everybody seemed to do when speaking to me), saying: + +"He was always my golden-headed boy, and it's a mighty proud man I am +entirely to hear the good news of him." + +More of the same kind there was, all music to my ears, and then Father +Dan came to closer quarters, saying Doctor Conrad had dropped a hint +that I was not very happy. + +"Tell your old priest everything, my child, and if there is anything he +can do. . . ." + +Without waiting for more words I sank to my knees at his feet, and +poured out all my troubles--telling him my marriage had been a failure; +that the sanctifying grace which he had foretold as the result of the +sacrament of holy wedlock had not come to pass; that not only did I not +love my husband, but my husband loved another woman, who was living here +with us in this very house. + +Father Dan was dreadfully distressed. More than once while I was +speaking he crossed himself and said, "Lord and His Holy Mother love +us;" and when I came to an end he began to reproach himself for +everything, saying that he ought to have known that our lad (meaning +Martin) did not write those terrible letters without being certain they +were true, and that from the first day my husband came to our parish the +sun had been darkened by his shadow. + +"But take care," he said. "I've told nobody about the compact we made +with your husband--nobody but our Blessed Lady herself--and you mustn't +think of that as a way out of your marriage. No, nor of any other way, +no matter what, which the world, and the children of the world, may talk +about." + +"But I can't bear it, I can't bear it," I cried. + +"Hush! Hush! Don't say that, my daughter. Think of it as one of the +misfortunes of life which we all have to suffer. How many poor women +have to bear the sickness and poverty, not to speak of the drunkenness +and death, of their husbands! Do they think they have a right to run +away from all that--to break the sacred vows of their marriage on +account of it? No, my child, no, and neither must you. Some day it will +all come right. You'll see it will. And meantime by the memory of your +mother--that blessed saint whom the Lord has made one of his own. . . ." + +"Then what can I do?" + +"Pray, my child, pray for strength to bear your trials and to resist all +temptation. Say a rosary for the Blessed Virgin every morning before +breaking your fast. I'll say a rosary, too. You'll see yet this is only +God's love for you, and you'll welcome His holy will." + +While my dear father and friend was counselling me so I heard my husband +speaking in his loud, grating tones on the landing outside, and before I +could rise from my knees he had burst open the door and entered the +room. + +His face was deadly white and he was like a man out of his right mind. + +"Mary," he said, looking down at me where I knelt with my hands crossed +on my bosom, "when did I give you permission to introduce a priest into +my house? Isn't it enough for a man to have a wife who is a Catholic +without having the church and its ministers shunted into his home +without his permission?" + +I was so taken aback by this furious assault that at first I could not +speak, but Father Dan interposed to defend me, saying with beautiful +patience, that his visit had been quite unexpected on my part, and that +I had asked him to stay overnight only because he was an old man, and +had had a long walk from his parish. + +"I'm much obliged to your reverence," said my husband, who was quivering +with fury, "but my wife is perfectly capable of answering for herself +without your assistance, and as for your parish you would have done +better to stay there instead of coming to meddle in this one." + +"Aren't you measuring me by your own yard, sir?" said Father Dan, and at +that straight thrust my husband broke into ungovernable rage. + +"Everybody knows what a Popish priest is," he said. "A meddlesome +busybody who pokes his nose into other men's secrets. But priest or no +priest, I'll have no man coming to my house to make mischief between +husband and wife." + +"Are you sure," said Father Dan, "that some woman isn't in your house +already, making mischief between wife and husband?" + +That thrust too went home. My husband looked at me with flashing eyes +and then said: + +"As I thought! You've been sent for to help my wife to make a great +to-do of her imaginary grievances. You're to stay in the house too, and +before long we'll have you setting up as master here and giving orders +to my servants! But not if I know it! . . . Your reverence, if you have +any respect for your penitent, you'll please be good enough to leave my +wife to _my_ protection." + +I saw that Father Dan had to gulp down his gathering anger, but he only +said: + +"Say no more, my lord. No true priest ever comes between a man and the +wife whom God has given him. It's his business to unite people, not to +put them apart. As for this dear child, I have loved her since she was +an infant in arms, and never so much as at the present speaking, so I +don't need to learn my duty from one who appears to care no more for her +than for the rind of a lemon. I'll go, sir," said the old man, drawing +himself up like a wounded lion, "but it's not to your protection I +leave her--it's to that of God's blessed and holy love and will." + +My husband had gone before the last words were spoken, but I think they +must have followed him as he went lunging down the stairs. + +During this humiliating scene a hot flush of shame had come to my cheeks +and I wanted to tell Father Dan not to let it grieve him, but I could do +nothing but stoop and kiss his hand. + +Meantime two or three of the servants had gathered on the landing at the +sound of my husband's voice, and among them was the flinty housekeeper +holding the Father's little bag, and she gave it back to him as he +passed her. + +Then, all being over, the woman came into my room, with an expression of +victorious mischief in her eyes and said: + +"Your ladyship had better have listened to them as knows, you see." + +I was too benumbed by that cruel stroke to reply, but Price said enough +for both of us. + +"If them as knows," she said, "don't get out of this room inside two +seconds they'll get their ugly faces slapped." + + * * * * * + +I thought I had reached the end of my power of endurance, and that +night, before going to bed, while my maid was taking down my hair, and I +was thinking of Martin and asking myself if I should put up with my +husband's brutalities any longer, I heard her say: + +"If I were a lady married to the wrong man, I'd have the right one if I +had to go through the divorce court for him." + +Now that was so exactly the thought that was running riot in my own +tormented mind, that I flew at her like a wild cat, asking her how she +dared to say anything so abominably wicked, and telling her to take her +notice there and then. + +But hardly had she left the room, when my heart was in my mouth again, +and I was trembling with fear lest she should take me at my word and +then the last of my friends would be gone. + + + + +FIFTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER + + +Within the next few days the house-party arrived. There would be twenty +of them at least, not counting valets and ladies' maids, so that large +as Castle Raa was the house was full. + +They were about equally divided as to sex and belonged chiefly to my +husband's class, but they included Mr. Eastcliff's beautiful wife, +Camilla, and Alma's mother, who, much to Alma's chagrin, had insisted +upon being invited. + +My husband required me to receive them, and I did so, though I was only +their nominal hostess, and they knew it and treated me accordingly. + +I should be ashamed to speak of the petty slights they put upon me, how +they consulted Alma in my presence and otherwise wounded my pride as a +woman by showing me that I had lost my own place in my husband's house. + +I know there are people of the same class who are kind and considerate, +guileless and pure, the true nobility of their country--women who are +devoted to their homes and children, and men who spend their wealth and +strength for the public good--but my husband's friends were not of that +kind. + +They were vain and proud, selfish, self-indulgent, thoroughly insincere, +utterly ill-mannered, shockingly ill-informed, astonishingly +ill-educated (capable of speaking several languages but incapable of +saying a sensible word in any of them), living and flourishing in the +world without religion, without morality, and (if it is not a cant +phrase to use) without God. + +What their conduct was when out shooting, picnicking, driving, riding, +motoring, and yachting (for Mr. Eastcliff had arrived in his yacht, +which was lying at anchor in the port below the glen), I do not know, +for "doctor's orders" were Alma's excuse for not asking me to accompany +them. + +But at night they played bridge (their most innocent amusement), gambled +and drank, banged the piano, danced "Grizzly Bears," sang duets from the +latest musical comedies, and then ransacked the empty houses of their +idle heads for other means of killing the one enemy of their +existence--Time. + +Sometimes they would give entertainments in honour of their dogs, when +all the animals of all the guests (there seemed to be a whole kennel of +them) would be dressed up in coats of silk and satin with pockets and +pocket-handkerchiefs, and then led downstairs to the drawing-room, where +Alma's wheezy spaniel and my husband's peevish terrier were supposed to +receive them. + +Sometimes they would give "freak dinners," when the guests themselves +would be dressed up, the men in women's clothes, the women in men's, the +male imitating the piping treble of the female voices, and the female +the over-vowelled slang of the male, until, tiring of this foolishness, +they would end up by flinging the food at the pictures on the walls, the +usual pellet being softened bread and the favourite target the noses in +the family portraits, which, hit and covered with a sprawling mess, +looked so ridiculous as to provoke screams of laughter. + +The talk at table was generally of horses and dogs, but sometimes it was +of love, courtship and marriage, including conjugal fidelity, which was +a favourite subject of ridicule, with both the women and the men. + +Thus my husband would begin by saying (he often said it in my hearing) +that once upon a time men took their wives as they took their horses, on +trial for a year and a day, and "really with some women there was +something to say for the old custom." + +Then Mr. Vivian would remark that it was "a jolly good idea, by Jove," +and if he "ever married, by the Lord that's just what he would do." + +Then Mr. Eastcliff would say that it was a ridiculous superstition that +a woman should have her husband all to herself, "as if he were a kind of +toothbrush which she could not share with anybody else," and somebody +would add that she might as reasonably want her dentist or her +hairdresser to be kept for her own use only. + +After that the ladies, not to be left behind, would join in the off-hand +rattle, and one of them would give it as her opinion that a wife might +have an incorrigibly unfaithful husband, and yet be well off. + +"Ugh!" said Alma one night, shrugging her shoulders. "Think of a poor +woman being tied for life to an entirely faithful husband!" + +"I adore the kind of man who goes to the deuce for a woman--Parnell, and +Gambetta and Boulanger and that sort," said a "smart" girl of three or +four-and-twenty, whereupon Camilla Eastcliff (she was a Russian) cried: + +"That's vhy the co-respondents in your divorce courts are so sharming. +They're like the villayns in the plays--always so dee-lightfully +vicked." + +Oh, the sickening horror of it all! Whether it was really moral +corruption or only affectation and pose, it seemed equally shocking, and +though I bore as much of it as I could with a cheerful face, I escaped +as often as possible to the clean atmosphere of my own room. + +But even there I was not always allowed to be alone, for Alma's mother +frequently followed me. She was a plump little person in a profuse +ornamentation of diamond rings and brooches, with little or no +education, and a reputation for saying risky things in blundering French +whereof the principal humour lay in the uncertainty as to whether she +knew their meaning or not. + +Nevertheless she was the only good-hearted woman in the house, and I +really believe she thought she was doing a kind act in keeping me +company. But oh, how I suffered from her long accounts of her former +"visits" to my house, whereby I learned, without wishing to, what her +origin had been (the daughter of a London postman); what position she +had held in Castle Raa in her winsome and reckless youth (one that need +not be defined); how she had met her husband in New York and he had +married her to save the reputation of his child; and finally how the +American ladies of society had refused to receive her, and she had vowed +to be revenged on them by marrying Alma to the highest title in Europe +that could be bought with money. + +"I was just like your father, my dear. I never did no manner of harm to +those people. They used to think I thought myself better blood nor they +were, but I never thought no such thing, I assure you. Only when they +turned nasty after my marriage I made up my mind--just as your father +did--as Alma should marry a bigger husband nor any of them, even if he +wasn't worth a dime and 'adn't a 'air on 'is 'ead." + +But even these revelations about herself were less humiliating than her +sympathy with me, which implied that I was not fitted to be mistress of +a noble house--how could it be expected of me?--whereas Alma was just as +if she had been born to it, and therefore it was lucky for me that I had +her there to show me how to do things. + +"Alma's gotten such _ton!_ Such distangy manners!" she would say. + +The effect of all this was to make me feel, as I had never felt before, +the intolerable nature of the yoke I was living under. When I looked +into the future and saw nothing before me but years of this ignoble +bondage, I told myself that nothing--no sacrament or contract, no law of +church or state--could make me endure it. + +From day to day my maid came to me with insidious hints about Alma and +my husband. I found myself listening to them. I also found myself +refreshing my memory of the hideous scene in Paris, and wondering why I +had condoned the offence by staying an hour longer under my husband's +protection. + +And then there was always another force at work within me--my own secret +passion. Though sometimes I felt myself to be a wretched sinner and +thought the burden I had to bear was heaven's punishment for my guilty +love, at other times my whole soul rose in revolt, and I cried out not +merely for separation from my husband but for absolute sundering. + +Twice during the painful period of the house-party I heard from Martin. +His first letter was full of accounts of the far-reaching work of his +expedition--the engaging of engineers, electricians, geologists and +masons, and the shipping of great stores of wireless apparatus--for his +spirits seemed to be high, and life was full of good things for him. + +His second letter told me that everything was finished, and he was to +visit the island the next week, going first to "the old folks" and +coming to me for a few days immediately before setting sail. + +That brought matters to a head, and compelled me to take action. + +It may have been weak of me, but not wanting a repetition of the scene +with Father Dan, (knowing well that Martin would not bear it with the +same patience) I sent the second letter to Alma, asking if the +arrangement would be agreeable. She returned it with the endorsement +(scribbled in pencil across the face), "Certainly; anything to please +_you_, dear." + +I submitted even to that. Perhaps I was a poor-spirited thing, wanting +in proper pride, but I had a feeling that it was not worth while to +waste myself in little squibs of temper, because an eruption was coming +(I was sure of that) in which Martin would be concerned on my side, and +then everybody and everything would be swept out of the path of my life +for ever. + +Martin came. In due course I read in the insular newspapers of his +arrival on the island--how the people had turned out in crowds to cheer +him at the pier, and how, on reaching our own village the neighbours (I +knew the names of all of them) had met him at the railway station and +taken him to his mother's house, and then lighted fires on the mountains +for his welcome home. + +It cut me to the heart's core to think of Martin amid thrilling scenes +like those while I was here among degrading scenes like these. My love +for Martin was now like a wound and I resolved that, come what might, +before he reached Castle Raa I should liberate myself from the thraldom +of my false position. + +Father Dan's counsels had faded away by this time. Though I had prayed +for strength to bear my burden there had been no result, and one +morning, standing before the figure of the Virgin in my bedroom, I felt +an impulse to blow out her lamp and never to light it again. + +The end of it all was that I determined to see the Bishop and my +father's advocate, Mr. Curphy, and perhaps my father himself, that I +might know one way or the other where I was, and what was to become of +me. But how to do this I could not see, having a houseful of people who +were nominally my guests. + +Fortune--ill-fortune--favoured me. News came that my father had suddenly +fallen ill of some ailment that puzzled the doctors, and making this my +reason and excuse I spoke to my husband, asking if I might go home for +two or three days. + +"Why not?" he said, in the tone of one who meant, "Who's keeping you?" + +Then in my weakness I spoke to Alma, who answered: + +"Certainly, my sweet girl. We shall miss you _dreadfully_, but it's your +duty. And then you'll see that _dear_ Mr. . . . What d'ye callum?" + +Finally, feeling myself a poor, pitiful hypocrite, I apologised for my +going away to the guests also, and they looked as if they might say: +"We'll survive it, perhaps." + +The night before my departure my maid said: + +"Perhaps your ladyship has forgotten that my time's up, but I'll stay +until you return if you want me to." + +I asked her if she would like to stay with me altogether and she said: + +"Indeed I should, my lady. Any woman would like to stay with a good +mistress, if she _is_ a little quick sometimes. And if you don't want me +to go to your father's I may be of some use to you here before you come +back again." + +I saw that her mind was still running on divorce, but I did not reprove +her now, for mine was turning in the same direction. + +Next morning most of the guests came to the hail door to see me off, and +they gave me a shower of indulgent smiles as the motor-car moved away. + + + + +FIFTY-NINTH CHAPTER + + +Before going to my father's house I went to the Bishop's. Bishop's Court +is at the other side of the island, and it was noon before I drove under +its tall elm trees, in which a vast concourse of crows seemed to be +holding a sort of general congress. + +The Bishop was then at his luncheon, and after luncheon (so his liveried +servant told me) he usually took a siesta. I have always thought it was +unfortunate for my interview that it came between his food and his +sleep. + +The little reception-room into which I was shown was luxuriously, not to +say gorgeously, appointed, with easy chairs and sofas, a large portrait +of the Pope, signed by the Holy Father himself, and a number of pictures +of great people of all kinds--dukes, marquises, lords, counts--as well +as photographs of fashionable ladies in low dress inscribed in several +languages to "My dear Father in God the Lord Bishop of Ellan." + +The Bishop came to me after a few minutes, smiling and apparently at +peace with all the world. Except that he wore a biretta he was +dressed--as in Rome--in his long black soutane with its innumerable +buttons, his silver-buckled shoes, his heavy gold chain and jewelled +cross. + +He welcomed me in his smooth and suave manner, asking if he could offer +me a little refreshment; but, too full of my mission to think of eating +and drinking, I plunged immediately into the object of my visit. + +"Monsignor," I said, "I am in great trouble. It is about my marriage." + +The smile was smitten away from the Bishop's face by this announcement. + +"I am sorry," he said. "Nothing serious, I trust?" + +I told him it was very serious, and straightway I began on the spiritual +part of my grievance--that my husband did not love me, that he loved +another woman, that the sacred sacrament of my marriage. . . . + +"Wait," said the Bishop, and he rose to close the window, for the +clamour of the crows was deafening--a trial must have been going on in +the trees. Returning to his seat he said: + +"Dear lady, you must understand that there is one offence, and only one, +which in all Christian countries and civilised communities is considered +sufficient to constitute a real and tangible grievance. Have you any +evidence of that?" + +I knew what he meant and I felt myself colouring to the roots of my +hair. But gulping down my shame I recounted the story of the scene in +Paris and gave a report of my maid's charges and surmises. + +"Humph!" said the Bishop, and I saw in a moment that he was going to +belittle my proofs. + +"Little or no evidence of your own, apparently. Chiefly that of your +maid. And ladies' maids are notorious mischief-makers." + +"But it's true," I said. "My husband will not deny it. He cannot." + +"So far as I am able to observe what passes in the world," said the +Bishop, "men in such circumstances always can and do deny it." + +I felt my hands growing moist under my gloves. I thought the Bishop was +trying to be blind to what he did not wish to see. + +"But I'm right, I'm sure I'm right," I said. + +"Well, assuming you _are_ right, what is it, dear lady, that you wish me +to do?" + +For some minutes I felt like a fool, but I stammered out at length that +I had come for his direction and to learn what relief the Church could +give me. + +"H'm!" said the Bishop, and then crossing one leg over the other, and +fumbling the silver buckle of his shoe, he said: + +"The Church, dear lady, does indeed provide alleviation in cases of dire +necessity. It provides the relief of separation--always deploring the +necessity and hoping for ultimate reconciliation. But to sanction the +separation of a wife from her husband because--pardon me, I do not say +this is your case--she finds that he does not please her, or +because--again I do not say this is your case--she fancies that somebody +else pleases her better. . . ." + +"Monsignor," I said, feeling hot and dizzy, "we need not discuss +separation. I am thinking of something much more serious." + +Never shall I forget the expression of the Bishop's face. He looked +aghast. + +"My good lady, surely you are not thinking of divorce?" + +I think my head must have dropped as in silent assent, for in a +peremptory and condemnatory manner the Bishop took me to task, asking if +I did not know that the Catholic Church did not recognise divorce under +any circumstances, and if I had forgotten what the Holy Father himself +(pointing up to the portrait) had said to me--that when I entered into +the solemn contract of holy matrimony I was to do so in the full +consciousness that it could not be broken but by death. + +"The love in which husband and wife contract to hold each other in holy +wedlock is typified by the love of Christ for His Church, and as the one +can never be broken, neither can the other." + +"But my husband does not love me," I said. "Neither do I love him, and +therefore the contract between us is broken already." + +The Bishop was very severe with me for this, telling me that as a good +child of the Church, I must never, never say that again, for though +marriage was a contract it differed from all other contracts whatsoever. + +"When you married your husband, dear lady, you were bound to him not by +your own act alone, but by a mysterious power from which neither of you +can ever free yourself. The power that united you was God, and whom God +has joined together no man may put asunder." + +I felt my head drooping. The Bishop was saying what I had always been +taught, though in the torment of my trouble and the fierce fire of my +temptation I had forgotten it. + +"The civil law _might_ divorce you," continued the Bishop. "I don't +know--I can say nothing about that. But it would have _no right_ to do +so because the law can have no right to undo what God Himself has done." + +Oh, it was cruel! I felt as if the future of my life were darkening +before me--as if the iron bars of a prison were closing upon me, and +fetters were being fixed on every limb. + +"But even if the civil law _could_ and _would_ divorce you," said the +Bishop, "think of the injury you would be inflicting on the Church. +Yours was what is called a mixed marriage, and the Church does not +favour such marriages, but it consented in this case, and why? Because +it hoped to bring back an erring family in a second generation to the +fold of the faith. Yet what would you be doing? Without waiting for a +second generation you would he defeating its purpose." + +A cold chill seemed to creep to my heart at these words. Was it the +lost opportunity the Bishop was thinking of, instead of the suffering +woman with her bruised and bleeding soul? + +I rose to go. The Bishop rose with me, and began to counsel forgiveness. + +"Even if you _have_ suffered injury, dear lady," he said--"I don't say +you haven't--isn't it possible to forgive? Remember, forgiveness is a +divine virtue, enjoined on us all, and especially on a woman towards the +man she has married. Only think! How many women have to practise +it--every day, all the world over!" + +"Ah, well!" I said, and walked to the door. + +The Bishop walked with me, urging me, as a good daughter of the Church, +to live at peace with my husband, whatever his faults, and when my +children came (as please God they would) to "instil into them the true +faith with all a mother's art, a mother's tenderness," so that the +object of my marriage might be fulfilled, and a good Catholic become the +heir to Castle Raa. + +"So the Church can do nothing for me?" I said. + +"Nothing but pray, dear lady," said the Bishop. + +When I left him my heart was in fierce rebellion; and, since the Church +could do nothing, I determined to see if the law could do anything, so I +ordered my chauffeur to drive to the house of my father's advocate at +Holmtown. + +The trial in the trees was over by this time, and a dead crow tumbled +from one of the tall elms as we passed out of the grounds. + +Holmtown is a little city on the face of our bleak west coast, dominated +by a broad stretch of sea, and having the sound of the waves always +rumbling over it. Mr. Curphy's house faced the shore and his office was +an upper room plainly furnished with a writing desk, a deal table, laden +with law books and foolscap papers, a stiff arm-chair, covered with +American leather, three or four coloured engravings of judges in red and +ermine, a photograph of the lawyer himself in wig and gown, an +illuminated certificate of his membership of a legal society, and a +number of lacquered tin boxes, each inscribed with the name of a +client--the largest box bearing the name of "Daniel O'Neill." + +My father's advocate received me with his usual bland smile, gave me his +clammy fat hand, put me to sit in the arm-chair, hoped my unexpected +visit did not presage worse news from the Big house, and finally asked +me what he could do. + +I told my story over again, omitting my sentimental grievances and +coming quickly, and with less delicacy, to the grosser facts of my +husband's infidelity. + +The lawyer listened with his head aside, his eyes looking out on the sea +and his white fingers combing his long brown beard, and before I had +finished I could see that he too, like the Bishop, had determined to see +nothing. + +"You may be right," he began. . . . + +"I _am_ right!" I answered. + +"But even if you _are_, I am bound to tell you that adultery is not +enough of itself as a ground for divorce." + +"Not enough?" + +"If you were a man it would be, but being a woman you must establish +cruelty as well." + +"Cruelty? Isn't it all cruelty?" I asked. + +"In the human sense, yes; in the legal sense, no," answered the lawyer. + +And then he proceeded to explain to me that in this country, unlike some +others, before a woman could obtain a divorce from her husband she had +to prove that he had not only been unfaithful to her, but that he had +used violence to her, struck her in the face perhaps, threatened her or +endangered her life or health. + +"Your husband hasn't done that, has he? No? I thought not. After all +he's a gentleman. Therefore there is only one other ground on which you +could establish a right to divorce, namely desertion, and your husband +is not likely to run away. In fact, he couldn't. It isn't to his +interest. We've seen to all that--_here_," and smiling again, the lawyer +patted the top of the lacquered box that bore my father's name. + +I was dumbfounded. Even more degrading than the fetters whereby the +Church bound me to my marriage were the terms on which the law would +release me. + +"But assuming that you _could_ obtain a divorce," said the lawyer, "what +good would it do you? You would have to relinquish your title." + +"I care nothing about my title," I replied. + +"And your position." + +"I care nothing about that either." + +"Come, come," said the lawyer, patting my arm as if I had been an angry +child on the verge of tears. "Don't let a fit of pique or spleen break +up a marriage that is so suitable from the points of property and +position. And then think of your good father. Why did he spend all that +money in setting a ruined house on its legs again? That he might carry +on his name in a noble family, and through your children, and your +children's children. . . ." + +"Then the law can do nothing for me?" I said, feeling sick and sore. + +"Sorry, very sorry, but under present conditions, as far as I can yet +see, nothing," said the lawyer. + +"Good-day, sir," I said, and before he could have known what I was doing +I had leapt up, left the room, and was hurrying downstairs. + +My heart was in still fiercer rebellion now. I would go home. I would +appeal to my father. Hard as he had always been with me he was at least +a man, not a cold abstraction, like the Church and the law, without +bowels of compassion or sense of human suffering. + + + + +SIXTIETH CHAPTER + + +Although I had sent word that I was coming home, there was no one to +welcome me when I arrived. + +Aunt Bridget was out shopping, and Betsy Beauty (in the sulks with me, +as I afterwards heard, for not asking her to the house-party) had run +upstairs on hearing our horn, so I went direct to my father's room. + +Nessy MacLeod answered my knock, but instead of opening the door to let +me in, she slid out like a cat and closed it behind her. Never had her +ungainly figure, her irregular features, and her red head seemed to me +so repugnant. I saw at once that she was giving herself the airs of +housekeeper, and I noticed that she was wearing the bunch of keys which +used to dangle from Aunt Bridget's waist when I was a child. + +"Your father is ill," she said. + +I told her I knew that, and it was one of the reasons I was there. + +"Seriously ill," she said, standing with her back to the door. "The +doctor says he is to be kept perfectly quiet." + +Indignant at the effrontery of the woman who was trying to keep me out +of my father's room, I said: + +"Let me pass, please." + +"S'sh! He has a temperature, and I don't choose that anybody shall +disturb him to-day." + +"Let me pass," I repeated, and I must have pitched my voice so high that +my father heard it. + +"Is that Mary?" came from the other side of the door, whereupon Nessy +beat a retreat, and at the next moment I was in my father's room. + +His massive and powerful head was propped up with pillows in the +camp-bed which was all he ever slept on, and he was looking so ill and +changed in so short a time that I was shocked, as well as ashamed at the +selfishness of having thought only of myself all the morning. + +But he would listen to no sympathy, protesting there was little or +nothing the matter with him, that "Conrad was croaking about cancer," +but the doctor was a fool. + +"What about yourself, though?" he said. "Great doings at the Castle, +they're telling me." + +I thought this a favourable opportunity to speak about my own affairs, +so I began on my story again, and though I found it harder to tell now +that my listener was my father, I struggled on and on, as well as I +could for the emotion that was choking me. + +I thought he would pity me. I expected him to be angry. Although he was +showing me some of the contemptuous tenderness which he had always +assumed towards my mother, yet I was his daughter, and I felt sure that +he would want to leap out of bed that he might take my husband by the +throat and shake him as a terrier shakes a rat. But what happened was +something quite different. + +Hardly had I begun when he burst out laughing. + +"God bless my soul," he cried, "you're never going to lose your stomach +over a thing like that?" + +I thought he had not understood me, so I tried to speak plainer. + +"I see," he said. "Sweethearting some other woman, is he? Well, what of +it? He isn't the first husband who has done the like, and I guess he +won't be the last." + +Still I thought I had not made myself clear, so I said my husband had +been untrue to me, that his infidelities under my own roof had degraded +me in my own eyes and everybody else's, that I could not bear to live +such a life any longer and consequently. . . . + +"Consequently," said my father, "you come to me to fight your battles +for you. No, no, fight them yourself, gel. No father-in-law ought to +interfere." + +It was a man's point of view I suppose, but I was ready to cry with +vexation and disappointment, and though I conquered the impulse to do +that I could go no farther. + +"Who's the woman?" he asked. + +I told him it was one of our house-party. + +"Then cut her out. I guess you're clever enough to do it, whoever she +is. You've got the looks too, and I don't grudge you the money. Cut her +out--that's the best advice I can give you. Make your husband see you're +the better woman of the two. Cut her out, I'm saying, and don't come +whining here like a cry-baby, who runs to her grandmother's +apron-strings at the first scratch she gets outside." + +He had been reaching forward, but he now fell back on his pillows, +saying: + +"I see how it is, though. Women without children are always vapouring +about their husbands, as if married life ought to be a garden of Eden. +One woman, one man, and all the rest of the balderdash. I sot your Aunt +Bridget on you before, gel, and I'll have to do it again I'm thinking. +But go away now. If I'm to get better I must have rest. Nessy!" +(calling) "I've a mort o' things to do and most everything is on my +shoulders. Nessy! My medicine! Nessy! Nessy! Where in the world has that +girl gone to?" + +"I'm here, Daniel," said Nessy MacLeod coming back to the room; and as I +went out and passed down the corridor, with a crushed and broken spirit +and the tears ready to gush from my eyes, I heard her coaxing him in her +submissive and insincere tones, while he blamed and scolded her. + +Half an hour afterwards Aunt Bridget came to me in my mother's room. +Never in my life before had I been pleased to see her. She, at least, +would see my situation with a woman's eyes. But I was doomed to another +disappointment. + +"Goodness me, girl," she cried, "what's this your father tells me? One +of your own guests, is it? That one with the big eyes I'll go bail. +Well, serve you right, I say, for bringing a woman like that into the +house with your husband--so smart and such a quality toss with her. If +you were lonely coming home why didn't you ask your aunt or your first +cousin? There would have been no trouble with your husband then--not +about me at all events. But what are you thinking of doing?" + +"Getting a divorce," I answered, firmly, for my heart was now aflame. + +If I had held a revolver in Aunt Bridget's face she could not have +looked more shocked. + +"Mary O'Neill, are you mad?" she cried. "Divorce indeed! No woman of +our family has ever disgraced herself like that. What will your father +say? What's to happen to Betsy Beauty? What are people going to think +about me?" + +I answered that I had not made my marriage, and those who had made it +must take the consequences. + +"What does that matter now? Hundreds of thousands of women have married +the wrong man of their own free will, but if every woman who has made a +rue-bargain were to try to get out of it your way where would the world +be, I wonder? Perhaps you think you could marry somebody else, but you +couldn't. What decent man wants to marry a divorced woman even if she +_is_ the injured party?" + +"Then you think I ought to submit--tamely submit to such infidelities?" +I asked. + +"Sakes alive," said Aunt Bridget, "what else can you do? Men are +polygamous animals, and we women have to make up our minds to it. +Goodness knows I had to when the old colonel used to go hanging around +those English barmaids at the 'Cock and Hen.' Be a little blind, +girl--that's what nine wives out of ten have to be every day and every +night and all the world over." + +"Will that make my husband any better?" I asked. + +"I don't say it will," said Aunt Bridget. "It will make _you_ better, +though. What the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve for. That's +something, isn't it?" + +When I went to bed that night my whole soul was in revolt. The Church, +the law, society, parental power, all the conventions and +respectabilities seemed to be in a conspiracy to condone my husband's +offence and to make me his scapegoat, doomed to a life of hypocrisy and +therefore immorality and shame. I would die rather than endure it. Yes, +I would die that very day rather than return to my husband's house and +go through the same ordeal again. + +But next morning when I thought of Martin, as I always did on first +awakening, I told myself that I would live and be a clean woman in my +own eyes _whatever the World might think of me_. + +Martin was now my only refuge, so I would tell him everything. It would +be hard to do that, but no matter, I would crush down my modesty and +tell him everything. And then, whatever he told me to do I should do it. + +I knew quite well what my resolution meant, what it implied and +involved, but still I thought, "_Whatever he tells me to do I will do +it_." + +I remembered what the Countess in Rome had said about a life of +"complete emancipation" as an escape from unhappy marriage, and even yet +I thought "_Whatever he tells me to do I will do it_." + +After coming to that conclusion I felt more at ease and got up to dress. + +It was a beautiful morning, and I looked down into the orchard, where +the apples were reddening under the sunshine and the gooseberries were +ripening under their hanging boughs, when in the quiet summer air I +heard a footstep approaching. + +An elderly woman in an old-fashioned quakerish bonnet was coming up the +drive. She carried a little bunch of red and white roses, and her face, +which was very sweet and simple, wore the pathetic expression of a child +in trouble. + +It was Martin's mother. She was coming to see me, and at the first sight +of her something told me that my brave resolution was about to be +broken, and I was going to be shaken to the depths of my being. + +I heard the bell of the front door ringing. After a moment a maid came +up and said: + +"Mrs. Doctor Conrad has called to see your ladyship." + +"Bring her here," I answered. + +My heart was in my mouth already. + + + + +SIXTY-FIRST CHAPTER + + +When Martin's mother came into the room she looked nervous and almost +frightened, as if she had charged herself with a mission which she was +afraid to fulfil. But I put her to sit in my mother's easy chair and sat +on the arm of it myself, and then she seemed calmer and more +comfortable. + +In spite of the silver threads in the smooth hair under her poke bonnet +her dear face was still the face of a child, and never before had it +seemed to me so helpless and child-like. + +After a moment we began to talk of Martin. I said it must be a great +happiness to her to have him back after his long and perilous voyage; +and she answered that it was, but his visit was so short, only four days +altogether, although the doctor and she had looked forward to it so +long. + +"That's not Martin's fault, though," she said. "He's such a good son. I +really, really think no mother ever had such a good son. But when +children grow up they can't always be thinking of the old people, can +they? That's why I say to the doctor, 'Doctor,' I say, 'perhaps we were +the same ourselves when we were young and first loved each other.'" + +Already I thought I saw vaguely what the dear soul had come to tell me, +but I only said I supposed Martin was still with them. + +She told me no, he had gone to King George's. That was his old school, +and being prize-giving day the masters had asked him to the sports and +to the dinner that was to be given that night before the breaking-up for +the holidays. + +"The boys will give him a cheer, I know they will," she said. + +I said of course he would be back to-morrow, but again she said no; he +had gone for good, and they had said good-bye to him. When he left King +George's he was to go on to Castle Raa. Didn't I know that? He had said +he would telegraph to me. But being from home perhaps I had not yet +received his message. Oh yes, he was going on to the Castle to-morrow +night and would stay there until it was time to leave the island. + +"I'm so glad," I said, hardly knowing with what fervour I had said it, +until I saw the same expression of fear come back to the sweet old face. + +"Martin will be glad, too," she said, "and that's why I've come +to see you." + +"That?" + +"You won't be cross with me, will you? But Martin is so fond of +you. . . . He always has been fond of you, ever since he was a +boy . . . but this time. . . ." + +"Yes?" + +"This time I thought . . . I really, really thought he was too fond of +you." + +I had to hold my breast to keep down the cry of joy that was rising to +my throat, but the dear soul saw nothing. + +"Not that he said so--not to say said so, but it's a mother to see +things, isn't it? And he was talking and talking so much about Mary +O'Neill that I was frightened--really frightened." + +"Frightened?" + +"He's so tender-hearted, you see. And then you . . . you're such a +wonderful woman grown. Tommy the Mate says there hasn't been the like of +you on this island since they laid your mother under the sod. It's truth +enough, too--gospel truth. And Martin--Martin says there isn't your +equal, no, not in London itself neither. So . . . so," she said, +trembling and stammering, "I was thinking . . . I was thinking he was +only flesh and blood like the rest of us, poor boy, and if he got to be +_too_ fond of you . . . now that you're married and have a husband, you +know. . . ." + +The trembling and stammering stopped her for a moment. + +"They're saying you are not very happy in your marriage neither. Times +and times I've heard people saying he isn't kind to you, and they +married you against your will. . . . So I was telling myself if that's +so, and Martin and you came together now, and you encouraged him, and +let him go on and anything came of it . . . any trouble or disgrace or +the like of that . . . it would be such a terrible cruel shocking thing +for the boy . . . just when everybody's talking about him and speaking +so well too." + +It was out at last. Her poor broken-hearted story was told. Being a +married woman, unhappily married, too, I was a danger to her beloved +son, and she had come to me in her sweet, unmindful, motherly +selfishness to ask me to protect him _against myself_. + +"Whiles and whiles I've been thinking of it," she said. "'What will I +do?' I've been asking myself, and sometimes I've been thinking I would +speak to Martin. I didn't dare do it, though. But when I heard last +night that you had come home to see your father, I said: 'Doctor, I'll +go over and speak to herself.' 'You'll never do that, Christian Ann,' +said the doctor. 'Yes, I will,' I said. 'I'll speak to the young +mistress herself. She may be a great lady now, but haven't I nursed her +on my knee? She'll never do anything to harm my boy, if I ask her not +to. No indeed she won't. Not Mary O'Neill. I'll never believe it of her. +Never in this world.'" + +The sweet old face was beaming but it was wet with tears, too, and while +trying to get out her pocket-handkerchief, she was fumbling with the +flowers which she was still holding and passing from hand to hand. + +"Let me take the roses," I said as well as I could, for I could scarcely +say anything. + +"I brought them for you," she said, and then she laughed, a little +confusedly, at her own forgetfulness. + +"To be sure they're nothing to the green-house ones you'll have at the +Castle, but I thought you'd like them for all that. They're from the +tree outside the window of your own little room. We call it your room +still--the one you slept in when you came in your little velvet frock +and pinnie, singing carols to my door. 'Mary O'Neill's room,' Martin +called it then, and it's been the same to us ever since." + +This touched me so deeply that, before I knew what I was doing, I was +putting my arm about her waist and asking her to tell me what she wished +me to do and I would do it. + +"Will you, though?" she said, and then one by one she propounded the +artless little schemes she had concocted to cure Martin of what she +conceived to be his love for me. + +Her first thought was that I might make excuse of my father's illness to +remain where I was until the time came for Martin to leave the island; +but she repented of this almost immediately, remembering that Martin was +set on seeing me, ('I _must_ see her,' he had said) and if he did not +see me he would be so downhearted. + +Then she thought I might praise up my husband to Martin, saying what a +fine man he was to be sure, and how good he had been to me, and what a +proud woman I was to be married to him; but she was ashamed of that +almost as soon as she had said it, for it might not be true, and Martin +might see I was pretending. + +Finally, she suggested that in order to create a coolness between Martin +and myself I might try not to be so nice to him, speaking short to him +sometimes, and even harsh and angry; but no, that would be too cruel, +especially from me, after all these years, just when he was going so far +away, too, and only the Lord and the blessed saints knew what was to +become of him. + +It was Martin, Martin, always Martin. Still in her sweet motherly +selfishness she could think of nobody else. Fondly as she loved me, it +never occurred to her for a moment that if I did what she wished and +sent Martin away from me, I too would suffer. But a harder heart than +mine would have melted at the sight of her perplexity and distress, and +when with a helpless look she said: + +"I don't know what you are to do--I really, really don't," I comforted +her (needing comfort so much myself), and told her I would find a way of +my own to do what she desired. + +"Will you, though?" she said. + +"Indeed I will." + +"And you won't send him away sore-hearted, either?" + +"Indeed I won't." + +"I knew you would say that. May the Lord and His holy Mother bless you!" + +She was weeping tender, copious, blessed tears by this time, but there +were smiles behind them. + +"Not that there's another woman in the world I would rather give him to +if things were as they used to be. But they're different now, are they +not?" she asked. + +"Yes, they're different now," I answered. + +"But are you sure you're not cross with me for coming?" + +"Oh, no, no," I said, and it was all I _could_ say for my voice was +failing me. + +She gave a sigh of inexpressible relief and then rose to go. + +"I must be going now. The doctor is digging in the garden and he hasn't +had his breakfast. But I put the pot on the _slouree_ to boil and it +will be ready for the porridge." + +She got as far as the door and then turned and said: + +"I wish I had a photo of you--a right one, just as you are at this very +minute. I'd hang it in your own room, and times and times in the day I'd +be running upstairs to look at it. But it's all as one. I've got a photo +of you here," (touching her breast) "and sometimes I can see it as plain +as plain." + +I could not speak after that, but I kissed her as she was going out, and +she said: + +"That's nice, now! Good-bye, _my chree!_ You'll not be going home until +to-morrow, it's like, so perhaps I'll be putting another sight on you. +Good-bye!" + +I went to the window to watch her as she walked down the drive. She was +wiping her eyes, but her head was up and I thought her step was light, +and I was sure her face was shining. + +God bless her! The dear sweet woman! Such women as she is, and my mother +was--so humble and loving, so guileless and pure, never saying an unkind +word or thinking an unkind thought--are the flowers of the world that +make the earth smell sweet. + + * * * * * + +When she was gone and I remembered the promise I had made to her I asked +myself what was to become of me. If I could neither divorce my husband +under any circumstances without breaking a sacrament of the Church, nor +love Martin and be loved by him without breaking the heart of his +mother, where was I? + +I intended to go home the following morning; I was to meet Martin the +following night. What was I to say? What was I to do? + +All day long these questions haunted me and I could find no answers. But +towards evening I took my troubles where I had often taken them--to +Father Dan. + + + + +SIXTY-SECOND CHAPTER + + +The door of the Presbytery was opened by Father Dan's Irish housekeeper, +a good old soul whose attitude to her master was that of a "moithered" +mother to a wilful child. + +All the way up the narrow staircase to his room, she grumbled about his +reverence. Unless he was sickening for the scarlet fever she didn't know +in her seven sinses what was a-matter with him these days. He was as +white as a ghost, and as thin as a shadder, and no wonder neither, for +he didn't eat enough to keep body and soul together. + +Yesterday itself she had cooked him a chicken as good as I could get at +the Big House; "done to a turn, too, with a nice bit of Irish bacon on +top, and a bowl of praties biled in their jackets and a basin of +beautiful new buttermilk;" but no, never a taste nor a sup did he take +of it. + +"It's just timpting Providence his reverence is, and it'll be glory to +God if you'll tell him so." + +"What's that you're saying about his reverence, Mrs. Cassidy?" cried +Father Dan from the upper landing. + +"I'm saying you're destroying yourself with your fasting and praying and +your midnight calls at mountain cabins, and never a ha'porth of anything +in your stomach to do it on." + +"Whisht then, Mrs. Cassidy, it's tay-time, isn't it? So just step back +to your kitchen and put on your kittle, and bring up two of your best +china cups and saucers, and a nice piece of buttered toast, not +forgetting a thimbleful of something neat, and then it's the mighty +proud woman ye'll be entoirely to be waiting for once on the first lady +in the island. . . . Come in, my daughter, come in." + +He was laughing as he let loose his Irish tongue, but I could see that +his housekeeper had not been wrong and that he looked worn and troubled. + +As soon as he had taken me into his cosy study and put me to sit in the +big chair before the peat and wood fire, I would have begun on my +errand, but not a word would he hear until the tea had come up and I had +taken a cup of it. + +Then stirring the peats for light as well as warmth, (for the room was +dark with its lining of books, and the evening was closing in) he said: + +"Now what is it? Something serious--I can see that much." + +"It _is_ serious, Father Dan." + +"Tell me then," he said, and as well as I could I told him my story. + +I told him that since I had seen him last, during that violent scene at +Castle Raa, my relations with my husband had become still more painful; +I told him that, seeing I could not endure any longer the degradation of +the life I was living, I had thought about divorce; I told him that +going first to the Bishop and afterwards to my father's advocate I had +learned that neither the Church nor the law, for their different +reasons, could grant me the relief I required; and finally, in a faint +voice (almost afraid to hear myself speak it), I told him my solemn and +sacred secret--that whatever happened I could not continue to live where +I was now living because I loved somebody else than my husband. + +While I was speaking Father Dan was shuffling his feet and plucking at +his shabby cassock, and as soon as I had finished he flashed out on me +with an anger I had never seen in his face or heard in his voice before. + +"I know who it is," he said. "It's Martin Conrad." + +I was so startled by this that I was beginning to ask how he knew, when +he cried: + +"Never mind how I know. Perhaps you think an old priest has no eyes for +anything but his breviary, eh? It's young Martin, isn't it?" + +"Yes." + +"The wretch, the rascal, the scoundrel! If he ever dares to come to this +house again, I'll slam the door in his face." + +I knew he loved Martin almost as much as I did, so I paid no heed to the +names he was calling him, but I tried to say that I alone had been to +blame, and that Martin had done nothing. + +"Don't tell me he has done nothing," cried Father Dan. "I know what he +has done He has told you he loves you, hasn't he?" + +"No." + +"He has been colloguing with you, then, and getting you to say things?" + +"Never." + +"Pitying and sympathising with you, anyway, in your relations with your +husband?" + +"Not for one moment." + +"He had better not! Big man as he is in England now, I'll warm his +jacket for him if he comes here making mischief with a child of mine. +But thank the Lord and the holy saints he's going away soon, so you'll +see no more of him." + +"But he is coming to Castle Raa," I said, "and I am to see him to-morrow +night." + +"That too! The young scoundrel!" + +I explained that my husband had invited him, being prompted to do so by +the other woman. + +"Worse and worse!" cried Father Dan. "Don't you see that they're laying +a trap for you, and like two young fools you're walking directly into +it. But no matter! You mustn't go." + +I told him that I should be compelled to do so, for Martin was coming on +my account only, and I could neither tell him the truth nor make an +excuse that would not be a falsehood. + +"Well, well, perhaps you're right there. It's not the best way to meet +temptation to be always running away from it. That's Irish, but it's +true enough, though. You must conquer this temptation, my child; you +must fight it and overcome it." + +"But I've tried and tried and I cannot," I said. + +And then I told him the story of my struggle--how love had been no +happiness to me but only a cruel warfare, how I had suffered and prayed +and gone to mass and confession, yet all to no purpose, for my affection +for Martin was like a blazing fire which nothing could put out. + +Father Dan's hands and lips were trembling while I spoke and I could see +that he was shuddering with pity for me, so I went on to say that if God +had put this pure and holy love into my heart could it be wrong-- + +"Stop a minute," cried Father Dan. "Who says God put it there? And who +informed you it was pure and holy? Let us see where we are. Come, now. +You say the Bishop told you that you could never be divorced under any +circumstances?" + +"Yes." + +"Yet you wish to leave your husband?" + +"How can I help it? The life I have been living is too horrible." + +"Never mind that now. You wish to leave your husband, don't you?" + +"I . . . I must." + +"And you want to go to this . . . this young . . . in short, you want to +go to Martin Conrad? That's the plain truth, isn't it? Don't deny it. +Very well, let us call things by their proper names. What is the fact? +You are asking me--me, your spiritual Father--to allow you to live a +life of open adultery. That's what it comes to. You know it is, and God +and His holy Mother have mercy on your soul!" + +I was so startled and shocked by his fierce assault, and by the cruel +climax it had come to, that I flung up my hands to my face and kept them +there, for I felt as if my brain had been stunned and my heart was +bursting. + +How long I sat like this, with my hidden face to the fire, I do not +know; but after a long silence in which I heard nothing but my own +heaving breath, I became aware that Father Dan had drawn one of my hands +down to his knee and was smoothing it with his own. + +"Don't be angry with your old priest for telling you the truth," he +said. "It's hard to bear; I know it's hard; but it's as hard for him as +for you, my child. Think--only think what he is trying to save you from. +If you do what you wish to do, you will put yourself out of communion. +If you put yourself out of communion, you will cease to be a Catholic. +What will become of you then, my daughter? What will be left to replace +the consolations of the Church--in sorrow, in suffering, in the hour of +death? Have you never thought of that?" + +I never had. It was thrilling through and through me. + +"You say you cannot live any longer with your husband because he has +broken the vow he made to you at your marriage. But think how many many +thousands of poor women all the world over are doing it every +day--living with adulterous husbands for the sake of their homes and +children. And not for the sake of their homes and children only, but for +the sake of their souls and their religion. Blessed, blessed martyrs, +though we know nothing about them, holding society and the Church and +the human family together." + +I was trembling all over. I felt as if Father Dan were trying to take +away from me the only sweet and precious thing in my life that was left. + +"Then you think you cannot live without the one you love, because all +your heart is full of him. But think of the holy women, the holy saints, +who have gone through the same temptation--fighting against it with all +the strength of their souls until the very wounds of our blessed Lord +have been marked on their bodies." + +He was creeping closer to my side. His voice was quivering at my ear. I +was struggling hard, and still trembling all over. + +"Hold fast by the Church, my child. It is your only refuge. Remember +that God made your marriage and you cannot break it without forsaking +your faith. Can anything be good that is bought at such a price? Nothing +in this world! When you meet to-morrow night--you two children--tell him +that. Tell him I told you to say so. . . . I love you both. Don't break +your old priest's heart. He's in trouble enough for you already. Don't +let him think that he must lose you altogether. And then remember your +mother, too--that saint in heaven who suffered so long and was patient +. . . Everything will depend upon you, my child. In matters of this kind +the woman is the stronger vessel. Be strong for him also. Renounce your +guilty love, my daughter--" + +"But I cannot, I cannot," I said. "I love him, and I cannot give him +up!" + +"Let us ask God to help you," said Father Dan, and still holding my hand +he drew me down to my knees and knelt beside me. The room was dark by +this time, and only the sullen glow from the peat fire was on our faces. + +Then in a low voice, so low that it was like his throbbing whisper +before the altar, when he raised the Sacred host, Father Dan prayed for +me (calling me his dear child whom God had committed to his care) that I +might keep my marriage vow and be saved from the temptation to break it. + +His beautiful prayer or his throbbing voice, or both together, had a +great effect upon me, and when I rose to my feet, I felt stronger. +Although Martin was as dear to me as ever, I thought I saw my way at +last. If he loved me as I loved him, I had to be brave for both of us. I +had to oppose to the carnal instinct of love the spiritual impulse of +renunciation. Yes, yes, that was what I had to do. + +Father Dan saw me to the door. + +"Give my love to my boy," he said, "and don't forget what I told you to +tell him." + +"I'll tell him," I replied, for though I knew my heart was bleeding I +felt calm and more courageous. + +It was milking time and the cows were lowing in the byre when I crossed +the fields and the farm-yard on my way back to my father's house. + +Early next morning I left it for Castle Raa. + + + + +SIXTY-THIRD CHAPTER + + +Although it was mid-day before I reached the Castle, the gate to the +park had not been opened, the drive was deserted and even the great door +to the house itself was closed. + +And when, in answer to my ringing, one of the maids came after a certain +delay, wearing neither apron nor cap, I found the hall empty and no sign +of life in the house, except a shrill chorus of laughter which came from +the servants' quarters. + +"What's the meaning of this?" I asked, but before the girl could reply, +Price who had come down to take my wraps said: + +"I'll tell your ladyship presently." + +As we were going upstairs she told me that the entire house-party had +that morning gone off on a cruise in Mr. Eastcliff's yacht, that they +would be away several days, and that Madame had left a letter for me +which was supposed to explain everything. + +I found it on the mantelpiece in my boudoir under an open telegram which +had been stuck into the edge of the bevelled glass. The telegram, which +was addressed to me, was from Martin. + + _"Expect to arrive to-morrow evening. Staying until Wednesday + afternoon. If not convenient wire Principal's House, King George's + College."_ + +"To-morrow'?" + +"That means to-day," said Price. "The telegram came yesterday. Madame +opened it and she told me to say--" + +"Let me read her letter first," I said. + +The letter ran as follows: + + _"My Dearest Mary, + + "You will be astonished to find the house empty and all your + racketty guests gone. Let me explain, and if you are angry about + what has happened you must lay all the blame on me. + + "Well, you see, my dear, it was arranged nearly a month ago that + before we left your delightful house we should make a little cruise + round your charming island. But we had not expected that this would + come off so soon, when suddenly and unexpectedly that silly Mr. + Eastcliff, who has no more brains than a spring chicken, remembered + that he had promised to visit a friend who has taken a shoot in + Skye. Result--we had to make the cruise immediately or not at all, + and yet behold! our hostess was away on an urgent call of sickness, + and what in the world were we to do without her? + + "Everybody was in a quandary--that wise Mr. Vivian saying it would + be 'jolly bad form by Jove' to go without you, while Mr. Eastcliffs + 'deelightfully vicked' little Camilla declared it would be + 'vilaynous,' and your husband vowed that his Margaret Mary could + not possibly be left behind. + + "It was then that a certain friend of yours took the liberty of + remembering that you did not like the sea, and that even if you had + been here and had consented to go with us it would have been only + out of the sweetness of your heart, which I've always known to be + the tenderest and most unselfish in the world. + + "This seemed to satisfy the whole house and everybody was at ease, + when lo! down on us like a thunderbolt came the telegram from Mr. + Conrad. Thinking it might require to be repeated, I took the + liberty of opening it, and then we were in a plight, I assure you. + + "What on earth was he to think of our leaving the house when he was + on the point of arriving? And, above all, how were we to support + the disappointment of missing him--some of us, the women + especially, and myself in particular, being just crazy to see him + again? + + "This nearly broke down our plans altogether, but once more I came + to the rescue by remembering that Mr. Conrad was not coming to see + us but you, and that the very kindest thing we could do for a + serious person of his kind would be to take our racketty presence + out of the way. + + "That contented everybody except my mother, who--would you believe + it?--had gotten some prudish notions into her head about the + impropriety of leaving you alone, and declared her intention of + staying behind to keep you in countenance! We soon laughed her out + of that, though, and now, to relieve you of her company, we are + carrying her away with us--which will be lots of fun, for she's as + fond of water as a cat and will fancy she is seasick all the time. + + "Good-bye, dearest! We're just off. I envy you. You happy, happy + girl! I am sure you will have such a good time. What a man! As + natural as nature! I see, by the insular paper that your islanders + adore him. + + "Hope you found your father better. Another wonderful man! Such an + original type, too! Good-bye, my dearest dear_, ALMA. + + "_P.S. Have missed you so much, darling! Castle Raa wasn't the same + place without you--I assure you it wasn't_." + +While I was turning this letter over in my hand, wondering what the +beautiful fiend had meant by it, my maid, who was standing by, was +visibly burning with a desire to know its contents and give me the +benefit of her own interpretation. + +I told her in general what Alma had said and she burst into little +screams of indignation. + +"Well, the huzzy! The wicked huzzy! That's all she is, my lady, begging +your pardon, and there's no other name for her. Arranged a month ago, +indeed! It was never thought of until last night after Mr. Conrad's +telegram came." + +"Then what does it mean?" + +"I can tell your ladyship what it means, if you'll promise not to fly +out at me again. It means that Madame wants to stand in your shoes, and +wouldn't mind going through the divorce court to do so. And seeing that +you can't be tempted to divorce your husband because you are a Catholic, +she thinks your husband, who isn't, might be tempted to divorce you. So +she's setting a trap for you, and she expects you to fall into it while +she's away, and if you do. . . ." + +"Impossible!" + +"Oh, trust _me_, your ladyship. I haven't been keeping my ears closed +while your ladyship has been away, and if that chatterbox of a maid of +hers hadn't been such a fool I suppose she would have been left behind +to watch. But there's somebody else in the house who thinks she has a +grievance against you, and if listening at keyholes will do +anything . . . Hush!" + +Price stopped suddenly with her finger to her lip, and then going on +tiptoe to the door she opened it with a jerk, when the little +housekeeper was to be seen rising to an upright position while +pretending that she had slipped. + +"I only came to ask if her ladyship had lunched?" she said. + +I answered that I had not, and then told her (so as to give her no +further excuse for hanging about me) that in future she was to take her +orders from Price--an announcement which caused my maid to stand several +inches taller in her shoes, and sent the housekeeper hopping downstairs +with her beak in the air like an injured cockatoo. + +All the afternoon I was in a state of the utmost agitation, sometimes +wondering what Martin would think of the bad manners of my husband, who +after inviting him had gone away just as he was about to arrive; +sometimes asking myself, with a quiver of shame, if he would imagine +that this was a scheme of my own contriving; but oftenest remembering my +resolution of renunciation and thinking of the much fiercer fight that +was before me now that I had to receive and part with him alone. + +More than once I had half a mind to telegraph to Martin putting him off, +and though I told myself that to do so would not be renunciation but +merely flight from temptation, I always knew at the bottom of my heart +that I really wanted him to come. + +Nevertheless I vowed to my very soul that I should be strong--strong in +every word and look--and if Alma was daring me I should defy her, and +she would see that I should neither yield nor run away. + +Thus I entrenched myself at last in a sort of bright strong faith in my +power to resist temptation. But I must leave it to those who know better +than I the way to read a woman's heart to say how it came to pass that +towards five o'clock, when I heard the sound of wheels and going on to +my balcony saw a jaunting-car at the front entrance, and then +opening my door heard Martin's great voice in the hall, I flew +downstairs--literally flew--in my eagerness to welcome him. + +There he was in his brown Harris tweeds and soft slouch hat with such an +atmosphere of health and sweep of winds about him as almost took away my +breath. + +"Helloa!" he cried, and I am sure his eyes brightened at the sight of me +for they were like the sea when the sun shines on it. + +"You're better, aren't you?" he said. "No need to ask that, though--the +colour in your face is wonderful." + +In spite of my resolution, and the attempt I made to show him only a +kind of glad seriousness, I could not help it if I blushed. Also I could +not help it if, while going upstairs and telling him what had happened +to the house-party, I said he was doomed to the disappointment of having +nobody except myself for company, and then, woman-like, waited eagerly +for what he would say. + +"So they're all gone except yourself, are they?" he said. + +"I'm afraid they are," I answered. + +"Well, if it had been the other way about, and you had gone and they had +stayed, by the stars of God, I _should_ have been disappointed. But +things being as they are, we'll muddle through, shan't we?" + +Not all the vows in the world could prevent me from finding that answer +delightful, and when, on entering my boudoir, he said: + +"Sorry to miss Madame though. I wanted a word with that lady before I +went down to the Antarctic," I could not resist the mischievous impulse +to show him Alma's letter. + +While he read it his bright face darkened (for all the world like a +jeweller's window when the shutter comes down on it), and when he had +finished it he said once more: + +"I hate that woman! She's like a snake. I'd like to put my foot on it." + +And then-- + +"She may run away as much as she likes, but I _will_ yet, you go bail, I +will." + +He was covered with dust and wanted to wash, so I rang for a maid, who +told me that Mr. and Mrs. Eastcliff's rooms had been prepared for Mr. +Conrad. This announcement (though I tried to seem unmoved) overwhelmed +me with confusion, seeing that the rooms in question almost communicated +with my own. But Martin only laughed and said: + +"Stunning! We'll live in this wing of the house and leave the rest of +the old barracks to the cats, should we?" + +I was tingling with joy, but all the same I knew that a grim battle was +before me. + + + + +SIXTY-FOURTH CHAPTER + + +By the time he returned from his room I had tea served in my boudoir, +and while we sat facing the open door to the balcony he told me about +his visit to his old school; how at the dinner on the previous night +the Principal had proposed his health, and after the lads had sung +"Forty Years On" he had told them yarns about his late expedition until +they made the long hiss of indrawn breath which is peculiar to boys when +they are excited; how they had followed him to his bedroom as if he had +been the Pied Piper of Hamelin and questioned him and clambered over him +until driven off by the house-master; and how, finally, before he was +out of bed this morning the smallest scholar in the junior house, a tiny +little cherub with the face of his mother, had come knocking at his door +to ask if he wanted a cabin boy. + +Martin laughed as if he had been a boy himself (which he always was and +always will be) while telling me these stories, and I laughed too, +though with a certain tremor, for I was constantly remembering my +resolution and feeling afraid to be too happy. + +After tea we went out on to the balcony, and leaned side by +side over the crumbling stone balustrade to look at the lovely +landscape--loveliest when the sun is setting on it--with the +flower-garden below and the headland beyond, covered with heather and +gorse and with a winding white path lying over it like the lash of a +whip until it dipped down to the sea. + +"It's a beautiful old world, though, isn't it?" said Martin. + +"Isn't it?" I answered, and we looked into each other's eyes and smiled. + +Then we heard the light _shsh_ of a garden hose, and looking down saw an +old man watering the geraniums. + +"Sakes alive! It's Tommy the Mate," cried Martin, and leaving me on the +balcony he went leaping down the stone stairway to greet his old +comrade. + +"God bless me!" said Tommy. "Let me have a right look at ye. Yes, yes, +it's himself, for sure." + +A little gale of tender memories floated up to me from my childhood at +seeing those two together again, with Martin now standing head and +shoulders above the old man's Glengarry cap. + +"You've been over the highways of the sea, farther than Franklin +himself, they're telling me," said Tommy, and when Martin, laughing +merrily, admitted that he had been farther south at all events, the old +sailor said: + +"Well, well! Think of that now! But wasn't I always telling the +omadhauns what you'd be doing some day?" + +Then with a "glime" of his "starboard eye" in my direction he said: + +"You haven't got a woman yet though? . . . No, I thought not. You're +like myself, boy--there's not many of them sorts _in_ for you." + +After that, and a more undisguised look my way, the old man talked about +me, still calling me the "lil misthress" and saying they were putting a +power of gold on my fingers, but he would be burning candles to the +miracles of God to see the colour of it in my cheeks too. + +"She's a plant that doesn't take kindly to a hot-house same as this," +(indicating the house) "and she'll not be thriving until somebody's +bedding her out, I'm thinking." + +It was Saturday, and after dinner Martin proposed that we should walk to +the head of the cliff to see Blackwater by night, which was a wonderful +spectacle, people said, at the height of the season, so I put a silk +wrap over my head and we set out together. + +There was no moon and few stars were visible, but it was one of those +luminous nights in summer which never forget the day. Therefore we +walked without difficulty along the white winding path with its nutty +odour of the heather and gorse until we came near the edge of the cliff, +and then suddenly the town burst upon our view, with its promenades, +theatres, and dancing palaces ablaze with electric light, which was +reflected with almost equal brilliance in the smooth water of the bay. + +We were five miles from Blackwater, but listening hard we thought we +could hear, through the boom of the sea on the dark cliffs below us, the +thin sounds of the bands that were playing in the open-air pavilions, +and looking steadfastly we thought we could see, in the black patches +under the white light, the movement of the thousands of persons who were +promenading along "the front." + +This led Martin to talk of my father, saying as we walked back, with the +dark outlines of the sleeping mountains confronting us, what a +marvellous man he had been to transform in twenty years the little +fishing and trading port into a great resort for hundreds of thousands +of pleasure-seekers. + +"But is he any better or happier for the wealth it has brought him, and +for the connections he has bought with it? Is anybody any better?" said +Martin. + +"I know one who isn't," I answered. + +I had not meant to say that. It had slipped out unawares, and in my +confusion at the self-revelation which it seemed to make, I tripped in +the darkness and would have fallen if Martin had not caught me up. + +In doing this he had to put his arms about me and to hold me until I was +steady on my feet, and having done so he took my hand and drew it +through his arm and in this way we walked the rest of the way back. + +It would be impossible and perhaps foolish to say what that incident +meant to me. I felt a thrill of joy, a quivering flood of delight which, +with all the raptures of my spiritual love, had never come to me before. + +Every woman who loves her husband must know what it is, but to me it was +a great revelation. It was just as if some new passion had sprung into +life in me at a single moment. And it had--the mighty passion that lies +at the root of our being, the overwhelming instinct of sex which, taking +no account of religion and resolutions, sweeps everything before it like +a flood. + +I think Martin must have felt it too, for all at once he ceased to +speak, and I was trembling so much with this new feeling of tenderness +that I could not utter a word. So I heard nothing as we walked on but +the crackle of our footsteps on the gravel path and the measured boom of +the sea which we were leaving behind us--nothing but that and the quick +beating in my own breast. + +When we came to the garden the frowning face of the old house was in +front of us, and it was all in darkness, save for the light in my room +which came out on to the balcony. Everything was quiet. The air was +breathless. There was not a rustle in the trees. + +We took two or three turns on the lawn in front of my windows, saying +nothing but feeling terribly, fearfully happy. After a few moments (or +they seemed few) a cuckoo clock on my desk struck eleven, and we went up +the stone stairway into my boudoir and parted for the night. + +Even then we did not speak, but Martin took my hand and lifted my +fingers to his lips, and the quivering delight I had been feeling ever +since I slipped on the headland rushed through me again. + +At the next moment I was in my room. I did not turn on the light. I +undressed in the darkness and when my maid came I was in bed. She +wanted to tell me about a scene with the housekeeper in the kitchen, but +I said: + +"I don't want to talk to-night, Price." + +I did not know what was happening to me. I only knew, for the first time +that night, that above everything else I was a woman, and that my +renunciation, if it was ever to come to pass, would be a still more +tragic thing than I had expected. + +My grim battle had begun. + + + + +SIXTY-FIFTH CHAPTER + + +When I awoke in the morning I took myself severely to task. Was this how +I was fulfilling the promise I had made to Martin's mother, or preparing +to carry out the counsel of Father Dan? + +"I must be more careful," I told myself. "I must keep a stronger hold of +myself." + +The church bells began to ring, and I determined to go to mass. I wanted +to go alone and much as I grudged every minute of Martin's company which +I lost, I was almost glad when, on going into the boudoir with my missal +in my hand, I found him at a table covered with papers and heard him +say: + +"Helloa! See these letters and telegrams? Sunday as it is I've got to +answer them." + +Our church was a little chapel-of-ease on the edge of my husband's +estate, opened, after centuries of neglect, by the bad Lord Raa, in his +regenerate days, for the benefit of the people of his own village. It +was very sweet to see their homely faces as they reverently bowed and +rose, and even to hear their creachy voices when they joined in the +singing of the Gloria. + +Following the gospel there was a sermon on the words "Lead us not into +temptation but deliver us from evil." The preacher was a young curate, +the brother of my husband's coachman; and it occurred to me that he +could know very little of temptation for himself, but the instruction he +gave us was according to the doctrine of our Church, as I had received +it from the Reverend Mother and the Cardinals who used to hold retreats +at the convent. + +"Beware of the temptations of the flesh, my children," said the priest. +"The Evil One is very subtle, and not only in our moments of pride and +prosperity, but also in our hours of sorrow and affliction, he is for +ever waiting and watching to betray us to our downfall and damnation." + +In the rustling that followed the sermon a poor woman who sat next to +me, with a print handkerchief over her head, whispered in my ear that +she was sorry she had not brought her husband, for he had given way to +drink, poor fellow, since the island had had such good times and wages +had been so high. + +But the message came closer home to me. Remembering the emotions of the +night before, I prayed fervently to be strengthened against all +temptation and preserved from all sin. And when the mass was resumed I +recalled some of the good words with which I had been taught to assist +at the Holy Sacrifice--praying at the _Credo_ that as I had become a +child in the bosom of the Church I might live and die in it. + +When the service was over I felt more at ease and I emptied my purse, I +remember, partly into the plate and partly to the poor people at the +church door. + +It was in this spirit that I returned home in the broad sunshine of +noonday. But half way up the drive I met Martin walking briskly down to +meet me. He was bareheaded and in flannels; and I could not help it if +he looked to me so good, so strong, and so well able to protect a woman +against every danger, that the instructions I had received in church, +and the resolutions I had formed there, seemed to run out of my heart as +rapidly as the dry sand of the sea-shore runs through one's fingers. + +"Helloa!" he cried, as usual. "The way I've been wasting this wonderful +morning over letters and telegrams! But not another minute will I give +to anything under the stars of God but you." + +If there was any woman in the world who could have resisted that +greeting I was not she, and though I was a little confused I was very +happy. + +As we walked back to the house we talked of my father and his sudden +illness, then of his mother and my glimpse of her, and finally of +indifferent things, such as the weather, which had been a long drought +and might end in a deluge. + +By a sort of mutual consent we never once spoke of the central subject +of our thoughts--my marriage and its fatal consequences--but I noticed +that Martin's voice was soft and caressing, that he was walking close to +my side, and that as often as I looked up at him he was looking down at +me and smiling. + +It was the same after luncheon when we went out into the garden and sat +on a seat in the shrubbery almost immediately facing my windows, and he +spread a chart on a rustic table and pointing to a red line on it said: + +"Look, this is the course of our new cruise, please God." + +He talked for a long time, about his captain and crew; the scientific +experts who had volunteered to accompany him, his aeronautic outfit, his +sledges and his skis; but whatever he talked about--if it was only his +dogs and the food he had found for them--it was always in that soft, +caressing voice which made me feel as if (though he never said one word +of love) he were making love to me, and saying the sweetest things a man +could say to a woman. + +After a time I found myself answering in the same tones, and even when +speaking on the most matter-of-fact subjects I felt as if I were saying +the sweetest things a woman could say to a man. + +We sat a long time so, and every moment we were together seemed to make +our relation more perilous, until at length the sweet seductive twilight +of the shortening autumn day began to frighten me, and making excuse of +a headache I said I must go indoors. + +He walked with me up the stone-stairway and into my boudoir, until we +got to the very door of my room, and then suddenly he took up both my +hands and kissed them passionately. + +I felt the colour rushing to my cheeks and I had an almost irresistible +impulse to do something in return. But conquering it with a great +effort, I turned quickly into my bedroom, shut the door, pulled down the +blinds and then sat and covered my face and asked myself, with many +bitter pangs, if it could possibly be true (as I had been taught to +believe) that our nature was evil and our senses were always tempting us +to our destruction. + +Several hours passed while I sat in the darkness with this warfare going +on between my love and my religion, and then Price came to dress me for +dinner, and she was full of cheerful gossip. + +"Men are _such_ children," she said; "they can't help giving themselves +away, can they?" + +It turned out that after I had left the lawn she had had some +conversation with Martin, and I could see that she was eager to tell me +what he had said about myself. + +"The talk began about your health and altered looks, my lady. 'Don't +you think your mistress is looking ill?' said he. 'A little,' I said. +'But her body is not so ill as her heart, if you ask me,' said I." + +"You never said that, Price?" + +"Well, I could not help saying it if I thought so, could I?" + +"And what did he say?" + +"He didn't say anything then, my lady, but when I said, 'You see, sir, +my lady is tied to a husband she doesn't love,' he said, 'How can she, +poor thing? 'Worse than that,' I said, 'her husband loves another +woman.' 'The fool! Where does he keep his eyes?' said he. 'Worse still,' +said I, 'he flaunts his infidelities in her very face.' 'The brute!' he +said, and his face looked so fierce that you would have thought he +wanted to take his lordship by the throat and choke him. 'Why doesn't +she leave the man?' said he. 'That's what I say, sir, but I think it's +her religion,' I said. 'Then God help her, for there's no remedy for +that,' said he. And then seeing him so down I said, 'But we women are +always ruled by our hearts in the long run.' 'Do you think so?' said he. +'I'm sure of it,' said I, 'only we must have somebody to help us,' I +said. 'There's her father,' said he. 'A father is of no use in a case +like this,' I said, 'especially such a one as my lady's is, according to +all reports. No,' said I, 'it must be somebody else--somebody who cares +enough for a woman to risk everything for her, and just take her and +make her do what's best for herself whether she likes it or not. Now if +somebody like that were to come to my lady, and get her out of her +trouble,' I said. . . . 'Somebody will,' said he. 'Make your mind easy +about that. Somebody will,' he said, and then he went on walking to and +fro." + +Price told this story as if she thought she was bringing me the gladdest +of glad tidings; but the idea that Martin had come back into my life to +master me, to take possession of me, to claim me as his own (just as he +did when I was a child) and thereby compel me to do what I had promised +his mother and Father Dan not to do--this was terrifying. + +But there was a secret joy in it too, and every woman will know what I +mean if I say that my heart was beating high with the fierce delight of +belonging to somebody when I returned to the boudoir where Martin was +waiting to sit down to dinner. + +Then came a great surprise. + +Martin was standing with his back to the fire-place, and I saw in a +moment that the few hours which had intervened had changed him as much +as they had changed me. + +"Helloa! Better, aren't we?" he cried, but he was now cold, almost +distant, and even his hearty voice seemed to have sunk to a kind of +nervous treble. + +I could not at first understand this, but after a while I began to see +that we two had reached the point beyond which it was impossible to go +without encountering the most tremendous fact of our lives--my marriage +and all that was involved by it. + +During dinner we spoke very little. He seemed intentionally not to look +at me. The warm glances of his sea-blue eyes, which all the afternoon +had been making the colour mount to my cheeks, had gone, and it sent a +cold chill to my heart to look across the table at his clouded face. But +sometimes when he thought my own face was down I was conscious that his +eyes were fixed on me with a questioning, almost an imploring gaze. His +nervousness communicated itself to me. It was almost as if we had begun +to be afraid of each other and were hovering on the brink of fatal +revelations. + +When dinner was over, the table cleared and the servants gone, I could +bear the strain no longer, so making excuse of a letter I had to write +to the Reverend Mother I sat down at my desk, whereupon Martin lit a +cigar and said he would stroll over the headland. + +I heard his footsteps going down the stone stairway from the balcony; I +heard their soft thud on the grass of the lawn; I heard their sharper +crackle on the gravel of the white path, and then they mingled with the +surge and wash of the flowing tide and died away in the distance. + +I rose from the desk, and going over to the balcony door looked out into +the darkness. It was a beautiful, pathetic, heart-breaking night. No +moon, but a perfect canopy of stars in a deep blue sky. The fragrance of +unseen flowers--sweetbriar and rose as well as ripening fruit--came up +from the garden. There was no wind either, not even the rustle of a +leaf, and the last bird of evening was silent. All the great orchestra +of nature was still, save for the light churning of the water running in +the glen and the deep organ song of the everlasting sea. + +"What can I do?" I asked myself. + +Now that Martin was gone I had begun to understand him. His silence had +betrayed his heart to me even more than his speech could have done. +Towering above him like a frowning mountain was the fact that I was a +married woman and he was trying to stand erect in his honour as a man. + +"He must be suffering too," I told myself. + +That was a new thought to me and it cut me to the quick. + +When it came to me first I wanted to run after him and throw myself into +his arms, and then I wanted to run away from him altogether. + +I felt as if I were on the brink of two madnesses--the madness of +breaking my marriage vows and the madness of breaking the heart of the +man who loved me. + +"Oh, what can I do?" I asked myself again. + +I wanted him to go; I wanted him to stay; I did not know what I wanted. +At length I remembered that in ordinary course he would be going in two +days more, and I said to myself: + +"Surely I can hold out that long." + +But when I put this thought to my breast, thinking it would comfort me, +I found that it burnt like hot iron. + +Only two days, and then he would be gone, lost to me perhaps for ever. +Did my renunciation require that? It was terrible! + +There was a piano in the room, and to strengthen and console myself in +my trouble I sat down to it and played and sang. I sang "Ave Maria +Stella." + +I was singing to myself, so I know I began softly--so softly that my +voice must have been a whisper scarcely audible outside the room-- + + "_Hail thou star of ocean, + Portal of the sky_." + +But my heart was full and when I came to the verses which always moved +me most-- + + "_Virgin of all virgins, + To thy shelter take us_"-- + +my voice, without my knowing it, may have swelled out into the +breathless night until it reached Martin, where he walked on the dark +headland, and sounded to him like a cry that called him back. + +I cannot say. I only know that when with a thickening throat I had come +to an end, and my forehead had fallen on to the key-board, and there was +no other sound in the air but the far-off surging of the sea. I heard +somebody calling me in a soft and tremulous whisper, + +"Mary!" + +It was he. I went out to the balcony and there he was on the lawn below. +The light of the room was on him and never before had I seen his strong +face so full of agitation. + +"Come down," he said. "I have something to say to you." + +I could not resist him. He was my master. I had to obey. + +When I reached the bottom of the stairway he took my hand, and I did not +know whether it was his hand or mine that was trembling. He led me +across the lawn to the seat in the shrubbery that almost faced my +windows. In the soft and soundless night I could hear his footsteps on +the turf and the rustle of my dress over the grass. + +We sat, and for a moment he did not speak. Then with a passionate rush +of words he said: + +"Mary, I hadn't meant to say what I'm going to say now, but I can't do +anything else. You are in trouble, and I can't stand by and see you so +ill-used. I can't and I won't!" + +I tried to answer him, but my throat was fluttering and I could not +speak. + +"It's only a few days before I ought to sail, but they may be enough in +which to do something, and if they're not I'll postpone the expedition +or put it off, or send somebody in my place, for go away I cannot and +leave you like this." + +I tried to say that he should not do that whatever happened to me, but +still I could not speak. + +"Mary. I want to help you. But I can only do so if you give me the +_right_ to do it. Nobody must tell me I'm a meddler, butting in where I +have no business. There are people enough about you who would be only +too ready to do that--people related to you by blood and by law." + +I knew what he was coming to, for his voice was quivering in my ears +like the string of a bow. + +"There is only one sort of right, Mary, that is above the right of +blood, and you know what that is." + +My eyes were growing so dim that I could hardly see the face which was +so close to mine. + +"Mary," he said, "I have always cared for you. Surely you know that. By +the saints of God I swear there has never been any other girl for me, +and now there never will he. Perhaps I ought to have told you this +before, and I wanted to do so when I met you in Rome. But it didn't +seem fair, and I couldn't bring myself to do it." + +His passionate voice was breaking; I thought my heart was breaking also. + +"All I could do I did, but it came to nothing; and now you are here and +you are unhappy, and though it is so late I want to help you, to rescue +you, to drag you out of this horrible situation before I go away. Let me +do it. Give me the right of one you care enough for to allow him to +speak on your behalf." + +I knew what that meant. I knew that I was tottering on the very edge of +a precipice, and to save myself I tried to think of Father Dan, of +Martin's mother, of my own mother, and since I could not speak I +struggled to pray. + +"Don't say you can't. If you do I shall go away a sorrowful man. I shall +go at once too--to-night or to-morrow morning at latest, for my heart +bleeds to look at you and I can't stay here any longer to see you +suffer. It is not torture to me--it's hell!" + +And then the irrepressible, overwhelming, inevitable moment came. Martin +laid hold of my right hand and said in his tremulous voice: + +"Mary . . . Mary . . . I . . . I love you!" + +I could hear no more. I could not think or pray or resist any longer. +The bitter struggle was at an end. Before I knew what I was doing I was +dropping my head on to his breast and he with a cry of joy was gathering +me in his arms. + +I was his. He had taken his own. Nothing counted in the presence of our +love. To be only we two together--that was everything. The world and the +world's laws, the Church and the Canons of the Church were blotted out, +forgotten, lost. + +For some moments I hardly breathed. I was only conscious that over my +head Martin was saying something that seemed to come to me with all the +deep and wonderful whispers of his heart. + +"Then it's true! It's true that you love me! Yes, it's true! It's true! +No one shall hurt you again. Never again! No, by the Lord God!" + +And then suddenly--as suddenly as the moment of intoxication had come to +me--I awoke from my delirium. Some little thing awakened me. I hardly +know what it was. Perhaps it was only the striking of the cuckoo clock +in my room. + +"What are we doing?" I said. + +Everything had rolled back on me--my marriage, Father Dan's warning, my +promise to Martin's mother. + +"Where are we?" I said. + +"Hush! Don't speak," said Martin. "Let us think of nothing +to-night--nothing except our love." + +"Don't say that," I answered. "We are not free to love each other," and +then, trying to liberate myself from his encircling arms I cried: + +"God help me! God forgive me!" + +"Wait!" said Martin, holding me a moment longer. "I know what you feel, +and I'm not the man to want a girl to wrong her conscience. But there's +one question I must ask you. If you _were_ free, could you love me +then?" + +"Don't ask me that. I must not answer it." + +"You must and shall," said Martin. "Could you?" + +"Yes." + +"That's enough for me--enough for to-night anyway. Have no fear. All +shall be well. Go to your room now." + +He raised me to my feet and led me back to the foot of the balcony, and +there he kissed my hand and let me go. + +"Good night!" he said softly. + +"Good night!" I answered. + +"God bless you, my pure sweet girl!" + +At the next moment I was in my room, lying face down on my bed--seeing +no hope on any side, and sobbing my heart out for what might have been +but for the hard law of my religion and the cruel tangle of my fate. + + + + +SIXTY-SIXTH CHAPTER + + +Next morning, Monday morning, while I was breakfasting in my bedroom, +Price came with a message from Martin to say that he was going into the +glen and wished to know if I would go with him. + +I knew perfectly what that meant. He wished to tell me what steps he +intended to take towards my divorce, and my heart trembled with the +thought of the answer I had to give him--that divorce for me, under any +circumstances, was quite impossible. + +Sorry as I was for myself I was still more sorry for Martin. I felt +like a judge who had to pronounce sentence upon him--dooming his dearest +hopes to painful and instant death. + +I could hear him on the lawn with Tommy the Mate, laughing like a boy +let loose from school, and when I went down to him he greeted me with a +cry of joy that was almost heart-breaking. + +Our way to the glen was through a field of grass, where the dew was +thick, and, my boots being thin, Martin in his high spirits wished to +carry me across, and it was only with an effort that I prevented him +from doing so. + +The glen itself when we reached it (it was called Glen Raa) was almost +cruelly beautiful that day, and remembering what I had to do in it I +thought I should never be able to get it out of my sight--with its +slumberous gloom like that of a vast cathedral, its thick arch of +overhanging boughs through which the morning sunlight was streaming +slantwards like the light through the windows of a clerestory, its +running water below, its rustling leaves above, and the chirping of its +birds on every side, making a sound that was like the chanting of a +choir in some far-off apse and the rumbling of their voices in the roof. + +Two or three times, as we walked down the glen towards a port (Port Raa) +which lay at the seaward end of it. Martin rallied me on the settled +gravity of my face and then I had to smile, though how I did so I do not +know, for every other minute my heart was in my mouth, and never more so +than when, to make me laugh, he rattled away in the language of his +boyhood, saying: + +"Isn't this stunning? Splendiferous, eh?" + +When we came out at the mouth of the port, where a line of little +stunted oaks leaned landward as with the memory of many a winter's +storm, Martin said: + +"Let us sit down here." + +We sat on the sloping bank, with the insects ticking in the grass, the +bees humming in the air, the sea fowl screaming in the sky, the broad +sea in front, and the little bay below, where the tide, which was going +out, had left behind it a sharp reef of black rocks covered with +sea-weed. + +A pleasure-steamer passed at that moment with its flags flying, its +awnings spread, its decks crowded with excursionists, and a brass hand +playing one of Sousa's marches, and as soon as it had gone, Martin said: + +"I've been thinking about our affair, Mary, how to go to work and all +that, and of course the first thing we've got to do is to get a +divorce." + +I made no answer, and I tried not to look at him by fixing my eyes upon +the sea. + +"You have evidence enough, you know, and if you haven't there's +Price--she has plenty. So, since you've given me the right to speak for +you, dear, I'm going to speak to your father first" + +I must have made some half-articulate response, for not understanding me +he said: + +"Oh, I know he'll be a hard nut to crack. He won't want to hear what +I've got to say, but he has got to hear it. And after all you're his +daughter, and if he has any bowels of compassion . . ." + +Again I must have made some effort to speak, for he said: + +"Yes, he's ill, but he has only to set Curphy to work and the lawyer +will do the rest." + +I could not allow him to go any further, so I blurted out somehow that I +had seen my father already. + +"On this subject?" + +"Yes." + +"And what did he say?" + +I told him as well as I could what my father had said, being ashamed to +repeat it. + +"That was only bluff, though," said Martin. "The real truth is that you +would cease to be Lady Raa and that would be a blow to his pride. Then +there would no longer be any possibility of establishing a family and +that would disturb his plans. No matter! We can set Curphy to work +ourselves." + +"But I have seen Mr. Curphy also," I said. + +"And what did _he_ say?" + +I told him what the lawyer had said and he was aghast. + +"Good heavens! What an iniquity! In England too! But never mind! There +are other countries where this relic of the barbaric ages doesn't exist. +We'll go there. We must get you a divorce somehow." + +My time had come. I could keep back the truth no longer. + +"But Martin," I said, "divorce is impossible for me--quite impossible." + +And then I told him that I had been to see the Bishop also, and he had +said what I had known before, though in the pain of my temptation I had +forgotten it, that the Catholic Church did not countenance divorce +under any circumstances, because God made marriages and therefore no man +could dissolve them. + +Martin listened intently, and in his eagerness to catch every word he +raised himself to a kneeling position by my side, so that he was looking +into my face. + +"But Mary, my dear Mary," he said, "you don't mean to say you will allow +such considerations to influence you?" + +"I am a Catholic--what else can I do?" I said. + +"But think--my dear, dear girl, think how unreasonable, how untrue, how +preposterous it all is in a case like yours? God made your marriage? +Yours? God married you to that notorious profligate? Can you believe +it?" + +His eyes were flaming. I dared not look at them. + +"Then think again. They say there's no divorce in the Catholic Church, +do they? But what are they talking about? Morally speaking you are a +divorced woman already. Anybody with an ounce of brains can see that. +When you were married to this man he made a contract with you, and he +has broken the terms of it, hasn't he? Then where's the contract now? It +doesn't any longer exist. Your husband has destroyed it." + +"But isn't marriage different?" I asked. + +And then I tried to tell him what the Bishop had said of the contract of +marriage being unlike any other contract because God Himself had become +a party to it. + +"What?" he cried. "God become a party to a marriage like yours? My dear +girl, only think! Think of what your marriage has been--the pride and +vanity and self-seeking that conceived it, the compulsion that was put +upon you to carry it through, and then the shame and the suffering and +the wickedness and the sin of it! Was God a party to the making of a +marriage like that?" + +In his agitation he rose, walked two or three paces in front and came +back to me. + +"Then think what it means if your marriage may not be dissolved. It +means that you must go on living with this man whose life is so +degrading. Year in, year out, as long as your life lasts you must let +him humiliate and corrupt you with his company, his companions and his +example, until you are dragged down, down, down to the filth he lives in +himself, and your very soul is contaminated. Is that what the Church +asks of you?" + +I answered no, and tried to tell him what the Bishop had told me about +separation, but he interrupted me with a shout. + +"Separation? Did he say that? If the Church has no right to divorce you +what right has it to separate you? Oh, I see what it will say--hope of +reconciliation. But if you were separated from your husband would you +ever go back to him? Never in this world. Then what would your +separation be? Only divorce under another name." + +I was utterly shaken. Perhaps I wanted to believe what Martin was +saying; perhaps I did not know enough to answer him, but I could not +help it if I thought Martin's clear mind was making dust and ashes of +everything that Father Dan and the Bishop had said to me. + +"Then what can I do?" I asked. + +I thought his face quivered at that question. He got up again, and stood +before me for a moment without speaking. Then he said, with an obvious +effort-- + +"If your Church will not allow you to divorce your husband, and if you +and I cannot marry without that, then . . ." + +"Yes?" + +"I didn't mean to propose it . . . God knows I didn't, but when a woman +. . . when a woman has been forced into a loveless marriage, and it is +crushing the very soul out of her, and the iron law of her Church will +not permit her to escape from it, what crime does she commit if +she . . ." + +"Well?" I asked, though I saw what he was going to say. + +"Mary," he said, breathing, hard and fast, "you must come to me." + +I made a sudden cry, though I tried not to. + +"Oh, I know," he said. "It's not what we could wish. But we'll be open +about it. We'll face it out. Why shouldn't we? I shall anyway. And if +your father and the Bishop say anything to me I'll tell them what I +think of the abominable marriage they forced you into. As for you, dear, +I know you'll have to bear something. All the conventional canting +hypocrisies! Every man who has bought his wife, and every woman who has +sold herself into concubinage--there are thousands and thousands of them +all the world over, and they'll try . . . perhaps they'll try . . . but +let them try. If they want to trample the life out of you they'll have +to walk over me first--yes, by God they will!" + +"But Martin . . ." + +"Well?" + +"Do you mean that I . . . I am . . . to . . . to live with you without +marriage?" + +"It's the only thing possible, isn't it?" he said. And then he tried to +show me that love was everything, and if people loved each other nothing +else mattered--religious ceremonies were nothing, the morality of +society was nothing, the world and its back-biting was nothing. + +The great moment had come for me at last, and though I felt torn between +love and pity I had to face it. + +"Martin, I . . . I can't do it," I said. + +He looked steadfastly into my face for a moment, but I dare not look +back, for I knew he was suffering. + +"You think it would be wrong?" + +"Yes." + +"A sin?" + +I tried to say "Yes" again, but my reply died in my throat. + +There was another moment of silence and then, in a faltering voice that +nearly broke me down, he said: + +"In that case there is nothing more to say. . . . There isn't, is +there?" + +I made an effort to speak, but my voice would not come. + +"I thought . . . as there was no other way of escape from this terrible +marriage . . . but if you think . . ." + +He stopped, and then coming closer he said: + +"I suppose you know what this means for you, Mary--that after all the +degradation you have gone through you are shutting the door to a +worthier, purer life, and that . . ." + +I could bear no more. My heart was yearning for him, yet I was compelled +to speak. + +"But would it be a purer life, Martin, if it began in sin? No, no, it +wouldn't, it couldn't. Oh, you can't think how hard it is to deny myself +the happiness you offer me. It's harder than all the miseries my husband +has inflicted upon me. But it wouldn't be happiness, because our sin +would stand between us. That would always be there, Martin--every day, +every night, as long as ever we lived. . . . We should never know one +really happy hour. I'm sure we should not. I should be unhappy myself +and I should make you unhappy. Oh, I daren't! I daren't! Don't ask me, I +beg--I beseech you." + +I burst into tears after this, and there was a long silence between us. +Then Martin touched my arm and said with a gentleness that nearly broke +my heart: + +"Don't cry, Mary. I give in. I find I have no will but yours, dear. If +_you_ can bear the present condition of things, I ought to be able to. +Let us go back to the house." + +He raised me to my feet and we turned our faces homeward. All the +brightness of the day had gone for both of us by this time. The tide was +now far out. Its moaning was only a distant murmur. The shore was a +stretch of jagged black rocks covered with sea-weed. + + + + +SIXTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER + + +Notwithstanding Martin's tenderness I had a vague fear that he had only +pretended to submit to my will, and before the day was over I had proof +of it. + +During dinner we spoke very little, and after it was over we went out to +the balcony to sit on a big oak seat which stood there. + +It was another soft and soundless night, without stars, very dark, and +with an empty echoing air, which seemed to say that thunder was not far +off, for the churning of the nightjar vibrated from the glen, and the +distant roar of the tide, now rising, was like the rumble of drums at a +soldier's funeral. + +Just as we sat down the pleasure-steamer we had seen in the morning +re-crossed our breadth of sea on its way back to Blackwater; and lit up +on deck and in all its port-holes, it looked like a floating _café +chantant_ full of happy people, for they were singing in chorus a rugged +song which Martin and I had known all our lives-- + + _Ramsey town, Ramsey town, smiling by the sea, + Here's a health to my true love, wheresoe'er she be_. + +When the steamer had passed into darkness, Martin said: + +"I don't want to hurt you again, Mary, but before I go there's something +I want to know. . . . If you cannot divorce your husband, and if . . . +if you cannot come to me what . . . what is left to us?" + +I tried to tell him there was only one thing left to us, and (as much +for myself as for him) I did my best to picture the spiritual heights +and beauties of renunciation. + +"Does that mean that we are to . . . to part?" he said. "You going your +way and I going mine . . . never to meet again?" + +That cut me to the quick, so I said--it was all I could trust myself to +say--that the utmost that was expected of us was that we should govern +our affections--control and conquer them. + +"Do you mean that we are to stamp them out altogether?" he said. + +That cut me to the quick too, and I felt like a torn bird that is +struggling in the lime, but I contrived to say that if our love was +guilty love it was our duty to destroy it. + +"Is that possible?" he said. + +"We must ask God to help us," I answered, and then, while his head was +down and I was looking out into the darkness, I tried to say that though +he was suffering now he would soon get over this disappointment. + +"Do you _wish_ me to get over it?" he asked. + +This confused me terribly, for in spite of all I was saying I knew at +the bottom of my heart that in the sense he intended I did not and could +not wish it. + +"We have known and cared for each other all our lives, Mary--isn't that +so? It seems as if there never was a time when we didn't know and care +for each other. Are we to pray to God, as you say, that a time may come +when we shall feel as if we had never known and cared for each other at +all?" + +My throat was fluttering--I could not answer him. + +"_I_ can't," he said. "I never shall--never as long as I live. No +prayers will ever help me to forget you." + +I could not speak. I dared not look at him. After a moment he said in a +thicker voice: + +"And you . . . will you be able to forget _me_? By praying to God will +you be able to wipe me out of your mind?" + +I felt as if something were strangling me. + +"A woman lives in her heart, doesn't she?" he said. "Love is everything +to her . . . everything except her religion. Will it be possible--this +renunciation . . . will it be possible for you either?" + +I felt as if all the blood in my body were running away from me. + +"It will not. You know it will not. You will never be able to renounce +your love. Neither of us will he able to renounce it. It isn't possible. +It isn't human. . . . Well, what then? If we continue to love each +other--you here and I down there--we shall be just as guilty in the eyes +of the Church, shan't we?" + +I did not answer him, and after a moment he came closer to me on the +seat and said almost in a whisper: + +"Then think again, Mary. Only give one glance to the horrible life that +is before you when I am gone. You have been married a year . . . only a +year . . . and you have suffered terribly. But there is worse to come. +Your husband's coarse infidelity has been shocking, but there will be +something more shocking than his infidelity--his affection. Have you +never thought of _that_?" + +I started and shuddered, feeling as if somebody must have told him the +most intimate secret of my life. Coming still closer he said: + +"Forgive me, dear. I'm bound to speak plainly now. If I didn't I should +never forgive myself in the future . . . Listen! Your husband will get +over his fancy for this . . . this woman. He'll throw her off, as he has +thrown off women of the same kind before. What will happen then? He'll +remember that you belong to him . . . that he has rights in you . . . +that you are his wife and he is your husband . . . that the infernal law +which denies you the position of an equal human being gives him a +right--a legal right--to compel your obedience. Have you never thought +of _that_?" + +For one moment we looked into each other's eyes; then he took hold of my +hand and, speaking very rapidly, said: + +"That's the life that is before you when I am gone--to live with this +man whom you loathe . . . year after year, as long as life lasts . . . +occupying the same house, the same room, the same . . ." + +I uttered an involuntary cry and he stopped. + +"Martin," I said, "there is something you don't know." + +And then, I told him--it was forced out of me--my modesty went down in +the fierce battle with a higher pain, and I do not know whether it was +my pride or my shame or my love that compelled me to tell him, but I +_did_ tell him--God knows how--that I could not run the risk he referred +to because I was not in that sense my husband's wife and never had been. + +The light was behind me, and my face was in the darkness; but still I +covered it with my hands while I stammered out the story of my marriage +day and the day after, and of the compact I had entered into with my +husband that only when and if I came to love him should he claim my +submission as a wife. + +While I was speaking I knew that Martin's eyes were fixed on me, for I +could feel his breath on the back of my hands, but before I had finished +he leapt up and cried excitedly: + +"And that compact has been kept?" + +"Yes." + +"Then it's all right! Don't be afraid. You shall be free. Come in and +let me tell you how! Come in, come in!" + +He took me back into the boudoir. I had no power to resist him. His face +was as pale as death, but his eyes were shining. He made me sit down and +then sat on the table in front of me. + +"Listen!" he said. "When I bought my ship from the Lieutenant we signed +a deed, a contract, as a witness before all men that he would give me +his ship and I would give him some money. But if after all he hadn't +given me his ship what would our deed have been? Only so much waste +paper." + +It was the same with my marriage. If it had been an honest contract, the +marriage service would have been a witness before God that we meant to +live together as man and wife. But I never had, therefore what was the +marriage service? Only an empty ceremony! + +"That's the plain sense of the matter, isn't it?" he cried. "I defy any +priest in the world to prove the contrary." + +"Well?" + +"Well, don't you see what it comes to? You are free--morally free at all +events. You can come to me. You must, too. I daren't leave you in this +house any longer. I shall take you to London and fix you up there, and +then, when I tome back from the Antarctic . . ." + +He was glowing with joy, but a cold hand suddenly seized me, for I had +remembered all the terrors of excommunication as Father Dan had +described them. + +"But Martin," I said, "would the Church accept that?" + +"What matter whether it would or wouldn't? Our consciences would be +clear. There would be no sin, and what you were saying this morning +would not apply." + +"But if I left my husband I couldn't marry you, could I?" + +"Perhaps not." + +"Then the Church would say that I was a sinful woman living a sinful +life, wouldn't it?" + +"But you wouldn't be." + +"All the same the Church would say so, and if it did I should be cut out +of communion, and if I were cut out of communion I should be cast out of +the Church, and if I were cast out of the Church . . . what would become +of me then?" + +"But, my dear, dear girl," said Martin, "don't you see that this is not +the same thing at all? It is only a case of a ceremony. And why should +a mere ceremony--even if we cannot do away with it--darken a woman's +life for ever?" + +My heart was yearning for love, but my soul was crying out for +salvation; and not being able to answer him for myself, I told him what +Father Dan had said I was to say. + +"Father Dan is a saint and I love him," he said. "But what can he +know--what can any priest know of a situation like this? The law of man +has tied you to this brute, but the law of God has given you to me. Why +should a marriage service stand between us?" + +"But it does," I said. "And we can't alter it. No, no, I dare not break +the law of the Church. I am a weak, wretched girl, but I cannot give up +my religion." + +After that Martin did not speak for a moment. Then he said: + +"You mean that, Mary?" + +"Yes." + +And then my heart accused me so terribly of the crime of resisting him +that I took his hand and held his fingers in a tight lock while I told +him--what I had never meant to tell--how long and how deeply I had loved +him, but nevertheless I dared not face the thought of living and dying +without the consolations of the Church. + +"I dare not! I dare not!" I said. "I should be a broken-hearted woman if +I did, and you don't want that, do you?" + +He listened in silence, though the irregular lines in his face showed +the disordered state of his soul, and when I had finished a wild look +came into his eyes and he said: + +"I am disappointed in you, Mary. I thought you were brave and fearless, +and that when I showed you a way out of your miserable entanglement you +would take it in spite of everything." + +His voice was growing thick again. I could scarcely bear to listen to +it. + +"Do you suppose I wanted to take up the position I proposed to you? Not +I. No decent man ever does. But I love you so dearly that I was willing +to make that sacrifice and count it as nothing if only I could rescue +you from the misery of your abominable marriage." + +Then he broke into a kind of fierce laughter, and said: + +"It seems I wasn't wanted, though. You say in effect that my love is +sinful and criminal, and that it will imperil your soul. So I'm only +making mischief here and the sooner I get away the better for +everybody." + +He threw off my hand, stepped to the door to the balcony, and looking +out into the darkness said, between choking laughter and sobs: + +"Ellan, you are no place for me. I can't bear the sight of you any +longer. I used to think you were the dearest spot on earth, because you +were the home of her who would follow me to the ends of the earth if I +wanted her, but I was wrong. She loves me less than a wretched ceremony, +and would sacrifice my happiness to a miserable bit of parchment." + +My heart was clamouring loud. Never had I loved him so much as now. I +had to struggle with myself not to throw myself into his arms. + +"No matter!" he said. "I should be a poor-spirited fool to stay where +I'm not wanted. I must get back to my work. The sooner the better, too. +I thought I should be counting the days down there until I could come +home again. But why should I? And why should I care what happens to me? +It's all as one now." + +He stepped back from the balcony with a resolute expression on his +gloomy face, and I thought for a moment (half hoping and half fearing +it) that he was going to lay hold of me and tell me I must do what he +wished because I belonged to him. + +But he only looked at me for a moment in silence, and then burst into a +flood of tears, and turned and ran out of the house. + +Let who will say his tears were unmanly. To me they were the bitter cry +of a great heart, and I wanted to follow him and say, "Take me. Do what +you like with me. I am yours." + +I did not do so. I sat a long time where he had left me and then I went +into my room and locked the door. + +I did not cry. Unjust and cruel as his reproaches had been, I began to +have a strange wild joy in them. I knew that he would not have insulted +me like that if he had not loved me to the very verge of madness itself. + +Hours passed. Price came tapping at my door to ask if she should lock up +the house--meaning the balcony. I answered "No, go to bed." + +I heard the deadened thud of Martin's footsteps on the lawn passing to +and fro. Sometimes they paused under my window and then I had a feeling, +amounting to certainty, that he was listening to hear if I was sobbing, +and that if I had been he would have broken down my bedroom door to get +to me. + +At length I heard him come up the stone stairway, shut and bolt the +balcony door, and walk heavily across the corridor to his own room. + +The day was then dawning. It was four o'clock. + + + + +SIXTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER + + +I awoke on Wednesday morning in a kind of spiritual and physical fever. +Every conflicting emotion which a woman can experience in the cruel +battle between her religion and her love seemed to flood body and +soul--joy, pain, pride, shame, fear, rapture--so that I determined (not +without cause) to make excuse of a headache to stay in bed. + +Although it was the last day of Martin's visit, and I charged myself +with the discourtesy of neglecting him, as well as the folly of losing +the few remaining hours of his company, I thought I could not without +danger meet him again. + +I was afraid of him, but I was still more afraid of myself. + +Recalling my last sight of his face as he ran out of the house, and +knowing well the desire of my own heart, I felt that if I spent another +day in his company it would be impossible to say what might happen. + +As a result of this riot of emotions I resolved to remain all day in my +room, and towards evening to send out a letter bidding him good-bye and +good-luck. It would be a cold end to a long friendship and my heart was +almost frozen at the thought of it, but it was all I dared do and I saw +no help for it. + +But how little did I know what was written in the Book of Fate for me! + +First came Price on pretence of bathing my forehead, and she bombarded +me with accounts of Martin's anxiety. When he had heard that I was ill +he had turned as white as if sixteen ounces of blood had been taken out +of him. It nearly broke me up to hear that, but Price, who was artful, +only laughed and said: + +"Men _are_ such funny things, bless them! To think of that fine young +man, who is big enough to fell an ox and brave enough to face a lion, +being scared to death because a little lady has a headache." + +All morning she was in and out of my room with similar stories, and +towards noon she brought me a bunch of roses wet with the dew, saying +that Tommy the Mate had sent them. + +"Are you sure it was Tommy the Mate?" I asked, whereupon the sly thing, +who was only waiting to tell the truth, though she pretended that I was +forcing it out of her, admitted that the flowers were from Martin, and +that he had told her not to say so. + +"What's he doing now?" I asked. + +"Writing a letter," said Price, "and judging by the times he has torn it +up and started again and wiped his forehead, it must be a tough job, I +can tell you." + +I thought I knew whom the letter was meant for, and before luncheon it +came up to me. + +It was the first love letter I had ever had from Martin, and it melted +me like wax over a candle. I have it still, and though Martin is such a +great man now, I am tempted to copy it out just as it was written with +all its appearance of irreverence (none, I am sure, was intended), and +even its bad spelling, for without that it would not be Martin--my boy +who could never learn his lessons. + +_"Dear Mary,--I am destroyed to here how ill you are, and when I think +it's all my fault I am ready to kick myself. + +"Don't worry about what I was saying last night. I was mad to think what +might happen to you while I should be down there, but I've been thinking +it over since and I've come to the conclusion that if their is anything +to God He can be trusted to look after you without any help from me, so +when we meet again before I go away we'll never say another word on the +subject--that's a promice. + +"I can't go until your better though, so I'm just sending the jaunting +car into town with a telegram to London telling them to postpone the +expedision on account of illness, and if they think it's mine it won't +matter because it's something worse. + +"But if you are realy a bit better, as your maid says, you might come to +the window and wave your hand to me, and I shall be as happy as a +sand-boy. + +"Yours, + +"Mart."_ + +To this letter (forgetting my former fears) I returned an immediate +verbal reply, saying I was getting better rapidly and hoped to be up to +dinner, so he must not send that telegram to London on any account, +seeing that nobody knew what was going to happen and everything was in +the hands of God. + +Price took my message with a knowing smile at the corner of her mouth, +and a few minutes afterwards I heard Martin laughing with Tommy the Mate +at the other end of the lawn. + +I don't know why I took so much pains with my dress that night. I did +not expect to see Martin again. I was sending him away from me. Yet +never before had I dressed myself with so much care. I put on the soft +white satin gown which was made for me in Cairo, a string of pearls over +my hair, and another (a tight one) about my neck. + +Martin was waiting for me in the boudoir, and to my surprise he had +dressed too, but, except that he wore a soft silk shirt, I did not know +what he was wearing, or whether he looked handsome or not, because it +was Martin and that was all that mattered to me. + +I am sure my footstep was light as I entered the room, for I was shod in +white satin slippers, but Martin heard it, and I saw his eyes fluttering +as he looked at me, and said something sweet about a silvery fir tree +with its little dark head against the sky. + +"It's to be a truce, isn't it?" he asked. + +"Yes, a truce," I answered, which meant that as this was to be our last +evening together all painful subjects were to be put aside. + +Before we sat down to eat he took me out on to the balcony to look at +the sea, for though there was no rain flashes of sheet lightning with +low rumbling of distant thunder lit up the water for a moment with +visions of heavenly beauty, and then were devoured by the grim and +greedy darkness. + +During dinner we kept faith with each other. In order to avoid the one +subject that was uppermost in both our minds, we played at being +children, and pretended it was the day we sailed to St. Mary's Rock. + +Thinking back to that time, and all the incidents which he had thought +so heroic and I so tragic, we dropped into the vernacular, and I called +him "boy" and he called me "bogh millish," and at every racy word that +came up from the forgotten cells of our brains we shrieked with +laughter. + +When Martin spoke of his skipper I asked "Is he a stunner?" When he +mentioned one of his scientific experts I inquired "Is he any good?" And +after he had told me that he hoped to take possession of some island in +the name of the English crown, and raise the Union Jack on it, I said: +"Do or die, we allus does that when we're out asploring." + +How we laughed! He laughed because I laughed, and I laughed because he +was laughing. I had some delicious moments of femininity too (such as no +woman can resist), until it struck me suddenly that in all this +make-believe we were making love to each other again. That frightened me +for a time, but I told myself that everything was safe as long as we +could carry on the game. + +It was not always easy to do so, though, for some of our laughter had +tears behind it, and some of our memories had an unexpected sting, +because things had a meaning for us now which they never had before, and +we were compelled to realise what life had done for us. + +Thus I found my throat throbbing when I recalled the loss of our boat, +leaving us alone together on that cruel rock with the rising tide +threatening to submerge us, and I nearly choked when I repeated my last +despairing cry: "I'm not a stunner! . . . and you'll have to give me up +. . . and leave me here, and save yourself." + +It was like walking over a solfataro with the thin hot earth ready to +break up under our feet. + +To escape from it I sat down at the piano and began to sing. I dared not +sing the music I loved best--the solemn music of the convent--so I sang +some of the nonsense songs I had heard in the streets. At one moment I +twisted round on the piano stool and said: + +"I'll bet you anything"--(I always caught Martin's tone in Martin's +company), "you can't remember the song I sang sitting in the boat with +William Rufus on my lap." + +"I'll bet you anything I can," said Martin. + +"Oh, no, you can't," I said. + +"Have it as you like, bogh, but sing it for all," said Martin, and then +I sang-- + + _"Oh, Sally's the gel for me, + Our Sally's the gel for me, + I'll marry the gel that I love best, + When I come back from sea."_ + +But that arrow of memory had been sharpened on Time's grindstone and it +seemed to pierce through us, so Martin proposed that we should try the +rollicking chorus which the excursionists had sung on the +pleasure-steamer the night before. + +He did not know a note of music and he had no more voice than a +corn-crake, but crushing up on to the music-stool by my side, he banged +away with his left hand while I played with my right, and we sang +together in a wild delightful discord-- + + _"Ramsey town, Ramsey town, smiling by the sea, + Here's a health to my true love, wheresoe'er she be."_ + +We laughed again when that was over, but I knew I could not keep it up +much longer, and every now and then I forgot that I was in my boudoir +and seemed to see that lonesome plateau, twelve thousand feet above the +icy barrier that guards the Pole, and Martin toiling through blizzards +over rolling waves of snow. + +Towards midnight we went out on to the balcony to look at the lightning +for the last time. The thunder was shaking the cliffs and rolling along +them like cannon-balls, and Martin said: + +"It sounds like the breaking of the ice down there." + +When we returned to the room he told me he would have to be off early in +the morning, before I was out of bed, having something to do in +Blackwater, where "the boys were getting up a spree of some sort." + +In this way he rattled on for some minutes, obviously talking himself +down and trying to prevent me from thinking. But the grim moment came at +last, and it was like the empty gap of time when you are waiting for the +whirring of the clock that is to tell the end of the old year and the +beginning of the new. + +My cuckoo clock struck twelve. Martin looked at me. I looked at him. Our +eyes fell. He took my hand. It was cold and moist. His own was hot and +trembling. + +"So this is . . . the end," he said. + +"Yes . . . the end," I answered. + +"Well, we've had a jolly evening to finish up with, anyway," he said. "I +shall always remember it." + +I tried to say he would soon have other evenings to think about that +would make him forget this one. + +"Never in this world!" he answered. + +I tried to wish him good luck, and great success, and a happy return to +fame and fortune. He looked at me with his great liquid eyes and said: + +"Aw, well, that's all as one now." + +I tried to tell him it would always be a joy to me to remember that he +and I had been such great, great friends. + +He looked at me again, and answered: + +"That's all as one also." + +I reproached myself for the pain I was causing him, and to keep myself +in countenance I began to talk of the beauty and nobility of +renunciation--each sacrificing for the other's sake all sinful thoughts +and desires. + +"Yes, I'm doing what you wish," he said. "I can't deny you anything." + +That cut me deep, so I went on to say that if I had acted otherwise I +should always have had behind me the memory of the vows I had broken, +the sacrament I had violated, and the faith I had abandoned. + +"All the same we might have been very happy," he said, and then my +throat became so thick that I could not say any more. + +After a few moments he said: + +"It breaks my heart to leave you. But I suppose I must, though I don't +know what is going to happen." + +"All that is in God's hands," I said. + +"Yes," said Martin, "it's up to Him now." + +It made my heart ache to look at his desolate face, so, struggling hard +with my voice, I tried to tell him he must not despair. + +"You are so young," I said. "Surely the future holds much happiness for +you." + +And then, though I knew that the bare idea of another woman taking the +love I was turning away would have made the world a blank for me, I +actually said something about the purest joys of love falling to his lot +some day. + +"No, by the Lord God," said Martin. "There'll be no other woman for me. +If I'm not to have you I'll wear the willow for you the same as if you +were dead." + +There was a certain pain in that, but there was a thrill of secret joy +in it too. + +He was still holding my hand. We held each other's hands a long time. In +spite of my affected resignation I could not let his hand go. I felt as +if I were a drowning woman and his hand were my only safety. +Nevertheless I said: + +"We must say good-night and good-bye now." + +"And if it is for ever?" + +"Don't say that." + +"But if it is?" + +"Well, then . . . for ever." + +"At least give me something to take away with me," he said. + +"Better not," I answered, but even as I spoke I dropped the handkerchief +which I had been holding in my other hand and he picked it up. + +I knew that my tears, though I was trying to keep them back, were +trickling down my cheeks. I saw that his face was all broken up as it +had been the night before. + +There was a moment of silence in which I was conscious of nothing but +the fierce beating of my pulse, and then he raised my hand to his lips, +dropped it gently and walked over to the door. + +But after he had opened it he turned and looked at me. I looked at him, +longing, craving, hungering for his love as for a flame at which my +heart could warm itself. + +Then came a blinding moment. It seemed as if in an instant he lost all +control of himself, and his love came rushing upon him like a mighty +surging river. + +Flinging the door back he returned to me with long strides, and +snatching me up in his great arms, he lifted me off my feet, clasped me +tightly to him, kissed me passionately on the mouth and cried in a +quivering, husky voice: + +"You are my wife. I am your real husband. I am not leaving you because +you are married to this brute, but for the sake of your soul. We love +each other. We shall continue to love each other. No matter where you +are, or what they do with you, you are mine and always will be." + +My blood was boiling. The world was reeling round me. There was a +roaring in my brain. All my spiritual impulses had gone. I was a woman, +and it was the same to me as if the primordial man had taken possession +of me by sheer force. Yet I was not afraid of that. I rejoiced in it. I +wanted to give myself up to it. + +But the next moment Martin had dropped me, and fled from the room, +clashing the door behind him. + +I felt as if a part of myself had been torn from my breast and had gone +out with him. + +The room seemed to become dark. + + + + +SIXTY-NINTH CHAPTER + + +For a moment I stood where Martin had left me, throbbing through and +through like an open wound, telling myself that he had gone, that I +should never see him again, and that I had driven him away from me. + +Those passionate kisses had deprived me of the power of consecutive +thought. I could only feel. And the one thing I felt above everything +else was that the remedy I had proposed to myself for my unhappy +situation--renunciation--was impossible, because Martin was a part of my +own being and without him I could not live. + +"Martin! Martin! My love! My love!" cried the voice of my heart. + +In fear lest I had spoken the words aloud, and in terror of what I might +do under the power of them, I hurried into my bedroom and locked and +bolted the door. + +But the heart knows nothing of locks and bolts, and a moment afterwards +my spirit was following Martin to his room. I was seeing him as I had +seen him last, with his face full of despair, and I was accusing myself +of the pain I had caused him. + +I had conquered Martin, but I had conquered myself also. I had compelled +him to submit, but his submission had vanquished me. + +Even if I had a right to impose renunciation on myself, what right had I +to impose it upon him, who did not desire it, did not think it +necessary, was not reconciled to it, and only accepted it out of +obedience to my will? + +He loved me. No man ever loved a woman more dearly. He deserved to be +loved in return. He had done nothing to forfeit love. He was bound by no +ties. And yet I was driving him away from me. What right had I to do so? + +I began to see that I had acted throughout with the most abominable +selfishness. In his great love he had said little or nothing about +himself. But why had _I_ not thought of him? In the struggles of my +religious conscience I had been thinking of myself alone, but Martin had +been suffering too, and I had never once really thought of that? What +_right_ had I to make him suffer? + +After a while I began to prepare for bed, but it took me long to +undress, for I stopped every moment to think. + +I thought of the long years Martin had been waiting for me and while I +was telling myself that he had kept pure for my sake, my heart was +beating so fast that I could hardly bear the strain of it. + +It cut me still deeper to think that even as there had been no other +woman for him in the past so there would be no other in the future. +Never as long as he lived! I was as sure of that as of the breath I +breathed, and when I remembered what he had said about wearing the +willow for me as if I were dead I was almost distracted. + +His despairing words kept ringing mercilessly in my ears--"It's all as +one now"; "How happy we might have been." I wanted to go to him and tell +him that though I was sending him away still I loved him, and it was +_because_ I loved him that I was sending him away. + +I had made one step towards the door before I remembered that it was too +late to carry out my purpose. The opportunity had passed. Martin had +gone to his room. He might even be in bed by this time. + +But there are spiritual influences which control our bodies +independently of our will. I put on my dressing-gown (being partly +undressed) and went back to the boudoir. I hardly knew what impulse +impelled me to do so, and neither do I know why I went from the boudoir +to the balcony unless it was in hope of the melancholy joy of standing +once more where Martin and I had stood together a little while ago. + +I was alone now. The low thunder was still rolling along the cliffs, but +I hardly heard it. The white sheet lightning was still pulsing in the +sky and rising, as it seemed, out of the sea, but I hardly saw it. + +At one moment I caught a glimpse of a solitary fishing boat, under its +brown lugger sails, heading towards Blackwater; at the next moment my +eyes were dazzled as by a flashlight from some unseen battleship. + +Leaning over the balcony and gazing into the intermittent darkness I +pictured to myself the barren desolation of Martin's life after he had +left me. Loving me so much he might fall into some excess, perhaps some +vice, and if that happened what would be the measure of my +responsibility? + +Losing me he might lose his faith in God. I had read of men becoming +spiritual castaways after they had lost their anchorage in some great +love, and I asked myself what should I do if Martin became an infidel. + +And when I told myself that I could only save Martin's soul by +sacrificing my own I was overwhelmed by a love so great that I thought I +could do even that. + +"Martin! Martin! Forgive me, forgive me," I cried. + +I felt so hot that I opened my dressing-gown to cool my bare breast. +After a while I began to shiver and then fearing I might take cold I +went back to the boudoir, and sat down. + +I looked at my cuckoo clock. It was half-past twelve. Only half an hour +since Martin had left me! It seemed like hours and hours. What of the +years and years of my life that I had still to spend without him? + +The room was so terribly silent, yet it seemed to be full of our dead +laughter. The ghost of our happiness seemed to haunt it. I was sure I +could never live in it again. + +I wondered what Martin would be doing now. Would he be in bed and +asleep, or sitting up like this, and thinking of me as I was thinking of +him? + +At one moment I thought I heard his footsteps. I listened, but the sound +stopped. At another moment, covering my face with my hands, I thought I +saw him in his room, as plainly as if there were no walls dividing us. +He was holding out his hands to me, and his face had the yearning, +loving, despairing expression which it had worn when he looked back at +me from the door. + +At yet another moment I thought I heard him calling me. + +"Mary!" + +I listened again, but again all was still, and when I told myself that +if in actual fact he had spoken my name it was perhaps only to himself +(as I was speaking his) my heart throbbed up to my throat. + +Once more I heard his voice. + +"Mary!" + +I could bear no more. Martin wanted me. I must go to him. Though body +and soul were torn asunder I must go. + +Before I knew what I was doing I had opened the door and was walking +across the corridor in the direction of Martin's room. + +The house was dark. Everybody had gone to bed. Light as my footsteps +were, the landing was creaking under me. I knew that the floors of the +grim old Castle sometimes made noises when nobody walked on them, but +none the less I felt afraid. + +Half way to Martin's door I stopped. A ghostly hand seemed to be laid +on my shoulder and a ghostly voice seemed to say in my ear: + +"Wait! Reflect! If you do what you are thinking of doing what will +happen? You will become an outcast. The whole body of your own sex will +turn against you. You will be a bad woman." + +I knew what it was. It was my conscience speaking to me in the voice of +my Church--my Church, the mighty, irresistible power that was separating +me from Martin. I was its child, born in its bosom, but if I broke its +laws it would roll over me like a relentless Juggernaut. + +It was not at first that I could understand why the Church should set +itself up against my Womanhood. My Womanhood was crying out for life and +love and liberty. But the Church, in its inexorable, relentless voice, +was saying, "Thou Shalt Not!" + +After a moment of impenetrable darkness, within and without, I thought I +saw things more plainly. The Church was the soul of the world. It stood +for purity, which alone could hold the human family together. If all +women who had made unhappy marriages were to do as I was thinking of +doing (no matter under what temptation) the world would fall to wreck +and ruin. + +Feeling crushed and ashamed, and oh, so little and weak, I groped my way +back to the boudoir and closed the door. + +Then a strange thing happened--one of those little accidents of life +which seem to be thrown off by the mighty hand of Fate. A shaft of light +from my bedroom, crossing the end of my writing-desk, showed me a copy +of a little insular newspaper. + +The paper, which must have come by the evening post, had probably been +opened by Martin, and for that reason only I took it up and glanced at +it. + +The first thing that caught my eye was a short report headed "Charity +Performance." + +It ran: + +_"The English ladies and gentlemen from Castle Raa who are cruising +round the island in the handsome steam yacht, the_ Cleopatra, _gave a +variety entertainment last night in aid of the Catholic Mission at the +Palace, Ravenstown. + +"At the end of the performance the Lord Bishop, who was present in +person and watched every item of the programme with obvious enjoyment, +proposed a vote of thanks in his usual felicitous terms, thanking Lord +Raa for this further proof of his great liberality of mind in helping a +Catholic charity, and particularly mentioning the beautiful and +accomplished Madame Lier, who had charmed all eyes and won all hearts by +her serpentine dances, and to whom the Church in Ellan would always be +indebted for the handsome sum which had been the result of her +disinterested efforts in promoting the entertainment. + +"It is understood that the_ Cleopatra _will leave Ravenstown Harbour +to-morrow morning on her way back to Port Raa."_ + +That was the end of everything. It came upon me like a torrent and swept +all my scruples away. + +Such was the purity of the Church--threatening _me_ with its censures +for wishing to follow the purest dictates of my heart, yet taking money +from a woman like Alma, who was bribing it to be blind to her misconduct +and to cover her with its good-will! + +My husband too--his infidelities were flagrant and notorious, yet the +Church, through its minister, was flattering his vanity and condoning +his offences! + +He was coming back to me, too--this adulterous husband, and when he came +the Church would require that I should keep "true faith" with him, +whatever his conduct, and deny myself the pure love that was now awake +within me. + +But no, no, no! Never again! It would be a living death. Accursed be the +power that could doom a woman to a living death! + +Perhaps I was no longer sane--morally sane--and if so God and the Church +will forgive me. But seeing that neither the Church nor the Law could +liberate me from this bond which I did not make, that both were +shielding the evil man and tolerating the bad woman, my whole soul rose +in revolt. + +I told myself now that to leave my husband and go to Martin would be to +escape from shame to honour. + +I saw Martin's despairing face again as I had seen it at the moment of +our parting, and my brain rang with his passionate words. "You are my +wife. I am your real husband. We love each other. We shall continue to +love each other. No matter where you are, or what they do with you, you +are mine and always will be." + +Something was crying out within me: "Love him! Tell him you love him. +Now, now! He is going away. To-morrow will be too late. Go to him. This +will be your true marriage. The other was only legalised and sanctified +prostitution." + +I leapt up, and tearing the door open, I walked with strong steps across +the corridor towards Martin's room. + +My hair was down, my arms were bare in the ample sleeves of my +dressing-gown, and my breast was as open as it had been on the balcony, +but I thought nothing of all that. + +I did not knock at Martin's door. I took hold of the handle as one who +had a right. It turned of itself and the door opened. + +My mind was in a whirl, black rings were circling round my eyes, but I +heard my trembling, quivering, throbbing voice, as if it had been the +voice of somebody else, saying: + +"Martin, I am coming in." + +Then my heart which had been beating violently seemed to stop. My limbs +gave way. I was about to fall. + +At the next moment strong arms were around me. I had no fear. But there +was a roaring in my brain such as the ice makes when it is breaking up. + + Oh, you good women, who are happy in the love that guards you, + shields you, shelters you, wraps you round and keeps you pure and + true, tread lightly over the prostrate soul of your sister in her + hour of trial and fierce temptation. + + And you blessed and holy saints who kneel before the Mother of all + Mothers, take the transgression of her guilty child to Him + who--long ago in the house of the self-righteous Pharisee--said to + the woman who was a sinner and yet loved much--the woman who had + washed His feet with her tears and dried them with the hair of her + head--"Thy sins are forgiven thee." + + + + +FIFTH PART + +I BECOME A MOTHER + +SEVENTIETH CHAPTER + + +Next morning, at half-past eight, my Martin left me. + +We were standing together in the boudoir between the table and the fire, +which was burning briskly, for the sultry weather had gone in the night, +and the autumn air was keen, though the early sun was shining. + +At the last moment he was unwilling to go, and it was as much as I could +do to persuade him. Perhaps it is one of the mysteries which God alone +can read that our positions seemed to have been reversed since the day +before. + +He was confused, agitated, and full of self reproaches, while I felt no +fear and no remorse, but only an indescribable joy, as if a new and +gracious life had suddenly dawned on me. + +"I don't feel that I can leave England now," he said. + +"You can and you must," I answered, and then I spoke of his expedition +as a great work which it was impossible to put off. + +"Somebody else must do it, then," he said. + +"Nobody else can, or shall," I replied. + +"But our lives are for ever joined together now, and everything else +must go by the board." + +"Nothing shall go by the board for my sake, Martin. I refuse and forbid +it." + +Everything had been arranged, everything settled, great sums of money +had been subscribed out of faith in him, and him only, and a large +company was ready and waiting to sail under his command. He was the Man +of Destiny, therefore nothing--nothing whatever--must keep him back. + +"Then if I must go, you must go too," he said. "I mean you must go with +me to London and wait there until I return." + +"That is impossible," I answered. + +The eyes of the world were on him now, and the heart of the world was +with him. If I did what he desired it would reflect dishonour on his +name, and he should not suffer for my sake under any circumstances. + +"But think what may happen to you while I am away," he said. + +"Nothing will happen while you are away, Martin." + +"But how can you be so sure of the future when God alone knows what it +is to be?" + +"Then God will provide for it," I said, and with that last answer he had +to be satisfied. + +"You must take a letter from me at all events," said Martin, and sitting +at my desk he began to write one. + +It is amazing to me now when I come to think of it that I could have +been so confident of myself and so indifferent to consequences. But I +was thinking of one thing only--that Martin must go on his great errand, +finish his great work and win his great reward, without making any +sacrifice for me. + +After a few minutes he rose from the desk and handed me his letter. + +"Here it is," he said. "If the worst comes to the worst you may find it +of some use some day." + +I took it and doubled it and continued to hold it in my hand. + +"Aren't you going to look at it!" he said. + +"No." + +"Not even to see whom it is written to?" + +"That is unnecessary." + +I thought I knew it was written to my husband or my father, and it did +not matter to me which, for I had determined not to use it. + +"It is open--won't you see what it says?" + +"That is unnecessary also." + +I thought I knew that Martin had tried to take everything upon himself, +and I was resolved that he should not do so. + +He looked at me with that worshipful expression which seen in the eyes +of the man who loves her, makes a woman proud to be alive. + +"I feel as if I want to kiss the hem of your dress, Mary," he said, and +after that there was a moment of heavenly silence. + +It was now half-past eight--the hour when the motor-car had been ordered +round to take him to the town--and though I felt as if I could shed +drops of my blood to keep back the finger of my cuckoo clock I pointed +it out and said it was time for him to go. + +I think our parting was the most beautiful moment of all my life. + +We were standing a little apart, for though I wanted to throw my arms +about his neck at that last instant I would not allow myself to do so, +because I knew that that would make it the harder for him to go. + +I could see, too, that he was trying not to make it harder for me, so we +stood in silence for a moment while my bosom heaved and his breath came +quick. + +Then he took my right hand in both of his hands and said: "There is a +bond between us now which can never be broken." + +"Never," I answered. + +"Whatever happens to either of us we belong to each other for ever." + +"For ever and ever," I replied. + +I felt his hands tighten at that, and after another moment of silence, +he said: + +"I may be a long time away, Mary." + +"I can wait." + +"Down there a man has to meet many dangers." + +"You will come back. Providence will take care of you." + +"I think it will. I feel I shall. But if I don't. . . ." + +I knew what he was trying to say. A shadow seemed to pass between us. My +throat grew thick, and for a moment I could not speak. But then I heard +myself say: + +"Love is stronger than death; many waters cannot quench it." + +His hands quivered, his whole body trembled, and I thought he was going +to clasp me to his breast as before, but he only drew down my forehead +with his hot hand and kissed it. + +That was all, but a blinding mist seemed to pass before my eyes, and +when it cleared the door of the room was open and my Martin was gone. + +I stood where he had left me and listened. + +I heard his strong step on the stone flags of the hall--he was going out +at the porch. + +I heard the metallic clashing of the door of the automobile--he was +already in the car. + +I heard the throb of the motor and ruckling of the gravel of the +path--he was moving away. + +I heard the dying down of the engine and the soft roll of the rubber +wheels--I was alone. + +For some moments after that the world seemed empty and void. But the +feeling passed, and when I recovered my strength I found Martin's letter +in my moist left hand. + +Then I knelt before the fire, and putting the letter into the flames I +burnt it. + + + + +SEVENTY-FIRST CHAPTER + + +Within, two hours of Martin's departure I had regained complete +possession of myself and was feeling more happy than I had ever felt +before. + +The tormenting compunctions of the past months were gone. It was just as +if I had obeyed some higher law of my being and had become a freer and +purer woman. + +My heart leapt within me and to give free rein to the riot of my joy I +put on my hat and cloak to go into the glen. + +Crossing the garden I came upon Tommy the Mate, who told me there had +been a terrific thunderstorm during the night, with torrential rain, +which had torn up all the foreign plants in his flower-beds. + +"It will do good, though," said the old man. "Clane out some of their +dirty ould drains, I'm thinkin'." + +Then he spoke of Martin, whom he had seen off, saying he would surely +come back. + +"'Deed he will though. A boy like yander wasn't born to lave his bark in +the ice and snow . . . Not if his anchor's at home, anyway"--with a +"glime" in my direction. + +How the glen sang to me that morning! The great cathedral of nature +seemed to ring with music--the rustling of the leaves overhead, the +ticking of the insects underfoot, the bleating of the sheep, the lowing +of the cattle, the light chanting of the stream, the deep organ-song of +the sea, and then the swelling and soaring Gloria in my own bosom, which +shot up out of my heart like a lark out of the grass in the morning. + +I wanted to run, I wanted to shout, and when I came to the paths where +Martin and I had walked together I wanted--silly as it sounds to say +so--to go down on my knees and kiss the very turf which his feet had +trod. + +I took lunch in the boudoir as before, but I did not feel as if I were +alone, for I had only to close my eyes and Martin, from the other side +of the table, seemed to be looking across at me. And neither did I feel +that the room was full of dead laughter, for our living voices seemed to +be ringing in it still. + +After tea I read again my only love-letter, revelling in the dear +delightful errors in spelling which made it Martin's and nobody else's, +and then I observed for the first time what was said about "the boys of +Blackwater," and their intention of "getting up a spree." + +This suggested that perhaps Martin had not yet left the island but was +remaining for the evening steamer, in order to be present at some sort +of celebrations to be given in his honour. + +So at seven o'clock--it was dark by that time--I was down at the Quay, +sitting in our covered automobile, which had been drawn up in a +sheltered and hidden part of the pier, almost opposite the outgoing +steamer. + +Shall I ever forget the scene that followed? + +First, came a band of music playing one of our native songs, which was +about a lamb that had been lost in the snow, and how the Big Man of the +Farm went out in search of it, and found it and brought it home in his +arms. + +Then came a double row of young men carrying flags and banners--fine, +clean-limbed lads such as make a woman's heart leap to look at them. + +Then came Martin in a jaunting car with a cheering crowd alongside of +him, trying to look cheerful but finding it fearfully hard to do so. + +And then--and this touched me most of all--a double line of girls in +knitted woollen caps (such as men wear in frozen regions) over their +heads and down the sides of their comely faces. + +I was crying like a child at the sight of it all, but none the less I +was supremely happy. + +When the procession reached the gangway Martin disappeared into the +steamer, and then the bandsmen ranged themselves in front of it, and +struck up another song: + + "_Come back to Erin, mavourneen, mavourneen, + Come back, aroon, to the land of your birth_." + +In another moment every voice in the crowd seemed to take up the +refrain. + +That brought Martin on to the captain's bridge, where he stood +bareheaded, struggling to smile. + +By this time the last of the ship's bells had rung, the funnels were +belching, and the captain's voice was calling on the piermen to clear +away. + +At last the hawsers were thrown off and the steamer started, but, with +Martin still standing bareheaded on the bridge, the people rushed to the +end of the pier to see the last of him. + +There they sang again, louder than ever, the girls' clear voices above +all the rest, as the ship sailed out into the dark sea. + + _"Come back to Erin, mavourneen, mavourneen, + Come back, aroon, to the land of your birth."_ + +As well as I could, for the mist in my eyes was blinding me, I watched +the steamer until she slid behind the headland of the bay, round, the +revolving light that stands on the point of it--stretching my neck +through the window of the car, while the fresh wind from the sea smote +my hot face and the salt air licked my parched lips. And then I fell +back in my seat and cried for sheer joy of the love that was shown to +Martin. + +The crowd was returning down the pier by this time, like a black river +running in the darkness and rumbling over rugged stones, and I heard +their voices as they passed the car. + +One voice--a female voice--said: + +"Well, what do you think of _our_ Martin Conrad?" + +And then another voice--a male voice--answered: + +"By God he's a Man!" + +Within a few minutes the pier was deserted, and the chauffeur was +saying: + +"Home, my lady?" + +"Home," I answered. + +Seeing Martin off had been too much like watching the lifeboat on a dark +and stormy night, when the lights dip behind a monstrous wave and for +some breathless moments you fear they will never rise. + +But as we drove up the head I caught the lights of the steamer again now +far out at sea, and well I knew that as surely as my Martin was there he +was thinking of me and looking back towards the house in which he had +left me behind him. + +When we reached the Castle I found to my surprise that every window was +ablaze. + +The thrum of the automobile brought Price into the hall. She told me +that the yachting party had come back, and were now in their bedrooms +dressing for dinner. + +As I went upstairs to my own apartments I heard trills of laughter from +behind several of the closed doors, mingled with the muffled humming of +various music-hall ditties. + +And then suddenly a new spirit seemed to take possession of me, and I +knew that I had become another woman. + + +MEMORANDUM BY MARTIN CONRAD + +My darling was right. For a long hour after leaving Blackwater I +continued to stand on the captain's bridge, looking back at the lighted +windows of the house above Port Raa, and asking myself the question +which for sixteen months thereafter was to haunt me day and night--Why +had I left her behind me? + +In spite of all her importunities, all her sweet unselfish thought of my +own aims and interests, all her confidence in herself, all her brave +determination to share responsibility for whatever the future might have +in store for us--Why had I left her behind me? + +The woman God gave me was mine--why had I left her in the house of a man +who, notwithstanding his infidelities and brutalities, had a right in +the eyes of the law, the church, and the world to call her his wife and +to treat her accordingly? + +Let me make no pretence of a penitence I did not feel. Never for one +moment did I reproach myself for what had happened. Never for the shadow +of a moment did I reproach her. She had given herself to me of her +queenly right and sovereign grace as every good woman in the world must +give herself to the man she loves if their union is to be pure and true. + +But why did I not see then, as I see now, that it is the law of +Nature--the cruel and at the same time the glorious law of Nature--that +the woman shall bear the burden, the woman shall pay the price? + +It is over now, and though many a time since my sweet girl has said out +of her stainless heart that everything has worked out for the best, and +suffering is God's salt for keeping our souls alive, when I think of +what she went through for me, while I was out of all reach and sight, I +know I shall never forgive myself for leaving her behind--never, never +never. + +M.C. + +[END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM] + + + + +SEVENTY-SECOND CHAPTER + + +As this will be the last time I shall have to speak of my husband's +guests, I wish to repeat that I am trying to describe them without +malice exactly as they were--selfish, cruel, ill-mannered, and +insincere. + +The dinner-bell rang while I was dressing, and on going downstairs a few +minutes afterwards I found that there had been no attempt to wait for +me. + +Already the whole party were assembled at the table, my husband being at +the foot of it, and Alma (incredible as it may seem) in the place of the +hostess at the head. + +This in my altered mood, was more than I could bear, so, while the +company made some attempt to welcome me with rather crude salutations, +and old Mrs. Lier cried, "Come along here, my pore dear, and tell me how +you've gotten on while we've been away" (indicating an empty seat by her +side), I walked boldly up to Alma, put my hand on the back of her chair +and said, "If you please." + +Alma looked surprised. But after a moment she carried off the difficult +situation by taking the seat which had been reserved for me beside her +mother, by congratulating me on my improved appearance and herself on +relief from the necessity of filling my place and discharging my +responsible duties. + +My husband, with the rest of the company, had looked up at the awkward +incident, and I thought I saw by his curious grimace that he supposed my +father (of whom he was always in fear) had told me to assert myself. But +Alma, with surer instinct, was clearly thinking of Martin, and almost +immediately she began to speak of him. + +"So your great friend has just gone, dearest. The servants are crazy +about him. We've missed him again, you see. Too bad! I hope you gave him +our regrets and excuses--did you?" + +The evil one must have taken hold of me by this time, for I said: + +"I certainly did not, Alma." + +"Why not, my love?" + +"Because we have a saying in our island that it's only the ass that eats +the cushag"--a bitter weed that grows in barren places. + +Alma joined in the general laughter which followed this rather +intemperate reply, and then led off the conversation On the incidents of +the cruise. + +I gathered that, encouraged by her success in capturing the Bishop by +her entertainment, she had set herself to capture the "aristocracy" of +our island by inviting them to a dance on the yacht, while it lay at +anchor off Holmtown, and the humour of the moment was to play battledore +and shuttlecock with the grotesque efforts of our great people (the same +that had figured at my wedding) to grovel before my husband and his +guests. + +"I say, Jimmy," cried Mr. Vivian in his shrill treble, "do you remember +the old gal in the gauze who--etc . . . ?" + +"But do you remember," cried Mr. Eastcliff, "the High Bailiff or Bum +Bailiff with the bottle-nose who--etc . . . ?" + +"Killing, wasn't it, Vivian?" said one of the ladies. + +"Perfectly killing," said everybody. + +This shocking exhibition of bad manners had not gone on very long before +I became aware that it was being improvised for my benefit. + +After Alma had admitted that the Bishop was a "great flirt" of hers, and +Mr. Vivian, amid shouts of laughter, had christened him her "crush," she +turned to me and said, with her smiling face slightly drawn down on one +side: + +"Mary, my love, you will certainly agree that your islanders who do not +eat cushags, poor dears, are the funniest people alive as guests." + +"Not funnier," I answered, "than the people who laugh at them as hosts." + +It was not easy to laugh at that, so to cover Alma's confusion the men +turned the talk to their usual topic, horses and dogs, and I heard a +great deal about "laying on the hounds," which culminated in a rather +vulgar story of how a beater who "wasn't nippy on his pins" had been +"peppered from behind," whereupon he had "bellowed like a bull" until +"soothed down by a sov." + +I cannot say how long the talk would have continued in this manner if +old Mrs. Lier, addressing herself to me, had not struck a serious +subject. + +It was about Alma's dog, which was dead. The poor wheezy, spaniel had +died in the course of the cruise, though what the cause of its death was +nobody knew, unless it had been fretting for its mistress during the +period of quarantine which the absurd regulations of government had +required on our return from abroad. + +The dog having died at sea, I presumed it had been buried there, but no, +that seemed to shock the company as an unfeeling supposition. The ship's +carpenter had made a coffin for it--a beautiful one of mahogany with a +plate-glass inset at the head, and a gilt-lettered inscription below, +giving the dog's name, Prue, and its age, three. + +In this condition it had been brought ashore, and was now lying in a +kind of state in Alma's dressing-room. But to-morrow it was to be buried +in the grounds, probably in the glen, to which the company, all dressed +in black, were to follow in procession as at a human funeral. + +I was choking with anger and horror at the recital of these incredible +arrangements, and at the close of it I said in a clear, emphatic voice: + +"I must ask you to be good enough not to do that, please." + +"Why not, my dear?" said Alma. + +"Because I do not wish and cannot permit it," I answered. + +There was an awkward pause after this unexpected pronouncement, and when +the conversation was resumed my quick ears (which have not always added +to my happiness) caught the half-smothered words: + +"Getting a bit sidey, isn't she?" + +Nevertheless, when I rose to leave the dining-room, Alma wound her arm +round my waist, called me her "dear little nun," and carried me off to +the hall. + +There we sat about the big open fire, and after a while the talk became +as free, as it often is among fashionable ladies of a certain class. + +Mr. Eastcliff's Camilla told a slightly indelicate anecdote of a +"dresser" she had had at the theatre, and then another young woman (the +same who "adored the men who went to the deuce for a woman") repeated +the terms of an advertisement she had seen in a Church newspaper: "A +parlour-maid wants a situation in a family where a footman is kept." + +The laughter which followed this story was loud enough, but it was +redoubled when Alma's mother, from the depths of an arm-chair, said, +with her usual solemnity, that she "didn't see nothing to laugh at" in +that, and "the pore girl hadn't no such thought as they had." + +Again I was choking with indignation, and in order to assert myself once +for all I said: + +"Ladies, I will ask you to discontinue this kind of conversation. I +don't like it." + +At last the climax came. + +About ten days after Martin left me I received a telegram, which had +been put ashore at Southampton, saying, "Good-bye! God bless you!" and +next day there came a newspaper containing an account of his last night +at Tilbury. + +He had given a dinner to a number of his friends, including his old +commander and his wife, several other explorers who happened to be in +London, a Cabinet Minister, and the proprietor of the journal which had +promoted his expedition. + +They had dined in the saloon of the "Scotia" (how vividly I remembered +it!), finishing up the evening with a dance on deck in the moonlight; +and when the time came to break up, Martin had made one of his +sentimental little speeches (all heart and not too much grammar), in +which he said that in starting out for another siege of the South Pole +he "couldn't help thinking, with a bit of a pain under the third button +of his double-breasted waistcoat, of the dear ones they were leaving +behind, and of the unknown regions whither they were tending where +dancing would be forgotten." + +I need not say how this moved me, being where I was, in that uncongenial +company; but by some mischance I left the paper which contained it on +the table in the drawing-room, and on going downstairs after breakfast +next morning I found Alma stretched out in a rocking-chair before the +fire in the hail, smoking a cigarette and reading the report aloud in a +mock heroic tone to a number of the men, including my husband, whose fat +body (he was growing corpulent) was shaking with laughter. + +It was as much as I could do to control an impulse to jump down and +flare out at them, but, being lightly shod, I was standing quietly in +their midst before they were aware of my presence. + +"Ah," said Alma, with the sweetest and most insincere of her smiles, "we +were just enjoying the beautiful account of your friend's last night in +England." + +"So I see," I said, and, boiling with anger underneath, I quietly took +the paper out of her hand between the tips of my thumb and first finger +(as if the contamination of her touch had made it unclean) and carried +it to the fire and burnt it. + +This seemed to be the end of all things. The tall Mr. Eastcliff went +over to the open door and said: + +"Deuced fine day for a motor drive, isn't it?" + +That gentleman had hitherto shown no alacrity in establishing the truth +of Alma's excuse for the cruise on the ground of his visit to "his +friend who had taken a shoot in Skye;" but now he found himself too +deeply interested in the Inverness Meeting to remain longer, while the +rest of the party became so absorbed in the Perth and Ayr races, +salmon-fishing on the Tay, and stag-shooting in the deer-forests of +Invercauld, that within a week thereafter I had said good-bye to all of +them. + +All save Alma. + +I was returning from the hall after the departure of a group of my +guests when Alma followed me to my room and said: + +"My dear, sweet girl, I want you to do me the greatest kindness." + +She had to take her mother to New York shortly; but as "that dear old +dunce" was the worst of all possible sailors, it would be necessary to +wait for the largest of all possible steamers, and as the largest +steamers sailed from Liverpool, and Ellan was so near to that port, +perhaps I would not mind . . . just for a week or two longer. . . . + +What _could_ I say? What I did say was what I had said before, with +equal weakness and indiscretion, but less than equal danger. A word, +half a word, and almost before it was spoken, Alma's arms were about my +neck and she was calling me her "dearest, sweetest, kindest friend in +the world." + +My maid Price was present at this interview, and hardly had Alma left +the boudoir when she was twitching at my arm and whispering in my ear: + +"My lady, my lady, don't you see what the woman wants? She's watching +you." + + + + +SEVENTY-THIRD CHAPTER + + +My husband was the next to go. + +He made excuse of his Parliamentary duties. He might be three or four +weeks away, but meantime Alma would be with me, and in any case I was +not the sort of person to feel lonely. + +Never having heard before of any devotion to his duty as a peer, I +asked if that was all that was taking him to London. + +"Perhaps not all," he answered, and then, with a twang of voice and a +twitch of feature, he said: + +"I'm getting sick of this God-forsaken place, and then . . . to tell you +the truth, your own behaviour is beginning to raw me." + +With my husband's departure my triumphal course seemed to come to a +close. Left alone with Alma, I became as weak and irresolute as before +and began to brood upon Price's warning. + +My maid had found a fierce delight in my efforts to assert myself as +mistress in my husband's house, but now (taking her former advantage) +she was for ever harping upon my foolishness in allowing Alma to remain +in it. + +"She's deceiving you, my lady," said Price. "_Her_ waiting for a steamer +indeed! Not a bit of her. If your ladyship will not fly out at me again +and pack me off bag and baggage, I'll tell you what's she's waiting +for." + +"What?" + +"She's waiting for . . . she thinks . . . she fancies . . . well, to +tell you the honest truth, my lady, the bad-minded thing suspects that +something is going to happen to your ladyship, and she's just waiting +for the chance of telling his lordship." + +I began to feel ill. A dim, vague, uneasy presentiment of coming trouble +took frequent possession of my mind. + +I tried to suppress it. I struggled to strangle it as an ugly monster +created by the nervous strain I had been going through, and for a time I +succeeded in doing so. I had told Martin that nothing would happen +during his absence, and I compelled myself to believe that nothing would +or could. + +Weeks passed; the weather changed; the golden hue of autumn gave place +to a chilly greyness; the sky became sad with winterly clouds; the land +became soggy with frequent rains; the trees showed their bare black +boughs; the withered leaves drifted along the roads before blustering +winds that came up from the sea; the evenings grew long and the mornings +dreary; but still Alma, with her mother, remained at Castle Raa. + +I began to be afraid of her. Something of the half-hypnotic spell which +she had exercised over me when I was a child asserted itself again, but +now it seemed to me to be always evil and sometimes almost demoniacal. + +I had a feeling that she was watching me day and night. Occasionally, +when she thought I was looking down, I caught the vivid gaze of her +coal-black eyes looking across at me through her long sable-coloured +eyelashes. + +Her conversation was as sweet and suave as ever, but I found myself +creeping away from her and even shrinking from her touch. + +More than once I remembered what Martin in his blunt way had said of +her: "I hate that woman; she's like a snake; I want to put my foot on +it." + +The feeling that I was alone in this great gaunt house with a woman who +was waiting and watching to do me a mischief, that she might step into +my shoes, was preying upon my health and spirits. + +Sometimes I had sensations of faintness and exhaustion for which I could +not account. Looking into my glass in the morning, I saw that my nose +was becoming pinched, my cheeks thin, and my whole face not merely pale, +but grey. + +Alma saw these changes in my appearance, and in the over-sweet tones of +her succulent voice she constantly offered me her sympathy. I always +declined it, protesting that I was perfectly well, but none the less I +shrank within myself and became more and more unhappy. + +So fierce a strain could not last very long, and the climax came about +three weeks after my husband had left for London. + +I was rising from breakfast with Alma and her mother when I was suddenly +seized with giddiness, and, after staggering for a moment, I fainted +right away. + +On recovering consciousness I found myself stretched out on the floor +with Alma and her mother leaning over me. + +Never to the last hour of my life shall I forget the look in Alma's eyes +as I opened my own. With her upper lip sucked in and her lower one +slightly set forward she was giving her mother a quick side-glance of +evil triumph. + +I was overwhelmed with confusion. I thought I might have been speaking +as I was coming to, mentioning a name perhaps, out of that dim and +sacred chamber of the unconscious soul into which God alone should see. +I noticed, too, that my bodice had been unhooked at the back so as to +leave it loose over my bosom. + +As soon as Alma saw that my eyes were open, she put her arm under my +head and began to pour out a flood of honeyed words into my ears. + +"My dear, sweet darling," she said, "you scared us to death. We must +send for a doctor immediately--your own doctor, you know." + +I tried to say there was no necessity, but she would not listen. + +"Such a seizure may be of no consequence, my love. I trust it isn't. But +on the other hand, it may be a serious matter, and it is my duty, +dearest, my duty to your husband, to discover the cause of it." + +I knew quite well what Alma was thinking of, yet I could not say more +without strengthening her suspicions, so I asked for Price, who helped +me up to my room, where I sat on the edge of the bed while she gave me +brandy and other restoratives. + +That was the beginning of the end. I needed no doctor to say what had +befallen me. It was something more stupendous for me than the removal of +mountains or the stopping of the everlasting coming and going of the +sea. + +The greatest of the mysteries of womanhood, the most sacred, the most +divine, the mighty mystery of a new life had come to me as it comes to +other women. Yet how had it come? Like a lowering thunderstorm. + +That golden hour of her sex, which ought to be the sweetest and most +joyful in a woman's life--the hour when she goes with a proud and +swelling heart to the one she loves, the one who loves her, and with her +arms about his neck and her face hidden in his breast whispers her great +new secret, and he clasps her more fondly than ever to his heart, +because another and closer union has bound them together--that golden +hour had come to me, and there was none to share it. + +O God! O God! How proudly I had been holding up my head! How I had been +trampling on the conventions of morality, the canons of law, and even +the sacraments of religion, thinking Nature, which had made our hearts +what they are, did not mean a woman to be ashamed of her purest +instincts! + +And now Nature herself had risen up to condemn me, and before long the +whole world would be joining in her cry. + +If Martin had been there at that moment I do not think I should have +cared what people might think or say of a woman in my condition. But he +was separated from me by this time by thousands of miles of sea, and +was going deeper and deeper every day into the dark Antarctic night. + +How weak I felt, how little, how helpless! Never for a moment did I +blame Martin. But I was alone with my responsibility, I was still living +in my husband's house, and--worst of all--another woman knew my secret. + + + + +SEVENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER + + +Early next day Doctor Conrad came to see me. I thought it significant +that he came in my father's big motor-car--a car of great speed and +power. + +I was in my dressing-gown before the fire in the boudoir, and at the +first glance of his cheerful face under his iron-grey head I knew what +Alma had said in the letter which had summoned him. + +In his soft voice he asked me a few questions, and though I could have +wished to conceal the truth I dared not. I noticed that his face +brightened at each of my replies, and at the end of them he said: + +"There is nothing to be alarmed at. We shall be better than ever +by-and-by." + +Then in his sweet and delicate way (as if he were saying something that +would be very grateful) he told me what I knew already, and I listened +with my head down and my face towards the fire. + +He must have been disappointed at the sad way I received his news, for +he proceeded to talk of my general health; saying the great thing in +such a case as mine was to be cheerful, to keep a good heart, and to +look hopefully to the future. + +"You must have pleasant surroundings and the society of agreeable +people--old friends, old schoolfellows, familiar and happy faces." + +I said "Yes" and "Yes," knowing only too well how impossible it all was; +and then his talk turned on general topics--my father, whose condition +made his face very grave, and then his wife, Christian Ann, whose name +caused his gentle old eyes to gleam with sunshine. + +She had charged him with a message to me. + +"Tell her," she had said, "I shall never forget what she did for me in +the autumn, and whiles and whiles I'm thanking God for her." + +That cut me to the quick, but I was nearly torn to pieces by what came +next. + +"Christian Ann told me to say too that Sunny Lodge is longing for you. +'She's a great lady now,' said she, 'but maybe great ladies have their +troubles same as ourselves, poor things, and if she ever wants to rest +her sweet head in a poor woman's bed, Mary O'Neill's little room is +always waiting for her.'" + +"God bless her!" I said--it was all I _could_ say--and then, to my great +relief, he talked on other subjects. + +The one thing I was afraid of was that he might speak of Martin. Heaven +alone, which looks into the deep places of a woman's heart in her hour +of sorest trial, knows why I was in such dread that he might do so, but +sure I am that if he had mentioned Martin at that moment I should have +screamed. + +When he rose to go he repeated his warnings. + +"You'll remember what I said about being bright and cheerful?" + +"I'll try." + +"And keeping happy and agreeable faces about you?" + +"Ye-s." + +Hardly had he left the room when Alma came sweeping into it, full of I +her warmest and insincerest congratulations. + +"There!" she cried, with all the bitter honey of her tongue. "Wasn't I +right in sending for the doctor? Such news, too! Oh, happy, happy you! +But I must not keep you now, dearest. You'll be just crazy to write to +your husband and tell him all about it." + +Alma's mother was the next to visit me. The comfortable old soul, +redolent of perfume and glittering with diamonds, began by +congratulating herself on her perspicacity. + +"I knew it," she said. "When I saw as how you were so and so, I said to +Alma as I was sure you were that way. 'Impossible,' said Alma, but it's +us married women to know, isn't it?" + +After that, and some homely counsel out of her own experience--to take +my breakfast in bed in future, avoiding tea, &c.,--she told me how +fortunate I was to have Alma in the house at such a moment. + +"The doctor says you're to be kept bright and cheerful, and she's such a +happy heart, is Alma. So crazy about you too! You wouldn't believe it, +but she's actually talking of staying with you until the December +sailing, at all events." + +The prospect of having Alma two months longer, to probe my secret soul +as with a red-hot iron, seemed enough to destroy me, but my martyrdom +had only begun. + +Next day, Aunt Bridget came, and the bright glitter of the usually cold +grey eyes behind her gold-rimmed spectacles told me at a glance that her +visit was not an unselfish one. + +"There now," she said, "you've got to thank me for this. Didn't I give +you good advice when I told you to be a little blind? It's the only way +with husbands. When Conrad came home with the news I said, 'Betsy, I +must get away to the poor girl straight.' To be sure I had enough on my +hands already, but I couldn't leave you to strangers, could I?" + +Hearing no response to this question, Aunt Bridget went on to say that +what was coming would be a bond between me and my husband. + +"It always is. It was in my case, anyway. The old colonel didn't behave +very well after our marriage, and times and times I was telling myself I +had made a rue bargain; but when Betsy came I thought, 'I might have +done better, but I might have done worse, and he's the father of my +offspring, anyway.'" + +Hearing no response to this either, Aunt Bridget went on to talk of Alma +and her mother. Was not this the woman I suspected with my husband--the +young one with the big eyes and "the quality toss with her?" Then why +did I have a person like that about the house? + +"If you need bright and cheerful company, what's amiss with your aunt +and your first cousin? Some people are selfish, but I thank the saints I +don't know what selfishness is. I'm willing to do for you what I did for +your poor mother, and _I_ can't say more than that, can I?" + +I must have made some kind of response, for Aunt Bridget went on to say +it might be a sacrifice, but then she wouldn't be sorry to leave the Big +House either. + +"I'm twenty years there, and now I'm to be a servant to my own +stepchild. Dear heart knows if I can bear it much longer. The way that +Nessy is carrying on with your father is something shocking. I do +believe she'll marry the man some day." + +To escape from a painful topic I asked after my father's health. + +"Worse and worse, but Conrad's news was like laughing-gas to the man. He +would have come with me to-day, but the doctor wouldn't hear of it. +He'll come soon though, and meantime he's talking and talking about a +great entertainment." + +"Entertainment?" + +"To celebrate the forthcoming event, of course, though nobody is to know +that except ourselves, it seems. Just a house-warming in honour of your +coming home after your marriage--that's all it's to be on the outside, +anyway." + +I made some cry of pain, and Aunt Bridget said: + +"Oh, I know what you're going to say--why doesn't he wait? I'll tell you +why if you'll promise not to whisper a word to any one. Your father is a +sick man, my dear. Let him say what he likes when Conrad talks about +cancer, he knows Death's hand is over him. And thinking it may fall +before your time has come, he wants to take time by the forelock and see +a sort of fulfilment of the hope of his life--and you know what that +is." + +It was terrible. The position in which I stood towards my father was now +so tragic that (wicked as it was) I prayed with all my heart that I +might never look upon his face again. + +I was compelled to do so. Three days after Aunt Bridget's visit my +father came to see me. The day was fine and I was walking on the lawn +when his big car came rolling up the drive. + +I was shocked to see the change in him. His face was ghastly white, his +lips were blue, his massive and powerful head seemed to have sunk into +his shoulders, and his limbs were so thin that his clothes seemed to +hang on them; but the stern mouth was there still, and so was the +masterful lift of the eyebrows. + +Coming over to meet me with an uncertain step, he said: + +"Old Conrad was for keeping me in bed, but I couldn't take rest without +putting a sight on you." + +After that, and some plain speech out of the primitive man he always was +and will be (about it's being good for a woman to have children because +it saved her from "losing her stomach" over imaginary grievances), he +led me, with the same half-contemptuous tenderness which he used to show +to my mother, back to the house and into the drawing-room. + +Alma and her mother were there, the one writing at a desk, the other +knitting on the sofa, and they rose as my father entered, but he waved +them back to their places. + +"Set down, ma'am. Take your seat, mother. I'm only here for a minute to +talk to my gel about her great reception." + +"Reception?" said Alma. + +"Hasn't she told you about it?" he said, and being answered that I had +not, he gave a rough outline of his project, whereupon Alma, whose +former attitude towards my father had changed to one of flattery and +subservience, lifted her hands and cried: + +"How splendid! Such an inspiration! Only think, my love, you were to be +kept bright and cheerful, and what could be better for that purpose?" + +In the torment of my soul I urged one objection after another--it would +be expensive, we could not afford it. + +"Who asks you to afford it? It's my affair, isn't it?" said my father. + +I was unwell, and therefore unable to undertake the hard work of such an +entertainment--but that was the worst of excuses, for Alma jumped in +with an offer of assistance. + +"My dearest child," she said, "you know how happy I shall be to help +you. In fact, I'll do all the work and you shall have all the glory." + +"There you are, then," cried my father, slapping me on the shoulder, and +then, turning to Alma, he told her to set to work without a day's delay. + +"Let everything be done correct even if it costs me a bit of money." + +"Yes, sir." + +"A rael big thing, ma'am, such as nobody has ever seen before." + +"Yes indeed, sir." + +"Ask all the big people on the island--Nessy MacLeod shall send you a +list of them." + +"I will, sir." + +"That'll do for the present--I guess I must be going now, or old Conrad +will be agate of me. So long, gel, so long." + +I was silenced, I was helpless, I was ashamed. + +I did not know then, what now I know, that, besides the desire of +celebrating the forthcoming birth of an heir, my father had another and +still more secret object--that of throwing dust in the eyes of his +advocates, bankers, and insular councillors, who (having expected him to +make money for them by magic) were beginning to whisper that all was not +well with his financial schemes. + +I did not know then, what now I know, that my father was at that moment +the most tragic figure in Ellan except myself, and that, shattered in +health and shaken in fortune, he was indulging in this wild extravagance +equally to assert his solvency and to gratify his lifelong passion under +the very wing of Death. + +But oh, my wild woe, my frantic prayers! It was almost as if Satan +himself were torturing me. + +The one terror of the next few days was that my husband might return +home, for I knew that at the first moment of his arrival the whole world +of make-believe which my father and Alma were setting up around me would +tumble about my head like a pack of cards. + +He did not come, but he wrote. After saying that his political duties +would keep him in London a little longer, he said: + +"I hear that your father is getting you to give a great reception in +honour of our home-coming. But why _now_, instead of three months ago? +_Do you know the reason?_" + +As I read these last words I felt an icy numbness creeping up from my +feet to my heart. My position was becoming intolerable. The conviction +was being forced upon me that I had no right in my husband's house. + +It made no difference that my husband's house was mine also, in the +sense that it could not exist without me--I had no right to be there. + +It made no difference that my marriage had been no marriage--I had no +right to be there. + +It made no difference that the man I had married was an utterly bad +husband--I had no right to be there. + +It made no difference that I was not really an adulterous wife--I had no +right to be there. + +Meanwhile Price, my maid, but my only real friend in Castle Raa, with +the liberty I allowed her, was unconsciously increasing my torture. +Every night as she combed out my hair she gave me her opinion of my +attitude towards Alma, and one night she said: + +"Didn't I tell you she was only watching you, my lady? The nasty-minded +thing is making mischief with his lordship. She's writing to him every +day. . . . How do I know? Oh, I don't keep my eyes and my ears open +downstairs for nothing. You'll have no peace of your life, my lady, +until you turn that woman out of the house." + +Then in a fit of despair, hardly knowing what I was doing, I covered my +face with my hands and said: + +"I had better turn myself out instead, perhaps." + +The combing of my hair suddenly stopped, and at the next moment I heard +Price saying in a voice which seemed to come from a long way off: + +"Goodness gracious me! Is it like that, my lady?" + + + + +SEVENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER + + +Alma was as good as her word. + +She did everything without consulting me--fixed the date of the +reception for a month after the day of my father's visit, and sent out +invitations to all "the insular gentry" included in the lists which came +from Nessy MacLeod in her stiff and formal handwriting. + +These lists came morning after morning, until the invitations issued +reached the grand total of five hundred. + +As the rooms of the Castle were not large enough to accommodate so many +guests, Alma proposed to erect a temporary pavilion. My father agreed, +and within a week hundreds of workmen from Blackwater were setting up a +vast wooden structure, in the form of the Colosseum, on the headlands +beyond the garden where Martin and I had walked together. + +While the work went on my father's feverish pride seemed to increase. I +heard of messages to Alma saying that no money was to be spared. The +reception was to surpass in grandeur any fźte ever held in Ellan. Not +knowing what high stakes my father was playing for, I was frightened by +this extravagance, and from that cause alone I wished to escape from the +sight of it. + +I could not escape. + +I felt sure that Alma hated me with an implacable hatred, and that she +was trying to drive me away, thinking that would be the easiest means to +gain her own ends. For this reason, among others, the woman in me would +not let me fly, so I remained and went through a purgatory of suffering. + +Price, too, who had reconciled herself to my revelation, was always +urging me to remain, saying: + +"Why should you go, my lady? You are your husband's wife, aren't you? +Fight it out, I say. Ladies do so every day. Why shouldn't you?" + +Before long the whole island seemed to be astir about our reception. +Every day the insular newspapers devoted columns to the event, giving +elaborate accounts of what limitless wealth could accomplish for a +single night's entertainment. In these descriptions there was much +eulogy of my father as "the uncrowned king of Ellan," as well as praise +of Alma, who was "displaying such daring originality," but little or no +mention of myself. + +Nevertheless everybody seemed to understand the inner meaning of the +forthcoming reception, and in the primitive candour of our insular +manners some of the visits I received were painfully embarrassing. + +One of the first to come was my father's advocate, Mr. Curphy, who +smiled his usual bland smile and combed his long beard while he thanked +me for acting on his advice not to allow a fit of pique to break up a +marriage which was so suitable from points of property and position. + +"How happy your father must be to see the fulfilment of his hopes," he +said. "Just when his health is failing him, too! How good! How +gratifying!" + +The next to come was the Bishop, who, smooth and suave as ever, +congratulated me on putting aside all thoughts of divorce, so that the +object of my marriage might be fulfilled and a good Catholic become the +heir of Castle Raa. + +More delicate, but also more distressing, was a letter from Father Dan, +saying he had been forbidden my husband's house and therefore could not +visit me, but having heard an angel's whisper of the sweet joy that was +coming to me, he prayed the Lord and His Holy Mother to carry me safely +through. + +"I have said a rosary for you every day since you were here, my dear +child, that you might be saved from a great temptation. And now I know +you have been, and the sacrament of your holy marriage has fulfilled its +mission, as I always knew it would. So God bless you, my daughter, and +keep you pure and fit for eternal union with that blessed saint, your +mother, whom the Lord has made His own." + +More than ever after this letter I felt that I must fly from my +husband's house, but, thinking of Alma, my wounded pride, my outraged +vanity (as I say, the _woman_ in me), would not let me go. + +Three weeks passed. + +The pavilion had been built and was being hung with gaily painted +bannerets to give the effect of the Colosseum as seen at sunset. A +covered corridor connecting the theatre with the house was being lined +with immense hydrangeas and lit from the roof by lamps that resembled +stars. + +A few days before the day fixed for the event Alma, who had been too +much occupied to see me every day in the boudoir to which I confined +myself, came up to give me my instructions. + +The entertainment was to begin at ten o'clock. I was to be dressed as +Cleopatra and to receive my guests in the drawing-room. At the sound of +a fanfare of trumpets I was to go into the theatre preceded by a line of +pages, and accompanied by my husband. After we had taken our places in a +private box a great ballet, brought specially from a London music-hall, +was to give a performance lasting until midnight. Then there was to be a +cotillon, led by Alma herself with my husband, and after supper the +dancing was to be resumed and kept up until sunrise, when a basketful of +butterflies and doves (sent from the South of France) were to be +liberated from cages, and to rise in a multicoloured cloud through the +sunlit space. + +I was sick and ashamed when I thought of this vain and gaudy scene and +the object which I supposed it was intended to serve. + +The end of it all was that I wrote to my father, concealing the real +cause of my suffering, but telling him he could not possibly be aware of +what was being done in his name and with his money, and begging him to +put an end to the entertainment altogether. + +The only answer I received was a visit from Nessy MacLeod. I can see her +still as she came into my room, the tall gaunt figure with red hair and +irregular features. + +"Cousin Mary," she said, seating herself stiffly on the only +stiff-backed chair, and speaking in an impassive tone, "your letter has +been received, but your father has not seen it, his health being such as +makes it highly undesirable that he should be disturbed by unnecessary +worries." + +I answered with some warmth that my letter had not been unnecessary, but +urgent and important, and if she persisted in withholding it from my +father I should deliver it myself. + +"Cousin Mary," said Nessy, "I know perfectly what your letter is, having +opened and read it, and while I am as little as yourself in sympathy +with what is going on here, I happen to know that your father has set +his heart on this entertainment, and therefore I do not choose that it +shall be put off." + +I replied hotly that in opening my letter to my father she had taken an +unwarrantable liberty, and then (losing myself a little) I asked her by +what right did she, who had entered my father's house as a dependent, +dare to keep his daughter's letter from him. + +"Cousin Mary," said Nessy, in the same impassive tone, "you were always +self-willed, selfish, and most insulting as a child, and I am sorry to +see that neither marriage nor education at a convent has chastened your +ungovernable temper. But I have told you that I do not choose that you +shall injure your father's health by disturbing his plans, and you shall +certainly not do so." + +"Then take care," I answered, "that in protecting my father's health you +do not destroy it altogether." + +In spite of her cold and savourless nature, she understood my meaning, +for after a moment of silence she said: + +"Cousin Mary, you may do exactly as you please. Your conduct in the +future, whatever it may be, will be no affair of mine, and I shall not +consider that I am in any way responsible for it." + +At last I began to receive anonymous letters. They came from various +parts of Ellan and appeared to be in different handwritings. Some of +them advised me to fly from the island, and others enclosed a list of +steamers' sailings. + +Only a woman who has been the victim of this species of cowardly torture +can have any idea of the shame of it, and again and again I asked myself +if I ought not to escape from my husband's house before he returned. + +But Price seemed to find a secret joy in the anonymous letters, saying +she believed she knew the source of them: and one evening towards the +end, she came running into my room with a shawl over her head, a look of +triumph in her face, and an unopened letter in her hand. + +"There!" she said. "It's all up with Madame now. You've got the game in +your own hands, my lady, and can send them all packing." + +The letter was addressed to my husband in London. Price had seized the +arm of Alma's maid in the act of posting it, and under threat of the law +(not to speak of instant personal chastisement) the girl had confessed +that both this letter and others had been written by our housekeeper +under the inspiration of her mistress. + +Without any compunction Price broke the seal of the intercepted letter +and read it aloud to me. It was a shocking thing, accusing me with +Martin, and taunting my husband with the falseness of the forthcoming +entertainment. + +Feeling too degraded to speak, I took the letter in silence out of my +maid's hands, and while I was in the act of locking it away in a drawer +Alma came up with a telegram from my husband, saying he was leaving +London by the early train the following morning and would arrive at +Blackwater at half-past three in the afternoon. + +"Dear old Jimmy!" she said, "what a surprise you have in store for him! +But of course you've told him already, haven't you? . . . No? Ah, I see, +you've been saving it all up to tell him face to face. Oh, happy, happy +you!" + +It was too late to leave now. The hour of my trial had come. There was +no possibility of escape. It was just as if Satan had been holding me in +the net of my sin, so that I could not fly away. + +At three o'clock next day (which was the day before the day fixed for +the reception) I heard the motor-car going off to meet my husband at +Blackwater. At four o'clock I heard it return. A few minutes afterwards +I heard my husband's voice in the hall. I thought he would come up to me +directly, but he did not do so, and I did not attempt to go down. When, +after a while, I asked what had become of him, I was told that he was in +the library with Alma, and that they were alone. + +Two hours passed. + +To justify and fortify myself I thought how badly my husband had behaved +to me. I remembered that he had married me from the most mercenary +motives; that he had paid off his mistress with the money that came +through me; that he had killed by cruelty the efforts I had made to love +him; that he had humiliated me by gross infidelities committed on my +honeymoon. I recalled the scenes in Rome, the scenes in Paris, and the +insults I had received under my own roof. + +It was all in vain. Whether God means it that the woman's fault in +breaking her marriage vows (whatever her sufferings and excuse) shall be +greater than that of the man I do not know. I only know that I was +trembling like a prisoner before her judge when, being dressed for +dinner and waiting for the sound of the bell, I heard my husband's +footsteps approach my door. + +I was standing by the fire at that moment, and I held on to the +mantelpiece as my husband came into the room. + + + + +SEVENTY-SIXTH CHAPTER + + +He was very pale. The look of hardness, almost of brutality, which +pierced his manner at normal moments had deepened, and I could see at a +glance that he was nervous. His monocle dropped of itself from his slow +grey eyes, and the white fat fingers which replaced it trembled. + +Without shaking hands or offering any other sort of salutation he +plunged immediately into the matter that was uppermost in his mind. + +"I am still at a loss to account for this affair of your father's," he +said. "Of course I know what it is supposed to be--a reception in honour +of our home-coming. That explanation may or may not be sufficient for +these stupid islanders, but it's rather too thin for me. Can you tell me +what your father means by it?" + +I knew he knew what my father meant, so I said, trembling like a sheep +that walks up to a barking dog: + +"Hadn't you better ask that question of my father himself?" + +"Perhaps I should if he were here, but he isn't, so I ask you. Your +father is a strange man. There's no knowing what crude things he will +not do to gratify his primitive instincts. But he does not spend five or +ten thousand pounds for nothing. He isn't a fool exactly." + +"Thank you," I said. I could not help it. It was forced out of me. + +My husband flinched and looked at me. Then the bully in him, which +always lay underneath, came uppermost. + +"Look here, Mary," he said. "I came for an explanation and I intend to +have one. Your father may give this affair what gloss he pleases, but +you must know as well as I do what rumour and report are saying, so we +might as well speak plainly. Is it the fact that the doctor has made +certain statements about your own condition, and that your father is +giving this entertainment because . . . well, because he is expecting an +heir?" + +To my husband's astonishment I answered: + +"Yes." + +"So you admit it? Then perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me how that +condition came about?" + +Knowing he needed no explanation, I made no answer. + +"Can't you speak?" he said. + +But still I remained silent. + +"You know what our relations have been since our marriage, so I ask you +again how does that condition come about?" + +I was now trembling more than ever, but a kind of forced courage came to +me and I said: + +"Why do you ask? You seem to know already." + +"I know what anonymous letters have told me, if that's what you mean. +But I'm your husband and have a right to know from _you_. How does your +condition come about, I ask you?" + +I cannot say what impulse moved me at that moment unless it was the +desire to make a clean breast and an end of everything, but, stepping to +my desk, I took out of a drawer the letter which Price had intercepted +and threw it on the table. + +He took it up and read it, with the air of one to whom the contents were +not news, and then asked how I came by it. + +"It was taken out of the hands of a woman who was in the act of posting +it," I said. "She confessed that it was one of a number of such letters +which had been inspired, if not written, by your friend Alma." + +"My friend Alma!" + +"Yes, your friend Alma." + +His face assumed a frightful expression and he said: + +"So that's how it is to be, is it? In spite of the admission you have +just made you wish to imply that this" (holding out the letter) "is a +trumped-up affair, and that Alma is at the bottom of it. You're going to +brazen it out, are you, and shelter your condition under your position +as a married woman?" + +I was so taken by surprise by this infamous suggestion that I could not +speak to deny it, and my husband went on to say: + +"But it doesn't matter a rush to me who is at the bottom of the +accusation contained in this letter. There's only one thing of any +consequence--is it true?" + +My head was reeling, my eyes were dim, my palms were moist, I felt as if +I were throwing myself over a precipice but I answered: + +"It is perfectly true." + +I think that was the last thing he expected. After a moment he said: + +"Then you have broken your marriage vows--is that it?" + +"Yes, if you call it so." + +"Call it so? Call it so? Good heavens, what do _you_ call it?" + +I did not reply, and after another moment he said: + +"But perhaps you wish me to understand that this man whom I was so +foolish as to invite to my house abused my hospitality and betrayed my +wife. Is that what you mean?" + +"No," I said. "He observed the laws of hospitality much better than you +did, and if I am betrayed I betrayed myself." + +I shall never forget the look with which my husband received this +confession. He drew himself up with the air of an injured man and said: + +"What? You mean that you yourself . . . deliberately . . . Good God!" + +He stopped for a moment and then said with a rush: + +"I suppose you've not forgotten what happened at the time of our +marriage . . . your resistance and the ridiculous compact I submitted +to? Why did I submit? Because I thought your innocence, your +convent-bred ideas, and your ignorance of the first conditions of +matrimony. . . . But I've been fooled, for you now tell me . . . after +all my complacency . . . that you have deliberately. . . . In the name +of God do you know what you are? There's only one name for a woman who +does what you've done. Do you want me to tell you what that name is?" + +I was quivering with shame, but my mind, which was going at lightning +speed, was thinking of London, of Cairo, of Rome, and of Paris. + +"Why don't you speak?" he cried, lifting his voice in his rage. "Don't +you understand what a letter like this is calling you?" + +My heart choked. But the thought that came to me--that, bad as his own +life had been, he considered he had a right to treat me in this way +because he was a man and I was a woman--brought strength out of my +weakness, so that when he went on to curse my Church and my religion, +saying this was all that had come of "the mummery of my masses," I fired +up for a moment and said: + +"You can spare yourself these blasphemies. If I have done wrong, it is +I, and not my Church, that is to blame for it." + +"_If_ you have done wrong!" he cried. "Damn it, have you lost all sense +of a woman's duty to her husband? While you have been married to me and +I have been fool enough not to claim you as a wife because I thought you +were only fit company for the saints and angels, you have been +prostituting yourself to this blusterer, this . . ." + +"That is a lie," I said, stepping up to him in the middle of the floor. +"It's true that I am married to you, but _he_ is my real husband and you +. . . you are nothing to me at all." + +My husband stood for a moment with his mouth agape. Then he began to +laugh--loudly, derisively, mockingly. + +"Nothing to you, am I? You don't mind bearing my name, though, and when +your time comes you'll expect it to cover your disgrace." + +His face had become shockingly distorted. He was quivering with fury. + +"That's not the worst, either," he cried. "It's not enough that you +should tell me to my face that somebody else is your real husband, but +you must shunt your spurious offspring into my house. Isn't that what it +all comes to . . . all this damnable fuss of your father's . . . that +you are going to palm off on me and my name and family your own and this +man's . . . bastard?" + +And with the last word, in the drunkenness of his rage, he lifted his +arm and struck me with the back of his hand across the cheek. + +The physical shock was fearful, but the moral infamy was a hundred-fold +worse. I can truly say that not alone for myself did I suffer. When my +mind, still going at lightning speed, thought of Martin, who loved me so +tenderly, I felt crushed by my husband's blow to the lowest depths of +shame. + +I must have screamed, though I did not know it, for at the next moment +Price was in the room and I saw that the housekeeper (drawn perhaps, as +before, by my husband's loud voice) was on the landing outside the door. +But even that did not serve to restrain him. + +"No matter," he said. "After what has passed you may not enjoy +to-morrow's ceremony. But you shall go through it! By heaven, you shall! +And when it is over, I shall have something to say to your father." + +And with that he swung out of the room and went lunging down the stairs. + +I was still standing in the middle of the floor, with the blow from my +husband's hand tingling on my cheek, when Price, after clashing the door +in the face of the housekeeper, said, with her black eyes ablaze: + +"Well, if ever I wanted to be a man before to-day!" + +News of the scene went like wildfire through the house, and Alma's +mother came to comfort me. In her crude and blundering way she told me +of a similar insult she had suffered at the hands of the "bad Lord Raa," +and how it had been the real reason of her going to America. + +"Us married ladies have much to put up with. But cheer up, dearie. I +guess you'll have gotten over it by to-morrow morning." + +When she was gone I sat down before the fire. I did not cry. I felt as +if I had reached a depth of suffering that was a thousand fathoms too +deep for tears. I do not think I wept again for many months afterwards, +and then it was a great joy, not a great grief, that brought me a burst +of blessed tears. + +But I could hear my dear good Price crying behind me, and when I said: + +"Now you see for yourself that I cannot remain in this house any +longer," she answered, in a low voice: + +"Yes, my lady." + +"I must go at once--to-night if possible." + +"You shall. Leave everything to me, my lady." + + + + +SEVENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER + + +The bell rang, but of course I did not go down to dinner. + +As soon as Price had gone off to make the necessary arrangements I +turned the key in the lock of my door, removed my evening gown, and +began to dress for my flight. + +My brain was numb, but I did my best to confront the new situation that +was before me. + +Hitherto I had been occupied with the problem of whether I should or +should not leave my husband's house; now I had to settle the question of +where I was to go to. + +I dared not think of home, for (Nessy MacLeod and Aunt Bridget apart) +the house of my father was the last place I could fly to at a moment +when I was making dust and ashes of his lifelong expectations. + +Neither dared I think of Sunny Lodge, although I remembered, with a tug +of tenderness, Christian Ann's last message about Mary O'Neill's little +room that was always waiting for me--for I thought of how I had broken +my pledge to her. + +The only place I could think of was that which Martin had mentioned when +he wished to carry me away--London. In the mighty world of London I +might hide myself from observation and wait until Martin returned from +his expedition. + +"Yes, yes, London," I told myself in my breathless excitement, little +knowing what London meant. + +I began to select the clothes I was to carry with me and to wear on my +journey. They must be plain, for I had to escape from a house in which +unfriendly eyes would be watching me. They must be durable, for during +my time of waiting I expected to be poor. + +I hunted out some of the quaker-like costumes which had been made for me +before my marriage; and when I had put them on I saw that they made a +certain deduction from my appearance, but that did not matter to me +now--the only eyes I wished to look well in being down in the Antarctic +seas. + +Then I tried to think of practical matters--how I was to live in London +and how, in particular, I was to meet the situation that was before me. +Surely never did a more helpless innocent confront such a serious +problem. I was a woman, and for more than a year I had been a wife, but +I had no more experience of the hard facts of material existence than a +child. + +I thought first of the bank-book which my father had sent me with +authority to draw on his account. But it was then nine o'clock, the +banks were closed for the day, and I knew enough of the world to see +that if I attempted to cash a cheque in the morning my whereabouts would +he traced. That must never happen, I must hide myself from everybody; +therefore my bank-book was useless. + +"Quite useless," I thought, throwing it aside like so much waste paper. + +I thought next of my jewels. But there I encountered a similar +difficulty. The jewels which were really mine, having been bought by +myself, had been gambled away by my husband at Monte Carlo. What +remained were the family jewels which had come to me as Lady Raa; but +that was a name I was never more to bear, a person I was never more to +think about, so I could not permit myself to take anything that belonged +to her. + +The only thing left to me was my money. I had always kept a good deal +of it about me, although the only use I had had for it was to put it in +the plate at church, and to scatter it with foolish prodigality to the +boys who tossed somersaults behind the carriage in the road. + +Now I found it all over my room--in my purse, in various drawers, and on +the toilet-tray under my dressing-glass. Gathered together it counted up +to twenty-eight pounds. I owed four pounds to Price, and having set them +aside, I saw that I had twenty-four pounds left in notes, gold, and +silver. + +Being in the literal and unconventional sense utterly ignorant of the +value of sixpence, I thought this a great sum, amply sufficient for all +my needs, or at least until I secured employment--for I had from the +first some vague idea of earning my own living. + +"Martin would like that," I told myself, lifting my head with a thrill +of pride. + +Then I began to gather up the treasures which were inexpressibly more +dear to me than all my other possessions. + +One of them was a little miniature of my mother which Father Dan had +given me for a wedding-present when (as I know now) he would rather have +parted with his heart's blood. + +Another was a pearl rosary which the Reverend Mother had dropped over my +arm the last time she kissed me on the forehead; and the last was my +Martin's misspelt love-letter, which was more precious to me than +rubies. + +Not for worlds, I thought, would I leave these behind me, or ever part +with them under any circumstances. + +Several times while I was busy with such preparations, growing more and +more nervous every moment, Price came on tip-toe and tapped softly at my +door. + +Once it was to bring me some food and to tell me, with many winks (for +the good soul herself was trembling with excitement), that everything +was "as right as ninepence." I should get away without difficulty in a +couple of hours, and until to-morrow morning nobody would be a penny the +wiser. + +Fortunately it was Thursday, when a combined passenger and cargo steamer +sailed to Liverpool. Of course the motor-car would not be available to +take me to the pier, but Tommy the Mate, who had a stiff cart in which +he took his surplus products to market, would be waiting for me at +eleven o'clock by the gate to the high road. + +The people downstairs, meaning my husband and Alma and her mother, were +going off to the pavilion (where hundreds of decorators were to work +late and the orchestra and ballet were to have a rehearsal), and they +had been heard to say that they would not be back until "way round about +midnight." + +"But the servants?" I asked. + +"They're going too, bless them," said Price. "So eat your dinner in +peace, my lady, and don't worry about a thing until I come back to fetch +you." + +Another hour passed. I was in a fever of apprehension. I felt like a +prisoner who was about to escape from a dungeon. + +A shrill wind was coming up from the sea and whistling about the house. +I could hear the hammering of the workmen in the pavilion as well as the +music of the orchestra practising their scores. + +A few minutes before eleven Price returned, carrying one of the smaller +of the travelling-trunks I had taken to Cairo. I noticed that it bore no +name and no initials. + +"It's all right," she said. "They've gone off, every mother's son and +daughter of them--all except the housekeeper, and I've caught her out, +the cat!" + +That lynx-eyed person had begun to suspect. She had seen Tommy +harnessing his horse and had not been satisfied with his +explanation--that he was taking tomatoes to Blackwater to be sent off by +the Liverpool steamer. + +So to watch events, without seeming to watch them, the housekeeper (when +the other servants had gone off to the rehearsal) had stolen upstairs to +her room in the West tower overlooking the back courtyard. + +But Price had been more than a match for her. Creeping up behind, she +had locked the door of the top landing, and now the "little cat" might +scream her head off through the window, and (over the noises of the wind +and the workmen) it would be only like "tom" shrieking on the tiles. + +"We must be quick, though," said Price, tumbling into my +travelling-trunk as many of my clothes as it would hold. + +When it was full and locked and corded she said: + +"Wait," and stepped out on the landing to listen. + +After a moment she returned saying: + +"Not a sound! Now for it, my lady." + +And then, tying her handkerchief over her head to keep down her hair in +the wind, she picked up the trunk in her arms and crept out of the room +on tiptoe. + +The moment had come to go, yet, eager as I had been all evening to +escape from my husband's house, I could scarcely tear myself away, for +I was feeling a little of that regret which comes to us all when we are +doing something for the last time. + +Passing through the boudoir this feeling took complete possession of me. +Only a few hours before it had been the scene of my deepest degradation, +but many a time before it had been the place of my greatest happiness. + +_"You are my wife. I am your real husband. No matter where you are or +what they do with you, you are mine and always will be."_ + +Half-closing the door, I took a last look round--at the piano, the desk, +the table, the fireplace, all the simple things associated with my +dearest memories. So strong was the yearning of my own soul that I felt +as if the soul of Martin were in the room with me at that moment. + +I believe it was. + +"Quick, my lady, or you'll lose your steamer," whispered Price, and then +we crossed the landing (which was creaking again) and crept noiselessly +down a back staircase. We were near the bottom when I was startled by a +loud knocking, which seemed to come from a distant part of the house. My +heart temporarily stopped its beating, but Price only laughed and +whispered: + +"There she is! We've fairly caught her out, the cat." + +At the next moment Price opened an outer door, and after we had passed +through she closed and locked it behind us. + +We were then in the courtyard behind the house, stumbling in the +blinding darkness over cobble-stones. + +"Keep close to me, my lady," said Price. + +After a few moments we reached the drive. I think I was more nervous +than I had ever been before. I heard the withered leaves behind me +rustling along the ground before the wind from the sea, and thought they +were the footsteps of people pursuing us. I heard the hammering of the +workmen and the music of the orchestra, and thought they were voices +screaming to us to come back. + +Price, who was forging ahead, carried the trunk in her arms as if it had +been a child, but every few minutes she waited for me to come up to her, +and encouraged me when I stumbled in the darkness. + +"Only a little further, my lady," she said, and I did my best to +struggle on. + +We reached the gate to the high road at last. Tommy the Mate was there +with his stiff cart, and Price, who was breathless after her great +exertion, tumbled my trunk over the tail-board. + +The time had come to part from her, and, remembering how faithful and +true she had been to me, I hardly knew what to say. I told her I had +left her wages in an envelope on the dressing-table, and then I +stammered something about being too poor to make her a present to +remember me by. + +"It doesn't need a present to help me to remember a good mistress, my +lady," she said. + +"God bless you for being so good to me," I answered, and then I kissed +her. + +"I'll remember you by that, though," she said, and she began to cry. + +I climbed over the wheel of the stiff cart and seated myself on my +trunk, and then Tommy, who had been sitting on the front-board with his +feet on the outer shaft, whipped up his horse and we started away. + +During the next half-hour the springless cart bobbed along the dark road +at its slow monotonous pace. Tommy never once looked round or spoke +except to his horse, but I understood my old friend perfectly. + +I was in a fever of anxiety lest I should be overtaken and carried back. +Again and again I looked behind. At one moment, when a big motor-car, +with its two great white eyes, came rolling up after us, my stormy heart +stood still. But it was not my husband's car, and in a little while its +red tail-light disappeared in the darkness ahead. + +We reached Blackwater in time for the midnight steamer and drew up at +the landward end of the pier. It was cold; the salt wind from the sea +was very chill. Men who looked like commercial travellers were hurrying +along with their coat-collars turned up, and porters with heavy trunks +on their shoulders were striving to keep pace with them. + +I gave my own trunk to a porter who came up to the cart, and then turned +to Tommy to say good-bye. The old man had got down from the shaft and +was smoothing his smoking horse, and snuffling as if he had caught a +cold. + +"Good-bye, Tommy," I said--and then something more which I do not wish +to write down. + +"Good-bye, lil missie," he answered (that cut me deep), "I never +believed ould Tom Dug would live to see ye laving home like this . . . +But wait! Only wait till himself is after coming back, and I'll go bail +it'll be the divil sit up for some of them." + + + + +SEVENTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER + + +It was very dark. No more than three or four lamps on the pier were +burning, but nevertheless I was afraid that the pier-master would +recognise me. + +I thought he did so as I approached the gangway to the saloon, for he +said: + +"Private cabin on main deck aft." + +Nervous as I was, I had just enough presence of mind to say "Steerage, +please," which threw him off the scent entirely, so that he cried, in +quite a different voice: + +"Steerage passengers forward." + +I found my way to the steerage end of the steamer; and in order to +escape observation from the few persons on the pier I went down to the +steerage cabin, which was a little triangular place in the bow, with an +open stove in the middle of the floor and a bleary oil-lamp swinging +from a rafter overhead. + +The porter found me there, and in my foolish ignorance of the value of +money I gave him half a crown for his trouble. He first looked at the +coin, then tested it between his teeth, then spat on it, and finally +went off chuckling. + +The first and second bells rang. I grudged every moment of delay before +the steamer sailed, for I still felt like a prisoner who was running +away and might even yet be brought back. + +Seating myself in the darkest corner of the cabin, I waited and watched. +There were only two other steerage passengers and they were women. +Judging by their conversation I concluded that they were cooks from +lodging-houses on "the front," returning after a long season to their +homes in Liverpool. Both were very tired, and they were spreading their +blankets on the bare bunks so as to settle themselves for the night. + +At last the third bell rang. I heard the engine whistle, the funnel +belch out its smoke, the hawsers being thrown off, the gangways being +taken in, and then, looking through the porthole, I saw the grey pier +gliding behind us. + +After a few moments, with a feeling of safety and a sense of danger +passed, I went up on deck. But oh, how little I knew what bitter pain I +was putting myself to! + +We were just then swinging round the lighthouse which stands on the +south-east headland of the bay, and the flash of its revolving light in +my face as I reached the top of the cabin stairs brought back the memory +of the joyous and tumultuous scenes of Martin's last departure. + +That, coupled and contrasted with the circumstances of my own flight, +stealthily, shamefully, and in the dead of night, gave me a pang that +was almost more than I could bear. + +But my cup was not yet full. A few minutes afterwards we sailed in the +dark past the two headlands of Port Raa, and, looking up, I saw the +lights in the windows of my husband's house, and the glow over the glass +roof of the pavilion. + +What would happen there to-morrow morning when it was discovered that I +was gone? What would happen to-morrow night when my father arrived, +ignorant of my flight, as I felt sure the malice of my husband would +keep him? + +Little as I knew then of my father's real motives in giving that bizarre +and rather vulgar entertainment, I thought I saw and heard everything +that would occur. + +I saw the dazzling spectacle, I saw the five hundred guests, I saw Alma +and my husband, and above all I saw my father, the old man stricken with +mortal maladies, the wounded lion whom the shadow of death itself could +not subdue, degraded to the dust in his hour of pride by the act of his +own child. + +I heard his shouts of rage, his cries of fury, his imprecations on me as +one who should never touch a farthing of his fortune. And then I heard +the whispering of his "friends," who were telling the "true story" of my +disappearance, the tale of my "treacheries" to my husband--just as if +Satan had willed it that the only result of the foolish fźte on which my +father had wasted his wealth like water should be the publication of my +shame. + +But the bitterest part of my experience was still to come. In a few +minutes we sailed past the headlands of Port Raa, the lights of my +husband's house shot out of view like meteors on a murky night, and the +steamer turned her head to the open sea. + +I was standing by a rope which crossed the bow and holding on to it to +save myself from falling, for, being alone with Nature at last, I was +seeing my flight for the first time in full light. + +I was telling myself that as surely as my flight became known Martin's +name would be linked with mine, and the honour that was dearer to me +than, my own would be buried in disgrace. + +O God! O God! Why should Nature be so hard and cruel to a woman? Why +should it be permitted that, having done no worse than obey the purest +impulses of my heart, the iron law of my sex should rise up to condemn +both me and the one who was dearer to my soul than life itself? + +I hardly know how long I stood there, holding on to that rope. There was +no sound now except the tread of a sailor in his heavy boots, an +inarticulate call from the bridge, an answering shout from the wheel, +the rattling of the wind in the rigging, the throbbing of the engine in +the bowels of the ship, and the monotonous wash of the waves against her +side. + +Oh, how little I felt, how weak, how helpless! + +I looked up towards the sky, but there seemed to be no sky, no moon, and +no stars, only a vaporous blackness that came down and closed about me. + +I looked out to the sea, but there seemed to be no sea, only a hissing +splash of green spray where the steamer's forward light fell on the +water which her bow was pitching up, and beyond that nothing but a +threatening and thundering void. + +I did not weep, but I felt as other women had felt before me, as other +women have felt since, as women must always feel after they have sinned +against the world and the world's law, that there was nothing before me +but the blackness of night. + +"Out of the depths I cry unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my cry." + +But all at once a blessed thought came to me. We were travelling +eastward, and dark as the night was now, in a few hours the day would +dawn, the sun would shine in our faces and the sky would smile over our +heads! + +It would be like that with me. Martin would come back. I was only going +to meet him. It was dark midnight with me now, but I was sailing into +the sunrise! + +Perhaps I was like a child, but I think that comforted me. + +At all events I went down to the little triangular cabin with a cheerful +heart, forgetting that I was a runaway, a homeless wanderer, an outcast, +with nothing before me but the wilderness of London where I should be +friendless and alone. + +The fire had gone out by this time, the oil-lamp was swinging to the +motion of the ship, the timbers were creaking, and the Liverpool women +were asleep. + + + + +SEVENTY-NINTH CHAPTER + + +At eight o'clock next morning I was in the train leaving Liverpool for +London. + +I had selected a second-class compartment labelled "For Ladies," and my +only travelling companion was a tall fair woman, in a seal-skin coat and +a very large black hat. She had filled the carriage with the warm odour +of eau-de-Cologne and the racks on both sides with her luggage, which +chiefly consisted of ladies' hat boxes of various shapes and sizes. + +Hardly had we started when I realised that she was a very loquacious and +expansive person. + +Was I going all the way? Yes? Did I live in Liverpool? No? In London +perhaps? No? Probably I lived in the country? Yes? That was charming, +the country being so lovely. + +I saw in a moment that if my flight was to be carried out to any purpose +I should have to conceal my identity; but how to do so I did not know, +my conscience never before having had to accuse me of deliberate +untruth. + +Accident helped me. My companion asked me what was my husband's +profession, and being now accustomed to think of Martin as my real +husband, I answered that he was a commander. + +"You mean the commander of a ship?" + +"Yes." + +"Ah, yes, you've been staying in Liverpool to see him off on a voyage. +How sweet! Just what I should do myself if my husband were a sailor." + +Then followed a further battery of perplexing questions. + +Had my husband gone on a long voyage? Yes? Where to? The South. Did I +mean India, Australia, New Zealand? Yes, and still farther. + +"Ah, I see," she said again. "He's probably the captain of a tramp +steamer, and will go from port to port as long as he can find a cargo." + +Hardly understanding what my companion meant by this, I half agreed to +it, and then followed a volley of more personal inquiries. + +I was young to be married, wasn't I? Probably I hadn't been married +very long, had I? And not having settled myself in a home perhaps I was +going up to London to wait for my husband? Yes? How wise--town being so +much more cheerful than the country. + +"Any friends there?" + +"No." + +"None whatever?" + +"None whatever." + +"But won't you be lonely by yourself in London?" + +"A little lonely perhaps." + +Being satisfied that she had found out everything about me, my +travelling companion (probably from the mere love of talking) told me +something about herself. + +She was a fashionable milliner and had a shop in the West End of London. +Occasionally she made personal visits to the provinces to take orders +from the leading shopkeepers, but during the season she found it more +profitable to remain in town, where her connection was large, among +people who could pay the highest prices. + +By this time we had reached Crewe, and as there was some delay in +getting into the station, my travelling companion put her head out of +the window to inquire the cause. She was told that a night train from +Scotland was in front of us, and we should have to be coupled on to it +before we could proceed to London. + +This threw her into the wildest state of excitement. + +"I see what it is," she said. "The shooting season is over and the +society people are coming down from the moors. I know lots and lots of +them. They are my best customers--the gentlemen at all events." + +"The gentlemen?" + +"Why, yes," she said with a little laugh. + +After some shunting our Liverpool carriages were coupled to the Scotch +train and run into the station, where a number of gentlemen in +knickerbockers and cloth caps were strolling about the platform. + +My companion seemed to know them all, and gave them their names, +generally their Christian names, and often their familiar ones. + +Suddenly I had a shock. A tall man, whose figure I recognised, passed +close by our carriage, and I had only time to conceal myself from +observation behind the curtain of the window. + +"Helloa!" cried my companion. "There's Teddy Eastcliff. He married +Camilla, the Russian dancer. They first met in my shop I may tell you." + +I was feeling hot and cold by turns, but a thick veil must have hidden +my confusion, for after we left Crewe my companion, becoming still more +confidential, talked for a long time about her aristocratic customers, +and I caught a glimpse of a life that was on the verge of a kind of +fashionable Bohemia. + +More than once I recognised my husband's friends among the number of her +clients, and trembling lest my husband himself should become a subject +of discussion, I, made the excuse of a headache to close my eyes and be +silent. + +My companion thereupon slept, very soundly and rather audibly, from +Rugby to Willesden, where, awakening with a start while the tickets were +being collected, she first powdered her face by her fashion-glass and +then interested herself afresh in my affairs. + +"Did you say, my dear, that you have no friends in London?" + +I repeated that I had none. + +"Then you will go to an hotel, I suppose?" + +I answered that I should have to look for something less expensive. + +"In that case," she said, "I think I know something that will suit you +exactly." + +It was a quiet boarding establishment in Bloomsbury--comfortable house, +reasonable terms, and, above all, perfectly respectable. In fact, it was +kept by her own sister, and if I liked she would take me along in her +cab and drop me at the door. Should she? + +Looking back at that moment I cannot but wonder that after what I had +heard I did not fear discovery. But during the silence of the last hour +I had been feeling more than ever weak and helpless, so that when my +companion offered me a shelter in that great, noisy, bewildering city in +which I had intended to hide myself, but now feared I might be submerged +and lost, with a willing if not a cheerful heart I accepted. + +Half an hour afterwards our cab drew up in a street off Russell Square +at a rather grimy-looking house which stood at the corner of another and +smaller square that was shut off by an iron railing. + +The door was opened by a young waiter of sixteen or seventeen years, +who was wearing a greasy dress-suit and a soiled shirt front. + +My companion pushed into the hall, I followed her, and almost at the +same moment a still larger and perhaps grosser woman than my friend, +with the same features and complexion, came out of a room to the left +with, a serviette in her hand. + +"Sophie!" + +"Jane!" cried my companion, and pointing to me she said: + +"I've brought you a new boarder." + +Then followed a rapid account of where she had met me, who and what I +was, and why I had come up to London. + +"I've promised you'll take her in and not charge her too much, you +know." + +"Why, no, certainly not," said the sister. + +At the next moment the boy waiter was bringing, my trunk into the house +on his shoulder and my travelling companion was bidding me good-bye and +saying she would look me up later. + +When the door was closed I found the house full of the smell of hot +food, chiefly roast beef and green vegetables, and I could hear the +clink of knives and forks and the clatter of dishes in the room the +landlady had come from. + +"You'd like to go up to your bedroom at once, wouldn't you?" she said. + +We went up two flights of stairs covered with rather dirty druggeting, +along a corridor that had a thin strip of linoleum, and finally up a +third flight that was bare to the boards, until we came to a room which +seemed to be at the top of the house and situated in its remotest +corner. + +It was a very small apartment, hardly larger than the room over the hall +at home in which Aunt Bridget had made me sleep when I was a child, and +it was nearly as cold and cheerless. + +The wall-paper, which had once been a flowery pink, was now pale and +patternless; the Venetian blind over the window (which looked out on the +smaller square) had lost one of its cords and hung at an irregular +angle; there was a mirror over the mantelpiece with the silvering much +mottled, and a leather-covered easy chair whereof the spring was broken +and the seat heavily indented. + +"I dare say this will do for the present," said my landlady, and though +my heart was in my mouth I compelled myself to agree. + +"My terms, including meals and all extras, will be a pound a week," she +added, and to that also, with a lump in my throat I assented, whereupon +my landlady left me, saying luncheon was on and I could come downstairs +when I was ready. + +A talkative cockney chambermaid, with a good little face, brought me a +fat blue jug of hot water, and after I had washed and combed I found my +way down to the dining-room. + +What I expected to find there I hardly know. What I did find was a large +chamber, as dingy as the rest of the house, and as much in need of +refreshing, with a long table down the middle, at which some twenty +persons sat eating, with the landlady presiding at the top. + +The company, who were of both sexes and chiefly elderly, seemed to me at +that first sight to be dressed in every variety of out-of-date clothes, +many of them rather shabby and some almost grotesque. + +Raising their faces from their plates they looked at me as I entered, +and I was so confused that I stood hesitating near the door until the +landlady called to me. + +"Come up here," she said, and when I had done so, and taken the seat by +her side, which had evidently been reserved for me, she whispered: + +"I don't think my sister mentioned your name, my dear. What is it?" + +I had no time to deliberate. + +"O'Neill," I whispered back, and thereupon my landlady, raising her +voice, and addressing the company as if they had been members of her +family, said: + +"Mrs. O'Neill, my dears." + +Then the ladies at the table inclined their heads at me and smiled, +while the men (especially those who were the most strangely dressed) +rose from their seats and bowed deeply. + + + + +EIGHTIETH CHAPTER + + +Of all houses in London this, I thought, was the least suitable to me. + +Looking down the table I told myself that it must be the very home of +idle gossip and the hot-bed of tittle-tattle. + +I was wrong. Hardly had I been in the house a day when I realised that +my fellow-guests were the most reserved and self-centred of all possible +people. + +One old gentleman who wore a heavy moustache, and had been a colonel in +the Indian army, was understood to be a student of Biblical prophecy, +having collected some thousands of texts which established the identity +of the British nation with the lost tribes of Israel. + +Another old gentleman, who wore a patriarchal beard and had taken orders +without securing a living, was believed to be writing a history of the +world and (after forty years of continuous labour) to have reached the +century before Christ. + +An elderly lady with a benign expression was said to be a tragic actress +who was studying in secret for a season at the National Theatre. + +Such, and of such kind, were my house-mates; and I have since been told +that every great city has many such groups of people, the great +prophets, the great historians, the great authors, the great actors whom +the world does not know--the odds and ends of humanity, thrown aside by +the rushing river of life into the gulley-ways that line its banks, the +odd brothers, the odd sisters, the odd uncles, the odd aunts, for whom +there is no place in the family, in society, or in the business of the +world. + +It was all very curious and pathetic, yet I think I should have been +safe, for a time at all events, in this little corner of London into +which chance had so strangely thrown me, but for one unfortunate +happening. + +That was the arrival of the daily newspaper. + +There was never more than a single copy. It came at eight in the morning +and was laid on the dining-room mantelpiece, from which (by an unwritten +law of the house) it was the duty as well as the honour of the person +who had first finished breakfast to take it up and read the most +startling part of the news to the rest of the company. + +Thus it occurred that on the third morning after my arrival I was +startled by the voice of the old colonel, who, standing back to the +fire, with the newspaper in his hand, cried: + +"Mysterious Disappearance of a Peeress." + +"Read it," said the old clergyman. + +The tea-cup which I was raising to my mouth trembled in my hand, and +when I set it down it rattled against the saucer. I knew what was +coming, and it came. + +The old colonel read: + +_"A telegram from Blackwater announces the mysterious disappearance of +the young wife of Lord Raa, which appears to have taken place late on +Thursday night or in the early hours of Friday morning. + +"It will be remembered that the missing lady was married a little more +than a year ago, and her disappearance is the more unaccountable from +the fact that during the past month she has been actively occupied in +preparing for a fźte in honour of her return home after a long and happy +honeymoon. + +"The pavilion in which the fźte was to have been held had been erected +on a headland between Castle Raa and a precipitous declivity to the sea, +and the only reasonable conjecture is that the unhappy lady, going out +on Thursday night to superintend the final preparations, lost her way in +the darkness and fell over the cliffs. + +"The fact that the hostess was missing was not generally known in Ellan +until the guests had begun to arrive for the reception on Friday +evening, when the large assembly broke up in great confusion. + +"Naturally much sympathy is felt for the grief-stricken husband."_ + + * * * * * + +After the colonel had finished reading I had an almost irresistible +impulse to scream, feeling sure that the moment my house-mates looked +into my face they must see that I was the person indicated. + +They did not look, and after a chorus of exclamations ("Most +mysterious!" "What can have become of her?" "On the eve of her fźte +too!") they began to discuss disappearances in general, each +illustrating his point by reference to the subject of his own study. + +"Perfectly extraordinary how people disappear nowadays," said one. + +"Extraordinary, sir?" said the old colonel, looking over his spectacles, +"why should it be extraordinary that one person should disappear when +whole nations--the ten tribes for example. . . ." + +"But that's a different thing altogether," said the old clergyman. "Now +if you had quoted Biblical examples--Elisha or perhaps Jonah. . . ." + +After the discussion had gone on for several minutes in this way I rose +from the table on my trembling limbs and slipped out of the room. + +It would take long to tell of the feverish days that followed--how +newspaper correspondents were sent from London to Ellan to inquire into +the circumstances of my disappearance; how the theory of accident gave +place to the theory of suicide, and the theory of suicide to the theory +of flight; how a porter on the pier at Blackwater said he had carried my +trunk to the steamer that sailed on Thursday midnight, thinking I was a +maid from the great house until I had given him half-a-crown (his proper +fee being threepence); how two female passengers had declared that a +person answering to my description had sailed with them to Liverpool; +how these clues had been followed up and had led to nothing; and how, +finally, the correspondents had concluded the whole incident of my +disappearance could not be more mysterious if I had been dropped from +mid-air into the middle of the Irish Sea. + +But then came another development. + +My father, who was reported to have received the news of my departure in +a way that suggested he had lost control of his senses (raging and +storming at my husband like a man demented), having come to the +conclusion that I, being in a physical condition peculiar to women, had +received a serious shock resulting in a loss of memory, offered five +hundred pounds reward for information that would lead to my discovery, +which was not only desirable to allay the distress of my heart-broken +family but urgently necessary to settle important questions of title and +inheritance. + +With this offer of a reward came a description of my personal +appearance. + +_"Age 20, a little under medium height; slight; very black hair; +lustrous dark eyes; regular features; pale face; grave expression; +unusually sunny smile."_ + +It would be impossible for me to say with what perturbation I heard +these reports read out by the old colonel and the old clergyman. Even +the nervous stirring of my spoon and the agitated clatter of my knife +and fork made me wonder that my house-mates did not realise the truth, +which must I thought, be plainly evident to all eyes. + +They never did, being so utterly immersed in their own theories. But all +the same I sometimes felt as if my fellow guests in that dingy house in +Bloomsbury were my judges and jury, and more than once, in my great +agitation, when the reports came near to the truth, I wanted to cry. +"Stop, stop, don't you see it is I?" + +That I never did so was due to the fact that, not knowing what legal +powers my father might have to compel my return to Ellan, the terror +that sat on me like a nightmare was that of being made the subject of a +public quarrel between my father and my husband, concerning the +legitimacy of my unborn child, with the shame and disgrace which that +would bring not only upon me but upon Martin. + +I had some reason for this fear. + +After my father's offer of a reward there came various spiteful +paragraphs (inspired, as I thought, by Alma and written by the clumsier +hand of my husband) saying it was reported in Ellan that, if my +disappearance was to be accounted for on the basis of flight, the only +"shock" I could have experienced must be a shock of conscience, rumour +having for some time associated my name with that of a person who was +not unknown in connection with Antarctic exploration. + +It was terrible. + +Day by day the motive of my disappearance became the sole topic of +conversation in our boarding-house. I think the landlady must have +provided an evening as well as a morning paper, for at tea in the +drawing-room upstairs the most recent reports were always being +discussed. + +After a while I realised that not only my house-mates but all London was +discussing my disappearance. + +It was a rule of our boarding-house that during certain hours of the day +everybody should go out as if he had business to go to, and having +nothing else to do I used to walk up and down the streets. In doing so I +was compelled to pass certain newsvendors' stalls, and I saw for several +days that nearly every placard had something about "the missing +peeress." + +When this occurred I would walk quickly along the thoroughfare with a +sense of being pursued and the feeling which a nervous woman has when +she is going down a dark corridor at night--that noiseless footsteps are +coming behind, and a hand may at any moment be laid on her shoulder. + +But nobody troubled me in the streets and the only person in our +boarding-house who seemed to suspect me was our landlady. She said +nothing, but when my lip was quivering while the old colonel read that +cruel word about Martin I caught her little grey eyes looking aslant at +me. + +One afternoon, her sister, the milliner, came to see me according to her +promise, and though she, too, said nothing, I saw that, while the old +colonel and the old clergyman were disputing on the hearthrug about +some disappearance which occurred thousands of years ago, she was +looking fixedly at the fingers with which, in my nervousness, I was +ruckling up the discoloured chintz of my chair. + +Then in a moment--I don't know why--it flashed upon me that my +travelling companion was in correspondence with my father. + +That idea became so insistent towards dinner-time that I made pretence +of being ill (which was not very difficult) to retire to my room, where +the cockney chambermaid wrung handkerchiefs out of vinegar and laid them +on my forehead to relieve my headache--though she increased it, poor +thing, by talking perpetually. + +Next morning the landlady came up to say that if, as she assumed from my +name, I was Irish and a Catholic, I might like to receive a visit from a +Sister of Mercy who called at the house at intervals to attend to the +sick. + +I thought I saw in a moment that this was a subterfuge, but feeling that +my identity was suspected I dared not give cause for further suspicion, +so I compelled myself to agree. + +A few minutes later, having got up and dressed, I was standing with my +back to the window, feeling like one who would soon have to face an +attack, when a soft footstep came up my corridor and a gentle hand +knocked at my door. + +"Come in," I cried, trembling like the last leaf at the end of a +swinging bough. + +And then an astonishing thing happened. + +A young woman stepped quietly into the room and closed the door behind +her. She was wearing the black and white habit of the Little Sisters of +the Poor, but I knew her long, pale, plain-featured face in an instant. + +A flood of shame, and at the same time a flood of joy swept over me at +the sight of her. + +It was Mildred Bankes. + + + + +EIGHTY-FIRST CHAPTER + + +"Mary," said Mildred, "speak low and tell me everything." + +She sat in my chair, I knelt by her side, took one of her hands in both +of mine, and told her. + +I told her that I had fled from my husband's house because I could not +bear to remain there any longer. + +I told her that my father had married me against my will, in spite of +my protests, when I was a child, and did not know that I had any right +to resist him. + +I told her that my father--God forgive me if I did him a wrong--did not +love me, that he had sacrificed my happiness to his lust of power, and +that if he were searching for me now it was only because my absence +disturbed his plans and hurt his pride. + +I told her that my husband did not love me either, and that he had +married me from the basest motives, merely to pay his debts and secure +an income. + +I told her, too, that not only did my husband not love me, but he loved +somebody else, that he had been cruel and brutal to me, and therefore +(for these and other reasons) I could not return to him under any +circumstances. + +While I was speaking I felt Mildred's hand twitching between mine, and +when I had finished she said: + +"But, my dear child, they told me your friends were broken-hearted about +you; that you had lost your memory and perhaps your reason, and +therefore it would be a good act to help them to send you home." + +"It's not true, it's not true," I said. + +And then in a low voice, as if afraid of being overheard, she told me +how she came to be there--that the woman who had travelled with me in +the train from Liverpool, seeing my father's offer of a reward, had +written to him to say that she knew where I was and only needed somebody +to establish my identity; that my father wished to come to London for +this purpose, but had been forbidden by his doctor; that our parish +priest, Father Donovan, had volunteered to come instead, but had been +prohibited by his Bishop; and finally that my father had written to his +lawyers in London, and Father Dan to her, knowing that she and I had +been together at the Sacred Heart in Rome, and that it was her work now +to look after lost ones and send them safely back to their people. + +"And now the lawyer and the doctors are downstairs," she said in a +whisper, "and they are only waiting for me to say who you are that they +may apply for an order to send you home." + +This terrified me so much that I made a fervent appeal to Mildred to +save me. + +"Oh, Mildred, save me, save me," I cried. + +"But how can I? how can I?" she asked. + +I saw what she meant, and thinking to touch her still more deeply I told +her the rest of my story. + +I told her that if I had fled from my husband's house it was not merely +because he had been cruel and brutal to me, but because I, too, loved +somebody else--somebody who was far away but was coming back, and there +was nothing I could not bear for him in the meantime, no pain or +suffering or loneliness, and when he returned he would protect me from +every danger, and we should love each other eternally. + +If I had not been so wildly agitated I should have known that this was +the wrong way with Mildred, and it was not until I had said it all in a +rush of whispered words that I saw her eyes fixed on me as if they were +about to start from their sockets. + +"But, my dear, dear child," she said, "this is worse and worse. Your +father and your husband may have done wrong, but you have done wrong +too. Don't you see you have?" + +I did not tell her that I had thought of all that before, and did not +believe any longer that God would punish me for breaking a bond I had +been forced to make. But when she was about to rise, saying that after +all it would be a good thing to send me home before I had time to join +my life to his--whoever he was--who had led me to forget my duty as a +wife, I held her trembling hands and whispered: + +"Wait, Mildred. There is something I have not told you even yet." + +"What is it?" she asked, but already I could see that she knew what I +was going to say. + +"Mildred," I said, "if I ran away from my husband it was not merely +because I loved somebody else, but because. . . ." + +I could not say it. Do what I would I could not. But holy women like +Mildred, who spend their lives among the lost ones, have a way of +reading a woman's heart when it is in trouble, and Mildred read mine. + +"Do you mean that . . . that there are consequences . . . going to be?" +she whispered. + +"Yes." + +"Does your husband know?" + +"Yes." + +"And your father?" + +"No." + +Mildred drew her hand away from me and crossed herself, saying beneath +her breath: + +"Oh Mother of my God!" + +I felt more humbled than I had ever been before, but after a while I +said: + +"Now you see why I can never go back. And you will save me, will you +not?" + +There was silence for some moments. Mildred had drawn back in her chair +as if an evil spirit had passed between us But at length she said: + +"It is not for me to judge you, Mary. But the gentlemen will come up +soon to know if you are the Mary O'Neill whom I knew at the Sacred +Heart, and what am I to say to them?" + +"Say no," I cried. "Why shouldn't you? They'll never know anything to +the contrary. Nobody will know." + +"Nobody?" + +I knew what Mildred meant, and in my shame and confusion I tried to +excuse myself by telling her who the other woman was. + +"It is Alma," I said. + +"Alma? Alma Lier?" + +"Yes." + +And then I told her how Alma had come back into my life, how she had +tortured and tempted me, and was now trying to persuade my husband, who +was a Protestant, to divorce me that she might take my place. + +And then I spoke of Martin again--I could not help it--saying that the +shame which Alma would bring on him would be a greater grief to me than +anything else that could befall me in this world. + +"If you only knew who he is," I said, "and the honour he is held in, you +would know that I would rather die a thousand deaths than that any +disgrace should fall on him through me." + +I could see that Mildred was deeply moved at this, and though I did not +intend to play upon her feelings, yet in the selfishness of my great +love I could not help doing so. + +"You were the first of my girl friends, Mildred--the very first. Don't +you remember the morning after I arrived at school? They had torn me +away from my mother, and I was so little and lonely, but you were so +sweet and kind. You took me into church for my first visitation, and +then into the garden for my first rosary--don't you remember it?" + +Mildred had closed her eyes. Her face was becoming very white. + +"And then don't you remember the day the news came that my mother was +very ill, and I was to go home? You came to see me off at the station, +and don't you remember what you said when we were sitting in the train? +You said we might never meet again, because our circumstances would be +so different. You didn't think we should meet like this, did you?" + +Mildred's face was growing deadly white. + +"My darling mother died. She was all I had in the world and I was all +she had, and when she was gone there was no place for me in my father's +house, so I was sent back to school. But the Reverend Mother was very +kind to me, and the end of it was that I wished to become a nun. Yes +indeed, and never so much as on the day you took your vows." + +Mildred's eyes were still closed, but her eyelids were fluttering and +she was breathing audibly. + +"How well I remember it! The sweet summer morning and the snow-white +sunshine, and the white flowers and the white chapel of the Little +Sisters, and then you dressed as a bride in your white gown and long +white veil. I cried all through the ceremony. And if my father had not +come for me then, perhaps I should have been a nun like you now." + +Mildred's lips were moving. I was sure she was praying to our Lady for +strength to resist my pleading, yet that only made me plead the harder. + +"But God knows best what our hearts are made for," I said. "He knows +that mine was made for love. And though you may not think it I know God +knows that he who is away is my real husband--not the one they married +me to. You will not separate us, will you? All our happiness--his and +mine--is in your hands. You will save us, will you not?" + +Some time passed before Mildred spoke. It may have been only a few +moments, but to me it seemed like an eternity. I did not know then that +Mildred was reluctant to extinguish the last spark of hope in me. At +length she said: + +"Mary, you don't know what you are asking me to do. When I took my vows +I promised to speak the truth under all circumstances, no matter what +the consequences, as surely as I should answer to God at the great Day +of Judgment. Yet you wish me to lie. How can I? How can I? Remember my +vows, my duty." + +I think the next few minutes must have been the most evil of all my +life. When I saw, or thought I saw, that, though one word would save me, +one little word, Mildred intended to give me away to the men +downstairs, I leapt to my feet and burst out on her with the bitterest +reproaches. + +"You religious women are always talking about your duty," I cried. "You +never think about love. Love is kind and merciful; but no, duty, always +duty! Love indeed! What do you cold creatures out of the convent, with +your crosses and rosaries, know about love--real love--the blazing fire +in a woman's heart when she loves somebody so much that she would give +her heart's blood for him--yes, and her soul itself if need be." + +What else I said I cannot remember, for I did not know what I was doing +until I found myself looking out of the window and panting for breath. + +Then I became aware that Mildred was making no reply to my reproaches, +and looking over my shoulder I saw that she was still sitting in my +chair with both her hands covering her face and the tears trickling +through her fingers on to the linen of her habit. + +That conquered me in a moment. + +I was seized with such remorse that I wished to throw my arms about her +neck and kiss her. I dared not do that, now, but I knelt by her side +again and asked her to forgive me. + +"Forgive me, sister," I said. "I see now that God has brought us to this +pass and there is no way out of it. You must do what you think is right. +I shall always know you couldn't have done otherwise. _He_ will know +too. And if it must be that disgrace is to fall on him through me . . . +and that when he comes home he will find. . . ." + +But I could not bear to speak about that, so I dropped my head on +Mildred's lap. + +During the silence that followed we heard the sound of footsteps coming +up the stairs. + +"Listen! They're here," said Mildred. "Get up. Say nothing. Leave +everything to me." + +I rose quickly and returned to the window. Mildred dried her eyes, got +up from the chair and stood with her back to the fire-place. + +There was a knock at my door. I do not know which of us answered it, but +my landlady came into the room, followed by three men in tall silk hats. + +"Excuse us, my dear," she said, in an insincere voice. "These gentlemen +are making an examination of the house, and they wish to see your room. +May they?" + +I do not think I made any reply. I was holding my breath and watching +intently. The men made a pretence of glancing round, but I could see +they were looking at Mildred. Their looks seemed to say as plainly as +words could speak: + +"Is it she?" + +Mildred hesitated for a moment, there was a dreadful silence and +then--may the holy Virgin bless her!--she shook her head. + +I could bear no more. I turned back to the window. The men, who had +looked at each other with expressions of surprise, tried to talk +together in ordinary tones as if on common place subjects. + +"So there's nothing to do here, apparently." + +"Apparently not." + +"Let's go, then. Good day, Sister. Sorry to have troubled you." + +I heard the door close behind them. I heard their low voices as they +passed along the corridor. I heard their slow footsteps as they went +down the stairs. And then, feeling as if my heart would burst, I turned +to throw myself at Sister Mildred's feet. + +But Sister Mildred was on her knees, with her face buried in my bed, +praying fervently. + + + + +EIGHTY-SECOND CHAPTER + + +I did not know then, and it seems unnecessary to say now, why my father +gave up the search for me in London. He did so, and from the day the +milliner's clue failed him I moved about freely. + +Then from the sense of being watched I passed into that of being lost. + +Sister Mildred was my only friend in London, but she was practically cut +off from me. The Little Sisters had fixed her up (in the interests of +her work among the lost ones) in a tiny flat at the top of a lofty +building near Piccadilly, where her lighted window always reminded me of +a lighthouse on the edge of a dangerous reef. But in giving me her +address she warned me not to come to her except in case of urgent need +partly because further intercourse might discredit her denial, and +partly because it would not be good for me to be called "one of Sister +Veronica's girls"--that being Mildred's name as a nun. + +Oh the awful loneliness of London! + +Others just as friendless have wandered in the streets of the big city. +I knew I was not the first, and I am sure I have not been the last to +find London the most solitary place in the world. But I really and truly +think there was one day of the week when, from causes peculiar to my +situation, my loneliness must have been deeper than that of the most +friendless refugee. + +Nearly every boarder in our boarding-house used to receive once a week +or once a month a letter containing a remittance from some unknown +source, with which he paid his landlady and discharged his other +obligations. + +I had no such letter to receive, so to keep up the character I had not +made but allowed myself to maintain (of being a commander's wife) I used +to go out once a week under pretence of calling at a shipping office to +draw part of my husband's pay. + +In my childish ignorance of the habits of business people I selected +Saturday afternoon for this purpose; and in my fear of encountering my +husband, or my husband's friends in the West End streets, I chose the +less conspicuous thoroughfares at the other side of the river. + +Oh, the wearisome walks I had on Saturday afternoons, wet or dry, down +the Seven Dials, across Trafalgar Square, along Whitehall, round the +eastern end of the Houses of Parliament, and past Westminster Pier (dear +to me from one poignant memory), and so on and on into the monotonous +and inconspicuous streets beyond. + +Towards nightfall I would return, generally by the footway across +Hungerford Bridge, which is thereby associated with the most painful +moments of my life, for nowhere else did I feel quite so helpless and so +lonely. + +The trains out of Charing Cross shrieking past me, the dark river +flowing beneath, the steamers whistling under the bridge, the +automobiles tooting along the Embankment, the clanging of the electric +cars, the arc lamps burning over the hotels and the open flares blazing +over the theatres--all the never-resting life of London--and myself in +the midst of the tumultuous solitude, a friendless and homeless girl. + +But God in His mercy saved me from all that--saved me too, in ways in +which it was only possible to save a woman. + +The first way was through my vanity. + +Glancing at myself in my mottled mirror one morning I was shocked to see +that what with my loneliness and my weary walks I was losing my looks, +for my cheeks were hollow, my nose was pinched, my eyes were heavy with +dark rings underneath them, and I was plainer than Martin had ever seen +me. + +This frightened me. + +It would be ridiculous to tell all the foolish things I did after that +to improve and preserve my appearance for Martin's sake, because every +girl whose sweetheart is away knows quite well, and it is not important +that anybody else should. + +There was a florist's shop in Southampton Row, and I went there every +morning for a little flower which I wore in the breast of my bodice, +making believe to myself that Martin had given it to me. + +There was a jeweller's shop there too, and I sold my wedding ring +(having long felt as if it burnt my finger) and bought another wedding +ring with an inscription on the inside "_From Martin to Mary_." + +As a result of all this caressing of myself I saw after a while, to my +great joy, that my good looks were coming back; and it would be silly to +say what a thrill of delight I had when, going into the drawing-room of +our boarding-house one day, the old actress called me "Beauty" instead +of the name I had hitherto been known by. + +The second way in which God saved me from my loneliness was through my +condition. + +I did not yet know what angel was whispering to me out of the physical +phase I was passing through, when suddenly I became possessed by a +passion for children. + +It was just as if a whole new world of humanity sprang into life for me +by magic. When I went out for my walks in the streets I ceased to be +conscious of the faces of men and women, and it seemed as if London were +peopled by children only. + +I saw no more of the crowds going their different ways like ants on an +ant-hill, but I could not let a perambulator pass without peering under +the lace of the hood at the little cherub face whose angel eyes looked +up at me. + +There was an asylum for children suffering from incurable diseases in +the smaller square beside our boarding-house, and every morning after +breakfast, no matter how cold the day might be, I would open my window +to hear the cheerful voices of the suffering darlings singing their +hymn: + + "_There's a Friend for little children, + Above the bright blue sky_." + +Thus six weeks passed, Christmas approached, and the sad old city began +to look glad and young and gay. + +Since a certain night at Castle Raa I had had a vague feeling that I had +thrown myself out of the pale of the Church, therefore I had never gone +to service since I came to London, and had almost forgotten that +confession and the mass used to be sweet to me. + +But going home one evening in the deepening London fog (for the weather +had begun to be frosty) I saw, through the open doors of a Catholic +church, a great many lights in a side chapel, and found they were from a +little illuminated model of the Nativity with the Virgin and Child in +the stable among the straw. A group of untidy children were looking at +it with bright beady eyes and chattering under their breath, while a +black-robed janitor was rattling his keys to make them behave. + +This brought back the memory of Rome and of Sister Angela. But it also +made me think of Martin, and remember his speech at the public dinner, +about saying the prayers for the day with his comrades, that they might +feel that they were not cut off from the company of Christian men. + +So telling myself he must be back by this time on that lonely plateau +that guards the Pole, I resolved (without thinking of the difference of +time) to go to mass on Christmas morning, in order to be doing the same +thing as Martin at the same moment. + +With this in my mind I returned to our boarding-house and found +Christmas there too, for on looking into the drawing-room on my way +upstairs I saw the old actress, standing on a chair, hanging holly which +the old colonel with old-fashioned courtesy was handing up to her. + +They were cackling away like two old hens when they caught sight of me, +whereupon the old actress cried: + +"Ah, here's Beauty!" + +Then she asked me if I would like a ticket for a dress rehearsal on +Christmas Eve of a Christmas pantomime. + +"The audience will be chiefly children out of the lanes and alleys round +about, but perhaps you won't mind that," she said. + +I told her I should be overjoyed, and at two o'clock the following +afternoon I was in my seat at the corner of the dress-circle of the +great theatre, from which I could see both the stage and the auditorium. + +The vast place was packed with children from ceiling to floor, and I +could see the invisible hands of thousands of mothers who had put the +girls into clean pinafores and brushed and oiled the tousled heads of +the boys. + +How their eager faces glistened! How sad they looked when the wicked +sisters left Cinderella alone in the kitchen! How bright when the +glittering fairy godmother came to visit her! How their little dangling +feet clapped together with joy when the pretty maid went off to the ball +behind six little ponies which pranced along under the magical moonlight +in the falling snow! + +But the part of the performance which they liked best was their own part +when, in the interval, the band struck up one of the songs they sang in +their lanes and alleys: + + "_Yew aw the enny, Oi em ther bee, + Oi'd like ter sip ther enny from those red lips yew see_." + +That was so loaded with the memory of one of the happiest days of my +life (the day I went with Martin to see the _Scotia_) that, in the +yearning of the motherhood still unborn in me, I felt as if I should +like to gather the whole screaming houseful of happy children to my +breast. + +But oh why, why, why, does not Providence warn us when we are on the +edge of tragic things? + +The pantomime rehearsal being over I was hurrying home (for the evening +was cold, though I was so warm within) when I became aware of a number +of newsmen who were flying up from the direction of the Strand, crying +their papers at the top of their voice. + +I did not usually listen to such people, but I was compelled to do so +now, for they were all around me. + +"_Paper--third e'shen--loss of the Sco-sha_." + +The cry fell on me like a thunderbolt. An indescribable terror seized +me. I felt paralysed and stood dead still. People were buying copies of +the papers, and at first I made a feeble effort to do the same. But my +voice was faint; the newsman did not hear me and he went flying past. + +"_Paper--third e'shen--reported loss of the Sco-sha_." + +After that I dared not ask for a paper. Literally I dared not. I dared +not know the truth. I dared not see the dreadful fact in print. + +So I began to hurry home. But as I passed through the streets, stunned, +stupefied, perspiring, feeling as if I were running away from some +malignant curse, the newsmen seemed to be pursuing me, for they were +darting out from every street. + +"_Paper--third e'shen--loss of the Sco-sha_." + +Faster and faster I hurried along. But the awful cry was always ringing +in my ears, behind, before, and on either side. + +When I reached our boarding-house my limbs could scarcely support me. I +had hardly strength enough to pull the bell. And before our young waiter +had opened the door two news men, crossing the square, were crying: + +"_Paper--third edition--reported loss of the 'Scotia.'_" + + + + +EIGHTY-THIRD CHAPTER + + +As I passed through the hall the old colonel and the old clergyman were +standing by the dining-room door. They were talking excitedly, and while +I was going upstairs, panting hard and holding on by the handrail, I +heard part of their conversation. + +"Scotia was the name of the South Pole ship, wasn't it?" + +"Certainly it was. We must send young John out for a paper." + +Reaching my room I dropped into my chair. My faculties had so failed me +that for some minutes I was unable to think. Presently my tired brain +recalled the word "Reported" and to that my last hope began to cling as +a drowning sailor clings to a drifting spar. + +After a while I heard some of our boarders talking on the floor below. +Opening my door and listening eagerly I heard one of them say, in such a +casual tone: + +"Rather sad--this South Pole business, isn't it?" + +"Yes, if it's true." + +"Doesn't seem much doubt about that--unless there are two ships of the +same name, you know." + +At that my heart leapt up. I had now two rafts to cling to. Just then +the gong sounded, and my anxiety compelled me to go down to tea. + +As I entered the drawing-room the old colonel was unfolding a newspaper. + +"Here we are," he was saying. "Reported loss of the _Scotia_--Appalling +Antarctic Calamity." + +I tried to slide into the seat nearest to the door, but the old actress +made room for me on the sofa close to the tea-table. + +"You enjoyed the rehearsal? Yes?" she whispered. + +"Hush!" said our landlady, handing me a cup of tea, and then the old +colonel, standing back to the fire, began to read. + +_"Telegrams from New Zealand report the picking up of large fragments of +a ship which were floating from the Antarctic seas. Among them were the +bulwarks, some portions of the deck cargo, and the stern of a boat, +bearing the name 'Scotia.' + +"Grave fears are entertained that these fragments belong to the schooner +of the South Pole expedition, which left Akaroa a few weeks ago, and the +character of some of the remnants (being vital parts of a ship's +structure) lead to the inference that the vessel herself must have +foundered."_ + +"Well, well," said the old clergyman, with his mouth full of buttered +toast. + +The walls of the room seemed to be moving around me. I could scarcely +see; I could scarcely hear. + +_"Naturally there can be no absolute certainty that the 'Scotia' may not +be still afloat, or that the members of the expedition may not have +reached a place of safety, but the presence of large pieces of ice +attached to some of the fragments seem to the best authorities to favour +the theory that the unfortunate vessel was struck by one of the huge +icebergs which have lately been floating up from the direction of the +Admiralty Mountains, and in that case her fate will probably remain one +of the many insoluble mysteries of the ocean."_ + +"Now that's what one might call the irony of fate," said the old +clergyman, "seeing that the object of the expedition . . ." + +"Hush!" + +_"While the sympathy of the public will be extended to the families of +all the explorers who have apparently perished in a brave effort to +protect mankind from one of the worst dangers of the great deep, the +entire world will mourn the loss (as we fear it may be) of the heroic +young Commander, Doctor Martin Conrad, who certainly belonged to the +ever-diminishing race of dauntless and intrepid souls who seem to be +born will that sacred courage which leads men to render up their lives +at the lure of the Unknown and the call of a great idea."_ + +I felt as if I were drowning. At one moment there was the shrieking of +waves about my face; at the next the rolling of billows over my head. + +_"Though it seems only too certain . . . this sacred courage quenched +. . . let us not think such lives as his are wasted . . . only wasted +lives . . . lives given up . . . inglorious ease . . . pursuit of idle +amusements. . . . Therefore let loved ones left behind . . . take +comfort . . . inspiring thought . . . if lost . . . not died in vain . . . +Never pleasure but Death . . . the lure that draws true hearts. . . ."_ + +I heard no more. The old colonel's voice, which had been beating on my +brain like a hammer, seemed to die away in the distance. + +"How hard you are breathing. What is amiss?" said our landlady. + +I made no reply. Rising to my feet I became giddy and held on to the +table cloth to prevent myself from falling. + +The landlady jumped up to protect her crockery and at the same moment +the old actress led me from the room. I excused myself on the ground of +faintness, and the heat of the house after my quick walk home from the +theatre. + +Back in my bedroom my limbs gave way and I sank to the floor with my +head on the chair. There was no uncertainty for me now. It was all over. +The great love which had engrossed my life had gone. + +In the overwhelming shock of that moment I could not think of the +world's loss. I could not even think of Martin's. I could only think of +my own, and once more I felt as if something of myself had been torn out +of my breast. + +"Why? Why?" I was crying in the depths of my heart--why, when I was so +utterly alone, so helpless and so friendless, had the light by which I +lived been quenched. + +After a while the gong sounded for dinner. I got up and lay on the bed. +The young waiter brought up some dishes on a tray. I sent them down +again. Then time passed and again I heard voices on the floor below. + +"Rough on that young peeress if Conrad has gone down, eh?" + +"What peeress?" + +"Don't you remember--the one who ran away from that reprobate Raa?" + +"Ah, yes, certainly. I remember now." + +"Of course, Conrad was the man pointed at, and perhaps if he had lived +to come back he might have stood up for the poor thing, but now. . . ." + +"Ah, well, that's the way, you see." + +The long night passed. + +Sometimes it seemed to go with feet of lead, sometimes with galloping +footsteps. I remember that the clocks outside seemed to strike every few +minutes, and then not to strike at all. At one moment I heard the bells +of a neighbouring church ringing merrily, and by that I knew it was +Christmas morning. + +I did not sleep during the first hours of night, but somewhere in the +blank reaches of that short space between night and day (like the +slack-water between ebb and flow), which is the only time when London +rests, I fell into a troubled doze. + +I wish I had not done so, for at the first moment of returning +consciousness I had that sense, so familiar to bereaved ones, of memory +rushing over me like a surging tide. I did not cry, but I felt as if my +heart were bleeding. + +The morning dawned dark and foggy. In the thick air of my room the +window looked at me like a human eye scaled with cataract. It was my +first experience of a real London fog and I was glad of it. If there had +been one ray of sunshine that morning I think my heart would have +broken. + +The cockney chambermaid came with her jug of hot water and wished me "a +merry Christmas." I did my best to answer her. + +The young waiter came with my breakfast. I told him to set it down, but +I did not touch it. + +Then the cockney chambermaid came back to make up my room and, finding +me still in bed, asked if I would like a fire. I answered "Yes," and +while she was lighting a handful between the two bars of my little grate +she talked of the news in the newspaper. + +"It don't do to speak no harm of the dead, but as to them men as 'ad a +collusion with a iceberg in the Australier sea, serve 'em jolly well +right I say. What was they a-doing down there, risking their lives for +nothing, when they ought to have been a-thinking of their wives and +children. My Tom wanted to go for a sailor, but I wouldn't let him! Not +me! 'If you're married to a sailor,' says I, ''alf your time you never +knows whether you 'as a 'usband or 'asn't.' 'Talk sense,' says Tom. 'I +_am_ a-talking sense,' says I, 'and then think of the kiddies,' I says." + +After a while I got up and dressed and sat long hours before the fire. I +tried to think of others beside myself who must be suffering from the +same disaster--especially of Martin's mother and the good old doctor. I +pictured the sweet kitchen-parlour in Sunny Lodge, with the bright +silver bowls on the high mantelpiece. There was no fire under the +_slouree_ now. The light of that house was out, and two old people were +sitting on either side of a cold hearth. + +I passed in review my maidenhood, my marriage, and my love, and told +myself that the darkest days of my loneliness in London had hitherto +been relieved by one bright hope. I had only to live on and Martin would +come back to me. But now I was utterly alone, I was in the presence of +nothingness. The sanctuary within me where Martin had lived was only a +cemetery of the soul. + +"Why? Why? Why?" I cried again, but there was no answer. + +Thus I passed my Christmas Day (for which I had formed such different +plans), and I hardly knew if it was for punishment or warning that I was +at last compelled to think of something besides my own loss. + +My unborn child! + +No man on earth can know anything about that tragic prospect, though +millions of women must have had to face it. To have a child coming that +is doomed before its birth to be fatherless--there is nothing in the +world like that. + +I think the bitterest part of my grief was that nobody could ever know. +If Martin had lived he would have leapt to acknowledge his offspring in +spite of all the laws and conventions of life. But being dead he could +not be charged with it. Therefore the name of the father of my unborn +child must never, never, never be disclosed. + +The thickening of the fog told me that the day was passing. + +It passed. The houses on the opposite side of the square vanished in a +vaporous, yellow haze, and their lighted windows were like rows of +bloodshot eyes looking out of the blackness. + +Except the young waiter and the chambermaid nobody visited me until a +little before dinner time. Then the old actress came up, rather +fantastically dressed (with a kind of laurel crown on her head), to say +that the boarders were going to have a dance and wished me to join +them. I excused myself on the ground of headache, and she said: + +"Young women often suffer from it. It's a pity, though! Christmas night, +too!" + +Not long after she had gone, I heard, through the frequent tooting of +the taxis in the street, the sound of old-fashioned waltzes being played +on the piano, and then a dull thudding noise on the floor below, mingled +with laughter, which told me that the old boarders were dancing. + +I dare say my head was becoming light. I had eaten nothing for nearly +forty hours, and perhaps the great shock which chance had given me had +brought me near to the blank shadowland which is death. + +I remember that in some vague way there arose before me a desire to die. +It was not to be suicide--my religion saved me from that--but death by +exhaustion, by continuing to abstain from food, having no desire for it. + +Martin was gone--what was there to live for? Had I not better die before +my child came to life? And if I could go where Martin was I should be +with him eternally. + +Still I did not weep, but--whether audibly or only in the unconscious +depths of my soul--more than once I cried to Martin by name. + +"Martin! Martin! I am coming to you!" + +I was in this mood (sitting in my chair as I had done all day and +staring into the small slow fire which was slipping to the bottom of the +grate) when I heard a soft step in the corridor outside. At the next +moment my door was opened noiselessly, and somebody stepped into the +room. + +It was Mildred, and she knelt by my side and said in a low voice: + +"You are in still deeper trouble, Mary--tell me." + +I tried to pour out my heart to her as to a mother, but I could not do +so, and indeed there was no necessity. The thought that must have rushed +into my eyes was instantly reflected in hers. + +"It is he, isn't it?" she whispered, and I could only bow my head. + +"I thought so from the first," she said. "And now you are thinking of +. . . of what is to come?" + +Again I could only bow, but Mildred put her arms about me and said: + +"Don't lose heart, dear. Our Blessed Lady sent me to take care of you. +And I will--I will." + + +MEMORANDUM BY MARTIN CONRAD + +Surely Chance must be the damnedest conspirator against human happiness, +or my darling could never have been allowed to suffer so much from the +report that my ship was lost. + +What actually happened is easily told. + +Two days after we left Akaroa, N.Z., which was the last we saw of the +world before we set our faces towards the Unknown, we ran into a heavy +lumpy sea and made bad weather of it for forty-eight hours. + +Going at good speed, however, we proceeded south on meridian 179 degrees +E., latitude 68, when (just as we were sighting the Admiralty Mountains, +our first glimpse of the regions of the Pole) we encountered a +south-westerly gale, which, with our cumbersome deck cargo, made the +handling of the ship difficult. + +Nevertheless the _Scotia_ rode bravely for several hours over the +mountainous seas, though sometimes she rolled fifty degrees from side to +side. + +Towards nightfall we shipped a good deal of water; the sea smashed in +part of our starboard bulwarks, destroyed the upper deck, washed out the +galley, carried off two of our life boats and sent other large fragments +of the vessel floating away to leeward. + +At last the pumps became choked, and the water found its way to the +engine-room. So to prevent further disaster we put out the fires, and +then started, all hands, to bale out with buckets. + +It was a sight to see every man-jack at work on that job (scientific +staff included), and you would not have thought our spirits were much +damped, whatever our bodies may have been, if you had been there when I +cried, "Are we downhearted, shipmates?" and heard the shout that came up +from fifty men (some of them waist deep in the water): + +"No!" + +We had a stiff tussle until after midnight, but we stuck hard, and +before we turned into our bunks, we had fought the sea and beaten it. + +Next morning broke fine and clear, with that fresh crisp air of the +Antarctic which is the same to the explorer as the sniff of battle to +the warhorse, and no sign of the storm except the sight of some +lead-white icebergs which had been torn from the islands south-west of +us. + +Everybody was in high spirits at breakfast, and when one of the company +started "Sweethearts and Wives" all hands joined in the chorus, and +(voice or no voice) I had a bit of a go at it myself. + +It is not the most solemn music ever slung together, but perhaps no +anthem sung in a cathedral has ascended to heaven with a heartier spirit +of thanksgiving. + +When I went up on deck again, though, I saw that enough of our "wooden +walls" had gone overboard to give "scarey people" the impression (if +things were ever picked up, as I knew they would be, for the set of the +current was to the north-east) that we had foundered, and that made me +think of my dear one. + +We had no wireless aboard, and the ship would not be going back to New +Zealand until March, so I was helpless to correct the error; but I +determined that the very first message from the very first station I set +up on the Antarctic continent should be sent to her to say that I was +safe and everything going splendid. + +What happened on Christmas day is a longer story. + +On the eighteenth of December, having landed some of my deck cargo and +provisions, and sent up my ship to winter quarters, I was on my way, +with ponies, dogs, and sledges and a large company of men, all in A1 +condition, to the lower summit of Mount Erebus, for I intended to set up +my first electric-power-wave station there--that being high enough, we +thought, to permit of a message reaching the plateau of the Polar zone +and low enough (allowing for the curvature of the earth) to cover the +maximum distance in a northerly direction. + +It was a long reach, but we chose the rocky ridges and moraines, trying +to avoid the crevassed glaciers, and all went well until the twentieth, +when just as we were reaching the steeper gradients a strong wind sprang +up, blowing straight down the course before us. + +All day long we toiled against it, but the weather grew worse, with +gusts of sleet and snow, until the wind reached the force of a hurricane +and the temperature fell to 28 degrees below zero. + +There was nothing to do but to wait for the blizzard to blow itself out, +so we plugged down our tents in the shelter of the rocky side of a +ravine that had an immense snow-field behind it. + +The first night was bad enough, for the canvas of one tent flew into +ribbons, and the poor chaps in it had to lie uncovered in their +half-frozen sleeping-bags until morning. + +All through the twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third the storm +continued, sweeping with terrific force down the ravine, and whirling +the snow in dense masses from the snow-field overhead. + +Christmas Eve was worse, with the temperature down to 38 degrees below +zero and the wind up to eighty miles an hour in gusts, and during the +greater part of Christmas Day we were all confined to our sleeping-bags +and half buried in the snow that had drifted in on us. + +As a consequence we had no religious service, and if anybody said a De +Profundis it was between his crackling lips under his frozen beard. We +had no Christmas dinner either, except a few Plasmon biscuits and a nip +of brandy and water, which were served out by good old O'Sullivan who +had come with me as doctor to the expedition. + +On St. Stephen's Day I made a round of the camp and found the ponies +suffering terribly and the dogs badly hit. The storm was telling on the +men too, for some of them were down with dysentery, and the toes of one +poor chap were black from frostbite. + +I was fit enough myself, thank God, but suffering from want of sleep or +rather from a restless feeling which broken sleep brought with it. + +The real truth is that never since I sailed had I been able to shake off +the backward thought that I ought not to have left my dear one behind +me. In active work, like the gale, I could dismiss the idea of her +danger; but now that I had nothing to do but to lie like a log in a +sleeping-bag, I suffered terribly from my recollection of her +self-sacrifice and my fear of the consequences that might come of it. + +This was not so bad in the daytime, for even in the midst of the +whirling snow and roaring wind I had only to close my eyes, and I could +see her as she came up the road in the sunshine that Sunday morning when +she was returning from church in her drooping hat and fluttering veil, +or as she looked at me with her great "seeing eyes" at the last moment +of all when she compelled me to come away. + +But the night was the devil. No sooner did I drop off to sleep than I +awoke with a start at the sound of her voice calling me by my name. + +"Martin! Martin!" + +It was always a voice of distress, and though I am no dreamer and I +think no crank, I could not get away from the idea that she was crying +to me to come back. + +That was about the one thing in the world that was impossible to me now, +and yet I knew that getting assurance from somewhere that my dear one +was being cared for was the only way to set my mind at rest for the job +that was before me. + +It may seem ridiculous that I should have thought of that, but everybody +who has ever been with Nature in her mighty solitudes, aloof from the +tides of life, knows that the soul of man is susceptible down there to +signs which would seem childish amid the noise and bustle of the world. + +It was like that with me. + +I shared my tent with O'Sullivan, the chief of our scientific staff, and +Treacle, who thought it his duty to take care of me, though the work was +generally the other way about. + +The old salt had been badly battered, and I had not liked the way he had +been mumbling about "mother," which is not a good sign in a stalwart +chap when his strength is getting low. + +So while buttoning up the tent on the night after Christmas Day I was a +bit touched up to see old Treacle, who had lived the life of a rip, +fumbling at his breast and hauling something out with an effort. + +It was a wooden image of the Virgin (about the length of my hand) daubed +over with gilt and blue paint, and when he stuck it up in front of his +face as he lay in his sleeping-bag, I knew that he expected to go out +before morning, and wished _that_ to be the last thing his old eyes +should rest on. + +I am not much of a man for saints myself (having found that we get out +of tight places middling well without them), but perhaps what Treacle +did got down into some secret place of my soul, for I felt calmer as I +fell asleep, and when I awoke it was not from the sound of my darling's +voice, but from a sort of deafening silence. + +The roaring of the wind had ceased; the blizzard was over; the lamp that +hung from the staff of the tent had gone out; and there was a sheet of +light coming in from an aperture in the canvas. + +It was the midnight sun of the Antarctic, and when I raised my head I +saw that it fell full on the little gilded image of the Virgin. Anybody +who has never been where I was then may laugh if he likes and welcome, +but that was enough for me. It was all right! Somebody was looking after +my dear one! + +I shouted to my shipmates to get up and make ready, and at dawn, when we +started afresh on our journey, there may have been dark clouds over our +heads but the sun was shining inside of us. + +M.C. + +[END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM] + + + + +EIGHTY-FOURTH CHAPTER + + +Sister Mildred was right. Our Blessed Lady must have interceded for me, +because help came immediately. + +I awoke on St. Stephen's morning with that thrilling emotion which every +mother knows to be the first real and certain consciousness of +motherhood. + +It is not for me to describe the physical effects of that great change. +But the spiritual effect is another matter. It was like that of a +miracle. God in his great mercy, looking down on me in my sorrow, had +sent one of His ministering angels to comfort me. + +It seemed to say: + +"Don't be afraid. He who went away is not lost to you. Something of +himself is about to return." + +I felt no longer that I was to be left alone in my prison-house of +London, because Martin's child was to bear me company--to be a link +between us, an everlasting bond, so that he and I should be together to +the end. + +I tremble to say what interpretation I put upon all this--how it seemed +to be a justification of what I did on the night before Martin left +Ellan, as if God, knowing he would not return, had prompted me, so that +when my dark hour came I might have this great hope for my comforter. + +And oh how wonderful it was, how strange, how mysterious, how joyful! + +Every day and all day and always I was conscious of my unborn child, as +a fluttering bird held captive in the hand. The mystery and the joy of +the coming life soothed away my sorrow, and if I had shed any tears they +would have dried them. + +And then the future! + +I seemed to know from the first that it was to be a girl, and already I +could see her face and look into her sea-blue eyes. As she grew up I +would talk to her of her father--the brave explorer, the man of destiny, +who laid down his life in a great work for the world. We should always +be talking of him--we two alone together, because he belonged to us and +nobody else in the world besides. Everything I have written here I +should tell her--at least the beautiful part of it, the part about our +love, which nothing in life, and not even death itself, could quench. + +Oh the joy of those days! It may seem strange that I should have been so +happy so soon after my bereavement, but I cannot help it if it was so, +and it _was_ so. + +Perhaps it was a sort of hysteria, due to the great change in my +physical condition. I do not know. I do not think I want to know. But +one thing is sure--that hope and prayer and the desire of life awoke in +me again, as by the touch of God's own hand, and I became another and a +happier woman. + +Such was the condition in which Mildred found me when she returned a few +days later. Then she brought me down plump to material matters. We had +first to consider the questions of ways and means, in order to find out +how to face the future. + +It was the beginning of January, my appointed time was in June, and I +had only some sixteen pounds of my money left, so it was clear that I +could not stay in the boarding-house much longer. + +Happily Mildred knew of homes where women could live inexpensively +during their period of waiting. They were partly philanthropic and +therefore subject to certain regulations, which my resolute +determination (not to mention Martin's name, or permit it to be +mentioned) might make it difficult for me to observe, but Mildred hoped +to find one that would take me on her recommendation without asking +further question. + +In this expectation we set out in search of a Maternity Home. What a day +of trial we had! I shall never forget it. + +The first home we called at was a Catholic one in the neighbourhood of +our boarding-house. + +It had the appearance of a convent, and that pleased me exceedingly. +After we had passed the broad street door, with its large brass plate +and small brass grille, we were shown into a little waiting-room with +tiled floor, distempered walls, and coloured pictures of the saints. + +The porteress told us the Mother was at prayers with the inmates, but +would come downstairs presently, and while we waited we heard the dull +hum of voices, the playing of an organ, and the singing of the sweet +music I knew so well. + +Closing my eyes I felt myself back in Rome, and began to pray that I +might be permitted to remain there. But the desire was damped when the +Mother entered the room. + +She was a stout woman, wearing heavy outdoor boots and carrying her arms +interlaced before her, with the hands hidden in the ample sleeves of her +habit, and her face was so white and expressionless, that it might have +been cast in plaster of Paris. + +In a rather nervous voice Mildred explained our errand. "Mother," she +said, "I cannot tell you anything about this young lady, and I have come +to ask if you will take her on my recommendation." + +"My dear child," said the Mother, "that would be utterly against our +rule. Not to know who the young lady is, where she comes from, why she +is here, and whether she is married or single or a widow--it is quite +impossible." + +Mildred, looking confused and ashamed, said: + +"She can afford to pay a little." + +"That makes no difference." + +"But I thought that in exceptional cases . . ." + +"There can be no exceptional cases, Sister. If the young lady is married +and can say that her husband consents, or single and can give us +assurance that her father or guardian agrees, or a widow and can offer +satisfactory references . . ." + +Mildred looked across at me, but I shook my head. + +"In that case there seems to be nothing more to say," said the Mother, +and rising without ceremony she walked with us to the door. + +Our next call was at the headquarters of a home which was neither +Catholic nor Protestant, but belonged, Mildred said, to a kind of +Universal Church, admitting inmates of all denominations. + +It was in a busy thoroughfare and had the appearance of a business +office. After Mildred had written her name and the object of our visit +on a slip of paper we were taken up in a lift to another office with an +open safe, where a man in a kind of uniform (called a Commissioner) was +signing letters and cheques. + +The Commissioner was at first very courteous, especially to me, and I +had an uncomfortable feeling that he was mistaking me for something +quite other than I was until Mildred explained our errand, and then his +manner changed painfully. + +"What you ask is against all our regulations," he said. "Secrecy implies +something to hide, and we neither hide anything nor permit anything to +be hidden. In fact our system requires that we should not only help the +woman, but punish the man by making him realise his legal, moral, and +religious liability for his wrong-doing. Naturally we can only do this +by help of the girl, and if she does not tell us at the outset who and +what the partner of her sin has been and where he is to be found. . . ." + +I was choking with shame and indignation, and rising to my feet I said +to Mildred: + +"Let us go, please." + +"Ah, yes, I know," said the Commissioner, with a superior smile, "I have +seen all this before. The girl nearly always tries to shield the guilty +man. But why should she? It may seem generous, but it is really wicked. +It is a direct means of increasing immorality. The girl who protects the +author of her downfall is really promoting the ruin of another woman, +and if. . . ." + +Thinking of Martin I wanted to strike the smug Pharisee in the face, and +in order to conquer that unwomanly impulse I hurried out of the office, +and into the street, leaving poor Mildred to follow me. + +Our last call was at the home of a private society in a little brick +house that seemed to lean against the wall of a large lying-in hospital +in the West End of London. + +At the moment of our arrival the Matron was presiding in the +drawing-room over a meeting of a Missionary League for the Conversion of +the Jews, so we were taken through a narrow lobby into a little +back-parlour which overlooked, through a glass screen, a large +apartment, wherein a number of young women, who had the appearance of +dressmakers, ladies' maids, and governesses, were sewing tiny pieces of +linen and flannel that were obviously baby-clothes. + +There were no carpets on the floors and the house had a slight smell of +carbolic. The tick-tick of sewing machines on the other side of the +screen mingled with the deadened sound of the clapping of hands in the +room overhead. + +After a while there was rustle of dresses coming down the bare stairs, +followed by the opening and closing of the front door, and then the +Matron came into the parlour. + +She was a very tall, flat-bosomed woman in a plain black dress, and she +seemed to take in our situation instantly. Without waiting for Mildred's +explanation she began to ask my name, my age, and where I came from. + +Mildred fenced these questions as well as she could, and then, with even +more nervousness than ever, made the same request as before. + +The Matron seemed aghast. + +"Most certainly not," she said. "My committee would never dream of such +a thing. In the interests of the unfortunate girls who have fallen from +the path of virtue, as well as their still more unfortunate offspring, +we always make the most searching inquiries. In fact, we keep a record +of every detail of every case. Listen to this," she added, and opening a +large leather-bound hook like a ledger, she began to read one of its +entries: + +_"H.J., aged eighteen years, born of very respectable parents, was led +astray_ [that was not the word] _in a lonely road very late at night by +a sailor who was never afterwards heard of. . . ."_ + +But I could bear no more, and rising from my seat I fled from the room +and the house into the noisy street outside. + +All day long my whole soul had been in revolt. It seemed to me that, +while God in His gracious mercy was giving me my child to comfort and +console me, to uplift and purify me, and make me a better woman than I +had been before, man, with his false and cruel morality, with his +machine-made philanthropy, was trying to use it as a whip to punish not +only me but Martin. + +But that it should never do! Never as long as I lived! I would die in +the streets first! + +Perhaps I was wrong, and did not understand myself, and certainly +Mildred did not understand me. When she rejoined me in the street we +turned our faces homeward and were half way back to the boarding-house +before we spoke again. + +Then she said: + +"I am afraid the other institutions will be the same. They'll all want +references." + +I answered that they should never get them. + +"But your money will be done soon, my child, and then what is to become +of you?" + +"No matter!" I said, for I had already determined to face the world +myself without help from anybody. + +There was a silence again until we reached the door of our +boarding-house, and then Mildred said: + +"Mary, your father is a rich man, and however much you may have +displeased him he cannot wish you to be left to the mercy of the +world--especially when your time comes. Let me write to him. . . ." + +That terrified me, for I saw only one result--an open quarrel between my +father and my husband about the legitimacy of my child, who would +probably be taken away from me as soon as it was born. + +So taking Mildred by the arm, regardless of the observation of +passers-by, I begged and prayed and implored of her not to write to my +father. + +She promised not to do so, and we parted on good terms; but I was not +satisfied, and the only result of our day's journeying was that I became +possessed of the idea that the whole world was conspiring to rob me of +my unborn child. + +A few days later Mildred called again, and then she said: + +"I had another letter from Father Donovan this morning, Mary. Your poor +priest is broken-hearted about you. He is sure you are in London, and +certain you are in distress, and says that with or without his Bishop's +consent he is coming up to London to look for you, and will never go +back until you are found." + +I began to suspect Mildred. In the fever of my dread of losing my child +I convinced myself that with the best intentions in the world, merely +out of love for me and pity for my position, she would give me +up--perhaps in the very hour of my peril. + +To make this impossible I determined to cut myself off from her and +everybody else, by leaving the boarding-house and taking another and +cheaper lodging far enough away. + +I was encouraged in this course by the thought of my diminishing +resources, and though heaven knows I had not too many comforts where I +was. I reproached myself for spending so much on my own needs when I +ought to be economising for the coming of my child. + +The end of it all was that one morning early I went down to the corner +of Oxford Street where the motor-omnibuses seem to come and go from all +parts of London. + +North, south, east, and west were all one to me, leading to labyrinths +of confused and interminable streets, and I knew as little as a child +which of them was best for my purpose. But chance seems to play the +greatest part in our lives, and at that moment it was so with me. + +I was standing on the edge of the pavement when a motor-bus labelled +"Bayswater Road" stopped immediately in front of me and I stepped into +it, not knowing in the least why I did so. + +Late that evening, having found what I wanted, I returned in the mingled +mist and darkness to the boarding-house to pack up my belongings. That +was not difficult to do, and after settling my account and sending young +John for a cab I was making for the door when the landlady came up to +me. + +"Will you not leave your new address, my dear, lest anybody should +call," she said. + +"Nobody will call," I answered. + +"But in case there should he letters?" + +"There will be no letters," I said, and whispering to the driver to +drive up Oxford Street, I got into the cab. + +It was then quite dark. The streets and shops were alight, and I +remembered that as I crossed the top of the Charing Cross Road I looked +down in the direction of the lofty building in which Mildred's window +would be shining like a lighthouse over Piccadilly. + +Poor dear ill-requited Mildred! She has long ago forgiven me. She knows +now that when I ran away from the only friend I had in London it was +because I could not help it. + +She knows, too, that I was not thinking of myself, and that in diving +still deeper into the dungeon of the great city, in hiding and burying +myself away in it, I was asking nothing of God but that He would let me +live the rest of my life--no matter how poor and lonely--with the child +that He was sending to be a living link between my lost one and me. + +In the light of what happened afterwards, that was all so strange, and +oh, so wonderful and miraculous! + + + + +EIGHTY-FIFTH CHAPTER + + +My new quarters were in the poorer district which stands at the back of +Bayswater. + +The street was a cul-de-sac (of some ten small houses on either side) +which was blocked up at the further end by the high wall of a factory +for the "humanization" of milk, and opened out of a busy thoroughfare of +interior shops like a gully-way off a noisy coast. + +My home in this street was in number one, and I had been attracted to it +by a printed card in the semi-circular fan-light over the front door, +saying: "A ROOM TO LET FURNISHED." + +My room, which was of fair size, was on the first floor and had two +windows to the street, with yellow holland blinds and white muslin +curtains. + +The furniture consisted of a large bed, a horse-hair sofa, three +cane-bottomed chairs, a chest of drawers (which stood between the +windows), and a mirror over the mantelpiece, which had pink paper, cut +into fanciful patterns, over the gilt frame, to keep off the flies. + +The floor was covered with linoleum, but there were two strips of +carpet, one before the fire and the other by the bed: the walls were +papered with a bright red paper representing peonies in bloom; and there +were three pictures--a portrait of a great Welsh preacher with a bardic +name ("Dyfed"), an engraving entitled "Feed my Sheep" (showing Jesus +carrying a lamb), and a memorial card of some member of the family of +the house, in the form of a tomb with a weeping angel on either side. + +I paid five shilling a week for my room, and, as this included the use +of kettle, cooking utensils, and crockery, I found to my great delight +at the end of the first week that providing for myself (tea, bread and +butter, and eggs being my principal food) I had only spent ten shillings +altogether, which, according to my present needs, left me enough for my +time of waiting and several weeks beyond. + +Every morning I went out with a little hand-bag to buy my provisions in +the front street; and every afternoon I took a walk in the better part +of Bayswater and even into the Park (Hyde Park), which was not far off, +but never near Piccadilly, or so far east as Bloomsbury, lest I should +meet Sister Mildred or be recognized by the old boarders. + +I had no key to my lodgings, but when I returned home I knocked at the +front door (which was at the top of a short flight of steps from the +pavement) and then a string was pulled in the cellar-kitchen in which +the family of my landlady lived, whereupon the bolt was shot back and +the door opened of itself. + +Finding it necessary to account for myself here as at the +boarding-house, I had adhered to my former name, but said I was the +widow of a commander lately lost, at sea, which was as near to the truth +as I dared venture. + +I had also made no disguise of the fact that I was expecting a child, a +circumstance which secured me much sympathy from the kind-hearted souls +who were now my neighbours. + +They were all womanly women, generally the wives of men working in the +milk factory, and therefore the life of our street was very regular. + +At five in the morning you heard the halting step of the old "knocker +up," who went up and down the street tapping at the bedroom windows with +a long pole like a fishing-rod. A little before six you heard the +clashing of many front doors and the echoing footsteps of the men going +to their work. At half-past seven you heard the whoop of the milkman and +the rattling of his cans. At half-past eight you heard the little feet +of the children, like the pattering of rain, going off to the Board +School round the corner. And a little after four in the afternoon you +heard the wild cries of the juvenile community let loose from lessons, +the boys trundling iron hoops and the girls skipping to a measured tune +over a rope stretched from parapet to parapet. + +After that, our street hummed like a bee-hive, with the women, washed +and combed, standing knitting at their open doors or exchanging +confidences across the areas until darkness fell and each of the mothers +called her children into bed, as an old hen in the farmyard clucks up +her chickens. + +These good creatures were very kind to me. Having satisfied themselves +from observation of my habits that I was "respectable," they called me +"our lady"; and I could not help hearing that I was "a nice young +thing," though it was a little against me that I did not go to church or +chapel, and had confessed to being a Catholic--for several of our +families (including that of my landlady) were members of the Welsh Zion +Chapel not far away. + +Such was the life of the little human cage to which I had confined +myself, but I had an inner life that was all my own and very sweet to +me. + +During the long hours of every day in which I was alone I occupied +myself in the making of clothes for my baby--buying linen and flannel +and worsted, and borrowing patterns from my Welsh landlady. + +This stimulated my tenderness towards the child that was to come, for +the heart of a young mother is almost infantile, and I hardly know +whether to laugh or cry when I think of the childish things I did and +thought and said to myself in those first days when I was alone in my +room in that back street in Bayswater. + +Thus long before baby was born I had christened her. At first I wished +to call her Mary, not because I cared for that name myself, but because +Martin had said it was the most beautiful in the world. In the end, +however, I called her Isabel Mary (because Isabel was my mother's name +and she had been a far better woman than I was), and as I finished my +baby's garments one by one I used to put them away in their drawer, +saying to myself, "That's Isabel Mary's binder," or "Isabel Mary's +christening-robe" as the case might be. + +I dare say it was all very foolish. There are tears in my eyes when I +think of it now, but there were none then, for though there were moments +when, remembering Martin, I felt as if life were for ever blank, I was +almost happy in my poor surroundings, and if it was a cage I had fixed +myself in there was always a bird singing inside of it--the bird that +sang in my own bosom. + +"When Isabel Mary comes everything will he all right," I used to think. + +This went on for many weeks and perhaps it might have gone on until my +time was full but for something which, occurring under my eyes, made me +tremble with the fear that the life I was living and the hope I was +cherishing were really very wrong and selfish. + +Of my landlady, Mrs. Williams, I saw little. She was a rather hard but +no doubt heavily-laden woman, who had to "do" for a swarm of children, +besides two young men lodgers who lived in the kitchen and slept in the +room behind mine. Her husband was a quiet man (a carter at the dairy) +whom I never saw at all except on the staircase at ten o'clock at night, +when, after winding the tall clock on the landing, he went upstairs to +bed in his stocking feet. + +But the outstanding member of the family for me was a shock-headed girl +of fourteen called Emmerjane, which was a running version of Emma Jane. + +I understood that Emmerjane was the illegitimate daughter of Mrs. +Williams's dead sister, and that she had been born in Carnarvon, which +still shimmered in her memory in purple and gold. + +Emmerjane was the drudge of the family, and I first saw her in the +street at dusk, mothering a brood of her little cousins, taking Hughie +by one hand and Katie by the other and telling Gwennie to lay hold of +Davie lest he should be run over by the milk vans. + +Afterwards she became my drudge also--washing my floor, bringing up my +coals, and cleaning my grate, for sixpence a week, and giving me a great +deal of information about my neighbours for nothing. + +Thus she told me, speaking broad cockney with a Welsh accent, that the +people opposite were named Wagstaffe and that the creaking noise I heard +was that of a mangle, which Mrs. Wagstaffe had to keep because her +husband was a drunkard, who stole her money and came home "a-Saturday +nights, when the public-houses turned out, and beat her somethink +shockin'," though she always forgave him the next day and then the +creaking went on as before. + +But the greatest interest of this weird little woman, who had a +premature knowledge of things a child ought not to know, was in a house +half-way down the street on the other side, where steam was always +coming from the open door to the front kitchen. + +The people who lived there were named Jones. Mrs. Jones "washed" and had +a bed-ridden old mother (with two shillings from the Guardians) and a +daughter named Maggie. + +Maggie Jones, who was eighteen, and very pretty, used to work in the +dairy, but the foreman had "tiken advantage of her" and she had just had +a baby. + +This foreman was named Owen Owens and he lived at the last number on our +side, where two unmarried sisters "kept house" for him and sat in the +"singing seat" at Zion. + +Maggie thought it was the sisters' fault that Owen Owens did not marry +her, so she conceived a great scheme for "besting" them, and this was +the tragedy which, through Emmerjane's quick little eyes and her +cockney-Welsh tongue, came to me in instalments day by day. + +When her baby was a month old Maggie dressed it up "fine" and took it to +the photographers for its "card di visit." The photographs were a long +time coming, but when they came they were "heavenly lovely" and Maggie +"cried to look at them." + +Then she put one in an envelope and addressed it to Owen Owens, and +though it had only to cross the street, she went out after dark to a +pillar-box a long way off lest anybody should see her posting it. + +Next day she said, "He'll have it now, for he always comes home to +dinner. He'll take it up to his bedroom, look you, and stand it on the +washstand, and if either of those sisters touch it he'll give them +what's what." + +After that she waited anxiously for an acknowledgment, and every time +the postman passed down our street her pretty pale face would be at the +door, saying, "Anything for me to-day?" or "Are you _sure_ there's +nothing for me, postman?" + +At length a letter came, and Maggie Jones trembled so much that she +dared not open it, but at last she tripped up to her room to be "all of +herself," and then . . . then there was a "wild screech," and when +Emmerjane ran upstairs Maggie was stretched out on the floor in a dead +faint, clutching in her tight hand the photograph which Owen Owens had +returned with the words, written in his heavy scrawl across the +face--_Maggie Jones's bastard_. + +It would be impossible to say how this incident affected me. I felt as +if a moral earthquake had opened under my feet. + +What had I been doing? In looking forward to the child that was to come +to me I had been thinking only of my own comfort--my own consolation. + +But what about the child itself? + +If my identity ever became known--and it might at any moment, by the +casual recognition of a person in the street--how should the position of +my child differ from that of this poor girl? + +A being born out of the pale of the law, as my husband would say it must +be, an outcast, a thing of shame, without a father to recognise it, and +with its mother's sin to lash its back for ever! + +When I thought of that, much as I had longed for the child that was to +be a living link between Martin and me, I asked myself if I had any +right to wish for it. + +I felt I had no right, and that considering my helpless position the +only true motherly love was to pray that my baby might be still-born. + +But that was too hard. It was too terrible. It was like a second +bereavement. I could not and would not do it. + +"Never, never, never!" I told myself. + + + + +EIGHTY-SIXTH CHAPTER + + +Thinking matters out in the light of Maggie Jones's story, I concluded +that poverty was at the root of nearly everything. If I could stave off +poverty no real harm could come to my child. + +I determined to do so. But there was only one way open to me at +present--and that was to retrench my expenses. + +I did retrench them. Persuading myself that I had no real need of this +and that, I reduced my weekly outlay. + +This gave me immense pleasure, and even when I saw, after a while, that +I was growing thin and pale, I felt no self-pity of any sort, +remembering that I had nobody to look well for now, and only the sweet +and glorious duty before me of providing for my child. + +I convinced myself, too, that my altered appearance was natural to my +condition, and that all I needed was fresh air and exercise, therefore I +determined to walk every day in the Park. + +I did so once only. + +It was one of those lovely mornings in early spring, when the air and +the sky of London, after the long fog and grime of winter, seem to be +washed by showers of sunshine. + +I had entered by a gate to a broad avenue and was resting (for I was +rather tired) on a seat under a chestnut tree whose glistening sheaths +were swelling and breaking into leaf, when I saw a number of ladies and +gentlemen on horseback coming in my direction. + +I recognised one of them instantly. It was Mr. Vivian, and a beautiful +girl was riding beside him. My heart stood still, for I thought he would +see me. But he was too much occupied with his companion to do so. + +"Yes, by Jove, it's killing, isn't it?" he said, in his shrill voice, +and with his monocle in his mole-like eye, he rode past me, laughing. + +After that I took my walks in the poorer streets behind Bayswater, but +there I was forced back on my old problem, for I seemed to be always +seeing the sufferings of children. + +Thank God, children as a whole are happy. They seem to live in their +hearts alone, and I really and truly believe that if all the doors of +the rich houses of the West End of London were thrown open to the poor +children of the East End they would stay in their slums and alleys. + +But some of them suffer there for all that, especially the unfortunate +ones who enter the world without any legal right to be here, and I +seemed to be coming upon that kind everywhere. + +One evening I saw a tiny boy of five sheltering from the rain under a +dripping and draughty railway arch, and crying as if his little heart +would break. I tried to comfort him and could not, but when a rather +shame-faced young woman came along, as if returning from her work, he +burst out on her and cried: + +"Oh, muvver, she's been a-beating of me awrful." + +"Never mind, Johnny," said the young woman, kneeling on the wet pavement +to dry the child's eyes. "Don't cry, that's a good boy." + +It needed no second sight to look into the heart of that tragedy, and +the effect of it upon me was to make me curtail my expenditure still +further. + +Looking back on those days I cannot but wonder that I never tried to +find employment. But there was one delicate impediment then--my +condition, which was becoming visible, I thought, to people in the +street, and causing some of them, especially women, to look round at me. +When this became painful I discontinued my walks altogether, and sent +Emmerjane on my few errands. + +Then my room became my world. + +I do not think I ever saw a newspaper. And knowing nothing of what was +going on, beyond the surge and swell of the life of London as it came to +me when I opened my window. I had now, more than ever, the sense of +living in a dungeon on a rock in the middle of the sea. + +Having no exercise I ate less and less. But I found a certain joy in +that, for I was becoming a miser for my child's sake, and the only pain +I suffered was when I went to my drawer, as I did every day, and looked +at my rapidly diminishing store. + +I knew that my Welsh landlady was beginning to call me _close_, meaning +mean; but that did not trouble me in the least, because I told myself +that every penny I saved out of my own expenses was for my child, to +keep her from poverty and all the evils and injustices that followed in +its train. + +As my appointed time drew near my sleep was much broken; and sometimes +in the middle of the night, when I heard a solitary footstep going down +the street I would get up, draw aside one of my blinds, and see a light +burning in some bedroom window opposite, and afterwards hear the muffled +cry of the small new being who had come as another immigrant into our +chill little world. + +But I made no arrangements for myself until my Welsh landlady came up to +my room one day and asked if I had settled with a doctor. When I +answered no, she held up her hands and cried: + +"Good gracious! Just as I thought. Thee'st got to lose no time, though." + +Happily there was a doctor in our street nearly every day, and if I +wished it she would call him up to me. I agreed and the doctor came next +morning. + +He was a tall, elderly man with cold eyes, compressed lips, and a sour +expression, and neither his manner nor his speech gave any hint of a +consciousness (which I am sure every true doctor must have) that in +coming to a woman in my condition he was entering one of the sacred +chambers of human life. + +He asked me a few abrupt questions, told me when he would come again, +and then spoke about his fee. + +"My fee is a guinea and I usually get it in advance," he said, whereupon +I went to my drawer, and took out a sovereign and a shilling, not +without a certain pang at seeing so much go in a moment after I had been +saving so long. + +The doctor had dropped the money into his waistcoat pocket with oh! such +a casual air, and was turning to go, when my Welsh landlady said: + +"Her's not doing herself justice in the matter, of food, doctor." + +"Why, what do you eat?" asked the doctor, and as well as I could, out of +my dry and parched throat, I told him. + +"Tut! tut! This will never do," he said. "It's your duty to your child +to have better food than that. Something light and nourishing every day, +such as poultry, fish, chicken broth, beef-tea, and farinaceous foods +generally." + +I gasped. 'What was the doctor thinking about? + +"Remember," he said, with his finger up, "the health of the child is +intimately dependent on the health of the mother. When the mother is in +a morbid state it affects the composition of the blood, and does great +harm to the health of the offspring, both immediately and in after life. +Don't forget now. Good day!" + +That was a terrible shock to me. In my great ignorance and great love I +had been depriving myself for the sake of my child, and now I learned +that I had all the time been doing it a grave and perhaps life-long +injury! + +Trying to make amends I sent out for some of the expensive foods the +doctor had ordered me, but when they were cooked I found to my dismay +that I had lost the power of digesting them. + +My pain at this discovery was not lessened next day when my Welsh +landlady brought up a nurse whom I had asked her to engage for me. + +The woman was a human dumpling with a discordant voice, and her first +interest, like that of the doctor, seemed to centre in her fee. + +She told me that her usual terms were a guinea for the fortnight, but +when she saw my face fall (for I could not help thinking how little I +had left) she said: + +"Some ladies don't need a fortnight, though. Mrs. Wagstaffe, for +instance, she never has no more than five days, and on the sixth she's +back at her mangle. So if five will do, ma'am, perhaps ten and six won't +hurt you." + +I agreed, and the nurse was rolling her ample person out of my room when +my Welsh landlady said: + +"But her's not eating enough to keep a linnet, look you." + +And then my nurse, who was what the doctor calls a croaker, began on a +long series of stories of ladies who, having "let themselves down" had +died, either at childbirth or soon afterwards. + +"It's _after_ a lady feels it if she has to nurse her baby," said the +nurse, "and I couldn't be responsible neither for you nor the child if +you don't do yourself justice." + +This was a still more terrible possibility--the possibility that I might +die and leave my child behind me. The thought haunted me all that day +and the following night, but the climax came next morning, when +Emmerjane, while black-leading my grate, gave me the last news of Maggie +Jones. + +Maggie's mother had been "a-naggin' of her to get work," asking if she +had not enough mouths to feed "without her bringin' another." + +Maggie had at first been afraid to look for employment, thinking +everybody knew of her trouble. But after her mother had put the young +minister from Zion on to her to tell her to be "obejent" she had gone +out every day, whether the weather was good or bad or "mejum." + +This had gone on for three months (during which Maggie used to stay out +late because she was afraid to meet her mother's face) until one wet +night, less than a week ago, she had come home drenched to the skin, +taken to her bed, "sickened for somethink" and died. + +Three days after Emmerjane told me this story a great solemnity fell on +our street. + +It was Saturday, when the children do not go to school, but, playing no +games, they gathered in whispering groups round the house with the drawn +blinds, while their mothers stood bareheaded at the doors with their +arms under their aprons and their hidden hands over their mouths. + +I tried not to know what was going on, but looking out at the last +moment I saw Maggie Jones's mother, dressed in black, coming down her +steps, with her eyes very red and her hard face (which was seamed with +labour) all wet and broken up. + +The "young minister" followed (a beardless boy who could have known +nothing of the tragedy of a woman's life), and stepping into the midst +of the group of the congregation from Zion, who had gathered there with +their warm Welsh hearts full of pity for the dead girl, he gave out a +Welsh hymn, and they sang it in the London street, just as they had been +used to do at the cottage doors in the midst of their native mountains: + + "_Bydd myrdd o ryfeddodau + Ar doriad boreu wawr_." + +I could look no longer, so I turned back into my room, but at the next +moment I heard the rumble of wheels and knew that Maggie Jones was on +her way to her last mother of all--the Earth. + +During the rest of that day I could think of nothing but Maggie's child, +and what was to become of it, and next morning when Emmerjane came up +she told me that the "young minister" was "a-gettin' it into the 'ouse." + +I think that was the last straw of my burden, for my mind came back with +a swift rebound from Maggie Jones's child to my own. + +The thought of leaving my baby behind now terrified and appalled me. It +brought me no comfort to think that though I was poor my father was +rich, for I knew that if he ever came to know of my child's existence he +would hate it and cast it off, as the central cause of the downfall of +his plans. + +Yet Martin's child alone, and at the mercy of the world! It could not +and must not be! + +Then came a fearful thought. I fought against it. I said many "Hail +Marys" to protect myself from it. But I could not put it away. + +Perhaps my physical condition was partly to blame. Others must judge of +that. It is only for me to say, in all truth and sincerity, what I felt +and thought when I stood (as every woman who is to be a mother must) at +the door of that dark chamber which is Life's greatest mystery. + +I thought of how Martin had been taken from me, as Fate (perhaps for +some good purpose still unrevealed) had led me to believe. + +I thought of how I had comforted myself with the hope of the child that +was coming to be a link between us. + +I thought of the sweet hours I had spent in making my baby's clothes; in +choosing her name; in whispering it to myself, yes, and to God, too, +every night and every morning. + +I thought of how day by day I had trimmed the little lamp I kept burning +in the sanctuary within my breast where my baby and I lived together. + +I thought of how this had taken the sting out of death and victory out +of the grave. And after that I told myself that, however sweet and +beautiful, _all this had been selfishness and I must put it away_. + +Then I thought of the child itself, who--conceived in sin as my Church +would say, disinherited by the law, outlawed by society, inheriting my +physical weaknesses, having lost one of its parents and being liable to +lose the other--was now in danger of being left to the mercies of the +world, banned from its birth, penniless and without a protector, to +become a drudge and an outcast or even a thief, a gambler, or a harlot. + +This was what I thought and felt. + +And when at last I knew that I had come to the end of my appointed time +I knelt down in my sad room, and if ever I prayed a fervent prayer, if +ever my soul went up to God in passionate supplication, it was that the +child I had longed for and looked forward to as a living link with my +lost one _might be born dead_. + +"Oh God, whatever happens to me, let my baby be born dead--I pray, I +beseech Thee." + +Perhaps it was a wicked prayer. God knows. He will be just. + + + + +EIGHTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER + + +It was Saturday, the seventh of June. The summer had been a cold one +thus far; the night was chill and heavy rain was beating against the +window-pane. + +There was a warm fire in my room for the first time for several months; +the single gas jet on the window side of the mantelpiece had been turned +low, and the nurse, in list slippers, was taking my little flannel and +linen garments out of the chest of drawers and laying them on the flat +steel fender. + +I think I must have had intervals of insensibility, for the moments of +consciousness came and went with me, like the diving and rising of a +sea-bird in the midst of swelling waves. + +At one such moment I became aware that the doctor and my Welsh landlady, +as well as my nurse, were in the room, and that they were waiting for +the crisis and fearing for my life. + +I heard them talking in low voices which made a drumming noise in my +ears, like that which the sea makes when it is rolling into a cave. + +"She's let herself down so low, pore thing, that I don't know in the +world what's to happen to her." + +"As God is my witness, look you, I never saw anybody live on so little." + +"I'm not afraid of the mother. I'm more afraid of the child, if you ask +me." + +Then the drumming noise would die out, and I would only hear something +within myself saying: + +"Oh God, oh God, that my child may be born dead." + +At another moment I heard, above the rattle of the rain, the creaking of +the mangle in the cellar-kitchen on the other side of the street. + +At still another moment I heard the sound of quarrelling in the house +opposite. A woman was screaming, children were shrieking, and a man was +swearing in a thick hoarse voice. + +I knew what had happened--it was midnight, the "public-houses had turned +out," and Mr. Wagstaffe had came home drunk. + +The night passed heavily. I heard myself (as I had done before) calling +on Martin in a voice of wild entreaty: + +"Martin! Martin!" + +Then remembering that he was gone I began again to pray. I heard myself +praying to the Blessed Virgin: + +"Oh, Mother of my God, let my child . . ." + +But a voice which seemed to come from far away interrupted me. + +"Hush, bāch, hush! It will make it harder for thee." + +At length peace came. It seemed to me that I was running out of a +tempestuous sea, with its unlimited loneliness and cruel depth, into a +quiet harbour. + +There was a heavenly calm, in which I could hear the doctor and the +nurse and my Welsh landlady talking together in cheerful whispers. + +I knew that everything was over, and with the memory of the storm I had +passed through still in my heart and brain. I said: + +"Is it dead?" + +"Dead?" cried the nurse in a voice several octaves higher than usual. +"Dear heart no, but alive and well. A beautiful little girl!" + +"Yes, your baby is all right, ma'am," said the doctor, and then my Welsh +landlady cried: + +"Why did'st think it would be dead, bach? As I am a Christian woman +thee'st got the beautifullest baby that ever breathed." + +I could bear no more. The dark thoughts of the days before were over me +still, and with a groan I turned to the wall. Then everything was wiped +out as by an angel's wing, and I fell into a deep sleep. + +When I awoke my dark thoughts were vanishing away like a bad dream in +the morning. The rain had ceased, the gas had been put out, and I could +see by the glow on the peonies of the wall-paper that the sun was +shining with a soft red light through the holland blinds of my windows. + +I heard the sparrows chirping on the sills outside; I heard the milkman +rattling his cans; I heard the bells of a neighbouring church ringing +for early communion. + +I closed my eyes and held my breath and listened to the sounds in my own +room. I heard the kettle singing over the fire; I heard somebody humming +softly, and beating a foot on the floor in time to the tune and then I +heard a low voice (it was Emmerjane's) saying from somewhere near my +bed: + +"I dunno but what she's awake. Her breathing ain't a-goin' now." + +Then I turned and saw the nurse sitting before the fire with something +on her lap. I knew what it was. It was my child, and it was asleep. In +spite of my dark thoughts my heart yearned for it. + +And then came the great miracle. + +My child awoke and began to cry. It was a faint cry, oh! so thin and +weak, but it went thundering and thundering through me. There was a +moment of awful struggle, and then a mighty torrent of love swept over +me. + +It was Motherhood. + +My child! Mine! Flesh of my flesh! Oh God! Oh God! + +All my desire for my baby's death to save it from the pains of life was +gone, and my heart, starved so long, throbbed with tenderness. I raised +myself in bed, in spite of my nurse's protest, and cried to her to give +me my baby. + +"Give her to me. Give her to me." + +"By-and-by, by-and-by," said the nurse. + +"Now, now! I can wait no longer." + +"But you must take some food first. Emmerjane, give her that glass of +milk and water." + +I drank the milk just to satisfy them, and then held out my arms for my +child. + +"Give her to me--quick, quick!" + +"Here she is then, the jewel!" + +Oh! the joy of that moment when I first took my baby in my arms, and +looked into her face, and saw my own features and the sea-blue eyes of +Martin! Oh the rapture of my first eager kiss! + +I suppose I must have been rough with my little cherub in the fervour of +my love, for she began to cry again. + +"There! there!" said the nurse. "Be good now, or I must take baby away." + +But heaven had taught me another lesson, and instantly, instinctively, I +put my baby to my breast. Instantly and instinctively, too, my baby +turned to it with its little mouth open and its little fingers feeling +for the place. + +"Oh God! My God! Oh Mother of my God!" + +And then in that happiness that is beyond all earthly bliss--the +happiness of a mother when she first clasps her baby to her breast--I +began to cry. + +I had not cried for months--not since that night in Ellan which I did +not wish to remember any more--but now my tears gushed out and ran down +my face like rain. + +I cried on Martin once more--I could not help it. And looking down at +the closed eyes of my child my soul gushed out in gratitude to God, who +had sent me this for all I had suffered. + +"Hush, hush! You will do yourself a mischief and it will be bad for the +milk," said the nurse. + +After that I tried to control myself. But I found a fierce and feverish +delight in suckling my child. It seemed as if every drop my baby drew +gave me a spiritual as well as a physical joy--cooling my blood and my +brain and wiping out all my troubles. + +Oh mystery of mysteries! Oh miracle of miracles! + +My baby was at my breast and my sufferings were at an end. + + + + +EIGHTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER + + +That was a long, long day of happiness. + +It was both very long and very short, for it passed like a dream. + +What wonderful happenings were crowded into it! + +First the nurse, from the dizzy heights of her greater experience and +superior knowledge, indulged my infantile anxieties by allowing me to +look on while baby was being bathed, and rewarded me for "being good" by +many praises of my baby's beauty. + +"I've nursed a-many in my time," she said, "but I don't mind saying as +I've never had a bonnier babby on my knee. Look at her legs now, so +white and plump and dimpled. Have you _ever_ seen anythink so putty?" + +I confessed that I never had, and when nurse showed me how to fix the +binder, and put on the barrow-coat without disturbing baby while asleep, +I thought her a wonderful woman. + +Emmerjane, who had with difficulty been kept out of the room last night +and was now rushing breathlessly up and down stairs, wished to hold baby +for a moment, and at length out of the magnificence of my generosity I +allowed her to do so, only warning her, as she loved her life, to hold +tight and not let baby fall. + +"How'd you mean?" said the premature little mother. "_Me_ let her fall? +Not much!" + +Every hour, according to the doctor's orders, I gave baby the breast. I +do not know which was my greatest joy--to feast my eyes on her while she +sucked and to see her little head fall back with her little mouth open +when she had had enough, or to watch her when she stretched herself and +hiccoughed, and then grasped my thumb with her little tight fingers. + +Oh, the wild, inexpressible delight of it! + +Every hour had its surprise. Every few minutes had their cause of +wonder. + +It rather hurt me when baby cried, and I dare say my own foolish lip +would drop at such moments, but when I saw that there were no tears in +her eyes, and she was only calling for her food, I pleaded with nurse to +let me give her the breast again. + +The sun shone all day long, and though the holland window blinds were +kept down to subdue the light, for my sake and perhaps for baby's, I +thought my room looked perfectly beautiful. It might be poor and shabby, +but flights of angels could not have made it more heavenly than it was +in my eyes then. + +In the afternoon nurse told me I must take some sleep myself, but I +would not sleep until baby slept, so she had to give me my cherub again, +and I sat up and rocked her and for a while I sang--as softly as I +could--a little lullaby. + +It was a lullaby I had learned at Nemi from the Italian women in +embroidered outside stays, who so love their children; and though I knew +quite well that it had been written for the Mother of all Mothers, who, +after she had been turned away from every door, had been forced to take +refuge in a stable in Bethlehem, I was in such an ecstasy of spiritual +happiness that I thought it no irreverence to change it a little and to +sing it in my London lodging to my human child. + + "_Sleep, little baby, I love thee, I love thee, + Sleep, little Queen, I am bending above thee_." + +I dare say my voice was sweet that day--a mother's voice is always +sweet--for when Emmerjane, who had been out of the room, came back to it +with a look of awed solemnity, she said: + +"Well, I never did! I thought as 'ow there was a' angel a-come into this +room." + +"So there is, and here she is," I said, beaming down on my sleeping +child. + +But the long, short, blissful day came to an end at last, and when night +fell and I dropped asleep, there were two names of my dear ones on my +lips, and if one of them was the name of him who (as I thought) was in +heaven, the other was the name of her who was now lying in my arms. + +I may have been poor, but I felt like a queen with all the riches of +life in my little room. + +I may have sinned against the world and the Church, but I felt as if God +had justified me by His own triumphant law. + +The whole feminine soul in me seemed to swell and throb, and with my +baby at my breast I wanted no more of earth or heaven. + +I was still bleeding from the bruises of Fate, but I felt healed of all +my wounds, loaded with benefits, crowned with rewards. + +Four days passed like this, varied by visits from the doctor and my +Welsh landlady. Then my nurse began to talk of leaving me. + +I did not care. In my ignorance of my condition, and the greed of my +motherly love, I was not sorry she was going so soon. Indeed, I was +beginning to be jealous of her, and was looking forward to having my +baby all to myself. + +But nurse, as I remember, was a little ashamed and tried to excuse +herself. + +"If I hadn't promised to nurse another lady, I wouldn't leave you, money +or no money," she said. "But the girl" (meaning Emmerjane) "is always +here, and if she isn't like a nurse she's 'andy." + +"Yes, yes, I shall be all right," I answered. + +On the fifth day my nurse left me, and shocking as that fact seems to me +now, I thought little of it then. + +I was entirely happy. I had nothing in the world except my baby, and my +baby had nothing in the world except me. I was still in the dungeon that +had seemed so dreadful to me before--the great dungeon of London to one +who is poor and friendless. + +But no matter! I was no longer alone, for there was one more inmate in +my prison-house--my child. + + + + +SIXTH PART + +I AM LOST + +_"Is it nothing to you, ye that pass by . . . ?"_ + +MEMORANDUM BY MARTIN CONRAD + + +I hate to butt in where I may not be wanted, but if the remainder of my +darling's story is to be understood I must say what was happening in the +meantime to me. + +God knows there was never a day on which I did not think of my dear one +at home, wondering what was happening to her, and whether a certain dark +fact which always lay at the back of my mind as a possibility was +actually coming to pass. + +But she would be brave--I know that quite well--and I saw plainly that, +if I had to get through the stiff job that was before me, I must put my +shadowy fears away and think only of the dangers I was sure about. + +The first of these was that she might suppose our ship was lost, so as +soon as we had set up on old Erebus the wooden lattice towers which +contained our long-distance electric apparatus, I tried to send her that +first message from the Antarctic which was to say we had not been +shipwrecked. + +It was a thrilling moment. Exactly at the stroke of midnight on January +21, while the midnight sun was shining with its dull sullen glow, the +whole of our company having gathered round, the wireless man prepared to +despatch my message. + +As we were not sure of our machinery I had drawn up the words to suit +any place into which they might fall if they missed their intended +destination: + +"South Pole Expedition safe. All well. Send greetings to dear ones at +home." + +For some forty seconds the sparks crackled out their snappy signals into +the crisp night air, and then the settled calm returned, and we stood in +breathless silence like beings on the edge of a world waiting for the +answer to come as from another planet. + +It came. After a few minutes we heard from our magnetic detector the +faint sound of the S signals, and then we broke into a great cheer. It +was not much, but it was enough; and while our scientific staff were +congratulating themselves that electric-wave telegraphy was not +inhibited by long distance, or by the earth's curvature over an arc of a +great circle, I was thinking of my dear one--that one way or another my +message would reach her and she would be relieved. + +Then in splendid health and spirits--dogs, ponies, and men all A1--we +started on our journey, making a bee-line for the Pole. + +Owing to the heavy weights we had to transport our progress was slow, +much slower than we had expected; and though the going was fair and we +kept a steady pace, travelling a good deal by night, it was not until +the end of March that we reached Mount Darwin, which I had fixed on for +the second of our electric power stations. + +By this time winter was approaching, the nights were beginning to be +dark and cold, and the altitude (8000 ft.) was telling on some of us. + +Nevertheless our second installation got finished about the last week in +April, and again we gathered round (not quite such a hearty company as +before) while the wireless man spoke to the operator we had left on +Erebus. + +Again the electrical radiations went crackling into space, and again we +gave a cheer when the answer came back--all well and instruments in +perfect order. + +Then, late as it was, we began on the last stage of our journey, which +we knew would be a hard one. Three hundred geographical miles in front; +temperature down to minus 40°; the sun several weeks gone, and nothing +before us but thickening twilight, cold winds, snow, the rare aurora and +the frequent moon. + +But the worst fact was that our spirits were low, and do what I would to +keep a good heart and cheer up the splendid fellows who had come with +me, I could not help feeling the deepening effect of that sunless gloom. + +In spite of this, I broke camp on April 25, and started straight as a +die for the South. + +It was a stiff fight over the upper glacier in latitude 85, with its +razor-shaped ice, full of snow-covered crevasses, and three days out two +of our best men fell into one of the worst of them. + +I saw the accident from a dozen yards away, and running up I lay on my +stomach and shouted down, but it was a black bottomless gulf and not a +sound or a sign came back to me. + +This cast a still deeper gloom on our company, who could not be cheered +up, though I kept telling them we should be on the great plateau soon, +please God, and then we should have a clear road to the Pole. + +We were not much better on top though, for the surface was much broken +up, and in that brewing place of the winds there seemed to be nothing +but surging seas of cumulus cloud and rolling waves of snow. + +The Polar march was telling on us badly. We were doing no more than +seven miles at a stretch. So to help my shipmates to keep up their +spirits (and perhaps to give a bit of a "heise" to my own) I had to sing +all day long--though my darling is right that I have no more voice than +a corn-crake. + +Sometimes I sang "Ramsey Town," because it did not want much music, but +generally "Sally's the gel for me," because it had a rattling chorus. +The men all joined in (scientific experts included), and if the angels +took any heed of us, I think it must have touched them up to look down +on our little company of puny men singing away as we trudged through +that snowy wilderness which makes a man feel so small. + +But man can only do his best, and as Father Dan (God bless his old +heart!) used to say, the angels can do no more. We were making middling +hard work of it in the 88th parallel, with a temperature as low as 50 +degrees of frost, when a shrieking, blinding blizzard came sweeping down +on us from the south. + +I thought it might blow itself out, but it didn't, so we struck camp in +a broad half-circle, building igloos (snow huts) with their backs (like +rain-beaten cattle) to the storm. + +There we lay nine days--and it is not worth while now to say how much +some of our men suffered from frozen fingers, and more from falling +spirits. + +Sometimes I heard them saying (in voices that were intended to be loud +enough for me to hear) it would have been better to have built winter +quarters on the north of Darwin and settle there until the return of +summer. And at other times I heard them counting the distance to the +Pole--a hundred geographical miles, making twenty days' march at this +season, with the heavy weights we had to carry, and the dwindling of our +dogs and ponies, for we had killed a lot of them for food. + +But I would not give in, for I felt that to go back without finishing my +job would break my heart; and one day when old Treacle said, "No use, +guv'nor, let's give it best," I flew at him like a hunted tiger. + +All the same I was more than a bit down myself, for there were days when +death was very near, and one night it really broke me up to hear a big +strapping chap saying to the man who shared his two-man sack, "I +shouldn't care a whiff if it wasn't for the wife and the kiddies." + +God knows I had my own anchor at home, and sometimes it had a devil of a +tug at me. I fought myself hard, though, and at last in my desire to go +on and my yearning to go back to my dear one, I made an awful proposal, +such as a man does not much like to think of after a crisis is over. + +"Shipmates," I said, "it isn't exactly my fault that we are here in the +middle of winter, but here we are, and we must make the best of it. I am +going forward, and those who want to go with me can go. But those who +don't want to go can stay; and so that no one may have it on his +conscience that he has kept his comrades back, whether by weakness or by +will, I have told the doctor to serve out a dose of something to every +man, that he may end it whenever he wants to." + +To my surprise that awful proposal was joyfully received; and never so +long as I live shall I forget the sight o' O'Sullivan going round the +broad circle of my shipmates in the blue gloom of that noonday twilight +and handing something to every one of them, while nobody spoke, and +Death seemed to look us in the face. + +And now I come to the incident for which I have told this story. + +I could not get a wink of sleep that night for thinking of the brave +fellows I had doomed to death by their own hands (for that was what it +came to), because their souls were starving and they were thinking of +home. + +My soul was starving too, and whether it was the altitude (now 11,000 +ft.) that was getting into my head, and giving me that draught in the +brain which only travellers in frozen regions know, or the Power higher +than Nature which speaks to a man in great solitudes when life is low, I +cannot say, but as God is my witness, I was hearing again the voices of +my dear ones so far away. + +Sometimes they were the voices of my old people in Ellan, but more +frequently, and most importunately, it was Mary's voice, calling me by +my name, and crying to me for help as if she were in the shadow of some +threatening danger. + +"Martin! Martin! Martin!" + +When this idea took clear possession of me--it was about three a.m. and +the hurricane was yowling like a wounded dog--the answering thought came +quick. I must go back. No matter at what cost or sacrifice--I must go +back. + +It was in vain I reflected that the trouble which threatened my darling +(whatever it was, and I thought I knew) might be all over before I +reached her side--I must go back. + +And even when I reminded myself that I was within twenty days' march of +that last point of my journey which was to be the crown and completion +of it all, I also remembered that my dear one was calling me, and I had +no choice but to obey. + +Next morning, in the first light of the dim Antarctic glow, I crept out +of my snow hut to look south with powerful glasses in order to make sure +that there was no reason why I should change my mind. + +There was none. Although the snow had ceased the blizzard was blowing a +hundred miles an hour in cutting gusts, so with a bleeding heart (and +yet a hot one) I told Treacle to call rip our company, and when they +stood round me in the shelter of my hut I said: + +"Shipmates, I have been thinking things over during the night, and I see +them differently now. Nature is stronger than man, and the nature that +is inside of us sometimes hits us harder than that which is without. I +think it is that way with us here, and I believe there isn't a man of +you who wouldn't go forward with me if he had nobody to think of except +himself. . . . Well, perhaps _I_ have somebody to think of, too, so +we'll stick together, shipmates, and whatever regrets there may be, or +disappointments, or heart-breakings, we'll . . . we'll go back home." + +I think it says something for the mettle my men were made of that there +was never a cheer after I said that, for they could see what it cost me +to say it. But by God, there was a shout when I added: + +"We've drawn a blank this time, boys, but we'll draw a winner yet, and I +ask you to swear that you'll come back with me next year, please God, to +finish the work we've begun." + +Then we gripped hands in that desolate place, and took our solemn oath, +and God knows we meant to keep it. + +It did not take long to strike camp, I can tell you. The men were +bustling about like boys and we had nothing to think of now but the +packing of the food and the harnessing of the dogs and ponies, for we +were leaving everything else behind us. + +At the last moment before we turned northward I planted the Union Jack +on the highest hummock of snow, and when we were a hundred yards off I +looked back through the gloom and saw it blowing stiffly in the wind. + +I don't think I need tell how deeply that sight cut me, but if life has +another such moment coming for me all I have to say is that I hope I may +die before I live to see it--which is Irish, but most damnably true. + +That was twelve o'clock noon on the eighth day of June and anybody may +make what he likes of what I say, but as nearly as I can calculate the +difference of time between London and where we were in the 88th latitude +it was the very hour of my dear one's peril. + +M.C. + +[END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM] + + + + +EIGHTY-NINTH CHAPTER + +Two weeks passed and if I suffered from getting up too soon I was never +conscious of it. + +Once or twice, perhaps, in the early days I felt a certain dizziness and +had to hold on for a moment to the iron rail of my bedstead, but I was +too much occupied with the tender joys of motherhood to think much about +myself. + +Bathing, dressing, undressing, and feeding my baby were a perpetual +delight to me. + +What a joy it all was! + +There must he something almost animal, even voluptuous, in mothers' +love, for there was nothing I liked so much as having baby naked on my +knee and devouring its sweet body all over with kisses--putting its +little fat hands and even its little fat feet into my mouth. + +There must be something almost infantile, too, for sometimes after I had +talked to my darling with a flood of joyous chatter I would even find +myself scolding her a little, and threatening what I would do if she did +not "behave." + +Oh, mysterious laws of motherhood! Only God can fathom the depths of +them. + +It was just as if sixteen years of my life had rolled back, and I was +again a child in my mother's room playing with my dolls under the table. +Only there was something so wonderful now in the sweet eyes that looked +up at me, that at certain moments I would fall into a long reverie and +my heart would be full of adoration. + +What lengths I went to! + +It was the height of the London season when baby came; and sometimes at +night, looking through my window, I saw the tail-end of the long queue +of carriages and electric broughams which stretched to the end of the +street I lived in, from the great houses fronting the Park where balls +and receptions were being held until the early hours of morning. But I +never envied the society ladies they were waiting for. On the contrary I +pitied them, remembering they were childless women for the most part and +thinking their pleasures were hollow as death compared with mine. + +I pitied the rich mothers too--the mothers who banish their babies to +nurseries to be cared for by servants, and I thought how much more +blessed was the condition of poor mothers like myself who kept all that +sweetness to themselves. + +How happy I was! No woman coming into a fortune was ever so happy. I +sang all day long. Sometimes it was the sacred music of the convent in +which each note, with its own glory of sound, wraps one's heart round as +with a rainbow, but more frequently it was "Ramsey Town" or "Sally's the +gel for me," which were only noisy nonsense but dear to me by such +delicious memories. + +My neighbours would come to their doors to listen, and when I had +stopped I would hear them say: + +"Our lady is a 'appy 'cart, isn't she?" + +I suppose it was because I was so happy that my looks returned to me, +though I did not know it was so until one morning, after standing a +moment at the window, I heard somebody say: + +"Our lady seems to be prettier than ever now her baby has come." + +I should not have been a woman if I could have resisted that, so I ran +to the glass to see if it was true, and it was. + +The ugly lines that used to be in my cheeks had gone, my hair had +regained its blue-black lustre, and my eyes had suddenly become bright +like a darkened room when the shutters are opened and the sunshine +streams into it. + +But the coming of baby did better for me than that. It brought me back +to God, before whom I now felt so humble and so glad, because he had +transformed the world for me. + +Every Catholic will know why I could not ask for the benediction of the +Church after childbirth; but he will also know why I was in a fever of +anxiety to have my baby baptized at the earliest possible moment. It was +not that I feared her death (I never thought of that in those days), but +because I lived in dread of the dangers which had darkened my thoughts +before she was born. + +So when baby was nearly a fortnight old I wrote to the Rector of a +neighbouring Catholic Church asking when I might bring her to be +baptized, and he sent me a printed reply, giving the day and hour, and +enclosing a card to be filled up with her name and all other +particulars. + +What a day of joy and rapture was that of my baby's baptism! I was up +with the sun on the morning appointed to take her to church and spent +hours and hours in dressing her. + +How lovely she looked when I had finished! I thought she was the +sweetest thing in the world, sweeter than a rosebud under its sparkling +web of dew when the rising sun is glistening on it. + +After I had put on all the pretty clothes I had prepared for her before +she was born--the christening robe and the pelisse and the knitted +bonnet with its pink ribbons and the light woollen veil--I lifted her up +to the glass to look at herself, being such a child myself and so +wildly, foolishly happy. + +"That old Rector won't see anything equal to her _this_ summer morning +anyway," I thought. + +And then the journey to church! + +I have heard that unmarried mothers, going out for the first time after +their confinement, feel ashamed and confused, as if every passer-by must +know their shameful secret. I was a kind of unmarried mother myself, God +help me, but I had no such feeling. Indeed I felt proud and gay, and +when I sailed out with my baby in my arms I thought all the people in +our street were looking at me, and I am sure I wanted to say "Good +morning" to everybody I met on my way. + +The church was not in a joyous quarter. It stood on the edge of a poor +and very populous district, with a flaunting public-house immediately +opposite. When I got to it I found a number of other mothers (all +working women), with their babies and the godfathers and godmothers they +had provided for them, waiting at the door. + +At this sight I felt very stupid, for I had been thinking so much about +other things (some of them vain enough perhaps) that I had forgotten the +necessity for sponsors; and I do not know what I should have done at +that last moment if the sacristan had not come to my relief--finding me +two old people who, for a fee of a shilling each, were willing to stand +godmother and godfather to my darling. + +Then the priest came out of the church in his white surplice and stole, +and we all gathered in the porch for the preliminary part of the +sacrament. + +What an experience it was! Never since my marriage had I been in a state +of such spiritual exaltation. + +The sacristan, showing me some preference, had put me in the middle of +the row, immediately in front of the priest, so what happened to the +other children I do not know, having eyes and ears for nothing but the +baptism of my own baby. + +There were some mistakes, but they did not trouble me, although one was +a little important. + +When the priest said, "What name give you this child?" I handed the +Rector's card to the sacristan, and whispered "Isabel Mary" to the +godmother, but the next thing I heard was: + +"Mary Isabel, what dost thou ask of the Church of God?" + +But what did it matter? Nothing mattered except one thing--that my +darling should be saved by the power of the Holy Sacrament from the dark +terrors which threatened her. + +Oh, it is a fearful and awful thing, the baptism of a child, if you +really and truly believe in it. And I did--from the bottom of my heart +and soul I believed in it and trusted it. + +In my sacred joy I must have cried nearly all the time, for I had taken +baby's bonnet off, I remember, and holding it to my mouth I found after +a while that I was wetting it with my tears. + +When the exorcisms were over, the priest laid the end of his stole over +baby's shoulder and led her (as our prayer books say) into the church, +and we all followed to the baptistery, where I knelt immediately in +front of the font, with the old godmother before me, the other mothers +on either side, and a group of whispering children behind. + +The church was empty, save for two charwomen who were sweeping the floor +of the nave somewhere up by the dark and silent altar; and when the +sacristan closed the outer door there was a solemn hush, which was +broken only by the priest's voice and the godparents' muttered +responses. + +"Mary Isabel, dost thou renounce Satan?" + +"I do renounce him." + +"And all his works?" + +"I do renounce them." + +"And all his pomps?" + +"I do renounce them." + +The actual baptism was like a prayer to me. I am sure my whole soul went +out to it. And though I may have been a sinful woman unworthy to be +churched, I know, and God knows, that no chaste and holy nun ever prayed +with a purer heart than I did then, kneeling there with my baby's bonnet +to my mouth. + +"Mary Isabel, I baptize thee in the name of the Father + and of the Son ++ and of the Holy Ghost.+" + +Except that baby cried a little when the water was poured on her head +(as she had cried when the salt was put on her tongue), I knew no more +after that until I saw the candle in the godfather's hand (which +signified that my child had been made a Child of Light) and heard the +priest say: + +"Go in peace and the Lord be with thee." + +Then I awoke as from a trance. There was a shuffling of feet. The priest +was going away. The solemn rite was at an end. + +I rose from my knees, put a little money in the plate which the +sacristan held out to me, gave a shilling to each of the two old +sponsors, took baby back into my arms, and sat down in a pew to put on +her bonnet and veil. + +The spiritual exaltation which had sustained me lasted until I reached +the street where the other mothers and their friends were laughing and +joking, in voices that had to be pitched high over the rattle of the +traffic, about going to the house opposite to "wet the baby's head." + +But I think something of the celestial light of the sacrament must have +been on my face still when I reached home, for I remember that as I +knocked at the door, and waited for the rope from the kitchen to open +it, I heard one of my neighbours say: + +"Our lady has taken a new lease of life, hasn't she?" + +I thought I had--a great new lease of physical and spiritual life. + +But how little did I know what Fate had in store for me! + + + + +NINETIETH CHAPTER + + +I was taking off baby's outdoor things when my Welsh landlady came up to +ask how I had got on, and after I had told her she said: + +And now thee'st got to get the jewel registered." + +"Registered?" + +"Within three weeks. It's the law, look you." + +That was the first thing that frightened me. I had filled up truthfully +enough the card which the Rector had sent me, because I knew that the +register of my Church must be as sacred as its confessional. + +But a public declaration of my baby's birth and parentage seemed to be +quite another matter--charged with all the dangers to me, to Martin, and +above all to my child, which had overshadowed my life before she was +born. + +More than once I felt tempted to lie, to make a false declaration, to +say that Martin had been my husband and Isabel was my legitimate child. + +But at length I resolved to speak the truth, the plain truth, telling +myself that God's law was above man's law, and I had no right to be +ashamed. + +In this mood I set off for the Registry Office. It was a long way from +where I lived, and carrying baby in my arms I was tired when I got +there. + +I found it to be a kind of private house, with an open vestibule and a +black-and-white enamelled plate on the door-post, saying "Registry of +Births and Deaths." + +In the front parlour (which reminded me of Mr. Curphy's office in +Holmtown) there was a counter by the door and a large table covered with +papers in the space within. + +Two men sat at this table, an old one and a young one, and I remember +that I thought the old one must have been reading aloud from a newspaper +which he held open in his hand, for as I entered the young one was +saying: + +"Extraordinary! Perfectly extraordinary! And everybody thought they were +lost, too!" + +In the space between the door and the counter two women were waiting. +Both were poor and obviously agitated. One had a baby in her arms, and +when it whimpered for its food she unbuttoned her dress and fed it +openly. The other woman, whose eyes were red as if she had been crying, +wore a coloured straw hat over which, in a pitiful effort to assume +black, she had stretched a pennyworth of cheap crźpe. + +In his own good time the young man got up to attend to them. He was a +very ordinary young clerk in a check suit, looking frankly bored by the +dull routine of his daily labour, and palpably unconscious of the fact +that every day and hour of his life he was standing on the verge of the +stormiest places of the soul. + +Opening one of two registers which lay on the counter (the Register of +Births) he turned first to the woman with the child. Her baby, a boy, +was illegitimate, and in her nervousness she stumbled and stammered, and +he corrected her sharply. + +Then opening the other register (the Register of Deaths) he attended to +the woman in the crźpe. She had lost her little girl, two years old, and +produced a doctor's certificate. While she gave the particulars she held +a soiled handkerchief to her mouth as if to suppress a sob, but the +young clerk's composure remained undisturbed. + +I do not know if it was the agitation of the two poor women that made me +nervous, but when they were gone and my turn had come, I was hot and +trembling. + +The young clerk, however, who was now looking at me for the first time, +had suddenly become respectful. With a bow and a smile he asked me if I +wished to register my child, and when I answered yes he asked me to be +good enough to step up to the counter. + +"And what is your baby's name, please?" he asked. + +I told him. He dipped his pen in his metal ink-pot, shook some drops +back, made various imaginary flourishes over his book and wrote: + +"Mary Isabel." + +"And now," he said, with another smile, "the full name, profession, and +place of residence of the father." + +I hesitated for a moment, and then, making a call on my resolution, I +said: + +"Martin Conrad, seaman, deceased." + +The young clerk looked up quickly. + +"Did you say Martin Conrad, ma'am?" he asked, and as well as I could for +a click in my throat I answered: + +"Yes." + +He paused as if thinking; then with the same flourish as before he wrote +that name also, and after he had done so, he twisted his face about to +the old man, who was sitting behind him, and said, in a voice that was +not meant to reach me: + +"Extraordinary coincidence, isn't it?" + +"Extraordinary!" said the old man, who had lowered his newspaper and was +looking across at me over the rims of his spectacles. + +"And now," said the young clerk, "your own name and your maiden name if +you please." + +"Mary O'Neill." + +The young clerk looked up at me again. I was holding baby on my left arm +and I could see that his eye caught my wedding ring. + +"Mary Conrad, maiden name O'Neill, I presume?" he said. + +I hesitated once more. The old temptation was surging back upon me. But +making a great pull on my determination to tell the truth (or what I +believed to be the truth) I answered: + +"No, Mary O'Neill simply." + +"Ah!" said the young clerk, and I thought his manner changed instantly. + +There was silence for some minutes while the young clerk filled up his +form and made the copy I was to carry away. + +I heard the scratching of the young clerk's pen, the crinkling of the +old man's newspaper, the hollow ticking of a round clock on the wall, +the dull hum of the traffic in the streets, and the thud-thud-thudding +in my own bosom. + +Then the entry was read out to me and I was asked to sign it. + +"Sign here, please," said the young clerk in quite a different tone, +pointing to a vacant line at the bottom of the hook, and I signed with a +trembling hand and a feeling of only partial consciousness. + +I hardly know what happened after that until I was standing in the open +vestibule, settling baby on my arm afresh for my return journey, and +telling myself that I had laid a stigma upon my child which would remain +with her as long as she lived. + +It was a long, long way back, I remember, and when I reached home +(having looked neither to the right nor left, nor at anything or +anybody, though I felt as if everybody had been looking at me) I had a +sense of dimness of sight and of aching in the eyeballs. + +I did not sing very much that day, and I thought baby was rather +restless. + +Towards nightfall I had a startling experience. + +I was preparing Isabel for bed, when I saw a red flush, like a rash, +down the left side of her face. + +At first I thought it would pass away, but when it did not I called my +Welsh landlady upstairs to look at it. + +"Do you see something like a stain on baby's face?" I asked, and then +waited breathlessly for her answer. + +"No . . . Yes . . . Well," she said, "now that thee'st saying so . . . +perhaps it's a birthmark." + +"A birthmark?" + +"Did'st strike thy face against anything when baby was coming?" + +I made some kind of reply, I hardly know what, but the truth, or what I +thought to be the truth, flashed on me in a moment. + +Remembering my last night at Castle Raa, and the violent scene which had +occurred there, I told myself that the flush on baby's face was the mark +of my husband's hand which, making no impression upon me, had been +passed on to my child, and would remain with her to the end of her life, +as the brand of her mother's shame and the sign of what had been called +her bastardy. + +How I suffered at the sight of it! How time after time that night I +leaned over my sleeping child to see if the mark had passed away! How +again and again I knelt by her side to pray that if sin of mine had to +be punished the punishment might fall on me and not on my innocent babe! + +At last I remembered baby's baptism and told myself that if it meant +anything it meant that the sin in which my child had been born, the sin +of those who had gone before her (if sin it was), had been cast out of +her soul with the evil spirits which had inspired them. + +"_This sign of the Holy Cross + which we make upon her forehead do +thou, accursed devil, never dare to violate_." + +God's law had washed my darling white! What could man's law--his proud +but puny morality--do to injure her? It could do nothing! + +That comforted me. When I looked at baby again the flush had gone and I +went to bed quite happy. + + + + +NINETY-FIRST CHAPTER + + +I think it must have been the morning of the next day when the nurse who +had attended me in my confinement came to see how I was going along. + +I told her of the dimness of my sight and the aching of my eyeballs, +whereupon she held up her hands and cried: + +"There now! What did I tell you? Didn't I say it is _after_ a lady feels +it?" + +The moral of her prediction was that, being in a delicate state of +health, and having "let myself low" before baby was born, it was my duty +to wean her immediately. + +I could not do it. + +Although the nurse's advice was supported by my Welsh landlady (with +various prognostications of consumption and rickets), I could not at +first deny myself the wild joy of nursing my baby. + +But a severer monitor soon came to say that I must. I found that my +money was now reduced to little more than two pounds, and that I was +confronted by the necessity (which I had so long put off) of looking for +employment. + +I could not look for employment until I had found a nurse for my child, +and I could not find a nurse until my baby could do without me, so when +Isabel was three weeks old I began to wean her. + +At first I contented myself with the hours of night, keeping a +feeding-bottle in bed, with the cow's milk warmed to the heat of my own +body. But when baby cried for the breast during the day I could not find +it in my heart to deny her. + +That made the time of weaning somewhat longer than it should have been, +but I compromised with my conscience by reducing still further my meagre +expenses. + +Must I tell how I did so? + +Although it was the month of July there was a snap of cold weather such +as sometimes comes in the middle of our English summer, and yet I gave +up having a fire in my room, and for the cooking of my food I bought a +small spirit stove which cost me a shilling. + +This tempted me to conduct which has since had consequences, and I am +half ashamed and half afraid to speak of it. My baby linen being little +I had to wash it frequently, and having no fire I . . . dried it on my +own body. + +Oh, I see now it was reckless foolishness, almost wilful madness, but I +thought nothing of it then. I was poor and perhaps I was proud, and I +could not afford a fire. And then a mother's love is as deep as the sea, +and there was nothing in the wide world I would not have done to keep my +darling a little longer beside me. + +Baby being weaned at last I had next to think of a nurse, and that was a +still more painful ordeal. To give my child to another woman, who was to +be the same as a second mother to her, was almost more than I could bear +to think about. + +I _had_ to think of it. But I could only do so by telling myself that, +when I put baby out to nurse, I might arrange to see her every morning +and evening and as often as my employment permitted. + +This idea partly reconciled me to my sacrifice, and I was in the act of +drawing up a newspaper advertisement in these terms when my landlady +came to say that the nurse knew of somebody who would suit me exactly. + +Nurse called the same evening and told me a long story about her friend. + +She was a Mrs. Oliver, and she lived at Ilford, which was at the other +end of London and quite on the edge of the country. The poor woman, who +was not too happily married, had lost a child of her own lately, and was +now very lonely, being devoted to children. + +This pleased me extremely, especially (God forgive me!), the fact that +Mrs. Oliver was a bereaved mother and lived on the edge of the country. + +Already in my mind's eye I saw her sitting on sunny days under a tree +(perhaps in an orchard) with Isabel in her arms, rocking her gently and +singing to her softly, and almost forgetting that she was not her own +baby whom she had lost . . . though that was a two-edged sword which cut +me both ways, being a sort of wild joy with tears lurking behind it. + +So I took a note of Mrs. Oliver's address (10 Lennard's Row, Lennard's +Green, Ilford) and wrote to her the same night, asking her terms and +stating my own conditions. + +A reply came the following day. It was a badly-written and misspelt +letter, which showed me that Mrs. Oliver must be a working woman +(perhaps the wife of a gardener or farm-labourer, I thought), though +that did not trouble me in the least, knowing by this time how poor +people loved their children. + + _"The terms is fore shillins a weke," she wrote, "but i am that + lonelie sins my own littel one lef me i wood tike your swete + darling for nothin if I cud afford it and you can cum to see her as + offen as you pleas_." + +In my ignorance and simplicity this captured me completely, so I replied +at once saying I would take baby to Ilford the next day. + +I did all this in a rush, but when it came to the last moment I could +scarcely part with my letter, and I remember that I passed three +pillar-boxes in the front street before I could bring myself to post it. + +I suppose my eyes must have been red when I returned home, for my Welsh +landlady (whom I had taken into my confidence about my means) took me to +task for crying, telling me that I ought to thank God for what had +happened, which was like a message from heaven, look you, and a +dispensation of Providence. + +I tried to see things in that light, though it was difficult to do so, +for the darker my prospects grew the more radiant shone the light of the +little angel by whose life I lived, and the harder it seemed to live +without her. + +"But it isn't like losing my child altogether, is it?" I said. + +"'Deed no, and 'twill he better for both of you," said my landlady. + +"Although Ilford is a long way off I can go there every day, can't I'!" + +"'Deed thee can, if thee'st not minding a journey of nine miles or +more." + +"And if I can get a good situation and earn a little money I may be able +to have baby back and hire somebody to nurse her, and so keep her all to +myself." + +"And why shouldn't thee?" said my Welsh landlady. "Thee reading print +like the young minister and writing letters like a copybook!" + +So in the fierce bravery of motherly love I dried my eyes and forced +back my sobs, and began to pack up my baby's clothes, and to persuade +myself that I was still quite happy. + +My purse was very low by this time. After paying my rent and some other +expenses I had only one pound and a few shillings left. + + + + +NINETY-SECOND CHAPTER + + +At half past seven next morning I was ready to start on my journey. + +I took a hasty glance at myself in the glass before going out, and I +thought my eyes were too much like the sky at daybreak--all joyful beams +with a veil of mist in front of them. + +But I made myself believe that never since baby was born had I been so +happy. I was sure I was doing the best for her. I was also sure I was +doing the best for myself, for what could be so sweet to a mother as +providing for her child? + +My Welsh landlady had told me it was nine miles to Ilford, and I had +gathered that I could ride all the way in successive omnibuses for less +than a shilling. But shillings were scarce with me then, so I determined +to walk all the way. + +Emmerjane, by her own urgent entreaty, carried baby as far as the corner +of the Bayswater Road, and there the premature little woman left me, +after nearly smothering baby with kisses. + +"Keep straight as a' arrow and you can't lose your wye," she said. + +It was one of those beautiful mornings in late July when the air is +fresh and the sun is soft, and the summer, even in London, has not yet +had time to grow tired and dusty. + +I felt as light as the air itself. I had put baby's feeding-bottle in my +pocket and hung her surplus linen in a parcel about my wrist, so I had +nothing to carry in my arms except baby herself, and at first I did not +feel her weight. + +There were not many people in the West-End streets at that early hour, +yet a few were riding in the Park, and when I came to the large houses +in Lancaster Gate I saw that though the sun was shining on the windows +most of the blinds were down. + +I must have been walking slowly, for it was half past eight when I +reached the Marble Arch. There I encountered the first cross-tide of +traffic, but somebody, seeing baby, took me by the arm and led me safely +over. + +The great "Mediterranean of Oxford Street" was by this time running at +full tide. People were pouring out of the Tube and Underground stations +and clambering on to the motor-buses. But in the rush nobody hustled or +jostled me. A woman with a child in her arms was like a queen--everybody +made way for her. + +Once or twice I stopped to look at the shops. Some of the dressmakers' +windows were full of beautiful costumes. I did not covet any of them. I +remembered the costly ones I had bought in Cairo and how little +happiness they had brought me. And then I felt as if the wealth of the +world were in my arms. + +Nevertheless the whole feminine soul in me awoke when I came upon a shop +for the sale of babies' clothes. Already I foresaw a time when baby, +dressed in pretty things like these, would be running about Lennard's +Green and plucking up the flowers in Mrs. Oliver's garden. + +The great street was very long and I thought it would never end. But I +think I must have been still fresh and happy while we passed through the +foreign quarter of Soho, for I remember that, when two young Italian +waiters, standing at the door of their café, asked each other in their +own language which of us (baby or I) was "the bambino," I turned to them +and smiled. + +Before I came to Chancery Lane, however, baby began to cry for her food, +and I was glad to slip down a narrow alley into Lincoln's Inn Fields and +sit on a seat in the garden while I gave her the bottle. It was then ten +o'clock, the sun was high and the day was becoming hot. + +The languid stillness of the garden after the noise and stir of the +streets tempted me to stay longer than I had intended, and when I +resumed my journey I thought the rest must have done me good, but before +I reached the Holborn Viaduct fatigue was beginning to gain on me. + +I saw that I must be approaching some great hospital, for hospital +nurses were now passing me constantly, and one of them, who was going my +way, stepped up and asked me to allow her to carry baby. She looked so +sweet and motherly that I let her do so, and as we walked along we +talked. + +She asked me if I was going far, and I said no, only to the other end of +London, the edge of the country, to Ilford. + +"Ilford!" she cried. "Why, that's miles and miles away. You'll have to +'bus it to Aldgate, then change for Bow, and then tram it through +Stratford Market." + +I told her I preferred to walk, being such a good walker, and she gave +me a searching look, but said no more on that subject. + +Then she asked me how old baby was and whether I was nursing her myself, +and I answered that baby was six weeks and I had been forced to wean +her, being supposed to be delicate, and besides . . . + +"Ah, perhaps you are putting her out to nurse," she said, and I answered +yes, and that was the reason I was going to Ilford. + +"I see," she said, with another searching look, and then it flashed upon +me that she had formed her own conclusions about what had befallen me. + +When we came to a great building in a side street on the left, with +ambulance vans passing in and out of a wide gateway, she said she was +sorry she could not carry baby any further, because she was due in the +hospital, where the house-doctor would be waiting for her. + +"But I hope baby's nurse will be a good one. They're not always that, +you know." + +I was not quite so happy when the hospital nurse left me. The parcel on +my wrist was feeling heavier than before, and my feet were beginning to +drag. But I tried to keep a good heart as I faced the crowded +thoroughfares--Newgate with its cruel old prison, the edge of St. +Paul's, and the corner of St. Martin's-le-Grand, and so on into +Cheapside. + +Cheapside itself was almost impassable. Merchants, brokers, clerks, and +city men generally in tall silk hats were hurrying and sometimes running +along the pavement, making me think of the river by my father's house, +whose myriad little waves seemed to my fancy as a child to be always +struggling to find out which could get to Murphy's Mouth the first and +so drown itself in the sea. + +People were still very kind to me, though, and if anybody brushed me in +passing he raised his hat; and if any one pushed me accidentally he +stopped to say he was sorry. + +Of course baby was the talisman that protected me from harm; and what I +should have done without her when I got to the Mansion house I do not +know, for that seemed to be the central heart of all the London traffic, +with its motor-buses and taxi-cabs going in different directions and its +tremendous tides of human life flowing every way. + +But just as I was standing, dazed and deafened on the edge of a triangle +of streets, looking up at a great building that was like a rock on the +edge of a noisy sea, and bore on its face the startling inscription, +"The Earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof," a big policeman, +seeing me with baby in my arms, held up his hand to the drivers and +shouted to the pedestrians ("Stand a-one side, please"), and then led me +safely across, as if the Red Sea had parted to let us pass. + +It was then twelve o'clock and baby was once more crying for her food, +so I looked for a place in which I might rest while I gave her the +bottle again. + +Suddenly I came upon what I wanted. It seemed to be a garden, but it was +a graveyard--one of the graveyards of the old London churches, enclosed +by high buildings now, and overlooked by office windows. + +Such a restful place, so green, so calm, so beautiful! Lying there in +the midst of the tumultuous London traffic, it reminded me of one of the +little islands in the middle of our Ellan glens, on which the fuchsia +and wild rose grow while the river rolls and boils about it. + +I had just sat down on a seat that had been built about a gnarled and +blackened old tree, and was giving baby her food, when I saw that a +young girl was sitting beside me. + +She was about nineteen years of age, and was eating scones out of a +confectioner's bag, while she read a paper-covered novel. Presently she +looked at baby with her little eyes, which were like a pair of shiny +boot buttons, and said: + +"That your child?" + +I answered her, and then she asked: + +"Do you like children?" + +I answered her again, and asked her if she did not like them also. + +"Can't say I'm particularly gone on them," she said, whereupon I replied +that that was probably because she had not yet had much experience. + +"Oh, haven't I? Perhaps I haven't," she said, and then with a hard +little laugh, she added "Mother's had nine though." + +I asked if she was a shop assistant, and with a toss of her head she +told me she was a typist. + +"Better screw and your evenings off," she said, and then she returned to +the subject of children. + +One of her chums in the office who used to go out with her every night +to the music-halls got into trouble a year or two ago. As a consequence +she had to marry. And what was the result? Never had her nose out of the +wash-tub now! + +The story was crude enough, yet it touched me closely. + +"But couldn't she have put her baby out to nurse and get another +situation somewhere?" I asked. + +"Matter o' luck," said the girl. "Some can. Some can't. That's their +look out. Firms don't like it. If they find you've got a child they +gen'r'lly chuck you." + +In spite of myself I was a little down when I started on my journey +again. I thought the parcel was cutting my wrist and I felt my feet +growing heavier at every step. + +Was Maggie Jones's story the universal one? + +If a child were born beyond the legal limits, was it a thing to hide +away and be ashamed of? + +And could it be possible that man's law was stronger than God's law +after all? + + + + +NINETY-THIRD CHAPTER + + +I had walked so slowly and stopped so often that it was two o'clock in +the afternoon when I passed through Aldgate. + +I was then faint for want of food, so I looked out for a tea-shop or +restaurant. + +I passed several such places before I found the modest house I wanted. +Then I stepped into it rather nervously and took the seat nearest the +door. + +It was an oblong room with red plush seats along the walls behind a line +of marble-topped tables. The customers were all men, chiefly clerks and +warehousemen, I thought, and the attendants were girls in black frocks +and white aprons. + +There seemed to be a constant fire of free-and-easy flirtation going on +between them. At one table a man in a cloth cap was saying to the girl +who had served him: + +"What's the damage, dearie?" + +"One roast, one veg, two breads--'levenpence, and no liberties, mister." + +"Sunday off, Em'ly?" said a youth in a red tie at another table, and +being told it was, he said: + +"Then what do you say to 'oppin' up to 'Endon and 'aving a day in a +boat?" + +I had to wait some time before anybody came to attend to me, but at +length a girl from the other end of the room, who had taken no part in +these amatory exchanges, stepped up and asked what I wanted. + +I ordered a glass of cold milk and a scone for myself and a pint of hot +milk to replenish baby's bottle. + +The girl served me immediately, and after rinsing and refilling the +feeding-bottle she stood near while the baby used it. + +She had quiet eyes and that indefinable expression of yearning +tenderness which we sometimes see in the eyes of a dear old maid who has +missed her motherhood. + +The shop had been clearing rapidly; and as soon as the men were gone, +and while the other girls were sitting in corners to read penny +novelettes, my waitress leaned over and asked me if I did not wish to go +into the private room to attend to baby. + +A moment afterwards I followed her into a small apartment at the end of +the shop, and there a curious thing occurred. + +She closed the door behind us and asked me in an eager whisper to allow +her to see to baby. + +I tried to excuse myself, but she whispered: + +"Hush! I have a baby of my own, though they know nothing about it here, +so you can safely trust me." + +I did so, and it was beautiful to see the joy she had in doing what was +wanted, saying all sorts of sweet and gentle things to my baby (though I +knew they were meant for her own), as if the starved mother-heart in her +were stealing a moment of maternal tenderness. + +"There!" she said, "She'll be comfortable now, bless her!" + +I asked about her own child, and, coming close and speaking in a +whisper, she told me all about it. + +It was a girl and it would be a year old at Christmas. At first she had +put it out to nurse in town, where she could see it every evening, but +the foster-mother had neglected it, and the inspector had complained, so +she had been compelled to take it away. Now it was in a Home in the +country, ten miles from Liverpool Street, and it was as bonny as a peach +and as happy as the day is long. + +"See," she whispered, taking a card from her breast, after a furtive +glance towards the door. "I sent two shillings to have her photograph +taken and the Matron has just sent it." + +It was the picture of a beautiful baby girl, and I found it easy to +praise her. + +"I suppose you see her constantly, don't you?" I said. + +The girl's face dropped. + +"Only on visiting days, once a month, and not always that," she +answered. + +"But how can you live without seeing her oftener?" I asked. + +"Matter o' means," she said sadly. "I pay five shillings a week for her +board, and the train is one-and-eight return, so I have to be careful, +you see, and if I lost my place what would happen to baby?" + +I was very low and tired and down when I resumed my walk. But when I +thought for a moment of taking omnibuses for the rest of my journey I +remembered the waitress's story and told myself that the little I had +belonged to my child, and so I struggled on. + +But what a weary march it was during the next two hours! I was in the +East End now, and remembering the splendour of the West, I could +scarcely believe I was still in London. + +Long, mean, monotonous streets, running off to right and left, miles on +miles of them without form or feature, or any trace of nature except the +blue strips of sky overhead. + +Such multitudes of people, often badly dressed and generally with set +and anxious faces, hasting to and fro, hustling, elbowing, jostling each +other along, as if driven by some invisible power that was swinging an +unseen scourge. + +No gracious courtesy here! A woman with a child in her arms was no +longer a queen. Children were cheap, and sometimes it was as much as I +could do to save myself from being pushed off the pavement. + +The air seemed to smell of nothing but ale and coarse tobacco. And then +the noise! The ceaseless clatter of carts, the clang of electric cars, +the piercing shrieks of the Underground Railway coming at intervals out +of the bowels of the earth like explosions out of a volcano, and, above +all, the raucous, rasping, high-pitched voices of the people, often +foul-mouthed, sometimes profane, too frequently obscene. + +A cold, grey, joyless, outcast city, cut off from the rest of London by +an invisible barrier more formidable than a wall; a city in which the +inhabitants seemed to live cold, grey, joyless lives, all the same that +they joked and laughed; a city under perpetual siege, the siege of +Poverty, in the constant throes of civil war, the War of Want, the daily +and hourly fight for food. + +If there were other parts of the East End (and I am sure there must be) +where people live simple, natural, human lives, I did not see them that +day, for my course was down the principal thoroughfares only. + +Those thoroughfares, telescoping each other, one after another, seemed +as if they would never come to an end. + +How tired I was! Even baby was no longer light, and the parcel on my +wrist had become as heavy as lead. + +Towards four o'clock I came to a broad parapet which had strips of +garden enclosed by railings and iron seats in front of them. Utterly +exhausted, my arms aching and my legs limp, I sank into one of these +seats, feeling that I could walk no farther. + +But after a while I felt better, and then I became aware that another +woman was sitting beside me. + +When I looked at her first I thought I had never in my life seen +anything so repulsive. She was asleep, and having that expressionless +look which sleep gives, I found it impossible to know whether she was +young or old. She was not merely coarse, she was gross. The womanhood in +her seemed to be effaced, and I thought she was utterly brutalised and +degraded. + +Presently baby, who had also been asleep, awoke and cried, and then the +woman opened her eyes and looked at the child, while I hushed her to +sleep again. + +There must be something in a baby's face that has a miraculous effect on +every woman (as if these sweet angels, fresh from God, make us all young +and all beautiful), and it was even so at that moment. + +Never shall I forget the transfiguration in the woman's face when she +looked into the face of my baby. The expression of brutality and +degradation disappeared, and through the bleared eyes and over the +coarsened features there came the light of an almost celestial smile. + +After a while the woman spoke to me. She spoke in a husky voice which +seemed to be compounded of the effects of rum and raw night air. + +"That your'n," she said. + +I answered her. + +"Boy or gel?" + +I told her. + +"'Ow old?" + +I told her that too. + +The woman was silent for a moment, and then, with a thickening of the +husky voice, she said: + +"S'pose you'll say I'm a bleedin' liar, but I 'ad a kid as putty as that +onct--puttier. It was a boy. The nobbiest little b---- as you ever come +acrost. Your'n is putty, but it ain't in it with my Billie, not by a +long chalk." + +I asked her what had become of her child. + +"Lawst 'im," she said. "Used to give sixpence a week to the woman what +'ad 'alf the 'ouse with me to look after 'im while I was workin' at the +fact'ry. But what did the bleedin' b---- do? Blimey, if she didn't let +'im get run over by the dray from the brewery." + +"Killed?" I said, clutching at baby. + +The woman nodded without speaking. + +I asked her how old her child had been. + +"More'n four," she said. "Just old enough to run a arrand. It was crool. +Hit me out, I can tell you. That kid was all I had. Apple o' my eye, in +a manner of speakin'. When it was gone there wasn't much encouragement, +was there? The Favver from the Mission came jawin' as 'ow Jesus 'ad +taken 'im to 'Imself. Rot! When they put 'im down in old Bow I didn't +care no more for nothin'. Monse and monse I walked about night and day, +and the bleedin' coppers was allus on to me. They got their own way at +last. I took the pneumonier and was laid up at the London. And when I +got out I didn't go back to the fact'ry neither." + +"What did you do?" I asked. + +The woman laughed--bitterly, terribly. + +"Do? Don't you _know_?" + +I shook my head. The woman looked hard at me, and then at the child. + +"Look here--are you a good gel?" she said. + +Hardly knowing what she meant I answered that I hoped so + +"'Ope? Don't you know _that_ neither?" + +Then I caught her meaning, and answered faintly: + +"Yes." + +She looked searchingly into my eyes and said: + +"I b'lieve you. Some gels is. S'elp me Gawd I don't know how they done +it, though." + +I was shuddering and trembling, for I was catching glimpses, as if by +broken lights from hell, of the life behind--the wrecked hope, the +shattered faith, the human being hunted like a beast and at last turned +into one. + +Just at that moment baby awoke and cried again. The woman looked at her +with the same look as before--not so much a smile as a sort of haggard +radiance. + +Then leaning over me she blew puffs of alcoholic breath into baby's +face, and stretching out a coarse fat finger she tickled her under the +chin. + +Baby ceased to cry and began to smile. Seeing this the woman's eyes +sparkled like sunshine. + +"See that," she cried. "S'elp me Jesus, I b'lieve I could 'ave been good +meself if I'd on'y 'ad somethink like this to keer for." + +I am not ashamed to say that more than once there had been tears in my +eyes while the woman spoke, though her blasphemies had corrupted the air +like the gases that rise from a dust-heap. But when she touched my child +I shuddered as if something out of the 'lowest depths had tainted her. + +Then a strange thing happened. + +I had risen to go, although my limbs could scarcely support me, and was +folding my little angel closely in my arms, when the woman rose too and +said: + +"You wouldn't let me carry your kiddie a bit, would you?" + +I tried to excuse myself, saying something, I know not what The woman +looked at me again, and after a moment she said: + +"S'pose not. On'y I thought it might make me think as 'ow I was carryin' +Billie." + +That swept down everything. + +The one remaining window of the woman's soul was open and I dared not +close it. + +I looked down at my child--so pure, so sweet, so stainless; I looked up +at the woman--so foul, so gross, so degraded. + +There was a moment of awful struggle and then . . . the woman and I were +walking side by side. + +And the harlot was carrying my baby down the street. + + + + +NINETY-FOURTH CHAPTER + + +At five o'clock I was once more alone. + +I was then standing (with baby in my own arms now) under the statue +which is at the back of Bow Church. + +I thought I could walk no farther, and although every penny I had in my +pocket belonged to Isabel (being all that yet stood between her and +want) I must borrow a little of it if she was to reach Mrs. Oliver's +that night. + +I waited for the first tram that was going in my direction, and when it +came up I signalled to it, but it did not stop--it was full. + +I waited for a second tram, but that was still more crowded. + +I reproached myself for having come so far. I told myself how +ill-advised I had been in seeking for a nurse for my child at the +farthest end of the city. I reminded myself that I could not hope to +visit her every day if my employment was to be in the West, as I had +always thought it would be. I asked myself if in all this vast London, +with its myriads of homes, there had been no house nearer that could +have sheltered my child. + +Against all this I had to set something, or I think my very heart would +have died there and then. I set the thought of Ilford, on the edge of +the country, with its green fields and its flowers. I set the thought of +Mrs. Oliver, who would love my child as tenderly as if she were her own +little lost one. + +I dare say it was all very weak and childish, but it is just when we are +done and down, and do not know what we are doing, that Providence seems +to be directing us, and it was so with me at that moment. + +The trams being full I had concluded that Fate had set itself against +my spending any of Isabel's money, and had made up my mind to make a +fierce fight over the last stage of my journey, when I saw that a little +ahead of where I was standing the road divided into two branches at an +acute angle, one branch going to the right and the other to the left. + +Not all Emmerjane's instructions about keeping "as straight as a' arrow" +sufficed to show me which of the two roads to take and I looked about +for somebody to tell me. + +It was then that I became aware of a shabby old four-wheeled cab which +stood in the triangular space in front of the statue, and of the driver +(an old man, in a long coachman's coat, much worn and discoloured, and a +dilapidated tall hat, very shiny in patches) looking at me while he took +the nose-bag off his horse--a bony old thing with its head hanging down. + +I stepped up to him and asked my way, and he pointed it out to me--to +the right, over the bridge and through Stratford Market. + +I asked how far it was to Ilford. + +"Better nor two mile _I_ call it," he answered. + +After that, being so tired in brain as well as body, I asked a foolish +question--how long it would take me to get there. + +The old driver looked at me again, and said: + +"'Bout a 'our and a 'alf I should say by the looks of you--and you +carryin' the biby." + +I dare say my face dropped sadly as I turned away, feeling very tired, +yet determined to struggle through. But hardly had I walked twenty paces +when I heard the cab coming up behind and the old driver crying: + +"'Old on, missie." + +I stopped, and to my surprise he drew up by my side, got down from his +box, opened the door of his cab and said: + +"Ger in." + +I told him I could not afford to ride. + +"Ger in," he said again more loudly, and as if angry with himself for +having to say it. + +Again I made some demur, and then the old man said, speaking fiercely +through his grizzly beard: + +"Look 'ere, missie. I 'ave a gel o' my own lost somewheres, and I +wouldn't be ans'rable to my ole woman if I let you walk with a face like +that." + +I don't know what I said to him. I only know that my tears gushed out +and that at the next moment I was sitting in the cab. + +What happened then I do not remember, except that the dull rumble of the +wheels told me we were passing over a bridge, and that I saw through the +mist before my eyes a sluggish river, a muddy canal, and patches of +marshy fields. + +I think my weariness and perhaps my emotion, added to the heavy +monotonous trotting of the old horse, must have put me to sleep, for +after a while I was conscious of a great deal of noise, and of the old +driver twisting about and shouting in a cheerful voice through the open +window at the back of his seat: + +"Stratford Market." + +After a while we came to a broad road, full of good houses, and then the +old driver cried "Ilford," and asked what part of it I wished to go to. + +I reached forward and told him, "10 Lennard's Row, Lennard's Green," and +then sat back with a lighter heart. + +But after another little while I saw a great many funeral cars passing +us, with the hearses empty, as if returning from a cemetery. This made +me think of the woman and her story, and I found myself unconsciously +clasping my baby closer. + +The cortčges became so numerous at last that to shut out painful sights +I closed my eyes and tried to think of pleasanter things. + +I thought, above all, of Mrs. Oliver's house, as I had always seen it in +my mind's eye--not a pretentious place at all, only a little humble +cottage but very sweet and clean, covered with creepers and perhaps with +roses. + +I was still occupied with these visions when I felt the cab turn sharply +to the left. Then opening my eyes I saw that we were running down a kind +of alley-way, with a row of very mean little two-storey houses on the +one side, and on the other, a kind of waste ground strewn with broken +bottles, broken iron pans, broken earthenware and other refuse, +interspersed with tufts of long scraggy grass, which looked the more +wretched because the sinking sun was glistening over it. + +Suddenly the cab slowed down and stopped. Then the old man jumped from +his box and opening his cab door, said: + +"Here you are, missie. This is your destingnation." + +There must have been a moment of semi-consciousness in which I got out +of the cab, for when I came to full possession of myself I was standing +on a narrow pavement in front of a closed door which bore the number +10. + +At first I was stunned. Then my heart was in my mouth and it was as much +as I could do not to burst out crying. Finally I wanted to fly, and I +turned back to the cab, but it had gone and was already passing round +the corner. + +It was six o'clock. I was very tired. I was nine miles from Bayswater. I +could not possibly carry baby back. What _could_ I do? + +Then, my brain being unable to think, a mystic feeling (born perhaps of +my life in the convent) came over me--a feeling that all that had +happened on my long journey, all I had seen and everything that had been +said to me, had been intended to prepare me for (and perhaps to save me +from) the dangers that were to come. + +I think that gave me a certain courage, for with what strength of body +and spirit I had left (though my heart was in my mouth still) I stepped +across the pavement and knocked at the door. + + +MEMORANDUM BY MARTIN CONRAD + +My great-hearted, heroic little woman! + +All this time I, in my vain belief that our expedition was of some +consequence to the world, was trying to comfort myself with the thought +that my darling must have heard of my safety. + +But how could I imagine that she had hidden herself away in a mass of +humanity--which appears to be the most impenetrable depths into which a +human being can disappear? + +How could I dream that, to the exclusion of all such interests as mine, +she was occupied day and night, night and day, with the joys and +sorrows, the raptures and fears of the mighty passion of Motherhood, +which seems to be the only thing in life that is really great and +eternal? + +Above all, how could I believe that in London itself, in the heart of +the civilised and religious world, she was going through trials which +make mine, in the grim darkness of the Polar night, seem trivial and +easy? + +It is all over now, and though, thank God, I did not know at the time +what was happening to my dear one at home, it is some comfort to me to +remember that I was acting exactly as if I did. + +From the day we turned hack I heard my darling's voice no more. But I +had a still more perplexing and tormenting experience, and that was a +dream about her, in which she was walking on a crevassed glacier towards +a precipice which she could not see because the brilliant rays of the +aurora were in her eyes. + +Anybody may make what he likes of that on grounds of natural law, and +certainly it was not surprising that my dreams should speak to me in +pictures drawn from the perils of my daily life, but only one thing +matters now--that these experiences of my sleeping hours increased my +eagerness to get back to my dear one. + +My comrades were no impediment to that, I can tell you. With their faces +turned homewards, and the wind at their backs, they were showing +tremendous staying power, although we had thirty and forty below zero +pretty constantly, with rough going all the time, for the snow had been +ruckled up by the blizzard to almost impassable heaps and hummocks. + +On reaching our second installation at Mount Darwin I sent a message to +the men at the foot of Mount Erebus, telling them to get into +communication (through Macquarie Island) with the captain of our ship in +New Zealand, asking him to return for us as soon as the ice conditions +would permit; and this was the last of our jobs (except packing our +instruments tight and warm) before we started down the "long white +gateway" for our quarters at the Cape. + +With all the heart in the world, though, our going had to be slow. It +was the middle of the Antarctic winter, when absolute night reigned for +weeks and we had nothing to alleviate the darkness but the light of the +scudding moon, and sometimes the glory of the aurora as it encircled the +region of the unrisen sun. + +Nevertheless my comrades sang their way home through the sullen gloom. +Sometimes I wakened the echoes of those desolate old hills myself with a +stave of "Sally's the gel," although I was suffering a good deal from my +darker thoughts of what the damnable hypocrisies of life might be doing +with my darling, and my desire to take my share of her trouble whatever +it might be. + +The sun returned the second week in August. Nobody can know what relief +that brought us except those who have lived for months without it. To +see the divine and wonderful thing rise up like a god over those lone +white regions is to know what a puny thing man is in the scheme of the +world. + +I think all of us felt like that at sight of the sun, though some +(myself among the rest) were thinking more of it as a kind of message +from friends at home. But old Treacle, I remember, who had stood looking +at it in awed solemnity, said: + +"Well, I'm d----!" + +After that we got on famously until we reached Winter Quarters, where we +found everybody well and everything in order, but received one piece of +alarming intelligence--that the attempt to get into wireless +communication with our ship had failed, with the result that we should +have to wait for her until the time originally appointed for her return. + +That did not seem to matter much to my shipmates, who, being snugly +housed from blinding blizzards, settled down to amuse themselves with +sing-songs and story-tellings and readings. + +But, do what I would, to me the delay was dreadful, and every day, in +the fever of my anxiety to get away as soon as the ice permitted, I +climbed the slopes of old Erebus with O'Sullivan, to look through +powerful glasses for what the good chap called the "open wather." + +Thank God, our wooden house was large enough to admit of my having a +cabin to myself, for I should have been ashamed of my comrades hearing +the cries that sometimes burst from me in the night. + +It is hard for civilised men at home, accustomed to hold themselves +under control, to realise how a man's mind can run away from him when he +is thousands of miles separated from his dear ones, and has a kind of +spiritual certainty that evil is befalling them. + +I don't think I am a bigger fool than most men in that way, but I shiver +even yet at the memory of all the torment I went through during those +days of waiting, for my whole life seemed to revolve before me and I +accused myself of a thousand offences which I had thought dead and +buried and forgotten. + +Some of these were trivial in themselves, such as hot and intemperate +words spoken in childhood to my good old people at home, disobedience or +ingratitude shown to them, with all the usual actions of a naughty boy, +who ought to have been spanked and never was. + +But the worst of them concerned my darling, and came with the thought of +my responsibility for the situation in which I felt sure she found +herself. + +A thousand times I took myself to task for that, thinking what I ought +and ought not to have done, and then giving myself every bad name and my +conduct every damning epithet. + +Up and down my cabin I would walk with hands buried in my pockets, +revolving these thoughts and working myself up, against my will, to a +fever of regret and self-accusation. + +Talk about Purgatory--the Purgatory of dear old Father Dan! That was to +come after death--mine came before, and by the holy saints, I had enough +of it. + +Two months passed like this; and when the water of the Sound was open +and our ship did not appear, mine was not the only heart that was eating +itself out, for the spirits of my shipmates had also begun to sink. + +In the early part of the Antarctic spring there had been a fearful +hurricane lasting three days on the sea, with a shrieking, roaring +chorus of fiends outside, and the conviction now forced itself on my men +that our ship must have gone down in the storm. + +Of course I fought this notion hard, for my last hopes were based on not +believing it. But when after the lapse of weeks I could hold out no +longer, and we were confronted by the possibility of being held there +another year (for how were our friends to know before the ice formed +again that it was necessary to send relief?), I faced the situation +firmly--measuring out our food and putting the men on shortened rations, +twenty-eight ounces each and a thimbleful of brandy. + +By the Lord God it is a fearful thing to stand face to face with slow +death. Some of my shipmates could scarcely bear it. The utter solitude, +the sight of the same faces and the sound of the same voices, with the +prospect of nothing else, seemed to drive most of them nearly mad. + +There was no sing-songing among them now, and what speaking I overheard +was generally about the great dinners they had eaten, or about their +dreams, which were usually of green fields and flower-beds and primroses +and daisies--daisies, by heaven, in a world that was like a waste! + +As for me I did my best to play the game of never giving up. It was a +middling hard game, God knows, and after weeks of waiting a sense of +helplessness settled down on me such as I had never known before. + +I am not what is called a religious man, but when I thought of my +darling's danger (for such I was sure it was) and how I was cut off from +her by thousands of miles of impassable sea, there came an overwhelming +longing to go with my troubles to somebody stronger than myself. + +I found it hard to do that at first, for a feeling of shame came over +me, and I thought: + +"You coward, you forgot all about God when things were going well with +you, but now that they are tumbling down, and death seems certain, you +whine and want to go where you never dreamt of going in your days of +ease and strength." + +I got over that, though--there's nothing except death a man doesn't get +over down there--and a dark night came when (the ice breaking from the +cliffs of the Cape with a sound that made me think of my last evening at +Castle Raa) I found myself folding my hands and praying to the God of my +childhood, not for myself but for my dear one, that He before whom the +strongest of humanity were nothing at all, would take her into His +Fatherly keeping. + +"Help her! Help her! _I_ can do no more." + +It was just when I was down to that extremity that it pleased Providence +to come to my relief. The very next morning I was awakened out of my +broken sleep by the sound of a gun, followed by such a yell from Treacle +as was enough to make you think the sea-serpent had got hold of his old +buttocks. + +"The ship! The ship! Commander! Commander! The ship! The ship!" + +And, looking out of my little window I saw him, with six or seven other +members of our company, half naked, just as they had leapt out of their +bunks, running like savages to the edge of the sea, where the "Scotia," +with all flags flying (God bless and preserve her!), was steaming slowly +up through a grinding pack of broken ice. + +What a day that was! What shouting! What hand-shaking! For O'Sullivan it +was Donnybrook Fair with the tail of his coat left out, and for Treacle +it was Whitechapel Road with "What cheer, old cock?" and an unquenchable +desire to stand treat all round. + +But what I chiefly remember is that the moment I awoke, and before the +idea that we were saved and about to go home had been fully grasped by +my hazy brain, the thought flashed to my mind: + +"Now you'll hear of _her!_" + + M.C. + +[END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM] + + + + +NINETY-FIFTH CHAPTER + + +The door of No. 10 was opened by a rather uncomely woman of perhaps +thirty years of age, with a weak face and watery eyes. + +This was Mrs. Oliver, and it occurred to me even at that first sight +that she had the frightened and evasive look of a wife who lives under +the intimidation of a tyrannical husband. + +She welcomed me, however, with a warmth that partly dispelled my +depression and I followed her into the kitchen. + +It was the only room on the ground floor of her house (except a +scullery) and it seemed sweet and clean and comfortable, having a table +in the middle of the floor, a sofa under the window, a rocking-chair on +one side of the fireplace, a swinging baby's cot on the other side, and +nothing about it that was not homelike and reassuring, except two large +photographs over the mantelpiece of men stripped to the waist and +sparring. + +"We've been looking for you all day, ma'am, and had nearly give you up," +she said. + +Then she took baby out of my arms, removed her bonnet and pelisse, +lifted her barrow-coat to examine her limbs, asked her age, kissed her +on the arms, the neck and the legs, and praised her without measure. + +"And what's her name, ma'am?" + +"Mary Isabel, but I wish her to be called Isabel." + +"Isabel! A beautiful name too! Fit for a angel, ma'am. And she _is_ a +little angel, bless her! Such rosy cheeks! Such a ducky little mouth! +Such blue eyes--blue as the bluebells in the cemet'ry. She's as pretty +as a waxwork, she really is, and any woman in the world might be proud +to nurse her." + +A young mother is such a weakling that praise of her child (however +crude) acts like a charm on her, and in spite of myself I was beginning +to feel more at ease, when Mrs. Oliver's husband came downstairs. + +He was a short, thick-set man of about thirty-five, with a square chin, +a very thick neck and a close-cropped red bullet head, and he was in his +stocking feet and shirt-sleeves as if he had been dressing to go out for +the evening. + +I remember that it flashed upon me--I don't know why--that he had seen +me from the window of the room upstairs, driving up in the old man's +four-wheeler, and had drawn from that innocent circumstance certain +deductions about my character and my capacity to pay. + +I must have been right, for as soon as our introduction was over and I +had interrupted Mrs. Oliver's praises of my baby's beauty by speaking +about material matters, saying the terms were to be four shillings, the +man, who had seated himself on the sofa to put on his boots said, in a +voice that was like a shot out of a blunderbus: + +"Five." + +"How'd you mean, Ted?" said Mrs. Oliver, timidly. "Didn't we say four?" + +"Five," said the man again, with a still louder volume of voice. + +I could see that the poor woman was trembling, but assuming the sweet +air of persons who live in a constant state of fear, she said: + +"Oh yes. It _was_ five, now I remember." + +I reminded her that her letter had said four, but she insisted that I +must be mistaken, and when I told her I had the letter with me and she +could see it if she wished, she said: + +"Then it must have been a slip of the pen in a manner of speaking, +ma'am. We allus talked of five. Didn't we, Ted?" + +"Certainly," said her husband, who was still busy with his boots. + +I saw what was going on, and I felt hot and angry, but there seemed to +be nothing to do except submit. + +"Very well, we'll say five then," I said. + +"Paid in advance," said the man, and when I answered that that would +suit me very well, he added: + +"A month in advance, you know." + +By this time I felt myself trembling with indignation, as well as +quivering with fear, for while I looked upon all the money I possessed +as belonging to baby, to part with almost the whole of it in one moment +would reduce me to utter helplessness, so I said, turning to Mrs. +Oliver: + +"Is that usual?" + +It did not escape me that the unhappy woman was constantly studying her +husband's face, and when he glanced up at her with a meaning look she +answered, hurriedly: + +"Oh yes, ma'am, quite usual. All the women in the Row has it. Number +five, she has twins and gets a month in hand with both of them. But +we'll take four weeks and I can't say no fairer than that, can I?" + +"But why?" I asked. + +"Well, you see, ma'am, you're . . . you're a stranger to us, and if baby +was left on our hands . . . Not as we think you'd leave her chargeable +as the saying is, but if you were ever ill, and got a bit back with your +payments . . . we being only pore people. . . ." + +While the poor woman was floundering on in this way my blood was boiling +and I was beginning to ask her if she supposed for one moment that I +meant to desert my child, when the man, who had finished the lacing of +his boots, rose to his feet, and said: + +"You don't want yer baiby to be give over to the Guardians for the sake +of a week or two, do you?" + +That settled everything. I took out my purse and with a trembling hand +laid my last precious sovereign on the table. + +A moment or two after this Mr. Oliver, who had put on his coat and a +cloth cap, made for the door. + +"Evenin', ma'am," he said, and with what grace I could muster I bade him +good-bye. + +"You aren't a-going to the 'Sun' to-night, are you, Ted?" asked Mrs. +Oliver. + +"Club," said the man, and the door clashed behind him. + +I breathed more freely when he was gone, and his wife (from whose face +the look of fear vanished instantly) was like another woman. + +"Goodness gracious," she cried, with a kind of haggard hilarity, +"where's my head? Me never offering you a cup of tea, and you looking so +white after your journey." + +I took baby back into my arms while she put on the kettle, set a black +tea-pot on the hob to warm, laid a piece of tablecloth and a thick cup +and saucer on the end of the table, and then knelt on the fender to +toast a little bread, talking meantime (half apologetically and half +proudly) about her husband. + +He was a bricklayer by trade, and sometimes worked at the cemetery which +I could see at the other side of the road (behind the long railings and +the tall trees), but was more generally engaged as a sort of fighting +lieutenant to a Labour leader whose business it was to get up strikes. +Before they were married he had been the "Light Weight Champion of +Whitechapel," and those were photos of his fights which I could see over +the mantelpiece, but "he never did no knocking of people about now," +being "quiet and matrimonual." + +In spite of myself my heart warmed to the woman. I wonder it did not +occur to me there and then that, living in constant dread of her +tyrannical husband, she would always be guilty of the dissimulation I +had seen an example of already and that the effect of it would be +reflected upon my child. + +It did not. I only told myself that she was clearly fond of children and +would be a kind nurse to my baby. It even pleased me, in my foolish +motherly selfishness, that she was a plain-featured person, whom baby +could never come to love as she would, I was sure, love me. + +I felt better after I had taken tea, and as it was then seven o'clock, +and the sun was setting horizontally through the cypresses of the +cemetery, I knew it was time to go. + +I could not do that, though, without undressing baby and singing her to +sleep. And even then I sat for a while with an aching heart, and Isabel +on my knee, thinking of how I should have to go to bed that night, for +the first time, without her. + +Mrs. Oliver, in the meantime, examining the surplus linen which I had +brought in my parcel, was bursting into whispered cries of delight over +it, and, being told I had made the clothes myself, was saying: + +"What a wonderful seamstress you might be if you liked, ma'am." + +At length the time came to leave baby, and no woman knows the pain of +that experience who has not gone through it. + +Though I really believed my darling would be loved and cared for, and +knew she would never miss me, or yet know that I was gone (there was a +pang even in that thought, and in every other kind of comforting), I +could not help it, that, as I was putting my cherub into her cot, my +tears rained down on her little face and awakened her, so that I had to +kneel by her side and rock her to sleep again. + +"You'll be good to my child, won't you, Mrs. Oliver?" I said. + +"'Deed I will, ma'am," the woman replied. + +"You'll bath her every day, will you not?" + +"Night and morning. I allus does, ma'am." + +"And rinse out her bottle and see that she has nice new milk fresh from +the cow?" + +"Sure as sure, ma'am. But don't you fret no more about the child, ma'am. +I've been a mother myself, ma'am, and I'll be as good to your little +angel as if she was my own come back to me." + +"God bless you," I said in a burst of anguish, and after remaining a +moment longer on my knees by the cot (speaking with all my heart and +soul, though neither to nurse nor to baby) I rose to my feet, dashed the +tears from my eyes, and ran out of the house. + + + + +NINETY-SIXTH CHAPTER + + +I knew that my eyes were not fit to be seen in the streets, so I dropped +my dark veil and hurried along, being conscious of nothing for some time +except the clang of electric cars and the bustle of passers-by, to whom +my poor little sorrow was nothing at all. + +But I had not gone far--I think I had not, though my senses were +confused and vague--before I began to feel ashamed, to take myself to +task, and to ask what I had to cry about. + +If I had parted from my baby it was for her own good, and if I had paid +away my last sovereign I had provided for her for a month, I had nothing +to think of now except myself and how to get work. + +I never doubted that I should get work, or that I should get it +immediately, the only open question being what work and where. + +Hitherto I had thought that, being quick with my pen, I might perhaps +become secretary to somebody; but now, remembering the typist's story +("firms don't like it"), and wishing to run no risks in respect of my +child, I put that expectation away and began to soar to higher things. + +How vain they were! Remembering some kind words the Reverend Mother had +said about me at the convent (where I had taken more prizes than Alma, +though I had never mentioned it before) I told myself that I, too, was +an educated woman. I knew Italian, French and German, and having heard +that some women could make a living by translating books for publishers +I thought I might do the same. + +Nay, I could even write books myself. I was sure I could--one book at +all events, about friendless girls who have to face the world for +themselves, and all good women would read it (some good men also), +because they would see that it must be true. + +Oh, how vain were my thoughts! Yet in another sense they were not all +vanity, for I was not thinking of fame, or what people would say about +what I should write, but only what I should get for it. + +I should get money, not a great deal perhaps, yet enough for baby and +me, that we might have that cottage in the country, covered with +creepers and roses, where Isabel would run about the grass by and by, +and pluck the flowers in the garden. + +"So what have _you_ got to cry about, you ridiculous thing," I thought +while I hurried along, with a high step now, as if my soul had been in +my feet. + +But a mother's visions of the future are like a mirage (always gleaming +with the fairy palaces which her child is to inhabit some day), and I am +not the first to find her shadows fade away. + +I must have been walking for some time, feeling no weariness at all, +when I came to the bridge by Bow Church. There I had intended to take a +tram, but not being tired I went on farther, thinking every stage I +could walk would be so much money to the good. + +I was deep in the Mile End Road, when a chilling thought came to me. It +was the thought of the distance that would divide me from my child, +making my visits to her difficult, and putting it out of my power to +reach her quickly (perhaps even to know in time) if, as happened to +children, she became suddenly and dangerously ill. + +I remembered the long line of telescoping thoroughfares I had passed +through earlier in the day (with their big hospitals, their big +breweries, their big tabernacles, their workmen's lodging-houses, their +Cinema picture palaces, their Jewish theatres, and their numberless +public houses); and then the barrier of squalid space which would divide +me from baby, if I obtained employment in the West End, seemed to be +immeasurably greater and more frightening than the space that had +divided me from Martin when he was at the other end of the world. + +Not all the allurements of my dream were sufficient to reconcile me to +such a dangerous separation. + +"It's impossible," I thought. "Quite impossible." + +Insensibly my rapid footsteps slackened. When I reached that part of the +Mile End Road in which the Jewish tailors live, and found myself +listening to a foreign language which I afterwards knew to be Yiddish, +and looking at men with curls at each side of their sallow faces, +slithering along as if they were wearing eastern slippers without heels, +I stopped, without knowing why, at the corner of a street where an +Italian organ-man was playing while a number of bright-eyed Jewish +children danced. + +I was still looking on, hardly thinking of what I saw, when my eyes fell +on an advertisement, pasted on the window of a sausage-and-ham shop at +the corner. In large written characters it ran: + + _Seamstress Wanted. Good Wages. + Apply No. ---- Washington Street_. + +How little are the things on which our destiny seems to hang! In a +moment I was remembering what Mrs. Oliver had said about my being a good +seamstress; and, almost before I knew what I was about, I was hurrying +up the side street and knocking with my knuckles at an open door. + +A rather fat and elderly Jewess, covered with rings and gold chains, and +wearing a manifest black wig, came from a room at one side of the lobby. +I explained my errand, and after she had looked me over in a sort of +surprise, as if I had not been the kind of person she expected, she +said, in a nasal and guttural voice: + +"Vait! My daughter, she speaks very vell Ainglish." + +Then turning her head over her shoulder, she pitched her voice several +octaves higher and cried, "Miriam," whereupon there came tripping +downstairs a Jewish girl of about eighteen, with large black eyes, thick +black hair, and such a dear good face. + +I repeated my application, and after the girl had interpreted my request +to her mother, I was asked into the lobby, and put through a kind of +catechism. + +Was I a seamstress? No, but I wished to become one. Had I aiver vorked +on vaistcoats? I hadn't, but I could do anything with my needle. + +Perhaps the urgency of my appeal, and more probably the pressure of her +own need, weighed with the Jewess, for after reflection, and an eager +whisper from her daughter (who was looking at me with kindling eyes), +she said, + +"Very vell, ve'll see what she can do." + +I was then taken into a close and stuffy room where a number of girls +(all Jewish as I could see) were working on sections of waistcoats +which, lying about on every side, looked like patterns for legs of +mutton. One girl was basting, another was pressing, and a third was +sewing button-holes with a fine silk twist round bars of gimp. + +This last was the work which was required of me, and I was told to look +and see if I could do it. I watched the girl for a moment and then said: + +"Let me try." + +Needle and twist and one of the half vests were then given to me, and +after ten minutes I had worked my first button-hole and handed it back. + +The daughter praised it warmly, but the mother said: + +"Very fair, but a leedle slow." + +"Let me try again," I said, and my trembling fingers were so eager to +please that my next button-hole was not only better but more quickly +made. + +"Beautiful!" said the daughter. "And mamma, only think, she's quicker +than Leah, already. I timed them." + +"I muz call your vader, dough," said the Jewess, and she disappeared +through the doorway. + +While I stood talking to the younger Jewess, who had, I could see, +formed as quick an attachment for me as I for her, I heard another nasal +and guttural voice (a man's) coming towards us from the hall. + +"Is she von of our people?" + +"Nein! She's a Skihoah"--meaning, as I afterwards learned, a non-Jewish +girl. + +Then a tall, thin Jew entered the room behind the elderly Jewess. I had +never before and have never since seen such a patriarchal figure. With +his long grey beard and solemn face he might have stood for Moses in one +of the pictures that used to hang on the walls of the convent--except +for his velvet skull-cap and the black alpaca apron, which was speckled +over with fluffy bits of thread and scraps of cloth and silk. + +He looked at me for a moment with his keen eyes, and after his wife had +shown him my work, and he had taken a pinch of snuff and blown his nose +on a coloured handkerchief with the sound of a trumpet, he put me +through another catechism. + +I was trembling lest he should make intimate inquiries, but beyond +asking my name, and whether I was a Christian, he did not concern +himself with personal questions. + +"Vat vages do you vant?" he asked. + +I told him I should be pleased to take whatever was paid to other girls +doing work of the same kind. + +"Ach no! Dese girls are full-timers. You are only a greener [meaning a +beginner] so you vill not expect anything like so much." + +At that his daughter repeated her assurance that I was quicker than the +girl she had called Leah; but the Jew, with an air of parental majesty, +told her to be silent, and then said that as I was an "improver" he +could only take me "on piece," naming the price (a very small one) per +half-dozen buttons and buttonholes, with the condition that I found my +own twist and did the work in my own home. + +Seeing that I should be no match for the Jew at a bargain, and being so +eager to get to work at any price, I closed with his offer, and then he +left the room, after telling me to come back the next day. + +"And vhere do you lif, my dear?" said the Jewess. + +I told her Bayswater, making some excuse for being in the East End, and +getting as near to the truth as I dare venture, but feeling +instinctively, after my sight of the master of the house, that I dared +say nothing about my child. + +She told me I must live nearer to my work, and I said that was exactly +what I wished to do--asking if she knew where I could find a room. + +Fortunately the Jewess herself had two rooms vacant at that moment, and +we went upstairs to look at them. + +Both were at the top of the house, and one of them I could have for two +shillings a week, but it was dark and cheerless, being at the back and +looking into the space over the yards in which the tenants dried their +washing on lines stretched from pulleys. + +The other, which would cost a shilling a week more, was a lean slit of a +room, very sparsely furnished, but it was to the front, and looked down +into the varied life of the street, so I took it instantly and asked +when I could move in. + +"Ven you like," said the Jewess. "Everyding is ready." + +So, early next morning I bade farewell to my good Welsh landlady (who +looked grave when I told her what I was going to do) and to Emmerjane +(who cried when I kissed her smudgy face) and, taking possession of my +new home, began work immediately in my first and only employment. + +Perhaps it was a deep decline after the splendours of my dreams, but I +did not allow myself to think about that. I was near to Ilford and I +could go to see Isabel every day. + +Isabel! Isabel! Isabel! Everything was Isabel, for now that Martin was +gone my hopes and my fears, my love and my life, revolved on one axis +only--my child. + + + + +NINETY-SEVENTH CHAPTER + + +My employer was a Polish Jew, named Israel Abramovitch. + +He had come to England at the time of the religious persecution in the +Holy Cities of Russia, set himself up in his trade as a tailor in a +garret in Whitechapel, hired a "Singer," worked with "green" labour for +"slop" warehouses, and become in less than twenty years the richest +foreign Jew in the East End of London, doing some of the "best bespoke" +work for the large shops in the West and having the reputation (as I +afterwards found) of being the greatest of Jewish "sweaters." + +In spite of this, however, he was in his own way a deeply religious man. +Strict, severe, almost superstitious in obeying the Levitical laws and +in practising the sad and rather gloomy symbolism of his faith. A famous +Talmudist, a pillar of the synagogue, one of the two wardens of the +Chevra in Brick Lane, and consequently a great upholder of moral +rectitude. + +His house seemed to be a solid mass of human beings, chiefly Jewish +girls, who worked all day, and sometimes (when regulations could be +evaded or double gangs engaged) all night, for the Jew drove everybody +at high speed, not excepting his wife, who cooked the food and pressed +the clothes at the same time. + +In this hive of industry I needed no spur to make me work. + +Every morning Mrs. Abramovitch brought up a thick pile of vests to my +room, and every evening she took them down again, after counting my +earnings with almost preternatural rapidity and paying me, day by day, +with unfailing promptitude. + +At the end of my first week I found I had made ten shillings. I was +delighted, but after I had paid for my room and my food there was not +enough for baby's board, so the second week I worked later in the +evenings, and earned fourteen shillings. This was still insufficient, +therefore I determined to take something from the other end of the day. + +"Morning will be better," I thought, remembering the painful noises at +night, especially about midnight, when people were being thrown out of a +public-house higher up the street, where there was a placard in the +window saying the ale sold there could be guaranteed to "make anybody +drunk for fourpence." + +Unfortunately (being a little weak) I was always heavy in the mornings, +but by great luck my room faced the east, so I conceived the idea of +moving my bed up to the window and drawing my blinds to the top so that +the earliest light might fall on my face and waken me. + +This device succeeded splendidly, and for many weeks of the late summer +and early autumn I was up before the sun, as soon as the dawn had +broadened and while the leaden London daylight was filtering through the +smoke of yesterday. + +By this means I increased my earnings to sixteen shillings, and, as my +fingers learned to fly over their work, to seventeen and even eighteen. + +That was my maximum, and though it left a narrow margin for other needs +it enabled me at the end of a month to pay another pound for baby's +board and to put away a little towards her "shortening," which Mrs. +Oliver was always saying must be soon. + +I had to stick close to maintain this average, and I grudged even the +time occupied in buying and eating my food, though that was not a long +process in the Mile End Road, which is full of shops where things can be +bought ready cooked. After the first week I did not even need to go out +for them, for they were brought round to my room every morning, thus +enabling me to live without leaving my work. + +It was a stiff life, perhaps, but let nobody think I looked upon myself +as a slave. Though I worked so hard I felt no self-pity. The thought +that I was working for my child sweetened all my labours. It was such a +joy to think that baby depended upon me for everything she wanted. + +Being so happy in those days I sang a great deal, though naturally not +in the middle of the day, when our house was going like a mill-wheel, +but in the early mornings before the electric trams began to clang, or +the hawkers with their barrows to shout, and when there was no sound +even in the East End except that ceaseless tramp, tramp, tramp in the +front street which always made me think of the children of Israel in +Egypt drawing burdens for Pharaoh. + +Throwing open my window I sang all sorts of things, but, being such a +child myself and so fond of make-believe, I loved best to sing my +lullaby, and so pretend that baby was with me in my room, lying asleep +behind me in my bed. + + "_Sleep, little baby, I love thee, I love thee, + Sleep, little Queen, I am bending above thee_." + +I never knew that I had any other audience than a lark in a cage on the +other side of the street (perhaps I was in a cage myself, though I did +not think of that then) which always started singing when I sang, except +the washerwomen from a Women's Shelter going off at four to their work +at the West End, and two old widows opposite who sewed Bibles and +stitched cassocks, which being (so Miriam told me) the worst-paid of all +sweated labour compelled them to be up as early as myself. + +It was not a very hopeful environment, yet for some time, in my little +top room, I was really happy. + +I saw baby every day. Between six and nine every night, I broke off work +to go to Ilford, saying nothing about my errand to anybody, and leaving +the family of the Jew to think it was my time for recreation. + +Generally I "trammed" it from Bow Church, because I was so eager to get +to my journey's end, but usually I returned on foot, for though the +distance was great I thought I slept better for the walk. + +What joyful evenings those were! + +Perhaps I was not altogether satisfied about the Olivers, but that did +not matter very much. On closer acquaintance I found my baby's nurse to +be a "heedless" and "feckless" woman; and though I told myself that all +allowances must be made for her in having a bad husband, I knew in my +secret heart that I was deceiving myself, and that I ought to listen to +the voices that were saying "Your child is being neglected." + +Sometimes it seemed to me that baby had not been bathed--but that only +gave me an excuse for bathing her myself. + +Sometimes I thought her clothes were not as clean as they might be--but +that only gave me the joy of washing them. + +Sometimes I was sure that her feeding-bottle had not been rinsed and her +milk was not quite fresh--but that only gave me the pleasure of scalding +the one and boiling the other. + +More than once it flashed upon me that I was paying Mrs. Oliver to do +all this--but then what a deep delight it was to be mothering my own +baby! + +Thus weeks and months passed--it is only now I know how many, for in +those days Time itself had nothing in it for me except my child--and +every new day brought the new joy of watching my baby's development. + +Oh, how wonderful it all was! To see her little mind and soul coming out +of the Unknown! Out of the silence and darkness of the womb into the +world of light and sound! + +First her sense of sight, with her never-ending interest in her dear +little toes! Then her senses of touch and hearing, and the gift of +speech, beginning with a sort of crow, and ending in the "ma-ma-ma" +which the first time I heard it went prancing through and through me and +was more heavenly to my ears than the music of the spheres! + +What evenings of joy I had with her! + +The best of them (God forgive me!) were the nights when the bricklayer +had got into some trouble by "knocking people about" at the "Rising Sun" +and his wife had to go off to rescue him from the police. + +Then, baby being "shortened," I would prop her up in her cot while I +sang "Sally" to her; or if that did not serve, and her little lip +continued to drop, I both sang and danced, spreading my skirts and +waltzing to the tune of "Clementina" while the kettle hummed over the +fire and the bricklayer's kitchen buzzed softly like a hive of bees. + +Oh dear! Oh dear! I may have been down in the depths, yet there is no +place so dark that it may not be brightened by a sunbeam, and my sunbeam +was my child. + +And then Martin--baby was constantly making me think of him. Devouring +her with my eyes, I caught resemblances every day--in her eyes, her +voice, her smile, and, above all, in that gurgling laugh that was like +water bubbling out of a bottle. + +I used to talk to her about him, pouring all my sentimental secrets into +her ears, just as if she understood, telling her what a great man her +father had been and how he loved both of us--_would_ have done if he had +lived longer. + +I dare say it was very foolish. Yet I cannot think it was all +foolishness. Many and many a time since I have wondered if the holy +saints, who knew what had really happened to Martin, were whispering all +this in my ear as a means of keeping my love for him as much alive as if +he had been constantly by my side. + +The climax came when Isabel was about five months old, for then the +feeling about baby and Martin reached another and higher phase. + +I hardly dare to speak of it, lest it should seem silly when it was +really so sacred and so exalted. + +The idea I had had before baby was born, that she was being sent to +console me (to be a link between my lost one and me), developed into the +startling and rapturous thought that the very soul of Martin had passed +into my child. + +"So Martin is not dead at all," I thought, "not really dead, because he +lives in baby." + +It is impossible to say how this thought stirred me; how it filled my +heart with thankfulness; how I prayed that the little body in which the +soul of my Martin had come to dwell might grow beautiful and strong and +worthy of him; how I felt charged with another and still greater +responsibility to guard and protect her with my life itself if need be. + +"Yes, yes, my very life itself," I thought. + +Perhaps this was a sort of delirium, born of my great love, my hard +work, and my failing strength. I did not know, I did not care. + +All that mattered to me then was one thing only--that whereas hitherto I +had thought Martin was so far gone from me that not Time but only +Eternity would bring us together, now I felt that he was coming back and +back to me--nearer and nearer and nearer every day. + + +MEMORANDUM BY MARTIN CONRAD + +My dear, noble little woman was right in more ways than she knew. + +At that very time I was in literal truth hurrying home to her as fast as +the fastest available vessel could carry me. + +As soon as we had boarded the _Scotia_ at the Cape and greeted our old +shipmates, we shouted for our letters. + +There were some for all of us and heaps for me, so I scuttled down to my +cabin, where I sorted the envelopes like a pack of cards, looking for +the small delicate hand that used to write my letters and speeches. + +To my dismay it was not there, and realizing that fact I bundled the +letters into a locker and never looked at them again until we were two +days out--when I found they were chiefly congratulations from my +committee, the proprietor of my newspaper, and the Royal Geographical +Society, all welcome enough in their way, but Dead Sea fruit to a man +with an empty, heaving heart. + +Going up on deck I found every face about me shining like the aurora, +for the men had had good news all round, one having come into a fortune +and another into the fatherhood of twins, and both being in a state of +joy and excitement. + +But all the good fellows were like boys. Some of them (with laughter +seasoned by a few tears) read me funny bits out of their wives' +letters--bits too that were not funny, about having "a pretty fit of +hysterics" at reading bad news of us and "wanting to kiss the newsboy" +when he brought the paper contradicting it. + +I did my best to play the game of rejoicing, pretending I had had good +news also, and everything was going splendid. But I found it hard enough +to keep it going, especially while we were sailing back to the world, as +we called it, and hearing from the crew the news of what had happened +while we had been away. + +First, there was the reason for the delay in the arrival of the ship, +which had been due not to failure of the wireless at our end, but to a +breakdown on Macquarie Island. + +And then there was the account of the report of the loss of the _Scotia_ +in the gale going out, which had been believed on insufficient evidence +(as I thought), but recorded in generous words of regret that sent the +blood boiling to a man's face and made him wish to heaven they could be +true. + +We were only five or six days sailing to New Zealand, but the strain to +me was terrible, for the thought was always uppermost: + +"Why didn't she write a word of welcome to reach me on my return to +civilisation?" + +When I was not talking to somebody that question was constantly haunting +me. To escape from it I joined the sports of my shipmates, who with +joyful news in their hearts and fresh food in their stomachs were +feeling as good as new in spite of all they had suffered. + +But the morning we smelt land, the morning the cloud banks above the +eastern horizon came out hard and fast and sure (no dreamland this +time), I stood at the ship's bow, saying nothing to anybody, only +straining my eyes for the yet distant world we were coming back to out +of that desolate white waste, and thinking: + +"Surely I'll have news from her before nightfall." + +There was a big warm-hearted crowd on the pier at Port Lyttelton. +Treacle said, "Gawd. I didn't know there was so many people in the +world, Guv'nor;" and O'Sullivan, catching sight of a pretty figure under +a sunshade, tugged at my arm and cried (in the voice of an astronomer +who has discovered a planet), "Commanther! Commanther! A _girl!_" + +Almost before we had been brought to, a company of scientific visitors +came aboard; but I was more concerned about the telegrams that had come +at the same moment, so hurrying down to my cabin I tore them open like a +vulture riving its prey--always looking at the signatures first and +never touching an envelope without thinking: + +"Oh God, what will be inside of it?" + +There was nothing from my dear one! Invitations to dine, to lecture, to +write books, to do this and that and Heaven knows what, but never a word +from her who was more to me than all the world besides. + +This made me more than ever sure of the "voices" that had called me back +from the 88th latitude, so I decided instantly to leave our ship in New +Zealand, in readiness for our next effort, and getting across to Sydney +to take the first fast steamer home. + +The good people at Port Lyttelton were loath to let us go. But after I +had made my excuses, ("crazy to get back to wives and sweethearts, you +know") they sent a school of boys (stunning little chaps in Eton suits) +to sing us off with "Forty Years On"--which brought more of my mother +into my eyes than I knew to be left there. + +At Sydney we had the same experience--the same hearty crowds, the same +welcome, the same invitations, to which we made the same replies, and +then got away by a fast liner which happened to be ready to sail. + +On the way "back to the world" I had slung together a sort of a despatch +for the newspaper which had promoted our expedition (a lame, limping +thing for want of my darling's help to make it go), saying something +about the little we had been able to do but more about what we meant, +please God, to do some day. + +"She'll see that, anyway, and know we're coming back," I thought. + +But to make doubly sure I sent two personal telegrams, one to my dear +one at Castle Raa and the other to my old people at home, asking for +answers to Port Said. + +Out on the sea again I was tormented by the old dream of the crevassed +glacier; and if anybody wonders why a hulking chap who had not been +afraid of a ninety-mile blizzard in the region of the Pole allowed +himself to be kept awake at night by a buzzing in the brain, all I can +say is that it was so, and I know nothing more about it. + +Perhaps my recent experience with the "wireless" persuaded me that if +two sticks stuck in the earth could be made to communicate with each +other over hundreds of miles, two hearts that loved each other knew no +limitations of time or space. + +In any case I was now so sure that my dear one had called me home from +the Antarctic that by the time we reached Port Said, and telegrams were +pouring in on me, I had worked myself up to such a fear that I dared not +open them. + +From sheer dread of the joy or sorrow that might be enclosed in the +yellow covers, I got O'Sullivan down in my cabin to read my telegrams, +while I scanned his face and nearly choked with my own tobacco smoke. + +There was nothing from my dear one! Nothing from my people at home +either! + +O'Sullivan got it into his head that I was worrying about my parents, +and tried to comfort me by saying that old folks never dreamt of +telegraphing, but by the holy immaculate Mother he'd go bail there would +be a letter for me before long. + +There was. + +We stayed two eternal days at Port Said while the vessel was taking coal +for the rest of the voyage, and almost at the moment of sailing a letter +arrived from Ellan, which, falling into O'Sullivan's hands first, sent +him flying through the steamer and shouting at the top of his voice: + +"Commanther! Commanther!" + +The passengers gave room for him, and told me afterwards of his beaming +face. And when he burst into my cabin I too felt sure he had brought me +good news, which he had, though it was not all that I wanted. + +"The way I was sure there would be a letter for you soon, and by the +holy St. Patrick and St. Thomas, here it is," he cried. + +The letter was from my father, and I had to brace myself before I could +read it. + +It was full of fatherly love, motherly love, too, and the extravagant +pride my dear good old people had of me ("everybody's talking of you, my +boy, and there's nothing else in the newspapers"); but not a word about +my Mary--or only one, and that seemed worse than none at all. + +"You must have heard of the trouble at Castle Raa. Very sad, but this +happy hour is not the time to say anything about it." + +Nothing more! Only reams and reams of sweet parental chatter which (God +forgive me!) I would have gladly given over and over again for one plain +sentence about my darling. + +Being now more than ever sure that some kind of catastrophe had +overtaken my poor little woman, I telegraphed to her again, this time +(without knowing what mischief I was making) at the house of Daniel +O'Neill--telling myself that, though the man was a brute who had +sacrificed his daughter to his lust of rank and power and all the rest +of his rotten aspirations, he was her father, and, if her reprobate of a +husband had turned her out, he must surely have taken her in. + +"Cable reply to Malta. Altogether too bad not hearing from you," I said. + +A blind, hasty, cruel telegram, but thank God she never received it! + +M.C. + +[END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM] + + + + +NINETY-EIGHTH CHAPTER + + +Day by day it became more and more difficult for me to throw dust in my +own eyes about the Olivers. + +One evening on reaching their house a little after six, as usual, I +found the front door open, the kitchen empty save for baby, who, sitting +up in her cot, was holding quiet converse with her toes, and the two +Olivers talking loudly (probably by pre-arrangement) in the room +upstairs. + +The talk was about baby, which was "a noosance," interfering with a +man's sleep by night and driving him out of his home by day. And how +much did they get for it? Nothing, in a manner of speaking. What did the +woman (meaning me) think the "bleedin' place" was--"a philanthropic +institooshun" or a "charity orginisation gime"? + +After this I heard the bricklayer thunder downstairs in his heavy boots +and go out of the house without coming into the kitchen, leaving his +wife (moral coward that he was) to settle his account with me. + +Then Mrs. Oliver came down, with many sighs, expressed surprise at +seeing me and fear that I might have overheard what had been said in the +room above. + +"Sorry to say I've been having a few words with Ted, ma'am, and tell you +the truth it was about you." + +Ted had always been against her nursing, and she must admit it wasn't +wise of a woman to let her man go to the public-house to get out of the +way of a crying child; but though she was a-running herself off her feet +to attend to the pore dear, and milk was up a penny, she had growd that +fond of my baby since she lost her own that she couldn't abear to part +with the jewel, and perhaps if I could pay a little more--Ted said +seven, but she said six, and a shilling a week wouldn't hurt me--she +could over-persuade him to let the dear precious stay. + +I was trembling with indignation while I listened to the woman's whining +(knowing well I was being imposed upon), but I was helpless and so I +agreed. + +My complacency had a bad effect on the Olivers, who continued to make +fresh extortions, until their demands almost drove me to despair. + +I thought a climax had been reached when one night a neighbour came to +the door and, calling Mrs. Oliver into the lobby, communicated some news +in a whisper which brought her back with a frightened face for her cloak +and hat, saying "something was a matter with Ted" and she must "run away +quick to him." + +When she returned an hour or two later she was crying, and with sobs +between her words she told me that Ted (having taken a drop too much) +had "knocked somebody about" at the "Sun." As a consequence he had +fallen into the hands of the police, and would be brought before the +magistrate the following morning, when, being unable to pay the fine, he +would have to "do time"--just as a strike was a-coming on, too, and he +was expecting good pay from the Strike Committee. + +"And what is to happen to me and the baby while my 'usband is in +prison?" she said. + +I knew it was an act of weakness, but, thinking of my child and the +danger of its being homeless, I asked what the amount of the fine would +probably be, and being told ten-and-six, I gave the money, though it was +nearly all I had in the world. + +I paid for my weakness, though, and have reason to remember it. + +The extortions of the Olivers had brought me to so narrow a margin +between my earnings and expenses that I lay awake nearly all that night +thinking what I could do to increase the one or reduce the other. The +only thing I found possible was to change to cheaper quarters. So next +morning, with a rather heavy heart, I asked Mrs. Abramovitch if the room +at the back of the house was still empty, and hearing that it was I +moved into it the same day. + +That was a small and not a very wise economy. + +My new room was cheerless as well as dark, with no sights but the +clothes that were drying from the pulley-lines and no sounds but the +whoops of the boys of the neighbourhood playing at "Red Indians" on the +top of the yard walls. + +But it was about the same as the other in size and furniture, and after +I had decorated it with my few treasures--the Reverend Mother's rosary, +which I hung on the head of the bed, and my darling mother's miniature, +which I pinned up over the fire--I thought it looked bright and +homelike. + +All this time, too, I was between the nether and the upper mill-stone. + +My employer, the Jew (though he must have seen that I was sweating +myself much more than the law would have allowed him to sweat me), could +not forgive himself when he found that I was earning more by "piece" +than he would have had to pay me by the day, or resist the temptation to +square accounts with me at the earliest possible opportunity. + +Unfortunately, his opportunity came only too quickly, and it led +(however indirectly) to the most startling fact that has ever, perhaps, +entered into a woman's life. + +I had not been more than three months at the Jew's house when the Jewish +festivals came round--New Year's Day, the Day of Atonement, and the +Feast of Tabernacles--which, falling near together and occupying many +days, disturbed his own habits of work entirely. + +One of the tasks he reserved for himself was that of taking the best +paid of his "best-bespoke" back to the large shops in the West End, and +waiting for the return orders. But finding that the festivals interfered +with these journeys, he decided that they should be made by me, who was +supposed to know the West End (having lived in it) and to present a +respectable appearance. + +I was reluctant to undertake the new duty, for though the Jew was to pay +me a few shillings a week for it, I saw I could earn more in the time +with my needle. But when he laid his long, hairy forefinger on the side +of his nose and said with a significant smile: + +"You vill be gradeful, and convenience your employer, mine child," I +agreed. + +Thus it came to pass that not only during the Jewish festivals, but for +months after they were over, I carried a rather large black bag by tram +or rail to the district that lies at the back of Piccadilly and along +Oxford Street as far west as the Marble Arch. + +I had to go whenever called upon and to wait as long as wanted, so that +in the height of the tailoring season I was out in the West End at all +irregular hours of night, and even returned to my lodgings on one or two +occasions in the raw sunshine of the early mornings. + +The one terror of my West End journeys was that I might meet Sister +Mildred. I never did. In the multitude of faces which passed through the +streets, flashing and disappearing like waves under the moon at sea, I +never once caught a glimpse of a face I knew. + +But what sights I saw for all that! What piercing, piteous proofs that +between the rich and the poor there is a great gulf fixed! + +The splendid carriages driving in and out of the Park; the sumptuously +dressed ladies strolling through Bond Street; the fashionable church +paraders; the white plumes and diamond stars which sometimes gleamed +behind the glow of the electric broughams gliding down the Mall. + +"I used to be a-toffed up like that onct," I heard an old woman who was +selling matches say as a lady in an ermine coat stepped out of a theatre +into an automobile and was wrapped round in a tiger-skin rug. + +Sometimes it happened that, returning to the East End after the motor +'buses had ceased to ply, I had to slip through the silent Leicester +Square and the empty Strand to the Underground Railway on the +Embankment. + +Then I would see the wretched men and women who were huddled together in +the darkness on the steps to the river (whose ever-flowing waters must +have witnessed so many generations of human wreckage), and, glancing up +at the big hotels and palatial mansions full of ladies newly returned +from theatres and restaurants in their satin slippers and silk +stockings, I would wonder how they could lie in their white beds at +night in rooms whose windows looked down on such scenes. + +But the sight that stirred me most (though it did not awaken my charity, +which shows what a lean-souled thing I was myself) was that of the +"public women," the street-walkers, as I used to call them, whom I saw +in Piccadilly with their fine clothes and painted faces, sauntering in +front of the clubs or tripping along with a light step and trying to +attract the attention of the men. + +I found no pathos in the position of such women. On the contrary, I had +an unspeakable horror and hatred and loathing of them, feeling that no +temptation, no poverty, no pressure that could ever be brought to bear +upon a woman in life or in death excused her for committing so great a +wrong on the sanctity of her sex as to give up her womanhood at any call +but that of love. + +"Nothing could make me do it," I used to think, "nothing in this world." + +But O God! how little I knew then what is in a woman's heart to do when +she has a child to live for, and is helpless and alone! + +I cannot expect anybody to forgive me for what I did (or attempted to +do), and now that the time has come to tell of it my hand trembles, and +body and soul seem to be quivering like a flame. + +May God (who has brought everything to such a glorious end) have mercy +on me and forgive me, and help me to be true! + + + + +NINETY-NINTH CHAPTER + + +The worst consequence of my West End journeys was that my nightly visits +to Ilford were fewer than before, and that the constant narrowing of the +margin between my income and my expenses made it impossible for me to go +there during the day. + +As a result my baby received less and less attention, and I could not be +blind to the fact that she was growing paler and thinner. + +At length she developed a cough which troubled me a great deal. Mrs. +Oliver made light of it, saying a few pennyworths of paregoric would +drive it away, so I hurried off to a chemist, who recommended a soothing +syrup of his own, saying it was safer and more effectual for a child. + +The syrup seemed to stop the cough but to disturb the digestion, for I +saw the stain of curdled milk on baby's bib and was conscious of her +increasing weakness. + +This alarmed me very much, and little as I knew of children's ailments, +I became convinced that she stood in need of more fresh air, so I +entreated Mrs. Oliver to take her for a walk every day. + +I doubt if she ever did so, for as often as I would say: + +"Has baby been out to-day, nurse?" Mrs. Oliver would make some lame +excuse and pass quickly to another subject. + +At last, being unable to bear the strain any longer, I burst out on the +woman with bitter reproaches, and then she broke down into tears and +explained everything. She was behind with her rent, the landlord was +threatening, and she dared not leave the house for a moment lest he +should lock her out altogether. + +"I don't mind telling you, it's all along of Ted, ma'am. He's on strike +wages but he spends it at the 'Sun.' He has never been the man to +me--never once since I married him. I could work and keep the house +comfortable without him, but he wouldn't let me a-be, because he knows I +love, him dear. Yes, I do, I love him dear," she continued, breaking +into hysterical sobs, "and if he came home and killed me I could kiss +him with my last breath." + +This touched me more than I can say. A sense of something tragic in the +position of the poor woman, who knew the character of the man she loved +as well as the weakness which compelled her to love him, made me +sympathise with her for the first time, and think (with a shuddering +memory of my own marriage) how many millions of women there must be in +the world who were in a worse position than myself. + +On returning to my room that night I began to look about to see if I had +anything I could sell in order to help Mrs. Oliver, and so put an end to +the condition that kept my baby a prisoner in her house. + +I had nothing, or next to nothing. Except the Reverend Mother's rosary +(worth no more than three or four shillings) I had only my mother's +miniature, which was framed in gold and set in pearls, but that was the +most precious of all my earthly possessions except my child. + +Again and again when I looked at it in my darkest hours I had found new +strength and courage. It had been like a shrine to me--what the image of +the Virgin was in happier days--and thinking of all that my darling +mother had done and suffered and sacrificed for my sake when I was +myself a child, I felt that I could never part with her picture under +the pressure of any necessity whatever. + +"Never," I thought, "never under any circumstances." + +It must have been about a week after this that I went to Ilford on one +of those chill, clammy nights which seem peculiar to the East End of +London, where the atmosphere, compounded of smoke and fog and thin +drizzling rain; penetrates to the bone and hangs on one's shoulders like +a shroud. + +Thinking of this, as I thought of everything, in relation to baby, I +bought, as I was passing a hosier's shop, a pair of nice warm stockings +and a little woollen jacket. + +When I reached the Olivers' I found, to my surprise, two strange men +stretched out at large in the kitchen, one on the sofa and the other in +the rocking-chair, both smoking strong tobacco and baby coughing +constantly. + +Before I realised what had happened Mrs. Oliver called me into the +scullery, and, after closing the door on us, she explained the position, +in whispers broken by sobs. + +It was the rent. These were the bailiff's men put into possession by the +landlord, and unless she could find two pounds ten by nine o'clock +to-morrow morning, she and her husband would be sold up and turned into +the street. + +"The home as I've been scraping and pinching to keep together!" she +cried. "For the sake of two pound ten! . . . You couldn't lend us that +much, could you?" + +I told her I could not, but she renewed her entreaties, asking me to +think if I had not something I could pawn for them, and saying that Ted +and she would consider it "a sacred dooty" to repay. + +Again I told her I had nothing--I was trying not to think of the +miniature--but just at that moment she caught sight of the child's +jacket which I was still holding in my hand, and she fell on me with +bitter reproaches. + +"You've money enough to spend on baby, though. It's crool. Her living in +lukshry and getting new milk night and day, and fine clothes being +bought for her constant, and my pore Ted without a roof to cover him in +weather same as this. It breaks my heart. It do indeed. Take your child +away, ma'am. Take her to-night, afore we're turned out of house and home +to-morrow morning." + +Before the hysterical cries with which Mrs. Oliver said this had come +to an end I was on my way back to my room at the Jew's. But it was baby +I was thinking of in relation to that cold, clammy night--that it would +be impossible to take her out in it (even if I had somewhere to take her +to, which I had not) without risk to her health and perhaps her life. + +With trembling fingers and an awful pain at my heart I took my mother's +miniature from the wall and wrapped it up in tissue paper. + +A few minutes afterwards I was back in the damp streets, walking fast +and eagerly, cutting over the lines of the electric trams without +looking for the crossings. + +I knew where I was going to--I was going to a pawnbroker's in the Mile +End Waste which I had seen on my West End journeys. When I got there I +stole in at a side door, half-closing my eyes as I did so, by that +strange impulse which causes us to see nothing when we do not wish to be +seen. + +I shall never forget the scene inside. I think it must have left a scar +on my brain, for I see it now in every detail--the little dark +compartment; the high counter; the shelves at the back full of parcels, +like those of a left-luggage room at a railway station; the heavy, +baggy, big-faced man in shirt-sleeves with a long cigar held between his +teeth at the corner of his frothy mouth; and then my own hurried +breathing; my thin fingers opening the tissue paper and holding out the +miniature; the man's coarse hands fumbling it; his casual air as he +looked at it and cheapened it, as if it had been a common thing scarcely +worthy of consideration. + +"What's this 'ere old-fashion'd thing? Portrait of your +great-grandmother? Hum! Not 'arf bad-looking fice, neither." + +I think my eyes must have been blazing like hot coals. I am sure I bit +my lips (I felt them damp and knew they were bleeding) to prevent myself +from flinging out at the man in spite of my necessity. But I did my best +to control my trembling mouth, and when he asked me how much I wanted on +the miniature I answered, with a gulp in my throat: + +"Two pounds ten, if you please, sir." + +"Couldn't do it," said the pawnbroker. + +I stood speechless for a moment, not knowing what to say next, and then +the pawnbroker, with apparent indifference, said: + +"I'll give you two ten for it out and out." + +"You mean I am to _sell_ . . ." + +"Yus, take it or leave it, my dear." + +It is no use saying what I suffered at that moment. I think I became ten +years older during the few minutes I stood at that counter. + +But they came to an end somehow, and the next thing I knew was that I +was on my way back to Ilford; that the damp air had deepened into rain; +that miserable and perhaps homeless beings, ill-clad and ill-fed, were +creeping along in the searching cold with that shuffling sound which bad +boots make on a wet pavement; and that I was telling myself with a +fluttering heart that the sheltering wings of my beautiful mother in +heaven had come to cover my child. + +On reaching the Olivers', hot and breathless, I put three gold coins, +two sovereigns and a half-sovereign, on to the table to pay off the +broker's men. + +They had been settling themselves for the night, and looked surprised +and I thought chagrined, but took up the money and went away. + +As they were going off one of them called me to the door, and in the +little space at the foot of the stairs he said, tipping his fingers +towards the cot: + +"If that's your kiddie, miss, I recommend you to get it out o' this 'ere +place quick--see?" + +I stayed an hour or two longer because I was troubled about baby's +cough; and before I left, being still uneasy, I did what I had never +done before--wrote my address at the Jew's house, so that I could be +sent for if I was ever wanted. + + + + +ONE HUNDREDTH CHAPTER + + +When I awoke next morning the last word of the broker's man seemed to be +ringing in my ears. + +I knew it was true; I knew I ought to remove baby from the house of the +Olivers without another day's delay, but I was at a loss to know what to +do with her. + +To bring her to my own room at the Jew's was obviously impossible, and +to advertise for a nurse for my child was to run the risk of falling +into the toils of somebody who might do worse than neglect her. + +In my great perplexity I recalled the waitress at the restaurant whose +child had been moved to a Home in the country, and for some moments I +thought how much better it would be that baby should be "bonny and well" +instead of pale and thin as she was now. But when I reflected that if I +took her to a public institution I should see her only once a month, I +told myself that I could not and would not do so. + +"I'll work my fingers to the bone first," I thought. + +Yet life makes a fearful tug at a woman when it has once got hold of +her, and, strangely enough, it was in the Jew's house that I first came +to see that for the child's own sake I must part with her. + +Somewhere about the time of my moving into the back room my employer +made a kind of bower of branches and evergreens over the lead-flat roof +of an outhouse in his back-yard--a Succah, as Miriam called it, built in +honour of the Feast of Tabernacles, as a symbol of the time when the +Israelites in the Wilderness dwelt in booths. + +In this Succah the Jew's family ate all their meals during the seven or +eight days of the Jewish feast, and one morning, as I sat at work by my +open window, I heard Miriam after breakfast reading something from the +Books of Moses. + +It was the beautiful story of Jacob parting with Benjamin in the days of +the famine, when there was corn in Egypt only--how the poor old father +in his great love could not bring himself to give up his beloved son, +although death threatened him; how Judah pleaded with Jacob to send the +boy with him into the far country lest they should all die, "both we and +thou and also our little ones;" and how at last Jacob said, "If it must +be so, do this," but "if I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved." + +It would be hard to say how deeply this story moved me while I listened +from my room above. And now that I thought of it again, I saw that I was +only sacrificing my child to my selfish love of her, and therefore the +duty of a true mother was to put her into a Home. + +It would not be for long. The work I was doing was not the only kind I +was capable of. After I had liberated myself from the daily extortions +of the Olivers I should be free to look about for more congenial and +profitable employment; and then by and by baby and I might live together +in that sweet cottage in the country (I always pictured it as a kind of +Sunny Lodge, with roses looking in at the window of "Mary O'Neill's +little room") which still shone through my dreams. + +I spent some sleepless nights in reconciling myself to all this, and +perhaps wept a little, too, at the thought that after years of +separation I might be a stranger to my own darling. But at length I put +my faith in "the call of the blood" to tell her she was mine, and then +nothing remained except to select the institution to which my only love +and treasure was to be assigned. + +Accident helped me in this as in other things. One day on my westward +journey a woman who sat beside me in the tram, and was constantly wiping +her eyes (though I could see a sort of sunshine through her tears), +could not help telling me, out of the overflowing of her poor heart, +what had just been happening to her. + +She was a widow, and had been leaving her little girl, three years old, +at an orphanage, and though it had been hard to part with her, and the +little darling had looked so pitiful when she came away, it would be the +best for both of them in the long run. + +I asked which orphanage it was, and she mentioned the name of it, +telling me something about the founder--a good doctor who had been a +father to the fatherless of thousands of poor women like herself. + +That brought me to a quick decision, and the very next morning, putting +on my hat and coat, I set off for the Home, which I knew where to find, +having walked round it on my way back from the West End and heard the +merry voices of happy children who were playing behind a high wall. + +I hardly know whether to laugh or cry when I think of the mood in which +I entered the orphanage. In spite of all that life had done to me, I +really and truly felt as if I were about to confer an immense favour +upon the doctor by allowing him to take care of my little woman. + +Oh, how well I remember that little point of time! + +My first disappointment was to learn that the good doctor was dead, and +when I was shown into the office of his successor (everything bore such +a businesslike air) I found an elderly man with a long "three-decker" +neck and a glacial smile, who, pushing his spectacles up on to his +forehead, said in a freezing voice: + +"Well, ma'am, what is _your_ pleasure?" + +After a moment of giddiness I began to tell him my story--how I had a +child and her nurse was not taking proper care of her; how I was in +uncongenial employment myself, but hoped soon to get better; how I loved +my little one and expected to be able to provide for her presently; and +how, therefore, if he would receive her for a while, only a little +while, on the understanding, the clear and definite understanding, that +I could take her away as soon as I wished to. . . . + +Oh dear! Oh dear: + +I do not know what there was in my appearance or speech which betrayed +me, but I had got no further than this when the old gentleman said +sharply: + +"Can you provide a copy of the register of your child's birth to show +that it is legitimate?" + +What answer I made I cannot recollect, except that I told the truth in a +voice with a tremor in it, for a memory of the registry office was +rolling back on me and I could feel my blushes flushing into my face. + +The result was instantaneous. The old gentleman touched a bell, drew his +spectacles down on to his nose, and said in his icy tones: + +"Don't take illegitimate children if we can help it." + +It was several days before I recovered from the deep humiliation of this +experience. Then (the exactions of the Olivers quickening my memory and +at the same time deadening my pride) I remembered something which I had +heard the old actress say during my time at the boarding-house about a +hospital in Bloomsbury for unfortunate children--how the good man who +founded it had been so firm in his determination that no poor mother in +her sorrow should be put to further shame about her innocent child that +he had hung out a basket at the gate at night in which she could lay her +little one, if she liked, and then ring a bell and hide herself away. + +It wasn't easy to reconcile oneself to such philanthropy, but after a +sleepless night, and with rather a sickening pang of mingled hope and +fear, I set off for this hospital. + +It was a fine Sunday morning. The working-men in the East End were +sitting at their doors smoking their pipes and reading their Sunday +papers; but when I reached the West all the church bells were ringing, +and people wearing black clothes and shiny black gloves were walking +with measured steps through the wide courtyard that led to the chapel. + +I will not say that I did not feel some qualms at entering a Protestant +church, yet as soon as I had taken my seat and looked up at the gallery +of the organ, where the children sat tier on tier, so quaint and +sweet--the boys like robins in their bright red waistcoats, and the +girls like rabbits in their mob-caps with fluted frills--and the service +began, and the fresh young voices rose in hymns of praise to the good +Father of us all, I thought Of nothing except the joy of seeing Isabel +there some day and hearing her singing in the choir. + +When the service was over I asked for the secretary and was shown into +his room. + +I dare say he was a good man, but oh! why will so many good people wear +such wintry weather in their faces that merely to look at them pierces a +poor woman to the soul? + +Apologising for the day, I told my story again (my head a little down), +saying I understood that it was no barrier to a child in that orphanage +that she had been born outside the pale of the law. + +"On the contrary," said the secretary, "that is precisely the kind of +child this house is intended for." + +But when I went on to say that I assumed they still observed the wish of +the founder that no questions of any kind should be asked about a +child's birth or parentage, he said no, they had altered all that. Then +he proceeded to explain that before a child could be received the mother +must now go before a committee of gentlemen to satisfy them of her +previous good character, and that the father of her baby had deserted +both of them. + +More than that, he told me that on being received the child was +immediately re-registered and given a new name, in order that it might +be cut off from the sin of its parents and the contamination of their +shame. + +It would be impossible for me to describe the feelings with which I +listened to the secretary while he said all this, with the cast-metal +face of a man who was utterly unconscious of the enormity of the crime +he was describing. + +"Before a committee of gentlemen?" I asked. + +"That is so." + +"Who are to ask her all those questions?" + +"Yes." + +"And then they are to change her baby's name?" + +"Yes." + +"Is she told what the new name is to be?" + +"No, but she is given a piece of parchment containing a number which +corresponds with the name in our books." + +I rose to my feet, flushing up to the eyes I think, trembling from head +to foot I know, and, forgetting who and what I was and why I was +there--a poor, helpless, penniless being seeking shelter for her +child--I burst out on the man in all the mad wrath of outraged +motherhood. + +"And you call this a Christian institution!" I said. "You take a poor +woman in her hour of trouble and torture her with an inquisition into +the most secret facts of her life, in public, and before a committee of +men. And then you take her child, and so far as she is concerned you +bury it, and give her a ticket to its grave. A hospital? This is no +hospital. It is a cemetery. And yet you dare to write over your gates +the words of our Lord--our holy and loving and blessed Lord--who said, +'Suffer little children. . . .'" + +But what is the use of repeating what I said then (perhaps unjustly) or +afterwards in the silence of my own room and the helpless intoxication +of my rage? + +It was soon stamped out of me. + +By the end of another week I was driven to such despair by the continued +extortions of the Olivers that, seeing an advertisement in the +Underground Railway of a Home for children in the country (asking for +subscriptions and showing a group of happy little people playing under a +chestnut-tree in bloom), I decided to make one more effort. + +"They can't all be machines," I thought, "with the founders' hearts +crushed out of them." + +The day was Friday, when work was apt to heap up at the Jew's, and Mrs. +Abramovitch had brought vests enough to my room to cover my bed, but +nevertheless I put on my hat and coat and set out for the orphanage. + +It was fifteen miles on the north side of London, so it cost me +something to get there. But I was encouraged by the homelike appearance +of the place when I reached it, and still more by finding that it was +conducted by women, for at last, I thought, the woman-soul would speak +to me. + +But hardly had I told my story to the matron, repeating my request (very +timidly this time and with such a humble, humble heart) that I might be +allowed to recover my child as soon as I found myself able to provide +for her, than she stopped me and said: + +"My dear young person, we could have half the orphan children in London +on your terms. Before we accept such a child as yours we expect the +parent to give us a legal undertaking that she relinquishes all rights +in it until it is sixteen years of age." + +"Sixteen? Isn't that rather severe on a mother?" I said. + +"Justly severe," said the matron. "Such women should be made to maintain +their children, and thus realise that the way of transgressors is hard." + +How I got back to London, whether by rail or tram or on foot, or what +happened on the way (except that darkness was settling down on me, +within and without), I do not know. I only know that very late that +night, as late as eleven o'clock, I was turning out of Park Lane into +Piccadilly, where the poor "public women" with their painted faces, +dangling their little hand-bags from their wrists, were promenading in +front of the gentlemen's clubs and smiling up at the windows. + +These were the scenes which had formerly appalled me; but now I was +suddenly surprised by a different feeling, and found myself thinking +that among the women who sinned against their womanhood there might be +some who sold themselves for bread to keep those they loved and who +loved them. + +This thought was passing through my mind when I heard a hollow ringing +laugh from a woman who was standing at the foot of a flight of steps +talking to a group of three gentlemen whose white shirt fronts beneath +their overcoats showed that they were in evening dress. + +Her laughter was not natural. It had no joy in it, yet she laughed and +laughed, and feeling as if I _knew_ (because life had that day trampled +on me also), I said to myself: + +"That woman's heart is dead." + +This caused me to glance at her as I passed, when, catching a side +glimpse of her face, I was startled by a memory I could not fix. + +"Where and when have I seen that woman's face before?" I thought. + +It seemed impossible that I could have seen it anywhere. But the woman's +resemblance to somebody I had known, coupled with her joyless laughter, +compelled me to stop at the next corner and look back. + +By this time the gentlemen, who had been treating her lightly (O God, +how men treat such women!), had left her and, coming arm-in-arm in my +direction, with their silk hats tilted a little back, were saying: + +"Poor old Aggie! She's off!" "Completely off!" "Is it drink, I wonder?" + +And then, seeing me, they said: + +"Gad, here's a nice little gal, though!" "No rouge, neither!" "By Jove, +no! Her face is as white as a waterlily!" + +Seeing that they were wheeling round, and fearing they were going to +speak to me, I moved back and so came face to face with the woman, who +was standing where they had left her, silent now, and looking after the +men with fierce eyes under the fair hair that curled over her forehead. + +Then in a moment a memory from the far past swept over me, and I cried, +almost as if the name had been forced out of me: + +"Sister Angela!" + +The woman started, and it seemed for a moment as if she were going to +run away. Then she laid hold of me by the arm and, looking searchingly +into my face, said: + +"Who are you? . . . I know. You are Mary O'Neill, aren't you?" + +"Yes." + +"I knew you were. I read about your marriage to that . . . that man. And +now you are wondering why I am here. Well, come home with me and see." + +It was not until afterwards that I knew by what mistake about my +presence in that place Angela thought she must justify herself in my +eyes (mine!); but taking me by the hand, just as she used to do when I +was a child, she led, almost pulled, me down Piccadilly, and my will was +so broken that I did not attempt to resist her. + +We crossed Piccadilly Circus, with its white sheet of electric light, +and, turning into the darker thoroughfares on the northern side of it, +walked on until, in a narrow street of the Italian quarter of Soho, we +stopped at a private door by the side of a café that had an Italian name +on the window. + +"This is where we live. Come in," said Angela, and I followed her +through a long empty lobby and up three flights of bare stairs. + +While we ascended, there was the deadened sound, as from the café, of +men singing (in throbbing voices to mandolines and guitars) one of the +Italian songs which I remembered to have heard from the piazza outside +the convent on that night when Sister Angela left me in bed while she +went off to visit the chaplain: + + "_Oh bella Napoli, Oh suol beato + Onde sorridere volle il creato._" + +"The Italian Club," said Angela. "Only one flight more. Come!" + + + + +ONE HUNDRED AND FIRST CHAPTER + + +At length Angela opened, with a key from her satchel, a door on the top +landing, and we entered a darkened room which was partly in the roof. + +As we stepped in I heard rapid breathing, which told me that we were in +a sick chamber, and then a man's voice, very husky and weak, saying: + +"Is that you, Agnes?" + +"It's only me, dear," said Angela.. + +After a moment she turned up the solitary gas-jet, which had been +burning low, and I saw the shadowy form of a man lying in a bed that +stood in a corner. He was wasted with consumption, his long bony hands +were lying on the counterpane, his dark hair was matted over his +forehead as from sweat, but I could not mistake the large, lively grey +eyes that looked out of his long thin face. It was Father Giovanni. + +Angela went up to him and kissed him, and I could see that his eyes +lighted with a smile as he saw her coming into the room. + +"There's somebody with you, isn't there?" he said. + +"Yes. Who do you think it is?" + +"Who?" + +"Don't you remember little Margaret Mary at the Sacred Heart?" + +"Is this she?" + +"Yes," said Angela, and then in a hoarse, angry voice the man said: + +"What has she come here for?" + +Angela told him that I had seen her on Piccadilly, and being a great +lady now, I (Oh heaven!) was one of the people who came out into the +streets at midnight to rescue lost ones. + +"She looked as if she wondered what had brought me down to that life, so +I've fetched her home to see." + +I was shocked at Angela's mistake, but before I could gather strength or +courage to correct her Giovanni was raising himself in bed and saying, +with a defiant air, his eyes blazing like watch-fires: + +"She does it for me, if you want to know. I've been eleven months +ill--she does it all for me, I tell you." + +And then, in one of those outbursts of animation which come to the +victims of that fell disease, he gave me a rapid account of what had +happened to them since they ran away from Rome--how at first he had +earned their living as a teacher of languages; how it became known that +he was an unfrocked and excommunicated priest who had broken his vows, +and then his pupils had left him; how they had struggled on for some +years longer, though pursued by this character as by a malignant curse; +and how at length his health had quite broken down, and he would have +starved but for Agnes (Angela being her nun's name), who had stuck to +him through everything. + +While the sick man said this in his husky voice, Angela was sitting on +the bed by his side with her arm about his waist, listening to him with +a sort of pride and looking at me with a kind of triumph. + +"I dare say you wonder why I didn't try to get work," she said. "I +_could_ have got it if I had wanted to. I could have got it at the +Italian laundry. But what was two shillings a day to a man who was +ordered new milk and fresh eggs five times every twenty-four hours, not +to speak of the house rent?" + +"She ought to have let me die first," said Giovanni, and then, looking +at me again with his large, glittering, fierce eyes, he said: + +"_You_ think she ought to have let me die, don't you?" + +"No, no, no," I said--it was all I _could_ say, for their mistake about +myself was choking me. + +Perhaps my emotion appeased both of them, for after a moment Angela beat +out Giovanni's pillow and straightened his counterpane, and then told +him to lie down and be quiet, while she brought a chair for me and took +off her things in her own bedroom. + +But hardly had she gone into an adjoining chamber when the sick man +raised himself again and, reaching over in my direction, told me in a +hoarse whisper the story of the first night of her present way of +life--how the doctor had said he must be removed to the hospital; how +Agnes would not part with him; how the landlord had threatened to turn +them out; and how at last, after sitting with her head in her hands the +whole evening, Aggie had got up and gone out and, coming back at +midnight, had thrown two sovereigns on the table and said, "There you +are, Giovanni--that's our rent and your eggs and milk for one week, +anyway." + +By this time Angela had returned to the room (her paint and rouge washed +off, and her gay clothes replaced by a simple woollen jacket over a +plain underskirt), and she began to beat up an egg, to boil some milk, +to pour out a dose of medicine, and to do, with all a good woman's tact, +a good woman's tenderness, the little services of which an invalid +stands in need. + +Oh heavens, how beautiful it was--fearfully, awfully tragically +beautiful! + +I was deeply moved as I sat in silence watching her; and when at length +Giovanni, who had been holding her hand in his own long, bony ones and +sometimes putting it to his lips, dropped off to sleep (tired out, +perhaps, by talking to me), and she, drawing up to where I sat by the +end of the bed, resumed her self-defence, saying in a whisper that +ladies like me could not possibly understand what a woman would do, in +spite of herself, when the life of one she loved was threatened, I could +bear her mistake no longer, but told her of my real condition--that I +was no longer a lady, that I had run away from my husband, that I had a +child, and was living as a poor seamstress in the East End of London. + +Angela listened to my story in astonishment; and when I had come to an +end she was holding my hand and looking into my eyes with just that look +which she had when she put me to bed for the first time at school, and, +making her voice very low, told me to be a good child of the Infant +Jesus. + +"It's nearly one o'clock. You can't go back to the East End to-night," +she whispered. + +"Oh, I must, I must," I said, getting up and making for the door. But +before I had reached it my limbs gave way, whether from the strain of +emotion or physical weakness, and if it had not been for Angela I should +have dropped to the floor. + +After that she would hear of no excuses. I must stay until morning. I +could sleep in her own bed in the other room, and she could lay a +mattress for herself on the floor by the side of Giovanni's. There +would be no great sacrifice in that. It was going to be one of +Giovanni's bad nights, and she was likely to be up and down all the time +anyway. + +Half an hour later I was in bed in a little room that was separated by a +thin papered partition from the room of the poor consumptive, and +Angela, who had brought me a cup of hot milk, was saying in a whisper: + +"He's very bad. The doctor says he can't last longer than a week. Sister +Veronica (you remember her, she's Mildred Bankes that used to be) tried +to get him into a home for the dying. It was all arranged, too, but at +the last moment he wouldn't go. He told them that, if they wanted to +separate him from Agnes, they had better bring his coffin because he +would be dead before they got him to the door." + +When she had gone I lay a long time in the dark, listening to the sounds +on the other side of the partition. + +Giovanni awoke with an alarming fit of coughing, and in the querulous, +plaintive, fretful, sometimes angry tones which invalids have, he +grumbled at Angela and then cried over her, saying what a burden he was +to her, while she, moving about the room in her bare feet, coaxed and +caressed him, and persuaded him to take his milk or his medicine. + +Through all this I would hear at intervals the drumming noises of the +singing downstairs, which sounded in my ears (as the singers were +becoming more and more intoxicated) like the swirling and screeching of +an ironical requiem for the dying man before he was dead: + + "_Oh bella Napoli, Oh suol beato + Onde sorridere volle il creato_." + +But somewhere in those dead hours in which London sleeps everything +became still, and my mind, which had been questioning the grim darkness +on the worst of the world's tragedies (what a woman will do for those +she loves), fell back on myself and I thought of the Christian +institutions which had turned me from their doors, and then of this +"street-walker" who had given up her own bed to me and was now lying in +the next room on a mattress on the floor. + +I could not help it if I felt a startling reverence for Angela, as a +ministering angel faithful unto death, and I remembered that as I fell +asleep I was telling myself that we all needed God's mercy, God's +pardon, and that, God would forgive her because she had loved much. + +But sleep was more tolerant still I dreamt that Angela died, and on +reaching the gates of heaven all the saints of God met her, and after +they had clothed her in a spotless white robe, one of them--it was the +blessed Mary Magdalene--took her hand and said: + +"Here is another of the holy martyrs." + +I awoke from that dream with beads of perspiration on my forehead. But I +dare not say what confused and terrible thoughts came next, except that +they were about baby--what I might do myself if driven to the last +extremity. When I slept and dreamt again, it was I who was dead, and it +was my darling mother who met me and took me to the feet of the Blessed +Virgin and said: + +"Mother of all Mothers, who knows all that is in a mother's heart, this +is my little daughter. She did not intend to do wrong. It was all for +the sake of her child." + +When I awoke in the morning, with the darkness shivering off through the +gloom, this last dream was sitting upon me like a nightmare. It +terrified me. I felt as if I were standing on the edge of a precipice +and some awful forces were trying to push me over it. + +The London sparrows were chirping on the skylight over my head, and I +could faintly hear the Italian criers in the front street: + +"Latte!" "Spazzina!" "Erbaggi freschi!" + +In spite of myself (hating myself for it after all the tenderness that +had been shown me), I could not overcome a feeling of shame at finding +myself lying where I was, and I got up to run away that I might cleanse +my soul of the evil thoughts which had come to me while there. + +As I dressed I listened for a sound from the adjoining room. All was +quiet now. The poor restless ones were at last getting a little rest. + +A few minutes afterwards I passed on tiptoe through their room without +looking towards the bed, and reaching the door to the staircase I opened +it as noiselessly as I could. + +Then I closed it softly after me, on so much suffering and so much love. + + + + +ONE HUNDRED AND SECOND CHAPTER + + +The sun was shining in the street. It was one of those clear, clean, +frosty mornings when the very air of London, even in the worst places, +seems to be washed by the sunlight from the sin and drink of the night +before. + +I was on my way to that church among the mews of Mayfair to which I had +gone so frequently during the early days of my marriage when I was +struggling against the mortal sin (as I thought it was) of loving +Martin. + +Just as I reached the church and was ascending the steps, a gorgeous +landau with high-stepping horses and a powdered footman drew up at the +bottom of them. + +The carriage, which bore a coronet on the door, contained a lady in long +furs, a rosy-faced baby-girl in squirrel skins with a large doll in her +arms, and a nurse. + +I could see that, like myself, the lady (a young mother) had come to +confess, for as she rose from her seat she told the child to sit quiet +and be good and she would not keep her long. + +"Tum out soon, mummy, and dolly will lub you eber and eber," said the +child. + +The lady stooped and kissed the little one, and then, with a proud and +happy look, stepped out of the carriage and passed into the church, +while the door-keeper opened the vestibule door for her and bowed +deeply. + +I stood at the top of the steps for a moment looking back at the +carriage, the horses, the footman, the nurse, and, above all, the +baby-girl with her doll, and then followed the lady into the church. + +Apparently mass was just over. Little spirelets of smoke were rising +from the candles on the altar which the sacristan was putting out, a few +communicants were still on their knees, and others with light yet +echoing footsteps were making for the door. + +The lady in furs had already taken her place at one of the confessional +boxes, and as there seemed to be no other that was occupied by a priest, +I knelt on a chair in the nave and tried to fix my mind on the prayers +(once so familiar) for the examination of conscience before confession: + +"_Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, dispel the darkness of my heart, that I may +bewail my sins and rightly confess them_." + +But the labouring of my spirit was like the flight of a bat in the +daylight. Though I tried hard to keep my mind from wandering, I could +not do so. Again and again it went back to the lady in furs with the +coroneted carriage and the high-stepping horses. + +She was about my own age, and she began to rise before my tightly closed +eyes as a vision of what I might have been myself if I had not given up +everything for love--wealth, rank, title, luxury. + +God is my witness that down to that moment I had never once thought I +had made any sacrifice, but now, as by a flash of cruel lightning, I saw +myself as I was--a peeress who had run away from her natural condition +and was living in the slums, working like any other work-girl. + +Even this did not hurt me much, but when I thought of the rosy-faced +child in the carriage, and then of my own darling at Mrs. Oliver's as I +had seen her last, so thin and pale, and with her little bib stained by +her curdled milk, a feeling I had never had before pierced to my very +soul. + +I asked myself if this was what God looked down upon and permitted--that +because I had obeyed what I still believed to be the purest impulse of +my nature, love, my child must be made to suffer. + +Then something hard began to form in my heart. I told myself that what I +had been taught to believe about God was falsehood and deception. + +All this time I was trying to hush down my mind by saying my prayer, +which called on the gracious Virgin Mary to intercede for me with my +Redeemer, and the holy Saints of God to assist me. + +"_Assist me by thy grace, that I may be able to declare my sins to the +priest, thy Vicar_." + +It was of no use. Every moment my heart was hardening, and what I had +intended to confess about my wicked thoughts of the night before was +vanishing away. At last I rose to my feet and, lifting my head, looked +boldly up at the altar. + +Just at that moment the young peeress, having finished her confession, +went off with a light step and a cheerful face. Her kneeling-place at +the confessional box was now vacant, yet I did not attempt to take it, +and some minutes passed in which I stood biting my lips to prevent a +cry. Then the priest parted his curtains and beckoned to me, and I moved +across and stood stubbornly by the perforated brass grating. + +"Father," I said, as firmly as I could, for my throat was fluttering, "I +came here to make my confession, but something has come over me since I +entered this church, and now I cannot." + +"What has come over you, my child?" asked the priest. + +"I feel that what is said about God in a place like this, that He is a +kind and beneficent Father, who is just and merciful and pities the +sufferings of His children, is untrue. It is all wrong and false. _God +does not care_." + +The priest did not answer me immediately, but after a moment of silence +he said in a quivering voice: + +"My child, I feel just like that myself sometimes. It is the devil +tempting you. He is standing by your side and whispering in your ear, at +this moment." + +I shuddered, and the priest added: + +"I see how it is, my daughter. You are suffering, and those you love are +suffering too. But must you surrender your faith on that account? Look +round at the pictures on these walls [the Stations of the Cross]. Think +of the Great Sufferer, the Great Martyr, who in the hour of His death, +at the malicious power of the world, cried, '_Eloi, Eloi, lama +sabachthani_: My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?'" + +I had dropped to my knees by now, my head was down, and my hands were +clasped together. + +"You are wrong, my child, if you think God does not care for you because +He allows you to suffer. Are you rich? Are you prosperous? Have you +every earthly blessing? Then beware, for Satan is watching for your +soul. But are you poor? Are you going through unmerited trouble? Have +you lost some one who was dearer to you than your heart of hearts? Then +take courage, for our holy and blessed Saviour has marked you for His +own." + +I know nothing of that priest except his whispering voice, which, coming +through the grating of the confessional, produced the effect of the +supernatural, but I thought then, and I think now, that he must have +been a great as well as a good man. + +I perfectly recollect that, when I left the church and passed into the +streets, it seemed as if his spirit went with me and built up in my soul +a resolution that was bright with heavenly tears and sunshine. + +Work! Work! Work! I should work still harder than before. No matter how +mean, ill-paid, and uncongenial my work might be, I should work all day +and all night if necessary. And since I had failed to get my child into +an orphanage, it was clearly intended that I should keep her with me, +for my own charge and care and joy. + +This was the mood in which I returned to the house of the Jew. + +It was Saturday morning, and though the broader thoroughfares of the +East End were crowded and the narrower streets full of life, the Jew's +house was silent, for it was the Jewish Sabbath. + +As I went hurriedly upstairs I heard the Jew himself, who was dressing +for the synagogue, singing his Sabbath hymn: _Lerho daudee likras +kollo_--"Come, O friend, let us go forth to meet the Bride, let us +receive the Sabbath with joy!" + +Then came a shock. + +When I reached my room I found, to my dismay, that the pile of vests +which I had left on my bed on going out the day before had been removed; +and just as I was telling myself that no one else except Mrs. +Abramovitch had a key to my door I heard shuffling footsteps on the +stair, and knew that her husband was coming up to me. + +A moment afterwards the Jew stood in my doorway. He was dressed in his +Sabbath suit and, free from the incongruous indications of his homely +calling, the patriarchal appearance which had first struck me was even +more marked than before. His face was pale, his expression was severe, +and if his tongue betrayed the broken English of the Polish Jew, I, in +my confusion and fear, did not notice it then. + +My first thought was that he had come to reprove me for neglecting my +work, and I was prepared to promise to make up for my absence. But at a +second glance I saw that something had happened, something had become +known, and that he was there to condemn and denounce me. + +"You have been out all night," he said. "Can you tell me where you have +been?" + +I knew I could not, and though it flashed upon me to say that I had +slept at the house of a friend, I saw that, if he asked who my friend +was, and what, I should be speechless. + +The Jew waited for my reply and then said: + +"You have given us a name--can you say it is your true and right one?" + +Again I made no answer, and after another moment the Jew said: + +"Can you deny that you have a child whom you have hidden from our +knowledge?" + +I felt myself gasping, but still I did not speak. + +"Can you say that it was lawfully born according to your Christian +marriage?" + +I felt the colour flushing into my face but I was still silent; and +after a moment in which, as I could see, the stern-natured Jew was +summing me up as a woman of double life and evil character, he said: + +"Then it is true? . . . Very well, you will understand that from this +day you cease to be in my service." + +All this time my eyes were down, but I was aware that somebody else had +come into the room. It was Miriam, and she was trying to plead for me. + +"Father . . ." she began, but, turning hotly upon her, the Jew cried +passionately: + +"Go away! A true daughter of Israel should know better than to speak for +such a woman." + +I heard the girl going slowly down the stairs, and then the Jew, +stepping up to me and speaking more loudly than before, said: + +"Woman, leave my house at once, before you corrupt the conscience of my +child." + +Again I became aware that some one had come into the room. It was Mrs. +Abramovitch, and she, too, was pleading for me. + +"Israel! Calm thyself! Do not give way to injustice and anger. On +Shobbos morning, too!" + +"Hannah," said the Jew, "thou speakest with thy mouth, not thy heart. +The Christian doth not deny that she hath given thee a false name, and +is the adulterous mother of a misbegotten child. If she were a Jewish +woman she would be summoned before the Beth Din, and in better days our +law of Moses would have stoned her. Shall she, because she is a +Christian, dishonour a good Jewish house? No! The hand of the Lord would +go out against me." + +"But she is homeless, and she hath been a good servant to thee, Israel. +Give her time to find another shelter." + +There was a moment of silence after that, and then the Jew said: + +"Very well! It shall not be said that Israel Abramovitch knows not to +temper justice with mercy." + +And then, my face being still down, I heard him saying over my head: + +"You may stay here another week. After that I wash my hands of thee." + +With these hard words he turned away, and I heard him going heavily down +the stairs. His wife stayed a little longer, saying something in a kind +voice, which I did not comprehend, and then she followed him. + +I do not think I had spoken a word. I continued to stand where the Jew +had left me. After a while I heard him closing and locking the door of +his own apartment, and knew that he was going off to his synagogue in +Brick Lane in his tall silk hat worn on the back of his head like a +skull-cap, and with his wife and daughter behind him, carrying his +leather-bound prayer-book. + +I hardly knew what else was happening. My heart was heaving like a dead +body on a billow. All that the priest had said was gone. In its place +there was a paralysing despair as if the wheels of life were rolling +over me. + + +MEMORANDUM BY MARTIN CONRAD + +My dear, long-suffering, martyred darling! + +It makes my blood boil to see how the very powers of darkness, in the +name of religion, morality, philanthropy and the judgment of God, were +persecuting my poor little woman. + +But why speak of myself at all, or interrupt my darling's narrative, +except to say what was happening in my efforts to reach her? + +While we were swinging along in our big liner over the heaving bosom of +the Mediterranean the indefinable sense of her danger never left me day +or night. + +That old dream of the glacier and the precipice continued to haunt my +sleep, with the difference that, instead of the aurora glistening in my +dear one's eyes, there was now a blizzard behind her. + +The miserable thing so tortured me as we approached Malta (where I +expected to receive a reply to the cable I had sent from Port Said to +the house of Daniel O'Neill) that I felt physically weak at the thought +of the joy or sorrow ahead of me. + +Though there was no telegram from my darling at Malta, there was one +from the chairman of my committee, saying he was coming to Marseilles to +meet our steamer and would sail the rest of the way home with us. + +Indirectly this brought me a certain comfort. It reminded me of the +letter I had written for my dear one on the day I left Castle Raa. +Sixteen months had passed since then, serious things had happened in the +interval, and I had never thought of that letter before. + +It was not to her father, as she supposed, and certainly not to her +husband. It was to my chairman, asking him, in the event of my darling +sending it on, to do whatever was necessary to protect her during my +absence. + +If my chairman had not received that letter, my conclusion would be that +my dear little woman had never been reduced to such straits as to +require help from any one. If he had in fact received it, he must have +done what I wished, and therefore everything would be well. + +There was a certain suspense as well as a certain consolation in all +this, and before our big ship slowed down at Marseilles I was on deck +searching for my chairman among the people waiting for us on the pier. + +I saw him immediately, waving his travelling cap with a flourish of joy, +and I snatched a little comfort from that. + +As soon as the steamer was brought to, he was the first to come aboard, +and I scanned his face as he hurried up the gangway. It was beaming. + +"It's all right," I thought; "a man could not look as happy as that if +he were bringing me bad news." + +A moment afterwards he was shaking my hand, clapping me on the shoulder, +and saying: + +"Splendid! Magnificent! Glorious achievement! Proved your point up to +the hilt, my boy!" + +And when I said something about not having gone all the way he cried: + +"Never mind! You'll do it next time," which made some of my shipmates +who were standing round with shining eyes say, "Aye, aye, sir," and then +one of them (it was good old O'Sullivan) shouted: + +"By the stars of heaven, that's thrue, my lord! And if anybody's after +saying that the Commanther was turned back this time by anything less +than the almighty power of Nature in her wrath, you may say there's +forty-eight of us here to tell him he lies." + +"I believe it," said the chairman, and then there were further +congratulations, with messages from members of my committee, but never a +word from my dear one. + +Thinking the chairman might hesitate to speak of a private matter until +we were alone, I took him down to my state-room. But he had nothing to +say there, either, except about articles to be written, reports to be +compiled, and invitations to be accepted. + +Several hours passed like this. We were again out at sea, and my longing +to know what had happened was consuming me, but I dared not ask from +fear of a bad answer. + +Before the night was out, however, I had gone to work in a roundabout +way. Taking O'Sullivan into my confidence, I told him it had not been my +parents that I had been anxious about (God forgive me!), but somebody +else whom he had seen and spoken to. + +"Do you mean Mal . . . I should say Lady . . ." + +"Yes." + +"By the holy saints, the way I was thinking that when I brought you the +letter at Port Said, and saw the clouds of heaven still hanging on you." + +I found that the good fellow had a similar trouble of his own (not yet +having heard from his mother), so he fell readily into my plan, which +was that of cross-questioning the chairman about my dear one, and I +about his, and then meeting secretly and imparting what we had learned. + +Anybody may laugh who likes at the thought of two big lumbering fellows +afraid to face the truth (scouting round and round it), but it grips me +by the throat to this day to see myself taking our chairman into a quiet +corner of the smoke-room and saying: + +"Poor old O'Sullivan! He hasn't heard from his old mother yet. She was +sick when he sailed, and wouldn't have parted with him to go with +anybody except myself. You haven't heard of her, have you?" + +And then to think of O'Sullivan doing the same for me, with: + +"The poor Commanther! Look at him there. Faith, he's keeping a good +heart, isn't he? But it's just destroyed he is for want of news of a +great friend that was in trouble. It was a girl . . . a lady, I mane. +You haven't heard the whisper of a word, sir . . . eh?" + +Our chairman had heard nothing. And when (bracing myself at last) I +asked point-blank if anything had been sent to him as from me, and he +answered "No," I might have been relieved, but I wasn't. Though I did +not know then that my darling had burnt my letter, I began to feel that +she was the last person in the world to use it, being (God bless her!) +of the mettle that makes a woman want to fight her own battles without +asking help of any one. + +This quite crushed down my heart, for, seeing that she had sent no reply +to my cables, I could not find any escape from the conclusion that she +was where no word could come from her--she was dead! + +Lord God, how I suffered when this phantom got into my mind! I used to +walk up and down the promenade deck late into the night, trying and +condemning myself as if I had been my own judge and jury. + +"She is dead. I have killed her," I thought. + +Thank God, the phantom was soon laid by the gladdest sight I ever saw on +earth or ever expect to see, and it wouldn't be necessary to speak of it +now but for the glorious confidence it brought me. + +It was the same with me as with a ship-broken man whom Providence comes +to relieve in his last extremity, and I could fix the place of mine as +certainly as if I had marked it on a chart. We had called at Gibraltar +(where O'Sullivan had received a letter from his mother, saying she was +splendid) and were running along the coast of Portugal. + +It was a dirty black night, with intervals of rain, I remember. While my +shipmates were making cheerful times of it in the smoke-room (O'Sullivan +with heart at ease singing the "Minsthrel Boy" to a chorus of noisy +cheers) I was walking up and down the deck with my little stock of +courage nearly gone, for turn which way I would it was dark, dark, dark, +when just as we picked up the lights of Finisterre something said to me, +as plainly as words could speak: + +"What in the name of thunder are you thinking about? Do you mean to say +that you were turned back in the 88th latitude, and have been hurried +home without the loss of a moment, only to find everything over at the +end of your journey? No, no, no! Your poor, dear, heroic little woman is +alive! She may be in danger, and beset by all the powers of the devil, +but that's just why you have been brought home to save her, and you +_will_ save her, as surely as the sun will rise to-morrow morning." + +There are thoughts which, like great notes in music, grip you by the +soul and lift you into a world which you don't naturally belong to. This +was one of them. + +Never after that did I feel one moment's real anxiety. I was my own man +once more; and though I continued to walk the deck while our good ship +sped along in the night, it was only because there was a kind of wild +harmony between the mighty voice of the rolling billows of the Bay and +the unheard anthem of boundless hope that was singing in my breast. + +I recollect that during my walk a hymn was always haunting me. It was +the same that we used to sing in the shuddering darkness of that +perpetual night, when we stood (fifty downhearted men) under the shelter +of our snow camp, with a ninety mile blizzard shrieking above us: + + "_Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom, + Lead Thou me on_." + +But the light was within me now, and I knew as certainly as that the +good ship was under my feet that I was being carried home at the call of +the Spirit to rescue my stricken darling. + +God keep her on her solitary way! England! England! England! Less than a +week and I should be there! + +That was early hours on Saturday morning--the very Saturday when my poor +little woman, after she had been turned away by those prating +philanthropists, was being sheltered by the prostitute. + +Let him explain it who can. I cannot. + +M.C. + +[END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM] + + + + +ONE HUNDRED AND THIRD CHAPTER + + +I must have been sitting a full hour or more on the end of my +bed--stunned, stupefied, unable to think--when Miriam, back from the +synagogue, came stealthily upstairs to say that a messenger had come for +me about six o'clock the night before. + +"He said his name was Oliver, and father saw him, and that's how he came +to know. 'Tell her that her child is ill, and she is to come +immediately,' he said." + +I was hardly conscious of what happened next--hardly aware of passing +through the streets to Ilford. I had a sense of houses flying by as they +seem to do from an express train; of my knees trembling; of my throat +tightening; and of my whole soul crying out to God to save the life of +my child until I could get to her. + +When I reached the house of the Olivers the worst of my fears were +relieved. Mrs. Oliver was sitting before the fire with baby on her lap. + +At sight of me the woman began to mumble out something about my delay, +and how she could not be held responsible if anything happened; but +caring nothing about responsibility, hers or mine, I took baby from her +without more words. + +My child was in a state of deep drowsiness, and when I tried to rouse +her I could not do so. I gathered that this condition had lasted +twenty-four hours, during which she had taken no nourishment, with the +result that she was now very thin. + +I knew nothing of children's ailments but a motherly instinct must have +come to my aid, for I called for a bath, and bathed baby, and she awoke, +and then took a little food. + +But again she dropped back into the drowsy condition, and Mrs. Oliver, +who was alarmed, called in some of the neighbours to look at her. + +Apparently the mission of the good women was to comfort Mrs. Oliver, not +me, but they said, "Sleep never did no harm to nobody," and I found a +certain consolation in that. + +Hours passed. I was barely sensible of anything that happened beyond the +narrow circle of my own lap, but at one moment I heard the squirling of +a brass band that was going up the street, with the shuffling of an +irregular procession. + +"It's the strike," said Mrs. Oliver, running to the window. "There's +Ted, carrying a banner." + +A little later I heard the confused noises of a strike meeting, which +was being held on the Green. It was like the croaking of a frog-pond, +with now and then a strident voice (the bricklayer's) crying "Buckle +your belts tighter, and starve rather than give in, boys." Still later I +heard the procession going away, singing with a slashing sound that was +like driving wind and pelting rain: + + "_The land, the land, the blessed, blessed land, + Gawd gave the land to the people_." + +But nothing awakened baby, and towards three in the afternoon (the idea +that she was really ill having taken complete possession of me) I asked +where I could find the nearest doctor, and being told, I went off in +search of him. + +The doctor was on his rounds, so I left a written message indicating +baby's symptoms and begging him to come to her immediately. + +On the way back I passed a number of children's funerals--easily +recognisable by the combined coach and hearse, the white linen "weepers" +worn by the coachman and his assistant, and the little coffin, sprinkled +with cheap flowers, in the glass case behind the driver's seat. These +sights, which brought back a memory of the woman who carried my baby +down the Mile End Road, almost deprived me of my senses. + +I had hardly got back and taken off my coat and warmed my hands and +dress by the fire before taking baby in my lap, when the doctor, in his +gig, pulled up at the door. + +He was a young man, but he seemed to take in the situation in a moment. +I was the mother, wasn't I? Yes. And this woman was baby's nurse? Yes. + +Then he drew up a chair and looked steadfastly down at baby, and I went +through that breathless moment, which most of us know, when we are +waiting for the doctor's first word. + +"Some acute digestive trouble here apparently," he said, and then +something about finding out the cause of it. + +But hardly had he put his hands on my child as she lay in my lap than +there came a faintly discoloured vomit. + +"What have you been giving her?" he said, looking round at Mrs. Oliver. + +Mrs. Oliver protested that she had given baby nothing except her milk, +but the doctor said sharply: + +"Don't talk nonsense, woman. Show me what you've given her." + +Then Mrs. Oliver, looking frightened, went upstairs and brought down a +bottle of medicine, saying it was a soothing syrup which I had myself +bought for baby's cough. + +"As I thought!" said the doctor, and going to the door and opening it, +he flung the bottle on to the waste ground opposite, saying as he did +so: + +"If I hear of you giving your babies any more of your soothing syrup +I'll see what the Inspector has to say." + +After that, ignoring nurse, he asked me some searching and intimate +questions--if I had had a great grief or shock or worry while baby was +coming, and whether and how long I had nursed her. + +I answered as truthfully as I could, though I saw the drift of his +inquiries, and was trembling with fear of what he would tell me next. + +He said nothing then, however, except to make his recommendations. And +remembering my loss of work, my heart sank as he enumerated baby's +needs--fresh cow's milk diluted with lime water, small quantities of +meat juice, and twenty to thirty drops of the best brandy three or four +times a day. + +When he rose to go I paid his fee. It was only half-a-crown, but he +cannot have known how much that meant to me, for as he was leaving the +kitchen he told me to send for him again in the morning if there were a +change in the symptoms. + +Feeling that I did not yet know the whole truth (though I was trembling +in terror of it), I handed baby to Mrs. Oliver and followed the doctor +to the door. + +"Doctor," I said, "is my baby very ill?" + +He hesitated for a moment and then answered, "Yes." + +"Dangerously ill?" + +Again he hesitated, and then looking closely at me (I felt my lower lip +trembling) he said: + +"I won't say that. She's suffering from marasmus, provoked by overdoses +of the pernicious stuff that is given by ignorant and unscrupulous +people to a restless child to keep it quiet. But her real trouble comes +of maternal weakness, and the only cure for that is good nourishment and +above all fresh air and sunshine." + +"Will she get better?" + +"If you can take her away, into the country she will, certainly." + +"And if . . . if I can't," I asked, the words fluttering up to my lips, +"will she . . . _die_?" + +The doctor looked steadfastly at me again (I was biting my lip to keep +it firm), and said: + +"She _may_." + +When I returned to the kitchen I knew that I was face to face with +another of the great mysteries of a woman's life--Death--the death of my +child, which my very love and tenderness had exposed her to. + +Meantime Mrs. Oliver, who was as white as a whitewashed wall, was +excusing herself in a whining voice that had the sound of a spent wave. +She wouldn't have hurt the pore dear precious for worlds, and if it +hadn't been for Ted, who was so tired at night and wanted sleep after +walking in percession. . . . + +Partly to get rid of the woman I sent her out (with almost the last of +my money) for some of the things ordered by the doctor. While she was +away, and I was looking down at the little silent face on my lap, +praying for one more glimpse of my Martin's sea-blue eyes, the +bricklayer came lunging into the house. + +"Where's Lizer?" he said. + +I told him and he cried: + +"The baiby again! Allus the baiby!" + +With that he took out of his pocket a cake of moist tobacco, cut and +rolled some of it in his palm, and then charged his pipe and lit +it--filling the air with clouds of rank smoke, which made baby bark and +cough without rousing her. + +I pointed this out to him and asked him not to smoke. + +"Eh?" he said, and then I told him that the doctor had been called and +what he had said about fresh air. + +"So that's it, is it?" he said. "Good! Just reminds me of something I +want to say, so I'll introdooce the matter now, in a manner o' speaking. +Last night I 'ad to go to Mile End for you, and here's Lizer out on a +sim'lar arrand. If people 'ave got to be 'ospital nurses to a sick baiby +they ought to be paid, mind ye. We're only pore, and it may be a sacred +dooty walkin' in percession, but it ain't fillin'." + +Choking with anger, I said: + +"Put out your pipe, please." + +"Ma'am to _you_!" + +"Put it out this moment, sir, or I'll see if I can't find somebody to +make you." + +The bricklayer laughed, then pointed with the shank of his pipe to the +two photographs over the mantelpiece, and said: + +"See them? Them's me, with my dooks up. If any friend o' yourn as is +interested in the baiby comes to lay a 'and on me I'll see if I've +forgot 'ow to use 'em." + +I felt the colour shuddering out of my cheeks, and putting baby into the +cot I turned on the man and cried: + +"You scoundrel! The doctor has told me what is the immediate cause of my +baby's illness and your wife has confessed to giving overdoses of a +drug at your direction. If you don't leave this house in one minute I'll +go straight to the police-station and charge you with poisoning my +child." + +The bully in the coward was cowed in a moment. + +"Don't get 'uffy, ma'am," he said. "I'm the peaceablest man in the East +End, and if I mentioned anything about a friend o' yourn it slipped out +in the 'eat of the moment--see?" + +"Out you go! Go! Go!" I cried, and, incredible as it may seem, the man +went flying before my face as if I had been a fury. + +It would be a long tale to tell of what happened the day following, the +next and the next and the next--how baby became less drowsy, but more +restless; how being unable to retain her food she grew thinner and +thinner; how I wished to send for the doctor, but dared not do so from +fear of his fee; how the little money I had left was barely sufficient +to buy the food and stimulants which were necessary to baby's cure: how +I sat for long hours with my little lamb on my lap straining my dry eyes +into her face; and how I cried to God for the life of my child, which +was everything I had or wanted. + +All this time I was still lodging at the Jew's, returning to it late +every night, and leaving it early in the morning, but nothing happened +there that seemed to me of the smallest consequence. One day Miriam, +looking at me with her big black eyes, said: + +"You must take more rest, dear, or you will make yourself ill." + +"No, no, I am not ill," I answered, and then remembering how necessary +my life was to the life of my child, I said, "I must not be ill." + +At last on the Saturday morning--I know now it must have been Saturday, +but time did not count with me then--I overheard Mrs. Abramovitch +pleading for me with her husband, saying they knew I was in trouble and +therefore I ought to have more time to find lodging, another week--three +days at all events. But the stern-natured man with his rigid religion +was inexorable. It was God's will that I should be punished, and who was +he to step in between the All-high and his just retribution? + +"The woman is displeasing to God," he said, and then he declared that, +the day being Sabbath (the two tall candlesticks and the Sabbath loaves +must have been under his eyes at the moment), he would give me until +nine o'clock that night, and if I had not moved out by that time he +would put my belongings into the street. + +I remember that the Jew's threat made no impression upon my mind. It +mattered very little to me where I was to lodge next week or what roof +was to cover me. + +When I reached the Olivers' that morning I found baby distinctly worse. +Even the brandy would not stay on her stomach and hence her strength was +plainly diminishing. I sat for some time looking steadfastly into my +child's face, and then I asked myself, as millions of mothers must have +done before me, why my baby should suffer so. Why? Why? Why? + +There seemed to be no answer to that question except one. Baby was +suffering because I was poor. If I had not been poor I could have taken +her into the country for fresh air and sunshine, where she would have +recovered as the doctor had so confidently assured me. + +And why was I poor? I was poor because I had refused to be enslaved by +my father's authority when it was vain and wrong, or my husband's when +it, was gross and cruel, and because I had obeyed the highest that was +in me--the call of love. + +And now God looked down on the sufferings of my baby, who was being +killed for my conduct--killed by my poverty! + +I tremble to say what wild impulses came at that thought. I felt that if +my baby died and I ever stood before God to be judged I should judge Him +in return. I should ask Him why, if He were Almighty, He permitted the +evil in the world to triumph over the good, and if He were our heavenly +Father why He allowed innocent children to suffer? Was there any _human_ +father who could be so callous, so neglectful, so cruel, as that? + +I dare say it was a terrible thing to bring God to the bar of judgment, +to be judged by His poor weak ignorant creature; but it was also +terrible to sit with a dying baby on my lap (I thought mine was dying), +and to feel that there was nothing--not one thing--I could do to relieve +its sufferings. + +My faith went down like a flood during the heavy hours of that day--all +that I had been taught to believe about God's goodness and the +marvellous efficacy of the Sacraments of His Church. + +I thought of the Sacrament of my marriage, which the Pope told me had +been sanctioned by my Redeemer under a natural law that those who +entered into it might live together in peace and love--and then of my +husband and his brutal infidelities. + +I thought of the Sacrament of my baby's baptism, which was to exorcise +all the devils out of my child--and then of the worst devil in the +world, poverty, which was taking her very life. + +After that a dark shadow crossed my soul, and I told myself that since +God was doing nothing, since He was allowing my only treasure to be torn +away from me, I would fight for my child's life as any animal fights for +her young. + +By this time a new kind of despair had taken hold of me. It was no +longer the paralysing despair but the despair that has a driving force +in it. + +"My child shall not die," I thought. "At least poverty shall not kill +her!" + +Many times during the day I had heard Mrs. Oliver trying to comfort me +with various forms of sloppy sentiment. Children were a great trial, +they were allus makin' and keepin' people pore, and it was sometimes +better for the dears themselves to be in their 'eavenly Father's boosim. + +I hardly listened. It was the same as if somebody were talking to me in +my sleep. But towards nightfall my deaf ear caught something about +myself--that "it" (I knew what that meant) might be better for me, also, +for then I should be free of encumbrances and could marry again. + +"Of course you could--you so young and good-lookin'. Only the other day +the person at number five could tell me as you were the prettiest woman +as comes up the Row, and the Vicar's wife couldn't hold a candle to you. +'Fine feathers makes fine birds,' says she: 'Give your young lady a nice +frock and a bit o' colour in her checks, and there ain't many as could +best her in the West End neither.'" + +As the woman talked dark thoughts took possession of me. I began to +think of Angela. I tried not to, but I could not help it. + +And then came the moment of _my_ fiercest trial. With a sense of Death +hanging over my child I told myself that the only way to drive it off +was to make _some great sacrifice_. + +Hitherto I had thought of everything I possessed as belonging to baby, +but now I felt that _I myself_ belonged to her. I had brought her into +the world, and it was my duty to see that she did not suffer. + +All this time the inherited instinct of my religion was fighting hard +with me, and I was saying many Hail Marys to prevent myself from doing +what I meant to do. + +"_Hail, Mary, full of grace: the Lord is with thee_ . . ." + +I felt as if I were losing my reason. But it was of no use struggling +against the awful impulse of self-sacrifice (for such I thought it) +which had taken hold of my mind, and at last it conquered me. + +"I must get money," I thought. "Unless I get money my child will die. +I--must--get--money." + +Towards seven o'clock I got up, gave baby to Mrs. Oliver, put on my coat +and fixed with nervous fingers my hat and hatpins. + +"Where are you going to, pore thing?" asked Mrs. Oliver. + +"I am going out. I'll be back in the morning," I answered. + +And then, after kneeling and kissing my baby again--my sweet child, my +Isabel--I tore the street door open, and pulled it noisily behind me. + + + + +ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTH CHAPTER + + +On reaching the front street, I may have taken the penny tram, for +though I had a sense of growing blind and deaf I have vague memories of +lights flashing past me and of the clanging of electric cars. + +At Bow Church I must have got out (probably to save a further fare) +because I recollect walking along the Bow Road between the lights in the +shops and the coarse flares from the stalls on the edge of the pavement, +where women with baskets on their arms were doing their Saturday night's +shopping. + +My heart was still strong (sharpened indeed into, poignancy) and I know +I was not crying, for at one moment as I passed the mirror in a +chemist's window I caught sight of my face and it was fierce as flame. + +At another moment, while I was hurrying along, I collided with a drunken +woman who was coming out of a public-house with her arm about the neck +of a drunken sailor. + +"Gawd! Here's the Verging Mary agine!" she cried. + +It was the woman who had carried baby, and when I tried to hurry past +her she said: + +"You think I'm drunk, don't you, dear? So'am. Don't you never get drunk? +No? What a bleedin' fool you are! Want to get out o' this 'ere 'ole? +Tike my tip then--gettin' drunk's on'y way out of it." + +Farther on I had to steer my way through jostling companies of young +people of both sexes who were going (I thought) the same way as the +woman--girls out of the factories with their free walk, and their +boisterous "fellers" from the breweries. + +It was a cold and savage night. As I approached the side street in which +I lived I saw by the light of the arc lamps a small group of people, a +shivering straggle of audience, with the hunched-up shoulders of beings +thinly clad and badly fed, standing in stupid silence at the corner +while two persons wearing blue uniforms (a man in a peaked cap and a +young woman in a poke bonnet) sang a Salvation hymn of which the refrain +was "It is well, it is well with my soul." + +The door of the Jew's house was shut (for the first time in my +experience), so I had to knock and wait, and while I waited I could not +help but hear the young woman in the poke bonnet pray. + +Her prayer was about "raising the standard of Calvary," and making the +drunkards and harlots of the East End into "seekers" and "soul yielders" +and "prisoners of the King of Kings." + +Before the last words of the prayer were finished the man in the peaked +cap tossed up his voice in another hymn, and the young woman joined him +with an accordion: + + "_Shall we gather at the river, + Where bright angel feet have trod_. . . ." + +The door was opened by the Jew himself, who, assuming a severe manner, +said something to me in his guttural voice which I did not hear or heed, +for I pushed past him and walked firmly upstairs. + +When I had reached my room and lit the gas, I closed and locked the +door, as if I were preparing to commit a crime--and perhaps I was. + +I did not allow myself to think of what I intended to do that night, but +I knew quite well, and when at one moment my conscience pressed me hard +something cried out in my heart: + +"Who can blame me since my child's life is in danger?" + +I opened my trunk and took out my clothes--all that remained of the +dresses I had brought from Ellan. They were few, and more than a little +out of fashion, but one of them, though far from gay, was bright and +stylish--a light blue frock with a high collar and some white lace over +the bosom. + +I remember wondering why I had not thought of pawning it during the +week, when I had had so much need of money, and then being glad that I +had not done so. + +It was thin and light, being the dress I had worn on the day I first +came to the East End, carrying my baby to Ilford, when the weather was +warm which now was cold; but I paid no heed to that, thinking only that +it was my best and most attractive. + +After I had put it on and glanced at myself in my little swinging +looking-glass I was pleased, but I saw at the same time that my face was +deadly pale, and that made me think of some bottles and cardboard boxes +which lay in the pockets of my trunk. + +I knew what they contained--the remains of the cosmetics which I had +bought in Cairo in the foolish days when I was trying to make my husband +love me. Never since then had I looked at them, but now I took them out +(with a hare's foot and some pads and brushes) and began to paint my +pale face--reddening my cracked and colourless lips and powdering out +the dark rings under my eyes. + +While I was doing this I heard (though I was trying not to) the deadened +sound of the singing in the front street, with the young woman's treble +voice above the man's bass and the wheezing of the accordion: + + "_Yes, we'll gather, at the river, + Where bright angel feet have trod, + With its, crystal tide for ever + Flowing by the throne of God_." + +The Dark Spirit must have taken possession of me by this time, poor +vessel of conflicting passions as I was, for I remember that while I +listened I laughed--thinking what mockery was to sing of "angel feet" +and "crystal tides" to those shivering wretches at the corner of the +London street in the smoky night air. + +"What a farce!" I thought. "What a heartless farce!" + +Then I put on my hat, which was also not very gay, and taking out of my +trunk a pair of long light gloves which I had never worn since I left +Ellan, I began to pull them on. + +I was standing before the looking-glass in the act of doing this, and +trying (God pity me!) to smile at myself, when I was suddenly smitten by +a new thought. + +I was about to commit suicide--the worst kind of suicide, not the +suicide which is followed by oblivion, but by a life on earth after +death! + +After that night Mary O'Neill would no longer exist! I should never he +able to think of her again! I should have killed her and buried her and +stamped the earth down on her and she would be gone from me for ever! + +That made a grip at my heart--awakening memories of happy days in my +childhood, bringing back the wild bliss of the short period of my great +love, and even making me think of my life in Rome, with its confessions, +its masses, and the sweetness of its church bells. + +I was saying farewell to Mary O'Neill! And parting with oneself seemed +so terrible that when I thought of it my heart seemed ready to burst. + +"But who can blame me when my child's life is in danger?" I asked myself +again, still tugging at my long gloves. + +By the time I had finished dressing the Salvationists were going off to +their barracks with their followers behind them. Under the singing I +could faintly hear the shuffling of bad shoes, which made a sound like +the wash of an ebbing tide over the teeth of a rocky beach--up our side +street, past the Women's Night Shelter (where the beds never had time to +become cool), and beyond the public-house with the placard in the window +saying the ale sold there could be guaranteed to make anybody drunk for +fourpence. + + "_We'll stand the storm, it won't be long, + And we'll anchor in the sweet by-and-by_." + +I listened and tried to laugh again, but I could not do so now. There +was one last spasm of my cruelly palpitating heart, in which I covered +my face with both hands, and cried: + +"For baby's sake! For my baby's sake!" + +And then I opened my bedroom door, walked boldly downstairs and went out +into the streets. + + +MEMORANDUM BY MARTIN CONRAD + +I don't call it Chance that this was the very day of my return to +England. + +If I had to believe that, I should have to disbelieve half of what is +best in the human story, and the whole of what we are taught about a +guiding Providence and the spiritual influences which we cannot reason +about and prove. + +We were two days late arriving, having made dirty weather of it in the +Bay of Biscay, which injured our propeller and compelled us to lie to, +so I will not say that the sense of certainty which came to me off +Finisterre did not suffer a certain shock. + +In fact the pangs of uncertainty grew so strongly upon me as we neared +home that in the middle of the last night of our voyage I went to +O'Sullivan's cabin, and sat on the side of his bunk for hours, talking +of the chances of my darling being lost and of the possibility of +finding her. + +O'Sullivan, God bless him, was "certain sure" that everything would be +right, and he tried to take things gaily. + +"The way I'm knowing she'll be at Southampton in a new hat and feather! +So mind yer oi, Commanther." + +We passed the Channel Islands in the spring of morning, and at +breakfast-time we picked up the pilot, who had brought out a group of +reporters. I did my best for the good chaps (though it is mighty hard to +talk about exploring when you are thinking of another subject), and then +handed them over to my shipmates. + +Towards seven o'clock at night we heaved up to the grey stone pier at +the head of Southampton Water. It was then dark, so being unable to see +more than the black forms and waving hands of the crowd waiting for us +with the lights behind them, I arranged with O'Sullivan that he should +slip ashore as soon as we got alongside, and see if he could find my +dear one. + +"Will you remember her face?" I asked. + +"And why wouldn't I? By the stars of God, there's only one of it in the +world," he answered. + +The welcome we got when we were brought to was enough to make a vain man +proud, and a modest one ashamed, and perhaps I should have had a little +of both feelings if the right woman had been there to share them. + +My state-room was on the promenade deck, and I stood at the door of it +as long as I dared, raising my cap at the call of my name, but feeling +as if I were the loneliest man in the world, God help me! + +O'Sullivan had not returned when Treacle came to say that everything was +ready, and it was time to go ashore. + +I will not say that I was not happy to be home; I will not pretend that +the warm-hearted welcome did not touch me; but God knows there was a +moment when, for want of a face I did not see, I could have turned about +and gone back to the South Pole there and then, without an instant's +hesitation. + +When I got ashore I had as much as I could do to stand four-square to +the storm of hand-shaking that fell on me. And perhaps if I had been in +better trim I should have found lots of fun in the boyish delight of my +shipmates in being back, with old Treacle shaking hands with everybody +from the Mayor of the town to the messenger-boys (crying "What cheer, +matey?"), while the scientific staff were bringing up their wives to be +introduced to me, just as the lower-form fellows used to do with their +big sisters at school. + +At last O'Sullivan came back with a long face to say he could see +nothing of my dear one, and then I braced myself and said: + +"Never mind! She'll be waiting for us in London perhaps." + +It took a shocking time to pass through the Customs, but we got off at +last in a special train commissioned by our chairman--half of our +company with their wives and a good many reporters having crammed +themselves into the big saloon carriage reserved for me. + +At the last moment somebody threw a sheaf of evening papers through my +window, and as soon as we were well away I took up one of them and tried +to read it, but column after column fell blank on my eyes, for my mind +was full of other matters. + +The talk in the carriage, too, did not interest me in the least. It was +about the big, hustling, resonant world, general elections, the fall of +ministries, Acts of Parliament, and the Lord knows what--things that had +looked important when we were in the dumb solitude of Winter Quarters, +but seemed to be of no account now when I was hungering for something +else. + +At last I got a quiet pressman in a corner and questioned him about +Ellan. + +"That's my native island, you know--anything going on there?" + +The reporter said yes, there was some commotion about the failure of +banks, with the whole island under a cloud, and its biggest financial +man gone smash. + +"Is his name O'Neill?" I asked. + +"That's it." + +"Anything else happened there while I've been away?" + +"No . . . yes . . . well, now that I think of it, there was a big scare +a year or so ago about a young peeress who disappeared mysteriously." + +"Was . . . was it Lady Raa?" + +"Yes," said the reporter, and then (controlling myself as well as I +could) I listened to a rapid version of what had become known about my +dear one down to the moment when she "vanished as utterly as if she had +been dropped into the middle of the Irish Sea." + +It is of no use saying what I felt after that, except that flying in an +express train to London, I was as impatient of space and time as if I +had been in a ship down south stuck fast in the rigid besetment of the +ice. + +I could not talk, and I dared not think, so I shouted for a sing-song, +and my shipmates (who had been a little low at seeing me so silent) +jumped at the proposal like schoolboys let loose from school. + +Of course O'Sullivan gave us "The Minsthrel Boy"; and Treacle sang "Yew +are the enny"; and then I, yes I (Oh, God!), sang "Sally's the gel," and +every man of my company joined in the ridiculous chorus. + +Towards ten o'clock we changed lines on the loop at Waterloo and ran +into Charing Cross, where we found another and still bigger crowd of +hearty people behind a barrier, with a group of my committee, my fellow +explorers, and geographers in general, waiting on the platform. + +I could not help it if I made a poor return to their warm-hearted +congratulations, for my eyes were once more searching for a face I +could not see, so that I was glad and relieved when I heard the +superintendent say that the motor-car that was to take me to the hotel +was ready and waiting. + +But just then O'Sullivan came up and whispered that a priest and a nun +were asking to speak to me, and he believed they had news of Mary. + +The priest proved to be dear old Father Dan, and the nun to be Sister +Veronica, whom my dear one calls Mildred. At the first sight of their +sad-joyful faces something gripped me by the throat, for I knew what +they had come to say before they said it--that my darling was lost, and +Father Dan (after some priestly qualms) had concluded that I was the +first man who ought to be told of it. + +Although this was exactly what I had expected, it fell on me like a +thunderbolt, and in spite of the warmth of my welcome home, I believe in +my soul I was the most downhearted man alive. + +Nevertheless I bundled Father Dan and the Sister and O'Sullivan into the +automobile, and jumping in after them, told the chauffeur to drive like +the deuce to the hotel. + +He could not do that, though, for the crowd in the station-yard +surrounded the car and shouted for a speech. I gave them one, saying +heaven knows what, except that their welcome made me ashamed of not +having got down to the Pole, but please God I should get there next time +or leave my bones on the way. + +We got to the hotel at last (the same that my poor stricken darling had +stayed at after her honeymoon), and as soon as we reached my room I +locked the door and said: + +"Now out with it. And please tell me everything." + +Father Dan was the first to speak, but his pulpit style was too slow for +me in my present stress of thoughts and feelings. He had hardly got +further than his difference with his Bishop, and the oath he had sworn +by him who died for us to come to London and never go back until he had +found my darling, when I shook his old hand and looked towards the +Sister. + +She was quicker by a good deal, and in a few minutes I knew something of +my dear one's story--how she had fled from home on my account, and for +my sake had become poor; how she had lodged for a while in Bloomsbury; +how hard she had been hit by the report of the loss of my ship; and how +(Oh my poor, suffering, heroic, little woman!) she had disappeared on +the approach of another event of still more serious consequence. + +It was no time for modesty, not from me at all events, so while the +Father's head was down, I asked plainly if there was a child, and was +told there was, and the fear of having it taken from her (I could +understand that) was perhaps the reason my poor darling had hidden +herself away. + +"And now, when, where, and by whom was she seen last?" I asked. + +"Last week, and again to-day, to-night, here in the West End--by a +fallen woman," answered the Sister. + +"And what conclusion do you draw from that?" + +The Sister hesitated for a moment and then said: + +"That her child is dead; that she does not know you are alive; and that +she is throwing herself away, thinking there is nothing left to live +for." + +"What?" I cried. "You believe that? Because she left that brute of a +husband . . . and because she came to me . . . you believe that she +could. . . . Never! Not Mary O'Neill! She would beg her bread, or die in +the streets first." + +I dare say my thickening voice was betraying me; but when I looked at +Mildred and saw the tears rolling down her cheeks and heard her excuses +(it was "what hundreds of poor women were driven to every day"), I was +ashamed and said so, and she put her kind hand in my hand in token of +her forgiveness. + +"But what's to be done now?" she asked. + +O'Sullivan was for sending for the police, but I would not hear of that. +I was beginning to feel as I used to do when I lost a comrade in a +blizzard down south, and (without a fact or a clue to guide me) sent a +score of men in a broad circle from the camp (like spokes in a wheel) to +find him or follow back on their tracks. + +There were only four of us, but I mapped out our courses, where we were +to go, when we were to return, and what we were to do if any of us found +my lost one--take her to Sister's flat, which she gave the address of. + +It was half-past eleven when we started on our search, and I dare say +our good old Father Dan, after his fruitless journeys, thought it a +hopeless quest. But I had found myself at last. My spirits which had +been down to zero had gone up with a bound. I had no ghost of an idea +that I had been called home from the 88th latitude for nothing. And I +had no fear that I had come too late. + +Call it frenzy if you like--I don't much mind what people call it. But I +was as sure as I have ever been of anything in this life, or ever expect +to be, that the sufferings of my poor martyred darling were at an end, +and that within an hour I should be holding her in my arms. + + M.C. + +[END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM] + + + + +ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTH CHAPTER + + +There must be a physical power in fierce emotion to deprive us of the +use of our senses of hearing and even of sight, for my memory of what +happened after I left the Jew's has blank places in it. + +Trying to recall the incidents of that night is like travelling on a +moorland road under a flying moon, with sometimes the whitest light in +which everything is clearly seen, and then the blackest darkness. + +I remember taking the electric car going west, and seeing the +Whitechapel Road shooting by me, with its surging crowds of pedestrians, +its public-houses, its Cinema shows, and its Jewish theatres. + +I remember getting down at Aldgate Pump, and walking through that dead +belt of the City, which, lying between east and west, is alive like a +beehive by day and silent and deserted by night. + +I remember seeing an old man, with a face like a rat's, picking up +cigar-ends from the gutters before the dark Banks, and then a flock of +sheep bleating before a barking dog as they were driven through the +echoing streets from the river-side towards the slaughter-houses near +Smithfield Market. + +I remember that when I came to St. Paul's the precincts of the cathedral +were very quiet and the big clock was striking nine. But on Ludgate Hill +the traffic was thick, and when I reached Fleet Street crowds of people +were standing in front of the newspaper offices, reading large placards +in written characters which were pasted on the windows. + +I remember that I did not look at these placards, thinking their news +was nothing to me, who had not seen a newspaper for months and for whom +the world was now eclipsed, but that as I stepped round one of the +crowds, which extended to the middle of the street, somebody said: + +"He has landed at Southampton, it seems." + +I remember that when I reached Charing Cross I found myself on the +fringe of another and much larger crowd, and that the people, who seemed +to be waiting for somebody and were chatting with a noise like the +crackling of thorns under a pot, were saying: + +"His train is fifty minutes late, so we've half an hour to wait yet." + +Then I remember that walking at random round St Martin's Church into +Leicester Square I came upon three "public women" who were swinging +along with a high step and laughing loudly, and that one of them was +Angela, and that she stopped on seeing me and cried: + +"Hello! Here I am again, you see! _Giovanni's dead, and I don't care a +damn!_" + +I remember that she said something else--it was about Sister Mildred, +but my mind did not take it in--and at the next moment she left me, and +I heard her laughter once more as she swept round the corner. + +I hardly know what happened next, for here comes one of the blank places +in my memory, with nothing to light it except vague thoughts of Martin +(and that soulless night in Bloomsbury when the newspapers announced +that he was lost), until, wandering aimlessly through streets and +streets of people--such multitudes of people, no end of people--I found +myself back at Charing Cross. + +The waiting crowd was now larger and more excited than before, and the +traffic at both sides of the station was stopped. + +"He's coming! He's coming! Here he is!" the people cried, and then there +were deafening shouts and cheers. + +I recall the sight of a line of policemen pushing people back (I was +myself pushed back); I recall the sight of a big motor-car containing +three men and a woman, ploughing its way through; I recall the sight of +one of the men raising his cap; of the crowd rushing to shake hands with +him; then of the car swinging away, and of the people running after it +with a noise like that of the racing of a noisy river. + +It is the literal truth that never once did I ask myself what this +tumult was about, and that for some time after it was over--a full hour +at least--I had a sense of walking in my sleep, as if my body were +passing through the streets of the West End of London while my soul was +somewhere else altogether. + +Thus at one moment, as I was going by the National Gallery and thought I +caught the sound of Martin's name, I felt as if I were back in Glen Raa, +and it was I myself who had been calling it. + +At another moment, when I was standing at the edge of the pavement in +Piccadilly Circus, which was ablaze with electric light and thronged +with people (for the theatres and music-halls were emptying, men in +uniform were running about with whistles, policemen were directing the +traffic, and streams of carriages were flowing by), I felt as if I were +back in my native island, where I was alone on the dark shore while the +sea was smiting me. + +Again, after a brusque voice had said, "Move on, please," I followed the +current of pedestrians down Piccadilly--it must have been +Piccadilly--and saw lines of "public women," chiefly French and Belgian, +sauntering along, and heard men throwing light words to them as they +went by, I was thinking of the bleating sheep and the barking dog. + +And again, when I was passing a men's club and the place where I had met +Angela, my dazed mind was harking back to Ilford (with a frightened +sense of the length of time since I had been there--"Good heavens, it +must be five hours at least!"), and wondering if Mrs. Oliver was giving +baby her drops of brandy and her spoonfuls of diluted milk. + +But somewhere about midnight my soul seemed to take full possession of +my body, and I saw things clearly and sharply as I turned out of Oxford +Street into Regent Street. + +The traffic was then rapidly dying down, the streets were darker, the +cafés were closing, men and women were coming Pout of supper rooms, +smoking cigarettes, getting into taxis and driving away; and another +London day was passing into another night. + +People spoke to me. I made no answer. At one moment an elderly woman +said something to which I replied, "No, no," and hurried on. At another +moment, a foreign-looking man addressed me, and I pushed past without +replying. Then a string of noisy young fellows, stretching across the +broad pavement arm-in-arm, encircled me and cried: + +"Here we are, my dear. Let's have a kissing-bee." + +But with angry words and gestures I compelled them to let me go, +whereupon one of the foreign women who were sauntering by said +derisively: + +"What does she think she's out for, I wonder?" + +At length I found myself standing under a kind of loggia at the corner +of Piccadilly Circus, which was now half-dark, the theatres and +music-halls being closed, and only one group of arc lamps burning on an +island about a statue. + +There were few people now where there had been so dense a crowd awhile +ago; policemen were tramping leisurely along; horse-cabs were going at +walking pace, and taxis were moving slowly; but a few gentlemen (walking +home from their clubs apparently) were passing at intervals, often +looking at me, and sometimes speaking as they went by. + +Then plainly and pitilessly the taunt of the foreign woman came back to +me--what was I there for? + +I knew quite well, and yet I saw that not only was I not doing what I +came out to do, but every time an opportunity had offered I had resisted +it. It was just as if an inherited instinct of repulsion had restrained +me, or some strong unseen arm had always snatched me away. + +This led me--was it some angel leading me?--to think again of Martin and +to remember our beautiful and sacred parting at Castle Raa. + +"Whatever happens to either of us, we belong to each other for ever," he +had said, and I had answered, "For ever and ever." + +It was a fearful shock to think of this now. I saw that if I did what I +had come out to do, not only would Mary O'Neill be dead to me after +to-night, but Martin Conrad would be dead also. + +When I thought of that I realised that, although I had accepted, without +question, the newspaper reports of Martin's death, he had never hitherto +been dead to me at all. He had lived with me every moment of my life +since, supporting me, sustaining me and inspiring me, so that nothing I +had ever done--not one single thing--would have been different if I had +believed him to be alive and been sure that he was coming back. + +But now I was about to kill Martin Conrad as well as Mary O'Neill, by +breaking the pledge (sacred as any sacrament) which they had made for +life and for eternity. + +Could I do that? In this hideous way too? Never! Never! Never! I should +die in the streets first. + +I remember that I was making a movement to go back to Ilford (God knows +how), when, on the top of all my brave thinking, came the pitiful +thought of my child. My poor helpless little baby, who had made no +promise and was party to no pledge. She needed nourishment and fresh air +and sunshine, and if she could not get them--if I went back to her +penniless--she would die! + +My sweet darling! My Isabel, my only treasure! Martin's child and mine! + +That put a quick end to all my qualms. Again I bit my lip until it bled, +and told myself that I should speak to the Very next man who came along. + +"Yes, the very next man who comes along," I thought. + +I was standing at that moment in the shadow of one of the pilasters of +the loggia, almost leaning against it, and in the silence of the street +I heard distinctly the sharp firm step of somebody coming my way. + +It was a man. As he came near me he slowed down, and stopped. He was +then immediately behind me. I heard his quick breathing. I felt that his +eyes were fixed on me. One sidelong glance told me that he was wearing a +long ulster and a cap, that he was young, tall, powerfully built, had a +strong, firm, clean-shaven face, and an indescribable sense of the open +air about him. + +"Now, now!" I thought, and (to prevent myself from running away) I +turned quickly round to him and tried to speak. + +But I said nothing. I did not know what women say to men under such +circumstances. I found myself trembling violently, and before I was +aware of what was happening I had burst into tears. + +Then came another blinding moment and a tempest of conflicting feelings. + +I felt that the man had laid hold of me, that his strong hands were +grasping my arms, and that he was looking into my face. I heard his +voice. It seemed to belong to no waking moment but to come out of the +hours of sleep. + +"Mary! Mary!" + +I looked up at him, but before my eyes could carry the news to my brain +I knew who it was--I knew, I knew, I knew! + +"Don't be afraid! It's I!" + +Then something--God knows what--made me struggle to escape, and I cried: + +"Let me go!" + +But even while I was struggling--trying to fly away from my greatest +happiness--I was praying with all my might that the strong arms would +hold me, conquer me, master me. + +They did. And then something seemed to give way within my head, and +through a roaring that came into my brain I heard the voice again, and +it was saying: + +"Quick, Sister, call a cab. Open the door, O'Sullivan. No, leave her to +me. I've got her, thank God!" + +And then blinding darkness fell over me and everything was blotted out. + +But only a moment afterwards (or what seemed to be a moment) memory came +back in a great swelling wave of joy. Though I did not open my eyes I +knew that I was safe and baby was safe, and all was well. Somebody--it +was the same beloved voice again--was saying: + +"Mally! My Mally! My poor, long-suffering darling! My own again, God +bless her!" + +It was he, it was Martin, my Martin. And, oh Mother of my Lord, he was +carrying me upstairs in his arms. + + + + +SEVENTH PART + +I AM FOUND + +ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTH CHAPTER + + +My return to consciousness was a painful, yet joyful experience. It was +almost like being flung in a frail boat out of a tempestuous sea into a +quiet harbour. + +I seemed to hear myself saying, "My child shall not die. Poverty shall +not kill her. I am going to take her into the country . . . she will +recover. . . . No, no, it is not Martin. Martin is dead. . . . But his +eyes . . . don't you see his eyes. . . . Let me go." + +Then all the confused sense of nightmare seemed to be carried away as by +some mighty torrent, and there came a great calm, a kind of morning +sweetness, with the sun shining through my closed eyelids, and not a +sound in my ears but the thin carolling of a bird. + +When I opened my eyes I was in bed in a room that was strange to me. It +was a little like the Reverend Mother's room in Rome, having pictures of +the Saints on the walls, and a large figure of the Sacred Heart over the +mantelpiece; but there was a small gas fire, and a canary singing in a +gilded cage that hung in front of the window. + +I was trying to collect my senses in order to realize where I was when +Sister Mildred's kind face, in her white wimple and gorget, leaned over +me, and she said, with a tender smile, "You are awake now, my child?" + +Then memory came rushing back, and though the immediate past was still +like a stormy dream I seemed to remember everything. + +"Is it true that I saw. . . ." + +"Yes," said Mildred. + +"Then he was not shipwrecked?" + +"That was a false report. Within a month or two the newspapers had +contradicted it." + +"Where is he?" I asked, rising from my pillow. + +"Hush! Lie quiet. You are not to excite yourself. I must call the +doctor." + +Mildred was about to leave the room, but I could not let her go. + +"Wait! I must ask you something more." + +"Not now, my child. Lie down." + +"But I must. Dear Sister, I must. There is somebody else." + +"You mean the baby," said Mildred, in a low voice. + +"Yes." + +"She has been found, and taken to the country, and is getting better +rapidly. So lie down, and be quiet," said Mildred, and with a long +breath of happiness I obeyed. + +A moment afterwards I heard her speaking to somebody over the telephone +(saying I had recovered consciousness and was almost myself again), and +then some indistinct words came hack in the thick telephone voice like +that of a dumb man shouting down a tunnel, followed by sepulchral peals +of merry laughter. + +"The doctor will be here presently," said Mildred, returning to me with +a shining face. + +"And . . . he?" + +"Yes, perhaps he will be permitted to come, too." + +She was telling me how baby had been discovered--by means of Mrs. +Oliver's letter which had been found in my pocket--when there was the +whirr of an electric bell in the corridor outside, followed (as soon as +Mildred could reach the door) by the rich roll of an Irish voice. + +It was Dr. O'Sullivan, and in a moment he was standing by my bed, his +face ablaze with smiles. + +"By the Saints of heaven, this is good, though," he said. "It's worth a +hundred dozen she is already of the woman we brought here first." + +"That was last night, wasn't it?" I asked. + +"Well, not last night exactly," he answered. And then I gathered that I +had been ill, seriously ill, being two days unconscious, and that Martin +had been in a state of the greatest anxiety. + +"He's coming, isn't he?" I said. "Will he be here soon? How does he +look? Is he well? Did he finish his work?" + +"Now, now, now," said the doctor, with uplifted hands. "If it's exciting +yourself like this you're going to be, it isn't myself that will he +taking the risk of letting him come at all." + +But after I had pleaded and prayed and promised to be good he consented +to allow Martin to see me, and then it was as much as I could do not to +throw my arms about his neck and kiss him. + +I had not noticed what Mildred was doing during this time, and almost +before I was aware of it somebody else had entered the room. + +It was dear old Father Dan. + +"Glory be to God!" he cried at sight of me, and then he said: + +"Don't worry, my daughter, now don't worry,"--with that nervous emphasis +which I knew by long experience to be the surest sign of my dear +Father's own perturbation. + +I did not know then, or indeed until long afterwards, that for six +months past he had been tramping the streets of London in search of me +(day after day, and in the dark of the night and the cold of the +morning); but something in his tender old face, which was seamed and +worn, so touched me with the memory of the last scene in my mother's +room that my eyes began to overflow, and seeing this he began to laugh +and let loose his Irish tongue on us. + +"My blissing on you, doctor! It's the mighty proud man ye'll be +entoirely to be saving the life of the swatest woman in the world. And +whisha, Sister, if ye have a nip of something neat anywhere handy, faith +it isn't my cloth will prevent me from drinking the health of +everybody." + +If this was intended to cheer me up it failed completely, for the next +thing I knew was that the doctor was bustling the dear old Father out of +the room, and that Mildred was going out after him. + +She left the door open, though, and as soon as I had calmed down a +little I listened intently for every sound outside. + +It was then that I heard the whirr of the electric bell again, but more +softly this time, and followed by breathless whispered words in the +corridor (as of some one who had been running) and once more . . . I +knew, I knew, I knew! + +After a moment Mildred came to ask me in a whisper if I was quite sure +that I could control myself, and though my heart was thumping against my +breast, I answered Yes. + +Then I called for a hand-glass and made my hair a shade neater, and +after that I closed my eyes (God knows why) and waited. + +There was a moment of silence, dead silence, and then--then I opened my +eyes and saw him standing in the open doorway. + +His big, strong, bronzed face--stronger than ever now, and marked with a +certain change from the struggles he had gone through--was utterly +broken up. For some moments he did not speak, but I could see that he +saw the change that life had made in me also. Then in a low voice, so +low that it was like the breath of his soul, he said: + +"Forgive me! Forgive me!" + +And stepping forward he dropped to his knees by the side of my bed, and +kissed the arms and hands I was stretching out to him. + +That was more than I could bear, and the next thing I heard was my +darling's great voice crying: + +"Sister! Sister! Some brandy! Quick! She has fainted." + +But my poor little fit of hysterics was soon at an end, and though +Martin was not permitted to stay more than a moment longer, a mighty +wave of happiness flowed over me, such as I had never known before and +may never know again. + + + + +ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTH CHAPTER + + +I had such a beautiful convalescence. For the major operations of the +Great Surgeon an anęsthetic has not yet been found, but within a week I +was sitting up again, mutilated, perhaps, but gloriously alive and +without the whisper of a cry. + +By this time Father Dan had gone back to Ellan (parting from me with a +solemn face as he said, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in +peace"), and Sister Mildred had obtained permission to give up one of +her rooms to me as long as I should need it. + +Martin came to see me every day, first for five minutes, then ten, and +finally for a quarter and even half an hour. He brought such an +atmosphere of health with him, that merely to hold his hand seemed to +give me new strength--being so pale and bloodless now that I thought the +sun might have shone through me as through a sea-gull. + +I could scarcely believe it was not a dream that he was sitting by my +side, and sometimes I felt as if I had to touch him to make sure he was +there. + +How he talked to keep up my spirits! It was nearly always about his +expedition (never about me or my experiences, for that seemed a dark +scene from which he would not draw the curtain), and I was all +a-tremble as I listened to the story of his hair-breadth escapes, though +he laughed and made so light of them. + +It nearly broke my heart that he had not got down to the Pole; and when +he told me that it was the sense of my voice calling to him which had +brought him back from the 88th latitude, I felt as if I had been a +coward, unworthy of the man who loved me. + +Sometimes he talked about baby--he called her "Girlie"--telling a funny +story of how he had carried her off from Ilford, where the bricklayer +had suddenly conceived such a surprising affection for my child ("what +he might go so far as to call a fatherly feeling") that he had been +unwilling to part with her until soothed down by a few sovereigns--not +to say frightened by a grasp of Martin's iron hand which had nearly +broken his wrist. + +"She's as right as a trivet now, though," said Martin, "and I'll run +down to Chevening every other day to see how she's getting on." + +My darling was in great demand from the first, but when he could not be +with me in the flesh he was with me in the spirit, by means of the +newspapers which Mildred brought up in armfuls. + +I liked the illustrated ones best, with their pictures of scenes in the +Expedition, particularly the portraits of Martin himself in his +Antarctic outfit, with his broad throat, determined lips, clear eyes, +and that general resemblance to the people we all know which makes us +feel that the great men of every age are brothers of one family. + +But what literary tributes there were, too! What interviews, what +articles! A member of the scientific staff had said that "down there," +with Nature in her wrath, where science was nothing and even physical +strength was not all, only one thing really counted, and that was the +heroic soul, and because Martin had it, he had always been the born +leader of them all. + +And then, summing up the tangible gains of the Expedition, the _Times_ +said its real value was moral and spiritual, because it showed that in +an age when one half of the world seemed to be thinking of nothing but +the acquisition of wealth (that made me think of my father) and the +other half of nothing but the pursuit of pleasure (that reminded me of +my husband and Alma), there could be found men like Martin Conrad and +his dauntless comrades who had faced death for the sake of an ideal and +were ready to do so again. + +Oh dear! what showers of tears I shed over those newspapers! But the +personal honours that were bestowed on Martin touched me most of all. + +First, the Royal Geographical Society held a meeting at the Albert Hall, +where the Gold Medal was presented to him. I was in a fever of anxiety +on the night of that function, I remember, until Dr. O'Sullivan (heaven +bless, him!) came flying upstairs, to tell me that it had been a +"splendid success," and Martin's speech (he hadn't prepared a word of +it) "a perfect triumph." + +Then some of the Universities conferred degrees on my darling, which was +a source of inexpressible amusement to him, especially when (after +coming back from Edinburgh) he marched up and down my room in his +Doctor's cap and gown, and I asked him to spell "promise" and he +couldn't. + +Oh, the joy of it all! It was so great a joy that at length it became a +pain. + +The climax came when the Home Secretary wrote to say that the King had +been graciously pleased to confer a Knighthood upon Martin, in +recognition of his splendid courage and the substantial contribution he +had already made to the material welfare of the world. + +That frightened me terribly, though only a woman would know why. It was +one thing to share the honours of the man I loved (however secretly and +as it were by stealth), but quite another thing to feel that they were +carrying him away from me, drawing him off, lifting him up, and leaving +me far below. + +When the sense of this became acute I used to sit at night, when Mildred +was out at her work, by the lofty window of her room, looking down on +the precincts of Piccadilly, and wondering how much my darling really +knew about the impulse that took me there, and how nearly (but for the +grace of God) its awful vortex had swallowed me up. + +It was then that I began to write these notes (having persuaded Mildred +to buy me this big book with its silver clasp and key), not intending at +first to tell the whole story of my life, but only to explain to him for +whom everything has been written (what I could not bring myself to say +face to face), how it came to pass that I was tempted to that sin which +is the most awful crime against her sex that a woman can commit. + +Three months had gone by this time, the spring was coming and I was +beginning to feel that Martin (who had not yet been home) was being kept +in London on my account, when Dr. O'Sullivan announced that I was well +enough to be moved, and that a little of my native air would do me good. + +Oh, the thrill that came with that prospect! I suppose there is a sort +of call to one's heart from the soil that gave one birth, but in my case +it was coupled with a chilling thought of the poor welcome I should +receive there, my father's house being closed to me and my husband's +abandoned for ever. + +The very next morning, however, there came a letter from Father Dan, +giving me all the news of Ellan: some of it sad enough, God knows (about +the downfall of my father's financial schemes); some of it deliciously +wicked, such as it would have required an angel not to rejoice in (about +the bad odour in which Alma and my husband were now held, making the +pendulum of popular feeling swing back in my direction); and some of it +utterly heart-breaking in its assurances of the love still felt for me +in my native place. + +Of course the sweetest part of that came from Christian Ann, who, after +a stiff fight with her moral principles, had said that whatever I had +done I was as "pure as the mountain turf," and, who then charged Father +Dan with the message that "Mary O'Neill's little room" was waiting for +her still. + +This settled everything--everything except one thing, and that was the +greatest thing of all. But when Martin came later the same day, having +received the same message, and declared his intention of taking me home, +there seemed to be nothing left to wish for in earth or heaven. + +Nevertheless I shouldn't have been a woman If I had not coquetted with +my great happiness, so when Martin had finished I said: + +"But dare you?" + +"Dare I--what?" said Martin. + +"Dare you go home . . . with _me_?" + +I knew what I wanted him to say, and he said it like a darling. + +"Look here, Mary, I'm just spoiling for a sight of the little island, +and the old people are destroyed at not seeing me; but if I can't go +back with you, by the Lord God! I'll never go back at all." + +I wanted to see baby before going away, but that was forbidden me. + +"Wait until you're well enough, and we'll send her after you," said Dr. +O'Sullivan. + +So the end of it all was that inside a week I was on my way to Ellan, +not only with Martin, but also with Mildred, who, being a little out of +health herself, had been permitted to take me home. + +Shall I ever forget our arrival at Blackwater! The steamer we sailed in +was streaming with flags from stem to stern, and as she slid up the +harbour the dense crowds that packed the pier from end to end seemed +frantic with excitement. Such shouting and cheering! Such waving of hats +and handkerchiefs! + +There was a sensible pause, I thought, a sort of hush, when the gangway +being run down, Martin was seen to give his arm to me, and I was +recognised as the lost and dishonoured one. + +But even that only lasted for a moment, it was almost as if the people +felt that this act of Martin's was of a piece with the sacred courage +that had carried him down near to the Pole, for hardly had he brought me +ashore, and put me into the automobile waiting to take us away, when the +cheering broke out into almost delirious tumult. + +I knew it was all for Martin, but not even the humility of my position, +and the sense of my being an added cause of my darling's glory, could +make me otherwise than proud and happy. + +We drove home, with the sunset in our faces, over the mountain road +which I had crossed with my husband on the day of my marriage; and when +we came to our own village I could not help seeing that a little--just a +little--of the welcome waiting for us was meant for me. + +Father Dan was there. He got into the car and sat by my side; and then +some of the village women, who had smartened themselves up in their +Sunday clothes, reached over and shook hands with me, speaking about +things I had said and done as a child and had long forgotten. + +We had to go at a walking pace the rest of the way, and while Martin +saluted old friends (he remembered everybody by name) Father Dan talked +in my ear about the "domestic earthquake" that had been going on at +Sunny Lodge, everything topsy-turvy until to-day, the little room being +made ready for me, and the best bedroom (the doctor's and Christian +Ann's) for Martin, and the "loft" over the dairy for the old people +themselves--as if their beloved son had been good in not forgetting +them, and had condescended in coming home. + +"Is it true?" they had asked each other. "Is he really, really coming?" +"What does he like to eat, mother?" "What does he drink?" "What does he +smoke?" + +I had to close my eyes as I came near the gate of my father's house, +and, except for the rumbling of the river under the bridge and the +cawing of the rooks in the elms, I should not have known when we were +there. + +The old doctor (his face overflowing with happiness, and his +close-cropped white head bare, as if he had torn out of the house at the +toot of our horn) met us as we turned into the lane, and for the little +that was left of our journey he walked blithely as a boy by the car, at +the side on which Martin sat. + +I reached forward to catch the first sight of Sunny Lodge, and there it +was behind its fuchsia hedge, which was just breaking into bloom. + +There was Christian Ann, too, at the gate in her sunbonnet; and before +the automobile had come to a stand Martin was out of it and had her in +his arms. + +I knew what that meant to the dear sweet woman, and for a moment my +spirits failed me, because it flashed upon my mind that perhaps her +heart had only warmed to me for the sake of her son. + +But just as I was stepping out of the car, feeling physically weak and +slipping a little, though Father Dan and Sister Mildred were helping me +to alight, my Martin's mother rushed at me and gathered me in her arms, +crying: + +"Goodness gracious me, doctor--if it isn't little Mary O'Neill, God +bless her!"--just as she did in the old, old days when I came as a child +"singing carvals to her door." + + + + +ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTH CHAPTER + + +When I awoke next morning in "Mary O'Neill's little room," with its +odour of clean white linen and sweet-smelling scraas, the sun was +shining in at the half-open window, birds were singing, cattle were +lowing, young lambs were bleating, a crow was cawing its way across the +sky, and under the sounds of the land there was a far-off murmur of the +sea. + +Through the floor (unceiled beneath) I could hear the Doctor and +Christian Ann chortling away in low tones like two cheerful old +love-birds; and when I got up and looked out I saw the pink and white +blossom of the apple and plum trees, and smelt the smoke of burning peat +from the chimney, as well as the salt of the sea-weed from the shore. + +Sister Mildred came to help me to dress, and when I went downstairs to +the sweet kitchen-parlour, feeling so strong and fresh, Christian Ann, +who was tossing an oat-cake she was baking on the griddle, cried to me, +as to a child: + +"Come your ways, _villish_; you know the house." + +And when I stepped over the rag-work hearthrug and sat in the +"elbow-chair" in the _chiollagh_, under the silver bowls that stood on +the high mantelpiece, she cried again, as if addressing the universe in +general, for there was nobody else in the room: + +"Look at that now! She's been out in the big world, and seen great +wonders, and a power of people I'll go bail, but there she is, as nice +and comfortable as if she had never been away!" + +Sister Mildred came down next; and then the old doctor, who had been +watching the road for Martin (he had refused to occupy the old people's +bedroom after all and had put up at the "Plough"), came in, saying: + +"The boy's late, mother--what's doing on him, I wonder?" + +We waited awhile longer, and then sat down to breakfast. Oh, the homely +beauty of that morning meal, with its porridge, its milk, its honey and +cakes, its butter like gold, and its eggs like cream! + +In spite of Sister Mildred's protests Christian Ann stood and served, +and I will not say that for me there was not a startling delight in +being waited upon once more, being asked what I would like, and getting +it, giving orders and being obeyed--me, me, me! + +At length in the exercise of my authority I insisted on Christian Ann +sitting down too, which she did, though she didn't eat, but went on +talking in her dear, simple, delicious way. + +It was always about Martin, and the best of it was about her beautiful +faith that he was still alive when the report came that he had been lost +at sea. + +What? Her son dying like that, and she old and the sun going down on +her? Never! Newspapers? Chut, who cared what people put in the papers? +If Martin had really been lost, wouldn't _she_ have known it--having +borne him on her bosom ("a middling hard birth, too"), and being the +first to hear his living voice in the world? + +So while people thought she was growing "weak in her intellects," she +had clung to the belief that her beloved son would come back to her. And +behold! one dark night in winter, when she was sitting in the +_chiollagh_ alone, and the wind was loud in the trees, and the doctor +upstairs was calling on her to come to bed ("you're wearing yourself +away, woman"), she heard a sneck of the garden gate and a step on the +gravel path, and it was old Tommy the Mate, who without waiting for her +to open the door let a great yell out of him through the window that a +"talegraf" had come to say her boy was safe. + +Father Dan looked in after mass, in his biretta and faded cassock (the +same, I do declare, that he had worn when I was a child), and then +Martin himself came swinging up, with his big voice, like a shout from +the quarter-deck. + +"Helloa! Stunning morning, isn't it?" + +It was perfectly delightful to see the way he treated his mother, though +there was not too much reverence in his teasing, and hardly more love +than license. + +When she told him to sit down if he had not forgotten the house, and +said she hoped he had finished looking for South Poles and was ready to +settle quietly at home, and he answered No, he would have to go back to +London presently, she cried: + +"There now, doctor? What was I telling you? Once they've been away, it's +witched they are--longing and longing to go back again. What's there in +London that's wanting him?" + +Whereupon the doctor (thinking of the knighthood), with a proud lift of +his old head and a wink at Father Dan, said: + +"Who knows? Perhaps it's the King that's wanting him, woman." + +"The King?" cried Christian Ann. "He's got a bonny son of his own, +they're telling me, so what for should he be wanting mine?" + +"Mary," said. Martin, as soon as he could speak for laughing, "do you +want a mother? I've got one to sell, and I wouldn't trust but I might +give her away." + +"Cuff him, Mrs. Conrad," cried Father Dan. "Cuff him, the young rascal! +He may be a big man in the great world over the water, but he mustn't +come here expecting his mother and his old priest to worship him." + +How we laughed! I laughed until I cried, not knowing which I was doing +most, but feeling as if I had never had an ache or a care in all my life +before. + +Breakfast being over, the men going into the garden to smoke, and Sister +Mildred insisting on clearing the table, Christian Ann took up her +knitting, sat by my side, and told me the "newses" of home--sad news, +most of it, about my father, God pity him, and how his great schemes for +"galvanising the old island into life" had gone down to failure and +fatuity, sending some to the asylum and some to the graveyard, and +certain of the managers of corporations and banks to gaol. + +My father himself had escaped prosecution; but he was supposed to be a +ruined man, dying of cancer, and had gone to live in his mother's old +cottage on the curragh, with only Nessy MacLeod to care for him--having +left the Big House to Aunt Bridget and cousin Betsy, who declared (so I +gathered or guessed) that I had disgraced their name and should never +look on their faces again. + +"But dear heart alive, that won't cut much ice, will it?" said Christian +Ann, catching a word of Martin's. + +Later in the day, being alone with the old doctor. I heard something of +my husband also--that he had applied (according to the laws of Ellan) +for an Act of Divorce, and that our insular legislature was likely to +grant it. + +Still later, having walked out into the garden, where the bluebells were +in bloom, I, too, heard the sneck of the gate, and it was old Tommy +again, who (having been up to the "Plough" to "put a sight on himself") +had come round to welcome me as well--a little older, a little feebler, +"tacking a bit," as he said, with "romps in his fetlock joints," but +feeling "well tremenjus." + +He had brought the "full of his coat-pockets" of lobsters and crabs for +me ("wonderful good for invalids, missie") and the "full of his mouth" +of the doings at Castle Raa, which he had left immediately after +myself--Price also, neither of them being willing to stay with a master +who had "the rough word" for everybody, and a "misthress" who had "the +black curse on her" that would "carry her naked sowl to hell." + +"I wouldn't be gardener there, after the lil missie had gone . . . no, +not for the Bank of Ellan and it full of goold." + +What a happy, happy day that was! There was many another day like it, +too, during the sweet time following, when spring was smiling once more +upon earth and man, and body and soul in myself were undergoing a +resurrection no less marvellous. + +After three or four weeks I had so far recovered as to be able to take +walks with Martin--through the leafy lanes with the golden gorse on the +high turf hedges and its nutty odour in the air, as far, sometimes, as +to the shore, where we talked about "asploring" or perhaps (without +speaking at all) looked into each other's eyes and laughed. + +There was really only one limitation to my happiness, separation from my +child, and though I was conscious of something anomalous in my own +position which the presence of my baby would make acute (setting all the +evil tongues awag), I could not help it if, as I grew stronger, I +yearned for my little treasure. + +The end of it was that, after many timid efforts, I took courage and +asked Martin if I might have my precious darling back. + +"Girlie?" he cried. "Certainly you may. You are well enough now, so why +shouldn't you? I'm going to London on Exploration business soon, and +I'll bring her home with me." + +But when he was gone (Mildred went with him) I was still confronted by +one cause of anxiety--Christian Ann. I could not even be sure she knew +of the existence of my child, still less that Martin intended to fetch +her. + +So once more I took my heart in both hands, and while we sat together in +the garden, with the sunlight pouring through the trees, Christian Ann +knitting and I pretending to read, I told her all. + +She knew everything already, the dear old thing, and had only been +waiting for me to speak. After dropping a good many stitches she said: + +"The world will talk, and dear heart knows what Father Dan himself will +say. But blood's thicker than water even if it's holy water, and she's +my own child's child, God bless her!" + +After that we had such delicious times together, preparing for the +little stranger who was to come--cutting up blankets and sheets, and +smuggling down from the "loft" to "Mary O'Neill's room" the wooden +cradle which had once been Martin's, and covering it with bows and +ribbons. + +We kept the old doctor in the dark (pretended we did) and when he +wondered "what all the fuss was about," and if "the island expected a +visit from the Queen," we told him (Christian Ann did) to "ask us no +questions and we'd tell no lies." + +What children we were, we two mothers, the old one and the young one! I +used to hint, with an air of great mystery, that my baby had "somebody's +eyes," and then the dear simple old thing would say: + +"Somebody's eyes, has she? Well, well! Think of that, now!" + +But Christian Ann, from the lofty eminence of the motherhood of one +child twenty-five years before, was my general guide and counsellor, +answering all my foolish questions when I counted up baby's age (eleven +months now) and wondered if she could walk and talk by this time, how +many of her little teeth should have come and whether she could remember +me. + +As the time approached for Martin's return our childishness increased, +and on the last day of all we carried on such a game together as must +have made the very Saints themselves look down on us and laugh. + +Before I opened my eyes in the morning I was saying to myself, "Now +they're on their way to Euston," and every time I heard the clock strike +I was thinking, "Now they're in the train," or "Now they're at +Liverpool," or "Now they're on the steamer"; but all the while I sang +"Sally" and other nonsense, and pretended to be as happy as the day was +long. + +Christian Ann was even more excited than myself; and though she was +always reproving me for my nervousness and telling me to be composed, I +saw her put the kettle instead of the tea-pot on to the tablecloth, and +the porridge-stick into the fire in place of the tongs. + +Towards evening, when Martin was due, I had reduced myself to such a +state of weakness that Christian Ann wanted to put me to bed; but +sitting down in the _chiollagh_, and watching the road from the +imprisonment of the "elbow-chair," I saw at last the two big white eyes +of the automobile wheeling round in the dusk by the gate of my father's +house. + +A few minutes afterwards Martin came sweeping into the kitchen with a +nice-looking nurse behind him, carrying my darling at her breast. + +She was asleep, but the light of the fire soon wakened her, and then a +strange thing happened. + +I had risen from my seat, and Christian Ann had come hurrying up, and we +two women were standing about baby, both ready to clutch at her, when +she blinked her blue eyes and looked at us, and then held out her arms +to her grandmother! + +That nearly broke my heart for a moment (though now I thank the Lord for +it), but it raised Christian Ann into the seventh heaven of rapture. + +"Did you see that now?" she cried, clasping my baby to her bosom--her +eyes glistening as with sunshine, though her cheeks were slushed as with +rain. + +I got my treasure to myself at last (Christian Ann having to show the +nurse up to her bedroom), and then, being alone with Martin, I did not +care, in the intoxication of my happiness, how silly I was in my praise +of her. + +"Isn't she a little fairy, a little angel, a little cherub?" I cried. +"And that nasty, nasty birthmark quite, quite gone." + +The ugly word had slipped out unawares, but Martin had caught it, and +though I tried to make light of it, he gave me no peace until I had told +him what it meant--with all the humiliating story of my last night at +Castle Raa and the blow my husband had struck me. + +"But that's all over now," I said. + +"Is it? By the Lord God I swear it isn't, though!" said Martin, and his +face was so fierce that it made me afraid. + +But just at that moment Christian Ann came downstairs, and the old +doctor returned from his rounds, and then Tommy the Mate looked in on +his way to the "Plough," and hinting at my going to church again some +day, gave it as his opinion that if I put the "boght mulish" under my +"perricut" (our old island custom for legitimising children) "the Bishop +himself couldn't say nothin' against it"-at which Martin laughed so much +that I thought he had forgotten his vow about my husband. + + +MEMORANDUM OF MARTIN CONRAD + +I hadn't, though. + +The brute! The bully! When my darling told me that story (I had to drag +it out of her) I felt that if I had been within a hundred miles at the +time, and had had to crawl home to the man on my hands and knees, there +wouldn't have been enough of him left now to throw on the dust-heap. + +Nearly two years had passed since the debt was incurred, but I thought a +Christian world could not go on a day longer until I had paid it +back--with interest. + +So fearing that my tender-hearted little woman, if she got wind of my +purpose, might make me promise to put away my vow of vengeance, I got up +early next morning and ordered the motor-car to be made ready for a +visit to Castle Raa. + +Old Tommy happened to be in the yard of the inn while I was speaking to +the chauffeur, and he asked if he might be allowed to go with me. I +agreed, and when I came out to start he was sitting in a corner of the +car, with his Glengarry pulled down over his shaggy eyebrows, and his +knotty hands leaning on a thick blackthorn that had a head as big as a +turnip. + +We did not talk too much on the way--I had to save up my strength for +better business--and it was a long spin, but we got to our journey's end +towards the middle of the morning. + +As we went up the drive (sacred to me by one poignant memory) an open +carriage was coming down. The only occupant was a rather vulgar-looking +elderly woman (in large feathers and flowing furbelows) whom I took to +be the mother of Alma. + +Three powdered footmen came to the door of the Castle as our car drove +up. Their master was out riding. They did not know when he would be +back. + +"I'll wait for him," I said, and pushed into the hall, old Tommy +following me. + +I think the footmen had a mind to intercept us, but I suppose there was +something in my face which told them it would be better not to try, so I +walked into the first room with the door open. + +It turned out to be the dining-room, with portraits of the owner's +ancestors all round the walls--a solid square of evil-looking rascals, +every mother's son of them. + +Tommy, still resting his knotty hands on his big blackthorn, was sitting +on the first chair by the door, and I on the end of the table, neither +saying a word to the other, when there came the sound of horses' hoofs +on the path outside. A little later there were voices in the hall, both +low and loud ones--the footmen evidently announcing my arrival and their +master abusing them for letting me into the house. + +At the next moment the man came sweeping into the dining-room. He was +carrying a heavy hunting-crop and his flabby face was livid. Behind him +came Alma. She was in riding costume and was bending a lithe whip in her +gloved hands. + +I saw that my noble lord was furious, but that mood suited me as well as +another, so I continued to sit on the end of the table. + +"So I hear, sir," he said, striding up to me, "I hear that you have +taken possession of my place without so much as 'by your leave'?" + +"That's so," I answered. + +"Haven't you done enough mischief here, without coming to insult me by +your presence?" + +"Not quite. I've a little more to do before I've finished." + +"Jim," said the woman (in such a weary voice), "don't put yourself about +over such a person. Better ring the bell for the servants and have him +turned out of doors." + +I looked round at her. She tried an insolent smile, but it broke down +badly, and then his lordship strode up to me with quivering lips. + +"Look here, sir," he said. "Aren't you ashamed to show your face in my +house?" + +"I'm not," I replied. "But before I leave it, I believe _you'll_ be +ashamed to show your face anywhere." + +"Damn it, sir! Will you do me the honour to tell me why you are here?" +said his lordship, with fury in his looks. + +"Certainly. That's exactly what I've come for," I said, and then I +stated my business without more ado. + +I told him what he had done to the woman who was ten thousand times too +good to be his wife-torturing her with his cruelties, degrading her with +his infidelities, subjecting her to the domination of his paramour, and +finally striking her in the face like a coward and a cur. + +"Liar!" he cried, fairly gasping in his rage. "You're a liar and your +informant is a liar, too." + +"Tommy," I said, "will you step outside for a moment?" + +Tommy went out of the room at once, and the woman, who was now looking +frightened, tried to follow him. + +I stopped her. Rising from the table, I stepped over to the door and +locked it. + +"No, madam," I said. "I want you to see what takes place between his +lordship and me." + +The wretched woman fell back, but the man, grinding his teeth, came +marching up to me. + +"So you've come to fight me in my own house, have you?" he cried. + +"Not at all," I answered. "A man fights his equal. I've come to _thrash +you_." + +That was enough for him, he lifted his hunting-crop to strike, but it +didn't take long to get that from his hand or to paralyse the arm with +which he was lunging out at me. + +And then, seizing him by the white stock at his throat, I thrashed him. +I thrashed him as I should have thrashed vicious ape. I thrashed him +while he fumed and foamed, and cursed and swore. I thrashed him while he +cried for help, and then yelled with pain and whined for mercy. I +thrashed him under the eyes of his ancestors, the mad, bad race he came +from, and, him the biggest blackguard of them all. And then I flung him +to the ground, bruised in every bone, and his hunting-crop after him. + +"I hear you're going to court for an Act of Divorce," I said. "Pity you +can't take something to back you, so take that, and say I gave it you." + +I was turning towards the door when I heard a low, whining cry, like +that of a captured she-bear. It was from the woman. The wretched +creature was on her knees at the farthest corner of the room, apparently +mumbling prayers, as if in terror that her own turn might be coming +next. + +In her sobbing fear I thought she looked more than ever like a poisonous +snake, and I will not say that the old impulse to put my foot on it did +not come back for a moment. But I only said as I passed, pointing to the +writhing worm on the floor: + +"Look at him, madame. I wish you joy of your nobleman, and him of you." + +Then I opened the door, and notwithstanding the grim business I had been +going through, I could have laughed at the scene outside. + +There was old Tommy with his back to the dining-room door, his Glengarry +awry on his tousled head, and his bandy legs stretched firmly apart, +flourishing his big-headed blackthorn before the faces of the three +powdered footmen, and inviting them to "come on." + +"Come on, now, you bleating ould billy-goats, come on, come on!" + +I was in no hurry to get away, but lit a cigar in front of the house +while the chauffeur was starting the motor and Tommy was wiping his +steaming forehead on the sleeve of his coat. + +All the way home the old man talked without ceasing, sometimes to me, +and sometimes to the world in general. + +"You gave him a piece of your mind, didn't you?" he asked, with a wink +of his "starboard eye." + +"I believe I did," I answered. + +"I allus said you would. 'Wait till himself is after coming home, and +it'll be the devil sit up for some of them,' says I." + +There was only one limitation to Tommy's satisfaction over our day's +expedition--that he had not cracked the powdered skulls of "some o' them +riddiclus dunkeys." + +[END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM] + + + + + +ONE HUNDRED AND NINTH CHAPTER + + +Another month passed, and then began the last and most important phase +of my too changeful story. + +Every week Martin had been coming and going between Ellan and London, +occupied when he was away with the business of his next Expedition (for +which Parliament had voted a large sum), and when he was at home with +reports, diaries, charts, maps, and photographs toward a book he was +writing about his last one. + +As for myself, I had been (or tried to think I had been) entirely happy. +With fresh air, new milk, a sweet bedroom, and above all, good and +tender nursing (God bless Christian Ann for all she did for me!), my +health had improved every day--or perhaps, by that heavenly hopefulness +which goes with certain maladies, it had seemed to me to do so. + +Yet mine was a sort of twilight happiness, nevertheless. Though the sun +was always shining in my sky, it was frequently under eclipse. In spite +of the sheltered life I lived in that home of charity and love, I was +never entirely free from a certain indefinable uneasiness about my +position. + +I was always conscious, too, that Martin's mother and father, not to +speak of Father Dan, were suffering from a similar feeling, for +sometimes when we talked about the future their looks would answer to my +thoughts, and it was just as if we were all silently waiting, waiting, +waiting for some event that was to justify and rehabilitate me. + +It came at last--for me with a startling suddenness. + +One morning, nurse being out on an errand and Christian Ann patting her +butter in the dairy, I was playing with baby on the rag-work hearthrug +when our village newsman came to the threshold of the open door. + +"Take a _Times_," he said. "You might as well be out of the world, +ma'am, as not know what's going on in it." + +I took one of his island newspapers, and after he had gone I casually +glanced at it. + +But what a shock it gave me! The first heading that flew in my face +was-- + + "INSULAR DIVORCE BILL PASSED." + +It was a report of the proceedings of the Supreme Court of our Ellan +legislature, which (notwithstanding the opposition of its ecclesiastical +members) had granted my husband's petition. + +Perhaps I ought to have had a sense of immense relief. Or perhaps I +should have gone down on my knees there and then, and thanked God that +the miserable entanglement of the horrible marriage that had been forced +upon me was at last at an end. + +But no, I had only one feeling as the newspaper fell from my +fingers--shame and humiliation, not for myself (for what did it matter +about me, anyway?), but for Martin, whose name, now so famous, I had, +through my husband's malice, been the means of dragging through the +dust. + +I remember that I thought I should never be able to look into my +darling's face again, that when he came in the afternoon (as he always +did) I should have to run away from him, and that all that was left to +me was to hide myself and die. + +But just as these wild thoughts were galloping through my brain I heard +the sneck of the garden gate, and almost before I was aware of what else +was happening Martin had come sweeping into the house like a rush of +wind, thrown his arms around me, and covered my face, my neck, and my +hands with kisses--never having done so before since I came to live at +his mother's home. + +"Such news! Such news!" he cried. "We are free, free, free!" + +Then, seeing the newspaper at my feet on the floor, he said: + +"Ah, I see you know already. I told them to keep everything away from +you--all the miserable legal business. But no matter! It's over now. Of +course it's shocking--perfectly shocking--that that squirming worm, +after his gross infidelities, should have been able to do what he has +done. But what matter about that either? He has done just what we +wanted--what you couldn't do for yourself before I went away, your +conscience forbidding you. The barrier that has divided us is down . . . +now we can be married at any time." + +I was so overcome by Martin's splendid courage, so afraid to believe +fully that the boundless relief I had looked for so long had come to me +at last, that for some time I could not speak. And when I did speak, +though my heart was clamouring loud, I only said: + +"But do you really think that . . . that we can now be husband and +wife?" + +"Think it?" he cried, with a peal of laughter. "I should think I do +think it. What's to prevent us? Nothing! You've suffered enough, my poor +girl. But all that you have gone through has to be forgotten, and you +are never to look back again." + +"Yes, yes, I know I should be happy, very happy," I said, "but what +about you?" + +"Me?" + +"I looked forward to being a help--at least not a trouble to you, +Martin." + +"And so you will be. Why shouldn't you?" + +"Martin," I said (I knew what I was doing, but I couldn't help doing +it), "wouldn't it injure you to marry me . . . being what I am now . . . +in the eyes of the world, I mean?" + +He looked at me for a moment as if trying to catch my meaning, and then +snatched me still closer to his breast. + +"Mary," he cried, "don't ask me to consider what the damnable +insincerities of society may say to a case like ours. If _you_ don't +care, then neither do I. And as for the world, by the Lord God I swear +that all I ask of it I am now holding in my arms." + +That conquered me--poor trembling hypocrite that I was, praying with +all my soul that my objections would be overcome. + +In another moment I had thrown my arms about my Martin's neck and kissed +and kissed him, feeling for the first time after my months and years of +fiery struggle that in the eyes of God and man I had a _right_ to do so. + +And oh dear, oh dear! When Martin had gone back to his work, what +foolish rein I gave to my new-born rapture! + +I picked baby up from the hearthrug and kissed her also, and then took +her into the dairy to be kissed by her grandmother, who must have +overheard what had passed between Martin and me, for I noticed that her +voice had suddenly become livelier and at least an octave higher. + +Then, baby being sleepy, I took her upstairs for her morning nap, and +after leaning over her cradle, in the soft, damp, milk-like odour of her +sweet body and breath, I stood up before the glass and looked at my own +hot, tingling, blushing cheeks and sparkling eyes. + +Oh, what gorgeous dreams of happiness came to me! I may have been the +unmarried mother of a child, but my girlhood--my lost girlhood--was +flowing back upon me. A vision of my marriage-day rose up before me and +I saw myself as a bride, in my bridal veil and blossoms. + +How happy I was going to be! But indeed I felt just then as if I had +always been happy. It was almost as though some blessed stream of holy +water had washed my memory clean of all the soilure of my recent days in +London, for sure I am that if anybody had at that moment mentioned +Ilford and the East End, the bricklayer and the Jew, or spoken of the +maternity homes and the orphanages, I should have screamed. + +Towards noon the old doctor came back from his morning rounds, and I +noticed that _his_ voice was pitched higher too. We never once spoke +about the great news, the great event, while we sat at table; but I +could not help noticing that we were all talking loud and fast and on +the top of each other, as if some dark cloud which had hovered over our +household had suddenly slid away. + +After luncheon, nurse being back with baby, I went out for a walk alone, +feeling wonderfully well and light, and having two hours to wait for +Martin, who must be still pondering over his papers at the "Plough." + +How beautiful was the day! How blue the sky! How bright the earth! How +joyous the air--so sweet and so full of song-birds! + +I remember that I thought life had been so good to me that I ought to be +good to everybody else--especially to my father, from whom it seemed +wrong for a daughter to be estranged, whatever he was and whatever he +had done to her. + +So I turned my face towards my poor grandmother's restored cottage on +the curragh, fully determined to be reconciled to my father; and I only +slackened my steps and gave up my purpose when I began to think of Nessy +MacLeod and how difficult (perhaps impossible) it might be to reach him. + +Even then I faced about for a moment to the Big House with some vain +idea of making peace with Aunt Bridget and then slipping upstairs to my +mother's room--having such a sense of joyous purity that I wished to +breathe the sacred air my blessed saint had lived in. + +But the end of it all was that I found myself on the steps of the +Presbytery, feeling breathlessly happy, and telling myself, with a +little access of pride in my own gratitude, that it was only right and +proper that I should bring my happiness where I had so often brought my +sorrow--to the dear priest who had been my friend since the day of my +birth and my darling mother's friend before. + +Poor old Father Dan! How good I was going to be to him! + + + + +ONE HUNDRED AND TENTH CHAPTER + + +A few minutes afterwards I was tripping upstairs (love and hope work +wonderful miracles!) behind the Father's Irish housekeeper, Mrs. +Cassidy, who was telling me how well I was looking ("smart and well +extraordinary"), asking if it "was on my two feet I had walked all the +way," and denouncing the "omathauns" who had been "after telling her +there wasn't the width of a wall itself betune me and the churchyard." + +I found Father Dan in his cosy study lined with books; and being so much +wrapped up in my own impetuous happiness I did not see at first that he +was confused and nervous, or remember until next day that, though (at +the sound of my voice from the landing) he cried "Come in, my child, +come in," he was standing with his back to the door as I +entered--hiding something (it must have been a newspaper) under the +loose seat of his easy-chair. + +"Father," I said, "have you heard the news?" + +"The news. . . ." + +"I mean the news in the newspaper." + +"Ah, the news in the newspaper." + +"Isn't it glorious? That terrible marriage is over at last! Without my +doing anything, either! Do you remember what you said the last time I +came here?" + +"The last time. . . ." + +"You said that I, being a Catholic, could not break my marriage without +breaking my faith. But my husband, being a Protestant, had no +compunction. So it has come to the same thing in the end, you see. And +now I'm free." + +"You're free . . . free, are you?" + +"It seems they have been keeping it all away from me--making no defence, +I suppose--and it was only this morning I heard the news." + +"Only this morning, was it?" + +"I first saw it in a newspaper, but afterwards Martin himself came to +tell me." + +"Martin came, did he?" + +"He doesn't care in the least; in fact, he is glad, and says we can be +married at any time." + +"Married at any time--he says that, does he?" + +"Of course nothing is arranged yet, dear Father, but I couldn't help +coming to see you about it. I want everything to be simple and quiet--no +display of any kind." + +"Simple and quiet, do you?" + +"Early in the morning--immediately after mass, perhaps." + +"Immediately after mass. . . ." + +"Only a few wild flowers on the altar, and the dear homely souls who +love me gathered around." + +"The dear, homely souls. . . ." + +"It will be a great, great thing for me, but I don't want to force +myself upon anybody, or to triumph over any one--least of all over my +poor father, now that he is so sick and down." + +"No, no . . . now that he is so sick and down." + +"I shall want you to marry us, Daddy Dan--not the Bishop or anybody else +of that kind, you know." + +"You'll want me to marry you--not the Bishop or anybody else of that +kind." + +"But Father Dan," I cried, laughing a little uneasily (for I had begun +to realise that he was only repeating my own words), "why don't you say +something for yourself?" + +And then the cheery sunshine of the cosy room began to fade away. + +Father Dan fumbled the silver cross which hung over his cassock (a sure +sign of his nervousness), and said with a grave face and in a voice all +a-tremble with emotion: + +"My child. . . ." + +"Yes?" + +"You believe that I wouldn't pain or distress or shock you if I could +avoid it?" + +"Indeed I do." + +"Yet I am going to pain and distress and shock you now. I . . . I cannot +marry you to Martin Conrad. I daren't. The Church thinks that you are +married already--that you are still the wife of your husband." + +Though my dear priest had dealt me my death-blow, I had not yet begun to +feel it, so I smiled up into his troubled old face and said: + +"But how can the Church think that, dear Father? My husband has no +rights over me now, and no duties or responsibilities with respect to +me. He can marry again if he likes. And he will, I am sure he will, and +nobody can prevent him. How, then, can the Church say that I am still +his wife?" + +"Because marriage, according to the law of the Church, can only be +dissolved by death," said Father Dan. "Haven't I told you that before, +my daughter? Didn't we go over it again and again when you were here the +last time?" + +"Yes, yes, but I thought if somebody else sought the divorce--somebody +who had never believed in the indissolubility of marriage and wasn't +bound by the law of the Church . . . we've heard of cases of that kind, +haven't we?" + +Father Dan shook his head. + +"My poor child, no. The Church thinks marriage is a sacred covenant +which no difference of belief, no sin on either side, can ever break." + +"But, Father," I cried, "don't you see that the law has already broken +it?" + +"Only the civil law, my daughter. Remember the words of our blessed and +holy Redeemer: '_Every one that putteth away his wife and marrieth +another committeth adultery; and he that marrieth one that is put away +committeth adultery.'_ . . . My poor child, my heart bleeds for you, but +isn't that the Divine Commandment?" + +"Then you think," I said (the room was becoming dark and I could feel my +lip trembling), "you think that because I went through that marriage +ceremony two years ago . . . and though the civil law has dissolved it +. . . you think I am still bound by it, and will continue to be so . . . +to the end of my life?" + +Father Dan plucked at his cassock, fumbled his print handkerchief, and +replied: + +"I am sorry, my child, very, very sorry." + +"Father Dan," I said sharply, for by this time my heart was beginning to +blaze, "have you thought about Martin? Aren't you afraid that if our +Church refuses to marry us he may ask some other church to do so?" + +"Christ's words must be the final law for all true Christians, my +daughter. And besides. . . ." + +"Well?" + +"Besides that. . . ." + +"Yes?" + +"It blisters my tongue to say it, my child, knowing your sufferings and +great temptations, but. . . ." + +"But what, dear Father?" + +"You are in the position of the guilty party, and therefore no good +clergyman of any Christian Church in the world, following the +Commandment of his Master, would dare to marry you." + +What happened after that I cannot exactly say. I remember that, feeling +the colour flying to my face, I flung up my hands to cover it, and that +when I came to full possession of my senses again Father Dan (himself in +a state of great agitation) was smoothing my arms and comforting me. + +"Don't be angry with your old priest for telling you the truth--the +bitter truth, my daughter." + +He had always seen this dark hour coming to him, and again and again he +had prayed to be delivered from it--in the long nights of his fruitless +wanderings when I was lost in London, and again since I had been found +and had come home and he had looked on, with many a pang, at our silent +hopes and expectations--Martin's and mine, we two children. + +"And when you came into my little den to-day, my daughter, with a face +as bright as stars and diamonds, God knows I would have given half of +what is left of my life that mine should not be the hand to dash the cup +of your happiness away." + +As soon as I was sufficiently composed, within and without, Father Dan +led me downstairs (praying God and His Holy Mother to strengthen me on +my solitary way), and then stood at the door in his cassock to watch me +while I walked up the road. + +It was hardly more than half an hour since I had passed over the ground +before, yet in that short time the world seemed to have become pale and +grey--the sun gone out, the earth grown dark, the still air joyless, +nothing left but the everlasting heavens and the heavy song of the sea. + +As I approached the doctor's house Martin came swinging down the road to +meet me, with his strong free step and that suggestion of the wind from +the mountain-tops which seemed to be always about him. + +"Hello!" he cried. "Thought you were lost and been hunting all over the +place for you." + +But as he came nearer and saw how white and wan my face was, though I +was doing my best to smile, he stopped and said: + +"My poor little woman, where have you been, and what have they been +doing to you?" + +And then, as well as I could, I told him. + + + + +ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVENTH CHAPTER + + +"It's all my fault," he said. + +He had led me to the garden-house, which stood among the bluebells at +the end of the orchard, and was striding to and fro in front of it. + +"I knew perfectly what the attitude of the Church would be, and I ought +to have warned you." + +I had never before seen him so excited. There was a wild look in his +eyes and his voice was quivering like the string of a bow. + +"Poor old Father Dan! He's an old angel, with as good a heart as ever +beat under a cassock. But what a slave a man may be to the fetish of his +faith! Only think what he says, my darling! The guilty party! I'll never +believe you are the guilty party, but consider! The guilty party may +never marry! No good clergyman of any Christian Church in the world dare +marry her! What an infamy! Ask yourself what the churches are here for. +Aren't they here to bring salvation to the worst of sinners? Yet they +cast out the woman who has sinned against her marriage vow--denying her +access to the altar and turning her out of doors--though she may have +repented a thousand times, with bitter, bitter tears!" + +He walked two or three paces in front of the garden-house and then came +back to me with flaming eyes. + +"But that's not your case, anyway," he said. "Father Dan knows perfectly +that your marriage was no marriage at all--only a sordid bit of +commercial bargaining, in which your husband gave you his bad name for +your father's unclean money. It was no marriage in any other sense +either, and might have been annulled if there had been any common +honesty in annulment. And now that it has tumbled to wreck and ruin, as +anybody might have seen it would do, you are told that you are bound to +it to the last day and hour of your life! After all you have gone +through--all you have suffered--never to know another hour of happiness +as long as you live! While your husband, notwithstanding his brutalities +and infidelities, is free to do what he likes, to marry whom he pleases! +How stupid! How disgusting! how damnable!" + +His passionate voice was breaking, he could scarcely control it. + +"Oh, I know what they'll say. It will be the old, old song, 'Whom God +hath joined together.' That's what this old Church of ours has been +saying for centuries to poor women with broken hearts. Has the Church +itself got a heart to break? No--nothing but its cast-iron laws which +have been broken a thousand times and nobody a penny the worse." + +"But I wonder," he continued, "I wonder why these churchmen, who would +talk about the impossibility of putting asunder those whom God has +joined together, don't begin by asking themselves how and when and where +God joins them. Is it in church, when they stand before the altar and +are asked a few questions, and give a few answers? If so, then God is +responsible for some of the most shocking transactions that ever +disgraced humanity--all the pride and vanity and deliberate concubinage +that have covered themselves in every age, and are covering themselves +still, with the cloak of marriage." + +"But no," said Martin, "it's not in churches that God marries people. +They've got to be married before they go there, or they are never +married at all--never! They've got to be married in their _hearts_, for +that's where God joins people together, not in churches and before +priests and altars." + +I sat listening to him with a rising and throbbing heart, and after +another moment he stepped into the garden-house, and sat beside me. + +"Mary," he said, in his passionate voice, "that's our case, isn't it? +God married us from the very first. There has never been any other woman +for me, and there never has been any other man for you--isn't that so, +my darling? . . . Then what are they talking about--these churches and +churchmen? It's _they_ who are the real divorcers--trying to put those +asunder whom God Himself has joined together. That's the plain sense of +the matter, isn't it?" + +I was trembling with fear and expectation. Perhaps it was the same with +me as it had been before; perhaps I wanted (now more than ever) to +believe what Martin was saying; perhaps I did not know enough to be able +to answer him; perhaps my overpowering love and the position I stood in +compelled me to agree. But I could not help it if it seemed to me that +his clear mind--clear as a mountain river and as swift and strong--was +sweeping away all the worn-out sophistries. + +"Then what . . . what are we to do?" I asked him. + +"Do? Our duty to ourselves, my darling, that's what we have to do. If we +cannot be married according to the law of the Church, we must be married +according to the law of the land. Isn't that enough? This is our own +affair, dearest, ours and nobody else's. It's only a witness we want +anyway--a witness before God and man that we intend to be man and wife +in future." + +"But Father Dan?" + +"Leave him to me," said Martin. "I'll tell him everything. But come into +the house now. You are catching a cold. Unless we take care they'll kill +you before they've done." + +Next day he leaned over the back of my chair as I sat in the _chiollagh_ +with baby in my lap, and said, in a low tone: + +"I've seen Father Dan." + +"Well?" + +"The old angel took it badly. 'God forbid that you should do that same, +my boy,' he said, 'putting both yourself and that sweet child of mine +out of the Church for ever.' 'It's the Church that's putting us out,' I +told him. 'But God's holy law condemns it, my son,' he said. 'God's law +is love; and He has no other law,' I answered." + +I was relieved and yet nervous, glad and yet afraid. + +A week passed, and then the time came for Martin to go to Windsor for +his investiture. There had been great excitement in Sunny Lodge in +preparation for this event, but being a little unwell I had been out of +the range of it. + +At the moment of Martin's departure I was in bed, and he had come +upstairs to say good-bye to me. + +What had been happening in the meantime I hardly knew, but I had +gathered that he thought pressure would be brought to bear on me. + +"Our good old Church is like a limpet on the shore," he said. "Once it +gets its suckers down it doesn't let go in a hurry. But sit tight, +little woman. Don't yield an inch while I'm away," he whispered. + +When he left me I reached up to see him going down the road to the +railway station. His old father was walking proudly by his side, +bare-headed as usual and still as blithe as a boy. + +Next day I was startled by an unexpected telegram. It came from a +convent in Lancashire and was addressed to "Mary O'Neill, care of Doctor +Conrad." It ran: + +"_Am making a round of visits to the houses of our Society and would +like to see you on my way to Ireland. May I cross to-morrow? Mother +Magdalene_." + + + + +ONE HUNDRED AND TWELFTH CHAPTER + + +She arrived the following afternoon--my dear Reverend Mother with the +pale spiritual face and saint-like eyes. + +Except that her habit was now blue and white instead of black, she +seemed hardly changed in any respect since our days at the Sacred Heart. + +Finding that I was in bed, she put up at the "Plough" and came every day +to nurse me. + +I was naturally agitated at seeing her again after so many years and +such various experiences, being uncertain how much she knew of them. + +Remembering Martin's warning, I was also fairly certain that she had +been sent for, but my uneasiness on both heads soon wore off. + +Her noiseless step, her soft voice, and her sweet smile soothed and +comforted me. I began to feel afresh the influence she had exercised +over me when I was a child, and to wonder why, during my dark time in +London, I had never thought of writing to her. + +During the first days of her visit she said nothing about painful +things--never mentioning my marriage, or what had happened since she saw +me last. + +Her talk was generally about our old school and my old schoolfellows, +many of whom came to the convent for her "retreats," which were under +the spiritual direction of one of the Pope's domestic prelates. + +Sometimes she would laugh about our Mother of the Novices who had +"become old and naggledy"; sometimes about the little fat Maestro of the +Pope's choir who had cried when I first sang the hymn to the Virgin, +("Go on, little angel,"); and sometimes about the two old lay sisters +(now quite toothless) who still said I might have been a "wonderful +washerwoman" if I had "put my mind to it." + +I hate to think that my dear Reverend Mother was doing this consciously +in order to break down my defences, but the effect was the same. Little +by little, during the few days she was with me, she bridged the space +back to my happy girlhood, for insensibly I found myself stirred by the +emotions of the convent, and breathing again the air of my beloved Rome. + +On the afternoon of the fourth day of her visit I was sitting up by her +side in front of my window, which was wide open. It was just such a +peaceful evening as our last one at Nemi. Not a leaf was stirring; not a +breath of wind in the air; the only sounds we heard were the lowing of +the cattle waiting to be milked, the soft murmur of the sea, and the +jolting of a springless cart that was coming up from the shore, laden +with sea wrack. + +As the sun began to sink it lit blazing fires in the windows of the +village in front--especially in the window of my mother's room, which +was just visible over the tops of the apple trees in the orchard. + +The Reverend Mother talked of Benediction. If she were in Rome she would +be in church singing the _Ora pro nobis_. + +"Let us sing it now. Shall we?" she said. + +At the next moment her deep majestic contralto, accompanied by my own +thin and quavering soprano, were sending out into the silent air the +holy notes which to me are like the reverberations of eternity: + + "Mater purissima + Ora pro nobis. + Mater castissima + Ora pro nobis." + +When we had finished I found my hand lying in her lap. Patting it gently +she said: + +"Mary, I am leaving you to-morrow." + +"So soon?" + +"Yes, but I can't go without telling you why I came"--and then her +mission was revealed to me. + +She had heard about my marriage and the ruin it had fallen to; my +disappearance from home and the circumstances of my recovery; my +husband's petition for divorce and the disclosures that had followed it. + +But sad and serious and even tragic as all this might be, it was as +nothing (in the eyes of the Church and of God) compared with the awful +gravity of the step I now contemplated--a second marriage while my +husband was still alive. + +She had nothing to say against Martin. Except the facts that concerned +myself she had never heard a word to his discredit. She could even +understand those facts, though she could not condone them. Perhaps he +had seen my position (married to a cruel and unfaithful husband) and his +pity had developed into love--she had heard of such happenings. + +"But only think, my child, what an abyss he is driving you to! He asks +you to break your marriage vows! . . . Oh, yes, yes, I can see what he +will say--that pressure was put upon you and you were too young to know +what you were doing. That may be true, but it isn't everything. I +thought it wrong, cruelly wrong, that your father should choose a +husband for you without regard to your wish and will. But it was you, +not your father, who made your marriage vows, and you can never get away +from that--never!" + +Those marriage vows were sacred; our blessed Saviour had said they +could never be broken, and our holy Church had taken His Commandment for +law. + +"Think, my child, only think what would happen to the world if every +woman who has made an unhappy marriage were to do as you think of doing. +What a chaos! What an uprooting of all the sacred ties of home and +family! And how women would suffer--women and children above all. Don't +you see that, my daughter?" + +The security of society lay in the sanctity of marriage; the sanctity of +marriage lay in its indissolubility; and its indissolubility centred in +the fact that God was a party to it. + +"Perhaps you are told that your marriage will be your own concern only +and that God and the Church have nothing to do with it. But if women had +believed that in all ages, how different the world would be to-day! Oh, +believe me, your marriage vow is sacred, and you cannot break it without +sin--mortal sin, my daughter." + +The moral of all this was that I must renounce Martin Conrad, wash my +heart clean of my love of him, shun the temptation of seeing him again, +and if possible forget him altogether. + +"It will be hard. I know it will he hard, but. . . ." + +"It will be quite impossible," I said as well as I could, for my very +lips were trembling. + +I had been shaken to the depths of my soul by what the Reverend Mother +said, but remembering Martin's warning I now struggled to resist her. + +"Two years ago, while I was living with my husband I tried to do that +and I couldn't," I said. "And if I couldn't do it then, when the legal +barrier stood between us, how can I do it now when the barrier is gone?" + +After that I told her of all I had passed through since as a result of +my love for Martin--how I had parted from him when he went down to the +Antarctic; how I had waited for him in London; how I had sacrificed +family and friends and home, and taken up poverty and loneliness and +hard work for him; how I had fallen into fathomless depths of despair +when I thought I had lost him; and how joy and happiness had returned +only when God, in His gracious goodness, had given him back. + +"No, no, no", I cried. "My love for Martin can never be overcome or +forgotten--never as long as I live in the world!" + +"Then," said the Reverend Mother (she had been listening intently with +her great eyes fixed on my hot and tingling face), "then," she said, in +her grave and solemn voice, "If that is the case, my child, there is +only one thing for you to do--to leave it." + +"Leave it?" + +"Leave the world, I mean. Return with me to Rome and enter the convent." + +It would be impossible to say how this affected me--how it shook me to +the heart's core--how, in spite of my efforts to act on my darling's +warning, it seemed to penetrate to the inmost part of my being and to +waken some slumbering instinct in my soul. + +For a long time I sat without speaking again, only listening with a +fluttering heart to what the Reverend Mother was saying--that it was one +of the objects of the religious life to offer refuge to the tortured +soul that could not trust itself to resist temptation; and that taking +my vows as a nun to God would be the only way (known to and acknowledged +by the Church) of cancelling my vows as a wife to my husband. + +"You will be a bride still, my child, but a bride of Christ. And isn't +that better--far better? You used to wish to be a nun, you know, and if +your father had not come for you on that most unhappy errand you might +have been one of ourselves already. Think of it, my child. The Mothers +of our convent will be glad to welcome you, if you can come as a willing +and contented Sister. And how can I leave you here, at the peril of your +soul, my daughter?" + +I was deeply moved, but I made one more effort. + +I told the Reverend Mother that, since the days when I had wished to be +a nun, a great change had come over me. I had become a woman, with all a +woman's passions--the hunger and thirst for love, human love, the love +of the good man who loved me with all his soul and strength. Therefore I +could never be a willing and contented Sister. I should only break the +peace and harmony of their house. And though she were to put me down in +the lowest cell of her convent, my love would follow me there; it would +interrupt my offices, it would clamour through my prayers, and I should +always be unhappy--miserably unhappy. + +"Not so unhappy there as you will be if you remain in the world and +carry out your intention," said the Reverend Mother. "Oh believe me, my +child, I know you better than you know yourself. If you marry again, you +will never be able to forget that you have broken your vow. Other women +may forget it--frivolous women--women living in society and devoting +their lives to selfish pleasures. Such women may divorce their husbands, +or be divorced by them, and then marry again, without remembering that +they are living in a state of sin, whatever the civil law may say--open +and wicked and shameless sin. But you will remember it, and it will make +you more unhappy than you have ever been in your life before." + +"Worse than that," she continued, after a moment, "it will make your +husband unhappy also. He will see your remorse, and share it, because he +will know he has been the cause. If he is a good man the mere sight of +your grief will torture him. The better man he is the more will he +suffer. If you were a runaway nun he would wish to take you back to your +convent, for though it might tear his heart out to part with you, he +would want to restore your soul. But being a wife who has broken her +marriage vows he will never be able to do anything. An immense and awful +shadow will stand between you and darken every hour of your lives that +is left." + +When the Reverend Mother had done I sat motionless and speechless, with +an aching and suffocating heart, staring down on the garden over which +the night was falling. + +After a while she patted my cold hand and got up to go, saying she would +call early in the morning to bid me good-bye. Her visit to Ireland would +not last longer than three weeks, and after that she might come back for +me, if I felt on reflection (she was sure I should) that I ought to +return with her to Rome. + +I did not reply. Perhaps it was partly because I was physically weak +that my darling's warning was so nearly overcome. But the moment the +door closed on the Reverend Mother a conviction of the truth of what she +had said rushed upon me like the waves of an overflowing sea. + +Yet how cruel! After all our waiting, all our longing, all our gorgeous +day-dreams of future happiness! When I was going to be a bride, a happy +bride, with my lost and stolen girlhood coming back to me! + +For the second time a dark and frowning mountain had risen between +Martin and me. Formerly it had been my marriage--now it was my God. + +But if God forbade my marriage with Martin what was I to do? What was +left in life for me? Was there anything left? + +I was sitting with both hands over my face, asking myself these +questions and struggling with a rising tempest of tears, when I heard +baby crying in the room below, and Christian Ann hushing and comforting +her. + +"What's doing on the _boght_, I wonder?" + +A few minutes later they came upstairs, Isabel on her grandmother's arm, +in her nightdress, ready for bed. + +"If it isn't the wind I don't know in the world what's doing on the +_millish_," said the old lady. + +And then baby smiled through the big round beads that stood in her +sea-blue eyes and held out her arms to me. + +Oh God! Oh God! Was not _this_ my answer? + + + + +ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEENTH CHAPTER + + +In her different way Christian Ann had arrived at the same conclusion. +Long before the thought came to me she had conceived the idea that +Father Dan and the Reverend Mother were conspiring to carry me off, and +in her dear sweet womanly jealousy (not to speak of higher and nobler +instincts) she had resented this intensely. + +For four days she had smothered her wrath, only revealing it to baby in +half-articulate interviews over the cradle ("We're no women for these +nun bodies, going about the house like ghosts, are we, _villish_?"), but +on the fifth day it burst into the fiercest flame and the gentle old +thing flung out at everybody. + +That was the morning of the departure of the Reverend Mother, who, after +saying good-bye to me in my bedroom, had just returned to the +parlour-kitchen, where Father Dan was waiting to take her to the railway +station. + +What provoked Christian Ann's outburst I never rightly knew, for though +the door to the staircase was open, and I could generally catch anything +that was said in the room below (through the open timbers of the +unceiled floor), the soft voice of the Reverend Mother never reached me, +and the Irish roll of Father Dan's vowels only rumbled up like the sound +of a drum. + +But Christian Ann's words came sharp and clear as the crack of a +breaker, sometimes trembling with indignation, sometimes quivering with +emotion, and at last thickening into sobs. + +"Begging your pardon, ma'am, may I ask what is that you're saying to the +Father about Mary O'Neill? . . . Going back to Rome is she? To the +convent, eh? . . . No, ma'am, that she never will! Not if I know her, +ma'am. Not for any purpose in the world, ma'am. . . . Temptation, you +say? You know best, ma'am, but I don't call it overcoming +temptation--going into hidlands to get out of the way of it. . . . Yes, +I'm a Christian woman and a good Catholic too, please the Saints, but +asking your pardon, ma'am, I'm not thinking too much of your convents, +or believing the women inside of them are living such very unselfish +lives either, ma'am." + +Another soft rumble as of a drum, and then-- + +"No, ma'am, no, that's truth enough, ma'am. I've never been a nun +myself, having had better work to do in the world, ma'am. But it's all +as one--I know what's going on in the convents, I'm thinking. . . . +Harmony and peace, you say? Yes, and jealousy and envy sometimes, too, +or you wouldn't be women like the rest of us, ma'am. . . . As for Mary +O'Neill, _she_ has something better to do too, I'm thinking. . . . After +doing wrong, is she? Maybe she is, the _boght millish_, maybe we all +are, ma'am, and have need of God's mercy and forgiveness. But I never +heard that praying is the only kind of penance He asks of us, ma'am. And +if it is, I wouldn't trust but there are poor women who are praying as +well when they're working over their wash-tubs as some ones when they're +saying their rosaries and singing their Tantum Ergos. . . ." + +Another interruption and then--"There's Bella Kinnish herself who keeps +the corner shop, ma'am. Her husband was lost at the 'mackerel' two years +for Easter. He left her with three little children and a baby unborn, +and Bella's finding it middling hard to get a taste of butcher's meat, +or even a bit of loaf-bread itself for them, ma'am. And when she's +sitting late at night, as the doctor's telling me, and all the rest of +the village dark, darning little Liza's stockings, and patching little +Willie's coat, or maybe nursing the baby when it's down with the +measles, the Lord is as pleased with her, I'm thinking, as with some of +your nun bodies in their grand blue cloaks taking turn and turn to kneel +before the tabernacle." + +There was another rumble of apologetic voices after that (both Father +Dan's and the Reverend Mother's), and then came Christian Ann's clear +notes again, breaking fast, though, and sometimes threatening to stop. + +"What's that you're saying, ma'am? . . . Motherhood a sacred and holy +state also? 'Deed it is, ma'am! That's truth enough too, though some +ones who shut themselves up in convents don't seem to think so. . . . A +mother's a mother, and what's more, her child is her child, wedlock or +no wedlock. And if she's doing right by her little one, and bringing it +up well, and teaching it true, I don't know that when her time comes the +Lord will be asking her which side of her wedding-day it was born +on. . . . + +"As for Mary O'Neill, ma'am, when you're talking and talking about her +saving her soul, you're forgetting she has her child to save too, ma'am. +God gave her the _boght villish_, and is she to run away from it? It's a +fine blessing would be on her for that, isn't it? . . . Father Dan, I'm +surprised at you--such a terrible, cruel, shocking, unnatural thing as +you're thinking. I thought you were a better man than that--I really +did. . . . And as for some ones that call themselves Mothers, they're no +mothers at all and never will be--tempting a poor woman in her trouble +to leave her child to be a charge on other people. . . ." + +Still another rumble of soft voices and then-- + +"Not that I'm thinking of myself, ma'am. Dear heart, no! It's only too +eager I'd be to have the lil angel to myself. There she is on the +hearthrug, ma'am, and if anything happens to Mary O'Neill, it's there +she'll be for the rest of _my_ life, and it's sorry I am for the +darling's sake that my time cannot be longer. . . . + +"But Mary O'Neill isn't for leaving her little one to go into any +convent. 'Deed no, ma'am! There would be no rest on her if she did. I'm +a mother myself and I know what she'd be feeling. You might put the +black hood on her head, but Nature's a wonderful powerful thing, and +she'd never go to bed at night or get up in the morning without thinking +of her baby. 'Where's she now?' she'd be asking herself. 'What's +happening to my motherless child?' she'd be saying. And as the years +went on she'd be thinking, 'Is she well, and has she taken her first +communion, and is she growing up a good woman, and what's the world +doing on her?' . . . + +"No, ma'am, no! Mary O'Neill will go into no convent while her child is +here to be cared for! 'Deed she won't! Not Mary O'Neill! I'll never +believe it of her! Never in this world!" + +I heard nothing more for a long time after that--nothing but a noise in +my own head which drowned all other noises. And when I recovered my +composure the Reverend Mother and Father Dan must have gone, for there +was no sound in the room below except that of the rocking-chair (which +was going rapidly) and Christian Ann's voice, fierce but broken as if +baby had cried and she was comforting her. + +Then a great new spirit came to me. It was Motherhood again! The mighty +passion of motherhood--which another mighty passion had temporarily +overlaid--sweeping down on me once more out of the big, simple, +child-like heart of my Martin's mother. + +In the fever of body and brain at that moment it seemed to solve all the +problems of life for me. + +If the Commandment of God forbade me to marry again because I had +already taken vows before the altar (no matter how innocently or under +what constraint), and if I had committed a sin, a great sin, and baby +was the living sign of it, there was only one thing left me to do--to +remain as I was and consecrate the rest of my life to my child. + +That would be the real expiation, not burying myself in a convent. To +live for my child! Alone with her! Here, where my sin had been, to work +out my atonement! + +This pleased and stirred and uplifted me very much when I first thought +of it. And even when I remembered Martin, and thought how hard it would +be to tear myself away from the love which waited with open arms for me +(So near, so sweet, so precious), there seemed to be something majestic, +almost sublime, in the sacrifice I was about to make--the sacrifice of +everything in the world (except one thing) that was dearer to me than +life itself. + +A sort of spiritual pride came with the thought of this sacrifice. I saw +myself as a woman who, having pledged herself to God in her marriage and +sinned against the law in breaking her marriage vows, was now going to +accept her fate and to humble herself before the bar of Eternal Justice. + +But oh, what a weak, vain thing I was, just when I thought I was so +strong and noble! + +After a long day in which I had been fighting back the pains of my poor +torn heart and almost persuading myself that I had won a victory, a +letter came by the evening post which turned all my great plans to dust +and ashes. + +The letter was from Martin. Only four little pages, written in my +darling's rugged hand, half serious and half playful, yet they made the +earth rock and reel beneath me. + + "MY DEAR LITTLE WOMAN,--_Just back from Windsor. Stunning 'do.' + Tell you all about it when I get back home. Meantime up to my eyes + in work. Arrangements for next Expedition going ahead splendidly. + Had a meeting of the committee yesterday and settled to sail by the + 'Orient' third week in August, so as to get down to Winter Quarters + in time to start south in October. + + "Our own little affair has got to come off first, though, so I'll + see the High Bailiff as soon as I return. + + "And what do you think, my 'chree'? The boys of the 'Scotia' are + all coming over to Ellan for the great event. 'Deed, yes, though, + every man-jack of them! Scientific staff included, not to speak of + O'Sullivan and old Treacle--who swears you blew a kiss to him. They + remember you coming down to Tilbury. Aw, God bless me soul, gel, + the way they're talking of you! There's no holding them at all at + all! + + "Seriously, darling, you have no time to lose in making your + preparations. My plan is to take you to New Zealand and leave you + at Wellington (good little town, good people, too) while I make my + bit of a trip to the Pole. + + "We'll arrange about Girlie when I reach home, which will be next + week, I hope--or rather fear--for every day is like a month when + I'm away from you. + + "But never mind, little woman! Once I get this big Expedition over + we are not going to be separated any more. Not for a single day as + long as we live, dearest! No, by the Lord God--life's too short for + it._ + + "MART." + + + + +ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEENTH CHAPTER + + +After I had read this letter I saw that my great battle, which I had +supposed to be over, was hardly begun. + +Martin was coming home with his big heart full of love for me, and my +own heart ran out to meet him. + +He intended to sail for New Zealand the second week in August, and he +expected to take me with him. + +In spite of all my religious fears and misgivings, I asked myself why I +should not go? What was to prevent me? What sin had I really committed? +What was there for reparation? Was it anything more than the letter of +the Divine law that I had defied and broken? + +My love was mine and I was his, and I belonged to him for ever. He was +going out on a great errand in the service of humanity. Couldn't I go to +be his partner and helpmate? And if there _had_ been sin, if the law of +God _had_ been broken, wouldn't that, too, be a great atonement? + +Thus my heart fought with my soul, or with my instincts as a child of +the Church, or whatever else it was that brought me back and back, again +and again, in spite of all the struggles of my love, to the firm +Commandment of our Lord. + +Father Dan had been right--I could not get away from that. The Reverend +Mother had been right, too--other women might forget that they had +broken the Divine law but I never should. If I married Martin and went +away with him, I should always be thinking of the falseness of my +position, and that would make me unhappy. It would also make Martin +unhappy to witness my unhappiness, and that would be the worst +bitterness life could bring. + +Then what was left to me? If it was impossible that I should bury myself +in a convent it was equally impossible that I should live alone, and +Martin in the same world with me. + +Not all the spiritual pride I could conjure up in the majesty and +solemnity of my self-sacrifice could conquer the yearning of my heart as +a woman. Not all my religious fervour could keep me away from Martin. In +spite of my conscience, sooner or later I should go to him--I knew quite +well I should. And my child, instead of being a barrier dividing us, +would be a natural bond calling on us and compelling us to come +together. + +Then what was left to a woman in my position who believed in the Divine +Commandment--who could not get away from it? Were all the doors of life +locked to her? Turn which way she would, was there no way out? + +Darker and darker every day became this question, but light came at +last, a kind of light or the promise of light. It was terrible, and yet +it brought me, oh, such immense relief! + +I am almost afraid to speak of it, so weak and feeble must any words be +in which I attempt to describe that unforgetable change. Already I had +met some of the mysteries of a woman's life--now I was to meet the last, +the greatest, the most tragic, and yet the kindest of them all. + +I suppose the strain of emotion I had been going through had been too +much for my physical strength, for three days after the arrival of +Martin's letter I seemed to be really ill. + +I am ashamed to dwell on my symptoms, but for a moment I am forced to do +so. My eyes were bright, my cheeks were coloured, and there was no +outward indication of any serious malady. But towards evening I always +had a temperature, and in the middle of the night (I was sleeping badly) +it rose very high, with a rapid pulse and anxious breathing, and in the +morning there was great exhaustion. + +Old Doctor Conrad, who had been coming to me twice a day, began to look +very grave. At last, after a short examination, he said, rather +nervously: + +"I should like a colleague from Blackwater to consult with me. Will you +receive him?" + +I said "Yes" on one condition--that if the new doctor had anything +serious to say he should report it first to me. + +A little reluctantly Martin's father agreed to my terms and the +consulting physician was sent for. He came early the next day--a +beautiful Ellan morning with a light breeze from the sea bringing the +smell of new-mown hay from the meadows lying between. + +He was an elderly man, and I could not help seeing a shadow cross his +clean-shaven face the moment his eyes first fell on me. They were those +tender but searching eyes which are so often seen in doctors, who are +always walking through the Valley of the Shadow and seem to focus their +gaze accordingly. + +Controlling his expression, he came up to my bed and, taking the hand I +held out to him, he said: + +"I trust we'll not frighten you, my lady." + +I liked that (though I cared nothing about my lost title, I thought it +was nice of him to remember it), and said I hoped I should not be too +restless. + +While he took out and fixed his stethoscope (he had such beautiful soft +hands) he told me that he had had a daughter of my own age once. + +"Once? Where is she now?" I asked him. + +"In the Kingdom. She died like a Saint," he answered. + +Then he made a long examination (returning repeatedly to the same +place), and when it was over and he raised his face I thought it looked +still more serious. + +"My child," he said (I liked that too), "you've never spared yourself, +have you?" + +I admitted that I had not. + +"When you've had anything to do you've done it, whatever it might cost +you." + +I admitted that also. He looked round to see if there was anybody else +in the room (there was only the old doctor, who was leaning over the end +of the bed, watching the face of his colleague) and then said, in a low +voice: + +"Has it ever happened that you have suffered from privation and hard +work and loss of sleep and bad lodgings and . . . and exposure?" + +His great searching eyes seemed to be looking straight into my soul, and +I could not have lied to him if I had wished, so I told him a little +(just a little) about my life in London--at Bayswater, in the East End +and Ilford. + +"And did you get wet sometimes, very wet, through all your clothes?" he +asked me. + +I told him No, but suddenly remembering that during the cold days after +baby came (when I could not afford a fire) I had dried her napkins on my +body, I felt that I could not keep that fact from him. + +"You dried baby's napkins on your own body?" he asked. + +"Sometimes I did. Just for a while," I answered, feeling a little +ashamed, and my tears rising. + +"Ah!" he said, and then turning to the old doctor, "What a mother will +do for her child, Conrad!" + +The eyes of Doctor Conrad (which seemed to have become swollen) were +still fixed on the face of his colleague, and, speaking as if he had +forgotten that I was present with them in the room, he said: + +"You think she's very ill, don't you?" + +"We'll talk of that in your consulting-room," said the strange doctor. + +Then, telling me to lie quiet and they would come back presently, he +went downstairs and Martin's father followed him. + +Nurse came up while they were away (she had taken possession of me +during the last few days), and I asked her who were in the +parlour-kitchen. + +"Only Father Donovan and Mrs. Conrad--and baby," she told me. + +Then the doctors came back--the consultant first, trying to look +cheerful, and the old doctor last, with a slow step and his head down, +as if he had been a prisoner coming back to court to receive sentence. + +"My lady," said the strange doctor, "you are a brave woman if ever there +was one, so we have decided to tell you the truth about your condition." + +And then he told me. + +I was not afraid. I will not say that I was not sorry. I could have +wished to live a little longer--especially now when (but for the +Commandment of God) love and happiness seemed to be within my grasp. + +But oh, the relief! There was something sacred in it, something +supernatural. It was as if God Himself had come down to me in the +bewildering maze that was haunted by the footsteps of my fate and led me +out of it. + +Yet why these poor weak words? They can mean so little to anybody except +a woman who has been what I was, and she can have no need of them. + +All fear had vanished from my thoughts. I had no fear for myself, I +remembered, and none for baby. The only regret I felt was for Martin--he +loved me so; there had never been any other woman in the world for him. + +After a moment I thanked the doctors and hoped I had not given them too +much trouble. Doctor Conrad seemed crushed into stupefaction and said +nothing; but the strange doctor tried to comfort me by saying there +would be no pain, and that my malady was of a kind that would probably +make no outward manifestation. + +Being a woman to the end I was very glad of that, and then I asked him +if it would last long. He said No, not long, he feared, although +everything was in God's hands and nobody could say certainly. + +I was saying I was glad of that too, when my quick ears caught a sound +of crying. It was Christian Ann, and Father Dan was hushing her. I knew +what was happening--the good souls were listening at the bottom of the +stairs. + +My first impulse was to send nurse to say they were not to cry. Then I +had half a mind to laugh, so that they might hear me and know that what +I was going through was nothing. But finally I bethought me of Martin, +and asked that they might both be brought up, for I had something to +say to them. + +After a moment they came into the room, Christian Ann in her simple pure +dress, and Father Dan in his shabby sack coat, both looking very +sorrowful, the sweet old children. + +Then (my two dear friends standing together at the foot of the bed) I +told them what the doctor had said, and warned them that they were to +tell nobody else--nobody whatever, especially Martin. + +"Leave _me_ to tell _him_," I said. "Do you faithfully promise me?" + +I could see how difficult it was for them to keep back their tears, but +they gave me their word and that was all I wanted. + +"My boy! My poor boy _veen!_ He's thinking there isn't another woman in +the world like her," said Christian Ann. + +And then Father Dan said something about my mother extracting the same +promise concerning myself, when I was a child at school. + +After that the Blackwater doctor stepped up to say good-bye. + +"I leave you in good hands, but you must let me come to see you again +some day," he said, and then with a playful smile he added: + +"They've got lots of angels up in heaven--we must try to keep some of +them on earth, you know." + +That was on the fifth of July, old Midsummer Day, which is our national +day in Ellan, and flags were flying over many of the houses in the +village. + + + + +ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEENTH CHAPTER + + +JULY 6. I feel so much better to-day. I hardly know what reaction of my +whole being, physical and spiritual, has set in since yesterday, but my +heart is lighter than for a long time, and sleep, which I had come to +look upon as a lost blessing, came to me last night for four solid +hours--beautiful and untroubled as a child's. + + * * * * * + +JULY 8. Martin writes that he expects to be here on the 12th. Letter +full of joyous spirits. "Lots to tell you when I reach home, dearest." +Strange! No mortal can imagine how anxious I am to get him back, yet I +almost dread his coming. When he was away before, Time could not go fast +enough for me. Now it is going too fast. I know what that means--the +story I have to tell. How am I to tell it? + + * * * * * + +JULY 10. Only two days more and Martin will be here. Of course I must be +up when he arrives. Nurse says No, but I say Yes. To be in bed when he +comes would be too much a shock for him. + +"Servants are such domineering tyrants," says Christian Ann, who never +had but one, and "the strange woman" was such a phantom in the house +that the poor mistress was grateful to God when Hollantide came round +and the ghost walked away of itself. My nurse is a dear, though. How +glad I am now that I persuaded Christian Ann to let her stay. + + * * * * * + +JULY 12. Martin comes to-day, and the old doctor (with such a proud and +stately step) has gone off to Blackwater to meet him. I am terribly weak +(no pain whatever), but perfectly resolute on dressing and going +downstairs towards tea-time. I shall wear a white tea-gown, which Sister +Mildred gave me in London. Martin likes me best in white. + + * * * * * + +LATER. My Martin has come! We had counted it up that travelling across +the island by motor-car he would arrive at five, so I was dressed and +downstairs by four, sitting in the _chiollagh_ and watching the road +through the window opposite. But he was half an hour late, and Christian +Ann and I were in such a fever that anybody would have believed it to be +half a century and that the world had stood still. + +We might have known what would happen. At Blackwater "the boys" (the +same that "got up the spree" when Martin went away) had insisted on a +demonstration. Then, on reaching our village, Martin had got down and +shaken hands with everybody--the joiner and the grocer and the +blacksmith and the widow who keeps the corner shop--so that it had taken +him a quarter of an hour to get through, amid a general chorus of "The +boy he is, though!" and "No pride at all at all!" + +After that he drove home at top speed, and my quick ears caught the +musical hum of the motor as it crossed the bridge. Good gracious, what +excitement! + +"Quick nurse, help me to the gate." + +I got there just in time to hear a shout, and to see a precipitate bound +out of the car and then . . . what an embrace! + +It is such a good thing my Martin is a big, brawny person, for I don't +know how I should have got back to the house, being so weak and +breathless just then, if his strong arm had not been round my waist. + +Dr. O'Sullivan had come too, looking as gay as a humming-bird, and after +I had finished with Martin I kissed him also (having such a largesse of +affection to distribute generally), whereupon he blushed like a boy, +bless him, and stammered out something about St. Patrick and St. Thomas, +and how he wouldn't have believed anybody who had said there was +anything so sweet, etc. + +Martin said I was looking so well, and he, too, declared he wouldn't +have believed any man who had sworn I could have looked so much better +in the time. + +My nervous thermometer must have gone up by leaps and bounds during the +next hour, for immediately after tea the old doctor ordered me back to +bed, though I refused to go until he had faithfully promised that the +door to the staircase should be kept open, so that I could hear what was +said downstairs. + +What lots of fun they had there! Half the parish must have come in "to +put a sight" on Martin after his investiture, including old Tommy the +Mate, who told everybody over and over again that he had "known the lad +since he was a lump" and "him and me are same as brothers." + +The old doctor's stately pride must have been something to see. It was +"Sir Martin" here and "Sir Martin" there, until I could have cried to +hear him. I felt just as foolish myself, too, for though I cannot +remember that my pulse gave one extra beat when they made me "your +ladyship," now that Martin has become. . . . But that's what we women +are, you see! + +At length Martin's big voice came up clear above the rest, and then the +talk was about the visit to Windsor. Christian Ann wanted to know if he +wasn't "freckened" to be there, "not being used of Kings," whereupon he +cried: + +"What! Frightened of another man--and a stunning good one, too!" + +And then came a story of how the King had asked if he hadn't been in +fear of icebergs, and how he had answered No, you could strike more of +them in a day in London (meaning icy-hearted people) than in a life-time +in the Antarctic. + +I suppose I must have laughed at that, for the next I heard was: + +"Hush! Isn't that Mary!" + +"Aw, yes, the poor _veg veen_," said a sad voice. It was Christian +Ann's. At the bottom of her heart I shall always be the child who "sang +carvals to her door." + +What a wonderful day! I shall not sleep a wink to-night, though. +To-morrow I must tell him. + + * * * * * + +JULY 13. I intended to tell Martin this morning, but I really couldn't. + +I was going downstairs to breakfast, holding on to the bannisters at one +side and using nurse's shoulder as my other crutch, when I saw the +brightest picture I have ever beheld. Baby and Martin were on hands and +knees on the rag-work hearthrug, face to face--Martin calling her to +come, Isabel lifting up her little head to him, like a fledgling in a +nest, and both laughing with that gurgling sound as of water bubbling +out of a bottle. + +This sight broke all the breath out of me at the very first moment. And +when Martin, after putting me into my place in the _chiollagh_, plunged +immediately into a rapturous account of his preparations for our +departure--how we were to be married by special license at the High +Bailiff's on the tenth (if that date would do), how I was to rest a day +and then travel up to London on the twelfth, and then rest other four +days (during which warm clothes could be bought for me), and sail by the +_Orient_ on the sixteenth--I could not find it in my heart to tell him +then of the inexorable fate that confronted us. + +It was cowardice, I knew, and sooner or later I should have to pay for +it. But when he went on to talk about baby, and appealed to his mother +to say if she wouldn't look after Girlie when I was gone, and Christian +Ann (in such a different tone) said Yes, she would look after Girlie +when I was gone, I decided that I dared not tell him at all--I would die +rather than do so. + +The end of it all is that I have arranged with Christian Ann, the old +doctor, and Father Dan that Time and Martin's own observation are to +tell him what is going to happen, and none of us are to say anything +about it. + +What a deceiver I am, though! I put it all down to my unselfish love for +Martin. It would be such a blow to him--disturbing his plans, upsetting +everything, perhaps causing him to postpone his Expedition, or even to +abandon it altogether. "Let the truth fall soft on him. He'll see it +soon enough. Don't let us be cruel." + +The dear sweet, unsuspecting old darlings have taken it all in--all my +vain and cowardly selfishness. I am to play the part of pretending to +fall in with Martin's plans, and they are to stand by and say nothing. + +Can I do it? I wonder, I wonder! + + * * * * * + +JULY 15. I am becoming quite a great actress! It's astonishing to see +how I develop my deceptions under all sorts of veils and disguises. + +Martin told me to-day that he had given up the idea of leaving me at +Wellington and had determined to take me on to Winter Quarters, having +met, on the way to Windsor, some great specialist in my kind of malady +(I wonder how much he knows of it), who declared that the climate of the +Antarctic would act on me like magic. + +Such glorious sunshine in summer! Such crisp, dry, stimulating air! New +life with every breath! Such a stunning little house, too, so cosy and +comfortable! And then the men whom he would leave behind while he +slipped down South--they would worship me! + +"How splendid! How glorious!" I cried. "How delightful to be mistress +over a houseful of big, hungry, healthy boys, who come in out of the +snow and want to eat up everything!" + +Sometimes I feel myself being carried away by my own acting, and then I +see the others (Christian Ann and the old doctor and Father Dan) +dropping their heads or stealing out of the room. + +I wish I were not so weak. I feel no pain whatever. Only this +temperature during the nights and the ever-deepening exhaustion in the +mornings. + + * * * * * + +JULY 16. I am keeping it up! To-day I was alone with Martin for a long +hour in the garden-house. Weather soft and beautiful, the heavens blue, +and gleams of sunshine coming through the trellis-work. + +Merely to sit beside my darling with his odour of health is to feel a +flood of bodily strength coursing through me, enough to make me forget +that I am a frail thing myself, who could be blown away by a puff of +wind. But to hear him talk on his own subject is to be lifted up to the +highest reaches of the soul. + +I always say there is a dumb poet in every explorer; but the poet wasn't +dumb to-day when Martin talked about the cyclone or anticyclone, or +whatever it is which covers the region of the South Pole like a cap, and +determines the weather of a great part of the habitable globe. + +"We are going to take from God his word and pass it on to the world," he +said. + +After that he made reference (for the first time since his return) to +the difficulties of our position, saying what a glorious thing it would +be to escape to that great free region from the world of civilisation, +with its effete laws and worn-out creeds which enslave humanity. + +"Only a month to-day until we start, and you'll be well enough to travel +then, dearest." + +"Yes, yes, only a month to-day, and I shall be well enough then, +dearest." + +Oh, Mary O'Neill! How much longer will you be able to keep it up, dear? + + * * * * * + +JULY 17. Martin brought the proofs of his new book from London, and +to-day in the summer-house (bluebells paling out and hanging their +heads, but the air full of the odour of fruit trees) he and Dr. +O'Sullivan and I have been correcting "galleys"--the doctor reading +aloud, Martin smoking his briar-root pipe, and I (in a crater of +cushions) supposed to be sitting as judge and jury. + +Such simple, straight, natural writing! There may have been a thousand +errors but my ears heard none of them. The breathless bits about the +moments when death was near; the humorous bits about patching the tent +with the tails of their shirts when an overturned lamp burnt a hole in +the canvas--this was all I was conscious of until I was startled by the +sound of a sepulchral voice, groaning out "Oh Lord a-massy me!" and by +the sight of a Glengarry cap over the top of the fuchsia hedge. Old +Tommy was listening from the road. + +We sat late over our proofs and then, the dew having begun to fall, +Martin said he must carry me indoors lest my feet should get wet--which +he did, with the result that, remembering what had happened on our first +evening at Castle Raa, I had a pretty fit of hysterics as soon as we +reached the house. + +"Let's skip, Commanther," was the next thing I heard, and then I was +helped upstairs to bed. + + * * * * * + +JULY 18. What a flirt I am becoming! Having conceived the idea that Dr. +O'Sullivan is a little wee bit in love with me too, I have been playing +him off against Martin. + +It was so delicious (after all I have gone through) to have two +magnificent men, out of the heroic youth of the world, waiting hand and +foot on one little woman, that the feminine soul in me to-day couldn't +resist the temptation to an innocent effort at coquetry. + +So before we began business on the proofs I told Martin that, if he was +determined to leave me behind at winter quarters while he went away to +the Pole, he must allow Dr. O'Sullivan to remain behind to take care of +me. + +Of course the doctor rose to my bait like a dear, crying: + +"He will too--by St. Patrick and St. Thomas he will, and a mighty proud +man he'll be entirely. . . ." + +But good gracious! A momentary shadow passed over Martin's face, then +came one of his big broad smiles, then out shot his clinched fist, and +. . . the poor doctor and his garden seat were rolling over each other on +the grass. + +However, we got through without bloodshed, and did good day's work on +the book. + +I must not write any more. I have always written in my own book at +night, when I haven't been able to get any kind of Christian sleep; but +I'm weaker now, so must stop, lest I shouldn't have strength enough for +Martin's. + + * * * * * + +JULY 20. Oh dear! I am dragging all these other poor dears into my +deceptions. Christian Ann does not mind what lies, or half-lies, she has +to tell in order to save pain to her beloved son. But the old doctor! +And Father Dan! + +To-day itself, as Martin's mother would say, I had to make my poor old +priest into a shocking story-teller. + +I developed a cough a few weeks ago, and though it is not really of much +account I have been struggling to smother it while Martin has been +about, knowing he is a doctor himself, and fearing his ear might detect +the note. + +But this afternoon (whether a little damp, with a soft patter of sweet +rain on the trees and the bushes) I had a rather bad bout, at which +Martin's face looked grave, until I laughed and said: + +"It's nothing! I've had this sort of cough every summer since I was +born--haven't I, Father Dan?" + +"Ye-es." + +I shall have to remember that in my next confession, but what Father Dan +is to do I really don't know. + + * * * * * + +JULY 21. I have been rather down to-day about a newspaper that came to +me anonymously from Paris, with a report marked for my special +delectation. + +"FASHIONABLE MARRIAGE OF AN ENGLISH PEER AND AN AMERICAN HEIRESS." + +My husband's and Alma's! It took place at the American Embassy, and was +attended by great numbers of smart people. There was a long account of +the grandeur of the bride's dress and of the splendour of the +bridegroom's presents. They have taken an apartment on the Champs +Elysées and will spend most of the year in Paris. + +Ah well, why should I trouble about a matter that so little concerns me? +Alma is still beautiful; she will be surrounded by admirers; her salon +will be frequented by the fashionable parasites of Europe and America. + +As for my husband, the straw-fire of his wife's passion for him will +soon burn out, especially now that she has gained what she wanted--his +name, his title. + + * * * * * + +Martin carried me upstairs to bed to-night. I was really feeling weaker +than usual, but we made a great game of it. Nurse went first, behind a +mountain of pillows; Martin and I came next, with his arms about my body +and mine around his neck; and Dr. O'Sullivan last, carrying two tall +brass candlesticks. + +How we laughed! We all laughed together, as if trying to see which of us +could laugh the loudest. Only Christian Ann looked serious, standing at +the bottom of the stairs, nursing baby in her nightdress. + +It is three o'clock in the morning as I write, and I can hear our +laughter still--only it sounds like sobbing now. + + * * * * * + +JULY 22. Have heard something to-day that has taken all the warmth of +life out of me. It is about my father, whom the old doctor still +attends. Having been told of my husband's marriage he has announced his +intention of claiming my child if anything happens to me! + +What his object may be I do not know. He cannot be thinking of +establishing a claim to my husband's title--Isabel being a girl. +Remembering something his lawyer said about the marriage settlement when +I consulted him on the subject of divorce, I can only assume that (now +he is poor) he is trying to recover the inheritance he settled on my +husband. + +It frightens me--raising my old nightmare of a lawsuit about the +legitimacy of my child. I want to speak to Martin about it. Yet how can +I do so without telling him the truth which I have been struggling so +hard to conceal? + + * * * * * + +JULY 23. Oh, Mary O'Neill, what are you coming to? + +I told Martin about father's threat, only I gave it another colour. He +had heard of the Reverend Mother's visit, so I said the rumour had +reached my father that I intended to enter a convent, and he had +declared that, if I did so, he would claim my child from Christian Ann, +being its nearest blood relation. + +"Can he do so--when I am . . . when we are gone?" I asked. + +I thought Martin's strong face looked sterner than I had ever seen it. +He made a vague reply and left me soon afterwards on some sort of +excuse. + +About an hour later he came back to carry me upstairs, and just as he +was setting me down, and Christian Ann was coming in with the candles, +he whispered: + +"Don't worry about Girlie. I've settled that matter, I'm thinking." + +What has he done, I wonder? + + +MEMORANDUM OF MARTIN CONRAD + +What I had done is easily told. I had gone straight to Daniel O'Neill +himself, intending to know the truth of the story and to act +accordingly. + +Already I knew enough to scent mischief. I could not be so stupefied +into blindness of what was going on under my eyes as not to see that the +dirty question of money, and perhaps the dirtier question of the aims +and expectations of the woman MacLeod, were at the root of the matter +that was distressing my darling. + +Daniel O'Neill had left the Big House and gone to live in his mother's +old cottage for two reasons--first, to delude the law into the idea that +he was himself utterly ruined by the bankruptcy to which he had brought +the whole island; and next, to gratify the greed of his mistress, who +wanted to get him to herself at the end, so that he might be persuaded +to marry her (if it were only on his death-bed) and so establish, +against any claim of his daughter's, her widow's rights in what a +husband leaves behind him--which is half of everything in Ellan. + +What connection this had with the man's desire to get hold of the child +I had yet to learn; but I meant to learn it without another hour's +delay, so I set off for the cottage on the curragh. + +It was growing dark, and not being sure of my way through the +ever-changing bypaths of the bog land, I called on Father Dan to guide +me. The old priest seemed to know my errand (the matter my darling had +communicated as a secret being common knowledge), and at first he looked +afraid. + +"Well . . . yes, yes . . . why shouldn't I?" he said, and then, "Yes, I +will, I will"--with the air of a man who had made up his mind to a +daring enterprise. + +Our curragh is a stretch of wild marsh lying over against the sea, +undrained, only partly cultivated, half covered with sedge and sallow +bushes, and consequently liable to heavy mists. There was a mist over it +that night, and hence it was not easy even for Father Dan (accustomed to +midnight visits to curragh cottages) to find the house which had once +been the home of "Neale the Lord." + +We rooted it out at last by help of the parish constable, who was +standing at the corner of a by-road talking to the coachman of a +gorgeous carriage waiting there, with its two splendid horses smoking in +the thick night air. + +When, over the shingle of what we call "the street," we reached the low +straggling crofter-cottage under its thick trammon tree (supposed to +keep off the evil spirits), I rapped with my knuckles at the door, and +it was opened by a tall scraggy woman with a candle in her hand. + +This was Nessy MacLeod, harder and uglier than ever, with her red hair +combed up, giving her the appearance of a bunch of carrots over two +stalks of rhubarb. + +Almost before I had time to say that we had come to see Mr. O'Neill, and +to step into the house while saying so, a hoarse, husky, querulous man's +voice cried from within: + +"Who is it, Nessy?" + +It's Father Dan, and Martin . . . I mean Sir. . . ." + +"That'll do," I said, and the next moment we were in the living-room--a +bare, bleak, comfortless Curraghman's kitchen. + +A more incongruous sight than we saw there human eyes never beheld. + +Daniel O'Neill, a shadow of the big brute creature he once was, a +shrivelled old man, with his bony hands scored and contracted like an +autumn leaf, his shrunken legs scarcely showing through his baggy +trousers, his square face whiter than the wall behind it, and a piece of +red flannel hanging over his head like a cowl, sat in the elbow-chair at +the side of the hearth-fire, while at a deal table, which was covered +with papers that looked like law deeds and share certificates (being +stamped and sealed), sat the Bishop of the island, and its leading +lawyer, Mr. Curphy. + +On hearing my name and seeing me enter the house, Daniel O'Neill lost +all control of himself. He struggled to his feet by help of a stick, and +as I walked up to him he laid hold of me. + +"You devil!" he cried. "You infernal villain! You. . . ." + +But it is of no use to repeat what else he said in the fuming of his +rage, laying hold of me by the collar of my coat, and tugging at it as +if he would drag me to his feet. + +I was half sorry for the man, badly as I thought of him, so I only +opened his hand (easy enough to do, for the grip was gone from it) and +said: + +"You're an old man, sir, and you're a sick man--don't tempt me to forget +that you are the father of Mary O'Neill. Sit down." + +He sat down, breathless and broken, without another word. But the +Bishop, with a large air of outraged dignity, faced about to poor Father +Dan (who was standing near the door, turning his round hat in his +trembling hands) and said: + +"Father Donovan, did you know that Mr. O'Neill was very ill?" + +"I did, Monsignor," said Father Dan. + +"And that a surgeon is coming from London to perform an operation upon +him--did you know that?" + +"I did, Monsignor." + +"Did you know also that I was here to-night to attend with Mr. Curphy to +important affairs and perhaps discharge some sacred duties?" + +"I knew that too, Monsignor." + +"Then," said the Bishop, pointing at me, "how dare you bring this man +here--this man of all others, who has been the chief instrument in +bringing shame and disgrace upon our poor sick friend and his deeply +injured family?" + +"So that's how you look at it, is it, Monsignor?" + +"Yes, sir, that is how I look at it, and I am sorry for a priest of my +Church who has so weakened his conscience by sympathy with notorious +sinners as to see things in any other light." + +"Sinners, Bishop?" + +"Didn't you hear me, Father Donovan? Or do you desire me to use a harder +name for them--for one of them in particular, on whom you have wasted so +much weak sentimentality, to the injury of your spiritual influence and +the demoralisation of your parish. I have warned you already. Do you +wish me to go further, to remove you from your Presbytery, or perhaps +report your conduct to those who have power to take the frock off your +back? What standard of sanctity for the sacrament of Holy Matrimony do +you expect to maintain while you degrade it by openly associating with a +woman who has broken her marriage vows and become little better . . . I +grieve to say it [with a deep inclination of the head towards the poor +wreck in the elbow-chair] little better than a common. . . ." + +I saw the word that was coming, and I was out in an instant. But there +was somebody before me. It was Father Dan. The timid old priest seemed +to break in one moment the bonds of a life-long tyranny. + +"What's that you say, Monsignor?" he cried in a shrill voice. "_I_ +degrade the sacrament of Holy Matrimony? Never in this world! But if +there's anybody in the island of Ellan who has done that same every day +of his life, it's yourself, and never more cruelly and shamefully than +in the case we're talking of at this present speaking." + +"I'm not used to this kind of language from my clergy, Father Donovan," +began the Bishop, but before he could say more Father Dan caught him up +by crying: + +"Perhaps not, Monsignor. But you've got to hear for once, and that's +now. When this man [pointing to Daniel O'Neill] for his own purposes +wanted to marry his daughter (who was a child and had no choice in the +matter) to one of another faith, a man who didn't believe in the +sacrament of marriage as we know it, who was it that paved the way for +him?" + +"You actually mean that _I_. . . ." + +"I mean that without your help, Monsignor, a good girl could never have +been married to a bad man. You didn't act in ignorance, either. When +somebody told you--somebody who is here now--that the man to whom you +were going to marry that innocent girl was a notorious loose liver, a +profligate, a reprobate, a betrayer of women, and a damned +scoundrel. . . ." + +"Go on, Father Dan; that's God's own name for him," I said, when the old +priest caught his breath for a moment, terrified by the word that had +burst from his lips. + +"Let's have an end of this," said the Bishop mightily. + +"Wait a bit, sir," I said, and then Father Dan went on to say how he had +been told there was nothing to my story, and how he had been forbidden +to inquire into it. + +"That's how you made _me_ a party to this wicked marriage, God and his +Holy Mother pardon me! And now that it has come to the end you might +have expected, and the poor helpless child who was bought and sold like +a slave is in the position of the sinner, you want me to cut her off, to +turn the hearts of all good people against her, to cast her out of +communion, to make her a thing to point the finger at--me, her spiritual +father who baptized her, taking her out of the arms of the angel who +bore her and giving her to Christ--or if I won't you'll deprive me of my +living, you'll report me to Rome, you'll unfrock me. . . ." + +"Do it, Monsignor," cried Father Dan, taking a step nearer to the Bishop +and lifting a trembling hand over his head. "Do it, if our holy Church +will permit you, and I'll put a wallet on my old shoulders and go round +the houses of my parish in my old age, begging a bite of bread and a +basin of meal, and sleeping under a thorn bush, rather than lay my head +on my pillow and know that that poor victim of your wicked scheming is +in the road." + +The throbbing and breaking of the old priest's voice had compelled me to +drop my head, and it was not until I heard the sneck of the lock of the +outer door that I realised that, overcome by his emotion, he had fled +from the house. + +"And now I guess you can follow your friend," said Daniel O'Neill. + +"Not yet, sir," I answered; "I have something to say first." + +"Well, well, what is it, please?" said the lawyer sharply and +insolently, looking to where I was standing with folded arms at one side +of the hearth-place. + +"You'll hear soon enough, Master Curphy," I answered. + +Then, turning back to Daniel O'Neill, I told him what rumour had reached +my dear one of his intentions with regard to her child, and asked him to +say whether there was any truth in it. + +"Answer the man, Curphy," said Daniel O'Neill, and thereupon the lawyer, +with almost equal insolence, turned to me and said: + +"What is it you wish to know, sir?" + +"Whether, if Mary O'Neill is unable from any cause to keep control of +her child (which God forbid!), her father intends to take possession of +it." + +"Why shouldn't he? If the mother dies, for instance, her father will be +the child's legal guardian." + +"But if by that time the father is dead too--what then?" + +"Then the control of the child will--with the consent of the +court--devolve upon his heir and representative." + +"Meaning this lady?" I asked, pointing to the woman MacLeod, who was now +standing at the back of Daniel O'Neill's chair. + +"Possibly." + +"And what will she do with it?" + +"Do with it?" + +The lawyer was running his fingers through his long beard and trying to +look perplexed. + +"Mr. Curphy, I'll ask you not to pretend to be unable to understand me. +If and when this lady gets possession of Mary O'Neill's child, what is +she going to do with it?" + +"Very well," said the advocate, seeing I meant business, "since my +client permits me to speak, I'll tell you plainly. Whatever the child's +actual parentage . . . perhaps you know best. . . ." + +"Go on, sir." + +"Whatever the child's parentage, it was born in wedlock. Even the +recent divorce proceedings have not disturbed that. Therefore we hold +that the child has a right to the inheritance which in due time should +come to Mary O'Neill's offspring by the terms of the settlement upon her +husband." + +It was just as I expected, and every drop of my blood boiled at the +thought of my darling's child in the hands of that frozen-hearted woman. + +"So that is the law, is it?" + +"That is the law in Ellan." + +"In the event of Mary O'Neill's death, and her father's death, her child +and all its interests will come into the hands of. . . ." + +"Of her father's heir and representative." + +"Meaning, again, this lady?" + +"Probably." + +The woman at the back of the chair began to look restless. + +"I don't know, sir," she said, "if your repeated references to me are +intended to reflect upon my character, or my ability to bring up the +child well and look after its interests properly." + +"They are, madam--they most certainly and assuredly are," I answered. + +"Daniel!" she cried. + +"Be quiet, gel," said Daniel O'Neill. "Let the man speak. We'll see what +he has come for presently. Go on, sir." + +I took him at his word, and was proceeding to say that as I understood +things it was intended to appeal to the courts in order to recover +(nominally for the child) succession to the money which had been settled +on Mary O'Neill's husband at the time of their marriage, when the old +man cried, struggling again to his feet: + +"There you are! The money! It's the money the man's after! He took my +daughter, and now he's for taking my fortune--what's left of it, anyway. +He shan't, though! No, by God he shan't! . . . Go back to your woman, +sir. Do you hear me?--your woman, and tell her that neither you nor she +shall touch one farthing of my fortune. I'm seeing to that now. It's +what we're here for to-night--before that damnable operation to-morrow, +for nobody knows what will come of it. She has defied me and ruined me, +and made me the byword of the island, God's curse on her. . . ." + +"Daniel! Daniel!" cried the MacLeod woman, trying to pacify the +infuriated madman and to draw him back to his seat. + +I would have given all I had in the world if Daniel O'Neill could have +been a strong man at that moment, instead of a poor wisp of a thing with +one foot in the grave. But I controlled myself as well as I could and +said: + +"Mr. O'Neill, your daughter doesn't want your fortune, and as for +myself, you and your money are no more to me than an old hen sitting on +a nest of addled eggs. Give it to the lady at the back of your +chair--she has earned it, apparently." + +"Really," said the Bishop, who had at length recovered from Father Dan's +onslaught. "Really, Sir What-ever-your-name is, this is too +outrageous--that you should come to this lonely house at this time of +night, interrupting most urgent business, not to speak of serious +offices, and make injurious insinuations against the character of a +respectable person--you, sir, who had the audacity to return openly to +the island with the partner of your sin, and to lodge her in the house +of your own mother--your own mother, sir, though Heaven knows what kind +of mother it can be who harbours her son's sin-laden mistress, his +woman, as our sick friend says. . . ." + +Lord! how my hands itched! But controlling myself again, with a mighty +effort I said: + +"Monsignor, I don't think I should advise you to say that again." + +"Why not, sir?" + +"Because I have a deep respect for your cloth and should be sorry to see +it soiled." + +"Violence!" cried the Bishop, rising to his feet. "You threaten me with +violence? . . . Is there no policeman in this parish, Mr. Curphy?" + +"There's one at the corner of the road, Bishop," I said. "I brought him +along with me. I should have brought the High Bailiff too, if there had +been time. You would perhaps be no worse for a few witnesses to the +business that seems to be going on here." + +Saying this, as I pointed to the papers on the table, I had hit harder +than I knew, for both the Bishop and the lawyer (who had also risen) +dropped back into their seats and looked at each other with expressions +of surprise. + +Then, stepping up to the table, so as to face the four of them, I said, +as calmly and deliberately as I could: + +"Now listen to me. I am leaving this island in about three weeks time, +and expect to be two years--perhaps three years--away. Mary O'Neill is +going with me--as my wife. She intends to leave her child in the care of +my mother, and I intend to promise her that she may set her mind at ease +that it shall never under any circumstances be taken away. You seem to +have made up your minds that she is going to die. Please God she may +disappoint your expectations and come back strong and well. But if she +does not, and I have to return alone, and if I find that her child has +been removed from the protection in which she left it, do you know what +I shall do?" + +"Go to the courts, I presume," said the lawyer. + +"Oh dear, no! I'll go to no courts, Mr. Curphy. I'll go to the people +who have set the courts in motion--which means that I'll go to _you_ and +_you_ and _you_ and _you_. Heaven knows how many of us may be living +when that day comes; but as surely as I am, if I find that the promise I +made to Mary O'Neill has been a vain one, and that her child is under +this woman's control and the subject of a lawsuit about this man's +money, and she in her grave, as surely as the Lord God is above us there +isn't one soul of you here present who will be alive the following +morning." + +That seemed to be enough for all of them. Even old Daniel O'Neill (the +only man in the house who had an ounce of fight in him) dropped his head +back in his chair, with his mouth wide open and his broken teeth showing +behind his discoloured lips. + +I thought Father Dan would have been waiting for me under the trammon on +"the street," but he had gone back to the Presbytery and sent Tommy the +Mate to lead me through the mist and the by-lanes to the main road. + +The old salt seemed to have a "skute" into the bad business which had +brought out the Bishop and the lawyer at that late hour, and on parting +from me at the gate of Sunny Lodge he said: + +"Lord-a-massy me, what for hasn't ould Tom Dug a fortune coming to him?" + +And when I asked him what he would do with a fortune if he had one he +answered: + +"Do? Have a tunderin' [thundering] good law-shoot and sattle some o' +them big fellas." + +Going to bed in the "Plough" that night, I had an ugly vision of the +scene being enacted in the cottage on the curragh (a scene not without +precedent in the history of the world, though the priesthood as a whole +is so pure and noble)--the midnight marriage of a man dying in unnatural +hatred of his own daughter (and she the sweetest woman in the world) +while the priest and the prostitute divided the spoils. + +[END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM] + + + + +ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEENTH CHAPTER + + +JULY 25. The old doctor brought me such sad and startling news to-day. +My poor father is dead--died yesterday, after an operation which he had +deferred too long, refusing to believe it necessary. + +The dreadful fact has hitherto been kept secret not only from me but +from everybody, out of fear of legal proceedings arising from the +failure of banks, &c., which has brought the whole island to the verge +of bankruptcy. + +He was buried this morning at old St. Mary's--very early, almost before +daybreak, to suit the convenience of the Bishop, who wished to catch the +first steamer _en route_ for Rome. + +As a consequence of these strange arrangements, and the secrecy that has +surrounded my father's life of late, people are saying that he is not +dead at all, that in order to avoid prosecution he has escaped from the +island (going off with the Bishop in a sort of disguise), and that the +coffin put into the grave this morning did not contain a human body. + +"But that's all wrong," said the old doctor. "Your father is really dead +and buried, and the strange man who went away with the Bishop was the +London surgeon who performed the operation." + +I can hardly realise it--that the strong, stalwart being, the stern old +lion whose heavy foot, tramping through my poor mother's room, used to +make the very house shake, is gone. + +He died as he had lived, it seems. To the last self-centred, inflexible, +domineering--a peasant yet a great man (if greatness is to be measured +by power), ranking, I think, in his own little scene of life with the +tragic figures of history. + +I have spent the day in bitter grief. Ever since I was a child there has +been a dark shadow between my father and me. He was like a beetling +mountain, always hanging over my head. I wonder whether he wished to see +me at the end. Perhaps he did, and was over-persuaded by the cold and +savourless nature of Nessy MacLeod, who is giving it out, I hear, that +grief and shame for me killed him. + +People will say he was a vulgar parvenu, a sycophant, a snob--heaven +knows what. All wrong! For the true reading of his character one has to +go back to the day when he was a ragged boy and the liveried coachman of +the "bad Lord Raa" lashed at his mother on the road, and he swore that +when he was a man she should have a carriage of her own, and then +"nobody should never lash her." + +He found Gessler's cap in the market-place and was no more willing than +Tell to bend the knee to it. + +My poor father! He did wrong to use another life, another soul, for +either his pride or his revenge. But God knows best how it will be with +him, and if he was the first cause of making my life what it has been, I +send after him (I almost tremble to say it) if not my love, my +forgiveness. + + * * * * * + +JULY 26. I begin to realise that after all I was not romancing when I +told the old dears that Martin and his schemes would collapse if I +failed him. Poor boy, he is always talking as it everything depended +upon me. It is utterly frightening to think what would happen to the +Expedition if he thought I could not sail with him on the sixteenth. + +Martin is not one of the men who weep for their wives as if the sun had +suffered eclipse, and then marry again before their graves are green. +So, having begun on my great scheme of pretending that I am getting +better every day, and shall be "ready to go, never fear," I have to keep +it up. + +I begin to suspect, though, that I am not such a wonderful actress after +all. Sometimes in the midst of my raptures I see him looking at me +uneasily as if he were conscious of a certain effort. At such moments I +have to avoid his eyes lest anything should happen, for my great love +seems to be always lying in wait to break down my make-believe. + +To-day (though I had resolved not to give way to tears) when he was +talking about the voyage out, and how it would "set me up" and how the +invigorating air of the Antarctic would "make another woman of me," I +cried: + +"How splendid! How glorious!" + +"Then why are you crying?" he asked. + +"Oh, good gracious, that's nothing--for _me_," I answered. + +But if I am throwing dust in Martin's eyes I am deceiving nobody else, +it seems. To-night after he and Dr. O'Sullivan had gone back to the +"Plough," Father Dan came in to ask Christian Ann how she found me, and +being answered rather sadly, I heard him say: + +"_Ugh cha nee!_ [Woe is me!] What is life? It is even a vapour which +appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away." + +And half an hour later, when old Tommy came to bring me some lobsters +(he still declares they are the only food for invalids) and to ask +"how's the lil woman now?" I heard him moaning, as he was going out: + +"There'll be no shelter for her this voyage, the _vogh!_ She'll carry +the sea in with her to the Head, I'm thinking." + + * * * * * + +JULY 27. I _must_ keep it up--I must, I must! To allow Martin's hopes +and dreams to be broken in upon now would be enough to kill me outright. + +I don't want to be unkind, but some explorers leave the impression that +their highest impulse is the praise of achievement, and once they have +done something all they've got to do next is to stay at home and talk +about it. Martin is not like that. Exploration is a passion with him. +The "lure of the little voices" and the "call of the Unknown" have been +with him from the beginning, and they will be with him to the end. + +I cannot possibly think of Martin dying in bed, and being laid to rest +in the green peace of English earth--dear and sweet as that is to tamer +natures, mine for instance. I can only think of that wild heroic soul +going up to God from the broad white wilderness of the stormy South, and +leaving his body under heaving hummocks of snow with blizzards blowing a +requiem over his grave. + +Far off may that glorious ending be, but shall my poor failing heart +make it impossible? Never, never, never! + +Moral--I'm going to get up every day--whatever my nurse may say. + + * * * * * + +JULY 28. I was rocking baby to sleep this afternoon when Christian Ann, +who was spinning by the fire, told me of a quarrel between Aunt Bridget +and Nessy MacLeod. + +It seems that Nessy (who says she was married to my father immediately +before the operation) claims to be the heiress of all that is left, and +as the estate includes the Big House she is "putting the law on" Aunt +Bridget to obtain possession. + +Poor Aunt Bridget! What a pitiful end to all her scheming for Betsy +Beauty, all her cruelties to my long-suffering mother, all her +treatment of me--to be turned out of doors by her own step-daughter! + +When old Tommy heard of the lawsuit, he said: + +"Chut! Sarves her right, I say! It's the black life the Big Woman lived +before, and it's the black life she'll be living now, and her growing +old, and the Death looking in on her." + + * * * * * + +JULY 29. We have finished the proofs to-day and Dr. O'Sullivan has gone +back with them. I thought he looked rather _wae_ when he came to say +good-bye to me, and though he made a great deal of noise his voice was +husky when (swearing by his favourite Saints) he talked about "returning +for the tenth with all the boys, including Treacle." + +Of course that was nonsense about his being in love with me. But I'm +sure he loves me all the same--many, many people love me. I don't know +what I've done to deserve all this love. I have had a great deal of love +in my life now that I come to think of it. + +We worked hard over the last of the proofs, and I suppose I was tired at +the end of them, for when Martin carried me upstairs to-night there was +less laughter than usual, and I thought he looked serious as he set me +down by the bed. + +I bantered him about that ("A penny for your thoughts, mister"), but +towards midnight the truth flashed upon me--I am becoming thinner and +therefore lighter every day, and he is beginning to notice it. + +Moral--I must try to walk upstairs in future. + + * * * * * + +JULY 30. Ah, me! it looks as if it were going to be a race between me +and the Expedition--which shall come off first--and sometimes I am +afraid I am going to be the loser! + +Martin ought to sail on the sixteenth--only seventeen days! I am +expected to be married on the tenth--only eleven! Oh, Mary O'Neill, what +a strange contradictory war you are waging! Look straight before you, +dear, and don't be afraid. + +I had a letter from the Reverend Mother this evening. She is crossing +from Ireland to-morrow, which is earlier than she intended, so I suppose +Father Dan must have sent for her. + +I do hope Martin and she will get on comfortably together. A struggle +between my religion and my love would he more than I could bear now. + + * * * * * + +JULY 31. When I awoke this morning very late (I had slept after +daybreak) I was thinking of the Reverend Mother, but lo! who should +come into the room but the doctor from Blackwater! + +He was very nice; said I had promised to let him see me again, so he had +taken me at my word. + +I watched him closely while he examined me, and I could see that he was +utterly astonished--couldn't understand how I came to be alive--and said +he would never again deny the truth of the old saying about dying of a +broken heart, because I was clearly living by virtue of a whole one. + +I made pretence of wanting something in order to get nurse out of the +room, and then reached lip to the strange doctor and whispered "_When?_" + +He wasn't for telling me, talked about the miraculous power of God which +no science could reckon with, but at last I got a word out of him which +made me happy, or at least content. + +Perhaps it's sad, but many things look brighter that are far more +sorrowful--dying of a broken heart, for example, and (whatever else is +amiss with me) mine is not broken, but healed, gloriously healed, after +its bruises, so thank God for that, anyway! + + * * * * * + +Just had some heavenly sleep and such a sweet dream! I thought my +darling mother came to me. "You're cold, my child," she said, and then +covered me up in the bedclothes. I talked about leaving my baby, and she +said she had had to do the same--leaving me. "That's what we mothers +come to--so many of us--but heaven is over all," she whispered. + + * * * * * + +AUGUST 1. I really cannot understand myself, so it isn't a matter for +much surprise if nobody else understands me. In spite of what the +strange doctor said yesterday I dressed up grandly to-day, not only in +my tea-gown, but some beautiful old white Irish lace which nurse lent me +to wrap about my throat. + +I think the effect was rather good, and when I went downstairs leaning +on nurse's shoulder, there was Martin waiting for me, and though he did +not speak (couldn't perhaps), the look that came into his blue eyes was +the same as on that last night at Castle Raa when he said something +about a silvery fir-tree with its dark head against the sky. + +Oh, my own darling, I could wish to live for you, such as I am, if I +could be of any use, if I would not be a hindrance rather than a help, +if our union were right, if, in short, God Himself had not already +answered to all such questionings and beseechings, His great; +unalterable, irrevocable No! + + * * * * * + +AUGUST 2. The Reverend Mother, who arrived in the island last night, has +been with me all day. I think she _knows_, for she has said nothing more +about the convent--only (with her eyes so soft and tender) that she +intends to remain with me a little while, having need of rest herself. + +To my surprise and joy, Martin and she have got on famously. This +evening she told me that, in spite of all (I know what she meant by +that), she is willing to believe that he is a true man, and, +notwithstanding his unhappy opinions about the Church, a Christian +gentleman. + +Such a touching thing happened to-day. We were all sitting in the +garden, (sun warm, light breeze off the sea, ripe corn chattering in the +field opposite), when I felt a tugging at my skirts, and who should it +be but Isabel, who had been crawling along the dry grass plucking +daisies, and now, dragging herself up to my side, emptied them into my +lap. + +No, I will not give way to tears any more as long as I live, yet it +rather "touches me up," as Martin says, to see how one's vainest dreams +seem to come to pass. + +I don't know if Martin thought I was going to break down, but he rattled +away about Girlie having two other mothers now--Grandma, who would keep +her while we were down South, and the Reverend Mother, who would take +her to school when she was old enough. + +So there's nothing more to fear about baby. + +But what about Martin himself? Am I dealing fairly in allowing him to go +on with his preparations? isn't it a kind of cruelty not to tell him the +truth? + +This problem is preying on my mind. If I could only get some real sleep +perhaps I could solve it. + + * * * * * + +AUGUST 3. I am growing weaker every day. No pain; no cough; nothing but +exhaustion. Father Dan told me this morning that I was growing more than +ever like my mother--that "sweet saint whom the Lord has made his own." +I know what he means--like her as she was at the last. + +My poor old priest is such a child! A good old man is always a child--a +woman can see through and through him. + +Ah, me! I am cared for now as I never was before, yet I feel like baby +when she is tired after walking round the chairs and comes to be nursed. +What children we all are at the end--just children! + + * * * * * + +AUGUST 4. Father Dan came across, in breathless excitement to-day. It +seems the poor soul has been living in daily dread of some sort of +censure from Rome through his Bishop--about his toleration of me, I +suppose--but behold! it's the Bishop himself who has suffered censure, +having been sent into quarantine at one of the Roman Colleges and +forbidden to return to his diocese. + +And now, lo! a large sum of money comes from Rome for the poor of Ellan, +to be distributed by Father Dan! + +I think I know whose money it is that has been returned; but the dear +Father suspects nothing, and is full of a great scheme for a general +thanksgiving, with a procession of our village people to old St. Mary's +and then Rosary and Benediction. + +It is to come off on the afternoon of the tenth, it seems, my last day +in Ellan, after my marriage, but before my departure. + +How God governs everything! + + * * * * * + +AUGUST 6. It is really wrong of me to allow Martin to go on. This +morning he told me he had bought the special license for our marriage, +and this evening he showed me our tickets for Sydney--two berths, first +cabin, steadiest part of the ship. Oh, my dear heart, if you only knew +that I have had my ticket these many days, and that it is to take me out +first on the Great Expedition--to the still bigger Unknown, the +Everlasting Sea, the Immeasurable Eternity! + +I must be brave. Although I am a little cowardly sometimes, I _can_ be +brave. + +I have definitely decided to-night that I will tell him. But how can I +look into his face and say. . . . + + * * * * * + +AUGUST 7. I have made up my mind to write to Martin. One can say things +so much easier in a letter--I can, anyway. Even my voice affects +me--swelling and falling when I am moved, like a billow on the ocean. + +I find my writing cannot any longer be done in a sitting position in +bed, but I can prop my book on my breast and write lying down. + + + + +MARY O'NEILL'S LETTER TO MARTIN CONRAD + +_August 9th_, 6 A.M. + +MY OWN DARLING,--Strengthen yourself for what I am going to say. It will +be very hard for you--I know that, dear. + +To-morrow we were to have gone to the High Bailiff; this day week we +were to have sailed for Sydney, and two months hence we were to have +reached Winter Quarters. + +But I cannot go with you to the High Bailiff's; I cannot go with you to +Sydney; I cannot go with you to Winter Quarters; I cannot go anywhere +from here. It is impossible, quite impossible. + +I have loved too much, dear, so the power of life is burnt out for me. +My great love--love for my mother, for my darling baby, and above all +for you--has consumed me and I cannot live much longer. + +Forgive me for not telling you this before--for deceiving you by saying +that I was getting better and growing stronger when I knew I was not. I +used to think it was cowardice which kept me from telling you the truth, +but I see now that it was love, too. + +I was so greedy of the happiness I have had since I came to this house +of love that I could not reconcile myself to the loss of it. You will +try to understand that (won't you, dear?), and so forgive me for keeping +you in the dark down to the very last moment. + +This will be a great grief to you. I would die with a glad heart to save +you a moment's pain, yet I could not die at ease if I did not think you +would miss me and grieve for me. I like to think that in the time to +come people will say, "Once he loved Mary O'Neill, and now there is no +other woman in the world for him." I should not be a woman if I did not +feel like that--should I? + +But don't grieve too much, dearest. Only think! If I had been strong and +had years and years still to live, what a life would have been before +me--before both of us. + +We couldn't have lived apart, could we? And if we had married I should +never have been able to shake off the thought that the world, which +would always be opening its arms to you, did not want me. That would be +so, wouldn't it--after all I have gone through? The world never forgives +a woman for the injuries it inflicts on her itself, and I have had too +many wounds, darling, to stand by your side and be any help to you. + +Oh, I know what you would say, dearest. "She gave up everything for love +of me, choosing poverty, obscurity, and pain above wealth and rank and +ease, and therefore I will choose her before everything else in the +world." But I know what would come to us in the end, dear, and I should +always feel that your love for me had dragged you down, closed many of +the doors of life to you. I should know that you were always hearing +behind you the echoing footsteps of my fate, and that is the only thing +I could not bear. + +Besides, my darling, there is something else between us in this +world--the Divine Commandment! Our blessed Lord says we can never be man +and wife, and there is no getting beyond that, is there? + +Oh, don't think I reproach myself with loving you--that I think it a sin +to do so. I do not now, and never shall. He who made my heart what it is +must know that I am doing no wrong. + +And don't think I regret that night at Castle Raa. If I have to answer +to God for that I will do so without fear, because I know He will know +that, when the cruelty and self-seeking of others were trying to control +my most sacred impulses, I was only claiming the right He gave me to be +mistress of myself and sovereign of my soul. + +_You_ must not regret it either, dearest, or reproach yourself in any +way, for when we stand together before God's footstool He will see that +from the beginning I was yours and you were mine, and He will cover us +with the wings of His loving mercy. + +Then don't think, dear, that I have ever looked upon what happened +afterwards--first in Ellan and then in London--as, in any sense, a +punishment. I have never done that at any time, and now I believe from +the bottom of my heart that, if I suffered while you were away, it was +not for my sin but my salvation. + +Think, dear! If you and I had never met again after my marriage, and if +I had gone on living with the man they had married me to, my soul would +have shrivelled up and died. That is what happens to the souls of so +many poor women who are fettered for life to coarse and degrading +husbands. But my soul has not died, dearest, and it is not dying, +whatever my poor body may do, so I thank my gracious God for the sweet +and pure and noble love that has kept it alive. + +All the same, my darling, to marry again is another matter. I took my +vow before the altar, dear, and however ignorantly I took it, or under +whatever persuasion or constraint, it is registered in heaven. + +It cannot be for nothing, dear, that our blessed Lord made that stern +Commandment. The Church may have given a wrong interpretation to it--you +say it has, and I am too ignorant to answer you, even if I wished to, +which I don't. But I am sure my Lord foresaw all such mistakes, and all +the hardships that would come to many poor women (perhaps some men, +too), as well as the wreck the world might fall to for want of this +unyielding stay, when He issued his divine and irrevocable law that +never under any circumstances should marriage be broken. + +Oh, I am sure of it, dear, quite sure, and before His unsearchable +wisdom I bow my head, although my heart is torn. + +Yet think, darling, how light is the burden that is laid upon us! +Marriage vows are for this world only. The marriage law of the Church +which lasts as long as life does not go on one moment longer. The +instant death sets my body free, my soul may fly to where it belongs. If +I were going to live ten, twenty, thirty years, this might be cold +comfort, but I am not. + +Then why should we be sorry? You cannot be mine in this life and I +cannot be yours, so Death comes in its mercy and majesty to unite us! +Our love will go far beyond life, and the moment the barrier of death is +passed our union will begin! And once it begins it will never end! So +Death is not really a separator, but a great uniter! Don't you see that, +dearest? One moment of parting--hardly a moment, perhaps--and then we +shall be together through all Eternity! How wonderful! How glorious! How +triumphant! + +Do you believe in individual immortality, dear? I do. I believe that in +the other life I shall meet and know my dear ones who are in heaven. +More than that, I believe that the instant I pass from this life I shall +live with my dear ones who are still on earth. That is why I am willing +to go--because I am sure that the moment I draw my last breath I shall +be standing by your side. + +So don't let there be any weeping for me, dear. "Nothing is here for +tears; nothing but well and fair." Always remember--love is immortal. + +I will not say that I could not have wished to live a little longer--if +things had been otherwise with both of us. I should like to live to see +your book published and your work finished (I know it will be some day), +and baby grow up to be a good girl and a beautiful one too (for that's +something, isn't it?); and I should like to live a little longer for +another reason, a woman's reason--simply to be loved, and to be told +that I am loved, for though a woman may know that, she likes to hear it +said and is never tired of hearing it. + +But things have gone against us, and it is almost sinfully ungrateful to +regret anything when we have so many reasons for thankfulness. + +And then about Girlie--I used to think it would be terrible (for me, I +mean) to die before she could be old enough to have any clear memory of +her mother (such as I have of mine) to cherish and love--only the cold, +blank, unfilled by a face, which must be all that remains to most of +those whose parents passed away while they were children. But I am not +afraid of that now, because I know that in the future, when our little +girl asks about her mother, you will describe me to her as _you_ saw and +remember me--and that will be _so_ much sweeter and lovelier than I ever +was, and it will be _such_ a joy to think that my daughter sees me +through her father's eyes. + +Besides, dearest, there is something still more thrilling--the thought +that Girlie may grow to be like me (like what you _think_ me), and that +in the time to come she may startle you with undescribable resemblances, +in her voice or smile, or laugh, to her mother in heaven, so that some +day, perhaps, years and years hence, when she is quite grown up, she may +touch your arm and you may turn quickly to look at her, and lo! it will +seem to you as if Mary herself (_your_ Mary) were by your side. Oh +Death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? + +Go on with your great work, dearest. Don't let it flag from any cold +feeling that I am lost to you. Whenever you think of me, say to +yourself, "Mary is here; Love is stronger than death, many waters cannot +quench it." + +Did you ever read Browning? I have been doing so during the last few +days, nurse (she is quite a thoughtful woman) having lent me his last +volume. When I read the last lines of what is said to have been his last +poem I thought of you, dear: + + "_No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time + Greet the unseen with a cheer! + Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, + 'Strive and thrive!' Cry 'Speed,--fight on, fare ever + There as here!'_" + +I am going to get up again to-day, dear, having something to do that is +just a little important--to give you this manuscript book, in which I +have been writing every day (or rather every night since you found me in +London.) + +You will see what it is, and why it was written, so I'll say no more on +that subject. + +I am afraid you'll find it very egotistical, being mainly about myself; +but I seem to have been looking into my soul all the time, and when one +does that, and gets down to the deep places, one meets all other souls +there, so perhaps I have been writing the lives of some women as well. + +I once thought I could write a real book (you'll see what vain and +foolish things I thought, especially in my darker moments) to show what +a woman's life may be when, from any cause whatsoever, she is denied the +right God gave her of choosing the best for herself and her children. + +There is a dream lying somewhere there, dear, which is stirring the +slumber of mankind, but the awakening will not be in my time certainly, +and perhaps not even in Girlie's. + +And yet, why not? + +Do you know, dearest, what it was in your wonderful book which thrilled +me most? It was your description of the giant iceberg you passed in the +Antarctic Ocean--five hundred feet above the surface of the sea and +therefore five hundred below it, going steadily on and on, against all +the force of tempestuous wind and wave, by power of the current +underneath. + +Isn't the movement of all great things in life like that, dearest? So +perhaps the world will be a better place for Girlie than it has been for +me. And in any case, I shall always feel that, after all and in spite of +everything, it has been glorious to be a woman. + + * * * * * + +And now, my own darling, though we are only to be separated for a little +while, I want to write what I should like to say when I part from you +to-morrow if I did not know that something in my throat would choke me. + +I want to tell you again that I love you dearly, that I have never loved +anybody but you, and that no marriage vows will keep me from loving you +to the last. + +I want to thank you for the great, great love you have given me in +return--all the way back from the time when I was a child. Oh, my +dearest, may God for ever bless you for the sunshine you have brought +into my life--every single day of it, joyful days and sorrowful ones, +bright days and dark, but all shining with the glory of your love. + +Never allow yourself to think that my life has not been a happy one. +Looking back on it now I feel as if I have always had happiness. And +when I have not had happiness I have had something far higher and +better--blessedness. + +I have had _such_ joy in my life, dear--joy in the beauty of the world, +in the sunshine and the moon and the stars and the flowers and the songs +of the birds, and then (apart from the divine love that is too holy to +speak about) in my religion, in my beloved Church, in the love of my +dear mother and my sweet child, and above all--above all in _you_. + +I feel a sense of sacred thankfulness to God for giving you to me, and +if it has not been for long in this life, it will be for ever in the +next. + +So good-bye, my dearest me--_just for a little moment_! My dearest one, +Good-bye! + +MARY O'NEILL. + + + + +MARY O'NEILL'S LAST NOTE WRITTEN ON THE FLY-LEAVES OF HER MISSAL + +AUGUST 9-10. + + +It is all over. I have given him my book. My secret is out. He knows +now. I almost think he has known all along. + +I had dressed even more carefully than usual, with nurse's Irish lace +about my neck as a collar, and my black hair brushed smooth in my +mother's manner, and when I went downstairs by help of my usual kind +crutch (it is wonderful how strong I have been to-day) everybody said +how much better I was looking. + +Martin was there, and he took me into the garden. It was a little late +in the afternoon, but such a sweet and holy time, with its clear air and +quiet sunshine--one of those evenings when Nature is like a nun +"breathless with adoration." + +Although I had a feeling that it was to be our last time together we +talked on the usual subjects--the High Bailiff, the special license, +"the boys" of the _Scotia_ who were coming over for my wedding, and how +some of them would have to start out early in the morning. + +But it didn't matter what we talked about. It was only what we felt, and +I felt entirely happy--sitting there in my cushions, with my white hand +in his brown one, looking into his clear eyes and ruddy face or up to +the broad blue of the sky. + +The red sun had begun to sink down behind the dark bar of St. Mary's +Rock, and the daisies in the garden to close their eyes and drop their +heads in sleep, when Martin became afraid of the dew. + +Then we went back to the house--I walking firmly, by Martin's side, +though I held his arm so close. + +The old doctor was in his consulting room, nurse was in my room, and we +could hear Christian Ann upstairs putting baby into her darling white +cot--she sleeps with grandma now. + +The time came for me to go up also, and then I gave him my book, which I +had been carrying under my arm, telling him to read the last pages +first. + +Although we had never spoken of my book before he seemed to know all +about it; and it flashed upon me at that moment that, while I thought I +had been playing a game of make-believe with him, he had been playing a +game of make-believe with me, and had known everything from the first. +There was a certain relief in that, yet there was a certain sting in it, +too. What strange creatures we are, we women! + +For some moments we stood together at the bottom of the stairs, holding +each other's hands. I was dreadfully afraid he was going to break down +as he did at Castle Raa, and once again I had that thrilling, swelling +feeling (the most heavenly emotion that comes into a woman's life, +perhaps) that I, the weak one, had to strengthen the strong. + +It was only for a moment, though, and then he put his great gentle arms +about me, and kissed me on the lips, and said, _silently_ but oh, so +eloquently, "Good-bye darling, and God bless you!" + +Then I walked upstairs alone, quite alone, and when I reached the top he +was still at the bottom looking up at me. I smiled down to him, then +walked firmly into my room and up to my bed, and then . . . down, all +my strength gone in a moment. + + * * * * * + +I have had such a wonderful experience during the night. It was like a +dream, and yet something more than a dream. I don't want to make too +much of it--to say that it was a vision or any supernatural +manifestation such as the blessed Margaret Mary speaks about. Perhaps it +was only the result of memory operating on my past life, my thoughts and +desires. But perhaps it was something higher and more spiritual, and +God, for my comforting, has permitted me to look for one moment behind +the veil. + +I thought it was to-morrow--my wedding day, and the day of Father Dan's +thanksgiving celebration--and I was sitting by my French window (which +was wide open) to look at the procession. + +I seemed to see everything--Father Dan in his surplice, the fishermen in +their clean "ganzies," the village people in their Sunday clothes, the +Rechabites, the Foresters, and the Odd-fellows with their coloured +badges and banners coming round the corner of the road, and the mothers +with babies too young to be left looking on from the bridge. + +I thought the procession passed under my window and went on to the +church, which was soon crowded, leaving numbers of people to kneel on +the path in front, as far down as the crumbling gate piers which lean +towards each other, their foundations having given way. + +Then I thought Benediction began, and when the congregation sang I sang +also. I heard myself singing: + + "_Mater purissima, + Ora pro nobis_." + +Down to this moment I thought I had been alone, but now the Reverend +Mother entered my room, and she joined me. I heard her deep rich voice +under mine: + + "_Mater castissima + Ora pro nobis_." + +Then I thought the _Ora_ ended, and in the silence that followed it I +heard Christian Arm talking to baby on the gravel path below. I had +closed my eyes, yet I seemed to see them, for I felt as if I were under +some strange sweet anęsthetic which had taken away all pain but not all +consciousness. + +Then I thought I saw Martin come close under my window and lift baby up +to me, and say something about her. + +I tried to answer him and could not, but I smiled, and then there was +darkness, in which I heard voices about me, with somebody sobbing and +Father Dan saying, as he did on the morning my mother died: + +"Don't call her back. She's on her way to God's beautiful paradise after +all her suffering." + +After that the darkness became still deeper, and the voices faded away, +and then gradually a great light came, a beautiful, marvellous, +celestial light, such as Martin describes when he speaks about the +aurora, and then . . . I was on a broad white snowy plateau, and Martin +was walking by my side. + +How wonderful! How joyful! How eternally glorious! + + * * * * * + +It is 4 A.M. Some of "the boys" will be on their way to my wedding. +Though I have been often ashamed of letting them come I am glad now for +his sake that I didn't try to keep them back. With his comrades about +him he will control himself and be strong. + + * * * * * + +Such a peaceful morning! There is just light enough to see St. Mary's +Rock. It is like a wavering ghost moving in the vapour on the face of +the deep. I can hear the far-off murmur of the sea. It is like the +humming in a big shell. A bird is singing in the garden and the swallows +are twittering in a nest under the thatch. A mist is lying over the +meadows, and the tree tops seem to be floating between the earth and the +sky. + +How beautiful the world is! + +Very soon the mist will rise, and the day will break and the sun will +come again and . . . there will be no more night. + +[END OF THE NARRATIVE OF MARY O'NEILL] + + +MEMORANDUM OF MARTIN CONRAD + +My darling was right. I had known all along, but I had been hoping +against hope--that the voyage would set her up, and the air of the +Antarctic cure her. + +Then her cheerfulness never failed her, and when she looked at me with +her joyous eyes, and when her soft hand slipped into mine I forgot all +my fears, so the blow fell on me as suddenly as if I had never expected +it. + +With a faint pathetic smile she gave me her book and I went back to my +room at the inn and read it. I read all night and far into the next +day--all her dear story, straight from her heart, written out in her +small delicate, beautiful characters, with scarcely an erasure. + +No use saying what I thought or went through. So many things I had never +known before! Such love as I had never even dreamt of, and could never +repay her for now! + +How my whole soul rebelled against the fate that had befallen my dear +one! If I have since come to share, however reluctantly, her sweet +resignation, to bow my head stubbornly where she bowed hers so meekly +(before the Divine Commandment), and to see that marriage, true +marriage, is the rock on which God builds His world, it was not then +that I thought anything about that. + +I only thought with bitter hatred of the accursed hypocrisies of +civilised society which, in the names of Law and Religion, had been +crushing the life out of the sweetest and purest woman on earth, merely +because she wished to be "mistress of herself and sovereign of her +soul." + +What did I care about the future of the world? Or the movement of divine +truths? Or the new relations of man and woman in the good time that was +to come? Or the tremendous problems of lost and straying womanhood, or +the sufferings of neglected children, or the tragedies of the whole +girlhood of the world? What did I care about anything but my poor +martyred darling? The woman God gave me was mine and I could not give +her up--not now, after all she had gone through. + +Sometime in the afternoon (heaven knows when) I went back to Sunny +Lodge. The house was very quiet. Baby was babbling on the hearth-rug. My +mother was silent and trying not to let me see her swollen eyes. My dear +one was sleeping, had been sleeping all day long, the sleep of an angel. +Strange and frightening fact, nobody being able to remember that she had +ever been seen to sleep before! + +After a while, sick and cold at heart, I went down to the shore where we +had played as children. The boat we sailed in was moored on the beach. +The tide was far out, making a noise on the teeth of the Rock, which +stood out against the reddening sky, stern, grand, gloomy. + +Old Tommy the Mate came to the door of his cabin. I went into the quiet +smoky place with its earthen floor and sat in a dull torpor by the +hearth, under the sooty "laff" and rafters. The old man did not say a +word to me. He put some turf on the fire and then sat on a three-legged +stool at the other side of the hearth-place. + +Once he got up and gave me a basin of buttermilk, then stirred the peats +and sat down again without speaking. Towards evening, when the rising +sea was growing louder, I got up to go. The old man followed me to the +door, and there, laying his hand on my arm he said: + +"She's been beating to windward all her life, boy. But mind ye +this--_she's fetching the harbour all right at last_." + +Going up the road I heard a band of music in the distance, and saw a +procession of people coming down. It was Father Dan's celebration of +thanksgiving to God for what was left of Daniel O'Neill's ill-gotten +wealth sent back from Rome for the poor. + +Being in no humour to thank God for anything, I got over a sod hedge and +crossed a field until I came to a back gate to our garden, near to +"William Rufus's" burial place--stone overgrown with moss, inscription +almost obliterated. + +On the path I met my mother, with baby, toddling and tumbling by her +side. + +"How is she now?" I asked. + +She was awake--had been awake these two hours, but in a strange kind of +wakefulness, her big angel eyes open and shining like stars as if +smiling at someone whom nobody else could see, and her lips moving as if +speaking some words which nobody else could hear. + +"What art thou saying, _boght millish_?" my mother had asked, and after +a moment in which she seemed to listen in rapture, my darling had +answered: + +"Hush! I am speaking to mamma--telling her I am leaving Isabel with +Christian Ann. And she is saying she is very glad." + +We walked round to the front of the house until we came close under the +window of "Mary O'Neill's little room," which was wide open. + +The evening was so still that we could hear the congregation singing in +the church and on the path in front of it. + +Presently somebody began to sing in the room above. It was my +darling--in her clear sweet silvery voice which I have never heard the +like of in this world and never shall again. + +After a moment another voice joined hers--a deep voice, the Reverend +Mother's. + +All else was quiet. Not a sound on earth or in the air. A hush had +fallen on the sea itself, which seemed to be listening for my precious +darling's last breath. The sun was going down, very red in its setting, +and the sky was full of glory. + +When the singing came to an end baby was babbling in my mother's +arms--"Bo-loo-la-la-ma-ma." I took her and held her up to the open +window, crying: + +"Look, darling! Here's Girlie!" + +There was no answer, but after another moment the Reverend Mother came +to the window. Her pale face was even paler than usual, and her lips +trembled. She did not speak, but she made the sign of the Cross. + +And by that . . . I knew. + +"Out of the depths I cry unto thee, O Lord, Lord, hear my cry." + + + + +THE AUTHOR TO THE READER + + +I saw him off at Tilbury when he left England on his last Expedition. +Already he was his own man once more. After the blinding, stunning +effect of the great event there had been a quick recuperation. His +spirit had risen to a wonderful strength and even a certain +cheerfulness. + +I did not find it hard to read the secret of this change. It was not +merely that Time, the great assuager, had begun to do its work with him, +but that he had brought himself to accept without qualm or question Mary +O'Neill's beautiful belief (the old, old belief) in the immortality of +personal love, and was firmly convinced that, freed from the +imprisonment of the flesh, she was with him every day and hour, and that +as long as he lived she always would be. + +There was nothing vague, nothing fantastic, nothing mawkish, nothing +unmanly about this belief, but only the simple faith of a steady soul +and a perfectly clear brain. It was good to see how it braced a strong +man for life to face Death in that way. + +As for his work I found him quite hopeful. His mission apart, I thought +he was looking forward to his third trip to the Antarctic, in +expectation of the silence and solitude of that strengthening region. + +As I watched the big liner that was taking him away disappear down the +Thames I had no more doubt that he would get down to the South Pole, and +finish his task there, than that the sun would rise the following +morning. + +Whatever happens this time he will "march breast forward." + + + + +MARTIN CONRAD TO THE AUTHOR + +WIRELESS--ANTARCTIC CONTINENT (_via_ MACQUARIE ISLAND AND RADIO HOBART +16). + +Arrived safe. All well. Weather excellent. Blue sky. Warm. Not a breath +of wind. Sun never going down. Constellations revolving without dipping. +Feel as if we can see the movement of the world. Start south to-morrow. +Calmer than I have ever been since She was taken from me. But She was +right. She is here. "Love is stronger than death, many waters cannot +quench it." + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Woman Thou Gavest Me, by Hall Caine + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOMAN THOU GAVEST ME *** + +***** This file should be named 14597-8.txt or 14597-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/5/9/14597/ + +Produced by Rick Niles, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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