“Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine upon the walls of thine house;Thy children like the olive branches round about thy table.As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be;World without end, A—men.”
They were all in the vestry now, standing together in a group. Her mother was wiping her eyes, Pete was laughing, and Nancy Joe was nudging him and saying in an audible whisper, “Kiss her, man—it's only respectable.”
The parson was leaning over the table. He spoke to Pete, and then said, “A substantial mark, too. The lady's turn next.”
The open book was before her, and the pen was put into her hand. When she laid it down, the parson returned his spectacles to their sheath, and a nervous voice, which thrilled and frightened her, said from behind, “Let me be the first to wish you happiness, Mrs. Quilliam.”
It was Philip. She turned towards him, and their eyes met for a moment. But she was only conscious of his prominent nose, his clear-cut chin, his rapid smile like sunshine, disappearing as before a cloud. He said something else—something about a new life and a new beginning—but she could not gather its meaning, her mind would not take it in. At the next moment they were all in the open air.
Philip had been in torment—first the torment of an irresistible hatred of Kate. He knew that this hatred was illogical, that it was monstrous; but it supported his pride, it held him safe above self-contempt in being present at the wedding. When the carriage drew up at the church gate, and he helped Kate to alight, he thought she looked up at him as one who says, “You see, things are not so bad after all!” And when she turned her face to him at the beginning of the service, he thought it wore a look of fierce triumph, of victory, of disdain. But as the ceremony proceeded and he observed her absent-ness, her vacancy, her pathetic imbecility, he began to be oppressed by an awful sense of her consciousness of error. Was she taking this step out of pique? Was she thinking to punish him, forgetting the price she would have to pay? Would she awake to-morrow morning with her vexation and vanity gone, face to face with a hideous future—the worst and most terrible that is possible to any woman—that of being married to one man and loving another?
Faugh! Would his own vanity haunt him even there? Shame, shame! He forced himself to do the duty of a best man. In the vestry he approached the bride and muttered the conventional wishes. His heart was devouring itself like a rapid fire, and it was as much as he could do to look into her piteous eyes and speak. Struggle as he might at that moment, he could not put out of his heart a passionate tenderness. This frightened him, and straightway he resolved to see no more of Kate. He must be fair to her, he must be true to himself. But walking behind her up the path strewn with flowers from the church door to the gate, the gnawings of the worm of buried love came on him again, and he felt like a man who was being dragged through the dirt.
Four saddle-horses, each with its rider seated and ready, had been waiting at the churchyard gate, pawing up the gravel. The instant the bride and bridegroom came out of the church the horses set off for Cæsar's house at a furious gallop. Kate and Pete, Cæsar, Grannie, and Nancy, with the addition of Philip and Parson Quiggin, returned in the covered carriage.
At the turn of the road the way was blocked by a group of stalwart girls out of the last of the year's cornfields. With the straw rope of the stackyard stretched across, they demanded toll before the carriage would be allowed to pass. Pete, who sat by the door, put his head out and inquired solemnly if the highway women would take their charge in silver or in kind—half-a-crown apiece or a kiss all round. They laughed, and answered that they saw no objection to taking both. Whereupon Pete, whispering behind his hand that the mistress was looking, tossed into the air a paper bag, which rose like a cannon-ball, broke in the air like a shell, and fell over their white sun-bonnets like a shower.
At the door of “The Manx Fairy” the four riders were waiting with smoking horses. The first to arrive had been rewarded already with a bottle of rum. He had one other ancient privilege. As the coach drove up to the door, he stepped up to the bride with the wedding-cake and broke it over her head. Then there was a scramble for the pieces among the girls who gathered round her, that they might take them to bed and dream of a day to come when they should themselves be as proud and happy.
The wedding-breakfast (a wedding-dinner) was laid in the loft of the mill, the chapel of The Christians. Cæsar sat at the head of the table, with Grannie on one side and Kate on the other. Pete sat next to Kate, and Philip next to Grannie. The parson sat at the foot with Nancy Joe, a lady of consequence, receiving much consideration, at his reverent right hand. Jonaique Jelly sat midway down the table, with a fine scorn on his features, for John the Clerk sat opposite with a fiddle gripped between his knees.
The neighbours brought in the joints of beef and mutton, the chickens and the ducks. Cæsar and the parson carved. Black Tom, who had been invited by way of truce, served out the liquor from an eighteen-gallon cask, and sucked it up himself like the sole of an old shoe. Then Cæsar said grace, and the company fell to. Such noise, such sport, such chaff, such laughter! Everything was a jest—every word had wit in it. “How are you doing, John?”—“Haven't done as well for a month, sir; but what's it saying, two hungry meals make the third a glutton.”—“How areyoudoing, Tom?”—“No time to get a right mouthful for myself Cæsar; kept so busy with the drink.”—“Aw, there'll be some with their top works hampered soon.”—“Got plenty, Jonaique?”—“Plenty, sir, plenty. Enough down here to victual a menagerie. It'll be Sunday every day of the week with the man that's getting the lavings.”—“Take a taste of this beef before it goes, Mr. Thomas Quilliam, or do you prefer the mutton?”—“I'm not partic'lar, Mr. Cregeen. Ateing's nothing to me but filling a sack that's empty.”
Grannie praised the wedding service—it was lovely—it was beautiful—she didn't think the ould parzon could have made the like; but Cæsar criticised both church and clergy—couldn't see what for the cross on the pulpit and the petticoat on the parson. “Popery, sir, clane Popery,” he whispered across Grannie to Philip.
Away went the shanks of mutton, the breasts of birds, and the slabs of beef, and up came an apple-pudding as round as a well-fed salmon, and as long as a twenty-pound cod. There was a shout of welcome. “None of your dynamite pudding that,—as green as grass and as sour as vinegar.”
Kate was called on to make the first cut of the monster. A faint colour had returned to her cheeks since she had come home. She was talking a little, and even laughing sometimes, as if the weight on her heart was lightening every moment. She rose at the call, took, with the hand nearest to the dish, the knife that her father held out, and plunged it into the pudding. As she did so, with all eyes upon her, the wedding-ring on her finger flashed in the light and was seen by everybody.
“Look at that, though,” cried Black Tom. “There's the wife for a husband, if you plaze. Ashamed of showing it, is she? Not she, the bogh.”
Then there was much giggling among the younger women, and cries of “Aw, the poor girl! Going to church has been making her left-handed!”
“Time enough, my beauties,” cried Pete; “and mind you're not struck that way yourselves one of these days.”
Away went the dishes, and the parson rose to return thanks.
“Never heard that grace but once before, Parson Quiggin,” said Pete, “and then”—lighting his pipe—“then it was a burial sarvice.”
“Aburialsarvice!”
A dozen voices echoed the words together, and in a moment the table was quiet.
“Yes, though,” said Pete. “It was up at Johannesburg. Two chums settled there, and one married a girl. Nice lil thing, too; some of the Boer girls, you know; but not much ballast at her at all. The husband went up country for the Consolidated Co., and when he came back there was trouble. Chum had been sweethearting the wife a bit!”
“Aw, dear!”—“Aw, well, well!”
“Do? The husband? He went after the chum with a repeater, and took him. Bath-chair sort of a chap—no fight in him at all. 'Mercy!' he cries. 'I can't,' says the husband. 'Forgive him this once,' says the wife. 'It's only once a woman loses herself,' says the man. 'Mercy, mercy!' 'Say your prayers.' 'Mercy, mercy, mercy!' 'Too late!' and the husband shot him dead. The woman dropped in a faint, but the man said, 'He didn't say his prayers, though—I must be doing it for him.' Then down he went on his knees by the body, but the prayers were all forgot at him—all but the bit of a grace, so he said that instead.”
Loud breathings on every side followed Pete's story, and Cæsar, leaning over towards Philip, whose face had grown ashy, said, “Terrible, sir, terrible! But still and for all, right enough, though, eh! What's it saying, Better an enemy than a bad friend.”
Philip answered absently; his eyes were on the opposite side of the table. There was a sudden rising of the people about Kate.
“Water, there,” shouted Pete. “It's a thundering blockhead I am for sure—frightning the life out of people with stories fit for a funeral.”
“No, no,” said Kate; “I'm not faint Why should you think so?”
“Of coorse, not, bogh,” said Nancy, who was behind her in a twinkling. “White is she? Well, what of it, man? It's only becoming on a girl's wedding-day. Take a lil sup, though, woman—there, there!”
Kate drank the water, with the glass jingling against her teeth, and then began to laugh. The parson's ruddy face rose at the end of the table. “Friends,” he said, “after that tragic story, let us indulge in a little vanity. Fill up your glasses to the brim, and drink with me to the health of the happy couple. We all know both of them. We know the bride for a good daughter and a sweet girl—one so naturally pure that nobody can ever say an evil word or think an evil thought when she is near. We know the bridegroom for a real Manxman, simple and rugged and true, who says all he thinks and thinks all he says. God has been very good to them. Such virginal and transparent souls have much to be thankful for. It is not for them to struggle with that worst enemy of man, the enemy that is within, the enemy of bad passions. So we can wish them joy on their union with a full heart and a sure hope that, whatever chance befall them on the ways of this world, they will be happy and content.”
“Aw, the beautiful advice,” said Grannie, wiping her eyes.
“Popery, just Popery,” muttered Cæsar. “What about original sin?”
There was a chorus of applause. Kate was still laughing. Philip's head was down.
“And now, friends,” continued the parson, “Captain Quilliam has been a successful man abroad, but he has had to come home to do the best piece of work he ever did.” (A voice—“Do it yourself, parzon.”) “It is true I've never done it myself. Vanity of vanities, love is not for me. It's been the Lord's will to put me here to do the marrying and leave my people to do the loving. But there is a young man present who has all the world before him and everything this life can promise except one thing, and that's the best thing of all—a wife.” (Kate's laughter grew boisterous.) “This morning he helped his friend to marry a pure and beautiful maiden. Now let me remind him of the text which says, 'Go thou and do likewise.'”
The toast was drunk standing, with shouts of “Cap'n Pete,” and, amid much hammering on the table, stamping on the floor, and other thunderings of applause, Cap'n Pete rolled up to reply. After a moment's pause, in which he distributed sage winks and nods on every side, he said: “I'm not much for public spaking myself. I made my best speech and my shortest in church this morning—I will. The parzon has has been telling mydooiney mollato do as I have done today. He can't. Begging pardon of the ladies, there's only one woman on the island fit for him, and I've got her.” (Kate's laughter grew shrill.) “My wife——”
At this word, uttered with an air of life-long familiarity, twenty clay pipes lost their heads by collision with the table, and Pete was interrupted by roars of laughter.
“Gough bless me, can't a married man mention his wife in company? Well then. Mistress Cap'n Peter Quilliam——”
This mouthful was the signal for another riotous interruption, and a general call for more to drink.
“Won't that do for you neither? I'm not going back on it, though. 'Whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder'—isn't that it, Parzon Quiggin? What's it you're saying—no man but the Dempster? Well, the Dempster's here that is to be—I'll clear him ofthat, anyway.”
Kate's laughter became explosive and uncontrollable. Pete nodded sideways to fill up the gap in his eloquence, and then went on. “But if mydooiney mollacan't marry my wife, there's one thing he can do for her—he can make her house his home in Ramsey when he goes to Douglas for good and comes down here to the coorts once a fortnight.”
Kate laughed more immoderately than ever; but Philip, with a look of alarm, half rose from his seat, and said across the table, “There's my aunt at Ballure, Pete.”
“She'll be following after you,” said Pete.
“There are hotels enough for travellers,” said Philip.
“Too many by half, and that's why I asked in public,” said Pete.
“I know the brotherly feeling——” began Philip.
“Is it a promise?” demanded Pete.
“If I can't escape your kindness——”
“No, you can't; so there's an end of it.”
“It will kill me yet——”
“May you never die till it polishes you off.”.
At Philip's submission to Pete's will, there was a general chorus of cheers, through which Kate's shrill laughter rang like a scream. Pete patted the back of her hand, and continued, “And now, young fellows there, let an ould experienced married man give you a bit of advice—he swore away all his worldly goods this morning, so he hasn't much else to give. I've no belief in bachelors myself. They're like a tub without a handle—nothing to lay hould of them by.” (Much nudging and whispering about the bottom of the table.) “What's that down yonder? 'The vicar,' you say? Aw, the vicar's a grand man, but he's only a parzon, you see. Mr. Christian, is it? He's got too much work to do to be thinking about women. We're living on the nineteenth century, boys, and it's middling hard feeding for some of us. If the fishing's going to the dogs and the farming going to the deuce, don't be tossing head over tip at the tail of the tourist. If you've got the pumping engine inside of you, in plain English, if you've got the indomable character of the rael Manxman, do as I done—go foreign. Then watch your opportunity. What's Shake-spar saying?” Pete paused. “What's that he's saying, now?” Pete scratched his forehead. “Something about a flood, anyway.” Pete stretched his hand out vigorously. “'Lay hould of it at the flood,' says he, 'that's the way to make your fortune.'”
Then Pete melted to sentiment, glanced down at Kate's head, and continued, “And when you come back to the ould island—and there isn't no place like it—you can marry the girl of your heart, God bless her. Work's black, but money's white, and love is as sweet on potatoes and herrings three times a day, as on nothing for dinner, and the same every night of the week for supper. While you're away, you'll be draming of her. 'Is she faithful?' 'Is she thrue?' Coorse she is, and waiting to take you the very minute you come home.” Kate was still laughing as if she could not stop. “Look out for the right sort, boys. Plenty of the like in yet. If the young men of these days are more smart and more educated than their fathers, the young women are more handsome and more virtuous than their mothers. Soben-my-chree, my hearties, and enough in the locker to drive away the divil and the coroner.”
Through the volley of cheers which followed Pete's speech came the voice of Black Tom, thick with drink, “Drive off the crow at the wedding-breakfast.”
Everybody rose and looked. A great crow, black as night, had come in at the open door of the mill, calmly, sedately, as if by habit, for the corn that usually lay there.
“It manes divorce,” said Black Tom.
“Scare it away,” cried some one.
“It's the new wife must do it,” said another.
“Where's Kate?” cried Nancy.
But Kate only looked and went on laughing as before.
The crow turned tail and took flight of itself at finding so eager an audience. Then Pete said, “Whose houlding with such ould wife's wonders?”
And Cæsar answered, “Coorse not, or fairies either. I've slept out all night on Cronk-ny-airy-Lhaa—before my days of grace, I mane—and I never seen no fairies.”
“It would be a fool of a fairy, though, that would letyousee him, Cæsar,” said Black Tom.
At nine o'clock Cæsar's gig was at the door of “The Manx Fairy” to take the bride and bridegroom home. They had sung “Mylecharane,” and “Keerie fu Snaighty,” and “Hunting the Wren,” and “The Win' that Shook the Barley,” and then they had cleared away the tables and danced to the fiddle of John the Clerk and the clarionet of Jonaique Jelly. Kate, with wild eyes and flushed cheeks, had taken part in everything, but always fiercely, violently, almost tempestuously, until people lost enjoyment of her heartiness in fear of her hysteria, and Cæsar whispered Pete to take her away, and brought round the gig to hasten them.
Kate went up for her cloak and hat, and in the interval between her departure and reappearance, Grannie and Nancy Joe, both glorified beings, Nancy with her unaccustomed cap askew, stood in the middle of a group of women, who were deferring, and inquiring, and sympathising.
“I don't know in the world how she has kept up so long,” said Grannie.
“And dear heart knows howI'mto keep up when she's gone,” said Nancy, with her apron to her eyes.
Kate came down ready. Everybody followed her into the road, and all stood round the gig with flashes from the gig-lamps on their faces, while Pete swung her up into the seat, lifting her bodily in his great arms.
“You wouldn't drown yourself to-night for an ould rusty nail, eh, Capt'n?” cried somebody with a laugh.
“You go bail,” said Pete, and he leapt up to Kate's side, twiddled the reins, cracked the whip, and they drove away.
Philip had stood at the door of the porch, struggling to command his soul, and employing all his powers to look cheerful and even gay. But as Kate had passed she had looked at him with an imploring look, and then he had seemed to understand everything—that she had made a mistake and that she knew it, that her laughter had been bitterer than tears, that some compulsion had been put upon her, and that she was a wretched and miserable woman. At the next moment she had gone by with an odour of lace and perfume; and then a flood of tenderness, of pity, of mad jealousy had come upon him, and it had been as much as he could do to restrain himself. One instant he held himself in hand, and at the next the wheels of the gig had begun to move, the horse had started, the women had trooped into the house again, and there was nothing before him but the broad back of Cæsar, who was looking into the darkness after the vanishing gig-lamps, and breathing asthmatical breath.
“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife,” said Cæsar. “You're time enough yet, sir; come in, come in.”
But the man was odious to Philip at that moment, the house was odious, the people and the talk inside were odious, and he slipped away unobserved.
Too late! From the torment of his own thoughts he could not escape—his lost love, his lost happiness, his memories of the past, his dreams of the future. A voice—it was his own voice—seemed to be taunting him constantly: “You were not worthy of her. You did not know her value. She is gone; and what have you got instead!”
The Deemstership! That was of no consequence now. A name, an idle name! Love was the only thing worth having, and it was lost. Without it all the rest was nothing, and he had flung it away. He had been a monster, he had been a fool. The thought of his folly was insupportable; the recollection of his selfishness was stifling; the memory of his calculating deliberations was dragging him again in the dust. Thus, with a sense of crushing shame, he plunged down the dark road, trying not to think of the gig that had gone swinging along in front of him.
He would leave the island. To-morrow he would sail for England. No matter if he lost the chance of promotion. To-morrow, to-morrow! But to-night? How could he live through the hours until morning, with the black thoughts which the darkness generated? How could he sleep? How lie awake? What drug would bring forgetfulness? Kate! Pete! To-night! Oh, God! oh, God!
Six strides of the horse into the darkness and Kate's hysteria was gone. She had been lost to herself the whole day-through, and now she possessed herself again. She grew quiet and silent, and even solemn. But Pete rattled on with cheerful talk about the day's doings. At the doors of the houses on the road as they passed, people were standing in the half-light to wave them salutations, and Pete sent back his answers in shouts and laughter. Turning the bridge they saw a little group at the porch of the “Ginger.”
“There's company waiting for us yonder,” said Pete, giving the mare a touch of the whip.
“Let us get on,” said Kate in a nervous whisper.
“Aw, let's be neighbourly, you know,” said Pete. “It wouldn't be dacent to disappoint people at all. We'll hawl up for a minute just, and hoof up the time at a gallop. Woa, lass, woa, mare, woa, bogh!”
As the gig drew up at the inn door, a voice out of the porch cried, “Joy to you, Capt'n, and joy to your lady, and long life and prosperity to you both, and may the Lord give you children and health and happiness to rear them, and may you see your children's children, and may they call you blessed.”
“Glasses round. Mrs. Kelly,” shouted Pete.
“Go on, please,” said Kate in a fretful whisper, and she tugged at Pete's sleeve.
The stars came out; the moon gave a peep; the late hay of the Curragh sent a sweet odour through the night. Kate shuddered and Pete covered her shoulders with a rug. Then he began to sing snatches. He sang bits of all the songs that had been sung that night, but kept coming back at intervals to an old Manx ditty which begins—
“Little red bird of the black turf ground,Where did you sleep last night?”
Thus he sang like a great boy as he went rolling down the dark road, and Kate sat by his side and trembled.
They came to the town, rattled down the Parliament Street, passed the Court-house under the trees, turned the sharp angle by the market-place, and drew up at Elm Cottage in the corner.
“Home at last,” cried Pete, and he leapt to the ground.
A dog began to bark inside the house. “D'ye hear him?” said Pete. “That's the master in charge.”
The porch door was opened, and a comfortable-looking woman in a widow's cap came out with a lighted candle shaded by her hand.
“And this is your housekeeper, Mrs. Gorry,” said Pete.
Kate did not answer. Her eyes had been fixed in a rigid stare on the hind-quarters of the horse, which were steaming in the light of the lamps. Pete lifted her down as he had lifted her up. Then Mrs. Gorry took her by the hand, and saying, “Mind the step, ma'am—this way, ma'am,” led her through the gate and along the garden path, and up to the porch. The porch opened on a square hall, furnished as a sitting-room. A fire was burning, a lamp was lit, the table was laid for supper, and the place was warm and cosy.
“There!What d'ye say tothat?” cried Pete, coming behind with the whip in his hand.
Kate looked around; she did not speak; her eyes began to fill.
“Isn't it fit for a Dempster's lady?” said Pete, sweeping the whip-handle round the room like a showman.
Kate could bear no more. She sank into a chair and burst into a fit of tears. Pete's glowing face dropped in an instant.
“Dear heart alive, darling, what is it?” he said. “My poor girl, what's troubling you at all? Tell me, now—tell me, bogh, tell me.”
“It's nothing, Pete, nothing. Don't ask me,” said Kate. But still she sobbed as if her heart would break.
Pete stood a moment by her side, smoothing her arm with his hand. Then he said, with a crack and a quaver in his great voice, “Itishard for a girl, I know that, to lave father and mother and every one and everything that's been sweet and dear to her since she was a child, and to come to the house of her husband and say, 'The past has been very good to me; but still and for all, I'm for trusting the future to you.' It's hard, darling; I know it's hard.”
“Oh, leave me! leave me!” cried Kate, still weeping.
Pete brushed his sleeve across his eyes, and said, “Take her upstairs, Mrs. Gorry, while I'm putting up the mare at the 'Saddle.'”
Then he whistled to the dog, which had been watching him from the hearthrug, and went out of the house. The handle of the whip dragged after him along the floor.
Mrs. Gorry, full of trouble, took Kate to her room. Would she not eat her supper? Then salts were good for headache-should she bring a bottle from her box? After many fruitless inquiries and nervous protestations, the good soul bade Kate good-night and left her.
Being alone, Kate broke into yet wilder paroxysms of weeping. The storm-cloud which had been gathering had burst at last. It seemed as if the whole weight of the day had been deferred until then. The piled-up hopes of weeks had waited for that hour, to be cast down in the sight of her own eyes. It was all over. The fight with Fate was done, and the frantic merriment with which she had kept down her sense of the place where the blind struggle had left her made the sick recoil more bitter.
She thought of Philip, and her trouble began to moderate. Somewhere out of the uncrushed part of her womanhood there came one flicker of womanly pride to comfort her. She saw Philip at last from the point of revenge. He loved her; he would never cease to love her. Do what he might to banish the thought of her, she would be with him always; the more surely with him, the more reproachfully and unattainably, because she would be the wife of another man. If he could put her away from him in the daytime, and in the presence of those worldly aims for which he had sacrificed her, when night came he would be able to put her away no more. He would never sleep but he would see her. In every dream he would stretch out his arms to her, but she would not be there, and he would awake with sobs and in torment. There was a real joy in this thought, although it tore her heart so terribly.
She got strength from the cruel comforting, and Mrs. Gorry in the room below, listening intently, heard her crying cease. With her face still shut in both her hands, she was telling herself that she had nothing to reproach herself with; that she could not have acted differently; that she had not really made this marriage; that she had only submitted to it, being swept along by the pitiless tide, which was her father, and Pete, and everybody. She was telling herself, too, that, after all, she had done well. Here she lay in close harbour from the fierce storm which had threatened her. She was safe, she was at peace.
The room lay still. The night was very quiet within those walls. Kate drew down her hands and looked about her. The fire was burning gently, and warming her foot on the sheepskin rug that lay in front of it. A lamp burned low on a table behind her chair. At one side there was a wardrobe of the shape of an old press, but with a tall mirror in the door; on the other side there was the bed, with the pink curtains hanging like a tent. The place had a strange look of familiarity. It seemed as if she had known it all her life. She rose to look around, and then the inner sense leapt to the outer vision, and she saw how it was. The room was a reproduction of her own bedroom at home, only newer and more luxurious. It was almost as if some ghost of herself had been there while she slept—as if her own hand had done everything in a dream of her girlhood wherein common things had become grand.
Kate's eyes began to fill afresh, and she turned to take off her cloak. As she did so, she saw something on the dressing-table with a label attached to it. She took it up. It was a little mirror, a handglass like her own old one, only framed in ivory, and the writing on the label ran—
Insted of The one that is bruk with fond Luv to Kirry.peat.
Her heart was now beating furiously. A flood of feeling had rushed over her. She dropped the glass as if it stung her fingers. With both hands she covered her face. Everything in the room seemed to be accusing her. Hitherto she had thought only of Philip. Now for the first time she thought of Pete.
She had wronged him—deeply, awfully, beyond atonement or hope of forgiveness. He loved her; he had married her; he had brought her to his home, to this harbour of safety, and she had deceived and betrayed him—she had suffered herself to be married to him while still loving another man.
A sudden faintness seized her. She grew dizzy and almost fell. A more terrible memory had come behind. The thought was like ravens flapping their black wings on her brain. She felt her temples beating against her hands. They seemed to be sucking the life out of her heart.
Just then the voice of Pete came beating up the echoes between the house and the chapel beyond the garden—
“Little red bird of the black turf ground,Where did you sleep last night?”
She heard him open the garden gate, clash it back, come up the path with an eager step, shut the door of the house and chain it on the inside. Then she heard his deep voice speaking below.
“Better now, Mrs. Gorry?”
“Aw, better, sir, yes, and quiet enough this ten minutes.”
“Give her time, the bogh! Be aisy with the like, be aisy.”
Presently she heard him send off Mrs. Gorry for the night, saying he should want no supper, and should be going to bed soon. Then the house became quiet, and the smell of tobacco smoke came floating up the stairs.
Kate's hot breath on her hands grew damp against her face. She felt herself swooning, and she caught hold of the mantelpiece.
“It cannot be,” she thought. “He must not come. I will go down to him and say, 'Pete, forgive me, I am really the wife of another.'”
Then she would tell him everything. Yes, she would confess all now. Oh, she would not be afraid. His love was great. He would do what she wished.
She made one step towards the door, and was pulled up as by a curb. Pete would say, “Do you mean that you have been using me as a cloak? Do you ask me to live in this house, side by side with you, and let no one suspect that we are apart? Then why did you not ask me yesterday? Why do you ask me to-day, when it is too late to choose?”
No, she could not confess. If confession had been difficult yesterday, it was a thousand times more difficult to-day, and it would be a thousand thousand times more difficult tomorrow.
Kate caught up the cloak she had thrown aside. She must go away. Anywhere, anywhere, no matter where. That was the one thing left to her—the only escape from the wild tangle of dread and pain. Pete was in the hall; there must be a way out at the back; she would find it.
She lowered the lamp, and turned the handle of the door. Then she saw a light moving on the landing, and heard a soft step on the stairs. It was Pete, with a candle, coming up in his stockinged feet. He stopped midway, as if he heard the click of the latch, and then went noiselessly down again.
Kate closed the door. She would not go. If she left the house that night she would cover Pete with suspicion and disgrace. The true secret would never be known; the real offender would never suffer; but the finger of scorn would be raised at the one man who had sheltered and shielded her, and he would die of humiliation and blind self-reproach.
This reflection restrained her for the moment, and when the stress of it was spent she was mastered by a fear that was far more terrible. For good or for all she was now married to Pete, and he had the rights of a husband. He had a right to come to her, and hewouldcome. It was inevitable; it had to be. No boy or girl love now, no wooing, no dallying, no denying, but a grim reality of life—a reality that comes to every woman who is married to a man. She was married to Pete. In the eye of the world, in the eye of the law, she was his, and to fly from him was impossible.
She must remain. God himself had willed it As for the shame of her former relation to Philip, it was her own secret. God alone knew of it, and He would keep it safe. It was the dark chamber of her heart which God only could unlock. He would never unlock it until the Day of Judgment, and then Philip would be standing by her side, and she would cast it back upon him, and say, “His, not mine, O God,” and the Great Judge of all would judge between them.
But she began to cry again, like a child in the dark. As she threw off her cloak a second time, her dress crinkled, and she looked down at it and remembered that it was her wedding-dress. Then she looked around at the room, and remembered that it was her wedding chamber. She remembered how she had dreamt of coming in her bridal dress to her bridal room—proud, afraid, tingling with love, blushing with joy, whispering to herself, “This is for me—and this—and this.Hehas given it, for he loves me and I love him, and he is mine and I am his, and he is my love and my lord, and he is coming to—”
There was a gentle knocking at the door. It made her flesh creep. The knock came again. It went shrieking through and through her.
“Kirry,” whispered a voice from without.
She did not stir.
“It's only Pete.”
She neither spoke nor moved.
There was silence for a moment, and then, half nervously, half jovially, half in laughter, half with emotion as if the heart outside was palpitating, the voice came again, “I'm coming in, darling!”
Next morning Kate said to herself, “My life must begin again from to-day.” She had a secret that Pete did not share, but she was not the first woman who had kept something from her husband. When people had secrets which it would hurt others to reveal, they ought to keep them close. Honour demanded that she should be as firm as a rock in blotting Philip from her soul. Remembering the promise which Pete had demanded of Philip at the wedding to make their house his home in Ramsey, and seeing that Philip must come, if only to save appearances, she asked herself if she ought to prevent him. But no! She resolved to conquer the passion that made his presence a danger. There was no safety in separation. In her relation to Philip she was like the convict who is beginning his life again—the only place where he can build up a sure career is precisely there where his crime is known. “Let Philip come,” she thought. She made his room ready.
She was married. It was her duty to be a good wife. Pete loved her—his love would make it easy. They were sitting at breakfast in the hall-parlour, and she said, “I should like to be my own housekeeper, Pete.”
“And right, too,” said Pete. “Be your own woman, darling—not your woman's woman—and have Mrs. Gorry for your housemaid.”
To turn her mind from evil thoughts, she set to work immediately, and busied herself with little duties, little economies, little cares, little troubles. But the virtues of housekeeping were just those for which she had not prepared herself. Her first leg of mutton was roasted down to the proportions of a frizzled shank, and her first pudding was baked to the colour and consistency of a badly burnt brick. She did not mend rapidly as a cook, but Pete ate of all that his faultless teeth could grind through, and laid the blame on his appetite when his digestion failed.
She strove by other industries to keep alive a sense of her duty as a wife. Buying rolls of paper at the paperhanger's, she set about papering every closet in the house. The patterns did not join and the paste did not adhere. She initialled in worsted the new blankets sent by Grannie, with a P and a Q and a K intertwined. Than she overhauled the linen; turned out every room twice a week; painted every available wooden fixture with paint which would not dry because she had mixed it herself to save a sixpence a stone and forgotten the turpentine. Pete held up his hands in admiration at all her failures. She had thought it would be easy to be a good wife to a good husband. It was hard—hard for any one, hardest of all for her. There are the ruins of a happy woman in the bosom of every over-indulged wife.
She could not keep to anything long, but every night for a week she gave Pete lessons in reading, writing, and arithmetic. His reading was laborious, his spelling was eccentric, his figuring he did on the tips of his heavy fingers, and his writing he executed with his tongue in his cheek and his ponderous thumb down on the pen nib.
“What letter is that, Pete?” she said, pointing with her knitting needle to the page of a book of poems before them.
Pete looked up in astonishment. “Is itmeyou're asking, Kitty? Ifyoudon't know,Idon't know.”
“That's a capital M, Pete.”
“Is it, now?” said Pete, looking at the letter with a searching eye. “Goodness me, the straight it's like the gate of the long meadow.”
“And that's a capital A.”
“Sakes alive, the straight it's like the coupling of the cart-house.”
“And that's a B.”
“Gough bless me, d'ye say so? But the straight it's like the hoof of a bull, though.”
“And M A B spells Mab—Queen Mab,” said Kate, going on with her knitting.
Pete looked up at her with eyes wide open. “I suppose, now,” he said, in a voice of pride, “I suppose you're knowing all the big spells yourself, Kitty?”
“Not all. Sometimes I have to look in the dictionary,” said Kate.
She showed him the book and explained its uses.
“And is it taiching you to spell every word, Kitty?” he asked.
“Every ordinary word,” said Kate.
“My gough!” said Pete, touching the book with awe.
Next day he pored over the dictionary for an hour, but when he raised his face it wore a look of scepticism and scorn. “This spelling-book isn't taiching you nothing, darling,” he said.
“Isn't it. Pete?”
“No, nothing,” said Pete. “Here I've been looking for an ordinary word—averyordinary word—and it isn't in.”
“What word is it?” said Elate, leaning over his shoulder.
“Love,” said Pete. “See,” pointing his big forefinger, “that's where it ought to be, and where is it?”
“Butlovebeginslo,” said Kate, “and you're looking atlu. Here it is—love.”
Pete gave a prolonged whistle, then fell back in his chair, looked slowly up and said, “So you must first know how the word begins; is that it, Kitty?”
“Why, yes,” said Kate.
“Then it's you that's taiching the spelling-book, darling; so we'll put it back on the shelf.”
For a fortnight Kate read and replied to Pete's correspondence. It was plentiful and various. Letters from heirs to lost fortunes offering shares in return for money to buy them out of Chancery; from promoters of companies proposing dancing palaces to meet the needs of English visitors; from parsons begging subscriptions to new organs; from fashionable ladies asking Pete to open bazaars; from preachers inviting him to anniversary tea-meetings, and saying Methodism was proud of him. If anybody wanted money, he kissed the Blarney Stone and applied to Pete. Kate stood between him and the worst of the leeches. The best of them he contrived to deal with himself, secretly and surreptitiously. Sometimes there came acknowledgments of charities of which Kate knew nothing. Then he would shuffle them away and she would try not to see them. “If I stop him altogether, I will spoil him,” she thought.
One day the post brought a large envelope with a great seal at the back of it, and Kate drew out a parchment deed and began to read the indorsement—“'Memorandum of loan to Cæsar Cre——-'”
“That's nothing,” said Pete, snatching the document and stuffing it into his jacket-pocket.
Kate lifted her eyes with a look of pain and shame and humiliation, and that was the end of her secretaryship.