“My dear Phyl[began the epistle],—I write to you in great haste, for my news is of such a nature that the more speedily it is told the better.“Understand, in the first place, my dear girl, that what I am now doing is for your welfare, and goes grievously against the grain with me. We have ventured so much for each other in the past that this flouting at the eleventh hour comes like a thunderclap upon my soul.”
“My dear Phyl[began the epistle],—I write to you in great haste, for my news is of such a nature that the more speedily it is told the better.
“Understand, in the first place, my dear girl, that what I am now doing is for your welfare, and goes grievously against the grain with me. We have ventured so much for each other in the past that this flouting at the eleventh hour comes like a thunderclap upon my soul.”
After some such preamble, Maltravers proceeded to paint a vivid picture of their betrayal and of John Strong’s relentless determination to unearth the truth. He described the interview at the manor, and recounted his own heroic stand and his desperate attempts to impress upon the master of Saltire the hopelessness of his cause. The letter went on to state that, though his arguments had brought John Strong to a temporary stand-still, he feared that the old man, “like a mad elephant, would soon break through the net.”
Finally came the real inspiration of the letter. The further linking of their names would be injudicious in the extreme. Maltravers would sacrifice himself. In fact, he had already left the neighborhood, having timed his flight so that the epistle should reach Ophelia after he had gone. This was “to insure the inevitable ending of a relationship that could only bring misery and misrepresentation upon both.”
Such in outline was the document with which this English gentleman relieved himself of a responsibility that he had so passionately assumed. There was much vapid and offensive sentiment, much pathetic posing crowded therein. Yet the letter reeked of hypocrisy—hypocrisy of the basest sort, even because it was pitched in a spiritually tragic key. Its scented sentiments stung far more deeply than the rough truth would have done, for there was an insult in the very cleverness of the thing, an insult exaggerated by the florid profession of feelings that the writer had never felt.
A woman is rarely deceived by a man whom she has loved, and Ophelia had gleaned the truth little by little those many weeks, the truth that the man’s passion had cooled, and that her love was no more to him the magic wine of life. Possibly she had fought against the conviction, even as a woman will fight against that which she knows in her heart of hearts to be true. The blow in itself was no sudden one to Ophelia, but the method of its administration appealed to her as brutal in the extreme.
She pictured the whole drama to herself as she sat at the window, brooding and brooding over the letter in her lap. She could see Maltravers confronted by John Strong, the leopard and the bull, guile and gold. She could imagine the disloyal promptings of his heart, his selfish scheming, his desire to escape from a predicament that had lost its passionate charm. Her woman’s instinct served her wonderfully in this. She could read the truth in every studied phrase of Maltravers’ letter.
The nature of her position dawned upon her relentlessly as the evening sunlight streamed in upon her sensual face and haughty eyes. The shame of it! the shame of it! This it was that smote her vanity to the core. Her overstrained imagination portrayed the future to her with a mordant realism that made her quail. She was only a woman, if a very imperfect one, and the motive towards audacity had vanished, leaving her unshielded and alone.
She reasoned thus as the day declined. John Strong would speak, for he was not the man to remain long silent. The whole country-side would take up the cry. The women, those women who loved her little, would point at her mockingly and clamor, “Clear yourself before us and the world, or be known as an adulteress and a liar.” They would shriek at her, these smug-mouthed women. And whence could come the refutation? Society would throw the gauntlet down, and who should stoop to take the challenge up?
Maltravers? Ay, he was the man, and thence rose the bitterest mockery of all. His very cowardice would condemn her, for like a false god he would not hear her cry, and fanaticism would rend her for his silence. For him she had risked all; for her he would venture nothing. Ignominy! ignominy! What was life worth to her that she should face such shame?
That night there was much hurrying to and fro in the galleries of the castle. Bells rang. White-faced servants stood gaping in the passageways, whispering together, awed and frightened. A lamp flashed to and fro in the stable-yard, where two grooms were saddling and bridling a horse, Ophelia’s horse, as good a beast as ever rode to hounds. Soon there came the sparking of hoofs on the cobbles, a scattering of pebbles along the drive.
A woman’s voice cried from the porch.
“This note, quick, John, to the doctor.”
“Saltire?”
“You know the house.”
“Damn it, yes.”
“Get on! get on!”
The man went away at a canter, a canter that steadied into a hard gallop as he passed the lodge and swung out into the high-road. He pulled his cap down over his eyes and gave the beast the whip. Overhead a full moon was shining, splashing the silent trees with silver, glimmering upon the distant sea. There was the scent of new-mown hay upon the warm night air. In the castle porch servants stood huddled, listening to the sound of hoofs that died away along the road.
Above in the turret bedroom Blanche Gusset, with her brown hair tumbled about her face, half lay upon the pillows, holding her sister in her arms. Outside in the gallery a smart maid stood listening, running every now and again to the stairhead to peer down into the hall beneath. A shaded lamp burned in the room, whose angles were full of solemn shadows. Ophelia, her face a dusky white, the pupils of her eyes dilated, lay in her sister’s arms breathing spasmodically with shallow span. She seemed half torpid, like one near death.
A table stood by the bed, bearing a glass and a flask of brandy, also a bottle of smelling-salts. Blanche, half witless yet methodical for all her terror, was bathing her sister’s face with scent. A crumpled letter and an empty phial lay near on the scarlet coverlet of the bed.
“Phyl,” she said, “Phyl,” putting her mouth close to her sister’s ear.
There was some slight brightening of the dilated eyes. Ophelia’s lips moved. Her hands, flickering to and fro, entwined themselves in Blanche’s hair.
“Jim,” she said—“I hear Jim’s voice—”
In some such fashion she maundered on. Blanche, vigorous being that she was, shuddered as though a cold wind played upon her bosom. She reached for the glass, gulped down some brandy, coughed, and called to the girl without the door.
“Florence! Florence!”
The door opened a very little and a white face peered in.
“Yes, miss.”
“How long—”
“How long, miss?”
“Oh, you fool. How long has John been?”
“Half an hour, miss.”
“Oh, my God, only half an hour!”
“The doctor’ll be here soon, miss; ’tis only four miles to Saltire.”
“Go down and listen.”
“Yes, miss.”
“Shut the door. Oh, my God!”
She turned again and hung over Ophelia, staring into the bedewed and dusky face. All the beauty had fled therefrom, for it was as the face of death, gray and inanimate. The widely dilated eyes seemed to gaze into the unknown, as though fathoming many a solemn truth.
Blanche trickled brandy between the parted lips, poured scent into the palm of her hand and dashed it in her sister’s face. She dragged her higher upon the pillows, the head with its golden mass of hair rolling upon her shoulder. The blue veins showed in the white neck, where all the muscles seemed tense as cords, striving and laboring for life and air.
Then through the window came the distant sound of wheels upon the road. Blanche gave a cry like a woman who hears the voice of a rescuer through the smoke of a burning house. The beat of hoofs came near apace. There was a hoarse grinding of the gravel before the house, hurried steps upon the stairs, the sound of a voice, quiet but confident, giving commands to the maid Florence.
James Marjoy entered, roughly dressed, as though he had but risen from bed. Calm and self-reliant, he was a changed being in such an hour as this; and though but “Mrs. Marjoy’s husband” in his own home, he was the man when ministering to the sick. His assistant, a tall, morose-faced Scotchman, followed at his heels. Blanche, freeing herself, ran to James Marjoy and seized his arm.
“Thank God you have come,” she said.
“Cocaine?”
“Cocaine, yes; the bottle is yonder—and that scoundrel’s letter. I heard her ring and found her like this. My poor father is away.”
The Scotchman was busy taking a hypodermic syringe from its case, his big, bony hands steady and unflurried, his solemn face devoid of all emotion. James Marjoy had given one glance at the figure upon the bed. He took Blanche Gusset gently by the arm and thrust her towards the door.
“Go, Miss Gusset,” he said.
“But—”
“Time is precious. We shall do better alone.”
The night was wellnigh spent and the moon hung low in the west when James Marjoy, haggard of face and weary about the eyes, came down to Blanche Gusset in the dining-room. A single candle burned upon the mantel-piece. Blanche, white as the bed-gown under her dressing-jacket, ran to the doctor and held his arm. Her eyes had that strange and terrible earnestness so tragic when seen in the eyes of a woman.
“Well?”
“We were in time.”
“Doctor—”
“Your sister will recover.”
“Thank God! thank God!”
She kissed James Marjoy’s hand and flung herself upon a sofa, weeping unrestrainedly like a little child.
GABRIEL STRONG came up the road from Rilchester, swinging along between the high hedgerows, with the morning sun behind him. The sky was of limitless blue above, and beyond the deep woods and the green meadows rose Cambron Head, a purple height stemming the greens and azures of the sea. So lusty was the sunlight that the sand and shingle edging the great bay gleamed like bronze above the foam.
Gabriel, leaving the high-road, struck out a path over the meadows. The tall grass was ablaze with flowers—buttercups and golden trefoil, great white daisies, clover, purple vetches, delicate flax. Wild roses were opening upon the hedges. Odors of honeysuckle and of hay were in the air.
By an old oak that grew in the midst of a grass field Gabriel halted to rest and look upon the scenes he knew so well. Yonder was the hoary sea, and nearer still were the magic hills below old Rilchester where Joan had sunned the woodlands with her hair. Was it but yesterday that he had moped like an exile in that great labyrinth of brick and stone, knowing no man, known of none? Was it but yesterday that he had received that letter saying, “Come, come; the day is ours”?
That morning Gabriel had risen soon after dawn, like a school-boy yearning towards home. He had left London by the earliest train, and found the good borough of Rilchester but waking from its sleep. Even Judith had foreseen no such prodigal energy as this. There had been no one to meet him at the station, but Gabriel’s ardor was not to be damped that June.
With new color in his cheeks and a tremulous eagerness in his eyes, he came that morning towards the cottage in the fields where Joan, his wife, was lodged. He entered in at the little gate, smiling to himself even as a man might smile who climbed to meet love at the gate of heaven. Humble enough was the rose-grown porch, and humble the janitor who stood within. Yet all was heaven to Gabriel that June morning.
“Lor’, Mr. Strong!”
“Good-morning, Mrs. Milton.”
“Good-morning, sir. Glad to see you, sir. Come inside, sir.”
“My wife is here, Mrs. Milton?”
“Your wife, sir? To be sure, there is a lady here.”
Gabriel smiled, but there was no suspicion of bitterness in his eyes.
“My wife is with you, Mrs. Milton,” he said.
“Lor’, Mr. Strong, I was just now going to say—”
“Shall I find her in the garden?”
“If you please, sir. And may I say, sir, if it ain’t presumption in an old woman, that I never did believe them lies.”
Gabriel colored a little, but smiled in the old woman’s kindly face.
“Thank you, Mrs. Milton,” he said.
“ ’Twas this way, sir. Miss Judith, she says to me, sir, ‘My brother, Mrs. Milton—my brother is an English gentleman’; and what Miss Judith says, sir, might, I reckon, satisfy the old gentleman hisself.”
Gabriel, sped by a kindly gleam from the old lady’s eyes, passed round the cottage to the garden at the back. Under a fruit tree Joan was seated, gazing up at the sky through the green tracery of the leaves. An open book lay in her lap, a book that wept with those who mourned and rejoiced with those who sang.
Gabriel stood there in silence before her, waiting till her eyes should end their communing with heaven. The sunlight, flashing through the boughs, set a golden coronet upon her hair. At last she looked to the earth once more, saw Gabriel standing near the cottage, his hands stretched out to her, a lover’s hands.
She gave a low cry, did Joan, and thrusting the book aside, rose up and sped to him.
“Gabriel!”
“Wife!”
The woman’s head was on the man’s shoulder and his arms were close about her body. In that glad meeting came the full consummation of all prayer and hope. Together they stood under the summer sky, while the spirit of June breathed over field and garden. The red rose had kissed the white, and heaven’s dew had touched the heart of many a flower.
“God has answered us,” said Joan, at last, lifting up her radiant face.
And Gabriel kissed her.
“You are happy?” he asked.
“Happy! What can mere words declare?”
“That by your martyrdom you have made of me a man.”
Even at that moment Judith came flashing in, a fair vision of womanhood under the orchard trees. She had not dreamed to find Gabriel so soon returned. For all the bowl of life seemed brimming with joy that morning. Brother and sister stood hand to hand, looking deeply into each other’s eyes.
“Gabriel,” said the sister, “there is justice in this old world yet.”
“Who works for justice?”
“God,” she answered him, very simply. “Has science slain Him? Nay. Can the glib pen, the cunning instrument, tell us yet more than all our hearts have dreamed. The grander deeps are far beyond us still.”
Gabriel stood, gazing beyond the hills.
“You women are wonderful,” he said.
Joan smiled at Judith, Judith at Joan.
“Come, sister, read me the riddle.”
“Is it not faith,” she said, “that makes love love indeed?”
Before noon father and son had met in Saltire garden, under the cedar-tree at the end of the long lawn. They had gripped hands like men, and now paced shoulder to shoulder over the grass, talking together frankly and without restraint. The great trouble that had fallen upon both seemed to have strangled pride and to have broken down that barrier that had always stood between them. John Strong’s face was strangely altered. He seemed younger by some years, and he no longer stooped.
“Gabriel,” he said, bluntly, “whatever the past has brought us, let it be granted that I was the greater fool.”
“Not so, father,” retorted the son.
But even in the quaint thoroughness of his self-abasement, the elder man’s obstinacy played its part.
“Hang argument,” he said; “the facts are plain. No man likes owning that he was wrong, and I, sir, am no exception. But you struck for a principle, I for a prejudice. There is the truth in a nutshell.”
But Gabriel was not convinced.
“The fault was in measure mine,” he said, “even because I did not trust you as a son should.”
Under the trees, over the green grass below the banks of burning flowers, they saw Joan and Judith walking hand-in-hand. A calm light played upon Gabriel’s face; a smile flickered over John Strong’s stubborn mouth.
“Confound these women!” he said; “how they shame us.”
“True, sir, I have learned as much.”
“My own daughter has taught me a lesson.”
“And Joan has made a man of me.”
They met together under the cedar, Joan and Gabriel, Judith and her father. It seemed that they had communion in that hour and that the same spirit inspired them all.
John Strong reached out his hands to Judith and the other two.
“Come, lassies and lads,” he said, with a grim yet merry light in his gray eyes, “take hands and let us make our vow.”
“What shall we vow?” asked Judith, holding her father’s arm.
“To stand against slander.”
“Against slander,” said they all.
“Till death us do part.”
WITH strange swiftness tidings of a fellow’s misfortune are carried by the wind and wafted into every willing ear. People are the more quick to receive the news of another’s failure in preference to some small glory that may have blessed some one among them. Save to the generous few, the follies of humanity fall like libations poured before the eternal ego. A man’s so-called friends are his most subtle enemies, for they stand ever ready to stab him, claiming hypocritical candor in justification of the deed. The world loves disaster even that it may point the obvious moral, smite its self-righteous bosom and exclaim, “God, I thank thee that I am no fool.”
Now in Saltire charity abounded and the milk of human kindness flowed like water. The good news had spread even as a fire spreads over a dry heath before a western wind. The ladies of Saltire were in their element. For when a fair sister errs, her fellow-women lift up their voices and rejoice in that unctuous patois that passes for sure piety.
“Ophelia Gusset attempted to commit suicide!”
Then there was much wagging of heads, much holding up of hands. In tavern and in drawing-room the same tale was told, embellished with many a detail, colored with many a suggestive tint. Vain had been Blanche Gusset’s efforts to gloze and cover her sister’s deed. Hirelings are ever hirelings, and their tongues run fast. Groom, maid, and stable-boy spread the truth. Moreover, John Strong had spoken fearlessly, daring the law. Maltravers had fled, and Gabriel had returned home.
Many an inquiring spirit had analyzed the truth, not for the pure truth’s sake, but for the incense that might be extracted therefrom to delight the nostrils of society. Maltravers had evaporated; his horses had been sold in Rilchester. Ophelia Gusset had gone to Scotland for “her health.” The gates of Gabingly Castle were closed over the emptiness within, while John Strong and Gabriel his son had been seen in Saltire, side by side. The inference was obvious, the truth self-evident.
One of the first persons to call at Saltire Hall was Mr. Mince, glib-tongued and benignant. He shook hands with Gabriel with much fervor, like one welcoming a wronged man out of prison. He, Mr. Mince, had never doubted the matter for a moment. Moreover, John Strong’s gold piece had been absent from the plate for many months.
“As a Christian minister,” he said, “may I congratulate you, sir; on the wonderful workings of God’s providence.”
There was a subtle something in Gabriel’s eyes that even Mr. Mince’s complacency could not ignore.
“Ah, sir,” said the clergyman, “you think perhaps that we are hypocrites. As a humble and forgiving Christian, I do not resent the thought.”
“The world takes us, Mr. Mince,” Gabriel had answered him, “for what we seem and not for what we are.”
“But, Mr. Strong, is not the diagnosis often one of extreme complexity?”
“Not so complex, sir, to those who prefer to discover the evil rather than the good.”
Meanwhile John Strong had other strategies in view. He had ransacked his escritoire, where in the many pigeon-holes letters lay carefully hoarded. Methodical man that he was, he had sorted the documents through, reserved such as seemed needful, and enclosed them, with the anonymous letter Maltravers had surrendered to him, to a certain expert who dealt in the subtleties of caligraphy. John Strong had found that the hand-writing of the anonymous letter tallied with that of a certain epistle written to him by Mrs. Marjoy for her husband, concerning one of the Hall servants whom the doctor had attended. But the master of Saltire waited for an unbiassed opinion. He would make sure of his weapons before he attacked the redoubtable dragon of Saltire.
Thus, one afternoon, late in June, Mrs. Marjoy was darning stockings in her drawing-room when she received the news that John Strong of Saltire stood as a suppliant upon her threshold. Mrs. Marjoy sniffed at the necessity. She edged her work-basket under the sofa with her foot and deigned to receive the master of Saltire Hall. Doubtless these vulgar plutocrats desired to court the serene approval of her seraphic countenance.
She received John Strong with the air of a woman whose extravagant sense of “respectability” made her a fit compeer of the gods. Moreover, Mrs. Marjoy confounded staring and red-faced hauteur with stately aloofness and a distinguished air of reserve. She always glared at strangers through her spectacles as though she would demand many and abundant proofs of their gentility before she could deign to relax her vigilance. Mrs. Marjoy delighted in what she was pleased to call “a select circle,” acquaintances who were aristocratic enough to be toadied to, or friends familiar enough to deserve patronage.
Without rising from her chair, she extended a bony hand towards John Strong. It had always been her constant complaint that the Hall folk were “so detestably healthy.”
“Good-afternoon, Mr. Strong,” she observed; “I am afraid my husband is out.”
“So much the better, madam,” said the ex-tea-merchant. “I have driven round to have a short talk with you.”
Mrs. Marjoy stared. There was an expression upon John Strong’s face that she did not understand. Moreover, his confident and masterful air irritated her perpetual propensities towards tyranny. Mrs. Marjoy always regarded the spirit of independence in others as insufferable arrogance.
“One of your servants is ill, I suppose. My husband is very busy. Will to-morrow do?”
“On the contrary, madam, it is entirely a personal matter.”
“A personal matter, Mr. Strong?”
“Strictly personal.”
“Please explain.”
“With pleasure, madam.”
John Strong, drawing out his pocket-book with studied deliberation, unfolded a much-soiled sheet of note-paper and spread it upon his knee. The doctor’s wife watched him with the sincerest curiosity. As yet there was no suggestive irony in the appearance of the crumpled document.
“I have here, madam,” he said, “a certain letter.”
Mrs. Marjoy was sitting very stiff and straight in her chair.
“A letter that was written to my late daughter-in-law—”
“Indeed!”
“Containing certain libellous statements concerning my son.”
Mrs. Marjoy’s usually florid face grew a shade ruddier; her manner grew instantly more aggressive, and she began to twitch her shoulders, an infallible storm-signal to those who knew her.
“Well, Mr. Strong, what has all this to do with me?”
“Simply this, madam, that you wrote this letter and that I desire to discuss the situation with you.”
Mrs. Marjoy’s first impulse was to slap this stolid and masterful old gentleman’s face. She restrained herself from such a physical retort, remembering a certain fracas she had once had with a cook.
“How dare you, sir, make such an insinuation?”
“I insinuate nothing, madam.”
“Sir!”
“I am merely stating a fact.”
“You mean to tell me to my face that I am a liar?”
John Strong emphasized his words by beating his closed fist rhythmically upon his knee.
“No, madam, I am merely stating a fact. You wrote this letter. I should recommend you not to dispute the truth.”
Mrs. Marjoy half started from her chair. There was a look of such unsophisticated malignity in her brown eyes that John Strong gave thanks inwardly that he was not her husband.
“Am I to be insulted in my own house?” she asked.
John Strong ignored the side issue, being thoroughly convinced that he had the lady within his power.
“Libel, madam,” he continued, with great callousness—“libel is a serious matter. As you know, I am a wealthy man, a man of influence in the neighborhood.”
“Your vulgar money, sir!”
John Strong smiled, one of those peculiarly exasperating smiles that betray to the weaker disputants their own palpable inferiority.
“My vulgar money, madam,” he said, “could easily upset your husband’s trade. Why, by my soul, I have already bought this rented house of yours over your heads. I could drive you step by step out of Saltire, ay, and subsidize a dozen pill-peddlers in the neighborhood. My vulgar money, madam, is not a power to be scoffed at.”
Mrs. Marjoy seemed staggered.
“You consider yourself a gentleman?”
“I am an honest man, madam, and I am going to stand by my son.”
“Your son—poof!”
Mrs. Marjoy’s red face blazed. John Strong seemed as calm and undisturbed as though he were giving orders to a groom.
“Let me but catch one tag of scandal from your tongue, madam,” he said, “one single fabrication compromising my son’s honor, and, by my immortal soul, my vulgar money shall make Saltire too dear for you.”
“Preposterous!”
“The profession, madam, this noble profession, must stand well with society. A soft answer turneth away wrath, and a good manner bringeth in guineas. I like your husband, madam, for he has a heart in him. But remember that a doctor is dependent upon whims, and that your tongue may do much to work his ruin.”
Mrs. Marjoy was a woman whose whole courage resided in her temper. Her heroism was in this respect spasmodic, impressive, yet uncertain. She overpowered others by her gift of making life unlivable for those who withstood her will. Her husband had always preferred surrender for the sake of his own peace. But, like most women, when thoroughly frightened she was no longer the Medusa whose face petrified her enemies. In John Strong she had met her match.
Thus, after one shrewd glare at the tea-merchant’s obdurate face, she subsided somewhat suddenly in her chair and gave way to semi-hysterical tears. It was, indeed, an impressive sight to see Mrs. Marjoy weep. Yet there was no subtlety, no dramatic purpose in her grief. Her tears were the tears of an angry and impotent woman.
“This is mere brutality,” she said.
“Of course, madam, that letter was not brutal.”
“It was an honest letter.”
“You think so.”
“Mrs. Mince and Miss Snodley helped me to write it.”
“Indeed!” said John Strong, “then I trust that you will advise them to desist from such recreations in the future.”
“I shall appeal to my husband.”
“Do so, madam. Doubtless a libel action would improve his practice.”
John Strong, like a clever diplomat, had taken the measure of his adversary’s resources. He had frightened her sufficiently to prove that he was in grim earnest. Being no mere bovine bully, he adapted his methods to the exigencies of the situation, and proffered the lady a chance to regain her dignity.
“A year ago,” he began, “you probably believed that letter to be honest and sincere. But being a woman of sense, you will doubtless acknowledge that one’s opinions must change when new facts have been brought to light.”
Mrs. Marjoy mopped her glasses.
“I may have been mistaken,” she confessed.
“Of course, of course. We all make mistakes in life. You must pardon me if I have seemed over hard with you. Put yourself in my place, madam. Imagine how you would feel if a child of your own had suffered great wrong.”
Mrs. Marjoy’s tears still flowed. She swayed to and fro in her chair and dabbed her red face with her crumpled handkerchief. John Strong rose and prepared to depart.
“Come, madam,” he said, “I think we have talked sufficiently to bridge an understanding between us in this matter. Remember that facts are proving that my son is not the scoundrel you once believed him to be. Whether he was a fool or not, such a question is beyond the immediate issue. Now let me suggest to you that your course of action is plain.”
“Plain, Mr. Strong!”
“Respect the truth, madam, and I will respect your sex. May we be good friends in the future, for straight speaking does nobody any harm. But remember, madam, that I shall keep this letter, and that vulgar gold is a good lawyer. Also understand that this house you live in is my property, that half Saltire is in the palm of my hand. And remember, above all things, madam, that a woman’s tongue may ruin her husband.”
After the enunciating of such blunt truths, John Strong departed, leaving the lachrymose lady to her darning and her meditations. But Mrs. Marjoy was not a peaceful penitent. Though cowed and beaten, the original sin still stirred in her, for neither man nor angel can convert a shrew.
“Guor—how I hate that man,” she reflected. So to ease her temper, she proceeded to the kitchen and scolded her cook.
IT was evening, and Joan and Gabriel walked together under the great cedar-trees in the garden where the slanting sun streaked the long lawns with gold. The slim cypresses glittered under the sombre spirelets of the yews. Above, the garden, with its dreamy tapestries wrought out of living color, stretched towards the old house whose casements gleamed towards the sea.
Under the hoary and massive trees Gabriel and Joan walked hand-in-hand. Beauty seemed with them, as though they had stepped into some dim legend-land, where romance breathed over rich meadows and through waving woods. An Arthurian tenderness lived in the hour; envy and strife seemed banished even from thought.
Joan, radiant as faith, leaned within the hollow of Gabriel’s arm.
“Then even dreams come true,” she said to him.
There was an ardent light in the man’s eyes, such a light as kindles in the eyes of a seer.
“Was I not once tempted,” he answered her, “to embrace the thing that men call pessimism. For I was wounded of my fellows and knew not where to look for help. And there seemed so much horror in the world that even I half learned to jeer with those who mocked at my ideals.”
“No true man is a mocker, Gabriel.”
“Ay, and those who sneer betray the emptiness of their own mean minds.”
For a while they stood in silence, looking out towards the west. There was calm joy in the woman’s face, the joy of a woman whose love had conquered.
“The wise man ignores the vain, self-seeking, jealous horde,” she said, “where the envious intellect has stifled honor. Give me life where hearts are warm, where dissolute sophistry is unknown.”
Gabriel smiled at her, a lover’s smile.
“And once I doubted whether happiness could be found,” he said, “but now—”
“But now?” she asked.
“In a good woman’s love man comes near heaven. Give me simplicity: a quiet home, no matter how humble it may be, books, a few honest friends, some poor whom I may help.”
“Ah!” Joan said, “the city taught us that.”
“Vast Babel where every soul’s cry clashes. God, how my heart sickened in that place, where men scramble like swine over an unclean trough, gnashing against each other, wounding that they may live. Oh, material necessity, base need of gold! Happy are they who strive not but are content.”
The sun sank low behind the trees and the east was purpled with the night. So great was the silence that the very dew seemed to murmur as it fell from out the heavens. The utter azure was untroubled by a cloud; the windless west stood a vast sheet of gold.
“Have we not learned our lesson,” said the man—“to trust and labor and aspire?”
“Ah, Gabriel,” she answered, “to stand aside from those who bicker and deride, from those who stab their rivals with a lie, defaming truth in securing their own ends.”
“Yet, lest we forget—”
“Those whom prejudice has poisoned and gross greed crushed.”
“Ah, wife, God keep us children, blessed ever with an ever generous youth.”
Upon Joan’s face there shone an immortal glory, a look that was not begotten of the world.
“To help others,” she said. “May many a tired face brighten to my own; may weary eyes speak to me of the Christ; may Heaven descend in every good deed done.”
“Poverty and pain have taught us much.”
“To love pure living, the clean wind blowing from the sea, the scent of meadows streaming towards the dawn. To succor the unfortunate! To give, even as God has given to us!”
Transcriber’s Notes:
Spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original. A few obvious typesetting errors have been corrected without note.
[The end ofThe Slanderersby Warwick Deeping]