if sorrow and solitude go hand-in-hand, joan gildersedge indeed had wedded the twain. her life for years had been but a november repression of the sunnier moods of childhood. the passionate red ore had been hoarded in the dark, not squandered easily or tossed to every beggarly cringe of chance. it was nature that had uncovered this same treasure. her hand had sprinkled on the childish bosom the blood of a thousand roses. the flowers had touched her white feet with their dewy lips. wondrous alchemy, indeed! the gold of heaven, the red blood of earth, the milk-white waxen flesh of the moor merged into one slim pillar of virgin loveliness!
it was this same intense virginity of soul that caused joan to respond more deeply to the human refrain that had swept like strange music into her life. she had escaped the sentimentalisms, the erotic artificialities that mar so many women in the making. vanity had no acknowledged niche within her heart. she was a spontaneous being, infinitely good by sheer beauty of instinct, unconsciously divine. she had never had the ego emphasized in its meaner characteristics by contact with individuals less generous than herself. joan had served her father with a quiet patience, not from love, which was indeed impossible, but from a superabundant yet unconscious sense of duty. her strength was a fine spiritual energy, not the mere forcefulness of the strenuous development of self, the arrogance of astute individualism insisting upon a recognition of rights from monads of like impulse.
it was this same bright sensitiveness of soul that rendered this single romance of hers the more tragic in its earlier season. like some world-worn wanderer the man had parted the boughs of spring and fallen at her feet, weary of life, desirous only of some subtle lethe. her heart had gone out to him from the first hour, spontaneously and without forethought. she had ministered to him, giving him the waters of love for comfort, pointing him onward to a happier dawn.
thus when she had constituted herself the priestess of the man’s ideals, her hidden oracle had condemned her to pronounce her own doom. that day under the yews her fine self-abnegation had lifted her to queen it over the pleadings of her own heart. for the man’s sake she had understood the strong need of heroism. the sacrificial fire had been quenched upon the altar. she had cast down her divining-rod, broken her magic ring in twain, and returned mutely to her pristine solitude.
what depths of gloom the renunciation meant to her she never comprehended till the first night came. darkness, heavy, and without dawn! never to behold the man’s face again; nay, what was more, never to feel her spirit mount with his into the azure of that sympathy that had made earth heaven! there seemed a crass cruelty in the event, an illogical malice that stunned her reason. yet never in her heart did she blame gabriel for aught he had made her suffer.
three successive phases possessed her during those dark hours of anguish and deep bitterness.
for two days she was like a dumb, dazed thing, helpless, wide-eyed, infinitely silent. she went about her duties like one whose soul had been turned to stone. the dull pageant of life about her was a mere shadow show, dusky, nebulous, and unreal. she felt like one dead, standing beyond the tide of time, gazing back upon a paradisic past streaked with the mysterious purple of romance.
the third day she broke down utterly and became even as a child. her inspired strength ebbed from her. she wept often in secret, and talked to herself like one half-crazed by sorrow. often she would crush roses to her lips, bury her face in the green and quiet foliage of the trees, cling to some rugged trunk as a child to a mother’s bosom. apathy had passed, and the flood-gates of grief were open. it was her first great sorrow, her first vision of the infinite pathos of life, the first unbending of her soul before the eternal being whose face shines forth on those who suffer. she grew comforted by her own sorrow. many hours she spent wandering in the woods, or lying hid in the deep june grass, watching the blood ebb from her soul’s side. then an invisible hand seemed to touch the wound and stanch the flow. her old vitality returned, a calm and quiet melancholy tinged with a wistful wisdom. at night she would lie by the window in her cushioned chair and stare at the sky for hours together. no season of sleep was it, but a solemn vigil, even beneath the hill of calvary.
the third phase succeeded a mysterious and more subtle mood in every sense. she remembered gabriel’s kiss upon her lips. her yearning for the love he had given her kindled and increased. it was a mute and piteous stretching forth of hands, a great cry of the heart, a thirst of the soul for the wine of life. a strange hope leaped up within her, a passionate prophecy of comradeship that was to be. she had a dream that they would bear much anguish together, face the world and its perils hand-in-hand. she could have rejoiced with pale francesca at that season, drifting through woes that were divine, when the arms of a lover circled her soul.
meanwhile, with gabriel the car of life rumbled upon rugged highways. from mere scorn had arisen sardonic bickerings and the like. it was soon plain to the man that the two women, wife and friend, were in league for the tempting of his anger. it was even as though they had plotted to goad him to some incriminating act of violence. a campaign seemed to have been conceived against his patience.
torch was set to tinder at last one evening after dinner. whether there had been conspiracy in the event or no gabriel could never tell. cynicisms had been exchanged during the meal. after dessert gabriel had retired straightway to the library, and ophelia had followed him, pale and stiff about the lips, a woman bent on battle. she had come by some excuse for an attack upon the man, and her tongue soon set the scene ablaze. hot words were exchanged, taunts, recriminations, and the like. as a climax the woman overturned a writing-table with a crash at her husband’s feet, flung defiance in his face, and left him.
ophelia had compassed the necessary finale. as she passed back up the passage towards the hall, she tore her dress at the neck, and, taking the substance of her left arm between her teeth, she bruised the flesh till purple blood showed under the skin. meeting no witnesses upon the way, she disordered her hair as she climbed the oak stairway, and beat her mouth with her fist so that her lips bled.
by some foreordained coincidence miss mabel saker was looking over the contents of her jewel-case in the “blue bedroom.” moreover, this particular room was set directly above the library, and any occupant thereof could hear in measure what passed below. hence, when ophelia strong entered to her friend, that lady received her with a shocked pity that was zealously dramatic.
“dear, what has happened?”
by way of retort gabriel’s wife displayed to her indignant confidante her bruised arm and bleeding mouth.
“the cad; the mean coward!” was miss saker’s cry. “i heard him storming at you. how did it happen?”
“he lost his temper,” said the wife.
“by jove, if i were only a man!”
“i feel faint, mab.”
“the brute! let me bathe your mouth.”
angelic ministerings to misfortune ensued. smelling-salts, eau-de-cologne, and much sympathy were forthcoming. ophelia lay back in a lounge-chair breathing spasmodically, with certain hysteric symptoms, while miss saker hung over her and bathed her face.
ophelia clasped her arm about her friend’s neck and drew her face down close to hers. her disordered hair had fallen upon her shoulders, a pathetic web of gold.
“you will remember this, mab,” she said, significantly.
“should i forget it, dear! if james maltravers only knew!”
the woman in the chair shuddered and hid her face in the other’s bosom.
“can i stay here much longer?” she said.
“good heavens, no! he will be killing you next. there must be an end to this.”
it may easily be imagined that no apologies were forthcoming from gabriel for the affair, seeing that he was ignorant of the incidents chronicled above. the quarrel in the library, a mere tumult of words, had arisen like a dust-storm in the desert, sudden and without warning. the man had lost his dignity for the moment under the lash of the woman’s tongue, though even his involuntary descent to her level had not justified, in his estimation, her exhibition of feline spite. he was utterly innocent of the suspicion that she had deliberately tricked him into a display of violence. she was too subtle for the man with her glittering cleverness, perilous as a spanish dagger.
the following day gabriel had political business in rilchester and drove off early in his dog-cart, purposing to be home before the evening dinner-hour. ophelia and mabel saker were breakfasting in the “blue room,” and gabriel did not see his wife that morning. he was in a dismal mood enough, harassed by shapeless fancies, haunted by the pale face and the shimmering hair of the woman who held his heart. he had fathomed hour by hour the gulf of gloom she had left within his life. the world stood at june, the man’s mood at december.
it was even remarked that day by certain of his political confrères that he seemed depressed and burdened beyond his strength. he appeared, in fact, like a man overshadowed by some secret shame. his conversation had none of the subtle and half-cynical adroitness that had characterized it of old; it was limp and listless, a blunted weapon wielded by a weary hand. his intellect seemed out of gear, wayward, languid, masterless. occasionally a sparkle of enthusiasm shone through the preoccupied mask of melancholy. it was the common dictum of his acquaintances that “young strong was out of health.”
he drove homeward late in the afternoon, with the sky a peerless pavilion of gold above his head. a preternatural peace seemed to weigh upon the lids of the day. in the depths of her green valley the mallan lay with her glittering coils torpid in the sun. the trees took no breath. the clouds stood statuesque upon the hills.
a prophetic sense of evil awoke in the man’s mind as he climbed the hill towards his home. he saw the gray chimneys rising above the green, the shrubberies dusky upon the hill-side, gardens gleaming like painted glass. the place looked peaceful as sleep, a home to love and to be loved in, a haunt for elfish children, a calm refuge from the world.
as he drove in by the gate the gardener’s children ran out from the lodge and stood staring at him with credulous blue eyes. he tossed them some coppers as he drove by, smiling to himself half bitterly. all about him were sun-kissed trees, flowers brilliant in the sun. the scent of new-mown hay came from the meadows. there were pigeons cooing on the great, white wooden columbary behind the house.
in the hall the butler met him, salver in hand. the man had a loose and inquisitive smirk upon his lips which he attempted to stiffen. his small gray eyes stared into space and yet seemed to observe everything.
“mrs. strong and miss saker have left for gabingly castle, sir,” he said, snapping out his words with a clean-shaven gravity.
“when are they expected back, james?”
“taken luggage with them, sir.”
“luggage!”
“madame desired me to hand you this letter.”
the man watched his master cross the hall and disappear in the direction of the library “the fur ’ill fly,” he remarked, depositing the salver on the hall table. with a significant clucking of his tongue he retired to the kitchen quarters and described how “the gov’ner had looked sick as a turnip.”
in the library, with its gilded tiers of books, its panelling, and its archaic gentleness of atmosphere, a torn envelope lay at gabriel’s feet. he was standing by the window holding the sheet of scented paper close to his eyes, like one whose sight is feeble.
the epistle ran as follows:
“after your gross disloyalty and your cruel insolence i can remain under your roof no longer. i have returned to my father.
your wife.”
when gabriel had read the letter twice, he folded it up slowly and placed it in the breast-pocket of his coat. walking to a rosewood cabinet, he chose a cigar with peculiar deliberation, lit it, and, seating himself in the window-seat, smoked with a vicious pensiveness, puffing out smoke volubly and watching it die into the gloom of the room.
