Complete works of hall c.., p.527
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 527
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.
