Complete works of hall c.., p.531
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 531
I must have screamed, though I did not know it, for at the next moment Price was in the room and I saw that the housekeeper (drawn perhaps, as before, by my husband’s loud voice) was on the landing outside the door. But even that did not serve to restrain him.
“No matter,” he said. “After what has passed you may not enjoy to-morrow’s ceremony. But you shall go through it! By heaven, you shall! And when it is over, I shall have something to say to your father.”
And with that he swung out of the room and went lunging down the stairs.
I was still standing in the middle of the floor, with the blow from my husband’s hand tingling on my cheek, when Price, after clashing the door in the face of the housekeeper, said, with her black eyes ablaze:
“Well, if ever I wanted to be a man before to-day!”
News of the scene went like wildfire through the house, and Alma’s mother came to comfort me. In her crude and blundering way she told me of a similar insult she had suffered at the hands of the “bad Lord Raa,” and how it had been the real reason of her going to America.
“Us married ladies have much to put up with. But cheer up, dearie. I guess you’ll have gotten over it by to-morrow morning.”
When she was gone I sat down before the fire. I did not cry. I felt as if I had reached a depth of suffering that was a thousand fathoms too deep for tears. I do not think I wept again for many months afterwards, and then it was a great joy, not a great grief, that brought me a burst of blessed tears.
But I could hear my dear good Price crying behind me, and when I said:
“Now you see for yourself that I cannot remain in this house any longer,” she answered, in a low voice:
“Yes, my lady.”
“I must go at once — to-night if possible.”
“You shall. Leave everything to me, my lady.”
SEVENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER
The bell rang, but of course I did not go down to dinner.
As soon as Price had gone off to make the necessary arrangements I turned the key in the lock of my door, removed my evening gown, and began to dress for my flight.
My brain was numb, but I did my best to confront the new situation that was before me.
Hitherto I had been occupied with the problem of whether I should or should not leave my husband’s house; now I had to settle the question of where I was to go to.
I dared not think of home, for (Nessy MacLeod and Aunt Bridget apart) the house of my father was the last place I could fly to at a moment when I was making dust and ashes of his lifelong expectations.
Neither dared I think of Sunny Lodge, although I remembered, with a tug of tenderness, Christian Ann’s last message about Mary O’Neill’s little room that was always waiting for me — for I thought of how I had broken my pledge to her.
The only place I could think of was that which Martin had mentioned when he wished to carry me away — London. In the mighty world of London I might hide myself from observation and wait until Martin returned from his expedition.
“Yes, yes, London,” I told myself in my breathless excitement, little knowing what London meant.
I began to select the clothes I was to carry with me and to wear on my journey. They must be plain, for I had to escape from a house in which unfriendly eyes would be watching me. They must be durable, for during my time of waiting I expected to be poor.
I hunted out some of the quaker-like costumes which had been made for me before my marriage; and when I had put them on I saw that they made a certain deduction from my appearance, but that did not matter to me now — the only eyes I wished to look well in being down in the Antarctic seas.
Then I tried to think of practical matters — how I was to live in London and how, in particular, I was to meet the situation that was before me. Surely never did a more helpless innocent confront such a serious problem. I was a woman, and for more than a year I had been a wife, but I had no more experience of the hard facts of material existence than a child.
I thought first of the bank-book which my father had sent me with authority to draw on his account. But it was then nine o’clock, the banks were closed for the day, and I knew enough of the world to see that if I attempted to cash a cheque in the morning my whereabouts would he traced. That must never happen, I must hide myself from everybody; therefore my bank-book was useless.
“Quite useless,” I thought, throwing it aside like so much waste paper.
I thought next of my jewels. But there I encountered a similar difficulty. The jewels which were really mine, having been bought by myself, had been gambled away by my husband at Monte Carlo. What remained were the family jewels which had come to me as Lady Raa; but that was a name I was never more to bear, a person I was never more to think about, so I could not permit myself to take anything that belonged to her.
The only thing left to me was my money. I had always kept a good deal of it about me, although the only use I had had for it was to put it in the plate at church, and to scatter it with foolish prodigality to the boys who tossed somersaults behind the carriage in the road.
Now I found it all over my room — in my purse, in various drawers, and on the toilet-tray under my dressing-glass. Gathered together it counted up to twenty-eight pounds. I owed four pounds to Price, and having set them aside, I saw that I had twenty-four pounds left in notes, gold, and silver.
Being in the literal and unconventional sense utterly ignorant of the value of sixpence, I thought this a great sum, amply sufficient for all my needs, or at least until I secured employment — for I had from the first some vague idea of earning my own living.
“Martin would like that,” I told myself, lifting my head with a thrill of pride.
Then I began to gather up the treasures which were inexpressibly more dear to me than all my other possessions.
One of them was a little miniature of my mother which Father Dan had given me for a wedding-present when (as I know now) he would rather have parted with his heart’s blood.
Another was a pearl rosary which the Reverend Mother had dropped over my arm the last time she kissed me on the forehead; and the last was my Martin’s misspelt love-letter, which was more precious to me than rubies.
Not for worlds, I thought, would I leave these behind me, or ever part with them under any circumstances.
Several times while I was busy with such preparations, growing more and more nervous every moment, Price came on tip-toe and tapped softly at my door.
Once it was to bring me some food and to tell me, with many winks (for the good soul herself was trembling with excitement), that everything was “as right as ninepence.” I should get away without difficulty in a couple of hours, and until to-morrow morning nobody would be a penny the wiser.
Fortunately it was Thursday, when a combined passenger and cargo steamer sailed to Liverpool. Of course the motor-car would not be available to take me to the pier, but Tommy the Mate, who had a stiff cart in which he took his surplus products to market, would be waiting for me at eleven o’clock by the gate to the high road.
The people downstairs, meaning my husband and Alma and her mother, were going off to the pavilion (where hundreds of decorators were to work late and the orchestra and ballet were to have a rehearsal), and they had been heard to say that they would not be back until “way round about midnight.”
“But the servants?” I asked.
“They’re going too, bless them,” said Price. “So eat your dinner in peace, my lady, and don’t worry about a thing until I come back to fetch you.”
Another hour passed. I was in a fever of apprehension. I felt like a prisoner who was about to escape from a dungeon.
A shrill wind was coming up from the sea and whistling about the house. I could hear the hammering of the workmen in the pavilion as well as the music of the orchestra practising their scores.
A few minutes before eleven Price returned, carrying one of the smaller of the travelling-trunks I had taken to Cairo. I noticed that it bore no name and no initials.
“It’s all right,” she said. “They’ve gone off, every mother’s son and daughter of them — all except the housekeeper, and I’ve caught her out, the cat!”
That lynx-eyed person had begun to suspect. She had seen Tommy harnessing his horse and had not been satisfied with his explanation — that he was taking tomatoes to Blackwater to be sent off by the Liverpool steamer.
So to watch events, without seeming to watch them, the housekeeper (when the other servants had gone off to the rehearsal) had stolen upstairs to her room in the West tower overlooking the back courtyard.
But Price had been more than a match for her. Creeping up behind, she had locked the door of the top landing, and now the “little cat” might scream her head off through the window, and (over the noises of the wind and the workmen) it would be only like “tom” shrieking on the tiles.
“We must be quick, though,” said Price, tumbling into my travelling-trunk as many of my clothes as it would hold.
When it was full and locked and corded she said:
“Wait,” and stepped out on the landing to listen.
After a moment she returned saying:
“Not a sound! Now for it, my lady.”
And then, tying her handkerchief over her head to keep down her hair in the wind, she picked up the trunk in her arms and crept out of the room on tiptoe.
The moment had come to go, yet, eager as I had been all evening to escape from my husband’s house, I could scarcely tear myself away, for I was feeling a little of that regret which comes to us all when we are doing something for the last time.
Passing through the boudoir this feeling took complete possession of me. Only a few hours before it had been the scene of my deepest degradation, but many a time before it had been the place of my greatest happiness.
“You are my wife. I am your real husband. No matter where you are or what they do with you, you are mine and always will be.”
Half-closing the door, I took a last look round — at the piano, the desk, the table, the fireplace, all the simple things associated with my dearest memories. So strong was the yearning of my own soul that I felt as if the soul of Martin were in the room with me at that moment.
I believe it was.
“Quick, my lady, or you’ll lose your steamer,” whispered Price, and then we crossed the landing (which was creaking again) and crept noiselessly down a back staircase. We were near the bottom when I was startled by a loud knocking, which seemed to come from a distant part of the house. My heart temporarily stopped its beating, but Price only laughed and whispered:
“There she is! We’ve fairly caught her out, the cat.”
At the next moment Price opened an outer door, and after we had passed through she closed and locked it behind us.
We were then in the courtyard behind the house, stumbling in the blinding darkness over cobble-stones.
“Keep close to me, my lady,” said Price.
After a few moments we reached the drive. I think I was more nervous than I had ever been before. I heard the withered leaves behind me rustling along the ground before the wind from the sea, and thought they were the footsteps of people pursuing us. I heard the hammering of the workmen and the music of the orchestra, and thought they were voices screaming to us to come back.
Price, who was forging ahead, carried the trunk in her arms as if it had been a child, but every few minutes she waited for me to come up to her, and encouraged me when I stumbled in the darkness.
“Only a little further, my lady,” she said, and I did my best to struggle on.
We reached the gate to the high road at last. Tommy the Mate was there with his stiff cart, and Price, who was breathless after her great exertion, tumbled my trunk over the tail-board.
The time had come to part from her, and, remembering how faithful and true she had been to me, I hardly knew what to say. I told her I had left her wages in an envelope on the dressing-table, and then I stammered something about being too poor to make her a present to remember me by.
“It doesn’t need a present to help me to remember a good mistress, my lady,” she said.
“God bless you for being so good to me,” I answered, and then I kissed her.
“I’ll remember you by that, though,” she said, and she began to cry.
I climbed over the wheel of the stiff cart and seated myself on my trunk, and then Tommy, who had been sitting on the front-board with his feet on the outer shaft, whipped up his horse and we started away.
During the next half-hour the springless cart bobbed along the dark road at its slow monotonous pace. Tommy never once looked round or spoke except to his horse, but I understood my old friend perfectly.
I was in a fever of anxiety lest I should be overtaken and carried back. Again and again I looked behind. At one moment, when a big motor-car, with its two great white eyes, came rolling up after us, my stormy heart stood still. But it was not my husband’s car, and in a little while its red tail-light disappeared in the darkness ahead.
We reached Blackwater in time for the midnight steamer and drew up at the landward end of the pier. It was cold; the salt wind from the sea was very chill. Men who looked like commercial travellers were hurrying along with their coat-collars turned up, and porters with heavy trunks on their shoulders were striving to keep pace with them.
I gave my own trunk to a porter who came up to the cart, and then turned to Tommy to say good-bye. The old man had got down from the shaft and was smoothing his smoking horse, and snuffling as if he had caught a cold.
“Good-bye, Tommy,” I said — and then something more which I do not wish to write down.
“Good-bye, lil missie,” he answered (that cut me deep), “I never believed ould Tom Dug would live to see ye laving home like this . . . But wait! Only wait till himself is after coming back, and I’ll go bail it’ll be the divil sit up for some of them.”
SEVENTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER
It was very dark. No more than three or four lamps on the pier were burning, but nevertheless I was afraid that the pier-master would recognise me.
I thought he did so as I approached the gangway to the saloon, for he said:
“Private cabin on main deck aft.”
Nervous as I was, I had just enough presence of mind to say “Steerage, please,” which threw him off the scent entirely, so that he cried, in quite a different voice:
“Steerage passengers forward.”
I found my way to the steerage end of the steamer; and in order to escape observation from the few persons on the pier I went down to the steerage cabin, which was a little triangular place in the bow, with an open stove in the middle of the floor and a bleary oil-lamp swinging from a rafter overhead.
The porter found me there, and in my foolish ignorance of the value of money I gave him half a crown for his trouble. He first looked at the coin, then tested it between his teeth, then spat on it, and finally went off chuckling.
The first and second bells rang. I grudged every moment of delay before the steamer sailed, for I still felt like a prisoner who was running away and might even yet be brought back.
Seating myself in the darkest corner of the cabin, I waited and watched. There were only two other steerage passengers and they were women. Judging by their conversation I concluded that they were cooks from lodging-houses on “the front,” returning after a long season to their homes in Liverpool. Both were very tired, and they were spreading their blankets on the bare bunks so as to settle themselves for the night.
At last the third bell rang. I heard the engine whistle, the funnel belch out its smoke, the hawsers being thrown off, the gangways being taken in, and then, looking through the porthole, I saw the grey pier gliding behind us.
After a few moments, with a feeling of safety and a sense of danger passed, I went up on deck. But oh, how little I knew what bitter pain I was putting myself to!
We were just then swinging round the lighthouse which stands on the south-east headland of the bay, and the flash of its revolving light in my face as I reached the top of the cabin stairs brought back the memory of the joyous and tumultuous scenes of Martin’s last departure.
That, coupled and contrasted with the circumstances of my own flight, stealthily, shamefully, and in the dead of night, gave me a pang that was almost more than I could bear.
But my cup was not yet full. A few minutes afterwards we sailed in the dark past the two headlands of Port Raa, and, looking up, I saw the lights in the windows of my husband’s house, and the glow over the glass roof of the pavilion.
What would happen there to-morrow morning when it was discovered that I was gone? What would happen to-morrow night when my father arrived, ignorant of my flight, as I felt sure the malice of my husband would keep him?
Little as I knew then of my father’s real motives in giving that bizarre and rather vulgar entertainment, I thought I saw and heard everything that would occur.
I saw the dazzling spectacle, I saw the five hundred guests, I saw Alma and my husband, and above all I saw my father, the old man stricken with mortal maladies, the wounded lion whom the shadow of death itself could not subdue, degraded to the dust in his hour of pride by the act of his own child.
I heard his shouts of rage, his cries of fury, his imprecations on me as one who should never touch a farthing of his fortune. And then I heard the whispering of his “friends,” who were telling the “true story” of my disappearance, the tale of my “treacheries” to my husband — just as if Satan had willed it that the only result of the foolish fête on which my father had wasted his wealth like water should be the publication of my shame.
But the bitterest part of my experience was still to come. In a few minutes we sailed past the headlands of Port Raa, the lights of my husband’s house shot out of view like meteors on a murky night, and the steamer turned her head to the open sea.
