Читать книгу Wee Wifie - Rosa Nouchette Carey - Страница 7

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Nay—sometimes seems it I could even bear

To lay down humbly this love-crown I wear,

Steal from my palace, helpless, hopeless, poor,

And see another queen it at the door—

If only that the king had done no wrong,

If this my palace where I dwelt so long

Were not defiled by falsehood entering in.

There is no loss but change; no death but sin;

No parting, save the slow corrupting pain

Of murdered faith that never lives again.

Miss Mulock.

The following evening Margaret walked down the narrow path leading to the shore. It was a glorious evening, warm with the dying sunset, gorgeous with red and golden light.

Broad margins of yellow sands, white headlands, mossy cliffs, with the scarlet poppies and pink-eyed convolvuli growing out of the weedy crevices; above, a blue ineffable sky scored deeply with tinted clouds, and a sea dipping on the shore with a long slow ripple of sound; under a bowlder a child bathing her feet in a little runlet of a pool, while all round, heaped up with coarse wavy grasses, lay seaweed—brown, coralline, and purple—their salty fragrance steeping the air; everywhere the sound of cool splashes and a murmur of peace.

The child sat under the bowlder alone, a small brown creature in picturesque-looking rags, a mere waif and stray of a child, with her feet trailing in the pool; every now and then small mottled crabs scrambled crookedly along, or dug graves for themselves in the dry waved sand. The girl watched them idly, as she flapped long ribbons of brown seaweed, or dribbled the water through her hollowed hands, while a tired sea-gull that had lowered wing was skimming slowly along the margin of the water.

Another time Margaret would have paused to speak to the little waif of humanity before her, for she was a lover of children, and was never happier than when she was surrounded by these little creatures—the very babies crowed a welcome to her from their mother’s arms. But this evening Margaret’s eyes had a strange unseeing look in them; they were searching the winding shore for some expected object, and she scarcely seemed to notice the little one at her play.

Only four-and-twenty hours had passed since Sir Wilfred had paid that ill-omened visit to the Grange, and yet some subtle mysterious change had passed over Margaret. It was as though some blighting influence had swept over her; her face was pale, and her eyes were swollen and dim as though with a night’s weeping, and the firm beautiful mouth was tremulous with pain.

“I thought I should have met him by now,” she murmured; “I am nearly at the boat-house; surely Sir Wilfred must have given him my message.” But the doubt had hardly crossed her mind before a tall figure turned the corner by the lonely boat-house, and the next moment Hugh was coming rapidly toward her.

“Margaret!” he exclaimed, as he caught hold of her outstretched hands, “what does this mean? why have you kept me away from you all these hours, and then appointed this solitary place for our meeting?” Then, as she did not answer, and he looked at her more closely, his voice changed: “Good heavens! what has happened; what has my father done to you? How ill! how awfully ill you look, my darling!”

“It is nothing; I have not slept,” she returned, trying to speak calmly. “I am unhappy, Hugh, and trouble has made me weak.”

“You weak,” incredulously; then, as he saw her eyes filling with tears, “sit down on this smooth white bowlder, and I will place myself at your feet. Now give me your hand, and tell me what makes you so unlike yourself this evening.”

Margaret obeyed him, for her limbs were trembling, and a sudden mist seemed to hide him from her eyes; when it cleared, she saw that he was watching her with unconcealed anxiety.

“What is it, Margaret?” he asked, still more tenderly; “what is troubling you, my darling?” But he grew still more uneasy when she suddenly clung to him in a fit of bitter weeping and asked him over and over again between her sobs to forgive her for making him so unhappy.

“Margaret,” he said at last, very gently but firmly, “I can not have you say such things to me; forgive you who have been the blessing of my life; whose only fault is that you love me too well.”

“I can not be your blessing now, Hugh;” and then she drew herself from his embrace. “Do you remember this place, dear? It was on this bowlder that I was sitting that evening when you found me and asked me to be your wife. We have had some happy days since then, Hugh, have we not? and now to-night I have asked you to meet me here, that you may hear from my lips that I shall never be any man’s wife, most certainly not yours, Hugh—my Hugh—whom I love ten thousand times more than I have ever loved you before.”

A pained, surprised look passed over Hugh’s handsome face. It was evident that he had not expected this. The next moment he gave a short derisive laugh.

“So my father has made mischief between us; he has actually made you believe it would be a sin to marry me. My darling, what nonsense; I know all about your poor mother—many families have this sort of thing; do you think that ever keeps people from marrying? If we had known before, as I told my father, well, perhaps it might have made a difference, but now it is too late, nothing would ever induce me to give you up, Margaret; in my eyes you are already as bound to me as though you were my wife. My father has nothing to do with it—this is between you and me.”

“Hugh, listen to me; I have promised Sir Wilfred that I will never marry you.”

“Then your promise must be null and void; you are mine, and I claim you, Margaret.”

“No, no!” she returned, shrinking from him; “I will never be any man’s wife. I have told Raby so, and he says I am right.”

“Margaret, are you mad to say such things to me? I am not a patient man, and you are trying me too much,” and Hugh’s eyes flashed angrily. “Do you want me to doubt your love?”

“Do not make it too hard for me,” she pleaded. “Do you think this costs me nothing—that I do not suffer too? You will not be cruel to me, Hugh, because I am obliged to make you unhappy. It is not I, but the Divine Will that has interposed this barrier to our union. Ah, if Raby or I had but known, all this would have been spared you.”

“It is too late,” returned Hugh, gloomily; “you have no longer the right to dispose of yourself, you are mine—how often am I to tell you that? Do you think that I will ever consent to resign you, that I could live my life without you. What do I care about your mother? Such things happen again and again in families, and no one thinks of them. If I am willing to abide by the consequences, no one else has a right to object.”

Poor Hugh! he was growing more sore and angry every moment. He had anticipated some trouble from Margaret’s interview with his father; he knew her scrupulous conscience, and feared that a long and weary argument might be before him, but he had never really doubted the result. Life without Margaret would be simply insupportable; he could not grasp the idea for a moment.

Margaret—his Margaret—refuse to be his wife! His whole impetuous nature rose against such a cruel sentence—neither God nor man had decreed it; it was unreasonable, untrue, to suppose such a thing. How could he think of the consequences to his unborn children, of the good of future generations of Redmonds, when he could hear nothing but the voice of his passion that told him no other woman would be to him like Margaret? The news had indeed been a shock to him, but, as he had told his father, nothing should prevent his marrying Margaret.

But he little knew the woman with whose will he had to cope. Margaret’s very love for him gave her strength to resist—besides, she could not look at things from Hugh’s point of view. If she had married him she would never have known a moment’s peace. If she had had children and they had died, she would have regarded their death as a punishment. She would have seen retributive justice in every trouble that came upon them, till she must have pined and withered in her remorse. But she would never marry him. In that calm, loving heart there was a fund of strength and endurance truly marvelous. In her spirit of self-sacrifice she belonged to the noble army of women of whose ranks the proto-martyr, Mary of Nazareth, was first and chief; who can endure to suffer and to see their beloved suffer: who can thrust, uncomplainingly, the right hand—if need be—into the purifying flame, and so go through life halt or maimed, so that their garments may be always white and stainless.

And so looking upon him whom she loved, she gave him up forever; and Hugh’s anguish and despair failed to shake her resolution. The Divine Will had forbidden their union; she had promised his father that she would never marry him; she had vowed in last night’s bitter conflict never to be the wife of any man. This was what she told him, over and over again, and each time there was a set look about her beautiful mouth that told Hugh that there was no hope for him.

He came to believe it at last, and then his heart was very bitter against her. He said to himself, and then aloud—for in his angry passion he did not spare her, and his hard words bruised her gentle soul, most pitilessly—he said that she did not love him, that she never had, that that cold, pure soul of hers was incapable of passion; and he wondered with an intolerable anguish of anger whether she would suffer if he took her at her word and married another; and when he had flung these cruel words at her—for he was half-maddened with misery—he had turned away from her with a groan, and had hidden his head in his hands. His wishes had ceased to influence her; she had given him up; she would never be his wife, and all the sunshine and promise of his youth seemed dimmed.

But Margaret would not leave him like this; the next moment she was kneeling beside him on the sand. They say there is always something of the maternal element in the love of a good woman; and there was something of this protecting tenderness in Margaret’s heart as she drew Hugh’s head to her shoulder. He did not resist her; the first fierceness of his anger had now died out, and only the bitterness of his despair remained.

“Hugh, before we part to-night, will you not tell me that you forgive me?”

“How am I to tell you that,” he answered, in a dull weary voice, “when you are robbing my life of its happiness?”

“Oh, Hugh, when I loved you.”

“You are proving your love”—with the utmost bitterness; but she answered him with the same gentleness.

“You are still angry with me. Well, I must bear your anger; it will only make it all a little harder for me. If you could have said a word that would have helped me to bear it—but no—you are too unhappy; by and by you will do me justice.”

“I am not a saint like you,” he answered, harshly; “I have a man’s feelings. You have often told me I am passionate and willful—well, you were right.”

“Yes, you were always willful, Hugh; but you have never been cruel to me before; it is cruel to doubt my love because my duty compels me to give you up. Ah,” with a sudden passionate inflection in her voice, “do you know of what self-sacrifice a woman can be capable? for your dear sake, Hugh, I am content to suffer all my life, to stand aside and be nothing to you—yes, even to see another woman your wife, if only you will be brave and true to yourself, if you will live your life worthily. Will you promise me this, Hugh?”

“I will promise nothing,” was the reckless answer; “I will take no lie upon my lips even to please you, Margaret.”

“Then it must be as God wills,” she returned with white lips; “this pain will not last forever. One day we shall meet where it will be no sin to love each other. Good-bye until then, Hugh—my Hugh.”

“You are not leaving me, Margaret,” and Hugh’s arms held her strongly; but the next moment they had dropped to his side—she had stooped and kissed him on the forehead, and the touch of those cold lips seemed his death-warrant; the next moment he was alone, and Margaret was walking swiftly along the little path hollowed out of the cliff. The sunset clouds had long ago faded, and only a gray sky and sea remained.

Half an hour later, as Margaret turned in at the gate of the Grange, a dark figure standing bare-headed under the trees came in groping fashion to meet her.

“Is that you, Margaret?”

“Yes, it is I,” and Margaret stood still and motionless until Raby touched her.

“Have you seen him, dear?”

“Yes, it is all over.” And then she said a little wildly, “I have done my duty, Raby; I have broken his heart and my own;” but even as she spoke, Raby took her in his arms and low words of blessings seemed to falter on his lips. “My brave sister, but I never doubted for a moment that you would do the right thing. And now be comforted; the same Divine Providence that has exacted this sacrifice will watch over Hugh.”

“I know it,” she said, weeping bitterly; “but he will have to suffer—if I could only suffer for both!”

“He will not suffer one pang too much,” was the quiet answer; “but you are worn out, and I will not talk more to you to-night. Go to your own room, Margaret; tomorrow we will speak of this again.” But before she left him he blessed her once more.