Chapter XII: Jealousy

WHEN Ronald came in, I told him at once of William Greystock's visit, and added that I had accepted the invitation.

"Have you? I said to Greystock that I was sure you would not go," remarked my husband, taking up his old station on the hearth with his back to the empty grate.

"I thought you would be vexed if I refused," I rejoined, watching him keenly as I spoke.

"It would vex me still more if you did anything that you hated doing, Louie. And lately you have shown such a dislike to society that—"

"That I had better keep out of it, Ronald? Well, it isn't too late to send an excuse."

"Nonsense," he answered, irritably; "Greystock would think you mad. Only, as you have promised to go, do try to enter into the spirit of the thing. Leave your little worries at home, and enjoy yourself with the others."

At that moment I wished passionately that I had sent William Greystock away with decided negative. Ronald did not want we to go to this picnic; he was afraid that I should be a kill-joy. Nobody wanted we now; I had only been desirable while my youth and gaiety lasted.

I wondered whether the life-stories of other women were anything like mine? Had they, too, been worshipped in their brief, bright girlhood, and neglected in their sad wifehood? Disappointed, driven back into myself, crushed down under a load of daily increasing anxieties, it is no marvel that I looked at Ronald and was secretly astonished to see that he was getting younger and brighter.

The truth was that he had never yet fairly realised our position as I did. All through that long illness of his—all through the weary weeks of convalescence, I had done my utmost to keep the veil over his eyes. While I beheld the grim, ugly facts of our life, he saw only a rose-coloured haze that softened every unlovely detail; and that veil, which anxious love had woven, had never yet been entirely rent away.

It was not a great wonder, then, that he fancied I was making the worst of everything, and was surprised at my anxious outlook into a future which he believed to be sunshiny enough. Too late I was learning the bitter truth, which every woman must learn sooner or later, that she who makes an idol of a man must always burn incense before his shrine. Instead of letting Ronald descend from the pedestal on which I had placed him—instead of making him take his lawful share of our common burdens—I had chosen to shoulder all the load, while he stood, high aloft, looking down with half-contemptuous surprise at the weak creature who was staggering at his feet.

What influences were at work, hardening his heart? How was it that he did not watch me with the old anxious tenderness, and see that I was losing strength every day? Alas! He had grown tired of being anxious and tender. If he had married a rich wife, his life would have been untroubled by the sight of a pale face and an enfeebled frame. Nothing preserves a woman's beauty like prosperity. Let her tread upon roses—guard her from all the worries that come from lack of money—if you want her to keep her charms.

For the thousandth time, the face of Ida Lorimer, fair, calm, unworn, rose up before me like a vision. Ronald was in the habit of seeing that face often; every day, perhaps. I could fancy that his hand would touch hers as he guided her pencil; I could guess that her golden head sometimes brushed his shoulder as he bent to watch her progress. Did not that contact ever inspire him with a vain regret for the days when she might have been won?

It has taken a long time to write these thoughts upon paper, but they drifted through my mind as swiftly as leaves that are driven before the wind. There stood Ronald, with the old tragic look in his eyes that always reminded me of the portrait of Inez—a look that seemed to settle on his face now-a-days whenever he was alone with me.

"I believe you dread going out with me, Ronald?" I said, after a brief pause. "What does it matter whether William Greystock thinks me mad or sane? I will write an excuse this very evening."

"It matters a great deal what Greystock thinks," he answered, with a frown that told of gathering wrath. "I don't want my friends to think strange things of my wife. You say that you have accepted the invitation, and so the affair is settled. Pray don't take offence at my timely counsels; they am well meant, and greatly needed."

I started up, sharply stung by the unkind words. And then in the next moment, the flame of anger suddenly died in my heart, and I was conscious only of my miserable weakness and loneliness. Unawares, a little wailing cry escaped from my lips, and I sank helplessly into a chair, and wept quiet tears.

So bitter was my sorrow that it did not comfort me even to feel Ronald's hand on my shoulder, and hear his voice saying soothing words in my ear. We might make up this difference as we had made up others, but our innermost selves could not be changed. I did not want to quarrel; of all the silly things in this world, a quarrel between married people seemed to me the silliest and most useless. Wedlock (as I once heard a cynic say) is an iron chain covered with velvet, and those couples only are wise who keep the soft covering on the chain.

As for me, I loved my fetters, and felt that my heart would break with the breaking of a single link. But I feared that Ronald had already caught a glimpse of the iron under the velvet, and had begun to sigh for release.

"Don't cry, Louie," he was saying, penitently. "You do make me feel myself such a brute when you take to weeping. And, really, you have wept so much lately, that we seem to be always living in a damp atmosphere. Why shouldn't we bask in the sun sometimes? Look up, dear, and tell me that you will try to be bright."

He might as well have commanded a dying woman to make an effort to live. All that I could do was to wipe away the tears, and struggle feebly to produce a smile.

"Never mind me, Ronald," I answered, seeing the disappointed look in his face. "I shall get stronger and wiser by-and-by. Sit there, in your favourite corner of the sofa, and sing and play. That will do me more good than anything else."

He needed no second bidding; the guitar, as usual, was close at hand, and he began to touch it with loving fingers.

"What shall I sing?" he asked. "I know; it shall be your own song, 'Sweetheart, sweetheart,'—I like it better than any you have ever written."

"Yes," I said, eagerly; "I would rather hear that than anything else."

But even while I spoke, I remembered the days when I wrote those lines—days full of thankfulness, brightened by an intense belief in the immutability of our love.

I have sometimes wondered whether a great poet ever takes up his own volume, and recalls the time in which each song was born. The song lives on, fresh and sweet as when it first started into life; but only the writer can see the withered hopes—the poor faded dreams and worn-out associations that cling to every line. So many dead things are hanging round those living verses that I fancy the author can hardly sing them over to himself without tears. And as I sat quietly listening for the first words of my love-song, written in the spring, and touched with springtide hope and confidence, my heart was aching for the happier past.

But it was not the prelude to my song that my husband began to play. As he swept the strings, there came again that sweet, strange melody which always soothed us, even while it baffled all attempts to catch its meaning.

Over and over he played that soft air, till the last trace of vexation faded out of his face; and his eyes, with a musing look in them, sought mine inquiringly. Again the music hushed all my troubled thoughts, as a nurse stills the fretful wailing of a child; again it seemed to murmur faintly of a coming time of peace and joy and rest.

"Shall I ever know where I learnt that air?" asked Ronald at last, letting the guitar rest on his knee. "Louie, I will tell you a curious thing. One night I was dining with some friends of Greystock's; they had a guitar in the room, and I took it up and tried to play our mysterious melody. But it would not come; and had to give up the attempt to recall it. What do you think of that, little woman?"

"I don't know what to think, Ronald," I replied; "but I do know that there is something in the air that gives me new courage and comforts me as nothing else does. Perhaps it is a message from some unknown spirit friend. Who can tell?"

And he echoed thoughtfully, "Who can tell?"