Chapter I: Fall in Love (2)

And then, while Alma gave my husband a look of arch triumph to which he replied with a painful smile, Martin leaned over to me and whispered"

"Hush! I want to! I must!" though what he meant by that I never knew.

He continued to look at me with a tender expression until we said good-bye; but after the carriage door had been closed and the engine had throbbed, and the guard had whistled, I thought I had never seen his strong face so stern as when the train moved from the platform.

FIFTY-SIXTH CHAPTER

We reached Ellan towards the close of the following day. It was the height of the holiday season, and the island seemed to be ablaze with lights.

Two motor-cars were waiting for us at the pier, and in a little while we were driving out of Blackwater through congested masses of people who were rambling aimlessly through the principal streets.

Our way was across a stone bridge that crossed the harbour at its inner end, and then up a hill that led to a headland overlooking the sea. Within half an hour we drew up at a pair of large gate posts which were much decayed and leaning heavily out of the perpendicular.

The chauffeur of the first of our ears got down to open the gate, and after it had clashed to behind us, we began to ascend a very steep drive that was bordered by tall elm trees. It was now almost dark, and the rooks, which had not yet gone off to the mountains, were making their evening clamour.

"Well, my dear, you're at home at last, and much good may it do you," said my husband.

I made no answer to this ungracious speech, but Alma was all excitement.

"So this is Castle Raa! What a fascinating old place!" she said, and as we drove through the park she reached out of the car to catch a first glimpse of the broad terraces and winding ways to the sea which had been reflected in her memory since she was a child.

I felt no such anxiety. Never did a young bride approach the home of her husband with less curiosity, but as our motor-car toiled up the drive I could not help seeing the neglected condition of the land, with boughs of trees lying where they had fallen in the storms, as well as broken gates half off their hinges and swinging to the wind.

The house itself, when we came in sight of it, was a large castellated building with many lesser turrets and one lofty octagonal tower, covered entirely with ivy, which, being apparently unshorn for years, hung in long trailers down the walls, and gave the whole pile the appearance of a huge moss-covered rock of the sea planted on a promontory of the land.

As our car went thundering up to the great hall door nearly the whole of the servants and some of the tenant farmers (under the direction of the tall, sallow man who had been my husband's guardian in former days, and was now his steward) were waiting to welcome us, as well as Lady Margaret Anselm, who was still reserved and haughty in her manner, though pleasant enough with me.

My husband nodded to all, shook hands with some, presented Alma to his aunt as "one of Mary's old school friends," (a designation which, as I could see, had gone ahead of her) and then we passed into the house.

I found the inside corresponded with the outside in its appearance of neglect and decay, the big square hall having rusty and disjointed armour on its wainscotted walls and the mark of water on the floor, which had come from a glass dome over the well of the stairs, for it had rained while we were on the sea.

The drawing-room had faded curtains over the windows, faded velvet on the square sofa and stiff chairs, faded carpets, faded samplers, and faded embroidery on faded screens.

The dining-room (the sedate original of my father's rather garish copy) was a panelled chamber, hung round with rubicund portraits of the male O'Neills from the early ones of the family who had been Lords of Ellan down to the "bad Lord Raa," who had sworn at my grandmother on the high road.

I felt as if no woman could have made her home here for at least a hundred years, and I thought the general atmosphere of the house was that of the days when spendthrift noblemen, making the island a refuge from debt, spent their days in gambling and their nights in drinking bumpers from bowls of whiskey punch to the nameless beauties they had left "in town."

They were all gone, all dead as the wood of the worm-eaten wainscotting, but the sound of their noisy merry-making seemed to cling to the rafters still, and as I went up to my rooms the broad oaken staircase seemed to be creaking under their drunken footsteps.

My own apartments, to which Lady Margaret conducted me, were on the southern side of the house--a rather stuffy bedroom with walls covered by a kind of pleated chintz, and a boudoir with a stone balcony that had a flight of steps going down to a terrace of the garden, which overlooked a glen and had a far view of the sea.

On the opposite side of the landing outside (which was not immediately off the great staircase though open to the view of it) there was a similar suite of rooms which I thought might be my husband's, but I was told they were kept for a guest.

Being left alone I had taken off my outer things and was standing on my balcony, listening to the dull hum of the water in the glen, the rustle of the trees above it, the surge of the sea on the rocks below, the creaking of a rusty weathercock and the striking of a court-yard clock, when I also heard the toot and throb of another motor-car, and as soon as it came up I saw that it contained Aunt Bridget in the half-moon bonnet and Betsy Beauty, who was looking more than ever like a country belle.

When I went down to the drawing-room Lady Margaret was pouring out tea for them, and at sight of me Aunt Bridget cried,

"Sakes alive, here she is herself!"

"But how pale and pinched and thin!" said Betsy Beauty.

"Nonsense, girl, that's only natural," said my Aunt Bridget, with something like a wink; and then she went on to say that she had just been telling her ladyship that if I felt lonely and a little helpless on first coming home Betsy would be pleased to visit me.

Before I could reply my husband came in, followed shortly by Alma, who was presented as before, as "Mary's old school-fellow"; and then, while Betsy talked to Alma and my husband to his kinswoman, Aunt Bridget, in an undertone, addressed herself to me.

"You're that way, aren't you? . . . No? Goodness me, girl, your father _will_ be disappointed!"

Just then a third motor-car came throbbing up to the house, and Betsy who was standing by the window cried:

"It's Uncle Daniel with Mr. Curphy and Nessy."

"Nessy, of course," said Aunt Bridget grumpily, and then she told me in a confidential whisper that she was a much-injured woman in regard to "that ungrateful step-daughter," who was making her understand the words of Scripture about the pang that was sharper than a serpent's tooth.

As the new-comers entered I saw that Nessy had developed an old maid's idea of smartness, and that my father's lawyer was more than ever like an over-fatted fish; but my father himself (except that his hair was whiter) was the same man still, with the same heavy step, the same loud voice and the same tempestuous gaiety.

"All here? Good! Glad to be home, I guess! Strong and well and hearty, I suppose? . . . Yes, sir, yes! I'm middling myself, sir. Middling, sir, middling!"

During these rugged salutations I saw that Alma, with the bad manners of a certain type of society woman, looked on with a slightly impertinent air of amused superiority, until she encountered my father's masterful eyes, which nobody in the world could withstand.

After a moment my father addressed himself to me.

"Well, gel," he said, taking me by the shoulders, as he did in Rome, "you must have cut a dash in Egypt, I guess. Made the money fly, didn't you? No matter! My gold was as good as anybody else's, and I didn't grudge it. You'll clear me of that, anyway."

Then there was some general talk about our travels, about affairs on the island (Mr. Curphy saying, with a laugh and a glance in my direction, that things were going so well with my father that if all his schemes matured he would have no need to wait for a descendant to become the "uncrowned King of Ellan"), and finally about Martin Conrad, whose great exploits had become known even in his native country.

"Extraordinary! Extraordinary!" said my father. "I wouldn't have believed it of him. I wouldn't really. Just a neighbour lad without a penny at him. And now the world's trusting him with fifty thousand pounds, they're telling me!"

"Well, many are called but few are chosen," said Mr. Curphy with another laugh.

After that, and some broken conversation, Aunt Bridget expressed a desire to see the house, as the evening was closing in and they must soon be going back.

Lady Margaret thereupon took her, followed by the rest of us, over the principal rooms of the Castle; and it was interesting to see the awe with which she looked upon everything--her voice dropping to a whisper in the dining-room. I remember, as if the scene of carousing of the old roysterers had been a sort of sanctuary.

My father, less impressed, saw nothing but a house in bad repair, and turning to my husband, who had been obviously ill at ease, he said:

"Go on like this much longer, son-in-law, and you'll be charging two-pence a head to look at your ruins. Guess I must send my architect over to see what he can do for you."

Then taking me aside he made his loud voice as low as he could and said:

"What's this your Aunt Bridget tells me? Nine months married and no sign yet? Tut, tut! That won't do, gel, that won't do."

I tried to tell him not to spend money on the Castle if he intended to do so in expectation of an heir, but my heart was in my mouth and what I really said I do not know. I only know that my father looked at me for a moment as if perplexed, and then burst into laughter.

"I see! I see!" he said. "It's a doctor you want. I must send Conrad to put a sight on you. It'll be all right, gel, it'll be all right! Your mother was like that when you were coming."

As we returned to the hall Betsy Beauty whispered that she was surprised Mr. Eastcliff had married, but she heard from Madame that we were to have a house-party soon, and she hoped I would not forget her.

Then Aunt Bridget, who had been eyeing Alma darkly, asked me who and what she was and where she came from, whereupon I (trying to put the best face on things) explained that she was the daughter of a rich New York banker. After that Aunt Bridget's countenance cleared perceptibly and she said:

"Ah, yes, of course! I thought she had a quality toss with her."

The two motor-cars had been drawn up to the door, and the two parties had taken their seats in them when my father, looking about him, said to my husband:

"Your garden is as rough as a thornbush, son-in-law. I must send Tommy the Mate to smarten it up a bit. So long! So long!"

At the next moment they were gone, and I was looking longingly after them. God knows my father's house had never been more than a stepmother's home to me, but at that moment I yearned to return to it and felt like a child who was being left behind at school.

What had I gained, by running away from London? Nothing at all. Already I knew I had brought my hopeless passion with me.

And now I was alone.

FIFTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER

Next day Lady Margaret came to my room to say good-bye, telling me she had only stayed at Castle Raa to keep house and make ready for me, and must now return to her own home, which was in London.

I was sorry, for my heart had warmed to her, and when I stood at the door and saw her drive off with my husband to catch the afternoon steamer, I felt I had lost both sympathy and protection.

Alma's feelings were less troubled, and as we turned back into the house I could see that she was saying to herself:

"Thank goodness, _she's_ gone away."

A day or two later Doctor Conrad came, according to my father's instructions, and I was glad to see his close-cropped iron-grey head coming up the stairs towards my room.

Naturally our first conversation was about Martin, who had written to tell his parents of our meeting in London and to announce his intended visit. It was all very exciting, and now his mother was working morning and night at the old cottage, to prepare for the arrival of her son. Such scrubbing and scouring! Such taking up of carpets and laying them down again, as if the darling old thing were expecting a prince!

"It ought to be Sunny Lodge indeed before she's done with it," said the Doctor.

"I'm sure it will," I said. "It always was, and it always will be."

"And how are we ourselves," said the doctor. "A little below par, eh? Any sickness? No? Nausea? No? Headache and a feeling of lassitude, then? No?"

After other questions and tests, the old doctor was looking puzzled, when, not finding it in my heart to keep him in the dark any longer, I told him there was nothing amiss with my health, but I was unhappy and had been so since the time of my marriage.

"I see," he said. "It's your mind and not your body that is sick?"

"Yes."

"I'll speak to Father Dan," he said. "Good-bye! God bless you!"

Less than half an hour after he had gone, Alma came to me in her softest mode, saying the doctor had said I was suffering from extreme nervous exhaustion and ought to be kept from worries and anxieties of every kind.

"So if there's anything I can do while I'm here, dearest, . . . such as looking after the house and the servants. . . . No, no, don't deny me; it will be a pleasure, I assure you. . . . So we'll say that's settled, shall we? . . . You dear, sweet darling creature!"

I was too much out of heart to care what happened, but inside two days I realised that Alma had taken possession of the house, and was ordering and controlling everything.

Apparently this pleased such of the servants as had anything to gain by it--the housekeeper in particular--for Alma was no skinflint and she was making my husband's money flow like water, but it was less agreeable to my maid, who said:

"This is a nice place to be sure, where the mistress takes no interest in anything, and the guest walks over everybody. She'll walk over the mistress herself before long--mark my word but she will."

It would be about a week after our arrival at Castle Raa that Price came to my room to say that a priest was asking for me, and he was such a strange-looking thing that she was puzzled to know if his face was that of a child, a woman or a dear old man.

I knew in a moment it must be Father Dan, so I went flying downstairs and found him in the hall, wearing the same sack coat (or so it seemed) as when I was a child and made cupboards of its vertical pockets, carrying the same funny little bag which he had taken to Rome and used for his surplice at funerals, and mopping his forehead and flicking his boots with a red print handkerchief, for the day was hot and the roads were dusty.

He was as glad to see me as I to see him, and when I asked if he would have tea, he said Yes, for he had walked all the way from the Presbytery, after fasting the day before; and when I asked if he would not stay overnight he said Yes to that, too, "if it would not be troublesome and inconvenient."

So I took his bag and gave it to a maid, telling her to take it to the guest's room on my landing, and to bring tea to my boudoir immediately.

But hardly had I taken him upstairs and we had got seated in my private room, when the maid knocked at the door to say that the housekeeper wished to speak with me, and on going out, and closing the door behind me, I found her on the landing, a prim little flinty person with quick eyes, thin lips and an upward lift of her head.

"Sorry, my lady, but it won't be convenient for his reverence to stay in the house to-night," she said.

"Why so?" I said.

"Because Madame has ordered all the rooms to be got ready for the house-party, and this one," (pointing to the guest's room opposite) "is prepared for Mr. and Mrs. Eastcliff, and we don't know how soon they may arrive."

I felt myself flushing up to the eyes at the woman's impudence, and it added to my anger that Alma herself was standing at the head of the stairs, looking on and listening. So with a little spurt of injured pride I turned severely on the one while really speaking to the other, and said:

"Be good enough to make this room ready for his reverence without one moment's delay, and please remember for the future, that I am mistress in this house, and your duty is to obey me and nobody else whatever."

As I said this and turned back to my boudoir, I saw that Alma's deep eyes had a sullen look, and I felt that she meant to square accounts with me some day; but what she did was done at once, for going downstairs (as I afterwards heard from Price) she met my husband in the hall, where, woman-like, she opened her battery upon him at his weakest spot, saying:

"Oh, I didn't know your wife was priest-ridden."

"Priest-ridden?"

"Precisely," and then followed an explanation of what had happened, with astonishing embellishments which made my husband pale with fury.

Meantime I was alone with Father Dan in my room, and while I poured out his tea and served him with bread and butter, he talked first about Martin (as everybody seemed to do when speaking to me), saying:

"He was always my golden-headed boy, and it's a mighty proud man I am entirely to hear the good news of him."

More of the same kind there was, all music to my ears, and then Father Dan came to closer quarters, saying Doctor Conrad had dropped a hint that I was not very happy.

"Tell your old priest everything, my child, and if there is anything he can do. . . ."

Without waiting for more words I sank to my knees at his feet, and poured out all my troubles--telling him my marriage had been a failure; that the sanctifying grace which he had foretold as the result of the sacrament of holy wedlock had not come to pass; that not only did I not love my husband, but my husband loved another woman, who was living here with us in this very house.

Father Dan was dreadfully distressed. More than once while I was speaking he crossed himself and said, "Lord and His Holy Mother love us;" and when I came to an end he began to reproach himself for everything, saying that he ought to have known that our lad (meaning Martin) did not write those terrible letters without being certain they were true, and that from the first day my husband came to our parish the sun had been darkened by his shadow.

"But take care," he said. "I've told nobody about the compact we made with your husband--nobody but our Blessed Lady herself--and you mustn't think of that as a way out of your marriage. No, nor of any other way, no matter what, which the world, and the children of the world, may talk about."

"But I can't bear it, I can't bear it," I cried.

"Hush! Hush! Don't say that, my daughter. Think of it as one of the misfortunes of life which we all have to suffer. How many poor women have to bear the sickness and poverty, not to speak of the drunkenness and death, of their husbands! Do they think they have a right to run away from all that--to break the sacred vows of their marriage on account of it? No, my child, no, and neither must you. Some day it will all come right. You'll see it will. And meantime by the memory of your mother--that blessed saint whom the Lord has made one of his own. . . ."

"Then what can I do?"

"Pray, my child, pray for strength to bear your trials and to resist all temptation. Say a rosary for the Blessed Virgin every morning before breaking your fast. I'll say a rosary, too. You'll see yet this is only God's love for you, and you'll welcome His holy will."

While my dear father and friend was counselling me so I heard my husband speaking in his loud, grating tones on the landing outside, and before I could rise from my knees he had burst open the door and entered the room.

His face was deadly white and he was like a man out of his right mind.

"Mary," he said, looking down at me where I knelt with my hands crossed on my bosom, "when did I give you permission to introduce a priest into my house? Isn't it enough for a man to have a wife who is a Catholic without having the church and its ministers shunted into his home without his permission?"

I was so taken aback by this furious assault that at first I could not speak, but Father Dan interposed to defend me, saying with beautiful patience, that his visit had been quite unexpected on my part, and that I had asked him to stay overnight only because he was an old man, and had had a long walk from his parish.

"I'm much obliged to your reverence," said my husband, who was quivering with fury, "but my wife is perfectly capable of answering for herself without your assistance, and as for your parish you would have done better to stay there instead of coming to meddle in this one."

"Aren't you measuring me by your own yard, sir?" said Father Dan, and at that straight thrust my husband broke into ungovernable rage.

"Everybody knows what a Popish priest is," he said. "A meddlesome busybody who pokes his nose into other men's secrets. But priest or no priest, I'll have no man coming to my house to make mischief between husband and wife."

"Are you sure," said Father Dan, "that some woman isn't in your house already, making mischief between wife and husband?"

That thrust too went home. My husband looked at me with flashing eyes and then said:

"As I thought! You've been sent for to help my wife to make a great to-do of her imaginary grievances. You're to stay in the house too, and before long we'll have you setting up as master here and giving orders to my servants! But not if I know it! . . . Your reverence, if you have any respect for your penitent, you'll please be good enough to leave my wife to _my_ protection."

I saw that Father Dan had to gulp down his gathering anger, but he only said:

"Say no more, my lord. No true priest ever comes between a man and the wife whom God has given him. It's his business to unite people, not to put them apart. As for this dear child, I have loved her since she was an infant in arms, and never so much as at the present speaking, so I don't need to learn my duty from one who appears to care no more for her than for the rind of a lemon. I'll go, sir," said the old man, drawing himself up like a wounded lion, "but it's not to your protection I leave her--it's to that of God's blessed and holy love and will."

My husband had gone before the last words were spoken, but I think they must have followed him as he went lunging down the stairs.

During this humiliating scene a hot flush of shame had come to my cheeks and I wanted to tell Father Dan not to let it grieve him, but I could do nothing but stoop and kiss his hand.

Meantime two or three of the servants had gathered on the landing at the sound of my husband's voice, and among them was the flinty housekeeper holding the Father's little bag, and she gave it back to him as he passed her.

Then, all being over, the woman came into my room, with an expression of victorious mischief in her eyes and said:

"Your ladyship had better have listened to them as knows, you see."

I was too benumbed by that cruel stroke to reply, but Price said enough for both of us.

"If them as knows," she said, "don't get out of this room inside two seconds they'll get their ugly faces slapped."

* * * * *

I thought I had reached the end of my power of endurance, and that night, before going to bed, while my maid was taking down my hair, and I was thinking of Martin and asking myself if I should put up with my husband's brutalities any longer, I heard her say:

"If I were a lady married to the wrong man, I'd have the right one if I had to go through the divorce court for him."

Now that was so exactly the thought that was running riot in my own tormented mind, that I flew at her like a wild cat, asking her how she dared to say anything so abominably wicked, and telling her to take her notice there and then.

But hardly had she left the room, when my heart was in my mouth again, and I was trembling with fear lest she should take me at my word and then the last of my friends would be gone.

FIFTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER

Within the next few days the house-party arrived. There would be twenty of them at least, not counting valets and ladies' maids, so that large as Castle Raa was the house was full.

They were about equally divided as to sex and belonged chiefly to my husband's class, but they included Mr. Eastcliff's beautiful wife, Camilla, and Alma's mother, who, much to Alma's chagrin, had insisted upon being invited.

My husband required me to receive them, and I did so, though I was only their nominal hostess, and they knew it and treated me accordingly.

I should be ashamed to speak of the petty slights they put upon me, how they consulted Alma in my presence and otherwise wounded my pride as a woman by showing me that I had lost my own place in my husband's house.

I know there are people of the same class who are kind and considerate, guileless and pure, the true nobility of their country--women who are devoted to their homes and children, and men who spend their wealth and strength for the public good--but my husband's friends were not of that kind.

They were vain and proud, selfish, self-indulgent, thoroughly insincere, utterly ill-mannered, shockingly ill-informed, astonishingly ill-educated (capable of speaking several languages but incapable of saying a sensible word in any of them), living and flourishing in the world without religion, without morality, and (if it is not a cant phrase to use) without God.

What their conduct was when out shooting, picnicking, driving, riding, motoring, and yachting (for Mr. Eastcliff had arrived in his yacht, which was lying at anchor in the port below the glen), I do not know, for "doctor's orders" were Alma's excuse for not asking me to accompany them.

But at night they played bridge (their most innocent amusement), gambled and drank, banged the piano, danced "Grizzly Bears," sang duets from the latest musical comedies, and then ransacked the empty houses of their idle heads for other means of killing the one enemy of their existence--Time.

Sometimes they would give entertainments in honour of their dogs, when all the animals of all the guests (there seemed to be a whole kennel of them) would be dressed up in coats of silk and satin with pockets and pocket-handkerchiefs, and then led downstairs to the drawing-room, where Alma's wheezy spaniel and my husband's peevish terrier were supposed to receive them.

Sometimes they would give "freak dinners," when the guests themselves would be dressed up, the men in women's clothes, the women in men's, the male imitating the piping treble of the female voices, and the female the over-vowelled slang of the male, until, tiring of this foolishness, they would end up by flinging the food at the pictures on the walls, the usual pellet being softened bread and the favourite target the noses in the family portraits, which, hit and covered with a sprawling mess, looked so ridiculous as to provoke screams of laughter.

The talk at table was generally of horses and dogs, but sometimes it was of love, courtship and marriage, including conjugal fidelity, which was a favourite subject of ridicule, with both the women and the men.

Thus my husband would begin by saying (he often said it in my hearing) that once upon a time men took their wives as they took their horses, on trial for a year and a day, and "really with some women there was something to say for the old custom."

Then Mr. Vivian would remark that it was "a jolly good idea, by Jove," and if he "ever married, by the Lord that's just what he would do."

Then Mr. Eastcliff would say that it was a ridiculous superstition that a woman should have her husband all to herself, "as if he were a kind of toothbrush which she could not share with anybody else," and somebody would add that she might as reasonably want her dentist or her hairdresser to be kept for her own use only.

After that the ladies, not to be left behind, would join in the off-hand rattle, and one of them would give it as her opinion that a wife might have an incorrigibly unfaithful husband, and yet be well off.

"Ugh!" said Alma one night, shrugging her shoulders. "Think of a poor woman being tied for life to an entirely faithful husband!"

"I adore the kind of man who goes to the deuce for a woman--Parnell, and Gambetta and Boulanger and that sort," said a "smart" girl of three or four-and-twenty, whereupon Camilla Eastcliff (she was a Russian) cried:

"That's vhy the co-respondents in your divorce courts are so sharming. They're like the villayns in the plays--always so dee-lightfully vicked."

Oh, the sickening horror of it all! Whether it was really moral corruption or only affectation and pose, it seemed equally shocking, and though I bore as much of it as I could with a cheerful face, I escaped as often as possible to the clean atmosphere of my own room.

But even there I was not always allowed to be alone, for Alma's mother frequently followed me. She was a plump little person in a profuse ornamentation of diamond rings and brooches, with little or no education, and a reputation for saying risky things in blundering French whereof the principal humour lay in the uncertainty as to whether she knew their meaning or not.

Nevertheless she was the only good-hearted woman in the house, and I really believe she thought she was doing a kind act in keeping me company. But oh, how I suffered from her long accounts of her former "visits" to my house, whereby I learned, without wishing to, what her origin had been (the daughter of a London postman); what position she had held in Castle Raa in her winsome and reckless youth (one that need not be defined); how she had met her husband in New York and he had married her to save the reputation of his child; and finally how the American ladies of society had refused to receive her, and she had vowed to be revenged on them by marrying Alma to the highest title in Europe that could be bought with money.

"I was just like your father, my dear. I never did no manner of harm to those people. They used to think I thought myself better blood nor they were, but I never thought no such thing, I assure you. Only when they turned nasty after my marriage I made up my mind--just as your father did--as Alma should marry a bigger husband nor any of them, even if he wasn't worth a dime and 'adn't a 'air on 'is 'ead."

But even these revelations about herself were less humiliating than her sympathy with me, which implied that I was not fitted to be mistress of a noble house--how could it be expected of me?--whereas Alma was just as if she had been born to it, and therefore it was lucky for me that I had her there to show me how to do things.

"Alma's gotten such _ton!_ Such distangy manners!" she would say.

The effect of all this was to make me feel, as I had never felt before, the intolerable nature of the yoke I was living under. When I looked into the future and saw nothing before me but years of this ignoble bondage, I told myself that nothing--no sacrament or contract, no law of church or state--could make me endure it.

From day to day my maid came to me with insidious hints about Alma and my husband. I found myself listening to them. I also found myself refreshing my memory of the hideous scene in Paris, and wondering why I had condoned the offence by staying an hour longer under my husband's protection.

And then there was always another force at work within me--my own secret passion. Though sometimes I felt myself to be a wretched sinner and thought the burden I had to bear was heaven's punishment for my guilty love, at other times my whole soul rose in revolt, and I cried out not merely for separation from my husband but for absolute sundering.

Twice during the painful period of the house-party I heard from Martin. His first letter was full of accounts of the far-reaching work of his expedition--the engaging of engineers, electricians, geologists and masons, and the shipping of great stores of wireless apparatus--for his spirits seemed to be high, and life was full of good things for him.

His second letter told me that everything was finished, and he was to visit the island the next week, going first to "the old folks" and coming to me for a few days immediately before setting sail.

That brought matters to a head, and compelled me to take action.

It may have been weak of me, but not wanting a repetition of the scene with Father Dan, (knowing well that Martin would not bear it with the same patience) I sent the second letter to Alma, asking if the arrangement would be agreeable. She returned it with the endorsement (scribbled in pencil across the face), "Certainly; anything to please _you_, dear."

I submitted even to that. Perhaps I was a poor-spirited thing, wanting in proper pride, but I had a feeling that it was not worth while to waste myself in little squibs of temper, because an eruption was coming (I was sure of that) in which Martin would be concerned on my side, and then everybody and everything would be swept out of the path of my life for ever.

Martin came. In due course I read in the insular newspapers of his arrival on the island--how the people had turned out in crowds to cheer him at the pier, and how, on reaching our own village the neighbours (I knew the names of all of them) had met him at the railway station and taken him to his mother's house, and then lighted fires on the mountains for his welcome home.

It cut me to the heart's core to think of Martin amid thrilling scenes like those while I was here among degrading scenes like these. My love for Martin was now like a wound and I resolved that, come what might, before he reached Castle Raa I should liberate myself from the thraldom of my false position.

Father Dan's counsels had faded away by this time. Though I had prayed for strength to bear my burden there had been no result, and one morning, standing before the figure of the Virgin in my bedroom, I felt an impulse to blow out her lamp and never to light it again.

The end of it all was that I determined to see the Bishop and my father's advocate, Mr. Curphy, and perhaps my father himself, that I might know one way or the other where I was, and what was to become of me. But how to do this I could not see, having a houseful of people who were nominally my guests.

Fortune--ill-fortune--favoured me. News came that my father had suddenly fallen ill of some ailment that puzzled the doctors, and making this my reason and excuse I spoke to my husband, asking if I might go home for two or three days.

"Why not?" he said, in the tone of one who meant, "Who's keeping you?"

Then in my weakness I spoke to Alma, who answered:

"Certainly, my sweet girl. We shall miss you _dreadfully_, but it's your duty. And then you'll see that _dear_ Mr. . . . What d'ye callum?"

Finally, feeling myself a poor, pitiful hypocrite, I apologised for my going away to the guests also, and they looked as if they might say: "We'll survive it, perhaps."

The night before my departure my maid said:

"Perhaps your ladyship has forgotten that my time's up, but I'll stay until you return if you want me to."

I asked her if she would like to stay with me altogether and she said:

"Indeed I should, my lady. Any woman would like to stay with a good mistress, if she _is_ a little quick sometimes. And if you don't want me to go to your father's I may be of some use to you here before you come back again."

I saw that her mind was still running on divorce, but I did not reprove her now, for mine was turning in the same direction.

Next morning most of the guests came to the hail door to see me off, and they gave me a shower of indulgent smiles as the motor-car moved away.

FIFTY-NINTH CHAPTER

Before going to my father's house I went to the Bishop's. Bishop's Court is at the other side of the island, and it was noon before I drove under its tall elm trees, in which a vast concourse of crows seemed to be holding a sort of general congress.

The Bishop was then at his luncheon, and after luncheon (so his liveried servant told me) he usually took a siesta. I have always thought it was unfortunate for my interview that it came between his food and his sleep.

The little reception-room into which I was shown was luxuriously, not to say gorgeously, appointed, with easy chairs and sofas, a large portrait of the Pope, signed by the Holy Father himself, and a number of pictures of great people of all kinds--dukes, marquises, lords, counts--as well as photographs of fashionable ladies in low dress inscribed in several languages to "My dear Father in God the Lord Bishop of Ellan."

The Bishop came to me after a few minutes, smiling and apparently at peace with all the world. Except that he wore a biretta he was dressed--as in Rome--in his long black soutane with its innumerable buttons, his silver-buckled shoes, his heavy gold chain and jewelled cross.

He welcomed me in his smooth and suave manner, asking if he could offer me a little refreshment; but, too full of my mission to think of eating and drinking, I plunged immediately into the object of my visit.

"Monsignor," I said, "I am in great trouble. It is about my marriage."

The smile was smitten away from the Bishop's face by this announcement.

"I am sorry," he said. "Nothing serious, I trust?"

I told him it was very serious, and straightway I began on the spiritual part of my grievance--that my husband did not love me, that he loved another woman, that the sacred sacrament of my marriage. . . .

"Wait," said the Bishop, and he rose to close the window, for the clamour of the crows was deafening--a trial must have been going on in the trees. Returning to his seat he said:

"Dear lady, you must understand that there is one offence, and only one, which in all Christian countries and civilised communities is considered sufficient to constitute a real and tangible grievance. Have you any evidence of that?"

I knew what he meant and I felt myself colouring to the roots of my hair. But gulping down my shame I recounted the story of the scene in Paris and gave a report of my maid's charges and surmises.

"Humph!" said the Bishop, and I saw in a moment that he was going to belittle my proofs.

"Little or no evidence of your own, apparently. Chiefly that of your maid. And ladies' maids are notorious mischief-makers."

"But it's true," I said. "My husband will not deny it. He cannot."

"So far as I am able to observe what passes in the world," said the Bishop, "men in such circumstances always can and do deny it."

I felt my hands growing moist under my gloves. I thought the Bishop was trying to be blind to what he did not wish to see.

"But I'm right, I'm sure I'm right," I said.

"Well, assuming you _are_ right, what is it, dear lady, that you wish me to do?"

For some minutes I felt like a fool, but I stammered out at length that I had come for his direction and to learn what relief the Church could give me.

"H'm!" said the Bishop, and then crossing one leg over the other, and fumbling the silver buckle of his shoe, he said:

"The Church, dear lady, does indeed provide alleviation in cases of dire necessity. It provides the relief of separation--always deploring the necessity and hoping for ultimate reconciliation. But to sanction the separation of a wife from her husband because--pardon me, I do not say this is your case--she finds that he does not please her, or because--again I do not say this is your case--she fancies that somebody else pleases her better. . . ."

"Monsignor," I said, feeling hot and dizzy, "we need not discuss separation. I am thinking of something much more serious."

Never shall I forget the expression of the Bishop's face. He looked aghast.

"My good lady, surely you are not thinking of divorce?"

I think my head must have dropped as in silent assent, for in a peremptory and condemnatory manner the Bishop took me to task, asking if I did not know that the Catholic Church did not recognise divorce under any circumstances, and if I had forgotten what the Holy Father himself (pointing up to the portrait) had said to me--that when I entered into the solemn contract of holy matrimony I was to do so in the full consciousness that it could not be broken but by death.

"The love in which husband and wife contract to hold each other in holy wedlock is typified by the love of Christ for His Church, and as the one can never be broken, neither can the other."

"But my husband does not love me," I said. "Neither do I love him, and therefore the contract between us is broken already."

The Bishop was very severe with me for this, telling me that as a good child of the Church, I must never, never say that again, for though marriage was a contract it differed from all other contracts whatsoever.

"When you married your husband, dear lady, you were bound to him not by your own act alone, but by a mysterious power from which neither of you can ever free yourself. The power that united you was God, and whom God has joined together no man may put asunder."

I felt my head drooping. The Bishop was saying what I had always been taught, though in the torment of my trouble and the fierce fire of my temptation I had forgotten it.

"The civil law _might_ divorce you," continued the Bishop. "I don't know--I can say nothing about that. But it would have _no right_ to do so because the law can have no right to undo what God Himself has done."

Oh, it was cruel! I felt as if the future of my life were darkening before me--as if the iron bars of a prison were closing upon me, and fetters were being fixed on every limb.

"But even if the civil law _could_ and _would_ divorce you," said the Bishop, "think of the injury you would be inflicting on the Church. Yours was what is called a mixed marriage, and the Church does not favour such marriages, but it consented in this case, and why? Because it hoped to bring back an erring family in a second generation to the fold of the faith. Yet what would you be doing? Without waiting for a second generation you would he defeating its purpose."

A cold chill seemed to creep to my heart at these words. Was it the lost opportunity the Bishop was thinking of, instead of the suffering woman with her bruised and bleeding soul?

I rose to go. The Bishop rose with me, and began to counsel forgiveness.

"Even if you _have_ suffered injury, dear lady," he said--"I don't say you haven't--isn't it possible to forgive? Remember, forgiveness is a divine virtue, enjoined on us all, and especially on a woman towards the man she has married. Only think! How many women have to practise it--every day, all the world over!"

"Ah, well!" I said, and walked to the door.

The Bishop walked with me, urging me, as a good daughter of the Church, to live at peace with my husband, whatever his faults, and when my children came (as please God they would) to "instil into them the true faith with all a mother's art, a mother's tenderness," so that the object of my marriage might be fulfilled, and a good Catholic become the heir to Castle Raa.

"So the Church can do nothing for me?" I said.

"Nothing but pray, dear lady," said the Bishop.

When I left him my heart was in fierce rebellion; and, since the Church could do nothing, I determined to see if the law could do anything, so I ordered my chauffeur to drive to the house of my father's advocate at Holmtown.

The trial in the trees was over by this time, and a dead crow tumbled from one of the tall elms as we passed out of the grounds.

Holmtown is a little city on the face of our bleak west coast, dominated by a broad stretch of sea, and having the sound of the waves always rumbling over it. Mr. Curphy's house faced the shore and his office was an upper room plainly furnished with a writing desk, a deal table, laden with law books and foolscap papers, a stiff arm-chair, covered with American leather, three or four coloured engravings of judges in red and ermine, a photograph of the lawyer himself in wig and gown, an illuminated certificate of his membership of a legal society, and a number of lacquered tin boxes, each inscribed with the name of a client--the largest box bearing the name of "Daniel O'Neill."

My father's advocate received me with his usual bland smile, gave me his clammy fat hand, put me to sit in the arm-chair, hoped my unexpected visit did not presage worse news from the Big house, and finally asked me what he could do.

I told my story over again, omitting my sentimental grievances and coming quickly, and with less delicacy, to the grosser facts of my husband's infidelity.

The lawyer listened with his head aside, his eyes looking out on the sea and his white fingers combing his long brown beard, and before I had finished I could see that he too, like the Bishop, had determined to see nothing.

"You may be right," he began. . . .

"I _am_ right!" I answered.

"But even if you _are_, I am bound to tell you that adultery is not enough of itself as a ground for divorce."

"Not enough?"

"If you were a man it would be, but being a woman you must establish cruelty as well."

"Cruelty? Isn't it all cruelty?" I asked.

"In the human sense, yes; in the legal sense, no," answered the lawyer.

And then he proceeded to explain to me that in this country, unlike some others, before a woman could obtain a divorce from her husband she had to prove that he had not only been unfaithful to her, but that he had used violence to her, struck her in the face perhaps, threatened her or endangered her life or health.

"Your husband hasn't done that, has he? No? I thought not. After all he's a gentleman. Therefore there is only one other ground on which you could establish a right to divorce, namely desertion, and your husband is not likely to run away. In fact, he couldn't. It isn't to his interest. We've seen to all that--_here_," and smiling again, the lawyer patted the top of the lacquered box that bore my father's name.

I was dumbfounded. Even more degrading than the fetters whereby the Church bound me to my marriage were the terms on which the law would release me.

"But assuming that you _could_ obtain a divorce," said the lawyer, "what good would it do you? You would have to relinquish your title."

"I care nothing about my title," I replied.

"And your position."

"I care nothing about that either."

"Come, come," said the lawyer, patting my arm as if I had been an angry child on the verge of tears. "Don't let a fit of pique or spleen break up a marriage that is so suitable from the points of property and position. And then think of your good father. Why did he spend all that money in setting a ruined house on its legs again? That he might carry on his name in a noble family, and through your children, and your children's children. . . ."

"Then the law can do nothing for me?" I said, feeling sick and sore.

"Sorry, very sorry, but under present conditions, as far as I can yet see, nothing," said the lawyer.

"Good-day, sir," I said, and before he could have known what I was doing I had leapt up, left the room, and was hurrying downstairs.

My heart was in still fiercer rebellion now. I would go home. I would appeal to my father. Hard as he had always been with me he was at least a man, not a cold abstraction, like the Church and the law, without bowels of compassion or sense of human suffering.

SIXTIETH CHAPTER

Although I had sent word that I was coming home, there was no one to welcome me when I arrived.

Aunt Bridget was out shopping, and Betsy Beauty (in the sulks with me, as I afterwards heard, for not asking her to the house-party) had run upstairs on hearing our horn, so I went direct to my father's room.

Nessy MacLeod answered my knock, but instead of opening the door to let me in, she slid out like a cat and closed it behind her. Never had her ungainly figure, her irregular features, and her red head seemed to me so repugnant. I saw at once that she was giving herself the airs of housekeeper, and I noticed that she was wearing the bunch of keys which used to dangle from Aunt Bridget's waist when I was a child.

"Your father is ill," she said.

I told her I knew that, and it was one of the reasons I was there.