Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

Father Dan read the Epistle beginning "Let wives be subject to their husbands," and then the Bishop read the Gospel, concluding, "Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh: what therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

I had trembled when I thought of these solemn and sonorous words in the solitude of my own room, but now that they were spoken before the congregation I had no fear, no misgiving, nothing but a sense of rapture and consecration.

The last words being spoken and Lord Raa and I being man and wife, we stepped into the sacristy to sign the register, and not even there did my spirit fail me. I took up the pen and signed my name without a tremor. But hardly had I done so when I heard a rumbling murmur of voices about me--first the Bishop's voice (in such a worldly tone) and then my father's and then my husband's, and then the voices of many others, in light conversation mingled with trills of laughter. And then, in a moment, in a twinkling, as fast as a snowflake melts upon a stream, the spell of the marriage service seemed to break.

I have heard since that my eyes were wet at that moment and I seemed to have been crying all through the ceremony. I know nothing about that, but I do know that I felt a kind of internal shudder and that it was just as if my soul had suddenly awakened from an intoxicating drug.

The organ began to play the Wedding March, and my husband, putting my arm through his, said, "Come."

There was much audible whispering among the people waiting for us in the church, and as we walked towards the door I saw ghostly faces smiling at me on every side, and heard ghostly voices speaking in whispers that were like the backward plash of wavelets on the shore.

"Sakes alive, how white's she's looking, though," said somebody, and then somebody else said--I could not help but hear it--

"Dear heart knows if her father has done right for all that."

I did not look at anybody, but I saw Martin's mother at the back, and she was wiping her eyes and saying to some one by her side--it must have been the doctor--

"God bless her for the sweet child veen she always was, anyway."

The storm had increased during the service; and the sacristan, who was opening the door for us, had as much as he could do to hold it against the wind, which came with such a rush upon us when we stepped into the porch that my veil and the coronal of myrtle and orange blossoms were torn off my head and blown back into the church.

"God bless my sowl," said somebody--it was Tommy's friend, Johnny Christopher--"there's some ones would he calling that bad luck, though."

A band of village musicians, who were ranged up in the road, struck up "The Black and Grey" as we stepped out of the churchyard, and the next thing I knew was that my husband and I were in the carriage going home.

He had so far recovered from the frightening effects of the marriage service that he was making light of it, and saying:

"When will this mummery come to an end, I wonder?"

The windows of the carriage were rattling with the wind, and my husband had begun to talk of the storm when we came upon the trunk of a young tree which had been torn up by the roots and was lying across the road, so that our coachman had to get down and remove it.

"Beastly bad crossing, I'm afraid. Hope you're a good sailor. Must be in London to-morrow morning, you know."

The band was playing behind us. The leafless trees were beating their bare boughs in front. The wedding bells were pealing. The storm was thundering through the running sky. The sea was very loud.

At my father's gate Tommy the Mate, with a serious face, was standing, cap in hand, under his triumphal arch, which (as well as it could for the wind that was tearing its flowers and scattering them on the ground) spelled out the words "God bless the Happy Bride."

When we reached the open door of the house a group of maids were waiting for us. They were holding on to their white caps and trying to control their aprons, which were swirling about their black frocks. As I stepped out of the carriage they addressed me as "My lady" and "Your ladyship." The seagulls, driven up from the sea, were screaming about the house.

My husband and I went into the drawing-room, and as we stood together on the hearthrug I caught a glimpse of my face in the glass over the mantelpiece. It was deadly white, and had big staring eyes and a look of faded sunshine. I fixed afresh the pearls about my neck and the diamond in my hair, which was much disordered.

Almost immediately the other carriages returned, and relatives and guests began to pour into the room and offer us their congratulations. First came my cousins, who were too much troubled about their own bedraggled appearance to pay much attention to mine. Then Aunt Bridget, holding on to her half-moon bonnet and crying:

"You happy, happy child! But what a wind! There's been nothing like it since the day you were born."

My father came next, like a gale of wind himself, saying:

"I'm proud of you, gel. Right proud I am. You done well."

Then came Lady Margaret, who kissed me without saying many words, and finally a large and varied company of gaily-dressed friends and neighbours, chiefly the "aristocracy" of our island, who lavished many unnecessary "ladyships" upon me, as if the great name reflected a certain glory upon themselves.

I remember that as I stood on the hearthrug with my husband, receiving their rather crude compliments, a vague gaiety came over me, and I smiled and laughed, although my heart was growing sick, for the effect of the wedding-service was ebbing away into a cold darkness like that of a night tide when the moonlight has left it.

It did not comfort me that my husband, without failing in good manners, was taking the whole scene and company with a certain scarcely-veiled contempt which I could not help but see.

And neither did it allay my uneasiness to glance at my father, where he stood at the end of the room, watching, with a look of triumph in his glistening black eyes, his proud guests coming up to me one by one, and seeming to say to himself, "They're here at last! I've bet them! Yes, by gough, I've bet them!"

Many a time since I have wondered if his conscience did not stir within him as he looked across at his daughter in the jewels of the noble house he had married her into--the pale bride with the bridegroom he had bought for her--and thought of the mockery of a sacred union which he had brought about to gratify his pride, his vanity, perhaps his revenge.

But it was all over now. I was married to Lord Raa. In the eyes equally of the law, the world and the Church, the knot between us was irrevocably tied.

MEMORANDUM BY MARTIN CONRAD

I am no mystic and no spiritualist, and I only mention it as one of the mysteries of human sympathy between far-distant friends, that during a part of the time when my dear one was going through the fierce struggle she describes, and was dreaming of frozen regions and a broken pen, the ship I sailed on had got itself stuck fast in a field of pack ice in latitude 76, under the ice barrier by Charcot Bay, and that while we were lying like helpless logs, cut off from communication with the world, unable to do anything but groan and swear and kick our heels in our bunks at every fresh grinding of our crunching sides, my own mind, sleeping and waking, was for ever swinging back, with a sort of yearning prayer to my darling not to yield to the pressure which I felt so damnably sure was being brought to bear on her.

M.C.

THIRD PART

MY HONEYMOON

THIRTY-SECOND CHAPTER

When the Bishop and Father Dan arrived, the bell was rung and we went in to breakfast.

We breakfasted in the new dining-room, which was now finished and being used for the first time.

It was a gorgeous chamber beblazoned with large candelabra, huge mirrors, and pictures in gold frames--resembling the room it was intended to imitate, yet not resembling it, as a woman over-dressed resembles a well-dressed woman.

My father sat at the head of his table with the Bishop, Lady Margaret and Aunt Bridget on his right, and myself, my husband, Betsy Beauty and Mr. Eastcliff on his left. The lawyers and the trustee were midway down, Father Dan with Nessy MacLeod was at the end, and a large company of our friends and neighbours, wearing highly-coloured flowers on their breasts and in their buttonholes, sat between.

The meal was very long, and much of the food was very large--large fish, large roasts of venison, veal, beef and mutton, large puddings and large cheeses, all cut on the table and served by waiters from Blackwater. There were two long black lines of them--a waiter behind the chair of nearly every other guest.

All through the breakfast the storm raged outside. More than once it drowned the voices of the people at the table, roaring like a wild beast in the great throat of the wide chimney, swirling about the lantern light, licking and lashing and leaping at the outsides of the walls like lofty waves breaking against a breakwater, and sending up a thunderous noise from the sea itself, where the big bell of St. Mary's Rock was still tolling like a knell.

Somebody--it must have been Aunt Bridget again--said there had been nothing like it since the day of my birth, and it must be "fate."

"Chut, woman!" said my father. "We're living in the twentieth century. Who's houlding with such ould wife's wonders now?"

He was intensely excited, and, his excitement betrayed itself, as usual, in reversion to his native speech. Sometimes he surveyed in silence, with the old masterful lift of his eyebrows, his magnificent room and the great guests who were gathered within it; sometimes he whispered to the waiters to be smarter with the serving of the dishes; and sometimes he pitched his voice above the noises within and without and shouted, in country-fashion, to his friends at various points of the table to know how they were faring.

"How are you doing, Mr. Curphy, sir?"

"Doing well, sir. Are you doing well yourself, Mr. O'Neill, sir?"

"Lord-a-massy yes, sir. I'm always doing well, sir."

Never had anybody in Ellan seen so strange a mixture of grandeur and country style. My husband seemed to be divided between amused contempt for it, and a sense of being compromised by its pretence. More than once I saw him, with his monocle in his eye, look round at his friend Eastcliff, but he helped himself frequently from a large decanter of brandy and drank healths with everybody.

There were the usual marriage pleasantries, facetious compliments and chaff, in which to my surprise (the solemnity of the service being still upon me) the Bishop permitted himself to join.

I was now very nervous, and yet I kept up a forced gaiety, though my heart was cold and sick. I remember that I had a preternatural power of hearing at the same time nearly every conversation that was going on at the table, and that I joined in nearly all the laughter.

At a more than usually loud burst of wind somebody said it would be a mercy if the storm did not lift the roof off.

"Chut, man!" cried my father. "Solid oak and wrought iron here. None of your mouldy old monuments that have enough to do to keep their tiles on."

"Then nobody," said my husband with a glance at his friend, "need be afraid of losing his head in your house, sir?"

"Not if he's got one to come in with, sir."

Betsy Beauty, sitting next to Mr. Eastcliff, was wondering if he would do us the honour to visit the island oftener now that his friend had married into it.

"But, my dear Betsy," said my husband, "who would live in this God-forsaken place if he could help it?"

"God-forsaken, is it?" said my father. "Maybe so, sir--but that's what the cuckoo said after he had eaten the eggs out of the thrush's nest and left a mess in it."

Aunt Bridget was talking in doleful tones to Lady Margaret about my mother, saying she had promised her on her death-bed to take care of her child and had been as good as her word, always putting me before her own daughter, although her ladyship would admit that Betsy was a handsome girl, and, now that his lordship was married, there were few in the island that were fit for her.

"Why no, Mrs. MacLeod," said my husband, after another significant glance at his friend, "I dare say you've not got many who can make enough to keep a carriage?"

"Truth enough, sir," said my father. "We've got hundreds and tons that can make debts though."

The breakfast came to an end at length, and almost before the last of the waiters had left the room my father rose to speak.

"Friends all," he said, "the young married couple have to leave us for the afternoon steamer."

"In this weather?" said somebody, pointing up to the lantern light through which the sky was now darkening.

"Chut! A puff of wind and a slant of rain, as I've been saying to my gel here. But my son-in-law, Lord Raa," (loud cheers followed this description, with some laughter and much hammering on the table), "my son-in-law says he has to be in London to-morrow, and this morning my daughter has sworn obedience. . . . What's that, Monsignor? Not obedience exactly? Something like it then, so she's bound to go along with him. So fill up your glasses to the brim and drink to the bride and bridegroom."

As soon as the noise made by the passing of decanters had died down my father spoke again.

"This is the proudest day of my life. It's the day I've worked for and slaved for and saved for, and it's come to pass at last."

There was another chorus of applause.

"What's that you were saying in church, Mr. Curphy, sir? Time brings in its revenges? It does too. Look at me."

My father put his thumbs in the arm-pits of his waistcoat.

"You all know what I am, and where I come from."

My husband put his monocle to his eye and looked up.

"I come from a mud cabin on the Curragh, not a hundred miles from here. My father was kill . . . but never mind about that now. When he left us it was middling hard collar work, I can tell you--what with me working the bit of a croft and the mother weeding for some of you--some of your fathers I mane--ninepence a day dry days, and sixpence all weathers. When I was a lump of a lad I was sworn at in the high road by a gentleman driving in his grand carriage, and the mother was lashed by his . . . but never mind about that neither. I guess I've hustled round considerable since then, and this morning I've married my daughter into the first family in the island."

There was another burst of cheering at this, but it was almost drowned by the loud rattling of the rain which was now falling on the lantern light.

"Monsignor," cried my father, pitching his voice still higher, "what's that you were saying in Rome about the mills of God?"

Fumbling his jewelled cross and smiling blandly the Bishop gave my father the familiar quotation.

"Truth enough, too. The mills of God grind slowly but they're grinding exceeding small. Nineteen years ago I thought I was as sure of what I wanted as when I got out of bed this morning. If my gel here had been born a boy, my son would have sat where his lordship is now sitting. But all's well that ends well! If I haven't got a son I've got a son-in-law, and when I get a grandson he'll be the richest man that ever stepped into Castle Raa, and the uncrowned king of Ellan."

At that there was a tempest of cheers, which, mingling with the clamour of the storm, made a deafening tumult.

"They're saying a dale nowadays about fathers and children--daughters being separate beings, and all to that. But show me the daughter that could do better for herself than my gel's father has done for her. She has a big fortune, and her husband has a big name, and what more do they want in this world anyway?"

"Nothing at all," came from various parts of the room.

"Neighbours," said my father, looking round him with a satisfied smile, "I'm laying you dry as herrings in a hould, but before I call on you to drink this toast I'll ask the Bishop to spake to you. He's a grand man is the Bishop, and in fixing up this marriage I don't in the world know what I could have done without him."

The Bishop, still fingering his jewelled cross and smiling, spoke in his usual suave voice. He firmly believed that the Church had that morning blessed a most propitious and happy union. Something might be said against mixed marriages, but under proper circumstances the Church had never forbidden them and his lordship (this with a deep bow to my husband) had behaved with great liberality of mind.

As for what their genial and rugged host had said of certain foolish and dangerous notions about the relations of father and child, he was reminded that there were still more foolish and dangerous ones about the relations of husband and wife.

From the earliest ages of the Church, however, those relations had been exactly defined. "Let wives be subject to their husbands," said the Epistle we had read this morning, and no less conclusive had been our closing prayer, asking that the wife keep true faith with her husband, being lovely in his eyes even as was Rachel, wise as was Rebecca, and dutiful as was Sara.

"Beautiful!" whispered Aunt Bridget to Lady Margaret. "It's what I always was myself in the days of the dear Colonel."

"And now," said the Bishop, "before you drink this toast and call upon the noble bridegroom to respond to it," (another deep bow to my husband), "I will ask for a few words from the two legal gentlemen who have carried out the admirably judicious financial arrangements without which this happy marriage would have been difficult if not impossible."

Then my husband's lawyer, with a supercilious smile on his clean-shaven face, said it had been an honour to him to assist in preparing the way for the "uncrowned king of Ellan." ("It _has_, sir," cried my father in a loud voice which straightened the gentleman's face instantly); and finally Mr. Curphy, speaking through his long beard, congratulated my father and my husband equally on the marriage, and gave it as his opinion that there could be no better use for wealth than to come to the rescue of an historic family which had fallen on evil times and only required a little money to set it on its feet again.

"The bride and bridegroom!" cried my father; and then everybody rose and there was much cheering, with cries of "His lordship," "His lordship."

All through the speech-making my husband had rolled uneasily in his chair. He had also helped himself frequently from the decanter, so that when he got up to reply he was scarcely sober.

In his drawling voice he thanked the Bishop, and said that having made up his mind to the marriage he had never dreamt of raising difficulties about religion. As to the modern notions about the relations of husband and wife, he did not think a girl brought up in a convent would give him much trouble on that subject.

"Not likely," cried my father. "I'll clear her of that anyway."

"So I thank you for myself and for my family," continued my husband, "and . . . Oh, yes, of course," (this to Lady Margaret). "I thank you for my wife also, and . . . and that's all."

I felt sick and cold and ashamed. A rush of blood came under the skin of my face that must have made me red to the roots of my hair.

In all this speaking about my marriage there had not been one word about myself--myself really, a living soul with all her future happiness at stake. I cannot say what vague impulse took possession of me, but I remember that when my husband sat down I made a forced laugh, though I knew well that I wanted to cry.

In an agony of shame I was beginning to feel a wild desire to escape from the room and even from the house, that I might breathe in some of the free wind outside, when all at once I became aware that somebody else was speaking.

It was Father Dan. He had risen unannounced from his seat at the end of the table. I saw his sack coat which was much worn at the seams; I saw his round face which was flushed; I heard the vibrating note in his soft Irish voice which told me he was deeply moved; and then I dropped my head, for I knew what was coming.

THIRTY-THIRD CHAPTER

"Mr. O'Neill," said Father Dan, "may your parish priest take the liberty of speaking without being spoken to?"

My father made some response, and then a hush fell over the dining-room. Either the storm ceased for a time, or in my great agitation it seemed to do so, for I did not hear it.

"We have heard a great deal about the marriage we have celebrated to-day, but have we not forgotten something? What _is_ marriage? Is it the execution of a contract? Is it the signing of a register? Is it even the taking of an oath before an altar? No. Marriage is the sacred covenant which two souls make with each other, the woman with the man, the man with the woman, when she chooses him from all other men, when he chooses her from all other women, to belong to each other for ever, so that no misfortune, no storm of life, no sin on either side shall ever put them apart. That's what marriage is, and all we have been doing to-day is to call on God and man to bear witness to that holy bond."

My heart was beating high. I raised my head, and I think my eyes must have been shining. I looked across at the Bishop. His face was showing signs of vexation.

"Mr. O'Neill, sir," cried Father Dan, raising his trembling voice, "you say your daughter has a big fortune and her husband has a big name, and what more do they want in this world? I'll tell you what they want, sir. They want love, love on both sides, if they are to be good and happy, and if they've got that they've got something which neither wealth nor rank can buy."

I had dropped my head again, but under my eyelashes I could see that the company were sitting spell-bound. Only my husband was shuffling in his seat, and the Bishop was plucking at his gold chain.

"My Bishop," said Father Dan, "has told us of the submission a wife owes to her husband, and of her duty to be lovely and wise and faithful in his eyes. But isn't it the answering thought that the husband on his part owes something to the wife? Aren't we told that he shall put away everything and everybody for her sake, and cleave to her and cling to her and they shall be one flesh? Isn't that, too, a divine commandment?"

My heart was throbbing so loud by this time that the next words were lost to me. When I came to myself again Father Dan was saying:

"Think what marriage means to a woman--a young girl especially. It means the breaking of old ties, the beginning of a new life, the setting out into an unknown world on a voyage from which there can be no return. In her weakness and her helplessness she leaves one dependency for another, the shelter of a father for the shelter of a husband. What does she bring to the man she marries? Herself, everything she is, everything she can be, to be made or marred by him, and never, never, never to be the same to any other man whatsoever as long as life shall last."

More than ever now, but for other reasons, I wanted to fly from the room.

"Friends," cried Father Dan, "we don't know much of the bridegroom in this parish, but we know the bride. We've known her all her life. We know what she is. I do, anyway. If you are her father, Mr. O'Neill, sir, I am her father also. I was in this house when she was born. I baptized her. I took her out of the arms of the angel who bore her. So she's my child too, God bless her. . . ."

His voice was breaking--I was sobbing--though he was speaking so loudly I could scarcely hear him--I could scarcely see him--I only knew that he was facing about in our direction and raising his trembling hand to my husband.

"She is my child, too, I say, and now that she is leaving us, now that you are taking her away from us, I charge you, my lord, to be good and faithful to her, as you will have to answer for her soul some day."

What else he said I do not know. From that moment I was blind and deaf to everything. Nevertheless I was conscious that after Father Dan had ceased to speak there was a painful silence. I thought the company seemed to be startled and even a little annoyed by the emotion so suddenly shot into their midst. The Bishop looked vexed, my father looked uncomfortable, and my husband, who had been drinking glass after glass of brandy, was muttering something about "a sermon."

It had been intended that Mr. Eastcliff should speak for the bridesmaids, and I was afterwards told by Betsy Beauty that he had prepared himself with many clever epigrams, but everybody felt there could be no more speaking of any kind now. After a few awkward moments my father looked at his watch and said it was about time for us to start if we were to catch the steamer, so I was hurried upstairs to change for our journey.

When I came down again, in my tailor-made travelling dress with sables, the whole company was in the hall and everybody seemed to be talking at the same time, making a noise like water in a weir.

I was taken possession of by each in turn. Nessy MacLeod told me in an aside what an excellent father I had. Betsy Beauty whispered that Mr. Eastcliff was so handsome and their tastes were so similar that she hoped I would invite him to Castle Raa as soon as I came back. Aunt Bridget, surrounded by a group of sympathising ladies (including Lady Margaret, who was making an obvious effort to be gracious) was wiping her eyes and saying I had always been her favourite and she had faithfully done her duty by me.

"Mary, my love," she said, catching my eye, "I'm just telling her ladyship I don't know in the world what I'll do when you are gone."

My husband was there too, wearing a heavy overcoat with the collar up, and receiving from a group of insular gentlemen their cheerful prognostics of a bad passage.

"'Deed, but I'm fearing it will be a dirty passage, my lord."

"Chut!" said my father. "The wind's from the south-west. They'll soon get shelter."

The first of our two cars came round and my husband's valet went off in advance with our luggage. Then the second car arrived, and the time came for our departure. I think I kissed everybody. Everybody seemed to be crying--everybody except myself, for my tears were all gone by this time.

Just as we were about to start, the storm, which must certainly have fallen for a while, sprang up suddenly, and when Tommy the Mate (barely recognisable in borrowed black garments) opened the door the wind came rushing into the house with a long-drawn whirr.

I had said good-bye to the old man, and was stepping into the porch when I remembered Father Dan. He was standing in his shabby sack coat with a sorrowful face in a dark corner by the door, as if he had placed himself there to see the last of me. I wanted to put my arms around his neck, but I knew that would be wrong, so I dropped to my knees and kissed his hand and he gave me his blessing.

My husband, who was waiting by the side of the throbbing automobile, said impatiently:

"Come, come, dear, don't keep me in the rain."

I got into the landaulette, my husband got in after me, the car began to move, there were cries from within the house ("Good-bye!" "Good luck") which sounded like stifled shrieks as they were carried off by the wind without, and then we were under weigh.

As we turned the corner of the drive something prompted me to look back at my mother's window--with its memories of my first going to school.

At the next moment we were crossing the bridge--with its memories of Martin Conrad and William Rufus.

At the next we were on the road.

THIRTY-FOURTH CHAPTER

"Thank God, that's over," said my husband. Then, half apologetically, he added: "You didn't seem to enjoy it any more than myself, my dear."

At the entrance to our village a number of men stood firing guns; in the middle a group of girls were stretching a rope across the road; a number of small flags, torn by the wind and wet with the rain, were rattling on flagstaffs hung out from some of the window sills; a few women, with shawls over their heads, were sheltering on the weather side of their porches to see us pass.

My husband was impatient of our simple island customs. Once or twice he lowered the window of the car, threw out a handful of silver and at the same time urged the chauffeur to drive quicker. As soon as we were clear of the village he fell back in his seat, saying:

"Heavens, how sleepy I am! No wonder either! Late going to bed last night and up so early this morning."

After a moment he began to yawn, and almost before he could have been aware of it he had closed his eyes. At the next moment he was asleep.

It was a painful, almost a hideous sleep. His cheeks swelled and sank; his lips parted, he was breathing heavily, and sometimes gaping like a carp out of water.

I could not detach my eyes from his face, which, without eyes to relieve it, seemed to be almost repulsive now. It would be difficult to describe my sensations. I felt dreadfully humiliated. Even my personal pride was wounded. I remembered what Father Dan had said about husband and wife being one flesh, and told myself that _this_ was what I belonged to, what belonged to me--_this!_ Then I tried to reproach and reprove myself, but in order to do so I had to turn my eyes away.

Our road to Blackwater lay over the ridge of a hill much exposed to the wind from the south-west. When we reached this point the clouds seemed to roll up from the sea like tempestuous battalions. Torrential rain fell on the car and came dripping in from the juncture of the landaulette roof. Some of it fell on the sleeper and he awoke with a start.

"Damn--"

He stopped, as if, caught in guilt, and began to apologise again.

"Was I asleep? I really think I must have been. Stupid, isn't it? Excuse me."

He blinked his eyes as if to empty them of sleep, looked me over for a moment or two in silence, and then said with a smile which made me shudder:

"So you and I are man and wife, my dear!"

I made no answer, and, still looking fixedly at me, he said:

"Well, worse things might have happened after all--what do _you_ think?"

Still I did not answer him, feeling a certain shame, not to say disgust. Then he began to pay me some compliments on my appearance.

"Do you know you're charming, my dear, really charming!"

That stung me, and made me shudder, I don't know why, unless it was because the words gave me the sense of having been used before to other women. I turned my eyes away again.

"Don't turn away, dear. Let me see those big black eyes of yours. I adore black eyes. They always pierce me like a gimlet."

He reached forward as he spoke and drew me to him. I felt frightened and pushed him off.

"What's this?" he said, as if surprised.

But after another moment he laughed, and in the tone of a man who had had much to do with women and thought he knew how to deal with them, he said:

"Wants to be coaxed, does she? They all do, bless them!"

Saying this he pulled me closer to him, putting his arm about my waist, but once more I drew and forcibly pushed him from me.

His face darkened for an instant, and then cleared again.

"Oh, I see," he said. "Offended, is she? Paying me out for having paid so little court to her? Well, she's right there too, bless her! But never mind! You're a decidedly good-looking little woman, my dear, and if I have neglected you thus far, I intend to make up for it during the honeymoon. So come, little gal, let's be friends."

Taking hold of me again, he tried to kiss me, putting at the same time his hand on the bosom of my dress, but I twisted my face aside and prevented him.

"Oh! Oh! Hurt her modesty, have I?" he said, laughing like a man who was quite sure both of himself and of me. "But my little nun will get over that by and by. Wait awhile! Wait awhile!"

By this time I was trembling with the shock of a terror that was entirely new to me. I could not explain to myself the nature of it, but it was there, and I could not escape from it.

Hitherto, when I had thought of my marriage to Lord Raa I had been troubled by the absence of love between us; and what I meant to myself by love--the love of husband and wife--was the kind of feeling I had for the Reverend Mother, heightened and deepened and spiritualised, as I believed, by the fact (with all its mysterious significance) that the one was a man and the other a woman.

But this was something quite different. Not having found in marriage what I had expected, I was finding something else, for there could be no mistaking my husband's meaning when he looked at me with his passionate eyes and said, "Wait awhile!"

I saw what was before me, and in fear of it I found myself wishing that something might happen to save me. I was so frightened that if I could have escaped from the car I should have done so. The only thing I could hope for was that we should arrive at Blackwater too late for the steamer, or that the storm would prevent it from sailing. What relief from my situation I should find in that, beyond the delay of one day, one night (in which I imagined I might be allowed to return home), I did not know. But none the less on that account I began to watch the clouds with a feverish interest.

They were wilder than ever now--rolling up from the south-west in huge black whorls which enveloped the mountains and engulfed the valleys. The wind, too, was howling at intervals like a beast being slaughtered. It was terrible, but not so terrible as the thing I was thinking of. I was afraid of the storm, and yet I was fearfully, frightfully glad of it.

My husband, who, after my repulse, had dropped back into his own corner of the car, was very angry. He talked again of our "God-forsaken island," and the folly of living in it, said our passage would be a long one in any case, and we might lose our connection to London.

"Damnably inconvenient if we do. I've special reasons for being there in the morning," he said.

At a sharp turn of the road the wind smote the car as with an invisible wing. One of the windows was blown in, and to prevent the rain from driving on to us my husband had to hold up a cushion in the gap.

This occupied him until we ran into Blackwater, and then he dropped the cushion and put his head out, although the rain was falling heavily, to catch the first glimpse of the water in the bay.

It was in terrific turmoil. My heart leapt up at the sight of it. My husband swore.

We drew up on the drenched and naked pier. My husband's valet, in waterproofs, came to the sheltered side of the car, and, shouting above the noises of the wind in the rigging of the steamer, he said:

"Captain will not sail to-day, my lord. Inshore wind. Says he couldn't get safely out of the harbour."

My husband swore violently. I was unused to oaths at that time and they cut me like whipcord, but all the same my pulse was bounding joyfully.

"Bad luck, my lord, but only one thing to do now," shouted the valet.

"What's that?" said my husband, growling.

"Sleep in Blackwater to-night, in hopes of weather mending in the morning."

Anticipating this course, he had already engaged rooms for us at the "Fort George."

My heart fell, and I waited for my husband's answer. I was stifling.

"All right, Hobson. If it must be, it must," he answered.

I wanted to speak, but I did not know what to say. There seemed to be nothing that I could say.

A quarter of an hour afterwards we arrived at the hotel, where the proprietor, attended by the manageress and the waiters, received us with rather familiar smiles.

THIRTY-FIFTH CHAPTER

When I began to write I determined to tell the truth and the whole truth. But now I find that the whole truth will require that I should invade some of the most sacred intimacies of human experience. At this moment I feel as if I were on the threshold of one of the sanctuaries of a woman's life, and I ask myself if it is necessary and inevitable that I should enter it.

I have concluded that it _is_ necessary and inevitable--necessary to the sequence of my narrative, inevitable for the motive with which I am writing it.

Four times already I have written what is to follow. In the first case I found that I had said too much. In the second I had said too little. In the third I was startled and shocked by the portrait I had presented of myself and could not believe it to be true. In the fourth I saw with a thrill of the heart that the portrait was not only true, but too true. Let me try again.

I entered our rooms at the hotel, my husband's room and mine, with a sense of fear, almost of shame. My sensations at that moment had nothing in common with the warm flood of feeling which comes to a woman when she finds herself alone for the first time with the man she loves, in a little room which holds everything that is of any account to her in the world. They were rather those of a young girl who, walking with a candle through the dark corridors of an empty house at night, is suddenly confronted by a strange face. I was the young girl with the candle; the strange face was my husband's.

We had three rooms, all communicating, a sitting-room in the middle with bedrooms right and left. The bedroom on the right was large and it contained a huge bed with a covered top and tail-boards. That on the left was small, and it had a plain brass and iron bedstead, which had evidently been meant for a lady's maid. I had no maid yet. It was intended that I should engage a French one in London.

Almost immediately on entering the sitting-room my husband, who had not yet recovered from his disappointment, left me to go downstairs, saying with something like a growl that he had telegrams to send to London and instructions to give to his man Hobson.

Without taking off my outer things I stepped up to the windows, which were encrusted with salt from the flying spray. The hotel stood on a rocky ledge above the harbour, and the sound of the sea, beating on the outer side of the pier, came up with a deafening roar. The red-funnelled steamer we should have sailed by lay on the pier's sheltered side, letting down steam, swaying to her creaking hawsers, and heaving to the foam that was surging against her bow.

I was so nervous, so flurried, so preoccupied by vague fears that I hardly saw or heard anything. Porters came up with our trunks and asked me where they were to place them, but I scarcely know how I answered them, although I was aware that everything--both my husband's luggage and mine--was being taken into the large bedroom. A maid asked if she ought to put a light to the fire, and I said "Yes . . . no . . . yes," and presently I heard the fire crackling.

After awhile my husband came back in a better temper and said:

"Confounded nuisance, but I suppose we must make the best of it."

He laughed as he said this, and coming closer and looking me over with a smile which was at the same time passionate and proud, he whispered:

"Dare say we'll not find the time long until to-morrow morning. What do _you_ think, my little beauty?"

Something in his voice rather than in his question made my heart beat, and I could feel my face growing hot.

"Not taken off your things yet?" he said. "Come, let me help you."

I drew out my hat-pins and removed my hat. At the same moment my husband removed my sables and cloak, and as he did so he put his arms about me, and held me close to him.

I shuddered. I tried not to, but I could not help it. My husband laughed again, and said:

"Not got over it yet, little woman? Perhaps that's only because you are not quite used to me."

Still laughing he pulled me still closer to him, and putting one of his hands under my chin he kissed me on the mouth.

It will be difficult and perhaps it will be ridiculous to say how my husband's first kiss shocked me. My mouth felt parched, I had a sense of intense disgust, and before I was quite aware of what I was doing I had put up both hands to push him off.

"Come, come, this is going too far," he said, in a tone that was half playful, half serious. "It was all very well in the automobile; but here, in your own rooms, you know. . . ."

He broke off and laughed again, saying that if my modesty only meant that nobody had ever kissed me before it made me all the more charming for him.

I could not help feeling a little ashamed of my embarrassment, and crossing in front of my husband I seated myself in a chair before the fire. He looked after me with a smile that made my heart tremble, and then, coming behind my chair, he put his arms about my shoulders and kissed my neck.

A shiver ran through me. I felt as if I had suffered a kind of indecency. I got up and changed my place. My husband watched me with the look of a man who wanted to roar with laughter. It was the proud and insolent as well as passionate look of one who had never so much as contemplated resistance.

"Well, this is funny," he said. "But we'll see presently! We'll see!"

A waiter came in for orders, and early as it was my husband asked for dinner to be served immediately. My heart was fluttering excitedly by this time and I was glad of the relief which the presence of other people gave me.

While the table was being laid my husband talked of the doings of the day. He asked who was "the seedy old priest" who had given us "the sermon" at the wedding breakfast--he had evidently forgotten that he had seen the Father before.

I told him the "seedy old priest" was Father Dan, and he was a saint if ever there was one.

"A saint, is he?" said my husband. "Wish saint were not synonymous with simpleton, though."

Then he gave me his own views of "the holy state of matrimony." By holding people together who ought to be apart it often caused more misery and degradation of character than a dozen entirely natural adulteries and desertions, which a man had sometimes to repair by marriage or else allow himself to be regarded as a seducer and a scoundrel.

I do not think my husband was conscious of the naive coarseness of all this, as spoken to a young girl who had only just become his wife. I am sure he was not aware that he was betraying himself to me in every word he uttered and making the repugnance I had begun to feel for him deepen into horror.

My palms became moist, and again and again I had to dry them with my handkerchief. I was feeling more frightened and more ashamed than I had ever felt before, but nevertheless when we sat down to dinner I tried to compose myself. Partly for the sake of appearance before the servants, and partly because I was taking myself to task for the repugnance I felt towards my husband, I found something to say, though my voice shook.

My husband ate ravenously and drank a good deal. Once or twice, when he insisted on pouring out champagne for me, I clinked glasses with him. Although every moment at table was increasing my fear and disgust, I sometimes allowed myself to laugh.

Encouraged by this he renewed his endearments even before the waiters had left the room, and when they had gone, with orders not to return until he rang, and the door was closed behind them, he switched off the lights, pushed a sofa in front of the fire, put me to sit on it, sat down beside me and redoubled his tenderness.

"How's my demure little nun now?" he said. "Frightened, wasn't she? They're all frightened at first, bless them!"

I could smell the liquor he had been drinking. I could see by the firelight the prominent front tooth (partly hidden by his moustache) which I had noticed when I saw him first, and the down of soft hair which grew as low on his hands as his knuckles. Above all I thought I could feel the atmosphere of other women about him--loose women, bad women as it seemed to me--and my fear and disgust began to be mixed with a kind of physical horror.

For a little while I tried to fight against this feeling, but when he began to put his arms about me, calling me by endearing names, complaining of my coldness, telling me not to be afraid of him, reminding me that I belonged to him now, and must do as he wished, a faintness came over me, I trembled from head to foot and made some effort to rise.

"Let me go," I said.

"Nonsense," he said, laughing and holding me to my seat. "You bewitching little woman! You're only teasing me. How they love to tease, these charming little women!"

The pupils of his eyes were glistening. I closed my own eyes in order to avoid his look. At the next moment I felt his hand stray down my body and in a fury of indignation I broke out of his arms and leapt to my feet.

When I recovered my self-possession I was again looking out of the window, and my husband, who was behind me, was saying in a tone of anger and annoyance:

"What's the matter with you? I can't understand. What have I done? Good heavens, we are man and wife, aren't we?"

I made no answer. My heart which had been hot with rage was becoming cold with dread. It seemed to me that I had suffered an outrage on my natural modesty as a human being, a sort of offence against my dignity as a woman.

It was now dark. With my face to the window I could see nothing. The rain was beating against the glass. The sea was booming on the rocks. I wanted to fly, but I felt caged--morally and physically caged.

My husband had lit a cigarette and was walking up and down the sitting-room, apparently trying to think things out. After awhile he approached me, out his hand on my shoulder and said:

"I see how it is. You're tired, and no wonder. You've had a long and exhausting day. Better go to bed. We'll have to be up early."

Glad to escape from his presence I allowed him to lead me to the large bedroom. As I was crossing the threshold he told me to undress and get into bed, and after that he said something about waiting. Then he closed the door softly and I was alone.

THIRTY-SIXTH CHAPTER

There was a fire in the bedroom and I sat down in front of it. Many forces were warring within me. I was trying to fix my thoughts and found it difficult to do so.

Some time passed. My husband's man came in with the noiseless step of all such persons, opened one of the portmanteaux and laid out his master's combs and brushes on the dressing table and his sleeping suit on the bed. A maid of the hotel followed him, and taking my own sleeping things out of the top tray of my trunk she laid them out beside my husband's.

"Good-night, my lady," they said in their low voices as they went out on tiptoe.

I hardly heard them. My mind, at first numb, was now going at lightning speed. Brought face to face for the first time with one of the greatest facts of a woman's life I was asking myself why I had not reckoned with it before.

I had not even thought of it. My whole soul had been so much occupied with one great spiritual issue--that I did not love my husband (as I understood love), that my husband did not love me--that I had never once plainly confronted, even in my own mind, the physical fact that is the first condition of matrimony, and nobody had mentioned it to me or even hinted at it.

I could not plead that I did not know of this condition. I was young but I was not a child. I had been brought up in a convent, but a convent is not a nursery. Then why had I not thought of it?

While sitting before the fire, gathering together these dark thoughts, I was in such fear that I was always conscious of my husband's movements in the adjoining room. At one moment there was the jingling of his glass against the decanter, at another moment the smell of his cigarette smoke. From time to time he came to the door and called to me in a sort of husky whisper, asking if I was in bed.

"Don't keep me long, little girl."

I shuddered but made no reply.

At last he knocked softly and said he was coming in. I was still crouching over the fire as he came up behind me.

"Not in bed yet?" he said. "Then I must put you to bed."

Before I could prevent him he had lifted me in his arms, dragged me on to his knee and was pulling down my hair, laughing as he did so, calling me by coarse endearing names and telling me not to fight and struggle.