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The Manxman: A Novel, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 3. Man And Woman - Chapter 25 |
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_ PART III. MAN AND WOMAN CHAPTER XXV Six strides of the horse into the darkness and Kate's hysteria was gone. She had been lost to herself the whole day-through, and now she possessed herself again. She grew quiet and silent, and even solemn. But Pete rattled on with cheerful talk about the day's doings. At the doors of the houses on the road as they passed, people were standing in the half-light to wave them salutations, and Pete sent back his answers in shouts and laughter. Turning the bridge they saw a little group at the porch of the "Ginger." "There's company waiting for us yonder," said Pete, giving the mare a touch of the whip. "Let us get on," said Kate in a nervous whisper. "Aw, let's be neighbourly, you know," said Pete. "It wouldn't be dacent to disappoint people at all. We'll hawl up for a minute just, and hoof up the time at a gallop. Woa, lass, woa, mare, woa, bogh!" As the gig drew up at the inn door, a voice out of the porch cried, "Joy to you, Capt'n, and joy to your lady, and long life and prosperity to you both, and may the Lord give you children and health and happiness to rear them, and may you see your children's children, and may they call you blessed." "Glasses round. Mrs. Kelly," shouted Pete. "Go on, please," said Kate in a fretful whisper, and she tugged at Pete's sleeve. The stars came out; the moon gave a peep; the late hay of the Curragh sent a sweet odour through the night. Kate shuddered and Pete covered her shoulders with a rug. Then he began to sing snatches. He sang bits of all the songs that had been sung that night, but kept coming back at intervals to an old Manx ditty which begins--
They came to the town, rattled down the Parliament Street, passed the Court-house under the trees, turned the sharp angle by the market-place, and drew up at Elm Cottage in the corner. "Home at last," cried Pete, and he leapt to the ground. A dog began to bark inside the house. "D'ye hear him?" said Pete. "That's the master in charge." The porch door was opened, and a comfortable-looking woman in a widow's cap came out with a lighted candle shaded by her hand. "And this is your housekeeper, Mrs. Gorry," said Pete. Kate did not answer. Her eyes had been fixed in a rigid stare on the hind-quarters of the horse, which were steaming in the light of the lamps. Pete lifted her down as he had lifted her up. Then Mrs. Gorry took her by the hand, and saying, "Mind the step, ma'am--this way, ma'am," led her through the gate and along the garden path, and up to the porch. The porch opened on a square hall, furnished as a sitting-room. A fire was burning, a lamp was lit, the table was laid for supper, and the place was warm and cosy. "_There!_ What d'ye say to _that_?" cried Pete, coming behind with the whip in his hand. Kate looked around; she did not speak; her eyes began to fill. "Isn't it fit for a Dempster's lady?" said Pete, sweeping the whip-handle round the room like a showman. Kate could bear no more. She sank into a chair and burst into a fit of tears. Pete's glowing face dropped in an instant. "Dear heart alive, darling, what is it?" he said. "My poor girl, what's troubling you at all? Tell me, now--tell me, bogh, tell me." "It's nothing, Pete, nothing. Don't ask me," said Kate. But still she sobbed as if her heart would break. Pete stood a moment by her side, smoothing her arm with his hand. Then he said, with a crack and a quaver in his great voice, "It _is_ hard for a girl, I know that, to lave father and mother and every one and everything that's been sweet and dear to her since she was a child, and to come to the house of her husband and say, 'The past has been very good to me; but still and for all, I'm for trusting the future to you.' It's hard, darling; I know it's hard." "Oh, leave me! leave me!" cried Kate, still weeping. Pete brushed his sleeve across his eyes, and said, "Take her upstairs, Mrs. Gorry, while I'm putting up the mare at the 'Saddle.'" Then he whistled to the dog, which had been watching him from the hearthrug, and went out of the house. The handle of the whip dragged after him along the floor. Mrs. Gorry, full of trouble, took Kate to her room. Would she not eat her supper? Then salts were good for headache-should she bring a bottle from her box? After many fruitless inquiries and nervous protestations, the good soul bade Kate good-night and left her. Being alone, Kate broke into yet wilder paroxysms of weeping. The storm-cloud which had been gathering had burst at last. It seemed as if the whole weight of the day had been deferred until then. The piled-up hopes of weeks had waited for that hour, to be cast down in the sight of her own eyes. It was all over. The fight with Fate was done, and the frantic merriment with which she had kept down her sense of the place where the blind struggle had left her made the sick recoil more bitter. She thought of Philip, and her trouble began to moderate. Somewhere out of the uncrushed part of her womanhood there came one flicker of womanly pride to comfort her. She saw Philip at last from the point of revenge. He loved her; he would never cease to love her. Do what he might to banish the thought of her, she would be with him always; the more surely with him, the more reproachfully and unattainably, because she would be the wife of another man. If he could put her away from him in the daytime, and in the presence of those worldly aims for which he had sacrificed her, when night came he would be able to put her away no more. He would never sleep but he would see her. In every dream he would stretch out his arms to her, but she would not be there, and he would awake with sobs and in torment. There was a real joy in this thought, although it tore her heart so terribly. She got strength from the cruel comforting, and Mrs. Gorry in the room below, listening intently, heard her crying cease. With her face still shut in both her hands, she was telling herself that she had nothing to reproach herself with; that she could not have acted differently; that she had not really made this marriage; that she had only submitted to it, being swept along by the pitiless tide, which was her father, and Pete, and everybody. She was telling herself, too, that, after all, she had done well. Here she lay in close harbour from the fierce storm which had threatened her. She was safe, she was at peace. The room lay still. The night was very quiet within those walls. Kate drew down her hands and looked about her. The fire was burning gently, and warming her foot on the sheepskin rug that lay in front of it. A lamp burned low on a table behind her chair. At one side there was a wardrobe of the shape of an old press, but with a tall mirror in the door; on the other side there was the bed, with the pink curtains hanging like a tent. The place had a strange look of familiarity. It seemed as if she had known it all her life. She rose to look around, and then the inner sense leapt to the outer vision, and she saw how it was. The room was a reproduction of her own bedroom at home, only newer and more luxurious. It was almost as if some ghost of herself had been there while she slept--as if her own hand had done everything in a dream of her girlhood wherein common things had become grand. Kate's eyes began to fill afresh, and she turned to take off her cloak. As she did so, she saw something on the dressing-table with a label attached to it. She took it up. It was a little mirror, a handglass like her own old one, only framed in ivory, and the writing on the label ran-- Insted of The one that is bruk with fond Luv to Kirry. peat. Her heart was now beating furiously. A flood of feeling had rushed over her. She dropped the glass as if it stung her fingers. With both hands she covered her face. Everything in the room seemed to be accusing her. Hitherto she had thought only of Philip. Now for the first time she thought of Pete. She had wronged him--deeply, awfully, beyond atonement or hope of forgiveness. He loved her; he had married her; he had brought her to his home, to this harbour of safety, and she had deceived and betrayed him--she had suffered herself to be married to him while still loving another man. A sudden faintness seized her. She grew dizzy and almost fell. A more terrible memory had come behind. The thought was like ravens flapping their black wings on her brain. She felt her temples beating against her hands. They seemed to be sucking the life out of her heart. Just then the voice of Pete came beating up the echoes between the house and the chapel beyond the garden--
"Better now, Mrs. Gorry?" "Aw, better, sir, yes, and quiet enough this ten minutes." "Give her time, the bogh! Be aisy with the like, be aisy." Presently she heard him send off Mrs. Gorry for the night, saying he should want no supper, and should be going to bed soon. Then the house became quiet, and the smell of tobacco smoke came floating up the stairs. Kate's hot breath on her hands grew damp against her face. She felt herself swooning, and she caught hold of the mantelpiece. "It cannot be," she thought. "He must not come. I will go down to him and say, 'Pete, forgive me, I am really the wife of another.'" Then she would tell him everything. Yes, she would confess all now. Oh, she would not be afraid. His love was great. He would do what she wished. She made one step towards the door, and was pulled up as by a curb. Pete would say, "Do you mean that you have been using me as a cloak? Do you ask me to live in this house, side by side with you, and let no one suspect that we are apart? Then why did you not ask me yesterday? Why do you ask me to-day, when it is too late to choose?" No, she could not confess. If confession had been difficult yesterday, it was a thousand times more difficult to-day, and it would be a thousand thousand times more difficult tomorrow. Kate caught up the cloak she had thrown aside. She must go away. Anywhere, anywhere, no matter where. That was the one thing left to her--the only escape from the wild tangle of dread and pain. Pete was in the hall; there must be a way out at the back; she would find it. She lowered the lamp, and turned the handle of the door. Then she saw a light moving on the landing, and heard a soft step on the stairs. It was Pete, with a candle, coming up in his stockinged feet. He stopped midway, as if he heard the click of the latch, and then went noiselessly down again. Kate closed the door. She would not go. If she left the house that night she would cover Pete with suspicion and disgrace. The true secret would never be known; the real offender would never suffer; but the finger of scorn would be raised at the one man who had sheltered and shielded her, and he would die of humiliation and blind self-reproach. This reflection restrained her for the moment, and when the stress of it was spent she was mastered by a fear that was far more terrible. For good or for all she was now married to Pete, and he had the rights of a husband. He had a right to come to her, and he _would_ come. It was inevitable; it had to be. No boy or girl love now, no wooing, no dallying, no denying, but a grim reality of life--a reality that comes to every woman who is married to a man. She was married to Pete. In the eye of the world, in the eye of the law, she was his, and to fly from him was impossible. She must remain. God himself had willed it As for the shame of her former relation to Philip, it was her own secret. God alone knew of it, and He would keep it safe. It was the dark chamber of her heart which God only could unlock. He would never unlock it until the Day of Judgment, and then Philip would be standing by her side, and she would cast it back upon him, and say, "His, not mine, O God," and the Great Judge of all would judge between them. But she began to cry again, like a child in the dark. As she threw off her cloak a second time, her dress crinkled, and she looked down at it and remembered that it was her wedding-dress. Then she looked around at the room, and remembered that it was her wedding chamber. She remembered how she had dreamt of coming in her bridal dress to her bridal room--proud, afraid, tingling with love, blushing with joy, whispering to herself, "This is for me--and this--and this. _He_ has given it, for he loves me and I love him, and he is mine and I am his, and he is my love and my lord, and he is coming to--" There was a gentle knocking at the door. It made her flesh creep. The knock came again. It went shrieking through and through her. "Kirry," whispered a voice from without. She did not stir. "It's only Pete." She neither spoke nor moved. There was silence for a moment, and then, half nervously, half jovially, half in laughter, half with emotion as if the heart outside was palpitating, the voice came again, "I'm coming in, darling!" _ |
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