Tales from Many Sources Part 22

Why? And Vansittart catches his breath. Then the gyves of his strong will give way as the withes fell from Samson.

"I will tell you," he says. "I love you so horribly, that it is pain and anguish to me to be with you, for then I feel that when I leave you I am ready to die of longing and misery."

"Well?" she utters in a very low voice, bending her eyes on the ground.

It is only one little word, but it speaks such volumes! "Why should you leave me?" it says. "Is it not my case, too? What need you more than speak!"

"You have heard," he goes on, not daring to look at her, "that I have forsworn marriage. Marriage," pa.s.sionately, "kills love, and I would rather, ten times over, suffer what I have suffered--and G.o.d knows that is not a little!--than a day should come when, having known such divine happiness as I _should_ know were you mine, we should grow cold and weary; when our pa.s.sions should turn to indifference, to disappointment and heart-burnings, and end, perhaps, in our cherishing feelings of vindictive spite and bitterness against each other, and in my thinking every woman pleasanter and fairer than you, end in your believing me to be the greatest brute under heaven!"

"Oh!" utters Virginia, as she raises her eyes to his face with a look of pained wonder.

"I have seen it a thousand times," he continues vehemently. "I have known men pa.s.sionately, madly in love with women, ready to count 'the world well lost,' to sacrifice all the future only to call that idol of the moment theirs. I have seen them marry. I have watched the weariness that comes from security even more than from satiety. I have seen the links that were forged in roses become gyves of iron--tenderness and courtesy give place to rudeness and contempt. I never saw but two people perfectly happy, and they," lowering his voice, "were not married. I have sworn a thousand times never to court wretchedness for myself and a woman I loved by loading her and myself with chains. My idea has been this. Some day I may meet with a being who, under natural circ.u.mstances, she keeping her freedom and leaving me mine, I might love with all my heart and be faithful to until the day of my death. I would give her all I possessed. I would devote myself to making her happy; if she had to sacrifice anything for my sake, I would atone to her for it by my unwearying love. But," his voice mastered by emotion, "how dare I say such words to you? In the sphere in which you live they would be considered a dastardly insult--one must not dare to move one step from the beaten track of custom. The world would scoff at the idea that my love for you is more sacred and reverent than that of a man who, inspired by a momentary pa.s.sion for a woman and desiring her, obtains his end by a simple and speedy means, without reflection as to the possible misery of both in the future. And yet," his lips quivering, his face growing deathly white, "I believe I could love you more dearly, love you longer than husband ever loved wife."

Virginia sits rooted to the spot, a deadly anguish strangling her heart. Then, whilst the divine strains of music still flow on, she feels herself drawn to his heart; his lips meet hers in one long kiss that steals her very soul away from her. He is gone--the music has ceased--the night grows chill--she shivers. "The world well lost," she mutters to herself, and then, with listless steps, and strange, affrighted eyes, she drags herself up stairs to her room.

PART II.

In a charming house, surrounded by an acre of ground, turned into a small paradise, a house not more than two miles from Hyde Park Corner, live Philip Vansittart and Virginia Hayward. The neighbourhood knows them as Mr. and Mrs. Vansittart, and has not the very remotest conception that in so perfectly ordered an establishment, there is anything which they would designate as "odd." If anything could arouse suspicion in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the servants who wait upon them, and the tradespeople who serve them it would be the extraordinary tenderness subsisting between them; the excessive courtesy and consideration of Mr.

Vansittart for Mrs. Vansittart, and the entire absence of that familiarity commonly seen between affectionate husbands and wives, which almost invariably engenders subsequent contempt.

The house is furnished with exquisite taste. Mr. Vansittart is continually bringing home artistic treasures to add to its embellishment. Mrs. Vansittart has a carriage and a fine pair of horses.

She seldom, however, drives into town except to the play, or to dine. A great many gentlemen of distinction and rank come to the house, who treat Mrs. Vansittart like a queen, and a few ladies; clever, literary ladies, ladies holding peculiar views--very rarely the consorts of distinguished and well-born men.

Is Philip happy? Is Virginia happy? To this I can only reply by another question. Is any one Happy? They love each other with unfailing tenderness--they are all the world to each other--the thought of separation would be death to them. And yet the heart of either is gnawed by a secret worm. In the midst of his busy life, Philip can never forget that he has sacrificed the woman whom he adores from the very bottom of his soul, and the horrible suspicion will stab him, that he has sacrificed her needlessly. They are living as husband and wife, and yet no feeling of weariness, of satiety, comes near them--each day draws them nearer together; makes them find fresh points in each other to love and admire. Were she his wife, occupying her proper sphere in society, sought after, courted, admired, he with no feeling of self-reproach, she with no consciousness (which she must feel though she never betrays) of cruelty and selfishness on his part; might they not be even happier? He forgets to tell himself that they are happy because no tie binds them--nay, he says secretly in his heart that that tie is the only thing wanting to make their felicity perfect. Now, it is too late. The world knows the truth--marriage can never whitewash Virginia in society's eyes--no future can condone the crime of the past. He has settled every farthing he has in the world upon her--no mean fortune--he loads her with gifts--he is perpetually thinking of her pleasure and amus.e.m.e.nt, and yet, for ever, the load of his debt to her weighs down his soul.

And Virginia? Paul is all in all to her; he is her heart, her soul, her conscience, and yet he cannot shield her from the fate which he has brought upon her. What must inevitably be the sufferings of a proud and pure-minded woman, who knows herself to be an object of scorn to her s.e.x? How would a man, naturally honorable and high-minded, feel, if, in some fatal moment, he had been tempted to commit a forgery, or take an unfair advantage at cards, and was afterwards shunned by every man friend; thrust out of every club, banned utterly from the society of his fellows, except those with whom it would revolt him to a.s.sociate? This is the only case that can parallel that of a woman who has lost the world for a man's sake; and men who have a difficulty in realizing how great is the sacrifice they compel or accept from a woman, would do well to consider this.

Virginia suffered many a bitter pang when she showed herself in public with Philip. She quivered under the open stare, or the look askance of members of her s.e.x; if she showed a brave front, it was that of the Spartan boy! Philip was particularly fond of the opera and the play; he would not have gone without her; so she accompanied him, and made no demur. Of course every relation and friend she had in the world shunned her as though she were a leper, which indeed, morally, she was in their eyes. She loved society; no woman was more calculated to shine in it, and from this she was cut off. True, they constantly entertained brilliant and clever men, whose conversation and company were very agreeable to her; but, however much a woman may like, may even prefer the society of men, it is a bitter thought to her that she cannot command that of her own s.e.x. And, though men treated her with even a greater and more delicate courtesy than they would perhaps have shown their own women, Virginia was none the less keenly conscious of the moral ban under which she lay.

She was the daughter of a clergyman, she had been religiously brought up, and she writhed under the terrible consciousness that her life was a sin against her G.o.d. At first she went to church, but everything she heard there sent the iron deeper into her soul; if there were comforting promises to repentant Magdalens, there was nothing but wrath and threatening for those who continued in their sin. By-and-by she left off going to church. Philip was a sceptic, most of his friends were the same. Virginia listened to their talk, and, in time, her faith began to waver; she liked to think they were right, and that the Bible was a string of fables; it lessened her sense of criminality and remorse, but it cut her off forever from the only consolation a woman can know, when her hour of trial comes. If man could supply the place of G.o.d and Saviour now, whither should she fly when he was torn from her or grew weary of her?

She was glad that she had no children--could she live to be shamed by them, scorned by them? And yet--how sweet it would have been to feel clinging arms about her neck; to hear little voices lisp the sweetest word on earth to a mother's ear, if only she might have been as other mothers--as other wives! Never, never once had she breathed or hinted a wish that Philip should marry her; she had a superst.i.tious dread that once the chain was forged his love for her would cease--marriage could not now reinstate her in the world's sight--she had ceased to remember that her life was a crime. She had heard it said so often that marriage was simply an inst.i.tution founded upon expediency; that all systems having been tried, the one that worked best was the union of a man to one wife, that she herself began to doubt its being a heaven-ordained inst.i.tution, and the only state tolerated by Divine Providence. But if she ceased to feel herself actually a guilty and sinning woman, she was none the less sensitive to the world's scorn; to the bitterness of holding a position that society refused to tolerate or to recognize.

But, after all, she knew happiness which is denied to nine-tenths of women, nay, to ninety-nine out of a hundred. She enjoyed the pa.s.sionate, unfailing devotion of the man whom she adored--no harsh word ever crossed his lips to her--she was his first care and thought--no party of pleasure ever tempted him from her side--nothing but the claim of business could induce him to spend an evening away from her. And so the years pa.s.sed on. It is an unalterable law of nature that pa.s.sion must succ.u.mb before habit, but it may be succeeded by a calm content, a happy trustful confidence, that wears better, and is perhaps in the long run more satisfactory.

Twelve years elapsed, and during that time Virginia enjoyed unbroken health. Then, one winter, she caught a severe cold, which settled on her lungs; her life was despaired of. No woman was ever a more tender, more devoted nurse than Philip. But this illness left her extremely delicate; she could no longer brave all weathers as formerly, nor be Philip's constant companion in his walks and drives. She was forbidden to go out at night, and they had been so in the habit of going to the play, especially in the winter months. At first he insisted on remaining at home with her, but she was too unselfish to allow him to sacrifice himself. There was many an evening when she was unable to leave her room, and when talking would bring on severe paroxysms of coughing. She succeeded in prevailing upon him to visit the theatre without her, and sometimes even to dine with a friend. After a time he got into the habit of going about alone, and, although he was even more tender and considerate than before, she felt an agonising consciousness that he could, after all, do without her, which he had sworn ten thousand times he never could. She began to have sleepless nights and pa.s.sionate fits of crying. Nemesis was coming upon her with gigantic strides. Philip did not suspect that she was unhappy; he thought her illness affected her spirits. A great change had come over her, which he deplored. She no longer was the bright, amusing companion of yore.

Two more years went by. Virginia was almost a confirmed invalid--she could only get out in fine summer weather--then her spirits rallied, and she was something of her old self again. Philip often spent his evenings away from home now; it become a habit; he did not suspect that Virginia suffered from his absence, but thought that it was really her wish, dear, unselfish soul that she was, that he should go out and be amused.

And she, fearful of making him fancy that he felt a chain where none existed, was careful never to show him by word or look that she suffered from his absence. She tormented herself with the thought that he might meet any day with a young and beautiful woman who would inspire again in his breast the feeling that he had once known for her. And _she_ remembered that she was free, even if he forgot it. Poor soul! she recognised bitterly enough now, that the only safety for a woman is in that bond which a man may so lightly affect to set at naught: in a contract like hers and Philip's, the man has all to gain, the woman all to lose.

It was growing dusk one November afternoon, when the door of Virginia's drawing-room was thrown open, and Lord Harford announced. A slight blush suffused her cheek as she rose to receive him, and she appeared slightly embarra.s.sed. Virginia was still beautiful, though no longer very young; she had an extremely fragile and delicate appearance, which is attractive to some men, notably to those who, like Lord Harford, are big, strong and robust.

"You are not angry with me for coming, are you?" he asks almost diffidently, as soon as the door has closed on the servant.

"No," she answers gently. Times are changed with her since the last occasion in which she and he stood face to face in this very room. Then she _was_ angry, but then she was in the full flush of health and beauty, and he was her would-be lover. There had been nothing to wound or humiliate her in his love-making; he had come loyally to offer her his hand and all that belonged to him, which of wealth and honor was no mean portion. But she had been deeply stung by a man daring to remember that she was free, and there was only one husband and lover in the world for her. Now that, as it seemed to her, beauty and love were so far removed from her, it was almost a pleasure to remember that she had been beloved.

"I have pa.s.sed your door a hundred times," he says, "and never been able to summon up courage enough to ask for you."

"But to-day you were braver," she utters, looking at him with something of the old smile and manner.

"I thought perhaps you had a good many dull hours now Vansittart is so much away."

"How do you know that he is much away?" asks Virginia, feeling vaguely hurt at his words and tone.

"Because I so often meet him out."

"Where do you meet him?"

"Oh, at different places. Chiefly at Mrs. Devereux's."

Lord Harford looks full in Virginia's face, and she, who is so quick, cannot fail to see that his eyes and tone are intended to convey some meaning.

"Mrs. Devereux?" she says, inquiringly. "You mean his cousin."

"Yes."

After this there is a pause. It is as though he wanted her to question him; as though she were fighting against the desire to know his meaning.

She conquers herself by an effort.

"I have been very ill since you saw me last. You find me much altered, do you not?"

"You look delicate," he answers, "but in my eyes," lowering his voice, "you are as beautiful as ever."

She half-smiles, half-sighs.

"It is very kind of you to say that," she utters, "but I cannot deceive myself. I am an old woman now; if ever I had any good looks they are gone."

"They are _not_!" cries Lord Harford staunchly. "What I say is gospel truth. I think your delicacy becomes you. I hate your great buxom, dairymaid women."

Virginia smiles at his earnestness.

"Ah, if you had been mine," he goes on, "I should never have wanted to look at another woman, young or old."

Still that strange meaning in his tone. A chill terror creeps to Virginia's heart--she can no longer restrain herself.

"What do you mean?" she says, fixing her eyes on him. "You are hinting at something--you want to convey something to my mind. If you are a man--if you pretend to be my friend, speak out honestly."

He rises, and takes one or two turns in the room, then stops abruptly in front of her.

"Will you believe me, I wonder?" he asks, "or will you think me a mean hound who only seeks his own interest?"

"Interest?" echoes Virginia bitterly, "what interest can it be to you?"

"This much," he answers, a red flush mounting to his brow, "that I am as anxious this moment to make you my wife as I was four years ago."

Virginia makes an impatient movement with her hand.