The Manxman Part 59

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. G.o.d himself had willed it As for the shame of her former relation to Philip, it was her own secret. G.o.d alone knew of it, and He would keep it safe. It was the dark chamber of her heart which G.o.d 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 G.o.d," 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!"

PART IV. MAN AND WIFE.

I.

Next morning Kate said to herself, "My life must begin again from to-day." She had a secret that Pete did not share, but she was not the first woman who had kept something from her husband. When people had secrets which it would hurt others to reveal, they ought to keep them close. Honour demanded that she should be as firm as a rock in blotting Philip from her soul. Remembering the promise which Pete had demanded of Philip at the wedding to make their house his home in Ramsey, and seeing that Philip must come, if only to save appearances, she asked herself if she ought to prevent him. But no! She resolved to conquer the pa.s.sion that made his presence a danger. There was no safety in separation. In her relation to Philip she was like the convict who is beginning his life again--the only place where he can build up a sure career is precisely there where his crime is known. "Let Philip come," she thought. She made his room ready.

She was married. It was her duty to be a good wife. Pete loved her--his love would make it easy. They were sitting at breakfast in the hall-parlour, and she said, "I should like to be my own housekeeper, Pete."

"And right, too," said Pete. "Be your own woman, darling--not your woman's woman--and have Mrs. Gorry for your housemaid."

To turn her mind from evil thoughts, she set to work immediately, and busied herself with little duties, little economies, little cares, little troubles. But the virtues of housekeeping were just those for which she had not prepared herself. Her first leg of mutton was roasted down to the proportions of a frizzled shank, and her first pudding was baked to the colour and consistency of a badly burnt brick. She did not mend rapidly as a cook, but Pete ate of all that his faultless teeth could grind through, and laid the blame on his appet.i.te when his digestion failed.

She strove by other industries to keep alive a sense of her duty as a wife. Buying rolls of paper at the paperhanger's, she set about papering every closet in the house. The patterns did not join and the paste did not adhere. She initialled in worsted the new blankets sent by Grannie, with a P and a Q and a K intertwined. Than she overhauled the linen; turned out every room twice a week; painted every available wooden fixture with paint which would not dry because she had mixed it herself to save a sixpence a stone and forgotten the turpentine. Pete held up his hands in admiration at all her failures. She had thought it would be easy to be a good wife to a good husband. It was hard--hard for any one, hardest of all for her. There are the ruins of a happy woman in the bosom of every over-indulged wife.

She could not keep to anything long, but every night for a week she gave Pete lessons in reading, writing, and arithmetic. His reading was laborious, his spelling was eccentric, his figuring he did on the tips of his heavy fingers, and his writing he executed with his tongue in his cheek and his ponderous thumb down on the pen nib.

"What letter is that, Pete?" she said, pointing with her knitting needle to the page of a book of poems before them.

Pete looked up in astonishment. "Is it _me_ you're asking, Kitty? If _you_ don't know, _I_ don't know."

"That's a capital M, Pete."

"Is it, now?" said Pete, looking at the letter with a searching eye.

"Goodness me, the straight it's like the gate of the long meadow."

"And that's a capital A."

"Sakes alive, the straight it's like the coupling of the cart-house."

"And that's a B."

"Gough bless me, d'ye say so? But the straight it's like the hoof of a bull, though."

"And M A B spells Mab--Queen Mab," said Kate, going on with her knitting.

Pete looked up at her with eyes wide open. "I suppose, now," he said, in a voice of pride, "I suppose you're knowing all the big spells yourself, Kitty?"

"Not all. Sometimes I have to look in the dictionary," said Kate.

She showed him the book and explained its uses.

"And is it taiching you to spell every word, Kitty?" he asked.

"Every ordinary word," said Kate.

"My gough!" said Pete, touching the book with awe.

Next day he pored over the dictionary for an hour, but when he raised his face it wore a look of scepticism and scorn. "This spelling-book isn't taiching you nothing, darling," he said.

"Isn't it. Pete?"

"No, nothing," said Pete. "Here I've been looking for an ordinary word--a _very_ ordinary word--and it isn't in."

"What word is it?" said Elate, leaning over his shoulder.

"_Love_," said Pete. "See," pointing his big forefinger, "that's where it ought to be, and where is it?"

"But _love_ begins _lo_," said Kate, "and you're looking at _lu_. Here it is--love."

Pete gave a prolonged whistle, then fell back in his chair, looked slowly up and said, "So you must first know how the word begins; is that it, Kitty?"

"Why, yes," said Kate.