The Tree of Knowledge Part 74

All the technicality and elaboration of this modern London ceremony had been most trying to Percivale, who, as has been said, hated coming before the public as a central figure; and, at this particular marriage, the mysterious bridegroom had, contrary to custom, attracted quite as much notice as the lovely bride.

The young man was beginning dimly to realize that Claud had spoken truly when he said that life now-a-days could be neither a dream nor an ideal.

There seemed so much that was commonplace and technical to take the bloom off his romance. He literally panted for his Bavarian home--for foaming river, wide lake, rugged steep, glittering horizon of snow-peaked Alps in which to realize the happiness that he so fervently antic.i.p.ated. As to Elsa's mental state on her wedding-day, it must be owned that, when the excitement was over--when the admiring crowds were left behind, and she found herself alone with her husband, she was a good deal frightened. She did not understand him in the least. Her nature was so utterly devoid of the least spark of romance or sentiment that she could not interpret his thoughts or his desires. There was a still firmness about him which awed her. Docile as he was, subjugated as he was, there yet had been times during their short engagement when she experienced great uneasiness. Chief of these was the evening when he heard of Osmond Allonby's disappearance. There had been something then in the low, repressed intensity of his manner which had made her quail.

True, she had been able to change his mood in a moment. A couple of her easily-shed tears, lying on her eye-lashes, had brought him to his knees in an agony of repentance. But still there remained always in her mind a kind of rankling conviction that her lover expected of her something which she could not give, because she did not know what it was. When Percivale gave rein to the poetic side of his nature, and talked of sympathies, of high aims, of beauty in one's daily life, he spoke to deaf ears. Vaguely she comforted herself with the reflection that this would last only for a little while. Men had a way of talking like that when they were in love; but, while it lasted, it give her a feeling of discomfort. She could never be at her ease whilst she was in a state of such uncertainty; for uncertainty begets fear.

Her depression was increased by the serious words which her G.o.dfather had spoken to her on her wedding-morning. She hated to be spoken to seriously. It was like being scolded--it carried her back to the unloved memories of her dull childhood. Why could he not have given her her gold necklace with a gay declaration that most jewels adorned a white neck, but that in her case the neck would adorn the jewel--or some other such speech--the kind to which her ears were now daily accustomed.

Why did he think it necessary to entreat her never to allow her husband to be disappointed in her? Was it likely that any man could ever be disappointed in her? It seemed more probable that she might one day come to feel bored by him, handsome and eligible though he was.

Somehow, being engaged to him had not quite fulfilled her expectations.

More than once she had felt--not exactly consciously, but none the less really--that she was more in touch with Captain St. Quentin, or others of the well-born ordinary young men of the day who formed her set, than with the idealist Leon. He was a creature from another sphere, his thoughts and aims were different, she knew; and, as her own inclinations became daily more clearly defined, she could not help feeling that they grew daily more unlike his.

"But she is so young, he will be able to mould her," said Claud, hopefully to himself. He guessed, more clearly than any one else, that Percivale was mismated; and foresaw with a dim foreboding that a bad time was in store for him when he should discover the fact; but, on his friend's wedding-day, he would not be a skeleton at the feast. He was willing to hope for the best.

Slowly he turned from the shoe-flinging and rice-scattering which formed the tag-end of the wedding. Leon's face haunted him. The expression of it, as he spoke the oath which bound him to Elaine, had been so intense, so holy in the purity of its chivalrous devotion, that it had awed and impressed even the crowd of frivolous triflers who lounged and chatted in the church, whispering scandal, and criticizing each other's appearance as others like them did at Romney Leigh's wedding. There was in fact something about this day which recalled the poem forcibly to Claud's mind: not, of course, the ghastly _denouement_, but the character of the man, the same loftiness of aim, the same terrible earnestness in its view of life.

Something, too, about his friend's farewell had struck him with a sadness for which he could scarcely account.

A little, trifling slip of Percivale's tongue, dwelt in his memory in a manner altogether disproportionate. In the hurry and bustle of the departure, as he grasped Claud's hand, instead of saying, "Good-bye," as he meant to, Leon had said, "Good-night."

He was unconscious of it himself, and in an absent way he had repeated it, in that still voice which always seemed to convey so much meaning.

"Good-night, Claud, good-night."

Now that he was gone, the words rang in Cranmer's ears, as Romney's words lingered in Aurora's. As he turned back into the house and slowly went upstairs, he was repeating softly to himself the line,

"And all night long I thought _Good-night_," said he.

Walking into the drawing-room with its showy display of wedding-gifts, its fading flowers and vacant, desolate aspect, he was confronted by Henry Fowler.

They had hardly spoken before, as Henry had only arrived in town late the preceding night. Now they stood face to face, and the elder man was painfully struck by the haggard aspect of the younger.

Wynifred Allonby had now been for some weeks at Edge Willoughby, and his only way of hearing of her was from the two Misses Willoughby who were in town, for the little house in Mansfield Road was shut up. Hilda was with her sister in Devonshire, Jacqueline staying with her future relations, Osmond still in Paris, his address unknown, his letters few and unsatisfactory.

"Well?" said Mr. Fowler, interrogatively.

"Well," said Claud, defiantly, "I am glad to have the chance of speaking to you, Fowler. I will begin with putting a straight question. Are you engaged to--to Miss Allonby?"

"No, lad; that question is soon answered. She will not see me."

"Well, then, I give you fair warning, I am coming down to the Combe. I can bear this suspense no longer."

"Come as soon as you will, and stay as long as you can; but she will not see you. She will see n.o.body. She seems well, they say; her strength is coming back, she can walk, and eats pretty well; but she is sadly changed, her pretty sister tells me. She does not seem to care to talk.

She will sit silent for hours, and they are afraid she does not sleep.

She will go nowhere and speak to no one. If you call upon her, she will decline to see you."

"I shall not give her the chance to decline or to consent. I shall insist upon seeing her," said Claud, calmly. "Fowler, some words you said to me that night at the Langham have been with me ever since: 'There comes a time to every man when the only clean and honorable course is to go straight forward.' I have pa.s.sed beyond that. For me now, the only _possible_ course is to go straight forward. I _will_ see and speak to her, if only to ask a forgiveness from her. I have piled on the sack-cloth and ashes this Lent, Fowler. I have found out at last what I really am; and for a time the knowledge simply crushed me. But now I am beginning to struggle up. I have grown to believe in the truth of the saying that men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things. If--if I could have _her_ for my own, I honestly think I might yet be a useful man. Now you know my intentions, sir, as well as I know them myself. You can't be mad enough to ask such a declared rival down to stay with you."

"Mad or sane, I must have you to stay with me. Can you start to-morrow?"

"With the best heart in the world; but, Fowler, I don't understand you."

"See here, lad. I trust Miss Allonby entirely. She will not have you if she does not love you; and if she does love you, I am willing she should have you, for my life's aim is her happiness, whether she find it in me or in another man. Ah! you are young; no wonder you think me mad. Time was when I should have felt, as you do now, that the thing was a blind necessity, that either she and I must come together, or the world must end for me. In those days there was a woman,"--he halted a moment, then went on serenely, "there was a woman made for me. I was the only man to make her happy; but she chose another. It was then I knew what desolation meant. Now I can feel tenderness but not pa.s.sion. I can wish for Wynifred's happiness more fervently than I desire my own; I do not feel, as you feel, that her happiness and mine are one and the self-same thing. Yours is the love that should overcome, I am sure of that, now.

It is the love that will tear down barriers and uproot obstructions; the only love a man should dare to lay at the feet of a woman like Wynifred Allonby."

CHAPTER XLVIII.

Write woman's verses, and dream woman's dreams: But let me feel your perfume in my home, To make my sabbath after working-days.

Bloom out your youth beside me,--be my wife.

_Aurora Leigh._

Wynifred stood idly at the window.

It was a lovely day--one of those real spring days which we in England so rarely enjoy--perhaps one, perhaps half-a-dozen in the whole year. A brief interlude in the east wind's unfailing rigor; a breathing time when the black shadows leave the land and color begins to dawn over copse and meadow. The sea-ward slopes of the valley were beginning to grow green. The borders of the garden were purple and gold with crocuses, and sweet with violets.

Hilda had yesterday brought in a sumptuous handful of Lent lilies from the woods, lighting up the room like a flash of condensed sunlight.

There were countless ripples on the sea, a breath of life and spring in the warm air. The birds were twittering and building, and the long hazel-blooms fell in pale gold and crimson ta.s.sels on the pathway. Miss Ellen lay on her sofa, anxiously watching the silent pale girl at the window.

They were alone. Hilda was out riding with Henry Fowler.

Miss Ellen had been watching the clock, wondering how long Wynifred would remain speechless and in the same position if left to herself.

When the silence had lasted more than fifty minutes, she felt it unbearable.

"Wynifred, my dear, a penny for your thoughts," said she.

Wyn started violently, and faced slowly round. Her eyes wore a dull look, as if she was not quite fully awake.

"I don't think I was thinking of anything in particular," said she, sitting down listlessly and taking up her work, which lay on a table near. Miss Ellen watched her keenly, as she turned the embroidery this way and that, smoothed it with her hand, threaded a needle with silk as if she felt that some pretence of employment was necessary, but, after five minutes' spasmodic working, let it drop idly in her lap, leaned back in her chair, and again became apathetic.

It was disheartening indeed to watch her.

Miss Ellen recalled the energetic, slender Wynifred of last summer, with her eager, vivid interest in everything, her ready tongue, her gay laugh, her quick fingers.

How could the girl tell at what precise amount of work she would have to stop short? How should she recognise the signs of overfatigue? To spur herself on had been her only care,--to check her cravings for rest and leisure, as something to be crushed down and despised.

Now she was like a clock with damaged works. If you shook her, she would go fitfully for a few minutes, and then relapse into her former lethargy.

Of course, the completeness of her breakdown had been greatly aggravated by her own private unhappiness, and by the terrible trouble of her brother's total inability to stand up against his reverse of fortune. It seemed as if the consciousness of Osmond's utter weakness had sapped all her strength, had struck away her last prop. From such a depth of sickness and depression, she would, naturally take some time to re-ascend. Miss Ellen comforted herself with the thought that her cure must be gradual, but she could not feel that it had yet so much as begun.

Wynifred could not be made to talk on any subject except the sun, the flowers, the chough, the villagers, or some such indifferent theme. To talk about books made her head ache, she said, and she never put pen to paper. Hilda had now and then tried her, by casually leaving writing materials about in the room where she sat; but, alone or in company, she never touched them.

She spoke of no one and asked after no one but Osmond, and of him she would now and then speak, though never mentioning Elsa, or anyone else connected with the episodes preceding her illness.