The train crawled into the station, and she was lifted into an empty carriage. The train crawled out of the station, and she was sitting with his arm round her, and her head upon his shoulder.
How vividly she remembered the journey — the innumerable stations, the junctions where they had to wait — and all his soothing words, and how he had dried her tears — made her brave — reckless almost as he was reckless, with the splendid daring that she admired.
Never before had she been subjected to a strong man’s influence. Never had passion touched her. She knew nothing of the world. She had never been allowed to read novels. All the history of romantic love had been kept from her. His power over her was invincible — he could make her believe what he liked, he could make her do what he liked. She went as to an inevitable fate, and made no struggle against her destiny.
The slow train, the waiting at junctions, made the journey long. They came into Plymouth in the lamplight, and she saw the busy lighted town from the window of the fly into which he put her. He had given her tea at one of the junctions, where they had an hour to wait, but she had been too agitated to eat, only able just to sip the hot weak tea from the cup which he held to her lips. She had eaten nothing since eight o’clock that morning — thirteen hours. The lighted shops, the passing figures on the pavement dazzled her. She sank into a corner of the carriage, half fainting, while he went into a shop and bought things for her, and she was hardly conscious when he almost carried her into the glare of a gaslit hall. She had never been in an hotel — and this seemed full of light and noise, and men and women hurrying to and fro — a vision of confusion. There was no splendour, as of the new hotel that calls itself “Grand” or “Imperial.” This house called itself “family and commercial,” and was full of busy life. The coffee-room where her lover took her was crowded, every table occupied, except a small one in a corner where a waiter found room for them. The glare of light, the noise and the heat were intolerable. A plate of steaming soup was put before her, a cork flew from a bottle with the sound of a pistol shot, and bright wine that danced and bubbled was poured into her glass. But she could neither eat the soup nor drink the wine, though he was so kind and gentle, and urged her to eat. The light and the heat and the noise bewildered her. She shrank farther and farther back into the angle of the wall, and presently, looking up from his soup, he saw that she had fainted. He carried her out of the room and upstairs, a chambermaid going before them — a comfortable-looking woman with whom he left her. “My wife’s luggage is in the hall,” he told the woman, and asked her to unpack the things, and look after his wife, who was upset by her long journey. She was to have tea, or whatever she felt able to take; and then he went back to his dinner.
VII
THEY were in London next day — there had been no marriage before the Plymouth Registrar. He had found that impossible — though it had seemed easy.
“I am not up in your mouldy English law,” he said. “I shall know what to do on the other side of the Channel.” It was evening when they got to London, and all Mary saw was a labyrinth of streets in a hurried drive from Paddington to Charing Cross. When night fell, they were rushing past churches and factories, across a river, amidst noise and smoke, and presently they were flying through moonlit fields in a divine stillness. They were to be married in Paris next day. There would have been nothing gained by staying in London, as the marriage before the Registrar would be no more practicable there than at Plymouth. The same mouldy law would prevail.
“Paris is the City of Light, of free and joyous lives,” he told her. “There we can do what we like.”
She heard him as in a dream. All her life with him since they were walking side by side among the gorse and heather was a troubled dream. It was ages ago since the soft wind was blowing round her, the wind from the western sea. An abyss of time yawned between that lost life and this. He had always been her master from the day of his first kiss — but she had not known it. She knew now.
It had been sunset when they came into London. It was sunrise when she saw the walls of Paris, and the morning sun was shining on the long street where she sat by his side in the light victoria, and looked and wondered at the strange city — different from London and Plymouth — vaster, brighter.
After that endless street from the great station to the heart of the city, they crossed the river by a bridge, where the day’s traffic had begun though the sun was not high — then by a flower-market, then to a grave calm street where the houses seemed asleep, and under a stone archway to a door where they alighted.
“Le Bon Fénclon” — that was the name of the hotel. The house in its courtyard was somewhat sombre, but clean and respectable — much better than the noisy commercial house in Plymouth. The room where they had breakfast was quiet and dull, but the three windows looked into the courtyard, where the morning light had a something that suggested happiness — a sense of pleasantness that was stronger than her despair. The breakfast of coffee and rolls was the first meal that she had eaten with anything like appetite. He had made her take a little bowl of bouillon at the Calais station, but she had taken it only to please him — and the long sleepless hours in the train had been spent in agonizing thought.
Could she be happy — could she know a moment’s peace? She who was lost and degraded? She who must for ever know herself fallen and unworthy? But he had won her — no matter how. She belonged to him now. All that she had ever been or could ever be — her past and her future — were his. His love was round her like an atmosphere of warmth and comfort. Again and again he had told her that she was not to think; she was not to be anxious about anything. All she had to do was to trust him; just to let the hours glide by, to believe that he could make her life sweet.
He watched her as she drank the café au lait, and ate one of those little rolls that are worth a journey to Paris. He told her that he was going to show her the most wonderful city in the world — the churches, the palaces, the houses, where every stone was history.
She turned from him with a heart-broken sigh. He gave her sweet words and tender caresses — all that makes the prettiness of love; but no word of marriage — the marriage that was to be so easy in Paris, the marriage that alone could lift her out of the gulf of infamy — the blackness of despair. On the vital question, the only possible redress, he said nothing, till she looked up at him with frightened eyes, and asked falteringly:
“When are we to be married? Oh, Jack, answer me plainly — you said we were to be married here. Was that true?”
He had to tell her that it was not true. The marriage in France was more difficult than in England. In London it would only be a question of living in a certain parish, for a certain time, and then the marriage before the Registrar could be easy. And they would be in London again soon — and then — and then this frightened soul should be set at rest.
“Oh, love, let us be happy now — now that you are mine, and that life is sweet. Let us drink the cup of joy. What do we want in this world but to be together, sure of each other’s love?”
They were alone in the quiet room, where the business of the day had not begun. He had drawn his chair close to hers — his arm was round her, and her weary head had sunk upon his breast, and was resting there as if it were her natural shelter. He was her master first, her lover afterwards. Her eyes were looking dreamily into the sunlit yard, the summer air was breathing round her, warm as his love. Thought was deadened, and life again seemed sweet. Was it that she accepted her slavery, and loved her sultan? All that happened was inevitable. Slow tears streamed down her pale cheeks, till she hid them on his breast. She lay in his arms motionless, as in a hypnotic sleep. He had told her not to think, and the power of thought was gone. He had told her to be happy, and conscience was dead.
They drove about Paris all that day looking at wonderful things. He showed her all that was best worth seeing — Notre Dame — the pictures in the Louvre. He bought her beautiful clothes in the Rue de la Paix, spending his mon
ey with a splendid recklessness; telling her that he could earn another fortune when that was gone.
“All the world is my Yukon river,” he said, laughing at her remonstrances.
They dined in the garden at the restaurant by the Cascade, and for the first time in her life she tasted wine that sparkled and danced in her glass — the wine that he had wanted her to drink in the hot, noisy room, where the lights spun round with the trouble of her brain, before her eyes closed in sudden darkness. Here there was neither the glare of gas nor harsh noises — only soft lamplight on tables decked with flowers, low voices and light laughter, and the moon high up in a purple sky shining through the trees that circled them.
He made her touch his glass with hers — a silver sound. “Our wedding bells,” he whispered. “Oh, love, let us be happy in the first hours of our honeymoon.”
It was a tactless speech, and stabbed her to the quick, but she did not reproach him.
On the next evening they were at Fontainebleau, dining under the same moon — almost at the full — a golden disc, in a cloudless heaven — but there was no sound of rushing waters, or light laughter. They were alone in a rustic garden, and their attendant was a stout homely person, the landlord of the homely inn. There were grander places where they might have stayed. Mary had seen the lighted windows, the tall white houses, as they drove from the station. But he had chosen this old-fashioned inn because it was cosy and retired, and near the Forest.
They spent the next day in the Forest, driving and walking. They spent a long day in the Château and gardens, and Mary fed the carp, and thought of Napoleon, sitting at the table in the little room they had just seen, signing his surrender of the world. And her eyes filled with tears as she thought of the Old Guard waiting in the courtyard to see their invincible Captain ride away into darkness — conquered and despairing. Napoleon had been the hero of her girlish dream. She remembered Lamartine’s story of that tragic farewell. The thought thrilled her.
They had more days at Fontainebleau — driving about to neighbouring villages — villages where young painters lived and worked — living “the simple life,” with a dash of cognac and a flavour of the Boule Mich. It was all strange and new. She saw the young men painting in the sunlight — the open-air artists — the new school which had done away with everything that had counted as a merit in the past, and was to be greater than the old schools by and by, if one could believe the enthusiasts. She heard their joyous clamour of talk and song at the inn where they dined — and in her lover’s constant companionship, through all this week of fine weather and changing scenes she had no time even for thought, much less for vain regret.
The weather changed in a night, and in the grey morning Mary saw rain falling steadily on the garden where they had breakfasted every day. This morning the meal was laid in a dull room, with pictured walls representing a stag hunt in the days of the great Henri, pictures that time had dulled and darkened, and where forms of horse and man, hound and stag were seen dimly — ghosts of the vanished past.
While they were sitting there silent and depressed, he told her suddenly that he had to desert her for a day or two. He had business in Paris, in the interest of the great commercial house in the Argentine. He had to interview financiers, engineers — important people, who might keep him waiting. It would be a long day’s work.
Her heart sank at the thought of his leaving her. She tried to keep back her tears, tried to be brave, but broke down piteously, and implored him not to leave her, to let her go with him.
He took her in his arms, kissed away the tears, and soothed her with sweet words. Could she doubt that he hated leaving her, but it was necessary, and it might be only for a day. If possible, he would come back by the last train. She was to try to be happy in the comfortable old inn where the landlady was a kind creature, and would take care of her. He knew the house, for he had been there three years ago — knew all about the people. If the day improved she could have a drive in the Forest, or she could go to the Château and dream away an hour or two in the rooms that were so full of the romance she loved. She could think of the royal lover and his exquisite Diane. “Never more lovely, never more fondly loved than my Mary.”
And so he left her — tearful but submissive.
The last train did not bring him back — the first day lengthened to a second, the second to a third. He telegraphed twice a day — the language of love was full of variety — but the excuse for absence was always the same — business — serious interests at stake.
He came back at last, but only to take her away.
“I think we have used up Fontainebleau,” he said. And she sighed heartbrokenly, wondering whether she could ever be as happy anywhere else — with that factitious happiness when conscience and memory had been lulled to sleep.
They stayed in Paris for a week — he engaged in his South American business most of the time, and she left alone, to think and suffer. Then they went to London by the night mail, where he had to leave her at the station hotel — oh, huge and dreary caravanserai for a lonely girl! — while he hunted for lodgings.
Then came the beginning of their settled life — married life, without the sanction of Church or State. He had told her that their marriage would be practicable in London, when they had been living there a fortnight, and on the fourteenth day she reminded him of this, and urged him to make her his wife. And then in the midst of kisses and endearing words, she sitting on his lap, with her arms round his neck, he told her the truth. He was a married man — separated from his wife, but not divorced. Indeed, he had no power to divorce the wife who had left him with his consent. They had parted because they hated each other, but she was a cold, hard, calculating woman, who was never likely to take a false step that could land her in the divorce court. And then followed the specious argument — the old, old story.
Could they ever be more to each other than they were now? What could an entry in the registrar’s book, or even the mumbo-jumbo of the marriage service in a church do to make them nearer and dearer? Love was enough. She had only to trust him and be happy.
He kissed the broad band of gold on the slender finger, the ring that he had bought for her on their first day in London — a detail that had not mattered at Fontainebleau. He swore upon that ring that she was his wedded wife, and that he would be her true and loyal husband till death. What more could she want? Not much more perhaps. Only peace of mind, conscience at rest, reconciliation with her father, only her self-respect, to be able to look other women in the face without being ashamed.
Looking back on the endless vista of days and nights spent in those Chelsea lodgings, it seemed to her that she must have lived in that dull grey street for the larger half of her life. She had lived there till every brick and stone, every detail of window and door in the long rows of houses, of one undeviating pattern, the shape of the lamp-posts, the number of the doorsteps, had eaten into the substance of her brain. Such a cold, grey, eminently respectable street, but a street to lie like lead upon one’s spirits. Halfway from end to end there was a blackbird in a wicker cage, hanging above a kitchen window. She never passed the house without stopping to look down into the area, where the bird moved with restless wing and chirped feebly. He had forgotten that he once sang. Her heart ached for him, but he was the only spot of interest in the street, and it would have hurt her if he had disappeared.
She was in a state of health in which most women find life full of sorrow — sorrow without cause — depression, capriciousness, liking things to-day and hating them tomorrow; impatient, prone to tears — but there was cause enough for her sorrow, for as the long slow months crawled by, and her ordeal was growing nearer, moving towards her like some black Juggernaut car, under which she must lie down and be crushed to death — best that it should be death — she was growing more and more afraid that the love that had wrapped her round like a flame, the love she had been told to trust in for all the happiness and comfort of her life was a thing of the past.
“When you have got over all your troubles, and are my handsome girl once more, my white rose, my morning star.”
He hardly troubled himself to pretend that in his eyes she was still beautiful. He kept up no fiction of admiring her now. When she told him her secret, with what trembling tears, he had not disguised his chagrin. It was a pity. He had to go back to the Argentine next year, and he meant her to have gone with him. She would have been a queen where he was going — all the men would have been at her feet. But now it was hopeless, impossible. Fettered with a nurse and a baby! Not to be thought of! Prosperous as everything was in that land of gold, it was a new civilization. Life was splendid, but had its rough side.
“You will have to stay here till I can come back to you,” he said.
“Will the time be long?”
“Not if I can make it short: but that will depend upon luck.”
He was looking his handsomest — so bold, so strong, with the fire of enterprise shining in eyes where the enlargement of the iris deepened steel-grey to black.
He was as handsome, as splendid as he had been when he had first walked with her along the edge of the sea, when by his will-power, and the something electrical in his fierce strength, he had transformed her from innocent child to responsive woman. Never had there been girlhood more pure, less moved by romantic fancies, or premature passions. She might have been the “pale young curate’s” ideal bride — had not fate thrown her into the arms of a man born to conquer.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 1009
