Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “Not from me!” Wimpole turned almost sharply upon her.

  “No. Not from you. You wrote Henry a letter, many years ago. Do you remember? I had to read everything when he went to the asylum, so I read that, too. He had kept it all those years.”

  “I am sorry. I never meant you to know. But it does not matter now, since I have told you myself.”

  He spoke coldly again, almost indifferently, looking straight before him into the night.

  “It matters a great deal,” said Helen, almost to herself, and he did not hear her.

  She kept her head bent down, though he could not have seen her face clearly if she had looked up at him. Her letter burned her, and she hated herself, and loved him. She despised herself, because in the midst of the greatest sacrifice of her life, she had felt the breath of far delight in words that cost him so much. Yet she would have suffered much, even in her good pride, rather than have had them unspoken, for she had unknowingly waited for them half a lifetime. Being a good woman, she was too much a woman to speak one word in return, beyond the simple thanks that sounded so strangely to him, for women exaggerate both good and evil as no man can.

  “I know, I know!” he said, suddenly continuing. “You are married, and I should not speak. I believe in those things as much as you do, though I am a man, and most men would laugh at me for being so scrupulous. You ought never to have known, and I meant that you never should. But then, you are married to Harmon still, because you choose to be, and because you will not be free. Does not that make a difference?”

  “No, not that. That makes no difference.” She raised her head a little.

  “But it does now,” answered Wimpole. “It is because I do love you, just as I do, with all my heart, that I mean to keep you from him, whether it is right or wrong. Don’t you see that right and wrong only matter to one’s own miserable self? I shall not care what becomes of my soul if I can keep you from all that unhappiness — from that real danger. It does not matter what becomes of me afterwards — even if I were to go straight to New York and kill Harmon and be hanged for the murder, it would not matter, so long as you were free and safe.”

  The man had fought in honourable battles, and had killed, and knew what it meant.

  “Is that what you intend to do?” asked Helen, and her voice shook.

  “It would mean a great deal, if I had to do it,” he answered quietly enough. “It would show that I loved you very much. For I have been an honourable man all my life, and have never done anything to be ashamed of. I should be killing a good deal, besides Henry Harmon, but I would give it to make you happy, Helen. I am in earnest.”

  “You could not make me happy in that way.”

  “No. I suppose not. I shall find some other way. In the first place, I shall see Harmon and talk to him—”

  “How? When?” Helen turned up her face in surprise.

  “If you send what you have written, I shall leave to-night,” said the colonel. “I shall reach New York as soon as your letter and see Harmon before he reads it, and tell him what I think.”

  “You will not do that?” She did not know whether she was frightened, or not, by the idea.

  “I will,” he answered. “I will not stay here tamely and let you wreck your life. If you mail your letter, I shall take the midnight train to Paris. I told you that I was in earnest.”

  Helen was silent, for she saw a new difficulty and more trouble before her, as though the last few hours had not brought her enough.

  “I think,” said Wimpole, “that I could persuade Harmon not to accept your generosity.”

  “I am not doing anything generous. You are making it hard for me to do what is right. You are almost threatening to do something violent, to hinder me.”

  “No. I know perfectly well that I should never do anything of that sort, and I think you know it, too. To treat Harmon as he deserves would certainly make a scandal which must reflect upon you.”

  “Please remember that he is still my husband—”

  “Yes,” interrupted Wimpole, bitterly, “and that is his only title to consideration.”

  Helen was on the point of rebuking him, but reflected that what he said was probably true.

  “Please respect it, then, if you think so,” she said quietly. “You say that you care for me — no, I won’t put it so — you do care for me. You love me, and I know you do. Let us be perfectly honest with each other. As long as you help me do right, it is not wrong to love me as you do, though I am another man’s wife. But as soon as you stand between me and my husband, it is wrong — wicked! It is wicked, no matter what he may have been to me. That has nothing to do with it. It is coming between man and wife—”

  “Oh — really — that is going too far!” Wimpole raised his head a little higher, and seemed to breathe the night air angrily through his nostrils.

  “No,” answered Helen, persistently, for she was arguing against her heart, if not against her head, “it is not going at all too far. Such things should be taken for granted, or at least they should be left to the man and wife in question to decide. No one has any right to interfere, and no one shall. If I can forgive, you can have nothing to resent; for the mere fact of your liking me very much does not give you any sort of right to direct my life, does it? I am glad that you are so fond of me, for I trust you and respect you in every way, and even now I know that you are interfering only because you care for me. But you have not the right to interfere, not the slightest, and although you may be able to, yet if I beg you not to, it will not be honourable of you to come between us.”

  Colonel Wimpole moved a little impatiently.

  “I will take my honour into my own hands,” he said.

  “But not mine,” answered Helen.

  They looked at each other in the gloom, as they leaned upon the railing.

  “Yours shall be quite safe,” said the colonel slowly. “But if you will drop that letter into the river, you will make things easier in every way.”

  “I should write it over again. Besides, I have telegraphed to him already.”

  “What? Cabled?”

  “Yes. You see that you can do nothing to hinder me. He has my message already. The matter is decided.”

  She bent her head again, looking down into the rushing water as though tired of arguing.

  “You are a saint,” said the colonel. “I could not have done that.”

  “Perhaps I could not, if I had waited,” answered Helen, in a voice so low that he could hardly hear the words. “But it is done now,” she added, still lower, so that he could not hear at all.

  Wimpole had been a man of quick decisions so long as he had been a soldier, but since then he had cultivated the luxury of thinking slowly. He began to go over the situation, trying to see what he could do, not losing courage yet, but understanding how very hard it would be to keep Helen from sacrificing herself.

  And she peered down at the black river, that rushed past with a cruel sound, as though it were tearing away the time of freedom, second by second. It was done, now, as she had said. She knew herself too well to believe that even if she should toss the letter into the stream, she would not write another in just such words. But the regret was deep, and thrilled with a secret, aching pulse of its own, all through her, and she thought of what life might have been, if she had not made the great mistake, and of what it still might be if she did not go back to her husband. The man who stood beside her loved her, and was ready to give everything, perhaps even to his honour, to save her from unhappiness. And she loved him, too, next to honour. In the tranquil life she was leading, there could be a great friendship between them, such as few people can even dream of. She knew him, and she knew herself, and she believed it possible, for once in the history of man and woman. In a measure, it might subsist, even after she had gone back to Harmon, but not in the same degree, for between the two men there would be herself. Wimpole would perhaps refuse altogether to enter Harmon’s door or to touch Harmon’s hand. And then,
in her over-scrupulousness, during the time she was to spend with Archie, she knew that she should hesitate to receive freely a man who would not be on speaking terms with the husband whom she had taken back, no matter how she felt towards Wimpole.

  Besides, he had told her that he loved her, and that made a difference, too. So long as the word had never been spoken, there had been the reasonable doubt to shield her conscience. His old love might, after all, have turned to friendship, which is like the soft, warm ashes of wood when the fire is quite burned out. But he had spoken at last, and there was no more doubt, and his quiet words had stirred her own heart. He had begun by telling her that he had many things to say; but, after all, the one and only thing he had said which he had never said before was that he loved her.

  It was enough, and too much, and it made everything harder for her. We speak of struggles with ourselves. It would really be far more true to talk of battles between our two selves, or even sometimes between our threefold natures, — our good, our bad, and our indifferent personalities.

  To Helen, the woman who loved Richard Wimpole was not the woman who meant to go back to Henry Harmon; and neither, perhaps, was quite the same individual as the mother of poor Archie. The three were at strife with one another, though they were one being in suffering. For it is true that we may be happy in part, and in part be indifferent; but no real pain of the soul leaves room for any happiness at all, or indifference, while it lasts. So soon as we can be happy again, even for a moment, the reality of the pain is over, though the memory of it may come back now and then in cruel little day-dreams, after years. Happiness is composite; pain is simple. It may take a hundred things to make a man happy, but it never needs more than one to make him suffer. Happiness is, in part, elementary of the body; but pain is only of the soul, and its strength is in its singleness. Bodily suffering is the opposite of bodily pleasure; but true pain has no true opposite, nor reversed counterpart, of one unmixed composition, and the dignity of a great agony is higher than all the glories of joy.

  “Promise me that you will not do anything to hinder me,” said Helen at last.

  “I cannot.” There was no hesitation in the answer.

  “But if I ask you,” she said; “if I beg you, if I entreat you—”

  “It is of no use, Helen. I should do my best to keep you away from Harmon, even if I were sure that you would never speak to me nor see me again. I have said almost all I can, and so have you. You are half a saint, or altogether one, or you could not do what you are doing. But I am not. I am only a man. I don’t like to talk about myself much, but I would not have you think that I care a straw for my own happiness compared with yours. I would rather know that you were never to see Harmon again than—” He stopped short.

  “Than what?” asked Helen, after a pause.

  He did not answer at once, but stood upright again beside her, grasping the rail.

  “No matter, if you do not understand,” he said at last. “Can I give you any proof that it is not for myself, because I love you, that I want to keep you from Harmon? Shall I promise you that when I have succeeded I will not see you again as long as I live?”

  “Oh, no! No!” The cry was sudden, low, and heartfelt.

  Wimpole squeezed the cold railing a little harder in his hands, but did not move.

  “Is there any proof at all that I could give you? Try and think.”

  “Why should I need proof?” asked Helen. “I believe you, as I always have.”

  “Well, then—” he began, but she interrupted him.

  “That does not change matters,” she continued. “You are right merely because you are perfectly disinterested for yourself, and altogether interested for me alone. I am not the only person to be considered.”

  “I think you are. And if any one else has any right to consideration, it is Archie.”

  “I know,” Helen answered, “and you hurt me again when you say it. But besides all of us, there is Henry.”

  “And what right has he?” asked Wimpole, almost fiercely. “What right has he to any sort of consideration from you, or from any one? If you had a brother, he would have wrung Harmon’s neck long ago! I wish I had the right!”

  “I never heard you say anything brutal before,” said Helen.

  “I never had such good cause,” retorted Wimpole, a little more quietly. “Put yourself in my position. I have loved you all my life, — God knows I have loved you honestly, too, — and held my tongue. And Harmon has spent his life in ruining yours in every way, — in ways I know and in ways I don’t know, but can more than half guess. He neglected you, he was unfaithful to you, he insulted you, and at last he struck you. I have found that out to-day, and that blow must have nearly killed you. I know about those things. Do you expect me to have any consideration for the brute who has half killed the woman I love? Do you expect me to keep my hands off the man whose hands have struck you and wounded you? By the Lord, Helen, you are expecting too much of human nature! Or too little — I don’t know which!”

  He had controlled his temper long, keeping down the white heat of it in his heart, but he could not be calm forever. The fighting instinct was not lost yet, and must have its way.

  “He did not know what he was doing,” said Helen, shrinking a little.

  “You have a right to say that,” answered the colonel, “if you can be forgiving enough. But only a coward could say it for you, and only a coward would stand by and see you go back to your husband. I am not a coward, and I won’t. Since you have cabled to him, I shall leave to night, whether you send that letter or not. Can’t you understand?”

  “But what can you do? What can you say to him? How can you influence him? Even if I admit that I have no power to keep you from going to him, what can you do when you see him?”

  “I can think of that on the way,” said Wimpole. “There will be more than enough time. I don’t know what I shall say or do yet. It does not matter, for I have made up my mind.”

  “Will nothing induce you to stay here?” asked Helen, desperately.

  “Nothing,” answered Wimpole, and his lips shut upon the word.

  “Then I will go, too,” answered Helen.

  “You!” Wimpole had not thought of such a possibility, and he started.

  “Yes. My mind is made up, too. If you go, I go. I shall get there as soon as you, and I will prevent you from seeing him at all. If you force me to it, I will defend him from you. I will tell the doctors that you will drive him mad again, and they will help me to protect him. You cannot get there before me, you know, for we shall cross in the same steamer, and land at the same moment.”

  “What a woman you are!” Wimpole bent his head, as he spoke the words, leaning against the railing. “But I might have known it,” he added; “I might have known you would do that. It is like you.”

  Helen felt a bitter sort of triumph over herself, in having destroyed the last chance of his interference.

  “In any case,” she said, “I should go at once. It could be a matter of only a few days at the utmost. Why should I wait, since I have made up my mind?”

  “Why indeed?” The colonel’s voice was sad. “I suppose the martyrs were glad when the waiting was over, and their turn came to be torn to pieces.”

  He felt that he was annihilated, and he suffered keenly in his defeat, for he had been determined to save her at all risks. She was making even risk impossible. If she went straight to her husband and took him back, and protected him, as she called it, what could any one do? It was a hopeless case. Wimpole’s anger against Harmon slowly subsided, and above it rose his pity for the woman who was giving all the life she still had left for the sake of her marriage vow, who was ready, and almost eager, to go back to a state full of horror in the past, and of danger in the future, because she had once solemnly promised to be Henry Harmon’s wife, and could not find in all the cruel years a reason for taking back her word. He bowed his head, and he knew that there was something higher in her than he had ever dreamt in
his own honourable life, for it was something that clung to its belief, against all suggestion or claim of justice for itself.

  It was not only pity. A despair for her crept nearer and grew upon him every moment. Though he had seen her rarely, he had felt nearer to her since Harmon had been mad, and now he was to be further from her than ever before. He would probably not go so far as she feared, and would be willing to enter her husband’s house for her sake, and in the hope of being useful to her. But he could never be so near to her again as he was now, and his last chance of protecting her had vanished before her unchangeable resolution. He would almost rather have known that she was going to her death, than see her return to Harmon. He made one more attempt to influence her. He did it roughly, but his voice shook a little.

  “It seems to me,” he said, “that if I were a woman, I should be too proud to go back to a man who had struck me.”

  Helen moved and stood upright, trying to look into his face clearly in the dimness as she spoke.

  “Then you think I am not proud?”

  He could see her white features and dark eyes, and he guessed her expression.

  “You are not proud for yourself,” he answered rather stubbornly. “If you were, you could not do this.”

  She turned from him again, and looked down at the black water.

  “I am prouder than you think,” she said. “That does not make it easier.”

  “In one way, yes. When you have determined to do a thing, you are ashamed to change your mind, no matter what your decision may cost yourself and others.”

  “Yes, when I am right. At least, I hope I should be ashamed to break down now.”

  “I wish you would!”

  It was a helpless exclamation, and Wimpole knew it, for he was at the end of all argument and hope, and his despair for her rose in his eyes in the dark. He could neither do nor say anything more, and presently when he had left her at the door of her hotel, she would do what she meant to do, to the letter. For the second time on that day he wished that he had acted, instead of speaking, and that he had set out on his journey without warning her. But in the first place he had believed that she would take more time to consider her action; and again, he had a vague sense that it would not have been loyal and fair to oppose her intention without warning her. And now she had utterly defeated him, and upheld her will against him, in spite of all he could do. He loved her the better for her strength, but he despaired the more. He felt that he was going to say good-bye to her, as though she were about to die.