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The Woman Thou Gavest Me: Being the Story of Mary O'Neill, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 3. My Honeymoon - Chapter 34 |
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_ THIRD PART. MY HONEYMOON THIRTY-FOURTH CHAPTER "Thank God, that's over," said my husband. Then, half apologetically, he added: "You didn't seem to enjoy it any more than myself, my dear." At the entrance to our village a number of men stood firing guns; in the middle a group of girls were stretching a rope across the road; a number of small flags, torn by the wind and wet with the rain, were rattling on flagstaffs hung out from some of the window sills; a few women, with shawls over their heads, were sheltering on the weather side of their porches to see us pass. My husband was impatient of our simple island customs. Once or twice he lowered the window of the car, threw out a handful of silver and at the same time urged the chauffeur to drive quicker. As soon as we were clear of the village he fell back in his seat, saying: "Heavens, how sleepy I am! No wonder either! Late going to bed last night and up so early this morning." After a moment he began to yawn, and almost before he could have been aware of it he had closed his eyes. At the next moment he was asleep. It was a painful, almost a hideous sleep. His cheeks swelled and sank; his lips parted, he was breathing heavily, and sometimes gaping like a carp out of water. I could not detach my eyes from his face, which, without eyes to relieve it, seemed to be almost repulsive now. It would be difficult to describe my sensations. I felt dreadfully humiliated. Even my personal pride was wounded. I remembered what Father Dan had said about husband and wife being one flesh, and told myself that _this_ was what I belonged to, what belonged to me--_this!_ Then I tried to reproach and reprove myself, but in order to do so I had to turn my eyes away. Our road to Blackwater lay over the ridge of a hill much exposed to the wind from the south-west. When we reached this point the clouds seemed to roll up from the sea like tempestuous battalions. Torrential rain fell on the car and came dripping in from the juncture of the landaulette roof. Some of it fell on the sleeper and he awoke with a start. "Damn--" He stopped, as if, caught in guilt, and began to apologise again. "Was I asleep? I really think I must have been. Stupid, isn't it? Excuse me." He blinked his eyes as if to empty them of sleep, looked me over for a moment or two in silence, and then said with a smile which made me shudder: "So you and I are man and wife, my dear!" I made no answer, and, still looking fixedly at me, he said: "Well, worse things might have happened after all--what do _you_ think?" Still I did not answer him, feeling a certain shame, not to say disgust. Then he began to pay me some compliments on my appearance. "Do you know you're charming, my dear, really charming!" That stung me, and made me shudder, I don't know why, unless it was because the words gave me the sense of having been used before to other women. I turned my eyes away again. "Don't turn away, dear. Let me see those big black eyes of yours. I adore black eyes. They always pierce me like a gimlet." He reached forward as he spoke and drew me to him. I felt frightened and pushed him off. "What's this?" he said, as if surprised. But after another moment he laughed, and in the tone of a man who had had much to do with women and thought he knew how to deal with them, he said: "Wants to be coaxed, does she? They all do, bless them!" Saying this he pulled me closer to him, putting his arm about my waist, but once more I drew and forcibly pushed him from me. His face darkened for an instant, and then cleared again. "Oh, I see," he said. "Offended, is she? Paying me out for having paid so little court to her? Well, she's right there too, bless her! But never mind! You're a decidedly good-looking little woman, my dear, and if I have neglected you thus far, I intend to make up for it during the honeymoon. So come, little gal, let's be friends." Taking hold of me again, he tried to kiss me, putting at the same time his hand on the bosom of my dress, but I twisted my face aside and prevented him. "Oh! Oh! Hurt her modesty, have I?" he said, laughing like a man who was quite sure both of himself and of me. "But my little nun will get over that by and by. Wait awhile! Wait awhile!" By this time I was trembling with the shock of a terror that was entirely new to me. I could not explain to myself the nature of it, but it was there, and I could not escape from it. Hitherto, when I had thought of my marriage to Lord Raa I had been troubled by the absence of love between us; and what I meant to myself by love--the love of husband and wife--was the kind of feeling I had for the Reverend Mother, heightened and deepened and spiritualised, as I believed, by the fact (with all its mysterious significance) that the one was a man and the other a woman. But this was something quite different. Not having found in marriage what I had expected, I was finding something else, for there could be no mistaking my husband's meaning when he looked at me with his passionate eyes and said, "Wait awhile!" I saw what was before me, and in fear of it I found myself wishing that something might happen to save me. I was so frightened that if I could have escaped from the car I should have done so. The only thing I could hope for was that we should arrive at Blackwater too late for the steamer, or that the storm would prevent it from sailing. What relief from my situation I should find in that, beyond the delay of one day, one night (in which I imagined I might be allowed to return home), I did not know. But none the less on that account I began to watch the clouds with a feverish interest. They were wilder than ever now--rolling up from the south-west in huge black whorls which enveloped the mountains and engulfed the valleys. The wind, too, was howling at intervals like a beast being slaughtered. It was terrible, but not so terrible as the thing I was thinking of. I was afraid of the storm, and yet I was fearfully, frightfully glad of it. My husband, who, after my repulse, had dropped back into his own corner of the car, was very angry. He talked again of our "God-forsaken island," and the folly of living in it, said our passage would be a long one in any case, and we might lose our connection to London. "Damnably inconvenient if we do. I've special reasons for being there in the morning," he said. At a sharp turn of the road the wind smote the car as with an invisible wing. One of the windows was blown in, and to prevent the rain from driving on to us my husband had to hold up a cushion in the gap. This occupied him until we ran into Blackwater, and then he dropped the cushion and put his head out, although the rain was falling heavily, to catch the first glimpse of the water in the bay. It was in terrific turmoil. My heart leapt up at the sight of it. My husband swore. We drew up on the drenched and naked pier. My husband's valet, in waterproofs, came to the sheltered side of the car, and, shouting above the noises of the wind in the rigging of the steamer, he said: "Captain will not sail to-day, my lord. Inshore wind. Says he couldn't get safely out of the harbour." My husband swore violently. I was unused to oaths at that time and they cut me like whipcord, but all the same my pulse was bounding joyfully. "Bad luck, my lord, but only one thing to do now," shouted the valet. "What's that?" said my husband, growling. "Sleep in Blackwater to-night, in hopes of weather mending in the morning." Anticipating this course, he had already engaged rooms for us at the "Fort George." My heart fell, and I waited for my husband's answer. I was stifling. "All right, Hobson. If it must be, it must," he answered. I wanted to speak, but I did not know what to say. There seemed to be nothing that I could say. A quarter of an hour afterwards we arrived at the hotel, where the proprietor, attended by the manageress and the waiters, received us with rather familiar smiles. _ |
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