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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 4. I Fall In Love - Chapter 54 |
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_ FOURTH PART. I FALL IN LOVE FIFTY-FOURTH CHAPTER I tried to take refuge in religion. Every day and all day I humbly besought the pardon of heaven for the sin of loving Martin Conrad. The little religious duties which I had neglected since my marriage (such as crossing myself at rising from the table) I began to observe afresh, and being reminded by Martin's story that I had promised my mother to say a De Profundis for her occasionally I now said one every day. I thought these exercises would bring me a certain relief, but they did not. I searched my Missal for words that applied to my sinful state, and every night on going to bed I prayed to God to take from me all unholy thoughts, all earthly affections. But what was the use of my prayers when in the first dream of the first sleep I was rushing into Martin's arms? It was true that my love for Martin was what the world would call a pure love; it had no alloy of any kind; but all the same I thought I was living in a condition of adultery--adultery of the heart. Early every morning I went to mass, but the sense I used to have of returning from the divine sacrifice to the ordinary occupations of life with a new spirit and a clean heart I could feel no longer. I went oftener to confession than I had done before--twice a week to begin with, then every other day, then every day. But the old joy, the sense of purity and cleansing, did not come. I thought at first the fault might be with my Confessor, for though I knew I was in the presence of God, the whispering voice behind the grating, which used to thrill me with a feeling of the supernatural, was that of a young man, and I asked myself what a young priest could know by experience of the deep temptations of human love. This was at the new Cathedral at Westminster, so I changed to a little Catholic church in a kind of mews in Mayfair, and there my Confessor was an older man whose quivering voice seemed to search the very depths of my being. He was deeply alarmed at my condition and counselled me to pray to God night and day to strengthen me against temptation. "The Evil One is besieging your soul, my child," he said. "Fight with him, my daughter." I tried to follow my ghostly father's direction, but how hard it was to do so! Martin had only to take my hand and look into my eyes and all my good resolutions were gone in a moment. As a result of the fierce struggle between my heart and my soul my health began to fail me. From necessity now, and not from design, I had to keep my room, but even there my love for Martin was always hanging like a threatening sword over my head. My maid Price was for ever singing his praises. He was so bright, so cheerful, so strong, so manly; in fact, he was perfect, and any woman in the world might be forgiven if she fell in love with him. Her words were like music in my ears, and sometimes I felt as if I wanted to throw my arms about her neck and kiss her. But at other moments I reproved her, telling her it was very wicked of her to think so much of the creature instead of fixing her mind on the Creator--a piece of counsel which made Price, who was all woman, open her sparkling black eyes in bewilderment. Nearly every morning she brought me a bunch of flowers, which Martin had bought at Covent Garden, all glittering from the sunshine and damp with the dew. I loved to have them near me, but, finding they tempted me to think more tenderly of him who sent them, I always contrived by one excuse or another to send them into the sitting-room that they might be out of my sight at all events. After a while Price, remembering my former artifice, began to believe that I was only pretending to be ill, in order to draw Martin on, and then taking a certain liberty with me, as with a child, she reproved me. "If I were a lady I couldn't have the heart," she said, "I really couldn't. It's all very well for us women, but men don't understand such ways. They're only children, men are, when you come to know them." I began to look upon poor Price as a honeyed fiend sent by Satan to seduce me, and to say the truth she sometimes acted up to the character. One day she said: "If I was tied to a man I didn't love, and who didn't love me, and somebody else, worth ten of him was ready and waiting, I would take the sweet with the bitter, I would. We women must follow our hearts, and why shouldn't we?" Then I scolded her dreadfully, asking if she had forgotten that she was speaking to her mistress, and a married woman; but all the while I knew that it was myself, not my maid, I was angry with, for she had only been giving voice to the thoughts that were secretly tormenting me. I had been in bed about a week when Price came with a letter in her hand and a look of triumph in her black eyes and said: "There, my lady! What did I tell you? You've had it all your own way and now you've driven him off. He has left the hotel and gone to live on his ship." This frightened me terribly, and partly for that reason I ordered her out of the room, telling her she must leave me altogether if she ever took such liberties again. But I'm sure she saw me, as she was going through the door, take up Martin's letter, which I had thrown on to the table, and press it to my lips. The letter was of no consequence, it was merely to tell me that he was going down to Tilbury for a few days, to take possession of his old ship in the name of his company, but it said in a postscript: "If there's anything I can do for you, pass me the word and I'll come up like quick-sticks." "What can I do? What can I do?" I thought. Everything my heart desired my soul condemned as sinful, and religion had done nothing to liberate me from the pains of my guilty passion. All this time my husband and Alma were busy with the gaieties of the London season, which was then in full swing, with the houses in Mayfair being ablaze every night, the blinds up and the windows open to cool the overheated rooms in which men and women could be seen dancing in closely-packed crowds. One night, after Alma and my husband had gone to a reception in Grosvenor Square, I had a sudden attack of heart-strain and had to be put to bed, whereupon Price, who had realised that I was really ill, told Hobson, my husband's valet, to go after his master and bring him back immediately. "It'll be all as one, but I'll go if you like," said Hobson. In half an hour he came back with my husband's answer. "Send for a doctor." This put Price into a fever of mingled anger and perplexity, and not knowing what else to do she telegraphed to Martin on his ship, telling him that I was ill and asking what doctor she ought to call in to see me. Inside an hour a reply came not from Tilbury but from Portsmouth saying: "Call Doctor ---- of Brook Street. Am coming up at once." All this I heard for the first time when Price, with another triumphant look, came into my bedroom flourishing Martin's telegram as something she had reason to be proud of. "You don't mean to say that you telegraphed to Mr. Conrad?" I said. "Why _not?_" said Price. "When a lady is ill and her husband pays no attention to her, and there's somebody else not far off who would give his two eyes to save her a pain in her little finger, what is a woman to do?" I told her what she was _not_ to do. She was not to call the doctor under any circumstances, and when Martin came she was to make it plain to him that she had acted on her own responsibility. Towards midnight he arrived, and Price brought him into my room in a long ulster covered with dust. I blushed and trembled at sight of him, for his face betrayed the strain and anxiety he had gone through on my account, and when he smiled at seeing that I was not as ill as he had thought, I was ashamed to the bottom of my heart. "You'll be sorry you've made such a long journey now that you see there's so little amiss with me," I said. "Sorry?" he said. "By the holy saints, I would take a longer one every night of my life to see you looking so well at the end of it." His blue eyes were shining like the sun from behind a cloud, and the cruellest looks could not have hurt me more. I tried to keep my face from expressing the emotion I desired to conceal, and asked if he had caught a train easily from Portsmouth, seeing he had arrived so early. "No. Oh no, there was no train up until eleven o'clock," he said. "Then how did you get here so soon?" I asked, and though he would not tell me at first I got it out of him at last--he had hired a motor-car and travelled the ninety miles to London in two hours and a half. That crushed me. I could not speak. I thought I should have choked. Lying there with Martin at arm's length of me, I was afraid of myself, and did not know what I might do next. But at last, with a great effort to control myself, I took his hand and kissed it, and then turned my face to the wall. _ |
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