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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 5. I Become A Mother - Chapter 71 |
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_ FIFTH PART. I BECOME A MOTHER SEVENTY-FIRST CHAPTER Within, two hours of Martin's departure I had regained complete possession of myself and was feeling more happy than I had ever felt before. The tormenting compunctions of the past months were gone. It was just as if I had obeyed some higher law of my being and had become a freer and purer woman. My heart leapt within me and to give free rein to the riot of my joy I put on my hat and cloak to go into the glen. Crossing the garden I came upon Tommy the Mate, who told me there had been a terrific thunderstorm during the night, with torrential rain, which had torn up all the foreign plants in his flower-beds. "It will do good, though," said the old man. "Clane out some of their dirty ould drains, I'm thinkin'." Then he spoke of Martin, whom he had seen off, saying he would surely come back. "'Deed he will though. A boy like yander wasn't born to lave his bark in the ice and snow . . . Not if his anchor's at home, anyway"--with a "glime" in my direction. How the glen sang to me that morning! The great cathedral of nature seemed to ring with music--the rustling of the leaves overhead, the ticking of the insects underfoot, the bleating of the sheep, the lowing of the cattle, the light chanting of the stream, the deep organ-song of the sea, and then the swelling and soaring Gloria in my own bosom, which shot up out of my heart like a lark out of the grass in the morning. I wanted to run, I wanted to shout, and when I came to the paths where Martin and I had walked together I wanted--silly as it sounds to say so--to go down on my knees and kiss the very turf which his feet had trod. I took lunch in the boudoir as before, but I did not feel as if I were alone, for I had only to close my eyes and Martin, from the other side of the table, seemed to be looking across at me. And neither did I feel that the room was full of dead laughter, for our living voices seemed to be ringing in it still. After tea I read again my only love-letter, revelling in the dear delightful errors in spelling which made it Martin's and nobody else's, and then I observed for the first time what was said about "the boys of Blackwater," and their intention of "getting up a spree." This suggested that perhaps Martin had not yet left the island but was remaining for the evening steamer, in order to be present at some sort of celebrations to be given in his honour. So at seven o'clock--it was dark by that time--I was down at the Quay, sitting in our covered automobile, which had been drawn up in a sheltered and hidden part of the pier, almost opposite the outgoing steamer. Shall I ever forget the scene that followed? First, came a band of music playing one of our native songs, which was about a lamb that had been lost in the snow, and how the Big Man of the Farm went out in search of it, and found it and brought it home in his arms. Then came a double row of young men carrying flags and banners--fine, clean-limbed lads such as make a woman's heart leap to look at them. Then came Martin in a jaunting car with a cheering crowd alongside of him, trying to look cheerful but finding it fearfully hard to do so. And then--and this touched me most of all--a double line of girls in knitted woollen caps (such as men wear in frozen regions) over their heads and down the sides of their comely faces. I was crying like a child at the sight of it all, but none the less I was supremely happy. When the procession reached the gangway Martin disappeared into the steamer, and then the bandsmen ranged themselves in front of it, and struck up another song:
That brought Martin on to the captain's bridge, where he stood bareheaded, struggling to smile. By this time the last of the ship's bells had rung, the funnels were belching, and the captain's voice was calling on the piermen to clear away. At last the hawsers were thrown off and the steamer started, but, with Martin still standing bareheaded on the bridge, the people rushed to the end of the pier to see the last of him. There they sang again, louder than ever, the girls' clear voices above all the rest, as the ship sailed out into the dark sea.
The crowd was returning down the pier by this time, like a black river running in the darkness and rumbling over rugged stones, and I heard their voices as they passed the car. One voice--a female voice--said: "Well, what do you think of _our_ Martin Conrad?" And then another voice--a male voice--answered: "By God he's a Man!" Within a few minutes the pier was deserted, and the chauffeur was saying: "Home, my lady?" "Home," I answered. Seeing Martin off had been too much like watching the lifeboat on a dark and stormy night, when the lights dip behind a monstrous wave and for some breathless moments you fear they will never rise. But as we drove up the head I caught the lights of the steamer again now far out at sea, and well I knew that as surely as my Martin was there he was thinking of me and looking back towards the house in which he had left me behind him. When we reached the Castle I found to my surprise that every window was ablaze. The thrum of the automobile brought Price into the hall. She told me that the yachting party had come back, and were now in their bedrooms dressing for dinner. As I went upstairs to my own apartments I heard trills of laughter from behind several of the closed doors, mingled with the muffled humming of various music-hall ditties. And then suddenly a new spirit seemed to take possession of me, and I knew that I had become another woman.
My darling was right. For a long hour after leaving Blackwater I continued to stand on the captain's bridge, looking back at the lighted windows of the house above Port Raa, and asking myself the question which for sixteen months thereafter was to haunt me day and night--Why had I left her behind me? In spite of all her importunities, all her sweet unselfish thought of my own aims and interests, all her confidence in herself, all her brave determination to share responsibility for whatever the future might have in store for us--Why had I left her behind me? The woman God gave me was mine--why had I left her in the house of a man who, notwithstanding his infidelities and brutalities, had a right in the eyes of the law, the church, and the world to call her his wife and to treat her accordingly? Let me make no pretence of a penitence I did not feel. Never for one moment did I reproach myself for what had happened. Never for the shadow of a moment did I reproach her. She had given herself to me of her queenly right and sovereign grace as every good woman in the world must give herself to the man she loves if their union is to be pure and true. But why did I not see then, as I see now, that it is the law of Nature--the cruel and at the same time the glorious law of Nature--that the woman shall bear the burden, the woman shall pay the price? It is over now, and though many a time since my sweet girl has said out of her stainless heart that everything has worked out for the best, and suffering is God's salt for keeping our souls alive, when I think of what she went through for me, while I was out of all reach and sight, I know I shall never forgive myself for leaving her behind--never, never never. M.C. [END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM] _ |
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