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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 7. I Am Found - Chapter 110 |
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_ SEVENTH PART. I AM FOUND ONE HUNDRED AND TENTH CHAPTER A few minutes afterwards I was tripping upstairs (love and hope work wonderful miracles!) behind the Father's Irish housekeeper, Mrs. Cassidy, who was telling me how well I was looking ("smart and well extraordinary"), asking if it "was on my two feet I had walked all the way," and denouncing the "omathauns" who had been "after telling her there wasn't the width of a wall itself betune me and the churchyard." I found Father Dan in his cosy study lined with books; and being so much wrapped up in my own impetuous happiness I did not see at first that he was confused and nervous, or remember until next day that, though (at the sound of my voice from the landing) he cried "Come in, my child, come in," he was standing with his back to the door as I entered--hiding something (it must have been a newspaper) under the loose seat of his easy-chair. "Father," I said, "have you heard the news?" "The news. . . ." "I mean the news in the newspaper." "Ah, the news in the newspaper." "Isn't it glorious? That terrible marriage is over at last! Without my doing anything, either! Do you remember what you said the last time I came here?" "The last time. . . ." "You said that I, being a Catholic, could not break my marriage without breaking my faith. But my husband, being a Protestant, had no compunction. So it has come to the same thing in the end, you see. And now I'm free." "You're free . . . free, are you?" "It seems they have been keeping it all away from me--making no defence, I suppose--and it was only this morning I heard the news." "Only this morning, was it?" "I first saw it in a newspaper, but afterwards Martin himself came to tell me." "Martin came, did he?" "He doesn't care in the least; in fact, he is glad, and says we can be married at any time." "Married at any time--he says that, does he?" "Of course nothing is arranged yet, dear Father, but I couldn't help coming to see you about it. I want everything to be simple and quiet--no display of any kind." "Simple and quiet, do you?" "Early in the morning--immediately after mass, perhaps." "Immediately after mass. . . ." "Only a few wild flowers on the altar, and the dear homely souls who love me gathered around." "The dear, homely souls. . . ." "It will be a great, great thing for me, but I don't want to force myself upon anybody, or to triumph over any one--least of all over my poor father, now that he is so sick and down." "No, no . . . now that he is so sick and down." "I shall want you to marry us, Daddy Dan--not the Bishop or anybody else of that kind, you know." "You'll want me to marry you--not the Bishop or anybody else of that kind." "But Father Dan," I cried, laughing a little uneasily (for I had begun to realise that he was only repeating my own words), "why don't you say something for yourself?" And then the cheery sunshine of the cosy room began to fade away. Father Dan fumbled the silver cross which hung over his cassock (a sure sign of his nervousness), and said with a grave face and in a voice all a-tremble with emotion: "My child. . . ." "Yes?" "You believe that I wouldn't pain or distress or shock you if I could avoid it?" "Indeed I do." "Yet I am going to pain and distress and shock you now. I . . . I cannot marry you to Martin Conrad. I daren't. The Church thinks that you are married already--that you are still the wife of your husband." Though my dear priest had dealt me my death-blow, I had not yet begun to feel it, so I smiled up into his troubled old face and said: "But how can the Church think that, dear Father? My husband has no rights over me now, and no duties or responsibilities with respect to me. He can marry again if he likes. And he will, I am sure he will, and nobody can prevent him. How, then, can the Church say that I am still his wife?" "Because marriage, according to the law of the Church, can only be dissolved by death," said Father Dan. "Haven't I told you that before, my daughter? Didn't we go over it again and again when you were here the last time?" "Yes, yes, but I thought if somebody else sought the divorce--somebody who had never believed in the indissolubility of marriage and wasn't bound by the law of the Church . . . we've heard of cases of that kind, haven't we?" Father Dan shook his head. "My poor child, no. The Church thinks marriage is a sacred covenant which no difference of belief, no sin on either side, can ever break." "But, Father," I cried, "don't you see that the law has already broken it?" "Only the civil law, my daughter. Remember the words of our blessed and holy Redeemer: '_Every one that putteth away his wife and marrieth another committeth adultery; and he that marrieth one that is put away committeth adultery.'_ . . . My poor child, my heart bleeds for you, but isn't that the Divine Commandment?" "Then you think," I said (the room was becoming dark and I could feel my lip trembling), "you think that because I went through that marriage ceremony two years ago . . . and though the civil law has dissolved it . . . you think I am still bound by it, and will continue to be so . . . to the end of my life?" Father Dan plucked at his cassock, fumbled his print handkerchief, and replied: "I am sorry, my child, very, very sorry." "Father Dan," I said sharply, for by this time my heart was beginning to blaze, "have you thought about Martin? Aren't you afraid that if our Church refuses to marry us he may ask some other church to do so?" "Christ's words must be the final law for all true Christians, my daughter. And besides. . . ." "Well?" "Besides that. . . ." "Yes?" "It blisters my tongue to say it, my child, knowing your sufferings and great temptations, but. . . ." "But what, dear Father?" "You are in the position of the guilty party, and therefore no good clergyman of any Christian Church in the world, following the Commandment of his Master, would dare to marry you." What happened after that I cannot exactly say. I remember that, feeling the colour flying to my face, I flung up my hands to cover it, and that when I came to full possession of my senses again Father Dan (himself in a state of great agitation) was smoothing my arms and comforting me. "Don't be angry with your old priest for telling you the truth--the bitter truth, my daughter." He had always seen this dark hour coming to him, and again and again he had prayed to be delivered from it--in the long nights of his fruitless wanderings when I was lost in London, and again since I had been found and had come home and he had looked on, with many a pang, at our silent hopes and expectations--Martin's and mine, we two children. "And when you came into my little den to-day, my daughter, with a face as bright as stars and diamonds, God knows I would have given half of what is left of my life that mine should not be the hand to dash the cup of your happiness away." As soon as I was sufficiently composed, within and without, Father Dan led me downstairs (praying God and His Holy Mother to strengthen me on my solitary way), and then stood at the door in his cassock to watch me while I walked up the road. It was hardly more than half an hour since I had passed over the ground before, yet in that short time the world seemed to have become pale and grey--the sun gone out, the earth grown dark, the still air joyless, nothing left but the everlasting heavens and the heavy song of the sea. As I approached the doctor's house Martin came swinging down the road to meet me, with his strong free step and that suggestion of the wind from the mountain-tops which seemed to be always about him. "Hello!" he cried. "Thought you were lost and been hunting all over the place for you." But as he came nearer and saw how white and wan my face was, though I was doing my best to smile, he stopped and said: "My poor little woman, where have you been, and what have they been doing to you?" And then, as well as I could, I told him. _ |
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