"Take the cigar, at least, and smoke it as you go. My advice is good, and that it is honest you may infer from my reluctance to part with you. I will see you at the office at nine in the morning. There is some prospect of a compromise with Jeffords about the tract in Dallas, and he is to meet Wharton and myself at your law-shop to-morrow. It is important to make an arrangement with Jeffords--his example will be felt by Brownsell and Gibbon. We may escape a long-winded lawsuit, after all, to your great discomfiture and my gain. But you do not hear me!"
"Yes, yes, every word--you spoke of Jeffords, and Wharton, and Gibbon--yes, I heard you."
"Now I know that you did not hear me--not understandingly, at least. I should not be surprised if I have made you jealous. You look wild, mon ami!"
"Jealous, indeed! what nonsense!" and I prepared to depart when I had thus spoken.
"Well, at nine you must meet us at the office. My business must not suffer because you are jealous."
"Come, no more of that, Kingsley!"
"By heavens, you are touched."
He laughed merrily. I laughed also, but with a choking effort which almost cost me a convulsion as I left the tavern. The sport of Kingsley was my death. What he had said previously sunk deep into my soul. Not rightly--not as it should have sunk--showing me the folly of my own course without a.s.suming, as I did, the inevitable wilfulness of the course of others; but actually confirming me in my fears--nay, making them grow hideous as THINGS and substantive convictions. It seemed to me, from what Kingsley said that I was already dishonored--that the world already knew my shame; and that he, as my friend, had only employed an ambiguous language to soften the sting and the shock which his revelations must necessarily occasion. With this new notion, which occurred to me after leaving the house, I instantly returned to it. It required a strong effort to seem deliberate in what I spoke.
"Kingsley," I said, "perhaps I did not pay sufficient heed to your observations. Do you mean to convey to my mind the idea that people think Edgerton too familiar with my wife? Do you mean to say that such a notion is abroad? That there is anything wrong?"
"By no means."
"Ah! then there is nothing in it. I see no reason for suspicion. I am not a jealous man; but it becomes necessary when one"s neighbors find occasion to look into one"s business, to look a little into it one"s self."
"One must not wait for that," said Kingsley; "but where is your cigar?"
The question confused me. I had dropped it in the agitation of my feelings, without being conscious of its loss.
"Take another," said he, with a smile, "and let your cares end in smoke as you wend homeward. My most profound thoughts come from my cigar.
To that I look for my philosophy, my friendship, my love--almost my religion. A cigar is a brain-comforter, verily. You should smoke more, Clifford. You will grow better, wiser--COOLER."
"I take your cigar and counsel together," was my reply. "The one shall reconcile me to the other. Bon repos!" And so I left him.
I was not likely to have bon repos myself. I was troubled. Kingsley suspects me of being jealous. Such an idea was very mortifying. This is another weakness of the suspicious nature. It loathes above all things to be suspected of jealousy. I hurried home, vexed with my want of coolness--doubly vexed at the belief that other eyes than my own were witnesses of the attentions of Edgerton to my wife.
I stopped at the entrance of our cottage. HE was there as usual. Mrs.
Porterfield was not present. The candle was burning dimly. He sat upon the sofa. Julia was seated upon chair at a little distance. Her features wore an expression of exceeding gravity. His were pale and sad, but his eyes burnt with an eager intensity that betrayed the pa.s.sionate feeling in his heart. Thus they sat--she looking partly upon the floor--he looking at her. I observed them for more than ten minutes; and in all that time I do not believe they exchanged two sentences.
"Surely," I thought, "this must be a singularly sufficing pa.s.sion which can enjoy itself in this manner without the help of language."
Of course, this reflection increased the strength of my suspicions. I became impatient, and entered the cottage. The eyes of Julia seemed to brighten at my appearance, but they were also full of sadness. Edgerton soon after rose and took his departure. I believe, if I had stayed away till midnight, he would have lingered until that time; but I also believe that if I had returned two hours before, he would have gone as soon. His pa.s.sion for the wife seemed to produce an antipathy to the husband, quite as naturally as that which grew up in my bosom in regard to him. When he was gone, my wife approached me, almost vehemently exclaiming--
"Why, why do you leave me thus, Clifford? Surely you can not love me."
"Indeed I do; but I was with Kingsley. I had business, and did not suppose you would miss me."
"Why suppose otherwise, Edward? I do miss you. I beg that you will not leave me thus again."
"What do you mean? You are singularly earnest, Julia. What has happened?
What has offended you? Was not Edgerton with you all the evening?"
My questions, coupled with my manner, which has been somewhat excited, seemed to alarm her. She replied hurriedly:--
"Nothing has happened! nothing has offended me! But I feel that you should not leave me thus. It does not look well. It looks as if you did not love me."
"Ah! but when you KNOW that I do!"
"I do not know it. Oh, show me that you do, Edward. Stay with me as you did at first--when we first came here--when we were first married. Then we were so--so happy!"
"You would not say that you are not happy now?"
"I am not! I do not see you as I wish--when I wish! You leave me so often--leave me to strangers, and seem so indifferent. Oh! Edward, do not let me think that you care for me no longer."
"Strangers! Why, how you talk!--Good old Mrs. Porterfield seems to me like my own grandmother, and Edgerton has been my friend---"
Did I really hear her say the single word, "Friend!" and with such an accent! The sound was a very slight one--it may have been my fancy only;--and she turned away a moment after. What could it mean? I was bewildered. I followed her to the chamber. I endeavored to renew the subject in such a manner as not to offend her suspicions, but she seemed to have taken the alarm. She answered me in monosyllables only, and without satisfying the curiosity which that single word, doubtfully uttered, had so singularly awakened.
"Only love me--love me, Edward, and keep with me, and I will not complain. But if you leave me--if you neglect me--I am desolate!"
CHAPTER XLIII.
ACCIDENT AND MORE AGONIES.
There was something very unaccountable in all this. I say unaccountable, with the distinct understanding that it was unaccountable only to that obtuse condition of mind which is produced by the demon of the blind heart. My difficulties of judging were only temporary, however. The sinister spirit made his whisper conclusive in the end.
"This vehemence," it suggested, "which is so unwonted with her, is evidently unnatural, It--is affected for an object. What is that object?
It is the ordinary one with persons in the wrong, who always affect one extreme of feeling when they would conceal another. She fears that you will suspect that she is very well satisfied in your absence; accordingly she strives to convince you that she was never so dissatisfied. Of course you can not believe that a man so well endowed as Edgerton, so graceful, having such fine tastes and accomplishments, can prove other than an agreeable companion! What then should be your belief?"
There was a devilish ingenuity in this sort of perversion. It had its effect. I believed it; and believing it, revolted, with a feeling of hate and horror, at the supposed loathsome hypocrisy of that fond embrace, and those earnest pleadings, which, in the moment of their first display, had seemed so precious to my soul. In the morning, when I was setting forth from home, she put her arm on my shoulder:--
"Come home soon. Edward, and let us go together on the hill. Let n.o.body know. Surely we shall be company enough for each other. I will sketch you a view of the river while you read Wordsworth to me."
"Now," whispered my demon in my ears, "that is ingenious. Let n.o.body know; as if, having a friend in the neighborhood--on a visit--be sick and in bad spirits--you should propose to yourself a pleasure trip of any kind without inviting him to partake of it? She knows THAT to be out of the question, and that you must ask Edgerton if you resolve to go yourself."
Such was the artful suggestion of my familiar. My resolve--still recognising the cruel policy by which I had been so long governed--was instantly taken. This was to invite Edgerton and Kingsley both.
"I will give them every opportunity. While Kingsley and myself ramble together, well leave this devoted pair to their own cogitations, taking care, however, to see what comes of them."
I promised Julia to be home in season, but said nothing of my intention to ask the gentlemen. She thanked me with a look and smile, which, had I not seen all things through eyes of the most jaundiced green, would have seemed to me that of an angel, expressive only of the truest love.
"Ah! could I but believe!" was the bitter self-murmur of my soul, as I left the threshold.
On my way through the town I stopped at the postoffice to get letters, and received one from Mrs. Delaney--late Clifford--my wife"s exemplary mother, addressed to Julia. I then proceeded to Edgerton"s lodgings.
He was not yet up, and I saw him in his chamber. His flute lay upon the toilet. Seeing it, I recalled, with all its original vexing bitterness, the scene which took place the night previous to my departure from my late home. And when I looked on Edgerton--saw with what effort he spoke, and how timidly he expressed himself--how reluctant were his eyes to meet the gaze of mine--his guilt seemed equally fresh and unequivocal. I marked him out, involuntarily, as my victim. I felt a.s.sured, even while conveying to him the complimentary invitation which I bore, that my hand was commissioned to do the work of death upon his limbs. Strange and fascinating conviction! But I did not contemplate this necessity with any pleasure. No! I would have prayed--I did pray--that the task might be spared me. If I thought of it at all, it was as the agent of a necessity which I could not countervail. The fates had me in their keeping. I was the blind instrument obeying the inflexible will, against which
"Reluctant nature strives in vain."
I felt then, most truly, though I deceived myself, that I had no power, though every disposition, to save and to spare. I conveyed my invitation as a message from my wife.