"Why?" All heart seems gone from his voice. He is gazing mournfully upon the girlish figure of his wife as she stands at some little distance from him. "Have I been such a bad husband to you, Georgie?"
he says, brokenly.
"No, no. But it is possible to be cruel in more ways than one."
"It is, indeed!" Then he sighs wearily; and, giving up all further examination of her lovely unforgiving face, he turns his gaze upon the fire. "Look here," he says, presently; "I heard unavoidably what you said to Kennedy that afternoon at the castle, that we could manage to get on without each other excellently well on occasion: you alluded to yourself, I suppose. Perhaps you think we might get on even better had we never met."
"I didn"t say that," says Georgie, turning pale.
"I understand,"--bitterly: "you only meant it. Well, if you are so unhappy with me, and if--if you wish for a separation, I think I can manage it for you. I have no desire whatever"--coldly--"to keep you with me against your will."
"And have all the world talking?" exclaims she, hastily. "No. In such a case the woman goes to the wall: the man is never in fault. Things must now remain as they are. But this one last thing you can do for me. As far as is possible, let us live as utter strangers to each other."
"It shall be just as you please," returns he, haughtily.
Day by day the dark cloud that separates them widens and deepens, drifting them farther and farther apart, until it seems almost impossible that they shall ever come together again.
Dorian grows moody and irritable, and nurses his wrongs in sullen morbid silence. He will shoot whole days without a companion, or go for long purposeless rides across country, only to return at nightfall weary and sick at heart.
"Grief is a stone that bears one down." To Dorian, all the world seems going wrong; his whole life is a failure. The two beings he loves most on earth--Lord Sartoris and his wife--distrust him, and willingly lend an open ear to the shameless story unlucky Fate has coined for him.
As for Georgie, she grows pale and thin, and altogether unlike herself. From being a gay, merry, happy little girl, with "the sun upon her heart," as Bailey so sweetly expresses it, she has changed into a woman, cold and self-contained, with a manner full of settled reserve.
Now and again small scenes occur between them that only render matters more intolerable. For instance, coming into the breakfast-room one morning, Georgie, meeting the man who brings the letters, takes them from him, and, dividing them, comes upon one directed to Dorian, in an unmistakable woman"s hand, bearing the London post-mark, which she throws across the table to her husband.
Something in the quickness of her action makes him raise his head to look at her. Catching the expression of her eyes, he sees that they are full of pa.s.sionate distrust, and at once reads her thoughts aright. His brow darkens; and, rising, he goes over to her, and takes her hands in his, not with a desire to conciliate, but most untenderly.
"It is impossible you can accuse me of this thing," he says, his voice low and angry.
"Few things are impossible," returns she, with cold disdain. "Remove your hands, Dorian: they hurt me."
"At least you shall be convinced that in this instance, as in all the others, you have wronged me."
Still holding her hands, he compels her to listen to him while he reads aloud a letter from the wife of one of his tenants who has gone to town on law business and who has written to him on the matter.
Such scenes only help to make more wide the breach between them.
Perhaps, had Georgie learned to love her husband before her marriage, all might have been well; but the vague feeling of regard she had entertained for him (that, during the early days of their wedded life, had been slowly ripening into honest love, not having had time to perfect itself) at the first check had given in, and fallen--hurt to death--beneath the terrible attack it had sustained.
She fights and battles with herself at times, and, with pa.s.sionate earnestness, tries to live down the growing emptiness of heart that is withering her young life. All night long sometimes she lies awake, waiting wearily for the dawn, and longing prayerfully for some change in her present stagnation.
And, even if she can summon sleep to her aid, small is the benefit she derives from it. Bad dreams, and sad as bad, hara.s.s and perplex her, until she is thankful when her lids unclose and she feels at least she is free of the horrors that threatened her a moment since.
"Thou hast been called, O sleep! the friend of woe; But, "tis the happy that have called thee so!"
CHAPTER XXIX.
"The waves of a mighty sorrow Have whelmed the pearl of my life; And there cometh to me no morrow Shall solace this desolate strife.
"Gone are the last faint flashes, Set in the sun of my years, And over a few poor ashes I sit in darkness and tears."--GERALD Ma.s.sEY.
All night the rain has fallen unceasingly; now the sun shines forth again, as though forgetting that excessive moisture has inundated the quiet uncomplaining earth. The "windy night" has not produced a "rainy morrow;" on the contrary, the world seems athirst for drink again, and is looking pale and languid because it comes not.
"Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around: Full swell the woods."
Everything is richer for the welcome drops that fell last night. "The very earth, the steamy air, is all with fragrance rife;" the flowers lift up their heads and fling their perfume broadcast upon the flying wind;
"And that same dew, which sometime within buds Was wont to swell, like round and Orientpearls, Stood now within the pretty flowerets" eyes, Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail."
Georgie, with scarcely any heart to see their beauty, pa.s.ses by them, and walks on until she reaches that part of Hythe wood that adjoins their own. As she pa.s.ses them, the gentle deer raise their heads and sniff at her, and, with their wild eyes, entreat her to go by and take no notice of them.
Autumn, with his "gold hand," is
"Gilding the falling leaf, Bringing up winter to fulfil the year, Bearing upon his back the riped sheaf."
All nature seems lovely, and, in coloring, intense. To look upon it is to have one"s heart widen and grow stronger and greater as its divinity fills one"s soul to overflowing. Yet to Georgie the hour gives no joy: with lowered head and dejected mien she goes, scarce heeding the glowing tints that meet her on every side. It is as though she tells herself the world"s beauty can avail her nothing, as, be the day
"Foul, or even fair, Methinks her hearte"s joy is stained with some care."
Crossing a little brook that is babbling merrily, she enters the land of Hythe; and, as she turns a corner (all rock, and covered with quaint ferns and tender mosses), she comes face to face with an old man, tall and lean, who is standing by a pool, planted by nature in a piece of granite.
He is not altogether unknown to her. At church she has seen him twice, and once in the village, though she has never been introduced to him, has never interchanged a single word with him: it is Lord Sartoris.
He gazes at her intently. Perhaps he too knows who she is, but, if so, he makes no sign. At last, unable to bear the silence any longer, she says, navely and very gently,--
"I thought you were in Paris."
At this extraordinary remark from a woman he has never spoken to before, Sartoris lifts his brows, and regards her, if possibly, more curiously.
"So I was," he says; "but I came home yesterday." Then, "And you are Dorian"s wife?"
Her brows grow clouded.
"Yes," she says, and no more, and, turning aside, pulls to pieces the flowering gra.s.ses that grow on her right hand.
"I suppose I am unwelcome in your sight," says the old man, noting her reserve. "Yet if, at the time of your marriage, I held aloof, it was not because you were the bride."
"Did you hold aloof?" says Georgie, with wondering eyes. "Did our marriage displease you? I never knew: Dorian never told me." Then, with sudden unexpected bitterness, "Half measures are of no use. Why did you not forbid the wedding altogether? That would have been the wisest and kindest thing, both for him and me."
"I don"t think I quite follow you," says Lord Sartoris, in a troubled tone. "Am I to understand you already regret your marriage? Do not tell me that."
"Why should I not?" says Georgie, defiantly. His tone has angered her, though why, she would have found a difficulty in explaining. "You are his uncle," she says, with some warmth: "why should you not know? Why am I always to pretend happiness that I never feel?"