He was just at the age, however, when the manners of certain men begin to deteriorate, especially in domestic life. Their capacity for pleasure has been lessened by abuse, and they have to excite it with stimulants. They become less careful in their appearance, are not particular in their choice of words before the ladies of their own families, nor nice in their manners at table. If not already married, they look about for something young and docile on which to inflict their ill-humours, and expect to have their maladies of mind and body tenderly cared for in return for such ecstatic joy as young wives find in the sober certainties of board and lodging. Should they be married already, however, Heaven be good to their wives, for they will have no comfort upon earth!
But doubtless in the good time coming, all estimable wives will subscribe to keep up asylums to which their husbands can be quietly removed for treatment, so soon after the honeymoon as their manners show signs of deterioration. When they begin to be greedy, forget to say "please,"
"thank you," and "I beg your pardon;" show no consideration for anyone"s comfort but their own, no natural affection, and lose control of their tempers; the best thing that can be done for them, and the kindest, is to place them under proper restraint at once. They cannot be treated at home.
Opposition irritates them, and humouring such dreadful propensities submissively only confirms them.
The deterioration of Colonel Colquhoun had certainly been delayed by the arrangement which in honour bound him to treat Evadne as a young lady, and not as a wife; but that it should set in eventually, was inevitable. When it did begin, however, it was less in manner, for the same reason that had delayed it, than in pursuits, and therefore Evadne"s position was not affected by it, and she continued to have a kindly, affectionate feeling for him, and to pity him still without bitterness.
He began to stay out late at night, at this time, and she would hear him occasionally in the small hours of the early morning returning from a bachelor dinner party, or a big guest-night at mess, reeking, doubtless, of tobacco and stimulants. Verily, Ouida knows what she is writing about when she invariably adds "essences" to the toilet of her dissipated men.
Evadne would wake with a start in the gray of the dawn sometimes, and hearing Colonel Colquhoun pa.s.s her door with unsteady step on his way to his own room, would shudder to think what his wife must have suffered. And it was not as if the sacrifice of herself would have made any difference to him either. If she could have done any good in that way she might have tried; but his habits were formed, and they were the outcome of his nature. Nothing would have changed him, and the longer she lived with him, the more reason she had to be convinced of this, and to be sure that her decision had been a right and wise one.
But Colonel Colquhoun did not agree with her. He cherished the vain delusion that, although her influence as a young lady whom he admired and respected had not availed to elevate him, her presence as a wife, whose feelings he certainly would not have felt bound to consider, and whose opinion he would not have cared a rap for, would have made all the difference.
They drifted into a discussion of this subject one hot afternoon when he happened to find Evadne idling for a wonder with a fan at an open window.
"You might have made anything you liked of me had you adopted a different course," he said. He had been carousing the night before, and was now mistaking nausea and depression for a naturally good disposition perverted by ill-treatment.
"No," she answered gently. "I do not flatter myself that I should have succeeded where Mrs. Beston and half a dozen other ladies I could name even here, in a little place like Malta, all more lovable, estimable, and stronger in womanly attributes generally than I am, have failed. Colonel Beston is always with your particular clique--and she is very unhappy."
"She makes herself miserable then," said Colonel Colquhoun, the natural man reappearing as the _malaise_ pa.s.sed off or was forgotten, "What business is it of hers where he goes or what he does so long as he is nice to her when he _is_ at home?"
"Just reverse the position, and consider what Colonel Beston"s feelings would be if she took to amusing herself as he does, and maintained that he had no business to interfere with her private pursuits; would he be satisfied so long as she was "nice" to him at home?" Evadne asked.
Colonel Colquhoun"s countenance lowered. "That is nonsense," he said.
"Women are different. They must behave themselves."
Evadne smiled. "I am beginning to know that phrase," she said. "It puzzled me at first, because it is neither reason nor argument, but merely an a.s.sertion somewhat in the nature of a command, and equally applicable to either s.e.x, if the other chose to use it. But I know that what you have just said with regard to Mrs. Beston having no occasion to make herself miserable is your true feeling on the subject, and therefore I am convinced that if I had "adopted a different course," it would not have been to your advantage in any way, and it would certainly have been very much to the reverse of mine. We are excellent friends as it is, because we are quite independent of each other, but had it been otherwise--I shudder to think of the hopeless misery of it."
Colquhoun was silent.
"There is no hope for me, then," he said at last, lamely. "I suppose the truth of the matter is you never cared for me at all; you just thought you would get married, and accepted me because I was the first person to propose, and your friends considered me eligible. I think you are cold-hearted, Evadne. I have watched you since you came out here, and I"ve never seen you fancy any man, even for a moment."
Evadne flushed angrily. It is one thing to consider ethical questions in relation to their bearing upon the future of the world at large, and another to have it suggested that you have been under observation yourself with a view to discovering if you found it possible to live up to your own ideas. It was a fact, however, that no man attracted Evadne during this period as Colonel Colquhoun himself had done. The shock of the discovery which had destroyed her pa.s.sion for him had caused a revulsion of feeling great enough to subdue all further possibilities of pa.s.sion for years to come, and even if she had been free to marry she would not have done so.
All the energy of her nature had flashed from her heart to her brain in a moment, and every instinct of her womanhood was held in check by the superior power of intellect. Since the day of the marriage ceremony she had been a child in her pleasures, and only mature in the capacity for thought. Her senses had been stunned, and still slept heavily; but there remained to her a vivid recollection of the entrancing period which had followed their first awakening, and so she answered Colonel Colquhoun"s last remark decidedly.
"You are mistaken," she said, "if you imagine that I did not care for you-- that I was merely marrying you for the sake of marrying, and would have been quite as content with anyone else whom my friends might have considered eligible. My mother was very much disappointed because I did not accept an offer I had before I saw you from a man who was certainly "eligible" in every way--I think you said my father had told you of it? I could not care for _him_; but I think my pa.s.sion for _you_ was blinder and more headlong, if anything, than is usually the case in very young girls. It possessed me from the moment I saw you in church that first time. You pleased my eyes as no other man has ever done, and I was only too glad to take it for granted that your career and your character were all that they ought to have been. But of course I did not love you, for pa.s.sion, you know, is only the introduction to love. It is a flame that may be blown out at any time by a difference of opinion, and mine went out the moment I learnt that your past had been objectionable. I really care more for you now than I did in the days when I was "in love"
with you. For you have been very good to me--very kind in every possible way. So much so, indeed, that I have more than once felt the keenest regret--I have wished that there was no barrier between us."
"There is no hope for me, then?" he again suggested, but with hope in his heart as he spoke.
She shook her head sadly.
"It is what might have been that I regret," she answered; "but that does not change what has been--and is."
"I suppose you consider that I have spoilt your life?" he said.
"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "Don"t think that. Don"t blame yourself. I have never blamed you since I was cool enough to reflect. It is the system that is at fault, the laxity which permits anyone, however unfit, to enter upon the most sacred of all human relations. Saints should find a reward for sanct.i.ty in marriage; but the Church, with that curious want of foresight for which it is peculiar, induced the saints to put themselves away in barren celibacy so that their saintliness could not spread, while it encouraged sinners satiated with vice to transmit their misery-making propensities from generation to generation. I believe firmly that marriage, when those who marry are of such character as to make the contract _holy_ matrimony, is a perfect state, fulfilling every law of our human nature, and making earth with all its drawbacks a heaven of happiness; but such marriages as we see contracted every day are simply a degradation of all the higher attributes which distinguish men from beasts. For there is no contract more carelessly made, more ridiculed, more lightly broken; no sacred subject that is oftener blasphemed; and nothing else in life affecting the dignity and welfare of man which is oftener attacked with vulgar ribaldry in public, or outraged in private by the secret conduct of it. No. You are not to blame, nor am I. It is not our fault that we form the junction of the old abuses and the new modes of thought. Some two people must have met as we have for the benefit of others. But it has been much better with us than it might have been--thanks to your kindness. I have been quite happy here with you--much happier than I should have been at Fraylingay, I think, all this time. You have never interfered with my pursuits or endeavoured to restrict my liberty in any way, and consequently my occupations and interests have been more varied, and my content greater than it would have been at home after my father had discovered how very widely we differ in opinion. I am grateful to you, George, and I do hope that it has been as well with you as it has been with me since I came to Malta."
"Oh, yes. I have been all right," he answered--in a quite dissatisfied tone, however. But presently that pa.s.sed, and then he slid into a better frame of mind, "You are a good woman, Evadne," he said. "You have played me a--ah--_very_ nasty trick, and I don"t agree with you--and I don"t believe there are a dozen men in the world at the present moment who would agree with you. But, apart from your peculiar opinions, you are about one of the nicest girls I ever knew. Everything you do is well done. You"re never out of temper. You don"t speak much, as a rule, but you"re always ready to respond cheerfully when you"re spoken to--and you don"t interfere. I wish from the bottom of my soul you had never been taught to read and write, and then you would have had no views to come between us.
But since you think you cannot care for me, I shall not persecute you. I gave you my word of honour that I never would, and I hope I have kept it."
"Yes--_indeed_. You have been goodness itself," she answered.
"I wrote and told your father how very well we get on," he continued, "and tried to persuade him to make it up with you, but the old gentleman is obstinate. He has his own notion of a wife"s duty, and he sticks to it.
But I did my best, because I know you feel the separation from your own family, although you never complain. He can"t get over your wanting a "Christlike" man for a husband. He says he laughs every time he thinks of it. The first time he laughed at that idea of yours I was there, and a--eh--_very_ unpleasant laugh it was. It got my back up somehow, and made me feel ready to take your part against him. It isn"t a compliment, you know, to have your father-in-law laugh outright at the notion of your ever being able to come up to your wife"s idea of what a man should be.
And when he came down raging about your books, it was the recollection of that laugh, I believe, that made me determine to get them for you, I asked your mother to show me your old rooms, and I just took all the books I could find; and then I thought it would be a good idea to make your new rooms look as much like the old ones as possible."
"It was a very kind thought," Evadne answered.
"I don"t pretend to have been a saint; very much the contrary," Colonel Colquhoun proceeded with that a.s.sumption of humility often apparent in the repentant sinner who expects to derive both credit and importance from his past when he frankly confesses it was wicked, "but I hope I have always been a gentleman,"--with her "saint" and "gentleman" were synonymous terms,--"and what I want to say is," he continued--"I don"t quite see how to put it; but you have just expressed yourself satisfied with the arrangements I have made for you so far. Well, if you really think that I have done all I can to make your life endurable, will you do something for me? I am a good deal older than you are. In all human probability you will outlive me. Will you promise me that during my lifetime you will not mix yourself up publicly--will not join societies, make speeches, or publish books, which people would know you had written, on the social subjects you are so fond of."
"_Fond_ of!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.
"Well, perhaps that is not the right expression," he conceded.
"No, very far from the right expression," she answered gently. "Social subjects seem to be forcing themselves on the attention of every thoughtful and right-minded person just now, and it would be culpable cowardice to shun them while there is the shadow of a hope that some means may be devised to put right what is so very wrong. Ignoring an evil is tantamount to giving it full licence to spread. But I am thankful to say I have never known anyone who found the knowledge of evil anything but distressing--except Mrs. Guthrie Brimston, and she only delights in it so long as it is made a jest of. But they are all alike in that set she belongs to. Their ideas of propriety are bounded by their sense of pleasure. So long as you talk flippantly, they will listen and laugh; but if you talk seriously on the same subject, you make the matter disagreeable, and then they call it "improper.""
Colonel Colquhoun was standing with his arms folded on the parapet of the veranda looking down a vista of yellow houses at a glimpse there was of the sea, dotted with boats, hazy with heat, intensely blue, and sparkling back reflections of the glaring sun. From where Evadne sat she saw the same scene through the open bal.u.s.trade over the tops of the oleanders growing in the garden below, and gradually the heat, and stillness, and beauty, stole over her, melting her mood to tenderness, and filling her mind with sadly sweet memories of the days of delight which preceded "all this." She thought of the yellow gorse on the common, recalling its peculiar fragrance; of the misty cobwebs stretched from bush to bush, and decked with dazzling drops of dew; of the healthy happy heath creatures peeping out at her shyly, here a rabbit and there a hare; of a lark that sprang up singing and was lost to sight in a moment, of a thrush that paused to reflect as she pa.s.sed. She thought of the little church on the high cliffs, the bourne of her morning walks, of the long stretch of sand; and of the sea; and she felt the fresh free air of those open s.p.a.ces rouse her again to a gladness in life not often known to ladies idling on languid afternoons in the sickly heat essential to the wellbeing of citron, orange, and myrtle; beloved of the mythical faun, but fatal to the best energies of the human race. And by a very natural transition, her mind leaped on to that morning in church when the sense of loneliness which comes to all young creatures that have no mate resolved itself into that silent supplication, the pet.i.tion which it is a part of the joy of life in youth to present to a heaven which is willing enough to hear; and she recalled the thrill of delight that trembled through every nerve of her body when she looked up, and found her answer, when she saw and recognized what she sought in the glance which, flashing between them, was the spark that first fired the train of her blind pa.s.sion for Colonel Colquhoun. She thought then that her prayer was answered at that moment; and she believed still that it had been answered so; but for a special purpose which she had not then perceived. Colonel Colquhoun was not the husband of her heart, but the rod of chastis.e.m.e.nt for her rash presumption; he had not been given to her for her own happiness, but that she might act as she had done to set an example by which she should have the double privilege of expiating a fault of her own, and at the same time securing the peace in life of others. It was in this way there hummed in her brain on that hot afternoon results of the faith which had been held by her ancestors; of the teaching which she had herself received directly; with a curious glimmering of truths that were already half apparent to her own acute faculties; an incongruous jumble all leavened by the natural instincts of a being rich in vitality, and wholesome physical force. With the recollection of the old days came back the shadow of the old sensation. The interval was forgotten for the moment. She saw before her the man whose every glance and word had thrilled her with pleasurable emotion, whom it had been a joy just to be with and see. It was the same man leaning there, fine of form and feature, with a dreamy look in his blue eyes softening the glitter which was apt to be hard and stony. If only--At that moment Colonel Colquhoun looked round at her, hesitated, although his face flushed, and then exclaimed: "Evadne, you _do_ love me!"
"I _did_ love you," she answered.
He sat down beside her, close to her: "Will you forget all this?" he said.
"Will you forget my past; will you make me a different man? Will you? You can." He half stretched out his hand to take hers, but then drew back, a gentleman always in that he would not force her inclinations in any way.
"If I do not change, we can be again as we are now, and there would be no harm done. Will you consent, Evadne, will you--my wife--will you?"
He leant forward so close that her senses were troubled--too close, for she pushed her chair back to relieve herself of the oppression, and the act irritated him. Another moment, a little more persuasion and caressing of the voice, which he could use so well to that effect, and she might have given in to the kind of fascination which she had felt in his presence from the first; but when she moved he drew back too, his countenance clouded, and her own momentary yearning to be held close, close; to be kissed till she could not think; to live the intoxicating life of the senses only, and not care, was over.
"We could never be again as we are now," she answered. "There would be no return for me. A wife cannot feel as I do. And you--you would not change.
Or at least you would only change your habits; the consequences of them you will carry to your grave with you, and I doubt if you could ever change your habits once for all. You were a different man for a while when I first came out, but you soon relapsed. No. I can never regret my present att.i.tude; but I have seen several times already how much reason I should have to regret--a different arrangement."
"You make light of love," he said. "Many a girl has died of a disappointment."
"Many a girl is a fool," she answered placidly. "And what can love offer me in exchange for the calm content of my life just now? for my perfect health? for my freedom from care?"
"A reconciliation with your family," he suggested.
She sighed, and sat silent a little, lost in thought.
"I do not live with my family now," she answered at last. "They have all their own interests, their own loves, apart from mine; would a letter or two a year from them make up after all for the risk of misery I should be running--for the terrible, helpless, hopeless, incurable misery of an unhappily married woman, if I should become one?"
He rose and returned to his old position, leaning over the veranda, looking down to the sea.
"You are cold-blooded, I think, Evadne," he reiterated.
She said nothing, but rested her head on the back of her chair and smiled.
She was not cold-blooded, and he knew it as well as she did. She was only a nineteenth century woman of the higher order with senses so refined that if her moral as well as her physical being were not satisfied in love, both would revolt. They were silent some time after that, and then he turned to her once more.
"Will you promise me that one thing, Evadne?" he asked. "Promise me that during my lifetime you will never mix yourself up--never take part publicly in any question of the day. It would be too deuced ridiculous for me, you know, to have my name appearing in the papers in connection with measures of reform, and all that sort of thing."
"I promise to spare you that kind of annoyance at all events," she answered without hesitation, making the promise, not because she was infirm of purpose, but because she was indefinite; she had no impulse at the time to do anything, and no notion that she would ever feel impelled to act in opposition to this wish of his.