 | CHAPTER V.
AFTER FIVE YEARS. Some women's hearts |  |
5. CHAPTER V.
AFTER FIVE YEARS.
Five years had gone by, — years which the locusts
had eaten, as they say in Provence, — aimless, profitless
years, which yet had brought Elizabeth from eighteen
to twenty-three, and wrought, I was about to say, some
subtile changes in her character. But I correct myself.
I think all our possibilities are latent in us from our
birth. Most of us are many-sided, and circumstance,
like the turn of a wheel, brings uppermost now one side
of us, now another. Elizabeth Le Roy fancied that she
was not what Elizabeth Fordyce had been, but then
Elizabeth Fordyce had not known herself.
Of these five years she had kept no record. Elizabeth
was not the kind of woman who keeps a diary.
She could not ease her pain by spreading it over reams
of paper; or by self-pity solace herself into a sort of
luxury of woe, practically almost as desirable as happiness.
The long, slow years had eaten into her life, but
she had made no sign. Some scenes were seared upon
her soul, — some words burned into her heart so deeply
that she thought not even the river of Death could
wash them away; but neither the world nor even her
own household knew her as any thing but a prosperous,
elegant, haughty, silent woman. Only Elliott Le Roy
knew that the Queen Bess he found in Lenox had been
pang of regret of the vanished girlish sweetness?
She came downstairs, on the fifth anniversary of her
marriage, with her toilette carefully made, as usual.
Her soft, heavy black silk trailed after her soundlessly
as she walked. Dainty laces made a white mist at
throat and wrists; her jewels were pearls, quaintly set.
She had a singular charm for the eye, though she was
not, never had been, a beauty, as her husband had once
told her. It was the only outbreak of coarse sincerity
in which he had ever indulged, — the only time vulgar
truth had come, strong and passionate, to his elegant
lips. They had been married scarcely two years then;
and Elizabeth had not yet lost her faith in his love.
From the first he had left her a great deal to herself,
and she had almost always borne his absence patiently;
but this one time it entered her mind to remonstrate.
He was going away on a pleasure trip, and she begged
him either to stay at home, or to take her with him, with
an exacting earnestness to which she had never accustomed
him, and which some brutal instinct, rising to
the surface and overpowering his suave polish of manner,
impelled him to put down at once.
“It is certainly not my fault, Mrs. Le Roy, if you are
poorly entertained,” he said, coolly. “You have at
your disposal your time and my money. As my wife,
society is open to you.”
“But I am not your wife for the sake of society,” she
had persisted. “For what did you marry me, if you
did not care to have me with you, — if our lives were to
be apart?”
All that was demonic in Le Roy's nature, and that
was no little, looked for a moment out of his eyes in
contemptuous silence, then burst from his lips. “By
Heaven, what did I? What summer day's madness
was it which made me fetter myself to a woman not
rich, or distinguished, or even handsome?”
She thought, for an instant, that she should fall helpless
at his feet; then pride brought the color back to
cheek and lips.
“So you did not love me?” she asked, slowly.
“Did I? — I have forgotten.”
The words stung her with their contempt, till cheeks
and lips grew white again; not with faintness this time,
but with a white heat of passion.
“I told you once,” she said, speaking each word with
slow distinctness, “that for a man to marry a woman
without loving her, was a crime which I, for one, would
never forgive, on earth or in Heaven.”
Le Roy looked at her, and feared the spirit he had
roused. He would have given a good deal to unsay
his own words. As it was, he could only eat them.
He spoke more hurriedly than was his wont.
“Elizabeth, we are behaving like two children. If I
had not loved you, why on earth should I have chosen
you? If I loved you once, is it likely to be entirely
over in two years? Don't exasperate me into saying
things which will cause ill-blood between us. You take
the surest way to wear my love out when you are exacting,
and make me feel my chains. Remember how
free a life I had led before I knew you.”
And she, proud woman that she was, feeling herself
altogether his, too reserved and too self-respecting to
turn anywhere else for comfort, altogether helpless in
her dependence upon him, suffered him to seal a hollow
truce upon her lips; but after that day she never again
urged him to stay at home.
Since then she had been three years his wife, — just
as entirely his, subject to his pleasure, bound to hold
up his honor, as if they had loved each other with
that love which makes marriage a sacrament. She
almost hated herself when she thought of it. And now
it was the fifth anniversary of those mistaken nuptials.
The last three years had gone by her like a long and
evil dream. That one outbreak on her husband's part
had never been followed by any other. He had treated
her with all outward courtesy; but he was like the
French chevalier who killed more men in duels than
any other beau sabreur of his time, and who always
smiled as he slew. No chronicle, had she kept never
so many, could have recorded the times when she felt
the merciless pressure of the iron hand under the velvet
glove, — when his keen scorn struck home to her
heart; his merciless politeness froze her; his forgetfulness,
which seemed born of contempt, goaded her to
madness.
Sometimes she had prayed to die, with a passion
which it seemed should have opened Heaven; but not
even Death wanted her.
After a long time, suffering seemed to have deadened
her nature. Le Roy came and went, and she scarcely
were vague to her as dreams, — polite, inquiring,
sneering, it mattered not, — they made no impression.
She ceased to shrink, even on the rare occasions when
his lips touched her mouth, or he took her, his property,
into his arms with some sudden sense of that loveliness
of hers, which the slow years had brought to
something paler, purer, and more striking than of old.
Nothing made any difference to her, — nothing seemed
worth while.
She woke up this afternoon, — because it was her
wedding-day, perhaps, — and wondered what this long
and entire absence of emotion had meant. Was she
dying, or slowly going mad. Better death itself than
this hopeless apathy.
She went back upstairs, and opened a wardrobe in
an unused chamber. Her wedding-dress hung there.
She looked at the shimmering white robes and frosty
frills of lace, until they carried her back to her old
self, and the feelings and emotions of the old time.
Something in her nature seemed to break up, as the
streams do when the winter frosts are over. She felt
tears gathering in her eyes, those eyes which had been
dry so long, and she wiped them away with a thrill of
thanksgiving. Then she shut the door, and turned its
key on the ghostly, gleaming bridal fineries, and went
downstairs again, and sat in the lonely grandeur of
her drawing-room, at a window opening upon the
street.
How many weary hours she had sat there during
had watched funerals there, and weddings; beggars
and republican princes. That window had shown her
strange sights. Startling contrasts were to be seen
from it, even now; but she did not stop to marvel
at them. It seemed natural that there should be
changes in the world, — only for her there was no
change, and that was stranger than all.
She began to ask herself what it meant. For what
reason was she here, always here, — here where she
did not want to be, and where no one wanted her, —
far away from all the landmarks Fate would have
seemed in early days to have set for her, and yet held
here by the iron clutch of Fate itself? All sorts of
chances and changes happened in the world, — deaths
and births, fortunes made and lost, unexpected discoveries,
hidden things brought to light, — but for her
nothing save the same dead level, the life she hated,
with not even a breath of wind across the desert
sands.
Then suddenly as if another than herself had asked
it, the question came to her, — why did she stay here?
Why not go on to the next oasis? Somewhere over a
cool fountain the palm-trees rustled, the water of life
waited for her lips. Was she imbecile? Had she no
courage? Why had she sat still so long, and let the
years go by her, never once trying to take destiny into
her own hands, — growing old, and hopeless, and
despairing, but never struggling to help herself? Did
God make her a coward, or only a woman, — or were
suffered? Why had she married Elliott Le Roy in the
first place? But, looking back, she saw that she
could not justly blame herself for that. Her eyes had
not been opened to what love might be by any feeling
deeper than she experienced for him. She remembered
what a knight, without fear and without reproach, he
had seemed to her when she first met him, — a Saul
among his fellows. She had neither understood her
own heart then, nor had any standard by which to
measure him.
Is it not true that women are marrying as unwisely
every day? Some find out their mistake, and are still
indifferent; because to them life is in the abundance
of the things a man possesses. Will such women's
heaven, I wonder, ever be more than meat, and drink,
and raiment?
Others, in these mismated ranks, never understand
themselves. They find life a tread-mill round; but they
do not guess that it holds any deeper joy or subtler
woe than themselves have tasted.
But she did know, — this poor Elizabeth. She had
found out. She understood herself but dimly, even
yet; still she knew that there was something in her
crying out for ever with a cry that would not be
silenced, — an inner self, dying slowly, for want of
room to breathe. She wondered again why she had
stayed so long.
She had no child to look at her with its father's
pitiless blue eyes, whose possible meanings she knew so
on for that, and drawn strength from the thought that
she was suffering for another's sake, not her own. But
now she suffered for no other. Le Roy did not want
her; or, if he did, wanted her only because of his
own pride; and surely he, who had been in all things
so utterly self-seeking, deserved nothing at her hands.
Her own self-respect she would preserve. Her own
honor should be unstained; but she was not held in
the old grooves by any fiction of honor or duty toward
him. He had put those to flight long ago. Why,
then, did she sit on there idle, with the great gay
world of chances and changes outside, and grow old
and hopeless, losing all the years that should be young
and glad, doomed to a thirst which no fountain was
given her to quench?
She might have asked herself as well, if she had
been wiser, what she could possibly gain by going
away? To go away from her keeper would not free
her from her bondage. She could only drag her chain
with her. Morally and legally, the fetter would be
upon her still; and would the simple gain of not seeing
one man's face compensate her for all she must give
up, — her position of worldly ease and high repute, —
the luxuries of which long use had made necessities,
— all the good things of this world which belonged to
her as Mrs. Le Roy? But she was inconsequent by
nature, as women almost always are. Roused at last
from the torpor which had so long held her motionless
and silent as death, with no throb of feeling beyond
passionately to get away. But where should she find
any door of escape? Did God, who sent an angel to
open Peter's prison-house, keep in His Heaven any
messenger of deliverance for her?
She heard the street-door open to the master of the
house, and she sat still and waited for him. The emotions
of the afternoon had left their impress on her
face. Perhaps she had never in her life been so handsome.
Her eyes sparkled feverishly. Her cheeks
glowed. Her lips were vivid crimson. Her husband
came in, and his observant look rested upon her. He
bowed to her with an air of gallantry which seemed to
her so hollow, that her very soul rose in rebellion
against it. He said, as he bent before her, — “I
congratulate myself, Mrs. Le Roy, on having your
face in my drawing-room. It has blossomed anew
to-day.”
“Do you know what day it is?” she asked, coldly.
“Let me see, — fifth, sixth, seventh of November, is
it not?”
“It is the fifth anniversary of our marriage.”
“And in honor of that your roses have bloomed?
I congratulate myself that you have retained through
five years of matrimony so much sentiment for me.”
“Sentiment for you!”
She got up and stood before him, a slight shape,
with her soft lengths of black silk falling around her;
her gleaming eyes, her cheeks, where burned the roses
he had praised. Her voice was low, but awfully distinct.
into a well.
“I will tell you just how much sentiment I have for
you, Elliott Le Roy. I hate you. You took me, a
warm-hearted, honest girl, ready to love you. But
you did not want my love. You have chilled me, till
now my heart is ice, too. I only want one thing in
this world, and that is to get away from you.”
“Take care, Elizabeth.”
She looked straight into his eyes, and saw a red
gleam kindle them. His face was livid. His lips were
set. But she only laughed a bitter laugh.
“No, I will not take care. I have taken care long
enough; and lived in mortal fear of your cold, sneering
words, and your pitiless eyes. I don't want to stay
with you. Why should I stay?”
Le Roy smiled, — a smile which was not good to
see.
“I will tell you why, but take a seat first, if you
please. We are not upon the stage, and we can talk
more at our ease in a less dramatic position.”
She obeyed the inclination of his hand, and sat down.
He went on, quietly, — “I will tell you why you should
stay; because it is my pleasure. I do not choose to
have my domestic matters in the mouth of every man
about town. It is my will that you remain here, and I
think you will not be mad enough to go away. If you
left me without other justification than you could bring,
do you think there is any capacity in which scrupulous
people would receive you into their houses? There
yourself. You could take your choice between starving
and going back to Lenox. Perhaps your uncle
would welcome you cheerfully, if he found you had
forsaken your own home. Of that you can judge; you
know him, probably, better than I do. I should
scarcely fancy, however, that to go back among your
old friends, under such altered circumstances, would
quite suit you. About that you can consider, however.
In the mean time, if you please, we will go to dinner.
It has been waiting ten minutes already, and you had
best understand fully that our affairs shall not be talked
about in our kitchen.”
He offered her his arm, and she took it, girding
fiercely at herself. Why had she not courage to refuse
to keep up this sham? Why was she still meekly
obeying the man she hated?
Le Roy talked in his lightest and most sparkling vein
while dinner was served. Jones — oh, the sagacity of
our domestic critics — remarked downstairs, between
the courses, that he guessed something had gone wrong
with the master to-day, he was so extra smiling and
smooth.
Elizabeth constrained herself to make answers when
they were necessary; but she went on, meanwhile, with
her own thoughts. Clearly, her husband would never
help her to break from her bonds, and what could she
do of herself? She had said once, that when she was
old or tired of life she should want to go to Lenox and
die there. But she was not ready to go there now, and
full of life, in spite of her despair; and she thought
death might be too long in coming.
After all, was she not utterly helpless? She would
have shown herself wiser to have gone on in silence, in
the old, passive way. Now, of course, Le Roy would
never forget or forgive what she had told him. Still,
what matter? What could he do to make her life any
more hopeless or barren than it had been so long? That
night, when she had said her prayers, — the old, simple,
familiar prayers of her childhood, — she added to them
another, — “O God, thou who didst send the angel
to Peter, open for me a door, — I pray thee, for thy
mercy's sake, open for me also a door!”
She forgot, entirely, to say, “Thy will, not mine, be
done.” She was like some passionate child crying for
the moon. If the moon should fall at his entreaty, the
child's destruction would be sure and swift; but still
the Father holds the heavens in their places, and rules
the lives of men.
| CHAPTER V.
AFTER FIVE YEARS. Some women's hearts | |