 | CHAPTER XVII.
ASLEEP AND AWAKE. Moods |  |
17. CHAPTER XVII.
ASLEEP AND AWAKE.
March winds were howling round the house, the clock
was striking two, the library lamp still burned, and Moor
sat writing with an anxious face. Occasionally, he paused
to look backward through the leaves of the book in which
he wrote; sometimes he sat with suspended pen, thinking
deeply; and once or twice he laid it down, to press his hand
over eyes more weary than the mind that compelled them to
this late service.
Returning to his work after one of these pauses, he was a
little startled to see Sylvia standing on the threshold of the
door. Rising hastily to ask if she were ill, he stopped half
way across the room, for, with a thrill of apprehension and
surprise, he saw that she was asleep. Her eyes were open,
fixed and vacant, her face reposeful, her breathing regular,
and every sense apparently wrapt in the profoundest unconsciousness.
Fearful of awakening her too suddenly, Moor
stood motionless, yet full of interest, for this was his first
experience of somnambulism, and it was a strange, almost
an awful sight, to witness the blind obedience of the body
to the soul that ruled it.
For several minutes she remained where she first appeared.
Then, as if the dream demanded action, she stooped,
and seemed to take some object from a chair beside the door,
and steadily she went across the room, avoiding all obstacles
with the unerring instinct that often leads the sleepwalker
through dangers that appall his waking eyes, and sat
down in the great chair he had left, leaned her cheek upon
its arm, and rested tranquilly for several minutes. Soon
the dream disturbed her, and lifting her head, she bent forward,
as if addressing or caressing some one seated at her
feet. Involuntarily her husband smiled; for often when
they were alone he sat there reading or talking to her, while
she played with his hair, likening its brown abundance to
young Milton's curling locks in the picture overhead. The
smile had hardly risen when it was scared away, for Sylvia
suddenly sprung up with both hands out, crying in a voice
that rent the silence with its imploring energy —
“No, no, you must not speak! I will not hear you!”
Her own cry woke her. Consciousness and memory returned
together, and her face whitened with a look of terror,
as her bewildered eyes showed her not Warwick, but her
husband. This look, so full of fear, yet so intelligent,
startled Moor more than the apparition or the cry had
done, for a conviction flashed into his mind that some unsuspected
trouble had been burdening Sylvia, and was now
finding vent against her will. Anxious to possess himself
of the truth, and bent on doing so, he veiled his purpose
for a time, letting his unchanged manner reassure and compose
her.
“Dear child, don't look so lost and wild. You are quite
safe, and have only been wandering in your sleep. Why,
Mrs. Macbeth, have you murdered some one, that you go
crying out in this uncanny way, frightening me as much as
I seem to have frightened you?”
“I have murdered sleep. What did I do? what did I
say?” she asked, trembling and shrinking as she dropped
into her chair.
Hoping to quiet her, he took his place on the footstool,
and told her what had passed. At first, she listened with a
divided mind, for so strongly was she still impressed with
the vividness of the dream, she half expected Warwick to
rise like Banquo, and claim the seat that a single occupancy
seemed to have made his own. An expression of intense
relief replaced that of fear, when she had heard all, and
she composed herself with the knowledge that her secret
was still hers. For, dreary bosom-guest as it was, she had
not yet resolved to end her trial.
“What set you walking, Sylvia?”
“I recollect hearing the clock strike one, and thinking I
would come down to see what you were doing so late, but
must have dropped off and carried out my design asleep.
You see I put on wrapper and slippers as I always do,
when I take nocturnal rambles awake. How pleasant the
fire feels, and how cosy you look here; no wonder you like
to stay and enjoy it.”
She leaned forward warming her hands in unconscious
imitation of Adam, on the night which she had been recalling
before she slept. Moor watched her with increasing
disquiet; for never had he seen her in a mood like this.
She evaded his question, she averted her eyes, she half hid
her face, and with a gesture that of late had grown habitual,
seemed to try to hide her heart. Often had she baffled
him, sometimes grieved him, but never before showed that
she feared him. This wounded both his love and pride,
and this fixed his resolution, to wring from her an
explanation of the changes which had passed over her
mysterious. As if she feared silence, Sylvia soon spoke
again.
“Why are you up so late? This is not the first time I
have seen your lamp burning when I woke. What are you
studying so deeply?”
“My wife.”
Leaning on the arm of her chair he looked up wistfully,
tenderly, as if inviting confidence, sueing for affection.
The words, the look, smote Sylvia to the heart, and but for
the thought, “I have not tried long enough,” she would
have uttered the confession that leaped to her lips. Once
spoken, it would be too late for secret effort or success, and
this man's happiest hopes would vanish in a breath. Knowing
that his nature was almost as sensitively fastidious as a
woman's, she also knew that the discovery of her love for
Adam, innocent as it had been, self-denying as it tried to
be, would forever mar the beauty of his wedded life for
Moor. No hour of it would seem sacred, no act, look, or
word of hers entirely his own, nor any of the dear delights
of home remain undarkened by the shadow of his friend.
She could not speak yet, and turning her eyes to the fire,
she asked —
“Why study me? Have you no better book?”
“None that I love to read so well or have such need to
understand; because, though nearest and dearest as you are
to me, I seem to know you less than any friend I have. I
do not wish to wound you, dear, nor be exacting; but since
we were married you have grown more shy than ever, and
the act which should have drawn us tenderly together seems
to have estranged us. You never talk now of yourself, or
ask me to explain the working of that busy mind of yours;
were pleasanter than my society. Is it, Sylvia?”
“Sometimes; I always liked to be alone, you know.”
She answered as truly as she could, feeling that his love
demanded every confidence but the one cruel one which
would destroy its peace past help.
“I knew I had a most tenacious heart, but I hoped it
was not a selfish one,” he sorrowfully said. “Now I see
that it is, and deeply regret that my hopeful spirit, my impatient
love, has brought disappointment to us both. I
should have waited longer, should have been less confident
of my own power to win you, and never let you waste your
life in vain endeavors to be happy when I was not all to you
that you expected. I should not have consented to your
wish to spend the winter here so much alone with me. I
should have known that such a quiet home and studious
companion could not have many charms for a young girl
like you. Forgive me, I will do better, and this one-sided
life of ours shall be changed; for while I have been supremely
content you have been miserable.”
It was impossible to deny it, and with a tearless sob she
laid her arm about his neck, her head on his shoulder, and
mutely confessed the truth of what he said. The trouble
deepened in his face, but he spoke out more cheerfully, believing
that he had found the secret sorrow.
“Thank heaven, nothing is past mending, and we will
yet be happy. An entire change shall be made; you shall
no longer devote yourself to me, but I to you. Will you
go abroad, and forget this dismal home until its rest grows
inviting, Sylvia?”
“No, Geoffrey, not yet. I will learn to make the home
pleasant, I will work harder, and leave no time for ennui
I can do it better here than anywhere. Let me try
again.”
“No, Sylvia, you work too hard already; you do everything
with such vehemence you wear out your body before
your will is weary, and that brings melancholy. I am very
credulous, but when I see that acts belie words I cease to
believe. These months assure me that you are not happy;
have I found the secret thorn that frets you?”
She did not answer, for truth she could not, and falsehood
she would not, give him. He rose, went walking to
and fro, searching memory, heart, and conscience for any
other cause, but found none, and saw only one way out of his
bewilderment. He drew a chair before her, sat down, and
looking at her with the masterful expression dominant in
his face, asked briefly —
“Sylvia, have I been tyrannical, unjust, unkind, since
you came to me?”
“Oh, Geoffrey, too generous, too just, too tender!”
“Have I claimed any rights but those you gave me, entreated
or demanded any sacrifices knowingly and wilfully?”
“Never.”
“Now I do claim my right to know your heart; I do
entreat and demand one thing, your confidence.”
Then she felt that the hour had come, and tried to prepare
to meet it as she should by remembering that she had
endeavored prayerfully, desperately, despairingly, to do her
duty, and had failed. Warwick was right, she could not
forget him. There was such vitality in the man and in the
sentiment he inspired, that it endowed his memory with a
power more potent than the visible presence of her husband.
The knowledge of his love now undid the work that ignorance
more she struggled to forget, the deeper, dearer, grew the
yearning that must be denied, till months of fruitless effort
convinced her that it was impossible to outlive a passion
more indomitable than will, or penitence, or perseverance.
Now she saw the wisdom of Adam's warning, and felt that
he knew both his friend's heart and her own better than
herself. Now she bitterly regretted that she had not
spoken out when he was there to help her, and before the
least deceit had taken the dignity from sorrow. Nevertheless,
though she trembled she resolved; and while Moor
spoke on, she made ready to atone for past silence by a perfect
loyalty to truth.
“My wife, concealment is not generosity, for the heaviest
trouble shared together could not so take the sweetness from
my life, the charm from home, or make me more miserable
than this want of confidence. It is a double wrong, because
you not only mar my peace but destroy your own by
wasting health and happiness in vain endeavors to bear
some grief alone. Your eye seldom meets mine now, your
words are measured, your actions cautious, your innocent
gayety all gone. You hide your heart from me, you hide
your face; I seem to have lost the frank girl whom I loved,
and found a melancholy woman, who suffers silently till her
honest nature rebels, and brings her to confession in her
sleep. There is no page of my life which I have not freely
shown you; do I do not deserve an equal candor? Shall
I not receive it?”
“Yes.”
“Sylvia, what stands between us?”
“Adam Warwick.”
Earnest as a prayer, brief as a command had been the
before him, put back the veil that should never hide her
from him any more, looked up into her husband's face without
one shadow in her own, and steadily told all.
The revelation was too utterly unexpected, too difficult of
belief to be at once accepted or understood. Moor started
at the name, then leaned forward, breathless and intent, as
if to seize the words before they left her lips; words that
recalled incidents and acts dark and unmeaning till the
spark of intelligence fired a long train of memories and
enlightened him with terrible rapidity. Blinded by his
own devotion, the knowledge of Adam's love and loss
seemed gages of his fidelity; the thought that he loved
Sylvia never had occurred to him, and seemed incredible
even when her own lips told it. She had been right in
fearing the effect this knowledge would have upon him. It
stung his pride, wounded his heart, and forever marred his
faith in love and friendship. As the truth broke over him,
cold and bitter as a billow of the sea, she saw gathering in
his face the still white grief and indignation of an outraged
spirit, suffering with all a woman's pain, with all a man's
intensity of passion. His eye grew fiery and stern, the
veins rose dark upon his forehead, the lines about the
mouth showed hard and grim, the whole face altered terribly.
As she looked, Sylvia thanked heaven that Warwick
was not there to feel the sudden atonement for an innocent
offence which his friend might have exacted before this natural
but unworthy temptation had passed by.
“Now I have given all my confidence though I may have
broken both our hearts in doing it. I do not hope for pardon
yet, but I am sure of pity, and I leave my fate in your
hands. Geoffrey, what shall I do?”
“Wait for me,” and putting her away, Moor left the
room.
Suffering too much in mind to remember that she had a
body, Sylvia remained where she was, and leaning her head
upon her hands tried to recall what had passed, to nerve
herself for what was to come. Her first sensation was one
of unutterable relief. The long struggle was over; the
haunting care was gone; there was nothing now to conceal;
she might be herself again, and her spirit rose with something
of its old elasticity as the heavy burden was removed.
A moment she enjoyed this hard-won freedom, then the
memory that the burden was not lost but laid on other
shoulders, filled her with an anguish too sharp to find vent
in tears, too deep to leave any hope of cure except in action.
But how act? She had performed the duty so long, so
vainly delayed, and when the first glow of satisfaction
passed, found redoubled anxiety, regret, and pain before
her. Clear and hard the truth stood there, and no power
of hers could recall the words that showed it to her husband,
could give them back the early blindness, or the later
vicissitudes of hope and fear. In the long silence that filled
the room she had time to calm her perturbation and comfort
her remorse by the vague but helpful belief which seldom
deserts sanguine spirits, that something, as yet unseen and
unsuspected, would appear to heal the breach, to show what
was to be done, and to make all happy in the end.
Where Moor went or how long he stayed Sylvia never
knew, but when at length he came, her first glance showed
her that pride is as much to be dreaded as passion. No
gold is without alloy, and now she saw the shadow of a
nature which had seemed all sunshine. She knew he was
very proud, but never thought to be the cause of its saddest
could make the silent sorrow of a just and gentle man a
harder trial to sustain than the hottest anger, the bitterest
reproach. Scarcely paler than when he went, there was no
sign of violent emotion in his countenance. His eye shone
keen and dark, an anxious fold crossed his forehead, and a
melancholy gravity replaced the cheerful serenity his face
once wore. Wherein the alteration lay Sylvia could not
tell, but over the whole man some subtle change had passed.
The sudden frost which had blighted the tenderest affection
of his life seemed to have left its chill behind, robbing his
manner of its cordial charm, his voice of its heartsome ring,
and giving him the look of one who sternly said — “I must
suffer, but it shall be alone.”
Cold and quiet, he stood regarding her with a strange
expression, as if endeavoring to realize the truth, and see
in her not his wife but Warwick's lover. Oppressed by the
old fear, now augmented by a measureless regret, she could
only look up at him feeling that her husband had become
her judge. Yet as she looked she was conscious of a momentary
wonder at the seeming transposition of character
in the two so near and dear to her. Strong-hearted Warwick
wept like any child, but accepted his disappointment
without complaint and bore it manfully. Moor, from
whom she would sooner have expected such demonstration,
grew stormy first, then stern, as she once believed his friend
would have done. She forgot that Moor's pain was the
sharper, his wound the deeper, for the patient hope cherished
so long; the knowledge that he never had been, never could
be loved as he loved; the sense of wrong that could not but
burn even in the meekest heart at such a late discovery
such an entire loss.
Sylvia spoke first, not audibly, but with a little gesture of
supplication, a glance of sorrowful submission. He answered
both, not by lamentation or reproach, but by just enough of
his accustomed tenderness in touch and tone to make her
tears break forth, as he placed her in the ancient chair so
often occupied together, took the one opposite, and sweeping
a clear space on the table between them, looked across
it with the air of a man bent on seeing his way and following
it at any cost.
“Now Sylvia, I can listen as I should.”
“Oh, Geoffrey, what can I say?”
“Repeat all you have already told me. I only gathered
one fact then, now I want the circumstances, for I find this
confession difficult of belief.”
Perhaps no sterner expiation could have been required of
her than to sit there, face to face, eye to eye, and tell again
that little history of thwarted love and fruitless endeavor.
Excitement had given her courage for the first confession,
now it was torture to carefully repeat what had poured
freely from her lips before. But she did it, glad to prove
her penitence by any test he might apply. Tears often
blinded her, uncontrollable emotion often arrested her; and
more than once she turned on him a beseeching look, which
asked as plainly as words, “Must I go on?”
Intent on learning all, Moor was unconscious of the trial
he imposed, unaware that the change in himself was the
keenest reproach he could have made, and still with a persistency
as gentle as inflexible, he pursued his purpose to
the end. When great drops rolled down her cheeks he
dried them silently; when she paused, he waited till she
calmed herself; and when she spoke he listened with few
interruptions but a question now and then. Occasionally a
some phrase, implying rather than expressing Warwick's
love or Sylvia's longing, escaped the narrator's lips, and
when she described their parting on that very spot, his eye
went from her to the hearth her words seemed to make
desolate, with a glance she never could forget. But when
the last question was answered, the last appeal for pardon
brokenly uttered, nothing but the pale pride remained; and
his voice was cold and quiet as his mien.
“Yes, it is this which has baffled and kept me groping in
the dark so long, for I wholly trusted what I wholly loved.”
“Alas, it was that very confidence that made my task seem
so necessary and so hard. How often I longed to go to you
with my great trouble as I used to do with lesser ones.
But here you would suffer more than I; and having done
the wrong, it was for me to pay the penalty. So like
many another weak yet willing soul, I tried to keep you
happy at all costs.”
“One frank word before I married you would have spared
us this. Could you not foresee the end and dare to speak
it, Sylvia?”
“I see it now, I did not then, else I would have spoken
as freely as I speak to-night. I thought I had outlived my
love for Adam; it seemed kind to spare you a knowledge
that would disturb your friendship, so though I told the
truth, I did not tell it all. I thought temptations came
from without; I could withstand such, and I did, even
when it wore Adam's shape. This temptation came so suddenly,
seemed so harmless, generous and just, that I yielded
to it unconscious that it was one. Surely I deceived myself
as cruelly as I did you, and God knows I have tried to
atone for it when time taught me my fatal error.”
“Poor child, it was too soon for you to play the perilous
game of hearts. I should have known it, and left you to
the safe and simple joys of girlhood. Forgive me that I
have kept you a prisoner so long; take off the fetter I put
on, and go, Sylvia.”
“No, do not put me from you yet; do not think that I
can hurt you so, and then be glad to leave you suffering
alone. Look like your kind self if you can; talk to me
as you used to; let me show you my heart and you will see
how large a place you fill in it. Let me begin again, for
now the secret is told there is no fear to keep out love; and
I can give my whole strength to learning the lesson you
have tried so patiently to teach.”
“You cannot, Sylvia. We are as much divorced as if
judge and jury had decided the righteous but hard separation
for us. You can never be a wife to me with an unconquerable
affection in your heart; I can never be your husband
while the shadow of a fear remains. I will have all or
nothing.”
“Adam foretold this. He knew you best, and I should
have followed the brave counsel he gave me long ago. Oh,
if he were only here to help us now!”
The desire broke from Sylvia's lips involuntarily as she
turned for strength to the strong soul that loved her. But
it was like wind to smouldering fire; a pang of jealousy
wrung Moor's heart, and he spoke out with a flash of the
eye that startled Sylvia more than the rapid change of
voice and manner.
“Hush! Say anything of yourself or me, and I can
bear it, but spare me the sound of Adam's name to-night.
A man's nature is not forgiving like a woman's, and the
best of us harbor impulses you know nothing of. If I am
self-respect.”
All the coldness and pride passed from Moor's face as
the climax of his sorrow came; with an impetuous gesture
he threw his arms across the table, and laid down his head
in a paroxysm of tearless suffering such as men only know.
How Sylvia longed to speak! But what consolation
could the tenderest words supply? She searched for some
alleviating suggestion, some happier hope; none came.
Her eye turned imploringly to the pictured Fates above her
as if imploring them to aid her. But they looked back at
her inexorably dumb, and instinctively her thought passed
beyond them to the Ruler of all fates, asking the help which
never is refused. No words embodied her appeal, no sound
expressed it, only a voiceless cry from the depths of a contrite
spirit, owning its weakness, making known its want.
She prayed for submission, but her deeper need was seen,
and when she asked for patience to endure, Heaven sent her
power to act, and out of this sharp trial brought her a better
strength and clearer knowledge of herself than years of
smoother experience could have bestowed. A sense of security,
of stability, came to her as that entire reliance assured
her by its all-sustaining power that she had found what
she most needed to make life clear to her and duty sweet.
With her face in her hands, she sat, forgetful that she was
not alone, as in that brief but precious moment she felt the
exceeding comfort of a childlike faith in the one Friend
who, when we are deserted by all, even by ourselves, puts
forth His hand and gathers us tenderly to Himself.
Her husband's voice recalled her, and looking up she
showed him such an earnest, patient countenance, it touched
him like an unconscious rebuke. The first tears she had
into his voice, softening the dismissal which had been more
coldly begun.
“Dear, silence and rest are best for both of us to-night.
We cannot treat this trouble as we should till we are calmer;
then we will take counsel how soonest to end what never
should have been begun. Forgive me, pray for me, and in
sleep forget me for a little while.”
He held the door for her, but as she passed Sylvia lifted
her face for the good night caress without which she had
never left him since she became his wife. She did not
speak, but her eye humbly besought this token of forgiveness;
nor was it denied. Moor laid his hand upon her lips,
saying, “these are Adam's now,” and kissed her on the
forehead.
Such a little thing: But it overcame Sylvia with the
sorrowful certainty of the loss which had befallen both, and
she crept away, feeling herself an exile from the heart
and home whose happy mistress she could never be again.
Moor watched the little figure going upward, and weeping
softly as it went, as if he echoed the sad “never any
more,” which those tears expressed, and when it vanished
with a backward look, shut himself in alone with his great
sorrow.
| CHAPTER XVII.
ASLEEP AND AWAKE. Moods | |