 | CHAPTER I.
IN A YEAR. Moods |  |
1. CHAPTER I.
IN A YEAR.
The room fronted the west, but a black cloud, barred
with red, robbed the hour of twilight's tranquil charm.
Shadows haunted it, lurking in corners like spies set there
to watch the man who stood among them mute and motionless
as if himself a shadow. His eye turned often to the
window with a glance both vigilant and eager, yet saw
nothing but a tropical luxuriance of foliage scarcely stirred
by the sultry air heavy with odors that seemed to oppress
not refresh. He listened with the same intentness, yet
heard only the clamor of voices, the tramp of feet, the
chime of bells, the varied turmoil of a city when night is
defrauded of its peace by being turned to day. He watched
and waited for something; presently it came. A viewless
visitant, welcomed by longing soul and body as the man,
with extended arms and parted lips received the voiceless
greeting of the breeze that came winging its way across
the broad Atlantic, full of healthful cheer for a home-sick
heart. Far out he leaned; held back the thick-leaved
boughs already rustling with a grateful stir, chid the shrill
and drank deep draughts of the blessed wind that seemed
to cool the fever of his blood and give him back the vigor
he had lost.
A sudden light shone out behind him filling the room
with a glow that left no shadow in it. But he did not see
the change, nor hear the step that broke the hush, nor turn
to meet the woman who stood waiting for a lover's welcome.
An indefinable air of sumptuous life surrounded her, and
made the brilliant room a fitting frame for the figure standing
there with warm-hued muslins blowing in the wind.
A figure full of the affluent beauty of womanhood in its
prime, bearing unmistakable marks of the polished pupil
of the world in the grace that flowed through every motion,
the art which taught each feature to play its part with the
ease of second nature and made dress the foil to loveliness.
The face was delicate and dark as a fine bronze, a low forehead
set in shadowy waves of hair, eyes full of slumberous
fire, and a passionate yet haughty mouth that seemed
shaped alike for caresses and commands.
A moment she watched the man before her, while over
her countenance passed rapid variations of pride, resentment,
and tenderness. Then with a stealthy step, an assured
smile, she went to him and touched his hand, saying,
in a voice inured to that language which seems made for
lovers' lips —
“Only a month betrothed, and yet so cold and gloomy,
Adam!”
With a slight recoil, a glance of soft detestation veiled
and yet visible, Warwick answered like a satiric echo —
“Only a month betrothed, and yet so fond and jealous,
Ottila!”
Unchilled by the action, undaunted by the look, the
white arm took him captive, the beautiful face drew nearer,
and the persuasive voice asked wistfully —
“Was it of me you thought when you turned with that
longing in your eye?”
“No.”
“Was it of a fairer or a dearer friend than I?”
“Yes.”
The black brows contracted ominously, the mouth grew
hard, the eyes glittered, the arm became a closer bond, the
entreaty a command.
“Let me know the name, Adam.”
“Self-respect.”
She laughed low to herself, and the mobile features softened
to their former tenderness as she looked up into that
other face so full of an accusing significance which she
would not understand.
“I have waited two long hours; have you no kinder
greeting, love?”
“I have no truer one. Ottila, if a man has done unwittingly
a weak, unwise, or wicked act, what should he
do when he discovers it?”
“Repent and mend his ways; need I tell you that?”
“I have repented; will you help me mend my ways?”
“Confess, dear sinner; I will shrive you and grant absolution
for the past, whatever it may be.”
“How much would you do for love of me?”
“Anything for you, Adam.”
“Then give me back my liberty.”
He rose erect and stretched his hands to her with a gesture
of entreaty, an expression of intense desire. Ottila
fell back as if the forceful words and action swept her from
out at her eyes, and she asked incredulously —
“Do you mean it?”
“Yes; now, entirely, and forever!”
If he had lifted his strong arm and struck her, it would
not have daunted with such pale dismay. An instant she
stood like one who saw a chasm widening before her, which
she had no power to cross. Then as if disappointment was
a thing impossible and unknown, she seized the imploring
hands in a grasp that turned them white with its passionate
pressure as she cried —
“No, I will not! I have waited for your love so long
I cannot give it up; you shall not take it from me!”
But as if the words had made the deed irrevocable, Warwick
put her away, speaking with the stern accent of one
who fears a traitor in himself.
“I cannot take from you what you never had. Stand
there and hear me. No; I will have no blandishments to
keep me from my purpose, no soft words to silence the hard
ones I mean to speak, no more illusions to hide us from
each other and ourselves.”
“Adam, you are cruel.”
“Better seem cruel than be treacherous; better wound
your pride now than your heart hereafter, when too late you
discover that I married you without confidence, respect, or
love. For once in your life you shall hear the truth as
plain as words can make it. You shall see me at my best
as at my worst; you shall know what I have learned to find
in you; shall look back into the life behind us, forward into
the life before us, and if there be any candor in you I will
wring from you an acknowledgment that you have led me
into an unrighteous compact. Unrighteous, because you
nobler instincts in me, and on such a foundation there can
be no abiding happiness.”
“Go on, I will hear you.” And conscious that she could
not control the will now thoroughly aroused, Ottila bent
before it as if meekly ready to hear all things for love's
sake.
A disdainful smile passed over Warwick's face, as with
an eye that fixed and held her own, he rapidly went on,
never pausing to choose smooth phrases or soften facts, but
seeming to find a relish in the utterance of bitter truths
after the honeyed falsehood he had listened to so long. Yet
through all the harshness glowed the courage of an upright
soul, the fervor of a generous heart.
“I know little of such things and care less; but I think
few lovers pass through a scene such as this is to be, because
few have known lives like ours, or are such as we. You a
woman stronger for good or ill than those about you, I a
man untamed by any law but that of my own will. Strength
is royal, we both possess it; as kings and queens drop their
titles in their closets, let us drop all disguises and see each
other as God sees us. This compact must be broken; let
me show you why. Three months ago I came here to take
the chill of an Arctic winter out of blood and brain. I
have done so and am the worse for it. In melting frost I
have kindled fire; a fire that will burn all virtue out of me
unless I quench it at once. I mean to do so, because I will
not keep the ten commandments before men's eyes and break
them every hour in my heart.”
He paused a moment, as if hotter words rose to his lips
than generosity would let him utter, and when he spoke
again there was more reproach than anger in his voice.
“Ottila, till I knew you I loved no woman but my
mother; I wooed no wife, bought no mistress, desired no
friend, but led a life austere as any monk's, asking only
freedom and my work. Could you not let me keep my
independence? Were there not men enough who would
find no degradation in a spiritual slavery like this? Would
nothing but my subjection satisfy your unconquerable appetite
for power?”
“Did I seek you, Adam?”
“Yes! Not openly, I grant, your art was too fine for
that; you shunned me that I might seek you to ask why.
In interviews that seemed to come by chance, you tried
every wile a woman owns, and they are many. You wooed
me as such as you alone can woo the hearts they know are
hardest to be won. You made your society a refreshment
in this climate of the passions; you hid your real self and
feigned that for which I felt most honor. You entertained
my beliefs with largest hospitality; encouraged my ambitions
with a sympathy so genial that I thought it genuine;
professed my scorn for shammery, and seemed an earnest
woman, eager to find the true, to do the right; a fit wife
for any man who desired a helpmate, not a toy. It showed
much strength of wit and will to conceive and execute the
design. It proved your knowledge of the virtues you could
counterfeit so well, else I never should have been where I
am now.”
“Your commendation is deserved, though so ungently
given, Adam.”
“There will be no more of it. If I am ungentle, it is
because I despise deceit, and you possess a guile that has
given me my first taste of self-contempt, and the draught is
bitter. Hear me out; for this reminiscence is my justification;
You seemed all this, but under the honest friendliness you
showed lurked the purpose you have since avowed, to conquer
most entirely the man who denied your right to rule
by the supremacy of beauty or of sex alone. You saw the
unsuspected fascination that detained me here when my
better self said `Go.' You allured my eye with loveliness,
my ear with music; piqued curiosity, pampered pride, and
subdued will by flatteries subtly administered. Beginning
afar off, you let all influences do their work till the moment
came for the effective stroke. Then you made a crowning
sacrifice of maiden modesty and owned you loved me.”
Shame burned red on Ottila's dark cheek, and ire flamed
up in her eyes, as the untamable spirit of the woman
answered against her will —
“It was not made in vain; for, rebellious as you are, it
subdued you, and with your own weapon, the bare truth.”
He had said truly, “You shall see me at my best as at
worst.” She did, for putting pride underneath his feet he
showed her a brave sincerity, which she could admire but
never imitate, and in owning a defeat achieved a victory.
“You think I shall deny this. I do not, but acknowledge
to the uttermost that, in spite of all resistance, I was
conquered by a woman. If it affords you satisfaction to
hear this, to know that it is hard to say, harder still to
feel, take the ungenerous delight; I give it to you as an
alms. But remember that if I have failed, no less have
you. For in that stormy heart of yours there is no sentiment
more powerful than that you feel for me, and through
it you will receive the retribution you have brought upon
yourself. You were elated with success, and forgot too
soon the character you had so well supported. You thought
month I have learned to know you as you are. A woman
of strong passions and weak principles; hungry for power
and intent on pleasure; accomplished in deceit and reckless
in trampling on the nobler instincts of a gifted but
neglected nature. Ottila, I have no faith in you, feel no
respect for the passion you inspire, own no allegiance to
the dominion you assert.”
“You cannot throw it off; it is too late.”
It was a rash defiance; she saw that as it passed her
lips, and would have given much to have recalled it. The
stern gravity of Warwick's face flashed into a stern indignation.
His eye shone like steel, but his voice dropped
lower and his hand closed like a vice as he said, with the
air of one who cannot conceal but can control sudden wrath
at a taunt to which past weakness gives a double sting —
“It never is too late. If the priest stood ready, and I
had sworn to marry you within the hour, I would break the
cath, and God would pardon it, for no man has a right to
embrace temptation and damn himself by a life-long lie.
You choose to make it a hard battle for me; you are
neither an honest friend nor a generous foe. No matter, I
have fallen into an ambuscade and must cut my way out
as I can, and as I will, for there is enough of this Devil's
work in the world without our adding to it.”
“You cannot escape with honor, Adam.”
“I cannot remain with honor. Do not try me too hardly,
Ottila. I am not patient, but I do desire to be just.
I confess my weakness; will not that satisfy you? Blazon
your wrong as you esteem it; ask sympathy of those who
see not as I see; reproach, defy, lament. I will bear it
all, will make any other sacrifice as an atonement, but I
your world recognizes, both for your sake and my own.”
She watched him as he spoke, and to herself confessed a
slavery more absolute than any he had known, for with a
pang she felt that she had indeed fallen into the snare she
spread for him, and in this man, who dared to own his
weakness and her power, she had found a master. Was it
too late to keep him? She knew that soft appeals were
vain, tears like water on a rock, and with the skill that
had subdued him once she endeavored to retrieve her blunder
by an equanimity which had more effect than prayers
or protestations. Warwick had read her well, had shown
her herself stripped of all disguises, and left her no defence
but tardy candor. She had the wisdom to see this, the wit
to use it and restore the shadow of the power whose substance
she had lost. Leaving her beauty to its silent work,
she fixed on him eyes whose lustre was quenched in unshed
tears, and said with an earnest, humble voice —
“I, too, desire to be just. I will not reproach, defy, or
lament, but leave my fate to you. I am all you say, yet
in your judgment remember merey, and believe that at
twenty-five there is still hope for the noble but neglected
nature, still time to repair the faults of birth, education,
and orphanhood. You say, I have a daring will, a love of
conquest. Can I not will to overcome myself and do it?
Can I not learn to be the woman I have seemed? Love
has worked greater miracles; may it not work this? I
have longed to be a truer creature than I am; have seen
my wasted gifts, felt my capacity for better things, and
looked for help from many sources, but never found it till
you came. Do you wonder that I tried to make it mine?
Adam, you are a self-elected missionary to the world's
indigence of souls. I am a pauper in your eyes; stretch
out your hand and save me from myself.”
Straight through the one vulnerable point in the man's
pride went this appeal to the man's pity. Indignation
could not turn it aside, contempt blunt its edge, or wounded
feeling lessen its force; and yet it failed: for in Adam
Warwick justice was stronger than mercy, reason than impulse,
head than heart. Experience was a teacher whom
he trusted; he had weighed this woman and found her
wanting; truth was not in her; the patient endeavor, the
hard-won success so possible to many was hardly so to her,
and a union between them could bring no lasting good to
either. He knew this; had decided it in a calmer hour
than the present, and by that decision he would now abide
proof against all attacks from without or from within.
More gently, but as inflexibly as before, he said —
“I do put out my hand and offer you the same bitter
draught of self-contempt that proved a tonic to my own
weak will. I can help, pity, and forgive you heartily, but
I dare not marry you. The tie that binds us is a passion
of the senses, not a love of the soul. You lack the moral
sentiment that makes all gifts and graces subservient to
the virtues that render womanhood a thing to honor as well
as love. I can relinquish youth, beauty, worldly advantages,
but I must reverence above all others the woman
whom I marry, and feel an affection that elevates me by
quickening all that is noblest and manliest in me. With
you I should be either a tyrant or a slave. I will be
neither, but go solitary all my life rather than rashly mortgage
the freedom kept inviolate so long, or let the impulse
of an hour mar the worth of coming years.”
Bent and broken by the unanswerable accusations of
what seemed a conscience in human shape, Ottila had sunk
down before him with an abandonment as native to her as
the indomitable will which still refused to relinquish hope
even in despair.
“Go,” she said, “I am not worthy of salvation. Yet
it is hard, very hard, to lose the one motive strong enough
to save me, the one sincere affection of my life.”
Warwick had expected a tempestuous outbreak at his
decision; this entire submission touched him, for in the
last words of her brief lament he detected the accent of
truth, and longed to answer it. He paused, searching for
the just thing to be done. Ottila, with hidden face, watched
while she wept, and waited hopefully for the relenting sign.
In silence the two, a modern Samson and Delilah, waged
the old war that has gone on ever since the strong locks
were shorn and the temple fell; a war which fills the world
with unmated pairs and the long train of evils arising from
marriages made from impulse, and not principle. As usual,
the most generous was worsted. The silence pleaded well
for Ottila, and when Warwick spoke it was to say impetuously
—
“You are right! It is hard that when two err one alone
should suffer. I should have been wise enough to see the
danger, brave enough to fly from it. I was not, and I owe
you some reparation for the pain my folly brings you. I
offer you the best, because the hardest, sacrifice that I can
make. You say love can work miracles, and that yours is
the sincerest affection of your life; prove it. In three
months you conquered me; can you conquer yourself in
twelve?”
“Try me!”
“I will. Nature takes a year for her harvests; I give
you the same for yours. If you will devote one half the
energy and care to this work that you devoted to that other,
— will earnestly endeavor to cherish all that is womanly
and noble in yourself, and through desire for another's
respect earn your own, — I, too, will try to make myself a
fitter mate for any woman, and keep our troth unbroken for
a year. Can I do more?”
“I dared not ask so much! I have not deserved it, but
I will. Only love me, Adam, and let me save myself
through you.”
Flushed and trembling with delight she rose, sure the
trial was safely passed, but found that for herself a new
one had begun. Warwick offered his hand.
“Farewell, then.”
“Going? Surely you will stay and help me through
my long probation?”
“No; if your desire has any worth you can work it out
alone. We should be hindrances to one another, and the
labor be ill done.”
“Where will you go? Not far, Adam.”
“Straight to the North. This luxurious life enervates
me; the pestilence of slavery lurks in the air and infects
me; I must build myself up anew and find again the man
I was.”
“When must you go? Not soon.”
“At once.”
“I shall hear from you?”
“Not till I come.”
“But I shall need encouragement, shall grow hungry
for a word, a thought from you. A year is very long to
wait and work alone.”
Eloquently she pleaded with voice and eyes and tender
lips, but Warwick did not yield.
“If the test be tried at all it must be fairly tried. We
must stand entirely apart and see what saving virtue lies
in self-denial and self-help.”
“You will forget me, Adam. Some woman with a
calmer heart than mine will teach you to love as you desire
to love, and when my work is done it will be all in vain.”
“Never in vain if it be well done, for such labor is its
own reward. Have no fear; one such lesson will last a
lifetime. Do your part heartily, and I will keep my
pledge until the year is out.”
“And then, what then?”
“If I see in you the progress both should desire, if this
tie bears the test of time and absence, and we find any
basis for an abiding union, then, Ottila, I will marry you.”
“But if meanwhile that colder, calmer woman comes to
you, what then?”
“Then I will not marry you.”
“Ah, your promise is a man's vow, made only to be
broken. I have no faith in you.”
“I think you may have. There will be no time for
more folly; I must repair the loss of many wasted days, —
nay, not wasted if I have learned this lesson well. Rest
secure; it is impossible that I should love.”
“You believed that three months ago and yet you are a
lover now.”
Ottila smiled an exultant smile, and Warwick acknowledged
his proven fallibility by a haughty flush and a frank
amendment.
“Let it stand, then, that if I love again I am to wait in
silence till the year is out and you absolve me from my
pledge. Does that satisfy you?”
“It must. But you will come, whatever changes may
befall you? Promise me this.”
“I promise it.”
“Going so soon? Oh, wait a little!”
“When a duty is to be done, do it at once; delay is
dangerous. Good night.”
“Give me some remembrance of you. I have nothing,
for you are not a generous lover.”
“Generous in deeds, Ottila. I have given you a year's
liberty, a dear gift from one who values it more than life.
Now I add this.”
He drew her to him, kissed the red mouth and looked
down upon her with a glance that made his man's face as
pitiful as any woman's as he let her lean there happy in
the hope given at such cost. For a moment nothing stirred
in the room but the soft whisper of the wind. For a moment
Warwick's austere life looked hard to him, love seemed
sweet, submission possible; for in all the world this was
the only woman who clung to him, and it was beautiful to
cherish and be cherished after years of solitude. A long
sigh of desire and regret broke from him, and at the sound
a stealthy smile touched Ottila's lips as she whispered,
with a velvet cheek against his own —
“Love, you will stay?”
“I will not stay!”
And like one who cries out sharply within himself, “Get
thee behind me!” he broke away.
“Adam, come back to me! Come back!”
He looked over his shoulder, saw the fair woman in the
heart of the warm glow, heard her cry of love and longing,
knew the life of luxurious ease that waited for him, but
steadily went out into the night, only answering —
“In a year.”
| CHAPTER I.
IN A YEAR. Moods | |