Chapter XXXII

. . . . “Lord, if too obdurate I,
Choose Thou before that spirit die,
A piercing pain, a killing sin,
And to my dead heart run them in!”

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

The days pass, we can always be certain of that; we live, we eat our breakfast, and we do our work.

The superficial claims an absolute sway over the history of daily bread, and Arthur Field’s private struggle was no exception to the general rule. He was much too awake to the knowledge of things to expect the Heavens to fall, only sometimes as he looked at Rosamonde, she recalled to his mind such old sweet memories, such sad, bright hopes that shone or fell, or vanished as they came; old quarrels and old tears, and the belief so radiant and so true, in joy and love, shaken and darkened now into a faith with clipped wings, and all uncertain of its flight, until the heart-ache grew more dominant than he cared to own, and he rushed into his work with feverish activity. Rosamonde herself was not more happily placed, the new nurse never let her out of her sight, and the servants all looked curiously at her.

She had written an imploring letter to Vera which had received no answer, and Arthur’s stern, cold manner, and attempts at conversation on abstract points, frightened and bored her. She liked French novels, and Arthur threw her favourites in the fire; she liked Fuller’s sweets, and Arthur limited her to plain chocolate. Finally, one Sunday morning, he met her going to church and asked her where she was going, she mentioned a Roman Church in the neighbourhood.

“Why go to a Roman Church?” he asked her coldly. “I prefer a less excitable service for you, better go to St. George’s, Hanover Square.” Rosamonde cried like a naughty child, and throwing her book of devotions on the floor, ran out of the room. It ended in her going nowhere, and being very rude to the nurse.

The next morning she received a beautifully gilt-edged card of invitation to Lady Middleton’s ball.

“I suppose you won’t let me go?” she said. “I believe you wish to send me mad, so that you can shut me up in a lunatic asylum.” Arthur Field studied the card very carefully, he was weighing many things in his mind. He had not expected a social opening; was it an opportunity, or would it prove a temptation? He looked across the table at Rosamonde’s flushed, anxious face. Disappointment was, he knew, quite the worst thing for her. He pushed his chair back impatiently from the table.

“Let us go by all means,” he said. “Have a first-rate dressmaker fit you out, and send the bill in to me.” Rosamonde became suddenly as happy as a girl. The nurse was sent for, and Arthur left her in a whirl of delightful indecisions. He became conscious, as he drove off to the hospital, that if all went well at the ball, in front of him stretched the dreary lane of a mock, social existence. For a man entirely overworked, and passionately attached to one of the deeper problems, this prospect was an inquisition. He wondered a little at the purpose that was in him to sacrifice himself and his life work to the flighty commonplace little creature he had married. It would have been so easy to have let her sink, and no one could have blamed him. He made excuses and reasons for himself, he said that it was all because he hated to be beaten, but he was quite aware that it was something a great deal larger than that. He had let the infinite into his life, through every conquered instinct, and severe self-government, he had given room even against his judgment to Unseen Powers, and the result was that within him was something stronger than himself, making for sacrifice. He would have told you, that if you give human nature rope enough, it will use it for one purpose—destruction, yet the rope life had given him he threw out over its waters to preserve—what?—why, simply Rosamonde, a butterfly submerged. He saw himself with a grim smile facing the Immortals with Andrea Del Sarto’s great excuse:

“So still they overcome
Because there’s still Lucrezia, as I choose.”

The hansom stopped with a plunge and a jerk at the familiar gate, the tall, brisk figure shot out across the square into the theatre. One by one the patients were brought in on stretchers, only the worst and most important cases, for it was his afternoon. Afterwards he went back into one of the wards with the Sister, there was a girl he always went to see if he had an extra moment, she had been operated upon, but her case was quite hopeless. She knew it, and he had never seen a pluckier soul. He looked down at her with kind, grave eyes.

“Bad night?” he questioned. The girl smiled.

“A fight, doctor,” she said, “but I came out top.” A queer impulse seized him, he bent over her.

“I’m fighting, too,” he said, “but I don’t know how I shall come out.”

“I feel sure, sir,” she said, looking full into his eyes, “that you’ll come out all right.”

“How do you know?” he asked her.

“Because God won’t let go,” said the girl. Arthur Field left her abruptly—with a curt good-day to the Sister. He never saw her again, for her fight ended in the final freedom only a few days after, but all that day his sub-conscious voice repeated the girl’s message, “God won’t let go.” And when a week afterwards Rosamonde knocked at his door to show him her ball-dress, the words forced a smile that was almost kindly to his lips.

“You look very fine, my dear girl,” he said to her quietly. She was flushed with the triumph of her appearance.

“Vera never was really pretty,” she said. “Do you think so?” He gave her his arm to take her down to the carriage.