Chapter VI: Part III: The Marriage Night

A dull fear troubled me from the moment when Phyllida, with many piteous words, begged me to leave her to herself until evening. Her face was averted all the time, although I strove to make her look at mine, in the belief that my agony at this phase might excite her pity and compel the confidence she withheld.

Assured that she loved me with all her soul, I had no distrust of her. Phyllida was the perfection of purity; in what I knew of her past she had shone with a splendid chasteness, and not a breath had sullied her repute. The curious letters she had read the night before told of nothing but the holiest love, and the insinuation concerning an influence that would prevail was nothing more than a poet’s fancy. I had conceived many such: in my story of _Hope Deferred_ Michael strives to bind Mary so, and despite her fears of being his bond-maid for ever, at the dawn of a stronger passion, a stretching of the limbs, a higher inspiration breaks lightly asunder the shrivelled withes, and Michael becomes a memory and no more.

Thus, to a great extent, must it be with Phyllida. At the birth of her love for me she had broken most of the bonds--broken them unwittingly: for to-day she was unaware of her freedom, fancying that the past still held her and that she had sinned against fidelity. I knew otherwise; the few films of gossamer that remained would soon disappear and leave her entirely mine.

Yet was I depressed; and when, after her entreaties had wrung the promise from me, and she had begun to return to Colmer alone, I took her seat and followed with my eyes, as with a step uncertain and often lingering, she threaded the intricacies of the wood. When she had disappeared I prepared for a disinterment of memories.

The aromatic scent of the resin, as it oozed from the heated bark, overburdened the air. In a distant glade the light played so daintily that I amused myself by picturing seraphim sliding down the beams. I moved there and rested amongst sun-stricken trees, whose perfect silhouettes fretted the ground. A ripe-berried mountain-ash grew near--how it came in a fir-wood I cannot imagine--and a culver, undisturbed by my silent presence flew to the key-twig and perched there crooning, until the leaves shook, and then all the boughs, and finally the trunk itself.

Had I been prophetic in my early writings? Had I suffered in the anguish I felt when writing the last chapter of _Hope Deferred_ (in which Mary Blakesmoor loses her wifely love and becomes self-concentrated) a foretaste of my own doom?... Moreover in _Alnaschar’s Bride_ the fairest hopes were blasted....

But Phyllida was different--was stronger and purer than any of these visioned heroines; and surely I had a firmer purpose than their lovers? Nay, as much as she excelled the women in beauty, I excelled the men in strength of will. I would not be thwarted. Who grapples with fortune conquers, and I would conquer!

What folly ramping in my brain made me imagine that such puppets could resemble my living wife! I began to accuse myself of faithlessness, and grew desirous beyond endurance to touch her hands.

How slowly the afternoon faded! The day had been too fine for a gorgeous sky, so the sun, contented with his work, descended quietly into the tops of the distant trees, shook himself there for awhile, and then sank out of sight, leaving the clouds stained bright yellow. Soon after his departure a grey curtain crept up to the zenith, and blotted out the few stars that had already appeared.

I rose, determined to return to Colmer at a snail’s pace. If I walked speedily I should reach the house before the time Phyllida had appointed: I might disturb her in the act of conquering her last few remembrances, and cause the past to rise drossily. My sadness left me, and I grew happy once more. As I loitered I drew one by one from my vest the withered poppies, and detaching the petals, let one fall at every step, giving to each flower a verse from some ancient ballad.

When all my poppies were destroyed I bethought myself of an image from Spenser’s ‘Ruines of Time,’ and laughed again and again. It was of the ivory harp with golden strings that the poet saw borne up to heaven. Ah, my joy--_mine_!--was assured! No malicious intervention could hold me from it now. In one short hour, in one short hour!

Twilight deepened into evening as I walked; soon large drops of rain began to fall, and the parched vegetation cried aloud with joy, as its fibres relaxed and its thirsty flowers drank their fill. There was a numbness in the air that foretold a thunderstorm before morning.

Thrice a light blanched the heavens, showing me the distant avenue that led to the garden. The lime-trees were in full bloom, and the heavy shower beat the flowers to the ground. Scarce had my foot touched the velvety grass ere from the distance came the sound of voices in impetuous discussion. My wonder was great at any human creature’s daring to walk in these weird precincts after nightfall.

The voices were those of a man and a woman; the one commanding, the other pleading earnestly. They were coming rapidly towards me. Indeed I could already distinguish something black moving beneath the limes.

A flood of bombast rushed to my lips. The desire for something discordant almost overpowered me, forcing me to rack my brain for some bizarre sarcasm wherewith to distract the love-making of these country sweethearts. Soon their speech resolved into distinct words; it seemed as if they lingered.

‘Nay, leave me! Take me no further! Was ever woman so tortured?’ one cried loudly.

‘Was ever woman so false? was ever woman so unworthy?’ the other replied.

‘But I swear, Cuthbert, I will not come. Oh, let me return! I love him--this very moment he is waiting for me. My darling Rupert, my husband. I _will_ return.’

At these words I felt my stature lengthen: then sight, speech, everything left me save the quickened sense of hearing.

‘Do you remember the old promises? Fool! to think of contending against my influence--to dream of setting that dullard’s power against mine! You are mine, planned so by God, joined to my soul in implacable union. Come, Phyllida.’

Silence followed.

Phyllida was false and I was wifeless. I leaned against the trunk of a lime, waiting for the last sight of the woman who had betrayed me so pitifully.

The footsteps approached nearer, and erelong a man passed. He was more fragile than I, and his long form was shrouded in a black cloak. His arms waved from side to side in magnetic rhythm, and his white face and hands shone like those of a corpse. I watched him, spellbound; and when he had gone a little way I heard the voices begin anew. It was illusion--magic--anything but the terrible thing I had feared. The relief made me fall, face downwards, to the sodden grass.

In less than half an hour I entered Colmer Hall. Hester, Phyllida’s old nurse, came to me at the foot of the staircase, and laid her hand upon my shoulder.

‘Madam--nay, pardon me--my lady, bade me say that she would be in the morning-parlour. She has waited long.’

I turned the handle of the door, and was confronted by darkness. Yet was I not appalled, for I could understand Phyllida’s delicacy in wishing that our first meeting should be where her blushes might go unseen. I stole to the window, and sat on the praying-stool, with my eyes travelling through the gloom to her place. For the fourth time the sky blanched, and I saw her beside the table, resting her head on her hands, with her hair spread over shoulders and bosom in rippling swathes.

At last, wounded by her indifference, I spoke, and destroyed a delightful hope that she would bid me welcome.

‘Phyllida!’

The old silence. I knew that she must be in one of those wonderful depths of feeling that she sometimes sounded, and felt proud of a woman of such strange charms. But what had swayed in the mistress troubled in the wife.

‘Are we not in perfect sympathy?’ I cried.

Afraid of I know not what (the air in the room seemed turbulently struggling to pass through the closed windows), I opened the door and took one of the candles from a sconce in the hall.

‘Phyllida! Phyllida! Phyllida!’ I whispered, holding the light above my head. ‘I am here, sweet one, look at me!’

Still silence. Fiercely, perhaps, but still lovingly, I placed my hands beneath her forehead, to make her look upwards. At my touch a bundle of papers fell from her breast, and lay scattered on the floor. The clay bust I had seen on my marriage eve stood near: I thrust out my right hand angrily and broke it into fragments. The past was done with now! I had conquered! My victory made me exultant. Phyllida’s gossamer bonds were torn away for ever.

As I drew back the hair and let the candlelight fall softly on my wife’s face she sighed heavily.

‘Dead love has slain my passion,’ she said.

THE LOST MISTRESS