Chapter IV.

Otago Witness, Issue 2026, 22 December 1892, Page 16

Chapter IV.

When next I remembered anything I was lying in bed in a darkened room. A fire was flickering brightly in the grate, and throwing its fantastic shadows about the room, which was the picture of neatness. Rich tug's were thrown about the furniture — ,here and there, in artistic negligence. I knew the room and yet I did not, until my wandering eyes rested upon some silvertopped scent bottles of my own, upon the dressing table. Then I remembered vaguely that I was in tay room at the hotel, only lots of -the things in it—the rugs, for instance, were not mine. Shortening my gaze I was surprised to see sitting in a chair near the bed quietly reading, the actor, Verne Howard. He looked very tired, but Mb face was softer somehow. -Perhaps I was asleep, and this was another ,buta pleasanter dream than others- 1 bad had ; but when I tried to lift up my hand I , could not ; I felt so weak. Suddenly Mr Howard looked up, and cur •yes met. "Gertrude!" be exclaimed, in pleased tones, and I tried to answer ; but my voice was scarcely more than a whisper : " Where am I ? Why are you here 1 " " Don't you remember," he asked., taking my hand, " that we were married ? " Then it all came back, and, weak as I was, I felt a burning blush dye my cheeks. "Don't bother, don't worry," he said hastily. "Make haste and get well, and then we will talk about it. Drink this," and he gave me a delicious draught, and then I fell asleep again. The greater part of the following week I spent in sleeping, but almost every time I wakened Mr Howard was in attendance with cheery words and kind acts. My husband I suppose I ought to have said, but 1 -Sad not then got accustomed to the thought, much less the fact. Hour after hour I used to lie there watching him as he sat in silence, with the deep lines of care upon his face made more intense by the bright firelight, or with another look which I liked to see as be busied himself about some little office for me, or better still when he read to me. .. As day by day passed, and I grew stronger, the etrangeneßs of my position became intensified, and my thoughts: were I always bnsy with the mystery of the fact ; for although I dimly remembered all that had passed, bis motive, his heart in the matter, was a mystery to me. He never alluded to it; he never made love to me; he called me "Gertrude" as though he bad the right, and liked the sound of the word. He was unfailing in his tboughtf ulness and gentleness, and the maid told me how he had watched me night and day through the delirium of brain fever, and the doctor said but for such a skilful and loving nurse I might have died. But day by day I was more and more puzzled and ashamed. . When I began to love him I do not know. Perhaps you will think I fell in love with him at the first, and this is why he made such an impression upon me. Ido not think I did. His was a very powerful mentality, and the sheer force of his positivism would be certain to influence me. And again his tragic story-told me at a time

when my own life lay in the shadow of my brother's sin— this also made an impression on me ; and I felt, as I told you before, that I would have given muoh for Borne strong influence to rouse ambition again in the hearts of those two men — my brother and he— and force them to see that the greatest strength comes from conquered weakness. I was Verne's wife now, and I said it to myself with a strange thrill, and if only I could be the means of recalling to life the man of faith and hope, wbo fought the battle that night 10 year 3 before upon the mountain, I should not have lived in vain. Ifc was a sbame that all his life should go to waste in morbid aimless misery. My brother had risen from his tomb of hopelessness and bo might he. When I was strong enough I wrote to Bert. There |was a cheerful letter for me from him at Rio, and a cable. I told him about my marriage, suppressing half the truth, simply saying that we bad met some time before, but bad not thought of this step then, but meeting again in Wellington In the hour of their departure, and neither having any relatives or friends at hand of whom to ask permission, we bad taken the law into our own hands and had been married at once. I am afraid that I bad become an adept at deception, for I managed to convey the fact to Bertie that I loved my husband, and by dwelling at length upon the dally care and attention be bestowed upon me (withholding the cause) conveyed the impression that Verne was very fond of me. I concluded by urging my brother to play well, and work well, and to let no thought of me shadow his present or future, for that not f oi world s would I exchange my {present husband for the man whose wife by ill luck I might have been, and that we were shortly to tour the colonies, partly on pleasure and partly on business. Muoh to the same effeot I wrote to Di Barnett, knowing how such communications would gladden my brother's heart, and lift from it the remorse of having saddened my life.

The letters despatched to the address they had left, for the first time in my life I had nothing to do but to think about myself, and as a consequence I am afraid this por- 1 tion of my narrative will read rather egotistically, but if I left myself out the tale couldn't go on. One day when I was alone | I had a good long look at myself in the I glass.' I waß looking very pale and slender. All my long auburn hair— my only personal pride— had been cut off, and instead of the waving masses I beheld a short crop of curie. I wanted to look nice, and my black gowns were all very dingy and rusty, so I wrote a note to one of the leading bouses, with the result that a dressmaker waited upon me with innumerable patterns. We spent the afternoon in company, and a few days later a soft trailing robe of grey and j silver made its appearance, the first pf many J other pretty things, for which I returned about half of my remaining LIOO. I never had been extravagant before— but I wanted to look nice. My husband was publicly i known, and his wife, could not go about with him shabbily attired. My grey and silver robe transformed me, but when Verne came in he only looked at me quietly, without comment. Little by little as I had grown ! stronger bis constant attendance npon me decreased. This was of course right, but somehow I was discontented, for kind as he was, and thoughtful as he remained, it was the thoughtfulness of a friend. To find myself in the position of wife to a ' man. who had never wooed me, and who I was certain had never had a .thought of doing so, was not only embarrassing, but as daily I felt the hunger ; for his regard increasing, ,positively painful. Whether he was purposely^avoiding the subject of our marriage or had forgotten all about, it I do not know, but he never referred to it after the day of my recovered ( consciousness. Unable at last longer to control my desire for an explanation, one evening late in the autumn as we sat by the fire together, he reading and I pretending to sew, I asked him suddenly : " Verne "—conscious that 1 blushed shyly over his name — " won't you talk a little 1 — about ourselves I mean — about our marriage." He laid down his book instantly, and looked me straight in the eyes with the questioning in his own intensified. " I owe you an apology, Gertrnde," he said slowly. "It 6eemed quite right then. I can't tell you where the impulse came from, but it came upon me very strongly." I gulped down the lump in my throat. I j bad told myself all along that he did not love me, yet until now I had not known how passionately I bad hoped against hope. I tried to look him bravely in the face and say without faltering: { '• The impulse came from pity, Verne. It was that story I told you, which, because I was ill, teemed very terrible just then. My Belf pity imparted itself to you, and because I was alone and needed taking care of, it leemed your duty to dp it." • •

"Was that it ? " he asked, still looking at me with his sad grey eyes.

" I should like you to believe," I went on, steadying myself as I proceeded, "that nothing was further from my thoughts than this. I'was not responsible. At any other time I would not have consented, but I was panic-stricken, rendered ho by illness*. I felt then that I could not live that K year before me alone. Once well again I should have recovered my reason, and have 6couted the idea of allowing you to sacrifice yourself to me."

"No, don't speak of it in that way," he responded gently. "I feel amazed that I could have taken such advantage of your position. It is very hard for you. But I assure you I forgot the future. I only thought of you then as you lay ill. The future may show you some way out — take it, my child. For the present forget me as much as possible." Forget him — when even now every feature was dearer to me than anything else in the world. I envied that other woman he had loved so dearly that even nov« her memory shut out the possibility of any other love. I did not intend to forget him, but I could not tell him so. I was an unloved wife, and the humiliation of it kept my lips sealed, but I set myself a purpose, and kept it steadily in view—to make iim forget the past, and to live again. He could not love me, but be should love living if one woman in the world could make it bo. But how to

set about it 1 To discover to him my motive would be to ruin my plan ; but if I could just allure him out of the past, and set him on a fresh quest without his knowledge, then I felt it would not matter whether be loved me or not. That was when I was my btiet self. At other times I asked myself bitterly —should I never come first in any life ? How was I so different to other women that no one all my life long bad wanted to live for me ? They, my beloved, had always needed me ; but no one had ever regarded me as tha motive of their life. If you are a woman you will know what I mean — to be first, not because you deserve it, but by election. I don't believe anybody deserves the whole heart of another, but many, are so honoured and dignified.

If only I could have stopped loving Verne, or have loved him in a measured degree, the duty I had set myself would have been a delightful one. But to endeavour daily to teach him to joy in something apart from myself was not an easy thing to do. Yet I began to fancy that his step was more bouyant, and his eyes less sad, and I was certain that he took more interest in his art. We studied his parts together. Sometimes he scolded me when I disagreed with his interpretation of it. It did seem like impertinence, but we gradually drifted— as he imagined— into a habit of reading together, and it gladdened me to see him lißten to me, argue with me, and try to prove himself to be right.

We were daily companions, and when he started on another tour with a big company, mj pride in him knew no bounds. Always with my purpose in view — to make him think in the present hour, I would start the most absurd or far-fetched theories, which pricked his innate love of truth and never failed to rouse him in its defence. One day after he bad perfected himself in a part, and one which I had pretended, to believe he was particularly misrepresenting, he said, somewhat hotly : " The people will decide to-night. If mice is the interpretation of an artist the truth will touch them."

"After all, what does it matter?" I said, quoting bis old time sentiment, " what the people think. You do not play for applause." " I shall .play to-night for the truth," he "responded, and my heart leaped up. We were in Sydney at the time, and the theatre was packed. When Verne came oa he glanced at my box, and then proceeded to demonstrate the heart of the author. The bouse wat stirred and swayed by one mighty impulse, and 1 wept with joy that he could do it. He seemed pleased that he had convinced me, and like a man when he has vanquished, was extra kind to me. He was always kind to me. If I had baen a favourite sister he might have treated me the same. "Gertrude," he would call, as soon as he came in, and on seeing me would invariably add, in a relieved tone, " Ob, there you are." As time went on he seemed to need me offcener, and "Gertrude" reached my ear at all times and in all seasons — to fasten his necktie, to hunt him up a quotation, or read a passage to him, or give him an opinion on one of his stage dresses, to go with him shopping or walking— there wa* always some reason or another why he wanted me near him.

Things had gone on in this way for more than a year. Bertie and Dr Barnett were settled in London, when Verne thought he would take a email house and stay in Sydney for 12 months and devote himself to the study of tragedy. I was very much pleased With my elegant little home, and began to tell myself that I was almost happy, for the friendship of Verne was dearer to me than the world beside, when things changed. How it arose I do not know, bnt a shadow came between my husband and me. We bad been boon companions— chums ; singing, talking, and arguing together th^e best part of the day. Now be did not seem to want my company. He went out without me and came in without calling " Gertrude," and the pretty home that I had been so proud of grew quiet and gloomy. Now that Verne had come to settle down quietly with me, without the excitement of travel and the theatre, it was growing intolerable to him, I told myself in many a lonely hour, when with the old sad questioning in his eyes he sat with " Shakespeare " in his study. A sense of complete isolation and helplessness overcame me. I had failed. He could neither love me nor could I make him happy. ocung and crushed by the conviction, and finding it intolerable to live in the same house with him in this stony silence, I resolved to do a desperate thing— to go away. At first I wa« horrified at the bare thought of it. Then when I pondered the question and saw how patiently he was trying to bear the cross of my daily presence, I resolved that come what might I would rid him of myeelf. Oat of pity for my loneliness he had married roe; out of compassion for him 1 would go away. When I had so resolved the world seemed to have come to an end. My love for my ,husband had note by note formed itself into melody, nntil at length, it rose like the anthem of my being— strong and appealing, but brought me no reply. * That day when I left my home I felt like Eve must have done when she passed out of paradise — only that Eve was not alone. I had made my arrangements. I was going to a country district as governess to a family of young children. I passed out of my garden gate between the orange trees, too miserable to care whether I lived or died, Behind me in Verne's study I had left a note saying : "For every kind word and act I thank yon. Belie re that I am not ungrateful for your care, but it is better for me to go. Do not tell my ' brother. When the right time comes he shall know. Do not seek me, for it will be happier for both that we should live apart."