Chapter VII,

Otago Witness, Issue 2078, 21 December 1893, Page 3

Chapter VII,

Edith. Arthur had won his bride. In that one week he had had his way. The tall and delicate girl was his wife — he had made his own tha slender hand?, the proud lips, the auburn hair.

" There is none like her — none," he had said to his heart, and then in another line of the same poem he asked,

Oh, beautiful creature, what am I, That I dare to look her way ?

Yet she belonged to him, and the major, well content to leave her in Arthur's care, had sailed away without her.

Society smiled upon them, the Church had blessed them, the law declared them one, and yet they were not quite happy. There was a shadow between them— no ; a reality — the fact of a lie.

Arthur's passion was so strong that Edith could not doubt it. She was the one woman in the world to him ; she had his love absolutely, and yet she began dimly to discern that there was some part of him that she had not got. Something stood between them.

As weeks and months passed this intangible, untouchable something vexed her. At first she tried to shake herself free of the fancy, as one will shake off a detaining hand. It kept her back from a thorough enjoyment of her happiness in him. When the power and reality of his love touched her most, and her heart flew out to him, she received some shock which made her draw back wondering. What could it be, when he loved her so utterly? She took herself to task, and decided that she was unromantic, that something was lackiDg in herself, that there was not a like depth of passion to rise and meet his, and that she must content herself in being loved and in submitting to his devotion. She was disappointed, for she had prided herself on the depth and earnestness of her nature, but she thought it possible that her isolation was the isolation of coldness, and not of sincerity, and that after all she was scarcely so good as those women who can sacrifice themselves completely for their love. She was secure and secluded for ever in her husband's devotion; and yet if she could have put her thoughts into words she would have been glad of any experience, however painful, thaf would have proved to her that she possessed the might and grandeur of those women of whom ehe read, whom love taught by its overwhelming power.

Hers was tha virginal temperament, the temperament that lies calm and almost motionless, unaware of its own strength till something appeals to it to try its purity. She waß the lily and the heather more than the rose. There were wondrous and harmonious strings deep down that truth more than passion could play upon. And Arthur wa« learning it — learning his wife in agony, for was not he a lie 1 Had not he lied to her 1 — was not her very faith in him a daily evidence of her truth and his deception 1 She had married him as he wooed her — artist and gentleman. She had accepted the seeming of his life as his life absolutely. If sha had questioned him, suspacted him, he might have felt some slight justification, but she was too genuine to doubt. She was only troubled because there was some part of him she did not understand, and some part of herself that held aloof from him.

Arthur, ever watchful and wakeful in his lovß and fear, saw this trouble, and the thing which he had believed would be easy to set right when onca she was assured of his love, daily grew harder, for he perceived that this pure, proud woman would set one thing higher than love — truth.

And thus the Shadow took form and substance and dwelt with them. Arthur was by* turns sad and brilliant ; Edith always calm and faultless ; and be looked up at her like a weary wayfarer looks at the snow summit in the distance. " I shall never reach her," he declared ; " and she cannot descend to me." So he feared to have her know that be had decsived her — feared it horribly.

One day they ware together at his studio. Their private house was at Toorak, but he still kept his old rooms in Bourke street, and they often spent whole days together here. To-day, while ho painted, she amused herself with looking over his photos. Hs was painting a picture which he called " Let the Sea make a Noise." As sombre and sullen, as angry, as desperate looked those wave 3as his own heart. Edith moved noiselessly

about among his knick-knacks; then, as though a thought had struck her suddenly for the first time, she said :

" Arthur, have you any pioture of anyone belonging to you ? You have never told ma about your people— who they were, or anything about them."

She stood beside the easel, and he went on painting the green wave he was apparently interested in. " I have no people." She looked at him; then, in sadden pity, said:

"How desolate!— no people, no place, while I "

"My father and mother are both— dead," he said in a low, hoarse voice, lingering over the last two words as though they choked him. "My mother died when I was a child."

She laid her caressing cheek against his arm. She also was an orphan. The grave, sallow face of J . oi came between him and his picture ; the spirit of the old man seemed to haunt every corner of the room.

" My father," he added brokenly, "was a gentleman " — and deep down under his breath he finished the eentence — "of the slums."

Ha threw down bis brush and confronted her with his eyes Bhnt. He was very pale, very still, but with his eyes fast shut and his head slightly thrown back he said flowly, deliberately, as though the for ever and ever depended upon her answer :

" Edith, answer me — answer me as to the God in your own soul — do you believe in me?" " Husband 1 Dearest 1 "

" Answer ma— answer me ! "

There was an almost imperceptible pause, when the Shadow stood between them, then she said : "Idol" His stern, white face relaxed from its tension. " Absolutely 1 " " Absolutely 1 " A quick delight illuminated him, then he caught her in his arms.

" My wife, my life, my love, if you doubted me I should die 1 "

A faint flush stole over her cheek, and the Shadow stood there again, humiliating, defeating her.

"Arthur," she said impulsively, "truth makes itself felt— it is the master of men. The sons of men try to imprison and chain it, but it cannot be chained — it makes itself known ; it works up through layer on layer of falsehood like a seed does from the earth and tells itself. Dear, the fault is mine I In something I have deceived myself, but I will know myself, and know you, so that we stand as one. Ah," she continued, "would that I had the[scalptor's skill ; I would make such a marble god to truth that the world should adore I Mighty truth — mightier than love — the master of the universe 1 " Her husband smiled with cold Hp 3. " I fear me," he replied, " that your marble god would be my rival."

She patted his shoulder with her caressing little hand.

" You are my husband," she gently told him.

He looked down, the hot tears rushing to his aching eyes. Why didn't he tell her ? For a moment he tnrned giddy with the thought. It was no longer the fact he feared her to know, but his deception of her.

" This is the first of May," he said instead

For the first time since their marriage Arthur let his wife go home without him. He wanted to work he said, so Edith drovo her ponies out to Toorak alone.

Left to himself the artist seemed in no mood for his work, however, and turned from his easel with a sigh.

" I am dumb, dumb 1 " he murmured— " thrust by her truth leagues away." And as once before in those rooms he fought with passion and truth, so now be fought again, but this time truth mastered him.

Evening was deepening into the winter's night when the battle was ended, and he looked worn from the conflict as be lit the gas and stood under its light and wrote —

" I have deceived you. Your marble god has rivalled me ; I cannot breath the same air with yoa and live a lie. My father is a gentleman of the slums, and I am not worthy to lace his shoes, for he is faithful and honest — and I 1 denied and forsook him, fearing to lose you. They call him • Daddy Longlegs, the saveloy man.' Edith, goodnigh. Oh, darling, lam trying to speak to you. but I cannot, for gulfs — centuries — Eepm to stretch between 1 You can never know my temptation, my weakness, and my shame. You are too pure to know the humiliation that I suffer. My eidelweiss, my mountain lily, that I mould gather, I am frozen in the snow of your native dwelling. Good-night, Edith. Can you hear me on your height? Can my voice reach you where you are ? "

He addressed the note and left it in a prominent position, and buttoning on his great coat, went out.

He had only one instinct — the cry of th> prodigal : " I will go to my father, and will say unto him, ' Father, I have sinned '" . beyond that his mind would not reach. It was one of those hours when the soul la numbed by the agony of remorse; when there is no future, no way out, no beyondonly a now that is hell.

The night was against, him. A (wild stormy, gusty night would have been iii sympathy with his impetuosity, but tho clear, frosty air and the truthful stars telling the glory of the heavens, revealing tha immeasurable space, world beyond world, only appeared to be in league with that truth that seemed against him. Only seemed, for, did he but know, the law of order and truth that lay behind those distant worlds was forcing him into harmony with them, and all things compelling him to get rid of the false " self that held within its hUBk the noble, the true man. But it was an awful upheaval, and the monuments of his fancy and intellect, his sophistry and passion, fell about his feet. He saw them sway and topple, and heard them crash one after another, and there was no one to tell him that there was a beauty and poetry and a grace among the ruins that these temples to false gods had never possessed in their mightiest days.

He drew his hat down over his eyes, ac" wandered back homeward as he had dca» that morning long ago, when he had found no place for himself and his little box in all th it big city. There was no place for him now only with

$addy, for the world, and his wife, had only known his art and his labour ; daddy knew kirn. Knem the worst of him, and loved him.

Oh I weary men and women, is not a love Vike that our refuge and resting place ? Where we can cast off the mask of our calmness and strength and be our own poor weak •elves, and still be loved, there is rest and home. Daddy, where were you that you did not feel your boy coming from " afar *>££," coming as he had never come before, Ured of the husks, the pretence and shams, '• ungry for the bread of reality — wanting, »ut not knowing, how to be himself, and be loved as himself ?

Arthur arrived at the old house that he aad shunned so often and hated so long for its ugliness; but as though it laughed in revenge, every uncurtained window grinned at him, and only echoes came to his knocking. A woman, hearing the knocks, came out of the next house.

" Where is he 1 " asked Arthur.

"Old Daddy Longlegs? Lord love 'iml He went away months an' months ago— into the country somewhere, but where I never beard. Some say he died there a while ago, out I can't say." Have you ever received a blow in the street — a blow that kills your only hope —where you must not cry out nor fall 1 Arthur put his hands to his head, then turned and staggered forward. The woman watched him until the darkness of the slums swallowed \\m.

" Drunk," she said — •• as drunk as a lord," and went in.