Such a Lord is Love ... A woman's heart tragedy

Chapter I

Easter fell very late that year, and Adria's boy was born on Easter Day. With him came a new joy the like of which she had never before experienced — one which almost made amends for certain anxieties which had possessed her for some months past. She seldom allowed herself to put her anxious thoughts into definite shape, and it never occurred to her to name them to her husband who was the cause of them ; but none the less was she disturbed on his account, and the trouble had saddened her, and given her many a heart sinking. It was not that he seemed to love her less ; on the contrary, he was at times more de voted, more passionate in his affection than he had been even in the first half year of their married life. He did not appear to love her less, but rather to love her less constantly ; for his phases of fondness and devotion were strangely mingled with periods of what seemed almost like indifference, short and fleeting though these periods were.

At first she only remarked them as periods of distaste for his usual daily duties, but she came after a time to perceive that they were something more than this. He would cease for a while to surround her with the little attentions and observances which it was ordinarily his delight to manifest ; in fact, he could have no opportunity for doing so, for he would be away from home for hours and days together, returning only when the shades of night made open-air diversions im possible. The restlessness would always wear itself out more quickly on these occasions, and he would come back to his old habits after but a day or two's interval, inspired with fresh energy for his work and a loving solicitude for his wife. He would show his penitence, not indeed in words, but by grati tude for her patience and forbearance which expressed itself in renewed devotion.

Once he went so far as to tell her that the devil had left him, and that he was once again in a sound mind, but this was the only occasion on which he ever openly referred to his out breaks'of restlessness and waywardness, and for her part she never reproached him for them. She was infinitely patient and infinitely long-suffering, for she came to regard these periods as a kind of craze which must run itself out and die from sheer exhaustion of itself. She knew that he was as warmly in love with her as ever he had been, and she attributed his fits of impatience to the in judicious up-bringing of his early youth and to the habit of self-indulgence against which he still struggled. She felt that it was only the kind, gentle, considerate nature that had been given him which saved him from a worse fate, and she thanked God every day for the good in him which she knew to be infinitely more powerful than the evil.

In truth, she could hardly perceive any actual evil, for all his faults were those' of omis sion rather than of commission ; he was intensely unselfish, save when he was in one of his phases of unrestfulness ; thoughtful and warm-hearted and generous to all his people. He would go out of his way to do a good turn to any one who appealed to him, and all those of his dependents who met him in daily intercourse were as devotedly attached to him as it is in the nature of dependents to be. His was a very lovable kindly spirit, and his wife knew and appre ciated it to the fullest extent. One thing however that Adria was not aware of, was the continuance of his acquaint ance with the chatelaine at Oare. Out of very pity and his abounding good nature, Nevill occasionally dropped in at the Lodge for an hour or two's talk with Mrs. Marston.

Her house was so conveniently situated for him. The kennels of the Faircross Hunt were only a mile or two from Oare, and many of the meets took place far away beyond the Marstons' house ; after a long run or even after no run at all, it was pleasant to drop in at the Lodge for a cup of tea on his home ward journey ; the cup and saucer were always placed in readiness for him, and there was rarely any other visitor to distract his hostess's attention. Her attention was very pleasant to him, for what man is there who is not gratified at feeling himself courted by a charming and pretty woman ? What though these charms be over-mature, that prettiness due to art rather than to nature, the fact still remains that she is attractive, and that her attractions are displayed for his benefit. She flattered him too, and no man can altogether resist flattery ; even though he feels it is not quite sincere, he yet hopes and believes that it is partially so, and he gives the woman the benefit of the doubt, and himself the gratification of a measure of credulity.

She made his visits very pleasant to him. She did not beg him to come oftener, or to stay longer, than he felt inclined. She was always glad to see him, and she invariably told him so, but not in a way that carried reproach in it for the interval that had elapsed since his last visit. He could not help liking her, because she was so very pleasant, and because he had liked her for so long. That was the only feeling that he was conscious of regarding her, except the feeling of pity and sympathy for her uncongenial existence. She hated the country and she was doomed to live in it ; Oare was but a small place, and her husband's income was a meagre one ; she could not live in the London her soul lono-ed for, and she would not go up with him to enjoy a limited emancipation in the season as Mr. Marston would have had her do.

She preferred even Oare to the discomforts and inconveniences of such a restricted view of the gay world from which she had dropped out many years before, when her husband had lost the bulk of his fortune. That she might have made for herself fresh interests in her country home Nevill would willingly have acknowledged ; but she had not done so, and she was unsatisfied and dis contented, therefore he was sorry for her. If he could make things pleasanter for her he was quite willing to do so, provided Adria suffered no annoyance. He did not approve of his wife's attitude to Mrs. Marston, but he was unfortunately deterred by certain un happy events long past from telling her so, after the first and only expression of his opinion which has been alluded to. It was principally to save Adria from inquietude that he refrained from mentioning his visits to Oare, and she for her part was unsuspicious of them, and never dreamed that the acquaint ance she had dropped was still continued by her husband.

She had seen him address a few remarks to Mrs. Marston at one or two social gatherings at which they had met that winter ; but she concluded that this was only natural, and was thankful that she herself had been thrown into actual contact with the woman she wished to avoid. Mrs. Marston never hunted, but she drove occasionally to a meet if one happened to take place near her home, and in enumerating to his wife those neighbours who had been present Nevill never at such times omitted to men tion Mrs. Marston. He would have told Adria of his visits also if he had not been so careful of her feelings, for he felt he was justified in con tinuing them. Nothing but the merest commonplaces were, as a general rule, talked of between the two, though now and then there would creep in a remark from Kate Marston, a word, an epithet, which he would hardly have cared to repeat to his wife, although he was easily able to assure himself that there was no disloyalty to her in them.

He never responded to these ten tative familiarities, and they were not often essayed ; he was persuaded that they were in voluntary and that there could be no possible harm in them. They pleased Mrs. Marston, perhaps, if she was conscious that she made them, and could not by any means hurt Adria or himself. So his visits to Oare were still continued, though they were not paid very often — perhaps not more than half-a-dozen times during the course of the winter. He was sincerely indifferent to Kate Marston now, as he had been at any time of the past year ; it was not altogether for the pleasure of her society that he went to see her — he very much preferred his wife's companionship to that of any other person in the whole world — but, when his restless fits were on him, Oare was a refuge from the people who would persist in tormenting him to attend to business duties.

No one would come to him there to annoy him ; if he went home directly after his hunting, very likely there would be some one waiting to see him whom he did not want to see ; whereas if he did not turn up until dinner time, there could be no fear of his being worried, for the servants would look to it that he was not disturbed at any unreasonable hour. But Adria knew nothing of all this. Her boy was born in the sweet spring time when winter was giving place grudg ingly to a kindlier season ; when the distant slopes of the park were a mass of yellow primroses as far as she could see from her bedroom window, and the young rabbits came out to frolic on the carpet thus made for them ; when the rooks were cawing to their mates in the high elms visible across the river close by. There was a pair of albinos amongst the noisy colony ; and Adria found herself waiting almost with impatience to see their milk-white offspring leave the parent nest.

She wondered if the commoner bird-children would peck at these abnormal connections, and it gave her a strange dis pleasure to think of the little young things being wounded or killed by their com panions. She turned to her own small treasure, as yet only a day or two old, and crooned over him and worshipped him as though it were to him that the danger threatened. Never, to her mind, had there been such a baby. His little face was puckered and wrinkled, as though the effort to enter an uncongenial world had been made unwillingly; his skin was red and brown and mottled — anything but beautiful ; his nose was scarcely worthy of a name at all, and his eyes were screwed up, as though to avoid the glare of the day, so that their colour had scarce been seen even by the mother, who sought to discover a resemblance to her husband's in them.

But already she worshipped him, and thought there had never been his match in the world before. The motherly instinct had found its way to the front, and for a time even her husband was given a secondary place in her thoughts. Nevill was bound to confess that the beau ties she found in the babe were invisible to him ; he would laugh at her when she pointed out some new attraction in his face or form, and would profess immense jealousy of the interloper, as he chose to call the boy. But yet he was proud of him in a way he could hardly have defined, and he was intensely thankful to see his wife's happiness and to be assured of her well doing. "You are a foolish mother!" he said to her a couple of days after the boy's birth, when he was sitting by her bedside, her hand in his, but her eyes on the babe.

" I should not have thought you would be so fond and foolish." "Do you think I shall be like Janet?" she asked, with an air of distressed serious ness. " God forbid ! Janet is a woman whose ideas centre only in her children ; but I hope you — after a little while — will be able to remember that you have still a husband." " Dear Dick ! It is because I love you so dearly that I am so fond of my boy. He is like you, darling " " Ho, ho ! " laughed her husband. " Isn't that a little too strong, Adie ? What have I done that I should be likened to that atom of redness and wrinkles ? Do you mean that as a compliment to me ? " " I like to think there's a resemblance between you ; don't laugh at me, Dick." Her mouth trembled, and he bent down and kissed her penitently. " I see a distinct likeness myself," he VOL. II. asserted unblushingly, "and I am flattered by it.

What are you going to call the little treasure, Adie ? " " Oh, he must be Dick too." " No, no, I bar my name. Let him be called after some better man than I am — call him by my father's name, or my grand father's, if you want to please me." "That would be George, or — what was your grandfather called, dear ? " " Hugh. But it might be Adrian, after yourself." " No, it shall be Hugh ; my little Hugh, whom I love better than all the world, except his father," murmured Adria, croon ing over the child with loving kisses and gentle strokings of the little hairless head. "Oh, Dick, my darling, I thought I was happy before — you were so good to me — but I didn't know there could be this" "My dear one, I am happy too. Look at me, Adie ; let me see your sweet eyes." The eyes were wet with unshed tears as she turned them towards her husband.

" Kneel down," she whispered, " and be thankful for me." " I'm going to send Bell to you," he said presently ; " she will be vexed with me when she sees you have been crying." "It wasn't crying, Dick ; they were only two tears of joy and happiness." "You must not do it again though, or I shall be kept out of the room. I am going to dine at the Rectory to-night ; shall I take any message for you, my dearest ? " " Is Bell going too ?" "No, she will stay with you." " I have no message, only ask Mr. Hardy not to go away for his holiday till little Hugh is christened. He said he was going after Easter." " A likely story, that he would delay his holiday for such a piece of insignificance. You must put off the christening till he returns home." " Well, perhaps that would be more fitting," assented his wife, with a smile.

" I didn't think of that ; it is so difficult to put anything before our baby yet." "I'm willing to take a back seat myself, and so is Bell, I'm sure; but we can hardly expect the Rector to see things in the same light." " Don't tease me, Dick. I shan't be always so foolish." " My own Adie, I don't want you to be different, really. I love my little mother wife, and I like to see her so proud and so happy — like a hen with one chick. Good bye, dearest, get better every day, and come down into the garden. This spring sun shine would do you a world of good, and it won't be long before I carry you into it."

Chapter II

" Adria," said Bell, coming round the corner of the house to the sheltered spot in which her sister was ensconced on a chaise longue, " the Rector is here — would you like to see him?" " Very much, if he will come out to >i me. Lady Waldron went back into the house, and Adria put her book down, and gazed round her at the garden and at the distant hill where the deer were cropping the newly green grass of the park. It was May, a glorious sunny May month, like that of which the old poets sang. In every flower bed were masses of the pheasant's - eye narcissus, which gave out their strong, sweet scent with generous prodigality. The rhododendrons were glorious in their clusters of lilac and crimson ; the great elms were unrolling crinkled leaves of tender green, while already a sycamore close to where Adria sat was in full leaf, although it was not yet come to its maturity of denseness.

She could see many and large gaps of daylight through it, such as no sycamore will allow when it has reached its prime. It pleased her to notice that the young albino rooks were permitted to enjoy life without persecution from their fellows ; they were cawing as gaily and defiantly as any others in the high elm trees. It made her happy to lie there in the sun, sheltered from the chill spring wind by the wall of the house, which radiated the heat given it all through the day, and made it possible to sit out for hours, despite the treacherous east wind of the season. She had been dreamily dozing in the warmth, conscious of her abundant happiness, and longing for little Hugh to return from his airing and pay her a visit with his nurse before going back again 4.0 his cot. She could tell the colour of his eyes now; he had grown enormously in these few weeks of his little life, and she believed that he knew her and loved her when she held him in her arms almost as well as he knew and loved his nurse.

Bell came out into the sunshine with the Rector. Adria watched them as they drew near, wondering whether those two would ever discover that they were all in all to each other. She had a suspicion that Mr. Hardy knew it only too well. Bell was looking very happy and bright, and almost beautiful. She wore a lilac cotton frock made quite simply, which showed her shapely figure better than the most elaborate triumph of the dressmaker could have done ; her grey eyes were sparkling with life and gaiety ; her sweet, mobile mouth was charming with a radiant smile; and her hair, which she always stigmatised as hay - coloured, had caught the sunshine and looked golden in its brightness. Adria looked and wondered, and while she looked they came to her. " I have told the Rector that he mustn't stay very long; it is nearly time for you to have your afternoon rest."

"I'm not going to lie down till after tea," said Adria, mutinously. "Oh, Mr. Hardy, I am so glad to see you again ; you must stay and have tea with us, and protect me against my despot." "Is Lady Waldron a despot ? I'm afraid I rather approve of despotic government. I have no doubt you are a very obedient subject in reality, Mrs. Nevill." "Oh, too obedient — that is what I com plain of ; obedience is forced from me against my will. I want to know if you will christen our boy next Sunday after noon ; he will be five weeks old that day." "With pleasure, Mrs. Nevill; he ought to be a happy and a prosperous man if it is true, as they say, that Easter babes are always both good and fortunate." " Sunday babes are always born to be lucky," remarked Bell, "how much more, then, an Easter Sunday child.

I was born on a Sunday, though not on an Easter day." " I was born on Wednesday," said Adria ; " 'Wednesday's child is full of woe.'" " You see how the rule of contrary applies sometimes ; who could be happier than you, Adie, in spite of the old prophecy ? " "It may be yet to come," sighed her sister, while the fair, sweet face clouded over for a moment. " Nonsense ; it is very ungrateful and untrusting of you to speak like that ; I shall have to scold you, mustn't I, Mr. Hardy ? " "Your scoldings are such terrible things that I'm sure Mrs. Nevill would make a great effort to escape one," he replied, with a laugh. " I have never scolded you," Bell responded, laughing also, though her lip trembled for a moment. " Haven't you ? Well, perhaps not ; but I can recollect words which have been as effectual as any scolding could have been."

Lady Waldron did not often blush, .but a distinct wave of colour mounted to her cheek. :i " Perhaps you deserved them," she cried. "Are you always beyond criticism?" "Far from it, as I realise even more keenly than you do." " I quite acknowledge that it would be more proper that you should scold me, considering that it is part of your mission in life to reprove and exhort." " I should not presume to do such a thing," he answered, with gravity, " for it would be going beyond the bounds of the commonplace." " Are you obliged to be always common place ? " she asked him, with a smile on her lip, though there was visible a tremor of anxiety on her face. "Always, I fear," he replied. " I don't see the necessity ; I should like you not to be commonplace. You could be friendly enough without that, I should think."

"What is all this talk about being commonplace ? " cried Adria. " It is an idea of Mr. Hardy's that he must never be anything else to his friends. I think he is mistaken, and I should like to convince him of it." " I should be proud to be convinced," said the Rector ; " but it would have to be proved to me very plainly before I could acknowledge it." " I will prove it to you now — what, Adie darling, are you going in ? Let me go with you and see you safely to your sofa, and then, if Mr. Hardy will come in too, I will give him some tea in the drawing room." They all three went to the house, and Bell, after she had taken her sister to her room, came back to the drawing-room. " Now," she said gaily, " I will convince you if you like that the commonplace is to be avoided." Her voice was low and agitated as she proceeded : "If you had a friend who had been cold to you, and whose coldness you — in a way — deserved, and if you go to that friend and say, ' I am sorry,' would he be cold and distant and forbidding any longer ?

" I think not," he replied, in a low tone too " I had a friend ; I was impatient and captious and cross to him — will you forgive me, and be friends again ? " "There is nothing to forgive — it was only because I thought you wished it," he said warmly. " It Isn't that that I wished. I wanted to be friends — we have been like the merest acquaintances. Shall we change that, and will you be my friend, and not cold or distant any more ? ' " We will never be cold or distant to each other again," he replied gently. " I have never felt estranged, for my part, Bell ; but I could not be the first to say so ; I had told you it was for you to settle the footing on which we should meet." " I don't think you put it exactly in those words," she answered, laughing, but with a look of relief and content on her face and in her grey eyes ; "if I remember aright, you said first of all that I must take the initiative, but you spoilt it afterwards by declaring your intention to forget all about me.

That was hardly a friendly speech ! " " I didn't feel very friendly at that moment," he said, laughing a little too; " you must acknowledge that I had just had a great disappointment. I made a vow then that I would never ask any woman to marry me again. " That was certainly a very rash vow." "It was a very foolish one," he assented ; " it would have been better if I had vowed never to ask one woman again to marry me ; it would have left me a loop-hole in case another had come on the scene." He spoke with an appearance of serious ness, but there was a twinkle in his eye which Bell did not fail to see. " Hasn't she come on the scene yet ?" she demanded gaily. "It would not make much difference if she had ; if ever I marry any woman I shall expect her to propose to me — I must re member my vow."

" I don't suppose you would remember your vow very long if you fell desperately in love," she replied, laughing again. " I assure you," he said, and this time he did not smile, " that if ever any woman falls desperately in love with me she will have to tell me so first." "In that case we had better proclaim the fact to the world, or you may die an old bachelor. What nonsense we have been talking ! Here comes tea ; let me give you a cup. Here is Dick, too, just in time to share it with us." " Hallo, Hardy, so you are home again, old man ; you cut your holiday short, surely. Let me take that cup of tea to Adria," said Dick, overtaking his sister-in-law at the door. "You are tired, Dick," said Bell; "sit here with Mr. Hardy for a while while I run up with it ; she may be asleep, you know." She went up the stairs slowly and thought fully, and turned the handle of her sister's door softly, fearing to disturb her.

" I'm not asleep," said Adria ; "I am here, alone, with little Hugh. Is the Rector ~_\ » gone ? " No, he is downstairs with Dick. They are having tea." "And you have left yours to bring up my cup ; go down, darling, and have it." " I have had all I want," said Bell, gently; "I would rather stay with you, Adie." "You are very serious," observed Adria, taking her sister's hand affectionately. " What is the matter with my Bell ? " " There is nothing the matter, Adie, except that I am in love," returned Lady Waldron, calmly. " Bell ! " exclaimed her sister, roused by this admission, and raising herself from the sofa to look into Lady Waldron's face. "It's the truth, the bitter truth ; I never thought it would come to my acknowledging it, though I have felt it for months." " Is it Mr. Hardy ? " whispered Adria, in a low voice.

"Who else could it be ? I loved him years ago, Adie, you know, and he loved me then. And he asked me to marry him a few months since, and I would not, though I was sorely tempted. I never told you this —I couldn't." She spoke in a low, hurried voice, and her face was turned from her sister's as she con tinued — " I cared for him, and I almost told him so, but I couldn't face the trials — the loss of my money, the drudgery of the life, the hard work. I tried to make him say that I need not give myself to the work, but he would not ; he told me he could not marry a woman who would refuse to help him in all his parish duties — and, Adie, I shirked it ; I hated it so, the thankless toil and drudgery, and the hard life. I was rude to him, and I refused him when I had almost fallen into his arms ; it makes me hot whenever I think of it."

"But, my dearest, he still loves you — I'm sure of it. Think first though, Bell ; it is a great deal to give up, all your fortune, and everything that makes life easy — you would find it a great change." VOL. II. " I have thought. I've done nothing but think for months ; I've said it all over to myself a thousand times, and the result is that I am sitting here and telling you that I love him — I love him." Then I am sure he loves you." " He does not, or, if he does, he will not say so. I was bold and forward just now, I tried to make him say it, but he wouldn't. He told me that if any woman ever married him she would have to pro pose to him," she continued, with a bitter laugh. " But I don't understand ; that is not like Mr. Hardy," cried Adria. " Oh, he didn't mean it, he was only joking.