Saint Monica. A wife's love story

Front matter

SAINT MONICA a mite's TLovc Store- BV MRS. BENNETT-EDWARDS, AUTHOR OF "THE MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNF,SS," "PHARISEES," "IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING," "LO YELL A," "A TANTALUS CUP," "HIS STORY AND HERS," ETC. BRISTOL: J. W. ARROWSMITH, II QUAY STREET. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT AND CO. LIMITED AU rights reserved, wtsb tbat y»ou were Deab. ~r WISH that you were dead; for then (I The thought of you might die, <^) And with it all the cruel wrongs That warp my heart, and cry Revengefully. I wish that you were dead ; because The dead we can forgive. This blinding weight of misery, Can I forget it whilst you live Provocative ? I think that were you dead, perhaps When the years are long between The wound of your iniquity, Kind thoughts might intervene. Such things have been. Die ! let your death my ransom be From your accursed control. Away! and set my spirit free, And my distracted soul Render me whole. E. M. de Fonblanque

Chapter I. Ill Connyston

had just put the finishing touch to a small picture which stood on the easel before him. It was a thoroughly amateur piece of work ; but it showed a certain refinement of sentiment and tenderness of execu tion which were essentials of the painter's — I cannot say artist's — character. The subject was a young nun — very young, almost a child — praying on the bare stones of her cell. But there was something in the yearning expression, in the despairing pose, which told all too plainly that not heavenly fanaticism, but earthly love, had driven her to the cloister. There was repentance, too, and a longing after past delights — an impotent carnal struggle against the inevitable. " Too late — too late!" seemed the cry of the child's prayer; and he had called the picture " Too Late ! " But still it was a thoroughly amateur piece of work, artistic only in design and conception, and as utterly wanting in the vaguest knowledge of techni cality as in any power of execution.

It was certainly not worthy of the absorption the painter evidently felt in the contemplation of his own completed work. He threw himself in the chair before it as if exhausted with his own effort, and a look of utter dejection came over him. It was not the dejection of discontent or of disappointment in his work, but an expression of resigned hopelessness to some inevitable of which his picture might be the outcome. There was something unusually attractive about the man, apart from his perfection of form and feature — something infinitely tender and love-com pelling. He seemed to call on one for sympathy in something altogether indefinable — to look to one for support in some imperceptible weakness — to rely on one, in short, for the making of his life. Even men, whilst despising his weakness, felt this attraction in him.

Women adored him, without question and without reserve. When he had sat there a few minutes gazing into vacancy, the door of his "den," as he called it, opened, and his wife came in, bringing tea and cakes. She put them on a small table by his side; and passing round his chair, stood behind it, with her hands on his shoulders. She bent over him caressingly : "I have brought you your tea, Will," she said. " You complained yesterday that it was cold, because you had not cared to leave your work to come down stairs for it ; so to-day I have brought — the moun tain to Mahomet ! There it is." " You need not have troubled yourself to-day, dear; the picture is finished. I was just coming down." In his voice there was the same tone of dejection which lay over all his person. His dark violet eyes were dull and clouded.

But still he gave her his hand, over the back of the chair, in graceful acknowledgment of the attention she had paid him. She took it, pressed her lips on it, and looked down on him sadly; for he had turned from her again quickly, as if impatient of her caress. Out of some cause which she could not fathom he was a changed creature of late, someone quite apart from the eager, life-loving, passionate boy whom she had married — a year ago to-day. It was their wedding-day. But he had forgotten it, and her pride would not allow her to remind him. If he did not remember it out of his own nature, out of his love for her, let it pass by unnoticed. She was not of those who find pleasure in forcing sentimental situations. In a minute he had repented of his moroseness, seeing that it pained her. His nature was so infi nitely tender that it was agony to him to hurt an insect or a flower, much less a woman and his wife.

"After all, I am glad of the tea," he said, straining after his old warm manner. " Thanks so much, dear, for bringing it ! And how do you like the pic ture now it 's finished ? " " The conception of the whole thing is delicious, and the girl's face is wonderful. You have caught the likeness most cleverly." " What likeness ? " " Monica Viking's likeness, of course. Can there be any doubt about it ? " " Every doubt, I should say. And please remem ber, dear, that I am not a portrait-painter. My picture is purely ideal." " Then Miss Viking is the type of your ideal. And, after all, what higher could you have, especially for a nun ? She always strikes me as the embodiment of the divine in the human. People may well call her 'Saint Monica;' never was nickname more justly given. She is of heaven heavenly."

" You utterlyfail to take in the sentiment of the picture, dear," he said, ignoring "Saint Monica" altogether; "therefore, I had rather you did not discuss it at all. My wife has a great many good parts ; but she has two things wanting — the spirit of art and the soul of music. But let us come to the fire ; I am cold. Painting always makes me cold ; something in the effort exhausting to the nervous system. Suppose we draw up our chairs to the fire, and you can talk to me whilst I drink my tea ? I want to be amused." Veronica Connyston laughed a little satirically as she rolled her arm-chair up to the hearth opposite his. The fact was that she was too much of an artist, too true a musician, to appreciate his dabblings, and not enough of a hypocrite to pretend an admiration she could not feel.

But she knew his super sensitiveness on all points connected with his artistic genius (!), and so she was careful not to wound him further. It was blundering of her to have taken notice of the likeness in his nun to Monica Viking ; she ought to have known he would not like it. She was not often so wanting in tact, and she was angry at her own stupidity. It was out of her honest admiration for this same Monica Viking's classic — nay, almost divine — type of beauty that the unwelcome remark had origi nated. It was hard, very hard, not to offend him in these days ; but love gave her strength to endure. He was ill, she argued with herself; he must be ill; he looked ill — everyone remarked it ; she must be patient with him. " There is no other reason for the change in him — none," Veronica told herself, self-comforting.

Looking back, she could trace when it began and where. It was last autumn after they came back to Park Lane from their visit to George Westbury's country place, Belivor, where they had been for the slaughter of the innocents in the persons of the pheasants and grouse. They had spent a most delightful time, all of them, and Will more espe cially ; for his new favourites, Lord and Lady Hardcastle and their children, the Honourable Bob and the Honourable Monica Viking, were of the party. But after Will came home, this new melancholy and dejection fell upon him ; this new distaste for all the old things of his old life. He grew thin and sunken-eyed and fretful, and all his old lover-like affection for herself, Veronica, changed suddenly to coldness and indifference — she had almost said dis like, only it had killed her in the saying.

He used to be a lover of society, to enter with almost boyish delight into all the gaieties and frivoli ties of the London " season." Now it was with difficulty she could rouse him to go anywhere, his whole desire being to be left alone with his melancholy. To-day, however, she was about to make another effort to drag him out of himself. " If he will only go back to his old life," she argued — " go back amongst his old friends, enter into his old amuse ments, excitements, flirtations — anything, anything to awake in him some of his old feeling — anything to bring back his old love, which is all of life to me ! " But she was not a foolish woman. She knew that man's passion was never yet compelled by woman's sentiment. It must be handled gently and cunningly, and cajoled into life — not by looks, or sighs, or groans, but by those subtler ways of suggestion and instigation which wise women know so well how to practice.

" I will win him back," she said to herself at every new check. And she had faith in her own power, arising out of her immense love for him. The "season" was just opening, and they had received their first invitation worth accepting. Lady Desmond — nicknamed in society " Lady Sappho," an American beauty, celebrated for her eccentri cities and her extravagances — was giving her first dance of the season to-night. Everyone would be there — everyone with a name of any kind, public or private, clean or unclean, aristocratic or Bohe mian. It was always the most amusing dance of the season, being conducted on strictly American lines of unconventionality and freedom. Yet " every one " went to it, the most particular with the most lax. She was an American, you see, and a million aire, and everything was excused in her !

" You really must rouse yourself to come to night, Will," Veronica said to her husband, finding this a good opportunity of persuading him, he hav ing invited her to talk. "All your old favourite partners will be there : the Hardcastles are going, and the Dale-Brookes, and ' Tottie ' — dear Tottie ! Won't even Tottie fetch you ? " He did not answer her. She went on : "You would enjoy it, I am sure; you always enjoy 'Lady Sappho's' 'flings,' as she calls them.' " May not I be the best judge of that ? I don't feel up to 'flings' just now; I have told you so several times." " If you were to rouse yourself into going once, all your old spirit would revive. I believe it is too much trouble to dress ! " she added jokingly. " Posssibly," he answered, with chilling indifference. It was certainly too much trouble to argue with her.

" Lady Hardcastle will be horridly sold if you are not there. She only exists on your tender looks." " Do you particularly wish me to martyrise my self for the flattering of Lady Hardcastle's vanity?" " It used not to be martyrdom to you. I could never quite decide which was prime favourite, Lady Hardcastle or her daughter." " And so you were jealous of both ? " " No. I might have been jealous had you given me cause — all great love is jealous. But I know you, Will, and to know you is to be certain of you. You have told me you love me ; you have chosen me amongst all the world to be your wife. It is enough ; I have never doubted you, and never could doubt." " You should not make such a god of me, dear. I am very human," he answered, holding his hand out to her again, as if wordlessly asking her pardon for some unconfessed offence against her of which she had never accused.

It was a curious self-deprecating way of his, which was infinitely attractive in her sight — infinitely trust-inspiring and love-compelling. "Yes; you are human — thank God," she said, going over to him, taking the proffered hand, and lifting it to her lips as passionlessly as was possible to her. Her impulse was to throw herself into his arms, and cry out all her yearning towards him. But of late any demonstration seemed to repel him. Her caresses were evidently repulsive ; so, like a wise woman, she laid them aside till they should be more welcome. She knew that there is nothing so deadly to a man's dying passion as the expression of a woman's living one. Therefore she dropped his hand, having kissed it gently, and went back to her chair. " Why are you so anxious to drag me to this particular dance ?

" he asked presently, speaking more naturally. "A woman's reason— because I particularly want you to go." " And because, for a truer woman's reason, I particularly do not want to go." " But I want to go, and I cannot go without you — do you see now ? " she said, trying a new mode of persuasion. He had always been so ready to do anything that she really wished him to do. "And why cannot you go without me? You have grown very conventional all at once." "Conventional! I? Never! Life were not worth its price. But I should not care to go without you. I should not enjoy it." "If you were a little more conventional, dear," he answered, ignoring her flattery and changing the drift of the argument, " it would be better for — for both of us. It does not amuse me to hear my wife talked about, called eccentric and the rest of society's polite terms for ' fast,' if it amuses her to be so."

"Would you rather that I had no individuality of thought or action ? Would you have me model myself on the pattern of ten out of every dozen of the puppets which dressmakers cut out and milliners fashion, and of which society must take tight grasp of the wires lest the poor stuffed doll fall on its face for sheer lack of nature's bone and muscle to keep it horizontal ? " " There is medium in all things. One is not bound to take up all the most extreme, all the most advanced views of every question — social, moral, political — to be counted a rational being." " I am content to be counted irrational, Will, except — by those who know me and love me. Their name may not be legion, perhaps ; but they are " " Or he is— which ? I should say that Westbury makes the sum-total of your supporters in all your socialistic eccentricities."

He had never spoken to her in this manner before. She could not understand him. But she ignored his taunt, and answered him gently : " You used to tell me that the thing you most admired in me was, my independent spirit. Had it not been so, I should have subdued it long ago, Will — to please you." Her voice broke into tenderness, and the look she gave him spoke an all -dominating love. Perhaps he noticed it ; for he shrank back further into his chair, taking up his St. James's, and holding it between his eyes and hers. There was another long silence. Presently he returned to the original question at issue : " Let me know, dear, as soon as you have de cided, whether or not you are going to ' Lady Sappho's ' to-night. I will make my arrangements accordingly." " I shall not go without you.' " Westbury will be there — what better protector can you require ?

" Again that new sarcasm, which was so incomprehensible to her ! " I want you, Will," she answered. "You have not far to go for gratification, dear," he said, making a feint at joking. " I am here ; take your fill of me." She did not see his irony. She was carried away again by her own earnestness. Rising again from her seat, she went over to him, and placed herself on the arm of his chair, bending over him. " Are you here ? " she said softly, — " would you be here ? If we— if I— did not go to-night, would you be here with me, not at your club, as you have been every night for so long ? Should we be together, Will, you and I, with nothing — no one — between us? A long, happy night, dear — it is ages since we had the chance ; there is always something, someone. It is not your fault or mine, it is circumstance.

But to-night, dearest ; to-night " "To-night we will go to 'Lady Sappho's,'" he answered, gently disengaging his hand from under hers, and kissing her lightly as he did so, lest she should be hurt by his repulsion. But the kiss was mechanical and forced. She shrank away from him mortified. She went back to her old place opposite him, angry in that she had so far lowered herself as to beseech him. She spoke no word now in answer to his sudden concession to her request that he would accompany her to " Lady Sappho's " dance, although a moment ago she had so eagerly desired it of him. " Well, dear, you don't seem pleased," he re marked. " How can I say or do more for you ? I will go to this tomfoolery because you want me to go. Is that proof enough of my — my affection, which somehow you seem to be doubting just now ?

" " I have never doubted you," she repeated coldly : " a man does not marry a portionless woman unless he love her." "Just so. Well, then, it's decided — we go to night ; and since we are going — since I have con sented to go for your pleasure — I want you to do something for me in return." " Yes — what ? " eagerly. " Make yourself look your very best. Several people will be there, old acquaintance of mine, who have not seen you yet. I am proud of my wife, and like to hear her admired. You will be a long way the handsomest woman in the room — no one to touch you ! " "Monica?" " The styles are so different — one does not com pare them," he replied, with the same uncomfortable, shrinking movement that had followed her remark on the cleverness of the likeness in his picture. Then, rapidly, to stop her answering : " Suppose you wear your yellow dress," he rattled on, "the one I designed for you ?

You look better in that than in anything you have ever had : there is a uniqueness about it that suits your style to perfection ; everyone raves about it." " And everyone has seen it to repletion. I have had a new one made for this evening, a white one — so far as my experience goes, people prefer me in white." " Westbury does, I suppose ? " " Yes ; he, amongst the rest." " And you prefer to gratify him than to gratify me?" " You know I do not, Will!" she said, moving to leave the room. " Then wear the yellow." " If it pleases you," she answered, with supreme carelessness, as she shut the door between them. But then, as she mounted the stairs, " He does care about me ! " she cried out joyfully to herself, flushed with excitement: "he cares howl look; he wants his old set to see me at my best to-night ; he wants me to be admired ; he is proud of me !

Thank God for my good looks ! " she said triumphantly, standing before the long mirror in her room. "At last it has some value, this acknowledged beauty of mine ; it is a weapon against Will's indifference ! Yes, and I will use it too ; use it to-night to bring him back to me in craven servitude, like all the other fools who crowd about me boring me to death with their inane flatteries. But Will is different ; and to-night, for a change, I shall have some heart in my role of fashionable coquette: To ' mash ' W'ill — to ' mash ' my own husband — what a novel situation ! Yes, he shall come back to me, I say, to-night — our wedding-night ! "

Chapter II

|5p£y3|^ HERE was little to be desired as iOflfll_fyl Veronica Connyston stood dressed j&||^ jp^i before her long mirror, wearing the j||y|f2]g^l| yellow of her husband's choice. She had laid aside, almost without regret, the white brocade she had taken such delight in "thinking out" and producing, in partnership with Madame Ricardo. It was a success of the first order, but she put it aside cheerfully, because Will preferred her in yellow. For almost the first time in her remembrance > she felt a triumphant vanity in her own exceeding loveliness as she stood surveying herself in the regal amber gown, with all her sapphires and diamonds setting it aglow, — his gift to her — his wedding gift — a year ago to-day. She was certain, triumphantly certain, that Will was right — that no other woman in the crowd would "touch her; " that, in Will's critical sight no other would come into comparison with her ; that before her colour and radiance even Monica Viking's classic perfection would sink into insignificance.

In a matter of human, womanly seductiveness she, Veronica, reigned supreme always and everywhere. Even Will, in his most critical moods, had not denied her this precedence. That was all she desired — his approval, his admiration, his pride in her. Let society go hang, and let Madame Ricardo's wonderful white gown remain in oblivion. The yellow was Will's choice, Will's fancy, a proof of Will's interest in her. She rejoiced with an exceeding great joy that he had asked her to wear it. " It is the beginning of better things," she said, " the awaking of life in him. The rest will come." Suddenly, as she stood before the mirror wrapt in the delight of her own hopes, a revelation seemed to come to her — a reason, an explanation, a new light on the darkness of her life. Will was always, of late, making mention of George Westbury in connection with herself.

Was he — could he by any possibility be jealous of this friend of hers, of this one-time lover? Was jealousy at the bottom of all Will's new coldness and neglect ? She had never imagined him of a jealous nature ; he was too vain, she fancied, to think himself second anywhere. It had never, until now, struck her that he could possibly have any doubts or sus picions of her. He must know the absolute oneness of her love for himself; he had proof enough of it, surely. Why, she had thrown over this very George Westbury for Will — jilted one man who loved her with a great, unselfish love, for one who did not know the meaning of unselfishness ! All this Will knew of her, and she could not imagine that he might doubt the supremacy of his power over her. He never used to doubt. He had himself given Westbury the hand of reconciliation and friendship, throwing open to him his house, and constituting him a mutual and family friend.

He had shown implicit confidence in him always. And yet — and yet ! To-day, more than ever, he had mentioned George Westbury's name sneeringly, connecting it with her self, as if something in him or in her, or in both, were an offence to him ! There had been a suggestion of disapproval or dislike which Veronica had never noticed before. Perhaps it had been there, and she, in her ignorant content, had not remarked it. Perhaps he had been careful not to let her remark it. Perhaps to-night he was wearied and upset, and it had escaped from him unwittingly. " If he had only told me ! " she almost cried out standing before the mirror still, but seeing nothing now of her own reflection, feeling nothing of her old triumph in her beauty. " Why, if he be jealous, did he take me to Belivor last autumn, and encourage me to ride and drive and talk with George, himself being occupied with Monica Viking — or her mother ?

But perhaps he grew jealous at Belivor, seeing us so much together, and knowing of George's enduring love. It was after we left Belivor that I saw the change in him. Is it all explained ? But he might have spoken. There was always time to alter things ■there is still time, and — "Vera! the carriage has been round some time," her husband called from his dressing-room. " Are you ready ? " She went downstairs mechanically, absorbed in her new bewilderment. She waited for him on the first landing, her cloak over her arm. She wanted his approval before she covered herself in her wrap. He followed her closely. "Yes," he said, folding her cloak about her, "yellow is your colour, dear, whatever anyone may maintain to the contrary. You really do look mag nificent ! " And he gave her his arm to take her down the last flight of stairs.

But he stopped suddenly, apparently altering his mind. He loosed her arm, and stood still, hesitatingly, before her. Then, in a manner quite unnatural to him, he spoke ; half apologetically, as if self-excusing, or rather, perhaps, as if self-persuading or self-con doning some fault of which he knew himself guilty: " Dear, I want you to remember one thing about this evening. Will you remember always that it was not I who insisted on going to this dance — was it?" "No; why?" "All right; only don't forget. J did not want to go," pointing every word. " Let us stay at home, then," she said eagerly, astonished out of all self-restraint by the earnestness of his speech ; " it is not too late to change our minds. Let us stay at home, if you would rather." And she threw back her cloak, joyful at the prospect of an evening alone with him, after all.

" If we don't go to ' Lady Sappho's,' I shall have to go to supper with Dorrington. I more than half promised him yesterday — only I thought you had set your mind on this dance." "Why don't you keep your promise to Dorring ton ? " she answered angrily, drawing back from the hand he had laid on her shoulder. " Why ? Well, dear, I have just said that you seemed to make such a special point of my going with you. I preferred gratifying you to gratifying myself, that's all. Besides, I really don't much care. I suppose it won't make much difference in the long run; only " " Only what ? " " Remember that it 's your doing, that 's all Come along!" She could not answer him. There was no answer to make. She could not contradict him or argue with him. It was her doing— her doing — for his sake, to rouse him, if possible, out of this state of torpor in which he had lain for so many months.

She was certain that if it grew upon him further, he would die under the pressure. Die ! Oh, God ! to lose him, to lose all that made life for her— her lover, her husband of only one year — one year to-day ! No ! he must be brought back to life and health ; brought back to his old eager delight in all sensual enjoyment. To-night, under the excitement of music and dancing, under the intoxication of her voluptuous beauty and the seductions she would lavish upon him — to-night she would win him back. If ever woman had a right to bring together all the forces of her magnificent womanhood to compel an answer to the passionate love which was burning in her, that woman was Veronica Connyston besieging her self alienated husband. So she would not be rebuffed by his reflections on herself, but went downstairs with him silently, and into the carriage.

The servants were watching them closely. There was no smallest sign of any jarring element between them. He was bending over her tenderly and talking common-places to her in that low, caressing voice of his which made even the servants adore him ; and he was looking at her with eyes whose love-suggesting glance was the envy and the despair of half the fashionable women in London. He had a way of seeming to give all, and she to receive with gracious condescension — so greatly did appearances deceive in them I "Well, they are a 'andsome couple, they are ! " the footman said, in honest admiration, as he shut the door behind them. Will Connyston was a merchant of our good London city. A merchant by courtesy only, for it is doubtful whether he had ever set foot in the old warehouse in which his father had passed the greater portion of his life.