The Woman Who Saved Me

Part I

The medical man was holding my wrist and talking, and I was not listening. In the first place, I knew more about myself than he could tell me; in the second, I should scarcely have understood what he was saying if I had listened; and in the third, I was in so listless and indifferent a condition of mind that I did not care to listen—did not care to answer—did not even care to look, as I was half unconsciously looking at the dead brown leaves twisting in the eddying wind that whirled them down the street.

How dull it all looked! how dull the dragging days were! how I was beginning to hate the big, obtrusive stone houses, and dread the long gray patch of November sky showing itself over the roof, and alternately drifting leaden clouds and drizzling leaden rain that made the wide flagged pavement wet and shining with the slop of passing feet! I had always disliked the English winter, but I had never lost spirit in any other winter as I had during this one. Three months of its slow, dull birth had added a hundred-fold to the listless misery which had become almost a part of myself, and more than once I had almost hoped that its ending would end my life. If during that wretched autumn I had hoped for anything, I had hoped for this, however vaguely; but the time had often been when I had been so utterly indifferent to life or death that I had not even cared to wish for either.

I was in one of the worst of these moods to-day, and when the doctor came it was at its strongest; so, as he talked to me I scarcely listened, but looked out at the whirling leaves and dust in silence. But, though I was not listening, I could not help hearing his last words.

"And as I told Mr. Leith," he was saying, "I cannot be responsible for the result if you do not go."

I began to listen then, though I scarcely knew why.

"Go?" I repeated, "where am I to go, and why?"

"Anywhere," was his emphatic reply. "To the sea-side—to some country place—to Yarmouth—to Swansea—to Switzerland—anywhere away from London."

"But why?" I asked again, beginning to wonder if the man did not, after all, know something more than I had fancied.

"Because," looking at me steadily, "if you remain here you will die in two months, and Mr. Leith will blame me."

"Will he?" I muttered, half unconsciously—"would he blame anybody?"

Doctor Branaird looked at me again—keenly this time—but he said nothing.

"And I may go anywhere out of London?" I said, after a short pause.

"Anywhere," he answered—"though I should advise the sea-side."

"And you have spoken to my husband about it?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?" I asked this unwillingly.

"He said that he hoped the change would improve your health."

I looked out at the leaves in the street again. It was so like him. I knew what it meant. I must decide for myself. He did not care. I might live if I cared for life—die if I chose.

"I have a friend in Bamborough," I said after a while, "I will go there."

Dr. Branaird rose and took his hat.

"Do," he advised—"Bamborough is just the place I should have chosen for you, had I not thought it best to let you choose for yourself. There is plenty of strong sea-breeze on the Cornish coast, and your friend will improve the tone of your nervous system if she is anything of a woman."

So he left me, and so I turned to the street again and stared blankly at the dead leaves and the patch of gray November sky. But I could not watch it long. For the first time in many long months a certain quiet excitement crept upon me, brought about by the thoughts that drifted into my mind concerning my friend at Bamborough—concerning Lisbeth Grant.

We had been girls together and we had loved each other. We had been to each other what girls seldom are—we had been faithful, though for four years Lisbeth had been a wife, and though she was the mother of three children. I knew she was faithful to me still, notwithstanding that since her wedding-day we had never seen each other.

"My hands are full, Gervase," she had written to me once,—"and my heart is full too—to the brim. Hugh and his children fill it as they fill the hands. They give me no time to stagnate. They keep the hands at work and the heart at work too—loving, hoping, thinking for them—and I am sure the beating is more in time for the work the children bring. But they have not crowded you out, Gervase, you may be sure of that. There is all the more room because they have made it larger. The children have made me love you more than ever."

"Yes," I said to myself as I got up from my chair—"yes, I will go to Lisbeth. If I am going to die, better die with Lisbeth than here."

I did not love my husband—I had never loved him, I told myself. It was not even love that had made us happy in the first months of our marriage. It had only been a weak mockery after all, and we had both learned the truth too late. Even the little child that had scarcely drawn a breath could not soften our hearts towards each other. And, worse than this, out of my wretchedness had grown a shadow of sin and despair. I looked backwards sometimes to a fancy I had long left behind—to a fancy that I thought my husband had long blotted out, and looking backward so, I fell into a wonder at what now seemed my blindness. That man would have loved me; there would have come no bitter words from him,—that man would have been true to me through life and death; his love would never have died, burning out the more rapidly for the very strength of its first flame.

I did not often wait for my husband, but I waited for him that night. I wanted to tell him of my decision. Not that I fancied he would care for my absence or presence,—he was past that; we were both past it. Still I would show just so much grace as to make a pretense of consulting him.

"I am going to Bamborough," I said to him, "to visit Lisbeth Grant. Doctor Branaird advises me to do so." And I glanced at him carelessly.

He had just come in, and tossed his hat upon a sofa in his careless fashion, and now he was standing upon the hearth looking silently into the fire. He did not raise his eyes.

"I hope you will find your health improved," he said.

"I hope so," I returned briefly.

But he was not quite easy, I could see, and I must confess to some slight surprise. The old black lines came out on his forehead, but they were not angry lines; they were something new to me in their changed expression. He was so fidgety too, and even more taciturn than usual. But I took no notice of the change until after we had supped and he had been reading for half an hour, when he suddenly broke the silence by flinging his book upon the sofa after his hat and speaking to me abruptly:

"You are not worse than usual," he said, "are you?" I did not look up this time, but went on working steadily. "I think not," I answered; "I am sure not."

I would not tell him the truth. He should have had sight clear enough to discover it for himself.

He got up, and coming to the side of the hearth upon which I was seated, caught hold of my netting silk, so stopping my work.

"That is not true," he said—"it is one of your fables."

"One of my fables?" I returned quietly.

He took hold of my hand and held it up so that my loose sleeve fell back from my arm.

"Yes," he said, "it is a fable. Look at your arm—look at your wrist, see how your bracelet fits it. It was as round as a baby's before"—and here seeming to recollect himself, he let my hand drop.

I looked at it myself as I settled my sleeve again, and as I looked I smiled faintly. My beautiful arms had been my pride once, and now the heavy gold bracelet slipped loosely up and down over a white surface that was little more than delicate skin and slender bone. Perhaps after all Doctor Branaird was right—I had better leave London.

So the next day I went to Bamborough and Lisbeth. But early in the morning, as I stood before the mirror in my dressing-room, my husband came to me. I was surprised again, for of late there had been so little pretense at sentiment between us that I had scarcely expected he would care to make any farewells. But I discovered in a very few moments that this was what he had come for, and I felt myself excited and nervous. This surprised me too. If we had loved each other I might have understood the feeling; but since we did not love each other, what could it mean? He stood by my toilet-table, looking pale and agitated for a few minutes after his entrance, and then he broke the awkward silence:

"You will need money," he began.

I interrupted him.

"No," I said, "you mistake. I do not need any. Thank you."

"Very well," he answered, "if that is the case I suppose it is useless to offer you any. But if you should require anything—wish anything—I hope you will write to me about it."

"Thank you again," I replied, "I will write to you once a week whether I wish anything or not."

He lingered a few minutes longer and then turned to go.

"Then as I shall not see you again I will bid you good-bye," he said; "you will not return until—"

"I recover or die," I interrupted. "If Bamborough agrees with me no better than London has done, Doctor Branaird says I shall die in two months; so good-bye."

I scarcely knew what feeling of desperation prompted me to make a speech so reckless, but it was a feeling desperate enough.

"Gervase!" he exclaimed.

I would not look at him, but in the mirror I saw reflected on his face a pallor as ashen as the pallor of death. Sometimes in after months I wished that I had looked at him more straightly.

But he said nothing more—only waited a moment and then came to my side.

"Good-bye," he said.

"Good-bye," I answered. And the next moment he had touched my cheek lightly with his lips and was gone.

It was late when I reached Bamborough, and the tide was coming in under a red, fog-obscured sun. I looked out of the carriage window as I drove from the station through the narrow streets, and looking I saw little more than an immense expanse of sea, and a dry and wet brown beach where fishermen were lounging, fishermen's children shouting and playing, and fishermen's boats drawn up and fastened upon the sand with chains. I had always felt drawn towards the sea with a curious sense of fascination, and this evening the fresh salt air blew so coolly upon my cheeks that I had a quiet, half-defined feeling that I was not sorry I had come to Bamborough.

And at her open door Lisbeth stood ready to welcome me, and my first glance showed me the same handsome womanly face and handsome womanly figure, neither face nor figure a whit unfamiliar or a whit less perfect for the crown of comely matronhood. Two of her children clung to her flowing skirts, her handsome baby clasped her neck, and as she stood there smiling, I thought of Cordelia, and my heart warmed,—Lisbeth's strength and beauty always warmed it.

She caught me in the one arm her child left free, and drew me into the hall, pressing her warm red lips to mine.

"My dear!" she said, "my dearest!" and it seemed as though she had for the moment no other words to utter. Her very voice warmed me and put life into my veins. I clung to her, enjoying her tender caresses, but scarce speaking a word, for at least Lisbeth understood what my silence often meant and would not reproach me with it. She did not ask me any questions. It seemed that in an instant she comprehended everything, for she carried me to my room and took off my wrappings as if I had been a child and she my mother. I could not help noticing the mother touch in her strong, gentle hands, and the mother tone in her voice.

"I will show you my children as soon as you are rested," she said, "but you must rest first, Gervase. Your husband's telegram did not prepare me for seeing you look so changed."

I felt a sudden pulsation of the heart.

"My husband's telegram!" I said—"did he send one?"

"Yes," she answered, "very early this morning, to say that you were coming."

I answered not a word. Why had he done this? If we had loved each other, I should have known that it was because he could not brook the thought of my meeting even the momentary chill of an unexpected reception; but now the news only startled me.

But though she spoke no word, Lisbeth's eyes lost nothing. I knew that she was searching me even when she spoke of other things, and I knew that she was searching me when, after she had called her children into the room, she stood near me in her royal mother pride, with her little one in her fair, strong arms.

"This is Hugh's boy," she said, touching the crumpled brown curls of her eldest. "Look up, Lawrence. See, Gervase—Hugh's eyes."

They were magnificent children. Lisbeth's perfect, healthful nature had dowered them, and her unwarped, fearless soul shone out of their childish eyes. A desolate aching filled my breast as Lisbeth stood near me with them. Her life was so full—mine so empty. I had never loved children very much—had seen very little of them—and of my own baby I had seen nothing but the poor little cold body I had for one moment caught a glimpse of as Roger bent over it, shaken with a man's terrible weeping. I thought of this when I looked at Lisbeth's children, but no tears came into my eyes. I was wondering vaguely if I were a wicked woman, and if my faded, empty life were my punishment. I do not think I had ever loved my baby or wept for it—Roger had ceased to love me long before its birth, and I had learned to know what a mistake I had made.

But I lived again that day as I talked to Lisbeth. We sat by the fire after tea—she with her child on her breast, and I on a lounging chair near her, until the heavy fog had crept over the sands and up into the little town, hiding even the red lights. We had so much to say, and we were alone together for the first time since we had parted four years ago. Hugh was absent on business, and the children had gone to bed, so we went over the four years again—but until the close of the evening Lisbeth said nothing of my husband. At length, after a silence, she lifted her eyes from the fire and looked at me tenderly—searchingly—sadly.

"And you are happy, Gervase?" she said. I could not answer her at first, but after a silent struggle the words came. I could not tell a lie to Lisbeth.

"Happy! no, I am wretched."

She looked at me for a moment longer and then spoke again.

"Gervase," she said, "if your little child had lived—" I broke in upon her, losing all self-control in a wild, sudden passion of uncontrollable weeping.

"No—no!" I cried out. "Better as it is—far, far better as it is."

She moved her seat nearer to me and drew my head down upon her lap with that tender mother touch.

"Gervase," she said softly, "you think you do not love your husband."

How did she know? for she seemed to understand me in an instant. I cried out again in the midst of my passionate sobs.

"I have never loved him," I said—"he has never loved me. It was a mistake—it was all wrong from first to last, and he is wretched too."

It was all told then—the miserable secret that had grown to its full strength in my own heart alone. It was all told in one brief rash speech—no, not quite all. The rest would be a secret forever even from Lisbeth.

But I had wept myself into calmness at last, and we had been talking together again, though with longer silence between our words than there had been before, when in one of these silences I heard the front door open, and felt a great rioting rush of the boisterous sea wind, and there were sounds of a man's footsteps in the hall, and a man's voice flung out a scrap of song:—

I am come, its deeps are learned— Come, but there is naught to say: Married eyes with mine have met, Silence! Oh! I had my day, Margaret, Margaret?"

I was trembling from head to foot.

"The rush of night wind has made you shiver," Lisbeth said.

But I scarcely heard her.

"Who is it?" I asked breathlessly, though I knew so well—

"It is Hugh's cousin," was her answer. "I forgot to tell you. It is Ralph Gwynne."

Part II

I had been nearly a month at Bamborough and my health was improving slowly. As Doctor Branaird had prophesied, Lisbeth had strengthened my nerves. Her perfect health and spirits roused me as nothing else would have done, and I found myself growing stronger from their force of example. It might be, too, that since I was relieved from my husband's presence a pressure was removed that had been too heavy for me. m But, though I was so much better, I was creeping towards the goal of health very slowly, and it seemed that a breath of renewed pain would undo all.

"You do not gain color fast enough," Lisbeth said to me one morning. "You do not get enough of the sea breeze. You must go out with Ralph again to-day, Gervase."

I had often been out with Ralph.

He looked up first at Lisbeth and then at me.

"I am entirely at Mrs. Leith's service," he said, "and I think you are right, Lisbeth; she needs more air." I got up and walked to the window, so that my back was turned to both of them, but Ralph Gwynne followed me and looked out over my shoulder.

Bamborough looked better than usual this morning. An adventurous ghost of sunshine was casting a clear bright light over the brown sands and gray waves, and over the huts and boats and sturdy brown-legged children. It gave to Bamborough in November a pretense of fresh animation that three times as much sunshine could not have been able to give to London. So I carelessly remarked to Ralph Gwynne.

"Is it bright enough to tempt you out—with me?" he said in a low voice.

He knew I was not strong enough to refuse. He had not changed. He was the very Ralph Gwynne who had led me, years before, into a girlish romance that was like a dream of heaven, and had only ended when Fate separated us and put between us and our untold love a whole world. But now it was different. There was more than a whole world between us; there was the past, the present, and the future. I at least had suffered since we bade each other an indefinite farewell—I at least could not love as I had once loved. Sometimes before the very thought of love my whole nature rose up and battled fiercely. At first I think that I was only indifferent; but in the end I fancied that this man understood me a little, and son owed a little over the woman's blunder I had made.

"Let us ask no questions of each other," he had said to me once. "We have both suffered. Let us trust each other."

It was just what I needed. I should never have told him what I felt, but I was not sorry that one human soul understood the misery the dragging days held for me. So this morning as we walked along the beach we were both silent. It was our custom to be oftener silent than inclined to speak. We both listened to the moan of the breakers and watched the long line of foam out at sea; and at last both by one accord stopped where a cluster of rocks sheltered us from the wind. I sat down, but Ralph Gwynne remained standing, with his back against a rock and his arms folded. At length he spoke to me.

"It is three years to-day," he said, "since you were married."

The sudden, hurried beating of my heart almost suffocated me. I had forgotten until this moment, and the rush of old memories overpowered me. I remembered the very day—just such a day as this, with sunshine warming even the leaden November sky, and whitening the piled edges of the clouds. I had thought it bright then. I remembered too how the day had closed in as I stood at the window of my new home with Roger's arms folded about me and his heart beating against mine. I could scarcely speak steadily, but I managed to do so at length.

"So long?" I said coldly; "yes, I believe you are right. Where were you? How did you learn it?"

He did not look at me; his eyes were fixed steadily on the far-away white line of foam.

"I was in Calcutta," he answered. "The news had been a long time on its way and reached me on this very day—the day that was to be your wedding-day. I shall not forget it easily."

I dropped my glove, and as I stooped to pick it up a sudden recollection flashed across my brain. One day, three months after our marriage, Roger had come home with a budget of news from Calcutta, and among other things had referred to the intense heat and the prevalence of sunstroke among the foreign inhabitants.

"My informant is one of the travelers for Amboyse & Derig," he said, "and he tells me that the very day he left—the day we were married, Gervase—one of the salesmen was struck down with it. He was talking to one of our clerks who had just arrived from England—talking about our wedding too, Hegblase says—and he saw the young fellow change color and stagger, and in a minute more he fell like a shot. Gwynne his name was, I believe—Ralph Gwynne."

So one man had suffered for me at least—one man's love had not died a natural death in a few brief months.

Ralph put his hand into his pocket and drew forth a letter.

"This was handed to me last night," he said. "It bears a London post-mark."

I did not offer to take it for a moment. I knew he had searched me to the core, that he had seen every fruitless pang and bitter humiliation of the past two years. My letters to my husband had been regularly sent, but his answers had been few and far between, and my pride had forced a fresh sting upon me even while I was otherwise indifferent to the neglect. So I hesitated now, and the next moment Ralph Gwynne came to me as if drawn there by an uncontrollable impulse. A gleam of light shot over his dark face.

"You do not care to take it," he said. "The very sight of it is a new torture. Let me throw it into the sea, Gervase."

His vehemence actually startled me into self-control. "That would be a new reading of old laws," I said. "No, give it to me."

He submitted without a word. But I did not read the letter. It had come too late for perusal, I said to myself. So I held it in my hand carelessly, making a show of an ease I could not feel.

It was in my hand when we returned and I sat down before the fire in Lisbeth's room. The sea breeze had done me no good this morning. I was tired and worn out, and drooping into a chair before I removed my wrappings, sat silent, resting my chin upon my hand and holding the letter loosely.

Lisbeth came in to find me sitting thus, and at her first glance at me I saw a strange shadow cross her face.

"Tired, Gervase?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered briefly.

She crossed the room to the fire and knelt down, on pretense of brightening the hearth a little with the brush she held in her hand. The next minute she turned her fair, gracious face full upon me.

"And you have not read your husband's letter?" she said. "Why, Gervase?"

"Because I am not going to read it," I replied, and then, ruled by some sudden wretched impulse, I flung it into the fire.

But Lisbeth said nothing. I wondered at the time whether it was possible for her calm, healthful nature to comprehend the morbid misery that possessed me. I fancied not. The broad, even current of her life's affection had swept on undisturbed, bearing on its smooth surface many flowers. She could not understand me and my weak miseries and weaker regrets.

I hid my face in my hands when she left the room, and abandoned myself to thought. I could not explain why it was that during this month at Bamborough I had scarcely once thought of returning to London and my husband. If ever my mind had recurred to the thought, I had shrunk from it with a misery almost intense. I felt that I could not go back now unless, as I had hoped, in a coffin, shut out forever from his sight.

As I sat by the fire I was wondering vaguely how he would meet me if treated thus—whether he would be touched for a moment with some remembrance of those first days of our marriage, when we had at least fancied we loved each other.

Two hot tears falling upon my hand startled me from my reverie just in time to hear Lisbeth coming down stairs with her child in her arms, and singing to it softly. Should we have loved each other better—Roger and I—if my baby had not died,—I asked myself with a pang.

Lisbeth came in and sat down near me again, still singing softly, still holding her baby upon her shoulder as she rocked her chair. O how I envied her her strength and happiness! She was so strong and happy; her handsome baby was so light a burden in her arms; her quietly busy ways so womanly gracious. I looked at her lovely, clear-browed face, and at the coronal of thick light-brown braids across her stately head; I looked at her peaceful eyes, and the soft mouth that seemed made for children's kisses, and, remembering her girlhood, gave the palm to the beauty of her mother life.

Her calm, radiant face struck me to the heart's core. Often during the last year I had told myself that I was only one of the many, that my mistake was only the mistake all women suffer from—the mistake of hoping for a happiness the world cannot hold. But Lisbeth broke down my theory.

I did not write to London again. The correspondence had only been a matter of courtesy at first, and a shadow of neglect could end it.

Ralph Gwynne did not go away, as Lisbeth had told me he intended doing. He had changed his mind, he said. Bamborough agreed with him, and the India house had prolonged his furlough in consideration of his past services and present ill health. He did not look ill, I thought, and I told him so. But he stayed at Bamborough from day to day, and the longer he stayed the more strongly his old power reasserted itself. Not that I loved him. I was past that. Love could not come back to me, but I had loved him once with all the fervor of a girl's romance, and at least he loved me and had not forgotten the past. One tithe of such love as he poured at my feet, in actions that were unspoken words, might have won me back to my husband and peace.

I did not repulse him. The listless wretchedness that ruled me would have prevented that, even if there had not been a faint fascination in the miserable aggrandizement of feeling that at least one man had been true to me, and was true to me yet. I used sometimes to wonder that Lisbeth never guessed at the truth. She rarely spoke to me of my husband—never of Ralph Gwynne—and yet I was always conscious of a restraining influence in her simple presence. A glance from her would check my recklessness. She held me back by a thread when nothing else on earth could have controlled me.

And so the days drifted by, and I strolled upon the sands with my old lover, and sat in the shelter of the rocks with him, and let him say what he would, scarcely listening, as I watched the waves and the incoming and outgoing boats and dipping sea-gulls.