The Way of the Spirit

THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

killing a number of them with long cross shots before Rupert could get off his gun.

Rupert said nothing, for there was nothing to say, though he could not help feeling a little annoyed, till at last he did speak – to Edith, asking why Dick did not confine himself to his own pheasants.

“Oh!” she answered, shrugging her shoulders, “because he’s jealous even about his wretched shooting.”

Then an accident happened, for one of the cocks, shot far forward by Dick in this unlawful fashion, in falling, struck Edith on the shoulder and knocked her straight backwards to the ground, where she lay quite still for a few moments, then sat up crying with the pain and gasping:

“Oh, it has hurt me so!”

Now Rupert’s wrath broke out, and he shouted to Dick, who pretended not to have seen what had happened:

“Stop shooting and come here.” So Dick came.

“Look at the end of your infernal, unsportsmanlike tricks,” said Rupert, his eyes shining with anger. “You might have killed her.”

“I am dreadfully sorry,” answered Dick (and he was); “but really I don’t see how I am responsible for the accident. It must have been your bird that struck her.”

“It was not my bird, and you know it. Loader, who shot that pheasant?”

“Mr. Learmer, sir. It was coming over you very high, but Mr. Learmer fired before you could, and killed it.”

Just then Edith staggered to her feet, looking very white.

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“Go back to your stand, Dick,” she said. “Rupert will help me home. Give me your arm, Rupert.”

So very gently, half-supporting her as he had done many a wounded man, Rupert led her to the house, which was not far away, in his grief and confusion speaking tender words to her as they went, even to the length of calling her “dear” and “dearest.” Edith did not answer him, who had a good excuse for keeping silent, although in reality she was much more frightened than hurt. But on the other hand, neither did she attempt to escape from the arm that was placed about her waist to bear her weight.

When she had reached her room, taken off her things and rubbed some liniment on the bruise – for she refused to allow the doctor to be sent for – Edith sat down in a chair before the fire and began to think. The crisis was at hand, that bird from the skies had precipitated it. After those words of Rupert’s, things could not stay where they were. He must propose to her. But the question was – should she accept him? She had been debating the point with herself that very morning, and practically had answered it in the negative. Notwithstanding Lord Devene’s injunctions and the money which depended upon her obedience, so consumedly had Rupert bored her of late, so greatly did she dislike the idea of him as a lover and a husband, so infinite was the distance between them although his passion blinded him to the fact, that she had made up her mind to take the risks and have done with it all, to tell him that she had always looked upon him “as a friend and cousin,” no more. Of course, under the circumstances, this would have been the kindest course towards Rupert, but that was a mat-

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THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

ter with which Edith never troubled her head. She looked at the question from the point of view of her own comfort and advantage and no other.

Well, this was her conclusion of the morning. The problem was – did it still hold good at the fall of night? She thought not. After all, Edith had the instincts of a lady, and this incident of the shooting, especially that of his pretending that it was not he who had shot the bird, revealed to her very clearly that in addition to his worthlessness and vices, Dick lacked those of a gentleman. That he was a coward also, who feigned ignorance of her hurt because he feared Rupert’s anger, although she knew well that he must have been longing to run to her, whose one redeeming virtue in her eyes was that he worshipped the ground she walked on. Now Rupert was a gentleman to his finger-tips, strong, tender, and true, and with him she would be safe all her life. More, her anxieties would be at an end; probably she would become a peeress, the mistress of great rank and fortune, both of which she desired intensely; at the worst, she would be provided for, and the wife of a distinguished man who loved her, and who therefore would put up with much.

Yet Edith hesitated, for all these good things must be bought at the price of Rupert’s constant company for years and years until one of them deceased. She was very unhappy and – her shoulder hurt. She wished that something would come to decide her doubts, to take the responsibility out of her hands. Under the circumstances, many girls might have fallen back upon petitions for light and guidance to the Power that they believed to direct their destinies; but this was not

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Edith’s way. Lord Devene’s teaching had sunk deep into her heart, and she lacked faith in anything save the great blind, terrible, tumultuous world, whereon, born as she thought, of the will of the flesh alone, she flittered from darkness into darkness.

The maid brought up her tea, and on the tray was a letter which had come by the second post. It proved to be from Lord Devene, and began by giving her a sarcastic and amusing account of the humours of a Naples hotel. Its ending showed, however, that this was not the object of the epistle. It ran:

“I hear that you are all at Devene, including the Family Hero, who, I hope, has had his hair cut and bought himself a new hat. The party must be amusing. Write and tell me how many of them come down to morning prayers. Write and tell me your news also, my dear Edith, which I await with anxiety. It is time that matter was settled, for if it is left too long, R. may be sent spinning to the other end of the world, and be no more heard of for years. I will not recapitulate my arguments. I, who have your true interests at heart, wish it for good reasons, and that is enough. Trust yourself to me in this matter, Edith; I take the responsibility, who know more and see further than you do. Do not let any foolish whims, any girlish weakness, stand between you and your future. I have said; I beg of you to listen and obey. – Your affectionate,

“Devene.”

Edith laid down the letter with a sigh of relief. The decision had been made for her and she was glad. She would marry Rupert. It was certain now that if they both lived she would mar-

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CHAPTER VII

ENGAGED

Not wishing to meet Dick until his temper was more composed after that day’s adventure, Rupert did not go into the smoking or billiard-rooms before dinner, but retired to the library, purposing to spend there those dreary three hours which, in a country house, must be got through somehow between the advance of the mid-winter twilight and the welcome sound of the dressing-bell. His intention was to read a commentary on the Koran, if the somewhat agitated state of his mind would allow him to do so, for he loved to acquire miscellaneous learning, especially if it bore upon the East, its antiquities, religions, or affairs, a fact that Edith had good reason to lament. As it happened, this laudable project for the utilisation of spare time was frustrated by Lady Devene, who, finding out his whereabouts from the gloomy butler returning with an empty tea-cup, came to inquire of him the cause of Edith’s accident. He told her the facts in his usual unvarnished style, minimising Dick’s share in it as much as possible. But in spite of her phlegmatic exterior, Lady Devene was a quick judge of truth and character.

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“Ach!” she said, “it is Dick’s tricks again, and I do not like Dick; he is a bad lot, vain of his face, throwing himself head down upon any pleasure that comes, not working for himself; but what is the English word? Ah! I have it – a cadger, a bit of bad money that looks all right outside, no God-fearing man, in that way like his lordship” (she always called her husband “his lordship”), “but without his brains; one wicked by weakness, not by will.”

Rupert looked at her, not knowing exactly what to say. “Ach!” she went on, “you stare at me; you who are his cous-

in think that I, who am his wife, am hard upon his lordship, but, mein Gott! who can be hard upon iron? It is the iron that is hardest, and hurts what hits it. I say he is a terrible man.”

“Then,” asked Rupert solemnly, “why did you marry him?” She looked up and down the great, lonely room lined with books, into which none save the housemaids ever penetrated,

and then at the closed door behind her, and answered:

“I will tell you, Rupert, who are honest, who think as I do and believe in a God and judgment. I am well born in my own country, very well born, of an older and more distinguished family than any of you, who made your money out of brewing but the other day. But after my father’s death in the war we were poor, my mother and I, so when that rich old Lady Hodgson, who was German born, you know, and a friend of our family, asked me to come to live with her for eight months out of every year, and paid me well for it, why, I came. There I met his lordship, who found out that I sent most of my salary home to my mother, and that I thought otherwise than the fashionable English ladies about many things – children, for instance, and

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after the death of her first ladyship began to take much notice of me. At last one day he proposed, and I said, ‘No,’ for I always doubted that man. Then, oh! he was clever. What do you think he did? You see, he knew that I am brought up religious, so he tells me that he is greatly troubled by doubts, and that the real reason why he wants to marry me is that he thinks that I would be able to give him peace of soul again, and to bring him back into the fold of faith – yes, those were his words, ‘the fold of faith.’ Him! that black lamb!” she added, with a gasp of indignation, while Rupert burst out laughing.

“Ah!” she went on, “for you it is funny, but not for me. Well, he over-persuades me, he tells me I shall be wicked if I turn a penitent soul back from the door of life by refusing to have anything to do with it, and so on, and so on, till, sheep’s-head that I am, I believe him. Also my mother wish the marriage, and I liked to be noble in your country as well as my own. So I marry him and find out. The fold of faith! The door of life! Oh! the black goats live in that fold of his – the black, lefthand goats – and the door he knocks at, it is the door of hell. I find he believes in nothing, and when I reproach him, he tells me that it was only his little joke – his little joke to make me marry him, because he thought I should be a good, useful, domestic wife and a fine, handsome mother for his children. Ach! mein Gott, he said it was a little joke – “and rising from her chair in her woe and indignation, Tabitha held up her hands and turned her fair face to heaven, with a look on it like that of a saint who has just felt the first stroke of martyrdom. Indeed it was a very strange scene, and one that impressed Rupert deeply.

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“And what has been the end about his children?” she went on tempestuously. “I have had how many – six, seven – oh! I do my duty, I promise and I pay, but these children they do not live. How can they live with that wicked man for father? The last – it lived some time, and I beg him to have it christened – yes, I crawl about on my knees on the floor after him and beg him let it be made a Christian, and he mocked me and my ‘silly superstitions,’ and he say he will not have it because the child will catch cold. And the child it do catch cold, the cold of death, and now that poor little soul of his it must live on unredeemed for ever, and perhaps, oh, perhaps suffer terribly because of the sin of that wicked man.”

“Don’t say that,” said Rupert; “it’s a hard creed, and I won’t believe a word of it. The innocent can’t be made to suffer for the guilty.”

“Ah! but I do say it, and I do believe it, for I was so taught, and I tell you it torments me, and, Rupert, no child of mine will ever live! You will be the heir of all these lands and drinkshops and moneys, and may they bring you joy. As for me, I wish I were where her first ladyship is. Oh! I know they say he murdered her, that poor Clara, or drove her to death, and I daresay when I have no more children he will do the same to me. Well, I care nothing. And now I have told you and eased my heart, who have no friend but God since my mother died, and I thank you for listening so patient to my sad story, because I should like one of you to know the truth after it is all over – the truth of what comes to women who are led away by false words and the love of place and riches;” and once more

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throwing up her arms, she uttered two or three dry, hard sobs, then to Rupert’s intense relief, turned and left the room.

It seemed to be his fate to receive the confidences of the wives of Lord Devene, and Heaven knows he did not desire this second edition of them. Yet his heart bled for the poor German lady who had been beguiled to fill a place which, for all its seeming grandeur, was to her a very habitation in Purgatory, since day by day she saw her most cherished convictions trampled upon and scorned; while the cruel articles of her narrow creed bred in her mind the belief, or rather the mania, that the sin of the father was wreaked upon the bodies of her children, and even had power to pursue and torment their innocent souls. In its way, this tragedy was as great as that of her whom she succeeded, the wretched woman who, in her lawless search for relief from loveless misery, had found but death. Yet, alas! upon the head of that one he had brought down the evil, and the head of this one he was powerless to protect.

Nor, indeed, did Rupert wish to encourage such painful conversations, confidences, and the intimacy that must result from them. Therefore he was determined that he would get away from Tabitha’s house as soon as possible. But first he must find an opportunity of speaking to Edith and learn his fate. Indeed, after the words which had broken from his lips that day, it was his duty so to do. If only it could be accomplished this night, as it chanced he had a good excuse for departing on the following morning, since he had received a telegram from an old brother-officer, with whom he was engaged to stay in Norfolk, shifting the date of the visit and begging him, if possible, to come down on the morrow instead of that day week.

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