Faith and Unfaith: A Novel

Scrope, taking Mrs. Branscombe's cold hand in his, leads her from the room. When outside, she presses her fingers on his in a grateful fashion, and, whispering something to him in a broken voice, – which he fails to hear, – she goes heavily up the staircase to her own room.

When inside, she closes the door, and locks it, and, going as if with a purpose to a drawer in a cabinet, draws from it a velvet frame. Opening it, she gazes long and earnestly upon the face it contains: it is Dorian's.

It is a charming, lovable face, with its smiling lips and its large blue honest eyes. Distrustfully she gazes at it, as if seeking to discover some trace of duplicity in the clear open features. Then slowly she takes the photograph from the frame, and with a scissors cuts out the head, and, lifting the glass from a dull gold locket upon the table near her, carefully places the picture in it.

When her task is finished, she looks at it once again, and then laughs softly to herself, – a sneering unlovable laugh full of self-contempt. Her whole expression is unforgiving, yet suggestive of deep regret. Somehow, at this moment his last words came back to her and strike coldly on her heart: "I wish to be alone!"

"Alone!" How sadly the word had fallen from his lips! How stern his face had been, how broken and miserable his voice! Some terrible grief was tearing at his heart, and there was no one to comfort or love him, or —

She gets up from her chair, and paces the room impatiently, as though inaction had ceased to be possible to her. An intense craving to see him again fills her soul. She must go to him, if only to know what he has been doing since last she left him. Acting on impulse, she goes quickly down the stairs, and across the hall to the library, and enters with a beating heart.

All is dark and dreary enough to chill any expectant mind. The fire, though warm and glowing still, has burned to a dull red, and no bright flames flash up to illumine the gloom. Blinded by the sudden change from light to darkness, she goes forward nervously until she reaches the hearth-rug: then she discovers that Dorian is no longer there.

CHAPTER XXXII

"Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows;And when we meet at any time again,Be it not seen in either of our browsThat we one jot of former love retain." – Drayton.

Not until Mrs. Branscombe has dismissed her maid for the night does she discover that the plain gold locket in which she had placed Dorian's picture is missing. She had (why, she hardly cares to explain even to herself) hung it round her neck; and now, where is it?

After carefully searching her memory for a few moments, she remembers that useless visit to the library before dinner, and tells herself she must have dropped it then. She will go and find it. Slipping into a pale-blue dressing-gown, that serves to make softer and more adorable her tender face and golden hair, she thrusts her feet into slippers of the same hue, and runs down-stairs for the third time to-day, to the library.

Opening the door, the brilliant light of many lamps greets her, and, standing by the fire is her husband, pale and haggard, with the missing locket in his hand. He has opened it, and is gazing at his own face with a strange expression.

"Is this yours?" he asks, as she comes up to him. "Did you come to look for it?"

"Yes." She holds out her hand to receive it from him, but he shows some hesitation about giving it.

"Let me advise you to take this out of it," he says, coldly, pointing to his picture. "Its being here must render the locket valueless. What induced you to give it such a place?"

"It was one of my many mistakes," returns she, calmly, making a movement as though to leave him; "and you are right. The locket is, I think, distasteful to me. I don't want it any more: you can keep it."

"I don't want it, either," returns he, hastily; and then, with a gesture full of passion, he flings it deliberately into the very heart of the glowing fire. There it melts, and grows black, and presently sinks, with a crimson coal, utterly out of sight.

"The best place for it," says he, bitterly. "I wish I could as easily be obliterated and forgotten."

Is it forgotten? She says nothing, makes no effort to save the fated case that holds his features, but, with hands tightly clenched, watches its ruin. Her eyes are full of tears, but she feels benumbed, spiritless, without power to shed them.

Once more she makes a movement to leave him.

"Stay," he says, gently; "I have a few things to say to you, that may as well be got over now. Come nearer to the fire: you must be cold."

She comes nearer, and, standing on the hearth-rug, waits for him to speak. As she does so, a sharp cough, rising to her throat, distresses her sufficiently to bring some quick color into her white cheeks. Though in itself of little importance, this cough has now annoyed her for at least a fortnight, and shakes her slight frame with its vehemence.

"Your cough is worse to-night," he says, turning to regard her more closely.

"No, not worse."

"Why do you walk about the house so insufficiently clothed?" asks he, angrily, glancing at her light dressing-gown with great disfavor. "One would think you were seeking ill health. Here, put this round you." He tries to place upon her shoulders the cashmere shawl she had worn when coming in from the garden in the earlier part of the evening. But she shrinks from him.

"No, no," she says, petulantly; "I am warm enough; and I do not like that thing. It is black, – the color of Death!"

Her words smite cold upon his heart. A terrible fear gains mastery over him. Death! What can it have to do with one so fair, so young, yet, alas! so frail?

"You will go somewhere for change of air?" he says, entreatingly, going up to her and laying his hand upon her shoulder. "It is of this, partly, I wish to speak to you. You will find this house lonely and uncomfortable (though doubtless pleasanter) when I am gone. Let me write to my aunt, Lady Monckton. She will be very glad to have you for a time."

"No; I shall stay here. Where are you going?"

"I hardly know; and I do not care at all."

"How long will you be away?"

"How can I answer that question either? There is nothing to bring me home."

"How soon do you go?" Her voice all through is utterly without expression, or emotion of any kind.

"Immediately," he answers, curtly. "Are you in such a hurry to be rid of me? Be satisfied, then: I start to-morrow." Then, after an unbroken pause, in which even her breathing cannot be heard, he says, in a curious voice, "I suppose there will be no occasion for me to write to you while I am away?"

She does not answer directly. She would have given half her life to be able to say, freely, "Write to me, Dorian, if only a bare line, now and then, to tell me you are alive;" but pride forbids her.

"None, whatever," she says, coldly, after her struggle with her inner self. "I dare say I shall hear all I care to hear from Clarissa or Sir James."

There is a long silence. Georgie's eyes are fixed dreamily upon the sparkling coals. His eyes are fixed on her. What a child she looks in her azure gown, with her yellow hair falling in thick masses over her shoulders. So white, so fair, so cruelly cold! Has she no heart, that she can stand in that calm, thoughtful attitude, while his heart is slowly breaking?

She has destroyed all his happy life, this "amber witch," with her loveliness, and her pure girlish face, and her bitter indifference; and yet his love for her at this moment is stronger, perhaps, than it has ever been. He is leaving her. Shall he ever see her again?

Something at this moment overmasters him. Moving a step nearer to her, he suddenly catches her in his arms, and, holding her close to his heart, presses kisses (unforbidden) upon her lips and cheek and brow.

In another instant she has recovered herself, and, placing her hands against his chest, frees herself, by a quick gesture, from his embrace.

"Was that how you used to kiss her?" she says, in a choked voice, her face the color of death. "Let me go: your touch is contamination."

Almost before the last word has passed her lips, he releases her, and, standing back, confronts her with a face as livid as her own.

In the one hurried glance she casts at him, she knows that all is, indeed, over between them now; never again will he sue to her for love or friendship. She would have spoken again, – would, perhaps, have said something to palliate the harshness of her last words, – but by a gesture he forbids her. He points to the door.

"Leave the room," he says, in a stern commanding tone; and, utterly subdued and silenced by his manner, she turns and leaves him.

CHAPTER XXXIII

"A goodly apple, rotten at the heart.Oh, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!" —Merchant of Venice."No hinge nor loopTo hang a doubt on." —Othello.

Dorian has been two months gone, and it is once again close on Christmas-tide. All the world is beginning to think of gifts, and tender greetings, and a coming year. Clarissa is dreaming of wedding garments white as the snow that fell last night.

The post has just come in. Clarissa, waking, stretches her arms over her head with a little lazy delicious yawn, and idly turns over her letters one by one. But presently, as she breaks the seal of an envelope, and reads what lies inside it, her mood changes, and, springing from her bed, she begins to dress herself with nervous rapidity.

Three hours later, Sir James, sitting in his library, is startled by the apparition of Clarissa standing in the door-way with a very miserable face.

"What on earth has happened?" says Sir James, who is a very practical young man and always goes at once to the root of a mystery.

"Horace is ill," says Miss Peyton, in a tone that might have suited the occasion had the skies just fallen. "Oh, Jim, what shall I do?"

"My dearest girl," says Scrope, going up to her and taking her hands.

"Yes, he is very ill! I had not heard from him for a fortnight, and was growing wretchedly uneasy, when to-day a letter came from Aunt Emily telling me he has been laid up with low fever for over ten days. And he is very weak, the doctor says, and no one is with him. And papa is in Paris, and Lord Sartoris is with Lady Monckton, and Dorian – no one knows where Dorian is!"

"Most extraordinary his never getting any one to write you a line!"

"Doesn't that only show how fearfully ill he must be? Jim, you will help me, won't you?"

This appeal is not to be put on one side.

"Of course I will," says Scrope: "you know that – or you ought. What do you want me to do?"

"To take me to him. I want to see him with my own eyes."

"To go yourself?" says Sir James, extreme disapprobation in his tone. "You must be out of your mind."

"I am not," returns she, indignantly. "I never was more in it. And I am going, any-way."

"What will your father say?"

"He will say I was quite right. Dear, dear, DEAR Jim," – slipping her hand through his arm, and basely descending from hauteur to coaxing, – "do say you will take me to him. It can't be wrong! Am I not going to be his wife in a month's time?"

Sir James moves a chair out of his way with most unnecessary vehemence.

"How that alters the case I can't see," he says, obstinately.

"You forsake me!" says Miss Peyton, her eyes filling with tears. "Do. I can't be much unhappier than I am, but I did depend on you, you were always so much my friend." Here two large tears run down her cheeks, and they, of course, decide everything.

"I will take you," he says, hastily. "To-day? – The sooner the better, I suppose."

"Yes; by the next train. Oh, how obliged to you I am! Dear Jim, I shall never forget it to you!"

This is supposed to be grateful to him, but it is quite the reverse.

"I think you are very foolish to go at all," he says, somewhat gruffly.

"Perhaps I am," she says, with a rueful glance. "But you cannot understand. Ah! if you loved, yourself, you could sympathize with me."

"Could I?" says Sir James, with a grimace that is meant for a smile, but as such is a most startling specimen of its class.

So they go up to town, and presently arrive at the house where Horace lies unconscious of all around him. The door is opened to them by an unmistakable landlady, – a fat, indolent person, with sleepy eyes, and a large mouth, and a general air about her suggestive of perpetual beef-steaks and bottled stout.

This portly dame, on being questioned, tells them, "Mr. Branscum has just bin given his draft, and now he is snoozin' away as peaceable as a hinfant, bless 'im."

"Is he – in bed?" asks Sir James, diffidently, this large person having the power to reduce him to utter subjection.

"Lawks! no, sir. He wouldn't stay there he's that contrairy. Beggin' yore parding, sir, he's yore brother?"

Sir James nods. She may prove difficult, this stout old lady, if he declares himself no relative.

"To be shore!" says she. "I might 'a' knowed by the speakin' likeness between you. You're the born himage of 'im. After his draft we laid 'im on the sofy, and there he is now, sleepin' the sleep of the just. Just step up and see him; do, now. He is in a state of comus, and not expectit to get out of it for two hours."

"The young – lady – will go up," says Sir James, feeling, somehow, as if he has insulted Clarissa by calling her "a young lady." "She would like" (in a confidential tone that wins on the stout landlady) "to see him alone, just at first."

"Just so," says Mrs. Goodbody, with a broad wink; and Clarissa is forthwith shown up-stairs, and told to open the first door she comes to.

"And you," says Mrs. Goodbody to Sir James, "will please just to step in 'ere and wait for her, while I see about the chicking broth!"

"What a charming room!" says Sir James, hypocritically; whereupon the good woman, being intensely flattered, makes her exit with as much grace as circumstances and her size will permit.

Clarissa opening the door with a beating heart, finds herself in a pretty, carefully-shaded room, at the farther end of which, on a sofa, Horace lies calmly sleeping. He is more altered than even her worst fears had imagined, and as she bends over him she marks, with quick grief, how thin and worn and haggard he has grown.

The blue veins stand out upon his nerveless hands. Tenderly, with the very softest touch, she closes her own fingers over his. Gently she brushes back the disordered hair from his flushed forehead, and then, with a quick accession of coloring, stoops to lay a kiss upon the cheek of the man who is to be her husband in one short month.

A hand laid upon her shoulder startles and deters her from her purpose. It is a light, gentle touch, but firm and decided and evidently meant to prevent her from giving the caress. Quickly raising herself, Clarissa draws back, and, turning her head, sees —

Who is it? Has time rolled backwards? A small, light, gray-clad figure stands before her, a figure only too well remembered! The brown hair brushed back from the white temples with the old Quakerish neatness, the dove-like eyes, the sensitive lips, cannot be mistaken. Clarissa raises her hands to her eyes to shut out the sight.

Oh! not that! Anything but that! Not Ruth Annersley!

A faint sick feeling overcomes her; involuntarily she lays a hand upon the back of a chair near her, to steady herself; while Ruth stands opposite to her, with fingers convulsively clinched, and dilated nostrils, and eyes dark with horror.

"What brings you here?" asks Ruth, at length, in a voice hard and unmusical.

"To see the man whose wife I was to have been next month," says Clarissa, feeling compelled to answer. "And" – in a terrible tone – "who are you?"

"The woman who ought to be his wife," says Ruth, in the same hard tone, still with her hands tightly clasped.

Clarissa draws her breath hard, but returns no answer; and then there falls upon them a long, long silence, that presently becomes unbearable. The two women stand facing each other, scarcely breathing. The unnatural stillness is undisturbed save by the quick irregular gasps of the sick man.

Once he sighs heavily, and throws one hand and arm across his face. Then Ruth stirs, and, going swiftly and noiselessly to his side, with infinite tenderness draws away the arm and replaces it in its former position. She moves his pillows quietly, and passes her cool hand across his fevered brow.

"Ruth?" he moans, uneasily, and she answers, "I am here, darling," in the faintest, sweetest whisper.

Something within Clarissa's heart seems to give way. At this moment, for the first time, she realizes the true position in which he has placed her. A sensation of faintness almost overcomes her, but by a supreme effort she conquers her weakness, and crushes back, too, the rising horror and anger that have sprung into life. A curious calm falls upon her, – a state that often follows upon keen mental anguish. She is still completing the victory she has gained over herself, when Ruth speaks again.

"This is no place for you!" she says, coldly, yet with her hand up to her cheek, as though to shield her face from the other's gaze.

Clarissa goes up to her then.

"So you are found at last," she says, somewhat monotonously. "And, of all places, here! Is there any truth in the world, I wonder? Was it shame kept you from writing, all these months, to your unhappy father? Do you know that an innocent man – his brother" – pointing with a shivering gesture to the unconscious Horace – "has been suffering all this time for his wrong-doing?"

"I know nothing," replies Ruth, sternly. "I seek to know nothing. My intercourse with the world ceased with my innocence."

"You knew of my engagement to him?" says Clarissa, again motioning towards the couch.

"Yes."

"Before you left Pullingham?"

"No! oh, no! – not then," exclaims Ruth, eagerly. "I did not believe it then. Do not judge me more harshly than you can help."

The dull agony that flashes into her eyes quickens into life some compassionate feeling that still lies dormant in Clarissa's breast.

"I do not judge you at all," she says, with infinite gentleness. Then, with an impulsive movement, she turns and lays her hand upon her shoulder. "Come home with me – now!" she says. "Leave this place, Ruth, I implore you, listen to me!"

"Do not," says Ruth, shrinking from her grasp; "I am not fit for you to touch. Remember all that has passed."

"Do you think I shall ever forget!" says Clarissa, slowly. "But for your father's sake: he is ill, – perhaps dying. Come. For his sake you will surely return?"

"It is too late!" says the girl, in a melancholy voice. And then, again, "It is impossible." Yet it is apparent that a terrible struggle is taking place within her breast: how it might have ended, whether the good or bad angel would have gained the day, can never now be said; a sigh, a broken accent, decided her.

"My head!" murmurs the sick man, feebly, drawing his breath wearily, and as if with pain. "Ruth, Ruth, are you there?" The querulous dependent tone rouses into instant life all the passionate tenderness that is in Ruth's heart. Having soothed him by a touch, she turns once more to Clarissa.

"He too is sick, – perhaps dying," she says, feverishly. "I cannot leave him! I have sacrificed all for him, and I shall be faithful unto the end. Leave me: I have done you the greatest wrong one woman can do another. Why should you care for my salvation?" Through all the defiance there is bitter misery in her tone.

"I don't know why; yet I do," says poor Clarissa, earnestly.

"You are a saint," says Ruth, with white lips. And then she falls upon her knees. "Oh, if it be in your heart," she cries, "grant me your forgiveness!"

Clarissa bursts into tears.

"I do grant it," she says. "But I would that my tongue possessed such eloquence as could induce you to leave this house." She tries to raise Ruth from her kneeling position.

"Let me remain where I am," says Ruth, faintly. "It is my right position. I tell you again to go; this is no place for you. Yet stay you, sweet woman," – she cries, with sudden fervor, catching hold of the hem of Clarissa's gown and pressing it to her lips, – "let me look at you once again! It is my final farewell to all that is pure; and I would keep your face fresh within my heart."

She gazes at her long and eagerly.

"What! tears?" she says; "and for me? Oh, believe me, though I shall never see you again, the recollection of these tears will soothe my dying hours, and perhaps wash out a portion of my sins!"

Her head drops upon her hands. So might the sad Magdalen have knelt. Her whole body trembles with the intensity of her emotion, yet no sound escapes her.

"Ruth, for the last time, I implore you to come with me," says Clarissa, brokenly. And once more the parched lips of the crouching woman frame the words, "It is too late!"

A moment after, the door is opened, and closed again and Clarissa has looked her last upon Ruth Annersley.

How she makes her way down to the room where Sir James sits awaiting her, Clarissa never afterwards remembers.

"It is all over: take me away!" she says, quietly, but somewhat incoherently.

"He isn't dead?" says Sir James, who naturally conceives the worst from her agitation.

"No: it is even worse," she says. And then she covers her face with her hands, and sinks into a chair. "Ruth Annersley is here!" When she has said this, she feels that life has almost come to an end. How shall she make this wretched revelation to her father, to Georgie, to all the rest of the world?

As for Sir James, he stands at some distance from her, literally stunned by the news. Words seem to fail him. He goes up to her and takes one of her small icy-cold hands in his.

"Did you see her?"

"Yes."

"The scoundrel!" says Sir James, in a low tone. Then, "Is he very ill?" There is unmistakable meaning in his tone.

"Very." And here she falls to bitter weeping again.

It is a cruel moment: Sir James still holds her hand, but can find no words to say to comfort her; indeed, where can comfort lie?

At this instant a heavy footfall resounds along the passage outside. It warns them of the sylph-like approach of Mrs. Goodbody. Sir James going quickly to the door, intercepts her.

"My – my sister is quite upset," he says, nervously. "Mr. Branscombe was – was worse than she expected to find him."

"Upset! – and no wonder, too," says Mrs. Goodbody, with heavy sympathy, gazing approvingly at Miss Peyton. "There's no denying that he's so worn out, the pore dear, as it's quite dispiritin' to see 'im, what with his general appearings and the fear of a bad turn at any mingit. For myself, I take my meals quite promiscuous like, since he fell ill, – just a bit here and a bit there, it may be, but nothing reg'lar like. I ain't got the 'art. Howsoever, 'hope on, hope never,' is my motter, miss; and we must allus hope for the best, as the sayin' is."

"Just so," says Sir James, who doesn't know, in the very least, what to say.

"A good wife, sir, I allus say, is half the battle; and that lady up-stairs, she is a reg'lar trump, she is, and so devoted, as it's quite affectin' to witness. Good-mornin' sir – thank you, sir. I'll see to him, you be bound; and, with his good lady above, there ain't the smallest – "

Sir James, opening the hall door in despair, literally pushes Clarissa out and into the cab that is awaiting them. For a long time she says nothing; and just as he is beginning to get really anxious at her determined silence, she says, with some difficulty, —

"Jim, promise me something?"

"Anything," says Jim.

"Then never again allude to this day, or to anything connected with it; and never again mention – his – name to me, unless I first speak to you."

"Never!" returns he, fervently. "Be sure of it."

"Thank you," she says, like a tired child; and then, sinking back in her corner of the cab, she cries long and bitterly.

CHAPTER XXXIV

"Our doubts are traitors,And make us lose the good we oft might win." – Shakespeare."The day goeth down red darkling,The moaning waves dash out the light,And there is not a star of hope sparklingOn the threshold of my night." – Gerald Massey.

The morning after her unfortunate visit to town, Clarissa sends to Mrs. Branscombe, asking her to come to her without delay. The secret that is in her heart weighs heavily, and Georgie must be told. Yet, now, when the door opens, and Georgie stands before her, she is dumb, and cold, and almost without power to move.