Jessie Fothergill

“ He had not failed to probe Jerome Wellfield’s heart, as opportunity was afforded. One day, in a fit of almost intolerable remorse, when he had just heard the news of Sara’s having been at the point of death, and of her marriage with Falkenberg, and when, as it seemed to him, his wife was fading away before his eyes, consumed with her sorrow, Jerome had confessed–it could be called nothing else. The temptation of confiding in one whom he felt to be so much stronger and more self-sufficing–one whose hold on life and the things of life was so much firmer than his own, had proved too strong. ”

“ Ellen was perforce obliged to go and get out the dress, and help Sara to make her toilette, feeling all the time that it was as if she attired a ghost. When she was ready the young lady looked beautiful, as usual, but it was with a kind of beauty which no sane person cares to see. Face and lips were ghastly white; there was a deathlike composure and calm in her expression; only those beautiful eyes looked restlessly forth, dark and clouded, and full of a misery which surpassed the power of words to utter, or tears to alleviate. Sara hardly knew herself why she was going out ”

“ It was afternoon of the following day. Sara was much in the same state–no stronger, no weaker. She saw, with something like apathy, how Wilhelmi, his wife, and Luise came into her room together, spoke to her, and seated themselves side by side.
She had a faint remembrance that Rudolf had said something about witnesses; she was not quite sure what it all meant, but no doubt it was right. Falkenberg was there too, seated beside her, and, in an unconscious appeal to his protecting power, she had moved her hand into his, and then lay back in her chair, silent and indifferent. ”

“ Yet it was with strange feelings that she found herself again here, on a bleak, sad December afternoon. There was no snow, but the temperature had been falling all day; a bitter east wind was blowing; a sullen, leaden sky, against which the body of the cathedral and the rugged shape of the old Heidenthurm showed out black and mournful. The hills looked dark and sad; the aspect of the whole fair land was changed.
It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when they arrived. Sara, very weary, stayed in her room to rest. ”

“ Surely she did not love him yet? ‘No!’ cried every voice within her. [Pg 132] And yet, beyond them all, was a whisper, more potent than any of them, asking what it was that she felt, demanding to know the meaning of this eager longing, this Sehnsucht, this yearning.
‘I am sure I have done wrong. I have made a horrible mistake!’ she repeated to herself. ‘What am I to do? How shall I repair it?’
With an effort she opened Avice’s letter, and read it with a throbbing heart. The girl gave a full account of her arrival at home, and of all that had happened since. ”

“ Round the solid walls of the old house of Monk’s Gate, the wind wuthered sadly and fitfully; the deep-set lattices did not shake–one only heard the sound of the wind. No passing vehicles disturbed the ear. The quiet country road was profoundly still.
No one came to relieve his solitude, or to divert his mind from its miserable debate with his conscience. He sat there perfectly alone, until at last he could bear it no longer. He would go to the Abbey, and join them there. There would be cheerful voices, honest faces ”

“ If I heard you were corresponding with Jerome Wellfield himself, I should feel no uneasiness. I know you and your pride and simplicity too well.’
‘Ah, if only you had not been so chivalrous and so mistaken as to marry me, Rudolf. I fear it has been a terrible error on both sides.’
‘Do you think so? We had better give it a little longer trial, I think, hadn’t we?’ he asked composedly, while he glanced rather keenly at her face. ‘Do you, perhaps, feel tired of this place? Would you like change of scene or company? Is there no one you would like to have with you? ”

“ But she knew that no word of hers could give to Nita Wellfield her husband’s love. She felt, she had gathered from a hundred unconscious little touches and admissions in Avice’s letters, that Jerome, like herself, was not free. He loved her–Sara: yet sometimes she could weep, and wish it were not so. Oftener she felt a half-contemptuous satisfaction in the knowledge that he had not been able to cast aside her power over him with his promises to her. ”

“ Will you leave Jerome Wellfield to reap what he has sown, and let me try to prove to you that there are men left in this world who know how to set a woman’s happiness higher than their own convenience? ”

“ Ellen, as she helped her mistress to undress, wondered greatly what could cause the frequent smile, and the brightened eyes which she instantly noted.
The next morning was a clear, glorious autumnal one; a white mist enveloped the valley, and covered the river and the fields which bordered it, and the long rows of poplars between which it flowed, while the tops of the hills stood out, clear and distinct, bathed in [Pg 252] a flood of golden sunshine, and the sky above was like a sapphire for clearness and depth of hue. ”

“ She ended by not telling her; it seemed enough that there should be one heartbreak in the case. Nita’s joy in her love, her happiness, her high spirits, smote upon the other girl’s heart many a time during the short engagement that lasted only while settlements were being made, and legal affairs settled: she could not find it in her heart to smite down that joy and happiness; she could not convince herself that it was right to do so.
Meanwhile, two or three days passed, and then Jerome had news–if news it could be called, wordless and yet eloquent as it was–of Sara. ”

“ Ellen had come to feel that the most utter breakdown–fever, delirium, or raving–would be better than this prolonged conscious suffering. She could almost have found it in her heart to pray for death or madness to come and relieve her darling from this torture.
‘May he be paid his just wages!’ she kept wishing within herself, ‘measure for measure–not a grain more or less; and he’ll have had about as much as he can endure. I ask no more.’
The end of that long-drawn agony came at last, as come it must. After Falkenberg had gone, Sara began to pace about the room ”

“ As for Jerome–such had been the revulsion of feeling caused by his conduct, that Avice could not write of [Pg 134] him without a certain tinge of bitter sarcasm cropping up through her words; and more than once occurred a kind of apology for even mentioning his name in a letter to Sara.
‘Tell me what to do,’ she concluded. ‘You have been my guide for so long; I trust you so implicitly that I feel lost without you. Send me one word, Sara, for whatever you say or do must be right.’
‘Poor child!’ thought her friend, sorrowfully. ‘This must be answered at once. I must set her mind at rest. ”

“ If not–you will excuse my speaking plainly–your visits here will have to cease, for I do not wish her happiness to be imperilled.’
Wellfield passed his hand over his eyes: he was almost stunned. At that moment things stood out clearly, and, so it seemed to him, the right bearings of them. To think of ever marrying Sara now was hopeless. Love must be cast aside, and duty embraced instead. ”

“ To think of an empty fool like that playing with the heart of a woman like this. ’Tis enough to make one believe there’s nothing but evil to prevail in the world.’
She dressed herself hastily, and prepared some coffee, of which she induced Sara to partake. The day dragged on. No one came near. Even Falkenberg failed in his usual call. Sara said nothing to Ellen of any suffering she endured. The woman could only guess from the utter transformation of her usual ways and habits that she was enduring tortures, and her own pain and perplexity increased. ”

“ Falkenberg did call, half an hour after those words had passed between Ellen and her mistress. Ellen repeated them to him, and ushered him into the parlour, where Sara lay on the couch, looking infinitely weak and exhausted, and scarcely able to lift a hand, or to smile faintly, when the tall, strong man came softly up to her; his face working, his eyes dim. ”

“ For more than a week life and reason in the one balance, death or madness in the other, oscillated with a terrible uncertainty. But Sara Ford was not doomed to lose either life or reason in the struggle. ‘Strong light,’ says Goethe, ‘throws strong shadow.’ And a strong, intense nature makes a strong, obstinate struggle against all kinds of adversities which ‘the subtlety of the devil or man’ may bring about. ”

“ The die was cast, and he went quickly out of the hotel, and down the street to the station. Ten minutes later, he was in the train, on his way to Lahnburg.
When he arrived there it was dusk, as it is in October at six o’clock. He knew the place well, though he had not been of the party on that day of Sara Ford’s first visit there. He knew the way, too, to Falkenberg’s house, and quickly he walked there, and pushed open the gate, stood in the garden, and surveyed the old mansion. Behind one or two of the blinds he saw lights. Everything was very still in the dank, sad air of the autumn evening. ”

“ He wrung Wellfield’s hand, who answered, in a voice of some emotion:
‘My wife is an angel. I do not deserve her.’
‘Pooh! “An angel not too bright and good–” What is it? I know I am quoting it wrong, but it comes to the same thing. Good-night, boy! God bless you!’
Jerome, as he walked home, bit his lips, and his heart seemed burnt up within him with shame.
‘Gad! what a blackguard I feel when this sort of thing happens!’ he muttered, as he went in.
Avice had gone to bed. John Leyburn had departed. Nita was in her dressing-room, where Jerome found her. ”

“ One woman’s heart, at least, must go near to break, in punishment for his sin of this night–or rather, for this night’s consummation of his sin. It lay with him to decide which woman must suffer–Nita, who was here, close by, and whose agonies he must watch; or Sara Ford, away in Elberthal, and alone, now–and whom he would not be able to see, let her have what she might to endure–Sara, who had loved him all along–who loved him still, as he knew, and would have known, had fifty letters come to tell him how devoted she and Rudolf Falkenberg were, the one to the other. ”

“ There came an evening [Pg 110] when the doctors, going away, pronounced her safe–sane, living, if with no more strength than a two-weeks’ child may possess.
It was after they had departed, and while the nurse kept watch over her patient, that Ellen, after literally feasting her eyes upon her ‘child’s’ face, shrunk to a shadow of its former beauty, went into the parlour for a few minutes, to take a moment’s rest, and to indulge in the luxury of some thankful tears. ”

“ He went often to the services at Brentwood now. They soothed him, and he found a satisfaction in going there. Indeed, when one reflects upon the fact that there are many natures partaking of the characteristics of his, one sees how to these natures some form of religion, of an infallible institution outside themselves, and yet within their reach, is an absolute necessity; and one begins to perceive more clearly why agnosticism has never been popular. ”

“ She could not do without him; for in crises like these we see every day the adage belied that ‘vain is the help of man.’ It is man alone that can sustain and comfort man in such an emergency; it is then that there is brought home to us the utter powerlessness of supernatural aids to touch our woe.
Ellen, in her room, towards morning, heard an abrupt pause in the measured footsteps, and something like a long moaned-out sigh. She hastened to the other room, and found that Sara had at last, dressed as she was, flung herself upon her bed, and lay there motionless. ”

“ There was an old record of a Wellfield who had been unhappy, and had destroyed himself in this very river. Jerome thought in his madness, ‘Well, wherever he is, I may go too, I suppose. There can be nothing in the future–on the other side, as bad as this.... I believe all I have gone through has been sent to show me that I have no right to remain here any longer ... besides, a life for [Pg 242] a life! I have taken Nita’s, and...’
He stood on the very edge of the stream towards which he had unconsciously drawn, and was looking down into it as it hurried past, with a vague, fascinated gaze. ”

“ Many feet would daily pass beside her grave: lovers walked through the churchyard; the old people strolled there to sit on the bench by the porch at sunset; the feet of those who were full of life and business hastened constantly to and fro; for the gates were always open, and the churchyard path was a much-used thoroughfare.
[Pg 234]
When it was all over, Avice put her hand through her brother’s arm, and turned to the two other persons who had come with them as mourners–John Leyburn and Father Somerville. ”

“ How seldom, dear Sara, do we find the ways of Providence exemplified thus clearly and simply–everything working together for good in so palpable a manner that he who runs may read.’ [The countess’s moral reflections had been wont, in former days, to excite Sara’s intense amusement. Even now, in the tumult of her feelings, she could not help smiling at this specimen of them.] ‘It does my heart good–it does indeed. ”