The Wings of Icarus Part 15

"No," I replied; "you first."

It was for one moment a great relief to think that he was about to save me from the trial I dreaded.

We took a few more steps in silence; I was looking down, not at him.

I felt my heart beat more than ever, fear was still there, but of a different kind; I awaited his words as one might await a death-blow.

But they did not come. Suddenly he halted, and I, too.

"Well?" said I, and I lifted my head.

There he stood, smiling at me.

"Do you remember 'Peer Gynt'?" asked he. "That was the bush."

I looked at the laurel, and then at him again.

"Why, yes," said I; "that was the bush."

His dear eyes were gazing into mine; I could not look away again.

There came a tremor over all my body; my love for him swept over me in throbbing waves of pain; I fell towards him, stifling a cry against his breast. And he, wrapping his arms about me, strained me to him with great force.

"Emilia!" he cried, "I love you very much; I have never told you how much I love you!"

I knew it to be the last cry of his conscience, but, as I lay there listening to the beat of his heart, there fled from me what little yet remained of my conquered spirit's strength and n.o.ble purpose.

Only the woman in me cried aloud, "I cannot!"

I tried to speak, but the words came almost as a sob. Quickly I threw my arms about his neck and, bending his face towards me, kissed him of my own accord as he smiled; then, breaking from him, would have run homewards.

But he held me by the hand.

"When shall I come to-morrow?" asked he, hoa.r.s.ely.

"Not at all," said I. "Go, Gabriel! G.o.d help me; I love you too much!"

And so we did not meet next day, and the next we were married.

For many months I made believe that we were happy. Ah! it was not all make-belief! I have had great joys.

Never was the game of happiness easier to play at than it was for Gabriel and me in the first year of our marriage. He was very much attached to me, and I loved him.

It was the first time he had been out of England; the sights he saw filled him with rapture and insatiable curiosity, to appease which I led him from place to place until I had shown him all I knew, and still we went onwards, covering new ground together.

We never stayed very long in the same spot; a certain weariness crept over me at times, but I saw that it was best for him to keep continually on the wing; and indeed, having no desire on earth but his happiness, I was ready, for his sake, to wander my whole life away. Moreover, as he was not working at all the while, I looked forward to a day when inspiration might set in, together with satiety, when he too might yearn, as I did, to sit in peace beside a hearth of his own.

Constance wrote to us occasionally, and I to her. Her letters to me were the same as of old, full of love and sweetness; she nearly always mentioned Gabriel, but not in such a way as to denote preoccupation. My letters to her were not as they had been; I felt this at the time. On rereading them just now I burned them all,--there was no breath in them.

Mrs. Rayner had taken Fairview, the nearest house to Fletcher's Hall, soon after my marriage, and set her cap at Uncle George with so much persistence that he engaged himself to her the following summer. So my sweet girl stayed on at Graysmill. Grandmamma's letters, and Aunt Caroline's, were always full of her, of the comfort her sunny presence brought them; my father-in-law and Jane had the same tale to tell.

For many months I never even contemplated the possibility of returning to England with my husband. There is no knowing how long our wanderings might have been, but for my illness. Gabriel and I were pa.s.sing through Pisa at the end of June, on our way to Lerici, whither we were bent on pilgrimage, when I fell ill.

That was the end of many dreams. The wheel could turn no more; the swift and restless life of day to day, that fled the past and hung back from the morrow, was checked abruptly, completely.

But, lying in that little bed of painted wood, staring at the net curtains and green shutters, at the lozenge pattern on the wall, at the cornucopiae on the ceiling, a clear and sober sight returned to me. The body having failed, the spirit found its strength.

Our sudden halt had worked swiftly on Gabriel also. He set to work; the restlessness died out of him, but, alas! the lightness, too. He became very still, silent and self-absorbed. In the cool of evening, the time of day when I was strongest, I used to turn my kind little nun out of the room, and then Gabriel came and read to me.

At first he had tried to finish the long poem begun in the days of our betrothal, but he soon laid that aside, and another sprang forward with extraordinary rapidity. Perhaps he himself was hardly aware of the sorrow of that poem; perhaps he thought I would judge it so entirely as a work of art that I should not take note of its deep gloom, of its hopeless melancholy. But nothing was lost upon me now. I read it in every line,--he suffered; something failed him,--perhaps he knew not what, perhaps he knew. A terrible loneliness was in his heart,--and I had given him all I had to give.

On the fifteenth of July, I awoke with a sense of something fresh and sweet; a bunch of roses lay upon my pillow, and Gabriel stood beside my bed. The shutters were still closed.

"What?" said I, "have you been out already? How dear of you this is!

Is the sun s.h.i.+ning?"

And he answered:

"Of course, what should it do but s.h.i.+ne on our wedding-day?"

Then he sat down on the edge of the bed, and took both my hands in his.

"Emilia," said he, "you have made me very happy."

But I, sitting up, bent my head low over his hands and kissed them; my loose hair fell forward, he did not see the tears that stood in my eyes. I knew that he had lied.

From that day I began to think with a purpose. I had already gained sufficient mastery over myself, sufficient calm and strength of spirit to be able to do so.

I can hardly call it a struggle that followed. I copied out and laid under my pillow the words of the covenant we had made the day after our betrothal; daily I read it through, and recognised how we had failed towards each other, and towards our best beliefs.

We had both failed; but, whereas he had erred merely, I knew that I had sinned; in the fulness of my remorse, my only thought was now to offer reparation. Nor was it only for Gabriel's sake that I was now possessed by the desire of atonement. In the blindness of human pa.s.sion, I had sinned against my better self, my n.o.blest purposes, my most firm and high beliefs; that pa.s.sion conquered, I determined to make amends for my great transgression by following, regardless of pain and danger, the highest path that lay within the range of my vision, regardless of pain to myself, regardless of that fear of the world which so often leads us to accept its canons, even in sight of a n.o.bler righteousness.

Therefore I resolved to set him free; I believed this to be possible, although my sight was clear, my spirit calm. But he who beholds only the aerial pathway of an ideal right may stumble and fall on the stones of the world. It was only given me later to realise, through grief too terrible for words, that, given the world as the world is, there are wrongs that are irrevocable, lies that, once lied, no truth can ever wipe away.

Meanwhile, health returned to me. We stayed at Pisa until I was convalescent, then moved to the sea. His poem and my thoughts occupied us severally; they were good and peaceful days. Now and again the heart rebelled against the severity of the spirit, but, take it all in all, a great calm was upon me.

One evening in September, Gabriel and I were leaning out of my window; it was almost dark; the occasional footfall of a pa.s.senger fell on the stones of our quiet street; some men were singing in the trattoria round the corner; we two leant there in silence, counting the stars as they came.

"Gabriel," said I, "I have had a letter from Constance. I am afraid she is not very happy at Graysmill; her mother worries her; she sounds lonely and not over well. Shall we go home a while?"

Gabriel s.h.i.+fted his feet, and turned the latch of the shutter round and round.

"No," he replied; "I think not;" I mean, if you feel you want to see Constance, go, Emilia, only don't leave me too long. I had rather stay here. I have been thinking it over of late, and I see no reason why I should ever return to England."

"But, dearest one," said I, "your father!"

"I have thought of that. I long to see him, and Jane, too. You go home, Emilia, and bring them back with you. We four can live out here in Italy forever, live and die here."