EVIL OMENS

The first step in Philip’s declension happened in this way.  Sylvia had made rapid progress in her recovery; but now she seemed at a stationary point of weakness; wakeful nights succeeding to languid days.  Occasionally she caught a little sleep in the afternoons, but she usually awoke startled and feverish.

One afternoon Philip had stolen upstairs to look at her and his child; but the efforts he made at careful noiselessness made the door creak on its hinges as he opened it.  The woman employed to nurse her had taken the baby into another room that no sound might rouse her from her slumber; and Philip would probably have been warned against entering the chamber where his wife lay sleeping had he been perceived by the nurse.  As it was, he opened the door, made a noise, and Sylvia started up, her face all one flush, her eyes wild and uncertain; she looked about her as if she did not know where she was; pushed the hair off her hot forehead; all which actions Philip saw, dismayed and regretful.  But he kept still, hoping that she would lie down and compose herself.  Instead she stretched out her arms imploringly, and said, in a voice full of yearning and tears, ­

‘Oh!  Charley! come to me ­come to me!’ and then as she more fully became aware of the place where she was, her actual situation, she sank back and feebly began to cry.  Philip’s heart boiled within him; any man’s would under the circumstances, but he had the sense of guilty concealment to aggravate the intensity of his feelings.  Her weak cry after another man, too, irritated him, partly through his anxious love, which made him wise to know how much physical harm she was doing herself.  At this moment he stirred, or unintentionally made some sound:  she started up afresh, and called out, ­

‘Oh, who’s theere?  Do, for God’s sake, tell me who yo’ are!’

‘It’s me,’ said Philip, coming forwards, striving to keep down the miserable complication of love and jealousy, and remorse and anger, that made his heart beat so wildly, and almost took him out of himself.  Indeed, he must have been quite beside himself for the time, or he could never have gone on to utter the unwise, cruel words he did.  But she spoke first, in a distressed and plaintive tone of voice.

’Oh, Philip, I’ve been asleep, and yet I think I was awake!  And I saw Charley Kinraid as plain as iver I see thee now, and he wasn’t drowned at all.  I’m sure he’s alive somewheere; he were so clear and life-like.  Oh! what shall I do? what shall I do?’

She wrung her hands in feverish distress.  Urged by passionate feelings of various kinds, and also by his desire to quench the agitation which was doing her harm, Philip spoke, hardly knowing what he said.

‘Kinraid’s dead, I tell yo’, Sylvie!  And what kind of a woman are yo’ to go dreaming of another man i’ this way, and taking on so about him, when yo’re a wedded wife, with a child as yo’ve borne to another man?’

In a moment he could have bitten out his tongue.  She looked at him with the mute reproach which some of us see (God help us!) in the eyes of the dead, as they come before our sad memories in the night-season; looked at him with such a solemn, searching look, never saying a word of reply or defence.  Then she lay down, motionless and silent.  He had been instantly stung with remorse for his speech; the words were not beyond his lips when an agony had entered his heart; but her steady, dilated eyes had kept him dumb and motionless as if by a spell.

Now he rushed to the bed on which she lay, and half knelt, half threw himself upon it, imploring her to forgive him; regardless for the time of any evil consequences to her, it seemed as if he must have her pardon ­her relenting ­at any price, even if they both died in the act of reconciliation.  But she lay speechless, and, as far as she could be, motionless, the bed trembling under her with the quivering she could not still.

Philip’s wild tones caught the nurse’s ears, and she entered full of the dignified indignation of wisdom.

‘Are yo’ for killing yo’r wife, measter?’ she asked.  ’She’s noane so strong as she can bear flytin’ and scoldin’, nor will she be for many a week to come.  Go down wi’ ye, and leave her i’ peace if yo’re a man as can be called a man!’

Her anger was rising as she caught sight of Sylvia’s averted face.  It was flushed crimson, her eyes full of intense emotion of some kind, her lips compressed; but an involuntary twitching overmastering her resolute stillness from time to time.  Philip, who did not see the averted face, nor understand the real danger in which he was placing his wife, felt as though he must have one word, one responsive touch of the hand which lay passive in his, which was not even drawn away from the kisses with which he covered it, any more than if it had been an impassive stone.  The nurse had fairly to take him by the shoulders, and turn him out of the room.

In half an hour the doctor had to be summoned.  Of course, the nurse gave him her version of the events of the afternoon, with much animus against Philip; and the doctor thought it his duty to have some very serious conversation with him.

’I do assure you, Mr. Hepburn, that, in the state your wife has been in for some days, it was little less than madness on your part to speak to her about anything that could give rise to strong emotion.’

‘It was madness, sir!’ replied Philip, in a low, miserable tone of voice.  The doctor’s heart was touched, in spite of the nurse’s accusations against the scolding husband.  Yet the danger was now too serious for him to mince matters.

’I must tell you that I cannot answer for her life, unless the greatest precautions are taken on your part, and unless the measures I shall use have the effect I wish for in the next twenty-four hours.  She is on the verge of a brain fever.  Any allusion to the subject which has been the final cause of the state in which she now is must be most cautiously avoided, even to a chance word which may bring it to her memory.’

And so on; but Philip seemed to hear only this:  then he might not express contrition, or sue for pardon, he must go on unforgiven through all this stress of anxiety; and even if she recovered the doctor warned him of the undesirableness of recurring to what had passed!

Heavy miserable times of endurance and waiting have to be passed through by all during the course of their lives; and Philip had had his share of such seasons, when the heart, and the will, and the speech, and the limbs, must be bound down with strong resolution to patience.

For many days, nay, for weeks, he was forbidden to see Sylvia, as the very sound of his footstep brought on a recurrence of the fever and convulsive movement.  Yet she seemed, from questions she feebly asked the nurse, to have forgotten all that had happened on the day of her attack from the time when she dropped off to sleep.  But how much she remembered of after occurrences no one could ascertain.  She was quiet enough when, at length, Philip was allowed to see her.  But he was half jealous of his child, when he watched how she could smile at it, while she never changed a muscle of her face at all he could do or say.

And of a piece with this extreme quietude and reserve was her behaviour to him when at length she had fully recovered, and was able to go about the house again.  Philip thought many a time of the words she had used long before ­before their marriage.  Ominous words they were.

’It’s not in me to forgive; I sometimes think it’s not in me to forget.’

Philip was tender even to humility in his conduct towards her.  But nothing stirred her from her fortress of reserve.  And he knew she was so different; he knew how loving, nay, passionate, was her nature ­vehement, demonstrative ­oh! how could he stir her once more into expression, even if the first show or speech she made was of anger?  Then he tried being angry with her himself; he was sometimes unjust to her consciously and of a purpose, in order to provoke her into defending herself, and appealing against his unkindness.  He only seemed to drive her love away still more.

If any one had known all that was passing in that household, while yet the story of it was not ended, nor, indeed, come to its crisis, their hearts would have been sorry for the man who lingered long at the door of the room in which his wife sate cooing and talking to her baby, and sometimes laughing back to it, or who was soothing the querulousness of failing age with every possible patience of love; sorry for the poor listener who was hungering for the profusion of tenderness thus scattered on the senseless air, yet only by stealth caught the echoes of what ought to have been his.

It was so difficult to complain, too; impossible, in fact.  Everything that a wife could do from duty she did; but the love seemed to have fled, and, in such cases, no reproaches or complaints can avail to bring it back.  So reason outsiders, and are convinced of the result before the experiment is made.  But Philip could not reason, or could not yield to reason; and so he complained and reproached.  She did not much answer him; but he thought that her eyes expressed the old words, ­

’It’s not in me to forgive; I sometimes think it’s not in me to forget.’

However, it is an old story, an ascertained fact, that, even in the most tender and stable masculine natures, at the supremest season of their lives, there is room for other thoughts and passions than such as are connected with love.  Even with the most domestic and affectionate men, their emotions seem to be kept in a cell distinct and away from their actual lives.  Philip had other thoughts and other occupations than those connected with his wife during all this time.

An uncle of his mother’s, a Cumberland ‘statesman’, of whose existence he was barely conscious, died about this time, leaving to his unknown great-nephew four or five hundred pounds, which put him at once in a different position with regard to his business.  Henceforward his ambition was roused, ­such humble ambition as befitted a shop-keeper in a country town sixty or seventy years ago.  To be respected by the men around him had always been an object with him, and was, perhaps, becoming more so than ever now, as a sort of refuge from his deep, sorrowful mortification in other directions.  He was greatly pleased at being made a sidesman; and, in preparation for the further honour of being churchwarden, he went regularly twice a day to church on Sundays.  There was enough religious feeling in him to make him disguise the worldly reason for such conduct from himself.  He believed that he went because he thought it right to attend public worship in the parish church whenever it was offered up; but it may be questioned of him, as of many others, how far he would have been as regular in attendance in a place where he was not known.  With this, however, we have nothing to do.  The fact was that he went regularly to church, and he wished his wife to accompany him to the pew, newly painted, with his name on the door, where he sate in full sight of the clergyman and congregation.

Sylvia had never been in the habit of such regular church-going, and she felt it as a hardship, and slipped out of the duty as often as ever she could.  In her unmarried days, she and her parents had gone annually to the mother-church of the parish in which Haytersbank was situated:  on the Monday succeeding the Sunday next after the Romish Saint’s Day, to whom the church was dedicated, there was a great feast or wake held; and, on the Sunday, all the parishioners came to church from far and near.  Frequently, too, in the course of the year, Sylvia would accompany one or other of her parents to Scarby Moorside afternoon service, ­when the hay was got in, and the corn not ready for cutting, or the cows were dry and there was no afternoon milking.  Many clergymen were languid in those days, and did not too curiously inquire into the reasons which gave them such small congregations in country parishes.

Now she was married, this weekly church-going which Philip seemed to expect from her, became a tie and a small hardship, which connected itself with her life of respectability and prosperity.  ’A crust of bread and liberty’ was much more accordant to Sylvia’s nature than plenty of creature comforts and many restraints.  Another wish of Philip’s, against which she said no word, but constantly rebelled in thought and deed, was his desire that the servant he had engaged during the time of her illness to take charge of the baby, should always carry it whenever it was taken out for a walk.  Sylvia often felt, now she was strong, as if she would far rather have been without the responsibility of having this nursemaid, of whom she was, in reality, rather afraid.  The good side of it was that it set her at liberty to attend to her mother at times when she would have been otherwise occupied with her baby; but Bell required very little from any one:  she was easily pleased, unexacting, and methodical even in her dotage; preserving the quiet, undemonstrative habits of her earlier life now that the faculty of reason, which had been at the basis of the formation of such habits, was gone.  She took great delight in watching the baby, and was pleased to have it in her care for a short time; but she dozed so much that it prevented her having any strong wish on the subject.

So Sylvia contrived to get her baby as much as possible to herself, in spite of the nursemaid; and, above all, she would carry it out, softly cradled in her arms, warm pillowed on her breast, and bear it to the freedom and solitude of the sea-shore on the west side of the town where the cliffs were not so high, and there was a good space of sand and shingle at all low tides.

Once here, she was as happy as she ever expected to be in this world.  The fresh sea-breeze restored something of the colour of former days to her cheeks, the old buoyancy to her spirits; here she might talk her heart-full of loving nonsense to her baby; here it was all her own; no father to share in it, no nursemaid to dispute the wisdom of anything she did with it.  She sang to it, she tossed it; it crowed and it laughed back again, till both were weary; and then she would sit down on a broken piece of rock, and fall to gazing on the advancing waves catching the sunlight on their crests, advancing, receding, for ever and for ever, as they had done all her life long ­as they did when she had walked with them that once by the side of Kinraid; those cruel waves that, forgetful of the happy lovers’ talk by the side of their waters, had carried one away, and drowned him deep till he was dead.  Every time she sate down to look at the sea, this process of thought was gone through up to this point; the next step would, she knew, bring her to the question she dared not, must not ask.  He was dead; he must be dead; for was she not Philip’s wife?  Then came up the recollection of Philip’s speech, never forgotten, only buried out of sight:  ’What kind of a woman are yo’ to go on dreaming of another man, and yo’ a wedded wife?’ She used to shudder as if cold steel had been plunged into her warm, living body as she remembered these words; cruel words, harmlessly provoked.  They were too much associated with physical pains to be dwelt upon; only their memory was always there.  She paid for these happy rambles with her baby by the depression which awaited her on her re-entrance into the dark, confined house that was her home; its very fulness of comfort was an oppression.  Then, when her husband saw her pale and fatigued, he was annoyed, and sometimes upbraided her for doing what was so unnecessary as to load herself with her child.  She knew full well it was not that that caused her weariness.  By-and-by, when he inquired and discovered that all these walks were taken in one direction, out towards the sea, he grew jealous of her love for the inanimate ocean.  Was it connected in her mind with the thought of Kinraid?  Why did she so perseveringly, in wind or cold, go out to the sea-shore; the western side, too, where, if she went but far enough, she would come upon the mouth of the Haytersbank gully, the point at which she had last seen Kinraid?  Such fancies haunted Philip’s mind for hours after she had acknowledged the direction of her walks.  But he never said a word that could distinctly tell her he disliked her going to the sea, otherwise she would have obeyed him in this, as in everything else; for absolute obedience to her husband seemed to be her rule of life at this period ­obedience to him who would so gladly have obeyed her smallest wish had she but expressed it!  She never knew that Philip had any painful association with the particular point on the sea-shore that she instinctively avoided, both from a consciousness of wifely duty, and also because the sight of it brought up so much sharp pain.

Philip used to wonder if the dream that preceded her illness was the suggestive cause that drew her so often to the shore.  Her illness consequent upon that dream had filled his mind, so that for many months he himself had had no haunting vision of Kinraid to disturb his slumbers.  But now the old dream of Kinraid’s actual presence by Philip’s bedside began to return with fearful vividness.  Night after night it recurred; each time with some new touch of reality, and close approach; till it was as if the fate that overtakes all men were then, even then, knocking at his door.

In his business Philip prospered.  Men praised him because he did well to himself.  He had the perseverance, the capability for head-work and calculation, the steadiness and general forethought which might have made him a great merchant if he had lived in a large city.  Without any effort of his own, almost, too, without Coulson’s being aware of it, Philip was now in the position of superior partner; the one to suggest and arrange, while Coulson only carried out the plans that emanated from Philip.  The whole work of life was suited to the man:  he did not aspire to any different position, only to the full development of the capabilities of that which he already held.  He had originated several fresh schemes with regard to the traffic of the shop; and his old masters, with all their love of tried ways, and distrust of everything new, had been candid enough to confess that their successors’ plans had resulted in success.  ‘Their successors.’  Philip was content with having the power when the exercise of it was required, and never named his own important share in the new improvements.  Possibly, if he had, Coulson’s vanity might have taken the alarm, and he might not have been so acquiescent for the future.  As it was, he forgot his own subordinate share, and always used the imperial ‘we’, ‘we thought’, ‘it struck us,’ &c.