The Devil's Garden by W. B. Maxwell

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Then the brain-pictures flashed out with torturing clearness, and Dale
saw the criminal renewing the outrage after long years. He was quite
old, shaky, infirm, and yet strong enough to consummate the final act
of his infinite wickedness. And Dale saw those yellow-white hands,
with their nauseating blotches, their glistening blue knobs, and their
jeweled rings, as they took possession again of the victim to whom
they had once given freedom.

Daylight was coming fast; the flame of the candles had turned so pale
that one could scarcely see it. Dale got off the bed heavily and
clumsily, blew out one of the candles and carried the other to the
fireplace. There he lighted the corners of the three bank-notes and
watched them burning in the empty grate till nothing was left of them
but black and gray powder. Then he put on his hat and moved to the
door.

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know."

Blindly raging, he passed through the silent, deserted streets, and
presently blundered into Regent's Park. It was all exquisitely pretty
in the pure morning light, with dew-wet grass, feathery branches of
trees, and the water of a river or lake flashing and sparkling; and as
he stared stupidly about him, he thought for a moment that he was
experiencing an illusion of the senses. Or was he a boy again safe in
his forest? This sort of thing belonged to the happy past, and could
have no proper place in the abominable present.

He crossed a low rail, walked on a little way toward the water, and
then threw himself face downward on the grass. He knew where he was
now--in the present time, in a public pleasure-ground. London
stretched about the park, and beyond that there was the vast round
globe; beyond that again there was the universe; and it seemed to him
that, big as it all was, it was not big enough to hold one other man
and himself.

When, four or five hours later, he came back to the lodging-house he
found his wife dressed and sitting by the bedroom table. She had
contrived to wash away nearly all the marks of violence: one noticed
only the swollen aspect of the whole face, an inflamed eyebrow, and a
cut lip. She looked up meekly and fondly as a thrashed dog.

"Will, have you decided what you will do?"

"No."

Then, while getting together his things and beginning to pack, he told
her that he would take his fortnight's leave, as arranged, and
carefully consider matters. "And then, at the end of the fortnight, if
I'm above ground by that time, I'll let you know what I've decided."

But, on hearing this, she flopped from the chair to her knees, and
clung round him just as she had clung when he was first questioning
her.

"Will, don't be mad and wicked, and go and take your life."

"Why not? D'you think there's vaarlue in it to me now?"

He spoke quite quietly, but he looked gray, haggard, terrible, his
clothes all stained and dirty from his open-air bed.

"Will, for mercy's sake--"

He shook her off, and began to count his money.

"I must keep this," he said. "I'll pay it back later to the right
quarter--along with the equivalent of what I burnt."

When he had finished packing he told her that he would settle with the
lodging-house keeper, and he gave her a few shillings.

"That's enough to get you home with."

Then he picked up his bag and went out.

VIII

Mavis had bought a cheap blue veil to protect her face, and being,
moreover, fortunate enough to find an empty compartment in the through
coach to Rodchurch Road, she did not suffer during the journey from
too curious observation of strangers. She was going home, exactly as
if nothing had happened. Her husband had said that she was to go, and
what else could she do but obey him?

When the station omnibus pulled up outside the post office, Mr.
Ridgett caught sight of her, and gallantly came to assist her in
alighting. Evidently he noticed nothing strange about her appearance.
She at once announced the good news that Dale had not only been
reinstated, but given a couple of weeks' holiday; and Ridgett,
genuinely delighted, squeezed both her hands.

"That's something like. Here, let me carry this upstairs for you."

"No, thank you, please don't trouble. I can manage."

Mr. Allen, the saddler, had come across from his shop, and she told
him the good news too. Mr. Allen hurried down the street to tell
others. Soon the whole village knew that Mr. Dale had triumphed, and
that the Postmaster-General was granting him leave of absence as a
special mark of favor.

Mary clapped her hands on hearing the good news, and was rapturously
pleased at seeing her mistress home again; but she immediately
required explanations.

"Oh, lor, mum, whatever have you done to yourself?"

"I have had an accident," said Mrs. Dale. "I fell down--and it has
given me a bad headache. I don't want any tea. I shall go to bed
early, and try to get a good sleep."

And in truth, she was longing to sleep. After the terrible ordeal of
yesterday sleep seemed to be the one good thing left in the world for
her. But, notwithstanding supreme fatigue, sleep would not come.

Throughout that first night, and again on succeeding nights, she
struggled beneath a suffocating burden of anxiety. In the daylight she
had been able to think of herself, but in the darkness she could think
only of her husband. She was haunted by the expression of his face, by
the tone of his voice, when he had asked her if she supposed that
existence was any longer valuable to him, and the sudden instinctive
apprehension that she had felt then now grew so strong that she fought
against it vainly.

He intended to commit suicide. At first she had thought of all those
London bridges, with the dark rivers swirling through their arches and
eddying round their piers; then she became sure that he would not
drown himself. He was a vigorous swimmer--such a death would be
impossible to him. No, he would poison himself, or shoot himself, or
hang himself. Perhaps even now it was all over.

In his presence it had seemed impossible to disobey him. Whatever he
commanded she must do. But what pitiful weakness! Why, with instinct
prompting her, had she not resisted him, refused to let him leave
her, stayed with him in spite of blows, and been there to snatch the
cup or the rope from his hands, to thrust herself between the pistol
and his body?

By day she recognized that her anxiety was unreasoning, based on her
own emotions, or at least not logically derived from her knowledge of
his character. Of course he had taken the discovery of her secret far
worse than she had ever conceived as possible, when timorously
thinking of untoward hazards that one day or another might lead to
disclosure. But, even then, fully allowing for the effect of his
extreme excitement, would he, so brave and self-reliant a creature, be
guilty of an act that is in its essence cowardly?

She thought of his courage. He was as brave a man as ever breathed,
and yet you could not describe him as reckless or foolhardy. He was
wise enough to be chary of exposing himself to useless risks. So much
so that he had more than once surprised her by keeping quite calm when
she had expected and dreaded perilous energy. Especially she
remembered a day out on the Manninglea road when a runaway horse with
an empty cart came galloping toward them, and Dale, instead of
attempting to stop it, put his arm round her waist and hastily drew
her well out of the way. In another hundred yards the runaway went
crashing off the road, fell, and smashed the cart into smithereens.

"Tally-ho! Gone to ground," cried Dale cheerily. "There's a nice
little bill for Mr. Baker to pay." And then he told her that one of
the most dangerous things a pedestrian can do is to interfere with a
bolting horse when there's a vehicle behind it. "Mind you," he added,
"I'd have had a try at bringing it to anchor if there'd been anybody
in the cart. That would have been another pair of shoes. What you're
justified in doing for a fellow human being you aren't justified in
doing to save a few pounds, shillings and pence."

She clung to this thought of his innate common sense. And there was
comfort and hope, too, in another thought. He was a naturally
religious man, if not an orthodoxly religious one. The church service
bored him; he only attended it from motives of policy; but,
nevertheless, when you got him inside the sacred edifice, his behavior
was perfect, and you could not watch him on his knees or hear him say
"Christ have mercy upon us, O Lord Christ have mercy on us," without
being convinced that he did truly believe in an omnipotent God and the
punishments or rewards that await us on the other side of the grave.
Surely the man who bowed his head like that at the name of Jesus would
not, could not, be the man to take his own life merely because it had
become an unhappy life.

The hope that lay in such thoughts as these helped her to support the
strain of three long waiting days and four long sleepless nights. Then
on the fourth day, Saturday, the strain was relieved.

"Mrs. Dale," said Ridgett, speaking to her from the bottom of the
stairs, "would you be disposed for a little stroll before tea?"

"No, thank you, Mr. Ridgett."

"Have pity on a lonely stranger, and change your mind," said Mr.
Ridgett, smiling up at her.

"No, really not--but thank you for offering it."

"You know, it isn't right the way you shut yourself up this lovely
weather."

"I--I have not been feeling quite myself, Mr. Ridgett."

"No, so your maid told me. But, still, I am afraid it's the way to
make yourself worse, never going out of doors;" and Mr. Ridgett
laughed amiably. "I won't press you--that is, I won't press you to
honor me with your company; but I do respectfully press my advice to
get out a bit. You know I feel a responsibility to look after you in
the absence of your lord and master."

"Thank you."

"By the way, I had a note from him this morning."

"From Mr. Dale?"

"Yes."

"Oh, had you? Where--" Mavis gripped the baluster rail so tightly that
the slender wooden uprights rattled. She had nearly asked a question
which would have betrayed the fact that she did not know her husband's
address. "Did he write from his lodgings?"

"No, he wrote from a public library. Lambeth--yes, the Lambeth
Library."

"What did he say?"

"Only confirmed your report that he wouldn't be back till the
twenty-eighth." Mr. Ridgett laughed again. "And told me that the
clocks ought to be wound up Thursday, and he hoped we hadn't let them
run down. We hadn't, you know."

Mavis was inexpressibly relieved; and yet that night she did not sleep
any better than on the preceding nights. The worst anxiety had gone,
but so much that was distressing in her situation remained. Since Will
was alive now, he would continue to live. And that little circumstance
of his remembering about the clocks was full of promise--that is,
promise concerning himself. It implied that he meant to go on much as
usual. He would come back, and be postmaster as in the past. But what
would he do with her?

Would he go for a divorce? Publish her shame? Perhaps, even if he were
willing to spare her, he would not forego the chance of dragging down
Mr. Barradine. Feeling as strongly as he did--and since the world
began, surely no one in such circumstances had ever felt quite so
strongly--he would seize upon the overthrow of Mr. Barradine's
reputation as the obvious means of obtaining his own revenge. Then she
thought of what such a scandal would mean to a gentleman of Mr.
Barradine's state and status. Mr. Barradine would move heaven and
earth to avert it. He might even get Will spirited away, never to be
found again! One was always reading in the newspaper of mysterious,
inexplicable disappearances. New fears almost as bad as the old fear
began to shake her again.

Of this there could be no question. Mr. Barradine would pay a very
large sum of money to avoid the threatened disgrace. And--in the midst
of her acute apprehension and distress--the plain matter-of-fact idea
presented itself: that if Dale were not rendered irresponsible by
jealous ire, one might hope that he would eventually fall in with Mr.
Barradine's views--that he ought, for everybody's sake, to take his
damages, more damages than he would ever get in a court of law, and
then let bygones be bygones.

While dressing of a morning she used to examine the bruises on her
neck, her arms, and her legs. After passing through the stage of
blackness and purpleness, their discoloration had spread out into
faint violet and yellow; now already this was beginning to fade; and
it seemed that as the ugly marks of his hands disappeared from her
skin, the memory of all the causes that had brought them there began
itself to weaken. Certainly the despairing anguish that she had felt,
the submission to his unpardoning wrath, the tacit agreement that the
discovery gave him license to do anything he liked with her, not only
then but throughout the future--all this pertained to a state of mind
which could be coldly recollected, but which could not be warmly
revived.

How he had knocked her about! Standing before the toilet-glass and
looking at her bruises musingly, she tried to remember in what part of
the room, and at which period of the long volcanic discussion, each
one had been received. All the neck marks could be accounted for on
the bed, when he was holding her down and shaking her; that graze
above the knee, outside the right thigh had come when she rolled over
by the chest of drawers. Raising her eyes in order to see if the lip
and eyebrow continued to mend satisfactorily, she was surprised by the
general expression of her face. Positively she was smiling. The smile
vanished at once, but it had been there--a gentle, melancholy, yet
proud little smile. And reflecting, she understood that deep in her
thoughts there was truly pride whenever she dwelt upon her husband's
violence. It did prove so conclusively how immense was his love.

Jealousy is of course the inevitable accompaniment of love; and while
it is active everything else is pushed aside, postponed, or forgotten.
And she smiled again, as she thought what queer creatures men are, how
extravagantly different from women. She had never understood them,
and possibly never would do so. For instance, how strange that old
Will should not for a moment have been softened by a recognition of
her success in extricating him from his difficulty! One might have
expected that gratitude would almost counterbalance anger. But, no,
not for a fraction of a second could he think that, although what she
had done might be wrong, it had been done with the most unselfish
intention and had proved very efficacious.

Then, not in the least expecting that she was about to cry, she burst
into tears.

She had remembered his voice and his look when he said something about
honor and dishonor, and about working for her till he dropped. Noble
and splendid love had spoken in that--such love as few women are lucky
enough to get. Oh, surely if he loved her like that, he could not
leave off loving her altogether, and never, never, want his Mav again.

Sadness and desolation overcame her. She was alone in their dear, dear
home, disgraced, abandoned, heart-broken; and her thoughts for a
little while were all prayers. With each one of them she prayed her
husband to go on loving her; to come back and bruise her limbs, to
punish her with fierce glances and cutting words, to subject her to
systematic penitential discipline, if only at the end of it all she
might have his love again.

She sat crying most bitterly; and then, when at last she dried her
eyes, and went down-stairs to gratify Mary by pretending to eat some
breakfast, a supremely commonplace and yet poignantly sad reflection
brought another flood of tears. What wretched little chances can
produce the most tragically terrific upheavals! Had she not bought a
return railway ticket, the whole disaster might have been averted. But
for that horrible square inch of pink cardboard, all would have been
well, her ordeal would not have been suffered in vain. The wickedly
strong intoxicant had of course begun the mischief by making her blurt
out those imbecile words that first set Will on the rampage; but it
was the knowledge of the telltale ticket, close at hand, unguarded,
certain to be found if looked for, that had unnerved her so
completely. Otherwise, as she now believed, she could have held her
own under his rapid fire of questions. She could have laughed off his
accusations as absurd--or, at the worst, she could have gained time to
think of plausible explanations. But the ticket simply paralyzed her.

And she had known that she was running a risk when she made up her
mind to keep it. She bought it without any thought at all--a stupid
thing to do, considering that the cost was the same as two single
fares. Not so stupid, however, as the thrifty idea that if she and
Will traveled home in different trains, she might after all use her
return half. Oh, fatal economy! In scheming to avoid the loss of five
shillings she had wrecked all her peace and comfort.

On this Sunday she would have liked to go to church, but a dread of
loquacious and inquisitive neighbors kept her a prisoner in the house.

On Monday morning she almost determined to go out for a walk but her
courage again failed her. Until noon the village street was dull and
lifeless, with only one or two people visible at a time, and yet she
dared not go down and walk through it. Were she to show herself, all
the idle shopkeepers would issue from their shops, to congratulate her
on the postmaster's victory, to inquire where he was spending his
holiday and why she hadn't gone for the holiday with him.

Nearly all day she sat by the window of the front room, staring at the
trite and familiar scene, and encouraging her thoughts to wander away
from her misery whenever they would consent to do so. A butcher's boy
leaned his bicycle against the curbstone in so careless a fashion that
it immediately fell down; Mr. Bates the corn merchant passed by with
an empty wagon; then Mr. Norton the vicar appeared, going from house
to house, distributing handbills of special services. And she wondered
if he and his wife had ever had a hidden domestic storm in their
outwardly tranquil existence. Mrs. Norton must have been quite pretty
once, and perhaps at that period she caused Mr. Norton anxieties. But
if she had ever needed forgiveness for some indiscretion or other, she
had obviously obtained it; and again the thought came strong and clear
that people who hold conspicuous positions--such as vicars,
tax-collectors, postmasters, and so on--owe a duty to the world as
well as to themselves. They must hush things up, and preserve
appearances: they can not wash their dirty linen in public.

After twelve o'clock there was much more to look at. The children came
shouting out of school, laborers passed to and fro on their way to
dinner, and with horns loudly blowing, three heavily-laden
chars-a-bancs arrived one after another from Rodhaven. The tourists
filled the street, and for about two hours the aspect of things was
lively and bustling. Then the horns sounded again, the huge vehicles
lumbered away, and the whole village relapsed into drowsiness and
inertia. Literally nothing to look at now.

But before tea time that afternoon she saw something in the street
that held her breathlessly attentive as long as it remained there. It
was Mr. Barradine, riding slowly toward her between the churchyard and
the Roebuck stables. She shrank back behind the muslin curtain of her
window, and, watching him, passed through an extraordinarily rapid
sequence of emotions.

The horse was a chestnut, and it stepped lightly and springily. As she
thought of how and when she had last seen its rider, she felt a
sensation that was like helplessness, shame, and fear all mingled. It
was as though her whole body, muscles, flesh and nerves, quailed and
grew weak at the mere sight of him; as though inherited instincts were
controlling her, and would always control her whenever she was in his
presence; as though she the descendant of serfs must infallibly submit
to the descendant of lords--must forever fear the man who had been her
master even when he was her lover. Rationally she hated him for the
harm that he had done her, but instinctively she feared him for the
further harm that he might yet have power to do.

And together with the hatred and the fear, there was a pitiful
sneaking admiration. He looked so grand and unruffled--so old, and yet
sitting the skittish, high-mettled horse so firmly; so feeble, and yet
full of such an absolute confidence in his power to rule and
subordinate, accustomed for forty years to the unfailing subjection of
such things as servants, horses, and women. Her heart bumped against
her stays, and her face became red and then white, when she thought
that he intended to stop at the post office and ask for her. But he
rode on--gave one glance up toward the windows from which she shrank
still further, and rode by, right down the street, with the horse
swishing its long tail and seeming to dance in a light amble.

Then, as soon as he disappeared, the spell was broken.

In all that she had confessed to her husband she had been sincere; but
hers was a simple and easy going nature, and exaltation could not be
long sustained. After excitement she returned rapidly to a passive and
unimaginative level; and now, quietly brooding, she could not do
otherwise than justify herself for all that had happened.

At the end of everything she felt a deep-seated conviction that she
was in truth blameless. She was not a bad woman. Therefore it would be
wicked to treat her as a sinner and an outcast. Sinners did wrong
because they enjoyed the sin; but she had never been vicious, or even
selfishly anxious for pleasure. Pleasure! She had never cared for that
sort of thing. Girls of her own age used to talk to her about it, and
what they said was almost incomprehensible. She had never had such
feelings, however faintly.

No, her only fault had been in giving way to the people who had charge
of her, and who were too strong to be resisted. Just at first she had
been flattered and pleased when Mr. Barradine had begun to take notice
of her--patting her, and holding her hand, and saying he admired her
hair; but she had not in the least known where all this was leading.
What she told Will was substantially correct as to the beginning--but
of course her eyes had been opened before anything definite occurred.
Then she had told Auntie that she was afraid; and then it was that
Auntie ought to have saved her, and didn't. Far from it. Auntie, who
in early days had been severe enough, now became all smiles, treating
her deferentially, saying: "If you play your cards properly you'll set
us all up as large as towers. Don't lose your head. For goodness'
sake, don't be wild and foolish, and go offending him so that instead
of coming back again he'll look elsewhere."

Then later, when she had, as it were, sacrificed herself on the family
altar, she was indignant at finding that he had nevertheless looked
elsewhere. There were others--and she said she would never forgive
him. Yet she did forgive him. Finally, there came the outrage of his
stopping at the Cottage with somebody else. Her aunt had sent her out
of the way, but she heard of it; and this time she determined to be
done with Mr. Barradine. And yet again she forgave him.

Then she discovered, without any explanations, that _he_ had done with
her. He was paternal and kind, but she had become just nobody; and her
aunt was very angry, saying that she had played her cards badly
instead of well. That was about the time that Dale had been two years
at Portsmouth. She liked Dale from the first because he was honest and
good, and because he seemed to offer her an escape from an extremely
difficult position. But if she had been a nasty girl, she would not
have made such a marriage; instead of being anxious to secure
respectability, however humble, she would have followed Auntie's
suggestions and looked out for another protector instead of for a
husband. And she had wanted to tell Dale the whole truth; but there
again she had been overruled. Auntie forbade her to utter a whisper or
hint of it; she said that Mr. Barradine would never pardon such a
betrayal of his confidence, whereas if a properly discreet silence
were preserved he would give the bride a suitable wedding present, as
well as push the fortunes of the bridegroom. "Besides," said Aunt
Petherick, "a nice hash you'll make of it if you go and label yourself
damaged goods before you're fairly started. Why, it would be just
giving Dale the whip-hand over you for the rest of your days." Looking
back at it all, Mavis felt that this argument was irrefutable.

After marriage she began to love Will most truly and devotedly--but
not for his embraces, which did not even stir her pulses, which only
made her tenderly happy that she could make him happy. Now after
eleven years her feeling toward him was all unselfish and beautiful, a
gentle and deep affection, without a taint of anything that one would
not call really _lady-like_. The passion and boisterousness were all
on his side.

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