At other times when I have settled down to write, the words have seemed to hurry from my brain so fast that my pen has had to race along to catch the thoughts before they passed into oblivion. But now—though the desire to write consumes me like a fire, the words come haltingly. I am afraid lest I should mar the beauty of this thing I know about. For I have found in marriage the loveliest experience of all.
For on my wedding day, when all the flowers and jewels and lace were laid aside, and all the good-byes said; the last kiss given to my father, and the farewells waved to all the loving village folk who were gathered at the gates to watch me go, I felt a little lonely, and wondered, as I drove away, if anywhere could ever be again so sweet as that old home.
When the little journey to the coast was made, and the sun set in a glow of splendour in the sea, the quiet night came down and the stars hung softly like jewelled lamps about a purple sky. Out in the windless, magical sea-scented night my husband caught and kissed me suddenly,—
'You can't send me away to-night, you little fluttering thing.'
But there was something in the quality of his kiss that frightened me, something almost ruthless in the finality of the words, so that I fled away upstairs in wild rebellion, because the summer's dalliance was over. I might elude the man no more. I must say like all the other women,—
'Meet, if thou require it
Both demands,
Laying flesh and spirit
In thy hands.'
Oh, if it only might be 'to-morrow, not to-night,' and when to-morrow came? why then again—to-morrow. Thus Mother Eve passed on to me that fear which caught her once when she, perhaps, was walking in the garden.
I went over to my window and leaned out. The sleeping world lay at my feet. I looked across the cliffs to where the quiet beauty of the sky met the wide splendour of the sea, and the great moon flooded the water, luring me to adventure out upon that rippling, shining pathway, which seemed to lead to God.
And as I looked I realised that all the natural world responded always to the natural laws, and, because of that obedience, there was that restfulness and harmony that had always soothed and quietened me, and the old 'washed' feeling came and swept away rebellion. So—when that time came that Michael shut the door, and there was no one in the room but him and me—he found 'duty' waiting, and that primeval fear that Eve passed down the ages to her daughter.
I suppose some of my thoughts were painted in my face, for I saw all that was dogged and ruthless in the man rise up—directed against himself, not me. I watched him beat down and back that ache and longing that was in his eyes when he came in, till there was nothing left but a vast, comprehending tenderness and the strength to wait, until such time as that frightened look had passed from his ladye's eyes.