“Didn’t you?” Billy opened his large, pathetic eyes wider. “Well, now, that’s funny. We wondered why you did it so curiously, and why the postmark was Maine. We thought you were up to some fun, now you had so much money, but we allowed we’d wait till you came.”
But Matt could not solve the mystery. The notes had been addressed to “The Strangs,” and were accompanied by a slip of paper: “The same amount of the money due to you will be forwarded next year.”
That was all the message. Matt exhausted himself in guesses. His thoughts even went back to the owners of the Sally Bell, imagining some tardy conscience-money in repayment of arrears due to the dead captain. At last he concluded the remittance must have come from Madame Strang, acting through some American agent. She had discovered Herbert owed him money, and was sending him double and quadruple by way of remorse for the mistake she and her husband had made. To prevent him from returning it, she had sent it to his family, and anonymously.
Abner Preep contended that there was no occasion for Matt to help his brothers and sisters further for the present. The subsidy was ample; more would only lead to unnecessary extravagance. Matt was not entirely pleased to find his family had no immediate need to profit by his marriage. Indeed, he almost wished the money had not come. It was perturbing to feel in himself a yearning—now that his burdens were lightened—to make one last desperate effort to take the kingdom of Art by his own unaided assault; it was even more perturbing to feel himself solicited by that other self, which had spoken out on that sultry summer afternoon, to abandon Art altogether for the simple restfulness of a life in his own village at one with Nature. The life that had cramped him once seemed curiously soothing now; his old fretful sense of superiority to this Philistine environment was gone. But most perturbing of all was the thought of Rosina. In neither of these suggested alternatives—to have another try alone, or to settle down in Cobequid—did she play any part, and he always came back with a shock to the recollection of his relation to her, that made both of these futures impossible. He would not allow himself to dwell for a moment on the thought of backing out of his engagement—honor forbade that. And was he even certain that he did not care for her? How piquant she had looked now and then when she had accidentally got into one or other of the two postures that became her best, as on the night when, smiling, she had thrown back her head a little to the left, with the somewhat plebeian nose refined by foreshortening, and the warm carmines and ivory of the face and throat showing in the lamplight against the loosened hair. And then how simple and unpretentious she was, how charmingly candid her chafferings with the store-keepers! But it eased his mind somewhat to find Billy selfishly laying claim to the mysterious money, persisting he would travel with it—he would see the world. Matt persuaded Harriet to acquiescence in the idea, relieved to find his immediate responsibilities to the smaller children restored to him. But, unknown to Billy, Matt had already decided he must, if possible, take charge of the poor fellow and keep him from drink. He wrote to ask Rosina’s permission to let his crippled brother travel with him, as his health needed a sea voyage. He waited anxiously for the reply.
“I can reffuse my darling nothing,” Rosina responded, with more promptitude than orthography.
“God bless you,” murmured Matt, kissing the letter. “I believe I shall love you, after all.”
Book III.—CHAPTER I
CONQUEROR OR CONQUERED?
Foresight is insight. It was due to Matthew Strang’s ignorance of life and of himself that his marriage in no way turned out as he had calculated. Oh, the fatal mistake of it, perceived as soon as it was too late, though he shrank weakly from the perception, afraid to face the chill, blank truth, hoping against hope that love would be the child of marriage. Oh, the ghastliness of being chained to a loving woman he did not love, bound by law and honor to simulate a responsive affection, and to hide the deadly apathy which her caresses could not overcome. He tried hard to love her, calling his own attention to her youth, her freshness, her prettiness, her flashes of expression, making the most of every hint of charm, seeing her through a wilful glamour, even attempting to persuade himself that she was the woman of his dreams; all the while his leaden heart coldly refusing itself to the hollow pretence. Before the marriage he had almost felt on the point of love; but it was only, he knew later, the self-disguise of cupidity and mercenariness, though no doubt a measure of gratitude had helped to becloud his vision. In his bachelor days he could never have imagined such indifference to any woman. Sometimes he wondered if this was all marriage meant to any man, but a wistful incredulity denied him the consolation of acquiescence in a common lot. The testimony of mankind was quite other, and his own yearning instinct refused to look upon his union as typical. If only she had been a little more intellectual, less limited to gossip about servants and prices! How he had deceived himself, taking the sprightliness of a young girl in love, the coquettish gayety, the evanescent brilliancy of a bird in the pairing season, for the output of perennial intellect and good-humor! He had lived so much alone with his dreams that he had fallen out of touch with humanity, and particularly with feminine humanity. He had had no standard of comparison by which to gauge her, and once united to her, the habitual recluse could not accommodate himself to her constant companionship.
What an irony their honey-moon in Paris, in Florence, the ardors of artistic renascence yoked with the blankness of boredom! Despite Rosina’s affectionate clinging to him, and her almost pathetic endeavor to admire old churches and dingy picture-galleries, it was a relief to both when she at last acquiesced in his happy idea of regarding his rounds as “work,” and, under the convoy of Billy, beguiled the expectation of fonder reunion by the more exhilarating spectacle of the streets and the endless glories of the Bon Marché. And very soon she wearied altogether of foreign places, clamoring to be settled in London, where the language was not gibberish, and one could go a-marketing without being bamboozled and cut off from bargaining. For after the first fervors of the honey-moon she had developed that instinct for petty economy which had amused and charmed him when he had gone shopping with her in Halifax, but which now fretted him, seeming like a daily reproach for all those great sums her acquisition of him had cost her. He was glad that the due arrival of the second mysterious instalment promised to the Nova-Scotian household relieved him of the painful necessity of applying to her on its behalf. Unexpectedly enough this sum was supplemented by a dividend of a hundred and fifteen dollars paid to him, after he had forgotten all about the matter, by the trustee in Halifax in settlement of his claim against the estate of the Starsborough ship-builder.
In vain he tried to interest his wife in books, in the poems and essays, in the study of French and German, into which he now threw himself with a feverish desire for culture. In vain he tried to impart to her his vision of nature, to get her to observe scenery and sunsets. Colors and shades were only interesting to her as they occurred in dress materials. Once when they stood by a sea-beach on a December afternoon under a cold, gray sky, and Rosina complained of the dreariness of the seascape, he had attempted to show her how beautiful it really was, how much more interesting to the artistic eye than a crude sunlight effect; how nearest the horizon it was grayish steel-blue, and then a still amber, and then emerald green, and how just before the final fringe of both there shone a band of sparkling amber, grayed by cloud-reflections. But Rosina shivered, and refused to see anything but a chill green waste.