He took another turn, and sighed again, regretfully, despairingly, as one who looks back upon the pallid ghost of a love that has long been dead.
“It began with pity. I was so sorry for her, poor soul, her wasted life, her slighted beauty. God knows that for a long time I had no thought of sin. Gradually the yearning to see more of her, to bring some brightness and pleasure into her life, became too strong for prudence, and I persuaded her to meet me unknown to her husband. We planned little excursions, innocent enough in themselves, a morning drive and a modest luncheon at Richmond, or Greenwich, or Jack Straw’s Castle, a trip to Hampton Court or Windsor by boat or rail. She had hardly any acquaintances in London, and there was little fear of her being recognized. We went to a theatre together now and then, and sat in a dark stage box, happy, talking of an impossible future in the intervals of the performance. We never said as much, but I think we had both a vague idea that Providence would help us—that her husband would die young, and leave us free to be happy together. Yes, we were very fond of each other, very single-hearted in those days. She was only two and twenty, remember, and I was still a young man.”
Another pause, another sigh, and a look across the roses, as if across the long lapse of years to an unforgotten past.
“Heaven knows how long we might have gone on in this way, without sin, if not without treachery to the husband, who cared so little for his wife that it seemed scarcely dishonourable to deceive him. Our fate was precipitated by circumstances. Darcy surprised a little note of mine, asking Evelyn to meet me at a theatre. He attacked his wife brutally, refused to believe anything except the worst. He called her by names that were new and hideous to her ear, and her soul rose up in arms against him. She defied him, ran out of the house, took a cab, and came to my chambers in the foggy November evening. She came to me helpless, friendless, with no one in this wide world to love her or to protect her, except me. This was the turning-point. Of course she could not stay there to be seen by my clerk and my laundress. I took her to Salisbury that night, and we spent a fortnight moving from village to village along the south coast of Devonshire. My hope was that Darcy would apply for a divorce, and that in less than a year I might make the woman I loved my wife. I rejoiced in the thought of his obscurity and hers. The record of the case would pass unnoticed in the papers, and years hence, when I should have made a position at the Bar, nobody need know that the wife I loved and honoured was once the runaway wife of another man. I had argued without allowing for the malignity of a cur. Darcy wrote his wife one of the most diabolical letters that ever was penned by man; he wreaked his venom upon her—upon her, the weaker sinner; he called her by all the vile epithets in his copious vocabulary, and he told her that she should never have the right to the name of an honest woman, for that he would sooner hang himself than divorce her. And so she was to drag her chain for the rest of his days; and so she was to pay the bitter price of having trusted her young life to a low-bred scoundrel.”
“Hard luck for both of you,” said Theodore.
“Yes, it was indeed hard luck. If you could know how truly and entirely I loved her in those days—how completely happy we should have been in each other’s society, but for the embittering consciousness of our false position. Cut off by his malevolence from escape by divorce, we naturally hoped for a day when we should be released by his death. His habits were not those which conduce to length of years.
“We talked of the future—we had our plans and dreams about that life which was to be ours in after-days, when I should be making a large income, and when she would be really my wife. With that hope before her she was content to live in the strictest seclusion, to economize in every detail of our existence, to know no pleasure except that of my society. Never did a handsome woman resign herself to a duller or more unselfish existence—and yet I believe for the first few years she was happy. We were both happy—and we were full of hope.
“I remember the day she first suggested to me that I should buy Cheriton Chase when it came into the market. I was beginning to be employed in important cases, and to get big fees marked upon my briefs, and I had taken silk. I had made my name, and I was saving money. Yet the suggestion that I should buy a large estate was too wild for any one but a woman to have made. From that hour, however, it was Evelyn’s idée fixe. She had a passionate love for her birth-place, an overweening pride in her race and name. She urged me to accumulate money—the estate would be sacrificed at half its value, perhaps,—would go for an old song. She became rigidly economical, would hardly allow herself a new gown, and her keenest delight was in the deposit notes I brought her, as my money accumulated at the Union Bank. She had no idea of investments, or interest for my accumulations. Her notions about money were a child’s notions—the idea of saving a large sum to buy the desire of her heart; and the desire of her heart was Cheriton Chase.
“God knows I was honest and earnest enough in those days. I meant to buy that estate, for her sake, if it was possible to be done. I meant to marry her directly she was free to become my wife. My fidelity had not wavered after a union of ten years and more—but Darcy was very far from dying. He had hunted out his wife in her quiet retreat, had threatened and annoyed her, and I had been obliged to buy him off by paying his passage to Canada—where he had been quartered with his regiment years before, and which he pretended would open a new field for him. Our case, so far as he was concerned, seemed hopeless, and I was beginning to feel the darkness of the outlook, when I made Maria Morales’ acquaintance.
“It was the old, old story, Theodore. God forbid you should ever go through that hackneyed experience. Just as the old chain was beginning to drag heavily, a new face appeared upon my pathway—a girlish face, bright with promise and hope. I saw the opportunity of a union which would smooth my way to a great position—crown the edifice of my fortune, give me a wife of whom I might be proud. Could I ever have been proud of the woman who had sacrificed her good name for my sake? I was bound to her by every consideration of honour and duty. But there was the fatal stain across both our lives. I could not take her into society without the fear of hearing malignant whispers as we passed. However well these social secrets may be kept, there is always some enemy to hunt them out, and the antecedents of James Dalbrook’s wife would have been public property.