Fiander's Widow: A Novel

by M. E. Francis

Nothing certainly was farther from Rosalie’s thoughts when she had taken refuge in that sheltered spot from the glare of the afternoon sun than the expectation of the advent of this companion. She had, in fact, quite decided that he was by this time out of the country, and had, indeed, made up her mind to erase his image definitely from her memory. Henceforward, as she frequently told herself, she must think only of Isaac—Isaac, who had always been her friend, who was so soon to be her husband. Her husband!—she must face the thought though she unconsciously shrank from it. Oh, would—would that this sweet cup of forbidden love had never been held to her lips! She had dashed it from her, but the taste of it remained and had taken all the savour out of her life. It had been to her a poisonous cup, containing as it did wine from the fruit of the tree of knowledge. ‘You know very little of life,’ Richard had said to her once. Alas, alas! she knew now more than enough.

‘Oh, Elias—poor Elias,’ she groaned to herself sometimes, ‘why did you die? If you had lived I should have known nothing—I should have guessed at nothing. I might have gone down to my grave without knowing that there was any other love besides that which I gave you.’

As an antidote to the rebellious longing of which she was too often conscious, Rosalie had recourse to the panacea she had hitherto found unfailing in times of affliction: hard work. Since the writing of that letter to Richard, and the subsequent battle with herself, she had resumed her old energetic habits. Once more she rose with the dawn, once more she passed hours in toil no less arduous than that allotted to her servants. She avoided solitude as much as possible, and strove by every means in her power to tire herself out.

So tired was she, indeed, on this particular afternoon, that, having sought the friendly shade of the grassy nook already referred to, she acknowledged herself to be incapable of further effort. Even when the great heat had somewhat abated, and the retreating voices and heavy tread of her labourers as they trooped homewards warned her that it was growing late, she sat on, her hands clasping her knees, her eyes gazing vacantly on the ground, too weary even to think.

A footstep sounded in the neighbourhood of her retreat, but she did not raise her eyes: it was some straggler, probably, hastening to rejoin the others. She could hear the bushes rustling, as though brushed by a passing form, and kept very still; she wanted nobody to speak to her, nobody even to look at her. But now the step faltered, halted—there was a pause; and then rapid feet began to descend towards where she sat. She raised her eyes, first in surprise and a little irritation, then in incredulous wonder, then—oh, what was it that Richard saw in them?

In a moment he was bending over her and both her hands were clasped in his.

Was it that particular moment that Job Hunt chose to pursue his investigations, or did the acknowledged lovers remain thus longer than they knew? Rosalie could never afterwards tell, nor could Richard. They felt as if they were in a dream; time, place, circumstances, were alike forgotten; a vague undefined bliss—the intangible bliss of dreams—haunted them both, and in the minds of both lurked the same dread of awakening.

It was Rosalie who was first recalled to life. Her eyes, which had been fixed on Richard’s face, dropped gradually to his hands; gazed idly, first at those hands, then at her own which he was holding; then the idea gradually took shape in her mind—those were her hands, Rosalie Fiander’s hands, that were lying in Richard’s clasp; and they had no right to be there!

She snatched them away instantly, and the charm was broken.

‘You have come back!’ she cried. ‘Why did you come back?’