Lady Rose's Daughter

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

No; on the worldly side all was smooth. The marriage had been carried through with ease and quietness The Duke, in spite of Jacob's remonstrances, had largely increased his cousin's salary, and Julie was already enjoying the income left her by Lord Lackington. She had only to reappear in London as Jacob's wife to resume far more than her old social ascendency. The winning cards had all passed into her hands, and if now there was to be a struggle with Lady Henry, Lady Henry would be worsted.

All this was or should have been agreeable to the sensitive nerves of a woman who knew the worth of social advantages. It had no effect, however, on the mortal depression which was constantly Julie's portion during the early weeks of her marriage.

As for Delafield, he had entered upon this determining experiment of his life--a marriage, which was merely a legalized comradeship, with the woman he adored--in the mind of one resolved to pay the price of what he had done. This graceful and stately woman, with her high intelligence and her social gifts, was now his own property. She was to be the companion of his days and the mistress of his house. But although he knew well that he had a certain strong hold upon her, she did not love him, and none of the fusion of true marriage had taken place or could take place. So be it. He set himself to build up a relation between them which should justify the violence offered to natural and spiritual law. His own delicacy of feeling and perception combined with the strength of his passion to make every action of their common day a symbol and sacrament. That her heart regretted Warkworth, that bitterness and longing, an unspent and baffled love, must be constantly overshadowing her--these things he not only knew, he was forever reminding himself of them, driving them, as it were, into consciousness, as the ascetic drives the spikes into his flesh. His task was to comfort her, to make her forget, to bring her back to common peace and cheerfulness of mind.

To this end he began with appealing as much as possible to her intelligence. He warmly encouraged her work for Meredith. From the first days of their marriage he became her listener, scholar, and critic. Himself interested mainly in social, economical, or religious discussion, he humbly put himself to school in matters of belles-lettres. His object was to enrich Julie's daily life with new ambitions and new pleasures, which might replace the broodings of her illness and convalescence, and then, to make her feel that she had at hand, in the companion of that life, one who felt a natural interest in all her efforts, a natural pride in all her successes.

Alack! the calculation was too simple--and too visible. It took too little account of the complexities of Julie's nature, of the ravages and the shock of passion. Julie herself might be ready enough to return to the things of the mind, but they were no sooner offered to her, as it were, in exchange for the perilous delights of love, than she grew dumbly restive. She felt herself, also, too much observed, too much thought over, made too often, if the truth were known, the subject of religious or mystical emotion.

More and more, also, was she conscious of strangeness and eccentricity in the man she had married. It often seemed to that keen and practical sense which in her mingled so oddly with the capacity for passion that, as they grew older, and her mind recovered tone and balance, she would probably love the world disastrously more and he disastrously less. And if so, the gulf between them, instead of closing, could but widen.

One day--a showery day in early June--she was left alone for an hour, while Delafield went down to Montreux to change some circular notes. Julie took a book from the table and strolled out along the lovely road that slopes gently downward from Charnex to the old field-embowered village of Brent.

The rain was just over. It had been a cold rain, and the snow had crept downward on the heights, and had even powdered the pines of the Cubly. The clouds were sweeping low in the west. Towards Geneva the lake was mere wide and featureless space--a cold and misty water, melting into the fringes of the rain-clouds. But to the east, above the Rhône valley, the sky was lifting; and as Julie sat down upon a midway seat and turned herself eastward, she was met by the full and unveiled glory of the higher Alps--the Rochers de Naye, the Velan, the Dent du Midi. On the jagged peaks of the latter a bright shaft of sun was playing, and the great white or rock-ribbed mass raised itself above the mists of the lower world, once more unstained and triumphant.

But the cold bise was still blowing, and Julie, shivering, drew her wrap closer round her. Her heart pined for Como and the south; perhaps for the little Duchess, who spoiled and petted her in the common, womanish ways.

The spring--a second spring--was all about her; but in this chilly northern form it spoke to her with none of the ravishment of Italy. In the steep fields above her the narcissuses were bent and bowed with rain; the red-browns of the walnuts glistened in the wet gleams of sun; the fading apple-blossom beside her wore a melancholy beauty; only in the rich, pushing grass, with its wealth of flowers and its branching cow-parsley, was there the stubborn life and prophecy of summer.