If the Protector “smashed up,” to use Mr. Black’s concise phrase, Arthur Dudley would be smashed up with it; he had gone on little by little, till he was afraid of reckoning how much of Berrie Down was set up in type at Printing House Square, and in various newspapers throughout the country.
If the Protector failed—but then the Protector could not fail—and because it could not fail, and because if it did fail, so much must go with it, Arthur decided not to tell his wife (who would be certain to look on the worst side of things), but to humour her, as Mr. Black recommended, and answer—
“I do not know, Heather, what you mean by drifting away; you and the children are never out of my thoughts by day or night. I have gone into a very good thing with Mr. Black, in company with Lord Kemms, Mr. Allan Stewart, Mr. Aymescourt Croft, and a number of other persons, all gentlemen of position and fortune, not likely to rush into any foolish speculation. I hope to be a wealthy man yet. I hope to get rid of this eternal worry about money—which makes life not worth the having. I know you would help me, Heather, if you could; there, there, don’t look pitiful. I can’t bear it. There is nothing you can do for me now, except buy yourself some handsome dresses, and come over to Copt Hall.”
She put her hand out to take the money, then a second time she returned it to him, saying, “Let me have my own way this time, Arthur; when you have made your fortune, I will spend as much money as you like; only till you have made it, I should not feel happy to be extravagant. Don’t be angry, love!” she pleaded; “don’t be vexed because I ask to have my own will for once in a way.”
“Once in a way!” repeated Arthur. “Always, you mean, don’t you? No, I’m not angry; stay at home, if you like. I do not think that there are many husbands who would press their wives so much to accompany them;” and with this undeniably true remark, Arthur Dudley strode out of the room, leaving Heather to think over the matter at her leisure.
Very patiently she did so—very resolutely she took up the facts of her married life, and looked at them from beginning to end. There was nothing new in what she saw—nothing. It had been coming upon her for months past, that she did not possess—had never possessed—her husband’s love. When she beheld Gilbert Harcourt’s devotion to Bessie, she knew Arthur had never been similarly devoted to her. She was not the love of his life, and neither was she the friend of his heart. He trusted in others; he confided in others. What was the reason of all this? Was it a fault in herself, she wondered. If it were, how did it happen that the boys and the girls, the men-servants and the maid-servants, and the stranger who came within their gates, all turned to her for sympathy and companionship? Without any undue vanity, it was still impossible for Heather not to know that she was greatly beloved by those with whom she came in contact; and yet, what was the use of being beloved, if the one person on earth she cared for threw her off?
Threw her off! Had they ever been near enough for him to do so; were not they quite as near now as ever they had been? Was it not only the blessed darkness of her mental vision which had hitherto kept her from discovering this fact? “He never loved me,” Heather decided—“never; and he has found it out too late.”
And then there came over her soul a terrible pity for him, which swallowed up all sense of personal wrong—all anger—all selfishness. She could not unmarry him; she could not give him the woman he might have loved, the wealth that might have made him contented. She was no heroine—this Heather of mine; tragedy was not in her nature. The idea of freeing him from the yoke under which he had voluntarily put his neck, never occurred to her. To flee to the ends of the earth, to part from him, leaving a note of insufficient explanation behind; to rush off with the first man who whispered a few civil words to her, and let her husband walk through the Divorce Court to liberty; to purchase a little bottle of poison and kill first her children and then herself—these very feasible and proper courses, were ideas which never even crossed Mrs. Dudley’s mind.
Outside of lunatic asylums, amongst the decorous and unexcitable people to be met with in society, or when we take our walks abroad, we are told, by those who profess to know their fellow-creatures thoroughly, that such impulsive, devoted, unselfish creatures exist; but Heather’s imagination never soared to such heights of passionate self-sacrifice.
They were married, and the time for even thinking of parting with Arthur being past for ever, all she could do was to try to make him as happy as possible.