‘Is she not your wife?’ I said in alarm.
He laughed again, even more hoarsely, with a sharp tone in the sound. ‘What do you call a woman who is taken back after—everything? Who is taken back because—— What is she, do you suppose? What is he, the everlasting dupe and fool! Don’t speak to me any more.’ He hurried away from me, and then turned round again at the door. ‘I spoke a little wildly perhaps,’ he said, with a smile, which was more disagreeable than his rage, ‘without due thought for Mrs. Reinhardt’s reputation. Make yourself quite easy—she is my wife.’
That was the last I saw of them. I was too much offended to go to the door to see them leave the house, but it is impossible to describe the relief with which I listened to the wheels ringing along the road as they went away. Was it really true?—was this nightmare removed from me, and my house my own again? I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. I fell down on my knees and made some sort of confused thanksgiving. It seemed to me as if I had been in this horrible bondage half my life.
Mary came in about half-an-hour after to take away the breakfast things. I had swallowed a cup of tea, but I had not been able to eat. Mary was still disapproving, but quieter than at first; she shook her head over the untouched food. ‘We’ll be having you ill next, ma’am,’ she said, with an evident feeling that cook and she would in that case have good reason to complain; and then, after a pause, she added severely, ‘I don’t know if you knew, ma’am, as the lady is gone off in your best shawl?’
‘My shawl!’ I had thought no more of it: but this sudden news took away my breath.
‘She was always fond of it,’ said Mary grimly. ‘She liked the best of everything did that lady; and she couldn’t make up her mind to take it off when she went away.’
Though I was so confounded and confused, I made an effort to keep up appearances still. ‘She will send it back, of course, as soon as she gets—home,’ I said; ‘as soon as she gets—her own things.’
‘I am sure I hope so, ma’am,’ said Mary, carrying off her tray. Her tone was not one to inspire hope in the listener, and I confess that for the rest of the morning my shawl held a very large place in my thoughts. It was the most valuable piece of personal property I possessed. When I used to take it out and wrap it round me, it was always with a certain pride. It was the kind of wrap which dignifies any dress. ‘With that handsome shawl, it does not matter what else you wear,’ Mrs. Stoke was in the habit of saying to me; and though Mrs. Stoke was not a great authority in most matters, she knew what she was saying on this point. I said to myself, ‘Of course she will send it back,’ but I had a very chill sensation of doubt about my heart.
All the morning I sat still over the fire, with a longing to go and talk to some one. For more than a week now, I had not exchanged a word with my neighbours, and this was terrible to a person like me, living surrounded by so many whose lives had come to be a part of mine. But I had not the courage to take the initiative. I cannot tell how I longed for some one to come, for the ice to be broken. And it was only natural that people should be surprised and offended, and even have learned to distrust me. For who could they suppose I was hiding away like that—some mysterious sinner belonging to myself—some one I had a special interest in? And then she had been recognized by Everard Stoke!
At about twelve o’clock my quietness was disturbed by the sound of some one coming; my heart began to beat and my face to flush, but it was only old White with his fellow-servant, Mississarah, as he called her, pronouncing the two words as if they were one. Their visit put me in possession of the whole miserable story. It was like a tale of enchantment all through. The man had been a mature man of forty or more, buried in science and learning, when he first saw the beautiful creature who since seemed to have been the curse of his life. She was an innkeeper’s daughter, untaught and unrefined. He had tried to educate her, married her, done everything that a man mad with love could do to make her a lady—nay, to make her a decorous woman—but he had failed and over again failed. They did not tell me, and I did not wish to hear, what special sins she had done against him. I suppose she had done everything that a wicked wife could do. She had been put into honourable retirement with the hope of recovery again and again. Then she had been sent away in anger. But every time the unfortunate husband had fallen under her personal influence—the influence of her beauty—she had been taken back.