Oliver's Bride; A true Story

by Mrs. Oliphant

‘You told me,’ said Wentworth, with a sternness which was almost threatening, ‘that there was no hope of recovery.’

‘You don’t seem best pleased with my good news,’ said the doctor, with a laugh. ‘As for hope of recovery, there wasn’t a scrap in her then state. And her life isn’t worth a pinch of snuff even now; but with a husband that can take her abroad to a warm climate and give her every luxury, why, there is hope for any woman; and I can but say I think it possible that she may pull through. That should be good news for you—but perhaps unexpected,’ he said, with a keen glance.

Wentworth made no reply. He bowed his head slightly, and went out before the doctor, walking out into the darkness and distance with a straight, unobservant abstraction. He never looked to right or left; and went out of his way for nothing, as if he saw nothing in his way. The doctor looking after him observed this idly, as people observe things that don’t concern them. He thought that on the whole it was a very curious incident. He could not think of any motive that could have brought about such a marriage. He wondered a little what the man could be thinking of to do such a thing: a woman who had long lost any signs of prettiness, if she had ever possessed any; poor, uneducated, and of damaged character. Why had he married her? and, having married her, was he disappointed that she did not die? He stood and watched Wentworth till he was out of sight, saying to himself that he should not be surprised if that man were found in the river or on Hampstead Heath some of these days. But it was no concern of his.

Oliver went home to his chambers, walking all the way. It was a very long way, and when he got there he was very tired, very tired and sick to death. He ate a mouthful of the dinner provided for him, and drank a glass or two of wine, dully, silently, keeping his thoughts, as it were, at bay, not allowing himself to indulge in them. Afterwards he sat down at his writing-table, and wrote a long, a very long letter, which he closed and sealed, getting up to get matches to light his taper, and searching in every corner he could think of for the sealing-wax; though why he should seal it he could not have explained. It was a mark of special solemnity, in keeping with the great crisis and the state of mind in which he was. Afterwards he sat down and thought long and very gravely. He went over the position in every possible point of view. There could not be a more hopeless one. Betrothed to a woman he loved and approved with every faculty of his being, yet married to one whom he did not pretend to love for whom, at the best, he had no feeling above pity—and at the worst—There began to penetrate into his brain, unused to such thoughts, a dull suspicion that he might have been all through the victim of a cheat; but it did not make much difference, and he felt no resentment, nothing but a profound sensation of hopelessness, past help or care. Whether it was deception all through, or whether it was the judgment of God upon him, who had sinned and had not suffered, and had been on the edge of winning, he so unworthy, the best that man can have in this world—it did not seem to matter much. In either case the result was the same—that here he stood with life made impossible to him, with a blank wall before him, and nothing to be done, no way of deliverance nor even of escape. He looked out in that curious blank way over the future, asking himself what it would be his duty to do. It would be his duty to take her away to a warm country, as her doctor had said—to give her all the care that she required, ‘every luxury’—these were the words—and so ensure her recovery. To do anything else would be inhuman. And as for Grace—ah, for Grace! To him she must henceforth be a sacred thing apart. He must not see her, speak to her, lean his heart upon her evermore. That was all ended—ended and over. He had written a long letter to his brother-in-law, telling him all the circumstances. He was not a man who could go on with deceits and false positions, trying miserably to stand between one and another. He might have done that, perhaps, for a time, might have beguiled Grace with letters, and explained by any false excuse his detention in London, his absence from her—but to what good? One day or other it would all have to be disclosed, now that it was evident that this woman was not going to die; however long he might fight it off, the necessity would come at last. And it was better that she should know now, than only at the moment when he should be leaving England with his wife. His wife! Oh, terrible word! Oh, awful, impossible fate!

This sudden realisation of what was before him made his mind start like a restive horse, and he found himself once more before that blank wall. It would be his duty to do it, and he could not do it. He did not trifle with himself nor elude this question any more than he would deceive the woman he loved. He looked out upon what was before him, and he said to himself that he could not do it—he could not pretend to do it. Other men might have the courage to struggle, but not he. There was only the coward’s remedy remaining to him, only the base man’s way—to turn and flee. He had written it all in his letter to Ford, although it seemed to him that when he wrote that letter he had not so clearly perceived that there was only one thing to do. He had bidden his brother-in-law to secure a living somehow for this wretched creature who bore his name, to use the little he would leave for her, and to eke it out—or finally, with the boldness of a man whom earthly motives had ceased to sway, to put this last inconceivable legacy into the hands of Grace.

‘I know she will do it,’ he had said.

He knew she would do it, God bless her! She would understand why of all terrible things he dared to ask that of her; and she would do it. That was all there could be to arrange before—

Oliver was not of that mind that is the mode of the present moment. He was no doubter. He believed in the canon ‘gainst self-slaughter, as well as in righteousness and judgment to come; but there is something in the unutterable sensations with which a man finds himself thus placed before evils which are too many for him, driven to the last extremity, and unable to move one way or other, which works a strange change upon the mind on this as on other matters of faith. When we are doing any act in our own person, it seems so much less strange to us, so much more natural, than when we contemplate it from the point of view of another man. He did not think either of the sin or of the cowardice. He thought only of the last resort, the last way of escape from that which was intolerable, which was more than man could bear. To describe the way by which a man comes to this point, to entertain the idea of ending his own life, is impossible. Those who are brought so far seldom survive to tell how it has been. It seemed to Oliver something like the arising and going to the Father of the prodigal. God, it seemed to him, would understand it all; the confusion in his soul, the intolerableness, the impossibility. If anyone else misunderstood, God would understand; and as for the punishment that might follow, he thought that he could take that like a man. No punishment could be equal to this. He would say that he did not mean to avoid punishment, that he was ready for anything, only not this; not the ghastly life which was insupportable, not the falsehood, not the treachery. Suffering, honest suffering—yes!—torments if God thought it worth the trouble—anything except this, which was more than he could bear. His mind was all wrong, confused, stupefied with all that had happened to him, and with the turning upside down of all his purposes, and the bitter ending to what had been a good impulse, surely a good impulse, an impulse of pity without consideration of himself; also with the wretched state in which he had been living, the want of food, the want of sleep, the sense of treachery to all he loved, the union to all he loathed; it was all intolerable, insupportable, turning his brain.

He had a pair of pistols in his room—pretty toys, decorated with silver, wrought in delicate designs—which someone had given to him. He took them down and opened the box and examined them curiously to see how they worked and that all was in order. He looked at the little bullet which could do so much, and weighed it in his hand with a dazed smile, and a kind of strange amusement. So little—and yet in it lay that for which not all the wealth of the world could find an antidote. He charged both weapons with a smile at himself for that too, thinking how very unlikely it was that the two would be wanted, and feeling almost something of the pleasure with which a boy prepares for his first shot, with a half horror, half delight. And then he thought how it would be best to do it. He did not want to disfigure himself unnecessarily, to go through all eternity with a bound-up jaw, like—who was it? Robespierre. This brought a sort of smile upon his face; he knew that it was folly to think of Robespierre; for all eternity—with his face bound up! and yet it amused him to think of the awful, grotesque figure, and to determine that he should not be like that. The temple or behind the ear; that was the better way; and then there would be no disfigurement. The hair would hide it, and Grace would see him and not be horrified—not horrified—only perhaps broken-hearted. But that had to be, any way.

Would he hear the report as sound travels before his senses were all stilled? He heard something, a jar and tinkle, which made him start at the very moment he felt that cold mouth of death. The touch of the pistol and then a jerk of his arm and a clanging world of sound, and then—no more. It disturbed his arm and the steadiness of his touch; and the report followed harmlessly, the bullet going somewhere, he knew not where, leaving him sitting there with the jar of the concussion in the finger which had pulled that trigger. The sound seemed to wake him up like a clap of thunder. He sprang to his feet, flinging the little weapon away with a burning sense of despising himself, of scorn for his intention, scorn for his failure. Was he a coward too, doubly a coward, ready to run away, yet weak enough to be stopped in the act? A sudden heat of shame came over him; he burst into a laugh of scorn, self-ridicule, derision—God in heaven! had he been frightened at the last moment? by what, by his nerves, by a fancied sound, like a child?