The Minister's Wife

by Mrs. Oliphant

Isabel had come to herself; her thoughts had lulled as the wind lulled, for no reason she knew of—perhaps out of weariness. When she went into her room she perceived the desk standing open, the pocket-book lying on the floor; and had so much possession of herself as to put them away, restoring the book to its place and closing the desk. She could do this with a certain calm, feeling as if her discovery had been made years ago, and since then she had had time to face the idea and accustom herself to it. She took off her wet gown, and dressed herself as usual. All this she did mechanically, in a sudden hush, scarcely thinking, scarcely feeling anything. When she heard his step coming to the door there rose within her a tempest just as sudden. Should she go down to meet him, or let him come here? Should she wait till he assailed her, or should she announce her awful discovery at once? None of these questions could Isabel answer for herself. She had to act mechanically, not knowing in one moment what she would do the next. He came in with an angry inquiry about ‘your mistress,’ which she could hear where she was. His voice was louder than usual; his very step betrayed irritation. But what was his irritation now to her? It even struck her with a curious sense of wonder that he could take the trouble to be moved by trifling causes to trifling passion—he who, as he and she knew—— Mechanically still, and quite suddenly, as if some spring had been touched in her of which she was unconscious, she went down, and went into the room. He had placed himself with his back to the fire, full of wrath, which was evidently ready to burst forth the moment she entered. The table was spread for dinner. An air of homely comfort was about the place; the light was dim, to be sure—but it was as much as they were used to; and the candles brightened the white-covered table with its gleams of reflection, and the ruddy, quivering firelight filled the room. All these calm details of ordinary life encircled the two at this dreadful moment with that hypocrisy of nature which cloaks over the fiercest passion; and in the kitchen the dinner was preparing, not without much serious anxiety on the part of the maid lest the fish should be spoiled; for Stapylton was ‘very particular’ about his dinner, and prompt to wrath when anything impaired its perfection.

‘Well,’ he said, when Isabel came into the room, ‘I hope you have something to say for yourself. What did you mean by sending me such a message to-day? I wonder if you are mad, or if it is only pride and obstinacy. No answer? How dared you, when I had sent you my directions, send back such a message to me?’

‘Because I was stunned,’ she said, ‘and did not know what I was saying. Let us not speak of it till you have eaten. Wait till then. I have much—much—to say.’

‘Much to say!—a great deal too much I don’t doubt,’ he said; ‘if you think this sort of thing will do for me, you are mistaken, Isabel. You may as well know at once. I am not the man to be trifled with. My wife must obey me—do you understand? I can’t have two wills in my house. My wife must obey me!’ he went on, striking his hand against the table. ‘I have borne as much of your self-will as I mean to bear. My wife must have no will but mine.’

Isabel looked at him as from some height of knowledge, feeling no movement of anger, no irritation at his words. Oh! to think he should be occupied about matters so trifling at a moment so terrible! To get his wife to obey him! Could he care for that, when this life was over, blasted in a moment, and nothing remained for either of them but a blank existence of despair? Her heart bled for him, making himself angry thus at the merest trifles, not knowing what was to come.

‘The dinner is coming,’ she said, wondering at herself that she could form the words, ‘and the woman will be in the room. Would you wait till it is over? And you must want food and support,’ she added, with an ineffable pity. It was not the pity of love. It was the compassion with which she might have fortified a criminal with food and wine, before telling him the awful news of his approaching execution—a human sentiment of pity for a weak creature in unconscious peril, about to be strained to the utmost, and unaware of it. He gave her an angry look, to see what she meant, but could not divine it, so wrapt was she in the unconscious elevation and tragic seriousness of the crisis. He did not know what a crisis it was. And he could not understand the strange superiority of her calm.

‘And then the inconsistency of it,’ he said, moodily placing himself at the head of the table. ‘You pretend to want me to stay, and when I begin to entertain the idea, and was actually in treaty for some land, you step in, in your perversity, and break it off by disobeying my orders. What did you mean by it? What reason could you have? By Jove! if I had gone off at once and never come near you again, it would have served you right.’

Oh! if he had done so, Isabel murmured within herself; but the servant was in the room, the dinner being placed on the table, and nothing more was practicable. She sat there happily concealed by the cover of the dish placed before her, and made motions as though she were eating, and listened to all his grumbling over the indifferent meal. The fish was spoiled; the meat was badly roasted; the vegetables were uneatable. ‘If you would give a little more attention to this sort of thing, and waste less time over that precious baby, it would be more to the purpose,’ he said, ‘that woman is an idiot; so are all these Scotch women; and, by Jove! I was the greatest idiot of all to come and settle myself down here.’ Isabel made no answer. That he should be on such a brink, and yet be disturbed by the arrangement of the grasses on the edge of the precipice! She had no inclination to reply to him, or to take offence. She gazed at him across the table wistfully, with a compassion that was almost tender, and yet felt she could not go to him, could not touch him, or bear his touch, not for all the world.

Then there came the moment when the table was cleared and the door closed, and they sat looking at each other with the two candles lighting the little white space between them. There was perfect quiet in the house. The maids were in the kitchen, frightened, not knowing what might happen, with the door shut between them and their master and mistress. Outside, the little world was hushed; not a sound, except an occasional blast of rain on the windows, or melancholy splash of the Loch on the beach, breaking the utter silence; still as the grave, which seemed to rise up between the two as they looked at each other in the pause before the storm.

‘Well?’ said Stapylton.