"It is no wonder that she was a corpse, then," Miss Craven answers, with a slight smile. "I should not think" (scrutinising the little bottle inquisitively), "that there was enough here to kill one woman, let alone ten men. Yes, I'll be careful; thanks, very much. Good night!" (with her pretty courteous smile).
The housemaid being gone, Esther bolts the door—a weakly defensive measure against one class of assailants, the crape-masked burglars; though, as she is aware, utterly impotent against the other and worse class—the intangible, unkeep-outable revenants; the rustlers along the passage, the rattlers of the lock. She then seats herself at the dressing-table, flings down her arms among her brushes and combs, and sinks her head upon them, in closest proximity to the candles, whose little spires of flame the wind, thrusting its thin body in between window and frame, drives right against the tumbled plenty of her hair. In this attitude she remains a long time; forgetting even to search under the bed, up the chimney, behind the screen, or in the huge japanned chest, upon which a disconnected but interesting landscape of cocks, pagodas, and junks picks itself out, in tarnished yellow, from the dull black ground.
It is impossible for the most comprehensive mind or body to contain any two distinct, even though not necessarily opposite feelings, in their fullest force, at the same time. If one is famished with hunger, one cannot be consumed by thirst; if one is consumed by thirst, one cannot be famished with hunger. If one is in despair at being forgotten by one's lover, one is indifferent as to the onset of any number of ghosts and murderers; if one is paralyzed by fear of ghosts and murderers, one is tolerably indifferent as to one's lover's lapse of memory. For the first time since his death, Jack is not the leading thought in Esther's mind. Poor dead! How can they be so unreasonable as to expect to be anyone's leading thought? Even we noisy, voiceful, visible living are obliged to keep crying out, "I am here—remember me," in order not to sink into oblivion amongst our neighbours and kinsfolk.
"Wilt thou remember me when I am gone,
Further each day from thy vision withdrawn—
Thou in the sunset, and I in the dawn?"
Pretty, tender, touching lines; but I think that the answer to them, if given truly, would hardly content the asker: "I will remember thee for a very little while; even till I see some one younger and prettier than thou wert, and then I will forget thee!"
Miss Craven starts up, after awhile, and begins to walk up and down, over the creaky, up-and-downy boards, and to speak vehemently and out loud to the rats, who, numerous and cheerful as usual, are scrabbling, pattering, squeaking under the floor, behind the wainscot, in the japan-chest. "At all events," she says, with a sort of savage satisfaction, "there is one comfort: he'll be miserable—he'll curse the day when he ties himself to that lump of blancmange. Blancmange! white meat! that exactly expresses her; she looks as if she would be good to eat—soft, luscious, ripe. Unfortunately, a man does not contemplate eating his wife!"
But even this little angry gleam of comfort has but a short life. Soon, too soon, it occurs to her that men do not look at a woman with women's eyes. Men, being three parts animal themselves, condone any offence to a woman the animal part of whom is perfect and beautiful. How else is it that beauty—mere blank beauty, although destitute of any accessory charms—can always command its price in the market, and that price a high one? In marrying Constance, St. John will have no disappointments to undergo, no discoveries to make. He has known her all her life; has seen her change from a handsome stupid child into a handsomer stupider girl, and bloom, lastly, into a handsomest, stupidest woman. Constance has no antecedents; she is a woman without a history. That also is in her favour. A man likes to write his name on a sheet of white paper better than on one upon which many other men have written theirs. Perfectly virtuous, perfectly healthy, perfectly beautiful, young, rich, not ill-tempered, not fast, not shrew-tongued—surely she is a prize worth any man's drawing. If, in addition to her long list of qualifications, she possessed also Desdemona's heart and Imogen's mind, it would be too hard upon the rest of womankind:
"Why should one woman have all goodly things?"
Want of sympathy with the companion of her life makes a woman embittered, reckless—sends her often trespassing on her neighbours' preserves, in the endeavour to find there that congeniality of spirit which is not to be met with in her own. Want of sympathy with the companion of his life sends a man oftener to his club; makes him much pleasanter to other women when he goes into society; makes him sulky and sleepy when he dines at home—that is all. Doubtless St. John will be indifferent to his bride at first; he will dislocate his jaw with yawning during their wedding-tour, but she will bear him children; "selon les us et coutumes Anglaises, elle aura beaucoup d'enfants;" he will like her for that. Year by year they will come here to Blessington, probably. Year by year she (Esther) will see the blossom of a fuller contentment on his wide brow, the quiet of a deeper rest in his restless eyes. And she herself will be here always, for one cannot throw away one's daily bread. Year by year they will find her with ever thinner hair, sharper shoulders, drabber cheeks; and he, looking upon her with the forgiveness of complete indifference, will say to himself, "She is bad, and she is ugly; I was well rid of her!" Than to be so forgiven, how much rather would she have been struck down dead by his hand, lifted in righteous anger and vengeance, on that moonlit September night, beside the glassy rush-brimmed mere at Felton! A sudden rage at her own fatuity fills her, when she looks back on that idiotic hope that had upsprung in her mind, that his object in coming to Blessington was to pardon her, and take her back to himself. Do men ever pardon a sin against themselves?
"...............Worse than despair,
Worse than the bitterness of death, is hope.
It is the only ill which can find place
Upon the giddy, sharp, and narrow hour
Tottering beneath us. Plead with the swift frost,
That it should spare the eldest flower of spring;
Plead with awakening earthquake, o'er whose couch
Even now a city stands, strong, fair and free,
Now stench and blackness yawns like death. Oh! plead
With famine and wind-walking pestilence,
Blind lightning, or the deep sea; not with man—
Cruel, cold formal man—righteous in words,
In deeds a Cain."