Wee Wifie

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

They were from Miss Mordaunt, and Mrs. Heron, and Ellerton, and the lawyer, but they only reiterated the same thing—that all efforts had been in vain, and that they could hear nothing of either Lady Redmond or the boy; and then they urged him to come home at once. Lastly, directed by Mrs. Heron, as though by an afterthought, was the letter Fay had left for him upon the study-table; but, in reality, it had been forwarded before the alarm had been given, for the seal was still unbroken. Mrs. Heron, on learning from the messenger that Sir Hugh had started for Egypt, had redirected it, and it had only just been posted when the distracted nurse made her appearance at the Hall and told her story. When Hugh read that poor little letter, his first feeling was intense anger—all his Redmond blood was at fever-heat. She had sinned beyond all mercy; she had compromised his name and his reputation, and he would never forgive her.

He had confided his honor to a child, and she had played with it, and cast it aside; she had dared to leave him and her home, and with his child, too, and to bring the voice of scandal about them; she—Lady Redmond, his wife—wandering like a vagabond at the world’s mercy! His feelings were intolerable. He must get back to England; he must find her and hush it up, or his life would be worth nothing to him. Ah, it was well for Fay that she was safely hidden in the old Manse, for, if he had found her while this mood was on him, his anger would have killed her.

When his passion had cooled a little, he went to Fitzclarence and told him abruptly that he must return home at once—affairs of the utmost importance recalled him.

Fitzclarence thought he looked very strange, but something in his manner forbade all questioning. Two hours afterward he was on his way to England.

There is an old proverb, often lightly quoted, and yet full of a wise and solemn meaning, “L’homme propose, et Dieu dispose.” Poor, angry Hugh, traveling night and day, and cursing the tardy railways and steamers, was soon to test the truth of the saying.

He had reached Marseilles, and was hurrying to the post-office to telegraph some order to Mrs. Heron, when he suddenly missed his footing, and found himself at the bottom of a steep, dark cellar, with his leg doubled up under him; and when two passers-by who saw the accident tried to move him, they discovered that his leg was broken; and then he heard that he fainted.

And so fate, or rather Providence, took the reins from the weak, passionate hands that were so unfit to hold them, and threw him back, helpless and baffled, on his bed of pain; there to learn, week by week, through weary sickness and still more weary convalescence, the lesson that only suffering could teach him—that it were well to forgive others their sins, even as he hoped his might be forgiven.

And yet he learned another thing, as his anger slowly burned itself out and only profound wretchedness and intolerable suspense remained as to his wife’s fate—something that startled him with a sense of sweetness, and yet stung him with infinite pain; when the haunting presence of his lost wife seemed ever with him, and would not let him rest; when his remorse was terrible; and when he would have given up all he had in the world just to hear her say in her low, fond voice, that she forgave him all.

For he knew now that he had wronged her, and that his neglect and coldness had driven her from her home.

The uncertainty of her fate sometimes nearly drove him wild. How could she have laid her plans so accurately that no traces of her or the child could be found? Could evil have befallen them? God help him if a hair of those innocent heads had been touched. In his weakness he could not always control the horrible imaginations that beset him. Often he would wake from some ghastly dream and lie till dawn, unable to shake off his deadly terror. Then all of a sudden he would remember that hasty postscript, “Do not be anxious about me. I am going to some kind people who will be good to me and the boy;” and he would fall asleep again while vainly trying to recall if he had ever heard Fay speak of any friends of her childhood. But though Erle and Miss Mordaunt tried to help him, no name occurred to any of them.