Yes—at last their marriage was a thing to be reckoned with, talked about, and planned for. For the first time Janey could consider such things as home and outfit, breaking the news to her brothers, and leaving Sparrow Hall—all were now within the range of probability and expectation. But a terrible gloom had settled on these last days. It was not merely her sorrow at leaving the farm and the boys—it was something less accountable and more tempestuous than that. It had its source in Quentin's letters. She could see that he was not happy—their marriage, their longed-for, prayed-for, wept-for, worked-for marriage, was not bringing him happiness. On the contrary, his suffering seemed to have increased. His doubts and forebodings had been transferred from material circumstances to more subtle terrors of soul—he doubted the future more passionately, because more spiritually, than ever.
Janey had not been able to understand this at first, but in time his attitude had communicated itself to her, though whether her distrust was independent or merely a reflection of his, it would be hard to say. Anyhow, she doubted—fiercely, miserably, despondingly. She had started, on his recommendation, to make herself some clothes, but the work lagged and depressed her. She found herself hungering for the early times of their courtship, when their marriage was a dream made golden by distance. She thought of the days when his name had rung like bells in her heart, without a horrid dissonance of fear, when his letters were pure joy, and the thought of meeting him pure anticipation. Would those days return?—And now, here was his silence, consuming her. Why didn't he write? He had been so eager in his last letter, though, as usual, eagerness had soon been throttled by despair.
"I shall have you—I shall have you at last, my beautiful, tall Janey, for whom I hunger. But I am filled with doubts. There are some men in whose mouths manna turns to dust and the water of life to gall. Everything I touch is doomed. Either my soul or my body betrays me—my soul is so hot and my body so weak—so damnably weak. If only my hot soul had been given a stout body, or my weak body a weak soul ... then I should have been happy. But now it is the eternal fight between fire and water."
Janey pushed the letter aside, and picked up another. She had been trying to comfort herself with Quentin's letters, but they were not on the whole of a comforting nature. His restless misery was in them all. If his last letter had been happy, she would not have worried nearly so much. She would have put down his silence to some trite external cause—pressure of work or indefiniteness of plans—he had always been an erratic correspondent. But his unhappiness opened a dozen roads to her morbid imaginings. It was dreadful to think that all she had given to Quentin had only made him more unhappy.
Perhaps he was too miserable to write—not likely, since he was one of those men whom despair makes voluble, but nevertheless a real terror to her unreason. Perhaps he had not received her last letter, and thought that she had played him false—he had always been jealous and inclined to suspicion. This last idea obtained a hold on her that would have been impossible had not her mind been weakened by anxiety. She had heard of letters going astray in the post, and probably Quentin had been expecting one from her, and not receiving it had been too proud to write himself. Or perhaps he had received it, but had thought it cold. He had often taken her to task for some fancied coldness which she had never meant.
In her desperation she resolved to write again. Hastily cramming his letters into the boot-box where she unromantically kept them, she seized paper and ink, and began to scrawl despairingly—
"My Darling, Darling Boy,
"Why don't you write? Didn't you get my last letter? I posted it on the 16th. Quentin, I can't stand this suspense. Are you unhappy? Oh, my boy, my boy, my heart aches for you. I know you suffer—and I can't bear it——"
The pen fell from her shaking hand as footsteps sounded in the garden. The next minute Leonard came in—luckily for Janet he was not very observant.
"Well, Janey—I've sent off the wire."
"What wire?" she asked dully.