CHAPTER 8 The Withered Heart!
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Through many wakeful hours of the night that followed this first day of trial in their new home, did Mrs. Hardy lie and ponder the question of duty. Ah! if it had been the question of love — nothing would have been easier than the solution!
Morning found her with the problem yet unsolved. Pale cheeks, weary eyes, joyless countenance, silent lips! Across the breakfast table John Hardy looked, and saw but these! Did they move him with pity? Did loving sympathy, or tender emotion, awaken in his heart? No! He saw only the unlovely type of a yet unconquered pride — and anger, not love, stirred in his bosom!
Even while the ears of his sad young wife were listening for words of comfort, he was meditating sharp reproof. When she saw his lips part, and heard the first murmur of his voice, after a long silence, her heart leaped up with an eager impulse.
"I bargained for sunshine — not cloud and tempest."
A low shudder went electrically through every fibre of her soul. The expectant heart sunk down like lead in her bosom. But her countenance revealed scarcely anything below the surface. Calmly — so it seemed to her husband — looked her spirit forth. Mr. Hardy was irritated.
"A contract is a contract!" — he spoke with cold severity, "and among men, such things cannot be violated without loss of honour."
Still the eyes of his wife looked out calmly upon him — still her countenance remained impassive. There was no motion about her lips — no indication of feeling. His words seemed as if flung back upon him mockingly.
"I am tired of all this, Jane," he said, after waiting for some response. "Clouds and tempests were never to my mind. I like clear skies and sunshine."
Mr. Hardy had seen, more than once in his lifetime, blows given with such stunning force, that the body receiving them was deprived, for a brief period, of even respiration. But it never once occurred to him, that the heavy blows his strong arm was inflicting upon a weak, sensitive woman, were in as full a measure depriving her spirit of even the power to evince a sign of suffering.
"Heaven help us both — if life is to go on after this fashion!" he exclaimed, rising from the table. "It is well said, that woman is a mystery!" He stood and gazed down upon his wife, who sat, with drooping eyelids, and unchanging expression. She saw not the aspect of his countenance with her natural eyes, but all its terrible sternness was mirrored to the eyes of her spirit with blasting distinctness.
"Jane! will you speak to me!"
As quickly as the glancing of a thought, were the eyes of Mrs. Hardy raised to the face of her husband. A few moments they looked at each other steadily.
"Will you answer me, Jane!"
"I will. Say on." The evenness of her tone a little surprised Mr. Hardy.
"Do you think that all this is loving and right?"
"To what do you refer?"
Still the voice was very calm.
"To your purpose to thwart my desires; to make the home I had pictured in the future as a paradise — a darker, colder, and more wretched place than the dreary world, into which our first parents went when thrust from Eden."
"I have no such purpose, Mr. Hardy; and God is my witness that I speak the truth. As your wife, I will strive earnestly, in the sight of Heaven, to do my whole duty. This I have already pledged you; and I now renew the pledge. If strength fails me — if the burden is too heavy — if I fall by the way — the weakness must be forgiven for its own sake. But if I can bear up, I will. Only have patience with me, John! Don't lay your hand too heavily upon me in the beginning. I trust to be stronger and more enduring by and by."
There was no trembling or failing of the voice; no drooping of the steady eye; no sign of wavering, as she said these words.
"You speak as if I were a tyrant — and you a slave!" said Mr. Hardy, who was angered rather than softened by her words. Pride, not tenderness and sympathy, was aroused.
Mrs. Hardy did feel the quick rising of an indignant impulse at the ungenerous blow, and under its influence, she answered —
"I have, at least, made one painful discovery."
"What is that?"
"That, between the lover and the husband — there is as wide a difference as between the two poles."
"Jane!" Mr. Hardy's brow contracted, and he looked wrathfully upon the young creature he had wooed with loving words from the warm home-nest, where only love had been the nourishment of her soul; looked wrathfully upon his young wife, who, never from childhood up to the ripe years of maidenhood, had gazed into angry eyes which burned against her.
But she quailed not. With her, the sharper agony was over. The truth had come, before this — in all its hard, strong, crushing power; and now the life-lesson she had to learn was endurance.
"I have said it, John." She spoke low, sadly, yet not with apparent weakness. "Perhaps, like something you have uttered, it were better if the thought had died in silence. But spoken thoughts can no longer be hidden secrets. You have the painful conclusion to which my heart has been driven; and it may be well that it is so."
Mr. Hardy was confused and silenced, not only by the firm demeanour, but by the words of his wife, which sounded strangely to his ears. That she could intimate anything wrong or unreasonable on his part confounded him. What had he done, more than to act upon the defensive? Had not all the trouble originated with her? And now to be charged back, by implication, with any wrong treatment, was, in his mind — but adding insult to injury! He saw that a new spirit — one of retaliation — had been aroused in his wife; and, just then, he did not care to drive it into further action. So, after returning for a few moments longer her calm, unvarying look — he left the room, and went forth, without a parting word, to his daily business.
Very uncomfortable did he feel — nay, more, he was positively unhappy. But he took no blame to himself. Pride gave no place to self-accusation. Calmly he reviewed the subject of his marital relations; and the review only strengthened the first conclusion of his mind. He had asked nothing that was not perfectly natural. "In taking a wife," he said to himself, "does not every man look to the establishment of a home? Who could imagine that, on this question, any division were possible? Who could dream that a wife would make objections? Was I to yield here? To give up the dearest wish of my heart? No! All the manhood in me says, No! I cannot, I must not, I will not be driven aside! Tears, vapours, sharp words, impenetrable silence — none of these can move me! I will be granite to all opposing forces. Yes, I will be the ruler of my own household. My judgment shall be law!"
Again, as thought went on reviewing his unhappy relations, and memory recalled words and incidents, he said, "The unkindest cut of all! the husband and the lover — like the two poles! I shall never forget that, were I to number Methuselah's years! What can she mean by such conduct? But this assumption of injured innocence will avail nothing. I am on her tracks, and though she double upon me like the panting rabbit again and again, I will never yield the pursuit. John Hardy is always right with himself; and, right with himself — he cannot be wrong towards others. I have asked nothing unreasonable — have set no foot, in trespass, on her prerogative — have sailed under no false colours."
And thus he fortified himself, looking only on one side of the question — and seeing only that one aspect of the case which flattered his pride and encouraged his self-will.
"I can hold out as long as she can" — so he continued talking with himself, as thought ever turned from business concerns to the matter nearest his heart. "It is but a question of time; yet, of all time, if needs be. I can and will hold out to the end — even to the end of life! When John Hardy is right — he never yields even the fraction of a hair. If he were to yield — he would cease to be John Hardy!"
And thus, through all the hours that intervened until his return home, did the ungenerous young husband continue to write bitter things against his wife, and to fortify himself in opposition. When he laid his hand upon the door-knob, and entered, with a firm step, at dinner-time, his head was erect, his countenance composed, his blue eves calm even to severity. His wife met him with smiles and loving words; and, for a little while, he was deceived into the belief that they were outward signs of real feeling, and accepted them as such. At once, the coldness of his exterior gave way; light beamed from his countenance, his tones were gentle, and his words kind.
"How much better this, than clouds!" he said, as they sat together on one of the sofas. He had taken her hand, and was holding it tightly in his own. "O Jane! shall we not always have light in our dwelling?"
Mrs. Hardy did not answer, but her husband felt her hand thrill in his clasp, as if some strong emotion had suddenly been awakened in her heart; and, at the same time, he was conscious of a perceptible shrinking away from him. Instantly his feelings changed, and the accusing spirit re-entered his heart. There was a dead silence for the space of several minutes. Mrs. Hardy's hand still lay in that of her husband, but it lay there passively, neither giving nor receiving the slightest pressure. Then it was slowly withdrawn, and with the motion, a sigh broke on the still air — a low faint sigh, yet painfully distinct to the ears of Mr. Hardy.
"I cannot breathe an atmosphere like this!" he exclaimed, suddenly, starting to his feet. "I shall die of suffocation!"
And leaving the room with a firm step, he took up his hat, and before Mrs. Hardy had time to imagine his purpose, had left the house. As he shut the street-door, the bell rang for dinner.
It was some minutes before Mrs. Hardy had strength to rise from the sofa, so stunned was she by this unexpected conduct on the part of her husband. A second time the dinner-bell rang; and then, for appearance' sake, she forced herself to walk as far as the dining-room, where the servant stood waiting.
"Mr. Hardy has gone out," she said, in as firm a voice as it was possible for her to assume; "and I do not know how soon he will return — perhaps not till evening. I am not very well, and do not wish for anything; so, you can remove the dishes from the table. If Mr. Hardy comes back, you can replace them."
It did not escape the servant's observation, that his mistress' face was pallid, and her voice husky. He had his own thoughts on the subject, which he did not fail to express on returning to the kitchen.
"I have begun; and I shall go through, cost what it may!" said Mr. Hardy to himself, as he sat down in a state of remarkable calmness, to eat the dinner he had ordered at a club-house. "The fiercer the tempest — the sooner it is over. If gentle measures avail not, then harsher ones must be adopted. There is one thing certain — I can hold out as long as Mrs. Hardy, who will find, before she has done with this business, that, in setting up her will against mine, she is sure to fail. When John Hardy knows that he is right — John Hardy never yields."
Excellent John Hardy! In his own eyes, a pattern man!
From the dining-room Mrs. Hardy went up, with faltering steps, to her own room, where, after shutting and locking the door, she sank upon her knees, and lifting her tearless eyes upwards toward Heaven, prayed thus — with an utterance despairing, rather than hopeful —
"O Lord! give me light, patience, strength! Show me the true path, and help me to walk in it, even though sharp stones cut my feet at every step. O Lord! pity and help me! I am lost in a trackless desert; and the darkness of old Egypt is around me. I have no wisdom of my own to guide — no light in my heart to show me the way. O Lord! pity and help me!"
And thus she prayed for a long time, writhing in her agony. But no light came as yet; no strength was given. The Heavens seemed as brass to her petitions.
From her knees she arose at length, and in her weakness and despair threw herself across the bed.
How long she had lain thus, when there came a low rap at her door, she knew not, for suffering brought a partial paralysis of feeling and suspension of thought. She startled up and spoke.
"Jane!" was the response.
It was her mother's voice. The door was opened, and Mrs. Enfield came in. There was not time for the daughter to school her exterior, and the forced smile with which she greeted her mother, revealed more of suffering than pleasure. Tenderly was she enfolded in the maternal arms, and fondly were love's kisses laid upon her lips and cheeks.
"Are you not well, dear?" asked Mrs. Enfield with concern.
"Not very well. My head aches," was the answer. "I have been lying down since dinnertime; and must have slept. What time is it?"
"After four."
"Then I have been sleeping. How is father?"
"Quite well. He wants you and John to come over this evening."
"Does he? Tell him that if Mr. Hardy has no other engagement, we will come. Dear father! So loving, so gentle, so good! Since our brief separation, tears come into my eyes whenever I think of him. If all men were like him, what a happy world this would be! But" — after a pause, "all cannot be like him; for he is best of all."
"How is John?" Mrs. Enfield inquired, without seeming to notice or to understand the remarks made by her daughter.
"He is well," was the simple reply.
"Delighted, I suppose, with the new home upon which his heart was set. I'm a little afraid, Jane, that we somewhat erred in making even the smallest objections to his wishes in this respect — seeing, as we now do, how the attractions of a home were magnified in his eyes. He showed, perhaps, a little too great eagerness in the matter; but, if we put ourselves in his place, we shall not be so greatly surprised that it was so. Here cantered, for him, the highest ideal of life; and he was disturbed at anything which came in between himself and the full realization of his wishes. We must have patience with him, and make many allowances. All men are not like your father, Jane."
Mrs. Hardy only responded with a sigh. But she was gaining temporary power to hide the weakness of a crushed and suffering heart.
"Perhaps," said Mrs. Enfield, "one of the greatest errors we commit, and one from which the awakening is most painful — is the error of imputing virtues in perfection to those we love. But weakness and imperfection are inherent in all that is human. Even the best men and women that live, are only withheld from evil, by the power of Divine love."
"I shall grow wiser, as I grow older, and gain more experience, dear mother," replied Jane; "wiser in seeing duty, and stronger to bear suffering."
"Life is not all a day of golden sunshine," said Mrs. Enfield. "And it is well for us, perhaps, that it is not so. We might become too deeply in love with this world, and find, in its mere natural and fleeting life, too intense an enjoyment."
Mrs. Hardy sighed again, but did not answer. "You must not expect too much of John," resumed the mother cautiously. "He is all right at heart, and loves you truly. Few men have such high moral purposes — few, such noble aims. All the groundwork of his character is good. In the first starting, there may be a little jarring in the machinery of your lives, before they can move together in harmony; and, for a season, there may be a painful lack of accordant action. But all will run smoothly in good time."
"I will believe it, dear mother!" said Jane, in a voice, the low quiver of which struck a pang to the heart of Mrs. Enfield. "Time is the great restorer of harmonies."
"It is, my child; and also the great reconciler. Our path of life leads upwards, as well as onwards. At every step we rise a little higher, and our vision gains an ampler circle. What is but dimly perceived today, stands out tomorrow clearly — shaped, and seen in relation to all that surrounds it. Objects, now so much in shadow that they seem only hideous deformities — may, in a little while, as we ascend and get a sunnier aspect, appear to us, as they really are — forms of truest beauty."
Mrs. Enfield paused; but her daughter made no response to the sentiments just uttered. In a little while, other subjects of conversation less embarrassing in their nature were introduced, and Mrs. Hardy acquired a more cheerful tone of feeling. It was late in the afternoon when her mother left, with the parting injunction to be sure to come down with her husband after tea.
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