Phemie Keller

No sooner was Basil’s decision made known to the circle at Marshlands, than dissatisfaction appeared in the faces of two of that circle at any rate. Phemie, who really in some things was “changeful as the weather,” took a private occasion of telling Basil that he had done very wrong—that an opportunity had been presented to him of “getting away from temptation, and relieving her of a burden (such was the flattering manner in which she conveyed her meaning), of which he might have availed himself.”

“And I think it very wicked of you,” she added. “I know if anybody had offered such a chance to me, I should have snapped at it.”

“But I assure you, Phemie, upon my honour—upon my soul, I will not persecute you any more. Let bygones be bygones, and forget and forgive. We can be friends—can we not, dearest?”—over which last word he lingered so lovingly, that Mrs. Stondon knew perfectly well the struggle was not ended—that there was more misery in store for her—that he had no intention, no real intention I mean, of ceasing to persecute her. Well, she must only try to do her part,—and she would, she would, so help her God!

As for Miss Derno, she was something more than dissatisfied,—she was indignant. Miss Derno knew all about the matter now—knew that Basil loved Mrs. Stondon—knew that poor Phemie loved him. She had kept her eyes open, and she saw, moreover, that other people’s eyes were beginning to be opened too, and that Phemie’s reputation was not safe from hour to hour.

She loved Mrs. Stondon, loved her as women oftentimes love those of their own sex who are much younger and weaker than themselves—loved her tenderly, compassionately, faithfully; and at length decided to take the first opportunity that offered, and throw light on Captain Stondon’s understanding.

After a time the opportunity arrived. She was walking over from the Abbey, and Captain Stondon overtook her, riding. Spite of her remonstrances, he dismounted, and leading his horse by the bridle, proceeded by her side along one of the interminable high-banked, sandy Norfolk bye-roads, which seem to stand to the inhabitants in lieu of footpaths. They talked about politics; they talked about the weather, about the soil, about the county generally, about other English counties; about Miss Derno’s future plans, and then she said—

“I only wish I were a man, like Basil, a man with the opportunity for pushing my way in the world, which he seems able to throw aside. It is a great pity you do not use your authority, and make him go abroad. It would be so good for him.”

“But he does not wish to go.”

“Children never wish to go to bed, and yet no rational parent allows his child to sit up with his playthings all night. England chances to hold Basil’s latest toy; but for that very reason perhaps he ought especially to be sent abroad.”

“You speak in enigmas, Miss Derno.”

“Do I? Let me speak plain English then. From his youth upwards Basil has been in love, and the more unattainable his love, the more constant he has usually proved.”

“Human nature,” suggested Captain Stondon.

“It was his human nature, at all events,” answered Miss Derno. “I have known him all his life, and I know pretty nearly every woman with whose hair or eyebrows, or finger-nails, or dimples he has fallen in love. I chance to know his latest “possession,” and he wants a change of climate to cure him of his passion.”

She was very pale, and she began walking very fast. Captain Stondon detained her by laying a hand on her arm.

“Would it be wrong for me,” he asked, “to share a secret which seems to have been confided to you so fully?”

“It was not confided to me,” she answered; “but I have observed signs and tokens in Basil which I should recommend you to observe likewise. Heaven forgive me if I am making mischief,” she went on, vehemently; “but some one ought to tell you, and why not I? All the disagreeable things in life have always fallen to me to do or to say! It is your own wife, Captain Stondon, whom Basil loves. I have spoken.”

She had spoken with a vengeance. A man standing in her shoes would have measured his length in the road; but a woman was as safe with Captain Stondon from retort as from injury.

“You must be mistaken, Miss Derno,” he said, when he could speak, and those were the only words he uttered. She never made him an answer; and they parted when they stood in front of Marshlands without another sentence being spoken.

He had looked once, indeed, in her face entreatingly while they passed up the avenue; and she, understanding the meaning of that look, had replied to it mutely. She was to say nothing more, and he was to use his own discretion. Phemie’s prudence, Phemie’s goodness, Phemie’s purity had not been called in question, thank God! About Basil he would think: he would do nothing rashly.

And yet it was time some person interfered, for the struggle had got too much for Phemie. Basil had kept to his resolution for a couple of days; and then finding he could endure such a separation no longer, he became worse for his very forbearance, more desperate in his importunity.

She avoided him, and he followed her; she treated him with cold indifference, and he grew mad; she would have nothing to do with him; she eschewed all places where he was likely to be; she behaved at that time, as Captain Stondon himself, who was silently watching her behaviour, could not but perceive, unexceptionably; and if he thought this, what must not the woman have been suffering, the woman who was fighting two battles—the battle of duty, and the battle of love?

For she loved Basil still, and he knew it.

“We cannot go on this way,” she said, one day, when he chanced to be left alone with her in the great drawing-room, the windows of which opened out on the terrace.

“I know we cannot,” he answered; “will you leave Norfolk with me? It is misery for both of us as it is; and Captain Stondon would give you a divorce at once; I know he would. Then, at last, we might be happy, Phemie. Only speak the word.”

But she would not speak; she bent her head down on the chimney-piece, and her great sin rose before her. He had spoken lightly of divorce, lightly of the great love the one man felt for her, who would, “he knew,” grant her this boon at once; but, oh, God! the desolate home, and the lonely hearth; the rooms without her—one less on the path to heaven; one more traversing the road to hell—that was what Phemie saw while she remained silent—such pictures as conscience never painted for the preservation of the poor, weak sinner who stood beside her.

“Phemie, dearest—the one love of my life—will you put an end to all this struggle and misery?” and he bent down his head over her, and kissed the once rich hair, that was now short and unlovely.

Then with a start she turned upon him. “I will never leave my husband. I swear that to you, Basil Stondon, before God!”

As she spoke the door opened, and Miss Georgina Hurlford entered. At a glance she took in the whole situation, and a sudden rage came over her as she did so.

“I will be revenged,” she thought, and she was. Before the guests separated for the night, she heard Phemie say to Basil:

“To-morrow, at six, in the pine plantation.”

For hours she sat and wrote after she went to her own room, and next morning the housemaid found a perfect hecatomb of burnt paper under and about the grate in Miss Hurlford’s room.

“She’s been a-burning of love-letters I’ll be bound,” soliloquized the housemaid; but she happened to be wrong.

Miss Georgina had been simply inditing a little note, which came to Marshlands next day by the hands of a strange lad:—

“If you wish to know what keeps Mr. Basil Stondon in England, be near the pine plantation this evening at six.

Have you ever had an anonymous letter, dear reader? if you ever have, perhaps you can understand with what feelings Captain Stondon read the above epistle, and with what cheerfulness and unconcern he turned him to the duties and employments of the day.

Phemie was coming to be talked about, that was his first idea; his next was—had his darling given any occasion for scandal? He would save her, he would; he would stand between her and the world; he would keep her from all sin and from all danger. Was this the substance of the shadow that had been brooding over him? Was this the reality of the dread which had been haunting him? Could Phemie—his Phemie—Phemie of the auburn hair, of the pure heart, of the innocent mind, have been deceiving him? He would not believe it; but still I am not ashamed to add that, in the solitude of his own chamber, Captain Stondon covered his face with his hands and wept bitterly.

He had been happy, and happiness was over for him for ever; he had loved, and she whom he loved was “talked about” and suspected.

He guessed, now, what Phemie had been thinking of that night when they sat together at Hastings. Oh! if she had only told him then; only told him herself; only let the knowledge come to him from her own lips, uttered by the music of her own voice.

Life—life; if we could only seize your opportunities as they slip by us; if we could only see the end of the paths we blindly pursue; if we could only understand that there are cases in which silence is not wisdom, in which speech is golden—I think and believe even this world might be happier than it is, freer from misunderstanding, more perfect in its bliss. As it was, Phemie, even at the eleventh hour, did not trust her husband; did not throw herself on his charity, his forbearance, his trust; but went wandering away through the twilight to keep her tryst, a mistaken woman, a lonely wife.

The heart has its diary, which it keeps more faithfully than the hand can ever do. Ink may fade, but flesh and blood cannot forget. Lines which have been traced by the pen may in time suggest merely the faintest shadows to the memory; but the story which has been traced by either joy or sorrow, the photograph which has been burnt into the heart by passion or despair, remains stamped there indelibly till the end.

And not the one grand event merely either: every trifling accessory is photographed as well as the principal figure, and the odds and ends about a room, the floating clouds in the heavens, the ivy climbing up the wall, the folds of a dress, the straggling branch, the scattered leaves of a flower—all these things which we never could have imagined would have found themselves in the picture, are there, and will remain there till the heart is cold and its pulses still for ever.

Phemie found it so, at any rate. Did she ever forget, could she ever forget, that walk down to the pine plantation? The wind was high, and seemed to be chasing the clouds into the night. Looking up, she could see the pine-trees tossing their dark foliage against the grey sky; banks of clouds swiftly changing their position, changing and shifting as the breeze bore them hither and thither; some leaves whirling past; beds in which geraniums were blooming late; heliotropes still scenting the air; fir-cones under foot; the dry grass rustling beneath her tread—what did these things say to Phemie from that night on, henceforth? What did she see when she walked out at that season, at that hour, in such weather afterwards? She saw a man and a woman standing beneath the firs, hand clasped in hand, heart talking to heart, soul laid bare to soul. She heard low, broken sentences, and then louder words of entreaty, of pleading, of reproach, while the wind, after thundering and blustering among the further-off plantations, paused for a moment by the firs to listen, and then went sobbing away through the trees—sobbing and moaning farewell, farewell!

Could she say it? She had come to try. She felt so sure of herself now, she felt so strong to cleave to the right at last, that she was there by her own appointment, in the dusk of that autumn evening, to meet the man whom, loving beyond all other men, she had hitherto avoided—to bid the only man she had ever loved leave her.

He was there, he was waiting for her; he had no thought for the lonely husband he was trying to disgrace, for the hearth he was striving to make desolate. He remembered only himself and Phemie; he felt only the strength and the might of the curse she had laid upon him. “You shall love me for ever! You will never be able to love another woman as you love me—never.”

And it was true: he felt in every throbbing pulse, in every beat of his heart, in every nerve of his body, that she had told him only the simple truth. He should never love another. Weak and false and feeble and unstable he might be in regard to everything else in life;—but Phemie—while the streams flowed to the sea—while the sun shone—while the flowers bloomed—while the grass sprang—while the earth brought forth her increase, and the rain fell, and the dews descended, he could love none other—none—but this woman whom he wanted to make wretched—whom he wanted to destroy, body and soul—whom he took in his arms and kissed over and over again. Oh, woe for Phemie!

“You have come, my own darling, my own only love!”

“Yes, Basil, I have come.” And she released herself, and stood with her one hand against a fir-tree and the other pressed hard upon her heart. “I have come, for, as I have often told you, we must part.”

“Why, Phemie?”

“Because I cannot bear it—I won’t bear it,” she answered; “because the deception is too great, the burden heavier than I can carry; because I had rather go to him and tell him all—how I never loved him—how I have loved you—than be a hypocrite any more, than listen to the things you say to me any longer.”

“I love you.” It was all the excuse he could make.

“You love me!” she repeated. “Yes, and you love yourself; you love your own love better than you love me. Is it right, Basil?” she went on, passionately; “is it right for a woman to be stronger than a man? Is it for a woman to show a man the path he ought to tread, and force him into it?”

“You do not know what love is,” he said, “or you would not talk in that ridiculous way.”

“I do,” she answered; “I do, God pardon me. Having once married my husband, I ought not to have known—I ought to have lived the decorous, untempted existence that falls to the lot of many a woman; but I met you, Basil Stondon—met you and disliked you—met you and loved you—met you and almost lost my soul for your sake! Not know what love is!” she cried, despairingly. “Basil, if I were to go through hell could I burn your kisses off my lips? Could I forget the touch of your hand? Could I come out pure as I have been? Is there any physician who could undo the past—who could take the scars of your unholy love off my soul, Basil! Basil?”

She was not crying. Phemie had outlived that state of simplicity in which a woman weeps because she suffers; when the vessel bursts that destroys life, we do not bleed externally; when our hearts are breaking no tears flow from our eyes. She was not crying, but there was an agony in her voice which wrung even Basil Stondon’s soul, and made him answer—

“Phemie, dearest, I have sinned—what can I do?”

“You can go,” she said; “you can take General Hurlford’s offer, and leave me; you can remember how good and kind my husband has been to you, and quit tempting me. I cannot help having loved you, Basil Stondon, but I can help being false to him, and I will be true, I will.”

“You ought to have thought of that before—you led me on,” he said, sullenly.

“Led you on!” she flashed out. “I lead you on! What knowledge had I—what arts could I use—what wiles did I practise? Whatever wrong I may have done, it has not been to you. Did I ask your love—did I want your love? What has your love brought to me? I was happy, and I am wretched, and it is through no forbearance or generosity of yours that I am not more wretched still. Led you on!—it would be no great trouble to any woman to drag you down, but—I—I have tried to keep you up; I have striven hard, you know I have, and this is the way you thank me. You bless me with reproaches, you repay me with falsehood.”

“Forgive me, Phemie, I did not mean it. It has been all my fault.”

“It has not been all your fault,” she said; “but it will be yours if you stay on here when you have the chance given you of leaving. Did you not promise me that we should be friends—but friends—and what did you ask me yesterday?—to go away with you, Basil, to live with you in sin, to leave the husband who has been good to me lonely and dishonoured. God pardon you, Basil, and God pardon me, for ever having fallen so low that you could say and that I could listen to such things.”

“Where is the sin?” he retorted. “I love you and you love me. You do not love your husband.”

“But I respect him—ay, and I love him too much to bring sorrow to his door by any act of mine. Where is the sin?” she repeated; “where—oh, Lord in heaven!” and she clasped her hands together, “if this man be so blinded that he cannot see his sin, open Thou his eyes; give sight to him as Thou alone canst.”

“Phemie.”

“Yes, Basil.”

“What is the use of all that rubbish? You do not believe in it, you cannot believe in it. How can a man and a woman, who have felt as we have felt, pray to God, if there be a God?”

With a cry of despair she fell on her knees.

“I am here before Him, Basil,” she answered; “He can remember, better than I, every thought of mine since I first met you, every thought of yours since you first set eyes on me, and yet I feel He has not forsaken me. I know the day must come when you will feel He has not forsaken you.”

She put that thought between him and his sin. She put the thought of her God, she put purity and perfection so great, that it could afford to look without turning aside on impurity, between her and temptation. The old lessons learned so many a year before in the manse, within sound of the mourning and murmuring sea, came to her help then. The God who had been her grandfather’s Father in that old innocent life was her Father now, and to Him in that hour she appealed.

“Oh! Lord,” she went on, “in so far as I have sinned give me my wages and I will take them without a murmur, but let me sin no more, and keep me out of temptation.”

“She lifted her hands clasped above her head as she spoke the last words—spoke them almost with a sob—and, from among the pine-trees, it seemed as though her sobs were echoed back.

“Was that the wind, Basil,” she asked, springing to her feet—“or has somebody been listening to us?”

“Who would come here to listen?” he answered sulkily; “are you going to talk to me rationally now, at last?”

“No,” was the answer, “never will I talk to you what you call rationally again. I know all you want—I know all you would say—I know how weak I am for good—how strong you are for evil—and for all these reasons, I say we must part. If you will not go, I shall have to find some means of making you go. I am willing to leave the ‘how’ in your hands, Basil, but the result I cannot have changed. You must go, or I will tell my husband—I was once very nearly confessing everything; and I would rather confess everything, than live the life of misery and deception I have done for fifteen months past. I came to tell you this—I have told it to you—so good-bye.”

He would have detained her, but she fled from him—he would, had it been possible, have carried her off there and then, but Phemie’s will was stronger than his purpose. “Good-bye,” she said, and the wind took the words and carried them up into the branches of the pine-trees.

He answered her with a muttered oath—and the wind took that likewise and bore it away.

When Phemie and Basil had both left the pine plantation, the sob which attracted Mrs. Stondon’s attention was repeated once again.

Amongst those pines a man’s heart had that night been broken—his dream was dispelled, his trust destroyed. She had never loved him—she had loved Basil; and Captain Stondon, who had played the spy for the first time in his life, heard her words and took them home to brood over.

Was it for this he had wished when he drank of the waters that fell over the rocks at Tordale?—was it for this he had married a young wife in the church that looked adown the sweet valley under the shadow of the everlasting hills?