"I used to feel that if I could only have one friend, just one, I could bear it better.Once I said something like that to Nigel.He only shrugged his shoulders and sneered when I said it.But afterwards I knew he had remembered.One evening, when he had asked Mr.Ffolliott to dinner, he led him to talk about religion.Oh, Betty! It made my blood turn cold when he began.I knew he was doing it for some wicked reason.I knew the look in his eyes and the awful, agreeable smile on his mouth.When he said at last, `If you could help my poor wife to find comfort in such things,'
I began to see.I could not explain to anyone how he did it, but with just a sentence, dropped here and there, he seemed to tell the whole story of a silly, selfish, American girl, thwarted in her vulgar little ambitions, and posing as a martyr, because she could not have her own way in everything.
He said once, quite casually, `I'm afraid American women are rather spoiled.' And then he said, in the same tolerant way--`A poor man is a disappointment to an American girl.America does not believe in rank combined with lack of fortune.'
I dared not defend myself.I am not clever enough to think of the right things to say.He meant Mr.Ffolliott to understand that I had married him because I thought he was grand and rich, and that I was a disappointed little spiteful shrew.Itried to act as if he was not hurting me, but my hands trembled, and a lump kept rising in my throat.When we returned to the drawing-room, and at last he left us together, I was praying and praying that I might be able to keep from breaking down.
She stopped and swallowed hard.Betty held her hands firmly until she went on.
"For a few minutes, I sat still, and tried to think of some new subject--something about the church or the village.But I could not begin to speak because of the lump in my throat.
And then, suddenly, but quietly, Mr.Ffolliott got up.And though I dared not lift my eyes, I knew he was standing before the fire, quite near me.And, oh! what do you think he said, as low and gently as if his voice was a woman's.
I did not know that people ever said such things now, or even thought them.But never, never shall I forget that strange minute.He said just this:
" `God will help you.He will.He will.'
"As if it was true, Betty! As if there was a God--and--He had not forgotten me.I did not know what I was doing, but I put out my hand and caught at his sleeve, and when I looked up into his face, I saw in his kind, good eyes, that he knew--that somehow--God knows how--he understood and that I need not utter a word to explain to him that he had been listening to lies.""Did you talk to him?" Betty asked quietly.
"He talked to me.We did not even speak of Nigel.He talked to me as I had never heard anyone talk before.Somehow he filled the room with something real, which was hope and comfort and like warmth, which kept my soul from shivering.The tears poured from my eyes at first, but the lump in my throat went away, and when Nigel came back I actually did not feel frightened, though he looked at me and sneered quietly.""Did he say anything afterwards?"
"He laughed a little cold laugh and said, `I see you have been seeking the consolation of religion.Neurotic women like confessors.I do not object to your confessing, if you confess your own backslidings and not mine.' ""That was the beginning," said Betty speculatively."The unexpected thing was the end.Tell me the rest?""No one could have dreamed of it," Rosy broke forth.
"For weeks he was almost like other people.He stayed at Stornham and spent his days in shooting.He professed that he was rather enjoying himself in a dull way.He encouraged me to go to the vicarage, he invited the Ffolliotts here.He said Mrs.Ffolliott was a gentlewoman and good for me.
He said it was proper that I should interest myself in parish work.Once or twice he even brought some little message to me from Mr.Ffolliott."It was a pitiably simple story.Betty saw, through its relation, the unconsciousness of the easily allured victim, the adroit leading on from step to step, the ordinary, natural, seeming method which arranged opportunities.The two had been thrown together at the Court, at the vicarage, the church and in the village, and the hawk had looked on and bided his time.For the first time in her years of exile, Rosy had begun to feel that she might be allowed a friend--though she lived in secret tremor lest the normal liberty permitted her should suddenly be snatched away.
"We never talked of Nigel," she said, twisting her hands.
"But he made me begin to live again.He talked to me of Something that watched and would not leave me--would never leave me.I was learning to believe it.Sometimes when I walked through the wood to the village, I used to stop among the trees and look up at the bits of sky between the branches, and listen to the sound in the leaves--the sound that never stops--and it seemed as if it was saying something to me.
And I would clasp my hands and whisper, `Yes, yes,' `Iwill,' `I will.' I used to see Nigel looking at me at table with a queer smile in his eyes and once he said to me--`You are growing young and lovely, my dear.Your colour is improving.The counsels of our friend are of a salutary nature.'
It would have made me nervous, but he said it almost good-naturedly, and I was silly enough even to wonder if it could be possible that he was pleased to see me looking less ill.It was true, Betty, that I was growing stronger.But it did not last long.""I was afraid not," said Betty.
"An old woman in the lane near Bartyon Wood was ill.Mr.
Ffolliott had asked me to go to see her, and I used to go.
She suffered a great deal and clung to us both.He comforted her, as he comforted me.Sometimes when he was called away he would send a note to me, asking me to go to her.One day he wrote hastily, saying that she was dying, and asked if I would go with him to her cottage at once.I knew it would save time if I met him in the path which was a short cut.
So I wrote a few words and gave them to the messenger.