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The Woman Hater

C >> Charles Reade >> The Woman Hater




He returned to her directly, and said, in most earnest, supplicating
tones, "But will you ever forgive me?"

"I will try."

And so they parted.

He went home at a great rate; for Miss Gale's insinuations had raised
some fear in his breast.

Meantime this is what had really passed between Zoe and Lord Uxmoor.
Vizard went to his study, and Fanny retired at a signal from Zoe. She
rose, but did not go; she walked slowly toward the window; Uxmoor joined
her: for he saw he was to have his answer from her mouth.

Her bosom heaved a little, and her cheeks flushed. "Lord Uxmoor," she
said, "you have done me the greatest honor any man can pay a woman, and
from you it is indeed an honor. I could not write such an answer as I
could wish; and, besides, I wish to spare you all the mortification I
can."

"Ah!" said Uxmoor, piteously.

"You are worthy of any lady's love; but I have only my esteem to give
you, and that was given long ago."

Uxmoor, who had been gradually turning very white, faltered, "I had my
fears. Good-by."

She gave him her hand. He put it respectfully to his lips: then turned
and left her, sick at heart, but too brave to let it be seen. He
preferred her esteem to her pity.

By this means he got both. She put her handkerchief to her eyes without
disguise. But he only turned at the door to say, in a pretty firm voice,
"God bless you!"

In less than an hour he drove his team from the door, sitting heartbroken
and desolate, but firm and unflinching as a rock.

So then, on his return from Hillstoke, Severne found them all at luncheon
except Uxmoor. He detailed his visit to Miss Gale, and, while he talked,
observed. Zoe was beaming with love and kindness. He felt sure she had
not deceived him. He learned, by merely listening, that Lord Uxmoor was
gone, and he exulted inwardly.

After luncheon, Elysium. He walked with the two girls, and Fanny lagged
behind; and Zoe proved herself no coquette. A coquette would have been a
little cross and shown him she had made a sacrifice. Not so Zoe Vizard.
She never told him, nor even Fanny, she had refused Lord Uxmoor. She
esteemed the great sacrifice she had made for him as a little one, and so
loved him a little more that he had cost her an earl's coronet and a
large fortune.

The party resumed their habits that Uxmoor had interrupted, and no
warning voice was raised.

The boring commenced at Hillstoke, and Doctress Gale hovered over the
work. The various strata and their fossil deposits were an endless study,
and kept her microscope employed. With this, and her treatise on "Cure by
Esculents" she was so employed that she did not visit the Court for some
days: then came an invitation from Lord Uxmoor to stay a week with him,
and inspect his village. She accepted it, and drove herself in the
bailiff's gig, all alone. She found her host attending to his duties, but
dejected; so then she suspected, and turned the conversation to Zoe
Vizard, and soon satisfied herself he had no hopes in that quarter. Yet
he spoke of her with undisguised and tender admiration. Then she said to
herself, "This is a man, and he shall have her."

She sat down and wrote a letter to Vizard, telling him all she knew, and
what she thought, viz., that another woman, and a respectable one, had a
claim on Mr. Severne, which ought to be closely inquired into, and _the
lady's version heard._ "Think of it," said she. "He disowned the woman
who had saved his life, he was so afraid I should tell Miss Vizard under
what circumstances I first saw him."

She folded and addressed the letter.

But having relieved her mind in some degree by this, she asked herself
whether it would not be kinder to all parties to try and save Zoe without
an exposure. Probably Severne benefited by his grace and his disarming
qualities; for her ultimate resolution was to give him a chance, offer
him an alternative: he must either quietly retire, or be openly exposed.

So then she put the letter in her desk, made out her visit, of which no
further particulars can be given at present, returned home, and walked
down to the Court next morning to have it out with Edward Severne.





But, unfortunately, from the very day she offered him terms up at
Hillstoke, the tide began to run in Severne's favor with great rapidity.

A letter came from the detective. Severne received it at breakfast, and
laid it before Zoe, which had a favorable effect on her mind to begin.

Poikilus reported that the money was in good hands. He had seen the lady.
She made no secret of the thing--the sum was 4,900 pounds, and she said
half belonged to her and half to a gentleman. She did not know him, but
her agent, Ashmead, did. Poikilus added that he had asked her would she
honor that gentleman's draft? She had replied she should be afraid to do
that; but Mr. Ashmead should hand it to him on demand. Poikilus summed up
that the lady was evidently respectable, and the whole thing square.

Severne posted this letter to his cousin, under cover, to show him he was
really going to clear his estate, but begged him to return it immediately
and lend him 50 pounds. The accommodating cousin sent him 50 pounds, to
aid him in wooing his heiress. He bought her a hoop ring, apologized for
its small value, and expressed his regret that all he could offer her was
on as small a scale, except his love.

She blushed, and smiled on him, like heaven opening. "Small and great, I
take them," said she; and her lovely head rested on his shoulder.

They were engaged.

From that hour he could command a _te'te-'a-te'te_ with her whenever he
chose, and his infernal passion began to suggest all manner of wild,
wicked and unreasonable hopes.

Meantime there was no stopping. He soon found he must speak seriously to
Vizard. He went into his study and began to open the subject. Vizard
stopped him. "Fetch the other culprit," said he; and when Zoe came,
blushing, he said, "Now I am going to make shorter work of this than you
have done. Zoe has ten thousand pounds. What have you got?"

"Only a small estate, worth eight thousand pounds, that I hope to clear
of all incumbrances, if I can get my money."

"Fond of each other? Well, don't strike me dead with your eyes. I have
watched you, and I own a prettier pair of turtledoves I never saw. Well,
you have got love and I have got money. I'll take care of you both. But
you must live with me. I promise never to marry."

This brought Zoe round his neck, with tears and kisses of pure affection.
He returned them, and parted her hair paternally.

"This is a beautiful world, isn't it?" said he, with more tenderness than
cynicism this time.

"Ah, that it is!" cried Zoe, earnestly. "But I can't have you say you
will never be as happy as I am. There are true hearts in this heavenly
world; for I have found one."

"I have not, and don't mean to try again. I am going in for the paternal
now. You two are my children. I have a talisman to keep me from marrying.
I'll show it you." He drew a photograph from his drawer, set round with
gold and pearls. He showed it them suddenly. They both started. A fine
photograph of Ina Klosking. She was dressed as plainly as at the
gambling-table, but without a bonnet, and only one rose in her hair. Her
noble forehead was shown, and her face, a model of intelligence,
womanliness, and serene dignity.

He gazed at it, and they at him and it.

He kissed it. "Here is my Fate," said he. "Now mark the ingenuity of a
parent. I keep out of my Fate's way. But I use her to keep off any other
little Fates that may be about. No other humbug can ever catch me while I
have such a noble humbug as this to contemplate. Ah! and here she is as
Siebel. What a goddess! Just look at her. Adorable! There, this shall
stand upon my table, and the other shall be hung in my bedroom. Then, my
dear Zoe, you will be safe from a stepmother. For I am your father now.
Please understand that."

This brought poor Zoe round his neck again with such an effusion that at
last he handed her to Severne, and he led her from the room, quite
overcome, and, to avoid all conversation about what had just passed, gave
her over to Fanny, while he retired to compose himself.

By dinner-time he was as happy as a prince again and relieved of all
compunction.

He heard afterward from Fanny that Zoe and she had discussed the incident
and Vizard's infatuation, Fanny being specially wroth at Vizard's abuse
of pearls; but she told him she had advised Zoe not to mention that
lady's name, but let her die out.

And, in point of fact, Zoe did avoid the subject.

There came an eventful day. Vizard got a letter, at breakfast, from his
bankers, that made him stare, and then knit his brows. It was about
Edward Severne' s acceptances. He said nothing, but ordered his horse and
rode into Taddington.

The day was keen but sunny, and, seeing him afoot so early, Zoe said she
should like a drive before luncheon. She would show Severne and Fanny
some ruins on Pagnell Hill. They could leave the trap at the village inn
and walk up the hill. Fanny begged off, and Severne was very glad. The
prospect of a long walk up a hill with Zoe, and then a day spent in utter
seclusion with her, fired his imagination and made his heart beat. Here
was one of the opportunities he had long sighed for of making passionate
love to innocence and inexperience.

Zoe herself was eager for the drive, and came down, followed by Rosa with
some wraps, and waited in the morning-room for the dog-cart. It was
behind time for once, because the careful coachman had insisted on the
axle being oiled. At last the sound of wheels was heard. A carriage drew
up at the door.

"Tell Mr. Severne," said Zoe. "He is in the dining-room, I think."

But it was not the dog-cart.

A vigilant footman came hastily out and opened the hall door. A lady was
on the steps, and spoke to him, but, in speaking, she caught sight of Zoe
in the hall. She instantly slipped pass the man and stood within the
great door.

"Miss Vizard?" said she.

Zoe took a step toward her and said, with astonishment, "Mademoiselle
Klosking!"

The ladies looked at each other, and Zoe saw something strange was
coming; for the Klosking was very pale, yet firm, and fixed her eyes upon
her as if there was nothing else in sight.

"You have a visitor--Mr. Severne?"

"Yes," said Zoe, drawing up.

"Can I speak with him?"

"He will answer for himself. EDWARD!"

At her call Severne came out hastily behind Ina Klosking.

She turned, and they faced each other.

"Ah!" she cried; and in spite of all, there was more of joy than any
other passion in the exclamation.

Not so he. He uttered a scream of dismay, and staggered, white as a
ghost, but still glared at Ina Klosking.

Zoe's voice fell on him like a clap of thunder: "What!--Edward!--Mr.
Severne!--Has this lady still any right--"

"No, none whatever!" he cried; "it is all past and gone."

"What is past?" said Ina Klosking, grandly. "Are you out of your senses?"

Then she was close to him in a moment, by one grand movement, and took
him by both lapels of his coat, and held him firmly. "Speak before this
lady," she cried. "Have--I--no--rights--over you?" and her voice was
majestic, and her Danish eyes gleamed lightning.

The wretch's knees gave way a moment and he shook in her hands. Then,
suddenly, he turned wild. "Fiend! you have ruined me!" he yelled; and
then, with his natural strength, which was great, and the superhuman
power of mad excitement, he whirled her right round and flung her from
him, and dashed out of the door, uttering cries of rage and despair.

The unfortunate lady, thus taken by surprise, fell heavily, and, by cruel
ill luck, struck her temple, in falling, against the sharp corner of a
marble table. It gashed her forehead fearfully, and she lay senseless,
with the blood spurting in jets from her white temple.

Zoe screamed violently, and the hall and the hall staircase seemed to
fill by magic.

In the terror and confusion, Harrington Vizard strode into the hall, from
Taddington. "What is the matter?" he cried. "A woman killed?"

Some one cried out she had fallen.

"Water, fools--a sponge--don't stand gaping!" and he flung himself on his
knees, and raised the woman's head from the floor. One eager look into
her white face--one wild cry--"Great God! it is--" He had recognized her.



CHAPTER XX.

IT was piteous to see and hear. The blood would not stop; it spurted no
longer, but it flowed alarmingly. Vizard sent Harris off in his own fly
for a doctor, to save time. He called for ice. He cried out in agony to
his servants, "Can none of you think of anything? There--that hat. Here,
you women; tear me the nap off with your fingers. My God! what is to be
done? She'll bleed to death!" And he held her to his breast, and almost
moaned with pity over her, as he pressed the cold sponge to her wound--in
vain; for still the red blood would flow.

Wheels ground the gravel. Servants flew to the door, crying, "The doctor!
the doctor!"

As if he could have been fetched in five minutes from three miles off.

Yet it was a doctor. Harris had met Miss Gale walking quietly down from
Hillstoke. He had told her in a few hurried words, and brought her as
fast as the horses could go.

She glided in swiftly, keen, but self-possessed, and took it all in
directly.

Vizard saw her, and cried, "Ah! Help!--she is bleeding to death!"

"She shall not," said Rhoda. Then to one footman, "Bring a footstool,
_you;"_ to another, _"You_ bring me a cork;" to Vizard, _"You_ hold her
toward me so. Now sponge the wound."

This done, she pinched the lips of the wound together with her neat,
strong fingers. "See what I do," she said to Vizard. "You will have to do
it, while I-- Ah, the stool! Now lay her head on that; the other side,
man. Now, sir, compress the wound as I did, vigorously. Hold the cork,
_you,_ till I want it."

She took out of her pocket some adhesive plaster, and flakes of some
strong styptic, and a piece of elastic. "Now," said she to Vizard, "give
me a little opening in the middle to plaster these strips across the
wound." He did so. Then in a moment she passed the elastic under the
sufferer's head, drew it over with the styptic between her finger and
thumb, and crack! the styptic was tight on the compressed wound. She
forced in more styptic, increasing the pressure, then she whipped out a
sort of surgical housewife, and with some cutting instrument reduced the
cork, then cut it convex, and fastened it on the styptic by another
elastic. There was no flutter, yet it was all done in fifty seconds.

"There," said she, "she will bleed no more, to speak of. Now seat her
upright. Why! I have seen her before. This is--sir, you can send the men
away."'

"Yes; and, Harris, pack up Mr. Severne's things, and bring them down here
this moment."

The male servants retired, the women held aloof. Fanny Dover came
forward, pale and trembling, and helped to place Ina Klosking in the hall
porter's chair. She was insensible still, but moaned faintly.

Her moans were echoed: all eyes turned. It was Zoe, seated apart, all
bowed and broken--ghastly pale, and glaring straight before her.

"Poor girl!" said Vizard. "We forgot her. It is her heart that bleeds.
Where is the scoundrel, that I may kill him?" and he rushed out at the
door to look for him. The man's life would not have been worth much if
Squire Vizard could have found him then.

But he soon came back to his wretched home, and eyed the dismal scene,
and the havoc one man had made--the marble floor all stained with
blood--Ina Klosking supported in a chair, white, and faintly moaning--Zoe
still crushed and glaring at vacancy, and Fanny sobbing round her with
pity and terror; for she knew there must be worse to come than this wild
stupor.

"Take her to her room, Fanny dear," said Vizard, in a hurried, faltering
voice, "and don't leave her. Rosa, help Miss Dover. Do not leave her
alone, night nor day." Then to Miss Gale, "She will live? Tell me she
will live."

"I hope so," said Rhoda Gale. "Oh, the blow will not kill her, nor yet
the loss of blood. But I fear there will be distress of mind added to the
bodily shock. And such a noble face! My own heart bleeds for her. Oh,
sir, do not send her away to strangers! Let me take her up to the farm.
It is nursing she will need, and tact, when she comes to herself."

"Send here away to strangers!" cried Vizard. "Never! No. Not even to the
farm. Here she received her wound; here all that you and I can do shall
be done to save her. Ah, here's Harris, with the villain's things. Get
the lady's boxes out, and put Mr. Severne's into the fly. Give the man
two guineas, and let him leave them at the 'Swan,' in Taddington."

He then beckoned down the women, and had Ina Klosking carried upstairs to
the very room Severne had occupied.

He then convened the servants, and placed them formally under Miss Gale's
orders, and one female servant having made a remark, he turned her out of
the house, neck and crop, directly with her month's wages. The others had
to help her pack, only half an hour being allowed for her exit.

The house seemed all changed. Could this be Vizard Court? Dead
gloom--hurried whispers--and everybody walking softly, and scared--none
knowing what might be the next calamity.

Vizard felt sick at heart and helpless. He had done all he could, and was
reduced to that condition women bear far better than men--he must wait,
and hope, and fear. He walked up and down the carpeted landing, racked
with anxiety.

At last there came a single scream of agony from Ina Klosking's room.

It made the strong man quake.

He tapped softly at the door.

Rhoda opened it.

"What is it?" he faltered.

She replied, gravely, "Only what must be. She is beginning to realize
what has befallen her. Don't come here. You can do no good. I will run
down to you whenever I dare. Give me a nurse to help, this first night."

He went down and sent into the village for a woman who bore a great name
for nursing. Then he wandered about disconsolate.

The leaden hours passed. He went to dress, and discovered Ina Klosking's
blood upon his clothes. It shocked him first, and then it melted him: he
felt an inexpressible tenderness at sight of it. The blood that had
flowed in her veins seemed sacred to him. He folded that suit, and tied
it up in a silk handkerchief, and locked it away.

In due course he sat down to dinner--we are all such creatures of habit.
There was everything as usual, except the familiar faces. There was the
glittering plate on the polished sideboard, the pyramid of flowers
surrounded with fruits. There were even chairs at the table, for the
servants did not know he was to be quite alone. But he was. One delicate
dish after another was brought him, and sent away untasted. Soon after
dinner Rhoda Gale came down and told him her patient was in a precarious
condition, and she feared fever and delirium. She begged him to send one
servant up to the farm for certain medicaments she had there, and another
to the chemist at Taddington. These were dispatched on swift horses, and
both were back in half an hour.

By-and-by Fanny Dover came down to him, with red eyes, and brought him
Zoe's love. "But," said she, "don't ask her to come down. She is ashamed
to look anybody in the face, poor girl."

"Why? what has _she_ done?"

"Oh, Harrington, she has made no secret of her affection; and now, at
sight of that woman, he has abandoned her."

"Tell her I love her more than I ever did, and respect her more. Where is
her pride?"

"Pride! she is full of it; and it will help her--by-and-by. But she has a
bitter time to go through first. You don't know how she loves him."

"What! love him still, after what he has done?"

"Yes! She interprets it this way and that. She cannot bear to believe
another woman has any real right to separate them."

"Separate them! The scoundrel knocked _her_ down for loving him still,
and fled from them both. Was ever guilt more clear? If she doubts that he
is a villain, tell her from me he is a forger, and has given me bills
with false names on them. The bankers gave me notice to-day, and I was
coming home to order him out of the house when this miserable business
happened."

"A forger! is it possible?" said Fanny. "But it is no use my telling her
that sort of thing. If he had committed murder, and was true to her, she
would cling to him. She never knew till now how she loved him, nor I
neither. She put him in Coventry for telling a lie; but she was far more
unhappy all the time than he was. There is nothing to do but to be kind
to her, and let her hide her face. Don't hurry her."

"Not I. God help her! If she has a wish, it shall be gratified. I am
powerless. She is young. Surely time will cure her of a villain, now he
is detected."

Fanny said she hoped so.

The truth is, Zoe had not opened her heart to Fanny. She clung to her,
and writhed in her arms; but she spoke little, and one broken sentence
contradicted the other. But mental agony, like bodily, finds its vent,
not in speech, the brain's great interpreter, but in inarticulate cries,
and moans, and sighs, that prove us animals even in the throes of mind.
Zoe was in that cruel stage of suffering.

So passed that miserable day.



CHAPTER XXI.

INA KLOSKING recovered her senses that evening, and asked Miss Gale where
she was. Miss Gale told her she was in the house of a friend.

"What friend?"

"That," said Miss Gale, "I will tell you by-and-by. You are in good
hands, and I am your physician."

"I have heard your voice before," said Ina, "but I know not where; and it
is so dark! Why is it so dark?"

"Because too much light is not good for you. You have met with an
accident."

"What accident, madam?"

"You fell and hurt your poor forehead. See, I have bandaged it, and now
you must let me wet the bandage--to keep your brow cool."

"Thank you, madam," said Ina, in her own sweet but queenly way. "You are
very good to me. I wish I could see your face more clearly. I know your
voice." Then, after a silence, during which Miss Gale eyed her with
anxiety, she said, like one groping her way to the truth,
"I--fell--and--hurt--my forehead?--_Ah!"_

Then it was she uttered the cry that made Vizard quake at the door, and
shook for a moment even Rhoda's nerves, though, as a rule, they were iron
in a situation of this kind.

It had all come back to Ina Klosking.

After that piteous cry she never said a word. She did nothing but think,
and put her hand to her head.

And soon after midnight she began to talk incoherently.

The physician could only proceed by physical means. She attacked the
coming fever at once, with the remedies of the day, and also with an
infusion of monk's-hood. That poison, promptly administered, did not
deceive her. She obtained a slight perspiration, which was so much gained
in the battle.

In the morning she got the patient shifted into another bed, and she
slept a little after that. But soon she was awake, restless, and raving:
still her character pervaded her delirium. No violence. Nothing any sore
injured woman need be ashamed to have said: only it was all disconnected.
One moment she was speaking to the leader of the orchestra, at another to
Mr. Ashmead, at another, with divine tenderness, to her still faithful
Severne. And though not hurried, as usual in these cases, it was almost
incessant and pitiable to hear, each observation was so wise and good;
yet, all being disconnected, the hearer could not but feel that a noble
mind lay before him, overthrown and broken into fragments like some Attic
column.

In the middle of this the handle was softly turned, and Zoe Vizard came
in, pale and somber.

Long before this she had said to Fanny several times, "I ought to go and
see her;" and Fanny had said, "Of course you ought."

So now she came. She folded her arms and stood at the foot of the bed,
and looked at her unhappy rival, unhappy as possible herself.

What contrary feelings fought in that young breast! Pity and hatred. She
must hate the rival who had come between her and him she loved; she must
pity the woman who lay there, pale, wounded, and little likely to
recover.

And, with all this, a great desire to know whether this sufferer had any
right to come and seize Edward Severne by the arm, and so draw down
calamity on both the women who loved him.

She looked and listened, and Rhoda Gale thought it hard upon her patient.

But it was not in human nature the girl should do otherwise; so Rhoda
said nothing.

What fell from Ina's lips was not of a kind to make Zoe more her friend.

Her mind seemed now like a bird tied by a long silken thread. It made
large excursions, but constantly came back to her love. Sometimes that
love was happy, sometimes unhappy. Often she said "Edward!" in the
exquisite tone of a loving woman; and whenever she did, Zoe received it
with a sort of shiver, as if a dagger, fine as a needle, had passed
through her whole body.

At last, after telling some tenor that he had sung F natural instead of F
sharp, and praised somebody's rendering of a song in "Il Flauto Magico,"
and told Ashmead to make no more engagements for her at present, for she
was going to Vizard Court, the poor soul paused a minute, and uttered a
deep moan.

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