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The Woman Hater

C >> Charles Reade >> The Woman Hater




But Cunning did not really leave the field: that very evening an aged
man, in green spectacles, was inquiring about the postal arrangements to
Vizard Court; and next day he might have been seen, in a back street of
Taddington, talking to the village postman, and afterward drinking with
him. It was Poikilus groping his way.



CHAPTER XXIII.

A FEW words avail to describe the sluggish waters of the Dead Sea, but
what pen can portray the Indian Ocean lashed and tormented by a cyclone?

Even so a few words have sufficed to show that Ina Klosking's heart was
all benumbed and deadened; and, with the help of insult, treachery, loss
of blood, brain-fever, and self-esteem rebelling against villainy, had
outlived its power of suffering poignant torture.

But I cannot sketch in a few words, nor paint in many, the tempest of
passion in Zoe Vizard. Yet it is my duty to try and give the reader some
little insight into the agony, the changes, the fury, the grief, the
tempest of passion, in a virgin heart; in such a nature, the great
passions of the mind often rage as fiercely, or even more so, than in
older and experienced women.

Literally, Zoe Vizard loved Edward Severne one minute and hated him the
next; gave him up for a traitor, and then vowed to believe nothing until
she had heard his explanation; burned with ire at his silence, sickened
with dismay at his silence. Then, for a while, love and faith would get
the upper hand, and she would be quite calm. Why should she torment
herself? An old sweetheart, abandoned long ago, had come between them; he
had, unfortunately, done the woman an injury, in his wild endeavor to get
away from her. Well, what business had she to use force? No doubt he was
ashamed, afflicted at what he had done, being a man; or was in despair,
seeing that lady installed in her brother's house, and _her_ story,
probably a parcel of falsehoods, listened to.

Then she would have a gleam of joy; for she knew he had not written to
Ina Klosking. But soon Despondency came down like a dark cloud; for she
said to herself, "He has left us both. He sees the woman he does not love
will not let him have the one he does love; and so he has lost heart, and
will have no more to say to either."

When her thoughts took this turn she would cry piteously; but not for
long. She would dry her eyes, and burn with wrath all round; she would
still hate her rival, but call her lover a coward--a contemptible coward.

After her day of raging, and grieving, and doubting, and fearing, and
hoping, and despairing, night overtook her with an exhausted body, a
bleeding heart, and weeping eyes. She had been so happy--on the very
brink of paradise; and now she was deserted. Her pillow was wet every
night. She cried in her very sleep; and when she woke in the morning her
body was always quivering; and in the very act of waking came a horror,
and an instinctive reluctance to face the light that was to bring another
day of misery.

Such is a fair, though loose, description of her condition.

The slight fillip given to her spirits by the journey did her a morsel of
good, but it died away. Having to nurse Aunt Maitland did her a little
good at first. But she soon relapsed into herself, and became so
_distraite_ that Aunt Maitland, who was all self, being an invalid, began
to speak sharply to her.

On the second day of her visit to Somerville Villa, as she sat brooding
at the foot of her aunt's bed, suddenly she heard horses' feet, and then
a ring at the hall-door. Her heart leaped. Perhaps he had come to explain
all. He might not choose to go to Vizard Court. What if he had been
watching as anxiously as herself, and had seized the first opportunity!
In a moment her pale cheek rivaled carmine.

The girl brought up a card--

"LORD UXMOOR."

The color died away directly. "Say I am very sorry, but at this moment I
cannot leave my aunt."

The girl stared with amazement, and took down the message.

Uxmoor rode away.

Zoe felt a moment's pleasure. No, if she could not see the right man, she
would not see the wrong. That, at least, was in her power.

Nevertheless, in the course of the day, remembering Uxmoor's worth, and
the pain she had already given him, she was almost sorry she had indulged
herself at his expense.

Superfluous contrition! He came next day, as a matter of course. She
liked him none the better for coming, but she went downstairs to him.

He came toward her, but started back and uttered an exclamation. "You are
not well," he said, in tones of tenderness and dismay.

"Not very," she faltered; for his open manly concern touched her.

"And you have come here to nurse this old lady? Indeed, Miss Vizard, you
need nursing yourself. You know it is some time since I had the pleasure
of seeing you, and the change is alarming. May I send you Dr. Atkins, my
mother's physician?"

"I am much obliged to you. No."

"Oh, I forgot. You have a physician of your own sex. Why is she not
looking after you?"

"Miss Gale is better employed. She is at Vizard Court in attendance on a
far more brilliant person--Mademoiselle Klosking, a professional singer.
Perhaps you know her?"

"I saw her at Homburg."

"Well, she met with an accident in our hall--a serious one; and
Harrington took her in, and has placed all his resources--his lady
physician and all--at her service: he is so fond of _Music."_

A certain satirical bitterness peered through these words, but honest
Uxmoor did not notice it. He said, "Then I wish you would let me be your
doctor--for want of a better."

"And you think _you_ can cure me?" said Zoe, satirically.

"It does seem presumptuous. But, at least, I could do you a little good
if you could be got to try my humble prescription."

"What is it?" asked Zoe, listlessly.

"It is my mare Phillis. She is the delight of every lady who mounts her.
She is thorough-bred, lively, swift, gentle, docile, amiable, perfect.
Ride her on these downs an hour or two very day. I'll send her over
to-morrow. May I?"

"If you like. Rosa _would_ pack up my riding-habit."

"Rosa was a prophetess."





Next day came Phillis, saddled. and led by a groom on horseback, and
Uxmoor soon followed on an old hunter. He lifted Zoe to her saddle, and
away they rode, the groom following at a respectful distance.

When they got on the downs they had a delightful canter; but Zoe, in her
fevered state of mind, was not content with that. She kept increasing the
pace, till the old hunter could no longer live with the young filly; and
she galloped away from Lord Uxmoor, and made him ridiculous in the eyes
of his groom.

The truth is, she wanted to get away from him.

He drew the rein, and stood stock-still. She made a circuit of a mile,
and came up to him with heightened color and flashing eyes, looking
beautiful.

"Well?" said she. "Don't you like galloping?"

"Yes, but I don't like cruelty."

"Cruelty?"

"Look at the mare's tail how it is quivering, and her flanks panting! And
no wonder. You have been over twice the Derby course at a racing pace.
Miss Vizard, a horse is not a steam engine."

"I'll never ride her again," said Zoe. "I did not come here to be
scolded. I will go home."

They walked slowly home in silence. Uxmoor hardly knew what to say to
her; but at last he murmured, apologetically, "Never mind the poor mare,
if you are better for galloping her."

She waited a moment before she spoke, and then she said, "Well, yes; I am
better. I'm better for my ride, and better for my scolding. Good-by."
(Meaning forever.)

"Good-by," said he, in the same tone. Only he sent the mare next day, and
followed her on a young thorough-bred.

"What!" said Zoe; "am I to have another trial?"

"And another after that."

So this time she would only canter very slowly, and kept stopping every
now and then to inquire, satirically, if that would distress the mare.

But Uxmoor was too good-humored to quarrel for nothing. He only laughed,
and said, "You are not the only lady who takes a horse for a machine."

These rides did her bodily health some permanent good; but their effect
on her mind was fleeting. She was in fair spirits when she was actually
bounding through the air, but she collapsed afterward.

At first, when she used to think that Severne never came near her, and
Uxmoor was so constant, she almost hated Uxmoor--so little does the wrong
man profit by doing the right thing for a woman. I admit that, though not
a deadly woman-hater myself.

But by-and-by she was impartially bitter against them both; the wrong man
for doing the right thing, and the right man for not doing it.

As the days rolled by, and Severne did not appear, her indignation and
wounded pride began to mount above her love. A beautiful woman counts
upon pursuit, and thinks a man less than man if he does not love her well
enough to find her, though hid in the caves of ocean or the labyrinths of
Bermondsey.

She said to herself, "Then he has no explanation to offer. Another woman
has frightened him away from me. I have wasted my affections on a
coward." Her bosom boiled with love, and contempt, and wounded pride; and
her mind was tossed to and fro like a leaf in a storm. She began, by
force of will, to give Uxmoor some encouragement; only, after it she
writhed and wept.

At last, finding herself driven to and fro like a leaf, she told Miss
Maitland all, and sought counsel of her. She must have something to lean
on.

The old lady was better by this time, and spoke kindly to her. She said
Mr. Severne was charming, and she was not bound to give him up because
another lady had past claims on him. But it appeared to her that Mr.
Severne himself had deserted her. He had not written to her. Probably he
knew something that had not yet transpired, and had steeled himself to
the separation for good reasons. It was a decision she must accept. Let
her then consider how forlorn is the condition of most deserted women
compared with hers. Here was a devoted lover, whom she esteemed, and who
could offer her a high position and an honest love. If she had a mother,
that mother would almost force her to engage herself at once to Lord
Uxmoor. Having no mother, the best thing she could do would be to force
herself--to say some irrevocable words, and never look back. It was the
lot of her sex not to marry the first love, and to be all the happier in
the end for that disappointment, though at the time it always seemed
eternal.

All this, spoken in a voice of singular kindness by one who used to be so
sharp, made Zoe's tears flow gently and somewhat cooled her raging heart.

She began now to submit, and only cry at intervals, and let herself
drift; and Uxmoor visited her every day, and she found it impossible not
to esteem and regard him. Nevertheless, one afternoon, just about his
time, she was seized with such an aversion to his courtship, and such a
revolt against the slope she seemed gliding down, that she flung on her
bonnet and shawl, and darted out of the house to escape him. She said to
the servant, "I am gone for a walk, if anybody calls."

Uxmoor did call, and, receiving this message, he bit his lip, sent the
horse home and walked up to the windmill, on the chance of seeing her
anywhere. He had already observed she was never long in one mood; and as
he was always in the same mind, he thought perhaps he might be tolerably
welcome, if he could meet her unexpected.

Meantime Zoe walked very fast to get away from the house as soon as
possible, and she made a round of nearly five miles, walking through two
villages, and on her return lost her way. However, a shepherd showed her
a bridle-road which, he told her, would soon take her to Somerville
Villa, through "the small pastures;" and, accordingly, she came into a
succession of meadows not very large. They were all fenced and gated; but
the gates were only shut, not locked. This was fortunate; for they were
new five-barred gates, and a lady does not like getting over these, even
in solitude. Her clothes are not adapted.

There were sheep in some of these, cows in others, and the pastures
wonderfully green and rich, being always well manured, and fed down by
cattle.

Zoe's love of color was soothed by these emerald fields, dotted with
white sheep and red cows.

In the last field, before the lane that led to the village, a single
beast was grazing. Zoe took no notice of him, and walked on; but he took
wonderful notice of her, and stared, then gave a disagreeable snort. He
took offense at her Indian shawl, and, after pawing the ground and
erecting his tail, he came straight at her at a tearing trot, and his
tail out behind him.

Zoe saw, and screamed violently, and ran for the gate ahead, which, of
course, was a few yards further from her than the gate behind. She ran
for her life; but the bull, when he saw that, broke into a gallop
directly, and came up fast with her. She could not escape.

At that moment a man vaulted clean over the gate, tore a pitchfork out of
a heap of dung that luckily stood in the corner, and boldly confronted
the raging bull just in time; for at that moment Zoe lost heart, and
crouched, screaming, in the side ditch, with her hands before her eyes.

The new-comer, rash as his conduct seemed, was country-bred and knew what
he was about: he drove one of the prongs clean through the great
cartilage of the bull's mouth, and was knocked down like a nine-pin, with
the broken staff of the pitch-fork in his hand; and the bull reared in
the air with agony, the prong having gone clean through his upper lip in
two places, and fastened itself, as one fastens a pin, in that leathery
but sensitive organ.

Now Uxmoor was a university athlete; he was no sooner down than up. So,
when the bull came down from his rearing, and turned to massacre his
assailant, he was behind him, and seizing his tail, twisted it, and
delivered a thundering blow on his backbone, and followed it up by a
shower of them on his ribs. "Run to the gate, Zoe!" he roared. Whack!
whack! whack!--"Run to the gate, I tell
you!"--whack!--whack!--whack!--whack!--whack!

Thus ordered, Zoe Vizard, who would not have moved of herself, being in a
collapse of fear, scudded to the gate, got on the right side of it, and
looked over, with two eyes like saucers. She saw a sight incredible to
her. Instead of letting the bull alone, now she was safe, Uxmoor was
sticking to him like a ferret. The bull ran, tossing his nose with pain
and bellowing: Uxmoor dragged by the tail and compelled to follow in
preposterous, giant strides, barely touching the ground with the point of
his toe, pounded the creature's ribs with such blows as Zoe had never
dreamed possible. They sounded like flail on wooden floor, and each blow
was accompanied with a loud jubilant shout. Presently, being a five's
player, and ambidexter, he shifted his hand, and the tremendous whacks
resounded on the bull's left side. The bull, thus belabored, and
resounding like the big drum, made a circuit of the field, but found it
all too hot: he knew his way to a certain quiet farmyard; he bolted, and
came bang at Zoe once more, with furious eyes and gore-distilling
nostrils.

But this time she was on the right side of the gate.

Yet she drew back in dismay as the bull drew near: and she was right;
for, in his agony and amazement, the unwieldy but sinewy brute leaped the
five-barred gate, and cleared it all but the top rail; that he burst
through, as if it had been paper, and dragged Uxmoor after him, and
pulled him down, and tore him some yards along the hard road on his back,
and bumped his head against a stone, and so got rid of him: then pounded
away down the lane, snorting, and bellowing, and bleeding; the prong
still stuck through his nostrils like a pin.

Zoe ran to Uxmoor with looks of alarm and tender concern, and lifted his
head to her tender bosom; for his clothes were torn, and his cheeks and
hands bleeding. But he soon shook off his confusion, and rose without
assistance.

"Have you got over your fright?" said he; "that is the question."

"Oh yes! yes! It is only you I am alarmed for. It is much better I should
be killed than you."

"Killed! I never had better fun in my life. It was glorious. I stuck to
him, and hit--there, I have not had anything I could hit as hard as I
wanted to, since I used to fight with my cousin Jack at Eton. Oh, Miss
Vizard, it was a whirl of Elysium! But I am sorry you were frightened.
Let me take you home."

"Oh, yes, but not that way; that is the way the monster went!" quivered
Zoe.

"Oh, he has had enough of us."

"But I have had too much of him. Take me some other road--a hundred miles
round. How I tremble!"

"So you do. Take my arm.--No, putting the tips of your fingers on it is
no use; take it really--you want support. Be courageous, now--we are very
near home."

Zoe trembled, and cried a little, to conclude the incident, but walked
bravely home on Uxmoor's arm.

In the hall at Somerville Villa she saw him change color, and insisted on
his taking some port wine.

"I shall be very glad," said he.

A decanter was brought. He filled a large tumbler and drank it off like
water.

This was the first intimation he gave Zoe that he was in pain, and his
nerves hard tried; nor did she indeed arrive at that conclusion until he
had left her.

Of course, she carried all this to Aunt Maitland. That lady was quite
moved by the adventure. She sat up in bed, and listened with excitement
and admiration. She descanted on Lord Uxmoor's courage and chivalry, and
congratulated Zoe that such a pearl of manhood had fallen at her feet.
"Why, child," said she, "surely, after this, you will not hesitate
between this gentleman and a beggarly adventurer, who has nothing, not
even the courage of a man. Turn your back on all such rubbish, and be the
queen of the county. I'd be content to die to-morrow if I could see you
Countess of Uxmoor."

"You shall live, and see it, dear aunt," said Zoe, kissing her.

"Well," said Miss Maitland, "if anything can cure me, that will. And
really," said she, "I feel better ever since that brave fellow began to
bring you to your senses."

Admiration and gratitude being now added to esteem, Zoe received Lord
Uxmoor next day with a certain timidity and half tenderness she had never
shown before; and, as he was by nature a rapid wooer, he saw his chance,
and stayed much longer than usual, and at last hazarded a hope that he
might be allowed to try and win her heart.

Thereupon she began to fence, and say that love was all folly. He had her
esteem and her gratitude, and it would be better for both of them to
confine their sentiments within those rational bounds.

"That I cannot do," said Uxmoor; "so I must ask your leave to be
ambitious. Let me try and conquer your affection."

"As you conquered the bull?"

"Yes; only not so rudely, nor so quickly, I'll be bound."

"Well, I don't know why I should object. I esteem you more than anybody
in the world. You are my beau ideal of a man. If you can _make_ me love
you, all the better for me. Only, I am afraid you cannot."

"May I try?"

"Yes," said Zoe, bushing carnation.

"May I come every day?"

"Twice a day, if you like."

"I think I shall succeed--in time."

"I hope you may."

Then he kissed her hand devotedly--the first time in his life--and went
away on wings.

Zoe flew up to her aunt Maitland, flushed and agitated. "Aunt, I am as
good as engaged to him. I have said such unguarded things. I'm sure _he_
will understand it that I consent to receive his addresses as my lover.
Not that I really said so."

"I hope," said Aunt Maitland, "that you have committed yourself somehow
or other, and cannot go back."

"I think I have. Yes; it is all over. I cannot go back now."

Then she burst out crying. Then she was near choking, and had to smell
her aunt's salts, while still the tears ran fast.

Miss Maitland received this with perfect composure. She looked on them as
the last tears of regret given to a foolish attachment at the moment of
condemning it forever. She was old, and had seen these final tears shed
by more than one loving woman just before entering on her day of
sunshine.

And now Zoe must be alone, and vent her swelling heart. She tied a
handkerchief round her head and darted into the garden. She went round
and round it with fleet foot and beating pulses.

The sun began to decline, and a cold wind to warn her in. She came, for
the last time, to a certain turn of the gravel walk, where there was a
little iron gate leading into the wooded walk from the meadows.

At that gate she found a man. She started back, and leaned against the
nearest tree, with her hands behind her.

It was Edward Severne--all in black, and pale as death; but not paler
than her own face turned in a moment.

Indeed, they looked at each other like two ghosts.



CHAPTER XXIV.

ZOE was the first to speak, or rather to gasp. "Why do you come here?"

"Because _you_ are here."

"And how dare you come where I am?--now your falsehood is found out and
flung into my very face!"

"I have never been false to you. At this moment I suffer for my
fidelity."

_"You_ suffer? I am glad of it. How?"

"In many ways: but they are all light, compared with my fear of losing
your love."

"I will listen to no idle words," said Zoe sternly. "A lady claimed you
before my face; why did you not stand firm like a man, and say, 'You have
no claim on me now; I have a right to love another, and I do?' Why did
you fly?--because you were guilty."

"No," said he, doggedly. "Surprised and confounded, but not guilty. Fool!
idiot! that I was. I lost my head entirely. Yes, it is hopeless. You
_must_ despise me. You have a right to despise me."

"Don't tell me," said Zoe: "you never lose your head. You are always
self-possessed and artful. Would to Heaven I had never seen you!" She was
violent.

He gave her time. "Zoe," said he, after a while, "if I had not lost my
head, should I have ill-treated a lady and nearly killed her?"

"Ah!" said Zoe, sharply, "that is what you have been suffering
from--remorse. And well you may. You ought to go back to her, and ask her
pardon on your knees. Indeed, it is all you have left to do now."

"I know I ought."

"Then do what you ought. Good-by."

"I cannot. I hate her."

"What, because you have broken her heart, and nearly killed her?"

"No; but because she has come between me and the only woman I ever really
loved, or ever can."

"She would not have done that if you had not given her the right. I see
her now; she looked justice, and you looked guilt. Words are idle, when I
can see her face before me still. No woman could look like that who was
in the wrong. But you--guilt made you a coward: you were false to her and
false to me; and so you ran away from us both. You would have talked
either of us over, alone; but we were together: so you ran away. You have
found me alone now, so you are brave again; but it is too late. I am
undeceived. I decline to rob Mademoiselle Klosking of her lover; so
good-by."

And this time she was really going, but he stopped her. "At least don't
go with a falsehood on your lips," said he, coldly.

"A falsehood!--Me!"

"Yes, it is a falsehood. How can you pretend I left that lady for you,
when you know my connection with her had entirely ceased ten months
before I ever saw your face?"

This staggered Zoe a moment; so did the heat and sense of injustice he
threw into his voice.

"I forgot that," said she, naively. Then, recovering herself, "You may
have parted with her; but it does not follow that she consented. Fickle
men desert constant women. It is done every day."

"You are mistaken again," said he. "When I first saw you, I had ceased to
think of Mademoiselle Klosking; but it was not so when I first left her.
I did not desert her. I tore myself from her. I had a great affection for
her."

"You dare to tell me that. Well, at all events, it is the truth. Why did
you leave her, then?"

"Out of self-respect. I was poor, she was rich and admired. Men sent her
bouquets and bracelets, and flattered her behind the scenes, and I was
lowered in my own eyes: so I left her. I was unhappy for a time; but I
had my pride to support me, and the wound was healed long before I knew
what it was to love, really to love."

There was nothing here that Zoe could contradict. She kept silence, and
was mystified.

Then she attacked him on another quarter. "Have you written to her since
you behaved like a ruffian to her?"

"No. And I never will, come what may. It is wicked of me; but I hate her.
I am compelled to esteem her. But I hate her."

Zoe could quite understand that; but in spite of that she said, "Of
course you do. Men always hate those they have used ill. Why did you not
write to _me?_ Had a mind to be impartial, I suppose?"

"I had reason to believe it would have been intercepted."

"For shame! Vizard is incapable of such a thing."

"Ah, you don't know how he is changed. He looks on me as a mad dog.
Consider, Zoe: do, pray, take the real key to it all. He is in love with
Mademoiselle Klosking, madly in love with her: and I have been so
unfortunate as to injure her--nearly to kill her. I dare say he thinks it
is on your account he hates me; but men deceive themselves. It is for
_her_ he hates me"

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