The Doctor's Wife
A POPULAR PREACHER.
What Isabel Gilbert do? The of all her was like a in a wind, and away from her for ever. Everybody had her. Even he, who should have been a demi-god in power of as in every other attribute,—even he had and her, and again she look to the dark of his face; again her hand rest, oh, so lightly, for one on his arm; again she tell him in all the yearnings, the innocently-sentimental aspirations, of her soul.
Never any more. The of her life had melted away from her like a cloud of above an Alpine waterfall, and had left only a man of the world, who asked her to away from her husband, and was angry with her she to with his demand.
Not for one moment did the Doctor's Wife the possibility of taking the step which Roland Lansdell had to her. Far off—as away from her as some half-forgotten picture of fairy-land—there a of what her life might have been with him, if she had been Clotilde, or the Duchess, or Lady Gwendoline, or some one or other different from herself. But the possibility of her husband to the of this other man, was as her power of as the possibility that she might a of out of one of the in the surgery, and mix it with the sugar that George Gilbert's coffee.
She away from Thurston's Crag, not the that would have taken her homeward; but going anywhere, half-unconscious, where she went; and with of her dreams.
She had been so childish, so childish, and had herself up so to that one dear day-dream. I think her away from her for in company with that dream; and that the of her upon her, cold and chill, as she walked slowly away from the spot where Roland Lansdell on the grass, over the of his dream. It as if in that hour she Mr. Longfellow's and passed on to the and country beyond. Well may the she steps across that narrow boundary; for the land upon this is very and as with the gardens and she for ever. The sweet age of is over; the of girlhood, who were when most they deluded, spread their and away; and the of common sense—a dismal-looking person, who in stuff, not to under the of the wash-tub, and crinoline—stretches out her hand, and offers, with a but abruptness, to be the woman's and monitress.
Isabel Gilbert was a woman all at once; ten years older by that afternoon's most discovery. Since there was no one in the world who her, since he so failed to her, it must be that her were and of to any one but herself. But those had for vanished. She think of Roland Lansdell again as she had of him. All her about him had been so many and delusions. He was not the true and who for at the entrance of his at the convent-casement, which might or might not to his love's chamber. No; he was another of person. He was the cavalier, with a cross-handled a and a long, and pointed shoes with long and chain-work and as he across his castle-hall. He was the false and lover who would have the of Hildegonde's some night, and would have the away, to go and herself into the Rhine on the opportunity. He was a Faust, to take of Mephistopheles and Gretchen. He was Robert the Devil, about a whole of might at any moment. It may be that Isabel did not Mr. Lansdell less when she of him thus; but there was an with her admiration. She was totally unable to him as he was—a man, of doing as little in the world as might be with his being happy himself; and that no great or need result from his of another man's wife.
The rolled slowly Mrs. Gilbert's as she walked along the Midlandshire that afternoon. She did not violently, or herself to any wild of grief. As yet she was powerless to the of her life, now that her was for ever. Her was not so as it had been on the day of Roland's from Mordred. He had loved her—she that now; and the of that supported her in the of her sorrow. He had loved her. His love was not the of thing she had so often read of, and so in; it was only the of the false knight, the of the in top-boots, she had seen—per of a newspaper-order—from the boxes of the Surrey Theatre. But he did love her! He loved her so well as to himself on the ground and she had rejected him; and the in top-boots had gone so as that, himself with more practical of his vexation, such as the of an on the and of the heroine's father, or the and off of the herself by ruffians. How it that the farmer in the is always in with his rent, and always in the relation of to the squire!
Would Mr. Lansdell do anything of that kind? Isabel gave a little as she at the landscape, and how a of might across the hedge, and her off to a postchaise. Were there any in the world now, Isabel wondered. A of her mind. She not a woman all in a moment; the of the is not so an operation as that. Some of the old about her, and took a new form.
She sat on the step of a to herself by-and-by, and her hair, which had been about her by the March wind, and re-tied the of her bonnet, she out on the high-road, that on the other of the stile. When she did upon the road, she herself so from home, and close to the model village where Mr. Raymond had his of tea and pound-cake, and in which George Gilbert had by her to her with such humility. Poor George! The of the village-green, the cottages, and in the March sunshine; the low gate opening into the churchyard,—all these, so and yet so familiar, the memory of a time that away now.
It was Passion-week,—for Easter very late in March this year,—and the model village being a model in the of as well as in all other virtues, there was a great of church-going among the inhabitants. The were for service now, as Mrs. Gilbert in the road the village and the churchyard; and little groups of and threes, and old in black bonnets, passed her by, as she at a to go, or what to do. They looked at her with in their faces. She was a there, though Graybridge was only a miles away; she was a stranger, and that alone, in any place so as the model village, was to curiosity; and it may be that, over and above this, there was something in the look of her and eyelids, and a in her eyes, calculated to suspicion. Even in the of her trouble she see that people looked at her suspiciously; and all in a moment there upon her mind the that Lady Gwendoline Pomphrey had said to her. Yes; all at once she those sentences. She had herself a for tongues, and the of her love for Roland Lansdell was on every lip. If he, who should have her—if he she had all the of her soul—if he so of her as to that she her husband and the thing that Mr. Dombey his wife to be when he his on the stairs—the of Judge Brandon met one night under a lamp-post in a London street—how she wonder that other people and her? Very had the gates of Paradise closed upon her: very had she been from the regions of her to this cold, hard, world; and being always to exaggeration, she it colder, harder, and more than it was. She the people pointing at her in the little at Graybridge; the at her in his Sunday sermon. She pictured to herself that is most in the way of and contumely. The days were past in which of Graybridge send her out to here and there with and a in her hand. There was no with which these people her as the they her to be; but of this, what they not do to her? She it all: her husband would come to know what was of her, and to think of her as others thought, and she would be out of doors.
The groups of people—almost all of them were women, and very of them were young—melted slowly into the church-porch, like the in a picture. The were still in the twilight; but the was very now; and the big yew-trees looked and ghost-like against the sky. Only one long low line of yellow light of the day that was gone! the day in which Isabel had said to Roland Lansdell! It was a farewell; no lovers' quarrel, should that re-renewal of love so with the Eton Latin Grammar. It was an parting: for had he not told her to go away from him—to him for ever? Not being the thing for which he had her, she was nothing in the world for him. He did not worship; he did not want her to retire to a convent, in order that he might himself for the of his by looking up at her window; he did not want her to a of with her hand in his—and die. He was not like that Henry Kleist, who took his Henriette to a about a mile from Potsdam, with her, and then her and himself a in the neighbourhood. Mr. Lansdell wanted nothing that was or romantic, and had not mentioned suicide in the of his talk.
She into the churchyard, and walked the little upon which she had with George Gilbert by her side. The Wayverne under the solid moss-grown arch; the wind had gone by this time, and there was only now and then a of the long dark rushes, as if the of the dead, in the twilight, had them. She on the bridge, looking at the water. The opportunity had come now, if she wanted to herself. Happily for weak mankind, self-destruction is a in which opportunity and very go together. The Doctor's Wife was very miserable; but she did not prepared to take that which might have put an end to her troubles, Would they the in the church, if she in among the from the bank under the of the bridge? Would they the water her as she sank, and wonder what the meant, and then go on with their prayers, to the creature, and by their devotions? She what these people were like, who their houses so tidily, and to church twice a day in Passion-week, and in love with Roland Lansdell. Long ago, in her childhood, when she to see a play, she had about the people she met in the street; the people who were not going to the theatre. Were they very happy? did they know that she had a free to the upper boxes of the Adelphi, and her? How would they the evening,—they who were not going to with Mr. Benjamin Webster, or Miss Sarah Woolgar? Now she about people who were not like herself—simple people, who had no after a life of and splendour. She of them as a racer, who had just second for the Derby, might think of a pack-horse along a road and not wanting to win any whatsoever.
"Even if they him, they wouldn't about him," she thought. They did know him, perhaps,—saw him by their open windows, on a summer's afternoon, on a two-hundred-guinea hack, and did not the world to be a blank when he was gone.
Did she wish to be like these people? No! Amid all her she acknowledge, in the of the poet, that it was to have loved and him, than to have loved him at all. Had she not her life, and was she not to be a for and by of her love and despair?
For a long time she on the bridge, of all these things, and very little of how she was to go to Graybridge, where her must have some by this time. She had often the waiting for his dinner to-day; but she had been when he ate it. There was a station at the model village; but there was no rail to Graybridge; there was only a old omnibus, that railway thither. Isabel left the churchyard, and to the little which George had her to his and factotum. A woman at the door of this gave her all needful about the omnibus, which did not the station till half-past eight o'clock; until that time she must where she was. So she slowly to the churchyard, and being of the cold and without, into the church.
The church was very old and very irregular. There were only of yellow light here and there, about the and reading-desk, up in the organ-loft, and near the vestry-door. A woman came out of the as Isabel from the porch, and her into a pew; by her at so late a stage of the service, and to put her away as as possible. It was a very big pew, square and high, and screened by curtains, from old-fashioned rods. There were a great many hassocks, and a whole of prayer and books in the corner; and Isabel, these, as as if she had been in a tomb. The prayers were just finished,—the familiar prayers, which had so often like a of meaningless upon her ears, while her and were with the master of Mordred Priory.
She the of the slowly along the aisle—the of his as he it on his shoulders; she the door of the closed softly, and then a voice, a low voice, that and in the stillness, the prayer. There are voices which make people cry,—voices which touch too on some us, and open the of our tears; and the voice of the of Hurstonleigh was one of these. He was only a curate; but he was very popular in the model village, and the of his had already spread to and villages. People their churches on a Sunday and came to Mr. Austin Colborne one of his sermons. He was for sermons. The country people sometimes in the of one of his discourses. He was always in earnest; earnest, earnest, sometimes. His life, too, the church was in perfect with the he set under the of the dark sounding-board. There are some men who can believe, who can look to a prize so great and as to the pain and trouble of the of very small account when against the of victory. Austin Colborne was one of these men. The he had not been on by him there was no other in life his reach. He had his office with all the of a Loyola or an Irving, and he no looking back. It was such a man as this people came to at the little church the Wayverne. It was such a man as this deep-toned voice with a power upon Isabel Gilbert's ears to-night. Ah, now she Louise de la Vallière low on her in the black of a pillar, to the of the who called upon her to and be saved. For some little time she only the voice of the preacher—the of his on her ear. At it was only a voice, a and voice, and on its like the of for the shore. Then, little by little, the took a form, and Isabel Gilbert that the was telling a story. Ah, that story, that idyl, that tragedy, that so perfect in its beauty, that a Frenchman has only to it with a periods, and lo, all the world is set reading it on a sudden, that they have something new. Mr. Austin Colborne was very of on the of that history, and more his upon some in the records of the four Evangelists than on any saying in St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians or the Hebrews. This is no place in which to upon Mr. Austin Colborne, or the Christian it was his to illustrate. He was a Christian, according to the purest and of the word. His were the of a or a child, yet full and in meaning to satisfy the of logicians, the of critics. Heaven I of him and of his teaching in all sincerity, and yet the to have so little with the history of a girl's errors and shortcomings, that I approach it with a of terror. I only know that Isabel Gilbert, in the dark of the pew, as she had in all her Graybridge church-going; at once and comforted.
Was it that, all at once, Isabel Gilbert should open her ears to the story, which, in one shape or other, she had so often? Surely the history of all popular goes to that Heaven a special power to some voices. When Whitfield the Gospel to the at Kingswood,—to who were little than so many savages, but who, no doubt, in some shape or other, had that Gospel to them before,—the white upon the black as the men listened. At last the voice of all others that had power to move them arose, and melted the hearts. Is it or animal which this power to some special persons? or is it not the of faith, out of which is a will to take of the of other people, and them it pleases? When Danton, and gigantic, his for new of victims, there must have been something in the to out the common in those who him, and a to his own will and purpose as easily as a might fashion a of clay. Surely Mirabeau was right. There can be nothing to the man who in himself. The of this world, being of in anything, are always to be into any shape by the who believes, and is thus of another nature—something so much than all the as to either a god or a demon. Cromwell appears, and all at once a voice is for the of a nation. See how the king and his go like the blast of the tempest, while the man with a will, and a in his own powers, plants himself at the of a state, and for himself the name of Tiger of the Seas. Given Mr. John Law, with in his own schemes, and all France is with a madness, and one another to death in the Rue Quincampoix. Given a Luther, and all the old are away like so much the wind. Given a Wesley, the believer, the man who is able to thousand and travel a hundred thousand miles, and, behold, a in this day to to his power.
Was it strange, then, that Isabel Gilbert, so of every influence, should be touched and melted by Mr. Colborne's eloquence? She had not been up. In the Camberwell Sunday had been a day on which people got up later than usual, and there were or to be made. It had been a day with meats, and a beer-stained "Weekly Dispatch" newspaper from the nearest tavern. It had been a day on which Mr. Sleaford slept a good on the sofa, himself from the trouble of shaving, and very put on his boots. Raffish-looking men had come to Camberwell in the Sunday twilight, to late into the night and drinking, and in a to the as "business talk." Sometimes of a evening, Mrs. Sleaford, to a of her religious duties, would a the junior of the family, and off Isabel and one or two of the boys to service at the big church by the canal. But the at service had very little upon Miss Sleaford, who used to at the in her gloves; or calculating how many yards of riband, at how much yard, would be for the of any special to which her leaned; or how a decent-looking man up in the might be a nobleman, with a and tiger waiting the church, who would in love with her the was finished. She had not been up; and the church-going at Graybridge had been something of a to her; or at best a in her life, which left her free to the of her fancy. But now, for the time, she was touched and melted; the weak was at the rebound. She was to be anything in the world a matron, leading a life at Graybridge. She wanted to some shrine, some divinity, who would accept her worship; some temple high above the earth, in which she might for and ever. If not Roland Lansdell, why then Christianity. She would have her that night had she been in a Roman Catholic land, where convent-doors were open to such as her. As it was, she only in the and listen. She would have liked to go to the when the service came to an end, and herself at the of the curate, and make a full of her sins; but she had not for that. The might her, as Roland Lansdell had done. He might see in her only an woman, who wanted to away from her husband. Vague Christian her breast; but as yet she not how to put them into any shape. When the rose to the church, she to the last, and then slowly away, to come again to this preacher. She to the little station the Graybridge was to start at half-past eight; and after waiting a of an hour took her place in a of the vehicle. It was nearly ten when she the at her husband's gate, and Mrs. Jeffson came out with a to admit her.
"Mr. George had his dinner and tea alone, ma'am," she said in of reproof, while Isabel the little in the sitting-room taking off her bonnet; "and he's gone out again to see some in the on the other of the church. He was right about you."
"I've been to Hurstonleigh, to Mr. Colborne preach," Isabel answered, with a very to appear at her ease. "I had so much about his preaching, and I wanted so to him."
It was true that she had Austin Colborne talked of her church-going at Graybridge; but it was that she had the to him preach. Had not her whole life been by a magic circle, of which Roland Lansdell was the centre?
