for several days a morbid dejection had possessed the heavens, and clouds pressed gray and ponderous from over the sea. rain had fallen perpetually, beating the beauty from the flowers, weighing down the foliage. a chill atmosphere had swept like the breath of an ice giant into the radiant loggias of summer. the wind never rested. it moaned and imprecated, pleaded and besought, broke forth into wild gusts of desperate blasphemy. the trees whispered together like shivering and misty ghosts before the gates of death. their dim arms gesticulated in the rain. their green bosoms stirred with a troubled breathing, impotent and piteous.
atmospheric conditions exert an undue influence over minds that have wandered from the radiance of health into the twilight of morbidity. the stanch, big-chested toiler takes the storm into his bosom and laughs like a norseman buffeting ice-brilliant seas. to those of feeble moral vitality the drearier passages of life are packed with intangible temptations and imagined possibilities for sin. the man whose heart is warm and clean cares nothing for rough weather. it is the bleached ?sthetic who turns pessimist or sensualist to cheat his own shivering and hungry soul. give the world a tolsto?, rugged viking struggling giant-like towards the truth, rather than some de musset or baudelaire hugging an impotent sexuality in the lap of a prostituted art. the world needs prophets, not pessimists. pessimism is the result of moral dyspepsia. it is a nobler thing to lift some simple lamp of truth to light the hearts of men than to build a brilliant philosophic system for the entangling of the intellect.
zeus gildersedge had suffered for a week from an exaggerated melancholia. evil weather always appeared to irritate his opiated brain, inspiring a more sinister barbarism, a more restless temper. no man can quench utterly his primitive intuitions. when the wind howled zeus gildersedge shivered, drew his ragged philosophy closer about his soul, and warmed his marrow with a more generous share of wine. the wind woke the coward in him, revealed that native superstition that is lodged deep in every heart. moreover, certain words that he had heard in the silence of his own garden had haunted his brain like the emissaries of an outraged god. he had been drinking heavily, and taking more opium than even his mithridatic body could tolerate. his hands trembled more; his moods were violent and spasmodic; an unusual restlessness interfered with his mechanical régime.
it was the evening of a gray and blustering day. the rain had ceased, and streaks of silvery light were ribbing the clouds. a calm had fallen; the wind breathed in infrequent stanzas, showering rattling moisture from the leaves. a rich perfume refreshed the atmosphere, the scent of foliage drenched yet shimmering in the awakening sun.
joan gildersedge came over the meadows from the sea. she loved rough weather and the cold kisses of the rain upon her face. her rough frieze skirt hung drenched about her knees, and her hair was dark and wet with the storm. a rich color had risen in her cheeks, scourged by the wet west wind.
joan looked long at the breaking sky before setting the iron gate grating on its rusty hinges. the gravel drive was green with grass and weeds. as she threaded its tangled shadows, the cypresses, stirred by the wind, shook long showers of glittering dew. at one point a large seringa overweighted by the storm bowed over to touch the trailing branches of an untrimmed laurel. joan had to bend beneath this rustic yoke. a spray of green leaves brushed her lips, leaves pure and fresh as the lips they had touched.
as she drew from the shadows of the shrubs sounds sinister in their suggestiveness smote upon her ears. two voices were in altercation—the one shrill, strenuous, feminine, the other the untutored growl of a man scorning compulsion. joan gildersedge stood still and listened. the window of the dining-room stood open; she could hear plainly enough what passed within.
“i tell you i sha’n’t,” said the woman’s voice, very rapidly. “do yer think i’m going to sell myself for fifteen pounds a year? you go and cheat your grandmother. you’re drunk, zeus gildersedge, and what do i care for an old sot of sixty. am i to drudge and scrape and sell myself here for nothing? i’ve had enough of it, i tell you. you give me that key, old light of love, and i’ll help myself for once. come along now, or i’ll make no sport for you.”
the man’s voice retorted, thick and tangled, the expression of a clouded and cunning intellect.
“you think i’m drunk, eh?”
“half an’ half.”
“you’re a pretty beauty. give you the key of my strong-box, eh? nice game, that. pretty old gudgeon you think you’re talking to. i’m drunk, am i? not fuddled enough yet to be fooled by such as you.”
the woman’s voice rose shriller.
“you’re a man, you are. take all and give nothing. taunt me, would you?”
“who’s to blame? speak up.”
“that’s manly, that is. put it all off your own shoulders; shove all the blame on mine. you’re the saint, are you, and i the sinner? you owe me a quarter’s wages. i’ll have that and more—fifty gold sovereigns, not a farthing less. ’ain’t i earned it by sacrificing my immortal soul to an old scarecrow like you?”
“you have, you innocent.”
“give me the key, then.”
an outbreak of blasphemy greeted the appeal. zeus gildersedge chuckled and swore in alternation. he had lost every shred of that quality that might have been christened by courtesy self-control.
“that’s right,” jeered the feminine voice, “cheat a woman and then laugh over it. more drink! whiskey—neat, too! half a tumbler! nice stuff for a respectable man of sixty! you’ll be seeing devils in a jiffy.”
the clatter of glass sounded in the room. joan gildersedge slipped round towards the porch under the shadows of the trees. she was pale, but very bright and keen about the eyes. her lips were compressed into a thin, straight line. the look of childish repose had left her face as she stood in the porch and listened.
rebecca’s voice rose again, less shrewish, more persuasive.
“i reckon it’s no good ranting,” she said; “there’s only one thing as will make you generous, and i suppose you know what that is!”
“i reckon i do,” came the thick and lethargic response. “pour me out some more whiskey, becky.”
“you’ll have your own way, i suppose. half a glass, not a drop more. why don’t you slip into one of your chuck-me-under-the-chin moods and give me that key?”
zeus gildersedge’s voice seemed weaker; his voice had less edge than before.
“you leave that key alone.”
“what go you’ve got for a man of sixty!”
“you know that, eh?”
“don’t i. look at me; what am i here for?”
they both laughed unrestrainedly. joan, standing in the porch, with rain dripping monotonously from the leaves, seemed to stiffen into stone. her hands gripped the trellis of the porch. she seemed to steady herself as one who meets the onrush of some storm-driven billow or as a virgin martyr facing the flames. in these few seconds the dream-cloak had been shrivelled about her soul. she trod the furnace; fire licked her limbs. the mordant realism of life burned at last before her reason.
“i’m damned sleepy,” said the man’s voice, ending in a prolonged yawn.
“that there whiskey’s heavy stuff.”
“where’s joan, eh?”
“out still.”
“that girl’s a bit mad; you— it’s all right, becky, keep your temper straight; i’ll pay.”
there was an indefinite muttering in the room that joan could not unravel. she heard a sleepy chuckle, a series of yawns. rebecca’s voice reduced to an insinuating cadence.
“it’s time i cooked supper. go to sleep, uncle, dear; there’s your handkerchief to keep the flies off. ta-ta! i’ll vanish.”
from zeus gildersedge there came no response. silence followed, broken by the drip of the rain and the sound of heavy breathing. a quarter of an hour passed with preternatural slowness. joan had been listening for the noise of rebecca’s footsteps in the hall, but had heard nothing. the heavy oak door stood ajar. she pushed it open silently, slipped in, and peered into the darkening room.
zeus gildersedge sat in his big chair, his head fallen back upon the cushion as in deep sleep. bending over him stood the woman rebecca, with her back turned towards the door. the woman had unbuttoned zeus gildersedge’s flannel shirt at the neck, and her hand was groping in his bosom. even as joan watched her rebecca drew up a small key fastened about the man’s neck by a long noose of twine. she cut the string with a knife, turned suddenly, saw joan standing in the doorway.
the servant’s brown eyes darkened and the sullen look on her sensual face grew the more expressive. her fingers closed and hid the key. she made one step, stood motionless, her figure thrown into a hesitating stoop. before her stood joan, tall, silent, and implacable, a pale and purposeful athene. there was a grim look in the girl’s gray eyes.
“give me that key.”
rebecca’s fingers closed the tighter. her broad figure seemed to stiffen with an obstinate insolence; her large, florid face was repulsively confident.
“give me that key.”
“sha’n’t.”
“you will.”
“master promised it me.”
“don’t lie.”
“a liar, am i?”
it was done with a quietness that was peculiarly impressive. joan gildersedge had advanced with her eyes fixed on the woman’s face. a powerful purpose seemed concentrated in her every movement. she was half a head taller than rebecca; her strong, white hand fastened on the woman’s wrist. she drew rebecca’s hand towards her so steadily that an observer would hardly have guessed that the woman’s muscles were rigidly resistant.
“open your hand.”
there was a moment’s obstinacy. the white hand tightened; the firm mouth grew a shade paler; the gray eyes outstared the brown. it was a battle of willpower, and the conclusion was inevitable. rebecca’s fingers unclosed upon the key.
“take it, then.”
the two women still eyed each other—the one stern and keen as a white frost, the other florid and furtive, subduedly vindictive.
“you’ll tell him?”
joan nodded.
“nice old gentleman, your father, when—”
the revulsion was instantaneous. sudden color surged into the girl’s face; her eyes flamed. like a figure of divine vengeance she stood as at the gate of eden, hounding shame into the dark unknown.
“woman—”
“ah!”
“you have fouled a home. you are unclean. you go to-night.”
a sudden grim sympathy leaped lightning-like from face to face. rebecca cringed, gave back a step. the gray eyes scathed her with a scorn that stripped her soul naked in the sun. she gave a hoarse cry, cowered back, a woman scourged by a woman’s scorn.
“miss joan—”
“don’t speak to me.”
rebecca’s hands clutched her bosom. she still retreated, strove to speak, but choked in her throat. sudden elemental shame had stricken her, shame shining from the divine cleanliness that drove her into the dark.
“i’ll go. don’t jeer; don’t look at me like that. give me my money.”
“your hire.”
the words stung like flame. the woman slunk away like a judas, crept into the hall silently, stooping and holding her throat. in the shadows she turned with the snarl of a smitten brute.
“i’ll pay you for this.”
“go.”
the woman disappeared. joan heard footsteps on the stairs and the slamming of an attic door. she bent over her father’s chair. he was breathing heavily, stertorously, as under the influence of a narcotic or a deadening dose of alcohol. she touched his shoulder, shook him, but he never heeded her. she reknotted the twine about his neck, dropped the key into his bosom, and refastened his shirt.
joan stood at her full height for a moment with her hands over her eyes, thinking. she had grown calm again after her passion, but the same solemn resolve abode in her mind. childhood had elapsed in an hour, a brief sunset swallowed up in gloom. henceforth the unknown stretched forward streaked with the imagined amber of the dawn. a woman, she had the woman’s part to play amid the stress of evil days.
zeus gildersedge was a spare man; his weight was inconsiderable. his daughter put her arms about him, lifted him from the chair, and laid him upon the tattered sofa. his head rolled heavy upon her shoulder; his reeking breath beat upon her cheek. she shuddered and recoiled from him with an invincible disrelish as he lay snoring and gulping in his sleep. this sodden, greed-steeped piece of clay was her father.
joan changed her drenched dress in her bedroom, looked into rebecca’s attic and found it empty. she descended to the kitchen. the door stood wide and the place was empty; the fire had dwindled in the grate. a square of paper scrawled over with ill-formed characters lay on the table.
“cook your own hash,” it ran. “i shall send my cousin jim for my box to-morrow. i’ve gone, and pretty glad to go, you bet.”
joan crumpled the document and flicked it into the fire. she closed and locked the kitchen door and made her supper off home-baked cake and milk. it had grown dusk apace. she lit a candle, passed through the hall, locking the door, and entered the dining-room again. her father still snored on the sofa. she set the candle on the table and seated herself in the window-seat with the casement open.
a cleft in the agate foliage showed her the wizard west. the clouds had broken, and great bars of light gleamed in the darkening sky. a purple stairway seemed to ascend to a mysterious shrine shrouded in golden vapor.
rossetti should have painted her as she sat at the casement with the failing light bathing her face. her neck shone like alabaster. an infinite wistfulness mingled with the awakened sense of womanhood that burned in her eyes. virgo victrix! a fair soul set like a white rose in the dusky tresses of the night!
great loneliness possessed her in the empty house. her thoughts were shimmering in the sunshine by the green banks of a river. a willow overarched her head. through the void of solitude thought echoed thought and soul answered soul. she imagined kisses on her lips. she imagined the touch of a man’s hand.
night came and the west faded. the solitary candle burned on, streaking the gloom with its meagre flame. for hours the girl watched on wide-eyed into the night, beside the inanimate carcass of her drunken sire. ere dawn came she had fallen asleep in the window-seat with her head pillowed on her arm. and a smile played upon the lips of the woman who dreamed a dream.