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Page 12
"'Have I anything to say? Yes, I have a deal to say. I have to
make a clean breast of it all. You can hang me, or you can leave
me alone. I don't care a plug which you do. I tell you I've not
shut an eye in sleep since I did it, and I don't believe I ever
will again until I get past all waking. Sometimes it's his face,
but most generally it's hers. I'm never without one or the other
before me. He looks frowning and black-like, but she has a kind
o' surprise upon her face. Ay, the white lamb, she might well be
surprised when she read death on a face that had seldom looked
anything but love upon her before.
"'But it was Sarah's fault, and may the curse of a broken man put
a blight on her and set the blood rotting in her veins! It's not
that I want to clear myself. I know that I went back to drink,
like the beast that I was. But she would have forgiven me; she
would have stuck as close to me a rope to a block if that woman
had never darkened our door. For Sarah Cushing loved me--that's
the root of the business--she loved me until all her love turned
to poisonous hate when she knew that I thought more of my wife's
footmark in the mud than I did of her whole body and soul.
"'There were three sisters altogether. The old one was just a
good woman, the second was a devil, and the third was an angel.
Sarah was thirty-three, and Mary was twenty-nine when I married.
We were just as happy as the day was long when we set up house
together, and in all Liverpool there was no better woman than my
Mary. And then we asked Sarah up for a week, and the week grew
into a month, and one thing led to another, until she was just
one of ourselves.
"'I was blue ribbon at that time, and we were putting a little
money by, and all was as bright as a new dollar. My God, whoever
would have thought that it could have come to this? Whoever would
have dreamed it?
"'I used to be home for the week-ends very often, and sometimes
if the ship were held back for cargo I would have a whole week at
a time, and in this way I saw a deal of my sister-in-law, Sarah.
She was a fine tall woman, black and quick and fierce, with a
proud way of carrying her head, and a glint from her eye like a
spark from a flint. But when little Mary was there I had never a
thought of her, and that I swear as I hope for God's mercy.
"'It had seemed to me sometimes that she liked to be alone with
me, or to coax me out for a walk with her, but I had never
thought anything of that. But one evening my eyes were opened.
I had come up from the ship and found my wife out, but Sarah at
home. "Where's Mary?" I asked. "Oh, she has gone to pay some
accounts." I was impatient and paced up and down the room.
"Can't you be happy for five minutes without Mary, Jim?" says
she. "It's a bad compliment to me that you can't be contented
with my society for so short a time." "That's all right, my
lass," said I, putting out my hand towards her in a kindly way,
but she had it in both hers in an instant, and they burned as if
they were in a fever. I looked into her eyes and I read it all
there. There was no need for her to speak, nor for me either. I
frowned and drew my hand away. Then she stood by my side in
silence for a bit, and then put up her hand and patted me on the
shoulder. "Steady old Jim!" said she, and with a kind o' mocking
laugh, she ran out of the room.
"'Well, from that time Sarah hated me with her whole heart and
soul, and she is a woman who can hate, too. I was a fool to let
her go on biding with us--a besotted fool--but I never said a
word to Mary, for I knew it would grieve her. Things went on
much as before, but after a time I began to find that there was a
bit of a change in Mary herself. She had always been so trusting
and so innocent, but now she became queer and suspicious, wanting
to know where I had been and what I had been doing, and whom my
letters were from, and what I had in my pockets, and a thousand
such follies. Day by day she grew queerer and more irritable,
and we had ceaseless rows about nothing. I was fairly puzzled by
it all. Sarah avoided me now, but she and Mary were just
inseparable. I can see now how she was plotting and scheming and
poisoning my wife's mind against me, but I was such a blind
beetle that I could not understand it at the time. Then I broke
my blue ribbon and began to drink again, but I think I should not
have done it if Mary had been the same as ever. She had some
reason to be disgusted with me now, and the gap between us began
to be wider and wider. And then this Alec Fairbairn chipped in,
and things became a thousand times blacker.
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