Mark Rutherford’s Deliverance

on him that she was his mere echo. She had no opinions which were not his, and whenever he said anything which went beyond the ordinary affairs of the house, she listened with curious effort, and generally responded by a weakened repetition of M’Kay’s own observations. He perpetually, therefore, had before him an enfeebled reflection of himself, and this much irritated him, notwithstanding his love for her; for who could help loving a woman who, without the least hesitation, would have opened her veins at his command, and have given up every drop of blood in her body for him? Over and over again I have heard him offer some criticism on a person or event, and the customary chime of approval would ensue, provoking him to such a degree that he would instantly contradict himself with much bitterness, leaving poor Mrs. M’Kay in much perplexity. Such a shot as this generally reduced her to timid silence. As a rule, he always discouraged any topic at his house which was likely to serve as an occasion for showing his wife’s dependence on him. He designedly talked about her household affairs, asked her whether she had mended his clothes and ordered the coals. She knew that these things were not what was upon his mind, and she answered him in despairing tones, which showed how much she felt the obtrusive condescension to her level. I greatly pitied her, and sometimes, in fact, my emotion at the sight of her struggles with her limitations almost overcame me and I was obliged to get up and go. She was childishly affectionate. If M’Kay came in and happened to go up to her and kiss her, her face brightened into the sweetest and happiest smile. I recollect once after he had been unusually annoyed with her he repented just as he was leaving home, and put his lips to her head, holding it in both his hands. I saw her gently take the hand from her forehead and press it to her mouth, the tears falling down her cheek meanwhile. Nothing would ever tempt her to admit anything against her husband. M’Kay was violent and unjust at times. His occupation he hated, and his restless repugnance to it frequently discharged itself indifferently upon everything which came in his way. His children often thought him almost barbarous, but in truth he did not actually see them when he was in one of these moods. What was really present with him, excluding everything else, was the sting of something more than usually repulsive of which they knew nothing. Mrs. M’Kay’s answer to her children’s remonstrances when they were alone with her always was, “He is so worried,” and she invariably dwelt upon their faults which had given him the opportunity for his wrath.

I think M’Kay’s treatment of her wholly wrong. I think that he ought not to have imposed himself upon her so imperiously. I think he ought to have striven to ascertain what lay concealed in that modest heart, to have encouraged its expression and development, to have debased himself before her that she might receive courage to rise, and he would have found that she had something which he had not; not his something perhaps, but something which would have made his life happier. As it was, he stood upon his own ground above her. If she could reach him, well and good, if not, the helping hand was not proffered, and she fell back, hopeless. Later on he discovered his mistake. She became ill very gradually, and M’Kay began to see in the distance a prospect of losing her. A frightful pit came in view. He became aware that he could not do without her. He imagined what his home would have been with other women whom he knew, and he confessed that with them he would have been less contented. He acknowledged that he had been guilty of a kind of criminal epicurism; that he rejected in foolish, fatal, nay, even wicked indifference, the bread of life upon which he might have lived and thriven. His whole effort now was to suppress himself in his wife. He read to her, a thing he never did before, and when she misunderstood, he patiently explained; he took her into his counsels and asked her opinion; he abandoned his own opinion for hers, and in the presence of her children he always deferred to her, and delighted to acknowledge that she knew more than he did, that she was right and he was wrong. She was now confined to her house, and the end was near, but this was the most blessed time of her married life. She grew under the soft rain of his loving care, and opened out, not, indeed, into an oriental flower, rich in profound mystery of scent and colour, but into a blossom of the chalk-down. Altogether concealed and closed she would have remained if it had not been for this beneficent and heavenly gift poured upon her. He had just time enough to see what she really was, and then she died. There are some natures that cannot unfold under pressure or in the presence of unregarding power. Hers was one. They require a clear space round them, the removal of everything which may overmaster them, and constant delicate attention. They require too a recognition of the fact, which M’Kay for a long time did not recognise, that it is folly to force them and to demand of them that they shall be what they cannot be. I stood by the grave this morning of my poor, pale, clinging little friend now for some years at peace, and I thought that the tragedy of Promethean torture or Christ-like crucifixion may indeed be tremendous, but there is a tragedy too in the existence of a soul like hers, conscious of its feebleness and ever striving to overpass it, ever aware that it is an obstacle to the return of the