_ CHAPTER XXXVII. FEMALE MARTYRDOM
Early in February Captain Marrable went to Dunripple to stay with his uncle, Sir Gregory, and there he still was when the middle of March had come. News of his doings reached the ladies at Loring, but it reached them through hands which were not held to be worthy of a perfect belief,--at any rate, on Mary Lowther's part. Dunripple Park is in Warwickshire, and lies in the middle of a good hunting country. Now, according to Parson John, from whom these tidings came, Walter Marrable was hunting three days a week; and, as Sir Gregory himself did not keep hunters, Walter must have hired his horses,--so said Parson John, deploring that a nephew so poor in purse should have allowed himself to be led into such heavy expense. "He brought home a little ready money with him," said the parson; "and I suppose he thinks he may have his fling as long as that lasts." No doubt Parson John, in saying this, was desirous of proving to Mary that Walter Marrable was not dying of love, and was, upon the whole, leading a jolly life, in spite of the little misfortune that had happened to him. But Mary understood all this quite as well as did Parson John himself; and simply declined to believe the hunting three days a week. She said not a word about it, however, either to him or to her aunt. If Walter could amuse himself, so much the better; but she was quite sure that, at such a period of his life as this, he would not spend his money recklessly. The truth lay between Parson John's stories and poor Mary's belief. Walter Marrable was hunting,--perhaps twice a week, hiring a horse occasionally, but generally mounted by his uncle, Sir Gregory. He hunted; but did so after a lugubrious fashion, as became a man with a broken heart, who was laden with many sorrows, and had just been separated from his lady love for ever and ever. But still, when there came anything good, in the way of a run, and when our Captain could get near to hounds, he enjoyed the fun, and forgot his troubles for a while. Is a man to know no joy because he has an ache at his heart?
In this matter of disappointed and, as it were, disjointed affection, men are very different from women, and for the most part, much more happily circumstanced. Such sorrow a woman feeds;--but a man starves it. Many will say that a woman feeds it, because she cannot but feed it; and that a man starves it, because his heart is of the starving kind. But, in truth, the difference comes not so much from the inner heart, as from the outer life. It is easier to feed a sorrow upon needle-and-thread and novels, than it is upon lawyers' papers, or even the out-a-door occupations of a soldier home upon leave who has no work to do. Walter Marrable told himself again and again that he was very unhappy about his cousin, but he certainly did not suffer in that matter as Mary suffered. He had that other sorrow, arising from his father's cruel usage of him, to divide his thoughts, and probably thought quite as much of the manner in which he had been robbed, as he did of the loss of his love.
But poor Mary was, in truth, very wretched. When a girl asks herself that question,--what shall she do with her life? it is so natural that she should answer it by saying that she will get married, and give her life to somebody else. It is a woman's one career--let women rebel against the edict as they may; and though there may be word-rebellion here and there, women learn the truth early in their lives. And women know it later in life when they think of their girls; and men know it, too, when they have to deal with their daughters. Girls, too, now acknowledge aloud that they have learned the lesson; and Saturday Reviewers and others blame them for their lack of modesty in doing so,--most unreasonably, most uselessly, and, as far as the influence of such censors may go, most perniciously. Nature prompts the desire, the world acknowledges its ubiquity, circumstances show that it is reasonable, the whole theory of creation requires it; but it is required that the person most concerned should falsely repudiate it, in order that a mock modesty may be maintained, in which no human being can believe! Such is the theory of the censors who deal heavily with our Englishwomen of the present day. Our daughters should be educated to be wives, but, forsooth, they should never wish to be wooed! The very idea is but a remnant of the tawdry sentimentality of an age in which the mawkish insipidity of the women was the reaction from the vice of that preceding it. That our girls are in quest of husbands, and know well in what way their lines in life should be laid, is a fact which none can dispute. Let men be taught to recognise the same truth as regards themselves, and we shall cease to hear of the necessity of a new career for women.
Mary Lowther, though she had never encountered condemnation as a husband-hunter, had learned all this, and was well aware that for her there was but one future mode of life that could be really blessed. She had eyes, and could see; and ears, and could hear. She could make,--indeed, she could not fail to make,--comparisons between her aunt and her dear friend, Mrs. Fenwick. She saw, and could not fail to see, that the life of the one was a starved, thin, poor life,--which, good as it was in its nature, reached but to few persons, and admitted but of few sympathies; whereas the other woman, by means of her position as a wife and a mother, increased her roots and spread out her branches, so that there was shade, and fruit, and beauty, and a place in which the birds might build their nests. Mary Lowther had longed to be a wife,--as do all girls healthy in mind and body; but she had found it to be necessary to her to love the man who was to become her husband. There had come to her a suitor recommended to her by all her friends,--recommended to her also by all outward circumstances,--and she had found that she did not love him! For a while she had been sorely perplexed, hardly knowing what it might be her duty to do, not understanding how it was that the man was indifferent to her, doubting whether, after all, the love of which she had dreamt was not a passion which might come after marriage, rather than before it,--but still fearing to run so great a hazard. She had doubted, feared, and had hitherto declined,--when that other lover had fallen in her way. Mr. Gilmore had wooed her for months without touching her heart. Then Walter Marrable had come and had conquered her almost in an hour. She had never felt herself disposed to play with Mr. Gilmore's hair, to lean against his shoulder, to be touched by his fingers,--never disposed to wait for his coming, or to regret his going. But she had hardly become acquainted with her cousin before his presence was a pleasure to her; and no sooner had he spoken to her of his love, than everything that concerned him was dear to her. The atmosphere that surrounded him was sweeter to her than the air elsewhere. All those little aids which a man gives to a woman were delightful to her when they came to her from his hands. She told herself that she had found the second half that was needed to make herself one whole; that she had become round and entire in joining herself to him; and she thought that she understood well why it had been that Mr. Gilmore had been nothing to her. As Mr. Fenwick was manifestly the husband appointed for his wife, so had Walter Marrable been appointed for her. And so there had come upon her a dreamy conviction that marriages are made in heaven. That question, whether they were to be poor or rich, to have enough or much less than enough for the comforts of life, was, no doubt, one of much importance; but, in the few happy days of her assured engagement, it was not allowed by her to interfere for a moment with the fact that she and Walter were intended, each to be the companion of the other, as long as they two might live.
Then by degrees,--by degrees, though the process had been quick,--had fallen upon her that other conviction, that it was her duty to him to save him from the burdens of that life to which she herself had looked forward so fondly. At first she had said that he should judge of the necessity; swearing to herself that his judgment, let it be what it might, should be right to her. Then she had perceived that this was not sufficient;--that in this way there would be no escape for him;--that she herself must make the decision, and proclaim it. Very tenderly and very cautiously had she gone about her task; feeling her way to the fact that this separation, if it came from her, would be deemed expedient by him. That she would be right in all this, was her great resolve; that she might after all be wrong, her constant fear. She, too, had heard of public censors, of the girl of the period, and of the forward indelicacy with which women of the age were charged. She knew not why, but it seemed to her that the laws of the world around her demanded more of such rectitude from a woman than from a man, and, if it might be possible to her, she would comply with these laws. She had convinced herself, forming her judgment from every tone of his voice, from every glance of his eye, from every word that fell from his lips, that this separation would be expedient for him. And then, assuring herself that the task should be hers, and not his, she had done it. She had done it, and, counting up the cost afterwards, she had found herself to be broken in pieces. That wholeness and roundness, in which she had rejoiced, had gone from her altogether. She would try to persuade herself that she could live as her aunt had lived, and yet be whole and round. She tried, but knew that she failed. The life to which she had looked forward had been the life of a married woman; and now, as that was taken from her, she could be but a thing broken, a fragment of humanity, created for use, but never to be used.
She bore all this well, for a while,--and indeed never ceased to bear it well, to the eyes of those around her. When Parson John told her of Walter's hunting, she laughed, and said that she hoped he would distinguish himself. When her aunt on one occasion congratulated her, telling her that she had done well and nobly, she bore the congratulation with a smile and a kind word. But she thought about it much, and within the chambers of her own bosom there were complaints made that the play which had been played between him and her during the last few months should for her have been such a very tragedy, while for him the matter was no more than a melodrama, touched with a pleasing melancholy. He had not been made a waif upon the waters by the misfortune of a few weeks, by the error of a lawyer, by a mistaken calculation,--not even by the crime of his father. His manhood was, at any rate, perfect to him. Though he might be a poor man, he was still a man with his hands free, and with something before him which he could do. She understood, too, that the rough work of his life would be such that it would rub away, perhaps too quickly, the impression of his late love, and enable him hereafter to love another. But for her,--for her there could be nothing but memory, regrets, and a life which would simply be a waiting for death. But she had done nothing wrong,--and she must console herself with that, if consolation could then be found.
Then there came to her a letter from Mrs. Fenwick which moved her much. It was the second which she had received from her friend since she had made it known that she was no longer engaged to her cousin. In her former letter Mrs. Fenwick had simply expressed her opinion that Mary had done rightly, and had, at the same time, promised that she would write again, more at length, when the passing by of a few weeks should have so far healed the first agony of the wound, as to make it possible for her to speak of the future. Mary, dreading this second letter, had done nothing to elicit it; but at last it came. And as it had some effect on Mary Lowther's future conduct, it shall be given to the reader:--
Bullhampton Vicarage, March 12, 186--.
DEAREST MARY,
I do so wish you were here, if it were only to share our
misery with us. I did not think that so small a thing as
the building of a wretched chapel could have put me out so
much, and made me so uncomfortable as this has done. Frank
says that it is simply the feeling of being beaten,--the
insult not the injury, which is the grievance; but they
both rankle with me. I hear the click of the trowel every
hour, and though I never go near the front gate, yet I
know that it is all muddy and foul with brickbats and
mortar. I don't think that anything so cruel and unjust
was ever done before; and the worst of it is that Frank,
though he hates it just as much as I do, does preach
such sermons to me about the wickedness of caring for
small evils. 'Suppose you had to go to it every Sunday
yourself,' he said the other day, trying to make me
understand what a real depth of misery there is in the
world. 'I shouldn't mind that half so much,' I answered.
Then he bade me try it,--which wasn't fair because he
knows I can't. However, they say it will all tumble down
because it has been built so badly.
I have been waiting to hear from you, but I can understand
why you should not write. You do not wish to speak of your
cousin, or to write without speaking of him. Your aunt has
written to me twice, as doubtless you know, and has told
me that you are well, only more silent than heretofore.
Dearest Mary, do write to me, and tell me what is in
your heart. I will not ask you to come to us,--not
yet,--because of our neighbour; but I do think that if you
were here I could do you good. I know so well, or fancy
that I know so well, the current in which your thoughts
are running! You have had a wound, and think that
therefore you must be a cripple for life. But it is not
so; and such thoughts, if not wicked, are at least wrong.
I would that it had been otherwise. I would that you had
not met your cousin.--
"So would not I," said Mary to herself; but as she said it she knew that she was wrong. Of course it would be for her welfare, and for his too, if his heart was as hers, that she should never have seen him.--
But because you have met him, and have fancied that you
and he would be all in all together, you will be wrong
indeed if you let that fancy ruin your future life. Or
if you encourage yourself to feel that, because you
have loved one man from whom you are necessarily parted,
therefore you should never allow yourself to become
attached to another, you will indeed be teaching yourself
an evil lesson. I think I can understand the arguments
with which you may perhaps endeavour to persuade your
heart that its work of loving has been done, and should
not be renewed; but I am quite sure that they are false
and inhuman. The Indian, indeed, allows herself to be
burned through a false idea of personal devotion; and if
that idea be false in a widow, how much falser is it in
one who has never been a wife.
You know what have ever been our wishes. They are the same
now as heretofore; and his constancy is of that nature,
that nothing will ever change it. I am persuaded that it
would have been unchanged, even if you had married your
cousin, though in that case he would have been studious to
keep out of your way. I do not mean to press his claims at
present. I have told him that he should be patient, and
that if the thing be to him as important as he makes it,
he should be content to wait. He replied that he would
wait. I ask for no word from you at present on this
subject. It will be much better that there should be no
word. But it is right that you should know that there is
one who loves you with a devotion which nothing can alter.
I will only add to this my urgent prayer that you will not
make too much to yourself of your own misfortune, or allow
yourself to think that because this and that have taken
place, therefore everything must be over. It is hard to
say who makes the greatest mistakes, women who treat their
own selves with too great a reverence, or they who do so
with too little.
Frank sends his kindest love. Write to me at once, if only
to condole with me about the chapel.
Most affectionately yours,
JANET FENWICK.
My sister and Mr. Quickenham are coming here for
Easter week, and I have still some hopes of getting my
brother-in-law to put us up to some way of fighting the
Marquis and his myrmidons. I have always heard it said
that there was no case in which Mr. Quickenham couldn't
make a fight.
Mary Lowther understood well the whole purport of this letter,--all that was meant as well as all that was written. She had told herself again and again that there had been that between her and the lover she had lost,--tender embraces, warm kisses, a bird-like pressure of the plumage,--which alone should make her deem it unfit that she should be to another man as she had been to him, even should her heart allow it. It was against this doctrine that her friend had preached, with more or less of explicitness in her sermon. And how was the truth? If she could take a lesson on that subject from any human being in the world, she would take it from her friend Janet Fenwick. But she rebelled against the preaching, and declared to herself that her friend had never been tried, and therefore did not understand the case. Must she not be guided by her own feelings, and did she not feel that she could never lay her head on the shoulder of another lover without blushing at her memories of the past?
And yet how hard was it all! It was not the joys of young love that she regretted in her present mood, not the loss of those soft delights of which she had suddenly found herself to be so capable; but that all the world should be dark and dreary before her! And he could hunt, could dance, could work,--no doubt could love again! How happy would it be for her if her reason would allow her to be a Roman Catholic, and a nun! _