Mr. Grant, although he had doubtless been the victim of some bitter
experiences, had possessed enough native generosity and simplicity not
to have become embittered by them. His youth had known what it is to
love, and now his old age was able to take an interest in the loves of
others. He had accordingly observed with a great deal of interest the
contact of the two young characters with whom chance had associated him;
and pleased himself with the notion that they might become man and wife.
Being a sagacious old gentleman, however, as well as a benevolent one,
he had abstained from making any direct communication of his hopes to
the parties most concerned, or even to Mrs. Lockhart. He was well aware
that human beings, especially while they are under thirty, object to
being guided, even though their guide lead them whither they themselves
would go. He rather sought to fathom their peculiarities of character,
in order that he might, without their suspecting it, incline them to his
purpose. At the first view, the enterprise did not appear a very hopeful
one. Beyond that Marion and Philip had ample opportunities of becoming
acquainted with each other, and were of an age to marry, circumstances
seemed rather against the match. They were both poor; Marion could not
well be more so, and Philip, save for such income as his poetry might
bring him, had no more than enough for his own support. They could
scarcely be said to belong to the same class in life, and their outward
associations and sympathies were far from being identical. What was more
serious than all this, however, they were, as a general thing, more
inclined to quarrel than to agree. There was a satirical vein in both of
them, and neither of them were old enough to forbear giving utterance to
a keen remark that happened to come into their minds. In matters
affecting the conduct of life, Philip assumed a cynical tone, which
Marion never failed to impeach as unworthy and contemptible. There was
much subtlety and intricacy in both their characters, but Philip was an
inveterate self-analyst, and prone to make the most of his
contradictions, while Marion took but a faint interest in herself, and
was never inclined to make herself the subject of discussion; she
scouted all cut-and-dried rules of behavior, and was far more genuinely
reserved, and therefore more abstruse a problem, than Philip. She was
almost savagely independent; and Philip, partly because he really put
his own independence in jeopardy, attempted to wear a condescending
manner toward her, which she altogether resented and laughed to scorn.
On the other hand, she was continually making unexpected attacks upon
his self-esteem, and exposing his Machiavelism, in a manner that he
found it difficult to sustain with equanimity; and the apprehension of
these onslaughts diminished his ability to show himself in his truer and
more amiable colors. Thus, in one way or another, there was always a
surface contention going on between them. Whether the hostility went
deeper than the surface it was not easy to decide. No doubt each
appreciated the good qualities that the other possessed, as abstract
good qualities; but that would not prevent their objecting to the
fashion in which the good qualities were called into play. It is not so
much what a person is, as how he is it, that determines the opinion his
fellows have of him. Marion, for example, felt herself under deep and
permanent obligation to Philip for his conduct in relation to Major
Lockhart; and she must have perceived that such an act was worth much
more as an indication of character than intrinsically. But had she been
questioned on this point, she would probably have said that Mr.
Lancaster would be more agreeable if all his acts were as little
agreeable as himself. It is beneath the intelligence of any
woman--certainly of any young woman--to like a man merely because, upon
logical, demonstrative, or syllogistic grounds he deserves it. She is
more likely to make his desert a point against him.
Such were some of the obstacles in the way of Mr. Grant’s scheme; and
the fact that Philip was handsome and high-bred would have but small
weight in determining the choice of a girl like Marion. Philip, on the
contrary, was of a fastidious and Aristarchian turn that would incline
him to look for visible and palpable charms and graces, as well as
mental and moral ones, in the woman of his heart. Now, Marion, as has
already been intimated, was by no means pre-eminently beautiful; and it
was not among her notions of duty to make the most of such attractions
as she had. She was tall, and rather largely made, with a figure finely
developed, but not graceful in its movements. Her face had nobility and
intelligence, but not comeliness; she was an example of how a woman may
have all the elements of good looks except the finishing touches, and
yet not appear good looking. Some imperfection of health, not uncommon
to girls of her age and temperament, had impaired the smoothness of her
complexion; and she had overtaxed her gray eyes by reading at night in
bed. She often fell into taciturn moods, when she would hardly speak for
days together; at other times she would talk rapidly and at some length,
and when, as rarely happened, she was sensible of affection and
sympathy, she could be deliciously and fancifully voluble, revealing a
rich and tender spirit, original, observant, and keen. But, on the
whole, she was more prone to act than to speak; attached
[Illustration: “I TIED THE CARD TO THE GATE ITSELF. NOBODY CAN FAIL TO
SEE IT.”]
importance rather to what others did than to what they said; and could
express more, and more subtle things, by deeds than by words. She had a
fiery and almost wild temper, but it was never ungenerous or underhand;
and she was sensitively and unreasonably proud. There was an almost
insane streak in her, showing itself in strange freaks and escapades;
she would laugh when she might have wept, and wept but seldom, and then
in secret, and obstructedly or revengefully. She enjoyed the unusual
aspects of nature and things, and was amused where other women would
tremble. There was a vein of mischief in her; but this belonged to the
brighter side of her character, and was arch and playful. What she
needed, in order to the full health of her body and mind, was more deep
and broad mental and moral occupation; what declared itself as ill
health being but the effect of unemployed energy reacting upon itself.
Her worst faults were perhaps an alert and intractable jealousy, and a
readiness perversely to suspect others of insincerity and meanness
toward herself. But the latter of these errors was caused by her low
opinion of her personal deserts; and the former by her not ignoble zeal
for the integrity of honorable and pure emotions, which, though harbored
by her, belonged not to her individually, but were to the credit of our
general human nature.
That Mr. Grant did not lose heart in face of the difficulties against
which he had pitted himself, showed either that he possessed great
temerity, or that he could see further than most people into millstones.
It was not so much his aim, at first, to force the young people into
each other’s society as to talk to each about the other, and about love
and marriage; not obtruding his own views, but eliciting and criticising
theirs. He was a pleasant man to talk with, for he made his interlocutor
talkative; and the topics upon which he chiefly dwelt were such as
seldom fail to interest any man or woman whose heart has not been
misused--I will not say by others, or by the world, but--by the owner of
it. To hear him, you would have thought that Mr. Grant, so far from
desiring to impart information or understanding, was in search thereof,
and needed support at every step. For one who had so much an air of
cultivation and refinement, he was an amazingly unenlightened old
gentleman.
“I remember, when I was a young fellow,” he said one day to Marion, “I
held an opinion which was very unfashionable. Indeed, for the matter of
that, a good many of my opinions were unfashionable. Since then I have
come to reconsider not a few of them. One’s point of view changes as one
moves on. Perhaps the notion to which I refer was erroneous, as well as
the others.”
“You have not told me what it was,” said Marion.
“I mean, whether or not it is prudent and sensible to marry for love?”
“I don’t think love is a thing about which one ought to be prudent.
Because prudence is to be careful not to put yourself to some
inconvenience: and love outweighs all the inconveniences in the world
... I should think.”
“Aye; but suppose that, after a while, all the love should be gone, and
only the inconvenience left? Then I should wish I had been prudent,
shouldn’t I?”
“But a real love never can be gone. It is all there is of you. It must
last as long as you do. And when you are gone, prudence is no matter.”
“I would agree with you, my dear, were it possible for us to know love
when we see him. I fear there is a great deal of evidence that we do not
do that. And though it takes only one person to make that mistake, not
all the world can set it right again.”
“That is like Humpty Dumpty,” said Marion, with a laugh. “But I don’t
think there can be any mistake about the love we feel. ’Tis like being
in the sunshine; we don’t mistake sunshine for moonlight, or starlight,
or for all the lamps and candles that ever burned.”
“Ah! then you admit that we may be mistaken in the object for which our
love is felt. And that comes to the same thing after all.”
“But I don’t say that; I’m not sure of that,” said Marion thoughtfully,
and looking somewhat troubled. “Besides, even if you loved ... some one
who did not love you, or was not worthy of your love--still, you know,
you would have loved. You could afford to be unhappy after that! If I
were a common pebble, and some enchanter transformed me into a diamond,
he might crush me afterward: I should have been all I could be.”
Mr. Grant sighed. “You young folk know how to be eloquent,” said he.
“And you may be right, my dear--you may be right. I should like to think
so. I suppose every one is not born with the power of loving; but, for
those who are, what you say may be true. And possibly Providence may so
order things--I am an old-fashioned fellow, you see, and believe in
Providence--that those who can truly love are never ignobly
disappointed. They will have griefs, no doubt--for it would be an empty
world that was without those--but not ignoble ones. There may be
something purifying and divine in a real love, that makes it like an
angel, before whose face all that is base and paltry flees away.” After
saying this, Mr. Grant was silent for a little while; and Marion,
glancing at his face, fancied that he was thinking of some vanished love
of his own, and she would have liked to have asked him about it, but
could not find words to do it in. Presently he looked round at her, and
said, with a smile:
“You, at any rate, have a right to your belief, my dear. It comes to you
by inheritance. Your mother, I am sure, made a love-match.”
“Oh, yes! But mamma was born for such things--to love and be loved I
mean. I sometimes think though, she would not have loved my father so
much, if she had not first met Mr. Tom Grantley. She imagined she was in
love with him, you know; just for a little while; and he must have been
a grand man; he made her heart wake up--he made her know what love was,
without making her really love him. So, when she met father, she knew
how to give herself to him. Wouldn’t it have been strange if she had
married Mr. Grantley? But she would not have been happy. How strange if
she had married him! I could not bear to have any other father but my
own father; I shall never care for any one as I did for him.”
“Indeed, it would have been strange if she had married Mr. Grantley,”
returned the old gentleman musingly. “But as you say, ’tis doubtless
better as it is. In my life, many things have happened that I would
gladly have averted, or altered: but looking back on them now I can see
how they may have been for the best. For instance, I am very fond of
you, my dear Marion--you won’t mind me saying this, will you?--and I
might wish that I had some substantial right to be fond of you, and to
expect you to be fond of me: that you might have been my niece or
daughter, or my young sister--my step-sister, let us say. But, after
all, I would have nothing altered; and I dare say you will give me, out
of free generosity, as much affection as if you were my kinswoman.”
“Oh, at least as much,” said Marion, smiling. “And I might like you even
more than I do if there were some good reason why I should not like you
so much.”
“I doubt if I have audacity enough to take you at your word ... and yet,
I don’t know! I might devise some plot against you which you would only
discover after my death; as people leave hampering legacies to their
survivors, who are then obliged to grin and bear it. Will you like me
better on the mere chance of such a calamity.”
“It is very hard to forgive benefits; and I’m afraid that this is the
only sort of calamity you will bring down upon me.”
“But don’t you think there is a point at which independence becomes
selfishness?”
“I think it is better to run that risk than the other. It would be for
me, I am sure. I don’t believe in myself enough to venture on making a
milliner’s block of myself--all my value to be in the fine things that
are hung on me. Mamma is always hoping I may get married--she can’t
understand that all women are not created marriageable, as she was--and
wants me to ‘make the most of my advantages,’ as she calls it. As if I
wouldn’t take more pains to appear disagreeable to a man who wanted to
marry me than to any one else!”
“You remind me of something Philip Lancaster said the other day. We were
speaking of the extraordinary marriages one hears of--the most unlikely
people falling in love with each other--and he made the remark that the
people best worth knowing were those who refused to be known--or
something of that kind; and that probably, in the case of a man marrying
a woman--or vice versa--of whom it is asked, ‘What on earth could he see
in her?’ the truth is he sees in her what is reserved only for the eyes
of love to discern--something too rare and precious to reveal itself at
any less magic touch than love’s. It struck me as a good saying; because
it rebukes surface judgments of human nature; and develops the symbol of
the diamond, which is the most beautiful of all gems, and therefore the
least accessible.”
“I should have expected Mr. Lancaster to say that the diamond is the
least accessible and therefore the most beautiful--in the finder’s
opinion; that is the way he would have put it had he been talking to
me.”
“As to that,” replied Mr. Grant, with a smile, “Lancaster, in his
dealings with you, reminds me of a young officer I once saw carrying
despatches in a battle across the line of fire. In his anxiety to show
that the imminent peril he was in did not in the least frighten him, he
put on such an affected swagger--he was naturally a very modest and
unpretentious young fellow--that his most intimate friend would hardly
have recognized him. Now, I apprehend that my friend Lancaster’s native
simplicity is disguised by a like effort to appear indifferent to your
sharp-shooting. ’Tis hardly fair, Marion. It is one thing to hide the
graces of one’s own mind and heart; but to force another to disfigure
his is less justifiable, methinks!”
“Mr. Lancaster would be amused at the idea of my being unjust to him,”
said Marion, reddening and laughing. “He’d be expecting me to criticise
the sun at noonday next!”
“There is a difference betwixt appreciating one’s self, and being
self-conceited,” replied Mr. Grant. “Lancaster is at the age when a man
sees himself rather as a reflection of humanity in general, than as an
individual. He has much insight; he detects a great number of traits and
qualities in people with whom he comes in contact; and whatever he has
the sympathy to detect in others, he fancies he possesses himself. ’Tis
a natural misconception; he lacks the experience that will hereafter
enable him to distinguish one’s recognition of a quality from one’s
ownership of it. The older we grow, the more we find the limits of
character contract; we actually become but a small fraction of what we
see and understand. And then, it may be, a young man receives a sharper
impression from the evil that is in the world than from the good; and
that may be the reason why our friend Philip sometimes refers so darkly
and ominously to his moral condition. ’Tis not his own wickedness that
oppresses him, but that which he has divined in the capacities of human
nature. An old fellow like me prefers to look at the brighter side of
mankind; and therefore, perhaps, ceases to take so much interest in
himself.”
“It may be all true--I suppose it is,” said Marion, with a great air of
indifference. “But Mr. Lancaster probably won’t need my appreciation so
long as he is not tired of his own.”
“Ah, my child,” the old gentleman said, with more gravity than he had
yet spoken, “we are all foolish and feeble creatures, and ’tis pathetic
how we strive--clumsily and mistakenly often, God knows!--to appear wise
and strong in one another’s sight. If you would take my word for it, I
would tell you our saddest regret at the close of life is that we have
been less forbearing and helpful to our fellows than we might have been.
And I would have you believe, too, that to do some good is much easier
than it seems. It is as easy as to be ironical and self-sufficient. Here
is a young man’s soul passing your way on its long journey, not knowing
how to ask your womanly sympathy and influence, but much in need of them
nevertheless. Perhaps you might say a word or do a deed to him that
would make an eternal difference in the path he takes and the goal he
reaches. To underrate your power is to wrong both yourself and him. For
we know--do we not, my dear?--that the source whence good comes is not
in ourselves.”
Marion’s face had grown intensely expressive while Mr. Grant was
speaking; her cheeks and forehead flushed, her eyes showed disquietude,
and she moved her hands restlessly. Presently she exclaimed, “It is not
as you suppose, sir. I don’t feel unkindly to Mr. Lancaster--he was kind
to us before he knew us. But it is not my place.... I am a girl ... he
would not thank me. There is some one else--he knows Perdita Desmoines;
I cannot interfere.” She stood up and moved, as if she intended to leave
the room.
Mr. Grant rose and took her hand. “I know of his acquaintance with that
lady,” he said; “but I think Philip is neither so young nor so old as
you would imply. And the truth is, Marion, you have won my heart, and so
has he; and my conscience never feels quite at ease until I have made my
friends friends of each other. What else does Providence give them to me
for?”
“For their own good, I should imagine,” replied Marion, with a smile.
“Aye--the good I may be the means of their doing each other.”
She shook her head and laughed.
“Though to be sure,” she added, “ ’twould be scarce worth while to count
the good they are like to do you!”
“I am too far on in years to begin to count the good you have done me,
my dear,” said the old gentleman. And then, as they were at the door, he
opened it for her, and she passed out. After closing it again, Mr. Grant
took out his snuff-box and helped himself to a pinch with an air of much
quiet contentment.