A PERPLEXITY.
After Malcolm’s departure, Clementina attempted to find what Florimel
thought of the things her strange groom had been saying: she found
only that she neither thought at all about them, nor had a single true
notion concerning the matter of their conversation. Seeking to interest
her in it and failing, she found however that she had greatly deepened
its impression upon herself.
Florimel had not yet quite made up her mind whether or not she should
open her heart to Clementina, but she approached the door of it in
requesting her opinion upon the matter of marriage between persons of
social conditions widely parted--“frightfully sundered,” she said. Now
Clementina was a radical of her day, a reformer, a leveller--one who
complained bitterly that some should be so rich, and some so poor. In
this she was perfectly honest. Her own wealth, from a vague sense of
unrighteousness in the possession of it, was such a burden to her,
that she threw it away where often it made other people stumble if
not fall. She professed to regard all men as equal, and believed that
she did so. She was powerful in her contempt of the distinctions made
between certain of the classes, but had signally failed in some bold
endeavours to act as if they had no existence except in the whims
of society. As yet no man had sought her nearer regard for whom she
would deign to cherish even friendship. As to marriage, she professed,
right honestly, an entire disinclination, even aversion to it, saying
to herself that if ever she should marry it must be, for the sake of
protest and example, one notably beneath her in social condition. He
must be a gentleman, but his claims to that rare distinction should lie
only in himself, not his position--in what he was, not what he had. But
it is one thing to have opinions, and another to be called upon to show
them beliefs; it is one thing to declare all men equal, and another to
tell the girl who looks up to you for advice, that she ought to feel
herself at perfect liberty to marry--say a groom; and when Florimel
proposed the general question, Clementina might well have hesitated.
And indeed she did hesitate--but in vain she tried to persuade herself
that it was solely for the sake of her young and inexperienced friend
that she did so. As little could she honestly say that it was from
doubt of the principles she had so long advocated. Had Florimel been
open with her, and told her what sort of inferior was in her thoughts,
instead of representing the gulf between them as big enough to swallow
the city of Rome; had she told her that he was a gentleman, a man of
genius and gifts, noble and large-hearted, and indeed better-bred than
any other man she knew, the fact of his profession would only have
clenched Lady Clementina’s decision in his favour; and if Florimel had
been honest enough to confess the encouragement she had given him--nay,
the absolute love-passages there had been, Clementina would at once
have insisted that her friend should write an apology for her behaviour
to him, should dare the dastard world, and offer to marry him when
he would. But, Florimel putting the question as she did, how should
Clementina imagine anything other than that it referred to Malcolm?
and a strange confusion of feeling was the consequence. Her thoughts
heaved in her like the half-shaped monsters of a spiritual chaos, and
amongst them was one she could not at all identify. A direct answer
she found impossible. She found also that in presence of Florimel, so
much younger than herself, and looking up to her for advice, she dared
not even let the questions now pressing for entrance appear before her
consciousness. She therefore declined giving an answer of any sort--was
not prepared with one, she said; much was to be considered; no two
cases were just alike.
They were summoned to tea, after which she retired to her room, shut
the door, and began to think--an operation which, seldom easy if worth
anything, was in the present case peculiarly difficult, both because
Clementina was not used to it, and the subject-object of it was
herself. I suspect that self-examination is seldom the most profitable,
certainly it is sometimes the most unpleasant, and always the most
difficult of moral actions--that is, to perform after a genuine
fashion. I know that very little of what passes for it has the remotest
claim to reality; and I will not say it has never to be done; but I am
certain that a good deal of the energy spent by some devout and upright
people on trying to understand themselves and their own motives, would
be expended to better purpose, and with far fuller attainment even in
regard to that object itself, in the endeavour to understand God, and
what he would have us to do.
Lady Clementina’s attempt was as honest as she dared make it. It went
something after this fashion:
“How is it possible I should counsel a young creature like that, with
all her gifts and privileges, to marry a groom--to bring the stable
into her chamber? If I did--if she did, has she the strength to hold
her face to it?--Yes, I know how different he is from any other groom
that ever rode behind a lady! but does she understand him? Is she
capable of such a regard for him as could outlast a week of closer
intimacy? At her age it is impossible she should know what she was
doing in daring such a thing. It would be absolute ruin to her. And how
could I advise her to do what I could not do myself?--But then if she’s
in love with him?”
She rose and paced the room--not hurriedly--she never did anything
hurriedly--but yet with unleisurely steps, until, catching sight
of herself in the glass, she turned away as from an intruding and
unwelcome presence, and threw herself on her couch, burying her face
in the pillow. Presently, however, she rose again, her face glowing,
and again walked up and down the room--almost swiftly now. I can but
indicate the course of her thoughts.
“If what he says be true!--It opens another and higher life. --What
a man he is! and so young!--Has he not convicted me of feebleness
and folly, and made me ashamed of myself?--What better thing could
man or woman do for another than lower her in her own haughty eyes,
and give her a chance of becoming such as she had but dreamed of the
shadow of?--He is a gentleman--every inch! Hear him talk!--Scotch, no
doubt,--and--well--a _little_ long-winded--a bad fault at his age!
But see him ride!--see him swim!--and to save a bird!--But then he is
hard--severe at best! All religious people are so severe! They think
they are safe themselves, and so can afford to be hard on others! He
would serve his wife the same as his mare if he thought she required
it!--And I _have_ known women for whom it might be the best thing. I am
a fool! a soft-hearted idiot! He told me I would give a baby a lighted
candle if it cried for it.--Or didn’t he? I believe he never uttered a
word of the sort; he only thought it.”--As she said this, there came
a strange light in her eyes, and the light seemed to shine from all
around them as well as from the orbs themselves.
Suddenly she stood still as a statue in the middle of the room, and
her face grew white as the marble of one. For a minute she stood
thus--without a definite thought in her brain. The first that came
was something like this: “Then Florimel _does_ love him!--and wants
help to decide whether she shall marry him or not! Poor weak little
wretch!--Then if I were in love with him, I would marry him--would
I?--It is well, perhaps, that I’m not!--But she! he is ten times too
good for her! He would be utterly thrown away on her! But I am _her_
counsel, not his; and what better could come to her than have such
a man for a husband; and instead of that contemptible Liftore, with
his grand earldom ways and proud nose! He has little to be proud of
that must take to his rank for it! Fancy a right man condescending to
be proud of his own rank! Pooh! But this groom is a man! all a man!
grand from the centre out, as the great God made him!--Yes, it must
be a great God that made such a man as that!--that is, if he _is_ the
same he looks--the same all through!--Perhaps there are more Gods than
one, and one of them is the devil, and made Liftore! But am I bound to
give her advice? Surely not! I may refuse. And rightly too! A woman
that marries from advice, instead of from a mighty love, is wrong. I
need _not_ speak. I shall just tell her to consult her own heart-- and
conscience, and follow them.--But, gracious me! Am _I_ then going to
fall in love with the fellow?--this stable-man who pretends to know his
maker! Certainly not. There is _nothing_ of the kind in my thoughts.
Besides, how should _I_ know what falling in love means? I never was in
love in my life, and don’t mean to be. If I were so foolish as imagine
myself in any danger, would I be such a fool as be caught in it? I
should think not indeed! What if I _do_ think of this man in a way I
never thought of anyone before, is there anything odd in that? How
should I help it when he is unlike anyone I ever saw before? One must
think of people as one finds them. Does it follow that I have power
over myself no longer, and must go where any chance feeling may choose
to lead me?”
Here came a pause. Then she started, and once more began walking up and
down the room, now hurriedly indeed.
“I will _not_ have it!” she cried aloud--and checked herself, dashed at
the sound of her own voice. But her soul went on loud enough for the
thought-universe to hear. “There _can’t_ be a God, or he would never
subject his women to what they don’t choose. If a God had made them,
he would have them queens over themselves at least-- and I _will_ be
queen, and then perhaps a God did make me. A slave to things inside
myself!--thoughts and feelings I refuse, and which I _ought_ to have
control over! I don’t want this in me, yet I can’t drive it out! I
_will_ drive it out. It is not me. A slave on my own ground! worst
slavery of all!--It will not go.--That must be because I do not will
it strong enough. And if I don’t _will_ it --my God!--what does that
mean?--That I am a slave already?”
Again she threw herself on her couch, but only to rise and yet again
pace the room.
“Nonsense! it is _not_ love. It is merely that nobody could help
thinking about one who had been so much before her mind for so long
--one too who had made her think. Ah! there, I do believe, lies the
real secret of it all!--There’s the main cause of my trouble --and
nothing worse! I must not be foolhardy though, and remain in danger,
especially as, for anything I can tell, he may be in love with that
foolish child. People, they say, like people that are not at all like
themselves. Then I am sure he might like me!--She _seems_ to be in love
with him! I know she cannot be half a quarter in real love with him:
it’s not in her.”
She did not rejoin Florimel that evening: it was part of the
understanding between the ladies that each should be at absolute
liberty. She slept little during the night, starting awake as often
as she began to slumber, and before the morning came was a good deal
humbled. All sorts of means are kept at work to make the children
obedient and simple and noble. Joy and sorrow are servants in God’s
nursery; pain and delight, ecstasy and despair minister in it; but
amongst them there is none more marvellous in its potency than that
mingling of all pains and pleasures to which we specially give the name
of Love.
When she appeared at breakfast, her countenance bore traces of her
suffering, but a headache, real enough, though little heeded in the
commotion upon whose surface it floated, gave answer to the not very
sympathetic solicitude of Florimel. Happily the day of their return
was near at hand. Some talk there had been of protracting their stay,
but to that Clementina avoided any farther allusion. She must put an
end to an intercourse which she was compelled to admit was, at least,
in danger of becoming dangerous. This much she had with certainty
discovered concerning her own feelings, that her heart grew hot and
cold at the thought of the young man belonging more to the mistress who
could not understand him than to herself who imagined she could; and it
wanted no experience in love to see that it was therefore time to be on
her guard against herself, for to herself she was growing perilous.