SOPHISTRY.
It is not to be supposed that the events which had moved so deeply the
household at Mount, and all its connections, should have passed lightly
over the one other person who, of all to whom the Mountfords were
familiar, could alone feel himself a principal in the important matters
involved. Douglas had looked on from a distance, keeping himself out of
all the immediate complications, but not the less had he looked on with
a beating heart, more anxious than it is possible to say, and, though
still quiescent, never less than on the verge of personal action, and
never clear that it would not have been wisest for him to plunge into
the midst of it from the first. His position had not been easy, nor his
mind composed, from the beginning. When he had heard of Mr. Mountford’s
death his agitation was great. He had not become indifferent to Anne.
The thought that she was in trouble, and he not near her, was no
pleasant thought. All the first evening, after he had received Charley
Ashley’s telegram, he had spent in a prolonged argument with himself. He
knew from Anne that something had been done, though he did not know
what; that, according to her father’s own words, the property had been
taken from her and given to her sister. She had told him what her father
said, that it was understood between them that this transfer was to be
made, and that she had no longer any interest in the fortune which had
once been so certainly considered hers. Cosmo had not admired the ease
with which she spoke on this question. He had gnashed his teeth at
Anne’s unworldliness, at her calm consent to her father’s arrangements,
and ready making up of the quarrel with him. She was his love, his
dearest, in all truth the one woman in the world who had captivated his
affections, and made him feel that he had no longer any choice, any
preference, that did not point to her; but he had acted like a fool all
the same, he thought. In some minds, perhaps in most minds, this
conviction can exist without in the least affecting the reality of the
love which lies behind. He loved Anne, but his love did not make him
think that everything she did was well done. She had behaved like a
fool. Old Mr. Loseby said the same thing, but he said it with glistening
eyes, and with an appreciation of the folly and its character such as
Cosmo was altogether incapable of.
Nevertheless, Anne’s lover did not feel his love materially lessened by
this conviction. He gnashed his teeth at it, thinking, ‘Had I but been
there!’ though he knew very well that, had he been there, he could have
done nothing to change it. But one thing he could do: when she was his
wife he could put a stop to such follies. There should be none of this
ridiculous magnanimity, this still more ridiculous indifference, then.
In writing to her he had felt that it was difficult to keep all vestige
of his disapproval out of his letters, but he had managed pretty nearly
to do so: feeling wisely that it was useless to preach to her on such a
subject, that only his own constant guidance and example, or, better
still, his personal conduct of her affairs, could bring real good sense
into them. He had been anxious enough while this was going on, not
seeing what was to come, feeling only certain that, love as he might, he
could no more marry his love without a penny than he could make himself
Lord Chief Justice. It was out of the question: in his position marriage
was difficult in the best of circumstances; but to marry a wife without
a fortune of her own, without enough to keep her comfortable, was
simply folly not to be thought of. Anne’s dreams of romantic toil, of
the enthusiasm of hard work into which a man might rush for the sake of
a woman he loved, and of the heroic life the two could lead, helping
each other on to fame and fortune at the end, were to him as silly as a
nursery tale. Men who made their own way like that, overcoming every
obstacle and forcing their way to the heights of ambition, were men who
did it by temperament, not by love, or for any sentimental motive. Cosmo
knew that he was not the sort of man to venture on such a madness. His
wife must have enough to provide for her own comfort, to keep her as she
had been accustomed to be kept, or else he could have no wife at all.
This had given him enough to think of from the very beginning of the
engagement, as has been already shown. His part was harder than Anne’s,
for she had fanciful ups and downs as was natural to her, and if she
sometimes was depressed would be next moment up in the clouds, exulting
in some visionary blessedness, dreaming out some love in a cottage or
still more ludicrous love in chambers, which his sterner reason never
allowed to be possible, not for an hour; therefore his was the hardest
burden of the two. For he was not content to part with her, nor so much
as to think of parting with her; and yet, with all his ingenuity, he
could not see how, if her father did not relent, it could be done. And
the worst thing now was that the father was beyond all power of
relenting--that he was dead, absolutely dead, allowed to depart out of
this world having done his worst. Not one of the family, not one of Mr.
Mountford’s dependents, was more stunned by the news than Cosmo. Dead!
he read over the telegram again and again--he could not believe his
eyes--it seemed impossible that such a piece of wickedness could have
been accomplished; he felt indignant and furious at everybody concerned,
at Mr. Mountford for dying, at God for permitting it. A man who had made
such a mistake, and to whom it was absolutely indispensable that he
should be allowed time to repent of his mistake and amend it--and
instead of this he had died--he had been permitted to die.
The news threw Cosmo into a commotion of mind which it is impossible to
describe. At one period of the evening he had thrown some things into a
bag, ready to start, as Ashley expected him to do; then he took another
thought. If he identified himself with everything that was being done
now, how could he ever withdraw after, how postpone ulterior
proceedings? This, however, is a brutal way of stating even the very
first objection that occurred to Cosmo. Sophistry would be a poor art if
it only gave an over-favourable view of a man’s actions and motives to
the outside world, and left himself unconvinced and undeceived. His was
of a much superior kind. It did a great deal more for him. When its
underground industry was once in full action it bewildered himself. It
was when he was actually closing his bag, actually counting out the
contents of his purse to see if he had enough for the journey, that this
other line of reasoning struck him. If he thus rushed to Mount to take
his place by Anne’s side, and yet was not prepared (and he knew he was
not prepared) to urge, nay, almost force himself upon Anne’s immediate
acceptance as her husband, would he not be doing a wrong to Anne? He
would compromise her; he would be holding her up to the world as the
betrothed of a poor man, a man not so well off as to be able to claim
her, yet holding her bound. He paused, really feeling this to throw a
new light upon the subject. Would it be acting honourably by Anne?
Would it, in her interest, be the right thing to do?
This, however, was not all or half the mental process he had to go
through. He paused for her sake; yet not in this way could the reason of
his hesitation be made clear to her. She would not mind being
‘compromised.’ She would not insist upon the fulfilment of their
engagement. He had to think of some other reason to prove to her that it
was better he should stay away. He made out his case for her, gradually,
at more cost of thought than the plea which had convinced himself; but
at the end it satisfied him as full of very cogent and effective
reasoning. The whole matter opened up before him as he pondered it. He
began to ask himself, to ask her, how he could, as a man of honour,
hurry to Mount as soon as the breath was out of the body of the master
of the house who had rejected and sent him away? How could he thrust
himself into Mr. Mountford’s presence as soon as he was dead and
incapable of resenting it--he, who when living would have refused to
admit him, would have had nothing to say to him? He put back his money
into his purse, and slowly undid his bag and threw out his linen as
these thoughts arose and shaped themselves in his mind. In either point
of view it would be impossible to do it; in either point of view manly
self-denial, honour, and consideration for all parties required that in
this emergency he should not think of what was pleasant either to her or
himself. It was a crisis too important for the mere action of
instinctive feelings. Of course he would like to be with her--of course
she would like to have him by her. But here was something more than what
they would like--a world of things to be considered. To say that Cosmo,
deep down at the bottom of his heart, was not aware that there might be
another larger, simpler mode of considering the question which would
sweep all these intellectual cobwebs away and carry him off in a moment
to Anne’s side, to stand by her in defiance of all prudential motives,
would be untrue. It is the curse of sophistry that this sense of
something better, this consciousness of a fundamental flaw in its
arguments, is seldom quite obliterated; but at the same time it was far
more in accordance with his nature to act according to the more
elaborate, and not according to the simpler system. He satisfied
himself, if not completely, yet sufficiently to reconcile himself to
what he was doing; and he satisfied Anne so far at least as her first
response, her first apprehension was concerned. ‘Dear Cosmo, you are
right, you are right, you are more than right, as you always are,’ she
had said with a kind of enthusiasm, in her first letter. ‘They say that
women have more delicate perceptions, but that only shows how little
people know. I see in a moment the truth and the wisdom and the fine
honour of what you say. I am capable of understanding it at least, but I
feel how far you go beyond me in delicacy of feeling as well as in other
things. No, no! you must not come; respect for my dear father forbids
it, although I cannot but hope and feel certain that my father himself
knows better now.’ This had been her first reply to his explanation; and
he had been satisfied then that what he had done, and the reasons he had
given, were in all senses the best.
It was now, however, the day after Mr. Mountford’s funeral, and
everything had progressed beyond that event. Till it is over, the dead
is still the first person to be considered, and all things refer to him
as to one who is the centre of every thought. But when the earth has
closed over his head then an inevitable change occurs. He is left there
where he lies--be he the most important, the most cherished and
beloved--and other interests push in and take the first place. Cosmo
sat in his chambers on the evening of that day, and read his letters
with a distinct consciousness of this difference, though he himself had
taken no immediate share in the excitements of the dying and the burial.
There was a long, very long letter from Anne, and a shorter one from
Charley Ashley, which he read first with a slight sensation of alarm,
notwithstanding his anxiety to hear about the will; for Cosmo could not
but feel, although he was satisfied himself with the reasons for his
conduct, and though Anne was satisfied, that such a rude simpleton as
the Curate might possibly take a different view. He held Anne’s letter
in his hand while he read the other. Charley was very brief. He was not
much of a correspondent in any case.
‘We got over the funeral well on the whole,’ Charley wrote. ‘The others
only went to the church, but she followed her father to the grave as you
would expect. At one moment I thought she would break down; and then I
confess that I felt, in your place, scarcely her own express command
could have made up to me for being absent at such a time. The reading of
the will was still more trying, if possible--at least I should have
thought so. But she behaved like--herself--I can’t say anything more. I
thought you would like to have a separate account, as, no doubt, she
will make as light of all she has to go through as possible. Only on
this point you ought not altogether to take her own word. She has
acknowledged that she will have a great deal to bear. She wants support,
whatever she may say.’
A slight smile went over Cosmo’s face as he put down this note. It was
not a very comfortable smile. A man does not like even an imaginary tone
of contempt in another man’s voice. And Charley Ashley was his own
retainer, his dog, so to speak. To be judged by him was a novel and not
a pleasant sensation. A year ago Cosmo could have felt certain that
Charley would find everything he did right; he would have believed in
his friend’s inscrutable motives, even if he could not understand them.
But now there was a change. It was not only the hopeless rivalry which
Charley himself felt to be hopeless, and which had never stood for a
moment in Cosmo’s way, but it was the instinct of true affection in the
good fellow’s heart which made a severe critic, a judge incorruptible,
of Charley. Douglas did not think very much of Charley’s opinion or
approval; but to feel it withdrawn from him, to detect a doubt, and even
suspicion in his faithful adherent’s words, gave him a sting. Then he
read the long letter in which Anne had poured forth all her heart; there
were revelations in it also. It had been interrupted by Rose’s
matter-of-fact questions. Darts of vulgar misapprehension, of
commonplace incapacity to understand those fine motives of Cosmo’s which
to herself were so eloquent, had come across the current of her words.
Anne had not been aware of the risings and fallings of sentiment with
which she wrote. She had known that by turns her heart in her bosom
felt, as she had herself described it, ‘like lead.’ She had been aware
that now and then there had seemed no sort of comfort nor lightening of
the sky wherever she looked, even when she looked to him, and
endeavoured to think of that ‘falling back upon’ him to support her,
which had seemed the happiest image of their mutual relations a few days
ago. But she had not been aware of the breaks in her letter, following
these fluctuations of sentiment, of how she had flagged and shown her
discouragement, and sometimes permitted to be audible a breathing, not
of complaint, not of reproach, but of something which was neither, yet
included both--a sort of sigh of loneliness.
‘My heart almost failed me when all was over, she wrote; ‘I think I must
have shown it in my looks, for our cousin, Heathcote Mountford, held out
his arm to me. It was not his arm I wanted, Cosmo, you know. Oh, how
strange and how sad it is that just when we want support most, hard life
has so altered everything that we cannot have it!’ And then, again,
after giving him the fullest details of the will: ‘I told you before
that the thought of being set aside--of being second where I had always
been first--was more hard to me than I could have believed possible; and
you, who are always ready to think the best of me, said that it was
natural, that I could not have been expected to feel otherwise. I must
tell you now, however, in my own defence, that I did not feel at all
like this to-day; I never imagined, though I have thought so often on
the subject, that it would have been possible to set me aside so
completely as has been done. You understand that I have nothing (except
what came to me from old Uncle Ben), nothing--except indeed a sort of
allowance like a schoolmistress for taking care of Rose, which will only
last three years. But, Cosmo, if you will believe me, I never thought of
it; my heart did not sink in the least. I did not seem to care that it
had all gone away from me, or that Rose had been set in my place, or
that my father--(poor papa--how he must have felt it at the last!)
should have been so unjust. They were all made of no account, as if they
were the most trifling things in the world by--something else. I owe
that to you too: and you must understand, dear Cosmo, you _must_
understand that I feel you must have thought of this, and more or less
done it on purpose, for my sake. I cared nothing, nothing, for all the
loss and downfall, because there just gleamed upon me a possibility--no,
not a possibility--a fancy, an imagination, of how different it would be
if I had to face not the loss of fortune, but the loss of love, and
companionship, and support. I cried out to myself, What would it all
matter in comparison with that? Thank God that it is money that has been
taken from me, not _that_. Feeling myself just for that moment, and for
good reason, alone, made me realise to the very bottom of my heart what
it would be to be really alone--to have no one to fall back upon, no
Cosmo, no world of my own where I can enter in and be above all the
world. So you see this little bitter has been sweet, it has been
medicine for all my other weaknesses. Through this I rose altogether
superior to everything that was sordid. I was astonished at myself.
Making believe not to care and not caring are two different things, and
this time I attained real indifference, thanks to you.’
This was the passage that affected him most; there were others in which
there were slighter references of the same kind, showing that Anne had
already tasted the forlorn consciousness of what it was to be alone. It
was not a complaint, as will be seen; it was indeed quite the opposite
of a complaint; but it gave Cosmo a chill of alarm, a sensation which it
would be very difficult to describe. Nor was it a threat on Anne’s
part--yet he was alarmed; he grew pale and chilly in spite of himself.
When he read Anne’s letter he took up Charley’s again, and ran over
that. If he did not want to marry on nothing, and have a family to
provide for before he had enough for himself, still less did he wish
anyone to regard him us the hero of a broken engagement, a domestic
traitor. He was not bad nor treacherous, nor had he any pleasure in the
possibility of breaking a heart. What he wanted was, first, to find in
the woman he loved ‘a lady richly left’ like Portia, bringing with her
all the natural provisions for a beautiful home which she would grace
and give charm to; second, if the first should not prove possible,
patience to wait, and make no fuss, and see what would turn up. But to
be supposed to have behaved badly to a lady, to be set down as drawing
back, or holding off, or any of the mild phrases which imply desertion,
was terrible to him. This Cosmo could not bear. He did not want to lose
or even to risk Anne. And to have her think badly of him, lose the
respect, not to say the love, which she felt for him, was a danger that
made the hair stand upright on his head. He did not wish even to lose
Charley Ashley’s regard, and become a mean and discredited person in the
Curate’s eyes: how much more in Anne’s, whom he loved! A panic took
possession of Cosmo. A dishonourable lover, a betrayer, was as much an
anachronism as a cruel father; it was a thing out of date. Men of his
stamp broke no vows. They might be disinclined to heroic measures
generally, and above all to the uncomfortable heroism of dragging down a
woman into poverty, taking advantage of her inexperience, and marrying
in the face of every suggestion of prudence. But to desert her because
she had lost her fortune, to cry off as soon as it became evident that
she was no longer a good match--this, whatever the vulgar imagination
may think, is what a young man on his promotion, like Cosmo Douglas,
could not venture to do. He was horrified by the very notion. In all
questions of marriage there is of course a possibility that it may all
come to nothing, that ‘circumstances may arise’--that incompatibilities
may be discovered--even that a mutual sense of what is prudent may cause
an absolute breach. Such things are to be heard of every day in society.
But for a man, especially one who is a nobody, to ‘behave badly’ to a
lady--that is what cannot be. If the mere suggestion of such a thing got
out, it would be unendurable. And Cosmo knew that everybody was ready
to report every rumour, to put on record every incident of such a story.
At the same time, the great crisis being over, there need be no longer,
he said to himself, any idea of compromising Anne. Perhaps the ground on
which he framed his new resolution was less solid than that on which he
had framed the last. But, according to his new light, the emergency was
pressing, and there was no time to lose.
That evening accordingly, the linen which had been put back into his
drawers was replaced in the bag, and the contents of his purse
reinvestigated. He sent a telegram to Charley Ashley, which filled that
good fellow with excitement, compunction, and perhaps a touch of
disappointment, and left London by the night train. It brought him to
the rectory uncomfortably early; but still there was no other so
convenient which entailed so little loss of time, and Cosmo felt the
advantage of making it apparent that he had come hurriedly and had
little time to spare. He arrived while it was still dark on the wintry,
foggy, chill morning. Could any man do more to show the fervent reality
of his passion? He had stayed away as long as Anne was filling a kind of
official position, so long as she was the object of general observation.
Now, when she had no longer any sort of artificial claim upon her, or
necessity for exerting herself, here he was at her command.