IN the year 1850 I was living as governess in the small watering-place
S., on the south coast of England. Amongst my friends was a young
doctor, B., who had recently come to the town. He had not bought a
practice, but his family was known to one or two of the principal
inhabitants, and he had begun to do well. He deserved his success, for
he was skilful, frank, and gentle, and he did not affect that mystery
which in his elder colleagues was already suspected to be nothing but
ignorance. He was one of the early graduates of the University of
London, and representative of the new school of medical science, relying
not so much upon drugs as upon diet and regimen. I was one of his first
patients. I had a severe illness lasting for nearly three months; he
watched over me carefully and cured me. As I grew better he began to
talk on other matters than my health when he visited me. We found that
we were both interested in the same books: he lent me his and I lent him
mine. It is almost impossible, I should think, for a young man and a
young woman to be friends and nothing more, and I confess that my
sympathy with him in his admiration of the Elizabethan poets, and my
gratitude to him for my recovery passed into affection. I am sure also
that he felt affection for me. He became confidential, and told me all
his history and troubles. There was one peculiarity in his conversation
which was new to me: he never talked down to me, and he was not afraid at
times to discuss subjects that in the society to which I had been
accustomed were prohibited. Not a word that was improper ever escaped
his lips, but he treated me in a measure as if I were a man, and I was
flattered that he should put me on a level with himself. It is true that
sometimes I fancied he was so unreserved with me because he was sure he
was quite safe, for I was poor, and although I was not ugly I was not
handsome. However, on the whole, I was very happy in his society, and
there was more than a chance that I should become his wife.
After six months of our acquaintanceship had passed, M., an old
schoolfellow of mine, took lodgings near me for the summer. She was a
remarkable girl. If she was not beautiful, she was better-looking than I
was, and she possessed a something, I know not what, more powerful than
beauty to fascinate men. Perhaps it was her unconstrained naturalness.
In walking, sitting, standing—whatever she did—her movements and
attitudes were not impeded or unduly masked by artificial restrictions.
I should not have called her profound, but what she said upon the
commonest subjects was interesting, because it was so entirely her own.
If she disliked a neighbour, she almost always disliked her for a reason
which we saw, directly it was pointed out to us, to be just, but it was
generally one which had not been given before. Her talk upon matters
externally trivial was thus much more to me than many discourses upon the
most important topics. On moral questions she expressed herself without
any regard to prejudices. She did not controvert the authenticity of the
ordinary standards, but nevertheless behaved as if she herself were her
only law. The people in R., her little native borough, considered her to
be dangerous, and I myself was once or twice weak enough to wonder that
she held on a straight course with so little help from authority,
forgetting that its support, in so far as it possesses any vital
strength, is derived from the same internal source which supplied
strength to her.
When she came to S. she was unwell, and consulted my friend B. He did
not at first quite like attending her, and she reported to me with great
laughter how she had been told that he had made some inquiries about her
from one of her neighbours at home with whom he happened to be
acquainted, and how he had manœuvred in his visits to get the servants or
the landlady into the room. I met him soon afterwards, and he informed
me that he had a new patient. When he heard that I knew her—I did not
say how much I knew—he became inquisitive, and at last, after much
beating about the bush, knitting his eyebrows and lowering his voice, he
asked me whether I was aware that she was not quite—quite _above
suspicion_! My goodness, how I flamed up! I defended her with
vehemence: I exaggerated her prudence and her modesty; I declared, what
was the simple truth, that she was the last person in the world against
whom such a scandalous insinuation should be directed, and that she was
singularly inaccessible to vulgar temptation. I added that
notwithstanding her seeming lawlessness she was not only remarkably
sensitive to any accusation of bad manners, but that upon certain matters
she could not endure even a joke. The only quarrel I remember to have
had with her was when I lapsed into some commonplace jest about her
intimacy with a music-master who gave her lessons. The way in which she
took that jest I shall never forget. If I had made it to any other
woman, I should have passed on, unconscious of anything inconsistent with
myself, but she in an instant made me aware with hardly half a dozen
words that I had disgraced myself. I was ashamed, not so much because I
had done what was in the abstract wrong, but because it was something
which was not in keeping with my real character. I hope it will not be
thought that I am prosing if I take this opportunity of saying that the
laws peculiar to each of us are those which we are at the least pains to
discover and those which we are most prone to neglect. We think we have
done our duty when we have kept the commandments common to all of us, but
we may perhaps have disgracefully neglected it.
Oh, how that afternoon with B. burnt itself into my memory for ever! I
was sitting on my little sofa with books piled round me. He removed a
few of the books, and I removed the others. He sat down beside me, and,
taking my hand, said he hoped I had forgiven him, and that I would
remember that in such a little place he was obliged to be very careful,
and to be quite sure of his patients, if they were women. He trusted I
should believe that there was no other person _in the world_ (the
emphasis on that word!) to whom he would have ventured to impart such a
secret. I was appeased, especially when, after a few minutes’ silence,
he took my hand and kissed it, the first and last kiss. He said nothing
further, and departed. The next time I saw him he was more than usually
deferential, more than ever desirous to come closer to me, and I thought
the final word must soon be spoken.
M. remained in S. till far into the autumn, but I did not see much of
her. My work had begun again. B. continued to call on me as my health
was not quite re-established. We had agreed to read the same author at
the same time, in order that we might discuss him together whilst our
impressions were still fresh. Somehow his interest in these readings
began to flag; he informed me presently that I had now almost, entirely
recovered, and weeks often passed without meeting him. One afternoon I
was surprised to find M. in my room when I returned from a walk with my
pupils. She had been waiting for me nearly half an hour, and I could not
at first conjecture the reason. Gradually she drew the conversation
towards B. and at last asked me what I thought of him. Instantly I saw
what had happened. What I imagined was once mine had been stolen, stolen
perhaps unconsciously, but nevertheless stolen, my sole treasure. She
was rich, she had a father and mother, she had many friends and would
certainly have been married had she never seen B. I, as I have said, was
almost penniless; I was an orphan, with few friends; he was my first
love, and I knew he would be my last.
I was condemned, I foresaw, henceforth to solitude, and that most
terrible of all calamities, heart-starvation. What B. had said about M.
came into my mind and rose to my lips. I knew, or thought I knew, that
if I revealed it to her she would be so angry that she would cast him
off. Probably I was mistaken, but in my despair the impulse to disclose
it was almost irresistible. I struggled against it, however, and when
she pressed me, I praised him and strove in my praise to be sincere.
Whether it was something in my tone, quite unintentional, I know not, but
she stopped me almost in the middle of a sentence and said she believed I
had kept something back which I did not wish her to hear; that she was
certain he had talked to me about her, and that she wished to know what
he had said. I protested he had never uttered a word which could be
interpreted as disparaging her, and she seemed to be content. She kissed
me a little more vehemently than usual, and went away. We ought always,
I suppose, to be glad when other people are happy, but God knows that
sometimes it is very difficult to be so, and that their happiness is hard
to bear.
The Elizabethan studies had now altogether come to an end. In about a
couple of months I heard that M. and B. were engaged. M. went home, and
B. moved into a larger town. In a twelvemonth the marriage took place,
and M. wrote to me after her wedding trip. I replied, but she never
wrote again. I heard that she had said that I had laid myself out to
catch B. and that she was afraid that in so doing I had hinted there was
something against her. I heard also that B. had discouraged his wife’s
correspondence with me, no other reason being given than that he would
rather the acquaintanceship should be dropped. The interpretation of
this reason by those to whom it was given can be guessed. Did he fear
lest I should boast of what I had been to him or should repeat his
calumny? Ah, he little knew me if he dreamed that such treachery was
possible to me!
I remained at the vicarage for three years. The children grew up and I
was obliged to leave, but I continued to teach in different families till
I was about five-and-forty. After five-and-forty I could not obtain
another situation, and I had to support myself by letting apartments at
Brighton. My strength is now failing; I cannot look after my servant
properly, nor wait upon my lodgers myself. Those who have to get their
living by a lodging-house know what this means and what the end will be.
I have occasionally again wished I could have seen my way partially to
explain myself to M., and have thought it hard to die misrepresented, but
I am glad I have not spoken. I should have disturbed her peace, and I
care nothing about justification or misrepresentation now. With eternity
so near, what does it matter?