EQUILIBRIUM.
The story is told of a mouse having been hidden under a dish-cover, and
a married pair introduced into the dining-room and invited to partake of
every dish except that which remained covered. When left to themselves,
the woman, contrary to the advice of her husband, raised the cover, and
out ran the mouse. Blue Beard forbade Fatima to open one door in his
castle, and of course she tried the forbidden key. There was one tree in
the midst of Paradise of which our first parents were not allowed to
eat, and of course they nibbled at the fruit to discover how it tasted.
All these stories point to the truth that nothing can be retained from
human inquisitiveness. A secret resembles a mouse more than an apple or
a dead wife of Blue Beard, for the mouse escapes when once uncovered and
can no more be hidden, whereas the apple disappears when eaten, and the
dead woman is locked up again. A secret when once out is all over the
house, and is far too wary to be trapped again.
Who would expect to find a mouse under a dish-cover? So with secrets,
they are let loose from the most unlikely places, and many of us know
that so well that we devote our energies to, and spend our time in
lifting china cups, opening snuff-boxes, removing lids of tea caddies,
unsnapping purses, pulling out drawers, boring holes in casks, in the
hopes of letting out secrets. We suspect our acquaintance and “visit”
their goods, as if we were custom-house officers in search of what is
contraband. We know that they have a forbidden secret somewhere, and we
search and probe everywhere to discover it.
There are mice everywhere; if we hold our breath and remain still for
two minutes we can hear them scratching and squeaking; and there are
secrets everywhere, behind the wainscot, under the floor, in the
cupboard. Once I knew of a nest of mice in a gentleman’s boot, and once
in a lady’s muff; and secrets nest and breed in quite as extraordinary
places—in a pocket, in a bunch of flowers, in envelopes, under pillows.
Æsop tells of a beautiful cat that was transformed into a woman, but
this woman could never forget her feline instinct to run after a mouse.
A great many ladies I know have the same feline instinct to spring out
of bed, up from their sofas, to make a dart after a secret, if they hear
but the slightest footsteps, see but a whisker. I do not blame them. Men
are sportsmen, why should not women be mousers? We find pleasure in
starting a hare, why should not a woman find as much in starting a
couching secret?
I do not blame them for their love of sport, but for what they do with
their game when it is caught. We bag ours, they let theirs run. Samson
did the same. He caught foxes and tied firebrands to their tails and
sent them into the standing corn of the Philistines. Our secret-hunters,
when they have caught their game, tie brimstone matches to their tails
and send them among the stores of their neighbours.
I do not believe in the possibility of concealing secrets, and therefore
never try to keep them. As for pursuing a secret when once out, that is
labour in vain, it changes form, it doubles, it dives, it has as many
artifices as a chased fox. As soon recover a secret as recondense
volatile essential oils that have been spilt. A secret is not safe in
our own heads, for our heads are of amber, and the secret is visible to
every one who looks at us, like a congealed fly therein.
In one of the Arabian Nights’ Tales a princess goes after a necromancer
who has transformed himself into a scorpion, and she takes the shape of
a serpent; the wizard, hard pressed, becomes a cat, and the princess
attacks him in the disguise of a wolf. Then the cat becomes a seed, and
the wolf a cock, thereat the seed falls into a canal and is transmuted
into a trout, which is at once chased by the princess in shape of a
pike. Finally both issue in flames from the water, the wizard is reduced
to ashes, but so also is the princess. If we try to overtake and make an
end of a secret, we shall meet with less success than did this princess.
She at last succeeded in destroying her game, but we, in our efforts to
catch and make an end of an unpleasant secret, get set on flames
ourselves. If we have anything we do not want our neighbours to know,
and it has got out, we had better let it run; we cannot recover it.
Indeed I believe that the best way to conceal what we do not want to
have known is to expose it for sale, to dangle it before the eyes of
every one, like those men outside the Exchange who offer spiders at the
end of threads of elastic for one penny. Nobody buys. No one even looks
at them. But were one of these fellows to hide such a black putty spider
in his hat, up his arm, in his pocket, a crowd would collect and pull
him to pieces to find the spider.
It was not immediately that Arminell realised the serious consequences
of Mrs. Saltren’s visit, but the young man knew at once that all chance
of the secret being respected was at an end.
“I am interrupting,” said the widow, knowingly, “I am sure I hadn’t the
wish. I came to see Mrs. Welsh, and never expected to find my son here,
much less Miss Inglett.”
“Mrs. Welsh is upstairs with the baby,” said Arminell. “You have not
seen your nephew. Shall I fetch him, Mrs. Saltren?”
“Not for the world, Miss Inglett. I will run upstairs and find my
sister-in-law, who, I do say, has been negligent in calling on me. But
if the mountain won’t go to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain.
I’m sure I don’t want to intrude here. You may leave the room,
Thomasine, I don’t want you to follow me up to the nursery. Go down to
the kitchen. Every one ought to know her own place.”
When the girl had disappeared, Mrs. Saltren said confidentially, “We
brought the young person to town, and she don’t understand how to friz
the hair, and me wanting to wear a fringe. However she could have had
the face to offer for my situation as lady’s-maid, passes my
understanding. But, Miss, the conceit of the rising generation is
surprising. I want to ask Mrs. Welsh to take the creature off my hands
in any capacity she likes to name. She might do as parlour-maid, or
nurse-girl, or cook, anything but lady’s-maid. I’ve tried to teach her
to fold gowns, but folding is like music or painting—you must be born
with the gift; it cannot be learnt; and as some have no ear for tune,
and others no eye for colour, so have some no natural gift for folding.
You can’t make, as they say, a fichu out of a bustle. I had once a red
flannel coverlet, and a hole was burnt in it, so I turned it into a
petticoat. When the hot weather came I couldn’t bear it, and as the Band
of Hope wanted a banner, I did a non-alcoholic motto on it in straw
letters, and converted it into a Temperance banner, and very inspiriting
it was. It is the same with girls. Some you can adapt to all sorts of
purposes, others you can’t.”
When Mrs. Saltren had left the room in quest of her sister-in-law and
the baby, Giles said in a tone of discouragement, “I do not know what is
to be done. It is inevitable that the news of your being here should
reach Orleigh, either through my mother or the girl, probably through
both, not perhaps at once, but eventually. Then—what a difficult
position Lady Lamerton will be in!”
Arminell looked down on the carpet, and traced the pattern with her
foot. Presently she looked up and said, “I see—I never did justice to
the merits of humdrum. Even when I was shown my folly and acknowledged
my fault, I must needs still play the heroine, and take a bold step, not
altogether justifiable, because it landed me in falsehood, and involved
others in untruth. But I thought then it was the simplest course for me
to follow to escape having to equivocate and even lie. The straight
course is always the best. Now I admit that. Short cuts do not always
lead where one thinks they will. I wish I had acted with less
precipitation and more modesty, had listened to your advice and acted
without dissimulation. For myself now I do not care, but I do not see
how my mother and other relations can extricate themselves from the
dilemma in which I have placed them.”
“Nor do I.”
“I am neither dead nor alive. The situation is almost grotesque. I wish
it were not distressing. Do not misunderstand me. It is painful to
myself only, as every sharp lesson cuts. But I am more vexed for the
sake of others than for my own. I have been a fool, an utter fool.”
She put her hands over her eyes.
“Upon my word, Mr. Saltren,” she said after an interval, “I have hardly
an atom of self-confidence left. There never was a more perverse girl
than myself, such a profound blunderer. I make a mistake whatever I do.
What is to be done? What can I do?”
Giles Saltren was silent. The predicament was one from which there was
no escape.
“Your mother’s red coverlet was better than me,” said Arminell. “That
did serve some good purpose, to whatever end it was turned, but I always
get from one difficulty into another, and drag my friends out of one
discomfort into another still worse. Only here—here am I of any good at
all; I was born into a wrong sphere, only now have I returned to that
system in which I ought to have been planted when called into existence.
And yet even in this I produce a disturbing effect on the system of
planets I have left.”
“You cannot remain in this house, Miss Inglett, not now for the reason I
gave at first, but because too much is put upon you.”
“Nothing is put on me—I take on me what I feel qualified to execute. Do
you remember the answer made by the young Persian to Cyrus, when the
prince reprimanded him because his actions were not in accordance with
his previously expressed sentiments? ‘Sire,’ he said, ‘I perceive that I
have two souls in me, one wilful and wicked, and the other modest and
righteous. Sometimes one is awake and at other times the second.’ So it
is with me. Now I trust the nobler soul is rubbing its eyes and
stretching itself, and the sandman is scattering dust in the eyes of the
baser soul. My old soul was haughty and lived in an atmosphere of
extravagance, and the new one is humble, and delights in the breath of
common-place. Do you remember, Mr. Saltren, telling me of the effect of
the contrast to you of a return from Orleigh Park to Chillacot? You said
that you were unfitted by the grandeur of the former to endure the
meanness of the latter. At the time when you said this, I thought that
such a translation to me would be unendurable, but the translation has
been effected, and I am not miserable. On the contrary, but for my
self-reproach and looking back on lost faces and scenes, I should be
happier here; for the childlike spirit is waking in me, which is content
with trifles.”
“Happier—here! Miss Inglett, surely not.”
“Yes—happier. I am happier in helping others. I am become useful to Mrs.
Welsh, I relieve her of the baby, I can even cook fairly, I make the
glass and silver shine. The work and worry here were more than your aunt
could bear. Cooks are scarce as saints. The last your aunt had—oh! I
have already mentioned the circumstances. I will not repeat them. I do
not feel that the house is small, indeed I am glad that it is not
larger. We talk a good deal about the misdeeds of servants, and the
difficulty there is in getting cooks; in my former world we talked a
good deal about the unscrupulousness of politicians, and the difficulty
there was in getting morality among statesmen—political morality I mean.
We discuss now the humours of the baby, what his dribbling means—whether
teeth or disorder; and we discussed then the humours of the public, and
what the dribble meant that flowed so freely at public meetings. We
think now how we may cut out and alter garments for the little creature;
and then, what adjustments and changes were needed for the satisfaction
of the public. Conversation on each subject is as interesting and as
profitless. I thought at one time that I could not live away from rocks
and trees—I hardly miss them now. I have no time to consider whether I
want them or not, because I am engaged all day. I really believe that
the servant girl, the slavey, as your uncle calls her, is happier than
your aunt or me, because she has the fewest responsibilities and the
most work.”
Arminell spoke fast, half in jest, half in tears; she spoke quickly, to
conceal the emotion she felt.
“Did you see a picture at the Royal Academy a few years ago representing
the Babylonian Marriage Market? In old Babylon all marriageable women
were sent up to auction, and the sum paid for the pretty ones went as
dower for those who were ugly. Thus was a balance preserved. I suspect
it is much the same in life. There is equilibrium where we least expect
it. The peacock has a gorgeous plumage and a horrible voice, the
nightingale the sweetest song and the plainest feathers. Some of our
most radiant flowers are without perfume, and some that smell
odoriferously have little in the way of beauty to boast of. When I was
in the aristocratic world, I had my luxuries, intellectual, æsthetic,
and physical, but somehow, I lacked that joyousness I am finding here.
In the middle class there is a freedom from the restraints which cramped
us in the class above, and I have no doubt that there is an _abandon_,
an _insouciance_ in the class below which makes up for the deficiency in
the amenities, refinements, and glow of life in higher spheres. There is
a making up of the balance, an adjustment of the equilibrium in the
market-place of modern life as in that of ancient Babylon. Those with
rank and wealth have to walk with muffled faces, only the plain and
lowly may breathe freely and let the sun kiss their cheeks.”
“Miss Inglett, I am sure, notwithstanding your efforts to make me think
the contrary, that you are not happy.”
“I tell you that I am. I say this in all sincerity. I do not deny that I
feel a heartache. That is because my conscience reproaches me, and
because I now love and regret what I once cast from me. If I had not
been born elsewhere I should be fresh and happy now, but every plant
suffers for a while when transplanted. I am throwing out my rootlets and
fastening myself into the new soil, and will soon be firm fixed in it as
if I had grown there from the beginning—my only trouble that I have
dreams of the past. A princess was once carried off by Rübezahl, giant
spirit of the mountains, to his palace of crystal in the heart of the
earth. He gave her all she could wish for, save one thing, the sound of
the cattle bells on the Alpine pastures. His home was too far down for
those sounds to reach. Whenever we are carried away from our home, we
must always carry away with us some recollections of pleasant sounds and
sights, and they linger with us as memories over which to weep. But
there—we have had enough about myself—nay, too much. I want to hear what
you are about, and what are your prospects.”
“I am in search of occupation, and have, so far, met only with
disappointment.”
“You have been anxious. You are not looking well.”
“Naturally, I am anxious. I, like you, have the weight of the past
oppressing me. Unlike you, I have not accommodated myself to my
transplantation, but—in fact, I have not yet found soil in which my
roots may take hold.”
“What soil do you want?”
“Any. There is a demand, I am told, for muscle; the market is glutted
with brain, or what passes for brain. As there is a deficiency in the
supply of cooks, I will mount a white cap and apron and apply for a
kitchen. But, seriously, apart from my affairs, which can wait, yours
must be attended to.”
“But nothing can be done. You propose nothing. I can suggest nothing.”
Then in came Mrs. Welsh and Mrs. Saltren. The former was carrying the
baby.
“It is all settled,” said Tryphœna Welsh. “Rejoice with me, Miss
Inglett. I did want a cook, one not given to climbing ladders, and now I
have got one; now James will swear, for he has been spoiled by your
cookery, Miss Inglett; at last I have got a cook, the girl Thomasine
Kite. Come, kiss the baby and thank Heaven.”