THE SAME SIGNS.
"This he has done for love."
When Angela returned to her dressmakery, it was with these words ringing
in her ears, like some refrain which continually returns and will not be
silenced.
"This he has done--for love."
It was a great deal to do--a great deal to give up; she fully realized,
after her talk with Lord Jocelyn, how much it was that he had given
up--at her request. What had she herself done, she asked, in comparison?
She had given money--anybody could give money. She had lived in
disguise, under false pretences, for a few months; but she never
intended to go on living in the East End, after she had set her
association on a firm basis. To be sure, she had been drawn on into
wider schemes, and could not retire until these, including the Palace of
Delight, were well started. But this young man had given up all,
cheerfully, for her sake. Because she was a dressmaker, and lived at
Stepney, he would be a workman and live there as well. For her sake he
had given up for ever the life of ease and culture which might have been
his, among the gentlefolk to whom he belonged; for her sake he left the
man who stood to him _in loco parentis_; for her sake he gave up all
things that are dear to young men, and became a servant. And without a
murmur. She watched him going to his work in the morning, cheerful, with
the sunshine ever in his face--in fact, sunshine lived there--his head
erect, his eyes fearless, not repenting at all of his choice, perhaps
hopeful that in the long run those impediments spoken of might be
removed; in that hope he lived. Should that hope be disappointed--what
then? Only to have loved, to have sacrificed so much for the sake of
love, Angela said to herself, thinking of something she had read, was
enough. Then she laughed, because this was so silly, and the young man
deserved to have some reward.
Then, as a first result of this newly acquired knowledge, the point of
view seemed changed. Quite naturally, after the first surprise at
finding so much cultivation in a working-man, she regarded him, like all
the rest, from her own elevated platform. In the same way he, from his
own elevation, had been, in a sense, looking down upon herself, though
she did not suspect the fact. One might pause here, in order to discuss
how many kinds of people do consider themselves on a higher level than
their neighbors. My own opinion is that every man thinks himself on so
very high a platform as to entitle him to consider the greater part of
mankind quite below him; the fact that no one else thinks so has nothing
to do with it. Any one, however, can understand how Angela would at
first regard Harry, and Harry the fair dressmaker. Further, that,
whatever acquaintance or intimacy grew up between them, the first
impression would always remain, with the mental attitude of a slight
superiority in both minds, so long as the first impression, the first
belief as to the real facts, was not removed. Now that it was removed on
one side, Angela, for her part, could no longer look down; there was no
superiority left, except in so far as the daughter of a Whitechapel
brewer might consider herself of finer clay than the son of a sergeant
in the army, also of Whitechapel origin.
All for love of her.
The words filled her heart: they made her cheeks burn and her eyes glow.
It seemed so great and noble a thing to do; so grand a sacrifice to
make.
She remembered her words of contempt when, in a shamefaced, hesitating
way, as if it was something wrong, he had confessed that he might go
back to a life of idleness. Why, she might have known--she ought to have
known--that it was not to an ignoble life among ignoble people that he
would go. Yet she was so stupid.
What a sacrifice to make! And all for love of her!
Then the flower of love sprang up and immediately blossomed, and was a
beauteous rose, ready for her lover to gather and place upon his heart.
But as yet she hardly knew it.
Yet she had known all along that Harry loved her. He never tried to
conceal his passion. "Why," she said to herself, trying to understand
the meaning of the sudden change in herself--"why, it only seemed to
amuse me; the thing was absurd; and I felt pity for him, and a little
anger because he was so presumptuous; and I was a little embarrassed for
fear I had compromised myself with him. But it wasn't absurd at all; and
he loves me, though I have no fortune. Oh, heaven! I am a she-Dives, and
he doesn't know it, and he loves me all the same."
She was to tell him when the "impediments" were removed. Why, they were
removed already. But should she tell him? How could she dare to tell
him? No girl likes to do her own wooing; she must be courted; she must
be won. Besides--perhaps--but here she smiled--he was not so very much
in love, after all. Perhaps he would change; perhaps he would grow tired
and go home and desert her; perhaps he would fall in love with some one
else. And perhaps Angela, the strong-minded student of Newnham, who
would have no love or marriage, or anything of the kind, in her life,
was no stronger than any of her sisters at the approach of Love the
Unconquered.
She came back the evening after that dinner. Her cheek had a new color
upon it; there was a new smile upon her lips; there was a new softness
in her eyes.
"You look so beautiful this evening," said Nelly. "Have you been happy
while you were away?"
"I have heard something that has made me happier," said Angela. "But
you, dear Nelly, have not. Why are your cheeks so pale, and what is the
meaning of the dark lines under your eyes?"
"It is nothing," the girl replied quickly. "I am quite well." But she
was not. She was nervous and preoccupied. There was something on her
mind.
Then Harry came, and they began to pass the evening in the usual way,
practising their songs, with music, and the little dance, without which
the girls could not have gone away happy. And Angela, for the first
time, observed a thing which struck a chill to her heart, and robbed her
of half her joy.
Why had she never before discovered this thing? Ah! ignorant maiden,
despite the wisdom of the schools. Hypatia herself was not more ignorant
than Angela, who knew not that the chief quality of the rose of love in
her heart was to make her read the hearts of others. Armed with this
magic power, she saw what she might have seen long before.
In the hasty glance, the quick flush, the nervous trembling of her
hands, poor Nelly betrayed her secret. And by those signs the other
girl, who loved the same man, read that secret.
"O selfish woman!" said Angela's heart. "Is your happiness to be bought
at such a cost?"
A girl of lower nature might have been jealous. Angela was not. It
seemed to her no sin in Nelly that she thought too much of such a man.
But she pitied her. Nor did she, as some women might have done, suspect
that Harry had trifled with her feelings. She knew that he had not. She
had seen them together, day after day; she knew what his bearing had
always been toward her, frank, courteous, and brotherly. He called her
by her Christian name; he liked her, her presence was pleasant; she was
pretty, sweet, and winning. No: she did not suspect him. And yet, what
should she say to the poor girl? How comfort her? How reconcile her to
the inevitable sorrow?
"Nelly," she whispered at parting, "if you are unhappy, my child, you
must tell me what it is."
"I cannot," Nelly replied. "But oh! do not think about me, Miss Kennedy;
I am not worth it."
Perhaps she, too, had read those same signs and knew what they meant.