TWO--TO BE ONE?
James Beresford was full of perturbation and troubled thoughts as well
as his child. The romance of middle age is more difficult to manage than
that of youth. It is less simple, less sure of its own aim; indeed, it
has so often no aim at all, but cherishes itself for itself
disinterestedly, as youthful sentiment never does. The death of Mr.
Meredith had exercised a great, but at first undefined, influence on Mr.
Beresford’s affairs. He was as good as told by everybody that there was
now no reason for putting restrictions upon his friendship and
intercourse with Mrs. Meredith, a thing which had been demanded of him
as his duty a little while before; and he had accepted this assurance as
an immediate relief, and had gladly fallen back into the old habits in
which had lain so much of the comfort of his life. And he could not have
left his friend, who had been so much to him in his trouble at this
moment of distress for her. But there was something in the air which
made him conscious of a change. He could not tell what it was; no one
said anything to him; his own feelings were unaltered; and yet it was
not the same. He evaded making any inquiry with himself into what had
happened for some time; but the question was not to be evaded for ever;
and gradually he gleaned from all sides--from looks and significant
words, and a hundred little unexpressed hints, that there was but one
thing expected by everybody--and that was, with all the speed consistent
with decency, a marriage between himself and his neighbour. Everybody
took it for granted that the death of her husband was ‘a special
providence’ to make two good people happy; and that poor Mr. Meredith
(though probably he had no such benevolent intention) could not have
done a kinder thing than to take himself out of the way at this
particular moment. There was not one of their mutual friends who did not
think so; no one blamed the pair whose friendship was supposed to have
fallen into ‘a warmer feeling’ in the most innocent way, without any
intention of theirs; and who were ready to make the necessary sacrifice
to propriety as soon as they found it out. What so natural as that this
should have happened? An attractive and charming woman left in the
position of a widow, year after year, by her uncongenial husband--and
an intellectual, accomplished man, left alone in the prime of life, to
whom in kindness she had opened her doors. Some people had shaken their
heads, but everybody allowed that there was but one end to such an
intimacy. And it was very seldom that anything so convenient happened in
the world as the death of the husband so absolutely in the nick of time.
Of course what would happen now was clear to the meanest apprehension.
Probably being, as they were, excellent people both, and full of good
feeling, they would wait the full year and show ‘every respect’ to the
dead man who had been so considerate of them; but that, at that or an
earlier period, Mrs. Meredith would become Mrs. Beresford, was a thing
that everyone felt convinced of, as sure as if it had already taken
place.
It would be difficult to tell how this general conviction forced itself
upon James Beresford’s mind. The efforts which had to be made to send
him away awoke him to a startled sense that his intimacy with his
neighbour was regarded by his friends under a strange and uncomfortable
light; and he had yielded to their efforts with no small agitation on
his own part, and a sense of pain and desolation which made him ask
himself whether they were right. Probably had he gone away, and Mrs.
Meredith been forcibly separated from him, an unlawful object of
affection, he would have ended by believing that they were right, and
that the consolation and comfort and pleasures of his intercourse with
her had grown into ‘a warmer feeling.’ But now that Mr. Meredith was
well out of the way, and even the excitement attending his end over, he
was by no means so clear in his mind, and the subject became one of
great trouble and complication. Somehow it seems always possible, always
within the modesties of nature even to the least vain of men, or women,
that some other, any other, may regard him (or her) with a specially
favourable eye. No one does wrong in loving us, nor are we disposed to
blame them for it. So that there was perhaps a time in which Mr.
Beresford took his friends’ opinion for granted, and was not unprepared
to believe that perhaps Mrs. Meredith would be happy in being his wife;
and that, in his state of mind, was a final argument against which
nothing could be said. But lately he had begun to doubt this; his coming
did not clear away the clouds that had invaded her brows. She would
strike into sudden talk about Edward and his going away, when her
friend with much delicacy and anxiety was endeavouring to sound her
feelings. She seemed unconscious of his investigation--her mind was
pre-occupied. Sometimes, on the other hand, she would betray a certain
uneasiness, and change the subject in a way that betrayed her
consciousness; but that was only when her mind was quite free. From the
time when she began to have a grievance, an anxiety of her own, she
escaped from the most cautious wiles of his scrutiny. She was more
occupied by thoughts of her son than by thoughts of him. Was this
consistent with _love_? Poor James Beresford, feeling that this would
decide him in a moment could he know, one way or another, what her
feelings were, was thus thrown out and forced to fall back upon his own.
And what were his own?--A maze of conflicting ideas, wishes, prejudices,
and traditions of old affection. There was nothing in the world he would
not have given up cheerfully rather than lose this sweet friend--this
consoler and sympathiser in all his troubles. But he did not want her to
be his wife. His Annie, it might be, had faded into a distant shadow;
but that shadow represented to him a whole world past and over--the
world of love and active, brilliant, joyous happiness. His nature, too,
had fallen into the shadows--he did not want that kind of happiness now;
one passion had been enough for him; he wanted a friend, and that he
had--he did not want anything more. And the idea of disturbing all the
unity of his life by a second beginning gave him a smart shock. Can a
man have more wives than one?--Can he have more lives than one?--He was
a fanciful man, of fastidious mind, and with many niceties of feeling
such as ruder minds called fantastic. He shrank from the thought of
banishing from his house even the shadow and name of her who was gone.
To be sure if he could make up his mind that _she_ wished it, all these
resolutions would have gone to the winds; and it is very likely that he
would have been very happy--happier than he could ever be otherwise. But
then he could not make her feelings out. Would she go visibly away from
him, even while he was sitting by her, into her troubles about
Edward--eyes and heart alike growing blank to him, and full of her
boy--if she had given to him a place above her boys in her affections?
Surely no. I would not even assert that there was not the slightest
possible suspicion of pique in this conclusion, for the man would have
been flattered to know that the woman loved him, even though he was
conscious that he did not so regard her. But ‘the warmer feeling’ of
which all their friends were so sure, of which everybody concluded that
it had grown unconsciously _en tout bien et tout honneur_ out of that
friendship which the world holds to be impossible between man and
woman--was just the one thing about which the principal person concerned
could have no certainty at all. He knew what the friendship was--it was
almost life to him; it was his strongest support--his best consolation;
it was the only thing that could make a second, a kind of serious sweet
successor, to the love that was never to come again; but it was not that
love--certainly not in his heart--so far as he could make out, not in
hers either; but who could tell? Weak man! he would rather have
preferred that she should have felt differently, and that it should have
been his duty to marry for her sake.
His life had settled down into all its old lines since Mr. Meredith’s
death. He had his business about the societies--his meetings--his
lectures to arrange--sometimes his articles to write. Now and then he
dined out in the best and most learned of company. He was pointed out to
the ignorant when he went into society as a distinguished person. He was
in the front of the age, knowing a great deal more than most people
knew, doing things that few people could do. His mornings were spent in
these refined and dignified occupations; and when he dined out with his
remarkable friends, or when he dined at home with only his silent little
girl to keep him company, as regularly as the clock struck he knocked at
the next door, and had his hour of gentle talk, of mutual confidence.
They knew all about each other, these two; each could understand all the
allusions the other made--all the surrounding incidents in the other’s
life. They talked as man and wife do, yet with a little element of
unconvention, of independence, of freshness in the intercourse, which
made it more piquant than that between man and wife. What could be more
agreeable, more desirable, more pleasant? But to break off all this
delightful ease of intercourse by some kind of antiquary courtship, by
the fuss of marriage, by fictitious honeymooning, and disturbance of all
their formed and regular habits of life,--what nonsense it would be--and
all for the sake of their friends, not of themselves! But if _she_
should wish it, of course that would give altogether another character
to the affair.
This was what Mr. Beresford at last made up his mind to ascertain boldly
one way or another. It was about the same time as Oswald, approaching
the railway junction, was turning over his dilemma and seeing no way out
of it. Mr. Beresford had been hearing a lecture, and was in a chastened
state of mind. He had been hearing about the convulsions of the early
world, and by what means the red-hot earth cooled down and settled
itself, after all manner of heavings and boilings, into something of the
aspect it wears. As he walked home he dwelt upon the wonderful grandeur
of such phenomena. What did it matter, after all, what happened to a few
small insignificant persons on the crust which had formed over all these
convulsions? What of their little weepings and lovings and momentary
struggles, to one who could study such big and mighty strainings of
force against force? A little while at the most, and the creatures who
made so much fuss about their feelings would be a handful of dust; but
volcanic action would go on for ever. Notwithstanding this philosophy,
however, it must be allowed that, whereas he had heard of these
convulsions with the calmest bosom, his heart began to beat as he
approached Mrs. Meredith’s door. If the moon had tumbled out of the sky,
or a boiling caldron suddenly revealed itself in the earth, so long as
it was at a safe distance, even Mr. Beresford, who was so fond of
science, would not have cared a tenth part so much about it as he did to
know what his neighbour meant; which was inconsistent, but natural
perhaps. The philosophy went out of his head as he approached the door.
Little fusses of loving and of liking--momentary cross-lights, or, let
us say, flickering farthing candles of human sentiment--what are they to
the big forces that move the world? Is not a bit of chalk more
interesting than all your revolutions and changes?--your petty
sufferings, passions, heroisms, and the like? Mr. Beresford thought he
believed all that--yet, heaven above! how calm he was when the chalk was
under consideration, and how much perturbed when he went up the steps of
the house next door!
‘You have been out to-night?’
‘Yes, I have been hearing Robinson--a remarkably interested, intelligent
audience. Where are the boys? Edward should come--it would interest
him.’
‘Edward is always at work. He is killing himself for this examination. I
wish he could be interested in something less serious. Oswald has been
away all day. I think he said he was going to the country. If we could
only mix them up a little,’ said the mother, with an anxious smile--‘to
one a little more gravity, to the other a little more of his brother’s
light-heartedness.’
Mr. Beresford did not say anything about the superior interest of
volcanic action, as he might, nay, perhaps ought, to have done. He said
instead, in the feeblest way, ‘That will come as they get older. You
must give them time.’
Mrs. Meredith did not say anything. She shook her head, but the faint
smile on her face remained. There was nothing tragical yet about either
one or the other. Mr. Beresford was less calm than usual. He sat down
and got up again; he took up books and threw them away; he fidgeted
about the room from one point to another. At last even Mrs. Meredith’s
composure gave way. She jumped to one of those sudden conclusions which
foolish women who are mothers are so apt to think of. It suddenly rushed
upon her mind that some accident had happened to Oswald, and that Mr.
Beresford had been sent to her to break the news.
‘You are put out,’ she said; ‘something has happened. Oh, tell
me--something about the boys? Oswald!’
‘Nothing of the sort,’ he said. ‘Don’t think it for a moment! The boys
are perfectly well, I hope. I was going to ask you an odd sort of
question, though,’ he added, with an awkward smile, rushing into the
middle of the subject. ‘Did it never occur to you that you would be the
better for having someone to help you with the boys?’
Now, there could not have been a more foolish question--for until a very
short time back the boys’ father had been in existence--and since then,
there had been no time for the widow to take any such step. She looked
at him with much surprise. ‘Someone to help me? Whom could I have to
help me? Their poor dear father was too far away!’
‘Ah! I forgot their father,’ said Mr. Beresford, with naïve innocence,
and then there was a pause. He did not know how to begin again after
that very evident downfall. ‘I mean, however, as a general question,’
he added, ‘what do you think? Should you approve of a woman in your own
position--marrying, for instance--for her children’s sake?’
‘That is a curious question,’ she said, with a little laugh; but the
surprise brought the colour into her face. ‘I suppose it would depend on
the woman. But I don’t know,’ she added, after a moment, ‘how a woman
could put her children into any stranger’s--any _other_ man’s hands.’
‘Ah, a stranger! perhaps I did not mean a stranger.’
‘I don’t think you know what you meant,’ she said, with a smile; but
there was some terror in her eyes. She thought she knew what was coming.
She was like him in her own sentiments, and still more like him in her
speculations about himself. She had been brought to believe that he
loved and wanted to marry her. And, if it could not be otherwise, she
felt that she must consent; but she did not wish it any more than he
did. However, while he thought the best policy was to find out what
ought to be done at once, she was all for putting off, avoiding the
consideration, trusting in something that might turn up. Mr. Beresford,
however, had wound himself up to this interview, and was not to be put
off.
‘Between people of our sober years such questions may be discussed--may
they not?’ he said. ‘I wonder what _you_ think really? There is nothing
I so much wish to know--not the conventional things that everybody
says--but what _you_ think. You have been my other conscience for so
long,’ he added, jesuitically, in order to conceal the cunning with
which he was approaching the subject--asking for her opinion without
specifying the subject on which he wanted it.
But she saw through him, with a little amusement at the artifice
employed. He wanted to know what she thought without asking her.
Fortunately, the being asked was the thing _she_ wanted to avoid. But,
just when they had got to this critical point, Edward came upstairs. He
was not friendly, as he had been to his mother’s friend; he came in with
the gloom upon his face, and a look of weariness. Mr. Beresford heard
the door open with great impatience of the newcomer, whoever it might
be. Nothing could be more inopportune. He wished Edward in Calcutta or
wherever else it might be best for him to be on the other side of the
seas. But, as for Mrs. Meredith, her attention fled on the moment to her
boy. She forgot her friend and his questioning, and even the delicate
position which she had realised, and the gravity of the relations which
might ensue. All this went out of her mind in comparison with Edward’s
fatigued look. She got up and went to him, putting her hand very
tenderly upon his shoulder.
‘You have been working too long, dear. Oh, Edward, don’t be so anxious
to get away from me! You are working as if this was your dearest wish in
the world.’
‘So it is,’ he said; ‘not to leave you, mother; but to feel that I am
doing something, not merely learning or enjoying myself.’
‘Edward is quite right,’ said Mr. Beresford. ‘It is by far the most
worthy feeling for a young man.’
But Edward did not take this friendly support in a good spirit; he
darted a half-savage glance at his backer-up.
‘Oh, if you take it in that light, that is not what I meant,’ he said.
‘I am not of that noble strain. It is not pure disinterestedness. I
think it is a pity only to lose one’s advantages, and I should have some
advantages of connection and that sort of thing. At least, I suppose so;
and it is what is called a fine career.’
‘Yes, it is a fine career.’
‘If it is fine to separate yourself from all you care for in the world,’
cried Mrs. Meredith, ‘from all who care for you--not only must we be
left behind, but when you have got beyond me, when you have a family of
your own----’
‘Which I never shall have, mother.’
‘Nonsense! boys and girls say so, and end just like others; even your
own, your very own must be taken from you. You must give up
everything--and you call that a fine career.’
‘Men do, if women don’t,’ said the young man, not looking at her. His
heart was so wrung and sore that he could not keep the gloom off his
face.
‘And you don’t care what women think? You might have put off that lesson
till you were a little older. At your age what your mother thinks should
surely be something to you still.’
He gave her a look which was full of pain. Was that what he was
thinking? Was he sure to care little for what women thought? ‘You know
better, mother,’ he said harshly. He was all rubbed the wrong
way--thwarted, wearied, unhappy. ‘I only came for a book,’ he
continued, after a moment, picking up the first one he got hold of, and
then, with a little nod to the visitor, went upstairs again. What did
that visitor want here? Why did he leave his own house, and Cara
alone--poor Cara!--whom nobody loved as Edward did? It would be a great
deal better for Mr. Beresford if he would stay at home. After this
little episode Edward sat down stubborn and unyielding to his work
again. What did it matter if a man was happy or unhappy? He had his
day’s work to get through all the same.
‘Don’t think him harsh. I am afraid my boy is not quite happy,’ said
Mrs. Meredith, with tears in her eyes.
‘That is nothing,’ he said. ‘I am not a friend of yesterday; but he came
in when we were talking----’
‘Ah, yes,’ she said, but her eyes were still full of Edward; ‘what was
it we were talking about?’
‘I am afraid if you say that, it is sufficient answer to my question,’
said Mr. Beresford, more wounded than he could have supposed possible;
for he wanted to be first with her, though he did not wish it in the
vulgar way that was supposed.
‘You are not to be angry,’ she said, with a deprecating look, laying her
hand softly on his arm; ‘you must not be hard upon me. When they are
boys we wish them to be men, but anxiety grows with their growth; and
now I think sometimes I should be glad to have them boys again.’
‘Boys, boys!’ he exclaimed, with natural impatience, ‘is that all you
think of? Yet there are other interests in the world.’
‘How selfish I am!’ she cried, rousing herself suddenly. ‘That is true.
You must forgive me; but I am so used to talk to you of everything,
whatever is in my heart.’
This melted him once more. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we talk to each other of
everything; we have no secrets between us. There is nothing in the world
I would not do for you, nor you, I think, for me. Do you know what
people are thinking about you and me? They think that being so near we
should be nearer; that we might help one another better. That was what I
wanted to ask you. Don’t you think it is so?’
He wanted her to commit herself first, and she was willing enough that
he should commit himself, but not that she should. She was embarrassed,
yet she met his eyes with a half smile.
‘I think it is not a case for heeding what people think. Are we not very
well as we are? How could we be better than as fast friends--friends
through fire and water?’
‘That we should always be,’ he said, grasping her hand, ‘that we should
always be; and yet without becoming less we might be more. Speak to me
frankly, dear; you know all my heart. Do not you think so too?’