"My dear," I said, when Miriam and I had once more sought the seclusion
of her garden, and she had asked me what it all meant, "you don't
understand English ways yet. It is not to be expected that you should,
with your upbringing. But it is absolutely necessary to have _some_
money in England, when you marry, and I thought I would do Hobson a good
turn by getting what I wanted from him. It is most unfortunate that it
has turned out as it has."
But she could not bring herself to this view. "I am sure that however
you may try to hide it," she said, "you really only did it because you
were sorry for the poor Hobsons. I love and honour you for it, and I am
glad you have been rewarded as you have, though I do hope you won't do
it again, because now you have _me_ to think of, you know, and, after
all, it is very risky."
"Miriam," I said, "I am not going to sail under false colours with you.
I wanted Hobson's money, and I don't know what on earth to do now I
haven't got it."
"Why, do just what we had arranged to do," she said. "I am ready to come
with you, and if it means that we shan't have to live in the rich way we
have talked about, I shall be all the better pleased. It has always been
rather a weight on my spirits, and I am very relieved to think that we
shall be poor after all."
"My dearest of girls, I am afraid you won't like being poor in England."
"I should like it anywhere. And I believe you have only been making up
all that you have told me, so as to test me."
"Test you? What do you mean?"
She took my arm, and laid her fair head on my shoulder. "I think you
must have been a little doubtful about me," she said, "always seeing me
in these unnatural surroundings. You must have thought that I couldn't
be brought up in a place like this all my life without being affected
by it. You wanted to see how much I cared for luxury for its own sake.
Truly, John, I don't want it at all. I only want you."
What was I to say to this touching confession?
What I did say caused her to continue: "The picture you drew of liking
to have things for the sake of having them was rather like a nightmare
to me. Think of a life in which one could never belong to one's self, or
to one another, because one was always bowed down by the weight of
possessions! And as we got older they would accumulate more and more,
until we became stifled by them. Why, one might even come to take no
pleasure in any beautiful things that didn't belong to one. One might
even envy other people what they had. Why should anybody _want_ to
burden themselves in that way?"
"Well, of course," I said, "one _can_ do all right without a lot of
things around one."
"Oh, yes; one would be so much happier. Beatrice Coghill, a friend of
mine, married about a year ago, and they took a little farm in the
country. I went to stay with them there. It was just large enough for
them to do all the work themselves. They live in the open air all day
long, and work hard, and never have a care in the world. She makes her
little home so sweet for her husband, and she told me she was always
thinking about it, and about him when he is out working in the fields.
In the evenings they read, and she plays to him. They don't mind the
long winters because they are always together, and do what they like
doing indoors. And in the summer they have their garden, and their walks
about the quiet fields. Sometimes they take a little holiday, and come
into Culbut to see their friends, and to hear some music, but they are
always glad to get back to their happy little home. They never have any
of the annoyances that we go through here every day of our lives, and
they can look forward to growing old together, and keeping all their
simple happiness to the end."
"My darling," I said. "That is a very pretty picture."
And, indeed, it seemed to me, as painted by Miriam, the prettiest sort
of picture. If I could make her happy, and myself happy with her, by
living a life of bodily toil in the open air, which is the best sort of
toil, and feeding the demands of the brain in the hours that seem set
apart by nature for such pursuits, then a little farm, by all means.
But a farm in England, however little, wants money to buy, money to
stock, and not infrequently money to carry on. It was only in Upsidonia
that one could acquire it, stock it, work it without any previous
experience, and live off it without any anxiety, as well as contribute
three hundred pounds a year towards the income of somebody else, with no
capital behind one. No English Parliament Act that I am aware of holds
out any such prospects to the small holder. It did cross my mind that it
might be worth while considering whether it would not be better to give
up all idea of leaving Upsidonia now or at any time. One could live more
comfortably in that country owing a hundred and seventy thousand pounds
than in any other that I know of. But I was already getting a little
tired of Upsidonia, and was looking forward keenly to taking Miriam away
with me. Besides, there was always that question of the newspaper
placard--"Who is Mr. John Howard?"--hanging over me. If I stayed in
Upsidonia, that would have to be answered sooner or later, and for all I
knew might be ripe for an answer at that very moment. No; curiosity
about me seemed to have died down for the time, but I was not in the
safest of positions; and the sooner I got out of the country, with
Miriam, the better.
"We can't very well live on a farm in England," I said. "There are many
reasons against it. But would you be content to live with me in the
simplest possible kind of way, while I worked for you in the way I have
learnt? I _could_ just manage it, and _I_ don't want anything more than
a tiny little house, with you in it, if _you_ don't."
She said that she didn't--that she loved the idea of being poor with me,
and that if I had really been used to living in luxury, although this
she could hardly believe, then she would show me how little luxury made
for happiness. She removed all my unworthy fears, and made me quite
ashamed of having had designs on Upsidonian pockets. I would leave the
country not a penny richer than when I came into it, except for the few
items I have already mentioned. I felt much more comfortable in mind
when I had taken this decision, and if along with it there went the
prospect of also freeing myself from the immense load of debt I had
contracted, by leaving it behind me, I can hardly be blamed for that
under prevailing conditions.
Miriam and I left her garden that evening in the most complete accord
with one another, both rather excited by our fast-approaching
departure, but both convinced that we should lead a life of such
happiness together as had never yet fallen to the lot of a married
couple.