Fanshawe left Pitcomlie with his head in a maze, affected as he had
never been in his life, and had never supposed himself capable of being
affected. He had been in love--as who has not, who has lived to be
thirty?--but without feeling in the least as he felt now. In the
feverish fits of that malady which he had experienced hitherto it was
she, the heroine of the moment, that was foremost in his thoughts. He
had been full of nothing but how to see her, how to have opportunities
of talking to her, how to dance, or ride, or walk with her, according as
the occasion favoured. In short, she had always belonged to some holiday
version of life, and had been enshrined in a glittering framework of
society, in which alone he knew her, and through which alone he could
seek her presence. Half a dozen such loves at least, on a moderate
computation, Fanshawe had experienced, and after having been made happy
and miserable for a certain number of days or weeks, as it happened,
society which brought her to him had swept her away again, and he had
heard with resignation some time later that the temporary lady of his
thoughts had become Mrs. or Lady Somebody Else. Sometimes a passing jar,
of what is poetically called the heart-strings, hailed this information,
and for a day or so he would be very sorry for himself as a poor devil
who could never hope to marry; but there it had ended, and in a week
after he had felt better, and decided that, on the whole, everything was
for the best. This, however, was not at all the state of his feelings
now. He did not know whether he was in love with Marjory Hay-Heriot.
Sometimes he did not think he was; but one thing he was sure of, which
was that he was very much out of love with himself. None of those
complacent self-compassionating plaints of the poor devil order occurred
to him. His thoughts were of a kind much less easily managed. He was
dissatisfied with himself and everything round him, with his means, his
habits, his former life, his want of any actual existence worth speaking
of, his complete unimportance to the world. He was young, strong, not
badly endowed either in body or mind, with enough to live on, and no
cares or trammels of any kind; and yet the fact was certain that, if he
died to-morrow it would be no loss to any one; nobody would miss him;
nothing would come to a stop. How many men would find themselves in the
same position did they inquire into it? He had enough to live on, enough
to keep a horse and a servant, to do whatever he pleased, to travel, to
surround himself with such luxuries as he cared for, to get most things
that he wanted. Except in that matter of a wife, which, to tell the
truth, was a thing he had never very warmly wanted, there was nothing
which he had denied himself. To be sure he was generally more or less in
debt, but never so much that he could not set his affairs right by an
effort, if he had a strong enough motive for doing so. He had not thus
the burden on his conscience that many other men have. He was a
good-for-nothing, if we may use the expression, without being a
scapegrace like Tom Heriot. He injured nobody. One time or other, though
often considerably after date, he paid his bills. No man, or woman
either, so far as he knew, was the worse for his existence, and yet----
There are a great many people who go harmlessly, pleasantly, through the
world, who, if it ever occurred to them to place themselves by the side
of a really useful member of society, and compare their lives with his
or hers, would find themselves as much embarrassed by the contrast as
Fanshawe was. But fortunately for the idlers of humanity, the contrast
seldom strikes them with all the sharp distinctions of light and shadow
which existed in this case. The _élégant_ smiles complacently over the
comparison, and finds in his own case a host of extraordinary
circumstances which he feels to be really superiorities, and which raise
him to a level very much higher than that of the plodding fellow by his
side, who, like Atlas, carries a world on his shoulders. The race-horse
is less useful than the dray-horse, but how different! This consolation
generally lays the most flattering unction to the souls of the
ornamental portion of society. How is it possible that the fine lady
could feel herself anything but superior to the domestic dowdy who does
so much more than she, and is of such inferior importance in
everybody’s estimation? The butterflies of existence have always this
comfort, or at least they take it in most cases; and no doubt Fanshawe,
like other men of his acquaintance, had smiled and hugged himself on his
superiority to the occasional industrial of his acquaintance who had
toiled himself up into reputation at the bar, or made a slave of himself
in parliament, while his schoolfellow lounged at his club, or fluttered
in the Row, or (which was the most serious of his occupations) hunted or
shot, or went fishing in strange waters. The comparison which had been
suggested to him now, however, and the moral standard to which he had
been suddenly forced to fit himself, was of a very different kind from
that of the successful barrister or rising politician. And the effect
upon his mind was complicated by the creation of so many new sentiments
and necessities in himself, that the comparison went much further than a
mere external contrast could have done. Ambition--a thing he had never
known in his life--had sprung up within him; acquisitiveness--a desire
to have, to possess, and to enjoy; an impatience of the present aspect
and conditions of life; a sense of disgust with himself and his
circumstances. These were not moral qualities, let us allow, nor
amiable, nor in any way an improvement upon the gentle and light-hearted
contentedness of the past. I am simply stating facts, and not demanding
any approval of them. This was the new development to which Fanshawe had
come. His past easy life was odious to him; he wanted to become on the
spot something totally different--something which seemed to him better,
though morally it might not perhaps be so. Certainly at the first offset
it was not a moral improvement. To substitute dissatisfaction for
content, uneasiness for calm, care and mental restlessness for the happy
_insouciance_ of a man undisturbed by any thought of his career, was
neither an advantage to himself, nor to anybody near him. He who had
been the most good-natured, easy-going, well-conditioned fellow known to
his friends, became all at once moody, uncertain, unmanageable. He had
resolved to “make a change,” and he was pre-occupied, to the exclusion
of everything else, with thoughts of what that change must be.
For it is a great deal easier to decide that you must turn over a new
leaf, and that henceforward, instead of being useless, your life must be
profitable to yourself and the world, than it is to decide how this
change is to be accomplished. If every man when he begins to take
thought of the more serious duties of life could immediately settle
himself down as a landed proprietor, with an estate to manage, cottages
to improve, farmers to influence, a seat on the bench, and a vote for
the county, how many men would see their duty more clearly than they
have ever as yet seen it! But we cannot attain all this simply by
resolving upon it, and Fanshawe did not know what else to do. He would
have made a very creditable squire, and so would hosts of men who don’t
make much of their lives in any other way; but he could not dig, nor did
he know how to employ his existence so as to fulfill his own wishes,
and be of some use to others. He was too old for many things, too old
for the army, even could he have done any good in it, too old for the
bar, too old for business; for although men in novels can turn their
minds to commerce whenever a blank comes in their career, and succeed in
it--yet men in common life are usually trained to that branch of
activity as to every other, and begin by an apprentice period, in which
they earn nothing and do little. Even for the public offices he was too
old, and what, Fanshawe asked himself, could he do in a public office?
He ran all these things over in his mind till he was in despair. He was
willing to do anything; but when he came to particulars, he found that
his education had trained him to nothing except those duties of a great
proprietor which he had no hope of ever being able to exercise. Nothing
is more difficult than thus to begin a new chapter in life. Had he
required to earn his living, no doubt the energy which necessity would
have given to his quest for employment might have found him something to
do; but he had not that stimulus--and he had not the stimulus of
aptitude for, or knowledge of, any special kind of occupation. He would
have “done anything.” Was that but another way of saying that he was
good for nothing? he asked himself sometimes, in partial despair.
And then putting all these new fancies aside, he had really so much to
do in the early Summer. He had to look after his sick horse, to see a
great number of friends, to answer invitations, to make some ordinary
necessary preparations for the Derby and Ascot, and all sorts of other
engagements. He had quite enough to fill his life with this ordinary
round of trivial occupation, as it had been filled for all these years;
and when he had returned to the usual circle of that life, it must be
allowed that it was not disagreeable to him. It felt natural; and yet it
was nothing--no good to him, no good to those among whom it was lived.
No progress, either internal or external, was possible, so long as he
continued in it. But what was he to do? What even did he want to do?
Something, certainly--something that would restore him to the credit he
had lost in his own eyes, that would make him worthy in Marjory’s, that
would improve his position, and help him to that natural growth and
increase and elevation in life which had become so essential; but yet
nothing that he knew of--nothing that he saw other people doing. Poor
good-for-nothing! He wanted to “better himself,” to be of some sort of
use, to double his means, to make what was called establishment in life
possible, to change himself, in short, from a nobody and nothing, into a
man of some importance and consideration--a man fit to be trusted with
the life and welfare of others. This was what he wanted; but he had not
the smallest inkling of how it was to be brought about.
One thing however he did, and at once--he availed himself of the
permission which Marjory had so unhesitatingly accorded to him, and
wrote to her. He did this only a few days after he left Pitcomlie;
indeed, he began his letter on the very morning of the day on which he
left, when he was no further off than Edinburgh--but destroyed that
first letter and various others before he produced the following, which
at last, after many doubts, he sent. How to begin it was a puzzle to
him. The only thing he had any right to say was “Dear Miss Heriot;” but,
somehow, that sober and correct address did not seem to suit the
circumstances. This cost him a great deal of thought; he could think
deeply, connectedly on such a subject, though he could not think to any
purpose, in respect to the occupation which he was so anxious for. His
letter kept running through his mind during all the interval--four
days--which elapsed before he made up his mind to send it; and at last,
as will be seen, he began abruptly, with no formal start at all, which
seemed to him, somehow, more congenial than “Dear Miss Heriot.” The
letter was finished at midnight, but he left it open and read it over,
and added something to it next morning before he sent it off; and after
he had fastened up the envelope, was in a dozen minds whether or not to
open it again and revise it once more. No new beginner in literature was
ever half so careful and anxious for the success of his first work.
“I avail myself very eagerly of the permission you gave me to
recall myself to your recollection. It is not that I am worth your
recollection, but because I cannot bear the idea of falling out of
it. How can I sufficiently tell you what it has been to me to have
felt myself one of the household of Pitcomlie, to have grown into
its ways, to have been part of its life at so sad a moment? I feel
almost as if you must think me unfeeling, unsympathetic in your
sorrows, when I say that I am glad I was there at this time, rather
than at another. I wonder if you will know what I mean? I grieve
for you to the bottom of my heart, and yet I am glad that I was
there. Life outside, life here in London, where, people say, and I
suppose believe, there is so much movement and excitement, seems to
me very tame and vacant. I can’t think how my old friends can
endure the mill-horse round of engagements, all so null, so
monotonous, and like each other;--because they have not been in
Fife, I suppose. And yet Pitcomlie is very quiet, you will tell me?
I wonder if you are there; or if the recent events have made it
insupportable to you; or what you are doing? I keep thinking and
wondering over this, and whether you will remember me again, or be
so good, so very good as to tell me all I want to know, and answer
me half of the flood of questions which are ready to be poured out
upon you. May I ask them? I am sure at heart you are too good not
to say yes or no. I want to know about Mr. Charles; whether he has
left his tower, and his papers, and all those treasures which he
was so kind as to show me; and about dear little Milly, whom I can
no longer tempt to laugh at an unbecoming moment. How I should like
to try! and to see her look of fright, which is her own, at her
wickedness; and then that delightful gravity, which is yours,
settling over her small face. I want to know everything about her,
and about your uncle;--and anything you will tell me; any little
scrap or crumb from your table--about you.
“There are a great many things I should like to tell you about
myself, if it did not seem abominable impertinence to hope that you
would take any interest in such an indifferent personage. Nobody
can be more thoroughly aware than I am how little there is to say
about me, that would be pleasant to your ear. I have had one kind
of dubious good quality in my past life, and that has been content;
now I have lost that even. What a poor sort of affair is the life
we live without thinking of it, we wretched fellows who are, I
suppose, the scum, and float on the surface of the stream, going
wherever it carries us, in a helpless, hopeless sort of way, that
must appal and disgust any one who has ever known better. Having
had a glimpse of the better, I am disgusted too, and begin to make
a fuss among the other atoms, and long to cling to something, to
oppose the power of the tide, and get some kind of independent
action into me. I wonder if you will know what I mean? How often I
find myself wondering this--asking myself if it would be
comprehensible to you; or if you would simply scorn the poorer sort
of being whose existence has been so long without plan, or purpose,
or pilot? This would be very natural; but I like to think that you
would rather try to understand, knowing what a great thing it would
be for me if you would take so much trouble. I am no theologian,
and dare not pretend to speak on such subjects; but yet, if the
angels would take the trouble to enter a little into our mortal
concerns, how much good it would do us! Do not you think so too? or
do you think I am talking nonsense? which very likely is the case,
since I want to talk the best of sense, and mean a great deal,
which I am not clever enough to say.
“May I write again soon? and will you give me a line--just a
line--three or four words, if no more, to tell me that you still
remember the existence of one who is always
“Your faithful servant,
“E. F.”
This letter Marjory read at the breakfast-table, seated between Aunt
Jean and Uncle Charles, with little Milly opposite to her, and all the
commonplaces of ordinary talk going on. How bewildered would those good
folks have been could they have read it over her shoulder! How
bewildered did she feel reading it, moved to an interest which made her
half indignant with herself, and feeling impatient with the writer for
that restrained glow of feeling, which notwithstanding communicated to
her a sympathetic thrill. “Ridiculous!” she said, and felt her cheeks
glow, and her heart move a little, notwithstanding all she did to
control it.
“That’s a long letter, May,” said Mr. Charles, looking at it with some
curiosity as she put it carefully back into its envelope.
“It is from Mr. Fanshawe,” she said, with a consciousness for which she
could have taken instant vengeance on herself; “he has gone to London.
He said he would let me know where he had gone.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Charles; and Miss Jean’s eyes lighted up.
Marjory let the letter lie by her plate as if it was of no importance,
but felt her cheeks grow hotter and hotter. Ridiculous! She determined
to write him a most matter-of-fact reply, which should make an end of
this discursive nonsense. If he thought she had leisure for a
sentimental correspondence, she must convince him to the contrary; how
absurd it was! And yet to be thus put upon a pedestal of absolute
superiority, and worshipped in this covert way, is not in itself
disagreeable. A little weakness stole about her heart; insensibly it
occurred to her during the forenoon that there were several things she
would like to consult him about. She slid the letter quietly into her
pocket before she left the table. It happened to her to look at it again
during the course of the day, just “to see what he had said” about his
present occupations. As it happened he had not said anything. But how
was Marjory to recollect that?