Portraits in oil of Mr. and Mrs. Throgmorton hung on the walls of the
dining-room in their square, white house. Though painted by a local
artist when Mary was quite a child, they had one prominent virtue of
execution. They were arresting likenesses.
It is open to question whether a man has a right to impose his will when
he is gone upon those who follow after him. With Mr. and Mrs.
Throgmorton it was not so much an imposition of will. Their money had
been left without reservation to be divided equally amongst the four
girls. If any imposition there might be, it was of their personality.
Looking down at their children from those two portraits on the wall,
they still controlled the spirit of that house as surely as when they
had been alive.
Every morning and evening, Hannah read the prayers as her father had
done before her. No more could she have ceased from doing this than
could any one of them have removed his portrait from its exact place in
the dining-room.
It was the look in her father's and her mother's eyes more than any
comment of her sisters' that Fanny feared to meet after her episode with
the visitor to Bridnorth.
For in their lifetime, Mr. and Mrs. Throgmorton had been parents of that
rigid Victorian spirit. Love they must have given their children or
their influence would never have survived. Love indeed they did give,
but it was a stern and passionless affection.
Looking down upon their four daughters in those days of the beginning of
this story, they must have been well satisfied that if not one of them
had found the sanctity of married life then at least not one of them,
unless perhaps it was Fanny, had known the shame of an unhallowed
passion.
Fanny they might have had their doubts about. After that episode she
often felt they had; often seemed to detect a glance not so much of pity
as of pain in her mother's eyes. At her father, for some weeks after
the visitor's departure, she was almost afraid to look. In his life he
had been just. He would have been just in his condemnation of her then.
Self-control had been the measure of all his actions. Of self-control
in that moment on the cliffs she knew she had had none. She had leant
herself into his arms because in the violent beating of her breast it
had seemed she had no strength to do otherwise. And when he kissed her,
it had felt as though all the strength she had in her soul and body had
been taken from her into his.
Had her father known such sensations as that when he talked of
self-control?
Well indeed did she know what her mother would have said. To all those
four girls she had said the same with parental regard; and to each one
severally as they had come to that age when she had felt it expedient to
enlighten them.
"God knows," she had always begun, for the use of the name of God
hallowed such moments as these to her and softened the terribleness of
all she had to say, "God knows, my dear, what future there is in store
for you. If it is His will you should never marry, you will be spared
much of the pain, much of the trouble and the penalties of life. I love
your father. No woman could have loved him more. He is a fine and a
good man. But there are things a woman must submit to in her married
life--that is the cross she must bear--which no words of mine can
describe to you. Nevertheless, don't think I complain. Don't think I
do not realize there is a blessed reward. Her children are the light of
life to her. Without them, I dread to think what she must suffer at the
hands of Nature when the mercy of God has no recompense in store. Eve
was cursed with the bearing of children, but they brought the mercy of
God to her in their little hands when once they were born."
This usually had been her concluding phrase. This without variation she
repeated to all of them. Of this phrase, if vanity she had at all, she
was greatly proud. It seemed to her, in illuminating language to
comprise the whole meaning of her discourse.
Hannah, Jane, Fanny, all in their turn had accepted it in silence. It
had been left to Mary to say--
"It seems hard on a man that he should have to suffer, because he
doesn't get the reward of having children like the woman does. Of
course they're his--but he doesn't bring them into the world."
At this issue, Mrs. Throgmorton had taken her daughter's hands in hers
and, in a tone of voice Mary had never forgotten, she had replied--
"I never said, my dear, that the man did suffer. He doesn't. If it were
not for the sanctity of marriage, it would have to be described as
unholy pleasure to him. That pleasure a woman must submit to. That
pleasure it is her bitter duty to give. That's why I say I dread to
think what she must suffer, as some unfortunately do, when the mercy of
God does not recompense her with the gift of children."
Closely watching her daughter's face in the silence that followed, Mrs.
Throgmorton had known that Mary's mind was not yet satisfied with the
food for thought and conduct she had given it. She became conscious of
a dread of what this youngest child of hers would say next. And when
Mary spoke at last, her worst fears were realized.
"Can a woman," she said, "give pleasure to the man she loves when all
the time she is suffering shame and agony herself? If he loves her,
what pleasure could it be to him?"
Mrs. Throgmorton had closed her eyes and doubtless in that moment of
their closure she had prayed. So confused had been her mind in face of
this question that for the instant she could do no more than say--
"What do you mean?"
"Well--simply--" replied Mary in a childlike innocence--"simply that it
seems to me if a woman is giving pleasure to a man she really loves, she
must be getting pleasure herself. If I give you a present at Christmas
and you like it and it gives you pleasure, I'm not sure it doesn't give
me more pleasure than you to see you pleased, because--well, because I
love you. Why do you say 'It's more blessed to give than to receive'?"
That little touch of affection from her daughter had stirred Mrs.
Throgmorton's heart. Unable to restrain herself, she had taken Mary's
hands again with a closer warmth in her own.
"Ah, more blessed, dear--yes--there is of course the pleasure of
blessedness, the satisfaction of duty uncomplainingly done. I have
never denied that."
She had spoken this triumphantly, feeling that light at last had been
shown in answer to her prayer. Not for a moment was she expectant of
her daughter's reply.
"I don't mean that, mother," Mary had said. "Satisfaction seems to me a
thing you know in your own heart. No one can share it with you. Of
course I don't know the feelings of a man, how could I? I'm not
married. But if I were a man it wouldn't give me any pleasure to think
that the woman I loved was just satisfied because she'd done her duty.
I should want to share my pleasure with her, not look on at a distance
at her satisfaction. If a man ever loves me, I believe I shall feel
what he feels and if I do, I shall be glad of it and make him glad too."
She had said it all without emotion, almost without one note of feeling
in her voice; but the mere words themselves were sufficient to strike
terror into Mrs. Throgmorton's heart. That terror showed itself
undisguised in her face.
"My dear--my dear--" she whispered--"I pray God you never do feel so, or
if it be His will you should, that you will never forget your modesty or
your self-respect so much as to reveal it to any man however much you
may love him."
To these four girls in that square, white house in Bridnorth, this was
such an influence as still reigned in undisputed sway. The eyes of
their parents from those portraits still looked down upon them at their
prayers or at their meals. Still the voice of Mrs. Throgmorton
whispered in Mary's ears--"I pray God you will never forget your modesty
or your self-respect." Still, even when she was twenty-nine, Mary's
eyes would lift to her father's face gazing down from the wall upon her,
wondering if he had ever known the life she had suspicion of from the
books she read. Still she would glance at them both, prepared to
believe that, however dominant it was in their home, the expression of
their lives had been only the husk of existence.
And then perhaps at that very moment the coach might pass by on its way
to the Royal George and the horses' hoofs would sing as they beat upon
the road--"Life is ours--we are here to live--Life is ours--we are here
to live."
Yet there in Bridnorth at twenty-nine, no greater impetus had come to
her to live than the most vague wonderings, the most transient of
dreams.