The next morning when Trennahan rode up, Magdaléna was already on her
horse, and they cantered off at once.
"I must teach you to trot," he said. "This is very old-fashioned. You
must not be behind your friends, who would scorn to canter."
"Very well. You can teach me."
The next half-hour was given up to the lesson. Magdaléna did not like
the new method, but persevered heroically. A half-hour was all she could
endure, and they cantered across the meadows to the back woods.
Magdaléna was as pale as a swarthy person can be. Her eyes were heavy
and shadowed.
"You did not sleep last night," said Trennahan, abruptly. "And something
had happened yesterday before I came. What was it?"
"I don't think I can tell you. I don't like to talk about things--about
myself."
"Then let me tell you that no human being can go through life without
help. With all your brain and your natural reticence, you are no
exception to the rule. I am much older than you are. I know a great deal
of the world. You know nothing of it. I can help you if you will let
me."
He was interested, and thought it probable that her trouble came from
the depths of her nature. Nevertheless, she was very young, and he
prayed that her grief were not the sequence of a rejected manuscript.
Magdaléna flushed, then paled again. She remembered that she had wanted
to speak out to him; but face to face with the prospect, the levelling
of lifelong barriers appalled her. If she could only tell part and
conceal the rest! But she was no artist in words. She drew a deep sigh
and opened her lips, but closed them again.
"It will be easier here in the woods," he said, as they rode into the
deep shade. "The world always seems quite different to me in a wood." It
did not in the least, but he knew that it did to her.
"I should have to go back," she said finally. "I cannot begin with
yesterday. And I talk so badly."
"The longer the story, the more interested I shall be. And I like your
direct simplicity. Let us walk the horses."
"When I was a child I was very religious,--a Catholic. It was a very
great deal to me. When I prayed to the Virgin about my wants and
troubles, I felt quite happy and hopeful. I lost it a year or two ago. I
had read a great many scientific books; and my religion fell to pieces
like--like--There was a beautiful old tree on the edge of the woods
once. It looked as if it would stand a century longer. One day there was
a terrible wind, and it fell down. Its sap and roots were almost gone. I
felt dreadfully--about the religion, I mean. I felt, somehow, as if my
backbone had been taken out. I knew that one must have some sort of
moral ideal. I thought a great deal, and finally I determined to make my
conscience my religion. I made a resolution that I would never do, and
try not even to think, what I believed to be wrong. When I was little, I
followed Helena into a great many of her naughty escapades,--though
nothing so bad as the fire,--and I did not tell my parents, as a rule,
because I could not see that it did any good. When my New England
conscience, as Helena calls it, got the best of me and I confessed about
the fire, the consequences were so terrible that I made up my mind that
I would do as I chose and say nothing about it. I kept to that until I
lost my religion. Then I was careful about every little thing. It was
easy enough for a year. Then--I don't think I can go on."
"Then you wrote a book and your conscience hurts you because you have
not told your parents."
Magdaléna dropped her reins and stared at him. Had a voice leapt down
from heaven, she could not have been more dumfounded.
"I never told you," she said helplessly. "Can all the others know too?"
"I am positive that no one suspects but myself. Do go on."
"You have guessed something, but not all. I have only begun a book; and
I am so ignorant, and my mind is so slow, that I know it will be years
before I shall be able to write a book that anybody would read. At first
this dismayed me. Now I do not care, so long as I succeed in the end;
and it will be a pleasure to see myself improve. I have not thought it
wrong not to tell my parents, so long as what I did could not affect
them in any way. Do you not think I was right in that?"
"Assuredly."
"I believed that when I had done something excellent, if that time ever
came, they would be proud of it. My mother was a school-teacher, you
know; and I did not see why my father should care. He hates to hear
women talk, but writing is different. At least I thought so. Yesterday,
just before you came, the subject came up. Rose said she believed I
could write a book, and papa was furious at the mere thought. I knew
nothing about old-world prejudices, but it seems that a lady would be
thought to have disgraced herself in Spain if she wrote a book: and papa
is as Spanish as if he had never learned a word of English, although he
would be ready to beat anyone that told him so. He did not have a chance
to say much yesterday; but I saw what his ideas were and that nothing
could change them.
"I did not go to sleep at all last night. I sat up trying to think what
I should do. Of course I need not tell him what I had done; but should I
give it up? That was the question. If I continued, I must tell him of my
intention to be a writer. He would forbid it. If I refused to obey,
which I do not think I have any right to do, he is quite capable of
locking me up. But I cannot go on writing in secret. That would be a
great wrong; it would be living a lie. I could not make myself believe
that I only wrote for the pleasure of writing: I should know that I
longed for the time when I should see my book on somebody's shelf. It
seems to me that I cannot give it up. I have much less in my life than
most girls. In spite of the hard work, I have felt almost happy while
writing. And I am afraid that I have as much ambition as pride. But he
is my father. My first duty is to him--I cannot make up my mind. I
suppose there should be no struggle; but there is, and I feel as if it
were killing me."
Trennahan had been the confidant of many women, had listened to many
tragic confessions, had seen women in agonies of remorse; but nothing
had ever touched him as did this bald statement, abrupt with repressed
feeling, of a girl's solitary tragedy. Had her hero been a lover instead
of an art, he would have met her confidence with platitudes and a
suppressed yawn; but her lonely attitude in the midst of millions and
friends, her terrible slavery to an ideal, to a scourging conscience
which was at war with all the secretiveness, self-indulgence, and
haughty intolerance of restraint which she had inherited with her
father's blood, interested him even more profoundly than it appealed to
his sympathies. He determined not only to help her, but to watch her
development.
"You have honoured me with your confidence," he said. "Don't doubt for a
moment that I do not appreciate the magnitude of that honour. I know
just how proud and reticent you are, how much it cost you to speak. I
believe that I have enough wisdom to help you a little. Go on with your
work. If you have a talent, you get it, one way or another, from your
parents, and it is as much entitled to your consideration as your health
or your riches. The birthright of every mortal is happiness. Some
philosopher has said that happiness is the free exercise of the higher
faculties of a man's nature. If that is your instinct, pursue it. Of
course we have no right to claim our happiness at the expense of others.
But your father is safe for the present. No matter what your talent, you
will not know enough, nor have had sufficient bare practice with your
pen, to write even a short story of first-rate merit for ten years to
come. You may count it a blessing that various causes are preventing you
from rushing into print. At the end of that period your father will be
ten years older. He will probably be much softened and will look at
things differently; or he may be dead. Or you may be--and most likely
will be--married. You need only concern yourself with the present. It is
possible that you have discovered your only chance of happiness. Do not
commit the incredible folly of strangling that chance before it is born.
This is not my day for lecturing, but I am going to take your conscience
in hand. It needs training. Before you know it, you will be morbid. That
means brain rot, and no chance of the commonest sort of enjoyment."
"You are very good; no one has ever been so good. You ought to know far
better than I what is right and what is wrong."
"I am afraid I do. Promise me this: that you will do nothing decisive
until the end of the summer. Take that time to think it over. There will
be little time to write in any case. I shall monopolise a good deal of
your time, and I fancy they intend to be rather gay here. Six months
from now we will talk it over again. Will you agree to that?"
"I must think it over. My mind is a slow one. But I think you are
right."
And several days later, when he was dining at the house, she told him
briefly that she should take his advice and write no more until the
summer was over.