ALONE
The name of the slough was Despond.
When Dora returned to Stagholme a fortnight later she was relieved to
find that Arthur had not yet come down from Cambridge.
It is a strange thing that in the spring-time those who are happy--_pro
tempore_, of course, we know all that--are happier, while those who carry
something with them find the burden heavier. Stagholme in the spring came
as a sort of shock to Dora. There were certain adjuncts to the growth of
things which gave her actual pain. After dinner, the first night, she
walked across the garden to the beechwood, but before long she came back
again. There is a scent in beech forests in the spring which is like no
other scent on earth, and Dora found that she could not stand it.
Her father and mother were sitting in the drawing-room with open windows,
for it was a warm May that year. She came in through the falling
curtains, and something warned her to keep her face averted from the
furtive glance of her mother's eyes. She had learnt something of the
world during her brief season in town, and one of the lessons had been
that the world sees more than is often credited to it.
“The worst,” she said cheerfully, “of a season in town is that it makes
one feel aged and experienced. Middle age came upon me suddenly, just
now, in the garden.”
Mr. Glynde was looking at her almost critically over his newspaper.
“How old are you?” he asked curtly.
“Twenty-five.”
In some indefinite way the question jarred horribly. Dora was conscious
of a faint doubt in the infallibility of her father's judgment. She knew
that in a worldly sense he was more experienced, more thoughtful,
cleverer than her mother, but in some ways she inclined towards the
maternal opinion on questions connected with herself.
At this moment Mrs. Glynde was called from the room, and went
reluctantly, feeling that the time was unpropitious.
Mr. Glynde's life had been eminently uneventful. Prosperous, happy in a
half-hearted, almost negative, way, somewhat selfish, he had never known
hardship, had never faced adversity. It is such men as this who love what
they call a serious talk, summoning the subject thereof with exaggerated
gravity to a study, making a point of the _mise en scène_, and finally
saying nothing that could not have been spoken in course of ordinary
conversation.
Dora detected the odour of a serious talk in the atmosphere, and she
found that something had taken away the awe which such conversations had
hitherto inspired. It may have been the season in town, but it was more
probably that confidence which comes from the knowledge of the world.
There were things in life of which she consciously knew more than her
father, and one of these was sorrow. There is nothing that gives so much
confidence as the knowledge that the worst possible has happened. It
raises one above the petty worries of daily existence.
Dora knew that her acquaintance with sorrow was more intimate, more
thorough, than that of her father, who sat looking as if the hangman were
at the door. She awaited the serious talk with some apprehension, but
none of that almost paralysing awe which she had known in childhood.
“I am getting an old man,” he said, with supreme egotism, “and you cannot
expect to have me with you much longer.”
“But I do expect it,” replied Dora cheerfully. “I am sorry to disappoint
you, papa, but I do expect it most decidedly.”
This rather spoilt the lugubrious gravity of the situation.
“Well, thank Heaven! I am a hearty man yet,” admitted the Rector rather
more hopefully; “but still you cannot expect to have your parents with
you all your life, you know.”
“I think it is wiser not to look too far into the future,” replied Dora,
warding off.
“I should look much more happily into the future,” replied the Rector,
with the deliberation of the domestic autocrat, “if I knew that you had a
good husband to take care of you.”
In a flash of thought Dora traced it all back to Arthur, through Mrs.
Agar; and her would-be lover fell still further in her estimation. He
seemed to be fated to show himself at every turn the very antitype to her
ideal.
“Ah,” she laughed, “but suppose I got a bad one? You are always saying
that marriage is a lottery, and I don't believe the remark is original.
Suppose I drew a blank; fancy being married to a blank! Or I might do
worse. I might draw minus something--minus brains, for instance. They
are in the lottery, for I have seen them, nicely done up in faultless
linen--both blanks and worse.”
She turned away towards the window, and the moment her face was averted
it changed suddenly. The face that looked out towards the beech-wood,
where the shadows were creeping from the darkening east, was piteous,
terror-stricken, driven.
It is an ever-living question why people--honest, well-meaning parents
and others--should be set to ride rough-shod over all that is best and
purest in the human mind.
The Rector went on, in his calmly self-satisfied voice, with a fatuous
ignorance of what he was doing which must have made the very angels
wince.
“A great many girls,” he said, “have thrown away a chance of happiness
merely to serve a passing fancy. Mind you don't do that.”
She gave a little laugh, quite natural and easy, but her face was grave,
and more.
“I do not think there is any fear of that,” she replied lightly. “You
must confess, papa, that I have always displayed a remarkable capacity
for the management of my own affairs--with the assistance of Sister
Cecilia, _bien entendu_.”
This was rather a forlorn hope, but Dora was driven into a corner. The
Rector was in the habit of preaching a good methodical sermon, and
usually finished up somewhere in the neighbourhood of the text from
whence he started. He allowed himself to deviate, but he never turned his
back upon his text and went for a vague ramble through scriptural
meadows, as some have been heard to do. He deviated on this occasion for
a moment, but never lost sight of the main question.
“Sister Cecilia,” he said, “is a busybody, and, like all busybodies, a
fool. It is always people who cannot manage their own affairs who are so
anxious to help their neighbours. I have no doubt that you are as capable
of looking after yourself as any girl; but, child, you must remember that
experience goes a long way in the world, and in the nature of things I
must know better than you.”
“Of course you do, papa dear. I know that.”
But she did not know it, and he knew that she did not. This knowledge is
certain to come, sooner or later, to men and women who have lived for
themselves and in themselves alone. They are mental hermits, whose
opinion of things connected with the lives of others cannot well be of
value because they have only studied their own existences.
The Rector of Stagholme suddenly became aware of this. He suddenly found
that his advice was no longer law. There are plenty of us ready to
confess that we cannot play billiards or whist or polo, but no man likes
it to be known that he cannot play the game of life. Mr. Glynde did not
like this subtle feeling of incompetency. He prided himself on being a
man of the world, and frequently applied the vague term to himself. We
are all men of a world, but it depends upon the size of that world as to
what value our citizenship may be. Mr. Glynde's world had always been the
Reverend Thomas Glynde. He knew nothing of Dora's world, and lost his way
as soon as he set his foot therein. But rather than make inquiries he
thought to support paternal dignity by going further.
“It is,” he said, with inevitable egotism, “unnecessary for me to tell
you that I have only your interests at heart.”
“Quite, papa dear. But do not let us talk about these horrid things. I am
quite happy at home, and I do not want to go away from it. There is
nowhere in the world where I should sooner be than here, even taking into
consideration the fact that you are sometimes the most dismal old
gentleman on the face of the earth.”
“Well,” he answered, with a grim smile, “I am sure I have enough to make
me dismal. I am thankful to say that there will be no difficulty about
money. You will be well enough off to have all that you might desire. But
wealth is not all that a woman wants. She cannot turn it to the same
account as a man. She wants position, a household, a husband. Otherwise
the world only makes use of her; she is a prey to charity humbugs and bad
people who do good works badly. I am not speaking as a parson, but as a
man of the world.”
“Then,” she said, “as a parson, tell me if it would not be wrong to marry
a man for whom one did not care, just for the sake of these things--a
household and a husband.”
“Of course it would,” answered Mr. Glynde. “And that is a wrong which is
usually punished in this life. But there are cases where it is difficult
to say whether there be love or not. Unless you actually despise or hate
a man, you may come to care for him.”
“And in the meantime the position and the advantages mentioned are worth
seizing?”
“So says the world,” admitted Mr. Glynde.
“And what says the parson?”
She went to him and laid her two arms upon his broad chest, standing
behind him as he sat in his arm-chair and looking down affectionately
upon his averted face.
“And what says the parson?” she repeated, with a loving tap of her
fingers on his breast.
“Nothing,” was the reply. “A better parson than I says that what is
natural is right.”
“Yes, and that means follow the dictates of your own heart?”
“I suppose so,” admitted the Hector, taking her two hands in his.
“And the dictates of my heart are all for staying at home and looking
after my ancient parents and worrying them. Am I to be sent away? Not
yet, old gentleman, not yet.”
The Reverend Thomas Glynde laughed, somewhat as if a weight had been
lifted from his heart. In his way he was a conscientious man. It was his
honest conviction that Dora would do well to marry Arthur, who was a
gentleman and essentially harmless. In persuading her to do so covertly,
as he had thought well to do, he was honestly performing that which he
thought to be his duty towards her. Presently Mrs. Glynde came back, and
shortly afterwards Dora left the room. The Rector was not reading the
book he held open on his knee, but gazed instead absently at the pattern
of the hearthrug.
A change had come in this quiet household. Dora had gone away a child.
She had come back a woman, with that consciousness of life which comes
somewhere between twenty and thirty years of age--a consciousness which
is partly made up of the knowledge that life is, after all, given to each
one of us individually to make the best of as well as we may; and no one
knows what that best is except ourselves. What is happiness for one is
misery for another, and while human beings vary as the clouds of heaven,
no life can be lived by set rule.
Over these things the Rector pondered. He felt the difference in Dora.
She was still his daughter, but no longer a child. Her existence was
still his chief care, but he could only stand by and help a little here
and there; for the dependency of childhood was left behind, and her
evident intention was to work out her own life in her own way. So do
those who are dependent by nature upon the advice and sympathy of others
learn to lean only upon their own strength.
In the room overhead, standing by the window with weary eyes, Dora was
murmuring: “I wonder--I wonder if I shall be able to hold out against
them all.”