By far the greater part of the theoretical wisdom of the world comes to
us in the shape of legacies bequeathed by fools. A fool is not a person
without knowledge or understanding--that is an ignoramus. The true
fool--the only fool worthy of a wise man’s contemplation--is the man who
knows and understands, and habitually refrains from acting according
to knowledge and understanding. It is the record of the follies of such
people which has built up the world’s wisdom. From that record we have
learned amongst many other things that the fool of understanding has one
eternal refuge from himself which he seeks with a full knowledge of the
fact that the shelter it affords is illusory, and that the path by which
it leads him can only conduct him to greater dangers than those from
which he is striving to escape. It is too late to go back now, quoth the
fool; the business must be gone through to the end. Thus if this brief
diagnosis be of any value, the root of folly is to be found in the decay
of will. Few men had reason to hold this belief more firmly than Paul
Armstrong, and yet even now, when whatever was best in his own nature
was more seriously engaged than it had ever been before, he went on to
the consummation of a most undoubted and most cruel wrong, on the poor
pretence that every stage he passed towards it made the passage of the
next stage inevitable.
If ever it had seemed clear to him that it was too late to retire it
seemed clearer now, and indeed he had so involved himself that it
became to him alike and equally criminal to retreat or to advance. But
by-and-by a solace for his miseries brought a solution of perplexity.
Since he had taken so tremendous a responsibility upon himself, since
there was now no escape from it without an act of brutality at the mere
thought of which his heart revolted, there grew up within him such a
resolve and such a sense of protective tenderness as had been hitherto
impossible for him. Poor little Madge was to be victimized, but the _via
dolorosa_ which she would tread unendingly should at least be strewn
with flowers, and the victim herself should be beautifully garlanded.
His life should be one act of worship in return for her self-sacrifice.
His devotion should offer such a challenge to the censure of the world
that all reproach should shrink away ashamed. There never had been so
complete an atonement as he would offer.
The nauseous pill of self-reproach was so thickly sugared and gilded by
this inspiration that in a while he was not only able to take it without
making wry faces, but with an actual sense of relish and self-approval.
This was naturally a good deal dashed by the coming interview with
Madge’s mother, about whose unknown personality there began to cluster
some self-contradictory ideas. That lady would be a most unnatural
mother if she rejected the proposal he had to lay before her, and a most
unnatural mother if she accepted it. In his reflections, according to
his mood, he saw either horn of this dilemma so clearly that the other
vanished from his mind, but it always assumed its proper reality again,
and made its companion altogether visionary.
When at last the fatal hour for the interview arrived, he went to the
rendezvous in a pitiable state of hope and fear. He had always his whole
life through carried all his eggs in one basket, and had been incapable
of undertaking more than one emotional enterprise at a time. To lose
Madge now would be to lose everything, and his former experiences of
the healing powers of time--which were possibly numerous and striking
enough--were of no value to him. Obeying the directions he had received,
he chartered a cab, and after a half-hour’s tumultuous journey found
himself alighting before a pretty villa in Prahran, with a well-ordered
garden in front of it full of English shrubs and flowers, amidst which
were interspersed a number of sub-tropic plants and trees. He was shown
with no delay into a shaded room, where he had some difficulty in making
out the figure of a gray-haired lady who sat in an arm-chair to receive
him, and who did not rise at his entrance. Madge was standing near her,
and as the dazzling effect of the bright sunshine of the streets passed
from his eyes he saw the sign of many tears in the two faces before him.
There was an embarrassing silence, which lasted for a full half-minute,
and Paul stood there conscious of the mother’s scrutiny, and feeling
like a criminal in the dock. The girl herself was the first who found
courage and self-control to speak.
‘Mother dear,’ she said in an uncertain voice, ‘this is Mr. Armstrong.’
The elder lady nodded, and with a slight gesture of the hand motioned
the visitor to a chair. Paul obeyed the gesture, and waited in silence.
‘You will understand,’ the lady of the house began, ‘how wretchedly
sorry I am to see you.’ Paul bowed an assent to this, and could but
acknowledge that the unpromising exordium was natural. ‘My daughter has
never had a secret from me in her life until within the last few months.
She has written of you in her letters from time to time, but never
led me to fancy that you were making love to her. I believe you are a
married man, Mr. Armstrong?’
‘I am married,’ Paul responded in a voice so strangled and unlike his
own that it positively startled him.
‘I cannot help knowing,’ said Mrs. Hampton, ‘that I have made a very
serious mistake in giving way to my daughter’s desire to go upon the
stage. But I trusted her so completely that I had no fear at all of what
has happened. You must know, Mr. Armstrong, that you have misbehaved
yourself most cruelly.’
‘I have said so to myself a thousand times,’ said Paul, ‘and I have no
defence to offer now.’
‘You have done a wicked and a cruel thing,’ pursued the mother. ‘You have
brought my daughter into opposition with me for the first time in her
life, and you have filled her head with ideas which can only lead to
suffering and disgrace.’
‘Forgive me, Mrs. Hampton,’ Paul said. ‘I have acted precipitously and
wrongly, and I am much to blame; but I have never striven for an instant
to confuse Miss Hampton’s mind. If I have won her love, I have done it
half unconsciously, and it began in friendship and esteem. I ought, I
know now, to have told her of that miserable tie which binds me; but
at first I did not think it necessary to speak a word about that. A man
would have to be a rare coxcomb,’ he went on, ‘to think it needful that
he should make public proclamation of a fact like that. My life has been
ruined for years past, and I did not care to talk about it I did not
dream of harm until harm was done.’
‘I can only say, Mr. Armstrong,’ the mother answered, ‘that there can be
no discussion about this matter, and that I rely upon my daughter to do
justice to herself. She will learn in a little while to know that you
have done her a very serious wrong, and that will help her to live her
trouble down.’
‘Madam,’ cried Paul, rising to his feet, and speaking with an
impassioned swiftness, ‘I beseech you to listen to me for one minute
only; if I try to justify myself in some small degree, you will
understand my purpose. At an age when life is opening for most men I
had tied myself to a hopeless burden. I found myself shut out from every
chance of happiness; such a thing as home I dared not even dream of. The
law can afford me no relief from the snare into which I have fallen;
I am excluded from everything that makes life bright to other men. My
experiences of woman’s friendship have not been happy, and I had come
to the belief that I was condemned to go through life without
companionship. I met your daughter; we found that our minds came
together in whatever was best in both of us. I declare that I never
spoke one word of love to her until the night on which she made me
promise to write the letter which she sent to you. I must not--dare
not--speak of scruples on your side. They are no scruples; they are
stern and cruel facts which can only be surmounted by great courage. But
they have been surmounted by others, and we believe--Madge and I both
believe--that we have the courage and the constancy to face them. Madge
tells me that without your consent our case is hopeless. I know how
unlikely it is that it should be given; but if it should be given--if by
any chance you should be brought to change your present mind--I promise
you by everything that men hold sacred that I will honour and treasure
her and cherish her as my true wife in the sight of God and men, and
that the tie on my side will be not less binding, but beyond measure
more sacred because her claim appeals only to honour and manhood, and is
not enforced by law. I plead for myself, Mrs. Hampton, and you will tell
me with perfect justice that you are not called upon in the remotest
degree to consult my wishes or to sympathize with any grief I may have
brought upon myself. But there is another side to the question, and
your daughter will tell you if I am right in thinking it a million times
stronger than my own. You have known her and have loved her tenderly all
her life. I have known her for little more than half a year; but I am
sure of this: her affections are not lightly engaged or easily cast
away.’
She had raised her hand against him more than once as if to interrupt
him, but he had not checked the impetuous torrent of his speech until he
had poured out all he had to say. Now, with a forlorn outward gesture of
the hands, and a lax dropping of them to either side, he stood awaiting
judgment.
Madge broke silence for the second time.
‘There is no need for Mr. Armstrong to stay longer now. You and I must
talk together, mother; and I will write to him to-night.’
Her face was of a striking pallor, except where the salt of tears had
scalded it; but she spoke with an entire possession of herself, and Paul
wondered at her steadfastness and courage.
‘There is one thing more,’ he said: ‘if you can be brought to sanction
this union, sanctify it by coming with us both to Europe. Live with
us, and help me to secure Madge’s happiness. Your presence there would
silence every wicked tongue, and if we made no secret of the truth, but
dared the world together, we should find, I know, that it would deal
kindly with us.’
He stood for a moment, and, receiving no reply, bowed and walked blindly
towards a door which communicated with another room. Madge called to
him, ‘This way,’ and went out into the hall before him.
‘Is this to be our last parting, I wonder?’ he asked hoarsely.
She shook her head with a weary lifting of the fine arched brows as if
to say she could find no answer, and then withdrew without word or sign,
leaving him to quit the house unattended.
He fumbled half blindly until he found his hat and cane, and then he had
to fumble for the door, for the whole place was heavily shadowed from
the blazing sun outside, and his eyesight and his hands were each less
serviceable to him than usual. At first the broad sunshine fell upon
his eyes like a sudden vivid heat upon a wound, and in his agitation
and half-blindness he found himself walking away from the quarter of the
city to which he had meant to direct his steps. Correcting this error in
a minute or two, he turned and made for his hotel with a mind so shaken
and vacant that he seemed to have no thoughts at all. A man who has
been passionately in love three times before he has begun to verge
upon middle age may easily be thought too inflammable a subject to be
deserving of much pity, but a man may be keenly in sympathy with himself
without enlisting the sympathy of other people, and Paul was here as
always heroically and tragically in earnest. Without seeking apologies
for him too far afield, there is a kind of nature which burns intensely
within itself, and will break out into violence of smoke and flame with
the intrusion of any new emotional material, just as there is a nature
not more intense which will burn equably and clearly whatever new supply
of fuel may be heaped upon it.
There is no need to dwell upon the time of waiting, the miserable
loiterings in bedroom, corridor and entrance-hall, the aimless perusal
of newspapers which conveyed no meaning to the mind, the taking up and
laying down of petty occupations, and all the other signs and tokens
of suspense. Time and the hour wear out the roughest day, and as Paul
lingered over the dessert of a barely tasted dinner, a note reached him
in Madge’s handwriting. It contained these words only:
‘There is no change. I dare not hope, and I dare not despair. I may have
news for you to-morrow, but what it may be I must not guess.
‘M.’
This was cold comfort, but he had not expected more, and he strolled
away in sheer vacuity of heart and thought to the principal theatre of
the city, where just then a bright comic opera was running. The lights,
the gay music, the brilliantly-dressed crowd upon the stage, made no
impression on his mind, and his saturnine and gloomy face was in such
contrast to the loud hilarity of the audience that he felt himself a
blot upon the house, and at the first fall of the curtain withdrew
into the streets, where he wandered listlessly until midnight He was
fatigued, and slept heavily for some hours, but he was awake again
long before the household was astir, and suffered all the weariness
and chagrin which assailed the unoccupied mind in hours of suspense and
doubt. Another brief note reached him by the first post.
‘Mother has spoken a great deal to-night of my brother George, who, as
you know, is already in London. I do not know what to think of this, and
I can scarcely dare to fancy what I should so much like to believe. I
shall not write again until I have something definite to tell you, but
whether we ever meet again or no, you shall see my whole heart for once.
I love you, and I know that I shall always love you. Is it unwomanly--is
it too bold to tell you this so soon? Will you think that I am too
easily persuaded about myself? I hope not. But whatever happens, even if
I never see you or hear your voice again, I shall not change or forget
anything that has happened in all this beautiful and dreadful time.
‘All yours, and always yours,
‘Madge.’
This had been brought to him as he sat dressed in his bedroom, wondering
if any message would reach him, and he had locked his door to be alone
with Fate before he had broken the seal of the wax, which bore a dove
with an olive-branch, and the motto _Esperez_. He read the tender
message with its proclamation of unshakable fidelity thrice over,
and then rising, began to pace up and down the room. A cry of
self-accusation rose to his lips.
‘My God!’ he asked himself, ‘what have I done? What _have_ I done?’
There was no room for doubt in all his mind. There are some truths which
manifest themselves so clearly to the heart that they are not to
be resisted. He had found fidelity at last after all his foolish
researches. It had seemed to him the priceless jewel of the world, and
he had been willing to barter all his life for it. It was here at last,
and he was so far beggared that he had no price to offer in payment for
it which was worth a thousandth part its value. He was bankrupt and had
sought to buy this treasure, and must now needs go through life as a
swindler. Even if his hopes were granted, what had he to pay? He knew
at this moment as clearly as if he had even then been enlightened by
the events of later years that there were scores of women who would draw
their skirts away in a real disdain of an association of which they were
not worthy. And he knew also that if his own hopes failed him he had
spoiled the one life in the whole world he would fain have done his best
to gladden.
The next pause lasted long. Day after day went by and no message came.
It is not more than justice to chronicle the fact that Paul Armstrong
did grow for once in his life to feel more for another than for himself,
and if he suffered anguish, as he did, it was on Madge’s account much
rather than his own. The cry her confession had wrung from him was
always in his mind: ‘What have I done? My God, what _have_ I done?’
These days were a stern discipline, but they came to an end at last. A
note reached him at the end of a week in which Mrs. Hampton presented
her compliments to Mr. Armstrong, with a request that he would call that
afternoon at five o’clock. This, of course, conveyed no certainty to him
in either one direction or another, but it awoke an extraordinary tumult
in his mind, and he found himself in the neighbourhood of the Prahran
villa a full hour before the time appointed. He sauntered in the
broiling heat and blinding light until he lost himself repeatedly in
strange places and rang at the doors of strange houses to inquire his
way back again, quite frenzied by the fear of missing his appointment In
effect, he arrived at the instant, and was ushered into the room he had
already visited. Mrs. Hampton sat there, looking very pale and stern,
he thought, and she rose upon his entrance and offered him her hand. It
seemed to him that this cost her a considerable effort, and she resumed
her seat without a word. Madge was there also, but she exchanged no
greeting with Paul, and did not even meet his glance. The hostess
touched a bell upon the table which stood near her, and after a silent
pause a trim parlourmaid brought in a tray upon which was set out the
materials for afternoon tea. Mrs. Hampton began to busy herself about
the tray, and Madge handed a cup of tea to Paul.
‘I may tell you, Mr. Armstrong,’ said Madge’s mother, ‘that, if you
think it worth while to call it winning, you have won. You have very
nearly broken an old woman’s heart in doing it, and you may break a
girl’s heart into the bargain before you have done. But my son George is
in London, and I have made up my mind to let Madge go home and join
him there. Her sister will go with her and will be her companion on the
voyage, and I shall follow so soon as I can dispose of my interests in
this country. I am uprooting my household and leaving all my friends;
and I am doing it, Mr. Armstrong, for a man of whom I know next to
nothing. I am almost certain that I am not acting wisely, and I am
not quite sure that I am not acting wickedly. I know out of my own
experience of the world that marriage can make a woman miserable if
it were blessed by all the parsons living, but you are taking a
responsibility a great deal bigger than that of any husband, and I
am taking such a responsibility as no mother ought to take. And now,
Madge,’ she said, ‘I want to speak to Mr. Armstrong in private for one
minute. Come back when I call you.’
Madge stole obediently away, and when the door had closed behind her,
Mrs. Hampton leaned forward and spoke in a half-whisper, with her hand
stretched out before the listener like a hovering bird.
‘I have my child’s promise,’ she said, ‘and I know that I can trust to
it But I must have your undertaking that you will place her safely in
her brother’s hands, and that you will treat her with as much respect as
if she were engaged to be married to you.’
‘Madam,’ Paul broke out, ‘I pledge myself absolutely. I could hold no
pledge so sacred.’
‘I shall follow,’ said Mrs. Hampton, ‘within two or three months.
My child will have had another half-year in which to know you and to
understand your intentions towards her. I have no fear of her; but
if you violate your promise in the slightest, you will act like a
scoundrel, and I have Madge’s undertaking that she will be candid with
me. There is no more to be said now until we meet in England. I may
tell you just this, Mr. Armstrong: we two have spent every night since
I first saw you in each other’s arms in tears. I am giving you a proof
that I think well of you on very slender grounds. If you are in the
least worthy my good opinion, you will think sometimes of what I have
just told you.’
He stooped and kissed her hand, and when she drew it away there was a
single tear upon it.
‘I had rather get the wrench over,’ she said, ‘and have done with it.
It will seem quite natural that I should go home and join my family in
London, and I shall explain nothing beyond that.’ She rose and opened
the door and called her daughter by name. ‘It is all over,’ she said,
when Madge returned. ‘I have but one hope, and that is that you may
never live to blame your mother’s weakness. I should have done for
your father what you are doing if there had been any need for it, and I
should have done it in the face of all the world. And now I want to
be alone a little to--to’--her voice faltered suddenly, and her eyes
brimmed with tears--‘to say my prayers, and, if I have done wrong, to
beg God’s forgiveness. Go out into the garden, children, and leave me
here.’
So into the wide garden, cooled with the shade of English
fruit-trees--peach and pear and plum and apple--the two wandered, far
too disturbed by happiness as yet to be content But in Paul’s heart
a new well of tenderness began to open--a spring of tenderness and
yearning which seemed to overflow every cranny of his nature. To pay for
this, to scrape up from the bankrupt remnants of life something by way
of thanks-offering, to devote himself heart and soul and mind and body
to that one aim, to discipline himself to a lofty and unresting ambition
for that one aim’s sake, to win a fortune, to win a solid renown in
which his love should shine reflected and sit enshrined--all this was
with him in one confused conglomerate of gratitude and hope and love.
‘No woman,’ he said, ‘ever showed a greater trust I shall never be
worthy of it, but it shall be the one endless study of my life to be
less unworthy.’
He took her, unresisting, to his arms. Their lips met for the first
time, and two souls seemed to tremble into one.