By request of one who has read thus far, and is still curious.
Yes, and another who, in spite of himself, has fallen in love with
Victoria and would like to linger a while longer, even though it
were with the paltry excuse of discussing that world-old question of
hers--Can sublime happiness and achievement go together? Novels on the
problem of sex nowadays often begin with marriages, but rarely discuss
the happy ones; and many a woman is forced to sit wistfully at home
while her companion soars.
“Yet may I look with heart unshook
On blow brought home or missed--
Yet may I hear with equal ear
The clarions down the List;
Yet set my lance above mischance
And ride the barriere--
Oh, hit or miss, how little 'tis,
My Lady is not there!”
A verse, in this connection, which may be a perversion of Mr. Kipling's
meaning, but not so far from it, after all. And yet, would the eagle
attempt the great flights if contentment were on the plain? Find the
mainspring of achievement, and you hold in your hand the secret of the
world's mechanism. Some aver that it is woman.
Do the gods ever confer the rarest of gifts upon him to whom they have
given pinions? Do they mate him, ever, with another who soars as high as
he, who circles higher that he may circle higher still? Who can answer?
Must those who soar be condemned to eternal loneliness, and was it a
longing they did not comprehend which bade them stretch their wings
toward the sun? Who can say?
Alas, we cannot write of the future of Austen and Victoria Vane! We can
only surmise, and hope, and pray,--yes, and believe. Romance walks with
parted lips and head raised to the sky; and let us follow her, because
thereby our eyes are raised with hers. We must believe, or perish.
Postscripts are not fashionable. The satiated theatre goer leaves before
the end of the play, and has worked out the problem for himself long
before the end of the last act. Sentiment is not supposed to exist in
the orchestra seats. But above (in many senses) is the gallery, from
whence an excited voice cries out when the sleeper returns to life,
“It's Rip Van Winkle!” The gallery, where are the human passions which
make this world our world; the gallery, played upon by anger, vengeance,
derision, triumph, hate, and love; the gallery, which lingers and
applauds long after the fifth curtain, and then goes reluctantly
home--to dream. And he who scorns the gallery is no artist, for there
lives the soul of art. We raise our eyes to it, and to it we dedicate
this our play;--and for it we lift the curtain once more after those in
the orchestra have departed.
It is obviously impossible, in a few words, to depict the excitement in
Ripton, in Leith, in the State at large, when it became known that the
daughter of Mr. Flint was to marry Austen Vane,--a fitting if unexpected
climax to a drama. How would Mr. Flint take it? Mr. Flint, it may be
said, took it philosophically; and when Austen went up to see him upon
this matter, he shook hands with his future son-in-law,--and they
agreed to disagree. And beyond this it is safe to say that Mr. Flint
was relieved; for in his secret soul he had for many years entertained a
dread that Victoria might marry a foreigner. He had this consolation at
any rate.
His wife denied herself for a day to her most intimate friends,--for
it was she who had entertained visions of a title; and it was
characteristic of the Rose of Sharon that she knew nothing of the Vanes
beyond the name. The discovery that the Austens were the oldest family
in the State was in the nature of a balm; and henceforth, in speaking of
Austen, she never failed to mention the fact that his great-grandfather
was Minister to Spain in the '30's,--a period when her own was engaged
in a far different calling.
And Hilary Vane received the news with a grim satisfaction, Dr.
Tredway believing that it had done more for him than any medicine or
specialists. And when, one warm October day, Victoria herself came and
sat beside the canopied bed, her conquest was complete: he surrendered
to her as he had never before surrendered to man or woman or child, and
the desire to live surged back into his heart,--the desire to live for
Austen and Victoria. It became her custom to drive to Ripton in the
autumn mornings and to sit by the hour reading to Hilary in the mellow
sunlight in the lee of the house, near Sarah Austen's little garden.
Yes, Victoria believed she had developed in him a taste for reading;
although he would have listened to Emerson from her lips.
And sometimes, when she paused after one of his long silences to glance
at him, she would see his eyes fixed, with a strange rapt look, on the
garden or the dim lavender form of Sawanec through the haze, and knew
that he was thinking of a priceless thing which he had once possessed,
and missed. Then Victoria would close the volume, and fall to dreaming,
too.
What was happiness? Was it contentment? If it were, it might
endure,--contentment being passive. But could active, aggressive,
exultant joy exist for a lifetime, jealous of its least prerogative,
perpetually watchful for its least abatement, singing unending anthems
on its conquest of the world? The very intensity of her feelings at such
times sobered Victoria--alarmed her. Was not perfection at war with the
world's scheme, and did not achievement spring from a void?
But when Austen appeared, with Pepper, to drive her home to Fairview,
his presence never failed to revive the fierce faith that it was
his destiny to make the world better, and hers to help him. Wondrous
afternoons they spent together in that stillest and most mysterious of
seasons in the hill country--autumn! Autumn and happiness! Happiness as
shameless as the flaunting scarlet maples on the slopes, defiant of the
dying year of the future, shadowy and unreal as the hills before them in
the haze. Once, after a long silence, she started from a revery with the
sudden consciousness of his look intent upon her, and turned with parted
lips and eyes which smiled at him out of troubled depths.
“Dreaming, Victoria?” he said.
“Yes,” she answered simply, and was silent once more. He loved these
silences of hers,--hinting, as they did, of unexplored chambers in an
inexhaustible treasure-house which by some strange stroke of destiny
was his. And yet he felt at times the vague sadness of them, like the
sadness of the autumn, and longed to dispel it.
“It is so wonderful,” she went on presently, in a low voice, “it is so
wonderful I sometimes think that it must be like--like this; that it
cannot last. I have been wondering whether we shall be as happy when the
world discovers that you are great.”
He shook his head at her slowly, in mild reproof.
“Isn't that borrowing trouble, Victoria?” he said. “I think you need
have no fear of finding the world as discerning as yourself.”
She searched his face.
“Will you ever change?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “No man can stand such flattery as that without
deteriorating, I warn you. I shall become consequential, and pompous,
and altogether insupportable, and then you will leave me and never
realize that it has been all your fault.”
Victoria laughed. But there was a little tremor in her voice, and her
eyes still rested on his face.
“But I am serious, Austen,” she said. “I sometimes feel that, in the
future, we shall not always have many such days as these. It's selfish,
but I can't help it. There are so many things you will have to do
without me. Don't you ever think of that?”
His eyes grew grave, and he reached out and took her hand in his.
“I think, rather, of the trials life may bring, Victoria,” he answered,
“of the hours when judgment halts, when the way is not clear. Do you
remember the last night you came to Jabe Jenney's? I stood in the road
long after you had gone, and a desolation such as I had never known came
over me. I went in at last, and opened a book to some verses I had been
reading, which I shall never forget. Shall I tell you what they were?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“They contain my answer to your question,” he said.
“What became of all the hopes,
Words and song and lute as well?
Say, this struck you 'When life gropes
Feebly for the path where fell
Light last on the evening slopes,
“'One friend in that path shall be,
To secure my step from wrong;
One to count night day for me,
Patient through the watches long,
Serving most with none to see.'”
“Victoria, can you guess who that friend is?”
She pressed his hand and smiled at him, but her eyes were wet.
“I have thought of it in that way, too, dear. But--but I did not know
that you had. I do not think that many men have that point of view,
Austen.”
“Many men,” he answered, “have not the same reason to be thankful as I.”
There is a time, when the first sharp winds which fill the air with
flying leaves have come and gone, when the stillness has come again, and
the sunlight is tinged with a yellower gold, and the pastures are still
a vivid green, and the mountain stained with a deeper blue than any gem,
called Indian summer. And it was in this season that Victoria and Austen
were married, in a little church at Tunbridge, near Fairview, by the
bishop of the diocese, who was one of Victoria's dearest friends. Mr.
Thomas Gaylord (for whose benefit there were many rehearsals) was best
man, Miss Beatrice Chillingham maid of honour; and it was unanimously
declared by Victoria's bridesmaids, who came up from New York, that they
had fallen in love with the groom.
How describe the wedding breakfast and festivities at Fairview House,
on a November day when young ladies could walk about the lawns in the
filmiest of gowns! how recount the guests and leave out no friends--for
none were left out! Mr. Jabe Jenney and Mrs. Jenney, who wept as she
embraced both bride and groom; and Euphrasia, in a new steel-coloured
silk and a state of absolute subjection and incredulous happiness. Would
that there were time to chronicle that most amazing of conquests of
Victoria over Euphrasia! And Mrs. Pomfret, who, remarkable as it may
seem, not only recognized Austen without her lorgnette, but quite
overwhelmed him with an unexpected cordiality, and declared her
intention of giving them a dinner in New York.
“My dear,” she said, after kissing Victoria twice, “he is most
distinguished-looking--I had no idea--and a person who grows upon one.
And I am told he is descended from Channing Austen, of whom I have
often heard my grandfather speak. Victoria, I always had the greatest
confidence in your judgment.”
Although Victoria had a memory (what woman worth her salt has not?), she
was far too happy to remind Mrs. Pomfret of certain former occasions,
and merely smiled in a manner which that lady declared to be enigmatic.
She maintained that she had never understood Victoria, and it was
characteristic of Mrs. Pomfret that her respect increased in direct
proportion to her lack of understanding.
Mr. Thomas Gaylord, in a waistcoat which was the admiration of all who
beheld it, proposed the health of the bride; and proved indubitably
that the best of oratory has its origin in the heart and not in the
mind,--for Tom had never been regarded by his friends as a Demosthenes.
He was interrupted from time to time by shouts of laughter; certain
episodes in the early career of Mr. Austen Vane (in which, if Tom was
to be believed, he was an unwilling participant) were particularly
appreciated. And shortly after that, amidst a shower of miscellaneous
articles and rice, Mr. and Mrs. Vane took their departure.
They drove through the yellow sunlight to Ripton, with lingering looks
at the hills which brought back memories of boys and sorrows, and
in Hanover Street bade good-by to Hilary Vane. A new and strange
contentment shone in his face as he took Victoria's hands in his, and
they sat with him until Euphrasia came. It was not until they were well
on their way to New York that they opened the letter he had given them,
and discovered that it contained something which would have enabled them
to remain in Europe the rest of their lives had they so chosen.
We must leave them amongst the sunny ruins of Italy and Greece and
southern France, on a marvellous journey that was personally conducted
by Victoria.
Mr. Crewe was unable to go to the wedding, having to attend a directors'
meeting of some importance in the West. He is still in politics, and
still hopeful; and he was married, not long afterwards, to Miss Alice
Pomfret.
PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Fame sometimes comes in the line of duty
Genius is almost one hundred percent directness
In a frenzy of anticipation, garnished and swept the room
It's noble, but it don't pay
Treason to party he regarded with a deep-seated abhorrence
Battles of selfish interests ebbed and flowed
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds
His strength was his imperviousness to this kind of a remark
Many a silent tear of which they knew nothing
Politicians are politicians; they have always been corrupt
Gratitude, however, is one of the noblest qualities of man
One of your persistent fallacies is, that I'm still a boy
The burden of the valley of vision
Thrice-blessed State, in which there were now three reform candidates
Years of regrets for that which might have been
End of Project Gutenberg's Mr. Crewe's Career, Complete, by Winston Churchill