Nothing contributes more frequently to indecision of character in the
larger concerns of existence than a life overcrowded with effort and
performance. Had Robert Trenholme not been living at too great a pace,
his will, naturally energetic, would not, during that spring and summer,
have halted as it did between his love for Sophia Rexford and his shame
concerning his brother's trade. With the end of June his school had
closed for the summer, but at that time the congregation at his little
church greatly increased; then, too, he had repairs in the college to
superintend, certain articles to write for a Church journal, interesting
pupils to correspond with--in a word, his energy, which sometimes by
necessity and sometimes by ambition had become regulated to too quick a
pace, would not now allow him to take leisure when it offered, or even
to perceive the opportunity. His mind, habituated to unrest, was
perpetually suggesting to him things needing to be done, and he always
saw a mirage of leisure in front of him, and went on the faster in order
to come up to it. By this mirage he constantly vowed to himself that
when the opportunity came he would take time to think out some things
which had grown indistinct to him. At present the discomfort and sorrow
of not feeling at liberty to make love to the woman he loved was some
excuse for avoiding thought, and he found distraction in hard work and
social engagements. With regard to Sophia he stayed his mind on the
belief that if he dared not woo she was not being wooed, either by any
man who was his rival, or by those luxuries and tranquillities of life
which nowadays often lure young women to prefer single blessedness.
In the meantime he felt he had done what he could by writing again and
again, and even telegraphing, to Turrifs Station. It is a great relief
to the modern mind to telegraph when impatient; but when there is
nothing at the other end of the wire but an operator who is under no
official obligation to deliver the message at an address many miles
distant, the action has only the utility already mentioned--the relief
it gives to the mind of the sender. The third week in August came, and
yet he had heard nothing more from Alec. Still, Alec had said he would
come in summer, and if the promise was kept he could not now be long,
and Robert clung to the hope that he would return with ambitions toward
some higher sphere of life, and in a better mind concerning the
advisability of not being too loquacious about his former trade.
In this hope he took opportunity one day about this time, when calling
on Mrs. Rexford, to mention that Alec was probably coming. He desired,
he said, to have the pleasure of introducing him to her.
"He is very true and simple-heaped," said the elder brother; "and from
the photograph you have seen, you will know he is a sturdy lad." He
spoke with a certain air of depression, which Sophia judged to relate to
wild oats she supposed this Alec to be sowing. "He was always his dear
father's favourite boy," added Trenholme, with a quite involuntary sigh.
"A Benjamin!" cried Mrs. Rexford, but, with that quickness of mind
natural to her, she did not pause an instant over the thought.
"Well, really, Principal Trenholme, it'll be a comfort to you to have
him under your own eye. I often say to my husband that that must be our
comfort now--that the children are all under our eye; and, indeed, with
but one sitting-room furnished, and so little outing except in our own
fields, it couldn't well be otherwise. It's an advantage in a way."
"A doubtful advantage in some ways," said Sophia; but the little
children were now heard crying, so she ran from the room.
"Ah, Principal Trenholme," cried the little step-mother, shaking her
head (she was sewing most vigorously the while), "if my children will
but profit by _her_ example! But, indeed, I reproach myself that she is
here at all, although she came against my desire. Sophia is not involved
in our--I might say poverty, Principal Trenholme." (It was the
first-time the word had crossed her lips, although she always conversed
freely to him.) "When I see the farm producing so little in comparison,
I may say, in confidence, _poverty_; but Sophia has sufficient income of
her own." "I did not know that," said Trenholme, sincerely. "She came
with us, for we couldn't think of taking any of it for the house
expenses if she was away; and, as it's not large, it's the more
sacrifice she makes. But Sophia--Sophia might have been a very rich
woman if she'd married the man she was engaged to. Mr. Monekton was only
too anxious to settle everything upon her."
Trenholme had positively started at these words. He did not hear the
next remark. The eight years just passed of Sophia's life were quite
unknown to him, and this was a revelation. He began to hear the talk
again.
"My husband said the jointure was quite remarkable. And then the
carriages and gowns he would have given! You should have seen the jewels
she had! And poor Mr. Monekton--it was one month off the day the wedding
was fixed, for when she broke it off. Suddenly she would have none of
it."
Trying to piece together these staccato jottings by what he knew of the
character of his love, Trenholme's mind was sore with curiosity about it
all, especially with regard to the character of Mr. Monckton.
"Perhaps"--he spoke politely, as if excusing the fickleness of the
absent woman--"perhaps some fresh knowledge concerning the gentleman
reached Miss Rexford."
"For many a year we had known all that was to be known about Mr.
Monckton," declared the mother, vigorously. "Sophia changed her mind. It
was four years ago, but she might be Mrs. Monckton in a month if she'd
say the word. He has never been consoled; her father has just received a
letter from him to-day begging him to renew the subject with her; but
when Sophia changes once she's not likely to alter again. There's not
one in a thousand to equal her."
Trenholme agreed perfectly with the conclusion, even if he did not see
that it was proved by the premises. He went away with his mind much
agitated and filled with new anxieties. The fact that she had once
consented to marry another seemed to him to make it more probable that
she might do so again. He had allowed himself to assume that since the
time when he had seen her as a young girl, the admired of all, Sophia
had drifted entirely out of that sort of relation to society; but now,
by this sudden alarm, she seemed to be again elevated on some pinnacle
of social success beyond his reach. It struck him, too, as discouraging
that he should be able to know so little about a girl he had loved in a
vague way so long, and now for a time so ardently, and who had dwelt for
months at his very door. He blamed the conventionalities of society that
made it impossible for him to ask her the thousand and one questions he
fain would ask, that refused him permission to ask any until he was
prepared to make that offer which involved the explanation from which he
shrank so much that he would fain know precisely what degree of evil he
must ask her to face before he asked at all. He told himself that he
shrank not so much on account of his own dislike, as on account of the
difficulty in which his offer and explanation must place her if she
loved him; for if she was not bound strongly by the prejudices of her
class, all those she cared for certainly were. On the other hand, if she
did not love him, then, indeed, he had reason to shrink from an
interview that would be the taking away of all his hope. Who would not
wrestle hard with hope and fear before facing such an alternative?
Certainly not a man of Trenholme's stamp.
It is a mistake to suppose that decision and fearlessness are always the
attributes of strength. Angels will hover in the equipoise of indecision
while clowns will make up their minds. Many a fool will rush in to woo
and win a woman, who makes her after-life miserable by inconsiderate
dealings with incongruous circumstance, in that very unbending temper of
mind through which he wins at first. Trenholme did not love the less,
either as lover or brother, because he shrank, as from the galling of an
old wound, when the family trade was touched upon. He was not a weaker
man because he was capable of this long suffering. That nature has the
chance to be the strongest whose sensibilities have the power to draw
nourishment of pain and pleasure from every influence; and if such soul
prove weak by swerving aside because of certain pains, because of
stooping from the upright posture to gain certain pleasures, it still
may not be weaker than the more limited soul who knows not such
temptations. If Trenholme had swerved from the straight path, if he had
stooped from the height which nature had given him, the result of his
fault had been such array of reasons and excuses that he did not now
know that he was in fault, but only had hateful suspicion of it when he
was brought to the pass of explaining himself to his lady-love. The
murmurs of an undecided conscience seldom take the form of definite
self-accusation. They did not now; and Trenholme's suspicion that he was
in the wrong only obtruded itself in the irritating perception that his
trouble had a ludicrous side. It would have been easier for him to have
gone to Sophia with confession of some family crime or tragedy than to
say to her, "My father was, my brother is, a butcher; and I have allowed
this fact to remain untold!" It was not that he did not intend to prove
to her that his silence on this subject was simply wise; he still
writhed under the knowledge that such confession, if it did not evoke
her loving sympathy, might evoke her merriment.
That afternoon, however, he made a resolution to speak to Sophia before
another twenty-four hours had passed--a resolution which was truly
natural in its inconsistency; for, after having waited for months to
hear Alec's purpose, he to-day decided to act without reference to him.
At the thought of the renewed solicitation of another lover, his own
love and manliness triumphed over everything else. He would tell her
fully and frankly all that had made him hesitate so long, and of his
long admiration for her, and how dearly he now loved her. He would not
urge her; he would, leave the choice to her. This resolution was not
made by any impulsive yielding to a storm of feeling, nor in the calm of
determined meditation; he simply made up his mind in the course of that
afternoon's occupation.