IF A GIRL REALLY LOVES A MAN SHE WILL MARRY HIM, EVEN THOUGH HE SHOULD
WRITE A BOOK.
Phyllis meant the half hour which would elapse before her tea was
brought to her to be a very grateful space. She meant to dwell upon the
achievement of her freedom, for the feeling that she was free was very
sweet to her. The fetters that had bound her had been flung away, and
she now only had a splendid sense of freedom. So sweet was this sense
that she made up her mind that in future it would never do for her to
run any such risk as that to which she had just subjected herself.
How could she ever have been such a fool as to promise to marry George
Holland? That was what she was asking herself as she lay back on the
pillows of the French sofa, and listened to the soft sound of the
carriage wheels of the callers at the other houses in the square.
What a singular wish that was of hers--to become the wife of a
clergyman! It seemed very singular to her just now. Just now she did not
want to become the wife of anyone, and she hoped that no one would ask
her. She did not want the worry of it. Ah, she would be very careful in
the future: she would take very good care that the fact of other girls
wanting to marry one particular man would not make her anxious to have
him all to herself.
Before her resolutions on this very important point had been fully
considered in all their bearings, her maid entered to ask if she was
at home. The butler had sent a footman to her to make that inquiry, the
fact being that her particular friend, Mrs. Linton, had called to see
her.
Phyllis jumped up, saying:
“Of course I am home to Mrs. Linton. She will have tea with me.”
She went to a glass to see if the tears which had been in her eyes--they
had not fallen--had left any traces that the acuteness of Ella Linton
might detect. The result of her observation was satisfactory; she would
not even need to sit with her back to the light.
Then Mrs. Linton was announced, and flowed into the arms of her friend
Phyllis, crying:
“Of course I knew that you would be at home to me, my beloved, even
though you might be in the midst of one of those brilliant speeches
which you write out for your father to deliver in the House and cause
people to fancy that he is the wittiest man in place--so unlike that
dreadful teetotal man who grins through the horse collar and thinks that
people are imposed on. Now let me look at you, you lucky girl! You are a
lucky girl, you know.”
“Yes,” said Phyllis, “you have called on me. We shall have tea in a
minute. How good of you to come to me the first day you arrived in town!
How well you are looking, my Ella!”
“So glad you think so,” said Ella. “I haven’t aged much during the eight
months we have been apart. I have had a very good time on the whole,
and so had Stephen, though he was with me for close upon a month, poor
little man! But it is you, Phyllis, it is you who are the girl of the
hour. Heavens! you were farsighted! Who could have imagined that he
would become so famous all in a moment? I must confess that when you
wrote to me that letter telling me of your engagement, and how happy you
were, I was a little cross. I could not clearly see you the wife of a
parson, even so presentable a parson as Mr. Holland. Oh, of course I
wrote you the usual exuberant letter--what would be the good of doing
anything else? But now that he has become famous--Oh, I want you to
bring him with you to my first At Home--Tuesday week. It’s very short
notice, I know, but you must come, and bring him. You are both certain
to be in great demand. Why do you shake your head that way? You need not
say that you are engaged for Tuesday week.”
“I will not say that I am engaged at all, in any sense,” said Phyllis,
with a very shallow laugh, at laugh that sounded like a ripple among
pebbles; her usual laugh was like a ripple upon a silver sand.
“In any sense--for Tuesday week?”
Ella raised her eyebrows to the extent of the eighth of an inch. She
lowered them in a moment, however, for the tea was being brought in.
It required two able-bodied men (in plush) to carry in a dainty
little silver tray, with a little silver tea-pot of a pattern that
silversmiths, for reasons which have never been fully explained, call
“Queen Anne.” One of the men, however, devoted himself to the care of
the hot cakes of various subtle types which were inclosed in silver
covered dishes.
With the lowering of her eyebrows Mrs. Linton’s voice lost its previous
inflection.
“I have been fortunate enough to hit upon something distinctly new in
that way”--she indicated the muffin dishes. “A cake that may be eaten
hot without removing one’s gloves.”
“What a boon!” cried Phyllis. “You got it at Vienna, of course.”
“Of course. You will learn all about it when you come.”
The able-bodied men withdrew, and before the door was quite closed
behind them, Ella was gazing at her friend, her face alight with
inquiry.
“Now pray explain yourself,” she whispered. “Not engaged in any
sense--those were your words. What do they mean?”
“Take them literally, my Ella,” said Phyllis.
“Literally? But you wrote to me that you had engaged yourself to marry
Mr. Holland?”
“And now I tell you by word of mouth that I have disengaged myself.”
“Good Heavens! You, I fancied, would be the last girl in the world to
promise to marry a man and then back out of it.”
“That was what I myself fancied up till Monday last.”
“But how can you have changed your mind? Isn’t it very unfortunate--just
when the man has become famous?”
“How could it be otherwise, Ella, when the man wrote so horrible a book
as that?”
“Horrible? Is it horrible? I had no idea. I’m no judge of what is
horrible in theology, or metaphysics, or whatever it is. But I do
profess to know when a man has made a hit, whether in theology or
anything else; and I perceive quite clearly that your Mr. Holland--well,
not your Mr. Holland, has made a distinct hit. What sort of face is that
you’re making at me? Oh, I see. It’s the face of the orthodox at the
mention of something not quite orthodox. Pshut! don’t be a goose,
Phyllis.”
“I don’t intend. Have I not told you that I’m not going to marry Mr.
Holland?”
“That is like one of the phrases which you give to your father, so that
the people might think him clever. Orthodox! Who cares nowadays for what
is dully orthodox? Who ever heard of a hero in orthodoxy nowadays? The
thing is impossible. There may be, of course, thousands of orthodox
heroes, but one never hears anything of them. The planets Jupiter and
Saturn and Mercury and Mars and the rest of them come and go at their
appointed seasons, and no one ever gives them a second thought, poor old
respectable things! but the moment a comet appears in the sky everyone
rushes out to gaze at it, and the newspapers deal with it from day to
day, and the illustrated papers give its portrait. Nothing could be more
unorthodox than your comet. Oh, Phyllis, my child, don’t talk nowadays
of orthodoxy or the other--what do they call it?--heterodoxy. Mr.
Holland’s name will be in everyone’s mouth for the next year at least,
and if his bishop or a friendly church warden prosecutes him, and the
thing is worked up properly, he ought to be before the public for the
next five years.”
“Oh, Ella!”
“I’m not overstating the case, I assure you, my dear. A man was telling
me about one Colenso--he was, so far as I could gather, a first-class
man at algebra and heresy and things like that. He was Bishop
of Zanzibar or Uganda or some place, and he wrote a book about
Moses--showing that Moses couldn’t have written something or other.
Well, he took a bit of prosecuting, five or six years, I believe, and
he didn’t go nearly so far as Mr. Holland does in that book of his. All
this time people talked about little else but Colenso, and his books
made him a fortune. That was before our time, dear--when the newspapers
weren’t worked as they are now. Block printing has made more heroes than
the longest campaign on record. Yes, Mr. Courtland said so two days
ago. I think I’ll try some more of that lovely cake: it’s like warm
ice, isn’t it? Oh, you’ll not be so foolish as to throw over your Mr.
Holland.”
“It is already done,” said Phyllis. “I’m so glad that you like the cake.
It is very subtle. What a delightful idea--warm ice!”
“Never mind the cake. I want to hear more of this matter of Mr.
Holland,” said Ella. “Do you mean to tell me plainly that you threw
over Mr. Holland because he wrote a book that will bring him fame and
fortune?”
“I have thrown over Mr. Holland because he has written a book to make
people have contempt for the Bible,” said Phyllis.
“Then all I can say is that you were never in love with the man,” cried
Ella.
“You may say that if you please.”
“I do say it. If a girl really loves a man, she will marry him even
though he should write a book against Darwin. If a girl really loves a
man she will stand by him all the closer when he is undergoing a course
of honorable persecution, with his portrait in every paper that one
picks up.”
“I dare say that is true enough,” assented Phyllis. “Perhaps I never did
really love Mr. Holland. Perhaps I only fancied I cared for him because
I saw that so many other girls--took to wearing chocolates and grays and
kept their sleeves down just when sleeves were highest.”
“Of course it was only natural that you should wish to--well,
colloquially, to wipe the eyes of the other girls. How many girls, I
should like to know, begin to think of a man as a possible husband
until they perceive that the thoughts of other girls are turned in his
direction?”
“At any rate, whatever I may have done long ago--”
“Three months ago.”
“Three months ago. Whatever I may have done then, I know that I don’t
love him now.”
“Don’t be too sure, my dear Phyllis. If there is one thing more than
another about which a woman should never be positive, it is whether or
not she loves a particular man. What mistakes they make! No, I’ll never
believe that you turned him adrift simply because he wrote something
disparagingly about Solomon, or was it David? And I did so want you and
him for my next day; I meant it to be such a _coup_, to have returned to
town only a week and yet to have the most outrageously unorthodox parson
at my house. Ah, that would indeed have been a _coup_! Never mind, I can
at least have the beautiful girl who, though devoted to the unorthodox
parson, threw him over on account of his unorthodoxy.”
“Yes, you are certain of me--that is, if you think I should--if it
wouldn’t seem a little----”
“What nonsense, Phyllis! Where have you been living for the past
twenty-three years that you should get such a funny notion into your
head? Do you think that girls nowadays absent themselves from felicity
awhile when they find it necessary to become--well, disengaged--yes, or
divorced, for that matter?”
“I really can’t recollect any case of--”
“Of course you can’t. They don’t exist. The proper thing for a women to
do when she gets a divorce is to take a box at a theatre and give
the audience a chance of recognizing her from her portraits that have
already appeared in the illustrated papers. The block printing has done
that too. There’s not a theatre manager in London who wouldn’t give his
best box to a woman who has come straight from the divorce court. The
managers recognize the fact that she is in the same line as themselves.
But for you, my dear Phyllis--oh, you will never do him the injustice to
keep your throwing over of him a secret.”
“Injustice? Oh, Ella!”
“I say injustice. Good gracious, child! cannot you see that if it
becomes known that the girl who had promised to marry him has broken
off her engagement to him simply because he has written that book, the
interest that attaches to him on account of his unorthodoxy will be
immeasurably increased?”
“I will not do him the injustice of fancying for a moment that he would
be gratified on this account. Whatever he may be, Ella, he is at least
sincere and single-minded in his aims.”
“I have no doubt of it, my only joy. But however sincere a man may be in
his aims, he still cannot reasonably object to the distinction that is
thrust upon him when he has done something out of the common. The men
who make books know that that sort of thing pays. Someone told me the
other day--I believe it was Herbert Courtland--that it is the men
who write books embodying a great and noble aim who make the closest
bargains with their publishers. I heard of a great and good clergyman
the other day who wrote a Life of Christ, and then complained in the
papers of his publishers having only given him a miserable percentage on
the profits. That is how they talk nowadays; the profit resulting from
the Life of Christ is to be measured in pounds, shillings, and pence.”
“Mr. Holland is not a man of this stamp, Ella.”
“I’m sure he is not. At the same time if he isn’t prosecuted for
heterodoxy no one will be more disappointed than Mr. Holland, unless,
indeed, it be Mr. Holland’s publisher. Who would begrudge the martyr his
halo, dear? Even the most sincere and single-minded martyr has an eye
on that halo. The halo of the up-to-date martyr is made up of afternoon
teas provided by fair women, and full-page portraits in the illustrated
papers.”
“And all this leads to--what?”
“It leads to--let me see--oh, yes, it leads to your appearance at my
little gathering. Of course, you’ll come. Believe me, you’ll not feel
the least uncomfortable. You will be The Girl who Sacrificed her Love
for Conscience’ Sake. That’s a good enough qualification for distinction
on the part of any girl in these hard times. But I might have known long
ago that you would play this part. That sweetly pathetic voice, with
that firm mouth and those lovely soft gray eyes that would seem to a
casual observer to neutralize the firmness of the mouth. Oh, yes, my
Phyllis, you have undoubtedly _la physionomie du role_.”
“What _role_?”
“The _role_ of the girl who is on the side of the Bible.”
“I am certainly on the side of the Bible.”
“And so am I. So I will look for you to be by my side on Tuesday
week, and as often as you please in the meantime. By the way, you will
probably meet Herbert Courtland at our house. He is the New Guinea man,
you know.”
“Of course I know. You talk of wanting heroes in orthodoxy at your
house, while you have Mr. Courtland, the New Guinea explorer, drinking
his tea at your elbow? Oh, go away!”
“I hope you will like him. We saw a good deal of him in Italy, and will
probably see a good deal of him here.”
“I’m certain to like him: you like him.”
“Ah, that’s what you said to the young women who put off their colors
and took to sackcloth in the presence of Mr. Holland. Don’t be too sure
that you will like any man because other women like him. Now, I have,
as usual, remained too long with you. I’m greatly impressed with the
situation of the moment. I don’t say that I think you are wrong, mind
you. Girls should always be on the side of the Bible. At any rate you
have, I repeat, _la physionomie du role_, and you can’t be far astray if
you act up to it. Good-bye, my dearest.”