CONFUSION.
Then first, and from that moment, Letty's troubles began. Up to this
point neither she herself nor another could array troublous accusation
or uneasy thought against her; and now she began to feel like a very
target, which exists but to receive the piercing of arrows. At first
sight, and if we do not look a long way ahead of what people stupidly
regard as the end when it is only an horizon, it seems hard that so
much we call evil, and so much that is evil, should result from that
unavoidable, blameless, foreordained, preconstituted, and essential
attraction which is the law of nature, that is the will of God, between
man and woman. Even if Letty had fallen in love with Tom at first
sight, who dares have the assurance to blame her? who will dare to say
that Tom was blameworthy in seeking the society and friendship, even
the love, of a woman whom in all sincerity he admired, or for using his
wits to get into her presence, and detain her a little in his company?
Reasons there are, infinitely deeper than any philosopher has yet
fathomed, or is likely to fathom, why a youth such as he--foolish,
indeed, but not foolish in this--and a sweet and blameless girl such as
Letty, should exchange regards of admiration and wonder. That which
thus moves them, and goes on to draw them closer and closer, comes with
them from the very source of their being, and is as reverend as it is
lovely, rooted in all the gentle potencies and sweet glories of
creation, and not unworthily watered with all the tears of agony and
ecstasy shed by lovers since the creation of the world. What it is, I
can not tell; I only know it is _not_ that which the young fool calls
it, still less that which the old sinner thinks it. As to Letty's
disobedience of her aunt's extravagant orders concerning Tom, I must
leave that to the judgment of the just, reminding them that she was
taken by surprise, and that, besides, it was next to impossible to obey
them. But Letty found herself very uncomfortable, because there now was
that to be known of her, the knowledge of which would highly displease
her aunt--for which very reason, if for no other, ought she not to tell
her all? On the other hand, when she recalled how unkindly, how
unjustly her aunt had spoken, when she confessed her new acquaintance,
it became to her a question whether in very deed she _must_ tell her
all that had passed that afternoon. There was no smallest hope of any
recognition of the act, surely more hard than incumbent, but severity
and unreason; _must_ she let the thing out of her hands, and yield
herself a helpless prey--and that for good to none? Concerning Mrs.
Wardour, she reasoned justly: she who is even once unjust can not
complain if the like is expected of her again.
But, supposing it remained Letty's duty to acquaint her aunt with what
had taken place, and not forgetting that, as one of the old people, I
have to render account of the young that come after me, and must be
careful over their lovely dignities and fair duties, I yet make haste
to assert that the old people, who make it hard for the young people to
do right, may be twice as much to blame as those whom they arraign for
a concealment whose very heart is the dread of their known selfishness,
fierceness, and injustice. If children have to obey their parents or
guardians, those parents and guardians are over them in the name of
God, and they must look to it: if in the name of God they act the
devil, that will not prove a light thing for their answer. The causing
of the little ones to offend hangs a fearful woe about the neck of the
causer. It were a hard, as well as a needless task, seeing there is One
who judges, to set forth how far the child is to blame as toward the
parent, where the parent first of all is utterly wrong, yea out of true
relation, toward the child. Not, therefore, is the child free;
obligation remains--modified, it may be, but how difficult, alas, to
fulfill! And, whether Letty and such as act like her are _excusable_ or
not in keeping attentions paid them a secret, this sorrow for the good
ones of them certainly remains, that, next to a crime, a secret is the
heaviest as well as the most awkward of burdens to carry. It has to be
carried always, and all about. From morning to night it hurts in
tenderest parts, and from night to morning hurts everywhere. At any
expense, let there be openness. Take courage, my child, and speak out.
Dare to speak, I say, and that will give you strength to resist, should
disobedience become a duty. Letty's first false step was here: she said
to herself _I can not_, and did not. She lacked courage--a want in her
case not much to be wondered at, but much to be deplored, for courage
of the true sort is just as needful to the character of a woman as of a
man. Had she spoken, she might have heard true things of Tom,
sufficient so to alter her opinion of him as, at this early stage of
their intercourse, to alter the _set_ of her feelings, which now was
straight for him. It may be such an exercise of courage would have
rendered the troubles that were now to follow unnecessary to her
development. For lack of it, she went about from that time with the
haunting consciousness that she was one who might be found out; that
she was guilty of what would go a good way to justify the hard words
she had so resented. Already the secret had begun to work conscious
woe. She contrived, however, to quiet herself a little with the idea,
rather than the resolve, that, as soon as Godfrey came home, she would
tell him all, confessing, too, that she had not the courage to tell his
mother. She was sure, she said to herself, he would forgive her, would
set her at peace with herself, and be unfair neither to Mr. Helmer nor
to her. In the mean time she would take care--and this was a real
resolve, not a mere act contemplated in the future--not to go where she
might meet him again. Nor was the resolve the less genuine that, with
the very making of it, rose the memory of that delightful hour more
enticing than ever. How beautifully, and with what feeling, he read the
lovely song! With what appreciation had he not expounded Milton's
beautiful poem! Not yet was she capable of bethinking herself that it
was but on this phrase and on that he had dwelt, on this and on that
line and rhythm, enforcing their loveliness of sound and shape; while
the poem, the really important thing, the drift of the whole--it was
her own heart and conscience that revealed that to her, not the
exposition of one who at best could understand it only with his brain.
She kept to her resolve, nevertheless; and, although Tom, leaving his
horse now here now there, to avoid attracting attention, almost every
day visited the oak, he looked in vain for the light of her approach.
Disappointment increased his longing: what would he not have given to
see once more one of those exquisite smiles break out in its perfect
blossom! He kept going and going--haunted the oak, sure of some blessed
chance at last. It was the first time in his life he had followed one
idea for a whole fortnight.
At length Godfrey came. But, although all the time he was away Letty
had retained and contemplated with tolerable calmness the idea of
making her confession to him, the moment she saw him she felt such
confession impossible. It was a sad discovery to her. Hitherto Godfrey,
and especially of late, had been the chief source of the peace and
interest of her life, that portion of her life, namely, to which all
the rest of it looked as its sky, its overhanging betterness--and now
she felt before him like a culprit: she had done what he might be
displeased with. Nay, would that were all! for she felt like a
hypocrite: she had done that which she could not confess. Again and
again, while Godfrey was away, she had flattered herself that the help
the objectionable Tom had given her with her task would at once
recommend him to Godfrey's favorable regard; but now that she looked in
Godfrey's face, she was aware--she did not know why, but she was aware
it would not be so. Besides, she plainly saw that the same fact would,
almost of necessity, lead him to imagine there had been much more
between them than was the case; and she argued with herself, that, now
there was nothing, now that everything was over, it would be a pity if,
because of what she could not help, and what would never be again,
there should arise anything, however small, of a misunderstanding
between her cousin Godfrey and her.
The moment Godfrey saw her, he knew that something was the matter; but
there had been that going on in him which put him on a false track for
the explanation. Scarcely had he, on his departure for London, turned
his back on Thornwick, ere he found he was leaving one whom yet he
could not leave behind him. Every hour of his absence he found his
thoughts with the sweet face and ministering hands of his humble pupil.
Therewith, however, it was nowise revealed to him that he was in love
with her. He thought of her only as his younger sister, loving,
clinging, obedient. So dear was she to him, he thought, that he would
rejoice to secure her happiness at any cost to himself. _Any_ cost? he
asked--and reflected. Yes, he answered himself--even the cost of giving
her to a better man. The thing was sure to come, he thought--nor
thought without a keen pang, scarcely eased by the dignity of the
self-denial that would yield her with a smile. But such a crisis was
far away, and there was no necessity for now contemplating it. Indeed,
there was no _certainty_ it would ever arrive; it was only a
possibility. The child was not beautiful, although to him she was
lovely, and, being also penniless, was therefore not likely to attract
attention; while, if her being unfolded under the genial influences he
was doing his best to make powerful upon her, if she grew aware that by
them her life was enlarging and being tenfold enriched, it was possible
she might not be ready to fall in love, and leave Thornwick. He must be
careful, however, he said to himself, quite plainly now, that his
behavior should lead her into no error. He was not afraid she might
fall in love with him; he was not so full of himself as that; but he
recoiled from the idea, as from a humiliation, that she might imagine
him in love with her. It was not merely that he had loved once for all,
and, once deceived and forsaken, would love no more; but it was not for
him, a man of thirty years, to bow beneath the yoke of a girl of
eighteen--a child in everything except outward growth. Not for a moment
would he be imagined by her a courtier for her favor.
Thus, even in the heart of one so far above ordinary men as Godfrey,
and that in respect of the sweetest of child-maidens, pride had its
evil place; and no good ever comes of pride, for it is the meanest of
mean things, and no one but he who is full of it thinks it grand. For
its sake this wise man was firmly resolved on caution; and so, when at
last they met, it was no more with that _abandon_ of simple pleasure
with which he had been wont to receive her when she came knocking at
the door of his study, bearing clear question or formless perplexity;
and his restraint would of itself have been enough to make Letty, whose
heart was now beating in a very thicket of nerves, at once feel it
impossible to carry out her intent--impossible to confess to him any
more than to his mother; while Godfrey, on his part, perceiving her
manifest shyness and unwonted embarrassment, attributed them altogether
to his own wisely guarded behavior, and, seeing therein no sign of loss
of influence, continued his caution. Thus the pride, which is of man,
mingled with the love, which is of God, and polluted it. From that hour
he began to lord it over the girl; and this change in his behavior
immediately reacted on himself, in the obscure perception that there
might be danger to her in continued freedom of intercourse: he must,
therefore, he concluded, order the way for both; he must take care of
her as well as of himself. But was it consistent with this resolve that
he should, for a whole month, spend every leisure moment in working at
a present for her--a written marvel of neatness and legibility?
Again, by this meeting askance, as it were, another disintegrating
force was called into operation: the moment Letty knew she could not
tell Godfrey, and that therefore a wall had arisen between him and her,
that moment woke in her the desire, as she had never felt it before, to
see Tom Helmer. She could no longer bear to be shut up in herself; she
must see somebody, get near to somebody, talk to somebody; her secret
would choke her otherwise, would swell and break her heart; and who was
there to think of but Tom--and Mary Marston?
She had never once gone to the oak again, but she had not altogether
avoided a certain little cobwebbed gable-window in the garret, from
which it was visible; neither had she withheld her hands from cleaning
a pane in that window, that through it she might see the oak; and
there, more than once or twice, now thickening the huge limb, now
spotting the grass beneath it, she had descried a dark object, which
could be nothing else than Tom Helmer on the watch for herself. He must
surely be her friend, she reasoned, or how would he care, day after
day, to climb a tree to look if she were coming--she who was the
veriest nobody in all other eyes but his? It was so good of Tom! She
_would_ call him Tom; everybody else called him Tom, and why shouldn't
she--to herself, when nobody was near? As to Mary Marston, she treated
her like a child! When she told her that she had met Tom at
Durnmelling, and how kind he had been, she looked as grave as if it had
been wicked to be civil to him; and told her in return how he and his
mother were always quarreling: that must be his mother's fault, she was
sure-it could not be Tom's; any one might see that at a glance! His
mother must be something like her aunt! But, after that, how could she
tell Mary any more? It would not be fair to Tom, for, like the rest,
she would certainly begin to abuse him. What harm could come of it?
and, if harm did, how could she help it! If they had been kind to her,
she would have told them everything, but they all frightened her so,
she could not speak. It was not her fault if Tom was the only friend
she had! She _would_ ask his advice; he was sure to advise her just the
right thing. He had read that sonnet about the wise virgin with such
feeling and such force, he _must_ know what a girl ought to do, and how
she ought to behave to those who were unkind and would not trust her.
Poor Letty! she had no stay, no root in herself yet. Well do I know not
one human being ought, even were it possible, to be enough for himself;
each of us needs God and every human soul he has made, before he has
enough; but we ought each to be able, in the hope of what is one day to
come, to endure for a time, not having enough. Letty was unblamable
that she desired the comfort of humanity around her soul, but I am not
sure that she was quite unblamable in not being fit to walk a few steps
alone, or even to sit still and expect. With all his learning, Godfrey
had not taught her what William Marston had taught Mary; and now her
heart was like a child left alone in a great room. She had not yet
learned that we must each bear his own burden, and so become able to
bear each the burden of the other. Poor friends we are, if we are
capable only of leaning, and able never to support.
But the moment Letty's heart had thus cried out against Mary, came a
shock, and something else cried out against herself, telling her that
she was not fair to her friend, and that Mary, and no other, was the
proper person to advise with in this emergency of her affairs. She had
no right to turn from her because she was a little afraid of her.
Perhaps Letty was on the point of discovering that to be unable to bear
disapproval was an unworthy weakness. But in her case it came nowise of
the pride which blame stirs to resentment, but altogether of the
self-depreciation which disapproval rouses to yet greater dispiriting.
Praise was to her a precious thing, in part because it made her feel as
if she could go on; blame, a misery, in part because it made her feel
as if all was of no use, she never could do anything right. She had not
yet learned that the right is the right, come of praise or blame what
may. The right will produce more right and be its own reward--in the
end a reward altogether infinite, for God will meet it with what is
deeper than all right, namely, perfect love. But the more Letty
thought, the more she was sure she must tell Mary; and, disapprove as
she might, Mary was a very different object of alarm from either her
aunt or her cousin Godfrey.
The first afternoon, therefore, on which she thought her aunt could
spare her, she begged leave to go and see Mary. Mrs. Wardour yielded
it, but not very graciously. She had, indeed, granted that Miss Marston
was not like other shop-girls, but she did not favor the growth of the
intimacy, and liked Letty's going to her less than Mary's coming to
Thornwick.