Catharine left the cottage that afternoon, and began to walk home to
Eastthorpe. She thought, as she went along, of Phoebe's confession. She
had loved Tom, but had reached the point of perfect acquiescence in any
award of destiny, provided only he could be happy. She had faced
sickness and death without a murmur; she had no theory of duty, no
philosophy, no religion, as it is usually called, save a few dim
traditional beliefs, and she was the daughter of common peasants; but she
had attained just the one thing essential which religion and philosophy
ought to help us to obtain, and, if they do not help us to obtain it,
they are nothing. She lived not for herself, nor in herself, and it was
not even justice to herself which she demanded. She had not become what
she was because death was before her. Death and the prospect of death do
not work any change. Catharine called to mind Phoebe's past life; it was
all of a piece, and countless little incidents unnoticed at the time
obtained a significance and were interpreted. She knew herself to be
Phoebe's superior intellectually, and that much had been presented to her
which was altogether over Phoebe's horizon. But in all her purposes, and
in all her activity, she seemed to have had self for a centre, and she
felt that she would gladly give up every single advantage she possessed
if she could but depose that self and enthrone some other divinity in its
place. Oh the bliss of waking up in the morning with the thoughts turned
outwards instead of inwards! Her misery which so weighed upon her might
perhaps depart if she could achieve that conquest. She remembered one of
Mr. Cardew's first sermons, when she was at Miss Ponsonby's, the sermon
of which we have heard something, and she cried to herself, "Who shall
deliver me from the body of this death!"
Strange, but true, precisely at that moment the passion for Mr. Cardew
revived with more than its old intensity. Fresh from a deathbed,
pondering over what she had learned or thought she had learned there--the
very lesson which ought to have taught her to give up Mr. Cardew--she
loved him more than ever, and was less than ever able to banish his image
from her. She turned out of her direct road and took that which led past
his house--swept that way as irresistibly as a mastless hull is swept by
the tide. She knew that Mr. Cardew was in the habit of walking out in
the afternoon, and she knew the path he usually took. She had not gone
far before she met him. She explained what her errand had been, and
added that she preferred the bypath because she was able to avoid the
dusty Eastthorpe lane.
"I do not know these Crowhursts," said Mr. Cardew; "they are Dissenters,
I believe."
The subject dropped, and Catharine had not another word to say about
Phoebe.
"You look fatigued and as if you were not very well."
"Nothing particular; a little cough at times, but the doctor says it is
of no consequence, if I only take care."
"You have been up all night, and you are now going to walk back to
Eastthorpe?"
"Yes, the walk will refresh me."
He did not ask her to go to his house. Catharine noticed the omission;
hoped he would not--knew he would not.
"Have you heard anything of your father's assistant, Mr. Catchpole?"
"Yes, he likes that situation which you obtained for him so kindly."
"Is he quite happy?"
"Yes, I believe so."
"I encountered Mr. Colston, junior, a few minutes ago. He was on his way
to Eastthorpe. I am afraid I was rather rude to him, for, to tell you
the truth, I did not want his society. He is not an interesting young
man. Do you care anything for him?"
"Nothing."
"I should like to see the picture you have formed of the man for whom you
would care. I do not remember"--speaking slowly and dreamily--"ever to
have seen a woman who would frame a loftier ideal."
He unconsciously came nearer to her; his arm moved into hers, and she did
not resist.
"What is the use of painting pictures when reality is unattainable?"
"Unattainable! Yes, just what I imagined: you paint something
unattainable to ordinary mortality. It is strange that most men and
women, even those who more or less in all they do strive after
perfection, seem to be satisfied with so little when it comes to love and
marriage. The same sculptor, who unweariedly refines day after day to
put in marble the image which haunts him, forms no such image of a woman
whom he seeks unceasingly, or, if he does, he descends on one of the
first twenty he meets and thinks he adores her. There is some strong
thwarting power which prevents his search after the best, and it is as if
nature had said that we should not pick and choose. But the consequences
are tremendous. I honour you for your aspirations."
"You give me credit for a strength I do not possess, Mr. Cardew. I said
'unattainable.' That was all. I did not say how."
They had come to a gate which led out of the field into the road, and
they paused there. They leaned against the gate, and Mr. Cardew,
although his arm was withdrawn from Catharine's, had placed it upon the
top rail so that she felt it. The pressure would not have moved an ounce
weight; there were half a dozen thicknesses of wool and linen between the
arm and her shoulder, but the encircling touch sent a quiver through
every nerve in her and shook her like electricity. She stood gazing on
the ground, digging up the blades of grass with her foot.
"Do you mean," said Mr. Cardew, "that you have ever seen him, and that--"
The pressure behind her was a little more obvious; he bent his head
nearer to hers, looked in her face, and she leaned back on the arm
heavily. Suddenly, without a word, she put both her hands to her head,
pushed aside her hair, and stood upright as a spear.
"Good-bye," she said, with her eyes straight on his. Another second and
she had passed through the gate, and was walking fast along the road
homewards alone. She heard behind her the sound of wheels, and an open
carriage overtook her. It was Dr. Turnbull's, and of course he stopped.
"Miss Furze, you are taking a long walk."
She told him she had been to see Phoebe, and of her death.
"You must be very tired: you must come with me." She would have
preferred solitude, but he insisted on her accompanying him, and she
consented.
"I believe I saw Mr. Cardew in the meadow: I have just called on his
wife."
"Is she ill?"
"Yes, not seriously, I hope. You know Mr. Cardew?"
"Yes, a little. I have heard him preach, and have been to his house when
I was living at Abchurch."
"A remarkable man in many ways, and yet not a man whom I much admire. He
thinks a good deal, and when I am in company with him I am unaccountably
stimulated, but his thinking is not directed upon life. My notion is
that our intellect is intended to solve real difficulties which confront
us, and that all intellectual exercise upon what does not concern us is
worse than foolish. My brain finds quite enough to do in contriving how
to remove actual hard obstacles which lie in the way of other people's
happiness and my own."
"His difficulties may be different from yours."
"Certainly, but they are to a great extent artificial, and all the time
spent upon them is so much withdrawn from the others which are real. He
goes out into the fields reading endless books, containing records of
persons in various situations. He is not like any one of those persons,
and he never will be in any one of those situations. The situation in
which he found himself that morning at home, or that in which a poor
neighbour found himself, is that which to him is important. It is a
pernicious consequence of the sole study of extraordinary people that the
customary standards of human action are deposed, and other standards
peculiar to peculiar creatures under peculiar circumstances are set up. I
have known Cardew do very curious things at times. I do not believe for
one moment he thought he was doing wrong, but nevertheless, if any other
man had done them, I should have had nothing more to say to him."
"Perhaps he ought to have his own rules. He may not be constituted as we
are."
"My dear Miss Furze, as a physician, let me give you one word of solemn
counsel. Nothing is more dangerous, physically and mentally, than to
imagine we are not as other people. Strive to consider yourself, not as
Catharine Furze, a young woman apart, but as a piece of common humanity
and bound by its laws. It is infinitely healthier for you. Never, under
any pretext whatever, allow yourself to do what is exceptional. If you
have any originality, it will better come out in an improved performance
of what everybody ought to do, than in the indulgence in singularity. For
one person who, being a person of genius, has been injured by what is
called conventionality--I do not, of course, mean foolish conformity to
what is absurd--thousands have been saved by it, and self-separation
means mischief. It has been the beginning even of insanity in many cases
which have come under my notice." The doctor paused a little.
"I am glad Mrs. Cardew is better," said Catharine. "I did not know she
had been ill."
"There is a woman for you--a really wonderful woman, unobtrusive, devoted
to her husband, almost annihilating herself for him, and, what is very
noteworthy, she denies herself in studies to which she is much attached,
and for which she has a remarkable capacity, merely in order that she may
the better sympathise with him. Then her care of the poor in his parish
makes her almost a divinity to them. While he is luxuriating amongst the
cowslips, in what he calls thinking, she is teaching the sick people
patience and nursing them. She is a saint, and he does not know half her
worth. It would do you a world of good now, Miss Furze, to live with her
for six months if she were alone, but I am not quite sure that his
influence on you would be wholesome. I was alarmed about her, but she
will not die yet if I can help it. I want her to recover for her own
sake, but also for her husband's and for her friends' sake. Perhaps I
was a little too severe upon the husband, for I believe he does really
love her very much; at least, if he does not, he ought."
"Ought? Do you think, Dr. Turnbull, a man ought to love what he cannot
love?"
"Yes, but I must explain myself. I have no patience with people who seem
to consider that they may yield themselves to something they know not
what, and allow themselves to be swayed by it. A man marries a woman
whom he loves. Is it possible that she, of all women in the world, is
the one he would love best if he were to know all of them? Is it likely
that he would have selected this one woman if he had seen, say, fifty
more before he had married her? Certainly not; and when he sees other
women afterwards, better than the one he has chosen, he naturally admires
them. If he does not--he is a fool, but he is bound to check himself. He
puts them aside and is obliged to be satisfied with his wife. If it were
permissible in him in such a case to abandon her, a pretty chaos we
should be in. It is clearly his duty, and quite as clearly in his power,
to be thus contented--at least, in nine cases out of ten. He _may_--and
this is my point--he _may_ wilfully turn away from what is admirable in
his own house, or he may turn towards it. He is as responsible for
turning away from it, or turning towards it, as he is for any of his
actions. If he says he cannot love a wife who is virtuous and good, I
call him not only stupid, but wicked--yes, wicked: people in Eastthorpe
will tell you I do not know what that word means, because I do not go to
church, and do not believe in what they do not believe themselves, but
still I say wicked--wicked because he _can_ love his wife, just as he can
refrain from robbing his neighbour, and wicked because there is a bit of
excellence stuck down before him for _him_ to value. It is not intended
for others, but for _him_, and he deserts the place appointed him by
Nature if he neglects it."
"You have wonderful self-control, Dr. Turnbull. I can understand that a
man might refrain from open expression of his love for a woman, whatever
his passion for her might be, for, if he did not so restrain himself, he
might mar the peace of some other person who was better than himself, and
better deserved that his happiness should not be wrecked; but as for
love, it may be beyond him to suppress it."
"Well, Miss Furze," replied the doctor, smiling, "we are going beyond our
own experience, I hope. However, what I have said is true. I suppose it
is because it is my business to cure disease that I always strive to
extend the realm of what is _subject_ to us. You seem to be fond of an
argument. Some day we will debate the point how far the proper
appreciation even of a picture or a melody is within our own power. But
I am a queer kind of doctor. I have never asked you how you are, and you
are one of my patients."
"Better."
"That is good, but you must be careful, especially in the evening. It
was not quite prudent to sit up last night at the Crowhursts', but yet,
on the whole, it was right. No, you shall not get down here; I will
drive you up to the Terrace."
He drove her home, and she went upstairs to lie down.
"Commonplace rubbish!" she said to herself; "what I used to hear at Miss
Ponsonby's, but dressed up a little better, the moral prosing of an old
man of sixty who never knew what it was to have his pulse stirred;
utterly incapable of understanding Mr. Cardew, one of whose ideas moves
me more than volumes of Turnbull copybook."
Pulse stirred! The young are often unjust to the old in the matter of
pulsation, and the world in general is unjust to those who prefer to be
silent, or to whom silence is a duty. Dr. Turnbull's pulse was
unmistakably stirred on a certain morning thirty years ago, when he crept
past a certain door in Bloomsbury Square very early. The blinds were
still all drawn down, but he lingered and walked past the house two or
three times. He had come there to take a last look at the bricks and
mortar of that house before he went to Eastthorpe, under vow till death
to permit no word of love to pass his lips, to be betrayed into no
emotion warmer than that of man to man. His pulse was stirred, too, when
he read the announcement of her marriage in the _Times_ five years
afterwards, and then in a twelvemonth the birth of her first child. How
he watched for that birth! Ten days afterwards she died. He went to the
funeral, and after the sorrowing husband and parents had departed he
remained, and the most scalding tears shed by the grave were his. It was
not exactly moral prosing, but rather inextinguishable fire just covered
with a sprinkling of grey ash.
With that dreadful capacity which some people possess, for the
realisation of that which is not present, the parting with Mr. Cardew
came before Catharine as she shut her eyes on her pillow: the arm was
behind her--she actually felt it; his eyes were on hers; she was on fire,
and once more, as she had done before, she cursed herself for what she
almost called her cowardice in leaving him. She wrestled with her
fancies, turned this way and that way; at times they sent the blood hot
into her face, and she rose and plunged it into cold water. She was
weary, but sleep was impossible. "Commonplace rubbish!" she repeated:
"of what use is it to me?" She was young. When we grow old we find that
what is commonplace is true. _We must learn to bear our troubles
patiently_, says the copper-plate line for small text, and the revolving
years bring nothing more. She heard outside a long-drawn breath,
apparently just under the door. She opened it, and found Alice, her
retriever. Alice came in, sat down by the chair, and put her head on her
mistress's lap, looking up to her with large, brown, affectionate eyes
which spoke almost. There is something very touching in the love of a
dog. It is independent of all our misfortunes, mistakes, and sins. It
may not be of much account, but it is constant, and it is a love for
_me_, and does not desert me for anything accidental, not even if I am a
criminal. That is because a dog is a dog, it may be said; if it had a
proper sense of sin it would instantly leave the house. Perhaps so,
perhaps not: it may be that with a proper sense of sin it would still
continue to love me. Anyhow, it loves me now, and I take its fidelity to
be significant of something beyond sin. Alice had a way of putting her
feet on her mistress's lap, as if she asked to be noticed. When no
notice was taken she generally advanced her nose to Catharine's face--a
very disagreeable habit, Mrs. Furze thought, but Catharine never would
check it. The poor beast was more than usually affectionate to-day, and
just turned Catharine's gloom into tears. She was disturbed by a note
from Dr. Turnbull. He thought that what she needed was rest, and she was
to go to bed and take his medicine. This she did, and she fell into a
deep slumber from which she did not wake till morning.
Mr. Cardew, when Catharine left him, walked homewards, but he went a long
distance out of his way, much musing. As he went along something came to
him--the same Something which had so often restrained Catharine. It
smote him as the light from heaven smote Saul of Tarsus journeying to
Damascus. His eyes were opened; he crept into an outhouse in the fields,
and there alone in an agony he prayed. It was almost dark when he
reached his own gate, and he went up to his wife's bedroom, where she lay
ill. He sat down by the bed: some of her flowers were on a little table
at her side.
"I am so ignorant of flowers, Doss (the name he called her before they
were married); you really _must_ teach me."
"You know enough about them."
He took her hand in his, put his head on the pillow's beside her, and she
heard a gasp which sounded a little hysterical.
"What is the matter, my dear? You are tired. You have walked a long
way."
She turned round, and then without another word he rose a little, leaned
over her, and kissed her passionately. She never knew what his real
history during the last year or two had been. He outlived her, and one
of his sorrows when she was lying in the grave was that he had told her
nothing. He was wrong to be silent. A man with any self-respect will
not be anxious to confess his sins, save when reparation is due to
others. If he be completely ashamed of them he will hold his tongue
about them. But the perfect wife may know them. She will not love him
the less: he will love her the more as the possessor of his secrets, and
the consciousness of her knowledge of him and of them will strengthen and
often, perhaps, save him.