THE ONE WOMAN
Daybreak on the following morning found the gas blazing in Rob's
lodgings. Rob was seated in an arm-chair, his feet on the cold hearth.
_The Scorn of Scorns_ lay on the mantelpiece carefully done up in brown
paper, lest a speck of dust should fall on it, and he had been staring
at the ribs of the fireplace for the last three hours without seeing
them. He had not thought of the gas. His bed was unslept on. His damp
boots had dried on his feet. He did not feel cold. All night he had sat
there, a man mesmerised. For the only time in his life he had forgotten
to wind up his watch.
At times his lips moved as if he were speaking to himself, and a smile
lit up his face. Then a change of mood came, and he beat the fender with
his feet till the fire-irons rattled. Thinking over these remarks
brought the rapture to his face:
'How do you do, Mr. Angus?'
'You must not take to heart what Miss Meredith said.'
'Please don't say any more about it. I am quite sure you gave your
honest opinion about my book.'
'I am so glad you think this like Scotland, because, of course, that is
the highest compliment a Scotsman can pay.'
'Good-night, Mr. Angus.'
That was all she had said to him, but the more Rob thought over her
remarks the more he liked them. It was not so much the words themselves
that thrilled him as the way they were said. Other people had asked,
'How do you do, Mr. Angus?' without making an impression, but her
greeting was a revelation of character, for it showed that though she
knew who he was she wanted to put him at his ease. This is a delightful
attribute in a woman, and worth thinking about.
Just before Miss Abinger said, 'How do you do, Mr. Angus?' Rob had
realised what people meant by calling her proud. She was holding her
head very high as she appeared in the path, and when Nell told her who
Rob was she flushed. He looked hopelessly at her, bereft of speech, as
he saw a tear glisten on her eyelid; and as their eyes met she read into
the agony that he was suffering because he had hurt her. It was then
that Mary made that memorable observation, 'How do you do, Mr. Angus?'
They turned toward the castle doors, Nell and the baronet in front, and
Rob blurted out some self-reproaches in sentences that had neither
beginning nor end. Mary had told him not to take it so terribly to
heart, but her voice trembled a little, for this had been a night of
incident to her. Rob knew that it was for his sake she had checked that
tear, and as he sat in his lodgings through the night he saw that she
had put aside her own troubles to lessen his. When he thought of that he
drew a great breath. The next moment his whole body shuddered to think
what a brute he had been, and then she seemed to touch his elbow again,
and he half rose from his chair in a transport.
As soon as he reached his lodgings Rob had taken up _The Scorn of
Scorns_, which he had not yet returned to Mr. Licquorish, and re-read it
in a daze. There were things in it so beautiful now that they caught in
his throat and stopped his reading; they took him so far into the
thoughts of a girl that to go farther seemed like eavesdropping. When he
read it first _The Scorn of Scorns_ had been written in a tongue Rob did
not know, but now he had the key in his hands. There is a universal
language that comes upon young people suddenly, and enables an English
girl, for instance, to understand what a Chinaman means when he looks
twice at her. Rob had mastered it so suddenly that he was only its slave
at present. His horse had run away with him.
Had the critic of _The Scorn of Scorns_ been a bald-headed man with two
chins, who did not know the authoress, he would have smiled at the
severity with which she took perfidious man to task, and written an
indulgent criticism without reading beyond the second chapter. If he had
been her father he would have laughed a good deal at her heroics, but
now and again they would have touched him, and he would have locked the
book away in his desk, seeing no particular cleverness in it, but
feeling proud of his daughter. It would have brought such thoughts to
him about his wife as suddenly fill a man with tenderness--thoughts he
seldom gives expression to, though she would like to hear them.
Rob, however, drank in the book, his brain filled with the writer of it.
It was about a young girl who had given her heart to a stranger, and
one day when she was full of the joy of his love he had disappeared. She
waited, wondering, fearing, and then her heart broke, and her only
desire was to die. No one could account for the change that came over
her, for she was proud, and her relatives were not sympathetic. She had
no mother to go to, and her father could not have understood. She became
listless, and though she smiled and talked to all, when she went to her
solitary bed-chamber she turned her face in silence to the wall. Then a
fever came to her, and after that she had to be taken to the Continent.
What shook her listlessness was an accident to her father. It was feared
that he was on his deathbed, and as she nursed him she saw that her life
had been a selfish one. From that moment she resolved if he got better
(is it not terrible this, that the best of us try to make terms with
God?) to devote her life to him, and to lead a nobler existence among
the poor and suffering ones at home. The sudden death of a relative who
was not a good man frightened her so much that she became ill again, and
now she was so fearful of being untruthful that she could not make a
statement of fact without adding 'I think so,' under her breath. She let
people take advantage of her lest she should be taking advantage of
them, and when she passed a cripple on the road she walked very slowly
so that he should not feel his infirmity.
Years afterwards she saw the man who had pretended to love her and then
ridden away. He said that he could explain everything to her, and that
he loved her still; but she drew herself up, and with a look of
ineffable scorn, told him that she no longer loved him. When they first
met, she said, she had been little more than a child, and so she had
made an idol of him. But long since the idol had crumbled to pieces, and
now she knew that she had worshipped a thing of clay. She wished him
well, but she no longer loved him. As Lord Caltonbridge listened he knew
that she spoke the truth, and his eyes drooped before her dignified but
contemptuous gaze. Then, concludes the author, dwelling upon this little
triumph with a satisfaction that hardly suggests a heart broken beyond
mending, he turned upon his heel, at last realising what he was; and,
feeling smaller and meaner than had been his wont, left the Grange for
the second and last time.
How much of this might be fiction, Rob was not in a mind to puzzle over.
It seemed to him that the soul of a pure-minded girl had been laid bare
to him. To look was almost a desecration, and yet it was there whichever
way he turned. A great longing rose in his heart to see Mary Abinger
again and tell her what he thought of himself now. He rose and paced the
floor, and the words he could not speak last night came to his lips in a
torrent. Like many men who live much alone, Rob often held imaginary
conversations with persons far distant, and he denounced himself to this
girl a score of times as he paced back and forwards. Always she looked
at him in reply with that wonderful smile which had pleaded with him not
to be unhappy on her account. Horrible fears laid hold of him that after
the guests had departed she had gone to her room and wept. That villain
Sir Clement had doubtless left the castle for the second and last time,
'feeling smaller and meaner than had been his wont' (Rob clenched his
fists at the thought of him), but how could he dare to rage at the
baronet when he had been as great a scoundrel himself? Rob looked about
him for his hat; a power not to be resisted was drawing him back to Dome
Castle.
He heard the clatter of crockery in the kitchen as he opened his door,
and it recalled him to himself. At that moment it flashed upon him that
he had forgotten to write any notice of Colonel Abinger's speech. He had
neglected the office and come straight home. At any other time this
would have startled him, but now it seemed the merest trifle. It passed
for the moment from his mind, and its place was taken by the remembrance
that his boots were muddy and his coat soaking. For the first time in
his life the seriousness of going out with his hair unbrushed came home
to him. He had hitherto been content to do little more than fling a comb
at it once a day. Rob returned to his room, and, crossing to the mirror,
looked anxiously into it to see what he was like. He took off his coat
and brushed it vigorously.
Having laved his face, he opened his box, and produced from it two
neckties, which he looked at for a long time before he could make up his
mind which to wear. Then he changed his boots. When he had brushed his
hat he remembered with anxiety some one on the _Mirror's_ having asked
him why he wore it so far back on his head. He tilted it forward, and
carefully examined the effect in the looking-glass. Then forgetful that
the sounds from the kitchen betokened the approach of breakfast, he
hurried out of the house. It was a frosty morning, and already the
streets were alive, but Rob looked at no one. For women in the abstract
he now felt an unconscious pity, because they were all so very unlike
Mary Abinger. He had grown so much in the night that the Rob Angus of
the day before seemed but an acquaintance of his youth.
He was inside the grounds of Dome Castle again before he realised that
he had no longer a right to be there. By fits and starts he remembered
not to soil his boots. He might have been stopped at the lodge, but at
present it had no tenant. A year before, Colonel Abinger had realised
that he could not keep both a horse and a lodge-keeper, and that he
could keep neither if his daughter did not part with her maid. He
yielded to Miss Abinger's entreaties, and kept the horse.
Rob went on at a swinging pace till he turned an abrupt corner of the
walk and saw Dome Castle standing up before him. Then he started, and
turned back hastily. This was not owing to his remembering that he was
trespassing, but because he had seen a young lady coming down the steps.
Rob had walked five miles without his breakfast to talk to Miss Abinger,
but as soon as he saw her he fled. When he came to himself he was so
fearful of her seeing him, that he hurried behind a tree, where he had
the appearance of a burglar.
Mary Abinger came quickly up the avenue, unconscious that she was
watched, and Rob discovered in a moment that after all the prettiest
thing about her was the way she walked. She carried a little basket in
her hand, and her dress was a blending of brown and yellow, with a great
deal of fur about the throat. Rob, however, did not take the dress into
account until she had passed him, when, no longer able to see her face,
he gazed with delight after her.
Had Rob been a lady he would probably have come to the conclusion that
the reason why Miss Abinger wore all that fur instead of a jacket was
because she knew it became her better. Perhaps it was. Even though a
young lady has the satisfaction of feeling that her heart is now
adamant, that is no excuse for her dressing badly. Rob's opinion was
that it would matter very little what she wore, because some pictures
look lovely in any frame, but that was a point on which he and Miss
Abinger always differed. Only after long consideration had she come to
the conclusion that the hat she was now wearing was undoubtedly the
shape that suited her best, and even yet she was ready to spend time in
thinking about other shapes. What would have seemed even more surprising
to Rob was that she had made up her mind that one side of her face was
better than the other side.
No mere man, however, could ever have told which was the better side of
Miss Abinger's face. It was a face to stir the conscience of a good man,
and make unworthy men keep their distance, for it spoke first of purity,
which can never be present anywhere without being felt. All men are born
with a craving to find it, and they never look for it but among women.
The strength of the craving is the measure of any man's capacity to
love, and without it love on his side would be impossible.
Mary Abinger was fragile because she was so sensitive. She carried
everywhere a fear to hurt the feelings of others, that was a bodkin at
her heart. Men and women in general prefer to give and take. The
keenness with which she felt necessitated the garment of reserve, which
those who did not need it for themselves considered pride. Her weakness
called for something to wrap it up. There were times when it pleased her
to know that the disguise was effective, but not when it deceived
persons she admired. The cynicism of _The Scorn of Scorns_ was as much a
cloak as her coldness, for she had an exquisite love of what is good and
fine in life that idealised into heroes persons she knew or heard of as
having a virtue. It would have been cruel to her to say that there are
no heroes. When she found how little of the heroic there was in Sir
Clement Dowton she told herself that there are none, and sometimes other
persons had made her repeat this since. She seldom reasoned about
things, however, unless her feelings had been wounded, and soon again
she was dreaming of the heroic. Heroes are people to love, and Mary's
idea of what love must be would have frightened some persons from loving
her. With most men affection for a woman is fed on her regard for them.
Greatness in love is no more common than greatness in leading armies.
Only the hundredth man does not prefer to dally where woman is easiest
to win; most finding the maids of honour a satisfactory substitute for
the princess. So the boy in the street prefers two poor apples to a
sound one. It may be the secret of England's greatness.
On this Christmas Day Mary Abinger came up the walk rapidly, scorning
herself for ever having admired Sir Clement Dowton. She did everything
in the superlative degree, and so rather wondered that a thunderbolt
was not sent direct from above to kill him--as if there were
thunderbolts for every one. If we got our deserts most of us would be
knocked on the head with a broomstick.
When she was out of sight, Rob's courage returned, and he remembered
that he was there in the hope of speaking to her. He hurried up the walk
after her, but when he neared her he fell back in alarm. His heart was
beating violently. He asked himself in a quaver what it was that he had
arranged to say first.
In her little basket Mary had Christmas presents for a few people,
inhabitants of a knot of houses not far distant from the castle gates.
They were her father's tenants, and he rather enjoyed their being unable
to pay much rent, it made them so dependent. Had Rob seen how she was
received in some of these cottages, how she sat talking merrily with one
bed-ridden old woman whom cheerfulness kept alive, and not only gave a
disabled veteran a packet of tobacco, but filled his pipe for him, so
that he gallantly said he was reluctant to smoke it (trust an old man
for gallantry), and even ate pieces of strange cakes to please her
hostesses, he would often have thought of it afterwards. However, it
would have been unnecessary prodigality to show him that, for his mind
was filled with the incomparable manner in which she knocked at doors
and smiled when she came out. Once she dropped her basket, and he could
remember nothing so exquisite as her way of picking it up.
Rob lurked behind trees and peered round hedges, watching Miss Abinger
go from one house to another, but he could not shake himself free of the
fear that all the world had its eye on him. Hitherto not his honesty
but its bluntness had told against him (the honesty of a good many
persons is only stupidity asserting itself), and now he had not the
courage to be honest. When any wayfarers approached he whistled to the
fields as if he had lost a dog in them, or walked smartly eastward
(until he got round a corner) like one who was in a hurry to reach
Silchester. He looked covertly at the few persons who passed him, to see
if they were looking at him. A solitary crow fluttered into the air from
behind a wall, and Rob started. In a night he had become self-conscious.
At last Mary turned homewards, with the sun in her face. Rob was moving
toward the hamlet when he saw her, and in spite of himself he came to a
dead stop. He knew that if she passed inside the gates of the castle his
last chance of speaking to her was gone; but it was not that which made
him keep his ground. He was shaking as the thin boards used to do when
they shot past his circular saw. His mind, in short, had run away and
left him.
On other occasions Mary would not have thought of doing more than bow to
Rob, but he had Christmas Day in his favour, and she smiled.
'A happy Christmas to you, Mr. Angus,' she said, holding out her hand.
It was then that Rob lifted his hat, and overcame his upbringing. His
unaccustomed fingers insisted on lifting it in such a cautious way that,
in a court of law, it could have been argued that he was only planting
it more firmly on his head. He did not do it well, but he did it. Some
men would have succumbed altogether on realising so sharply that it is
not women who are terrible, but a woman. Here is a clear case in which
the part is greater than the whole.
Rob would have liked to wish Miss Abinger a happy Christmas too, but the
words would not form, and had she chosen she could have left him looking
very foolish. But Mary had blushed slightly when she caught sight of Rob
standing helplessly in the middle of the road, and this meant that she
understood what he was doing there. A girl can overlook a great deal in
a man who admires her. She feels happier. It increases her self-respect.
So Miss Abinger told him that, if the frost held, the snow would soon
harden, but if a thaw came it would melt; and then Rob tore out of
himself the words that tended to slip back as they reached his tongue.
'I don't know how I could have done it,' he said feebly, beginning at
the end of what he had meant to say. There he stuck again.
Mary knew what he spoke of, and her pale face coloured. She shrank from
talking of _The Scorn of Scorns_.
'Please don't let that trouble you,' she said, with an effort. 'I was
really only a schoolgirl when I wrote it, and Miss Meredith got it
printed recently as a birthday surprise for me. I assure you I would
never have thought of publishing it myself for--for people to read.
Schoolgirls, you know, Mr. Angus, are full of such silly sentiment.'
A breeze of indignation shook 'No, no!' out of Rob, but Mary did not
heed.
'I know better now,' she said; 'indeed, not even you, the hardest of my
critics, sees more clearly than I the--the childishness of the book.'
Miss Abinger's voice faltered a very little, and Rob's sufferings
allowed him to break out.
'No,' he said, with a look of appeal in his eyes that were as grey as
hers, 'it was a madness that let me write like that. _The Scorn of
Scorns_ is the most beautiful, the tenderest----' He stuck once more.
Miss Abinger could have helped him again, but she did not. Perhaps she
wanted him to go on. He could not do so, but he repeated what he had
said already, which may have been the next best thing to do.
'You do surprise me now, Mr. Angus,' said Mary, light-hearted all at
once, 'for you know you scarcely wrote like that.'
'Ah, but I have read the book since I saw you,' Rob blurted out, 'and
that has made such a difference.'
A wiser man might have said a more foolish thing. Mary looked up
smiling. Her curiosity was aroused, and at once she became merciless.
Hitherto she had only tried to be kind to Rob, but now she wanted to be
kind to herself.
'You can hardly have re-read my story since last night,' she said,
shaking her fair head demurely.
'I read it all through the night,' exclaimed Rob, in such a tone that
Mary started. She had no desire to change the conversation, however; she
did not start so much as that.
'But you had to write papa's speech?' she said.
'I forgot to do it,' Rob answered awkwardly. His heart sank, for he saw
that here was another cause he had given Miss Abinger to dislike him.
Possibly he was wrong. There may be extenuating circumstances that will
enable the best of daughters to overlook an affront to her father's
speeches.
'But it was in the _Mirror_. I read it,' said Mary.
'Was it?' said Rob, considerably relieved. How it could have got there
was less of a mystery to him than to her, for Protheroe had sub-edited
so many speeches to tenants that in an emergency he could always guess
at what the landlords said.
'It was rather short,' Mary admitted, 'compared with the report in the
_Argus_. Papa thought----' She stopped hastily.
'He thought it should have been longer?' asked Rob. Then before he had
time to think of it, he had told her of his first meeting with the
colonel.
'I remember papa was angry at the time,' Mary said, 'but you need not
have been afraid of his recognising you last night. He did recognise
you.'
'Did he?'
'Yes; but you were his guest.'
Rob could not think of anything more to say, and he saw that Mary was
about to bid him good-morning. He found himself walking with her in the
direction of the castle gates.
'This scenery reminds me of Scotland,' he said.
'I love it,' said Mary (man's only excellence over woman is that his awe
of this word prevents his using it so lightly), 'and I am glad that I
shall be here until the season begins.'
Rob had no idea what the season was, but he saw that some time Mary
would be going away, and his face said, what would he do then?
'Then I go to London with the Merediths,' she continued, adding
thoughtfully, 'I suppose you mean to go to London, Mr. Angus? My brother
says that all literary men drift there.'
'Yes, oh yes,' said Rob.
'Soon?'
'Immediately,' he replied recklessly.
They reached the gates, and, as Mary held out her hand, the small basket
was tilted upon her arm, and a card fluttered out.
'It is a Christmas card a little boy in one of those houses gave me,'
she said, as Rob returned it to her. 'Have you got many Christmas cards
to-day, Mr. Angus?'
'None,' said Rob.
'Not even from your relatives?' asked Mary, beginning to pity him more
than was necessary.
'I have no relatives,' he replied; 'they are all dead.'
'I was in Scotland two summers ago,' Mary said, very softly, 'at a place
called Glen Quharity; papa was there shooting. But I don't suppose you
know it?'
'Our Glen Quharity!' exclaimed Rob; 'why, you must have passed through
Thrums?'
'We were several times in Thrums. Have you been there?'
'I was born in it; I was never thirty miles away from it until I came
here.'
'Oh,' cried Mary, 'then you must be the literary----' She stopped and
reddened.
'The literary saw-miller,' said Rob, finishing her sentence; 'that was
what they called me, I know, at Glen Quharity Lodge.'
Mary looked up at him with a new interest, for when she was there Glen
Quharity had been full of the saw-miller, who could not only talk in
Greek, but had a reputation for tossing the caber.
'Papa told me some months ago,' she said, in surprise, 'that the
liter----, that you had joined the Press in England, but he evidently
did not know of your being in Silchester.'
'But how could he have known anything about me?' asked Rob, surprised in
turn.
'This is so strange,' Mary answered. 'Why, papa takes credit for having
got you your appointment on the press.'
'It was a minister, a Mr. Rorrison, who did that for me,' said Rob;
'indeed, he was so good that I could have joined the Press a year ago by
his help, had not circumstances compelled me to remain at home.'
'I did not know the clergyman's name,' Mary said, 'but it was papa who
spoke of you to him first. Don't you remember writing out this
clergyman's sermon in shorthand, and a messenger's coming to you for
your report on horseback next day?'
'Certainly I do,' said Rob, 'and he asked me to write it out in longhand
as quickly as possible. That was how I got to know Mr. Rorrison; and, as
I understood, he had sent for the report of the sermon, on hearing
accidentally that I had taken it down, because he had some reason for
wanting a copy of it.'
'Perhaps that was how it was told to you afterwards,' Mary said, 'but it
was really papa who wanted the sermon.'
'I should like to know all about it,' Rob said, seeing that she
hesitated. Colonel Abinger had not seemed to him the kind of man who
would send a messenger on horseback about the country in quest of
sermons.
'I am afraid,' Mary explained, 'that it arose out of a wager. This
clergyman was staying at the Lodge, but papa was the only other person
there who would go as far as Thrums to hear him preach. I was not there
that year, so I don't know why papa went, but when he returned he told
the others that the sermon had been excellent. There is surely an
English church in Thrums, for I am sure papa would not think a sermon
excellent that was preached in a chapel?'
'There is,' said Rob; 'but in Thrums it is called the chapel.'
'Well, some badinage arose out of papa's eulogy, and it ended in a bet
that he could not tell the others what this fine sermon was about. He
was to get a night to think it over. Papa took the bet a little rashly,
for when he put it to himself he found that he could not even remember
the text. As he told me afterwards (here Mary smiled a little), he had a
general idea of the sermon, but could not quite put it into words, and
he was fearing that he would lose the wager (and be laughed at, which
always vexes papa), when he heard of your report. So a messenger was
sent to Thrums for it--and papa won his bet.'
'But how did Mr. Rorrison hear of my report, then?'
'Oh, I forgot; papa told him afterwards, and was so pleased with his
victory, that when he heard Mr. Rorrison had influence with some press
people, he suggested to him that something might be done for you.'
'This is strange,' said Rob, 'and perhaps the strangest thing about it
is that if Colonel Abinger could identify me with the saw-miller, he
would be sorry that he had interfered.'
Mary saw the force of this so clearly that she could not contradict him.
'Surely,' she said, 'I heard when I was at the Lodge of your having a
niece, and that you and the little child lived alone in the saw-mill?'
'Yes,' Rob answered hoarsely, 'but she is dead. She wandered from home,
and was found dead on a mountain-side.'
'Was it long ago?' asked Mary, very softly.
'Only a few months ago,' Rob said, making his answer as short as
possible, for the death of Davy moved him still. 'She was only four
years old.'
Mary's hand went half-way toward his involuntarily. His mouth was
twitching. He knew how good she was.
'That card,' he began, and hesitated.
'Oh, would you care to have it?' said Mary.
But just then Colonel Abinger walked into them, somewhat amazed to see
his daughter talking to one of the lower orders. Neither Rob nor Mary
had any inclination to tell him that this was the Scotsman he had
befriended.
'This is Mr. Angus, papa,' said Mary, 'who--who was with us last night.'
'Mr. Angus and I have met before, I think,' replied her father,
recalling the fishing episode. His brow darkened, and Rob was ready for
anything, but Colonel Abinger was a gentleman.
'I always wanted to see you again, Mr. Angus,' he said, with an effort,
'to ask you--what flies you were using that day?'
Rob muttered something in answer, which the colonel did not try to
catch. Mary smiled and bowed, and the next moment she had disappeared
with her father down the avenue.
What followed cannot be explained. When Rob roused himself from his
amazement at Mary Abinger's having been in Thrums without his feeling
her presence, something made him go a few yards inside the castle
grounds, and, lying lightly on the snow, he saw the Christmas card. He
lifted it up as if it were a rare piece of china, and held it in his two
hands as though it were a bird which might escape. He did not know
whether it had dropped there of its own accord, and doubt and transport
fought for victory on his face. At last he put the card exultingly into
his pocket, his chest heaved, and he went toward Silchester whistling.