I had a long time to wait before Mrs. Harwood came. The morning sun was
shining into the room, making everything more dingy. No doubt it had
been dusted that morning as well as the little maid could dust it; but
nothing looked pure or fresh in the brightness of the light, which was
full of motes, and seemed to find out dust in every corner. The dingy
cover on the table, the old-fashioned Books of Beauty, the black
horsehair chairs, stood out remorselessly shabby in the sunshine. I
wondered what kind of house Ellen would have when she furnished one for
herself. Would John and she show any ‘taste’ between them--would they
‘pick up’ pretty things at sales and old furniture shops, or would they
buy a drawing-room suite for twenty-five pounds, such as the cheap
upholsterers offer to the unwary? This question amused me while I
waited, and I was sorry to think that the new household was to be
planted in the Levant, and we should not see how it settled itself.
There was a good deal of commotion going on overhead, but I did not pay
any attention to it. I pleased myself arranging a little home for the
new pair--making it pretty for them. Of her own self Ellen would never,
I felt sure, choose the drawing-room suite in walnut and blue rep--not
now, at least, after she had been so much with us. As for John, he would
probably think any curtain tolerable so long as she sat under its
shadow. I had been somewhat afraid of confronting the mother, and
possibly the father; but these thoughts put my panic out of my head.
These horsehair chairs! was there ever such an invention of the evil
one? Ellen could not like them; it was impossible. When I had come this
length my attention was suddenly attracted by the sounds up-stairs; for
there came upon the floor over my head the sound of a foot stamped
violently in apparent fury. There were voices too; but I could not make
out what they said. As to this sound however it was easy enough to make
out what it meant: nothing could be more suggestive. I trembled and
listened, my thoughts taking an entirely new direction; a stamp of
anger, of rage, and partially of impotence too. Then there was a woman’s
voice rising loud in remonstrance. The man seemed to exclaim and
denounce violently; the woman protested, growing also louder and louder.
I listened with all my might. It was not eavesdropping; for she, at
least, knew that I was there; but, listen as I might, I could not make
out what they said. After a while there was silence, and I heard Mrs.
Harwood’s step coming down the stairs. She paused to do something,
perhaps to her cap or her eyes, before she opened the door. She was in a
flutter of agitation, the flowers in her black cap quivering through all
their wires, her eyes moist, though looking at me with a suspicious
gaze. She was very much on her guard, very well aware of my motive,
determined to give me no encouragement. All this I read in her vigilant
eyes.
‘Mrs. Harwood, I came to speak to you--I promised to come and speak to
you--about Mr. Ridgway, who is a great friend of mine, as perhaps you
know.’
The poor woman was in great agitation and trouble; but this only
quickened her wits. ‘I see John Ridgway every day of my life,’ she said,
not without a little dignity. ‘He might say whatever he pleased to me
without asking anybody to speak for him.’
‘Won’t you give your consent to this marriage?’ I asked. It seemed
wisest to plunge into it at once. ‘It is my own anxiety that makes me
speak. I have always been anxious about it, almost before I knew them.’
‘There are other things in the world besides marriages,’ she said. ‘In
this house we have a great deal to think of. My husband--no doubt you
heard his voice just now--he is a great sufferer. For years he has been
confined to that little room up-stairs. That is not a very cheerful
life.’
Here she made a pause, which I did not attempt to interrupt; for she had
disarmed me by this half-appeal to my sympathy. Then suddenly, with her
voice a little shaken and unsteady, she burst forth: ‘The only company
he has is Ellen. What can I do to amuse him--to lead his thoughts off
himself? I have as much need of comfort as he has. The only bright thing
in the house is Ellen. What would become of us if we were left only the
two together all these long days? They are long enough as it is. He has
not a very good temper, and he is weary with trouble--who wouldn’t be
in his case? John Ridgway is a young man with all the world before him.
Why can’t he wait? Why should he want to take our only comfort away from
us?’
Her voice grew shrill and broken; she began to cry. Poor soul! I believe
she had been arguing with her husband on the other side; but it was a
little comfort to her to pour out her own grievances, her alarm and
distress, to me. I was silenced. How true it had been what John Ridgway
said: How could he, so gentle a man, assert himself in the face of this,
and claim Ellen as of chief importance to him? Had not they a prior
claim?--was not her duty first to her father and mother? I was put to
silence myself. I did not know what to say.
‘The only thing is,’ I said timidly at last, ‘that I should think it
would be a comfort to you to feel that Ellen was settled, that she had a
home of her own, and a good husband who would take care of her when--She
ought to outlive us all,’ I added, not knowing how to put it. ‘And if it
were to be always as you say,’ I went on, getting a little courage,
‘there would be no marriages, no new homes. We have all had fathers and
mothers who had claims upon us. What can it be but a heartbreak to bring
up a girl for twenty years and more, and think everything of her, and
then see her go away and give her whole heart to some one else, and
leave us with a smile on her face?’ The idea carried me away--it filled
my own heart with a sort of sweet bitterness; for had not my own girl
just passed that age and crisis? ‘Oh! I understand you; I feel with you;
I am not unsympathetic. But when one thinks--they must live longer than
we; they must have children too, and love as we have loved. You would
not like, neither you nor I, if no one cared--if our girls were left out
when all the others are loved and courted. You like this good John to be
fond of her--to ask you for her. You would not have been pleased if
Ellen had just lived on and on here, your daughter and nothing more.’
This argument had some weight upon her. She felt the truth of what I
said. However hard the after consequences may be, we still must have our
‘bairn respectit like the lave.’ But on this point Mrs. Harwood
maintained her position on a height of superiority which few ordinary
mortals, even when the mothers of attractive girls, can attain. ‘I have
never made any objection,’ she said, ‘to his coming in the evening.
Sometimes it is rather inconvenient; but I do not oppose his being here
every night.’
‘And you expect him to be content with this all his life?’
‘It would be better to say all my life,’ she replied severely; ‘no, not
even that. As for me, it does not matter much. I am not one to put
myself in anybody’s way; but all her father’s life--which can’t be very
long now,’ she added, with a sudden gush of tears. They were so near the
surface that they flowed at the slightest touch, and besides, they were
a great help to her argument. ‘I don’t think it is too much,’ she cried,
‘that she should see her poor father out first. She has been the only
one that has cheered him up. She is company to him, which I am not. All
his troubles are mine, you see. I feel it when his rheumatism is bad;
but Ellen is outside: she can talk and be bright. What should I do
without her! What should I do without her! I should be nothing better
than a slave! I am afraid to think of it; and her father--her poor
father--it would break his heart; it would kill him. I know that it
would kill him,’ she said.
Here I must acknowledge that I was very wicked. I could not but think in
my heart that it would not be at all a bad thing if Ellen’s marriage did
kill this unseen father of hers who had tired their patience so long,
and who stamped his foot with rage at the idea that the poor girl might
get out of his clutches. He was an old man, and he was a great sufferer.
Why should he be so anxious to live? And if a sacrifice was necessary,
old Mr. Harwood might just as well be the one to make it as those two
good young people from whom he was willing to take all the pleasure of
their lives. But this of course was a sentiment to which I dared not
give utterance. We stood and looked at each other while these thoughts
were going through my mind. She felt that she had produced an
impression, and was too wise to say anything more to diminish it--while
I, for my part, was silenced, and did not know what to say.
‘Then they must give in again,’ I said at last. ‘They must part; and if
she has to spend the rest of her life in giving music lessons, and he to
go away, to lose heart and forget her, and be married by any one who
will have him in his despair and loneliness--I hope you will think that
a satisfactory conclusion--but I do not. I do not!’
Mrs. Harwood trembled as she looked at me. Was I hard upon her? She
shrank aside as if I had given her a blow. ‘It is not me that will part
them,’ she said. ‘I have never objected. Often it is very
inconvenient--you would not like it yourself if every evening, good or
bad, there was a strange man in your house. But I never made any
objection. He is welcome to come as long as he likes. It is not me that
says a word----’
‘Do you want him to throw up his appointment?’ I cried, ‘his means of
life.’
She looked at me with her face set. I might have noticed, had I chosen,
that all the flowers in her cap were shaking and quivering in the shadow
cast upon the further wall by the sunshine, but did not care to remark,
being angry, this sign of emotion. ‘If he is so fond of Ellen, he will
not mind giving up a chance,’ she said; ‘if some one must give in, why
should it be Harwood and me?’
After this I left Pleasant Place hurriedly, with a great deal of
indignation in my mind. Even then I was not quite sure of my right to be
indignant; but I was so. ‘If some one must give in, why should it be
Harwood and me?’ I said to myself that John had known what he would
encounter, that he had been right in distrusting himself; but he had not
been right in trusting me. I had made no stand against the other side.
When you come to haggle about it, and to be uncertain which should give
in, how painful the complications of life become! To be perfect,
renunciation must be without a word; it must be done as if it were the
most natural thing in the world. The moment it is discussed and shifted
from one to another, it becomes vulgar, like most things in this
universe. This was what I said to myself as I came out into the fresh
air and sunshine, out of the little stuffy house. I began to hate it
with its dingy carpets and curtains, its horsehair chairs, that shabby,
shabby little parlour--how could anybody think of it as home? I can
understand a bright little kitchen, with white hearth and floor, with
the firelight shining in all the pans and dishes. But this dusty place
with its antimacassars! These thoughts were in my mind when, turning the
corner, I met Ellen full in the face, and felt like a traitor, as if I
had been speaking ill of her. She looked at me, too, with some surprise.
To see me there, coming out of Pleasant Place, startled her. She did not
ask me, Where have you been? but her eyes did, with a bewildered gleam.
‘Yes; I have been to see your mother,’ I said; ‘you are quite right,
Ellen. And why? Because I am so much interested; and I wanted to see
what mind she was in about your marriage.’
‘My--marriage! there never was any question of that,’ she said quickly,
with a sudden flush.
‘You are just as bad as the others,’ said I, moved by this new
contradiction. ‘What! after taking that poor young man’s devotion for so
long, you will let him go away--go alone, break off everything.’
Ellen had grown pale as suddenly as she had blushed. ‘Is that
necessary?’ she said, alarmed. ‘Break off everything? I never thought of
that. But, indeed, I think you are making a mistake. If he goes, we
shall have to part, but only--only for a time.’
‘How can you tell,’ I cried, being highly excited, ‘how long he may be
there? He may linger out his life there, always thinking about you, and
longing for you--unless he gets weary and disgusted, and asks himself
what is the use, at the last. Such things have been; and you on your
side will linger here, running out and in to your lessons with no longer
any heart for them; unable to keep yourself from thinking that everybody
is cruel, that life itself is cruel--all because you have not the
courage, the spirit----’
She put her hand on mine and squeezed it suddenly, so that she hurt me.
‘Don’t!’ she cried; ‘you don’t know; there is nothing, not a word to be
said. It is you who are cruel--you who are so kind; so much as to speak
of it, when it cannot be! It cannot be--that is the whole matter. It is
out of the question. Supposing even that I get to think life cruel, and
supposing he should get weary and disgusted. Oh! it was you that said
it, you that are so kind. Supposing all that, yet it is impossible; it
cannot be; there is nothing more to be said.’
‘You will see him go away calmly, notwithstanding all?’
‘Calmly,’ she said, with a little laugh, ‘calmly--yes, I suppose that is
the word. I will see him go calmly. I shall not make any fuss if that is
what you mean.’
‘Ellen, I do not understand. I never heard you speak like this before.’
‘You never saw me like this before,’ she said with a gasp. She was
breathless with a restrained excitement which looked like despair. But
when I spoke further, when I would have discussed the matter, she put up
her hand and stopped me. There was something in her face, in its fixed
expression, which was like the countenance with which her mother had
replied to me. It was a startling thought to me that Ellen’s soft fresh
face, with its pretty bloom, could ever be like that other face
surmounted by the black cap and crown of shabby flowers. She turned and
walked with me along the road to my own door, but nothing further was
said. We went along side by side silent till we reached my house, when
she put out her hand and touched mine suddenly, and said that she was in
a hurry and must run away. I went in more disturbed than I can say. She
had always been so ready to yield, so cheerful, so soft, independent
indeed, but never harsh in her independence. What did this change mean?
I felt as if some one to whom I had turned in kindness had met me with a
blow. But by and by, when I thought better of it, I began to understand
Ellen. Had not I said to myself, a few minutes before, that
self-renunciation, when it had to be, must be done silently without a
word? better perhaps that it should be done angrily than with
self-demonstration, self-assertion. Ellen had comprehended this; she had
perceived that it must not be asked or speculated upon, which was to
yield. She had chosen her part, and she would not have it discussed or
even remarked. I sat in my window pondering while the bright afternoon
went by, looking out upon the distant depths of the blue spring
atmosphere, just touched by haze, as the air, however bright, always is
in London, seeing the people go by in an endless stream without noticing
them, without thinking of them. How rare it is in human affairs that
there is not some one who must give up to the others, some one who must
sacrifice himself or be sacrificed! And the one to whom this lot falls
is always the one who will do it; that is the rule so far as my
observation goes. There are some whom nature moves that way, who cannot
stand upon their rights, who are touched by the claims of others and can
make no resistance on their own account. The tools are to him that can
handle them, as our philosopher says; and likewise the sacrifices of
life to him who will bear them. Refuse them, that is the only way; but
if it is not in your nature to refuse them, what can you do? Alas! for
sacrifice is seldom blessed. I am saying something which will sound
almost impious to many. Human life is built upon it, and social order;
yet personally in itself it is seldom blessed; it debases those who
accept it; it harms even those who, without wilfully accepting it, have
a dim perception that something is being done for them which has no
right to be done. It may, perhaps--I cannot tell--bear fruit of
happiness in the hearts of those who practise it. I cannot tell.
Sacrifices are as often mistaken as other things. Their divineness does
not make them wise. Sometimes, looking back, even the celebrant will
perceive that his offering had better not have been made.
All this was going sadly through my mind when I perceived that some one
was passing slowly, endeavouring to attract my attention. By this time
it was getting towards evening--and as soon as I was fully roused I saw
that it was John Ridgway. If I could have avoided him I should have done
so, but now it was not possible; I made him a sign to come up-stairs. He
came into the drawing-room slowly, with none of the eagerness that there
had been in his air on the previous day, and it may easily be believed
that on my side I was not eager to see him to tell him my story. He came
and sat down by me, swinging his stick in his usual absent way, and for
a minute neither of us spoke.
‘You do not ask me if I have any news for you; you have seen Ellen!’
‘No; it is only because I have news on my side. I am not going after
all.’
‘You are not going!’
‘You are disappointed,’ he said, looking at me with a face which was
full of interest and sympathy. These are the only words I can use. The
disappointment was his, not mine; yet he was more sympathetic with my
feeling about it than impressed by his own. ‘As for me, I don’t seem to
care. It is better in one way, if it is worse in another. It stops any
rise in life; but what do I care for a rise in life? they would never
have let me take Ellen. I knew that even before I saw it in your eyes.’
‘Ellen ought to judge for herself,’ I said, ‘and you ought to judge for
yourself; you are of full age; you are not boy and girl. No parents have
a right to separate you now. And that old man may go on just the same
for the next dozen years.’
‘Did you see him?’ John asked. He had a languid, wearied look, scarcely
lifting his eyes.
‘I saw only her; but I know perfectly well what kind of man he is. He
may live for the next twenty years. There is no end to these tyrannical,
ill-tempered people; they live for ever. You ought to judge for
yourselves. If they had their daughter settled near, coming to them from
her own pleasant little home, they would be a great deal happier. You
may believe me or not, but I know it. Her visits would be events; they
would be proud of her, and tell everybody about her family, and what a
good husband she had got, and how he gave her everything she could
desire.’
‘Please God,’ said John, devoutly; his countenance had brightened in
spite of himself. But then he shook his head. ‘If we had but got as far
as that,’ he said.
‘You ought to take it into your own hands,’ cried I in all the fervour
of a revolutionary. ‘If you sacrifice your happiness to them, it will
not do them any good; it will rather do them harm. Are you going now to
tell your news?’
He had got up on his feet, and stood vaguely hovering over me with a
faint smile upon his face. ‘She will be pleased,’ he said; ‘no
advancement, but no separation. I have not much ambition; I think I am
happy too.’
‘Then, if you are all pleased,’ I cried, with annoyance which I could
not restrain, ‘why did you send me on such an errand? I am the only one
that seems to be impatient of the present state of affairs, and it is
none of my business. Another time you need not say anything about it to
me.’
‘There will never be a time when we shall not be grateful to you,’ said
John; but even his mild look of appealing reproach did not move me. It
is hard to interest yourself in people and find after all that they like
their own way best.