The Vicar's Daughter - George MacDonald (read dune txt) 📗

Of course, being a woman, she might be in love; but the two ideas, Marion and love, refused to coalesce. And again, was it likely that such as she, her mind occupied with so many other absorbing interests, would fall in love unprovoked, unsolicited? That, indeed, was not likely. Then if, solicited, she but returned love for love, why was she sad? The new experience might, it is true, cause such commotion in a mind like hers as to trouble her greatly. She would not know what to do with it, nor where to accommodate her new inmate so as to keep him from meddling with affairs he had no right to meddle with: it was easy enough to fancy him troublesome in a house like hers. But surely of all women she might be able to meet her own liabilities. And if this were all, why should she have said she hoped it would soon pass? That might, however, mean only that she hoped soon to get her guest brought amenable to her existing household economy.

There was yet a conjecture, however, which seemed to suit the case better. If Marion knew little of what is commonly called love, that is, “the attraction of correlative unlikeness,” as I once heard it defined by a metaphysical friend of my father’s, there was no one who knew more of the tenderness of compassion than she; and was it not possible some one might be wanting to marry her to whom she could not give herself away? This conjecture was at least ample enough to cover the facts in my possession—which were scanty indeed, in number hardly dual. But who was there to dare offer love to my saint? Roger? Pooh! pooh! Mr. Blackstone? Ah! I had seen him once lately looking at her with an expression of more than ordinary admiration. But what man that knew any thing of her could help looking at her with such an admiration? If it was Mr. Blackstone—why, he might dare—yes, why should he not dare to love her?—especially if he couldn’t help it, as, of course, he couldn’t. Was he not one whose love, simply because he was a true man from the heart to the hands, would honor any woman, even Saint Clare—as she must be when the church has learned to do its business without the pope? Only he mustn’t blame me, if, after all, I should think he offered less than he sought; or her, if, entertaining no question of worth whatever, she should yet refuse to listen to him as, truly, there was more than a possibility she might.

If it were Mr. Blackstone, certainly I knew no man who could understand her better, or whose modes of thinking and working would more thoroughly fall in with her own. True, he was peculiar; that is, he had kept the angles of his individuality, for all the grinding of the social mill; his manners were too abrupt, and drove at the heart of things too directly, seldom suggesting a by-your-leave to those whose prejudices he overturned: true, also, that his person, though dignified, was somewhat ungainly,—with an ungainliness, however, which I could well imagine a wife learning absolutely to love; but, on the whole, the thing was reasonable. Only, what would become of her friends? There, I could hardly doubt, there lay the difficulty! Ay, there was the rub!

Let no one think, when I say we went to Mr. Blackstone’s church the next Sunday, that it had any thing to do with these speculations. We often went on the first Sunday of the month.

“What’s the matter with Blackstone?” said my husband as we came home.

“What do you think is the matter with him?” I returned.

“I don’t know. He wasn’t himself.”

“I thought he was more than himself,” I rejoined; “for I never heard even him read the litany with such fervor.”

“In some of the petitions,” said Percivale, “it amounted to a suppressed agony of supplication. I am certain he is in trouble.”

I told him my suspicions.

“Likely—very likely,” he answered, and became thoughtful.

“But you don’t think she refused him?” he said at length.

“If he ever asked her,” I returned, “I fear she did; for she is plainly in trouble too.”

“She’ll never stick to it,” he said.

“You mustn’t judge Marion by ordinary standards,” I replied. “You must remember she has not only found her vocation, but for many years proved it. I never knew her turned aside from what she had made up her mind to. I can hardly imagine her forsaking her friends to keep house for any man, even if she loved him with all her heart. She is dedicated as irrevocably as any nun, and will, with St. Paul, cling to the right of self-denial.”

“Yet what great difficulty would there be in combining the two sets of duties, especially with such a man as Blackstone? Of all the men I know, he comes the nearest to her in his devotion to the well-being of humanity, especially of the poor. Did you ever know a man with such a plentiful lack of condescension? His feeling of human equality amounts almost to a fault; for surely he ought sometimes to speak as knowing better than they to whom he speaks. He forgets that too many will but use his humility for mortar to build withal the Shinar-tower of their own superiority.”

“That may be; yet it remains impossible for him to assume any thing. He is the same all through, and—I had almost said—worthy of Saint Clare. Well, they must settle it for themselves. We can do nothing.”

“We can do nothing,” he assented; and, although we repeatedly reverted to the subject on the long way home, we carried no conclusions to a different result.

Towards evening of the same Sunday, Roger came to accompany us, as I thought, to Marion’s gathering, but, as it turned out, only to tell me he couldn’t go. I expressed my regret, and asked him why. He gave me no answer, and his lip trembled. A sudden conviction seized me. I laid my hand on his arm, but could only say, “Dear Roger!” He turned his head aside, and, sitting down on the sofa, laid his forehead on his hand.

“I’m so sorry!” I said.

“She has told you, then?” he murmured.

“No one has told me any thing.”

He was silent. I sat down beside him. It was all I could do. After a moment he rose, saying,—

“There’s no good whining about it, only she might have made a man of me. But she’s quite right. It’s a comfort to think I’m so unworthy of her. That’s all the consolation left me, but there’s more in that than you would think till you try it.”

He attempted to laugh, but made a miserable failure of it, then rose and caught up his hat to go. I rose also.

“Roger,” I said, “I can’t go, and leave you miserable. We’ll go somewhere else,—anywhere you please, only you mustn’t leave us.”

“I don’t want to go somewhere else. I don’t know the place,” he added, with a feeble attempt at his usual gayety.

“Stop at home, then, and tell me all about it. It will do you good to talk. You shall have your pipe, and you shall tell me just as much as you like, and keep the rest to yourself.”

If you want to get hold of a man’s deepest confidence, tell him to smoke in your drawing-room. I don’t know how it is, but there seems no trouble in which a man can’t smoke. One who scorns extraneous comfort of every other sort, will yet, in the profoundest sorrow, take kindly to his pipe. This is more wonderful than any thing I know about our kind. But I fear the sewing-machines will drive many women to tobacco.

I ran to Percivale, gave him a hint of how it was, and demanded his pipe and tobacco-pouch directly, telling him he must content himself with a cigar.

Thus armed with the calumet, as Paddy might say, I returned to Roger, who took it without a word of thanks, and began to fill it mechanically, but not therefore the less carefully. I sat down, laid my hands in my lap, and looked at him without a word. When the pipe was filled I rose and got him a light, for which also he made me no acknowledgment. The revenge of putting it in print is sweet. Having whiffed a good many whiffs in silence, he took at length his pipe from his mouth, and, as he pressed the burning tobacco with a forefinger, said,—

“I’ve made a fool of myself, Wynnie.”

“Not more than a gentleman had a right to do, I will pledge myself,” I returned.

“She has told you, then?” he said once more, looking rather disappointed than annoyed.

“No one has mentioned your name to me, Roger. I only guessed it from what Marion said when I questioned her about her sad looks.”

“Her sad looks?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say?” he asked eagerly.

“She only confessed she had had something to trouble her, and said she hoped it would be over soon.”

“I dare say!” returned Roger dryly, looking gratified, however, for a moment.

My reader may wonder that I should compromise Marion, even so far as to confess that she was troubled; but I could not bear that Roger should think she had been telling his story to me. Every generous woman feels that she owes the man she refuses at least silence; and a man may well reckon upon that much favor. Of all failures, why should this be known to the world?

The relief of finding she had not betrayed him helped him, I think, to open his mind: he was under no obligation to silence.

“You see, Wynnie,” he said, with pauses, and puffs at his pipe, “I don’t mean I’m a fool for falling in love with Marion. Not to have fallen in love with her would have argued me a beast. Being a man, it was impossible for me to help it, after what she’s been to me. But I was worse than a fool to open my mouth on the subject to an angel like her. Only there again, I couldn’t, that is, I hadn’t the strength to help it. I beg, however, you won’t think me such a downright idiot as to fancy myself worthy of her. In that case, I should have deserved as much scorn as she gave me kindness. If you ask me how it was, then, that I dared to speak to her on the subject, I can only answer that I yielded to the impulse common to all kinds of love to make itself known. If you love God, you are not content with his knowing it even, but you must tell him as if he didn’t know it. You may think from this cool talk of mine that I am very philosophical about it; but there are lulls in every storm, and I am in one of those lulls, else I shouldn’t be sitting here with you.”

“Dear Roger!” I said, “I am very sorry for your disappointment. Somehow, I can’t be sorry you should have loved”—

“Have loved!” he murmured.

“Should love Marion, then,” I went on. “That can do you nothing but good, and in itself must raise you above yourself. And how could I blame you, that, loving her, you wanted her to know it? But come, now, if you can trust me, tell me all about it, and especially what she said to you. I dare not give you any hope, for I am not in her confidence in this matter; and it is well that I am