The Man - Bram Stoker (best way to read an ebook .TXT) 📗

Her voice and manner were both softened:

‘But, my dear, surely it is not necessary to go into the Court to know these things. The results of each case become known.’

‘That is just it, Auntie,’ she answered quickly. ‘The magistrates have to hear the two sides of the case before even they can make up their minds. I want to hear both sides, too! If people are guilty, I want to know the cause of their guilt. If they are innocent, I want to know what the circumstances can be which make innocence look like guilt. In my own daily life I may be in the way of just such judgments; and surely it is only right that judgment should be just!’

Again she paused; there rose before her mind that conversation in the churchyard when Harold had said that it was difficult for women to be just.

Miss Rowly reflected too. She was becoming convinced that in principle the girl was right. But the details were repugnant as ever to her; concentrating her mind on the point where she felt the ground firm under her, she made her objection:

‘But, Stephen dear, there are so many cases that are sordid and painful!’

‘The more need to know of sordid things; if sordidness plays so important a part in the tragedy of their lives!’

‘But there are cases which are not within a woman’s province. Cases that touch sin … ‘

‘What kind of sin do you mean? Surely all wrongdoing is sin!’ The old lady was embarrassed. Not by the fact, for she had been for too many years the mistress of a great household not to know something of the subject on which she spoke, but that she had to speak of such a matter to the young girl whom she so loved.

‘The sin, my dear, of … of woman’s wrongdoing … as woman … of motherhood, without marriage!’ All Stephen’s nature seemed to rise in revolt.

‘Why, Auntie,’ she spoke out at once, ‘you yourself show the want of the very experience I look for!’

‘How? what?’ asked the old lady amazed and bristling. Stephen took her hand and held it affectionately as she spoke:

‘You speak of a woman’s wrongdoing, when surely it is a man’s as well. There does not seem to be blame for him who is the more guilty. Only for poor women! … And, Auntie dear, it is such poor women that I should like to help … Not when it is too late, but before! But how can I help unless I know? Good girls cannot tell me, and good women won’t! You yourself, Auntie, didn’t want to speak on the subject; even to me!’

‘But, my dear child, these are not things for unmarried women. I never speak of them myself except with matrons.’ Stephen’s answer flashed out like a sword; and cut like one:

‘And yet you are unmarried! Oh, Auntie dear, I did not and I do not mean to be offensive, or to hurt you in any way. I know, dear, your goodness and your kindness to all. But you limit yourself to one side!’ The elder lady interrupted:

‘How do you mean? one side! which side?’

‘The punishment side. I want to know the cause of that which brings the punishment. There surely is some cross road in a girl’s life where the ways part. I want to stand there if I can, with warning in one hand and help in the other. Oh! Auntie, Auntie, can’t you see that my heart is in this … These are our people; Daddy says they are to be my people; and I want to know their lives right through; to understand their wants, and their temptations, and their weakness. Bad and good, whatever it be, I must know it all; or I shall be working in the dark, and may injure or crush where I had looked to help and raise.’

As she spoke she looked glorified. The afternoon autumn sun shone full through the great window and lighted her up till she looked like a spirit. Lighted her white diaphanous dress till it seemed to take shape as an ethereal robe; lighted her red hair till it looked like a celestial crown; lighted her great dark eyes till their black beauty became swept in the tide of glory.

The heart of the old woman who loved her best heaved, and her bosom swelled with pride. Instinctively she spoke:

‘Oh, you noble, beautiful creature! Of course you are right, and your way is God’s way!’ With tears that rained down her furrowed cheeks, she put her arms round the girl and kissed her fondly. Still holding her in her arms she gave her the gentle counsel which was the aftermath of her moment of inspiration.

‘But Stephen dear, do be careful! Knowledge is a two-edged sword, and it is apt to side with pride. Remember what was the last temptation of the serpent to Eve: “Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”’

‘I shall be very careful,’ she said gravely; and then added as if by an afterthought, ‘of course you understand that my motive is the acquisition of knowledge?’

‘Yes?’ the answer was given interrogatively.

‘Don’t you think, dear, that Eve’s object was not so much the acquisition of knowledge as the gratification of curiosity.’

‘That may be,’ said the elder lady in a doubtful tone; ‘but my dear, who is to enlighten us as to which is which? We are apt in such matters to deceive ourselves. The more we know, the better are we able to deceive others; and the better we are able to deceive others the better we are able to deceive ourselves. As I tell you, dear, knowledge is two-edged and needs extra carefulness in its use!’

‘True!’ said Stephen reflectively. Long after her aunt had gone she sat thinking.

 

Once again did Miss Rowly try to restrain Stephen from a project. This was when a little later she wished to go for a few days to the University Mission House in the East end of London. Ever since her visit to Oxford she had kept up a correspondence with her mother’s old friend. It was this lady’s habit to spend a part of vacation in the Mission; and Stephen had had much correspondence with her regarding the work. At last she wrote that if she might, she would like to come and see for herself. The answer was a cordial invitation, armed with which she asked her father to allow her to go. He at once assented. He had been watching keenly the development of her character, and had seen with pride and satisfaction that as time went on she seemed to acquire greater resolution, larger self-dependence. She was becoming more and more of his ideal. Without losing any of her womanhood, she was beginning to look at things more from a man’s point of view than is usually done by, or possible to, women.

When she returned at the end of a week she was full of new gravity. After a while this so far changed that her old lighter moods began to have their place, but it seemed that she never lost, and that she never would lose, the effect of that week of bitter experience amongst the ‘submerged tenth.’

The effect of the mental working was shown by a remark made by Harold when home on his next college vacation. He had been entering with her on a discussion of an episode on the estate:

‘Stephen, you are learning to be just!’

At the moment she was chagrined by the remark, though she accepted it in silence; but later, when she had thought the matter over, she took from it infinite pleasure. This was indeed to share man’s ideas and to think with the workings of man’s mind. It encouraged her to further and larger ideas, and to a greater toleration than she had hitherto dreamed of.

Of all those who loved her, none seemed to understand so fully as Laetitia Rowly the change in her mental attitude, or rather the development of it. Now and again she tried to deflect or modify certain coming forces, so that the educational process in which she had always had a part would continue in the right direction. But she generally found that the girl had been over the ground so thoroughly that she was able to defend her position. Once, when she had ventured to remonstrate with her regarding her attitude of woman’s equality with man, she felt as if Stephen’s barque was indeed entering on dangerous seas. The occasion had arisen thus: Stephen had been what her aunt had stigmatised as ‘laying down the law’ with regard to the position a married woman, and Miss Rowly, seeing a good argumentative opening, remarked:

‘But what if a woman does not get the opportunity of being married?’ Stephen looked at her a moment before saying with conviction:

‘It is a woman’s fault if she does not get the opportunity!’ The old lady smiled as she answered:

‘Her fault? My dear, what if no man asks her?’ This seemed to her own mind a poser.

‘Still her own fault! Why doesn’t she ask him?’ Her aunt’s lorgnon was dropped in horrified amazement.

Stephen went on impassively.

‘Certainly! Why shouldn’t she? Marriage is a union. As it is in the eye of the law a civil contract, either party to it should be at liberty to originate the matter. If a woman is not free to think of a man in all ways, how is she to judge of the suitability of their union? And if she is free in theory, why not free to undertake if necessary the initiative in a matter so momentous to herself?’ The old lady actually groaned and wrung her hands; she was horrified at such sentiments. They were daring enough to think; but to put them in words! …

‘Oh, my dear, my dear!’ she moaned, ‘be careful what you say. Some one might hear you who would not understand, as I do, that you are talking theory.’ Stephen’s habit of thought stood to her here. She saw that her aunt was distressed, and as she did not wish to pain her unduly, was willing to divert the immediate channel of her fear. She took the hand which lay in her lap and held it firmly whilst she smiled in the loving old eyes.

‘Of course, Auntie dear, it is theory. But still it is a theory which I hold very strongly!’ … Here a thought struck her and she said suddenly:

‘Did you ever … How many proposals did you have, Auntie?’ The old lady smiled; her thoughts were already diverted.

‘Several, my dear! It is so long ago that I don’t remember!’

‘Oh yes, you do, Auntie! No woman ever forgets that, no matter what else she may or may not remember! Tell me, won’t you?’ The old lady blushed slightly as she answered:

‘There is no need to specify, my dear. Let it be at this, that there were more than you could count on your right hand!’

‘And why did you refuse them?’ The tone was wheedling, and the elder woman loved to hear it. Wheedling is the courtship, by the young of the old.

‘Because, my dear, I didn’t love them.’

‘But tell me, Auntie, was there never any one that you did love?’

‘Ah! my dear, that is a different matter. That is the real tragedy of a woman’s life.’ In flooding reminiscent thought she forgot her remonstrating; her voice became full of natural pathos:

‘To love; and be helpless! To wait, and wait, and wait; with your heart all aflame! To hope, and hope; till time seems to have passed away, and all the world to stand still on