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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 not, for then I might not be able to talk to you about it with any freedom. To confess the real truth, I do not see much likelihood, knowing her as I do, that she will recall her decision."
"It could hardly be called a decision," said Roger. "You would not have thought, from the way she took it, there was any thing to decide about. No more there was; and I thought I knew it, only I couldn't be quiet. To think you know a thing, and to know it, are two very different matters, however. But I don't repent having spoken my mind: if I am humbled, I am not humiliated. If she had listened to me, I fear I should have been ruined by pride. I should never have judged myself justly after it. I wasn't humble, though I thought I was. I'm a poor creature, Ethelwyn."
"Not too poor a creature to be dearly loved, Roger. But go on and tell me all about it. As your friend and sister, I am anxious to hear the whole."
Notwithstanding what I had said, I was not moved by sympathetic curiosity alone, but also by the vague desire of rendering some help beyond comfort. What he had now said, greatly heightened my opinion of him, and thereby, in my thoughts of the two, lessened the distance between him and Marion. At all events, by hearing the whole, I should learn how better to comfort him.
And he did tell me the whole, which, along with what I learned afterwards from Marion, I will set down as nearly as I can, throwing it into the form of direct narration. I will not pledge myself for the accuracy of every trifling particular which that form may render it necessary to introduce; neither, I am sure, having thus explained, will my reader demand it of me.
CHAPTER XLII.
ROGER AND MARION
During an all but sleepless night, Roger had made up his mind to go and see Marion: not, certainly, for the first time, for he had again and again ventured to call upon her; but hitherto he had always had some pretext sufficient to veil his deeper reason, and, happily or unhappily, sufficient also to prevent her, in her more than ordinary simplicity with regard to such matters, from suspecting one under it.
She was at home, and received him with her usual kindness. Feeling that he must not let an awkward silence intervene, lest she should become suspicious of his object, and thus the chance be lost of interesting, and possibly moving her before she saw his drift, he spoke at once.
"I want to tell you something, Miss Clare," he said as lightly as he could.
"Well?" she returned, with the sweet smile which graced her every approach to communication.
"Did my sister—in—law ever tell you what an idle fellow I used to be?"
"Certainly not. I never heard her say a word of you that wasn't kind."
"That I am sure of. But there would have been no unkindness in saying that; for an idle fellow I was, and the idler because I was conceited enough to believe I could do any thing. I actually thought at one time I could play the violin. I actually made an impertinent attempt in your presence one evening, years and years ago, I wonder if you remember it."
"I do; but I don't know why you should call it impertinent."
"Anyhow, I caught a look on your face that cured me of that conceit. I have never touched the creature since,—a Cremona too!"
"I am very sorry, indeed I am. I don't remember—Do you think you could have played a false note?"
"Nothing more likely."
"Then, I dare say I made an ugly face. One can't always help it, you know, when something unexpected happens. Do forgive me."
"Forgive you, you angel!" cried Roger, but instantly checked himself, afraid of reaching his mark before he had gathered sufficient momentum to pierce it. "I thought you would see what a good thing it was for me. I wanted to thank you for it."
"It's such a pity you didn't go on, though. Progress is the real cure for an overestimate of ourselves."
"The fact is, I was beginning to see what small praise there is in doing many things ill and nothing well. I wish you would take my Cremona. I could teach you the A B C of it well enough. How you would make it talk! That would be something to live for, to hear you play the violin! Ladies do, nowadays, you know."
"I have no time, Mr. Roger. I should have been delighted to be your pupil; but I am sorry to say it is out of the question."
"Of course it is. Only I wish—well, never mind, I only wanted to tell you something. I was leading a life then that wasn't worth leading; for where's the good of being just what happens,—one time full of right feeling and impulse, and the next a prey to all wrong judgments and falsehoods? It was you made me see it. I've been trying to get put right for a long time now. I'm afraid of seeming to talk goody, but you will know what I mean. You and your Sunday evenings have waked me up to know what I am, and what I ought to be. I am a little better. I work hard now. I used to work only by fits and starts. Ask Wynnie."
"Dear Mr. Roger, I don't need to ask Wynnie about any thing you tell me. I can take your word for it just as well as hers. I am very glad if I have been of any use to you. It is a great honor to me."
"But the worst of it is, I couldn't be content without letting you know, and making myself miserable."
"I don't understand you, I think. Surely there can be no harm in letting me know what makes me very happy! How it should make you miserable, I can't imagine."
"Because I can't stop there. I'm driven to say what will offend you, if it doesn't make you hate me—no, not that; for you don't know how to hate. But you must think me the most conceited and presumptuous fellow you ever knew. I'm not that, though; I'm not that; it's not me; I can't help it; I can't help loving you—dreadfully—and it's such impudence! To think of you and me in one thought! And yet I can't help it. O Miss Clare! don't drive me away from you."
He fell on his knees as he spoke, and laid his head on her lap, sobbing like a child who had offended his mother. He almost cried again as he told me this. Marion half started to her feet in confusion, almost in terror, for she had never seen such emotion in a man; but the divine compassion of her nature conquered: she sat down again, took his head in her hands, and began stroking his hair as if she were indeed a mother seeking to soothe and comfort her troubled child. She was the first to speak again, for Roger could not command himself.
"I'm very sorry, Roger," she said. "I must be to blame somehow."
"To blame!" he cried, lifting up his head. "You to blame for my folly! But it's not folly," he added impetuously: "it would be downright stupidity not to love you with all my soul."
"Hush! hush!" said Marion, in whose ears his language sounded irreverent. "You couldn't love me with all your soul if you would. God only can be loved with all the power of the human soul."
"If I love him at all, Marion, it is you who have taught me. Do not drive me from you—lest—lest—I should cease to love him, and fall back into my old dreary ways."
"It's a poor love to offer God,—love for the sake of another," she said very solemnly.
"But if it's all one has got?"
"Then it won't do, Roger. I wish you loved me for God's sake instead. Then all would be right. That would be a grand love for me to have."
"Don't drive me from you, Marion," he pleaded. It was all he could say.
"I will not drive you from me. Why should I?"
"Then I may come and see you again?"
"Yes: when you please."
"You don't mean I may come as often as I like?"
"Yes—when I have time to see you."
"Then," cried Roger, starting to his feet with clasped hands, "—perhaps—is it possible?—you will—you will let me love you? O my God!"
"Roger," said Marion, pale as death, and rising also; for, alas! the sunshine of her kindness had caused hopes to blossom whose buds she had taken only for leaves, "I thought you understood me! You spoke as if you understood perfectly that that could never be which I must suppose you to mean. Of course it cannot. I am not my own to keep or to give away. I belong to this people,—my friends. To take personal and private duties upon me, would be to abandon them; and how dare I? You don't know what it would result in, or you would not dream of it. Were I to do such a thing, I should hate and despise and condemn myself with utter reprobation. And then what a prize you would have got, my poor Roger!"
But even these were such precious words to hear from her lips! He fell again on his knees before her as she stood, caught her hands, and, hiding his face in them, poured forth the following words in a torrent,—
"Marion, do not think me so selfish as not to have thought about that. It should be only the better for them all. I can earn quite enough for you and me too, and so you would have the more time to give to them. I should never have dreamed of asking you to leave them. There are things in which a dog may help a man, doing what the man can't do: there may be things in which a man might help an angel."
Deeply moved by the unselfishness of his love, Marion could not help a pressure of her hands against the face which had sought refuge within them. Roger fell to kissing them wildly.
But Marion was a woman; and women, I think, though I may be only judging by myself and my husband, look forward and round about, more than men do: they would need at all events; therefore Marion saw other things. A man-reader may say, that, if she loved him, she would not have thus looked about her; and that, if she did not love him, there was no occasion for her thus to fly in the face of the future. I can only answer that it is allowed on all hands women are not amenable to logic: look about her Marion did, and saw, that, as a married woman, she might be compelled to forsake her friends more or less; for there might arise other and paramount claims on her self-devotion. In a word, if she were to have children, she would have no choice in respect to whose welfare should constitute the main business of her life; and it even became a question whether she would have a right to place them in circumstances so unfavorable for growth and education. Therefore, to marry might be tantamount to forsaking her friends.
But where was the need of any such mental parley? Of course, she couldn't marry Roger. How could she marry a man she couldn't look up to? And look up to him she certainly did not, and could not.
"No, Roger," she said, this last thought large in her mind; and, as she spoke, she withdrew her hands, "it mustn't be. It is out of the question: I can't look up to you," she added, as simply as a child.
"I should think not," he burst out. "That would be a fine thing! If you looked up to a fellow like me, I think it would almost cure me of looking up to you; and what I want is to look up to you every day and all day long: only I can do that whether you let me or not."
"But I don't choose to have a—a—friend to whom I can't look up."
"Then I shall never be even a friend," he returned sadly. "But I would have tried hard to be less unworthy of you."
At this precise moment, Marion caught sight of a pair of great round blue eyes, wide open under a shock of red hair, about three feet from the floor, staring as if they had not winked for the last ten minutes. The child looked so comical, that Marion, reading perhaps in her looks the reflex of her own position, could not help laughing. Roger started up in dismay, but, beholding the apparition, laughed also.
"Please, grannie," said the urchin, "mother's took bad, and want's ye."
"Run and tell your mother I shall be with her directly," answered Marion; and the child departed.
"You told me I might come again," pleaded Roger.
"Better not. I didn't know what it would mean to you when I said it."
"Let it mean what you meant by it, only let me come."
"But I see now it can't mean that. No: I will write to you. At all events, you must go now, for I can't stop with you when Mrs. Foote"—
"Don't make me wretched, Marion. If you can't love me, don't kill me. Don't say I'm not to come and see you. I will come on Sundays, anyhow."
The next day came the following letter:—
Dear Mr. Roger,—I am very sorry, both for your sake and my own, that I did not speak more plainly yesterday. I was so distressed for you, and my heart was so friendly towards you, that I could hardly think of any thing at first but how to comfort you; and I fear I allowed you, after all, to go away with the idea that what you wished was not altogether impossible. But indeed it is. If even I loved you in the way you love me, I should yet make every thing yield to the duties I have undertaken. In listening to you, I should be undermining the whole of my past labors; and the very idea of becoming less of a friend to my friends is horrible to me.
But much as I esteem you, and much pleasure as your society gives me, the idea you brought before me yesterday was absolutely startling; and I think I have only to remind you, as I have just done, of the peculiarities of my position, to convince you that it could never become a familiar one to me. All that friendship can do or yield, you may ever claim of me; and I thank God if I have been of the smallest service to you: but I should be quite unworthy of that honor, were I for any reason to admit even the thought of abandoning the work which has been growing up around me for so many years, and is so peculiarly mine that it could be transferred to no one else. Believe me yours most truly,
MARION CLARECHAPTER XLIII.
A LITTLE MORE ABOUT ROGER, AND ABOUT MR. BLACKSTONE
After telling me the greater part of what I have just written, Roger handed me this letter to read, as we sat together that same Sunday evening.
"It seems final, Roger?" I said with an interrogation, as I returned it to him.
"Of course it is," he replied. "How could any honest man urge his suit after that,—after she says that to grant it would be to destroy the whole of her previous life, and ruin her self-respect? But I'm not so miserable as you may think me, Wynnie," he went on; "for don't you see? though I couldn't quite bring myself to go to-night, I don't feel cut off from her. She's not likely, if I know her, to listen to anybody else so long as the same reasons hold for which she wouldn't give me a chance of persuading her. She can't help me loving her, and I'm sure she'll let me help her when I've the luck to find a chance. You may be sure I shall keep a sharp lookout. If I can be her servant, that will be something; yes, much. Though she won't give herself to me—and quite right, too!—why should she?—God bless her!—she can't prevent me from giving myself to her. So long as I may love her, and see her as often as I don't doubt I may, and things continue as they are, I sha'n't be down-hearted. I'll have another pipe, I think." Here he half-started, and hurriedly pulled out his watch, "I declare, there's time yet!" he cried, and sprung to his feet. "Let's go and hear what she's got to say to-night."