CHAPTER LXII
Next morning Arthur cashed his cheque, and started on his travels. Hehad no very clear idea why he was going back to Madeira, or what hemeant to do when he got there; but then, at this painful stage of hisexistence, none of his ideas could be called clear. Though he did notrealize it, what he was searching for was sympathy, female sympathy ofcourse; for in trouble members of either sex gravitate instinctivelyto the other for comfort. Perhaps they do not quite trust their own,or perhaps they are afraid of being laughed at.
Arthur's was not one of those natures that can lock their griefswithin the bosom, and let them lie there till in process of time theyshrivel away. Except among members of the peerage, as pictured incurrent literature, these stern, proud creatures are not common. Man,whether he figures in the world as a peer or a hedge-carpenter, is, asa matter of fact, mentally as well as physically, gregarious, andadverse to loneliness either in his joys or sorrows.
Decidedly, too, the homoeopathic system must be founded on greatnatural facts, and there is philosophy, born of the observation ofhuman nature, in the somewhat vulgar proverb that recommends a "hairof the dog that bit you." Otherwise, nine men out of every ten whohave been badly treated, or think that they have been badly treated,by a woman, would not at once rush headlong for refuge to another, aproceeding which also, in nine cases out of ten, ends in makingconfusion worse confounded.
Arthur, though he was not aware of it, was exemplifying a natural lawthat has not yet been properly explained. But, even if he had knownit, it is doubtful if the knowledge would have made him any happier;for it is irritating to reflect that we are the slaves of naturallaws, that our action is not the outcome of our own volition, but of avague force working silently as the Gulf Stream--since such knowledgemakes a man measure his weakness, and so strikes at his tenderestpoint, his vanity.
But, whilst we have been reflecting together, my reader and I, Arthurwas making his way to Madeira, so we may as well all come to a haltoff Funchal.
Very shortly after the vessel had dropped her anchor, Arthur wasgreeted by his friend, the manager of "Miles' Hotel."
"Glad to see you, sir, though I can't say that you look well. Iscarcely expected to find anybody for us at this time of year.Business is very slack in the summer."
"Yes, I suppose that Madeira is pretty empty."
"There is nobody here at all, sir."
"Is Mrs. Carr gone, then?" asked Arthur, in some alarm.
"No; she is still here. She has not been away this year. But she hasbeen very quiet; no parties or anything, which makes people think thatshe has lost money."
By this time the boat was rising on the roll of the last billow, to becaught next moment by a dozen hands, and dragged up the shingle. Itwas evening, or rather, verging that way, and from under the magnolia-trees below the cathedral there came the sound of the band summoningthe inhabitants of Funchal to congregate, chatter, and flirt.
"I think," said Arthur, "that I will ask you to take my things up tothe hotel. I will come by-and-by. I should like the same room I hadbefore, if it is empty."
"Very good, Mr. Heigham. You will have the place nearly all toyourself now."
Having seen his baggage depart, Arthur turned, and resisting theimportunities of beggars, guides, and parrot-sellers, who had not yetrecognized him as an old hand, made his way towards the Quinta Carr.How well he knew the streets and houses, even to the withered faces ofthe women who sat by the doors, and yet he seemed to have grown oldsince he had seen them. Ten minutes of sharp walking brought him tothe gates of the Quinta, and he paused before them, and thought how, afew months ago, he had quitted them, miserable at the grief ofanother, now to re-enter them utterly crushed by his own.
He walked on through the beautiful gardens to the house. The hall-doorstood open. He did not wait to ring, but, driven by some impulse,entered. After the glare of the sun, which at that time of the yearwas powerful even in its decline, the carefully shaded hall seemedquite dark. But by degrees his eyes adapted themselves to the alteredlight, and began to distinguish the familiar outline of the furniture.Next they travelled to the door of the drawing-room, where anothersight awaited them. For there, herself a perfect picture, standing inthe doorway for a frame, her hands outstretched in welcome, and aloving smile upon her lips, was Mildred.
"I was waiting for you," she said, gently. "I thought that you wouldcome."
"Mildred, my idol has been cast down, and, as you told me to do, Ihave come back to you."
"Dear," she answered, "you are very welcome."
And then came Miss Terry, pleased with all her honest heart to seehim, and utterly ignorant of the fierce currents that swept under thesmooth surface of their little social sea. Miss Terry was not bynature a keen observer.
"Dear me, Mr. Heigham, who would have thought of seeing you again sosoon? You _are_ brave to cross the bay so often" (her thoughts ran agreat deal on the Bay of Biscay); "but I don't think you look quitewell, you have such black lines under your eyes, and, I declare,there's a grey hair!"
"Oh, I assure you your favourite bay was enough to turn anybody's hairgrey, Miss Terry."
And so, talking cheerfully, they went in to the pleasant littledinner, Mildred leaning over so slightly on his arm, and gazing intohis sad face with full and happy eyes. After all that he had gonethrough, it seemed to Arthur as though he had dropped into a haven ofrest.
"See here," said Mildred, when they rose from table, "a wonder hascome to pass since you deserted us. Look, sceptic that you are!" andshe led him to the window, and, lifting a glass shade which protecteda flower-pot, showed him a green spike peeping from the soil.
"What is that?"
"What is it?--why, it is the mummy hyacinth which you declared that weshould never see blossom in this world. It has budded; whether or notit will blossom, who can say?"
"It is an omen," he said, with a little laugh; and for the first timethat evening their eyes met.
"Come into the garden, and you can smoke on the museum verandah; it ispleasant there these hot nights."
"It is dangerous, your garden."
She laughed softly. "You have proved yourself superior to danger."
Then they passed out together. The evening was still and very sultry.Not a breath stirred the silence of the night. The magnolia, the moon-flower, and a thousand other blooms poured out their fragrance uponthe surrounding air, where it lay in rich patches, like perfume thrownon water. A thin mist veiled the sea, and the little wavelets struckwith a sorrowful sound against the rock below.
"Tell me all about it, Arthur."
She had settled herself upon a long low chair, and as she leant backthe starlight glanced white upon her arms and bosom.
"There is not much to tell. It is a common story--at least, I believeso. She threw me over, and the day before I should have married her,married another man."
"Well?"
"Well, I saw her the morning following her marriage. I do not rememberwhat I said, but I believe I spoke what was in my mind. She fainted,and I left her."
"Ah, you spoke harshly, perhaps."
"Spoke harshly! Now that I have had time to think of it, I wish that Icould have had ten imaginations to shape my thoughts, and ten tonguesto speak them with! Do you understand what this woman has done? Shehas sold herself to a brute--oh, Mildred, such a brute--she hasdeserted me for a man who is not even a gentleman."
"Perhaps she was forced into it."
"Forced!--nonsense; we are not in the Middle Ages. A good woman shouldhave been forced to drown herself before she consented to commit sucha sacrilege against herself as to marry a man she hated. But she, 'mylove, my dove, my undefiled'--she whom I thought whiter than the snow--she could do this, and do it deliberately. I had rather have seenher dead, and myself dead with her."
"Don't you take a rather exaggerated view, Arthur? Don't you think,perhaps, that some of the fault lies with you for overrating women?Believe me, so far as my experience goes,
and I have seen a good many,the majority of them do not possess the exalted purity of mind you andmany very young men attribute to them. They are, on the contrary, forthe most part quite ready to exercise a wise discretion in the matterof marriage, even when the feeble tendencies which represent theiraffections point another way. A little pressure goes a long way withthem; they are always glad to make the most of it; it is the dust theythrow up to hide their retreat. Your Angela, for instance, was nodoubt, and probably still is, very fond of you. You are a charmingyoung man, with nice eyes and a taking way with women, and she wouldvery much have liked to marry you; but then she also liked hercousin's estates. She could not have both, and, being forced tochoose, she chose the latter. You should take a common-sense view ofthe matter; you are not the first who has suffered. Women, especiallyyoung women, who do not understand the value of affection, must bevery much in love before they submit to the self-sacrifice that issupposed to be characteristic of them, and what men talk of as stainsupon them they do not consider as such. They know, if they knownothing else, that a good income and an establishment will make themperfectly clean in the opinion of their own small world--a littleworld of shams and forms that cares nothing for the spirit of themoral law, provided the letter is acted up to. It is by this that theymark their standard of personal virtues, not by the high rule you menimagine for them. There is no social fuller's soap so effectual asmoney and position."
"You speak like a book, and give your own sex a high character. Tellme, then, would you do such a thing?"
"I, Arthur? How can you ask me? I had rather be torn to pieces by wildhorses. I spoke of the majority of the women, not of them all."
"Ah, and yet she could do it, and I thought her better than you."
"I do not think that you should speak bitterly of her, Arthur; I thinkthat you should be sorry for her."
"Sorry for her? Why?"
"Because from what I have gathered about her, she is not quite anordinary young woman: however badly she may have treated you, she is aperson of refined feelings and susceptibilities. Is it not so?"
"Without a doubt."
"Well, then, you should pity her, because she will bitterly expiateher mistake. For myself, I do not pity her much, because I will notwaste my sympathy on a fool; for, to my mind, the woman who could dowhat she has done, and deliberately throw away everything that canmake life really worth living to us women, is a most contemptiblefool. But you love her, and, therefore, you should be sorry for her."
"But why?"
"Because she is a woman who at one-and-twenty has buried all thehigher part of life, who has, of her own act, for ever deprivedherself of joys that nothing else can bring her. Love, true love, isalmost the only expression, of which we women are capable, of all thenobler instincts and vague yearnings after what is higher and betterthan the things we see and feel around us. When we love most, and lovehappily, then we are at our topmost bent, and soar further above theearth than anything else can carry us. Consequently, when a woman isfaithless to her love, which is the purest and most honourable part ofher, the very best thing to which she can attain, she clips her wings,and can fly no more, but must be tossed, like a crippled gull, hitherand thither upon the stormy surface of her little sea. Of course, Ispeak of women of the higher stamp. Many, perhaps most, will feelnothing of all this. In a little while they will grow content withtheir dull round and the alien nature which they have mated with, andin their children, and their petty cares and dissipations, will forgetthat they possess a higher part, if indeed they do possess it. Likeeverything else in the world, they find their level. But with womenlike your Angela it is another thing. For them time only serves toincreasingly unveil the Medusa-headed truth, till at last they see itas it is, and their hearts turn to stone. Backed with a sick longingto see a face that is gone from them, they become lost spirits,wandering everlastingly in the emptiness they have chosen, and findingno rest. Even her children will not console her."
Arthur uttered a smothered exclamation.
"Don't start, Arthur; you _must_ accustom yourself to the fact thatthat woman has passed away from you, and is as completely the personalproperty of another man, as that chair is mine. But, there, thesubject is a painful one to you; shall we change it?"
"It is one that you seem to have studied pretty deeply."
"Yes, because I have realized its importance to a woman. For someyears I have longed to be able to fall in love, and when at last I didso, Arthur," and here her voice grew very soft, "it was with a man whocould care nothing for me. Such has been my unlucky chance. That awoman, herself beloving and herself worthily beloved, could throw herblessed opportunity away is to me a thing inconceivable, and that,Arthur, is what your Angela has done."