CHAPTER VI
THE ONE WOMAN
Daybreak on the following morning found the gas blazing in Rob'slodgings. Rob was seated in an arm-chair, his feet on the cold hearth._The Scorn of Scorns_ lay on the mantelpiece carefully done up in brownpaper, lest a speck of dust should fall on it, and he had been staringat the ribs of the fireplace for the last three hours without seeingthem. He had not thought of the gas. His bed was unslept on. His dampboots had dried on his feet. He did not feel cold. All night he had satthere, a man mesmerised. For the only time in his life he had forgottento wind up his watch.
At times his lips moved as if he were speaking to himself, and a smilelit up his face. Then a change of mood came, and he beat the fender withhis feet till the fire-irons rattled. Thinking over these remarksbrought the rapture to his face:
'How do you do, Mr. Angus?'
'You must not take to heart what Miss Meredith said.'
'Please don't say any more about it. I am quite sure you gave yourhonest opinion about my book.'
'I am so glad you think this like Scotland, because, of course, that isthe highest compliment a Scotsman can pay.'
'Good-night, Mr. Angus.'
That was all she had said to him, but the more Rob thought over herremarks the more he liked them. It was not so much the words themselvesthat thrilled him as the way they were said. Other people had asked,'How do you do, Mr. Angus?' without making an impression, but hergreeting was a revelation of character, for it showed that though sheknew who he was she wanted to put him at his ease. This is a delightfulattribute in a woman, and worth thinking about.
Just before Miss Abinger said, 'How do you do, Mr. Angus?' Rob hadrealised what people meant by calling her proud. She was holding herhead very high as she appeared in the path, and when Nell told her whoRob was she flushed. He looked hopelessly at her, bereft of speech, ashe saw a tear glisten on her eyelid; and as their eyes met she read intothe agony that he was suffering because he had hurt her. It was thenthat Mary made that memorable observation, 'How do you do, Mr. Angus?'
They turned toward the castle doors, Nell and the baronet in front, andRob blurted out some self-reproaches in sentences that had neitherbeginning nor end. Mary had told him not to take it so terribly toheart, but her voice trembled a little, for this had been a night ofincident to her. Rob knew that it was for his sake she had checked thattear, and as he sat in his lodgings through the night he saw that shehad put aside her own troubles to lessen his. When he thought of that hedrew a great breath. The next moment his whole body shuddered to thinkwhat a brute he had been, and then she seemed to touch his elbow again,and he half rose from his chair in a transport.
As soon as he reached his lodgings Rob had taken up _The Scorn ofScorns_, which he had not yet returned to Mr. Licquorish, and re-read itin a daze. There were things in it so beautiful now that they caught inhis throat and stopped his reading; they took him so far into thethoughts of a girl that to go farther seemed like eavesdropping. When heread it first _The Scorn of Scorns_ had been written in a tongue Rob didnot know, but now he had the key in his hands. There is a universallanguage that comes upon young people suddenly, and enables an Englishgirl, for instance, to understand what a Chinaman means when he lookstwice at her. Rob had mastered it so suddenly that he was only its slaveat present. His horse had run away with him.
Had the critic of _The Scorn of Scorns_ been a bald-headed man with twochins, who did not know the authoress, he would have smiled at theseverity with which she took perfidious man to task, and written anindulgent criticism without reading beyond the second chapter. If he hadbeen her father he would have laughed a good deal at her heroics, butnow and again they would have touched him, and he would have locked thebook away in his desk, seeing no particular cleverness in it, butfeeling proud of his daughter. It would have brought such thoughts tohim about his wife as suddenly fill a man with tenderness--thoughts heseldom gives expression to, though she would like to hear them.
Rob, however, drank in the book, his brain filled with the writer of it.It was about a young girl who had given her heart to a stranger, andone day when she was full of the joy of his love he had disappeared. Shewaited, wondering, fearing, and then her heart broke, and her onlydesire was to die. No one could account for the change that came overher, for she was proud, and her relatives were not sympathetic. She hadno mother to go to, and her father could not have understood. She becamelistless, and though she smiled and talked to all, when she went to hersolitary bed-chamber she turned her face in silence to the wall. Then afever came to her, and after that she had to be taken to the Continent.What shook her listlessness was an accident to her father. It was fearedthat he was on his deathbed, and as she nursed him she saw that her lifehad been a selfish one. From that moment she resolved if he got better(is it not terrible this, that the best of us try to make terms withGod?) to devote her life to him, and to lead a nobler existence amongthe poor and suffering ones at home. The sudden death of a relative whowas not a good man frightened her so much that she became ill again, andnow she was so fearful of being untruthful that she could not make astatement of fact without adding 'I think so,' under her breath. She letpeople take advantage of her lest she should be taking advantage ofthem, and when she passed a cripple on the road she walked very slowlyso that he should not feel his infirmity.
Years afterwards she saw the man who had pretended to love her and thenridden away. He said that he could explain everything to her, and thathe loved her still; but she drew herself up, and with a look ofineffable scorn, told him that she no longer loved him. When they firstmet, she said, she had been little more than a child, and so she hadmade an idol of him. But long since the idol had crumbled to pieces, andnow she knew that she had worshipped a thing of clay. She wished himwell, but she no longer loved him. As Lord Caltonbridge listened he knewthat she spoke the truth, and his eyes drooped before her dignified butcontemptuous gaze. Then, concludes the author, dwelling upon this littletriumph with a satisfaction that hardly suggests a heart broken beyondmending, he turned upon his heel, at last realising what he was; and,feeling smaller and meaner than had been his wont, left the Grange forthe second and last time.
How much of this might be fiction, Rob was not in a mind to puzzle over.It seemed to him that the soul of a pure-minded girl had been laid bareto him. To look was almost a desecration, and yet it was there whicheverway he turned. A great longing rose in his heart to see Mary Abingeragain and tell her what he thought of himself now. He rose and paced thefloor, and the words he could not speak last night came to his lips in atorrent. Like many men who live much alone, Rob often held imaginaryconversations with persons far distant, and he denounced himself to thisgirl a score of times as he paced back and forwards. Always she lookedat him in reply with that wonderful smile which had pleaded with him notto be unhappy on her account. Horrible fears laid hold of him that afterthe guests had departed she had gone to her room and wept. That villainSir Clement had doubtless left the castle for the second and last time,'feeling smaller and meaner than had been his wont' (Rob clenched hisfists at the thought of him), but how could he dare to rage at thebaronet when he had been as great a scoundrel himself? Rob looked abouthim for his hat; a power not to be resisted was drawing him back to DomeCastle.
He heard the clatter of crockery in the kitchen as he opened his door,and it recalled him to himself. At that moment it flashed upon him thathe had forgotten to write any notice of Colonel Abinger's speech. He hadneglected the office and come straight home. At any other time thiswould have startled him, but now it seemed the merest trifle. It passedfor the moment from his mind, and its place was taken by the remembrancethat his boots were muddy and his coat soaking. For the first time inhis life the seriousness of going out with his hair unbrushed came hometo him. He had hitherto been content to do little more than fling a combat it once a day. Rob returned to his room, and, crossing to the mirror,looked anxiously into it to see what he was like. He took off his coatand brushed it vigorou
sly.
Having laved his face, he opened his box, and produced from it twoneckties, which he looked at for a long time before he could make up hismind which to wear. Then he changed his boots. When he had brushed hishat he remembered with anxiety some one on the _Mirror's_ having askedhim why he wore it so far back on his head. He tilted it forward, andcarefully examined the effect in the looking-glass. Then forgetful thatthe sounds from the kitchen betokened the approach of breakfast, hehurried out of the house. It was a frosty morning, and already thestreets were alive, but Rob looked at no one. For women in the abstracthe now felt an unconscious pity, because they were all so very unlikeMary Abinger. He had grown so much in the night that the Rob Angus ofthe day before seemed but an acquaintance of his youth.
He was inside the grounds of Dome Castle again before he realised thathe had no longer a right to be there. By fits and starts he rememberednot to soil his boots. He might have been stopped at the lodge, but atpresent it had no tenant. A year before, Colonel Abinger had realisedthat he could not keep both a horse and a lodge-keeper, and that hecould keep neither if his daughter did not part with her maid. Heyielded to Miss Abinger's entreaties, and kept the horse.
Rob went on at a swinging pace till he turned an abrupt corner of thewalk and saw Dome Castle standing up before him. Then he started, andturned back hastily. This was not owing to his remembering that he wastrespassing, but because he had seen a young lady coming down the steps.Rob had walked five miles without his breakfast to talk to Miss Abinger,but as soon as he saw her he fled. When he came to himself he was sofearful of her seeing him, that he hurried behind a tree, where he hadthe appearance of a burglar.
Mary Abinger came quickly up the avenue, unconscious that she waswatched, and Rob discovered in a moment that after all the prettiestthing about her was the way she walked. She carried a little basket inher hand, and her dress was a blending of brown and yellow, with a greatdeal of fur about the throat. Rob, however, did not take the dress intoaccount until she had passed him, when, no longer able to see her face,he gazed with delight after her.
Had Rob been a lady he would probably have come to the conclusion thatthe reason why Miss Abinger wore all that fur instead of a jacket wasbecause she knew it became her better. Perhaps it was. Even though ayoung lady has the satisfaction of feeling that her heart is nowadamant, that is no excuse for her dressing badly. Rob's opinion wasthat it would matter very little what she wore, because some pictureslook lovely in any frame, but that was a point on which he and MissAbinger always differed. Only after long consideration had she come tothe conclusion that the hat she was now wearing was undoubtedly theshape that suited her best, and even yet she was ready to spend time inthinking about other shapes. What would have seemed even more surprisingto Rob was that she had made up her mind that one side of her face wasbetter than the other side.
No mere man, however, could ever have told which was the better side ofMiss Abinger's face. It was a face to stir the conscience of a good man,and make unworthy men keep their distance, for it spoke first of purity,which can never be present anywhere without being felt. All men are bornwith a craving to find it, and they never look for it but among women.The strength of the craving is the measure of any man's capacity tolove, and without it love on his side would be impossible.
Mary Abinger was fragile because she was so sensitive. She carriedeverywhere a fear to hurt the feelings of others, that was a bodkin ather heart. Men and women in general prefer to give and take. Thekeenness with which she felt necessitated the garment of reserve, whichthose who did not need it for themselves considered pride. Her weaknesscalled for something to wrap it up. There were times when it pleased herto know that the disguise was effective, but not when it deceivedpersons she admired. The cynicism of _The Scorn of Scorns_ was as much acloak as her coldness, for she had an exquisite love of what is good andfine in life that idealised into heroes persons she knew or heard of ashaving a virtue. It would have been cruel to her to say that there areno heroes. When she found how little of the heroic there was in SirClement Dowton she told herself that there are none, and sometimes otherpersons had made her repeat this since. She seldom reasoned aboutthings, however, unless her feelings had been wounded, and soon againshe was dreaming of the heroic. Heroes are people to love, and Mary'sidea of what love must be would have frightened some persons from lovingher. With most men affection for a woman is fed on her regard for them.Greatness in love is no more common than greatness in leading armies.Only the hundredth man does not prefer to dally where woman is easiestto win; most finding the maids of honour a satisfactory substitute forthe princess. So the boy in the street prefers two poor apples to asound one. It may be the secret of England's greatness.
On this Christmas Day Mary Abinger came up the walk rapidly, scorningherself for ever having admired Sir Clement Dowton. She did everythingin the superlative degree, and so rather wondered that a thunderboltwas not sent direct from above to kill him--as if there werethunderbolts for every one. If we got our deserts most of us would beknocked on the head with a broomstick.
When she was out of sight, Rob's courage returned, and he rememberedthat he was there in the hope of speaking to her. He hurried up the walkafter her, but when he neared her he fell back in alarm. His heart wasbeating violently. He asked himself in a quaver what it was that he hadarranged to say first.
In her little basket Mary had Christmas presents for a few people,inhabitants of a knot of houses not far distant from the castle gates.They were her father's tenants, and he rather enjoyed their being unableto pay much rent, it made them so dependent. Had Rob seen how she wasreceived in some of these cottages, how she sat talking merrily with onebed-ridden old woman whom cheerfulness kept alive, and not only gave adisabled veteran a packet of tobacco, but filled his pipe for him, sothat he gallantly said he was reluctant to smoke it (trust an old manfor gallantry), and even ate pieces of strange cakes to please herhostesses, he would often have thought of it afterwards. However, itwould have been unnecessary prodigality to show him that, for his mindwas filled with the incomparable manner in which she knocked at doorsand smiled when she came out. Once she dropped her basket, and he couldremember nothing so exquisite as her way of picking it up.
Rob lurked behind trees and peered round hedges, watching Miss Abingergo from one house to another, but he could not shake himself free of thefear that all the world had its eye on him. Hitherto not his honestybut its bluntness had told against him (the honesty of a good manypersons is only stupidity asserting itself), and now he had not thecourage to be honest. When any wayfarers approached he whistled to thefields as if he had lost a dog in them, or walked smartly eastward(until he got round a corner) like one who was in a hurry to reachSilchester. He looked covertly at the few persons who passed him, to seeif they were looking at him. A solitary crow fluttered into the air frombehind a wall, and Rob started. In a night he had become self-conscious.
At last Mary turned homewards, with the sun in her face. Rob was movingtoward the hamlet when he saw her, and in spite of himself he came to adead stop. He knew that if she passed inside the gates of the castle hislast chance of speaking to her was gone; but it was not that which madehim keep his ground. He was shaking as the thin boards used to do whenthey shot past his circular saw. His mind, in short, had run away andleft him.
On other occasions Mary would not have thought of doing more than bow toRob, but he had Christmas Day in his favour, and she smiled.
'A happy Christmas to you, Mr. Angus,' she said, holding out her hand.
It was then that Rob lifted his hat, and overcame his upbringing. Hisunaccustomed fingers insisted on lifting it in such a cautious way that,in a court of law, it could have been argued that he was only plantingit more firmly on his head. He did not do it well, but he did it. Somemen would have succumbed altogether on realising so sharply that it isnot women who are terrible, but a woman. Here is a clear case in whichthe part is greater than the whole.
Rob would have liked to
wish Miss Abinger a happy Christmas too, but thewords would not form, and had she chosen she could have left him lookingvery foolish. But Mary had blushed slightly when she caught sight of Robstanding helplessly in the middle of the road, and this meant that sheunderstood what he was doing there. A girl can overlook a great deal ina man who admires her. She feels happier. It increases her self-respect.So Miss Abinger told him that, if the frost held, the snow would soonharden, but if a thaw came it would melt; and then Rob tore out ofhimself the words that tended to slip back as they reached his tongue.
'I don't know how I could have done it,' he said feebly, beginning atthe end of what he had meant to say. There he stuck again.
Mary knew what he spoke of, and her pale face coloured. She shrank fromtalking of _The Scorn of Scorns_.
'Please don't let that trouble you,' she said, with an effort. 'I wasreally only a schoolgirl when I wrote it, and Miss Meredith got itprinted recently as a birthday surprise for me. I assure you I wouldnever have thought of publishing it myself for--for people to read.Schoolgirls, you know, Mr. Angus, are full of such silly sentiment.'
A breeze of indignation shook 'No, no!' out of Rob, but Mary did notheed.
'I know better now,' she said; 'indeed, not even you, the hardest of mycritics, sees more clearly than I the--the childishness of the book.'
Miss Abinger's voice faltered a very little, and Rob's sufferingsallowed him to break out.
'No,' he said, with a look of appeal in his eyes that were as grey ashers, 'it was a madness that let me write like that. _The Scorn ofScorns_ is the most beautiful, the tenderest----' He stuck once more.Miss Abinger could have helped him again, but she did not. Perhaps shewanted him to go on. He could not do so, but he repeated what he hadsaid already, which may have been the next best thing to do.
'You do surprise me now, Mr. Angus,' said Mary, light-hearted all atonce, 'for you know you scarcely wrote like that.'
'Ah, but I have read the book since I saw you,' Rob blurted out, 'andthat has made such a difference.'
A wiser man might have said a more foolish thing. Mary looked upsmiling. Her curiosity was aroused, and at once she became merciless.Hitherto she had only tried to be kind to Rob, but now she wanted to bekind to herself.
'You can hardly have re-read my story since last night,' she said,shaking her fair head demurely.
'I read it all through the night,' exclaimed Rob, in such a tone thatMary started. She had no desire to change the conversation, however; shedid not start so much as that.
'But you had to write papa's speech?' she said.
'I forgot to do it,' Rob answered awkwardly. His heart sank, for he sawthat here was another cause he had given Miss Abinger to dislike him.Possibly he was wrong. There may be extenuating circumstances that willenable the best of daughters to overlook an affront to her father'sspeeches.
'But it was in the _Mirror_. I read it,' said Mary.
'Was it?' said Rob, considerably relieved. How it could have got therewas less of a mystery to him than to her, for Protheroe had sub-editedso many speeches to tenants that in an emergency he could always guessat what the landlords said.
'It was rather short,' Mary admitted, 'compared with the report in the_Argus_. Papa thought----' She stopped hastily.
'He thought it should have been longer?' asked Rob. Then before he hadtime to think of it, he had told her of his first meeting with thecolonel.
'I remember papa was angry at the time,' Mary said, 'but you need nothave been afraid of his recognising you last night. He did recogniseyou.'
'Did he?'
'Yes; but you were his guest.'
Rob could not think of anything more to say, and he saw that Mary wasabout to bid him good-morning. He found himself walking with her in thedirection of the castle gates.
'This scenery reminds me of Scotland,' he said.
'I love it,' said Mary (man's only excellence over woman is that his aweof this word prevents his using it so lightly), 'and I am glad that Ishall be here until the season begins.'
Rob had no idea what the season was, but he saw that some time Marywould be going away, and his face said, what would he do then?
'Then I go to London with the Merediths,' she continued, addingthoughtfully, 'I suppose you mean to go to London, Mr. Angus? My brothersays that all literary men drift there.'
'Yes, oh yes,' said Rob.
'Soon?'
'Immediately,' he replied recklessly.
They reached the gates, and, as Mary held out her hand, the small basketwas tilted upon her arm, and a card fluttered out.
'It is a Christmas card a little boy in one of those houses gave me,'she said, as Rob returned it to her. 'Have you got many Christmas cardsto-day, Mr. Angus?'
'None,' said Rob.
'Not even from your relatives?' asked Mary, beginning to pity him morethan was necessary.
'I have no relatives,' he replied; 'they are all dead.'
'I was in Scotland two summers ago,' Mary said, very softly, 'at a placecalled Glen Quharity; papa was there shooting. But I don't suppose youknow it?'
'Our Glen Quharity!' exclaimed Rob; 'why, you must have passed throughThrums?'
'We were several times in Thrums. Have you been there?'
'I was born in it; I was never thirty miles away from it until I camehere.'
'Oh,' cried Mary, 'then you must be the literary----' She stopped andreddened.
'The literary saw-miller,' said Rob, finishing her sentence; 'that waswhat they called me, I know, at Glen Quharity Lodge.'
Mary looked up at him with a new interest, for when she was there GlenQuharity had been full of the saw-miller, who could not only talk inGreek, but had a reputation for tossing the caber.
'Papa told me some months ago,' she said, in surprise, 'that theliter----, that you had joined the Press in England, but he evidentlydid not know of your being in Silchester.'
'But how could he have known anything about me?' asked Rob, surprised inturn.
'This is so strange,' Mary answered. 'Why, papa takes credit for havinggot you your appointment on the press.'
'It was a minister, a Mr. Rorrison, who did that for me,' said Rob;'indeed, he was so good that I could have joined the Press a year ago byhis help, had not circumstances compelled me to remain at home.'
'I did not know the clergyman's name,' Mary said, 'but it was papa whospoke of you to him first. Don't you remember writing out thisclergyman's sermon in shorthand, and a messenger's coming to you foryour report on horseback next day?'
'Certainly I do,' said Rob, 'and he asked me to write it out in longhandas quickly as possible. That was how I got to know Mr. Rorrison; and, asI understood, he had sent for the report of the sermon, on hearingaccidentally that I had taken it down, because he had some reason forwanting a copy of it.'
'Perhaps that was how it was told to you afterwards,' Mary said, 'but itwas really papa who wanted the sermon.'
'I should like to know all about it,' Rob said, seeing that shehesitated. Colonel Abinger had not seemed to him the kind of man whowould send a messenger on horseback about the country in quest ofsermons.
'I am afraid,' Mary explained, 'that it arose out of a wager. Thisclergyman was staying at the Lodge, but papa was the only other personthere who would go as far as Thrums to hear him preach. I was not therethat year, so I don't know why papa went, but when he returned he toldthe others that the sermon had been excellent. There is surely anEnglish church in Thrums, for I am sure papa would not think a sermonexcellent that was preached in a chapel?'
'There is,' said Rob; 'but in Thrums it is called the chapel.'
'Well, some badinage arose out of papa's eulogy, and it ended in a betthat he could not tell the others what this fine sermon was about. Hewas to get a night to think it over. Papa took the bet a little rashly,for when he put it to himself he found that he could not even rememberthe text. As he told me afterwards (here Mary smiled a little), he had ageneral idea of the sermon, but could not quite put it into wor
ds, andhe was fearing that he would lose the wager (and be laughed at, whichalways vexes papa), when he heard of your report. So a messenger wassent to Thrums for it--and papa won his bet.'
'But how did Mr. Rorrison hear of my report, then?'
'Oh, I forgot; papa told him afterwards, and was so pleased with hisvictory, that when he heard Mr. Rorrison had influence with some presspeople, he suggested to him that something might be done for you.'
'This is strange,' said Rob, 'and perhaps the strangest thing about itis that if Colonel Abinger could identify me with the saw-miller, hewould be sorry that he had interfered.'
Mary saw the force of this so clearly that she could not contradict him.
'Surely,' she said, 'I heard when I was at the Lodge of your having aniece, and that you and the little child lived alone in the saw-mill?'
'Yes,' Rob answered hoarsely, 'but she is dead. She wandered from home,and was found dead on a mountain-side.'
'Was it long ago?' asked Mary, very softly.
'Only a few months ago,' Rob said, making his answer as short aspossible, for the death of Davy moved him still. 'She was only fouryears old.'
Mary's hand went half-way toward his involuntarily. His mouth wastwitching. He knew how good she was.
'That card,' he began, and hesitated.
'Oh, would you care to have it?' said Mary.
But just then Colonel Abinger walked into them, somewhat amazed to seehis daughter talking to one of the lower orders. Neither Rob nor Maryhad any inclination to tell him that this was the Scotsman he hadbefriended.
'This is Mr. Angus, papa,' said Mary, 'who--who was with us last night.'
'Mr. Angus and I have met before, I think,' replied her father,recalling the fishing episode. His brow darkened, and Rob was ready foranything, but Colonel Abinger was a gentleman.
'I always wanted to see you again, Mr. Angus,' he said, with an effort,'to ask you--what flies you were using that day?'
Rob muttered something in answer, which the colonel did not try tocatch. Mary smiled and bowed, and the next moment she had disappearedwith her father down the avenue.
What followed cannot be explained. When Rob roused himself from hisamazement at Mary Abinger's having been in Thrums without his feelingher presence, something made him go a few yards inside the castlegrounds, and, lying lightly on the snow, he saw the Christmas card. Helifted it up as if it were a rare piece of china, and held it in his twohands as though it were a bird which might escape. He did not knowwhether it had dropped there of its own accord, and doubt and transportfought for victory on his face. At last he put the card exultingly intohis pocket, his chest heaved, and he went toward Silchester whistling.