Robert Orange
"Surely you will gratify me so far as to take time before you object to
what might possibly be most desirable."
"It may be desirable enough, but is it right?"
"Right," repeated her father, with exasperation. "How could it be
otherwise than right to marry a man of Marshire's position, means,
stamp, and general fitness? You would be in possession of a station
where your interest would be as independent as your spirit. Nothing
could have been more brilliant, or flattering, or more cordial than his
offer. I argue against my natural selfishness for your welfare. I don't
wish to part with you, but I must consider your future."
He spoke with energy, and Sara knew, from the length and substance of
the speech, that the subject had been for some time very near his heart.
She resolved, on the instant, not to fail him; but as she foresaw his
crowning satisfaction, she permitted herself the luxury of prolonging
his suspense.
"I do not love him," said she.
"In marriage one does not require an unconquerable love but an
invincible sympathy."
"An invincible sympathy!" she exclaimed. "I have had that for certain
friends--for one or two, at any rate. For Robert Orange, as an example."
"That man again? Why do you dwell upon him?"
"He is interesting, he has force, and, as for origin, do people ever
repeat pleasant facts about a neighbour's pedigree? I believe that his
family is every bit as good as ours. His second name is de Hausee. No
one can pretend that we are even so good as a genuine de Hausee. We may
make ourselves ridiculous!"
"Let me entreat you to guard against these inequalities in your
character. To-day I could even accuse you of levity. Dearest Sara,
Marshire is hardly the man to be kept waiting for his reply."
"I am not well," said Sara, almost in tears. "There are hours when I
would not give my especial blessings for any other earthly happiness,
and then, a moment after, the things which pleased me most become
vexations, all but intolerable!"
"How little importance, then, should we attach to our caprices, when we
know, by experience, how short is the pleasure and displeasure they can
give," was the careful reply.
"Caprices!" said Sara, "yes, you are right. My mind gets weary,
disgusted, and dismayed. But the soul is never bored--never tired. Poor
prisoner! It has so few opportunities."
She sighed deeply, and her father saw, with distress, the approach of a
sentimental mood which he deplored as un-English, and feared as
unmanageable.
"What is this languor, this inability to rouse myself, to feel the least
interest in things or people?" she continued. "I am not ill, and yet I
have scarcely the strength to regret my lassitude."
"What does it mean?"
He put his hand upon her jacket sleeve.
"Is this warm enough?" he said. "The autumn is treacherous. You are
careful, I hope."
She glanced out of the window and up at the clouds which, grey, heavy,
and impenetrable, moved, darkening all things as they went across the
sky.
"I wish it would rain! I like to be out when it rains!"
"A strange fancy," said her father, "but tastes, even odd ones, give a
charm to life, whereas passions--" he put some stress upon the word and
repeated it, "passions destroy it."
"Marshire, at any rate, does not seem to possess either!"
"Well, a man must begin at some point, and, at some point, he must
change. He admires and respects you, my darling, so we may hardly
quarrel with his judgment."
Sara shrugged her shoulders and turned her glance away from the few
carriages filled with invalids or elderly women which were still
lingering in the Row.
"Some people," said she, "are driven by their passions, others, the
smaller number, by their virtues. Marshire has asked me to marry him
because it is his duty to choose a wife from his own circle. I have no
illusions in the matter. Nor, I fancy, has he. We have talked, of
course, of love and Platonism till both love and Platonism became a
weariness!"
"Very far indeed am I from thinking you just. I have had an extremely
kind note from the Duchess."
"An old tyrant! She wants a daughter-in-law who will play piquet with
her in the evenings, and feed her peacocks in the morning. She is tired
of poor Miss Wilmington. An old tyrant!"
"She hopes to hear soon when the marriage is to take place. I wish I
could tell her the day. I do so long to have it fixed."
"Dear papa," she said, with a charming smile, "you are anxious, I see,
to be rid of me. I will write to him to-night."
"And to what effect?"
"The wisest."
"That means the happiest, too?" he asked with anxiety.
"For you and him, I hope. As for me--am I a woman who could, by any
chance, be both happy and wise at the same moment?"
Her existence was very solitary. The flippancy of the lives around her,
the inanity of her relatives' pursuits, their heedlessness of those
inner qualities which make the real--indeed, the only considerable
difference between man and man, could but fret, and mortify, and abash a
heart which, in the absence of any religious faith, had, at any rate,
the need of it. Her father, who entertained clear views of "the right
thing" and "the wrong thing" in social ethics, was still too rigid a
formalist in the exposition of his theories to reach an intelligence
with whom the desire of virtues would have to come as a
passion--inspiring and inspired or else be utterly repudiated.
Utilitarianism, and the greatest happiness of the greatest number,
comfortable domestic axioms, little schemes for the elevation of the
masses by the classes, had, on their logical basis, no attraction for
this sceptical, wayward girl. To be merely useful was, in her eyes, to
make oneself meddlesome and absurd. The object of existence was to be
heroic or nothing. She could imagine herself a Poor Clare: she could not
imagine herself as a great young lady dividing her hours judiciously
between district visiting and the ball-room, between the conquest of
eligible bachelors and the salvation of vulgar souls. Marshire, she
knew, had sisters and cousins who did these things and were considered
patterns. No wonder then that she turned pale and became fretful at the
prospect of her views clashing inevitably with his.
"I cannot be wise and happy at the same moment," she repeated.
At that instant the carriage, which was then rolling toward Hyde Park
Corner, came to an abrupt standstill, and, on looking out, Lord Garrow
observed that the coachman had halted in obedience to a signal from a
gentleman who was galloping, at a hard pace, after their brougham.
"It must be Reckage," said the Earl; "I never knew a man so fond of
riding who rode so ill."
"What, I wonder, does he want now?" said Sara, flushing a little. "I
didn't know that he was in town."
By that time the pursuer, a handsome man with an auburn beard and very
fine blue eyes, had reached them.
"This," he shouted, "is a rushing beast of a horse;" but, before he
could explain his errand, the hunter, who was nearly quite thoroughbred
and a magnificent animal, dashed on, evidently determined to gain,
without delay, some favourite destination.
"Extraordinary!" said Lord Garrow. "Extraordinary!"
"But so like him," observed his daughter.
"And he has made us late for tea. What a stupid fellow!"
It was exactly five minutes past five when they reached St. James's
Square. The sun, a globe, set in thin lines of yellow light, shone out
above the trees, which were dull but not yet leafless. Grey and
sulphurous and gold-edged clouds floated in masses on the blue sky. It
had been a day of changes--yet it seemed to Sara, whose own moods had
been as various, the ordinary passing away of time.
"Upon my word," said his lordship, "it is too bad! They may say what
they please about Reckage, but I call him a spooney. That horse was a
noble horse--a most superior horse. He couldn't manage him. I wish he
would sell him."
"He would never do anything so much to his own advantage," was the dry
response. "Poor Reckage is a brilliant fool--he's selfish, and therefore
he miscalculates."
Sara was now talking mechanically--as she often did when she was with
those whom she loved or liked, but from whom she was separated in every
thought, interest, and emotion. The lassitude of which she had
complained at the beginning of their drive returned upon her. Sighing
heavily, she entered the house and mounted the long staircase to the
drawing-room, where the tea-table was already spread, the flame
quivering under the kettle, the deep pink china laid out on a silver
tray. But the homeliness of the scene and its familiarity had no power
to soothe that aching, distracted heart. Had she been a man, she
thought, she might have sought her refuge in ceaseless work, in great
ambitions, in achievements. This eternal tea-pouring and word-mincing,
this business of forced laughter and garlanded conversation was more
than she could endure. A low cry of impatience, too long and also too
loosely imprisoned, escaped from her lips.
"What is the matter?" asked Lord Garrow, who was following close upon
her heels.
"Life," she said, "life! That is all that ever does matter."
"Ain't you happy?"
"No, but I have it in me to be happy--an appalling capability. Let us
say no more about it. I must join myself to eternity, and so find rest."
"Well," said her father, who now felt that he had a right to complain,
"my poor uncle used to say, if women deserved happiness they would bear
it better. Few of them bear it well--and this is a fact I have often
brought before me."
CHAPTER II
When Sara had prepared Lord Garrow's tea and cut the leaves of the
_Revue des Deux Mondes_, which he invariably read until he dressed for
dinner, she stole away to the further room, where she could play the
piano, write letters, muse over novels, or indulge in reverie without
fear of interruption. But as she entered it that afternoon its air of
peace seemed the bleakness of desolation. A terrible and afflicting
grief swept, like an icy breeze, through her heart, and, whether from
actual physical pain or the excitement of the last few hours, tears
started to her eyes, her cheeks flushed, and she fell to passionate
weeping. The smiling Nymphs painted on the ceiling above her head and
the rose leaves they were for ever scattering to the dancing Hours (a
charming group, and considered very cheerful), could not relieve her
woe. She cried long and bitterly, and was on the verge of hysterics when
the door opened and her most intimate woman friend, the Viscountess Fitz
Rewes, was announced. This bewitching creature--who was a widow, with
two long flaxen curls, a sweet figure, and the smile of an
angel--embraced her dear, dear Sara with genuine affection, and
pretended not to see her swollen eyelids. Sara possessed for Pensee Fitz
Rewes the fascination of a desperate nature for a meek one. The
audacity, brilliancy, and recklessness of the younger woman at once
stimulated and established the other's gentle piety.
They talked for fifteen minutes about the autumn visits they had paid,
the visits they would have to pay, and the visits which nothing in the
world would induce them to pay.
"I have been at home, at Catesby, most of the time," said Pensee; "a
very quiet, happyish time, on the whole. I had a few people down, but I
saw a great deal of a particularly nice person. She is a foreigner--an
archduchess really. Her father made a morganatic marriage. I am so glad
they don't have morganatic marriages in England. I don't like to be
uncharitable, but they seem, in a way, so improper. Madame de Parflete
is all one could wish. Her husband was a dreadful man."
"What did he do?" said Sara, who was a little absent.
"Oh, all kinds of things. He committed suicide in the end. And now--she