Robert Orange
"I am no judge. Women can know so little about men."
"I don't agree with you there. They are far more conventional
than we are. They are trained in batches, thousands are of one
pattern--especially in society. But each woman has an individual
bringing-up. She is influenced by a foreign governess, or her mother, or
her nurse. This must give every girl peculiar personal views of
everything. That is why men find us hard to understand. We don't
understand each other; we suspect each other: we have no sense of
comradeship."
"Perhaps you are right," said Agnes, rather sadly. "Yet our troubles all
seem to arise from the fact that we cannot manage men. It matters very
little really whether we can manage women. With women, one need only be
natural, straightforward, and unselfish. You can't come to grief that
way. But with men, it is almost impossible to be quite natural. As for
being straightforward, don't they misconstrue our words continually? And
when one tries to be unselfish, they accuse one of hardness, coldness,
and everything most contrary to one's feelings. Of course," she added
quickly, "I speak from observation. I have nothing to complain of
myself."
"Of course not. Neither have I. I have grown up with most of my men
friends. I had no mother, and I exhausted dozens of governesses and
masters, I am sure I was troublesome, but I had an instinctive horror of
becoming narrow-minded and getting into a groove. My English relations
bored me. My foreign ones made my dear papa jealous and uncomfortable."
"Then you liked them?" said Agnes at once.
"Enormously. You see, I am always an alien among English people."
Agnes, following an instinct of kindness, pressed her arm and murmured,
"No, no."
"Yes, my dear, yes. And this is why I am devoted to Mr. Disraeli, and so
much interested in Robert Orange. We three are citizens of the world."
"But English people who have lived, for any length of time, abroad are
quite as sensible and tolerant as you are. Take Mr. Rennes, of whom we
are just speaking."
"To be sure. But artists and poets are like stars--they belong to no
land. A strictly national painter or a strictly national poet is bound
to be parochial--a kind of village pump. And you may write inscriptions
all over him, and build monuments above him, but he remains a pump by a
local spring. David Rennes is a genius."
"I am glad you think so," said Agnes, with flushing cheeks. "I wonder
whether he will ever be an Academician?"
"Would you feel more sure of his gifts--in that case?"
There was a slight note of sarcasm in the question.
"It is stupid of me, I know," said Agnes frankly, "but one can't help
feeling rather shy until one's opinions are officially endorsed."
"How British!"
"I suppose it is my bringing-up. It sounds very feeble. I often feel
that if I once began--really began--to think for myself I wouldn't stick
at anything."
"That is British, too," said Sara, laughing. "You are a true _Jane_
Bull! But as you are going to marry a public man, that is as well. Your
life will have many absorbing interests."
"Oh yes," returned Agnes; "I hope to help Beauclerk in his constituency,
and with the members of his Association."
"So far as I can make out they are a weak, selfish lot, but these
qualities do not affect the question of his duties toward them."
"You express, better than I could, my own feeling. I fear they don't
always appreciate his motives."
"Beauclerk," said Sara slowly, "is impulsive. He is never afraid of
changing his mind. Many people are called firm merely because they
haven't the moral courage to own their second thoughts."
Agnes drew a long sigh, slackened her pace, and stood looking at the
strange, autumnal lights in the sky, the martins flying over the
paddocks toward the wood, and the crescent moon which already shone out
above them.
"I suppose it does mean lack of courage, half the time," she said at
last; "and yet how disastrous it is to wonder about the wisdom of any
decision once arrived at, of any step once taken! I daresay every one
shrinks a little at first from the responsibility of undertaking another
person's happiness."
"Not every one," replied Sara; "the generous ones only."
"You have known Beauclerk ever since he was a boy, haven't you?" asked
Agnes.
"Yes. He was such a handsome lad, and he has always been the same."
"I am devoted to him," said Agnes. "I am proud to think that he has
chosen me for his wife. But one thought is perpetually coming up in my
mind: Shall I be able to make him happy? A girl, as a rule, seems to
believe that she can make a man happy merely by loving him. Again and
again friends of mine have married in this idea. And the hope seldom
answers."
She spoke very quietly, yet there was great feeling, even great
bitterness in her tone. She was thinking of David Rennes. Sara had a
curious magnetism which attracted all those with whom she came into
friendly relations. Being imaginative, though never inquisitive, her
quick sympathies rendered the most trivial interchange of ideas an
emotional exercise. This power, which would have made her a successful
actress, found its usual outlet in her pianoforte playing, which
affected her hearers as only extraordinary nervous and passionate force
can affect people. She had neither the patience nor the sternness of
mental quality which is required in a creative genius: the little songs
and poems which she sometimes composed were insipid to an astonishing
degree. Hers were the executant's gifts, and the fascination which she
exerted over men and women depended wholly on the natural charm of a
temperament made up of fire and honey. Agnes had always regarded Lady
Sara as an odd but chivalrous girl. The stories told in society about
her eccentric tastes, sayings, and doings were never to her heart's
discredit, no matter how much they puzzled, or dismayed, the
conventional set into which she had been born. It was felt that she
could be trusted, and, although many were afraid of her brains, no one
had ever known her to betray a confidence, to injure another woman's
reputation, to show the least spite, or to insist upon an undue share of
men's attention. The sex may, and do, pardon the first three sins, but
the last has yet to find its atoning virtue. All declared that Sara,
with many shortcomings, was neither a poacher nor a grabber. Girls
consulted her in their love troubles, and not a few owed their marriages
to her wise arbitration. She had the gypsy's spell. Thus it happened,
therefore, that Agnes, who was habitually reserved, found herself
thinking aloud in the presence of this mysterious but not hostile
personality.
"When does Beauclerk return from the North of France?" asked Sara.
"He is coming back with Mr. Orange next Wednesday. I had a letter this
morning." Her voice grew husky, and with evident agitation she halted
once more.
"You know Beauclerk so well," she said at last, "that I want to ask you
something, and you must answer me truly--without the least dread of
giving offence--because a great deal may depend on what you tell me. Do
you think he seems altogether settled in his mind?"
Sara guessed, from the nature of the question, that the truth in this
case would be a relief--not a blow.
"He doesn't seem quite himself--if you understand me," she said, without
hesitation.
Agnes caught her arm a little more closely and walked with a lighter
step.
"I don't think we love each other sufficiently for marriage," she
exclaimed; "his last letter was so affectionate and so full of kindness
that it brought tears to my eyes. I saw the effort under it all. We are
making a tragic mistake. We drifted into it. We were such good friends,
and we felt, I daresay, that it was our duty to love each other. His
family were pleased and so were mine. We seem to have pleased everybody
except ourselves. Not that I ever expected the joy and stuff, and inward
feelings which one reads of. I am too sensible for that. But I wanted to
feel _established_--whereas we are both, in reality, rather upset. I am
sure of this."
"Perhaps when you see each other----"
"Our letters are far more satisfactory than our meetings. I know he is
fond of me."
"You couldn't doubt that. It is worship."
"I can say, at any rate, that I am so sure of his affection that it
gives me no pain--not the least--to miss the--the other quality."
"My dear, you are not in love with him, or you couldn't be so resigned."
"I suppose you are right. I have never told him that I loved him. He has
never asked me. Perhaps he took it for granted. As for me, I thought
that the respect and esteem I felt would do."
Sara shook her head.
"Not for us. We are different, I know, but we have hearts. We can
suffer, we can endure, we can be resigned, we can be everything except
uncertain, or luke-warm. Isn't that true?"
"Yes," said Agnes, and she laughed a little. "It isn't my way," she went
on, "to talk like this about myself. Yet I can't help seeing that all
this keeping silence, and disguising facts from one's own reason, is
actually weak. I don't want to be weak. It isn't English. I don't want
to be supine. That isn't English either. I want to be just and square
all round--in my dealings with others and in my dealings with my own
conscience. Papa has always taught us a great deal about individual
liberty, and freedom of will. I am beginning to wonder what liberty
means."
"That's the first step toward a great change."
The young girl set her lips, and looked steadfastly before her, as
though she would pierce the gathering twilight with her bright and
candid eyes.
"I daresay you are right. Anyhow, our talk has been a help. When I may
seem to lack courage, it is because I lack conviction. Once convinced, I
can depend upon myself."
"When did these ideas come to you?" asked Sara.
"They have been coming for some time. I have been abroad a good deal,
and I have been meeting people who make opinions. I never gave in when I
was with them, but I must have been influenced."
The slight emphasis on the words _people_ and _them_ was too studied to
escape Sara's trained hearing. She knew the force of a woman's
rhetorical plural.
"I believe you have your convictions now, at this moment," she said
quietly.
"No--not in the final shape."
"But you can predict the final shape?"
"One more day and then I will decide irrevocably."
"Why do you hesitate?"
"For this reason--I must grieve papa and disappoint my mother."
"Still, both these things have to be done. Some of the best men have
been obliged to displease their parents in choosing a vocation. Women,
in their marriages, are often driven to the same sad straits."
"I know, but the prospect is most painful. I feel I could bear my own
disappointment far better than I could bear theirs. Surely you
understand?"
"Too well."
They had now reached the house, and Agnes's habitual manner at once
re-asserted itself. Her voice, which had many rich notes, fell into the
one unchanging tone she used in ordinary conversation. Her countenance
seemed as placid as a pink geranium under glass.
"Thank you for a very pleasant walk," she said to Sara. "I sha'n't
forget it."
"Nor I. And, please, after this, always call me Sara. And may I call you
Agnes? We have just time now to write a few letters before dinner."
CHAPTER XV
Robert, accompanied by Lord Reckage, arrived in London the following
Wednesday. Pensee and Brigit went from St. Malo to Paris, where the
unhappy girl hoped to enter the Conservatoire. All had been arranged by
Robert himself, and he had shown a calmness during the ordeal which
might have deceived his two friends had they been even a little
insincere themselves or a shade less fond. His Journal at that period