Robert Orange Part 13

"She might have been happier had she known of it! Last year she remained entirely alone; and solitude is full of bad things--it is very dangerous, however much one is accustomed to it."

"Poor girl! But I could not, in honour, suffer a false impression to be formed. As a matter of fact, my family wouldn't hear of the match. There is no denying that they were set on my marrying Agnes."

At last he had been able to mention her. He leant back and relied on his companion's tact to elaborate the theme.

Pensee murmured--

"Dear Agnes! If there are storms, they won't come from her side. She is of a very elevated spirit----"

He winced, but she continued--

"Generous, sternly honest, greatly esteemed by every one. Neither pique nor pa.s.sion nor petty feelings could ever influence her mind. She is the most angelic, good woman I ever met--she is one to whom one may complain, and be a bore. She has such utter patience!"

"You would not be impressed by professions, nor am I very clever at making them," said he, "but you know, by sympathy, that my affection for her is--is the heroic feeling of devotion which has also a kind of exclusiveness----"

He could not finish the sentence.

"It leads you to imagine that you could never survive her loss," said Pensee gravely. "But need you lose her--as a friend?" Something in his countenance encouraged her to pursue this train of thought. "Agnes has the deepest admiration for your qualities. No doubt, you truly realise the high standard of character which she would hope for in one to whom she gave her love. You have proved yourself worthy to call out her best feelings."

Reckage was very touched by this tribute.

"And _her_ best feelings," said he, "ought to make us--at our best--very humble."

Pensee lifted her veil just above her eyes, clasped her hands tightly together, and kept her earnest glance full upon his.

"I believe," she continued, "that if it were in man, or woman, to command the heart, you would have her entire affection. I believe she is unhappy. During the last week she has had many ups and downs. She has pa.s.sed with astonis.h.i.+ng rapidity from the lowest despair to the height of joy. She has tried to distract her mind by incessant occupation. But you know her manner--it is transparent near the surface, difficult to sound in its depths."

"Yes, she has a childlike openness--up to a certain point."

"I can only tell you, therefore, what I think, judging as a woman, by outward signs. I seem to detect a sort of self-doubt--as though she feared making some error. She has become of late strangely intense and vivid--she is fascinated by books, and drawn to music, as she never was before. Perhaps she sees that you give her a priceless, beautiful friends.h.i.+p which must indeed be flattering. Yet--yet in marriage friends.h.i.+p is not enough. So she is acquiring a stock of interests which are impersonal."

Loyalty to Agnes forbade any reference to David Rennes. She had no intention of giving the least hint of her own private conviction on the subject. She desired merely that Reckage should learn how the engagement might be broken off without giving unimaginable grief to the young lady.

The move under this aspect was skilful and successful. Reckage received her words as a subtle appeal to his honour and kindness.

He said at once--

"I am glad you have told me this. I could bear my own mistakes. I could not bear hers. Let me look at the step which I have taken! The choice is for life. Agnes is inflexibly conscientious and self-denying. Several years of attachment have tried us both. She knows my faults; I know where her"--he paused for a moment--"her qualities might clash with mine. We spoke of this together; we considered every circ.u.mstance that could, by any remote chance, weigh against our common happiness."

Pensee shook her head.

"Of course, that was right," she said doubtfully.

"It is no easy matter to get a promise from Agnes," he went on; "but when once given it is inviolate. This throws a grisly responsibility upon me. I must risk everything, if I am to do anything. You have expressed a dread which I have been endeavouring to stifle. I am making her wretched."

"I don't say that _you_ are making her wretched; I say she seems disturbed and unsettled when she ought to be full of the brightest hopes."

"Quite so. I fear the unsettlement is exceedingly great. A neutrality on your part is all I could in reason expect; but your counsel in such a grave matter----"

Pensee summoned all her energy, and breathed a little prayer for the well-being of the two women whose lives were at stake.

"I saw Agnes this morning," she said, speaking at a rapid pace; "she came up for some shopping, and she returned home directly after tea."

"She ought to have told me that she was in town," he exclaimed.

"My dear Beauclerk, you know her sweetness! She said, 'I don't wish to take up his time; an engagement ought not to be a servitude.' That is the reason why she did not tell you."

"She ought to have told me," he repeated. "Such extreme delicacy was most uncalled for. It wasn't even friendly. When we were old friends, and nothing more, she would have told me."

"Yes, when you were friends."

"I think she gave me a nasty rap in so acting; I do, indeed. One would infer that I had failed in some ordinary attentiveness. It is a distinct reprimand."

"You are quite wrong. She meant it in the n.o.blest way."

"Then it is a desperately near thing between n.o.ble conduct and a downright snub. I can't help las.h.i.+ng out about it."

In Pensee's own private perception this outburst of temper was no bad sign. It convinced her, at least, of the sincerity of his feelings towards Agnes and his genuine desire to behave well at every point in their relations.h.i.+p.

"Don't you understand," she said, "that Agnes _dares_ not love you. This being the case, I cannot see that she could go on in what might be called a natural way. Will you bear with me, and, if I am indiscreet, forgive me? She wants all the sympathy and support she can get. She is suffering very much from want of courage. She trusts, perhaps, in her friends' prayers. It seems as though something very momentous were going on, but that she has nothing to do but to wait for it. I think there may be a way out still; G.o.d may overrule people's hearts."

She had never intended to say so much, and she trembled with an excitement which she could not subdue.

"I must admit," said Reckage, "that for some time I have had a conviction, weaker or stronger, but, on the whole, constantly growing, that Agnes and I are unsuited to each other. I am too much accustomed to this idea to feel pain at it."

"O, it makes my heart ache--I mean so much painfulness for every one concerned!"

"This conviction must, sooner or later, lead me to action. The world is indulgent to the impetuous, because they appear strong; and it is most severe to those who hesitate, because hesitation is taken for a sign of weakness. Lookers-on have no patience with moral combats--and least of all in affairs of this kind. But no opinion will force me to do what I do not think right. If our engagement is a mistake, I don't intend to 'lump it,' as they say. We must mend the evil. And, thank G.o.d, it is not too late. The merciful part is that in relieving my own mind I shall also greatly relieve hers. It is clear she doesn't love me. This last act proves the fact conclusively."

Pensee did not agree with this, but she remained silent, fearing lest a rash word should spoil her good work.

"For a long, long time," he continued, "my constant question has been, 'Can this last? is it a delusion?' But I do not shut my eyes now. I knew they were all wrong at home when they made out that she was in love with me, and expected me to propose. We are both the victims of an impertinent, if well-meant, interference--what Robert calls 'the jabbering of the d.a.m.ned.' Poor Robert, we are forgetting him. I am ashamed to talk so much about myself."

"In his case, I see no help but resignation to the will of G.o.d," said Pensee.

"But that resignation is an awful thing," said Reckage. "It is a shade better than the atheism of despair; yet only a shade better."

By degrees Pensee was learning why Robert had such a strong, tenacious attachment to this man. He was always faithful to his mood. All he did and all he said represented accurately all he thought and all he felt.

Some live a dual life--he lived but one; and, with his faults, peculiarities, and egoism, there was never the least dissimulation. It was true that, if occasion required, he could hold his tongue; but he abhorred tact and hated doctrines of expediency--everything, in fact, which put any restraint upon the "development of his inclinations."

The train was now approaching Dover. He decided to put his own troubles aside, and, out of mere decency, concentrate his thoughts on the severe trial in store for Orange.

"This business about Parflete," said he, "is a great blow. One becomes indifferent to what is said of, or done to, one's self; but that all this uncommon, saddening, sickening trouble should come upon Robert is too bad. It seems a kind of hacking and hacking, bit by bit."

"You are certainly very fond of him," said Pensee.

"Yes, I am. He's so dependable."

Pensee engaged a private cabin for the crossing, and she retired there with her maid. Too tired and over-strung to sleep, she lay down, closed her eyes, and lived again through the many fatiguing, agitating moments of that day. Her affection for Orange had been so steeped in hopelessness from the hour, months before, when he told her of his love for Brigit, that the wedding of these two had been a relief rather than a final anguish. The agonising possibilities which had sometimes darted into her mind would never again surprise her: the questions which she had always striven to prohibit were no longer even in existence. He had taken the unredeemable step: he was married. Jealousy had no part in her suffering. Robert had never given her the smallest right to feel slighted, or neglected, or abandoned. Some women are jealous by temperament, but the greater number are jealous only when their trust is insulted or their dignity brought down to the humiliating struggle for a lost empire. Empire over Orange she had never possessed or claimed: she could feel no bitterness, therefore, at the thought of the small place she occupied in his destiny. The sorrow which cut and severed her heart was loneliness. She felt that, after the wedding, she could hardly do anything or take interest in anything. It seemed as if the waters were gathered in heaps on either side; things, she thought, could not be better, or worse. G.o.d was with her still, and her children--her dear children--were with her still, but she could not disguise the greatness of the loss. Her single wish, as far as she dared have a wish, had been to benefit Robert and to win his confidence. She had seen his mind working in various directions, and although she was not, in the faintest sense, his fit companion intellectually, she had a knowledge and experience of life which made her friends.h.i.+p valuable--a gift worth offering to any man. She had been able to advise him. Brigit now had even this privilege also. "I shall seem an intruder," thought Pensee, again and again.