Robert Orange. John Oliver Hobbes
am double-hearted,” said Sara; “and when one is double-hearted the tongue must utter contradictions. I like my advantages while I despise them. I wish to be thought exclusive, yet I condemn the pettiness of my ambition. And so on.”
“I fear,” said Lord Garrow gravely, “that your mind is disturbed by a question which you must soon—very soon, my dearest child—answer.”
“Papa, I cannot.”
“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 Hausée. No one can pretend that we are even so good as a genuine de Hausée. 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!”