"I once heard a discussion between Lady Adeline and Aunt Olive," Evadne rejoined. "It was about a lady who had a very bad husband, and had patiently endured a great deal. "It is beautiful--pathetic--pitiful to see a woman making the best of a bad bargain in that way," Aunt Olive said.
"It may be all that," Lady Adeline answered; "_but is it right?_ If this generation would object to bad bargains, the next would have fewer to make the best of.""
"Ah, that is so like dear Adeline!" Mrs. Beale observed. "But what a memory you have, my dear, to be able to give the exact words!"
Evadne"s countenance fell. She was disheartened, but still she persisted.
"It is you good women," she said, clasping Mrs. Beale"s hand in both of hers, and holding it to her breast: "It is you good women who make marriage a lottery for us. You, for instance. Because you drew a prize yourself, you see no reason why every other woman should not be equally fortunate."
"I think, when people make _quite_ sure beforehand that they love each other, they are safe--even when the man has _not_ been all that he ought to have been. Love is a great purifier, and love for a good woman has saved many a man," Mrs. Beale declared with the fervour of full conviction.
"That is presuming that a man "who has not been all that he ought to have been" is still able to love," said Evadne, "which is not the case. We are all endowed with the power to begin with; but love is a delicate essence, as volatile as it is delicious; and when a man"s moral fibre is loosened, his share of love escapes. But this is not the point," she broke off, dropping Mrs. Beale"s hand, and gathering herself together. "The trouble now is that you are going to let Edith throw herself away on a man you know nothing about--"
"Ah, my dear, _there_ you are mistaken," Mrs. Beale interrupted, comfortably triumphant. "They have known each other all their lives. They used to play together as children; and when I wrote to ask her father"s consent to the engagement, he replied that the one thing which could reconcile him to parting with Edith was her choice of a man who had grown up under our own eyes. I can a.s.sure you that we know his faults quite as well as his good qualities."
"I thought you would like to have me in the regiment, Evadne," Edith ventured with timid reproach.
"I would not like to have you anywhere as that man"s wife," Evadne answered.
"Well, if he is," said Edith, with a flash of enthusiasm, "if he is _bad_, I will make him good; if he is lost, I will save him!"
"Spoken like a true woman, dearest!" her mother said, rising to kiss her, and then standing back to look up at her with yearning love and admiration.
Evadne rose also with a heavy sigh. "I know how you feel," she said to Edith drearily. "You glow and are glad from morning till night. You have a great yearning here," she clasped her hands to her breast. "You find a new delight in music, a new beauty in flowers; unaccountable joy in the warmth and brightness of the sun, and rapture not to be contained in the quiet moonlight. You despise yourself, and think your lover worthy of adoration.
The consciousness of him never leaves you even in your sleep. He is your last thought at night, your first in the morning. Even when he is away from you, you do not feel separated from him as you do from other people, for a sense of his presence remains with you, and you flatter yourself that your spirits mingle when your bodies are apart. You think, too, that the source of all this ecstasy is holy because it is pleasurable; you imagine it will last forever!"
Edith stared at her. That Evadne should know the entrancement of love herself so exactly, and not reverence it as holy, amazed her.
"And you call it love," Evadne added, as if she had read her thought; "but it is not love. The threshold of love and hate adjoin, and it--this feeling--stands midway between them, an introduction to either. It is always a question, as marriages are now made, whether, when pa.s.sion has had time to cool, husband and wife will love or detest each other. But what is the use of talking?" she exclaimed. "You will not heed me. It is too late now." She turned and walked toward the door; but Edith caught her by the arm and stopped her.
"Evadne! Do not go like this!" she entreated, with a sob in her voice.
"Wish me well at least!"
"I _do_ wish you well," said Evadne. "With what other motive could I have said so much? But I ask again, what is the use? Your parents are content to let you marry a man of whose private life they have no knowledge whatever--"
Mrs. Beale interrupted her: "This is not quite the case," she confessed.
"We _do_ know that there have been errors; but all that is over now, and it would be wicked of us not to believe the best, and hope for the best. A young man in his position has great temptations--"
"And if he succ.u.mbs, he is pardoned because of his position!"
"Oh, come, now, Evadne!" Mrs. Beale remonstrated, "You cannot think that such a consideration affects our decision. His position and property are very nice in themselves, and indeed all that we care about in that way for Edith, but we were not thinking about either when we gave our consent. It is the dear fellow himself that we want--"
"I can make him all that he ought to be! I know I can!" Edith exclaimed fervently, clasping her hands, and looking up, with bright eyes full of confidence and pa.s.sion.
Evadne said not another word, but kissed them both, and left the house.
"Mother! how strange Evadne is!" Edith e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.
Mrs. Beale shook her head several times. "I heard that she had some trouble at the outset of her own married life," she said. "I don"t know what it was; but doubtless it accounts for her manner to-day. Don"t think about it, however. She will recover her right-mindedness as she grows older. A little shock upsets a girl"s judgment very often; but she is so clever and conscientious, she will certainly get over it. But you are quite agitated yourself, dear. Come! think no more about what she said!
Her own marriage quite disproves all her arguments, for Colonel Colquhoun was notoriously just the kind of man she would have us believe Mosley is, and see what she has done for him, and how well they get on together!
Think no more about it, dear child, but come out with me. The air will tranquillize us both."
On her way home, Evadne overtook Mr. St. John. He was walking slowly with his chin on his chest, looking down, and his whole demeanour was expressive of deep dejection.
He looked up with a start when Evadne overtook him, and their eyes met.
"You have heard?" she said.
He made an affirmative gesture.
"I never--never dreamt of such a thing," she went on. "I thought--I hoped-- pardon me, but I hoped it would be you. She liked you so much. I know she did."
"But not enough, for she refused me," he answered gently. "But doubtless it is all for the best. _His_ ways are not our ways, you know, and we suffer because we are too proud to resign ourselves to manifestations of His wisdom, which are beyond our comprehension. When you came up, I was feeling as if I could never say "Thy will be done" with my whole heart, fervently, in this matter, but since you spoke to me, I think I can."
Evadne took his arm, and the gentle pressure of her hand upon it expressed her heartfelt sympathy eloquently.
"If it had been anyone else, I thought at first--but, doubtless, doubtless, it is all for the best!" he added; and then he raised his head, and changed the subject bravely.
But Evadne did not hear what he was saying, for suddenly she found herself on the cliffs at home, and it was a scented summer morning; the air was balmy, the sun was shining, the little waves rippled up over the sand, the birds were singing, and the dew-drops hung on the yellow gorse; but that joy in her own being which lent a charm to these was wanting, and the songs seemed tuneless, the scent oppressive, the sea all sameness, the land a waste, and the sun itself a glaring garish baldness of light, that accentuated her own disconsolation, the length of a life that is not worth living, and the size of a world which contains no corner of comfort in all its pitiless expanse. And it was the same story too. She was witnessing the same mystery of love rejected--the same worthiness for the same unworthiness; the same fine discipline of resignation, which made the pain of it endurable; listening to the same old pulpit plat.i.tudes even, which have such force of soothing when reverently expressed. She and Edith were very different types of girlhood, and it seemed a strange coincidence that their opportunities should have been identical nevertheless; but not singular that their action should have been the same, because the force of nature which controlled them is a matter of const.i.tution more than of character, and subject only to a training which neither of them had received, and without which, instead of ruling, they are ruled erratically.
Evadne had quite forgotten by this time all her first fine feelings on the subject of a celibate priesthood. She now held that the laws of nature are the laws of G.o.d, and marriage is a law of nature which there is no evidence that G.o.d has ever rescinded.
Evadne had not heard what Mr. St. John was saying, and she did not care to hear; she knew that it was not relevant to anything which either of them had in their minds; but still held his arm, and looked up at him sympathetically when he paused for a reply, and at that moment Colonel Colquhoun, accompanied by Sir Mosley Menteith, turned out of a side street just behind them, and followed on in the same direction. When Menteith saw the two walking so familiarly arm in arm, he glanced at Colonel Colquhoun out of the comers of his eyes to see how he took it. But Colonel Colquhoun"s face remained serenely impa.s.sive.
"Easy!" he said. "We won"t overtake them till we arrive at the house. I expect he is seeing her home, and as Mrs. Colquhoun is only at her best _tete-a-tete_, it would be a shame to deprive him of the small recompense he will get for his trouble." He twisted his moustache and continued to look at the pair thoughtfully when he had spoken, and Menteith glanced at him again to see if he might not perchance be concealing some secret annoyance under an affectation of easy indifference, but there was not a trace of anything of the kind apparent.
"There is no doubt that women _do_ cling to the clergy," was the outcome of Colonel Colquhoun"s reflections--"I mean metaphorically speaking, of course," he hastened to add with a laugh, perceiving the double construction that might be put on the remark in view of the situation. "Now, there is only one fellow on the island that Evadne cares for as much as she does for her friend there, I think she likes the other better though."
"You mean yourself, of course," said Menteith.
"No, I don"t mean myself, of course," Colonel Colquhoun answered, "Putting myself out of the question. It is Price, I mean."
"That dried-up old chap?" Menteith exclaimed. "Well, he"s pretty safe, I should say! And I should never be jealous of a parson myself. Women always treat them _de haut en bas_."
"I believe, sir, that Mrs. Colquhoun is perfectly "safe" with anyone whom she may choose for a friend," Colonel Colquhoun said with an emphasis which made Menteith apologize immediately.
Colonel Colquhoun asked Evadne that evening what she thought of the projected marriage.
"I think it detestable," she answered.
"Well, I think it a pity myself," he said. "She"s such a nice looking girl too."
Evadne turned to him with a flash of hope. "Can"t you do something?" she exclaimed. "Can"t you prevent it?"
"Absolutely impossible," he answered. "And I beg as a favour to myself that you won"t try."
"I have done my best already," she said.
"Then you have made your friends enemies for life," he declared. "A girl like that won"t give up a man she loves even for such considerations as have made you indifferent to my happiness--and welfare."