Chapter XVI: A Wretch

Hilarie sat alone in the deep recesses of the western porch of the old church. Although it was November, this sheltered porch was still warm; the swallows that make the summer, and their friends the swifts, were gone; the leaves which still clung to the trees were red and brown and yellow; the grass which clothed the graves no longer waved under the breeze with light and shade and sunshine; none of the old bedesmen were walking the churchyard; even the children in the school were silent over their work, as if singing only belonged to summer; and the wind whistled mournfully in the branches of the yew. Her face, always so calm and restful to others, was troubled and disturbed as she sat by herself.

She held two letters in her hand. One of them was open. She had already read it twice; now she read it a third time. It was from Molly, and it ran as follows:--

"Dearest President of the only college where they teach
sweet thoughts and gracious manners and nothing else--where
they have only one professor, who is the president and
the chaplain and all the lecturers--I have not seen you
for so long a time that I am ashamed. Now I am going to
tell you why. I must make confession, and then I must ask
your advice. I can do this much better by writing than
by talking, so that I will write first and we will talk
afterwards. I have to tell you most unexpected things, and
most wonderful events. They are full of temptations and
quandaries.

"First, for my confession. Your ambition for me has been
that I should be ambitious for myself. I have done my
best to meet your wish; I have tried to be ambitious in
the best way--your way. You thought that I might make a
serious attempt at serious acting--that I might become a
queen of tragedy. Alas! I have felt for some time that I
must abandon the attempt. I cannot portray the emotions,
I cannot feel the emotions, of tragedy; my nature is too
shallow; I cannot realize a great passion. I only know
that it must produce in voice, and face, and speech, and
gesture, changes and indications that cannot be taught.
As for me, when I try, I become either stilted or wooden.
The passion does not seize me and possess me. Ambition, of
a kind, is not wanting. I like to imagine myself a great
actress, sweeping across the stage with a velvet train; I
like to think of the people rising and applauding; but, as
for the part, I am not moved at all. I think about nothing
but myself. If I look in the glass, I am told that I have
not the face for tragedy. If I begin to declaim, I cannot
feel the words. I am just like the young man who kept
on dreaming that he was a great poet, until he made the
disagreeable discovery that in order to be a great poet
it is absolutely necessary to write great poems. My dear
Hilarie, I must put a stop to this attempt at once. I have
been a burden to you for five long years. Let me not load
you with more than is necessary. I don't say anything about
thanks, because you know--you know.

"Dick--you remember Dick, my father's old young friend--the
Dick that turned up on tramp that day you three cousins
met--tells me that in comedy I should do well. You shall
hear, directly, that it is quite possible that I may change
the buskin for the sock--which he says is the classical way
of putting it. He tells me that an expressive face--mine
can screw up or be pulled out like an indiarubber face--a
tall figure, and a fairly good voice, are wanted first of
all; and that I have all three. But you will see directly
that poor Dick is not quite a disinterested person. Still,
he may be right, and I must say that if I am to go on the
stage, I would rather make them laugh than cry. It must
be much more pleasant to broaden their faces with smiles
than to stiffen them with terror at the sight of the
blood-stained dagger.

"The stage seems the only profession open to a girl like
me, if I am to have a profession at all--which you will
understand directly is no longer absolutely necessary.
I was born behind the footlights, Dick was born in the
sawdust; so there seems a natural fitness. However, until
I knew you all, my acquaintances were these folk; I have
never learned to think of myself as belonging to the world
at all. To my young imagination the world consisted of
a great many people, whose only occupation was to
scrape money together in order to buy seats at a theatre.
Some made things, some painted things, some built things,
some contrived things, some wrote things; they were
extremely industrious, because their industry brought them
tickets. The shops, I imagined, were only established and
furnished for the purpose of providing things wanted by the
show folk. I have never, in fact, got rid of that feeling.
The show was everything; all the world existed only to be
dramatized. Even the Church, you see, could be put upon the
stage. So, as I said, the stage is the only profession for
me, if I am to choose a profession.

"There is another thing. I suppose I got this idea, too,
from my up-bringing. It is that to be an actress is the
one honourable career for a woman. Not to be a great
actress--but just an actress, that's all. I believe that
the people who really belong to this profession from one
generation to another, don't really care very much about
being great actors; they are just content to belong to
the profession, just as most doctors have no ambition to
become great doctors, but are just content with being in
the profession. In acting it is the new-comer who wants to
be great. There is something comfortable and satisfying in
a position of humble utility. I may possibly become the
housemaid of farce, with a black daub upon my face.

"The next thing is about my newly discovered cousin, Alice
Haveril. She is the kindest of women--next to one. She
heaps kindnesses upon me. She loads me with dresses, gold
chains, bonnets, gloves, and would load me with money if I
could take it. But I will not have that form of gift.

"I am very much with her, because she has no friends here,
and her husband is much engaged with his affairs. She is in
most delicate health, with a weak heart. She has a terrible
trouble, the nature of which I have recently learned; and
she wants some one with her constantly. I spend most of the
day with her; I drive with her, go shopping with her, read
to her, and talk to her.

"Now, dear Hilarie, here is my temptation. My cousin Alice
wants me to go back to America with her and her husband. He
would like it, too. They are enormously rich; they could
make me an heiress. The husband, John Haveril, is as honest
and kindly a man as you could wish to find. He is a man who
has made his own way; he has not the manners of society;
but he is not vulgar; he is well bred by instinct.

"This is, I confess, a great temptation. It is more than a
temptation, it seems almost a duty. I have found this poor,
fragile creature; I know why she suffers. I think I ought
not to leave her.

"If I accept their offer, I shall become one of the rich
heiresses of America. It will mean millions. But then I
really do not want millions. I shall have to give up all
my friends if I go away to America. This would be very
hard. I should also lose the happiness of desiring things
I cannot now obtain. I believe that longing after things
unattainable is the chief happiness of the impecunious.
Only think of forming a wish and having it instantly
realized! How selfish, how thoughtless of other people, how
fat and coarse and lazy, one would become! Dick has often
spoken of the terrible effect produced upon the mind by the
possession of wealth. Perhaps he has prejudiced me.

"The next temptation comes from a certain young man. He
besieges me--he swears he cannot live without me. He wants
me to be engaged secretly--he says that I have promised.
But I have not. As for keeping any secrets from you, and
especially a matter of this importance, it is ridiculous.
The young man is, in fact, one of the cousins--Sir
Humphrey."

At this point Hilarie started, laid down the letter, looked up; read the words again; went on, with a red spot in either cheek.

"I confess humbly that the position which he offers
attracts me. That so humble a person as myself should
be elevated without any warning, so to speak, to this
position--his mother is a great leader in the philanthropic
part of society--is a curious freak of fortune. It is like
a story-book. As for the man--well, for my own feeling
about him, it is certainly quite true that I could very
well live without him. I certainly should not droop and
languish if he were to go somewhere else; yet--you know
him, Hilarie. He is clever in a way. He thinks he has ideas
about Art--he paints smudges, puts together chords, and
writes lines that rhyme. He also plays disjointed bits, and
complains that they do not appeal to me. That is harmless,
however. His manners are distinguished, I suppose. He is
quite contemptuous of everybody who has work to do. If you
talk to him about the world below, it is like running your
head against a stone wall. He loves me, he says, for the
opposites. And what that means, I don't know. I suppose
that, as a gentleman, he could be trusted to behave with
decency and kindness to his wife. At the same time, I have
found him, more than once, of a surprising ill temper,
moody, jealous, violent, and I think that he is selfish
in the cultivated manner--that is to say, selfish with
refinement.

"I cannot and will not be guilty of a secret engagement;
while a secret marriage, which he also vehemently urges,
unknown to his mother or my friends, and to be kept in
retirement, concealed from everybody, is a degradation to
which I would never submit. I cannot understand what my
lover means by such a proposal, nor why he cannot see that
the thing is an insult and an impossibility.

"However, I have refused concealment. Meantime a most
romantic and wonderful discovery is going to be disclosed.
I must not set it down on paper, even for your eyes,
Hilarie. It is a discovery of which Humphrey knows nothing
as yet. He will learn it, I believe, in a few days. When he
does learn it, it will necessitate a complete change in all
his views of life; it will open the world for him; it will
take him out of his narrow grooves; it will try him and
prove him. Now, dear Hilarie, am I right to wait--without
his knowing why? If he receives this discovery as he
ought--if it brings out in him what is really noble in his
character, I can trust myself to him. At the same time, it
will deprive him of what first attracted me in him; but I
must not tell you more.

"Lastly, my dear old Dick has been making love to me,
just as he did when I was fifteen and he was seventeen,
going about with my father, practising and playing. Such a
Conservative--so full of prejudices is Dick. I confess to
you, dear Hilarie, I would rather marry Dick than anything
else. We should never have any money--Dick gives away all
he gets. He will not put by. 'If I am ill,' he says, 'take
me to the hospital.' 'If I die,' he says, 'bury me in the
hedge, like the gipsy folk.' He never wants money, and I
should sometimes go on tramp with him, and we should sit in
the woods, and march along the roads, and hear the skylark
sing, and yearn for the unattainable, and go on crying for
we know not what, like the little children. Oh, delightful!
And Dick is always sweet and always good--except, perhaps,
when he speaks of Humphrey, who has angered him by cold and
superior airs. Dick is a philosopher, except on that one
side. When I think of marrying Dick, dear Hilarie, my heart
stands still. For then I get a most lovely dream. I close
my eyes to see it better. It is a most charming vision.
There is a long road with a broad strip of turf on either
side, and a high hedge for shade and flowers, goodly trees
at intervals; a road which runs over the hills and down the
valleys and along brooks; crosses bridges, and has short
cuts through fields and meadows; overhead the lark sings;
from the trees the yellow-hammer cries, 'A little bit of
bread and no cheese;' clouds fly across the sky; all kinds
of queer people pass along--vagrants, beggars, gipsies,
soldiers,--just the common sort. On the springy turf at
the side I myself walk, carrying the fiddle--in the middle
of the road Dick tramps, going large and free; over his
shoulders hangs the bag which contains all we want; now
and then he bursts out singing as he goes. In the coppice
we sit down on the trunk of a tree and take lunch out of a
paper bag. Sometimes, when we are quite alone in a coppice,
far away from the world, Dick takes his fiddle out of the
case and plays to me, all alone, music that lifts me out of
myself and carries me away, I know not whither. Who would
not marry a great magician? And in my dream about Dick I
am never tired. I never regret my lot--I never want money.
Dick is never savage, like Humphrey--he despises no one;
he is loved by everybody. Oh, Hilarie, I would ask for
nothing--nothing better than to give myself to Dick, and to
follow him and be his slave--his grateful slave! Is this
love, Hilarie? Write to me, dear Hilarie, and tell me what
I ought to do."

Hilarie laid down the letter with a sigh. "Strange," she said. "Molly sees her own path of happiness quite plainly; yet she cannot follow it. What she does not know is that she has shattered my own dream."

She opened another letter in her hand. "I should have known," she said. "He is base metal, through and through. I should have known. Yet what a son--of what a mother! Who would suspect?" She read the letter again.

"It has been my dream ever since the fortunate day when I met you in the churchyard, to unite our branches of the house. You have thought me cold about your very beautiful projects and illusions. I am, perhaps, harder than yourself, because I know the world better, and because I have always found people extremely amiable while you are giving them things--and exactly the reverse when you call upon them to give to others. However, you will never find me opposing the plans suggested by your nobility of character. I have spoken to my mother upon this subject----" She stopped short--she tore the letter in halves, then, with another thought, put back the torn sheet into its envelope. "Wretch!" she cried, "I will keep your letter!"

She sat there, alone, looking out upon the porch. The sun went down and the twilight descended, and she sat among the graves, thinking.

Presently she got up, feeling cold and numbed. "It was a foolish dream," she said. "I ought to have known--I ought to have known."

She walked slowly homeward. As she came out of the coppice into her own park, she saw the old house lit up already, and through the windows she saw figures flitting about. They were her students, and they were gathering for afternoon tea.

"Why," she said, "I want to be their leader, and I dream an idle dream about a worthless man!"

With firmer step and head erect she entered the porch of her house, and found herself in the midst of the girls. Her dream was shattered--she let it go: there are other things to think about besides a worthless man.

One knows not what were the actual intentions of this young man. Fate would not, as you will presently discover, permit him to carry them out. We may, however, allow that he was really in love with one of the two girls--the one who attracted all mankind, not so much by her beauty as by her manner, which was caressing; and by her conversation, which was sprightly. He was in love with her after the manner of his father, who felt the necessity for an occasional change in the object of his affections. To desert one woman for another was part of his inheritance--had Hilarie known it. One should find excuses for hereditary tendencies; those who knew the truth would recognize in this treatment of women the mark of the changeling.

As for Hilarie, she wrote a brief note to Molly. "Let us talk over these things," she said. "Meantime, I implore you not to enter into any engagement, open or secret, with a man who could venture to propose the latter." She folded the note. She rose; she sighed.

"An idle dream," she said, "about a worthless man!"