A Life's Morning

by George Gissing

  ‘I fail to see the striking meritoriousness of all that,’ Mr. Athel observed, put into a good humour by the result, and consequently allowing himself a little captiousness. ‘It merely means that she behaved as any woman who respected herself would under the circumstances. Your own behaviour, on the other hand—well, let it pass.’

  ‘I don’t see that I could have acted otherwise,’ said Wilfrid, too contented to care about arguing the point.

  ‘You of course saw her parents?’

  Wilfrid had given no detailed account of the way in which his interview with Emily had been obtained. He mentioned it now, his father listening with the frowning smile of a man who judges such puerilities from the standpoint of comfortable middle age.

  The tone between them returned before long to the friendliness never previously interrupted. Mr. Athel shortly wrote a letter to Mr. Baxendale of Dunfield, whom he only knew by name as Beatrice Redwing’s uncle, and begged for private information regarding Emily’s family. He received a courteous reply, the details not of course wholly palatable, but confirmatory of the modest hopes he had entertained. This reply he showed to his sister. Mrs. Rossall raised her eyebrows resignedly, and returned the letter in silence.

  ‘What one expected, I suppose?’ said Mr. Athel.

  ‘I suppose so. Mr. Baxendale probably thinks the man has been applying for a position in your pantry.’

  ‘Well, I was obliged, you know, to hint at my reasons for seeking information.’

  ‘You did? Then Beatrice knows all about it by this time. As well that way as any other, I suppose.’

  ‘We shall have to take the matter like reasonable beings, Edith,’ said her brother, a trifle annoyed by her failure to countenance him.

  ‘Yes; but you seem anxious that I should rejoice. That would not be very reasonable.’

  Something warned Mr. Athel that he had better abstain from rejoinder. He pursed his lips and walked away.

  Wilfrid had not spoken of the subject to his aunt since the disclosure at The Firs, and Mrs. Rossall was offended by his silence at least as much as by the prospect of his marrying Miss Hood. Clearly he regarded the matter as no concern of hers, whereas a woman claims by natural right a share in the matrimonial projects of all her male relatives with whom she is on a footing of intimacy. Perhaps the main cause of her displeasure in the first instance had been the fact that things should have got to such a pass without her having as much as suspected the imminence of danger; she regarded Emily as one that had outwitted her. Dearly would she have liked to be able to meet her brother with the assertion that she had suspected it all along; the impossibility of doing so—not from conscientious scruples, but because in that case it would clearly have been her duty to speak—exasperated her disappointment at the frustration of the match she desired. Now that she was getting used to the state of things, Wilfrid’s behaviour to her became the chief ground of her offence. It seemed to her that at least he owed some kind of apology for the distress he had naturally caused her; in truth she would have liked him to undertake the task of winning her over to his side. Between her and her nephew there had never existed a warm confidence, and Wilfrid’s present attitude was too much a confirmation of the feeling she had experienced now and then, that his affection was qualified with just a little contempt. She was not, she knew, a strong-minded woman, and on that very account cared more for the special dominion of her sex. Since Wilfrid had ceased to be a hobbledehoy, it would have become him to put a little more of the courtier into his manner towards her. For are there not countries in which their degree of kin is no bar to matrimony? Mrs. Rossall was of the women who like the flavour of respectful worship in all men who are neither father, brother, nor son. Wilfrid had fallen short of this, and hence the affectation with which she had persisted in regarding him as a schoolboy. His latest exploits were vastly more interesting to her than anything he had done in academic spheres, and she suffered a sense of exclusion in seeing him so determined to disregard her opinion.

  She persuaded him to row her cut one evening on a lake by which they were spending a few days. Wilfrid, suspecting that she aimed at a tete-a-tete, proposed that his father should accompany them. Mrs. Rossall overruled the suggestion.

  ‘How wonderfully you are picking up,’ she said, after watching him pull for a few minutes. ‘Do you know, Wilf, your tendency is to stoutness; in a few years you will be portly, if you live too sedentary a life.’

  He looked annoyed, and by so doing gratified her. She proceeded.

  ‘What do you think I overheard one of our spectacled friends say this morning—”Sehen Sie mal,”—you were walking at a little distance—”da haben Sie das Muster des englischen Aristokraten. O, der gute, schlichte Junge!”’

  Wilfrid had been working up his German. He stopped rowing, red with vexation.

  ‘That is a malicious invention,’ he declared.

  ‘Nothing of the kind! The truth of the remark struck me.’

  ‘I am obliged to you.’

  ‘But, my dear boy, what is there to be offended at? The man envied you with all his heart; and it is delightful to see you begin to look so smooth about the cheeks.’

  ‘I am neither an aristocrat, nor schlicht!’

  ‘An aristocrat to the core. I never knew any one so sensitive on points of personal dignity, so intolerant of difference of opinion in others, so narrowly self-willed! Did you imagine yourself to have the air of a hero of romance, of the intense school?’

  Wilfrid looked into her eyes and laughed.

  ‘That is your way of saying that you think my recent behaviour incongruous. You wish to impress upon me how absurd I look from the outside?’

  ‘It is my way of saying that I am sorry for you.’

  He laughed again.

  ‘Then the English aristocrat is an object of your pity?’

  ‘Certainly; when he gets into a false position.’

  ‘Ah!—well, suppose we talk of something else. Look at the moon rising over that shoulder of the hill.’

  ‘That, by way of proving that you are romantic. No, we won’t talk of something else. What news have you from England?’

  ‘None,’ he replied, regarding the gleaming drops that fell from his suspended oar.

  ‘And you are troubled that the post brings you nothing?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Your emotions are on the surface.’

  He made no reply.

  ‘Ah!’ Mrs. Rossall sighed, ‘what a pity you are so independent. I often think a man’s majority ought to come ten years later than it does. Most of you are mere boys till thirty at least, and you go and do things that you repent all the rest of your lives. Dare you promise to come to me in ten years and tell me with complete frankness what you think of—a certain step?’

  He smiled scornfully.

  ‘Certainly; let us register the undertaking.’

  After pausing a moment, he continued with an outburst of vehemence—a characteristic of Wilfrid’s speech.

  ‘You illustrate a thought I have often had about women. The majority of you, at all events as you get into the world, have no kind of faith in anything but sordid motives. You are cynical beyond anything men can pretend to; you scoff at every suggestion of idealism. I suppose it is that which makes us feel the conversation of most women of refinement so intolerably full of hypocrisies. Having cast away all faith, you cannot dispense with the show of it; the traditions of your sex must be supported. You laugh in your sleeves at the very things which are supposed to constitute your claims to worship; you are worldly to the core. Men are very Quixotes compared with you; even if they put on cynicism for show, they are ashamed of it within themselves. With you, fine feeling is the affectation. I have felt it again and again. Explain it now; defend yourself, if you can. Show me that I am wrong, and I will thank you heartily.’

  ‘My word, what an arraignment!’ cried Mrs. Rossall, between amusement at his boldness and another feeling which warmed her cheeks a litt
le. ‘But let us pass from broad accusation to particulars. I illustrate all these shocking things—poor me! How do I illustrate them?’

  ‘In the whole of your attitude towards myself of late. You pooh-pooh my feelings, you refuse to regard me as anything but a donkey, you prophesy that in a year or two I shall repent having made a disinterested marriage. I observe the difference between your point of view and my father’s. The worst of it is you are sincere: the circumstances of the case do not call upon you for an expression of graceful sentiments, and you are not ashamed to show me how meanly you regard all that is highest and purest in life.’

  ‘Shall I explain it? Women are very quick to get at realities, to see below the surface in conduct and profession. We become, you say, worldly as soon as we get into the world. Precisely because we have to be so wide awake to protect ourselves. We instinctively know the difference between the ring of false and true, and as we hear the false so much the oftener Your charge against us of want of real feeling is the result of your ignorance of women; you don’t see below the surface.’

  ‘Well now, apply all this to the present instance. What has your insight discerned in my proposed marriage to cause you to regard it as a piece of folly?’

  ‘Simply this. You ally yourself with some one from a class beneath your own. Such marriages very, very seldom prove anything but miserable, and always bring a great many troubles. You will say that Miss Hood is raised by education above the class in which she was born; but no doubt she has relatives, and they can’t be entirely got rid of. However, that isn’t the point I lay most stress on.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I am quite sure you will make her miserable. You are marrying too young. Your character is not fixed. In a few years, before that, you will want to get rid of her.’

  ‘Well, that is at all events intelligible. And your grounds for the belief?’

  ‘You are inconstant, and you are ambitious. You might marry a woman from a class higher than your own, and when it is too late you will understand what you have lost.’

  ‘Worldly advantages, precisely.’

  ‘And how if your keen appreciation of worldly advantages results in your wife’s unhappiness?’

  ‘I deny the keen appreciation, in your sense.’

  ‘Of course you do. Come to me in ten years and tell me your opinion of women’s ways of thinking.’

  This was the significant part of their conversation. Wilfrid came to land confirmed in his views; Mrs. Rossall, with the satisfaction of having prophesied uncomfortable things.

  She had a letter on the following morning on which she recognised Beatrice Redwing’s bend. To her surprise, the stamp was of Dunfield. It proved that Beatrice was on a visit to the Baxendales. Her mother, prior to going to the Isle of Wight, had decided to accept an invitation to a house in the midland counties which Beatrice did not greatly care to visit; so the latter had used the opportunity to respond to a summons from her friends in the north, whom she had not seen for four years. Beatrice replied to a letter from Mrs. Rossall which had been forwarded to her.

  After breakfast, Mrs. Rossall took her brother aside, and pointed out to him a paragraph in Beatrice’s letter. It ran thus:—

  ‘A very shocking thing has happened, which I suppose I may mention, as you will necessarily hear of it soon. Miss Hood’s father has committed suicide, poisoned himself; he was found dead on a common just outside the town. Nobody seems to know any reason, unless it was trouble of a pecuniary kind. Miss Hood is seriously ill. The Baxendales send daily to make inquiries, and I am afraid the latest news is anything but hopeful. She was to have dined with us here the day after her father’s death.’

  There was no further comment; the writer went on to speak of certain peculiarities in the mode of conducting service at St. Luke’s church.

  Mr. Athel read, and, in his manner, whistled low. His sister looked interrogation.

  ‘I suppose we shall have to tell him,’ said the former. ‘Probably he has no means of hearing.’

  ‘I suppose we must. He has been anxious at not receiving letters he expected.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I had a talk with him last night.’

  ‘Ah, so I thought. The deuce take it! Of course he’ll pack off on the moment. What on earth can have induced the man to poison himself?’

  Such a proceeding was so at variance with Mr. Athel’s views of life that it made him seriously uncomfortable. It suggested criminality, or at least lunacy, both such very unpleasant things to be even remotely connected with. Poverty he could pardon, but suicide was really disreputable. From the philosophic resignation to which he had attained, he fell back into petulance, always easier to him than grave protest.

  ‘The deuce take it!’ he repeated.

  Mrs. Rossall pointed to the words reporting Emily’s condition at the time of writing.

  ‘That was more than two days ago,’ she said meaningly.

  ‘H’m!’ went her brother.

  ‘Will you tell him?’

  ‘I suppose I must. Yes, it is hardly allowable even to postpone it. Where is he?’

  Wilfrid was found in the hotel garden.

  ‘Your aunt has had a letter from Beatrice,’ Mr. Athel began, with the awkwardness of a comfortable Englishman called upon to break bad news. ‘She is staying in Dunfield.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘There’s something in the letter you ought to know.’

  Wilfrid looked anxiously.

  ‘It appears that Miss Hood’s father has—don’t let it be a shock to you—has just died, and died, in fact, by his own hands.’

  ‘Has killed himself?’ Wilfrid exclaimed, turning pale.

  ‘Yes, I am sorry to say that is the report. Miss Hood is naturally suffering from—from the shocking occurrence.’

  ‘She is ill?’ Wilfrid asked, when he had examined his father’s face for a moment.

  ‘Yes, I am afraid she is. Beatrice gives no details.’

  ‘You are not keeping anything from me?’

  ‘Indeed, nothing. The words are that she is ill, and, it is feared, seriously.’

  ‘I must go at once.’

  It was said with quiet decision. Wilfrid consulted his watch, and walked rapidly to the hotel. He had to wait a couple of hours, however, before he could start on his journey, and he spent the time by himself. His father felt he could be of no use, and Mrs. Rossall found a difficulty in approaching her nephew under such circumstances.

  ‘You will telegraph?’ Mr. Athel said, at the station, by way of expressing himself sympathetically.

  The train moved away; and the long, miserable hours of travelling had to be lived through. Wilfrid’s thoughts were all the more anxious from his ignorance of the dead man’s position and history. Even yet Emily had said very little of her parents in writing to him; he imagined all manner of wretched things to connect her silence with this catastrophe. His fears on her own account were not excessive; the state of vigorous health into which he had grown during late weeks perhaps helped him to avoid thoughts of a desperate kind. It was bad enough that she lay ill, and from such a cause; he feared nothing worse than illness. But his uneasiness increased as time went on; the travelling seemed intolerably tardy. He had to decide what his course would be on reaching Dunfield, and decision was not easy. To go straight to the house might result in painful embarrassments; it would at all events be better first to make inquiries elsewhere. Could he have recourse to Beatrice? At first the suggestion did not recommend itself, but nothing better came into his mind, and, as his impatience grew, the obstacles seemed so trifling that he overlooked them. He remembered that the address of the Baxendales was unknown to him; but it could easily be discovered. Yes, he would go straight to Beatrice.

  Reaching London at ten o’clock in the morning, he drove directly to King’s Cross, and pursued his journey northwards. Though worn with fatigue, excitement would not allow him more than a snatch of sleep now and then. When at length he stepped
out at Dunfield, he was in sorry plight. He went to an hotel, refreshed himself as well as he could, and made inquiry about the Baxendales’ address. At four o’clock he presented himself at the house, and sent in a card to Beatrice.

  The Baxendales lived in St. Luke’s, which we already know as the fashionable quarter of Dunfield. Their house stood by itself, with high walls about it, enclosing a garden; at the door were stone pillars, the lower half painted a dull red. It seemed the abode of solid people, not troubled with scruples of taste. It was with surprise that Wilfrid found himself in a room abundantly supplied with books and furnished in library fashion. His state of mind notwithstanding, he glanced along a few shelves, discovering yet more unexpected things, to wit, philosophical works. Unfortunately the corners of the room showed busts of certain modern English statesmen: but one looks for weaknesses everywhere.