Kabanata Kabanata 25 · Chapter XXV

“Love seeketh not itself to please,

Nor for itself hath any care

But for another gives its ease

And builds a heaven in hell’s despair.

. . . . . . .

Love seeketh only self to please,

To bind another to its delight,

Joys in another’s loss of ease,

And builds a hell in heaven’s despite.”

—W. BLAKE: _Songs of Experience_.

Fred Vincy wanted to arrive at Stone Court when Mary could not expect

him, and when his uncle was not downstairs: in that case she might be

sitting alone in the wainscoted parlor. He left his horse in the yard

to avoid making a noise on the gravel in front, and entered the parlor

without other notice than the noise of the door-handle. Mary was in her

usual corner, laughing over Mrs. Piozzi’s recollections of Johnson, and

looked up with the fun still in her face. It gradually faded as she saw

Fred approach her without speaking, and stand before her with his elbow

on the mantel-piece, looking ill. She too was silent, only raising her

eyes to him inquiringly.

“Mary,” he began, “I am a good-for-nothing blackguard.”

“I should think one of those epithets would do at a time,” said Mary,

trying to smile, but feeling alarmed.

“I know you will never think well of me any more. You will think me a

liar. You will think me dishonest. You will think I didn’t care for

you, or your father and mother. You always do make the worst of me, I

know.”

“I cannot deny that I shall think all that of you, Fred, if you give me

good reasons. But please to tell me at once what you have done. I would

rather know the painful truth than imagine it.”

“I owed money—a hundred and sixty pounds. I asked your father to put

his name to a bill. I thought it would not signify to him. I made sure

of paying the money myself, and I have tried as hard as I could. And

now, I have been so unlucky—a horse has turned out badly—I can only pay

fifty pounds. And I can’t ask my father for the money: he would not

give me a farthing. And my uncle gave me a hundred a little while ago.

So what can I do? And now your father has no ready money to spare, and

your mother will have to pay away her ninety-two pounds that she has

saved, and she says your savings must go too. You see what a—”

“Oh, poor mother, poor father!” said Mary, her eyes filling with tears,

and a little sob rising which she tried to repress. She looked straight

before her and took no notice of Fred, all the consequences at home

becoming present to her. He too remained silent for some moments,

feeling more miserable than ever. “I wouldn’t have hurt you for the

world, Mary,” he said at last. “You can never forgive me.”

“What does it matter whether I forgive you?” said Mary, passionately.

“Would that make it any better for my mother to lose the money she has

been earning by lessons for four years, that she might send Alfred to

Mr. Hanmer’s? Should you think all that pleasant enough if I forgave

you?”

“Say what you like, Mary. I deserve it all.”

“I don’t want to say anything,” said Mary, more quietly, “and my anger

is of no use.” She dried her eyes, threw aside her book, rose and

fetched her sewing.

Fred followed her with his eyes, hoping that they would meet hers, and

in that way find access for his imploring penitence. But no! Mary could

easily avoid looking upward.

“I do care about your mother’s money going,” he said, when she was

seated again and sewing quickly. “I wanted to ask you, Mary—don’t you

think that Mr. Featherstone—if you were to tell him—tell him, I mean,

about apprenticing Alfred—would advance the money?”

“My family is not fond of begging, Fred. We would rather work for our

money. Besides, you say that Mr. Featherstone has lately given you a

hundred pounds. He rarely makes presents; he has never made presents to

us. I am sure my father will not ask him for anything; and even if I

chose to beg of him, it would be of no use.”

“I am so miserable, Mary—if you knew how miserable I am, you would be

sorry for me.”

“There are other things to be more sorry for than that. But selfish

people always think their own discomfort of more importance than

anything else in the world. I see enough of that every day.”

“It is hardly fair to call me selfish. If you knew what things other

young men do, you would think me a good way off the worst.”

“I know that people who spend a great deal of money on themselves

without knowing how they shall pay, must be selfish. They are always

thinking of what they can get for themselves, and not of what other

people may lose.”

“Any man may be unfortunate, Mary, and find himself unable to pay when

he meant it. There is not a better man in the world than your father,

and yet he got into trouble.”

“How dare you make any comparison between my father and you, Fred?”

said Mary, in a deep tone of indignation. “He never got into trouble by

thinking of his own idle pleasures, but because he was always thinking

of the work he was doing for other people. And he has fared hard, and

worked hard to make good everybody’s loss.”

“And you think that I shall never try to make good anything, Mary. It

is not generous to believe the worst of a man. When you have got any

power over him, I think you might try and use it to make him better;

but that is what you never do. However, I’m going,” Fred ended,

languidly. “I shall never speak to you about anything again. I’m very

sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused—that’s all.”

Mary had dropped her work out of her hand and looked up. There is often

something maternal even in a girlish love, and Mary’s hard experience

had wrought her nature to an impressibility very different from that

hard slight thing which we call girlishness. At Fred’s last words she

felt an instantaneous pang, something like what a mother feels at the

imagined sobs or cries of her naughty truant child, which may lose

itself and get harm. And when, looking up, her eyes met his dull

despairing glance, her pity for him surmounted her anger and all her

other anxieties.

“Oh, Fred, how ill you look! Sit down a moment. Don’t go yet. Let me

tell uncle that you are here. He has been wondering that he has not

seen you for a whole week.” Mary spoke hurriedly, saying the words that

came first without knowing very well what they were, but saying them in

a half-soothing half-beseeching tone, and rising as if to go away to

Mr. Featherstone. Of course Fred felt as if the clouds had parted and a

gleam had come: he moved and stood in her way.

“Say one word, Mary, and I will do anything. Say you will not think the

worst of me—will not give me up altogether.”

“As if it were any pleasure to me to think ill of you,” said Mary, in a

mournful tone. “As if it were not very painful to me to see you an idle

frivolous creature. How can you bear to be so contemptible, when others

are working and striving, and there are so many things to be done—how

can you bear to be fit for nothing in the world that is useful? And

with so much good in your disposition, Fred,—you might be worth a great

deal.”

“I will try to be anything you like, Mary, if you will say that you

love me.”

“I should be ashamed to say that I loved a man who must always be

hanging on others, and reckoning on what they would do for him. What

will you be when you are forty? Like Mr. Bowyer, I suppose—just as

idle, living in Mrs. Beck’s front parlor—fat and shabby, hoping

somebody will invite you to dinner—spending your morning in learning a

comic song—oh no! learning a tune on the flute.”

Mary’s lips had begun to curl with a smile as soon as she had asked

that question about Fred’s future (young souls are mobile), and before

she ended, her face had its full illumination of fun. To him it was

like the cessation of an ache that Mary could laugh at him, and with a

passive sort of smile he tried to reach her hand; but she slipped away

quickly towards the door and said, “I shall tell uncle. You _must_ see

him for a moment or two.”

Fred secretly felt that his future was guaranteed against the

fulfilment of Mary’s sarcastic prophecies, apart from that “anything”

which he was ready to do if she would define it. He never dared in

Mary’s presence to approach the subject of his expectations from Mr.

Featherstone, and she always ignored them, as if everything depended on

himself. But if ever he actually came into the property, she must

recognize the change in his position. All this passed through his mind

somewhat languidly, before he went up to see his uncle. He stayed but a

little while, excusing himself on the ground that he had a cold; and

Mary did not reappear before he left the house. But as he rode home, he

began to be more conscious of being ill, than of being melancholy.

When Caleb Garth arrived at Stone Court soon after dusk, Mary was not

surprised, although he seldom had leisure for paying her a visit, and

was not at all fond of having to talk with Mr. Featherstone. The old

man, on the other hand, felt himself ill at ease with a brother-in-law

whom he could not annoy, who did not mind about being considered poor,

had nothing to ask of him, and understood all kinds of farming and

mining business better than he did. But Mary had felt sure that her

parents would want to see her, and if her father had not come, she

would have obtained leave to go home for an hour or two the next day.

After discussing prices during tea with Mr. Featherstone, Caleb rose to

bid him good-by, and said, “I want to speak to you, Mary.”

She took a candle into another large parlor, where there was no fire,

and setting down the feeble light on the dark mahogany table, turned

round to her father, and putting her arms round his neck kissed him

with childish kisses which he delighted in,—the expression of his large

brows softening as the expression of a great beautiful dog softens when

it is caressed. Mary was his favorite child, and whatever Susan might

say, and right as she was on all other subjects, Caleb thought it

natural that Fred or any one else should think Mary more lovable than

other girls.

“I’ve got something to tell you, my dear,” said Caleb in his hesitating

way. “No very good news; but then it might be worse.”

“About money, father? I think I know what it is.”

“Ay? how can that be? You see, I’ve been a bit of a fool again, and put

my name to a bill, and now it comes to paying; and your mother has got

to part with her savings, that’s the worst of it, and even they won’t

quite make things even. We wanted a hundred and ten pounds: your mother

has ninety-two, and I have none to spare in the bank; and she thinks

that you have some savings.”

“Oh yes; I have more than four-and-twenty pounds. I thought you would

come, father, so I put it in my bag. See! beautiful white notes and

gold.”

Mary took out the folded money from her reticule and put it into her

father’s hand.

“Well, but how—we only want eighteen—here, put the rest back,

child,—but how did you know about it?” said Caleb, who, in his

unconquerable indifference to money, was beginning to be chiefly

concerned about the relation the affair might have to Mary’s

affections.

“Fred told me this morning.”

“Ah! Did he come on purpose?”

“Yes, I think so. He was a good deal distressed.”

“I’m afraid Fred is not to be trusted, Mary,” said the father, with

hesitating tenderness. “He means better than he acts, perhaps. But I

should think it a pity for any body’s happiness to be wrapped up in

him, and so would your mother.”

“And so should I, father,” said Mary, not looking up, but putting the

back of her father’s hand against her cheek.

“I don’t want to pry, my dear. But I was afraid there might be

something between you and Fred, and I wanted to caution you. You see,

Mary”—here Caleb’s voice became more tender; he had been pushing his

hat about on the table and looking at it, but finally he turned his

eyes on his daughter—“a woman, let her be as good as she may, has got

to put up with the life her husband makes for her. Your mother has had

to put up with a good deal because of me.”

Mary turned the back of her father’s hand to her lips and smiled at

him.

“Well, well, nobody’s perfect, but”—here Mr. Garth shook his head to

help out the inadequacy of words—“what I am thinking of is—what it must

be for a wife when she’s never sure of her husband, when he hasn’t got

a principle in him to make him more afraid of doing the wrong thing by

others than of getting his own toes pinched. That’s the long and the

short of it, Mary. Young folks may get fond of each other before they

know what life is, and they may think it all holiday if they can only

get together; but it soon turns into working day, my dear. However, you

have more sense than most, and you haven’t been kept in cotton-wool:

there may be no occasion for me to say this, but a father trembles for

his daughter, and you are all by yourself here.”

“Don’t fear for me, father,” said Mary, gravely meeting her father’s

eyes; “Fred has always been very good to me; he is kind-hearted and

affectionate, and not false, I think, with all his self-indulgence. But

I will never engage myself to one who has no manly independence, and

who goes on loitering away his time on the chance that others will

provide for him. You and my mother have taught me too much pride for

that.”

“That’s right—that’s right. Then I am easy,” said Mr. Garth, taking up

his hat. “But it’s hard to run away with your earnings, eh child.”

“Father!” said Mary, in her deepest tone of remonstrance. “Take

pocketfuls of love besides to them all at home,” was her last word

before he closed the outer door on himself.

“I suppose your father wanted your earnings,” said old Mr.

Featherstone, with his usual power of unpleasant surmise, when Mary

returned to him. “He makes but a tight fit, I reckon. You’re of age

now; you ought to be saving for yourself.”

“I consider my father and mother the best part of myself, sir,” said

Mary, coldly.

Mr. Featherstone grunted: he could not deny that an ordinary sort of

girl like her might be expected to be useful, so he thought of another

rejoinder, disagreeable enough to be always apropos. “If Fred Vincy

comes to-morrow, now, don’t you keep him chattering: let him come up to

me.”