The Emancipated

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Another week, and again there was a chance meeting with Mallard,
this time on the Via Appia, where Cecily and her aunt were driving.
They spent a couple of hours together. At the parting, Mallard
announced that the next day would see him on his journey to London

CHAPTER X

ELGAR AT WORK

At Dover it was cold and foggy; the shore looked mildewed, the town
rain-soaked and mud-stained. In London, a solid leaden sky lowered
above the streets, neither threatening rain nor allowing a hope of
sunlight. What a labour breathing had become!

"My heart warms to my native land," said Spence. "This is a spring
day that recalls one's youth."

Eleanor tried to smile, but the railway journey had depressed her
beneath the possibility of joking. Miriam was pallid and miserable;
she had scarcely spoken since she set foot on the steamboat.
Cab-borne through the clangorous streets, they seemed a party of
exiles.

The house in Chelsea, which the Spences held on a long lease, had
been occupied during their absence by Edward's brother-in-law and
his family. Vacated, swept, and garnished, the old furniture from
the Pantechnicon re-established somewhat at haphazard, it was not a
home that welcomed warmly; but one could heap coals on all the
fires, and draw down the blinds as soon as possible, and make a sort
of Christmas evening. If only one's lungs could have free play! But
in a week or so such little incommodities would become natural
again.

Miriam had decided that in a day or two she would go down to
Bartles; not to stay there, but merely to see her relative, Mrs.
Fletcher, and Redbeck House. Before leaving London, she must visit
Reuben; she had promised Cecily to do so without delay. This same
evening she posted a card to her brother, asking him to be at home
to see her early the next morning.

She reached Belsize Park at ten o'clock, and dismissed the cab as
soon as she had alighted from it. Her ring at the door was long in
being answered, and the maid-servant who at last appeared did small
credit to the domestic arrangements of the house--she was
slatternly, and seemed to resent having her morning occupations,
whatever they were, thus disturbed. Miriam learnt with surprise that
Mr. Elgar was not at home.

"He is out of town?"

The servant thought so; he had not been at the house for two days.

"You are unable to tell me when he will return?"

Mr. Elgar was often away for a day or two, but not for longer than
that. The probability was that he would, at all events, look in
before evening, though he might go away again.

Miriam left a card--which the servant inspected with curiosity
before the door was closed--and turned to depart. It was raining,
and very windy. She had to walk some distance before she could find
a conveyance, and all the way she suffered from a painful fluttering
of the heart, an agitation like that of fear. All night she had
wished she had never returned to England, and now the wish became a
dread of remaining.

By the last post that evening came a note from Reuben. He wrote in
manifest hurry, requesting her to come again next morning; he would
have visited her himself, but perhaps she had not a separate
sitting-room, and he preferred to talk with her in privacy.

So in the morning she again went to Belsize Park. This time the
servant was a little tidier, and behaved more conventionally. Miriam
was conducted to the library, where Reuben awaited her.

They examined each other attentively. Miriam was astonished to find
her brother looking at least ten years older than when she last saw
him; he was much sparer in body, had duller eyes and, it seemed to
her, thinner hair.

"But why didn't you write sooner to let me know you were coming?"
was his first exclamation.

"I supposed you knew from Cecily."

"I haven't heard from her since the letter in which she told me she
had got to Rome. She said you would be coming soon, but that was
all. I don't understand this economy of postage!"

He grew more annoyed as he spoke. Meeting Miriam's eye, he added, in
the tone of explanation:

"It's abominable that you should come here all the way from Chelsea,
and be turned away at the door! What did the servant tell you?"

"Only that your comings and goings were very uncertain," she
replied, looking about the room.

"Yes, so they are. I go now and then to a friend's in Surrey and
stop overnight. One can't live alone for an indefinite time. But sit
down. Unless you'd like to have a look at the house, first of all?"

"I'll sit a little first."

"This is my study, when I'm working at home," Reuben continued,
walking about and handling objects, a book, or a pen, or a
paper-knife. "Comfortable, don't you think? I want to have another
bookcase over there. I haven't worked here much since Cecily has
been away; I have a great deal of reading to do at the Museum, you
know.--You look a vast deal better, Miriam. What are you going to
do?"

"I don't know. Most likely I shall continue to live with the
Spences."

"You wouldn't care to come here?"

"Thank you; I think the other arrangement will be better."

"Perhaps so. For one thing, it's quite uncertain whether we shall
keep this house. It's really a good deal too large for us; an
unnecessary expense. If Cecily is often to be away like this,
there's no possibility of keeping the place in order. How the
servants live, or what they do, I have no idea. How can I be
expected to look after such things?"

"But surely it is not expected of you? I understood that Cecily had
left a housekeeper."

"Oh yes; but I have a suspicion that she does little but eat and
drink. I know the house is upside down. It's long enough since I had
a decent meal here. Practically I have taken to eating at
restaurants. Of course I say nothing about it to Cecily; what's the
use of bothering her? By-the-bye, how is she? How did you leave
her?"

"Not very well, I'm afraid."

"She never says a word about her health. But then, practically, she
never writes. I doubt whether London suits her. We shall have to
make our head-quarters in Paris, I fancy; she was always well enough
there. Of course I can't abandon London entirely; at all events, not
till I've--till my materials for the book are all ready; but it's
simple enough for me to come and take lodgings for a month now and
then."

Miriam gave an absent "Yes."

"You don't seem to have altered much, after all," he resumed,
looking at her with a smile. "You talk to me just like you used to.
I expected to find you more cheerful."

Miriam showed a forced smile, but answered nothing.

"Well, did you see much of Mallard?" he asked, throwing himself into
a seat impatiently, and beginning to rap his knee with the
paper-knife.

"Not very much."

"Has he come back with you?"

"Oh no; he is still in Rome. He said that he would most likely
return when the others did."

"How do he and Cecily get on together?"

"They seemed to be quite friendly."

"Indeed? Does he go about with them?"

"I don't know."

"But did he when you were there?"

"I think he was with them at the Vatican once."

Elgar heard it with indifference. He was silent for a minute or two;
then, quitting his chair, asked:

"Had you much talk with her?"

"With Cecily? We were living together, you know."

"Yes, but had she much to tell you? Did she talk about how things
were going with us--what I was doing, and so on?"

He was never still. Now he threw himself into another chair, and
strummed with his fingers on the arm of it.

"She told me about your work."

"And showed that she took very little interest in it, no doubt?"

Miriam gazed at him.

"Why do you think that?"

"Oh, that's tolerably well understood between us." Again he rose.
and paced with his hands in his pockets. "It was a misfortune that
Clarence died. Now she has nothing to occupy herself with. She
doesn't seem to have any idea of employing her time. It was bad
enough when the child was living, but since then--"

He spoke as though the hints fell from him involuntarily; he wished
to be understood as implying no censure, but merely showing an
unfortunate state of things. When he broke off, it was with a shrug
and a shake of the head.

"But I suppose she reads a good deal?" said Miriam; "and has friends
to visit?"

"She seems to care very little about reading nowadays. And as for
the friends--yes, she is always going to some house or other.
Perhaps it would have been better if she had had no friends at all."

"You mean that they are objectionable people?"

"Oh no; I don't mean to say anything of that kind. But--well,
never mind, we won't talk about it."

He threw up an arm, and began to pace the floor again. His
nervousness was increasing. In a few moments he broke out in the
same curious tone, which was half complaining, half resigned.

"You know Cecily, I dare say. She has a good deal of--well, I
won't call it vanity, because that has a vulgar sound, and she is
never vulgar. But she likes to be admired by clever people. One must
remember how young she still is. And that's the very thing of which
she can't endure to be reminded. If I hint a piece of counsel, she
feels it an insult. I suppose I am to blame myself, in some things.
When I was working here of an evening, now and then I felt it a bore
to have to dress and go out. I don't care much for society, that's
the fact of the matter. But I couldn't bid her stay at home. You see
how things get into a wrong course. A girl of her age oughtn't to be
going about alone among all sorts of people. Of course something had
to precede that. The first year or two, she didn't want any society.
I suppose a man who studies much always runs the danger of
neglecting his home affairs. But it was her own wish that I should
begin to work. She was incessantly urging me to it. One of the
inconsistencies of women, you see."

He laughed unmelodiously, and then there was a long silence. Miriam,
who watched him mechanically, though her eyes were not turned
directly upon him, saw that he seated himself on the writing-table,
and began to make idle marks with a pencil on the back of an
envelope.

"Why didn't you go abroad with her?" she asked in a low voice.

"I would have gone, if it hadn't been quite clear that she preferred
not to have my company."

"Are you speaking the truth?"

"What do you mean, Miriam? She preferred to go alone; I know she
did."

"But didn't you make the excuse to her that you couldn't leave your
work?"

"That's true also. Could I say plainly that I saw what she wished?"

"I think it very unlikely that you were right," Miriam rejoined in a
tone of indecision.

"What reason have you for saying that?"

"You ought to have a very good reason before you believe the
contrary."

She waited for him to reply, but he had taken another piece of
paper, and seemed absorbed in covering it with a sort of pattern of
his own design.

"Right or wrong, what does it matter?" he exclaimed at length,
flinging the pencil away. "The event is the same, in any case. Does
it depend on myself how I act, or what I think? Do you believe still
that we are free agents, and responsible for our acts and thoughts?"

Miriam avoided his look, and said carelessly:

"I know nothing about it."

He gave a short laugh.

"Well, that's better and more honest than saying you believe what is
contrary to all human experience. Look back on your life. Has its
course been of your own shaping? Compare yourself of to-day with
yourself of four years ago; has the change come about by your own
agency? If you are _wrong_, are you to blame? Imagine some fanatic
seizing you by the arm, and shouting to you to beware of the
precipice to which you are advancing--"

He suited the action to the word, and grasped her wrist. Miriam
shook him off angrily.

"What do you know of _me_?" she exclaimed, with suppressed scorn.

"True. Just as little as you know of me, or any one person of any
other. However, I was speaking of what you know of yourself. I
suppose you can look back on one or two things in your life of which
your judgment doesn't approve? Do you imagine they could have
happened otherwise than they did? Do you think it lay in your own
power to take the course you now think the better?"

Miriam stood up impatiently, and showed no intention of replying.
Again Elgar laughed, and waved his arm as if dismissing a subject of
thought.

"Come up and look at the drawing-room," he said, walking to the
door.

"Some other time. I'll come again in a few days."

"As you please. But you must take your chance of finding me at home,
unless you give me a couple of days' notice."

"Thank you," she answered coldly. "I will take my chance."

He went with her to the front door. With his hand on the latch, he
said in an undertone:

"Shall you be writing to Cecily?"

"I think not; no."

"All right. I'll let her know you called."

For Miriam, this interview was confirmative of much that she had
suspected. She believed now that Reuben and his wife, if they had
not actually agreed to live apart, were practically in the position
of people who have. The casual reference to a possible abandonment
of their house meant more than Reuben admitted. She did not
interpret the situation as any less interested person, with her
knowledge of antecedents, certainly would have done; that is to say,
conclude that Reuben was expressing his own desires independently of
those which Cecily might have formed. Her probing questions, in
which she had seemed to take Cecily's side, were in reality put with
a perverse hope of finding that such a view was untenable, and she
came away convinced that this was the case. The state of things at
home considered, Cecily would not have left for so long an absence
but on her own wish.

And, this determined, she thought with increased bitterness of
Mallard's remaining in Rome. He too could not but suspect the course
that Cecily's married life was taking; by this time he might even
know with certainty. How would that affect him? In her doubt as to
how far the exchange of confidences between Cecily and Mallard was a
possible thing, she tortured herself with picturing the progress of
their intercourse at Rome, inventing chance encounters, imagining
conversations. Mrs. Lessingham was as good as no obstacle to their
intimacy; her, Miriam distrusted profoundly. Judging by her own
impulses, she attributed to Cecily a strong desire for Mallard's
sustaining companionship; and on the artist's side, she judged all
but inevitable, under such circumstances, a revival of that passion
she had read in his face long ago. Her ingenuity of self-torment
went so far as to interpret Mallard's behaviour to herself in a
dishonourable sense. It is doubtful whether any one who loves
passionately fulfils the ideal of being unable to see the object of
love in any but a noble light; this is one of the many conventions,
chiefly of literary origin, which to the eyes of the general make
cynicism of wholesome truth. Miriam deemed it not impossible that
Mallard had made her his present of pictures simply to mislead her
thought when she was gone. Jealousy can sink to baser imaginings
than this. It is only calm affection that judges always in the
spirit of pure sympathy.

On the following day, the Spences dined from home, and Miriam, who
had excused herself from accompanying them, sat through the evening
in their drawing-room. The weather was wretched; a large fire made
the comfort within contrast pleasantly enough with sounds of wind
and rain against the house. Miriam's mind was far away from Chelsea;
it haunted the Via del Babuino, and the familiar rooms of the hotel
where Cecily was living. Just after the clock had struck ten, a
servant entered and said that Mr. Elgar wished to see her.

Reuben was in evening dress.

"What! you are alone?" he said on entering. "I'm glad of that. I
supposed I should have to meet the people. I want to kill half an
hour, that's all."

He drew a small low chair near to hers, and, when he had seated
himself, took one of her hands. Miriam glanced at him with surprise,
but did not resist him. His cheeks were flushed, perhaps from the
cold wind, and there was much more life in his eyes than the other
morning.

"You're a lonely girl, Miriam," he let fall idly, after musing. "I'm
glad I happened to come in, to keep you company. What have you been
thinking about?"

"Italy," she answered, with careless truth.

"Italy, Italy! Who doesn't think of Italy? I wish I knew Italy as
well as you do. Isn't it odd that I should be saying that to you? I
believe you are now far my superior in all knowledge that is worth
having. Did I mention that Ciss wrote an account of you in the
letter just after she had reached Rome?"

Miriam made an involuntary movement as if to withdraw her hand, but
overcame herself before she had succeeded.

"How did she come to know me so quickly?" was her question, murmured
absently.

"From Mrs. Spence, it seemed. Come, tell me what you have been doing
this long time. You have seen Greece too. I must go to Greece--
perhaps before the end of this year. I'll make a knapsack ramble:
Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, Constantinople."

Miriam kept silence, and her brother appeared to forget that he had
said anything that required an answer. Presently he released her
hand, after patting it, and moved restlessly in his chair; then he
looked at his watch, and compared it curiously with the clock on the
mantelpiece.

"Ciss," he began suddenly, and at once with a laugh corrected
himself--"Miriam, I mean."

"What?"

"I forget what I was going to say," he muttered, after delaying.
"But that reminds me; I've been anxious lest you should
misunderstand what I said yesterday. You didn't think I wished to
make charges against Cecily?"

"It's difficult to understand you," was all she replied.

"But you mustn't think that I misjudge her. Cecily has more than
realized all I imagined her to be. There are few women living who
could be called her equals. I say this in the gravest conviction;
this is the simple result of my knowledge of her. She has an
exquisite nature, an admirable mind. I have never heard her speak a
sentence that was unworthy of her, not one!"

His voice trembled with earnestness. Miriam looked at from under her
eyebrows.

"If any one," he pursued, "ever threw doubt on the perfect
uprightness of Cecily's conduct, her absolute honour, I would gage
my life upon the issue."

And in this moment he spoke with sincerity, whatever the mental
process which had brought him to such an utterance. Even Miriam
could not doubt him. His clenched fist quivered as it lay on his
knee, and the gleam of firelight showed that his eves were moist.

"Why do you say this?" his sister asked, still scrutinizing him.

"To satisfy myself; to make you understand once for all what I _do_
believe. Have you any other opinion of her, Miriam?"

She gave a simple negative.

"I am not saying this," he pursued, "in the thought that you will
perhaps repeat it to her some day. It is for my own satisfaction. If
I could put it more strongly, I would; but I will have nothing to do
with exaggerations. The truth is best expressed in the simplest
words."

"What do you mean by honour?" Miriam inquired, when there had been a
short silence.

"Honour?"

"Your definitions are not generally those accepted by most people."

"I hope not." He smiled. "But you know sufficiently what I mean.
Deception, for instance, is incompatible with what I understand as
honour."

He spoke it slowly and clearly, his eyes fixed on the fire.

"You seem to me to be attributing moral responsibility to her."

"What I say is this that I believe her nature incapable of admitting
the vulgar influences to which people in general are subject. I
attach no merit to her high qualities--no more than I attach merit
to the sea for being a nobler thing than a muddy puddle. Of course I
know that she cannot help being what she is, and cannot say to
herself that in future she will become this or that. How am I
inconsistent? Suppose me wrong in my estimate of her. I might then
lament that she fell below what I had imagined, but of course I
should have no right to blame her."

Miriam reflected; then put the question:

"And does she hold the same opinion--with reference to you, for
instance?"

"Theoretically she does."

"Theoretically? If she made her opinions practical, I suppose there
would be no reason why you shouldn't live together in contentment?"

Reuben glanced at her.

"I can't say," he replied gloomily. "That is quite another matter."

"Speaking of honour," said Miriam, "you would attach no blame to
yourself if you fell below it."

He replied with deliberation:

"One often blames one's self emotionally, but the understanding is
not affected by that. Unless your mind is unsteadied by excess of
feeling."

"I believe you are a victim of sophistry--sophistry of the most
dangerous kind. I can't argue with you, but I pity you, and fear for
you."

The words were uttered so solemnly that Reuben for a moment was
shaken; his features moved in a way which indicates a sudden failure
of self-possession. But he recovered himself immediately, and smiled
his least amiable smile.

"I see you are not yet past the half-way house on the way of
emancipation, Miriam. These things sound disagreeable, and prompt
such deliverances as this of yours. But can I help it if a truth is
unpalatable? What better should I be if I shut my eyes against it?
You will say that this conviction makes me incapable of struggle for
the good. Nothing of the kind. Where I am destined to struggle, I do
so, without any reference to my scientific views. Of course, one is
unhappier with science than without it. Who ever urged the contrary,
that was worth listening to? I believe the human race will be more
and more unhappy as science grows. But am I on that account likely
to preach a crusade against it? Sister mine, we are what we are; we
think and speak and do what causation determines. If you can still
hold another belief, do so, and be thrice blessed. I would so gladly
see you happy, dear Miriam."

Again he took her hand, and pressed it against his cheek Miriam
looked straight before her with wide, almost despairing eyes.

"I must go, this moment," Elgar said, happening to notice the time.
"Say I have been here, and couldn't wait for their return; indeed,
they wouldn't expect it."

"Wait a few minutes, Reuben."

She retained his hand.

"I can't dear; I can't." His cheeks were hot. "I have an
appointment."

"What appointment? With whom?"

"A friend. It is something important. I'll tell you another time."

"Tell me now. Your sister is more to you than a friend. I ask you to
stay with me, Reuben."

In his haste, he did not understand how great an effort over herself
such words as these implied. The egoist rarely is moved to wonder at
unusual demonstrations made on his own behalf. Miriam was holding
his hand firmly, but he broke away. Then he turned back, took her in
his arms, and kissed her more tenderly than he ever had done since
he was a child. Miriam had a smile of hope, but only for a moment.
After all, he was gone.

CHAPTER XI

IN DUE COURSE

A change of trains, and half an hour's delay, at Manchester, then on
through Lancashire civilization, through fumes and evil smells and
expanses of grey-built hideousness, as far as the station called
Bartles.

Miriam remarked novelties as she alighted. The long wooden platform,
which used to be almost bare, was now in part sheltered by a
structure of iron and glass. There was a bookstall. Porters were
more numerous. The old stationmaster still bustled about; he
recognized her with a stare of curiosity, but did not approach to
speak, as formerly he would have done. Miriam affected not to
observe him; he had been wont to sit in the same chapel with her.

The wooden stairs down into the road were supplanted by steps of
stone, and below waited several cabs, instead of the two she
remembered. "To Redbeck House." The local odours were, at all
events, the same as ever; with what intensity they revived the past!
Every well-known object, every familiar face, heightened the
intolerable throbbing of her heart; so that at length she drew
herself into a corner of the cab and looked at nothing.

In the house itself nothing was new; even the servants were the same
Miriam had left there. Mrs. Fletcher lived precisely the life of
three and a half years ago, down to the most trivial habit; used the
same phrases, wore the same kind of dress. To Miriam everything
seemed unreal, visionary; her own voice sounded strange, for it was
out of harmony with this resuscitated world. She went up to the room
prepared for her, and tried to shake off the nightmare oppression.
The difficulty was to keep a natural consciousness of her own
identity. Above all, the scents in the air disturbed her, confused
her mind, forced her to think in forgotten ways about the things on
which her eyes fell.

The impressions of every moment were disagreeable, now and then
acutely painful. To what purpose had she faced this experience? She
might have foreseen what the result would be, and her presence here
was unnecessary.

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