Читать книгу Proud Lady - Neith Boyce - Страница 11

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The minister lived in a small frame house near the church. A widow woman of certain age and uncertain temper kept his house and provided his ascetic fare. It was she who opened the door to Mary, with the suspicious glance due to the visitor's youth and good looks. Proclaiming that Mr. Robertson was busy writing his sermon, she nevertheless consented to knock at his study door, and after a moment Mary was admitted. Hilary rose from his desk to receive her, gave her hand a quick nervous clasp, and indicated a chair facing the windows, the only easy-chair in the bare room. For himself he was impatient of comfort. He sat down again before his desk and waited for Mary to speak, but seeing that she looked pale and troubled and hesitated, he began with an effort to question her.

"What is it, Mary? You have something to tell me? How can I help you?"

She looked earnestly at him, her face was more youthful in its expression of appeal and confidence.

"You're the only person I can speak to.... Nobody else understands," she murmured. "Every one thinks I am wrong."

"How, wrong?"

"My mother is so unhappy, and she makes me unhappy.... Do you think I'm wrong, to marry against her wish?"

Hilary was silent, looking at some papers on his desk and moving them about. At last he said in a low voice:

"Not if you're sure, otherwise, that it's right—for you, I mean. We have to judge for ourselves, nobody can judge for us.... Your parents are opposed ... to your marriage?"

"Yes—in a different way, not for the same reason. My mother never has liked Laurence, she doesn't trust him—and my father—doesn't trust me, he doesn't think I know my own mind."

"And are you sure you do?"

"Oh, yes," said Mary. "I couldn't desert Laurence, possibly, and I don't see why I should put him off longer—when it has been so long already—"

"You want to marry soon, then?"

"Yes, in two weeks."

"Here?"

"Why, we would be married at home, I suppose."

"And then—are you going away?"

"No, Laurence is going into Judge Baxter's office, and we're going to live at the Judge's house, for the present."

"I see," said Hilary, in a trembling voice.

"At first Laurence wanted to go away, to start somewhere else, but I persuaded him to stay here," Mary went on. "I didn't want to go to a strange place. All I care about is here. I don't want to go away from you, Mr. Robertson, I depend on you—"

Hilary pushed back his chair sharply, then, controlling himself, folded his arms tight across his breast. His back was to the light which fell on Mary's face, raised toward him with a look of humility that perhaps no one but he ever saw there.

"You've taught me so much, and helped me to see.... Before I knew you, I didn't know anything about life, how one should live.... You're so strong, so good...."

"I am?... You know very little about it, Mary. Don't say that sort of thing, please."

"Oh, it's just because you don't think you are that you're so wonderful—"

Hilary looked into her eyes bright and liquid with feeling, and said to himself that he must keep this faith, he must not disturb it by a look, a word—or his hold on her would be gone. He said abruptly:

"Your mother has talked to me. She thinks—as you say, she doesn't trust—Captain Carlin. She thinks he is irreligious and unsteady—and with a bad inheritance. She is troubled about you, she thinks you are marrying just because you gave your word, years ago, and don't like to break it.... Is it so, Mary?"

In spite of himself, this question was a demand. Mary looked startled.

"No, no, she doesn't understand. I love Laurence, and he is good, though—though in some ways.... Nobody is perfect, you know, and we shouldn't stop loving people just because they aren't altogether—what we would like.... We ought to try to help them, I know you think so—"

"You think you can help him, then?"

"I hope so, I—"

"Do you think you're strong enough to help another?"

Mary's bright look wavered a little, was shadowed.

"Aren't you too confident? Perhaps you have a little too much pride in yourself. You may lose what you have instead of helping another."

She bowed her head, turning pale under this reproof, wincing, but she said humbly:

"You will help me."

"I'm not sure that I can," said Hilary sharply. "When you are married, it will be different—you may not be able to do as you would like, live as you would—"

"But I must!" Mary got up, pale and agitated. "Laurence wouldn't interfere with me in that way, he couldn't. Nothing could!"

She went a step toward Hilary, and stopped, suddenly bewildered and almost frightened by his look. And Hilary could bear no more. He turned away from her, bent over his papers, and said harshly:

"I must work now, I can't talk to you any longer.... Don't look for an easy life, Mary, you won't have it."

"But I don't!" she protested.

With relief she seized upon his words, her eyes lit up again.

"Why should I look for an easy life? I don't want it—I expect struggle and suffering, isn't that what life is? You have told me so—"

"Well, then, you won't be disappointed," cried Hilary almost savagely. "If you can suffer—I don't know whether you can or not...."

He took up a pen and dipped it blindly in the ink, and waited for the closing of the door.

"You are against me too," said Mary blankly.

He made an impatient movement, but did not look around at her.

"You must not mind who is against you, as you call it, if you're sure you are right. That's the hard thing, to be sure," he said in the same harsh voice.

He was struggling. Why not be honest with Mary, tell her that he could not advise her, tell her why?... He thought she could not be so blind as she seemed to his feeling for her.... But it would be dishonourable to express that feeling, as she was not free. And it would shock her faith in him. She depended on him, not as a man who loved her, but as a sexless superior being, who could teach and lead her.... But he was not that, he was quite helpless himself for the moment at least, certainly he could not help her. Why pretend to be what he was not?

He felt her bewilderment, her disappointment. He did not dare look at her, still she lingered. What a child she was after all! Looking for support, for approval, and yet so rigid in her own way, so sure of herself! No, she never had suffered anything, and she was trying to make of her religion an armour against life, that would keep her from suffering. He mourned over her. She did not see anything as yet, perhaps she never would, few women could. In his heart Hilary regarded religion as the activity of a man, much as fighting. He was impatient with the emotional religion of women; though he could hardly have admitted it to himself, he had a tinge of the oriental feeling that women have no souls of their own and that they can get into heaven only by clinging to the garment of a man.... He would have said that religion is too strenuous for women, they do not think, feel deeply enough.... But it was his duty to help these weak sisters and manfully he did it as best he could. They clung to his garment and he resisted frequent impulses to twitch it out of their hands. In the case of Mary he knew that she was as feminine as the worst of them. Only she had more firmness, more clearness, there was some kind of strength in her—and she did not chatter.

Oh, how beautiful she was!... He sat, making aimless scrawls on his paper, and feeling her there behind him, feeling her gaze fixed on him. She was waiting for him to say something, what on earth could he say? Should he say that his heart was breaking at the thought that in two weeks she would belong to another man, and that he, Hilary Robertson, was expected to stand up and perform the ceremony that would give her to this man, and that he would not do it?

He made a long dash across the paper, and rose, turned to her.

"You must go now, Mary—I'm busy.... You did not come to me because you're in doubt yourself as to what you ought to do, or want to do?"

"No," faltered Mary.

"Then, if you're sure of yourself, I have no advice to give you. If not, make sure. Don't fear to inflict suffering—some one suffers, whatever we do. We can't avoid that, we have to look beyond it."

"Yes," breathed Mary devoutly, her eyes fixed on his face.

"But we needn't go out to look for martyrdom either—we can trust life for that," said Hilary bitterly.

She went away, reluctantly, unsatisfied. She had wanted, expected, one of those long talks, confidential yet impersonal, that had meant so much to her during the year past. Never before had he treated her this way, he had always had time for her, had shown an eager interest in her difficulties. Her face was clouded as she walked slowly home. She was bent on keeping this relation with her spiritual teacher just as it had been. But now she wondered if her marriage was going to make a difference, had already disturbed and troubled it. Why should that be? It made no difference to her, why should it to him?

She did not want to think that Hilary was a man like other men, she refused to think of him in that way. No, he was better, higher, he was above personal feelings—that was her idea of him. She knew that he cared about her, but the image of the shepherd and his sheep, the pastor and his flock, dwelt in her mind. If she was distinguished from the rest of the flock by a special care, then it was the mystic love of a soul for another soul, it had nothing to do with mere human love, the desire for personal satisfaction, for caresses and companionship. To see Hilary seeking such things would spoil completely her idea of him. She saw him as a sort of saint, who denied the flesh. Did he not live in the most uncomfortable way, eating hardly enough to keep body and soul together, as the widow said, and working beyond his strength, always pale and tired-looking? He was devoted to service. It was impossible to think of him as taking thought for the morrow, for food and raiment, or as married and having a family.

She remembered how, when he had first come, the ladies of the congregation had tried to make him comfortable—one had even worked him a pair of slippers—and how he had brushed their ministrations aside. He was subject to severe colds, but by now they had learned not to offer any remedies, or even express solicitude. Mary never had offended in that way. She liked his carelessness about himself, his shabby clothes and frayed tie. She felt that probably he would work himself to death, would go into a decline and die in a few years, but she did not grieve over this prospect as the other sisters did. Truly the earth had no hold on him, he was already like a spirit.

She had been profoundly shocked by her father's suggestion that she might marry Hilary—the more so as the idea had before occurred to her that possibly Hilary thought of it. But she had rejected this idea, with all her obstinacy refused to consider it. Now it came back to her, but she denied it. She would not have her idol spoiled by any such feet of clay.

The fact that Hilary repulsed with irritation any attempts to idolize him, or to regard him as a superior being, only affirmed her conviction that he was one. As such he was precious to her, and as such she would keep him.