The Wings of Icarus Part 5

"I like you; you're a nice girl; you don't turn up your nose at us because we live in our own way. You're a nice girl."

"I like your way of living," said I, then. "From what I can see, it seems to me you are about as free as any one can be in this world, and that is the best of all things,--freedom."

"You've hit it!" cried Richard Norton, bringing his flat hand down on the table. "We are free!"

"Now I'll tell you," said Gabriel. "This time last year we had horrible lodgings in Bloomsbury. Father went every day to drudgery in a dirty office, helping another man to rob his fellow-creatures; aunt there gave lessons,--she can't teach a bit; she was only putting nonsense into the heads of future men and women, and, such as it was, putting it there wrong. I was doing likewise, and I teach worse than she does. Of an evening I wrote drivel for the papers. We were, every one of us, useless and miserable. At last one day I said--"

"You did!" interrupted his father. "You may live to be a hundred, you'll never say anything so wise again."

"I said: 'Look here! How many lives have we?' 'One,' replied father.

'What are we alive for?' 'I don't know,' replied father. 'Neither do I; only I know that life's not worth living as we live it. Let's go into the country.'"

"I beg your pardon, Gabriel," interrupted his father again; "it was not quite so, it was better than that. The boy lectured me, Miss Fletcher,--pitched into me, and I deserved it. He told me I was fifty-five and a fool for my years. So I was. There was I, grinding away,--what for? We never saw each other, we never saw the fields, we were selling all the joys of life for three farthings. So we decided to drudge no more. Gabriel would have continued, but I could not allow that; I wanted him here. We found we should have just enough money to rent a cottage, buy body-covering and plain food. So here we are. And we are happy. As Gabriel said, What is the use of toiling for more, when the unprofitable work that brings us a few extra shillings takes away our capacities for enjoying life? Here we are, happy all day, eh, Gabriel? He writes his poetry and devours his books, I devour mine, Jane devours hers; we are learning now all the beauties of Nature, and man's best thoughts. We are very happy."

A vision of my present life flitted across me, like a cloud on a sunlit field.

"Oh!" said I, "how I envy you! Nothing useless, not a clog about you, no stupid formalities, stifling luxuries, no daily lies and false duties."

"Have you all these?" asked Gabriel.

"Not so badly as some people, but badly enough. I have money, and no end of respectable relations."

He laughed, and made a wry face.

When I found that it was time to wend my way home, Gabriel offered to walk with me. I was very glad. On the way out, he stopped in the hall and knocked half the things off the pegs.

"Beloved aunt!" he cried, "there used to be a hat somewhere!"

I a.s.sured him that he need not discomfort himself for my sake, and he bounded forth bareheaded, with a yell of exultation. On the road we had a long and somewhat warm discussion on suicide, which was started by an essay of Montaigne's he happened to be reading. Every now and again he pulled the book from his pocket and read me extracts, until it was too dark to see; even then he once struck a match to find a pa.s.sage.

For the sake of argument we occasionally took opposite sides, but, in fact, we were both agreed upon the princ.i.p.al point; namely, that although man enters the world against his will, he may surely choose the time and the manner of his exit. That this is every one's right we both believe, yet believe, also, that the right should be sparingly used. For although suicide might almost be considered an act of duty on the part of those suffering from incurable disease, mental or physical, most of us, however useless and superfluous we may at times believe ourselves to be, have, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, the fate of some fellow-creature bound up with our own; and it is surely an act of unpardonable cowardice to make our escape from a world of difficulties, leaving others to bear the burden of our faults.

But, really, I must put an end to this letter; I never wrote such a long one in my life, not even I, not even to you. My friend left me as we approached Graysmill, saying that he dared not set foot on the confines of respectability.

That was Thursday, and I have not seen him since.

Good-bye, my dearest; I kiss your sweet eyes.

EMILIA.

LETTER XV.

GRAYSMILL, October 31st.

No, of course I have not said a word about it at the house; what an idea! Why should I? Good gracious me, they'd think me mad. Besides, I am my own mistress, and am not answerable to anybody for my actions. Not for the world would I speak of the Nortons to any of these people here.

Ida Seymour is a fixture, for the present, at least. Her good offices leave me a great deal more liberty than I enjoyed during the first few months. Apart from meal-times I give some two hours a day to my old ladies, and work hard the rest of the time. I have finished "Prometheus," and laid it aside to await revision; I am now sorting my mother's papers, with a view to some day publishing a selection of them. Perhaps. But there is such a sacredness to me about all she has left behind, that I cannot yet bear the thought of sending anything that remains of her out into the cold world, to be misjudged and misprized.

How can you ask me what colour his eyes are? When did you know me care for any one--except mamma--whose eyes were not blue? His are very dark, and very beautiful. I cannot think, by the way, why I ever told you that he might perhaps be considered plain. I looked at him hard yesterday, and cannot think what possessed me to say such a thing; for he is certainly as far from plain as any man I ever set eyes on. It's really very strange that I did not see it at once.

You see, we have met again. Five days pa.s.sed, and I must admit that I found them dull. To be quite sincere, I will also admit that I once walked towards Miltonhoe, and was disappointed not to meet him.

At last, on Wednesday morning, I received a note from him. He writes a good hand, although not a firm one--he makes two or three of his letters in two or three different ways. I would send you the letter, only mine is sure to be heavy enough without enclosures. It ran thus:--

_Dear Miss Fletcher_,--I am afraid of your butler. What is to be done? I tried this afternoon to pay you a call, but my courage vanished at the lodge. I think we did not quite exhaust our subject last Thursday. I have thought a great deal more about it, and I dare say you have done likewise.

Can I see you by any means without facing the butler? I shall sit in the laurel hedge every morning, on the chance of your taking another walk before breakfast.

Your humble servant, GABRIEL NORTON.

I did not go next morning, although I wished to do so. I hardly know why I waited until Friday; it was not only unreasonable on my part, but also not quite straightforward. How is it that, even when circ.u.mstances might enable us to act according to our impulses, some unexpected inconsistency in our own selves throws a bar across the path? I begin to think that it must be an idle dream,--sincerity, self-honesty. My thoughts are fixed upon it constantly, I strive towards it with heart and soul; yet daily, under the very eyes of my own scrutiny, I lie either in word or in action.

Well, on Friday I went, and we had a happy time together. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to have met this creature, to come once again into contact with a being whose footsteps fall near my own. We are are very different, yet I feel that our faces are turned towards the same light. I told him a great deal about my mother; she would have loved him.

There goes the second bell, and I have not even washed my hands.

Farewell for to-day.

Yours in all truth, EMILIA.

LETTER XVI.

GRAYSMILL, November 8th.

My little dear Constance, first and foremost I am freezing, and have got a red nose, I'm certain. Is it cold with you also? The week has been a full one. Uncle George's eldest daughter was married the day before yesterday, and there were great festivities in the family.

The marriage should have taken place last June, but was postponed owing to the grandfather's death.

What extraordinary creatures we are! I cannot tell you how many Emilias were at that wedding. Something in me was touched by the sight of a large family a.s.sembled from far and wide, excited and united for the moment by a common sentiment; something in me was lonely beyond description, for I was not of them; and whereas I smiled and made merry in a white gown and felt the tears come to my eyes when the little bride went forth under a shower of rice, I was nevertheless looking on at the smiles and tears of the others with doubt and cynicism rampant in my heart.

Poor little bride! I wondered how much she thought she loved him, how much he cared for her; and where her smiles and her golden dreams would be this time next year, poor little white thing, veiled in ignorance.

It is not altogether a bad world, for all that. I certainly have not found it so; but then it has been my good fortune to draw near the hearts and brains of some very dear mortals. I cannot tell you how fond I have grown of this creature,--Gabriel Norton, I mean. I can say this openly to you, because you are sensible and know me, and will not think at once, because he is a man and I a woman, that there is any question here of sentiments exceeding friendship. We are neither of us children; he is three or four years older than I, I should imagine,--twenty-nine or thirty, or thereabouts.

For aught I know, he may already have loved and lost as I have; and were it even possible that I should ever love again, I hardly think that Gabriel would be the man. Anyway, we are excellent friends, and I believe that my companionship has become as precious to him as his is to me. We meet now every two or three days, and walk together, either before breakfast or after early dinner.

Did your ears burn on Wednesday? I told him a great deal about you.

We had been having one of our customary argumentative conversations, princ.i.p.ally about marriage, more especially still about the horrors of false marriages, and this led me to tell him that the best friend I have on earth is infamously bound for the whole of her dear life by a marriage contracted before she was seventeen years old. He thinks, dearest, with me, that you ought to face the horrors of the divorce court rather than linger on in chains, and certainly listen no longer to the considerations, pecuniary and otherwise, which influence your mother.

I fancy, from the way in which he spoke, that his father and mother were not happy together; he has therefore not had in his life the blessing that was mine,--the daily contemplation of an absolutely perfect union. Indeed, he hardly seems to believe in the possibility of ideal marriages, and declares that he himself will certainly never marry unless some law is pa.s.sed whereby men and women shall be able to bind themselves for a limited number of years, at the expiration of which they may either renew the bond or go free. I laughed when he said this, for I thought he was jesting; so he was, partly, yet more than half in earnest.

"No, no," said he; "I shall never marry. I had sooner not break the laws of my country, but if it came to be a question between breaking them or the laws of true morality, I should not hesitate in my choice. Love without marriage is a sin against society; marriage without love is a sin against Nature."

Of course he is right. How my mother would have loved him! Do you remember her invectives against marriage? It was the very perfection of the tie between her and my father that filled her with indignation and regret whenever she looked about her and beheld, on all sides, the parody of her heaven.