Part 93 (2/2)
He winced.
”I only ask you to do what George Eliot did greatly to her advantage,”
he answered reproachfully.
”You asked me to do what Georges Sand did greatly to her detriment,”
Beth said. ”George Eliot is an after-thought. And you certainly have no intention of asking me to do what she did, for she acted openly, she deceived no one, and injured no one.”
”And you do not blame her?” he exclaimed with a flash of hope.
Beth answered indirectly: ”When I think about that, I ask myself have Church and State arranged the relations of the s.e.xes successfully enough to convince us that they cannot be better arranged? Are marriages holier now than they were in the days when there were no churches to bless them? or happier here than in other countries where they are simple private contracts? And it seems to me that we have no historical proof that the legal bond is necessarily the holiest between man and woman, or that there is never justification for a more irregular compact. I know that 'holy matrimony' is often a state of absolute degradation, especially for the woman; and I believe that two honourable people can live together honourably without the conventional bond, so long as no one else is injured, no previous compact broken. But all the same I think the legal bond is best. It is a safeguard to the family and a restraint on the unprincipled. And, at any rate, all my experience, all my thought, all my hope argue for the dignity of permanence in human relations. Anything else is bad for the individual, for the family, for the state. As civilisation, as evolution advances from lower to higher, we find it makes more and more for monogamy. Our highest types of men and women are monogamous.
Those whose contracts are lightly made and lightly broken are trivial people. That useful Oneida Creek experiment proved that the instinct, if not the ideal, of modern humanity is monogamous.”
”What was that?” he asked.
”A number of people formed a community at Oneida Creek to live together in a kind of ordered promiscuity, but the experiment failed because it was found eventually that the members were living together secretly in pairs. No. The more I know of life the less I like the idea of allowing any laxity in the marriage relation. In certain cases of course there is good and sufficient reason for two people to separate. But I believe that right-minded people can generally, and almost always do, make their marriages answer. Marriage is compact of every little incident in life, it is not merely made up of one strong feeling, otherwise men and women would be as the animals who pair and part casually; therefore, if two people are disappointed in each other in some things, they must have other things in common to fall back upon. My ideal of life is love in marriage and loyal friends.”
”It is interesting to hear you express these views,” he said bitterly, ”considering what your experience has been.”
”I don't see that my petty personal experience has anything to do with the truth of the matter,” said Beth, bridling somewhat. ”You really have a poor opinion of me if you think I shall allow my judgment to be warped by anything that may happen to myself. Because my own experience is not a happy one, you would have me declare that family life is a mistake! Doubtless many an outcry is raised for no better reason. But do you not see yourself that the tranquil home-life is the most beautiful, the most conducive to the development of all that is best in us--that there is nothing like the delight of being a member of a large and united family. Can you come into a house like this and not see it?”
”This house was not always a model of domestic felicity,” he sneered.
”That proves my point,” she rejoined. ”The difficulties can be lived down if people are right-minded.”
”Your argument does not alter the fact that I am a miserable man,” he said dejectedly.
”You were not born to be a miserable man,” she answered gently, ”and 'we always may be what we might have been.' But you have lost much ground, Alfred Cayley Pounce, since the days when you roamed about the cliffs and sandy reaches of Rainharbour with Beth Caldwell, making plans. You had your ideals then, and lived up to them. You cultivated your flowers for delight in their beauty, and went to your modelling for love of the work. You gave your flowers to your friends with an honest intention to please; you modelled with honest ambition to do good work. In those days you were above caring to cultivate the acquaintance of the best people. You had touched the higher life at that time; you had felt such rapture in it as has never come to you since--even among the best people--I am sure; yet you fell away; you deserted Beth--not basely, perhaps, but weakly; and you have been deteriorating ever since.”
He had started straight in his chair when she mentioned Beth Caldwell, and was staring at her now with puzzled intentness.
”What do you know about Beth?” he said quickly. ”Have you ever met her?”
She smiled. ”I can honestly say I never have,” she answered. But she looked away from him into the fire as she spoke, and he recognised the set of her head on her shoulders as she turned it; he had noted it often.
”G.o.d!” he exclaimed, ”what a blind idiot I have been--Beth! Beth!” He threw himself down on his knees beside her chair, caught her hand, and covered it with kisses.
Beth s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand away, and he returned embarra.s.sed to his seat and sat gazing at her for a little, then took out his handkerchief and suddenly burst into tears.
”What a mess I have made of my life!” he exclaimed. ”Everything that would have been best for me has been within reach at some time or other, but I invariably took the wrong thing and let the right one go.
But, Beth, I was only a boy then, and I suffered when they separated us.”
This reflection seemed to ease his mind on the subject. That she might also have suffered did not occur to him; as usual his whole concern was for himself.
”Yes, you are right, Beth,” he proceeded. ”I _have_ deteriorated; but 'we always may be what we might have been'--and you have been sent to me again as a sign that it is not too late for me. You were my first love, my earliest ideal, and I have not changed, you see, I have been true to you; for, although I never suspected you were Beth, I recognised my rightful mate in you the moment we met. Yes, I was on the right road when we were boy and girl together, but the promise of that time has not been fulfilled. All the poetry in me has lain dormant since the days when you drew it forth. I gave up modelling when I went to the 'Varsity because they didn't care for that kind of thing in my set, you know. They were all men of position, who wouldn't a.s.sociate with artists unless they were at the top of the tree; clever fellows, and good themselves at squibs and epigrams. If you'd ever been to the 'Varsity you'd know that a man must adapt himself to his environment if he means to get on. My dream had been to make my visions of beauty visible, as you used to suggest; but I had to give that up, there was nothing else for it. Still, I was not content to do nothing, to be n.o.body; therefore, when I abandoned the clay, I took to the pen; I gave up the marble for the ma.n.u.script. Many men of position have written, you know, and so long as you didn't mug, fellows didn't mind. In fact, they thought you smart if they fancied you could dash things off without an effort. You understand now why I am a literary man instead of a sculptor.”
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