CHAPTER III
"WHY WOMEN WED"
Helena had never thought much about marriage. There was no reason indeed why she should, for she was young and to her it still appeared, like death to a small child, as something she was sure to reach some day but need not worry with just now.
She was, in fact, nineteen, but her ideas were those of nineteen fifty years ago or of fourteen to-day. Devonshire, for one thing, has slept on in its soft air, not much disturbed by any modern turmoil; and for another, Helena's mother had ideas. These, briefly put, consisted in not letting her daughter have any.
It is, however, only human, from Eve downwards, to defy authority and search for knowledge. Helena, knowing that it was her lot to marry, naturally felt some interest in the habit. Whenever she came on allusions to it, she stocked them in her brain, all in a healthy and quite natural way, wondering in an abstract manner whether it would be thus or thus with her. She never dared to talk about it to her mother. She had once mentioned her own hypothetic marriage, only to be told that girls did not speak of such things in fun, and it would be quite time enough when the occasion rose, and had she given the canary its clean water?
Mrs. Hallam was a loving mother with stern theories. Her own childhood had been a season of repression, yet she was satisfied enough with her morals as opposed to those of many round her. She intended, therefore, to repeat the process. She had no patience—this was her favourite expression—with the licence of young girls to-day: the manner in which they read any novel, went to any play. She had no patience with this rubbish about ignorance not being innocence. Of course it was; or if it wasn't, it had very much the same result, and that was everything. Girls read these trashy novels and got a notion that grown men and women spent their whole lives falling in and out of love. They naturally tried it and began flirtation as a sort of duty. If a girl knew nothing, she did not know what to do. If she had no notion what flirtation meant, she clearly couldn't do it—especially if she saw no men till she was safely beyond her teens.
In any case, till she was twenty, Helena had no plays, novels, or man-friends. Her reading was all lives, histories, and comic papers. Her days were spent with relatives or younger friends, when she was not alone.
She grew up an oddly fine tribute to the system, thus underlining the depressing axiom which comes at length to all who study education: that those who are going to be nice will turn out nice, whatever way you train their youth, and much the same about the nasty. She was simple, healthy, buoyant, cheerful, natural; everything that Hubert thought. And who shall blame her if she was a little immature?
Hubert's letter was a real excitement in her cloistered life.
She had enjoyed her meeting with him. Men were a novelty, and to her an author was still that thing of wonder which he appeared to a suburban hostess twenty years ago. She thought him marvellously clever at first sight, and rather alarming. Later, she thought him easy to get on with and amusing. He played tennis well, liked finding crabs, and Mother did not seem to mind them talking. It was quite a jolly change. She finally thought him a dear and missed him when he left for Town.
And now—this letter!
Nothing ever could be less expected. She read it and re-read, not knowing really what she ought to do. She was just as excited and laughed as gaily as he one day before—vaguely infected, no less, with a thrill of irresponsible adventure.
Now, indeed, was the moment to collect all the vague tit-bits she had garnered as to marriage and fit them into a connected whole. She knew so little, really, of this thing that he suggested, and Mother, she knew, would not help her. The comic papers were curious about it. They looked on all men who married as fools, sure to repent; all women who didn't as ludicrously tragic. The old maid was a figure to be as much mocked and pitied as the old bachelor was to be envied.
Well, if this were so, it must be jolly hard for women to find a man who would marry! (Logic teaches that absurd premises will often lead to sensible conclusions.)
She knew vaguely that one Asked Mamma. There was a book even called that in the old locked case in the big library. She also knew, however, that she must battle this thing out herself. Her mother would say no; what nonsense! Of that she felt sure. It was for her, then, to decide.
Lock up your Danäe, stern mothers, in all the towers that man's wit may devise; yet if she is born with a strong resolve knit on her pudgy, slobbered, baby face, you cannot possibly prevail. You battle with the forces of uncounted Time.
Mrs. Hallam sat happily in her white drawing-room and read the new Queen, while Helena, up in her bedroom, wrestled with the letter which her mother luckily had not seen arrive.
Of course it would be a big change, she supposed? Home was a bit dull, but she had got quite used to it and one knew what to do. Having a house must be an awful business, and yet—rather thrilling! Probably Mr. Brett would make a big name; he was so immensely clever; and then they'd have a great big house, and she'd ask Mother as a guest and give her all the things she liked and said she never got in her own house! She laughed at the idea. The whole thing was tremendously amusing.
As Hubert had thought, she was laudably unsloppy. Mrs. Hallam had never let her guess that there was any sentiment in the whole world beyond maternal love. That was the heart's whole duty for a girl who was an only child that had not even seen her father.
Yes, summing it all up, she really felt the chief thing was about women having to marry or else be a joke, whereas men were a huge lark if they did. Imagine if, in all her life, she never met another man who would be fool enough! Home was very nice, of course, but horribly monotonous. She might read novels now, oh yes; the ones that Mother chose; but it was just the others that she longed to read. She felt vaguely (for self-development is among the instincts natural to Man), that there was something being kept from her. She had not been meant, ever, to remain so ignorant. She felt that Mr. Brett would not wish to keep her back in the way Mother had. Besides, if she remained at home, some day her mother would die, and she be left—that dreaded thing—an old maid, all alone, for every one to mock. Nobody would want her then! Wouldn't it be awful to feel you had thrown away a chance that lots of women, she had gathered, never got? Fancy being Helena Hallam, that absurd name, all your life! H. H., one of her uncles had called her stupidly, and she had said then that it sounded like poor Miss Jowett in the village, whom everyone called "old J. J.," because her name was Jane. Oh yes, she would end at last as old H. H.—poor old H. H.—pottering about in her prim little garden with an antiquated, rat-like dog dragging itself crookedly along behind her. All the village poor would be so sorry when she died.
She shuddered at the thought. She always wanted to put poor J. J.'s old dog, the one with the pink satin bow, out of its misery. It would be kind, she knew. She could with the air-gun, but Mother had seemed really shocked.
She suddenly decided at this point that her thoughts had become depressing and not really helpful towards a decision. Without giving herself time to feel alarmed, she rose abruptly and went to the drawing-room.
She knew instinctively she must be firm.
This was the first thing ever that had really mattered, mattered to her as a separate person with a life to live, and she believed she knew already what she ought to do. She would listen, of course, to Mother's views—she owed that from a real love and gratitude—but she would not be bullied any longer.
She entered the room feeling herself in some way on a different footing. The latent, undeveloped thing that would be Helena had surged towards birth at a mere spark from the outer world.
"Mother," she began, quite simply, "I've had a letter from Mr. Brett. He has asked me to marry him and I think I rather shall."
Mrs. Hallam dropped her Queen. She did not often find herself surprised.
"You've what, dear?" she asked blankly. Then not waiting for any reply, "What do you know about marriage, my dear child? What do you know about Mr. Brett?"
"I don't want to be an old maid," answered Helena, playing her best card at once.
Mrs. Hallam met it with a scornful laugh. "Old maid!" she cried. "That is a preposterous idea you've got out of your comic papers."
"They're all I've ever read, histories and them," Helena said mildly; raising who shall say how many bitter doubts in the breast of a theorist.
"You're nothing but a child, my darling girl," the mother said more gently; "and even if you weren't, there's no disgrace in being what you call an old maid. Some of the world's best women have been that. You've got to think of far more serious matters than that before you can possibly decide on such a step as marriage;" and searching frantically for objections which she felt sure must exist, she fell back on her first thought. "What do you know about Mr. Brett?"
"I liked him better than any of the men I've met."
"You've not met any yet," snapped Mrs. Hallam; she had no patience with this nonsensical idea. Then, as her girl was silent, she realised that here too she had flung out a taunt mainly against her own theories.
Mrs. Hallam loved Helena with real devotion, and it was a torture now to feel that possibly her care had all been a mistake; had all been shipwrecked by the unexpected action of an extraordinary man. She knew for a fact—she had taken care—that she and he had not indulged in any sentimental rubbish. Mr. Brett had seemed to hate all that, and she had for this very reason asked him round so often. Helena and he had been like boy and girl, brother and sister, playing games or finding their dear jelly-fish and crabs together, whilst he had talked to her in just the way to broaden her views out a bit yet not stretch them too far. And now——!
It really was provoking. The silly girl—all girls were silly—would of course exalt him into the fine figure of her first love, the real man for her, the man that she was not allowed to marry....
Mrs. Hallam, always frail and white, seemed to shrink visibly beneath this trouble. She held out a thin hand to the puzzled Helena, and drew her down beside her on the sofa.
"Look here, dear," she said gently; "I want to talk seriously to you. Life isn't so easy as you think. I've kept you here, safe from all worries and responsibilities and guarded you so that everything has seemed quite simple; but there are worries and responsibilities. You've got to live your life now, you see, Helena, and you will have to learn the habit of making quick choices whether you go this way or that. Life is full of cross-roads, you will find, and not all of them lead right. You can't marry the first man you meet just because he asks you to. Later on you might meet some one who, you would then see, is the man you ought to have married.... I don't want to put such terrible ideas into your head, dear child; I've never spoken to you of them, but such things have occurred and may occur again."
Helena was really quite excited. This was the first, almost, she had ever heard of life and it seemed utterly tremendous. She was tired of having choices made for her. She felt a call to the cross-roads. She waited silently for more.
"You see, dear," went on Mrs. Hallam, pressing her child to her as though she could not at all afford to let her go and be left all alone, "you're young, very young, and though I've never told you, very beautiful. You need not fear about being an old maid!" whereat, half laughing and half crying, she kissed Helena, too dazed almost to respond. "That will be possibly life's most important choice. Don't make it, darling child, until you're fit for it. Stay with me," and there was a pathetic appeal in her words, "stay with me till I've taught you how to be reliant. You are a child still; I've kept you young; I hope I have been right; you're not fit to go out and grapple with the world. Stay with me, Helena; tell Mr. Brett that he must wait, and stay here, in your home, until I've made you strong enough to take your part in life."
"Stay here?" Helena repeated automatically.
For one brief moment the barred gates had swung open and she had gained a glimpse at life, its dangers and responsibilities perhaps, but all its splendid thrill and glorious chance. The few cold words from her prim mother had conjured up a rich glowing picture to this girl, who for years had chafed at the narrow round, longing for something—she knew not what, but something broader, something where she could be much more herself—longing, she knew now, for freedom and for life.
Mrs. Hallam looked at her with pain in her eyes.
"Aren't you happy, haven't you been happy here?" she asked.
"Why of course I have, you dearest of dear old mums," cried Helena, and pressed her lips against her mother's cheek; "but——," and she hesitated.
"But——?" asked her mother, smiling sadly. How ridiculous, how almost tragic, it all was! She threw back her mind to her own first romance and wondered where the man was now. "But——? Tell me, dear. I shall quite understand and I am sure you need not feel afraid of me!"
Helena thought deeply. Words were so difficult.
"But——," she said once again; and then, suddenly inspired, she started rapidly; "Well, it is what you said just now. I—I must live my own life. I want—I want to grow. I've not grown since I was fifteen. I felt so silly, like a child, when I was talking to—to Mr. Brett, and I am twenty now." She said this most imposingly.
"And so," said Mrs. Hallam, trying not to smile, "you want to marry Mr. Brett because he made you feel so silly when you talked to him?"
Helena flushed, still sensitive to ridicule. "I want to marry Mr. Brett," she said with dignity, "because he is clever, and being a fool, I admire cleverness more than anything in the whole world, and I believe he'd let me expand."
"Do you mean I have kept you back?" asked her mother, in low, earnest tones. She had accused herself.
"No, you've been splendid." Helena patted her hand. "No girl ever had such a good mother.... And now you are going to be good about this too, and not be troublesome and try to keep me here!" She jumped up and stood facing her, excitement and expectancy.
Mrs. Hallam was suddenly conscious of her weakness.
It had been so easy to be strong when she was dealing with a child—and she had kept Helena a child. Now, in this moment, she realised that she was dealing with a woman, a woman of a stronger will. Something, Mr. Brett perhaps, had altered Helena. Even her way of talking had changed in an instant.
"Expand" and "troublesome"——! She looked up and saw before her no longer an obedient child, but a girl almost bursting with the desire to live at nearly any cost.
Mrs. Hallam was naturally alarmed. She knew that any contest of the wills was useless. She fell back upon pathos.
"Helena dear," she said weakly, "you're twenty now. I don't want to dictate to you, to treat you as a child. You have the right, as you say, to live your own life. But do you think it right," and now her voice grew very feeble, very plaintive, "after I've done all I have for you, not to think of me at all?"
"What do you mean?" asked Helena with quite an emphasis upon the second word. She felt a dim mistrust of this new tone. She had been kindlier to opposition, for indeed at the moment she almost longed to fight.
Mrs. Hallam, anxious to explain, to justify once and for all, began again at the beginning.
"All these years, dear child, though you did not, could not of course guess it, I've been moulding you according to a theory of my own; not a new theory but what is far better, one that has stood the test of centuries. I wanted to form your character, your will, before you were brought face to face with life. That process is not quite complete yet, although you seem to think it is." She spoke the last words rather bitterly, then with a sudden change to gentleness, went on, "But even if it had been, do you think that when I've given up the best years of my life to you, it is fair for you to dash away, leaving me alone, and not to give me the reward of spending a few pleasant years with the dear child I have helped to form?"
She smiled lovingly, but Helena looked coldly back at her. It was the other's point of view, to her, which was not fair.
"I don't see that," she answered almost fiercely, surprised at her own words, oddly unlike herself of one hour ago and many years before. "That's not living your own life a bit. You didn't give those best years of your life to your mother. I shall often see you, and I expect you did yours. You gave the best years of your life to your daughter, you say, and I want to give my best years to mine."
Mrs. Hallam loathed excitement, thinking it bad form; but now she raised her voice. "My dear!" she cried. "Where did you get these most extraordinary notions? Was it from this Mr. Brett?"
"You said you liked all his ideas so much," laughed Helena, "and yet you're shocked because I want to marry him!"
"There is a difference, dear," retorted Mrs. Hallam, her calmness regained, "between liking a man's ideas and caring for him as a son-in-law."
Helena, however, in her new mood wanted something more direct than generalities. "What have you got against him then?" she flashed.
Mrs. Hallam spread her thin hands soothingly. "Nothing, dear, absolutely nothing. Do not let us have a scene. I thought him a charming man; possibly rather self-centred, but clever, cultured, and with, I am sure, good motives. I feel certain he will do extremely well. If you had wished to marry him in five years—but at twenty——!" She spoke as though it were fourteen.
"Well," remarked Helena slowly, as though reviewing the whole situation from impartial ground, "I suppose the wedding won't be to-morrow. Don't you usually wait a bit?"
Her mother noticed that there was no hypothesis—no "wouldn't be"—about it. She saw no good in a conflict. The girl was twenty, the man probably twelve or more years older; there was nothing, she almost regretfully admitted, to be said against him; they had seemed good chums. Most mothers would have been delighted, for he was making himself a name as a novelist. Yet she was not, for he had come with this preposterously worded letter to wreck all her plans. She had thought him so safe, from the mere fact that he had no romance or sentiment about him. He was so safe, yes, for Helena; a real platonic friendship; opening her eyes a little to the bigger world outside, but altogether to be trusted not to put ridiculous ideas into her head. He was the first man with whom she had ever trusted Helena at all alone, and now——!
"Mother," laughed Helena, suddenly clasping her fondly round the neck, "I can see from your cross face you do mean to be troublesome! Now just be good instead and say that we may be at any rate engaged? It will be such fun, and we can see then how we feel about it."
Mrs. Hallam by now knew with all certainty that she was weak. She felt a vague sense of relief that Helena had asked permission; at one moment she had not expected that.... If she refused it, what would be the end? Possibly elopement, suicide, or some other of those awful means that modern girls employed so freely.... Whereas if she said yes, she still retained her grip as mother and might use what authority she had to disillusion slowly this girl, who looked on her engagement as mere fun.
"Very well, my own dear daughter," she said and suddenly found herself crying.
To Helena also things had turned out otherwise than she expected. She had not ever thought that she would get her mother's leave. For one moment it was almost a shock! She felt suddenly thrust out beyond recall upon a journey all mysterious to her. She was not sure, now, that she ever meant to do more than assert her right to do just as she wanted.
Did she want to marry Hubert Brett? She was not really sure.
She wanted certainly to get away from Home....
Five more years of this—that was what her mother hinted at—five more years of being ignorant, of seeing no one, knowing nothing about anything that mattered, being just your mother's daughter—five more wasted years!...
So that, after having dried her mother's tears and told her, very truly, how much she had always and would always love her, she hurried upstairs to her writing-desk with quite a new sensation of life being a most vital and palpitating thing. Her days had been all terribly alike: this was so different and thrilling!
The only thing was—how did one begin?
She wished she had asked Mother. She couldn't very well go down and ask her now. Besides, she might just change her mind.
"Mr." looked so stiff like that; yet she did not like, quite, to call him Hubert yet.
She gave a little laugh of excitement. What fun it all was! She wondered if other people felt like this, when they were getting married. They probably knew all about it?
Oh yes, of course; she'd go by his letter....
But no; because when he wrote they were not engaged!
So finally she thought it best to leave a blank and start straight off—
"I really don't know at all what I ought to say. I am no good at letters and this is very difficult, but I too enjoyed all our walks and things, and if you really want to marry me I don't see why we shouldn't be engaged. I liked you very much down here and hope I shall make you happy. Mother doesn't seem very keen about it, I think she thinks I am too young though I am twenty, but she has given her consent and will, I am sure, come round to it, so don't worry.
"I'm afraid you'll think this letter very stupid, but you know how ashamed I always was of my ignorance. I seem to know nothing! It is very nice indeed of any one like you to care for me.
"Yours,
"HELENA HALLAM.
"P.S.—You won't be able to tease me any more about my name, afterwards!"
Perhaps to any real anthologist or expert of love-letters this would seem but little better than the attempt it answered; yet if success must be judged by results, it cannot have been much amiss, since for the first time in his life Hubert Brett was melted to a display of ridiculous emotion. "Dear little girl!" he murmured aloud and kissed the last words before her signature.
As for Helena, having run out to the village and posted the letter unread by her mother—a cause of yet further misgiving to the theorist—she began to wonder ever so little whether she had done quite wisely.
From somewhere (who can say whence, since some things are inborn in Man?) she had got the notion, possibly ridiculous, that courting and proposals were quite different from this. Even in the Lives and comic papers men knelt and that sort of thing. She felt she had been cheated rather of Romance.
As things were, with her so ignorant and Mother like that, it was all a little of a worry.
But it was also a way out....