"Opinions differ so much as to what is reasonable."
"Dora's not reasonable at present, anyhow."
Jeremy's mind had not travelled beyond his own predicament.
The contrast he pointed, the mocking memories he stirred, made his presence accentuate and embitter the strife, confirming Sibylla's despair, undermining even Grantley's obstinate self-confidence; while to Blake his example, however much one might smile at it, seemed to cry, "Courage!" He who would have the prize must not shrink from the struggle.
That night Sibylla sat long by her boy's cot. Little Frank slept quietly (he had been named after his godfather, Grantley's friend, that Lord Caylesham who was also the Fanshaws' friend), while his mother fought against the love and the obligation that bound her to him—a sad fight to wage. She had some arguments not lacking speciousness. To what life would he grow up in such a home as theirs! Look at the life the Courtland children led! Would not anything be better than that—any scandal in the past, any loss in present and future? She called to her help too that occasional pang which the helpless little being gave her, he the innocent cause and ignorant embodiment of all her perished hopes. Might not that come oftener? Might it not grow and grow till it conquered all her love, and she ended by hating because she might have loved so greatly? Horrible! Yes, but had it not nearly come to pass with one whom she had loved very greatly? It could not be called impossible, however to be loathed the idea of it might be. No, not impossible! Her husband was the child's father. Did he love him? No, she cried—she had almost persuaded herself that his indifference screened a positive dislike. And if it were not impossible, any desperate thing would be better than the chance of it. But for Grantley she could love, she could go on loving, the child. Then why not make an end of her life with Grantley—the life that was souring her heart and turning all love to bitterness? Grantley would not want the child, and, not wanting it, would let her have it. She did not believe that he would burden himself with the boy for the sake of depriving her of him. She admitted with a passing smile that he had not this small spitefulness—his vices were on a larger scale. She could go to Grantley and say she must leave him. No law and no power could prevent her, and she believed that she could take the boy with her.
Why not do that? Do that, and let honour, at least, stand pure and unimpeached?
The question brought her to the issue she had tried to shirk, to the truth she had sought to hide. Her love for the boy was much, but it was not enough, it did not satisfy. Was it even the greatest thing? As it were with a groan, her spirit answered, No. The answer could not be denied, however she might stand condemned by it. Of physical passion she acquitted herself—and now she was in no mood for easy self-acquittal; but there was the greater passion for intercourse of soul, for union, for devotion, for abandonment of the heart. These asked a responding heart, they asked knowledge, feelings grown to full strength, a conscious will, an intellect adult and articulate. They could be found in full only where she had thought to find them—in the love of woman and man, of fit man for fit woman, and of her for him. They could not be found in the love for her child. Christine Fanshaw had asked her if she could not be wrapped up in the baby. No. She could embrace it in her love, but hers was too large for its little arms to enfold. She cried for a wider field and what seemed a greater task.
And for what was wrong, distasteful, disastrous in the conclusion? She had the old answer for this. "It's not my fault," she said. It was not her fault that her love had found no answering love, had found no sun to bloom in, and had perished for want of warmth. Not on her head lay the blame. So far as human being can absolve human being from the commands of God or of human society, she declared that by Grantley's act she stood absolved. The contract in its true essence had not been broken first by her.
Ah, why talk? Why argue? There were true things to be said, valid arguments to use. On this she insisted. But in the end the imperious cry of her nature rang out over all of them and drowned their feebler voices. Come what might, and let the arguments be weak or strong, she would not for all her life, that glorious life Heaven had given her, beat her heart against the flinty wall.