Marion Fay: A Novel

by Anthony Trollope

"Is it no better than that?"

"What can be better, what can be purer,—if only it be true? And though it be false to me, it may be true to her. It is for my sake that she dreams of her Paradise,—that my wounds may be made whole, that my heart may be cured. Christ's lesson has been so learned by her that no further learning seems necessary. I fancy sometimes that I can see the platform raised just one step above the ground on which I stand,—and look into the higher world to which I am ascending. It may be that it is given to her to look up the one rung of the ladder by mounting which she shall find herself enveloped in the full glory of perfection."

In conversations such as these Mrs. Roden was confounded by the depth of the man's love. It became impossible to bid him not be of a broken heart, or even to allude to those fresh hopes which Time would bring. He spoke to her often of his future life, always speaking of a life from which Marion would have been withdrawn by death, and did so with a cold, passionless assurance which showed her that he had almost resolved as to the future. He would see all lands that were to be seen, and converse with all people. The social condition of God's creatures at large should be his study. The task would be endless, and, as he said, an endless task hardly admits of absolute misery. "If I die there will be an end of it. If I live till old age shall have made me powerless to carry on my work, time will then probably have done something to dim the feeling." "I think," he said again;—"I feel that could I but remember her as my wife—"

"It is impossible," said Mrs. Roden.

"But if it were so! It would be no more than a thin threadbare cloak over a woman's shivering shoulders. It is not much against the cold; but it would be very cruel to take that little from her." She looked at him with her eyes flooded with tears, but she could only shake her head in sign that it was impossible.

At last, just at the end of July, there came a request that he would go down to Pegwell Bay. "It is so long since we have seen each other," she wrote, "and, perhaps, it is better that you should come than that I should go. The doctor is fidgety, and says so. But my darling will be good to me;—will he not? When I have seen a tear in your eyes it has gone near to crush me. That a woman, or even a man, should weep at some unexpected tidings of woe is natural. But who cries for spilt milk? Tell me that God's hand, though it be heavy to you, shall be borne with reverence and obedience and love."

He did not tell her this, but he resolved that if possible she should see no tears. As for that cheerfulness, that reconciliation to his fate which she desired, he knew it to be impossible. He almost brought himself to believe as he travelled down to Pegwell Bay that it would be better that they should not meet. To thank the Lord for all His mercies was in her mind. To complain with all the bitterness of his heart of the cruelty with which he was treated was in his. He had told Mrs. Roden that according to his creed there would be a better world to come for him if he could succeed in taming the selfishness of self. But he told himself now that the struggle to do so had hitherto been vain. There had been but the one thing which had ever been to him supremely desirable. He had gone through the years of his early life forming some Utopian ideas,—dreaming of some perfection in politics, in philanthropy, in social reform, and the like,—something by devoting himself to which he could make his life a joy to himself. Then this girl had come across him, and there had suddenly sprung up within him a love so strong that all these other things faded into littlenesses. They should not be discarded. Work would be wanted for his life, and for hers. But here he had found the true salt by which all his work would be vivified and preserved and made holy and happy and glorious. There had come a something to him that was all that he wanted it to be. And now the something was fading from him,—was already all but gone. In such a state how should he tame the selfishness of self? He abandoned the attempt, and told himself that difficulties had been prepared for him greater than any of which he had dreamed when he had hoped that that taming might be within his power. He could not even spare her in his selfishness. He declared to himself that it was so, and almost owned that it would be better that he should not go to her.

"Yes," she said, when he sat down beside her on her sofa, at an open window looking out on the little bay, "put your hand on mine, dear, and leave it there. To have you with me, to feel the little breeze, and to see you and to touch you is absolute happiness."

"Why did you so often tell me not to come?"

"Ah, why? But I know why it was, my lord." There was something half of tenderness, half pleasantry in the mode of address, and now he had ceased to rebel against it.