“Yes, and here we come again to imperfect sympathies,” she said. “It seems to me that perhaps after all it was sorrow and bitterness, and the need of fighting them, that awoke my perceptions, and let me see and say what after all did go home to people. Was it that, do you think? Was that God’s plan? Is happiness such as afterward was mine, so embracing and divine a gift that it is sufficient in itself, so that our other faculties are dulled and rendered sleepy? That would be a bitter choice to be obliged to make, to be happy for one’s own sake, or to feel the sting of misery, in order that one might comprehend the sorrow of the world. Which would you choose? I know which I should. I should always choose to be happy, I am afraid. Yet perhaps the other lot is the nobler. Is that a wee bit Ambrosian?”
Peggy laughed, but from the lips only. It was rather a disquieting question.
“Oh, I can’t believe that!” she said quickly. “I can’t believe that God gives misery to quicken us, and does not give happiness to do the same. He must fulfil Himself through joy surely. He must mean us to be happy, or else the world becomes a very tragic thing.”
“And supposing it is?” asked Edith.
“Ah, you are supposing the impossible!” said Peggy quickly. “The world isn’t tragic, not in the main at any rate. We’ve got to go on from strength to strength, not from misery to misery. You of all people in the world have proved that. You came out of hell into the sunlight. Don’t tell me that wasn’t intended. Of course it was. And for the rest of your difficulty, I think you have been rather indolent, and it has been your own fault. Use your happiness as you used your misery. I hate letting things go to waste. Why, I know we agree about that. You have this gift, you have shown it. Really, you are behaving rather in the way Hugh behaved about his singing. You are well again, dear, you have had this huge stimulus of bearing a son to your husband. I really do think that it’s time for you to begin again.”
“But I’m going to Munich almost at once,” said Edith.
“Yes, in a fortnight. Get through something first. You have no idea how much more you will enjoy it if you have rather tired yourself first. I suggest also that you read us your play as far as it has gone, after dinner to-night. And if we think it dull, why, we will tell you so, and, if you trust our judgment, you can begin it all over again. What nice plans I make for you.”
“I have read it to Hugh,” said Edith in a moment, “and—well, Hugh has got a great deal of perception, you know—his comment was that it wasn’t really by Andrew Robb at all. That seems to me to be the case. You see, Andrew Robb was a lonely old gentleman, who was forever fighting against the bitterness within himself, and trying to be reasonable and kind in spite of it all. And I expect that struggling to be kind makes one sympathise with the strugglers. I am too sleek now, too contented.”
“Ah, I am sorry!” said Peggy. “Andrew Robb was such a dear. Do you think he is really dead?”
Edith got up with a little shudder of goose-flesh.