Stella Fregelius: A Tale of Three Destinies

by H. Rider Haggard

“Mad,” muttered her father to himself as she left the room. “Mad as she is charming and beautiful; or, if not mad, at least quite impracticable and unfitted for the world. What a disappointment to me—what a bitter disappointment! Well, I should be used to them by now.”

Meanwhile, Morris was in his workshop in the old chapel entering up his record of the day’s experiments, which done, he drew his chair to the stove and fell into thought. Somehow the idea of the engagement of Miss Fregelius to Stephen Layard was not agreeable to him; probably because he did not care about the young man. Yet, now that he came to think of it quietly, in all her circumstances it would be an admirable arrangement, and the offer undoubtedly was one which she had been wise to accept. On the whole, such a marriage would be as happy as marriages generally are. The man was honest, the man was young and rich, and very soon the man would be completely at the disposal of his brilliant and beautiful wife.

Personally he, Morris, would lose a friend, since a woman cannot marry and remain the friend of another man. That, however, would probably have happened in any case, and to object on this account, even in his secret heart, would be abominably selfish. Indeed, what right had he even to consider the matter? The young lady had come into his life very strangely, and made a curious impression upon him; she was now going out of it by ordinary channels, and soon nothing but the impression would remain. It was proper, natural, and the way of the world; there was nothing more to be said.

Somehow he was in a dreary mood, and everything bored him. He fetched Mary’s last letter. There was nothing in it but some chit-chat, except the postscript, which was rather longer than the letter, and ran:

“I am glad to hear the young lady whom you fished up out of the sea is such an assistance to you in your experiments. I gather from what I hear—although you haven’t mentioned the fact—that she is as beautiful as she is charming, and that she sings wonderfully. She must be something remarkable, I am sure, because Eliza Layard evidently detests her, and says that she is trying to ensnare the affections of that squire of dames, her brother Stephen, now temporarily homeless after a visit to Jane Rose. What will you do when you have to get on without her? I am afraid you must accustom yourself to the idea, unless she would like to make a third in the honeymoon party. Joking apart, I am exceedingly grateful to her for all the help she has given you, and, dear, dear Morris, more delighted than I can tell you to learn that after all your years of patient labour you believe success to be absolutely within sight.

“My father, I am sorry to say, is no better; indeed, although the doctors deny it, I believe he is worse, and I see no prospect of our getting away from here at present. However, don’t let that bother you, and above all, don’t think of coming out to this place which makes you miserable, and where you can’t work. What a queer ménage you must be at the Abbey now! You and the Star who has risen from the ocean—she ought to have been called Venus—tête-à-tête, and the, I gather, rather feeble and uninteresting old gentleman in bed upstairs. I should like to see you when you didn’t know. Why don’t you invent a machine to enable people at a distance to see as well as to hear each other? It would be very popular and bring Society to utter wreck. Does the Northern star—she is Danish, isn’t she?—make good coffee, and how, oh! how does she get on with the cook?”

Morris put down the letter and laughed aloud. Mary was as amusing as ever, and he longed to see her again, especially as he was convinced that she was really bored out there at Beaulieu, with Mr. Porson sick, and his father very much occupied with his own affairs. In a moment he made up his mind; he would go out and see her. Of course, he could ill spare the time, but for the present the more pressing of his experiments were completed, and he could write up his “data” there. Anyway, he would put in a fortnight at Beaulieu, and, what is more, start to-morrow if it could be arranged.

He went to the table and began a letter to Mary announcing that she might expect to see him sometime on the day that it reached her. When he had got so far as this he remembered that the dressing bell had already rung some minutes, and ran upstairs to change his clothes. As he fastened his tie he thought to himself sadly that this would be his last dinner with Stella Fregelius, and as he brushed his hair he determined that unless she had other wishes, it should be as happy as it could be made. He would like this final meal to be the pleasantest of all their meals, and although, of course, he had no right to form an opinion on the matter, he thought that perhaps she might like it, too. They were going to part, to enter on different walks of life—for now, be it said, he had quite convinced himself that she was engaged—so let their parting memories of each other be as agreeable as possible.

Meanwhile, Stella also had her reflections. Her conversation with her father had troubled her, more, perhaps, than her remarks might have suggested. There was little between this pair except the bond of blood, which sometimes seems to be so curiously accidental, so absolutely devoid of influence in promoting mutual sympathies, or in opening the door to any deep and real affection. Still, notwithstanding this lack of true intimacy, Stella loved her father as she felt that he loved her, and it gave her pain to be forced to cross his wishes. She knew with what a fierce desire, although he was ashamed to express all its intensity, he desired that she should accept this, the first chance of wealthy and successful marriage that had come her way, and the anguish which her absolute refusal must have entailed upon his heart.

Of course, it was very worldly of him, and therefore reprehensible; yet to a great extent she could sympathise with his disappointment. At bottom he was a proud man, although he repressed his pride and kept it secret. He was an ambitious man, also, and his lot had been confined to humble tasks, absolutely unrecognised beyond his parish, of a remotely-placed country parson. Moreover, his family had been rich; he had been brought up to believe that he himself would be rich, and then, owing to certain circumstances, was doomed to pass his days in comparative poverty.