Consciousness to the Unconscious.
Mr Hope might well doubt. Margaret was not gay but desperate. Yes, even the innocent may be desperate under circumstances of education and custom, by which feelings natural and inevitable are made occasions of shame; while others, which are wrong and against the better nature of man, bask in daylight and impunity. There was not a famishing wretch prowling about a baker’s door, more desperate than Margaret this day. There was not a gambler setting his teeth while watching the last turn of the die, more desperate than Margaret this day. If there was a criminal standing above a sea of faces with the abominable executioner’s hands about his throat, Margaret was, for the time, as wretched as he.
If any asked why—why it should be thus with one who has done no wrong, the answer is—Why is there pride in the human heart?—why is there a particular nurture of this pride into womanly reserve?—Why is it that love is the chief experience, and almost the only object, of a woman’s life? Why is it that it is painful to beings who look before and after to have the one hope of existence dashed away—the generous faith outraged—all self-confidence overthrown—life in one moment made dreary as the desert—Heaven itself overclouded—and death all the while standing at such a weary distance that there is no refuge within the horizon of endurance? Be these things right or wrong, they are: and while they are, will the woman who loves, unrequited, feel desperate on the discovery of her loneliness—and, the more pure and proud, innocent and humble, the more lonely.
For some little time past, Margaret had been in a state of great tranquillity about Philip—a tranquillity which she now much wondered at—now that it was all over. She had had an unconscious faith in him; and, living in this faith, she had forgotten herself, she had not thought of the future, she had not felt impatient for any change. Often as she wished for his presence, irksome as she had sometimes felt it to know nothing of him from week to week, she had been tacitly satisfied that she was in his thoughts as he was in hers; and this had been enough for the time. What an awakening from this quiescent state was hers this day!
It was from no other than Dr Levitt that she had heard in the morning that Mr Enderby was shortly going to be married to Miss Mary Bruce. Dr Levitt was at Widow Rye’s when Margaret went, and had walked part of the way home with her. During the walk, this piece of news had dropped out, while they were talking of Mrs Enderby’s health. All that Dr Levitt knew of Miss Mary Bruce was, that she was of sufficiently good family and fortune to make the Rowlands extremely well satisfied with the match; that Mrs Enderby had never seen her, and that it would be some time before she could see her, as the whole family of the Bruces was at Rome for the winter. When Dr Levitt parted from Margaret at the gate of the churchyard, these last words contained the hope she clung to—a hope which might turn into the deepest reason for despair. Philip had certainly not been abroad. Was it likely that he should lately have become engaged to any young lady who had been some time in Rome? It was not likely: but then, if it was true, he must have been long engaged: he must have been engaged at the time of his last visit of six days, when he had talked over his views of life with Margaret, and been so anxious to obtain hers:— he must surely have been engaged in the summer, when she found Tieck in the desk, and when he used to spend so many evenings at the Greys’—certainly not on Hester’s account. At one moment she was confident all this could not be; she was relieved; she stepped lightly. The next moment, a misgiving came that it was all too true; the weight fell again upon her heart, she lost breath, and it was intolerable to have to curtesy to Mrs James, and to answer the butcher’s inquiry about the meat that had been ordered. If these people would only go on with their own business, and take no notice of her! Then, again, the thought occurred, that she knew Philip better than any,—than even his own family; and that, say what they might, he was all her own. In these changes of mood, she had got through dinner; the dominant idea was then that she must, by some means or other, obtain certainty. She thought of Maria. Maria was likely to know the facts, from her constant intercourse with the Rowlands, and besides, there was certainly a something in Maria’s mind in relation to Philip,—a keen insight, which might be owing to the philosophical habit of her mind, or to something else,—but which issued in information about him, which it was surprising that she could obtain. She seldom spoke of him; but when she did, it was wonderfully to the purpose. Margaret thought she could learn from Maria, in a very simple and natural way, that which she so much wished to know: and when she left the room after dinner, it was to write the note which might bring certainty.
“Dear Friend,—I saw Dr Levitt this morning while I was out, and he told me, with all possible assurance, that Mr Enderby is going to be married very shortly to a young lady at Rome,—Miss Mary Bruce. Now, this is true or it is not. If true, you are as well aware as we are that we are entitled to have known it otherwise and earlier than by common report. If not true, the rumour should not be allowed to spread. If you know anything certainly, one way or the other, pray tell us.
“Yours affectionately,
“Margaret Ibbotson.”
The “we” and “us” were not quite honest; but Margaret meant to make them as nearly so as possible by ex-post-facto communication with her brother and sister: a resolution so easily made, that it did not occur to her how difficult it might be to execute. While her messenger was gone, she wrought herself up to a resolution to bear the answer, whatever it might be, with the same quietness with which she must bear the whole of her future life, if Dr Levitt’s news should prove to be founded in fact. The door opening seemed to prick the nerves of her ears: her heart heaved to her throat at the sight of the white paper: yet it was with neatness that she broke the seal, and with a steady hand that she held the note to read it. The handwriting was only too distinct: it seemed to burn itself in upon her brain. All was over.
“Dear Margaret,—I do not know where Dr Levitt got his news; but I believe it is true. Mrs Rowland pretends to absolute certainty about her brother’s engagement to Miss Bruce; and it is from this that others speak so positively about it. Whatever are the grounds that Mrs R. goes upon, there are others which afford a strong presumption that she is right. Some of these may be known to you. They leave no doubt in my mind that the report is true. As to the failure of confidence in his friends,—what can be said?—unless by way of reminder of the old truth that, by the blessing of Heaven, wrongs—be they but deep enough—may chasten a human temper into something divine.
“George has been very grave for the last three hours, pandering, I fancy, what irony can be for. Your sister will not grudge him his lesson, though afforded at her expense.
“Yours affectionately,
“Maria Young.”
“Wrongs!” thought she;—“Maria goes too far when she speaks of wrongs. There was nothing in my note to bring such an expression in answer. It is going too far.”
This was but the irritability of a racked soul, needing to spend its agony somewhere. The remembrance of the conversation with Maria, held so lately, and of Maria’s views of Philip’s relation to her, returned upon her, and her soul melted within her. She, felt that Maria had understood her better than she did herself; and was justified in the words she had used. Under severe calamity, to be endured alone, evil thoughts sometimes come before good ones. Margaret was, for an hour or two, possessed with the bad spirit of defiance. Her mind sank back into what it had been in her childhood, when she had hidden herself in the lumber-room, or behind the water-tub, for many hours, to make the family uneasy, because she had been punished,—in the days when she bore every infliction that her father dared to try, with apparent unconcern, rather than show to watchful eyes that she was moved,—in the days when the slightest concession would dissolve her stubbornness in an instant, but when, to get rid of a life of contradiction, she had had serious thoughts of cutting her throat, had gone to the kitchen door to get the carving-knife, and had been much disappointed to find the servants at dinner, and the knife-tray out of reach. This spirit, so long ago driven out by the genial influences of family love, by the religion of an expanding intellect, and the solace of appreciation, now came back to inhabit the purified bosom which had been kept carefully swept and garnished. It was the motion of this spirit, uneasy in its unfit abode, that showed itself by the shiver, the flushed cheek, the clenching hand, and the flashing eye. It kept whispering wicked things,—“I will baffle and deceive Maria: she shall withdraw her pity, and laugh at it with me.” “I defy Edward and Hester: they shall wonder how it is that my fancy alone is free, that my heart alone is untouched, that the storms of life pass high over my head, and dare not lower.” “I will humble Philip, and convince him...” But, no; it would not do. The abode was too lowly and too pure for the evil spirit of defiance: the demon did not wait to be cast out; but as Margaret sat down in her chamber, alone with her lot, to face it as she might, the strange inmate escaped, and left her at least herself.