Fated to Be Free: A Novel

by Jean Ingelow

It was all very well to read of it in the Bible, because that concerned a by-gone day, or even to hear a clergyman preach of it, this belonged to his office; but when this old man, with his white beard, talked to her and her husband just as David had talked in some of his psalms, she was afraid, and found his aspiration worse to her than any amount of exhortation could have been.

What so impossible to thought as such a longing for intercourse with the awful and the remote—"With my soul have I desired thee in the night;" "My soul is athirst for God;" no, not so, says the listener who stands without—I will come to his house and make obeisance, but let me withdraw soon again from his presence, and dwell undaunted among my peers.

There is, indeed, nothing concerning which people more fully feel that they cannot away with it than another man's aspiration.

And her husband liked it. He was not afraid, as she was, of the old man's prayers, though he fully believed they would be answered.

He tried to be loyal to the light he walked in, and his father rested in a trust concerning him and his, which had almost the assurance of possession.

She also, in the course of a few years, came to believe that she must ere long be drawn into a light which as yet had not risen. She feared it less, but never reached the point of wishing to see it shine.

At varying intervals, Mrs. John Mortimer presented her husband with another lovely and healthy infant, and she also, in her turn, received a gift from her father-in-law, together with the letter of thanks.

In the meantime her husband grew. He became first manly, more manly than the average man, as is often the case with those who have an unusually long boyhood. Then by culture and travel he developed the resources of a keenly observant and very thoughtful mind. Then his love for his children made a naturally sweet temper sweeter still, and in the course of a very few years he had so completely left his wife behind, that it never occurred to him to think of her as a companion for his inner life. He liked her; she never nagged; he considered her an excellent housekeeper; in fact, they were mutually pleased with one another; their cases were equal; both often thought they might have been worse off, and neither regretted with any keenness what they had never known.

Sometimes, having much sweetness of nature, it would chance that John Mortimer's love for his children would overflow in his wife's direction, on which, as if to recall him to himself, she would say, not coldly, but sensibly, "Don't be silly, John dear." But if he expressed gratitude on her account, as he sometimes did when she had an infant of a few days old in her arms, if his soul appeared to draw nearer to her then, and he inclined to talk of deeper and wider things than they commonly spoke of, she was always distinctly aggrieved. A tear perhaps would twinkle in her eye. She was affected by his relief after anxiety, and his gratitude for her safety; but she did not like to feel affected, and brought him back to the common level of their lives as soon as possible.

So they lived together in peace and prosperity till they had seven children, and then, one fine autumn, Mrs. John Mortimer persuaded her father-in-law to do up the house, so far as papering and painting were concerned. She then persuaded John to take a tour, and went herself to the sea-side with her children.