More curious still, and scarcely less bewildering, was the strange trance of suspended existence in which Rose spent these three days. It was but two years since she had left Miss Margetts’, and some of her friends were there still. She was glad to meet them, as much as she could be glad of anything in her preoccupied state, but felt the strangest difference—a difference which she was totally incapable of putting into words—between them and herself. Rose, without knowing it, had made a huge stride in life since she had left their bare school-room. I dare say her education might with much advantage have been carried on a great deal longer than it was, and that her power of thinking might have increased, and her mind been much improved, had she been sent to college afterwards, as boys are, and as some people think girls ought to be; but though she had not been to college, education of a totally different kind had been going on for Rose. She had made a step in life which carried her altogether beyond the placid region in which the other girls lived and worked. She was in the midst of problems which Euclid cannot touch, nor logic solve. She had to exercise choice in a matter concerning other lives as well as her own. She had to decide unaided between a true and a false moral duty, and to make up her mind which was true and which was false. She had to discriminate in what point Inclination ought to be considered a rule of conduct, and in what points it ought to be crushed as mere self-seeking; or whether it should not always be crushed, which was her mother’s code; or if it ought to have supreme weight, which was her father’s practice. This is not the kind of training which youth can get from schools, whether in Miss Margetts’ establishment for young ladies, or even in learned Balliol. Rose, who had been subjected to it, felt, but could not tell why, as if she were years and worlds removed from the school and its duties. She could scarcely help smiling at the elder girls with their “deep” studies and their books, which were far more advanced intellectually than Rose. Oh, how easy the hardest grammar was, the difficulties of Goethe, or of Dante (or even of Thucydides or Perseus, but these she did not know), in comparison with this difficulty which tore her asunder! Even the moral and religious truths in which she had been trained from her cradle scarcely helped her. The question was one to be decided for herself and by herself, and by her for her alone.
And here is the question, dear reader, as the girl had to decide it. Self-denial is the rule of Christianity. It is the highest and noblest of duties when exercised for a true end. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.” Thus it has the highest sanction which any duty can have, and it is the very life and breath and essence of Christianity. This being the rule, is there one special case excepted in which you ought not to deny yourself? and is this case the individual one of Marriage? Allowing that in all other matters it is right to sacrifice your own wishes, where by doing so you benefit others, is it right to sacrifice your love and happiness in order to please your friends, and make a man happy who loves you, but whom you do not love? According to Mrs. Damerel this was so, and the sacrifice of a girl who made a loveless marriage for a good purpose was as noble as any other martyrdom for the benefit of country or family or race. Gentle reader, if you do not skip the statement of the question altogether, you will probably decide it summarily and wonder at Rose’s indecision. But hers was no such easy way of dealing with the problem, which I agree with her in thinking is much harder than anything in Euclid. She was not by any means sure that this amount of self-sacrifice was not a duty. Her heart divined, her very intellect felt, without penetrating, a fallacy somewhere in the argument; but still the argument was very potent and not to be got over. She was not sure that to listen to Edward Wodehouse, and to suffer even an unguarded reply to drop from her lips, was not a sin. She was far from being sure that in any case it is safe or right to do what you like; and to do what you like in contradiction to your mother, to your engagement, to your plighted word—what could that be but a sin? She employed all her simple logic on the subject with little effect, for in strict logic she was bound over to marry Mr. Incledon, and now more than ever her heart resolved against marrying Mr. Incledon.
This question worked in her mind, presenting itself in every possible phase—now one side, now the other. And she dared not consult any one near, and none of those who were interested in its solution took any notice of her. She was left alone in unbroken stillness to judge for herself, to make her own conclusion. The first day she was still occupied with the novelty of her position—the fatigue and excitement of leaving home, and of all that had occurred since. The second day she was still strangely moved by the difference between herself and her old friends, and the sense of having passed beyond them into regions unknown to their philosophy, and from which she never could come back to the unbroken tranquillity of a girl’s life. But on the third day the weight of her strange position weighed her down utterly. She watched the distribution of the letters with eyes growing twice their natural size, and a pang indescribable at her heart. Did they mean to leave her alone then? to take no further trouble about her? to let her do as she liked, that melancholy privilege which is prized only by those who do not possess it? Had Edward forgotten her, though he had said so much two days ago? had her mother cast her off, despising her, as a rebel? Even Mr. Incledon, was he going to let her be lost to him without an effort? Rose had fled hoping (she believed) for nothing so much as to lose herself and be heard of no more; but oh! the heaviness which drooped over her very soul when for three days she was let alone! Wonder, consternation, indignation, arose one after another in her heart. They had all abandoned her. The lover whom she loved, and the lover whom she did not love, alike. What was love then? a mere fable, a thing which perished when the object of it was out of sight? When she had time to think, indeed, she found this theory untenable, for had not Edward been faithful to her at the other end of the world? and yet what did he mean now?
On the third night Rose threw herself on her bed in despair, and sobbed till midnight. Then a mighty resolution arose in her mind. She would relieve herself of the burden. She would go to the fountain-head, to Mr. Incledon himself, and lay the whole long tale before him. He was good, he was just, he had always been kind to her; she would abide by what he said. If he insisted that she should marry him, she must do so; better that than to be thrown off by everybody, to be left for days or perhaps for years alone in Miss Margetts’. And if he were generous, and decided otherwise! In that case neither Mrs. Damerel nor any one else could have anything to say—she would put it into his hands.
She had her hat on when she came down to breakfast next morning, and her face, though pale, had a little resolution in it, better than the despondency of the first three days. “I am going home,” she said, as the school-mistress looked at her, surprised.
“It is the very best thing you can do, my dear,” said Miss Margetts, giving her a more cordial kiss than usual. “I did not like to advise it; but it is the very best thing you can do.”
Rose took her breakfast meekly, not so much comforted as Miss Margetts had intended by this approval. Somehow she felt as if it must be against her own interest since Miss Margetts approved of it, and she was in twenty minds then not to go. When the letters came in she said to herself that there could be none for her, and went and stood at the window, turning her back that she might not see; and it was while she was standing thus, pretending to gaze out upon the high wall covered with ivy, that, in the usual contradiction of human affairs, Edward Wodehouse’s impassioned letter was put into her hands. There she read how he too had made up his mind not to bear it longer; how he was going to her mother to have an explanation with her. Should she wait for the result of this explanation, or should she carry out her own determination and go?
“Come, Rose, I will see you safely to the station: there is a cab at the door,” said Miss Margetts.
Rose turned round, her eyes dewy and moist with those tears of love and consolation which refresh and do not scorch as they come. She looked up timidly to see whether she might ask leave to stay; but the cab was waiting, and Miss Margetts was ready, and her own hat on and intention declared; she was ashamed to turn back when she had gone so far. She said good-by accordingly to the elder sister, and meekly followed Miss Anne into the cab. Had it been worth while winding herself up to the resolution of flight for so little? Was her first experiment of resistance really over, and the rebel going home, with arms grounded and banners trailing? It was ignominious beyond all expression—but what was she to do?
“My dear,” said Miss Margetts, in the cab, which jolted very much, and now and then took away her breath, “I hope you are going with your mind in a better frame, and disposed to pay attention to what your good mother says. She must know best. Try and remember this, whatever happens. You ought to say it to yourself all the way down as a penance, ‘My mother knows best.’”