FOR LOVE AND LIFE.
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT,
AUTHOR OF
“CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,” “OMBRA,” “MAY,” ETC.
COPYRIGHT EDITION.
I N T W O V O L U M E S.
VOL. II.
LEIPZIG
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ
1874.
The Right of Translation is reserved.
FOR LOVE AND LIFE.
CHAPTER I.
Intoxication.
There is, perhaps, no such crisis in the life of a man as that which occurs when, for the first time, he feels the welfare and happiness of another to be involved in his own. A woman is seldom so entirely detached from ordinary ties of nature as to make this discovery suddenly, or even to be in the position when such a discovery is possible. So long as you have but yourself to think of, you may easily be pardoned for thinking very little of that self, for being careless of its advantage, and letting favourable opportunities slip through your fingers; but suppose you find out in a moment, without warning, that your interests are another’s interests, that to push your own fortune is to push some one else’s fortune, much dearer to you than yourself; and that, in short, you are no longer you at all, but the active member of a double personality—is as startling a sensation as can well be conceived. This was the idea which Edgar had received into his mind for the first time, and it was not wonderful that it excited, nay, intoxicated him, almost beyond his power of self-control. I say for the first time, though he had been on the eve of asking Gussy Thornleigh to marry him three years before, and had therefore realised, or thought he realised, what it would be to enter into such a relationship; but in those days Edgar was rich, and petted by the world, and his bride would have been only a delight and honour the more, not anything calling for sacrifice or effort on his part. He could have given her everything she desired in the world, without losing a night’s rest, or disturbing a single habit. Now the case was very different. The new-born pride which had made him, to his own surprise, so reluctant to apply to anyone for employment, and so little satisfied to dance attendance on Lord Newmarch, died at that single blow.
Dance attendance on Lord Newmarch! ask anybody, everybody for work! Yes, to be sure he would, and never think twice; for had he not now her to think of? A glow of exhilaration came over him. He had been careless, indifferent, sluggish, so long as it was himself only that had to be thought of. Thinking of himself did not suit Edgar; he got sick of the subject, and detested himself, and felt a hundred pricks of annoyance at the thought of being a suitor and applicant for patronage, bearing the scorns of office, and wanting as “patient merit” in a great man’s ante-room. But now! what did he care for those petty annoyances? Why should he object, like a pettish child, to ask for what he wanted? It was for her. He became himself again the moment that the strange and penetrating sweetness of this suggestion (which he declared to himself was incredible, yet believed with all his heart) stole into his soul. This had been what he wanted all along. To have some one to work for, some one to give him an object in life.
Lady Mary had not a notion what she was doing when she set light to the fire which was all ready for that touch—ready to blaze up, and carry with it her own schemes as well as her sister’s precautions. I suppose it was by reason of the fundamental difference between man and woman, that neither of these ladies divined how their hint would act upon Edgar. They thought his virtue (for which they half despised him—for women always have a secret sympathy for the selfish ardour of men in all questions of love) was so great that he might be trusted to restrain even Gussy herself in her “impetuosity,” as they called it, without considering that the young man was disposed to make a goddess of Gussy, to take her will for law, and compass heaven and earth to procure her a gratification. Gussy, though she held herself justified in her unswerving attachment to Edgar, by the fact that, had it not been for his misfortune, she would long ago have been his wife, would, notwithstanding this consolation, have died of shame had she known how entirely her secret had been betrayed. But the betrayal was as a new life to Edgar. His heart rose with all its natural buoyancy; he seemed to himself to spurn his lowliness, his inactivity, his depressed and dejected state from him. That evening he beguiled his hosts into numberless discussions, out of sheer lightness of heart. He laughed at Lady Mary about her educational mania, boldly putting forth its comic side, and begging to know whether German lectures and the use of the globes were so much better, as means of education, than life itself, with all its many perplexities and questions, its hard lessons, its experiences, which no one can escape.
“If a demigod from the sixth form were to come down and seat himself on a bench in a dame’s school,” cried Edgar, “why, to be sure, he might learn something; but what would you think of the wisdom of the proceeding?”