How could the facts of existence be reconciled with the idea of Divine Justice? On one side were men and women born to wealth and position and happiness; on the other, men and women denied the least of the blessings of life. Why were some of God’s creatures petted and pampered, and others kicked about and maltreated? Was the world of men so made from the beginning, or had things so come about through man’s mismanagement, and if so, where was the over-ruling Providence which governed the world? When the Noah’s Ark arrived new from the great toy-shop whence issue the planets and spheres, were all the figures round and fitted together, only afterwards in the rearrangement to impinge on and mutilate each other? Or had they been all alike in the beginning and had developed their horns and proboscises, their tusks and broad-brimmed hats? Life is a sort of pantomime, that begins with a fairy tale, leads to a transformation scene, and ends, perhaps, with low comedy. In a moment when we least expect it, ensues a blaze of light, a spectacular arrangement of performers, and then, away fall the trappings of splendour, and forth, from under them, leap out harlequin, clown, and pantaloon. The knights cast off their silver armour, the fairies shed their gauzy wings, kings and queens depose their crowns and sceptres, and there are revealed to us ordinary men and women, with streaks of paint on their faces, and patches of powder in their hair, perpetrating dismal jokes, the point of which we fancy is levelled at ourselves.
To some men and women the transformation scene arrives late in life, but to all inevitably at some time; and then when the scene on the stage before us is changed, a greater transformation ensues within.
When we were children we believed that everything glittering was gold, that men were disinterested and women sincere. The transformation scene came on us, perhaps with coruscations of light and grouping of colours and actors, perhaps without, and went by, leaving us mistrustful of every person, doubtful of everything, sceptical, cynical, disenchanted. Is not—to take a crucial case—marriage itself a grand transformation scene that closes the idyl of youth, and opens the drama of middle age? We live for a while in a fairy world, the flowers blaze with the most brilliant colours, the air is spiced as the breezes of Ceylon, angels converse with men, and sing æthereal music, manna floats down from heaven, containing in itself all sweetness; sun and moon stand still o’er us, over against each other, not to witness a conflict, as of old in Ajalon, but to brighten and prolong the day of glamour. Then the bride appears before us, as Eve appeared to Adam, unutterably beautiful and perfect and innocent, and we kneel in a rapture, and dare not breathe, dare not speak, nor stir; and swoon in an ecstasy of wonder and adoration.
Then tingle the marriage bells. The transformation scene is well set with bridesmaids and orange-blossoms, and a wedding breakfast, postboys with favours, and a shower of rice, and then—?
The fairy tale is over. The first part of the pantomime is over. The colours have lost their brilliancy, the flowers shrivel, the scents are resolved into smells of everyday life, broiled bacon, cabbage water, and the light is eclipsed as by a November fog. The men for the way-rate, the water-rate, and the gas-rate are urgent to have a word with us. There descend on our table at every quarter most bitter bills—those of the butcher and the green-grocer, the milliner’s little account, and the heavy itemless bill from the doctor. What shall we say about our Eve, the beautiful, the all-but divine, the ideal woman? The all-but divine turns out to have a touchy temper and a twanging tongue, falls out with her cook, dismisses her, and consequently serves you cold mutton and underboiled potatoes.
The transformation is complete, and how does it leave us? In a rage at our folly? Cursing our idealism? Rasped and irritable? Withdrawing more and more from the society of our Eve, and our Eden turned to an espalier garden, to our club? So it is in many cases. The transformation scene is a trial, and certain ones there are that never recover the shock of disenchantment; but there are others, on the other hand, who endure, and to them comes in the end a reward. These continue to sit in their box, listless, paring their nails, turning the programme face downwards. Half contemptuously, wholly void of interest, they lend a dull ear to what follows, and look on with a wondering eye, convinced that the rest is farce and buffoonery and a vexation of spirit, which must however be sat through; then, little by little fresh interests arise, tiny new actors invade the stage, with sweet but feeble voices, saying nothing of point, yet full of poetry. The magic begins to work once more, the little fingers weave a spell that lays hold of heart and brain, and conjures up a new world of fantasy. The flowers re-open and flush with colour, the balmy air fans our jaded faces, again the songs of angels reach our ears, the clouds dispel, the manna falls, Eve resumes her beauty, not the old beauty of childlike innocence and freshness, but that of ripened womanhood, of sweet maternity, of self-command and self-devotion.
We sit hushed with our head in our hands, and look with intense eye, and listen with sharpened ear, and the tears rise and run down our cheeks. We have forgotten the old Eden with its fantastic imaginations, in the more matured, the richer, the fuller, and above all the more real paradise that is now revealed.
In the case of Arminell Inglett there was no enchantment of colour, no setting of tableau, for the transformation scene; it came on her suddenly but also quietly. In one day, on a quiet country Sunday, when she walked out of the dull and stuffy school, she passed, as it were, through a veil, out of childland into the realm of Sphinx.
In the evening, after a dull dinner, instead of remaining in the drawing-room with my lady, who had taken up a magazine, Arminell put a shawl over her head and shoulders, went forth into the garden, and thence to the avenue.
The evening was pleasantly warm, the weather beautiful; beneath the trees the dew did not fall heavily. A new moon was shining. The girl thought over what she had heard and seen that day—over the troubles and wrongs of Captain Saltren, driven from his occupation, and yet chained to the house that was his own, and with which he would not part; over the defiant scepticism of Patience Kite, at war in heart with God and man; over the suffering lives of Samuel and Joan, united in heart, yet severed by fate, looking to a common grave as the marriage bed, and Arminell felt almost contempt for these latter, because they accepted their lot without resentment. She thought over what young Mr. Saltren had said about his own position, and she was able to understand that it was one of difficulty and discomfort.