'Now,' said she, 'the next thing to be done is to bring that other fool here.' Then she wrote a note to Herring, requesting him to come to Launceston, as her mother and she wished to consult him on important business. She added in a postscript, 'Mirelle will be most happy to see you.'
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
A VIRGIN MARTYR.
In the privacy of her own room, by night, in the little garden house, her favourite refuge by day, Mirelle considered what Orange had said to her. She was hurt and offended by the manner in which Orange had spoken, without quite understanding why. Her refined nature winced before the rough touch of one coarse as Orange, not only because the touch was rude, but because it sullied.
Mirelle believed that Orange was her friend, a rude friend, but sincere. What had she done to convert her into an enemy? She was not a friend to whom she could open her heart, and she had no desire to receive the outpourings of that of Orange. They were friends so far as this went, that each wished well to the other, and would do her utmost to promote each other's happiness.
Orange was the interpreter of the world's voice to Mirelle, the guide through its mazes. That voice was odious to her, nevertheless she must hear it. Its ways were distasteful, nevertheless she must tread them. She knew nothing of the world, except what she had been taught in the convent. She believed it to be wicked and ungodly. The virgin martyrs had been cast to wild beasts, some had been devoured by leopards, others hugged by bears. The world was an arena in which she was exposed, and Orange the rough but kindly executioner who offered her a choice of martyrdom. An angel, a captain of the heavenly militia, with eyes blue as the skies of paradise, had been sent to stand by, and guard many a virgin; but she, Mirelle, must endure her agony undefended, and see the angel stand by one who seemed rude and dauntless enough to fight the battle unaided.
King Alphonso X. of Castile said that, if he had been consulted at the creation of the universe, he would have made it much better; the sisters of the Sacred Heart had intimated as much in their instructions. In the first place they would have made a world without men, and that world would have remained a paradise. Men are the cankers that corrode the roses, the thorns that strangle the lilies in the garden of the Church, the moths that fret the garments of the saints, the incarnation of the destructive principle.
Mirelle remembered how her mother had suffered through union with Mr. Strange. She thought of Mr. Trampleasure, of Sampson—she really knew very few men, and those she knew were not of the best type. There was the Captain, indeed, but he was unattainable, and Herring was at least inoffensive and well-meaning. If she must be thrown to beasts, let her be cast to such a gentle beast as this. Hereafter, only, will there be no marrying nor giving in marriage, and women will be at peace; there, into that blessed country, the men, if admitted at all, will be like priests, wear petticoats and be shaven; above all, will be in such a minority that they will be obliged to keep their distance and adopt a submissive manner. Mirelle had a good deal of natural shrewdness, but no experience of life. Brought up in a convent, the only world she knew was the little world within four walls, in which the wildest hurricane that raged was occasioned by a junior appropriating the chair properly belonging to a senior, and the fiercest jealousies blazed when a father director addressed four words to Sister Magdalen of S. Paul, and only three to Sister Rose of the Cross. When she had gone out, it was on visits to her mother, and there she had met very artificial old gentlemen, and still more artificial old ladies, persons who looked like pictures in illustrated story-books, and talked like the people she read of in the same books. She supposed that her board and education were paid for at the Sacré Coeur. She supposed so, she took it for granted. She considered it probable that those pupils who could afford, paid, and those who could not afford, were received gratuitously. The sisters never mentioned such matters, her mother never alluded to them, and Mirelle had scarce accorded such sordid cares a passing thought. Bread and instruction came to her as food and light to the birds; the birds take what is sent, and do not trouble their feathery heads about the how and whence. Now she was driven to consider how she might live, and whether it was right for her to subsist on alms, and those the alms of a gentleman who was no relation, and how, if these means were withdrawn or rejected, she was to live at all.
After much thought, little sleep, and many tears, she decided that she would accept John Herring.
She had made up her mind. Now, she must obtain command of herself to go through the approaching ordeal with dignity.