FANSHAWE left Pitcomlie with his head in a maze, affected as he had never been in his life, and had never supposed himself capable of being affected. He had been in love—as who has not, who has lived to be thirty?—but without feeling in the least as he felt now. In the feverish fits of that malady which he had experienced hitherto it was she, the heroine of the moment, that was foremost in his thoughts. He had been full of nothing but how to see her, how to have opportunities of talking to her, how to dance, or ride, or walk with her, according as the occasion favoured. In short, she had always belonged to some holiday version of life, and had been enshrined in a glittering framework of society, in which alone he knew her, and through which alone he could seek her presence. Half a dozen such loves at least, on a moderate computation, Fanshawe had experienced, and after having been made happy and miserable for a certain number of days or weeks, as it happened, society which brought her to him had swept her away again, and he had heard with resignation some time later that the temporary lady of his thoughts had become Mrs. or Lady Somebody Else. Sometimes a passing jar, of what is poetically called the heart-strings, hailed this information, and for a day or so he would be very sorry for himself as a poor devil who could never hope to marry; but there it had ended, and in a week after he had felt better, and decided that, on the whole, everything was for the best. This, however, was not at all the state of his feelings now. He did not know whether he was in love with Marjory Hay-Heriot. Sometimes he did not think he was; but one thing he was sure of, which was that he was very much out of love with himself. None of those complacent self-compassionating plaints of the poor devil order occurred to him. His thoughts were of a kind much less easily managed. He was dissatisfied with himself and everything round him, with his means, his habits, his former life, his want of any actual existence worth speaking of, his complete unimportance to the world. He was young, strong, not badly endowed either in body or mind, with enough to live on, and no cares or trammels of any kind; and yet the fact was certain that, if he died to-morrow it would be no loss to any one; nobody would miss him; nothing would come to a stop. How many men would find themselves in the same position did they inquire into it? He had enough to live on, enough to keep a horse and a servant, to do whatever he pleased, to travel, to surround himself with such luxuries as he cared for, to get most things that he wanted. Except in that matter of a wife, which, to tell the truth, was a thing he had never very warmly wanted, there was nothing which he had denied himself. To be sure he was generally more or less in debt, but never so much that he could not set his affairs right by an effort, if he had a strong enough motive for doing so. He had not thus the burden on his conscience that many other men have. He was a good-for-nothing, if we may use the expression, without being a scapegrace like Tom Heriot. He injured nobody. One time or other, though often considerably after date, he paid his bills. No man, or woman either, so far as he knew, was the worse for his existence, and yet——
There are a great many people who go harmlessly, pleasantly, through the world, who, if it ever occurred to them to place themselves by the side of a really useful member of society, and compare their lives with his or hers, would find themselves as much embarrassed by the contrast as Fanshawe was. But fortunately for the idlers of humanity, the contrast seldom strikes them with all the sharp distinctions of light and shadow which existed in this case. The élégant smiles complacently over the comparison, and finds in his own case a host of extraordinary circumstances which he feels to be really superiorities, and which raise him to a level very much higher than that of the plodding fellow by his side, who, like Atlas, carries a world on his shoulders. The race-horse is less useful than the dray-horse, but how different! This consolation generally lays the most flattering unction to the souls of the ornamental portion of society. How is it possible that the fine lady could feel herself anything but superior to the domestic dowdy who does so much more than she, and is of such inferior importance in everybody’s estimation? The butterflies of existence have always this comfort, or at least they take it in most cases; and no doubt Fanshawe, like other men of his acquaintance, had smiled and hugged himself on his superiority to the occasional industrial of his acquaintance who had toiled himself up into reputation at the bar, or made a slave of himself in parliament, while his schoolfellow lounged at his club, or fluttered in the Row, or (which was the most serious of his occupations) hunted or shot, or went fishing in strange waters. The comparison which had been suggested to him now, however, and the moral standard to which he had been suddenly forced to fit himself, was of a very different kind from that of the successful barrister or rising politician. And the effect upon his mind was complicated by the creation of so many new sentiments and necessities in himself, that the comparison went much further than a mere external contrast could have done. Ambition—a thing he had never known in his life—had sprung up within him; acquisitiveness—a desire to have, to possess, and to enjoy; an impatience of the present aspect and conditions of life; a sense of disgust with himself and his circumstances. These were not moral qualities, let us allow, nor amiable, nor in any way an improvement upon the gentle and light-hearted contentedness of the past. I am simply stating facts, and not demanding any approval of them. This was the new development to which Fanshawe had come. His past easy life was odious to him; he wanted to become on the spot something totally different—something which seemed to him better, though morally it might not perhaps be so. Certainly at the first offset it was not a moral improvement. To substitute dissatisfaction for content, uneasiness for calm, care and mental restlessness for the happy insouciance of a man undisturbed by any thought of his career, was neither an advantage to himself, nor to anybody near him. He who had been the most good-natured, easy-going, well-conditioned fellow known to his friends, became all at once moody, uncertain, unmanageable. He had resolved to “make a change,” and he was pre-occupied, to the exclusion of everything else, with thoughts of what that change must be.
For it is a great deal easier to decide that you must turn over a new leaf, and that henceforward, instead of being useless, your life must be profitable to yourself and the world, than it is to decide how this change is to be accomplished. If every man when he begins to take thought of the more serious duties of life could immediately settle himself down as a landed proprietor, with an estate to manage, cottages to improve, farmers to influence, a seat on the bench, and a vote for the county, how many men would see their duty more clearly than they have ever as yet seen it! But we cannot attain all this simply by resolving upon it, and Fanshawe did not know what else to do. He would have made a very creditable squire, and so would hosts of men who don’t make much of their lives in any other way; but he could not dig, nor did he know how to employ his existence so as to fulfill his own wishes, and be of some use to others. He was too old for many things, too old for the army, even could he have done any good in it, too old for the bar, too old for business; for although men in novels can turn their minds to commerce whenever a blank comes in their career, and succeed in it—yet men in common life are usually trained to that branch of activity as to every other, and begin by an apprentice period, in which they earn nothing and do little. Even for the public offices he was too old, and what, Fanshawe asked himself, could he do in a public office? He ran all these things over in his mind till he was in despair. He was willing to do anything; but when he came to particulars, he found that his education had trained him to nothing except those duties of a great proprietor which he had no hope of ever being able to exercise. Nothing is more difficult than thus to begin a new chapter in life. Had he required to earn his living, no doubt the energy which necessity would have given to his quest for employment might have found him something to do; but he had not that stimulus—and he had not the stimulus of aptitude for, or knowledge of, any special kind of occupation. He would have “done anything.” Was that but another way of saying that he was good for nothing? he asked himself sometimes, in partial despair.
And then putting all these new fancies aside, he had really so much to do in the early Summer. He had to look after his sick horse, to see a great number of friends, to answer invitations, to make some ordinary necessary preparations for the Derby and Ascot, and all sorts of other engagements. He had quite enough to fill his life with this ordinary round of trivial occupation, as it had been filled for all these years; and when he had returned to the usual circle of that life, it must be allowed that it was not disagreeable to him. It felt natural; and yet it was nothing—no good to him, no good to those among whom it was lived. No progress, either internal or external, was possible, so long as he continued in it. But what was he to do? What even did he want to do? Something, certainly—something that would restore him to the credit he had lost in his own eyes, that would make him worthy in Marjory’s, that would improve his position, and help him to that natural growth and increase and elevation in life which had become so essential; but yet nothing that he knew of—nothing that he saw other people doing. Poor good-for-nothing! He wanted to “better himself,” to be of some sort of use, to double his means, to make what was called establishment in life possible, to change himself, in short, from a nobody and nothing, into a man of some importance and consideration—a man fit to be trusted with the life and welfare of others. This was what he wanted; but he had not the smallest inkling of how it was to be brought about.
One thing however he did, and at once—he availed himself of the permission which Marjory had so unhesitatingly accorded to him, and wrote to her. He did this only a few days after he left Pitcomlie; indeed, he began his letter on the very morning of the day on which he left, when he was no further off than Edinburgh—but destroyed that first letter and various others before he produced the following, which at last, after many doubts, he sent. How to begin it was a puzzle to him. The only thing he had any right to say was “Dear Miss Heriot;” but, somehow, that sober and correct address did not seem to suit the circumstances. This cost him a great deal of thought; he could think deeply, connectedly on such a subject, though he could not think to any purpose, in respect to the occupation which he was so anxious for. His letter kept running through his mind during all the interval—four days—which elapsed before he made up his mind to send it; and at last, as will be seen, he began abruptly, with no formal start at all, which seemed to him, somehow, more congenial than “Dear Miss Heriot.” The letter was finished at midnight, but he left it open and read it over, and added something to it next morning before he sent it off; and after he had fastened up the envelope, was in a dozen minds whether or not to open it again and revise it once more. No new beginner in literature was ever half so careful and anxious for the success of his first work.
“I avail myself very eagerly of the permission you gave me to recall myself to your recollection. It is not that I am worth your recollection, but because I cannot bear the idea of falling out of it. How can I sufficiently tell you what it has been to me to have felt myself one of the household of Pitcomlie, to have grown into its ways, to have been part of its life at so sad a moment? I feel almost as if you must think me unfeeling, unsympathetic in your sorrows, when I say that I am glad I was there at this time, rather than at another. I wonder if you will know what I mean? I grieve for you to the bottom of my heart, and yet I am glad that I was there. Life outside, life here in London, where, people say, and I suppose believe, there is so much movement and excitement, seems to me very tame and vacant. I can’t think how my old friends can endure the mill-horse round of engagements, all so null, so monotonous, and like each other;—because they have not been in Fife, I suppose. And yet Pitcomlie is very quiet, you will tell me? I wonder if you are there; or if the recent events have made it insupportable to you; or what you are doing? I keep thinking and wondering over this, and whether you will remember me again, or be so good, so very good as to tell me all I want to know, and answer me half of the flood of questions which are ready to be poured out upon you. May I ask them? I am sure at heart you are too good not to say yes or no. I want to know about Mr. Charles; whether he has left his tower, and his papers, and all those treasures which he was so kind as to show me; and about dear little Milly, whom I can no longer tempt to laugh at an unbecoming moment. How I should like to try! and to see her look of fright, which is her own, at her wickedness; and then that delightful gravity, which is yours, settling over her small face. I want to know everything about her, and about your uncle;—and anything you will tell me; any little scrap or crumb from your table—about you.
“There are a great many things I should like to tell you about myself, if it did not seem abominable impertinence to hope that you would take any interest in such an indifferent personage. Nobody can be more thoroughly aware than I am how little there is to say about me, that would be pleasant to your ear. I have had one kind of dubious good quality in my past life, and that has been content; now I have lost that even. What a poor sort of affair is the life we live without thinking of it, we wretched fellows who are, I suppose, the scum, and float on the surface of the stream, going wherever it carries us, in a helpless, hopeless sort of way, that must appal and disgust any one who has ever known better. Having had a glimpse of the better, I am disgusted too, and begin to make a fuss among the other atoms, and long to cling to something, to oppose the power of the tide, and get some kind of independent action into me. I wonder if you will know what I mean? How often I find myself wondering this—asking myself if it would be comprehensible to you; or if you would simply scorn the poorer sort of being whose existence has been so long without plan, or purpose, or pilot? This would be very natural; but I like to think that you would rather try to understand, knowing what a great thing it would be for me if you would take so much trouble. I am no theologian, and dare not pretend to speak on such subjects; but yet, if the angels would take the trouble to enter a little into our mortal concerns, how much good it would do us! Do not you think so too? or do you think I am talking nonsense? which very likely is the case, since I want to talk the best of sense, and mean a great deal, which I am not clever enough to say.
“May I write again soon? and will you give me a line—just a line—three or four words, if no more, to tell me that you still remember the existence of one who is always
“Your faithful servant,
“E. F.”
This letter Marjory read at the breakfast-table, seated between Aunt Jean and Uncle Charles, with little Milly opposite to her, and all the commonplaces of ordinary talk going on. How bewildered would those good folks have been could they have read it over her shoulder! How bewildered did she feel reading it, moved to an interest which made her half indignant with herself, and feeling impatient with the writer for that restrained glow of feeling, which notwithstanding communicated to her a sympathetic thrill. “Ridiculous!” she said, and felt her cheeks glow, and her heart move a little, notwithstanding all she did to control it.
“That’s a long letter, May,” said Mr. Charles, looking at it with some curiosity as she put it carefully back into its envelope.
“It is from Mr. Fanshawe,” she said, with a consciousness for which she could have taken instant vengeance on herself; “he has gone to London. He said he would let me know where he had gone.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Charles; and Miss Jean’s eyes lighted up.
Marjory let the letter lie by her plate as if it was of no importance, but felt her cheeks grow hotter and hotter. Ridiculous! She determined to write him a most matter-of-fact reply, which should make an end of this discursive nonsense. If he thought she had leisure for a sentimental correspondence, she must convince him to the contrary; how absurd it was! And yet to be thus put upon a pedestal of absolute superiority, and worshipped in this covert way, is not in itself disagreeable. A little weakness stole about her heart; insensibly it occurred to her during the forenoon that there were several things she would like to consult him about. She slid the letter quietly into her pocket before she left the table. It happened to her to look at it again during the course of the day, just “to see what he had said” about his present occupations. As it happened he had not said anything. But how was Marjory to recollect that?