A Rose of Yesterday Part 7

Of course there are many, perhaps a majority, who, though not Roman Catholics, would in their own lives put up with almost anything rather than go to the divorce court for peace. Some actually suffer much and ask for no redress. But there are very many who have not suffered anything at all, excepting the favourite 'incompatibility of temper,'

and who have taken advantage of the loose laws in certain states to try a second matrimonial experiment. In what calls itself society, there seems still to be a prejudice against a third marriage for divorced persons, but at the present rate of so-called progress this cannot last long, and the old significance of the word marriage will be quite lost before our great grandchildren are dead; in other words, by the end of the next century, at the furthest.

There are various forms of honourable political dreaming and of dishonourable political mischief-making nowadays, which we are accustomed to call collectively 'socialism.' Most of these rely for their hope of popular success upon their avowed intention of dividing property and preventing its subsequent acc.u.mulation. Marriage is an incentive of such acc.u.mulation, because it perpetuates families and therefore keeps property together by inheritance. Therefore most forms of socialism are at present in favour of divorce, as a means of ultimately destroying marriage altogether. A proverb says that whosoever desires the end, desires also the means. There is more truth in the saying than morality in the point of view it expresses. But there are those who desire neither the means nor the end to which they lead, and a struggle is coming, the like of which has not been seen since the beginning of the world, and of which we who are now alive shall not see the termination.

The Civil War in the United States turned upon slavery incidentally, not vitally. The cause of that great fight lay much deeper. In the same way the Social War, which is coming, will turn incidentally upon religion, and be perhaps called a religious war hereafter, but it will not be declared for the sake of faith against unbelief, nor be fought at first by any church, or alliance of churches, against atheism. It will simply turn out that the men who fight on the one side will have either the convictions or the prejudices of Christianity, or both, and that their adversaries will have neither. But the struggle will be at its height when the original steady current of facts which led to inevitable strife has sunk into apparent insignificance under the raging storm of conflicting belief and unbelief. The disadvantage of the unbelievers will lie in the fact that belief is positive and a.s.sertive, whereas unbelief is negative and argumentative. It is indeed easier to deny than to prove almost anything. But that is not the question. In life and war it is generally easier to keep than to take, and besides, those who believe 'care,' as we say, whereas those who deny generally 'care'

very little. It is probable, to say the least of it, that so long as the socialists of the near future believe a.s.sertively that they have discovered the means of saving humanity from misery and poverty, and fight for a pure conviction, they will have the better of it, but that when they find themselves in the position of attacking half of mankind's religious faith, having no idea, but only a proposition, to offer in its place, they will be beaten.

That seems far from the question of divorce, but it is not. Before the battle, the opposing forces are encamped and intrenched at a little distance from each other, and each tries to undermine the other's outworks. Socialism, collectively, has dug a mine under Social Order's strongest tower, which is called marriage, and the edifice is beginning to shake from its foundations, even before the slow-match is lighted.

To one who has known the world well for a quarter of a century, it seems as though the would-be destroyers of the existing order had forgotten, among several other things, the existence of woman, remembering only that of the female. They practically propose to take away woman's privileges in exchange for certain more or less imaginary 'rights.'

There is an apparent justice in the 'conversion,' as it would be called in business. If woman is to have all the rights of man, which, indeed, seem reducible to a political vote now and then, why should she keep all the privileges which man is not allowed? But tell her that when she is allowed to vote for the president of the United States once in four years, no man shall be expected to stand up in a public conveyance to give her a seat, nor to fetch and carry for her, nor to support her instead of being supported by her, nor to keep her for his wife any longer than he chooses, and the 'conversion' looks less attractive.

The reason why woman has privileges instead of rights is that all men tacitly acknowledge the future of humanity to be dependent on her from generation to generation. Man works or fights, and takes his rights in payment therefor, as well as for a means of working and fighting to greater advantage. And while he is fighting or working, his wife takes care of his children almost entirely. There is not one household in a hundred thousand, rich or poor, where there is really any question about that. It sounds insignificant, perhaps, and it looks as though anybody could take care of two or three small children. Those who have tried it know better, and they are women. Now and then rich mothers are too lazy to look after their children themselves. To do them such justice as one may, they are willing to spend any amount of money in order to get it well done for them, but the result is not encouraging to those who would have all children brought up 'by the state.' Even if it were so, who would bring them up? Women, of course. Then why not their own mothers?

Because mothers sometimes--or often, for the sake of argument--do not exactly know how. Then educate the mothers, give them chances of knowing how, let them learn, if you know any better than they, which is doubtful, to say the least of it.

Moreover, does any man in his senses really believe that mothers, as a whole, would submit and let their children be taken from them to a state rearing-house, to be brought up under a number on a ticket by professional baby-farmers, in exchange for the 'right' to vote at a presidential election, and the 'right' to put away their husbands and take others as often as they please, and the 'right' to run for Congress? Yet the plan has been proposed gravely.

There seems to be a good deal to be said in favour of the existing state of things, after all, and particularly in favour of marriage, and therefore against divorce; and it is not surprising that woman, whose life is in reality far more deeply affected by both questions than man's life is, should have also the more profound convictions about them.

Woman brings us into the world, woman is our first teacher, woman makes the world what it is, from century to century. We can no more escape from woman, and yet continue to live our lives as they should be lived, than we can hide ourselves from nature. We are in her care or in her power during more than half our years, and often during all, from first to last. We are born of her, we grow of her, as truly as trees and flowers come of the mother earth and draw their life from the soil in which they are planted. The man who denies his mother is a bad man, and the man who has not loved woman is a man in darkness.

Man is not really unjust to woman in his thoughts of her either, unless he be a lost soul, but he has not much reason in respect of her nor any justice in his exactions. Because within himself he knows that she is everything and all things for the life and joy of men, therefore he would seem perfect in her eyes; and he rails against whatsoever in her does not please him, as a blot upon the l.u.s.tre of his ideal, which indeed he would make a glorified reflexion of his own faults. When he is most imperfect, he most exacts her praise; when he is weakest, she must think him most strong; when he fails, she must call failure victory, or at the least she must name it honourable defeat; she must not see his meanness, but she must magnify the smallest of his generosities to the great measure of his immeasurable vanity therein; she must see faith in his unfaithfulness, honour in his disgrace, heroism in his cowardice, for his sake; she must forgive freely and forgettingly such injury as he would not pardon any man; in one word, she must love him, that in her love he may think and boast himself a G.o.d.

It is much to ask. And yet many a woman who loves a man with all her heart has done and daily does every one of those things, and more; and the man knows it, and will not think of it lest he should die of shame.

And, moreover, a woman has borne him, a woman has nursed him, a woman taught him first; a woman gives him her soul and her body when he is a man; and when he is dead, if tears are shed for him, they are a woman's.

If we men are honest, we shall say that we do not give her much for all that, not much honour, not much faith. We think we do enough if we give her life's necessities and luxuries in fair share to the limit of our poverty or wealth; that we give much, if we love her; too much, if we trust her altogether.

It is a wonder that women should love, seeing what some men are and what most men may be when the devil is in them. It is a wonder that women should not rise up in a body and demand laws to free them from marriage, for one-half the cause that so many of them have.

But they do not. Even in this old age of history they still believe in marriage, and cling to it, and in vast majority cry out against its dissolution. No man ever believes in anything as a woman who loves him believes in him. Men have stronger arms, and heads for harder work, but they have no such hearts as women. And the world has been led by the heart in all ages.

Even when the great mistake is made, many a woman clings to the faith that made it, for the sake of what might have been, in a self-respect of which men do not dream. Even when she has married with little love, and taken a man who has turned upon her like a brute beast, her marriage is still a bond which she will not break, and the vow made is not void because the promise taken has been a vain lie. Its d.a.m.nation is upon him who spoke it, but she still keeps faith.

So, when her fair years of youth lay scattered and withered as blown leaves along the desert of her past, Helen Harmon, wisely or unwisely, but faithfully and with a whole heart, meant to keep that plighted word which is not to be broken by wedded man and woman 'until death shall them part.'

CHAPTER V

Miss Wimpole was walking up and down the little sitting-room in considerable perplexity. When she was greatly in doubt as to her future conduct, she puckered her elderly lips, frowned severely, and talked to herself with an occasional energetic shaking of the head. She always did up her hair very securely and neatly, so that this was quite safe.

Women who are not sure of their hairpins carry their heads as carefully as a basket of eggs and do not bend them if they have to stoop for anything.

Talking to oneself is a bad habit, especially when the door is open, whether one be swearing at something or examining one's own conscience.

But Miss Wimpole could not help it, and the question of returning the price of the hat to Archie Harmon's mother was such a very difficult one, that she had forgotten to shut the door.

"Most impossible situation!" she repeated aloud. "Most terrible situation! Poor boy! Half idiotic--father mad. Most distressing situation! If I tell his mother, I shall hurt her feelings dreadfully.

If I tell Richard, I shall hurt his feelings dreadfully. If I tell n.o.body, I shall break my promise to Sylvia, besides putting her in the position of accepting a hat from a young man. Ridiculous present, a hat! If it had only been a parasol! Parasols are not so ridiculous as hats. I wonder why! Perfectly impossible to keep the money, of course.

Even Judas Iscariot--dear me! Where are my thoughts running to?

Shocking! But a terrible situation. It was dear, too--eighty francs!

We must get it into Mrs. Harmon's hands somehow--"

"Why must you get eighty francs into Mrs. Harmon's hands?" enquired the colonel, laying his hat upon a chair.

The door had been open, and he had heard her talking while he was in the corridor. She uttered an exclamation as she turned and saw him.

"Oh--well--I suppose you heard me. I must really cure myself of talking when I am alone! But I was not saying anything in particular."

"You were saying that you must manage to pay Mrs. Harmon eighty francs.

It is very easy, for she happens to be here and I have just seen her."

"Oh, I know she is here!" cried Miss Wimpole. "I know it to my cost!

She and that--and her son, you know."

"Yes, I knew. But what is the matter? What is the trouble?"

"Oh, Richard! You are so sensitive about anything that has to do with Mrs. Harmon!"

"I?" The colonel looked at her quietly.

"Yes. Of course you are, and it is quite natural and I quite understand, and I do not blame you in the least. But such a dreadful thing has happened. I hardly know how I can tell you about it. It is really too dreadful for words."

Wimpole sat down and fanned himself slowly with the Paris _Herald_. He was still rather pale, for his nerves had been shaken.

"Rachel, my dear," he said mildly, "don't be silly. Tell me what is the matter."

Miss Wimpole walked slowly once round the room, stopped at the window and looked through the blinds, and at last turned and faced her brother with all the energy of her seasoned character.

"Richard," she began, "don't call me silly till you hear. It's awful.

That boy suddenly appeared in a shop where Sylvia was buying a hat, and paid for it and vanished."

"Eh? What's that?" asked Wimpole, opening his eyes wide. "I don't think I quite understood, Rachel. I must have been thinking of something else, just then."

"I daresay you were," replied his sister, severely. "You are growing dreadfully absent-minded. You really should correct it. I say that when Sylvia was buying a hat, just now, Archie Harmon suddenly appeared in the shop and spoke to us. Then he asked Sylvia whether she liked the hat she was trying on, and she said she did. Then he went off, and when we wished to pay we were told that the hat had been paid for by the young gentleman. Now--"

The colonel interrupted and startled his sister by laughing aloud at this point. He could not help it, though he had not felt in the least as though he could laugh at anything for a long time, when he had entered the room. Miss Wimpole was annoyed.

"Richard," she said solemnly, "you surprise me."

"Does it not strike you as funny?" asked the colonel, recovering.

"No. It is--it is almost tragic. But perhaps," she continued, with a fine point of irony, "since you make so light of the matter, you will be good enough to return to Mrs. Harmon the price of the hat purchased by her half-witted boy for your ward."

"Don't call him half-witted, Rachel," said the colonel. "It's not so bad as that, you know."

"I cannot agree with you," replied his sister. "Only an idiot would think of rus.h.i.+ng into a shop where a lady is buying something, and suddenly paying for it. You must admit that, Richard. Only an idiot could do such a thing."