The Woman Who Did

Chapter 16

A change came at last, when Dolly was ten years old. Among the men

of whom Herminia saw most in these later days, were the little

group of advanced London socialists who call themselves the

Fabians. And among her Fabian friends one of the most active, the

most eager, the most individual, was Harvey Kynaston.

He was a younger man by many years than poor Alan had been; about

Herminia's own age; a brilliant economist with a future before him.

He aimed at the Cabinet. When first he met Herminia he was charmed

at one glance by her chastened beauty, her breadth and depth of

soul, her transparent sincerity of purpose and action. Those

wistful eyes captured him. Before many days passed he had fallen

in love with her. But he knew her history; and, taking it for

granted she must still be immersed in regret for Alan's loss, he

hardly even reckoned the chances of her caring for him.

'Tis a common case. Have you ever noticed that if you meet a

woman, famous for her connection with some absorbing grief, some

historic tragedy, you are half appalled at first sight to find that

at times she can laugh, and make merry, and look gay with the rest

of us. Her callous glee shocks you. You mentally expect her to be

forever engaged in the tearful contemplation of her own tragic

fate; wrapt up in those she has lost, like the mourners in a Pieta.

Whenever you have thought of her, you have connected her in your

mind with that one fact in her history, which perhaps may have

happened a great many years ago. But to you, it is as yesterday.

You forget that since then many things have occurred to her. She

has lived her life; she has learned to smile; human nature itself

cannot feed for years on the continuous contemplation of its own

deepest sorrows. It even jars you to find that the widow of a

patriotic martyr, a murdered missionary, has her moments of

enjoyment, and must wither away without them.

So, just at first, Harvey Kynaston was afraid to let Herminia see

how sincerely he admired her. He thought of her rather as one

whose life is spent, who can bring to the banquet but the cold dead

ashes of a past existence. Gradually, however, as he saw more and

more of her, it began to strike him that Herminia was still in all

essentials a woman. His own throbbing heart told him so as he sat

and talked with her. He thrilled at her approach. Bit by bit the

idea rose up in his mind that this lonely soul might still be won.

He set to work in earnest to woo and win her.

As for Herminia, many men had paid her attentions already in her

unwedded widowhood. Some of them, after the fashion of men, having

heard garbled versions of her tragic story, and seeking to gain

some base advantage for themselves from their knowledge of her

past, strove to assail her crudely. Them, with unerring womanly

instinct, she early discerned, and with unerring feminine tact,

undeceived and humbled. Others, genuinely attracted by her beauty

and her patience, paid real court to her heart; but all these fell

far short of her ideal standard. With Harvey Kynaston it was

different. She admired him as a thinker; she liked him as a man;

and she felt from the first moment that no friend, since Alan died,

had stirred her pulse so deeply as he did.

For some months they met often at the Fabian meetings and

elsewhere; till at last it became a habit with them to spend their

Sunday mornings on some breezy wold in the country together.

Herminia was still as free as ever from any shrinking terror as to

what "people might say;" as of old, she lived her life for herself

and her conscience, not for the opinion of a blind and superstitious

majority. On one such August morning, they had taken the train from

London to Haslemere, with Dolly of course by their side, and then

had strolled up Hind Head by the beautiful footpath which mounts at

first through a chestnut copse, and then between heather-clad hills

to the summit. At the loneliest turn of the track, where two purple

glens divide, Harvey Kynaston seated himself on the soft bed of

ling; Herminia sank by his side; and Dolly, after awhile, not

understanding their conversation, wandered off by herself a little

way afield in search of harebells and spotted orchises. Dolly found

her mother's friends were apt to bore her; she preferred the society

of the landlady's daughters.

It was a delicious day. Hard by, a slow-worm sunned himself on the

basking sand. Blue dragon-flies flashed on gauze wings in the

hollows. Harvey Kynaston looked on Herminia's face and saw that

she was fair. With an effort he made up his mind to speak at last.

In plain and simple words he asked her reverently the same question

that Alan had asked her so long ago on the Holmwood.

Herminia's throat flushed a rosy red, and an unwonted sense of

pleasure stole over that hard-worked frame as she listened to his

words; for indeed she was fond of him. But she answered him at

once without a moment's hesitation. "Harvey, I'm glad you ask me,

for I like and admire you. But I feel sure beforehand my answer

must be NO. For I think what you mean is to ask, will I marry

you?"

The man gazed at her hard. He spoke low and deferentially. "Yes,

Herminia," he replied. "I do mean, will you marry me? I know,

of course, how you feel about this matter; I know what you have

sacrificed, how deeply you have suffered, for the sake of your

principles. And that's just why I plead with you now to ignore

them. You have given proof long ago of your devotion to the right.

You may surely fall back this second time upon the easier way of

ordinary humanity. In theory, Herminia, I accept your point of

view; I approve the equal liberty of men and women, politically,

socially, personally, ethically. But in practice, I don't want to

bring unnecessary trouble on the head of a woman I love; and to

live together otherwise than as the law directs does bring

unnecessary trouble, as you know too profoundly. That is the only

reason why I ask you to marry me. And Herminia, Herminia," he

leant forward appealingly, "for the love's sake I bear you, I hope

you will consent to it."

His voice was low and tender. Herminia, sick at heart with that

long fierce struggle against overwhelming odds, could almost have

said YES to him. Her own nature prompted her; she was very, very

fond of him. But she paused for a second. Then she answered him

gravely.

"Harvey," she said, looking deep into his honest brown eyes, "as

we grow middle-aged, and find how impossible it must ever be to

achieve any good in a world like this, how sad a fate it is to be

born a civilized being in a barbaric community, I'm afraid moral

impulse half dies down within us. The passionate aim grows cold;

the ardent glow fades and flickers into apathy. I'm ashamed to

tell you the truth, it seems such weakness; yet as you ask me this,

I think I WILL tell you. Once upon a time, if you had made such a

proposal to me, if you had urged me to be false to my dearest

principles, to sin against the light, to deny the truth, I would

have flashed forth a NO upon you without one moment's hesitation.

And now, in my disillusioned middle age what do I feel? Do you

know, I almost feel tempted to give way to this Martinmas summer of

love, to stultify my past by unsaying and undoing everything. For

I love you, Harvey. If I were to give way now, as George Eliot

gave way, as almost every woman who once tried to live a free life

for her sisters' sake, has given way in the end, I should

counteract any little good my example has ever done or may ever do

in the world; and Harvey, strange as it sounds, I feel more than

half inclined to do it. But I WILL not, I WILL not; and I'll tell

you why. It's not so much principle that prevents me now. I admit

that freely. The torpor of middle age is creeping over my

conscience. It's simple regard for personal consistency, and for

Dolly's position. How can I go back upon the faith for which I

have martyred myself? How can I say to Dolly, 'I wouldn't marry

your father in my youth, for honor's sake; but I have consented in

middle life to sell my sisters' cause for a man I love, and for the

consideration of society; to rehabilitate myself too late with a

world I despise by becoming one man's slave, as I swore I never

would be.' No, no, dear Harvey; I can't do that. Some sense of

personal continuity restrains me still. It is the Nemesis of our

youth; we can't go back in our later life on the holier and purer

ideals of our girlhood."

"Then you say no definitely?" Harvey Kynaston asked.

Herminia's voice quivered. "I say no definitely," she answered;

"unless you can consent to live with me on the terms on which I

lived with Dolly's father."

The man hesitated a moment. Then he began to plead hard for

reconsideration. But Herminia's mind was made up. She couldn't

belie her past; she couldn't be false to the principles for whose

sake she had staked and lost everything. "No, no," she said

firmly, over and over again. "You must take me my own way, or you

must go without me."

And Harvey Kynaston couldn't consent to take her her own way. His

faith was too weak, his ambitions were too earthly. "Herminia," he

said, before they parted that afternoon, "we may still be friends;

still dear friends as ever? This episode need make no difference

to a very close companionship?"

"It need make no difference," Herminia answered, with a light touch

of her hand. "Harvey, I have far too few friends in the world

willingly to give up one of them. Come again and go down with

Dolly and me to Hind Head as usual next Sunday."

"Thank you," the man answered. "Herminia, I wish it could have

been otherwise. But since I must never have you, I can promise you

one thing; I will never marry any other woman."

Herminia started at the words. "Oh, no," she cried quickly. "How

can you speak like that? How can you say anything so wrong, so

untrue, so foolish? To be celibate is a very great misfortune even

for a woman; for a man it is impossible, it is cruel, it is wicked.

I endure it myself, for my child's sake, and because I find it hard

to discover the help meet for me; or because, when discovered, he

refuses to accept me in the only way in which I can bestow myself.

But for a man to pretend to live celibate is to cloak hateful wrong

under a guise of respectability. I should be unhappy if I thought

any man was doing such a vicious thing out of desire to please me.

Take some other woman on free terms if you can; but if you cannot,

it is better you should marry than be a party to still deeper and

more loathsome slavery."

And from that day forth they were loyal friends, no more, one to

the other.