第98章 The Awakening (16)

"No, no; I remember now--it was about your marrying.Well, well, as I said before, I fear your attitude is the result of some sentimental fancies you have found in books.My child, there was never a book yet that held a sensible view of love, and I hope you will pay no attention to what they say.As for waiting until you can't live without a man before you marry him--tut-tut! the only necessary question is to ascertain if you can possibly live with him.There is a great deal of sentiment talked in life, my dear, and very little lived--and my experience of the world has shown me that one man is likely to make quite as good a husband as another--provided he remains a gentleman and you don't expect him to become a saint.I've had a long marriage, my children, and a happy one.Your father fell in love with me at his first glance, and he did not hate me at his last, though the period covered an association of thirty years.We were an ideal couple, all things considered, and he was a very devoted husband; but to this day I have not ceased to be thankful that he was never placed in the position where he had to choose between me and his dinner.Honestly, I may as well confess among us three, it makes me nervous when I think of the result of such a pass.""Oh, mother," protested Lila reproachfully; "if I listened to you I should never want to marry any man.""I'm sure I don't see why, my dear.I have always urged it as a duty, not advised it as a pleasure.As far as that goes, I hold to this day the highest opinion of matrimony and of men, though Iadmit, when I consider the attention they require, I sometimes feel that women might select a better object.When the last word is said, a man is not half so satisfactory a domestic pet as a cat, and far less neat in his habits.Your poor father would throw his cigar ashes on the floor to the day of his death, and Icould never persuade him to use an ash-tray, though I gave him one regularly every Christmas that he lived.Do you smoke cigars, Christopher? I detect a strong odour of tobacco about you, and Ihope you haven't let Tucker persuade you into using anything so vulgar as a pipe.The worst effect of a war, I am inclined to believe, is the excuse it offers every man who fought in it to fall into bad habits.""Oh, it's Uncle Tucker's pipe you smell," replied Christopher, with a laugh, as he rose from his chair."I detest the stuff and always did.""I suppose I ought to be thankful for it," said Mrs.Blake, detaining him by a gesture, "but I can't help recalling a speech of Micajah Blair's, who said that a woman who didn't flirt and a man who didn't smoke were unsexed creatures.It is a commendable eccentricity, I suppose, but an eccentricity, good or bad, is equally to be deplored.Your grandfather always said that the man who was better than his neighbours was quite as unfortunate as the man who was worse.Who knows but that your dislike of tobacco and your aversion to marriage may result from the same peculiar quirk in your brain?""Well, it's there and I can't alter it, even to please you, mother," declared Christopher from the door."I've set my face square against them both, and there it stands."He went out laughing, and Mrs.Blake resigned herself with a sigh to her old port.

The rain fell heavily, whipping up foaming puddles in the muddy road and beating down the old rosebushes in the yard.

As Christopher paused for a moment in the doorway before going to the barn he drew with delight the taste of the dampness into his mouth and the odour of the moist earth into his nostrils.The world had taken on a new and appealing beauty, and yet the colourless landscape was touched with a sadness which he had never seen in external things until to-day.

His ears were now opened suddenly, his eyes unbandaged, and he heard the rhythmical fall of the rain and saw the charm of the brown fields with a vividness that he had never found in his enjoyment of a summer's day.Human life also moved him to responsive sympathy, and he felt a great aching tenderness for his blind mother and for his sisters, with their narrowed and empty lives.His own share in the world, he realised, was but that of a small, insignificant failure; he had been crushed down like a weed in his tobacco field, and for a new springing-up he found neither place nor purpose.The facts of his own life were not altered by so much as a shadow, yet on the outside life that was not his own he beheld a wonderful illumination.

His powerful figure filled the doorway, and Cynthia, coming up behind him, raised herself on tiptoe to touch his bared head.

"Your hair is quite wet, Christopher; be sure to put on your hat and fasten the oilcloth over your shoulders when you go back to the barn.You are so reckless that you make me uneasy.Why, the rain has soaked entirely through your shirt.""Oh, I'm a pine knot; you needn't worry."She sighed impatiently and went back to the kitchen, while his gaze travelled slowly along the wet gray road to the abandoned ice-pond, and he thought of his meeting with Maria in the darkness and of the light of the lantern shining on her face.He remembered her white hands against her black dress, her fervent eyes under the grave pallor of her brow, her passionate, kind voice, and her mouth with the faint smile which seemed never to fade utterly away.Love, which is revealed usually as a pleasant disturbing sentiment resulting from the ordinary purposes of life, had come to him in the form of a great regenerating force, destroying but that it might rebuild anew.

CHAPTER VII.In Which Carraway Speaks the Truth to Maria During the first week in April Carraway appeared at the Hall in answer to an urgent request from Fletcher that he should, without delay, put the new will into proper form.