Books: The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford

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At last, wearied out, I turned homeward, and diverging from the direct
road, I was led past the house where the Misses Arbour lived. I was
faint, and some beneficent inspiration prompted me to call. I went in,
and found that the younger of the two sisters was out. A sudden
tendency to hysterics overcame me, and I asked for a glass of water.
Miss Arbour, having given it to me, sat down by the side of the
fireplace opposite to the one at which I was sitting, and for a few
moments there was silence. I made some commonplace observation, but
instead of answering me she said quietly, "Mr. Rutherford, you have
been upset; I hope you have met with no accident."

How it came about I do not know, but my whole story rushed to my lips,
and I told her all of it with quivering voice. I cannot imagine what
possessed me to make her my confidante. Shy, reserved, and proud, I
would have died rather than have breathed a syllable of my secret if I
had been in my ordinary humour, but her soft, sweet face altogether
overpowered me.

As I proceeded with my tale, the change that came over her was most
remarkable. When I began she was leaning back placidly in her large
chair, with her handkerchief upon her lap; but gradually her face
kindled, she sat upright, and she was transformed with a completeness
and suddenness which I could not have conceived possible. At last,
when I had finished, she put both her hands to her forehead, and almost
shrieked out, "Shall I tell him?--O my God, shall I tell him?--may God
have mercy on him!" I was amazed beyond measure at the altogether
unsuspected depth of passion which was revealed in her whom I had never
before seen disturbed by more than a ripple of emotion. She drew her
chair nearer to mine, put both her hands on my knees, looked right into
my eyes, and said, "Listen." She then moved back a little, and spoke
as follows:

"It is forty-five years ago this month since I was married. You are
surprised; you have always known me under my maiden name, and you
thought I had always been single. It is forty-six years ago this month
since the man who afterwards became my husband first saw me. He was a
partner in a cloth firm. At that time it was the duty of one member of
a firm to travel, and he came to our town, where my father was a well-
to-do carriage-builder. My father was an old customer of his house,
and the relationship between the customer and the wholesale merchant
was then very different from what it is now. Consequently, Mr. Hexton-
-for that was my husband's name--was continually asked to stay with us
so long as he remained in the town. He was what might be called a
singularly handsome man--that is to say, he was upright, well-made,
with a straight nose, black hair, dark eyes, and a good complexion. He
dressed with perfect neatness and good taste, and had the reputation of
being a most temperate and most moral man, much respected--amongst the
sect to which both of us belonged.

"When he first came our way I was about nineteen and he about three-
and-twenty. My father and his had long been acquainted, and he was of
course received even with cordiality. I was excitable, a lover of
poetry, a reader of all sorts of books, and much given to enthusiasm.
Ah! you do not think so, you do not see how that can have been, but you
do not know how unaccountable is the development of the soul, and what
is the meaning of any given form of character which presents itself to
you. You see nothing but the peaceful, long since settled result, but
how it came there, what its history has been, you cannot tell. It may
always have been there, or have gradually grown so, in gradual progress
from seed to flower, or it may be the final repose of tremendous
forces.

"I will show you what I was like at nineteen," and she got up and
turned to a desk, from which she took a little ivory miniature.
"That," she said, "was given to Mr. Hexton when we were engaged. I
thought he would have locked it up, but he used to leave it about, and
one day I found it in the dressing-table drawer, with some brushes and
combs, and two or three letters of mine. I withdrew it, and burnt the
letters. He never asked for it, and here it is."

The head was small and set upon the neck like a flower, but not bending
pensively. It was rather thrown back with a kind of firmness, and with
a peculiarly open air, as if it had nothing to conceal and wished the
world to conceal nothing. The body was shown down to the waist, and
was slim and graceful. But what was most noteworthy about the picture
was its solemn seriousness, a seriousness capable of infinite
affection, and of infinite abandonment, not sensuous abandonment--
everything was too severe, too much controlled by the arch of the top
of the head for that--but of an abandonment to spiritual aims."

Miss Arbour continued: "Mr. Hexton after a while gave me to understand
that he was my admirer, and before six months of acquaintanceship had
passed my mother told me that he had requested formally that he might
be considered as my suitor. She put no pressure upon me, nor did my
father, excepting that they said that if I would accept Mr. Hexton they
would be content, as they knew him to be a very well-conducted young
man, a member of the church, and prosperous in his business. My first,
and for a time my sovereign, impulse was to reject him, because I
thought him mean, and because I felt he lacked sympathy with me.

"Unhappily I did not trust that impulse. I looked for something more
authoritative, but I was mistaken, for the voice of God, to me at
least, hardly ever comes in thunder, but I have to listen with perfect
stillness to make it out. It spoke to me, told me what to do, but I
argued with it and was lost. I was guiltless of any base motive, but I
found the wrong name for what displeased me in Mr. Hexton, and so I
deluded myself. I reasoned that his meanness was justifiable economy,
and that his dissimilarity from me was perhaps the very thing which
ought to induce me to marry him, because he would correct my failings.
I knew I was too inconsiderate, too rash, too flighty, and I said to
myself that his soberness would be a good thing for me.

"Oh, if I had but the power to write a book which should go to the ends
of the world, and warn young men and women not to be led away by any
sophistry when choosing their partners for life! It may be asked, How
are we to distinguish heavenly instigation from hellish temptation? I
say, that neither you nor I, sitting here, can tell how to do it. We
can lay down no law by which infallibly to recognise the messenger from
God. But what I do say is, that when the moment comes, it is perfectly
easy for us to recognise him. Whether we listen to his message or not
is another matter. If we do not--if we stop to dispute with him, we
are undone, for we shall very soon learn to discredit him.

"So I was married, and I went to live in a dark manufacturing town,
away from all my friends. I awoke to my misery by degrees, but still
rapidly. I had my books sent down to me. I unpacked them in Mr.
Hexton's presence, and I kindled at the thought of ranging my old
favourites in my sitting-room. He saw my delight as I put them on some
empty shelves, but the next day he said that he wanted a stuffed dog
there, and that he thought my books, especially as they were shabby,
had better go upstairs.

"We had to give some entertainments soon afterwards. The minister and
his wife, with some other friends, came to tea, and the conversation
turned on parties and the dullness of winter evenings if no amusements
were provided. I maintained that rational human beings ought not to be
dependent upon childish games, but ought to be able to occupy
themselves and interest themselves with talk. Talk, I said--not
gossip, but talk--pleases me better than chess or forfeits; and the
lines of Cowper occurred to me -

'When one, that holds communion with the skies,
Has filled his urn where these pure waters rise,
And once more mingles with us meaner things,
'Tis even as if an angel shook his wings;
Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide,
That tells us whence his treasures are supplied.'

I ventured to repeat this verse, and when I had finished, there was a
pause for a moment, which was broken by my husband's saying to the
minister's wife who sat next to him, 'Oh, Mrs. Cook, I quite forgot to
express my sympathy with you; I heard that you had lost your cat.' The
blow was deliberately administered, and I felt it as an insult. I was
wrong, I know. I was ignorant of the ways of the world, and I ought to
have been aware of the folly of placing myself above the level of my
guests, and of the extreme unwisdom of revealing myself in that
unguarded way to strangers. Two or three more experiences of that kind
taught me to close myself carefully to all the world, and to beware how
I uttered anything more than commonplace. But I was young, and ought
to have been pardoned. I felt the sting of self-humiliation far into
the night, as I lay and silently cried, while Mr. Hexton slept beside
me.

"I soon found that he was entirely insensible to everything for which I
most cared. Before our marriage he had affected a sort of interest in
my pursuits, but in reality he was indifferent to them. He was cold,
hard, and impenetrable. His habits were precise and methodical, beyond
what is natural for a man of his years. I remember one evening--
strange that these small events should so burn themselves into me--that
some friends were at our house at tea. A tradesman in the town was
mentioned, a member of our congregation, who had become bankrupt, and
everybody began to abuse him. It was said that he had been
extravagant; that he had chosen to send his children to the grammar-
school, where the children of gentlefolk went; and finally, that only
last year he had let his wife go to the seaside.

"I knew what the real state of affairs was. He had perhaps been living
a little beyond his means, but as to the school, he had rather refined
tastes, and he longed to teach his children something more than the
ciphering, as it was called, and bookkeeping which they would have
learned at the academy at which men in his position usually educated
their boys; and as to the seaside, his wife was ill, and he could not
bear to see her suffering in the smoky street, when he knew that a
little fresh air and change of scene would restore her.

"So I said that I was sorry to hear the poor man attacked; that he had
done wrong, no doubt, but so had the woman who was brought before
Jesus; and that with me, charity or a large heart covered a multitude
of sins. I added that there was something dreadful in the way in which
everybody always seemed to agree in deserting the unfortunate. I was a
little moved, and unluckily upset a teacup. No harm was done; and if
my husband, who sat next to me, had chosen to take no notice, there
need have been no disturbance whatever. But he made a great fuss,
crying, 'Oh, my dear, pray mind! Ring the bell instantly, or it will
all be through the tablecloth.' In getting up hastily to obey him, I
happened to drag the cloth, as it lay on my lap; a plate fell down and
was broken; everything was in confusion; I was ashamed and degraded.

"I do not believe there was a single point in Mr. Hexton's character in
which he touched the universal; not a single chink, however narrow,
through which his soul looked out of itself upon the great world
around. If he had kept bees, or collected butterflies or beetles, I
could have found some avenue of approach.--But he had no taste for
anything of the kind. He had his breakfast at eight regularly every
morning, and read his letters at breakfast. He came home to dinner at
two, looked at the newspaper for a little while after dinner, and then
went to sleep. At six he had his tea, and in half-an-hour went back to
his counting-house, which he did not leave till eight. Supper at nine,
and bed at ten, closed the day.

"It was a habit of mine to read a little after supper, and occasionally
I read aloud to him passages which struck me, but I soon gave it up,
for once or twice he said to me, 'Now you've got to the bottom of that
page, I think you had better go to bed,' although perhaps the page did
not end a sentence. But why weary you with all this? I pass over all
the rest of the hateful details which made life insupportable to me.
Suffice to say, that one wet Sunday evening, when we could not go to
chapel and were in the dining-room alone, the climax was reached. My
husband had a religious magazine before him, and I sat still, doing
nothing. At last, after an hour had passed without a word, I could
bear it no longer, and I broke out -

"'James, I am wretched beyond description!"

"He slowly shut the magazine, tearing a piece of paper from a letter
and putting it in as a mark, and then said -

"'What is the matter?'

"'You must know. You must know that ever since we have been married
you have never cared for one single thing I have done or said; that is
to say, you have never cared for me. It is NOT being married.'

"It was an explosive outburst, sudden and almost incoherent, and I
cried as if my heart would break.

"'What is the meaning of all this? You must be unwell. Will you not
have a glass of wine?'

"I could not regain myself for some minutes, during which he sat
perfectly still, without speaking, and without touching me. His
coldness nerved me again, congealing all my emotion into a set resolve,
and I said -

"'I want no wine. I am not unwell. I do not wish to have a scene. I
will not, by useless words, embitter myself against you, or you against
me. You know you do not love me. I know I do not love you. It is all
a bitter, cursed mistake, and the sooner we say so and rectify it the
better.'

"The colour left his face; his lips quivered, and he looked as if he
would have killed me.

"'What monstrous thing is this? What do you mean by your
tomfooleries?'

"I did not speak.

"'Speak!' he roared. 'What am I to understand by rectifying your
mistake? By the living God, you shall not make me the laughing-stock
and gossip of the town! I'll crush you first.'

"I was astonished to see such rage develop itself so suddenly in him,
and yet afterwards, when I came to reflect, I saw there was no reason
for surprise. Self, self was his god, and the thought of the damage
which would be done to him and his reputation was what roused him. I
was still silent, and he went on -

"'I suppose you intend to leave me, and you think you'll disgrace me.
You'll disgrace yourself. Everybody knows me here, and knows you've
had every comfort and everything to make you happy. Everybody will say
what everybody will have the right to say about you. Out with it and
confess the truth, that one of your snivelling poets has fallen in love
with you and you with him.'

"I still held my peace, but I rose and went into the best bedchamber,
and sat there in the dark till bedtime. I heard James come upstairs at
ten o'clock as usual, go to his own room, and lock himself in. I never
hesitated a moment. I could not go home to become the centre of all
the chatter of the little provincial town in which I was born. My old
nurse, who took care of me as a child, had got a place in London as
housekeeper in a large shop in the Strand. She was always very fond of
me, and to her instantly I determined to go. I came down, wrote a
brief note to James, stating that after his base and lying sneer he
could not expect to find me in the morning still with him, and telling
him I had left him for ever. I put on my cloak, took some money which
was my own out of my cashbox, and at half-past twelve heard the mail-
coach approaching. I opened the front door softly--it shut with an
oiled spring bolt; I went out, stopped the coach, and was presently
rolling over the road to the great city.

"Oh, that night! I was the sole passenger inside, and for some hours I
remained stunned, hardly knowing what had become of me. Soon the
morning began to break, with such calm and such slow-changing splendour
that it drew me out of myself to look at it, and it seemed to me a
prophecy of the future. No words can tell the bound of my heart at
emancipation. I did not know what was before me, but I knew from what
I had escaped; I did not believe I should be pursued, and no sailor
returning from shipwreck and years of absence ever entered the port
where wife and children were with more rapture than I felt journeying
through the rain into which the clouds of the sunrise dissolved, as we
rode over the dim flats of Huntingdonshire southwards.

"There is no need for me to weary you any longer, nor to tell you what
happened after I got to London, or how I came here. I had a little
property of my own and no child. To avoid questions I resumed my
maiden name. But one thing you must know, because it will directly
tend to enforce what I am going to beseech of you. Years afterwards, I
might have married a man who was devoted to me. But I told him I was
married already, and not a word of love must he speak to me. He went
abroad in despair, and I have never seen anything more of him.

"You can guess now what I am going to pray of you to do. Without
hesitation, write to this girl and tell her the exact truth. Anything,
any obloquy, anything friends or enemies may say of you must be faced
even joyfully rather than what I had to endure. Better die the death
of the Saviour on the cross than live such a life as mine."

I said: "Miss Arbour, you are doubtless right, but think what it
means. It means nothing less than infamy. It will be said, I broke
the poor thing's heart, and marred her prospects for ever. What will
become of me, as a minister, when all this is known?"

She caught my hand in hers, and cried with indescribable feeling -

"My good sir, you are parleying with the great Enemy of Souls. Oh! if
you did but know, if you COULD but know, you would be as decisive in
your recoil from him, as you would from hell suddenly opened at your
feet. Never mind the future. The one thing you have to do is the
thing that lies next to you, divinely ordained for you. What does the
119th Psalm say?--'Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.' We have no light
promised us to show us our road a hundred miles away, but we have a
light for the next footstep, and if we take that, we shall have a light
for the one which is to follow. The inspiration of the Almighty could
not make clearer to me the message I deliver to you. Forgive me--you
are a minister, I know, and perhaps I ought not to speak so to you, but
I am an old woman. Never would you have heard my history from me, if I
had not thought it would help to save you from something worse than
death."

At this moment there came a knock at the door, and Miss Arbour's sister
came in. After a few words of greeting I took my leave and walked
home. I was confounded. Who could have dreamed that such tragic
depths lay behind that serene face, and that her orderly precision was
like the grass and flowers upon volcanic soil with Vesuvian fires
slumbering below? I had been altogether at fault, and I was taught,
what I have since been taught, over and over again, that unknown
abysses, into which the sun never shines, lie covered with commonplace
in men and women, and are revealed only by the rarest opportunity.

But my thoughts turned almost immediately to myself, and I could bring
myself to no resolve. I was weak and tired, and the more I thought the
less capable was I of coming to any decision. In the morning, after a
restless night, I was in still greater straits, and being perfectly
unable to do anything, I fled to my usual refuge, the sea. The whole
day I swayed to and fro, without the smallest power to arbitrate
between the contradictory impulses which drew me in opposite
directions.

I knew what I ought to do, but Ellen's image was ever before me, mutely
appealing against her wrongs, and I pictured her deserted and with her
life spoiled. I said to myself that instinct is all very well, but for
what purpose is reason given to us if not to reason with it; and
reasoning in the main is a correction of what is called instinct, and
of hasty first impressions. I knew many cases in which men and women
loved one another without similarity of opinions, and, after all,
similarity of opinions upon theological criticism is a poor bond of
union. But then, no sooner was this pleaded than the other side of the
question was propounded with all its distinctness, as Miss Arbour had
presented it.

I came home thoroughly beaten with fatigue, and went to bed.
Fortunately I sank at once to rest, and with the morning was born the
clear discernment that whatever I ought to do, it was more manly of me
to go than to write to Ellen. Accordingly, I made arrangements for
getting somebody to supply my place in the pulpit for a couple of
Sundays, and went home.

CHAPTER VI--ELLEN AND MARY

I now found myself in the strangest position. What was I to do? Was I
to go to Ellen at once and say plainly, "I have ceased to care for
you"? I did what all weak people do.

I wished that destiny would take the matter out of my hands. I would
have given the world if I could have heard that Ellen was fonder of
somebody else than me, although the moment the thought came to me I saw
its baseness. But destiny was determined to try me to the uttermost,
and make the task as difficult for me as it could be made.

It was Thursday when I arrived, and somehow or other--how I do not
know--I found myself on Thursday afternoon at her house. She was very
pleased to see me, for many reasons. My last letters had been doubtful
and the time for our marriage, as she at least thought, was at hand.
I, on my part, could not but return the usual embrace, but after the
first few words were over there was a silence, and she noticed that I
did not look well. Anxiously she asked me what was the matter. I said
that something had been upon my mind for a long time, which I thought
it my duty to tell her. I then went on to say that I felt she ought to
know what had happened. When we were first engaged we both professed
the same faith. From that faith I had gradually departed, and it
seemed to me that it would be wicked if she were not made acquainted
before she took a step which was irrevocable. This was true, but it
was not quite all the truth, and with a woman's keenness she saw at
once everything that was in me. She broke out instantly with a sob -

"Oh, Rough!"--a nickname she had given me--"I know what it all means--
you want to get rid of me."

God help me, if I ever endure greater anguish than I did then. I could
not speak, much less could I weep, and I sat and watched her for some
minutes in silence. My first impulse was to retract, to put my arms
round her neck, and swear that whatever I might be, Deist or Atheist,
nothing should separate me from her. Old associations, the thought of
the cruel injustice put upon her, the display of an emotion which I had
never seen in her before, almost overmastered me, and why I did not
yield I do not know. Again and again have I failed to make out what it
is which, in moments of extreme peril, has restrained me from making
some deadly mistake, when I have not been aware of the conscious
exercise of any authority of my own. At last I said -

"Ellen, what else was I to do? I cannot help my conversion to another
creed. Supposing you had found out that you had married a Unitarian
and I had never told you!"

"Oh, Rough! you are not a Unitarian, you don't love me," and she sobbed
afresh.

I could not plead against hysterics. I was afraid she would get ill.
I thought nobody was in the house, and I rushed across the passage to
get her some stimulants. When I came back her father was in the room.
He was my aversion--a fussy, conceited man, who always prated about "my
daughter" to me in a tone which was very repulsive--just as if she were
his property, and he were her natural protector against me.

"Mr. Rutherford," he cried, "what is the matter with my daughter? What
have you said to her?"

"I don't think, sir, I am bound to tell you. It is a matter between
Ellen and myself."

"Mr. Rutherford, I demand an explanation. Ellen is mine. I am her
father."

"Excuse me, sir, if I desire not to have a scene here just now. Ellen
is unwell. When she recovers she will tell you. I had better leave,"
and I walked straight out of the house.

Next morning I had a letter from her father to say, that whether I was
a Unitarian or not, my behaviour to Ellen showed I was bad enough to be
one. Anyhow, he had forbidden her all further intercourse with me.
When I had once more settled down in my solitude, and came to think
over what had happened, I felt the self-condemnation of a criminal
without being able to accuse myself of a crime. I believe with Miss
Arbour that it is madness for a young man who finds out he has made a
blunder, not to set it right; no matter what the wrench may be. But
that Ellen was a victim I do not deny. If any sin, however, was
committed against her, it was committed long before our separation. It
was nine-tenths mistake and one-tenth something more heinous; and the
worst of it is, that while there is nothing which a man does which is
of greater consequence than the choice of a woman with whom he is to
live, there is nothing he does in which he is more liable to self-
deception.

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