The Passion for Life

"What could he tell me?" I asked.

She reflected for a few seconds, then said suddenly:

"Do you believe that any one should be tied down to conventional morality, Mr. Erskine?"

"Conventional morality?" I asked. "I am not sure that I understand."

"Don't you think," she said, "that one has a right to pick the flowers that lie in one's pathway? Rather, don't you think it is one's duty to do so?"

"The question is rather too abstract for me," was my reply; "one has to get down to concrete instances."

Again she reflected for a few seconds.

"I am glad you have come up early," she said. "Glad to have this opportunity of talking with you alone. You have come from a world of ideas. You have met with people who are determined to live their lives at all costs."

"I have met with people, certainly, who have claimed to do this," was my reply; "but, on the whole, the so-called unconventional people, as far as my experience goes, are the most discontented. After all, life doesn't admit of many experiments, and those who make them, as a rule, have to pay very dearly for them."

"Yes, but they have been happy while they have been making them," was her reply. "You confess to that, don't you?"

"I am not sure. For example, I know a man who was determined to do as you say. He said he would live his life untrammelled by conventional ideas, that he would experiment, that he would pick the flowers that grew at his feet, no matter to whom they belonged."

"Yes," she replied eagerly, "and what then?"

"He did what he said he would do," I said, "and the result was misery. Lives were wrecked, and he obtained no satisfaction for himself."

"But did he not confess that he had happiness while he was making the experiments?"

"Perhaps he did, until his deeds bore fruit," was my reply.

"Ah yes, that is it," and her voice was eager. "After all, what is the use of a humdrum existence? Some people," and she spoke almost bitterly, "are born handicapped. I think with you that, for most people, our present mode of life is the outcome of a long period of evolution. Customs have become laws, and these laws have hardened until, if one breaks them, he, or she, is banned – condemned. All the same, they are artificial and they should not apply to exceptional circumstances. Do you believe there is a God, Mr. Erskine?"

"There seems to be a consensus of opinion that there is," was my reply.

"If there is, do you think He intends us to be happy? Do you think He would condemn us for snatching at our only means of happiness?"

I tried to understand the drift of her mind, but could not.

"I don't know whether there is a God or not," she said. "Even all feeling of Him is kept from me. Neither do I believe there is a future life. Do you?"

I was silent, for she had touched upon a sore spot.

"We have only this little life, and that being so, ought we not to snatch, as a matter of duty, anything that will make this life happy? Let me put a common case to you. I knew a lad who was doomed to die between twenty and thirty. He was the victim of an hereditary disease. A year before he died, and knowing that he would die, he married the girl he loved. People called it a crime, but to me it was his only chance of happiness, and he seized it. Was he not right?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Some people are handicapped, Mr. Erskine. They are born into the world with limitations, kinks in their characters, and a host of wild longings – things which make life a tragedy. They cannot obtain happiness in the way ordinary people do. Why, then, is it wrong for them to try and snatch at the happiness they can get?"

"That sounds all right," I said, "only I doubt the happiness."

"Napoleon broke through conventional barriers," she urged. "He said he could not be governed by ordinary laws."

"Exactly," I replied. "But then, for one thing, Napoleon was a genius, and, for another, his great career ended in a fiasco."

"Yes; but if being a genius justifies breaking away from the established order of things, do not peculiar limitations also justify it? Do not abnormalities of any sort justify extraordinary measures? If there is a God, Mr. Erskine, we are as God made us, and surely He does not give us life to mock us?"

"The worst of it is that facts laugh at us. As far as I can discover, nearly all these experiments end in bitter failure. It is by abiding by the common laws of life that we find what measure of happiness there is."

"If I were sure there was a God and a future life I think I could agree with you," was her reply.

"And you are not?"

"How can one be?" she replied. "It all seems so unreal, so utterly unconvincing. My father sticks by his Chapel, but does he believe what he hears there? Most people accept for granted what isn't proved. They say they believe, but they have no convictions. No one is certain. Sometimes I go to hear Mr. Trelaske, and it is just the same at the Parish Church. If religion were true, it should be triumphant; but there seems nothing triumphant about it. Everything is on the surface. Again and again I have asked so-called Christians if they believe in a future life, and when one goes to the depths of things they can only say they hope so. Were not the old Greeks right when they said, 'Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die'?"

"You are in rather a curious mood for a young lady," I said, with a laugh. "Here you are, situated in this lovely home, with health and beauty and all that makes life worth living, and yet you talk like this."

"What is the good of anything, everything, if you are forever yearning for something which you never realize, when you find that at the end of every road of desire is a great blank wall: when the things you passionately long for only end in disappointment?"

"Surely that is not your condition, Miss Lethbridge?"

"I don't know," she replied, and there was a touch of impatience in her voice. "One doesn't know anything. We are all so comfortable. Every one seems to have enough to eat and to drink; we have houses to live in; we are, in our way, very prosperous, and, superficially, we are content. But life is so little, so piteously mean and little, and no one seems to know of anything to make it great. We never seem to overstep the barriers which keep us from entering a greater and brighter world. Is there a greater and better world?"

At that moment Mr. Lethbridge senior entered the room, and our conversation ended.

XI

MARY TRELEAVEN

"Seen to-day's papers, Mr. Erskine?" he said, after our first greeting.

"I am afraid I haven't."

"You do surprise me."

"I fancy I have become pretty much of a hermit, Mr. Lethbridge, and I have scarcely enough interest in what is going on to open a newspaper."

"Things are very bad," he said gloomily.

"Bad! How?"

"We are threatened to be mixed up in this Eastern trouble. The whole thing has got entangled. Some Servian assassins have murdered the Crown Prince of Austria. Austria made certain demands on Servia. Russia supports Servia, whereupon Germany steps in and threatens Russia; but the thing doesn't end there. The alliance between France and Russia drags France in, and then the Entente Cordiale between France and England causes us to interfere. Sir Edward Grey made a most pessimistic statement last night. It seems as though we might go to war."

"You remember what I said the last time I was here, Mr. Lethbridge?"

"Yes, I know; but it is madness, pure madness. Think what it would mean. The whole trade of the country would be crippled. For that matter the trade of the world would practically stop. We were just beginning to recover ourselves from the effect of the Boer War, and to place the finances of the country upon a solid foundation, and now – It's madness, pure madness. Just as our country seemed to be entering upon another era of prosperity. If there is a war hundreds of people will be ruined. Great firms will come tottering down like ninepins. Besides, think how we should all be taxed."

"That is the way you look at it, is it?"

"How can I help looking at it in that way?" he replied. "Why, think, I have just formed a company for working a petrol mine in Austria. Nearly a million of money has been raised, and is practically in the hands of the Austrians. We shall probably never see a penny of our money back. What right has England to go bothering with what Germany, or Russia, or Austria does? Why can't we attend to our own business?"

"I must get hold of the papers," I said. "I must try and see how we stand."

"Oh, of course, Grey makes a good case. Here is the difficulty, you see. We signed a treaty in which we are engaged to protect Belgium; Germany won't promise not to invade Belgium in order to attack France. But why should we bother about old treaties? What have we got to do with Belgium? I did think this Government had the sense to avoid war. If the Tory party had been in we might have expected it; but there it is."

"Then Sir Edward Grey really thinks there is danger of war with Germany?" I asked.

"Things look very black," was his reply.

"If such a thing comes to pass," I could not help saying, "the whole Empire will be in danger."

"What, the British Empire in danger! You don't mean that?"

"I do," I replied. "I am not sure that war is not inevitable. Germany has been hungering for war for years, and she can place at least eight million men in the field, armed as never a nation was armed before."

"Oh, I have no fear about the Empire," he said. "The British Empire is as firm as a rock, and as safe as Gibraltar."

"We shall have to utilize every pound of power we have if it remains safe."

"Nonsense! nonsense!" he replied impatiently; and I could see he regarded my opinion as of very little value.

"Where's Hugh?" he went on. "Late again, I suppose."

Hugh entered the room as he spoke, and behind him came his mother. A few minutes later we found our way into the dining-room. Hugh was full of the news which had that day been recorded in the newspapers.

"It appears that war is certain," said Hugh. "You were right, Erskine, in what you said the last time you were here. It is evident that the Germans mean war, and are forcing it. They still hope that we won't come in, in which case they think they will soon be able to settle with France on the one hand and Russia on the other."

"Of course we shan't come in," replied Mr. Lethbridge; "it would be a crime if we did. Besides, it would be bad policy. We should be missing the opportunity the war would give us. If Germany went to war with France and Russia, her trade, for the time, would be stagnated, and we should be able to get it. If we get embroiled, America will steal the trade of the world."

"I have been to Plymouth to-day," said Hugh, "and, as luck would have it, I met with a man who is in the know. He says he knows for a fact that Germany means to fight us, that if we do not come in now she will simply force a war on us in two or three years' time, and then she will smash us."

"Nonsense! nonsense!"

"He is a great believer in what Lord Roberts says," went on Hugh. "He believes that every man in the country ought to have been trained to defend the country."

"And then we should have become a military nation," was Mr. Lethbridge's reply. "No, no, that won't do, and I simply can't believe what the papers say."

"Anyhow, our fleet is mobilized," said Hugh, "and I hear that the Territorials are being called up. But that is nothing. Our Army is a mere bagatelle. It is on the board that a million men will be called for. Some say there is going to be conscription."

I will not record anything further that took place that night, for, truth to tell, I felt anything but comfortable. It was soon evident that Mr. Lethbridge and his son were entirely antagonistic, and, as a consequence, a strained feeling existed. Indeed, I was glad when the time came for me to return home, and but for the few minutes' chat I had with Isabella Lethbridge, I should have wished I had not accepted the invitation. There could be no doubt about it that Mr. Lethbridge was in a very bad temper. I imagined that he had lost a lot of money, and he saw the possibility of losing more. The fact, too, that Hugh, his only son, was not interested in his schemes, angered him.

"I say, Erskine," said Hugh, just before my leaving the house, "you have no objection to my bringing Mary Treleaven over to see you to-morrow night? I want you to know her."

"I shall be delighted," was my reply. "But do you think you are wise in opposing your father?"

"How can I help opposing him?" asked Hugh. "I am of age, and I have my own life to live. She is the only girl in the world to me, and I am not going to live in misery because of the pater's fads."

As I left I had a few seconds alone with Isabella Lethbridge.

"You have been bored to death, Mr. Erskine," she said. "No, don't try to deny it. You have played your part very well, but your boredom is written on your face. I don't wonder at it."

"Then I apologize for an unforgetable breach of good manners. But did I seem bored when I was talking to you?"

"No, you did not; but please, Mr. Erskine, don't go away with a false impression about me."

"I hope it is not false," I said, "for it is a very pleasant one."

"That is awfully poor," she replied, "and certainly it is not worthy of you." And then she flashed a look into my eyes which, I must confess, set my heart beating violently. "Perhaps the next time you come, Mr. Erskine, we may have pleasanter things to talk about."

I went home feeling that my evening had been ill-spent, and yet I was not sure. I felt somehow that forces were at work in my life which were going to make a change in me. Why, I did not know. It is said that when people are near death, the horizon of their vision becomes widened, that the barriers which have hitherto bounded their sight break down. Was that so with me? I did not know why it was, but I felt as though I were on the brink of some discovery. I had no reason for this. My thoughts were rather intuitional than logical.

When I reached my little home I reflected upon what had taken place. I tried to gather up the impressions which had been made upon me since I had been in St. Issey. I was obliged to confess, too, that Isabella Lethbridge was right in many of the things she had said. I had come to Cornwall, supposed to be a religious county, and yet, as far as I could see, the religion of both Church and Chapel was something that existed only on the surface. There was very little that went down to the depths of life. I had been to Chapel several times since the service I have described. I had also been repeatedly to the Parish Church, but I never found the thing I wanted. The note of conviction, of reality, was always wanting. The people were so awfully comfortable, so completely self-satisfied; the life of every one seemed to be laid over with a thick covering of materialism. There was no general doubt about spiritual things, but there was a lack of consciousness. Men and women appeared to be careless about what they pretended to accept. I discovered, too, that people went to Church and to Chapel rather as a matter of form and custom than because they entered into communion with the Unseen and the Eternal.

Next evening Hugh Lethbridge brought Mary Treleaven to see me, and directly we met I did not wonder at the young fellow's determination. If I have portrayed his character correctly, I have shown him to be a simple-minded, impulsive lad, who cared little for rank or riches; one who obeyed the promptings of his heart, rather than the findings of his reason. No one could associate Hugh with Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and surely Mary Treleaven was a fit mate for such a man. As far as I can judge, she was about twenty years of age, unsophisticated and true-hearted. That she almost worshipped Hugh was evident, and that she stood in awe of his father was just as apparent. I judged, too, that Hugh had been very enthusiastic in his praises about me, for she seemed to regard me, comparative stranger though I was, as a very dear friend of her lover, and when for a few minutes Hugh left us together, she opened her heart to me.

"You know, Mr. Erskine," she said simply, "I know that as far as money and position and all that sort of thing goes, I am not Hugh's equal. My father is only a tenant farmer, and I am afraid they up at Trecarrel think that I just look on him as a good catch; but really, Mr. Erskine, it is not that at all. I almost hope they won't give him any money, and I wish, oh, I wish he was only just a simple farmer like my father! I don't care a bit about the money."

"I am quite sure you don't," I said. "You care only for Hugh."

"Oh, you see that, don't you?"

"Indeed I do," I replied.

"Do you know," she went on, as artlessly as a child, "that I have prayed about it for hours. I thought it my duty to give him up; indeed, I have offered to do so more than once, but Hugh won't hear of it. But, after all, why should I, Mr. Erskine? I love him and he loves me, and I am not afraid to work for him. Why, only give me a chance, and I will work my fingers to the bone for him," and the tears started to her eyes.

I loved to hear her talk. She had that peculiar, soft intonation, common to the fairly-well-educated people in Cornwall. She spoke perfectly correctly, but the Cornish accent, which I had learnt to love – that peculiar, sing-song lilt – was manifest in every sentence she uttered.

"Do you know, Mr. Erskine," she went on, "I have been up to see Mrs. Lethbridge?"

"Oh!" I said; "and did you have a reason for doing that?"

"Yes," she said. "I thought it right just to let her know what I felt. Hugh is talking about emigrating to Canada, and I am sure that if he went he would succeed there, and I am willing to wait five, ten years; it doesn't matter how long. You see, Mr. Erskine, I never loved any one else."

"And what did Mrs. Lethbridge say to you?"

"Oh, at first she didn't seem to like me, and, as I thought, was angry; but after a bit she got quite pleasant, and Hugh says that she has some money of her own, and that she is willing to give it to him, so that he can start a small farm of his own. You think it would be right, don't you?"

"Think what would be right?" I asked.

"For him to go against his father, and take it. It isn't as though I wanted Hugh for his money, Mr. Erskine, I only want him for himself, and he wants me."

"I am sure that your motives are perfectly pure," was my reply, "but you must remember that Hugh is his father's only son, and it is a very grave thing for a boy to disobey his father's wishes."

"Yes, I know, and that is what has made me so miserable. We should have been married before now but for that. I am so glad, Mr. Erskine, that you don't think badly about me."

"Think badly about you?" I said, with a laugh. "That would be impossible. I only congratulate Hugh on his good luck, and I jolly well wish I had his chance."

"Now you are laughing at me."

"Good gracious! No, I am not laughing at you." And I suppose I sighed, for she looked at me curiously.

"Oh, forgive me, Mr. Erskine. I did not think! Hugh has told me all about you. Perhaps it isn't as bad as you believe."

"Well, it is no use worrying," I replied, "and, believe me, I am awfully glad to have met you. Ah, here is Hugh coming."

"You don't advise me to give him up, do you?"

"No, of course not!" I said; and I meant it, for this dark-haired, soft-eyed girl had made a strong appeal to me, and I had been perfectly sincere when I said that I envied Hugh Lethbridge. What, after all, were rank and position? What was anything compared with the love of a pure girl like that, and I, whose death-warrant was written, felt a great pain in my heart, as I reflected that the love of such a girl would never be known to me, that I should die in ignorance of what it could mean.

"Hugh thinks so much of you, and he is so proud that you are his friend," she went on. "He says you were awfully clever at college, and that if you live you will make a great name for yourself. He says he never felt towards any one like he feels towards you. Oh, it would be lovely if you got well, and could be our neighbor and be near us always."

I saw the tears roll down her face as she said this, and I, who have never known what it is to have a sister, felt towards her as, I think, brothers feel towards a sister whom they love.

"You don't think badly of me, do you?" she went on. And I could see a look of longing in her eyes.

"What makes you ask such a question?" I said.

"Oh, Hugh says his father has quite taken to you too, and thinks a great deal of your opinion. I wonder if – if – "

"I am afraid Hugh is mistaken," I said. "But if any word of mine can soften his heart – "

"Oh, you are good!" she interrupted impulsively, "and you don't think that Hugh would be throwing himself away on me, do you?"

"Throwing himself away?" I cried, and at that moment I thought of Miss Treherne, whom I had seen at Church on the previous Sunday morning, and mentally I compared them. The Squire's daughter was a staid-looking spinster of about thirty years of age. She had never been beautiful, and no one by the utmost stretch of imagination could call her attractive.

"If I were Hugh," I said, "I would not give you up for anything or anybody, and I should regard myself as the luckiest fellow in the world to get you."

She laughed like a child. It was easy to see that I had gladdened her heart, and when a few minutes later she walked away hanging on her lover's arm, I heaved a sigh of envy.

"They are right, both of them," I said to myself. "What is all the money in the world, and all the rank, compared to the infinite trustfulness and affection of those two?

"Surely God, if there is a God, wants them to be happy," I reflected, and I formed a sort of quixotic resolution that I would speak to Mr. Lethbridge, and try to persuade him to withdraw his opposition to his son's marriage with this pure, sweet, simple-minded country girl.

I did not carry my resolution into effect, however. The next day I suffered a kind of reaction from the little excitement caused by what had taken place, and immediately afterwards it seemed as though all my thoughts and resolutions were scattered to the wind.

"Please, sir," said Simpson, entering my room, "here's the paper, sir. I thought you might like to look at it, sir."

"Is there anything particular in it, Simpson?"

"Yes, sir; war is declared, sir."

I took the paper from his hand, feeling strangely heavy-hearted, and on opening it, saw, staring me in large letters:

"ENGLAND DECLARES WAR ON GERMANYGERMANY DETERMINES TO VIOLATE HER TREATYENGLAND DECIDES TO RISK ALL FOR HONORGREAT SCENE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONSTHE WHOLE NATION UNANIMOUS."

No sooner had I read this, than a strange calm came upon me, and I scanned the paper in a detached sort of way. I seemed to have nothing to do with it; I was cut off from everything. I read what had been written, rather as one who read the history of another country, than as something which vitally affected England.

In a way I had expected it. My conversation at Trecarrel had somewhat prepared me, and yet events had moved so rapidly, that declaration of war came like a shock. The whole story was set forth in the newspapers, and from the dispatches it was made plain that, while Germany had hoped that England would remain neutral, and had been willing to offer bribes for our neutrality, she had planned this war, and made arrangements for it. There was no doubt that she believed both Russia and France to be entirely unprepared, and that both she and Austria were prepared. It was plain too that unless we were willing to violate our plighted word, and to allow our honor to be dragged in the dust, we must stand by Belgium. I saw more than this. I saw that a critical moment had come in the life of our nation and Empire.

For I realized, knowing Germany as I did, that this was not a war to be "muddled through," as had been the case with other wars. I knew that England must make sacrifices, such as had hitherto been unknown to her. I knew that before German militarism could be crushed, all the vast resources of our Empire would have to be utilized, and that we must be prepared to spend our last penny, and shed the last drop of our blood.