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CHAPTER XVIII
When Gertrude found herself beside Trefusis in the Pullman, she
wondered how she came to be travelling with him against her
resolution, if not against her will. In the presence of two women
scrutinizing her as if they suspected her of being there with no
good purpose, a male passenger admiring her a little further off,
her maid reading Trefusis's newspapers just out of earshot, an
uninterested country gentleman looking glumly out of window, a
city man preoccupied with the "Economist," and a polite lady who
refrained from staring but not from observing, she felt that she
must not make a scene; yet she knew he had not come there to hold
an ordinary conversation. Her doubt did not last long. He began
promptly, and went to the point at once.
"What do you think of this engagement of mine?"
This was more than she could bear calmly. "What is it to me?" she
said indignantly. "I have nothing to do with it."
"Nothing! You are a cold friend to me then. I thought you one of
the surest I possessed."
She moved as if about to look at him, but checked herself, closed
her lips, and fixed her eyes on the vacant seat before her. The
reproach he deserved was beyond her power of expression.
"I cling to that conviction still, in spite of Miss Lindsay's
indifference to my affairs. But I confess I hardly know how to
bring you into sympathy with me in this matter. In the first
place, you have never been married, I have. In the next, you are
much younger than I, in more respects than that of years. Very
likely half your ideas on the subject are derived from fictions
in which happy results are tacked on to conditions very
ill-calculated to produce them--which in real life hardly ever do
produce them. If our friendship were a chapter in a novel, what
would be the upshot of it? Why, I should marry you, or you break
your heart at my treachery."
Gertrude moved her eyes as if she had some intention of taking to
flight.
"But our relations being those of real life--far sweeter, after
all--I never dreamed of marrying you, having gained and enjoyed
your friendship without that eye to business which our nineteenth
century keeps open even whilst it sleeps. You, being equally
disinterested in your regard for me, do not think of breaking
your heart, but you are, I suppose, a little hurt at my
apparently meditating and resolving on such a serious step as
marriage with Agatha without confiding my intention to you. And
you punish me by telling me that you have nothing to do with it--
that it is nothing to you. But I never meditated the step, and so
had nothing to conceal from you. It was conceived and executed in
less than a minute. Although my first marriage was a silly love
match and a failure, I have always admitted to myself that I
should marry again. A bachelor is a man who shirks
responsibilities and duties; I seek them, and consider it my
duty, with my monstrous superfluity of means, not to let the
individualists outbreed me. Still, I was in no hurry, having
other things to occupy me, and being fond of my bachelor freedom,
and doubtful sometimes whether I had any right to bring more
idlers into the world for the workers to feed. Then came the
usual difficulty about the lady. I did not want a helpmeet; I can
help myself. Nor did I expect to be loved devotedly, for the race
has not yet evolved a man lovable on thorough acquaintance; even
my self-love is neither thorough nor constant. I wanted a genial
partner for domestic business, and Agatha struck me quite
suddenly as being the nearest approach to what I desired that I
was likely to find in the marriage market, where it is extremely
hard to suit oneself, and where the likeliest bargains are apt to
be snapped up by others if one hesitates too long in the hope of
finding something better. I admire Agatha's courage and
capability, and believe I shall be able to make her like me, and
that the attachment so begun may turn into as close a union as is
either healthy or necessary between two separate individuals. I
may mistake her character, for I do not know her as I know you,
and have scarcely enough faith in her as yet to tell her such
things as I have told you. Still, there is a consoling dash of
romance in the transaction. Agatha has charm. Do you not think
so?"
Gertrude's emotion was gone. She replied with cool scorn, "Very
romantic indeed. She is very fortunate."
Trefusis half laughed, half sighed with relief to find her so
self-possessed. "It sounds like--and indeed is--the selfish
calculation of a disilluded widower. You would not value such an
offer, or envy the recipient of it?"
"No," said Gertrude with quiet contempt.
"Yet there is some calculation behind every such offer. We marry
to satisfy our needs, and the more reasonable our needs are, the
more likely are we to get them satisfied. I see you are disgusted
with me; I feared as much. You are the sort of woman to admit no
excuse for my marriage except love--pure emotional love,
blindfolding reason."
"I really do not concern myself--"
"Do not say so, Gertrude. I watch every step you take with
anxiety; and I do not believe you are indifferent to the
worthiness of my conduct. Believe me, love is an overrated
passion; it would be irremediably discredited but that young
people, and the romancers who live upon their follies, have a
perpetual interest in rehabilitating it. No relation involving
divided duties and continual intercourse between two people can
subsist permanently on love alone. Yet love is not to be despised
when it comes from a fine nature. There is a man who loves you
exactly as you think I ought to love Agatha--and as I don't love
her."
Gertrude's emotion stirred again, and her color rose. "You have
no right to say these things now," she said.
"Why may I not plead the cause of another? I speak of Erskine."
Her color vanished, and he continued, "I want you to marry him.
When you are married you will understand me better, and our
friendship, shaken just now, will be deepened; for I dare assure
you, now that you can no longer misunderstand me, that no living
woman is dearer to me than you. So much for the inevitable
selfish reason. Erskine is a poor man, and in his comfortable
poverty--save the mark--lies your salvation from the baseness of
marrying for wealth and position; a baseness of which women of
your class stand in constant peril. They court it; you must shun
it. The man is honorable and loves you; he is young, healthy, and
suitable. What more do you think the world has to offer you?"
"Much more, I hope. Very much more."
"I fear that the names I give things are not romantic enough. He
is a poet. Perhaps he would be a hero if it were possible for a
man to be a hero in this nineteenth century, which will be
infamous in history as a time when the greatest advances in the
power of man over nature only served to sharpen his greed and
make famine its avowed minister. Erskine is at least neither a
gambler nor a slave-driver at first hand; if he lives upon
plundered labor he can no more help himself than I. Do not say
that you hope for much more; but tell me, if you can, what more
you have any chance of getting? Mind, I do not ask what more you
desire; we all desire unutterable things. I ask you what more you
can obtain!"
"I have not found Mr. Erskine such a wonderful person as you seem
to think him."
"He is only a man. Do you know anybody more wonderful?"
"Besides, my family might not approve."
"They most certainly will not. If you wish to please them, you
must sell yourself to some rich vampire of the factories or great
landlord. If you give yourself away to a poor poet who loves you,
their disgust will be unbounded. If a woman wishes to honor her
father and mother to their own satisfaction nowadays she must
dishonor herself."
"I do not understand why you should be so anxious for me to marry
someone else?"
"Someone else?" said Trefusis, puzzled.
"I do not mean someone else," said Gertrude hastily, reddening.
"Why should I marry at all?"
"Why do any of us marry? Why do I marry? It is a function craving
fulfilment. If you do not marry betimes from choice, you will be
driven to do so later on by the importunity of your suitors and
of your family, and by weariness of the suspense that precedes a
definite settlement of oneself. Marry generously. Do not throw
yourself away or sell yourself; give yourself away. Erskine has
as much at stake as you; and yet he offers himself fearlessly."
Gertrude raised her head proudly.
"It is true," continued Trefusis, observing the gesture with some
anger, " that he thinks more highly of you than you deserve; but
you, on the other hand, think too lowly of him. When you marry
him you must save him from a cruel disenchantment by raising
yourself to the level he fancies you have attained. This will
cost you an effort, and the effort will do you good, whether it
fail or succeed. As for him, he will find his just level in your
estimation if your thoughts reach high enough to comprehend him
at that level."
Gertrude moved impatiently.
"What!" he said quickly. "Are my long-winded sacrifices to the
god of reason distasteful? I believe I am involuntarily making
them so because I am jealous of the fellow after all.
Nevertheless I am serious; I want you to get married; though I
shall always have a secret grudge against the man who marries
you. Agatha will suspect me of treason if you don't. Erskine will
be a disappointed man if you don't. You will be moody, wretched,
and--and unmarried if you don't."
Gertrude's cheeks flushed at the word jealous, and again at his
mention of Agatha. "And if I do," she said bitterly, "what then?"
"If you do, Agatha's mind will be at ease, Erskine will be happy,
and you! You will have sacrificed yourself, and will have the
happiness which follows that when it is worthily done."
"It is you who have sacrificed me," she said, casting away her
reticence, and looking at him for the first time during the
conversation.
"I know it," he said, leaning towards her and half whispering the
words. "Is not renunciation the beginning and the end of wisdom?
I have sacrificed you rather than profane our friendship by
asking you to share my whole life with me. You are unfit for
that, and I have committed myself to another union, and am
begging you to follow my example, lest we should tempt one
another to a step which would soon prove to you how truly I tell
you that you are unfit. I have never allowed you to roam through
all the chambers of my consciousness, but I keep a sanctuary
there for you alone, and will keep it inviolate for you always.
Not even Agatha shall have the key, she must be content with the
other rooms--the drawing-room, the working-room, the dining-room,
and so forth. They would not suit you; you would not like the
furniture or the guests; after a time you would not like the
master. Will you be content with the sanctuary?" Gertrude bit
her lip; tears came into her eyes. She looked imploringly at him.
Had they been alone, she would have thrown herself into his arms
and entreated him to disregard everything except their strong
cleaving to one another.
"And will you keep a corner of your heart for me?"
She slowly gave him a painful look of acquiescence. "Will you be
brave, and sacrifice yourself to the poor man who loves you? He
will save you from useless solitude, or from a worldly
marriage--I cannot bear to think of either as your fate."
"I do not care for Mr. Erskine," she said, hardly able to control
her voice; "but I will marry him if you wish it."
"I do wish it earnestly, Gertrude."
"Then, you have my promise," she said, again with some
bitterness.
"But you will not forget me? Erskine will have all but that--a
tender recollection--nothing."
"Can I do more than I have just promised?"
"Perhaps so; but I am too selfish to be able to conceive anything
more generous. Our renunciation will bind us to one another as
our union could never have done."
They exchanged a long look. Then he took out his watch, and began
to speak of the length of their journey, now nearly at an end.
When they arrived in London the first person they recognized on
the platform was Mr. Jansenius.
"Ah! you got my telegram, I see," said Trefusis. "Many thanks for
coming. Wait for me whilst I put this lady into a cab."
When the cab was engaged, and Gertrude, with her maid, stowed
within, he whispered to her hurriedly:
"In spite of all, I have a leaden pain here" (indicating his
heart). "You have been brave, and I have been wise. Do not speak
to me, but remember that we are friends always and deeply."
He touched her hand, and turned to the cabman, directing him
whither to drive. Gertrude shrank back into a corner of the
vehicle as it departed. Then Trefusis, expanding his chest like a
man just released from some cramping drudgery, rejoined Mr.
Jansenius.
"There goes a true woman," he said. "I have been persuading her
to take the very best step open to her. I began by talking sense,
like a man of honor, and kept at it for half an hour, but she
would not listen to me. Then I talked romantic nonsense of the
cheapest sort for five minutes, and she consented with tears in
her eyes. Let us take this hansom. Hi! Belsize Avenue. Yes; you
sometimes have to answer a woman according to her womanishness,
just as you have to answer a fool according to his folly. Have
you ever made up your mind, Jansenius, whether I am an unusually
honest man, or one of the worst products of the social
organization I spend all my energies in assailing--an infernal
scoundrel, in short?"
"Now pray do not be absurd," said Mr. Jansenius. "I wonder at a
man of your ability behaving and speaking as you sometimes do."
"I hope a little insincerity, when meant to act as chloroform--to
save a woman from feeling a wound to her vanity--is excusable.
By-the-bye, I must send a couple of telegrams from the first
post-office we pass. Well, sir, I am going to marry Agatha, as I
sent you word. There was only one other single man and one other
virgin down at Brandon Beeches, and they are as good as engaged.
And so--
"'Jack shall have Jill, Nought shall go ill, The man shall have
his mare again; And all shall be well.'"
Content of CHAPTER XVIII [George Bernard Shaw's novel: An Unsocial Socialist]
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