George Meredith - The Egoist - A Comedy in Narrative

"Which is the poor girl at present?" said Mrs. Mountstuart, cool in a mystification.

"And though she will tell you that I have authorized and Clara Middleton — done as much as man can to institute the union you suggest, she will own that she is conscious of the presence of this — fatality, I call it for want of a better title between us. It drives her in one direction, me in another — or would, if I submitted to the pressure. She is not the first who has been conscious of it."

"Are we laying hold of a third poor girl?" said Mrs. Mountstuart. "Ah! I remember. And I remember we used to call it playing fast and loose in those days, not fatality. It is very strange. It may be that you were unblushingly courted in those days, and excusable; and we all supposed… but away you went for your tour."

"My mother's medical receipt for me. Partially it succeeded. She was for grand marriages: not I. I could make, I could not be, a sacrifice. And then I went in due time to Dr. Cupid on my own account. She has the kind of attraction… But one changes! On revient toujours. First we begin with a liking; then we give ourselves up to the passion of beauty: then comes the serious question of suitableness of the mate to match us; and perhaps we discover that we were wiser in early youth than somewhat later. However, she has beauty. Now, Mrs Mountstuart, you do admire her. Chase the idea of the 'dainty rogue' out of your view of her: you admire her: she is captivating; she has a particular charm of her own, nay, she has real beauty."

Mrs. Mountstuart fronted him to say: "Upon my word, my dear Sir Willoughby, I think she has it to such a degree that I don't know the man who could hold out against her if she took the field. She is one of the women who are dead shots with men. Whether it's in their tongues or their eyes, or it's an effusion and an atmosphere — whatever it is, it's a spell, another fatality for you!"

"Animal; not spiritual!"

"Oh, she hasn't the head of Letty Dale."

Sir Willoughby allowed Mrs. Mountstuart to pause and follow her thoughts.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed. "I noticed a change in Letty Dale last night; and to-day. She looked fresher and younger; extremely well: which is not what I can say for you, my friend. Fatalizing is not good for the complexion."

"Don't take away my health, pray," cried Willoughby, with a snapping laugh.

"Be careful," said Mrs. Mountstuart. "You have got a sentimental tone. You talk of 'feelings crushed of old'. It is to a woman, not to a man that you speak, but that sort of talk is a way of making the ground slippery. I listen in vain for a natural tongue; and when I don't hear it, I suspect plotting in men. You show your under-teeth too at times when you draw in a breath, like a condemned high-caste Hindoo my husband took me to see in a jail in Calcutta, to give me some excitement when I was pining for England. The creature did it regularly as he breathed; you did it last night, and you have been doing it to-day, as if the air cut you to the quick. You have been spoilt. You have been too much anointed. What I've just mentioned is a sign with me of a settled something on the brain of a man."

"The brain?" said Sir Willoughby, frowning.

"Yes, you laugh sourly, to look at," said she. "Mountstuart told me that the muscles of the mouth betray men sooner than the eyes, when they have cause to be uneasy in their minds."

"But, ma'am, I shall not break my word; I shall not, not; I intend, I have resolved to keep it. I do not fatalize, let my complexion be black or white. Despite my resemblance to a high-caste malefactor of the Calcutta prison-wards…"

"Friend! friend! you know how I chatter."

He saluted her finger-ends. "Despite the extraordinary display of teeth, you will find me go to execution with perfect calmness; with a resignation as good as happiness."

"Like a Jacobite lord under the Georges."

"You have told me that you wept to read of one: like him, then. My principles have not changed, if I have. When I was younger, I had an idea of a wife who would be with me in my thoughts as well as aims: a woman with a spirit of romance, and a brain of solid sense. I shall sooner or later dedicate myself to a public life; and shall, I suppose, want the counsellor or comforter who ought always to be found at home. It may be unfortunate that I have the ideal in my head. But I would never make rigorous demands for specific qualities. The cruellest thing in the world is to set up a living model before a wife, and compel her to copy it. In any case, here we are upon the road: the die is cast. I shall not reprieve myself. I cannot release her. Marriage represents facts, courtship fancies. She will be cured by-and-by of that coveting of everything that I do, feel, think, dream, imagine… ta-ta-ta-ta ad infinitum. Lætitia was invited here to show her the example of a fixed character — solid as any concrete substance you would choose to build on, and not a whit the less feminine."

"Ta-ta-ta-ta ad infinitum. You need not tell me you have a design in all that you do, Willoughby Patterne."

"You smell the autocrat? Yes, he can mould and govern the creatures about him. His toughest rebel is himself! If you see Clara… You wish to see her, I think you said?"

"Her behaviour to Lady Busshe last night was queer."

"If you will. She makes a mouth at porcelain. Toujours la porcelaine! For me, her pettishness is one of her charms, I confess it. Ten years younger, I could not have compared them."

"Whom?"

"Lætitia and Clara."

"Sir Willoughby, in any case, to quote you, here we are all upon the road, and we must act as if events were going to happen; and I must ask her to help me on the subject of my wedding-present, for I don't want to have her making mouths at mine, however pretty — and she does it prettily."

"'Another dedicatory offering to the rogue in me! she says of porcelain."

"Then porcelain it shall not be. I mean to consult her; I have come determined upon a chat with her. I think I understand. But she produces false impressions on those who don't know you both. 'I shall have that porcelain back, says Lady Busshe to me, when we were shaking hands last night: 'I think, says she, 'it should have been the Willow Pattern. And she really said: 'He's in for being jilted a second time!"

Sir Willoughby restrained a bound of his body that would have sent him up some feet into the air. He felt his skull thundered at within.

"Rather than that it should fan upon her!" ejaculated he, correcting his resemblance to the high-caste culprit as soon as it recurred to him.

"But you know Lady Busshe," said Mrs. Mountstuart, genuinely solicitous to ease the proud man of his pain. She could see through him to the depth of the skin, which his fencing sensitiveness vainly attempted to cover as it did the heart of him. "Lady Busshe is nothing without her flights, fads, and fancies. She has always insisted that you have an unfortunate nose. I remember her saying on the day of your majority, it was the nose of a monarch destined to lose a throne."

"Have I ever offended Lady Busshe?"

"She trumpets you. She carries Lady Culmer with her too, and you may expect a visit of nods and hints and pots of alabaster. They worship you: you are the hope of England in their eyes, and no woman is worthy of you: but they are a pair of fatalists, and if you begin upon Letty Dale with them, you might as well forbid your banns. They will be all over the country exclaiming on predestination and marriages made in heaven."

"Clara and her father!" cried Sir Willoughby.

Dr Middleton and his daughter appeared in the circle of shrubs and flowers.

"Bring her to me, and save me from the polyglot," said Mrs Mountstuart, in afright at Dr. Middleton's manner of pouring forth into the ears of the downcast girl.