Chapter IX--In the Spring

by Bram Stoker

　　The months since her father's death spread into the second yearbefore Stephen began to realise the loneliness of her life. She hadno companion now but her aunt; and though the old lady adored her,and she returned her love in full, the mere years between them madeimpossible the companionship that youth craves. Miss Rowly's lifewas in the past. Stephen's was in the future. And loneliness is afeeling which comes unbidden to a heart.Stephen felt her loneliness all round. In old days Harold was alwayswithin hail, and companionship of equal age and understanding wasavailable. But now his very reticence in her own interest, and byher father's wishes, made for her pain. Harold had put his strongestrestraint on himself, and in his own way suffered a sort of silentmartyrdom. He loved Stephen with every fibre of his being. Day byday he came toward her with eager step; day by day he left her with apang that made his heart ache and seemed to turn the brightness ofthe day to gloom. Night by night he tossed for hours thinking,thinking, wondering if the time would ever come when her kisses wouldbe his . . . But the tortures and terrors of the night had theireffect on his days. It seemed as if the mere act of thinking, oflonging, gave him ever renewed self-control, so that he was able inhis bearing to carry out the task he had undertaken: to give Stephentime to choose a mate for herself. Herein lay his weakness--aweakness coming from his want of knowledge of the world of women.Had he ever had a love affair, be it never so mild a one, he wouldhave known that love requires a positive expression. It is notsufficient to sigh, and wish, and hope, and long, all to oneself.Stephen felt instinctively that his guarded speech and manner weredue to the coldness--or rather the trusting abated worship--of thebrotherhood to which she had been always accustomed. At the timewhen new forces were manifesting and expanding themselves within her;when her growing instincts, cultivated by the senses and the passionsof young nature, made her aware of other forces, new and old,expanding themselves outside her; at the time when the heart of agirl is eager for new impressions and new expansions, and the callsof sex are working within her all unconsciously, Harold, to whom herheart would probably have been the first to turn, made himself in hiseffort to best show his love, a quantite negligeable.Thus Stephen, whilst feeling that the vague desires of buddingwomanhood were trembling within her, had neither thought norknowledge of their character or their ultimate tendency. She wouldhave been shocked, horrified, had that logical process, which sheapplied so freely to less personal matters, been used upon her ownintimate nature. In her case logic would of course act within acertain range; and as logic is a conscious intellectual process, shebecame aware that her objective was man. Man--in the abstract.'Man,' not 'a man.' Beyond that, she could not go. It is not toomuch to say that she did not ever, even in her most errant thought,apply her reasoning, or even dream of its following out either theduties, the responsibilities, or the consequences of having ahusband. She had a vague longing for younger companionship, and ofthe kind naturally most interesting to her. There thought stopped.One only of her male acquaintances did not at this time appear.Leonard Everard, who had some time ago finished his course atcollege, was living partly in London and partly on the Continent.His very absence made him of added interest to his old play-fellow.The image of his grace and comeliness, of his dominance and masculineforce, early impressed on her mind, began to compare favourably withthe actualities of her other friends; those of them at least who werewithin the circle of her personal interest. 'Absence makes the heartgrow fonder.' In Stephen's mind had been but a very mustard-seed offondness. But new lights were breaking for her; and all of them, ingreater or lesser degree, shone in turn on the memory of the prettyself-willed dominant boy, who now grew larger and more masculine instature under the instance of each successive light. Stephen knewthe others fairly well through and through. The usual mixture ofgood and evil, of strength and weakness, of purpose and vacillation,was quite within the scope of her own feeling and of her observation.But this man was something of a problem to her; and, as such, had aprominence in her thoughts quite beyond his own worthiness.In movement of some form is life; and even ideas grow when the pulsesbeat and thought quickens. Stephen had long had in her mind the ideaof sexual equality. For a long time, in deference to her aunt'sfeelings, she had not spoken of it; for the old lady winced ingeneral under any suggestion of a breach of convention. But thoughher outward expression being thus curbed had helped to suppress orminimise the opportunities of inward thought, the idea had never lefther. Now, when sex was, consciously or unconsciously, a dominatingfactor in her thoughts, the dormant idea woke to new life. She hadheld that if men and women were equal the woman should have equalrights and opportunities as the man. It had been, she believed, anabsurd conventional rule that such a thing as a proposal of marriageshould be entirely the prerogative of man.And then came to her, as it ever does to woman, opportunity.Opportunity, the cruelest, most remorseless, most unsparing, subtlestfoe that womanhood has. Here was an opportunity for her to test herown theory; to prove to herself, and others, that she was right.They--'they' being the impersonal opponents of, or unbelievers in,her theory--would see that a woman could propose as well as a man;and that the result would be good.It is a part of self-satisfaction, and perhaps not the leastdangerous part of it, that it has an increasing or multiplying powerof its own. The desire to do increases the power to do; and desireand power united find new ways for the exercise of strength. Up tonow Stephen's inclination towards Leonard had been vague, nebulous;but now that theory showed a way to its utilisation it forthwithbegan to become, first definite, then concrete, then substantial.When once the idea had become a possibility, the mere passing of timedid the rest.Her aunt saw--and misunderstood. The lesson of her own youth had notbeen applied; not even of those long hours and days and weeks atwhich she hinted when she had spoken of the tragedy of life which byinference was her own tragedy: 'to love and to be helpless. Towait, and wait, and wait, with your heart all aflame!'Stephen recognised her aunt's concern for her health in time toprotect herself from the curiosity of her loving-kindness. Her youthand readiness and adaptability, and that power of play-acting whichwe all have within us and of which she had her share, stood to her.With but little effort, based on a seeming acquiescence in her aunt'sviews, she succeeded in convincing the old lady that her incipientfeverish cold had already reached its crisis and was passing away.But she had gained certain knowledge in the playing of her littlepart. All this self-protective instinct was new; for good or ill shehad advanced one more step in not only the knowledge but the power ofduplicity which is so necessary in the conventional life of a woman.Oh! did we but see! Could we but see! Here was a woman, dowered inher youth with all the goods and graces in the power of the gods tobestow, who fought against convention; and who yet found inconvention the strongest as well as the readiest weapon of defence.For nearly two weeks Stephen's resolution was held motionless,neither advancing nor receding; it was veritably the slack water ofher resolution. She was afraid to go on. Not afraid in sense offear as it is usually understood, but with the opposition of virginalinstincts; those instincts which are natural, but whose uses as wellas whose powers are unknown to us.