There was another mode of composition, very much slower and more painful, in which she strove to capture the essence of certain events, real or imagined, as precisely as she could, and here she felt she might one day acquire a very different sort of facility, if only she could stumble upon some great conception, something that would absolutely distinguish her work from that of the hundreds of authors whose novels crammed the circulating libraries and bookstalls and jostled one another for notice in the pages of the reviews. At least half a dozen times she had launched herself with high hopes into "Chapter One", and felt her tale to be well under way, only to see a darkness fall across the page, blighting her carefully wrought sentences until her characters lay down, as it were, at the side of the road and simply refused to go on. And then persons from Porlock, usually in the form of her mother, would call just as she saw her way out of the difficulty. There were certain pages, composed almost as if from dictation, with which she was entirely satisfied, but they seemed like the work of another person altogether, and remained in any case unfinished. No; the life of an author was certainly not an easy one. Rosalind had variously accused herself of indolence, of an absolute want of genius, and of lack of experience, the last perhaps excusable at the age of twenty; yet here she was faced with a proposal of marriage from Denton Margrave, and upon her answer depended not only her happiness but that of her mother, for they were poor, and he was rich, and Rosalind was very much afraid she might be on the verge of accepting him for her mother's sake rather than her own. Yet even as she struggled to determine the true state of her own feelings for Mr Margrave, there was a part of her that stood back, and watched, and said that if only she could make fictional capital of her situation, real income might follow, to free her from the jaws of her dilemma.
Their difficulties had begun some two years earlier, with the death of her father. George Forster had been a successful illustrator, but his income had barely kept pace with his wife's expenditure. Cecily Forster lived only for Society, and it was the great disappointment of her life that her only daughter had turned out to be so entirely her father's child, for Rosalind would far rather stay at home with a book than accompany her mother to the endless round of luncheons and soirees and dinners that lent meaning and purpose to her existence. Father and daughter had conspired to spend quiet evenings at home together, whenever he could spare the time from his work; Rosalind had often wondered, as she grew older, whether it was altogether right for her mother to be out so often, but to any tentative inquiry along these lines her father's invariable reply had been, "Your mother must be amused." Though her parents had seldom quarrelled within her hearing, their example had not been sufficiently happy for Rosalind to be in any haste to follow it. And when her father died, there might still have been enough money left for a modest existence in the country, but her mother would sooner have died herself than live in the country, except in August, and had insisted upon keeping on the house in Bayswater. Rosalind had done her best to encourage economies, and an uncle on her mothers side had helped, at first, but the help was now exhausted (other than in the form of a standing offer to move to his rectory in a small Yorkshire village), and it had become clear to Rosalind that ruin must very soon follow. She would willingly have gone out into the world and tried to earn her living, and was secretly resolved to do so if all else failed; the problem being that working as a governess or schoolmistress might keep them from starvation, but would still require, from her mother's point of view, an intolerable descent.
It had also become plain to Rosalind, despite her own continued grief over the loss of her father, that her mother ought to remarry. A marked distaste for exercise and a liking for rich foods had not improved Cecily Forster's figure, but she had kept her complexion, and with the aid of strenuous lacing could still look more like an elder sister than a mother. Rosalind had, indeed, felt increasingly obliged to play the part of parent to her own mother, who seemed to have grown more childish since her husband's death. "Look after your poor Mama" had been amongst George Forster's last words to his daughter, and to that end, once the period of mourning was over, she had begun to accompany her mother to various dances; besides, the house was lonely in the evenings now. Rosalind enjoyed dancing, but the young men in her mother's set seemed to have no conversation beyond riding and shooting, and to be positively unnerved by any mention of literature. She had, therefore, no great expectations of Lady Maudsley's ball, but in deference to her mother's anxiety to make the best possible impression agreed to have a gown made for her, though it was cut lower than Rosalind would have preferred, and she did not like the looks of frank appraisal she attracted, still less the feeling that she had consented to become a creature on display. It was on this occasion that she had met Denton Margrave.
Her first impression of him, in that initial glance with which we take in so much, was by no means favourable: he was fairly tall and well built, but his face was pale and slightly pock-marked; a clipped beard and moustache framed lips a little too red and moist, and a glimpse of discoloured, curiously pointed teeth; his eyes were a gleaming brown, but sunken, with dark circles deeply etched into the flesh beneath. His hair was almost black, shot through with greyish streaks, swept back and receding at the temples from a sharp peak at the centre of his forehead, Rosalind thought that he looked to be in his mid-forties, though he would later declare himself to be thirty-nine.
But all these reservations were, initially, swept aside by his being introduced to her as the Denton Margrave, author of A Domestic Tragedy, an "advanced" novel which she had recently read and admired, about the seduction, abandonment, and eventual suicide by drowning of a servant girl, and they were soon deep in conversation. She spoke, hesitantly at first, of her own ambitions; to her surprise he addressed her as an equal, seemed more interested in hearing her opinions than in delivering his own, and drew her out until she had quite forgotten her shyness. In answer to a question about the subject of his next book, he sighed deeply; his trouble, he confessed, gazing at her with an intensity she found both flattering and a little disquieting, was want of inspiration. He was, it turned out, a widower whose wife had died some years ago after a long illness, leaving him childless and alone. Rosalind's sympathy was naturally awakened by these disclosures, and by the end of the evening he had been introduced to her mother, and secured an invitation to call at the house in Bayswater, where he became a constant visitor.
Within a few weeks he had declared himself ardently in love with Rosalind, and asked for her hand, to which she replied that she could not possibly think of deserting her mother, and besides considered herself too young to marry. In that case, said Mr Margrave, he would ask only for her permission to hope, while assuring her that he understood their situation, and that her mothers fortunes would be as dear to him as her own. Rosalind thought that she had definitely refused him, but as he left he thanked her for giving him hope, and out of politeness she did not contradict him. That evening, her mother reproached her for trifling with the affections of such a delightful gentleman-and one, moreover, who possessed a secure private income. Cecily Forster would never ask her daughter to marry without love, but surely Rosalind could learn to love him, especially since the alternative was their leaving the house within the month and going to live on the charity of Rosalind's uncle in Yorkshire. Rosalind said she would think about it, but added rather intemperately that she wished Mr Margrave would propose to her mother instead of herself, which provoked a flood of outraged weeping, and ended in Rosalind's promising to reconsider her refusal. Denton Margrave renewed his offer within the week; Rosalind asked him for time to consider her final answer, and told her mother that she wished to spend a few quiet days alone with Caroline at Staplefield. Cecily Forster's expression had been like that of a prisoner awaiting sentence of death as she saw her daughter off in the cab to the station.