The interval before the Marriage
Although the enchanted house was no more, and the working world had
broken into it, and was hammering and crashing and tramping up and down
stairs all day long keeping Diogenes in an incessant paroxysm of
barking, from sunrise to sunset—evidently convinced that his enemy had
got the better of him at last, and was then sacking the premises in
triumphant defiance—there was, at first, no other great change in the
method of Florence’s life. At night, when the workpeople went away, the
house was dreary and deserted again; and Florence, listening to their
voices echoing through the hall and staircase as they departed,
pictured to herself the cheerful homes to which they were returning,
and the children who were waiting for them, and was glad to think that
they were merry and well pleased to go.
She welcomed back the evening silence as an old friend, but it came now
with an altered face, and looked more kindly on her. Fresh hope was in
it. The beautiful lady who had soothed and carressed her, in the very
room in which her heart had been so wrung, was a spirit of promise to
her. Soft shadows of the bright life dawning, when her father’s
affection should be gradually won, and all, or much should be restored,
of what she had lost on the dark day when a mother’s love had faded
with a mother’s last breath on her cheek, moved about her in the
twilight and were welcome company. Peeping at the rosy children her
neighbours, it was a new and precious sensation to think that they
might soon speak together and know each other; when she would not fear,
as of old, to show herself before them, lest they should be grieved to
see her in her black dress sitting there alone!
In her thoughts of her new mother, and in the love and trust
overflowing her pure heart towards her, Florence loved her own dead
mother more and more. She had no fear of setting up a rival in her
breast. The new flower sprang from the deep-planted and long-cherished
root, she knew. Every gentle word that had fallen from the lips of the
beautiful lady, sounded to Florence like an echo of the voice long
hushed and silent. How could she love that memory less for living
tenderness, when it was her memory of all parental tenderness and love!
Florence was, one day, sitting reading in her room, and thinking of the
lady and her promised visit soon—for her book turned on a kindred
subject—when, raising her eyes, she saw her standing in the doorway.
“Mama!” cried Florence, joyfully meeting her. “Come again!”
“Not Mama yet,” returned the lady, with a serious smile, as she
encircled Florence’s neck with her arm.
“But very soon to be,” cried Florence.
“Very soon now, Florence: very soon.”
Edith bent her head a little, so as to press the blooming cheek of
Florence against her own, and for some few moments remained thus
silent. There was something so very tender in her manner, that Florence
was even more sensible of it than on the first occasion of their
meeting.
She led Florence to a chair beside her, and sat down: Florence looking
in her face, quite wondering at its beauty, and willingly leaving her
hand in hers.
“Have you been alone, Florence, since I was here last?”
“Oh yes!” smiled Florence, hastily.
She hesitated and cast down her eyes; for her new Mama was very earnest
in her look, and the look was intently and thoughtfully fixed upon her
face.
“I—I—am used to be alone,” said Florence. “I don’t mind it at all. Di
and I pass whole days together, sometimes.” Florence might have said,
whole weeks and months.
“Is Di your maid, love?”
“My dog, Mama,” said Florence, laughing. “Susan is my maid.”
“And these are your rooms,” said Edith, looking round. “I was not shown
these rooms the other day. We must have them improved, Florence. They
shall be made the prettiest in the house.”
“If I might change them, Mama,” returned Florence; “there is one
upstairs I should like much better.”
“Is this not high enough, dear girl?” asked Edith, smiling.
“The other was my brother’s room,” said Florence, “and I am very fond
of it. I would have spoken to Papa about it when I came home, and found
the workmen here, and everything changing; but—”
Florence dropped her eyes, lest the same look should make her falter
again.
“but I was afraid it might distress him; and as you said you would be
here again soon, Mama, and are the mistress of everything, I determined
to take courage and ask you.”
Edith sat looking at her, with her brilliant eyes intent upon her face,
until Florence raising her own, she, in her turn, withdrew her gaze,
and turned it on the ground. It was then that Florence thought how
different this lady’s beauty was, from what she had supposed. She had
thought it of a proud and lofty kind; yet her manner was so subdued and
gentle, that if she had been of Florence’s own age and character, it
scarcely could have invited confidence more.
Except when a constrained and singular reserve crept over her; and then
she seemed (but Florence hardly understood this, though she could not
choose but notice it, and think about it) as if she were humbled before
Florence, and ill at ease. When she had said that she was not her Mama
yet, and when Florence had called her the mistress of everything there,
this change in her was quick and startling; and now, while the eyes of
Florence rested on her face, she sat as though she would have shrunk
and hidden from her, rather than as one about to love and cherish her,
in right of such a near connexion.
She gave Florence her ready promise, about her new room, and said she
would give directions about it herself. She then asked some questions
concerning poor Paul; and when they had sat in conversation for some
time, told Florence she had come to take her to her own home.
“We have come to London now, my mother and I,” said Edith, “and you
shall stay with us until I am married. I wish that we should know and
trust each other, Florence.”
“You are very kind to me,” said Florence, “dear Mama. How much I thank
you!”
“Let me say now, for it may be the best opportunity,” continued Edith,
looking round to see that they were quite alone, and speaking in a
lower voice, “that when I am married, and have gone away for some
weeks, I shall be easier at heart if you will come home here. No matter
who invites you to stay elsewhere. Come home here. It is better to be
alone than—what I would say is,” she added, checking herself, “that I
know well you are best at home, dear Florence.”
“I will come home on the very day, Mama”
“Do so. I rely on that promise. Now, prepare to come with me, dear
girl. You will find me downstairs when you are ready.”
Slowly and thoughtfully did Edith wander alone through the mansion of
which she was so soon to be the lady: and little heed took she of all
the elegance and splendour it began to display. The same indomitable
haughtiness of soul, the same proud scorn expressed in eye and lip, the
same fierce beauty, only tamed by a sense of its own little worth, and
of the little worth of everything around it, went through the grand
saloons and halls, that had got loose among the shady trees, and raged
and rent themselves. The mimic roses on the walls and floors were set
round with sharp thorns, that tore her breast; in every scrap of gold
so dazzling to the eye, she saw some hateful atom of her
purchase-money; the broad high mirrors showed her, at full length, a
woman with a noble quality yet dwelling in her nature, who was too
false to her better self, and too debased and lost, to save herself.
She believed that all this was so plain, more or less, to all eyes,
that she had no resource or power of self-assertion but in pride: and
with this pride, which tortured her own heart night and day, she fought
her fate out, braved it, and defied it.
Was this the woman whom Florence—an innocent girl, strong only in her
earnestness and simple truth—could so impress and quell, that by her
side she was another creature, with her tempest of passion hushed, and
her very pride itself subdued? Was this the woman who now sat beside
her in a carriage, with her arms entwined, and who, while she courted
and entreated her to love and trust her, drew her fair head to nestle
on her breast, and would have laid down life to shield it from wrong or
harm?
Oh, Edith! it were well to die, indeed, at such a time! Better and
happier far, perhaps, to die so, Edith, than to live on to the end!
The Honourable Mrs Skewton, who was thinking of anything rather than of
such sentiments—for, like many genteel persons who have existed at
various times, she set her face against death altogether, and objected
to the mention of any such low and levelling upstart—had borrowed a
house in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, from a stately relative (one
of the Feenix brood), who was out of town, and who did not object to
lending it, in the handsomest manner, for nuptial purposes, as the loan
implied his final release and acquittance from all further loans and
gifts to Mrs Skewton and her daughter. It being necessary for the
credit of the family to make a handsome appearance at such a time, Mrs
Skewton, with the assistance of an accommodating tradesman resident in
the parish of Mary-le-bone, who lent out all sorts of articles to the
nobility and gentry, from a service of plate to an army of footmen,
clapped into this house a silver-headed butler (who was charged extra
on that account, as having the appearance of an ancient family
retainer), two very tall young men in livery, and a select staff of
kitchen-servants; so that a legend arose, downstairs, that Withers the
page, released at once from his numerous household duties, and from the
propulsion of the wheeled-chair (inconsistent with the metropolis), had
been several times observed to rub his eyes and pinch his limbs, as if
he misdoubted his having overslept himself at the Leamington milkman’s,
and being still in a celestial dream. A variety of requisites in plate
and china being also conveyed to the same establishment from the same
convenient source, with several miscellaneous articles, including a
neat chariot and a pair of bays, Mrs Skewton cushioned herself on the
principal sofa, in the Cleopatra attitude, and held her court in fair
state.
“And how,” said Mrs Skewton, on the entrance of her daughter and her
charge, “is my charming Florence? You must come and kiss me, Florence,
if you please, my love.”
Florence was timidly stooping to pick out a place in the white part of
Mrs Skewton’s face, when that lady presented her ear, and relieved her
of her difficulty.
“Edith, my dear,” said Mrs Skewton, “positively, I—stand a little more
in the light, my sweetest Florence, for a moment.”
Florence blushingly complied.
“You don’t remember, dearest Edith,” said her mother, “what you were
when you were about the same age as our exceedingly precious Florence,
or a few years younger?”
“I have long forgotten, mother.”
“For positively, my dear,” said Mrs Skewton, “I do think that I see a
decided resemblance to what you were then, in our extremely fascinating
young friend. And it shows,” said Mrs Skewton, in a lower voice, which
conveyed her opinion that Florence was in a very unfinished state,
“what cultivation will do.”
“It does, indeed,” was Edith’s stern reply.
Her mother eyed her sharply for a moment, and feeling herself on unsafe
ground, said, as a diversion:
“My charming Florence, you must come and kiss me once more, if you
please, my love.”
Florence complied, of course, and again imprinted her lips on Mrs
Skewton’s ear.
“And you have heard, no doubt, my darling pet,” said Mrs Skewton,
detaining her hand, “that your Papa, whom we all perfectly adore and
dote upon, is to be married to my dearest Edith this day week.”
“I knew it would be very soon,” returned Florence, “but not exactly
when.”
“My darling Edith,” urged her mother, gaily, “is it possible you have
not told Florence?”
“Why should I tell Florence?” she returned, so suddenly and harshly,
that Florence could scarcely believe it was the same voice.
Mrs Skewton then told Florence, as another and safer diversion, that
her father was coming to dinner, and that he would no doubt be
charmingly surprised to see her; as he had spoken last night of
dressing in the City, and had known nothing of Edith’s design, the
execution of which, according to Mrs Skewton’s expectation, would throw
him into a perfect ecstasy. Florence was troubled to hear this; and her
distress became so keen, as the dinner-hour approached, that if she had
known how to frame an entreaty to be suffered to return home, without
involving her father in her explanation, she would have hurried back on
foot, bareheaded, breathless, and alone, rather than incur the risk of
meeting his displeasure.
As the time drew nearer, she could hardly breathe. She dared not
approach a window, lest he should see her from the street. She dared
not go upstairs to hide her emotion, lest, in passing out at the door,
she should meet him unexpectedly; besides which dread, she felt as
though she never could come back again if she were summoned to his
presence. In this conflict of fears; she was sitting by Cleopatra’s
couch, endeavouring to understand and to reply to the bald discourse of
that lady, when she heard his foot upon the stair.
“I hear him now!” cried Florence, starting. “He is coming!”
Cleopatra, who in her juvenility was always playfully disposed, and who
in her self-engrossment did not trouble herself about the nature of
this agitation, pushed Florence behind her couch, and dropped a shawl
over her, preparatory to giving Mr Dombey a rapture of surprise. It was
so quickly done, that in a moment Florence heard his awful step in the
room.
He saluted his intended mother-in-law, and his intended bride. The
strange sound of his voice thrilled through the whole frame of his
child.
“My dear Dombey,” said Cleopatra, “come here and tell me how your
pretty Florence is.”
“Florence is very well,” said Mr Dombey, advancing towards the couch.
“At home?”
“At home,” said Mr Dombey.
“My dear Dombey,” returned Cleopatra, with bewitching vivacity; “now
are you sure you are not deceiving me? I don’t know what my dearest
Edith will say to me when I make such a declaration, but upon my honour
I am afraid you are the falsest of men, my dear Dombey.”
Though he had been; and had been detected on the spot, in the most
enormous falsehood that was ever said or done; he could hardly have
been more disconcerted than he was, when Mrs Skewton plucked the shawl
away, and Florence, pale and trembling, rose before him like a ghost.
He had not yet recovered his presence of mind, when Florence had run up
to him, clasped her hands round his neck, kissed his face, and hurried
out of the room. He looked round as if to refer the matter to somebody
else, but Edith had gone after Florence, instantly.
“Now, confess, my dear Dombey,” said Mrs Skewton, giving him her hand,
“that you never were more surprised and pleased in your life.”
“I never was more surprised,” said Mr Dombey.
“Nor pleased, my dearest Dombey?” returned Mrs Skewton, holding up her
fan.
“I—yes, I am exceedingly glad to meet Florence here,” said Mr Dombey.
He appeared to consider gravely about it for a moment, and then said,
more decidedly, “Yes, I really am very glad indeed to meet Florence
here.”
“You wonder how she comes here?” said Mrs Skewton, “don’t you?”
“Edith, perhaps—” suggested Mr Dombey.
“Ah! wicked guesser!” replied Cleopatra, shaking her head. “Ah!
cunning, cunning man! One shouldn’t tell these things; your sex, my
dear Dombey, are so vain, and so apt to abuse our weakness; but you
know my open soul—very well; immediately.”
This was addressed to one of the very tall young men who announced
dinner.
“But Edith, my dear Dombey,” she continued in a whisper, “when she
cannot have you near her—and as I tell her, she cannot expect that
always—will at least have near her something or somebody belonging to
you. Well, how extremely natural that is! And in this spirit, nothing
would keep her from riding off today to fetch our darling Florence.
Well, how excessively charming that is!”
As she waited for an answer, Mr Dombey answered, “Eminently so.”
“Bless you, my dear Dombey, for that proof of heart!” cried Cleopatra,
squeezing his hand. “But I am growing too serious! Take me downstairs,
like an angel, and let us see what these people intend to give us for
dinner. Bless you, dear Dombey!”
Cleopatra skipping off her couch with tolerable briskness, after the
last benediction, Mr Dombey took her arm in his and led her
ceremoniously downstairs; one of the very tall young men on hire, whose
organ of veneration was imperfectly developed, thrusting his tongue
into his cheek, for the entertainment of the other very tall young man
on hire, as the couple turned into the dining-room.
Florence and Edith were already there, and sitting side by side.
Florence would have risen when her father entered, to resign her chair
to him; but Edith openly put her hand upon her arm, and Mr Dombey took
an opposite place at the round table.
The conversation was almost entirely sustained by Mrs Skewton. Florence
hardly dared to raise her eyes, lest they should reveal the traces of
tears; far less dared to speak; and Edith never uttered one word,
unless in answer to a question. Verily, Cleopatra worked hard, for the
establishment that was so nearly clutched; and verily it should have
been a rich one to reward her!
“And so your preparations are nearly finished at last, my dear Dombey?”
said Cleopatra, when the dessert was put upon the table, and the
silver-headed butler had withdrawn. “Even the lawyers” preparations!”
“Yes, madam,” replied Mr Dombey; “the deed of settlement, the
professional gentlemen inform me, is now ready, and as I was mentioning
to you, Edith has only to do us the favour to suggest her own time for
its execution.”
Edith sat like a handsome statue; as cold, as silent, and as still.
“My dearest love,” said Cleopatra, “do you hear what Mr Dombey says?
Ah, my dear Dombey!” aside to that gentleman, “how her absence, as the
time approaches, reminds me of the days, when that most agreeable of
creatures, her Papa, was in your situation!”
“I have nothing to suggest. It shall be when you please,” said Edith,
scarcely looking over the table at Mr Dombey.
“To-morrow?” suggested Mr Dombey.
“If you please.”
“Or would next day,” said Mr Dombey, “suit your engagements better?”
“I have no engagements. I am always at your disposal. Let it be when
you like.”
“No engagements, my dear Edith!” remonstrated her mother, “when you are
in a most terrible state of flurry all day long, and have a thousand
and one appointments with all sorts of trades-people!”
“They are of your making,” returned Edith, turning on her with a slight
contraction of her brow. “You and Mr Dombey can arrange between you.”
“Very true indeed, my love, and most considerate of you!” said
Cleopatra. “My darling Florence, you must really come and kiss me once
more, if you please, my dear!”
Singular coincidence, that these gushes of interest in Florence hurried
Cleopatra away from almost every dialogue in which Edith had a share,
however trifling! Florence had certainly never undergone so much
embracing, and perhaps had never been, unconsciously, so useful in her
life.
Mr Dombey was far from quarrelling, in his own breast, with the manner
of his beautiful betrothed. He had that good reason for sympathy with
haughtiness and coldness, which is found in a fellow-feeling. It
flattered him to think how these deferred to him, in Edith’s case, and
seemed to have no will apart from his. It flattered him to picture to
himself, this proud and stately woman doing the honours of his house,
and chilling his guests after his own manner. The dignity of Dombey and
Son would be heightened and maintained, indeed, in such hands.
So thought Mr Dombey, when he was left alone at the dining-table, and
mused upon his past and future fortunes: finding no uncongeniality in
an air of scant and gloomy state that pervaded the room, in colour a
dark brown, with black hatchments of pictures blotching the walls, and
twenty-four black chairs, with almost as many nails in them as so many
coffins, waiting like mutes, upon the threshold of the Turkey carpet;
and two exhausted negroes holding up two withered branches of
candelabra on the sideboard, and a musty smell prevailing as if the
ashes of ten thousand dinners were entombed in the sarcophagus below
it. The owner of the house lived much abroad; the air of England seldom
agreed long with a member of the Feenix family; and the room had
gradually put itself into deeper and still deeper mourning for him,
until it was become so funereal as to want nothing but a body in it to
be quite complete.
No bad representation of the body, for the nonce, in his unbending
form, if not in his attitude, Mr Dombey looked down into the cold
depths of the dead sea of mahogany on which the fruit dishes and
decanters lay at anchor: as if the subjects of his thoughts were rising
towards the surface one by one, and plunging down again. Edith was
there in all her majesty of brow and figure; and close to her came
Florence, with her timid head turned to him, as it had been, for an
instant, when she left the room; and Edith’s eyes upon her, and Edith’s
hand put out protectingly. A little figure in a low arm-chair came
springing next into the light, and looked upon him wonderingly, with
its bright eyes and its old-young face, gleaming as in the flickering
of an evening fire. Again came Florence close upon it, and absorbed his
whole attention. Whether as a fore-doomed difficulty and disappointment
to him; whether as a rival who had crossed him in his way, and might
again; whether as his child, of whom, in his successful wooing, he
could stoop to think as claiming, at such a time, to be no more
estranged; or whether as a hint to him that the mere appearance of
caring for his own blood should be maintained in his new relations; he
best knew. Indifferently well, perhaps, at best; for marriage company
and marriage altars, and ambitious scenes—still blotted here and there
with Florence—always Florence—turned up so fast, and so confusedly,
that he rose, and went upstairs to escape them.
It was quite late at night before candles were brought; for at present
they made Mrs Skewton’s head ache, she complained; and in the meantime
Florence and Mrs Skewton talked together (Cleopatra being very anxious
to keep her close to herself), or Florence touched the piano softly for
Mrs Skewton’s delight; to make no mention of a few occasions in the
course of the evening, when that affectionate lady was impelled to
solicit another kiss, and which always happened after Edith had said
anything. They were not many, however, for Edith sat apart by an open
window during the whole time (in spite of her mother’s fears that she
would take cold), and remained there until Mr Dombey took leave. He was
serenely gracious to Florence when he did so; and Florence went to bed
in a room within Edith’s, so happy and hopeful, that she thought of her
late self as if it were some other poor deserted girl who was to be
pitied for her sorrow; and in her pity, sobbed herself to sleep.
The week fled fast. There were drives to milliners, dressmakers,
jewellers, lawyers, florists, pastry-cooks; and Florence was always of
the party. Florence was to go to the wedding. Florence was to cast off
her mourning, and to wear a brilliant dress on the occasion. The
milliner’s intentions on the subject of this dress—the milliner was a
Frenchwoman, and greatly resembled Mrs Skewton—were so chaste and
elegant, that Mrs Skewton bespoke one like it for herself. The milliner
said it would become her to admiration, and that all the world would
take her for the young lady’s sister.
The week fled faster. Edith looked at nothing and cared for nothing.
Her rich dresses came home, and were tried on, and were loudly
commended by Mrs Skewton and the milliners, and were put away without a
word from her. Mrs Skewton made their plans for every day, and executed
them. Sometimes Edith sat in the carriage when they went to make
purchases; sometimes, when it was absolutely necessary, she went into
the shops. But Mrs Skewton conducted the whole business, whatever it
happened to be; and Edith looked on as uninterested and with as much
apparent indifference as if she had no concern in it. Florence might
perhaps have thought she was haughty and listless, but that she was
never so to her. So Florence quenched her wonder in her gratitude
whenever it broke out, and soon subdued it.
The week fled faster. It had nearly winged its flight away. The last
night of the week, the night before the marriage, was come. In the dark
room—for Mrs Skewton’s head was no better yet, though she expected to
recover permanently to-morrow—were that lady, Edith, and Mr Dombey.
Edith was at her open window looking out into the street; Mr Dombey and
Cleopatra were talking softly on the sofa. It was growing late; and
Florence, being fatigued, had gone to bed.
“My dear Dombey,” said Cleopatra, “you will leave me Florence
to-morrow, when you deprive me of my sweetest Edith.”
Mr Dombey said he would, with pleasure.
“To have her about me, here, while you are both at Paris, and to think
at her age, I am assisting in the formation of her mind, my dear
Dombey,” said Cleopatra, “will be a perfect balm to me in the extremely
shattered state to which I shall be reduced.”
Edith turned her head suddenly. Her listless manner was exchanged, in a
moment, to one of burning interest, and, unseen in the darkness, she
attended closely to their conversation.
Mr Dombey would be delighted to leave Florence in such admirable
guardianship.
“My dear Dombey,” returned Cleopatra, “a thousand thanks for your good
opinion. I feared you were going, with malice aforethought, as the
dreadful lawyers say—those horrid prosers!—to condemn me to utter
solitude.”
“Why do me so great an injustice, my dear madam?” said Mr Dombey.
“Because my charming Florence tells me so positively she must go home
tomorrow, returned Cleopatra, that I began to be afraid, my dearest
Dombey, you were quite a Bashaw.”
“I assure you, madam!” said Mr Dombey, “I have laid no commands on
Florence; and if I had, there are no commands like your wish.”
“My dear Dombey,” replied Cleopatra, what a courtier you are! Though
I’ll not say so, either; for courtiers have no heart, and yours
pervades your farming life and character. And are you really going so
early, my dear Dombey!”
Oh, indeed! it was late, and Mr Dombey feared he must.
“Is this a fact, or is it all a dream!” lisped Cleopatra. “Can I
believe, my dearest Dombey, that you are coming back tomorrow morning
to deprive me of my sweet companion; my own Edith!”
Mr Dombey, who was accustomed to take things literally, reminded Mrs
Skewton that they were to meet first at the church.
“The pang,” said Mrs Skewton, “of consigning a child, even to you, my
dear Dombey, is one of the most excruciating imaginable, and combined
with a naturally delicate constitution, and the extreme stupidity of
the pastry-cook who has undertaken the breakfast, is almost too much
for my poor strength. But I shall rally, my dear Dombey, in the
morning; do not fear for me, or be uneasy on my account. Heaven bless
you! My dearest Edith!” she cried archly. “Somebody is going, pet.”
Edith, who had turned her head again towards the window, and whose
interest in their conversation had ceased, rose up in her place, but
made no advance towards him, and said nothing. Mr Dombey, with a lofty
gallantry adapted to his dignity and the occasion, betook his creaking
boots towards her, put her hand to his lips, said, “Tomorrow morning I
shall have the happiness of claiming this hand as Mrs Dombey’s,” and
bowed himself solemnly out.
Mrs Skewton rang for candles as soon as the house-door had closed upon
him. With the candles appeared her maid, with the juvenile dress that
was to delude the world to-morrow. The dress had savage retribution in
it, as such dresses ever have, and made her infinitely older and more
hideous than her greasy flannel gown. But Mrs Skewton tried it on with
mincing satisfaction; smirked at her cadaverous self in the glass, as
she thought of its killing effect upon the Major; and suffering her
maid to take it off again, and to prepare her for repose, tumbled into
ruins like a house of painted cards.
All this time, Edith remained at the dark window looking out into the
street. When she and her mother were at last left alone, she moved from
it for the first time that evening, and came opposite to her. The
yawning, shaking, peevish figure of the mother, with her eyes raised to
confront the proud erect form of the daughter, whose glance of fire was
bent downward upon her, had a conscious air upon it, that no levity or
temper could conceal.
“I am tired to death,” said she. “You can’t be trusted for a moment.
You are worse than a child. Child! No child would be half so obstinate
and undutiful.”
“Listen to me, mother,” returned Edith, passing these words by with a
scorn that would not descend to trifle with them. “You must remain
alone here until I return.”
“Must remain alone here, Edith, until you return!” repeated her mother.
“Or in that name upon which I shall call to-morrow to witness what I
do, so falsely: and so shamefully, I swear I will refuse the hand of
this man in the church. If I do not, may I fall dead upon the
pavement!”
The mother answered with a look of quick alarm, in no degree diminished
by the look she met.
“It is enough,” said Edith, steadily, “that we are what we are. I will
have no youth and truth dragged down to my level. I will have no
guileless nature undermined, corrupted, and perverted, to amuse the
leisure of a world of mothers. You know my meaning. Florence must go
home.”
“You are an idiot, Edith,” cried her angry mother. “Do you expect there
can ever be peace for you in that house, till she is married, and
away?”
“Ask me, or ask yourself, if I ever expect peace in that house,” said
her daughter, “and you know the answer.”
“And am I to be told tonight, after all my pains and labour, and when
you are going, through me, to be rendered independent,” her mother
almost shrieked in her passion, while her palsied head shook like a
leaf, “that there is corruption and contagion in me, and that I am not
fit company for a girl! What are you, pray? What are you?”
“I have put the question to myself,” said Edith, ashy pale, and
pointing to the window, “more than once when I have been sitting there,
and something in the faded likeness of my sex has wandered past
outside; and God knows I have met with my reply. Oh mother, mother, if
you had but left me to my natural heart when I too was a girl—a younger
girl than Florence—how different I might have been!”
Sensible that any show of anger was useless here, her mother restrained
herself, and fell a whimpering, and bewailed that she had lived too
long, and that her only child had cast her off, and that duty towards
parents was forgotten in these evil days, and that she had heard
unnatural taunts, and cared for life no longer.
“If one is to go on living through continual scenes like this,” she
whined, “I am sure it would be much better for me to think of some
means of putting an end to my existence. Oh! The idea of your being my
daughter, Edith, and addressing me in such a strain!”
“Between us, mother,” returned Edith, mournfully, “the time for mutual
reproaches is past.”
“Then why do you revive it?” whimpered her mother. “You know that you
are lacerating me in the cruellest manner. You know how sensitive I am
to unkindness. At such a moment, too, when I have so much to think of,
and am naturally anxious to appear to the best advantage! I wonder at
you, Edith. To make your mother a fright upon your wedding-day!”
Edith bent the same fixed look upon her, as she sobbed and rubbed her
eyes; and said in the same low steady voice, which had neither risen
nor fallen since she first addressed her, “I have said that Florence
must go home.”
“Let her go!” cried the afflicted and affrighted parent, hastily. “I am
sure I am willing she should go. What is the girl to me?”
“She is so much to me, that rather than communicate, or suffer to be
communicated to her, one grain of the evil that is in my breast,
mother, I would renounce you, as I would (if you gave me cause)
renounce him in the church to-morrow,” replied Edith. “Leave her alone.
She shall not, while I can interpose, be tampered with and tainted by
the lessons I have learned. This is no hard condition on this bitter
night.”
“If you had proposed it in a filial manner, Edith,” whined her mother,
“perhaps not; very likely not. But such extremely cutting words—”
“They are past and at an end between us now,” said Edith. “Take your
own way, mother; share as you please in what you have gained; spend,
enjoy, make much of it; and be as happy as you will. The object of our
lives is won. Henceforth let us wear it silently. My lips are closed
upon the past from this hour. I forgive you your part in to-morrow’s
wickedness. May God forgive my own!”
Without a tremor in her voice, or frame, and passing onward with a foot
that set itself upon the neck of every soft emotion, she bade her
mother good-night, and repaired to her own room.
But not to rest; for there was no rest in the tumult of her agitation
when alone to and fro, and to and fro, and to and fro again, five
hundred times, among the splendid preparations for her adornment on the
morrow; with her dark hair shaken down, her dark eyes flashing with a
raging light, her broad white bosom red with the cruel grasp of the
relentless hand with which she spurned it from her, pacing up and down
with an averted head, as if she would avoid the sight of her own fair
person, and divorce herself from its companionship. Thus, in the dead
time of the night before her bridal, Edith Granger wrestled with her
unquiet spirit, tearless, friendless, silent, proud, and uncomplaining.
At length it happened that she touched the open door which led into the
room where Florence lay.
She started, stopped, and looked in.
A light was burning there, and showed her Florence in her bloom of
innocence and beauty, fast asleep. Edith held her breath, and felt
herself drawn on towards her.
Drawn nearer, nearer, nearer yet; at last, drawn so near, that stooping
down, she pressed her lips to the gentle hand that lay outside the bed,
and put it softly to her neck. Its touch was like the prophet’s rod of
old upon the rock. Her tears sprung forth beneath it, as she sunk upon
her knees, and laid her aching head and streaming hair upon the pillow
by its side.
Thus Edith Granger passed the night before her bridal. Thus the sun
found her on her bridal morning.