A day or two later Miss Joliffe said to Anastasia:
"I think you had a letter from Mr Westray this morning, my dear, had
you not? Did he say anything about his return? Did he say when he was
coming back?"
"No, dear aunt, he said nothing about coming back. He only wrote a few
lines on a matter of business."
"Oh yes, just so," Miss Joliffe said dryly, feeling a little hurt at
what seemed like any lack of confidence on her niece's part.
Miss Joliffe would have said that she knew Anastasia's mind so well that
no secrets were hid from her. Anastasia would have said that her aunt
knew everything except a few _little_ secrets, and, as a matter of fact,
the one perhaps knew as much of the other as it is expedient that age
should know of youth. "The mind is its own place, and in itself can
make a hell of heaven, a heaven of hell." Of all earthly consolations
this is the greatest, that the mind is its own place. The mind is an
impregnable fortress which can be held against all comers, the mind is a
sanctuary open day or night to the pursued, the mind is a flowery
pleasance where shade refreshes even in summer droughts. To some
trusted friend we try to give the clue of the labyrinth, but the ball of
silk is too short to guide any but ourselves along all the way. There
are sunny mountain-tops, there are innocent green arbours, or closes of
too highly-perfumed flowers, or dank dungeons of despair, or guilty
_mycethmi_ black as night, where we walk alone, whither we may lead no
one with us by the hand.
Miss Euphemia Joliffe would have liked to ignore altogether the matter
of Westray's letter, and to have made no further remarks thereon; but
curiosity is in woman a stronger influence than pride, and curiosity
drove her to recur to the letter.
"Thank you, my dear, for explaining about it. I am sure you will tell
me if there are any messages for me in it."
"No, there was no message at all for you, I think," said Anastasia. "I
will get it for you by-and-by, and you shall see all he says;" and with
that she left the room as if to fetch the letter. It was only a
subterfuge, for she felt Westray's correspondence burning a hole in her
pocket all the while; but she was anxious that her aunt should not see
the letter until an answer to it had been posted; and hoped that if she
once escaped from the room, the matter would drop out of memory. Miss
Joliffe fired a parting shot to try to bring her niece to her bearings
as she was going out:
"I do not know, my dear, that I should encourage any correspondence from
Mr Westray, if I were you. It would be more seemly, perhaps, that he
should write to me on any little matter of business than to you." But
Anastasia feigned not to hear her, and held on her course.
She betook herself to the room that had once been Mr Sharnall's, but
was now distressingly empty and forlorn, and there finding writing
materials, sat down to compose an answer to Westray's letter. She knew
its contents thoroughly well, she knew its expressions almost by heart,
yet she spread it out on the table before her, and read and re-read it
as many times as if it were the most difficult of cryptograms.
"Dearest Anastasia," it began, and she found a grievance in the very
first word, "Dearest." What right had he to call her "Dearest"? She
was one of those unintelligible females who do not shower superlatives
on every chance acquaintance. She must, no doubt, have been callous as
judged by modern standards, or at least, singularly unimaginative, for
among her few correspondents she had not one whom she addressed as
"dearest." No, not even her aunt, for at such rare times of absence
from home as she had occasion to write to Miss Joliffe, "My dear Aunt
Euphemia" was the invocation.
It was curious that this same word "Dearest" had occasioned Westray also
considerable thought and dubiety. Should he call her "Dearest
Anastasia," or "Dear Miss Joliffe"? The first sounded too forward, the
second too formal. He had discussed this and other details with his
mother, and the die had at last fallen on "Dearest." At the worst such
an address could only be criticised as proleptic, since it must be
justified almost immediately by Anastasia's acceptance of his proposal.
"Dearest Anastasia--for dearest you are and ever will be to me--I feel
sure that your heart will go out to meet my heart in what I am saying;
that your kindness will support me in the important step which has now
to be taken."
Anastasia shook her head, though there was no one to see her. There was
a suggestion of fate overbearing prudence in Westray's words, a
suggestion that he needed sympathy in an unpleasant predicament, that
jarred on her intolerably.
"I have known you now a year, and know that my happiness is centred in
you; you too have known me a year, and I trust that I have read aright
the message that your eyes have been sending to me.
"`For I shall happiest be to-night,
Or saddest in the town;
Heaven send I read their message right,
Those eyes of hazel brown.'"
Anastasia found space in the press of her annoyance to laugh. It was
more than a smile, it was a laugh, a quiet little laugh to herself,
which in a man would have been called a buckle. Her eyes were not hazel
brown, they were no brown at all; but then brown rhymed with town, and
after all the verse might perhaps be a quotation, and must so be taken
only to apply to the situation in general. She read the sentence again,
"I have known you now a year; you too have known me a year." Westray
had thought this poetic insistence gave a touch of romance, and balanced
the sentence; but to Anastasia it seemed the reiteration of a platitude.
If he had known her a year, then she had known him a year, and to a
female mind the sequitur was complete.
"Have I read the message right, dearest? Is your heart my own?"
Message? What message did he speak of? What message did he imagine she
had wished to give _him_ with her eyes? He had stared at her
persistently for weeks past, and if her eyes sometimes caught his, that
was only because she could not help it; except when between whiles she
glanced at him of set purpose, because it amused her to see how silly a
man in love may look.
"Say that it is; tell me that your heart is my own" (and the request
seemed to her too preposterous to admit even of comment).
"I watch your present, dear Anastasia, with solicitude. Sometimes I
think that you are even now exposed to dangers of whose very existence
you know nothing; and sometimes I look forward with anxiety to the
future, so undecipherable, if misfortune or death should overtake your
aunt. Let me help you to decipher this riddle. Let me be your shield
now, and your support in the days to come. Be my wife, and give me
the right to be your protector. I am detained in London by business
for some days more; but I shall await your answer here with
overwhelming eagerness, yet, may I say it? not without hope.
"Your most loving and devoted
"Edward Westray."
She folded the letter up with much deliberation, and put it back into
its envelope. If Westray had sought far and wide for means of damaging
his own cause, he could scarcely have found anything better calculated
for that purpose than these last paragraphs. They took away much of
that desire to spare, to make unpleasantness as little unpleasant as may
be, which generally accompanies a refusal. His sententiousness was
unbearable. What right had he to advise before he knew whether she
would listen to him? What were these dangers to which she was even now
exposed, and from which Mr Westray was to shield her? She asked
herself the question formally, though she knew the answer all the while.
Her own heart had told her enough of late, to remove all difficulty in
reading between Mr Westray's lines. A jealous man is, if possible,
more contemptible than a jealous woman. Man's greater strength
postulates a broader mind and wider outlook; and if he fail in these,
his failure is more conspicuous than woman's. Anastasia had traced to
jealousy the origin of Westray's enigmatic remarks; but if she was
strong enough to hold him ridiculous for his pains, she was also weak
enough to take a woman's pleasure in having excited the interest of the
man she ridiculed.
She laughed again at the proposal that she should join him in
deciphering any riddles, still more such as were undecipherable; and the
air of patronage involved in his anxiety to provide for her future was
the more distasteful in that she had great ideas of providing for it
herself. She had told herself a hundred times that it was only
affection for her aunt that kept her at home. Were "anything to happen"
to Miss Joliffe, she would at once seek her own living. She had often
reckoned up the accomplishments which would aid her in such an
endeavour. She had received her education--even if it were somewhat
desultory and discontinuous--at good schools. She had always been a
voracious reader, and possessed an extensive knowledge of English
literature, particularly of the masters of fiction; she could play the
piano and the violin tolerably, though Mr Sharnall would have qualified
her estimate. She had an easy touch in oils and water-colour, which her
father said she must have inherited from his mother--from that Sophia
Joliffe who painted the great picture of the flowers and caterpillar,
and her spirited caricatures had afforded much merriment to her
schoolfellows. She made her own clothes, and was sure that she had a
taste in matters of dress design and manufacture that would bring her
distinction if she were only given the opportunity of employing it; she
believed that she had an affection for children, and a natural talent
for training them, though she never saw any at Cullerne. With gifts
such as these, which must be patent to others as well as herself, there
would surely be no difficulty in obtaining an excellent place as
governess if she should ever determine to adopt that walk of life; and
she was sometimes inclined to gird at Fate, which for the present led
her to deprive the world of these benefits.
In her inmost heart, however, she doubted whether she would be really
justified in devoting herself to teaching; for she was conscious that
she might be called to fill a higher mission, and to instruct by the pen
rather than by word of mouth. As every soldier carries in his knapsack
the baton of the Field Marshal, so every girl in her teens knows that
there lie hidden in the recesses of her _armoire_, the robes and coronet
and full insignia of a first-rate novelist. She may not choose to take
them out and air them, the crown may tarnish by disuse, the moth of
indolence may corrupt, but there lies the panoply in which she may on
any day appear fully dight, for the astonishment of an awakening world.
Jane Austen and Maria Edgworth are heroines, whose aureoles shine in the
painted windows of such airy castles; Charlotte Bronte wrote her
masterpieces in a seclusion as deep as that of Bellevue Lodge; and
Anastasia Joliffe thought many a time of that day when, afar off from
her watch-tower in quiet Cullerne, she would follow the triumphant
progress of an epoch-making romance.
It would be published under a _nom de plume_, of course, she would not
use her own name till she had felt her feet; and the choice of the
pseudonym was the only definite step towards this venture that she had
yet made. The period was still uncertain. Sometimes the action was to
be placed in the eighteenth century, with tall silver urns and
spindled-legged tables, and breast-waisted dresses; sometimes in the
struggle of the Roses, when barons swam rivers in full armour after a
bloody bout; sometimes in the Civil War, when Vandyke drew the arched
eyebrow and taper hand, and when the shadow of death was over all.
It was to the Civil War that her fancy turned oftenest, and now and
again, as she sat before her looking-glass, she fancied that she had a
Vandyke face herself. And so it was indeed; and if the mirror was
fogged and dull and outworn, and if the dress that it reflected was not
of plum or amber velvet, one still might fancy that she was a loyalist
daughter whose fortunes were fallen with her master's. The Limner of
the King would have rejoiced to paint the sweet, young, oval face and
little mouth; he would have found the space between the eyebrow and the
eyelid to his liking.
If the plot were still shadowy, her characters were always with her, in
armour or sprigged prints; and, the mind being its own place, she took
about a little court of her own, where dreadful tragedies were enacted,
and valorous deeds done; where passionate young love suffered and wept,
and where a mere girl of eighteen, by consummate resolution, daring,
beauty, genius, and physical strength, always righted the situation, and
brought peace at the last.
With resources such as these, the future did not present itself in dark
colours to Anastasia; nor did its riddle appear to her nearly so
undecipherable as Mr Westray had supposed. She would have resented,
with all the confidence of inexperience, _any_ attempt to furnish her
with prospects; and she resented Westray's offer all the more vigorously
because it seemed to carry with it a suggestion of her own forlorn
position, to insist unduly on her own good fortune in receiving such a
proposal, and on his condescension in making it.
There are women who put marriage in the forefront of life, whose
thoughts revolve constantly about it as a centre, and with whom an
advantageous match, or, failing that, a match of some sort, is the
primary object. There are others who regard marriage as an eventuality,
to be contemplated without either eagerness or avoidance, to be accepted
or declined according as its circumstances may be favourable or
unfavourable. Again, there are some who seem, even from youth, to
resolutely eliminate wedlock from their thoughts, to permit themselves
no mental discussion upon this subject. Though a man profess that he
will never marry, experience has shown that his resolve is often subject
to reconsideration. But with unmarrying women the case is different,
and unmarried for the most part they remain, for man is often so
weak-kneed a creature in matters of the heart, that he refrains from
pursuing where an unsympathetic attitude discourages pursuit. It may be
that some of these women, also, would wish to reconsider their verdict,
but find that they have reached an age when there is no place for
repentance; yet, for the most part, woman's resolve upon such matters is
more stable than man's, and that because the interests at stake in
marriage are for her more vital than can ever be the case with man.
It was to the class of indifferentists that Anastasia belonged; she
neither sought nor shunned a change of state, but regarded marriage as
an accident that, in befalling her, might substantially change the
outlook. It would render a life of teaching, no doubt, impossible;
domestic or maternal cares might to some extent trammel even literary
activity (for, married or not married, she was determined to fulfil her
mission of writing), but in no case was she inclined to regard marriage
as an escape from difficulties, as the solution of so trivial a problem
as that of existence.
She read Westray's letter once more from beginning to end. It was
duller than ever. It reflected its writer; she had always thought him
unromantic, and now he seemed to her intolerably prosaic, conceited,
pettifogging, utilitarian. To be his wife! She had rather slave as a
nursery-governess all her life! And how could she write fiction with
such a one for mentor and company? He would expect her to be methodic,
to see that eggs were fresh, and beds well aired. So, by thinking, she
reasoned herself into such a theoretic reprobation of this attempt upon
her, that his offer became a heinous crime. If she answered him
shortly, brusquely, nay rudely, it would be but what he deserved for
making her ridiculous to herself by so absurd a proposal, and she opened
her writing-case with much firmness and resolution.
It was a little wooden case covered in imitation leather, with
_Papeterie_ stamped in gold upon the top. She had no exaggerated
notions as to its intrinsic worth, but it was valuable in her eyes as
being a present from her father. It was, in fact, the only gift he ever
had bestowed upon her; but on this he had expended at least half a
crown, in a fit of unusual generosity when he sent her with a great
flourish of trumpets to Mrs Howard's school at Carisbury. She
remembered his very words. "Take this, child," he said; "you are now
going to a first-class place of education, and it is right that you
should have a proper equipment," and so gave her the _papeterie_. It
had to cover a multitude of deficiencies, and poor Anastasia
lamented that it had not been a new hair-brush, half a dozen
pocket-handkerchiefs, or even a sound pair of shoes.
Still it had stood in good stead, for with it she had written all her
letters ever since, and being the only receptacle with lock and key to
which she had access, she had made it a little ark and coffer for
certain girlish treasures. With such it was stuffed so full that they
came crowding out as she opened it. There were several letters to which
romance attached, relics of that delightful but far too short
school-time at Carisbury; there was her programme, with rudely-scribbled
names of partners, for the splendid dance at the term's end, to which a
selection of other girls' brothers were invited; a pressed rose given
her by someone which she had worn in her bosom on that historic
occasion, and many other equally priceless mementoes. Somehow these
things seemed now neither so romantic nor so precious as on former
occasions; she was even inclined to smile, and to make light of them,
and then a little bit of paper fluttered off the table on to the floor.
She stooped and picked up the flap of an envelope with the coronet and
"Fording" stamped in black upon it which she had found one day when
Westray's waste-paper basket was emptied. It was a simple device
enough, but it must have furnished her food for thought, for it lay
under her eyes on the table for at least ten minutes before she put it
carefully back into the _papeterie_, and began her letter to Westray.
She found no difficulty in answering, but the interval of reflection had
soothed her irritation, and blunted her animosity. Her reply was
neither brusque nor rude, it leant rather to conventionalism than to
originality, and she used, after all, those phrases which have been
commonplaces in such circumstances, since man first asked and woman
first refused. She thanked Mr Westray for the kind interest which he
had taken in her, she was deeply conscious of the consideration which he
had shown her. She was grieved--sincerely grieved--to tell him that
things could not be as he wished. She was so afraid that her letter
would seem unkind; she did not mean it to be unkind. However difficult
it was to say it now, she thought it was the truest kindness not to
disguise from him that things _never_ could be as he wished. She paused
a little to review this last sentiment, but she allowed it to remain,
for she was anxious to avoid any recrudescence of the suppliant's
passion, and to show that her decision was final. She should always
feel the greatest esteem for Mr Westray; she trusted that the present
circumstances would not interrupt their friendship in any way. She
hoped that their relations might continue as in the past, and in this
hope she remained very truly his.
She gave a sigh of relief when the letter was finished, and read it
through carefully, putting in commas and semicolons and colons at what
she thought appropriate places. Such punctilio pleased her; it was, she
considered, due from one who aspired to a literary style, and aimed at
making a living by the pen. Though this was the first answer to a
proposal that she had written on her own account, she was not altogether
without practice in such matters, as she had composed others for her
heroines who had found themselves in like position. Her manner, also,
was perhaps unconsciously influenced by a perusal of "The Young Person's
Compleat Correspondent, and Guide to Answers to be given in the Various
Circumstances of Life," which, in a tattered calf covering, formed an
item in Miss Euphemia's library.
It was not till the missive was duly sealed up and posted that she told
her aunt of what had happened. "There is Mr Westray's letter," she
said, "if you would care to read it," and passed over to Miss Joliffe
the piece of white paper on which a man had staked his fate.
Miss Joliffe took the letter with an attempt to assume an indifferent
manner, which was unsuccessful, because an offer of marriage has about
it a certain exhalation and atmosphere that betrays its importance even
to the most unsuspicious. She was a slow reader, and, after wiping and
adjusting her spectacles, sat down for a steady and patient
consideration of the matter before her.
But the first word that she deciphered, "Dearest," startled her
composure, and she pressed on through the letter with a haste that was
foreign to her disposition. Her mouth grew rounder as she read, and she
sighed out "Dear's" and "Dear Anastasia's" and "Dear Child's" at
intervals as a relief to her feelings.
Anastasia stood by her, following the lines of writing that she knew by
heart, with all the impatience of one who is reading ten times faster
than another who turns the page.
Miss Joliffe's mind was filled with conflicting emotions; she was glad
at the prospect of a more assured future that was opening before her
niece, she was hurt at not having been taken sooner into confidence, for
Anastasia must certainly have known that he was going to propose; she
was chagrined at not having noticed a courtship which had been carried
on under her very eyes; she was troubled at the thought that the
marriage would entail the separation from one who was to her as a child.
How weary she would find it to walk alone down the long paths of old
age! how hard it was to be deprived of a dear arm on whose support she
had reckoned for when "the slow dark hours begin"! But she thrust this
reflection away from her as selfish, and contrition for having harboured
it found expression in a hand wrinkled and roughened by hard wear, which
stole into Anastasia's.
"My dear," she said, "I am very glad at your good fortune; this is a
great thing that has befallen you." A general content that Anastasia
should have received a proposal silenced her misgivings.
To the recipient, an offer of marriage, be it good, bad, or indifferent,
to be accepted or to be refused, brings a certain complacent
satisfaction. She may pretend to make light of it, to be displeased at
it, to resent it, as did Anastasia; but in her heart of hearts there
lurks the self-appreciating reflection that she has won the completest
admiration of a man. If he be a man that she would not marry under any
conditions, if he be a fool, or a spendthrift, or an evil-liver, he is
still a man, and she has captured him. Her relations share in the same
pleasurable reflections. If the offer is accepted, then a future has
been provided for one whose future, maybe, was not too certain; if it is
declined, then they congratulate themselves on the high morale or strong
common-sense of a kinswoman who refuses to be won by gold, or to link
her destiny with an unsuitable partner.
"It is a great thing, my dear, that has befallen you," Miss Joliffe
repeated. "I wish you all happiness, dear Anastasia, and may all
blessings wait upon you in this engagement."
"Aunt," interrupted her niece, "please don't say that. I have refused
him, _of course_; how could you think that I should marry Mr Westray?
I never have thought of any such thing with him. I never had the least
idea of his writing like this."
"You have refused him?" said the elder lady with a startled emphasis.
Again a selfish reflection crossed her mind--they were not to be parted
after all--and again she put it resolutely away. She ran over in her
mind all the possible objections that could have influenced her niece in
arriving at such a conclusion. Religion was the keynote of Miss
Joliffe's life; to religion her thought reverted as the needle to the
pole, and to it she turned for an explanation now. It must be some
religious consideration that had proved an obstacle to Anastasia.
"I do not think you need find any difficulty in his having been brought
up as a Wesleyan," she said, with a profound conviction that she had put
her finger on the matter, and with some consciousness of her own
perspicacity. "His father has been dead some time, and though his
mother is still alive, you would not have to live with her. I do not
think, dear, she would at all wish you to become a Methodist. As for
our Mr Westray, your Mr Westray, I should say now," and she assumed
that expression of archness which is considered appropriate to such
occasions, "I am sure he is a sound Churchman. He goes regularly to the
minster on Sundays, and I dare say, being an architect, and often in
church on week-days, he has found out that the order of the Church of
England is more satisfactory than that of any other sect. Though I am
sure I do not wish to say one word against Wesleyans; they are no doubt
true Protestants, and a bulwark against more serious errors. I rejoice
that your lover's early training will have saved him from any
inclination to ritualism."
"My dear aunt," Anastasia broke in, with a stress of earnest deprecation
on the "dear" that startled her aunt, "please do _not_ go on like that.
Do not call Mr Westray my lover; I have told you that I will have
nothing to do with him."
Miss Joliffe's thoughts had moved through a wide arc. Now that this
offer of marriage was about to be refused, now that this engagement was
not to be, the advantages that it offered stood out in high relief. It
seemed too sad that the curtain should be rung down just as the action
of a drama of intense interest was beginning, that the good should slip
through their fingers just as they were grasping it. She gave no
thought now to that fear of a lonely old age which had troubled her a
few minutes before; she only saw the provision for the future which
Anastasia was wilfully sacrificing. Her hand tightened automatically,
and crumpled a long piece of paper that she was holding. It was only a
milkman's bill, and yet it might perhaps have unconsciously given a
materialistic colour to her thoughts.
"We should not reject any good thing that is put before us," she said a
little stiffly, "without being very certain that we are right to do so.
I do not know what would become of you, Anastasia, if anything were to
happen to me."
"That is exactly what he says, that is the very argument which he uses.
Why should you take such a gloomy view of things? Why should something
_happening_ always mean something bad. Let us hope something good will
happen, that someone else will make me a better offer." She laughed,
and went on reflectively: "I wonder whether Mr Westray will come back
here to lodge; I hope he won't."
Hardly were the words out of her mouth when she was sorry for uttering
them, for she saw the look of sadness which overspread Miss Joliffe's
face.
"Dear aunt," she cried, "I am so sorry; I didn't mean to say that. I
know what a difference it would make; we cannot afford to lose our last
lodger. I hope he _will_ come back, and I will do everything I can to
make things comfortable, short of marrying him. I will earn some money
myself. I will _write_."
"How will you write? Who is there to write to?" Miss Joliffe said, and
then the blank look on her face grew blanker, and she took out her
handkerchief. "There is no one to help us. Anyone who ever cared for
us is dead long ago; there is no one to write to now."