SHE IS ASKED IN MARRIAGE
At the appointed time I was at my aunt’s next morning. Captain Butler
and Will were there. We went to Richmond, and after we had arrived
it rained for the rest of the day, but it was all one to me; indeed,
I would rather have had it rain than sunshine, for it forced us to
sit indoors, whilst Will, defying the rain, went out and left Captain
Butler and me alone, which was just what I liked.
I will not catalogue these holiday trips; they made me feel as if I
were living for the first time in all my life; they made me know that
I was a girl with passions and tastes, yet easy to delight. I will not
say that I enjoyed my liberty, because for years I had not known what
restraint was; but I was sensible that my being able to go where I
pleased and to do what I pleased was a prodigious privilege at this
time, when I had lost my heart, and must have gone mad had I been
withheld from the society of the man who had it.
Two days before Will sailed my aunt called upon me. Our holiday rambles
had run out; that day was to be blank, and I was not to see Captain
Butler again until Thursday--it was a Thursday, I remember--when we
were going down to the docks to see Will off. I remarked a peculiar
look in my aunt’s face, which prompted me, in my impetuous way, to say:
‘What’s brought you here? What have you come to tell me? Now don’t keep
me waiting?’
‘Lor’, my dear, one would need the breath of a healthy giant to keep
pace with your impatience. Give me leave to rest a minute.’
‘All’s well at home, I hope?’
‘Why, yes, of course, as well as it can be with a mother and father
whose only child is leaving them, perhaps for ever, in a couple of
days.’ Her eyes moistened. ‘But it is his wish, and it is his father’s
wish, and that must make it right--yes, that must make it right;
though I’d have been grateful, very grateful, if it hadn’t been the
sea.’ She wept for a few minutes, and I held my peace. Then drying her
eyes with a resolved motion of the handkerchief, she said: ‘You’ve been
enjoying some lively days of late, Marian?’
‘Happy days. Poor Will!’ and now I felt as if I must cry, too.
‘You’re a strange creature, my dear. Whatever you do seems to me wrong.
And yet, somehow, I can never satisfy my mind that your conduct’s
improper. I believe you’d be the same were your mother living. Your
father might have held you in, but you’d have had your way with your
poor mother.’
‘What have I done?’ said I, bridling up and flushing in the face.
‘Nothing out of the ordinary,’ she answered mildly. ‘Of course, your
going about so much with Captain Butler, often being alone with him, as
Will has told us, is quite contrary to my ideas of good conduct. Do you
want the man for a husband, Marian?’
I guessed by my temper that I looked hotly at her.
‘Do you, child, do you? You should answer me. If you do not answer me
I will go, and I am sure that you will wish this house should be burnt
down rather than that I should go.’
My temper went with this, and with it the blood out of my face.
‘What do you want me to say, aunt?’ I exclaimed in a faint voice.
‘Would you be content to marry Captain Butler?’
I looked down upon the ground and said softly:
‘I love him.’
‘He loves you. Do you know that?’
‘He has not told me so.’
‘He is a man of very gentlemanlike feelings, far above the average
merchant sea-captain.’
‘Oh, don’t I know it!’ I cried.
‘Well, he loves you, and would be very glad to marry you. And I dare
say he would,’ said my aunt, looking up and down my figure and then
round the room, ‘but he’ll not offer marriage unless he is certain
you’ll accept him. He spent last evening with us, and had a very
long and serious talk with your uncle and me on the subject. He
declines to recognise your stepfather, which is quite proper under
the circumstances, and regards me and your uncle as taking the place
of your parents. Now, my dear, he is very much in love with you, and
his diffidence comes from your being well off. We had a very long and
serious talk, and I am here to have a serious talk with you, if not a
long one.’
I felt that my face was lighted up; I saw the reflection of its delight
in her own placid expression. My heart bounded; I could have danced and
sung and waltzed about the room. I sat down, locking my hands tightly
upon my lap, and listened with all the composure I could summon.
She informed me that Captain Butler had been exceedingly candid, had
exactly named his savings and his patrimony, which scarcely amounted to
three thousand pounds, and that he was deliberating whether or not to
invest all that he had in a share of the new barque, _Arab Chief_. Mr.
Johnstone had advised him, supposing he should be so fortunate as to
gain my consent to marry him, not to make me his wife until he had gone
his first voyage and seen how his venture fell out.
‘Your uncle,’ said my aunt, ‘is strongly of opinion that a man has no
business to go and marry a fine handsome young woman like you, then
leave her after a week or a month, and not set eyes on her again till
he returns home from round the world.’
‘I wish my uncle would mind his own business,’ said I, pouting, and
feeling my face very long.
But my aunt insisted that my uncle was right. She added that Captain
Butler cordially agreed with him. Captain Butler’s own wish was to
betroth himself to me, then to make his voyage; then return and marry
me and carry me away with him to sea.
My eyes sparkled, and I jumped up and walked the room greatly excited.
But after this my aunt grew tedious. Was it imaginable that any sort
of love fit to base so solemn an affair as marriage upon could exist
between two people who had known each other a fortnight only? Here
was I joyously avowing my love for Captain Butler and expressing the
utmost eagerness to marry him. Did I know what I was talking about?
Had I given a moment’s reflection to what marrying a sailor signified?
I was rich, young, and handsome; I had a fine house of my own; I had
liberty and health; I was without children to tease me, to pale me
with midnight watchings, to burden my spirits with anxiety for their
future. Should I not be giving myself away very cheaply by marrying
a sea-captain, a respectable, good-looking man certainly, but poor,
following a calling in which no one can make any sort of figure, an
underpaid, perilous, beggarly vocation? She did not deny that Captain
Butler came from a highly respectable stock. He had mentioned two
members of his family whom Mr. Johnstone perfectly well knew by name.
His father had been in the Royal Navy and had served under Collingwood
and Lord Exmouth and had died a poor lieutenant.
‘Oh, he’s a gentleman by birth,’ said my aunt, ‘and superior to his
position. There’s his calling, out of which, to be sure, he can get
a living, so as to be independent of his wife, which must always be
the first consideration with every man of spirit. And, then, you have
plenty of money for both, and for as many as may come, should ever he
find himself out of employment. But what do you know of each other? How
can you tell that you will be able to live happily together? What! In
a fortnight? Ridiculous! Why, I have lived one-and-twenty years with
your uncle, and we don’t even yet understand each other. You have by no
means a sweet temper. But what time do you give the poor fellow to find
you out in? And he may be quite a fiend himself, for all you know. It
needs not much wig to hide a pair of horns. A tail will lie curled up
out of sight under a fashionable coat, and your cloven hoof fits any
shoe, my dear.’
So she chatted and teased and worried me with her advice and
old-fashioned precepts. And then she angered me, and we quarrelled
awhile, and afterwards cried and kissed. However, when her visit was
ended, I had promised her, in answer to her earnest, almost tearful
entreaty, that, though I should consent to engage myself to Captain
Butler, I would not marry him until he had returned from his next
voyage, which, if he went to the West Indies and South America, would
not keep him very long away from me, so that I should have plenty of
time to judge of his character whilst he was ashore and abundance of
leisure afterward to reflect upon my observations and prepare myself
for the very greatest change that can befall a woman.
I did not see Captain Butler again until Thursday. In the brief
interval I had made up my mind to accept him at once if he proposed.
Oh, my few days of holiday association with him had filled my heart
with a passion of love! Not my happiness only--my very life was in his
power.
I went to my uncle’s house on Thursday, early in the morning. We were
to see poor Will off. We all tried to put on a cheerful air, and Will
talked big of the presents he would bring home for his mother and me;
but his mother’s eyes were red with a night of secret weeping; and
whenever the lad’s sight went to her face his mouth twitched and, if he
was speaking, his voice trembled and broke. His father looked often at
him.
Captain Butler met us at the docks. I guessed he witnessed in my looks
that my aunt had spoken to me. He gazed at me fondly as he held my
hand, but there was nothing of significance to be said between us at
this time of sorrowful leave-taking. We went on board with Will. When I
kissed the dear fellow, I broke down and wept; and then Mr. Johnstone
led the way to the Brunswick Hotel, and we went upstairs to a room
which commanded a view of the ship, and sat at a window watching her as
she hauled out of dock.
By the time the ship had been towed out of sight past Greenwich Reach,
it was hard upon one o’clock. My uncle had ordered some sandwiches
and sherry as an excuse for us to sit and watch the ship. This was no
entertainment for me, who had not partaken of it, indeed, and who had
breakfasted but lightly early that morning. My uncle called for the
bill, and then rose to go. He told us he had an appointment which he
would have barely time to keep. My aunt said to me:
‘What are you going to do?’ I returned no answer, for I had not made up
my mind. ‘Come home with me, dear,’ said my aunt, ‘and dine with us at
half-past two.’
I did not care to go home with her; first, because I felt I should be
losing sight of Captain Butler, and, next, because they were full of
grief for the departure of their son; so that my presence would be a
sort of impertinence, whilst, again, I could not at all relish the
prospect of a long and melancholy afternoon and evening spent in the
neighbourhood of the Tower. So, after reflecting a minute or two, I
said:
‘I’ll not go home with you, aunt. I’ll dine here and then take rail to
Fenchurch Street and make my way to Hyde Park. A brisk walk will do me
good. I feel as though I had lost a brother.’
‘I can’t stop,’ said my uncle, beginning to bustle.
My aunt saw how it was, and looked at me reproachfully.
‘I must return with your uncle,’ said she. ‘Are you to be left alone
here? But what if you are? Your being alone about London and the
neighbourhood is quite too much a habit with you, Marian--a practice I
can’t approve. Which way do you go?’ she continued, looking at Captain
Butler.
‘I’ll remain with Miss Johnstone, if she will suffer me to do so,’ he
replied.
I smiled and coloured and bowed to him.
‘I can stop no longer,’ said my uncle, pulling out a great watch.
My aunt looked ‘hung in the wind,’ to use the phrase of the sailor,
as though she understood she ought not to leave me alone with Captain
Butler; but she correctly guessed that I did not want her; indeed,
her remaining would have made me angry, and no doubt my fear of her
intentions showed in my face.
‘Well,’ said she, ‘I could not leave you in better hands. Captain
Butler will carefully look after you, I am sure.’ And she went quickly
after her husband, who would wait for her no longer.
Captain Butler rang the bell and ordered some dinner. I was to be his
guest, he said.
‘But why, Miss Johnstone, do you wish to go all the way to Hyde Park?’
‘It is no wish. I’ll go wherever you please.’
‘We are close to Greenwich here. Shall we take a turn about Greenwich
Park presently? The days are still short, and you are not so far from
your house at Greenwich as you would be at Kensington.’
I consented, and then we stood at the window, looking at the scene of
the river from the docks, talking about Will and the sea-life and such
matters until dinner was ready. I longed to hear him say that he loved
me. The language of his eye was not satisfying enough. I wanted him to
take my hand and ask me to be his wife. I had thought my appetite good
until I sat down, and then I could not eat. My heart beat fast. I felt
my colour come and go. I was alone with the man that I loved. I seemed
to have lost my self-control, and behaved like a shy school-girl, and
there were moments when I could have wished my aunt had not left us.
The waiter was slow, and it was nearly three o’clock before we rose.
Captain Butler went to the window, looked out, and said to me: ‘I
am afraid this fine day is not going to last. There’s a thickness
gathering upon the river, and the sun looks like the rising moon. The
afternoons are still short. Shall we hold Greenwich Park over for
another day?’
‘If you like.’
‘How amiable you are! You give me my way in everything.’
‘What shall we do?’
‘Stop here for a little while, if you don’t mind. We have this room to
ourselves for the present.’
He took me by the hand. I trembled and sat down, and he seated himself
beside me. Am I to repeat what he said--in what words he told me
how great his love was for me--in what terms he asked me to be his
wife? All this I could unfold, ancient as it is in my memory. I could
give it to you as though it were of yesterday’s happening. But the
black curtain still remains down on the memorable, the horrible, the
tragical scene it is to rise upon soon, and I must not linger over such
recollections as I am now dictating to my friend.
It was quite in keeping that I, a sailor’s daughter, should be wooed
and asked in marriage by a sailor in scenes full of shipping, within
hearing of the cries and choruses of seamen and the hundred noises of
the busy docks. A red mist lay upon the river, and the sun hung pale
and rayless, like a great lemon, in the west. We were occupying a room
that might have been the coffee-room. Several tables were draped and
ready for guests, but we had been alone when my uncle and aunt left
us, and we remained alone. He held me to him and kissed me; he looked
proudly and gratefully at me and said that he loved me from the moment
he had set eyes on me; that he thought me the handsomest woman he had
ever seen in his life; that he adored me for my spirit--much more to
this effect he said. But he told me he never would have had the heart
to offer for my hand if he had not found some encouragement in my
looks. Then he went over the long talk he’d had about me with Mr. and
Mrs. Johnstone.
‘They begged,’ said he, ‘if you accepted me that we should not be
married until my return from my next voyage.’
‘They are dear to me,’ said I, looking at him, ‘but they are not my
guardians, and have no control over me.’
‘But they may be right, Marian, and they have a claim upon you too.
I hope to do well next trip. I believe I shall do well enough,’ said
he, smiling and smoothing the back of my hand, ‘to enable me to put
something to your own fortune. I wish to be independent of you. You are
not a woman to respect a man that is dependent upon you.’
‘My aunt was right,’ said I. ‘We don’t understand each other yet.
Certainly you don’t understand me.’
He kissed me and said he knew what was in my mind, but all the same
when he was my husband he wished to be independent of my fortune.
‘You shall have it all,’ I exclaimed, ‘and that will make you
independent of me.’
‘Marian,’ said he gravely, ‘now that you have consented to be my wife
I’ll tell you what I schemed; there would seem something unnatural in
my going to sea and leaving my young bride behind me. I want you to be
at my side when you are my wife. I do not know that I shall follow the
sea much longer! A great deal will depend upon the issue of my next
voyage. If I leave you behind, betrothed to me, you will have plenty
of time to consider whether you, as a beauty and a fortune, have done
wisely in accepting the hand of a plain merchant captain.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense, Tom,’ said I, giving his name bluntly, and not at
all relishing his sentimental fastidiousness, which I attributed to the
influence of my uncle.
‘My dear girl, when we are married, we mean to live together happily,
don’t we?’
‘That will depend upon you.’
‘It will depend upon us both, Marian. When a sailor carries a ship into
unnavigated waters, if he is a good sailor, and does not mean to cast
his ship away, he heaves the lead as he goes, warily sounds along every
fathom of his road until he brings up in a safe anchorage. This is what
you must do, and it’s for me to give you time to heave the lead, dear.’
‘You want time to heave it yourself, Tom.’
‘My darling,’ he cried, catching me to him, ‘I would marry you
to-morrow.’
Presently, when we had composed ourselves, he said that he was going
down to Sunderland next week, and would be away for about a week; and
then he talked to me about purchasing a share in the new vessel, and
seemed to want my advice. He named several instances of merchants who,
having speculated in this way in shipping, had risen out of small
beginnings into great opulence. He told me that he would be better off
than most investors, inasmuch as he would have command of his own
venture, so to speak, be able to control things and push his business
to the limits of all successful directions.
In this sort of conversation the afternoon passed away. At last, at
about five o’clock, we were interrupted by a party of captains and
others coming in to dine, on which Tom paid the bill and we left. He
accompanied me to my house, and bade me farewell at the door, after
arranging to call for me at eleven o’clock next morning.