PERTINACITY.
On the day but one after the scene narrated in the last chapter
Sir Harry went to London, and Lady Elizabeth and Emily were left
alone together in the great house at Humblethwaite. Emily loved her
mother dearly. The proper relations of life were reversed between
them, and the younger domineered over the elder. But the love
which the daughter felt was probably the stronger on this account.
Lady Elizabeth never scolded, never snubbed, never made herself
disagreeable, was never cross; and Emily, with her strong perceptions
and keen intelligence, knew all her mother's excellence, and loved
it the better because of her mother's weakness. She preferred her
father's company, but no one could say she neglected her mother for
the sake of her father.
Hitherto she had said very little to Lady Elizabeth as to her lover.
She had, in the first place, told her mother, and then had received
from her mother, second-hand, her father's disapproval. At that time
she had only said that it was "too late." Poor Lady Elizabeth had
been able to make no useful answer to this. It certainly was too
late. The evil should have been avoided by refusing admittance to
Cousin George both in London and at Humblethwaite. It certainly was
too late;--too late, that is, to avoid the evil altogether. The girl
had been asked for her heart, and had given it. It was very much too
late. But evils such as that do admit of remedy. It is not every girl
that can marry the man whom she first confesses that she loves. Lady
Elizabeth had some idea that her child, being nobler born and of more
importance than other people's children, ought to have been allowed
by fate to do so,--as there certainly is a something withdrawn from
the delicate aroma of a first-class young woman by any transfer of
affections;--but if it might not be so, even an Emily Hotspur must
submit to a lot not uncommon among young women in general, and
wait and wish till she could acknowledge to herself that her heart
was susceptible of another wound. That was the mother's hope at
present,--her hope, when she was positively told by Sir Harry that
George Hotspur was quite out of the question as a husband for the
heiress of Humblethwaite. But this would probably come the sooner if
little or nothing were said of George Hotspur.
The reader need hardly be told that Emily herself regarded the matter
in a very different light. She also had her ideas about the delicacy
and the aroma of a maiden's love. She had confessed her love very
boldly to the man who had asked for it; had made her rich present
with a free hand, and had grudged nothing in the making of it. But
having given it, she understood it to be fixed as the heavens that
she could never give the same gift again. It was herself that she
had given, and there was no retracting the offering. She had thought,
and had then hoped, and had afterwards hoped more faintly, that the
present had been well bestowed;--that in giving it she had disposed
of herself well. Now they told her that it was not so, and that she
could hardly have disposed of herself worse. She would not believe
that; but, let it be as it might, the thing was done. She was his.
He had a right in her which she could not withdraw from him. Was not
this sort of giving acknowledged by all churches in which the words
for "better or for worse" were uttered as part of the marriage vow?
Here there had been as yet no church vow, and therefore her duty
was still due to her father. But the sort of sacrifice,--so often a
sacrifice of the good to the bad,--which the Church not only allowed
but required and sanctified, could be as well conveyed by one promise
as by another. What is a vow but a promise? and by what process are
such vows and promises made fitting between a man and a woman? Is it
not by that compelled rendering up of the heart which men call love?
She had found that he was dearer to her than everything in the world
besides; that to be near him was a luxury to her; that his voice was
music to her; that the flame of his eyes was sunlight; that his touch
was to her, as had never been the touch of any other human being.
She could submit to him, she who never would submit to any one. She
could delight to do his bidding, even though it were to bring him his
slippers. She had confessed nothing of this, even to herself, till he
had spoken to her on the bridge; but then, in a moment, she had known
that it was so, and had not coyed the truth with him by a single nay.
And now they told her that he was bad.
Bad as he was, he had been good enough to win her. 'Twas thus she
argued with herself. Who was she that she should claim for herself
the right of having a man that was not bad? That other man that had
come to her, that Lord Alfred, was, she was told, good at all points;
and he had not moved her in the least. His voice had possessed no
music for her; and as for fetching his slippers for him,--he was to
her one of those men who seem to be created just that they might
be civil when wanted and then get out of the way! She had not been
able for a moment to bring herself to think of regarding him as her
husband. But this man, this bad man! From the moment that he had
spoken to her on the bridge, she knew that she was his for ever.
It might be that she liked a bad man best. So she argued with herself
again. If it were so she must put up with what misfortune her own
taste might bring upon her. At any rate the thing was done, and why
should any man be thrown over simply because the world called him
bad? Was there to be no forgiveness for wrongs done between man and
man, when the whole theory of our religion was made to depend on
forgiveness from God to man? It is the duty of some one to reclaim an
evident prodigal; and why should it not be her duty to reclaim this
prodigal? Clearly, the very fact that she loved the prodigal would
give her a potentiality that way which she would have with no other
prodigal. It was at any rate her duty to try. It would at least be
her duty if they would allow her to be near enough to him to make
the attempt. Then she filled her mind with ideas of a long period
of probation, in which every best energy of her existence should
be given to this work of reclaiming the prodigal, so that at last
she might put her own hand into one that should be clean enough
to receive it. With such a task before her she could wait. She
could watch him and give all her heart to his welfare, and never be
impatient except that he might be made happy. As she thought of this,
she told herself plainly that the work would not be easy, that there
would be disappointment, almost heart-break, delays and sorrows; but
she loved him, and it would be her duty; and then, if she could be
successful, how great, how full of joy would be the triumph! Even
if she were to fail and perish in failing, it would be her duty. As
for giving him up because he had the misfortune to be bad, she would
as soon give him up on the score of any other misfortune;--because
he might lose a leg, or become deformed, or be stricken deaf by
God's hand! One does not desert those one loves, because of their
misfortunes! 'Twas thus she argued with herself, thinking that she
could see,--whereas, poor child, she was so very blind!
"Mamma," she said, "has Papa gone up to town about Cousin George?"
"I do not know, my dear. He did not say why he was going."
"I think he has. I wish I could make him understand."
"Understand what, my dear?"
"All that I feel about it. I am sure it would save him much trouble.
Nothing can ever separate me from my cousin."
"Pray don't say so, Emily."
"Nothing can. Is it not better that you and he should know the truth?
Papa goes about trying to find out all the naughty things that George
has ever done. There has been some mistake about a race meeting, and
all manner of people are asked to give what Papa calls evidence that
Cousin George was there. I do not doubt but George has been what
people call dissipated."
"We do hear such dreadful stories!"
"You would not have thought anything about them if it had not been
for me. He is not worse now than when he came down here last year.
And he was always asked to Bruton Street."
"What do you mean by this, dear?"
"I do not mean to say that young men ought to do all these things,
whatever they are,--getting into debt, and betting, and living fast.
Of course it is very wrong. But when a young man has been brought
up in that way, I do think he ought not to be thrown over by his
nearest and dearest friends"--that last epithet was uttered with all
the emphasis which Emily could give to it--"because he falls into
temptation."
"I am afraid George has been worse than others, Emily."
"So much the more reason for trying to save him. If a man be in the
water, you do not refuse to throw him a rope because the water is
deep."
"But, dearest, your papa is thinking of you." Lady Elizabeth was not
quick enough of thought to explain to her daughter that if the rope
be of more value than the man, and if the chance of losing the rope
be much greater than that of saving the man, then the rope is not
thrown.
"And I am thinking of George," said Emily.
"But if it should appear that he had done things,--the wickedest
things in the world?"
"I might break my heart in thinking of it, but I should never give
him up."
"If he were a murderer?" suggested Lady Elizabeth, with horror.
The girl paused, feeling herself to be hardly pressed, and then came
that look upon her brow which Lady Elizabeth understood as well as
did Sir Harry. "Then I would be a murderer's wife," she said.
"Oh, Emily!"
"I must make you understand me, Mamma, and I want Papa to understand
it too. No consideration on earth shall make me say that I will
give him up. They may prove if they like that he was on all the
racecourses in the world, and get that Mrs. Stackpoole to swear to
it;--and it is ten times worse for a woman to go than it is for a
man, at any rate;--but it will make no difference. If you and Papa
tell me not to see him or write to him,--much less to marry him,--of
course I shall obey you. But I shall not give him up a bit the more,
and he must not be told that I will give him up. I am sure Papa will
not wish that anything untrue should be told. George will always be
to me the dearest thing in the whole world,--dearer than my own soul.
I shall pray for him every night, and think of him all day long. And
as to the property, Papa may be quite sure that he can never arrange
it by any marriage that I shall make. No man shall ever speak to me
in that way, if I can help it. I won't go where any man can speak to
me. I will obey,--but it will be at the cost of my life. Of course
I will obey Papa and you; but I cannot alter my heart. Why was he
allowed to come here,--the head of our own family,--if he be so bad
as this? Bad or good, he will always be all the world to me."
To such a daughter as this Lady Elizabeth had very little to say that
might be of avail. She could quote Sir Harry, and entertain some dim
distant wish that Cousin George might even yet be found to be not
quite so black as he had been painted.