FLORENCE ON MARRIAGE
Miss Ceswick’s seizure turned out to be even worse than was
anticipated. Once she appeared to regain consciousness, and began to
mutter something; then she sank back into a torpor, out of which she
never woke again.
It was fortunate that her condition was not such as to require the
services of the clergyman, because, for some time after the events
described in the last chapter, Mr. Plowden was not in any condition to
give them. Whether it was the shaking or the well-planted kick or the
shock to his system it is impossible to say, but in the upshot he was
constrained to keep his bed for several days. Indeed, the first service
that he took was on the occasion of the opening of the ancient Ceswick
vault to receive the remains of the recently deceased lady. The only
territorial possession which remained to the Ceswicks was their vault.
Indeed, as Florence afterwards remarked to her sister, there was a
certain irony in the reflection that of all their wide acres there
remained only the few square feet of soil which for centuries had
covered the bones of the race.
When their aunt was dead and buried the two girls went back to the
Cottage, and were very desolate. They had both of them loved the old
lady in their separate ways, more especially Florence, both because she
possessed the deeper nature of the two and because she had lived the
longest with her.
But the grief of youth at the departure of age is not inconsolable, and
after a month or so they had conquered the worst of their sorrow. Then
it was that the question what they were to do came prominently to the
fore. Such little property as their aunt had possessed was equally
divided between them, and the Cottage left to their joint use. This
gave them enough to live on in their quiet way, but it undoubtedly left
them in a very lonely and unprotected position. Such as it was,
however, they, or rather Florence—for she managed all the
business—decided to make the best of it. At Kesterwick, at any rate,
they were known, and it was, they felt, better to stay there than to
float away and become waifs and strays on the great sea of English
life. So they settled to stay.
Florence had, moreover, her own reasons for staying. She had come to
the conclusion that it would be desirable that her sister Eva should
marry Mr. Plowden. Not that she liked Mr. Plowden—her lady’s instincts
rose up in rebellion against the man—but if Eva did not marry him, it
was probable that she would in the long-run marry Ernest, and Ernest,
Florence swore, she should not marry. To prevent such a marriage was
the main purpose of her life. Her jealousy and hatred of her sister had
become a part of herself; the gratification of her revenge was the evil
star by which she shaped her course. It may seem a terrible thing that
so young a woman could give the best energies of her life to such a
purpose, but it was none the less the truth.
Hers was a wild strange nature, a nature capable of violent love and
violent hate; the same pendulum could swing with equal ease to each
extreme. Eva had robbed her of Her lover; she would rob Eva, and put
the prize out of her reach too. Little she recked of the wickedness of
her design; for where in the long record of human crime is there a
wickedness to surpass the deliberate separation, for no good reason, of
two people who love each other with all their hearts? Surely there is
none. She knew this, but she did not hesitate on that account. She was
not hypocritical. She made no excuses to herself. She knew well that on
every ground it was best that Eva should marry Ernest, and pursue her
natural destiny, happy in his love and in her own. But she would have
none of it. If once they should meet again, the game would pass out of
her hands; for the weakest woman grows strong of purpose when she has
her lover’s arm to lean on. Florence realised this, and determined that
they should never set eyes on each other until an impassable barrier,
in the shape of Mr. Plowden, had been raised between the two. Having
thus finally determined on the sacrifice, she set about whetting the
knife.
One day, a month or so after Miss Ceswick was buried, Mr. Plowden
called at the Cottage on some of the endless details of which
district-visiting was the parent. He had hardly seen Eva since that
never-to-be-forgotten day, when he had learned what Jeremy’s ideas of a
shaking were, for the very good reason that she had carefully kept out
of his way.
So it came to pass that when, looking out of the window on the
afternoon in question, she saw the crown of a clerical hat coming along
the road, Eva promptly gathered up her work and commenced a hasty
retreat to her bedroom.
“Where are you going to, Eva?” asked her sister.
“Upstairs—here he comes.”
“‘He’! who is ‘he’?”
“Mr. Plowden, of course.”
“And why should you run away because Mr. Plowden is coming?”
“I do not like Mr. Plowden.”
“Really, Eva, you are too bad. You know what a friendless position we
are in just now, and you go and get up a dislike to one of the few men
we know. It is very selfish of you, and most unreasonable.”
At that moment the front-door bell rang, and Eva fled.
Mr. Plowden on entering looked round the room with a somewhat
disappointed air.
“If you are looking for my sister,” said Florence, “she is not very
well.”
“Indeed, I am afraid that her health is not good; she is so often
indisposed.”
Florence smiled, and they dropped into the district-visiting.
Presently, however, Florence dropped out again.
“By the way, Mr. Plowden, I want to tell you of something I heard the
other day, and which concerns you. Indeed, I think that it is only
right that I should do so. I heard that you were seen talking to my
sister, not very far from the Titheburgh Abbey cottages, and that
she—she ran away from you. Then Mr. Jones jumped over the wall, and
also began to talk with you. Presently he also turned, and, so said my
informant, you struck at him with a heavy stick, but missed him.
Thereupon a tussle ensued, and you got the worst of it.”
“He irritated me beyond all endurance,” broke in Mr. Plowden,
excitedly.
“O, then the story is true?”
Mr. Plowden saw that he had made a fatal mistake; but it was too late
to deny it.
“To a certain extent,” he said, sulkily. “That young ruffian told me
that I was not a gentleman.”
“Really! Of course that was unpleasant. But how glad you must feel that
you missed him, especially as his back was turned! It would have looked
so bad for a clergyman to be had up for assault, or worse, wouldn’t
it?”
Mr. Plowden turned pale, and bit his lip. He began to feel that he was
in the power of this quiet, dignified young woman, and the feeling was
not pleasant.
“And it would not look very well if the story got round here, would it?
I mean even if it was not known that you hit at him with the stick when
he was not looking, because, you see, it would seem so absurd! The idea
of a clergyman more than six feet high being shaken like a naughty
child! I suppose that Mr. Jones is very strong.”
Mr. Plowden winced beneath her mockery, and rising, seized his hat; but
she motioned him back to his chair.
“Don’t go yet,” she said. “I wanted to tell you that you ought to be
much obliged to me for thinking of all this for you. I thought that it
would be painful to you to have the story all over the country-side, so
I nipped it in the bud.”
Mr. Plowden groaned in spirit. If these were the results of a story
nipped in the bud, what would its uninjured bloom be like?
“Who told you? “he asked, brusquely. “Jones went away.”
“Yes. How glad you must be, by the way, that he is gone! But it was not
Mr. Jones, it was a person who oversaw the difference of opinion. No,
never mind who it was; I have found means to silence that person.”
Little did Mr. Plowden guess that during the whole course of his
love-scene, and the subsequent affair with Jeremy, there had leaned
gracefully in an angle of the sod wall, not twenty yards away, a figure
uncommonly resembling that of an ancient mariner in an attitude of the
most intense and solemn contemplation; but so it was.
“I am grateful to you, Miss Ceswick.”
“Thank you, Mr. Plowden, it is refreshing to meet with true gratitude,
it is a scarce flower in this world; but really I don’t deserve any.
The observer who oversaw the painful scene between you and Mr. Jones
also oversaw a scene preceding it, that, so far as I can gather, seems
to have been hardly less painful in its way.”
Mr. Plowden coloured, but said nothing.
“Now you see, Mr. Plowden, I am left in a rather peculiar position as
regards my sister; she is younger than I am, and has always been
accustomed to look up to me, so, as you will easily understand, I feel
my responsibilities to weigh upon me. Consequently, I feel bound to ask
you what I am to understand from the report of my informant?”
“Simply this, Miss Ceswick: I proposed to your sister, and she refused
me.”
“Indeed! you were unfortunate that afternoon.”
“Miss Ceswick,” went on Mr. Plowden, after a pause, “if I could find
means to induce your sister to change her verdict, would my suit have
your support?”
Florence raised her piercing eyes from her work, and for a second fixed
them on the clergyman’s face.
“That depends, Mr. Plowden.”
“I am well off,” he went on, eagerly, “and I will tell you a secret. I
have bought the advowson of this living; I happened to hear that it was
going, and got it at a bargain. I don’t think that Halford’s life is
worth five years’ purchase.’”
“Why do you want to marry Eva, Mr. Plowden,” asked Florence, ignoring
this piece of information; “you are not in love with her?”
“In love! No, Miss Ceswick. I don’t think that sensible men fall in
love; they leave that to boys and women.”
“O! Then why do you want to marry Eva? It will be best to tell me
frankly, Mr. Plowden.”
He hesitated, and then came to the conclusion that, with a person of
Florence’s penetration, frankness was the best game.
“Well, as you must know, your sister is an extraordinarily beautiful
woman.”
“And would therefore form a desirable addition to your establishment?”
“Precisely,” said Mr. Plowden. “Also,” he went on, “she is a
distinguished-looking woman, and quite the lady.”
Florence shuddered at this phrase.
“And would therefore give you social status, Mr. Plowden?”
“Yes. She is also sprung from an ancient family.”
Florence smiled, and looked at Mr. Plowden with an air that said more
plainly than any words, “Which you clearly are not.”
“In short, I am anxious to get married, and I admire your sister Eva
more than anybody I ever saw.”
“All of which are very satisfactory reasons, Mr. Plowden; all you have
to do is to convince my sister of the many advantages you have to offer
her, and—to win her affections.”
“Ah, Miss Ceswick, that is just the point. She told me that her
affections were already irredeemably engaged, and that she had none to
give. If only I have the opportunity, however, I shall hope to be able
to distance my rival.”
Florence looked at him scrutinisingly as she answered:
“You do not know Ernest Kershaw, or you would not be so confident.”
“Why am I not as good as this Ernest?” he asked; for Florence’s remark,
identical as it was with that of Jeremy, wounded his vanity intensely.
“Well, Mr. Plowden, I do not want to be rude, but it is impossible for
me to conceive a woman’s affections being won away from Ernest Kershaw
by you. You are so very _different._”
If Mr. Plowden wanted a straightforward answer, he had certainly got
it. For some moments he sat in sulky silence, and then he said:
“I suppose, if that is the case, there is nothing to be done.”
“I never said that. Women are frequently married whose affections are
very much engaged elsewhere. You know how they win their wives in
savage countries, Mr. Plowden: they catch them. Marriage by capture is
one of the oldest institutions in the world.”
“Well!”
“Well, the same institution still obtains in England, only we don’t
call it by that name. Do you suppose that no women are hunted down
nowadays? Ah, very many are; the would-be husband heads the pack, and
all the loving relatives swell its cry.”
“You mean that your sister can be hunted down,” he said, bluntly.
“I! I mean nothing, except that the persistent suitor on the spot often
has a better chance than the lover at a distance, however dear he may
be.”
Then Mr. Plowden took his leave. Florence watched him walking down the
garden-path.
“I am glad Jeremy shook you soundly,” she said, aloud. “Poor Eva!”