I
Young Oliver Pickersgill was in love with Peter Lannithorne's daughter.
Peter Lannithorne was serving a six-year term in the penitentiary for
embezzlement.
It seemed to Ollie that there was only one right-minded way of looking
at these basal facts of his situation. But this simple view of the
matter was destined to receive several shocks in the course of his
negotiations for Ruth Lannithorne's hand. I say negotiations advisedly.
Most young men in love have only to secure the consent of the girl and
find enough money to go to housekeeping. It is quite otherwise when you
wish to marry into a royal family, or to ally yourself with a criminal's
daughter. The preliminaries are more complicated.
Ollie thought a man ought to marry the girl he loves, and prejudices be
hanged! In the deeps of his soul, he probably knew this to be the
magnanimous, manly attitude, but certainly there was no condescension in
his outward bearing when he asked Ruth Lannithorne to be his wife. Yet
she turned on him fiercely, bristling with pride and tense with
over-wrought nerves.
'I will never marry any one,' she declared, 'who doesn't respect my
father as I do!'
If Oliver's jaw fell, it is hardly surprising. He had expected her to
say she would never many into a family where she was not welcome. He had
planned to get around the natural objections of his parents
somehow--the details of this were vague in his mind--and then he meant
to reassure her warmly, and tell her that personal merit was the only
thing that counted with him or his. He may have visualized himself as
wiping away her tears and gently raising her to share the safe social
pedestal whereon the Pickersgills were firmly planted. The young do have
these visions not infrequently. But to be asked to respect Peter
Lannithorne, about whom he knew practically nothing save his present
address!
'I don't remember that I ever saw your father, Ruth,' he faltered.
'He was the best man,' said the girl excitedly, 'the kindest, the most
indulgent.--That's another thing, Ollie. I will never marry an indulgent
man, nor one who will let his wife manage him. If it hadn't been for
mother--' She broke off abruptly.
Ollie tried to look sympathetic and not too intelligent. He had heard
that Mrs. Lannithorne was considered difficult.
'I oughtn't to say it, but can't explain father unless I do. Mother
nagged; she wanted more money than there was; she made him feel her
illnesses, and our failings, and the overdone beefsteak, and the
under-done bread,--everything that went wrong, always, was his fault.
His fault--because he didn't make more money. We were on the edge of
things, and she wanted to be in the middle, as she was used to being. Of
course, she really hasn't been well, but I think it's mostly nerves,'
said Ruth, with the terrible hardness of the young. 'Anyhow, she might
just as well have stuck knives into him as to say the things she did. It
hurt him--like knives, I could see him wince--and try harder--and get
discouraged--and then, at last--' The girl burst into a passion of
tears.
Oliver tried to soothe her. Secretly he was appalled at these squalid
revelations of discordant family life. The domestic affairs of the
Pickersgills ran smoothly, in affluence and peace. Oliver had never
listened to a nagging woman in his life. He had an idea that such
phenomena were confined to the lower classes.
'Don't you care for me at all, Ruth?'
The girl crumpled her wet handkerchief. 'Ollie, you're the most
beautiful thing that ever happened--except my father. He was beautiful,
too; indeed, indeed, he was. I'll never think differently. I can't. He
tried so hard.'
All the latent manliness in the boy came to the surface and showed
itself.
'Ruth, darling, I don't want you to think differently. It's right for
you to be loyal and feel as you do. You see, you know, and the world
doesn't. I'll take what you say and do as you wish. You mustn't think
I'm on the other side. I'm not. I'm on your side, wherever that is. When
the time comes I'll show you. You may trust me, Ruth.'
He was eager, pleading, earnest. He looked at the moment so good, so
loving and sincere, that the girl, out of her darker experience of life,
wondered wistfully if it were really true that Providence ever let
people just live their lives out like that--being good, and prosperous,
and generous, advancing from happiness to happiness, instead of stubbing
along painfully as she felt she had done, from one bitter experience to
another, learning to live by failures.
It must be beautiful to learn from successes instead, as it seemed to
her Oliver had done. How could any one refuse to share such a radiant
life when it was offered? As for loving Oliver, that was a foregone
conclusion. Still, she hesitated.
'You're awfully dear and good to me, Ollie,' she said. 'But I want you
to see father. I want you to go and talk to him about this, and know him
for yourself. I know I'm asking a hard thing of you, but, truly, I
believe it's best. If _he_ says it's all right for me to marry you, I
will--if your family want me, of course,' she added as an afterthought.
'Oughtn't I to speak to your mother?' hesitated Oliver.
'Oh,--mother? Yes, I suppose she'd like it,' said Ruth, absent-mindedly.
'Mother has views about getting married, Ollie. I dare say she'll want
to tell you what they are. You mustn't think they're my views, though.'
'I'd rather hear yours, Ruth.'
She flashed a look at him that opened for him the heavenly deeps that
lie before the young and the loving, and he had a sudden vision of their
life as a long sunlit road, winding uphill, winding down, but sunlit
always--because looks like that illumine any dusk.
'I'll tell you my views--some day,' Ruth said softly. 'But first--'
'First I must talk to my father, your mother, your father.' Oliver
checked them off on his fingers. 'Three of them. Seems to me that's a
lot of folks to consult about a thing that doesn't really concern
anybody but you and me!'