visit to Devonshire, and now he had to bethink himself whether they
would be satisfied. What would his sister say, she who had married the
Honourable Augustus Gumbleton, gold-stick-in-waiting to Her Majesty’s
Privy Council? Would she receive Patience with open arms, and make much
of her about London? And then how far would London suit Patience, or
would Patience suit London? There would be much for him to do in
teaching her, and it would be well for him to set about the lesson
without loss of time. So far he got that night, but when the morning
came he went a step further, and began mentally to criticise her manner
to himself. It had been very sweet, that warm, that full, that ready
declaration of love. Yes; it had been very sweet; but--but--; when,
after her little jokes, she did confess her love, had she not been a
little too free for feminine excellence? A man likes to be told that he
is loved, but he hardly wishes that the girl he is to marry should fling
herself at his head!
Ah me! yes; it was thus he argued to himself as on that morning he went
through, the arrangements of his toilet. “Then he was a brute,” you say,
my pretty reader. I have never said that he was not a brute. But this I
remark, that many such brutes are to be met with in the beaten paths of
the world’s highway. When Patience Woolsworthy had answered him coldly,
bidding him go back to London and think over his love; while it seemed
from her manner that at any rate as yet she did not care for him; while
he was absent from her, and, therefore, longing for her, the possession
of her charms, her talent and bright honesty of purpose had seemed to
him a thing most desirable. Now they were his own. They had, in fact,
been his own from the first. The heart of this country-bred girl had
fallen at the first word from his mouth. Had she not so confessed to
him? She was very nice--very nice indeed. He loved her dearly. But had
he not sold himself too cheaply?
I by no means say that he was not a brute. But whether brute or no, he
was an honest man, and had no remotest dream, either then, on that
morning, or during the following days on which such thoughts pressed
more quickly on his mind--of breaking away from his pledged word. At
breakfast on that morning he told all to Miss Le Smyrger, and that lady,
with warm and gracious intentions, confided to him her purpose regarding
her property. “I have always regarded Patience as my heir,” she said,
“and shall do so still.”
“Oh, indeed,” said Captain Broughton.
“But it is a great, great pleasure to me to think that she will give
back the little property to my sister’s child. You will have your
mother’s, and thus it will all come together again.”
“Ah!” said Captain Broughton. He had his own ideas about property, and
did not, even under existing circumstances, like to hear that his aunt
considered herself at liberty to leave the acres away to one who was by
blood quite a stranger to the family.
“Does Patience know of this?” he asked.
“Not a word,” said Miss Le Smyrger. And then nothing more was said upon
the subject.
On that afternoon he went down and received the parson’s benediction and
congratulations with a good grace. Patience said very little on the
occasion, and indeed was absent during the greater part of the
interview. The two lovers then walked up to Oxney Combe, and there were
more benedictions and more congratulations. “All went merry as a
marriage bell,” at any rate as far as Patience was concerned. Not a
word had yet fallen from that dear mouth, not a look had yet come over
that handsome face, which tended in any way to mar her bliss. Her first
day of acknowledged love was a day altogether happy, and when she prayed
for him as she knelt beside her bed there was no feeling in her mind
that any fear need disturb her joy.
I will pass over the next three or four days very quickly, merely saying
that Patience did not find them so pleasant as that first day after her
engagement. There was something in her lover’s manner--something which
at first she could not define--which by degrees seemed to grate against
her feelings. He was sufficiently affectionate, that being a matter on
which she did not require much demonstration; but joined to his
affection there seemed to be----; she hardly liked to suggest to herself
a harsh word, but could it be possible that he was beginning to think
that she was not good enough for him? And then she asked herself the
question--was she good enough for him? If there were doubt about that,
the match should be broken off, though she tore her own heart out in the
struggle. The truth, however, was this--that he had begun that teaching
which he had already found to be so necessary. Now, had any one essayed
to teach Patience German or mathematics, with that young lady’s free
consent, I believe that she would have been found a meek scholar. But it
was not probable that she would be meek when she found a self-appointed
tutor teaching her manners and conduct without her consent.
So matters went on for four or five days, and on the evening of the
fifth day Captain Broughton and his aunt drank tea at the parsonage.
Nothing very especial occurred; but as the parson and Miss Le Smyrger
insisted on playing backgammon with devoted perseverance during the
whole evening, Broughton had a good opportunity of saying a word or two
about those changes in his lady-love which a life in London would
require--and some word he said also--some single slight word as to the
higher station in life to which he would exalt his bride. Patience bore
it--for her father and Miss Le Smyrger were in the room--she bore it
well, speaking no syllable of anger, and enduring, for the moment, the
implied scorn of the old parsonage. Then the evening broke up, and
Captain Broughton walked back to Oxney Combe with his aunt. “Patty,” her
father said to her before they went to bed, “he seems to me to be a most
excellent young man.” “Dear papa,” she answered, kissing him. “And
terribly deep in love,” said Mr. Woolsworthy. “Oh, I don’t know about
that,” she answered, as she left him with her sweetest smile. But though
she could thus smile at her father’s joke, she had already made up her
mind that there was still something to be learned as to her promised
husband before she could place herself altogether in his hands. She
would ask him whether he thought himself liable to injury from this
proposed marriage; and though he should deny any such thought, she would
know from the manner of his denial what his true feelings were.
And he, too, on that night, during his silent walk with Miss Le Smyrger,
had entertained some similar thoughts. “I fear she is obstinate,” he
said to himself, and then he had half accused her of being sullen also.
“If that be her temper, what a life of misery I have before me!”
“Have you fixed a day yet?” his aunt asked him as they came near to her
house.
“No, not yet; I don’t know whether it will suit me to fix it before I
leave.”
“Why, it was but the other day you were in such a hurry.”
“Ah--yes--I have thought more about it since then.”
“I should have imagined that this would depend on what Patty thinks,”
said Miss Le Smyrger, standing up for the privileges of her sex. “It is
presumed that the gentleman is always ready as soon as the lady will
consent.”
“Yes, in ordinary cases it is so; but when a girl is taken out of her
own sphere----”
“Her own sphere! Let me caution you, Master John, not to talk to Patty
about her own sphere.”
“Aunt Penelope, as Patience is to be my wife and not yours, I must claim
permission to speak to her on such subjects as may seem suitable to me.”
And then they parted--not in the best humour with each other.
On the following day Captain Broughton and Miss Woolsworthy did not meet
till the evening. She had said, before those few ill-omened words had
passed her lover’s lips, that she would probably be at Miss Le Smyrger’s
house on the following morning. Those ill-omened words did pass her
lover’s lips, and then she remained at home. This did not come from
sullenness, nor even from anger, but from a conviction that it would be
well that she should think much before she met him again. Nor was he
anxious to hurry a meeting. His thought--his base thought--was this;
that she would be sure to come up to the Combe after him; but she did
not come, and therefore in the evening he went down to her, and asked
her to walk with him.
They went away by the path that led to Helpholme, and little was said
between them till they had walked some mile together. Patience, as she
went along the path, remembered almost to the letter the sweet words
which had greeted her ears as she came down that way with him on the
night of his arrival; but he remembered nothing of that sweetness then.
Had he not made an ass of himself during these last six months? That was
the thought which very much had possession of his mind.
“Patience,” he said at last, having hitherto spoken only an indifferent
word now and again since they had left the parsonage, “Patience, I hope
you realise the importance of the step which you and I are about to
take?”
“Of course I do,” she answered. “What an odd question that is for you to
ask!”
“Because,” said he, “sometimes I almost doubt it. It seems to me as
though you thought you could remove yourself from here to your new home
with no more trouble than when you go from home up to the Combe.”
“Is that meant for a reproach, John?”
“No, not for a reproach, but for advice. Certainly not for a reproach.”
“I am glad of that.”
“But I should wish to make you think how great is the leap in the world
which you are about to take.” Then again they walked on for many steps
before she answered him.
“Tell me, then, John,” she said, when she had sufficiently considered
what words she should speak; and as she spoke a bright colour suffused
her face, and her eyes flashed almost with anger. “What leap do you
mean? Do you mean a leap upwards?”
“Well, yes; I hope it will be so.”
“In one sense, certainly, it would be a leap upwards. To be the wife of
the man I loved; to have the privilege of holding his happiness in my
hand; to know that I was his own--the companion whom he had chosen out
of all the world--that would, indeed, be a leap upwards; a leap almost
to heaven, it all that were so. But if you mean upwards in any other
sense----”
“I was thinking of the social scale.”
“Then, Captain Broughton, your thoughts were doing me dishonour.”
“Doing you dishonour!”
“Yes, doing me dishonour. That your father is, in the world’s esteem, a
greater man than mine is doubtless true enough. That you, as a man, are
richer than I am as a woman, is doubtless also true. But you dishonour
me, and yourself also, if these things can weigh with you now.”
“Patience,--I think you can hardly know what words you are saying to
me.”
“Pardon me, but I think I do. Nothing that you can give me--no gifts of
that description--can weigh aught against that which I am giving you. If
you had all the wealth and rank of the greatest lord in the land, it
would count as nothing in such a scale. If--as I have not doubted--if in
return for my heart you have given me yours, then--then--then you have
paid me fully. But when gifts such as those are going, nothing else can
count even as a make-weight.”
“I do not quite understand you,” he answered, after a pause. “I fear you
are a little high-flown.” And then, while the evening was still early,
they walked back to the parsonage almost without another word.
Captain Broughton at this time had only one full day more to remain at
Oxney Colne. On the afternoon following that he was to go as far as
Exeter, and thence return to London. Of course, it was to be expected
that the wedding day would be fixed before he went, and much had been
said about it during the first day or two of his engagement. Then he had
pressed for an early time, and Patience, with a girl’s usual diffidence,
had asked for some little delay. But now nothing was said on the
subject; and how was it probable that such a matter could be settled
after such a conversation as that which I have related? That evening,
Miss Le Smyrger asked whether the day had been fixed. “No,” said Captain
Broughton, harshly; “nothing has been fixed.” “But it will be arranged
before you go?” “Probably not,” he said; and then the subject was
dropped for the time.
“John,” she said, just before she went to bed, “if there be anything
wrong between you and Patience, I conjure you to tell me.”
“You had better ask her,” he replied. “I can tell you nothing.”
On the following morning he was much surprised by seeing Patience on the
gravel path before Miss Le Smyrger’s gate immediately after breakfast.
He went to the door to open it for her, and she, as she gave him her
hand, told him that she came up to speak to him. There was no hesitation
in her manner, nor any look of anger in her face. But there was in her
gait and form, in her voice and countenance, a fixedness of purpose
which he had never seen before, or at any rate had never acknowledged.
“Certainly,” said he. “Shall I come out with you, or will you come up
stairs?”
“We can sit down in the summer-house,” she said; and thither they both
went.
“Captain Broughton,” she said--and she began her task the moment that
they were both seated--“you and I have engaged ourselves as man and
wife, but perhaps we have been over rash.”
“How so?” said he.
“It may be--and indeed I will say more--it is the case that we have made
this engagement without knowing enough of each other’s character.”
“I have not thought so.”
“The time will perhaps come when you will so think, but for the sake of
all that we most value, let it come before it is too late. What would be
our fate--how terrible would be our misery--if such a thought should
come to either of us after we have linked our lots together.”
There was a solemnity about her as she thus spoke which almost repressed
him,--which for a time did prevent him from taking that tone of
authority which on such a subject he would choose to adopt. But he
recovered himself. “I hardly think that this comes well from you,” he
said.
“From whom else should it come? Who else can fight my battle for me;
and, John, who else can fight that same battle on your behalf? I tell
you this, that with your mind standing towards me as it does stand at
present, you could not give me your hand at the altar with true words
and a happy conscience. Am I not true? You have half repented of your
bargain already. Is it not so?”
He did not answer her; but getting up from his seat walked to the front
of the summer-house, and stood there with his back turned upon her. It
was not that he meant to be ungracious, but in truth he did not know how
to answer her. He had half repented of his bargain.
“John,” she said, getting up and following him, so that she could put
her hand upon his arm, “I have been very angry with you.”
“Angry with me!” he said, turning sharp upon her.
“Yes, angry with you. You would have treated me like a child. But that
feeling has gone now. I am not angry now. There is my hand;--the hand of
a friend. Let the words that have been spoken between us be as though
they had not been spoken. Let us both be free.”
“Do you mean it?”
“Certainly I mean it.” As she spoke these words her eyes filled with
tears, in spite of all the efforts she could make; but he was not
looking at her, and her efforts had sufficed to prevent any sob from
being audible.
“With all my heart,” he said; and it was manifest from his tone that he
had no thought of her happiness as he spoke. It was true that she had
been angry with him--angry, as she had herself declared; but
nevertheless, in what she had said and what she had done, she had
thought more of his happiness than of her own. Now she was angry once
again.
“With all your heart, Captain Broughton! Well, so be it. If with all
your heart, then is the necessity so much the greater. You go to-morrow.
Shall we say farewell now?”
“Patience, I am not going to be lectured.”
“Certainly not by me. Shall we say farewell now?”
“Yes, if you are determined.”
“I am determined. Farewell, Captain Broughton. You have all my wishes
for your happiness.” And she held out her hand to him.
“Patience!” he said. And he looked at her with a dark frown, as though
he would strive to frighten her into submission. If so, he might have
saved himself any such attempt.
“Farewell, Captain Broughton. Give me your hand, for I cannot stay.” He
gave her his hand, hardly knowing why he did so. She lifted it to her
lips and kissed it, and then, leaving him, passed from the summer-house
down through the wicket-gate, and straight home to the parsonage.
During the whole of that day she said no word to any one of what had
occurred. When she was once more at home she went about her household
affairs as she had done on that day of his arrival. When she sat down to
dinner with her father he observed nothing to make him think that she
was unhappy; nor during the evening was there any expression in her
face, or any tone in her voice, which excited his attention. On the
following morning Captain Broughton called at the parsonage, and the
servant-girl brought word to her mistress that he was in the parlour.
But she would not see him. “Laws, miss, you ain’t a quarrelled with your
beau?” the poor girl said. “No, not quarrelled,” she said; “but give him
that.” It was a scrap of paper, containing a word or two in pencil. “It
is better that we should not meet again. God bless you.” And from that
day to this, now more than ten years, they never have met.
“Papa,” she said to her father that afternoon, “dear papa, do not be
angry with me. It is all over between me and John Broughton. Dearest,
you and I will not be separated.”
It would be useless here to tell how great was the old man’s surprise
and how true his sorrow. As the tale was told to him no cause was given
for anger with any one. Not a word was spoken against the suitor who had
on that day returned to London with a full conviction that now at least
he was relieved from his engagement. “Patty, my darling child,” he said,
“may God grant that it be for the best!”
“It is for the best,” she answered stoutly. “For this place I am fit;
and I much doubt whether I am fit for any other.”
On that day she did not see Miss Le Smyrger, but on the following
morning, knowing that Captain Broughton had gone off, having heard the
wheels of the carriage as they passed by the parsonage gate on his way
to the station,--she walked up to the Combe.
“He has told you, I suppose?” said she.
“Yes,” said Miss Le Smyrger. “And I will never see him again unless he
asks your pardon on his knees. I have told him so. I would not even give
him my hand as he went.”
“But why so, thou kindest one? The fault was mine more than his.”
“I understand. I have eyes in my head,” said the old maid. “I have
watched him for the last four or five days. If you could have kept the
truth to yourself and bade him keep off from you, he would have been at
your feet now, licking the dust from your shoes.”
“But, dear friend, I do not want a man to lick dust from my shoes.”
“Ah, you are a fool. You do not know the value of your own wealth.”
“True; I have been a fool. I was a fool to think that one coming from
such a life as he has led could be happy with such as I am. I know the
truth now. I have bought the lesson dearly,--but perhaps not too dearly,
seeing that it will never be forgotten.”
There was but little more said about the matter between our three
friends at Oxney Colne. What, indeed, could be said? Miss Le Smyrger for
a year or two still expected that her nephew would return and claim his
bride; but he has never done so, nor has there been any correspondence
between them. Patience Woolsworthy had learned her lesson dearly. She
had given her whole heart to the man; and, though she so bore herself
that no one was aware of the violence of the struggle, nevertheless the
struggle within her bosom was very violent. She never told herself that
she had done wrong; she never regretted her loss; but yet--yet--the loss
was very hard to bear. He also had loved her, but he was not capable of
a love which could much injure his daily peace. Her daily peace was gone
for many a day to come.
Her father is still living; but there is a curate now in the parish. In
conjunction with him and with Miss Le Smyrger she spends her time in the
concerns of the parish. In her own eyes she is a confirmed old maid; and
such is my opinion also. The romance of her life was played out in that
summer. She never sits now lonely on the hill-side thinking how much she
might do for one whom she really loved. But with a large heart she loves
many, and, with no romance, she works hard to lighten the burdens of
those she loves.
As for Captain Broughton, all the world know that he did marry that
great heiress with whom his name was once before connected, and that he
is now a useful member of Parliament, working on committees three or
four days a week with a zeal that is indefatigable. Sometimes, not
often, as he thinks of Patience Woolsworthy, a gratified smile comes
across his face.
GEORGE WALKER AT SUEZ.
Of all the spots on the world’s surface that I, George Walker, of Friday
Street, London, have ever visited, Suez in Egypt, at the head of the Red
Sea, is by far the vilest, the most unpleasant, and the least
interesting. There are no women there, no water, and no vegetation. It
is surrounded, and indeed often filled, by a world of sand. A scorching
sun is always overhead; and one is domiciled in a huge cavernous hotel,
which seems to have been made purposely destitute of all the comforts of
civilised life. Nevertheless, in looking back upon the week of my life
which I spent there I always enjoy a certain sort of triumph;--or
rather, upon one day of that week, which lends a sort of halo not only
to my sojourn at Suez, but to the whole period of my residence in Egypt.
I am free to confess that I am not a great man, and that, at any rate in
the earlier part of my career, I had a hankering after the homage which
is paid to greatness. I would fain have been a popular orator, feeding
myself on the incense tendered to me by thousands; or failing that, a
man born to power, whom those around him were compelled to respect, and
perhaps to fear. I am not ashamed to acknowledge this, and I believe
that most of my neighbours in Friday Street would own as much were they
as candid and open-hearted as myself.
It is now some time since I was recommended to pass the first four
months of the year in Cairo because I had a sore-throat. The doctor may
have been right, but I shall never divest myself of the idea that my
partners wished to be rid of me while they made certain changes in the
management of the firm. They would not otherwise have shown such
interest every time I blew my nose or relieved my huskiness by a slight
cough;--they would not have been so intimate with that surgeon from St.
Bartholomew’s who dined with them twice at the Albion; nor would they
have gone to work directly that my back was turned, and have done those
very things which they could not have done had I remained at home. Be
that as it may, I was frightened and went to Cairo, and while there I
made a trip to Suez for a week.
I was not happy at Cairo, for I knew nobody there, and the people at the
hotel were, as I thought, uncivil. It seemed to me as though I were
allowed to go in and out merely by sufferance; and yet I paid my bill
regularly every week. The house was full of company, but the company was
made up of parties of twos and threes, and they all seemed to have their
own friends. I did make attempts to overcome that terrible British
exclusiveness, that noli me tangere with which an Englishman arms
himself, and in which he thinks it necessary to envelop his wife; but it
was in vain, and I found myself sitting down to breakfast and dinner,
day after day, as much alone as I should do if I called for a chop at a
separate table in the Cathedral Coffee-house. And yet at breakfast and
dinner I made one of an assemblage of thirty or forty people. That I
thought dull.