The day of the party at Allonby had been a day of pleasure to Effie, but
of pleasure she was half afraid of and only half understood. The
atmosphere about her had been touched by something beyond her
experience,--softened, brightened, glorified, she could not tell how.
She did not understand it, and yet she did understand it, and this soft
conflict between knowing and not knowing increased its magical effect.
She was surrounded by that atmosphere of admiration, of adoration, which
is the first romantic aspect of a love-making. Everything in her and
about her was so beautiful and lovely in the eyes of her young and
undeclared lover, that somehow in spite of herself this atmosphere got
into her own eyes and affected her conception of herself. It was all an
effect of fancy, unreal, not meaning, even to Fred Dirom, what it had
seemed to mean.
When love came to its perfection, when he had told it, and made sure of
a return (if he was to have a return), then Fred too, or any, the most
romantic of lovers, would so far return to common earth as to become
aware that it was a woman and not a poetical angel whom he was about to
marry.
But at present fancy was supreme, and Effie was as no real creature ever
had been, lit up with the effulgence of a tender imagination, even in
her own consciousness. She was not vain, nor apt to take much upon
herself; neither was she by any means prepared to respond to the
sentiment with which Fred regarded her. She did not look at him through
that glorifying medium. But she became aware of herself through it in a
bewildering, dazzling, incomprehensible way. Her feet trod the air, a
suffusion of light seemed to be about her. It was a merely sympathetic
effect, although she was the glorified object; but for the moment it was
very remarkable and even sweet.
“Well! it appears you were the queen of the entertainment, Effie, for
all so simple as you sit there,” said her stepmother. “I hope you were
content.”
“Me!” said Effie, in those half bewildered tones, conscious of it, yet
incapable of acknowledging it, not knowing how it could be. She added in
a subdued voice: “They were all very kind,” blushing so deeply that her
countenance and throat rose red out of her white frock.
“Her!” cried Mr. Ogilvie, still a little confused with the truffles;
“what would she be the queen of the feast for, a little thing like that?
I have nothing to say against you, Effie; but there were many finer
women there.”
“Hold your tongue, Robert,” said his wife. “There may be some things on
which you’re qualified to speak: but the looks of his own daughter, and
her just turning out of a girl into a woman, is what no man can judge.
You just can’t realize Effie as anything more than Effie. But I’ve seen
it for a long time. That’s not the point of view from which she is
regarded there.”
“I know no other point of view,” he said in his sleepy voice. “You are
putting rank nonsense into her head.”
“Just you lean back in your corner and take a rest,” said Mrs. Ogilvie,
“you’ve been exposed to the sun, and you’ve had heating viands and
drinks instead of your good cup of tea; and leave Effie’s head to me.
I’ll put nothing into it that should not be there.”
“I think Effie’s head can take care of itself,” said the subject of the
discussion, though indeed if she had said the truth she would have
acknowledged that the little head in question was in the condition
which is popularly described as “turned,” and not in a very fit
condition to judge of itself.
“It is easy to see that Mr. Dirom is a most liberal person,” said Mrs.
Ogilvie, “and spares nothing. I would not wonder if we were to see him
at Gilston to-morrow. What for? Oh, just for civility, and to see your
father. There might be business questions arising between them; who can
tell? And, Effie, I hope you’ll be reasonable, and not set yourself
against anything that would be for your good.”
“I hope not,” said Effie, “but I don’t know what it is that you think
would be for my good.”
“That is just what I am afraid of,” Mrs. Ogilvie said, “that’s what
young folk are always doing. I can remember myself in my young days the
chances I threw away. Instead of seeing what’s in it as a real serious
matter, you will just consider it as a joke, as a thing to amuse
yourself with. That is not what a reasonable person would do. You’re
young, to be sure, but you will not be always young; and it is just
silly to treat in that light way what might be such a grand settlement
for life.”
“I wish,” cried Effie, reddening now with sudden anger,--“oh, I wish you
would----”
“Mind my own business? But it is my own business. When I married your
father it was one of the first of my duties to look after you, and
consider your best interests. I hope I’ve always done my duty by you,
Effie. From seeing that your hair was cut regularly, which was just in a
heart-breaking tangle about your shoulders when I came home to Gilston,
to seeing you well settled, there is nothing I have had so much in my
mind. Now don’t you make me any answer, for you will just say something
you will regret. I shall never have grown-up daughters of my own, and if
I were not to think of you I would be a most reprehensible person. All
I have to ask of you is that you will not be a fool and throw away your
advantages. You need not stir a finger. Just take things pleasantly and
make a nice answer to them that ask, and everything else will come to
your hand. Lucky girl that you are! Yes, my dear, you are just a very
lucky girl. Scarcely nineteen, and everything you can desire ready to
drop into your lap. There is not one in a hundred that has a lot like
that. There are many that might do not amiss but for some circumstances
that’s against them; but there is no circumstance against you, and
nothing that can harm you, unless just some nonsense fancy that you may
take up at your own hand.”
Thus Mrs. Ogilvie ran on during the drive home. After one or two murmurs
of protest Effie fell into silence, preferring, as she often did, the
soft current of her own thoughts to the weary words of her stepmother,
who indeed was by no means unaccustomed to carry on a monologue of this
description, in which she gave forth a great many sentiments that were a
credit to her, and gave full intimation, had any attention been paid to
her, of various plans which were hotly but ineffectually objected to
when she carried them out.
Mr. Ogilvie in his corner, what with his truffles and the unusual
fatigue of an afternoon spent in the midst of a crowd, and the familiar
lullaby of his wife’s voice, and the swift motion of the horses glad to
get home, had got happily and composedly to sleep. And if Effie did not
sleep, she did what was better. She allowed herself to float away on a
dreamy tide of feeling, which indeed was partly caused by Fred Dirom’s
devotion, yet was not responsive to it, nor implied any enchantment of
her own in which he held a leading place. She mused, but not of Fred.
The pleasure of life, of youth, of the love shown to her, of perhaps,
though it is a less admirable sentiment, gratified vanity, buoyed her
up and carried her along.
No doubt it was gratified vanity; yet it was something more. The feeling
that we are admired and beloved has a subtle delight in it, breathing
soft and warm into the heart, which is more than a vain gratification.
It brings a conviction that the world, so good to us, is good and kind
to its core--that there is a delightful communication with all lovely
things possible to humanity to which we now have got the key, that we
are entering into our heritage, and that the beautiful days are dawning
for us that dawn upon all in their time, in their hour and place.
This, perhaps, has much to do with the elevation and ecstasy even of
true love. Without love at all on her own part, but only the reflected
glow of that which shone from her young lover, who had not as yet
breathed a word to her of hopes or of wishes, this soft uprising tide,
this consciousness of a new existence, caught Effie now. She ceased to
pay any attention to her stepmother, whose wise words floated away upon
the breezes, and perhaps got diffused into nature, and helped to
replenish that stock of wisdom which the quiet and silence garner up to
transmit to fit listeners in their time. Some other country girl,
perhaps, going out into the fields to ask herself what she should do in
similar circumstances, got the benefit of those counsels, adjuring her
to abandon fancy and follow the paths of prudence, though they floated
over Effie’s head and made no impression on her dreaming soul.
This vague and delightful period lasted without being broken by anything
definite for some time longer. The Dirom family in general had been
checked and startled, they could scarcely tell how, by the visit of the
father. Not that its abruptness surprised them, or its brevity, to both
of which things they were accustomed. No one indeed could define what
was the cause, or indeed what was exactly the effect. It did not reach
the length of anxiety or alarm, and it was not produced by any special
thing which he had done or said; but yet they were checked, made
uncomfortable, they could not tell why.
Mrs. Dirom herself retired to her room and cried, though she would not
or could not give any reason for it; and the young people, though none
of their pursuits had been blamed by their father, tacitly by one
impulse paused in them, renouncing their most cherished habits, though
with no cause they knew.
The same indefinite check weighed upon Fred. He had received, to his own
surprise, full license from his father to do as he pleased, and make his
own choice, a permission indeed which he had fully calculated upon--for
Mr. Dirom’s sentiment of wealth was such that he had always
persistently scoffed at the idea of a wife’s fortune being any special
object on the part of his sons--but which he had not expected to receive
without asking for it, without putting forth his reasons, in this
prodigal way.
But Fred did not at once take advantage of this permission to please
himself. Perhaps the mere fact that his father took it so entirely for
granted, gave the subject greater gravity and difficulty in the eyes of
the son, and he became doubtful in proportion as the difficulties seemed
smoothed away. He did not even see Effie for some days after. The first
touch of winter came with the beginning of October, and tennis became a
thing of the past. Neither was there much pleasure to be had either in
walks or rides. The outside world grew dark, and to the discouraged and
disturbed family it was almost an advantage to shut themselves up for a
day or two, to gather round the fire, and either mutely or by
implication consult with each other, and question that Sphinx of the
future which gives no reply.
When this impression began to wear off, and the natural course of life
was resumed, Fred found another obstacle to the promotion of his suit.
Effie gave him no rebuff, showed no signs of dislike or displeasure, but
smiled to meet him, with a soft colour rising over her face, which many
a lover would have interpreted to mean the most flattering things. But
with all this, Fred felt a certain atmosphere of abstraction about her
which affected him, though his feelings were far from abstract. He had a
glimmering of the truth in respect to her, such as only a fairly
sympathetic nature and the perfect sincerity of his mind could have
conveyed to him.
The girl was moved, he felt, by love, by something in the air, by an
ethereal sentiment--but not by him. She felt his love, thrilling somehow
sympathetically the delicate strings of her being, but did not share
the passion. This stopped him in the strangest way, re-acting upon him,
taking the words from his lips. It was too delicate for words. It seemed
to him that even a definite breath of purpose, much more the vulgar
question, Will you marry me? would have broken the spell. And thus a
little interval passed which was not without its sweetness. The nature
of their intercourse changed a little. It became less easy, yet almost
more familiar; instead of the lawns, the tennis, the walk through the
glen, the talk of Doris and Phyllis for a background, it was now in
Gilston chiefly that he met Effie. He came upon all possible and
impossible errands, to bring books or to borrow them, to bring flowers
from the conservatories, or grapes and peaches, or grouse; to consult
Mr. Ogilvie about the little farm, of which he knew nothing; or any
other pretext that occurred to him. And then he would sit in the homely
drawing-room at Gilston the whole afternoon through, while Effie did
her needlework, or arranged the flowers, or brought out the dessert
dishes for the fruit, or carried him, a pretty handmaiden, his cup of
tea.
“Now just sit still,” Mrs. Ogilvie said, “and let Effie serve you. A
woman should always hand the tea. You’re fine for heavier things, but
tea is a girl’s business.”
And Fred sat in bliss, and took that domestic nectar from the hand of
Effie, standing sweetly with a smile before him, and felt himself grow
nearer and nearer, and yet still farther and farther away.
This state of affairs did not satisfy Mrs. Ogilvie at all. She asked
herself sometimes whether Fred after all was trifling with Effie?
whether it was possible that he might be amusing himself? whether her
father should interfere? This excellent woman was well aware that to get
Effie’s father to interfere was about as likely as that good Glen,
sweeping his mighty tail, should stop Fred upon the threshold, and ask
him what were his intentions. But then “her father” meant, of course,
her father’s wife, and the lady herself felt no reluctance, if Effie’s
interest required it, to take this step.
Her objects were various. In the first place, as a matter of principle,
she had a rooted objection to shilly-shally in a question of this kind.
She had the feeling that her own prospects had suffered from it, as many
women have; and though Mrs. Ogilvie had not suffered much, and was very
well satisfied on the whole with her life, still she might, she felt,
have married earlier and married better but for the senseless delays of
the man in more cases than one.
From a less abstract point of view she desired the question to be
settled in Effie’s interests, feeling sure both that Fred was an
excellent _parti_, and that he was that highly desirable thing--a good
young man. Perhaps a sense that to have the house to herself, without
the perpetual presence of a grown-up stepdaughter, might be an
advantage, had a certain weight with her; but a motive which had much
greater weight, was the thought of the triumph of thus marrying
Effie--who was not even her own, and for whom her exertions would be
recognized as disinterested--in this brilliant manner at nineteen--a
triumph greater than any which had been achieved by any mother in the
county since the time when May Caerlaverock married an English duke.
None of these, it will be perceived, were sordid reasons, and Mrs.
Ogilvie had no need to be ashamed of any of them. The advantage of her
husband’s daughter was foremost in her thoughts.
But with all this in her, it may well be believed that Mrs. Ogilvie was
very impatient of the young people’s delays, of the hours that Fred
wasted in the Gilston drawing-room without ever coming to the point,
and of the total want of any anxiety or desire that he should come to
the point, on the part of Effie.
“He will just let the moment pass,” this excellent woman said to herself
as she sat and frowned, feeling that she gave them a hundred
opportunities of which they took no heed, which they did not even seem
to be conscious of.
It was all she could do, she said afterwards, to keep her hands off
them! the two silly things! just playing with their fate. She was moved
almost beyond her power of self-control, and would sit quivering with
the desire to hasten matters, ready every time she opened her lips to
address them on the subject, while Fred took his tea with every
appearance of calm, and Effie served him as if in a dream.
“Oh ye two silly things!”--this was what was on her lips twenty times in
an afternoon; and she would get up and go out of the room, partly lest
she should betray herself, partly that he might have an opportunity. But
it was not till about the end of October, on a dusky afternoon after a
day of storm and rain, that Fred found his opportunity, not when Mrs.
Ogilvie, but when Effie happened to be absent, for it was, after all, to
the elder lady, not to the younger, that he at length found courage to
speak.