“And when is it going to be?” Miss Dempster said.
The ladies had come to call in their best gowns. Miss Beenie’s was puce,
an excellent silk of the kind Mrs. Primrose chose for wear--and Miss
Dempster’s was black satin, a little shiny by reason of its years, but
good, no material better. These dresses were not brought out for every
occasion; but to-day was exceptional. They did not approve of Effie’s
engagement, yet there was no doubt but it was a great event. They had
been absent from home for about three weeks, so that their
congratulations came late.
“I don’t know what you mean by it; there is nothing going to be,” said
Effie, very red and angry. She had consented, it was true, in a way; but
she had not yet learnt to contemplate any practical consequences, and
the question made her indignant. Her temper had been tried by a great
many questions, and by a desire to enter into her confidence, and to
hear a great deal about Fred, and how it all came about, which her chief
friend Mary Johnston and some others had manifested. She had nothing to
say to them about Fred, and she could not herself tell how it all came
about; but it seemed the last drop in Effie’s cup when she was asked
when it was to be.
“I should say your father and Mrs. Ogilvie would see to that; they are
not the kind of persons to let a young man shilly-shally,” said Miss
Dempster. “It is a grand match, and I wish ye joy, my dear. Still, I
would like to hear a little more about it: for money embarked in
business is no inheritance; it’s just here to-day and gone to-morrow. I
hope your worthy father will be particular about the settlements. He
should have things very tight tied down. I will speak to him myself.”
“My sister has such a head for business,” Miss Beenie said. “Anybody
might make a fool of me: but the man that would take in Sarah, I do not
think he is yet born.”
“No, I am not an easy one to take in,” said Miss Dempster. “Those that
have seen as much of the ways of the world as I have, seldom are. I am
not meaning that there would be any evil intention: but a man is led
into speculation, or something happens to his ships, or he has his money
all shut up in ventures. I would have a certain portion realized and
settled, whatever might happen, if it was me.”
“And have you begun to think of your things, Effie?” Miss Beenie said.
At this Miss Effie jumped up from her chair, ready to cry, her
countenance all ablaze with indignation and annoyance.
“I think you want to torment me,” she cried. “What things should I have
to think of? I wish you would just let me be. What do I know about all
that? I want only to be let alone. There is nothing going to happen to
me.”
“Dear me, what is this?” said Mrs. Ogilvie coming in, “Effie in one of
her tantrums and speaking loud to Miss Dempster! I hope you will never
mind; she is just a little off her head with all the excitement and the
flattery, and finding herself so important. Effie, will you go and see
that Rory is not troubling papa? Take him up to the nursery or out to
the garden. It’s a fine afternoon, and a turn in the garden would do him
no harm, nor you either, for you’re looking a little flushed. She is
just the most impracticable thing I ever had in my hands,” she added,
when Effie, very glad to be released, escaped out of the room. “She will
not hear a word. You would think it was just philandering, and no
serious thought of what’s to follow in her head at all.”
“It would be a pity,” said Miss Dempster, “if it was the same on the
other side. Young men are very content to amuse themselves if they’re
let do it; they like nothing better than to love and to ride away.”
“You’ll be pleased to hear,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, responding instantly to
this challenge “that it’s very, very different on the other side. Poor
Fred, I am just very sorry for him. He cannot bring her to the point.
She slips out of it, or she runs away. He tells me she will never say
anything to him, but just ‘It is very nice now--or--we are very well as
we are.replace with’ He is anxious to be settled, poor young man, and
nothing can be more liberal than what he proposes. But Effie is just
very trying. She thinks life is to be all fun, and no changes. To be
sure there are allowances to be made for a girl that is so happy at home
as Effie is, and has so many good friends.”
“Maybe her heart is not in it,” said Miss Dempster; “I have always
thought that our connection, young Ronald Sutherland----”
“It’s a dreadful thing,” cried Miss Beenie, “to force a young creature’s
affections. If she were to have, poor bit thing, another Eemage in her
mind----”
“Oh!” cried Mrs. Ogilvie, provoked. She would have liked to shake them,
the old cats! as she afterwards said. But she was wise in her
generation, and knew that to quarrel was always bad policy. “What Eemage
could there be?” she said with a laugh. “Effie is just full of fancies,
and slips through your fingers whenever you would bring her to look at
anything in earnest; but that is all. No, no, there is no Eemage,
unless it was just whim and fancy. As for Ronald, she never gave him a
thought, nor anybody else. She is like a little wild thing, and to catch
her and put the noose round her is not easy; but as for Eemage!” cried
Mrs. Ogilvie, exaggerating the pronunciation of poor Miss Beenie, which
was certainly old fashioned. The old ladies naturally did not share her
laughter. They looked at each other, and rose and shook out their
rustling silken skirts.
“There is no human person,” said Miss Dempster, “that is beyond the
possibility of a mistake; and my sister and me, we may be mistaken. But
you will never make me believe that girlie’s heart is in it. Eemage or
no eemage, I’m saying nothing. Beenie is just a trifle romantic. She may
be wrong. But I give you my opinion; that girlie’s heart’s not in it:
and nothing will persuade me to the contrary. Effie is a delicate bit
creature. There are many things that the strong might never mind, but
that she could not bear. It’s an awful responsibility, Mrs. Ogilvie.”
“I will take the responsibility,” said that lady, growing angry, as was
natural. “I am not aware that it’s a thing any person has to do with
except her father and me.”
“If you take it upon that tone--Beenie, we will say good-day.”
“Good-day to ye, Mrs. Ogilvie. I am sure I hope no harm will come of it;
but it’s an awfureplace with’ responsibility,” Miss Beenie said,
following her sister to the door. And we dare not guess what high words
might have followed had not the ladies, in going out, crossed Mr.
Moubray coming in. They would fain have stopped him to convey their
doubts, but Mrs. Ogilvie had followed them to the hall in the extreme
politeness of a quarrel, and they could not do this under her very eyes.
Uncle John perceived, with the skilled perceptions of a clergyman, that
there was a storm in the air.
“What is the matter?” he said, as he followed her back to the
drawing-room. “Is it about Effie? But, of course, that is the only topic
now.”
“Oh, you may be sure it’s about Effie. And all her own doing, and I wish
you would speak to her. It is my opinion that she cares for nobody but
you. Sometimes she _will_ mind what her Uncle John says to her.”
“Poor little Effie! often I hope; and you too, who have always been kind
to her.”
“I have tried,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, sitting down and taking out her
handkerchief. She appeared to be about to indulge herself in the luxury
of tears: she looked hard at that piece of cambric, as though
determining the spot which was to be applied to her eyes--and then she
changed her mind.
“But I know it is a difficult position,” she said briskly. “I think it
very likely, in Effie’s place, that I should not have liked a stepmother
myself. But then you would think she would be pleased with her new
prospects, and glad to get into her own house out of my way. If that was
the case I would think it very natural. But no. I am just in that state
about her that I don’t know what I am doing. Here is a grand marriage
for her, as you cannot deny, and she has accepted the man. But if either
he or any one of us says a word about marriage, or her trousseau, or
anything, she is just off in a moment. I am terrified every day for a
quarrel: for who can say how long a young man’s patience may last?”
“He has not had so very long to wait, nor much trial of his patience,”
said Uncle John, who was sensitive on Effie’s account, and ready to take
offence.
“No; he has perhaps not had long to wait. But there is nothing to wait
for. His father is willing to make all the settlements we can desire:
and Fred is a partner, and gets his share. He’s as independent as a man
can be. And there’s no occasion for delay. But she will not hear a word
of it. I just don’t know what to make of her. She likes him well enough
for all I can see; but marriage she will not hear of. And if it is to be
at the New Year, which is what he desires, and us in November now--I
just ask you how are we ever to be ready when she will not give the
least attention, or so much as hear a word about her clothes?”
“Oh, her clothes!” said Mr. Moubray, with a man’s disdain.
“You may think little of them, but I think a great deal. It is all very
well for gentlemen that have not got it to do. But what would her father
say to me, or the world in general, or even yourself, if I let her go to
her husband’s house with a poor providing, or fewer things than other
brides? Whose fault would everybody say that was? And besides it’s like
a silly thing, not like a reasonable young woman. I wish you would speak
to her. If there is one thing that weighs with Effie, it is the thought
of what her Uncle John will say.”
“But what do you want me to say?” asked the minister. His mind was more
in sympathy with Effie’s reluctance than with the haste of the others.
There was nothing to be said against Fred Dirom. He was irreproachable,
he was rich, he was willing to live within reach. Every circumstance was
favourable to him.
But Mr. Moubray thought the young man might very well be content with
what he had got, and spare his Effie a little longer to those whose love
for her was far older at least, if not profounder, than his. The
minister had something of the soreness of a man who is being robbed in
the name of love.
Love! forty thousand lovers, he thought, reversing Hamlet’s sentiment,
could not have made up the sum of the love he bore his little girl.
Marriage is the happiest state, no doubt: but yet, perhaps a man has a
more sensitive shrinking from transplanting the innocent creature he
loves into that world of life matured than even a mother has. He did not
like the idea that his Effie should pass into that further chapter of
existence, and become, not as the gods, knowing good and evil, but as
himself, or any other. He loved her ignorance, her absence of all
consciousness, her freedom of childhood. It is true she was no longer a
child; and she loved--did she love? Perhaps secretly in his heart he was
better pleased to think that she had been drawn by sympathy, by her
reluctance that any one should suffer, and by the impulse and influence
of everybody about her, rather than by any passion on her own side, into
these toils.
“What do you want me to say?” He was a little softened towards the
stepmother, who acknowledged honestly (she was on the whole a true sort
of woman, meaning no harm) the close tie, almost closer than any other,
which bound Effie to him. And he would not fail to Mrs. Ogilvie’s trust
if he could help it; but what was he to say?
Effie was in the garden when Uncle John went out. She had interpreted
her stepmother’s commission about Rory to mean that she was not wanted,
and she had been glad to escape from the old ladies and all their
questions and remarks. She was coming back from the wood with a handful
of withered leaves and lichens when her uncle joined her. Effie had been
seized with a fit of impatience of the baskets of flowers which Fred was
always bringing. She preferred her bouquet of red and yellow leaves,
which every day it was getting more difficult to find. This gave Mr.
Moubray the opening he wanted.
“You are surely perverse,” he said, “my little Effie, to gather all
these things, which your father would call rubbitch, when you have so
many beautiful flowers inside.”
“I cannot bear those grand flowers,” said Effie, “they are all made out
of wax, I think, and they have all the same scent. Oh, I know they are
beautiful! They are too beautiful, they are made up things, they are not
like nature. In winter I like the leaves best.”
“You will soon have no leaves, and what will you do then? and, my dear,
your life is to be spent among these bonnie things. You are not to have
the thorns and the thistles, but the roses and the lilies, Effie; and
you must get used to them. It is generally a lesson very easily learnt.”
To this Effie made no reply. After a while she began to show that the
late autumn leaves, if not a matter of opposition, were not
particularly dear to her--for she pulled them to pieces, unconsciously
dropping a twig now and then, as she went on. And when she spoke, it was
apparently with the intention of changing the subject.
“Is it really true,” she said, “that Eric is coming home for Christmas?
He said nothing about it in his last letter. How do they know?”
“There is such a thing as the telegraph, Effie. You know why he is
coming. He is coming for your marriage.”
Effie gave a start and quick recoil.
“But that is not going to be--oh, not yet, not for a long time.”
“I thought that everybody wished it to take place at the New Year.”
“Not me,” said the girl. She took no care at all now of the leaves she
had gathered with so much trouble, but strewed the ground with them as
if for a procession to pass.
“Uncle John,” she went on quickly and tremulously, “why should it be
soon? I am quite young. Sometimes I feel just like a little child,
though I may not be so very young in years.”
“Nineteen!”
“Yes, I know it is not very young. I shall be twenty next year. At
twenty you understand things better; you are a great deal more
responsible. Why should there be any hurry? _He_ is young too. You might
help me to make them all see it. Everything is nice enough as it is now.
Why should we go and alter, and make it all different? Oh, I wish you
would speak to them, Uncle John.”
“My dear, your stepmother has just given me a commission to bring you
over to their way of thinking. I am so loth to lose you that my heart
takes your side: but, Effie----”
“To lose me!” she cried, flinging away the “rubbitch” altogether, and
seizing his arm with both her hands. “Oh no, no, that can never be!”
“No, it will never be: and yet it will be as soon as you’re married: and
there is a puzzle for you, my bonnie dear. The worst of it is that you
will be quite content, and see that it is natural it should be so: but I
will not be content. That is what people call the course of nature. But
for all that, I am not going to plead for myself. Effie, the change has
begun already. A little while ago, and there was no man in the world
that had any right to interfere with your own wishes: but now you know
the thing is done. It is as much done as if you had been married for
years. You must now not think only of what pleases yourself, but of what
pleases him.”
Effie was silent for some time, and went slowly along clinging to her
uncle’s arm. At last she said in a low tone, “But he is pleased. He
said he would try to please me; that was all that was said.”
Uncle John shook his head.
“That may be all that is said, and it is all a young man thinks when he
is in love. But, my dear, that means that you must please him.
Everything is reciprocal in this world. And the moment you give your
consent that he is to please you, you pledge yourself to consider and
please him.”
“But he is pleased. Oh! he says he will do whatever I wish.”
“That is if you will do what he wishes, Effie. For what he wishes is
what it all means, my dear. And the moment you put your hand in his, it
is right that he should strive to have you, and fight and struggle to
have you, and never be content till he has got you. I would myself think
him a poor creature if he thought anything else.”
There was another pause, and then Effie said, clasping more closely her
uncle’s arm, “But it would be soon enough in a year or two--after there
was time to think. Why should there be a hurry? After I am twenty I
would have more sense; it would not be so hard. I could understand
better. Surely that’s very reasonable, Uncle John.”
“Too reasonable,” he said, shaking his head. “Effie, lift up your eyes
and look me in the face. Are you sure that you are happy, my little
woman? Look me in the face.”