I BELIEVE MYSELF TO BE BROKEN-HEARTED--MARIA IN LOVE--I MAKE AN OFFER
OF MARRIAGE, WHICH IS NEITHER ACCEPTED NOR REFUSED
A phase of my life, into which I do not propose to enter, left me
firmly resolved that (as I said in confidence to Clerke) "I shall
marry to please the governor. One doesn't go in for a broken heart,
you know, but it isn't in me to _care_ a second time."
It was shortly after this that Maria and her mother came to stay at
the Hall. A rather mysterious letter from my aunt had led to the
invitation. It was for the benefit of Maria's health. My father also
invited Polly; she was a favourite with him. Leo and some other
friends were expected for shooting. Our neighbours' houses as well as
ours were filling with visitors, and though I fancied myself a
disappointed man, I found my spirits rising daily.
My aunt and Maria arrived first: Polly was visiting elsewhere, and was
to join them in a day or two. I was glad to have ladies in the house
again, and after dinner I strolled about the grounds with Maria. She
was looking delicate, but it improved her appearance, and she quite
pleased me by the interest she seemed to take in the place. But I had
seen more of Maria during a visit I paid to London two months before
than usual, and had been quite surprised to find her so well versed
in Dacrefield matters.
"It's uncommonly pleasant having you here," said I, as we leaned over
a low wall in the garden. "I wonder we do not become perfect
barbarians, cut off as we are from ladies' society. I'm sure I wish
you would settle down here instead of in London. You would civilise
both the Rectory and the Hall."
I was really thinking of my uncle taking a house in the neighbourhood.
I do not know what Maria was thinking of; but she looked up suddenly
into my face, with a strange expression, as if half inclined to speak.
She said nothing, however, only blushed deeply, and began walking
towards the house. I puzzled for a few minutes over that pathetic look
and blush, but I could make nothing of it, and it passed from my mind
till the next evening after dinner, when, after a little ceremonious
preamble, my father asked if there was "anything between" myself and
my eldest cousin. In explanation of this vague question, he told me
that Maria had been failing in health and spirits for some months;
that my aunt's watchful observation and experience had led her to the
conclusion that Maria was not in a consumption, but in love. As,
however, she kept her own counsel, Mrs. Ascott could only guess in the
matter. From her feverish interest in Dacrefield, her ill-concealed
excitement when the visit was proposed, the improvement in her health
since she came, and a multitude of other small facts which my aunt had
ferreted out and patched together with an ingenuity that amazed me,
Maria was supposed to care for me.
"We were a good deal together in town, sir," said I, "and Maria was
very jolly with me. But I am sure I gave her no reason to think I was
in love with her, and I don't believe she cares for me. It's one of my
aunt's mare's nests, depend upon it. The poor girl has got a horrid
cough, and, of course, she was pleased to get out of London smoke."
"If you did care for her," said my father; "and, above all, if you had
led her to think you did, the course is obvious, and I have no doubt
she would make an excellent wife. Polly is my favourite, and Maria is
a year or two older than you. But she is a nice, sensible, well-bred
woman. She is the eldest daughter, and will have--"
"My dear father," said I, "Maria and I are very friendly as cousins,
but she has not an idea of me in any other than a brotherly relation.
At least I think not," I added, for the look and blush that had
puzzled me came back to my mind.
"I only mention this because I wished to warn you against trifling
with your cousin's affections if you mean nothing," said my father.
"I should be sorry to trifle with any lady's affections, sir," was my
reply. We said no more. I sighed, thinking of what I fully believed
had blighted my existence. My father sighed, thinking, I know, of his
own vain wish to see me happily married. At last I could bear it no
longer, and calling Sweep, I went out into the garden. It was
moonlight, and Maria was languidly pacing the terrace. I joined her,
and we strolled away into the shrubbery.
I cannot say that my father's warning led me to shun Maria's society.
My father and my aunt naturally talked together, and circumstances
almost forced us two into _tête-à-têtes_. I could not fail to see that
Maria liked to be with me, and I found the task of taking care of her
soothing to what I believed to be my blighted feelings. We rode
together (she had an admirable figure and rode well), and the exercise
did her health great good. We often met Mr. Clerke in our rides, and
he seemed to enjoy a canter with us, though he rode very little better
than when I first knew him. We took long walks with Sweep, and from
the oldest tenant to the latest puppy, everything about Dacrefield
seemed to interest my fair cousin. I came at last to believe that Aunt
Maria was right.
When I did come to believe it (and I do not think that any
contemptible conceit made me hasty to do so), other thoughts followed.
I was as firmly convinced as any other young man with my experiences
that I could never again feel what I had felt for the person who shall
be nameless. But the first bitterness of that agony being undoubtedly
over, I felt that I might find a sober satisfaction in making my
father's declining years happy by giving him a daughter-in-law, and
that I was perhaps hardly justified in allowing Maria to fall into a
consumption when I could prevent it. "There are some people," thought
I, "with whom one could spend life very happily in a quiet fashion;
people who would not offend one's taste, or greatly provoke one's
temper, and whom one feels that one could please in like manner.
_Suitable_ people, in fact. And when a fellow has had his great
heart-ache and it's all over, no doubt suitableness is the thing to
make married life happy.... Maria is suitable."
I remember well the day I came to this conclusion. Our visitors had
not yet arrived, but Polly was expected the next day, and Leo and some
others shortly. "I may as well get it over before the house is full,"
I thought. But, to my vexation, I discovered that my father had asked
Mr. Clerke to come up after dinner. "It's his own fault if I don't get
another chance of speaking," thought I. But, as I strolled sullenly on
the terrace (without Maria) a note arrived from the Rector to say that
he was called away to see a sick man. I dashed into the drawing-room,
gave the letter to my father, and seeing Maria was not there, I went
on into the conservatory.
There are moments when even plain people look handsome. Notably when
self-consciousness is quite absent, and some absorbing thought gives
sentiment to the face, and grace and power to the figure. It was so at
this moment with Maria, who stood gazing before her, the light from
above falling artistically on her glossy hair and tall, elegant
figure. At the sound of my footsteps she started, and the colour
flooded her face as I came up to her. She sank on to a seat close by,
as if too much agitated to stand.
"I have something I want to say to you," said I, stooping over her,
and speaking in my gentlest voice. "May I say it?"
She moved her lips as if trying to speak, but there was no sound, and
she just nodded her head, which then drooped so that I could hardly
see her face.
"We have known each other since we were children," I began.
"Yes, Regie dear," murmured Maria.
"We were always very good friends, I think," continued I.
"Oh, yes, Regie dear."
"Childhood was a very happy time," said I, sentimentally.
"Oh, yes, Regie dear."
"But we can't be children for ever," I continued.
"Oh, no, Regie dear."
"Please take what I am going to say kindly, cousin, whatever you may
think of it."
"Oh, yes, Regie dear."
"I hope I may truthfully say that your happiness is, as it ought to
be, my chief aim in the matter."
Maria's response was inaudible.
"It's no good beating about the bush," said I, desperately clothing my
sentiments in slang, after the manner of my age; "the fellow who gets
you for a wife, Maria, must be uncommonly fortunate, and I hope that
with a good husband, who made your wishes his first consideration, you
would not be unhappy in married life yourself."
Lower and lower went her head, but still she was silent.
"You say nothing," I went on. "Probably I am altogether wrong, and you
are too kind-hearted to tell me I am an impertinent puppy. It is
Dacrefield--the place only--that you honour with your regard. You have
no affection for--"
Maria did not let me finish this sentence. She put up her hands to
stop me, and seemed as if she wished to speak; but after one pitiful
glance she buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly. I am sure I
have read somewhere that when a woman weeps she is won. So Maria was
mine. I had a grim feeling about it which I cannot describe. "I hope
the governor will be satisfied now," was my thought.
However, there is nothing I hate more than to see a woman cry. To be
the means of making her cry is intolerable.
"Please, please, don't! Oh, Maria, what a brute you make me feel.
_Please_ don't," I cried, and raising my cousin from her Niobe-like
attitude, I comforted her as well as I could. She only said, "Oh,
Regie dear, how kind you are," and laid her sleek head against my arm
with an air of rest and trustfulness that touched my generosity to the
quick. What right had I, after all, to accept an affection to which I
could make no similar return? "However," thought I, "it's done now;
and they say it's always more on one side than the other; and at least
I'm a gentleman. I care for no one else, and she shall never know it
was chiefly to please the governor. I suppose it will all come right."
Whilst I pondered, Maria had dried her eyes, and now sat up, gazing
before her, almost in her old attitude.
"I wonder, Regie dear," she said, presently--"I wonder how you found
out that I--that we--that I _cared_--"
"Oh, I don't know," said I, inanely, for I could not say that nothing
could be plainer.
"I always used to think that to live in this neighbourhood would be
paradise," murmured Maria, looking sentimentally but vacantly into a
box of seedling balsams.
"I'm very glad you like it," said I. I could not make pretty speeches.
An unpleasant conviction was stealing over my mind that I had been a
fool, and had no one but myself to blame. I began to think that Maria
would not have died of consumption even if I had not proposed to her,
and to doubt if I were really so heartbroken as I had fancied. (Indeed
the society of my cousin, who was a lady, had by this time gone far to
cure me of my sentiment for one who was not, and who had been
sensible enough to marry a man in her own rank of life, to my father's
great relief, and, as I then thought, to my life-long disappointment.)
The whole affair seemed a mockery, and I wished it were a dream. It
was not thus that my father had plighted his troth to my fair mother.
This was not the sort of affection that had made happy the short lives
of Leo's parents. The lemon-scented verbena which I was pounding
between my fingers bitterly recalled a little sketch of the monument
to their memory which Leo had shown me in his Bible, where he had also
pressed a sprig of verbena. Beneath the sketch he had written, "They
were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not
divided." I remembered his telling me how young they were when they
were married. How his father had never cared for any one else, and how
he would like to do just the same, and marry the one lady of his love.
I began, too, to think Clerke was right when he replied to my
confidences, "I'm only afraid, Regie, that you don't know what love
is."
It was whilst these thoughts were crowding all too vividly into my
mind that Maria said, impressively, and with unmistakable clearness,
"After _all_, you know, Regie, he's a _thorough_ gentleman, if he _is_
poor. I must say _that_! And if he _has_ a profession instead of being
a landed proprietor, it's the _highest_ and _noblest_ profession there
is."
It seemed to take away my breath. But I was standing almost behind
Maria; she was preoccupied, and I had some presence of mind. I had
opportunity to realize the fact that I was not the object of Maria's
attachment, as I had supposed. I was not poor, I had no profession,
and my common avocations did not, I fear, deserve to be called high
or noble. The description in no way fitted me. Further still, it was
evident that my cousin had not dreamed that I was making her an offer.
She believed that I had discovered her attachment to some other man,
and was grateful for my sympathy. I did not undeceive her. After a
rapid review of the position, I said,
"But my dear Maria, though I have penetrated to the fact that you have
a secret, and though I want beyond anything to help and comfort you, I
do not yet know who the happy man is, remember."
"Don't you?" said Maria, looking up hastily, and the colour rushed to
her face as before. "Oh, I thought you knew it was Mr. Clerke. You
know, he _is_ so good, and I've known him so long."
At this moment Aunt Maria's voice called from the drawing-room end of
the conservatory.
"Will you give us a little music, Maria? Mr. Clerke has come after
all, and Bowles has brought in the tea."