LETTER XXXV. MARY ANNE DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OF BALLYDOOLAN
"The Golden Ox," Rastadt.
My dearest kitty,—I have only time for a few and very hurried lines, written with trembling fingers and a heart audible in its palpitations! Yes, dearest, an eventful moment has arrived,—the dread instant has come, on which my whole future destiny must depend. It was last night, just as I was making papa's tea, that a servant arrived on horseback at the inn with a letter addressed to the Right Honorable and Reverend the Lord Dodd de Dodsborough. This, of course, could only mean papa, and so he opened and read it, for it was in English, dearest, or at least in imitation of that language.
I refrain from quoting the precise expressions, lest in circumstances so serious a smile of passing levity should cross those dear features, now all tension with anxiety for your own Mary Anne. The letter was from Adolf von Wolfenschafer, making me an offer of his hand, title, and fortune! I swooned away when I heard it, and only recovered to hear papa still spelling out the strange phraseology of the letter.
I wish he had not written in English, Kitty. It is provoking that an event so naturally serious in itself should be alloyed with the dross of grammatical absurdities; besides that, really, our tongue does not lend itself to those delicate and half-vanishing allusions to future bliss so germane to such a proposal. Papa, and James, too, I must say, evinced a want of regard to my feelings, and an absence of that fine sympathy which I should have looked for at a moment like this. They actually screamed with laughter, Kitty, at little lapses of orthography, when the subject might reasonably have imposed far different emotions.
"Why, it's a proposal of marriage!" exclaimed papa, "and I thought it a summons from the police."
"Egad, so it is!" cried James. "It's an offer to you, Mary Anne. 'The Baron Adolf von Wolfenschàfer, Frei-herr von Schweinbraten and Ritter of the Order of the Cock of Tubingen, maketh hereby, and not the less, that with future-coming-time-to-be-proved-and-experienced affection, the profound humility of an offer of himself, with all his to-be-named-and-enumerated belongings, both in effects and majorats, to the lovely and very beautiful Miss, the first daughter of the Venerable and very Honorable the Lord Dodd de Dodsborough.'"
"Pray stop, James," said I; "this is scarcely a fitting matter for coarse jesting, nor is my heart to be made the theme for indelicate banter."
"The letter is a gem," said he, and went on: "'The so-named A. von W., overflowing with a mild but in-heaven-soaring and never-to-earth-descending love, expecteth, in all the pendulating anxieties of a never-at-any-moment-to-be-distrusted devotion—'"
"Papa, I really beg and request that I may not be trifled with in this unfeeling manner. The Baron's intentions are sufficiently clear and explicit, nor are we now engaged in the work of correcting his English epistolary style."
This I said haughtily, Kitty; and Mister James at last thought proper to recover some respect for my feelings.
"Why, I never suspected you could take the thing seriously, dear Mary Anne," said he. "If I only thought—"
"And pray, why not, James? I'm sure the Baron's ancient birth—his rank, his fortune—his position, in fact—"
"Of all of which we know nothing," broke in papa.
"But of which you may know everything," said I; "for here, at the postscript, is an invitation to us all to pass some weeks at the Schloss, in the Black Forest, his ancestral seat."
"Or, as he styles it," broke in James, impertinently, "'the very old castle, where for numerous centuries his high-blooded and on-lofty-eminence-standing ancestors did sit,' and where now 'his with-years-bestricken but not-the-less-on-that-account-sharp with-intelligence-begifted parent father doth reside.'"
"Read that again, James," said papa.
"Pray allow me, sir," said I, taking the letter. "The invitation is a most hospitable request that we should go and pass some time at his chateau, and name the earliest day our convenience will permit for the visit."
"He spoke of capital shooting there!" cried James. "He told me that the Auer-Hahu, a kind of black-cock, abounds in that country."
"And I remember, too, that he mentioned some wonderful Steinberger,—a cabinet wine, full two hundred years in wood!" chimed in papa.
I wished, dearest Kitty, that they could have entertained the subject-matter of the letter without these "contingent remainders," and not mix up my future fate with either wine or wild fowl; but they really were so carried away by the pleasures so peculiarly adapted to their own feelings that they at once said, and in a breath too, "Write him word 'Yes,' by all means!"
"Do you mean for his offer of marriage, papa?" asked I, with struggling indignation.
"By George, I had forgotten all about that," said he. "We must deliberate a bit. Your mother, too, will expect to be consulted. Take the letter upstairs to her; or, better still, just say that I want to speak to her myself."
As papa and mamma had not met nor spoken together since his return, I willingly embraced this opportunity of restoring them to intercourse with each other.
"Don't go away, Mary Anne," said James, as I was about to seek my own room, for I dreaded being left alone, and exposed to his unfeeling banter; "I want to speak to you." This he said with a tone of kindness and interest which at once decided me to remain. He wore a look of seriousness, Kitty, that I have seldom, if ever, seen in his features, and spoke in a tone that, to my ears, was new from him.
"Let me be your friend, Mary Anne," said he, "and the better to be so, let me talk to you in all frankness and sincerity. If I say one single word that can hurt your feelings, put it down to the true account,—that I 'd rather do even such than suffer you to take the most eventful step in all your life without weighing every consequence of it Answer me, then, two or three questions that I shall ask you, but as truly and unreservedly as though you were at confession."
I sat down beside him, and with my hand in his.
"Now, first of all, Mary Anne," said he, "do you love this Baron von Wolfenschafer?"
Who ever could answer such a question in one word, Kitty? How seldom does it occur in life that all the circumstances of any man's position respond to the ambitious imaginings of a girl's heart! He may be handsome, and yet poor; he may be rich, and yet low-born; intellectual, and yet his great gifts may be alloyed with infirmities of temper; he may be coldly natured, secret, self-contained, uncommunicative,—a hundred things that one does not like,—and yet, with all these drawbacks, what the world calls an "excellent match."
I believe very few people marry the person they wish to marry. I fancy that such instances are the rarest things imaginable. It is a question of compensation throughout,—you accept this, notwithstanding that; you put up with that, for the sake of this! Of course, dearest, I am rejecting here all belief in the "greatest happiness principle" as a stupid fallacy, that only imposes upon elderly gentlemen when they marry their housekeeper. I speak of the considerations which weigh with a young girl who has moved in society, who knows its requirements, and can estimate all that contributes to what is called a "position."
This little digression of mine will give you to understand what was passing in my mind as James sat waiting for my reply.
"So, then," said he, at last, "the question is not so easily answered as I suspected; and we will now pass to another one. Are your affections already engaged elsewhere?"
What could I say, Kitty, but "No! decidedly not." The embarrassment, however, so natural to an inquiry like this, made me blush and seem confused; and James, perceiving it, said,—
"Poor fellow, it will be a sad blow to him, for I know he loved you."
I tried to look astonished, angry, unconscious,—anything, in fact, which should convey displeasure and surprise together; but with that want of tact so essentially fraternal, he went on,—
"It was almost the last thing he said to me at parting, 'Don't let her forget me!'"
"May I venture to inquire," said I, haughtily, "of whom you are speaking?"
Simple and inoffensive as the words were, Kitty, they threw him into an ungovernable passion; he stamped, and stormed, and swore fearfully. He called me "a heartless coquette," "an unfeeling flirt," and a variety of epithets equally mellifluous as well merited.
I drew my embroidery-frame before me quite calmly under this torrent of abuse, and worked away at my pattern of the "Faithful Shepherd," singing to myself all the time.
"Are you really as devoid of feeling as this, Mary Anne?" asked he.
"My dear brother," said I, "don't you wish excessively for a commission in a regiment of Hussars or Lancers? Well, as your great merits have not been recognized at the Horse Guards, would you feel justified in refusing an appointment to the Rifle Brigade?"
"What has all this to say to what we are discussing?" cried he, angrily.
"Just everything," replied I; "but as you cannot make the application, you must excuse me if I decline the task also."
"And so you mean to be a baroness?" said he, rudely.
I courtesied profoundly to him, and he flung out of the room with a bang that nearly brought the door down. In a moment after, mamma was in my arms, overcome with tenderness and emotion.
"I have carried the day, my dearest child," said she. "We are to accept the invitation, at all events, and we set out to-morrow."
I have no time for more, Kitty, for all our preparations for departure have yet to be made. What fate awaits me I know not, nor can I even fancy what may be the future of your ever attached and devoted friend,
Mary Anne Dodd.