CHAPTER XXIII.
["POOR SUSAN!"]
The subject of the foregoing discussion stole quickly and quietly up to her room, unconscious of the angry passions she had unwittingly aroused, intending to remain there till the people returned from church, when she would meet her mother surrounded by strangers, and so avoid the bad quarter of an hour which her conscience told her she ought to expect. She had scarcely removed her hat, however, when the door opened and her mother appeared, wearing a smile in which curious impatience mingled with complacent certainty. The worthy lady had very little doubt as to what she was going to be told, and was already congratulating herself on her good management and good luck combined.
"Good morning, mamma. How anxious you must have been! Did you think I was lost? But, to be sure, uncle Joseph's being in the same predicament would keep your mind at ease."
Margaret had run forward to embrace her mother effusively, and was speaking with unusual vivacity. There was so much to tell and so much to leave untold, without hesitancy, which might betray that aught was being kept back. She did not know how she was to manage, and like other timid things when they find there is no escape, she rushed at the danger as if she could encounter and overbear it. Anything seemed preferable to expectancy, cowering and waiting to be fallen upon and devoured.
Her mother submitted to be kissed. It was the morning routine-observance between her and her girls, but she had not patience for prolonged embraces on the present occasion.
"Tell me," she said, as soon as she could free herself from the importunate endearments; "has he proposed?"
"I almost think he has, to judge from his manner; and he looks so happy."
"You think? You do not know? Come, that is too ridiculous! What did he say?"
"I do not know what he said."
"You don't? And you call yourself a grown-up girl?... That I should be mother to such an ingénue!... You must be a fool!"
"You do not imagine he would propose in open meeting, do you? I only infer from her affectionateness to me when we were alone together last night.... We slept in a fisherman's hut.... But she did not exactly tell me anything.... And then he was so awfully attentive to her this morning; ... and they seemed to understand each other so perfectly, although both were rather quiet, and not particularly good company for the rest of us."
"Margaret Naylor! Am I to believe my ears? Do you mean to say you have let that Hillyard girl cut you out?... You grown-up baby! When I was your age, no girl should have done that to me--whether I wanted the man or not. It's a disgrace to your womanhood, and your upbringing--that means me--and your looks, and your spirit--if you had any; but you have none, or you would not have allowed it. The way that man stuck to you yesterday, and trotted away with you on that blessed island!... And you to let another woman cut in and take him away from you!... And people call you a clever girl! Hm!"
"But what was I to do, mother? I could not go in for him myself. I could not make him propose to me."
"Why not, pray? Is he not good enough for you? What do you expect? Is it a President of the United States you hope to captivate?"
"I do not understand. He could not have been persuaded to do anything so dreadful. And you, I am sure, whatever the surprise of this may have stupefied you into saying, you would not have me want to be my own aunt?"
"What do you mean? Whom are you talking about?"
"Uncle Joseph, to be sure. Whom else?"
"Joseph? You must be dreaming."
"I really think, however, he has proposed to Rose Hillyard, and been accepted."
"Impossible! Joseph marry! I never heard anything so preposterous."
"Nevertheless, you will see now. I am sure he is in love I do not think he spoke twice to me all the time we were upon the island--only to Rose, and once or twice, when it was necessary, to Wa--W--to Mr Wilkie, I ought to say."
Margaret started and grew pale as she spoke, but her mother was too intent upon the idea of Joseph's entanglement to observe the stumble.
"My dear, he was blighted some years before you were born. There was a time when I would have laughed at the notion of a blighted man. It seemed one only fit to exist in a novel. Even the novels, some of them, used to make fun of a blighted being. There was 'Mr Toots,' I remember. But in the case of your uncle Joseph, the thing positively occurred. His affections got a wrench some time very long ago,--I never heard the particulars,--and he has never got over it to this day. He might have had any woman in the country for the asking, any time these twenty years--till lately, at least, when he began to grow stout and grey, and, one would have thought, had given up all idea of that sort of thing. There never was as good and soft-hearted a fellow as Joseph, I do believe. You don't catch many of his fellow-men playing such games of constancy, I promise you. His heart must have been shattered. So different from other men's hearts, my dear, as you'll find out! They seem generally to be made of india-rubber--able to swell or contract any quantity, but there's no break in them. You may jump on them, if they will let you; but you will not crush or bruise them. Joseph is the exception to a universal rule--the best brother-in-law and friend that ever lived. But you will not persuade me that he would ask any one to marry him, after the dozen or more fine women I have seen throw themselves at his head; and he never knew it, I do believe. The idea of Joseph becoming entangled! There's no constancy in man, if it turns out that he has succumbed to a woman's wiles. If what men call their heart has begun to sprout again with him, it is an unbreakable article for sure.... But I will not believe it: it would spoil my ideal of a perfect love."
"Have you not noticed, mamma, how much he and Rose have been together?"
"Now you speak of it, he has certainly taken most unusual notice of her--for him, that is. But think of the disparity in age!"
"She saved him from drowning, remember."
"That is enough to account for their striking up a fast friendship. But she is no forlorn damsel, and no pauper, evidently. She may choose where she likes. Why should she take up with a man old enough to be her father?"
"I do not think anybody need look on Uncle Joseph as old. There are very few young fellows to compare with him for activity or strength, or niceness every way. And he is so well off, besides."
"That maybe it. Poor Joseph! To be saved from the sea only to fall into the hands of a designing fortune-hunter! But I hope you are mistaken. It would be too sad; it would be dreadful! And you and Lucy, my poor children, what a difference it will make in your prospects! You will have to stand on your merits now, if this should chance to be true. No longer the heiresses of wealthy Joseph Naylor!"
"That is no reason why Uncle Joseph should not marry. We have lived very comfortably on what papa left us."
"You do not understand yet. Wait till you go to Ottawa or Toronto. You will recognise the difference then."
"I do not want to stand on anybody's merits but my own. I think I shall be fond of Rose, after the first queerness of her being Uncle Joseph's wife wears off."
"You think so because you do not know the world. I know it, and I can tell you you are wrong.... If once that woman is married to your uncle, there will be no standing her.... And I won't!" And Mrs Naylor, flushing an angry red, turned and left the room. The impending danger to her own consequence had driven every other idea from her mind, and she went without one word upon the subject she had come to discuss--to wit, Peter Wilkie's attentions to her daughter, and how they had been received.
On the stair she met Joseph coming up as she went down. It required an effort to pull herself together and meet him as usual, but she succeeded; or perhaps he was too preoccupied to observe the constraint of her manner as she wished him good-morning and proceeded on her way. He turned in his course, and followed her into a parlour, empty like the other rooms at that hour, owing to the absence of every one at church.
She sat down in a large chair before the open window, with the shady gallery outside, and the fanning breeze blowing in from off the sea. He drew up the nearest seat and placed himself beside her, looking at his nails the while, but saying nothing.
She watched him from under her eyelids. It was true, then, she feared, what Margaret had been telling her, and it made her feel so angry and vindictive that she would not even help him out of the difficulty of breaking his news, by beginning the conversation. He sat, and she sat, but they did not speak. Those nails of his must have had uncommon attractions, or his thoughts had wandered away into pleasant fields, and he had forgotten that speech was expected of him.
She shuffled her feet beneath her gown and waited, growing more and more impatient. The front of her dress was agitated by the drumming of her slipper-toes, which would not keep still, yet proved an inadequate vent for the impatience which devoured her. It grew intolerable, at last, to have him beaming there upon his own finger-tips, and saying never a word. A red spot came in either cheek; and steadying her voice with a little cough into an uncertain tone, ready alike to grow plaintive or indignant as occasion should arise, she spoke at last--
"How did you contrive to be left behind yesterday?"
He started. His thoughts came back from their wool-gathering with a leap. "Very simply. We stayed too long, I suppose, on the other side of the island. Then the storm came on, and we took shelter in a fisherman's hut. We sent a man to bid the steamer people wait. When he reached the landing the steamer was gone."
"That must have been hours after we left. We got home before the storm overtook us."
"You travelled faster than the storm, then. It was quite early, I should say, when it came on us; though I cannot name the hour, having forgot my watch."
"Had nobody a watch? There were four of you."
"I do not know. The fact is, I was interested in other things."
"Such as--for instance----"
"Well, I was---- But really, Susan, I cannot speak of it in this cold-blooded way. The truth is, I--I have asked Rose Hillyard to marry me."
Mrs Naylor sat bolt-upright in her chair, and turned to look at him, with the red spot burning in either cheek. She lifted her hands, but whether she intended to clasp them or to do something else, was not apparent. His unabashed assurance seemed to petrify her, for though her lips were parted she did not speak.
"And she has been so kind as to say yes.... Wish me joy, dear Susan, of my happiness. It is more than I can believe to be possible." Before she could protest, he had taken her hands in his and shaken them, and was imprinting a kiss upon the flushed place on her cheek.
"Let go, Joseph! You will suffocate me. This is more than---- This is something---- You must be out of your senses."
"Very nearly, Susan. I am the happiest man alive!"
"She is not half your age."
"She is twenty-five."
"And you are forty-seven. May and December! How can you possibly get on together?"
"Where love is, Susan, what else matters?"
"At your age, Joseph, you should have more sense than yield to such raptures. You must know you are talking nonsense."
"Come! you know better than that. It is your commonplace worldliness that is nonsense; and you know it. You were once a bride yourself."
"I was young then, Joseph. We get sense--or we should--as we grow older."
"Rose is young. Why may she not have fresh true feeling, just as you had yourself?"
"But has she? Does she go into raptures as you do, I wonder?"
"One would not like a girl to display her feelings too openly before marriage. You would call it boldness."
"Has she any feeling to display? Can we expect her to have that kind of feeling for a man who might be her father?"
"My dear Susan, time will show. I bring love to the union enough for both, and it will be strange if I do not make her happy. If you knew the story of my youth--which you do not, and it is not needful that you should--but you have known my later life; how I have been alone while others have been making themselves tender ties and households. Do you think it can be anything but dreary to feel that you have no one to call your own--that you can shelter your whole family under your hat-brim?"
"What of your nieces? What of poor Caleb's children?"
"You know I am fond of them, Susan. I do not think you will accuse me of being a neglectful uncle or brother-in-law."
"And yet you are going to cast us off, and put this stranger in our places."
"Not in your places. Why should it make any difference between us? The girls like her."
"That only shows their innocence and ignorance of the world, poor things."
"I do not see it, Susan. If it is their prospects you mean, they are independent already; but you may rest assured they will both come in for a slice, when my belongings come to be divided."
"There! It only wanted that!" cried the sister-in-law, seizing the opportunity to let off steam in a burst of indignation. "It only wanted insult to heap upon the injury. You must fling your testamentary intentions in my teeth, as if I were a mercenary person, in case I should not feel crushed and humbled sufficiently under your latest whim! Have I failed to keep up the family respectability and position as I should? I am growing too old, I suppose, to be the Mrs Naylor of Jones's Landing. Somebody younger must be found to lord it over the people, and turn their heads with follies and expensive notions they cannot afford; and I am to be the neglected dowager living in retirement with my fatherless girls.... But she shall never have it all her own way, Joseph Naylor, if I can help it; and if she has, it will be still worse for you!" And so saying, Susan got up and flung out of the room, retiring to her chamber, where a full hour elapsed before her heat subsided, and she was able to see how foolish and unreasonable, not to say imprudent, she had been.
Joseph, as was natural, saw it at once, but he was too happy to be easily annoyed. He rose as she did, stepped out on the gallery, and so away, merely whispering to himself, half aloud--
"Poor Susan! It must be a disappointment, and hard to bear. But she is not half as bad and worldly as she pretends. She will be ashamed and sorry enough when next we meet. My cue is to forget this little tantrum altogether."