Marriage

by Susan Ferrier

CHAPTER XVII.

"Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no agent."

Much Ado about Nothing.

THERE was something so refreshing in the domestic peacefulness of Rose Hall, when contrasted with the heartless bustle of Beech Park, that Mary felt too happy in the change to be in any hurry to quit it. But an unfortunate discovery soon turned all her enjoyment into bitterness of heart; and Rose Hall, from being to her a place of rest, was suddenly transformed into an abode too hateful to be endured.

It happened one day as she entered the drawing-room, Mrs. Lennox was, as usual, assailing the heart of her son in her behalf. A large Indian screen divided the room, and Mary's entrance was neither seen nor heard till she was close by them.

"Oh, certainly, Miss Douglas is all that you say—very pretty—very amiable—and very accomplished, said Colonel Lennox, with a sort of half-suppressed yawn, in answer to a eulogium of his mother's.

"Then why not love her? Ah! Charles, promise me that you will at least try!" said the good old lady, laying her hand upon his with the greatest earnestness.

This was said when Mary was actually standing before her. To hear the words, and to feel their application, was a flash of lightning; and for a moment she felt as if her brain were on fire. She was alive but to one idea, and that the most painful that could be suggested to a delicate mind. She had heard herself recommended to the love of a man who was indifferent to her. Could there be such a humiliation—such a degradation? Colonel Lennox's embarrassment was scarcely less; but his mother saw not the mischief she had done, and she continued to speak without his having the power to interrupt her. But her words fell unheeded on Mary's ear—she could hear nothing but what she had already heard. Colonel Lennox rose and respectfully placed a chair for her, but the action was unnoticed—she saw only herself a suppliant for his love; and, insensible to everything but her own feelings, she turned and hastily quitted the room without uttering a syllable. To fly from Rose Hall, never again to enter it, was her first resolution; yet how was she to do so without coming to an explanation, worse even than the cause itself: for she had that very morning yielded to the solicitations of Mrs. Lennox, and consented to remain till the following day.

"Oh!" thought she, as the scalding tears of shame for the first time dropped from her eyes, "what a situation am I placed in! To continue to live under the same roof with the man whom I have heard solicited to love me; and how mean—how despicable must I appear in his eyes—thus offered—rejected! How shall I ever be able to convince him that I care not for his love—that I wished it not—that I would, refuse, scorn it to-morrow were it offered to me. Oh! could I but tell him so; but he must ever remain, stranger to my real sentiments—he might reject—but I cannot disavow! And yet to have him think that I have all this while been laying snares for him—that all this parade of my acquirements was for the purpose of gaining his affections! Oh how blind and stupid I was not to see through the injudicious praises of Mrs. Lennox! I should not then have suffered this degradation in the eyes of her son!"

Hours passed away unheeded by Mary, while she was giving way to the wounded sensibility of a naturally high spirit and acute feelings, thus violently excited in all their first ardour. At length she was recalled to herself by hearing the sound of a carriage, as it passed under her window; and immediately after she received a message to repair to the drawing-room to her cousin, Lady Emily.

"How fortunate!" thought she; "I shall now get away—no matter how or where, I shall go, never again to return."

And, unconscious of the agitation visible in her countenance, she hastily descended, impatient to bid an eternal adieu to her once loved Rose Hall. She found Lady Emily and Colonel Lennox together. Eyes less penetrating than her cousin's would easily have discovered the state of poor Mary's mind as she entered the room; her beating heart—her flushed cheek and averted eye, all declared the perturbation of her spirits; and Lady Emily regarded her for a moment with an expression of surprise that served to heighten her confusion.

"I have no doubt I am a very unwelcome visitor here to all parties," said she; "for I come—how shall I declare it?—to carry you home, Mary, by command of Lady Juliana."

"No, no!" exclaimed Mary eagerly; "you are quite welcome. I am quite ready. I was wishing—I was waiting." Then, recollecting herself, she blushed still deeper at her own precipitation.

"There is no occasion to be so vehemently obedient," said her cousin; "I am not quite ready, neither am I wishing or waiting to be off in such a hurry. Colonel Lennox and I had just set about reviving an old acquaintance; begun, I can't tell when—and broken off when I was a thing in the nursery, with a blue sash and red fingers. I have promised him that when he comes to Beech Park you shall sing him my favourite Scotch song, 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot?' I would sing it myself if I could; but I think every Englishwoman who pretends to sing Scotch songs ought to have the bowstring." Then, turning to the harpsichord, she began to play it with exquisite taste and feeling.

"There," said she, rising with equal levity; "is not that worth all the formal bows—and 'recollects to have had the pleasure'—and 'long time since I had the honour'—and such sort of hateful reminiscences, that make one feel nothing but that they area great deal older, and uglier, stupider, and more formal than they were so many years before."

"Where the early ties of the heart remain unbroken," said Colonel Lennox, with some emotion, "such remembrances do indeed give it back all its first freshness; but it cannot be to everyone a pleasure to have its feelings awakened even by tones such as these."

There was nothing of austerity in this; on the contrary, there was so much sweetness mingled with the melancholy which shaded his countenance, that even Lady Emily was touched, and for a moment silent. The entrance of Mrs. Lennox relieved her from her embarrassment. She flew towards her, and taking her hand, "My dear Mrs. Lennox, I feel very much as if I were come here in the capacity of an executioner;—no, not exactly that, but rather a sort of constable or bailiff;—for I am come, on the part of Lady Juliana Douglas, to summon you to surrender the person of her well-beloved daughter, to be disposed of as she in her wisdom may think fit."

"Not to-day, surely," cried Mrs. Lennox, in alarm; "to-morrow——"

"My orders are peremptory—the suit is pressing," with a significant smile to Mary; "this day—oh, ye hours!" looking at a timepiece, "this very minute. Come Mary—are you ready—cap-à-pie?"

At another time Mary would have thought only of the regrets of her venerable friend at parting with her; but now she felt only her own impatience to be gone, and she hastily quitted the room to prepare for her departure.

On returning to it Colonel Lennox advanced to meet her, evidently desirous of saying something, yet labouring under great embarrassment.

"Were it not too selfish and presumptuous," said he, while his heightened colour spoke his confusion, "I would venture to express a hope that your absence will not be very long from my poor mother."

Mary pretended to be very busy collecting her work, drawings, etc., which lay scattered about, and merely bent her head in acknowledgment. Colonel Lennox proceeded—

"I am aware of the sacrifice it must be to such as Miss Douglas to devote her time and talents to the comforting of the blind and desolate; and I cannot express—she cannot conceive—the gratitude—the respect—the admiration, with which my heart is filled at such proofs of noble disinterested benevolence on her part."

Had Mary raised her eyes to those that vainly sought to meet hers, she would there have read all, and more than had been expressed; but she could only think, "He has been entreated to love!" and at that humiliating idea she bent her head still lower to the colour that dyed her cheek to an almost painful degree, while a sense of suffocation at her throat prevented her disclaiming, as she wished to do, the merit of any sacrifice. Some sketches of Lochmarlie lay upon a table at which she had been drawing the day before; they had ever been precious in her sight till now; but they only excited feelings of mortification, as she recollected having taken them from her portefeuille at Mrs. Lennox's request to show to her son.

"This was part of the parade by which I was to win him," thought she with bitterness; and scarcely conscious of what she did, she crushed them together, and threw them into the fire. Then hastily advancing to Mrs. Lennox, she tried to bid her farewell; but as she thought it was for the last time, tears of tenderness as well as pride stood in her eyes.

"God bless you, my dear child!" said the unsuspecting Mrs. Lennox, as she held her: in her arms. "And God will bless you in His way—though His ways are not as our ways. I cannot urge you to return to this dreary abode. But oh, Mary! Think sometimes in your gaiety, that when you do come, you bring gladness to a mournful heart, and lighten eyes that never see the sun!"

Mary, too much affected to reply, could only wring the hand of her venerable friend, as she tore herself from her embrace, and followed Lady Emily to the carriage. For some time they proceeded in silence. Mary dreaded to encounter her cousin's eyes, which she was aware were fixed upon her with more than their usual scrutiny. She therefore kept hers steadily employed in surveying the well-known objects the road presented. At length her Ladyship began in a grave tone.

"You appear to have had very stormy weather at Rose Hall?"

"Very much so," replied Mary, without knowing very well what she said.

"And we have had nothing but calms and sunshine at Beech Park. Is not that strange?"

"Very singular indeed."

"I left the barometer very high—not quite at settled calm—that would be too much; but I find it very low indeed—absolutely below nothing."

Mary now did look up in some surprise; but she hastily withdrew from the intolerable expression of her cousin's eyes.

"Dear Lady Emily!" cried she in a deprecating tone.

"Well—what more? You can't suppose I'm to put up with hearing my own name; I've heard that fifty times to-day already from Lady Juliana's parrot—come, your face speaks volumes. I read a declaration of love in the colour of your cheeks—a refusal in the height of your nose—and a sort of general agitation in the quiver of your lip and the déréglement of your hair. Now for your pulse—a leettle hasty, as Dr. Redgill would say; but let your tongue declare the rest."

Mary would fain have concealed the cause of her distress from every human being, as she felt as if degraded still lower by repeating it to another; and she remained silent, struggling with her emotions.

"'Pon my honour, Mary, you really do use great liberties with my patience and good-nature. I appeal to yourself whether I might not just as well have been reading one of Tully's orations to a mule all this while. Come, you must really make haste to tell your tale, for I am dying to disclose mine. Or shall I begin? No—that would be inverting the order of nature or custom, which is the same thing—beginning with the farce, and ending with the tragedy—so commencez au commencement, m'amie."

Thus urged, Mary at length, and with much hesitation, related to her cousin the humiliation she had experienced. "And after all," said she, as she ended, "I am afraid I behaved very like a fool. And yet what could I do in my situation, what would you have done?"

"Done! why, I should have taken the old woman by the shoulder, and cried Boh! in her ear. And so this is the mighty matter! You happen to overhear Mrs. Lennox, good old soul! recommending you as a wife to her son. What could be more natural except his refusing to fall head in ears in love before he had time to pull his boots off. And then to have a wife recommended to him! and all your perfections set forth, as if you had been a laundrymaid—an early riser, neat worker, regular attention upon church! Ugh I—I must say I think his conduct quite meritorious. I could almost find in my heart to fall in love with him myself, were it for no other reason than because he is not such a Tommy Goodchild as to be in love at his mamma's bidding—that is, loving his mother as he does—for I see he could cut off a hand, or pluck out an eye, to please her, though he can't or won't give her his heart and soul to dispose of as she thinks proper."

"You quite misunderstand me," said Mary, with increasing vexation. "I did not mean to say anything against Colonel Lennox. I did not wish—I never once thought whether he liked me or not."

"That says very little for you. You must have a very bad taste if you care more for the mother's liking than the son's. Then what vexes you so much? Is it at having made the discovery that your good old friend is a—a—I beg your pardon—a bit of a goose? Well, never mind—since you don't care for the man, there's no mischief done. You have only to change the dramatis personae. Fancy that you overheard mere commending you to Dr. Redgill for your skill in cookery—you'd only have laughed at that—so why should you weep at t'other. However, one thing I must tell you, whether it adds to your grief or not, I did remark that Charles Lennox looked very lover-like towards you; and, indeed, this sentimental passion he has put you in becomes you excessively. I really never saw you look so handsome before—it has given an energy and esprit to your countenance, which is the only thing it wants. You are very much obliged to him, were it only for having kindled such a fire in your eyes, and raised such a carnation in your cheek. It would have been long before good larmoyante, Mrs. Lennox would have done as much for you. I shouldn't wonder were he to fall in love with you after all."

Lady Emily little thought how near she was the the truth when she talked in this random way. Colonel Lennox saw the wound he had innocently inflicted on Mary's feelings, and a warmer sentiment than any he had hitherto experienced had sprung up in his heart. Formerly he had merely looked upon her as an amiable sweet-tempered girl; but when he saw he roused to a sense of her own dignity, and marked the struggle betwixt tender affection and offended delicacy he, formed a higher estimate of her character, and a spark was kindled that wanted but opportunity to blaze into a flame, pure and bright as the shrine on which it burned. Such is the waywardness and price of even the best affections of the human breast.