To do the father of Mrs. Green simple justice, it must be stated that he had never robbed; peculated, or been in the slightest degree unfaithful to the house he served, or its members.
Just before he died, the clerk received a promise from his master, Mr. Green, that little Helen should want for nothing as long as she lived, which promise was kept during her subsequent spinstership by inquiries, every quarter, with methodical exactness, how she was getting on, and what she wanted; answers to which questions were frankly given by her on all occasions, and betrayed to the merchant some requirement on her part every three months. It would now be a dress or a bonnet; it would on another occasion be the means of paying a quarter’s rent of her apartments; it would again be something else. The article itself, or a cheque for its purchase or satisfaction, was uniformly forthcoming.
In this way a communication had been always maintained from the day of Thomson’s death to the day of Miss Thomson’s marriage between the young woman and her subsequent husband.
The courtship of the merchant was very prosaic. How long he had made up his mind that little Helen should be his wife, or at least have the chance of becoming his wife, is more than I can tell; but certain it is, that on one quarter-day—I mean her quarter-day—she received a note, in which she was invited to the house of the merchant. He said in this letter of invitation that he was very anxious to know how she was getting on, and what her prospects were; in fact, he said he was anxious to redeem the promise he had given to her dying father by the inquiries he had to make, and the intention he had formed of providing, if he could, for her welfare as long as she lived,
The last sentence was the only clue offered to the design of her benefactor. That clue was enough. It showed to her acute and reflecting mind what she might expect from the merchant, and she was thereby enabled to survey at her leisure, before the appointed interview, the prospect laid open to her. She balanced in her own mind all the apparent advantages and all the disadvantages of becoming Mrs. Green.
She had no very high respect for Mr. Green’s character,—yet she had no aversion to him. He was, indeed, one of those easy-going, even-natured men, who neither arouse affection nor excite the opposite of love. He was by no means the ideal which she had formed of a husband. Yet how could she, who had been a poor daily governess all her life, release her ambition in this respect? She had indulged the hope, as I dare say most young women have hoped, to marry a man handsome, educated, and of gentlemanly training—with a fortune. She would have been satisfied with a man of good standing or prospects in either one of the liberal professions—the army, navy, the law, or even the church. But a dispassionate consideration of Mr. Green’s letter drove away all the phantasms of such ambition. She came, by a process of the severest reasoning, to the conclusion, in the first place, that, if she rejected the merchant’s intended proposal, she might offend him. That was not, after all, so very serious a matter, as she was not very largely dependent upon his bounty; yet she could hardly afford to lose a friend. This conclusion led her to survey the bright side of Mr. Green’s intended proposal. She would certainly, as Mrs. Green, be mistress of a liberal establishment. His years denied the reasonable prospect of her ever having a child. Yet this young woman, hardened by experience, saw a compensation for that denial of a true woman’s hope in the freedom from a mother’s cares and troubles. It was something to get rid of the drudgery of toil, and escape the snubbing and rebuffs of her present vocation. “Yes,” at length she said to herself, in forming her resolution, “I might do worse than become Mrs. Green.”
There was only one small difficulty—there was a prior attachment. “Well,” she said to herself, “I shall have to get rid of Edward. That is not so very difficult either. I do not think he would break his heart about it. I know I should not break mine if he were to throw me off. I do not believe in broken hearts. He cannot bring an action against me for breach of promise of marriage. That is a pleasant thing to know. I heard Mr. Jones, who is a lawyer, telling his wife at the tea-table only the other evening, that a gentleman never got any good by that, and I think he said a farthing was about the price a gentleman’s damages would always be assessed at. Well, I could pay that sum without much injury to my own purse; and if any proceedings should be brought against my husband after I have married him. I suppose he would be responsible for them, among my other obligations, but I would pay that sum out of my pin-money.”
Miss Thomson agreed within herself to become Mrs. Green, and had so far realised this speculation in the lottery of life, that she began to sketch her future home, make arrangements for her bridal trousseau, &c., within ten minutes after forming her resolution.
Miss Thomson’s anticipations were correct. Her benefactor told her he had noticed she had been a very hard-working girl. The way she had striven to keep herself as a lady out of her own earnings, with such little assistance as he had felt bound to render her, reflected the highest possible credit upon her. He had noticed her conduct—he might say with admiration. He had never beheld such a combination of all the virtues which make up a good woman as he had seen in her. Now, he hoped he should not frighten or startle her by a communication that he was going to make. He had been living a lonely life, she was aware. He was not married. She knew he had no sister who could manage his household, and secure him those attentions and comforts in which he thought he might reasonably indulge after having been, he might say, a very successful man in trade.
During his speech Mr. Green stammered a little, and betrayed an unusual hesitation. At this point he had greater difficulty in articulation.