Friends, though divided: A Tale of the Civil War

by G. A. Henty

"Ah," the old man said, "now you are in a hurry to know. Who should it be but Master Rippinghall and a certain young lady?"

"Oh, father, has Lucy really come?"

"Assuredly she has," Colonel Furness said, "and is now waiting in a private room below with her brother, for Sir Harry. I have not congratulated you yet, my boy, on your new dignity."

"And you really consent to my marriage, sir?"

"I don't see that I could help it," the colonel said, "since you had set your mind on it, especially as when I came to inquire I found the young lady was willing to go to Virginia. But we must talk of that anon. Yes, Harry, you have my full consent. The young lady is not quite of the rank of life I should have chosen for you; but ranks and classes are all topsy-turvy in England at present, and when we are ruled over by a brewer, it would be nice indeed to refuse to take a wool-stapler's sister for wife. But seriously, Harry, I am well contented. I knew little of the young lady except by common report, which spoke of her as the sweetest and kindest damsel in Abingdon. But now I have seen her, I wonder not at your choice. During the fortnight we have been together I have watched her closely, and I find in her a rare combination of gentleness and firmness. You have won her heart, Harry, though how she can have kept thee in mind all this time is more than I can tell. Her brother tells me that he placed no pressure upon her either for or against, though he desired much for your sake, and from the love he bore you, that she should accept of your suit. Now you had better go down, and learn from her own lips how it stands with her."

It need not to describe the meeting between Harry and his old friends. Herbert was warm and cordial as of old. Lucy was but little changed since Harry had seen her four years before, save that she was more fair and womanly.

"Your letter gave me," Herbert said, "a mixed feeling of pleasure and pain. I knew that my little sister has always looked upon you as a hero of romance, and though I knew not that as a woman her heart still turned to you, yet she refused so sharply and shrewishly all the suitors who came to her, that I suspected that her thoughts of you were more than a mere child's fancy. When your letter came I laid no pressure upon her, just as in other cases I have held aloof, and indeed have gained some ill-will at the hands of old friends because I would not, as her brother, and the head of the family, lay stress upon her. I read your letter to her, and she at first said she was ready to obey my wishes in the matter, and to go with you to Virginia if I bade her. I said that in such a matter it was her will and not mine which I wished to consult, and thus pressed into a corner, she owned that she would gladly go with you."

"Harry," the girl said, "for my tongue is not as yet used to your new title, under other circumstances I should have needed to be wooed and won like other girls. But seeing how strangely you are placed, and that you were about to start across the sea, to be absent perhaps for many years, I felt that it would not be worthy either of me or you were I to affect a maiden coyness and so to throw difficulties in your way. I feel the honor of the offer you have made me. That you should for so many years have been absent and seen the grand ladies of the court, and have yet thought of your little playfellow, shows that your heart is as true and good as I of old thought it to be, and I need feel no shame in acknowledging that I have ever thought of you with affection."

For the next few days there was much argument over the project of going to Virginia. Herbert, when he heard what had happened in London, joined his entreaties to those of Sir Henry, asserting that he had only consented to Lucy's going to so outlandish a place in the belief that there was no help for it, and that he did not think it fair for Harry to take her to such a life when he could stay comfortably at home. Sir Henry did not say much, but Harry could see how ardently he longed for him to remain. As for Lucy, she stood neutral, saying that assuredly she did not wish to go to Virginia, but that, upon the other hand, she should feel that her consent had been obtained under false pretenses, and that she had been defrauded of the enjoyment of a proper and regular courtship, did it prove that Harry might have come home and sought her hand in regular form. Harry's reluctance to remain arose principally from the fact that he had gained permission to do so by an act of personal service which he had done the king's great enemy. Had he been included in a general amnesty he would gladly have accepted it. However, his resolution gave way under the arguments of Herbert, who urged upon him that he had no right, on a mere point of punctilio, to leave his father in his old age, and to take Lucy from her country and friends to a life of hardship in the plantations of Virginia. At last he yielded. Then a difficulty arose with Lucy, who would fain have returned to Abingdon with her brother, and urged she should there have time given her to be married in regular fashion. This Harry would by no means consent to, and as both Sir Henry and Herbert saw no occasion for the delay, they were married a fortnight later at the Protestant church at Hamburg, Jacob, who was by this time perfectly restored to health, acting as his best man.

One of the first steps which Harry took after his return to Hamburg was to inquire about the gypsy maid who had done him such service. She was still singing at the drinking-house. Harry went down there in the daytime and gave one of the drawers a crown to tell her quietly that the Englishman she knew would fain see her, and would wait for her at a spot he named on the walk by the river bank, between ten and twelve the next day. Here, accompanied by Lucy, who, having heard of the service which the girl had rendered him, fully entered into his anxiety to befriend her, he awaited her the next day. She came punctual to the appointment, but in great fear that the old gypsy would discover her absence. Upon Harry telling her that Lucy, who was about to become his wife, would willingly take her to England and receive her as a companion until such time as some opportunity for furthering her way in life might appear, Zita accepted the proposal with tears of joy. She abhorred the life she was forced to lead, and it was only after many beatings and much ill-usage from the gypsies that she consented to it, and it made her life the harder, inasmuch as she knew that she had not been born to such a fate, but had been stolen as a child.