Caught in a Trap

by John C. Hutcheson

It was now autumn. The trees were leafless, with their skeleton boughs stretched out like spectral hands clutching towards the sky, and sighing with every breath of the dull wintry wind that swept across their moaning branches for the approach of spring.

What a change the past three weeks had made in Lizzie Pringle’s life! It is one of the anomalies of our nature, ever changeful and varying, that the world—our world—is made up of change, even in the most monotonous of lives. The machinery of existence is wonderfully intricate, and of such delicate construction, that the slightest hitch or strain can throw it entirely out of gear. We move on calmly, perhaps, in a smooth groove, from life to death, from the cradle towards the grave, when of a sudden a pebble gets into the works, a new element is introduced into, or an old one subtracted from, the course of our existence, and all is changed. No more do the wheels move steadily round and the cranks slide up and down as of yore; a hitch has occurred; and although the machine goes on still, apparently with the same rumble and clang, the motion is not what it was; it is parallel, perhaps, or elliptical, but is not the same as it was before. Nothing can ever restore it again. Our lives are altered against our wills, and though the cradle stands in the background and the grave looms in front, the change of the enchanter’s hand—it may be of pleasure and joy, or more likely one of grief and pain—has passed over our lives, and we ourselves are altered too, for better or worse—God grant the former!

In a woman’s life this change is more common, although not so apparent as with men; because love and marriage, which cause more proportionately this change, are looked upon by them more as their natural destiny than as exceptional incidents in an otherwise even life. Marriage is the ultimate end of a woman’s life, as the subsequent nursing of babies and darning of socks; with the sterner, though by no means nobler sex, it is but a new phase of existence.

When the little winged god makes his appearance, therefore, and hurls one of his death-dealing darts, it is a much more serious matter for a girl than it is with us. Daphne feels it far more acutely than Apollo. With him it has been merely a pleasant little change in his life—pour s’amuser; but to her it is a new existence—her life, her all. She has only been in a state of pupilage before; but now she is a woman, with all a woman’s hopes and fears. She has entered on the portals of the future state, when once Love’s fetters have entwined themselves around her, the state for which she was born—her ultima Thule.

For eighteen calm and happy years Lizzie’s life had flowed on smoothly in the one quiet groove. She had passed from babyhood to girldom and school-age in the usual course of nature, and, until now, she had never had a deeper happiness than what a passing fancy would give, or a greater trouble than a few hours could efface. Her one great loss—the death of her mother—had occurred at so early an age that it left no lasting impression on her; and she had consequently grown up a merry little lassie, winning all hearts with her sweetly piquante face and those wondrous violet eyes, whose unknown depths now laughed defiance at you, and now displayed a strange wistful languor, which irresistibly attracted you.

That was until last summer; but Lizzie was very much changed now. The little laughing girl was transformed into the winning, wistful maiden, who knew now that there was more in life than eighteen summers usually dreams of. The apples of the Tree of Knowledge had been tasted, and Lizzie became aware that existence was not all lotus-eating, although it did contain, perhaps, some secret joys unknown to childhood.

Everyone meets their “Fate” at some time or other; and Tom was her fate, young as they both were; perhaps, it was better that that mysterious affinity which unites us all, for a temporary or a permanent period with those especially appointed for us, should come across her early in life. It is a cup which one only sips once in a lifetime—better early perhaps than late. Do you know there is something in the Mormon doctrine after all—putting polygamy aside—in that principle of theirs that the brides of the elders or prophets are “sealed” to them. It shows a belief in the mystical and apparently predestined affinity of certain souls to one another.

From that first meeting in church, when the stolen glances of Tom had set the loom of love in motion, a regular and intricate warp and woof of affection had been woven between the pair. The time of their acquaintance was perhaps short; but love laughs at time even as well as he does at the proverbial locksmiths: between kindred souls an hour affects more than years in others—as may have been already observed.

Lizzie was visited with an attack of that malaria mortis which comes to some of us in our lives at some certain time or other, either for good or ill. It was a very serious attack. Not a trumpery little ailment which could be patched up for the nonce, and the patient recover without having a scar to remind her of the disease; but a real bona fide visitation, in which the sickness works its course from beginning to end, and is not to be repelled by namby-pamby lotions of milk and water, and worldly prudence and mammon panaceas. It was love. Love pur et simple, which one hears derided every day by philosophising “anti-gamonists” and Pharisaical parents, who esteem riches beyond happiness, and “an eligible parti” superior to the attainment of healthy though poor affection. Love overrides worldly motives still, however, in this so-called heathenish and worldly nineteenth century, and exists in spite of the false code of morality which strives to bear it down. Love in a cottage may be humbug certainly when our souls thirst after the gargoyles of a ten-storied mansion and purple and fine linen. The dinner of roots and herbs in preference to the stalled ox, is a delusion and a snare to one who had a weakness for entrées, and would rather the high priced salmon and early peas, at some fabled sum a peck in Covent Garden; but bear me out, Chloe, when next thou listenest with attentive ear to the tuneful pipes of Amaryllon, and you, God-like Augustus, when you see the modest blush of happiness which crimsons the cheek of the gentle though rustic Lettice Lisle!

After Lizzie had first seen Tom she did not know what was the matter with her, and nobody else could perhaps have enlightened her on the subject.