Caught in a Trap

by John C. Hutcheson

The engagement between the present contracting parties had not been a very long one, the campaigner being in favour of early marriages, she said—having daughters to dispose of; but her probable reason was to get the irrevocable knot tied so that there might be no backing-out and no backsliding on the part of I promessi sposi.

Lady Inskip took all the arrangements in her own hands. Having brought Pringle to book, she decided upon the length of the engagement, fixed the wedding day, and then told the languid Laura and her expectant son-in-law all about it. They had nothing whatever to do with the affair at all; they were to be married, and that was sufficient for them. She considered the pair as children in her hands, who had only to do as they were told. Hers be it to act, and plan, and settle everything; theirs to acquiesce in what she planned, and be thankful for the considerate forethought of their mamma-of-action.

Pringle glided readily and easily into such an improved order of things; he accepted the gifts the gods gave him with admirable complacency. He consented to every arrangement that was made; indeed, it was well that the campaigner took matters in her own hands, for the young incumbent was of such an easy-going temperament, that even if he had gone to the length of popping the question to the languid Laura on his own behalf, it might have been years before he summoned up resolution enough to take the final plunge into matrimony. All things considered, therefore, it was better for the campaigner to act; and act she did, with promptitude and despatch.

The Reverend Herbert Pringle, B.A., behaved, throughout, as a very decorous, about-to-be-married man, and expectant filial. Of course he paid a regular visit every day to the cottage on the esplanade to see his fiancée. He enjoyed her placid society, and went through all the formulas expected and required of him—even to the extent of going shopping for his presumptive mother-in-law, and selecting gaudy wools of many colours for mat manufacture, and purchasing garden seeds, besides attending to the redecoration and preparation of the parsonage for the reception of his bride, under the stern and uncompromising eye of the campaigner, who would have “this” done, and “that” altered, as she pleased: her word was already law to him.

The gloom that had fallen over the house of Hartshorne did not, in any way, affect the approaching marriage.

A rumour had got abroad that something was wrong at The Poplars, from the chattering of the villagers, but no real facts had leaked out; and everybody put down the old dowager’s attack of paralysis and subsequent long illness to the news of her daughter Susan’s sudden death, which they had read of in the necropolitan portion of the Times newspaper. Doctor Jolly, with the exception of such observations as, “Bless my soul! Sad pity! sad pity!” and “By Gad!” ’Twas a fearful “shock to the old woman!” kept a sealed tongue in his head; and the lawyer, who was the only other person that now had the entrée at The Poplars, was naturally and professionally reticent. At the parsonage, the calamities of the “big house” had, of course, created interest. Herbert Pringle thought, from his religious position, and Lizzie, from her sympathetic little heart, which naturally yearned towards anyone in affliction—particularly now, and when the object of her sympathy was the mother of her lover—both made attempts to minister at The Poplars, and both were unsuccessful.

The old lady was, for weeks, speechless; and so ill, as not to be able to bear the sight of a new face. Doctor Jolly would not hear of the young incumbent seeing her; she could not understand anything said to her, and, for the present—the doctor told him gravely—any religious question which she wanted settled must rest between herself and her God! The doctor thought that but little spiritual consolation could be imparted by a flippant young man, who only wore a cassock for temporal purposes: as the means of obtaining a living, to a woman old enough to be his mother, and who was already, even now, struggling, with the Infinite!

To Lizzie, however, the doctor spoke kindly. He recognised the spirit in which her sympathy was tendered; and he told her that as soon as the old lady got round a bit he would be glad of her services. When she recovered her consciousness, a brighter face around her than that of the old servant, who now attended her, would conduce to her recovery; and Lizzie, you may be sure, was very glad to hear this, and longed for the time when she could be of use to “Tom’s mother.”

Although the old dowager, therefore, lay sick unto death, the marriage preparations were not set aside. Pringle, indeed, had hinted to the campaigner that perhaps it would not be in good taste to celebrate the festival while the great proprietress of the county, his especial patroness, was in this state, but that intrepid lady had incontinently derided the notion, asking what was the dowager to them? following up the question with another and more potent one, as to whether he wished to postpone the marriage with her darling girl in a very aggrieved tone of voice. Upon this Pringle was hastily “shut up,” and had to pour out a hundred apologies of, “Really, Lady Inskip, not for the world!” and so on.

The end of the old year came, and the beginning of the new ushered in the wedding morn.