Forrest House

by Mary Jane Holmes

“Yes, mother,” and Everard started violently, while the cold sweat stood in drops about his lips, but he could say no more then, and his mother continued: “I have thought many times who and what your wife would be, and have pictured her often to myself, and loved her for your sake; but I shall never see her, when she comes here I shall be gone, and so I will speak of her now, and say it is not my wish that you should wait many years before marrying. I believe in early marriages, where there is mutual love and esteem. Then you make allowance more readily for each other’s habits and peculiarities. I mean no disrespect to your father, he has been kind to me, but I think he waited too long; there were too many years between us; my feelings and ideas were young, his middle-aged; better begin alike for perfect unity. And, my boy, be sure you marry a lady.”

“A lady, mother?” Everard said, wondering if his mother would call Josephine a lady.

“Yes, Everard,” she replied, “a lady in the true sense of the word, a person of education and refinement, and somewhere near your own rank in life. I never believed in the Maud Muller poem, never was sorry that the judge did not take the maiden for his wife. He might, perhaps, never have blushed for her, but he would have blushed for her family, and their likeness in his children’s faces would have been a secret annoyance. I do not say that every mesalliance proves unhappy, but it is better to marry your equal, if you can, for a low-born person, with low-born tastes, will, of necessity, drag you down to her level.”

She stopped a moment to rest, but Everard did not speak for the fierce struggle in his heart. He must tell her of Josephine, and could he say that she had no low-born tastes? Alas, he could not, when he remembered things which had dropped from her pretty lips so easily and naturally, and at which he had laughed as at something spicy and daring. His mother would call them coarse, with all her innate refinement and delicacy, and a shiver ran through him as he seemed to hear again the words “I pronounce you man and wife.” They were always ringing in his ears, louder sometimes than at others, and now they were so loud as almost to drown the low voice which after a little went on:

“I do not believe in parents selecting companions for their children, but surely I may suggest. You are not obliged to follow my suggestion. I would have your choice perfectly free,” she added, quickly, as she saw a look of consternation on his face, and mistook its meaning. “I have thought, and think still, that were I to choose for you, it would be Beatrice.”

“Beatrice! Bee Belknap! mother,” and Everard fairly gasped. “Bee Belknap is a great deal older than I am.”

“Just a year, which is not much in this case. She will not grow old fast, while you will mature early; the disparity would never be thought of,” Mrs. Forrest said. “Beatrice is a little wild, and full of fun and frolic, but under all that is a deep-seated principle of propriety and right, which makes her a noble and lovely character. I should be willing to trust you with her, and your father’s heart is quite set on this match. I may tell you now that it has been in his mind for years, and I wish you to please him, both for his sake and yours. I hope you will think of it, Everard, and try to love Beatrice; surely it cannot be hard to do that?”

“No, mother,” Everard said, “but you seem to put her out of the question entirely. Is she to have no choice in the matter, and do you think that, belle and flirt as she is, she would for a moment consider me, Ned Forrest, whom she calls a boy, and ridicules unmercifully? She would not have me, were I to ask her a thousand times.”

“I think you may be wrong,” Mrs. Forrest said. “It surely can’t be that you love some one else?” and she looked at him searchingly.

Now was the time to speak of Josephine, if ever, and while his heart beat so loudly that he could hear it, he said, “Yes, mother, I do like some one else;—it is a young girl in Holburton, where I staid last summer. She is very beautiful. This is her picture,” and he passed Josephine’s photograph to his mother, who studied it carefully for two or three minutes; then turning her eyes to her son she said: “She is beautiful, so far as features and complexion are concerned, but I am greatly mistaken in you if the original of this face can satisfy you long.”