Edina: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

After the unpleasant truth—that Frank was not heir to Eagles' Nest—had so unexpectedly dawned on Mrs. St. Clare, she informed her daughter Margaret that the absurd intimacy with Mr. Raynor must be put aside. Margaret, feeling stunned for a minute or two, plucked up courage to ask why. Because, answered Mrs. St. Clare, it had turned out that he was not the heir to Eagles' Nest. And Margaret, whose courage increased with exercise, gently said that that was no good reason: she liked Mr. Raynor for himself, not for any prospects he might or might not possess, and that she could not give him up. A stormy interview ensued. At least it was stormy on the mother's part: Margaret was only quiet, and inwardly firm. And the upshot was, that Mrs. St. Clare, who hated contention, as most indolent women do, finally flew into a passion, and told Margaret that if she chose to marry Mr. Raynor she must do so; but that she, her mother, and The Mount, and the St. Clare family generally, would wash their hands of her for ever after.

When once Mrs. Clare said a thing, she held to it. Margaret knew that; and she knew that from henceforth there was no probability, one might almost write possibility, of inducing her mother to consent to her marriage with Frank Raynor. Margaret was mistress of her own actions in one sense of the word: when Colonel St. Clare died he left no restrictions on his daughters. All his money; it was not much; was bequeathed to his wife, and was at her own absolute disposal; but not a word was said in his will touching the free actions of his children. Mrs. St. Clare knew this; Daisy knew it; and that, in the argument, gave the one an advantage over the other.

But Mrs. St. Clare, in the dispute, committed a fatal error. When people are angry, they often say injudicious things. Had she said to Margaret, I forbid you to marry Mr. Raynor, Margaret would never have thought of disobeying the injunction: but when Mrs. St. Clare said, "If you choose to marry him, do so, but I shall wash my hands of you," it put the idea into Margaret's head. Mrs. St. Clare had used the words because they came uppermost in her anger, never supposing that any advantage could be taken of them. To her daughter they wore a different aspect. Right or wrong—though of course it was wrong, not right—she looked upon it as a half-tacit permission: and from that moment the idea of marrying Frank with no one's approval but her own, took possession of her. To lose him seemed terrible in Margaret's eyes; she would almost as soon have lost life itself: and instinct whispered a warning that in a short time Mrs. St. Clare would contrive to separate them, and they might never meet again.

It was of this terrible prospect of separation, or rather of avoiding the prospect, that Mr. Raynor and Margaret were conversing in the twilight of the summer's evening. For once they had met and could linger together without restraint. Mrs. St. Clare and Lydia had gone to a dinner-party ten miles away: Margaret had not been invited; the card said Mrs. and Miss St. Clare; and so they could not take her. Mrs. St. Clare, divining perhaps that her absence might be thus made use of, had proposed to Lydia that Margaret should be the one to go; but Lydia, selfish as usual, preferred to go herself. Mr. Raynor was no longer a visitor at The Mount. Mrs. St. Clare, after the rupture with Margaret, wrote a request to Dr. Raynor that for the future he would attend himself; but she gave no reason. So that the lovers had not had many meetings lately.

All the more enjoyable was the one this evening. Frank had gone over on speculation. Happening to hear Dr. Raynor say that Miss St. Clare was going out to dinner with her mother, he walked over on the chance of seeing Margaret. And there they were, absorbed in each other amidst the sighing trees and the scented flowers.

Frank, open-natured, single-minded, had told her every particular of his visit to Spring Lawn: what he had gone for, what the result had been, and that his uncle the major had assured him of the large sum he might confidently reckon upon inheriting under Mrs. Atkinson's will. To this hour Frank knew not the full truth of Mrs. St. Clare's altered manner; for Margaret, in her delicacy, did not give him a hint as to Eagles' Nest. "Mamma thinks that you—that you are not rich enough to marry," poor Margaret had said, stammering somewhat in the brief explanation. But, as he was now pointing out to Margaret with all his eloquence, the time could not be very far off when he should be quite rich enough.

"Shall you not consider it so, Daisy? When I have joined some noted man in London, to be paid well for my present services, with the certainty of being his partner at no distant date? We should have a charming house; I would take care of that; and every comfort within it. Not a carriage; not luxuries; I could not attempt that at first; but we could afford, in our happiness, to wait for them."

"Oh yes," murmured Daisy, thinking that it would be Paradise.

"If I fully explain all this to your mother——"

"It would be of no use; she would not listen," interrupted Daisy. "I—I have not told you all she said, Frank; I have not liked to tell you. One thing we may rest assured of—she will never, never give her consent."