Lover and Husband: A Novel

by Mrs. Molesworth

But the there was Florence! Florence the beautiful, whose brilliant marriage was to be the turning point in the fortunes of her family:—to obtain a comfortable living for her older brother-in-law; and in some mysterious way to bring the Admiralty to a sense of what was owing to the meritorious but unappreciated lieutenant.

Hardly was the girl out of short frocks and pinafores, before the anxious, scheming mother set to work to plan her future and obtain for her the desired opportunity. Nor must we judge her harshly. Poverty, and above all poverty of the striving, pinching, keeping-up-appearances kind, is not an influence likely to exalt or refine the character, and poor Mrs. Vyse, no lofty-minded woman to begin with, sank and deteriorated beneath it, as many better people have done before and since.

In one direction her efforts met with success.

It happened thus. Among the few friends, who in the long weary years of her widow-hood and adversity, still remembered Mrs. Vyse, none was kinder, or showed her more substantial proofs of good will than Lady Severn, her husband’s cousin by marriage. No very near connection certainly, but there was another reason for this kindness to the poor widow and her fatherless children. The history of Dame Eleanor Severn, like that of most people in this world, had begun with a first volume, or which the hero was not her lamented and much respected husband, the late Sir Ralph Severn, but a certain harum-scarum sailor cousin of his, a handsome auburn-haired boy, with beautiful black-fringed eyes: Gordon Vyse by name. Of course it was “utterly out of the question.” She was, an heiress, consequently it would never have done for her to have married a prospectless younger son. In time, suppose, she herself was brought to see the thing in this rational light. Any how she married Sir Ralph, her own cousin, and (she being an only child), heir to her father’s title, though not to his wealth, which was all settled on Eleanor Severn herself. So title and wealth were re-united by this marriage; a highly satisfactory arrangement in the eyes of the family and the world at large. Nobody troubled him or herself much about poor Gordon; who before long consoled himself by marrying, considerably beneath him, a rather pretty, inferior-minded, managing little woman, who made him as good a wife as she knew how, and after his death did her poor best by the three daughters left to her care. They got on somehow. Florence seemed the most fortunate, for Lady Severn saw her as a child, took a fancy to her, and paid for her education at a fashionable boarding school. Questionable good fortune; but the girl was capable of gratitude, and honestly loved her mother and sisters. So she made what she truly believed to be best use of her educational privileges, devoted herself to accomplishments, including the art of dressing, and arranging her magnificent hair to the best advantage; and so succeeded as become, before she left school, the show pupil of the establishment. The thought of furnishing the inside of her head with any knowledge really worth acquiring, never occurred to her. And indeed it is difficult to say if she could ever have succeeded in doing so, for the cleverness which she certainly possessed, was of that self-conceited, essentially superficial kind, to teachers far more hopeless to deal with than any extreme of good, honest, modest, stupidity.

Grown up at last, ready in every sense, of the word to “come out,” had there been any one to introduce her, for a tiresome year or two the beautiful Florence languished at home. For some time the distress in the Severn family put a stop to all hopes of a helping hand in that quarter. At last, however, Mrs. Vyse plucked courage. A gratefully expressed and judiciously timed letter to Lady Severn, resulted in an invitation to Florence to visit her abroad for a few weeks. So well had the girl profited by her mother’s instructions that the few weeks lengthened into months, and the latter had already numbered more than twelve, and still there was no talk of Miss Vyse returning home. She knew how to make herself useful her hostess, who, on her side, treated her with the greatest generosity; for she was proud of her handsome young relative, niece as she preferred to call her, though in point of fact the connection was much more remote. Every where Miss Vyse was admired and made much of, and on the whole she had spent a very agreeable year. Still, the great object of her ambition, a wealthy husband, had not been attained, and for some time past this consideration had caused her no little anxiety.

There were difficulties in the way. Lady Severn’s continued mourning and Sir Ralph’s indifference to society, caused their life to be a very quiet one, which to Florence was the more provoking, as she saw plainly that wherever they went, it only rested with themselves to have the entrée of the most select portion of the fashionable world. On coming to Altes this winter, Lady Severn had kindly volunteered to relax little from her usual seclusion on her young friend’s account. Pleasant news for Florence! She was, however, too far-seeing to hope for very much in the way of gaiety, considering the habits of her entertainers; and she was far too prudent to take advantage of Lady Severn’s promise in any but the most careful and moderate manner, fearing lest the slightest appearance of discontent with their somewhat monotonous life, should weaken the influence she had gained over the mother, and, equally important, the favour she hoped to acquire in the eyes of the son.

For it had come to this! Gradually, but steadily, for some months past, Florence’s thoughts had been concentrating to this point. True, Sir Ralph himself was far from rich, but then there was considerable wealth in the hands of his mother, of which, even during her life, were he to marry to please her, Florence had every reason to believe a fair potion would be his.

It was rather a bold idea; but she was not burdened with over-delicacy or scrupulosity, and on the other hand, was by no means deficient in tact, and possessed besides the inestimable of supreme, unruffled self-confidence. And, to do her justice, poor girl, she was strengthened by the thought of the happiness the news of such a marriage would diffuse over the dear, care-worn faces at home!

Two distinct objects lay before her to achieve. In the first place there was Lady Severn to be won over, unconsciously, to her side. Liking must be deepened to affection, esteem, and admiration judiciously heightened; till one day it should suddenly break upon the good lady, entirely as an idea of her own, that here, beside her, in the person of her young favourite, the daughter of her own, never-forgotten, first love, was the very wife for her son; the woman of all others, beautiful, sensible, and cheerful, whom she would choose as a helpmeet for the dreamy, studious, unpractical Sir Ralph. So thought Florence for Lady Severn, and so, ere long, the unconscious lady was made to think for herself. For, though no plain words had as yet passed between them on the subject, Florence believed, and rightly, that the first of her designs was in a fair way towards being accomplished.

But with the contemplation of the second came the “tug of war.” Florence with all her self-belief, with all her happy confidence in the irresistible nature of her charms, felt at a loss. “Tug of war” is not a happy quotation in this instance, for it was no case of Greek versus Greek, but the involuntary repulsion of an utterly alien nature, which so baffled this girl in all her efforts. Ralph puzzled her. There were so many things about him which he could not understand. No wonder! For, if only she had known it, it would have been nearer the truth to say that there was hardly one thing about him; which, with all the good-will in the world, all the capacity for lending herself to his peculiarities on which she prided herself, she could ever have come to understand.