Cousin Mary

by Mrs. Oliphant

“Oh, don’t I?” said Mary, with a laugh of superior wisdom,—“much more than you do, I am sure, though you are so much cleverer than I. We could not have many servants, that’s true. But what is the good of them—except to get in each other’s way, and make aunt cross? I’ll tell you what I shall have. I’ll have a nice strong big girl out of the schools, and train her myself: and you’ll see, after a while, all the ladies will be contending to get one of the girls whom Mrs. ——”

Here Mary paused, and blushed redder than ever, and with a cough turned her head away.

“Finish your sentence,” said the happy curate, too happy for the moment to remember how foolish it was. “Mrs. ——? Finish what you were going to say.”

“You know well enough,” said Mary, who in the delightful fervour of settling everything had thus been carried away so much farther than she intended. She added after a moment in a lower tone, “You know it is a very funny name.”

“I think now it is the sweetest name in the world. Mary Asquith,” he said—“Mrs. Asquith—I prefer it to any in the world.”

“Well,” said Mary, considering, “it has this for it, that it is not just like anybody’s name. It has a great deal of character in it. You don’t forget it as soon as you have heard it, like Smith or Brown.”

“It is an old name,” he said, with a little pride, “and one very well known in Cumberland, and known only for good, Mary. But,” he added suddenly, after this outburst, “you are not to suppose that I am claiming to belong to a great family. Oh no, we are only yeomen; we are not equal to the Prescotts. We have an old house, which will be my brother’s, but not like Horton—a homely old place, no better than a farmhouse. That is another thing that will be against me,” he said, his voice sinking out of its happiness and pride into subdued tones.

“There cannot be anything against you,” said Mary, giving a little pressure to his arm. “Do you think I am such a prize? They will be glad, I shouldn’t wonder, to get me off their hands; my poor aunt will not have to say any more, ‘Mary, if anything happens to your uncle!’ I shall have my own—person,” she said, pausing for a word, and laughing over it, “my own—person to take care of me—and what more does any girl require?”

Mr. Asquith was cheered, and yet not quite cheered, by these encouragements. He was very happy, and yet quite miserable. Nothing could take away from him the delight and glory which had fallen upon him out of heaven in that homely green lane of Paradise. But—his mind made a leap forward, or backward rather, to the things he had seen, to the facts of life which he knew, to the hard, hard existence of poverty. Had any man a right to drag down a woman, a girl so gently bred as Mary, into that gulf? had any man a right to bring children into the world with no bread to give them? He had held very distinct views upon this subject, and had sworn to himself that he never would so sin against the innocent, against the unborn. How often had he seen what followed in other poor clerical houses! He had seen the pretty young bride, all unthinking, all unfearing, pleased with her little house, and her married dignity, dragged down into a careworn troubled woman, a hard-working woman, with rough hands and a burdened mind, manual labour, and mental care, her strength and her heart both failing as the heavy years went on. To think of Mary, so young and sweet, so thoughtless and lighthearted, so ignorant, bless her! of all these horrible realities, sinking, sinking year by year into such a woman—and by his means! The curate shrank within himself, his heart seemed to contract with a great pang. By his means! all because he could not contain himself, could not keep silent; could not love her without betraying his love. Oh, what a thing it was, that highest of human sentiments, that it could not curb a man’s tongue, or restrain his impulses! That a man should love and yet not be able to keep silent, to spare the object of his love! He might have loved her all his life, and his love would have been a sweetness and a strength to him; but he ought to have respected her innocence and her youth, and never have told it, locked it up in his own bosom. If he had never spoken, God bless her! that would have given her a pang: but had he gone away, in a little time she would have forgotten him. But now, there could be no forgetting—now there was no going back—and she herself would insist upon the consummation of this sacrifice, upon giving him the solace of her sweet companionship, making him happy, making herself a servant, enduring toil, and privation, and care for his sake. For the curate knew that, whatever any one might say, it was the woman that had the worst of it. He would have to submit that she should be his servant, executing even menial offices, with those hands which he might kiss and reverence, but whose work he could not do. The woman had the worst of it: and he knew so many cases,—some where she had sunk altogether into a half cook, half nurse—a careworn creature spoiled with toil; and some in which she had developed into a patient angel, sacred and consecrated in her labours and sufferings. Mary would be that, the lover thought; and yet, who could tell that she would be that? and who could dare to open to a woman’s feet that path of tears and bid her tread it, whatever might await her at the end? He went home to his lodgings with his heart bleeding, although his brain was giddy with happiness, and with the desire to believe that in his case there might be a difference, and that, for once, for once, all precedents notwithstanding, things might go well.

As for Mary, there never was a lighter heart than that with which she ran up the avenue, in too great a flutter and ferment to walk steadily, too happy to keep still. She felt as if she had wings, as if she trod upon air, and burst out singing, as she ran along under the trees, from pure joy. She had got her little promotion, the only promotion of which her life was capable. She had got her own world, her own life, her own share of the universe of God. To be sure she had been happy enough all her life, but how colourless that life looked amid the light and sunshine that streamed upon this! “Only Mary” in a house full of people was more important, and Mrs. Asquith in her own house, the dispenser of happiness, the little monarch of all she surveyed! What a difference! What a difference! These were the secondary matters, the first beyond all comparison being him, the man out of all the world whom God had chosen for Mary. It seemed to her that a whole long chain of special providences had brought them together. That he should have come here, of all places in the world—he for whom every parish in England would have competed had they but known. That he should have come to the Hall, and yet not fallen in with the ways of the Hall, or fallen in love with Anna or Sophie, which would have been so much more likely. That he should have met her, and liked her, Mary, the little one who was of no account, best! Could such things have happened had not the heavens specially interested themselves, and taken unusual trouble to bring it all about? Even the meeting this morning was providential, for she was to have gone off on a visit the very next day, and in the meantime a hundred things might have happened to close his mouth. And to think that he should have been so frightened to speak. Oh, how foolish men were sometimes, though they were also so clever! What great prospects did he suppose she could have to make him not good enough for her? Not good enough for her! It was almost with a little shriek of happiness, and scorn, and admiration that Mary commented to herself upon his intentions and his self-reproaches. The foolish fellow! the darling! the noble, humble, good!—everybody but himself knowing how much too good for her he was.