‘And is that how you mean to leave him,’ said I severely, ‘after all the encouragement you have given him? Every day, for a month past, I have expected to hear you say that you had made a mistake about Captain Llewellyn, and that it was the Major you liked best.’
‘Oh, fancy me doing such a thing!’ cried Martha, really roused, ‘after being engaged to Ellis a whole year. If he had come forward at the proper time perhaps—— But to make a change when everything was settled! You never could have believed it of me!’
‘If you like the other better, it is never too late to make a change,’ said I, carried away by my motive, which was good, and justified a little stretch of ethics. ‘You will be doing a dreadful injury to poor Captain Llewellyn if you marry him and like another man best.’
Martha looked at me with a little simper of self-satisfaction. ‘I think I know my duty,’ she said. ‘I am engaged. I don’t see that anything else is of any consequence. Of course the gentleman I am engaged to is the one I shall like best.’
‘Do you mean that you are engaged to him because you like him best?’ said I. ‘Martha, take care. You may be preparing great bitterness for yourself. I have no motive but your good.’ This was not true, but still it is a thing that everybody says; and I was so much excited that I had to stop to take breath. ‘You may never have it in your power to make a choice again,’ I said with solemnity. ‘You ought to pause and think seriously which of the two you love. You cannot love them both. It is the most serious question you will ever have to settle in your life.’
Martha looked at me with a calm surprise which drove me wild. ‘Dear Mrs. Mulgrave,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what you mean. I am engaged to Ellis—and Major Frost has never proposed even. He may have been only flirting, for anything I can tell; and how foolish it would be to give up the one without any real hold on the other! but of course it is nonsense altogether. Why, Ellis is coming back on purpose; and as Major Frost did not come forward in time, I don’t see how he can complain.’
All this she said with the most perfect placidity, sitting opposite the window, lifting her serene countenance to the light. It was a practical concern to Martha. It did not so much matter which it was; but to interfere with a thing fully arranged and settled, because of any mere question of liking! I was not by a very long way so cool as she was. Everything seemed to me to depend upon this last throw, and I felt myself suddenly bold to put it to the touch. It was not my business, to be sure; but to think of those two young creatures torn asunder and made miserable! It was not even Nelly I was thinking of. Nelly would be free; she was young; she would not have her heartbreak always kept before her, and time would heal her wounds. But poor Llewellyn was bound and fettered. He could not escape nor forget. It was for him I made my last attempt.
‘Martha, I have something still more serious to say to you,’ I said. ‘Do you remember, when you told me of Captain Llewellyn’s proposal first, I asked you if it was not a mistake?’
‘Yes, I remember very well,’ said Martha. ‘It was just like you. I never knew any one who asked such odd questions. I should have been angry had it been any one but you.’
‘Perhaps you will be angry now,’ I said. ‘I know you will be vexed, but I can’t help it. Oh, my dear, you must listen to me! It is not only your happiness that is concerned, but that of others. Martha, I have every reason to think that it was a mistake. Don’t smile; I am in earnest. It was a mistake. Can’t you see yourself how little heart he puts into it? Martha, my dear, it is no slight to you. You told me you had never thought of him before he wrote to you. And it was not you he meant to write to. What can I say to convince you? It is true; it is not merely my idea. It was all a mistake.’