Sons and Daughters

by Mrs. Oliphant

“Surely Madeline is right, sir,” said Gervase; “you are her father, and my friend, since ever I remember anything. If I were in any difficulty, unconnected with her, to whom should I go for advice but to you?”

“By—George!” cried the bewildered father, “you came to me for advice once, or at least I thrust my advice upon you, and a great deal of attention you paid to it! Had you taken my advice then, you would have been in a better position now.”

“Papa, you know the trouble he was in then, half mad with all the strangeness of misfortune. Gervase, let me speak! There is advice that is impossible; if you tell us to separate, to give each other up—I speak for myself—that is impossible. Advise us how we are to live, how it is to be done. I will never believe,” cried Madeline, with tears in her eyes, keeping back her lover with the pressure of her imperative hand, “that you are not our best and only friend. Tell us how to do it, and not merely that we are not to do it; any stranger could do that. But you are our best and only friend——”

This is not the usual kind of appeal to an obdurate father; but obdurate fathers are not consistent perhaps with daughters who have counted all the costs, and in the last resort are aware that they themselves are free agents, not bound more than reason and affection dictate. Mr Thursley made still a faint attempt to brave it out, to adopt the tone of centuries past, to denounce the youth and threaten the girl; but it was only a faint attempt. The look which Madeline fixed upon him, regretful not for herself but for him, grieved by the violence which, her serious eyes said, diminished her respect for her father, without disturbing her resolution, was too much for Mr Thursley. And he knew very well, to begin with, that some mode of arranging matters must be found; that no violence on his part could induce his daughter to abandon her purpose, which takes the heart out of resistance. He came at last to the terms, which he had vaguely settled in his own mind from the beginning, which were that Gervase should enter his own office, and work there, abandoning all his follies, and betaking himself to a business life. This was his ultimatum. “It is of no use telling me,” he said, “that you have no turn for business, for nobody could have managed better with that West Indian affair; and let me tell you, my boy, there is no character in the world more honourable than that of an English merchant—whatever false ideas you may have got into your head.”

“I think so too, Gervase,” said Madeline in a whisper, with once more a pressure of his hand.

“I will make one concession,” said the triumphant father, now feeling that the positions were reversed, and that he had attained his fit supremacy. “If you should find yourself in a position to settle £10,000 on Madeline, I will withdraw my opposition; if not, the office and a wife, or your freedom without her. That’s my last word—and I don’t think one father in a hundred would say as much. It is to take or to leave.”

Gervase went home to his empty echoing house with the subdued sensations of a struggle past. It was past, and his fate decided—a thing in which there is always a certain solace after a conflict. No need to enter into all the vicissitudes of argument again; no need for any more pros and cons. To take or to leave. To have Madeline with her father’s consent, and without any painful breach of the enthralling customs and traditions of life, or to drag her through all the harassing contradictions and trials of rebellion—to fret her mind with opposition to all the rules of established life. Gervase concluded with himself that it was now his certain duty to give up all those, perhaps fantastical, objections—that reluctance and rebellion which had already cost him so much. It was no longer even possible to fight. He had renounced that tenor of life which ought to have been second nature to a merchant’s son—almost arrogantly, imperatively, hearing no reason when his father had suggested it; now he could not even struggle against a necessity which involved Madeline as well as himself. The house sounded very empty as he came into it. There was an echo through and through it of the clanging of the door. He went into the library, in which he had held that last conference with his father, and sat down, sadly thinking of all that had come and gone. Had he yielded then, how different all might have been!—the house of Burton still intact; the old traditions unbroken; his father a man prosperous and respected; himself independent of all such remark as that which would now, he was painfully aware, be made everywhere. A man with nothing marrying a girl with a large fortune. When the wealth is on the other side there are no such remarks. But the moment that the woman has wealth, interest and not love is supposed to be the motive on the man’s side. How unjust, how miserable, how horrible! But however his heart might rebel against this cruel judgment, it would be made, he knew, and he would have to bear it.

If he had only done this thing which he must now do—from which there was no escape—a year ago!—if he had but consented, and pleased his father and satisfied those calls of nature and birth which, after all, it would appear no man could escape! His own father was more to him than Madeline’s, though Madeline was more than all the world. Had he but insisted more strongly, been more urgent, commanded even! Gervase sat with his head in his hands, and thought. But he knew, at the same time, that however much his father had commanded, he would not have obeyed. He would have had no faith in these paternal commands. He would have been sure, as Madeline had been, that in the end his own will would carry the day. As Madeline had been: yet Madeline had not stood out against this compromise; even her sympathy had deserted him at the last. It was by her ordinance, as well as her father’s, that his will was to be subjugated—at the last.

Gervase had many renewed impulses of rebellion as he waked and watched during that long night. He was tempted to go away to the end of the world, to disappear into the darkness, and leave them—to repent, perhaps, of their attempted coercion. He had moments of resolution to withstand all compromise, to refuse the expedient held out to him, to maintain his own way—followed by sinkings of heart and courage, by questionings with himself who was he that self-sacrifice should be demanded from every one but him? Self-sacrifice for Madeline—that was a very different thing, after all, from yielding up his own enlightened will to the obstinate insistence of his father—or of her father. A man may stand against every other claim upon him, but to prefer his own will to the woman he loves—to sacrifice her rather than do something he did not like—was very different. For her he had vowed to do everything that man could do—to die for her, to live for her, to think of nothing in comparison with her happiness. And this that was required of him was clearly for her happiness. If to release her from himself would make her happy, then it would be time for him to disappear, to go away, and leave no trace, as his father had done; but that would make her miserable. It was Madeline that had to be considered, not himself or his pride, or his preference of one kind of work to another. The young man walked about the lonely library half the night fighting with himself. He had refused his father there—the father of whom he scarcely knew how to think, whether to pity or to blame, whether to approve or censure; but who had now passed away from his horizon, leaving nothing but Madeline,—no other influence, no other hope. Madeline was all he had in the world—no family, no sympathy, no home but her. What could the answer be when the question was to sacrifice her—or himself?

Next morning he saw her, very sweet and anxious, wistfully interrogating his looks. “Nothing will make you like it, Gervase?” “No,” he said, “nothing. It is hateful always. I cannot change in my conviction; but I will do it, and make the best of it—for you, Madeline.” She asked him again before he left her, after they had talked and talked for hours. “Don’t you think, as you get used to it, you will like it better, Gervase?” “I don’t think I shall ever do anything but hate it; but never mind. I shall grumble at nothing when I have you.” She looked after him with a curious light in her eyes as he went away. She was thinking very likely what she would do were she in his place. How little she would mind! how she would conquer any antipathy she had and put it under her feet, and scorn to confess it! Women have such sentiments often, thinking how differently they would conduct themselves were they men. But then the things that are required of men are not often required of women. And Madeline reminded herself that she had no antipathy to overcome. She watched him, herself hidden among the curtains, as he went along the street, without any of the old spring and elasticity in his step. Poor Gervase! he had never known any trouble till now; but now it had come in a flood, and it was no wonder he was broken down. He was not perhaps the strongest of men by nature; but he was Gervase, which said all—and there was no other in the world.