The Two Marys

by Mrs. Oliphant

“Geoff is thinking of nothing of the kind, Anna. Geoff—has his heart entirely in his home. He is just as simple-minded and as—pure-hearted as when he was a boy.”

“Dear me!” said Miss Anna, “I thought it was the height of purity and simplicity to marry early; I have always been told so. Some French young men, who you know are the types of everything that is improper, can’t be got to marry. But Geoff, being the best of good boys, of course will want to marry as soon as possible; and here is a capital chance for him. That was my plan, Mary—if the worst comes to the worst. If you have a better, of course I have nothing to say.”

Mrs Underwood sat all limp and downfallen, every line of her showing the droop of dismay and depression which her sister’s words, spoken in mere mischief—for the idea of Milly, though it had glanced across her mind, had gone no farther—had produced. “I——” she faltered, “Anna—I have got no plan. How should I have any plan? If they have a right to—the money, we shall have to give it up to them. And we will have to give up our pretty house, and live in—the poorest way. He says, Never mind, dear boy. He will work for us, he will never forsake us, Anna! Now you will see what my Geoff is made of. He has the best heart; but it will be a dreadful change, a dreadful change for him—he that has been used to have everything he wanted all his life.”

“And you will rather let him fall into poverty, and be compelled to work, and have us two old women hanging upon him and cramping him—than save his share of the money for him and get him a nice young wife? That’s what mothers are! I have always said, when they made such a fuss about their children, it was themselves they were thinking of. Now, what concerns me,” said Miss Anna with only the malicious gleam in her eyes to contradict her dignified assumption of superior virtue, “what concerns me is Geoff’s real advantage, not the selfish wish of keeping him for ever at my side.”

Mrs Underwood’s countenance fell more and more. She looked haggard in the sudden severity of the conflict set up within her. “I—thinking of myself?” she said, almost weeping. But the accusation was too terrible to be met with mere tears, which are fit only for lesser matters. She gazed at her sister with large round eyes full of wretchedness. No crime in the world was so dreadful to her as this of thinking of one’s self; it is the thing of all others which cuts a virtuous Englishwoman to the heart. “For Geoff’s good, you know, you know, Anna,” she cried, “I would submit to anything. I would go to the stake; I would give myself to be cut in pieces.”

“Nobody is the least likely to cut you in pieces, my dear,” said Miss Anna coolly. “The stake is not an English institution. It is easy to promise things that never will be asked from you. The question is, will you let Geoff be happy, poor boy, in his own way?”

“Happy!” the poor lady cried in a lamentable voice; but then her voice failed her, though a dozen questions rose and fluttered through her mind. Could Geoff be happy in abandoning his mother? Would he give her up for a bit of a girl who never could love him half so well? Was it possible that there was anything wanting to his happiness now, watched over and cared for as he was? She sat gazing aghast into the vacant air before her, suddenly brought face to face with a question which was far more serious even than the loss of the money. If the money was to be lost, Mrs Underwood felt in herself the power of enduring everything. To be housemaid and valet to Geoff would be, in its way, a kind of blessedness; it would knit the domestic ties closer. She would have more of her boy if they lived in a smaller space, in a poorer way; and with that happiness before her, what did she care for poverty? But her sister’s suggestion brought in an entirely different circle of ideas. She saw herself dropping apart from Geoff’s life altogether. He, happy with his young wife: she, set aside from his existence: and she looked at that visionary picture aghast. To be cut in pieces was one thing, to stand aside and let him go away from her was another. Was it all selfishness, as Anna said?

“I see I have startled you,” said Miss Anna; “but it is too late for anything now; that eldest girl is not to be taken in. She will fight it out; she will drag us through the mire. Never mind, it was Geoff’s fault, and Geoff will have to bear the brunt. But you will be able to keep him to yourself, and that will be a consolation,” she added with a sneer. “Never mind what he has to put up with as long as you can keep him to yourself: that is everything to you, I know. And there’s the dressing bell, Mary. We must have our dinner, whatever happens,” Miss Anna said.

But Mrs Underwood, poor lady, did not have much dinner that day. She came down to the meal in her pretty cap, but it was a haggard countenance that showed beneath the lace. She could not talk nor eat, but sat mute at the head of the table choked with natural tears. To Geoffrey, who had come in hungry and full of thought from his wet walk, there seemed nothing wonderful in his mother’s woebegone condition; it chimed in with the tone of his own thoughts. To some certain extent she would feel for him, she would sympathise with him, though even she could never know the whole extent of the sacrifice he would be called upon to make. The dinner was a very silent one. Miss Anna tried a few sallies of her malicious observation, but in vain. The others were too much depressed to take any notice, even to resent them. The old butler made his solemn rounds about the table with a gradual increase of curiosity at every step. Whatever was the matter? the worthy servant asked himself. He was a north-countryman, and knew a little about the family history; but an unfortunate chance had taken him out at the moment when the strange visitor arrived who had caused so much commotion in the house a fortnight since. The twilight hour, when it was too late for visitors (as he chose to think) was Simmons’ hour for taking a little walk, sometimes to the post, sometimes to the fishmonger’s, who had a way of forgetting. He had missed the young ladies too, of whom the housemaid had told such stories downstairs. But he saw there was “summat up,” and he bent the whole powers of his mind, as was to be expected, to make out what it was. When Miss Anna’s speeches met with no response she turned to Simmons, as she had a habit of doing when she was in want of amusement. “Did you hear any news when you were out for your walk?” she said. “If it were not for Simmons I should know nothing about my fellow-creatures. You never bring in a word of gossip from year’s end to year’s end, Geoff; and what is the use of a man with a club to go to every day if he never brings one any news? Simmons, you are a person with a better sense of your responsibilities. Tell me something that is going on outside. What’s the last news in Grove Road?”

“There is no news, Miss Anna, as I am aware of,” said Simmons, coughing a little behind his hand by way of prelude. “There is nothink that is of any consequence;” and then he began to tell of the gentleman at No. 5, whose conduct troubled the entire neighbourhood. Miss Anna had an eager interest in everything that was going on. She asked about the gentleman at No. 5 as if she had no greater interest in life. Her beautiful eyes sparkled and shone with eagerness. All the details about him were acceptable to her. A spectator would have vowed that she never had known a personal anxiety in her life.