Ovington's Bank

by Stanley John Weyman

“How we met? I know. And how we loved? Yes, I am afraid so. And he will be angry with you, and you will suffer, and I shall be God knows how wretched! But if I do not go to him, how much more angry will he be! And how much more ground for anger will he have! If we continue to meet it cannot be long kept from him, and then how much worse will it be! And I, with not a word to say for myself, with no defence, no plea! I, who shall not then seem to him to be even a man.”

“But he is so—so hard!” she whispered, her face still hidden.

“I know, dear. And so firmly set in his prejudice and his pride. I know. He will think me so far below you; he hates the bank and all connected with it. He holds me a mere clerk, not one of his class, and low, dear, I know it. But”—his voice rose a tone—“I am not low, Jos, and you have discovered it. And now I must prove it to him. I must prove it. And to make a beginning, I must be no coward. I must not be afraid of him. For you, the times are past when he could ill-treat you. And he loves you.”

“He is very hard,” she murmured. It was his punishment throughout, that though his heart was wrung for her he could not bear her share of the suffering. But he dared not and he would not give way. “He will make me give you up.”

He had thought of that and was ready for it. “That must depend upon you,” he said very soberly. “For my part, dear—but my part is easy—I shall never give you up. Never! But if the trial be too sore for you who must bear the heavier burden, if you feel that our love is not worth the price you must pay, then I will never reproach you, Jos, never. If you decide on that I will not say one word against it; no, nor think one harsh thought of you. And then we need not tell him. But we must not meet again.”

She trembled; and it was natural, it was very natural, that she should tremble. It was an age when discipline was strict and even harsh, and she had been bred up in awe of her father, and in that absolute subjection to him of which the women about her set the example. Children were then to be seen and not heard. Girls were expected to have neither wills nor views of their own. And in her case this was not all. The Squire was a hard man. He was a man of whom those about him stood in awe, and who if he had any of the softer affections hid them under a mask of unpleasing reserve. Proud as he was of his caste, he kept his daughter short of money and short of clothes. He saw her go shabby without a qualm, and penniless, and rejoiced that she could not get into mischief. If she lost a shilling on an errand or overpaid a bill, he stormed and raved at her. Had she run up a debt he would have driven her from the room with oaths. So that if, under the dry husk, there was any kernel, any softer feeling—either for her or for the young boy who had died in his first uniform at Alexandria—she had no clue to the fact, and certainly no suspicion of it.

Nor was even this the whole. One thing was known to Josina which was not known to Clement. Garth was entailed upon her. Even the Squire could not deprive her of the estate, and in the character of his heir she wore for the old man a preciousness with which affection had nothing to do. What he might have permitted to his daughter was matter for grim conjecture. But that he would ever let his heiress, her whose hand was weighted with the rents of Garth, and with the wide lands he loved—that he would ever let her wed at her pleasure or out of her class—this appeared to Josina of all things the most unlikely.

It was no wonder then that the girl hesitated before she answered, or that Clement’s face grew grave, his heart heavy, as he waited. But he had that insight into the feelings of others which imagination alone can give, and while she wavered or seemed to waver, he felt none of the resentment which comes of wounded love. Rather he was filled with a great pity for her, a deep tenderness. For it was he who was in fault, he told himself. It was he who had made the overtures, he who had wooed and won her fancy, he who had done this. It was his selfishness, his thoughtlessness, his imprudence which had brought them to this pass, a pass whence they could neither advance without suffering nor draw back with honor. So that if she who must encounter a father’s anger proved unequal to the test, if the love, which he did not doubt, was still too weak to face the ordeal, it did not lie with him to blame her—even on this day when bird and flower and leaf sang love’s pæan. No, perish the thought! He would never blame her. With infinite tenderness, forgiving her beforehand, he touched her bowed head.

At that, at that touch, she looked up at last, and with a leap of the heart he read her answer in her eyes. He read there a love and a courage equal to his own; for, after all, she was her father’s daughter, she too came of an old proud race. “You shall tell him,” she said, smiling through her tears. “And I will bear what comes of it. But they shall never separate us, Clem, never, never, if you will be true to me.”

“True to you!” he cried, worshipping her, adoring her. “Oh, Jos!”