Mrs. Woodley, like all selfishly affectionate mothers, had long dreaded the time when her influence over Hubert would be superseded by that of a wife. Unwilling to have him leave her for another home, she was quite as unwilling to resign her authority, and sink into merely the dowager dignity of “old Mrs. Woodley,” yet her good sense told that she could scarcely hope to retain the sceptre of power for many years longer. Nothing could have happened so effectually to disappoint her fears and brighten her hopes, as this dawning affection of Hubert for his “little cousin,” as he still called her. With a daughter-in-law so thoroughly trained to submission, so docile, so perfectly good-tempered, so exactly moulded after Mrs. Woodley’s own model, she could have nothing to fear either for herself or for Hubert. As for Mr. Woodley he had become really attached to the quiet girl who aired his shirts, mended his stockings, brought him his slippers, and always made his second cup of tea quite as good as the first. He wanted Hubert to marry and settle down to business, but he hated change of all sorts, and if Minnie became Hubert’s wife the whole affair could be settled without either expense or trouble; therefore, after talking the matter over with his good lady, it was decided that nothing could have turned out better for all parties.
Minnie was the only one who was ignorant of these new plans and projects. From the time when Hubert had entered her sick-room, and uttered his kindly greeting at the moment when she felt herself the most desolate of human beings, she had regarded him as something more than mere mortal. But when he returned from Europe, so much improved in person, so polished by society, and with a mind enlarged by travel, she looked upon him almost with awe as well as admiration. Unaccustomed as she was to kindness or appreciation, it is not strange that she should have been entirely unaware of Hubert’s growing attachment to her. She felt that the atmosphere of her home had become a more congenial one—she was conscious that every thing had grown brighter even to her sad and serious eyes, since he had taken up his abode among them, but she did not dream of the individual influences which were about to waken her to a new perception of life and its enjoyments.
But the chief defect in Hubert’s early character was indecision. He loved his cousin Minnie, but, somehow or other, he hated to put it out of his power to change if he pleased. He wanted to be unshackled by any bond except his own inclinations, and feeling very sure that no rivals could ever interfere with his plans, he made no open avowal of his love for the present. He devoted himself to business with an ardor that showed he had at last found his true bent, and that money was actually the true aim of his ambition. He lived a lonely retired sort of life, being only one of the “singles” in a large private boarding-house, and as he never gave suppers, or went to parties, not even the servants were interested in him. Once a month the stage set him down within a quarter of a mile of his father’s door, and then he found himself in the enjoyment of all the attentions that could be lavished upon him for the few days of his stay. To say that he beguiled the time during his visits by making love to his cousin, would be hardly fair, but he certainly said and did things which a woman of the world, without any great stretch of vanity might have understood as love-making.
Thus passed on month after month, and Minnie was unconsciously drinking deep from that fountain of freshness which had so lately sprung up in her lonely path, while Hubert lived in the full enjoyment of all that sweet unconsciousness, which lent such a charm to her manners, such new loveliness to her gentle face. It was not until more than two years had passed that, in an unguarded moment, he was led into such a warm expression of his feelings as to require some decided explanation. He then spoke out plainly and manfully, avowed his love and asked Minnie to become his wife. Terrified at the excess of her own emotions, shocked at her own apparent ingratitude toward her benefactors in being thus made happy by what she could not hope they would approve, Minnie could only weep. But when Hubert assured her that his parents would willingly receive her as a daughter, she gave her whole soul up to the enjoyment of such unlooked for bliss. Yet, even in that moment of full unrestrained affection, why did Hubert counsel silence for the present, and secrecy until he should fix the moment for frank disclosure?
Convinced that matters were going on as they wished, the old people asked no questions. Perhaps Mrs. Woodley was not sorry to defer the period which would elevate Minnie from the humble position of a poor relation into the condition of an equal, so Hubert was allowed to manage matters in his own way, and a stranger would have seen nothing in the manner of the quiet family which portended any change among them. Indeed to no one but Minnie herself had this new state of affairs made any difference. To her, the sad and lonely and unloved orphan, the consciousness of being at last beloved for her own sake, lent a charm to every thing in life. But her heart had been too early crushed to regain the elasticity and buoyancy which ought to have belonged to her youth. She was happy, deeply, entirely happy, but no one could have suspected the fervid thankfulness of her prayerful happiness, beneath the quiet demeanor which had now become so habitual to her. It was when alone, in the solitude of her own chamber, that she gave way to the emotions which almost overpowered her. It was on her knees that she poured out the fullness of her joy to Heaven—it was only for the eye of her Heavenly Father to see the swelling surges of that sea of happy emotion, which she was too timid, too self-distrustful to exhibit to her lover.
Perhaps there are no people so completely enslaved by habit as those who are only moved by impulse. Persons who have fixed principles of action govern their lives by those principles, and habits are only the secondary forms which those motives assume. But when a man is thoroughly impulsive, and only to be stirred through some strong emotion, a large part of his life must be controlled through the unconscious agency of circumstance and habit, unless, indeed, he should be one of those human volcanoes, occasionally to be met with, who are never in repose except the moment after an explosion. Hubert Woodley was a perfect exemplification of the apparently anomalous fact that a man may have noble and generous impulses yet be involved in a net-work of selfish habits. The selfishness which he had inherited from both parents was overlaid by so much that seemed good and beautiful in his nature, that its existence was utterly unsuspected by every one, and certainly unknown to himself. Yet it was this very quality which had made him ambitious at first of the renown of the scholar, and afterward of the fame of the painter, and now actuated him to seek after great wealth. Self was the soil in which every thing grew, even the herbs of grace, which embellished and concealed the base source from whence they sprung.
Hubert loved Minnie as well as he could love any one beside himself, but he knew nothing of that affection which makes self a forgotten idea, and concentrates the whole being upon another. His love had been a fancy growing out of the novelty of finding so sweet a flower in such an ungenial spot. Then the desire of approbation, which had always been a latent propensity with him, stimulated him to make love to her. The vague stirrings of passion, the necessity of some habitual stimulus to make home endurable, and the cravings of an unoccupied heart made up the rest of those mixed motives which led him first to stir the quiet depths of Minnie’s half-frozen soul. He enjoyed the excitement of her feelings, just as one might enjoy their first glass of champagne. His brain was not in the least bewildered, but the effervescence gave him a new and pleasurable sensation. He liked to hear the hurrying of her quiet footsteps as she came forward to meet him at the door; he loved to see the flitting blush come over her pale face when he took her hand in his; and it was with a sort of epicurean pleasure he felt the trembling of her shrinking frame as with an excess of maiden reserve she would glide from his encircling arm in some moment of endearment.
But never once did Hubert reflect on the rights which all these things were gradually giving her over him. Never did he consider that those quiet depths of affection which but for him would have been sealed forever, were now destined to become a fountain of sweetness, or a pool of bitter waters, according as he directed their flow.
Months had now become years, and yet the relations between the cousins remained unchanged. Living amid all the gentle ministry of affection, Hubert scarcely felt the want of any thing beyond what he had already won. Minnie was tender, gentle and affectionate, ever meeting him with a smile of welcome, ever studying all his humors, never thwarting his moods, never exacting any return except such as his own whim might dictate; content if he was cold and absorbed, grateful and happy if he was affectionate in his manner; and Hubert certainly enjoyed some of the pleasantest privileges of married life, without any of its attendant evils, and therefore he was content to go on year after year, heaping up money, of which he had become exceedingly careful, and growing richer every day, while his marriage seemed just as much hidden in the mists of the distant future as it had been years before.
But changes will occur in human life, not withstanding all our efforts to prevent them. The Woodleys had a sort of morbid dread of a wedding, but they did not seem to remember that there might be such a thing as a funeral to alter the aspect of affairs, until one fine morning, just as Mrs. Woodley had succeeded in turning the whole house out of the windows, preparatory to what she called her “spring cleaning,” she was struck with apoplexy, and died in a few hours. The shock was a terrible one to the family, and in addition to the grief of such a loss, the fearful quiet of the house, now that the voice of the restless mistress was silenced forever, pressed with overpowering weight upon the spirits of the survivors. But there was little of the sentiment of affection to embalm the memory of the dead. Mrs. Woodley was buried, and under the direction of Minnie the house cleaning was completed, after which matters seemed to resume their old course. Mr. Woodley said something to Hubert about “settling himself,” and giving the house a mistress, now that his poor mother was gone. But Hubert looked down at his deep mourning dress, and seemed shocked at his father’s irreverent haste in suggesting such ideas, at such a moment. So nothing more was said on the subject.