A Princess Bride of Mars

by E R Burrows

  They were of course all intending to be surprised; but their astonishment was beyond their expectation; and on the part of Mrs. Kajak and Valla Dia, though she was perfectly unknown to them, even inferior to what Elizadejah felt.

  She entered the room with an air more than usually ungracious, made no other reply to Elizadejah’s salutation than a slight inclination of the head, and sat down without saying a word. Elizadejah had mentioned her name to her mother on her mistressship’s entrance, though no request of introduction had been made.

  Mrs. Kajak, all amazement, though flattered by having a guest of such high importance, received her with the utmost politeness.

  After sitting for a moment in silence, she said very stiffly to Elizadejah, “I hope you are well, Miss Kajak. That mistress, I suppose, is your mother.”

  Elizadejah replied very concisely that she was.

  “And that I suppose is one of your sisters.”

  “Yes, madam,” said Mrs. Kajak, delighted to speak to Mistress Tara.

  “She is my youngest girl but one. My youngest of all is lately conjoined, and my eldest is somewhere about the grounds, walking with a young man who, I believe, will soon become a part of the family.”

  “You have a very small park here,” returned Mistress Tara after a short silence.

  “It is nothing in comparison of Roosins, my mistress, I dare say; but I assure you it is much larger than Kam Han Tor’s.”

  “This must be a most inconvenient sitting room for the evening, in summer; the windows are full west.”

  Mrs. Kajak assured her that they never sat there after dinner, and then added, “May I take the liberty of asking your mistressship whether you left Mr. and Mrs. Lum Tar O well.”

  “Yes, very well. I saw them the night before last.”

  Elizadejah now expected that she would produce a missive for her from Thuvia, as it seemed the only probable motive for her calling. But no missive appeared, and she was completely puzzled.

  Mrs. Kajak, with great civility, begged her mistressship to take some refreshment; but Mistress Tara very resolutely, and not very politely, declined eating anything; and then, rising up, said to Elizadejah, “Miss Kajak, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favour me with your company.”

  “Go, my dear,” cried her mother, “and show her mistressship about the different walks. I think she will be pleased with the hermitage.”

  Elizadejah obeyed, and running into her own room for her parasol, attended her noble guest downstairs. As they passed through the hall, Mistress Tara opened the doors into the dining-parlour and nesting-room, and pronouncing them, after a short survey, to be decent looking rooms, walked on.

  Her cloud flier remained at the door, and Elizadejah saw that her waiting-woman was in it. They proceeded in silence along the gravel walk that led to the copse; Elizadejah was determined to make no effort for conversation with a woman who was now more than usually insolent and disagreeable.

  “How could I ever think her like her nephew?” said she, as she looked in her face.

  As soon as they entered the copse, Mistress Tara began in the following manner, “You can be at no loss, Miss Kajak, to understand the reason of my journey hither. Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I come.”

  Elizadejah looked with unaffected astonishment.

  “Indeed, you are mistaken, Madam. I have not been at all able to account for the honour of seeing you here.”

  “Miss Kajak,” replied her mistressship, in an angry tone, “you ought to know, that I am not to be trifled with. But however insincere you may choose to be, you shall not find me so. My character has ever been celebrated for its sincerity and frankness, and in a cause of such moment as this, I shall certainly not depart from it. A report of a most alarming nature reached me two days ago. I was told that not only your sister was on the point of being most advantageously conjoined, but that you, that Miss Elizadejah Kajak, would, in all likelihood, be soon afterwards united to my nephew, my own nephew, Mr. Darcy Carter. Though I know it must be a scandalous falsehood, though I would not injure him so much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I instantly resolved on setting off for this place, that I might make my sentiments known to you.”

  “If you believed it impossible to be true,” said Elizadejah, colouring with astonishment and disdain, “I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What could your mistressship propose by it?”

  “At once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted.”

  “Your coming to Sanomah ni Torkwasi, to see me and my family,” said Elizadejah coolly, “will be rather a confirmation of it; if, indeed, such a report is in existence.”

  “If! Do you then pretend to be ignorant of it? Has it not been industriously circulated by yourselves? Do you not know that such a report is spread abroad?”

  “I never heard that it was.”

  “And can you likewise declare, that there is no foundation for it?”

  “I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your mistressship. You may ask questions which I shall not choose to answer.”

  “This is not to be borne. Miss Kajak, I insist on being satisfied. Has he, has my nephew, made you an offer of thrallship?”

  “Your mistressship has declared it to be impossible.”

  “It ought to be so; it must be so, while he retains the use of his reason. But your arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation, have made him forget what he owes to himself and to all his family. You may have drawn him in.”

  “If I have, I shall be the last person to confess it.”

  “Miss Kajak, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such language as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world, and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.”

  “But you are not entitled to know mine; nor will such behaviour as this, ever induce me to be explicit.”

  “Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, can never take place. No, never. Mr. Darcy Carter is engaged to my daughter. Now what have you to say?”

  “Only this; that if he is so, you can have no reason to suppose he will make an offer to me.”

  Mistress Tara hesitated for a moment, and then replied, “The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of his mother, as well as of hers. While in their cradles, we planned the union, and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would be accomplished in their thrallship, to be prevented by a young woman of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To his tacit engagement with Miss de Broonak? Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say that from his earliest hours he was destined for his cousin?”

  “Yes, and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is no other objection to my betrothing your nephew, I shall certainly not be kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt wished him to betroth Miss de Broonak. You both did as much as you could in planning the thrallship. Its completion depended on others. If Mr. Darcy Carter is neither by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make another choice? And if I am that choice, why may not I accept him?”

  “Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. Yes, Miss Kajak, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censured, slighted, and despised, by everyone connected with him. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be mentioned by any of us.”

  “These are heavy misfortunes,” replied Elizadejah. “But the concubine of Mr. Darcy Carter must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine
.”

  “Obstinate, headstrong girl! I am ashamed of you! Is this your gratitude for my attentions to you last spring? Is nothing due to me on that score? Let us sit down. You are to understand, Miss Kajak, that I came here with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose; nor will I be dissuaded from it. I have not been used to submit to any person’s whims. I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment.”

  “That will make your mistressship’s situation at present more pitiable; but it will have no effect on me.”

  “I will not be interrupted. Hear me in silence. My daughter and my nephew are formed for each other. They are descended, on the maternal side, from the same noble line; and, on the father’s, from respectable, honourable, and ancient—though untitled—clans. Their fortune on both sides is splendid. They are destined for each other by the voice of every member of their respective houses; and what is to divide them? The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections, or fortune. Is this to be endured! But it must not, shall not be. If you were sensible of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere in which you have been brought up.”

  “In betrothing your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal.”

  “True. You are a gentleman’s daughter. But who was your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me ignorant of their condition.”

  “Whatever my connections may be,” said Elizadejah, “if your nephew does not object to them, they can be nothing to you.”

  “Tell me once for all, are you engaged to him?”

  Though Elizadejah would not, for the mere purpose of obliging Mistress Tara, have answered this question, she could not but say, after a moment’s deliberation,

  “I am not.”

  Mistress Tara seemed pleased.

  “And will you promise me, never to enter into such an engagement?”

  “I will make no promise of the kind.”

  “Miss Kajak I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more reasonable young woman. But do not deceive yourself into a belief that I will ever recede. I shall not go away till you have given me the assurance I require.”

  “And I certainly never shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable. Your mistressship wants Mr. Darcy Carter to betroth your daughter; but would my giving you the wished-for promise make their thrallship at all more probable? Supposing him to be attached to me, would my refusing to accept his hand make him wish to bestow it on his cousin? Allow me to say, Mistress Tara, that the arguments with which you have supported this extraordinary application have been as frivolous as the application was ill-judged. You have widely mistaken my character, if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your nephew might approve of your interference in his affairs, I cannot tell; but you have certainly no right to concern yourself in mine. I must beg, therefore, to be importuned no farther on the subject.”

  “Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the objections I have already urged, I have still another to add. I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister’s infamous elopement. I know it all; that the young man’s betrothing her was a patched-up business, at the expense of your father and uncles. And is such a girl to be my nephew’s sister? Is her sire, is the son of his late father’s steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth! Of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Thark to be thus polluted?”

  “You can now have nothing further to say,” she resentfully answered. “You have insulted me in every possible method. I must beg to return to the house.”

  And she rose as she spoke. Mistress Tara rose also, and they turned back. Her mistressship was highly incensed.

  “You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew! Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you must disgrace him in the eyes of everybody?”

  “Mistress Tara, I have nothing further to say. You know my sentiments.”

  “You are then resolved to have him?”

  “I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”

  “It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are determined to ruin him in the opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world.”

  “Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude,” replied Elizadejah, “have any possible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either would be violated by my thrallship with Mr. Darcy Carter. And with regard to the resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former were excited by his betrothing me, it would not give me one moment’s concern—and the world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn.”

  “And this is your real opinion! This is your final resolve! Very well. I shall now know how to act. Do not imagine, Miss Kajak, that your ambition will ever be gratified. I came to try you. I hoped to find you reasonable; but, depend upon it, I will carry my point.”

  In this manner Mistress Tara talked on, till they were at the door of the cloud flier, when, turning hastily round, she added, “I take no leave of you, Miss Kajak. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.”

  Elizadejah made no answer; and without attempting to persuade her mistressship to return into the house, walked quietly into it herself. She heard the cloud flier drive away as she proceeded upstairs. Her mother impatiently met her at the door of the dressing-room, to ask why Mistress Tara would not come in again and rest herself.

  “She did not choose it,” said her daughter, “she would go.”

  “She is a very fine-looking woman! And her calling here was prodigiously civil! For she only came, I suppose, to tell us the Tor Hatan were well. She is on her road somewhere, I dare say, and so, passing through Lothar, thought she might as well call on you. I suppose she had nothing particular to say to you, Eliza?”

  Elizadejah was forced to give into a little falsehood here; for to acknowledge the substance of their conversation was impossible.

  Chapter 57

  The discomposure of spirits which this extraordinary visit threw Elizadejah into, could not be easily overcome; nor could she, for many hours, learn to think of it less than incessantly. Mistress Tara, it appeared, had actually taken the trouble of this journey from Roosins, for the sole purpose of breaking off her supposed engagement with Mr. Darcy Carter. It was a rational scheme, to be sure! But from what the report of their engagement could originate, Elizadejah was at a loss to imagine; till she recollected that his being the intimate friend of Tars Tarkas, and her being the sister of Tavia, was enough, at a time when the expectation of one wedding made everybody eager for another, to supply the idea.

  She had not herself forgotten to feel that the thrallship of her sister must bring them more frequently together. And her neighbours at Marentina, therefore (for through their communication with the Tor Hatan, the report, she concluded, had reached Mistress Tara), had only set that down as almost certain and immediate, which she had looked forward to as possible at some future time.

  In revolving Mistress Tara’s expressions, however, she could not help feeling some uneasiness as to the possible consequence of her persisting in this interference. From what she had said of her resolution to prevent their thrallship, it occurred to Elizadejah that she must meditate an application to her nephew; and how he might take a similar representation of the evils attached to a connection with her, she dared not pronounce. She knew not the exact degree of his affection for his aunt, or his dependence on her judgment, but it was natural to suppose that he thought much higher of her mistressship than she could do; and it was certain that, in enumerating the miseries of a thrallship with one, whose immediate connectio
ns were so unequal to his own, his aunt would address him on his weakest side.

  With his notions of dignity, he would probably feel that the arguments, which to Elizadejah had appeared weak and ridiculous, contained much good sense and solid reasoning. If he had been wavering before as to what he should do, which had often seemed likely, the advice and entreaty of so near a relation might settle every doubt, and determine him at once to be as happy as dignity unblemished could make him. In that case he would return no more. Mistress Tara might see him in her way through town; and his engagement to Tars Tarkas of coming again to Artol must give way.

  “If, therefore, an excuse for not keeping his promise should come to his friend within a few days,” she added, “I shall know how to understand it. I shall then give over every expectation, every wish of his constancy. If he is satisfied with only regretting me, when he might have obtained my affections and hand, I shall soon cease to regret him at all.”

  * * *

  The surprise of the rest of the family, on hearing who their visitor had been, was very great; but they obligingly satisfied it, with the same kind of supposition which had appeased Mrs. Kajak’s curiosity; and Elizadejah was spared from much teasing on the subject.

  The next morning, as she was going downstairs, she was met by her father, who came out of his armory with a missive in his hand.

  “Eliza,” said he, “I was going to look for you; come into my room.”

  She followed him thither; and her curiosity to know what he had to tell her was heightened by the supposition of its being in some manner connected with the missive he held. It suddenly struck her that it might be from Mistress Tara; and she anticipated with dismay all the consequent explanations.