Great English Short Stories

by Paul Negri (Editor)

  “Ah!” said Captain Broughton. He had his own ideas about property, and did not, even under existing circumstances, like to hear that his aunt considered herself at liberty to leave the acres away to one who was by blood quite a stranger to the family.

  “Does Patience know of this?” he asked.

  “Not a word,” said Miss Le Smyrger. And then nothing more was said upon the subject.

  On that afternoon he went down and received the parson’s benediction and congratulations with a good grace. Patience said very little on the occasion, and indeed was absent during the greater part of the interview. The two lovers then walked up to Oxney Combe, and there were more benedictions and more congratulations. “All went merry as a marriage bell,” at any rate as far as Patience was concerned. Not a word had yet fallen from that dear mouth, not a look had yet come over that handsome face, which tended in any way to mar her bliss. Her first day of acknowledged love was a day altogether happy, and when she prayed for him as she knelt beside her bed there was no feeling in her mind that any fear need disturb her joy.

  I will pass over the next three or four days very quickly, merely saying that Patience did not find them so pleasant as that first day after her engagement. There was something in her lover’s manner—something which at first she could not define—which by degrees seemed to grate against her feelings. He was sufficiently affectionate, that being a matter on which she did not require much demonstration; but joined to his affection there seemed to be—; she hardly liked to suggest to herself a harsh word, but could it be possible that he was beginning to think that she was not good enough for him? And then she asked herself the question—was she good enough for him? If there were doubt about that, the match should be broken off, though she tore her own heart out in the struggle. The truth, however, was this—that he had begun that teaching which he had already found to be so necessary. Now, had any one essayed to teach Patience German or mathematics, with that young lady’s free consent, I believe that she would have been found a meek scholar. But it was not probable that she would be meek when she found a self-appointed tutor teaching her manners and conduct without her consent.

  So matters went on for four or five days, and on the evening of the fifth day, Captain Broughton and his aunt drank tea at the parsonage. Nothing very especial occurred; but as the parson and Miss Le Smyrger insisted on playing backgammon with devoted perseverance during the whole evening, Broughton had a good opportunity of saying a word or two about those changes in his lady-love which a life in London would require—and some word he said also—some single slight word as to the higher station in life to which he would exalt his bride. Patience bore it—for her father and Miss Le Smyrger were in the room—she bore it well, speaking no syllable of anger, and enduring, for the moment, the implied scorn of the old parsonage. Then the evening broke up, and Captain Broughton walked back to Oxney Combe with his aunt. “Patty,” her father said to her before they went to bed, “he seems to me to be a most excellent young man.” “Dear papa,” she answered, kissing him. “And terribly deep in love,” said Mr. Woolsworthy. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she answered, as she left him with her sweetest smile. But though she could thus smile at her father’s joke, she had already made up her mind that there was still something to be learned as to her promised husband before she could place herself altogether in his hands. She would ask him whether he thought himself liable to injury from this proposed marriage; and though he should deny any such thought, she would know from the manner of his denial what his true feelings were.

  And he, too, on that night, during his silent walk with Miss Le Smyrger, had entertained some similar thoughts. “I fear she is obstinate,” he had said to himself, and then he had half accused her of being sullen also. “If that be her temper, what a life of misery I have before me!”

  “Have you fixed a day yet?” his aunt asked him as they came near to her house.

  “No, not yet: I don’t know whether it will suit me to fix it before I leave.”

  “Why, it was but the other day you were in such a hurry.”

  “Ah—yes—I have thought more about it since then.”

  “I should have imagined that this would depend on what Patty thinks,” said Miss Le Smyrger, stand-up for the privileges of her sex. “It is presumed that the gentleman is always ready as soon as the lady will consent.”

  “Yes, in ordinary cases it is so; but when a girl is taken out of her own sphere—”

  “Her own sphere! Let me caution you, Master John, not to talk to Patty about her own sphere.”

  “Aunt Penelope, as Patience is to be my wife and not yours, I must claim permission to speak to her on such subjects as may seem suitable to me.” And then they parted—not in the best humour with each other.

  On the following day Captain Broughton and Miss Woolsworthy did not meet till the evening. She had said, before those few ill-omened words had passed her lover’s lips, that she would probably be at Miss Le Smyrger’s house on the following morning. Those ill-omened words did pass her lover’s lips, and then she remained at home. This did not come from sullenness, nor even from anger, but from a conviction that it would be well that she should think much before she met him again. Nor was he anxious to hurry a meeting. His thought—his base thought—was this; that she would be sure to come up to the Combe after him; but she did not come, and therefore in the evening he went down to her, and asked her to walk with him.

  They went away by the path that led to Helpholme, and little was said between them till they had walked some mile together. Patience, as she went along the path, remembered almost to the letter the sweet words which had greeted her ears as she came down that way with him on the night of his arrival; but he remembered nothing of that sweetness then. Had he not made an ass of himself during these last six months? That was the thought which very much had possession of his mind.

  “Patience,” he said at last, having hitherto spoken only an indifferent word now and again since they had left the parsonage, “Patience, I hope you realise the importance of the step which you and I are about to take?”

  “Of course I do,” she answered. “What an odd question that is for you to ask!”

  “Because,” said he, “sometimes I almost doubt it. It seems to me as though you thought you could remove yourself from here to your new home with no more trouble than when you go from home up to the Combe.”

  “Is that meant for a reproach, John?”

  “No, not for a reproach, but for advice. Certainly not for a reproach.”

  “I am glad of that.”

  “But I should wish to make you think how great is the leap in the world which you are about to take.” Then again they walked on for many steps before she answered him.

  “Tell me then, John,” she said, when she had sufficiently considered what words she should speak; and as she spoke a bright colour suffused her face, and her eyes flashed almost with anger. “What leap do you mean? Do you mean a leap upwards?”

  “Well, yes; I hope it will be so.”

  “In one sense, certainly, it would be a leap upwards. To be the wife of the man I loved; to have the privilege of holding his happiness in my hand; to know that I was his own—the companion whom he had chosen out of all the world—that would, indeed, be a leap upwards; a leap almost to heaven, if all that were so. But if you mean upwards in any other sense—”

  “I was thinking of the social scale.”

  “Then, Captain Broughton, your thoughts were doing me dishonour.”

  “Doing you dishonour!”

  “Yes, doing me dishonour. That your father is, in the world’s esteem, a greater man than mine is doubtless true enough. That you, as a man, are richer than I am as a woman, is doubtless also true. But you dishonour me, and yourself also, if these things can weigh with you now.”

  “Patience,—I think you can hardly know what words you are saying to me.”

  “Pardon me, but I think I do. Nothing that you can give me�
��no gifts of that description—can weigh aught against that which I am giving you. If you had all the wealth and rank of the greatest lord in the land, it would count as nothing in such a scale. If—as I have not doubted—if in return for my heart you have given me yours, then—then—then you have paid me fully. But when gifts such as those are going, nothing else can count even as a make-weight.”

  “I do not quite understand you,” he answered, after a pause. “I fear you are a little high-flown.” And then, while the evening was still early, they walked back to the parsonage almost without another word.

  Captain Broughton at this time had only one full day more to remain at Oxney Colne. On the afternoon following that he was to go as far as Exeter, and thence return to London. Of course, it was to be expected that the wedding day would be fixed before he went, and much had been said about it during the first day or two of his engagement. Then he had pressed for an early time, and Patience, with a girl’s usual diffidence, had asked for some little delay. But now nothing was said on the subject; and how was it probable that such a matter could be settled after such a conversation as that which I have related? That evening, Miss Le Smyrger asked whether the day had been fixed. “No,” said Captain Broughton harshly; “nothing has been fixed.” “But it will be arranged before you go.” “Probably not,” he said; and then the subject was dropped for the time.

  “John,” she said, just before she went to bed, “if there be anything wrong between you and Patience, I conjure you to tell me.”

  “You had better ask her,” he replied. “I can tell you nothing.”

  On the following morning he was much surprised by seeing Patience on the gravel path before Miss Le Smyrger’s gate immediately after breakfast. He went to the door to open it for her, and she, as she gave him her hand, told him that she came up to speak to him. There was no hesitation in her manner, nor any look of anger in her face. But there was in her gait and form, in her voice and countenance, a fixedness of purpose which he had never seen before, or at any rate had never acknowledged.

  “Certainly,” said he. “Shall I come out with you, or will you come up stairs?”

  “We can sit down in the summer-house,” she said; and thither they both went.

  “Captain Broughton,” she said—and she began her task the moment that they were both seated—“You and I have engaged ourselves as man and wife, but perhaps we have been over rash.”

  “How so?” said he.

  “It may be—and indeed I will say more—it is the case that we have made this engagement without knowing enough of each other’s character.”

  “I have not thought so.”

  “The time will perhaps come when you will so think, but for the sake of all that we most value, let it come before it is too late. What would be our fate—how terrible would be our misery—if such a thought should come to either of us after we have linked our lots together.”

  There was a solemnity about her as she thus spoke which almost repressed him,—which for a time did prevent him from taking that tone of authority which on such a subject he would choose to adopt. But he recovered himself. “I hardly think that this comes well from you,” he said.

  “From whom else should it come? Who else can fight my battle for me; and, John, who else can fight that same battle on your behalf? I tell you this, that with your mind standing towards me as it does stand at present, you could not give me your hand at the altar with true words and a happy conscience. Am I not true? You have half repented of your bargain already. Is it not so?”

  He did not answer her; but getting up from his seat walked to the front of the summer-house, and stood there with his back turned upon her. It was not that he meant to be ungracious, but in truth he did not know how to answer her. He had half repented of his bargain.

  “John,” she said, getting up and following him, so that she could put her hand upon his arm, “I have been very angry with you.”

  “Angry with me!” he said, turning sharp upon her.

  “Yes, angry with you. You would have treated me like a child. But that feeling has gone now. I am not angry now. There is my hand;—the hand of a friend. Let the words that have been spoken between us be as though they had not been spoken. Let us both be free.”

  “Do you mean it?”

  “Certainly I mean it.” As she spoke these words her eyes filled with tears, in spite of all the efforts she could make; but he was not looking at her, and her efforts had sufficed to prevent any sob from being audible.

  “With all my heart,” he said; and it was manifest from his tone that he had no thought of her happiness as he spoke. It was true that she had been angry with him—angry, as she had herself declared; but nevertheless, in what she had said and what she had done, she had thought more of his happiness than of her own. Now she was angry once again.

  “With all your heart, Captain Broughton! Well, so be it. If with all your heart, then is the necessity so much the greater. You go to-morrow. Shall we say farewell now?”

  “Patience, I am not going to be lectured.”

  “Certainly not by me. Shall we say farewell now?”

  “Yes, if you are determined.”

  “I am determined. Farewell, Captain Broughton. You have all my wishes for your happiness.” And she held out her hand to him.

  “Patience!” he said. And he looked at her with a dark frown, as though he would strive to frighten her into submission. If so, he might have saved himself any such attempt.

  “Farewell, Captain Broughton. Give me your hand, for I cannot stay.” He gave her his hand, hardly knowing why he did so. She lifted it to her lips and kissed it, and then, leaving him, passed from the summer-house down through the wicket-gate, and straight home to the parsonage.

  During the whole of that day she said no word to anyone of what had occurred. When she was once more at home she went about her household affairs as she had done on that day of his arrival. When she sat down to dinner with her father he observed nothing to make him think that she was unhappy; nor during the evening was there any expression in her face, or any tone in her voice, which excited his attention. On the following morning Captain Broughton called at the parsonage, and the servant-girl brought word to her mistress that he was in the parlour. But she would not see him. “Laws, miss, you ain’t a quarrelled with your beau?” the poor girl said. “No, not quarrelled,” she said; “but give him that.” It was a scrap of paper, containing a word or two in pencil. “It is better that we should not meet again. God bless you.” And from that day to this, now more than ten years, they never have met.

  “Papa,” she said to her father that afternoon, “dear papa, do not be angry with me. It is all over between me and John Broughton. Dearest, you and I will not be separated.”

  It would be useless here to tell how great was the old man’s surprise and how true his sorrow. As the tale was told to him no cause was given for anger with anyone. Not a word was spoken against the suitor who had on that day returned to London with a full conviction that now at least he was relieved from his engagement. “Patty, my darling child,” he said, “may God grant that it be for the best!”

  “It is for the best,” she answered stoutly. “For this place I am fit; and I much doubt whether I am fit for any other.”

  On that day she did not see Miss Le Smyrger, but on the following morning, knowing that Captain Broughton had gone off, having heard the wheels of the carriage as they passed by the parsonage gate on his way to the station,—she walked up to the Combe.

  “He has told you, I suppose?” said she.

  “Yes,” said Miss Le Smyrger. “And I will never see him again unless he asks your pardon on his knees. I have told him so. I would not even give him my hand as he went.”

  “But why so, thou kindest one? The fault was mine more than his.”

  “I understand. I have eyes in my head,” said the old maid. “I have watched him for the last four or five days. If you could have kept the truth to yourself and bade h
im keep off from you, he would have been at your feet now, licking the dust from your shoes.”

  “But, dear friend, I do not want a man to lick dust from my shoes.”

  “Ah, you are a fool. You do not know the value of your own wealth.”

  “True; I have been a fool. I was a fool to think that one coming from such a life as he has led could be happy with such as I am. I know the truth now. I have bought the lesson dearly,—but perhaps not too dearly, seeing that it will never be forgotten.”

  There was but little more said about the matter between our three friends at Oxney Colne. What, indeed, could be said? Miss Le Smyrger for a year or two still expected that her nephew would return and claim his bride; but he has never done so, nor has there been any correspondence between them. Patience Woolsworthy had learned her lesson dearly. She had given her whole heart to the man; and, though she so bore herself that no one was aware of the violence of the struggle, nevertheless the struggle within her bosom was very violent. She never told herself that she had done wrong; she never regretted her loss; but yet—yet!—the loss was very hard to bear. He also had loved her, but he was not capable of a love which could much injure his daily peace. Her daily peace was gone for many a day to come.

  Her father is still living; but there is a curate now in the parish. In conjunction with him and with Miss Le Smyrger she spends her time in the concerns of the parish. In her own eyes she is a confirmed old maid; and such is my opinion also. The romance of her life was played out in that summer. She never sits now lonely on the hill-side thinking how much she might do for one whom she really loved. But with a large heart she loves many, and, with no romance, she works hard to lighten the burdens of those she loves.

  As for Captain Broughton, all the world know that he did marry that great heiress with whom his name was once before connected, and that he is now a useful member of Parliament, working on committees three or four days a week with a zeal that is indefatigable. Sometimes, not often, as he thinks of Patience Woolsworthy, a gratified smile comes across his face.