Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  Ringing changes on these subjects all the afternoon, Mrs. Browne sat with Maggie. She occasionally wandered off to speak about Edward, and how favorably his future prospects would be advanced by the engagement.

  “Let me see--there’s the house in Combehurst: the rent of that would be a hundred and fifty a-year, but we’ll not reckon that. But there’s the quarries” (she was reckoning upon her fingers in default of a slate, for which she had vainly searched), “we’ll call them two hundred a-year, for I don’t believe Mr. Buxton’s stories about their only bringing him in seven-pence; and there’s Newbridge, that’s certainly thirteen hundred--where had I got to, Maggie?”

  “Dear mamma, do go and lie down for a little; you look quite flushed,” said Maggie, softly.

  Was this the manner to view her betrothal with such a man as Frank? Her mother’s remarks depressed her more than she could have thought it possible; the excitement of the morning was having its reaction, and she longed to go up to the solitude under the thorn-tree, where she had hoped to spend a quiet, thoughtful afternoon.

  Nancy came in to replace glasses and spoons in the cupboard. By some accident, the careful old servant broke one of the former. She looked up quickly at her mistress, who usually visited all such offences with no small portion of rebuke.

  “Never mind, Nancy,” said Mrs. Browne. “It’s only an old tumbler; and Maggie’s going to be married, and we must buy a new set for the wedding-dinner.”

  Nancy looked at both, bewildered; at last a light dawned into her mind, and her face looked shrewdly and knowingly back at Mrs. Browne. Then she said, very quietly:

  “I think I’ll take the next pitcher to the well myself, and try my luck. To think how sorry I was for Miss Maggie this morning! ‘Poor thing,’ says I to myself, ‘to be kept all this time at that confounded well’ (for I’ll not deny that I swear a bit to myself at times--it sweetens the blood), ‘and she so tired.’ I e’en thought I’d go help her; but I reckon she’d some other help. May I take a guess at the young man?”

  “Four thousand a-year! Nancy;” said Mrs. Browne, exultingly.

  “And a blithe look, and a warm, kind heart--and a free step--and a noble way with him to rich and poor--aye, aye, I know the name. No need to alter all my neat M.B.’s, done in turkey-red cotton. Well, well! every one’s turn comes sometime, but mine’s rather long a-coming.”

  The faithful old servant came up to Maggie, and put her hand caressingly on her shoulder. Maggie threw her arms round her neck, and kissed the brown, withered face.

  “God bless thee, bairn,” said Nancy, solemnly. It brought the low music of peace back into the still recesses of Maggie’s heart. She began to look out for her lover; half-hidden behind the muslin window curtain, which waved gently to and fro in the afternoon breezes. She heard a firm, buoyant step, and had only time to catch one glimpse of his face, before moving away. But that one glance made her think that the hours which had elapsed since she saw him had not been serene to him any more than to her.

  When he entered the parlor, his face was glad and bright. He went up in a frank, rejoicing way to Mrs. Browne; who was evidently rather puzzled how to receive him--whether as Maggie’s betrothed, or as the son of the greatest man of her acquaintance.

  “I am sure, sir,” said she, “we are all very much obliged to you for the honor you have done our family!”

  He looked rather perplexed as to the nature of the honor which he had conferred without knowing it; but as the light dawned upon him, he made answer in a frank, merry way, which was yet full of respect for his future mother-in-law:

  “And I am sure I am truly grateful for the honor one of your family has done me.”

  When Nancy brought in tea she was dressed in her fine-weather Sunday gown; the first time it had ever been worn out of church, and the walk to and fro.

  After tea, Frank asked Maggie if she would walk out with him; and accordingly they climbed the Fell-Lane and went out upon the moors, which seemed vast and boundless as their love.

  “Have you told your father?” asked Maggie; a dim anxiety lurking in her heart.

  “Yes,” said Frank. He did not go on; and she feared to ask, although she longed to know, how Mr. Buxton had received the intelligence.

  “What did he say?” at length she inquired.

  “Oh! it was evidently a new idea to him that I was attached to you; and he does not take up a new idea speedily. He has had some notion, it seems, that Erminia and I were to make a match of it; but she and I agreed, when we talked it over, that we should never have fallen in love with each other if there had not been another human being in the world. Erminia is a little sensible creature, and says she does not wonder at any man falling in love with you. Nay, Maggie, don’t hang your head so down; let me have a glimpse of your face.”

  “I am sorry your father does not like it,” said Maggie, sorrowfully.

  “So am I. But we must give him time to get reconciled. Never fear but he will like it in the long run; he has too much good taste and good feeling. He must like you.”

  Frank did not choose to tell even Maggie how violently his father had set himself against their engagement. He was surprised and annoyed at first to find how decidedly his father was possessed with the idea that he was to marry his cousin, and that she, at any rate, was attached to him, whatever his feelings might be toward her; but after he had gone frankly to Erminia and told her all, he found that she was as ignorant of her uncle’s plans for her as he had been; and almost as glad at any event which should frustrate them.

  Indeed she came to the moorland cottage on the following day, after Frank had returned to Cambridge. She had left her horse in charge of the groom, near the fir-trees on the heights, and came running down the slope in her habit. Maggie went out to meet her, with just a little wonder at her heart if what Frank had said could possibly be true; and that Erminia, living in the house with him, could have remained indifferent to him. Erminia threw her arms round her neck, and they sat down together on the court-steps.

  “I durst not ride down that hill; and Jem is holding my horse, so I may not stay very long; now begin, Maggie, at once, and go into a rhapsody about Frank. Is not he a charming fellow? Oh! I am so glad. Now don’t sit smiling and blushing there to yourself; but tell me a great deal about it. I have so wanted to know somebody that was in love, that I might hear what it was like; and the minute I could, I came off here. Frank is only just gone. He has had another long talk with my uncle, since he came back from you this morning; but I am afraid he has not made much way yet.”

  Maggie sighed. “I don’t wonder at his not thinking me good enough for Frank.

  “No! the difficulty would be to find any one he did think fit for his paragon of a son.”

  “He thought you were, dearest Erminia.”

  “So Frank has told you that, has he? I suppose we shall have no more family secrets now,” said Erminia, laughing. “But I can assure you I had a strong rival in lady Adela Castlemayne, the Duke of Wight’s daughter; she was the most beautiful lady my uncle had ever seen (he only saw her in the Grand Stand at Woodchester races, and never spoke a word to her in his life). And if she would have had Frank, my uncle would still have been dissatisfied as long as the Princess Victoria was unmarried; none would have been good enough while a better remained. But Maggie,” said she, smiling up into her friend’s face, “I think it would have made you laugh, for all you look as if a kiss would shake the tears out of your eyes, if you could have seen my uncle’s manner to me all day. He will have it that I am suffering from an unrequited attachment; so he watched me and watched me over breakfast; and at last, when I had eaten a whole nest-full of eggs, and I don’t know how many pieces of toast, he rang the bell and asked for some potted charr. I was quite unconscious that it was for me, and I did not want it when it came; so he sighed in a most melancholy manner, and said, ‘My poor Erminia!’ If Frank had not been there, and looking dreadfully miserable, I am sure I should have laughed out.”

/>   “Did Frank look miserable?” said Maggie, anxiously.

  “There now! you don’t care for anything but the mention of his name.”

  “But did he look unhappy?” persisted Maggie.

  “I can’t say he looked happy, dear Mousey; but it was quite different when he came back from seeing you. You know you always had the art of stilling any person’s trouble. You and my aunt Buxton are the only two I ever knew with that gift.”

  “I am so sorry he has any trouble to be stilled,” said Maggie.

  “And I think it will do him a world of good. Think how successful his life has been! the honors he got at Eton! his picture taken, and I don’t know what! and at Cambridge just the same way of going on. He would be insufferably imperious in a few years, if he did not meet with a few crosses.”

  “Imperious!--oh Erminia, how can you say so?”

  “Because it’s the truth. He happens to have very good dispositions; and therefore his strong will is not either disagreeable, or offensive; but once let him become possessed by a wrong wish, and you would then see how vehement and imperious he would be. Depend upon it, my uncle’s resistance is a capital thing for him. As dear sweet Aunt Buxton would have said, ‘There is a holy purpose in it;’ and as Aunt Buxton would not have said, but as I, a ‘fool, rush in where angels fear to tread,’ I decide that the purpose is to teach Master Frank patience and submission.”

  “Erminia--how could you help”--and there Maggie stopped.

  “I know what you mean; how could I help falling in love with him? I think he has not mystery and reserve enough for me. I should like a man with some deep, impenetrable darkness around him; something one could always keep wondering about. Besides, think what clashing of wills there would have been! My uncle was very short-sighted in his plan; but I don’t think he thought so much about the fitness of our characters and ways, as the fitness of our fortunes!”

  “For shame, Erminia! No one cares less for money than Mr. Buxton!”

  “There’s a good little daughter-in-law elect! But seriously, I do think he is beginning to care for money; not in the least for himself, but as a means of aggrandizement for Frank. I have observed, since I came home at Christmas, a growing anxiety to make the most of his property; a thing he never cared about before. I don’t think he is aware of it himself, but from one or two little things I have noticed, I should not wonder if he ends in being avaricious in his old age.” Erminia sighed.

  Maggie had almost a sympathy with the father, who sought what he imagined to be for the good of his son, and that son, Frank. Although she was as convinced as Erminia, that money could not really help any one to happiness, she could not at the instant resist saying:

  “Oh! how I wish I had a fortune! I should so like to give it all to him.”

  “Now Maggie! don’t be silly! I never heard you wish for anything different from what was before, so I shall take this opportunity of lecturing you on your folly. No! I won’t either, for you look sadly tired with all your agitation; and besides I must go, or Jem will be wondering what has become of me. Dearest cousin-in-law, I shall come very often to see you; and perhaps I shall give you my lecture yet.”

  CHAPTER VI.

  It was true of Mr. Buxton, as well as of his son, that he had the seeds of imperiousness in him. His life had not been such as to call them out into view. With more wealth than he required; with a gentle wife, who if she ruled him never showed it, or was conscious of the fact herself; looked up to by his neighbors, a simple affectionate set of people, whose fathers had lived near his father and grandfather in the same kindly relation, receiving benefits cordially given, and requiting them with good will and respectful attention: such had been the circumstances surrounding him; and until his son grew out of childhood, there had not seemed a wish which he had it not in his power to gratify as soon as formed. Again, when Frank was at school and at college, all went on prosperously; he gained honors enough to satisfy a far more ambitious father. Indeed, it was the honors he gained that stimulated his father’s ambition. He received letters from tutors, and headmasters, prophesying that, if Frank chose, he might rise to the “highest honors in church or state;” and the idea thus suggested, vague as it was, remained, and filled Mr. Buxton’s mind; and, for the first time in his life, made him wish that his own career had been such as would have led him to form connections among the great and powerful. But, as it was, his shyness and gêne, from being unaccustomed to society, had made him averse to Frank’s occasional requests that he might bring such and such a school-fellow, or college-chum, home on a visit. Now he regretted this, on account of the want of those connections which might thus have been formed; and, in his visions, he turned to marriage as the best way of remedying this. Erminia was right in saying that her uncle had thought of Lady Adela Castlemayne for an instant; though how the little witch had found it out I cannot say, as the idea had been dismissed immediately from his mind.

  He was wise enough to see its utter vanity, as long as his son remained undistinguished. But his hope was this. If Frank married Erminia, their united property (she being her father’s heiress) would justify him in standing for the shire; or if he could marry the daughter of some leading personage in the county, it might lead to the same step; and thus at once he would obtain a position in parliament, where his great talents would have scope and verge enough. Of these two visions, the favorite one (for his sister’s sake) was that of marriage with Erminia.

  And, in the midst of all this, fell, like a bombshell, the intelligence of his engagement with Maggie Browne; a good sweet little girl enough, but without fortune or connection--without, as far as Mr. Buxton knew, the least power, or capability, or spirit, with which to help Frank on in his career to eminence in the land! He resolved to consider if as a boyish fancy, easily to be suppressed; and pooh-poohed it down, to Frank, accordingly. He remarked his son’s set lips, and quiet determined brow, although he never spoke in a more respectful tone, than while thus steadily opposing his father. If he had shown more violence of manner, he would have irritated him less; but, as it was, if was the most miserable interview that had ever taken place between the father and son.

  Mr. Buxton tried to calm himself down with believing that Frank would change his mind, if he saw more of the world; but, somehow, he had a prophesying distrust of this idea internally. The worst was, there was no fault to be found with Maggie herself, although she might want the accomplishments he desired to see in his son’s wife. Her connections, too, were so perfectly respectable (though humble enough in comparison with Mr. Buxton’s soaring wishes), that there was nothing to be objected to on that score; her position was the great offence. In proportion to his want of any reason but this one, for disapproving of the engagement, was his annoyance under it. He assumed a reserve toward Frank; which was so unusual a restraint upon his open, genial disposition, that it seemed to make him irritable toward all others in contact with him, excepting Erminia. He found it difficult to behave rightly to Maggie. Like all habitually cordial persons, he went into the opposite extreme, when he wanted to show a little coolness. However angry he might be with the events of which she was the cause, she was too innocent and meek to justify him in being more than cool; but his awkwardness was so great, that many a man of the world has met his greatest enemy, each knowing the other’s hatred, with less freezing distance of manner than Mr. Buxton’s to Maggie. While she went simply on in her own path, loving him the more through all, for old kindness’ sake, and because he was Frank’s father, he shunned meeting her with such evident and painful anxiety, that at last she tried to spare him the encounter, and hurried out of church, or lingered behind all, in order to avoid the only chance they now had of being forced to speak; for she no longer went to the dear house in Combehurst, though Erminia came to see her more than ever.

  Mrs. Browne was perplexed and annoyed beyond measure. She upbraided Mr. Buxton to every one but Maggie. To her she said--”Any one in their senses might have foreseen what had happene
d, and would have thought well about it, before they went and fell in love with a young man of such expectations as Mr. Frank Buxton.”

  In the middle of all this dismay, Edward came over from Woodchester for a day or two. He had been told of the engagement, in a letter from Maggie herself; but if was too sacred a subject for her to enlarge upon to him; and Mrs. Browne was no letter writer. So this was his first greeting to Maggie; after kissing her:

  “Well, Sancho, you’ve done famously for yourself. As soon as I got your letter I said to Harry Bish--’Still waters run deep; here’s my little sister Maggie, as quiet a creature as ever lived, has managed to catch young Buxton, who has five thousand a-year if he’s a penny.’ Don’t go so red, Maggie. Harry was sure to hear of if soon from some one, and I see no use in keeping it secret, for it gives consequence to us all.”

  “Mr. Buxton is quite put out about it,” said Mrs. Brown, querulously; “and I’m sure he need not be, for he’s enough of money, if that’s what he wants; and Maggie’s father was a clergyman, and I’ve seen ‘yeoman,’ with my own eyes, on old Mr. Buxton’s (Mr. Lawrence’s father’s) carts; and a clergyman is above a yeoman any day. But if Maggie had had any thought for other people, she’d never have gone and engaged herself, when she might have been sure it would give offence. We are never asked down to dinner now. I’ve never broken bread there since last Christmas.”

  “Whew!” said Edward to this. It was a disappointed whistle; but he soon cheered up. “I thought I could have lent a hand in screwing old Buxton up about the settlements; but I see it’s not come to that yet. Still I’ll go and see the old gentleman. I’m a bit of a favorite of his, and I doubt I can turn him round.”