i believe myself to be broken-hearted—maria in love—i make an offer of marriage, which is neither accepted nor refused

a phase of my life, into which i do not propose to enter, left me firmly resolved that (as i said in confidence to clerke) "i shall marry to please the governor. one doesn't go in for a broken heart, you know, but it isn't in me to care a second time."

it was shortly after this that maria and her mother came to stay at the hall. a rather mysterious letter from my aunt had led to the invitation. it was for the benefit of maria's health. my father also invited polly; she was a favourite with him. leo and some other friends were expected for shooting. our neighbours' houses as well as ours were filling with visitors, and though i fancied myself a disappointed man, i found my spirits rising daily.

my aunt and maria arrived first: polly was visiting elsewhere, and was to join them in a day or two. i was glad to have ladies in the house again, and after dinner i strolled about the grounds with maria. she was looking delicate, but it improved her appearance, and she quite pleased me by the interest she seemed to take in the place. but i had seen more of maria during a visit i paid to london two months before than usual,[211] and had been quite surprised to find her so well versed in dacrefield matters.

"it's uncommonly pleasant having you here," said i, as we leaned over a low wall in the garden. "i wonder we do not become perfect barbarians, cut off as we are from ladies' society. i'm sure i wish you would settle down here instead of in london. you would civilise both the rectory and the hall."

i was really thinking of my uncle taking a house in the neighbourhood. i do not know what maria was thinking of; but she looked up suddenly into my face, with a strange expression, as if half inclined to speak. she said nothing, however, only blushed deeply, and began walking towards the house. i puzzled for a few minutes over that pathetic look and blush, but i could make nothing of it, and it passed from my mind till the next evening after dinner, when, after a little ceremonious preamble, my father asked if there was "anything between" myself and my eldest cousin. in explanation of this vague question, he told me that maria had been failing in health and spirits for some months; that my aunt's watchful observation and experience had led her to the conclusion that maria was not in a consumption, but in love. as, however, she kept her own counsel, mrs. ascott could only guess in the matter. from her feverish interest in dacrefield, her ill-concealed excitement when the visit was proposed, the improvement in her health since she came, and a multitude of other small facts which my aunt had ferreted out and patched together with an ingenuity that amazed me, maria was supposed to care for me.

"we were a good deal together in town, sir," said i, "and maria was very jolly with me. but[212] i am sure i gave her no reason to think i was in love with her, and i don't believe she cares for me. it's one of my aunt's mare's nests, depend upon it. the poor girl has got a horrid cough, and, of course, she was pleased to get out of london smoke."

"if you did care for her," said my father; "and, above all, if you had led her to think you did, the course is obvious, and i have no doubt she would make an excellent wife. polly is my favourite, and maria is a year or two older than you. but she is a nice, sensible, well-bred woman. she is the eldest daughter, and will have—"

"my dear father," said i, "maria and i are very friendly as cousins, but she has not an idea of me in any other than a brotherly relation. at least i think not," i added, for the look and blush that had puzzled me came back to my mind.

"i only mention this because i wished to warn you against trifling with your cousin's affections if you mean nothing," said my father.

"i should be sorry to trifle with any lady's affections, sir," was my reply. we said no more. i sighed, thinking of what i fully believed had blighted my existence. my father sighed, thinking, i know, of his own vain wish to see me happily married. at last i could bear it no longer, and calling sweep, i went out into the garden. it was moonlight, and maria was languidly pacing the terrace. i joined her, and we strolled away into the shrubbery.

i cannot say that my father's warning led me to shun maria's society. my father and my aunt naturally talked together, and circumstances almost forced us two into tête-à-têtes. i could not fail to see that maria liked to be with me, and i found[213] the task of taking care of her soothing to what i believed to be my blighted feelings. we rode together (she had an admirable figure and rode well), and the exercise did her health great good. we often met mr. clerke in our rides, and he seemed to enjoy a canter with us, though he rode very little better than when i first knew him. we took long walks with sweep, and from the oldest tenant to the latest puppy, everything about dacrefield seemed to interest my fair cousin. i came at last to believe that aunt maria was right.

when i did come to believe it (and i do not think that any contemptible conceit made me hasty to do so), other thoughts followed. i was as firmly convinced as any other young man with my experiences that i could never again feel what i had felt for the person who shall be nameless. but the first bitterness of that agony being undoubtedly over, i felt that i might find a sober satisfaction in making my father's declining years happy by giving him a daughter-in-law, and that i was perhaps hardly justified in allowing maria to fall into a consumption when i could prevent it. "there are some people," thought i, "with whom one could spend life very happily in a quiet fashion; people who would not offend one's taste, or greatly provoke one's temper, and whom one feels that one could please in like manner. suitable people, in fact. and when a fellow has had his great heart-ache and it's all over, no doubt suitableness is the thing to make married life happy.... maria is suitable."

i remember well the day i came to this conclusion. our visitors had not yet arrived, but polly was expected the next day, and leo and some others shortly. "i may as well get it over[214] before the house is full," i thought. but, to my vexation, i discovered that my father had asked mr. clerke to come up after dinner. "it's his own fault if i don't get another chance of speaking," thought i. but, as i strolled sullenly on the terrace (without maria) a note arrived from the rector to say that he was called away to see a sick man. i dashed into the drawing-room, gave the letter to my father, and seeing maria was not there, i went on into the conservatory.

there are moments when even plain people look handsome. notably when self-consciousness is quite absent, and some absorbing thought gives sentiment to the face, and grace and power to the figure. it was so at this moment with maria, who stood gazing before her, the light from above falling artistically on her glossy hair and tall, elegant figure. at the sound of my footsteps she started, and the colour flooded her face as i came up to her. she sank on to a seat close by, as if too much agitated to stand.

"i have something i want to say to you," said i, stooping over her, and speaking in my gentlest voice. "may i say it?"

she moved her lips as if trying to speak, but there was no sound, and she just nodded her head, which then drooped so that i could hardly see her face.

"we have known each other since we were children," i began.

"yes, regie dear," murmured maria.

"we were always very good friends, i think," continued i.

"oh, yes, regie dear."

"childhood was a very happy time," said i, sentimentally.[215]

"oh, yes, regie dear."

"but we can't be children for ever," i continued.

"oh, no, regie dear."

"please take what i am going to say kindly, cousin, whatever you may think of it."

"oh, yes, regie dear."

"i hope i may truthfully say that your happiness is, as it ought to be, my chief aim in the matter."

maria's response was inaudible.

"it's no good beating about the bush," said i, desperately clothing my sentiments in slang, after the manner of my age; "the fellow who gets you for a wife, maria, must be uncommonly fortunate, and i hope that with a good husband, who made your wishes his first consideration, you would not be unhappy in married life yourself."

lower and lower went her head, but still she was silent.

"you say nothing," i went on. "probably i am altogether wrong, and you are too kind-hearted to tell me i am an impertinent puppy. it is dacrefield—the place only—that you honour with your regard. you have no affection for—"

maria did not let me finish this sentence. she put up her hands to stop me, and seemed as if she wished to speak; but after one pitiful glance she buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly. i am sure i have read somewhere that when a woman weeps she is won. so maria was mine. i had a grim feeling about it which i cannot describe. "i hope the governor will be satisfied now," was my thought.

however, there is nothing i hate more than to see a woman cry. to be the means of making her cry is intolerable.

[216]

"please, please, don't! oh, maria, what a brute you make me feel. please don't," i cried, and raising my cousin from her niobe-like attitude, i comforted her as well as i could. she only said, "oh, regie dear, how kind you are," and laid her sleek head against my arm with an air of rest and trustfulness that touched my generosity to the quick. what right had i, after all, to accept an affection to which i could make no similar return? "however," thought i, "it's done now; and they say it's always more on one side than the other; and at least i'm a gentleman. i care for no one else, and she shall never know it was chiefly to please the governor. i suppose it will all come right."

whilst i pondered, maria had dried her eyes, and now sat up, gazing before her, almost in her old attitude.

"i wonder, regie dear," she said, presently—"i wonder how you found out that i—that we—that i cared—"

"oh, i don't know," said i, inanely, for i could not say that nothing could be plainer.

"i always used to think that to live in this neighbourhood would be paradise," murmured maria, looking sentimentally but vacantly into a box of seedling balsams.

"i'm very glad you like it," said i. i could not make pretty speeches. an unpleasant conviction was stealing over my mind that i had been a fool, and had no one but myself to blame. i began to think that maria would not have died of consumption even if i had not proposed to her, and to doubt if i were really so heartbroken as i had fancied. (indeed the society of my cousin, who was a lady, had by this time gone far to cure me of my sentiment for one who was not, and[217] who had been sensible enough to marry a man in her own rank of life, to my father's great relief, and, as i then thought, to my life-long disappointment.) the whole affair seemed a mockery, and i wished it were a dream. it was not thus that my father had plighted his troth to my fair mother. this was not the sort of affection that had made happy the short lives of leo's parents. the lemon-scented verbena which i was pounding between my fingers bitterly recalled a little sketch of the monument to their memory which leo had shown me in his bible, where he had also pressed a sprig of verbena. beneath the sketch he had written, "they were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not divided." i remembered his telling me how young they were when they were married. how his father had never cared for any one else, and how he would like to do just the same, and marry the one lady of his love. i began, too, to think clerke was right when he replied to my confidences, "i'm only afraid, regie, that you don't know what love is."

it was whilst these thoughts were crowding all too vividly into my mind that maria said, impressively, and with unmistakable clearness,

"after all, you know, regie, he's a thorough gentleman, if he is poor. i must say that! and if he has a profession instead of being a landed proprietor, it's the highest and noblest profession there is."

it seemed to take away my breath. but i was standing almost behind maria; she was preoccupied, and i had some presence of mind. i had opportunity to realize the fact that i was not the object of maria's attachment, as i had supposed. i was not poor, i had no profession, and my com[218]mon avocations did not, i fear, deserve to be called high or noble. the description in no way fitted me. further still, it was evident that my cousin had not dreamed that i was making her an offer. she believed that i had discovered her attachment to some other man, and was grateful for my sympathy. i did not undeceive her. after a rapid review of the position, i said,

"but my dear maria, though i have penetrated to the fact that you have a secret, and though i want beyond anything to help and comfort you, i do not yet know who the happy man is, remember."

"don't you?" said maria, looking up hastily, and the colour rushed to her face as before. "oh, i thought you knew it was mr. clerke. you know, he is so good, and i've known him so long."

at this moment aunt maria's voice called from the drawing-room end of the conservatory.

"will you give us a little music, maria? mr. clerke has come after all, and bowles has brought in the tea."