The Minister's Wooing

  CHAPTER XXXVII.

  IT is a hard condition of our existence here, that every exaltationmust have its depression. God will not let us have heaven here below,but only such glimpses and faint showings as parents sometimes giveto children when they show them beforehand the jewelry and pictures,and stores of rare and curious treasures, which they hold in store forthe possession of their riper years. So it very often happens that theman who, entranced by some rapturous excitement, has gone to bed anangel, feeling as if all sin were for ever vanquished, and he himselfimmutably grounded in love, may wake the next morning with a sickheadache; and if he be not careful may scold about his breakfast like amiserable sinner.

  We will not say that our dear little Mary rose in this condition nextmorning; for although she had the headache, she had one of thosenatures in which somehow or other the combative element seems to beleft out, so that no one ever knew her to speak a fretful word. Butstill, as we have observed, she had the headache and the depression,and then came the slow, creeping sense of a wakening-up through all herheart and soul, of a thousand thousand things that could be said onlyto _one_ person, and that person one that it would be temptation anddanger to say them to.

  She came out of her room to her morning work with a face resolved andcalm, but expressive of languor, with slight signs of some inwardstruggle.

  Madame de Frontignac, who had already heard the intelligence, threwtwo or three of her bright glances upon her at breakfast, and atonce divined how the matter stood. She was of a nature so delicatelysensitive to the most refined shades of honour, that she apprehendedat once that there must be a conflict; though, judging by her ownimpulsive nature, she made no doubt that all would at once go downbefore the mighty force of reawakened love.

  After breakfast she would insist upon following Mary about through allher avocations. She possessed herself of a towel, and would wipe theteacups and saucers while Mary washed. She clinked the glasses andrattled the cups and spoons, and stepped about as briskly as if she hadtwo or three breezes to carry her train; and chattered half-English andhalf-French, for the sake of bringing into Mary’s cheek the shy, slowdimples that she liked to watch. But still Mrs. Scudder was around,with an air as provident and forbidding as that of a setting hen whowatches her nest; nor was it till after all things had been clearedaway in the house, and Mary had gone up into her little attic to spin,that the opportunity long sought came, of diving to the bottom of thismystery.

  ‘_Enfin, Marie, nous voilà!_ are you not going to tell me anything,when I have turned my heart out to you like a bag? _Chère enfant!_ howhappy you must be!’ she said, embracing her.

  ‘Yes, I am very happy,’ said Mary, with calm gravity.

  ‘_Very happy!_’ said Madame de Frontignac, mimicking her manner. ‘Isthat the way you American girls show it when you are very happy? Come,come, _ma belle_, tell little Verginie something. Thou hast seen thishero, this wandering Ulysses. He has come back at last—the tapestrywill not be quite as long as Penelope’s. Speak to me of him. Has hebeautiful black eyes, and hair that curls like a grape-vine? Tell me,_ma belle_.’

  ‘I only saw him a little while,’ said Mary; ‘and I _felt_ a great dealmore than I saw. He could not have been any clearer to me than healways has been in my mind.’

  ‘But I think,’ said Madame de Frontignac, seating Mary as was her wont,and sitting down at her feet, ‘I think you are a little “_triste_”about this! Very likely you pity the poor priest! It is sad for him,but a good priest has the church for his bride, you know.’

  ‘You do not think,’ said Mary, speaking seriously, ‘that I shall breakmy promise, given before God, to this good man?’

  ‘_Mon Dieu, mon enfant!_ You do not mean to marry the priest after all!_Quelle idée!_’

  ‘But I _promised_ him,’ said Mary.

  Madame de Frontignac threw up her hands with an expression of vexation.

  ‘What a pity, my little one, you are not in the true Church! Any goodpriest could dispense you from that.’

  ‘I do not believe,’ said Mary, ‘in any earthly power that can dispenseus from solemn obligations which we have assumed before God, and onwhich we have suffered others to build the most precious hopes. IfJames had won the affections of some girl, thinking as I do, I shouldnot feel it right for him to leave her and come to me. The Bible saysthat the just man is he that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not.’

  ‘This is the sublime of duty!’ said Madame de Frontignac, who, withthe airy facility of her race, never lost her appreciation of the finepoints of anything that went on under her eyes. But nevertheless shewas inwardly resolved, that picturesque as this ‘sublime of duty’ was,it must not be allowed to pass beyond the limits of a fine art, and soshe recommenced.

  ‘_Mais c’est absurde!_ This beautiful young man, with his black eyesand his curls—a real hero—a _Theseus_, Mary; just come home fromkilling a Minotaur—and loves you with his whole heart—and this dreadfulpromise! Why haven’t you any sort of people in your Church that canunbind you from promises? I should think the good priest himself woulddo it!’

  ‘Perhaps he would,’ said Mary, ‘if I would ask him; but that would beequivalent to a breach of it. Of course no man would marry a woman thatasked to be dispensed.’

  ‘You are an angel of delicacy, my child; _c’est admirable!_ but afterall, Mary, this is not well! Listen now to me: you are a very sweetsaint, and very strong in goodness. I think you must have a very strongangel that takes care of you; but think, _chère enfant_, _think_ whatit is to marry one man while you love another.’

  ‘But I love the Doctor,’ said Mary, evasively.

  ‘_Love!_’ said Madame de Frontignac. ‘Oh, Marie! you may love him well,but you and I both know that there is something deeper than that! Whatwill you _do_ with this young man? Must he move away from this place,and not be with his poor mother any more? Or can you see him, and hearhim, and be with him after your marriage, and not feel that you lovehim more than your husband?’

  ‘I should hope that God would help me to feel right,’ said Mary.

  ‘I am very much afraid He will not, _ma chère_’ said Madame. ‘I askedHim a great many times to help _me_ when I found how wrong it all was,and He did not. You remember what you told _me_ the other day, “thatif I would do right I must not _see_ that man any more.” You will haveto ask him to go away from this place. You can never see him, forthis love will never die till _you_ die! That you may be sure of. Isit wise? Is it right, dear little one? _Must_ he leave his home forever for you? Or must you struggle always, and grow whiter and whiterand whiter, and fade away into heaven like the moon this morning,and nobody know what is the matter? People will say you have theliver-complaint, or the consumption, or something. Nobody ever knowswhat we women die of.’

  Poor Mary’s conscience was fairly posed. This appeal struck upon hersense of right, as having its grounds. She felt inexpressibly confusedand distressed.

  ‘Oh, I wish somebody would tell me exactly what _is_ right!’ she said.

  ‘Well, _I_ will!’ said Madame de Frontignac. ‘Go down to the dearpriest and tell him the whole truth. My dear child, do you think if heshould ever find it out after your marriage, he would think you usedhim right?’

  ‘And yet _mother_ does not think so! Mother does not wish me to tellhim!’

  ‘_Pauvrette!_ Always the mother! Yes, it is always the mothers thatstand in the way of the lovers. Why cannot she marry the priestherself?’ she said, between her teeth, and then looked up, startledand guilty, to see if Mary had heard her.

  ‘I _cannot_!’ said Mary. ‘I cannot go against my conscience, and mymother, and my best friend—’

  At this moment the conference was cut short by Mrs. Scudder’s providentfootstep on the garret stairs. A vague suspicion of something _French_had haunted her during her dairy-work, and she resolved to come and puta stop to the interview by telling Mary that Miss Prissy wanted her tocome and be measured for the skirt of her dress.

  Mrs. Scu
dder, by the use of that sixth sense peculiar to mothers, haddivined that there had been some agitating conference, and had she beenquestioned about it, her guesses as to what it might be, would probablyhave given no bad _résumé_ of the real state of the case. She wasinwardly resolved that there should be no more such for the present,and kept Mary employed about various matters relating to the dresses soscrupulously, that there was no opportunity for anything more of thesort that day.

  In the evening James Marvyn came down, and was welcomed with thegreatest demonstrations of joy by all but Mary, who sat distant andembarrassed after the first salutations had passed.

  The Doctor was innocently parental; but we fear there was smallreciprocation of the sentiments he expressed on the part of the youngman.

  Miss Prissy, indeed, had had her heart somewhat touched, as good littlewomen’s hearts are apt to be by a true love story, and had hintedsomething of her feelings to Mrs. Scudder in a manner which broughtsuch a severe rejoinder as quite humbled and abashed her, so that shecoweringly took refuge under her former declaration, that ‘to be surethere couldn’t be any man in the world better _worthy_ of Mary thanthe Doctor.’ While still at her heart she was possessed with thattroublesome preference for unworthy people which stands in the way ofso many excellent things. But she went on vigorously sewing on thewedding-dress, and pursing up her small mouth into the most perfectand guarded expression of non-committal, though, she said afterwards‘it went to her heart to see how that poor young man did look sittingthere, just as noble and as handsome as a pictur’. She didn’t see for_her_ part how anybody’s heart _could_ stand it. Then, to be sure, asMrs. Scudder said, the poor Doctor ought to be thought about. Dear,blessed man! What a pity it was things _would_ turn out so! Not thatit was a pity that Jim came home! _That_ was a great providence! But apity they hadn’t known about it sooner. Well, for her part, she didn’tpretend to say; the path of duty did have a great many hard places init,’ &c.

  As for James, during his interview at the cottage, he waited and triedin vain for one moment’s solitary conversation. Mrs. Scudder wasimmovable in her motherly kindness, sitting there smiling and chattingwith him, but never stirring from her place by Mary.

  Madame de Frontignac was out of all patience, and determined in hersmall way to do something to discompose the fixed state of things. So,retreating to her room, she contrived, in very desperation, to upsetand break a wash-pitcher, shrieking violently in French and English atthe deluge which came upon the sanded floor and the little piece ofcarpet by the bedside.

  What housekeeper’s instincts are proof against the crash of breakingchina? Mrs. Scudder fled from her seat, followed by Miss Prissy—

  ‘Ah, then and there was hurrying to and fro’

  —while Mary sat, quiet as a statue, bending over her sewing, and James,knowing that it must be now or never, was, like a flash, in the emptychair by her side, with his black moustache very near the bent, brownhead.

  ‘Mary,’ he said, ‘you _must_ let me see you once more. All is not said!is it? Just hear me—hear me once alone!’

  ‘Oh, James! I am too weak! I dare not! I am afraid of myself.’

  ‘You think,’ he said, ‘that you _must_ take this course, because it isright; but _is_ it right? _Is_ it right to marry _one_ man when youlove another better? I don’t put this to your inclination, Mary; I knowit would be of no use. I put it to your conscience.’

  ‘Oh, I never was so perplexed before!’ said Mary. ‘I don’t know what I_do_ think. I must have time to reflect. And you, oh, James! you _must_let me do right. There will never be any happiness for me if I dowrong—nor for you either.’

  All this while the sounds of running and hurrying in Madame deFrontignac’s room had been unintermitted, and Miss Prissy, not withoutsome glimmerings of perception into the state of things, was holdingtight on to Mrs. Scudder’s gown, detailing to her a most capitalreceipt for mending broken china, the history of which she tracedregularly through all the families in which she had ever worked,varying the details with small items of family history, and littleincidents as to the births, marriages, and deaths of different peoplefor whom it had been employed, with all the particulars of how, where,and when, so that the time of James for conversation was by this meansindefinitely extended.

  ‘Now,’ he said to Mary, ‘let me propose one thing. Let _me_ go to theDoctor and tell him the truth.’

  ‘James, it does not seem to me that I can. A friend who has been soconsiderate, so kind, so self-sacrificing and disinterested, and whomI have allowed to go on with this implicit faith in me so long. Should_you_, James, think of _yourself_ only?’

  ‘I do not, I trust, think of myself only,’ said James. ‘I hope that Iam calm enough and have a heart to think for others. But I ask you,is it doing right to _him_ to let him marry you in ignorance of thestate of your feelings? Is it a kindness to a good and noble man togive yourself to him only seemingly, when the best and noblest part ofyour affection is gone wholly beyond your control. I am quite sure of_that_, Mary. I know you do love him very well, that you would make amost true, affectionate, constant wife to him, but what I _know_ youfeel for me is something wholly out of your power to give to him, is itnot now?’

  ‘I think it is,’ said Mary, looking gravely and deeply thoughtful. ‘Butthen, James, I ask myself, what if all this had happened a week hence?My feelings would have been just the same, because they are feelingsover which I have no more control than over my existence. I can onlycontrol the expression of them. But in _that_ case you would not haveasked me to break my marriage vow, and why now shall I break a solemnvow deliberately made before God? If what I can give him will contenthim, and he never knows that which would give him pain, what wrong isdone him?’

  ‘I should think the deepest possible wrong done me,’ said James, ‘if,when I thought I had married a wife with a whole heart, I found thatthe greater part of it had been before that given to another. If youtell him, or if I tell him, or your mother, who is the more properperson, and he chooses to hold you to your promise, then, Mary, I haveno more to say. I shall sail in a few weeks again, and carry your imagefor ever in my heart; nobody can take that away, and _that_ dear shadowwill be the only wife I shall ever know.’

  At this moment Miss Prissy came rattling along towards the door,talking, we suspect designedly, in quite a high key. Mary hastily said,

  ‘Wait, James, let me think. To-morrow is the Sabbath-day. Monday I willsend you word or see you.’

  And when Miss Prissy returned into the best room, James was sitting atone window and Mary at another, he making remarks in a style of mostadmirable commonplace on a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost, which he hadpicked up in the confusion of the moment, and which at the time Mrs.Katy Scudder entered, he was declaring to be a most excellent book, anda really truly valuable work.

  Mrs. Scudder looked keenly from one to the other, and saw that Mary’scheek was glowing like the deepest heart of a pink shell, while inall other respects she was as cold and calm. On the whole she feltsatisfied that no mischief had been done.

  We hope our readers will do Mrs. Scudder justice. It is true that sheyet wore on her third finger the marriage ring of a sailor lover,and his memory was yet fresh in her heart; but even mothers whohave married for love themselves somehow so blend their daughter’sexistence with their own as to conceive that she must marry _their_love and not her own.

  Beside this, Mrs. Scudder was an Old Testament woman, brought upwith that scrupulous exactitude of fidelity in relation to promiseswhich would naturally come from familiarity with a book wherecovenant-keeping is represented as one of the highest attributes ofDeity, and covenant-breaking as one of the vilest sins of humanity.To break the word that had gone forth out of one’s mouth was to loseself-respect and all claim to the respect of others, and to sin againsteternal rectitude.

  As we have said before, it is almost impossible to make ourlight-minded modern times comprehend the earnestness with which thesepeople lived. It was in th
e beginning no vulgar nor mercenary ambitionthat made Mrs. Scudder desire the Doctor as a husband for her daughter.He was poor, and she had had offers from richer men. He was oftenunpopular, but he was the man in the world she most revered, the manshe believed in with the most implicit faith, the man who embodied herhighest idea of the good; and therefore it was that she was willing toresign her child to him.

  As to James, she had felt truly sympathetic with his mother and withMary in the dreadful hour when they supposed him lost, and had it notbeen for the great perplexity occasioned by his return she would havereceived him as a relative with open arms. But now she felt it herduty to be on the defensive, an attitude not the most favourable forcherishing pleasing associations in regard to another. She had read theletter giving an account of his spiritual experience with very sincerepleasure as a good woman should, but not without an internal perceptionhow very much it endangered her favourite plans. But when Mary hadcalmly reiterated her determination, she felt sure of her. For had sheever known her to say a thing she did not do?

  The uneasiness she felt at present was not the doubt of her daughter’ssteadiness, but the fear that she might have been unsuitably harassedor annoyed.