ELIZABETH GASKELL Premium Collection: 10 Novels & 40+ Short Stories; Including Poems, Essays & Biographies (Illustrated). Elizabeth Gaskell
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it is at two. I will take care to be in time.”
“Don’t come till five, please. I must tell mamma; and I want some time to think. It does seem so like a dream. Do go, please.”
“Well! if I must, I must. But I don’t feel as if I were in a dream, but in some real blessed heaven so long as I see you.”
At last he went. Nancy was awaiting Maggie, the side-gate.
“Bless us and save us, bairn! what a time it has taken thee to get the water. Is the spring dry with the hot weather?”
Maggie ran past her. All dinner-time she heard her mother’s voice in long-continued lamentation about something. She answered at random, and startled her mother by asserting that she thought “it” was very good; the said “it” being milk turned sour by thunder. Mrs. Browne spoke quite sharply, “No one is so particular as you, Maggie. I have known you drink water, day after day, for breakfast, when you were a little girl, because your cup of milk had a drowned fly in it; and now you tell me you don’t care for this, and don’t mind that, just as if you could eat up all the things which are spoiled by the heat. I declare my head aches so, I shall go and lie down as soon as ever dinner is over.”
If this was her plan, Maggie thought she had no time to lose in making her confession. Frank would be here before her mother got up again to tea. But she dreaded speaking about her happiness; it seemed as yet so cobweb-like, as if a touch would spoil its beauty.
“Mamma, just wait a minute. Just sit down in your chair while I tell you something. Please, dear mamma.” She took a stool, and sat at her mother’s feet; and then she began to turn the wedding-ring on Mrs. Browne’s hand, looking down and never speaking, till the latter became impatient.
“What is if you have got to say, child? Do make haste, for I want to go up-stairs.”
With a great jerk of resolution, Maggie said:
“Mamma, Frank Buxton has asked me to marry him.”
She hid her face in her mother’s lap for an instant; and then she lifted it up, as brimful of the light of happiness as is the cup of a water-lily of the sun’s radiance.
“Maggie — you don’t say so,” said her mother, half incredulously. “It can’t be, for he’s at Cambridge, and it’s not post-day. What do you mean?”
“He came this morning, mother, when I was down at the well; and we fixed that I was to speak to you; and he asked if he might come again for tea.”
“Dear! dear! and the milk all gone sour? We should have had milk of our own, if Edward had not persuaded me against buying another cow.”
“I don’t think Mr. Buxton will mind it much,” said Maggie, dimpling up, as she remembered, half unconsciously, how little he had seemed to care for anything but herself.
“Why, what a thing it is for you!” said Mrs. Browne, quite roused up from her languor and her head-ache. “Everybody said he was engaged to Miss Erminia. Are you quite sure you made no mistake, child? What did he say? Young men are so fond of making fine speeches; and young women are so silly in fancying they mean something. I once knew a girl who thought that a gentleman who sent her mother a present of a sucking-pig, did it as a delicate way of making her an offer. Tell me his exact words.”
But Maggie blushed, and either would not or could not. So Mrs. Browne began again:
“Well, if you’re sure, you’re sure. I wonder how he brought his father round. So long as he and Erminia have been planned for each other! That very first day we ever dined there after your father’s death, Mr. Buxton as good as told me all about it. I fancied they were only waiting till they were out of mourning.”
All this was news to Maggie. She had never thought that either Erminia or Frank was particularly fond of the other; still less had she had any idea of Mr. Buxton’s plans for them. Her mother’s surprise at her engagement jarred a little upon her too: it had become so natural, even in these last two hours, to feel that she belonged to him. But there were more discords to come. Mrs. Browne began again, half in soliloquy:
“I should think he would have four thousand a-year. He did not tell you, love, did he, if they had still that bad property in the canal, that his father complained about? But he will have four thousand. Why, you’ll have your carriage, Maggie. Well! I hope Mr. Buxton has taken it kindly, because he’ll have a deal to do with the settlements. I’m sure I thought he was engaged to Erminia.”
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