ELIZABETH GASKELL Premium Collection: 10 Novels & 40+ Short Stories; Including Poems, Essays & Biographies (Illustrated). Elizabeth Gaskell
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“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-inlaw 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-inlaw, 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