‘Helen, what means this?’ I cried, electrified at this startling change in her demeanour.
‘You did not understand my gift,’ said she – ‘or, what is worse, you despised it. I’m sorry I gave it you; but since I did make such a mistake, the only remedy I could think of was to take it away.’
‘You misunderstood me cruelly,’ I replied, and in a minute I had opened the window again, leaped out, picked up the flower, brought it in, and presented it to her, imploring her to give it me again, and I would keep it for ever for her sake, and prize it more highly than anything in the world I possessed.
‘And will this content you?’ said she, as she took it in her hand.
‘It shall,’ I answered.
‘There, then; take it.’
I pressed it earnestly to my lips, and put it in my bosom, Mrs. Huntingdon looking on with a half-sarcastic smile.
‘Now, are you going?’ said she.
‘I will if – if I must.’
‘You are changed,’ persisted she – ‘you are grown either very proud or very indifferent.’
‘I am neither, Helen – Mrs. Huntingdon. If you could see my heart –’
‘You must be one, – if not both. And why Mrs. Huntingdon? – why not Helen, as before?’
‘Helen, then – dear Helen!’ I murmured. I was in an agony of mingled love, hope, delight, uncertainty, and suspense.
‘The rose I gave you was an emblem of my heart,’ said she; ‘would you take it away and leave me here alone?’
‘Would you give me your hand too, if I asked it?’
‘Have I not said enough?’ she answered, with a most enchanting smile. I snatched her hand, and would have fervently kissed it, but suddenly checked myself, and said, –
‘But have you considered the consequences?’
‘Hardly, I think, or I should not have offered myself to one too proud to take me, or too indifferent to make his affection outweigh my worldly goods.’
Stupid blockhead that I was! – I trembled to clasp her in my arms, but dared not believe in so much joy, and yet restrained myself to say, –
‘But if you should repent!’
‘It would be your fault,’ she replied: ‘I never shall, unless you bitterly disappoint me. If you have not sufficient confidence in my affection to believe this, let me alone.’
‘My darling angel – my own Helen,’ cried I, now passionately kissing the hand I still retained, and throwing my left arm around her, ‘you never shall repent, if it depend on me alone. But have you thought of your aunt?’ I trembled for the answer, and clasped her closer to my heart in the instinctive dread of losing my new-found treasure.
‘My aunt must not know of it yet,’ said she. ‘She would think it a rash, wild step, because she could not imagine how well I know you; but she must know you herself, and learn to like you. You must leave us now, after lunch, and come again in spring, and make a longer stay, and cultivate her acquaintance, and I know you will like each other.’
‘And then you will be mine,’ said I, printing a kiss upon her lips, and another, and another; for I was as daring and impetuous now as I had been backward and constrained before.
‘No – in another year,’ replied she, gently disengaging herself from my embrace, but still fondly clasping my hand.
‘Another year! Oh, Helen, I could not wait so long!’
‘Where is your fidelity?’
‘I mean I could not endure the misery of so long a separation.’
‘It would not be a separation: we will write every day: my spirit shall be always with you, and sometimes you shall see me with your bodily eye. I will not be such a hypocrite as to pretend that I desire to wait so long myself, but as my marriage is to please myself, alone, I ought to consult my friends about the time of it.’
‘Your friends will disapprove.’
‘They will not greatly disapprove, dear Gilbert,’ said she, earnestly kissing my hand; ‘they cannot, when they know you, or, if they could, they would not be true friends – I should not care for their estrangement. Now are you satisfied?’ She looked up in my face with a smile of ineffable tenderness.
‘Can I be otherwise, with your love? And you do love me, Helen?’ said I, not doubting the fact, but wishing to hear it confirmed by her own acknowledgment. ‘If you loved as I do,’ she earnestly replied, ‘you would not have so nearly lost me – these scruples of false delicacy and pride would never thus have troubled you – you would have seen that the greatest worldly distinctions and discrepancies of rank, birth, and fortune are as dust in the balance compared with the unity of accordant thoughts and feelings, and truly loving, sympathising hearts and souls.’
‘But this is too much happiness,’ said I, embracing her again; ‘I have not deserved it, Helen – I dare not believe in such felicity: and the longer I have to wait, the greater will be my dread that something will intervene to snatch you from me – and think, a thousand things may happen in a year! – I shall be in one long fever of restless terror and impatience all the time. And besides, winter is such a dreary season.’
‘I thought so too,’ replied she gravely: ‘I would not be married in winter – in December, at least,’ she added, with a shudder – for in that month had occurred both the ill-starred marriage that had bound her to her former husband, and the terrible death that released her – ‘and therefore I said another year, in spring.’
‘Next spring?’
‘No, no – next autumn, perhaps.’
‘Summer, then?’
‘Well, the close of summer. There now! be satisfied.’
While she was speaking Arthur re-entered the room – good boy for keeping out so long.
‘Mamma, I couldn’t find the book in either of the places you told me to look for it’ (there was a conscious something in mamma’s smile that seemed to say, ‘No, dear, I knew you could not’), ‘but Rachel got it for me at last. Look, Mr. Markham, a natural history, with all kinds of birds and beasts in it, and the reading as nice as the pictures!’
In great good humour I sat down to examine the book, and drew the little fellow between my knees. Had he come a minute before I should have received him less graciously, but now I affectionately stroked his curling looks, and even kissed his ivory forehead: he was my own Helen’s son, and therefore mine; and as such I have ever since regarded him. That pretty child is now a fine young man: he has realised his mother’s brightest expectations, and is at present residing in Grassdale Manor with his young wife – the merry little Helen Hattersley of yore.
I had not looked through half the book before Mrs. Maxwell appeared to invite me into the other room to lunch. That lady’s cool, distant manners rather chilled me at first; but I did my best to propitiate her, and not entirely without success, I think, even in that first short visit; for when I talked cheerfully to her, she gradually became more kind and cordial, and when I departed she bade me a gracious adieu, hoping ere long to have the pleasure of seeing me again.
‘But you must not go till you have seen the conservatory, my aunt’s winter garden,’ said Helen, as I advanced to take leave of her, with as much philosophy and self-command as I could summon to my aid.
I gladly availed myself of such a respite, and followed her into a large and beautiful conservatory, plentifully furnished with flowers, considering the season – but, of course, I had little attention to spare for them. It was not, however, for any tender colloquy that my companion had brought me there: –
‘My aunt is particularly fond of flowers,’ she observed, ‘and she is fond of Staningley too: I brought you here to offer a petition in her behalf, that this may be her home as long as she lives, and – if it be not our home likewise – that I may often see her and be with her; for I fear she will be sorry to lose me; and though she leads a retired and contemplative life, she is apt to get low-spirited if left too much alone.’
‘By all means, dearest Helen! – do what you will with your own. I should not dream of wishing your aunt to leave the place under any circumstances; and we will live either here or elsewhere as you and she may determine, and you shall see her as often as you like. I know she must be pained to part with you, and I am willing to make any reparation in my power. I love her for your sake, and her happiness shall be as dear to me as that of my own mother.’
‘Thank you, darling! you shall have a kiss for that. Good-by. There now – there, Gilbert – let me go – here’s Arthur; don’t astonish his infantile brain with your madness.’
* * * * *
But it is time to bring my narrative to a close. Anyone but you would say I had made it too long already. But for your satisfaction I will add a few words more; because I know you will have a fellow-feeling for the old lady, and will wish to know the last of her history. I did come again in spring, and, agreeably to Helen’s injunctions, did my best to cultivate her acquaintance. She received me very kindly, having been, doubtless, already prepared to think highly of my character by her niece’s too favourable report. I turned my best side out, of course, and we got along marvellously well together. When my ambitious intentions were made known to her, she took it more sensibly than I had ventured to hope. Her only remark on the subject, in my hearing, was –
‘And so, Mr. Markham, you are going to rob me of my niece, I understand. Well! I hope God will prosper your union, and make my dear girl happy at last. Could she have been contented to remain single, I own I should have been better satisfied; but if she must marry again, I know of no one, now living and of a suitable age, to whom I would more willingly resign her than yourself, or who would be more likely to appreciate her worth and make, her truly happy, as far as I can tell.’
Of course I was delighted with the compliment, and hoped to show her that she was not mistaken in her favourable judgment.
‘I have, however, one request to offer,’ continued she. ‘It seems I am still to look on Staningley as my home: I wish you to make it yours likewise, for Helen is attached to the place and to me – as I am to her. There are painful associations connected with Grassdale, which she cannot easily overcome; and I shall not molest you with my company or interference here: I am a very quiet person, and shall keep my own apartments, and attend to my own concerns, and only see you now and then.’
Of course I most readily consented to this; and we lived in the greatest harmony with our dear aunt until the day of her death, which melancholy event took place a few years after – melancholy, not to herself (for it came quietly upon her, and she was glad to reach her journey’s end), but only to the few loving friends and grateful dependents she left behind.
To return, however, to my own affairs: I was married in summer, on a glorious August morning. It took the whole eight months, and all Helen’s kindness and goodness to boot, to overcome my mother’s prejudices against my bride-elect, and to reconcile her to the idea of my leaving Linden Grange and living so far away. Yet she was gratified at her son’s good fortune after all, and proudly attributed it all to his own superior merits and endowments. I bequeathed the farm to Fergus, with better hopes of its prosperity than I should have had a year ago under similar circumstances; for he had lately fallen in love with the Vicar of L—’s eldest daughter – a lady whose superiority had roused his latent virtues, and stimulated him to the most surprising exertions, not only to gain her affection and esteem, and to obtain a fortune sufficient to aspire to her hand, but to render himself worthy of her, in his own eyes, as well as in those of her parents; and in the end he was successful, as you already know. As for myself, I need not tell you how happily my Helen and I have lived together, and how blessed we still are in each other’s society, and in the promising young scions that are growing up about us. We are just now looking forward to the advent of you and Rose, for the time of your annual visit draws nigh, when you must leave your dusty, smoky, noisy, toiling, striving city for a season of invigorating relaxation and social retirement with us.
Till then, farewell, Staningley: June Gilbert Markham. 10th, 1847.
a quotation from the poem “The Seasons” (“Autumn”) by James Thomson (1700 – 1748), a Scottish poet and playwright.
Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland – “Pamela” is the title of a novel by Samuel Richardson (1689–1761), “Henry, Earl of Moreland” – a book by John Wesley (1703–1791).
Marseilles – strong cotton cloth made in Marseilles, France
Guy Fawkes (1570–1606) – a conspirator, executed for attempting to blow up the king and Parliament in 1605.
doat – dote on = to be fond of
sotto voce – in a very low voice (Italian)
“onding on snaw” – on the verge of snowing
Collect – a short prayer for a particular day
frieze – heavy woolen cloth
“Rasselas” – a didactic novel by Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
Felix – from the Bible; Felix was a Roman governor who listened to St. Paul’s teaching
a moiety – half of the portion
en masse – together (French). Here and further on the characters of the book often use French in their communication.
Barmecide feast – an imaginary feast, with empty plates, given to a beggar by rich Baghdad nobleman (from “Arabian Nights”)
Cuyp-like – as in the pictures of Aelbert Jacobsz Cuyp (1620–1691), Dutch painter
references – here: a written testimonial
en règle – according to the rules (French)
Wolfe, James (1727–1759) – English soldier who was killed when commanding the British capture of Quebec
common – a part of the territory in the centre of some district, belonging to or used by a community as a whole
