 | CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE QUESTION OF DUTY. The minister's wooing |  |
37. CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE QUESTION OF DUTY.
It is a hard condition of our existence here,
that every exaltation must have its depression.
God will not let us have heaven here below, but
only such glimpses and faint showings as parents
sometimes give to children, when they show them
beforehand the jewelry and pictures and stores of
rare and curious treasures which they hold for the
possession of their riper years. So it very often
happens that the man who has gone to bed an
angel, feeling as if all sin were forever vanquished,
and he himself immutably grounded in love, may
wake the next morning with a sick-headache and,
if he be not careful, may scold about his breakfast
like a miserable sinner.
We will not say that our dear little Mary rose
in this condition next morning, — for, although she
had the headache, she had one of those natures in
which, somehow or other, the combative element
seems to be left out, so that no one ever knew
her to speak a fretful word. But still, as we have
— and there came the slow, creeping sense
of waking up, through all her heart and soul, of
a thousand, thousand things that could be said
only to one person, and that person one that
it would be temptation and danger to say them
to.
She came out of her room to her morning work
with a face resolved and calm, but expressive of
languor, with slight signs of some inward struggle.
Madame de Frontignac, who had already heard
the intelligence, threw two or three of her bright
glances upon her at breakfast, and at once divined
how the matter stood. She was of a nature so
delicately sensitive to the most refined shades of
honor, that she apprehended at once that there
must be a conflict, — though, judging by her own
impulsive nature, she made no doubt that all would
at once go down before the mighty force of reawakened
love.
After breakfast she would insist upon following
Mary about through all her avocations. She possessed
herself of a towel, and would wipe the
teacups and saucers, while Mary washed. She
clinked the glasses, and rattled the cups and
spoons, and stepped about as briskly as if she
had two or three breezes to carry her train, and
chattered half English and half French, for the
dimples that she liked to watch. But still Mrs.
Scudder was around, with an air as provident and
forbidding as that of a sitting hen who watches
her nest; nor was it till after all things had been
cleared away in the house, and Mary had gone
up into her little attic to spin, that the long-sought
opportunity came of diving to the bottom
of this mystery.
“Enfin, Marie, nous voici! Are you not going
to tell me anything, when I have turned my heart
out to you like a bag? Chère enfant! how happy
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. “Is that the way you
American girls show it, when you are very happy?
Come, come, ma belle! tell little Virginie something.
Thou hast seen this hero, this wandering
Ulysses. He has come back at last; the tapestry
will not be quite as long as Penelope's? Speak
to me of him. Has he beautiful 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 deal more than I saw. He
could not have been any clearer to me than he
always 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 good 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 break my 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 good priest could dispense
you from that.”
“I do not believe,” said Mary, “in any earthly
power that can dispense us from solemn obligations
which we have assumed before God, and on
which we have suffered others to build the most
precious hopes. If James had won the affections
of some girl, thinking as I do, I should not think
it right for him to leave her and come to me.
The Bible says, that the just man is `he that
sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.'”
“C'est le sublime de devoir!” said Madame de
Frontignac, who, with the airy frailty of her race
never lost her appreciation of the fine points of
she was 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 so she recommenced.
“Mais c'est absurde. This beautiful young man,
with his black eyes, and his curls, — a real hero,
— a Theseus, Mary, — just come home from killing
a Minotaur, — and loves you with his whole heart,
— and this dreadful promise! Why, haven't you
any sort of people in your Church that can unbind
you from promises? I should think the good
priest himself would do it!”
“Perhaps he would,” said Mary, “if I should
ask him; but that would be equivalent to a breach
of it. Of course, no man would marry a woman
that asked to be dispensed.”
“You are an angel of delicacy, my child; c'est
admirable! but, after all, Mary, this is not well.
Listen now to me. You are a very sweet saint,
and very strong in goodness. I think you must
have a very strong angel that takes care of you.
But think, chère enfant, — think what it 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. What will you do with this young man?
with his poor mother any more? Or can you see
him, and hear him, and be with him, after your
marriage, and not feel that you love him 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.
I asked Him 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, — that, if I would do right, I must not see
that man any more. You will have to ask him
to go away from this place; you can never see
him; for this love will never die till you die; —
that you may be sure of. Is it wise? is it right,
dear little one? Must he leave his home forever
for you? or must you struggle always, and grow
whiter and whiter, and fall away into heaven, like
the moon this morning, and nobody know what is
the matter? People will say you have the liver-complaint,
or the consumption, or something. Nobody
ever knows what we women die of.”
Poor Mary's conscience was fairly posed. This
appeal struck upon her sense of right as having
its grounds. She felt inexpressibly confused and
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 dear priest, and tell him the
whole truth. My dear child, do you think, if he
should ever find it out after your marriage, he
would think you used him right?”
“And yet mother does not think so; mother
does not wish me to tell him.”
“Pauvrette, toujours les mères! Yes, it is always
the mothers that stand in the way of the lovers.
Why cannot she marry the priest herself?” she
said between her teeth, and then looked up,
startled and guilty, to see if Mary had heard
her.
“I cannot,” said Mary, — “I cannot go against
my conscience, and my mother, and my best
friend.”
At this moment, the conference was cut short
by Mrs. Scudder's provident footsteps on the garret-stairs.
A vague suspicion of something French
had haunted her during her dairy-work, and she
resolved to come and put a stop to the interview,
by telling Mary that Miss Prissy wanted
her to come and be measured for the skirt of her
dress.
Mrs. Scudder, by the use of that sixth sense
peculiar to mothers, had divined that there had
been some agitating conference, and, had she been
questioned about it, her guesses as to what it
might have been would probably have given no
was inwardly resolved that there should be no
more such for the present, and kept Mary employed
about various matters relating to the
dresses, so scrupulously that there was no opportunity
for anything more of the sort that day.
In the evening James Marvyn came down, and
was welcomed with the greatest demonstrations
of joy by all but Mary, who sat distant and embarrassed,
after the first salutations had passed.
The Doctor was innocently paternal; but we
fear that on the part of the young man there
was small reciprocation of the sentiments he expressed.
Miss Prissy, indeed, had had her heart somewhat
touched, as good little women's hearts are apt
to be by a true love-story, and had hinted something
of her feelings to Mrs. Scudder, in a manner
which brought such a severe rejoinder as quite
humbled and abashed her, so that she coweringly
took refuge under her former declaration, that, “to
be sure, there couldn't be any man in the world
better worthy of Mary than the Doctor,” while
still at her heart she was possessed with that
troublesome preference for unworthy people which
stands in the way of so many excellent things.
But she went on vigorously sewing on the wedding-dress,
and pursing up her small mouth into
the most perfect and guarded expression of non
to her heart to see how that poor young man did
look, sitting there just as noble and as handsome
as a picture. She didn't see, for her part, how
anybody's heart could stand it; though, to be sure,
as Miss Scudder said, the poor Doctor ought to
be thought about, dear blessed man! What a
pity it was things would turn out so! Not that
it was a pity that Jim came home, — that was a
great providence, — but a pity they hadn't known
about it sooner. Well, for her part, she didn't
pretend to say; the path of duty did have a great
many hard places in it.”
As for James, during his interview at the cottage,
he waited and tried in vain for one moment's
private conversation. Mrs. Scudder was
immovable in her motherly kindness, sitting there,
smiling and chatting with him, but never stirring
from her place by Mary.
Madame de Frontignac was out of all patience,
and determined, in her small way, to do something
to discompose the fixed state of things. So, retreating
to her room, she contrived, in very desperation,
to upset and break a water-pitcher,
shrieking violently in French and English at the
deluge which came upon the sanded floor and the
little piece of carpet by the bedside.
What housekeeper's instincts are proof against
the crash of breaking china?
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 empty chair
by her side, with his black moustache very near
to the bent brown head.
“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 is right. But is it right? Is
it right to marry one man, when you love another
better? I don't put this to your inclination, Mary,
— I know it would be of no use, — I put it to
your conscience.”
“Oh, I was never 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 do wrong, — nor for
you, either.”
All this while the sounds of running and hurrying
in Madame de Frontignac's room had been
unintermitted; and Miss Prissy, not without some
glimmerings of perception, was holding tight on
capital receipt for mending broken china, the history
of which she traced regularly through all the
families in which she had ever worked, varying
the details with small items of family history, and
little incidents as to the births, marriages, and
deaths of different people for 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 means indefinitely extended.
“Now,” he said to Mary, “let me propose one
thing. Let me go to the Doctor, and tell him the
truth.”
“James, it does not seem to me that I can. A
friend who has been so considerate, so kind, so
self-sacrificing and disinterested, and whom I 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 I am 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 the state of your feelings? Is it a kindness
to a good and noble man to give yourself to
him only seemingly, when the best and noblest
part of your affections 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
but what I know you feel for me is something
wholly out of your power to give to him, — is it
not, now?”
“I think it is,” said Mary, looking gravely and
deeply thoughtful. “But then, James, I ask myself,
`What if this had happened a week hence?'
My feelings would have been just the same, because
they are feelings over which I have no
more control than over my existence. I can only
control the expression of them. But in that case
you would not have asked me to break my marriage-vow;
and why now shall I break a solemn
vow deliberately made before God? If what I
can give him will content him, and he never knows
that which would give him pain, what wrong is
done 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 that
the greater part of it had been before that given
to another. If you tell him, or if I tell him, or
your mother, — who is the proper person, — and he
chooses to hold you to your promise, then, Mary,
I have no more to say. I shall sail in a few
weeks again, and carry your image forever in my
heart; — nobody can take that away; that dear
shadow will be the only wife I shall ever know.
At this moment Miss Prissy came rattling
designedly — on quite a high key. Mary hastily
said, —
“Wait, James, — let me think, — to-morrow is
the Sabbath-day. Monday I will send you word,
or see you.”
And when Miss Prissy returned into the best
room, James was sitting at one window and Mary
at another, — he making remarks, in a style of
most admirable commonplace, on a copy of Milton's
“Paradise Lost,” which he had picked 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, — a really, truly, valuable
work.
Mrs. Scudder looked keenly from one to the
other, and saw that Mary's cheek was glowing
like the deepest heart of a pink shell, while, in all
other respects, she was as cold and calm. On the
whole, she felt satisfied that no mischief had been
done.
We hope our readers will do Mrs. Scudder justice.
It is true that she yet wore on her third
finger the marriage-ring of a sailor lover, and his
memory was yet fresh in her heart; but even
mothers who have married for love themselves
somehow so blend a daughter's existence with
their own as to conceive that she must marry
their love, and not her own. Besides this, Mrs.
up with that scrupulous exactitude of fidelity in
relation to promises which would naturally come
from familiarity with a book in which covenant-keeping
is represented as one of the highest attributes
of Deity, 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
lose self-respect, and all claim to the respect of
others, and to sin against eternal rectitude.
As we have said before, it is almost impossible
to make our light-minded times comprehend the
earnestness with which those people lived. It was,
in the beginning, no vulgar nor mercenary ambition
that made her seek the Doctor as a husband
for her daughter. He was poor, and she had had
offers from richer men. He was often unpopular;
but he was the man in the world she most revered,
the man she believed in with the most implicit
faith, the man who embodied her highest
ideas of the good; and therefore it was that she
was willing to resign her child to him.
As to James, she had felt truly sympathetic
with his mother, and with Mary, in the dreadful
hour when they supposed him lost; and had it
not been for the great perplexity occasioned by his
return, she would have received him, as a relative,
with open arms. But now she felt it her duty to
be on the defensive, — an attitude not the most
regard to another. She had read the letter giving
an account of his spiritual experience with very
sincere pleasure, as a good woman should, but
not without an internal perception how very much
it endangered her favorite plans. When Mary,
however, had calmly reiterated her determination,
she felt sure of her; for had she ever known her
to say a thing she did not do?
The uneasiness she felt at present was not the
doubt of her daughter's steadiness, but the fear
that she might have been unsuitably harassed or
annoyed.
| CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE QUESTION OF DUTY. The minister's wooing | |