The Days of My Life: An Autobiography. Oliphant Margaret
is not quite an orthodox subject of study, I allow you; but pray what do you intend to do with her? is she to live in this garden for ever, like that fantastic boy’s lady of Shalott?”
My father paused and I listened eagerly. It was some time before he answered, and there was hesitation in his usually firm tones.
“Life has deluded me,” he said, slowly. “I am at a loss to know how to guard Hester, that it may not delude her also.”
“Southcote,” said his companion, earnestly, “listen to me a moment. Life deludes no man. You are a self-devourer. You have deluded yourself; nay, take offence and, of course, I have done at once. I do not know the innocent mind of a young girl, very true; but I know that imagination is the very breath of youth – it must look forward, and it must dream – what is Hester to dream about, think you? not of the triumph of an examination, I suppose, nor of going in for honors; you have not even tried to kill the woman in her, and make her a scholar. The child is shamefully ignorant, Southcote. Why here’s this feminine rubbish lying under my very feet – look here!” and he pulled up my mangled embroidery. “I should not be surprised now if it pleased your fancy to see her bending her pretty head over this stuff – what’s she thinking of all this time, my friend? Nothing, eh? or only how to arrange the stitches, and make one little turn the same as another? I’ll trust Hester for that.”
There was another pause, and there he stood turning over my work, and I not able to rush forward and snatch it out of his hand. My cheeks burned with shame and anger – how dared any man discuss my thoughts and fancies so!
“Well, here is the real matter,” said my father, slowly; “Edgar Southcote, it appears, is eighteen – two years older than my Hester, and old enough, he thinks, as he tells me, to decide upon the most important event of his life for himself – so he sends me a formal proposal for the hand of his cousin. My difficulty is not whether to accept the proposal – you understand that, Osborne – but whether, before giving it a peremptory and decided negative, I ought to make it known to Hester?”
“I understand. Well now, waiving that principal difficulty, might one ask why this young man’s very reasonable proposal should have such a peremptory negative?” said Mr. Osborne; “for my own part I do not see that this is at all a necessary conclusion.”
“I am afraid it must suffice that I think it so,” said my father, in his firmest and coldest tone.
“On your high horse again, Southcote? Patience a little, now. Your brother Brian was not a strong-minded man – but a very good fellow for all that. What’s your objection now to his son?”
I almost trembled for this cool scrutinizing of my father’s motives and opinions, which he never revealed to any one – yet I too listened with interest for the answer. No answer came. My father spoke hurriedly and with irritation; but he did not reply.
“I presume you will permit us some little exercise of our own will as to the person whom we admit into our family,” he said; “but enough of this. Do you advise me to tell Hester, or to dispose of the affair on my own responsibility?”
Mr. Osborne seemed bent upon provoking my father’s slumbering resentment.
“Well,” he said with a pause of much consideration, “had the boy proposed to you, the answer would have lain with you of course – but I think it quite possible that some time or other in her life, Hester might remember that her old home in all its revenues, and, I have no doubt, a very worthy and generous youth along with them, had been laid at her feet, and her father, on his own responsibility, threw them away.”
“Osborne!” cried my father – I almost expected he would command him away, and bid him never more enter our house. I am sure I felt that I never could address him with ordinary civility again – but instead of that, after a moment’s pause, my father resumed, in vehement tones certainly, but not in tones of anger at the speaker. “Generous! and you think I would give my daughter to one who sought her from a generous impulse; you forget my life and you forget me.”
How my heart throbbed and resounded in its quick and painful beating! – I cannot tell how strangely I felt the possibility that I myself might one day or other realize in my own person the misfortune of my father’s life. Yes, Mr. Osborne was right thus far, I had not been thinking of nothing while I sat in the sunshine working at my embroidery. I had already seen dimly through the golden mists the hero, the prince, the red cross knight. I had already seen myself worshipped with the pure devotedness of chivalry. I had already, like a true girl and woman, imagined all manner of glories and honors won for me by my true knight, and prized because they made him nobler, and not because they exalted me. Yes! I had been dreaming innocent, beautiful, unworldly dreams – when lo! there fell upon me a vision of my cousin Edgar, and his generous impulse. I clenched my hands upon my little plant in a passion of indignation. The words stung me to the heart.
“Well – I am not astonished that you regard it in this light,” said Mr. Osborne, “but you must confess, at the same time, Southcote, that there is a more common sense way of looking at it. The boy is a good boy, and feels that he has been the means of injuring his cousin – what more natural than that the two branches of the family should unite their claims in this most satisfactory way – what is your objection to it? A punctilio? Come, don’t talk of it to Hester yet – let’s have a fight, old friend. I flatter myself you were none the worse in the old days of arguing out the matter with Frank Osborne. Now, then, for your arguments. Heigho! Howard, my boy, do you recollect the last time?”
There was so long a pause that I could not help stealing forward to look what was the reason. My father’s face was as black as night, and he stood opposite his friend in a rigid fixed attitude, vacantly looking at him – then he turned suddenly on his heel, “Excuse me – I am faint – I will return to you instantly,” he said, as he hurried in. Mr. Osborne shrugged his shoulders, gazed after him, shrugged again, began to whistle, and then suddenly turning round found himself face to face with me.
For the first moment I think I was the least disconcerted – for I was very angry and indignant beyond measure; but, as his face gradually brightened into its usual expression of shrewdness and good-humored sarcasm, my own courage fell. I had been eavesdropping, finding out my father’s secrets without his knowledge – playing a very shabby part – I who piqued myself upon my sense of honor.
“So!” said Mr. Osborne, “your father is right, young lady. I see I did not understand Hester; pray what may you be doing here?”
And I, who had intended to denounce his paltry views, and to pour out the full tide of my indignation upon him for thwarting and chafing my father – I was ready to cry with vexation and mortified pride. “I did not intend to listen – I was only here by chance – and, at first, I thought you knew I was here,” said I, making a pause between each sentence, swallowing down my ire and my humiliation. After all I had heard, to have to excuse myself to him!
“Well, your father’s run away,” said Mr. Osborne; “suppose we finish the argument, Hester. It is your concern after all; but I suppose such a thing as a sweetheart, or the dim possibility of being wooed and married never entered your guileless thoughts at all?”
I did not answer him – my girlish pride was on fire, and my cheeks burnt, but I could find nothing sufficiently annihilating to reply to Mr. Osborne.
We heard the noise of an opened door just then, and of a footstep in the passage which led to the garden. Mr. Osborne glanced hastily round him, and then bent forward to me.
“Hester, attend to me. You are very young, and have had a wild education; try, if you can think before you permit your father to decide on this. Do you mark me? I know this boy – he is a better boy than you are, and he has a fantastic fancy for you, as great as you could desire. Hester, here’s your father. I’ll keep your secret, and do you think of what I say.”
My father joined us immediately. If it surprised him to find me there, he took no notice of it, and I was glad to pick up my embroidery and hurry away. I was impressed with an uncomfortable necessity for thinking about it, from what Mr. Osborne had said, and I went to my own room to recollect myself. I could not deny either