Mrs. Oliphant

“ Self-sacrifice for Madeline—that was a very different thing, after all, from yielding up his own enlightened will to the obstinate insistence of his father—or of her father. A man may stand against every other claim upon him, but to prefer his own will to the woman he loves—to sacrifice her rather than do something he did not like—was very different. For her he had vowed to do everything that man could do—to die for her, to live for her, to think of nothing in comparison with her happiness. ”

“ Gervase, let me speak! There is advice that is impossible; if you tell us to separate, to give each other up—I speak for myself—that is impossible. Advise us how we are to live, how it is to be done. I will never believe,” cried Madeline, with tears in her eyes, keeping back her lover with the pressure of her imperative hand, “that you are not our best and only friend. ”

“ And it was with almost a painful sense of unwillingness that he stopped at Mr Thursley’s door. But it was opened almost before he could knock by Madeline herself, who must have been watching for him, and who rushed into his arms before he could draw breath. “Oh, Gervase, you have come at last!” she cried. “Thank God!”
“Is it anything to thank God for?” he said; “when all the mischief is done; when nothing can be mended? It is like my feebleness to come too late.” ”

“ Madeline gave vent to a gentle sigh. “My father would be more pleased with that than anything,” she said. “Everything, I think, might have been smoothed away. He thinks you did so well—in the West Indies, Gervase.”
“Did I do well? fighting against chicanery, dishonesty, fraudulent delays, fictitious excuses, everything that is most abhorrent to an honest man: they think it all fair, that is the worst of it. If they can disgust and sicken you, and make you think that no rights are worth that struggle, then they rejoice. That is their object all the time. ”

“ And now he has made it so, and, Madeline, you——”
“Gervase!” she cried, in great trouble, “do you think I will forsake you because your father will not give you what you expected? Oh no, no! I would rather have you with nothing than anybody else with the whole world in his hand. Surely you know that well enough. What do I care for the luxury and all that? Why, you know I have often said there would be far more fun in being poorer, in doing things for ourselves, contriving and patching up like the people in books—— But one may have one’s opinion all the same.” ”

“ Could he be expected for a moment to receive a man who was really penniless? No question now of an allowance, of comparative{100} poverty, but really poor, without a righteous sixpence in the world; and the son of a bankrupt! “No, no,” Gervase said to himself, “not that.” A man who was Madeline’s father could not descend so far as to say or to think that. Poor father, betrayed by his son! Unhappy son, who had abandoned his father! Thus the ring of thought went round again to its beginning, and once more the knell of his family reputation rang in Gervase’s ears. ”

“ It was far more difficult to account for him when he disappeared than for most men. Amusement was a thing which had no existence for Mr Burton. Without his office, his business occupations, the Exchange, the semi-political, semi-commercial discussions which were his chief intellectual pleasure at his club and his dinner-parties, what could he be or do?
When Gervase had taken what refreshment he could, and made himself presentable, he took his way slowly down the street to see Madeline;—slowly, though he was a man in love and going to see his betrothed—almost reluctantly, though he loved her. ”

“ Madeline went up-stairs to the drawing-room with a beating heart. She thought, like her father, that Gervase had thrown off all softer feelings in the shock of family downfall and overthrow. What so likely to stun and paralyse a young man with a strong sense of honour, and with that innate conviction of personal superiority to all rebuffs and slights of fortune which an English youth’s education gives! Poverty would not have hurt him ”

“ But Gervase noted nothing, being fully occupied with his own thoughts.
“I ask myself, can I use this money which has been subtracted from cooked accounts—which has been withdrawn from its first honest purpose of paying his creditors—which is false money, dishonest money? Good heavens! Madeline, my darling, have pity on me—don’t think me a fool. My father, whom I always trusted—whom I thought an honourable man——”
“You have no right,” said Madeline, in a voice which was low and trembling, “to say that he is not an honourable man.” ”

“ It’s conceded by civilisation that a man should bring up his son according to his position, and help him to make the best of himself; but no more. Man to man, you’ve had all you had any right to from me, Gervase.{20} You’ve too much good sense not to see that. I offer you a way of doing for yourself, and you reject it. Well—you’re a man, you say, and have a right to your choice. I don’t deny your right; but you can’t exercise that and have me to fall back upon too.”
There was a pause. Mr Burton leant back in his chair with a mind satisfied, even triumphant. ”

“ Had he yielded then, how different all might have been!—the house of Burton still intact; the old traditions unbroken; his father a man prosperous and respected; himself independent of all such remark as that which would now, he was painfully aware, be made everywhere. A man with nothing marrying a girl with a large fortune. When the wealth is on the other side there are no such remarks. But the moment that the woman has wealth, interest and not love is supposed to be the motive on the man’s side. ”

“ Gervase was wise enough to ask no explanations. He felt in his heart that Mr Thursley thought as he did, but was not wounded as he was by the thought: and the young man breathed a sigh of relief, and thanked heaven that he was freed for ever from{188} those methods and tenets, which made it not entirely blamable in a man to hold back something that was not his, and make meet provision for his own necessities, while preserving the semblance of perfect honour to others. ”

“ Mr Burton now said.
“I suppose, sir,” said Gervase, “I am right in believing, as everybody does, that you are a rich man?”
“Well; and what then?” said the merchant, with a wave of his hand.
“And I am your only child.”
“Of that, at least, there can be no doubt. But I repeat, what then?”
“I may be wrong,” said Gervase,{9} ingenuously, “but at least everybody says—that every means of making an income is pursued by crowds of people, more than can ever hope to make an income by it. I may not state the facts so clearly as I wish.”
“There are more men wanting work than there is work to give them. ”

“ Whether Gilbert, the man left in charge of the house, knew anything, Gervase never could find out; but if he did, he was proof against all inducements to speak, and never betrayed his old master.
And the young people settled down, far from the excitements and cares of that business life which Gervase had evaded so successfully, in what is perhaps the most enjoyable of all the ordinary paths of modern existence. All paths of existence{193} are tolerable when people are young and happy and not badly off, though it is not always that these favourites of fortune recognise the fact. ”

“ He was then preternaturally tranquil, with a quietude like that of an anchorite in his voice.
“I suppose,” he said, “that you have taken everything into account in making this decision—Miss Thursley, for instance—and given up all idea of marriage, or anything of that kind?”
Gervase’s quiet looks became slightly disturbed. He looked up with a certain eagerness. “Given up?——” he said.
“Of course,” said Mr Burton, delighted to have got the mastery, “you can’t marry—a girl accustomed to every luxury—on your boy’s allowance. ”

“ A curious tremor seemed to come over his solid well-set-up figure, that of a vigorous man of sixty or so. Men do not blush easily at that age; but there came a wave of hot colour over his face. He seemed to hesitate a moment, then—“Why, Gervase, how have you managed to find me out at the end of the world?” he said, with a nervous attempt at a laugh. Gervase saw, agitated as he himself was, the hurried glance at the children, which{206} made his father look like a prodigal discovered. ”

“ Madeline was all he had in the world—no family, no sympathy, no home but her. What could the answer be when the question was to sacrifice her—or himself?
Next morning he saw her, very sweet{170} and anxious, wistfully interrogating his looks. “Nothing will make you like it, Gervase?” “No,” he said, “nothing. It is hateful always. I cannot change in my conviction; but I will do it, and make the best of it—for you, Madeline.” She asked him again before he left her, after they had talked and talked for hours. “Don’t you think, as you get used to it, you will like it better, Gervase?” ”

“ What are we to do? how are we to manage? I see all the difficulties. I grudge you to a poor man as much{146} as he does—but I cannot give you up, Madeline.”
“Nobody asked you,” she said, with a smile. Madeline felt that she would break down altogether if she did not keep up the lighter tone.
“And what will he say to a man who has nothing in the world but a house in Harley Street?” Gervase said. “What am I to say to him? What am I to do?”
“That is the first question,” she said. “What are you to do? The house in Harley Street means—something.” ”

“ All nature was in that word—all the certainty of youth that it has a claim never to be ignored—that its mere existence is response enough; and all the traditions of family custom, which make the wellbeing of the child the first object of the father; and the unconscious assumption which every child instinctively makes, that, after all, its predecessors are passing away, and itself the permanent interest—an assumption which it is quite possible to hold along with the most anxious and affectionate care for these predecessors, and desire to retain them in life and enjoyment. ”

“ He will think, and think rightly, that a man who can’t speak for himself is not worth much. And I know that he will scoff at what I say. He will tell me to go about my business. What can I do to your father, Madeline, to bring him over to our side?”
She shook her head. “There is only one thing I know, Gervase; if you were to go with your little money into business—it does not matter what——”
He made a gesture of despair. “Can a man ever do well what he hates? ”

“ Honour, to my thinking,” said Mr Thursley, with lowering brows, “should keep a man even from contemplating the idea of living on his wife’s money, having none of his own.”
Hot words were on Gervase’s lips, but Madeline gave a hasty pressure to his hand, and he made no reply. ”

“ He’s—he’s left town, Mr Gervase; but that’s all, sir,—that’s all, I give you my word.”
“Left town!—where is my father? Don’t play with me, Gilbert. I’m not a fool, nor a child. Tell me the truth.”
“That’s the truth, sir, as sure as you live. Master has had a bad time; but he’s come out of it all with clean hands, that’s what I heard the gentlemen say. He might have begun again next morning, if he had liked. They made him a present of the house, and he’s left it to you.”
Gervase made an impatient gesture.{111} “Do I care for the house?—where is my father?” he cried. ”

“ He could not help thinking that had Madeline been arriving, miserable and full of trouble, he would have divined it. He did not even know where to go, in the sudden ignorance which had come upon him of all his own most intimate affairs. He could scarcely expect to find his father still at Harley Street, but this was the only place to which he could go, where he must, at least, find an address, something to guide him. It was miserable to put his portmanteaux into a cab, not knowing where he was to find a shelter ”

“ She was more faithful to her caste than he had ever been, priding herself upon being a merchant’s daughter; although, to be sure, she knew nothing about trade—no more than a princess, no more than her lover had done.
“Perhaps not,” he said; “but people in trade do strange things—things that you and I wouldn’t do, any more than princes. They don’t think of it. ”

“ Even Gervase, it must be allowed, got a great deal of entertainment out of the furnishing, notwithstanding the various cares which lay upon his heart.
He had made all possible inquiries, it need scarcely be said, at once at the bank to endeavour to trace the money—but in vain; and he had set on foot all the researches that were practicable to find some trace of his father. But it would seem, though it is a theory rather against modern notions, that it is more easy for a man to disappear than for the most experienced pursuers to find him. He was asked for over half America, which is a big word ”

“ It was only half-a-dozen words which passed between him and his intended son-in-law, and then Madeline, breathless, listened to his heavy step coming up-stairs. She would have to tell him everything that had been told to her—and how would he take it? ”

“ They did not make such haste to be rich—they were honourable, straightforward——”
“Gervase!”
“What have I said wrong?”
“You spoke as if papa, my father——”
“No, no, no,” he said. “I was thinking of my own, who is as honourable a man as any one. But only—they don’t think it{33} necessary to carry that into trade, Madeline. I don’t mean to say anything I oughtn’t to say. I suppose they don’t go into every detail. They leave a great deal to—clerks and people. Every transaction is not carried on as it would be between two men—of the same social grade—under the eyes of all the world. ”

“ I saw you last night, sir, coming home—though too far off to be more than startled by your walk and figure, which I felt I{207} recognised—but Madeline met you in the road.”
“Madeline! To be sure, you are married! I have to congratulate you, Gervase.”
“And I,” said the young man, “have to thank you, father. But for the money you sent me so generously—so opportunely——”
“The money I sent you!”
“That ten thousand pounds——”
“Ten thousand pounds! You must be dreaming. I have not ten thousand pence—more than I require for myself.” ”

“ Madeline made no reply. Fathers perhaps will never learn to relinquish that kind of remark. Mr Thursley was as well aware as any one that it was a futile kind of thing to say; but he had been watching his daughter closely, and he thought he saw that Gervase’s conduct had shaken her trust in him. ”

“ For three months! Three months is not{76} a very long time; but when once a parting has been made, who can tell when and how it is to end? Delays come in so easily, so inevitably, when there are thousands of miles of land and sea between two people who love each other. After they had freed themselves for a moment from the immediate burden in that little outburst about emancipation and Quashee, they sat and looked at each other again with wistful eyes.
“Must it be, Gervase? Must it be?”
“It seems so,” he said, clasping her hands. “Our last trial, Madeline.” ”

“ You are individuals, Gervase and you; and to you it would be poverty. I will not consent to marry my daughter to a{60} man who has only five hundred a-year, and no prospect of any more.”
“Papa,” said Madeline, timidly, “his father—would not shut him out for ever. He must be his heir.”
“And so must you be my heir,” said Mr Thursley. “Do you think it safe to calculate on that? I may not die for the next twenty years.”
“Papa!” cried Madeline. “Father!” with quick-springing tears in her eyes.
“Yes, yes, I know. You wouldn’t grudge me a day of it. But Burton is no older than I am ”