Robert Cleland

“ The years, be they ever so grey, would run their course with the same even and imperceptible current, and there would be an end at last. She rose to resume the armour of conventional life. She bathed her temples, smoothed her hair before the glass, and arrayed herself as usual; and when the next gong sounded, she was once more her ordinary self--bright, proud, and confident, without a sign of care, or seemingly a wish left unfulfilled.
The Deanes had heard of her return, and were awaiting her in the drawing-room to go down to dinner. Lettice and the rest bantered her on her escapade. ”

“ Margaret repeated her words without surprise. She had observed how absent-minded Rose had grown, her varying moods, her starts and flushings, and sudden growings pale; but then she was engaged to Uncle Joseph, and doubtless these were symptoms of the delightful malady she laboured under herself, though she hoped that she concealed her own little tumults of the spirit more successfully.
Rose was all attention and eager interest now--quite vehemently interested, it really seemed.
"Your happiness for life is at stake, Margaret. I will not stand by and see you robbed of the man of your choice. ”

“ She is not as clever, perhaps, as you are, but at least she is fond of her husband!"
Rose coughed impatiently and stamped her foot. The adversary must be admitted to have scored one by that thrust.
"Is a woman to give up the amusements of social life--the little conventional pleasantnesses of society--because she happens to have lent a too trusting ear, and yielded to the man who wanted to marry her? Does she grow plain and old and stupid from the day she becomes a wife? Is she no more to find pleasure in being liked and admired? ”

“ The next, for her, was to meet Gilbert Roe's eyes looking straight into her own. It was like the sudden onslaught of an ambushed foe, on a band marching in careless order. They form square if they can, and stand to their arms. It was well for her she had so recently looked to her armour. The shock to her nerves was severe, but her spirit rose in defiance. ”

“ To realise that there is some one in accord, and all our own, who shares desire and hope, our present and our future, to whom the inmost thought might be revealed, if that were possible, without the conventional disguises in which we hide while we converse with one another, is a sensation of the rarest joy, but seldom known, and never known for long. To Joseph, who had lived alone in heart, it was very new and inexpressibly delightful. ”

“ Lettice strolled away and soon found other company. Rose hurried forward alone, her eyes still flashing and her cheek aflame. There was no one on the gallery but Naylor, no one on the ground below looking up or taking heed; the moment was as private as though they had been again on Fessenden's Island.
"I fear I vexed you this morning in the boat," she said, coming upon him unexpectedly where he sat.
He looked up from his paper, let it fall, and sprang to his feet, throwing his cigar away. "Impossible, my dearest, even if you were to try. You have made me the very happiest man alive." ”

“ I have a high opinion of Maida Springer, and I think you have behaved to her like a ruffian."
"We are old friends. I have always wished her well, and she wishes me well, I am sure. An unkind word has never passed between us, and we have been constantly together for--let me see--all the time I have been staying here."
"I know that; and when a single man devotes himself in that open way to an unmarried woman, what does it mean, if not marriage? Was it honourable of you, Bertie Roe, to behave like that?"
"I do not consider myself a single man, Miss Rolph. ”

“ I will not spoil the life of another--of a man who is as fond of me as this one, and so good and true. We will forgive one another--will we not?--and learn from sad experience more forbearance in our future lots. There he is coming. I shall go and meet him. Goodbye. We must not meet again."
She went, leaving Gilbert elated at his success, but dissatisfied with its incompleteness, and a little doubtful how he ought to return to Maida Springer. They had been reclining rather aimlessly behind the tree, when he looked up and saw Rose almost upon them, and alone. ”

“ Maida sighed. "If you go, Miss Rolph, would you kindly mention to Mrs Denwiddie that I am here? You know her, I daresay; you seem to know every one at the Beach. Say I got a telegram--say anything. She is sure to be thinking something dreadful about my going away so sudden-like--without a word, or taking away my things."
Miss Rolph, in her agitation, looked round on Maida. She could not help smiling, notwithstanding her anxiety. The world is filled with such a tangle of conflicting interests, and each of us has room in his little brain only for the few which connect with himself. ”

“ It is only systematic repression which need hope to prevail, and the arm which applies that, must never grow weary or relax.
Margaret sat disconsolately at her mother's elbow that evening, and felt like a martyr, while her fancies flew away in pursuit of Walter Blount. "Poor fellow! he was thinking of her, no doubt--walking the streets of Lippenstock, and feeling so lonely. How dreadful this separation must be to him! But she would be true. She could never love another. She would not try. She would never marry any one else, however they might try to force her. ”

“ It was to avenge a slight to her son that she had started on the war-path, and now the insult to herself added fuel to her wrath. She pressed her lips tightly together, and moved closer to Mrs Naylor, as the readiest way of being provoking.
"Where are you crushing to?" cried the other. "Would you force me into Mrs Petty's lap?" and then, after a pause, "unmannerly woman!" This time the word failed of its effect. "Woman" used as a missile is no better than a bomb-shell or a torpedo. It goes off but once. It passed unheeded, and Mrs Wilkie rejoined--
"You're great upon the manners to-day. ”

“ From the moment Rose got into the railway at Narwhal Junction, she slid contentedly back into Mrs Roe. No one ever again alluded to an estrangement between the married pair, and Jones's Landing was left in total ignorance that their married life had ever been other than the even, trustful, and happy existence which it had now become. The two seemed never apart, never weary of each other's society, yet never in each other's way in fulfilling the duties of social life. ”

“ He certainly must be a man without pity or a spark of feeling. He actually had the cruelty to lead the other a little to one side, where she could have a view of the discarded rival. Was it not barbarous? This was too much for the other. It stung her into something like proper self-respect. As soon as the other turned away--and I will do the Hillyard girl the justice to say that she betrayed no sign of gratification at her rival's confusion--she jumped to her feet with a little cry, tied on her hat, and ran away up the hill, as if to hide herself among the trees. ”

“ Margaret rose to pay the dutiful salute. Joseph kissed her on the cheek, and finding his lips so conveniently near her ear, he whispered--
"Walter's buggy will be the first in the line. He will be waiting. Get down before the others. Jump in; and God bless you!"
Margaret changed colour violently. Her mother, looking on, was surprised to see an embrace from an old uncle, produce signs of emotion. "It must be because of the young man sitting by," she thought sapiently, and drew happy auguries from the circumstance. Those close observers are so often astray! ”

“ Who are they whose private affairs you have been watching and prying into? Do you know that you have been accusing yourself of eavesdropping, mitigated only by your inability to hear what was said? It is scarcely the pursuit I should have expected a ladylike person to take up."
"You are rude, Joseph; but I forgive you. One must not expect people to accept disenchantment with an equable mind."
"You speak riddles. I am in no mood for guessing them."
"Just what I say. You are upset, Joseph, and I am truly sorry."
"I am not upset. I am perfectly well and happy, Susan. It is you who are absurd. ”

“ It is your commonplace worldliness that is nonsense; and you know it. You were once a bride yourself."
"I was young then, Joseph. We get sense--or we should--as we grow older."
"Rose is young. Why may she not have fresh true feeling, just as you had yourself?"
"But has she? Does she go into raptures as you do, I wonder?"
"One would not like a girl to display her feelings too openly before marriage. You would call it boldness."
"Has she any feeling to display? Can we expect her to have that kind of feeling for a man who might be her father?"
"My dear Susan, time will show. ”

“ Suddenly, in the hottest of the afternoon, she would start up and rouse her drowsy intimates to play lawn-tennis; and ere the game was half played out, she would declare herself sick of it, and beg some bystander to take her place.
Joseph looked on in tender sympathy. It was what was to be expected, he told himself, and would soon wear off. The free young life was chafing at first beneath the yoke she had herself assumed--the filly, unbroke to harness, was galled by the collar; but soon she would settle down to steady running. He must humour her for the present. ”

“ One cannot be expected to court misfortune--to introduce rivals to even the most loyal of swains--to fetch a stick from the wood to break one's own back with. Perhaps she rather overdid it, in fact; at least Gilbert did not invite many of her beauties to dance, and when the introductions were over he could not help saying, "What a homely lot of friends you have, Maida! They must be awful good, if appearances are as deceitful as folks say. Now there's a little girl over yonder, a peart little filly, that it would be a real pleasure to dance with. ”

“ You will kill me, Margaret, with shame and grief. A mother cannot survive such undutifulness. My blood will cry at you from the ground! What peace can you ever hope to know, when you have killed your mother? ”

“ And she was always kind to him, and showed that she appreciated his thoughtfulness and forbearance by many a grateful look and little speech. He only wished that he had more to bear and to do for her sake; he was so richly rewarded when the humour changed, and her mood became remorseful. Then, as if she could not sufficiently express herself to him, she would relieve her feelings by caresses and endearments to his nieces. She was fast friends with them now, especially with Margaret, even to the length of exciting a little pique in Lettice Deane. ”

“ And there she stood, naked and exposed before her own eyes and his, stripped of her false pretexts, a vain and headstrong fool, who in very wantonness had made bonfire of their wedded happiness!
And yet her indignation had seemed so just, her wrongs so deep and unforgivable! How speedily her wrath had oozed away before a few words! words not of contrition, scarce even of reproach, but only common-sense, and spoken by the old dear voice! Where were the bitter memories now? How could she be so false to herself? ”

“ The creature should have a lesson, if Mrs Naylor could give her one, and be taught her place. To think that a Naylor--a daughter of hers--should be trifled with and all but compromised by a--a what was she to call him?--a clerk in a public office--something not much better than a schoolmaster--merely because she, the mother, had kindly taken some notice of him! That nice quiet young Petty must be brought on, if only to show the futility of such an idea. Encouragement was all he wanted, and Margaret should give him that, or she would know why. ”

“ The whole of a very ordinary fellow is more, you see, and therefore surer to win, than part of one of your superior people dabbling in half-a-dozen different pursuits. Remember that, when you come to many, Maida; and if you want to stand high, choose a man of one idea, and that one his business."
"I know better than that, Gilbert," Maida answered, looking up in his eyes with a fond but rather watery smile. ”

“ The ground is rough, and it is so dark one cannot see where one steps. You will stumble. Give me your hand, and let me lead."
The unevenness of the ground, and the consequent stumbling among rocks and boulders in the uncertain dimness, soon brought them back to the level of everyday life; and when at length, after an hour of floundering and groping, they came in sight of the fire-glow streaming from the fishermen's shelter, they were completely themselves again--gayer even than their wont, in the reaction from the deeper feelings in which they had been lately steeped. ”

“ Do you mean that you are Lina's sister?"
"I am, Joseph--your sister-in-law. You cannot have forgotten our last meeting at the old home in New Orleans?"
"I can never forget the last time I met Millicent Rolph; but I trace no resemblance between you and her. She was a woman of thirty, dark-haired, large, handsome; you--do not resemble her."
"She was thirty twenty-five years ago, and you were twenty-two. The years have left their mark upon us both. I cannot but be changed. I have come through the troubles of a lifetime. ”

“ We're not a highly cultured lot in the cities, I can tell you--we successful folks, I mean. How could we be? It takes all we can do to keep ourselves ahead of our neighbours. If we were to divide ourselves between business and politics, or business and culture, we would have to take a back seat in the community. It is not so much special talent that is wanted, for getting on, as entireness. A man must pour his whole self into the one groove, if he is to make a hit. ”

“ But it will be my duty to say a quiet word to Mrs Naylor, and enlighten her about her daughter's ongoings. It'll be good for the hizzy, and a warning to her not to make use of gentlemen of poseetion to serve her underhand ends."
"You won't, mother. It is no concern of yours. We know nothing about the Naylors' affairs. Let them settle their own hash."
"I cannot but let a mother know about her daughter's ongoings. And oh, but she's fond of her! It will stab her to the heart. But it may be blessed to herself, for she's inclined to be rather high sometimes. ”

“ Joseph strolled despondently back toward the stunted grove, to which twice already he had bent his steps, but had not reached. He had borne up bravely enough under Rose's disclosure at the moment. In the thick of the fight one generally does bear up. The excitement of combat stirs the blood, and blows fall scarcely heeded on him who struggles hard to have his way. ”