Alewife

“ UNCLE RAYMOND'S WILL.
'Marriage, indeed!' exclaimed Olive Raymond, 'it will be time enough to speak of that when this "laggard in love," your brother, turns up here at Dundargue. Besides, all women don't marry, so why should I?'
'Most pretty ones do, and marry you must!' replied, with a merry little laugh, Eveline Graham, the sole daughter of the house of Aberfeldie, to her English cousin, as she usually called her. ”

“ What do you mean?
OLIVIA. I mean that the whole question, as I heard somebody say once, demands much more anxious thought than either of us has given it. These hasty marriages—
GEORGE. Hasty!
OLIVIA. Well, you've only just proposed to me, and you want to marry me to-morrow.
GEORGE. Now you're talking perfect nonsense, Olivia. You know quite well that our case is utterly different from—from any other.
OLIVIA. All the same, one has to ask oneself questions. With a young girl like—well, with a young girl, love may well seem to be all that matters. But with a woman of my age, it is different. ”

“ OLIVIA. Do we?
GEORGE. Of course we do.
OLIVIA. I wonder. When two people of our age think of getting married, one wants to be very sure that there is real community of ideas between them. Whether it is a comparatively trivial matter, like the right colour for a curtain, or some very much more serious question of conduct which arises, one wants to feel that there is some chance of agreement between husband and wife.
GEORGE. We—we love each other, old girl.
OLIVIA. We do now, yes. But what shall we be like in five years' time? ”

“ I am only so sorry for you, dear, left quite alone; but I hope you will marry again some nice woman—she must be a very nice woman—who will be a mother to Elizabeth. It is quite natural and right that you should marry—and I hope you will have a son. But"—here she paused, and stroked the strong cold hand that lay in hers—"Elizabeth is a strange child, you know, Anthony. She may resent another's taking my place. What I want you to promise me is, that if she is not happy at home, you will not oblige her to live here with a stepmother. ”

“ I have an indistinct recollection of some sort of a ceremony, and afterwards Eliza showed me a certificate—no Troy affair, but a genuine document signed by a minister residing in Saratoga, and witnessed by her sister and some one in the hotel who had been called in. But the whole was like a dream to me; it was the plot of an infamous woman to endeavor to make herself respectable by means of a marriage, no matter to whom or how that marriage was effected. ”

“ Even at forty-five women have not forgotten such incidents; and was it to happen over again to her child? "Oh, to have a bonnie face, it's more a curse than a blessing!" Elizabeth said to herself, as she went down the hill,—"at least for a poor lass." This thought carried her far afield, far back into the past. She had been happy enough as Abel Murray's wife, and very happy with his children. Now was it all to begin again? and Lily, her one Lily, was she to bear the burden too? ”

“ But trust my declaration, Eliza, that thy husband (if he is the good, feeling man I wish him) will press thee to him with more honest warmth and affection, and kiss thy pale, poor, dejected face, with more transport, than he would be able to do, in the best bloom of all thy beauty;—and so he ought, or I pity him. He must have strange feelings, if he knows not the value of such a creature as thou art! ”

“ Aubrey, as he took back the letter, "that this letter bears the same date as your uncle's will. What he desired has been done. Be just, my lord, be just, and exonerate us all from blame: who can dictate to the affections?"
"And I am to understand that I have no chance, now or hereafter, of obtaining the affections of Evelyn? Surely, at your age, Mr. Aubrey, you cannot encourage the heated romance common to all girls of Evelyn's age. Persons of our rank do not marry like the Corydon and Phyllis of a pastoral. ”

“ OLIVIA. I want to be sure that I am going to be happy, George. I can't just jump at the very first offer I have had since my husband died, without considering the whole question very carefully.
GEORGE. So I'm under consideration, eh?
OLIVIA. Every suitor is.
GEORGE (sarcastically, as he thinks) . Well, go on.
OLIVIA. Well, then, there's your niece. You have a niece who lives with you. Of course Dinah is a delightful girl, but one doesn't like marrying into a household in which there is another grown-up woman. But perhaps she will be getting married herself soon? ”

“ Yes, Eliza, so long as we have each other and our boy. O! Eliza, if these people only knew what a blessing it is for a man to feel that his wife and child belong to him! I've often wondered to see men that could call their wives and children their own fretting and worrying about anything else. Why, I feel rich and strong, though we have nothing but our bare hands. ”

“ If ever my sweet sister should find one who loves her as I do—but who, unlike poor Melville, approaches near to the standard of perfection she has erected in her own imagination—then, dearest, do not hesitate to become his wife. My prayers shall ever be offered up for your happiness; and you, my ever-beloved Evelyn, will not, even in the midst of that bliss, refuse—if I fall—to drop a tear for one who would die to save you even one moment’s uneasiness. ”

“ Alwyn's friend looked at him sharply over the grapes and figs on the table. "A good woman. . . .But I don't understand how you found out her secrets. You know them as well as if you had been her lover. But it all took place before your father was born. She didn't tell you that story as you tell it, did she?"
"Not in so many words. . . ."
"Of course you knew them all—your grandfather and grandmother, your-great-uncle, wouldn't he be? But they were old then, very old, I should think; and old people don't tell that sort of thing. Don't be cross," he added. ”

“ As you admit my argument thus far, it is not in any way surprising that Aveline should refuse to believe her husband to be as guilty as we know him to be.”
“But hang it, madam, you can tell her, I suppose?”
“I can, of course; but I have not done so.”
“And why not, pray?”
“Ah, for many reasons. I love her as much as if she were my own child. You may believe me or not, Lord Ethalwood, but I do.”
“I do believe it—​but what of that?”
“This: No woman ever quite forgives another for running down her husband or exposing his foibles, or his vices—​if you like that term better. ”

“ OLIVIA. Aunt Julia wants to see the pigs, dear. I wish you'd take her down. I'm rather tired, and your uncle has some business to attend to.
LADY MARDEN. I've always said that you don't take enough exercise, Olivia. Look at me—sixty-five and proud of it.
OLIVIA. Yes, Aunt Julia, you're wonderful.
DINAH. How old would Olivia be if she took exercise?
GEORGE. Don't stand about asking silly questions, Dinah. Your aunt hasn't much time.
BRIAN. May I come, too, Lady Marden?
LADY MARDEN. Well, a little exercise wouldn't do you any harm, Mr. Strange. You're an artist, ain't you? ”

“ Isabel broke away from him, and clasped her baby to her bosom, and sat down apart and cried. Ah, no! For the first time a distinct sense of the claims of the other who was dead and gone, but who was little Margaret’s father, came with a certain sickening pang to her heart. His wife might go from him and be another man’s wife: could his child, too, be another man’s child, and every trace of him disappear from the earth? ”

“ It was a very pale blush, if any, that rose to Olivia’s face; it went paler, indeed.
“There has been nothing said of—a wedding,” she replied.
Aunt Amelia nodded.
“Just so; quite right. But remember, my dear, that nothing is so—so unwise as a long engagement. You never can tell, men are so—so fickle nowadays, and there are so many girls. By the way, how mad those poor Penstone girls will be. I am sure they were both setting their caps at him.”
Olivia rose with a laugh that was almost hysterical, and left Miss Amelia to gloat over Annie’s and Mary’s supposed disappointment in solitude. ”

“ You, of course, will take your lawful portion as the widow. We are aware, Mrs Rothbury, that you have not, perhaps, fulfilled the duties of a wife—but otherwise you have done your husband no wrong. There is nothing that can be objected to in your conduct—and your son is his father's natural and only heir. I have long wished him to make a will; but he never would—guided, we may believe, by a higher instinct. It was what he wished for before everything, a son who would be his heir. ”

“ Amy beautiful, indolent toward Susette and the household; Amy tense, with a jealous, vigilant light in her eyes, when it was a matter of Joe and her love or the money so passionately desired.
But these recollections she would dismiss with excuses for her sister. "There are two kinds of women," Ethel sagely told herself. "Mothers and wives. And she was a wife. It may be I'm a mother." And little by little, in spite of herself, her worship of her sister changed to a pitying tolerance. ”

“ The announcement of Olivia’s approaching marriage caused almost as much excitement as the news of her engagement.
She had insisted upon the ceremony being as quiet a one as possible, and, for a wonder, Bartley Bradstone assented.
At least a score of young ladies were desirous of acting as bridesmaids upon so famous an occasion, but Olivia desired to limit the number to two, and chose Annie and Mary, much to their delight and Aunt Amelia’s chagrin.
“My dear Olivia,” she remonstrated in her most dignified manner. “Only two bridesmaids! Why, the veriest pauper has three or four! ”

“ Aloysia, in a true, genuine feeling of love, was bound in adamantine chains to her sister. Time and fortune, that shatter all human institutions and prove human feelings, consolidated the union of their hearts and their destinies. A stranger on stronger proof of the influence of sisterly affection could not be adduced; it dragged the beautiful, blushing Aloysia from the sphere of girlhood, to follow in the track of hypocrisy and of bloodshed so desperately trodden by her brave sister. ”

“ During the night Elijah heard the chickens and the geese say to one another: "How great must be the virtues of this young man, if he is privileged to marry so beautiful and pious a wife." In the morning, when Elijah arose, he at once became a matchmaker, the young man married the pretty maiden, and husband and wife journeyed homeward in joy. ”

“ After this the boy's mother, Goleuddydd, the daughter of Prince Anlawdd, fell sick. Then she called her husband unto her, and said to him, "Of this sickness I shall die, and thou wilt take another wife. Now wives are the gift of the Lord, but it would be wrong for thee to harm thy son. Therefore I charge thee that thou take not a wife until thou see a briar with two blossoms upon my grave." ”

“ He went to the Grange every day, and nearly every day he and Olivia rode or drove out together, accompanied by Aunt Amelia or one or sometimes both of the Penstone girls, and though Olivia was always cheerful and pleasant with him, it was a cold kind of cheerfulness, a forced sort of pleasantness. The paleness which Mary had remarked had not disappeared, and there had come into the dark eyes a far-away look, which might represent the quiet joy of an engaged girl, but was rather sad and unsatisfactory for the man who loved her. ”

“ Then he pushed his hair from his forehead and said, calmly:
“Try if you can understand me, Adelheid. When a woman marries and becomes a mother, she usually becomes quiet ... quieter, I mean. I mean that there are victories which she cannot win, triumphs which she cannot achieve ... which she does not trouble about. She does not trouble about them, Adelheid, because she has deepened her life ... because she has come so near to one man that the approach of other men is distasteful to her. ”

“ She lay so still that a quarter of an hour later Eliza sat down beside her, and while her hand softly stroked the brown curls, she read slowly the description of church wedding and subsequent reception.
"My darling, you love your father so well you want him to be happy, and——"
"No, not with another wife, and away from me. I would rather he was dead—for then nobody else could claim him. Two wives! It is like having two Gods." ”

“ By this time, greatly to Olive's relief, Eveline and her two swains had overtaken them, and so the matter dropped, though the minds of both, from two points of view, were full of it. She would now have to endure the double annoyance of being daily in the society of a lover who had addressed her as such, and of an intended lover who had scarcely yet approached the subject! ”

“ Olive and Eveline were of an age, and able to sympathise with each other in every thought or fancy. They had grown up together like sisters, Olive, as an orphan, doubtless being the most petted of the two by the household ever since she came a little child to Dundargue, and both were frank, both were open-hearted, and proud of each other's personal attractions ”

“ The time had been when she was little Margaret’s mother before all; but she had willingly, consciously, taken up another responsibility. She was his wife. Life must be transformed, must be so arranged that it should be practicable with him and not another. Isabel took the baby up from the floor and pressed it to her heart with a despair which could find no words. ”

“ My cousin Evelyn gave me no help. She was a proud woman and loved my money and my expectations as much as she did me.
“‘If you must marry another woman to retain your wealth, marry, said she, ‘but do not marry one of my associates. I will have no rival in my own empire; your wife must be a plainer and a less aspiring woman than Evelyn Blake. ”