The Project Gutenberg EBook of Effie Ogilvie; vol. 2, by Margaret Oliphant This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: Effie Ogilvie; vol. 2 the story of a young life Author: Margaret Oliphant Release Date: April 24, 2020 [EBook #61915] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EFFIE OGILVIE; VOL. 2 *** Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive) CHAPTER XIII., XIV., XV., XVI., XVII., XVIII., XIX., XX., XXI., XXII., XXIII., XXIV., XXV. EFFIE OGILVIE. {1} {2} PUBLISHED BY JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW. — MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON AND NEW YORK. London, Hamilton, Adams and Co. Cambridge, Macmillan and Bowes. Edinburgh, Douglas and Foulis. — MDCCCLXXXVI. E F F I E O G I LV I E: THE STORY OF A YOUNG LIFE. BY MRS. OLIPHANT, AUTHOR OF “CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,” ETC. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. GLASGOW: JAMES MACLEHOSE & SONS, Publishers to the University. LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1 8 8 6. All rights reserved. E F F I E O G I LV I E: THE STORY OF A YOUNG LIFE. CHAPTER XIII. Effie came towards him smiling, without apprehension. The atmosphere out of doors had not the same consciousness, the same suggestion in it which was inside. A young man’s looks, which may be alarming within the concentration of four walls, convey no fear and not so much impression in the fresh wind blowing from the moors and the openness of the country road. To be sure it was afternoon and twilight coming on, which is always a witching hour. He stood at the corner of the byeway waiting for her as she came along, light-footed, in her close-fitting tweed dress, which made a dim setting to the brightness of her countenance. She had a little basket in her hand. She had been carrying a dainty of some kind to somebody who was ill. The wind in her face had brightened everything, her colour, her eyes, and even had, by a little tossing, found out some gleams of gold in the brownness of her hair. She was altogether sweet and fair in Fred’s eyes—a creature embodying everything good and wholesome, everything that was simple and pure. She had a single rose in her hand, which she held up as she advanced. “We are not like you, we don’t get roses all the year round; but here is one, the last,” she said, “from Uncle John’s south wall.” It was not a highly-cultivated, scentless rose, such as the gardens at Allonby produced by the hundred, but one that was full of fragrance, sweet as all roses once were. The outer leaves had been a little caught by the frost, but the heart was warm with life and sweetness. She held it up to him, but did not give it to him, as at first he thought she was going to do. “I would rather have that one,” he cried, “than all the roses which we get all the year round.” “Because it is so sweet?” said Effie. “Yes, that is a thing that revenges the poor folk. You can make the roses as big as a child’s head, but for sweetness the little old ones in the cottage gardens are always the best.” {3} {4} {5} {6} {7} “Everything is sweet, I think, that is native here.” “Oh!” said Effie, with a deep breath of pleasure, taking the compliment as it sounded, not thinking of herself in it. “I am glad to hear you say that! for I think so too—the clover, and the heather, and the hawthorn, and the meadow-sweet. There is a sweet-brier hedge at the manse that Uncle John is very proud of. When it is in blossom he always brings a little rose of it to me.” “Then I wish I might have that rose,” the young lover said. “From the sweet-brier? They are all dead long ago; and I cannot give you this one, because it is the last. Does winter come round sooner here, Mr. Dirom, than in—the South?” What Effie meant by the South was no more than England—a country, according to her imagination, in which the sun blazed, and where the climate in summer was almost more than honest Scots veins could bear. That was not Fred’s conception of the South. He smiled in a somewhat imbecile way, and replied, “Everything is best here. Dark, and true, and tender is the North: no, not dark, that is a mistake of the poet. Fair, and sweet, and true—is what he ought to have said.” “There are many dark people as well as fair in Scotland,” said Effie; “people think we have all yellow hair. There is Uncle John, he is dark, and true, and tender—and our Eric. You don’t know our Eric, Mr. Dirom?” “I hope I shall some day. I am looking forward to it. Is he like you, Miss Effie?” “Oh, he is dark. I was telling you: and Ronald—I think we are just divided like other people, some fair—some——” “And who is Ronald?—another brother?” “Oh, no—only a friend, in the same regiment.” Effie’s colour rose a little, not that she meant anything, for what was Ronald to her? But yet there had been that reference of the Miss Dempsters which she had not understood, and which somehow threw Ronald into competition with Fred Dirom, so that Effie, without knowing it, blushed. Then she said, with a vague idea of making up to him for some imperceptible injury, “Have you ever gone through our little wood?” “I am hoping,” said Fred, “that you will take me there now.” “But the gloaming is coming on,” said Effie, “and the wind will be wild among the trees—the leaves are half off already, and the winds seem to shriek and tear them, till every branch shivers. In the autumn it is a little eerie in the wood.” “What does eerie mean? but I think I know; and nothing could be eerie,” said Fred half to himself, “while you are there.” Effie only half heard the words: she was opening the little postern gate, and could at least pretend to herself that she had not heard them. She had no apprehensions, and the young man’s society was pleasant enough. To be worshipped is pleasant. It makes one so much more disposed to think well of one’s self. “Then come away,” she said, holding the gate open, turning to him with a smile of invitation. Her bright face looked brighter against the background of the trees, which were being dashed about against an ominous colourless sky. All was threatening in the heavens, dark and sinister, as if a catastrophe were coming, which made the girl’s bright tranquil face all the more delightful. How was it that she did not see his agitation? At the crisis of a long alarm there comes a moment when fear goes altogether out of the mind. If Effie had been a philosopher she might have divined that danger was near merely from the curious serenity and quiet of her heart. The wooden gate swung behind them. They walked into the dimness of the wood side by side. The wind made a great sighing high up in the branches of the fir-trees, like a sort of instrument—an Eolian harp of deeper compass than any shrieking strings could be. The branches of the lower trees blew about. There was neither the calm nor the sentiment that were conformable to a love tale. On the contrary, hurry and storm were in the air, a passion more akin to anger than to love. Effie liked those great vibrations and the rushing flood of sound. But Fred did not hear them. He was carried along by an impulse which was stronger than the wind. “Miss Ogilvie,” he said, “I have been talking to your father—I have been asking his permission—— Perhaps I should not have gone to him first. Perhaps—It was not by my own impulse altogether. I should have wished first to—— But it appears that here, as in foreign countries, it is considered—the best way.” Effie looked up at him with great surprise, her pretty eyebrows arched, but no sense of special meaning as yet dawning in her eyes. “My father?” she said, wondering. Fred was not skilled in love-making. It had always been a thing he had wished, to feel himself under the influence of a grand passion: but he had never arrived at it till now; and all the little speeches which no doubt he had prepared failed him in the genuine force of feeling. He stammered a little, looked at her glowing with tremulous emotion, then burst forth suddenly, “O Effie, forgive me; I cannot go on in that way. This is just all, that I’ve loved you ever since that first moment at Allonby when the room was so dark. I could scarcely see you in your white dress. Effie! it is not that I mean to be bold, to presume—I can’t help it. It has been from the first moment. I shall never be happy unless—unless——” He put his hand quickly, furtively, with a momentary touch upon hers which held the rose, and then stood trembling to receive his sentence. Effie understood at last. She stood still for a moment panic-stricken, raising bewildered eyes to his. When he touched her hand she started and drew a step away from him, but found nothing better to say than a low frightened exclamation, “O Mr. Fred!” “I have startled you. I know I ought to have begun differently, not to have brought it out all at once. But how could I help it? Effie! won’t you give me a little hope? Don’t you know what I mean? Don’t you know what I want? O Effie! I am much older than you are, and I have been about the world a long time, but I have never loved any one but you.” Effie did not look at him now. She took her rose in both her hands and fixed her eyes upon that. “You are very kind, you are too, too—— I have done nothing that you should think so much of me,” she said. “Done nothing? I don’t want you to do anything; you are yourself, that is all. I want you to let me do everything for you. Effie, you understand, don’t you, what I mean?” {8} {9} {10} {11} {12} {13} {14} {15} “Yes,” she said, “I think I understand: but I have not thought of it like that. I have only thought of you as a——” Here she stopped, and her voice sank, getting lower and lower as she breathed out the last monosyllable. As a friend, was that what she was going to say? And was it true? Effie was too sincere to finish the sentence. It had not been quite as a friend: there had been something in the air—But she was in no position to reply to this demand he made upon her. It was true that she had not thought of it. It had been about her in the atmosphere, that was all. “I know,” he said, breaking in eagerly. “I did not expect you to feel as I do. There was nothing in me to seize your attention. Oh, I am not disappointed—I expected no more. You thought of me as a friend. Well! and I want to be the closest of friends. Isn’t that reasonable? Only let me go on trying to please you. Only, only try to love me a little, Effie. Don’t you think you could like a poor fellow who wants nothing so much as to please you?” Fred was very much in earnest: there was a glimmer in his eyes, his face worked a little: there was a smile of deprecating, pleading tenderness about his mouth which made his lip quiver. He was eloquent in being so sincere. Effie gave a furtive glance up at him and was moved. But it was love and not Fred that moved her. She was profoundly affected, almost awe-stricken at the sight of that, but not at the sight of him. “Oh,” she said, “I like you already very much: but that is not—that is not—it is not—the same——” “No,” he said, “it is not the same—it is very different; but I shall be thankful for that, hoping for more. If you will only let me go on, and let me hope?” Effie knew no reply to make; her heart was beating, her head swimming: they went on softly under the waving boughs a few steps, as in a dream. Then he suddenly took her hand with the rose in it, and kissed it, and took the flower from her fingers, which trembled under the novelty of that touch. “You will give it to me now—for a token,” he said, with a catching of his breath. Effie drew away her hand, but she left him the rose. She was in a tremor of sympathetic excitement and emotion. How could she refuse to feel when he felt so much? but she had nothing to say to him. So long as he asked no more than this, there seemed no reason to thwart him, to refuse—what? he had not asked for anything, only that she should like him, which indeed she did; and that he might try to please her. To please her! She was not so hard to please. She scarcely heard what he went on to say, in a flood of hasty words, with many breaks, and looks which she was conscious of, but did not resent. He seemed to be telling her about herself, how sweet she was, how true and good, what a happiness to know her, to be near her, to be permitted to walk by her side as he was doing. Effie heard it and did not hear, walking on in her dream, feeling that it was not possible any one could form such extravagant ideas of her, inclined to laugh, half-inclined to cry, in a strange enchantment which she could not break. She heard her own voice say after a while, “Oh no, no—oh no, no—that is all wrong. I am not like that, it cannot be me you are meaning.” But this protest floated away upon the air, and was unreal like all the rest. As for Fred, he was in an enchantment more potent still. Her half-distressed, half-subdued listening, her little protestation, her surprise, yet half-consent, and above all the privilege of pouring forth upon her the full tide of passionate words which surprised himself by their fluency and force, entirely satisfied him. Her youth, her gentle ignorance and innocence, which were so sweet, fully accounted for the absence of response. He felt instinctively that it was sweeter that she should allow herself to be worshipped, that she should not be ready to meet him, but have to be wooed and entreated before she found a reply. These were all additional charms. He felt no want, nor was conscious of any drawback. The noise in the tops of the fir-trees, the waving of the branches overhead, the rushing of the wind, were to Fred more sweet than any sound of hidden brooks, or all the tender rustling of the foliage of June. Presently, however, there came a shock of awakening to this rapture, when the young pair reached the little gate which admitted into the garden of Gilston. Fred saw the house suddenly rising before him above the shrubberies, gray and solid and real, and the sight of it brought him back out of that magic circle. They both stopped short outside the door with a consciousness of reality which silenced the one and roused the other. In any other circumstances Effie would have asked him to come in. She stopped now with her hand on the gate, with a sense of the impossibility of inviting him now to cross that threshold. And Fred too stopped short. To go farther would be to risk the entire fabric of this sudden happiness. He took her hand again, “Dear Effie, dearest Effie; good-night, darling, good-night.” “O Mr. Fred! but you must not call me these names, you must not think—— It is all such a surprise, and I have let you say too much. You must not think——” “That I am to you what you are to me? Oh no, I do not think it; but you will let me love you? that is all I ask: and you will try to think of me a little. Effie, you will think of me—just a little—and of this sweet moment, and of the flower you have given me.” “Oh, I will not be able to help thinking,” cried Effie. “But, Mr. Fred, I am just bewildered; I do not know what you have been saying. And I did not give it you. Don’t suppose—oh don’t suppose—— You must not go away thinking——” “I think only that you will let me love you and try to please you. Good-night, darling, good-night.” Effie went through the garden falling back into her dream. She scarcely knew what she was treading on, the garden paths all dim in the fading light, or the flower-beds with their dahlias. She heard his footstep hurrying along towards the road, and the sound of his voice seemed to linger in the air—Darling! had any one ever called her by that name before? There was nobody to call her so. She was Uncle John’s darling, but he did not use such words: and there was no one else to do it. Darling! now that she was alone she felt the hot blush come up enveloping her from head to foot—was it Fred Dirom who had called her that, a man, a stranger! A sudden fright and panic seized her. His darling! what did that mean? To what had she bound herself? She could not be his darling without something in return. Effie paused half-way across the garden with a sudden impulse to run after him, to tell him it was a mistake, that he must not think—But then she remembered that she had already told him that he must not think—and that he had said no, oh no, but that she was his darling. A confused sense that a great deal had happened to her, though she scarcely knew how, and that she had done something which she did not understand, without meaning it, without desiring it, came over her like a gust of the wind which suddenly seemed to have become chill, and blew straight upon her out of the colourless sky {16} {17} {18} {19} {20} {21} {22} {23} which was all white and black with its flying clouds. She stood still to think, but she could not think: her thoughts began to hurry like the wind, flying across the surface of her mind, leaving no trace. There were lights in the windows of the drawing-room, and Effie could hear through the stillness the voice of her stepmother running on in her usual strain, and little Rory shouting and driving his coach in the big easy-chair. She could not bear to go into the lighted room, to expose her agitated countenance to the comments which she knew would attend her, the questions, where she had been, and why she was so late? Effie had not a suspicion that her coming was eagerly looked for, and that Mrs. Ogilvie was waiting with congratulations; but she could not meet any eye with her story written so clearly in her face. She hurried up to her own room, and there sat in the dark pondering and wondering. “Think of me a little.” Oh! should she ever be able to think of anything else all her life? CHAPTER XIV. Effie came down to dinner late—with eyes that betrayed themselves by unusual shining, and a colour that wavered from red to pale. She had put on her white frock hurriedly, forgetting her usual little ornaments in the confusion of her mind. To her astonishment Mrs. Ogilvie, who was waiting at the drawing-room door looking out for her, instead of the word of reproof which her lateness generally called forth, met her with a beaming countenance. “Well, Miss Effie!” she said, “so you’re too grand to mind that it’s dinner-time. I suppose you’ve just had your little head turned with flattery and nonsense.” And to the consternation of her stepdaughter, Mrs. Ogilvie took her by the shoulders and gave her a hearty kiss upon her cheek. “I am just as glad as if I had come into a fortune,” she said. Mr. Ogilvie added a “humph!” as he moved on to the dining-room. And he shot a glance which was not an angry glance (as it generally was when he was kept waiting for his dinner) at his child. “You need not keep the dinner waiting now that she has come,” he said. Effie did not know what to make of this extraordinary kindness of everybody. Even old George did not look daggers at her as he took off the cover of the tureen. It was inconceivable; never in her life had her sin of being late received this kind of notice before. When they sat down at table Mrs. Ogilvie gave a little shriek of surprise, “Why, where are your beads, Effie? Ye have neither a bow, nor a bracelet, nor one single thing, but your white frock. I might well say your head was turned, but I never expected it in this way. And why did you not keep him to his dinner? You would have minded your ribbons that are so becoming to you, if he had been here.” “Let her alone,” said Mr. Ogilvie, “she is well enough as she is.” “Oh yes, she’s well enough, and more than well enough, considering how she has managed her little affairs. Take some of this trout, Effie. It’s a very fine fish. It’s just too good a dinner to eat all by ourselves. I was thinking we were sure to have had company. Why didn’t you bring him in to his dinner, you shy little thing? You would think shame: as if there was any reason to think shame! Poor young man! I will take him into my own hands another time, and I will see he is not snubbed. Give Miss Effie a little of that claret, George. She is just a little done out—what with her walk, and what with——” “I am not tired at all,” said Effie with indignation. “I don’t want any wine.” “You are just very cross and thrawn,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, making pretence to threaten the girl with her finger. “You will have your own way. But to be sure there is only one time in the world when a woman is sure of having her own way, and I don’t grudge it to you, my dear. Robert, just you let Rory be in his little chair till nurse comes for him. No, no, I will not have him given things to eat. It’s very bad manners, and it keeps his little stomach out of order. Let him be. You are just making a fool of the bairn.” “Guide your side of the house as well as I do mine,” said Mr. Ogilvie, aggrieved. He was feeding his little son furtively, with an expression of beatitude impossible to describe. Effie was a young woman in whom it was true he took a certain interest; but her marrying or any other nonsense that she might take into her head, what were they to him? He had never taken much to do with the woman’s side of the house. But his little Rory, that was a different thing. A splendid little fellow, just a little king. And what harm could a little bit of fish, or just a snap of grouse, do him? It was all women’s nonsense thinking that slops and puddings and that kind of thing were best for a boy. “My side of the house!” said Mrs. Ogilvie, with a little shriek; “and what might that be? If Rory is not my side of the house, whose side does he belong to? And don’t you think that I would ever let you have the guiding of him. Oh, nurse, here you are! I am just thankful to see you; for Mr. Ogilvie will have his own way, and as sure as we’re all living, that boy will have an attack before to- morrow morning. Take him away and give him a little——. Yes, yes, just something simple of that kind. Good-night, my bonnie little man. I would like to know what is my side if it isn’t Rory? You are meaning the female side. Well, and if I had not more consideration for your daughter than you have for my son——” “Listen to her!” said Mr. Ogilvie, “her son! I like that.” “And whose son may he be? But you’ll not make me quarrel whatever you do—and on this night of all others. Effie, here is your health, my dear, and I wish you every good. We will have to write to Eric, and perhaps he might get home in time. What was that Eric said, Robert, about getting short leave? It is a very wasteful thing coming all the way from India, and only six weeks or so to spend at home. Still, if there was a good reason for it——” “Is Eric coming home? have you got a letter? But you could not have got a letter since the morning,” cried Effie. “No; but other things may have happened since the morning,” said Mrs. Ogilvie with a nod and a smile. Effie could not understand the allusions which rained upon her. She retreated more and more into herself, merely listening to the talk that went on across her. She sat at her usual side of the table, eating little, taking no notice. It did not occur to her that what had happened in the wood concerned any one but herself. After all, what was it? Nothing to disturb anybody, not a thing to be talked about. To try to please her—that was all he had asked, and who could have refused him a boon so simple? It was silly of her even, she said to herself, to be so confused by it, so absorbed thinking about it, growing white and red, as if something had happened; when nothing had {24} {25} {26} {27} {28} {29} {30} {31} {32} happened except that he was to try to please her—as if she were so hard to please! But Effie was more and more disturbed when her stepmother turned upon her as soon as the dining-room door was closed, and took her by the shoulders again. “You little bit thing, you little quiet thing!” said Mrs. Ogilvie. “To think you should have got the prize that never took any thought of it, whereas many another nice girl!—I am just as proud as if it was myself: and he is good as well as rich, and by no means ill- looking, and a very pleasant young man. I have always felt like a mother to you, Effie, and always done my duty, I hope. Just you trust in me as if I were your real mother. Where did ye meet him? And were you very much surprised? and what did he say?” Effie grew red from the soles of her feet, she thought, to the crown of her head, shame or rather shamefacedness, its innocent counterpart, enveloping her like a mantle. Her eyes fell before her stepmother’s, but she shook herself free of Mrs. Ogilvie’s hold. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “Oh fie, Effie, fie! You may not intend to show me any confidence, which will be very ill done on your part: but you cannot pretend not to know what I mean. It was me that had pity upon the lad, and showed him the way you were coming. I have always been your well-wisher, doing whatever I could. And to tell me that you don’t know what I mean!” Effie had her little obstinacies as well as another. She was not so perfect as Fred Dirom thought. She went and got her knitting,— a little stocking for Rory,—work which she was by no means devoted to on ordinary occasions. But she got it out now, and sat down in a corner at a distance from the table and the light, and began to knit as if her life depended upon it. “I must get this little stocking finished. It has been so long in hand,” she said. “Well, that is true,” said Mrs, Ogilvie, who had watched all Effie’s proceedings with a sort of vexed amusement; “very true, and I will not deny it. You have had other things in your mind; still, to take a month to a bit little thing like that, that I could do in two evenings! But you’re very industrious all at once. Will you not come nearer to the light?” “I can see very well where I am,” said Effie shortly. “I have no doubt you can see very well where you are, for there is little light wanted for knitting a stocking. Still you would be more sociable if you would come nearer. Effie Ogilvie!” she cried suddenly, “you will never tell me that you have sent him away?” Effie looked at her with defiance in her eyes, but she made no reply. “Lord bless us!” said her stepmother; “you will not tell me you have done such a thing? Effie, are you in your senses, girl? Mr. Fred Dirom, the best match in the county, that might just have who he liked,—that has all London to pick and choose from,—and yet comes out of his way to offer himself to a—to a—just a child like you. Robert,” she said, addressing her husband, who was coming in tranquilly for his usual cup of tea, “Robert! grant us patience! I’m beginning to think she has sent Fred Dirom away!” “Where has she sent him to?” said Mr. Ogilvie with a glance half angry, half contemptuous from under his shaggy eyebrows. Then he added, “But that will never do, for I have given the young man my word.” Effie had done her best to go on with her knitting, but the needles had gone all wrong in her hands: she had slipped her stitches, her wool had got tangled. She could not see what she was doing. She got up, letting the little stocking drop at her feet, and stood between the two, who were both eyeing her so anxiously. “I wish,” she said, “that you would let me alone. I am doing nothing to anybody. I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that. What have I done? I have done nothing that is wrong. Oh, I wish—I wish Uncle John was here!” she exclaimed suddenly, and in spite of herself and all her pride and defensive instincts, suddenly began to cry, like the child she still was. “It would be a very good thing if he were here; he would perhaps bring you to your senses. A young man that you have kept dancing about you all the summer, and let him think you liked his society, and was pleased to see him when he came, and never a thought in your head of turning him from the door. And now when he has spoken to your father, and offered himself and all, in the most honourable way. Dear bless me, Effie, what has the young man done to you that you have led him on like this, and made a fool of him, and then to send him away?” “I have never led him on,” cried Effie through her tears. “I have not made a fool of him. If he liked to come, that was nothing to anybody, and I never—never——” “It is very easy to speak. Perhaps you think a young man has no pride? when they are just made up of it! Yes—you have led him on: and now he will be made a fool of before all the county. For everybody has seen it; it will run through the whole countryside; and the poor young man will just be scorned everywhere, that has done no harm but to think more of you than you deserve.” “There’s far too much of this,” said Mr. Ogilvie, who prided himself a little on his power to stop all female disturbances and to assert his authority. “Janet, you’ll let the girl alone. And, Effie, you’ll see that you don’t set up your face and answer back, for it is a thing I will not allow. Dear me, is that tea not coming? I will have to go away without it if it is not ready. I should have thought, with all the women there are in this house, it might be possible to get a cup of tea.” “And that is true indeed,” said his wife, “but they will not keep the kettle boiling. The kettle should be always aboil in a well- cared-for house. I tell them so ten times in a day. But here it is at last. You see you are late, George; you have kept your master waiting. And Effie——” But Effie had disappeared. She had slid out of the room under cover of old George and his tray, and had flown upstairs through the dim passages to her own room, where all was dark. There are moments where the darkness is more congenial than the light, when a young head swims with a hundred thoughts, and life is giddy with its over-fulness, and a dark room is a hermitage and place of refuge soothing in its contrast with all that which is going through the head of the thinker, and all the pictures that float before her (as in the present case—or his) eyes. She had escaped like a bird into its nest: but not without carrying a little further disturbance with her. The idea of Fred had hitherto conveyed nothing to her mind that was not flattering and soothing and sweet. But now there was a harsher side added to this amiable and tender one. She had led him on. She had given him false hopes and made him believe that she cared for him. Had she made him believe that she—cared for him? Poor Fred! He had himself put it in so much prettier a way. He was to try to please her, as if she had been the Queen. To try to please her! and she on her side was to try—to like him. That was very {33} {34} {35} {36} {37} {38} {39} {40} different from those harsh accusations. There was nothing that was not delightful, easy, soothing in all that. They had parted such friends. And he had called her darling, which no one had ever called her before. Her heart took refuge with Fred, who was so kind and asked for so little, escaping from her stepmother with her flood of questions and demands, and her father with his dogmatism. His word; he had given his word. Did he think that was to pledge her? that she was to be handed over to any one he pleased, because he had given his word? But Fred made no such claim—he was too kind for that. He was to try to please her; that was different altogether. And then Effie gradually forgot the episode downstairs, and began to think of the dark trees tossed against the sky, and the road through the wood, and the look of her young lover’s eyes which she had not ventured to meet, and all the things he said which she did not remember. She did not remember the words, and she had not met the look, but yet they were both present with her in her room in the dark, and filled her again with that confused, sweet sense of elevation, that self-pleasure which it would be harsh to call vanity, that bewildered consciousness of worship. It made her head swim and her heart beat. To be loved was so strange and beautiful. Perhaps Fred himself was not so imposing. She had noticed in spite of herself how the wind had blown the tails of his coat and almost forced him on against his will. He was not the hero of whom Effie, like other young maidens, had dreamed. But yet her young being was thrilled and responsive to the magic in the air, and touched beyond measure by that consciousness of being loved. Fred came next morning eager and wistful and full of suppressed ardour, but with a certain courage of permission and sense that he had a right to her society, which was half irksome and half sweet. He hung about all the morning, ready to follow, to serve her, to get whatever she might want, to read poetry to her, to hold her basket while she cut the flowers—the late flowers of October—to watch while she arranged them, saying a hundred half-articulate things that made her laugh and made her blush, and increased every moment the certainty that she was no longer little Effie whom everybody had ordered about, but a little person of wonderful importance—a lady like the ladies in Shakespeare, one for whom no comparison was too lofty, and no name too sweet. It amused Effie in the bottom of her heart, and yet it touched her: she could not escape the fascination. And so it came about that without any further question, without going any farther into herself, or perceiving how she was drawn into it, she found herself bound and pledged for life. Engaged to Fred Dirom! She only realized the force of it when congratulations began to arrive from all the countryside—letters full of admiration and good wishes; and when Doris and Phyllis rushed upon her and took possession of her, saying a hundred confusing things. Effie was frightened, pleased, flattered, all in one. And everybody petted and praised her as if she had done some great thing. CHAPTER XV. “And when is it going to be?” Miss Dempster said. The ladies had come to call in their best gowns. Miss Beenie’s was puce, an excellent silk of the kind Mrs. Primrose chose for wear—and Miss Dempster’s was black satin, a little shiny by reason of its years, but good, no material better. These dresses were not brought out for every occasion; but to-day was exceptional. They did not approve of Effie’s engagement, yet there was no doubt but it was a great event. They had been absent from home for about three weeks, so that their congratulations came late. “I don’t know what you mean by it; there is nothing going to be,” said Effie, very red and angry. She had consented, it was true, in a way; but she had not yet learnt to contemplate any practical consequences, and the question made her indignant. Her temper had been tried by a great many questions, and by a desire to enter into her confidence, and to hear a great deal about Fred, and how it all came about, which her chief friend Mary Johnston and some others had manifested. She had nothing to say to them about Fred, and she could not herself tell how it all came about; but it seemed the last drop in Effie’s cup when she was asked when it was to be. “I should say your father and Mrs. Ogilvie would see to that; they are not the kind of persons to let a young man shilly-shally,” said Miss Dempster. “It is a grand match, and I wish ye joy, my dear. Still, I would like to hear a little more about it: for money embarked in business is no inheritance; it’s just here to-day and gone to-morrow. I hope your worthy father will be particular about the settlements. He should have things very tight tied down. I will speak to him myself.” “My sister has such a head for business,” Miss Beenie said. “Anybody might make a fool of me: but the man that would take in Sarah, I do not think he is yet born.” “No, I am not an easy one to take in,” said Miss Dempster. “Those that have seen as much of the ways of the world as I have, seldom are. I am not meaning that there would be any evil intention: but a man is led into speculation, or something happens to his ships, or he has his money all shut up in ventures. I would have a certain portion realized and settled, whatever might happen, if it was me.” “And have you begun to think of your things, Effie?” Miss Beenie said. At this Miss Effie jumped up from her chair, ready to cry, her countenance all ablaze with indignation and annoyance. “I think you want to torment me,” she cried. “What things should I have to think of? I wish you would just let me be. What do I know about all that? I want only to be let alone. There is nothing going to happen to me.” “Dear me, what is this?” said Mrs. Ogilvie coming in, “Effie in one of her tantrums and speaking loud to Miss Dempster! I hope you will never mind; she is just a little off her head with all the excitement and the flattery, and finding herself so important. Effie, will you go and see that Rory is not troubling papa? Take him up to the nursery or out to the garden. It’s a fine afternoon, and a turn in the garden would do him no harm, nor you either, for you’re looking a little flushed. She is just the most impracticable thing I ever had in my hands,” she added, when Effie, very glad to be released, escaped out of the room. “She will not hear a word. You would think it was just philandering, and no serious thought of what’s to follow in her head at all.” “It would be a pity,” said Miss Dempster, “if it was the same on the other side. Young men are very content to amuse themselves if they’re let do it; they like nothing better than to love and to ride away.” {41} {42} {43} {44} {45} {46} {47} {48} “You’ll be pleased to hear,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, responding instantly to this challenge “that it’s very, very different on the other side. Poor Fred, I am just very sorry for him. He cannot bring her to the point. She slips out of it, or she runs away. He tells me she will never say anything to him, but just ‘It is very nice now—or—we are very well as we are.’ He is anxious to be settled, poor young man, and nothing can be more liberal than what he proposes. But Effie is just very trying. She thinks life is to be all fun, and no changes. To be sure there are allowances to be made for a girl that is so happy at home as Effie is, and has so many good friends.” “Maybe her heart is not in it,” said Miss Dempster; “I have always thought that our connection, young Ronald Sutherland——” “It’s a dreadful thing,” cried Miss Beenie, “to force a young creature’s affections. If she were to have, poor bit thing, another Eemage in her mind——” “Oh!” cried Mrs. Ogilvie, provoked. She would have liked to shake them, the old cats! as she afterwards said. But she was wise in her generation, and knew that to quarrel was always bad policy. “What Eemage could there be?” she said with a laugh. “Effie is just full of fancies, and slips through your fingers whenever you would bring her to look at anything in earnest; but that is all. No, no, there is no Eemage, unless it was just whim and fancy. As for Ronald, she never gave him a thought, nor anybody else. She is like a little wild thing, and to catch her and put the noose round her is not easy; but as for Eemage!” cried Mrs. Ogilvie, exaggerating the pronunciation of poor Miss Beenie, which was certainly old fashioned. The old ladies naturally did not share her laughter. They looked at each other, and rose and shook out their rustling silken skirts. “There is no human person,” said Miss Dempster, “that is beyond the possibility of a mistake; and my sister and me, we may be mistaken. But you will never make me believe that girlie’s heart is in it. Eemage or no eemage, I’m saying nothing. Beenie is just a trifle romantic. She may be wrong. But I give you my opinion; that girlie’s heart’s not in it: and nothing will persuade me to the contrary. Effie is a delicate bit creature. There are many things that the strong might never mind, but that she could not bear. It’s an awful responsibility, Mrs. Ogilvie.” “I will take the responsibility,” said that lady, growing angry, as was natural. “I am not aware that it’s a thing any person has to do with except her father and me.” “If you take it upon that tone—Beenie, we will say good-day.” “Good-day to ye, Mrs. Ogilvie. I am sure I hope no harm will come of it; but it’s an awfu’ responsibility,” Miss Beenie said, following her sister to the door. And we dare not guess what high words might have followed had not the ladies, in going out, crossed Mr. Moubray coming in. They would fain have stopped him to convey their doubts, but Mrs. Ogilvie had followed them to the hall in the extreme politeness of a quarrel, and they could not do this under her very eyes. Uncle John perceived, with the skilled perceptions of a clergyman, that there was a storm in the air. “What is the matter?” he said, as he followed her back to the drawing-room. “Is it about Effie? But, of course, that is the only topic now.” “Oh, you may be sure it’s about Effie. And all her own doing, and I wish you would speak to her. It is my opinion that she cares for nobody but you. Sometimes she will mind what her Uncle John says to her.” “Poor little Effie! often I hope; and you too, who have always been kind to her.” “I have tried,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, sitting down and taking out her handkerchief. She appeared to be about to indulge herself in the luxury of tears: she looked hard at that piece of cambric, as though determining the spot which was to be applied to her eyes—and then she changed her mind. “But I know it is a difficult position,” she said briskly. “I think it very likely, in Effie’s place, that I should not have liked a stepmother myself. But then you would think she would be pleased with her new prospects, and glad to get into her own house out of my way. If that was the case I would think it very natural. But no. I am just in that state about her that I don’t know what I am doing. Here is a grand marriage for her, as you cannot deny, and she has accepted the man. But if either he or any one of us says a word about marriage, or her trousseau, or anything, she is just off in a moment. I am terrified every day for a quarrel: for who can say how long a young man’s patience may last?” “He has not had so very long to wait, nor much trial of his patience,” said Uncle John, who was sensitive on Effie’s account, and ready to take offence. “No; he has perhaps not had long to wait. But there is nothing to wait for. His father is willing to make all the settlements we can desire: and Fred is a partner, and gets his share. He’s as independent as a man can be. And there’s no occasion for delay. But she will not hear a word of it. I just don’t know what to make of her. She likes him well enough for all I can see; but marriage she will not hear of. And if it is to be at the New Year, which is what he desires, and us in November now—I just ask you how are we ever to be ready when she will not give the least attention, or so much as hear a word about her clothes?” “Oh, her clothes!” said Mr. Moubray, with a man’s disdain. “You may think little of them, but I think a great deal. It is all very well for gentlemen that have not got it to do. But what would her father say to me, or the world in general, or even yourself, if I let her go to her husband’s house with a poor providing, or fewer things than other brides? Whose fault would everybody say that was? And besides it’s like a silly thing, not like a reasonable young woman. I wish you would speak to her. If there is one thing that weighs with Effie, it is the thought of what her Uncle John will say.” “But what do you want me to say?” asked the minister. His mind was more in sympathy with Effie’s reluctance than with the haste of the others. There was nothing to be said against Fred Dirom. He was irreproachable, he was rich, he was willing to live within reach. Every circumstance was favourable to him. But Mr. Moubray thought the young man might very well be content with what he had got, and spare his Effie a little longer to those whose love for her was far older at least, if not profounder, than his. The minister had something of the soreness of a man who is being robbed in the name of love. Love! forty thousand lovers, he thought, reversing Hamlet’s sentiment, could not have made up the sum of the love he bore his little girl. Marriage is the happiest state, no doubt: but yet, perhaps a man has a more sensitive shrinking from transplanting the innocent {49} {50} {51} {52} {53} {54} {55} {56} creature he loves into that world of life matured than even a mother has. He did not like the idea that his Effie should pass into that further chapter of existence, and become, not as the gods, knowing good and evil, but as himself, or any other. He loved her ignorance, her absence of all consciousness, her freedom of childhood. It is true she was no longer a child; and she loved—did she love? Perhaps secretly in his heart he was better pleased to think that she had been drawn by sympathy, by her reluctance that any one should suffer, and by the impulse and influence of everybody about her, rather than by any passion on her own side, into these toils. “What do you want me to say?” He was a little softened towards the stepmother, who acknowledged honestly (she was on the whole a true sort of woman, meaning no harm) the close tie, almost closer than any other, which bound Effie to him. And he would not fail to Mrs. Ogilvie’s trust if he could help it; but what was he to say? Effie was in the garden when Uncle John went out. She had interpreted her stepmother’s commission about Rory to mean that she was not wanted, and she had been glad to escape from the old ladies and all their questions and remarks. She was coming back from the wood with a handful of withered leaves and lichens when her uncle joined her. Effie had been seized with a fit of impatience of the baskets of flowers which Fred was always bringing. She preferred her bouquet of red and yellow leaves, which every day it was getting more difficult to find. This gave Mr. Moubray the opening he wanted. “You are surely perverse,” he said, “my little Effie, to gather all these things, which your father would call rubbitch, when you have so many beautiful flowers inside.” “I cannot bear those grand flowers,” said Effie, “they are all made out of wax, I think, and they have all the same scent. Oh, I know they are beautiful! They are too beautiful, they are made up things, they are not like nature. In winter I like the leaves best.” “You will soon have no leaves, and what will you do then? and, my dear, your life is to be spent among these bonnie things. You are not to have the thorns and the thistles, but the roses and the lilies, Effie; and you must get used to them. It is generally a lesson very easily learnt.” To this Effie made no reply. After a while she began to show that the late autumn leaves, if not a matter of opposition, were not particularly dear to her—for she pulled them to pieces, unconsciously dropping a twig now and then, as she went on. And when she spoke, it was apparently with the intention of changing the subject. “Is it really true,” she said, “that Eric is coming home for Christmas? He said nothing about it in his last letter. How do they know?” “There is such a thing as the telegraph, Effie. You know why he is coming. He is coming for your marriage.” Effie gave a start and quick recoil. “But that is not going to be—oh, not yet, not for a long time.” “I thought that everybody wished it to take place at the New Year.” “Not me,” said the girl. She took no care at all now of the leaves she had gathered with so much trouble, but strewed the ground with them as if for a procession to pass. “Uncle John,” she went on quickly and tremulously, “why should it be soon? I am quite young. Sometimes I feel just like a little child, though I may not be so very young in years.” “Nineteen!” “Yes, I know it is not very young. I shall be twenty next year. At twenty you understand things better; you are a great deal more responsible. Why should there be any hurry? He is young too. You might help me to make them all see it. Everything is nice enough as it is now. Why should we go and alter, and make it all different? Oh, I wish you would speak to them, Uncle John.” “My dear, your stepmother has just given me a commission to bring you over to their way of thinking. I am so loth to lose you that my heart takes your side: but, Effie——” “To lose me!” she cried, flinging away the “rubbitch” altogether, and seizing his arm with both her hands. “Oh no, no, that can never be!” “No, it will never be: and yet it will be as soon as you’re married: and there is a puzzle for you, my bonnie dear. The worst of it is that you will be quite content, and see that it is natural it should be so: but I will not be content. That is what people call the course of nature. But for all that, I am not going to plead for myself. Effie, the change has begun already. A little while ago, and there was no man in the world that had any right to interfere with your own wishes: but now you know the thing is done. It is as much done as if you had been married for years. You must now not think only of what pleases yourself, but of what pleases him.” Effie was silent for some time, and went slowly along clinging to her uncle’s arm. At last she said in a low tone, “But he is pleased. He said he would try to please me; that was all that was said.” Uncle John shook his head. “That may be all that is said, a...