Keeping up Appearances CHAPTER 2.
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At the time this singular interview between Mr. Hartman and his wife was transpiring, two young ladies were sitting together, engaged in earnest conversation. One was rather below, and the other a little above the middle stature. The smaller of the two had a fair complexion, blue eyes, and dark brown hair. While listening to her companion, her countenance would sink too much into repose — but when she lifted her eyes, as she spoke, every feature was alive with expression, and she was seen to possess more than ordinary beauty. This was Lucy Hartman.
The other young lady, though equally beautiful, had a different style of beauty. Her hair was black, her eyes of a dark hazel, her complexion as fair as Lucy's — but with a superabundant color. The name of this person was Annetta Laurie. She was the daughter of a merchant who had the reputation of being wealthy.
At a glance, anyone that looked upon Annetta and Lucy, who were very intimate friends, would mark the leading difference in their characters, as expressed in their faces. The round, prominent chin, full but gently compressed lips, nose just perceptibly Roman in its outline, and large steady eyes, over the whole of which something that approached a haughty expression was thrown, clearly marked the character of Annetta as one that had its share of pride and self-estimation.
Lucy's was a gentler spirit, if her face was an index to her mind — and not only gentler — but humbler. She was old enough, when her parents died, to feel deeply their loss, and also to feel the obligation she was under to her uncle and aunt for taking her into their home and their hearts, and supplying to her, as far as they had power so to do it, all that she had lost. This event, and the change that it produced, gave her a meditative cast of mind, which marked the difference between her and Annetta as perceptibly as did the peculiar forms and expressions of their faces.
The two young friends, as we have said, were engaged in earnest conversation, the theme of which was the offer of marriage that had been made to Lucy by Mr. Burnside.
"Do you really think your uncle in favor of Mr. Burnside ?" asked Annetta.
"I am afraid he is; although I am not certain. Aunt told me that Mr. Burnside had mentioned his wishes to uncle, and that he desired her to make them known to me."
"What did your aunt say in favor or against?"
"Nothing. But I could see in her face that she approved of my objections."
"It's a temptation, certainly," remarked Annetta. "I know a dozen girls who would not hesitate long about accepting his offer. He is said to be as rich as a Jew."
"If he owned a score of worlds like this, I would not marry him," said Lucy with some emphasis.
"Is he so very disagreeable to you?"
"No, I respect him very much — but I do not love him; and nothing could tempt me to marry a man for whom I had no true affection."
"Love might come afterwards. There is Mrs. Gregory, her husband is thirty years older than she is, they say. She is happy enough, I am sure."
"Not as I would wish to be happy in marriage. That is impossible in such a union. It may be all well enough for those who look to marriage as a means of securing wealth, luxury, and an elevated place in society — but it could not answer for me. If I did not love a man well enough to share with him either a high or a humble position — I would not marry him."
"That is what some people call romantic love, and others a young girl's nonsense."
"I know. But I have been taught to pay little regard to what people say or think, when it comes in opposition to what I believe to be right. In so serious a matter as marriage, and one in which each has to bear the burden of her own mistakes if she is so unfortunate as to commit any, I think that too much prudence cannot be exercised, nor too close a regard had to all the qualifications necessary to produce happiness. The first and leading qualifications are mental and moral affinities. These exist independent of wealth."
"And might you not say, also, independent of age?"
"No, Annetta. There may be great excellence and a high order of intelligence, and, indeed, always should be in people who are advanced in age; but affinities that truly conjoin in marriage depend upon something more than mere intellectual and moral excellence. The parties should be as nearly the same age as possible. This, to my mind, is perfectly clear. There should not be any very great intellectual disparity, and their moral principles should be in accordance the one with the other."
"But I cannot understand how twenty or thirty years difference in age, is going to prevent the affinities required in a true marriage," said Annetta. "Can you explain the reason?"
"I don't know that I can, to your satisfaction," replied Lucy. "As for me, I feel that such affinities, with such a discrepancy as you name, cannot exist, in the very nature of things. So far as Mr. Burnside is concerned, I might respect and admire him for his intelligence and virtue — but I never could love him as my second self and equal. Deference for his greater age and experience in life, would take away the innocent and earnest confiding tenderness of my young heart's love. He could not be to me a husband, nor I to him a wife — in the true sense of the terms, for there could not possibly be such a conjunction of our spirits as would make us one. I might look to him, and defer to him as a child defers to her father — but I could never feel towards him as I would wish to feel towards my husband. I cannot explain it all to you, Annetta. But I have perceptions that I am satisfied to follow as my unerring guide."
"Then you have fully made up your mind not to accept of Mr. Burnside?" said Annetta.
"Undoubtedly! No inducement could tempt me to marry him!"
"Well! I won't say how I would act if I were in your place. A man like Mr. Burnside is not to be caught every day, if he is over forty. There is one thing to be considered; you would be sure to outlive him some twenty years."
This was said lightly. But Lucy felt too serious to enter into the mirthful mood of her young friend, who ran on again, after a brief pause.
"Do you know, Lucy, dear," she said, "that I am more than half in love?"
"With an old man?" asked Lucy, smiling.
"Oh, no. He 's just the right age, although a very little bit too sober for me. But still, take him all in all, I think he will do very well."
"Am I acquainted, with him?"
"Slightly, I believe. You remember the young man I danced with at Mrs. Boyers', and who seemed so much smitten with my charms?"
"Not distinctly. You danced with several young men."
"I know. But they were all old acquaintances. This was a new string to my bow. His name is Lewis."
"Oh yes! I remember him very well. I was introduced to him on that occasion."
"Don't you think him worth an effort to gain, Lucy?"
"No."
"Why not? I think him a little superior to most of the young men we are in the habit of meeting."
"So he may be — but still not worth a lady's effort to gain. I don't think any man worth that. At least, I would feel that I was paying too dear for a man's love, if I made efforts to win it."
"Lucy! I never gave that little body of yours credit for containing so proud a heart. No man's love worth making an effort to win! I shall look for you to say next that no man's love is worth having."
"But you will look in vain to hear that from me. I think, if my limited observation of Mr. Lewis has not deceived me, that his love is well worth having."
"And, therefore, worth an effort to gain."
"No; only the love that comes unsought and unlimited — can be true love to a woman."
"Ah! now I understand you. Then I must not set my cap for Mr. Lewis?"
"You can do as you please, Annetta. No matter how much I might desire any man's love, I would never seek to win it. If he loved me, and I could fully reciprocate his love, I would do it. But, I am a maiden who cannot, unsought, be won."
"Yours is a proud heart, Lucy," said Annetta.
"No," was the smiling reply. "Only a woman's heart."
The two maidens continued to talk of love and its kindred topics for some time longer, when Annetta went away. It was, perhaps, an hour afterwards, that the door of Lucy's room opened, and Mrs. Hartman came in. Lucy never remembered to have seen so strange an expression upon her aunt's face as it then wore. She arose, involuntarily, and said, in a concerned voice,
"Are you well, aunt?"
"Yes, dear," returned Mrs. Hartman. "But I have something on my mind that I wish to say to you, and it oppresses me."
Mrs. Hartman's eyes were fixed earnestly upon her niece, while a sad, yet tender expression rested upon her countenance.
"What is it, aunt?" said Lucy, with an instant foreboding that the subject referred to Mr. Burnside, whose proposal she had authorized Mrs. Hartman, a few hours previously, to decline.
"It relates, my dear, to what we were conversing about this morning," replied Mrs. Hartman, as she sank into a chair that Lucy had offered her. "Your uncle does not seem satisfied at your having so positively, and promptly declined the offer of Mr. Burnside, for whose character he has the highest regard."
Lucy made no reply — but burst into tears. She wept for some minutes, during which time her aunt sat silent and motionless as a statue.
"Is Mr. Burnside so very disagreeable to you, Lucy?" Mrs. Hartman ventured to ask, as the agitation her words had produced in the maiden's mind subsided with a calm, that was only broken now and then by a convulsive sob.
"He is not disagreeable to me at all," replied the girl.
"Then your objection to him is not very serious?"
Lucy looked into Mrs. Hartman's face with astonishment. It did not seem to her that it could be her aunt who had asked her the question.
"I have but one objection to him, aunt," she said; "that which I have already mentioned to you."
"What is that, dear?"
"I do not love him."
"But a more intimate acquaintance with him may — "
"An old man, like him, aunt!"
"He is not so very old, Lucy. He is only — "
"Double my age, aunt!"
Mrs. Hartman was silent for some moments; she was trying to do what both her feelings and conscience disapproved, and she was at a loss what to say. While thus silent, Lucy said, speaking with a good deal of earnestness,
"Aunt, would you like to see me do wrong?"
"No, my child."
"Would you like to see me act with heartless duplicity."
"Of course not, Lucy."
"I would do more than this, if I were to accept the proposal of Mr. Burnside. I would commit a sin that I feel sure would destroy my soul. Have you not yourself always taught me that marriage was the most important act of a woman's life, involving the best or worst consequences, and that depended upon the end in view in entering upon that relation. Now what good end could I have in marrying Mr. Burnside? I do not and cannot love him. There is nothing but his great wealth to tempt me — and that is no temptation at all."
"It might be, if you knew everything," said Mrs, Hartman, in a sad voice.
"Knew everything? Knew what?" asked Lucy with an expression of alarm.
After some hesitation, and evidently with an effort, Mrs. Hartman replied,
"Your uncle's business, he has just informed me, will all be broken up in a short time, unless he obtain unforeseen relief. We shall then sink into poverty, and you must sink with us. A marriage with Mr. Burnside will save you from the unhappy consequences of these misfortunes."
"And did you think for a moment," said Lucy, with generous warmth, throwing her arms about the neck of her aunt as she spoke, "that I could basely desert you on the eve of such a calamity? That I could accept of wealth, ease, and luxury — while you were deprived of them. No — no — no! If you are to sink down from your present place, let me go with you, and lighten by my love, the burdens you may have to bear. But don't, let me beg of you, again allude to a union against which every instinct of my nature revolts! Now, more than ever, do I turn from it."
Mrs. Hartman had it on the end of her tongue to show Lucy how such a marriage, should it occur, might prevent the dreaded calamity, or put it in her power to do the good; but the generous, self-devoted spirit of the maiden rebuked her, and sealed the plea of selfishness upon her lips. Several times did she try to introduce the subject again — but she could not. Her very soul arose in rebellion against it.
In all this, it is but justice to Mrs. Hartman to say, that she was influenced by her husband, and not by her own feelings, reason, or perceptions. Like Lucy, she was willing to bear any consequence, as less to be dreaded than a marriage based upon acknowledged wrong principles; but her husband had extorted from her a promise to use her influence with Lucy to gain the object he had in view, and she had attempted to do so. In what manner, and with what success, the reader has seen.
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