Part 36 (1/2)
And as his interests became more and more a.s.sociated with Mr. Spencer's he became more and more positive in Mr. Spencer's favor. There was little need then for Mrs. Semple's diplomacies. He had ”taken the matter in his own hands” he said, ”and he should carry it through.”
For some time Maria did not really believe that her father and stepmother were in earnest, but on her twentieth birthday the position was made painfully clear, for when she came to the breakfast table her father kissed her, an unusual token of affection, and put into her hand an order on his banker for a large sum of money.
”It is for your wedding clothes, Maria,” he said, ”and I wish you to have the richest and best of everything. Such jewels as I think necessary I will buy for you myself. Our relatives and friends will dine with you to-day and I shall announce your engagement.”
”But father!” she exclaimed, ”I do not want to marry. Let me return this money. Indeed, I cannot spend it for wedding clothes. The idea is so absurd! I do not want to marry.”
”Maria, you are twenty years old this twenty-fifth of November. It is time you settled yourself. Mr. Spencer will have his new house ready by the end of next June. As nearly as I can tell, your marriage to him will take place on the twenty-ninth of June. Your mother thinks that with the help of needlewomen your clothing can be finished by that time.”
”I told Mr. Spencer a month ago that I would not marry him.”
”All right; girls always say such things. It appears modest, and you have a certain privilege in this respect. But I advise you not to carry such pretty affectations too far.”
”Father, I do not love Mr. Spencer.”
”He loves you, that is the necessary point. It is not proper, it is not requisite that a girl should take love into her consideration. I have chosen for you a good husband, a man who will probably be Lord Mayor of London within a few years, and the prospect of such an honor ought to content you.”
It is difficult for an American girl at this time to conceive of the situation of the daughters of England in the year 1782. The law gave them absolutely into their father's power until they were twenty-one years old; and the law was stupendously strengthened and upheld by universal public approval, and by barriers of social limitations that few women had the daring to cross. Maria was environed by influences that all made for her total subjection to her parent's will, and at this time she ventured no further remark. But her whole nature was insurgent, and she mentally promised herself that neither on the twenty-ninth of June nor on any other day that followed it would she marry Richard Spencer.
After breakfast she went to her room to consider her position, and no one prevented her withdrawal.
”It is the best thing she can do,” said Mr. Semple to his wife. ”A little reflection will show her the hopeless folly of resistance to my commands.”
”Her behavior is not flattering to Richard.”
”Richard has more sense than to notice it. He said to me that 'there was always a little chaffering before a good bargain.' He understands women.”
”Maria has been brought up badly. She has dangerous ideas about the claims and privileges and personal rights of women.”
”Balderdas.h.!.+ Claims of women, indeed! Give them the least power, and they would stake the world away for a whim. See that she dresses herself properly for dinner. I have told her I shall then announce her engagement, and in the midst of all our relatives and friends she will not dare to deny it.”
In a great measure Mr. Semple was correct. Maria was not ready to deny it, nor did she think the relatives and friends had anything to do with her private affairs. She made no answer whatever to her father's notice of her approaching marriage, and the congratulations of the company fell upon her consciousness like snowflakes upon a stone wall. They meant nothing at all to her.
The day following Mrs. Semple went to buy the lawn and linen and lace necessary for the wedding garments. Maria would not accompany her; her stepmother complained and Maria was severely reprimanded, and for a few days thoroughly frightened. But a constant succession of such scenes blunted her sense of fear. She remembered her grandfather's brave words, ”Be strong and of good courage,” and gradually gathered herself together for the struggle she saw to be inevitable. To break her promise to Lord Medway! That was a thing she never would do! No, not even the law of England should make her utter words false to every true feeling she had.
And day by day this resolve grew stronger, as day by day it was confronted by a trial she hardly dared to contemplate.
There was no one to whom she could go for advice or sympathy. Mrs.
Gordon was in Scotland, where her husband had an estate, and she had no other intimate friend. But at the worst, it was only another year and then she would be her own mistress and Ernest Medway would come and marry her. Of this result she never had one doubt. True, she heard very little from him; but if not one word had come to a.s.sure her she would still have been confident that he would keep his word, if alive to do so. Letter-writing was not then the easily practised relief it is now, and she knew Lord Medway disliked it. Yet she was not without even these evidences of his remembrance, and considering the conditions of the country in which they had been written, the great distance between them, the difficulty of getting letters to New York and the uncertainty of getting letters from New York to England, these evidences of his affection had been fairly numerous. All of them had come enclosed in her Uncle Neil's letters, and without mention or explanation, for Neil was sympathetically cautious and did not know what effect they might have on the life of Maria, though he did not know _his_ letters were sure to be inquired after and read by her parents.
They were intensely symbolic of a man who preferred to _do_ rather than to _say_, and are fairly represented by the three quoted:
”SWEETEST MARIA: Have you forgiven your adoring lover?
ERNEST.”