Victorian Short Stories: Stories of Courtship
Le Smyrger when that lady walked over from the Colne to say that her
nephew John was to arrive on the following morning.
'Do with him? Why, I shall bring him over here to talk to your father.'
'He'll be too fashionable for that, and papa won't trouble his head
about him if he finds that he doesn't care for Dartmoor.'
'Then he may fall in love with you, my dear.'
'Well, yes; there's that resource at any rate, and for your sake I dare
say I should be more civil to him than papa. But he'll soon get tired of
making love to me, and what you'll do then I cannot imagine.'
That Miss Woolsworthy felt no interest in the coming of the Captain I
will not pretend to say. The advent of any stranger with whom she would
be called on to associate must be matter of interest to her in that
secluded place; and she was not so absolutely unlike other young ladies
that the arrival of an unmarried young man would be the same to her as
the advent of some patriarchal pater-familias. In taking that outlook
into life of which I have spoken she had never said to herself that she
despised those things from which other girls received the excitement,
the joys, and the disappointment of their lives. She had simply given
herself to understand that very little of such things would come in her
way, and that it behoved her to live--to live happily if such might be
possible--without experiencing the need of them. She had heard, when
there was no thought of any such visit to Oxney Colne, that John
Broughton was a handsome clever man--one who thought much of himself and
was thought much of by others--that there had been some talk of his
marrying a great heiress, which marriage, however had not taken place
through unwillingness on his part, and that he was on the whole a man of
more mark in the world than the ordinary captains of ordinary regiments.
Captain Broughton came to Oxney Colne, stayed there a fortnight--the
intended period for his projected visit having been fixed at three or
four days--and then went his way. He went his way back to his London
haunts, the time of the year then being the close of the Easter
holy-days; but as he did so he told his aunt that he should assuredly
return to her in the autumn.
'And assuredly I shall be happy to see you, John--if you come with a
certain purpose. If you have no such purpose, you had better remain
away.'
'I shall assuredly come,' the Captain had replied, and then he had gone
on his journey.
The summer passed rapidly by, and very little was said between Miss Le
Smyrger and Miss Woolsworthy about Captain Broughton. In many
respects--nay, I may say, as to all ordinary matters,--no two women
could well be more intimate with each other than they were; and more
than that, they had the courage each to talk to the other with absolute
truth as to things concerning themselves--a courage in which dear
friends often fail. But, nevertheless, very little was said between them
about Captain John Broughton. All that was said may be here repeated.
'John says that he shall return here in August,' Miss Le Smyrger said
as Patience was sitting with her in the parlour at Oxney Colne, on the
morning after that gentleman's departure.
'He told me so himself,' said Patience; and as she spoke her round dark
eyes assumed a look of more than ordinary self-will. If Miss Le Smyrger
had intended to carry the conversation any further she changed her mind
as she looked at her companion. Then, as I said, the summer ran by, and
towards the close of the warm days of July, Miss Le Smyrger, sitting in
the same chair in the same room, again took up the conversation.
'I got a letter from John this morning. He says that he shall be here on
the third.'
'Does he?'
'He is very punctual to the time he named.'
'Yes; I fancy that he is a punctual man,' said Patience.
'I hope that you will be glad to see him,' said Miss Le Smyrger.
'Very glad to see him,' said Patience, with a bold clear voice; and then
the conversation was again dropped, and nothing further was said till
after Captain Broughton's second arrival in the parish.
Four months had then passed since his departure, and during that time
Miss Woolsworthy had performed all her usual daily duties in their
accustomed course. No one could discover that she had been less careful
in her household matters than had been her wont, less willing to go
among her poor neighbours, or less assiduous in her attentions to her
father. But not the less was there a feeling in the minds of those
around her that some great change had come upon her. She would sit
during the long summer evenings on a certain spot outside the parsonage
orchard, at the top of a small sloping field in which their solitary cow
was always pastured, with a book on her knees before her, but rarely
reading. There she would sit, with the beautiful view down to the
winding river below her, watching the setting sun, and thinking,
thinking, thinking--thinking of something of which she had never spoken.
Often would Miss Le Smyrger come upon her there, and sometimes would
pass her even without a word; but never--never once did she dare to ask
of the matter of her thoughts. But she knew the matter well enough. No
confession was necessary to inform her that Patience Woolsworthy was in
love with John Broughton--ay, in love, to the full and entire loss of
her whole heart.
On one evening she was so sitting till the July sun had fallen and
hidden himself for the night, when her father came upon her as he
returned from one of his rambles on the moor. 'Patty,' he said, 'you
are always sitting there now. Is it not late? Will you not be cold?'
'No papa,' she said, 'I shall not be cold.'
'But won't you come to the house? I miss you when you come in so late
that there's no time to say a word before we go to bed.'
She got up and followed him into the parsonage, and when they were in
the sitting-room together, and the door was closed, she came up to him
and kissed him. 'Papa,' she said, 'would it make you very unhappy if I
were to leave you?'
'Leave me!' he said, startled by the serious and almost solemn tone of
her voice. 'Do you mean for always?'
'If I were to marry, papa?'
'Oh, marry! No; that would not make me unhappy. It would make me very
happy, Patty, to see you married to a man you would love;--very, very
happy; though my days would be desolate without you.'
'That is it, papa. What would you do if I went from you?'
'What would it matter, Patty? I should be free, at any rate, from a
load which often presses heavy on me now. What will you do when I shall
leave you? A few more years and all will be over with me. But who is it,
love? Has anybody said anything to you?'
'It was only an idea, papa. I don't often think of such a thing; but I
did think of it then.' And so the subject was allowed to pass by. This
had happened before the day of the second arrival had been absolutely
fixed and made known to Miss Woolsworthy.
And then that second arrival took place. The reader may have understood
from the words with which Miss Le Smyrger authorized her nephew to make
his second visit to Oxney Colne that Miss Woolsworthy's passion was not
altogether unauthorized. Captain Broughton had been told that he was not
to come unless he came with a certain purpose; and having been so told,
he still persisted in coming. There can be no doubt but that he well
understood the purport to which his aunt alluded. 'I shall assuredly
come,' he had said. And true to his word, he was now there.
Patience knew exactly the hour at which he must arrive at the station at
Newton Abbot, and the time also which it would take to travel over those
twelve up-hill miles from the station to Oxney. It need hardly be said
that she paid no visit to Miss Le Smyrger's house on that afternoon; but
she might have known something of Captain Broughton's approach without
going thither. His road to the Colne passed by the parsonage-gate, and
had Patience sat even at her bedroom window she must have seen him. But
on such an evening she would not sit at her bedroom window;--she would
do nothing which would force her to accuse herself of a restless longing
for her lover's coming. It was for him to seek her. If he chose to do
so, he knew the way to the parsonage.
Miss Le Smyrger--good, dear, honest, hearty Miss Le Smyrger, was in a
fever of anxiety on behalf of her friend. It was not that she wished her
nephew to marry Patience,--or rather that she had entertained any such
wish when he first came among them. She was not given to match-making,
and moreover thought, or had thought within herself, that they of Oxney
Colne could do very well without any admixture from Eaton Square. Her
plan of life had been that when old Mr. Woolsworthy was taken away from
Dartmoor, Patience should live with her, and that when she also shuffled
off her coil, then Patience Woolsworthy should be the maiden-mistress
of Oxney Colne--of Oxney Colne and of Mr. Cloysey's farm--to the utter
detriment of all the Broughtons. Such had been her plan before nephew
John had come among them--a plan not to be spoken of till the coming of
that dark day which should make Patience an orphan. But now her nephew
had been there, and all was to be altered. Miss Le Smyrger's plan would
have provided a companion for her old age; but that had not been her
chief object. She had thought more of Patience than of herself, and now
it seemed that a prospect of a higher happiness was opening for her
friend.
'John,' she said, as soon as the first greetings were over, 'do you
remember the last words that I said to you before you went away?' Now,
for myself, I much admire Miss Le Smyrger's heartiness, but I do not
think much of her discretion. It would have been better, perhaps, had
she allowed things to take their course.
'I can't say that I do,' said the Captain. At the same time the Captain
did remember very well what those last words had been.
'I am so glad to see you, so delighted to see you, if--if--if--,' and
then she paused, for with all her courage she hardly dared to ask her
nephew whether he had come there with the express purport of asking Miss
Woolsworthy to marry him.
To tell the truth--for there is no room for mystery within the limits of
this short story,--to tell, I say, at a word the plain and simple truth,
Captain Broughton had already asked that question. On the day before he
left Oxney Colne he had in set terms proposed to the parson's daughter,
and indeed the words, the hot and frequent words, which previously to
that had fallen like sweetest honey into the ears of Patience
Woolsworthy, had made it imperative on him to do so. When a man in such
a place as that has talked to a girl of love day after day, must not he
talk of it to some definite purpose on the day on which he leaves her?
Or if he do not, must he not submit to be regarded as false, selfish,
and almost fraudulent? Captain Broughton, however, had asked the
question honestly and truly. He had done so honestly and truly, but in
words, or, perhaps, simply with a tone, that had hardly sufficed to
satisfy the proud spirit of the girl he loved. She by that time had
confessed to herself that she loved him with all her heart; but she had
made no such confession to him. To him she had spoken no word, granted
no favour, that any lover might rightfully regard as a token of love
returned. She had listened to him as he spoke, and bade him keep such
sayings for the drawing-rooms of his fashionable friends. Then he had
spoken out and had asked for that hand,--not, perhaps, as a suitor
tremulous with hope,--but as a rich man who knows that he can command
that which he desires to purchase.
'You should think more of this,' she had said to him at last. 'If you