“How absurd of you, my daughter! Mr. Henderson has not anything to support a wife on. He is a good moral young man, I admit, and agreeable, and has talent and all that; but, my dear Eva, you are not fitted to contend with poverty. You must marry a man that can support you in the position that you have always been in.”
“Whether I love him or not, mamma?”
“My dear Eva, you would, of course, love your husband. A man that is able to take care of you and get you everything that you want — give you every wish of your heart — you would love of course.”
“Well, mamma, I have got a man that does exactly that for me, now,” said Eva, “and I don’t need another. That ‘s just what papa does for me. And now, when I marry, I want a companion that suits me. I have got now all the bracelets, and jewelry, and finger-rings that I can think of; and if I wanted forty more I could tease them out of papa any day, or kiss them out of him. Pa always gets me everything I want; so I don’t see what I want of Mr. Sydney.”
“Well, now, my dear Eva, I must speak to you seriously. You are old enough now not to be talked to like a child. The fact is, my darling, there is nothing so insecure as our life here. Your father, my love, is reported to be a great deal richer than he is. Of course we have to keep up the idea, because it helps his business. But the last two or three years he has met with terrible losses, and I have seen him sometimes so nervous about our family expenditures that, really, there was no comfort in life. But, then, we had this match in view. We supposed, of course, that it was coming off. And such a splendid settlement on you would help the family every way. Mr.
Sydney is a very generous man; and the use of his capital, the credit that the marriage would give to your father in business circles, would be immense. And then, my child, just think of the establishment you would have! Why, there is not such an establishment in the country as his place on the North River! You saw it yesterday. What could you ask more? And there is that villa at Newport. You might be there in the summer, and have all your sisters there. And he is a man of the most splendid taste as to equipages and furniture, and everything of that sort. And, as I said before, he is a good man.”
“But, mamma, mamma, it will never do. Not if he had the East and West Indies. All that can’t buy your little Eva. Tell me, now, mamma, dear, was ‘ pa a rich man when you married him — I mean when you fell in love with him?”
“Well, no, dear, not very; though people always said that he was a man that would rise.”
“But you didn’t begin in a house like this, mamma. You began at the beginning and helped him up, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes, dear, we did begin in a quiet way; and I had to live pretty carefully the first years of my life; and worked hard, and know all about it; and I want to save you from going through the same that I did.”
“Maybe if you did I should not turn out as you are now. But really, mother, if pa is embarrassed, why do we live so? Why don’t we economize? I am sure I am willing to.”
“Oh, darling! we mustn’t. We mustn’t make any change; because, if the idea should once get running that there is any difficulty about money, everybody would be down on your father. We have to keep everything going, and everything up, or else things would go abroad that would injure his credit; and he could not get money for his operations. He is engaged in great operations now that will bring in millions if they succeed.”
“And if they don’t succeed,” said Eva, “then I suppose that we shall lose millions — is that it?”
“Well, dear, it is just as I tell you, we rich people live on a very uncertain eminence, and for that reason I wanted to see my darling daughter settled securely.”
“Well, mamma, now I will tell you what I have been thinking of. Since ‘riches make to themselves wings and fly away,’ what is the sense of marrying a man whose main recommendation is that he is rich? Because that is the thing that makes Mr. Sydney more, for instance, than Mr. Henderson, or any other nice gentleman we know. Now what if I should marry Mr. Sydney, who, to say the truth, dear mamma, I do not fancy, and who is rather tiresome to me — and then some fine morning his banks should fail, his railroads burst up, and his place on the North River and his villa at Newport have to be sold, and he and I have to take a little unfashionable house together, and rough it — what then? Why, then, when it came to that, I should wish that I had chosen a more entertaining companion. For there isn’t a thing that I am interested in that I can talk with him about. You see, dear mother, we have to take it ‘for better or for worse;’ and as there is always danger that the wheel may turn, by and by it may come so that we’ll have nothing but the man himself left. It seems to me that we should choose our man with great care. He should be like the pearl of great price, the Bible speaks of, for whom we would be glad to sell everything. It should be somebody we could be happy with if we lost all beside. And when I marry, mother, it will be with a man that I feel is all that to me.”
“Well, Eva dear, where’ll you find such a man?”
“What if I had found him, mother — or thought I had?”
“What do you mean, child?”
“Mother, I have found the man that I love, and he loves me, and we are engaged.”
“Eva, child! I would not have thought this of you. Why haven’t you told me before?”
“Because, mamma, it was only this afternoon that I found out that he loved me and wanted me to be his wife.”
“And may I presume to ask now who it is?” said Mrs. Van Arsdel in a tone of pique.
“Dear mother, it is Harry Henderson.”
“Mr. Henderson! Well, I do think that is too dishonorable; when I told him your relations with Mr. Sydney.”
“Mother, you gave him to understand that I was engaged to Mr. Sydney, and I told him this afternoon, that I was not, and never would be. He was honorable. After you had that conversation with him he avoided our house a long time, and avoided me. I was wretched about it, and he was wretched; but this afternoon we met accidentally in the Park; and I insisted on knowing from him why he avoided us so. And, at last, I found out all; and he found out all. We understand each other perfectly now, and nothing can ever come between us. Mother, I would go with him to the ends of the earth. There is nothing that I do not feel able to do or suffer for him. And I am glad and proud of myself to know that I can love him as I do.”
“Oh well, poor child! I do not know what we shall do,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel, with profound dejection.
“Deary mother, I will do everything I can to help you, and everything I can to help papa. I do not believe there is one of us children that would not. And I think it is true, what Ida is always telling us, that it would be a great deal better for us if we had less, and had to depend on ourselves and use our own faculties more. There are the boys in college; there is no need of their having spending money as they do. And I know if papa would tell them of his difficulties it would make men of them, just as it would make a woman of me.”
“Well, I do not know,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel. “Your father has not told me of any particular embarrassments, only I see he is anxious and nervous, and I know him so well that I always know when his affairs trouble him. And this is a great blow to me, Eva.”
“Well, dear mother, I am very sorry it is so; but I cannot help it. It would be wicked for me, mother, to marry any other man when I love Harry as I do. Love is not a glove that you can take off as you please. It is something very different. Now, with him, I never felt tired. I always like to be with him; I always like to talk with him; he never makes me nervous; I never wish he was gone; he can always understand me, and I can understand him. We can almost tell what the other is thinking of without speaking. And I will risk our not being happy together. So please do, dear mother, look a little cheerful about it. Let me be happy in my own way.”
“Well, I suppose I must,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel, with a deep sigh, taking up the lamp. “You always did have your own way, Eva.”
“Oh, well, mother dear, some day you’ll be glad of
it. Good-night.”
CHAPTER XXXVI. FURTHER CONSULTATIONS
AFTER the departure of her mother, Eva in vain tried to compose herself to sleep. Her cheeks were flushed, and her brain was in a complete whirl. Her mother had said and hinted just enough about the financial condition of the family to fill her with vague alarms. She walked uneasily up and down her luxurious chamber, all whose appointments spoke of wealth and taste; and it was with an unpleasant feeling of insecurity that she regarded the pictures and statues and sofas, and all the charming arrangements, in perfecting which her father had always allowed her carte blanche as to money. She reflected uneasily that in making all these expensive arrangements she had ordered simply what pleased her fancy, without inquiry as to price, and without ever glancing over a bill to know the result; and now, she found herself affianced to a young man without any other resources than those which must come from the exertion of his talents, seconded by prudence and economy. And here, again, offered to her acceptance, was another marriage, which would afford her the means of gratifying every taste, and of continuing to live in all those habits of easy luxury and careless expenses that she could not but feel were very agreeable to her. Not for one moment did she feel an inclination, or a temptation, to purchase that luxury, and that ease, by the sale of herself; but still, when she thought of her lover — of the difficulties that he must necessarily meet, of the cares which she must bring upon him — she asked herself, “Was it not an act of injustice to him to burden him with so incapable and helpless a wife as she feared she should prove?”
“But I am not incapable,” she said to herself, “and I will not be helpless. I have strength in me, and I will use it; I will show that I am good for something. I wonder if it is true that papa is embarrassed. If he is, I wish he would trust us; I wish he would tell us at once, and let us help him economize. I would do it; I am sure we all would do it.”
It was in vain, under the pressure of these thoughts, to try to compose herself to sleep; and, at last, she passed into her sister Ida’s room, who, with her usual systematic regularity as to hours, had for a long time been in the enjoyment of quiet slumber.
“Ida, dear!” she said, stooping over and speaking to her sister, “Ida, look here!”
Ida opened her eyes and sat up in bed. “Why, Eva, child! not gone to bed yet? What is the matter with you? You will certainly ruin your health with these irregular hours.”
“Oh, Ida, I am so nervous I can’t sleep! I am sorry to disturb you; but, indeed, I want to talk to you about something that worries me; and you know you are always gone before I am up in the morning.”
“Well, dear, what is it?” said Ida, stroking her head. “Do you know, mamma has just been into my room with a letter from Mr. Sydney. He is coming into the field again, and has written to mamma, and mamma has been in talking to me till I am just ready to cry. Now, Ida, you know all that took place between Mr. Henderson and me yesterday in the Park; we are engaged, are we not, as much as two people can be?”
“Certainly you are,” said Ida decisively.
“Well now, mamma is so distressed and disappointed.” You told her about it, then?” said Ida.
“Certainly; yes, I told her all about it; and oh, Ida! what do you think? mamma really made me feel as if something dreadful was going to happen in the family, that papa was getting embarrassed in his business, and perhaps we might all fail and come to ruin if I did not help him by marrying Mr. Sydney. Now, do you think it would be right for me? It certainly cannot be my duty!”
“Ask yourself that question,” said Ida; “think what you must promise and vow in marriage.”
“To be sure! and how wicked it would be to promise and vow all that to one man when I know that I love another one better!”
“Then,” said Ida, “asking a woman to take false marriage vows to save her family, or her parents from trouble, is just like asking her to steal money, or forge a false note to save them. Eva, you cannot do it.”
“Well,” said Eva, “that is what I told mamma. But, Ida dear, is it really true, do you think, that papa is troubled in his business?”
“Papa is not a man that would speak freely to any woman on business matters,” said Ida, “not even to me; but I know that his liabilities and ventures are terrific; and nothing would surprise me less than to have this whole air-castle that we have been living in dissolve like a morning mist, and let us down on the pavement. All I have to say is, that if it comes it is just what I have been preparing for all my life. I have absolutely refused to be made such a helpless doll as young girls in our position commonly are. I have determined that I would keep my faculties bright, and my bodily health firm and strong; and that all these luxuries should not become a necessity to me, so but what I could take care of myself, and take care of others, without them. And all I have to say is, if a crash comes it will find me ready, and it won’t crush me.”
“But, Ida, don’t you think it would be a great deal better if we would all begin now to economize, and live very differently? Why, I am sure I would be willing to move out of this house, and rent it, or sell it, and live in a smaller one, and give up the carriages and horses. We could live a great deal cheaper and more quietly than we do, and yet have everything that I care about. Yes, I’d even rather sell the pictures — all except a few — and feel safe and independent, than to live in this sort of glittering, uncertain way, and be pressed to marry a man that I do not love, for the sake of getting out of it.”
“Well, dear,” said Ida, “you never will get Aunt Maria to let mamma stop running this race with the Elmores till the last gun fires and the ship is ready to sink; that’s the whole of it. It is what people will say, and the thought of being pitied by their set, and being beaten in the race, that will go further than anything else. If you talk about any drawing in of expenses, they say that we must not do anything of the sort — that it will injure papa’s credit. Now I know enough of what things cost, and what business estimates are, to know that we are spending at a tremendous rate. If we had an entailed estate settled upon us with an annual income of two or three hundred thousand dollars, there might be some sense in living as we do; but when all depends on the value of stocks that are going up to-day and down to-morrow, there is never any knowing what may happen; and that is what I have always felt. Father made a lucky hit by investing in stocks that doubled, and trebled, and quadrupled in value; but now, there is a combination against them, and they are falling. I know it gives father great anxiety; and, as I said before, I should not wonder in the least — nothing would surprise me less, than that we should have a great crisis one of these times.”
“Poor Harry!” said Eva, “it was the thought of my being an heiress that made him hesitate so long; perhaps he’ll have a chance to take me without that obstacle. Ida, do you think it would be right and just in me to let him take such an inefficient body as I am? Am I quite spoiled, do you think — past all redemption?”
“Oh, no, darling!” said Ida; “I have good hopes of you. In the first place, a woman that has strength of mind enough to be true to her love against all the pressure that has been brought to bear on you has strength of mind to do anything that may be required of her. Of course, dear, it will come to the practical point of living in an entirely different style from what we now live in; and you must count the cost. In the first place, you must give up fashionable society altogether. You must consent to be pitied and wondered at as one that has fallen out of her sphere and gone down in the world. All the Mrs. Grundys will stop calling on you; and you won’t have any turnout in the Park; and you may have to take a small house on an unfashionable street, and give your mind to the business of calculating expenses and watching outgoes and incomes.”
“Well, now, seriously, Ida, I shouldn’t mind these things a bit. I don’t care a penny for Mrs. Grundy, nor her works and ways. As to the little house, there’ll be the less care to keep it; and as to its being on an unfashionable street, what do I care for that? Nobody that I reall
y care for would fail to come and see me, let me live where I would. And Harry and I just agree in our views of life. We are not going to live for the world, but for ourselves and our friends. We’ll have the nicest little home, where every true friend of ours shall feel as much at home as we do. And don’t you think, Ida, that I should make a good manager? Oh! I know that I could make a house pretty — charming — on ever so little money, just as I get up a spring hat, sometimes, out of odds and ends; and I quite like the idea of having it to do. Of course, poor papa, I don’t want him to fail; and I hope he won’t; but I ‘m something like you, Ida, if all should go to ruin, I feel as if I could stand up, now that I have got Harry to stand up with me. We can begin quietly at first, and make our fortune together. I have thought of ever so many things that I could do for him to help him. Do you know, Ida (I rather guess you’ll laugh), that I brought home his gloves and mended them this very evening? I told him I was going to begin to take care of him. You see, I’ll make it cheaper for him in a thousand ways — I know I can. He never shall find me a burden. I am quite impatient to be able to show what I can do.”
“To begin, darling,” said Ida, “one thing you must do is to take care of your body; no late hours to waste your little brain. And so don’t you think you had better go to your room and go quietly to sleep?”
“Oh! da! I am going to be so good and so regular after to-night; but to-night, you know, is a kind of exception. Girls don’t get engaged every day of their lives, and so you must forgive me if I do make a run upon you to-night. The fact is, what with my talk with Harry this afternoon, and with mamma to-night, and all the fuss that I see impending, my eyes are just as wide open as they can be; and I don’t believe I could go to sleep if I were to try. Oh! da! Harry told me all about his mother, and all about that handsome cousin of his, that he has spoken of so many times. Do you know I used to have such worries of mind about that cousin? I was perfectly sure that she stood in my way. And now, Ida, I have a most capital idea about her! She wants to go to France to study, just as you do; and how nice it would be if you could join company and go together.”
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 339
