It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 154

The next evening he came he found her entertaining four or five other farmers' daughters and a couple of young men. She was playing the piano to them and talking and laughing louder and faster than ever he had heard her in his life. He sat moody a little while and watched her uneasily, but soon took his line, and exerting his excellent social powers became the life of the party. But as he warmed Susan froze, as much as to say, "Somebody must play the fool to amuse these triflers--if you undertake it I need not." For all that the very attempt at society indicated what was pa.s.sing in Susan's mind, and the deep Meadows invited all present to meet at his house in two days' time.

Meadows was now living in Isaac Levi's old house. He had examined it, found it a much nicer house for him than his new one--it was like himself, full of ins and outs, and it was more in the heart of business and yet quiet; for, though it stood in a row, yet it was as good as detached, because the houses on each side were unoccupied. They belonged to Jews, probably dependents on Isaac, for they had left the town about a twelvemonth after his departure and had never returned, though a large quant.i.ty of goods had been deposited in one of the houses.

Meadows contrived that this little party should lead to another. His game was to draw Susan into the world, and moreover have her seen in his company. She made no resistance, for her wounded pride said, "Don't let people know you are breaking your heart for one who does not care for you." She used to come to these parties radiant and playing her part with consummate resolution and success, and go home and spend the night in tears.

Meadows did not see the tears that followed these unusual efforts--perhaps he suspected them. Enough for him that Susan's pride and shame and indignation were set against her love, and, above all, against her grief, and that she was forming habits whose tendency at least was favorable to his views.

Another four months, and Susan, exhausted by conflicting pa.s.sions, had settled down into a pensive languor, broken by gusts of bitter grief, which became rarer and rarer. Her health recovered itself, all but its elasticity. Her pride would not let her pine away. But her heart scarcely beat at all, and perhaps it was a good thing for her that a trouble of another kind came to gently stir it. Her father, who had for some months been moody and depressed, confessed to her that he had been speculating and was on the verge of ruin. This dreadful disclosure gave little more pain to Susan than if he had told her his head ached; but she put down her work and came and kissed him, and tried to console him.

"I must work harder, that is all, father. I am often asked to give a lesson on the piano-forte; I will do that for your sake, and don't you fret for me. What with the trifle my mother settled on me and my industry, I am above poverty, and you shall never see me repine."

In short, poor Susan took her father for a woman--adopted a line of consolation addressed to his affection, instead of his selfishness. It was not for her he was afflicted, it was for himself.

It was at this conjuncture that Meadows spoke out. There was no longer anything to be gained by delay. In fact, he could not but observe that since the fatal letter he appeared to be rather losing ground in his old character. There was nothing left him but to attack her in a new one. He removed the barrier from his patient impatience.

He found her alone one evening. He begged her to walk in the garden.

She complied with an unsuspecting smile. Then he told her all he had suffered for her sake; how he had loved her this three years with all his soul--how he never thought to tell her this--how hard he had struggled against it--how he had run away from it, and after that how he had subdued it, or thought he had subdued it, to esteem--and how he had been rewarded by seeing that his visits and his talk had done her some good. "But now," said he, "that you are free, I have no longer the force to hide my love; now that the man I dared not interfere with has thrown away the jewel, it is not in nature that I should not beg to be allowed to take it up and wear it in my heart."

Susan listened; first with surprise, then with confusion and pain, then with terror at the violence of the man's pa.s.sion; for, the long restraint removed, it overwhelmed him like a flood. Her bosom heaved with modest agitation, and soon the tears streamed down her cheeks at his picture of what he had gone through for her sake. She made s.h.i.+ft to gasp out, "My poor friend!" But she ended almost fiercely: "Let no man ever hope for affection from me, for my heart is in the grave. Oh, that I was there, too!" And she ran sobbing away from him in spite of his entreaties.

Another man and not George had made a confession of love to her. His voice had trembled, his heart quivered, with love for her, and it was not George. So then another link was snapped. Others saw they had a right to love her now, and acted on it.

Meadows was at a loss, but he stayed away a week in silence, and thought and thought, and then he wrote a line begging permission to visit her as usual. "I have been so long used to hide my feelings, because they were unlawful, that I can surely hide them if I see they make you more unhappy than you would be without."

Susan replied that her advice to him was to avoid her as he would a pestilence. He came as usual, and told her he would take her commands, but could not take her advice. He would run all risks to his own heart.

He was cheerful, chatty and never said a word of love; and this relieved Susan, so that the evening pa.s.sed pleasantly. Susan, listless and indifferent to present events, and never accustomed, like Meadows, to act upon a preconceived plan, did not even observe what Meadows had gained by this sacrifice of his topic for a single night, viz., that after declaring himself her lover he was still admitted to the house.

The next visit he was not quite so forbearing, yet still forbearing; and so on by sly gradations. It was every way an unequal contest. A great man against an average woman--a man of forty against a woman of twenty-two--a man all love and selfishness against a woman all affection and unselfishness. But I think his chief ally was a firm belief on Susan's part that he was the best of men; that from first to last of this affair his conduct had been perfection; that while George was true all his thought had been to console her grief at his absence; that he never would have spoken but for the unexpected treason of George, and then seeing her insulted and despised he had taken that moment to show her she was loved and honored. Oh, what an ungrateful girl she was that she could not love such a man!

Then her father was on the same side. "John Meadows seems down like, Susan. Do try and cheer him up a bit, I am sure he has often cheered thee."

"That he has, father."

Susan pitied Meadows. Pitying him, she forced herself at times to be gracious, and when she did he was so happy that she was alarmed at her power and drew in.

Old Merton saw now how the land lay, and he clung to a marriage between these two as his only hope. "John Meadows will pull me through, if he marries my Susan."

And so the two selfish ones had got the unselfish one between them, one pulling gently, the other pus.h.i.+ng quietly, but both without intermission. Thus days and days rolled on.

Meadows now came four times a week instead of two, and courted her openly, and beamed so with happiness that she had not always the heart to rob him of this satisfaction, and he overwhelmed her with kindness and attention of every sort, and, if any one else was present, she was sure to see how much he was respected; and this man whom others courted was her slave. This soothed the pride another had wounded.

One day he poured out his love to her with such pa.s.sion that he terrified her, and the next time he came she avoided him.

Her father remonstrated. "Girl, you will break that man's heart if you are so unkind to him; he could not say a word because you shunned him like. Why, your heart must be made of stone." A burst of tears was all the reply.

At last two things presented themselves to this poor girl's understanding; that for her there was no chance of earthly happiness, do what she would, and that, strangely enough, she the wretched one had it in her power to make two other beings happy, her father and good Mr.

Meadows.

Now, a true woman lives to make others happy. She rarely takes the self-contained views of life men are apt to do.

It pa.s.sed through Susan's mind: "If I refuse to make these happy, why do I live, what am I on the earth for at all?"

It seemed cruel to her to refuse happiness when she could bestow it without making herself two shades more miserable than she was.

Despair and unselfishness are evil counselors in a scheming, selfish world. The life-blood had been drained out of her heart by so many cruel blows, by the long waiting, the misgivings, the deep woe when she believed George dead, the bitter grief and mortification and sense of wrong when she found he was married to another.

Many of us, male and female, treated as Susan imagined herself treated, have taken another lover out of pique. Susan did not so. She was bitterly piqued, but she did not make that use of her pique.

Despair of happiness, pity, and pure unselfishness, these stood John Meadows' friends with this unhappy dupe, and perhaps my male readers will be incredulous as well as shocked when I relate the manner in which at last this young creature, lovely as an angel, in the spring of life, loving another still, and deluding herself to think she hated and despised him, was one afternoon surprised into giving her hand to a man for whom she did not really care a b.u.t.ton.

It was as if she had said: "Is it really true your happiness depends on me? then take me--quick--before my courage fails--are you happy now, my poor soul?" On the other side there were the pa.s.sionate pleadings of a lover; the deep, manly voice broken with supplication, the male eyes glistening, the diabolical mixture of fraud and cunning with sincerity.

At the first symptom of yielding the man seized her as the hawk the dove. He did not wait for a second hint. He poured out grat.i.tude and protestations. He thanked her, and blessed her, and in his manly ardor caught her to his bosom.

She shut her eyes, and submitted to the caress as to an executioner.

"Pray let me go to my father," she whispered.

She came to her father and told him what she had done, and kissed him, and when he kissed her in return, that rare embrace seemed to her her reward.

Meadows went home on wings--he was in a whirlwind of joy and triumph.

"Aha! what will not a strong will do?" He had no fears, no misgivings.

He saw she did not really like him even, but he would make her love him!

Let him once get her into his house and into his arms, by degrees she should love him; ay, she should adore him! He held that a young and virtuous woman cannot resist the husband who remains a lover, unless he is a fool as well as a lover. She could resist a man, but hardly the hearth, the marriage-bed, the sacred domestic ties, and a man whose love should be always present, always ardent, yet his temper always cool, and his determination to be loved unflinching.

With this conviction, Meadows had committed crimes of the deepest dye to possess Susan. Villain as he was, it may be doubted whether he would have committed these felonies had he doubted for an instant her ultimate happiness. The unconquerable dog said to himself: "The day will come that I will tell her how I have risked my soul for her; how I have played the villain for her; and she shall throw her arms round my neck, and bless me for committing all those crimes to make her so happy against her will."

It remained to clinch the nail.

He came to Gra.s.smere every day; and one night that the old man was telling Susan and him how badly things were going with him, he said, with a cheerful laugh: "I wonder at you, father-in-law, taking on that way. Do you think Susan will let you be uncomfortable for want of a thousand pounds or two?"

Now this remark was slyly made while Susan was at the other end of the room, so that she could hear it, but was not supposed to. He did not look at her for some time, and then her face was scarlet.

The next day he said privately to old Merton: "The day Susan and I go to church together, you must let me take your engagements and do the best I can with them."

"Ah, John, you are a friend! but it will take a pretty deal to set me straight again."

"How much? Two thousand?"

"More, I am afraid, and too much--"

"Too much for me to take out of my pocket for a stranger; but not for my wife's father--not if it was ten times that."

From that hour Meadows had an ally at Gra.s.smere, working heart and soul to hasten the wedding-day.

Meadows longed for this day; for he could not hide from himself that as a lover he made no advances. Susan's heart was like a globe of ice; he could get no hold of it anywhere. He burned with rage when the bitter truth was forced on him, that, with the topic of George Fielding, he had lost those bright, animated looks of affection she used to bestow on him, and now could only command her polite attention, not always that.

Once he ventured on a remonstrance--only once.

She answered coldly that she could not feign; indifferent she was to everything on earth, indifferent she always should be. But for that indifference she should never have consented to marry him. Let him pause then, and think what he was doing, or, better still, give up this folly, and not tie an icicle like her to an honest and warm heart like his.