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Mr. Marmaduke And The Minister
by
November 29th.–However, there are limits even to sincere gratitude. Of this truth Mr. Marmaduke seems to be insufficiently aware. Entering the sitting-room soon after noon today, I found our convalescent guest and his nurse alone. His head was resting on her shoulder; his arm was round her waist–and (the truth before everything) Felicia was kissing him.
A man may be of a liberal turn of mind, and may yet consistently object to freedom when it takes the form of unlicensed embracing and kissing; the person being his own daughter, and the place his own house. I signed to my girl to leave us; and I advanced to Mr. Marmaduke, with my opinion of his conduct just rising in words to my lips–when he staggered me with amazement by asking for Felicia’s hand in marriage.
“You need feel no doubt of my being able to offer to your daughter a position of comfort and respectability,” he said. “I have a settled income of eight hundred pounds a year.”
His raptures over Felicia; his protestations that she was the first woman he had ever really loved; his profane declaration that he preferred to die, if I refused to let him be her husband–all these flourishes, as I may call them, passed in at one of my ears and out at the other. But eight hundred pounds sterling per annum, descending as it were in a golden avalanche on the mind of a Scottish minister (accustomed to thirty years’ annual contemplation of seventy-four pounds)–eight hundred a year, in one young man’s pocket, I say, completely overpowered me. I just managed to answer, “Wait till tomorrow”–and hurried out of doors to recover my self-respect, if the thing was to be anywise done. I took my way through the valley. The sun was shining, for a wonder. When I saw my shadow on the hillside, I saw the Golden Calf as an integral part of me, bearing this inscription in letters of flame–“Here’s another of them!”
November 30th.–I have made amends for yesterday’s backsliding; I have acted as becomes my parental dignity and my sacred calling.
The temptation to do otherwise, has not been wanting. Here is sister Judith’s advice: “Make sure that he has got the money first; and, for Heaven’s sake, nail him!” Here is Mr. Marmaduke’s proposal: “Make any conditions you please, so long as you give me your daughter.” And, lastly, here is Felicia’s confession: “Father, my heart is set on him. Oh, don’t be unkind to me for the first time in your life!”
But I have stood firm. I have refused to hear any more words on the subject from any one of them, for the next six months to come.
“So serious a venture as the venture of marriage,” I said, “is not to be undertaken on impulse. As soon as Mr. Marmaduke can travel, I request him to leave us, and not to return again for six months. If, after that interval, he is still of the same mind, and my daughter is still of the same mind, let him return to Cauldkirk, and (premising that I am in all other respects satisfied) let him ask me for his wife.”
There were tears, there were protestations; I remained immovable. A week later, Mr. Marmaduke left us, on his way by easy stages to the south. I am not a hard man. I rewarded the lovers for their obedience by keeping sister Judith out of the way, and letting them say their farewell words (accompaniments included) in private.
III.
May 28th.–A letter from Mr. Marmaduke, informing me that I may expect him at Cauldkirk, exactly at the expiration of the six months’ interval–viz., on June the seventh.
Writing to this effect, he added a timely word on the subject of his family. Both his parents were dead; his only brother held a civil appointment in India, the place being named. His uncle (his father’s brother) was a merchant resident in London; and to this near relative he referred me, if I wished to make inquiries about him. The names of his bankers, authorized to give me every information in respect to his pecuniary affairs, followed. Nothing could be more plain and straightforward. I wrote to his uncle, and I wrote to his bankers. In both cases the replies were perfectly satisfactory–nothing in the slightest degree doubtful, no prevarications, no mysteries. In a word, Mr. Marmaduke himself was thoroughly well vouched for, and Mr. Marmaduke’s income was invested in securities beyond fear and beyond reproach. Even sister Judith, bent on picking a hole in the record somewhere, tried hard, and could make nothing of it.