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."
"Balderdash! 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."
"MY LITTLE DARLING: I have been wounded. I have been ill with fever; but no pain is like the pain of living away from you.
ERNEST."
"STAR OF MY LIFE: I have counted the days until the twenty-fifth of November; they are two hundred and fifty-five. Every day I come nearer to you, my adorable Maria.
ERNEST."
This last letter was dated March the fourteenth, and with it lying next her heart, was it likely she would consent to or even be compelled to marry Richard Spencer? She smiled a positive denial of such a supposition. But for all that, the preparations went on with a stubborn persistence that would have dismayed a weaker spirit. The plans for furnishing the Spencer house, the patterns of the table silver, all the little items of the new life proposed for her were as a matter of duty submitted to her taste or judgment. She was always stolidly indifferent, and her answer was invariably the same, "I do not care. It is nothing to me." Then Mr. Semple would answer with cold authority, "You have excellent taste, Elizabeth. Make the selection you think best for Maria."
Mr. Spencer"s method was entirely different. He treated Maria"s apathetic unconcern with constant good nature, pretended to believe it maidenly modesty, and under all circ.u.mstances refused to understand or appropriate her evident dislike. But his cousin saw the angry sparkle in his black eyes, and to her he had once permitted himself to say, "I am bearing _now_, Elizabeth. When she is Mrs. Spencer it will be her turn to bear." And Elizabeth did not think it necessary to repeat the veiled threat to Maria"s father.
Medway"s last letter, dated March the fourteenth, did not reach Maria until May the first. On the morning of that day she had been told by Mrs. Semple to dress and accompany her to Bond Street.
"We are going to choose your wedding dress," she said, "and I do hope, Maria, you will take some interest in it. I have spoken to Madame Delamy about the fashion and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and your father says I am to spare no expense."
"I will not have anything to do in choosing a wedding dress. I will not wear it if it is made."
"I think it is high time you stopped such outrageous insults to your intended husband, your father and myself. I am astonished your father endures them. Many parents would consider you insane and put you under restraint."
"I can hardly be under greater restraint," answered Maria calmly, but there was a cold, sick terror at her heart. Nevertheless she refused to take any part in the choosing of the wedding dress, and Mrs. Semple went alone to make the selection.
But Maria was at last afraid. "Under restraint!" She could not get the words out of her consciousness. Surely her dear grandfather had had some prescience of this grave dilemma when he told her if she was not treated right to come back to him. But how was she to manage a return to New York? Women then did not travel, could not travel, alone. No ships would take her without companions or authority. She did not know the first of the many steps necessary, she had no money. She was, in fact, quite in the position of a little child left to its own helplessness in a great city. The Gordons would be likely to come to London before the winter, but until then she could find neither ways nor means for a return to New York. All she could do was to take day by day the steps that circ.u.mstances rendered imperative.
The buying of the wedding dress brought things so terribly close to her that she finally resolved to tell her father and stepmother of her engagement to Lord Medway. "I will take the first opportunity," she said to herself, and the opportunity came that night. Mr. Spencer was not present. They dined alone, and Mr. Semple was indulging one of those tempers which made him, as his father had said to Neil, "gey ill to live with." He had been told of Maria"s behavior about the wedding dress, and the thundery aspect of his countenance during the meal found speech as soon as the table was cleared and they were alone. He turned almost savagely to his daughter and asked in a voice of low intensity:
"What do you mean, Miss, by your perverse temper? Why did you not go with your mother to choose your wedding dress?"
"Because it is not my wedding dress, sir. I have told you for many weeks that I will not marry Mr. Spencer;" then with a sudden access of courage, _"and I will not_. I am the promised wife of Lord Medway."
Mr. Semple laughed, and then asked scornfully, "And pray, who is Lord Medway?"
"He is my lover; my husband on the twenty-ninth of next November."
All the pa.s.sion and pride of a lifetime glowed in the girl"s face. Her voice was clear and firm, and at that hour she was not a bit afraid. "I will tell you about him," she continued, and her att.i.tude had in those few minutes so far dominated her audience that she obtained the hearing she might otherwise not have gained. Rapidly, but with singular dramatic power, she related the story of her life in New York--her friendship with Agnes Bradley, the attraction between herself and Harry Bradley, his arrest, trial and death sentence, Lord Medway"s interference and her own engagement, her subsequent intimacy with the man she had promised to marry, and the love which had sprung up in her heart for him.
"And I will not break my word, not a letter of it," she said in conclusion.
"If there was any truth in this story," answered her father, "who cares for a woman"s promises in love matters? They are not worth the breath that made them."
"My promise to Lord Medway, father, rests on my honor. I could give him no security but my word. I must keep my word."
"A woman"s honor! A woman"s word to a lover! Pshaw! Let us hear no more of such rant. What do you think of this extraordinary story, Elizabeth?"
"I think it is a dream, a fabrication. Maria has imagined it. Who knows Lord Medway? I never heard tell of such a person."