Short Fiction · The Widow’s Mite (2/4)

Mr. Granger might be a slow politician, but he was a practical man, understanding the things immediately around him; and they all were aware, Frederic F. Frew with the rest of them, that he was right when he bade his wife keep the fire well hot beneath the kitchen boiler.

“Isn’t it almost wicked to be married in such a time as this?” It was much later in the evening when Nora, still troubled in her mind about her widow’s mite, whispered these words into her lover’s ears. If she were to give up her lover for twelve months, would not that be a throwing in of something to the treasury from off her own back and out of her own mouth? But then this matter of her marriage had been so fully settled that she feared to think of disturbing it. He would never consent to such a postponement. And then the offering, to be of avail for her, must be taken from her own back, not from his; and Nora had an idea that in the making of such an offering as that suggested, Mr. Frederic F. Frew would conceive that he had contributed by far the greater part. Her uncle called him an Amalekite, and she doubted whether it would be just to spoil an Amalekite after such a fashion as that. Nevertheless, into his ears she whispered her little proposition.

“Wicked to get married!” said Frederic; “not according to my idea of the Christian religion.”

“Oh! but you know what I mean,” and she gave his arm a slight caressing pinch.

At this time her uncle had gone to his own room; her cousins had gone to their studies, by which I believe they intended to signify the proper smoking of a pipe of tobacco in the rectory kitchen; and Mrs. Granger, seated in her easy chair, had gone to her slumbers, dreaming of the amount of fuel with which that kitchen boiler must be supplied.

“I shall bring a breach of promise against you,” said Frederic, “if you don’t appear in church with bridal array on Monday, the 12th of January, and pay the penalty into the war-treasury. That would be a spoiling of the Amalekite.”

Then he got hold of the fingers which had pinched him.

“Of course I shan’t put it off, unless you agree.”

“Of course you won’t.”

“But, dear Fred, don’t you think we ought?”

“No; certainly not. If I thought you were in earnest I would scold you.”

“I am in earnest, quite. You need not look in that way, for you know very well how truly I love you. You know I want to be your wife above all things.”

“Do you?”

And then he began to insinuate his arm round her waist; but she got up and moved away, not as in anger at his caress, but as showing that the present moment was unfit for it.

“I do,” she said, “above all things. I love you so well that I could hardly bear to see you go away again without taking me with you. I could hardly bear it⁠—but I could bear it.”

“Could you? Then I couldn’t. I’m a weaker vessel than you, and your strength must give way to my weakness.”

“I know I’ve no right to tax you, if you really care about it.”

Frederic F. Frew made no answer to this in words, but pursued her in her retreat from the sofa on which they had sat.

“Don’t, Fred. I am so much in earnest! I wish I knew what I ought to do to throw in my two mites.”

“Not throw me over, certainly, and break all the promises you have made for the last twelve months. You can’t be in earnest. It’s out of the question, you know.”

“Oh! I am in earnest.”

“I never heard of such a thing in my life. What good would it do? It wouldn’t bring the cotton in. It wouldn’t feed the poor. It wouldn’t keep your aunt’s boiler hot.”

“No; that it wouldn’t,” said Mrs. Granger, starting up; “and coals are such a terrible price.”

Then she went to sleep again and ordered in large supplies in her dreams.

“But I should have done as much as the widow did. Indeed I should, Fred. Oh, dear! to have to give you up! But I only meant for a year.”

“As you are so very fond of me⁠—”

“Of course I’m fond of you. Should I let you do like that if I was not?”

At the moment of her speaking he had again got his arm round her waist.

“Then I’m too charitable to allow you to postpone your happiness for a day. We’ll look at it in that way.”

“You won’t understand me, or rather you do understand me, and pretend that you don’t, which is very wrong.”

“I always was very wicked.”

“Then why don’t you make yourself better? Do not you too wish to be a widow? You ought to wish it.”

“I should like to have an opportunity of trying married life first.”

“I won’t stay any longer with you, Sir, because you are scoffing. Aunt, I’m going to bed.” Then she returned again across the room, and whispered to her lover, “I’ll tell you what, Sir, I’ll marry you on Monday, the 12th of January, if you’ll take me just as I am now; with a bonnet on, and a shawl over my dress, exactly as I walked out with you before dinner. When I made the promise, I never said anything about fine clothes.”

“You may come in an old red cloak, if you like it.”

“Very well; now mind I’ve got your consent. Good night, Sir. After all it will only be half a mite.”

She had turned towards the door, and had her hand upon the lock, but she came back into the room, close up to him.

“It will not be a quarter of a mite,” she said. “How can it be anything if I get you!” Then she kissed him, and hurried away out of the room, before he could again speak to her.

“What, what, what!” said Mrs. Granger, waking up. “So Nora has gone, has she?”

“Gone; yes, just this minute,” said Frew, who had turned his face to the fire, so that the tear in his eyes might not be seen. As he took himself off to his bed, he swore to himself that Nora Field was a trump, and that he had done well in securing for himself such a wife; but it never occurred to him that she was in any way in earnest about her wedding dress. She was a trump because she was so expressive in her love to himself, and because her eyes shone so brightly when she spoke eagerly on any matter; but as to her appearing at the altar in a red cloak, or, as was more probable, in her own customary thick woollen shawl, he never thought about it. Of course she would be married as other girls are married.

Nor had Nora thought of it till that moment in which she made the proposition to her lover. As she had said before, her veil was ordered, and so was her white silk dress. Her bonnet also had been ordered, with its bridal wreath, and the other things assorting therewith. A vast hole was to be made in her grandaunt’s legacy for the payment of all this finery; but, as Mrs. Granger had said to her, in so spending it, she would best please her future husband. He had enough of his own, and would not care that she should provide herself with articles which he could afterwards give her, at the expense of that little smartness at his wedding which an American likes, at any rate, as well as an Englishman. Nora, with an honesty which some ladies may not admire, had asked her lover the question in the plainest language.

“You will have to buy my things so much the sooner,” she had said.

“I’d buy them all tomorrow, only you’ll not let me.”

“I should rather think not, Master Fred.”

Then she had gone off with her aunt, and ordered her wedding-clothes. But now as she prepared for bed, after the conversation which has just been recorded, she began to think in earnest whether it would not be well to dispense with white silk and orange-wreaths while so many were dispensing with⁠—were forced to dispense with⁠—bread and fuel. Could she bedizen herself with finery from Liverpool, while her uncle was, as she well knew, refusing himself a set of new shirts which he wanted sorely, in order that he might send to the fund at Liverpool the money which they would cost him. He was throwing in his two mites daily, as was her aunt, who toiled unceasingly at woollen shawls and woollen stockings, so that she went on knitting even in her sleep. But she, Nora, since the earnestness of these bad days began, had done little or nothing. Her needle, indeed, had been very busy, but it had been busy in preparation for Mr. Frederic F. Frew’s nuptials. Even Bob and Charley worked for the Relief Committee; but she had done nothing⁠—nothing but given her two pounds. She had offered four, but her uncle, with a self-restraint never before or afterwards practised by him, had chucked her back two, saying that he would not be too hard even upon an Amalekite. As she thought of the word, she asked herself whether it was not more incumbent on her, than on anyone else, to do something in the way of self-sacrifice. She was now a Briton, but would shortly be an American. Should it be said of her that the distress of her own countrywomen⁠—the countrywomen whom she was leaving⁠—did not wring her heart? It was not without a pang that she prepared to give up that nationality, which all its owners rank as the first in the world, and most of those who do not own it, rank, if not as the first, then as the second. Now it seemed to her as though she were deserting her own family in its distress, deserting her own ship in the time of its storm, and she was going over to those from whom this distress and this storm had come! Was it not needful that she should do something⁠—that she should satisfy herself that she had been willing to suffer in the cause?

She would throw in her two mites if she did but know where to find them.

“I could only do it, in truth,” she said to herself, as she rose from her prayers, “by throwing in him. I have got one very great treasure, but I have not got anything else that I care about. After all, it isn’t so easy to be a widow with two mites.”

Then she sat down and thought about it. As to postponing her marriage, that she knew to be in truth quite out of the question. Even if she could bring herself to do it, everybody about her would say that she was mad, and Mr. Frederic F. Frew might not impossibly destroy himself with one of those pretty revolvers which he sometimes brought out from Liverpool for her to play with. But was it not practicable for her to give up her wedding-clothes? There would be considerable difficulty even in this. As to their having been ordered, that might be overcome by the sacrifice of some portion of the price. But then her aunt, and even her uncle, would oppose her; her cousins would cover her with ridicule; in the latter she might, however, achieve something of her widowhood;⁠—and, after all, the loss would fall more upon F. F. Frew than upon herself. She really did not care for herself, in what clothes she was married, so that she was made his wife. But as regarded him, might it not be disagreeable to him to stand before the altar with a dowdy creature in an old gown? And then there was one other consideration. Would it not seem that she was throwing in her two mites publicly, before the eyes of all men, as a Pharisee might do it? Would there not be an ostentation in her widowhood? But as she continued to reflect, she cast this last thought behind her. It might be so said of her, but if such saying were untrue, if the offering were made in a widow’s spirit, and not in the spirit of a Pharisee, would it not be cowardly to regard what men might say? Such false accusation would make some part of the two mites.

“I’ll go into Liverpool about it on Monday,” she said to herself as she finally tucked the clothes around her.

Early in the following morning she was up and out of her room, with a view of seeing her aunt before she came down to breakfast; but the first person she met was her uncle. He accosted her in one of the passages.

“What, Nora, this is early for you! Are you going to have a morning lovers’ walk with Frederic Franklin?”

“Frederic Franklin, as you choose to call him, uncle,” said Nora, “never comes out of his room much before breakfast time. And it’s raining hard.”

“Such a lover as he is ought not to mind rain.”

“But I should mind it, very much. But, uncle, I want to speak to you, very seriously. I have been making up my mind about something.”

“There’s nothing wrong; is there, my dear?”

“No; there’s nothing very wrong. It is not exactly about anything being wrong. I hardly know how to tell you what it is.”

And then she paused, and he could see by the light of the candle in his hand that she blushed.

“Hadn’t you better speak to your aunt?” said Mr. Granger.

“That’s what I meant to do when I got up,” said Nora; “but as I have met you, if you don’t mind⁠—”

He assured her that he did not mind, and putting his hand upon her shoulder caressingly, promised her any assistance in his power.

“I’m not afraid that you will ask anything I ought not to do for you.”

Then she revealed to him her scheme, turning her face away from him as she spoke. “It will be so horrid,” she said, “to have a great box of finery coming home when you are all giving up everything for the poor people. And if you don’t think it would be wrong⁠—”

“It can’t be wrong,” said her uncle. “It may be a question whether it would be wise.”

“I mean wrong to him. If it was to be any other clergyman, I should be ashamed of it. But as you are to marry us⁠—”

“I don’t think you need mind about the clergyman.”

“And of course I should tell the Foster girls.”

“The Foster girls?”

“Yes; they are to be my bridesmaids, and I am nearly sure they have not bought anything new yet. Of course they would think it all very dowdy, but I don’t care a bit about that. I should just tell them that we had all made up our minds that we couldn’t afford wedding-clothes. That would be true; wouldn’t it?”

“But the question is about that wild American?”

“He isn’t a wild American.”

“Well, then, about that tamed American. What will he say?”

“He said I might come in an old cloak.”

“You have told him, then?”

“But I am afraid he thought I was only joking. But uncle, if you’ll help me, I think I can bring him round.”

“I dare say you can⁠—to anything, just at present.”

“I didn’t at all mean that. Indeed, I’m sure I couldn’t bring him round to putting off the marriage.”

“No, no, no; not to that; to anything else.”

“I know you are laughing at me, but I don’t much mind being laughed at. I should save very nearly fifteen pounds, if not quite. Think of that!”

“And you’d give it all to the soup kitchen?”

“I’d give it all to you for the distress.”

Then her uncle spoke to her somewhat gravely.

“You’re a good girl, Nora⁠—a dear good girl. I think I understand your thoughts on this matter, and I love you for them. But I doubt whether there be any necessity for you to make this sacrifice. A marriage should be a gala festival according to the means of the people married, and the bridegroom has a right to expect that his bride shall come to him fairly arrayed, and bright with wedding trappings. I think we can do, my pet, without robbing you of your little braveries.”

“Oh, as for that, of course you can do without me.”

There was a little soreness in her tone; not because she was feeling herself to be misunderstood, but because she knew that she could not explain herself further. She could not tell her uncle that the poor among the Jews might have been relieved without the contribution of those two mites, but that the widow would have lost all had she not so contributed. She had hardly arranged her thoughts as to the double blessing of charity, and certainly could not express them with reference to her own case; but she felt the need of giving in this time of trouble something that she herself valued. She was right when she had said that it was hard to be a widow. How many among us, when we give, give from off our own backs, and from out of our own mouths? Who can say that he has sacrificed a want of his own; that he has abandoned a comfort; that he has worn a threadbare coat, when coats with their gloss on have been his customary wear; that he has fared roughly on cold scraps, whereas a well-spread board has been his usual daily practice? He who has done so has thrown in his two mites, and for him will charity produce her double blessing.