Short Fiction · Miss Ophelia Gledd (3/3)

“No; their manners are too good. But they will speak of their fathers, and how shall I talk with them? Not but what my grandfather was a good man; and you are not to suppose that I am ashamed of him because he stood in a store and sold leather with his own hands. Or rather, I am ashamed of it. I should tell my husband’s old friends and my new acquaintances that it was so because I am not a coward; and yet, as I told them, I should be ashamed. His brother is what you call a baronet.”

“Just so!”

“And what would the baronet’s wife say to me with all my sharp Boston notions? Can’t you see her looking at me over the length of the drawing-room? And can’t you fancy how pert I should be, and what snappish words I should say to the she baronet? Upon the whole, don’t you think I should do better with Mr. Hoskins?”

Again I sat silent for some time. She had now asked me a question to which I was bound to give her a true answer⁠—an answer that should be true as to herself without reference to Pryor. She was sitting back in the sleigh, tamed as it were by her own thoughts, and she had looked at me as though she had really wanted counsel. “If I am to answer you in truth⁠—” I said.

“You are to answer me in truth.”

“Then,” said I, “I can only bid you take him of the two whom you love; that is, if it be the case that you love either.”

“Love!” she said.

“And if it be the case,” I continued, “that you love neither, then leave them both as they are.”

“I am not then to think of the man’s happiness?”

“Certainly not by marrying him without affection.”

“Ah! but I may regret him⁠—with affection.”

“And for which of them do you feel affection?” I asked. And as I asked, we were already within the streets of Boston.

She again remained silent, almost till I had placed her at her own door; then she looked at me with eyes full, not only of meaning, but of love also;⁠—with that in her eyes for which I had not hitherto given her credit.

“You know the two men,” she said, “and do you ask me that?” When these words were spoken, she jumped from the sleigh, and hurried up the steps to her father’s door. In very truth, the hat and gloves of Hannibal Hoskins had influenced her as they had influenced me, and they had done so although she knew how devoted he was as a son and a brother.

For a full month after that I had no further conversation with Miss Gledd or with Mr. Pryor on the subject. At this time I was living in habits of daily intimacy with Pryor, but as he did not speak to me about Ophelia, I did not often mention her name to him. I was aware that he was often with her⁠—or at any rate often in her company. But I did not believe that he had any daily habit of going to the house, as he would have done had he been her accepted suitor. And indeed I believed him to be a man who would be very persevering in offering his love; but who, if persistently refused, would not probably tender it again. He still talked of returning to England, though he had fixed no day. I myself purposed doing so early in May, and used such influence as I had in endeavouring to keep him at Boston till that time. Miss Gledd, also, I constantly saw. Indeed, one could not live in the society of Boston without seeing her almost daily, and I was aware that Mr. Hoskins was frequently with her. But, as regarded her, this betokened nothing, as I have before endeavoured to explain. She never deserted a friend, and had no idea of being reserved in her manners with a man because it was reported that such man was her lover. She would be very gracious to Hannibal in Mr. Pryor’s presence; and yet it was evident, at any rate to me, that in doing so, she had no thought of grieving her English admirer.

I was one day seated in my room at the hotel when a servant brought me up a card. “Misther Hoskins; he’s a waiting below, and wants to see yer honour very partickler,” said the raw Irishman. Mr. Hoskins had never done me the honour of calling on me before, nor had I ever become intimate with him even at the club; but, nevertheless, as he had come to me, of course I was willing to see him, and so he was shown up into my room. When he entered, his hat was, I suppose, in his hand; but it looked as though it had been on one side of his head the moment before, and as though it would be on one side again the moment he left me.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Green,” said he. “Perhaps I ought not to intrude upon you here.”

“No intrusion at all. Won’t you take a chair, and put your hat down?” He did take a chair, but he wouldn’t put his hat down. I confess that I had been actuated by a foolish desire to see it placed for a few minutes in a properly perpendicular position.

“I’ve just come⁠—I’ll tell you why I’ve come. There are some things, Mr. Green, in which a man doesn’t like to be interfered with.” I could not but agree with this, but in doing so I expressed a hope that Mr. Hoskins had not been interfered with to any very disagreeable extent. “Well!” I scorn to say that the Boston dandy said “wa’all,” but if this story were written by any Englishman less conscientious than myself, that latter form of letters is the one which he would adopt in his endeavour to convey the sound as uttered by Mr. Hoskins. “Well, I don’t quite know about that. Now, Mr. Green, I’m not a quarrelsome man. I don’t go about with six-shooters in my pocket, and I don’t want to fight, nohow, if I can help it.”

In answer to this I was obliged to tell him that I sincerely hoped that he would not have to fight; but that if fighting became necessary to him, I trusted that his fighting propensities would not be directed against any friend of mine.

“We don’t do much in that way on our side of the water,” said I.

“I am well aware of that,” said he. “I don’t want anyone to teach me what are usages of genteel life in England. I was there the whole fall, two years ago.”

“As regards myself,” said I, “I don’t think much good was ever done by duelling.”

“That depends, Sir, on how things eventuate. But, Mr. Green, satisfaction of that description is not what I desiderate on the present occasion. I wish to know whether Mr. Pryor is, or is not, engaged to marry Miss Ophelia Gledd.”

“If he is, Mr. Hoskins, I don’t know it.”

“But, Sir, you are his friend.”

This I admitted, but again assured Mr. Hoskins that I knew nothing of any such engagement. He pleaded also that I was her friend as well as his. This, too, I admitted, but again declared that from neither side had I been made aware of the fact of any such engagement.

“Then, Mr. Green,” said he, “may I ask you for your own private opinion?”

Upon the whole I was inclined to think that he might not, and so I told him in what most courteous words I could find for the occasion. His bust at first grew very long and stiff, and his hat became more and still more sloped as he held it. I began to fear, that though he might not have a six-shooter in his pocket, he had nevertheless some kind of pistol in his thoughts. At last he started up on his feet and confronted me, as I thought, with a look of great anger. But his words when they came were no longer angry.

“Mr. Green,” said he, “if you knew all that I’ve done to get that girl!”

My heart was instantly softened to him.

“For aught that I know,” said I, “you may have her this moment for asking.”

“No,” said he, “no.” His voice was very melancholy, and as he spoke he looked into his sloping hat. “No; I’ve just come from Chesnut Street, and I think she’s rather more turned against me than ever.”

He was a tall man, good-looking after a fashion, dark, with thick black shiny hair, and huge bold moustachios. I myself do not like his style of appearance, but he certainly had a manly bearing. And in the society of Boston generally he was regarded as a stout fellow, well able to hold his own; as a man, by no means soft, or green, or feminine. And yet now, in the presence of me, a stranger to him, he was almost crying about his lady love. In England no man tells another that he has been rejected; but then in England so few men tell to others anything of their real feeling. As Ophelia had said to me, we are hard and polished, and nobody knows anything about anybody’s anything. What could I say to him? I did say something. I went so far as to assure him that I had heard Miss Gledd speak of him in the highest language; and at last perhaps I hinted⁠—though I don’t think I did quite hint it⁠—that if Pryor were out of the way, Hoskins might find the lady more kind. He soon became quite confidential, as though I were his bosom friend. He perceived, I think, that I was not anxious that Pryor should carry off the prize, and he wished me to teach Pryor that the prize was not such a prize as would suit him.

“She’s the very girl for Boston,” he said, in his energy; “but, I put it to you, Mr. Green, she hasn’t the gait of going that would suit London.”

Whether her gait of going would or would not suit our metropolis, I did not undertake to say in the presence of Mr. Hoskins, but I did at last say that I would speak to Pryor, so that the field might be left open for others if he had no intention of running for the cup himself.

I could not but be taken, and indeed charmed, by the honest strength of affection which Hannibal Hoskins felt for the object of his adoration. He had come into my room determined to display himself as a man of will, of courage, and of fashion. But he had broken down in all that, under his extreme desire to obtain assistance in getting the one thing which he wanted. When he parted with me he shook hands almost boisterously, while he offered me most exuberant thanks. And yet I had not suggested that I could do anything for him. I did think that Ophelia Gledd would accept his offer as soon as Pryor was gone; but I had not told him that I thought so.

About two days afterwards I had a very long and a very serious conversation with Pryor, and at that time I do not think that he had made up his mind as to what he intended to do. He was the very opposite to Hoskins in all his ways and all his moods. There was not only no swagger with him, but a propriety and quiescence of demeanour the very opposite to swagger. In conversation his most violent opposition was conveyed by a smile. He displayed no other energy than what might be shown in the slight curl of his upper lip. If he reproved you he did it by silence. There could be no greater contrast than that between him and Hoskins, and there could be no doubt which man would recommend himself most to our English world by his gait and demeanour. But I think there may be a doubt as to which was the best man, and a doubt also as to which would make the best husband. That my friend was not then engaged to Miss Gledd I did learn⁠—but I learned nothing further⁠—except this, that he would take his departure with me the first week in May, unless anything special occurred to keep him in Boston.

It was some time early in April that I got a note from Miss Gledd, asking me to call on her.

“Come at once,” she said, “as I want your advice above all things.” And she signed herself, “Yours in all truth, O. G.”

I had had many notes from her, but none written in this strain; and therefore, feeling that there was some circumstance to justify such instant notice, I got up and went to her then, at ten o’clock in the morning. She jumped up to meet me, giving me both her hands.

“Oh, Mr. Green,” she said to me, “I’m so glad you have come to me. It is all over.”

“What is over?” said I.

“My chance of escape from the she baronet. I gave in last night. Pray tell me that I was right. Yet I want you to tell me the truth. And yet, above all things, you must not tell me that I have been wrong.”

“Then you have accepted Mr. Pryor?”

“I could not help it,” she said. “The temptation was too much for me. I love the very cut of his coat, the turn of his lip, the tone of his voice. The very sound which he makes as he closes the door behind him is too much for me. I believe that I ought to have let him go⁠—but I could not do it.”

“And what will Mr. Hoskins do?”

“I wrote to him immediately and told him everything. Of course I had John’s leave for doing so.”

This calling of my sedate friend by the name of John was, to my feeling, a most wonderful breaking down of all proprieties.

“I told him the exact truth. This morning I got an answer from him saying that he should visit Russia. I am so sorry because of his mother and sisters.”

“And when is it to be?”

“Oh, at once, immediately. So John says. When we resolve on doing these things here, on taking the plunge, we never stand shilly-shallying on the brink as your girls do in England. And that is one reason why I have sent for you. You must promise to go over with us. Do you know I am half afraid of him⁠—much more afraid of him than I am of you.”

They were to be married very early in May, and of course I promised to put off my return for a week or two to suit them.

“And then for the she baronet,” she said, “and for all the terrible grandeur of London!”

When I endeavoured to explain to her that she would encounter no great grandeur, she very quickly corrected me.

“It is not grandeur of that sort, but the grandeur of coldness that I mean. I fear that I shall not do for them. But, Mr. Green, I must tell you one thing. I have not cut off from myself all means of retreat.”

“Why, what do you mean? You have resolved to marry him.”

“Yes, I have promised to do so; but I did not promise till he had said that if I could not be made to suit his people in Old England, he would return here with me and teach himself to suit my people in New England. The task will be very much easier.”

They were married in Boston, not without some considerable splendour of ceremony, as far as the splendour of Boston went. She was so unusual a favourite that everyone wished to be at her wedding, and she had no idea of giving herself airs and denying her friends a favour. She was married with much éclat, and, as far as I could judge, seemed to enjoy the marriage herself.

Now comes the question; will she or will she not be received in London as a lady⁠—as such a lady as my friend Pryor might have been expected to take for his wife?