Was It Right to Forgive? A Domestic Romance

“You are going too fast, Rose,” corrected Mr. Filmer. “You may scoff at Puritanism, but it is the highest form of life ever yet assumed by the world. Emma, my dear, if that tap, tap, tapping could be arrested this afternoon I should be grateful.” Then he bowed to his family, and went back to the Middle Ages.

They watched his exit silently, and with admiration, and after it Rose sought the dressmaker, who in some upper chamber was composing a gown she meant to be astonishing and decisive; one that it would be impossible to imitate, or to criticise. Mrs. Filmer, knowing the value of that little sleep which ought to divide the morning from the afternoon, went into seclusion to accept it. Harry wandered about the piazzas smoking, but shivering and anxious, and longing for the hour at which he had told Yanna he would call for her answer.

The day, pleasantly chill in the morning, had become damp and gray, and full of the promise of rain. And as he drove through the fallen leaves of the bare woods, and felt the depressing drizzle, he thought of the many lovely days and glorious nights he had let slip; though the question asked at the end of them was precisely the question he wished to ask at the beginning. He wondered if he had missed his hour. He wondered if he had misunderstood Yanna’s smiles and attitudes. He lost heart so far that he drove twice past the house ere he felt brave enough to take manfully the possible “No” Yanna might give him. “Men 63 understand so little about women,” he thought, “and all her pleasantness may have been mere friendship.”

For the first time in all his acquaintance with the Van Hoosen family, the front door was shut. Usually it stood open wide, and he had been accustomed to walk forward to the sitting-room, and tap there with his riding whip, if it was empty; or to enter with a gay greeting, if Antony or Yanna was there to answer it. To be sure, the day was miserably damp and chill, but oh! why had he waited all the long summer for this uncomfortable sense of a closed door in his face?

He drove to the stable, and when he went back to the house Peter was on the threshold to receive him. “Come in, Mr. Filmer,” he said. “Antony has gone to New York. I believe in my heart, he has gone for fineries for your ball; though he called it ‘business.’”

“I am glad Antony is coming, although I fully respect Miss Van Hoosen’s scruples with regard to dancing.”

“Yes, yes! On a road full of danger it is good to have scruples. They are like a pebble in the shoe, you cannot walk on it without a constant painful reminder; and if you lift the foot, then, you do not walk on it at all. Yanna has had no fight to make, no life and death issues to meet every day; and to those who live ordinary lives, a creed, and a straight creed, is necessary, yes, as much so as a wall is to a wheat field. Without external rules, and strong bonds, very few would remain religious. But with Antony it is different. He was churchless for ten years; but on many a battle field and in many a desert camp God met and blessed him. Such men have larger liberty than even I durst claim.”

“I have talked much with Antony on religious subjects; I think it impossible to shake his faith.”

“Antony’s principles stand as firm as a Gothic wall. Duty, Faithfulness, Honor, and Honesty, are qualities independent of creed. You see, I am no bigot.”

“You read too much, and too widely, for that character, sir.”

“If I read nothing but the Bible, I should read a book that is at once the most learned and the most popular of all books. But at present you find me reading politics.”

“To be sure! The elections are coming on, and they will do, and cause to be done, all kinds of disagreeable things. I generally keep my eyes shut to their approach.” He had disliked to break in two a religious conversation with a personal question, but he had no such scruple about politics; and he added hurriedly, lest Peter should pursue the subject, “Where is Miss Van Hoosen? I hope she is well.”

“She is in the dining-room. Once every year my cousin, Alida Van Hoosen, pays us a visit; and she came this morning, without any warning.” As he spoke, a buggy was driven to the door, and there was a stir of some one departing through the front hall. Then Peter rose quickly, and said:

“Now you must excuse me, Mr. Filmer. Cousin always expects me to see her safely to the train. Yanna will be with you in a few minutes.”

As Peter went out of the room, Harry rose. He could no longer sit still. His heart leaped to the light, quick steps of Yanna; and when she entered, smiling and rosy, her eyes dancing with the excitement of her visitor, her whole body swaying to the music of love in her heart, he met her in the middle of the room 65 with outstretched hands. She put her own hands in them, and her eyes met his, in a frank, sweet gaze, which he understood better than words.

Who can translate the broken, kiss-divided sentences, in which two happy souls try to explain the joy of their meeting? All through the summer days, this love had been growing; and suddenly, in a moment, it had burst forth into blossom. The dull skies and the chill gray atmosphere did not touch a flower, whose roots were in celestial warmth and glory. They forgot all about such mere accidentals. There was a new sun, and a new moon; there was a new world, and new hopes, and a new life before them.

They walked up and down the large room, telling each other when, and how, they first began to love – excusing their misapprehensions, chiding sweetly their doubts, and explaining the little cross-purposes, which had given them so many sleepless nights and miserable days. All their troubles were now over. They were to trust each other through everything. They were to help each other to grow nobler and better, and more worthy of this wonderful love; which both alike felt to be more wonderful, more true, more sweet, than any other love ever bestowed upon mortal man and woman.

It was a little let-down to this exalted condition that it had to come within the social bonds of their common every-day lives. Harry said he “must speak to Mr. Van Hoosen,” and Yanna answered, “Yes, Harry, and at once. I cannot be perfectly happy until my father knows how happy I am.”

The first ecstasy of their condition had demanded motion; but when Harry spoke of the necessary formalities of their engagement, they sat down.

“Your father has a right to ask me some questions, dear Yanna, which I think I can answer to his satisfaction. There are only two things I fear.” She looked at him with an assuring smile, and he went on, “First, I cannot marry for a year at any rate, perhaps longer.”

“Father will not count that against you. Nor do I. He will miss me every hour of his life, when I leave him. He will be thankful to put off the separation – and he has done so much for me, and we have been so much to each other, that I think I ought to give him a little more of my life.”

Harry knit his brows. It already hurt him to think of Yanna giving thought and love to others, when he wanted every thought for himself. He drew her close to him, and with kisses and tender words vowed, “though it was dreadfully selfish, he should be wretched until he had taken her absolutely away from every other tie.” Perhaps she felt a moment’s pleasure in this singleness of her lover’s desire, but it was only momentary.

“That is wrong, Harry,” she answered. “It is a poor heart that has room for only one love. My love for father can never wrong you. He is the first memory I have. Before I was three years old, I remember him, carrying me in his arms every night until I fell asleep. When I was a school-girl he helped me with my lessons. He taught me how to skate, and to drive, and to row. We were always together. My mother did not care much for books and embroidery and drawing, but father watched my stitches and my pencil, and wondered all the time at his little girl’s cleverness. I knew he made too much of his little girl’s cleverness; but then, we love people who make 67 much of us in any way. And it is past believing how happy we have been since I left college! Oh, I love father so much, I never could love him less! Are your father and mother any less dear to you for loving me?”

This was a question Harry could not answer fairly. He remembered his mother’s appeal but a few hours previously. He knew that under it he had been unfaithful to Adriana – knew that he had been willing to sacrifice her happiness to gratify a mere social exigency – knew that he had put Rose’s interests before Adriana’s interests – knew that he had been absolutely considerate of the old ties, and that he was now seeking the new one, not as the first and the last, the be-all, and the end-all, of his existence; but as some fresh, delicious element to be lost in the old element, some quick and piquant spice, with which to make keener and sweeter the old tedious, monotonous experience, which, after all, he was not willing to lose in the joyousness of the new one. He answered Yanna’s question therefore guardedly; he had even a feeling that she ought not to have asked it.

“Of course, I love my family, Yanna, just the same as I ever did. My love for you is quite independent of that love. I have been practically the head of the house for many years, and to lose me is, therefore, like losing the head of the house.”

“Hardly so, Harry. I think Mr. Filmer is quite able to take care of his family’s interests, if it should be necessary for him to do so. Father said he never met a man at once so cautious and so honorable in business.”

“In a matter of buying and selling, father is more than equal to his circumstances. I am speaking of our social life. In society, he is a perfect child; in fact, we continually have to shield his mistakes behind his 68 learning. It is for this reason, my own sweet Yanna, that mother thinks we ought to keep our engagement secret.”

“Our engagement secret! Your mother thinks it! Did you ask Mrs. Filmer’s permission to offer yourself to me?” As she spoke, she gently withdrew from his embrace and looked with a steady countenance at him. Harry was like a man between two fires; his face burned, he felt almost irritable. Why couldn’t Yanna take what he had to offer, and be content?

“Mother lifted a book in my room,” he said, “and a copy of the letter I sent you fell out of it.”

“And she read one of your letters? I am glad you have told me. I certainly shall not write to you, Harry. I withdraw my promise.”

“Oh, nonsense, Yanna! It fell out of the book, and she looked at it; after that, any woman would have gone on looking at it.”

“Very few women would have gone on looking at it.”

“Mothers, I mean. Mothers feel they have a right, you know. I ought not to have left it there. It was my fault; but the whole house has been in such a miserable confusion, with the packing and the ball; and it has been Harry here, and Harry there, and the truth is, mother called me while I was writing, and she was in a great hurry, and I slipped the letter into the book, and when I got back I had forgotten where I put it. I looked everywhere, and as there was a fire burning on the hearth, I concluded that I had burnt it.”

“Which you ought to have done.”

“Yes; but then, Yanna, mother had to know.”

“I wish I had known first. What did she say?”

“She thought we ought, for Rose’s sake, to put off our marriage and keep our engagement secret.”

“Yes. Why for Rose’s sake?”

“It sounds egotistical to tell you, Yanna; but mother says that Rose is asked out a great deal more for my sake than for her own, and as she has made expensive preparations for the season, she wants Rose to have the full benefit of them; that is only natural. However, she thinks it impossible, if it is known that I am engaged.”

“The whole affair is humiliating, Harry; but I hear father coming, and you had better speak to him. He will know what I ought to do under the circumstances.”

“I would rather see him to-morrow. I want to talk to my mother again – to collect my thoughts – to explain myself better to you, dearest.”

But Peter entered as he was speaking, and Yanna for a moment made no attempt to alter the significant position of Harry towards herself; for he was holding her hand, while his whole attitude was that of an imploring lover.

Yanna rose and left the room, as her father came forward. “Well, sir?” said Peter, not unkindly, but with an interrogative emphasis Harry could not pretend to ignore. He rose and offered his hand to Peter. “I have been telling Yanna that I love her,” he said, “and she has promised to be my wife.” The young man’s hand lay in Peter’s hand as he made this confession, and Peter led him to the fireside.

“Sit down, sir. I have something to say to you; and as you see, I am very wet. The storm was driving in my face.” Then Harry looked outward, and saw the empty lawn blinded with rain, and the gray hills and the gray clouds meeting.

Peter removed his coat and shoes silently, but as soon as this act was done, he drew his chair near to Harry’s and said:

“You must have known, Mr. Filmer, that I was not blind to the love you have acknowledged to-day. Nothing that affects Yanna escapes me.”

“Then you do not disapprove of my love, sir?”

“I am glad that you love Yanna. I am glad that she loves you. I have not, either by look, or word, or deed, tried to influence Yanna this way or that way. I was resolved that Destiny undirected, and undisturbed, should work out her own ends. But now I may tell you, that a marriage between you and Yanna will bring back all the Van Hoosen lands into the Van Hoosen succession; and Yanna will only be going to her natural home.”

“I do not understand you, sir.”

“I will make what I say plain enough. All the land the Filmers own in this locality came from the Van Hoosens. The first white owner of it was a Peter Van Hoosen, in the year 1750. He owned nearly every acre between the two rivers, and when he died he left it equally between his son John and his daughter Cornelia. Cornelia married Abram Deitrich, and their only surviving child, Anna, married a man called Maas. They had many children, but the eldest bought from his brothers and sisters their shares of the land, and at his death left it to his only child, Martin. And it came to pass that Martin’s daughter, called Mary, married your grandfather, Dominie Filmer, bringing him as her portion all the land which you possess near Woodsome.”

“I remember well that my grandmother’s name was Mary Maas.”

“I am descended from the son of the original Peter Van Hoosen; and the son’s descendants have been far less fortunate than those of the daughter Cornelia. All of them had many children, and their half of the land was continually subdivided, and turned into cash. I was born poor and landless, being the fifth in descent from my namesake, the first owner. Cousin Alida, however, has re-acquired much of the original tract, left to her ancestor John Van Hoosen, and this land, I know, will come to Yanna; so that your marriage with Yanna will, in a great measure, bring old Peter’s estate intact into the family of his descendant.

“Knowing these things, I have watched the growth of love between Yanna and yourself with much interest; yet quite determined to leave affairs beyond my guiding, without my meddling. Your father knows the whole of our generations; we have talked it over often; and I think he is rather proud of the Dutch element in his nature. He told me it gave him the patient industry, and the love of detail, without which his great book would be a great failure. But this is aside from the question that fills your heart, I know. Speak to me, then, as freely as you wish, about Yanna.”

“I love Yanna; I feel as if I had always loved her! I have no hope that does not drift to her.”

“That is well, and as it should be. I also love her. I have no words to say how nor yet how much. But I do not wish to part with her just yet. Wait a little while.”

“I must perforce wait, sir. I cannot marry for some time; my income is necessary to my family.”

“For how long must you wait?”

“I know not precisely – but my sister’s marriage will make a great difference.”

“When does your sister marry?”

“As yet there is no prospect of her marriage. Doubtless this winter will make a change.”

“Well, I do not complain of a circumstance that leaves my daughter to bless my own life. But there has been talk – a great deal of talk – people do not believe that it is Antony you come to see day after day, and week in, and week out. Adriana’s name has been named with your name, and if her father and brother had not been at her side it would have been shadowed in the contact. Now to-morrow night you have a great entertainment; there could be no better time to announce your engagement. It will please your father to explain to the Woodsome people all that I have told you; and Antony can say in response all that is pleasant and necessary. To turn your ball into a betrothal feast would give Woodsome people a winter’s conversation, and set Yanna where she ought to stand.”

Harry was silent, and Peter looked at him with a changing face. At length the young man said: “I do not think that would do, sir. Father cares nothing at all for society, and he would most likely be delighted to take the romantic part you assign him. But mother would feel the situation cruelly. It would get into the papers, and we should never hear the last of it. I could not bear it for Yanna’s sake. I do not like people discussing her antecedents and prospects. I do not like them to speak of her at all. Mother is indeed very anxious that we should keep our engagement secret for a short time. She thinks it will help Rose to a settlement, and so hasten her own marriage.”

“Mr. Filmer, do you know what you are doing? You are asking my daughter to marry you, and then 73 you are asking her to tell no one you have done so. Your proposal is an insult; take back your offer. No honorable man would make it. No honorable girl could accept it.”

“Yanna has given me her word. She has promised to be my wife.”

Peter did not answer him; but throwing open the door, he called, “Yanna! Yanna! Come here to me!”

Something in his voice frightened Yanna. She came hastily downstairs, the tears she had been shedding still upon her cheeks. “Yanna,” said her father, as he drew her close to his side, “Mr. Filmer wants to marry you – sometime. In the meantime, he does not want you to tell any one that he wants to marry you. Do you think that an honorable offer?”

“No! – but, father, Harry has reasons we cannot properly appreciate. Society is cruel to those who have to live in it.”

“Right is right, and wrong is wrong, wherever and however men and women live! It is wrong to ask a woman to marry, and then say, ’Do not tell any one I have asked you.’”

“Sir!” cried Harry, approaching Yanna, “Sir! you state the situation most cruelly. It is not fair to me. I am in a great strait. Yanna, dearest Yanna! cannot you say a word for me?”

“There is nothing to be said,” answered Peter. “Under no circumstances will I recognize a secret engagement. To do so is to engage my daughter to sorrow, and hope deferred, and miserable backbiting! Any engagement between Yanna and yourself, Mr. Filmer, must be openly acknowledged on both sides. I make no point of it being acknowledged at the ball to-morrow; that was perhaps an old man’s romancing – but 74 if you will have no publicity, I will have no secrecy.”

“May I speak alone with Yanna, sir?”

“You may. I put no bond on Yanna’s words or actions, in any way. Honor will constrain her to treat herself, and her father also, with honor!” Then he went out of the room, and left Harry standing by Yanna’s side. He took her in his arms, and she did not immediately, or with anger, withdraw herself. She was more able than Peter to understand the ‘great strait’ in which the young man found himself. She suffered Harry to kiss the tears off her eyelids and to whisper anew his adoring affection for her.

“Cannot you trust me, Yanna?” he asked. “Cannot you trust me a little while, dearest one?”

“I will trust you, Harry; and you must trust me; for there can be no engagement between us until father is satisfied. Perhaps Antony will explain things in some better way to him.”

“No, he will not! Antony is perfectly ferocious on a question relating to any woman’s honor. I know that he loves my sister Rose to distraction, and I know equally well that if he ever dares to ask her to be his wife he will do so in the most straightforward, conventional manner. Once when I complained of the strictness of society’s rules about women, he said, ‘Considering the usual man, society could not make rules too strict.’ Antony will not help us by a syllable.”

“Then speak to your mother again. Our marriage may be delayed; but our engagement ought to be a recognized one.”

“But privately. Cannot we understand each other privately? Look in my eyes, darling, and see my promise there! Give me yours in a kiss.”

“Harry, why do you ask me to deceive my father?”

“You love your father better than you love me, Yanna.”

She did not answer this accusation in words, though he saw the answer fly into her face; and he was so ashamed of his unreasonableness that he went into the hall and put on his overcoat, and she stood silent, watching him the while. In a few minutes he turned to her with his hat in his hand. “Well, then, Yanna, I am to go away without a promise from you? When may I come again?”

“When you love me with all your heart – when you can put me before every other human being. Please, Harry, say nothing of this event to Rose. Why should we trouble her? And as I have promised to be at Filmer to-morrow morning, it will be best, dear, if you can avoid meeting me. I shall not remain more than an hour or two.”

“Very well. I will keep myself out of your way.”

“You know what I mean, Harry. Why do you make my meaning worse than it is?”

“Good-bye, Yanna! I am too miserable to split hairs over a meaning.”

He was really petted and humiliated, and even a lover in this mood finds it hard to be just and kind. Without another word, he went to the stable for his horse and buggy; and Yanna, watching at the window, saw him drive furiously down the avenue, without giving her any further recognition. For the young man – little accustomed to disappointment of any kind, and still less to a want of personal appreciation – had become angry at his failure. Though he had not permitted himself consciously to make any account of his superior social position, it had influenced his 76 estimate of his probable success; and yet he was forced to acknowledge that his wealth or social position had never been taken into account at all. His acceptance or refusal had hung entirely upon a moral question – the expediency or inexpediency of a secret engagement. Altogether, he felt the situation to have been most unpleasant.

“Nothing has come of it,” he thought, “but an assurance of Yanna’s love; and what is the use of love that will not sacrifice anything for me?” And as he looked at this question only in its relation to Yanna’s sacrificing for him, he did not arrive at any just conception of his own duty in the circumstances.

Mrs. Filmer had been covertly watching for his return; and she was annoyed to find that he went directly to his own apartments, and did not reappear that night. Rose grumbled at his carelessness, and once she went to his door and asked him to come down and look at some of the arrangements; but he refused in the most positive manner. It was altogether a cross, unpleasant evening; the servants were quarreling in every part of the house; Rose was worrying over Harry’s indifference; and Mrs. Filmer had a slight sick headache, and said more unkind things than she permitted herself when in good health. Mr. Filmer did not improve the general tone, for he sat quiet, in a provoking mood, watching the burning hickory logs, and listening to the fretful remarks flying between the mistress and her servants, and the mother and her daughter. Their plain speech and honest opinions amused him; and he complacently remarked: “My dear Emma, this little household discussion is very interesting to me. I always have said, ‘Let us be 77 sincere and truthful with each other, no matter how unpleasant we may make ourselves.’”

In the morning the storm was over, and there was a clearer atmosphere in the house. But Harry did not appear at the breakfast table. “It is a shame!” said Rose, with great sincerity. “If Harry was against the ball, he ought to have said so at the beginning. I wonder what is the matter with him!”