Winifred's Wooing. A novelette

Front matter

WINIFRED'S WOOING. J jtoOTtttte. BV GEOEGIAM M. CEAIK, ;-' author or "lost and won," etc. etc. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. M.DCCC.LXII. [ The right of Translation is reserved.'} CONTENTS. Chap. Page I. Foolish Winifred 1 II. In the Garden 23 IH. Winifred's Lover 46 IV. Mr. Hastings's Trouble 58 V. Before the Wedding 6S VI. Victory the First 81 VH. Little Ailie 111 VIII. The Farmhouse Parlour 143 IX. Winifred's Confession 169 X. Poor Winifred 208 XI. Winifred's Grief 246 XII. Victory the Last 264 L'Envoi WINIFKED'S WOOING.

Chapter I. Foolish Winifred

" Aunt Catheeine, you know that I shall marry him," Winifred said. " My dear, I don't knoAv it" " But I tell you every day." " You tell me a great many things, Freda, and happily I don't find that you do half of them." "Ah, but you Avill find that I shall do this one. I must do it, Aunt Catherine," she added after a moment, and she gave a little — a very little ■sigh. After which there was a pause for some moments. WIOTFRED'S WOOING. "I never can make out why you don't like him," she began again presently, a little petulantly. " He is as good as anybody else." " I never said that I didn't like him, my dear. I only say that you don't." " But I do." Rather faintly. " If you were to hear just now that you Avere never to see him again, I suppose, then, you would feel that there Avas nothing more worth living for, Freda?"

" No, Aunt Catherine," she ansAvered, with a frank laugh, " you know I shouldn't feel that." " Then, my dear," returned her Aunt trium phantly, " you don't care for him ! " " You knoAv very Avell," Winifred began again, a little deprecatingly, after another silence, " that I never said I was in love Avith him — " (" No, you certainly never did ! " Aunt Catherine put in interjectionally) — " but there is a great difference betAveen that and not caring for him at all. I like him very Avell — quite as much as he likes me, I daresay. Nobody pretends that there is any love on either side. It suits him to marry me, and it suits me to marry him:- that is the beginning and end of the whole affair." " The beginning, Winifred, but not the end," Aunt Catherine said gently. " Nobody can fore tell the end of a marriage begun without love."

" Nobody can foretell the end of any marriage at all, Aunt Catherine. There are thousands of marriages continually being made such as mine will be, and numbers of them must turn out Avell. Mine has as good a chance of being a successful one as anybody else's." " You talk so foolishly sometimes, Freda," Aunt Catherine said patiently. " I wish so much that you wouldn't jest about everything." " But, Aunty, I am not jesting. " Then you are doing worse, you are talking very lightly, and, if I am to believe you (only I don't, my dear), you are ready to act as lightly." "Now, Aunt Catherine," a little impatiently, " why will you ahvays say that, as if it was my doing, when you know it isn't ? You know it is papa who has set his heart upon this marriage." 1—2 " I thought, Freda, you wanted me to believe that it was your heart that Avas set upon it."

"No, I didn't. My heart has nothing to do with it. I have made up my mind to be Lady Sinclair ; that is all." " And, my dear, have you made up your mind to be very happy, too ? " " Well, yes ; I think I have. I don't see Avhy I shouldn't be happy. It doesn't seem to me that being Lady Sinclair will be so very sad a fate." " Won't it, my dear ? Let me see, what will you have to make you happy? People will admire you a good deal." " Thank you, Aunt Catherine ! " " Only, you know, they do that now. And you will be very rich." " Yes." " But that won't make much difference to you, for I don't think you ever wanted anything yet that money could buy. Then you will lead a very gay life, I suppose, and you will have a very good position in the Avorld as a rich baronet's wife. I suppose a baronet's wife does have some advantage in society over a banker's daughter ?

" " Of course she has." " Well ; and then very likely you may have some children. That would be a blessing, my dear, if they turned out Avell. And beyond that — what more, Freda ? " " That is a good deal, Aunt Catherine." " Yes, but we must say something about your husband. What can we say ? " " I must wait till I have tried him, Aunty." " Oh, Winifred, Winifred ! " Aunt Catherine took her niece's hands, and looked into her face, and that fair face under such examination began to flush. But she laughed too, and — " Aunt Catherine," she said, half jestingly, " I don't know how you can reconcile what you are doing to your conscience. If you ivere to succeed in making me rebel, what do you think would become of us both ? You know I have given my promise to papa, and you know that if I broke my word he would be near ready to turn me out of doors."

" But, Freda," urged her Aunt a little hesitat ingly, "if your father thought you would not be happy Avith him ? " " He knoAvs that I am not in love Avith him," Winifred said quickly, " Yes, my dear," uneasily. " But then men don't ahvays see things as women do. He is anxious about your marriage, and then he likes Sir Charles himself." " I don't think he does particularly, Aunt." " He must be persuaded, at any rate, Winifred, that it would be a good marriage for you. But if you were to say to him, quite from yourself, that you were not sure that you should like it — that is, Freda, if you really are thinking seriously of- Sir Charles ; but I can't believe that you are." " My dear Aunt, L am." " Well, well, my dear," Avith a resigned sigh. " Only I do wish you would speak to your father, Freda.

You know your happiness is the first object he can have. It is the first object Avith both of us, if we could only think alike about the way of securing it." " I know itis, dear Aunty." "Freda," said her Aunt gently, after a feAV moments, " it was not by a marriage without love that the greatest happiness of my life came to me." "No, Aunt Catherine, I know it was not." And Winifred bent down over the hand that rested on the arm of Aunt Catherine's chair, and kissed it. " And if I were like you I would never marry either until I fell in love; but you know I shall never be as good as you are if I lhre to be a hundred years old " (" Oh, Freda ! Freda ! " Aunt Catherine interjected) ; " and so if I am worldly enough and cold-hearted enough to be contented to marry for other things than love — and to be tolerably happy with possessing those other things — why should I not do it, and make papa glad ?

" " But you would not be happy, Winifred. You are not worldly or cold-hearted, and you would not be happy, my darling." " I should, if I got to love my husband ; and I would try to love him, Aunt Cathe- H nne. " But if you failed, my dear ? " " Well, then, I should fail, and it would have to be borne." And Winifred laughed, and lean ing back in her easy-chair, took up her book again, and began to read, while Aunt Catherine gathered up her netting, and sighed. Mrs. Catherine Murray had nothing left to her in the Avorld that she loved as well as she loved Winifred Hastings. Her own family — a husband and tAvo sons — had died many years ago, and she had lived in her brother's house, and had been a mother to his little motherless daughter, ever since Winifred was five years old. Her whole heart was wrapped up in Winifred, and Winifred loved no one in the Avorld except her father as dearly as she loved Mrs. Murray.

"And yet I am sure it is strange that she should care for me, for I am the only creature about her Avho ever tells her of her faults, or scolds her, or crosses her in any way," Mrs. Murray would say simply to herself, and would wonder at Winifred's affection, and smile with inward happiness to think what a sweet forgiving nature the girl must have in spite of all her foolishness ; never sus pecting for a moment that she herself, in deeds, if not in words, spoilt Winifred more than any one else about her did, every day she lived; and that, though she might indeed tell her continually that she was ignorant, and foolish, and vain, yet that in act she petted her with an unvarying blind constancy and consistency that would bring a laugh sometimes even from Winifred herself — from Winifred, who took all petting and spoiling, by whomsoever given, as her born right and due, and who, in spite of Mrs. Murray's lectures, no more, in her youthful, self-satisfied contentment, believed that she was foolish or ignorant, than she believed that the stars show at noonday.

For Winifred was beautiful, and Winifred was an heiress. Mr. Hastings was a wealthy banker, and she was his only child. From her cradle upwards she had lain on a bed of roses. Bitter wind had never blown on her, want from without or sorrow from within had never touched her. She had occupied a place in her father's house, Hke that of a delicate exotic in a hot house. Others might battle with the world, her part had been to shine like a jewel on its front ; others might have cares that bred anxiety, duties that demanded self-denial to perform; upon her heart no cloud had darkened, from her no ministry had been required. Sir Charles Sinclair had a house a few miles from Mr. Hastings's house near Tunbridge, and at Tunbridge and in London he and Winifred had met a good deal during the last year.

Sir Charles was a young man of about five-and tAventy, not clever, not handsome ; reserved, and rather heavy and pompous in manner; a good son to his mother, Avith Avhom he lived ; not addicted to any vices, not particularly fond of any pursuits. His virtues were rather negative than positive — unless his rent-roll might be con sidered a personal virtue, in which case he possessed one that was very positive indeed — for his father had died many years ago, and his income had swelled enormously during a long minority. That this great rent-roll was his chief attraction to most people, men or women, Avho knew him, there could be no doubt at all. He was not a bad person, but without his wealth most of his acquaintance would have voted him a solemn bore. Even with it many did. 'Winifred did in her heart, though she did not own it.

Two months ago, Sir Charles had made a formal application to Mr. Hastings for leave to woo his daughter — a leave which Mr. Hastings had accorded him with a rather surprising alacrity, and even eagerness. For it was not •apparent why a wealthy man Avith such a daughter as Winifred — a daughter who Avas undeniably the dearest to him of his earthly possessions — should catch with such readiness at the offer of the first rich suitor who had ap peared for her. He knew that she did not care for Sir Charles Sinclair; he knew that he had little liking for him himself; he understood as clearly as he understood anything that Sir Charles was simply a dull, commonplace, re spectable English gentleman ; and yet, for no apparent reason except that he was rich, he had made up his mind that Winifred should be his wife.

And Winifred had promised that she would. Not to Sir Charles as yet, for he was slow in his wooing, and had not got the length of asking her; but she had given her promise to her father that she would say "yes" to him when the time of his tardy proposal should arrive, and meanAA'hile she was waiting for that time, not very fearingly or nervously, but Avith just enough of shyness and trepidation to make her heart beat quicker at the sound of his approach, or to send her flying to another place if she heard him coming into any room where she sat alone. He Avould catch her alone some day, and snare her; she kneAv that; but, with an impulse that came half from shyness, and half from love of mischief, she had hitherto per sisted time after time in vanishing before him, determined to escape her doom as long as escape were possible.

Yet she contemplated the end of all this tempo rizing composedly enough. She had no objection to marry Sir Charles Sinclair. He was very rich, and of course she must marry some one who was rich; he was a baronet, and she was quite girlish enough to like the thought of being called Lady Sinclair; he was very quiet and morally unobjectionable, and Winifred wisely re garded orderly behaviour as a high virtue in a husband; he had the manner and the habits, though he was dull and pompous, of a gentleman, and Winifred, who was fastidiously refined with respect to outward things, Avas satisfied Avith the prospect of a husband who would never shock her by coarseness or vulgarity. She Avas not un happy in the least about the matter ; since her father wished it so much, she was quite ready to marry Sir Charles.

The only person who was unhappy about the scheme Avas Mrs. Murray. Winifred did not pity herself, but Mrs. Murray pitied her with all her loving heart and soul. Whatever her niece might be, she at any rate Avas neither worldly minded nor cold-hearted, and the bare thought of her darling making such a marriage shocked her and grieved her beyond expression. But what could Mrs. Murray do ? Considering that she was nominal mistress of the house, she could do wonderfully little. For Winifred was headstrong, — as young creatures brought up like Winifred are wont to be; and as for Mr. Hastings, his word throughout her whole life had been Aunt Catherine's laAv. But yet, after she had meditated on the matter by day and night for weeks, she came to the resolution at last to screw her courage to the sticking-place and speak to Mr. Hastings.

It was a braver resolution than it might appear to be at first sight ; for to most people Mr. Hastings Avas by no means an especially formidable man ; he often did good-natured things, and many people liked him, and Winifred had ahvays loved him and been at ease with him; but Mrs. Murray feared her brother. He was strong and she was weak, and, with the tyranny of a not very generous nature, he had always ruled her, and treated her opinions slightingly, and her advice with half concealed contempt, from the time that they had been children together. She had ahvays yielded to him, and he, in consequence, had learnt in tellectually to despise her. If she had ever had courage to oppose him and brave the shock of his opening fire, he might have come to respect her ; but no sooner did he advance upon her than she invariably fled — doAvn would fall her weapons to the ground, and she would scud in disorder from the field.

In the whole course of her hfe she never could remember one single instance in AA'hich her brother had yielded up either his will or his judgment to hers. When, therefore, after deep thought, she made up her mind at this time to address him on the subject of his daughter's marriage, the performing of such an act was like the leading up of a forlorn hope. Of course she was defeated — frightfully. With the unhappy Avant of tact which pursues some timid people, she chose her moment of speaking to him when, jaded Avith a day of business in London, he had come home tired and out of sorts, and peevish, because the dressing bell had rung, and Winifred had not returned from her afternoon's ride. Mrs. Murray Avas not often alone with her brother, and noAv, as they sat together waiting for Winifred, a brilliant idea descended on her that this was the very opportunity that she had wanted for pleading Winifred's cause.

She had thought of attacking her brother in his own sacred study, bearding the lion in his den ; but she felt, with sudden trembling joy, that this necessity was mercifully averted from her. She was netting when the inspiration came. In a moment the blood Avas all tingling in her cheeks and in her fingers' ends; doAvn went upon her knees both work and needle ; she looked towards her brother ; he was sitting doing nothing, with one foot tapping on the fender, not a newspaper even Avithin reach of him, nothing about him that could distract his attention from her. Yes; this was the moment ! She sat upright, took one deep breath, and then seized it, in a whirl of Avild courage, such as never takes possession of any but the very timid. " There is a little matter, brother — that is, if you are at leisure — of course, another time will do as well, only, perhaps, as Winifred is not here — " Mrs. Murray began, not quite coherently.

Mr. Hastings looked at her with a partial glance — a portion of one eye — over his shoulder. "Well?" he said. He said it threateningly, in a tone that boded mischief, and Mrs. Murray quaked. " Oh ! " she said hurriedly, " it Avas only about Winifred's marriage — I mean, I thought we might talk a little about it. Of course not if you would not like it, only I was a little anxious — that is, I mean, Henry, do you think Sir Charles is likely to make her happy ? " she said. He had turned round from the fire, and had been looking her full in the face while she spoke, and before she had ended a peculiar kind of subdued fury had begun to come into that look. She knew its aspect of old; whenever he meant utterly to crush and confound and silence her he looked like that. " Do you think Sir Charle is likely to make her happy?" she had asked, and all he did as he looked at her was to ansAver slowly, "Yes, Ida" They were simple words, but they acted on her like the shutting of a door in her face.

She sat Avhen they were uttered dumb and helpless. If he had stormed at her, she thought she could have answered him; if he had asked her Avhat she meant, she could have told him ; but with that one deliberate reply, which, gh'ing the full answer to her inquiry, called for no rejoinder, left room for no second question, she felt that he had routed her. What more could she say to him ? She had rehearsed whole pages of what she meant to say ; paragraph after paragraph she had composed and learnt by heart, and now eA'ery word of them before that look and those three Avords of his Avas oozing — had to the last syllable of them oozed already — with her courage, out of her fingers' ends. They Avere gone, hopelessly and utterly : she knew that her scheme had failed: as usual, the first shot ofthe enemy had scared her; but, as she beat a retreat and gave all up, and fled, she did it with a panic feeling that the Avorst was coming yet.

And so it was. To be forced to fly is bad enough, but to be pursued in flight and routed from behind is the acme of defeat. Mr. Hastings rose from his seat as she sat trembling, and came and steadily stood before her chair. " You have interfered in this matter, Catherine," he said, " and therefore I give you a deliberate Avarning for the future, once for all. Noav, listen to me. If you meddle with Winifred, and make her break the promise she has given me — if by hook or crook you manage to break this marriage off, by ! " he said, and Avith an oath he struck his clenched hand on the table by his side, " you shall never set foot again Avithin my door. And, further than this, I tell you, if you do, you will live to repent it for Winifred's sake to the last hour you hve ! " She burst into tears while he spoke, and then 2—2 sat helplessly sobbing, crying from actual terror, like a child.

Many a time he had made her cry in the same way before, and her frightened tears had very rarely indeed the effect of softening him. They did not do so noAv. " Go and cry in your OAvn room, if you must do it ! What babyish folly is all this ? " he called out, savagely; and he stormed at her Aveakness and childishness and general incapacity for all the sen sible affairs of life, till, sobbing all the way as she went, she had set the room-door between herself and him. She had suffered defeat — she had been scared and routed; yet Mrs. Murray with all her timidity was no real coAvard, and, frightfully vanquished though she had been for the moment, this inter vieAv with her brother had by no means the effect of finally closing her lips about her niece's marriage. She, indeed, held her peace for the future before Mr. Hastings, but she loved Winifred far too well to be deterred by any threats from giving good advice to her.

So she began to talk to Winifred. She was ahvays planning or plotting in some simple-minded Avay for her niece's moral or mate rial good. She had long ago got it firmly fixed in her mind that Winifred was too Avilful to be guided by straightforward advice, or to be deterred from doing anything by ordinary opposition ; it needed great tact to manage her, she used to say; and accordingly she Avas in the habit of spending hours and days in forming the most transparent schemes for leading Winifred in the way that she should go ; which schemes, in all simple-hearted faith in their efficacy, she Avould, on every occasion that sprang up, put in practice, sighing patiently to her self when they failed, covertly rejoicing when they succeeded, never suspecting, either in success or failure, how often Winifred saAv through them and laughed at them to herself.

The design she formed now was to feign incre dulity to Winifred about her marriage. She had a kind of half-formed, ill-shaped idea within her that by steadily refusing to believe Winifred's assertions respecting her approaching wedding she possibly might in course of time shake Winifred's own belief in it, and so day after day she brought the powerless battery of her scepticism to bear upon her niece, and day after clay, with a tenderness that AA'as touching from its very helplessness, she talked to her of Avhat marriage ought to be, and of her OAvn love and marriage thirty years ago. And not seldom Winifred was touched ; but her emotion ended in no conversion. She had given her promise, she said, and she must keep to it. Sir Charles Avas not a bad man. She might go farther and fare worse.

Chapter II. In The Garden

Wintfeed was in her garden inspecting some pet fuchsias. She had not come out to garden, as she sometimes did, armed with leather gloves, and garden scissors, and a miniature hoe, and her various other amateur implements, but, having been rambling about, she had come upon this bed of fuchsias, and had been seized with a desire then and there to expel one certain ungraceful stubborn-looking plant, and banish him igno miniously to a distant place. So, in order to inspect and condemn him thoroughly, she had seated her self before him on the grass, and Avas plucking, in a contemptuous and dainty manner, at his blos soms, when a clear voice called to her across the lawn. "A pleasant morning, Miss Hastings. Your father goes to town by the next train, I suppose?" it said. Winifred got on her feet at that address, and, standing sheltered by her broad hat from the sunshine, faced the speaker.

Lie had his back to the sun and did not need sheltering, nor, indeed, did the face, as at Winifred's rising he came forward across the grass, look as if it got often sheltered, Avhichever way he stood ; for it was as broAArn as a berry — a rich, warm, healthy brown, with a dash of wholesome red in it ; and his hair, lying in close curls on his head, — for he shoAved it as he raised his hat to Winifred, — had a crisp strength about it that almost looked as if it, too, had been scorched and curled a little by the sun. "Papa has gone already, Mr. Bertram; he Avent by the early train," Winifred said. " Oh ! " Mr. Bertram answered, " then I've had my Avalk for nothing." And, having by this time got to Winifred's side, he put out his hand to her, and said, " Good morning," again. It Avas a large, strong hand, and Winifred's little one looked very small indeed as she sur rendered it to its clasp ; moreover, she did her surrendering Avith a little, affected, finical un graciousness, as though she Avere not desirous, ungloved, of letting her white fingers touch those other ones at all — Avhich, in fact, Avas the very feeling that possessed her.

But Mr. Bertram, either not perceiving that unAvillingness, or not at all regarding it, shook hands with her with perfect deliberation and cordiality, and, having concluded that ceremony, stood by her side and began to talk to her. " What were you doing ? — gardening ? Your fuchsias don't look well. That's an ugly felloAV there at the end." " That is the only one that is not doing well," she ansAvered a little petulantly. " I think all the others look very healthy. I'm going to have this one moA*ed." "Well, you had better move it — it's high time," he said. "Shall I doit? Where's your spade ? " " No, thank you, you needn't do it. Thomas is somewhere about the garden, I suppose." " I met Thomas half a mile up the road, going in to Tunbridge. He Avon't be here for an hour, at any rate. Come — we'll turn that fellow out in two minutes.

Stay here : I'll go and get a spade." And Mr. Bertram went. He need not have been long in finding a spade, yet he was a considerable time. Winifred Avaited five minutes and then began to groAv impatient ; she waited nearly five more, and then she said, Avith some indignation, to herself, that she would Avait no longer, when, giving a last look round, she saw Mr. Bertram coming. She was obliged to Avait then, but she did it standing stiffly upright, and, with dignified displeasure, she uttered not a word as he came near. He, however, Avas in no degree abashed. " I beg your pardon for keeping you Avaiting," he called out, in a cheery voice, as he approached, " but I heard Mrs. Murray's voice in the orchard as I Avas coming, and I mounted one of Thomas's ladders, and have been standing talking to her over the walL She has given me my pockets full of apples, — will you have one ?

" And Mr. Bertram held out to Winifred a splendid ribston pippin, and raising another to his lips plunged his teeth into it, and indulged himself in a comfortable mouthful. Would Winifred Hastings have a ribston pippin, and, unpeeled, there on the spot, dig her teeth into it, hke any unwashed urchin in the streets ! " No, thank you," Winifred said, and she even said it calmly, but if she had talked for five minutes, she could not have made her meaning clearer than she did by the tone of these three words. Mr. Bertram understood it perfectly, and laughed to himself behind his apple. He was quite used to Winifred's affectations. " The only way to enjoy an apple is to eat it fresh off the tree," he exclaimed. " It's the same with every fruit, and with some vegetables too. Did you ever taste raAV carrots ?

" She gave him a silent look of great disgust, and for a moment said nothing ; but the fact was that she had tasted raw carrots, and that more than once or twice, and after the first moment she Avas too honest not to confess it. So, not a little against the grain — " Yes," she said, coldly. " I have tasted them. I suppose most children have. But you can't gather them, and at once begin to eat them." "Why not?" " They have to be Avashed and scraped." " Oh ; and to be cut in thin slices, and laid in a bowl of Avater, you think ? That's how you know them, is it ? J pull them out of the ground, and scrape them Avith my pocket-knife, and munch them at once." She thought she had a legitimate right to look disgusted iioav, so she assumed an aspect of intense disgust, and turning her back upon Mr. Bertram bent doAvn again over her flowers.