was with this intention he left me. But he did not write, for the very next morning there came a letter from Llewellyn, not to Martha, but to her father, telling him that he was coming home. The ship had been paid off quite unexpectedly I heard afterwards. And I suppose that unless he had been courageous enough to give the true explanation of his conduct he had no resource but to come back. It was a curious, abrupt sort of letter. The young man’s conscience, I think, had pricked him for his cowardice in running away; and either he had wound himself up to the point of carrying out his engagement in desperation, or else he was coming to tell his story and ask for his release. I heard of it immediately from the Admiral himself, who was evidently not quite at ease in his mind on the subject. And a short time afterwards Martha came in, dragging her sister with her, full of the news.
‘I could scarcely get her to come,’ Martha said. ‘I can’t think what she always wants running after those village people. And when we have just got the news that Ellis is coming home!’
‘Yes, I heard,’ said I. ‘I suppose I ought to congratulate you. Do you expect him soon? Does he say anything about–?’
‘Oh, his letter was to papa,’ said Martha, interrupting my very hesitating and embarrassed speech; for my eyes were on Nelly, and I saw in a moment that her whole expression had changed. ‘He could not be expected to say anything particular to papa, but I suppose it must be very soon. I don’t think he will want to wait now he is free.’
‘I shall be very glad when it is all over,’ said Nelly, to my great surprise. It was the first time I had heard her make any comment on the subject. ‘It will make so much fuss and worry. It is very entertaining to them, I suppose, but it is rather tiresome to us. Mrs. Mulgrave, I am going to see Molly Jackson; I can hear all about the trousseau at home, you know.’
‘Nelly!’ said I, as I kissed her; and I could not restrain a warning look. She flushed up, poor child, to her hair, but turned away with a sick impatience that went to my heart.
‘If you had the worry of it night and day as I shall have!’ she said under her breath, with an impatient sigh. And then she went away.
I knew all that was in her heart as well as if she had told me. She had lost her temper and patience as well as her peace of mind. It is hard to keep serene under a repeated pressure. She did it the first time, but she was not equal to it the second. She had no excuse to go away now. She had to look forward to everything, and hear it all discussed, and go through it in anticipation. She had to receive him as his future sister; to be the witness of everything, always on the spot; a part of the bridal pageant, the first and closest spectator. And it was very hard to bear. As for Martha, she sat serene in a chair which she had herself worked for me, turning her fair countenance to the light. She saw nothing strange in Nelly’s temper, nor in anything that happened to her. She sat waiting till I had taken my seat again, quite ready to go into the question of the trousseau. The sight of her placidity made me desperate. Suddenly there came before me the haggard looks of poor Llewellyn, and the pale exasperation and heart-sickness of my bright little Nelly’s face. And then I looked at Martha, who was sitting, serene and cheerful, just in the same spot and the same attitude in which, a few days before, she had told me of Major Frost. She had left off Major Frost now and come back to her trousseau. What did it matter to her which of them it was? As for giving her pain or humiliating her, how much or how long would she feel it? I became desperate. I fastened the door when I closed it after Nelly that nobody might interrupt us, and then I came and sat down opposite to my victim. Martha was utterly unconscious still. It never occurred to her to notice how people were looking, nor to guess what was in anybody’s mind.
‘You are quite pleased,’ said I, making my first assault very gently, ‘that Captain Llewellyn is coming home?’
‘Pleased!’ said Martha. ‘Of course I am pleased. What odd people you all are! Anybody might see that it is pleasanter to be settled and know what one is doing. I wish you would come up to town with me some day, Mrs. Mulgrave, and help me with my things.’
‘My dear,’ said I, ‘in the first place, there is something more important than your things; there is Major Frost. What do you mean to do with him?’
‘I—with him?’ said Martha, opening her eyes. ‘He always knew I was engaged. Of course I am very sorry for him; but if he did not choose to come forward in time, he could not expect that one was to wait.’
‘And is that how you mean to leave him,’ said I severely, ‘after all the encouragement you have given him? Every day, for a month past, I have expected to hear you say that you had made a mistake about Captain Llewellyn, and that it was the Major you liked best.’
‘Oh, fancy me doing such a thing!’ cried Martha, really roused, ‘after being engaged to Ellis a whole year. If he had come forward at the proper time perhaps– But to make a change when everything was settled! You never could have believed it of me!’
‘If you like the other better, it is never too late to make a change,’ said I, carried away by my motive, which was good, and justified a little stretch of ethics. ‘You will be doing a dreadful injury to poor Captain Llewellyn if you marry him and like another man best.’
Martha looked at me with a little simper of self-satisfaction. ‘I think I know my duty,’ she said. ‘I am engaged. I don’t see that anything else is of any consequence. Of course the gentleman I am engaged to is the one I shall like best.’
‘Do you mean that you are engaged to him because you like him best?’ said I. ‘Martha, take care. You may be preparing great bitterness for yourself. I have no motive but your good.’ This was not true, but still it is a thing that everybody says; and I was so much excited that I had to stop to take breath. ‘You may never have it in your power to make a choice again,’ I said with solemnity. ‘You ought to pause and think seriously which of the two you love. You cannot love them both. It is the most serious question you will ever have to settle in your life.’
Martha looked at me with a calm surprise which drove me wild. ‘Dear Mrs. Mulgrave,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what you mean. I am engaged to Ellis—and Major Frost has never proposed even. He may have been only flirting, for anything I can tell; and how foolish it would be to give up the one without any real hold on the other! but of course it is nonsense altogether. Why, Ellis is coming back on purpose; and as Major Frost did not come forward in time, I don’t see how he can complain.’
All this she said with the most perfect placidity, sitting opposite the window, lifting her serene countenance to the light. It was a practical concern to Martha. It did not so much matter which it was; but to interfere with a thing fully arranged and settled, because of any mere question of liking! I was not by a very long way so cool as she was. Everything seemed to me to depend upon this last throw, and I felt myself suddenly bold to put it to the touch. It was not my business, to be sure; but to think of those two young creatures torn asunder and made miserable! It was not even Nelly I was thinking of. Nelly would be free; she was young; she would not have her heartbreak always kept before her, and time would heal her wounds. But poor Llewellyn was bound and fettered. He could not escape nor forget. It was for him I made my last attempt.
‘Martha, I have something still more serious to say to you,’ I said. ‘Do you remember, when you told me of Captain Llewellyn’s proposal first, I asked you if it was not a mistake?’
‘Yes, I remember very well,’ said Martha. ‘It was just like you. I never knew any one who asked such odd questions. I should have been angry had it been any one but you.’
‘Perhaps you will be angry now,’ I said. ‘I know you will be vexed, but I can’t help it. Oh, my dear, you must listen to me! It is not only your happiness that is concerned, but that of others. Martha, I have every reason to think that it was a mistake. Don’t smile; I am in earnest. It was a mistake. Can’t you see yourself how little heart he puts into it? Martha, my dear, it is no slight to you. You told me you had never thought of him before he wrote to you. And it was not you he meant to write to. What can I say to convince you? It is true; it is not merely my idea. It was all a mistake.’
‘Mrs. Mulgrave,’ said Martha, a little moved out