Маргарет Олифант - Neighbours on the Green; My Faithful Johnny

Next morning, to the astonishment and dismay of everybody but myself, Captain Llewellyn was summoned back to his ship by telegraph. Martha was more excited about it than I should have supposed possible. It was so hard upon poor dear Ellis, she said, before they had been able to arrange anything, or even to talk of anything. She had not the slightest doubt of him. His wretched looks, and his hesitation and coldness, had taught nothing to Martha. If she was perhaps disappointed at first by his want of ardour, the disappointment had soon passed. It was his way; he was not the sort of man to make a fuss. By this means she quite accounted for it to herself. For my own part, I cannot say that I was satisfied with his conduct. If he had put a stop to it boldly—if he had said at once it was all a mistake—then, whatever had come of it, I could have supported and sympathized with him; but it made an end of Captain Llewellyn, as a man, in my estimation, when he thus ran away. I was vexed, and I was sorry; and yet I cannot say I was surprised.

He wrote afterwards to say it was important business, and that he had no hope of being able to come back. And then he wrote that he had been transferred to another ship just put into commission, and had to sail at once. He could not even come to wish his betrothed good-bye. He assured her it could not be for long, as their orders were only for the Mediterranean; but it was a curious reversal of all their former ideas. ‘He must retire,’ Martha said, when she had told me this news with tears. ‘The idea of a man with a good property of his own being ordered about like that! Papa says things have changed since his days; he never heard of anything so arbitrary. After all he said about our marriage taking place first, to think that he should have to go away now, without a moment to say good-bye!’

And she cried and dried her eyes, while I sat by and felt myself a conspirator, and was very uncomfortable. Nelly was present too. She sat working in the window, with her head turned away from us, and took no part in the conversation. Perhaps it was a relief; perhaps—and this was what she herself thought—it would have been better to have got it over at once. Anyhow, at this present juncture, she sat apart, and took no apparent notice of what we said.

‘And Nelly never says a word,’ sobbed Martha. ‘She has no sympathy. I think she hates poor dear Ellis. She scarcely looked at him when he was here. And she won’t say she is sorry now.’

‘When everybody is sorry what does it matter if I say it or not?’ said Nelly, casting one rapid glance from her work. She never was so fond of her work before. Now she had become all at once a model girl: she never was idle for a moment; one kind of occupation or another was constantly in her hands. She sat at her knitting, while Martha, disappointed and vexed, cried and folded up her letter. I don’t know whether an inkling of the truth had come to Nelly’s mind. Sometimes I thought so. When the time approached which Llewellyn had indicated as the probable period of his return, she herself proposed that she should go on a visit to her godmother in Devonshire. It was spring then, and she had a cough; and there were very good reasons why she should go. The only one that opposed it was Martha. ‘It will look so unkind to dear Ellis,’ she said; ‘as if you would rather not meet him. At Christmas you were out all the time. And if she dislikes him, Mrs. Mulgrave, she ought to try to get over it. Don’t you think so? It is unkind to go away.’

‘She does not dislike him,’ said I. ‘But she wants a change, my dear.’ And so we all said. The Admiral, good man, did not understand it at all. He saw that something was wrong. ‘There is something on the little one’s mind,’ he said to me. ‘I hoped she would have taken you into her confidence. I can’t tell what is wrong with her, for my part.’

‘She wants a change,’ said I. ‘She has never said anything to me.’

It was quite true; she had never said a word to me. I might have betrayed Llewellyn, but I could not betray Nelly. She had kept her own counsel. While the Admiral was talking to me, I cannot describe how strong the temptation was upon me to tell him all the story. But I dared not. It was a thing from which the boldest might have shrunk. And though everybody on the Green had begun to wonder vaguely, and the Admiral himself was a little uneasy, Martha never suspected anything amiss. She cried a little when ‘poor Ellis’ wrote to say his return was again postponed; but it was for his disappointment she cried. Half an hour after she was quite serene and cheerful again, looking forward to the time when he should arrive eventually. ‘For he must come some time, you know; they can’t keep him away for ever,’ she said; until one did not know whether to be impatient with her serenity, or touched by it, and could not make up one’s mind whether it was stupidity or faith.

Nelly paid her visit to her godmother, and came back; and spring wore into summer, and the trees were all in full foliage again in the Dingle, and the cricketers had returned to the Green; but still Captain Llewellyn was unaccountably detained. Nelly had come home looking much better than when she went away. His name still disturbed her composure I could see; though I don’t suppose a stranger who knew nothing of the circumstances would have found it out. And when Martha threatened us with a visit from him, her sister shrank up into herself; but otherwise Nelly was much improved. She recovered her cheerful ways; she became the soul of all our friendly parties again. I said to myself that I had been a truer prophet than I had the least hope of; and that she was not the sort of girl to let herself be crushed in any such way. But she never spoke to me of her sister’s marriage, nor of her sister’s betrothed. I mentioned the matter one day when we were alone, cruelly and of set purpose to see what she would say. ‘When your sister is married, and when you are married,’ I said, ‘it will be very dull both for the Admiral and me.’

‘I shall never marry,’ said Nelly, with a sudden closing up and veiling of all her brightness which was more expressive than words. ‘I don’t know about Sister; but you need not weave any such visions for me.’

‘All girls say so till their time comes,’ said I, with an attempt to be playful; ‘but why do you say you don’t know about Martha? she must be married before long, of course?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Nelly, and then she stopped short; she would not add another word; but afterwards, when we were all together, she broke out suddenly—Martha’s conversation at this period was very much occupied with her marriage. I suppose it was quite natural. In my young days girls were shy of talking much on that subject, but things are changed now. Martha talked of it continually: of when dear Ellis would come; of his probable desire that the wedding should take place at once; of her determination to have two months at least to prepare her trousseau; of where they should go after the marriage. She discussed everything, without the smallest idea, poor girl, of what was passing in the minds of the listeners. At last, after hearing a great deal of this for a long time, Nelly suddenly burst forth—

‘How strange it would be after all, if we were to turn out a couple of old maids,’ she cried, ‘and never to marry at all. The two old sisters! with chairs on each side of the fire, and great authorities in the village. How droll it would be!—and not so very unlikely after all.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ cried Martha indignantly. ‘It is very unlikely so far as I am concerned. I am as good as married already. As for you, you can do what you please–’

‘Yes, I can do what I please,’ said Nelly, with a curious ring in her voice; and then she added, ‘But I should not wonder if we were both old maids after all.’