Margaret Oliphant - The Days of My Life - An Autobiography

And so we were settled to our new beginning, and our new home.

I WAS in the garden, where I almost lived in the sweet summer days in those times of my youth; it was June, and I did not fear the windows of Corpus, which looked out upon the trees with their numberless leaves, the trees which were quite shelter enough for me. If I had begun to have visions of the universal romance of youth, my thoughts were much too exalted to think of vulgar fallings in love, and though I constantly hailed as neighbors these kindly lights in the windows of the collegiate buildings, I was troubled by no thought of the young gownsmen, the possible possessors of the same; and so it came about that I went as freely to the garden of our quaint old house, overlooked by the windows of Corpus Christi College as I had been used to go in the garden of Cottiswoode, which was not overlooked by anything within a dozen miles, save the fruit trees in the orchard, and the great walnut by the house.

This was now the second summer since we came to Cambridge, and this garden was no longer the wilderness which it was when I saw it first. My father had a peculiar fancy in gardening – everything in this sunny strip of land was enclosed in a soft frame of greensward – where a path was indispensable, it was a hard, yellow sandy path that glistened in the sun, and threw off the moisture; but instead of geometrical divisions and cross-roads through our garden, you could scarcely see either gravel or soil for the velvet turf that pressed over the roots of the trees, and round the flower-beds; and for the thick and close luxuriance of the flowers that grew within. The one or two Cambridge ladies who came to see me sometimes, shook their heads at our grassy garden, and hoped I took care never to go out when the turf was damp; but, indeed, I took no such care, and was very proud of our full and verdant enclosure in comparison with other people’s flower-beds, where nothing grew so well as ours, though everything had more room to grow. On this day of which I am now speaking, the sweet greensward was warm with sunshine in every corner. It was afternoon, and the streets were sultry, the wayfarers flushed and weary, the fields parched and dry; but the sun was playing in the leaves about me, and making playful figures with his light and shadow on the grass under my feet – figures which changed and varied with sweet caprice as the wind swayed the leaves about, and as the sun stole by invisible degrees towards the west – and everything was fresh and sweet and full of fragrance in this charmed country of mine. I was within the little fanciful greenhouse which was no less a bower for me, than a shelter for the rarer flowers, and I was busy about some of my favorites, which I used to care for with great devotion by fits, making up for it by such negligence at other times, that this pretty place would soon have been a very woeful one had it been left to me. Just on the threshold of this green-house door, was the stool on which I had been sitting, with a piece of embroidery at which I had been working thrown down upon it, and beyond that, on the grass, was a book which I had not been reading; for it was not in my girlish, impatient nature to dally with anything readable – I either devoured it, or I let it alone. I was busy among the plants, and so enclosed by them that I was not visible from the garden – but at this moment I was not aware of that.

I did not hear their footsteps upon the soft grass, but I heard the voices of my father and his friend, Mr. Osborne, a fellow of Corpus, who visited us constantly, and always seemed in my father’s confidence. They came to the green-house door and lingered there, and Mr. Osborne stood before the door, with his gown streaming and rustling behind him, effectually concealing me if I had not been concealed already. I had no reason to suppose that their talk concerned me; nor was I much interested to listen to it. I went on with my occupation, plunging some slips of favorite plants into little pots of rich vegetable mould, and singing to myself half under my breath. I was quite unsuspicious and so were they.

“No,” said my father, “Hester does not know of it. Hester is a girl, Osborne – I have no desire to make a woman of her before her time.”

“Yet girls find out for themselves what interest they have in these matters,” said Mr. Osborne, in his quiet, half sarcastic tone, “and have speculations in those quiet eyes of theirs, whether we will or no, my friend.”

“There are few girls like Hester,” said my father, proudly; “pardon me, Osborne, but you have no child – I want to preserve her as she is – why should I bring a disturbing element into our peaceful life?”

“Why? do you think your little girl is safely through her probation, when she has had the measles and the hooping-cough?” said Mr. Osborne, laughing. “Nonsense, man – d’ye think ye save her from the epidemic of youth by shutting her up in this garden here? Take my word for it, these obnoxious things that you call the world and society, are much better preventives than this leisure and solitude. Why look at these windows, and be a sensible man, Southcote; d’ye think nobody in Corpus but an old fellow like me has seen your Proserpine among the flowers? How old is the child? tell me that, and I will tell you how soon there will be moonlight meditations, and breaking hearts, disturbing your peaceful life for you. Hester is a very good girl – of course, she is – but what is that to the question, I should be glad to know?”

I was very indignant by this time. I had very nearly caught his streaming gown, and shaken it with vehement displeasure, but, withal, I was very curious to know what was the origin of this conversation, and I subsided into a perfect guilty silence, and listened with all my might.

“You do not understand Hester, Osborne,” said my father.

“Granted,” said his friend, quickly, “and perhaps the young lady is not quite an orthodox subject of study, I allow you; but pray what do you intend to do with her? is she to live in this garden for ever, like that fantastic boy’s lady of Shalott?”

My father paused and I listened eagerly. It was some time before he answered, and there was hesitation in his usually firm tones.

“Life has deluded me ,” he said, slowly. “I am at a loss to know how to guard Hester, that it may not delude her also.”

“Southcote,” said his companion, earnestly, “listen to me a moment. Life deludes no man. You are a self-devourer. You have deluded yourself; nay, take offence and, of course, I have done at once. I do not know the innocent mind of a young girl, very true; but I know that imagination is the very breath of youth – it must look forward, and it must dream – what is Hester to dream about, think you? not of the triumph of an examination, I suppose, nor of going in for honors; you have not even tried to kill the woman in her, and make her a scholar. The child is shamefully ignorant, Southcote. Why here’s this feminine rubbish lying under my very feet – look here!” and he pulled up my mangled embroidery. “I should not be surprised now if it pleased your fancy to see her bending her pretty head over this stuff – what’s she thinking of all this time, my friend? Nothing, eh? or only how to arrange the stitches, and make one little turn the same as another? I’ll trust Hester for that.”

There was another pause, and there he stood turning over my work, and I not able to rush forward and snatch it out of his hand. My cheeks burned with shame and anger – how dared any man discuss my thoughts and fancies so!

“Well, here is the real matter,” said my father, slowly; “Edgar Southcote, it appears, is eighteen – two years older than my Hester, and old enough, he thinks, as he tells me, to decide upon the most important event of his life for himself – so he sends me a formal proposal for the hand of his cousin. My difficulty is not whether to accept the proposal – you understand that, Osborne – but whether, before giving it a peremptory and decided negative, I ought to make it known to Hester?”