Was It Right to Forgive? A Domestic Romance

“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.”