Edmund Bertram's Diary

‘I — I come from your father with a commission,’ I said. ‘If you please, we will sit down.’ I looked about me for a chair. I found one and Mary found another. We both sat down, I nervously, and Mary very elegantly, arranging her skirts graceful y about her. ‘Count Cassel is arrived.’

‘Yes, I know,’ she said.

‘And do you know for what reason?’

She looked at me with liquid eyes; eyes that were as transparent as the sunlight.

‘He wishes to marry me,’ she said.

I could not blame him. At that moment, I believe any man alive would have wished to marry her.

‘Does he?’ Fanny prompted me, when I did not speak.

‘Does he?’ I asked hastily. ‘But believe me, your father... the Baron will not persuade you. No, I am sure he will not.’

‘I know that,’ she said, with downcast eyes.

‘He wishes that I should ascertain whether you have an inclination—’

‘For the Count, or for matrimony do you mean?’

‘For matrimony,’ I said, finding myself growing hot, and, glancing at the grate, being surprised to see that there was no fire.

‘Al things...’ whispered Fanny.

‘Thank you, Fanny,’ said Mary, then continued with her lines. ‘Al things that I don’t know, and don’t understand, are quite indifferent to me.’

‘For that very reason I am sent to you to explain the good and the bad of which matrimony is composed.’

As I said it, I found my eyes meeting hers, and something passed between us.

‘Then... then I beg first to be acquainted with the good,’ she said.

‘When two sympathetic hearts...’ I swallowed. ‘When two sympathetic hearts meet in the marriage state, matrimony may be cal ed a happy life. When such a wedded pair find thorns in their path, each will be eager, for the sake of the other, to tear them from the root. Where they have to mount hill s, or wind a labyrinth, the most experienced will lead the way, and be a guide to his companion. Patience and love will accompany them in their journey, while melancholy and discord they leave far behind. Hand in hand they pass on from morning till evening, through their summer’s day, till the night of age draws on, and the sleep of death overtakes the one. The other, weeping and mourning, yet looks forward to the bright region where he shall meet his still surviving partner, among trees and flowers which themselves have planted, in fields of eternal verdure.’

She looked deep into my eyes and said, ‘You may tel my father — I’ll marry.’

She rose from her chair and I wondered if her look, her tone and her meaning could be for me. Would she marry me?

I wished there was no more to be said, but Fanny, faithful prompter that she was, reminded me of my next line.

‘This picture is pleasing,’ I said, ‘but I must beg you not to forget that there is another on the same subject. When convenience, and fair appearance joined to fol y and ill -humor, forge the fetters of matrimony, they gal with their weight the married pair.’

‘Discontented...’ said Fanny.

‘Discontented with each other,’ I went on, ‘at variance in opinions — their mutual aversion increases with the years they live together. They contend most, where they should most unite; torment, where they should most soothe. In this rugged way, choked with the weeds of suspicion, jealousy, anger, and hatred, they take their daily journey, till one of these also sleep in death. The other then lifts up his dejected head, and cal s out in acclamations of joy — Oh, liberty! dear liberty!’

Mary’s face had fall en, and there seemed something more in her look than could be explained by the play. There was something in her eye that reminded me of a caged bird.

‘I will not marry,’ she said.

‘You mean to say, you will not fall in love,’ I said, moving closer to her.

‘Oh no!’ She looked abashed, then said with great sweetness and simplicity, ‘I am in love.’

‘Are in love!’ How I wished it could be so.

‘And with...’ Fanny said.

‘And with the Count? ’ I asked.

‘I wish I was.’

‘Why so? ’ I asked her tenderly.

‘Because he would, perhaps, love me again.’

‘Who is there that would not? ’ I asked, bending closer.

She leaned in towards me and said, ‘Would you? ’

I forgot my lines, and fell silent.

‘Ay, I see how it is,’ she went on. ‘You have no inclination to experience with me “the good part of matrimony”: I am not the female with whom you would like to go “hand in hand up hill s, and through labyrinths”; with whom you would like to “root up thorns; and with whom you would delight to plant lilies and roses.” No, you had rather cal out, “O liberty, dear liberty.” ’

‘Why do you force from me, what it is villainous to own?’ I cried. ‘I love you more than life. Oh, Amelia! had we lived in those golden times, which the poet’s picture, no one but you.’

No one but you. That is what I thought as I looked at her, with her eyes so bright. No one but you.

She seemed to feel it, too, for she could not go on until Fanny prompted her, and then made but an indifferent effort at the rest of the scene. My own efforts were no better, for I could think only, No one but you.