“i cannot answer such a question on the sudden,” she said. “give me till to-morrow, herbert, and then i will make you a reply;” whereupon she left him, and he stood alone in the room, having done the deed on which he had been meditating for the last two years. about half an hour afterwards he met her on the stairs as he was going to his chamber. “may i speak to your father about this,” he said, hardly stopping her as he asked the question. “oh yes; surely,” she answered; and then again they parted. to him this last-accorded permission sounded as though it carried with it more weight than it in truth possessed. in his own country a reference to the lady’s father is taken as indicating a full consent on the lady’s part, should the stern paterfamilias raise no objection. but isa had no such meaning. she had told him that she could not give her answer till the morrow. if, however, he chose to consult her father on the subject, she had no objection. it would probably be necessary that she should discuss the whole matter in family conclave, before she could bring herself to give any reply.
on that night, before he went to bed, he did speak to her father; and isa also, before she went to rest, spoke to her mother. it was singular to him that there should appear to be so little privacy on the subject; that there should be held to be so little necessity for a secret. had he made a suggestion that an extra room should be allotted to him at so much per annum, the proposition could not have been discussed with simpler ease. at last, after a three days’ debate, the matter ended thus,—with by no means a sufficiency of romance for his taste. isa had agreed to become his betrothed if certain pecuniary conditions should or could be fulfilled. it appeared now that herbert’s father had promised that some small modicum of capital should be forthcoming after a term of years, and that heine brothers had agreed that the englishman should have a proportionate share in the bank when that promise should be brought to bear. let it not be supposed that herbert would thus become a millionaire. if all went well, the best would be that some three hundred a year would accrue to him from the bank, instead of the quarter of that income which he at present received. but three hundred a year goes a long way at munich, and isa’s parents were willing that she should be herbert’s wife if such an income should be forthcoming.
but even of this there was much doubt. application to herbert’s father could not be judiciously made for some months. the earliest period at which, in accordance with old hatto heine’s agreement, young onslow might be admitted to the bank, was still distant by four years; and the present moment was thought to be inopportune for applying to him for any act of grace. let them wait, said papa and mamma heine,—at any rate till new year’s day, then ten months distant. isa quietly said that she would wait till new year’s day. herbert fretted, fumed, and declared that he was ill-treated. but in the end he also agreed to wait. what else could he do?
“but we shall see each other daily, and be close to each other,” he said to isa, looking tenderly into her eyes. “yes,” she replied, “we shall see each other daily—of course. but, herbert—”
herbert looked up at her and paused for her to go on.
“i have promised mamma that there shall be no change between us,—in our manner to each other, i mean. we are not betrothed as yet, you know, and perhaps we may never be so.”
“isa!”
“it may not be possible, you know. and therefore we will go on as before. of course we shall see each other, and of course we shall be friends.”
herbert onslow again fretted and again fumed, but he did not have his way. he had looked forward to the ecstasies of a lover’s life, but very few of those ecstasies were awarded to him. he rarely found himself alone with isa, and when he did do so, her coldness overawed him. he could dare to scold her and sometimes did do so, but he could not dare to take the slightest liberty. once, on that night when the qualified consent of papa and mamma heine had first been given, he had been allowed to touch her lips with his own; but since that day there had been for him no such delight as that. she would not even allow her hand to remain in his. when they all passed their evenings together in the beer-garden, she would studiously manage that his chair should not be close to her own. occasionally she would walk with him, but not more frequently now than of yore. very few, indeed, of a lover’s privileges did he enjoy. and in this way the long year wore itself out, and isa heine was one-and-twenty.
all those family details which had made it inexpedient to apply either to old hatto or to herbert’s father before the end of the year need not be specially explained. old hatto, who had by far the greater share in the business, was a tyrant somewhat feared both by his brother and sister-in-law; and the elder onslow, as was known to them all, was a man straitened in circumstances. but soon after new year’s day the proposition was made in the schrannen platz, and the letter was written. on this occasion madame heine went down to the bank, and together with her husband, was closeted for an hour with old hatto. uncle hatto’s verdict was not favourable. as to the young people’s marriage, that was his brother’s affair, not his. but as to the partnership, that was a serious matter. who ever heard of a partnership being given away merely because a man wanted to marry? he would keep to his promise, and if the stipulated moneys were forthcoming, herbert onslow should become a partner,—in four years. nor was the reply from england more favourable. the alliance was regarded by all the onslows very favourably. nothing could be nicer than such a marriage! they already knew dear isa so well by description! but as for the money,—that could not in any way be forthcoming till the end of the stipulated period.
“and what shall we do?” said herbert to papa heine.
“you must wait,” said he.
“for four years?” asked herbert.
“you must wait,—as i did,” said papa heine. “i was forty before i could marry.” papa heine, however, should not have forgotten to say that his bride was only twenty, and that if he had waited, she had not.
“isa,” herbert said to her, when all this had been fully explained to her, “what do you say now?”
“of course it is all over,” said she, very calmly.
“oh, isa, is that your love?”
“no, herbert, that is not my love; that is my discretion;” and she even laughed with her mild low laughter, as she answered him. “you know you are too impatient to wait four years, and what else therefore can i say?”
“i wonder whether you love me?” said herbert, with a grand look of injured sentiment.
“well; in your sense of the word i do not think i do. i do not love you so that i need make every one around us unhappy because circumstances forbid me to marry you. that sort of love would be baneful.”
“ah no, you do not know what love means!”
“not your boisterous, heartbreaking english love, herbert. and, herbert, sometimes i think you had better go home and look for a bride there. though you fancy that you love me, in your heart you hardly approve of me.”
“fancy that i love you! do you think, isa, that a man can carry his heart round to one customer after another as the huckster carries his wares?”
“yes; i think he can. i know that men do. what did your hero waverley do with his heart in that grand english novel which you gave me to read? i am not flora mac ivor, but you may find a rose bradwardine.”
“and you really wish me to do so?”
“look here, herbert. it is bad to boast, but i will make this boast. i am so little selfish, that i desire above all that you should do that which may make you most happy and contented. i will be quite frank with you. i love you well enough to wait these four years with the hope of becoming your wife when they are over. but you will think but little of my love when i tell you that this waiting would not make me unhappy. i should go on as i do now, and be contented.”
“oh heavens!” sighed herbert.
“but as i know that this would not suit you,—as i feel sure that such delay would gall you every day, as i doubt whether it would not make you sick of me long before the four years be over,—my advice is, that we should let this matter drop.”
he now walked up to her and took her hand, and as he did so there was something in his gait and look and tone of voice that stirred her heart more sharply than it had yet been stirred. “and even that would not make you unhappy,” he said.
she paused before she replied, leaving her hand in his, for he was contented to hold it without peculiar pressure. “i will not say so,” she replied. “but, herbert, i think that you press me too hard. is it not enough that i leave you to be the arbiter of my destiny?”
“i would learn the very truth of your heart,” he replied.
“i cannot tell you that truth more plainly. methinks i have told it too plainly already. if you wish it, i will hold myself as engaged to you,—to be married to you when those four years are past. but, remember, i do not advise it. if you wish it, you shall have back your troth. and that i think will be the wiser course.”
but neither alternative contented herbert onslow, and at the time he did not resolve on either. he had some little present income from home, some fifty pounds a year or so, and he would be satisfied to marry on that and on his salary as a clerk; but to this papa and mamma heine would not consent;—neither would isa.
“you are not a saving, close man,” she said to him when he boasted of his economies. “no englishmen are. you could not live comfortably in two small rooms, and with bad dinners.”
“i do not care a straw about my dinners.”
“not now that you are a lover, but you would do when you were a husband. and you change your linen almost every day.”
“bah!”
“yes; bah, if you please. but i know what these things cost. you had better go to england and fetch a rich wife. then you will become a partner at once, and uncle hatto won’t snub you. and you will be a grand man, and have a horse to ride on.” whereupon herbert went away in disgust. nothing in all this made him so unhappy as the feeling that isa, under all their joint privations, would not be unhappy herself. as far as he could see, all this made no difference in isa.
but, in truth, he had not yet read isa’s character very thoroughly. she had spoken truly in saying that she knew nothing of that boisterous love which was now tormenting him and making him gloomy; but nevertheless she loved him. she, in her short life, had learnt many lessons of self-denial; and now with reference to this half-promised husband she would again have practised such a lesson. had he agreed at once to go from her, she would have balanced her own account within her own breast, and have kept to herself all her sufferings. there would have been no outward show of baffled love,—none even in the colour of her cheeks; for such was the nature of her temperament. but she did suffer for him. day by day she began to think that his love, though boisterous as she had at first called it, was more deep-seated than she had believed. he made no slightest sign that he would accept any of those proffers which she had made him of release. though he said so loudly that this waiting for four years was an impossibility, he spoke of no course that would be more possible,—except that evidently impossible course of an early marriage. and thus, while he with redoubled vehemence charged her with coolness and want of love, her love waxed warmer and warmer, and his happiness became the chief object of her thoughts. what could she do that he might no longer suffer?
and then he took a step which was very strange to them all. he banished himself altogether from the house, going away again into lodgings. “no,” he said, on the morning of his departure, “i do not release you. i will never release you. you are mine, and i have a right so to call you. if you choose to release yourself, i cannot help it; but in doing so you will be forsworn.”
“nay, but, herbert, i have sworn to nothing,” said she, meaning that she had not been formally betrothed to him.
“you can do as you please; it is a matter of conscience; but i tell you what are my feelings. here i cannot stay, for i should go mad; but i shall see you occasionally;—perhaps on sundays.”
“oh, herbert!”
“well, what would you have? if you really cared to see me it would not be thus. all i ask of you now is this, that if you decide,—absolutely decide on throwing me over, you will tell me at once. then i shall leave munich.”
“herbert, i will never throw you over.” so they parted, and onslow went forth to his new lodgings.
her promise that she would never throw him over was the warmest word of love that she had ever spoken, but even that was said in her own quiet, unimpassioned way. there was in it but very little show of love, though there might be an assurance of constancy. but her constancy he did not, in truth, much doubt. four years,—fourteen,—or twenty-four, would be the same to her, he said, as he seated himself in the dull, cold room which he had chosen. while living in the ludwigs strasse he did not know how much had been daily done for his comfort by that hand which he had been so seldom allowed to press; but he knew that he was now cold and comfortless, and he wished himself back in the ludwigs strasse.
“mamma,” said isa, when they were alone. “is not uncle hatto rather hard on us? papa said that he would ask this as a favour from his brother.”
“so he did, my dear; and offered to give up more of his own time. but your uncle hatto is hard.”
“he is rich, is he not?”
“well; your father says not. your father says that he spends all his income. though he is hard and obstinate, he is not selfish. he is very good to the poor, but i believe he thinks that early marriages are very foolish.”
“mamma,” said isa again, when they had sat for some minutes in silence over their work.
“well, my love?”
“have you spoken to uncle hatto about this?”
“no, dear; not since that day when your papa and i first went to him. to tell the truth, i am almost afraid to speak to him; but, if you wish it, i will do so.”
“i do wish it, mamma. but you must not think that i am discontented or impatient. i do not know that i have any right to ask my uncle for his money;—for it comes to that.”
“i suppose it does, my dear.”
“and as for myself, i am happy here with you and papa. i do not think so much of these four years.”
“you would still be young, isa;—quite young enough.”
