’Soone as the Elfin knight in presence came
And false Duessa, seeming ladye fayre,
A gentle husher, Vanitie by name,
Made roome, and passage did for them prepare.’
Spenser.
The two families were supposed to continue on unbroken
terms of friendship, and we men did so; but Mrs.
Fordyce told my mother that she had disapproved of
the probation, and Mrs. Winslow was hurt. Though
the two girls were allowed to be together as usual,
it was on condition of silence about Griff; and though,
as Emily said, they really had not been always talking
about him in former times, the prohibition seemed
to weigh upon all they said.
Old Mr. Fordyce had long been talking of a round of
visits among relations whom he had not seen for many
years; and it was decided to send Ellen with him,
chiefly, no doubt, to prevent difficulties about
Griffith in the long vacation.
There was no embargo on the correspondence with my
sister, and letters full of description came regularly,
but how unlike they were to our journal. They
were clear, intelligent, with a certain liveliness,
but no ring of youthful joy, no echo of the heart,
always as if under restraint. Griff was much
disappointed. He had been on his good behaviour
for two months, and expected his reward, and I could
not here repeat all that he said about her parents
when he found she was absent. Yet, after all,
he got more pity and sympathy from Parson Frank than
from any one else. That good man actually sent
a message for him, when Emily was on honour to do no
such thing. Poor Emily suffered much in consequence,
when she would neither afford Griff a blank corner
of her paper, nor write even a veiled message; while
as to the letters she received and gave to him, ‘what
was the use,’ he said, ’of giving him what
might have been read aloud by the town-crier?’
’You don’t understand, Griff; it is all
dear Ellen’s conscientiousness—’
‘Oh, deliver me from such con-sci-en-tious-ness,’
he answered, in a tone of bitter mimicry, and flung
out of the room leaving Emily in tears.
He could not appreciate the nobleness of Ellen’s
self-command and the obedience which was the security
of future happiness, but was hurt at what he thought
weak alienation. One note of sympathy would
have done much for Griff just then. I have often
thought it over since, and come to the conclusion
that Mrs. Fordyce was justified in the entire separation
she brought about. No one can judge of the
strength with which ‘true love’ has mastered
any individual, nor how far change may be possible;
and, on the other hand, unless there were full appreciation
of Ellen’s character, she might only have been
looked on as —
’Puppet to a father’s threat,
Servile to a shrewish tongue.’
Yet, after all, Frank Fordyce was very kind to Griff,
making himself as much of a medium of communication
as he could consistently with his conscience, but
of course not satisfying one who believed that the
strength of love was to be proved not by obedience
but disobedience.
