The Devil's Spectacles
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II MEMOIRS OF MYSELF
Who were the two ladies?
They were both young and unmarried. As a matter of delicacy, I ask permission to mention them by their Christian names only. Zilla, aged seventeen. Cecilia, aged two and twenty.And what was my position between them?I was the same age as Cecilia. She was my mother’s companion and reader; handsome, well-born and poor. I had made her a proposal, and had been accepted. There were no money difficulties in the way of our marriage, in spite of my sweetheart’s empty purse. I was an only child, and I had inherited, excepting my mother’s jointure, the whole of the large property that my father left at his death. In social rank Cecilia was more than my equal; we were therefore not ill-matched from the worldly point of view. Nevertheless, there was an obstacle to our union, and a person interested in making the most of it. The obstacle was Zilla. The person interested was my mother. Zilla was her niece—her elder brother’s daughter. The girl’s parents had died in India, and she had been sent to school in England, under the care of her uncle and guardian. I had never seen her, and had hardly heard of her, until there was a question of her spending the Christmas holidays (in the year when Septimus Notman died) at our house.
‘Her uncle has no objection,’ my mother said; ‘and I shall be more than glad to see her. A most interesting creature, as I hear. So lovely, and so good, that they call her Thenbsp;Angel, at school. I say nothing about her nice little fortune or the high military rank that her poor father possessed. You don’t care for these things. But, oh, Alfred, it would make me so happy if you fell in love with Zilla and married her!’
Three days before, I had made my proposal to Cecilia, and had been accepted—subject to my mother’s approval. I thought this a good opportunity of stating my case plainly; and I spoke out. Never before had I seen my mother so outraged and disappointed—enraged with Cecilia; disappointed with me.
“A woman without a farthing of a dowry; a woman who was as old as I was; a woman who had taken advantage of her position in the house to mislead and delude me!’ and so on.
Cecilia would certainly have been sent away if I had not declared that I should feel it my duty, in that event, to marry her immediately. My mother knew my temper, and refrained from giving Cecilia any cause of offence. Cecilia, on her side, showed what is called a proper pride; she declined to become my wife until my mother approved of her. She considered herself to be a martyr; and I considered myself to be an abominably treated man. Between us, I am afraid we made our good mother’s life unendurable—she was obliged to be the first who gave way. It was understood that we were to be married in the spring. It was also understood that Zilla was bitterly disappointed at having her holiday visit to us put off. ‘She was so anxious to see you, poor child,’ my mother said to me; ‘but I really daren’t ask her here under present circumstances. She is so fresh, so innocent, so infinitely superior in personal attractions to Cecilia, that I don’t know what might happen if you saw her now. You are the soul of honour, Alfred; but you and Zilla had better remain strangers to each other—you might repent your rash engagement.’ After this, it is needless to say that I was dying to see Zilla; while, at the same time, I never for an instant swerved from my fidelity to Cecilia.
Such was my position, on the memorable day when Septimus Notman died, leaving me possessor of the Devil’s Spectacles.
