DOI article:
D'Arcy, Ella: A marriage
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.38746#0316
312
A Marriage
Some of his arguments in favour of the marriage—and he
required many arguments to outweigh his consciousness of the
mesalliance—were that, for all practical purposes, he was as good
as married already. He could never give Nettie up ; he must
always provide for her and the child as long as he lived. And his
present mode of life was full of inconveniences. He was living at
Teddington under an assumed name, and it is not at all pleasant
to live under an assumed name. At any moment one may be
discovered, and an awkward situation may result.
These were some of his arguments. But then, too, he had
developed the domestic affections to a surprising degree, and if his
first passion for Nettie were somewhat assuaged, he had a much
more tender feeling for her now than in the beginning. And he
was devoted to his little daughter ; a devotion which a few months
ago he would have sworn he was incapable of feeling for any so
uninteresting an animal as a baby. He reproached himself bitterly
for having placed her at such a disadvantage in life as illegitimacy
entails; he felt that he ought at least to give the expected child
all the rights which a legal recognition can confer.
H is chief argument, however, was that he had sinned, and that
in marriage lay the only reparation ; and let a man persuade him-
self that a certain course of action is the one righteous, the one
honourable course to take—more particularly if it jumps with his
own private inclinations—and nothing can deter him from it.
“Not even French proverbs,” laughed West into his beard.
“ Come down and see her,” Catterson urged, and West, moved
by a natural curiosity, as well as by a desire to oblige his friend,
agreed to meet him that evening at Waterloo, that they might
go down together.
His soul being eased through confession, Catterson regained at
once the buoyant good spirits which were natural to him, but
which,
A Marriage
Some of his arguments in favour of the marriage—and he
required many arguments to outweigh his consciousness of the
mesalliance—were that, for all practical purposes, he was as good
as married already. He could never give Nettie up ; he must
always provide for her and the child as long as he lived. And his
present mode of life was full of inconveniences. He was living at
Teddington under an assumed name, and it is not at all pleasant
to live under an assumed name. At any moment one may be
discovered, and an awkward situation may result.
These were some of his arguments. But then, too, he had
developed the domestic affections to a surprising degree, and if his
first passion for Nettie were somewhat assuaged, he had a much
more tender feeling for her now than in the beginning. And he
was devoted to his little daughter ; a devotion which a few months
ago he would have sworn he was incapable of feeling for any so
uninteresting an animal as a baby. He reproached himself bitterly
for having placed her at such a disadvantage in life as illegitimacy
entails; he felt that he ought at least to give the expected child
all the rights which a legal recognition can confer.
H is chief argument, however, was that he had sinned, and that
in marriage lay the only reparation ; and let a man persuade him-
self that a certain course of action is the one righteous, the one
honourable course to take—more particularly if it jumps with his
own private inclinations—and nothing can deter him from it.
“Not even French proverbs,” laughed West into his beard.
“ Come down and see her,” Catterson urged, and West, moved
by a natural curiosity, as well as by a desire to oblige his friend,
agreed to meet him that evening at Waterloo, that they might
go down together.
His soul being eased through confession, Catterson regained at
once the buoyant good spirits which were natural to him, but
which,