Doomed Romance by Christine Leigh Heyrman

Author:Christine Leigh Heyrman [Heyrman, Christine Leigh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2021-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

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So many devils beset Elnathan Gridley. There was his disgust at how cavalierly Jeremiah Evarts had delivered the board’s decision, telling him that “I might feel myself free.” Free from his engagement, the lawyer meant, as if Elnathan wished to be rid of the woman he loved. There was his shock and hurt at learning that Martha had resigned from the board’s service—that the committee had simply consented to her request. How could she have given up their dreams? There was his jealousy, already aroused by Thomas’s revelations and now deepened at what the committee called her “indecision of character.” This fig leaf of language made it all the worse, a studied vagueness meant to conceal that Martha had kept two lovers in play, gaming to cheat spinsterhood. It enraged him, having to “relinquish his claim” to so inferior a rival, and that loss only strengthened the passion he felt for her.

Writing to Martha about a week after the Prudential Committee’s decision, Elnathan admitted that the whole episode had been “painful in the extreme” because “no one ever did, probably no one ever will, have that place in my affections which you have had, and which you seem likely to retain.” Nonetheless, he knew that she could “never be made happy by all the kind attentions, which the love of one detained on her account from Missionary service could bestow.” At first glance, that line reads like a compliment to Martha’s devotion: conscience could not allow her to cheat all those heathen souls of Elnathan’s ministry. On second reading, it sounds like more of a kiss-off: Don’t expect me to stay home in order to marry you. But the third time through, yet another meaning emerges: he was telling her that he knew that her interest in marrying him had depended on their going abroad together. If that made her the model of a self-denying Christian, it also made him less than the love of her life.

Miserable as he was, Elnathan acquitted himself as he believed a Christian gentleman should. He was generous, telling Martha that Thomas loved her and adding—perhaps a barb lurked here—that she would reciprocate the schoolmaster’s affection. After formally releasing her from their engagement and bidding her an “affectionate farewell,” he added almost playfully, “And now Miss Parker, permit me as a friend to have a little friendly conversation with you, and to request you hereafter to favor me occasionally with a friendly letter.” He assured her that “my estimate of your character is lessened little, if any, by all that has been disclosed.” He repaid her many falsehoods by insisting that he found nothing in her behavior that “looks like lying or deceiving.” He encouraged her to take heart and strove to restore her confidence. “Your character is not lost,” he felt certain, and in his estimate she would always be a remarkable woman. “Few indeed, can fill the place which you are capable of filling,” he reminded her, and because of

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