Having to Bear Things

Here’s another delightful quote from Elizabeth von Arnim. A habitually sickly woman is entertaining the 60-year-old fiancé of her very young daughter called Judith. The fiancé is a Master of an Oxford college, which explains why the parents consented to the marriage with this age difference:

The Master had been very exuberant; and his vitality, delightful of course but just a little overwhelming at his age, had reminded her that she needed care. How difficult it had been to get him out into the garden, to somewhere where she wasn’t. She hadn’t got him there till half-past two, by which time he had been vital without stopping since twelve, and even then she had had to invent a pear-tree in full blossom that she wasn’t at all sure about, and tell him she had heard it was a wonderful sight and ought not to be missed. But how difficult it had been. Judith had not seemed to want to show him the pear-tree, and he would not go and look at it unless she went, too. Judith had gone at last, but with an expression on her face as though she thought she was going to have to bear things, and no girl should show a thought like that before marriage

The Pastor’s Wife

I will never forget this “expression as though she thought she was going to have to bear things”. Don’t we all have such an expression sometimes, and isn’t this beautifully said?