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Title: Five years of youth
or, sense and sentiment
Author: Harriet Martineau
Release Date: July 9, 2023 [eBook #71156]
Language: English
Credits: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH ***
FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH.
[Illustration: _Page 2_]
[Illustration: _Page 35_]
_London. Published by Harvey & Darton, 1831._
FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH;
OR,
SENSE AND SENTIMENT.
BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.
London:
PRINTED FOR HARVEY AND DARTON,
GRACECHURCH STREET.
1831.
PRINTED BY JOSEPH RICKERBY,
SHERBOURN LANE.
PREFACE.
It is undoubtedly true, that, as a general rule, tales which are
intended for the use of young persons, should contain delineations of
character as formed by ordinary influences, and a picture of
circumstances which are not uncommon. It is desirable, however,
occasionally to represent the developement of virtues of every-day use,
(and therefore of the highest value,) by peculiar influences, as well as
the extraordinary beauties of character which may be made to grow out of
the common experience of life; since there are always some who are
remarkably placed, and, alas! very many who appear to suppose that, in
common circumstances, they may be content with a common character. It is
possible that, in reading books like the following, not only motherless
daughters may be interested by a narrative which comes home to their
feelings; but that some who have mothers may be roused to such
reflection, to such comparison of their own situation and character with
those of others, as may be of no little benefit to their affections.
Such, at least, is the effect of the comparison in actual life, of which
it is the highest ambition of this little work to be a faithful
transcript.
_Norwich, 1830._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Page
THE SISTERS AT HOME 1
CHAPTER II.
PREPARATION 22
CHAPTER III.
ARRIVALS 41
CHAPTER IV.
PLEASURE OR PAIN? 57
CHAPTER V.
FRIENDSHIP NOT ALWAYS BLISS 80
CHAPTER VI.
DEPARTURES 108
CHAPTER VII.
LONDON 131
CHAPTER VIII.
PROFITABLE PLEASURE 155
CHAPTER IX.
THE CONVENT 176
CHAPTER X.
SENSIBILITY WITHOUT SENSE 204
CHAPTER XI.
A NEW ABODE 217
CHAPTER XII.
SENSE WITH SENSIBILITY 252
FIVE YEARS OF YOUTH.
CHAPTER I.
The Sisters at Home.
Near the small town of A——, distant thirty miles from London, stood a
farm-house, surrounded by a few acres of well-cultivated ground. There
was a green before the door; and in the midst of the green stood an old
elm, and under the elm was a pump. There was a sort of basin under the
pump, and there were gathered together the goslings as soon as hatched,
leaving the large pond in the farm-yard for the use of the ducks and
ducklings, and the larger birds of their own race. There were hen-coops
placed on the grass, which were furnished with an abundant population;
and there was a constant fluttering of wings about the pigeon-house,
where the old ones of the flock would perch at one of the entrance
holes, and glance up and down and around, perching their heads, and
making their beautiful necks glitter in the sunshine with twenty
different colours. At a little distance was a rookery, a scene of
incessant activity, as the eyes and ears of all who were within hearing
could testify. The farmer’s children were generally in the farm-yard,
seeing the cows milked, or playing duck-and-drake on the pond; and the
boys followed the team with their father, or went into the field with
old Robin, the hedger and ditcher, trying to help him with their little
spades and wheelbarrow; while the girls fed the chickens, or stole into
the dairy behind their mother.
It sometimes happened, that two little girls, who were evidently not of
Farmer Rickham’s family, were seen playing with the children on the
green. From their dress alone, no one would have supposed them to be
young ladies; but their manners and conversation proved them to be, in
some respects, well educated. All strangers who saw them looked again,
wondering who could have the care of them, and what sort of management
they had been subjected to. Their frocks, made sometimes of silk, and
sometimes of calico, as it might happen, were generally torn, and always
dirty; their shoes were all, from the sky-blue kid to the coarse black
leather, down at the heel, so as to display a large round hole in the
stocking. If Mary had a silk bonnet, and Anna a straw, the one was used
as a cradle for the kitten, and the other as a basket to hold
strawberries. Of course, all this inspired a stranger with disgust; but
if occasion led him to speak to either sister, he was favourably
impressed by the modesty of manner, and simplicity of speech, by which
they were distinguished from many young persons more fortunate in their
external appearance. They were the only children of Mr. Byerley, who
lived at A——.
One fine May morning they went, as they often did, to see Nurse Rickham,
as they called the farmer’s wife. While Mary was looking for eggs among
the nettles, Anna amused herself with helping nurse to get dinner ready.
When she came up from the potatoe hole with her apron full of potatoes,
(for nurse had insisted on tying on an apron,) she stood in the middle
of the kitchen for a minute or two, looking closely at Mrs. Rickham’s
gown. Mrs. Rickham turned round surprise.
“I never saw you in this gown before, nurse,” said Anna.
“’Tis a very old gown, Miss Anna; I’ve worn it this many a year.” And
nurse coloured, and looked uncomfortable.
“I have seen it before, I am sure, nurse; though not on you; and yet I
thought it had been blue. I don’t remember mamma in any thing green. Was
it not mamma’s?”
“My dear, it was. But who could have thought of your remembering that,
so many years as it was ago? I have always kept it out of your sister’s
sight, because she, being older, might perhaps remember it; but to-day
you took me by surprise with it on, and I persuaded myself there was no
need to change it.”
“No need at all, nurse; but I should just like to see if Mary would know
it again.”
When Mary was called in, she did not remember having ever seen the gown
before.
“Well, how odd that is!” said Mrs. Rickham, “that Miss Anna should
remember better than you do, when she was only three years old when my
mistress died, and you were five.”
“Oh! but I remember many things that Anna cannot,” said Mary: “I
remember my coming to stay here when papa and mamma went to London. How
long ago is that, nurse?”
“Let me see: my mistress died seven years ago, and she went to London
every year for three years before she died, and it was the first visit
when you came to me, the year Miss Anna was born. My dear, you can’t
possibly remember so long ago as ten years, when you could only just go
alone.”
“Oh! but I do,” said Mary; “and it is just the trying to run about the
green by myself that I remember. You had a wooden step at the door then;
and I used to take fast hold of the door-post, and put down first one
foot and then the other; and when I could not reach the ground, I sat
down on the step and slid, so that I fell softly on my hands and knees.”
“Bless the child!” cried the nurse; “’tis all true; but what can make
you remember it?”
“Ah! that I don’t know; but I can tell you of some other things. Do you
remember whether I cried the first night you put me to bed?”
“Yes, Miss, you did; for I said to my husband, that you had got into a
bad habit with your new maid, of crying when you went to bed. However,
it was only for that night, I think.”
“It was because the bed creaked, and frightened me; and the feel of the
coarse sheets was not like what I had been accustomed to. And that old
elm too, how its rough bark hurt my little hands when I used to try to
get round it.”
“Well, I will never say again that children can’t remember back to two
years old,” said nurse.
“I think I could not have been older than that when I cut off the
fingers of Miss Oliver’s gloves,” said Anna. “Do you remember that,
Mary?”
Mary laughed heartily at the recollection.
“What a little rogue you looked, Anna, peeping from under the table
between the folds of the cloth; while Miss Oliver was so busy talking to
mamma about the patterns, and unrolling and drawing on her gloves in an
absent fit! And poor mamma tried to look grave, and could not, when the
fingers’ ends came through.”
“Miss Anna was always the child for fun,” said nurse.
“There was as much fright as fun in that joke, however,” said Anna.
“When I had done my cutting, I could not roll up the gloves again for a
long time; and I felt so sure of being punished, that I heartily wished
the finger tips on again. I shall never forget how glad I was to see
mamma laugh.”
Mrs. Rickham turned away and sighed, and Mary and Anna looked at one
another with sadness in their faces.
“I know, nurse,” said Mary, “that you do not like to hear us talk in
this way about mamma. But only consider how very little we remember of
her, and how trifling that little is. We only talk about it because we
would not forget even this much.”
“It is all very natural, my dears; but when I think about her, as I do
every day, and when I see how like her you are, Miss Anna especially, I
can’t help grieving when I think how much more chance there would be of
your growing up to be like her, if you could remember for yourselves
what she was.”
Here nurse Rickham stood and looked at the young ladies from head to
foot, and began to smooth down their rough hair with her hand. They knew
well enough what would come next to be anxious to make their escape; so,
to avoid a lecture on tidiness, one ran to help little Tommy to pump,
and the other to gather some flowers for papa.
Mary had not finished gathering her flowers when the farmer came in to
dinner; and when Tommy was called away from the pump to eat his
dumpling, Anna thought it time to set about the recovery of her bonnet,
which hung, out of reach, from the branches of the elm. When she had
used stick, rake, and pole to no purpose, she climbed the tree far
enough to be able to shake the bough on which the bonnet hung, and from
which it presently fell into the pool. In her haste down to snatch it
out of the water before it should be wet through, she tore her
frock-skirt almost from top to bottom.
“Mary! Mary!” cried she, running to the garden, with her dripping hat in
one hand, and the terrible rent gathered up in the other, “can you give
me some pins to make my frock tidy till we get home?”
“Tidy!” said Mary, laughing: “nurse will think it an odd sort of
tidiness; but let us see what we can do.”
“Please to wipe my bonnet then, while I pin up this great hole, and then
let us go home directly.”
When they went to bid nurse good bye, she begged them to wait a few
minutes, if they could, as she wished to walk to the town with them as
soon as her husband should have dined. This delay gave Anna an
opportunity of hanging up her bonnet and handkerchief to dry in the sun;
so she stuck them on a bush, and amused herself with watching the bees
till nurse was ready.
It appeared that her errand was to their father’s house, and her
business with the young ladies’ maid, whom she blamed for allowing them
to appear as they had come to the farm that morning. Every body in Mr.
Byerley’s house knew that Nurse Rickham was privileged to say and do
what she pleased when the young ladies were in question, and that she
was as capable as any body about them of deciding what it was proper for
them to be, and to do, and to wear. The maid therefore only justified
herself by saying, that the young ladies were more troublesome about
their things than any children she ever had to wait upon, pleasant and
good as they were in other matters; and that she thought they were
really too old to need to have a servant to tell them always what to put
on; though, to be sure, it made a great difference their having no
mother to teach them such things. Nobody knew, she said, how anxious she
was to do what was proper for them; and as a proof, she would beg Mrs.
Rickham’s opinion about some purchases she was going to make for them.
It always grieved Mrs. Rickham that Mr. Byerley should have resisted the
advice of all his friends in so important a point as the domestic
education of his children. He was known to have so strong a prejudice
against schools, that no one thought of persuading him to place his
daughters in one. Besides, his health was infirm, and his spirits
variable, so that it would have been too hard upon him to have
relinquished the society which alone could make his home cheerful to
him. It appeared to all sensible people, that the best plan would have
been to have invited some respectable elderly lady to take up her abode
with his daughters, and supply, as far as might be, that guidance which
the best of fathers cannot afford. To this plan, however, as often as
proposed, he refused to listen, declaring his determination to educate
his daughters himself, independently of all assistance but that of
masters for accomplishments.
For such a task he was well qualified by high principle and extensive
information, and by his full appreciation of what is valuable and
beautiful in female character; but he had some eccentricities which were
likely to impair the effects of his most earnest and judicious
endeavours. He was also much engaged in public life, and had therefore
less command of his time than was desirable on account of his children,
who were allowed to dispose of their leisure more freely in his absence
than was at all consistent with those habits of regular industry, which,
at their ages, (ten and twelve,) ought to have been formed and
confirmed. A great deal was accomplished by means of the close
application to which they were accustomed while pursuing their studies
in his presence; but much valuable time was wasted by bad management in
his absence.
Dinner waited long this day, as was often the case: Mr. Byerley was
engaged in his study with a gentleman, whom he was assisting to draw up
resolutions for a public meeting. When he entered the dining-room, he
saw his girls sitting close together, reading out of the same book so
intently, that they did not hear him approach. Standing behind them, and
looking over their heads, he read aloud,
“‘No fear lest dinner cool.’
Aye, that was a dinner in Eden—a dinner very unlike ours, which is
probably cold by this time. Come, come, ’tis very late.”
The girls, who had started and closed the book hastily at the sound of
his voice, ran to take their places at the table.
Mary remarked that her papa had not been out, if she might guess by his
gown and slippers being still on, as at breakfast. Anna supposed that it
was because he wore his slippers that he had startled them, though they
had been watching for him just before.
“Mary,” said Mr. Byerley, “what made you shut your book in such a hurry
when I put my head in between you?”
“I hardly know,” said Mary; “but I believe I was not quite sure whether
you wished us to read Paradise Lost yet.”
“You might have known in a moment by asking.”
“Yes; but Mr. Wilkins was with you, and I knew you were busy; and the
book was lying open, and we did not mean to read on, only we could not
help it.”
“It has done you no harm, I dare say, my dears; and if it had, it would
have been my fault for leaving such a book in your way. Would you like
to see more of it?”
“I like the little I read, papa; but I do not know how I should like the
whole.”
“The whole! I should be sorry to be obliged to read all that,” said
Anna. “I like the Arguments best. Why are they called the Arguments,
papa?”
“Because, by _Argument_, is properly meant a subject of thought. The
Argument of a poem is the subject, the story; and in Paradise Lost, and
most long poems, it is given in prose, like a table of contents.”
“I like getting at the story at once, instead of fishing it out from the
poetry.”
“If the story is all you care about, you are very right,” said her
father; “but the story is the last thing people of taste think about in
a fine poem.”
“Then Mary is a person of taste, I suppose; for she was in a great hurry
to get to the grave part.”
“If she likes the grave part, she may go to it again,” said Mr. Byerley.
“She would not like it if she did not understand it; and the more she
understands and relishes it, the more likely she is to become a woman of
taste. But I have another _argument_ to propose to you both. Bid you
ever hear me speak of Mrs. Fletcher of Southampton?”
“Yes, papa: you showed us a letter of her’s once: you remember it,
Anna.”
“About her little girl that died? O yes, I remember that letter, and I
want to see it again.”
“You shall, my dear; and you will soon see Mrs. Fletcher too. She is
coming to stay with us for a few days.”
“Any body with her, papa?”
“Yes, her husband, of course; and perhaps two of her daughters. They
come on Wednesday; so you must consult Mrs. Rickham how you are to make
room for them all, and I am sure you will try to make their visit
pleasant.”
Mary and Anna were troubled with no fears on the subject, for they were
accustomed to receive their father’s friends, and had never been
conscious of any awkwardness in doing so. If they had now any doubts, it
was about the pleasure they might have in Miss Fletcher’s society; for
they had never had any companions of their own age, or any playmates
except the farmers children.
When their father called them into his study to repeat the lessons which
had been omitted in the morning, Anna stretched herself and yawned,
preparatory to collecting her books and exercises.
“What, Anna! yawning at the very idea of being employed! Better wait
till you are tired, surely.”
“I can stretch again then, papa. I wonder whether you ever do. I never
saw you; but I suppose you are tired sometimes, like other people.”
“Very tired, my dear; and never more so than when you are rattling
nonsense, instead of opening your books. There is a time for all
things.”
It was now Anna’s time for looking grave; and she read her page of
Virgil as steadily as if she had been ten years older. Nothing was heard
in the study for the next two hours, but the single voice of the reader,
and the scratching pen of the writer. When the last school-book was
closed, the girls looked at their father. He pointed to the book-case,
where the large Bible was placed; and while Mary took it down, Anna drew
a seat to each side of her father’s large study-chair. They read and
talked, and read again, till the servant came to say that tea had been
ready some time. Anna forgot her intention of yawning again. They never
remembered having been weary of reading the Bible with their father; for
he made them understand it clearly, as far as they went: he talked and
encouraged them to talk freely on the thousand subjects which made
religion interesting; and his voice was never so soft, or his manner so
tender, as at those times.
After tea, Mary, who saw that her father was troubled with headache, as
was often the case, pointed to the field, where the evening shadows were
lengthening in the golden light of the setting sun, and asked him if a
walk would not do him good. He was too tired to go out, he said; but he
should like some music, which generally refreshed him more than any
thing. So he established himself on the sofa; and Mary, who played very
well, opened her piano, and amused him till it was quite dark. Before he
dismissed his children for the night, he called Anna to sit on the low
stool beside him.
“Our days fly away fast, Anna; do not they?”
“Yes, papa; but not so fast as I should like. I want to be older, that I
may have more of my own way.”
“You unreasonable child! People tell me I let you run wild already. What
more do you want?”
“I want to take journeys, and to leave off learning some things that are
tiresome, and to learn others that must be very entertaining; and I want
to send Farmer Rickham’s children to school, and to build an hospital
here, and several other things. What a will I would make, if I was a
woman!”
“If you had any thing to leave, I suppose you mean,” said her father,
laughing. “But, seriously, my dear, don’t you think it as well that
people should be taught to do no harm before they form grand schemes for
doing good; and that they should learn to do good in a small way, before
they form plans too large for them to manage?”
“Like Sally Benson and her bird.”
“What was that?”
“She thought she should like to help her brother’s birds in building
their nests; (you know he has three pairs, in a very large cage;) so she
got them some moss that she thought better than what he had provided,
and she went a great distance to get it; and she was a long time
searching for a plant that she was told they would like to eat; and she
watched and watched them, and was very busy trying to make them build.
But O, papa!”
“Well, what happened?”
“Why, she frightened them so with putting her fingers between the wires,
that they would not make their nests properly; and she had got the wrong
plant after all, and one of them died from eating it. And what was far
worse, she forgot, all the time, to feed her own canary; and she found
it dead at the bottom of the cage one day.”
“Aye, that is the way with young minds till they get experience; and I
am afraid it would be the way with you, if you had more of your own
will, as you say.”
“Why, papa, what harm do you think I should do?”
“Consider whether you do none already. Have you done nothing on this one
day that can be hurtful to anybody? You need not tell me, if you find
you have; but satisfy yourself—that’s all.”
“I will tell you, however, papa. I ran away when nurse was going to say
something I did not wish to hear. I saw she looked vexed, and I am
afraid little Kitty saw it too; and perhaps I have put it into her head
to do the same.”
“You must put a better behaviour into her head as soon as you can, then.
Now try and recollect if you have done any good to-day.”
Anna thought some time, and looked sad when she owned she could
recollect nothing.
“I am afraid you are hardly fit for building an hospital yet, Anna,”
said Mr. Byerley. “However, to comfort you, I can assure you that you
have done me some good to-day.”
“You mean, by making you forget your headache. But that was accident, so
it does not suit what we were talking about; but I will try to make it
better another time, for fear you should be the first person to go into
my hospital, when I build it.”
Mr. Byerley smiled as he kissed her and sent her to bed.
CHAPTER II.
Preparation.
The next morning, Mr. Byerley, who was a bad sleeper, was wakened very
early by the murmur of voices from the next room, which was occupied by
his daughters. Though the partition between the chambers was very
slight, he was not usually disturbed by noise; for the girls were asleep
before he retired to rest, and he arose as early as they in the morning.
Now, however, he heard the never-ceasing sound of low tones from four
o’clock till six; but not a single word could he distinguish of all that
was said. The girls could not be learning lessons, for it was Sunday
morning; and, as he heard no tread, he thought they could not have left
their beds. They were evidently stirring, however, as soon as he had
rung his bell; and from behind his blind he saw them afterwards in the
garden, not running or gathering flowers, as usual, but in earnest
consultation. They stood before a certain balcony, looking at it from
all sides, and presently from all distances; for Mary would have walked
backwards into the fishpond, if her sister had not caught hold of her.
Then, with each a bough, they attempted to disperse the chickweed which
had overspread the pond; and then they repaired to the arbour where the
honeysuckle trailed on the ground, and a film of gossamer overspread the
entrance. When they met their father at breakfast, they looked heated
and exhausted. He told them there was no occasion to toil so hard, as he
should give direction to John, the gardener, to put the garden and court
in good order before the arrival of their expected guests. Part of their
weighty business was taken off the girls’ hands, but apparently no great
deal; for they were found, more than once that day, in the little
parlour which opened upon the balcony, as eager in consultation as they
had been before breakfast. This parlour was so small that it might
almost have been called a closet; but the balcony was larger than the
room, and communicated so easily with it, by means of a French window,
that the deficiency of size was a small objection. The parlour would
just contain Mr. Byerley, his daughters, and a tea-table; and when they
had guests with them, the balcony held the visitors and their host, and
the green parlour the young tea-maker and her apparatus. It was a
favourite place, the view from it being particularly pretty, and its
retirement complete. The simple ornaments of the dwelling were all
collected there; Mary’s harp-lute, Anna’s flower stands, and the
precious picture of their mother. The room was so darkened by the colour
of its furniture, by the roof of the balcony, and the creepers which
hung thickly about it, that the picture conveyed no very distinct
impression to strangers. Mr. Byerley, however, liked it better in this
obscurity than in a fuller light: the girls had long been too familiar
with its features not to feel as if they had been equally familiar with
the original.
While they were drinking tea in this place on the Sunday evening of
which I speak, Mr. Byerley told the girls that he was going, in the
morning, to London, to attend a public meeting, and that he should not
return till the Tuesday night, or perhaps the Wednesday morning; but
that he would take care to be at home when their guests arrived. Mary
asked what should be done for their entertainment; for she thought the
house must be very dull to strangers. Her father thought not, as their
friends came to see and talk with friends, and not to see sights and be
entertained as they might be in the house of any stranger. Mary knew her
father’s dislike of bustle, and of any interruption of his daily plans
which was not caused by public business; but she felt quite sure that
Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher and their daughters would enjoy seeing more of the
pretty country near, than could be brought within the limits of a walk;
and she therefore pressed the point. “You shall have no trouble, papa,
but just to get on your horse and go with us.”
“Where, my dear? I will go to the world’s end if you show me that it
will do any good; but you know I dislike frolicking.”
“It will do a great deal of good to make Mrs. Fletcher admire Audley
bridge and the castle; and you need not call it frolicking, but only a
morning’s ride.”
“A morning’s ride stretched out till near midnight! Think of the
distance, my dear.”
“Suppose it should be past midnight,” said Anna; “it would still be a
morning’s ride.”
“We will be home as early as you please, papa, if we can but set out
early enough; and we have planned it all so completely——.”
“Well, well; don’t talk to me any more about it, but settle it all your
own way. I have no time for such nonsense.” So saying, Mr. Byerley took
out of his pocket his list of resolutions for the public meeting, and
began to read very attentively. He soon seemed sorry, however, for his
hastiness; for he folded up his paper, drew his girls to him, and put an
arm round each of them as they stood.
“I hope, my dears,” said he, “that your heads have not been quite full
of these little plans all this day.”
“No, papa, not quite full; not at church-time, nor while Tommy Rickham
was saying his lessons; but yet——.”
“Are you quite sure what you were thinking of when Tommy was reading?”
asked Anna. “Did you make no mistake that you remember?”
“Mistake! What mistake?”
“When he was reading about little Will’s giving all he had to the old
beggar, he stopped at the word _penny_, and you told him it was _pony:_
the little fellow stared, and I dare say he wondered how little Will
could toss his pony into the old man’s hat.”
“I must have been thinking of the pony you are to ride; but you should
have told me.”
“I set it right with Tommy afterwards; but I did not want to make Kitty
laugh, so I let it pass at the time.”
“Then, papa,” said Mary, “I am afraid I can’t answer for not having had
any silly thoughts about this at church.”
“It is always wisest not to answer for any such thing, Mary; for the
wisest and best of us are troubled with vain thoughts at the most solemn
times, and in the most sacred employments.”
“The very wisest and best, papa?” said Mary, looking at her mother’s
picture.
“Your mother used to say so,” said Mr. Byerley, as his eyes followed
Mary’s and rested on the picture. “If ever there was an example of
entire self-command, it was she; and if ever there was one who fully
understood and felt the blessings of this day, it was she: and yet she
used to make the same complaint that we have made.”
“I remember,” said Mary, in a low voice, “that I thought she looked
differently on a Sunday from every other day; and I felt differently.
The feeling comes over me now, of those bright summer mornings when I
used to be taken up earlier than on weekdays; and the washing, and the
clean frock and pinafore, and mamma making breakfast, in her neat white
gown. And then, after breakfast, she used to take me into the garden,
and let me gather a flower for her. I don’t know what makes me remember
crocuses so particularly; but I never see a gay crocus bed without
thinking of one of those bright old Sunday mornings.”
“She loved to make you particularly happy on Sundays, because she
thought the feeling of pleasure might last through life, as it did with
her. Her parents made her love the Sabbath, and the power of the feeling
was once shown very remarkably——.”
He stopped, but the girls looked at him so earnestly that he soon went
on.
“You know, though you cannot remember, that you once had a little
brother: nurse often tells you about him, I know, and how he died.
Nothing could be more sudden than the accident, and, of course, neither
your mother nor any body else could be at all prepared for such a shock;
for a heartier child could not be. It happened on a Friday afternoon,
and all that night and the next day the struggle which your mother
underwent was fearful. Early on the Sunday morning, she slept for the
first time since the accident, and I would not have her wakened when it
was broad day. She started up, at last, with the confused feeling of
something very dreadful having happened; but when the tide of grief was
just flowing in upon her again, the church-bells rang out. She was calm
instantly; and that day did more towards restoring the tone of her mind
than any previous exertion, though she had striven hard for composure.
She walked in the garden with me, and sat by this very window, sometimes
reading, and sometimes listening to the chimes; but looking so like
herself that I was no longer anxious about her.”
“She was ill then, nurse says.”
“Yes; her strength had declined very much, and that was the reason why I
was so uneasy about her. While she was in health, she was the one to
give, not to need, support; and, to the last, the strength of her mind
never failed.”
“Nurse told us once what mamma said the day before she died, about us,
and about every body who depended on her for any thing.”
“I gave nurse leave to repeat it to you when she thought you could
understand and feel it properly; and I am glad she has, because Mrs.
Fletcher can tell you much more which you are now prepared to hear. She
will tell you how your mother and she used to study together; perhaps
she will show you the bible, marked by themselves for their own use.”
“I have often wanted to know,” said Mary, “what parts my mother was most
fond of, and read the oftenest; but I never asked you, because I thought
you would tell me when the right time came.”
“It is the right time now,” said her father, kissing them both; “bring
the bible from below, and we will read a portion to which she used to
turn perpetually when she was in any trouble.”
* * * * *
The next morning, the girls were ready dressed to make breakfast early
for their father, that he might be in time for the coach to London. But
anxious as they were to make him comfortable on all occasions, they did
not understand the way, and knew nothing about the many little niceties
on which domestic comfort depends. How should they, when there was
nobody but servants to teach them? They were very quick of observation,
and if their father had allowed them to visit his friends, and to see
what was done in other houses, their wish to learn, and their affection
for him, would have enabled them to improve their domestic notions and
habits; but Mr. Byerley was, as we have said, sadly prejudiced in some
respects; and he would allow of no intercourse between his daughters and
any of their neighbours. The neighbours thought it very odd, of course.
Mr. Wilkins was wont to shake his head when he told his wife how poor
Byerley’s children were being spoiled for life by being so shut up as
they were; and Miss Pratt, their opposite neighbour, was much
scandalized at their method of romping with Nurse Rickham’s children;
and the young Grants, who, to the number of eight, were boating, riding,
and driving every day and all day long, supposed that the poor Miss
Byerley’s were intended to be very learned, as they could read Latin, it
was understood, and had been seen, one day when the blind was open,
poring over a globe. It did not, of course, signify what such neighbours
as these thought of Mr. Byerley’s method of education; but there were
two or three families of a better class as to sense and merit, with whom
the girls might have associated with great advantage to themselves; and
the very commonest circumstances which take place in a tolerably
well-regulated family would have conveyed much instruction to these
motherless children, which could in no other way be supplied. Mrs.
Rickham had taught them to sew, and that well; but about the management
of the kitchen and larder she knew little, and next to nothing of the
customs of the parlour. Their father often sighed when he contrasted the
appearance and manners of his children at table, with what they would
have been if their mother had lived; and sometimes he sent them to
smooth their hair or change their frocks before he would sit down with
them; but it was beyond his power to establish regular habits of
neatness and method, and he trusted that this would be done by their own
observation and care when they should, at length, see something of the
world. He found that the servants grew more and more awkward and remiss
from the inability of the young ladies to direct them steadily and with
propriety, as children as young as themselves are able to do when well
taught. He was partly to blame himself, for his habits were, in some
respects, eccentric.
On this morning, he called from his chamber-door to desire the servant
to run and take his place in the coach. This ought to have been done on
the Saturday; and the maid was obliged to leave the fire, which had been
badly lighted, and could not be coaxed into a blaze. Mary saw that the
kettle would not boil in time unless she took the bellows, while the
cook dusted the parlour-furniture, and Anna brought up the bread and the
eggs and the butter from the larder. When their father came down, he
looked displeased to see them so employed, and wondered why, with two
servants in the house, breakfast could not be prepared without so much
confusion. After all, the kettle would not quite boil, so the tea was
not fit to be drunk, nor the egg to be eaten; and there had been so much
delay, that the horn sounded at the end of the street before Mr. Byerley
had half finished breakfast. He stuffed his papers into his pockets;
pulled on the boots for which he had waited till the last moment, and
which were only half cleaned after all; pushed aside the umbrella which
Anna offered him, with “Pshaw, child! where’s the ring? I can’t carry it
unfastened in that manner;” kissed his daughters hastily, and ran off
just in time to overtake the coach, which had been driven on in
disregard of the maid’s protestations that her master was coming.
When she came back, she sat down to make a comfortable cup of tea for
herself and the cook, while the young ladies finished the cool beverage
in the parlour. They were not long in doing so; for they were eager
about the schemes which were next to be undertaken. They heard John, the
gardener, whetting his scythe; so they went first to see how the garden
could be beautified. When they had ranged the walks with John, shaken
their heads over the weedy pond, got their shoes thoroughly wet in the
dewy, new-mown grass, and then thoroughly soiled on the flower-beds,
they came in again, and mounted to the lumber-garret, leaving in the
housemaid’s eyes very strong evidence where they had gone. She followed
them with dry shoes, and found them trying to bring down, from a high
shelf, a looking-glass which was placed with its face to the wall.
“Stop, Miss Mary,” cried the maid; “you will be down, and the glass
after you. Let me reach it, or whatever else you want.”
“We want only the glass, thank you. There, down it comes, safe. But, O
dear, what a tarnished, battered old frame it has!”
“You can never use that glass, Miss Mary. It cannot have been used these
fifty years.”
“Not quite,” said Mary; “for I remember nurse’s dandling Anna before it.
But I had no idea it was so shabby. Let us take it down and dust it,
however: it may look better then.”
Just as they reached the head of the stairs, the maid holding one end,
and the girls the other, the part of the frame which they held gave way,
and it was a wonder the glass was not broken.
“I had like to have fallen down stairs, glass and all,” exclaimed the
maid. “Here’s an end of the matter, young ladies; so let us put it where
we found it.”
No: Mary thought it would answer their purpose better than ever now; so
she pulled off the rest of the frame, which split with a touch. She
desired the maid to rub up the glass, while she and Anna went back into
the lumber-room to find some paper, the same as the hangings of the
green parlour. This they found; and when they had called John in to nail
up the glass in the little room, opposite the balcony, and sufficiently
low to reflect the landscape beyond, and sent down into the kitchen for
some paste, they began to cut out the trailing pattern of the paper, and
so fixed it on the edge of the glass as to make a very pretty border,
and one more corresponding with the rest of the furniture than a gilt
frame would have been. Even the maid admired what she thought, at first,
a mere fancy; and the girls saw their own faces oftener that day than on
any preceding day of their lives. Mary thought that one ornament more
was wanted to make all complete: she asked Anna if a white cast of some
sort—a vase or a bust—would not look very well in the corner where the
harp-lute rested. Anna agreed, and inclined for a vase, which they might
fill with flowers. Mary thought the head of a poet or a musician would
be more suitable. Who should it be? The only musician she remembered to
have seen on the Italian’s board was Handel; and Handel was sadly fat
and ugly. She did not know who it could be but Milton; and that face,
beautiful as it was, was known to every body by this time. It reminded
her, however, that she might perhaps get some hints about ornamenting
their bower from “Paradise Lost;” for she liked what she had read of
Eve’s preparation of a repast for the angel. So, while Anna ran to the
window to watch for the Italian with his image-board, who was sure to
pass, Mary settled herself in the balcony to read about Paradise.
As soon as she was fairly lost to all outward things, and present only
with Adam and Eve, seeing how
“raised of grassy turf
Their table was, and mossy seats had round,”
she was roused by somebody standing before her. It was Mrs. Rickham, who
came to ask something about clean sheets for the best bed.
“Clean sheets!” exclaimed Mary. “Oh, ask Anna to give Susan the keys,
and then you can find what you want.”
“Very well, Miss. But there wants a new ewer and basin for the room the
young ladies are to have; and I doubt if there are towels enough.”
“We will see about that to-morrow, nurse. I must make this room complete
now I am about it.”
“Perhaps that will do as well to-morrow, Miss Mary, if indeed it wants
any thing more; but the first thing to be done is to make the
sleeping-rooms comfortable, and to see what condition your frocks are
in, Miss.”
This was too true to be denied; so Mary left her book in the balcony
till her provision for the comforts of her guests should leave her at
leisure to plan luxuries for them.
There was time, however, for all; and the manifold luxuries of an
excursion in search of the picturesque were duly cared for. The fowls,
the cakes, the wine, the sketch-books, the telescope, were appointed and
hunted up; and Anna put on her habit and went to the farm, to try the
grey pony which the farmer was to lend her. The pony carried her round
the twelve-acre field, and up the green lane, and down the mill-lane,
with the utmost propriety, and promised to be a great ornament to the
cavalcade.
On Tuesday night the girls sat up for their father till the last coach
had passed through the town at eleven o’clock. They were a little
disappointed at not seeing him, but had no doubt of his arrival before
noon the next day.
CHAPTER III.
Arrivals.
“Here comes papa!” cried Anna, as she rose from the breakfast-table,
“and a gentleman with him! Can it be Mr. Fletcher already?”
“O, no!” said Mary; “how should it be, without Mrs. Fletcher and their
daughters? He is coming in, however. I do hope it is not a political
person. I had rather hear any thing than politics from London people.”
Anna agreed that they had quite enough of politics every day of their
lives, without hearing more from strangers. When their new guest entered
the room, Mr. Byerley introduced him to his daughters as Signor Casimiro
Elvi. He did not at all answer to Mary and Anna’s notions of a
politician, as they assured one another by a glance of congratulation.
If he had been twenty-five years younger, he might have been taken for a
poet; and though he was too old for that, he might well be supposed a
great man of some kind or other; for he had a profusion of black hair,
curling back from his prominent forehead in a manner which is uncommon
among Englishmen. His countenance was bright with intelligence, but
mild, and sometimes deeply melancholy. The girls answered his greetings,
which were those of a foreigner, with much respect; and while they
prepared a fresh breakfast, wondered what topics of conversation would
succeed the usual hopes and fears about fatigue, and invitations to eat
and drink.
“As we were saying, sir,” observed their father at length, “if we cannot
induce the minister to regard public opinion when it is so plainly
expressed as in this case, what is to be done but to petition, and
petition again, till the House forces the matter upon his attention?”
To the great disappointment of the girls, the Italian gentleman
listened, not only with politeness, but with eager interest, and replied
with such animated volubility, as to leave no doubt of his being a
politician after all. They could not make out much of what he said,
though they understood French very well; but his rapid utterance did not
prevent their discovering that he spoke of the ruin of his own country
as owing to the obstinate disregard which a despotic government had
shown to the interests of the people, and the establishment at length of
a military government, to the destruction of all freedom and peace. Anna
was soon tired of stretching her attention to listen to what did not
interest her to hear, and she therefore slipped out of the room. Mary
was obliged to remain, to pour out the tea; and presently, as soon as
there was a sufficient pause, Signor Elvi addressed her in French, which
it appeared he always spoke, though he understood English pretty well.
Mary liked all he said; and he gave so entertaining an account of his
late perilous journey across the continent, that she was quite sorry
when her father refused a fourth cup of tea, and it became necessary to
offer to the Signor the refreshment of his own apartment.
She ran to find her sister, and relate all that she had heard. The story
was interspersed with many remarks on Signor Elvi, and many conjectures
respecting his rank and circumstances, which excited Anna’s active
imagination to an unusual degree; and by the time Mr. Fletcher’s
carriage drove up to the door, her mind was so occupied with the
adventures of the Italian gentleman, that she could think of nothing
else.
Mary looked anxiously to see if there were any young faces in the
carriage. That the Miss Fletcher’s were there, there was evidence in the
straw bonnets and pink ribbons which appeared when the glass was let
down; and the young ladies had no sooner alighted, than Mary and Anna
had decided that they might become very charming companions, and perhaps
friends for life. Even Mr. Byerley wished that the appearance of his
daughters was equally prepossessing, both as to countenance and dress.
Mr. Fletcher was as remarkably decided in manner and abrupt in speech;
as his lady was soft and mild. It seemed as if he was somewhat out of
patience with the tone of sentiment which distinguished his wife’s
conversation, and had therefore run into the other extreme. His
daughters, who much resembled their mother, stood so much in awe of him,
that they spoke as little as possible in his presence, so that he
probably knew much less about what was in their minds than many
comparative strangers; but he concluded them to be weak and romantic, as
he was pleased to say women in general were; and by thus concluding, he
adopted the most likely method of rendering them so. The Byerleys, of
course, knew nothing of all this; and as they were in the habit of
opening their minds freely to their father, they were very slow in
making the discovery that a similar degree of confidence did not prevail
in all families.
Soon after their arrival, Anna was sitting near Mr. Fletcher and his
daughter Selina, who appeared about her own age. Amidst the many
enquiries which she made of Selina about the journey and other subjects
of discourse, she looked perpetually to the door, in hopes that Signor
Elvi would enter. When there had been a short pause, she said: “There is
such an interesting gentleman here now! I am glad you will see him, and
hear his adventures.”
“Adventures!” said Selina: “oh! what adventures?”
“Oh! so interesting! He had to fly for his life, and to put on a
disguise; and he has been shipwrecked.”
“Delightful! Did he tell you about it himself?”
“He told my father and sister when I was out of the room; but I dare say
my father will draw him out again; and we must take care to be in the
way.”
“Certainly; one would not miss such an opportunity for the world. But
what is his name, and where does he come from?”
“His name is Casimiro Elvi, and he comes from Italy.”
“From Italy! the very country one would guess, to be sure.”
“Pray, why?” asked Mr. Fletcher, who had overheard the whole. “Does
nobody put on a disguise, is nobody shipwrecked, that does not come from
Italy?”
Selina made no attempt at an answer, which surprised Anna, who said, she
supposed Selina meant that the refugees, of whose misfortunes we hear so
much, were generally from Italy; and that she therefore concluded Signor
Elvi to be an Italian.
“Find out what she means if you can,” said Mr. Fletcher, as he turned
his back upon them both.
“Tell me the rest when we go to take off our bonnets,” said Selina, in a
whisper.
“Let us go now then,” said Anna, “unless you would like some more cake
first.”
Selina refused the cake, and they moved towards the door; but as Anna
put her hand on the lock, Signor Elvi entered. The girls delayed a
moment to see how gracefully he paid his respects to the strangers, and
then looking at one another for consent, they returned to their seats.
“Does Mr. Fletcher understand French?” enquired Anna, at the end of half
an hour, during which every body had conversed with the stranger but Mr.
Fletcher.
“Yes,” replied Selina; “but my father does not like foreigners
generally. There is an Italian gentleman in our neighbourhood, who
brought letters of introduction to my father; but we can only ask him
when papa is out, or when we have company, because papa never speaks to
him.”
“What can be his reason?” asked Anna.
Selina shook her head, and Anna sat in a reverie, till she saw the
ladies about to leave the room. She was made very uneasy by what she had
seen and heard. She was sure that there must be something wrong, to
occasion so strange a want of sympathy among members of the same family;
and she began to be afraid that she might not like Selina so well as she
at first thought she should. She hoped that their guests would wish to
be left to themselves when they entered their own apartments, that she
might consult Mary, and learn the result of her observations. But the
Miss Fletchers said, “Don’t go;” and Mary seemed quite inclined to stay,
having ascertained that Mrs. Fletcher’s maid was in attendance on her
mistress.
Dressing went on slowly; for there were frequent and long pauses, during
which Selina stood with the comb suspended, and her sister Rose with the
key unturned in the lock of her trunk, while they talked of many things.
When they descended to the drawing-room, Anna wondered whether the same
restraint was to be imposed by Mrs. Fletcher’s presence as by her
husband’s. To her great relief, the girls showed at once that they had
no reserves with their mother. They made her rest on the sofa, as she
was in delicate health, and somewhat tired with her journey. The four
girls then gathered round her, and held what Anna thought the most
delightful conversation she had almost ever enjoyed. She was quite sorry
when dinner-time approached, and the gentlemen dropped in, one by one,
and engaged Mrs. Fletcher’s attention.
When Selina and Anna walked in to dinner behind the rest of the party,
they lamented that they could not sit together. At the bottom of the
table they exchanged a squeeze of the hand at parting, and took their
places on each side of Mr. Byerley, preparing to keep up an intercourse
of glances if any thing interesting should be said about Italy.
Italy was not once mentioned while the ladies were at table; but Signor
Elvi was not therefore silent. He talked on almost every subject which
was introduced; sometimes seeking, and sometimes communicating
information. His observations on the effects which followed the repeal
of the silk duties of England on the trade of Lyons interested even Mr.
Fletcher; and he also explained, entirely to that gentleman’s
satisfaction, a new method of draining marshes, which he had seen
practised abroad. All this a little disappointed Anna, who had rather
have seen him sit abstracted, unless patriotism and misfortune were
talked about.
In the course of the evening, Mary found an opportunity of learning from
her father a few particulars about the stranger. Mr. Byerley only knew
that he had left a wife and large family in his own country; that he had
filled a very high political station; and that, by his exertions in that
station in the cause of liberty, he was rendered peculiarly obnoxious to
the usurping government. Sentence of death for high treason had been
issued against him, and he had not the remotest prospect of being able
to return to his own land, and to all that was dear to him there.
The party broke up at an early hour, as the travellers were somewhat
fatigued, and as great exertions were to be made the next day. The
horses and carriage were to be at the door at eight o’clock; for much
was to be seen at Audley Bridge, and no day was ever long enough, as
every body knows, to fulfil all the purposes of such an expedition.
When Rose Fletcher had been asked whether she preferred riding, or a
place in the carriage, she at once declared that she liked riding above
every thing; but that her habit was at the bottom of the large trunk,
which had gone on to London. This was not allowed to be a difficulty, as
Mary’s habit was found to fit her sufficiently well to serve for the
occasion. Rose and Anna were therefore to ride with Mr. Byerley and
either Mr. Fletcher or Signor Elvi, as those gentlemen should determine
between themselves.
“Well, Mary,” said Anna, as she shut the door of her chamber.
“Well, Anna,” said her sister, as she put down the candle on the
dressing-table.
“What a pleasant day we have had!” exclaimed the one.
“How unlike one another people are, to be sure!” observed the other.
“Mr. Fletcher and the Signor, for instance. I can’t endure Mr.
Fletcher.”
“Why not?” said Mary, surprised: “he is silent sometimes, certainly; but
when he does talk, he says such very clever things, that they are worth
waiting for. Do you know, I am not sure but that I like him better than
Mrs. Fletcher.”
“Oh, Mary! impossible! She is such a dear, kind lady; and he is so
cross, I dare not speak to him.”
“Indeed!” said Mary; “then you must have heard or seen something that I
did not.”
“Nay, Mary; I heard him tell you that he gave it in charge to you to
cure Selina of her way of speaking.”
“I do not think he was cross when he said that. It was rather odd,
perhaps, so short as our acquaintance is; but Selina really does whine
very much; and strangers are more aware of it, and can put her in mind
of it oftener than those who are accustomed to hear it. Besides, Mrs.
Fletcher has a good deal of it herself, and Rose too.”
“Well, but he was so prejudiced against the Signor.”
“Was he? I thought they seemed to like talking to one another.”
“Aye, afterwards; but you have no idea how very rudely he spoke at
first.” So Anna told what had happened just after their arrival. Mary
owned that he had been wrong; but would not agree that there was no
merit in his politeness afterwards, because it must all be ascribed to
the Signor’s irresistible attractions. Yet she liked Signor Elvi quite
as well as Anna did.
Their younger guests were then discussed; honourable mention being made
of a large variety of fine qualities. In this case, neither sister
exceeded the other; for the praise of both was superlative. Beginning
with their hair, and ending with their sentiments, it was found that
they were altogether delightful.
“Upon the whole, Mary, has the day been what you expected, what you
wished for?”
“In some things, much pleasanter; but——and yet it was hardly likely
that, the very first day, any opportunity should happen for talking
about——what we want Mrs. Fletcher to talk to us about.”
“Whenever she does, it will be in a way that we shall like, I know,”
said Anna.
“How can you know? Mamma has not been mentioned to-day, nor any subject
of that kind.”
“Not of that kind exactly,” said Anna; “and yet I am quite sure of it.
Selina asked me if there was a church-yard in Audley Park, or within
sight of it; and she said, that if she had a fine estate, she would take
care to have a church-yard within sight. I said, I supposed she meant
for the same reason that some grand prince, I forget who, had a man to
put him in mind every day that he must die. Then she began telling me
about a mausoleum in the Duke of D——’s park; but her mother looked at
her, and she stopped just when she had said that the duchess was buried
there. She was going to mention the duchess’s children, I know, when
Mrs. Fletcher put her in mind that we had no mother. She is a kind,
sweet woman; and I love her dearly already.”
“It would be very strange if we did not,” said Mary, “considering whose
friend she was before we were born.”
Mary had now opened her Bible, and they read together, as they always
did at night, when any thing had prevented their reading with their
father below. It was very late, and Mr. Byerley had been some time in
vain trying to sleep. The conversation in the next room disturbed him;
and the continued murmur while Mary read, made him suppose that they
were not yet thinking of sleep. He rose and tapped at their door. “Who
is there? Is it you, papa?” said Anna, opening the door. When Mr.
Byerley saw the closing book in Mary’s hand, he gave his blessing to his
children, and advised them to seek repose. Their minds, as they composed
themselves to rest, were full of thankfulness for the new pleasures of
companionship which the day had brought them; and Anna began, for the
first time, to be aware of the blessing of having a father whom she
could love without fearing in any painful degree.
CHAPTER IV.
Pleasure or Pain?
At the sight of four saddle-horses and a carriage at Mr. Byerley’s door,
the population of A—— began to assemble for the purpose of speculation
as to what sort of a journey was about to be undertaken. That part of
the population is meant, which was dressed and on foot by eight o’clock;
for the grooms and the coachman were very punctual. Here, a workman with
his frail basket of tools on his shoulder stood to see the provision
packed in under the carriage-seat; there, a boy who had been
birds’-nesting passed so close before the pony’s eyes, that it reared.
Here, a milliner’s apprentice lingered in hopes of a glimpse of the
riders for whom the side-saddles were destined; and there, an old man
who was going to sun himself in the church-yard, stood leaning on his
staff, to watch the departure of the company. Presently the young ladies
were mounted, and patting the necks of their steeds to sooth them till
the signal of departure should be given. Then was heard the slam of the
carriage-door, the crack of the whip, and the crash of the wheels on the
gravel. The cavalcade gradually disappeared at the turn of the road, and
the gazers looked at one another, and betook themselves their several
ways.
It was a beautiful morning: no cloud in the sky, no dust on the road;
but all fresh, fragrant, and green, in the meadows and hedges. The
carriage-party, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher, their daughter
Selina, and Mary Byerley, began to talk all at once, as is the natural
impulse from rapid motion of an agreeable kind; and the enquiries went
round, “Have you room?” “I am afraid the basket incommodes you:” “let me
put away your shawl, for you will not want it;” and so on. To which Mr.
Fletcher added, “Have you provided umbrellas, Miss Mary?”
“Umbrellas!” said Mary; “when there is not a cloud in the sky?”
“There was no cloud in the sky at this time yesterday, and what a deluge
of rain we have had since!”
It appeared that the servants had marked this fact, for the handles of a
very satisfactory number of umbrellas peeped out when sought for.
“How well your sister rides!” observed Mary, as Rose Fletcher cantered
past the carriage, and waved her hand in passing.
“Where can Anna be? She cannot have passed without our seeing her;” said
Selina, standing up to look before and behind. Far, very far behind, not
cantering, nor apparently dreaming of cantering, was Anna, pacing
soberly, side by side with Signor Elvi, either talking or listening very
earnestly.
“O, look! look!” cried Selina; “they have forgotten every thing but what
they are talking about. I wonder whether he is telling her about his
poor wife and children.”
“Or about his beautiful estate that he will never see again,” said Mary.
“Or about the dear friend he was obliged to leave in prison,” added
Selina.
“Sit down, Selina!” said her father, in a voice which silenced her.
After a long pause, Mrs. Fletcher began to talk with Mary about various
trifles; but the conversation was far from amusing till Mr. Fletcher,
after a long yawn, took a book from his pocket, and began to read very
attentively. Then the two young heads met under one parasol, and carried
on a busy talk, with low voices, and much care to avoid attracting the
notice of the reader. Room was presently made for Mrs. Fletcher’s
companionship, and then the girls forgot to wish the gentleman away,
except when a finger was held up to say “hush!”
It was observed, at length, that Mr. Fletcher had ceased to read. The
book was not laid aside, but closed with a finger between the leaves,
while he looked over the side of the carriage. The three bonnets emerged
from beneath the parasol, and every body cried, “How beautiful!”
“I was wondering,” said Mr. Fletcher, laughing, “whether you would
actually pass by this view without looking about you.”
“You would not have allowed us, surely, sir,” said Mary.
“Nay; no doubt your fine imaginations were furnishing you with something
much more beautiful than any thing vulgar eyes can look upon.”
Mary, young as she was, and modest as became her youth, was little
daunted by Mr. Fletcher’s rough manner and speech. It was probably
because she was more humble than Selina, that she was less mortified by
any rebuke or sign of contempt. Selina’s silence was not that of
humility. If not allowed to be sentimental in speech, she did not change
her style of conversation, but indulged her dreams of the imagination in
silence; while her very silence expressed that she did not think her
father worthy to sympathize in her pleasures. Mrs. Fletcher never
interfered between them, or attempted to make her husband and children
understand one another better. She was very timid, rather indolent, and
somewhat inclined to be sentimental, though not in the childish way in
which she encouraged her daughters to be so.
“This place is very much altered within a few years: I should scarcely
have known it again,” said Mr. Fletcher to himself, as they passed a
gentleman’s estate.
“Yes,” said Mary; “even I can remember the time when there were no
corn-fields where they now stretch almost as far as we can see.”
“This was all common: was it not?” said Mr. Fletcher. “I think it was a
very bleak common, with nothing but furze growing upon it, when I saw it
last.”
“Yes, sir; and the owner of it had a great deal of trouble about the
alterations he wished to make. But you see he persevered.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“The poor people were discontented when their cows were not allowed to
graze, and when they could not cut their turf on the common any longer.”
“Well; do not you think it was very hard upon them?”
“I dare say it was, at first; but papa says it is much better worth
while to grow corn enough to maintain a great many men, than only grass
enough for a few cows.”
Mr. Fletcher nodded; and Selina observed that all the rest of the way he
enquired of Mary who lived at every gentleman’s seat they passed.
Sometimes she knew, and sometimes she did not; but he did not sneer when
she had no satisfactory answer to give. One mansion, which stood on a
lawn a little way back from the road, appeared in a state of lamentable
ruin. It was unroofed, and the stone pillars and doorways, and naked
window-sills were blackened with smoke. In answer to Mr. Fletcher’s
question, “When was this burned down?” Mary told all that she knew of
the when and the how; and then turned to the ladies to relate some
circumstances of a different kind. Notwithstanding Selina’s exclamations
of admiration and pity, and his wife’s heightened colour, which
testified to the deep interest of the story, Mr. Fletcher also for once
seemed inclined to listen.
“Eh? What was that?” said he, after leaning forwards, in vain, to hear.
“I was telling what happened at the fire,” said Mary. “There was a poor
old man in the house at the time, who had arrived only the day before to
see Colonel Osborne. He had belonged to his regiment, I believe. He was
sleeping high up stairs, at the back of the house, and nobody remembered
him when the fire was discovered. Miss Osborne recollected him at last,
and while every body was busy, she wrapt a blanket round her and flew up
the back stairs. The curtains of the old man’s bed were on fire, and he
was fast asleep when she burst in. She thought he was suffocated; but as
soon as she dashed some water on his face, he roused himself enough to
let her put the woollen coverlid over his shoulders, and lead him down
the burning stairs. While she was helping him, the blanket slipped, and
her gown-sleeve caught fire. She was dreadfully burned; but she scarcely
felt the pain, while the stairs cracked and cracked again at every step
they took, and the flames rushed and roared all round them. At the foot
of the stairs she met her father, coming in despair to look for her; but
though he saw how she was blackened with smoke, he asked no questions
till he had helped her to get the old man beyond the reach of the
burning rafters which fell on the lawn.”
“Bravo! Like daughter, like father,” cried Mr. Fletcher. “But what
became of her?”
“Her face was so much burned that nobody could know her for the Miss
Osborne that used to be so much admired; and what is worse, her left arm
is so shrunk up, that she never can use it again. As for the poor old
man, between the fire, and the fright and the grief, he was quite worn
out, and he died the next week.”
“What a disastrous fire!” exclaimed Mr. Fletcher. “How the young lady
must wish that she had staid where she was safe!”
“O! no, sir,” said Mary, in a low voice.
“Why, you say she did not save the old man after all.”
“No; but what a conscience she would have had all her life long! Do you
think all her beauty and the use of all her limbs would have made up for
that?”
“Well then, she must wish that the fire had never happened. Why do you
shake your head now?”
“Because it is worth all she suffered, and more, to know what she _can_
do on such an occasion. She need never be afraid again that she shall
not be able to do her duty, or to bear the consequences.”
“Her father, at least, must be very sorry that the fire happened.”
“I think not still,” said the persevering Mary. “If you were to see him
with his daughter for only one half hour, you would find out how he
loves her, and tries to make her feel what has happened as little as
possible; but he can never be sorry that it has been proved what a
daughter he has. When she begins to repent of what she did, he may begin
to be sorry for the occasion; but that will never, never be.”
“Well, you shall have it all your own way, because you are right, I
believe,” said Mr. Fletcher. “But I hope, my dear, _your_ father will
have some pleasanter proof that you have a strong mind and a willing
spirit.”
Mary could not answer, as Mr. Fletcher looked kindly at her. He soon
opened his book again, and nobody spoke till the carriage stopped at the
door of the Audley Arms.
The party presently dispersed themselves in groups about the park. Anna
and Selina, of course, flew to each other, as soon as the one had
alighted from her pony, and the other from the carriage. Arm in arm,
they wandered away under the shade of the avenue. Rose and Mary, with
their sketch-book, explored their way to the Ruin, to which the people
of the inn had directed them; and they were immediately followed by Mrs.
Fletcher and their Italian friend. Mr. Byerley also seemed disposed to
accompany them; but Mr. Fletcher persuaded him to go round a longer way,
for the purpose of witnessing the result of an experiment in tillage,
which he knew to have been made on a piece of land adjoining the park.
At the Ruin they were all to meet at two o’clock; by which time the
servants were to have spread the dinner at the precise point of view
where prospect-hunters were wont to feast body and soul at the same
time.
The members of the three detachments all enjoyed themselves in their
several ways; the four who were together, perhaps the most. Signor Elvi
could draw well, and he superintended Mary’s sketch, to her great profit
and pleasure. He advised her not to attempt the more extensive view
which, though spread temptingly before them, could not easily be
transferred to paper with all its flitting lights and shadows, its
sloping lawns and wooded banks, and streams that peeped out where the
sunshine fell brightest. He rather recommended a particular angle of the
Ruin, whose massy stone-work was finely contrasted with the light birch
which waved near. He took her pencil, and on the back of a letter showed
her, with a few rapid strokes, what kind of effect he thought might be
produced. When he had seen her make a successful beginning, he carried
off Rose to a little distance, that she might attempt the same subject
from a different point of view; to which her only objection was, that
she should be too far off to hear the conversation.
“Oh! that will be too sad,” exclaimed he: “no lady must feel forlorn
to-day. Mrs. Fletcher and I will sit between you, and tell you tales to
beguile your tasks.”
[Illustration: _Page 68_]
[Illustration: _Page 85_]
Mrs. Fletcher was willing, but observed that her daughter scarcely
understood French well enough to enjoy a narrative related in it. The
good-natured Signor therefore attempted to make himself understood in
English, which he spoke better than might have been expected from his
very short practice, but yet so as to render it very difficult for the
hearers to maintain their gravity long. From the beginning of his tale,
his auditors imagined that it was to be of a melancholy cast; but as
soon as the narrator became aware that his broken language was an
impediment to the serious impression he meant to produce, he dexterously
placed his personages in new situations, and gave so strange a turn to
the incidents he had related, that the whole became comic, and the girls
were supplied with a good reason for the mirth which they could not have
suppressed. Their drawing, meantime, went on but slowly; for they sat,
pencil in hand, looking towards their companions instead of the Ruin,
and when they began to laugh, all hope of steadying their hands again
speedily was over.
“Eh! well,” said he, rising at length, “laugh as you will, but draw
also.” And with all gravity he began to criticise; but again and again,
as often as they looked towards one another, or some odd phrase which
they had just heard occurred to them, there was a fresh burst. It ended
in their being too weak, with hunger and mirth, to do any thing more
before dinner, while their friend’s politeness could not allow him to
leave their sketches unfinished.
In a little while, the whole party being assembled, except Anna and her
friend, and the cloth being spread temptingly on the turf, every body
sat down to eat. When, however, knives and forks were laid across, and
the empty bottles outnumbered the full ones, and still the two girls did
not appear, Mrs. Fletcher and Mary grew rather uneasy. Mr. Byerley went
to the brow of the eminence on which they sat, and looked round in vain.
Signor Elvi rose to go in search of them, but Mr. Fletcher prevented
him, declaring it impossible that any harm should befall them in the
park, and that nothing was so probable as that they should forget the
time. On enquiry it appeared that neither of them had a watch.
“No matter,” said Mr. Fletcher; “which of them would think of using it
if she had? Depend upon it, they are reclining under a tree or beside a
brook, wondering if ever mortals felt such friendship for one another
before; or perhaps weeping over the tales Miss Anna heard from the
Signor this morning.”
Signor Elvi looked very grave, but said nothing.
“It is time they were dining, however,” said Mrs. Fletcher; “and if they
have lost their way, they must be quite exhausted.”
“My dear,” said her husband, “I thought you had known better than to
suppose they can care about eating when they have something so much
better to do. I think, sir,” turning to Mr. Byerley, “that it is time we
were finding our way to the bridge, unless the ladies require a longer
rest.”
He rose and sauntered away; and his wife immediately, by Mr. Byerley’s
advice, dispatched two of the servants different ways, in search of the
lost companions. Mary sent some biscuits by each; and having left orders
with the remaining servant to make the young ladies comfortable when
they should arrive, and to direct them towards the bridge, the rest of
the party followed Mr. Fletcher.
Anna and Selina were soon found, within half a mile of the place of
rendezvous, walking as leisurely as if the sun had just risen, and they
had had the whole day before them. They were both sad and disinclined to
eat; and in a very few minutes they followed the party to the bridge.
Very little notice was taken of them there but by the anxious mother and
sister, who having satisfied themselves that nothing disastrous had
happened, tried to cheer and amuse them; but they were still silent and
sad. They saw, like every body else, how majestically the river wound
round the bases of the hills, now darkened by overhanging thickets, now
gleaming as a flood of light fell upon a reach of it, now sweeping by
the terrace of a lordly mansion, and now bending round the promontory on
which was a single cottage, with its one willow dipping into the water.
They saw, like every one else, how the far-distant city rose to shut in
the view at the further limit of the valley; and, like every one else,
they listened to the many sounds which came from far and near. The
chapel-clock in the park was heard to strike; the creaking waggon, with
the jingling harness of the team came down the steep slope from the
farms; the lapse of the river under the arches of the bridge gave out a
never-ceasing sound; and the cawing of the rooks as they sailed round
the tree tops suited well with it. The merry voices of children came
from behind the laurel-hedge which separated the parsonage from the
road. Anna and her friend saw, heard, and felt the beauty of all this;
but it seemed to them a melancholy beauty, because their minds were
melancholy. It grated upon their feelings to hear any observations made
on the scene before them; and when Mr. Fletcher laughed loudly, they
left the balustrades of the bridge, through which they had been gazing,
and went down to find a seat on the sloping bank, where they might sit
with their feet touching the brink of the river. Mrs. Fletcher followed,
and as soon as the girls perceived her, they ran to take each an arm.
She soon discovered what was in their minds, and Anna could not have
desired a more ready listener to the tale of sorrow which she had heard
that morning, and which had affected her very deeply.
“Did you see, Anna,” said Selina, “how he turned to listen when the
children in the parsonage-garden shouted at their play?”
“O, yes,” replied Anna; “and he says it gives him pleasure to see us and
talk to us, because he can think of his own daughters all the time. What
charming girls they must be! and just our age, Selina!”
“I wish we could make ourselves so like them that we could comfort him
better than we can do now.”
“We must be very unlike them, I am sure, Selina; for he says they are
very gay and lively.”
“I always thought you had been so, Anna,” said Mrs. Fletcher. Anna
sighed, and replied that she was merry when she had nothing to make her
sad.
“But, my love,” said Mrs. Fletcher, “you must endeavour not to give way
so much. You must take the Signor himself for an example there. If you
had seen him two hours ago, you would scarcely believe that he had ever
felt melancholy in his life.”
Selina and Anna were both rather dismayed when they heard of their
foreign friend’s genius for comic narrative. “How could he forget so
soon?” thought they.
Mrs. Fletcher was surprised that he should have told his domestic tale
to one so young as Anna; but it appeared all very natural when she
explained how it happened. He spoke of the young ladies of Italy as the
subject which he thought would most interest his companion; this led to
some mention of his own children: and as there was a full share of
curiosity in Anna, and an interest and sympathy far more engaging than
curiosity, he had gone on to tell one circumstance after another, till
she had heard enough to fill her whole soul with admiration and pity.
Her feelings were strong, and she had never tried to restrain them and
as this was the first time she had ever heard so sad a tale from the
actual sufferer, and that sufferer was peculiarly interesting and
amiable, she was in danger of being more strongly excited than her
health and spirits would bear. If she had had a judicious friend at hand
to have directed her feelings aright, she might have derived much
benefit from the new views of human suffering which were now opened to
her; but this was not the case. Mrs. Fletcher seemed, in the education
of her own daughters, quite unaware that a feeling, innocent or amiable
in itself, may be indulged to an injurious excess. On the present
occasion, she was delighted to witness in Anna indications of the
sensibility she had loved in her mother; and though she did not exactly
tell her so in words, she made her understand it by kissing her, and
whispering how she loved to be reminded of her early friend, whose
congeniality of feeling with her own was perfect. This led to a long
conversation, which at some other time would have been as useful as it
was delightful to Anna, by softening her heart and exercising her
tenderest affections. Just now, however, when her heart was already
melting, and her imagination highly excited, this further stimulus was
not only needless, but very hurtful; and the youthful mind which should
have been this day open to enjoyment, was tormented with tender
sufferings, and weakened by a melancholy which it had never experienced
before. Some of the natural evil consequences followed immediately. Mr.
Byerley, seeing traces of tears on his daughter’s cheeks, and thinking
them particularly ill-timed, was provoked to speak hastily to her. Anna
was seldom or never known to be sullen, but to-day she was sunk below
all power of instant recovery; and her temper gave way at the first
irritation. Mary gave her an affectionate hint to try to be cheerful;
but, for once, she received a pettish answer. The Signor himself was not
quite in her good graces, for he was disposed to be agreeable. He sang,
and his song was indeed plaintive as she could wish; but long before she
had recovered it, and while his tones of deep feeling yet thrilled in
her heart, he was talking with her father as if nothing had happened.
The pleasures of the ramble through the park, on the return of the party
to the inn, were lost on her, and the amusing bustle of departure was
also unheeded; but horse-exercise is so exhilarating as to lighten the
deepest depression, as even Anna found. When they had left behind the
melting sunlights on the woods, and when the cool evening breeze blew in
their faces as they crossed a heath in the twilight, she willingly
obeyed her father’s signal to hasten on, shook the bridle, urged on the
race, and, for a time, forgot her sensibilities.
Every body was tired, dull, and sleepy, when the carriage stopped at Mr.
Byerley’s door. Nobody relished the candle-light: no lady wished for
supper, or refused to retire when the gentlemen had dispatched their
sandwiches. When Mrs. Fletcher had bade her children good-night up
stairs, it appeared that the young folks were pairing off, according to
a new arrangement. Mary and Rose, Anna and Selina.
“My loves, it really makes me uneasy,” expostulated Mrs. Fletcher; “you
will talk half the night, I know, tired to death as you are.”
“No, mamma, we will not indeed.”
“Then what is the use of being together if you do not talk? Do be
persuaded. I can trust your sisters to take care of you; but you two
will wear each other out.”
A repeated promise, however, won her consent. They kept their promise.
Having kissed with melancholy smiles, and promised each other never to
forget this never-to-be-forgotten day, they lost all remembrance of it,
and of every thing else in sleep.
CHAPTER V.
Friendship not always Bliss.
There had, as yet, been no time for due honour to be paid to the
favourite green parlour; but early the next evening, those of the party
who were the most likely to appreciate its peculiarities, were assembled
there. The harp-lute caught the eye of the Signor as soon as he entered.
“Ah, ah!” cried he, pointing to it with delight, “may I?” and he took it
down, and tuned it. Just when he was about to begin, his heart seemed to
fail him. He laid it down, with a sigh, saying, “It is long——” A glance
between Anna and Selina supplied what he would have said. Mary felt it
all, as much as they; but she did not content herself with a
sympathizing sigh. She took the instrument, and struck up her father’s
favourite Spanish song of Liberty. As she hoped, the exile’s current of
feeling was diverted from melancholy objects. “Libertà! libertà!” he
echoed, starting up and waving his hand, while his eyes sparkled; and as
often as the Signor looked up and smiled, he joined in the burden,
“Libertà! libertà!”
He was delighted with Mary’s singing, which was very unlike what he had
heard from any other young lady since he had been in England. She had
been well taught; but she had that natural taste for music—the ear and
the soul for it—without which no teaching is of any avail. She sang much
and often, not because she had any particular aim at being very
accomplished, but because she loved it; or, as she said, because she
could not help it. She sang to Nurse Rickham’s children; she sang as she
went up and down stairs; she sang when she was glad, and when she was
sorry; when her papa was at home, because he liked it; when he was out,
because he could not be disturbed by it. In the woods, at noon-day, she
sang like a bird, that a bird might answer her; and if she woke in the
dark night, the feeling of solemn music came over her, with which she
dared not break the silence. Every thing suggested music to her. Every
piece of poetry which she understood and liked, formed itself into
melody in her mind, without an effort: when a gleam of sunshine burst
out, she gave voice to it; and long before she had heard any cathedral
service, the chanting of the Psalms was familiar to her by anticipation.
Anna had as good an ear, and a much richer voice, but not quite so
prevailing a love for the art: if art it may be called, in such a case
as theirs. She was always able and willing to sing, but not so
continually and spontaneously alive to music as her sister. She would
join in when her sister began; and whenever they sat at work in the
balcony, their voices would ring clear and sweet, through the house, by
the hour together. Their father loved to hear them, and the servants
themselves were never tired.
When Signor Elvi had heard several songs for which he had asked,
(scarcely with the hope that Mary would be able to gratify him,) he
mentioned at last a duet, which she had never seen or heard of. It
seldom happened that she could not sing whatever was asked for; for her
father took care that she was supplied with good music of all kinds,
ancient and modern; and when she had once noticed a melody, it was never
forgotten, or might be revived on the slightest suggestion. The duet now
mentioned, she knew nothing about; but thought she and Anna might learn
it if the Signor would sing it to them. He was well pleased to do so,
and they established themselves in the balcony, sitting at his feet, and
learning almost as much from his countenance as his voice. The thing was
accomplished presently, as much to his amazement as pleasure; and he sat
with his head on his hand, listening with delight to the music of his
own land. Mrs. Fletcher understood and felt the pleasure too; and their
father, who was walking in the garden with Mr. Fletcher, stopped and
listened, without remembering to apologize to his companion for the
sudden interruption of their conversation. No new air was lost on him,
especially when sung by his daughters.
“How sweet, how wild, Mary’s voice is!” observed Mrs. Fletcher to her
daughters, as they sat within. “I have not heard such another since her
mother sang to me.”
“Which is the most like Mrs. Byerley?” asked Rose.
“I scarcely know,” replied her mother: “they both remind me of her
perpetually. Anna has her mother’s countenance, and I catch occasional
glimpses of the mirth which I used to love.”
“And the sensibility,” said Selina.
“Mary has the sensibility to an equal degree.”
“Oh mamma! no.”
“I discover as great a depth of feeling in Mary as in Anna, with a
stronger judgment. Yes, Mary is the most like her mother. They are
charming companions for you, my dears, in most respects, and I am very
glad you have met.”
“In most respects!” repeated Selina: “in every respect. They are every
thing that is dear and delightful!”
“Take care, my little enthusiast,” said her mother, laying one hand on
Selina’s shoulder, and pointing with the other to the balcony: “look at
your friends now, and tell me if you would like to make exactly such an
appearance.”
Selina saw that Mary’s hair, disordered and out of curl, hung in a very
slovenly way about her face; and that Anna’s silk frock was stained from
top to bottom with something which had been thrown over it.
“Oh! mamma,” exclaimed Selina, “how can you expect them to be quite neat
and handy, when they have no mother to teach them?”
“I do not expect it, my dear; I only point out to you that they are not
quite perfect. If we could carry them away with us, I think we might
soon correct these bad habits; and they, in their turn, might improve
you in some things of more importance.”
Rose and her sister besought Mrs. Fletcher to try to induce Mr. Byerley
to part with them for a while; and as Mr. Fletcher had himself proposed
it, believing that Mary would be a valuable companion to Rose, it was
agreed that Mr. Byerley’s consent should be asked without delay.
While this matter was under consideration, Mr. Byerley entered and
seated himself by Mrs. Fletcher. The girls presently withdrew.
“Can you guess what we were talking of when you came?” said Mrs.
Fletcher.
“Your countenance tells me,” replied Mr. Byerley, nodding towards the
balcony. “There is much to be said on that subject, my dear madam; and I
do assure you that the best kindness you can show us all, is to tell me
truly and exactly what impression my poor motherless girls have made
upon you.”
“I will do so with the greatest pleasure,” replied Mrs. Fletcher,
smiling; “for the impression is very much like what I know you wish it
to be.” And while she praised, the father listened with pleased
attention.
“I have tried to make them good,” he said, when there was a pause: “they
are affectionate, and they are simple. There is little in their conduct
to myself which I wish otherwise; and no sisters were ever more attached
to one another than they. But there is much which wants correction; and
more evil in prospect, I am afraid.”
“Their personal habits want correction, I grant, without dispute,”
replied Mrs. Fletcher; “and I have a plan to propose for that purpose:
but what further evil is in prospect I do not see.”
“An evil of much greater magnitude than their sad external habits,
which, however, are grievous enough,” replied their father. “You know my
hatred of all schools, and of the usual method of female education.”
“Oh! yes,” said Mrs. Fletcher, smiling: “your prejudices on that subject
are completely identified with yourself.”
“The reason of that hatred, which may have some prejudice mixed up with
it, is, that almost all the women whom I have known to have much
feeling, have been victims to feeling. It seems to me, that through some
grand error in education, women become either unfeeling or
sentimental—given either to levity or romance.
“I cannot agree with you at all,” said Mrs. Fletcher; “and I am very
sure you have been unfortunate in your experience of female society; or
that one beautiful example of sobriety and depth of feeling united, has
made you imagine that the method of education adopted in that particular
case, must be the only good one.”
“I have indeed wished that my girls should be placed, as nearly as
possible, in the circumstances which made their mother what she was; but
I begin to have my fears. Their minds are, in some respects, too forward
for their age; their imaginations are growing too fast.”
“If you think so of your own children,” said Mrs. Fletcher, “what must
be your opinion of mine?”
“I judge in no case but that in which I am most nearly concerned,”
replied Mr. Byerley. “How your daughters act and feel I pretend not to
know; and if I knew, I should not interfere with criticisms or advice.
But, as to my own girls, I have seen Mary often lately so absorbed in
her book of poetry or in a reverie, that it is difficult to recall her
attention to necessary things; and Anna’s red eyes and melancholy
countenance have really distressed me the last two days.”
“I am sure their feelings are of a most amiable kind,” said Mrs.
Fletcher; “and such as I would not repress for the world.”
“Amiable, I grant, and natural,” replied the father; “but I think they
come too early, and that there is too much of them. Nobody values more
than I do the lofty and deep emotion which prompts to the most vigorous
and benevolent action; but feeling of this kind cannot subsist in the
mind in mature years, if an excessive sensibility be allowed early and
idly to excite the imagination. If Anna’s compassion for Signor Elvi’s
misfortunes could lead her to active exertions on behalf of him and his
family, let her pity him as much as she will; but as she can do nothing,
and tries to do nothing, I am afraid of the consequences of so many
sighs and tears, natural and amiable as they may be in themselves.”
“I believe Mary feels quite as much,” observed Mrs. Fletcher, “and to
better purpose, for she tries to amuse him, instead of awakening painful
feelings.”
“If that was the case always, I should fear nothing,” replied Mr.
Byerley; “but I dread the effects of the reveries over Paradise Lost,
and——”
“Paradise Lost will do her no harm,” said Mr. Fletcher, who had joined
them unperceived, and was leaning over the back of the sofa: “no
imagination was ever the worse for being early nourished on that book.
It is the flimsy, lovesick, sentimental poetry of modern times, which
makes women so weak and tiresome, as those of them are who pretend to be
bookish, or to have fine feelings.”
“I should not have thought,” said Mr. Byerley, smiling, “that you would
have admitted poetry under any shape into your daughters’ library.”
“You do not know me then,” replied Mr. Fletcher. “If you and I were to
compare our notions of a perfect woman, I believe they would be found
pretty much alike. She must have an intellect capable of grasping high
thoughts, and a heart expanded by boundless feelings, or religion cannot
have done all it may do for her. It is because I value the noble faculty
of imagination so highly, that it grieves me to see it weakened and
perverted by early indulgence.”
“As it is in my girls,” said Mr. Byerley, gravely.
“No,” said Mr. Fletcher, “not in _your_ girls; at least, not in Mary;
and not to an irremediable degree in Anna: but it is time you were
taking care.”
“If I had Mr. Byerley’s fears, (which I have not,)” said Mrs. Fletcher,
“I should take the girls into the world; or, at least, let them see more
society here. If they had a greater variety of realities to think about,
they would have fewer imaginations.”
“I agree with you perfectly, my dear,” said Mr. Fletcher. And now it was
most clearly proved, in various ways, to Mr. Byerley, that the best
possible plan he could pursue with his daughters, would be to let them
join their friends in a journey to the Continent, where they were going
to reside for two or three years. Notwithstanding so many arguments,
however, the father could not be persuaded of the possibility of parting
with his children; and the most he could be brought to say was, that he
would endeavour so to arrange his plans, as to join Mr. Fletcher’s
family in the south of France in the course of a few months. He laughed
as he adverted to the remarks which might very fairly be made on this
new proof of his eccentricity, if his neighbours should lay hold of the
idea that he went abroad for the moral improvement of the girls; as if
they could not be made wise and good in their own country.
“The difference of country has nothing to do with it,” said Mr.
Fletcher: “if we were going to Dublin or Edinburgh instead of Tours, you
would come to us as you intend doing now. Your object is change of
society more than of place, as far as your daughters are concerned. As
for your own peculiar tastes, you can gratify them more easily abroad
than you could in London, where such a politician as yourself can never
be left long unmolested. But, Byerley, you surely do not regard what any
body says about your domestic plans!”
“Nobody so little,” replied Mr. Byerley, “as my practice has proved; but
I sometimes amuse myself with the remarks which are made on my oddity. I
hope my girls will never suffer by the reputation of that sort which I
have gained.”
“Not they: it is more likely they should suffer by our leaving them for
the hour together, as we are doing now, to listen to the Signor’s
pretty, soft sentiments.”
On approaching the balcony, it was found, however, that though the
Signor was holding forth on a pretty subject, it was by no means a
sentimental one. He was describing the process of rearing silk-worms in
Italy, and of obtaining and managing their produce. Thence he proceeded
to answer some questions of Rose’s about the silk manufactory at Lyons,
of which he had talked with her father at dinner on the day of their
arrival. Anna had not listened, and was not therefore much interested in
what was now said.
The evening sun shone bright and warm into the balcony, when Mary gave
up her seat there to Mrs. Fletcher, while she took her place at the
tea-table. Remarks were made on the luxury of such an assemblage in such
a place, on the beauty of the prospect, the fragrance of the flowers,
and many other causes of enjoyment; when Mr. Fletcher, ever afraid of
sentiment, cried out: “Pray, Miss Mary, do not let the tea be the worse
for every thing else being so charming. Not all the prettiness in the
world will make up for the tea being spoiled.” He appealed to the
Signor, who did not appear to share Anna’s indignation; though he smiled
while he replied, that he liked perfection of comfort when it could be
had; and that, if he were an Englishman, he did not doubt that it would
be a drawback to his pleasure to be disappointed in the strength and
flavour of his tea.
Selina and her friend thought this was overstrained politeness, till
they perceived that their foreign friend sipped his excellent coffee
with real relish. They forgot to drink theirs till it was cold; but as
they probably did not notice the fact, it did not signify.
Signor Elvi did not appear at the breakfast-table the next morning; and,
on enquiry, it was found that he had gone out very early, leaving word
that he should not return till night. No one could imagine whither he
had departed: he knew not one person in the neighbourhood, and had no
connexions of business or pleasure out of London. Had he gone in one of
the coaches? No: it was not coach time when he went out. He took no
parcel with him; nothing but his hat and stick, and a book which peeped
out of his pocket, the servant said. She could not tell in what
direction he had turned his steps. No further information was to be
obtained, and the plans for the day were laid without any reference to
their stranger guest.
The principal plan was for a long afternoon visit to the farm, to drink
new milk, play with the children, and see all that was to be seen. Mrs.
Fletcher had known Nurse Rickham in former days: she had now seen her at
Mr. Byerley’s house, but had promised to visit her in her own homestead,
where she might see all the children gathered together, and make some
acquaintance with the husband. At a little past four, accordingly, Kitty
stood by the farm-yard gate, dressed in her best, to open it for the
ladies to enter. Tommy pulled his fore-lock without ceasing, when they
came in sight; and Nurse, with her starched mob and clean white apron,
advanced smiling and blushing to welcome her guests. In answer to her
respectful enquiries about Mr. Byerley’s health, Mary told her that he
would follow presently with Mr. Fletcher, to join them in time for tea.
Nurse thought herself only too much honoured, but had not expected any
but the ladies, as the gentleman from abroad had passed through and far
away so early in the morning. Had he been at the farm? it was eagerly
asked. Yes: as Robin was leading out the team, the gentleman who spoke
so very strangely, asked leave to pass through the yard and the paddock
behind, as this seemed the shortest way to the hills he wished to reach.
Robin could scarcely understand one word of his enquiries; so he called
Nurse Rickham, who, having been more used to gentlefolks, was able to
afford him more satisfaction. She described the paths among the hills to
him, and led him through two fields, so that he could not possibly
mistake his way. All this was very strange. Anna was sure that he was
gone into solitude to compose a poem:—who knew what might be in it!
Selina having perceived that her mother looked somewhat grave, formed
the horrible conjecture that he meant to destroy himself, as she had
heard some of his countrymen had done under the pressure of distress. It
was in vain that she was reminded how cheerful he was the night before;
how he had mentioned his plans for the next week; and how little reason
there was to suppose that he was now oppressed by any new or
overwhelming grief or difficulty. Still Selina was persuaded in her own
mind that he would be found weltering in his blood, or hanging from a
tree. What other supposition was at all probable? How did her mamma, or
Rose, or Mary, account for his absence? Her mamma left it to be
explained by time; Rose ventured no conjecture; and Mary gently asked if
no instance had ever been known of people retiring into woods,
wildernesses, and fields, for the sake of solitude, and the employments
which belong to solitude.
[Illustration: _Page 96_]
[Illustration: _Page 126_]
“You do not know all that I could tell you,” said Selina, sadly and
mysteriously, “or you would not think he could have any such purpose.”
“I should like to hear, if you can tell me,” said Mary. “Do tell me.”
Selina drew her aside, and whispered: “Signor Elvi is not a Christian.”
“I know it,” replied Mary: “I heard papa say so.”
“Then how can you think he can like to be alone as a religious man
would?”
“Because I think he is a religious man.”
Selina looked very much puzzled. Mary said: “Some other time I will tell
you what papa told me about this, and then you will understand what I
mean.”
“Does your papa think that Signor Elvi is religious?”
“Yes, he does; but do not fancy that papa is not a Christian. And I do
assure you that you may make yourself quite easy about Signor Elvi. He
is too wise and good to throw away his life as soon as misfortunes
happen.”
“I do not blame people for destroying themselves so much as you do,
Mary. They only do it when they are very miserable. I am more sorry for
them than you are.”
“Not more sorry, I hope,” said Mary. “I am very sorry for their misery,
and I am more sorry still that they have not strength to bear it. They
are, indeed, more to be pitied than one can imagine.”
“Not strength!” repeated Selina. “Well, now, I cannot help admiring
their courage. I think it shows such great courage to leave every thing
that they know, and go they do not know where—to take the leap in the
dark, as somebody says.”
“Do you not blame people then, for destroying themselves?” enquired
Mary, perplexed in her turn.
“Oh yes, to be sure. It is very wrong, because——because——”
“Because of what?”
Selina did not seem quite ready with a reason. Presently, however, she
answered: “Because it offends God.”
“Certainly,” said Mary: “it offends God to refuse to bear whatever he
appoints. It shows that we do not trust in him; it shows that we are
very cowardly.”
“Cowardly!” exclaimed Selina: “what! to do such a bold act as that?”
“Such a rash act,” said Mary: “it is not the less cowardly, on the
whole, for being rash. I know it must require some sort of vehement
resolution to do the very deed—to cut one’s throat across, or fire a
pistol through one’s brains.”
“That is what I mean,” interrupted Selina.
“But a man who shows this sort of courage, only has it because he wants
a greater; he only chooses the shortest way of getting rid of his
troubles, because he cannot bear the longer trial. I am sure, Selina,
you must admire the courage that can bear on, and bear on, happen what
will.”
“Like the martyrs, and like the prisoners in the Inquisition. Oh yes!”
“And like many who never heard of the Inquisition, but who endure worse
things than they could ever meet with there; troubles and griefs which
last from year to year, and which oppress their wives or their children,
or somebody else whom they care more about than themselves.”
Selina looked doubtful.
“I do not know any thing so grand,” continued Mary, “as to see any
body—man, woman, or child, patiently and cheerfully bearing one
affliction after another, without wanting any one to see or admire;
giving up every thing, most precious, as soon as required to do so, and
growing more and more careful to make other people happy as they are
less so themselves. How very selfish, how very cowardly, is the boldest
man that ever cut his throat, in comparison with such a one!”
Selina felt this; but enquired: “Do you think Signor Elvi could be such
a one if he is not a Christian?”
Mary pondered awhile before she answered:—“I do not know: I will ask
papa what he thinks. But I am very sure that a person so kind-hearted to
every body, so fond of his wife and children, and so very serious, as
papa says he is about religion, could never, in his right senses, plunge
himself into destruction, and every body that he cared for into misery.”
This last sentence furnished Selina with a new scheme. If Signor Elvi
would not, in his right senses, hang himself, he might do so if driven
mad by his misfortunes; and who could wonder if such should prove to be
the case? It mattered not that he had been not only sane but cheerful
the night before, and that Nurse Rickham was pleased with all that he
had said, and with his manner of saying it, that morning; Selina was
determined to be apprehensive: who or what, therefore, could prevent her
being so?
Mary, on her part, was resolved to ascertain what Signor Elvi’s
principles were with respect to the duty of bearing the troubles of life
with patience and cheerfulness. If she might judge from what she had
seen, those principles were good; but she did not know how much
allowance to make for differences of national character, and for
constitutional temperament. She hoped to obtain satisfaction for
herself, and instruction for Selina, by telling her father her wishes,
and requesting him to engage his foreign friend in conversation on such
topics as might lead to an explanation of those of his opinions which
she wished to ascertain.
In the meanwhile, she was glad to see how Anna had recovered her
spirits. At the farm it was her wont to be gay, and the well-known
objects there brought back the cheerfulness with which she was
accustomed to view them. When in a merry mood, Anna was almost wild: she
was so now. A spirited game at prison-bars was going on in the paddock,
and Anna and Mr. Fletcher were the most daring and active of the
players. Nobody excelled Mr. Fletcher at this kind of sport; and he was
glad when an opportunity offered of engaging his girls in amusements
which they relished far less than was natural at their age. Rose had now
thrown aside her bonnet, and was as eager to break the bounds of her
prison as little Tommy Rickham himself; but Selina, who was disappointed
to find that Anna’s sympathies were not as true to her own as the needle
to the pole, turned away with a sigh, and sought a shaded alley in the
garden, where she nourished her tender fears in solitude, and grew more
melancholy with every shout of laughter which reached her from the
paddock. She could not forget Anna as she had just seen her, panting
with heat and fatigue, her face flushed, her hair blown back, her eyes
almost starting with eagerness as she turned, and wound about the
palings, fled round and round, crossed and crossed again in the agony of
escape, which left her no breath to cry out as her pursuer came nearer
and nearer, and at last exactly missed her in his last attempt to catch
her as she leaped over the boundary. How different from the Anna who
wept under the trees in Audley Park! Selina was afraid that, after all,
she had not found the friend after her own heart, whom she had
congratulated herself on securing.
“My love,” said her mother, when she saw that her bowl of new milk stood
untasted before her, while the rest of the party were enjoying the meal
they had earned by exercise, “I am afraid you are not well, Selina.”
There was visible agitation about the lower part of the face while she
replied, in a low voice, that she was not ill. Her father, whose back
was towards her, turned suddenly round and looked her full in the face,
while he felt her pulse with mock gravity, observing that there was no
distemper but on the nerves, which certainly wanted bracing. In an
instant, before she was aware, he held her hands behind her with one
hand, and with the other dragged her to the very brink of the pond, as
if he would throw her in. Selina screamed and struggled; every body else
laughed, Anna rather more loudly than was accordant with her friend’s
sympathies. Mr. Fletcher let his prisoner escape, ran after her, and
when he had given her such a chase as exhausted her breath, caught her,
and whispering a few words, led her back to her seat at the table under
the tree; he helped her plentifully with cake, thus giving her an
opportunity of attesting his skill in restoring an appetite.
There was so much amusement afterwards for the gentlemen in accompanying
the farmer through some of his fields—for Mrs. Fletcher in quietly
talking over old times with Nurse Rickham—and for the young people, in
seeing the dairy-woman finish her milking, that it was dusk before they
left behind them the bows and curtseys of the household at the farm, and
quite dark when they reached home.
In the parlour was Signor Elvi, perfectly safe, reading very intently,
and looking so placid, that it was evident no such direful thoughts as
Selina had imagined, had disturbed any mind but her own. Anna retained,
for the present, her conjecture about the poem; but, though all were
full of curiosity respecting his day’s adventures, no one made any
allusion to them, except Mr. Fletcher, who observed on the universal
predilection of patriots for the wilds of nature, for hills, heaths, and
caves.
“It is universal because it is natural,” said Signor Elvi. “When men
cannot breathe freely in despotic courts, they love to lay bare their
bosoms to the winds. If they must be dumb before tyrants, they love to
shout their songs of liberty in the depths of caverns. If they must
smile falsely when the eyes of traitors are upon them, they love to drop
their tears into the mountain stream, while none look on but the
faithful and silent stars. Nature is the heaven of patriots.”
“But, my dear sir, here are no tyrants to constrain you to silence; and
it is to be hoped we are not traitors. Weep as much as you please, and
I, for one, will promise not to report your tears.”
“You spoke of patriots,” said the foreigner, smiling; “could I guess
that your thoughts were of myself?”
CHAPTER VI.
Departures.
The next day was Sunday. Signor Elvi, whether a Christian or not, went
to church with the family, apparently as a matter of course. Mary and
Selina stole a glance at one another when the text of the sermon was
given out: “Affliction worketh patience; and patience experience; and
experience hope.”
How often it happens, that when the attention has been fixed on any idea
or feeling, or train of ideas and feelings, some circumstance, or a
great variety of circumstances, happens to illustrate or impress yet
more deeply the subject of our thought! How eminently useful, in this
way, is public worship! for it is scarcely possible that the subject of
discourse should not have peculiarly engaged the attention of some one
among the hearers so recently as to secure a preparatory interest which
must give double effect to what is declared and enforced. This was the
case in the present instance. The excellent sermon which Mary and Selina
now heard, not only enlarged their views of the subject on which they
had talked the day before, but was so fixed in their memories that it
recurred to them for a longtime afterwards, whenever suffering,
fortitude, self-destruction, and even Signor Elvi and his countrymen
were talked about.
The party returned from church by the longer way through the fields,
which extended to the back gate of Mr. Byerley’s garden. Mary had put
her arm within her father’s, as the Signor walked beside him. These
three paced along slowly, while the rest went forward.
Mr. Byerley hoped that his friend had followed his own inclinations
about attending worship, and had not accompanied the family merely out
of complaisance and observance of custom.
“Convince yourself, from my freedom of yesterday,” was the reply. “If I
withdrew myself freely for my own pleasure, think you not I would
likewise withdraw rather than dishonour the worship of God by entering
his temple with an unwilling heart?”
“I did not know that you could join in Christian worship with a willing
heart.”
“In some worship which is called Christian, I join not, because its
superstition is greater than I can bear. Where the priest offers for the
people prayers which they cannot understand, and makes them worship a
dressed doll, and rings bells, and burns candles in the daylight, I feel
no more that it is my God whom they worship, and I turn away as from
idolatry. Such is the Christianity of my country. Far better is the
simple homage of the spirit among the hills.”
“Far better, indeed,” said Mr. Byerley: “but why should not that simple
homage be Christian? You have till lately seen no worship but the
Catholic worship of your own country, where it is more grossly
superstitious than almost any where else; but if you love truth, if you
love religion as much as I believe you do, you will not be satisfied
till you have learned a little more what Christianity is. You have
already found that Latin prayers, wax lights, and incense make no part
of it; and if you will go into our meeting-houses, you will find
external observances more simplified still. From the solemn Easter
service of our cathedrals, which you acknowledge to be impressive, down
to the silent worship of the Friends’ meeting-house, which you would
perhaps find no less so, you might, by discovering what Christianity is
not, become better informed than you now are what it is.”
“I own, my friend, that this diversity is too perplexing for me. I meet
many Christians; and they all tell me differently of their faith. I——.”
“Look to the records of their faith, and judge for yourself, instead of
taking any man’s word.”
“I was about to say, that I look into the Scriptures and find many
things which I cannot understand or believe; but much, very much, which
is more pure in morals, more lofty in feeling, more grand in piety to
God, and more winning in love to man, than I can find in any other
religion, whether in the heart or in books. Therefore I read very often
the words of Christ with veneration, and therefore I attend the worship
of your churches. I believe that all things come from God, the
consolations of all religions, and of your best religion among others;
and as long as I make use of it and give thanks for it, it matters not
to me to enquire about those parts which I cannot believe.”
“You cannot be sure whether you can believe them or not till you do
enquire,” observed Mr. Byerley, “as you would yourself remark in any
other case; and as I think you will admit hereafter, when you have
learned more of our faith, as separate from the superstitions with which
you have hitherto seen it united. If you will only study this subject as
fairly as you do any other which interests you, you will find
Christianity far more precious to you than you can conceive: more
precious than the religion which you now value above every thing. It is,
in fact, the same religion, enlarged and enriched.”
“Ah! what is man without religion?” exclaimed his friend. “I believe not
myself to have suffered more than many others; but what but religion
could have strengthened me to live? My country, my beautiful Italy, is
spoiled and trampled on by tyrants; and I, her son, who loved her so
much, how should I escape? I have given in sacrifice all I have; but
neither myself nor her many devoted children have ransomed her from her
slavery. Our struggles to set her free have doubled her chains; and her
oppressors laugh at her miseries and insult her defenders, who, torn
from her bosom, mourn eternally their exile.”
“The wrongs of your country, Elvi, afflict you more than your own. This
is patriotism.”
“Give me no unjust praise, my friend: my own sorrows find fewer words
because they lie deeper. My home, and they who dwell there, shall see me
no more! When I saw my son fall on the field; when his generous spirit
escaped before he could speak the last words of love to me; when, again,
the sea rolled between me and my own land, and I had not given my wife
one farewell, I thought that fate had heaped her last injuries upon me,
and I trusted that I could not live under so many griefs. But I talk no
more of fate, but rather think of God; and though I live, and my griefs
live also, and make a resting-place in my heart till death, I am content
to remain till affliction has made me patient, and my patience has made
me hopeful, as your apostle has wisely said. Now, what but religion
could give me this content and this hope?”
“Nothing, my friend. No other spirit of peace is always awake and always
nigh. But whence did you derive your religion?”
“When, in my youth, I ceased to be a Catholic, I did not cease to regard
God; but not till I became helpless and friendless did I know the full
worth of piety. When I looked round and found no home, I humbly sought
my home in the Presence which is every where; when there was no one near
to mourn with me, or to love me, it was my true relief to pray; and when
I have hope for my children and for my country, it rejoices me to commit
it to Him who can fulfil what I can only hope. And above all, when I
hear my countrymen curse the authors of their sorrows, it comforts me to
disarm those curses with more kindly prayers. Oh! that they would learn
that revenge is not for man.”
Mary thought that their friend had learned more from the gospel than he
himself was aware of. So thought their father.
“I have been grieved, though not much surprised,” said he, “to perceive
how your countrymen long for revenge, and how bitterly they curse their
oppressors.”
“Alas!” replied Elvi, “it makes me mourn for them and for our cause.
They desire to crush their enemies under their feet, to shed their blood
as a welcome libation to freedom, to hunt them as blood-hounds follow
their prey; but the noblest hearts feel not thus. The strongest sight
looks furthest, and sees a nobler issue than this. I ask them where is
their faith, if not in Providence—in liberty. The chains of tyranny are
strong, but the consuming power of time is yet stronger. Tyranny now
puts forth her force to desolate the lands; but there is an immortal
vigour in liberty which shall make her the queen of the world, when
prisons shall be razed, and when blood shall cease to be poured out like
water. This is the faith which I would give to those who will not
receive a better. Yet some of them will not live, even by this faith.”
Mary anxiously listened for what was to come next.
“If they have no higher faith than this,” observed her father, “I do not
wonder that they obey the impulse to cast off life and sorrow together.”
“Nor I, my friends; for the temptation is indeed strong.”
“You have felt it to be so.”
“Once: one bitter hour—let us not speak of it. Now I am beyond its
reach. I see how poor is the courage which cannot long endure. I see how
impious is the impatience which will not wait till the designs of
Providence are made known. I pity those who are thus weak, more than
they pity me for what remains to me; and for myself—if my lot be to die
for my own land, I am ready: if it be to suffer yet many years for her,
I am willing. These vows I repeat, as yesterday, on the days which
number my years since my birth.”
“Was yesterday your birth-day?”
“It was. In my own country, I went among the mountains—among the Alps,
which as a child I climbed. There I was alone on that day. Here, no Alps
are before me, but I go out alone to remember, and to meditate, and to
hope; for while my heart beats, I cannot but remember: while there is a
world around me, and a spirit within me, I must meditate: while there is
a providence to be discerned, and a God to be hearkened to in all these
things, I am apt to hope, and I cannot but pray.”
“Your faith is now your best blessing, and will prove your ample
reward,” said Mr. Byerley, “whatever lot may befall your country and
yourself; but tell me, honestly, if those of your countrymen who are
without your faith do not look on you as almost a Christian?”
“I own they do; but they know as much less of your gospel than I, as I
than you.”
Mary fell into a reverie about what she had heard; and when she listened
again, her father and his friend were speaking of the political state of
Italy. Having made sure of the facts that Signor Elvi, so far from
excusing the act of suicide, held it to be impious, selfish, and
cowardly, she took the first opportunity, after her arrival at home, of
communicating her discovery to Selina, who was never again heard to
admire, even in the very lowest degrees of comparison, the resolution
shown in the act of self-murder.
This was the last day of the Fletchers’ visit—the last day of the
intercourse which all the girls enjoyed, and which Anna thought she
could scarcely live without. She had come to an explanation, and almost
an apology, with Selina, for her mirth the preceding evening. She owned
that it was very provoking, when inclined to be sad, to see one’s
dearest friend particularly merry; and she thought she should be more
observant of Selina’s mood another time. She just hinted, however, that
some accommodation from the other party was very possible; and that it
might be desirable to meet half way. If Selina had looked a little more
cheerful, she might have been more moderate in her laughter. “How was it
possible, dear, to be cheerful, when I supposed that Signor Elvi had
shot himself?” was, however, an unanswerable question.
Long was the talk this night, when the friends should have been fitting
themselves, by sleep, for the fatigues and various emotions of the next
day. When the midnight clock told them that the last Sabbath they were
to be together was gone, they had too much to say about the way in which
they were to remember each other, to close their eyes. It was dawn
before they slept. The next morning came the melancholy business of
packing, and the disagreeable sight of corded trunks in the hall. Though
the dinner was ordered very early, the hours hung heavily; for no one
thought of doing any thing but wandering round the garden, and sitting
in the balcony, and bidding farewell to every place.
While Rose, Selina, and Anna were standing idly by the brink of the
pond, they saw Mary running nimbly down the steps, and hastening towards
them, evidently bringing good news. She had just heard of her father’s
promise to take them abroad to join their friends, as soon as they
should be settled at Tours. Joyful news indeed! and well-timed to cheer
the parting. Months must pass away before they would meet; but that
there was any certain prospect of meeting was delightful. Mary was older
than her companions, and very much wiser in proportion, so that she
could look forward with greater ease: she was therefore the happiest of
the party; rather happier than her sister could understand.
Anna’s heart smote her when she felt, from time to time, a fear that she
should not find her sister all she had found her—a fear that they might
be dull together. She loved her father and sister very much; but she no
longer looked forward to her daily occupations, and to daily intercourse
with the household, with the pleasure and alacrity which had been
habitual to her. This painful feeling, made up of regret and
self-reproach, was at its height when Mr. Fletcher’s carriage drove from
the door. She was so possessed with the idea that Mary would not feel
the separation as she did, that she ran away at once to shed her tears
in silence. If she had had any thought for any one but herself, she
would have perceived that her sister was also in tears, and that they
did not flow the less amply because Anna broke from her, refusing to be
comforted. After a while, Anna stole into the room her friends had
occupied, for the purpose of feeding her grief with the visible signs of
their former presence. Mary was already there, sitting on the chair on
which a bandbox had stood to be packed, and twirling on her fingers a
rejected piece of string. The sympathy which thus brought them together
cheered them both, and they resolutely went the round of the apartment,
to gather up every memorial of their departed guests. In a half-opened
drawer, they found a note for each—notes which afforded abundance of
painful pleasure, and which were immediately destined, by vow, to be
kept for ever.
There is something so truly painful in partings, that no length of time,
no frequency of the occasion, can reconcile us to them. The sight of the
deserted room strikes gloom upon the heart, even if its inhabitant
intends to return in a very few days or weeks. We sigh over every
memorial we happen to meet with, even if the absent one is to return
presently to claim it. The grief of a really terrible parting is
transferred, by association, to the least important; and every body
feels pretty much alike about them all. It is not to be wondered at that
Mary and Anna, who were just beginning to taste the pleasures of
friendship with new minds, and who were inexperienced in the regrets
which attend such connexions, should be really and deeply melancholy
during the first hours of separation; especially as they had the
prospect of undergoing something of the same kind the next day, when
Signor Elvi was to bid them farewell.
He was now with their father in the study, transacting the business
which brought him to A——. He appeared no more to them the whole day,
except at tea-time, when he was so busy talking politics that he had no
more leisure than Mr. Byerley for taking further notice of the girls
than his habitual politeness prompted. The sisters, feeling somewhat
forlorn when again left together, sat down, face to face, to talk over
the past week; and they comforted one another as well as they could,
till sleep performed the office of comforter better still.
The next afternoon, when the Signor had bestowed on them his last smile,
and with foreign politeness and native feeling kissed their hands at
parting, they went to their father’s study to get rid of their ennui.
Mr. Byerley was, fortunately, in particularly good spirits. Much as he
esteemed his late guests, and had on the whole enjoyed their society, he
preferred his own quiet study, and the liberty to pursue his daily
plans. To be gowned and slippered was quite a luxury; and to shut the
door on all the world but his children, gave him a satisfaction which he
was not unreasonable enough to expect to see reflected in the faces of
his young companions. It was well that he was in a bright mood, for all
his patience was needed to-day. Virgil could not be made to utter
poetry, or even sense, this afternoon; and Fénélon’s French was far less
intelligible than Signor Elvi’s. Anna’s memory furnished her with one
provoking rhyme,
“The rule of three doth puzzle me,”
which was the only product she could obtain from her sum. Her father
took pity on her perplexity, and explained once more what he knew she
understood very well. He pointed with his finger to the place where the
answer was to be written down, when lo! a huge tear-drop fell on it.
Then came another, and another, till the divisor and the quotient became
alike indistinguishable.
“What is all this about?” said her father, making her sit on his knee.
“What makes you so unhappy this afternoon?”
Anna had so many reasons to give, that she did not know which to produce
first. Before she could find voice to reply, her father’s attention was
called away by stifled sobs from the other side of the table.
“You too, Mary! Come here, my dear, and tell me what has happened to you
both.”
Mary came and, as she was wont, told her father all that she herself
knew of what was in her mind; ending by owning, with a half-smile, that
she should not have shed any tears if Anna had not; but that now she had
once begun, she did not know when she should be able to leave off. Her
father, hasty as he was sometimes, was now full of tenderness, though he
did not weakly encourage their overflow of melancholy. He said no more
about study, but talked to them of the prospect of meeting their friends
again, and of much which was to be done in the mean time. He showed that
he fully understood the new pleasure of companionship which they had
just enjoyed, and that he shared their sympathy with his foreign
friend’s misfortunes, and their admiration of his conduct under them;
but he led them to perceive how wrong it is to allow inactive sympathy
to interfere with active duty.
When the tears had disappeared, and smiles came forth again, he sent
them to put on their bonnets, that they might have a walk together once
more.
As soon as the fresh air blew on her face, Mary’s impulse was, as usual,
to sing; but crying is a bad preparation for singing, and she was
obliged to keep her music till her voice, as well as her spirit, had
recovered its tone.
Anna was too much absorbed to observe where her father was leading her,
till they entered a narrow, dark alley, and turned up a broken, winding
stair. When they had reached the top, Mr. Byerley desired them to wait
outside a door at which he knocked, till he should come to them. When
the door was opened from within, the girls obtained a view, for an
instant, of a wretched apartment inhabited by a sick man, who was
stretched on a low bedstead, without curtains, and furnished only with a
rug. Pain and want were visible in the face of the sufferer; and the boy
who opened the door likewise appeared half-famished.
“O, papa!” said Mary, when Mr. Byerley joined them again in a few
minutes, “who are these poor people?”
“They are foreigners, my dear, in the extreme of distress.”
Anna’s attention was immediately fixed.
“Foreigners, papa? Where do they come from?”
“From Italy. The man is an image-maker, whom you may have seen about the
streets with his board. He maintained himself and his son by his
ingenuity; and even contrived to put the boy to school, where he made
good progress; but it is all at an end now. The poor man was seized with
a rheumatic fever some weeks ago, and when he will be better there is no
saying; for no complaint is more tedious. His money is all gone; and
they have both parted with all their clothes but what they had on before
they applied to any body for assistance. When I first saw them,
yesterday, they seemed almost starved.”
“Why did you not tell us, papa? We might have done a great deal for them
by this time.”
“I wished first to learn all the particulars of their story, and at the
same time to give them the pleasure of conversing with a countryman; and
therefore I took Elvi to see them last night. He is satisfied of the
truth of their statements, and will obtain some relief, if possible,
from the fund for the relief of distressed foreigners in London. He had
nothing else to give, I am sorry to say; but his kindness and his
promise have cheered his poor countryman, and done him more good, he
says, than medicine. You see, Anna, we must not bestow all our
compassion on Elvi: he is not the most unfortunate of emigrants, hard as
is the emigrant’s lot.”
Anna shook her head. Her father continued.
“Elvi himself said that such a scene as this made him ashamed of
dwelling on his own sorrows.”
“He does not,” exclaimed Anna: “he thinks of every body sooner than
himself.”
“He does, my dear, to all appearance—to admiration; but I believe he has
very severe struggles to undergo when no human eye sees, and none are
near to feel with and for him. I will not say that he reproaches himself
for this, but he is anxious to bear in mind that others suffer more than
himself. ‘I am not sleepless,’ he says, ‘from hunger and pain, like this
man. I can see the sun shine and be consoled. I am soothed by friendly
words and kind deeds, and my poverty is not real, but only future, since
I have clothes and food; but this man tosses on his straw bed through
the night, and groans in anguish through the day. He has no bread nor
clothes, nor is any one near to give. His son too is wasting before his
eyes; and they have nothing but their faith to make them dare look
forward one single day. I must think of them when I am sad.’ Elvi is
right.”
“Certainly, papa,” said Mary; “but still I think we cannot judge of a
person’s griefs by what their condition seems to be. Do not you think
some people may feel exile and disappointment more than other people
feel sickness and want?”
“I do, my dear. The degree of suffering depends more on the state of the
person’s mind than on his outward circumstances: a very refined and
amiable person may suffer more from the disappointment of his affections
and the ruin of his country, than a very stupid and ignorant person from
actual want. All these evils are equally real; but there are these
differences—that we can understand and estimate the one kind better than
the other; and we can always relieve the one, and scarcely ever the
other: and of course, our first concern is with that which we can
measure and relieve.”
“That is, we should think more of this poor man, and of what we can do
for him, than of Signor Elvi, this afternoon. So we will.”
“Happily there is no occasion to feel less for Elvi because we can do
more for his poor countryman,” said her father: “if we are but careful
to _do_ what we can and what we ought, we may make ourselves sure that
our feelings will be right. We are to take care of our actions, and to
leave our feelings to take care of themselves.”
This doctrine did not quite suit Anna’s taste. She made no objection to
it in theory; but when she had made sure of the image-man being taken
care of by other people, she lapsed into her reveries about patriotism
and friendship; or rather about one patriot and one friend.
CHAPTER VII.
London.
Instead of a few months, it was full two years before Mr. Byerley and
his daughters set out on their promised journey to the continent. Mr.
Fletcher’s plans had been changed from time to time, so as to delay the
arrival of his family at Tours; and Mr. Byerley was too fond of his home
to be persuaded to leave it till the last minute, though every body saw
how necessary some change of plan with respect to his daughters was
becoming. To this he was not himself totally blind, though he was
scarcely sufficiently aware of the danger in which Anna stood of losing
all energy of character, all vigour of body as well as of mind, through
an unbounded indulgence of the imagination. Mary was generally thought
very romantic; but the few, the very few, who knew her well, never
applied the term to her. No weak, no romantic person was ever capable of
the silent, perpetual self-denial which Mary practised. No romantic
person was ever so entirely devoted as Mary to the welfare of every body
about her. It is true she did not make much use of the common rules of
common people for judging of herself, still less of others: perhaps she
overlooked these inferior rules too much. She thought and she felt on a
large scale; and when she had laid hold of a good principle, she made it
serve small as well as great occasions, in a way that little minds would
have found it difficult to comprehend. Nobody doubted that on great
occasions Mary would act nobly; but they supposed her unfit for the
purposes of common life: they supposed her
“too bright and good
For human nature’s daily food.”
They were quite mistaken, as they would soon have found by living in the
same house with her. They would have seen how capable she was of
forbearance in trifles, of patience under daily trials, of the careful
performance of irksome duties. Her mind was matured so far beyond her
years, that a stranger who knew her age and not her circumstances, would
have accused her of an affectation of womanishness. It was because she
thought and felt like a woman, however, and not because she wished to be
thought one, that her manner was that of a woman. It was peculiar,
certainly; unlike that of any other girl of her age, which was a
disadvantage in some respects; but there was nothing in it which a
kind-hearted person would find fault with; it would rather please him.
Knowing, as Mary did, that it was probable that their seclusion from
female society had left them ignorant of many of the important
proprieties of life, she was particularly watchful to obtain all the
light she could on a subject of such great practical consequence; and
her incessant observation and anxious desire proved excellent teachers.
The very nicest sense of propriety grew out of the discipline she
imposed on herself, and was now operating rapidly on the faulty external
habits of her early years, and from the desire of doing right—a much
better motive than the desire of being pleasing—Mary was becoming
elegant and lady-like in her dress and appearance. And how went life
with Anna all this time? Alas! very differently. She was delicate in
health, and weak in spirits: all the instruction, all the discipline
which had so remarkably improved her sister, seemed to fall short of its
due effect on her. It taught her what was right, and gave her a
tormenting, impotent wish to do it; but to do it, she seemed to have no
power; and therefore the wish was tormenting. Her time was ill-employed,
she could not tell how or why; for she was very sorry for it, and was
always ready to own she was wrong, and profuse in her promises that she
would mend; but no amendment followed. She presented the singular
phenomenon of a strong understanding, which seemed of no use to any
body; of a clear knowledge of what was right, which did not prevent her
doing wrong; of a lively sympathy for other people’s feelings, which did
not prevent her irritating and wounding them perpetually; of a temper
gentle and amiable on the whole, but liable to sudden and unaccountable
disturbance. It is needless to say that she was not happy, and that she
did much to prevent her sister being so. Her father had many an anxious
hour on her account, though he still hoped, that as she was so young,
she would conquer the irresolution which seemed the origin of all her
faults. He did not sufficiently remember that, owing to the peculiarity
of their situation, time had done more than remained to be done in
deciding the cast of character of his children. He did not enquire
sufficiently into the cause of the irresolution of will, which, if he
had so enquired, he would not have been so sanguine in the hope of
curing: it proceeded from a premature and excessive exercise of the
imagination. Whether Anna would, like Mary, prove herself great on great
occasions, nobody could decide; but it was evident to every body that
she was not great on small occasions. She met with much allowance on
account of her health; but more than one who made this just allowance,
felt convinced that her delicacy of health was as much the effect as the
cause of her faulty state of mind.
Nurse Rickham was perhaps as good a judge of her case, as many a one
whose education and intercourse with the superior classes of society
might seem to qualify for a more accurate observation and judgment.
“I am glad, sir,” said she one day to Mr. Byerley, “that you are going
to take the young ladies out to see the world a little, though I am sure
I shall count the weeks till they come back again.”
“Thank you, nurse. I hope they will enjoy themselves; but I shall count
the months as anxiously as you. I am not fond of wandering, and I am
afraid I shall miss the quiet I have been accustomed to.”
“But you will have the satisfaction, I hope, sir, of seeing that it does
the young ladies good to travel, Miss Anna especially. I am sorry to say
so, sir; but it makes my heart ache to see her so different from what
she used to be.”
He shook his head, and nurse went on:
“Miss Mary sings about the house like a nightingale, for all she is full
of care sometimes, as I know; but Miss Anna, who used to be as
high-spirited as a child need be, is so downcast now, that no one would
think her to be the same.”
“What strikes you as the reason, nurse?”
“She seems to me to think too much: I don’t pretend to know how much she
studies from books, and no doubt you look to that, sir; but she seems to
me to be always thinking and thinking; and ’tis that hurts her health, I
do believe, more than any thing else. When she comes to our farm, I
don’t expect or wish that she should play with the children as she did
when she was a child herself; but I don’t like to see her stand for
hours together, looking up at the tree tops as if she was watching the
rooks, when it comes out at last that she never saw one of them, nor
thought about them at all.”
“If any thing came of all this reverie, I should be less uneasy about
it; but while she becomes more unfit for common life, I do not perceive
that her understanding improves like her sister’s. It is time something
was done, nurse; and I hope the experiment has not been delayed too
long.”
A month was to be spent in London, previous to their leaving England. It
was now the gay season in town: the exhibitions were all open: and as
the girls had lived in almost entire seclusion, their father wished to
embrace the present opportunity of gratifying that love of the fine arts
with which he had taken pains to inspire them. They could both draw
well, having been well taught and long-practised; but they had never
seen any picture-gallery, but one. There was a fine collection at Audley
Castle, and there Mary had gazed and studied till she knew every picture
by heart, and had copied all the best into her mind, and some few into
her portfolio. She had an earnest desire to see other works of her
favourite masters, and to become acquainted with the productions of many
whom she yet knew only by name. The time too appeared at hand, when they
should hear such music as their hearts told them of by anticipation, but
as their ears had never heard. The most ancient edifice they had ever
seen was the market-cross of A——, which bore date 1521. No; not the most
ancient, for Mary had once been in a cathedral, when she was only four
or five years old. She remembered dimly the chill grandeur of the
aisles, and the music of the choir, as it swelled from the soft
breathings of a single voice, to the pealing harmony which rang again
from the roof. She remembered enough to make her long intensely, and to
communicate to her sister an equal impatience to see Westminster Abbey.
Mr. Byerley had many political connexions in London, but they were not
persons with whom he wished to form more than an acquaintance; and as it
was necessary that they should hold their time at their own disposal, he
refused several invitations to take up an abode at the houses of
friends, and requested Signor Elvi to engage lodgings in a favourable
situation. He was very happy to receive such a commission, and on the
evening when they were expected, awaited their arrival in the
apartments, which he was resolved they should not enter without meeting
with a welcome.
A doubt had been started, whether or not the girls should take their
maid Susan with them. It seemed probable that in France she would be an
incumbrance more than a help; but their father dreaded the effects of
their inexperience in the ways of travelling, in the little
circumstances of a journey in which he could not help them, and on which
its comfort and pleasure so much depended. It was resolved, at last,
that she should accompany them to London, and then proceed or not, as
might appear desirable at the end of a month. On the appointed morning,
therefore, Susan having looked into her young mistresses’ drawers, to
see that the packing, which was managed in their own very original
style, was complete, and that nothing needful was left behind, appeared
in her new straw bonnet and shawl, ready to mount the box when the
carriage drove up to the door. It was hard to say who looked the most
grave and sad—Mr. Byerley, who was whirled away in opposition to his
inclinations if not to his will; or Nurse Rickham and the remaining
servant, who were left behind, to comfort one another as they best
might.
The travelling party reached their lodgings in town in time for a late
dinner;—their pretty, convenient apartments, looking out upon such a
scene of organized bustle as the girls had formed no idea of. When they
had been welcomed by Signor Elvi, and had in turn welcomed him to
dinner, when they had followed their civil-spoken hostess to their
apartment, and been introduced to all its advantages of prospect, air,
quiet, &c. and when they had dismissed fish and fowl, the question
arose, what was to be done next? Mary replied, by taking down from the
mantel-piece the notes which had awaited them from Mr. B——, the
professor of music, and Mr. D——, the drawing-master, who appointed
certain days and hours for giving the desired lessons. Mr. B—— was to
come the next morning; so Mary lost no time in trying whether the
instrument provided by Signor Elvi was in tune. It satisfied her
perfectly, and she was then ready to accompany the party in a drive
round Regent’s Park. It was not the hour for seeing the throng of
company with which it is crowded at an earlier period of a fine spring
day; but the splendour of the buildings afforded quite enough interest
for the first visit. The wonders of the Colosseum, the Diorama, and the
Zoological Gardens, were reserved for another day; and before it grew
dark, the party were glad to return to tea and to bed. They set down
Signor Elvi at his lodgings, having agreed upon the time which should be
devoted to their lessons with him.
At breakfast the next morning, the girls heard with consternation, that
their father was going out immediately on business, and would be absent
for some hours.
“But, papa, Mr. B—— is coming at eleven o’clock, to give me my music
lesson.”
“Well, my dear, what of that? you do not think I can assist your music,
do you?”
“And Mrs. Boyer, and the Nicholsons, will most likely call this
morning,” said Anna; “and you know we are quite strangers to them.”
“They will not be strangers when they have been here five minutes; and
if they were, I do not know what you should be afraid of, or how I could
be of any use to you.”
So saying, and knowing that his daughters might reasonably remonstrate
further, he pushed away his cup and saucer, nodded, and left them.
“What are we to do? How very awkward!” exclaimed Mary. “Let us keep
together, Anna: stay in the room when Mr. B—— comes.”
“Certainly, unless there should be company in the back drawing-room.
Happily, we shall both draw; so it will not signify so much if papa
should be out when Mr. D—— comes.”
It happened, as usual, that Anna forgot her promise. The clock struck
eleven, and Mr. B—— made his appearance when Mary was alone. She was
afraid of him at first sight, for he was so stiffened, so be-collared
and be-curled, as to be unlike any body she had ever seen. She thought
it would be foolish to ring for her sister, though she had now little
hope of seeing her in the course of the lesson. She therefore explained
that her father had been obliged to go out early, and volunteered all
the necessary information about her musical studies thus far. She did
not play her best, when called upon, and was, at first, deterred by her
master’s pompous manner, from asking many things which she wished to
know. By degrees, however, her habitual interest in her music overcame
her uncomfortable feelings, and she played her part of a duet with so
much spirit, that Mr. B——’s formality gradually gave way, and he began
to speak less like an oracle, and to tap his snuffbox less incessantly.
When the lesson was about half over, Mary heard a rapping at the door,
and the admittance of company into the back drawing-room. She supposed
that Anna had received them; and when Mr. B—— had made his three bows in
acknowledgment of her single curtsey, she ran up stairs for her gloves,
that she might join her sister and their guests. To her surprise, she
found Anna sitting at the foot of the bed, with a book in her hand.
“Why, Anna, don’t you know there is somebody in the drawing-room?”
“Yes, I am going directly,” said Anna, rising, and showing that her gown
was unfastened; “I am only going to change my gown, and I will come
directly.”
Mary rang for Susan, and entreating her sister to follow with all speed,
ran down to apologize to Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson for her father’s absence
and her own delay. They staid long, but Anna came not; and the arrival
of the drawing-master sent them away without having seen her. When again
hunted up, she was found preparing her drawing-board, which ought to
have been ready before.
“This will never do,” thought Mary: “I must ask papa not to go out again
at this time of day.”
Anna woke up at the sight of her master’s beautiful portfolio, and
appeared to have enjoyed her lesson so much, that Mary had not the heart
to reproach her for her desertion in the morning. She forgot it herself
when the carriage came to the door, and their father stepped in after
them to take them to the Abbey.
There they remained for hours. They wandered silently through the
intricacies of the side chapels, and retired from the crowd of visitors
into the solemn stillness of Henry the Seventh’s chapel. There was no
motion but the waving of the ancient banners of the knights; no sound
but the softest melody of the organ; no sunshine but the one gleam which
fell athwart the deep arch from the high windows. The partial gloom, the
grandeur, the silence, thrilled the very souls of the strangers, and
hushed their voices. After they had gone the round of the edifice, and
spent a long hour in the Poets’ Corner, they, with one consent, returned
to the chapel, that they might bear away with them the impression they
most wished to preserve.
“Where next, my dears?” said Mr. Byerley, as they emerged into the warm
sunshine.
“Is not this enough for to-day?” said Mary: “I am afraid we should enjoy
nothing after it.”
“Oh! let us get away from shops and people,” said Anna, looking as if
she were going to cry: “I cannot bear them to-day.”
“No work of art will do after what we have seen,” said their father;
“but you shall see what will refresh instead of disgusting you.”
He gave orders for a drive over Hampstead Heath; and the freshness and
natural beauty which they found there, softened without impairing the
impressions which they had previously received.
They were alone in the evening; and after tea they sat down quietly to
talk. Mary would have wished to practise, and Anna to read; but their
father looked round him with a sigh, as if regretting his own study.
Mary therefore gave him a description of her music-lesson and of Mr.
B——, entreating him to be at home the next time her master should come.
“That is as it may happen, Mary: I will take you to-morrow where you
will learn what I was about this morning, and then you will not be sorry
that I left you to take care of each other.”
“I cannot let you suppose that we did that,” said Anna, blushing: “I
left Mary to manage every thing; but I will be more ready to-morrow.”
“Will you?” said her father: “how often have you promised this, Anna?
and have you ever kept your promise? You are not aware how you deceive
yourself.”
“You have not told us,” said Mary, after a painful pause, “where you are
going to take us to-morrow.”
“You have never heard good public speaking——”
“O yes, papa! we heard you speak at Hertford, about reform in
parliament.”
“You call that good public speaking, do you?” said Mr. Byerley,
laughing: “you will find your notions a little exalted by what you will
hear to-morrow. The meeting is to be at Freemasons’ Hall; and B——, and
W——, and P——, will speak; and the subject is——”
“Not politics, I do hope,” said Anna.
“The subject is political, but it involves much besides politics, or I
should not think of taking you there, my little hater of politics. It
cannot be said of us, Anna, ‘like father like child:’ you will feel
differently, when you grow older and wiser.”
“If she does not,” said Mary, laughing, “she and I shall lay all the
blame on you. But I doubt whether we shall ever think, as you wish we
should, that it is necessary or desirable for a woman to care about what
seems to be no concern of hers.”
“I have not adopted the right method, I believe, to interest you in what
interests me so much,” said Mr. Byerley: “I dare say you are quite tired
of hearing of public meetings, and petitions, and of reform in
parliament, at the very name of which I observe you sigh. I see you
never look at a newspaper, except to discover notices of new music or
books; but this is all because you do not know the importance of the
subjects you despise.”
“But,” said Anna, “I thought every body disliked female politicians. I
remember your looking very much disgusted when you heard how the
Blakeleys bestirred themselves in Mr. Harmer’s election; how Mrs.
Blakeley helped to canvass for him; and how her daughters dropped a
laurel crown by a red ribbon on his head, when he was chaired. They
stood on a scaffolding, you know, where every body in the marketplace
could see them; and I remember your saying, that if your daughters had
done it, you should have wished the scaffolding to fall in with them
before the member’s chair came round.”
“True, Anna, I remember saying so; and my feeling is much the same now,
though I would not express it so extravagantly. I know few things more
disgusting, than to see women pushing forwards in matters where they
have no business, and inflaming themselves with party spirit. But all
this has nothing to do with such an interest in the welfare of your
country and your race as I wish to awaken in you. I think, Mary, you
liked the chapter of the ‘Wealth of Nations,’ which you read to me
lately.”
“On Bounties, and Restraints on Importation; yes, I liked it
particularly, and mean to read more, if I may.”
“Well, that very question of Free Trade is one of the most important
that our politicians are busy about now.”
“But what have _we_ to do with it?” persisted Anna.
“As much as any body who cares for the condition of the labouring
classes, to say nothing of the state of all the farmers and merchants in
the kingdom. Is it not worth knowing why they are sometimes prosperous,
and sometimes distressed? Would not you like to be able to know whether
their prospects will probably improve or grow worse?”
“Is this learned by studying the question of Free Trade?”
“It cannot be learned by other means, at any rate.”
“But is it not better to help the poor people about us, than to learn
what is likely to happen to poor people in general?” asked Anna.
“It certainly would be, if we could not do both; but I am firmly
convinced that benevolent persons, women as well as men, may do more
good by giving their poorer neighbours right notions about their own
interests, than even by bestowing money or clothes. Do you remember the
account Mr. Bland gave us of the _turn out_ at Manchester?”
“Yes; I shall never forget it.”
“Well, however much good was done by the benevolent persons who gave
soup and blankets to the starving weavers, Mr. Bland did more good than
all the other people together, by proving to those who struck for wages
that they were hastening their own ruin. His wife helped him very much
by her influence among the weavers’ wives; and she could not have done
this if she had known nothing of the _politics_ of the case. We hear too
of the occasional destruction of machinery in the manufacturing
districts; and this mischief will not cease till the people are taught
that they injure their own interests by such violence. Why should not
ladies help to teach this as well as other truths? and how should they
teach it, unless they understand the matter well themselves?”
“Is there any thing about that in the ‘Wealth of Nations,’ papa?”
“Yes; and you shall read it. There are other political subjects, on
which there is no occasion to bid you feel an interest.”
Anna looked at Mary in unbelief.
“Nobody is more indignant at slavery than you are, Anna.”
Anna’s colour rose at the mention of slavery.
“But that has nothing to do with parliamentary reform, and those
tiresome subjects, papa.”
“More than you are aware of, my dear; or than I can explain at present:
but however closely connected with the interests of religion and
humanity, it is still a political subject, as you will learn to-morrow;
for the object of the meeting I am to take you to, is to petition for
the abolition of colonial slavery. Perhaps, when there, you may wish
that you knew something of the history and present state of the
question, which would enable you to enter into much which will now be
lost upon you.”
“Will you, can you tell us about it now?” said both the girls, eagerly.
Mr. Byerley began from the point to which he knew their study of history
had led them, and gave them a clear account of the struggles, successes,
and reverses, which the great slavery question had passed through up to
the present day. For the first time, Anna felt an interest about
philanthropists and statesmen, of whose names she had long been weary,
while she knew nothing of them beyond their names. She was unwilling to
go to bed when ten o’clock struck.
“Why, I thought bed had been better than politics, at any time,” said
her father.
“It depends upon what the politics are,” said Anna, laughing: “I should
have been asleep over the corn laws an hour ago.”
“We will try some night,” said her father.
“Let it be in the ‘Wealth of Nations,’ then,” said Mary.
“Or in a more entertaining book still,” added her father: “you like
books of travels, Anna.”
Anna stared.
“They will give us excellent information on the corn question;
particularly one about a family of back settlers in America, and another
about the Japan islands.”
Anna was obliged to carry away this riddle unsolved: she determined to
look into Johnson’s Dictionary for the word _politics_ on the first
opportunity.
CHAPTER VIII.
Profitable Pleasure.
Signor Elvi breakfasted with Mr. Byerley the next morning, as the girls
were to receive their Italian lesson before they attended the meeting.
They understood the grammar of the language well, and had read many good
Italian authors. Their purpose in learning of Signor Elvi was to improve
their pronunciation, and to accustom themselves to converse in his
language. He brought with him a volume of Alfieri, thinking that nothing
could afford a better preparation for the speeches they were going to
hear. There was no opportunity for Anna to fall into a reverie. Each of
the three took a character of a tragedy, and the dialogue was kept up
briskly, ‘libertà, libertà,’ being still the theme. When Mr. Byerley
looked up from his newspaper, he was amused to see the eagerness of
each—his friend declaiming with all his natural volubility, and his
pupils, scarcely able to keep up with him, yet catching the spirit of
the sentiment, and charmed with the grandeur of the expression. They
were taken by surprise when the carriage drove to the door, and they
found it was half-past ten o’clock. While they hastened to put on their
bonnets, their father remarked to his friend, that they seemed to have
enjoyed their lesson.
“Ah, yes! and I also; for they have a mind and soul for what they do. It
is as great a pleasure to me to teach such as they, as it is a toil with
some others of my pupils. There will be no need to take strong coffee
before sitting down with your daughters.”
“Strong coffee!”
“Yes; you will wonder, perhaps, but you have no idea how great is the
drudgery to a teacher, how trying it is to his nerves, to teach those
who have no mind, or who will not use it; who are for ever careless
about necessary rules, and whom there is no chance of leading on beyond
the rules. I have now one pupil, I might say several, but I will
instance one, who writes exercises, month after month, and makes as many
gross mistakes now as at first; and all my efforts to make her think and
observe are in vain; and so we shall go on till she thinks herself too
old to be taught, or fancies she has learned enough because she is grown
up, and all this time she will never read Alfieri.”
“I was afraid you might find such a kind of pupil in Anna.”
“No; Miss Anna is sometimes absent, but she is so from the fulness, not
from the emptiness of her mind. Not that I would excuse the habit, for
it is very fatal to improvement at her age.”
“Show her that you think so; have no mercy on her if she does not attend
to you as she ought.”
“I will try,” said the Signor, laughing, “how severe I can be, if there
should be reason for complaint.”
The scene of the meeting was one of great animation. The place was
nearly full when our party arrived, and the assemblage was gayer and
more various than any the girls had ever seen. There were parties of
fashionably dressed ladies, seated beside families of friends in their
neat white shawls and drab bonnets. Members of parliament, country
gentlemen, and city merchants, met on the hustings, and shook hands, and
consulted, and handed papers about, and looked full of business and
cheerfulness. Mr. Byerley longed to be among them; and his daughters
remarked, as soon as they entered, how well he seemed to be known there.
He introduced his daughters to the family of one of his friends, who
made room for them on their bench, and requested Mr. Byerley to leave
them under their care, as they knew he was wanted on the hustings. The
girls found so much to observe, that they could scarcely keep up a
conversation with their new acquaintances, and had almost forgotten the
object of the meeting in the bustle of the preparation. They watched
their father’s progress through the crowd, as he turned to one, made a
sign to another, was heartily welcomed by a third, and was held by the
button by a fourth.
“Your father will speak, I suppose,” said Miss R—— to Mary.
“I believe not; at least, I heard nothing of his having such an
intention.”
“Oh! he certainly will. Look! Mr. B—— is putting one of the resolutions
into his hand.”
“Is that Mr. B——?” exclaimed Mary, starting from her seat. “Anna, that
is Mr. B—— that papa is talking to.”
“Hush! you must sit down,” said Miss R——, laughing: “you must come and
see us some day, and we will introduce you to him, if you wish it.”
“Wish it!” thought Mary: “to hear him speak once in public and once in
private, will give us enough to think about till we go to France. I do
believe papa will speak,” she continued aloud: “he is sitting down among
the speakers, to the left of the chair.”
“Certainly,” replied Miss R——: “my father says, that none of the movers
of this meeting have been more active than Mr. Byerley.”
At length the speakers in posse made room for the noble chairman, and
installed him in the usual form; and the business of the day began. For
the first half hour, every thing went on much as Anna and Mary had been
enabled to anticipate, from their having once attended a public meeting.
The chairman began with common-places, and the first speakers were not
yet warmed, and had the fear of the audience before their eyes: they
stopped for words now and then, and said nothing which had not often
been said before; but every good sentiment they uttered, was well
received by the audience, and a glow of feeling began to spread through
the place, and to prepare the way for the mighty movers of the heart who
were to follow. When Mr. B—— rose, Mary forgot to observe, as she had
intended, the features and lines of his countenance, and the peculiarity
of the little action he used: the harshness of his voice even was soon
forgotten, and her whole soul was at the mercy of his deep and varied
thoughts, and his vivid, passionate, burning words. If slavery had
before appeared to her the most crying abomination which subsists on the
earth, she now felt astonished that the earth remained with such an
abomination upon it; she felt at one moment ashamed, at the next proud
of her race, according as she heard of the crimes of slave-holders, or
of the virtuous efforts of our philanthropists at home. She felt, for
the first time in her life, the noble excitement of sharing with a
multitude in successive and strong emotions—emotions which are not
appropriate to the public services of religion, but which are not
therefore inconsistent with their spirit. She was sorry when Mr. B——
gave place to a speaker of a totally different stamp; but the soft,
persuasive eloquence of the next friend of the slave who spoke, soon
engrossed her again. She was so intent on his words, that she gave no
heed when her arm was twice touched by the lady who sat next her; when,
at the third hint, she turned, she was shocked to see that Anna was
sobbing and trembling violently, and that every body near was observing
her. The place was so full, that it was nearly impossible for any one to
get out; and besides, she was unwilling, in the extreme, to break up the
party who had kindly taken her and her sister under their protection.
There was no overpowering heat, and she knew Anna well enough to be
assured that this was only a paroxysm which she had herself excited, or
which she might at least have checked. She ventured therefore on
speaking very decidedly to her, though in a voice which could not be
overheard. She told her that she could not think of disturbing Mrs. R——
and her family; gave her the vinaigrette she carried, and advised her to
control her feelings, and fix her attention on the speaker as soon as
she could, while she would sit so as to screen her from observation as
much as possible. Anna thought all this very bad treatment of such
delicate feelings as hers; but her indignation helped to restore her,
which was the object most to be desired. Her sobs soon ceased; and if
not ashamed at having been so full of herself, and so troublesome to
others, she at least was quiet for the rest of the time.
Mr. Byerley spoke, briefly and plainly. He stated a few facts, and
explained his own sentiments on the resolution he held, and then made
way for those whom he believed more worthy of the attention of the
meeting. There was nothing to be ashamed of in the part he took, and
little to be proud of besides the propriety of his feelings, and the
modesty which led him to be satisfied with being useful behind the
scenes, rather than brilliant on the stage.
Mary had for some time been annoyed by the disturbance of persons going
out—why so soon she could not conceive—when her own party rose also.
Miss R—— tapped her on the shoulder, and laughingly asked if she could
listen for a moment. Mary turned.
“Your father will be detained till the meeting is over; but if you will
go out with us, my brother will see you into your carriage, which must
have been waiting some time. You must be quite faint with weariness and
hunger.”
“No, indeed,” said Mary and Anna; “we cannot go till it is over, thank
you. We shall not mind sitting here till papa comes.”
“Do you know what o’clock it is? It is just five.”
“Is it possible! But we do not mind that: we had rather stay, thank
you.”
So with many acknowledgments to Mrs. R—— for her protection, they
persisted in remaining by themselves. They looked round for Signor Elvi,
but he too was gone. It was not long, however, before the vote of thanks
to the chairman was passed, and the meeting broke up. Their father came
to give them each an arm, took them to the carriage, nodding to this
side and that as he went, and hastened them home, being sure, as he
said, that they must be quite exhausted. No such thing. They found, when
dinner was before them, that they were very hungry; but they never
ceased talking of what they had heard, and were sanguine as to the
success of a petition which had been prepared and advocated by such wise
heads and warm hearts.
After dinner, Mary looked at her piano, remembering that much practice
was required in preparation for her next lesson. It was with some dismay
that she heard from her father that he had made an engagement for them
for the evening. What a bustling life was theirs just now! The carriage
was to be at the door at nine. The girls met to dress while their father
rested on the sofa, and Mary afterwards practised till it was time to
go.
“We shall not stay long,” said Mr. Byerley, as he led his daughters up
the staircase at Mr. Nicholson’s, where he met a larger company than he
expected: “an hour will be as much as we shall wish for.”
So thought his daughters, who had not much inclination to enter a crowd
of strangers. They found it pleasanter, however, than they expected.
Mrs. Nicholson introduced them to some young ladies who were looking
over fine prints, and who seemed to understand drawing. There was some
good music; and, what was still better, Signor Elvi was there. He soon
made his way to them, and entertained them, as usual, with his lively
and refined conversation. Anna overheard him tell Mrs. Nicholson that
Mary sang and played very well, and she hoped that an opportunity would
offer for her sister’s talents being called out. Anna had as little
vanity on her own account as most girls; but she was very proud of Mary.
This was rather an annoyance to Mary, who would have been better pleased
if Anna had taken less pains to tell how well her sister could play and
sing, and more to contribute to her daily comfort. In due time, Mrs.
Nicholson approached with a request that Mary would take her seat at the
piano. Mary gently but decidedly declined. “But why? But why?” exclaimed
her sister and her friend. Mary gave her reasons; viz. that she had not
been accustomed to sing in so large a company, and that the attempt
would give no pleasure to any body. She would, with pleasure, sing to
Mrs. Nicholson as long as she pleased, in a more private way; but begged
to be excused this night. Mrs. Nicholson was politely sorry; Anna
muttered, “Provoking!” the Signor whispered “Right, quite right.”
Their engagements seemed still to multiply as the number of their
acquaintance increased. Exhibitions in the morning, concerts in the
evening, a day at Richmond and Hampton Court; a dinner-party here, an
evening-party there, were fixed; and they returned home with their heads
in a whirl.
“Light your candles, my dears; and to rest as soon as possible,” said
Mr. Byerley, holding up his watch, whose hands pointed to midnight.
“Nay, papa, just five minutes,” said Mary, drawing a chair beside him.
“I like to call back old thoughts before we say good-night. If I left
you with my head full of all we have seen and heard, I could not sleep.”
“Our present way of life will do you no harm while you preserve this
feeling,” replied her father. “But tell me, are you not surprised at my
making so many engagements for you?”
“Not so much as other people,” said Anna; “because we know that it is
for our good, and not to gratify your own taste. Mrs. Nicholson looked
quite surprised at your making every thing so easy about Richmond; but I
told her that it was because we had never seen it.”
“It certainly is not the pleasantest thing in the world to me to hurry
from one engagement to another, so that I cannot call an hour my own;
nor would it be pleasant to you, for any length of time. But our stay in
London is short; and I wish to show you, wherever you go, the different
kinds of life that people lead, that you may be able, in case of losing
my guidance, to make a wise choice, which you could scarcely do if you
knew of no other method of employing your days than that to which you
have been accustomed, and which would no longer be suitable to your
altered circumstances. In case of my death, you would live in rather a
gay circle in London; and my object is to show you how your best
occupations may be reconciled with the gratifications of taste, while
they are wholly incompatible with mere dissipation.”
“I think,” said Mary, “that the pleasures of to-day, of the morning
especially, may and ought to give a new spring to our best feelings and
wishes.”
“And yesterday’s too,” added Anna. “I have felt like a different person
since I saw Westminster Abbey.”
“I hope you will find the same influence from the natural beauties of
Richmond, and the delights of the Dulwich gallery; ever remembering that
moderation is especially necessary in pleasures of taste. If you went so
often from one of these places to the other as to leave no interval for
the serious business of life, there would soon be an end alike of
enjoyment and improvement. It is because I trust these pleasures will
furnish you with serious occupation, that I offer them to you. If I
thought they would afford you merely subjects for talk, and reverie, and
drawing, I would carry you away from them all to-morrow.”
“Thought and feeling—deep study—purified tastes: these ought to be
ministered to by innocent pleasures,” said Mary, thoughtfully.
“No pleasures can be innocent which do not thus minister,” observed her
father; “and I trust, my dears, that you will so rouse your faculties,
as to make the most of your present opportunities.” Here he addressed
Anna particularly. “Observe keenly, and lay yourself open to the full
relish of every beautiful object which is presented to you; and refer it
perpetually to your best ideas and feelings. So, in some far distant
place or time, in the midst of the sea, or after the lapse of years,
alone among strangers, or on a sick bed, the bright and beautiful
objects which are now new to you, will come, like familiar friends, to
cheer you, and help your gratitude for the blessings which have strewed
your path of life.”
After a pause, Mary asked if it could be supposed that many persons
cultivated their tastes with such an object as this.
“I trust that many do,” was the reply; “but we must not suppose that the
greater number who spend their lives in flitting from pleasure to
pleasure, have any genuine taste to cultivate. The influence of all
objects depends mainly upon the sort of mind which is exposed to it; and
there may be as wide a difference in the innocence of purpose of two
persons who enter the Dulwich gallery at the same moment, as between the
state of mind of the Christian who enters a church to worship, and the
wretch who goes to scoff. The one may carry away from this sanctuary of
taste, a mind softened and refreshed; while the other is burdened with
an additional account of time wasted, and levity encouraged. And now,
whether these thoughts be old or new to you, they are such as you may
carry into private. So good-night, and quiet rest to you.”
While Anna listened to her father it was ever her full intention to
adopt the principles to the truth of which she assented; but her power
over her own thoughts was too far gone to be easily regained. Instead of
keenly observing the new objects which were placed before her, she was
commonly lost in dreams which might just as well have been dreamed at
A——. The advantages which she knew she could only enjoy for a few weeks
were neglected, through the same pernicious habit. She sat for hours
with her pencil in her hand, and her drawing-board before her, without
putting in a stroke; and she commonly spent the hour when Signor Elvi
was with them in pondering his fate, while he himself was enjoying the
facility with which he could impress her sister’s more healthful mind.
She carried away from every new scene feeble impressions, old ideas, and
useless or morbid feelings; and when the last day of their stay in
London had arrived, she might have seen, if she had been disposed to
observe, that her father looked at her with grief in his countenance;
and that when Signor Elvi returned her mournful farewell, there was more
of compassion than respect in his words and manner. Dead as she was to
external things, she could not but feel that she was and must be
regarded a useless thing.
Mary had arranged with her father the plan for their voyage and abode
abroad: Mary had received and dismissed their various masters: Mary had
made their acknowledgments to their many kind friends who had noticed
and assisted them. As to their musical accomplishments, every body knew
that no comparison could be drawn; but Mary’s portfolio was that to
which the drawing-master referred Mr. Byerley with pride and
satisfaction; and with her did their foreign friend converse, in his own
language, upon the subjects nearest his heart. This was too mortifying
to be borne with patience; and in the midst of all her other business,
Mary was obliged to try to soothe her sister’s pettish temper, and to
conceal its infirmities, if possible, from her father. To do this
entirely was, however, impossible.
“I know how much you are engaged,” said he, on the morning when they
were to depart; “but I have omitted one thing which must be done, though
I cannot do it myself. Which of you will write a letter of business for
me?”
“Oh! the woman of business, to be sure,” said Anna, waving her hand at
Mary. “When you have a letter of a different sort—to Signor Elvi for
instance—to be written, let me do it; but I defer to Mary in matters of
business.”
“If Mary undertake the task of writing to my bailiff, she shall have the
pleasure of writing to my friend.”
“She will not thank you for it, sir.”
“She will, and Signor Elvi too. He knows what precious qualities are
necessary to constitute what you call a woman of business; and that such
qualities make the most faithful and the tenderest friend.”
Anna looked contemptuous.
“I should be pleased with your humility in deferring to your sister, if
I did not see that you despise the qualities you disclaim. I hope you
will meet with such experience as shall make you wiser and more
amiable.”
“My dear sir, I am in no wise inclined to quarrel with Mary for her
superior cleverness. She is quite welcome to it. I am content with my
lot—
‘The world forgetting, by the world forgot.’
Yes; I have no particular desire to be remembered by your bailiff or
your lawyer, even for writing about leases as well as if I had been a
very Nerissa—a lawyer’s clerk.”
“If you go on forgetting as you have done latterly, you will soon be
forgotten, to your heart’s content. You will be forgotten when Elvi sits
by his wife’s side, and tells his children of his faithful English
friends. You will be forgotten when your father stretches out his hand
from his death-bed to give his last blessing—or remembered in such a
manner that you will pray to be forgotten.”
“O papa!” cried Mary, imploringly. Anna burst into tears.
“You would ask for forgiveness, I see,” said her father, laying his hand
on her shoulder. “Your sister forgives you, as she is in the hourly
habit of doing; and so do I. Do not be in too great a hurry to forgive
yourself.”
Anna was in despair as he left the room; but before he returned, she had
apparently lost all remembrance of his rebuke and of its cause.
CHAPTER IX.
The Convent.
It was Mr. Byerley’s wish to avoid Paris on his way into Touraine, as it
had been agreed with the Fletchers that they should spend three months
there together, on their return to England. Mr. Byerley therefore took a
passage in a Rochelle packet, for himself, his daughters, and their
maid, whom they could not resolve to leave behind. Mr. Byerley had
political friends in every country, and especially many in France, who
were discontented with the government, as most sensible and upright men
at that time were. They were not engaged in any plots or underhand
doings, but were glad to cultivate a correspondence with the friends of
freedom, and to learn every thing which such men as Mr. Byerley could
communicate respecting the best institutions of a more favoured country.
With some of these friends Mr. Byerley had planned a meeting; and his
dislike of leaving his own country was softened by the hope of doing
something abroad to forward his favourite objects. His daughters were
aware of this, and would have dreaded the political discussions which
they knew must take place, if they had not hoped to find a refuge with
Mrs. Fletcher and her daughters, from company which at home they could
not have escaped. It was not till their father took out the packet of
letters with which he was charged, while sitting on deck, the day they
sailed, that the girls were aware how numerous were his connexions
abroad.
“If you were sinking, papa, which would you try hardest to save, me or
those letters?” said Anna, laughing.
“If I could burn the letters first, I would save you, my dear; but I
should not like the risk of their floating.”
“Then I wish they were at the bottom of the sea,” said Mary. “I am
afraid of them.”
“There is no occasion, Mary. There is nothing in them that I should
hesitate to show you; but they are too good to fall into hands which
might do harm to the writers. There is no treason, privy conspiracy, or
rebellion in them: nothing more than an Englishman may write and put in
the newspaper any day if he chooses.”
Mary was satisfied.
The voyage was very pleasant to all the party but Susan, who was the
only one who suffered much from sickness. There were no cabin-passengers
but two or three French merchants, who, being known to each other,
readily took the hint given by Mr. Byerley’s somewhat unsociable
manners, that he wished for no other intercourse than that of his
daughters. The girls had seen so little of their father during their
late bustling life, that they enjoyed the present opportunity of being
always together. They had never before been at sea, and no minds could
be better prepared to feel the delicious pleasures of the first short,
favourable voyage. All day they were on deck, talking, singing—sometimes
reading, but suffering no new object to pass unnoticed. Late at night,
they were still leaning over the vessel’s side, no longer singing, for
fear of disturbing those who were gone to rest, but talking in low
voices of things high and deep, far and near. When the moon shone, they
traced her silvery path over the billows: when obscured, they looked
with awe on the tossing surface round them, and felt their solitude on
the watery waste. In a very short time, Anna’s imagination, which had
received a new direction from the new scene in which she was placed,
returned to its accustomed trains of images, and she saw little and
heard nothing of what passed near her; while Mary, who (whatever Anna
might think) possessed the same faculty in much greater strength and
perfection, learned and experienced something new every hour. There was
not a passing cloud in the sky, or a purple shadow on the waters, not a
drifting weed or a sprinkling of foam which escaped her glance, or
failed to awaken some thought or feeling. She was the first to mark the
rising star, and to understand the intimation that some far-distant
beacon might be discerned. Yet she never forgot the pleasure of others
while experiencing her own. When Anna raised her head and saw how her
sister pointed out to Susan such objects as she could understand, she
owned it was very well for poor Susan that somebody tried to amuse her,
but wondered how it was possible under such a moon, amidst such a scene,
to let down the tone of feeling so far as to talk with a servant. The
cabin was surely the place to talk to Susan. She forgot how
“the sun is fixed,
And the infinite magnificence of heaven
Within the reach of every human eye;
The sleepless Ocean murmurs for all ears.”
Mary remembered this, and was not so presumptuous as to pretend to an
aristocracy of mind in scenes where the Creator ordained that there
should be none. Their father knew their different feelings by their
different conduct. “My dear Anna,” said he, “if you want to enjoy your
aristocracy, go down to the cabin. That is the only place where there is
room for it.” Anna took him at his word; not because she assented to
what he said, but because, having been once disturbed, she thought she
could resume her reverie best in her berth. Susan, who was always glad
of something to do, ran to assist her; and Mary returned to her father’s
side.
It will be easily supposed that Anna’s thoughts were much with her
friend Selina, all this time. Every circumstance of their meeting had
been often planned and anticipated, and had been so exalted in her
imagination, that the reality fell somewhat short of her expectation.
Yet it would have satisfied any reasonable person. The journey from
Rochelle was prosperous throughout, and the rich province of Touraine
presented many pleasures and much prospect of future enjoyment to our
travellers. The approach to the fine city of Tours charmed them,
animated as they were with the expectation of presently meeting the
friends they sought. They bowled along the wide, straight road, planted
like an avenue, and leading to the eminence on which stood the city;
crowning with its picturesque buildings the green slopes which descended
to the ample river. The sun was just setting, and its golden light
gleamed through the arches of the magnificent bridge, and poured in a
flood of radiance through the stems of the trees. The pleasure was
enhanced, especially to Mr. Byerley, by the expectation of seeing
English faces, and receiving an English welcome in a foreign land. As
the clatter of their horses’ hoofs resounded between the rows of high
houses, he believed that, though so far from home, listening ears were
watching their approach, and friendly hearts were beating with
expectation. He was not mistaken. The moment the carriage stopped Mr.
Fletcher appeared at the door of his house, and glancing eyes and
smiling faces flitted past the windows. Then followed the greetings
which filled many hearts with perfect pleasure—every heart but Anna’s;
and she could have given no better reason for the passing cloud that
came over her spirits, than that there was rather too much joy to be
quite consistent with the tenderness of sympathy.
The evening was passed, as the first evenings of meeting generally are,
in talking of a multitude of unconnected and unimportant things.
Subjects of a deeper interest are naturally deferred till the mind and
heart are more tranquil—till there is time and opportunity for full and
uninterrupted communication. Opportunity was found, however, for mutual
congratulation among the parents upon the apparent improvement of their
children. Rose and Selina were grown into fine young women; and Mrs.
Fletcher was amazed at the change of manners and appearance in her young
friends—Mary especially—which she had believed could be only effected by
their residence abroad.
“Somebody has taken my task out of my hands,” said she: “I am afraid
there is nothing left for me to do.”
“More than you are prepared for, I am afraid,” replied Mr. Byerley. “But
I will not turn informer against my children. I will leave it to your
judgment (a better judgment in many respects than mine) to discover
whatever deficiency or excess there may be.”
“I know what that word ‘excess’ means,” replied Mrs. Fletcher, smiling:
“by and bye we will resume our old argument upon it.”
The next day, in the course of communication between the young people
respecting their various occupations and pursuits, it appeared that Rose
and Selina had frequently visited a convent in their neighbourhood, and
were well acquainted with the abbess and some of the nuns. Mary and Anna
were equally anxious to see the interior of a convent, and to converse
with persons who had had a fair experience of a monastic life. It was
settled that they should be gratified that very day. Mary began to pour
out questions respecting the nuns; but her father, smiling, forbade Rose
Fletcher to answer any of them, as he wished that Mary should form her
own judgment, unbiassed, of what she should see and hear; observing that
he was aware Mary had some romantic notions about a monastic life.
Mary hoped her notions were not romantic now; for as she had grown up,
she had learned more of the nature of religion than she knew when she
longed, in her childhood, to be a nun.
“Had she never, since her childhood, longed to be a nun?” her father
enquired.
Mary blushed, and owned that, notwithstanding her knowledge that the
duties of Christians lie in society, and that the purest affections of
the heart—the devotional feelings themselves—must languish in a life of
perfect exclusion, she had never yet been able to divest a monastic
life, in idea, of peculiar purity and peace. She would not, even if she
were a catholic, and free from family ties, become a nun; but she still
felt a kind and degree of respect for religious devotees, which she felt
for none besides. Anna and Selina nodded assent; the rest of the party
smiled; but Mrs. Fletcher said she believed all thoughtful young people
felt like Mary.
“Do you remember Felicia Haggerston?” enquired Mr. Byerley.
“Oh! yes, papa; I always think of her when nuns are mentioned: it is a
very useful case to know of.”
“Who is Felicia Haggerston?” enquired Mrs. Fletcher.
“A young lady of a high catholic family, whose character was oddly made
up of devotion and family pride. Her mother was left in poor
circumstances, with this one daughter and several sons. It became
necessary for Felicia to relieve her mother of the burden of her
maintenance. She might have been happily placed as a governess; but a
fit of devotion came in the way of her mother’s wishes, and Felicia took
the vows in a convent abroad.”
“Had she never thought of being a nun before her friends thought of her
being a governess?”
“Never; and it appears equally strange that she should mistake her
motive for one of pure piety, and that her mother should object to her
choice, believing, as she professes to do, in common with all catholics,
that devotees are sure of heaven.”
“There is always,” said Mrs. Fletcher, “a hope that, though they do live
in the world, they may reach heaven; and one cannot wonder that a
widowed mother should rest on this hope, rather than be severed for life
from an only daughter. But what has become of Felicia?”
“I do not know,” said Mary: “I saw Mrs. Haggerston in London, and she
did not look happy; so that I dared not make any particular enquiries.
But I am afraid Felicia’s was not a mind fitted to be quite happy in a
convent.”
“What sort of mind is?” said Mr. Fletcher.
“I should think a really humble, benevolent heart might find much ease
and many blessings in the best kind of convent life; not in those where
the discipline is very severe, and the whole time must be passed in
devotion or idleness; but where the rich, and the poor, and the young,
are taken care of, and the hands, as well as the lips, are allowed to
praise God and bless mankind.”
“Are you aware that it is more difficult to be humble and benevolent
where the sole business of life is to be so, than in the world, where
there is a greater variety of objects?”
Mary looked doubtful.
“It is one of the clearest possible proofs,” continued Mr. Fletcher,
“that God designed man for a social state—that in all very small
communities separated from the world, envy and pride have ever
subsisted, and that utter selfishness is the consequence of entire
seclusion.”
The girls would not readily believe this in its full extent: they were
aware that the intellect must be weakened by unsocial habits, and that,
therefore, it was impossible for the best homage of the heart and mind
to ascend from monastic retreats; but they could scarcely imagine any
scope for pride or envy in a state of such perfect equality; and as for
selfishness, how could it consist with perpetual self-mortification?
“Of the first case you shall judge from your own observation by and
bye,” said Mr. Fletcher; “and as for the other, you need only read the
records which remain of some of the most sainted anchorites to be
convinced. But, tell me now, what is your notion of the life of a nun;
what picture have you in your mind’s eye of one day of a convent life?”
“The having one’s time and one’s cell to oneself,” said Anna, “is a
pleasant idea. The sun shining in through a high window, and one’s own
bed and chair, and chafing-dish in winter; and one’s own table with the
book and skull and crucifix that nobody touches, and the certainty that
nobody will come to interrupt one’s reading or thinking.”
“Abundance of selfishness to begin with,” said Mr. Fletcher, laughing.
“And then to feel such satisfaction with one’s own lot,” continued Rose,
“to look down from such pure solitude upon the world, and pity those who
are struggling and toiling there; and to remember that one’s safety is
owing to one’s virtuous resolution.”
“Selfishness again, and more pride,” interrupted her father. “But,
Selina, which is the greatest charm in your eyes? for you look as if the
very thought of it inspired you.”
“I was thinking of the grandest day of a whole life—the day of taking
the veil. What a tide of feelings must rush in upon the young creature’s
mind when she sees her family for the last time, they grieving to part
with her, but admiring her for her piety! And then the glow of
resolution, the noble contempt of the world, and the delight of setting
such an example, at such an age! The old priests admiring and blessing
her, the music, sometimes wailing and sometimes triumphant, as if it
would celebrate her funeral and her marriage at the same time; and the
crowd pressing to catch a glimpse of such a holy heroine——”
Selina stopped short, struck with the expression of disgust in Mary’s
countenance.
“Mary sees what you are blind to,” said Mr. Fletcher: “she sees that
half of this is enthusiasm, and the other half vanity. Mary, I had
rather hear what would be most tempting to you.”
“No part would be tempting,” said Mary, “unless I could have one dear
friend with me; but if there was one to whom I might speak and listen
about those human sympathies which feed the life of our minds, I could
be happy, I think, in praying and meditating, and doing all the good my
heart and hands could effect. But I must also be free from all spiritual
domination: I would never give up my soul in slavery to abbess or
confessor. Unless I might worship as my spirit prompted, unless I might
do good as the gospel enjoins, and love as human hearts are made to
love, my devotion would be worthless, and I should be fit neither for
heaven nor earth.”
“You will make a poor devotee,” observed Mr. Fletcher, smiling.
“There is no convent on earth that would admit you,” said her father:
“you would not be pure enough; you do not go far enough beyond the
gospel: you must be content with trying to be above the world while you
are in the world.”
The happy father silently observed how his last words called up, as such
thoughts never failed to do, the flush of strong emotion into his
daughter’s cheek. Mary was not unfrequently inspired with a resolution
quite as holy, and much more rational and modest, than animates a
devotee in taking the veil.
When they were going out, Mr. Fletcher desired Anna, in case of strong
temptation from what she should see to become a nun, to remember, that
in the new jails in England every inmate has a cell, a bed, and a high
window, all to himself; and that he is quite sure of his reveries being
uninterrupted. There was no use in Anna’s looking indignant, the laugh
was against her.
At the convent gate, the gentlemen left their party, and proceeded to
make some visits. Mr. Fletcher wished to introduce his friend to such of
the inhabitants of Tours as he was acquainted with, and among others, to
a gentleman who held a high office among the magistracy of the city.
Mary and Anna could scarcely believe, when the portress opened the gate,
that they were actually entering a convent. A feeling of awe crept over
them, as if they had set foot in some sacred enclosure; and this feeling
was not lessened by the first view of the flitting figures which
disappeared before them wherever they went—figures clothed in a dark and
most unbecoming costume, which did not appear so remarkably convenient
as to make up for its want of beauty. When the abbess joined them in her
parlour, however, there was nothing particularly venerable in her
appearance: she seemed very glad to see Mrs. Fletcher, (who was provided
with a plea of business,) and inclined her head politely when introduced
to the strangers. She asked some questions about their voyage, and their
opinion of France in general, and Tours in particular, and astonished
them by laughing very loud and heartily when there was any opportunity
for laughing at all.
“While you are busy with mamma, ma mère, we will seek Sister Célestine,”
said Rose: “come, Mary, we will leave our two mothers together.”
“Oh! she is a little heretic!” exclaimed the abbess, laughing, as the
girls left the room.
They first entered the refectory, where the nuns were talking in groups,
having just finished their dinner. One and another ran to meet their
heretical acquaintance, while others stood at a distance, and stared in
a manner which rather abashed the strangers. Some withdrew, with an
appearance of propriety, and two or three stood reading at the windows,
which looked into the convent garden; but the greater number were
evidently remarking on the dress and countenances of the English girls.
Sister Célestine and Sister Priscille after a while led the way up
stairs to their cells. The first cell looked just like what Anna
expected, except that there was no skull on the table. The book was
turned down open: it was a book of devotion, and in Latin, and the page
at which Mary looked contained a marvellous account of the miraculous
deeds of a female saint. Mary, with some hesitation, enquired of Sister
Célestine if she believed every part of it. She looked rather shocked at
the question, as she replied that, of course, she believed the whole of
it.
“Had she known the book when she was young?” Anna enquired, thinking
that this might account for her credulity.
“No; it was given to her when she entered the convent.”
She had previously learned to read Latin, they supposed.
“Oh dear no! they none of them thought that necessary. The priest read
it over to them first, so that they knew what it was about, and nothing
more was required than that they should read it over very frequently, so
as not to forget it.” This cell had now lost its charm for Anna.
In the next, they found some disorder: cuttings and snippings of gay
silk were lying beside the crucifix on the table. Sister Priscille,
laughing and blushing, swept them away, owning that she had, contrary to
the rules, carried work into her cell.
“The truth is,” said she, “that poor little Caliste, whom I was teaching
to dress a doll in the school-room this morning, was obliged to go
before we had finished the cloak, and I brought it here, that she might
not be disappointed. But, sisters, I trust to you not to complain of me
to la mère.”
Célestine looked grave, but promised to let her off this time. Anna
could not join Selina’s laugh.
One lively little nun, Sœur Agathe, was very impatient for the strangers
to be conducted to some place at the top of the building, which she
seemed to think better worth seeing than any thing else. “Presently,”
said Célestine, repeatedly; but she would not let them alone for five
minutes together. They looked into several cells as they passed, in some
of which the nuns were reading intently. Mary would rather have staid
behind in one of these than have proceeded, if she could have done so
without disturbing their inmates; but when, at last, they burst in upon
one who was on her knees at prayers, she recoiled in great distress, and
begged that no more disturbance might be caused on their account.
“Oh! it does not signify,” said Agathe: “she will know where to follow
us when she has done.”
Mary resolved to say nothing more till she should meet with one whose
countenance and manner should promise better things. At length they
reached the last staircase which Agathe was so anxious for them to
climb: it was steep, and opened out upon some leads on the roof of the
building. Agathe skipped up before them, and handed out first one and
then another, and then looked eagerly for their admiration.
“What a fine view!” exclaimed Mary, as her eye wandered over the rich
fields and woods, and the verdant hills of Touraine, which were spread
out before her.
“How you must long——” said Anna—but she checked herself, as she was
going to remind the recluses what pleasures they lost by beholding this
fair scene only from a distance.
[Illustration: _Page 196_]
[Illustration: _Page 230_]
“Oh no! we long for nothing,” said Agathe, lightly: “a holy life, you
know, and certainty of heaven, are far better than the sin and misery of
the world. But look on this side: you have not seen what I brought you
to see yet.”
They looked, and saw a multitude of the chimneys of Tours, but little
besides. Perceiving them at a loss, Agathe pointed between two piles of
building, crying, “Mais voyez donc! you do not look. There is the great
road from the north; and there is not a carriage which comes from Paris
that we may not see from this place as the road winds.”
“This exceeds every thing,” thought Mary: “to talk one moment of a holy
life, and the next to be proud and pleased to see the carriages come
from Paris! I wish we could get away.”
Her composure was somewhat restored, however, by a conversation which
she contrived to obtain with one of the more serious nuns whom she met
in her way down. In her she found neither enthusiasm nor levity: she did
not pretend to despise or to fear the world, or believe that she must be
perfectly holy and safe, because she had left it. She was thankful, she
said, for peace and freedom from care; she had no family ties to bind
her to society, and had felt so forlorn in her youth, from being an
orphan, that she had longed for an asylum above every thing; she had
obtained her desire, and was satisfied. Mary wished to know how far the
improvement of the intellect was checked, and how soon the natural
feelings were deadened or perverted by the discipline and influences of
this strange community; but this was tender ground. She could scarcely
make herself understood without wounding the feelings of the persons she
compassionated. She enquired, however, whether there was not a great
difference of rank and education among the young persons admitted. Not
so much, she was told, as appeared to be generally thought.
“Since you took the vows, have the candidates been, for the most part,
companions to you?”
“Yes. We have two or three who are sadly vulgar; but the rest have been
educated in a convent like myself, except poor Sister Thérèse and Sister
Magdalen, whom you might see going to her cell as you came in.”
“Why _poor_ Thérèse? what became of her?”
“She died, poor thing, four years after she came in. I was really
relieved when she was gone, for I am sure she was very wretched. Some of
the sisters said she must have been in love when she took the vows; but
I believe she was not.”
“What made her wretched then?”
“La mère said that it was the pride and wantonness of her own heart,
that made her hanker after the world, and would not let her be satisfied
with being the spouse of Christ. I dare say it might be so; but it
always seemed to me that she made a mistake in coming here at all. She
expected that she should find companions who would feel holy raptures
like her own; and that was too much to expect. She was never happy but
when she was alone, and of course the sisters did not like her the
better for that. She kept her place in the chapel till she could stand
no longer; and yet Father Ambrose was not pleased with her: he said she
was high-minded.”
“That was indeed the truth,” murmured Mary, who thought of a different
kind of highmindedness than Father Ambrose had any idea of.
“Perhaps it was; yet she was lowly in her prayers: I know this, because
I nursed her when she could not leave her cell; prayer was like meat and
drink to her. ‘I have no stay but Thee,’ was on her lips perpetually in
the long nights when her sickness wasted her.”
“What was her disease?”
“We never could find out. Father Ambrose told the sisters that it came
from the Evil One, to show that, though a nun, she was not safe. I hope
he did not really think this; but it _was_ very strange, as he said,
that it always loosened its hold upon her when the holy bell rang. At
the first sound of the matin bell, she would look so peaceful; and often
fell asleep presently, though she had been tossing through the whole
night.”
“And how long did this last?”
“Oh! many months: it was four years after she came in, as I told you,
when she died. But,” after a pause, “let me request you to tell no one
here that I have said so much about poor Thérèse; for la mère thinks so
ill of her, that she does not like we should mention her name.”
The request was needless: Mary would almost as soon have thought of
taking the vows, after what she had heard, as of speaking to any one of
the sisterhood about poor Thérèse.
“And did Sister Magdalen, whom you mentioned, know Thérèse?” she
enquired.
“No; and I have sometimes wondered whether it would have been a good
thing for them if Sister Magdalen had entered a year sooner. I think she
might have saved Thérèse, or perhaps she might have gone the same way
herself. They were a good deal alike in some things; but, happily,
Magdalen is not so high-minded; she knows better how to submit.”
“Then she has submitted?”
“Yes: when she first took the vows, she used to write a great deal in
her cell; and la mère found that it was sometimes poetry. Then she used
to sing, sometimes in the night, and very often indeed in the day; but
they were not always hymns that she sang. Now, la mère said this would
never do, and that nobody must bring the vanities of the world within
these walls; so she took away the ink and paper she had, and put the
oldest of the sisters into the next cell, to inform her if she heard her
sing any thing but what we all sing.”
“And how did she bear this?” cried Mary, indignantly.
“She took it very quietly, which was the best thing she could do; for
there was no help for it, you know. At first, she was rather unsociable,
though never so much so as poor Thérèse; but she came round by degrees,
and now, though the sisters still joke her about her gravity, she is
very like the rest, and can be as droll as the merriest of them: there
is no occasion to pity Sister Magdalen now.” And the nun looked amazed
at Mary’s expression of grief.
“You do not mean,” she continued, “that you pity Magdalen as you pity
Thérèse?”
“More, a thousand times more!”
“Mais cela est inconcevable! when I tell you that Sister Magdalen is so
happy! c’est inconcevable!”
And inconceivable it remained to her, while she followed Mary’s hasty
steps down to the abbess’s parlour, where her party were waiting for
her. Lively tongues were busy on all sides, exchanging adieus, and
uttering last jokes. La mère herself rallied Mary on her gravity,
observing that she was almost solemn enough to be a nun. Mary escaped as
soon as she could. While within the gates, a sense of oppression weighed
upon her, as if she were in a prison: when she trod the grass on which
shadows from the trees were dancing, and felt the breeze blow in her
face, tears sprang forth, and she thought with a less tumultuous grief
of the fate of poor Thérèse, and even of Sister Magdalen.
CHAPTER X.
Sensibility without Sense.
It was evident to all observers, from the day that Anna and Selina met,
that they were not the friends they had been and had intended again to
be. No complaint was made by either, and their manner of speaking of and
conducting themselves towards each other was affectionate, though
somewhat melancholy. In their souls, however, they mourned over the
change in each other: Anna thought Selina grown cold and worldly; Selina
thought Anna mysterious and very selfish. The fact was, as Mr. Fletcher
declared to his wife, and as she could not deny, that Anna was too much
engrossed with her own thoughts, and too dead to realities, to perceive
the improvement which change of circumstances had really wrought in her
friend.
It was not long before Anna experienced the usual painful consequences
of her strange habits; and the fact that such consequences overtook her
wherever she went, might have convinced her how preposterous was her
prevailing idea that all the world was in league against her, because
her character was not understood. At first, the young people paired off
as formerly, Rose and Mary, Selina and Anna; but this arrangement was
soon found undesirable on many accounts. Though Rose was a very good,
and, in some respects, a very superior girl, she was not such a one as
Mary could like to be with all day long while Mrs. Fletcher was within
reach, and while there were points of sympathy between Selina and
herself which seemed to strengthen daily. Neither could Mary see the use
or pleasure of splitting so small a family party into coteries; she
therefore diffused the blessing of her society (and a great blessing it
was) among all, and was duly prized by all but her own unaccountable
sister. Anna, on the contrary, had no idea of enjoyment in any but a
tête-à-tête conversation; and her mode of conducting a tête-à-tête had
become so strange, that it was no wonder her companion preferred drawing
in her chair among the cheerful circle who were talking or reading with
lightness of heart and forgetfulness of themselves. Add to this, that
Anna’s habits were now such as to disqualify her for feeling on an
equality in well-bred society—that she was too late for breakfast, too
late for dinner, too late for tea, never ready to walk when others were
waiting, and unable to attend when others were reading or speaking to
her—and it cannot be surprising that, though treated with great
kindness, she was left alone in this, little world, where she had
expected to find so much happiness. Mr. Fletcher was the only person who
lost patience with her. Her father saved her from disgrace as often as
he could; and Mary was devoted to her, though she received no thanks.
She spent more time in dressing Anna, in working for Anna, in helping
Anna, in one way or another, than on her own affairs. It was well they
had brought Susan; for there was full employment for her also in taking
care of her helpless young lady. As for Mrs. Fletcher, she watched
tenderly over her health, which was becoming very infirm; but of what
use were all endeavours to cheer her spirits and revive her health, when
she had no mercy on her own nerves? It frequently happened, that she
came out of a reverie flushed and feverish, or that her hands were damp
and cold, and her voice broken and almost lost. “What could she be
thinking of?” was a frequent subject of speculation with her friends;
but they could never discover which of the thousand agitating scenes of
human suffering and delight were oftenest presented in vivid apparition
to the poor girl’s diseased imagination. She started in such a terrified
way if spoken to, that Mary had insensibly adopted the practice of
_breaking_ every thing to her, even if the plan were only for an evening
engagement. This was a pity, for the precaution was useless, as she was
startled with less and less things perpetually.
“Anna,” said her sister one day, when she found her leaning over her
drawing-board, doing nothing, “I have something to propose to you—a
little plan which I hope you will not object to.”
Anna looked troubled and bewildered.
“I do not know what you will think of beginning to travel again
already.”
“To travel!” repeated Anna: “to Italy?”
“Oh no!” replied Mary, “not nearly so far; only to Paris. Papa has just
told me that he must go to Paris for a week or so, on business. Now, I
think he is not very well, and we know he dislikes being alone among
strangers, and I think we ought to go with him. I have not said so to
him yet; I thought I would ask you first.”
“What can he be going to Paris for? What can be the reason? Oh, Mary!”
“Never mind the reason now,” said Mary, observing how her sister’s hand
trembled; “I dare say he will tell us the next time he comes in; but he
was going out and in a hurry when he told me his plan. You will like to
go, will not you?”
“Oh yes! I am ready to go any where, to do any thing,” said Anna,
looking as intrepid as if she were trying to be like Jephtha’s daughter.
“I do not know what the Fletchers will think of our seeing Paris before
they do, after all; but I am sure they will wish us to go and take care
of papa; and there can be no doubt that he will like to have us.”
Here however Mary was, for once, mistaken: Mr. Byerley would not hear of
any one accompanying him; and, moreover, communicated not a syllable
respecting the business which called him away. When Mary was packing his
portmanteau, he came himself to see that his precious packet of letters
was put in safe. Mary observed, laughing, that she hoped he would bring
her some new music, for the letters took up so much room, that it would
require a large parcel to fill up their place when they were left
behind. Her father observed that these letters would afford him
abundance of engagements, and that Mary must not be uneasy if he did not
return at the end of one week, or even two.
“If it should be three,” said Mary, “I think we must follow, and find
you.”
“Do not think of such a thing, I charge you,” replied her father,
seriously.
“O no! papa. I did not seriously think of going to Paris by ourselves;
much less of watching any of your proceedings.”
Mr. Byerley’s first letter came as soon as expected, and told of a
pleasant journey: but it contained nothing besides, except the address
to the hotel where he resided. The second letter was longer in coming,
and it seemed to his anxious children as if the third would never
arrive.
But for this anxiety, the time of his absence would have passed quickly
and cheerfully. The tyranny of custom, by which French young ladies are
made mere cyphers in company, was somewhat relaxed in the case of the
English girls. They attended several evening parties, where they were
not condemned, as they probably might have been in Paris, to sit beside
Mrs. Fletcher or one another, for a whole evening, without being spoken
to. The Protestant clergyman, whose church they attended, had been in
England; and his knowledge of our customs, as well as his kindness of
heart, prompted him to converse with the young strangers as if they were
rational beings, and to endeavour to draw out their talents.
At first, Mary could scarcely reconcile what she saw of this gentleman
in company with her judgment of his pulpit services. She had been almost
disgusted, the first Sunday, with his sermon, and with the manner in
which it was delivered. She was not sufficiently aware how the varieties
of national taste extend to the modes of conducting public worship; and
the delivery, which to the usual attendants of M. Mesnil appeared grave
and emphatic, was to her almost theatrical. Out of the pulpit, nothing
of this was discernible. He was ready, on every fair occasion, to advert
to the subjects most closely connected with his profession, and which
were evidently nearest his heart; and the growing intimacy between his
family and that of Mr. Fletcher was founded and cherished by their
sympathy in their religious principles and sentiments.
M. Mesnil had married a very young and lively lady of Paris, whose
friends were surprised that one so gay and accomplished should have lost
her heart to a grave clergyman, and been ready to make up her mind to
live in the provinces for the rest of her days. She proved, however, to
all who cared to know, that though her choice was made under the
influence of love, it was not made in folly. She proved an excellent
wife, and was an exemplary pastor’s lady. Fond as she was of her harp,
she liked still better the music of grateful voices; and her smiles wore
as sweet, and her eyes sparkled as brilliantly in the cottages near
Tours, as in the saloons of Paris. Her tastes were as refined as ever,
while more simple; and their gratification was promoted by her husband
more eagerly than they ever were by her admirers in the great city. Her
flowergarden was the delight of them both, and was embellished by their
own hands. They sang together; and each, for the sake of the other,
embraced every opportunity of enjoying the pleasures of cultivated
society, and the delights of natural beauty. Their children were young—a
noble boy of five years old, and two little girls of three and two. They
were well-managed, healthy, happy children—the best of amusements to the
English girls, who were never weary of the oddity of hearing a foreign
language lisped by infants, and of observing wherein children are alike
all over the world, and wherein natural differences introduce a variety,
even from birth.
The two families were more together than ever after the arrival of the
Byerleys. M. Mesnil undertook to convince his foreign friends that they
were prejudiced against the pulpit oratory of France, and that it was
not enough to venerate Fénélon, whom no one could help venerating. He
made them familiar with the most eminent French divines, and brought
them to acknowledge that there was more common ground between pious and
enlightened Protestants and Catholics, than they had previously
believed. They walked together very frequently, the children
accompanying them. Little Charles rode a stately goat, as is not
uncommon with children abroad; and this picturesque steed was harnessed
with an elegance answerable to the appearance of his young rider.
Charles’s mamma, however grave she might look while teaching him to
read, looked much more like his eldest sister than his mother when they
played in the fields, or sat down to rest in the woods.
It seemed strange that Anna should be struck by one so gay, so totally
the opposite of herself, as Madame Mesnil; but it was evident, from
their first meeting, that she was more awake to what was said, more
attentive to what was done by this lady, than by any body else; and this
circumstance gave Mary a gleam of hope of her sister’s restoration to
mental health. On her part, Madame Mesnil, though she admired and
approved Mary to a high degree, attached herself more to Anna; whether
through compassion, or genuine sympathy, or by dint of imagining
qualities which did not exist, Mary sought not to know, so delighted was
she with the fact. She contrived, as often as possible, to send Anna
alone to M. Mesnil’s; encouraged her to accept invitations to dine
tête-à-tête with Madame, when her husband was out; and, in short, to
throw them together as much as possible. The self-complacency caused in
Anna’s mind by these circumstances, proved an impulse for a time. It was
but a short-lived impulse; but it inspired her sister with hope, and
herself with a pleasure long lost.
“Where is Anna?” was the enquiry one day, when it was time she should be
urged to dress for her visit to Madame Mesnil.
“She is gone,” said Mrs. Fletcher: “dressed and gone half an hour ago;
and the volume of Boileau with her that I see you are looking for. She
has finished it.”
“And look at her drawing,” said Selina: “it promises well; does it not?”
“Beautiful!” exclaimed Mary. “O, I wonder when papa will come back!”
“Make no observations to him, Mary: let him discover it for himself!”
“Certainly,” replied Mary; “I will anticipate nothing. But I long to see
the hope breaking in upon him.”
There was no need to explain what the “it” and the “hope” meant. There
was a perfect understanding in the family, and the great anxiety of one
was the great anxiety of all.
Mary flew to meet her sister when she came home, for once, not afraid of
startling her by sudden intelligence. Before she could speak, however,
Anna cried out, “A letter from papa? O, say yes!”
“Yes,” said Mary, joyfully, drawing her sister’s arm within her own. “He
will be home to-morrow; so you must tell us to-night every thing about
your visit.”
It was delightful to hear her once again speak gaily, and without
reserve. It was evident that she had played with the children, and
remarked what passed around her.
No one enquired into the particulars of her conversation with Madame
Mesnil. It had evidently done her good, and that was enough.
CHAPTER XI.
A new Abode.
Mr. Byerley returned somewhat fatigued with his journey, but in high
spirits. He said but little respecting his doings and the persons he had
seen in Paris, but was very communicative about all that happened on the
road. He had been much entertained by one man in particular, who had sat
beside him all the way from Paris, and been very anxious to make
acquaintance with the Englishman. He appeared to have very strange,
erroneous notions of England, its government, and political parties.
“I hope he did not lead you to talk too freely,” interrupted Mr.
Fletcher.
“O, no!” replied Mr. Byerley; “and if I had talked treason it would
hardly have signified. You have no idea of the man’s simplicity.”
“Not so good a one as he has of yours, perhaps. But what are this simple
man’s politics?”
“Just what one might expect from such a person. He is not very well
contented with the state of things in this country, but does not see how
it is to be improved. He seems one of the grumblers, who set other
people to work, but do nothing themselves.”
“What sort of looking man is he?”
“A very common looking person, with a black coat and ugly brown wig.”
“Well, Byerley, simple as he may be, you are quite as much so, depend
upon it, to talk politics in a diligence.”
“Oh! it all depends upon who listens. This was a good-natured creature
as could be. He was very civil about my accommodation, and enquired what
luggage I had, that he might have an eye to its being stowed away in the
right place.”
“Is your portmanteau safe?” enquired Mr. Fletcher. Mr. Byerley only
answered by pointing to it as it lay in the hall.
“Your civil friend examined it, I dare say.”
“Yes, such people are always curious. I saw him spelling out my name and
feeling the weight of the trunk; and he remarked the roll of paper
(music for Mary) peeping out of my coat-pocket. He began fishing to
discover what it was.”
“And did you show it him?”
“No: I thought it was time to check his curiosity, so I put it out of
sight.”
“Well, you had better have had your girls with you. I will answer for it
they would know better how to conduct themselves in a diligence than
their father. But come, I have made an appointment for you at
Béranger’s. He is to show us the plan of the new Institute; and it is
time we were gone.”
When the gentlemen returned from the house of M. Béranger, (the
magistrate to whom Mr. Byerley had before been introduced,) Mr. Fletcher
looked very grave, while his friend was laughing.
“Whom do you think we met, just now?” said he.
“The man in the brown wig?”
“Yes; a perilous looking personage, is he not, Fletcher?”
“How oddly Béranger behaved to you!” was Mr. Fletcher’s only reply.
“Yes, he was as stiff and formal as an Englishman; but I suppose that is
his magisterial air.”
“M. Béranger stiff and formal!” exclaimed Mrs. Fletcher: “I never saw
him so.”
“Nor I till to-day,” replied her husband. “Did you see where your
brown-wigged friend came from, Byerley?”
“I saw him come out of a house, but I did not observe the house
particularly.”
“He came out of Béranger’s office-door.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Mr. Byerley, starting: “and yet he told me that he
knew no one in this place, and should proceed on his journey south in a
few hours.”
While this conversation passed, the girls were dressing to go out. Mr.
and Mrs. Fletcher were glad of this, as they did not wish to communicate
to Mary and Anna the vague uneasiness they began to feel respecting the
consequences of this journey.
Mrs. Fletcher walked out with the young people. They were tempted to
prolong their ramble till past the hour of dinner; yet when they came
in, the cloth was not laid, no servant was visible, and no one answered
the bell. Mrs. Fletcher caught a glimpse of her husband in the garden
behind the house. He was pacing backwards and forwards with hurried
steps. She went to him, trying in vain to prevent Mary from following
her. The truth was soon out. Mr. Byerley had been arrested during their
absence, and conveyed first to a magistrate and then to prison, without
being able to learn the nature of the accusation against him.
Mary strengthened herself for a few moments with the belief that this
proceeding originated in a mistake, which would be presently rectified;
but when Mr. Fletcher made no reply to her expression of hope, she
remembered the packet of letters, the mystery of the journey to Paris,
the strange behaviour of the fellow-traveller, and his egress from the
magistrate’s office, and, finally, the deportment of M. Béranger
himself; and no doubt remained that some political offence was imputed
to her father.
Her first desire was to go to him; and she ran into the house that she
might communicate to Anna what had happened, and lose no time in
proceeding to the prison with her sister, who, she could not doubt,
would be eager to accompany her. Anna was, however, in no condition for
such an exertion. Though Rose had communicated the fact as gently as
possible, the feebleminded girl was frightfully agitated. She had sunk
shivering on the ground, and clung so convulsively to the sofa, that it
was impossible to raise her.
“Anna,” said her sister calmly, “have you not always said that on great
occasions you could command yourself? This is a great occasion.”
“O, my father! my father!” cried the trembling girl; and the voice of
her wailing thrilled every nerve in Mary’s frame.
“Listen, Anna! My father is, no doubt, looking for us, expecting us
every moment. Will you not go to him?”
“Go to him!” cried Anna, springing up. “Let us go instantly, and never
leave him. Yet—Oh! to see him in a dungeon, among the wretches there,
shut up, perhaps, for life—I cannot, no, I cannot——” and she sank down
on the sofa, utterly exhausted.
Mary looked at her sister, and then at the door: her feelings were
harrowed by what she saw and heard. She longed to restore her sister,
and yet was impatient to be gone.
“Leave your sister to us,” said Mrs. Fletcher: “you see she cannot go.”
“But what shall I say to my father, Anna?” said her sister in a broken
voice, as she bent over her. “Look up, and speak to me, or how shall I
comfort my father?” But still Anna did not unclose her eyes.
“She will soon be better,” said Mrs. Fletcher, trying to smile: “leave
her to me, and go where your heart bids you.”
Mr. Fletcher drew Mary’s arm within his, and hastened with her to the
prison, preparing her by the way for the probable disappointment she
would meet with in being refused admittance. Mary declared that she
_would_ get in, by some means or other; and in answer to the objection
that it might be impossible, she declared that, in such cases, women had
been known to conquer what are often called impossibilities.
As Mr. Fletcher expected, the jailer had received strict orders to admit
no person whatever to Mr. Byerley’s presence. There was no use in
entreaty, or in any mode of representing the case. He must obey orders.
He did not refuse, however, to answer questions. The gentleman seemed in
good spirits, he said, except that he was vexed at not having an
apartment to himself.
“Not an apartment to himself! Where was he then?”
“In the same room with some debtors.”
“Any body else?”
“Yes; two or three felons, for whom there was not room elsewhere.”
Mary’s heart sickened as she turned away.
“I will go to M. Béranger’s,” said she: “he will not, he _shall_ not
deny me.”
“This is the way,” said Mr. Fletcher; “you are turning homewards.”
“Perhaps Anna is able to go now,” replied Mary. “She shall have her
choice, at least; and she will help me to plead with M. Béranger.”
Anna was better. She lay quietly weeping on the sofa, and scarcely
looked up as her sister entered.
“I have not seen him: they will not let us in, without leave, Anna. Will
you go with me to obtain leave from M. Béranger? It will do you good, if
you can exert yourself so far.”
Anna looked bewildered. Mrs. Fletcher, unwisely, as Mary thought,
objected that she was unequal to the exertion. This observation,
however, had the effect of rousing Anna.
“Why should not I as well as Mary?” demanded she, starting up. “He is my
father as well as Mary’s. Who shall prevent my discharging a daughter’s
duty to him? It is very unjust: it is very unkind——.” While thus
exclaiming, Mary tied her bonnet for her: her own hands trembled too
much.
Mr. Fletcher’s stronger voice now prevailed. He declared decidedly that
Anna’s appearance would, without doubt, injure her father’s interests.
To a cool and wary magistrate, who did not understand the vehemence of
her feelings, her agitated appearance would give the idea that there was
reason for apprehension that the result of an examination was dreaded.
“We believe your father to be innocent,” said he; “and the calmness of
our manner ought to testify the confidence of our belief. Look at your
sister, Mary, and say if any stranger would believe that she had any
present confidence whatever to repose upon.”
Anna’s face, flushed with anger and convulsed with fear, was indeed
ill-fitted to enforce any plea founded on a consciousness of innocence.
She was left behind, exclaiming against the injustice, but, in reality,
relieved at being spared the necessity of exertion.
M. Béranger, guessing the nature of Mary’s errand, declined seeing her,
on the plea of business; but Mary, who felt that the part she now had to
take was that of decision, or what would be called obstinacy by the
persons she had to deal with, replied that she would wait till M.
Béranger was at liberty. She took her seat in the office, and remained
two long hours; at the end of which time, the magistrate, having no hope
of getting quit of her, admitted her and Mr. Fletcher to his presence.
Again and again he answered, that his directions were positive, to allow
no access to persons imprisoned for political offences. Mary reasoned on
the impossibility of her affording any advantage to her father’s cause
by being with him, or of her opposing any hindrance to the course of
justice: she only wanted to be let in alone; she would submit to be
searched; she would carry in nothing but linen; she would not ask to
come out again till her father should be also released. The magistrate
gently represented, that she seemed to consider the last circumstance as
far more probable than the facts warranted, and that she did not know
what she was engaging for, in offering to stay in prison as long as her
father. Mary smiled as she observed, that where there was in reality no
offence, there could be no doubt of the issue, if justice were done, of
which she entertained no fear; but that, if she knew her father’s
imprisonment to be for life, she should be no less earnest than now to
be with him on the terms she proposed. When she pleaded her father’s
delicate health, and the ease and careful attendance to which he was
accustomed, the magistrate was evidently touched and disturbed; and as
she went on, (the more urgently as she began to see hope of success,) he
stopped her with a promise to consider what could be done, and to send
to her in the morning. No, she replied; she could not wait; she wished
to join her father this night. M. Béranger’s next resource was to pace
the apartment; and a glance from Mr. Fletcher, (who wisely forbore to
interfere,) told Mary that her cause was prospering.
It was late, and quite dusk, before the anxious family learned what had
detained the absent members so long. Anna had consented to go to bed,
and it was hoped she was asleep, that she might be spared the struggle
of parting with her sister, who only returned for the necessaries she
was to convey to her father. Mrs. Fletcher made her sit down and eat,
while Rose and the maid Susan went to put up her parcel for her. It was
necessary that they should enter Anna’s room with a candle: she started
up, and poured out questions so fast, that Rose was obliged to tell her
the state of the case, and to promise that her sister should come up to
bid her farewell.
“Just one kiss and then leave her,” said Mrs. Fletcher, as Mary took the
candle to go to Anna: “do not let her agitate you or herself.”
This, however, it was in the power of no one to prevent. It will
scarcely be believed—Anna herself could scarcely credit it
afterwards—that her last words to her own sister on such an occasion as
this, were words of jealous reproach.
“Do not dwell on any thing unpleasant, my love,” said Mrs. Fletcher, as
she saw, by Mary’s quivering lips, that something had been said to wound
her: “your sister is not herself to-day; she will soon be better.”
“How shall I know that she is?”
“M. Béranger will convey a message to you, I am sure. I will call and
ask him; or perhaps he will allow Anna to come and tell you herself that
she is better.”
“Madame Mesnil,” said Mary——.
“She shall see Anna to-morrow, my love; and never fear but that, among
us, we shall be able to comfort her.” And after a mournful farewell,
Mary again set forth, with Mr. Fletcher and Susan.
M. Béranger’s order procured them immediate admission to the jailer’s
apartment, where Mary’s bundle having been tossed over by the jailer’s
wife, and found to contain nothing suspicious, she took leave of her
friend and of the weeping Susan, and followed her conductor to the
apartment which contained her father. Hers was not the soul to recoil at
the sights and sounds which met her every where in this dismal abode.
The passages were empty and cold, and echoed back their footsteps. They
met one or two turnkeys, who stared at the unusual sight of a lady, out
of visiting hours, and looked back to see which of the cells she was
about to visit. At length they stopped, and the jailer gave her the
light to hold while he unbarred and unlocked the door. He observed that
her hand was steady.
“One would think that Mam’selle had been used to the inside of a
prison,” he observed.
Mary replied, that she had never before entered one.
“Nor Monsieur?”
“Yes; my father has been accustomed to visit the prisoner.”
“Ha! what a strange amusement! We do not allow of such curiosity here.”
Mary was sorry to hear this: she thought it promised ill for the comfort
of the prisoners; and it was evident that the man had no idea that any
one would voluntarily enter a prison from any motive but curiosity.
He opened the door cautiously, and made her enter first. The room, which
was very large, was so dark that she could not see either end of it; she
discerned many moving figures, but not distinctly enough to recognize
her father.
“Mais où est il?” said the jailer, holding the dim light above his head:
“call him yourself, Mam’selle; I know not these English names.”
Mary pronounced the name, but the low sound was not heard. There was no
need, for her father, mistrusting his own eyes, came forward to see
whether or not it were indeed his daughter.
Mary seized his arm, and was, for the present, happy. The jailer
favoured them with the use of the light for a short time, saying that he
would return for it himself.
Before she would indulge in any conversation, she examined into the
nature of the accommodations which had been provided for her father.
They were wretched enough. A screen was placed across one corner of the
dreary apartment, and behind it was placed the mattress on which he was
to sleep. A bench was the only piece of furniture allowed him besides.
The other corners were partitioned off in a similar manner for other
unhappy inmates of this place; and during the day, her father told her,
many more were admitted, so that there was no hope of peace and quiet.
Some effort must be made to obtain a separate apartment; if this could
not be done, Mary must make up her mind to leave him the next day. Mary
smiled, in a firm resolution to do no such thing: she had, however, a
strong hope that a separate cell might be obtained.
She observed that her father’s supper stood untasted: she urged him to
eat while she arranged his bed comfortably; observing that she had
supped before she came. She judged rightly, that example would be better
than entreaty: her father ate because she had eaten.
By the time she had laid on the sheets she had brought, and made herself
somewhat at home in what she called their own apartment, the jailer came
for the light; and in return for a handsome fee, promised Mary the
comfort of an occasional retreat to his wife’s apartment, if her father
should be obliged to remain where he was. He further favoured them by
drawing up a huge table outside the screen, by which fortification they
felt themselves secure from interruption; but no intreaties could
prevail on him to leave the light.
Mr. Byerley refused to sleep while Mary watched beside him, but
consented at last to lie down, though declaring that he was not so weary
as she said he appeared. She sat down beside him, and they talked long
in whispers, interrupted only by the slight noises which told them that
there were sleepers within hearing. At length, Mr. Byerley, overcome by
the fatigues of his journey, and of all that he had since gone through,
fell asleep with his daughter’s hand clasped within his own. During the
succeeding hours, a world of ideas passed through Mary’s wakeful mind.
Seated as she was, in solitary watchfulness beside her suffering parent,
amidst strangers, in the very room with criminals, with whom she was
shut up for she knew not how long, she was easy and happy in comparison
with her sister, who, in her comfortable apartment, carefully tended by
servant and friends, was restlessly miserable, not only on her father’s
account, but through jealousy of her sister, and the reproaches of her
own conscience.
In a few hours Mr. Byerley awoke; and his daughter, perceiving that he
was really refreshed, and that he would not sleep again, consented to
repose in her turn. She felt safe in the guardianship of her parent, and
slept till it was broad daylight.
This day was spent by the friends of the prisoner in active exertion to
learn the nature of the accusation against him, and the probable issue
of the affair, and to secure for him such temporary comfort as might by
any means be obtained. Mr. Byerley employed Mary in drawing up memorials
to be presented in every quarter where there was any hope of their being
of use. This exertion, and the hope which it excited, were cheering to
them both. At one sentence, which strongly expressed the prisoner’s
consciousness of innocence, Mary staid her pen, and looked up in her
father’s face.
“Speak, my dear,” said he; “tell me what you are thinking of: if you
have any doubt of my innocence, say so.”
“I do not, of course, suspect you of any moral guilt—of any act which
you would not pronounce to be virtuous; but, excuse me, because I know
nothing of the purpose of your going to Paris;—has nothing been done
which the laws or the government of this country would declare to be
wrong?”
“Nothing, my love, which the laws do not sanction; something, perhaps,
which the government may not like, and for which it may choose to punish
me; but nothing for which it can bring me to trial, or which any lawyer
in the kingdom can declare to be unconstitutional.”
The full explanation into which Mr. Byerley now entered, satisfied Mary
that she might with a safe conscience speak and write of her father’s
entire innocence, though it left considerable apprehensions of the
consequences of these strange events. She was glad to divert her
thoughts from the dark future, by busying herself as much as possible;
but her attention was perpetually recalled to her present situation by
the disagreeable sounds which reached her from the wretched inmates of
their apartment. She was hidden from their observation by the screen;
but their coarse jests, their oaths, and vehement complaints, offended
her ears perpetually, though she gave no outward sign to her father of
having heard them. It was not many hours before one change for the
better took place in their situation. When the turnkey brought their
dinner, he informed them of the magistrate having ordered that they
should be allowed a separate apartment, which would be ready for them
before night.
This cell was found to contain a smaller one within; and Mary had no
doubt that the jailer had had her accommodation in view in conducting
her father hither in preference to other cells. This symptom of humanity
raised her spirits, and she spread her little mattress with almost as
much satisfaction as if it had been in a better place. Here she and her
father passed a week—a long week, unvaried by any circumstance but an
occasional message, transmitted through M. Béranger and the jailer, that
all their friends were well, and were employing their energies on Mr.
Byerley’s behalf. They could comfort themselves on Anna’s account only
by hoping that she was included among the friends who were well; for it
was impossible to obtain a more particular report of her.
About noon, on the eighth day of their confinement, the door was
unbarred and thrown open, and Mr. Fletcher and Anna entered. The
surprise of this meeting was almost too much for the prisoners. When
they could enquire what turn their affairs had taken, they heard joyful
news. The worst charges against Mr. Byerley, those of sedition and
conspiracy against the government, were relinquished through inability
to substantiate them; and it was now hoped, though with no degree of
certainty, that the accusation would amount to nothing worse than
carrying sealed letters, an act forbidden by the Post-office laws, and
punishable by a short imprisonment only.
Mary’s heart felt suddenly lightened of the weight of a calamity; but
she could control herself in joy as well as in grief; and the calm of
her manner and countenance showed whither she referred her feelings of
gratitude and joy.
“Come, come,” said Mr. Fletcher, when the first burst of intelligence
had been received and discussed, “we must lose no time in making our
arrangements, for our lawyer friend will be here presently, and I shall
take my departure to-morrow.”
“What arrangements?”
“Anna will remain with her father; and you, Mary, must go with me. Make
no objection, my dear: on all accounts it is desirable that the exchange
should be made, and my wife and daughters are looking anxiously for
you.”
Mary was so far from making any objection, that she was rejoiced at the
opportunity thus afforded to Anna of taking her share of the duty in
which she felt so much pleasure. She withdrew with Anna into her own
little cell, to prepare for her departure, and to introduce her sister
to the scanty accommodations the place afforded. Anna shuddered as she
looked round, and seemed more than half inclined to draw back; but of
this her sister took no notice, though she inwardly compassionated her
fears.
“Can you sleep here?” enquired Anna.
“O yes! very well. It is a very good mattress, and the room quite
undisturbed by noise. There is no access to it, you see, but by my
father’s room. I never slept better, though I had not such an easy mind
as we may all have now.”
“You will come to-morrow, will not you?”
“Certainly, as soon as visitors are admitted. Our best way will be to
take our place here by turns, day and day about. This will amuse my
father most, and be best for us.”
Anna made no reply but by another timid look round.
Mary smiled as she continued: “You will find that my father has much to
relate as well as you: I will leave it to him to tell you what we have
been doing all this week. I shall think of you this evening talking so
busily and comfortably together. It will do my father more good than any
thing else could do, to hear all you have to tell him; for we know
scarcely any thing yet of what our friends have been doing for us.”
“Oh! what is that?” cried Anna, at the sound of the unbarring of the
outer door.
“I suppose it is the lawyer who was to come. Yes, it is,” continued
Mary, after a peep into her father’s room; “so we must be gone.
Farewell, till to-morrow morning.”
Anna’s eyes were swimming in tears when her sister left her. If the
smallest choice had been allowed her, she would have gone home with Mr.
Fletcher. As it was, she said, in her perverse heart, that Mary was so
wonderfully ready to depart, that it was clear she did not like the
prison; so she made up her mind to dislike it too, and to think it hard
that she, delicate as she was, should be left there.
As soon as the lawyer was gone, she joined her father. He did not wonder
at the visible constraint of her manner; but the greater the cause for
it, the deeper was his compassion for her. Never, perhaps, even to Mary,
had his words and manner been so tender as now to his conscious and
unhappy daughter. He succeeded, at length, in raising her spirits; and
there was so much to relate on each side, and now so great cause for
hope, that this evening proved nearly as cheerful as Mary hoped it might
be.
To her, this day afforded much enjoyment. The air, sunshine, and verdure
were delicious after a week’s seclusion within stone walls. She passed
the afternoon in the garden with her friends, listening and relating by
turns, and enjoying the delights of their affection, and of vivid hopes
for her father; these delights being, unconsciously to herself, enhanced
by the satisfaction of her own reflections on past duties.
M. and Mde. Mesnil came to see and congratulate her, and to offer to go
and visit her father. It was settled that the pastor should accompany
her the next day. Madame Mesnil, whose influence had done more to
tranquillize Anna than any which the Fletchers could exert, declared her
intention of taking her young friend home to dinner with her to-morrow,
that she might hear what sort of a heroine she had made in prison.
No one was ever, in truth, less like a heroine. Anna started at every
sound, and appeared in perpetual terror, even while her hand was clasped
in her father’s. In vain he smiled, and assured her that no persons were
ever more secure from interruption than they were till supper time; in
vain he urged her then to eat, and conversed with the turnkey, to prove
to her that the man was civil, and that there was nothing to fear. She
was somewhat relieved when they were locked in for the night, but more
nervous than ever when she found herself alone in her dismal little
cell. She crept shivering into bed, and cried almost the whole night. Of
course she looked, in the morning, little fitted to cheer a prison; and
breakfast passed almost in silence. As soon as it was removed, her
father took her hand, saying:—
“My child! you are very unhappy.”
At the first word, Anna laid down her head on his knee and wept
bitterly. All attempts to soothe her being vain, her father continued:—
“Surely all this grief is not for me; there is now no cause for it, for
my safety is certain. You must have some secret trouble, which you
conceal from me. Why will you not give me your confidence?”
“You know——you know,” said she, in a broken voice, “that I am miserable:
you know why I am miserable.”
“I see that you are unhappy; but, unless there be something that I am
ignorant of, I see no reason why you should not be as happy as other
people if you choose it.”
“No, never; nobody loves me; people pity me, and look down upon me, and
do what they can to help me; but they do not love me, and I cannot live
without being loved.”
“Supposing all this to be true, which I think it is not, how happens
it?”
“Ah! that is the misery of it. I know you think I deserve it; and I do
in part; but indeed, indeed I am not understood.”
“If so, I ask again, how happens it?”
Anna was silent.
“Think and speak honestly,” continued her father, after a pause: “this
is too serious a matter to be trifled with. If you are indeed
misunderstood by all the world, where does the fault lie? is all the
world to blame, or are you?”
“I am partly, I own; I have made some great mistakes about myself, which
I can never repair, and——”
“Stop, my love; I never sanction the belief that any mistakes are quite
beyond reparation. You have committed errors in your management of
yourself; but, while you live, you have the power of retracing your
steps. Go back to the point where your errors began, and then you can
proceed in the safe and right way in which it has ever been my wish to
guide you.”
“I cannot, I cannot,” cried the unhappy girl: “I am altogether
disappointed in myself; every thing has turned out differently from what
I expected; I thought I should have been——” She could not command her
voice.
“You thought you should have been something unlike—something far beyond
what women generally are. I saw what your ambition was, and, as you well
remember, warned you from the first that you mistook the way to gratify
it. While you should have been exercising yourself in the virtues you
wished to attain, you spent your energies in dreaming about them, and
the consequence is——”
“Oh! do not reproach me with it; I know too well what it is. I am fit
for nothing—equal to neither great occasions nor small. I am always in
the way of other people when they do not want me; and when they do, I
fail them utterly. Oh! do not reproach me with all this.”
“Not for the world, my love! What heart could that father have who would
reproach you as you reproach yourself? I will allow some truth in what
you have said; but I must add, that with so clear an apprehension of the
evil as you have shown, and so noble a candour in acknowledging it,
there is strong reason for hoping that you may get the better of your
troubles entirely.”
“No; I shall never have strength now; you do not know how often I have
resolved and failed. I will make no more resolutions, and then I shall
not incur the sin of breaking them.”
“Anna, I am now convinced of what I have long feared. What you have just
said is more painful to me than all that has passed: it proves to me
that you depend on the strength of your unassisted will—that you have
ceased to seek help where you know you may ever find it. I see, by your
silent shame, that it is so. And have you really made no further use of
your religion than to feast your imagination, while you were daily
experiencing the weakness of your own will?”
Anna turned away in agony.
“Tell me, my child, if I do you injustice. Give me but one sign that I
too have misunderstood you. If you have indeed continued to study the
Scriptures with intentness of heart, if you have, to this day, sought
relief and strength in prayer, turn to me, and I will entreat your
pardon for my harshness.”
Anna turned not, and her emotion was fearful: her father’s was scarcely
less.
“It is not too late, be the case what it may: while the stray sheep
lives, it may be brought back. But is it possible, that while we have
read and prayed together, your heart was far from your lips? Was your
fancy busy even then, with the applause of the world?”
“Yes; it is that which has ruined me,” said Anna at length. “For years
my chief motive has been praise, human praise; and now I cannot act
against my inclinations from any other. And I have lost all power over
my thoughts: they wander away at all times: the attempt to restrain them
made me miserable; and now that I have given it up, I am more miserable
still.”
“No doubt, my child; and the only way to recover your peace is to resume
your efforts—not with a vague wish merely, or an unassisted resolution
to govern yourself better. You must gather motives from a renewed study
of your Bible; you must obtain strength from prayer; and you must also
exercise yourself perpetually in action. Circumstances occur every hour
which may afford you an opportunity of breaking in upon your reveries,
and doing something which your inclination would prompt you to leave
undone. There is more efficacy in attempts _to act_, in a case like
yours, than you have any idea of.”
Anna knew this, but doubted her own power. Her father suggested various
helps to her own feeble resolution, of which she might make use; the
chief of which was an increased confidence in her sister. From this, her
father saw with anguish that she recoiled: there was no use in arguing
against so unnatural a feeling; he could only pray that it might be
changed into a more kindly and generous emotion, by the discipline to
which he hoped his unhappy child would henceforth subject herself.
He perceived that, painful as this conversation was, it had been a
relief to Anna, who had not for many long months opened her griefs to
any one. Her emotions had, however, so totally enfeebled her, that her
father found it necessary to assist her to her room, where he laid her
on her bed, and saw her fall asleep almost instantly, thus proving that
the exhaustion of her body was greater than the disturbance of her mind.
When Mary and M. Mesnil entered the cell, they found Mr. Byerley leaning
over the table, his face covered with his hands. They made no very close
enquiries respecting the cause of his grief; but as, at the end of an
hour, Anna was still asleep, Mary proposed that she should not be
disturbed, and that they should both remain through the day and night.
In answer to all objections about want of accommodation, she declared,
that if there was not room for both to rest, she would watch, as she had
done before. Any thing, she said, for the sake of their passing a day
together once more.
This arranged, Mary told her father how she had enjoyed the preceding
day and this morning.
“It is a fine morning, I see,” said he, looking up to the high grated
window which admitted—not sunshine—but such light as told that there was
sunshine abroad.
“A fine, fragrant, summer morning,” said Mary, taking from her bosom
some field-flowers which she had gathered in the meadows: “I have
brought you these; I wish I could bring you the sunshine which painted
them.”
As her father looked fondly at her, he thought within himself, that to
him she had ever brought sunshine.
Anna awoke refreshed, and, to her sister’s relief, appeared to have no
objection to remain another day and night where she was. They spent the
day in greater comfort and confidence than had been their wont of late,
and at night slept and watched in turn; Anna managing to control her
fears while her sister was beside her, though asleep.
To their astonishment, this proved the last day of Mr. Byerley’s
imprisonment. The strenuous exertions of his friends, the interference
of the English ambassador, and especially, the important fact that there
was no evidence against him beyond the suspicions of a spy, availed to
release him from his jail; but not altogether from injustice. He was
ordered to quit Tours in twenty-four hours, and to embark immediately
from the nearest port, whither he was to be escorted by two gens d’arme.
CHAPTER XII.
Sense with Sensibility.
It was not till Mr. Byerley had returned to his friend’s house, and was
placed in the midst of its quietness and comforts, that he became aware
how his health and spirits had been shaken by the events of the last
fortnight. He felt weary and feverish, and the excitement of his nerves
was evident to every one near him. Mr. Fletcher was anxious that his
departure should be delayed till he should be better able to bear the
fatigue of travelling; but Mr. Byerley would not allow any mention of
the subject to be made to M. Béranger, or to any of the authorities. He
would ask no favour where he knew himself to be treated with injustice;
and besides, he was impatient to leave a place where he had suffered so
much. Mary also advocated his departure, knowing that his health was
always benefited by a voyage. She intended, of course, to accompany him.
The most difficult question was, what should be done with Anna? There
was no hope of her being of any use, and her presence was now agitating
to her father. Her return would also preclude all hope of the benefit to
be derived from change of scene and society, and would put an end at
once to Madame Mesnil’s influence over her. The Fletchers urged her
remaining with them; declaring that the late events had disgusted them
with their present abode, and that they should soon proceed to Paris,
and in a few months afterwards, to England. It was determined that, if
Anna would consent, she should be left behind, under the care of her
kind friends, and attended by Susan.
The mere proposal of any plan was now certain to rouse Anna’s
opposition; but, though she wept over the hardship of being separated
from her father, she was, in reality, glad to be relieved from the
responsibilities of her filial duty, and to remain, for a time, near
Madame Mesnil. Saying, therefore, that she would submit if she could,
and really mistaking her selfishness for resignation, she showed her
filial affection by making her father miserable with her inexhaustible
tears. Mary, mean while, having established her father on a sofa, was
packing up, and settling all their little affairs, while Mr. Fletcher
procured passports, and his wife made every provision for the comfort of
the voyage which the shortness of the time allowed.
A letter arrived this day from Signor Elvi, who had heard with
consternation of the arrest of his friend. His purpose in writing was to
cheer the prisoner with hopes of release and of a return to his own free
and happy country, whose institutions were praised as they deserved to
be by one who had suffered so cruelly from the despotism which desolated
his own land. Though Mr. Byerley was no longer a prisoner when this
letter reached him, he was not the less in need of being cheered; and he
was cheered, except by one passage, which it afflicted him to read,
while he reproached himself for his selfish regret.
“I have earnestly desired, my friend, to aid you; I have mourned that I
could not aid you, by hastening to fling wide your prison doors. There
is but one way in which such exiles as I, stripped of all we possessed,
can aid those who suffer injustice. It is by struggling for liberty,
wherever a struggle can be maintained. Such assistance I am hastening to
give. I cannot release the victims of tyranny from their chains, or
recall the spirits of the martyrs to liberty; but I can defend those
principles by whose prevalence the captivity of the innocent shall, at
length, cease, and the heads of the noble shall be crowned with honour
instead of being rolled in the dust. I go to defend these principles in
another land, in a distant continent of the globe. Should you set your
foot in safety once more on your native strand, as I trust you will, I
shall not be there to welcome you, as your friendly hand once welcomed
me. It may be that you will hear of me no more, though I will not
willingly relinquish the privilege of your correspondence. If you should
hear of my fall, mourn not for me; for you know that I look for better
things beyond the grave than rest for the weary, and a release from the
troublings of the wicked: yes—for perfect love and perfect peace. What
would our life below become without the love of the virtuous, and the
peace which it instils! So deeply am I conscious of this, that I cannot
feel myself wholly unhappy while I bear with me the remembrance of your
friendship and of the sympathy of your daughters. Confiding that it will
be mine while I live, it is with mingled pleasure and regret that I
dwell on the hours that I have spent with you and them; and bid you all
a present—it may be a long—farewell.”
“He will fall, like hundreds of his companions, obscurely, and perhaps
uselessly,” cried Mr. Byerley. “Oh! what an insatiable Moloch is war!”
“So,” thought Mary, “pass away the pleasures of this world. We shall see
Elvi no more; but, thank God! we _have_ known him, and may recognize him
hereafter, when it may be our delight to sympathize more warmly in his
joys than hitherto in his griefs.”
Towards evening, Mr. Byerley’s indisposition appeared to increase, so
that it was determined that he should not pass the night unwatched. As
this was Anna’s last opportunity of ministering to him, and as Mary had
the fatigues of an anxious journey in prospect, it was agreed that Mr.
Byerley should be given into Anna’s charge. Mary retired to rest early,
and her sister stationed herself with Susan in a dressing-room which
opened on one side to her father’s apartment, and on the other to the
stairs. About midnight, her charge appeared, at length, to sleep
quietly; and when one and two o’clock struck, the watchers still heard,
through the open door, that his breathing was that of deep repose. Anna
was reading, or seeming to read, and her attendant at work; and neither
of them spoke or made the slightest noise. After a while, it seemed that
Mr. Byerley was stirring; and in a moment, before Anna could rise from
her seat, he stood in the doorway, looking wildly about him, and making
confused attempts to speak.
Anna fell back in her chair, and her shriek rang through the house.
Susan scarcely knew which to attend to first, the nurse or the patient;
but Mary was on the spot instantly to assist. Mr. Byerley had risen in
his sleep, as his children knew he occasionally did when under nervous
indisposition. Anna’s shriek awoke him effectually, and shook him much
more than his sudden appearance had disturbed her. Mary reproached
herself with having left him, and sat by his bedside till Mrs. Fletcher
came at six o’clock to insist on her taking a few hours’ rest before her
departure.
Mr. Fletcher, a more welcome companion than the two gens d’arme,
accompanied the travellers to Rochelle, and having seen them safe on
board, and out of the surveillance of the government, carried home
better tidings of Mr. Byerley than were expected. He had appeared to
breathe more freely, and to recover composure, as soon as they left the
city of Tours behind them, and entered on the vine-covered hills and
fertile plains which surround it; and had uttered an exclamation of
delight at the first view of the blue expanse which was stretched before
them as they descended to the coast. An English vessel was on the point
of sailing when they arrived; and from the first heights which their
friend reached on his return, he could just discern its white sails
disappearing on the far horizon. Mr. Fletcher, unused as he was to
testify emotion of any kind, could scarcely restrain his indignation and
grief that such a man as his friend should be thus thrust out of a
country where he had committed no offence, and where none was charged
upon him but that of associating with the choicest of her citizens. The
ladies, however, merged their political in their private feelings.
“How did Mary look at the last?”
“Look! like what she is—a heroine.”
“Do you use that word in irony or in respect, papa?” said Rose, being
sure of a gratifying answer, though he was not wont to speak
respectfully of heroines.
“My dear, I speak in irony of would-be heroines—of women who are heroic
when opportunity is wanting, and who, when opportunity comes, want
heroism. But a real heroine, a woman who not being above small occasions
is equal to the greatest, is the noblest spectacle that human life
affords.”
“This from our father!” thought Rose and Selina, as they looked at each
other with delight.
Meanwhile Mary was totally unconscious of the feelings she inspired,
desiring nothing more than to love and be beloved. This desire she felt
to be amply gratified, this golden evening, while her father continued
to revive under her cherishing care. He was lying on deck, where she had
persuaded him to repose himself on the couch she had spread. The melting
sunlight bathed the receding shores of France, and rendered visible the
spires of her towns and villages, and the verdure of the heights beyond.
The breeze fanned the still feverish brow of the invalid, and the gentle
motion of the vessel lulled him to a repose more refreshing than sleep.
“Shall I sing to you, papa?”
For the first time in her life, her father said “No,” to her offer. She
had sung to him last in prison, and he wished to banish all
jail-associations till he should be stronger. He smiled while he
confessed his reasons. They directed Mary’s conversation to widely
different subjects. She told him of her wish to proceed immediately on
their landing, to A——, which she knew he would prefer to remaining in
town; and the images she called up of home and its quiet pleasures—of
the study, and the farm, and their evening rambles—were delightful to
her home-loving father, who went abroad unwillingly, and would gladly
have vowed to seclude himself for the rest of his days, except on the
occasion of public meetings.
“My only regret is for your disappointment, my love. When I interested
myself first in politics, I made up my mind to all the inconveniences
which might ensue, and therefore ought not to complain of what has
happened. But it is hard upon you. You have shared all my fears and
fatigues, and have had none of the pleasures I intended for you. No
Paris, no Switzerland, no brilliant society:—it is a sad
disappointment.”
“No, indeed, papa. I have not gained what I expected; but I have gained
something much better—something,” she continued, smiling, “which it is
your boast cannot be had in England.”
“What good thing cannot be found in England, my dear?”
“I do not know that you will call it a good thing, though I have found
it so; I mean, the experience of such gross injustice as has been done
to you. I have often wondered how we could endure—how we could preserve
our composure—whether we could keep our charity entire, and our peace
unbroken under grievous wrong.”
“And what is the answer you have found?”
“Father! I would not exchange the experience of the last fortnight, with
all its suffering, all its humiliation, for the best advantages of
Paris, and the divinest delights of Switzerland. Do not think me proud;
for, God knows, it has humbled me not a little to discover how feeble
one may be in action, how cowardly in suffering, when one means the
best; but yet—what we have felt together and apart will make us happier
as long as we live: will it not? And could any thing at Paris have done
more?”
“My child,” said her father, “my _only_ child!”
Mary saw that tears trickled through his fingers as his hand covered his
eyes. She could not allow him to suppose that she assented to the
expression which a moment of strong feeling had wrung from him. Hers was
a soul to hope against hope, and she yet trusted that Anna’s restoration
was probable. She had never flattered her sister, or striven to deceive
herself; but, clear-sighted as she was to the difficulties of the case,
it was one of which she never despaired. She now reasoned with her
father upon it, and ended by inspiring him with something of her own
cheerful faith, and thus disposing him to join the names of his children
in his thanksgivings as well as in his prayers.
When the evening star had risen high, Mary returned from receiving her
father’s nightly blessing, to watch yet awhile for the influences which
came to the wakeful spirit from the sky and from the deep. To such as
she, these influences impart fervour without enthusiasm, and a
confidence in which presumption has no part; and her steadfast soul
looked abroad on the temporary agitations of human life, as calmly as
her eye surveyed the rise and fall of the billowy expanse before her. If
it be true that “to the pure all things are pure,” it is equally true
that to the peaceful all things breathe peace.
THE END.
Joseph Rickerby, Printer, Sherbourn Lane.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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