“Here the bright diamond and the ruby takeThe rose’s form; and the deep amethystThe violet; while the modest pearl blendsIts moonlight lustre with the sunny gem.”
“Here the bright diamond and the ruby takeThe rose’s form; and the deep amethystThe violet; while the modest pearl blendsIts moonlight lustre with the sunny gem.”
“Here the bright diamond and the ruby takeThe rose’s form; and the deep amethystThe violet; while the modest pearl blendsIts moonlight lustre with the sunny gem.”
“Here the bright diamond and the ruby take
The rose’s form; and the deep amethyst
The violet; while the modest pearl blends
Its moonlight lustre with the sunny gem.”
Whileall were taking their places at the breakfast table, Lady Susan was so obliging in making room for every one, that at last she found herself seated next to our hero. But, alas! Julia was on his other side. To do him justice, however, he helped her ladyship abundantly, too abundantly indeed to many things she did not want: he even had the unparalleledgenerosity to offer her, and that with a sudden start of recollection, his cup of tea when she had one of her own; he also turned and begged her pardon, more than once, when it was not to him she had addressed herself.
“You see,” whispered Lord Borrowdale, who, for lack of room near Julia, had seated himself on the other side of Lady Susan, “poor Montgomery is so bewildered by the radiance of your ladyship’s smiles, that he actually does not know what he is doing.”
Lady Susan sighed and smiled, and tried to be of his lordship’s opinion. The following plan, which had been in agitation ever since the arrival of the Arandales at Lodore House, was now finally arranged. In short, Mrs. Montgomery, after many objections, at length consented to her grand-daughters accompanying their uncle’s family, back to Ayrshire, for abouta month. Captain Montgomery, and Mr. St. Aubin were invited to join the party. The Euphrasia being still in dock, our hero quickly assented to a proposal, by which he was to enjoy a continuance of Julia’s society.
“Julia!” exclaimed Frances, on receiving a message from a servant, “our poor little friend, Gotterimo! Oh, may we have him in, grandmamma? It will be so amusing!” “And I dare say every body will buy something from him,” added Julia.
“He is, I believe, a deserving poor creature,” said Mrs. Montgomery. “Shall we gratify the girls, and admit him?” she added, turning to Lady Arandale.
Lady Arandale, of course, assented, and orders were given accordingly. A young man, of a neat diminutive figure, now entered. His eyes sparkled with hope at the sight of so largea company; while, at the same time, a kind of bashfulness flushed his cheek and flurried his manner. The girls saw this, and felt for him.
“Here, will you open the boxes on this table, Mr. Gotterimo?” said Julia; and while he was doing so, she observed, that when the first flush, called up by his entrance, went down, the poor creature’s countenance assumed an anxious and saddened expression.
“I hope,” she added, “you had good success in Bath?” “Yes, madam,” he answered, with some hesitation; then added, “it was first year, madam—every ting must have begin, madam.” This led to further enquiries, and a dismal tale of having been robbed by his partner, of the savings of his whole life.
Our breakfast party felt much commiseration for poor Gotterimo; and commenced making purchases as a means of affording, atleast, temporary assistance. The sale of his goods raised the spirits of our poor little friend, who soon became all activity in displaying, and eloquence in recommending each shining article in his sparkling collection. A chain was admired by Edmund for its resemblance to a cable, and was purchased by Julia. Lord Arandale’s eye accidentally fell on a musical box. Gotterimo set the air playing immediately.
“Is it not rather slow in the time?” said the Earl.
“Oh, de slow time, it do make listen!”
“I should prefer something less dismal,” said his lordship.
“So ’tis, sir! De quick time, it do make dance!” and, while he spoke, with nimble fingers he was winding up a curious seal which now began to execute a more lively air.
“That is pretty!” said the Earl. Gotterimo proffered the seal to his lordship.
“The articulation of the box is superior,” observed Lady Susan.
“Dis be more superior,” cried Gotterimo, presenting the box to her ladyship. “The seal is the prettier thing,” persisted Lord Arandale. “If you vil please, sir, bote be de best,” pursued Gotterimo, offering both. Here every one laughed. The little man looked round him enquiringly, then, rallying, said—“So ’tis, sir, de seal be de best beautiful! de box be de best music!” and he added, smiling sheepishly, “every ting be de best fen it bring Gotterimo de money!” This was logic not to be resisted, and the Earl took both, together with watches, seals, and chains, for three or four absent nephews; while Lady Arandale selected handsome presents for asmany absent nieces. Thus went on a brisk sale of poor Gotterimo’s goods, when Mrs. Montgomery, happening to cast her eye over the contents of one of the jewel boxes, which lay open, her attention was fixed by a curious mosaic ring: she caught it up and examined it with a much deeper interest than it seemed to merit. Gotterimo, believing she was admiring the workmanship of the article, silently undid the clasps of a small morocco case, and placed it open before her. It contained the set of mosaics to which the ring belonged: her countenance changed; and Julia remarked that movement of her head which always indicated strong emotion. Mrs. Montgomery turned the centre medallion. On the back part of the gold rim was engraved Maria, her sister’s name, and the mark by which they used to distinguish between their necklaces. Sheturned deadly pale, and was only prevented sinking to the ground by the united support of Julia, Edmund, and Frances.
The moment Mrs. Montgomery recovered, she called for Gotterimo, and enquired, anxiously, where, when, and how those ornaments had come into his possession. “Dem be second hand, Madam,” he replied; “I have buy dem of a gentleman in London.” The name Gotterimo could not immediately call to mind. He had seen the person in question but once. In reply to the question of what sort of looking gentleman the person was, he said, “he vos tall and good look; look angry fen he no please, and have de loud voice.” Our little jeweller, however, offered to make “enquiry” of a friend of his, to whom, he said, “de same gentleman have sell de grand old plate, and de great manypicture, and de big box of de old fassion moneys.” The purchase of the necklace had been lately made; but all that Gotterimo knew further of the person who had sold it to him was, “that he have rob and cheat so many tradge people; and have hire de big house in ⸺ Place, in London, to make dem tink him grand gentleman;” but that when he, Gotterimo, last left town, “de house vas empty, vid de bill ‘To Let, Furnish,’ on de vindow.” All now remembered to have read a recent account in the papers of the said swindler and his associates, with their assumed names.
The mosaics were purchased, and Gotterimo, after receiving considerable charitable donations, dismissed; while Mrs. Montgomery’s agitation of spirits was, at length, in some degree composed, by Mr. Jackson’s remindingher that the necklace must have been parted with many years ago, by those of whom she thought; and that, its having since passed into the hands of a knot of swindlers, was by no means a remarkable circumstance.
… “On the shadowy marginOf the lake, in a spot sequester’d.”
… “On the shadowy marginOf the lake, in a spot sequester’d.”
… “On the shadowy marginOf the lake, in a spot sequester’d.”
… “On the shadowy margin
Of the lake, in a spot sequester’d.”
“Canthat noise be the bagpipes?” said Frances to Julia, trying to look from an upper window in one of the turrets of Arandale Castle. But no object immediately near the building could be discerned from windows situated as were those of this apartment. The more removed prospect, however, was rich and magnificent. Woods, which seemed interminable, every where met the eye; with, here and there, an opening among their ranges, displaying agrassy avenue which ran along till lost again in the far perspective of grove meeting grove. In some of those avenues stood herds of deer, looking around them with an air of the most stately security; in others, even hares and rabbits were sometimes seen to venture from under cover, cross a path, and disappear again, whilst innumerable cawing rooks, continually passing and repassing each other’s heavy flight, hovered over all the summits of the trees; and in their branches sat gay plumed peacocks, uttering, from time to time, their wild cry. To complete the picture, one of the grassy avenues already described, terminated in a smooth, still sheet of water, an arm of which was crossed, at a considerable height, by a light bridge of iron work; while, on its glassy surface, sailed two snow white swans, the sole visible inhabitants of this their watery realm.
“It is the bagpipes, my Lady,” said Alice Smyth, “the housekeeper told me to tell your ladyships, that that was the way your ladyships would know when breakfast was ready. The old piper walks up and down under the windows, playing highland tunes all the time of breakfast, which my Lady Arandale makes herself every day at ten o’clock, and never waits for any body, but sends all away again at eleven, let who will or will not come down.”
“And does her ladyship make no allowance for the first morning after a long journey?” said Frances, (for they had all arrived at Arandale but the night before); “I declare my limbs are quite stiff. But we had better make haste, or, by Alice’s account, we shall have no breakfast,” she continued, taking her sister’s arm.
As they passed along the galleries above,and across the halls below, numerous domestics pointed out, in silence, the way to the breakfast room. On their entrance, a general move took place among the gentlemen, though only the family party, each offered or pointed out a seat or seats. It so happened, that Julia took one offered by Edmund, who seated himself beside her, and began silently placing within her reach, every thing she could possibly want.
Lady Arandale sat at the head, Lady Susan at the foot of a long table; the one filled tea, the other coffee; and, in the intermediate space appeared the usual hot rolls, toast, eggs, etc. of an English breakfast, reinforced by the Scottish addition of crisp leaves of oaten cake, thin as writing paper, together with comfits, marmalade, and all sorts ofsweetmeats. Lord Morven presided at a side table, abundantly covered with savoury pies, cold meats, and dried fish; while Lord Arandale seemed to have the sole possession of a third and lesser one, where he alone was eating of a certain preparation of oatmeal, called in Scotland, porridge.
“You have quite forsaken your post, Captain Montgomery,” said Lady Susan. “I beg a thousand pardons,” exclaimed Edmund, starting up, “I thought I had filled all the cups.”
“Indeed!” replied her ladyship, in a tone of much pique, “Oh, pray be seated,” then, affecting a laugh, and closing her eyelids quickly once or twice to disperse a tear that might else have betrayed her mortification, she added, “you did not then, let me inform you, filleven one. Nay, do pray sit down!” she continued, as Edmund made another attempt to rise, “I have completed my task with very little fatigue, I assure you, though you were so much shocked at the idea of my undertaking it.” Lord Morven, a wing of pigeon suspended on his fork, looked round at his sister with a broad and silent stare. She blushed, and addressed, successively, Henry, Frances, and Colonel Morven, without waiting for an answer from any of them. Edmund coloured, and Julia, who had neither been addressed nor accused, but by her own conscience, coloured also.
Lord Arandale, having dispatched his first course, joined the general table to finish his repast with some of the good things it afforded. Plans of amusement for the day now became the general topic; Julia and Francesbegged that they might be permitted to explore some of the beauties of the grounds, which, from their windows, promised so much. Lady Susan proposed a visit to her cottage; it was one of those imitations of a real rustic habitation, which, situated in some delightful retirement in the midst of extensive pleasure grounds, were the fashionable playthings of the great young ladies of the day. A spinning wheel was always a part of the furniture, and a proficiency in its use a necessary accomplishment to ladies possessing these rural boudoirs. Her ladyship’s proposition seemed agreeable to every one; particularly as the walk to the cottage led through much of what was most interesting in the grounds. Immediately after breakfast, therefore, the whole party assembled in front of the castle to commence their ramble.
Lord Arandale saying that he would showJulia the way, drew her arm over his; Lord Morven offered his to Frances; Henry joined Colonel Morven; Lady Susan walked alone; and Edmund, who on first setting out had intended to walk at the other side of Julia, felt himself obliged, in common politeness, to step forward and join the lady who had no companion. He did not, however, intend to offer his arm, as he meant to avail himself of the first favourable opportunity for desertion. But her ladyship struck her foot against the stump of a flower root, then limped a step or two, and next came in contact with a loose stone: in short he found it impossible to evince a suitable concern for such accidents, without saying something about an arm. Lady Susan accordingly took his arm; laughed at her own giddiness, confessed her want of a guide; “Though,” she added, “here I ought ratherto be yours, instead of making myself so troublesome.” Edmund said, very coolly, as he thought, that he was happy in being useful; reproached her ladyship in due form for misnaming the pleasure of being so, a trouble; and proceeded to hope that she had not suffered materially from his negligence, in the first instance. There was something so soothing, so persuasive in Edmund’s manner and voice, at all times, that common politeness from him, possessed an almost dangerous charm; and her ladyship was willing to be deceived.
Such a manner must be the result of suppressed feeling, thought Lady Susan; but she remembered the coffee: yet, might not even that, she asked herself, be one of the strange inconsistencies of love. Her spirits began to rise; and her good humour, never long absent, returned. She introduced sentimental subjects, and frequentlyspoke in so low a tone, that Edmund was obliged to stoop towards her to gather the meaning of what she said; so that to those who walked behind them, they appeared to be engaged in very earnest, and very interesting conversation. They turned off into a narrower walk; and the next time Edmund looked over his shoulder, which he did rather oftener than Lady Susan liked, not one of the rest of the party was any where to be seen.
“Your ladyship should certainly know the way here,” said Edmund, hesitating, and slackening his pace; “but we have either left them all very far behind, or taken a wrong path.” “This is the prettiest way to my cottage,” said her ladyship, “to which they will all certainly bend their steps, by whatever walk they may have gone round.” Accordingly, our advance couple proceeded onward uninterruptedthrough delightful solitudes. Her ladyship grew more and more romantic; many of her opinions, many of her very expressions were in perfect unison with the secret sentiments of Edmund; though those sentiments had, it must be confessed another object; Edmund’s replies, therefore, were frequently bursts of feeling suddenly checked; he was often silent, and sometimes sighed.
Lady Susan no longer doubted. There was a struggle in her bosom between natural modesty and a generous wish to reward the attachment of one, who was kept silent by honourable and manly motives.
By this time they reached the cottage. It was all that was rural; thatched, of course, and overgrown with jessamine, honeysuckle, and ever blowing roses. Buried in the deep woods that surrounded the castle, it had a littlepaled in garden and a small space of green, clear in its front; and, at the foot of the green, ran a little rivulet with a plank thrown over it, to form a rustic bridge. Tamed pheasants strayed about instead of barn-door fowl, a kid was tied to the paling, and a sheep with two lambs fed on the little plot of grass before the door.
Her ladyship having, with Edmund’s assistance, crossed the plank, caressed each of her favourites as she passed them, and, leading the way through the little garden, opened the latch of the cottage. All within was perfect rusticity: the furniture consisted of a small dresser with a few delf plates, a corner cupboard with some common looking cups and saucers, a deal table, a few wooden chairs, a low three legged stool, a spinning wheel, a kettle and some dried herbs suspended from the ceiling, some bright tin utensils arranged on nails against the wallover the chimney-piece, and a small looking-glass hung at the side of the latticed window.
Lady Susan became silent and absent; went to various repositories of grain and fed each of her pets; Edmund, of course, assisting. When she had finished, she seated herself on the three-legged stool, and began to spin with great assiduity and quite a practised hand. Edmund, whom she had requested to take a chair beside her, sat for some time in silent admiration of her performance. Suddenly, she lifted the toe of the foot that had kept the wheel in motion, and suspended the little white hand over the fore finger, of which the thread had been passing. “This spot, you see, Captain Montgomery,” she said, “is my plaything; yet, how happy might people be whose all it was!”
“Certainly!” he replied with much energy,instantly making Julia in imagination its mistress, and himself her partner for life: “Here is all that unsophisticated nature calls for; and, in the society of an object beloved, how seldom would the outer world be remembered!”
Her ladyship blushed and sighed; but Edmund’s thoughts were full of another image, and the blush and the sigh, which else might have spoken volumes, were unnoticed by him. A considerable pause ensued. “It certainly is madness,” said Lady Susan at length in a low voice, and with some hesitation, “It certainly—is—madness, to sacrifice realities to opinions, and those opinions not our own!”
“Oh, most assuredly!” replied Edmund, “when such is the case; but when our own opinions, our own sense of all that is honourable, just, grateful, are in direct opposition to our own feelings of all that:”—he recollectedhimself, broke off suddenly, and coloured: not that he apprehended being misunderstood; he rather dreaded that he was too well understood, and conscious that he thought of Julia while he spoke, feared he had inadvertently betrayed sentiments it was so incumbent upon him to conceal. “Yet—yet—” said her ladyship, “if—if the object—of an attachment so tender, yet governed so entirely by honourable principles, is willing to wave imaginary, in favour of real superiority?”—and she held out her hand.
Edmund first stared at the hand; then, scarcely conscious of the mechanical movement, took it in his. “For heaven’s sake, what do you mean, Lady Susan?” he exclaimed, changing colour twenty times in a minute; for, still possessed with the one idea, and too little of a coxcomb to be ready to believeher ladyship seriously attached to him because idle people had jested on the subject, the thought crossed his mind in the confusion of the moment, that Lady Susan must be in the confidence of her cousin, and must be expressing her belief that Julia returned his attachment.
Lady Susan spoke again,—“It would be mere affectation in me, Captain Montgomery,” she said, “to pretend blindness to the state of your feelings, and I respect the motives that have prevented their open declaration—” Her ladyship looked down, paused, and trembled excessively. Voices were heard without. The party passed the paling gate, and moved along the little walk of the garden. Lady Susan looked in alarm towards the door, coloured very deeply, and said, in a hurried tone, and with a kind of smile that struggled with a few tears of mingled pleasure and shame, “It israther hard, that I should have it to say, half unasked after all; yet, in favour of your motives, which I honour, I will say it—I am yours!” At this moment, the whole party flocked in, and filled up the little cottage room. Lady Susan snatched away her hand, which Edmund had been too much puzzled to resign, and resumed her spinning in a state of overwhelming confusion. Edmund stood rooted to the spot, looking and feeling, if possible, still more confounded; his colour mounting gradually as his perception of the truth cleared up, while his countenance became filled with expressions the most inexplicable!
Lord Arandale, fortunately for Lady Susan, was too busy speaking to Julia about some of the beauties of the grounds to observe his daughter. But he addressed an ear that heard little of what he said. Julia, during the walk, hadbeen wishing that Edmund would join them. She had observed him when going on before the rest of the party with Lady Susan, and, seemingly engaged in a conversation so earnest; and she had, even then, felt a slight unacknowledged sensation of uneasiness.
On entering the cottage, the first object that met her eye was the eye of Edmund. For the first time its expression did not banish every shadow from her thoughts, did not bring sunshine to her heart. It had never before had a meaning that she had not felt, at least, (if not exactly understood,) and felt with a too dangerous consciousness of delight; now his eye wandered from hers without an answering look. Lady Susan, too, how extraordinary was her expression! Julia became in one moment, though she had no time to ask herself why, miserable! entirely miserable! It was a kindof wretchedness, too, that she had never before even imagined. It puzzled—it alarmed her. A hopelessness came over her heart, that in all her grievings over the thoughts of Edmund’s going away, she had never known. Though she had never formed any other plan but that Edmund was to be her friend, her brother, she his friend, his sister; this had all been, while the bare idea of ever being other than the first in his affections, had not once presented itself to her imagination as even possible; but now, unaccustomed as she was to analyze subjects of love and marriage, there was something in the circumstances of the two conscious beings before her, which seemed obviously to set up a living, breathing object between herself and Edmund. Why such should be any obstacle to brotherly and sisterly regard still subsisting between them, she did not particularly enquire;yet all the stores of love and happiness that she had been collecting from infancy, seemed now to have been swept away in one single moment. She continued, however, to hang on the arm of Lord Arandale, and to answer any direct questions put to her as well as she could. After examining and admiring the cottage and grounds, the party at length returned to the gravel-sweep before the castle.
A curricle, with a gentleman driving, and a lady seated beside him, was now seen approaching. “Here is Lady Morven at last,” said Lord Arandale, letting go Julia’s arm, and advancing towards the new arrival.
“Matilda, I declare!” cried Lady Susan, hastening forward with her brother, who, on their return from the cottage, had, in a very marked manner, insisted on her taking his second arm. Edmund, who had walked in silenceon the other side of Julia, pondering partly on her altered manner, and partly on his own late adventure; when Lord Arandale withdrew his support, took up her hand, softly, and drew it over his arm; bending forward, at the same time, as if anxious to catch a view of her countenance. She kept her head, however, carefully turned in a contrary direction, and the moment they reached the steps, without speaking or looking round, withdrew her arm, glided away, and hurried up to her own room. Yet, such is the weakness of the heart that loves, that she had felt less unhappy during the few seconds her arm had rested on that of Edmund.
Julia’s conduct and feelings on this occasion, were certainly very foolish, but it must be remembered that she was scarcely eighteen; that she had been brought up in perfectseclusion, a seclusion too of sentiment, where, from five years old, she had never seen, or even heard any thing of life, but within the one domestic circle, in which all that was thought of, was tender mourning for the one that was lost, and tender cherishing of the few that were left. It is not then surprising that those few, and the first place in their hearts, should be romantically valued by one whose opening mind had thus, in every stage of its developement, been strongly impressed with the one idea, that all the rest of the world must be for ever strangers to her, in comparison of those who had, in this exclusive manner, possessed her earliest affections. And when, in addition to all this, the spell of afirst lovehad fallen on a heart so prepared, could much philosophy be expected?
“Is this a madness that is upon me?”
“Is this a madness that is upon me?”
“Is this a madness that is upon me?”
“Is this a madness that is upon me?”
Theparty we left at the door, reinforced by a number of newly arrived nephews and nieces of my lord’s and my lady’s, were by this time entering the great drawing-room, at the further end of which Lady Arandale was seated on a sofa, arranging, on a table before her, the presents she had brought for her nieces. From out of the entering group, one lady, whose precedence seemed to be undisputed, came forward towards Lady Arandale. It was LadyMorven. She was very tall, and very slight with long thin limbs, a small head, a little round face, deeply pockmarked, small grey eyes, scarcely any nose, and a small mouth without any lips. She was highly rouged, and dressed both fashionably and extravagantly; and her figure, though totally without form, had an air of grace as well as of elegance. The first salutation over, she flung herself on a sofa opposite to that occupied by Lady Arandale.
“And pray, Matilda, my dear,” said the last named lady, “why did you not come to Lodore after all?”
“La! ma’am, I had nobody to drive me.”
“Had na’ ye, yier coachman, my dear?”
“You know, I can’t bear any body’s driving but Graham’s; and the wretch thought fit to fall out of his curricle the very day he was coming over to take me: so there I have hadhim, with his arm in a sling, lounging about at Morven Hall, ever since: quite a bore, I assure you!”
“Your ladyship does me in-fi-nite honour!” faintly drawled out Mr. Graham, from the depths of a repose-chair, well furnished with down pillows, in which he had established himself. “Cruel—the distance,” he continued, letting fall word after word, “which divides me—from—so much goodness—Pray—Lady Morven—are the cushions—on that—sofa—mul-ti-tudinous?”
“Yes, there are a good many,” replied her ladyship, and as she spoke she made room for him, adding, “had you not better come over?”
“I am meditating the exertion of a removal shortly,” he rejoined, “but just—at present—it is quite—impossible: I am—absolutely in—elysium—enjoying—the very first sweets of anattitude—the most deliciously easy, in which—I had ever—the good fortune—to place myself.”
“And pray,” asked Lady Arandale, “was this nursing of Mr. Graham’s wounds, atête-à-têtebusiness?”
“Yes,” replied Lady Morven, “except a parcel of the girls, you know,” (the girls were all above twenty) “and that creature, Sir Archibald Oswald, harmless as usual, though more mad, I think, than ever!”
“Which is that, Graham or Lady Morven, who does Sir Archibald Oswald the honour of naming him?” demanded a voice, in the tones of which a slight tincture of affectation was blended with melancholy and melody. It arose from a yet unseen personage, of whose arrival no one seemed to be aware, and who, reclining on a chaise-longue in the recess of adistant window, was sheltered from observation by a large circular stand of exotics. Lady Morven started on her seat with a sort of rebound. The young people smiled, and tittered a little. Lord Arandale looked at them and frowned.
“Are you there, my good friend?” he said, going towards the reclining gentleman, who, at his approach, slowly and reluctantly arose.
“Ye may weel ask whilk it was that spack, Sir Archy,” observed Lady Arandale, who prided herself on speaking broad Scotch. “It is vara true, there is nae telling the voice o’ the one, fra that o’ the other.”
“Why,” drawled Lady Morven, “I quite admire Mr. Graham’s accent, and therefore I make it a point to speak like him.”
“Your ladyship is too good!” articulated the drowsy subject of this compliment. SirArchibald by this time stood quite erect, answering some polite enquiries of Lord Arandale and Lord Morven, who seemed desirous to unite in shewing a peculiar degree of courtesy to this guest. Edmund stood alone, observing with much interest the appearance of Sir Archibald, the peculiar and melancholy melody of whose voice had first drawn his attention. His figure was tall, well proportioned, and had an air of dignity. He seemed little more than fifty; but very grey for that age. His hair was parted on the forehead, and fell on either side of the face so long, and with so little regard to present modes, as to resemble that of one of the ancient bards. His countenance, though its beauty was almost defaced by the deepest furrows of affliction and premature old age, still retained the outlines of fine features,to which the melancholy that predominated in its expression, gave much interest.
Lord Arandale summoned Edmund by a look, and presented him to Sir Archibald, saying, “This gentleman, Sir Archibald, can talk to you on your favourite subject, of naval affairs, better than most people.” Edmund now joined the group, and while taking a part in the very incoherent conversation that was going on, observed, with much compassion, that the fire which awakened animation from time to time, called into the eye of the evidently unfortunate being before him, varied from wild to gloomy, and from gloomy to wild, but never once expressed pleasure; indeed it was when he attempted to smile that the light was wildest: and how instantaneously, how darkly did the cloud that thus had opened but for a moment, close again!
“What a wreck is there!” said Lord Arandale to our hero, as Sir Archibald and Lord Morven left the room together. Edmund looked a sort of enquiry, which the Earl answered thus: “Gambling, gambling it was which ruined him, as it has done many others.—There is a man who, twenty-five years since, possessed a property of twelve thousand per annum, in this county, where he was well known and much respected by us all;—now he has not sixpence in the world. He lives in the Isle of Man; his poor wife is broken-hearted, they say; and his boy is bringing up without education or prospects. It was the birth of that child to an inheritance of ruin, which, I believe, unsettled poor Oswald’s mind. When he is sane he remains on the island in the strictest retirement; but, when he wanders in mind, he wanders in body also, and throwing himselfinto any fishing smack or boat that happens to be on the coast, wherever he may chance to be landed on the main land he makes his way to this neighbourhood, visits the houses of those with whom he used to associate in his days of prosperity, seems unconscious that any change has taken place, and wears, wherever he goes, such clothes as are left for him in his room. Sometimes he enters the house where he once was master, fancies it still his home, and acts the host with all the graceful politeness for which he was once remarkable, treating the family now residing there, and any company they happen to have with them, as his guests.”
“He looks to great advantage when he is here,” said Lady Morven, “Alfred’s clothes fit him so well.”
“Did your ladyship ever happen to see him at the Laird of Moorland’s?” enquiredMr. Graham, who had now got to the sofa on which Lady Morven lolled; “the laird, you know, is very short, and very fat, and you never saw such a figure as Sir Archibald makes in his clothes!”
“Misfortunes, even when they are, as in this instance, the results of the sufferer’s own imprudence, still are bad subjects for merriment,” mournfully observed Lord Arandale, to whom the attempt to cast ridicule on his unhappy friend seemed very unwelcome. “You see, Montgomery,” he continued, turning to Edmund and leading him apart, “what gambling will bring a man to! It was,” and he lowered his voice and looked towards Henry to see that he was not within hearing, “it was that horrible St. Aubin, (that young fellow’s father,) who ruined poor Oswald. I believe too,” he added, “that Oswald was very sincerelyattached to poor Maria before she made the unfortunate choice she did; and that disappointment had its share in throwing him into bad habits.”
“What is the cause,” asked Edmund, “of the interest Sir Archibald seems to take in the Navy?”
“He did belong to the profession in very early life,” replied his lordship, “and was fond of it, I believe; but left it when his father and elder brother died. In his lucid intervals, I understand, he wishes very ardently to get his boy afloat; but no one, you see, likes to take charge of a lad so unfortunately situated. It would be attended, too, with some share of expense; for poor Oswald has not even the means of fitting him out; and Lady Oswald’s relatives, who are very powerful, have never pardoned her the misfortunes she has broughton herself; for Oswald was nearly a ruined man when the marriage took place; she, however, had been previously engaged and attached, and would not break it off.”
Edmund was so forcibly struck by this melancholy relation, that he made no immediate reply. He thought of what he himself had been when a boy; of what he might have been at this day had no benevolent hand been stretched forth in his behalf. His resolution was taken, but he made no allusion to it at the time, and retired to dress pondering the subject: for the half hour bell was ringing, and all the party dispersing on the same important errand. Frances and Lady Susan, who had all this time been busily engaged in a distant window in seemingly very confidential conversation, were the last to part.
… “The lovely light of Innisfail,Hides within her shadiest bow’r and weeps.”
… “The lovely light of Innisfail,Hides within her shadiest bow’r and weeps.”
… “The lovely light of Innisfail,Hides within her shadiest bow’r and weeps.”
… “The lovely light of Innisfail,
Hides within her shadiest bow’r and weeps.”
WhenJulia heard Frances approaching, she was, for the first time in her life, guilty of artifice; she snatched up a book, and appeared to be busily engaged reading. Frances rang the bell, then went towards a looking glass, and began to take pins out of her dress.
“Do you know, Julia,” she said, “I think that Edmund and Lady Susan will be married after all!” Julia pretended not to hear, and inreality did not see, (correctly at least) for the words on the open page before her seemed quitting their ranks, and mingling in one disorderly maze. This however was of little importance, as she had held the book upside down from the first.
“I can’t but think of all Edmund’s resolutions,” pursued Frances, laughing, and continuing the preparations for her toilet, without noticing the effect of her information upon Julia. The entrance of Alice here put an end to the subject.
“What shall we wear to day, love?” asked Frances.
“Wear——?” repeated her sister.
“Yes, what dress shall we wear?”
“Oh—whatever you like, love.”
“Bless me, my Lady!” cried Alice, “what do you want of your nightcap?” Julia snatchedoff the half-arranged cap, and flung it on a chair, colouring, and replying in evident confusion, “I declare I forgot, I thought we were going to bed.” Frances laughed so immoderately, that it gave Julia time to recover. She made a strong effort, aroused her faculties, and, to a certain degree, composed herself. The labours of the toilet completed, the sisters descended; Lady Arandale was seated on a sofa with Mrs. Morven, an elderly lady, the wife of a brother of my Lord. Lady Morven and Mr. Graham were lounging on an ottoman, talking about nothing, and apparently fearful of exhausting their slender stock of ideas by any extravagant expenditure, seemed trying which of them could articulate the slowest. Henry was standing in a window, flirting with no less than three of the Misses Morven. The fourth Miss Morven was seated on a sofa witha Mr. Gordon; Edmund and Lady Susan stood in a very distant window, in deep conversation; and, in another and nearer window, stood Lord Arandale, General Morven, a brother of his lordship, Lord Morven, Colonel Morven, and two Messrs. Morven, in conversation with Sir Archibald Oswald. Julia and Frances entered, and some family introductions were made, during which, Sir Archibald left the circle of gentlemen which had surrounded him, approached the sisters, and stood gazing at them.
“Poor Sir Archibald was always a great admirer of beauty,” observed Lord Arandale, aside to the General, “and still, I think, it seems to possess a sort of soothing power over his exasperated feelings.”
“Perhaps,” said the General, “(though I don’t think either of the girls like their aunt,)he may perceive that degree of family resemblance in Julia, which has, sometimes, so powerful an effect on the disordered imagination.”
“He was so young,” replied his lordship, “that I should think he could scarcely remember her.” “It was a boy’s love, certainly,” said the General, “but it was, I believe, afirst love, which, they say, leaves an indelible impression.” “It is fortunate that he does not seem to perceive Henry’s terrific likeness to his father,” observed the Earl. By this time, Julia was seated, and Sir Archibald had taken a footstool, placed it at her feet, and seated himself upon it. He looked up mournfully in her face for a few seconds; and then, to the surprise of every one, commenced giving utterance to a low murmuring sound, which gradually swelled into the rich harmonies of a very old song,all the changes of which were performed with the most perfect melody of voice, and to which a pervading melancholy, diversified by occasional starts of wildness, gave indescribable interest. All became silent listeners: not a whisper broke the spell; till the growl of the gong was heard, then its roar, like that of beasts of prey.
Sir Archibald ceased, listened, arose; and without appearing aware of his own late performance, offered his arm to Julia: and all this with quite the air of a man of the world; his manners, at the moment, were even tinctured with that slight degree of affectation, which, once was one of his youthful foibles; while they bore no mark whatever of the deranged state of his mind.
Lord Arandale handed down Mrs. Morven; the General, Lady Arandale; Mr. Graham,Lady Morven; the Colonel, Frances; Henry took two Misses Morven; Mr. Gordon, the other two Misses Morven. Edmund next, led Lady Susan from the recess of the window. This last couple were first waited for at the drawing-room door, and then followed to the dining-room by Lord Morven, who seemed to view his sisters’ flirtation with much more severity of aspect, than he manifested towards his wife’s.
Lady Susan did not smile once, in the whole course of dinner; a thing never known before.
Edmund was silently and respectfully attentive to her ladyship, but also grave. Julia received, with absent passiveness, the politeness of Sir Archibald, wondering the while, why Lady Susan did not look happy! The rest of the party were very gay.
During the dessert, Sir Archibald asked LordArandale, in a careless manner, how the pretty Mrs. Miller did. The Earl was at a stand for a few moments; but, throwing his recollections back some five and twenty years, he answered: “well, I believe—a beautiful creature she was,” he added.—“Was!” repeated Sir Archibald; “no accident, I hope has befallen the lady?” “Not any, to my knowledge,” replied the Earl. Then addressing Mrs. Morven aside, he added, “only, that the suns of twenty or thirty summers have withered the fresh bloom, and the snows of as many winters, whitened the bright locks of pretty Mrs. Miller; but poor Oswald, I see, is thinking of our adventure with that fair dame, as of a business of yesterday. How mysterious is the power of association!” And the Earl smiled, though with a mixture of melancholy, at his own recollections. Mrs. Morven requested atranslation of the smile. “Shall I tell that good story, Oswald?” said Lord Arandale. Sir Archibald had become absent again, and replied only by a bow. Much curiosity, however, being expressed by the ladies, to hear what had been announced as a good story, the Earl was prevailed on to commence the following relation.
“Oswald and myself were a pair of wild fellows, in those days,” he proceeded; “we happened to be riding together one fine morning, how long since I shall not say; when, passing through the village of Irvine, we saw seated in a window at work, but dressed gayly enough, a very beautiful young woman, no other than this said Mrs. Miller. We knew not, of course, who the lady might be, so went to a shop nearly opposite, to ask the question. Here we learned that the fair object of our enquiries,was the young wife of the old minister. We drew off, and put our horses’ heads together, to consult on the measures to be adopted next.
“Old Miller, said I, will esteem it not only a compliment, but an eternal obligation, if I call on him; and I can take any friend with me, you know, that I please. We rode to the door, sent in our names, and were admitted into a small, smoky, dirty parlour; the inside of which I shall never forget. The perfumes of a lately removed dinner, of which a certain fragrant vegetable, and a no less odoriferous liquid, had evidently formed component parts, were overpowering; especially to people who had been just galloping their horses over the fresh heath of the open moorlands. The old minister, in his worsted hose and red nightcap, (but I shall not attempt to paint him,)met us, boo, booing, and returning thanks to my lordship for the honour conferred on him and his peur hoose, by my lordship’s visit; and declaring, with another boo to Oswald, that ony friend o’ my lordship mon be welcome.”
Lord Arandale could imitate the Scotch accent very well, when giving humour to a droll story. “‘Your daughter, I suppose, Mr. Miller,’ I said, bowing to the lady. ‘My wife—Maistriss Miller—gin yier lordship has nay objection.’ ‘You are a fortunate man, Mr. Miller,’ I said; ‘such wives are not to be had every day,’ and I bowed again to the lady, who smiled. ‘Ye mauna pit nay sic notions intil woman’s heade, my Lord,’ said Miller; ‘Meg kens vara weel hersel, that she could niver heve evened hersel tle a Minister, gin he hed been a young calant, at hed time tlelook about him for a mair befitting spoose.—Bit as a christian man, I ken ’at we awe come o’ Adam and Eve; and se, Meg, if she behave hersel, will di vara weel for me.’ Oswald, mean while, was making some pretty side speeches to Mrs. Miller; so that the old fellow, beginning to perceive that our visit was to his wife, not to himself, after fidgeting and looking foolish for a few minutes, seemed struck with a sudden thought, in pursuance of which he played us such a trick, as never was, I believe, practised before on two gay fellows like ourselves.
“‘My Lord,’ he said, with mock solemnity, ‘this is just oor hoor for femily preyer, whilk I niver defer for ony carnal interruption.—Yier lordship, hooiver, will heve nay objection, tle join yier voice tle oor devotions; as, truly, this visit, marking yier personal respeck for yierminister, hath proven.’ So saying, and without giving us time to take any measures of self-defence, he fell on his knees and began to pray aloud. The lady knelt down also, and, faith, we were taken so by surprise, that if we did not absolutely kneel, we stood with our faces in our hats, resolving not to call again at that hour. The prayer was unmercifully long; extemporary, of course, and consisting chiefly of earnest supplication for grace to withstand all temptation to such errors as he thought fit, in his christian charity, to suspect were, just then, the besetting sins of his congregation. What a cordial we found the air, even of the street, when at last we got into it; which we did the moment the amen had been pronounced. In a day or two, however, we called at quite a different hour; but had not been seated many seconds, when the old fellow told us,with a sly ironical smile, that we surely had the gift o’ prophecy, for that we were just in time again for his family prayer. Accordingly he was about to kneel as before, but this being rather too much of a good thing, we made our escape, and gave up the acquaintance both of Maistriss and Maister Miller. Take notice, however, young men,” continued the Earl, addressing himself particularly to his family circle, “I do not mean to offer this conduct of my own and my friends as an example for your imitation; it was highly improper, though in our own justification, I must add, that we had no worse intention than to frighten the old fellow a little, and excite the vanity of his wife; as, what we, in our wisdoms, considered a just penance for his having helped himself to one so much too young and too pretty for him.”
During the comments which followed, Sir Archibald caught the sound of Henry’s voice, which had the exact tone of his father’s, particularly in a laugh. He glanced his eye in that direction, and now seemed to see young St. Aubin for the first time, though he was seated exactly opposite to him. Clouds gathered on Oswald’s brow, and he directed across the table looks so fierce and so portentous, that the whole company became alarmed. The ladies rose to retire, and Lord Arandale, during the move which their exit occasioned, gave Henry a hint to keep as much as possible out of Sir Archibald’s view.