Then came the yearning of the exile's breast,
The haunting sound of voices far away,
And household steps.
HEMANS.
Silverton was a fine estate, and though the country in which it was
situated was tame and unlovely in comparison with that to which she had
been for so long accustomed, yet Mary Seaham was not so inveterate a
mountaineer that she could look, as I know many do, upon the different
aspect of the mother country, with the eye of utter aversion and
distaste, and though she could not perhaps have gone so far as to agree
with old Evelyn when he, asserts Salisbury plain to be in his opinion,
the part of Great Britain most worthy of admiration, yet for the gaze to
be able to stretch unbounded over a level tract of cultivated land after
having been long imprisoned within the massive confines of a mountainous
district, she was not ashamed to own, there may be a certain degree of
pleasurable relief.
But as may be supposed, any very critical survey of surrounding objects
was at an end, when with that degree of nervousness ever more or less
attending an arrival of this kind, she drew near the place of her
destination in the carriage which had been sent to meet her. There was
no one to receive her at the door when she alighted, but the servants,
and its being near the dinner-hour, Mary concluded her cousins to have
retired to their dressing-rooms. On making inquiries, however, to that
effect she was informed that Mrs. de Burgh had not yet returned from her
drive, and Mr. de Burgh was also from home.
Mary therefore accepted the offer of the civil domestic to be shown to
the room prepared for her, and retired thither, not sorry to be able to
rest awhile, after the fatigues of her long journey before a meeting
with her relatives. Perhaps her spirits might be a little damped by the
reception, or rather _non_-reception she had met with.
There is so much importance attached to a warm welcome, by those not
well initiated in the careless frigidities of general society, that the
very sensitive and inexperienced are often more chilled by any such
accidental or habitual infringements on this score, than the occasion
really requires.
We grow wiser or harder as we pass farther through the world, and learn
to look upon it no longer as one large home of loving hearts, such as
some may have accounted it; but a stage on which every man is too intent
to play his own individual part, to have much respect for these minor
charities of social life--the word, the look of kindness, of affection
which to the sensitive and unworldly spirit are often of higher
price--contribute more to make up the sum of mortal happiness, than the
most generous deed, or striking act of beneficence. We grow as we have
before said, wiser or more callous, as we pass on through this world of
our's--learn to see upon what principle society is founded, and cease to
shrink chilled, and wounded, before each touch which falls coldly upon
the warm surface of our too _exigente_ heart--each unsympathetic glance
which meets our wistful gaze.
Mary Seaham sat down by her window, which commanded a view of the
carriage road, through the park, to watch for the return of her cousin's
wife.
The evening was lovely, and she could not feel astonished that Mrs. de
Burgh should have prolonged her drive. A cool freshness had succeeded
the sultriness of the day, and she had perhaps not gone out till late.
The scene too on which Mary looked was pleasant and refreshing to the
eye. The wide park with its troop of spotted deer, herding for the night
beneath the luxuriant foliage of the trees, which in rich clumps or
single majesty were scattered thickly over the demesne, gilded by the
still bright but softened sunbeams.
But Mary Seaham was not quite able to enter into the enjoyment, which at
any other time would have been amply afforded her.
She raised her eyes and began to feel a regretful longing for the
sun-gilt or cloud capped mountains, which for so long had met her gaze,
towering above the highest tree-tops of the Glan Pennant gardens--and
then a sense of strangeness and desolation came creeping over her
feelings.
For the first time she seemed to realize the true nature of her present
position--and the sight of some labourers, wending their way across the
by-paths from their daily toil, tended to bring her gathering sadness to
a crisis.
"They are going home," she murmured, and a few tears stole gently down
her cheeks. Then she thought of her sisters--the youngest, in
particular, as most lately and intimately associated with her in
sympathy and companionship, now so far divided, not only by distance,
but by the different ties and interests of her new estate; and then
occurred to her the words she had so lately heard.
"Do you think you will find your cousin's house agreeable to you?" and
she began to ask herself that question too, though not for the same
reason, which had suggested the question to Mr. Temple--not lest it
might prove too gay and worldly for her tastes and inclination, but by
reason of the loneliness she might therein experience--that worst of
loneliness--the loneliness of the heart, or,--
"She might meet with kindness and be lonely still,
For gratitude is not companionship."
Why then had she come here, would not her sister Alice, have gladly
opened her doors to receive her? And all the comparative inconvenience
and discomfort of that arrangement, seemed to melt into insignificance
before the other attractions of the picture suddenly conjured up. A
sister's warm, and earnest welcome--the familiar family voice which
would have greeted her, the tone of which at once would have made her
feel at home, though in a strange land, amongst unfamiliar scenes and
personages, whilst even the noisy delight of half-a-dozen nephews, and
nieces, which would have celebrated her arrival, came before her
fancy--as she sat in her silent solitary grandeur--in most alluring
contrast with her present undemonstrative, though luxurious reception.
But no! she had been attracted by the urgent and pressing desire
expressed in the letters of her cousins, to make their house her home
until the return of her brother to England, and there had been something
in the impression she had received, or the associations connected with
her memories of those relatives, that had moved her, perhaps with little
reflection, to embrace the offer.
But now she is thinking on the fête of six years ago--of the urgent
alacrity with which her cousin and his beautiful intended had then
volunteered their protection and support, and their subsequent neglect
and abandonment. Might not this incident be a type of what she had to
expect, under her present circumstances?
She did not even, in this mood of dark imagining to which she had
yielded herself, carry her thoughts beyond the point of her discomfiture
on that occasion, or she might perhaps have had some dream analogous to
the sequel, conjured up to brighten the gloom of her present
anticipations.
But dreams of any nature came not just then to her relief. She had never
felt so wide awake to dull reality, unrelieved but by the meek
philosophy with which she determined to make the best of everything
relating to her present position, cheerfully and contentedly to submit
herself to existing circumstances, keeping ever in view for her comfort
the expected return of her much-loved brother from Canada, when whatever
turn their fortunes might have taken, "for better or for worse, for
richer or for poorer," so that brother wrote, the cherished picture of
their early youth, might still be realized, and a home provided for his
favourite sister, which at least would make her independent of the cold
and heartless people of the world, till she found or desired a dearer or
a better.
"Two things are left me for my destiny:
A world to rove o'er, and a home with thee."
* * * * *
Mary Seaham had just arrived at this point of her meditations, when her
maid returned to say that Mr. de Burgh was in the house dressing for
dinner, and to inquire whether her young lady would not do the same.
Mrs. de Burgh had not come home, but it was already past the usual
dinner hour.
Miss Seaham proceeded accordingly to make the simple toilette she
thought suited to the occasion, for she learnt from her maid that there
was no company staying in the house, and then she determined to go down
stairs, to have at least her interview over with her cousin Louis,
whilst awaiting the arrival of her tardy hostess.