A SURPRISE.
When Oliver Lennox passed away, he left Mary little that she could
call her own, save her paraphernalia and a few jewels that had been
her mother's. Lonewoodlee had been sold piecemeal in times long
past, and the little that remained was mortgaged to the turret-vanes.
The spot of ground around it was mortgaged too, even to the last tree
that grew thereon. There was the old furniture of the days of the
Regency, now scarcely worth removal; there were some grim old
portraits, by Ramsay and Aikman, and even two by Sir Peter Lely,
which would sell readily to those who were "getting up" galleries of
ancestors elsewhere. There were some old arms, even bits of armour
that had seen service in the Border Wars; steel caps and jacks, and
Jedwood axes; old cabinets, and eggshell china in the chintz-covered
drawing-room; old books, old rods and guns, and whips; and many a
household god, to which Mary's heart clung yearningly now that she
knew she must leave them all behind her; for whichever way her eyes
turned they fell on some object through which, by the mere
association of ideas, she was tortured.
But she strove to cast such thoughts aside, as she reflected on the
littleness of life and the worthlessness of it--a bitter conclusion
when formed by the heart of one so young, and when that heart should
feel all the best impulses of hope in a joyous future, and in a long
life of lasting happiness.
Had her father been more provident in his hot fox-hunting youth; had
her brother, the lancer, contracted fewer debts of honour, her fate
might, she knew, have been different now. But her father was dead,
and Harry was dead--buried in his Indian grave, far, far away; so she
crushed the thoughts that would upbraid them. Yet when taken in
conjunction with her broken engagement, and the whole details of her
luckless love affair with Cyril Wedderburn, her heart
"Ached with thoughts of _all_ that might have been,"
had her fortune and circumstances in life been more prosperous and
suitable to her birth.
When the gloomy excitement of the funeral was past, and she came
steadily to see the necessity for facing the future, she felt at
times an irritation--an almost angry and defiant emotion at Destiny;
while sharing with Alison Home the hope that "when things are at the
worst, they are sure to mend--at least they couldna' weel be waur."
But she knew that with her they must mend elsewhere than in her old
ancestral home. And knowing that the Chesters' story had caused her
to be coldly and malevolently regarded in the neighbourhood, now she
felt only the most intense longing to quit it, and for ever.
In the years of the future, if God spared her, when her name had been
forgotten here, she might, if she chose, return again to see her
father's grave, and perhaps to erect a little monument over it. And
so, thinking over these possibilities, pondering alone--for the
minister's wife had that day gone back to the Manse--Mary, seated in
her modest black dress, gave herself up to thoughts that became most
difficult to unravel.
She leaned her head upon her right hand, and sat in the deep recess
of one of the dining-room windows. She heard only the beating of her
heart, save when the intense solitude that reigned around the old
house was broken by the cawing of the black rooks in the ancient
thicket--the lone wood--from which the Tower took its name, or the
bleating of a sheep on the hillside close by.
A day was coming, she knew, when her eyes must rest on other lands
and prospects than the old familiar view she saw from her window now;
and never did the fields, laden with golden grain, or the green
pasture meadows and the purple heather of the hills now bathed in the
amber hues of sunset, look more lovely than in this her time of
sorrow.
With all her anxiety to begone now, she dreaded the change. She was
so young, and so totally ignorant of the world and all its crooked
ways; the uprootal from old associations amid which she had lived
from infancy; the risk of venturing among the cold, hard, suspicious,
and perhaps unpitying strangers--more than all, of precipitating
herself into a human wilderness so vast, and to her unknown, as that
of London, appalled her--for to London she was bent on going!
She felt herself little able to work, but alike ashamed and unable to
beg! These, and such as these, were crushing thoughts to a tender
girl in the sensitive time of youth, when all around her should be
happiness and sunshine.
Her former friends and school companions now in London were, many of
them, girls of good and high position. But in her change of
circumstances she shrunk from intruding on any of them as a
supplicant; and resolved that among strangers only should she look
for work and bread.
So immersed was Mary in her own sad thoughts that she heard neither
the sound of horses' hoofs, the rolling of wheels, nor the barking of
the Dalmatian dogs; nor was she roused from her reverie till the
startled Alison Home placed before her an old and well-worn silver
salver, whereon lay two black-edged cards. Almost immediately after
there was a rustling of silk and crape, as Lady Wedderburn and
Gwendoleyne entered; and, being both in deep mourning, their
appearance was most consonant to the occasion. Lady Wedderburn at
once introduced herself, adding,--
"Miss Lennox--my niece, Miss Wedderburn."
A flush crossed Mary's pale face, and her quickened heart beat
painfully as she rose to receive visitors who were entirely
unexpected. But still, in the native pride of her heart, she strove
to restrain her tears.
"Lady Wedderburn," said she, "it is most--most kind of you to come to
me----"
"Surely not at a time like this, my dear child," replied Lady
Wedderburn, seating herself on the deep old horse-hair sofa, and
thinking how beautiful and how perfectly ladylike the pale girl
looked in her black dress--an orphan in mourning for her father.
"Yes, at a time like this--the darkest of a blighted, a stricken
life!" continued Mary, deeply moved by the soft and kind manner of
her visitors.
"My son Cyril asked me to--to--," poor Lady Wedderburn paused,
conscious that she was beginning to blunder already.
"Cyril--Captain Wedderburn--did he----"
"Yes. He asked me to be kind to you if aught happened. You
understand, Miss Lennox?"
Mary did understand, and she began to weep hysterically, while her
visitors, unused to grief of this kind, glanced at each other
uneasily.
The elder had ignored, slighted, even "cut" her. But could Mary
forget that she was the mother of Cyril, who once loved her, and
whose ring was yet on her engagement finger--Cyril, whom she still
loved so well! Her heart was crushed-by her own great grief: she
felt weak and tender, and had the desperate longing in her utter and
intense loneliness for some one to love her, for something to cling
to. And she had now all the passionate desire to throw herself into
the arms of Lady Wedderburn, as she might have done into those of a
parent, and then weep freely and fully, pouring out her sorrow; but a
remnant of family pride--the genuine old Scottish instinct, of not
"letting oneself down," sustained Mary's spirit, and withheld the
generous emotion which the other was too motherly and too
kind-hearted to have misunderstood.
She had admitted Cyril's interest in Mary's welfare, and she resolved
to ignore that she knew or suspected more; but somehow the
conversation always turned to Cyril.
"I have now learned,--I think it right to tell you, my dear Miss
Lennox--the true story of that visit you paid to the house--the gate,
I mean--of Captain Chesters. I learned it quite incidentally," she
added, perceiving that a momentary flash of anger lit up Mary's eyes;
"but I do think, as a friend, that it was most unfortunate for
yourself that you concealed it so."
"I concealed it, knowing the character of Captain Chesters, and in
dread of the very event that took place."
"And this event?" asked the other, looking a little perplexed.
"Was your son's just indignation at that which I had no control over;
indeed I had not," replied Mary, referring thus to her engagement in
the most straightforward manner, and not ill-pleased that the
attractive eyes of the beautiful cousin were occupied by an album in
the recess of a window.
"Control?" stammered Lady Wedderburn, not knowing well what to say.
"Before that, he loved me very truly, madam."
"For long?"
"Almost ever since he brought my dear papa my brother's sword and
rings from India."
"And you loved him?"
"Yes," replied Mary, in a low voice like a sigh.
"It was great duplicity on Cyril's part, when he knew our families
were on bad terms; and _latterly_," she added, with a glance at the
unconscious Gwenny, "an unfortunate folly on yours, under all the
circumstances."
"You refer, madam, I presume, to the engagement with his cousin of
which Captain Cheaters told me?"
Lady Wedderburn was silent; and thus, unwittingly, perhaps, permitted
Mary to adopt a painful error.
"Well, well," she sighed, looking sadly down the while; "I can have
no more bereavements now. My papa's death leaves me alone in the
world."
"Alone?"
"Yes; God and myself only know how fearfully alone!"
"This is most sad," replied Lady Wedderburn, kindly, as she took
Mary's hands in hers, and gazed tenderly into the sweet young face.
"Can I not assist you, Miss Lennox? In anything you may command me,"
she added, for secretly her heart went forth to the girl who had
loved her absent son, and had the courage to honestly avow that love;
so with charming inconsistency, forgetting all about her past
accusation of art, of cunning, and decoying on Mary's part, with much
of pity and sudden affection, she surveyed her; for Mary was so
wasted and worn by past watching, nursing, and sorrow, that she was
more like a spirit, having dark brown hair and large violet eyes,
with bluish unhealthy circles under them, than a living being.
"You do not seem strong, Miss Lennox," said she.
"Nor am I; my health may never recover the shocks I have sustained of
late, with dear papa's long illness, and the hard task--a labour of
love--watching him by night and day; so Doctor Squills tells me, that
unless I am very careful, my grave is not far distant, and at best,
assuredly not far off."
"Poor child! And what do you mean to do? Pardon me, but you cannot
live here alone."
"Here!" repeated Mary, and as she glanced at the old faded
dining-hall, the bitter smile stole over her lip again; "no, not
here--not here. I mean to get some teaching if I can."
"And if not?"
"Then I can but--die!"
"Do not speak thus, I implore you!"
"My voice is thought to be a good one, and has been well cultivated,
for papa was vain of it; but I fear I have lost a note or two
since--since----"
"Since when?"
"Last March."
("That was when Cyril left this," thought Lady Wedderburn.)
"And you mean to go London, I have heard; is that true?"
"Yes; in a few days."
"Have you friends there?"
"Not one."
"This is a terrible--a bleak prospect!"
"Bleak indeed; fatherless, motherless, and in time, it may be,
penniless! But not hopeless, while God spares and helps me.
Assuredly, Lady Wedderburn, this world is not the place where our
fondest hopes are realized, or where our brightest dreams are always
embodied. It is a place, rather, where we should bear and forbear
one with another, striving to be happy if we can; and if we cannot be
happy, to be at least resigned and content."
"My poor child, by living so much alone, you have learned to talk and
think painfully beyond your years," replied the other, who could not
help contrasting the probable fate, fortune, and future of Mary and
Gwenny, both alike so young and beautiful.
Somehow her visit proved a very protracted one. She found the charms
of Mary's mind and manner were such, that even her loveliness seemed
to be but a secondary excellence. She pressed her to visit
Willowdean--to come away with her now in the carriage; to spend even
a single day there; but Mary remembered her father's luckless and
expensive quarrels and disputes with Sir John; she thought, too, of
the bitter slights and mortifications that had been put upon herself;
and now that all was over between her and Cyril, and that another
possessed the love that had once been her own, she steadily declined,
so her visitors ceased to press; and all this seemed very strange to
the blushing and simpering Mrs. M'Guffog, who had just returned,
happy that she was in time to have an opportunity of even shaking
hands "wi' her leddyship."
She prevailed upon Mary, however, to accept of a letter of
introduction to a lady friend in London, who had two little
daughters, and who, she was assured, would befriend her; and for
this, Mary felt herself compelled to express gratitude; and there the
interview, which afforded sincere pleasure to Mary, ended, and the
splendid carriage, with its liveried servants and brace of spotted
dogs, rolled away from the door of the desolate and dilapidated house.
When Gwenny, after kissing Mary and weeping with her at parting, in
the mode adopted by most young ladies, who so readily share each
others' joys and griefs--expatiated on the romantic solitude of the
old tower, and the quaintness--so she was good-natured enough to term
it--of its furniture and so forth, Lady Wedderburn reminded her that
the Lennoxes were but as mushrooms when compared to the old Welsh
line of Ap-Rhys of Llanchillwydd; but so she might, with a safer
conscience, have added were the Wedderburns of Willowdean; for so,
even in this advanced age of the world, will some people talk, and
set a mighty store upon their real or fancied little bit of heraldry,
as if there had been more Adams than one in Eden.