Soon after Cousin Con's marriage, we were invited to stay for a few
weeks with the newly-married couple, during the festive winter season;
so away we went with merry hearts, the clear frosty air and pleasant
prospect before us invigorating our spirits, as we took our places
inside the good old mail-coach, which passed through the town of
P----, where Cousin Con resided, for there were no railways then.
Never was there a kinder or more genial soul than Cousin Con; and
David Danvers, the goodman, as she laughingly called him, was, if
possible, kinder and more genial still. They were surrounded by
substantial comforts, and delighted to see their friends in a
sociable, easy way, and to make them snug and cosy, our arrival being
the signal for a succession of such convivialities. Very mirthful and
enjoyable were these evenings, for Con's presence always shed radiant
sunshine, and David's honest broad face beamed upon her with
affectionate pride. During the days of their courtship at our house,
they had perhaps indulged in billing and cooing a little too freely
when in company with others, for sober middle-aged lovers like
themselves; thereby lying open to animadversions from prim spinsters,
who wondered that Miss Constance and Mr Danvers made themselves so
ridiculous. But now all this nonsense had sobered down, and nothing
could be detected beyond a sly glance, or a squeeze of the hand now
and then; yet we often quizzed them about by-gones, and declared that
engaged pairs were insufferable--we could always find them out among a
hundred!
'I'll bet you anything you like,' cried Cousin Con, with a
good-humoured laugh, 'that among our guests coming this evening'
(there was to be a tea-junketing), 'you'll not be able to point out
the engaged couple--for there will be only _one_ such present--though
plenty of lads and lasses that would like to be so happily situated!
But the couple I allude to are real turtledoves, and yet I defy you to
find them out!'
'Done, Cousin Con!' we exclaimed; 'and what shall we wager?'
'Gloves! gloves to be sure!' cried David. 'Ladies always wager gloves;
though I can tell you, my Con is on the safe side now;' and David
rubbed his hands, delighted with the joke; and _we_ already, in
perspective, beheld our glove-box enriched with half-a-dozen pair of
snowy French sevens!
Never had we felt more interested in watching the arrivals and
movements of strangers, than on this evening, for our honour was
concerned, to detect the lovers, and raise the veil. Papas and mammas,
and masters and misses, came trooping in; old ladies, and middle-aged;
old gentlemen, and middle-aged--until the number amounted to about
thirty, and Cousin Con's drawing-rooms were comfortably filled. We
closely scrutinised all the young folks, and so intently but covertly
watched their proceedings, that we could have revealed several
innocent flirtations, but nothing appeared that could lead us to the
turtledoves and their engagement. At length, we really had hopes, and
ensconced ourselves in a corner, to observe the more cautiously a
tall, beautiful girl, whose eyes incessantly turned towards the door
of the apartment; while each time it opened to admit any one, she
sighed and looked disappointed, as if that one was not the one she
yearned to see. We were deep in a reverie, conjuring up a romance of
which she was the heroine, when a little lady, habited in gray, whose
age might average threescore, unceremoniously seated herself beside
us, and immediately commenced a conversation, by asking if we were
admiring pretty Annie Mortimer--following the direction of our looks.
On receiving a reply in the affirmative, she continued: 'Ah, she's a
good, affectionate girl; a great favourite of mine is sweet Annie
Mortimer.'
'Watching for her lover, no doubt?' we ventured to say, hoping to gain
the desired information, and thinking of our white kid-gloves. 'She is
an engaged young lady?'
'Engaged! engaged!' cried the little animated lady: 'no indeed. The
fates forbid! Annie Mortimer is not engaged.' The expression of the
little lady's countenance at our bare supposition of so natural a
fact, amounted almost to the ludicrous; and we with some difficulty
articulated a serious rejoinder, disavowing all previous knowledge,
and therefore erring through ignorance. We had now time to examine our
new acquaintance more critically. As we have already stated, she was
habited in gray; but not only was her attire gray, but she was
literally gray all over: gray hairs, braided in a peculiar obsolete
fashion, and quite uncovered; gray gloves; gray shoes; and, above all,
gray eyes, soft, large, and peculiarly sad in expression, yet
beautiful eyes, redeeming the gray, monotonous countenance from
absolute plainness. Mary Queen of Scots, we are told, had gray eyes;
and even she, poor lady, owned not more speaking or history-telling
orbs than did this little unknown gossip in gray. But our attention
was diverted from the contemplation, by the entrance of another actor
on the stage, to whom Annie Mortimer darted forward with an
exclamation of delight and welcome. The new-comer was a slender,
elderly gentleman, whose white hairs, pale face, and benignant
expression presented nothing remarkable in their aspect, beyond a
certain air of elegance and refinement, which characterised the whole
outward man.
'That is a charming-looking old gentleman,' said we to the gray lady;
'is he Annie's father?'
'Her father! O dear, no! That gentleman is a bachelor; but he is
Annie's guardian, and has supplied the place of a father to her, for
poor Annie is an orphan.'
'Oh!' we exclaimed, and there was a great deal of meaning in our oh!
for had we not read and heard of youthful wards falling in love with
their guardians? and might not the fair Annie's taste incline this
way? The little gray lady understood our thoughts, for she smiled, but
said nothing; and while we were absorbed with Annie and her supposed
antiquated lover, she glided into the circle, and presently we beheld
Annie's guardian, with Annie leaning on his arm, exchange a few words
with her in an undertone, as she passed them to an inner room.
'Who is that pleasing-looking old gentleman?' said we to our hostess;
'and what is the name of the lady in gray, who went away just as you
came up? That is Annie Mortimer we know, and we know also that she
isn't engaged!'
Cousin Con laughed heartily as she replied: 'That nice old gentleman
is Mr Worthington, our poor curate; and a poor curate he is likely
ever to continue, so far as we can see. The lady in gray we call our
"little gray gossip," and a darling she is! As to Annie, you seem to
know all about her. I suppose little Bessie has been lauding her up to
the skies.'
'Who is little Bessie?' we inquired.
'Little Bessie is your little gray gossip: we never call her anything
but Bessie to her face; she is a harmless little old maid. But come
this way: Bessie is going to sing, for they won't let her rest till
she complies; and Bessie singing, and Bessie talking, are widely
different creatures.'
Widely different indeed! Could this be the little gray lady seated at
the piano, and making it speak? while her thrilling tones, as she sang
of 'days gone by,' went straight to each listener's heart, she herself
looking ten years younger! When the song was over, I observed Mr
Worthington, with Annie still resting on his arm, in a corner of the
apartment, shaded by a projecting piece of furniture; and I also noted
the tear on his furrowed cheek, which he hastily brushed away, and
stooped to answer some remark of Annie's, who, with fond affection,
had evidently observed it too, endeavouring to dispel the painful
illusion which remembrances of days gone by occasioned.
We at length found the company separating, and our wager still
unredeemed. The last to depart was Mr Worthington, escorting Annie
Mortimer and little Bessie, whom he shawled most tenderly, no doubt
because she was a poor forlorn little old maid, and sang so sweetly.
The next morning at breakfast, Cousin Con attacked us, supported by Mr
Danvers, both demanding a solution of the mystery, or the scented
sevens! After a vast deal of laughing, talking, and discussion, we
were obliged to confess ourselves beaten, for there had been an
engaged couple present on the previous evening, and we had failed to
discover them. No; it was not Annie Mortimer: she had no lover. No; it
was not the Misses Halliday, or the Masters Burton: they had flirted
and danced, and danced and flirted indiscriminately; but as to serious
engagements--pooh! pooh!
Who would have conjectured the romance of reality that was now
divulged? and how could we have been so stupid as not to have read it
at a glance? These contradictory exclamations, as is usual in such
cases, ensued when the riddle was unfolded. It is so easy to be wise
when we have learned the wisdom. Yet we cheerfully lost our wager, and
would have lost a hundred such, for the sake of hearing a tale so far
removed from matter-of-fact; proving also that enduring faith and
affection are not so fabulous as philosophers often pronounce them to
be.
Bessie Prudholm was nearly related to David Danvers, and she had been
the only child of a talented but improvident father, who, after a
short, brilliant career as a public singer, suddenly sank into
obscurity and neglect, from the total loss of his vocal powers,
brought on by a violent rheumatic cold and lasting prostration of
strength. At this juncture, Bessie had nearly attained her twentieth
year, and was still in mourning for an excellent mother, by whom she
had been tenderly and carefully brought up. From luxury and indulgence
the descent to poverty and privation was swift. Bessie, indeed,
inherited a very small income in right of her deceased parent,
sufficient for her own wants, and even comforts, but totally
inadequate to meet the thousand demands, caprices, and fancies of her
ailing and exigeant father. However, for five years she battled
bravely with adversity, eking out their scanty means by her
exertions--though, from her father's helpless condition, and the
constant and unremitting attention he required, she was in a great
measure debarred from applying her efforts advantageously. The poor,
dying man, in his days of health, had contributed to the enjoyment of
the affluent, and in turn been courted by them; but now, forgotten and
despised, he bitterly reviled the heartless world, whose hollow meed
of applause it had formerly been the sole aim of his existence to
secure. Wealth became to his disordered imagination the desideratum of
existence, and he attached inordinate value to it, in proportion as
he felt the bitter stings of comparative penury. To guard his only
child--whom he certainly loved better than anything else in the world,
save himself--from this dreaded evil, the misguided man, during his
latter days, extracted from her an inviolable assurance, never to
become the wife of any individual who could not settle upon her,
subject to no contingencies or chances, the sum of at least one
thousand pounds.
Bessie, who was fancy-free, and a lively-spirited girl, by no means
relished the slights and privations which poverty entails. She
therefore willingly became bound by this solemn promise; and when her
father breathed his last, declaring that she had made his mind
comparatively easy, little Bessie half smiled, even in the midst of
her deep and natural sorrow, to think how small and easy a concession
her poor father had exacted, when her own opinions and views so
perfectly coincided with his. The orphan girl took up her abode with
the mother of David Danvers, and continued to reside with that worthy
lady until the latter's decease. It was beneath the roof of Mrs
Danvers that Bessie first became acquainted with Mr Worthington--that
acquaintance speedily ripening into a mutual and sincere attachment.
He was poor and patronless then, as he had continued ever since, with
slender likelihood of ever possessing L.100 of his own, much less
L.1000 to settle on a wife. It is true, that in the chances and
changes of this mortal life, Paul Worthington might succeed to a fine
inheritance; but there were many lives betwixt him and it, and Paul
was not the one to desire happiness at another's expense, nor was
sweet little Bessie either.
Yet was Paul Worthington rich in one inestimable possession, such as
money cannot purchase--even in the love of a pure devoted heart, which
for him, and for his dear sake, bravely endured the life-long
loneliness and isolation which their peculiar circumstances induced.
Paul did not see Bessie grow old and gray: in his eyes, she never
changed; she was to him still beautiful, graceful, and enchanting; she
was his betrothed, and he came forth into the world, from his books,
and his arduous clerical and parochial duties, to gaze at intervals
into her soft eyes, to press her tiny hand, to whisper a fond word,
and then to return to his lonely home, like a second Josiah Cargill,
to try and find in severe study oblivion of sorrow.
Annie Mortimer had been sent to him as a ministering angel: she was
the orphan and penniless daughter of Mr Worthington's dearest friend
and former college-chum, and she had come to find a shelter beneath
the humble roof of the pious guardian, to whose earthly care she had
been solemnly bequeathed. Paul's curacy was not many miles distant
from the town where Bessie had fixed her resting-place; and it was
generally surmised by the select few who were in the secret of little
Bessie's singular history, that she regarded Annie Mortimer with
especial favour and affection, from the fact, that Annie enjoyed the
privilege of solacing and cheering Paul Worthington's declining years.
Each spoke of her as a dear adopted daughter, and Annie equally
returned the affection of both.
Poor solitaries! what long anxious years they had known, separated by
circumstance, yet knit together in the bonds of enduring love!
I pictured them at festive winter seasons, at their humble solitary
boards; and in summer prime, when song-birds and bright perfumed
flowers call lovers forth into the sunshine rejoicingly. They had not
dared to rejoice during their long engagement; yet Bessie was a
sociable creature, and did not mope or shut herself up, but led a life
of active usefulness, and was a general favourite amongst all classes.
They had never contemplated the possibility of evading Bessie's solemn
promise to her dying father; to their tender consciences, that fatal
promise was as binding and stringent, as if the gulf of marriage or
conventual vows yawned betwixt them. We had been inclined to indulge
some mirth at the expense of the little gray gossip, when she first
presented herself to our notice; but now we regarded her as an object
of interest, surrounded by a halo of romance, fully shared in by her
charming, venerable lover. And this was good Cousin Con's elucidation
of the riddle, which she narrated with many digressions, and with
animated smiles, to conceal tears of sympathy. Paul Worthington and
little Bessie did not like their history to be discussed by the rising
frivolous generation; it was so unworldly, so sacred, and they looked
forward with humble hope so soon to be united for ever in the better
land, that it pained and distressed them to be made a topic of
conversation.
Were we relating fiction, it would be easy to bring this antiquated
pair together, even at the eleventh hour; love and constancy making up
for the absence of one sweet ingredient, evanescent, yet
beautiful--the ingredient we mean of youth. But as this is a romance
of reality, we are fain to divulge facts as they actually occurred,
and as we heard them from authentic sources. Paul and Bessie, divided
in their lives, repose side by side in the old church-yard. He dropped
off first, and Bessie doffed her gray for sombre habiliments of darker
hue. Nor did she long remain behind, loving little soul! leaving her
property to Annie Mortimer, and warning her against long engagements.
The last time we heard of Annie, she was the happy wife of an
excellent man, who, fully coinciding in the opinion of the little gray
gossip, protested strenuously against more than six weeks' courtship,
and carried his point triumphantly.