"It is no diminution, but a recommendation of human nature, that, in
some instances, passion gets the better of reason, and all that we can
think is impotent against half what we feel."--_Spectator._
"LIFE is a mingled yarn;" few of its afflictions but are accompanied
with some alleviation--none of its blessings that do not bring some
alloy. Like most other events that long have formed the object of
yearning and almost hopeless wishes, and on which have been built the
fairest structure of human felicity, the arrival of the young heir of
Glenfern produced a less extraordinary degree of happiness than had been
anticipated. The melancholy event which had marked the first ceremonial
of his life had cast its gloom alike on all nearly connected with him;
and when time had dispelled the clouds of recent mourning, and restored
the mourners to their habitual train of thought and action, somewhat of
the novelty which had given him such lively interest in the hearts of
the sisters had subsided. The distressing conviction, too, more and more
forced itself upon them, that their advice and assistance were likely to
be wholly overlooked in the nurture of the infant mind and management of
the thriving frame of their little nephew. Their active energies,
therefore, driven back to the accustomed channels, after many murmurs
and severe struggles, again revolved in the same sphere as before. True,
they sighed and mourned for a time, but soon found occupation congenial
to their nature in the little departments of life--dressing crape;
reviving black silk; converting narrow hems into broad hems; and in
short, who so busy, who so important, as the ladies of Glenfern? As
Madame de Staël, or de Something says, "they fulfilled their
destinies." Their walk lay amongst threads and pickles; their sphere
extended from the garret to the pantry; and often as they sought to
diverge from it, their instinct always led them to return to it, as the
tract in which they were destined to move. There are creatures of the
same sort in the male part of the creation, but it is foreign to my
purpose to describe them at present. Neither are the trifling and
insignificant of either sex to be treated with contempt, or looked upon
as useless by those whom God has gifted with higher powers. In the
arrangements of an all-wise Providence there is nothing created in vain.
Every link of the vast chain that embraces creation helps to hold
together the various relations of life; and all is beautiful gradation,
from the human vegetable to the glorious archangel.
If patient hope, if unexulting joy, and chastened anticipation,
sanctifying a mother's love, could have secured her happiness, Mrs.
Douglas would have found, in the smiles of her infant, all the comfort
her virtue deserved. But she still had to drink of that cup of sweet and
bitter, which must bathe the lips of all who breathe the breath of life.
While the instinct of a parent's love warmed her heart, as she pressed
her infant to her bosom, the sadness of affectionate and rational
solicitude stifled every sentiment of pleasure as she gazed on the
altered and drooping form of her adopted daughter of the child who had
already repaid the cares that had been lavished on her, and in whom she
descried the promise of a plenteous harvest from the good seed she had
sown. Though Mary had been healthy in childhood, her constitution was
naturally delicate, and she had latterly outgrown her strength. The
shock she had sustained by her grandfather's death, thus operating on a
weakened frame, had produced an effect apparently most alarming; and the
efforts she made to exert herself only served to exhaust her. She felt
all the watchful solicitude, the tender anxieties of her aunt, and
bitterly reproached herself with not better repaying these exertions for
her happiness. A thousand times she tried to analyse and extirpate the
saddening impression that weighed upon her heart.
"It is not sorrow," reasoned she with herself, "that thus oppresses me;
for though I reverenced my grandfather, yet the loss of his society has
scarcely been felt by me. It cannot be fear--the fear of death; for my
soul is not so abject as to confine its desires to this sublunary scene.
What, then, is this mysterious dread that has taken possession of me?
Why do I suffer my mind to suggest to me images of horror, instead of
visions of bliss? Why can I not, as formerly, picture to myself the
beauty and the brightness of a soul casting off mortality? Why must the
convulsed grasp, the stifled groan, the glaring eye, for ever come
betwixt heaven and me?"
Alas! Mary was unskilled to answer. Hers was the season for feeling, not
for reasoning. She knew not that hers was the struggle of imagination
striving to maintain its ascendency over reality. She had heard and
read, and thought and talked of death; but it was of death in its
fairest form, in its softest transition: and the veil had been abruptly
torn from her eyes; the gloomy pass had suddenly disclosed itself before
her, not strewed with flowers but shrouded in horrors. Like all persons
of sensibility, Mary had a disposition to view everything in a _beau
ideal:_ whether that is a boon most fraught with good or ill it were
difficult to ascertain. While the delusion lasts it is productive of
pleasure to its possessor; but oh! the thousand aches that heart is
destined to endure which clings to the stability and relies on the
permanency of earthly happiness! But the youthful heart must ever remain
a stranger to this saddening truth. Experience only can convince us that
happiness is not a plant of this world; and that, though many an eye
hath beheld its blossoms no mortal hand hath ever gathered its fruits.
This, then, was Mary's first lesson in what is called the knowledge of
life, as opposed to the _beau ideal_ of a young and ardent imagination
in love with life, and luxuriating in its own happiness. And, upon such
a mind it could not fail of producing a powerful impression.
The anguish Mrs. Douglas experienced as she witnessed the changing
colour, lifeless step, and forced smile of her darling _élève _was not
mitigated by the good sense or sympathy of those around her. While Mary
had prospered under her management, in the consciousness that she was
fulfilling her duty to the best of her abilities, she could listen with
placid cheerfulness to the broken hints of disapprobation, or forced
good wishes for the success of her new-fangled schemes, that were
levelled at her by the sisters. But now, when her cares seemed defeated,
it was an additional thorn in her heart to have to endure the
commonplace wisdom and self-gratulations of the almost exulting aunts;
not that they had the slightest intention of wounding the feelings of
their niece, whom they really loved, but the temptation was irresistible
of proving that they had been in the right and she in the wrong,
especially as no such acknowledgment had yet been extorted from her.
"It is nonsense to ascribe Mary's dwining to her grandfather's death,"
said Miss Jacky. "We were all nearer to him in propinquity than she was,
and none of our healths have suffered."
"And there's his own daughters," added Miss Grizzy, "who, of course,
must have felt a great deal more than anybody else--there can be no
doubt of that--such sensible creatures as them must feel a great deal;
but yet you see how they have got up their spirits--I'm sure it's
wonderful!"
"It shows their sense and the effects of education," said Miss Jacky.
"Girls that sup their porridge will always cut a good figure," quoth
Nicky.
"With their fine feelings I'm sure we have all reason to be thankful
that they have been blest with such hearty stomachs," observed Miss
Grizzy; "if they had been delicate, like poor Mary's, I'm sure I declare
I don't know what we would have done; for certainly they were all most
dreadfully affected at their excellent father's death; which was quite
natural, poor things! I'm sure there's no pacifying poor Baby, and even
yet, neither Bella nor Betsey can bear to be left alone in a dark room.
Tibby has to sleep with them still every night; and alighted candle
too-which is much to their credit--and yet I'm sure it's not with
reading. I'm certain-indeed, I think there's no doubt of it--that
reading does young people much harm. It puts things into their heads
that never would have been there but for books. I declare, I think
reading's a very dangerous thing; I'm certain all Mary's bad health is
entirely owing to reading. You know we always thought she read a great
deal too much for her good."
"Much depends upon the choice of books," said Jacky, with an air of the
most profound wisdom, "Fordyce's Sermons and the History of Scotland are
two of the very few books _I_ would put into the hands of a young woman.
Our girls have read little else,"--casting a look at Mrs. Douglas, who
was calmly pursuing her work in the midst of this shower of darts all
levelled at her.
"To be sure," returned Grizzy, "it is a thousand pities that Mary has
been allowed to go on so long; not, I'm sure, that any of us mean to
reflect upon you, my dear Mrs. Douglas; for of course it was all owing
to your ignorance and inexperience; and that, you know, you could not
help; for it as not your fault; nobody can blame you. I'm certain you
would have done what is right if you had only known better; but of
course we must all know much better than you; because, you know, we are
all a great deal older, and especially Lady Maclaughlan, who has the
greatest experience in the diseases of old men especially, and infants.
Indeed it has been he study of her life almost; for, you know, poor Sir
Sampson is never well; and I dare say, if Mary had taken some of her
nice worm-lozenges, which certainly cured Duncan M'Nab's wife's
daughter's little girl of the jaundice, and used that valuable growing
embrocation, which we are all sensible made Baby great deal fatter, I
dare say there would have been thing the matter with her to-day."
"Mary has been too much accustomed to spend both her time and money
amongst idle vagrants," said Nicky.
"Economy of both," subjoined Jacky, with an air of humility, "_I_
confess I have ever been accustomed to consider as virtues. These
handsome respectable new bonnets"--looking _from_ Mrs. Douglas--"that
our girls got just before their poor father's death, were entirely the
fruits of their own savings."
"And I declare," said Grizzy, who did not excel in innuendos, "I declare,
for my part--although at the same time, my dear niece, I'm certain you
are far from intending it--I really think it's very disrespectful to Sir
Sampson and Lady Maclaughlan, in anybody, and especially such near
neighbours, to give more in charity than they do; for you may be sure
they give as much as they think proper, and they must be the best
judges, and can afford to give what they please; for Sir Sampson could
buy and sell all of us a hundred times over if he liked. It's long since
the Lochmarlie estate was called seven thousand a year; and besides that
there's the Birkendale property and the Glenmavis estate, and I'm sure I
can't tell you all what; but there's no doubt he's a man of immense
fortune."
Well it was known and frequently was it discussed, the iniquity of Mary
being allowed to waste her time and squander her money amongst the poor,
instead of being taught the practical virtues of making her own gowns,
and of hoarding up her pocket-money for some selfish gratification.
In colloquies such as these day after day passed on without any visible
improvement taking place in her health. Only one remedy suggested itself
to Mrs. Douglas, and that was to remove her to the south of England for
the winter. Milder air and change of scene she had no doubt would prove
efficacious; and her opinion was confirmed by that of the celebrated
Dr.-----, who, having been summoned to the Laird of Pettlechass, had
paid a visit at Glenfern _en passant._ How so desirable an event was to
be accomplished was the difficulty. By the death of his father a variety
of business and an extent of farming had devolved upon Mr. Douglas which
obliged him to fix his residence at Glenfern, and rendered it impossible
for him to be long absent from it. Mrs. Douglas had engaged in the
duties of a nurse to her little boy, and to take him or leave him was
equally out of the question.
In this dilemma the only resource that offered was that of sending Mary
for a few months to her mother. True, it was a painful necessity; for
Mrs. Douglas seldom heard from her sister-in-law, and when she did, her
letters were short and cold. She sometimes desired "a kiss to her
(Mrs. Douglas's) little girl," and once, in an extraordinary fit of good
humour, had actually sent a locket with her hair in a letter by post,
for which Mrs. Douglas had to pay something more than the value of the
present. This was all that Mary knew of her mother, and the rest of her
family were still greater strangers to her. Her father remained in a
distant station in India, and was seldom heard of. Her brother was gone
to sea; and though she had written repeatedly to her sister, her letters
remained unnoticed. Under these circumstances there was something
revolting in the idea of obtruding Mary upon the notice of her
relations, and trusting to their kindness even for a few months; yet her
health, perhaps her life, was at stake, and Mrs. Douglas felt she had
scarcely a right to hesitate.
"Mary has perhaps been too long an alien from her own family," said she
to herself; "this will be a means of her becoming acquainted with them,
and of introducing her to that sphere in which she is probably destined
to walk. Under her uncle's roof she will surely be safe, and in the
society of her mother and sister she cannot be unhappy. New scenes will
give a stimulus to her mind; the necessity of exertion will brace the
languid faculties of her soul, and a few short months, I trust, will
restore her to me such and even superior to what she was. Why, then,
should I hesitate to do what my conscience tells me ought to be done?
Alas! it is because I selfishly shrink from the pain of separation, and
am unwilling to relinquish, even for a season, one of the many blessings
Heaven has bestowed upon me." And Mrs. Douglas, noble and disinterested
as ever, rose superior to the weakness that she felt was besetting her.
Mary listened to her communication with a throbbing heart and eyes
suffused with tears; to part from her aunt was agony; but to behold her
mother--she to whom she owed her existence, to embrace a sister too--and
one for whom she felt all those mysterious yearnings which twins are
said to entertain towards each other--oh, there was rapture in the
thought, and Mary's buoyant heart fluctuated between the extremes of
anguish and delight.
The venerable sisters received the intelligence with much surprise: they
did not know very well what to say about it; there was much to be said
both for and against it. Lady Maclaughlan had a high opinion of English
air; but then they had heard the morals of the people were not so good,
and there were a great many dissipated young men in England; though, to
be sure, there was no denying but the mineral waters were excellent;
and, in short, it ended in Miss Grizzy's sitting down to concoct an
epistle to Lady Maclaughlan; in Miss Jacky's beginning to draw up a code
of instructions for a young woman upon her entrance into life; and Miss
Nicky hoping that if Mary did go, she would take care not to bring back
any extravagant English notions with her. The younger set debated
amongst themselves how many of them would be invited to accompany Mary
to England, and from thence fell to disputing the possession of a brown
hair trunk, with a flourished D in brass letters on the top.
Mrs. Douglas, with repressed feelings, set about offering the sacrifice
she had planned, and in a letter to Lady Juliana, descriptive of her
daughter's situation, she sought to excite her tenderness without
creating an alarm. How far she succeeded will be seen hereafter. In the
meantime we must take a retrospective glance at the last seventeen years
of her Ladyship's life.