THE TWO COUSINS--THE NEGLECTED JEWELS AND THE BROKEN SEAL.
It was drawing toward evening when Emily Copland, in high spirits, and
richly and becomingly dressed, ran lightly to the door of her cousin's
chamber. She knocked, but no answer was returned. She knocked again,
but still without any reply. Then opening the door, she entered the
room, and beheld her cousin Mary seated at a small work-table, at which
it was her wont to read. There she lay motionless--her small head
leaned upon her graceful arms, over which flowed all negligently the
dark luxuriant hair. An open letter was on the table before her, and
two or three rich ornaments lay unheeded on the floor beside her, as if
they had fallen from her hand. There was in her attitude such a
passionate abandonment of grief, that she seemed the breathing image of
despair. Spite of all her levity, the young lady was touched at the
sight. She approached her gently, and laying her hand upon her
shoulder, she stooped down and kissed her.
"Mary, dear Mary, what grieves you?" she said. "Tell me. It's I,
dear--your cousin Emily. There's a good girl--what has happened to vex
you?"
Mary raised her head, and looked in her cousin's face. Her eye was
wild--she was pale as marble, and in her beautiful face was an
expression so utterly woeful and piteous, that Emily was almost moved.
"Oh! I have lost him--for ever and ever I have lost him," said she,
despairingly. "Oh! cousin, dear cousin, he is gone from me. God pity
me--I am forsaken."
"Nay, cousin, do not say so--be cheerful--it cannot be--there, there,"
and Emily Copland kissed the poor girl's pale lips.
"Forsaken--forsaken," continued Mary, for she heard not and heeded not
the voice of vain consolation. "He has thrown me off for ever--for
ever--quite--quite. God pity me, where shall I look for hope?"
"Mary, dear Mary," said her cousin, "you are ill--do not give way thus.
Be assured it is not as you think. You must be in error."
"In error! Oh! that I could think so. God knows how gladly I would give
my poor life to think so. No, no--it is real--all real. Oh! cousin, he
has forsaken me."
"I cannot believe it--I _can_ not," said Emily Copland. "Such folly can
hardly exist. I will not believe it. What reason have you for thinking
him changed?"
"Read--oh, read it, cousin," replied the girl, motioning toward the
letter, which lay open on the table--"read it once, and you will not
bid me hope any more. Oh! cousin, dear cousin, there is no more joy for
me in this world, turn where I will, do what I may--I am heart-broken."
Emily Copland glanced through the letter, shook her head, and dropped
the note again where it had been lying.
"You know, cousin Emily, how I loved him," continued Mary, while for
the first time the tears flowed fast--"you know that day after day,
among all that happened to grieve me, my heart found rest in his
love--in the hope and trust that he would never grow cold;
and--and--oh! God pity me--_now_ where is it all? You see--you know his
love is gone from me--for evermore--gone from me. Oh! how I used to
count the days and hours till the time would come round when I could
see him and speak to him--but this has all gone. Hereafter all days are
to be the same--morning or evening, summer time or winter--no change of
seasons or of hours can bring to me any more hope or gladness, but ever
the same--sorrow and desolate loneliness--for oh! cousin, I am very
desolate, and hopeless, and heart-broken."
The poor girl threw her arms round her cousin's neck, and sobbed and
wept, and wept and sobbed again, as though her heart would break. Long
and bitterly she wept upon her cousin's neck in silence, unbroken,
except by her sobs. After a time, however, Emily Copland exclaimed,--
"Well, Mary, to say the truth, I never much liked the matter; and as he
is a fool, and an _ungrateful_ fool to boot, I am not sorry that he has
shown his character as he has done. Believe me, painful as such
discoveries are when made thus early, they are incomparably more
agonizing when made too late. A little--a very little--time will enable
you quite to forget him."
"No, cousin," replied Mary--"no, I never will forget him. He is changed
indeed--greatly changed from what he was--bitterly has he disappointed
and betrayed me; but I cannot forget him. There shall indeed never more
pass word or look between us; he shall be to me as one that is dead,
whom I shall hear and see no more; but the memory of what he was--the
memory of what I vainly thought him--shall remain with me while my poor
heart beats."
"Well, Mary, time will show," said Emily.
"Yes, time will show--time will show," replied she, mournfully; "be the
time long or short, it will show."
"You _must_ forget him--you _will_ forget him; a few weeks, and you
will thank your stars you found him out so soon."
"Ah, cousin," replied Mary, "you do not know how all my thoughts, and
hopes, and recollections--everything I liked to remember, and to look
forward to; you cannot know how all that was happy in my life--but what
boots it, I will keep my troth with him; I will love no other, and wed
with no other; and while this sorrowful life remains I will
never--never--forget him."
"I can only say, that were the case my own," rejoined Emily, "I would
show the fellow how lightly I held him and his worthless heart, and
marry within a month; but every one has her own way of doing things.
Remember it is nearly time to start for the theatre; the coach will be
at the door in half-an-hour. Surely you will come; it would seem so
very strange were you to change your mind thus suddenly; and you may be
very sure that, by some means or other, the impudent fellow--about
whom, I cannot see why, you care so much--would hear of all your
grieving, and pining, and love-sickness. Pah! I'd rather die than
please the hollow, worthless creature by letting him think he had
caused me a moment's uneasiness; and then, above all, Sir Richard would
be so outrageously angry--why, you would never hear the end of it.
Come, come, be a good girl. After all, it is only holding up your head,
and looking pretty, which you can't help, for an hour or two. You must
come to silence gossip abroad, as well as for the sake of peace at
home--you _must_ come."
"I would fain stay here at home," said the poor girl; "heart and head
are sick: but if you think my father would be angry with me for staying
at home, I will go. It is indeed, as you say, a small matter to me
where I pass an hour or two; all times, all places--crowds or
solitudes--are henceforward indifferent to me. What care I where they
bring me! Cousin Emily, I will do whatever you think best."
The poor girl spoke with a voice and look of such utter wretchedness,
that even her light-hearted, worldly, selfish cousin was touched with
pity.
"Come, then; I will assist you," said she, kissing the pale cheek of
the heart-stricken girl. "Come, Mary, cheer up, you must call up your
good looks it would never do to be seen thus." And so talking on, she
assisted her to dress.
Gaily and richly arrayed in the gorgeous and by no means unbecoming
style of the times, and sparkling with brilliant jewels, poor Mary
Ashwoode--a changed and stricken creature, scarcely conscious of what
was going on around her--took her place in her father's carriage, and
was borne rapidly toward the theatre.
The party consisted of the two young ladies, who were respectively
under the protection of Lord Aspenly, who sate beside Mary Ashwoode,
happily too much pleased with his own voluble frivolity to require
anything more from her than her appearing to hear it, and young
Ashwoode, who chatted gaily with his pretty cousin.
"What has become of my venerable true-love, Major O'Leary?" inquired
Miss Copland.
"He will follow on horseback," replied Ashwoode. "I beheld him, as I
passed downstairs, admiring himself before the looking-glass in his new
regimentals. He designs tremendous havoc to-night. His coat is a
perfect phenomenon--the investment of a year's pay at least--with more
gold about it than I thought the country could afford, and scarlet
enough to make a whole wardrobe for the lady of Babylon--a coat which,
if left to itself, would storm the hearts of nine girls out of ten, and
which, even with an officer in it, will enthral half the sex."
"And here comes the coat itself," exclaimed the young lady, as the
major rode up to the coach-window--"I'm half in love with it myself
already."
"Ladies, your devoted slave: gentlemen, your most obedient," said the
major, raising his three-cornered hat. "I hope to see you before
half-an-hour, under circumstances more favourable to conversation. Miss
Copland, depend upon it, with your permission, I'll pay my homage to
you before half-an-hour, the more especially as I have a scandalous
story to tell you. Meanwhile, I wish you all a safe journey, and a
pleasant one." So saying, the major rode on, at a brisk pace, to the
"Cock and Anchor," there intending to put up his horse, and to exchange
a few words with young O'Connor.
In the meantime the huge old coach, which contained the rest of the
party, jolted and rumbled on, until at length, amid the confusion and
clatter of crowded vehicles, restive horses, and vociferous coachmen,
with all their accompaniments of swearing and whipping, the clank of
scrambling hoofs, the bumping and hustling of carriages, and the
desperate rushing of chairmen, bolting this way or that, with their
living loads of foppery and fashion--the coach-door was thrown open at
the box-entrance of the Theatre Royal, in Smock Alley.