FLORA'S OUTFIT.
Having once matured his plans, Lyndsay hastened to take the necessary
steps to carry them into execution. Leaving Flora and her friend Mary to
prepare all the indispensables for the voyage, he hurried to London, to
obtain permission from head-quarters to settle in Canada, to arrange
pecuniary matters for the voyage, and take leave of a few old and tried
friends. During his absence, Flora and her friend were not idle. The
mornings were devoted to making purchases, and the evenings to convert
them into articles for domestic use. There were so many towels to hem,
sheets to make, and handkerchiefs and stockings to mark, that Flora saw
no end to the work, although assisted by kind sisters, and the
indefatigable Mary.
The two friends held a grand consultation over Flora's scanty wardrobe,
in which there were articles "old and new;" but it must be confessed
that the old and the unfashionable predominated over the new and
well-cut. Flora's friends were poor, and she had been obliged to
dispense with a wedding outfit. An old and very rich relation of her
father had presented her with a very elegant wedding-dress, shawl, and
bonnet, which was all the finery Flora possessed. Her other dresses were
very plain, and composed of common materials; and if it had not been for
the unexpected bounty of the said rich lady, our bride must have done
without a wedding-garment at all; for she had earned the few common
necessaries she took with her to housekeeping with her own hand, in
painting trifles for the bazaars, and writing articles for ladies'
magazines. One small trunk contained Flora's worldly goods and chattels,
the night she entered the neatly-furnished lodgings which Lyndsay had
prepared for her as his wife.
Flora felt almost ashamed of the little she possessed; but her
high-minded, generous husband took her penniless as she was, and
laughingly assured her that they could never quarrel on the score of
riches; for his wardrobe was nearly as scanty as her own; and, beyond a
great chest of books and music, he had nothing in the world but his
half-pay. Many a long afternoon Flora spent during her quiet honeymoon
(for the month was April, and the weather very wet) in looking over
shirts and socks, and putting them into the best habitable repair. She
was thus employed, when an author of some distinction called upon them,
to enjoy half-an-hour's chat. Flora hid up her work as fast as she
could; but in her hurry, unfortunately, upset her work-basket on the
floor, and all the objectionable garments tumbled out at her guest's
feet.
He was young, unmarried and a poet; and this certainly was not a
poetical incident. "Mrs. Lyndsay," he cried, in a tragic horror--(it
would have been more in good taste to have said nothing about it)--"Are
you forced to devote your valuable time to mending old socks and
shirts?"
"They were meant for my _private_ hours," said Flora, laughing, as she
collected the fallen articles, and stowed them once more into their
hiding-place. "With _such_ the public has nothing to do."
"Well, if ever I marry, I'll take good care to give away every old thing
I have in the world. No wife of mine shall have it to say that she was
forced to mend my rags."
"Wait till the time comes," said Flora quietly. "You don't know what may
happen yet. There are more disagreeable things in every-day life than
mending old clothes. Industry and perseverance may soon replace these
with new ones; but it is useless to throw away old friends until we are
sure of obtaining others as good."
Flora had often thought of this scene, and in her overflowing happiness
had blessed God that she had been permitted to share Lyndsay's poverty.
Mending the old clothes had become a privilege.
Thirty pounds was all that she could now afford to lay out upon herself
and her little one. A small sum, indeed, to the rich, who would have
expended as much in a single article of dress, but very large in her
estimation, whose wants had always been regulated more by the wants of
others than her own.
Ignorant of the nature of the colony to which she was about to emigrate,
and of the manners and customs of the people among whom she was to find
a new home, and of whom she had formed the most laughable and erroneous
notions, many of her purchases were not only useless, but ridiculous.
Things were overlooked, which would have been of the greatest service;
while others could have been procured in the colony for less than the
expense of transportation.
Twenty years ago, the idea of anything decent being required in a
barbarous desert, such as the woods of Canada, was repudiated as
nonsense.
This reminds one of a gentleman who sent his son, a wild, extravagant,
young fellow, with whom he could do nothing at home, to grow tame, and
settle down into a quiet farmer in the Backwoods. The experiment proved,
as it always does in such cases, a perfect failure. All parental
restraint being removed, the young man ran wild altogether, and used his
freedom as fresh occasion for licentiousness. The prudent father then
wrote out to the gentleman to whose care the son had been consigned,
that he had better buy him a wild farm, and a _negro and his wife_ to
keep house for him.
This, too, after the passing of the Anti-Slavery bill! But, even if
slaves had been allowed in the colony, the horror of _colour_ is as
great among the native-born Canadians as it is in the United States. So
much did this otherwise clever man know of the colony to which he sent
his unmanageable son!
Flora had been led to imagine that settlers in the Backwoods lived
twenty or thirty miles apart, and subsisted upon game and the wild
fruits of the country until their own lands were brought into a state of
cultivation. Common sense and reflection would have pointed this out as
impossible; but common sense is very rare, and the majority of persons
seldom take the trouble to think. We have known many persons just as
wise as Flora in this respect. It is a fact, however, that Flora
believed these reports, and fancied that her lot would be cast in one of
those remote settlements, where no sounds of human life were to meet her
ears, and the ringing of her husband's axe alone awake the echoes of the
forest.
She had yet to learn, that the proximity of fellow-labourers in the
great work of clearing is indispensable; that man cannot work alone in
the wilderness, where his best efforts require the aid of his
fellow-men.
The oft-repeated assertion, that _anything would do for Canada_, was
the cause of more blunders in the choice of an outfit, than the most
exaggerated statements in its praise.
Of the fine towns and villages, and the well-dressed population of the
improved districts of the Upper Province, she had not formed the
slightest conception. To her fancy, it was a vast region of cheerless
forests, inhabited by unreclaimed savages, or rude settlers doomed to
perpetual toil,--a climate of stern vicissitudes, alternating between
intense heat and freezing cold, and which presented at all seasons a
gloomy picture. No land of Goshen, no paradise of fruits and flowers,
rose in the distance to console her for the sacrifice she was about to
make. The ideal was far worse than the reality.
Guided by these false impressions, she made choice of articles of dress
too good for domestic drudgery, and not fine enough to suit the rank to
which she belonged. In this case, extremes would have suited her better
than a middle course.
Though fine clothes in the Backwoods may be regarded as useless lumber,
and warm stuffs for winter, and good washing calicoes for summer, are
more to be prized than silks and satins, which a few days' exposure to
the rough flooring of a log-cabin would effectually destroy; yet it is
absolutely necessary to be well dressed when visiting the large towns,
where the wealthier classes not only dress well, but expensively.
In a country destitute of an hereditary aristocracy, and where the
poorest emigrant, by industry and prudence, may rise to wealth and
political importance, the appearance which individuals make, and the
style in which they live, determine their claims to superiority with the
public, chiefly composed of the same elements with themselves. The
aristocracy of England may be divided into three distinct classes,--that
of family, of wealth, and of talent,--all powerful in their order. The
one which ranks the last should hold its place with the first, for it
originally produced it; and the second, which is far inferior to the
last, is likewise able to buy the first. The heads of old families are
more tolerant to the great men of genius than they are to the
accumulators of riches; and a wide distinction is made by them between
the purse-proud millionaire and the poor man of genius, whose refined
tastes and feelings are more in unison with their own.
In Canada, the man of wealth has it all his own way; his dollars are
irresistible, and the money makes the man. Fine clothes are there
supposed to express the wealth of the possessor; and a lady's gown
determines her right to the title, which, after all, presents the lowest
claims to gentility. A runaway thief may wear a fashionably cut coat,
and a well-paid domestic flaunt in silks and satins.
Now, Flora knew nothing of all this; and she committed a great error in
choosing neat and respectable every-day clothing. The handsome, and the
very ordinary, would have answered her purpose much better.
If "necessity is the mother of invention," experience is the handmaid of
wisdom, and her garments fit well. Flora was as yet a novice to the
world and its ways. She had much to learn from a stern and faithful
preceptress, in a cold, calculating school.