Читать книгу Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 - Various - Страница 1

OR SIX MONTHS BEFORE MARRIAGE

BY F. E. F., AUTHOR OF "AARON'S ROD," "TELLING SECRETS," ETC

"They say Miss Morton is engaged to Robert Hazlewood," said Augusta Lenox.

"So I hear," replied Angila Mervale, to whom this piece of news had been communicated. "How can she?"

"How can she, indeed?" replied Augusta. "He's an ugly fellow."

"Ugly! yes," continued Angila, "and a disagreeable ugliness, too. I don't care about a man's being handsome – a plain black ugliness I don't object to – but red ugliness, ah!"

"They say he's clever," said Augusta.

"They always say that, my dear, of any one that's so ugly," replied Angila. "I don't believe it. He's conceited, and I think disagreeable; and I don't believe he's clever."

"I remarked last night that he was very attentive to Mary Morton," continued Augusta. "They waltzed together several times."

"Yes, and how badly he waltzes," said Angila. "Mary Morton is too pretty a girl for such an awkward, ugly man. How lovely she looked last night. I hope it's not an engagement, for I quite like her."

"Well, perhaps it is not. It's only one of the on dits, and probably a mere report."

"Who are you discussing, girls?" asked Mrs. Mervale, from the other side of the room.

"Robert Hazlewood and Miss Morton," replied Augusta, "they are said to be engaged."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Mervale. "Is it a good match for her?"

"Oh, no! chimed in both the girls at once. "He's neither handsome, nor rich, nor any thing."

"Nor any thing!" repeated Mrs. Mervale, laughing. "Well, that's comprehensive. A young man may be a very respectable young man, and be a very fair match for a girl without being either handsome or rich; but if he is positively 'nothing,' why, then, I grant you, it is bad indeed."

"Oh, I believe he is respectable enough," replied Augusta, carelessly, for, like most young girls, the word "respectable" did not rank very high in her vocabulary.

"And if he is not rich, what are they to live on," asked Mrs. Mervale.

"Love and the law, I suppose," replied her daughter, laughing. "He's a lawyer, is he not Augusta?"

"Oh!" resumed Mrs. Mervale, "he's a son, then, I suppose, of old John Hazlewood."

"Yes," replied Augusta.

"Then he may do very well in his profession," continued Mrs. Mervale, "for his father has a large practice I know, and is a very respectable man. If this is a clever young man, he may tread in his father's footsteps."

This did not convey any very high eulogium to the young ladies' ears. That young Robert Hazlewood might be an old John Hazlewood in his turn and time, did not strike them as a very brilliant future. In fact they did not think more of the old man than they did of the young one.

Old gentlemen, however, were not at quite such a discount with Mrs. Mervale as with her daughter and her friend; and she continued to descant upon the high standing of Mr. Hazlewood the elder, not one word in ten of which the girls heard, for she, like most old ladies, once started upon former times, was thinking of the pleasant young John Hazlewood of early days, who brought back with him a host of reminiscences, with which she indulged herself and the girls, while they, their heads full of last night's party and Mary Morton and Robert Hazlewood, listened as civilly as they could, quite unable to keep the thread of her discourse, confounding in her history Robert Hazlewood's mother with his grandmother, and wondering all the while when she would stop, that they might resume their gossip.

"You visit his sister, Mrs. Constant, don't you?" asked Augusta.

"Yes, we have always visited the Hazlewoods," replied Angila, "but I am not intimate with any of them. They always seemed to me those kind of pattern people I dislike."

"Is Mr. Constant well off?" inquired Mrs. Mervale.

"No, I should think not," replied Angila, "from the way in which they live. They have a little bit of a two-story house, and keep only a waiter girl. How I do hate to see a woman open the door," she continued, addressing Augusta.

"So do I," replied her friend. "I would have a man servant – a woman looks so shabby."

"Yes," returned Angila. "There's nothing I dislike so much. No woman shall ever go to my door."

"If you have a man servant," suggested Mrs. Mervale.

"Of course," said Angila; "and that I will."

"But suppose you cannot afford it," said her mother.

"I don't choose to suppose any thing so disagreeable or improbable," replied her daughter, gayly.

"It may be disagreeable," continued Mrs. Mervale, "but I don't see the improbability of the thing, Angila, nor, indeed, the disagreeability even. The Constants are young people with a small family, and I think a woman is quite sufficient for them. Their house is small, I suppose."

"Oh, yes, a little bit of a place."

"Large enough for them," replied Mrs. Mervale, whose ideas were not as enlarged as her daughter's.

"Perhaps so," said Angila, "but I do hate low ceilings so. I don't care about a large house, but I do like large rooms."

"You can hardly have large rooms in a small house," remarked Mrs. Mervale, smiling.

"Why, Mrs. Astley's is only a two-story house, mamma, and her rooms are larger than these."

"Yes, my dear, Mrs. Astley's is an expensive house; the lot must be thirty feet by – "

But Angila had no time to go into the dimensions of people's "lots." She and Augusta were back to the party again; and they discussed dresses, and looks, and manners, with great goût.

Their criticisms were, like most young people's, always in extremes. The girls had either looked "lovely" or "frightful," and the young men were either "charming" or "odious;" and they themselves, from their own account, had been in a constant state of either delight or terror.

"I was so afraid Robert Hazlewood was going to ask me to waltz," said Angila; "and he waltzes so abominably that I did not know what I should do. But, to my delight, he asked me only for a cotillion, and I fortunately was engaged. I was so glad it was so."

"Then you did not dance with him at all?"

"No – to my great joy, he walked off, angry, I believe."

"Oh, my dear!" remonstrated her mother.

"Why not, mother," replied Angila. "He's my 'favorite aversion.' Well, Augusta," she continued, turning to her friend, "and when do you sail for New Orleans?"

"On Monday," replied Augusta.

"On Monday! – so soon! Oh, what shall I do without you, Augusta!" said Angila, quite pathetically. "And you will be gone six months, you think?"

"Yes, so papa says," replied the young lady. "He does not expect to be able to return before May."

"Not before May! And its only November now!" said Angila, in prolonged accents of grief. "How much may happen in that time!"

"Yes," returned her friend, gaily, "you may be engaged before that."

"Not much danger," replied Angila, laughing.

"But remember, I am to be bridemaid," continued Augusta.

"Certainly," said Angila, in the same tone, "I shall expect you from New Orleans on purpose."

"And who will it be to, Angila," said Augusta.

"That's more than I can tell," replied Angila; "but somebody that's very charming, I promise you."

"By the way, what is your beau ideal, Angila, I never heard you say," continued Augusta.

"My beau ideal is as shadowy and indistinct as one of Ossian's heroes," replied Angila, laughing; "something very distinguished in air and manners, with black eyes and hair, are the only points decided on. For the rest, Augusta, I refer you to Futurity," she added, gayly.

"I wonder who you will marry!" said Augusta, with the sudden fervor of a young lady on so interesting a topic.

"I don't know, only nobody that I have ever seen yet," replied Angila, with animation.

"He must be handsome, I suppose," said Augusta.

"No," replied Angila, "I don't care for beauty. A man should have a decided air of the gentleman, with an expression of talent, height, and all that – but I don't care about what you call beauty."

"You are very moderate, indeed, in your requirements, my dear," said her mother, laughing. "And pray, my love, what have you to offer this rara avis in return for such extraordinary charms."

"Love, mamma," replied the gay girl, smiling.

"And suppose, my dear," pursued her mother, "that your hero should set as high an estimate upon himself as you do upon yourself. Your tall, elegant, talented man, may expect a wife who has fortune, beauty and talents, too."

Angila laughed. She was not vain, but she knew she was pretty, and she was sufficiently of a belle to be satisfied with her own powers if she could only meet with the man, so she said, playfully.

"Well, then, mamma, he won't be my hero, that's all."

And no doubt she answered truly. The possession of such gifts are very apt to vary in young ladies' eyes according to the gentleman's perception of their charms. And heroes differ from one another, according as the pronouns "mine and thine," may be pre-fixed to his title.

"And such a bijou of a house as I mean to have," continued Angila, with animation. "The back parlor and dining-room shall open into a conservatory, where I shall have any quantity of canary-birds – "

"My dear," interrupted her mother, "what nonsense you do talk."

"Why, mamma," said Angila, opening her eyes very wide, "don't you like canaries?"

"Yes, my dear," replied her mother, "I don't object to aviaries or conservatories, only to your talking of them in this way, as matters of course and necessity. They are all very well for rich people."

"Well, then, I mean to be rich," continued Angila, playfully.

"That's the very nonsense I complain of," said her mother. "It's barely possible, but certainly very improbable, Angila, that you ever should be rich; and considering you have been used to nothing of the kind, it really amuses me to hear you talk so. Your father and I have lived all our lives very comfortably and happily, Angila, without either aviary or conservatory, and I rather think you will do the same, my love."

"Your father and I!" What a falling off was there! for although Angila loved her father and mother dearly, she could not imagine herself intent upon household occupations, an excellent motherly woman some thirty years hence, any more than that her beau ideal should wear pepper and salt like her father.

"It was all very well for papa and mamma," but to persuade a girl of eighteen that she wants no more than her mother, whose heart happens to be like Mrs. Mervale, just then full of a new carpet that Mr. Mervale is hesitating about affording, is out of the question.

And, unreasonable as it may be, whoever would make a young girl more rational, destroys at once the chief charm of her youth – the exuberance of her fresh imagination, that gilds not only the future, but throws a rosy light upon all surrounding objects. Her visions, I grant you, are absurd, but the girl without visions is a clod of the valley, for she is without imagination – and without imagination, what is life? what is love?"

Never fear that her visions will not be fulfilled, and therefore bring disappointment – for the power carries the pleasure with it. The same gift that traces the outline, fills up the sketch. The girls who dream of heroes are those most ready to fall in love with any body – and no woman is so hard to interest as she who never had a vision, and consequently sees men just as they are; and so if Angila talked nonsense, Mrs. Mervale's sense was not much wiser.

Angila was a pretty, playful, romantic girl, rather intolerant of the people she did not like, and enthusiastic about those she did; full of life and animation, she was a decided belle in the gay circle in which she moved.

Miss Lenox was her dearest friend for the time being, and the proposed separation for the next six months was looked upon as a cruel affliction, only to be softened by the most frequent and confidential correspondence.

For the first few weeks of Augusta's absence, the promises exchanged on both sides were vehemently fulfilled. Letters were written two or three limes a week, detailing every minute circumstance that happened to either. But at the end of that time Angila was at a party where she met Robert Hazlewood, who talked to her for some time. It was not a dancing party, and consequently they conversed together more than they had ever done before. He seemed extremely amused with her liveliness, and looked at her with unmistakable admiration. Had Augusta Lenox been there to see, perhaps Angila would not have received his attentions so graciously; but there being nothing to remind her of his being her "favorite aversion," she talked with animation, pleased with the admiration she excited, without being annoyed by any inconvenient reminiscences. And not only was Miss Lenox absent, but Miss Morton was present, and Angila thought she looked over at them a little anxiously; so that a little spirit of rivalry heightened, if not her pleasure, certainly Hazlewood's consequence in her eyes. Girls are often much influenced by each other in these matters – and the absence of Miss Lenox, who "did not think much of Robert Hazlewood," with the presence of Miss Morton who did, had no small influence in Angila's future fate.

"Did you have a pleasant party?" asked Mrs. Mervale, who had not been with her daughter the evening before.

"Yes, very pleasant," replied Angila; "one of the pleasantest 'conversation parties' I have ever been at."

And "who was there – and who did you talk to?" were the next questions, which launched Angila in a full length description of every thing and every body – and among them figured quite conspicuously Robert Hazlewood.

"And you found him really clever?" said her mother.

"Oh, decidedly," replied her daughter.

"Who," said her brother, looking up from his breakfast, "Hazlewood? Certainly he is. He's considered one of the cleverest among the young lawyers. Decidedly a man of talent."

Angila looked pleased.

"His father is a man of talent before him," observed Mrs. Mervale. "As a family, the Hazlewoods have always been distinguished for ability. This young man is ugly, you say, Angila?"

"Yes – " replied Angila, though with some hesitation. "Yes, he is ugly, certainly – but he has a good countenance; and when he converses he is better looking than I thought him."

"It's a pity he's conceited," said Mrs. Mervale, innocently; her impression of the young man being taken from her daughter's previous description of him. "Since he is really clever, it's a pity, for it's such a drawback always."

"Conceited! I don't think he's conceited," said Angila, quite forgetting her yesterday's opinion.

"Don't you? I thought it was you who said so, my dear," replied her mother, quietly.

"Yes, I did once think so," said Angila, slightly blushing at her own inconsistency. "I don't know why I took the idea in my head – but in fact I talked more to him, and became better acquainted with him last evening than I ever have before. When there is dancing, there is so little time for conversation; and he really talks very well."

"He is engaged to Miss Morton, you say?" continued Mrs. Mervale.

"Well, I don't know," replied Angila, adding, as she remembered the animated looks of admiration he had bestowed upon herself, "I doubt it – that is the report, however."

"Hazlewood's no more engaged to Mary Morton than I am," said young Mervale, carelessly. "Where did you get that idea?"

"Why every body says so, George," said Angila.

"Pshaw! every body's saying so don't make it so."

"But he's very attentive to her," replied Angila.

"Well, and if he is," retorted Mervale, "it does not follow that he must be in love with her. You women do jump to conclusions, and make up matches in such a way," he continued, almost angrily.

"I think she likes him," pursued Angila. "I think she would have him."

"Have him! to be sure she would," replied George, in the same tone; not that he considered the young lady particularly in love with his friend, but as if any girl might be glad to have him – for brothers are very apt to view such cases differently from sisters, who refuse young gentlemen for their friends without mercy.

"But he's ugly, you say," continued Mrs. Mervale, sorrowfully, who, old lady as she was, liked a handsome young man, and always lamented when she found mental gifts unaccompanied by personal charms.

"Yes, he's no beauty, that's certain," said Angila, gayly.

"Has he a good air and figure?" pursued Mrs. Mervale, still hoping so clever a man might be better looking after all.

"Yes, tolerable – middle height – nothing remarkable one way or the other." And then the young lady went off to tell some piece of news, that quite put Mr. Hazlewood out of her mother's head for the present.

When Angila next wrote to Augusta, although she spoke of Mrs. Carpenter's party, a little consciousness prevented her saying much about Robert Hazlewood, and consequently her friend was quite unsuspicious of the large share he had in making the party she described so pleasant.

Hazlewood had really been pleased by Angila. She was pretty – and he found her lively and intelligent. He had always been inclined to admire her, but she had turned from him once or twice in what he had thought a haughty manner, and consequently he had scarcely known her until they met at this little conversazione of Mrs. Carpenter's, where accident placed them near each other. The party was so small that where people happened to find themselves, there they staid – it requiring some courage for a young man to break the charmed ring, and deliberately plant himself before any lady, or attempt to talk to any one except her beside whom fate had placed him.

Now Angila had the corner seat on a sofa near the fire-place, and Hazlewood was standing, leaning against the chimney-piece, so that a nicer, more cosy position for a pleasant talk could hardly be conceived in so small a circle. Miss Morton was on the other side of the fire-place, occupying the corresponding situation to Angila, and Angila could see her peeping forward from time to time to see if Hazlewood still maintained his place. His back was turned toward her, so if she did throw any anxious glances that way, he did not see them.

Angila met him a few evenings after this at the Opera, and found that he was a passionate lover of music. They talked again, and he very well, for he really was a sensible, well-educated young man. Music is a favorite source of inspiration, and Hazlewood was a connoisseur as well as amateur. She found that he seldom missed a night at the Opera, and "she was surprised she had not seen him there before, as she went herself very often."

"He had seen her, however;" and he looked as if it were not easy not to see her when she was there.

She blushed and was pleased, for it evidently was not an unmeaning compliment.

"Mr. Hazlewood's very clever," she said the next day; "and his tastes are so cultivated and refined. He is very different from the usual run of young men." (When a girl begins to think a man different from the "usual run," you may be sure she herself is off the common track.) "There's something very manly in all his sentiments, independent and high-toned. He cannot be engaged to Mary Morton, for I alluded to the report, and he seemed quite amused at the idea. I can see he thinks her very silly, which she is, though pretty – though he was two gentlemanly to say so."

"How, then, did you find out that he thought so," asked George, smiling.

"Oh, from one or two little things. We were speaking of a German poem that I was trying to get the other day, and he said he had it, but had lent it to Miss Morton. 'However,' he added, with a peculiar smile, 'he did not believe she wanted to read it, and at any rate, he would bring it to me as soon as she returned it. He doubted whether she was much of a German reader.' But it was more the smile and the manner in which he said it, than the words, that made me think he had no very high opinion of her literary tastes."

"He may not like her any the less for that," said George, carelessly. "I think your clever literary men rarely do value a woman less for her ignorance."

But there was an expression in Angila's pretty face that seemed to contradict this assertion; for, like most pretty women, the was vainer of her talents than her beauty – and she thought Hazlewood had been quite struck by some of her criticisms the night before.

However this might be, the intimacy seemed to progress at a wonderful rate. He called and brought her books; and they had a world to say every time they met, which, whether by accident or design, was now beginning to be very often.

"You knew old Mr. Hazlewood, mamma, did not you?" said Angila. "And who did you say Mrs. Hazlewood was?" And now she listened very differently from the last time that her mother had launched forth on the topic of old times and friends. Angila was wonderfully interested in all the history of the whole race, for Mrs. Mervale began with the great grandfathers, maternal and paternal; and she kept the thread of the story with surprising distinctness, and made out the family pedigree with amazing correctness.

"Then they are an excellent family, mamma," she said.

"To be sure they are," replied Mrs. Mervale, "one of the oldest and best in the city."

It was wonderful what a quantity of books Angila read just about this time; but Hazlewood was always sending her something, which she seemed to take peculiar pleasure in surprising him by having finished before they met again. And her bright eyes grew brighter, and occasionally, and that not unfrequently, they had an abstracted, dreamy look, as if her thoughts were far away, occupied in very pleasant visions – whether they were now of Ossian-heroes, dark-eyed and dim, we doubt.

She was rather unpleasantly roused to a waking state, however, by a passage in one of Augusta Lenox's last letters, which was,

"What has become of your 'favorite aversion,' Robert Hazlewood? When are he and Mary Morton to be married? I give her joy of him – as you say, how can she?"

Angila colored scarlet with indignation as she read this, almost wondering at first what Augusta meant.

She did not answer the letter; some consciousness, mixed with a good deal of vexation, prevented her.

Hazlewood's attentions to Angila began to be talked of a good deal. Her mother was congratulated, and she was complimented, for every body spoke well of him. "A remarkably clever young man with excellent prospects," the old people said. The young girls talked of him probably pretty much as Angila and Augusta had done – but she did not hear that, and the young men said,

"Hazlewood was a devilish clever fellow, and that Angila Mervale would do very well if she could get him."

That the gentleman was desperately in love there was no doubt; and as for the young lady – that she was flattered and pleased and interested, was hardly less clear. Her bright eyes grew softer and more dreamy every day.

Of what was she dreaming? What could her visions be now? Can she by any possibility make a hero of Robert Hazlewood? Sober common sense would say "No!" but bright-eyed, youthful imagination may boldly answer, "Why not?" Time, however, can only decide that point.

Two more letters came from Augusta Lenox about this time, and remained unanswered. "Wait till I am engaged," Angila had unconsciously said to herself, and then blushed the deepest blush, as she caught the words that had risen to her lips.

She did not wait long, however. Bright, beaming, blushing and tearful, she soon announced the intelligence to her mother, asking her consent, and permission to refer Mr. Hazlewood to her father.

The Mervales were very well pleased with the match, which, in fact, was an excellent one, young Hazlewood being in every respect Angila's superior, except in appearance, where she, as is the woman's right, bore the palm of beauty. Not but that she was quick, intelligent, and well cultivated; but there are more such girls by hundreds in our community, than there are men of talent, reading, industry and worth to merit them; and Angila was amazingly happy to have been one of the fortunate few to whose lot such a man falls.

And now, indeed, she wrote a long, long letter to Augusta – so full of happiness, describing Hazlewood, as she thought, so distinctly, that Augusta must recognize him at once – so she concluded by saying,

"And now I need not name him, as you must know who I mean."

"I must know who she means!" said Augusta, much perplexed. "Why I am sure I cannot imagine who she means! Talented, agreeable, with cultivated tastes! Who can it be? 'Not handsome, but very gentlemanlike-looking.' Well, I have no idea who it is – I certainly cannot know the man. But as we sail next week, I shall be at home in time for the wedding. How odd that I should be really her bridemaid in May after all!"

Miss Lenox arrived about two months after Angila's engagement had been announced, and found her friend brilliant with happiness. After the first exclamations and greetings, Augusta said with impatient curiosity,

"But who is it, Angila – you never told me?"

"But surely you guessed at once," said Angila, incredulously.

"No, indeed," replied her friend, earnestly, "I have not the most distant idea."

"Why, Robert Hazlewood, to be sure!"

"Robert Hazlewood! Oh, Angila! You are jesting," exclaimed her friend, thrown quite off her guard by astonishment.

"Yes, indeed!" replied Angila, with eager delight, attributing Augusta's surprise and incredulous tones to quite another source. "You may well be surprised, Augusta. Is it not strange that such a man – one of his superior talents – should have fallen in love with such a mad-cap as me."

Augusta could hardly believe her ears. But the truth was, that Angila had so long since forgotten her prejudice, founded on nothing, against Hazlewood, that she was not conscious now that she had ever entertained any such feelings. She was not obliged, in common phrase, to "eat her own words," for she quite forgot that she had ever uttered them. And now, with the utmost enthusiasm, she entered into all her plans and prospects – told Augusta, with the greatest interest, as if she thought the theme must be equally delightful to her friend – all her mother's long story about the old Hazlewoods, and what a "charming nice family they were," ("those pattern people that she hated so," as Augusta remembered, but all of which was buried in the happiest oblivion with Angila,) and the dear little house that was being furnished like a bijou next to Mrs. Constant's, (next to Mrs. Constant's! – one of those small houses with low ceilings! Augusta gasped;) and how many servants she was going to keep; and what a nice young girl she had engaged already as waiter.

"You mean, then, to have a woman waiter?" Augusta could not help saying.

"Oh, to be sure!" said Angila. "What should I do with a man in such a pretty little establishment as I mean to have. And then you know we must be economical – Mr. Hazlewood is a young lawyer, and I don't mean to let him slave himself to make the two ends meet. You'll see what a nice economical little housekeeper I'll be."

And, in short, Augusta found that the same bright, warm imagination that had made Angila once dream of Ossian-heroes, now endowed Robert Hazlewood with every charm she wanted, and even threw a romantic glow over a small house, low ceilings, small economies, and all but turned the woman-servant into a man. Cinderella's godmother could hardly have done more. Such is the power of love!

"Well," said Augusta, in talking it all over with her brother, "I cannot comprehend it yet; Angila, who used to be so fastidious, so critical, who expected so much in the man she was to marry!"

"She is not the first young lady who has come down from her pedestal," replied her brother, laughing.

"No, but she has not," returned Augusta, "that's the oddest part of the whole – she has only contrived somehow to raise Hazlewood on a pedestal, too. You'd think they were the only couple in the world going to be married. She's actually in love with him, desperately in love with him; and it was only just before I went to New Orleans that she said – "

"My dear," interrupted her mother, "there's no subject on which women change their minds oftener than on this. Love works wonders – indeed, the only miracles left in the world are of his creation."

"But she used to wonder at Mary Morton's liking him, mamma."

"Ah, my dear," replied her mother, "that was when he was attentive to Mary Morton and not her. It makes a wonderful difference when the thing becomes personal. And if you really love Angila, my dear, you will forget, or at least not repeat, what she said six months before marriage."