Читать книгу Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. IX.—February, 1851.—Vol. II. - Various - Страница 6

AN EXCELLENT MATCH; OR, THE BLESSINGS OF BAD LUCK

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"It is quite impossible," said I, as I walked round the garden with my old friend, the vicar; "it is quite impossible to leave home in May; the bees will be swarming, and it is the very week of the school feast."

"We will have the school feast a week earlier," answered he; "and, as to the bees, I will look after them myself, and you will have the pleasure of seeing a new colony or two safely housed, and hard at work, when you come back again."

I was silenced on these points, and began to reflect what other excuse I could find to put off a disagreeable journey. But there was something in my friend's manner that warned me it would be vain to offer any further objection. He looked upon my attendance at my niece's wedding as a matter of duty, and he would have removed every obstacle that my ingenuity could oppose to it, with as much coolness as he displayed at that moment, in sweeping a spider's web from the China rose-tree on my verandah.

I yielded, but not without a sigh. "Dear Amy," I said, "I love her very much, and would do much to serve her, but my presence at her fine wedding will be no advantage to her, and a great annoyance to me, therefore it would be better to put off my visit until the fuss and ceremony is fairly over."

My reverend friend shook his head. "We are called on to rejoice with those who do rejoice," said he; "as well as to weep with those who weep, although we may not always be in a mood to obey the summons."

This was very like a passage from one of the good man's sermons, but I knew the sentiment it contained came from his heart, and what was more, I knew it would have influenced his own actions.

"Amy was indeed a charming child," continued he, "when you brought her to be cured of the hooping-cough among our Cumberland mountains. I only hope the little world of boarding-schools, and the great one of fashion, may not have spoilt her by this time."

I hoped so, too, but I was by no means sanguine on the subject. My friend was right; Amy was a charming child when we had her among us. With far more character and greater talent than her elder sisters, she had promised to equal them in grace and beauty; and her warm heart and sunny temper captivated every body who knew her. It would be a pity to spoil such a nature as hers, and yet I could not conceal from myself, that there were points in her character which rendered her peculiarly liable to be spoilt by the favors and flatteries of the world.

"Then you will go?" were the last words the vicar said to me, as we shook hands at parting.

I answered in the affirmative, and a fortnight after, encumbered with rather more in the way of trunks and bandboxes than I usually travel with, I set off.

Mrs. R. met me this time with a load of care upon her brow. She was often anxious-looking, for even her world, light and trifling as it was, had its burdens, and at this time she seemed overwhelmed by them. Who could wonder at it? Next to the great change which removes a beloved child from the embraces of her parents to an unseen world, there is nothing in solemnity equal to that tie which transfers the guardianship of her happiness to a stranger. When a daughter marries, her parents are deprived of the first place in her love and reverence, and bereaved for ever of the daily companionship, which, in the decline of life, becomes so precious a solace and so dear a joy. What a tremendous responsibility there is in the choice of the person who is to be intrusted with so costly a deposit, and in whose favor are relinquished such valued rights? How few are the men whose characters present a combination of qualities, which under such circumstances, could satisfy the fears and misgivings of a parent's love!

Something of all this I could not help expressing. Mrs. R. replied that they had perfect confidence in Mr. Lennox; it was in every respect a most unexceptionable match; there was a splendid income to begin with, and every prospect of an immense fortune in a few years, and an excellent position in society; as to moral character, and that sort of thing, of course, all was perfectly satisfactory. "What you say about parting with one's children," continued she, and here she applied her exquisite pocket-handkerchief to her eyes, "is very true – it is very hard to part with Amy; but," she philosophically added, "it must be so, so it is no use grieving about it."

And she did not grieve about it any more, but became very fluent upon other grievances, which this affair had brought upon her; and now I began to perceive that the true causes of anxiety were something widely different from those which I had anticipated.

"I am worried to death," said my poor sister-in-law; "every thing rests with me. I have all the arrangements to make, and no one to consult with, for Mr. R. takes no interest in these matters, and as to Amy, she is a perfect child. Louisa, too, has become so dull and indifferent, she is of no use at all. I miss Fanny beyond every thing; her wedding was comparatively no trouble, for she helped me to think; but now I am positively miserable lest all should not go off as it ought to do."

Here was a species of affliction, for which I had certainly no ready-made speech of condolence, and I should have been somewhat embarrassed how to reply, if the entrance of the girls had not rendered reply unnecessary. It was some years since I had seen Amy, who had always been my darling; and when I could disengage myself from her warm embrace, I looked at her earnestly, to notice all the changes which those years had made in her. Her beauty was something marvelous, and I was so much taken up with her, that I did not at first pay much attention to her sister, but when I did so, I felt both shocked and surprised. The few summers that had passed since I saw her a blooming girl, did not warrant the change which had taken place in her appearance. Her complexion had lost its color; her features looked thin and pinched; there was a querulous expression, which I had never noticed before, about the mouth; and the skin round the eyes had that livid hue, which gives to the countenance so peculiar an appearance of unhealthiness.

"My dear Louisa," I exclaimed, "you are surely not well!"

She answered she was tolerably well, and, as she did not appear to like to be questioned, I made no farther inquiries, but gave my attention to the detail of the various arrangements that had been entered into for the approaching ceremony. I was to see the wedding clothes, of course, and I exposed my ignorance, or at least forgetfulness, of modern fashion, by asking for the bonnet.

"Bonnet! aunt," cried Amy; "wreath I suppose you mean – here it is," and she placed it on her beautiful brow. Louisa threw the costly vail over her head, and there was a picture which a Reynolds or a Lawrence might have been proud to copy. I had not long to admire it. Amy laughed and blushed, and threw the things away again. What strange fashions there are with respect to wedding clothes, thought I; my mother was married in a riding-habit and hat, just as if she had been going fox-hunting; nowadays, nothing but a ball dress will do for the ceremony; albeit it be performed on the stone floor of a country church, at Christmas time. Must a wedding dress, indeed, be one as different as possible to the wearer's daily habits and every-day appearance – a kind of climax to all the little duplicities, voluntary and involuntary, which, it is said, are inseparable from courtship? Well, well, be it so! Thy outward attractions, Amy, will not have lost much, when the blonds and satins are put into the bandbox. God grant that it may be the same with the other and dearer graces of the heart and mind!

The few days which intervened between my arrival and the wedding-day were very busy ones; so busy that I could see very little of the bride elect, and still less of the bridegroom. What I did see of the latter, however, impressed me very favorably. He seemed worthy of all Amy might become, all he thought she was, for he was passionately in love, as it is not difficult to imagine a young man would be with a being so beautiful and attractive. What her feelings toward him were, I could not exactly decide. Everybody said she loved him, and so she thought herself; but I could not bring myself to believe that her heart was yet awakened to a profound and passionate sentiment of affection. She admired her future husband, and was flattered by being the choice of one who was universally allowed to be a superior man; she liked his company, and felt grateful to him for his love. If this were not love, it was at least a good foundation for it, and, perhaps, the wonder was that it had not yet ripened into a warmer sentiment. But Amy was a child – a child whose whole life had been surrounded by trifles; and there was a depth and seriousness in Edward Lennox's character to which her own was yet but imperfectly attuned. Would the future bring with it companionship and love, or estrangement and indifference? A tremendous question this appeared to me, but one which apparently entered into the head of no one in all that busy house, except into that of the elderly spinster aunt.

The wedding took place. There is no occasion to describe it; most people, at any rate the young ones, know how such things are managed nowadays. The bride and bridegroom departed, and the bridesmaids dispersed until the return of the wedded pair should re-assemble them for the important business of receiving company. As this return was not likely to be speedy, I too said farewell, for I had engaged to visit other friends, before returning to my hermitage – as Mrs. R. persisted in denominating my cottage – although it was situated close to a populous village, and not far from a flourishing market-town.

I went away very anxious about Louisa. Mrs. R. was sensible of the change in her daughter's appearance and professed herself unable to understand it. No girls, as she observed, had more indulgences or greater means of amusement than hers had, but nothing pleased or amused Louisa now. I inquired if any thing had occurred to render her unhappy. Her mother said there had been a slight love affair, but that reasons sufficient to satisfy Louisa herself had set it on one side, and that she did not think the attachment still existed. My future observations inclined me to agree with Mrs. R. in this latter particular, but it seemed to me as if this fancy, slight as it might have been, had awakened the poor girl to the consciousness that she had a heart and a soul; that she possessed capacities which called for nobler objects and a wider sphere of action, than were furnished in the region of frivolity wherein she dwelt. Not that she could have put her feelings into words – they existed in her mind too vaguely for that; her longings were indefinable to herself, but they were real, and I was convinced they were sapping the very foundations of her existence. I would fain have taken her home with me. I would have brought her into contact with the genuine wants and woes of humanity, represented, it might be, in humble types, but varnished over by none of the falsehood and glitter of fashionable society. I would have done so, because I believed that here she might find something to interest and rouse her to action. This once accomplished, her energies would no longer be left to prey upon themselves, and the weariness of an aimless existence would be at an end. But had my abode been, indeed, the cell of an anchorite, and buried in the depth of the wilderness, Mrs. R. could not have shrunk with more horror from the idea of trusting her daughter to my guardianship, than she did when I made the proposal. In vain I represented how happy Amy had always been while under my care, and how infallible had been the effect of Cumberland air upon all her juvenile ailments. In as plain terms as were consistent with her accustomed good breeding, Mrs. R. intimated, that though it might do very well for a child, Louisa would be moped to death at my cottage. She needed amusement, interest, that was certain; she must go to Brighton, to Hastings, to Baden, if possible – any where, to give her a complete change of scene and ideas. I gave the matter up, but I believed that in my solitude she would have found a greater change of scene and ideas than she would be likely to meet with in any fashionable watering-place.

Months rolled on. The bride and bridegroom returned, but not before I was again settled at home. I had letters from Amy, cheerful, happy letters they were. How could they be otherwise? The whole joys of the world were before her, and with a lively fancy, and the keen sense of enjoyment of eighteen, how could she be insensible to their attractions! I had letters from Mrs. R. too, full of Amy's praises. They told me how gracefully she had played her new part – how, whether she appeared abroad or received guests at home, she was the delight of every eye, the praise of every tongue. This was not all I would have known, but I could learn no more, and it was two years before Amy and I met again. She was then the mother of a fine little boy, and as blooming and beautiful as ever. She seemed happy too, and preserved that uninterrupted flow of gayety which had always been so charming. Not so her husband. The ease and cheerfulness, which had once characterized his conversation, had vanished; he was silent and reserved; it seemed to me that some hidden sorrow, for which he had no confidant, was preying on his mind. When I hinted to Amy the change in her husband's manner, she tossed her pretty head, and poutingly remarked, that she supposed men were always more agreeable in the days of courtship than after marriage. But, in spite of her childish petulance, a tear stole to her eye, which I was not sorry to see there. True it was that Edward Lennox was completely disenchanted. He had found out that the thoughtless, inexperienced girl, who had never been led to reflect on any thing more serious than the amusement of the present hour, was not the perfect woman, the ideal of his fancy, and the echo of his every thought and feeling. He was a man of an almost jealously sensitive turn of mind, and when he found he was not comprehended, he shrank into himself, and took refuge in an impenetrable reserve. Amy, poor child, had no idea of all that was passing in her husband's mind. She was conscious of no change in herself, and she little thought how different had been his conception of her character to its reality. She believed that what her mamma had told her about the caprice of men, explained the change which she could not but be sensible had taken place in his sentiments toward her; and though this change sometimes made her sad, she did not love deeply enough to be quite heart-broken. But Amy was still loved. If Mr. Lennox did not love her as he could have loved the true wife of his bosom, he cherished her as a lovely child, whose happiness was intrusted to his keeping, and it seemed to me as if fears for her, as well as sorrow of his own, harassed and perplexed him.

Mrs. R. was right. Nothing could be more faultless than the easy grace with which Amy presided at her husband's table, or mixed in the gay circles of fashionable amusement. With perfect truth, I could congratulate her mother on this point, but I felt a kind of wonder, well as I knew Mrs. R., to observe what unmingled satisfaction it afforded her. She evidently considered that nothing was wanting to the complete success of this marriage. Poor woman! she soon changed her opinion most woefully!

Louisa was still poorly; she had rallied for a while, but now seemed to droop more than ever. I often went to spend the evening with her when Mrs. R. and Amy were from home, and very dear had these hours become to me. The prospect of eternity had opened to that young spirit, and it had caused a rapid development of the noblest powers of the soul. With the waking of the spiritual nature, the intellect had been aroused also, and, animated by these powers, she was a different being. No wonder when her mother caught her cheerful smile, or her beaming eye, that she believed her convalescent, and I, for one, could not destroy the illusion.

One evening when I had left Amy in the hands of her maid, preparing to go out to dine, I went into the library to look for a book which I had promised to read to Louisa that evening, and felt a little disconcerted to find Mr. Lennox seated by the fire, with his arms folded, and apparently so completely engrossed by his reflections as scarcely to notice my entrance. As I had believed him to be preparing to accompany Amy, I had by no means expected to find him here, and I explained my errand somewhat apologetically. He started from his reverie, and rising, completed my astonishment by requesting five minutes' conversation.

"Are you not going out?" I asked.

"Out? Oh, I had forgotten. No, not tonight."

There was something in his whole manner that alarmed me. "What is the matter?" said I, and I believe I changed color, and said something about my brother.

"Don't be alarmed," said he, "no one is in trouble or danger but my unfortunate self, and, through me, poor Amy. To be plain with you, Miss R., for I believe I may speak out to you, without apprehending a fit of fainting or hysterics, I am a ruined man. Mind," he added, quickly, and a look of manly dignity replaced the troubled expression of his brow and eye, "I use the word in its ordinary, conventional signification. You and I would call no man ruined, in the literal sense of the word, who retained his honor unstained, and the vigor of his head and the strength of his hand unimpaired."

I was so completely taken by surprise, that I had no power to reply, and he went on; "If it were only for myself, I could bear it, I believe, as well as most people, but the thought of that poor girl unmans me. Amusement, society, luxury, seem to make up her very life, and to tell her she must be deprived of these things, is dreadful. Oh!" he continued, bitterly, "if I could be to Amy all that she once was to me, how light would all trials be while our love remained; but that was an idle dream!"

"It may be no dream yet," answered I. "Amy has a heart, though her life, hitherto, has offered little to prove its depth. Who knows but that, when she is called on for sympathy and action, she may prove all we could wish?"

"Do not flatter me with false hopes," he said; "I have given up such ideas as those forever."

I had some hope that matters were not so bad as in the first moment I had been given to understand they were, and I begged for further information. I found, however, the statement Mr. Lennox had made was substantially true; he had, indeed, lost a handsome property, and all that remained was an opportunity of realizing a comfortable independence by personal exertion. But the sacrifice of the luxuries, and the worldly consideration which the possession of wealth bestows, was inevitable; a sacrifice which frequently causes distress very disproportionate to the worth of the objects abandoned.

When he had in a few words put me in possession of the actual state of his affairs, he said: "Now comes the question of what is best to be done with Amy. It is possible I may find it advisable to go out to India, but, whether I go or stay, I think it would be better for her to accompany her mother and Louisa to Baden. She will feel the change less at first, I have consulted with her father, and he agrees with me in this opinion."

"Very likely," said I, dryly; "and if it is your intention that Amy should remain all her life a spoiled child of fortune, you could not take better means to attain your end. If she is ever to prove what a rational being should be, it must be by the discipline of life; do not, then, attempt to shield her from trials which may be of more benefit to her than all the favors of fortune. Do not suppose you can guarantee her from sorrow; rather call upon her to share your distresses, than leave her to be consumed by the selfish vexations which inevitably fall to the lot of the idle and indulged. But, if you would inspire her with devotion, you must give her your confidence. Tell her all – let her know your actual position – what you hope from her – what you fear. You and she may live to bless the day which brings these trials."

"Ah! if I could think," he began; "but no – you do but judge after your own earnest nature – you do not know Amy."

"Nor you – nor any one; she does not know herself. A girl's character is like a rosebud, folded up from every eye; but, unlike the flower, it expands more under clouds and tempests than under the genial sun."

There was a pause, during which he sat musing, then he said, "When I called your attention to my unhappy affairs, it was with the intention of requesting you to break the matter to Amy for me, but you have half persuaded me to do it myself."

"Yourself, by all means," said I; "and let there be no concealment between you. What am I to do about telling Louisa and Mrs. R.?"

"Oh! they must know, certainly," answered he. "Mrs. R. will be gone out when you arrive, so you will be spared that scene. Louisa – who has now more sense and courage than all of us put together – will break it to her best in the morning. Here is the carriage, let me put you into it, and then for poor Amy."

He was right. Louisa did seem to have more sense and courage now than any of us. Perhaps, she felt herself too near another world to affix an undue value on the things of this, for none of the agitation which I had feared resulted from the communication, and we consulted together calmly and rationally on the best means of making present circumstances useful to Amy, and tolerable to her mother. But, calm as she was, I thought it better to spare her the first burst of Mrs. R.'s distress, and therefore I remained the night over, and returned to Amy in the morning.

I found her alone in the nursery, with her sleeping infant in her arms. Her eyes were bent pensively on its countenance, and there was an expression of serious thoughtfulness on her beautiful features, which became them as well as the gayety which was their native character.

"My dear, dear aunt," she said, as I kissed her cheek, "how much I owe you!"

"Owe me, my love! what do you mean?"

"If it had not been for you, Edward would have told me nothing. I should never have known half his causes of distress, and I should have believed him cold and indifferent, when, on the contrary, he was depressed by anxiety for me, and for our boy."

Here was a spring of action at once. The fountains of sympathy, of gratitude, of love, were opened; might not these waters prove sufficient to fertilize a life? I believed so, and I felt that Amy was saved.

I was not mistaken. From that day, she was a new creature. If the sacrifices she was called upon to make at first appeared great, they were soon rendered insignificant by the regret which she felt when she reflected how little her previous education had prepared her to make the best of a limited income, to prove the friend, companion, and confidante, which her husband would now need more than ever, or to fulfill the office of guide and instructress which her little boy would soon call upon her to perform.

"These are not subjects for regret, Amy," said I, when she poured out her heart to me, as she had been in the habit of doing in her childish days; "with youth and health, they are but stimulants to exertion."

Mr. Lennox went to India, but only for a year, and, sorely against her will, Amy was left behind. As she could not accompany him, she wished to return home with me, for a year's schooling, as she playfully expressed it, and, in spite of Mrs. R.'s remonstrances, I carried her off.

What a busy year we had of it! We cooked; we cut out linen (the village schoolmistress was for a time a cipher in that department); we tried experiments in domestic economy; we made calculations; then we read light books and heavy books, history and philosophy, poetry and romance, I being obliged to exercise great ingenuity to avoid an immoderate proportion of educational works, a department of literature to which Amy, in common with many young mothers, manifested a decided preference.

Thus occupied, the days and weeks glided swiftly away, but not without leaving traces of their passage. Amy's intellectual and moral growth in this twelvemonth was as rapid as was her boy's increase in physical proportions. She felt it herself, and, with her increased self-respect, increased her love and admiration of the husband, for whose sake she had been stimulated to self-government and self-tuition. Small had been the joy of her wedding-day, compared to the rapture with which, at the end of the year, she threw herself into his arms; and slight had been his disappointment after the honeymoon, to the delightful surprise which he felt every day on the discovery of some new improvement, or the promise of some fresh excellence in his lovely wife.

"Yes, yes," I thought, as I watched them walking in the garden, and talking over their future plans, with that look of perfect confidence which tells so much; "those hearts are united now – they will soon grow so close that nothing earthly will avail to separate them."

I wiped my spectacles – they had often been dimmed the last day or two – and taking little Herbert's hand, we, too, sallied forth for a confidential tête-à-tête among the daisies.

I went to see Amy when she was once more settled in a house of her own, and, though Mrs. R. sighed and shook her head, every time poor Amy's domestic arrangements were alluded to, I thought every thing about her charming. True, she was waited upon by a tidy housemaid, instead of a tall footman; true, if she required a special dainty to appear upon her table, she was obliged to soil the tips of her own delicate fingers, instead of commanding the service of a professional artiste; true, if she wished to go abroad, she walked, instead of using a carriage. But what then? I could not see that she was a bit the worse for any of these changes. Then, again, she did not now go one night to the opera, another to the theatre, and a third to a ball; but she was so busy in the daytime, and so happy in the evening, in the company of her husband, that she had no desire for such amusements. She no longer presided over great entertainments, but her small, cheerful, pretty house, furnished with good taste and thoroughly arranged for comfort, was always hospitably open to those true friends whom adverse fortune had not rendered shy or indifferent.

"Poor Amy does seem happy," remarked her mother, after we had spent a delightful evening with the young folks, and a party of old friends; "it is very strange, but she does seem happy in spite of her misfortunes."

"Misfortunes!" exclaimed my brother; "call them blessings! Yes, Margaret, I am a convert at last, and ready to confess that women are improvable, and that the loss of wealth may prove an inestimable blessing!"

Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. IX.—February, 1851.—Vol. II.

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