CHAPTER III.
And so, beloved one--life"s all--farewell!
Still by my hearth thy gentle shade shall dwell, Still shall my soul, where night the dreariest seem, Fly back to thee, O soft--O vanish"d dream!
THE NEW TIMON.
What indeed had Mary heard--what did she understand?
Mr. Temple the great, the excellent--he who for the many years he had made that retired neighbourhood his abode, had shone with such bright and exalted l.u.s.tre among his little circle of acquaintances, inspiring in the minds of all, especially of those best able to appreciate his superiority, the family of Glan Pennant--admiring regard almost approaching to veneration, who to their eyes appeared more to approach in character as far as mortal may without impiety be said to approach, to that Great Being--Him who made himself of no reputation, stooped from his high estate--humbled himself for the sake of the poor and ignorant of mankind--was it he who thus addressed her?
From what could be gleaned gradually from his discourse, by those with whom he became most intimately a.s.sociated, a man of high family and connections, he had come unknown and lonely, like one dropped suddenly from some higher sphere, divested of all proud pretensions, to act as a voluntary and unostentatious minister to the wants and necessities both temporal and spiritual of the poor and needy, whilst at the same time affecting no misanthropic and reclusive habits, though a certain impenetrable mystery ever hung over his former history, he did not shrink from mixing in social intercourse with the very few families of which the retired neighbourhood could boast, and more particularly with the inmates of Glan Pennant; becoming a zealous a.s.sistant in all the charitable pursuits and interests in which the young sisters of the house had engaged with such active and untiring interest, as long as they remain unmarried.
Mary Seaham, perhaps, had been the one whose character and pursuits had thrown her less than any of the family in the way of similar a.s.sociation, and therefore might have been the least prepared to find she had made so strong an impression on Mr. Temple"s feelings, as his present discourse discovered her to have done. But it was not so much surprise, nor on the other hand, was it so much an overwhelming sense of the honour done her by such distinction, as a feeling almost approaching to self-disgust--shame; which for some moments kept her silently rooted to the spot with that expression of countenance, her trembling lover had interpreted as cold astonishment, excited by his proposal.
Ashamed and sorrowful she felt, as one might be to whom some guardian angel--some higher spirit from another sphere--had stooped to offer himself as guide and guardian through this earthly pilgrimage, and she the favoured mortal had turned away, despising the blessed boon thus proffered, saying:
"I will go forth and try whether I cannot walk amidst the dangerous paths alone, or find at least some other Lord to have dominion over me."
Or, as the self convicted Israelite, who seeing the heavenly manna scattered round his path, felt his heart still turn away, after the flesh pots of Egypt.
This we mean to say was the light in which Mary was inclined to view her feelings on this occasion. No one else, perhaps, would have judged them so harshly, seeing in the first place, that the very exalted superiority which in her own eyes made her heart"s rejection of Mr.
Temple"s suit, a reflection on her taste and feelings, would in the opinion of others have rendered it but the more excusable; whilst in the estimation of those possessed of less pure and simple enthusiasm than the lady of his love, the possibility of such high strained excellence existing in the life and character of a man of mortal mould, might have been strongly doubted.
But as it was, Mary Seaham now with downcast eyes and faltering tongue, gave answer when to answer she was able, in such sort as might have suited more an ashamed and humble penitent, confessing to a superior being a sin or an infirmity, than a woman free to choose or to reject, yielding her gentle death blow to a trembling lover"s hopes.
"Mr. Temple, how humbling to my feelings is the opinion you must have so flatteringly formed of me, ere you could have addressed me thus; an opinion, alas! how little accordant with reality. I fear, if you read my mind, my character aright, you would start aside at the unexpected fact of discovering worldly tastes and feelings, lying hidden there, dormant only, perhaps, from want of time and opportunity for bringing them forth. What, for instance, would you say, were I to acknowledge that it is not so much the world--in the sense you have described it, with which I am desirous of becoming acquainted, as that very world which you, in your well grounded experience, so much contemn. I mean," she added the colour tinging her cheek, "I mean its society."
"Society!" Mr. Temple repeated, looking down upon her with a sad, but mild and tender expression; "alas! can it indeed be so? your pure hopes and aspirations, do they really tend in that direction?"
"I had always fancied," she pursued apologetically, "that much of good and beautiful--much worthy of interest and admiration, might be met with in that last great work of the Almighty; and I may be said to have comparatively seen as little of that branch of the creation in its varied characters as of any other," she added with a smile.
"And you go forth," he responded, in the same tone and manner as before, "with your unsophisticated imaginings--your poetic fancy--prepared to find this so called society peopled with the beings you have pictured in your dreams?"
"No, no! not quite that," she rejoined with returning animation; "but, Mr. Temple, do you really consider the whole circle of society individually as well as collectively, in so dark a light? Are there no flowers amongst the thorns--no wheat among the tares?"
"Yes truly," he responded with a still more sorrowful and earnest interest, as he marked the glowing cheek and unwonted excitement of the loved enquirer; "but the tares unhappily in that cursed ground--cursed for man"s guilty sake!--too much preponderate, and those springing up, choke the wheat till even _they_ become unfruitful. But, oh, Miss Seaham! am I answered now? The words, the acknowledgement you have just made are they the vehicles you have chosen, by which to convey your final rejection of that which I have dared to proffer, for if not, here is a hand and heart as ready and willing--if possible ten times more eager--to be allowed to guide and guard you through those dangerous paths you desire to tread. Think not that I will shrink from turning back even to that world I have so condemned; if it be to walk by your side--to protect--to guide--to guard you there. Yes," he murmured to himself, whilst some strong emotion evidently struggled for mastery, as the idea suggested itself to his imagination, and again his cheek became deadly pale. "For her sweet sake--with such an angel by my side--what could I not brave, what could I not encounter? Even thou, mine enemy!
thou and thine insidious unnatural machinations!"
Then recollecting himself, Mr. Temple turned in some alarm, lest his half muttered soliloquy might have created unpleasant surprise in the mind of her he was so anxious to propitiate. But his fear was groundless. Mary Seaham, too much engrossed by the more apparent subject of his discourse, so completely absorbing her attention, heeded not the mysterious tendency of these latter words, and when recollecting himself, he again paused in breathless enquiry; she could only shake her head, and with averted face and downcast eyes, sorrowfully confess her unworthiness, and her rejection of such distinguished favour as had been shown her by his offer. Then in other words more clear and explicit, she faltered forth sentences which tended slowly and sadly to convey with certainty to Mr. Temple"s mind--and what to him were the others feelings, bowing down the young girl"s heart before him as before a superior being--that the one feeling he required was wanting there--the love which alone could crown his hopes--induce her to become his wife.
A dreary pause ensued. It might have seemed that even nature sympathized in the disappointment of one human heart, so hushed and still was all around.
The silence was broken by Mr. Temple. His voice had recovered the wonted calm of its low, deep accents as thus he spoke:
"And in this world of imagination--this dream-land sphere which you own, alas! to have been no coral strands or balmy groves of the natural world, but the glittering sh.o.r.es, the giddy mazes of society--there wherein you have long in fancy loved to wander, and now in the might of your innocence and purity of heart, so confidently and gladly haste to enter and prove their reality. Tell me, amongst all the features of your glowing picture, has your mind formed for itself hopes and aspirations, which have in any degree stood in the way of those which I had dared to entertain? Have your dreams carried you thus far, or do you go into the world, with--at least on this one point, your heart and feelings, I should rather say--your fancy, disengaged?"
He did not speak as if in mockery and disdain to a weak and romantic girl, but with the serious delicate kindness of one whose very skill and knowledge in diving amongst the fantastic images of the human heart, is all the less moved to scorn or derision at the conception of its hidden enormities.
Mary Seaham started. The crimson blood suffused her pure pale cheek. She shrank from the enquiring scrutiny of that dark eye bent down upon her, as if she felt that it had power to draw forth into light and substance every indistinct shadow, each vague imagination which had ever floated across her mind, a power too, which it was not possible by commonplace subterfuge to evade. Something also in that dark eye strangely affected her at that moment; the impression it produced, connecting itself in an indescribable manner, with the very dream and fancy, Mr. Temple"s searching words had stirred up within her conscience.
But the sense and spirit of her soul"s pure innocence soon came to Mary Seaham"s relief. She shook off the morbid consciousness, and with ingenuous courage, turning with bright open face to her inquirer, replied:
"That I have had many a foolish dream, Mr. Temple, connected with the world of my imagination, I will not attempt to deny, but to the dignity of hopes and aspirations, I a.s.sure you, they have never yet arrived--never attained to such weight and importance in my mind, as would lead me to the folly or madness of allowing them to interfere with the substantial good--the real blessing which have this evening been laid before my unworthy acceptance, and which--"
"Enough!" interrupted Mr. Temple, as if to save himself, and her, the pain of further explanation as to the motives which had forbidden the acceptance of those acknowledged blessings.
"Enough dear Miss Seaham. Dream on, and never may you wake from the pure and blameless dreams, which, whatever be their nature, can alone have taken rise in such a soul. Never may you awake from these to dark sorrowful reality. But should you so awake, and find those dreams dispersed, and Providence should again place us in each other"s paths, remember.... But alas!" he broke off abruptly, "of what avail such imaginings? May G.o.d preserve you in this evil world! is all that remains for me to pray."
He wrung her hand in strong emotion, and when Mary Seaham raised her tearful eyes to thank him for his fervent vow, Mr. Temple had turned away, his tall form was already to be seen slowly disappearing across the darkening common--and this long and singular interview was at an end.
Mary in her turn hurried home, and all that had pa.s.sed seemed to her recollection but as a bewildering dream, when she found herself once more in the quiet library, officiating for the last time at the tea table, which with the hissing urn, she found standing ready awaiting her return.
CHAPTER IV.
They grew in beauty, side by side, They filled one house with glee, Their _homes_ are severed far and wide, By mount and stream and sea.
HEMANS.
Pure girl! thy tender presence Has an unconscious ministry to me, And near thee, in the night that shrouds me still, My darkness is forgotten.
WILLIS.
The good old couple, awakened from their refreshing slumber, had already sent a servant in search of their missing niece, wondering a little what could keep her out so late upon this last night at Glan Pennant, after a day of such fatigue, and the eve of her long journey.
But Mary told them that she had been detained talking to Mr. Temple, whom she had met upon the hill, and they were glad that she had seen him, little devising all that parting interview had comprised, or they might not have been quite so well satisfied with the part their niece had taken therein. For it being their chief anxiety to see this last remaining niece well settled in life, now that the critical and uncertain circ.u.mstances of the family affairs rendered some secure provision so desirable, and their matter of fact perceptions leading them to regard Mr. Temple in the light of a very exemplary clergyman, of comfortable means--and judging from his gentlemanly carriage and superior conversation, more than from his own profession, or other guarantee--of good family and birth; they had often thought, and even ventured to express in words to each other, what a good husband he would make for their quiet Mary, whose tastes and qualities--judging from the same simple-minded rule of observation, which never saw ought beyond the surface of appearance or boundary of circ.u.mstances--the good old couple interpreted, were exactly those befitting her for the vocation to be thereby entailed upon her, namely, that of clergyman"s wife, an inference which we have seen from our heroine"s own confessions that evening, to have been by no means correctly drawn.
Mary Seaham"s four sisters had been severally disposed of in marriage, since by the death of their father, the charge of the orphan daughters had devolved upon them. The eldest in every way--as the eldest daughter of a family is often seen to do--most to the entire approval and satisfaction of her friends.
The superior advantages of a girl"s introduction into the world, under the care and superintendence of sensible and estimable parents, had distinguished her opening career above those of her other sisters, and she had been engaged before her father"s death to Lord Everingham--whom she subsequently married--a n.o.bleman of high worth and distinction, at this time holding a considerable post in India.
Alice, the second daughter, a few years after, became the wife of Mr.
Gillespie, a Scotch lawyer, with whom she had become acquainted whilst visiting some friends in Scotland, and he being a widower, with children already provided for her care, to whose number she had duly added, her"s had proved no sinecure undertaking. But laudably had she fulfilled the destiny appointed her, devoting herself in her still youthful years without a murmur or backward look of regret to the life of comparative drudgery which this choice of a husband had entailed upon her--a course of life to which sneerers may be ready to apply the slighting axiom of Iago,
"To suckle fools and chronicle small beer;"
but which nevertheless, when thus accomplished, may be accounted one of the most honourable a woman can fulfil, the one perhaps best meriting that commendation which the faithful workers in this world"s vineyard shall receive at the last day. "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," &c., and though some might have fancied, at the time that Alice Seaham, with her refined tastes, and somewhat superior qualifications, was entering on a vocation she was ill fitted to sustain, either with pleasure or profit to herself or others, it surprised them to find how little these characteristics stood in the way of her usefulness, capability, or perfect contentment in the part she was called upon to act on this life"s theatre--that part which devolves on the wife of a professional man, with an increasing family, and limited income. How far more usefully and happily employed for herself and others were those refined tastes, and those superior qualifications, though thus adapted, like the beautiful plants and products of the foreign climes, to the common uses and necessities of mankind, than if suffered to expand and expend themselves upon the leafless desert, in selfish, listless, idle inefficiency, often preying morbidly on their own resources for lack of legitimate exercise or healthful outlet--those very tastes and qualifications, proving oftener a curse and a reproach, than a blessing and an ornament to their possessor. For woman"s strength and honour lie in her heart, in her affections, in the duties which from them devolve; if she lean upon her own understanding, trusts to the resources of her mind, or intellect, she leans on a broken reed, she makes for herself broken cisterns which can hold no water.
Selina Seaham, the third daughter, and the beauty of the family, only one year before the marriage celebrated on the day in question, consulted the inclinations of her own heart, rather than the prudent wishes of her friends, and gave her hand to an officer, who had immediately after left England to join his regiment in India with his bride; and then the two younger sisters had remained together at Glan Pennant without any seeming prospect of such speedy disseverment as had since occurred, till some months after, Sir Hugh Morgan, the great man of those parts, to the astonishment of all, proposed to the youngest Miss Seaham and was accepted; he being her senior by some five-and-twenty years. And though he had ever been on very intimate and friendly terms with the family, had not shown any tendency that way since the time, when, on the Seahams first coming to settle in the neighbourhood, after their father"s death--Mr. Seaham having absented himself from Glan Pennant for some years, for the education of his daughters--Sir Hugh Morgan made an offer of his hand to the eldest daughter, and finding himself at fault, she being engaged at the very time to Lord Everingham, oddly overlooked the precedence of the genius and the beauty amongst the sisters, and transferred his offer of a place in his hard-named pedigree to the startled Mary, then a girl of scarcely seventeen. But though a man of much honest worth, not to speak of the worldly recommendations of the match, the proposal produced no effect upon the mind of the unambitious maiden, but surprise and repugnance.
"And she refused him, though her aunt did say, "Twas an advantage she had thrown away.
(He an advantage!) That she"d live to rue it."