Kitabı oku: «Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVI, July 1852, Vol. V», sayfa 9

THE LITTLE GRAY GOSSIP

Soon after Cousin Con's marriage, we were invited to stay for a few weeks with the newly-married couple, during the festive winter season; so away we went with merry hearts, the clear frosty air and pleasant prospect before us invigorating our spirits, as we took our places inside the good old mail-coach, which passed through the town of P – , where Cousin Con resided, for there were no railways then. Never was there a kinder or more genial soul than Cousin Con; and David Danvers, the good-man, as she laughingly called him, was, if possible, kinder and more genial still. They were surrounded by substantial comforts, and delighted to see their friends in a sociable, easy way, and to make them snug and cozy, our arrival being the signal for a succession of such convivialities. Very mirthful and enjoyable were these evenings, for Con's presence always shed radiant sunshine, and David's honest broad face beamed upon her with affectionate pride. During the days of their courtship at our house, they had perhaps indulged in billing and cooing a little too freely when in company with others, for sober, middle-aged lovers like themselves; thereby lying open to animadversions from prim spinsters, who wondered that Miss Constance and Mr. Danvers made themselves so ridiculous.

But now all this nonsense had sobered down, and nothing could be detected beyond a sly glance, or a squeeze of the hand now and then; yet we often quizzed them about by-gones, and declared that engaged pairs were insufferable – we could always find them out among a hundred!

"I'll bet you any thing you like," cried Cousin Con, with a good-humored laugh, "that among our guests coming this evening" (there was to be a tea-junketing), "you'll not be able to point out the engaged couple – for there will be only one such present – though plenty of lads and lasses that would like to be so happily situated! But the couple I allude too are real turtle-doves, and yet I defy you to find them out!"

"Done, Cousin Con!" we exclaimed; "and what shall we wager?"

"Gloves! gloves to be sure!" cried David. "Ladies always wager gloves; though I can tell you, my Con is on the safe side now;" and David rubbed his hands, delighted with the joke; and we already, in perspective, beheld our glove-box enriched with half-a-dozen pair of snowy French sevens!

Never had we felt more interested in watching the arrivals and movements of strangers, than on this evening, for our honor was concerned, to detect the lovers, and raise the vail. Papas and mammas, and masters and misses, came trooping in; old ladies, and middle-aged; old gentlemen, and middle-aged – until the number amounted to about thirty, and Cousin Con's drawing-rooms were comfortably filled. We closely scrutinized all the young folks, and so intently but covertly watched their proceedings, that we could have revealed several innocent flirtations, but nothing appeared that could lead us to the turtle-doves and their engagement. At length, we really had hopes, and ensconced ourselves in a corner, to observe the more cautiously a tall, beautiful girl, whose eyes incessantly turned toward the door of the apartment; while each time it opened to admit any one, she sighed and looked disappointed, as if that one was not the one she yearned to see. We were deep in a reverie, conjuring up a romance of which she was the heroine, when a little lady, habited in gray, whose age might average threescore, unceremoniously seated herself beside us, and immediately commenced a conversation, by asking if we were admiring pretty Annie Mortimer – following the direction of our looks. On receiving a reply in the affirmative, she continued: "Ah, she's a good, affectionate girl; a great favorite of mine is sweet Annie Mortimer."

"Watching for her lover, no doubt?" we ventured to say, hoping to gain the desired information, and thinking of our white kid-gloves. "She is an engaged young lady?"

"Engaged! engaged!" cried the little animated lady: "no indeed. The fates forbid! Annie Mortimer is not engaged." The expression of the little lady's countenance at our bare supposition of so natural a fact, amounted almost to the ludicrous; and we with some difficulty articulated a serious rejoinder, disavowing all previous knowledge, and therefore erring through ignorance. We had now time to examine our new acquaintance more critically. As we have already stated, she was habited in gray; but not only was her attire gray, but she was literally gray all over: gray hairs, braided in a peculiar obsolete fashion, and quite uncovered; gray gloves; gray shoes; and, above all, gray eyes, soft, large, and peculiarly sad in expression, yet beautiful eyes, redeeming the gray, monotonous countenance from absolute plainness. Mary Queen of Scots, we are told, had gray eyes; and even she, poor lady, owned not more speaking or history-telling orbs than did this little unknown gossip in gray. But our attention was diverted from the contemplation, by the entrance of another actor on the stage, to whom Annie Mortimer darted forward with an exclamation of delight and welcome. The new comer was a slender, elderly gentleman, whose white hairs, pale face, and benignant expression presented nothing remarkable in their aspect, beyond a certain air of elegance and refinement, which characterized the whole outward man.

"That is a charming-looking old gentleman," said we to the gray lady; "is he Annie's father?"

"Her father! Oh dear, no! That gentleman is a bachelor; but he is Annie's guardian, and has supplied the place of a father to her, for poor Annie is an orphan."

"Oh!" we exclaimed, and there was a great deal of meaning in our oh! for had we not read and heard of youthful wards falling in love with their guardians? and might not the fair Annie's taste incline this way? The little gray lady understood our thoughts, for she smiled, but said nothing; and while we were absorbed with Annie and her supposed antiquated lover, she glided into the circle, and presently we beheld Annie's guardian, with Annie leaning on his arm, exchange a few words with her in an under tone, as she passed them to an inner room.

"Who is that pleasing-looking old gentleman?" said we to our hostess; "and what is the name of the lady in gray, who went away just as you came up? That is Annie Mortimer we know, and we know also that she isn't engaged!"

Cousin Con laughed heartily as she replied: "That nice old gentleman is Mr. Worthington, our poor curate; and a poor curate he is likely ever to continue, so far as we can see. The lady in gray we call our 'little gray gossip,' and a darling she is! As to Annie, you seem to know all about her. I suppose little Bessie has been lauding her up to the skies."

"Who is little Bessie?" we inquired.

"Little Bessie is your little gray gossip: we never call her any thing but Bessie to her face; she is a harmless little old maid. But come this way: Bessie is going to sing, for they won't let her rest till she complies; and Bessie singing, and Bessie talking, are widely different creatures."

Widely different indeed! Could this be the little gray lady seated at the piano, and making it speak? while her thrilling tones, as she sang of 'days gone by,' went straight to each listener's heart, she herself looking ten years younger! When the song was over, I observed Mr. Worthington, with Annie still resting on his arm, in a corner of the apartment, shaded by a projecting piece of furniture; and I also noted the tear on his furrowed cheek, which he hastily brushed away, and stooped to answer some remark of Annie's, who, with fond affection, had evidently observed it too, endeavoring to dispel the painful illusion which remembrances of days gone by occasioned.

We at length found the company separating, and our wager still unredeemed. The last to depart was Mr. Worthington, escorting Annie Mortimer and little Bessie, whom he shawled most tenderly, no doubt because she was a poor forlorn little old maid, and sang so sweetly.

The next morning at breakfast, Cousin Con attacked us, supported by Mr. Danvers, both demanding a solution of the mystery, or the scented sevens! After a vast deal of laughing, talking, and discussion, we were obliged to confess ourselves beaten, for there had been an engaged couple present on the previous evening, and we had failed to discover them. No; it was not Annie Mortimer; she had no lover. No; it was not the Misses Halliday, or the Masters Burton: they had flirted and danced, and danced and flirted indiscriminately; but as to serious engagements – pooh! pooh!

Who would have conjectured the romance of reality that was now divulged? and how could we have been so stupid as not to have read it at a glance? These contradictory exclamations, as is usual in such cases, ensued when the riddle was unfolded. It is so easy to be wise when we have learned the wisdom. Yet we cheerfully lost our wager, and would have lost a hundred such, for the sake of hearing a tale so far removed from matter-of-fact; proving also that enduring faith and affection are not so fabulous as philosophers often pronounce them to be.

Bessie Prudholm was nearly related to David Danvers, and she had been the only child of a talented but improvident father, who, after a short, brilliant career, as a public singer, suddenly sank into obscurity and neglect, from the total loss of his vocal powers, brought on by a violent rheumatic cold and lasting prostration of strength. At this juncture, Bessie had nearly attained her twentieth year, and was still in mourning for an excellent mother, by whom she had been tenderly and carefully brought up. From luxury and indulgence the descent to poverty and privation was swift. Bessie, indeed, inherited a very small income in right of her deceased parent, sufficient for her own wants, and even comforts, but totally inadequate to meet the thousand demands, caprices, and fancies of her ailing and exigent father. However, for five years she battled bravely with adversity, eking out their scanty means by her exertions – though, from her father's helpless condition, and the constant and unremitting attention he required, she was in a great measure debarred from applying her efforts advantageously. The poor, dying man, in his days of health, had contributed to the enjoyment of the affluent, and in turn been courted by them; but now, forgotten and despised, he bitterly reviled the heartless world, whose hollow meed of applause it had formerly been the sole aim of his existence to secure. Wealth became to his disordered imagination the desideratum of existence, and he attached inordinate value to it, in proportion as he felt the bitter stings of comparative penury. To guard his only child – whom he certainly loved better than any thing else in the world, save himself – from this dreaded evil, the misguided man, during his latter days, extracted from her an inviolable assurance, never to become the wife of any individual who could not settle upon her, subject to no contingencies or chances, the sum of at least one thousand pounds.

Bessie, who was fancy-free, and a lively-spirited girl, by no means relished the slights and privations which poverty entails. She therefore willingly became bound by this solemn promise; and when her father breathed his last, declaring that she had made his mind comparatively easy, little Bessie half smiled, even in the midst of her deep and natural sorrow, to think how small and easy a concession her poor father had exacted, when her own opinions and views so perfectly coincided with his. The orphan girl took up her abode with the mother of David Danvers, and continued to reside with that worthy lady until the latter's decease. It was beneath the roof of Mrs. Danvers that Bessie first became acquainted with Mr. Worthington – that acquaintance speedily ripening into a mutual and sincere attachment. He was poor and patronless then, as he had continued ever since, with slender likelihood of ever possessing £100 of his own, much less £1000 to settle on a wife. It is true, that in the chances and changes of this mortal life, Paul Worthington might succeed to a fine inheritance; but there were many lives betwixt him and it, and Paul was not the one to desire happiness at another's expense, nor was sweet little Bessie either.

Yet was Paul Worthington rich in one inestimable possession, such as money can not purchase – even in the love of a pure devoted heart, which for him, and for his dear sake, bravely endured the life-long loneliness and isolation which their peculiar circumstances induced. Paul did not see Bessie grow old and gray: in his eyes, she never changed; she was to him still beautiful, graceful, and enchanting; she was his betrothed, and he came forth into the world, from his books, and his arduous clerical and parochial duties, to gaze at intervals into her soft eyes, to press her tiny hand, to whisper a fond word, and then to return to his lonely home, like a second Josiah Cargill, to try and find in severe study oblivion of sorrow.

Annie Mortimer had been sent to him as a ministering angel: she was the orphan and penniless daughter of Mr. Worthington's dearest friend and former college-chum, and she had come to find a shelter beneath the humble roof of the pious guardian, to whose earthly care she had been solemnly bequeathed. Paul's curacy was not many miles distant from the town where Bessie had fixed her resting-place; and it was generally surmised by the select few who were in the secret of little Bessie's history, that she regarded Annie Mortimer with especial favor and affection, from the fact that Annie enjoyed the privilege of solacing and cheering Paul Worthington's declining years. Each spoke of her as a dear adopted daughter, and Annie equally returned the affection of both.

Poor solitaries! what long anxious years they had known, separated by circumstance, yet knit together in the bonds of enduring love!

I pictured them at festive winter seasons, at their humble solitary boards; and in summer prime, when song-birds and bright perfumed flowers call lovers forth into the sunshine rejoicingly. They had not dared to rejoice during their long engagement; yet Bessie was a sociable creature, and did not mope or shut herself up, but led a life of active usefulness, and was a general favorite amongst all classes. They had never contemplated the possibility of evading Bessie's solemn promise to her dying father; to their tender consciences, that fatal promise was as binding and stringent, as if the gulf of marriage or conventual vows yawned betwixt them. We had been inclined to indulge some mirth at the expense of the little gray gossip, when she first presented herself to our notice; but now we regarded her as an object of interest, surrounded by a halo of romance, fully shared in by her charming, venerable lover. And this was good Cousin Con's elucidation of the riddle, which she narrated with many digressions, and with animated smiles, to conceal tears of sympathy. Paul Worthington and little Bessy did not like their history to be discussed by the rising frivolous generation; it was so unworldly, so sacred, and they looked forward with humble hope so soon to be united for ever in the better land, that it pained and distressed them to be made a topic of conversation.

Were we relating fiction, it would be easy to bring this antiquated pair together, even at the eleventh hour; love and constancy making up for the absence of one sweet ingredient, evanescent, yet beautiful – the ingredient, we mean, of youth. But as this is a romance of reality, we are fain to divulge facts as they actually occurred, and as we heard them from authentic sources. Paul and Bessie, divided in their lives, repose side by side in the old church-yard. He dropped off first, and Bessie doffed her gray for sombre habiliments of darker hue. Nor did she long remain behind, loving little soul! leaving her property to Annie Mortimer, and warning her against long engagements.

The last time we heard of Annie, she was the happy wife of an excellent man, who, fully coinciding in the opinion of the little gray gossip, protested strenuously against more than six weeks' courtship, and carried his point triumphantly.

THE MOURNER AND THE COMFORTER

It was a lovely day in the month of August, and the sun, which had shone with undiminished splendor from the moment of dawn, was now slowly declining, with that rich and prolonged glow with which it seems especially to linger around those scenes where it seldomest finds admittance. For it was a valley in the north of Scotland into which its light was streaming, and many a craggy top and rugged side, rarely seen without their cap of clouds or shroud of mist, were now throwing their mellow-tinted forms, clear and soft, into a lake of unusual stillness. High above the lake, and commanding a full view of that and of the surrounding hills, stood one of those countryfied hotels not unfrequently met with on a tourist's route, formerly only designed for the lonely traveler or weary huntsman, but which now, with the view to accommodate the swarm of visitors which every summer increased, had gone on stretching its cords and enlarging its boundaries, till the original tenement looked merely like the seed from which the rest had sprung. Nor, even under these circumstances, did the house admit of much of the luxury of privacy; for, though the dormitories lay thick and close along the narrow corridor, all accommodation for the day was limited to two large and long rooms, one above the other, which fronted the lake. Of these, the lower one was given up to pedestrian travelers – the sturdy, sunburnt shooters of the moors, who arrive with weary limbs and voracious appetites, and question no accommodation which gives them food and shelter; while the upper one was the resort of ladies and family parties, and was furnished with a low balcony, now covered with a rough awning.

Both these rooms, on the day we mention, were filled with numerous guests. Touring was at its height, and shooting had begun; and, while a party of way-worn young men, coarsely clad and thickly shod, were lying on the benches, or lolling out of the windows of the lower apartment, a number of traveling parties were clustered in distinct groups in the room above; some lingering round their tea-tables, while others sat on the balcony, and seemed attentively watching the evolutions of a small boat, the sole object on the lake before them. It is pleasant to watch the actions, however insignificant they may be, of a distant group; to see the hand obey without hearing the voice that has bidden; to guess at their inward motives by their outward movements; to make theories of their intentions, and try to follow them out in their actions; and, as at a pantomime, to tell the drift of the piece by dumb show alone. And it is an idle practice, too, and one especially made for the weary or the listless traveler, giving them amusement without thought, and occupation without trouble; for people who have had their powers of attention fatigued by incessant exertion, or weakened by constant novelty, are glad to settle it upon the merest trifle at last. So the loungers on the balcony increased, and the little boat became a centre of general interest to those who apparently had not had one sympathy in common before. So calm and gliding was its motion, so refreshing the gentle air which played round it, that many an eye from the shore envied the party who were seated in it. These consisted of three individuals, two large figures and a little one.

"It is Captain H – and his little boy," said one voice, breaking silence; "they arrived here yesterday."

"They'll be going to see the great waterfall," said another.

"They have best make haste about it; for they have a mile to walk up-hill when they land," said a third.

"Rather they than I," rejoined a languid fourth; and again there was a pause. Meanwhile the boat party seemed to be thinking little about the waterfall, or the need for expedition. For a few minutes the quick-glancing play of the oars was seen, and then they ceased again; and now an arm was stretched out toward some distant object in the landscape, as if asking a question; and then the little fellow pointed here and there, as if asking many questions at once, and, in short, the conjectures on the balcony were all thrown out. But now the oars had rested longer than usual, and a figure rose and stooped, and seemed occupied with something at the bottom of the boat. What were they about? They were surely not going to fish at this time of evening? No, they were not; for slowly a mast was raised, and a sail unfurled, which at first hung flapping, as if uncertain which side the wind would take it, and then gently swelled out to its full dimensions, and seemed too large a wing for so tiny a body. A slight air had arisen; the long reflected lines of colors, which every object on the shore dripped, as it were, into the lake, were gently stirred with a quivering motion; every soft strip of liquid tint broke gradually into a jagged and serrated edge; colors were mingled, forms were confused; the mountains, which lay in undiminished brightness above, seemed by some invisible agency to be losing their second selves from beneath them; long, cold white lines rose apparently from below, and spread radiating over all the liquid picture: in a few minutes, the lake lay one vast sheet of bright silver, and half the landscape was gone. The boat was no longer in the same element: before, it had floated in a soft, transparent ether; now, it glided upon a plain of ice.

"I wish they had stuck to their oars," said the full, deep voice of an elderly gentleman; "hoisting a sail on these lakes is very much like trusting to luck in life – it may go on all right for a while, and save you much trouble, but you are never sure that it won't give you the slip, and that when you are least prepared."

"No danger in the world, sir," said a young fop standing by, who knew as little about boating on Scotch lakes as he did of most things any where else. Meanwhile, the air had become chill, the sun had sunk behind the hills, and the boating party, tired, apparently, of their monotonous amusement, turned the boat's head toward shore. For some minutes they advanced with fuller and fuller bulging sail in the direction they sought, when suddenly the breeze seemed not so much to change as to be met by another and stronger current of air, which came pouring through the valley with a howling sound, and then, bursting on the lake, drove its waters in a furrow before it. The little boat started, and swerved like a frightened creature; and the sail, distended to its utmost, cowered down to the water's edge.

"Good God! why don't they lower that sail? Down with it! down with it!" shouted the same deep voice from the balcony, regardless of the impossibility of being heard. But the admonition was needless; the boatman, with quick, eager motions, was trying to lower it. Still it bent, fuller and fuller, lower and lower. The man evidently strained with desperate strength, defeating, perhaps, with the clumsiness of anxiety, the end in view; when, too impatient, apparently, to witness their urgent peril without lending his aid, the figure of Captain H – rose up; in one instant a piercing scream was borne faintly to shore – the boat whelmed over, and all were in the water.

For a few dreadful seconds nothing was seen of the unhappy creatures; then a cap floated, and then two struggling figures rose to the surface. One was evidently the child, for his cap was off, and his fair hair was seen; the other head was covered. This latter buffeted the waters with all the violence of a helpless, drowning man; then he threw his arms above his head, sank, and rose no more. The boy struggled less and less, and seemed dead to all resistance before he sank, too. The boat floated keel upward, almost within reach of the sufferers; and now that the waters had closed over them, the third figure was observed, for the first time, at a considerable distance, slowly and laboriously swimming toward it, and in a few moments two arms were flung over it, and there he hung. It was one of those scenes which the heart quails to look on, yet which chains the spectator to the spot. The whole had passed in less than a minute: fear – despair – agony – and death, had been pressed into one of those short minutes, of which so many pass without our knowing how. It is well. Idleness, vanity, or vice – all that dismisses thought – may dally with time, but the briefest space is too long for that excess of consciousness where time seems to stand still.

At this moment a lovely and gentle-looking young woman entered the room. It was evident that she knew nothing of the dreadful scene that had just occurred, nor did she now remark the intense excitement which still riveted the spectators to the balcony; for, seeking, apparently, to avoid all intercourse with strangers, she had seated herself, with a book, on the chair farthest removed from the window. Nor did she look up at the first rush of hurried steps into the room; but, when she did, there was something which arrested her attention, for every eye was fixed upon her with an undefinable expression of horror, and every foot seemed to shrink back from approaching her. There was also a murmur as of one common and irrepressible feeling through the whole house; quick footsteps were heard as of men impelled by some dreadful anxiety; doors were banged; voices shouted; and, could any one have stood by a calm and indifferent spectator, it would have been interesting to mark the sudden change from the abstracted and composed look with which Mrs. H – (for she it was) first raised her head from her book to the painful restlessness of inquiry with which she now glanced from eye to eye, and seemed to question what manner of tale they told.

It is something awful and dreadful to stand before a fellow-creature laden with a sorrow which, however we may commiserate it, it is theirs alone to bear; to be compelled to tear away that vail of unconsciousness which alone hides their misery from their sight; and to feel that the faintness gathering round our own heart alone enables theirs to continue beating with tranquillity. We feel less almost of pity for the suffering we are about to inflict than for the peace which we are about to remove; and the smile of unconsciousness which precedes the knowledge of evil is still more painful to look back upon than the bitterest tear that follows it. And, if such be the feelings of the messenger of heavy tidings, the mind that is to receive them is correspondingly actuated. For who is there that thanks you really for concealing the evil that was already arrived – for prolonging the happiness that was already gone? Who cares for a reprieve when sentence is still to follow? It is a pitiful soul that does not prefer the sorrow of certainty to the peace of deceit; or, rather, it is a blessed provision which enables us to acknowledge the preference when it is no longer in our power to choose. It seems intended as a protection to the mind from something so degrading to it as an unreal happiness, that both those who have to inflict misery and those who have to receive it should alike despise its solace. Those who have trod the very brink of a precipice, unknowing that it yawned beneath, look back to those moments of their ignorance with more of horror than of comfort; such security is too close to danger for the mind ever to separate them again. Nor need the bearer of sorrow embitter his errand by hesitations and scruples how to disclose it; he need not pause for a choice of words or form of statement. In no circumstance of life does the soul act so utterly independent of all outward agency; it waits for no explanation, wants no evidence; at the furthest idea of danger it flies at once to its weakest part; an embarrassed manner will rouse suspicions, and a faltered word confirm them. Dreadful things never require precision of terms – they are wholly guessed before they are half-told. Happiness the heart believes not in till it stands at our very threshold; misery it flies at as if eager to meet.

So it was with the unfortunate Mrs. H – ; no one spoke of the accident, no one pointed to the lake; no connecting link seemed to exist between the security of ignorance and the agony of knowledge. At one moment she raised her head in placid indifference, at the next she knew that her husband and child were lying beneath the waters. And did she faint, or fall as one stricken? No: for the suspicion was too sudden to be sustained; and the next instant came the thought, This must be a dream; God can not have done it. And the eyes were closed, and the convulsed hands pressed tight over them, as if she would shut out mental vision as well; and groans and sobs burst from the crowd, and men dashed from the room, unable to bear it; and women, too, untrue to their calling. And there was weeping and wringing of hands, and one weak woman fainted; but still no sound or movement came from her on whom the burden had fallen. Then came the dreadful revulsion of feeling; and, with contracted brow and gasping breath, and voice pitched almost to a scream, she said, "It is not true – tell me – it is not true – tell me – tell me!" And, advancing with desperate gestures, she made for the balcony. All recoiled before her; when one gentle woman, small and delicate as herself, opposed her, and, with streaming eyes and trembling limbs, stood before her. "Oh, go not there – go not there! cast your heavy burden on the Lord!" These words broke the spell. Mrs. H – uttered a cry which long rang in the ears of those that heard it, and sank, shivering and powerless, in the arms of the kind stranger.

Meanwhile, the dreadful scene had been witnessed from all parts of the hotel, and every male inmate poured from it. The listless tourist of fashion forgot his languor, the way-worn pedestrian his fatigue. The hill down to the lake was trodden by eager, hurrying figures, all anxious to give that which in such cases it is a relief to give, viz., active assistance. Nor were these all, for down came the sturdy shepherd from the hills; and the troops of ragged, bare-legged urchins from all sides; and distant figures of men and women were seen pressing forward to help or to hear; and the hitherto deserted-looking valley was active with life. Meanwhile, the survivor hung motionless over the upturned boat, borne about at the will of the waters, which were now lashed into great agitation. No one could tell whether it was Captain H – or the Highland boatman, and no one could wish for the preservation of the one more than the other. For life is life to all; and the poor man's wife and family may have less time to mourn, but more cause to want. And before the boat, that was manning with eager volunteers, had left the shore, down came also a tall, raw-boned woman, breathless, more apparently with exertion than anxiety – her eyes dry as stones, and her cheeks red with settled color; one child dragging at her heels, another at her breast. It was the boatman's wife. Different, indeed, was her suspense to that of the sufferer who had been left above; but, perhaps, equally true to her capacity. With her it was fury rather than distress; she scolded the bystanders, chid the little squalling child, and abused her husband by turns.