Book: Marriage

S >> Susan Edmonstone Ferrier >> Marriage




Mrs. Douglas had read much, and reflected more, and many faultless
theories of education had floated in her mind. But her good sense soon
discovered how unavailing all theories were whose foundations rested
upon the inferred wisdom of the teacher, and how intricate and unwieldy
must be the machinery for the human mind where the human hand alone is to
guide and uphold it. To engraft into her infant soul the purest
principles of religion was therefore the chief aim of Mary's
preceptress. The fear of God was the only restraint imposed upon her
dawning intellect; and from the Bible alone was she taught the duties of
morality--not in the form of a dry code of laws, to be read with a
solemn face on Sundays, or learned with weeping eyes as a week-day
task--but adapted to her youthful capacity by judicious illustration,
and familiarised to her taste by hearing its stories and precepts from
the lips she best loved. Mrs. Douglas was the friend and confidant of
her pupil: to her all her hopes and fears, wishes and dreads were
confided; and the first effort of her reason was the discovery that to
please her aunt she must study to please her Maker.

"L'inutilite de la vie des femmes est la premier source de leurs
desordres."

Mrs. Douglas was fully convinced of the truth of this observation, and
that the mere selfish cares and vulgar bustle of life are not sufficient
to satisfy the immortal soul, however they may serve to engross it.

A portion of Mary's time was therefore devoted to the daily practice of
the great duties of life; in administering in some shape or other to the
wants and misfortunes of her fellow-creatures, without requiring from
them that their virtue should have been immaculate, or expecting that
their gratitude should be everlasting.

"It is better," thought Mrs. Douglas, "that we should sometimes be
deceived by others than that we should learn to deceive ourselves; and
the charity and goodwill that is suffered to lie dormant, or feed itself
on speculative acts of beneficence, for want of proper objects to call
it into use, will soon become the corroding rust that will destroy the
best feelings of our nature."

But although Mary strenuously applied herself to the uses of life, its
embellishments were by no means neglected. She was happily endowed by
nature; and, under the judicious management of her aunt, made rapid
though unostentatious progress in the improvement of the talents
committed to her care. Without having been blessed with the advantages
of a dancing master, her step was light, and her motions free and
graceful; and if her aunt had not been able to impart to her the
favourite graces of the most fashionable singer of the day, neither had
she thwarted the efforts of her own natural taste in forming a style
full of simplicity and feeling. In the modern languages she was
perfectly skilled; and if her drawings wanted the enlivening touches of
the master to give them effect, as an atonement they displayed a perfect
knowledge of the rules of perspective and the study of the bust.

All this was, however, mere leather and prunella to the ladies of
Glenfern; and many were the cogitations and consultations that took
place n the subject of Mary's mismanagement. According to their ideas
there could be but one good system of education; and that was the one
that had been pursued with them, and through them transmitted to their
nieces.

To attend the parish church and remember the text; to observe who was
there and who was _not_ there; and to wind up the evening with a sermon
stuttered and stammered through by one of the girls (the worst reader
always piously selected, for the purpose of improving their reading), an
particularly addressed to the Laird, openly and avowedly snoring in his
arm-chair, though at every pause starting up with a peevish
"Weel?"--this was the sum total of their religious duties. Their moral
virtues were much upon the same scale; to knit stockings, scold
servants, cement china, trim bonnets, lecture the poor, and look up to
Lady Maclaughlan, comprise nearly their whole code. But these were the
virtues of ripened years and enlarged understandings--which their pupils
might hope to arrive at, but could not presume to meddle with. _Their_
merits consisted in being compelled to sew certain large portions of
white-work; learning to read and write in the worst manner; occasionally
_wearing_ a _collar,_ and learning the notes on the spinnet. These
acquirements, accompanied with a great deal of lecturing and
fault-finding, sufficed for the first fifteen years; when the two next,
passed at a provincial boarding-school, were supposed to impart every
graceful accomplishment to which women could attain.

Mrs. Douglas's method of conveying instruction, it may easily be
imagined, did not square with their ideas on that subject. They did
nothing themselves without a bustle, and to do a thing quietly was to
them the same as not doing it at all--it could not be done, for nobody
had ever heard of it. In short, like many other worthy people, their
ears were their only organs of intelligence. They believed everything
they were told; but unless they were told, they believed nothing. They
had never heard Mrs. Douglas expatiate on the importance of the trust
reposed in her, or enlarge on the difficulties of female education;
_ergo,_ Mrs. Douglas could have no idea of the nature of the duties she
had undertaken.

Their visits to Lochmarlie only served to confirm the fact. Miss Jacky
deponed that during the month she was there she never could discover
when or how it was that Mary got her lessons; luckily the child was
quick, and had contrived, poor thing, to pick up things wonderfully,
nobody knew how, for it was really astonishing to see how little pains
were bestowed upon her and the worst of it was, that she seemed to do
just as she liked, for nobody ever heard her reproved, and everybody
knew that young people never could have enough said to them. All this
differed widely from the eclat of their system, and could not
fail of causing great disquiet to the sisters.

"I declare I'm quite confounded at all this!" said Miss Grizzy, at
the conclusion of Miss Jacky's communication. "It really appears as if
Mary, poor thing, was getting no education at all; and yet she _can_ do
things, too. I can't understand it; and it's very odd in Mrs. Douglas to
allow her to be so much neglected, for certainly Mary's constantly with
herself; which, to be sure, shows that she is very much spoilt; for
although our girls are as fond of us as I am sure any creatures can be,
yet, at the same time, they are always very glad--which is quite
natural--to runaway from us."

"I think it's high time Mary had done something fit to be seen," said
Miss Nicky; "she is now sixteen past."

"Most girls of Mary's time of life that ever _I_ had anything to do
with," replied Jacky, with a certain wave of the head, peculiar to
sensible women, "had something to show before her age. Bella had worked
the globe long before she was sixteen; and Baby did her filigree
tea-caddy the first quarter she was at Miss Macgowk's," glancing with
triumph from the one which hung over the mantelpiece, to the other which
stood on the tea-table, shrouded in a green bag.

"And, to be sure," rejoined Grizzy, "although Betsy's screen did cost a
great deal of money--that can't be denied; and her father certainly
grudged it very much at the time--there's no doubt of that; yet
certainly it does her the greatest credit, and it is a great
satisfaction to us all to have these things to show. I am sure nobody
would ever think that ass was made of crape, and how naturally it seems
to be eating the beautiful chenille thistle! I declare, I think the ass
is as like an ass as anything can be!"

"And as to Mary's drawing," continued the narrator of her deficiencies,
"there is not one of them fit for framing: mere scratches with a chalk
pencil--what any child might do."

"And to think," said Nicky, with indignation, "how little Mrs. Douglas
seemed to think of the handsome coloured views the girls did at Miss
Macgowk's."

"All our girls have the greatest genius for drawing," observed Grizzy;
"there can be no doubt of that; but it's a thousand pities, I'm sure,
that none of them seem to like it. To be sure they say--what I daresay
is very true--that they can't get such good paper as they got at Miss
Macgowk's; but they have showed that they _can _do, for their drawings
are quite astonishing. Somebody lately took them to be Mr. Touchup's own
doing; and I'm sure there couldn't be a greater compliment than that! I
represented all that to Mrs. Douglas, and urged her very strongly to
give Mary the benefit of at least a quarter of Miss Macgowk's, were it
only for the sake of her carriage; or, at least, to make her wear our
collar."

This was the tenderest of all themes, and bursts of sorrowful
exclamations ensued. The collar had long been a galling yoke upon their
minds; it iron had entered into their very souls; for it was a collar
presented to the family of Glenfern by the wisest, virtuousest, best of
women and of grandmothers, the the good Lady Girnachgowl; and had been
worn in regular rotation by every female of the family till now that
Mrs. Douglas positively refused to subject Mary's pliant form to its
thraldom. Even the Laird, albeit no connoisseur in any shapes save those
of his kine, was of opinion that since the thing was in the house it was
a pity it should be lost. Not Venus's girdle even was supposed to confer
greater charms than the Girnachgowl collar.

"It's really most distressing!" said Miss Grizzy to her friend Lady
Maclaughlan.

"Mary's back won't be worth a farthing, and we have always been quite
famous for our back."

"Humph!--that's the reason people are always so glad to see them,
child."

With regard to Mary's looks, opinions were not so decided. Mrs. Douglas
thought her, what she was, an elegant, interesting-looking girl. The
Laird, as he peered at her over his spectacles, pronounced her to be but
a shilpit thing, though weel eneugh, considering the ne'er-do-weels that
were aught her. Miss Jacky opined that she would have been quite a
different creature had she been brought her like any other girl. Miss
Grizzy did not know what to think; she certainly was pretty--nobody
could dispute that. At the same time, many people would prefer Bella's
looks; and Baby was certainly uncommonly comely. Miss Nicky thought it
was no wonder she looked pale sometimes. She never supped her broth in a
wiselike way at dinner; and it was a shame to hear of a girl of Mary's
age being set up with tea to her breakfast, and wearing white petticoats
in winter--and such roads, too!

Lady Maclaughlan pronounced (and that was next to a special revelation)
that the girl would be handsome when she was forty, not a day sooner;
and she would be clever, for her mother was a fool; and foolish mothers
had always wise children, and _vice versa,_ "and your mother was a very
clever woman, girls--humph!"

Thus passed the early years of the almost forgotten twin; blest in the
warm affection and mild authority of her more than mother. Sometimes
Mrs. Douglas half formed the wish that her beloved pupil should mix in
society and become known to the world; but when she reflected on the
dangers of that world, and on the little solid happiness its pleasures
afford, she repressed the wish, and only prayed she might be allowed to
rest secure in the simple pleasures she then enjoyed. "Happiness is not
a plant of this earth," said she to herself with a sigh; "but God gives
peace and tranquillity to the virtuous in all situations, and under
every trial. Let me then strive to make Mary virtuous, and leave the
rest to Him who alone knoweth what is good for us!"




CHAPTER XXV.

"Th' immortal line in sure succession reigns,
The fortune of the family remains,
And grandsires' grandsons the long list contains."

DRYDEN'S _Virgil._

"We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."

_Tempest._

BUT Mary's back and Mary's complexion now ceased to be the first objects
of interest at! Glenfern; for, to the inexpressible delight and
amazement of the sisters, Mrs. Douglas, after due warning, became the
mother of a son. How this event had been brought about without the
intervention of Lady Maclaughlan was past the powers of Miss Grizzy's
comprehension. To the last moment they had been sceptical, for Lady
Maclaughlan had shook her head and humphed whenever the subject was
mentioned. For several months they had therefore vibrated between their
own sanguine hopes and their oracle's disheartening doubts; and even
when the truth was manifest, a sort of vague tremor took possession of
their mind, as to what Lady Maclaughlan would think of it.

"I declare I don't very well know how to announce this happy event to
Lady Maclaughlan," said Miss Grizzy, as she sat in a ruminating posture,
with her pen in her hand; "it will give her the greatest pleasure, I
know that; she has such a regard for our family, she would go any
lengths for us. At the same time, everybody must be sensible it is a
delicate matter to tell a person of Lady Maclaughlan's skill they have
been mistaken. I'm sure I don't know how she may take it: and yet she
can't suppose it will make any difference in our sentiments for her. She
must be sensible we have all the greatest respect for her opinion."

"The wisest people are sometimes mistaken," observed Miss Jacky.

"I'm sure, Jacky, that's very true," said Grizzy, brightening up at the
brilliancy of this remark.

"And it's better she should have been mistaken than Mrs. Douglas,"
followed up Miss Nicky.

"I declare, Nicky, you are perfectly right; and I shall just say so
at once to Lady Maclaughlan."

The epistle was forthwith commenced by the enlightened Grizelda. Miss
Joan applied herself to the study of "The Whole Duty of Man," which she
was, determined to make herself mistress of for the benefit of her
grand-nephew; and Miss Nicholas fell to reckoning all who could, would,
or should be at the christening, that she might calculate upon the
quantity of _dreaming-bread_ that would be required. The younger ladies
were busily engaged in divers and sundry disputes regarding the right to
succession to a once-white lutestring negligee of their mother's, which
three of them had laid their accounts with figuring in at the
approaching celebration. The old gentleman was the only one in the
family who took the least of the general happiness. He had got into a
habit of being fretted about everything that happened, and he could not
entirely divest himself of it even upon this occasion. His parsimonious
turns, too, had considerably increased; and his only criterion of
judging of anything was according to what it would bring.

"Sorra tak me if ane wadnae think, to hear ye, this was the first bairn
that e'er was born! 'What'sa' the fraize aboot, ye gowks?" (to his
daughters)--"a whingin get! that'll tak mail' oot o' fowk's pockets
than e'er it'll pit into them! Mony a guid profitable beast's been
brought into the warld and ne'er a word in in'ts heed."

All went on smoothly. Lady Maclaughlan testified no resentment. Miss
Jacky had the "The Whole Duty of Man" at her finger-ends; and Miss Nicky
was not more severe than could have been expected, considering, as she
did, how the servants at Lochmarlie must be living at hack and manger.
It had been decided at Glenfern that the infant heir to its consequence
could not with propriety be christened any where but at the seat of his
forefathers. Mr. and Mrs. Douglas had good-humouredly yielded the
point; and, as soon as she was able for the change, the whole family
took up their residence for a season under the paternal roof.

Blissful visions floated around the pillows of the happy spinsters the
night preceding the christening, which were duly detailed at the
breakfast-table the following morning.

"I declare I don't know what to think of my dream," began Miss Grizzy.
"I dreamt that Lady Maclaughlan was upon her knees to you, brother, to
get you to take an emetic; and just as she had mixed it up so nicely in
some of our black-currant jelly, little Norman snatched it out of your
hand and ran away with it."

"You're eneugh to turn onybody's stamick wi'your nonsense," returned
the Laird gruffly.

"And I," said Miss Jacky, "thought I saw you standing in your shirt,
brother, as straight as a rash, and good Lady Girnachgowl buckling her
collar upon you with her own hands."

"I wish ye wadna deive me wi' your havels!" still more indignantly, and
turning his shoulder to the fair dreamer, as he continued to con over
the newspaper.

"And I," cried Miss Nicky, eager to get her mystic tale disclosed, "I
thought, brother, I saw you take and throw all the good dreaming-bread
into the ash-hole."

"By my troth, an' ye deserve to be thrown after't!" exclaimed the
exasperated Laird, as he quitted the room in high wrath, muttering to
himself, "Hard case--canna get peace--eat my vittals--fules--
tawpiesclavers!" etc. etc.

"I declare I can't conceive why Glenfern should be so ill pleased at our
dreams," said Miss Grizzy. "Everybody knows dreams are always contrary;
and even were it otherwise, I'm sure I should think no shame to take an
emetic, especially when Lady Maclaughlan was at the trouble of mixing it
up so nicely."

"And we have all worn good Lady Girnachgowl's collar
before now," said Miss Jacky.

"I think I had the worst of it, that had all my good dreaming-bread
destroyed," added Mis Nicky.

"Nothing could be more natural than you dreams," said Mrs. Douglas,
"considering how all these subjects have engrossed you for some time
past. You, Aunt Grizzy, may remember how desirous you were of
administering one of Lady Maclaughlan's powders to my little boy
yesterday; and you, Aunt Jacky, made a point of trying Lady
Girnachgowl's collar upon Mary, to convince her how pleasant it was;
while you, Aunt Nicky, had experienced a great alarm in supposing your
cake had been burned in the oven. And these being the most vivid
impression you had received during the day, it was perfectly natural
that they should have retained their influence during a portion of the
night."

The interpretations were received with high disdain. One and all
declared they never dreamed of anything that _had_ occurred; and
therefore the visions of the night portended some extraordinary good
fortune to the family in general, and to little Norman in particular.

"The best fortune I can wish for him, and all of us, for this day is,
that he should remain quiet during the ceremony," said his mother, who
was not so elated as Lady Macbeth at the predictions of the sisters.

The christening party mustered strong; and the rites of baptism were
duly performed by the Rev. Duncan M'Drone. The little Christian had been
kissed by every lady in company, and pronounced by the matrons to be "a
dainty little _doug!_" and by the misses to be "the sweetest lamb they
had ever seen!" The cake and wine was in its progress round the company;
when, upon its being tendered to the old gentleman, who was sitting
silent in his arm-chair, he abruptly exclaimed, in a most discordant
voice, "Hey! what's a' this wastery for?"--and ere an answer could be
returned his jaw dropped, his eyes fixed, and the Laird of Glenfern
ceased to breathe!




CHAPTER XXVI.

"They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to
make modern and familiar things supernatural and causeless. Hence it is
that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves into seeming
knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear."--_All's
Well that ends Well_.

ALL attempts to reanimate the lifeless form proved unavailing; and the
horror and consternation that reigned in the castle of Glenfern may be
imagined, but cannot be described. There is perhaps no feeling of our
nature so vague, so complicated, so mysterious, as that with which we
look upon the cold remains of our fellow-mortals. The dignity with which
death invests even the meanest of his victims inspires us with an awe no
living thing can create. The monarch on his throne is less awful than the
beggar in his shroud. The marble features--the powerless hand--the
stiffened limbs--oh! who can contemplate these with feelings that can be
defined? These are the mockery of all our hopes and fears, our fondest
love our fellest hate. Can it be that we now shrink with horror from the
touch of that hand which but yesterday was fondly clasped in our own? Is
that tongue, whose accents even now dwell in our ear, forever chained in
the silence of death? These black and heavy eyelids, are they for ever
to seal up in darkness the eyes whose glance no earthly power could
restrain? And the spirit which animated the clay, where is it now? Is it
wrapt in bliss, or dissolved in woe? Does it witness our grief, and
share our sorrows? Or is the mysterious tie that linked it with
mortality forever broken? And the remembrance of earthly scenes, are
they indeed to the enfranchised spirit as the morning dream, or the dew
upon the early flower? Reflections such as these naturally arise in
every breast. Their influence is felt, though their import cannot always
be expressed. The principle is in all the same, however it may differ in
its operations.

In the family assembled round the lifeless form that had so long been
the centre of their domestic circle, grief showed itself under various
forms. The calm and manly sorrow of the son; the saint-like feelings of
his wife; the youthful agitation of Mary; the weak superstitious
wailings of the sisters; and the loud uncontrolled lamentations of the
daughters; all betokened an intensity of suffering that arose from the
same source, varied according to the different channels in which it
flowed. Even the stern Lady Maclaughlan was subdued to something of
kindred feeling; and though no tears dropped from her eyes, she sat by
her friends, and sought, in her own way, to soften their affliction.

The assembled guests, who had not yet been able to take their departure,
remained in the drawing-room in a sort of restless solemnity peculiar to
seasons of collateral affliction, where all seek to highten the effect
upon others, and shift the lesson from themselves. Various were the
surmises and peculations as to the cause of the awful transition that
had just taken place.

"Glenfern was nae like a man that wad hae gaen aff in this
gate," said one.

"I dinna ken," said another; "I've notic'd a chainge on Glenfern for
a gey while noo."

"I agree wi' you, sir," said a third. "In my mind Glenfern's been
droopin' very sair ever since the last tryst."

"At Glenfern's time o' life it's no surprisin'," remarked a fourth, who
felt perfectly secure of being fifteen years his junior.

"Glenfern was na that auld neither," retorted a fifth, whose conscience
smote him with being years his senior.

"But he had a deal o' vexation frae his faemily," said an elderly
bachelor.

"Ye offen see a hale stoot man, like oor puit freend, gang like the
snuff o' a cannel," coughed up a pthisicky gentleman.

"He was aye a tume, boss-looking man ever since I mind him," wheezed out
a swollen asthmatic figure.

"An' he took nae care o' himsel'," said he Laird of Pettlechass. "His
diet was nae what it should hae been at his time o' life. An' he was oot
an' in, up an' doon, in a' wathers, wat an' dry."

"Glenfern's doings had naething to du wi' his death," said an ancient
gentlewoman with solemnity. "They maun ken little wha ne'er heard the
bod-word of the family." And she repeated in Gaelic words to the
following effect:--

"When Loehdow shall turn to a lin, [1]
In Glenfern ye'll hear the din;
When frae Benenck they shool the sna',
O'er Glenfern the leaves will fa';
When foreign geer grows on Benenck tap,
Then the fir tree will be Glenfern's hap."

[1] Cataract.

"An' noo, ma'am, will ye be sae gude as point oot the meanin' o' this
freet," said an incredulous-looking member of the company; "for when I
passed Lochdow this mornin' I neither saw nor heard o' a lin; an' frae
this window we can a' see Benenck wi' his white night-cap on; an' he wad
hae little to do that wad try to shoal it aff."

"It's neither o' the still water nor the stay brae that the word was
spoke," replied the dame, with a disdainful frown; "they tak' nae part
in our doings: but kent ye nae that Lochdow himsel' had tined his sight
in a cataract; an' is nae there dule an' din eneuch in Glenfern the day?
An' kent ye nae that Benenck had his auld white pow shaven, an' that
he's gettin' a jeezy frae Edinburgh?--an' I'se warran' he'll be in his
braw wig the very day that Glenfern'll be laid in his deal coffin."

The company admitted the application was too
close to be resisted; but the same sceptic (who, by-the-bye, was only a
low country merchant, elevated by purchase to the dignity of a Highland
laird) was seen to shrug his shoulders, and hear to make some sneering
remarks on the days of second-sights and such superstitious nonsense
being past. This was instantly laid hold of; and amongst many others of
the same sort, the truth of the following story was attested by one of
the party, as having actually occurred in his family within his own
remembrance.

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