Book: Marriage

S >> Susan Edmonstone Ferrier >> Marriage




"As Duncan M'Crae was one evening descending Benvoilloich, he perceived
a funeral procession in the vale beneath. He was greatly surprised, not
having heard of any death in the country; and this appeared to be the
burial of some person of consequence, from the number of the attendants.
He made all the haste he could to get down; and as he drew near the
counted all the lairds of the country except my father, Sir Murdoch. He
was astonished at this, till he recollected that he was away to the low
country to his cousin's marriage; but he felt curious to know who it
was, though some unaccountable feeling prevented him from mixing with
the followers. He therefore kept on the ridge of the hill, right over
their heads, and near enough to hear them speak; but although he saw
them move their lips, no sound reached his ear. He kept along with the
procession in this way till it reached the Castle Dochart
burying-ground, and there it stopped. The evening was close and warm,
and a thick mist had gathered in the glen, while the tops of the hills
shone like gold. Not a breath of air was stirring, but the trees that
grew round the burying-ground waved and soughed, and some withered leaves
were swirled round and round, as if by the wind. The company stood a
while to rest, and then they proceeded to open the iron gates of the
burying-ground; but the lock was rusted and would not open. Then they
began to pull down part of the wall, and Duncan thought how angry his
master would be at this, and he raised his voice and shouted and
hallooed to them, but to no purpose. Nobody seemed to hear him. At last
the wall was taken down, and the coffin was lifted over, and just then
the sun broke out, and glinted on a new-made grave; and as they were
laying the coffin in it, it gave way, and disclosed Sir Murdoch himself
in his dead clothes; and then the mist grew so thick, Duncan could see
no more, and how to get home he knew not; but when he entered his own
door he was bathed in sweat, and white as any corpse; and all that he
could say was, that he had seen Castle Dochart's burying.

"The following day," continued the narrator, "he was more composed, and
gave the account you have now heard; and three days after came the
intelligence of my father's death. He had dropped down in a fit that
very evening, when entertaining a large company in honour of his
cousin's marriage; and that day week his funeral passed through
Glenvalloch exactly as described by Duncan M'Crae, with all the
particulars: The gates of the burying-ground could not he opened; part
of the wall was taken down to admit the coffin, which received some
injury, and gave way as they were placing it in the grave."

Even the low-country infidel was silenced by the solemnity of this
story; and soon after the company dispersed, everyone panting to be the
first to circulate the intelligence of Glenfern's death.

But soon--oh, how soon! "dies in human hearts the thought of death!"
Even the paltry detail which death creates serves to detach out minds
from the cause itself. So it was with the family of Glenfern. Their
light did not "shine inward;" and after the first burst of sorrow their
ideas fastened with avidity on all the paraphernalia of affliction. Mr.
Douglas, indeed, found much to do and to direct to be done. The elder
ladies began to calculate how many yards of broad hemming would be
required, and to form a muster-roll of the company; with this
improvement, that it was to be ten times as numerous as the one that had
assembled at the christening; while the young ones busied their
imaginations as to the effect of new mournings--a luxury to them
hitherto unknown. Mrs. Douglas and Mary were differently affected.
Religion and reflection had taught the former the enviable lesson of
possessing her soul in patience under every trial; and while she
inwardly mourned the fate of the poor old man who had been thus suddenly
snatched from the only world that ever had engaged his thoughts, her
outward aspect was calm and serene. The impression made upon Mary's
feelings was of a more powerful nature. She had witnessed suffering, and
watched by sick-beds; but death, and death in so terrific a form, was
new to her. She had been standing by her grandfather's chair--her head
was bent to his--her hand rested upon his, when, by a momentary
convulsion, she beheld the last dread change--the living man transformed
into the lifeless corpse. The countenance but now fraught with life and
human thoughts, in the twinkling of an eye was covered with the shades
of death! It was in vain that Mary prayed and reasoned and strove
against the feelings that had been thus powerfully excited. One object
alone possessed her imagination--the image of her grandfather
dying--dead; his grim features, his ghastly visage, his convulsive
grasp, were ever present, by day and by night. Her nervous system had
received a shock too powerful for all the strength of her understanding
to contend with. Mrs. Douglas sought by every means to soothe her
feelings and divert her attention; and flattered herself that a short
time would allay the perturbation of her youthful emotions.

Five hundred persons, horse and foot, high and low, male and female,
graced the obsequies of the Laird of Glenfern. Benenck was there in his
new wig, and the autumnal leaves dropped on the coffin as it was borne
slowly along the vale!




CHAPTER XXVII.

"It is no diminution, but a recommendation of human nature, that, in
some instances, passion gets the better of reason, and all that we can
think is impotent against half what we feel."--_Spectator._

"LIFE is a mingled yarn;" few of its afflictions but are accompanied
with some alleviation--none of its blessings that do not bring some
alloy. Like most other events that long have formed the object of
yearning and almost hopeless wishes, and on which have been built the
fairest structure of human felicity, the arrival of the young heir of
Glenfern produced a less extraordinary degree of happiness than had been
anticipated. The melancholy event which had marked the first ceremonial
of his life had cast its gloom alike on all nearly connected with him;
and when time had dispelled the clouds of recent mourning, and restored
the mourners to their habitual train of thought and action, somewhat of
the novelty which had given him such lively interest in the hearts of
the sisters had subsided. The distressing conviction, too, more and more
forced itself upon them, that their advice and assistance were likely to
be wholly overlooked in the nurture of the infant mind and management of
the thriving frame of their little nephew. Their active energies,
therefore, driven back to the accustomed channels, after many murmurs
and severe struggles, again revolved in the same sphere as before. True,
they sighed and mourned for a time, but soon found occupation congenial
to their nature in the little departments of life--dressing crape;
reviving black silk; converting narrow hems into broad hems; and in
short, who so busy, who so important, as the ladies of Glenfern? As
Madame de Stael, or de Something says, "they fulfilled their
destinies." Their walk lay amongst threads and pickles; their sphere
extended from the garret to the pantry; and often as they sought to
diverge from it, their instinct always led them to return to it, as the
tract in which they were destined to move. There are creatures of the
same sort in the male part of the creation, but it is foreign to my
purpose to describe them at present. Neither are the trifling and
insignificant of either sex to be treated with contempt, or looked upon
as useless by those whom God has gifted with higher powers. In the
arrangements of an all-wise Providence there is nothing created in vain.
Every link of the vast chain that embraces creation helps to hold
together the various relations of life; and all is beautiful gradation,
from the human vegetable to the glorious archangel.

If patient hope, if unexulting joy, and chastened anticipation,
sanctifying a mother's love, could have secured her happiness, Mrs.
Douglas would have found, in the smiles of her infant, all the comfort
her virtue deserved. But she still had to drink of that cup of sweet and
bitter, which must bathe the lips of all who breathe the breath of life.

While the instinct of a parent's love warmed her heart, as she pressed
her infant to her bosom, the sadness of affectionate and rational
solicitude stifled every sentiment of pleasure as she gazed on the
altered and drooping form of her adopted daughter of the child who had
already repaid the cares that had been lavished on her, and in whom she
descried the promise of a plenteous harvest from the good seed she had
sown. Though Mary had been healthy in childhood, her constitution was
naturally delicate, and she had latterly outgrown her strength. The
shock she had sustained by her grandfather's death, thus operating on a
weakened frame, had produced an effect apparently most alarming; and the
efforts she made to exert herself only served to exhaust her. She felt
all the watchful solicitude, the tender anxieties of her aunt, and
bitterly reproached herself with not better repaying these exertions for
her happiness. A thousand times she tried to analyse and extirpate the
saddening impression that weighed upon her heart.

"It is not sorrow," reasoned she with herself, "that thus oppresses me;
for though I reverenced my grandfather, yet the loss of his society has
scarcely been felt by me. It cannot be fear--the fear of death; for my
soul is not so abject as to confine its desires to this sublunary scene.
What, then, is this mysterious dread that has taken possession of me?
Why do I suffer my mind to suggest to me images of horror, instead of
visions of bliss? Why can I not, as formerly, picture to myself the
beauty and the brightness of a soul casting off mortality? Why must the
convulsed grasp, the stifled groan, the glaring eye, for ever come
betwixt heaven and me?"

Alas! Mary was unskilled to answer. Hers was the season for feeling, not
for reasoning. She knew not that hers was the struggle of imagination
striving to maintain its ascendency over reality. She had heard and
read, and thought and talked of death; but it was of death in its
fairest form, in its softest transition: and the veil had been abruptly
torn from her eyes; the gloomy pass had suddenly disclosed itself before
her, not strewed with flowers but shrouded in horrors. Like all persons
of sensibility, Mary had a disposition to view everything in a _beau
ideal:_ whether that is a boon most fraught with good or ill it were
difficult to ascertain. While the delusion lasts it is productive of
pleasure to its possessor; but oh! the thousand aches that heart is
destined to endure which clings to the stability and relies on the
permanency of earthly happiness! But the youthful heart must ever remain
a stranger to this saddening truth. Experience only can convince us that
happiness is not a plant of this world; and that, though many an eye
hath beheld its blossoms no mortal hand hath ever gathered its fruits.
This, then, was Mary's first lesson in what is called the knowledge of
life, as opposed to the _beau ideal_ of a young and ardent imagination
in love with life, and luxuriating in its own happiness. And, upon such
a mind it could not fail of producing a powerful impression.

The anguish Mrs. Douglas experienced as she witnessed the changing
colour, lifeless step, and forced smile of her darling _eleve _was not
mitigated by the good sense or sympathy of those around her. While Mary
had prospered under her management, in the consciousness that she was
fulfilling her duty to the best of her abilities, she could listen with
placid cheerfulness to the broken hints of disapprobation, or forced
good wishes for the success of her new-fangled schemes, that were
levelled at her by the sisters. But now, when her cares seemed defeated,
it was an additional thorn in her heart to have to endure the
commonplace wisdom and self-gratulations of the almost exulting aunts;
not that they had the slightest intention of wounding the feelings of
their niece, whom they really loved, but the temptation was irresistible
of proving that they had been in the right and she in the wrong,
especially as no such acknowledgment had yet been extorted from her.

"It is nonsense to ascribe Mary's dwining to her grandfather's death,"
said Miss Jacky. "We were all nearer to him in propinquity than she was,
and none of our healths have suffered."

"And there's his own daughters," added Miss Grizzy, "who, of course,
must have felt a great deal more than anybody else--there can be no
doubt of that--such sensible creatures as them must feel a great deal;
but yet you see how they have got up their spirits--I'm sure it's
wonderful!"

"It shows their sense and the effects of education," said Miss Jacky.

"Girls that sup their porridge will always cut a good figure," quoth
Nicky.

"With their fine feelings I'm sure we have all reason to be thankful
that they have been blest with such hearty stomachs," observed Miss
Grizzy; "if they had been delicate, like poor Mary's, I'm sure I declare
I don't know what we would have done; for certainly they were all most
dreadfully affected at their excellent father's death; which was quite
natural, poor things! I'm sure there's no pacifying poor Baby, and even
yet, neither Bella nor Betsey can bear to be left alone in a dark room.
Tibby has to sleep with them still every night; and alighted candle
too-which is much to their credit--and yet I'm sure it's not with
reading. I'm certain-indeed, I think there's no doubt of it--that
reading does young people much harm. It puts things into their heads
that never would have been there but for books. I declare, I think
reading's a very dangerous thing; I'm certain all Mary's bad health is
entirely owing to reading. You know we always thought she read a great
deal too much for her good."

"Much depends upon the choice of books," said Jacky, with an air of the
most profound wisdom, "Fordyce's Sermons and the History of Scotland are
two of the very few books _I_ would put into the hands of a young woman.
Our girls have read little else,"--casting a look at Mrs. Douglas, who
was calmly pursuing her work in the midst of this shower of darts all
levelled at her.

"To be sure," returned Grizzy, "it is a thousand pities that Mary has
been allowed to go on so long; not, I'm sure, that any of us mean to
reflect upon you, my dear Mrs. Douglas; for of course it was all owing
to your ignorance and inexperience; and that, you know, you could not
help; for it as not your fault; nobody can blame you. I'm certain you
would have done what is right if you had only known better; but of
course we must all know much better than you; because, you know, we are
all a great deal older, and especially Lady Maclaughlan, who has the
greatest experience in the diseases of old men especially, and infants.
Indeed it has been he study of her life almost; for, you know, poor Sir
Sampson is never well; and I dare say, if Mary had taken some of her
nice worm-lozenges, which certainly cured Duncan M'Nab's wife's
daughter's little girl of the jaundice, and used that valuable growing
embrocation, which we are all sensible made Baby great deal fatter, I
dare say there would have been thing the matter with her to-day."

"Mary has been too much accustomed to spend both her time and money
amongst idle vagrants," said Nicky.

"Economy of both," subjoined Jacky, with an air of humility, "_I_
confess I have ever been accustomed to consider as virtues. These
handsome respectable new bonnets"--looking _from_ Mrs. Douglas--"that
our girls got just before their poor father's death, were entirely the
fruits of their own savings."

"And I declare," said Grizzy, who did not excel in innuendos, "I declare,
for my part--although at the same time, my dear niece, I'm certain you
are far from intending it--I really think it's very disrespectful to Sir
Sampson and Lady Maclaughlan, in anybody, and especially such near
neighbours, to give more in charity than they do; for you may be sure
they give as much as they think proper, and they must be the best
judges, and can afford to give what they please; for Sir Sampson could
buy and sell all of us a hundred times over if he liked. It's long since
the Lochmarlie estate was called seven thousand a year; and besides that
there's the Birkendale property and the Glenmavis estate, and I'm sure I
can't tell you all what; but there's no doubt he's a man of immense
fortune."

Well it was known and frequently was it discussed, the iniquity of Mary
being allowed to waste her time and squander her money amongst the poor,
instead of being taught the practical virtues of making her own gowns,
and of hoarding up her pocket-money for some selfish gratification.

In colloquies such as these day after day passed on without any visible
improvement taking place in her health. Only one remedy suggested itself
to Mrs. Douglas, and that was to remove her to the south of England for
the winter. Milder air and change of scene she had no doubt would prove
efficacious; and her opinion was confirmed by that of the celebrated
Dr.-----, who, having been summoned to the Laird of Pettlechass, had
paid a visit at Glenfern _en passant._ How so desirable an event was to
be accomplished was the difficulty. By the death of his father a variety
of business and an extent of farming had devolved upon Mr. Douglas which
obliged him to fix his residence at Glenfern, and rendered it impossible
for him to be long absent from it. Mrs. Douglas had engaged in the
duties of a nurse to her little boy, and to take him or leave him was
equally out of the question.

In this dilemma the only resource that offered was that of sending Mary
for a few months to her mother. True, it was a painful necessity; for
Mrs. Douglas seldom heard from her sister-in-law, and when she did, her
letters were short and cold. She sometimes desired "a kiss to her
(Mrs. Douglas's) little girl," and once, in an extraordinary fit of good
humour, had actually sent a locket with her hair in a letter by post,
for which Mrs. Douglas had to pay something more than the value of the
present. This was all that Mary knew of her mother, and the rest of her
family were still greater strangers to her. Her father remained in a
distant station in India, and was seldom heard of. Her brother was gone
to sea; and though she had written repeatedly to her sister, her letters
remained unnoticed. Under these circumstances there was something
revolting in the idea of obtruding Mary upon the notice of her
relations, and trusting to their kindness even for a few months; yet her
health, perhaps her life, was at stake, and Mrs. Douglas felt she had
scarcely a right to hesitate.

"Mary has perhaps been too long an alien from her own family," said she
to herself; "this will be a means of her becoming acquainted with them,
and of introducing her to that sphere in which she is probably destined
to walk. Under her uncle's roof she will surely be safe, and in the
society of her mother and sister she cannot be unhappy. New scenes will
give a stimulus to her mind; the necessity of exertion will brace the
languid faculties of her soul, and a few short months, I trust, will
restore her to me such and even superior to what she was. Why, then,
should I hesitate to do what my conscience tells me ought to be done?
Alas! it is because I selfishly shrink from the pain of separation, and
am unwilling to relinquish, even for a season, one of the many blessings
Heaven has bestowed upon me." And Mrs. Douglas, noble and disinterested
as ever, rose superior to the weakness that she felt was besetting her.
Mary listened to her communication with a throbbing heart and eyes
suffused with tears; to part from her aunt was agony; but to behold her
mother--she to whom she owed her existence, to embrace a sister too--and
one for whom she felt all those mysterious yearnings which twins are
said to entertain towards each other--oh, there was rapture in the
thought, and Mary's buoyant heart fluctuated between the extremes of
anguish and delight.

The venerable sisters received the intelligence with much surprise: they
did not know very well what to say about it; there was much to be said
both for and against it. Lady Maclaughlan had a high opinion of English
air; but then they had heard the morals of the people were not so good,
and there were a great many dissipated young men in England; though, to
be sure, there was no denying but the mineral waters were excellent;
and, in short, it ended in Miss Grizzy's sitting down to concoct an
epistle to Lady Maclaughlan; in Miss Jacky's beginning to draw up a code
of instructions for a young woman upon her entrance into life; and Miss
Nicky hoping that if Mary did go, she would take care not to bring back
any extravagant English notions with her. The younger set debated
amongst themselves how many of them would be invited to accompany Mary
to England, and from thence fell to disputing the possession of a brown
hair trunk, with a flourished D in brass letters on the top.

Mrs. Douglas, with repressed feelings, set about offering the sacrifice
she had planned, and in a letter to Lady Juliana, descriptive of her
daughter's situation, she sought to excite her tenderness without
creating an alarm. How far she succeeded will be seen hereafter. In the
meantime we must take a retrospective glance at the last seventeen years
of her Ladyship's life.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

_Her_ "only labour was to kill the time;
And labour dire it is, and weary woe."

_Castle of Indolence._

YEARS had rolled on amidst heartless pleasures and joyless amusements,
but Lady Juliana was made neither the wiser nor the better by added
years and increased experience. Time had in vain turned his glass
before eyes still dazzled with the gaudy allurements of the world, for
she took "no note of time" but as the thing that was to take her to the
Opera and the Park, and that sometimes hurried her excessively, and
sometimes bored her to death. At length she was compelled to abandon her
chase after happiness in the only sphere where she believed it was to be
found. Lord Courtland's declining health unfitted him for the
dissipation of a London life; and, by the advice of his physician, he
resolved upon retiring to a country seat which he possessed in the
vicinity of Bath. Lady Juliana was in despair at the thoughts of this
sudden wrench from what she termed "life;" but she had no resource; for
though her good-natured husband gave her the whole of General Cameron's
allowance, that scarcely served to keep her in clothes; and though her
brother was perfectly willing that she and her children should occupy
apartments in his house, yet he would have been equally acquiescent had
she proposed to remove from it. Lady Juliana had a sort of instinctive
knowledge of this, which prevented her from breaking out into open
remonstrance. She therefore contented herself with being more than
usually peevish and irascible to her servants and children, and talking
to her friends of the prodigious sacrifice she was about to make for her
brother and his family, as if it had been the cutting off of a hand or
the plucking out of an eye. To have heard her, anyone unaccustomed to
the hyperbole of fashionable language would have deemed Botany Bay the
nearest possible point of destination. Parting from her fashionable
acquaintances was tearing herself from all she loved; quitting London
was bidding adieu to the world. Of course there could be no society
where she was going, but still she would do her duty; she would not
desert dear Frederick and his poor children! In short, no martyr was
ever led to the stake with half the notions of heroism and self-devotion
as those with which Lady Juliana stepped into the barouche that was to
conduct her to Beech Park. In the society of piping bullfinches, pink
canaries, gray parrots, goldfish, green squirrels, Italian greyhounds,
and French poodles, she sought a refuge from despair. But even these
varied charms, after a while, failed to please. The bullfinches grew
hoarse; the canaries turned brown; the parrots became stupid; the gold
fish would not eat; the squirrels were cross; the dogs fought; even a
shell grotto that was constructing fell down; and by the time the aviary
and conservatory were filled, they had lost their interest. The children
were the next subjects for her Ladyship's ennui to discharge itself
upon. Lord Courtland had a son some years older, and a daughter nearly
of the same age as her own. It suddenly occurred to her that they must
be educated, and that she would educate the girls herself. As the first
step she engaged two governesses, French and Italian; modern treatises
on the subject of education were ordered from London, looked at,
admired, and arranged on gilded shelves and sofa tables; and could their
contents have exhaled with the odours of their Russia leather bindings,
Lady Juliana's dressing-room would have been what Sir Joshua Reynolds
says every seminary of learning _is,_ "an atmosphere of floating
knowledge." But amidst this splendid display of human lore, THE BOOK
found no place. She _had_ heard of the Bible, however, and even knew it
was a book appointed to be read in churches, and given to poor people,
along with Rumford soup and flannel shirts; but as the rule of life, as
the book that alone could make wise unto salvation, this Christian
parent was ignorant as the Hottentot or Hindoo.

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