Book: Marriage

S >> Susan Edmonstone Ferrier >> Marriage




This was the second spring Mary had seen set in, in England. But the
first had been wayward and backward as the seasons of her native
climate. The present was such a one as poets love to paint. Nature was
in all its first freshness and beauty--the ground was covered with
flowers, the luxuriant hedgerows were white with blossoms, the air was
impregnated with the odours of the gardens and orchards. Still Mary
sighed as she thought of Lochmarlie--its wild tangled woods, with here
and there a bunch of primroses peeping forth from amidst moss and
withered ferns--its gurgling rills, blue lakes, and rocks, and
mountains--all rose to view; and she felt that, even amid fairer scenes,
and beneath brighter suns, her heart would still turn with fond regret
to the land of her birth.




CHAPTER XXXIII.

"Wondrous it is, to see in diverse mindes
How diversly Love doth his pageants play
And shows his power in variable kinds."

SPENSER.

BUT even the charms of spring were overlooked by Lady Emily in the
superior delight she experienced at hearing that the ship in which
Edward Douglas was had arrived at Portsmouth; and the intelligence was
soon followed by his own arrival at Beech Park. He was received by her
with rapture, and by Mary with the tenderest emotion. Lord Courtland was
always glad of an addition to the family party; and even Lady Juliana
experienced something like emotion as she beheld her son, now the exact
image of what his father had been twenty years before.

Edward Douglas was indeed a perfect model of youthful beauty, and
possessed of all the high spirits and happy _insouciance_ which can only
charm at that early period. He loved his profession, and had already
distinguished himself in it. He was handsome, brave, good-hearted, and
good-humoured, but he was not clever; and Mary felt some solicitude as
to the permanency of of Lady Emily's attachment to him. But Lady Emily,
quick-sighted to the defects of the whole world, seemed happily blind to
those of her lover; and when even Mary's spirits were almost exhausted
by his noisy rattle, Lady Emily, charmed and exhilarated, entered into
all his practical jokes and boyish frolics with the greatest delight.

She soon perceived what was passing in Mary's mind.

"I see perfectly well what you think of my _penchant_ for Edward," said
she one day; "I can tell you exactly what was passing in your thoughts
just now. You were thinking how strange, how passing strange it is, that
I, who am (false modesty avaunt!) certainly cleverer than Edward, should
yet be so partial to him, and that my lynx eyes should have failed to
discover in him faults which, with a single glance, I should have
detected in others. Now, can't you guess what renders even these very
faults so attractive to me?"

"The old story, I suppose?" said Mary. "Love."

"Not at all. Love might blind me to his faults altogether, and then my
case would be indeed hopeless, were I living in the belief that I was
loving a piece of perfection--a sort of Apollo Belvidere in mind as well
as in person. Now, so far from that, I could reckon you up a whole
catalogue of his faults; and nevertheless, I love him with my whole
heart, faults and all. In the first place, they are the faults with
which I have been familiar from infancy; and therefore they possess a
charm (to my shame be it said!) greater than other people's virtues
would have to me. They come over my fancy like some snatch of an old
nursery song, which one loves to hear in defiance of taste and reason,
merely because it is something that carries us back to those days which,
whatever they were in reality, always look bright and sunny in
retrospection. In the second place, his faults are real, genuine,
natural faults; and in this age of affectation how refreshing it is to
meet with even a natural fault! I grant you, Edward talks absurdly, and
asks questions _a faire dresser les cheveux_ of a Mrs. Bluemits.
But that amuses me; for his ignorance is not the ignorance of vulgarity
or stupidity, but the ignorance of a light head and a merry heart--of
one, in short, whose understanding has been at sea when other people's
were at school. His _bonmots_ certainly would not do to be printed; but
then they make me laugh a great deal more than if they were better, for
he is always _naif_ and original, and I prefer an in indifferent
original any day to a good copy. How it shocks me to hear people
recommending to their children to copy such a person's manners! A copied
manner, how insupportable! The servile imitator of a set pattern, how
despicable! No! I would rather have Edward in all the freshness of his
own faults rather than in the faded semblance of another persons's
proprieties."

Mary agreed to the truth of her cousin's observations in some respects,
though she could not help thinking that love had as much to say in her
case as in most others; for if it did not blind her to her lover's
faults, it certainly made her much more tolerant of them.

Edward was, in truth, at times almost provokingly boyish and unthinking,
and possessed a flow of animal spirits as inexhaustible as they were
sometimes overpowering; but she flattered herself time would subdue them
to a more rational tone; and she longed for his having the advantages of
Colonel Lennox's society--not by way of pattern, as Lady Emily expressed
it, but that he might be gradually led to something of more refinement,
from holding intercourse with a superior mind. And she obtained her wish
sooner than she had dared to hope for it. That battle was fought which
decided the fate of Europe, and turned so many swords into ploughshares;
and Mary seemed now touching the pinnacle of happiness when she saw her
lover restored to her. He had gained additional renown in the bloody
field of Waterloo; and, more fortunate than others, his military career
had terminated both gloriously and happily.

If Mary had ever distrusted the reality of his affection, all her doubts
were now at an end. She saw she was beloved with all the truth and
ardour of a noble ingenuous mind, too upright to deceive others, too
enlightened to deceive itself. All reserve betwixt them was now at an
end; and, secure in mutual affection, nothing seemed to oppose itself to
their happiness.

Colonel Lennox's fortune was small; but such as it was,
it seemed sufficient for all the purposes of rational enjoyment. Both
were aware that wealth is a relative thing, and that the positively rich
are not those who have the largest possessions but those who have the
fewest vain or selfish desires to gratify. From these they were happily
exempt. Both possessed too many resources in their own minds to require
the stimulus of spending money to rouse them into enjoyment, or give
them additional importance in the eyes of the world; and, above all,
both were too thoroughly Christian in their principles to murmur at any
sacrifices or privations they might have to endure in the course of
their earthly pilgrimage.

But Lady Juliana's weak, worldly mind, saw things in a very different
light; and when Colonel Lennox, as a matter of form, applied to her for
her consent to their union, he received a positive and angry refusal.
She declared she never would consent to any daughter of hers making so
foolish, so very unsuitable a marriage. And then, sending for Mary, she
charged her, in the most peremptory manner, to break of all intercourse
with Colonel Lennox.

Poor Mary was overwhelmed with grief and amazement at this new display
of her mother's tyranny and injustice, and used all the powers of
reasoning and entreaty to alter her sentiments; but in vain. Since
Adelaide's elopement Lady Juliana had been much in want of some subject
to occupy her mind--something to excite a sensation, and give her
something to complain of, and talk about, and put her in a bustle, and
make her angry, and alarmed, and ill-used, and, in short, all the things
which a fool is fond of being.

Although Mary had little hopes of being able to prevail by any
efforts of reason, she yet tried to make her mother comprehend the
nature of her engagement with Colonel Lennox as of a sacred nature, and
too binding ever to be dissolved. But Lady Juliana's wrath blazed forth
with redoubled violence at the very mention of an engagement. She had
never heard of anything so improper. Colonel Lennox must be a most
unprincipled man to lead her daughter into an engagement unsanctioned by
her; and she had acted in the most improper manner in allowing herself
to form an attachment without the consent of those who had the best
title to dispose of her. The person who could act thus was not fit to be
trusted, and in future it would be necessary for her to have her
constantly under her own eye.

Mary found her candour had therefore only reduced her to the alternative
of either openly rebelling, or of submitting to be talked at, and
watched, and guarded, as if she had been detected in carrying on some
improper clandestine intercourse. But she submitted to all the
restrictions that were imposed and the torments that were inflicted, if
not with the heroism of a martyr, at least with the meekness of one; for
no murmur escaped her lips. She was only anxious to conceal from others
the extent of her mother's folly and injustice, and took every
opportunity of entreating Colonel Lennox's silence and forbearance. It
required, indeed, all her influence to induce him to submit patiently to
the treatment he experienced. Lady Juliana had so often repeated to Mary
that it was the greatest presumption in Colonel Lennox to aspire to a
daughter of hers, that she had fairly talked herself into the belief
that he was all she asserted him to be--a man of neither birth nor
fortune certainly a Scotsman from his name--consequently having
thousands of poor cousins and vulgar relations of every description. And
she was determined that no daughter of hers should ever marry a man
whose family connections she knew nothing about. She had suffered a
great deal too much from her (Mary's) father's low relations ever to run
the risk of anything of the same kind happening again. In short, she at
length made it out clearly, to her own satisfaction, that Colonel Lennox
was scarcely a gentleman; and she therefore considered it as her duty to
treat him on every occasion with the most marked rudeness. Colonel
Lennox pitied her folly too much to be hurt by her ill-breeding and
malevolence, but he could scarcely reconcile it to his notions of duty
that Mary's superior mind should submit to the thraldom of one who
evidently knew not good from evil.

Lady Emily was so much engrossed by her own affairs that for some time
all this went on unnoticed by her. At length she was struck with Mary's
dejection, and observed that Colonel Lennox seemed also dispirited; but,
imputing it to a lover's quarrel, she laughingly taxed them with it.
Although Mary could, suppress the cause of her uneasiness, she was too
ingenuous to deny it; and, being pressed by her cousin, she at length
disclosed to her the cause of her sorrow.

"Colonel Lennox and you have behaved like two fools," said she, at the
end of her cousin's communication. "What could possibly instigate you to
so absurd an act as that of asking Lady Juliana's consent? You surely
might have known that the person who is never consulted about anything
will invariably start difficulties to everything; and that people who
are never accustomed to be even listened to get quite unmanageable when
appealed to. Lady Juliana gave an immediate assent to Lord Glenallan's
proposals because she was the first person consulted about them; and
besides, she had a sort of an instinctive knowledge that it would create
a sensation and make her of consequence--in short, she was to act in a
sort of triple capacity, as parent, lover, and bride. Here, on the
contrary, she was aware that her consent would stand as a mere cipher,
and, once given, would never be more heard of. Liberty of opinion is an
attitude many people quite lose themselves in. When once they attempt to
think, it makes confusion worse confounded; so it is much better to take
that labour off their hands, and settle the matter for them. It would
have been quite time enough to have asked Lady Juliana's consent after
the thing was over; or, at any rate, the minute before it was to take
place. I would not even have allowed her time for a flood of tears or a
fit of hysterics. And now that your duty has brought you to this, even
my genius is a a loss how to extricate you. Gretna Green might have been
advisable, and that would have accorded with your notions of duty; that
would have been following your mamma's own footsteps; but it is become
too vulgar an exploit. I read of a hatter's apprentice having carried
off a grocer's heiress t'other day. What do you purpose doing yourself?"

"To try the effect of patience and submission," said Mary, "rather than
openly set at defiance one of the most sacred duties--the obedience of a
child to a parent. Besides, I could not possibly be happy were I to
marry under such circumstances."

"You have much too nice a conscience," said Lady Emily; "and yet I could
scarcely wish you otherwise than you are. What an angel you are, to
behave as you do to such a mother; with such sweetness, and gentleness,
and even respect! Ah! they know little of human nature who think that to
perform great actions one must necessarily be a great character. So far
from that, I now see there may be much more real greatness of mind
displayed in the quiet tenor of a woman's life than in the most
brilliant exploits that ever were performed by man. Methinks I myself
could help to storm a city; but to rule my own spirit is a task beyond
me. What a pity it is you and I cannot change places. Here am I,
languishing for a little opposition to my love. My marriage will be
quite an insipid, every-day affair; I yawn already to think of it. Can
anything be more disheartening to a young couple, anxious to signalise
their attachment in the face of the whole world, than to be allowed to
take their own way? Conceive my vexation at being told by papa this
morning that he had not the least objection to Edward and me marrying
whenever we pleased, although he thought we might both have done better;
but that was our own affair, not his; that he thought Edward a fine,
good humoured fellow--excessively amusing; hoped he would get a ship some
day, although he had no interest whatever in the Admiralty; was sorry he
could not give us any money, but hoped we should remain at Beech Park as
long as we liked. I really feel quite flat with all these dull
affirmations."

"What! you had rather have been locked up in a tower--wringing your
hands at the height of the windows, the thickness of the walls, and so
forth," said Mary.

"No: I should never have done anything so like a washerwoman as to wring
my hands; though I might, like some heroines, have fallen to work in a
regular blacksmith-way, by examining the lock of the door, and perhaps
have succeeded in picking it; but, alas! I live in degenerate days. Oh
that I had been born the persecuted daughter of some ancient baron bold
instead of the spoiled child of a good natured modern earl! Heavens! to
think that I must tamely, abjectly submit to be married in the presence
of all my family, even in the very parish church! Oh, what detractions
from the brilliancy of my star!"

In spite of her levity Lady Emily was seriously interested in her
cousin's affairs, and tried every means of obtaining Lady Juliana's
consent; but Lady Juliana was become more unmanageable than ever. Her
temper, always bad, was now soured by chagrin and disappointment into
something, if possible, still worse, and Lady Emily's authority had no
longer any control over her; even the threat of producing Aunt Grizzy to
a brilliant assembly had now lost its effect. Dr. Redgill was the only
auxiliary she possessed in the family, and he most cordially joined he in
condemning Miss Mary's obstinacy and infatuation. What could she see in
a man with such an insignificant bit of property, a mere nest for
blackbirds and linnets, and such sort of vermin. Not a morsel of any
sort of game on his grounds; while at Glenallan, he had been credibly
informed, such was the abundance that the deer had been seen stalking and
the black-cock flying past the very door! But the Doctor's indignation
was suddenly suspended by a fit of apoplexy; from which, however, he
rallied, and passed it off for the present as a sort of vertigo, in
consequence of the shock he had received at hearing of Miss Mary's
misconduct.

At length even Colonel Lennox's forbearance was exhausted, and Mary's
health and spirits were sinking beneath the conflict she had to
maintain, when a sudden revolution in Lady Juliana's plans caused also a
revolution in her sentiments. This was occasioned by a letter from
Adelaide, now Lady Lindore. It was evidently written under the influence
of melancholy and discontent; and, as Lady Emily said, nothing could be
a stronger proof of poor Adelaide's wretchedness than her expressing a
wish that her mother should join her in the South of France, where she
was going on account of her health.

Adelaide was indeed one of the many melancholy proofs of the effects of
headstrong passions and perverted principles. Lord Lindore had married
her from a point of honour; and although he possessed too much
refinement to treat her ill, yet his indifference was not the less
cutting to a spirit haughty as hers. Like many others, she had vainly
imagined that, in renouncing virtue itself for the man she loved, she
was for ever ensuring his boundless gratitude and adoration; and she
only awoke from her delusive dream to find herself friendless in a
foreign land, an outcast from society, an object of indifference even to
him for whom she had abandoned all.

But Lady Juliana would see nothing of all this. She was charmed at what
she termed this proof of her daughter's affection, in wishing to have
her with her; and the prospect of going abroad seemed like a vision of
paradise to her. Instant preparations were made for her departure, and
in the bustle attendant on them, Mary and her affairs sank into utter
insignificance. Indeed, she seemed rather anxious to get her disposed of
in any way that might prevent her interfering with her own plans; and a
consent to her marriage, such as it was, was easily obtained.

"Marry whom you please," said she; "only remember I am not responsible
for the consequences. I have always told you what a wretched thing a
love-marriage is, therefore you are not to blame me for your future
misery."

Mary readily subscribed to the conditions; but, as she embraced her
mother at parting, she timidly whispered a hope that she would ever
consider her house as her home. A smile of contempt was the only reply
she received, and they parted never more to meet. Lady Juliana found
foreign manners and principles too congenial to her tastes ever to return
to Britain.




CHAPTER XXXIV.

"O most gentle Jupiter! what tedious homily of love have
you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried,
_Have patience, good people!"_

_As You Like it._

THE only obstacle to her union thus removed, Mary thought she might now
venture to let her Aunt Grizzy into the secret; and accordingly, with
some little embarrassment, she made the disclosure of the mutual
attachment subsisting between Colonel Lennox and herself. Grizzy
received the communication with all the astonishment which ladies
usually experience upon being made acquainted with a marriage which they
had not had the prescience to foresee and foretell--or even one which
they had; for, common and natural as the event seems to be, it is one
which perhaps in no instance ever took place without occasioning the
greatest amazement to some one individual or another; and it will also
be generally found that either the good or the bad fortune of one or
other of the parties is the subject of universal wonder. In short, a
marriage which excites no surprise, pity, or indignation, must be
something that has never yet been witnessed on the face of this round
world. It is greatly to be feared none of my readers will sympathise in
the feelings of the good spinster on this occasion, as she poured them
forth in the following _extempore_ or _improvisatorial_ strain:-

"Well, Mary, I declare I'm perfectly confounded with all you have been
telling me! I'm sure I never heard the like of it! It seems but the
t'other day since you began your sampler; and it looks just
like yesterday since your father and mother were married. And such a work
as there was at your nursing! I'm sure your poor grandfather was out of
all patience about it. And now to think that you are going to be
married! not but what it's a thing we all expected, for there's no doubt
England's the place for young women to get husbands--we always said
that, you know; not but what I dare say you might have been married,
too, if you had stayed in the Highlands, and to a real Highlander, too,
which, of course, would have been still better for us all; for it will
be a sad thing if you are obliged to stay in England, Mary; but I hope
there's no chance of that: you know Colonel Lennox can easily sell his
place, and buy an estate in the Highlands. There's a charming property,
I know, to be sold just now, that _marches_ with Glenfern. To be sure
it's on the wrong side of the hill--there's no denying that; but then,
there's I can't tell you how many thousand acres of fine muir for
shooting, and I daresay Colonel Lennox is a keen sportsman; and they say
a great deal of it might be very much improved. We must really inquire
after it, Mary, and you must speak to Colonel Lennox about it, for you
know such a property as that may be snapped up in a minute."

Mary assented to all that was said; and Grizzy proceeded--

"I wonder you never brought Colonel Lennox to see us, Mary. I'm sure he
must think it very odd. To be sure, Sir Sampson's situation is some
excuse; but at any rate I wonder you never spoke about him. We all found
out your Aunt Bella's attachment from the very first, just from her
constantly speaking about Major M'Tavish and the militia; and we had a
good guess of Betsy's too, from the day her face turned so red after
giving Captain M'Nab for her toast; but you have really kept yours very
close, for I declare I never once suspected such a thing. I wonder if
that was Colonel Lennox that I saw you part with at the door one
day--tall, and with brown hair, and a bluecoat. I asked Lady Maclaughlan
if she knew who it was, and she said it was Admiral Benbow; but I think
she must have been mistaken, for I daresay now it was just Colonel
Lennox. Lennox--I'm sure I should be able to remember something about
somebody of that name; but my memory's not so good as it used to be, for
I have so many things, you know, to think about, with Sir Sampson, that
I declare sometimes my head's quite confused; yet I think always there's
something about them. I wish to goodness Lady Maclaughlan was come from
the dentist's, that I might consult her about it; for of course, you'll
do nothing without consulting all your friends--I know you've too much
sense for that. An here's Sir Sampson coming; it will be a fine piece of
news to tell him."

Sir Sampson having been now wheeled in by the still active Philistine,
and properly arranged with the assistance of Miss Grizzy, she took her
usual station by the side of his easy chair, and began to shout into his
ear.

"Here's my niece Mary, Sir Sampson; you remember her when she was
little, I daresay--you know you used to call her the fairy of
Lochmarlie; and I'm sure we all thought for long she would have been a
perfect fairy, she was so little; but she's tall enough now, you see,
and she's going to be married to a fine young man. None of us know him
yet, but I think I must have seen him; and at any rate I'm to see him
to-morrow, and you'll see him too, Sir Sampson, for Mary is to bring him
to call here, and he'll tell you all about the battle of Waterloo, and
the Highlanders; for he's half a Highlander too, and I'm certain he'll buy
the Dhuanbog estate, and then, when my niece Mary marries Colonel
Lennox--"

"Lennox!" repeated Sir Sampson, his little dim eyes kindling at the
name--"Who talks of Lennox I--I--I won't suffer it. Where's my Lady?
Lennox!--he's a scoundrel! You shan't marry a Lennox!" Turning to
Grizzy, "Call Philistine, and my Lady." And his agitation was so great
that even Grizzy, although accustomed for forty years to witness similar
ebullitions, became alarmed.

"You see it's all for fear of my marrying," whispered she to Mary.
"I'm sure such a disinterested attachment, it's impossible for me
ever to repay it!"

Then turning to Sir Sampson, she sought to soothe his perturbation by
oft-repeated assurances that it was not her but her niece Mary that was
going to be married to Colonel Lennox. But in vain; Sir Sampson
quivered, and panted, and muttered; and the louder Grizzy screamed out
the truth the more his irritation increased. Recourse was now had to
Philistine; and Mary, thoroughly ashamed of the eclat attending
the disclosure of her secret, and finding she could be of no use, stole
away in the midst of Miss Grizzy's endless _verbiage_, but as she
descended the stairs she still heard the same assurance resounding--"I
can assure you, Sir Sampson, it's not me, but my niece Mary that's going
to be married to Colonel Lennox," etc.

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