General Bounce; Or, The Lady and the Locusts. G. J. Whyte-Melville
with its majestic sweep and lofty gestures—her goddess-like head, set on as if the Greek had carved its proportions with his unerring chisel—her dark, deep-set grey eye, with its long lashes, veiling a world of penetration, reflection, ay, and sentiment, for the happy man who could bid it kindle into love—her faultless profile and firm determined mouth, her father’s legacy, with the courage it betokened—her low, lovable brow, with its masses of thick, dark brown hair plainly braided on each side of that pale, haunting face, beautiful in the deep expression which arrives only with the maturity of womanhood; with all this she might have been a queen, yet what had she to do with pride?—a question not to be asked of a friendless, desolate woman, trudging along the streets in the dreary isolation of loneliness in London, wasting her beauty in the strife for bread, wearing her talents threadbare in the drudgery of a daily music-mistress. What a lot if there were nothing beyond! To rise early in that dingy atmosphere—to breakfast hurriedly on such a spare meal as the lady’s-maid next door would deem insufficient for her mistress’s poodle—to leave the dreary lodging for the scarce less dreary street; day after day to make the same round, waiting upon vulgar parents and stupid children—day after day to bend rebellious fingers over the soul-breathing chords—to dissect the harmony of heaven into “one—two—three—four,” “one—two—three—four,”—and day after day to return, wearied out in body and mind, to the solitary room which cannot be called a home, and the rent of which, dear on account of the situation, swallows up the hard-earned coins that should decorate and supply its vacuity; with nothing to cheer, nothing to amuse, nothing to console, not even the consciousness of that beauty which is only a cause of annoyance and remark; and, above all, with nothing to love—what a lot would this be, were there not a something to look forward to—a humble hope that this is but a state of trial and probation—a humble confidence that the reward is sure to come at last!
And who was Mary Delaval? One of the many instances of a child suffering for the sins of its parents. We have said her father was a soldier, but, alas! her mother never was, properly speaking, Mrs. Delaval. Poor woman, she committed her one fault, and dearly she atoned for it. She shut the door upon herself, and her sex took good care that it should never again show a chink open to let her in. Trust them for that! she was not a proper person to be visited, and she remained outside. Captain Delaval would have married her, had he thought such a sacrifice on his part would have improved her position, for he loved her dearly; but he knew it could be of no use, in a worldly point of view, the only one in which he considered the subject, so he put it off and put it off, till too late. She never complained of the injustice done her, but it broke her heart. Rich in beauty and accomplishments, she had run away with the handsome, young artillery officer rather than be forced into a match which she detested, by a step-mother she despised. She had but one child, and on that child, it is needless to say, she doted foolishly. Delaval was a curious fellow, easy-tempered to a fault, careless of the world’s opinion, and of everything but his own comfort and indulgences; a gallant soldier, notwithstanding, as brave as a lion, and a perfect authority in the code of honour adopted by his profession. Yet, for all this, he allowed the mother of his child to go upon the stage, under a feigned name, that he might live in luxury upon her earnings. Fortunately, it may be, for all parties, the artillery officer caught cold out duck-shooting, and was honoured with a military funeral some ten days afterwards. He left all he had, a small pittance, to the woman he had so deeply injured, and she retired with her daughter into a humble cottage in the West of England, where, for a time, they lived as happy as the day is long. Her whole energies were devoted to the education of her child. She taught her all she had herself learned—no mean list of acquirements—and young Mary Delaval (for, by the deceased officer’s wish, they always bore his name) was skilled far beyond other girls of her age in the graceful accomplishments of womanhood, as well as in those deeper studies which strengthen the mind and form the character of youth. But Mary’s girlhood had an advantage, in which her mother’s was deficient. That mother, with the earnestness of one into whose soul the iron had deeply entered, impressed upon her daughter the lesson she had herself so painfully learned: “Put not your trust in man,” was the substance of many a tearful entreaty, many a sage homily, from the repentant sinner to her innocent child; and, though the girl’s faith was sadly shaken in the integrity of the creature, it was anchored all the more firmly in reliance on his Creator. The mother’s health was but precarious. Often she thought, “What will become of Mary when I must leave her alone in the world?” and, having little else to bestow, she bequeathed to her darling that best legacy of all, the heritage of an immortal soul. Poor thing! her own constitution had been sadly broken by anxiety and disappointment, and the heart-wearing conviction that she had given up home, comfort, friends, good fame, everything, to fasten her young pure love on an unworthy object. Oh! the sickening misery of that moment, when first the idol’s shrine is found to be a blank! when first the dreary misgiving dawns upon us, that the being for whom we have sacrificed our earthly all, and offered it with a smile—whom we have endued with all the attributes for which our own heart yearns—whom we have clothed with the gorgeous colouring of fancy, and decked in the false glitter of our own imagination—whom we have raised upon a pedestal, to place our neck beneath its feet, is but a stock or a stone, after all! Poor idolaters! are we not rightly punished? Have we not exalted man to be our God? and shall we worship the thing of clay with impunity? No; the very crime is made to bear its own atonement. Better that we should bow down to the dust, with crushed and empty hearts, than live on in the vain mockery of a false worship, in the degradation of a soul’s homage to a mortal deity.
Poor Mrs. Delaval (for as such was the penitent lady known) bore her punishment without a murmur; but it was a sad task to leave Mary among strangers, when failing strength and wasting limbs warned her that she must soon depart. The girl was in the first lovely bloom of womanhood, bright and beautiful as if she had never known sorrow or self-denial; and must she leave her now, when most she wants a mother’s care? God’s will be done! There is a humble grave, in the corner of a retired churchyard, far away in the West, marked by a plain grey stone, and the initial letters of a name—nothing more; and there the spring daisies are growing over the head of one who loved not wisely—who erred, and was forgiven, but not here.
Mary Delaval was left to fight single-handed against the world. A hard battle it is for those who are not furnished with the sinews of war.
The small sum bequeathed to her by her mother’s care was invested in a savings bank, which failed. By the way, the failure was casually mentioned in the morning papers, and trustees of savings banks, as they sipped their coffee, remarked, “Ah! another of these concerns broke: gross rascality somewhere, no doubt.” We hope it proved a warning to them, to look a little carefully into affairs which they had pledged themselves to superintend, and not to grudge half-an-hour’s labour, when such a trifling effort might ward off the direst calamities from their humble neighbours. What was Mary to do? Besides her beauty and the mourning on her back, she had literally nothing. And yet the girl’s heart never sank for a moment; she was possessed of that invincible Anglo-Saxon resolution, for which there is no better name than the colloquial one of “pluck.” Had she been a man, she would have distinguished herself; as it was, perhaps the humble part she had to play required more courage, self-command, and self-reliance than the career of many a hero. One advantage she had over many others equally indigent—her talents were brilliant, her education had been excellent, and the natural conclusion at which she arrived was, that she must be a governess or teacher in a school. The former situation there was much difficulty in attaining, qualities which are prized in a lady being considered great drawbacks to a governess; but youth and good looks are not so much out of place in the latter; and Mary, after considerable difficulty, and a voluminous correspondence, found herself installed as second assistant in one of those strongholds of innocence and propriety, termed a young ladies’ seminary.
How different the life on which the orphan now embarked from all her previous experience of the world! She had been a merry little girl, in barracks, petted by officers from every regiment in the service (soldiers are all fond of children), and spoilt by papa, who thought nothing in the world equal to his little pet. She had grown into womanhood in the closest retirement of a small out-of-the-way village, associating only with her refined and cultivated mother, and preparing for a life of difficulty by study and reflection; and now she found herself the inmate of a house in which there were thirty