Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II)

C >> Charlotte M Yonge >> Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II)

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'At the time; but think what it would be not to be able to remember
happy times without remorse.'

'Then you do mean to recollect, Mary?'

'I trust to bring myself to remember rightly and wisely. I shall try
to set it for a reward for myself to cure me of repinings,' said
Mary, looking into his face, as if the remembrance of it must bring
cheerfulness and refreshment.

'And when shall I not think, Mary! When I leave off work, I shall
want you for a companion; when I go to work, the thought must stir me
up. Your judgment must try my own.'

'Oh, hush, Louis! this is not good. Be yourself, and be more than
yourself, and only think of the past as a time when we had a great
deal of pleasantness, and you did me much good.'

'Did I?'

'Yes; I see it now I am with Aunt Melicent. You put so many more
thoughts in my head, and showed me that so much more was good and
wholesome than I used to fancy. Dear mamma once said you were
educating me; and I hope to go on, and not let your lessons waste
away.'

'Nay, Mary, you won good everywhere. If you had not been Mary, I
might have made you a great goose. But you taught me all the
perseverance I ever had. And oh! Mary, I don't wonder you do not
trust it.'

'There is the forbidden subject,' said Mary, firmly.

That was the sort of conversation into which they fell now and then
during those last days of busy sadness.

Truly it could have been worse. Suffering by their own fault would
have rent them asunder more harshly, and Louis's freedom from all
fierceness and violence softened all ineffably to Mary. James
Frost's letter of fiery indignation, almost of denunciation, made her
thankful that he was not the party concerned; and Louis made her
smile at Isabel's copy of all his sentiments in ladylike phrases.

The last day came. Louis would not be denied seeing Mary on board
the Valdivia; and, in spite of all Miss Ponsonby's horror of
railways, he persuaded her to trust herself under his care to
Liverpool. She augured great things from the letter which she had
entrusted to Mary, and in which she had spoken of Lord Fitzjocelyn in
the highest terms her vocabulary could furnish.

They parted bravely. Spectators hindered all display of feeling, and
no one cried, except Miss Ponsonby.

'Good-bye, Louis; I will not forget your messages to Tom Madison. My
love to your father and Aunt Catharine.'

'Good-bye, Mary; I shall see Tom and Chimborazo yet.'

CHAPTER V.

THE NEW WORLD.

Still onward, as to southern skies,
We spread our sails, new stars arise,
New lights upon the glancing tide,
Fresh hues where pearl and coral hide:
What are they all but tokens true
Of grace for ever fresh and new!
Prayers for Emigrants.

There are some days in the early year, devoid indeed of spring
brilliance, but full of soft, heavy, steaming fragrance, pervading
the grey air with sweet odours, and fostering the growth of tender
bud and fragile stem with an unseen influence, more mild and kindly
than even the smiling sunbeam or the gushing shower. 'A growing
day,' as the country-people term such genial, gentle weather, might
not be without analogy to the brief betrothal of Louis and Mary.

Subdued and anxious, there had been little of the ordinary light of
joy, hope, or gaiety, and their pleasures had been less their own
than in preparing the happiness of their two friends. It was a time
such as to be more sweet in memory than it was in the present; and
the shade which had hung over it, the self-restraint and the
forbearance which it had elicited, had unconsciously conduced to the
development of the characters of both, preparing them to endure the
parting far more effectually than unmixed enjoyment could have done.
The check upon Louis's love of trifling, the restraint on his
spirits, the being thrown back on his own judgment when he wanted to
lean upon Mary, had given him a habit of controlling his boyish ways.

It was a call to train himself in manliness and self-reliance. It
changed him from the unstable reed he once had been, and helped him
to take one steady and consistent view of the trial required of him
and of Mary, and then to act upon it resolutely and submissively.
With Mary gone, he cared little what became of him until her letters
could arrive; and his father, with more attention to his supposed
benefit than to his wishes, carried him at once, without returning
home, to a round of visits among all his acquaintance most likely to
furnish a distracting amount of Christmas gaieties. In the midst of
these, there occurred a vacancy in the representation of a borough
chiefly under the influence of Sir Miles Oakstead; and, as it was
considered expedient that he should be brought into Parliament, his
father repaired with him at once to Oakstead, and involved him in all
the business of the election. On his success, he went with his
father to London for the session, and this was all that his friends
at Northwold knew of him. He wrote hurried notes to James or to Mr.
Holdsworth on necessary affairs connected with his farm and
improvements, mentioning facts instead of feelings, and promising to
write to Aunt Catharine when he should have time; but the time did
not seem to come, and it was easy to believe that his passiveness of
will, increased by the recent stroke, had caused him to be hurried
into a condition of involuntary practical activity.

Mary, meanwhile, was retracing her voyage, in the lull of spirits
which, after long straining, had nothing to do but to wait in
patience, bracing themselves for a fresh trial. Never suffering
herself, at sea, her first feelings, after the final wrench of
parting, were interrupted by the necessity of attending to her
friend, a young mother, with children enough to require all the
services that the indefatigable Mary could perform. If Mrs. Willis
always averred that she never could have gone through the voyage
without Miss Ponsonby, Mary felt, in return, that the little fretful
boy and girl, who would never let her sit and think, except when both
were asleep, had been no small blessing to her.

Yet Mary was not so much absorbed and satisfied with the visible and
practical as had once been the case. The growth had not been all on
Louis's side. If her steadfast spirit had strengthened his wavering
resolution, the intercourse and sympathy with him had opened and
unfolded many a perception and quality in her, which had been as
tightly and hardly cased up as leaf-buds in their gummy envelopes. A
wider range had been given to her thoughts; there was a swelling of
heart, a vividness of sensation, such as she had not known in earlier
times; she had been taught the mystery of creation, the strange
connexion with the Unseen, and even with her fellow-men. Beyond the
ordinary practical kind offices, for which she had been always ready,
there was now mingled something of Louis's more comprehensive spirit
of questioning what would do them good, and drawing food for
reflection from their diverse ways.

She was sensible of the change again and again, when sights recurred
which once had only spoken to her eye. That luminous sea, sparkling
like floods of stars, had been little more than 'How pretty! how
funny!' at her first voyage. Now, it was not only 'How Louis would
admire it!' but 'How profusely, how gloriously has the Creator spread
the globe with mysterious beauty! how marvellously has He caused His
creatures to hold forth this light, to attract others to their
needful food!' And the furrow of fire left by their vessel's wake
spoke to her of that path 'like a shining light, shining more and
more unto the perfect day.' If with it came the remembrance of his
vision of the threads of light, it was not a recollection which would
lead to repining.

And when at Cape Horn, a mighty ice mountain drifted within view,
spired, pinnacled, encrusted with whiteness, rivalled only by the
glory of the summer cloud, caverned here and there into hollows of
sapphire blue, too deeply dazzling to behold, or rising into peaks of
clear, hard, chill green; the wild fantastic points sometimes
glimmering with fragments of the rainbow arch; the rich variety,
endless beyond measure in form and colouring, and not only
magnificent and terrible in the whole maas, but lovely beyond
imagination in each crystal too minute for the eye. Mary had once,
on a like occasion, only said, 'it was very cold;' and looked to see
whether the captain expected the monster to bear down on the ship.
But the present iceberg put her in mind of the sublime aspirations
which gothic cathedrals seem as if they would fain embody. And then,
she thought of the marvellous interminable waste of beauty of those
untrodden regions, whence yonder enormous iceberg was but a small
fragment--a petty messenger--regions unseen by human eye--beauty
untouched by human hand-the glory, the sameness, yet the infinite
variety of perfect purity. Did it not seem, with all the
associations of cold, of peril, of dreariness, to be a visible token
that indeed He who fashioned it could prepare 'good things past man's
understanding!'

It was well for Mary that southern constellations, snowy, white-
winged albatross, leaping flying-fish, and white-capped mountain-
coast, had been joined in her mind with something higher, deeper, and
less personal, or their recurrence would have brought her nothing but
pain unmitigated in the contrast with the time when first she had
beheld them six years ago.

Then she was full of hope and eager ardour to arrive, longing for the
parental presence of which she had so long been deprived, hailing
every novel scene as a proof that she was nearer home, and without
the anticipation of one cloud, only expecting to be loved, to love,
and to be useful. And now, all fond illusions as to her father had
been snatched away, her very love for him rendering the perception
doubly cruel; her mother, her precious mother, far away in
Ormersfield churchyard--her life probably shortened by his harshness-
-her place occupied by a young girl, differing in language, in
Church, in everything--Mary's own pardon uncertain, after all her
aacrifices--A sense of having deeply offended, hung upon her; and
her heart was so entirely in England, that had her home been perfect,
her voyage must still have been a cruel effort. That one
anticipation of being set at rest by her father's forgiveness, and
the forlorn despairing hope of his relenting towards Louis, were all
she dared to dwell on; and when Mrs. Willis counted the days till she
could arrive and meet her husband, poor Mary felt as if, but for
these two chances of comfort, she could gladly have prolonged the
voyage for the rest of her life.

But one burning tropical noon, the Valdivia was entering Callao
harbour, and Mary, sick and faint at heart, was arraying herself in a
coloured dress, lest her mourning should seem to upbraid her father.
The voyage was over, the ship was anchored, boats were coming
offshore, the luggage was being hoisted out of the hold, the
passengers were congregated on deck, eager to land, some gazing with
curious and enterprising eyes on the new country, others scanning
every boat in hopes of meeting a familiar face. Mrs. Willis stood
trembling with hope, excitement, and the strange dread often rushing
in upon the last moment of expectation. She clung to Mary for
support, and once said--

'Oh, Miss Ponsonby, how composed you are!' Mary's feelings were too
deep--too much concentrated for trembling. She calmed and soothed
the wife's sudden fright, lest 'something should have happened to
George;' and she even smiled when the children's scream of ecstacy
infected their mother, when the papa and uncle they had been watching
for with straining eyes proved to be standing on deck close beside
them.

Mary cast her eyes round, and saw nothing of her own. She stood
apart, while the Willis family were in all the rapture of the
meeting; she saw them moving off, too happy and sufficient for
themselves even to remember her. She had a dull, heavy sensation
that she must bear all, and this was the beginning; and she was about
to begin her arrangements for her dreary landing, when Mrs. Willis's
brother, Mr. Ward, turned back. He was a middle-aged merchant, whom
her mother had much liked and esteemed, and there was something
cheering in his frank, hearty greeting, and satisfaction in seeing
her. It was more like a welcome, and it brought the Willises back,
shocked at having forgotten her in the selfishness of their own joy;
but they had made sure that she had been met. Mr. Ward did not think
that she was expected by the Valdivia; Mr. Ponsonby had not mentioned
it as likely. So they were all seated in the boat, with the black
rowers; and while the Willises fondled their children, and exchanged
home-news, Mr. Ward sat by Mary, and spoke to her kindly, not openly
referring to the state of her home, but showing a warmth and
consideration which evinced much delicate sympathy.

They all drove together in the Willises' carriage up the sloping road
from Callao to Lima, and Mary heard astonishment, such as she had
once felt, breaking out in screams from the children at the sight of
omnibuses filled with gaily-dressed negroes, and brown horsewomen in
Panama hats and lace-edged trousers careering down the road. But
then, her father had come and fetched her from on board, and that
dear mamma was waiting in the carriage! They entered the old walled
town when twilight had already closed in, and Mrs. Willis was
anxious to take her tired little ones home at once. They were set
down at their own door; but Mr. Ward, with protecting anxious
kindness, insisted on seeing Miss Ponsonby safely home before he
would join them. As they drove through the dark streets, Mary heard
a little restless movement, betraying some embarrassment; and at
last, with an evident desire of reassuring her, he said, 'Senora
Rosita is thought very pleasing and engaging;' and then, as if
willing to change the subject, he hastily added, 'I suppose you did
not speak the Pizarro?'

'No.'

'She has sailed about three weeks. She takes home your cousin, Mr.
Dynevor.'

Mary cried out with surprise.

'I thought him a complete fixture, but he is gone home for a year.
It seems his family property was in the market, and he was anxious to
secure it.'

'How glad his mother will be!' was all Mary could say, as there
rushed over her the thought of the wonderful changes this would make
in Dynevor Terrace. Her first feeling was that she must tell Louis;
her second, that two oceans were between them; and then she thought
of Aunt Catharine having lived, after all, to see her son.

She had forgotten to expect the turn when the carriage wheeled under
the arched entry of her father's house. All was gloom and stillness,
except where a little light shone in a sort of porter's lodge upon
the eager negro features of two blacks, with much gesticulation,
playing at dice. They came out hastily at the sound of the carriage;
and as Mr. Ward handed out Mary, and inquired for Mr. Ponsonby, she
recognised and addressed the white-woolled old Xavier, the mayor
domo. Poor old Xavier! Often had she hunted and teased him, and
tried to make him understand 'cosas de Inglalerra,' and to make him
cease from his beloved dice; but no sooner did he see her face than,
with a cry of joy, 'La Senorita Maria! la Seniorita Maria!' down he
went upon his knees, and began kissing the hem of her dress.

All the rest of the negro establishment came round, capering and
chattering Spanish; and, in the confusion, Mary could not get her
question heard--Where was her father? and Xavier's vehement threats
and commands to the others to be silent, did not produce a calm. At
last, bearing a light, there came forward a faded, sallow dame, with
a candle in her hand, who might have sat for the picture of the Duena
Rodriguez, and at her appearance the negroes subsided. She was an
addition to the establishment since Mary's departure; but in her
might be easily recognised the Tia, the individual who in Limenian
households holds a position between companion and housekeeper. She
introduced herself by the lugubrious appellation of Senora Dolores,
and, receiving Mary with obsequious courtesy, explained that the
Senor and Senora were at a tertulia, or evening party. She lighted
Mary and Mr. Ward into the quadra; and there Mr. Ward, shaking hands
with her as if he would thereby compensate for all that was wanting
in her welcome, promised to go and inform her father of her arrival.

Mary stood in the large dark room, with the soft matted floor, and
the windows high up near the carved timbered ceiling, the single
lamp, burning in rum, casting a dim gleam over the well-known
furniture, by which her mother had striven to give an English
appearance to the room. It was very dreary, and she would have given
the world to be alone with her throbbing head, her dull heartache,
and the weariness of spirits over-long wound up for the meeting; but
her own apartment could be no refuge until it had been cleansed and
made ready, and Dolores and Xavier were persecuting her every moment
with their hospitality and their inquiries. Then came a quick, manly
tread, and for a moment her heart almost seemed to stand still, in
the belief that it was her father; but it was only Robson, hurrying
in to offer his services and apologies. Perhaps he was the very last
person she could bear to see, feeling, as she did, that if he had
been more explicit all the offence would have been spared. He was so
much aware of all family matters, and was accustomed to so much
confidence from her father, that she could not believe him
unconscious; and there was something hateful to her in the plausible
frankness and deferential familiarity of his manners, as, brushing up
his sandy hair upon his forehead, he poured forth explanations that
Mr. Ponsonby would be delighted, but grieved that no one had met her-
-Valdivia not expected so soon--not anticipated the pleasure--if they
had imagined that Miss Ponsonby was a passenger--

'My father desired that I would come out by her,' said Mary.

'Ay, true--so he informed me; but since later intelligence'--and he
cast a glance at Mary, to judge how much further to go; but meeting
with nothing but severity, he covered the impertinence by saying, 'In
fact, though the Valdivia was mentioned, and Mrs. Willis, Mr.
Ponsonby had reason to suppose you would not receive his letters in
time to avail yourself of the escort.'

'I did so, however,' said Mary, coldly.

'Most gratifying. Mr. and Mrs. Ponsonby will be highly gratified.
In fact, Miss Ponsonby, I must confess that was a most unfortunate
blunder of mine last August. I should not have fallen into the error
had I not been so long absent at Guayaquil that I had had no
opportunity of judging of the amiable lady; and I will own to much
natural surprise and some indignation, before I had had the pleasure
of personal acquaintance with the charms and the graces--Hem! In
effect, it was a step that no one could have recommended; and when
your noble relative put it to me in so many words whether I would
counsel your continuing your journey, I could not take it on me to
urge a measure so painful to your feelings, unaware as I was then of
the amiable qualities of the lady who occupies the situation of the
highly beloved and esteemed--'

Mary could not bear to hear her mother's name in his mouth, so she
cut him short by saying, 'I suppose you thought you acted for the
best, Mr. Robson; it was very unfortunate, but it cannot be helped.
Pray can you tell me where the lad Madison is?' she added, resolved
to show him that she would not discuss these matters with him; 'I
have a parcel for him.'

'He is at the San Benito mine, Miss Ponsonby.'

'How does he go on?'

'Well--I may say very well, allowing for inexperience. He appears a
steady, intelligent lad, and I have no doubt will answer the purpose
well.'

There was one gratification for Mary, at least, in the pleasure this
would afford at home; but Robson continued making conversation about
Mr. Dynevor's visit to England, and the quantity of work this
temporary absence entailed on him; and then on the surprise it would
be to his patron to find her, and Senora Rosita's interest in her,
and the numerous gaieties of the bride, and the admiration she
excited, and his own desire to be useful. This afforded Mary an
opportunity for getting rid of him at last, by sending him to make
arrangements for her baggage to be sent from Callao the next morning.

Ten minutes more, half spent in conquering her disgust, half in sick
anticipation, and other feet were crossing the matted sala, the
curtain over the doorway was drawn aside, and there stood her father,
and a lady, all white and diamonds, by his side. He held out his
arms, Mary fell into them, and it was the same kind rough kiss which
had greeted her six years back. It seemed to be forgiveness,
consolation, strength, all at once; and their words mingled--'Papa,
you forgive me'--'Mary, my good girl, I did not think they would
have let you come back to me. This was but a dreary coming home for
you, my dear.' And then, instantly changing his language to Spanish,
he added, appealing to his wife, that had they guessed she was on
board, they would have come to meet her.

Rosita replied earnestly to that effect, and warmly embraced Mary,
pitying her for such an arrival, and hoping that Dolores had made her
comfortable. The rest of the conversation was carried on in the same
tongue. Rosita was much what Mary had expected--of a beautiful
figure, with fine eyes, and splendid raven hair, but without much
feature or expression. She looked almost like a dream to-night,
however, with her snowy robes, and the diamonds sparkling with their
dewdrop flashes in her hair and on her arms, with the fitful light
caught from the insufficient candles. All she ventured to say had a
timid gracefulness and simplicity that were very winning; and her
husband glanced more than once to see if she were not gaining upon
his daughter; and so in truth she was, personally, though it was
exceedingly painful to see her where Mary had been used to see that
dear suffering face; and it was impossible not to feel the contrast
with her father as painfully incongruous. Mr. Ponsonby was a large
man, with the jovial manner of one never accustomed to self-
restraint; good birth and breeding making him still a gentleman, in
spite of his loud voice and the traces of self-indulgence. He was
ruddy and bronzed, and his eyebrows and hair looked as if touched by
hoar frost; altogether as dissimilar a partner as could be devised
for the slender girlish being by his side.

After a little Spanish conversation, all kind on his aide, and thus
infinitely relieving Mary, they parted for the night. She laid
before him the packet of letters, which she had held all this time as
the last link to Louis, and sought his eye as she did so with a look
of appeal; but he carefully averted his glance, and she could read
nothing.

Weary as she was, Mary heard again and again, through her unglazed
windows, the watchman's musical cry of 'Ave Maria purisima, las--es
temblado!' 'Viva Peru y sereno!' and chid herself for foolish
anticipations that Louis would hear and admire all the strange sounds
of the New World. The kindness of her welcome gave her a little
hope; and she went over and over again her own part of the discussion
which she expected, almost persuading herself, that Louis's own
conduct and her aunt's testimony must win the day.

She need not have spent so many hours in preparation for the morning.
She was np early, in hopes of seeing her father before he went to his
office, but he was gone for a ride. The English breakfast, which had
been established, much to his content, by her own exertions, had
quite vanished, each of the family had a cup of chocolate in private,
and there was no meeting till, late in the morning, Rosita sauntered
into her room, embraced her, made inquiries as to her rest, informed
her that she was going to the Opera that night, and begged her to
accompany her. To appear in public with Rosita was the tribute for
which Mary had come out, so she readily agreed; and thereupon the
Senora digressed into the subject of dress, and required of Mary a
display of all her robes, and an account of the newest fashions of
the English ladies. It was all with such innocent, earnest pleasure,
that Mary could not be annoyed, and good-naturedly made all her
disappointing display.

The midday meal brought her father--still kind and affectionate, but
never dropping the Spanish, nor manifesting any consciousness of her
letters. She had hopes of the period allotted to the siesta, to
which custom, in old days, she had never acceded, but had always
spent the interval on any special occupation--above all, to writing
for him; but he went off without any notice of her, and she was in no
condition to dispense with the repose, for her frame was tired out,
though her hopes and fears could not even let her dreams rest.

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