Read Ebook: Rose Blanche and Violet Volume I (of 3) by Lewes George Henry

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Ebook has 1029 lines and 57399 words, and 21 pages

The three moved on together, and presently came to the rock, on a ledge of which a little girl was lounging. Her hat was off, and her long dark brown hair was scattered over her shoulders by the wind. Her face was towards the horizon, and she seemed intently watching.

From the two little traits of her drawn by her father and her sisters, Captain Heath, who had not seen her since she was a merry little thing of seven, anticipated a sickly precocious child, in whom reading or conversation had engendered some of that spiritual exaltation, which is mostly three parts affectation to one part disease. He was agreeably disappointed. She had not noticed their arrival, but on being spoken to, embraced the captain with warmth, and received him in a perfectly natural manner.

To set his doubts at rest, he said:--

"Well, Violet, has the sea been eloquent to-day, or is it too calm?"

She looked up at him, then at her sisters, and coloured. "I see they have been making fun of me," she said; "but that's not fair. I love to sit by the sea because--" she hesitated, "mama loved it. It isn't foolish of me, is it Captain Heath?"

"No, my dear, not at all--not at all."

"Oh, Captain Heath!" exclaimed Rose, "you said just now it was."

He pinched her little cheek playfully, and was about to reply, when Blanche said:--

"Look, there is Mary Hardcastle walking with Mrs. Henley. Let us go and speak to them. I will introduce you, Captain Heath; she's very pretty."

"Another time," replied he; "they seem to be talking very earnestly together."

"That they are."

"I hate Mary Hardcastle," said Violet.

"Why?"

"I don't know, but I hate her."

"Silly child!" said Rose; "she's always saying kind things to you."

"And always doing unkind ones," rejoined Violet, sharply.

"Hate is a strong word, Violet," said Blanche.

"Not stronger than I want," replied the high-spirited little girl.

All this while the captain was following with his eye the retreating form of the said Mary Hardcastle.

Let us follow also.

"It is hopeless for me to expect my guardian will allow him to come," said that young lady, with great emphasis, to her companion; "you know how much he dislikes Marmaduke. So, unless you consent--you will, won't you?"

"I cannot resist you, Mary. But how is this interview to be arranged?"

Mrs. Henley smiled, shook her forefinger at her young friend; so they walked on, both satisfied.

Having gained this point, it soon occurred to Mary, that Marmaduke might be asked to dine and spend the evening; but as this would expose Mrs. Henley to the chance of some one dropping in, and she was very averse to be supposed to favour these clandestine meetings, a steady refusal was given. Mary inwardly resolved that she would have a farewell meeting with her lover, and alone; but said nothing more on the subject. To have a lover about to sail for Brazil, and to part with him coldly before others, was an idea no young girl could entertain, and least of all Mary Hardcastle. She was too well read in romance to think of such a thing.

It does not occur to every girl, in our unromantic days, to have a stern guardian who dislikes her lover, and forbids him the house. Mary, therefore, might consider herself as greatly favoured by misfortune; her misery was as perfectly select as even her wish could frame, and the great, the thrilling climax--the parting--was at hand. That it should be moonlight was a matter of course--moonlight on the sea-shore.

Mary Hardcastle was just nineteen. There was something wonderfully attractive about her, though it puzzled you to say wherein lay the precise attraction. Very diminutive, and slightly humpbacked, she had somewhat the air of a sprite--so tiny, so agile, so fragile, and cunning did she appear; and this appearance was further aided by the amazing luxuriance of her golden hair, which hung in curls, drooping to her waist. The mixture of deformity and grace in her figure was almost unearthly. She had a skin of exquisite texture and whiteness, and the blood came and went in her face with the most charming mobility. All her features were alive, and all had their peculiar character. The great defects of her face were, the thinness of her lips, and the cat-like cruelty sometimes visible in her small, grey eyes. I find it impossible to convey, in words, the effect of her personal charms. The impression was so mixed up of the graceful and diabolic, of the attractive and repulsive, that I know of no better description of her than is given in Marmaduke's favourite names for her: he called her his "fascinating panther," and his "tiger-eyed sylph."

She had completely enslaved Marmaduke Ashley. With the blood of the tropics in his veins, he had much of the instinct of the savage, and as when a boy he had felt a peculiar passion for snakes and tigers, so in his manhood were there certain fibres which the implacable eyes of Mary Hardcastle made vibrate with a delight no other woman had roused. He was then only twenty-four, and in all the credulity of youth.

Everything transpired according to Mary's wish, and at nine o'clock she contrived to slip away in the evening, unnoticed, to meet her lover on the sands. True it was not moonlight. She had forgotten that the moon would not rise; but, after the first disappointment, she was consoled by the muttering of distant thunder, and the dark and stormy appearance of the night; a storm would have been a more romantic parting scene than any moonlight could afford. So when Marmaduke joined her, she was in a proper state of excitement, and felt as miserable as the most exacting school-girl could require. The sea, as it broke sullenly upon the shore, heaved not its bosom with a heavier sigh, than that with which she greeted her lover, and nestled in his arms. She wept bitterly, reproached her fate, and wished to die that moment. Marmaduke, who had never before seen such a display of her affection, was intensely gratified, and with passionate protestations of his undying love, endeavoured to console her.

The storm threatened, but did not burst. The heavens continued dark; and the white streaks of foam cresting the dark waves were almost the only things the eye could discern. The lovers did not venture far from the house, but paced up and down, occasionally pausing in the earnestness of talk.

Their conversation need not be recorded here; the more so as it was but a repetition of one or two themes, such as the misery of their situation, the constancy of their affection, and their sanguineness of his speedy return and their happy union.

"Marmaduke," she said at last, "it is getting late; Mrs. Henley will miss me; I must go."

"A moment longer; one moment."

"Only a moment. Dearest Marmaduke, will you never forget me? Will you think of me always? Will you write as often as you can? Let us every night at twelve look at the moon; it will be so sweet to know that at that moment each is doing the same thing, and each thinking of the other. You will not lose my locket? But, stay; you have never given me a lock of your hair. Do so now."

He took a penknife from his pocket, and, with noble disregard to his appearance, cut off a large lock of his black hair, which he folded in a piece of paper and gave to her. She kissed it many times, and vowed its place should be upon her heart. Then, after throwing herself into his arms, in one last embrace of despair, she broke from him and darted into the house, rushed up into a bed-room, threw herself outside the bed, and gave way to so vehement a fit of crying, that when Mrs. Henley came in to look for her, she found her in hysterics.

FOUR YEARS LATER.

Messire Bon l'a prise en mariage, Quoiqu'il n'ait plus que quatre cheveux gris; Mais comme il est le premier du pays Son bien suppl?e au d?faut de son age.

LAFONTAINE.

My heroines have grown up into young women since we last saw them idling on the sands; and it is proper I should at once give some idea of their appearance. Rose and Blanche, children by the first wife, are very unlike their sister Violet, the only child of the second Mrs. Vyner: they are fair as Englishwomen only are fair; she is dark as the children of the south are dark. They are plump and middle-sized; she is thin and very tall. They are settling into rounded womanhood; she is at that undeveloped "awkward age" when the beauty of womanhood has not yet come to fill the place of the vanished grace of childhood.

Two prettier creatures than Rose and Blanche, it would be impossible to find. There were sisterly resemblances peeping out amidst the most charming differences. I know not which deserved the palm; Rose, with her bright grey eyes swimming in mirth, her little piquant nose with its nostrils so delicately cut, her ruddy pouting lips which Firenzuola would with justice have called 'fontana de tutte le amorose dolcezze,' her dimpled cheeks; and the whole face, in short, radiant with lovingness and enjoyment. Shakspeare, who has said so many exquisite things of women, has painted Rose in one line:--

Pretty and witty, wild, and yet, too, gentle.

But then Blanche, with her long dreamy eyes, loving mouth, and general expression of meekness and devotion, was in her way quite as bewitching. As for poor Violet, she was almost plain: it was only those lustrous eyes, so unlike the eyes of ordinary mortals, which redeemed her thin sallow face. If plain, however, it has already great energy, great character, and a strange mixture of the most womanly caressing gentleness, with haughtiness and wilfulness that are quite startling. Those who remember her as a lovely child, prophesy that she will become a splendid woman.

From the three girls, let us turn our eyes to the strange stepmother which fate--or rather foolishness and cunning--had given them.

Mary Hardcastle, at the age of twenty, was placed in perhaps the most critical position which can await a young woman, viz. that of stepmother to girls very little younger than herself. In that situation, she exhibited uncommon skill; the very difficulties of it were calculated to draw out her strategetical science in the disposition of her troops; and certainly few women have ever arranged circumstances with more adroitness than herself. She was a stepmother indeed, and the reader anticipates what kind of stepmother; but she was too cunning to fall into the ordinary mistake of ostensibly assuming the reins of government. Apparently, she did nothing; she was not the mistress of her own house; she never undertook the management of a single detail. A meek, submissive wife, anxious to gain the affection of her 'dear girls;' trembling before the responsibilities of her situation, she not only deluded the world, but she even deceived Captain Heath, and almost reconciled him to the marriage. Nay, what was more remarkable, she deceived the girls--at least, the two elder girls. They were her companions--her pets. Before people, she adored them; in private, she gave them pretty clearly to understand that all their indulgences came from her; and all their privations from their father. It was her wish, indeed, that her dear girls should want for nothing, but papa was so obstinate--he could not be persuaded.

Strange discrepancies between word and deed would sometimes show themselves, but how was it possible to doubt the sincerity of one whose language and sentiments were so kind and liberal? She herself trembled before her husband, and often got the girls to intercede for her. The natural consequence was that they soon became convinced that papa was very much altered, and that as he grew older he grew less kind.

Altered he was. Formerly he had secluded himself in his study, interfering scarcely at all in family arrangements, making few observations upon what his children did; and if not taking any great interest in them, at least behaving with pretty uniform kindness. Now he was for ever interfering to forbid this, to put a stop to that; discovering that he "really could not afford" that which hitherto he had always allowed them; and, above all, discovering that his daughters were always trying to "govern" in his house.

Violet alone was undeceived. She had always hated Mary Hardcastle, without precisely knowing why; now she hated her because occupying the place which her dear mother had occupied, and that, too, in a spirit of hypocrisy evident in her eyes. Violet, therefore, at once fixed the change in her father upon her stepmother. How it was accomplished, she knew not; but she was certain of the fact.

The mystery was simple. Meredith Vyner, like all weak men, had an irresistible tendency to conceal his weakness from himself, by what he called some act of firmness. He would have his own way, he said. He would not be governed. He would be master in his own house. Mrs. Vyner saw through him at a glance. Wishing to separate him from his children, and so preserve undisputed sway over him, she artfully contrived to persuade him that he had always suffered himself to be governed by his children, and that he had not a will of his own. Thus prompted, he was easily moved to exert his authority with some asperity whenever his wife insinuated that it was disregarded; and he established a character for firmness in his own eyes, by thwarting his daughters, and depriving them of indulgences.

Moreover, Mrs. Vyner was, or affected to be, excessively jealous of his affection for the girls. He neglected her for them, she said; of course she could not expect it to be otherwise, were they not his children? were they not accustomed to have everything give way to them? What was she? an interloper. Yet she loved him--foolishly, perhaps, but she loved him--and love would be jealous, would feel hurt at neglect.

Vyner, delighted and annoyed at this jealousy, assured her that it was groundless; but the only assurance she would accept was acts, not words; accordingly, the poor old man was gradually forced to shut his heart against his girls; or, at any rate, to cease his demonstrations of affection, merely to get peace.

In a few sentences I convey the result of months of artful struggle; but the reader can understand the process by which this result was obtained, especially if I indicate the nature of the empire Mrs. Vyner had established.

Vyner was completely fascinated by the little coquette. It was not only his senses, but his mind, that was subdued. She had early impressed him with two convictions: one, the extreme delicacy of her nerves; the other, her immense superiority to himself. The first conviction was impressed upon him by the alarming hysterics into which contradiction, or any other mental affliction, threw her. If any thing went wrong--if the girls resisted her authority--if her own wishes were not gratified, she did not command, she did not storm; she wept silently, retired to her room, and was found there lifeless, or in an alarming state, by the first person who went in.

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