Florence Sackville, or Self-Dependence: an autobiography

Front matter

FLOBENCE SACKVILLE, OK SELF- DEPENDENCE. VOL. I. FLOKENCE SACKVILLE, OB SELF-DEPENDENCE: gJutofciograpljD. By MRS. BURBURY. Is it the tender star of love ? The star of love and dreams ? " The star of the unconquered will, He rises in my breast, Serene, and resolute and still, And calm and self-possessed. 0 no ! from that blue tent above, A hero's armour gleams. 0 star of strength ! I see thee stand, And smile upon my pain ; Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand, And I am strong again. * * * * " 0 ! fear not, in a world like this, And thou shalt know, ere long, Know how sublime a thing it is, To suffer and be strong." "The Light of Stars." By H. W. Longfellow. IN THKEE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER & CO., 65, CORNHILL. 1851. Printed by Stewast & Murray, Old Bailey. DEDICATION. TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ. My deae Sir, With the dedication of these volumes, pray accept my earnest thanks for the high honour you have done me, in thus affording my first novel the protection of your distinguished name ; and suffer me, at the same time, to express the sincere gratification I feel in embracing this opportunity of acknowledging — not altogether as they deserve, but in the best way that I am able — the wise counsel and friendly interest to which I am so deeply indebted.

The subject of the tale was suggested to me DEDICATION. VI more than two years since by a literary friend, who fancied that it was one I might succeed in rendering amusing; and it has been written during the intervals of long and severe ibnesses : of the variable spirits produced by which, it hears, I fear, despite my best endeavours, but too much evidence. In you, I know that I shaU find an indulgent judge ; and in throwing myself upon the mercy of an English public, I can only entreat my readers to believe that, whatever faults may disfigure this my first attempt at novel-writing, the merit of an earnest wish to please them has not been wanting. The form of an autobiography was chosen as that best suited to the subject ; because it afforded the author a better opportunity of expressing in the most natural way, the emotions and experiences of a girl placed in the difficult circumstances of Florence Sackville.

My first intention was to have taken leave of the heroine upon her accession to fortune ; hut in this I was overruled by the advice of those whom I felt it an honour to obey, DEDICATION. VII and therefore the catastrophe was altered to its present form. With heartfelt prayers for the peaceful pro longation of a long and honoured bfe, passed in the enjoyment of those rare iniebectual powers which have shed an undying lustre over English literature, believe me to remain, My dear Sir, Your most faithful and obliged servant, E. J. BURBURY. : ' OR, SELF-DEPENDENCE.

Chapter I

It was on a wild and stormy night of a bitter December, that I was born. My birthplace was an Irish town in Galway; and, for many weeks, I was hushed to sleep by the roaring of the lake over which my nursery hung. My father was a young Irish officer; my mother an English woman, who, captivated by his handsome face and chivalrous bearing, waltzed off with him one night from her godfather's house in London : and while it was supposed they were admiring the flowers in the conservatory, the happy pair were as far on the north road as the speed of four horses could hurry them. Fortunately for the runaways, my mother was the youngest and favourite chbd of her parents, VOL. I. B ; OR, who tried to forget, in their love for her, that her husband was a spendthrift, and, if report spoke truly, a gambler also.

Not many weeks after the hasty and ill-considered marriage, Alice Vere, now Mrs. Sackville, found that she had placed herseif at the mercy of a man whose violent and jealous temper, wholly beyond his own control, rendered her miserable. The slightest provocation, and often no provocation at all, was sufficient to transport him beyond the bounds of reason; and, at such times, she would sit trembling before him until the paroxysm was past, or till he left her in a frenzy. Stib she loved him; for, when the storm was over, there was a charm in his manner and an eloquence in his voice, that were irresistible. Her feminine vanity, too, was enlisted on his side ; for certainly, when at the head of his men, or doing the honours of the baU-room to the guests of the th, there was no man she had ever seen who could compare with him.

He was a gallant soldier, too, and idobsed by the peasantry, for whom he was always ready to do a service ; as he loved popularity, and liked people to see the influence he held over the wbd denizens of mountain and bog. For a time aU this helped to reconcile my mother to her lot ; but scarcely six months elapsed, after her marriage, ere she found her society de- SELF-DEPENDENCE. serted for the billiard table, and her conversation rudely avoided or silenced, whenever, as was now daily the case, her husband could spend his time more agreeably in discussing and betting upon the next steeple-chase or Curragh races. There was in Alice Sackville's nature a great leaven of obstinacy and pride ; therefore, she soon ceased to soothe and conciliate her husband, and tried to play off her indifference and contempt against his fits of passion and neglect.

This was very sad, for in their hearts they still loved each other; and, although both took a strange way of showing it, there was, even at this time, enough of their first affection left to constitute, if rightly managed, a fund to draw upon through life. But Pride, their great Arch-enemy, whispered to them always, and was cherished as a faithful coun sebor by both : so that when Love and Memory pleaded in their hearts for gentleness and forbear ance towards each other, he would say to Alice, " Don't relent ! don't smile, or play his favourite music ! He will behave as UI to-morrow, and then how you will have lowered your dignity. No ! show a proper spirit, and teach him that you are as indifferent as he is." Then this same traitor would urge upon the husband his right to be late or early, furious or gentle, at home or abroad, just as he pleased, without reference to any one but himself; and would insinuate, that his wife's B ; OR, pale cheeks and wasted figure were caused, not by anxiety and care, but by her own wilfulness and temper.

In this way passed the first year of their union ; and when, at its close, I was born — a cross and troublesome infant — my parents had thwarted and vexed each other until little of the wild love which had led them to marry remained. Stib, an occurrence which took place a few weeks be fore my appearance in this weary world, wib show that, although their affection was diminished, it was not totally destroyed, and that Alice SackviUe was not as indifferent towards her husband as she would fain have had him believe. The part of Ireland in which my father's regiment was then stationed being in a very unsettled state, the troops had been sent there mainly to preserve the peace. But one duty which fell to their lot, was most odious ; and of such a nature as to make almost every officer anxious to avoid it.

This was searching for and seizing whisky stills : and called in derision " still-hunting." To men who had distinguished themselves both in India and the Peninsula, — who bore Seringapatam and Vittoria upon their colours, — it was a service which most felt to be a degradation; and nothing but hio-h military discipline, the officers' sense of duty, and the men's habits of subordination, prevented loud remonstrance. Of all the regiment only SELF-DEPENDENCE. 5 one officer, (a man who had not long joined it, and was known to be of low birth and quarrelsome disposition), found pleasure in these midnight marches and inglorious detections of contraband stills. Between this man and my father there was a kind of civil hatred : the one despised, the other envied his companion ; and, although they were not at open war, their mutual aversion was apparent to every one.

Once or twice Captain Sackvibe had spoken contemptuously of the readiness with which the new man accepted " active service," and suggested whether a still would not now be a fit addition to the trophies and honours blazoned on the colours of the regiment. One of those busy bodies who are always ready to make mischief, repeated my father's sarcasm to the object of it, and before many hours had elapsed from the time of its utterance, a challenge was given and accepted ; the meeting being arranged to take place the next morning, upon a wild moor five miles from the barracks. During the afternoon which followed this arrangement, the suspicions of my mother's English maid were aroused by the hints and mys terious looks of her lover ; who, being Captain Sackvibe's servant, had his master's pistols iu charge.

These surmises she conveyed to her mistress, whose fears, thus excited, were but too painfully confirmed by my father's manner when OR, he came to her room to take leave of her, before starting, as he said, upon a "still-hunting" ex pedition, which would detain him untb the next morning. My mother fixed her eyes upon her husband as he spoke, and holding the hand which he had ex tended in farewell, said — " Are you really going up the mountains, Gerald ? Are you sure ?" " Of course, of course," he replied, with a short nervous laugh : " what makes you ask such a question ? Don't I often go upon these glorious errands ? " " Yes, but I have a strange fancy that you are not going on such service to-night." " Why, what Banshee has been wailing at the window to frighten you, Alice ? You look as if you saw one, now : but, don't you know, they never appear until night ; so don't be silly, but say good bye and wish me success."

And as he spoke he snatched up his cap. My mother's heart stood still, as the thought that she might never again see him alive rushed across her mind. The ardour of their first pas sionate love seemed all at once to return ; and with an impulsive cry of grief, she sprang from her seat, and threw herself into her husband's arms. " Why, Alice ! what is the matter ? Are you SELF-DEPENDENCE. ib ? " said he, as she clung hysterically to him. " No, no : but you, Gerald ! you ! where are you going?" she sobbed out. " Where I told you, silly one. Where else do you think I am going ? Come, lie down, and I '11 send Marcy to you, and she shall read you to sleep." " Oh, Gerald ! do tell me the truth." " But you will not bebeve me, you little in fidel ! You are nervous and tired, and have got the blue devils, I'm afraid, from sitting alone.

George shall go across and ask Mrs. Martin to come and talk scandal to you — so good bye, and mind you are better to-morrow." And thus they parted : the man thinking that he had succeeded in his deception ; and the woman as thoroughly convinced that he was trying to mislead her, as if she had read his secret purpose. How often it happens that the very people whom we think we have most craftily deceived, are the most alive to our falsehood : we imagine that we have blinded them, and all the while they are reading us as if the heart were a book. It required very little ingenuity on the part of Marcy to discover that no still-hunting expedition was in preparation, and that Major Martin and her master were closeted together at the Major's quarters, for some very different purpose. Lieu- ; OR, tenant Tregear and Mr. Nash had been seen to go into the subaltern's rooms, and from the whole aspect of affairs, it was evident that something unusual was about to happen.

Nothing certain, however, could the girl discover until late in the evening ; when, partly by threats, and partly by coaxing, she succeeded in extorting from the fascinated George, a confession of all he knew. It had so happened that, soon after my mother's first arrival in Ireland, her maid had been ill, and that during her absence a young girl, the daughter of the only decent inn-keeper in the village, had been engaged to attend upon the bride. Mrs. Sack ville and Honor had been mutually pleased with each other, and, after her short service was over, many were the chickens of her own rearing and pats of butter of her own churning, brought by the warm-hearted Irish maid to the " English Lady." And now, in her grief and fear, with no one at hand to aid in carrying out the wbd scheme she had formed, my mother thought of Honor, whom she sent for at once, and took into her confidence.

The assistance and secrecy re quired of Honor were promised with that hearti ness, with which — be their faults what they may — the children of Erin always respond to the need of a friend. Honor undertook to find out where the duel was to be fought, and to bring a car, driven by her own " bachelor," to a certain spot SELF-DEPENDENCE. on the road, where Mrs. Sackvibe was to meet it, and be taken as nearly as possible to the ground, in order that she might be at hand in case the meeting terminated fatally ; and the miserable wife was as firmly assured that the girl's promise would be performed as if it were already done. OR,

Chapter II

Often have I heard my mother describe the wretchedness of that night. It was in the middle of October, which month had, contrary to custom, come in cold, gusty, and wet. The rain fob in torrents, and the clouds were driven across the face of the heavens as if angry spirits were at war and they fled in terror before them. Every now and then the moon gleamed out with her white, round, passionless face, and cast a sickly glare upon the pools of water in the street, and the glass of the opposite windows. The measured tread of the sentry, and the challenge of the officer of the guard, were the only sounds, except the plashing rain, that broke the stillness ; and these appeared to add to, rather than diminish, the sense of loneliness. Honor had sent Mrs. Sack ville word that at three o'clock she would be waiting with a car under the plantation to the left of the chapel.

Up and down her room my mother paced ab SELF-DEPENDENCE. 11 night, only stopping to look at her watch by the dim fire light — for she dared not have candles, lest their appearance at so unusual an hour should arouse suspicion in the minds of any one who might be passing. At length the clock in the Barrack-square struck the last quarter past two, and, wrapped in a large grey cloak, and trembling from head to foot, my mother stole out into the street and walked hurriedly towards the plantation. Very few words were spoken when she reached it, for Honor saw that Mrs. Sackville was in no mood for talking; so, having for the la,st time whispered directions to her lover, she obeyed my mother's gesture, and running quickly down the hill, soon disap peared. After a dark and jolting ride of more than an hour, Mike took up his position under shelter of a rock, close to the spot fixed upon by the combatants.

There the agitated wife awaited in painful the issue ; having nothing wherewith to beguile the tedious hours which must elapse before day break, but her hopes and fears, and the prayers which she from time to time offered up for her husband's safety. At last the morning dawned, and as it broke drearily over the wild and lonely landscape, a chaise driven at full gallop appeared upon the moor. It had scarcely stopped when another arrived, and the trembling wife was near enough ; OR, to hear her husband speaking in cheerful tones to Major Martin. There was a long low range of rocks which lay about three hundred yards to the right of the spot where Captain Sackvibe was placed, and under cover of their shadow my mother crept along in the misty light, and stood as near her husband as she dared. It was her determination that if the lives of both combatants were spared she would return home, and never betray her knowledge of the meeting; but that if Gerald fell, or killed his antagonist, she would instantly go forward, and either succour her husband, or accompany him abroad.

Brief were the greetings exchanged by the party ; the seconds made a formal, but of course ineffectual, attempt to bring about a re conciliation between their principals ; they then examined the pistols, placed their men, and went through all the rest of the hateful business necessary for the proper perpetration of. honourable murder. Strange influence of custom ! Of ab the men who took part in the arrangements not one but would have turned away disgusted from wit nessing the necessary proceedings of a slaughter house ; and yet they were met at an unseasonable hour, under cover of twilight and secrecy, to aid a project which had for its fulfilment the temporal, perhaps eternal, death of one, if not two, febow men, whom each one there called friend. SELF-DEPENDENCE. My mother trembled and clung to the rock in breathless alarm and anxiety, and long as she thought the time spent in these fearful prepara tions, yet she would not have shortened it by a word : but when Major Martin, who had been occupied at a little distance from his friend, walked quietly over the ground toward him, the horror-struck wife could scarcely repress a scream.

She had so placed herself that she was opposite to her husband, and as she gazed upon his face and marked its perfect calmness, the utter absence of uneasiness or dread, the quiet manly courage with which he stood, waiting as it seemed for death, she could hardly refrain from rushing for ward ; and she felt as if she could die with him. All her old love came back, and filled her heart with such a tumult of alarm and fondness, that its wUd beating was well nigh stilled for ever. At this time my mother was far from being a religious character : she had been too fashionably educated, too much idolized and flattered, to have learned many of the deep truths of Christianity ; it is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that the only feelings now present to her mind were a woman's admiration of bravery, and a wife's dread of her possible loss.

To her fancy there was something heroic in her husband's position and attitude ; something sublime in his dauntless and soldierlike serenity. Nothing was exaggerated or OR, done for display; all was the natural effect of a. brave heart— and high health: for more than heroes would like to think, does their unflinch ing courage depend upon their temperance. No fear of an eternal future, no thought of the outraged law of an Almighty Creator visited my father's conscience to make him craven. He was only doing what his father, and his father's father, had done before him ; and what, for not doing, a young man in his own regiment had been sent to Coventry by his brother officers, and finally hunted out of the army. It was then a matter of course, almost of duty, in a soldier. God's laws, the God of peace and love, are the very last thought of by the duellist.

My father was no worse, and in many things much better, than his febows ; but until men learn to know that the Eternal law " thou shalt do no murder" is as binding upon a gentleman as upon a peasant, and that in the eyes of the Everlasting, there is no distinction between the murderer whose bfe is forfeited to the outraged laws of man, and the duellist who goes out in cold blood to take the bfe of one who has been perhaps his dearest friend, offering for excuse the hazard of his own — Christianity, as our Lord left it to us, can have no place in their hearts. We may have brave and dauntless soldiers in our service, but Christian gentlemen we cannot have. SELF-DEPENDENCE. This same sad perversion of feelings — this confusion of right and wrong — was shared by my popr mother; else how could she have refrained from springing forward and, by her presence, putting an end to the scene upon which she looked ?

Some may be tempted to say that she was cold hearted or unwomanly, thus to have stood, and yet not have interfered ! " I could not have done so ! / could not have seen my husband killed before my face, or taking another man's life," one may exclaim. Another may remark, " I wonder why she went at all : she could not have loved him and yet have borne to stand by and see him in danger of being murdered : that is impossible." No, it is not impossible, for it is true. Mrs. Sackville was the sister of a man who had been shot in a duel, and buried with military honours ; whose name was cherished as that of a hero, while his antagonist had been dismissed the service. She was the wife of a soldier, and well knew that, if urged by her feminine fears and wifely love, she rushed forward and stayed the duel, her husband would be the object of men's derision : that they would say he had given her a hint of what was going on, and anticipated her interference.

She knew that, with his hot and fiery temper, hc would imagine such things, even if they were never said ; and that this one meeting so interrupted, would thus lead to others. She had experienced his distaste ; OR, for all displays of affection made by wives, and web knew that, so sensitive was his pride, he would rather lose ten lives than be quizzed as the object of his wife's doating love. Knowing all this, therefore, my mother stood in silent tremor by the rocks, and when ab was ready, clasped her hands so tightly, in the agony of apprehension, that her finger-nails turned livid with the pres sure. Her eyes were rivetted upon her husband, as if her gaze could protect him ; but, at the sudden flash and report of his pistol, her courage failed her, and she fainted. When she recovered, she found herself at home, and the first sound which met her ear was her husband's gay laugh under her window.

Honor and Marcy were beside her, chafing her hands and weeping; for her insensibility had lasted so long that they began to be alarmed, and to think that they were acting imprudently in concealing the state of his wife from Captain Sackville ; but just as they had decided upon sending for him, her eyes unclosed, and conscious ness was restored. In reply to my mother's looks of inquiry, she was told that Honor, fearing lest her strength should fail in the hour of need, had followed the car, and was actually present during the whole of that agonizing night-watch. She had witnessed the duel, and had seen that Lieutenant SELF-DEPENDENCE. Tregear's ball had shot away his antagonist's epau lette, while Captain Sackville had fired in the air ; she had also heard the reconciliation that followed. On seeing Mrs. Sackville fall, she waited until the gentlemen had re-entered their carriages and driven off, and then, with Mike's assistance, had carried my mother to the car, and, by taking a short road, had reached home a few minutes before the late combatants had entered the town.

This explanation was scarcely over, when my father rapped at the door ; for, although it was still very early, he fancied that he heard his wife's voice, and remembering her anxiety of the night before, was come to relieve it in person. My mother, attired ia a long frilled white dressing-gown, was lying on the bed, to which the girls had carried her when she was first brought in ; while her rich fair ringlets, straight ened by the dank night-air, and hanging loosely about her pale face, mingled with the half un plaited tresses behind, and gave her a ghastly appearance. Round her eyelids was a deep circle of black, and her eyes wandered as if she was not yet wholly conscious; but hearing her hus band's voice, she sprang from the bed, and, answering him quickly, advanced with a totter ing, feeble step to meet him.

As he entered, she crossed the room, and, to his terror and VOL. I. c ; OR, amazement, caught at a smab table to steady her trembling steps, and before he could inquire what was the cause of her strange appearance and evident suffering, she reeled and fell ; a scent bottle breaking in the fall, a portion of the glass cut a small vein in her head, and in a moment she lay bleeding at his feet. This accident, alarming as it seemed, was in effect a most fortunate occurrence ; for the excitement of the past night had brought on fever, which was thus timely subdued by the loss of blood. SELF-DEPENDENCE. 19

Chapter III

Strange as it may appear, this incident annoyed my father greatly; and, although he could not help being touched by his wife's devotion, still the idea that he had been watched, and was exposed to jesting remarks upon her romantic affection, irritated him continuaby. My mother's quick per ception soon discovered this, and the reaction in her mind was terrible. She had suffered intensely ; she felt that she had controbed her own feelings from tenderness to his ; and, as proud people always do, she dwelt upon his ingratitude, untU her own faults were forgotten, and she fancied herself the most ib-used and miserable wife in existence. Alas ! how many people make their own sorrows by exaggerating their wrongs, and wholly overlooking their own sins, both of omission and commission. It was in the midst of ab this bitterness that I was born ; and certainly there was nothing in my appearance or disposition to concUiate ; for I was C an ugly child, with a furious temper, and even then showed a true feminine love of my own way.

Poor old Cicely, my Irish nurse, was a faithful believer in ab fairy legends, and had taken no little trouble to procure a properly-shaped horse shoe to fix upon my cradle the moment I was deposited in it, to preserve me from the power of evil spirits. But this was not all ; not only was I to be protected from evil powers, it was also necessary to propitiate the good, and accordingly, my mother having sunk to sleep at the fortunate hour upon the right clay, I was carried by Cicely to a place where four roads met, there to make my offering of green riband to " the good people." This was done very successfully, and greatly to my nurse's satisfaction ; especially as a slight breeze carried the propitiatory offering exactly into the centre of a fairy ring, which adorned the little green patch between the roads : and this, to a proficient in fairy lore, was known to signify that the gift was accepted.

The unhappy and the unfortunate are prover bially superstitious above their fellows, and, in my days of sorrow, I have often caught myself wondering where my fairy patrons were, who had at my birth appeared so propitious; and often, too, when some strange good chance, equally unlooked for and welcome, has come suddenly to my relief, SELF-DEPENDENCE. 21 I have thought to myself, with more earnestness than I should have liked to confess, " Ah, mv fairies have not forgotten me." I do not defend this folly, nor wish to excuse it ; but I do say, that there are few hearts among us in which, if they were honestly searched, some nook would not be found, where a half-acknowledged superstition, dearer to us than we think, nestles and thrives. Partly because I was the child of a man they liked, and partly because — having been born on their own soil, and having, thanks to Cicely, com plied with a darling prejudice — I seemed to belong to them, I was a cherished favourite among the people, who watched me in my walks and rides as if I were a young princess ; and by the time I attained my sixth year I had become duly im pressed with my own importance, having been told hundreds of times a week, that I was " a rale lady, one of the ould sort.