Gil Talbot; or woman's manœuvres and man's tactics

Front matter

[THB AUTHORESS RETAINS THE RIGHT OF TRANSLATING IN FRANCE.] GIL TALBOT; OR, WOMAN'S MANŒUVRES AND MAN'S TACTICS. r.v ANNETTE MARIE MAILLARD, AUTHORESS OF " THE COMPULSORY MARRIAGE," " ZINGRA," "MILES TREMENHERE," "MATRIMONIAL SHIPWRECKS," "ADRIAN," &C, &C, &C. IN THREE VOLUMES. " Thou art lord in thine own kingdom, Rule thyself, thou rulest all ; Smile, when Fortune's proud dominion, Roughly touched, shall rudely fall. Be true unto thyself, and fear not, Evil thoughts that would enslave thee God is in thee ! mortal, fear not ! Trust in Him, and He will save thee !' SlGFRIED MAHLMANN. VOL II. fLon&on : THOS. CAUTLEY NEWBY, PUBLISHER, 30, WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. 1857. THIS SOLDIER'S STORY IS OFFERED TO MT TERT DEAR RELATIVE, CAPTAIN STEPHEN C. ANNESLEY, lOTH REGT. OF FOOT, BT HIS MOST AFFECTIONATELY, THE AUTHOKESS. OR, WOMAN'S MANŒUVRES AND MAN'S TACTICS.

Chapter I

"Dear Major Talbot, do you know where I have been all day?" " I cannot possibly guess." "Try— do try." " Well then — shopping; I suppose you are not different in all things, to most ladies." VOL. II. B "True; I have been in several shops. The fact is, you think me much more helpless than I really am. You think I could not seek an apart ment myself." " I thought so, because you, dear Mrs. Tra vanne are so young, and have been brought up so helplessly." " Oh ! no, not that," she hastily cried, " 1 thank my dear mother this day, that she has made me so thrifty, that she gave me a good education and accomplishments too, for I feel that with these, a good will, and God for guide, we cannot be wrecked," and the girlish figure dilated as she spoke. " I may be tossed awhile, but my boat will come safely in at last."

" What do you mean?" he asked, in a low tone, he began to be afraid of what she would nest say. '• You see," she continued in a tone of assumed indifference, " when I left home I was not rich, and besides, an occupation would be more cheer ing than idleness." This last she said to conceal, or partially veil the truth from him. Gil began to look troubled, he anticipated something painful. " Consequently," Claris continued, " I have this day been seeking something to employ me a little." She put her actual want in brighter colours. "You!" he uttered, "you work for a living! how? Good Heavens!" It was a practical view of her sad fate which he had never dreamed of. " Oh ! some fancy work, something of that sort; it will amuse me, I like it much," she re plied. But she did not tell him how all that day she and Bridget had been visiting the bazaars, and fancy shops, soliciting employment; solicit ing, and in vain; this was the worst part of it in Claris's sight, not the necessity, she was resigned to that ; but the inability of finding trou bled her sorely.

" And of course," she added, in the same hur ried tone, " we deemed it better, such being our project, to come here to these unpretending apart ments." b2 "Good Heavens! Mrs. Travanne!" he cried^ rising hastily in deep agitation, and yet he looked almost stern, his face was so controlled in its expression. " You cannot think of working ! you ! so unfitted to it, so delicate. It must never be?" " Oh ! but it must," she answered, trying to speak playfully, they were both playing a part : " And Bridget and I shall be very happy here." " If I only had anything to do !" she thought. Certainly poor Bridget did not look just then as if she ever should be happy again. She had turned away, and was rolling the corners of her apron in the smallest compass possible. " Your mother, your mother," he asked again, reseating himself: " Surely she will not permit it?

You have not allowed a little annoyance to estrange you from them; from her, especially?" In reply Claris laid Selina's letter on his knee, and as he read and re-folded it without looking at her, Claris said — " Selina is rather stern. She always was, but she has a good heart, Major Talbot, though she has a wrong judgment. She had when I was a child, and she knows me less now. Selina can not understand the law of love, by which all may be gained, especially with a child. If you succeed in attaching one, be sure it will make more progress through love than through fear. Fear makes a child learn like a parrot — learn, repeat, and forget; love, and its accompanying desire of pleasing, impresses the lesson upon the heart." " How he can hear her speak that way, just for all the world as if she were a-reading a les son, and not say something comforting, I don't know," poor Bridget said to herself, glancing at the stern cold-looking man.

" But I can't make him out, and sometimes I think he is a spy." " But your mother, dear Mrs. Travanne. Oh ! let me beg of you, go to her. Her house is your home. Don't yield to right from false pride." " Major Talbot," and now Claris's assumed strength was giving way, and the voice trembled, " my mother will not be allowed to love me. I never was given credit for the affection I possess for her. As a child, I remember that there sometimes rose a choking sensation in my throat, as if I wanted to expend the love which was suffocating me on my mother, and I have striven to do so; but I don't think she ever loved me as she did Selina. Major Talbot, I was brought up in coldness and loneliness, and now I thank Heaven for it; it makes the loss of home less severe." Gil Talbot rose, and, without uttering a word, walked hastily to the window, and looked out ; he passed a hand over his brow, and then through the clustering hair, which that small, but manly hand grasped tightly.

Then he returned again to the sofa, and seizing his hat, said — " Promise me, Mrs. Travanne, that you will do nothing hastily, that you will wait a few days, just a few days — will you?" Claris felt she might safely say ' yes,' for there seemed so little hope of getting anything. " Then good-bye, God in Heaven bless you." And he took her hand, he gave it one abrupt pressure, and then let it fall, as if the contact pained him. " Good-bye, Major Talbot. I am a sore trou ble to you, am I not?" " No— Oh, no ! Good-bye. Good-bye, Brid get. There, stay with your mistress, don't come down with me, I can let myself out, good-bye." " Good morning, sir." " Good-bye, good-bye," grumbled she, as the door closed; " it is a good-bye ! Now mind my words, darling," she continued, turning round quickly towards where Claris had sunk down on the sofa as the door closed after him, and the comedy of cheerfulness was over.

" Mind my words, you'll never see that man again ! A more unfeeling one I never see with my two eyes. There were you, scarce able to speak for crying, didn't I know that, and did he say one kind word? did he try to cheer you? didn't he take part like, with your enemies ? Oh ? dear Miss Claris," and she hugged her darling to her bosom, " dont'e give way to tears before him never no more, if he should come back, for does he ever say a loving word to you, troubled as you are? He may be a good man, but he isn't a tender one, that's for sure. And when you were crying so terrible, didn't he get up most unfeelin', and go to the window to look out? And didn't he look quite pale and weary, just as if he was saying to himself, ' Lor-a-mercy ! how all this worrits me !' " Bridget, as we have said before, was not a clever physiognomist, and moreover she dearly loved demonstrative affection.

She could not understand how much a man like Gil Talbot would restrain himself, how little he durst per mit his heart to show ; nor how thoroughly he understood the blessing of a pure, disinterested regard; but (with the concluding reflection) that, unfortunately, a certain dark gentlemen generally manages to drop a grain of sand into the most limpid cup of affection. There looked something like truth in Bridget's suspicions, when, on the evening of that day, a note came from him in which he begged Claris to await his return, and do nothing rashly till they met, he was suddenly summoned into the country. The letter seemed a very cold one after the scene of that morning, and Bridget felt not a little proud of her own perspicuity. But in this she found consolation. Bridget had a happy knack of turning evil into good.

He was, positively, the third bad man, so now they might hope to meet some good ones. Claris read the letter, and said nothing; she was more just in her judgment than Bridget. Moreover, she had entire faith in Gil Talbot. Next morning, before starting again on a perhaps fruitless search, Claris took up a morning paper, her daily occupation, to search through all its columns for something which might suit her. She was more discouraged even than she permitted Bridget to know, for day after day she had gone forth, hoping from some most promising ad vertisement only to find it a trick to extort money ; or else she had found herself in the hall of some mansion, perhaps tbe fiftieth amidst a group of anxious beating hearts, all well knowing that B there would be but one chosen, either as governess or companion ; and she, the timid, once so loved Claris, had to offer herself, a self-sale, perhaps to some low, purse-proud woman, who questioned loudly about education and accomplishments, without possessing enough of her own language to ask the questions correctly.

She had to ex tol accomplishments, put them forward, balance them with the paltry sums offered ; she, who had scarcely ventured to let them peep forth, from timidity, even before her intimate acquaintances. And, after all these severe sufferings to her sen sitive nature, to be coldly rejected for some frivolous excuse. We are very fond of subscribing to popular charities, and going off to the antipodes to benefit mankind. If we would but condescend to lower our telescopes, and with naked eyes and keen sight look into the real sorrows of the sad governess class at home, for the sorrow lies at every one's door, ready to enter. It is not the girl, the tradesman's daughter who has been brought up to become a governess by way of elevating her, making a lady of her by education, who suffers, but it is the girl who has been tenderly brought up, too generally the daughter of a poor clergyman, who has taught her all the precepts of christian charity, and when by his death she is thrown upon the world alone, she has to see how those precepts work practically. 'Tis a sorry lesson she learns.

A good servant is valued, good ones are so scarce we must be careful not to lose one. But a governess ! you may treat as you please, there are hundreds to supply her place, as capable as herself. Claris, however did not know all this, she only remembered her sister's system with herself and thought — " When I am one, I will make the little ones love, not fear me. And thus too, will I win their mother's esteem." Poor Claris ! with these excellent intentions and hopes, she rapped at the door of a house in a fashionable square, and presented herself as a couple of cyphers, A. G. One would have sufficed, for she soon would be no more, she had been so attracted by this advertisement, that she lost sight of the little ' yes,' Gil had extorted from her about keeping herself quiet until he returned.

And Claris — Travanne's Claris of the large brown hat — sat in the hall of that mansion, on a mahogany seat, awaiting her turn. Bridget was outside. A governess must not seem even to have a friend. For some time she sat looking down, she felt so nervous and ashamed, then she raised her eyes and there opposite to her on a peg, was a large brown hat, the sac-simile of her Brighton one. The hall too all reminded her of the few months gone by ; she fancied for a moment that she felt Travanne's fingers on her throat trying to tie on her hat, he heard her mother's voice, and the closing door as she ran off with Tra vanne to the beach. And from that reverie she was aroused by a smirking lackey who said "Now, if you please, Miss, it is your turn." Once she would have awakened from that dream with tears, and have rushed away from the spot.

Now she thought of all Travanne's cruelty, his last insulting letter, and she rose up resolved to succeed, " Lest," she whispered to herself, " I might be even tempted to touch his money, for starvation will make us do much." She had scarcely eaten anything that morning, and she began to understand what hunger might accomplish. She looked so proud and lovely when she en tered the drawing-room that both mother and daughter there took an instantaneous dislike to her, and yet they engaged her because, after all, she was only the governess, and could not in any way clash with them. And as they wanted an accomplished person, to assist in amusing their company, to read French and Italian with the daughter, the newspapers to the gouty papa, to practise singing with the daughter, all of which she was fully competent to undertake, and as, above all else, they got her at a very low salary, Claris was engaged, and asked for her references.

She was thunderstruck; she had never even thought of these. It is something, very bitter to the proud, unpright spirit, the day it has its probity so practically doubted, as to be asked for a reference, for it shews you all you might be, and yet look honest. " To-morrow," Claris uttered at last, in trepidation, " I will call about them, if that will be time enough." She had not the least idea where to get any ! Gil Talbot came like a vision across her mind, but he was away, and then she recollected having promised him to do nothing until he returned. So altogether she looked dreadfully perplexed, and all she could recollect afterwards was, that they had asked her her name ; mechanically she said " Claris," to which they prefixed " Miss ;" and then she found herself in the street, under an engagement to send her references on the morrow.

And where were they to come from? And what was to become of dear Bridget ? She had not foreseen parting until now. " I don't half like that girl !" exclaimed the supercilious mother, as Claris departed, " there is something strange about her." " You must be very particular in looking into the references," suggested the daughter. " What capital good eyes she has !" remarked the poor gouty father from his chimney corner. " Mr. Gaddy," cried his superb wife, " I trust you will keep those observations to yourself. I cannot for my part understand the propensity you have for remarking the personal appearance of persons beneath you. Fortunately, your children take after me." Poor old Gaddy said no more, but pulled the little velvet cap a trifle more over his ears to shut out sound, but we fear he thought still in his vulgar heart that he should like a sweet voice like Claris's to read to him, and eyes like hers to look kindly on him.

Chapter II

But if Claris had not thought for herself, some one was thinking of her, but little dreaming of her requiring a reference. Still he was the one appointed by Heaven to be ever " good at need." The day before he left; this evening he returned, but not alone. Claris and Bridget sat very sorrowful, all looked so dark around them either way. If Claris succeeded, and got this situation, where would poor Bridget go? Poor indeed, without her child. If Claris failed . What then should they do? At all events, they would be together; and as her mistress thought this, she got up and sitting on the knees which had so often sustained her weight, she put her arms round the cherished neck, and smiling in Brid get's face, bade her cheer. Just at that moment they heard a vehicle of some sort stop at their door.

" No one for us," Claris said. " It is too late for " " He'll never come again ! " Bridget exclaimed impatiently. " He's like all of them." Bridget, Bridget, unsay those words, and look over the balusters; there you will see Gil Tal bot's fine manly figure looking more stately than usual by comparison, as he helps up the stairs that feeble woman, and how dark and expressive his eyes are as he gazes upon her, for 'tis the one he thinks he loves best in the world — his mother — and perhaps his thought is correct at pre sent. " A lady and gentleman for you, ma'am," said the maid of all work, flinging open the door. "For me?" and Claris sprang forward to embrace her own mother, she thought, but it was Gil who caught her hand, and placed it in another's. " Mrs. Travanne," he said, " this is my mother."

" You would not come to me," uttered a soft, but suffering voice, " so I have come to you, poor child." Claris could not speak. She has herself told what she felt when stealing a kiss from her mo ther. She was nothing better now; her sensi tive nature was soon overcome by affection or kindness. She knelt down before that invalid, now sunk down in a chair, and wept bitterly over her hands. She felt ashamed of herself, for but a few moments before she had been almost accusing Heaven of leaving her without friends ; and lo ! Heaven, which performs all in a manner so loving that our feeble strength may not be overcome, was watching her; Heaven which does no hasty miracle now, lest infidels should scoff, but in a natural, homely" way, is ever near us, hearing and granting, and teaching us that with Faith but one virtue is necessary to attain all else — Patience.

Claris was impatient and rebellious, and Mercy only made her repent by a blessing not a chastisement. It was by her own law of love. Some natures are only won by this. Heaven knew her, and sent it. " There, there," uttered a low gentle voice, as a white, sickly hand caressed Claris's bowed head, "don't cry; you must not give way to despondency; the world has many bright paths in it yet for you, I make no doubt ; for it is a beautiful place if we only knew how to use it, and make wholesome lessons out of its trials. Should we half appreciate its sunny paths if we did not sometimes pass under cypress trees, hiding the light from us?" and the moralist looked as if she had indeed loved everything sent by Heaven across her path. Claris raised her eyes to speak, and met Gil Talbot's bent upon her with a look so full of thrilling interest that hers fell before it.

He evidently had not expected her to look up, for he turned hastily away. " Come, get up, poor child," said the kind voice again, " I've come to be a mother to you till yours is one again. You must not blame her," continued the peacemaker, "a mother never could be wilfully wrong. She will soon see her error, and call you to her bosom. Gilbert has told me all, poor child, and i" will be your mother." Claris could not rise, she felt so weakened by this kindness; but an arm was round her which never before had touched her, and it trembled now as it encircled the slight girlish waist; ne vertheless he persisted until Claris's arms were around his mother's neck, and then he loosened his hold, and drew back. Still the manner was kinder than it had ever been ; his mother's presence seemed to have warmed him, for as he placed a chair for Claris next to his parent, he again took her hand, and pressing it, put it into his mother's, and said, with unmistakeable feeling,— " Love and cherish her, dear mother, for she is worthy of all you can give her."

This from him was much. " And when do we go down to Talbot Court?" asked his mother, after a few moments given to the expression of her gratitude by Claris ; " not to night, it is too late, but to-morrow shall we not? I am an invalid now, but I trust soon to be in health again, and then I will shew you all the beauties of scenery in Kent." " 0, Major Talbot! speak for me," Claris im plored, seizing his hand; " tell your kind, generous mother the barrier between us — do tell her for me !" " I did not think that thought still existed," he hurriedly said, and then as quickly correcting himself, added, " I mean, Mrs. Travanne, I fancied that you would be more just towards your self, than to allow Travanne still to influence all your conduct, and make you forget what you owe to yourself." He was again the stern Major Talbot; she looked at him.

"Surely," she thought, "this cannot be the man who, a few minutes since, raised me so ten derly in his arms — the one whose look made me feel that it was not merely cold charity urging him to befriend me!" This had ever been her thought, keeping entire ease with Travanne from her heart. " I was not thinking of him, but of my own mother, Major Talbot," she replied, " and I thought now you understood me." This now pained him ; he felt all its meaning, that she had not placed entire confidence in his sincere good-will — yet how act differently? He durst not; he was a man — one of the most exalted honour. He knew how far he might venture in friendship, and keep the door closed on more endearing thought than that avows. For whom did he fear — for himself, or was he self-conceited enough to dread for her?

Conceit was not a vice of Gil's nature. " There, there, Gilbert, " said his mother gently, " you must not speak so abruptly to this poor child; I feel her hand tremble now. Don't mind him, dear Mrs. Travanne; I assure you he is the tenderest creature living, and if you could see him, when I am really unable to walk carry my poor frail little body in his strong arms, you would then understand Gilbert." " Tut, tut," cried he, impatiently, " you make too much of the little I do, mother. And what is it but a law of nature which made you, mother, to a strong man like myself, that I might bear your weight; just as the oak supports the tender branches, and expects no thanks for doing so. But we are deserting the question," he hurriedly added, " Mrs. Travanne's departure." " Aye, my dear, when shall we leave?

When will you be prepared?" anxiously inquired Mrs. Talbot. " Dear madam," cried Claris, grasping both the other's hands, "forgive me; 0! pray forgive me, and acquit me of anything like ingratitude, but there are barriers between us no will of mine could overcome. The same which existed in Captain Travanne's case exists now with respect to my mother and sister. I do love them both, my dear mother especially ; and Selina, for I know that though my sister is stern — unjust too — it is all conscientiously done. She has her own, and erroneous sense of duty, making her act as she does. Could anyone prove to her how harsh and cruel she is, Selina would be the first to open her arms to me, but all arises from a first cause, a mistaken idea, that a child should be governed with severity, she thinks me still a child."

" And are you not one, an obstinate one too?" Gil said, in a playful tone, and yet it was an anxious one too, " if you bring your sister for ward, between my mother's home and yourself, I am convinced that you're going there would gratify both of them." " Then it is as I half suspected," Claris thought : " Major Talbot loves Selina, and thinks in kindness too, towards me, to please all by this act." And Bridget, though she had forborne to listen in the next room, overheard the last sentence, and she too thought, " he is a cold, selfish man, just like them all, and only wants Miss Claris to go down to his mother's just to please them at home, and 'specially Miss Selina. Why don't he marry her, and then Miss Claris might go down, for wouldn't they all be related then? Lawks what fools men are, theyj hasn't half a woman's gumption to see how things should be done," and she chuckled at her own wisdom.

" Selina will be a very happy woman with him I am sure," Claris thought as she glanced in his fine anxious face, bent upon her, and she sighed at her own fate. " Have you decided?" he asked at last.] "Let her reflect, Gilbert," said his mother kindly, "and I am sure she'll come with me." " Oh dear madam, I cannot," burst from Claris at last. " It would be destroying all hope of ever seeing my home again, and only this sustained me, my mother, dear Selina. It has been a hope laid up in my heart so long, to win her love. I know, her to be so good, and I thought when I was married I should have gained it, I scarcely know why, but I thought that when one loved me all would do so. And VOL. II. C all has failed me, but don't ask me to destroy the hope." "If I thought it could," Mrs. Talbot said gravely but kindly, " I would not indeed."

" It would, dear madam, it would truly, for unfortunately they ever misconstrued my acts, they would deem this one, making a party against them, and their doors would for ever be closed against me, and I should never see my dear mother." " Pardon my saying it, Mrs. Travanne, but you are not reasonable;" Major Talbot was growing angry, just because he felt she had reason to guide her, and his hopes were declining. " In what could my mother's residence be a greater barrier to your re-union than a stranger's?" he asked. " Simply because it is your mother's home," she replied. "And you being a visitor at my mother's, it would seem like a party made against them." "If you will go," he warmly said, "I'll never enter Mrs. Craven's house until you are admitted there." Claris stared in amazement at the cold Gil Talbot, now so fervent in his supplications.

And she stared too, for could he love Selina, and make that offer? She was much perplexed. " I don't like that man, that's plain !" cried Bridget in the next room, her virtue had ebbed away, and she had been listening, well knowing though, that Claris had no secrets from her, so that soothed her conscience. " No, I don't like him, for he's two faces under a hood, and just wants to get dear Miss Claris down to look after his mother, I believe and that's all." And Bridget gave an indignant grunt, as she snuffed out her candle "for economy's sake," and sat in the dark. " Blind people do all but see better than others," she muttered philosophically, " and why shouldn't I hear better without a light? I do want to know all, or else that blessed child will be imposed upon. And talk," she continued c soliloquizingly, "of carrying his mother up stairs; I shouldn't wonder some day if he let her fall, if it suits his own purpose, for they're all bad together."

Was it the men she meant? Alas! poor Bridget, like many others, when they have once turned down a crooked road, go down it full gallop, leaping over all sense and reason. She disliked the Major, and would see all bad in him, for two reasons — because two others had deceived her, and he was that unlucky third man whom she dreaded. " I will say no more to urge you, my poor child," said Mrs. Talbot, sorrowfully and disap pointedly. " Only recollect this, that I esteem your motives, though I believe you are wrong, and whenever you will accept it, my home shall be one for you." " God bless you, dear Madam !" cried Claris with deep feeling, " I was sure you would under stand a child's heart and its yearnings." Gil did not speak; he was leaning on the mantelpiece, watching the flickering fire, but he looked very sad, and sterner than ever.