Mary Bertrand

Chapter I

" FOOTSTEPS COMING UPSTAIRS." " Some highwrought page Of a closed volume ling'ring in her hand Hath raised her spirit. At leisure may be seen Features to old ideal grace allied, A face o'er which a thousand shadows go." Wordsworth. A bleak January afternoon. Moorheath had never looked more desolate. It was snowing fast ; the wind was sweep ing over the wide stretch of common, scattering before it, to form fresh VOL. I. B MARY BERTRAND. ridges, white, eddying, flaky clouds from the drifts which its force had already raised. Although the fall had only commenced at noon, the snow was already several inches deep in some places ; and all trace of many of the ditches which, at various intervals, run along the side of the paths intersecting the heath, was, in some others, completely obliterated by the drifts which had filled them up ; while, elsewhere, the dark-brown, scanty winter herbage was scarcely covered.

There were very few objects visible, to break the dreariness of the wide waste ; one or two unlucky travellers, close-buttoned to the chin, and muffled to the nose, were struggling onwards, as fast as the wind, blowing directly in their faces, would permit them. Bent half double, as if to shelter their faces and chests from the extreme violence of the blast, they were making their way to some place of refuge, doubtless in the adjacent village of Moorheath. This village, built in a hollow formed by the sudden dipping of the ground, and, therefore, screened from the force of the winds, which swept in such uncontrolled violence over the high, unsheltered common-land, is situated to wards the eastern boundary of the heath, and is distant about two miles from the large old town of Altham. As every one knows, Altham is not more than fifteen miles from London ; the reader will therefore perceive that my story b2 commences in no very romantic or se cluded spot.

The London road passes through the middle of the village of Moorheath, which consists only of two rows of houses built on each side of it. At one end of the street, on the steep acclivity which leads the passenger up again to the level common land, which preserves its wide and open character until the outskirts of Altham encroach upon it, stand the church and school. The former is a stern grey building, of old and venerable appearance, "Not raised in nice proportions, But large and massy, for duration built," covered with ivy, and the weather stains of the storms that had beat upon it, and the rain and damp that had descended upon it, for so many generations. By the side of this massive pile, standing almost within the shadow of the grey tower, is the school-house, a low, one-storied building of red brick, over which clusters also thickly the ivy, and green and yellow mosses.

Moorheath school is an old foundation, but in times gone by it has been very much neglected and misappropriated. At the time when this history begins, it was rising fast again into notice and consequence, under the energetic and able management of the then head-master, Mr. Grey. We shall hear more of him hereafter ; at present, the course of my narrative draws us to the other side of the village, where stands a row of MARY BERTRAND. old houses facing the heath, and built upon the London road, just before its sudden descent into the hollow. The twilight of a winter's evening is drawing quickly on, as we enter No. 12, Heath Terrace, and open the door of the sitting-room upstairs, having ascended the wide old-fashioned oak stair case. We enter a comfortable room, also oak-paneled, and with furniture of the same description, almost black with age and polish, — highly-carved, and the chairs of the straight-backed order general to such relics of more than a century ago.

The carpet, curtains, and covers are all red, which gives a warm and mellow colouring. A glow of warmth and light strikes us as we enter ; the remembrance of the bleak waste and wild weather without only serves to render more inviting this cozy-looking room. Candles are not yet brought in; there is no light but the plentiful one afforded by the ruddy glow of the large fire, heaped with logs of wood, crackling away, whose smoke and blaze ascend high into the wide old-fashioned chimney ; the latter sheds its flickering and shadowy gleams over the face and figure of Mary Bertrand, as she sits in one of the carved arm-chairs, her head resting against its red cushions ; lost in a pleasant reverie, her eyes gazing into the red glow of the fire — perhaps seeing pictures therein. The book over which the last halfhour has been spent lies open, but unheeded, in her lap ; if we look over her shoulder we shall see that " Ten nyson's Poems " have been occupying her attention.

Mary has a fancy for reading poetry at this hour ; and upon some of these pieces she loves to dwell, with an affection and apprecia tion that never tire. Something in " In Memoriam," at one of the most beautiful and harmonious poems of which noble elegy the book still lies open, has doubtless called up an array of " thick-coming fancies." Mary is my heroine ; I will take her portrait as she sits, wrapt in thought. There is something very natural, yet very refined, about her careless atti tude ; an easy and delicate grace about every line of her figure — from the small finely-shaped head to the slender taper hand, and the little feet peeping out from beneath the dark admirably fitting dress of blue merino, which is relieved by the whitest and most dainty of collars and cuffs, and by a gold watch and chain, and antique cameo brooch, which she wears.

Mary is not above the middle height ; but her figure is so well pro portioned, that it never would strike you she was either too tall or too short ; her complexion, inherited from her mother, who was an English woman, is very fair ; her eyes, eye brows, and eyelashes, are very dark — as is the rippled, wavy, chestnut hair, which is drawn backwards from her smooth open brow, showing to perfec tion the sharplycut Greek profile ; the forehead low, but broad — the straight short nose — the small mouth, with its short upper lip — the rounded chin. We cannot see the colour of her eyes, for they are cast down ; but the lashes are very long and black, and her eye brows are dark and well-defined, form ing an arched fringe, the blackness of which makes still more apparent the white transparency of her skin, through which you can trace almost every one of the azure veins beneath.

The ex pression of her face now is very quiet, and not the faintest colour tinges the marble clearness of her complexion ; yet the slightest excitement flushes her cheeks most becomingly ; and there is even now a "most sweet capability of smiling" traceable in her mobile mouth, and lurking in the dimples in her chin. A step on the stairs rouses her; it is slow and measured ; Mary rises, and stirs together the logs, which during the last half-hour have burnt partially away. The touch of two light hands on her shoulder, as the steps pause behind her, startles her a little. The new comer is a tall, slight, and graceful youth of eighteen, fair and handsome, with the same style of features as Mary herself, and with the same wavy chestnut hair, but with light blue eyes, instead of the dark violet, almost black ones, that, now she raises her face to him, we see belong to her.

He laughs at her slight tremor. " I thought it was papa ! " she ex plained ; " you are early, Claude." '■This confounded fall of snow has spoilt the ice. I have been in at the Wards' all the afternoon, playing at bagatelle with Harry," answered her cousin, throwing himself into the arm chair which Mary had quitted, and settling himself luxuriously among the cushions, with his feet on the fender. " And how are Mrs. Ward and Helen, and the dear doctor ? " " Quite well ; they, the ladies that is (Dr. Ward was not at home, of course), sent all sorts of love to you ; they said you should take your work in there oftener this cold weather, and sit with them." '•They are very kind." "Where is 'mon oncle,' Mary?" "He is gone to the Quarterly Meeting of the School Committee ; it meets to-day, you know; but he will be home directly."

" Ah ! I hope so, for I have a canine hunger, as he would say himself." " You need not wait for him," said Mary, ringing the bell. " I will make tea at once ; Papa will be home by the time it is ready — he is always very punctual." Before very long, Sarah, the brisk, dark-eyed, middle-aged servant, who had lived with M. Bertrand ever since he had been at Moorheath, and that was fifteen years, entered with the tea-tray. Her movements were always quick and energetic ; the table was soon set quickly enough to satisfy Claude's impatience, and in a few minutes the tea-kettle was singing away merrily upon the hob. Claude, lying lazily back in his chair, watched his cousin as she went through the little routine of tea making. At length he said : — " This night reminds me of the one I came, six years ago."

" This very day," said Mary. " It was just such another day as this," continued Claude — " cold, snowy, and stormy. My aunt was ill upstairs — too ill to see me, Sarah told me when I arrived ; and you were out with my uncle, so I sat here for an hour, as it was growing dark, by myself. I shall never forget how dismal I felt ; even the fire went nearly out, and, in a strange house, I had not courage to stir it. What a poor, delicate, little, puny fellow I must have been in those days ! " "Poor Claude!" ejaculated Mary, as the remembrance of her cousin, six years ago, a slight, shrinking, delicate child, with large blue eyes and golden hair, recurred to her. "The sight of you was the first gleam of comfort for me, Mary ; you did not say much at first, that is true, but you stirred the fire into a cheerful blaze, and then went about the business of tea making, just as deftly as you are doing it now.

I remember wondering how such little hands as you had then — and they are not much bigger now — could cut bread and butter. It struck my childish imagination that you must be like these indus trious little brownies my old Scotch nurse, Jean, used to tell me of." " What a romantic imagination you must have had even then, Claude," said Mary, laughing. " I remember I was very unroman tically hungry then, as I am now. By the way, Sarah, just go and get me my slippers." Sarah, who was standing in attendance, to be ready with the kettle when required a second time (the old servant would by no means have let her little mistress lift it, if she could help it), went, rather sulkily, to fetch the articles required. "Thanks, Sarah," said Claude, care lessly, as the slippers were deposited, rather roughly it must be confessed, on the rug before him ; he put out his feet, coolly enough, for his boots to be pulled off, and then inducted them into the slippers.

Sarah had obeyed the motion with a slight grimace, which had passed unnoticed ; it was her very de liberate opinion, sometimes pretty freely expressed, " that Master Claude required a deal of waitin' on ; he did ought to have been born a lord, that he should." " Is there anything substantial in the house, Mary ? " " Cold beef ; I knew you would come home hungry." " That's right, Mary ; I'll walk into him. What a capital, thoughtful wife you would make. I shan't be able to VOL. I. c spare you though, so you mustn't be in any hurry about it." "Ah! a first-rate wife, indeed," broke in Sarah, who always thought herself entitled to put in her word, and to whom the French customs of her master permitted far greater licence than is customary in general among English domestics. "You're right enough there, Master Claude," continued she ; " Miss Mary '11 get some one, I'm hoping, who'll know her value, and who'll wait upon her, not want waiting upon himself."

The latter part of this sentence was delivered rather in an undertone, as Sarah made her exit with the innocent, but offending, boots. " Hollo, old grumpy ! What's the matter to-night?" ejaculated Claude, as the door closed rather more audibly than is quite en regie after the old servant. It must be remarked that the said Sarah would most angrily deprecate the adjective I have already once or twice used with reference to her, being affixed to her name. After all, old she was not in years ; and in energy and work she might, as she often said, have "looked down upon any girl of five and-twenty." "Tea is quite ready, Claude," said Mary. She had scarcely poured out the first cup of tea, when the door opened, and an old man, of a tall figure, but bent, less perhaps by age, however, than by trouble and illness, dark and wrinkled, c2 with the complexion and air of a foreigner, entered the room.

"Ah! here is papa!" cried Mary. "Bon soir, Claude; bon soir, Mary," said Monsieur Bertrand. " Ah ! qu'il fait froid — terriblement froid," he continued, as he advanced towards the blazing fire, on the side of the table nearest to which Mary had placed him a chair. M. Bertrand always spoke French when it was possible to do so ; he had left his native country when middle aged, and although he both spoke and wrote the English language thoroughly, it had never become familiar to him. Nevertheless, as this is an English book, it is needless to say that all that may be recorded of his sayings will be in that language. " I saw Mr. Grey, Mary, as I came up the hill," said her father, presently. " Indeed ! he has just come home, I suppose ? " " Yes, he intends paying us a visit this evening; the school opens on Thurs day — in three days' time, Claude," continued his uncle, with a smile.

" Bah ! so it does," said Claude, with a shrug, which he must certainly have acquired, with the exclamation, from his uncle — both were so thoroughly French ; "so it does, and the frost has only just set in ; that's always the way ; it always does freeze just at the end of the holidays." "You can skate by moonlight for the next week ; and there is the hour at twelve, and the half-holidays," suggested Mary, in consolation ; " besides, you can get up early, as Harry Ward did last winter, and go down to the ice before breakfast, if you like." " The pleasure is not worth so much pain," said Claude, lazily, turning away from the table, and locating himself in his former snug and easy seat by the fire. " By the way, Mary," he ex claimed presently, "there is that draw ing to be finished ; I will set about it directly, if you will ring, as I see uncle has done, for the things to be cleared away."

Chapter II. Treats Of Various Subjects

" His eyes did ne'er Fix on a lovely object, or his mind Take pleasure in the midst of happy thoughts, But either she was there, or not far off." Wordsworth. The reader will already have understood that Monsieur Bertrand, the father of Mary, was a Frenchman. He was of a good old family, which had anciently taken its name from a small hamlet in the western province of La Vendee, near to which had been situated a Chateau de Bertrand as far back as the old feudal times. Like most of the families of that country, his had ardently supported the Royalist cause in the long sustained and gallant struggle, which is the most interesting, yet even the sad dest, part of the history of the French Revolution ; and also, like most of these loyal gentlemen, they had suffered loss of life and fortune in that cause, leaving our "Monsieur Bertrand, while yet almost a child, to fight his own way in the world.

He had sacrificed his scruples of family, and had accepted an opening offered to him, almost by chance, in a mercantile house, in one of the western seaport towns, where he had taken refuge, and sought employment. Jean Bertrand seemed doomed to misfortune ; just as he had worked his way up to the situation of a junior partner in this house, it failed in the troubles of 1830. He made his way to England, and, when past forty years of age, began life again as a teacher of French in English schools and families. It was hard work at first to gain a subsistence, but he fought his way gal lantly, and in two or three years began to realize an income which, to his French eyes, seemed considerable. It was quite enough to support himself in ease and comfort ; but certainly not enough, in England, to marry upon.

Nevertheless, and unfortunately for his own prospects of competence, he fell in love with a young English lady, of good family and education, but who had also been com pelled by misfortune to earn a liveli hood as governess in one of the schools he attended. She, almost alone in the world, received his attentions, and ac cepted his proposals, with gratitude ; and, as his kind-heartedness, and old-fashioned politeness and consideration, had really gained her heart, she made an admirable and affectionate wife. They lost their two first children, and after the birth of their third and last one, Mary, Mrs. Bertrand's health com pletely gave way ; and two years of very narrow circumstances and great trial succeeded. At last, the interest of his wife's connections, some of whom were wealthy people, obtained him the appointment of French master to the Moorheath school.

Here he had lived for fifteen years, during which he had had one great trial, the irreparable one of losing his wife, who had died when Mary was about fourteen, rather more than three years before the time at which my story begins. Since her death the household at No. 12 had consisted of Monsieur Bertrand, Mary, and Claude, with Sarah, the faith ful, but rather eccentric, domestic I have already introduced. Claude Hamilton was Mary's first cousin ; his mother had been Mrs. Bertrand's sister. I have said that Mrs. Bertrand was of good family, but in reduced circum stances. Her father had been a clergyman ; and at his death she and an elder sister, Agnes, had been left des titute. Mary, the younger, found, as we have seen, a situation in a school; the elder obtained one in a family of the name of Hamilton.

She possessed great personal attractions — her beauty was of the soft, yet classical style of our Mary's ; and it soon captivated the heart of her employer's eldest son. This fancy of young Mr. Hamilton's caused great commotion, as may be supposed, in his wealthy and well-con nected family, who, as their name im ports, were Scotch, and, though not poor, proud enough. The young man, though determined to marry Agnes, was anxious to save himself and her the scenes that must ensue before consent could be obtained ; but she ab solutely refused to agree to any under hand proceedings. Fired by her unex pected and disinterested opposition, the young man exerted himself so strenuously to overcome his father's prejudice, that a reluctant consent to the union was at last obtained. Their marriage took place two years after Monsieur Ber trand's with the younger sister, and their only child, Claude, was born nearly a year before his cousin Mary.

Although most affectionately attached, the sisters, after their marriages, saw as little of each other as they had done during their years of dependence. Mr. Hamilton, the husband of Agnes, had the general prejudice of an English man against foreigners and tutors ; and although his passion had caused him to treat with indifference the latter obstacle to making Agnes his wife, it prevented him from allowing any personal inter course with M. and Mme. Bertrand, until, at the death of Mrs. Hamilton, he sent his son to school at Moorheath, and arranged, for convenience sake, that he should board with his uncle during the time he was at school. I have omitted to state that, nine years before this, Mrs. Hamilton's influence had in duced her husband to give her brother in-law the situation to which I have referred, and which he still held.

Little Claude grew up Jo consider the time he spent at Moorheath, when he had Mary for a companion, and his aunt for the kindest of friends and counsellors, the happiest time of the year. His father was a reserved man, and the tears which the little boy shed when he heard that he had followed his mother to the grave, were softened by the information that henceforth he was to live entirely at Moorheath until he should have finished his education. Here he had, then, remained entirely for the last six years. His father's will had left him to the guardianship of a paternal uncle, who held a high office in India ; and as that climate would, of course, be very unhealthy to a boy of twelve years old, Sir George Hamilton had fully admitted the propriety of this arrangement. Claude had lately heard it was probable that his uncle's term of residence abroad would very shortly come to a close.

During this time a love, quite as strong as that of brother and sister, had grown up between Mary and her cousin. In outward appearance, as I have said, they were as much alike as if that connection had really subsisted between them. In character there was far less resemblance. In spite of her cousin's advantage in age, Mary, from natural character, the sequestered life she had led, and her long attendance on her mother, who had been delicate for seve ral years before her death, was far older in mind than Claude ; and she by degrees came to consider herself as his elder sister, whose charge, in some sort, he was. From mixing so much as his school life had led him to do with those of his own age, and younger than himself, he had lost none of the cha racteristics of boyhood, and by nature he had very little of the steady but gentle firmness and decision which were the substratum of his cousin's many soft and lovable qualities.

A skilful physi ognomist might have traced this differ ence of disposition in the two faces — both, nevertheless, so fair and so much alike : Claude's, handsome, mobile, and flexible, had nothing expressive of settled character or firm resolve stamped upon it ; it resembled a mirror, quick to picture forth, and to lose as quickly, whatever fleeting image happened to pass over it. Mary's was " A countenance in which did meet Sweet records, promises as sweet." Nevertheless, Claude was very lovable ; VOL. I. D and his very faults were attractive, like the frolics of a wild but favourite child ; he was impetuous, but indolent, quick, even talented in some things, full of feeling and admiration for whatever was beautiful in art, nature, or imagination, with a passionate love for music, and great natural taste and skill in it.

His was just the character that, if compelled and incited, would have distinguished it self ; it was unfortunate for him that necessity did not furnish him with the requisite spur to exertion — for he was to inherit a very ample fortune when he arrived at the age of twenty-one. Perhaps the very difference of character between the cousins had served, as is often the case, to draw closer the bond between them ; certainly the similarity of their tastes and pursuits com bined to give interest to their com panionship. In school time, it had always been Mary's part to urge him forward ; sometimes her quicker intellect and more steady application had been of very material assistance to him. In the hours of amusement and relaxation her sym pathy had always given double zest even to the amusements in which she could not join him ; while the address with which she managed to engage and rivet his attention to subjects likely to be of benefit to him, had kept him from many of the follies, and all the vices, which boys, or rather young men, have often imbibed before Claude's age.

He did not suspect the extent of her influence over him ; Mary's self-forgetfulness and D unaffected humility had always prevented any of that " suspicious pride " inherent in almost every man from taking offence ; and she was always ready to let him take (as he often did quite innocently) the credit of any resolution to which she had prompted him, or of any under taking in which she had given her assistance. Perhaps this affectionate as siduity was not altogether good for the young gentleman ; there is often a wonderful deal of use to one in having to rough it occasionally ; perhaps Mr. Claude has been rather too much considered, too much waited upon and thought of, for his own good. But in attending to him, and to her father, Mary found her greatest happi ness, as well as her duty. The illhealth, and then the death, of her mother had given her, at a very early age, the entire superintendence of the house hold concerns.

She had very few friends, and no acquaintances ; but her time, even when her father and her cousin were away all day — the former engaged in his duties as French master, the latter in his as a fifth-form boy, at the school — never hung heavily upon her hands. Her education had been a desultory one ; she had gained French from her father, and music from a master ; but all the rest of the knowledge she had gathered — and that was not a little for her sex and age — had been gleaned from her own course of reading, and from going over at night the studies of the next day with Claude. She had now given up the latter; for her cousin, as men always do, had gone too far be yond her for it to be possible that she should join him. The former she still kept up ; and her music she practised diligently, more for Claude's amusement than for her own.

She had the genius of order in no common degree ; and she had laid out a daily routine of her own, in which her days passed away, quickly enough, between her various duties and employments. The evenings, whether in summer or winter, were a season of unmixed pleasure and enjoy ment, passed, as they were, with her father and Claude ; then walking, music, drawing, reading, of the kind that, after all, in spite of her graver studies during the day, Mary liked best, romances or poetry, filled up the quick-flying hours, to the entire satisfaction of the two cousins. M. Bertrand, engrossed with his book or his thoughts, had always left them to their own occupations and amusements ; the only relaxation he ever seemed to care for was an occasional game at chess with Mr. Grey, who had always been a constant evening visitor at Heath Terrace.

Chapter III. In Which

A VISITOR COMES. " Indifference And self-respecting slowness, disinclined To win me at first sight; and be there joined Patience and temperance with this high reserve, Honour that knows the path, and will not swerve ; Affections which, if put to proof, are kind, And piety towards God." Wordsworth. "Mr. Grey, if you please, sir," said Sarah, opening the door of the parlour that evening, about eight o'clock. The visitor, a young man of eight and-twenty or thereabouts, but looking a year or two older, of a height and carriage which gave him a striking presence, exchanged the customary salu tations with our three friends; and then, drawing a chair forward with the air of an accustomed guest, seated himself at the table opposite M. Bertrand. The others all resumed their former places, Claude bent again over the drawing which was occupying his atten tion.

" How comfortable you look ! " said Mr. Grey to Mary. He might well say so ; the glow of fire and lamp, and the closed curtains, gave an evening snugness to the al ways comfortable room, while M. Ber trand reading, Mary working, and Claude drawing, made a pretty and picturesque family group — the old man so dark and venerable-looking, the two young people so fair and so much alike. " Yes," said M. Bertrand, " I daresay the storm and darkness which you have encountered make the contrast of light, warmth, and quiet very agreeable." " But Mr. Grey likes, or used to like, braving the storm," said Mary, looking up at him with a smile. "Yes; but how do you know?" he asked, turning again to her. She answered without the slightest hesitation : — " Five years ago, the first winter you came, I found that out."