Images de page
PDF
ePub

bed wanted on a lonely night-if there is a weaker emigrant (with those who depend on his labour) lain aside-that other solitary hard-working man will give his help and time-and that man is Tom.

His is truly a solitary hard-working life. His hair has grown grey before its time; before their time have come those deep furrows on his brow; and yet, solitary as he is, those hard hands do not labour even here for no object.

In England there is a little orphan whose father fell in India, and whose mother died a year or two afterwards, and there is never a tree felled, never a hatchet raised, without Tom's thoughts going over the seas to that little child. Without an object? I do not know how, but I know that it will be so there will be a soft path some day for those who have trodden bravely the thorny one here.

IN TRUST.

BY ISIDORE G. ASCHER.

ONLY a faded portrait,

Wrought with exquisite art,
That I hide from the garish daylight,
And keep in trust on my heart;

Only a shadowy image

Of one so true and dear,

That a halo of love surrounds it,
And makes its features clear.

I cannot pierce the care-steeped past,
When tear mists blind my eyes,
For mournful hues of the gloaming
Float on my thoughts that rise.
In a lonely mound, 'neath the careless grass,
They buried his sacred dust,

In the depths of my heart, far from human gaze,

I hoarded his truth and trust.

Can the callous world, with its Gorgon leer,

Deaden the beautiful glow

That blooms from the withered skies of the past,
Once lit with an iris-bow?

There are ghostly tracks of death in the years,
That have heedless, onward sped,
Unmindful of all they shattered in gloom
In their cruel, remorseless tread.

The bright of joy, and the dark of grief,

No eyes can truly see,

For none may read the scroll of the heart

With love's own sympathy;

Can I paint the charm of that spell-wrought hour,

When he cast his love at my feet,

And I wept with bliss in my thanks to God

For a happiness so complete?

506

'Twas a summer's day, and the joyful winds
Were loaded with honeyed breath,

And the heart of the air, with its pulses of life,
Could not harbour a thought of death;
For the fragrance of hope was scattered abroad,
And its light was spread above,
And over all was the summer calm,
As sweet as our pledge of love!

For oft, in the stealth of a chosen hour,

I wound, with a woman's art,
Remembrance of looks and tones and speech,

In a woof within my heart;
Until his words, like flashes of light
Revealing a hidden flower,
Laid bare the unseen bud of love

With the truth that forms its dower.

I wrote the book of our future life
With the sun-flecks of each hope,
And never a thought that was edged with gloom,
O'ershadowed its horoscope;

With stolen tints from flower and sky,
Love's magic pencil wrought
Fair visions that were photographed

Through the lens of each cherished thought.
But a breeze, surcharged with venom of death,
Wrenched the book from my hold,

And blotted and wasted the hues of my dreams,
Infused with affection's gold;

Till my life seemed bare as a soddened tree,
Scathed by the wind and rain,

With no vernal sap within it,

To make it bloom again.

Till the tempest of grief had spent its force,

And I bore to the patient years

The trust of his worth and fealty,

To banish vain, futile tears;

Till my barren life was hallowed and blest

With faith's undying hues,

And my heart took strength from sorrow's mists,

As a flower is fed with dews.

Only a faded portrait,

Wrought with marvellous art,

That the sacred past has bequeathed to me,
To place in trust on my heart,

Till the kindly years, in their gentle march,

To his soul may bring me nigh,

And restore in Heaven the love and truth

That were never meant to die!

507

MY SISTER BIATRICE.

THE most critical judges in female beauty would have pronounced Biatrice, my only sister, to be a lovely girl. She was rather short than tall, with a slight, graceful figure, a delicately fair complexion, soft light hair, on which was shed a golden hue to relieve it from that colourless appearance which gives often an insipid look to the countenance, while her eyes were large, blue, and liquid. I never considered. myself possessed of the talent of describing ladies, so that I do not feel I have done her justice. All I can say, in addition, is, that I considered her the most beautiful creature in existence.

It must be understood that I was a boy, and that she had attained the mature age of nineteen. I have an idea that she was somewhat spoilt, slightly self-willed, and obstinate, but, as she was always gentle and good natured to me, I did not discover her faults. To be sure, she always made me do exactly what she wished, and I never dreamed of running restive, nor doubted that she was in the right.

We were the only children of Colonel Travers, of the East India Company's service. We were born in India, and had been sent home with our mother, who died when I was about five years old. She was very beautiful, and I believe that Biatrice was like her. I scarcely remember my father. He came to England on leave soon after our mother's death, was inconsolable at first, but, after remaining two years, went back with a young wife. After that, as far as I could judge, he troubled himself very little about me. He talked in his letters, which were few and far between, addressed to our aunt, under whose charge we were left, of sending for Biatrice, but no time was fixed, and no arrangements ever made. I suspect that the young wife was at the bottom of this. Possibly she might not have wished for a rival queen in her domestic circle. Whatever was the cause, I gained the advantage of not being separated from the only being I loved or cared for in the world except my dog Toby. I did not, I confess, love Aunt Belinda, as she desired to be designated by us, with whom we lived, nor Uncle Brimbleby, who oссаsionally paid us a visit. I do not know if anybody ever did love Aunt Belinda. I know that Biatrice did not. She said that she had tried very hard ever since the mistress at school had told her that she ought to do so, but that, try as much as possible, she could not yet. Aunt Belinda was our mother's half-sister. They were curiously unlike each other. Our grandfather had married twice, and our mother was the only child of his young and pretty second wife. Aunt Belinda's mother was well advanced in years before she and Uncle Brimbleby were born. I do not know if that had anything to do with making her what she was. Miss Brimbleby, as the world called her, though she wished to be called Miss Belinda Brimbleby, looked as if she never had been young. She was tall and thin, with a parchment complexion variegated with freckles; her lips were thin, and her mouth so pursed up that it was a wonder she could get sufficient food into it to sustain life. I had a bladder for a football, and its mouth always put me in mind of hers. I would as soon have been kissed by one as the other. She did not often favour me-only when I went to school, and came back for the holidays. Her eyes, which were

grey, and small, and lustreless, were ornamented on either side by queer crow's feet, which curled away till hid by the pale hair, which came down in broad plaits over her thin temples. And then her dress-it was a pattern of propriety and primness certainly, but, like herself, it was very unattractive. Her moral character was of the same description. I can best describe it as being the essence of primness. Her charity might have covered a multitude of sins, but in that case they must have been remarkably small ones. I shocked her very much once upon a time, when, after she had been describing her notion of heaven to me, which appeared to me to be that of a very strict, dull place, I sighed, and asked, if I was compelled to go there, she did not think I might be allowed a little imp to play with. Her only brother, our uncle, Barnaby Brimbleby, was unlike her in every respect. He was a soft, easy-going soul in person as in mind. She was thin and angular, he was fat and round, his skin well filled out, almost to bursting, but it looked too unctuous and expansible for that. He was addicted to laughing and telling stories, but they were of a somewhat dreamy, drowsy character; he puffed and sighed inordinately at times, and in hot weather his too solid flesh looked as if it would altogether melt away, and resolve itself into dew. We liked him better than we did Aunt Belinda, but we had no great respect for him or for his opinions. However, we saw much less of him than we did of our aunt, as he had a snug government office in London, and only occasionally came down into Hampshire, where Miss Brimbleby lived. Such were the two persons to whom was entrusted the bringing up of my sister and myself, and in process of time the bringing out of Biatrice. The latter important ceremony had lately been performed at a large teaparty, or, as it was called, a soirée or conversazione, at the house of Miss Dulcina Dewlap, the bosom friend and confidante of Aunt Belinda. That is to say, if it were possible that Aunt Belinda could have such a thing as a bosom friend, Miss Dewlap was that friend. I doubted the fact. For her sweet Belinda, Miss Dewlap protested that she would do anything, and, to prove her affection, gave the tea-party in question, that, as she worded it, her dear friend might have an opportunity, under circumstances the most favourable, of presenting her charming niece to her numerous and admiring acquaintances. I had that very afternoon come home for the summer holidays, and was taken to the party. I thought the whole affair very dull and stupid. There were a great many old women in turbans or thickly-beribboned caps, and very few young ones, and some men, mostly of a very sawny description, and there was some unharmonious music, vocal and instrumental- the latter I liked best, as everybody talked and a card-table in one corner of the room, and another in the centre covered with prints. When I had eaten as much bread-and-butter and cake, and drank as many cups of coffee and tea as I could persuade the greengrocer waiter to give me, I had nothing else to do, and looking over prints at the best of times is dull work, but in a hot room between nine and twelve at night it is insufferable, so I got up into an arm-chair in a corner, and, as the green tea and coffee kept me awake, I watched what was going on.

Biatrice declared that the party was very pleasant. I suppose she thought so on account of a dark, bewhiskered, mustachioed man, who certainly paid her great attention; but then she was the only pretty girl in the room, and he was the only manly-looking fellow present. I did not like his looks, though. His countenance was handsome, but his eyes were fierce, and there was a coarse sensual expression about his mouth, which, though at the time I did not understand, made me dislike his looks. It was evident that Miss Dewlap thought a great deal of him, and believed that she was doing Biatrice a great favour in introducing him.

He at once began to talk in the most easy, familiar manner, as if he had known her all her life, with a gaze which showed the most unbounded admiration. He addressed scarcely a word to any one else for the rest of the evening, and Biatrice showed by her looks that she was greatly pleased with him. She was thoroughly unversed in reading the human countenance. Artless and unsophisticated herself, she had no notion of the amount of deceit and treachery to be found in others. Still Biatrice had a good deal of character-she possessed courage and determination -only as yet there had been nothing to call it forth.

"Who is that handsome man?" I heard an elderly spinster near me inquire of a beturbaned stout dame.

"Oh! talking to that pretty fair girl," answered the other. "He is a Major Gormanston, or O'Gorman, I am not sure which. Immensely rich, I am told, but somewhat of a roué-a regular lady-killer, it is whispered."

"That does not much matter," said the spinster, with a simper. "He'll reform, and make all the better husband. Men always do who have sown their wild oats, and of course, if he has a large fortune, he must be thinking of marrying."

"I am not quite so certain of the correctness of either of your statements, my dear," said the dame. "I have known facts which might prove the contrary. But tell me, who is that pretty girl to whom he is talking?"

"She is a Miss Travers, niece of an old Miss Brimbleby, who resides near here, and who, it is said, will leave her all her property; but she has a rich uncle who will give her far more, and besides this, she has some twenty thousand pounds of her own."

"An heiress, and young and pretty! No wonder the gallant major pays her attention," quoth the dame, in a tone which betokened incredulity as to the amount of my sister's expectations.

It was the first time that I had ever heard of her being an heiress, nor did I believe that she was so. I only knew that she dressed well, had plenty of money, and gave me as much as I wanted. I scarcely indeed at that time understood what being an heiress meant, but I concluded that it was something desirable, as it made the gallant major pay my sister attention.

A movement soon afterwards took place in the room, in consequence of two of the younger ladies being led up to the piano by a like number of the soft-looking young men; and the major seized the opportunity of leading my sister towards the corner where I was sitting, and where they would be more out of earshot of the rest of the guests, some of whom might have been listening to his remarks. That he was pushing on the attack in the style and self-confidence of an old practised campaigner, I might soon have discovered, from what I overheard.

"For myself, I am not a marrying man," he remarked, à propos to something he had said before, I conclude, giving at the same time a careless twirl to his moustache. "Any woman who could attract, or I would

« PrécédentContinuer »