Right or wrong?
When it became known, in the quiet country town of Pyneton, in
Dorsetshire, that young
Mr. Frederick Blount was actually engaged to be married to
Lina Hausmann, the excitement amongst its most select circle was very considerable indeed — for my story begins nearly twenty years ago, and at that time Pyneton
did boast a select circle, consisting chiefly of maiden and widow ladies of good family, all more or less "county people" originally, who, having abundant leisure, kept a sharp eye upon their local society, and protested strongly against any admixture of a less aristocratic element, or any concession to the upsetting and levelling tendencies they lamented to observe in the age. Therefore, when
Mrs. Tracy, raising both hands over her cup of tea, broke out; "Good Heavens!
to think of a scion of Dictate coming down to a low foreign artist," the circle around her foot this so be a burst of natural indignation only commensurate with the occasion, and responded to it with the utmost sympathy.
For
Fred Blount, with his handsome face and courteous manners, was a favorite with all the ladies of Pyneton, for his own sake as well as for that of his uncle,
Mr. Barlow, their respected pastor, added to which he had all the prestige properly belonging, in their eyes, to a Blount of Dictate
Abbey, and a member of one of the oldest of the Dorsetshire families.
Not, indeed, that, strictly speaking, he could have been said to have anything to do with Dictate, which was at present the property of a retired ironmonger of the name of
Jobson — old
Mr. Blount, Fred's father, having, with his son's consent, cut off the entail some four or five years before, and died shortly afterwards, leaving the stately but exceedingly dilapidated old abbey, and the deeply mortgaged estate, to be sold.
When the portions settled upon his two married sisters were paid off, Fred found himself possessed of about a hundred and fifty pounds a year, to such utter ruin had a succession of improvident but exceedingly popular proprietors brought the fortunes of the old family.
Nevertheless, in the estimation of half the town of Pyneton, Fred was still a Blount of Dictate; while the worthy
Jobson, whose wealth was propping the abbey walls, draining the neglected lands, employing a much increased amount of labor, and doing more positive good in the neighborhood than the old family had done for a generation or two, was looked upon in the light of an upstart usurper, whom it was the duty of good society to ignore and discountenance as much as possible.
Meanwhile,
Fred Blount had to fight his way on in the world as well as he could.
It was a bitter change and a hard struggle at first to a young man of fragile health, and brought up in every luxury as he had been; but he had a brave spirit of his own, and whenever his uncle,
Mr. Barlow, returned from a run up to town, he would report to inquiring friends that the young barrister was absorbed in books and study, and ‘"likely to rise, decidedly likely to rise."’ Perhaps, if he had better known the nature of those books, he would have been less sanguine of professional success; but at all events
Mr. Barlow was right in reporting his nephew studious, and apparently reconciled to his new mode of life.
Once or twice a year, young
Blount was in the habit of visiting Pyneton, and renewing his acquaintance with its inhabitants, with whom he had never been more popular than when this announcement fell upon them without any previous preparation whatever.
Could it be true?
The report was traced to that odious
Jobson, who, it seems, know the lady well, had several pictures by her hanging on his drawing-room walls, and spoke of her with the highest respect.
Lady, indeed!
An artist, a foreigner, and a
protege of the ironmonger!
Pyneton society could pretty well guess the kind of person she must be.--Poor
Mr. Barlow!
The truth might indeed be got at through him, but who had courage to accost him on such a subject?
Mr. Barlow, good and kind as he was, had a fiery nature of his own, and knew how properly to resent a
misalliance. Some and tradition there was of his only son — a scapegrace always — having crowned his other misdeeds by a plebeian marriage or worse, out in
India somewhere.
No one had heard his father mention his name, and it had been strongly surmised that
Fred Blount would prove his heir.
But what would he do now?
No doubt this artful woman was papist as well as foreigner.
Had it not oozed out, too, that she was older than
Mr. Blount?
At least this was thought highly probable, and who could say what her antecedents might have been?
The popular imagination drew a very dark picture indeed.
We turn now to the reality.
Lina Hausmann was an artist's daughter, and, at the time we speak of, herself an artist of some merit.
Left an orphan in early girlhood, she had inherited little from her German father beyond a certain graceful singularity of aspect, an earnest, thoughtful temperament, and a devoted love of art. Her English mother had tried hard to counteract this last, but the natural bias was too strong; and when this anxious but uncongenial parent was laid by her husband's side in the dismal city cemetery, and the young girl found herself alone with a few hundred pounds for her sole fortune, she resolved neither to eke out her means by giving lessons to young children, as
Mrs. Hanusmann had done during her widowhood, nor to seek her English relations — cold and formal people, who offered the orphan a home, indeed, but had never forgiven her mother's runaway match — but at once to devote a portion of her little all to obtaining the best instruction in her father's favorite branch of art, flower-painting, and then to throw herself upon it as a profession.
Miniature-painting, it had been suggested to her, would be a more lucrative pursuit; but she felt that her real success would lie in the other direction.
Hers was a passionate love for nature, especially for flowers, which were almost her only experience of nature in perfection; while, on the other hand, an indifference to, or even a shy shrinking from society, had been fostered by the circumstances of her life.
Her mother, a refined English woman — although she had stepped out of her own sphere when she followed the fortunes of the wandering artist, had never felt herself at home in any other.
The little
Lina had no childish playmates, the growing girl no youthful companions.
Since she cannot associate with her equals, the mother had thought to herself, she is best alone; and so her favorite toys had been her father's old brushes and colors, and her chief diversion a stroll with him. Others might have looked on this as a dreary life; the grave, affectionate girl herself never remembered it as having been such while her father lived.
She had been satisfied with the sense of happiness that came over her when he corrected a little and praised a great deal some juvenile effort of her pencil; or when, curled up upon his knee, in the gloom of a winter evening, he would tell her bright tales of skies and flowers, palaces and paintings of other lands; or sad tales of his own gentle German mother, who grew quite blind before her early death; or, better still, when, in his fine barytone voice, he would troll out for her some of the student-songs of his native
Heidelberg.
After she lost him, there came indeed a period of gloom, but it was not long enough to depress her energies; and when she was left alone, the very strength of purpose necessary was abundant support, and her art itself abundant excitement, so that sitting there day by day in that dingy room, her whole soul absorbed in her work, the grave, earnest, singular-looking girl had been perhaps more enviable than many of her more prosperous sisters.
At the time our story begins, she was five-and-twenty, and the struggling part of her career seemed over.
Her master had told her, some time ago, that he could teach her nothing further; her pictures already commanded a ready sale; and their decided merit began to extort notice from the most oracular critics of the day. To all this she might have added no small degree of social success — for, besides that people began to remember here and there how well-born and well-connected the mother of the successful young artist had been, her own graceful figure and rich control to voice would have insured her a welcome into many a gay circle.
But Lina was too shy or too proud to find any enjoyment there, and steadily declined all invitations; only sometimes, in the summer, she might be bribed by her love of wild flowers, ferns, &c., to pay a country visit, and it was in the course of one of these that she had first met
Fred Blount.
A week spent together in a country house in the sweet summer season; a few long walks at the close of pleasant days, with nature enjoyed, sunsets watched, songs sung together, and they parted lovers in all but words.
They met again in
London, and that constantly.
They had been engaged for a year before the fact transpired to horrify the town of Pyneton.
How happy Lina had during this year been, it would not be easy to say. Her intense nature fully awakened for the first time — her intellect stimulated by a companionship more thoughtful and cultivated than she had over known — the cold sense of loneliness which had hung over her since she lost her father all dispelled, it would be no exaggeration to say that she enjoyed a present bliss, unalloyed alike by one regret for the past, or one fear for the future.
Fred was happy, too, but his was a more checkered feeling.
Naturally of an anxious temper, he often suspected that he had done unwisely in choosing for a profession one to which he could not give an undivided allegiance.
Had he been — as he once expected to have been — a man of independent means, he would have lived a student's life, absorbed in certain abstruse speculations, which had, ever since his college-days, secretly possessed a strong attraction for him. Even as things were, he could not forego them altogether, and
Stephens and
Chitty would often be thrown aside for
Kant and
Cousin.
In this direction, if in any, lay the path he could have trodden with self-satisfaction.
But what of that?
He was now a lawyer — had, if so it might be, to earn a living at the bar; and it behooved him more than ever to work hard in his uncongenial calling, for Lina's sake as well as his own.
Meanwhile, Lina's favorite dream was, by the exercise of her own beloved art, to free him from this necessity; to secure for him so complete an independence of professional drudgery as would leave him free to follow the bent of his own inclination.
He had no prejudice, she knew, against an active career for woman; he would let her continue hers; and for the first time there mingled with her desire for excellence, a keen appreciation of the wealth it would bring in its train.
‘"For him, for him,"’ she would murmur to herself, as she hung over some exquisitely delicate painting, and touched and retouched till her copy had the very texture as well as the hue of the flowers before her. ‘"It is not fitting that he should be poor — his life and mine have been so differently spent: he has all the tastes of the man of family and fortune; I, the artist's daughter, used to struggle from my childhood — I do not share, but it will be my joy to minister to these."’ And so she would sit and dream, white the fairy fronds of some delicate fern, or the down on the stalk of some fragile wild-flower, grew beneath her fingers.
But of late weeks she would sometimes stop to close her large blue eyes, strained as they felt by the over-intentness of their gaze, or to press her hand over her forehead, which sometimes quivered with a sudden and darting pain, which she would not mention to Fred (reliant by nature, she had become more so by much living alone,) neither would she give into it, for the picture before her must be finished by the approaching Exhibition.
It would sell, she calculated, for a considerable sum; other commissions would probably follow; and then — and then — She was so deep in her happy reverie one day, that Fred actually entered the room unnoticed, and exclaimed at her paleness, and at the weary look in her sweet eyes.
But as he kissed them, their light returned, and the color rushed so richly into her cheek, that he began to think his impression had been indeed ‘"all fancy,"’ as she declared.
‘"But you must promise me not to overwork yourself in my absence, my Lina,"’ he said.
‘"In your absence!"’ she replied, in a voice of dismay, for it was their first parting.
‘"Yes; I have had heavy tidings to-day.
My good old uncle,
Barlow, is ill, and alone.
You know how much I owe to his kindness.
I cannot refuse to go to him, even though I leave my Lina.
But it will not be for long — I could not stand that."’ Then turning to her picture: ‘"What an exquisite group this is!
How tender, how minute!
Why, it makes my eyes ache to look at your microscopic touches, my fairy.
But come out with me now, and let us have a walk.
I half suspect you work too hard.
I declare I'm jealous of your art, Lina." ’
‘"You need not,"’ she said, with a smile so bright that no one could have guessed how violent the pain that shot through her forehead and eyes as she spoke.
She had been over working, perhaps; but she was not going to tell him of this — and so spoil utterly his last walk with her.
The evening was gloomy and chill; the shadow of their parting hung on the spirits of both.
Whatever subject they took up led into a vein of sadness.
Lina did not know why, but she spent the greater part of the night in tears.
When morning came, her eyes were so red and heavy, she was almost glad Fred would not see them.
She must work hard, she said, to overcome this singular depression; and she
did work hard, though at times a strange dimness crept over her sight, and her hand was oftener pressed to her throbbing forehead than it had ever been before.
The third day there came a letter from Fred, so long and loving that it half reconciled her to his absence, half increased her yearning for his return.
He had found his uncle worse than he expected.
There was to be a consultation on the morrow; his next letter would give the result, and fix the day of his return.
Another day of continuous painting, of more pain to contend with, of strange flashes of light alternating with that occasional dimness.
She would rest her eyes, she resolved, as soon as she got Fred's next letter.
She could bear inaction with his return to look forward to.
Alas! the letter, when it comes, does not fix his return.
A short sea-voyage is pronounced the only hope in his uncle's case; a friend has placed his yacht at his disposal; he will not make the experiment alone, but if Fred will accompany him, consents to try the effect of a short cruise.
It would be unkind, ungrateful to deny the old man's request.
A month at furthest will restore him to his Lina, and she will feel as he does, that there was no alternative.
O yes, she does feel it; he was right, right always.
His uncle has been a second father.
Had she been well, the brave-hearted woman would have acquiesced cheerfully; but as it was, she could not conquer her sadness.
She could not keep it back from him — write cheerfully this last letter that he could receive before the yacht sailed, and work the dismal time of separation away.
But when, having finished her letter, she went to her painting that morning, she found work impossible.--Large spots of red seemed to gather on the petals of the water-lilies she was copying; the pain in the eyeballs grew intolerable.
Her heart beat thick and anxiously lest, if this went on, she might be obliged to give up her occupation for weeks or months.
Better to take prompt measures to have the tedium of repose now, that she might be quite well when Fred returned.
She went straightway to one of the most celebrated oculists of the day. The sympathy of his manner, the minuteness of his questions, alarmed her; her energetic nature could bear anything better than suspense.--‘"Did
Doctor W — fear blindness? "’ ‘"He grieved to say he did."’ ‘"Of what nature?"’ ‘"Of the most hopeless — amaurosis."’
Oh, thank God all you upon whom there has never fallen some sudden shattering agony like this, who have had to give up the whole, hope of your life at an instant's notice — never had the glory and promise of the universe blotted from you by one single word!
And thank God, too, when you stand by some fellow-creatures thus stricken, that such blows, when they do come, stun as well as torture, and that their very magnitude prevents for a season the sense of their reality.
When the power of thinking returned, Lina's first thought was of Fred.
If this were indeed so; but no — it was impossible.
At all events, it was well that his kind heart was not darkened with this horrible fear.
A week — a fortnight passed; still, in spite of rest and remedial measures, the pain, the dimness, the flashes of light before the eyes.
And yet no one looking into their blue depths could have seen anything beyond their beauty and their sadness, and in the heavy eyelids the trace of frequent tears.
The doctor had indeed told her that, above all things, tears were injurious.
Ah! he did not know how much she had to weep over.
Not only this art-world shut out from her, not only the loss of the pursuit that had been to her a passion, but the loss of love; for, as she lay there in her darkened room, one thought, one resolve grew clearer and stronger day by day; Fred's career should not be hampered by a blind wife.
She knew his noble, honorable nature well; knew that this great affliction fallen upon her would only make him hold his plighted word more sacred than before; that he would choose hard work of any kind, choose poverty even such as entailed loss of social station, choose any alternative rather than leave his poor sightless Lina desolate and alone.
But she knew, too, very well, that to a man of his sensitive poetical temperament and early formed habits, poverty would have a peculiar sting.
Then his own health was far from strong, and his spirits variable.
Better for him the sharp, sudden loos than the life-long burden.
In the midst of her anguish, there came to the woman's heart the great strength of self-sacrifice--
better for him. These words nerved her for all. It was well, too, for her that at this terrible crisis she had to act as well as to suffer.
Sometimes, in her annoy to devise the measures by which this calamity should fall most lightly upon him, she for a while almost forgot her share in it. It often occurred to her that it would be best if, on his return, he should find her gone.
But, oh!
the yearning for one more look into the face she so loved before darkness fell upon her forever!
Had he been with her when she first heard that dreadful sentence, the impulse to tell him her wretchedness might have been too strong.
She rejoiced that he was not. But now she thought she could trust herself to one more meeting; at all events, she would make all her arrangements so as to be able to set off at a day's notice; but she would at least wait to hear of his safe return to
England.
Meanwhile, she employed her hours of ease, and of comparative clearness of vision, in modelling, from her most faithful memory, a bust of her lover.
She had often modelled before, but never with such singular success — she knew every lineament of this face
so well.
Her whole soul was in her work, for this bust would be all that she should save out of the wreck of her life.
This she would take with her into her banishment.
Passing her hand thus over the high forehead, the heavy waves of hair, the regular features so familiar to her now, she could guard against the image in her heart ever becoming fainter.
[to be continued in our Next.]
