All this was very true. While examining the portraits I had been jotting down the few remarks here contained. The ink had been communicated by the pen to my fingers, and by them to each leaf as I turned it over. If crime can be expiated by punishment, however, my sin was soon washed away. Till ten o’clock that night I was engaged in lifting up my voice over the pathetic pages of The Cook’s Guide, or, Every Man his own Housekeeper—(I think that is the title of the abomination); and, let me assure the reader, such a penalty as this might be the guerdon of graver guilt.
C. Brontë,
May 30th, 1834.
MINA LAURY
I
From the first part of the manuscript entitled ‘Passing Events,’ completed by Charlotte Brontë on her twentieth birthday, April 21st, 1836.
C. W. H.
MINA LAURY
I
The Cross of Rivaulx![*] Is that a name familiar to my readers? I rather think not. Listen, then. It is a green, delightful, and quiet place, half way between Angria and the foot of the Sydenham Hills, under the frown of Hawkscliffe, and on the edge of its royal forest. You see a fair house whose sash-windows are set in ivy grown thick and kept in trim order. Over the front door there is a little porch of trellis-work, all the summer covered with a succession of verdant leaves and pink roses: globes, buds, and full-blown blossoms. Within this in fine weather the door is constantly open and reveals a passage terminating in a staircase of low white steps traced up the middle by a brilliant carpet. There are no decided grounds laid out about the Cross of Rivaulx; but a lawn-like greenness surrounds it, and the last remnants of Hawkscliffe shade it in the form of many wild-rose trees and a few lofty elms. You look in vain for anything like a wall or gate to shut it in. The only landmark consists in an old obelisk with moss and wild-flowers at its base and a half-obliterated crucifix sculptured on its side. Well, this is no very presuming place, but on a June evening not seldom have I seen a figure whom every eye in Angria might recognise stride out of the domestic gloom of that little hall and stand in pleasant leisure under the porch whose flowers and leaves were disturbed by the contact of his curls. It is but a lodge to the mighty towers of Hawkscliffe, which being five miles distant buried in the chase are of less convenient access. The day is breezeless, quite still and warm. The sun far declined, for afternoon is just melting into evening, sheds a deep amber light. A cheerful air surrounds the mansion, whose windows are up, its door as usual hospitably apart; and the broad passage reverberates with a lively conversational hum from the rooms which open upon it. The day is of that perfectly mild, sunny kind that by an irresistible influence draws people out into the balmy air; and see, there are two gentlemen lounging easily in the porch sipping coffee from the cups they have brought from the drawing-room, and a third has stretched himself on the soft moss in the shadow of the obelisk. But for these figures the landscape would be one of exquisite repose. They break the enchantment of sun, sky, pleasant home, and waveless trees. Their dress is military: they are officers from Angria, from the headquarters of Zamorna’s grand army. Two at least are of this description. The other, reclining on the grass, a slight figure in black, wears a civil dress. That is Mr. Warner, the Home Secretary. Another person was standing by him, whom I should not have omitted to describe. It was a fine girl dressed in rich black satin with ornaments like those of a bandit’s wife, in which a whole fortune seemed to have been expended; but no wonder, for they had doubtless been the gifts of a king! In her ears (she was not too refined for the barbaric magnificence of earrings) hung two long clear drops red as fire and suffused with a purple tint that showed them to be the true oriental ruby. Bright, delicate links of gold circled her neck again and again; and a cross of gems lay on her breast, the centre stone of which was a locket enclosing a ringlet of dark brown hair. With that little soft curl she would not have parted for a kingdom.