Now, even Miss Primrose could not help remarking that, notwithstanding the open admiration Mary Delaval everywhere excited, no London beauty of half-a-dozen seasons could have accepted the homage due to her charms with greater coldness and carelessness than did the junior assistant. The girl seemed to live in a separate world of her own, apart from the common pleasures and foibles of her sex. She was kind and courteous to all, but she made no confidences, and had no female friend. She continued to wear her mourning-dress for years after the usual term that filial affection imposes, and with that mourning she seemed to bear about with her the continual memory, almost the companionship, of her dead mother. Even Miss Meagrim, whom she nursed through the jaundice, and who, with returning health, and a fresh accession of hideousness, confessed she owed her life to Miss Delaval’s care, owned that she could not make her out; and truth to tell, both that inquisitive lady and the formidable Miss Primrose herself, were a little afraid of their stately assistant, with her classical beauty and her calm, sad face.
Years rolled on, and Mary Delaval, now in the mature bloom of womanhood, was still junior assistant at Miss Primrose’s, and might have remained there till her glorious figure was bent, and her glossy braids were grey, had it not been for that order from the Horse Guards, mentioned above, which moved the head-quarters of the “Loyal Hussars” from Waterbridge to Bishops’-Baffler. Much commotion was there in the town when this regiment of “Cupidons” in pelisses marched in with all the honours of war; nor were the chaste retreats of our academical sanctuary entirely free from the excitement that pervaded the neighbourhood. Miss Primrose had her “front” freshly oiled, curled, and submitted to a process which, we believe, is termed “baking”; Miss Meagrim appeared with new ribbons in her cap, of a hue strangely unbecoming to her complexion; whilst a general feeling amongst the pupils in favour of “a walk,” whenever the weather afforded an opportunity, argued that the attraction, whatever it might be, was decidedly out-of-doors. Mary Delaval alone seemed supremely indifferent to the movements of the military, and yet her destiny it was that the arrival of these gaudy warriors influenced in a manner she of all people could least have foreseen.
We have said that of the usual pleasures of her kind she was utterly careless; but there was one enjoyment of which Mary never wearied, and in which she lost no opportunity of indulging when she could do so without attracting observation. This was, listening to a military band. It reminded her of her childhood—it reminded her of her mother—and she could stand entranced by its sounds for hours. In the gardens where the band played there used to be a porter’s lodge kept by an old fruit-woman, much patronised by the Primrose establishment, and with this ancient Pomona Mary made interest to occupy her little secluded parlour, and listen to the music, whenever her school duties permitted the indulgence. Now it happened that one sunny afternoon, when Mary, in her usual sombre attire, was snugly enjoying from her hiding-place the harmonious efforts of “the Loyals,” a certain wealthy manufacturer’s lady was seized with a physical giddiness as she promenaded in the gardens, and Captain D’Orville, the great card of the regiment, came clanking into the porter’s lodge to get a glass of water for the dame, upon whom he was in close attendance. Mary was eager to assist in a case of distress, and the Captain, an avowed admirer of beauty, was completely staggered by the apparition he encountered in place of the grimy old woman he had expected to find within. D’Orville was a gentleman of experience, and, as became a man of war, fertile in resources. He spilt half the tumbler of water over Mary’s black gown, which coup-de-main gave him an opportunity of excusing himself at length for his awkwardness, and prolonging his interview with the beautiful woman he had so unexpectedly fallen in with. The next day came a magnificent dress, and a note full of apologies, couched in the most respectful language, and addressed Mrs. Delaval. “I wonder how he found me out,” thought Mary, “and why he did not put Miss.” There was no signature to the note, and it was impossible to send the dress back, so she folded it in her drawer, and wondered what she ought to do, and what her mother would have advised. After this, wherever Mary went, there was Captain D’Orville; at church, in her school walks, when she went out with Miss Primrose—he seemed to have an intuitive knowledge of her movements, and never to lose an opportunity of gazing at her. Mary was a woman, after all; she thought it was “very disagreeable,” yet was the excitement not altogether unpleasing. Gaston D’Orville was strikingly handsome; in fact, generally considered “the best-looking fellow in the Loyals,” with a peculiar charm of manner, and a thorough knowledge of the whole art, method, and practice of war as carried on against the weaker sex. What chance had the friendless teacher’s heart against such a conqueror? This—there was no treachery in the citadel—there was no gratified vanity to be the enemy’s best auxiliary, no trifling pique nor unworthy jealousy to make a conquest valuable merely as a conquest. Mary was one of the few women who can see things as they are, and not through the glasses of their own imagination or prejudice; and when she came to know him better, she perceived the hollow selfishness of the hardened man of the world, with a perspicuity of which he would have supposed “the handsome governess” totally incapable. That she should know him better he took good care, but his advances were so well timed, so respectful, and in such thoroughly good taste, that it was impossible to take umbrage at them, and Mary found herself, she scarce knew how, meeting Captain D’Orville by accident, walking with him as far as the end of the street, amused by his conversation, and interested in his character, before she had time to think where or how she had made his acquaintance, and in what manner such an acquaintance was likely to end. And D’Orville himself was really in love, in his own way, with “the handsome governess.”
“There is no fool like an old one,” he confided to his friend Lacquers, of the Lancers, in an epistle addressed to that philosopher at Brussels. “If I were a ‘marrying man,’ which you well know I am not, I should spend the rest of my life, unjust as would be the monopoly, with this glorious Mrs. Delaval. I always call her by that matronly title; it is so much more respectful, and must make her feel so much more independent. She is only a teacher, my dear fellow, a teacher in a girls’ school; and yet, for dignity and grace, and real ‘high-bred’ manner, she might be a duchess. Such a foot and hand! I can take my oath she has good blood in her veins. Altogether, she reminds me of your old mare, Sultana—as beautiful as a star—and looks as if she would die rather than give in. I never in my life saw a woman I admired half so much; you know I am generally pretty hard-hearted, but upon my word I begin to fear I have a soft place in me somewhere. And then, my dear Lacquers, what makes the thing so exciting is this—I do not believe she cares one toss of a halfpenny for me after all, and that if I were fool enough to offer to marry her to-morrow, she would quietly balance the advantages and disadvantages of the plan, and accept, or very likely refuse me, with her calm, condescending dignity, extremely unflattering as it is, and without moving a muscle of her beautiful, placid countenance. Don’t she wish she may have the chance? and yet, absurd as it sounds, I am horribly in love with her. You will laugh at me ‘consumedly,’ and sometimes I feel half inclined to laugh at myself, dodging about the stupidest of places, as deeply smitten as if I were a cornet, regretting I ever came here, and yet not man enough to leave and go on detachment, which I have the option of doing. I shall see her again this evening, and come to a decision one way or the other, for this can’t go on. In the meantime, don’t show me up to a soul, and believe me,” etc.
That very evening, a tall, good-looking man, in undress uniform, might have been seen, as indeed he was seen, by Miss Primrose’s housemaid, walking a magnificent grey charger, with its bridle over his arm, close to the foot-pavement in Crozier Street, deep in what seemed an interesting conversation with a beautiful woman in black.
“So you don’t believe we unfortunates ever are disinterested, Mrs. Delaval? I am afraid you have a very bad opinion of the whole sex,” said the gentleman, with a slight tremor in his voice, extremely unusual to him, and contrasting strangely with the steady, measured tones of his companion. “I cannot give an opinion where I have so little knowledge, Captain D’Orville,” was the reply; she began to know him well now, and liked to talk out with him, as a woman never does with a man for whom she cares; “I can only judge by what I see. It appears to me that you all live wholly and entirely for yourselves. If you are clever, you pervert your talents to get the better of your friends in every allowable species of dishonesty; if you are brave, your courage is but made subservient to your vanity and self-aggrandisement; if you are rich, your money is devoted to your own indulgence and your own purposes. I never hear, now-a-days, of anything noble, anything disinterested, such as I have read of. But I am talking great nonsense,” said Mary, checking herself, and smiling at her own enthusiasm, unconscious of the burning admiration with which the hussar’s eyes were riveted on her face. Like all fast reckless men, there was a spice of romance about D’Orville, and he liked to bring out the latent powers of a mind somewhat akin to his own daring intellect, more particularly when that mind belonged to such a person as his companion.
“I could prove that men may be disinterested, even in the nineteenth century,” said he, and again his voice trembled as it sank almost to a whisper—“that there are men who would give up station, profession, ambition, everything,—the present they enjoy, and the future they look forward to,—for the sake of one whom they esteemed—admired—in short, whom they loved.” She would not understand him, and the calm brow was as calm as ever while she answered, “I cannot think so. I have seen quite enough as a child, for you know I am half a soldier myself, to give me no inclination to prosecute my studies in human nature. And yet I have my ideal of a hero too, but in these days there is no such character as a Leonidas, a Curtius (you know, we governesses must not forget our history), a William Tell, or a Montrose.”
“I’ll wear thy colours in my cap, thy picture next my heart,” muttered D’Orville; and then, carried away by the impulse of the moment, and forgetful of all his worldly prudence and good resolutions, he hurried impetuously on—“Listen to me, Mrs. Delaval; I may be presumptuous to speak thus to you on such short acquaintance, but you must have seen my regard—my attention—my devotion; I cannot bear to see you wasted here, thrown away in such a place as this—you who are meant for society and brilliancy, and everything that is worth having in life. Will you rely upon me? will you suffer me to rescue you from this obscure lot? will you consider?” Mary stopped dead short, drew herself up, and looked her admirer full in the face: “I am so unused to this sort of language, Captain D’Orville,” she observed, without a vestige of emotion, “that I do not clearly understand you. If what you have to say is fit for me to hear, pray explain yourself; if not, I wish you a good evening;” and pausing for an instant while she kept him, as it were, “chained in her eye,” she turned round, and walked calmly and deliberately straight home to Miss Primrose’s.
The hussar was completely taken aback by the simplicity with which his attack had been repulsed. There he stood, opposite the grey horse, utterly confounded, and not knowing whether to advance or retreat. Should he laugh the thing off, and descend to the meanness of pretending he had been in jest? He could not—no, he dared not meet that calm, contemptuous eye. What an eye it was, and how he felt its influence even now! Should he hurry after her, and make a bonâ fide proposal of marriage, such as no woman could receive but as a compliment? Psha! what! marry a governess? What would the mess say, and Lacquers, and his brother profligates? No, the good grey horse was galloped back to barracks, and D’Orville was the life and soul of the supper-party, which he returned just in time to join. What a contrast it was, with its brilliant lights, flushed countenances, noise, excitement, and revelry, to the still summer evening, and the pure, sweet face of Mary Delaval.
