The boarders presented a variety of characters; but as our sketch only extends over one evening, we can merely mention them generally. Officers’ widows, on half-pay, who, by a residence in Miss Brown’s establishment, combined first-rate education for their daughters, and society for themselves; ancient spinsters, who had not given up the idea of becoming middle-aged matrons, well knowing that Miss Brown’s philanthropic disposition gave them opportunities for the cultivation of the tender passion, when any one else would have imagined the time for such juvenilities was over. In the fortnightly soirées, one, two, or three pairs of lovers were always found among Miss Brown’s guests—unfortunates, whose interminable engagements, from pecuniary difficulties, or the stern dissent of cruel guardians, would have seemed hopeless to all, but for the energetic encouragement of the benevolent Miss Brown, who always acted on the idea
“Passion, I see, is catching.”
And, still more urgent reason, never did a wedding party issue from the well-glazed portals of Red Rose Villa (and such events did really occur) but an accession of pupils and boarders immediately followed.
Amongst the boarders were two young ladies, sisters’ children, and both orphans, but the similitude went no further. Isabel Morland, the eldest by two years, was a sparkling brunette—satirical—clever; eccentric in habits, uneven in temper, and capricious as the wind. But what did all this signify? She was an heiress; and, reckoning according to the estimation of Briarstone, a rich one. She had been a pupil, and her love of display, and coquetry, and determination to get a husband, had occasioned her resolve to remain with a family whom in heart she detested, rather than reside with the only relations she possessed, old respectable folks in the country. She had sense enough to know that her fortune, inexhaustible as it seemed in Briarstone, would not endow her with the smallest consequence elsewhere. And though so highly gifted by nature as, had she selected the society of superior minds, to have become both estimable and happy; yet her love of power—of feeling herself superior to any one with whom she associated—made her voluntarily become a member of a family whom she lost no opportunity of turning into objects of satire and abuse; receiving the marked attentions of Mr. Gustavus Brown so graciously, when no better offered, as to give him every hope of ultimate success; but cold, distant, and disdainful, at the remotest chance of achieving a more desirable conquest.
Very different was Laura Gascoigne. Unusually retiring in manner, the peculiar charm hovering around her could better be felt than described. Possessing neither the wit nor the cleverness, or, as Coleridge so happily expresses it, “the brain in the hand,” which characterised her cousin, she had judgment, feeling, thought—the rare power of concentration, which enabled her to succeed in all she attempted—the quiet, persevering energy which leads to completion, even in the simplest trifles, and prevents all mere superficial acquirement. Perhaps early sorrow had deepened natural characteristics. From the time her mother became widowed, no pen can describe the devotedness which was the tie between them. The failing health of Mrs. Gascoigne had, during the last year of her life, compelled a residence in the south of England; and, when in the neighbourhood of Briarstone, the real kindness to the mother and daughter received from the Misses Brown induced Laura, after Mrs. Gascoigne’s death, to make their house her home, till she could decide on her future plans. She was indeed lonely upon earth; and the straitened means which had urged her to teach many hours in the day, to supply her mother with luxuries and comforts, by stamping them as poor, prevented her being known in those circles where her gentle virtues would have gained her real appreciating friends.
All that she had sacrificed in her filial devotion even her mother never knew, though that mighty sacrifice had been made full two years before her death. An invalid, whose life might pass from night till morning with none on earth to love and tend her but her child, Laura could not leave her. And when she had said this, her lover, in all the jealous irritation of an angry, passionate nature, reproached her that she did not, could not love him, else every other consideration would be waived—that the reports of her affections having been transferred to another were true, and therefore it was better they should part. She had meekly left him to resume her sad duties by her mother’s side, and they had never met again. She knew he had been on the eve of leaving England for an honourable appointment in the West Indies, to which he had been nominated. But the wish would rise that he would write; he could not continue in anger towards her; time must show the purity, the justice, of her motive in her refusal, at such a moment, to leave England. And gladly would she have remained in one spot, hoping, believing on; but her mother needed constant change, and they had gone from place to place, that perhaps, even if he had written, no letter could have reached her. Three years had passed; and if the hope to prove her truth still lingered, the expectation had indeed long gone. And so Laura’s early youth had passed, with not one flower cast upon it save those her own sweet disposition gave. Miss Brown’s establishment was not, indeed, a congenial home; but she had her own room, her own pursuits; and though often yearning—how intensely!—for sympathy and intellectual companionship, could be thankful and contented. She could not love the Miss Browns, but she respected their sterling qualities, and regretted their eccentricities; and so found some good point to dilate on when others quizzed and laughed at them, that her presence always checked ill-nature.
“What is the cause of all this unusual confusion and excitement, Isabel?” inquired Laura one morning, entering her cousin’s apartment; “do enlighten me. You always know everything as thoroughly as Miss Brown herself.”
“And you always know nothing, my most rustic cousin. Fortunate for you, you have so superior a person as myself to come to. There is to be a grand assembly in the lower regions to-night, and so of course sweet Wilhelmina is practising and tuning enough to terrify away all harmony, and Angelica is buried in all the mysteries of supper craft. Don’t look unbelieving, it is true.”
“And it is Wednesday, not Saturday, Isabel.”
“Granted, Laura; but such a grand event as receiving a baronet and his sister demands everything uncommon, even to a change of night. It would be doing him no honour to receive him on a usual soirée night. Learned Lucretia is deep in the last novel and this month’s most fashionable magazine. Folks report that Sir Sydney Harcourt likes literary conversation. I mean to try if Isabel Morland will not have more effect in captivating than the three graces, Lucretia, Wilhelmina, and Angelica altogether, backed by their whole corps of spinsters and schoolgirls. What has seized you, Laura, that you do not scold me, as usual, for my self-conceit? Do you begin to feel it is breath wasted? My dear, you shall see me in perfection to-night. Sir Sydney shall not depart heart-whole from Briarstone, though he does look as if nobody within it could be worth speaking to.”