Crying for the Light; Or, Fifty Years Ago. Vol. 1 [of 3]

by J. Ewing Ritchie

‘I wish it were so. I almost despair; and that makes me the more determined she shall be mine. I was never disappointed yet.’

‘Courage, mon ami,’ was the reply. ‘Such a little beauty is not to be caught in a day. Take the advice of an old soldier. You are too cautious. You must carry her by a grand coup de main.’

Alas! an opportunity soon occurred. There was to be a grand horse-race a few miles off. Rose had never seen one, and wished to go. She had let herself be taken there by the Baronet. She was very sorry she had agreed to the arrangement, but it was too late to draw back, and she made an excuse to her mother for her temporary absence. After the race there was a grand dinner, followed by a ball. The poor girl had hardly the heart to refuse, and, indeed, she was too far from home to go back alone, though the agreement was that she was to be taken back immediately the race was over. This part of the programme the Baronet never intended to put in execution, and he made some excuse or other for its non-fulfilment, which she was obliged to accept. Off her guard with excitement and wine yet not without misgivings of heart, she was persuaded to accompany the party back to London. In her sober moments she would never have done such a thing, but she was surrounded by men and women who laughed at her scruples and overcame her objections. Hardly knowing what she was about, she—a dove, innocent and unprotected—was borne by the vultures to town.

For the first time she had tasted of the charmed cup, and she found it pleasant. She felt sorry for her mother, to whom she wrote a hasty note, but without giving her any address, telling her not to be alarmed at her absence, stating that she was staying with some kind friends, and that she would soon let her know further particulars, which she felt sure would please her. She was to stay at the house of a real lady, who was to take her to see all the grand sights of the town. Her spirits rose to the occasion, and, dressed magnificently in the latest fashions, she found some kind of enjoyment in the gay company she kept, in riding in a brougham, in going to the theatre and the opera, in finding herself in a new world, where she was received with a favour never extended to her in the tamer circles of Sloville. She felt that she had made a wonderful start in the world, and how wrong were they who spoke of its pleasures as transitory and of little worth.

‘That was the world for her,’ said the Baronet, whose demeanour was at times most kind and considerate, and who treated her with the respect due from a gentleman to a lady, though occasionally he assumed a boldness which brought the hot blood to her cheek and filled her with alarm.

Once upon a time, it is said, an old Scotch beadle, with the astute utterance of his class, went a-courting. ‘Jeannie,’ said he, as he took the object of his affection into the parochial cemetery, and pointed to some graves in a remote corner, ‘that’s whaur my people lie. Would ye like to lie with them?’ Jeannie answered in the affirmative, and the happy pair soon became man and wife. In the same way the Baronet threw open to the dazzled eyes of this fatherless country girl all the usual resorts of the gay world in all their pomp and glory, and she was delighted, as she had not the experience to tell her how much was tinsel, how little of it was real, how much of it was selfishness, and nothing more. Her heart warmed towards her benefactor. Confident in her beauty and his goodness of heart, she feared no harm. In the circle in which she moved she achieved a complete success. The women were very envious, and the men were as foolish as most men are where a pretty woman is concerned.

Young people think little of what is felt for them by their fathers and mothers. The cynic may say, ‘Why should they? I did not bring myself into existence; and what has life done for me but to make me toil for labour that profiteth not, to clothe me with a carcase that shall soon be dissolved in death, to give me a mind that utterly, after all its endeavour, fails to understand even what passes under my very nose, to say nothing of the mysteries which lie around.’ But most of us feel, nevertheless, that our fathers and mothers have claims on us that we can never sufficiently repay them for—the care and love which rocked us in the cradle, which gave joy and happiness to our early homes, which guarded us in youth, which helped to plant us out in the world—a love the memory of which lasts as long as life. The worst of it is that frequently we do not feel this till it is too late, till we can make no ear that it would rejoice to listen to such with rapture is stilled by the cold hand of death. I can never forget a picture of a girl weeping at her mother’s grave. It was an illustration to one of Jane Taylor’s simple poems, as follows:

‘Oh, if she would but come again,
I think I’d vex her so no more.’

In her new circle Rose had that natural feeling. It was hard for her to live without her mother. That mother might be ill; that mother she knew to be lonely and poor, and in need of her society and aid. It was her duty, she felt, to be by that mother’s side. She intended to return, if not to-day, at any rate to-morrow; to tell her mother all, how, notwithstanding appearances, she was innocent as when she slept under that mother’s roof. But the difficulty was to go back. Her mother would believe her story, but nobody else would; and all her little world would look at her in scorn. She could not face that little world that seems to us so big. What was she to do? Like too many of us in emergencies, she did nothing, and was overcome by the circumstances in which she had weakly allowed herself to be placed.

Yet Rose was not happy in her heart of hearts, and all the while an inner sense of fear, of something sad and sorrowful to come, restrained her natural light-heartedness. Scandal had been busy with her name in her native town. She could not ask, as she had done in her early days, the blessing of God on her life. But she had burnt her boats, and for her there was no return. She was clever, and was determined to cultivate her powers. All her mornings were spent in hard study. She had masters who made up for the defects of early education. The Baronet, who had left London for a while on a shooting tour in North America, was to return, and, of course, would marry her in due time; and then her fair fame would be vindicated, and her mother’s heart would beat for joy. She was a born actress, and her chief delight was to be found in the study of the leading actors and actresses on the stage. Her musical talent was of a high order, and she had a knack of picking up foreign languages that made her the wonder of the extremely bad set in which she lived. She was always busy, always in a whirl of excitement, and had little time to think of what she was and whither she was going. She shrank from being brought face to face with her real self. Whenever she did so she found she really had gained but little, after all. It is true she was not vicious, but, then, she had grown hard and worldly, and that is little better in the Court of Conscience. Often she longed for her early home, her mother’s side, her life of daily drudgery, the God of her early youth.