Self-control: A Novel

by Mary Brunton

She listened with grateful pleasure. 'How much have I been to blame,' said she, 'for allowing myself to believe that a little vanity necessarily excluded every kind and generous feeling. What a pity it is that this man should condescend to such an effeminate attention to trifles!' Lost to the expectation, almost to the desire of seeing Hargrave, she had now no tie to London, but one which was soon to be broken, for Mrs and Miss De Courcy were about to return to Norwood. With almost unmixed satisfaction, therefore, she heard her father declare, that in less than a week he should be on his way to Scotland. With pleasure she looked forward to revisiting her dear Glenalbert, and anticipated the effects of its quiet shades and healthful air upon her father. Already she beheld her home, peaceful and inviting, as when, from the hill that sheltered it, she last looked back upon its simple beauties. She heard the ripple of its waters; she trod the well-known path; met the kind familiar face, and listened to the cordial welcome, with such joy as they feel who return from the land of strangers.

Nor was Montreville less pleased with the prospect of returning to his accustomed comforts and employments—of feeling himself once more among objects which he could call his own. His own! There was magic in the word, that transformed the cottage at Glenalbert into a fairy palace—the garden and the farm into a little world. To leave London interfered indeed with his hopes of De Courcy as a lover for his daughter; but he doubted not that the impression was already made, and that Montague would follow Laura to Scotland.

His mind suddenly relieved from anxiety, his spirits rose, all his constitutional good nature returned, and he caressed his daughter with a fondness that seemed intended to atone for the captious behaviour of the morning. At dinner he called for wine, a luxury in which he rarely indulged, drank to their safe arrival at Glenalbert, and obliged Laura to pledge him to the health of Warren. To witness her father's cheerfulness was a pleasure which Laura had of late tasted so sparingly, that it had the most exhilarating effect upon her spirits; and neither De Courcy nor Hargrave would have been much gratified, could they have seen the gaiety with which she supported the absence of the one, and the neglect of the other.

She was beginning to enjoy one of those cheerful domestic evenings which had always been her delight, when Miss Dawkins came to propose that she should accompany her and her mother on a visit to Mrs Jones. Laura would have excused herself, by saying, that she could not leave her father alone; but the Captain insisted upon her going, and declared that he would himself be of the party. She had therefore no apology, and, deprived of the amusement which she would have preferred, contentedly betook herself to that which was within her reach. She did not sit in silent contemplation of her own superiority, or of the vulgarity of her companions; nor did she introduce topics of conversation calculated to illustrate either; but having observed that even the most ignorant have some subject on which they can talk with ease and pleasure, and even be heard with advantage, she suffered others to lead the discourse, rightly conjecturing that they would guide it to the channel which they judged most favourable to their own powers. She was soon engaged with Mrs Dawkins in a dissertation on various branches of household economy, and to the eternal degradation of her character as a heroine, actually listened with interest to the means of improving the cleanliness, beauty, and comfort of her dwelling.

Mrs Jones was highly flattered by the Captain's visit, and exerted herself to entertain him, her husband being inclined to taciturnity by a reason which Bishop Butler has pronounced to be a good one. Perceiving that Montreville was an Englishman, she concluded that nothing but dire necessity could have exiled him to Scotland. She inquired what town he lived in; and being answered that his residence was many miles distant from any town, she held up her hands in pity and amazement. But when she heard that Montreville had been obliged to learn the language of the Highlands, and that it was Laura's vernacular tongue, she burst into an exclamation of wonder. 'Mercy upon me,' cried she, 'can you make that outlandish spluttering so as them savages can know what you says? Well, if I had been among them a thousand years, I should never have made out a word of their gibberish.'

'The sound of it is very uncouth to a stranger,' said Captain Montreville, 'but now I have learnt to like it.' 'And do them there wild men make you wear them little red and green petticoats?' asked Mrs Jones, in a tone of compassionate inquiry. 'Oh no,' said Captain Montreville, 'they never interfered with my dress. But you seem quite acquainted with the Highlands. May I ask if you have been there?' 'Aye, that I have, to my sorrow,' said Mrs Jones; and forthwith proceeded to recount her adventures, pretty nearly in the same terms as she had formerly done to Laura. 'And what was the name of this unfortunate place,' inquired the captain, when, having narrated the deficiency of hot rolls, Mrs Jones made the pause in which her auditors were accustomed to express their astonishment and horror. 'That was what I asked the waiter often and often,' replied she, 'but I could never make head or tail of what he said. Sometimes it sounded like A rookery; sometimes like one thing, sometimes like another. So I takes the roadbook, and looks it out, and it looked something like A rasher, only not right spelt. So, thinks I, they'll call it A rasher, because there is good bacon here; and I asked the man if they were famous for pigs; and he said, no, they got all their pigs from the manufactory in Glasgow, and that they weren't famous for any thing but fresh herrings, as are catched in that black Loch-Lomond, where they wanted me to go.'

'Kate,' said Mr Jones, setting down his tea-cup, and settling his hands upon his knees, 'you know I think you're wrong about them herrings.' 'Mr Jones,' returned the lady, with a look that shewed that the herrings had been the subject of former altercation, 'for certain the waiter told me that they came out of the loch, and to what purpose should he tell lies about it.' 'I tells you, Kate, that herrings come out of the sea,' said Mr Jones. 'Well, that loch is a great fresh water sea,' said Mrs Jones. 'Out of the salt sea,' insisted Mr Jones. 'Aye,' said Mrs Jones, 'them salt herrings as we gets here, but it stands to reason, Mr Jones, that the fresh herrings should come out of fresh water.' 'I say, cod is fresh, and does'n't it come out of the sea? answer me that, Mrs Jones.' 'It is no wonder the cod is fresh,' returned the lady, 'when the fishmongers keep fresh water running on it day and night.' 'Kate, it's of no use argufying, I say herrings come out of the sea. What say you, Sir?' turning to Captain Montreville. The Captain softened his verdict in the gentleman's favour, by saying, that Mrs Jones was right in her account of the waiter's report, though the man, in speaking of 'the loch,' meant not Loch-Lomond, but an arm of the sea. 'I know'd it,' said Mr Jones triumphantly, 'for haven't I read it in the newspaper as Government offers a reward to any body that'll put most salt upon them Scotch herrings, and is'n't that what makes the salt so dear?' So having settled this knotty point to his own satisfaction, Mr Jones again applied himself to his tea.

'Did you return to Glasgow by the way of Loch-Lomond?' inquired Captain Montreville. 'Ay,' cried Mrs Jones, 'that was what the people of the inn wanted us to do; but then I looked out, and seed a matter of forty of them there savages, with the little petticoats and red and white stockings, loitering and lolling about the inn-door, doing nothing in the varsal world, except wait till it was dark to rob and murder us all, bless us! So, thinks I, let me once get out from among you in a whole skin, and catch me in the Highlands again; so as soon as the chaise could be got, we just went the way we came.' 'Did you find good accommodation in Glasgow,' said the Captain. 'Yes,' replied Mrs Jones; 'but after all, Captain, there's no country like our own;—do you know, I never got so much as a buttered muffin all the while I was in Scotland?'

The conversation was here interrupted by an exclamation from Mrs Dawkins, who, knowing that she had nothing new to expect in her daughter's memoirs of her Scotish excursion, had continued to talk with Laura apart. 'Goodness me!' she cried, 'why Kate, as sure as eggs, here's Miss never seed a play in all her life!' 'Never saw a play! Never saw a play!' exclaimed the landlord and landlady at once. 'Well, that's so odd; but to be sure, poor soul, how should she, among them there hills.' 'Suppose,' said Mrs Jones, 'we should make a party, and go tonight.—We shall be just in time.' Laura was desirous to go: her father made no objection; and Mr Jones, with that feeling of good-natured self-complacency which most people have experienced, arising from the discovery that another is new to a pleasure with which he himself is familiar, offered, as he expressed it, 'to do the genteel thing, and treat her himself.'

The party was speedily arranged, and Laura soon found herself seated in the pit of the theatre. The scene was quite new to her; for her ignorance of public places was even greater than her companions had discovered it to be. She was dazzled with the glare of the lights, and the brilliancy of the company, and confused with the murmur of innumerable voices; but the curtain rose, and her attention was soon confined to the stage. The play was the Gamester, the most domestic of our tragedies; and, in the inimitable representation of Mrs Beverly, Laura found an illusion strong enough to absorb for the time every faculty of her soul. Of the actress she thought not; but she loved and pitied Mrs Beverly with a fervour that made her insensible to the amusement which she afforded to her companions. Meanwhile her countenance, as beautiful, almost as expressive, followed every change in that of Mrs Siddons. She wept with her; listened, started, rejoiced with her; and when Mrs Beverly repulsed the villain Stukely, Laura's eyes too flashed with 'heaven's own lightnings.' By the time the representation was ended, she was so much exhausted by the strength and rapidity of her emotions, that she was scarcely able to answer to the questions of 'How have you been amused?' and 'How did you like it?' with which her companions all at once assailed her. 'Well,' said Miss Julia, when they were arrived at home, 'I think nothing is so delightful as a play. I should like to go every night—shouldn't you?' 'No,' answered Laura. 'Once or twice in a year would be quite sufficient for me. It occupies my thoughts too much for a mere amusement.'