Mrs. Gurney's apology

by Mary Jary Gurney

I have silently asked myself in his arms, when I dared not soil our lips with their utterance, about these words—groom and adulterer. Yet well I knew that they had no relation to our love—that they were but words—that a true soul no social contamination defiles or degrades—that nobility unrecognized and virtue an outcast, wherever placed, are eternally the same.

I had learned these lessons from a parent’s lips. The example of my own true-hearted mother had taught me this. My own life had been given me in violation of society’s teachings.

Noble-hearted woman! who could say (I their child, and the only one that blessed at last their union, nearly a year old then:) Richard Gurney, I have withholden from you nothing; I have sacrificed all at the altar of love—even my little Marian—yet I ask no formal bond of union in return; I care not for it. What I had when our little one’s life began—what I have now—what I know nothing can deprive me of now—your love—contents me. And he as nobly answered: Not for the sake of it, Mary, for it will have but little acknowledgment from my kindred or the world; but for the pride of the open avowal, and for the sake of our little girl, I marry you.

And this love, so true, so self-immolating, met, as he anticipated, with no approbation from his family. You remember how my husband, as an especial favor, asked Miss ——, and would solicit the members of his family, to accompany me to see my mother—a woman as far above them all in every instinct of her soul as was my father—the true representative of the Lords of Gournai and Le Braii.

Yet such was the affectation of superiority they always persevered in!

I know the world says we who are of English lineage never look so low to find high things.

This is not, and was never, true of me nor of my blood. I would, were it needful to find my ideal, as my father before me, search through any situation, just as men dig down for jewels; and I would have delved to the uttermost profound for that which I now possess. But he whom I loved was not so far; he was near me by the permission of that social law we have offended. The home of his family became established near my own. He was oft actually beside me, and separated only by that word from me; nay, he had right to touch me by permission of this social law—was charged temporarily with the safety of my life even—could speak to me, but respectfully—respectfully! He who was in reality of kindred blood, and made for me—for me—whom they paid court to, not because of the instinct of that blood, but because of the narrow thrift of my kinsmen.

But enough of this. I might have spared myself the contempt that tingles through my veins.

I loved him, E * * *; that was all. He became all I did, all I said, my very life. If I say more I may err, for I truly know no more, and shall never know more than this.

The whole scope and measure of a woman’s heart and brain, and the whole purpose of her being, is love; and her whole knowledge forces itself into one inquiry: Am I worthy of the love of him I love? And does he love me? But I have thought over all this social matter, and have asked myself if I could have loved him better if he had not been what he was—if he had been a member of Parliament? Well, they had been plenty in our family—there were, among the rest, uncle Hudson, and cousin Charles, and cousin Edward Buxton, and cousin Priscilla’s husband; so, too, father had consented to be; and finally, Jackey himself was there, and filling Walpole’s chair, or at least the edge of it. And what was it but too palpable a sham? We all knew this—men and women—and we lived on it meanly, enjoying the empty honor and the empty praises of those in truth below us, because they so stupidly praised us. Oh, it was so foolish, all this member of Parliament pride! I loved William rather because he was not a member of Parliament—at least because it was not his aspiration. And then, if he had been an elder of the meeting? He!—what think you of that, E * * *? Or my Lord Bishop of Norwich—the Lord of diluted pater nosters—was he above him? Are these the things to marry a breathing woman to? Does any one think a liaison with the Bishop would have ennobled me?—or the embraces of the elder?