Mary Grant

“ Mary felt the situation of her friends to be an awkward one, and exerted herself to make both feel at ease, as they drove under the evening sunshine to Eaglescraig, where both were welcomed by Sir Piers in the grand old dining-hall, the oak panels of which were nearly hidden by ancestral portraits, and from the tall windows of which there was a noble view of mountain and coppice, of rocky cliffs and the far-stretching Firth of the dark blue Clyde; and at the elbow of the host stood old Tunley, with a silver salver of decanters and glasses. ”

“ In short, they assigned all the reasons that people invent who have made up their minds to refuse. The truth is, they remembered Captain Grant's projects, and that is the secret of the whole affair. So the poor fellow is lost for ever."
"My father! my poor father!" cried Mary Grant, throwing herself on her knees before Lord Glenarvan, who exclaimed in amazement:
"Your father? What? Is this Miss--"
"Yes, Edward," said Lady Helena; "this is Miss Mary Grant and her brother, the two children condemned to orphanage by the cruel Admiralty!" ”

“ He, perhaps, loved Mary; but if so, it was after a selfish fashion of his own, and as much as it was in him to love anyone. He knew her fortune to a shilling; he had a passionate, an inherited, and avaricious love of wealth, and he knew right well the vast importance that attached to the possession of it; thus he took Mary to task, the moment Falconer left them—with a glance, which Mary read, though to Hew it was all unseen, or misunderstood. ”

“ Lady Helena repeated the evening prayer aloud, her companions, bare-headed, repeated it after her. Who does not turn his thoughts toward God in the hour of death? This done, the prisoners embraced each other. Mary Grant and Helena, in a corner of the hut, lay down on a mat. Sleep, which keeps all sorrow in abeyance, soon weighed down their eyelids; they slept in each other’s arms, overcome by exhaustion and prolonged watching.
Then Glenarvan, taking his friends aside, said: “My dear friends, our lives and the lives of these poor women are in God’s hands. ”

“ When Mary came forth into the garden again, she wore an old straw hat to save her complexion from the glares and had the smartest and most becoming of lawn-tennis aprons pinned over her dress, with Swedish gloves upon her hands, as she proceeded to snip and train some straggling sprays of roses about the walls of the house, and seemed to do so with loving and gentle care, as if the said house was a thing of life, and sensible of the love she bore it; while uttering many a yelp and gurgle, Jack, the fox-terrier, overwhelmed her with the wildest of canine caresses. ”

“ The girl's name had struck her particularly, it appeared. She repeated it several times over, saying, "Mary Grant—Mary Grant. I didn't know her name was Mary." And Miss Bland had the air of being puzzled, as if there was something in the name—a very common sort of name—which perplexed her. [Pg 471]
Luckily Mrs. Cayley-Binns and Alys were sure that the name was Mary. They had seen it on a cheque, payable at a Monte Carlo bank, which Miss Grant by request had given to a bazaar for a Mentone charity. Of course people like that often were charitable ”

“ There are few women in this world who do not resolve firmly and act vigorously when the tender interests of their hearts are affected; thus Mary had somewhat stepped out of her path, at all hazards, to see and console in his affliction the man who loved her, and whom, she had begun to fear, she might never meet again.
What course events might take she knew not, but she knew well that she had been pitilessly told to expect the worst: thus a great pity filled her soul, side by side with her love for Cecil. ”

“ Her manner to his heir at last drew upon her the animadversion of Sir Piers.
'My dear girl,' said he to her one day, 'I must remonstrate with you, as the betrothed wife of Hew.'
'Betrothed! by whom?' asked Mary, with mingled gravity and anger.
'By me, my darling; as such, I say, you owe him some duty, and some respect, and a deference to his opinions. School yourself to love him properly in the time to come, and not distress your poor old grand-uncle and guardian, who loves you so well for your dead parents' sake.'
'I do not, and cannot love him!' said the girl, wearily. ”

“ You have yet to learn, dearest Mary, that with too many in this world the growth of love is unlike every other growth: it often expands and blooms strongest amid sorrow and gloom and the chill blasts of adversity.'
'I am afraid, Sir Piers,' said Mrs. Garth on one occasion, 'the girl is simply breaking her heart!'
'Simply breaking her fiddlestick!' growled the general, who was terribly worried by the whole situation; 'yet I should not be angry with poor little Mary,' he added in a gentler tone; 'God is very good! ”

“ Mary Grant and her brother were up very early next morning, and were walking about in the courtyard when they heard the sound of a carriage approaching. It was Lord Glenarvan; and, almost immediately, Lady Helena and the Major came out to meet him.
Lady Helena flew toward her husband the moment he alighted; but he embraced her silently, and looked gloomy and disappointed-- indeed, even furious.
"Well, Edward?" she said; "tell me."
"Well, Helena, dear; those people have no heart!"
"They have refused?"
"Yes. They have refused me a ship! ”

“ Mary Wellwood was fair-haired, with darkly-lashed eyes of violet-blue. Many would call her very handsome, but few merely pretty. She was far beyond the latter phrase. With all its soft beauty and dimples, there were too much decision and character in her face to justify the simple term prettiness, while it was a face to haunt one a life long!
Two years younger than Mary, Ellinor was now twenty. Her dark hazel eyes were winning in expression, and, like Mary's, longly-lashed, and what lovely lips she had for kisses! ”

“ Mary's bright little face was dimpling and rippling all over with pleasure, triumph and exultation—all the more so, when she saw that Leslie Fotheringhame was a man of whom any woman might be proud, more than ordinarily handsome, with an unmistakable tone, air, and bearing, that doubtless came of his early Lancer training; and now they were all conversing together with apparent ease; for although Mrs. Garth knew what the wishes and orders of Sir Piers were regarding Mary and Cecil Falconer, she did not conceive that they extended to the precluding of recognition in a public place. ”

“ My darling Mary, you are the apple of my old eye, and I should like to see you safe and sound under Hew's protection, ere the last bugle sounds for me, and summons me away to the Land of the Leal; Hew, save yourself, is the nearest to me in blood now that my Piers is gone, finding his grave I know not where—know not where!' he added in a broken voice, as he recalled the real or fancied, but terrible vision he had seen years ago, now. 'If money can bring happiness you and Hew should certainly have something very like it,' said he, returning to the charge. ”

“ The glittering hatchet of one Indian cleft her head to the nose, while another caught her body as it was falling, and by a single sweep of his knife shred off her scalp, and waved the silken curls as a trophy above his head. Mary was to be their next victim; but ere they could drag her down she flung herself at the feet of Ossong, and, clasping his moccassined legs, said in his own language—
"I will pray the Great Spirit that he pardon you my death; but do not torture me; do not make me suffer—I am a weak woman, and about to become a mother." ”

“ Where Hew goes, you will go; our old life will be gone; a new one will open to you, and I shall be a lonely, old, old man, lonely as when, years ago, I lost Piers!'
'But I am not yet married to Hew,' said Mary, kissing both his withered cheeks, from which the red tan of the Indian sun had long since vanished. ”

“ If he was betraying himself, he paused, and Mary could feel how her heart was vibrating.
For a moment her long dark lashes flickered as she glanced at him timidly, and thought how happy his avowed love would make her was he at liberty to do so; and she remembered that when he was away at Alyth how she had felt a void in her heart, till adversity brought her other things to think of. ”

“ In the railway-carriage Jack crouched at Mary's feet, and, looking up in her eyes, whined and whimpered, for dogs have strange instincts. All that was left to the sisters of Birkwoodbrae was the bunch of freshly-gathered roses which each carried in her hand, and many times did Mary bury her hot and tear-stained face among their cool and fragrant leaves. ”

“ During a flourish of trumpets, the little queen was placed upon the throne, where she gazed about her smiling, while a mixture of childlike wonder, alarm, and drollery glittered in her dark and dilating eyes. On her left hand sat Mary of Lorraine, a step lower down; on her right stood the Regent, in his shining doublet, leaning on his long sword. Behind the former were grouped the Countesses of Yarrow, Mar, Huntly, Errol, and Orkney, in their long dool-cloaks; behind the latter was a gay suite of lesser barons and gentlemen of the surname of Hamilton, gorgeously attired and armed. ”

“ To the lonely man it seemed strange that Mary was no longer in the cottage at Finglecombe, and it was difficult for him, for a time, to realise the idea that she was gone for ever from her place; that he would never see her again; and that morning and night would come inexorably; the weeks become months, and the months become years; and that no Mary, with all her great love and tenderness, was there to bear a part in the long vista of life that lay before him. ”

“ Amid the dazzling scene, as Mary paused in a waltz, panting, palpitating, and blushing to see her own reflection in a mirror, as she almost clung to the arm of the baron in his green uhlan uniform, and found herself the object of so much attention and admiration, her mind reverted with a kind of dull and painful wonder to the past days of their obscure abode in frowsy Paddington; to her struggles for employment, and her lonely wanderings in unfamiliar streets, where often her beauty subjected her to such observation and insolent annoyance that often she longed to be old and ugly ”

“ If Hew had been tender and true, less brusque and coarse—had really loved Mary with a loving heart—she might have felt some compunction for her laughing indifference to his suit; but she knew well his avarice, his monetary hopes, and suspected some of his vices; and, more than all, her proud spirit revolted at the idea of being made by her father's will the mere puppet of a family compact, and compelled to marry any man. ”

“ Oh, why did men become soldiers?
'Alone—alone in the world now!' wailed Mary.
'My darling, you have me and my little girls to love you as sisters,' said Mrs. Deroubigne, folding the deathly-pale girl again and again to her motherly breast; but, passionate though her sympathy and regard, Mary shivered, and thought who could ever replace Ellinor as a sister, and felt, as she said, most fearfully alone. ”

“ Ellinor contrived to finish one of her best landscapes—a view on the May—and 'room' was given it by a kind of picture-dealer close by, but it remained in his window unsold, and apparently unnoticed by all—save the flies, who did not improve it.
Mary's confidence at times began to desert her when she felt how hard it would be for them, all unaided as they were, to win their daily bread and add to the little pittance they had, among that vast human tide of busy, cold, careless, and apparently unsympathising people who poured past her in the streets. ”

“ He was a leal brave man, our laird!"
"True, Westmains," replied the lady, while her large black eyes kindled. "But none of his race have died a natural death—it would seem to be their doom. All, all have perished in feud or in the cause of Scotland; and though my heart would break were a hair of my Florence's head to be touched, never shall son of this house die in his bed like a fat monk of St. Mary or a lurdane burgess of Haddington."
"Thou art true to thy race, Lady Alison." ”

“ I must turn my French and music to account.'
'And I my drawing,' said Ellinor.
'Yes, dearest,' added Mary, kissing her, 'my few accomplishments will require some brushing up, but your pencil is always a ready one; and people never know what they can do till they try. But then, Birkwoodbrae—dear, bonnie Birkwoodbrae—to think we shall never see it more!' exclaimed Mary, relapsing into a storm of grief again; after which she became more composed, and began resolutely to think of the future that must be faced—the future which would necessarily begin for them on the morrow ”

“ But the slaughter of to day, the treason of our peers, and dispersion of the army, have plunged the land in danger and dishonour, the end of which I cannot foresee! A thousand times to-night I have said—would that I were dead!"
"Florence," said the countess softly, taking his hand in hers, "at this miserable time, do not let us exaggerate our sorrows. Let us rather bear up together against our misfortunes. All hope is not dead for us. Something yet remains, for Mary of Lorraine is my friend, and hope whispers to me that we shall both be happy yet." ”

“ Grant, who stood bending over her.
Mary did not reply.
"Does the pain in your side continue?"
"Yes, ma'am." Her voice was dull.
"And the tightness over your breast?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"What can I do for you?"
"Nothing. I want rest and sleep."
Mrs. Grant stood for some time looking down upon Mary's red cheeks; red in clearly defined spots, that made the pale forehead whiter by contrast.
"Something more than sleep is wanted, I fear," she said to herself, as she passed from the chamber and went down stairs. In less than half an hour she returned. ”