Mrs. Bruce

“ She will have it all over Norfolk to-morrow. Oh! how it mortifies my pride to have anything occur to disgrace me so! Bruce, I could almost find it in my heart to curse you!"
"And I you! You are to blame for it all. But for you and your foolish pride of wealth and position, I might have wooed and won her; but while I wavered in my shameful vacillation and selfishness, a better and nobler man has stepped in between us! You are proud to welcome him, proud to do him honor; proud to welcome her in her beauty and grace, now that you have put her forever out of my reach. ”

“ As Bruce's residence in Abyssinia is now rapidly drawing to a close, one may pause to observe of what honest materials his character seems to have been composed. Personal courage, that gem of the human breast, which, however roughly set, is brilliant even in the rude conduct of the savage, shines with unusual lustre in Bruce's life ”

“ Bruce was again sent for by the sheikh. He was in the alcove of a spacious room, sitting on a sofa surrounded by curtains. After he had taken two whiffs of his pipe, and when the slave had left the room, "Are you prepared?" he said; "have you brought the money along with you?" Bruce replied, "My servants are at the outer door, and have the vomit you wanted." "Curse you and the vomit too," says he, with great passion: "I want money, and not poison. Where are your piastres?" "I am a bad person," replied Bruce, "Fidele, to furnish you with either. ”

“ Bruce knew, too, that the nurse did not belong to his loved friends of the Red Cross. For his uncanny power of scent told him the garments worn by the impostor belonged to some one else. To mere humans, a small and slender man, who can act, and who dons woman's garb, is a woman. To any dog, such a man is no more like a woman than a horse with a lambskin saddle-pad is a lamb. He is merely a man who is differently dressed from other men—even as this man who had chirped to Bruce, from the church steps, was no less a man for the costume in which he had swathed his body. ”

“ Bruce—I forgot all about Bruce. Oh, I was happy!... But that was because I knew nothing....
"Yes, I pleased George. But by-and-by he changed too. Then I couldn't say anything that he liked. 'Stupid child!' he called me. I tried, ever so hard, to please him. But it was like walking against a wind, that you can't push aside. You women, you just guess how I felt then! You just guess! You want your husband. It was the same with me. I want George. But he wouldn't listen to me no more."
The woman seemed to sink, to shrivel, under the weight of her recollection. ”

“ Mrs Bruce did not leave us long in suspense, but obligingly came out, partly to comment on the low price of mutton and partly to tell the tale of the mammoth mermaid. By rights, of course, Mrs. Bruce’s husband should have been the gallant captain of a bark which foundered at sea and sent every man to his grave on the ocean-bed. The ship’s figurehead should have been discovered by some miracle, brought to the sorrowing widow, and set up in the garden in eternal remembrance of the dear departed. ”

“ Before Bruce was consul at Algiers, he had fallen in love with a Scottish lady, to whom he had engaged himself by a promise of marriage. On the banks of the Nile, on the waters of the Red Sea, among the mountains of Abyssinia, and in the burning desert of Nubia, Bruce's heart had remained faithful to his engagement—the charming vision was constantly before him. At the "hillock of green sod" the reader will remember how he insisted that Strates should drink to the health of Maria! ”

“ Winter’s all right, wance you get on the good side of her. And Bence, that’s the chauffeur, is a decent quiet boy. Sure, there’s none of us ’ud do annything but help to make things aisy for you, if you do the same by us.”
She had gathered up her brooms and dustpan, and prepared to go. At the door she hesitated.
“And don’t you be down-trodden by Miss Beryl, miss,” she said. “That one’s the proud girl: there’s more human nature in Miss Judy’s little finger than in her whole body.”
“Oh, I don’t think we’ll quarrel, Julia,” I said. “I can only do my best. ”

“ Bruce, or that Mrs. Jones'd make a good tenant. I'm—Well, I'll try to give you your answer some time to-night. Will that do?"
Mrs. Bruce rose and there was some asperity in her tone as she returned:
"I s'pose it'll have to do, since you're the one to pass the word. But we'll look round, other houses, anyway. My folks have left their old place an' this week's the only idle one Bill'll have. He wants to help Jane settle—she ain't overly strong—and they'd like to move in a-Wednesday, or Thursday mornin' at the latest."
"So—soon!" gasped the mistress of No. 77. ”

“ Although Bruce's appointment gave him a right of access at all times to the king, he did not choose at that moment to enter the royal presence, but preferred going to the tent of his kind and lovely friend, Ozoro Esther, where he was sure, at least, of getting a good breakfast and meeting with a warm reception. As soon as Ozoro Esther saw Bruce, she exclaimed, "There is Yagoube! there is the man I wanted!" The tent was cleared of all but her women, and she began to tell Bruce of several complaints which she seemed to think would, before the end of the campaign, carry her to her grave. ”

“ Bruce, as we have seen, bears testimony to the same fact, and it was unanimously our opinion that in no country within our knowledge is the average of female beauty so high as in the Aures Mountains. It is true that, owing to hard labour from earliest childhood, and constant exposure to the sun, they become old before their time, and even in infancy their skin becomes of a dark brown colour; but the classic regularity of features, which nothing can mar, occasionally combined with light hair and blue eyes, marks in an unmistakable manner their European origin. ”

“ Bruce’s father for a ship to be called the Sea Queen, but by some mischance, ship and figurehead never came together, and the old wood-carver left it to his daughter, in lieu of other property. It has not been wholly unproductive, Mrs. Bruce fancies, for the casual passers-by, like those who came to scoff and remained to pray, go into the shop to ask questions about the Sea Queen and buy chops out of courtesy and gratitude.
. . . .
On our way to the bakery, which is a daily walk with us, we always glance at a little cot in a grassy lane just off the fore street. ”

“ Now let me tell you, Miss Bruce, one simple truth: you have acted in all things contrary to that which you know is right. But pray what is the meaning of the word right?”
“To do all things that I know I should do; I do not know any thing more, papa; indeed I do not.”
[166] “You know the right, but a perverse and wilful disposition leads you to do wrong.”
Mr. Bruce rang the bell, and ordered the housekeeper into his presence. When she entered the room, he commanded her to close the door. “Take my daughter,” said he, “to the chamber that was occupied last night. ”

“ Pride, with Bruce, was as the vein which pervades the marble,—only faintly visible here and there, scarcely marring its beauty, but penetrating deep, yea, to the utmost depth of the firm and solid mass. If Emmie was self-indulgent, Vibert self-engrossed, Bruce was pre-eminently self-willed. His besetting sin was the more dangerous because it did not startle his conscience. Bruce knew that his faith in God was steadfast, his sincerity not to be questioned, that on the path of duty he walked with a step unswerving and firm. ”

“ There are more reasons than one why it would be desirable to put Mr. Bruce under an obligation. Mary! Mary! what if the discovery of your great-great-grandmother's marriage register were to bring about the creation of our own! O Mary! I wish I might see you now! I shall never be quite my own man again until the light of your sweet eyes has shone on me once more. ”

“ Jibe—japery."
"Oh—er—pardon me," returned his lordship.
"I saw Helen in London last spring," Mrs. Bruce went on. "She confided to me that she considers her husband a genius. And if genius really be nothing but an infinite capacity for taking champagnes, I am sure the poor child is right."
Little murmurs of joy, and the dinner proceeded. The guests bent over their food, shipped to Mrs. Bruce in a refrigerating car from New York, and very little wearied by its long trip. Here and there two talked together. It was like an intermission between the acts.
Mr. Minot turned to the Omaha girl. ”

“ Bruce was under way. People spoke to one another in undertones—little conversational nudges of anticipation.
"By the way, Cynthia," the hostess inquired, "have you heard from Helen Arden lately?"
"Not for some time," responded Miss Meyrick, "although I have her promise that she and the duke will be here—next Tuesday."
"Splendid." Mrs. Bruce turned to his lordship. "I think of Helen, Lord Harrowby, because she, too, married into your nobility. Her father made his money in sausage in the Middle West. ”

“ His ways are not as man's; and circled as thou seemest with foes, His strength shall bring thee forth and gird thee with His glory. Thou wouldst not turn aside, my son—thou fearest not thy foes?"
"Fear! holy father: it is a word unknown to the children of the Bruce! I do but smile at mine extensive kingdom—of some hundred acres square; smile at the eagerness with which they greet me liege and king, as if the words, so long unused, should now do double duty for long absence." ”

“ Has Bruce been tiresome at all?'
'Oh, no, he doesn't mean to be,' said Edith.
Mrs Ottley pressed her hand. 'Darling I know what it is. What a sweet dress! You have the most perfect taste. I don't care what people say, those Empire dresses are most trying. I think you're so right not to give in to it as so many young women are doing. Fashion indeed! Hiding your waist under a bushel instead of being humbly thankful that you've got one! Archie is the sweetest darling. I see very little likeness to Bruce, or his father. ”

“ Dazzled, bewildered by the benign manner, and yet more gracious words of his sovereign, the young heir of Buchan remained kneeling for a brief space, as if rooted to the ground, but the deep earnest voice of his mother, the kind greeting of Nigel Bruce, as he grasped his arm, and hailed him companion in arms, roused him at once, and he sprung to his feet; the despondency, shame, doubt, anxiety which like lead had weighed down his heart before, dissolved before the glad, buoyant spirit, the bright, free, glorious hopes, and dreams, and visions which are known to youth alone. ”

“ Bruce soon left, and was accompanied by a slave, who presented to him a basket of oranges, which he said were given by order of the bey.
"In that country," says Bruce, "it is not the value of the present, but the character and power of the person that sends it, that creates the value; twenty thousand men that slept in Cairo that night would have thought the day on which the bey gave them, at an audience, the worst orange in that basket, the happiest one in their life. It is a mark of friendship and protection, and the best of all assurances. ”

“ Nigel, if it be indeed as thou sayest, that affliction, and—and all thou hast spoken, must befall thee, the more need is there for the sustaining and the soothing comfort of a woman's love. Fear not for me, weak as I may have seemed, there is yet a spirit in me worthy of thy love. I will not unman thee for all thou mayest encounter. No, even if I follow thee to—to death, it shall be as a Bruce's wife. Ask not how I will contrive to abide by thee undiscovered, when, if it must be, the foe is triumphant; it will take time, and we have none to lose. ”

“ Bruce," said he, as Mr. Bruce returned, after his unusual effort of politeness, "who is that Miss Flint?—I have been here two or three times, and I never saw her before."
"Very likely," said Mr. Bruce; "she won't always show herself. Isn't she a fine-looking girl?"
"I haven't made up my mind yet; she's got a splendid figure; but who is she?"
"She's a sort of adopted daughter of Mr. Graham's, I believe, a protégée of Miss Emily's."
"Ah, poor thing! An orphan?" ”

“ Why on earth do you want to come round poking your noses in?”
“We never get a show,” said Judy mournfully. “We’re just hunted down like mad dogs! I should think persons of twelve and thirteen can be trusted to do a few little things alone, occasionally, anyhow!”
She twisted round, and suddenly screamed. A long tongue of flame, a licking, fiery tongue, ran up her thin frock, and in an instant it was blazing fiercely. I dropped Jack and sprang to catch her, flinging her down; Mrs. McNab, quicker than I, was beating at the burning silk. ”

“ For a moment they all sat as if entranced in a communion of cruelty, and to Bruce they seemed like a colony of spotted rattlesnakes such as sometimes hold their communions of hatred on the sun-blasted cliffs.
All at once Simon laughed,—a sharp, hoarse sound that had, in its overtones, a note of madness. Every man in the room started. They seemed to have forgotten Bruce. They looked at their leader with a curious expectancy. They seemed to know that that wild laugh betokened but one thing—the impact of some terrible sort of inspiration. ”

“ Such is the melancholy story of Edward Lord Bruce, a young nobleman, who, but for a false point of honour, arising from the incorrect judging of the world, might have lived to make many fellow-creatures happy, and adorn the annals of his country. The sacred griefs of those to whom he was most peculiarly endeared, it would be vain to paint. A mistress who wore mourning, and lived single for his sake all the rest of her life—a mother, who survived him only to mourn his irreparable loss—upon such holy sorrow it is not for me to intrude. ”