Dust. Julian Hawthorne
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a God in heaven, and a Tom Grantley on earth, I’ll put my bullet through the false skull of him. That’s all, my child: only, when ye come to marry some fine honest chap, as soon ye will, don’t forget to send for your old friend Tom to come and dance at your wedding.”
Poor Fanny felt as if her heart were being taken out of her innocent bosom; but she was by nature so quiet in all her ways that all she did was to stand with her glistening eyes uplifted toward the splendid gentleman, her lips tremulous, and her little hands hanging folded before her. And Tom, who was but human after all, and had begun to fear that he had undertaken at least as much as he was capable of performing, kissed her, not on her forehead, but on her mouth, and therewith took his leave hurriedly, and without much ceremony. And Fanny never saw him again; but she never forgot him, nor he her; though two years afterwards she married Lieutenant Lockhart, and was a faithful and loving wife to him for five-and-forty years. The honest soldier never thought of asking why she named their first child Tom; and when the child died, and Mrs. Lockhart put on mourning, it never occurred to him that Tom Grantley’s having died in the same month of the same year had deepened the folds of his wife’s crape. But so it is that the best of us have our secrets, and those who are nearest to us suspect it not.
For the rest, Mrs. Lockhart’s life was a sufficiently adventurous and diversified one. War was a busy and a glorious profession in those days; and the sweet-faced lady accompanied her husband on several of his campaigns, cheerfully enduring any hardships; or awaited his return at home, amidst the more trying hardships of suspense and fear. During that time when the nations paused for a moment to watch France cut off her own head as a preliminary to entering upon a new life, Captain Lockhart (as he was then) and his wife happened to be on that side of the Channel, and saw many terrible historical sights; and the Captain, who was no friend to revolution in any shape, improved an opportunity for doing a vital service for a distinguished French nobleman, bringing the latter safely to England at some risk to his own life. A year or two later Mrs. Lockhart’s second child was born, this time a daughter; and then followed a few summers and winters of comparative calm, the monotony of which was only partially relieved by such domestic events as the trial of Warren Hastings, the acting of Kemble and the classic buffoonery of Grimaldi. Then the star of Nelson began to kindle, and Captain Lockhart, reading the news, kindled also, and secretly glanced at his honorable sword hanging upon the wall; yet not so secretly but that his wife detected and interpreted the glance, and kissed her little daughter with a sigh. And it was not long before Arthur Wellesley went to Spain, and Captain Lockhart, along with many thousand other loyal Englishmen, followed him thither; and Mrs. Lockhart and little Marion stayed behind and waited for news. The news that chiefly interested her was that her husband was promoted to be Major for gallant conduct on the field of battle; then that he was wounded; and, finally, that he was coming home. Home he came, accordingly, a glorious invalid; but even this was not to be the end of trouble and glory. England still had need of her best men, and Major Lockhart was among those who were responsible for the imprisonment of the Corsican Ogre in St. Helena. It was between this period and the sudden storm that culminated at Waterloo, that the happiest time of all the married life of the Lockharts was passed. He had saved a fair sum of money, with part of which he bought the house in Hammersmith; and upon the interest of the remainder, in addition to his half-pay, he was able to carry on existence with comfort and respectability. Marion was no longer the odd little creature in short skirts that she had been when the Major kissed her good-by on his departure for the Peninsular War, but a well-grown and high-spirited young lady, with the features of her father, and a character of her own. She was passionately devoted to the gray-haired veteran, and was never tired of listening to his famous histories; of cooking his favorite dishes; of cutting tobacco for his pipe; of sitting on the arm of his chair, with her arm about his neck, and her cheek against his. “Marion has the stuff of a soldier in her,” the Major used to declare; whereupon the mother would silently thank Providence that Marion was not a boy. It had only been within the last five or six years that Marion had really believed that she was not, or might not become, a boy after all; a not uncommon hallucination with those who are destined to become more than ordinarily womanly.
When the event occurred which widowed France of her Emperor and Mrs. Lockhart of her husband (much the worst catastrophe of the two, in that lady’s opinion), the prospects of the household in Hammersmith seemed in no respect bright. The Major’s half-pay ceased with the Major, and the widow’s pension was easier to get in theory than in practice. The interest of the small capital was not sufficient by itself to meet the current expenses, though these were conducted upon the most economical scale; and Marion, upon whose shoulders all domestic cares devolved, was presently at her wit’s end how to get on. She did all the cooking herself, and much of the washing, though Mrs. Lockhart strongly protested against the latter, because Marion’s hands were of remarkably fine shape and texture, being, in fact, her chief beauty from the conventional point of view, and washing would make them red and ugly. Marion affirmed, with more sincerity than is commonly predicable of such sayings, that her hands were made to use, and that she did not care about them except as they were useful; and she went on with her washing in spite of protestations. But even this did not cover deficiencies; and then there was the wardrobe question. Marion, however, pointed out that, in the first place, she had enough clothes on hand to last her for a long time, especially as she had done growing; and, secondly, that she could easily manage all necessary repairs and additions herself. To this Mrs. Lockhart replied that young ladies must be dressed like young ladies; that good clothes were a necessary tribute to good society; and that in order to be happily and genteelly married, a girl must make the most of her good points, and subdue her bad ones, by the adornments of costume. This was, no doubt, very true; but marriage was a thing which Marion never could hear proposed, even by her own mother, with any patience; and, as a consequence, to use marriage as an argument in support of dress, was to insure the rejection of the argument. Marriage, said Marion, was, to begin with, a thing to which her whole character and temperament were utterly opposed. She was herself too much like a man ever to care for a man, or not to despise him. In the next place, if a girl had not enough in her to win an honest man’s love, in spite of any external disadvantages, then the best thing for her would be not to be loved at all. Love, this young dissenter would go on to observe, is something sacred, if it is anything; and so pure and sensitive, that it were infinitely better to forego it altogether than to run the least risk of getting it mixed up with any temporal or expedient considerations. And since, she would add, it seems to be impossible nowadays ever to get love in that unsullied and virginal condition, she for her part intended to give it a wide berth if ever it came in her way—which she was quite sure it never would; because it takes two to make a bargain, and not only would she never be one of the two, but, if she were to be so, she thanked God that she had so ugly a face and so unconciliating a temper that no man would venture to put up with her; unless, perhaps, she were possessed of five or ten thousand a year; from which misfortune it was manifestly the beneficent purpose of Providence to secure her. The upshot of this diatribe was that she did not care how shabby and ungenteel her clothes were, so long as they were clean and covered her; and that even if she could afford to hire a dressmaker, she would still prefer to do her making and mending herself; because no one so well as herself could comprehend what she wanted.
“You should not call yourself ugly, Marion,” her mother would reply: “at any rate, you should not think yourself ugly. A girl generally appears to others like what she is in the habit of thinking herself to be. Half the women who are called beauties are not really beautiful; but they have persuaded themselves that they are so, and then other people believe it. People in this world so seldom take the pains to think or to judge for themselves; they take what is given to them. Besides, to think a thing, really does a great deal toward making it come true. If you think you are pretty, you will grow prettier every day. And if you keep on talking about being ugly. … You have a very striking, intelligent face, my dear, and your smile is very charming indeed.”
Marion laughed scornfully. “Believing a lie is not the way to invent truth,” she said. “All the imagination in England won’t make me different from what I am. Whether I am ugly or not, I’m not a fool, and I shan’t give anybody the right to call me one by behaving as if I fancied I were somebody else. I am very well as I am,” she continued, wringing out a towel and spreading it out on the clothes-horse to dry. “I should be too jealous and suspicious