 | Pierre, or, The ambiguities |  |
II.
While Pierre and Lucy are now rolling along under the
elms, let it be said who Lucy Tartan was. It is needless to
say that she was a beauty; because chestnut-haired, bright-cheeked
youths like Pierre Glendinning, seldom fall in love
with any but a beauty. And in the times to come, there must
be—as in the present times, and in the times gone by—some
splendid men, and some transcendent women; and how can
they ever be, unless always, throughout all time, here and there,
a handsome youth weds with a handsome maid?
But though owing to the above-named provisions of dame
Nature, there always will be beautiful women in the world; yet
the world will never see another Lucy Tartan. Her cheeks were
tinted with the most delicate white and red, the white predominating.
Her eyes some god brought down from heaven; her
hair was Danae's, spangled with Jove's shower; her teeth were
dived for in the Persian Sea.
If long wont to fix his glance on those who, trudging through
the humbler walks of life, and whom unequal toil and poverty
deform; if that man shall haply view some fair and
gracious daughter of the gods, who, from unknown climes of
loveliness and affluence, comes floating into sight, all symmetry
and radiance; how shall he be transported, that in a world so
full of vice and misery as ours, there should yet shine forth this
visible semblance of the heavens. For a lovely woman is not
entirely of this earth. Her own sex regard her not as such. A
crowd of women eye a transcendent beauty entering a room,
much as though a bird from Arabia had lighted on the window
sill. Say what you will, their jealousy—if any—is but an afterbirth
to their open admiration. Do men envy the gods? And
shall women envy the goddesses? A beautiful woman is born
Queen of men and women both, as Mary Stuart was born Queen
of Scots, whether men or women. All mankind are her Scots;
her leal clans are numbered by the nations. A true gentleman
in Kentucky would cheerfully die for a beautiful woman in Hindostan,
though he never saw her. Yea, count down his heart
in death-drops for her; and go to Pluto, that she might go to
Paradise. He would turn Turk before he would disown an allegiance
hereditary to all gentlemen, from the hour their Grand
Master, Adam, first knelt to Eve.
A plain-faced Queen of Spain dwells not in half the glory a
beautiful milliner does. Her soldiers can break heads, but her
Highness can not crack a heart; and the beautiful milliner might
string hearts for necklaces. Undoubtedly, Beauty made the
first Queen. If ever again the succession to the German Empire
should be contested, and one poor lame lawyer should present
the claims of the first excellingly beautiful woman he chanced
to see—she would thereupon be unanimously elected Empress
of the Holy Roman German Fmpire;—that is to say, if all the
Germans were true, free-hearted and magnanimous gentlemen,
at all capable of appreciating so immense an honor.
It is nonsense to talk of France as the seat of all civility.
Did not those French heathen have a Salique law? Three of
the most bewitching creatures,—immortal flowers of the line
of Valois—were excluded from the French throne by that infamous
provision. France, indeed! whose Catholic millions still
worship Mary Queen of Heaven; and for ten generations refused
cap and knee to many angel Maries, rightful Queens of
France. Here is cause for universal war. See how vilely nations,
as well as men, assume and wear unchallenged the
choicest titles, however without merit. The Americans, and
not the French, are the world's models of chivalry. Our
Salique Law provides that universal homage shall be paid all
beautiful women. No man's most solid rights shall weigh
against her airiest whims. If you buy the best seat in the
coach, to go and consult a doctor on a matter of life and death,
you shall cheerfully abdicate that best seat, and limp away on
foot, if a pretty woman, traveling, shake one feather from the
stage-house door.
Now, since we began by talking of a certain young lady that
went out riding with a certain youth; and yet find ourselves,
after leading such a merry dance, fast by a stage-house window;
—this may seem rather irregular sort of writing. But whither
indeed should Lucy Tartan conduct us, but among mighty
Queens, and all other creatures of high degree; and finally set
us roaming, to see whether the wide world can match so fine a
wonder. By immemorial usage, am I not bound to celebrate
this Lucy Tartan? Who shall stay me? Is she not my hero's
own affianced? What can be gainsaid? Where underneath
the tester of the night sleeps such another?
Yet, how would Lucy Tartan shrink from all this noise and
clatter! She is bragged of, but not brags. Thus far she hath
floated as stilly through this life, as thistle-down floats over
meadows. Noiseless, she, except with Pierre; and even with
him she lives through many a panting hush. Oh, those love-pauses
pauses precede the earthquake, and every other terrible commotion!
But blue be their sky awhile, and lightsome all
their chat, and frolicsome their humors.
Never shall I get down the vile inventory! How, if with
paper and with pencil I went out into the starry night to inventorize
the heavens? Who shall tell stars as teaspoons?
Who shall put down the charms of Lucy Tartan upon paper?
And for the rest; her parentage, what fortune she would
possess, how many dresses in her wardrobe, and how many
rings upon her fingers; cheerfully would I let the genealogists,
tax-gatherers, and upholsterers attend to that. My proper
province is with the angelical part of Lucy. But as in some
quarters, there prevails a sort of prejudice against angels, who
are merely angels and nothing more; therefore I shall martyrize
myself, by letting such gentlemen and ladies into some details
of Lucy Tartan's history.
She was the daughter of an early and most cherished friend
of Pierre's father. But that father was now dead, and she resided
an only daughter with her mother, in a very fine house
in the city. But though her home was in the city, her heart
was twice a year in the country. She did not at all love the
city and its empty, heartless, ceremonial ways. It was very
strange, but most eloquently significant of her own natural
angelhood that, though born among brick and mortar in a
sea-port, she still pined for unbaked earth and inland grass.
So the sweet linnet, though born inside of wires in a lady's
chamber on the ocean coast, and ignorant all its life of any
other spot; yet, when spring-time comes, it is seized with flutterings
and vague impatiences; it can not eat or drink for these
wild longings. Though unlearned by any experience, still the
inspired linnet divinely knows that the inland migrating time
has come. And just so with Lucy in her first longings for the
verdure. Every spring those wild flutterings shook her; every
grant that those other and long after nameless flutterings of
her inmost soul, when all life was become weary to her—God
grant, that those deeper flutterings in her were equally significant
of her final heavenly migration from this heavy earth.
It was fortunate for Lucy that her Aunt Lanyllyn—a pensive,
childless, white-turbaned widow—possessed and occupied
a pretty cottage in the village of Saddle Meadows; and still
more fortunate, that this excellent old aunt was very partial to
her, and always felt a quiet delight in having Lucy near her.
So Aunt Lanyllyn's cottage, in effect, was Lucy's. And now,
for some years past, she had annually spent several months at
Saddle Meadows; and it was among the pure and soft incitements
of the country that Pierre first had felt toward Lucy the
dear passion which now made him wholly hers.
Lucy had two brothers; one her senior, by three years, and
the other her junior by two. But these young men were
officers in the navy; and so they did not permanently live with
Lucy and her mother.
Mrs. Tartan was mistress of an ample fortune. She was,
moreover, perfectly aware that such was the fact, and was
somewhat inclined to force it upon the notice of other people,
nowise interested in the matter. In other words, Mrs. Tartan,
instead of being daughter-proud, for which she had infinite
reason, was a little inclined to being purse-proud, for which she
had not the slightest reason; seeing that the Great Mogul
probably possessed a larger fortune than she, not to speak of
the Shah of Persia and Baron Rothschild, and a thousand
other millionaires; whereas, the Grand Turk, and all their
other majesties of Europe, Asia, and Africa to boot, could not,
in all their joint dominions, boast so sweet a girl as Lucy.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Tartan was an excellent sort of lady, as this
lady-like world goes. She subscribed to charities, and owned five
pews in as many churches, and went about trying to promote the
people of her acquaintance marry one another. In other words,
she was a match-maker—not a Lucifer match-maker—though,
to tell the truth, she may have kindled the matrimonial blues
in certain dissatisfied gentlemen's breasts, who had been wedded
under her particular auspices, and by her particular advice.
Rumor said—but rumor is always fibbing—that there was a
secret society of dissatisfied young husbands, who were at the
pains of privately circulating handbills among all unmarried
young strangers, warning them against the insidious approaches
of Mrs. Tartan; and, for reference, named themselves in cipher.
But this could not have been true; for, flushed with a thousand
matches—burning blue or bright, it made little matter—Mrs.
Tartan sailed the seas of fashion, causing all topsails to lower to
her; and towing flotillas of young ladies, for all of whom she
was bound to find the finest husband harbors in the world.
But does not match-making, like charity, begin at home?
Why is her own daughter Lucy without a mate? But not so
fast; Mrs. Tartan years ago laid out that sweet programme
concerning Pierre and Lucy; but in this case, her programme
happened to coincide, in some degree, with a previous one in
heaven, and only for that cause did it come to pass, that Pierre
Glendinning was the proud elect of Lucy Tartan. Besides, this
being a thing so nearly affecting herself, Mrs. Tartan had, for
the most part, been rather circumspect and cautious in all her
manœuvrings with Pierre and Lucy. Moreover, the thing demanded
no manœuvring at all. The two Platonic particles,
after roaming in quest of each other, from the time of Saturn
and Ops till now; they came together before Mrs. Tartan's own
eyes; and what more could Mrs. Tartan do toward making
them forever one and indivisible? Once, and only once, had a
dim suspicion passed through Pierre's mind, that Mrs. Tartan
was a lady thimble-rigger, and slyly rolled the pea.
In their less mature acquaintance, he was breakfasting with
been poured out by Mrs. Tartan, when she declared she smelt
matches burning somewhere in the house, and she must see
them extinguished. So banning all pursuit, she rose to seek
for the burning matches, leaving the pair alone to interchange
the civilities of the coffee; and finally sent word to them, from
above stairs, that the matches, or something else, had given her
a headache, and begged Lucy to send her up some toast and
tea, for she would breakfast in her own chamber that morning.
Upon this, Pierre looked from Lucy to his boots, and as he
lifted his eyes again, saw Anacreon on the sofa on one side of
him, and Moore's Melodies on the other, and some honey on
the table, and a bit of white satin on the floor, and a sort of
bride's veil on the chandelier.
Never mind though—thought Pierre, fixing his gaze on
Lucy—I'm entirely willing to be caught, when the bait is set in
Paradise, and the bait is such an angel. Again he glanced at
Lucy, and saw a look of infinite subdued vexation, and some
unwonted pallor on her cheek. Then willingly he would have
kissed the delicious bait, that so gently hated to be tasted in
the trap. But glancing round again, and seeing that the music,
which Mrs. Tartan, under the pretense of putting in order,
had been adjusting upon the piano; seeing that this music was
now in a vertical pile against the wall, with—“Love was once a
little boy,” for the outermost and only visible sheet; and thinking
this to be a remarkable coincidence under the circumstances;
Pierre could not refrain from a humorous smile, though
it was a very gentle one, and immediately repented of, especially
as Lucy seeing and interpreting it, immediately arose,
with an unaccountable, indignant, angelical, adorable, and allpersuasive
“Mr. Glendinning?” utterly confounded in him the
slightest germ of suspicion as to Lucy's collusion in her mother's
imagined artifices.
Indeed, Mrs. Tartan's having any thing whatever to do, or
was nothing less than immensely gratuitous and sacrilegious.
Would Mrs. Tartan doctor lilies when they blow? Would Mrs.
Tartan set about match-making between the steel and magnet?
Preposterous Mrs. Tartan! But this whole world is a preposterous
one, with many preposterous people in it; chief among
whom was Mrs. Tartan, match-maker to the nation.
This conduct of Mrs. Tartan, was the more absurd, seeing that
she could not but know that Mrs. Glendinning desired the
thing. And was not Lucy wealthy?—going to be, that is, very
wealthy when her mother died;—(sad thought that for Mrs.
Tartan)—and was not her husband's family of the best; and
had not Lucy's father been a bosom friend of Pierre's father?
And though Lucy might be matched to some one man, where
among women was the match for Lucy? Exceedingly preposterous
Mrs. Tartan! But when a lady like Mrs. Tartan has
nothing positive and useful to do, then she will do just such
preposterous things as Mrs. Tartan did.
Well, time went on; and Pierre loved Lucy, and Lucy,
Pierre; till at last the two young naval gentlemen, her brothers,
happened to arrive in Mrs. Tartan's drawing-room, from
their first cruise—a three years' one up the Mediterranean.
They rather stared at Pierre, finding him on the sofa, and Lucy
not very remote.
“Pray, be seated, gentlemen,” said Pierre. “Plenty of
room.”
“My darling brothers!” cried Lucy, embracing them.
“My darling brothers and sister!” cried Pierre, folding them
together.
“Pray, hold off, sir,” said the elder brother, who had served
as a passed midshipman for the last two weeks. The younger
brother retreated a little, and clapped his hand upon his dirk,
saying, “Sir, we are from the Mediterranean. Sir, permit me
to say, this is decidedly improper! Who may you be, sir?”
“I can't explain for joy,” cried Pierre, hilariously embracing
them all again.
“Most extraordinary!” cried the elder brother, extricating his
shirt-collar from the embrace, and pulling it up vehemently.
“Draw!” cried the younger, intrepidly.
“Peace, foolish fellows,” cried Lucy—“this is your old playfellow,
Pierre Glendinning.”
“Pierre? why, Pierre?” cried the lads—“a hug all round
again! You've grown a fathom!—who would have known
you? But, then—Lucy? I say, Lucy?—what business have
you here in this—eh? eh?—hugging-match, I should call it?”
“Oh! Lucy don't mean any thing,” cried Pierre—“come,
one more all round.”
So they all embraced again; and that evening it was publicly
known that Pierre was to wed with Lucy.
Whereupon, the young officers took it upon themselves to
think—though they by no means presumed to breathe it—that
they had authoritatively, though indirectly, accelerated a before
ambiguous and highly incommendable state of affairs between
the now affianced lovers.
| Pierre, or, The ambiguities | |