University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

Years passed away, and with their flight
the two fair children were matured into
two sweet and lovely women; yet the
same fleeting suns; which brought to them
complete and perfect youth, were fraught
to others with decay, and all the carking
cares and querulous ailments of old age.
The mother who had watched, with keen
solicitude, over their budding infancy,
over the promise of their lovely childhood,
lived indeed; but lived not to see or understand
the full accomplishment of that
bright promise. Even before the elder
girl had reached the dawn of womanhood,
palsy had shaken the enfeebled
limbs, and its accustomed follower—mental
debility—had in no small degree impaired
the intellect of her surviving parent;
but long before her sister had reached her
maturity, the limbs were helplessly immovable,
the mind was wholly clouded and
estrauged.

It was not now the wandering and uncertain
darkness, that flits across the
veiled horizon of the mind alternately
with vivid gleams, flashes of memory and
intellect, brighter, perhaps, than ever
visited the spirit, until its partial aberration
had jaried its vital principles, it was
that deep and utter torpor, blanker than
sleep, and duller—for no dreams seem to
mingle with its day-long lethargy—that
absolute paralysis of all the faculties of
soul and body, which is so beautifully
painted by the great Roman satirist, as
the

that still, sad, patient, silent suffering,
which sits from day to day in the one
usual chair, unconscious of itself, and almost
so of all around it; easily pleased
by trifles, which it forgets as soon; deriving
its sole real and tangible enjoyment
from the doze in the summer sunshine, or
by the sparkling hearth of winter. Such
was the mother now—so utterly, so hopelessly
dependent on those bright beings,
whose infancy she had nursed so devotedly—and
well was that devotedness now
compensated; for day and night, winter
and summer, did those sweet girls by
turns watch over the frail querulous sexagenarian—never
both leaving her at once,
one sleeping while the other watched, attentive
ever to her ceaseless cravings, patient
and mild to meet her angry and uncalled
for lamentations.

You would have thought a seclusion so
entire, from all society of their equals,
must have prevented their acquiring those
usual accomplishments, those necessary
arts, which every English gentlewoman is
presumed to possess, as things of course
—that they must have grown up mere ignorant,
unpolished country lasses, without
taste or aspiration beyond the small
routine of their dull daily duties—that long
confinement must have broken the higher
and more spiritual parts of their fine
natural minds—that they must have become
mere moping household drudges;
and so to think would be so very natural,
that it is by no means easy to conceive
how it was brought to pass, that the very
opposite of this should have been the result.
The very opposite it was, however,
—for as there were not in the whole West
Riding two girls more beautiful than Annabel
and Marian Hawkwood, so were
there surely none so highly educated, so
happy in themselves, so eminently calculated
to render others happy.

Accomplished as musicians, both,
though Annabel especially, excelled in
instrumental music, while her young sister
was unrivalled in voice and execution
as a songstress; both skilled in painting;
and if not poetesses, in so much as to be
stringers of words and rhymes, certainly
such, and that, too, of no mean order, in
the wider and far higher acceptation of
the word, for their whole souls were attuned
to the very highest key of sensibility;
romantic, not in the weak and ordinary
meaning of the term, but as admirers
of all things high and pure and noble;
worshippers of the beautiful, whether it
were embodied in the scenery of their native
glens, in the rock, the stream, the
forest, the sunshine that clothed all of
them in a rich garb of glory, or the dread
storm that veiled them all in gloom and
terror—or in the master-pieces of the
schools of painting, and of sculpture—or
in the pages of the great, the glorious of
all ages—or in the deeds of men, perils
encountered hardily, sufferings constantly
endured, sorrows assuaged by charitable
generosity. Such were they in the strain
and tenor of their minds; gentle, moreover,
as the gentlest of created things;
humble to their inferiors, but with a proud
and self-respecting and considerate humility;
open and free and frank towards their
equals, but proud, although not wanting
in loyalty and proper reverence for the
great, and almost haughty of demeanor to
their superiors, when they encountered
any such, which was, indeed, of rare and
singular occurrence.

It was a strange thing, indeed, that these
lone girls should have possessed such
characters; so strongly marked, so powerful,
and striking—should have acquired
accomplishments so many, and so various
in their nature. It will appear, perhaps,
even stranger to merely superficial thinkers,
that the formation of these powerful
characters had been for the most part
brought about by the very circumstances
which would at first have appeared most
unpropitious—their solitary habits, namely,
and their seclusion—almost absolute
seclusion—from the gay world of fashion
and of folly! The large and opulent
county in which their patrimony lay, was
indeed then, as now, studded with the estates,
the manors, and the parks of the
richest and the noblest of England's aristocracy;
yet the deep glens and lofty
moorlands among which Ingleborough
Hall was situated, are even to this day a
lonely and sequestered region; no great
post-road winds through their devious
passes, and although in the close vicinity
of large and populous towns, they are,
even in the nineteenth century, but little
visited, and are occupied by a population
singularly primitive and pastoral in all its
thoughts and feelings. Much more then
—in those days when carriages were seen
but rarely beyond the streets of the metropolis,
when roads were wild and rugged,
and intercourse between the nearest
places, unless of more than ordinary magnitude,
difficult and uncertain—was that
wild district to be deemed secluded. So
much so, indeed, was this the case, that
at the time of which I write there was not
within the circle of some twenty miles, two
families of equal rank, or filling the same
station of society with the Hawkwoods.
This, had the family been in such circumstances
of domestic health and happiness
as would have permitted the girls to mingle
in the gaieties of the neighborhood,
would have been a severe and serious
misfortune; as they must, from the continual
intercourse with their inferiors, have
contracted, in a greater or less degree, a
grossness both of mind and manner; and
would, most probably, have fallen into
that most destructive habit—destructive to
the mind, I mean, and to all chance of
progress or advancement—the love of
queening it in low society. It was, therefore,
under their circumstances, including
the loss of one parent, and the entire bereavement
of the other, fortunate in no
small degree that they were compelled to
seek their pleasures and their occupations,
no less than their duties, within the sphere
of the domestic circle.

The mother, who was now so feeble
and so helpless, though never a person of
much intellectual energy, or indeed of
much force of any kind, was yet in the
highest sense of the word, a lady. She
had seen something of the great world
apart from the rural glens which witnessed
her decline; had mingled with the gay and
noble even at the court of England; and
being possessed of more than ordinary
beauty, had been a favorite, and in some
degree, a belle. From her, then, had her
daughters naturally and unconsciously
imbibed that easy, graceful finish, which,
more than all beside, is the true stamp of
gentle birth and bearing. Long before
children can be brought to comprehend
general principles or rules of convention,
they can and do acquire habits, by that
strange tact of observance, which certainly
commences at a stage so early of their
young frail existence, that we cannot by
any effort mark its first dawning—habits,
which thus acquired can hardly be effaced
at all—which will endure unaltered, and
invariable, when tastes and practices, and
modes of thought and action, contracted
long, long afterward, have faded quite
away and been forgotten. Thus was it
then, with these young creatures, while
they were yet mere girls, with all the
pure right impulses of childhood bursting
out fresh and fair, they had been trained
up in the midst of high and honorable and
correct associations—naught low, or mean,
or little; naught selfish, or dishonest, or
corrupt, had ever so much as come near
to them; in the sight of virtue, and in the
practice of politeness, they had shot up
into maturity; and their maturity, of consequence,
was virtuous and polished.

In after years, devoted as they were to
that sick mother, they had no chance of
unlearning anything, and thus from day
to day they went on gaining fresh graces,
as it were, by deduction from the foregone
teaching, and from the fact that purity and
nature when united must be graceful—
until the proudest courts of Europe could
have shown nothing, even in their most
difficult circles, that could surpass, even
if it could vie with, the easy artless frankness,
the soft and finished courtesy, the
unabashed, yet modest grace, of those two
mountain maidens.

At the period when my sad tale commences—for
it is no less sad than true—
the sisters had just reached the young yet
perfect bloom of mature womanhood—
the elder, Annabel, having attained her
twentieth summer, her sister Marian, being
exactly one year younger; and certainly
two sweeter or more lovely girls
could not be pictured or imagined—not
even in the brightest moments of the painter's
or poet's inspiration. They were both
tall and beautifully formed—both had sweet
low-toned voices—that excellent thing in
woman! but here all personal resemblance
ended; for Annabel, the elder, had a complexion
pure and transparent as the snow
of the untrodden glacier before the sun
had kissed it into roseate blushes, and
quite as colorless—her features were of the
finest classic outline, the smooth fair brow,
the perfect Grecian nose, the short curve
of the upper lip, the exquisite arch of the
small mouth, the chiselled lines of the
soft rounded chin, might have served for a
model to a seniptor, whereby to mould a
mountain nymph or Naiad. Her rich luxuriant
hair was of a light and sunny brown,
her eyes of a clear lustrous blue with a
soft languid and half melancholy tenderness,
for their more usual expression;
which suited well with the calm placid air
that was almost habitual to her beautiful
features. To this no contrast more complete
could have been offered, than by the
widely different style of Marian's loveliness.
Though younger than her sister,
her figure was more full and rounded—so
much so, that it reached the very point
where symmetry is combined with voluptnousness;
yet was there nothing in the
least degree voluptuous or sensual in the
expression of her bright artless face. Her
forehead, higher than Annabel's and broader,
was as smooth and as white as polished
marble; her brows were well defined
and black as ebony; as were the long,
long lashes that fringed her laughing eyes
—eyes of the brightest, lightest azure, that
ever glanced with merriment or melted into
love—her nose was small and delicate, but
turned a little upward, so as to add, however,
rather than detract from the tout ensemble
of her arch, roguish beauty; her
mouth was not very small, but exquisitely
formed, with lips redder than anything
in nature, to which lips can be
well compared; and filled with teeth regular,
white, and beautifully even. Fair as
her sister's, and like hers, showing everywhere
the tiny veins of azure meandering
below the milky skin, Marian's complexion
was yet as bright as morning, with
faint rosy tints, and red warm blushes,
succeeding one another, or vanishing
away, and leaving the cheek pearly white,
as one emotion followed and effaced another
in her pure innocent mind.

Her hair, profuse in its luxuriant flow,
was of a deep, dark brown, that might almost
have been called black—but for a
thousand glancing golden lights, and warm

rich shadows, that varied its smooth surface
with the varying sunshine—and was
worn in a thick, massive plait, low down
in the neck behind, while on either side
the brow it was trained off and taught to
cluster in front of either tiny ear, in an
abundant maze of interwoven curls, close
and mysteriously eulaced, as are the tendrils
of the wild vine, which fluttering on
each warm and blushing cheek, fell down
the swan-like neck in heavy natural ringlets.

But to describe the features is to give no
idea, in the least, of Marian's real beauty
—there was a radiant, dazzling lustre,
that leaped out of her every feature, lightening
from her quick speaking eyes, and
playing in the dimples of her bewitching
smile, that so intoxicated the beholder,
that he would dwell upon her face entranced;
and know that it was lovely; and
feel that it was far more lovely, far more
enthralling, than any he had ever looked
upon before, yet, when without the sphere
of that enchantment, he would be all unable
to say wherein consisted its unmatched
attraction.

Between the natural disposition and
temperaments of the two sisters, there
was, perhaps, even a wider difference
than between the characteristics of their
personal beauty, for Anuabel was calm
and mild, and singularly placid; not in
her manners only, but in the whole tenor
of her thoughts, and words, and actions—
there was a sort of gentle melancholy,
that was not altogether melancholy either,
pervading her every tone of voice, her
every change of feature. She was not exactly
grave, or pensive, or subdued; for
she could smile very joyously at times,
could act upon emergencies with readiness,
and quickness, and decision; and was
at all times prompt in the expression of
her confirmed sentiments. But there was
a very remarkable tranquillity in her mode
of doing everything she did; betokening
fully the presence of a decided principle,
directing her at every step, so that she
was rarely agitated, even by accidents of
the most sudden and alarming character,
and never actuated by any rapid impulse.

The very opposite to this was Marian
Hawkwood; for although quite as upright
and pure-minded as her sister—
and what is more, of a temper quite as
amiable and sweet, yet was her mood as
changeful as an April day; although it
was more used to mirth and joyous laughter
than to frowns or tears either, yet
had she tears as ready at any tale of sorrow,
as are the fountains of the spring-shower
in the cloud, and eloquent frowns
and eyes, that lightened their quick indignation.
At any outrage, or oppression, or
high-handed deed, her cheek would crimson
with the tell-tale blood, her flesh
would seem to thrill upon her bones, her
voice would choke, and her eyes swim
with sympathetic drops, whenever she
read, or spoke, or heard of any noble
deed, whether of gallant daring, or of heroic
self-denial. Her tongue was prompt
always as the sword of the knight-errant
to shelter the defenceless, to shield the
innocent, to right the wrouged, and sometimes
to avenge the absent. Artless herself,
and innocent in every thought and
feeling, she set no guard on either, but as
she felt and thought, so she spoke out and
acted, fearless, even as she was unconscious
of any wrong; defying misconstruction,
and half inclined to doubt the
possibility of evil in the minds of others;
so foreign did it seem, and so impossible
to her own natural, and, as it were, instinctive
sense of right.

Yet although such, in all respects, as I
have striven to depict them, the one all
quick and flashing impulse, the other all
reflective and considerate principle, it
was most wonderful how seldom there
was any clashing of opinion, or diversity
of judgment, as to what was to be done,
what left undone, between the lovely sisters.
Marian would, it is true, often jump
at once to conclusions, and act as rapidly
upon them too, at which the more reflective
Annabel would arrive only after
some consideration; but it did not occur
more often than the one had reason to repent
of her precipitation, than the other
of her over-caution. Neither, indeed, had
much cause for remorse of this kind at all;
for all the impulses of the one, all the
thoughts and principles of the other, were
alike pure and kindly. With words, however,
it was not quite the same; for it
must be admitted, that Marian oftentimes
said things, how unfrequently soever she
did aught, which she would willingly
have recalled afterwards. Not, indeed,
that she ever said anything unkind, or
wrong in itself, and rarely anything that
could give pain to another, unless that
pain were richly merited, indeed; but that
she gradually came to learn—long before
she learned to restrain her impulses—that
it may be very often unwise to speak,
what in itself is wise—and very often, if
not wrong, yet certainly imprudent, and
of evil consequence, to give loud utterance
even to right opinions.