Five years of youth

It was evident to all observers, from the day that Anna and Selina met, that they were not the friends they had been and had intended again to be. No complaint was made by either, and their manner of speaking of and conducting themselves towards each other was affectionate, though somewhat melancholy. In their souls, however, they mourned over the change in each other: Anna thought Selina grown cold and worldly; Selina thought Anna mysterious and very selfish. The fact was, as Mr. Fletcher declared to his wife, and as she could not deny, that Anna was too much engrossed with her own thoughts, and too dead to realities, to perceive the improvement which change of circumstances had really wrought in her friend.

It was not long before Anna experienced the usual painful consequences of her strange habits; and the fact that such consequences overtook her wherever she went, might have convinced her how preposterous was her prevailing idea that all the world was in league against her, because her character was not understood. At first, the young people paired off as formerly, Rose and Mary, Selina and Anna; but this arrangement was soon found undesirable on many accounts. Though Rose was a very good, and, in some respects, a very superior girl, she was not such a one as Mary could like to be with all day long while Mrs. Fletcher was within reach, and while there were points of sympathy between Selina and herself which seemed to strengthen daily. Neither could Mary see the use or pleasure of splitting so small a family party into coteries; she therefore diffused the blessing of her society (and a great blessing it was) among all, and was duly prized by all but her own unaccountable sister. Anna, on the contrary, had no idea of enjoyment in any but a tête-à-tête conversation; and her mode of conducting a tête-à-tête had become so strange, that it was no wonder her companion preferred drawing in her chair among the cheerful circle who were talking or reading with lightness of heart and forgetfulness of themselves. Add to this, that Anna’s habits were now such as to disqualify her for feeling on an equality in well-bred society—that she was too late for breakfast, too late for dinner, too late for tea, never ready to walk when others were waiting, and unable to attend when others were reading or speaking to her—and it cannot be surprising that, though treated with great kindness, she was left alone in this, little world, where she had expected to find so much happiness. Mr. Fletcher was the only person who lost patience with her. Her father saved her from disgrace as often as he could; and Mary was devoted to her, though she received no thanks. She spent more time in dressing Anna, in working for Anna, in helping Anna, in one way or another, than on her own affairs. It was well they had brought Susan; for there was full employment for her also in taking care of her helpless young lady. As for Mrs. Fletcher, she watched tenderly over her health, which was becoming very infirm; but of what use were all endeavours to cheer her spirits and revive her health, when she had no mercy on her own nerves? It frequently happened, that she came out of a reverie flushed and feverish, or that her hands were damp and cold, and her voice broken and almost lost. “What could she be thinking of?” was a frequent subject of speculation with her friends; but they could never discover which of the thousand agitating scenes of human suffering and delight were oftenest presented in vivid apparition to the poor girl’s diseased imagination. She started in such a terrified way if spoken to, that Mary had insensibly adopted the practice of breaking every thing to her, even if the plan were only for an evening engagement. This was a pity, for the precaution was useless, as she was startled with less and less things perpetually.

“Anna,” said her sister one day, when she found her leaning over her drawing-board, doing nothing, “I have something to propose to you—a little plan which I hope you will not object to.”

Anna looked troubled and bewildered.

“I do not know what you will think of beginning to travel again already.”

“To travel!” repeated Anna: “to Italy?”

“Oh no!” replied Mary, “not nearly so far; only to Paris. Papa has just told me that he must go to Paris for a week or so, on business. Now, I think he is not very well, and we know he dislikes being alone among strangers, and I think we ought to go with him. I have not said so to him yet; I thought I would ask you first.”

“What can he be going to Paris for? What can be the reason? Oh, Mary!”

“Never mind the reason now,” said Mary, observing how her sister’s hand trembled; “I dare say he will tell us the next time he comes in; but he was going out and in a hurry when he told me his plan. You will like to go, will not you?”

“Oh yes! I am ready to go any where, to do any thing,” said Anna, looking as intrepid as if she were trying to be like Jephtha’s daughter.

“I do not know what the Fletchers will think of our seeing Paris before they do, after all; but I am sure they will wish us to go and take care of papa; and there can be no doubt that he will like to have us.”

Here however Mary was, for once, mistaken: Mr. Byerley would not hear of any one accompanying him; and, moreover, communicated not a syllable respecting the business which called him away. When Mary was packing his portmanteau, he came himself to see that his precious packet of letters was put in safe. Mary observed, laughing, that she hoped he would bring her some new music, for the letters took up so much room, that it would require a large parcel to fill up their place when they were left behind. Her father observed that these letters would afford him abundance of engagements, and that Mary must not be uneasy if he did not return at the end of one week, or even two.

“If it should be three,” said Mary, “I think we must follow, and find you.”

“Do not think of such a thing, I charge you,” replied her father, seriously.

“O no! papa. I did not seriously think of going to Paris by ourselves; much less of watching any of your proceedings.”

Mr. Byerley’s first letter came as soon as expected, and told of a pleasant journey: but it contained nothing besides, except the address to the hotel where he resided. The second letter was longer in coming, and it seemed to his anxious children as if the third would never arrive.

But for this anxiety, the time of his absence would have passed quickly and cheerfully. The tyranny of custom, by which French young ladies are made mere cyphers in company, was somewhat relaxed in the case of the English girls. They attended several evening parties, where they were not condemned, as they probably might have been in Paris, to sit beside Mrs. Fletcher or one another, for a whole evening, without being spoken to. The Protestant clergyman, whose church they attended, had been in England; and his knowledge of our customs, as well as his kindness of heart, prompted him to converse with the young strangers as if they were rational beings, and to endeavour to draw out their talents.

At first, Mary could scarcely reconcile what she saw of this gentleman in company with her judgment of his pulpit services. She had been almost disgusted, the first Sunday, with his sermon, and with the manner in which it was delivered. She was not sufficiently aware how the varieties of national taste extend to the modes of conducting public worship; and the delivery, which to the usual attendants of M. Mesnil appeared grave and emphatic, was to her almost theatrical. Out of the pulpit, nothing of this was discernible. He was ready, on every fair occasion, to advert to the subjects most closely connected with his profession, and which were evidently nearest his heart; and the growing intimacy between his family and that of Mr. Fletcher was founded and cherished by their sympathy in their religious principles and sentiments.

M. Mesnil had married a very young and lively lady of Paris, whose friends were surprised that one so gay and accomplished should have lost her heart to a grave clergyman, and been ready to make up her mind to live in the provinces for the rest of her days. She proved, however, to all who cared to know, that though her choice was made under the influence of love, it was not made in folly. She proved an excellent wife, and was an exemplary pastor’s lady. Fond as she was of her harp, she liked still better the music of grateful voices; and her smiles wore as sweet, and her eyes sparkled as brilliantly in the cottages near Tours, as in the saloons of Paris. Her tastes were as refined as ever, while more simple; and their gratification was promoted by her husband more eagerly than they ever were by her admirers in the great city. Her flowergarden was the delight of them both, and was embellished by their own hands. They sang together; and each, for the sake of the other, embraced every opportunity of enjoying the pleasures of cultivated society, and the delights of natural beauty. Their children were young—a noble boy of five years old, and two little girls of three and two. They were well-managed, healthy, happy children—the best of amusements to the English girls, who were never weary of the oddity of hearing a foreign language lisped by infants, and of observing wherein children are alike all over the world, and wherein natural differences introduce a variety, even from birth.

The two families were more together than ever after the arrival of the Byerleys. M. Mesnil undertook to convince his foreign friends that they were prejudiced against the pulpit oratory of France, and that it was not enough to venerate Fénélon, whom no one could help venerating. He made them familiar with the most eminent French divines, and brought them to acknowledge that there was more common ground between pious and enlightened Protestants and Catholics, than they had previously believed. They walked together very frequently, the children accompanying them. Little Charles rode a stately goat, as is not uncommon with children abroad; and this picturesque steed was harnessed with an elegance answerable to the appearance of his young rider. Charles’s mamma, however grave she might look while teaching him to read, looked much more like his eldest sister than his mother when they played in the fields, or sat down to rest in the woods.

It seemed strange that Anna should be struck by one so gay, so totally the opposite of herself, as Madame Mesnil; but it was evident, from their first meeting, that she was more awake to what was said, more attentive to what was done by this lady, than by any body else; and this circumstance gave Mary a gleam of hope of her sister’s restoration to mental health. On her part, Madame Mesnil, though she admired and approved Mary to a high degree, attached herself more to Anna; whether through compassion, or genuine sympathy, or by dint of imagining qualities which did not exist, Mary sought not to know, so delighted was she with the fact. She contrived, as often as possible, to send Anna alone to M. Mesnil’s; encouraged her to accept invitations to dine tête-à-tête with Madame, when her husband was out; and, in short, to throw them together as much as possible. The self-complacency caused in Anna’s mind by these circumstances, proved an impulse for a time. It was but a short-lived impulse; but it inspired her sister with hope, and herself with a pleasure long lost.

“Where is Anna?” was the enquiry one day, when it was time she should be urged to dress for her visit to Madame Mesnil.

“She is gone,” said Mrs. Fletcher: “dressed and gone half an hour ago; and the volume of Boileau with her that I see you are looking for. She has finished it.”

“And look at her drawing,” said Selina: “it promises well; does it not?”

“Beautiful!” exclaimed Mary. “O, I wonder when papa will come back!”

“Make no observations to him, Mary: let him discover it for himself!”

“Certainly,” replied Mary; “I will anticipate nothing. But I long to see the hope breaking in upon him.”

There was no need to explain what the “it” and the “hope” meant. There was a perfect understanding in the family, and the great anxiety of one was the great anxiety of all.

Mary flew to meet her sister when she came home, for once, not afraid of startling her by sudden intelligence. Before she could speak, however, Anna cried out, “A letter from papa? O, say yes!”

“Yes,” said Mary, joyfully, drawing her sister’s arm within her own. “He will be home to-morrow; so you must tell us to-night every thing about your visit.”

It was delightful to hear her once again speak gaily, and without reserve. It was evident that she had played with the children, and remarked what passed around her.

No one enquired into the particulars of her conversation with Madame Mesnil. It had evidently done her good, and that was enough.