Do as she tells you! Let that poor, selfish fool of a man have his way, and marry her sister—he has made one mistake already about a face—see if he doesn’t find out, some day, that he has made another, about a wife! Let him!—Jane is too good for him, or for any man! Leave her to me; let her stop here; she shan’t lose by what has happened! You know this place is mine—I mean it to be hers, when I’m dead. You know I’ve got some money—I shall leave it to her. I’ve made my will: it’s all done and settled! Go back home; send for the man, and tell Clara to marry him without any more fuss! You wanted my opinion—there it is for you!”
At last Mr Langley decided. The important letter was written, which recalled Mr Streatfield to Langley Hall. As Jane had foreseen, Clara at first refused to hold any communication with him; but a letter from her sister, and the remonstrances of her father, soon changed her resolution. There was nothing in common between the twin-sisters but their personal resemblance. Clara had been guided all her life by the opinions of others, and she was guided by them now.
Once permitted the opportunity of pleading his cause, Mr Streatfield did not neglect his own interests. It would be little to our purpose to describe the doubts and difficulties which delayed at first the progress of his second courtship—pursued as it was under circumstances, not only extraordinary, but unprecedented. It is no longer, with him, or with Clara Langley, that the interest of our story is connected. Suffice it to say, that he ultimately overcame all the young lady’s scruples; and that, a few months afterwards, some of Mr Langley’s intimate friends found themselves again assembled round his table as wedding-guests, and congratulating Mr Streatfield on his approaching union with Clara, as they had already congratulated him, scarcely a year back, on his approaching union with Jane!
The social ceremonies of the wedding-day were performed soberly—almost sadly. Some of the guests (especially the unmarried ladies) thought that Miss Clara had allowed herself to be won too easily—others were picturing to themselves the situation of the poor girl who was absent; and contributed little towards the gaiety of the party. On this occasion, however, nothing occurred to interrupt the proceedings; the marriage took place; and, immediately after it, Mr Streatfield and his bride started for a tour on the Continent.
On their departure, Jane Langley returned home. She made no reference whatever to her sister’s marriage; and no one mentioned it in her presence. Still the colour did not return to her cheek, or the old gaiety to her manner. The shock that she had suffered had left its traces on her for life. But there was no evidence that she was sinking under the remembrances which neither time nor resolution could banish. The strong, pure heart had undergone a change, but not a deterioration. All that had been brilliant in her character was gone; but all that was noble in it remained. Never had her intercourse with her family and her friends been so affectionate and so kindly as it was now.
When, after a long absence, Mr Streatfield and his wife returned to England, it was observed, at her first meeting with them, that the momentary confusion and embarrassment were on their side, not on hers. During their stay at Langley Hall, she showed not the slightest disposition to avoid them. No member of the family welcomed them more cordially; entered into all their plans and projects more readily; or bade them farewell with a kinder or better grace, when they departed for their own home.
Our tale is nearly ended: what remains of it, must comprise the history of many years in the compass of a few words.
Time passed on; and Death and Change told of its lapse among the family at Langley Hall. Five years after the events above related, Mr Langley died; and was followed to the grave, shortly afterwards, by his wife. Of their two sons, the eldest was rising into good practice at the bar; the youngest had become attaché to a foreign embassy. Their third daughter was married, and living at the family seat of her husband, in Scotland. Mr and Mrs Streatfield had children of their own, now, to occupy their time and absorb their care. The career of life was over for some—the purposes of life had altered for others—Jane Langley alone, still remained unchanged.
She now lived entirely with her aunt. At intervals—as their worldly duties and worldly avocations permitted them—the other members of her family, or one or two intimate friends, came to the house. Offers of marriage were made to her, but were all declined. The first, last love of her girlish days—abandoned as a hope, and crushed as a passion; living only as a quiet grief, as a pure remembrance—still kept its watch, as guardian and defender, over her heart. Years passed on and worked no change in the sad uniformity of her life, until the death of her aunt left her mistress of the house in which she had hitherto been a guest. Then it was observed that she made fewer and fewer efforts to vary the tenor of existence, to forget her old remembrances for awhile in the society of others. Such invitations as reached her from relations and friends were more frequently declined than accepted. She was growing old herself now; and, with each advancing year, the busy pageant of the outer world presented less and less that could attract her eye.
So she began to surround herself, in her solitude, with the favourite books that she had studied, with the favourite music that she had played, in the days of her hopes and her happiness. Everything that was associated, however slightly, with that past period, now acquired a character of inestimable value in her eyes, as aiding her mind to seclude itself more and more strictly in the sanctuary of its early recollections. Was it weakness in her to live thus; to abandon the world and the world’s interests, as one who had no hope, or part in either? Had she earned the right, by the magnitude and resolution of her sacrifice, thus to indulge in the sad luxury of fruitless remembrance? Who shall say!—who shall presume to decide that cannot think with her thoughts, and look back with her recollections!
Thus she lived—alone, and yet not lonely; without hope, but with no despair; separate and apart from the world around her, except when she approached it by her charities to the poor, and her succour to the afflicted; by her occasional interviews with the surviving members of her family and a few old friends, when they sought her in her calm retreat; and by little presents which she constantly sent to brothers’ and sisters’ children, who worshipped, as their invisible good genius, “the kind lady” whom most of them had never seen. Such was her existence throughout the closing years of her life: such did it continue—calm and blameless—to the last.
Reader, when you are told, that what is impressive and pathetic in the Drama of Human Life has passed with a past age of Chivalry and Romance, remember Jane Langley, and quote in contradiction the story of the TWIN SISTERS!
A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. PERUGINO POTTS (1852)
Originally published in Bentley’s Miscellany
*
December 7th, 18—I have just been one week in Rome, and have determined to keep a journal. Most men in my situation would proceed to execute such a resolution as this, by writing about the antiquities of the “Eternal City”: I shall do nothing of the sort; I shall write about a much more interesting subject—myself.
I may be wrong, but my impression is that, as an Historical Painter, my biography will be written some of these days: personal particulars of me will then be wanted. I have great faith in the affectionate remembrance of any surviving friends I may leave behind me; but, upon the whole, I would rather provide these particulars myself. My future biographer shall have P.P. sketched by P.P. I paint my own pictures; why should I not paint my own character? The commencement of a new journal offers the opportunity of doing this—let me take it!
I was destined to be an artist from my cradle; my father was a great connoisseur, and a great collector of pictures; he christened me “Perugino,” after the name of his favourite master, left me five hundred a-year, and told me with his last breath to be Potts, R.A., or perish in the attempt. I determined to obey him; but, though I have hitherto signally failed in becoming an R.A., I have not the slightest intention even of so much as beginning to perish, in compliance with the alternative suggested to me by my late lamented parent. Let the
