The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-21 00:00:00

BEATRICE IS MARRIED.

"Are you sleeping, Beatrice ?" said Treherne, in a low
voice, as he entered the room, after the doctor's prescription
had been given to her.
" No,—I am dying I I hear you, but the words seem all
faded and distant. I see you, but everything is confused,
I remember, as if all my life were so long ago—so long
ago ! Oh Montagu 1" resumed she, with a burst
of renewed passion, " what will become of me?
My father I my father I If I could only say husband'
once, and you could tell him I died your wife. Montagu! '
—and her look was one of such wild appeal, that Treherne
first shrank, and then with a burst of passion, folded her in
his arms; "Would it be a great in to call me by that dear
name to him, even if you cannot get some one to join our
hands before I (lie ? He has suffered so much—my poor
lather :Heis so proud, so honourable. Oh 1 God, have
pity on me I Thou, who knowest all hearts, Thou knowest
I meant no wrong."
And this time, the appealing eyes looked, not to Tre-
hems, but with a desolate wildness upwards. Upwards I
beyond the blank ceiling that hid the sky—beyond the
world that hid G.,d from her thoughts. Then a faint
stupor dulled all her being, and she lay with her eyes wide
open, and that expression in them which thrilled Treherne's
heart with such inexpressible terror; that muddy lustre,
like the sunshine on pools full of dead autumn leaves.
When she was again conscious, Treherne spoke to her ;
he was standing by her bedside with another gentleman,
with some one in a dark dress—with a clergyman. Beatrice
gave a wild cry of joy.
"Here is the chaplain of one of our consulates, Beatrice,
who has been good enough to consent to a little delay in
his journey; to make you my wife; do you hear, darling ?"
Beatrice's eyes moved quickly from side to side, but she
answered nothing.
" Oh, love of my heart Oh, Beatrice I here is help.
Don't die 1"
Something like a smile quivered over the hot dry lips of
the poor girl. "No," she said, "no, Montagu. I won't
die, if I can live I"
" Do you think you will understand what this gentleman
—what the chaplain will read ?"
yes. lamto be your wife ; let him make me your
wife. I will not die till then." She folded her hands with
anxious earnestness, and immediately afterwards unlocked
them ; they fell by her side.
"God help us both, and make me a pleasant memory to
Montagu, when I am gone I" she said : and then turning
to the chaplain, she added faintly—" I think death must be
very near, I feel so much less confused. Marry us quickly:
and be sure it is not such grief as it seems. 1 would rather
be his wife, though only to die in his arms, than live for
any destiny that could part us 1"
The eyes of the English chaplain were bent on her with
the deepest compassion. His voice trembled, the words
faltered from his lips, as he read with earnest gravity the
brief ceremony appointed by our Church, for that solemn
union which death only should have power to unlink ! A
deep sigh of relief from Beatrice at the conclusion, was
echoed by both her companions.
Then she turned deadly faint ; she caught nervously at
Treherne's sleeve. "Oh Montagu, ' she said, is this
death ? Is this indeed farewell P Farewell, my darling
Farewell love, and farewell life I Don't forget me I"
And so saying, a deadly swoon seized her, and she lay
with her head on Treherne's arm, like a lovely statue of
marble,
Does not this tender scene of subdued emotion jus-

tify all we have said of the writer's pathetic power P
The consequences of this incident are deplorable,
and hardly within the limits of probability. Mon-
tagu Treherne is cleverly described. He is super-
latively selfish and irredeemably heartless ; but we
are inclined to think that in this instance even his
character is somewhat overdrawn. Few men having
passed through the ordeal of a scene like that above
described, could, on the restoration to health of the
unsuspecting victim, make that very scene—that

fictitioua marriage, entered into on the one side
with the truthfulness of a death•bed devotion—the
substitute for the real marriage that was to be, the
excuse for subsequent ruin and desertion. The in-

cident, while it adds additional darkness to the
iniquity of Treherne, affords another excuse to the
blindness of Beatrice. With the intensity of her
womanly devotion where Beatrice loves, she cannot

doubt, and consequently very terrible is the agony
of her awakening. Most dramatic is the
scene later on, when—in the midst of her
utter ruin and helplessness, when not a friend will
believe her story of the fictitious marriage, and she
is regarded by all as "lost"—lost beyond the power
of" saving''—Maurice Llewellyn, although incredu-
lous of her innocence, brings a charitable doctor to

visit her dying chiid.
" This is Dr. Foljambe, Beatrice," he began, but a
wild expression illuminated the features t-f Treherne's for-
saken love; she gasped for breath; then with a sudden
movement she locked tho door by which they had entered,

and drew away the key.
"Now," she said, "now you must hear me. Give me
time—give me help, 0 God I Maurice, ask him—ask RIM"
--and she pointed to the friend he had introduced, with a
strange mixture of repulsion and triumph—" whether I
have told the truth I It was TOU who married me," she
continued, addressing the stranger with passionate excite-
ment; " I owe my ruin—and my child's ruin—to YOU—to
your cruel treason—to ur base perfidy 1 How dared you
mock the ordinances of God, by pretending, in that solemn
hour of expected death, to unite me to Montagu? I am
los'— miserable ; for I am not his wile ; but that is his son I
Answer to Heaven for my boy's fate—and for miner
Very powerfully are those chapters penned which
relate the penurious struggles of the forlorn Beatrice
—all the more powerfully (alas !) because of their
exoeeding probability and truthfulneel. without

a friend to protect or a " character" to recommend
her, the unhappy girl endeavours to earn her bread
in vain. She stands—as so many, young and inno-
cent as she, have stood—alone, on the slippery bor-
ders of destruolien. Not a hand outstretched to
''save." "Lost" for time and for eternity, as far
as the cold world cares—" lost," for any help from
human charity, from man or woman either—only
preserved from sinking, only endued with courage to
endure, for the sake of that little, frail, fragile
existence, cradled within her arms—the cause at
once of her hope and of her despair. The following
passage is full of painful truth—" Thou shalt not
bear false witness against thy neighbour"—how
many of us are without sin in this respect
Not that the world in general had any particular spite
to the Brookes, but that it is the universal practice of that
corporate body " society " to strain at a gnat when good is
recorded, and swallow a camel when there is any evil gossip
afloat. People run each other down as though they could
make pedestals of their neighbours' characters, and stand
upon them. No inquiry is made into facts, no allowance
for circumstances. In this world accusation is condemna-
tion. Nothing is so fallible as human judgment, but no-
thing is so pitiless. It is the one black spot in our hearts
(the devil's share in us), that the general impulse is to be-
lieve the worst. Mercy and peace are kissing each other in
come more heavenly habitation, certainly not here. Here,
the mass are for ever learning from their ' dark master' how
to tarnish, and where to sting; and truly he has reason to
be proud of his scholars, even among nominally religious
and self righteous folk. There is nobody so abased that he
is not tall enough to look duwn on others—doing unto his
neighbour what he would particularly resent his neighbour
doing unto him; and scorning his fellow-Christian "with
all his heart and with all his mind, with all his soul and
with all his strength."
Yet we know who is the master and teacher of scorn—
Scorn is of Devils I Meek compassion lies
In Angel words, and beams from Angel eyes.
And angels have been God's messengers from all time.
Thoy are not His messengers who go to church (strict
Sabbatarians I) and patter out loud litanies to the "Author
of Peace and Lover of Core ord" to "deliver them from pride,
vain glory, and hypocrisy—from envy, hatred, and malice,
and all uncharitableness—to comfort and help the weak-
hearted, and to raise up them that fall"—and who then re-
turn home to sit in judgment on their neighbours. Yearn-
ing for power to punish other men's sons ; slan-
dering and sneering at other men's daughters ; and fiercely
condemning the Beatrioes whose true history is to them a
sealed book.

Who art thou that judgest another ? To his own
master he staudath or falleth.

But Beatrice is " saved." The title of the book
proclaims this fact, and we are betraying no se3ret
in recording it. We are not content, however, with
the manner of her "saving." We are disap-
pointed with the conclusion of the story both
as a work of nature and as a work of art.
It is not true to nature surely that a
heart so passionate and so tender, having loved
once so intensely and so truthfully, should, under
any combination of circumstances, love again! The
only palliation for the faults of Beatrice is the over-
mastering power of one great affection. To admit
the possibility of a second passion is to remove all
excuse for the imprudence of the first. As a work
of art, to " point the moral" of the world's harsh
judgment, the story should rather have had a tra-
gical or at least a melancholy conclusion. We are
rejoiced, however, that Beatrice is saved, only we
would rather she had never met with Ludovic
Sforza! We leave her happy in her Italian Pa-
lszza, and the third volume concludes with the vale-
dictory prayer of the grateful Parkes. We have
not room for more than a passing glimpse at the
other characters, and yet they are worthy, many
of them, of an attentive scrutiny. First in order of
precedence, by every right and every reason, must
come " the Marchioness"—in her own opinion, and
in that of all who approached her, about the very
greatest lady in the land. " Her sisters called her
the Marchioness, as the servants did. Her husband
called her the Marchioness. It seemed as if there
was no other marchioness in the world." Very
humorous is the portraiture as it appears through-
out the story, for the Marchioness plays a promi-
nent part in this history, as she does in the
world at large. As a foil to her resplen -
dent ladyship is little Parkes, the humble
companion—Parkes, whose &miles are swe:led with
hours of standing holding pins during the toilet of
the grand lady. ‘' I never ask her to do anything
menial," says the Marchioness; "I did not engage
her to do anything menial. I don't call pincushions
menial !" In the hour of her bitter distress poor
Beatrice finds Parkes a true friend. Next in order
to the Marchioness of Updown comes her sister, the
Lady Eudocia—the model of a match•making
mamma, blest with no son, but with five golden-
haired daughters, whom she calls her five Disap-
pointments! Lady Eudocia exercises a very bane-
ful influence on the fortunes of Beatrice; but more
fatal is the influence of Lady Nesdale, or Milly, as
she is generally termed. Miliy Nesdale is the bonne
amie of Montagu Treherne, and the heart's devotion
of poor Beatrice is far outweighed by her false
rival's glittering and meretricious charms. There
is something singularly repulsive about the portrait
of Milly Nesdale ; and her aunt, Mrs. Myra Grey,
is even more revolting, and assuredly, for the credit
of human nature, let us hope, more untruthful.

Mrs. Myra Grey, on a slight provocation,
administers poison as if it were water !
The chance entrance of her child, and his mother's
horror as he is about to drink the deadly beverage,
is another instance of Mrs. Norton's dramatic skill,
but the age of the child is surely an anachronism,
Mrs. Myra Grey having been an adept in the art of
poisoning when in India, before the birth of Maurice
Llewellyn, the man she was now seeking to destroy.
Sir Bertie Llewellyn, the father of Maurice, and his
wife, Lady Diana (another sister of the Marchioness)
better known as " Dumpty," are both most love.
able characters. The old Earl of Caerlaverock and
his spouse the Princess Gouglokeff, with her tur-
quoises and her broken English, are a very different
pair. Even the minor characters reveal the artist's
master hand—witness that little glimpse of the
servant's hall on Helen's wedding das, when the old
nurse exclaims—" T'ant a coronet as'll kelp off the
headache, nor a star won't keep your heart from
acheing neither"—to which the butler indignantly
rejoins that " at least them as has a coronet—if so
be things don't go smooth, have got something
to fall back upon," which teas unanimously held to
be a much sounder opinion than nurse's ! We must
perrorce conclude our notice of these very delightful

volumes. The pleasant style and the tender senti-
ments will linger as an agreeable memory, in spite
of the sad story which they narrate.

THE DRAWING Room.—The Court Journal
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always contains the n oat amusing and complete resume of
the week's events, and a vast amount of original news and
information interesting to the upper classes of society in
general. The sporting article is acknowledged to be the
beat which appears in any paper, being most analytical and
addressed to the practical question. Price 5d.; stamped, 6d.
W. Thomas, 26, Brydges-street, Covent-garden, and all

CROPS.—The rain has
newTsHagEeenwtsE.AT;;Ert
hthaendlonogn tahnids
11-141).
Tu—beEtruly said, in its own
come at_lalsirt,heann
Wdeiitaern! week took
been penfelt
at
nt
good time.
unusual during the early p ,rt
and May had set in
aeoject,
protracted
of the spring.
Pin the like course, and although the crops
apparently steadily .
obeeatt dry,
vigorous, and even pro-
___ generally
we"' as fully obvious that each day of drought began
considerableaBenl
oo okrfi ]evoking anxietynr rain,
had keen
well
miring,
it
was
As a rule, tho wheats bore it well, but oats,
to
beans, peas, and pastures, all exhibited symptoms
barl,,y,
' g that injury must surely ensue unless a change wais
prov.n
quickly felt. It must, therefore, have been with a feel-
ingtell its tale.
of absolute relief that our agriculturists viewed the
heavy showers of the 11th inst , supplemented by the fur-
ther rain which fell two days subsequently. "With the
downfall of rain there happily also came a rise in the tem-
perature, and both combined have already done a vast deal
in improving the appearance of the crops and imparting a
great stimulus to vegetation generally No detail, are neces-
sary ; every equate foot of cultivated soil throughout the
country furnishes an index to the progress and improvement
that have taken place. Apparently we are now getting the
showers considered to be more properly belonging to the month
of April; and the warmth of a May 5u end a May tem-
perature being superadded, it is not easy to estimate the
enormous advantage to crops of every kind and description.
The accounts from the hop gardens are encouraging This
crop, however, is so precarious that little real reliance can
be placed on any estimates made at So early a period of the
year; at the same time it is satisfactory to know that the
plant is in most cases healthy and vigorous, and that the
past season has been taken advantage of to attend to careful
nultureewa6.7lo4 iddVertt4tri