Wanderings of a Beauty: A Tale of The Real And The Ideal

Although linked by no ties of kindred to the fair subject of this biographical sketch, the author may at least claim to have loved her with a love passing that of a sister—to have fully appreciated her rare endowments of mind and person, and, alas! to have had too frequent occasion to chide her girlish follies, and, in after life, to weep over her more womanly failings. Beauty has ever, and justly, been styled “a fatal gift.” From the classic Helen to the lovely and unhappy Mary Stuart, and in more modern times the matchless and queenly Antoinette of France all these, and others of lesser note, have furnished us with abundant examples of the cruel destiny of those who possess this much coveted distinction. For my part, I can only be too thankful for having been endowed by nature with a face which the most indulgent of my friends could but term pleasing, and which a casual acquaintance might call plain. Enemies I never had; I was not sufficiently handsome.

When I first met Evelyn Travers we were both inmates of a Parisian “Pension de demoiselles.” Although four years my junior, her precocious intellect and superior talents led her to prefer the society of the elder girls to that of those of her own age. Our mutual passion for music threw us constantly together, and another circumstance contributed still further to cement a friendship which has never since diminished. We were both alone in the world. My own beloved parents I had lost. My father fell in India, in the field, and my broken-hearted mother only survived her voyage homeward to expire in the arms of her only child. It was at that time of bitter trial, that the loving devotion of Evelyn to her friend earned for her a debt of gratitude which can never be repaid. For days and nights did my sweet young nurse watch by my bedside. I would take neither medicine nor sustenance, except from her hands. It is enough to say that I recovered, and have since centered all the affection of my heart on the gentle and tender being to whom I owe my life. She, poor child, was equally alone with myself. A father’s love she had never known, for Mr. Travers died when his only child was an infant; and his young widow, in a too hasty second union forgot her duty towards her first-born, and placed her exclusive affection on the young progeny with which she was annually blessing her second husband. The mother of Evelyn, being a woman of a very inferior order of mind to her daughter, with the best intentions in the world could never have duly appreciated her. One very sore subject with the Dale family was the knowledge that Evelyn must eventually inherit the whole of her mother’s jointure, in addition to her own fortune, while the sole heritage of her half-brothers and sisters would be the paternal debts, which were considerable. All these circumstances combined to induce the unloved girl to centre her heart anywhere rather than on her nearest kindred; she felt that even school was more to her like home than the house of her stepfather, and dreaded the hour when she would be forced to leave the shelter of its walls for so uncongenial a spot as Warenne Vicarage. How often in the quiet noon, or in the fragrant August evenings of our brief autumn vacation, have we together paced the gravelled path of the school garden, as I with friendly counsels enforced by my four years’ seniority, endeavored to reconcile the weeping child to her lot, to impress upon her mind the duty of seeking the flowers that grow by the pathway of life rather than the thorns, with which they are ever intermingled. I must not, however, omit to describe my heroine, whom I confess to have regarded with eyes somewhat partial—for to me she was the type of all that is most lovely in woman. Imagine, then, features of such faultless regularity that except in a statue, rarely, if ever, have I looked upon their like—a complexion slightly tinged with brown, but so transparent that the color deepened at every movement, and varied with each passing word. Pencilled brows, overarching long almond-shaped eyes, whose predominant expression in repose was one of pensive thoughtfulness, but which in moments of mirth, actually sparkled and danced with fun, as the dimples of laughter broke over her cheek, and the lips parted to show the pearls within. Imagine, too, hair of the softest texture, and of that peculiar shade of brown which looks bright in the sunbeam, but dark in the shade, and a fairy figure which if as yet somewhat too thin, gave full promise in after life, of ripening into the rounded perfection of maturity. Such is the portrait of Evelyn Travers, when in her sixteenth year she left school, and, accompanied by her faithful mentor, (as she would playfully term me) returned to the residence of her mother.