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The Vicar of Wrexhill

by Frances Milton Trollope · English · Gutenberg #36686 · 983,934 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Vicar of Wrexhill

Author: Frances Milton Trollope


        
Release date: July 11, 2011 [eBook #36686]

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan and the Online
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Produced by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)









                           STANDARD NOVELS.

                             No. LXXVIII.

"No kind of literature is so generally attractive as Fiction. Pictures
of life and manners, and Stories of adventure, are more eagerly received
by the many than graver productions, however important these latter may
be. APULEIUS is better remembered by his fable of Cupid and Psyche than
by his abstruser Platonic writings; and the Decameron of BOCCACCIO has
outlived the Latin Treatises, and other learned works of that author."


                       THE VICAR OF WREXHILL.

                       COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME.

                         BY FRANCES TROLLOPE

AUTHOR OF "JONATHAN JEFFERSON WHITLAW," "DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE
AMERICANS," "ONE FAULT," ETC.


    Les bons et vrais devots qu'on doit suivre a la trace
    Ne sont pas ceux aussi qui font taut de grimace.
    He, quoi!... vous ne ferez nulle distinction
    Entre l'hypocrisie et la devotion?
    Vous les voulez traiter d'un semblable langage,
    Et rendre meme honneur au masque qu'au visage?

                                MOLIERE.


    NEW EDITION, REVISED.

    LONDON:
    RICHARD BENTLEY,
    NEW BURLINGTON STREET;
    BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH;
    J. CUMMING, DUBLIN.

    1840.

    LONDON:
    Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE,
    New-Street-Square.




[Illustration: "A sort of frozen blandishment smoothed the proud face of
the Vicar as he stood with his lady beside him, to receive the
sycophants."]




THE VICAR OF WREXHILL.




[Illustration: "On the turf before the bench and with their backs
towards the spot where Rosalind and Henrietta stood, knelt the Vicar and
Fanny."]




CHAPTER I.

THE VILLAGE OF WREXHILL.--THE MOWBRAY FAMILY.--A BIRTHDAY.


The beauties of an English village have been so often dwelt upon, so
often described, that I dare not linger long upon the sketch of
Wrexhill, which must of necessity precede my introduction of its vicar.
And yet not even England can show many points of greater beauty than
this oak-sheltered spot can display. Its peculiar style of scenery, half
garden, half forest in aspect, is familiar to all who are acquainted
with the New Forest, although it has features entirely its own. One of
these is an overshot mill, the sparkling fall of which is accurately and
most nobly overarched by a pair of oaks which have long been the glory
of the parish. Another is the grey and mellow beauty of its antique
church, itself unencumbered by ivy, while the wall and old stone gateway
of the churchyard look like a line and knot of sober green, enclosing it
with such a rich and unbroken luxuriance of foliage "never sear," as
seems to show that it is held sacred, and that no hand profane ever
ventured to rob its venerable mass of a leaf or a berry. Close beside
the church, and elevated by a very gentle ascent, stands the pretty
Vicarage, as if placed expressly to keep watch and ward over the safety
and repose of its sacred neighbour. The only breach in the ivy-bound
fence of the churchyard, is the little wicket gate that opens from the
Vicarage garden; but even this is arched over by the same immortal and
unfading green,--a fitting emblem of that eternity, the hope of which
emanates from the shrine it encircles. At this particular spot, indeed,
the growth of the plant is so vigorous, that it is controlled with
difficulty, and has not obeyed the hand which led it over the rustic
arch without dropping a straggling wreath or two, which if a vicar of
the nineteenth century could wear a wig, might leave him in the state
coveted for Absalom by his father. The late Vicar of Wrexhill,
however,--I speak of him who died a few weeks before my story
begins,--would never permit these graceful pendants to be shorn,
declaring that the attitude they enforced on entering the churchyard was
exactly such as befitted a Christian when passing the threshold of the
court of God.

Behind the Vicarage, and stretching down the side of the little hill on
which it stood, so as to form a beautiful background to the church, rose
a grove of lofty forest-trees, that seemed to belong to its garden, but
which in fact was separated from it by the road which led to Mowbray
Park, on the outskirts of which noble domain they were situated. This
same road, having passed behind the church and Vicarage, led to the
village street of Wrexhill, and thence, towards various other parishes,
over a common, studded with oaks and holly-bushes, on one side of which,
with shelving grassy banks that gave to the scene the appearance of
noble pleasure-grounds, was a sheet of water large enough to be
dignified by the appellation of Wrexhill Lake. Into this, the little
stream that turned the mill emptied itself, after meandering very
prettily through Mowbray Park, where, by the help of a little artifice,
it became wide enough at one spot to deserve a boat and boat-house, and
at another to give occasion for the erection of one of the most graceful
park-bridges in the county of Hampshire.

On one side of the common stands what might be called an alehouse, did
not the exquisite neatness of every feature belonging to the little
establishment render this vulgar appellation inappropriate. It was in
truth just such a place as a town-worn and fastidious invalid might have
fixed his eyes upon and said, "How I should like to lodge in that house
for a week or two!" Roses and honeysuckles battled together for space to
display themselves over the porch, and above the windows. The little
enclosure on each side the post whence swung the "Mowbray Arms"
presented to the little bay windows of the mansion such a collection of
odorous plants, without a single weed to rob them of their strength,
that no lady in the land, let her flower-garden be what it may, but
would allow that Sally Freeman, the daughter, bar-maid, waiter, gardener
at the "Mowbray Arms," understood how to manage common flowers as well
as any Scotchman in her own scientific establishment.

Industry, neatness, and their fitting accompaniment and reward, comfort,
were legible throughout the small domain. John Freeman brewed his own
beer, double and single; Dorothy, his loving wife, baked her own bread,
cured her own bacon, churned her own butter, and poached her own eggs,
or roasted her own chicken, when they were called for by any wandering
lover of woodland scenery who was lucky enough to turn his steps towards
Wrexhill. The other labours of the household were performed by Sally,
except indeed the watering of horses, and the like, for which services a
stout, decent peasant-boy received a shilling a week, and three good
meals a day: and happy was the cottager whose son got the appointment,
for both in morals and manners the horse-boy at the Mowbray Arms might
have set an example to his betters.

There are many other pretty spots and many more good people at Wrexhill;
but they must show themselves by degrees, as it is high time the
business of my story should begin.

The 2nd of May 1833 was a gay day at Wrexhill, for it was that on which
Charles Mowbray came of age, and the fete given on the occasion was
intended to include every human being in the parish, besides about a
hundred more, neighbours and friends, who came from a greater distance
to witness and share in the festivities.

A merrier, or in truth a happier set of human beings, than those
assembled round the breakfast-table at Mowbray Park on the morning of
that day, could hardly be found anywhere. This important epoch in the
young heir's life had been long anticipated with gay impatience, and
seemed likely to be enjoyed with a fulness of contentment that should
laugh to scorn the croaking prophecy which speaks of hopes fulfilled as
of something wherein doubtful good is ever blended with certain
disappointment. The Mowbray family had hoped to wake upon a joyous
morning, and they did so: no feeling of anxiety, no touch of disease, no
shadow of unkindness to any being who shared with them the breath of
life, came to blight the light-hearted glee which pervaded the whole
circle.

Charles Mowbray senior had hardly passed the prime of life, though a
constitutional tendency to something like corpulency made him look older
than he really was. Throughout his fifty summers he had scarcely known
an ailment or a grief, and his spirit was as fresh within him as that of
the noble-looking young man on whom his eyes rested with equal pride and
love.

Mrs. Mowbray, just seven years his junior, looked as little scathed by
time as himself; her slight and graceful figure indeed gave her almost
the appearance of youth; and though her delicate face had lost its
bloom, there was enough of beauty left to render her still a very lovely
woman.

Charles Mowbray junior, the hero of the day, was, in vulgar but
expressive phrase, as fine a young fellow as ever the sun shone upon.
His mind, too, was in excellent accordance with the frame it
inhabited,--powerful, elastic, unwearying, and almost majestic in its
unbroken vigour and still-increasing power.

"Aux coeurs heureux les vertus sont faciles," says the proverb; and as
Charles Mowbray was certainly as happy as it was well possible for a man
to be, he must not be overpraised for the fine qualities that warmed his
heart and brightened his eye. Nevertheless, it is only justice to
declare, that few human beings ever passed through twenty-one years of
life with less of evil and more of good feeling than Charles Mowbray.

Helen, his eldest sister, was a fair creature of nineteen, whose history
had hitherto been, and was probably ever doomed to be, dependant upon
her affections. As yet, these had been wholly made up of warm and
well-requited attachment to her own family; but few people capable of
loving heartily are without the capacity of suffering heartily also, if
occasion calls for it, and this strength of feeling rarely leaves its
possessor long in the enjoyment of such pure and unmixed felicity as
that which shone in Helen's hazel eye as she threw her arms around her
brother's neck, and wished him a thousand and a thousand times joy!

Fanny Mowbray, the youngest of the family, wanted three months of
sixteen. Poets have often likened young creatures of this age to an
opening rose-bud, and it was doubtless just such a being as Fanny
Mowbray that first suggested the simile. Any thing more bright, more
delicate, more attractive in present loveliness, or more full of promise
for loveliness more perfect still, was never seen.

In addition to this surprising beauty of form and feature, she possessed
many of those qualities of mind which are attributed to genius.
Meditative and imaginative in no common degree, with thoughts
occasionally both soaring and profound, she passed many hours of her
existence in a manner but little understood by her family--sometimes
devouring with unwearying ardour the miscellaneous contents of the large
library, and sometimes indulging in the new delight of pouring forth her
own wild, rambling thoughts in prose or rhyme. Unfortunately, the
excellent governess who had attended the two girls from the time that
Helen attained her eighth year died when Fanny was scarcely fourteen;
and the attachment of the whole family being manifested by a general
declaration that it would be impossible to permit any one to supply her
place, the consequence was, that the cadette of the family had a mind
less well and steadily regulated than it might have been, had her good
governess been spared to her a few years longer.

Though so many persons were expected before night to share the
hospitalities of Mowbray Park, that, notwithstanding the ample size of
its mansion, both the lady and her housekeeper were obliged to exert
considerable skill in arranging their accommodation, there was but one
person besides the family present at the happy breakfast-table; and she
was not a guest, but an inmate.

Rosalind Torrington was a young Irish girl from the province of Ulster,
who had passed the first seventeen years of her life in great
retirement, in a village not far distant from the coast, with no other
society than the immediate neighbourhood afforded. Since that time her
destiny had undergone a great change. She was an only child, and lost
both father and mother in one of those pestilential fevers which so
frequently ravage the populous districts of Ireland. Her father was one
of that frightfully-wronged and much-enduring race of Protestant
clergy, who, during the last few years, have suffered a degree of
oppression and persecution unequalled for its barefaced injustice by any
thing that the most atrocious page of history can record.

Her mother, of high English descent, had been banished from all
intercourse with her patrician family, because she refused to use her
influence with her exemplary husband to induce him to abandon his
profitless and often perilous preferment in Ireland, where he felt he
had the power as well the will to do good, in order to place himself in
dependence upon his wife's brother, a bachelor viscount who had invited
the impoverished family to his house, and promised some time or other to
do something for him in his profession--if he could. This invitation was
politely but most positively refused, and for the last three years no
intercourse of any kind had taken place between them. At the end of that
time, Mr. Torrington and his exemplary wife, while sedulously
administering to the sick souls of their poor parishioners, caught the
fever that raged among them, and perished. Mrs. Torrington survived her
husband three days; and during that time her thoughts were painfully
occupied by the future prospects of her highly-connected but
slenderly-portioned girl.

All she could do for her, she did. She wrote to her haughty brother in
such a manner as she thought, from her deathbed, must produce some
effect: but lest it should not, she addressed another letter to Mrs.
Mowbray, the favourite friend of her youth, entreating her protection
for her orphan child.

This letter enclosed a will fully executed, by which she left to her
daughter whatever property she might die possessed of, (amounting at the
utmost, as she supposed, to about five thousand pounds,) and
constituting Mrs. Mowbray sole guardian of her person and property.

During the interval which had elapsed since Mrs. Torrington's
estrangement from her noble brother, his lordship had contrived to
quarrel also with his nephew and heir, and in the height of his
resentment against him made a will, leaving the whole of his unentailed
property, amounting to above eighty thousand pounds, to his sister. By a
singular coincidence, Lord Trenet died two days before Mrs. Torrington;
so that her will was made exactly one day after she had unconsciously
become the possessor of this noble fortune. Had this most unexpected
event been made known to her, however, it would probably have made no
other alteration in her will than the addition of the name of some male
friend, who might have taken care of the property during the minority of
her child: and even this would only have been done for the purpose of
saving her friend trouble; for such was her opinion of Mrs. Mowbray,
that no circumstances attending her daughter's fortune could have
induced her to place the precious deposit of her person in other hands.

The poor girl herself, while these momentous events were passing, was
stationed at the house of an acquaintance at a few miles' distance,
whither she had been sent at the first appearance of infection; and thus
in the short space of ten days, from the cherished, happy darling of
parents far from rich, she became an heiress and an orphan.

Rosalind Torrington was a warm-hearted, affectionate girl, who had
fondly loved her parents, and she mourned for them with all her soul.
But the scene around her was so rapidly and so totally changed, and so
much that was delightful mixed with the novelty, that it is not
wonderful if at her age her grief wore away, and left her, sooner than
she could have believed the change possible, the gay and happy inmate of
Mowbray Park.

About four months had elapsed since her arrival, and she was already
greatly beloved by the whole family. In age she was about half-way
between the two sisters; and as she did not greatly resemble either of
them in temper or acquirements, she was at this time equally the friend
of both.

In most branches of female erudition Miss Torrington was decidedly
inferior to the Miss Mowbrays: but nature had given her a voice and a
taste for music which led her to excel in it; and so much spirit and
vivacity supplied on other points the want of regular study, that by the
help of her very pretty person, her good birth, and her large fortune,
nobody but Charles Mowbray ever discovered deficiency or inferiority of
any kind in Rosalind Torrington: but he had declared vehemently, the
moment she arrived, that she was not one quarter so pretty as his sister
Fanny, nor one thousandth part so angelic in all ways as his sister
Helen.

Such was the party who, all smiles and felicitations, first crowded
clamorously round the hero of the fete which now occupied the thoughts
of all, and then seated themselves at the breakfast-table, more intent
upon talking of its coming glories than on doing justice to the good
things before them.

"Oh, you lucky twenty-one!" exclaimed Miss Torrington, addressing young
Mowbray. "Did any one ever see such sunshine!... And just think what it
would have been if all the tents of the people had been drenched with
rain! The inward groans for best bonnets would have checked the
gratulations in their throats, and we should have had sighs perchance
for cheers."

"I do not believe any single soul would have cared for rain, or thought
for one moment of the weather, let it have been what it would,
Rosalind," observed Helen. "Charles," she continued, "is so adored and
doted upon by all the people round, both rich and poor, that I am
persuaded, while they were drinking his health, there would not have
been a thought bestowed on the weather."

"Oh!... To be sure, dear Helen.... I quite forgot that. Of course, a
glance at the Mowbray would be worth all the Mackintosh cloaks in the
world, for keeping a dry skin in a storm;--but then, you know, the hero
himself might have caught cold when he went out to shine upon them--and
the avoiding this is surely a blessing for which we all ought to be
thankful: not but what I would have held an umbrella over him with the
greatest pleasure, of course ... but, altogether, I think it is quite as
well as it is."

"You won't quiz my Helen out of her love for me, Miss Rosalind
Torrington," replied Charles, laughing; "so do not hope it."

"Miss Rosalind Torrington!" ... repeated the young lady indignantly.
Then rising and approaching Mrs. Mowbray, she said very solemnly, "Is
that my style and title, madam? Is there any other Miss Torrington in
all the world?... Is there any necessity, because he is one-and-twenty,
that he should call me Miss Rosalind?... And is it not your duty, oh! my
guardianess! to support me in all my rights and privileges? And won't
you please to scold him if he calls me Miss Rosalind again?"

"Beyond all question you are Miss Torrington, my dear," replied Mrs.
Mowbray; "and were not Charles unfortunately of age, and therefore
legally beyond all control, I would certainly command him never to say
Rosalind again."

"That is not exactly what I said. Most Respected!" replied the young
lady. "He may call me Rosalind if he will; but if I am Miss any thing, I
am Miss Torrington."

"You certainly are a lucky fellow, Charles," said his Father, "and
Rosalind is quite right in praising the sunshine. Helen with her coaxing
ways may say what she will, but our fete would have been spoilt without
it."

"Indeed I think so, sir.... Pray do not believe me ungrateful. Besides,
I like to see everything accord--and your bright beaming faces would
have been completely out of keeping with a dark frowning sky."

"Yon are quite right.... But come, make haste with your breakfast ...
let us leave the ladies to give an inquiring glance to the decorations
of the ball-room, and let you and I walk down to the walnut-trees, and
see how they are getting on with the tents and the tables, and all the
rest of it."

"I shall be ready in a minute, sir; but I have been scampering round the
whole park already this morning, and I am as hungry as a hound. Give me
one more egg, Helen, and then...."

"It is really a comfort to see what a fine appetite he has!--is it not,
Helen?" said Rosalind, surrounding his plate with rolls of all sorts and
sizes.

"I will call you '_Wild Irish Girl_' in the very midst of the ball this
evening if you do not behave better," said young Mowbray.

"And if you do, I will...."

"Come along, Charles," said his father; "her threats may put you out of
heart for the whole day."

"And might not we too take a walk before any of the people arrive?" said
Fanny. "I have heard the cuckoo this morning for the first time. He was
certainly thanking God for the sunshine; and I really think we ought to
go out, and then we shall do so too."

"A most delightful proposal!" cried Rosalind; "and if the birds should
happen to introduce a jig movement, we can practise our dancing steps as
we go along."

"Wait half an hour for me," said Charles, rising to accompany his
father, "and I will join your party. Let us go to the Pebble-Ford,
Rosalind; and you shall all three drink my health out of that dear pool
beside it, that Ros.... Miss Torrington--admired so much the other day."

"No, no, we can't wait a moment, Char.... Mr. Mowbray--" said Rosalind.
"Come, dear girls, let us be gone instantly."

"Not wait for him on his birthday!" cried Helen. "But you are not in
earnest, Rosalind?"

"How you do labour and toil to spoil that man, Helen!" said Miss
Torrington, raising her hands and eyes as he left the room. "It is a
great blessing for him that I have come amongst you! If any thing can
save him from utter destruction, it is I shall do it."

Charles however was waited for, and that for at least three times the
period he had named; but he came at last, and the walk was taken, and
the birds sang, and the brook sparkled, and the health was drunk
cordially, even by Rosalind; and the gay party returned in time to see
the first carriage approach, bearing guests invited to be present at the
tenants' dinner in the Park. Their morning toilet was hastily
readjusted, as another and another equipage rolled onwards towards the
house; and then the business of the day began. Lords and ladies, knights
and squires, yeomen and peasants, were seen riding, driving, running,
and walking through the spacious park in all directions. Then followed
the rustic fete and the joyous carouse, in which the name of Charles
Mowbray made the welkin ring; and then, the company having retreated to
the house, came the hurried steps of a dozen lady's-maids hastening to
their various scenes of action, and valets converting closets of all
sorts and sizes into dressing-rooms for unnumbered gentlemen; and then
the banquet, and then the coffee and the short repose--and then the
crowded ball.

All this came and went in order, and without the intervention of a
single circumstance that might mar the enjoyment of a day long set apart
for happiness, and which began and ended more exactly according to the
wishes and intentions of those who arranged its festivities than often
falls out at galas planned by mortals.

At five o'clock on the following morning the joyous din at length sank
into silence, and as many as hospitable ingenuity could find room for
lay down at Mowbray Park to enjoy again in dreams the untarnished gaiety
of that happy day.




CHAPTER II.

THE MORNING AFTER THE BIRTHDAY.


Even the stable-boys deemed themselves privileged to sleep later than
usual on the day after; and the ploughboy, as he went afield, missed the
merry smile of the park dairy-maid, who, like her superiors, seemed to
think on such an occasion time was made for very vulgar souls indeed,
and that none who had joined in so illustrious a gala, could be expected
to recover the full possession of their waking senses for some hours
after the usual time.

By slow degrees, however, the different members of the establishment
began to stretch themselves and give sign of reviving animation. The
housemaids yawningly opened the window-shutters; the footmen crept after
them to aid in removing from one room at least the traces of the
jubilee, which, like the relics of a lamp that has burnt out, showed but
the more unsightly from its past splendour; and at length, to a
superficial eye, the breakfast-room looked like the breakfast-room of
former years; though a more discriminating glance might have detected
girandoles where no such things had ever glittered before, card-tables
in the place of work-tables, and flowers, still blooming in situations
as little usual to them as a bed of strawberries would have been the day
before.

But it was long after these hireling efforts of forced labour had
prepared the table for the morning meal, that any one of the favoured
sleepers destined to partake of it left his or her downy pillow.... In
short ... it was past mid-day before the family and their guests began
to assemble; and even then many stragglers were still waited for before
they appeared, and Mrs. Mowbray and Helen began at length to talk of
breaking up the long session, and of giving orders to the butler to take
care of all those who should come after.

"It is not very surprising that the Davenports, who never ceased
dancing till long after the sun came to look at them," said Helen,--"it
is not all wonderful that they should sleep late, and I believe Mr.
Vivian makes it a principle to be the last on all occasions. But I am
quite astonished that papa does not appear: was he asleep, mamma, when
you came down this morning?"

"No, Helen, not quite asleep, for he spoke to me. But I think he was
very sleepy, for I hardly understood what he said; and as he appeared
extremely tired when he went to bed, I told Curtis to darken the room
again, and leave him quiet."

Another half-hour brought forth the Davenports and Mr. Vivian; but still
Mr. Mowbray did not appear, and Helen, though hitherto she had been
quite satisfied by her mother's account of his prolonged slumbers, again
began to feel uneasy about him.

"Do you not think, mamma," said she, "that I might venture to go up to
him?"

"I see not the least objection to it, Helen; especially as we know, that
if it were you who happened to wake him out of the soundest sleep he
ever enjoyed, the pleasure of seeing you near him would quite atone for
it."

"Very well mamma,--then I shall certainly let him sleep no longer now;"
and, so saying, Helen left the room.

"Is not Helen Mowbray a charming creature!" said a gentleman who was
seated next Miss Torrington, and who, being neither young, handsome,
rich, nor noble, felt that he could wound no feelings by expressing his
admiration of one young lady to another.

"I will tell you what she is," answered Rosalind warmly: "she is just as
much better than every body else in the world, as her sister, there, is
more beautiful."

"And you are...." said the middle-aged gentleman, fixing a pair of very
intelligent eyes on her face,--"you are...."

But notwithstanding the look of curiosity with which Miss Torrington
listened, the speaker suddenly stopped, for a bell was rung with that
sort of sudden and continued vehemence which denotes haste and agitation
in the hand that gives it movement.

"That is my father's bell!" said Charles in an accent of alarm; and
starting up, he was out of the room in an instant.

Mrs. Mowbray immediately followed him, and for several minutes a sort of
heavy silence seemed to have fallen on every individual present--not a
word being uttered by any one, and the eyes of all fixing themselves on
the face of Fanny, who kept her place as if spell-bound, but with a
countenance that expressed a feeling approaching to terror.

"This is not to be borne!" exclaimed Rosalind abruptly. "Excuse us for a
moment," she added, addressing those who still remained in the
breakfast-room.--"Come with me, Fanny, and let us know the worst at
once."

The two girls left the room together; and in a very few minutes
afterwards a servant entered, the violent agitation of whose manner
announced the news he brought before he spoke it.

"My master ... my poor master is dead!" were the words he uttered; and
their effect upon a party assembled for an occasion of so much
festivity, and who had so lately parted with their kind and happy host
in perfect health, may be easily imagined.

One single word in reply to the eager chorus of inquiry told the manner
of his death--

"Apoplexy!"

The scene which followed was what such an event must necessarily
produce. No single creature present, except one pretty portionless young
lady who thought it very likely that Mr. Charles might now fall in love
with her, could by possibility be benefited by the death of the amiable
man who had just breathed his last, and it is therefore probable that
the universal expression of regret was sincere in quality, though its
quantity might have been somewhat preternaturally increased by the
circumstances in which the parties were relatively placed when the awful
event was made known. Several tears were shed, and some glasses of cold
water called for, while the carriages were getting ready; the gentlemen
all looked grave, and many of the ladies pale; but in less than half an
hour they had all left the house, not one of them, as it happened, being
on terms of sufficient intimacy with the family to justify their
offering to remain at such a moment.

It is easy enough to dismiss from the scene persons whose feelings were
so slightly interested in it; but far different would be the task were I
to attempt painting the heartfelt anguish of those who remained. Mr.
Mowbray had been so deeply yet so tranquilly loved by every member of
his family--his intercourse with them had been so uniformly that of
constant endearment, unchequered by any mixture of rough temper or
unreasonable caprice, that their love for him was so natural and
inevitable, that they had never reasoned upon it, or were fully aware of
its intensity, till the dreadful moment in which they learned that they
had lost him for ever.

The feelings of Mrs. Mowbray for many hours amounted to agony; for till
a medical gentleman who examined the body at length succeeded in
convincing her that she was mistaken, she felt persuaded that her
beloved husband owed his death to her neglect, and that if, when she
mistook his unintelligible speech for sleepiness, she had discovered his
condition, and caused him to be bled, his precious life might have been
saved. It was evident, however, from many circumstances, that the
seizure was of a nature not to be baffled or parried by art; and the
relief this conviction at length afforded the widow was so great, that
her having first formed a contrary opinion was perhaps a blessing to
her.

The grief of Charles was that of a young, ardent, and most affectionate
spirit; but his mother and his sisters now seemed to hang upon him
wholly, and the Being who alone can read all hearts only knew how deep
was the sorrow he felt. The young Fanny, stealing away to her chamber,
threw herself, in an agony of tears, upon her bed, and, forgotten in the
general dismay that had fallen upon all, wept herself into a sleep that
lasted till she awakened on the following morning to a renewed sense of
sorrow which came over her like the dreadful memory of some frightful
dream.

But of all those whom poor Mowbray had left to deplore his loss, it was
Helen--his darling Helen--who unquestionably felt it the most
profoundly. His love for her had all that is most touching in
partiality, without one atom of the injustice which renders such a
feeling criminal; and its effect upon her loving and enthusiastic temper
was stronger than any words can describe.

Miss Torrington was perhaps beyond any other member of the family aware
of this, and the tenderest pity for the silent, suffering Helen took
possession of her. She was in truth a looker-on upon the melancholy
scene, and as such, was more qualified to judge how sorrow worked in
each of them than any other could be. Her residence in the family,
though sufficient to impress her with the kindest feelings towards its
chief, and the deepest impression of his worth, had hardly been long
enough to awaken thoroughly her affections towards him, and she wept
more in pity for those around her than from any personal feeling of
grief for the loss she had herself sustained. To soothe poor Helen, to
lead her thoughts even for a moment from the subject that engrossed
them, and to keep her as much as possible from gazing in vain tenderness
and hopeless agony upon the body of her father, became the sole
occupation of Rosalind during the dreadful interval between the real
loss of the beloved being to whom the soul of his child still fondly
clung, and the apparently more final separation still which took place
when all that was left of him was borne from the house.

Helen made little apparent return to all these tender cares, but she was
fully conscious of them. She felt that Rosalind read her heart, and knew
how to pity her; and the conviction turned liking into love, of that
enduring kind which such hearts as Helen's alone know how to give.




CHAPTER III.

THE VICAR OF WREXHILL.


On the day preceding that appointed for the funeral, Mrs. Mowbray
received the following letter:--

     "MADAM,

     "I trust that, as the minister of your parish, my venturing to
     break in upon your grief will not be considered as an
     intrusion. In the festivities which have ended so awfully, your
     hospitality invited me and my children to bear a part; and
     although I declined the invitation, I am most anxious to prove
     to you, madam, and to your family, that no deficiency of
     friendly feeling induced me to do so. But 'it is better to go
     to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting,' and I
     now therefore ask your permission to wait on you, with the most
     earnest hope that the sacred office I hold may enable you to
     receive me rather with a feeling of comfort than of pain. Be
     assured, madam, that short as the period of my ministry in the
     Parish of Wrexhill has been, it is with deep sympathy in the
     grief that afflicts you that I subscribe myself, madam,

     "Your humble servant and friend,

     "WILLIAM JACOB CARTWRIGHT.

     "Wrexhill Vicarage, May 9th, 1833."

Little calculated as this letter may seem to excite violent emotion, it
threw poor Mrs. Mowbray into an agony of renewed grief. The idea of
seeing for the first time since her loss a person who, however
well-meaning in his wish to visit her, must be classed as a stranger,
was inexpressibly painful; and, unused to encounter difficulty or
inconvenience of any kind, she shrank from receiving Mr. Cartwright with
a degree of weakness which made her son, who had seldom left her side,
tremble to think how little she was calculated to endure with firmness
the desolation that had fallen upon her.

"Oh! no! no! no!" she exclaimed vehemently, "I cannot see him--I can see
no one!--keep him from me, Charles,--keep every one from me, if you
would not see me sink to the earth before your eyes!"

"My poor mother!..." said Charles, tenderly taking her hand, "do not let
me see you tremble thus--you will make me tremble too! and we have need
of strength--we have all great need of strength in this time of trial."

"But you will not let this clergyman come to me, Charles!... Oh no! you
cannot be so cruel!"

"The very weakness which makes you shrink from this, my dearest mother,
is the strongest proof that such a visit should be sought, and not
avoided. Where, mother, are we any of us to look for the strength we
want, except from Him whose minister now seeks to comfort us?"

"He cannot comfort me!... Can you, can Helen, can my pretty Fanny
comfort me?... Then how should he?... Charles, Charles, there is no
comfort in seeing this strange man; you cannot think there is: then why
do you still stand with his note in your hand as if doubtful how you
ought to answer it?"

"No, mother, I am not doubtful: my very soul seems to sink within me,
when I think that he whose precepts...."

Tears--copious woman-like tears choked the utterance of the athletic
youth, who looked as if he could fight and conquer in any strife to
which fortune or misfortune could lead him. But the softness that now
mastered him came not of weakness, but of strength--strength of every
feeling that might do honour to a man. For a few moments he gave way to
this burst of passionate sorrow, and the mother and son wept together.

"My own dear Charles!" said Mrs. Mowbray, taking his hand and pressing
it to her heart, "how could I think for a moment that you would urge me
to do what was so very painful!"

"It can hardly be so painful for you to do as for me to urge it, dearest
mother; and yet I must do so ... because I think it right. There is no
other person in the world, I think, of what rank or station soever, for
whose admittance I would plead so earnestly, unless it were one who,
like this gentleman, offered to visit you as the minister of God."

Mrs. Mowbray buried her face in her handkerchief, and turned from him
with a movement of impatience. At this moment, Helen, and her constant
attendant Rosalind, entered the room. Mr. Cartwright's note was still in
Charles's hand, and he gave it to his sister, saying, "Helen, I think my
mother ought not to refuse this visit; but she is very averse to it. I
would not pain her for the world; but this is not a moment to refuse any
one who offers to visit us as the minister of Heaven."

Helen read the note, and her pale cheeks were washed anew with tears as
she did so.

"It is meant kindly," she said as she laid it upon the table; "but it is
very soon for my poor mother to meet a stranger."

Rosalind's eyes rested on the folded note, and some feeling suggested by
the consciousness that she too was almost a stranger brought a flush to
her cheek, and led her to step back towards a distant sofa. Whether
Charles observed or understood the movement, she knew not; but he
followed and placed the letter in her hand.

The words of Helen seemed to comfort her mother, for she again looked
up, and addressing Charles, almost reproachfully, said,

"Your sister Helen thinks as I do, Charles: it would almost be an
outrage against decency to receive a stranger on such a day as this."

"Had the request to wait upon you come from our late clergyman, mother,
would you have refused it?"

"Certainly not: but he was a friend of long standing, not a stranger,
Charles."

"But had he not been a clergyman, mother, you would hardly have wished
him to choose such a time to make a visit here; and our not having yet
become familiar with Mr. Cartwright in the common intercourse of
society, seems to me no sufficient reason for refusing to see him in the
sacred character in which he has offered to come...."

Some powerful emotion checked his utterance; but in a moment he added,

"I would wish once more to pray beside my father before he goes hence to
be no more seen by us on earth."

"Mother!..." cried Helen, dropping on her knees and throwing her arms
round her.

The appeal was answered by an embrace in which their tears mingled, and
poor Mrs. Mowbray, whose aching heart seemed to dread every new emotion,
said, while something like a shudder ran through her frame, "Do with me
as you will, my children.... I cannot bear much more.... But perhaps it
would be better for me that I should sink to rest beside him!"

"My dearest friend!" exclaimed Rosalind, coming softly towards her and
impressing a kiss upon her forehead, "you have not lost all for which
you might wish to live."

"Oh, true ... most true!... Where is my poor Fanny, Rosalind? You will
answer this letter for me, Charles?... I will be ready to see Mr.
Cartwright whenever he chooses to come.... It will be a dreadful
trial--but I am willing to endure it."

The young man left the room, and such an answer was returned to the
clergyman's note as brought him to the door within an hour after it was
despatched.

Rosalind, in obedience to Mrs. Mowbray's hint, had sought Fanny in her
chamber, where she seemed to find a sad consolation in versifying all
the tender recollections of her lost father that her memory could
supply; but she instantly obeyed the summons, and when Mr. Cartwright
arrived, the whole family were assembled in the drawing-room to receive
him.

The person, voice, and address of this gentleman were singularly well
calculated to touch and soothe hearts suffering from affliction; and
after the first painful moment in which they raised their eyes to meet
those of the first stranger who had been admitted to look upon their
sorrow, there was nothing in the interview to justify the terror with
which the thought of it had inspired the poor widow.

Either from tact or feeling, Mr. Cartwright seemed to avoid speaking to
Mrs. Mowbray, and it was to her son that he addressed such words as the
occasion called for. Meanwhile, from time to time his eyes rested with
gentle pity on the three beautiful girls, whose tears flowed silently as
they listened to him.

But though the manner of Mr. Cartwright was full of the tenderest
kindness, it was apparently embarrassed. He evidently feared to touch or
to dwell upon the agonising subject which occupied all their thoughts,
and it was Charles who had the courage to turn this melancholy meeting
to the only purpose for which it could be desirable, by saying--though
with a faltering voice,--

"Mr. Cartwright ... may we ask you to pray with us beside the coffin
that contains the body of my father?"

The clergyman started, and his countenance expressed a mixture of
satisfaction and surprise, his manner instantly became more solemn--more
devout, and he replied eagerly, rising from his chair as he spoke, as if
willing to hasten to the scene to which he was called,

"Most gladly--most joyfully, my dear sir, will I kneel with you and your
amiable family to implore the Divine grace. I did not know.... I had
hardly dared to hope.... Indeed I feared from the festivities ... from
the style in which...."

"I trust, sir," interrupted young Mowbray almost in a whisper, "that you
do not suppose us unused to prayer, because we have rejoiced in the
blessings which Heaven has bestowed?"

"I thank my God that it is not so," replied the clergyman, pressing the
young man's hand affectionately; "and I will praise His holy name for
every symptom I find that the world, my dear young friend, has not taken
too strong a hold upon your heart. May we through His grace walk
righteously together in the path in which it hath pleased Him to place
us side by side!"

Charles Mowbray's heart was ever open to every expression of kindness;
and now, softened by sorrow, and warmed by a feeling of the purest
piety, he returned the friendly pressure with interest, and then, taking
his poor mother's arm within his own, led the way to the chamber of
death.

The mourning family knelt beside the coffin, and listened with
suppressed sobs to an extempore prayer, by no means ill suited to the
occasion, though it was not, as poor Charles had expected, chosen from
among the many solemn and beautiful orisons which the Church has
furnished or which the Scriptures might supply for such an hour of need.
But he was not disposed at this moment to cavil at any words calculated
to raise his thoughts and those of the beings he most fondly loved to
that Power which had hitherto blessed their existence, and from whence
alone they could hope for support under the affliction with which He had
now visited them. Fervently and earnestly he prayed for them and for
himself; and when he rose from his knees and again pressed his suffering
mother to his heart, it was with a feeling of renovated hope and
confidence in the future protection of Heaven which nothing but prayer
uttered with genuine piety can give.

Mr. Cartwright did not take his leave till he had spoken an individual
blessing to each of them, which was accompanied by a pressure of the
hand that seemed to express more sympathy in what each felt than any
words could have done.

Young Mowbray then retired with him to arrange everything respecting the
ceremony which was to take place on the morrow. His mother expressed a
wish to lie down for an hour; and the three girls, after attending her
to her room, carefully shutting out the light in the hope that she might
sleep, and each one bidding her do so, with a fond caress, retreated to
the dressing-room of Helen, when their conversation naturally turned on
Mr. Cartwright.

This gentleman had taken possession of the little living of Wrexhill
only one month before the death of his most distinguished parishioner.
During the week which followed his first performance of duty in the
church, the family at the Park made a visit at the Vicarage: for though
Mr. Cartwright was a widower, he had a daughter nearly twenty years of
age, who, as mistress of her father's house, was of course visited by
the ladies. When this visit was returned, the Mowbray family were all
absent; and during the short interval which followed before the day on
which young Mowbray came of age, the preparations for the fete by which
this event was to be celebrated had prevented Mr. Cartwright and his
family from receiving any other invitation than that which requested
their attendance at it. This having been declined, he was as nearly as
possible a personal stranger to the whole Mowbray family.

"What exquisite benevolence his countenance expresses!" exclaimed Fanny:
"I never saw eyes so full of gentleness."

"His eyes are remarkably handsome," replied Rosalind; "but I am not
quite sure that I like him."

"The moments we passed with him were moments of agony," said Helen: "it
would hardly be fair to pronounce any judgment upon him from such an
interview."

"Perhaps you are right, dear Helen, and I will endeavour to suspend
mine," replied Rosalind. "But at least I may venture to remark that he
is a very young-looking father for the full-grown son and daughter we
have seen."

"I do not think he can be their father," observed Fanny. "Perhaps he is
only the husband of their mother?... Don't you think that is most
likely, Helen?"

"I don't know, dear," answered Helen: "I believe I hardly saw him."

"I really doubt if you did, my poor Helen," said Rosalind; "but if he
speak sooth, he could not say the same of us. If the Reverend gentleman
be given to sketching of portraits, he might, I think, produce a good
likeness of either of us, for, like Hamlet when he looked at Ophelia,
'he fell to such perusal of our faces, as he would draw them'.... I do
not think I shall like this Mr. Cartwright.... I do not mean now, Helen;
I speak only of what I think I shall do when I know more of him."

"Do you call that suspending your judgment, Rosalind?" said Helen with a
feeble smile.

"Well, then, do not try to make a hypocrite of me, dearest: it will
never answer: Wisdom is of too slow a growth for my little unprofitable
hotbed of an intellect, which forces every thought to run up to full
growth, lanky and valueless, as soon as it is sown. But by-and-by you
shall transplant some of my notions, Helen, into the fine natural soil
of your brain; and then, if they flourish, we shall see what they are
really worth."

For all reply, the pale Helen shook her head, as one who knows not well
what has been said to him; and the conversation languished and dropped,
as every other had done since the blow had fallen which had levelled her
young and joyous spirit to the dust.




CHAPTER IV.

THE WILL.


The day which saw the honoured remains of Mr. Mowbray committed to the
tomb was one of dreadful suffering to his family, and to none more than
to his son, who with a heart swelling with the most genuine grief, was
obliged to assume the garb of ceremony, and do the now gloomy honours of
the mansion to many of the same friends and neighbours who had so
recently received the joyous greeting of his father. Most thankful was
he for the relief which followed the departure of the last of those who
came to do honour to these splendid obsequies; and most soothing was it
to his wounded and weary spirits to find himself once more surrounded
only by those who could read in a look all he wished to express, and who
required no welcome to share in the sorrow of that bitter day.

But, like all other periods of human life, whether marked by sorrow or
by joy, it passed away with as even and justly-measured a pace as if no
event distinguished it from its fellow days; and then, by slow but sure
degrees, the little trifling ordinary routine of daily circumstance came
with its invisible and unnoticed magic, to efface, or at least to
weaken, feelings which seemed to have been impressed by the stamp of
burning iron on their souls.

Charles Mowbray had not yet taken his degree, and wishing to do so as
soon as possible, he was anxious to return to Christ Church without
delay; but his father's will had not yet been opened, and, at the
request of his mother, he postponed his departure till this could be
done. This important document was in the hands of Sir Gilbert
Harrington, an intimate friend and neighbour, who being in London at the
time of Mr. Mowbray's death, had been unable to obey the summons sent to
him in time to attend the funeral; but within a week after he arrived,
and the following morning was fixed upon for this necessary business.

The persons present were Sir Gilbert Harrington, Mr. Cartwright, a
respectable solicitor from the country town who had himself drawn the
instrument, and Charles Mowbray.

It was dated rather more than ten years back, and, after the usual
preamble, ran thus:

"In order that my children, or any other persons whom it may concern,
may know the reason and motive of the disposition of my property which I
am about to make, it is necessary that I should therewith state the
manner of my marriage with Clara Helena Frances, my dearly-beloved wife.
Notwithstanding her vast possessions, I wooed and married her solely
because I loved her; and this she had the generosity to believe, though
I was nearly penniless, having nothing but my true affection and good
blood to offer in return for all the wealth she brought. For several
months she withstood my earnest solicitations for an immediate union,
because, had she married before she became of age, her guardian would
have insisted upon settlements and restrictions, which would have
deprived me of all control over her property; nor would she subsequently
sign any document whatever previous to her marriage, thereby rendering
me the sole possessor of her fortune. WHEREFORE, to show my sense of
this unparalleled confidence and generosity, I hereby make her the sole
inheritrix of all I possess, to be ultimately disposed of according
wholly and solely to her own own will and pleasure...." And then
followed, with every necessary and unnecessary technicality of the law,
such a disposition of his property as left his children entirely
dependent on their mother both for their present and future subsistence.

That this will was very different from anything that Charles Mowbray
expected, is most certain, and there might perhaps have been some
slight feeling of disappointment at finding himself dependent even upon
his mother; but if such there were, it was not sufficiently strong to
prevent his doing justice to the noble feeling which had led to it; and,
in truth he felt so certain of the fond affection of his mother, that
not a shadow of fear either for his own interest or that of his sisters
crossed his mind.

The lawyer who read aloud the deed he had penned, had of course no
observation to make upon it, and Mr. Cartwright only remarked that it
was a proof of very devoted love and confidence.

Of the small party present at this lecture, Sir Gilbert Harrington was
the only one who testified any strong emotion respecting it; and his
displeasure and vexation were expressed in no very measured terms. His
warmth was at length checked, not because he had uttered all he had to
say, but because he met the eye of Mr. Cartwright fixed upon him with a
sort of scrutiny that was unpleasing to his feelings. He therefore
stopped short in the philippic he was pouring forth upon the infernal
folly of a man's acting in matters of importance without consulting his
friends, and taking the arm of Charles, walked through the hall into the
grounds without appearing to remember that as he was left joint executor
with Mrs. Mowbray to the will, it might be expected that he should make
some notification of its contents to her before he left the house.

"Shall we not speak to my mother, Sir Gilbert?" said Mowbray,
endeavouring to restrain the eager step of the Baronet as he was passing
through the hall-door.

"No, sir," was the laconic reply; and on he stalked with a more rapid
step than before.

The conversation which passed between them during the hour which
intervened before Sir Gilbert clambered up to his saddle and galloped
off, was made up of something between lamentation and anathema on his
side, and the most earnest assurances that no mischief could ensue from
his father's will on the part of Charles. The testy old gentleman could
not, however, be wrought upon to see the widow, who, as he said, must
have used most cursed cunning in obtaining such a will; of which,
however, poor lady, she was as innocent as the babe unborn; and he at
length left the Park, positive that he should have a fit of the gout,
and that the widow Mowbray would marry within a year.

As soon as he had got rid of his warm-hearted but passionate old friend,
Mowbray hastened to repair the neglect he had been forced into
committing, and sought his mother in the drawing-room. But she was no
longer there.

The room, indeed, appeared to be wholly untenanted, and he was on the
point of leaving it to seek his mother elsewhere, when he perceived that
Miss Torrington was seated at the most distant corner of it, almost
concealed by the folds of the farthest window-curtain.

"Rosalind!" ... he exclaimed, "are you hid there?... Where are all the
rest? and how come you to be left alone?"

"I am left alone, Mr. Mowbray ... because I wished it. Helen and Fanny
are with your mother, I believe, in her room."

Charles wished to see them all, and to see them together, and had almost
turned to go; but there was something in the look and manner of Rosalind
that puzzled him, and going up to her, he said kindly, "Is anything the
matter, Rosalind? You look as if something had vexed you."

To his great astonishment she burst into tears, and turning from him as
if to hide an emotion she could not conquer, she said, "Go, go, Mr.
Mowbray--go to your mother--you ought to have gone to her instantly."

"Instantly?... When?... What do you mean, Miss Torrington?"

"Miss Torrington means, Mr. Mowbray, that it would in every way have
been more proper for you to have announced to your mother yourself the
strange will it has pleased your father to leave, instead of sending a
stranger to do it."

"Who then has told her of it, Rosalind? Was it the lawyer? was it Mr.
Humphries?"

"No sir--it was Mr. Cartwright."

"But why should you be displeased with me for this, dear Rosalind? Sir
Gilbert led me out of the library by force, and would not let me go to
my mother, as I wished to do, and I have but this instant got rid of
him; but I did not commission either Mr. Cartwright or any one else to
make a communication to her which I was particularly desirous of making
myself."

"You did not send Mr. Cartwright to her?" said Rosalind colouring, and
looking earnestly in his face.

"No, indeed I did not. Did he say I had sent him?"

"How very strange it is," she replied after a moment's consideration,
"that I should be perfectly unable to say whether he did or did not! I
certainly do not remember that he explicitly said 'Madam, your son has
sent me here;' but this I do remember--that somehow or other I
understood that you had done so."

"And how did he announce to my mother that she.... I mean, how did he
communicate to her the purport of my father's will?"

"Charles Mowbray!" exclaimed Rosalind passionately, clenching her small
hands and stamping her little foot upon the ground--"I may be a very,
very wicked girl: I know I am wilful, headstrong, obstinate, and vain;
and call me also dark-minded, suspicious, what you will; but I do hate
that man."

"Hate whom, Rosalind?" said Charles, inexpressibly astonished at her
vehemence. "What is it you mean?... Is it Mr. Cartwright, our good
friendly clergyman, that you hate so bitterly?"

"Go to your mother, Mr. Mowbray. I am little more than seventeen years
old, and have always been considered less instructed, and therefore
sillier of course than was to be expected even from my age and sex; then
will it not be worse than waste of time to inquire what I
mean--especially when I confess, as I am bound to do, that I do not well
know myself?... Go to your mother, Charles, and let her know exactly all
you feel. You, at least, have no cause to hide your faults."

"I will go--but I wish I knew what has so strangely moved you."

"Ask your sisters--they saw and heard all that I did; at least, they
were present here, as I was;--ask them, examine them, but ask me
nothing; for I do believe, Charles, that I am less to be depended on
than any other person in the world."

"And why so, my dear Rosalind?" replied Mowbray, almost laughing. "Do
you mean that you tell fibs against your will?"

"Yes ... I believe so. At least, I feel strangely tempted to say a great
deal more than I positively know to be true; and that is very much like
telling fibs, I believe."

"Well, Rosalind, I will go, for you grow more mysterious every moment;
only, remember that I should greatly like to know all the thoughts that
come into that strange little head of yours. Will you promise that I
shall?"

"No," was the ungracious reply; and turning away, she left the room by a
door that led into a conservatory.

On entering his mother's dressing-room, Mowbray found her seated between
her two daughters, and holding a hand of each.

She looked up as he entered: the traces of tears were on her cheeks, and
her eyes rested on him with an expression of melancholy reproach such as
he had never read in them before.

"My dear, dear mother!" he exclaimed as he approached her, "has my
absence then vexed you so grievously?... I could not help it, mother;
Sir Gilbert literally made me his prisoner."

"Sir Gilbert, Charles, might have shown more respect to the memory of
the friend he has lost, than by keeping his son to listen to his own
wild invectives against the wife that friend so loved and trusted."

"Whoever has repeated to you the hasty expressions of Sir Gilbert, my
dear mother, in such a manner as to leave a painful impression on your
mind against him, has not acted well. You know his temper, but you know
his heart also; and I should not have thought that it could have been in
the power of any one to make you doubt the real friendship of Sir
Gilbert for us all."

"Surely, Charles, it was no symptom of friendship to me, to say that
your dear father had made an accursed will!"

"Good heavens!... what a strange misrepresentation, mother!... and all
hanging, as it should seem, upon one little syllable!... Our friend, as
you well know, is what Rosalind calls a manish man; he denies the
supremacy of woman, and might, and I verily believe did say, that a will
which vested power in her must be a cursed will. But we know too well
his long-licensed coarseness of expression to greatly marvel at that;
but for the solemn and most awful word ac-cursed, believe me, mother, he
never said it."

"It matters little, my dear son, what particular words of abuse Sir
Gilbert uttered against me, provided that your heart did not echo them."

"Mother! dearest mother!" cried Helen, rising and going towards her
brother, who seemed petrified at the words he heard, "how for a single
moment could you believe that Charles's heart could echo any word that
spoke not honour and love towards you!"

"He might have been mistaken, Helen," replied her mother with a heavy
sigh: "Charles could not indeed suspect that the mother his dear father
so fully trusted should prove unworthy of the trust.--But let us quit
this painful theme; and believe me, my children, that the first wish of
my heart is to prove myself worthy of his trust and your love."

"Such words are just what we might expect to hear from you, mother,"
said Mowbray, "were any profession from you to us necessary; but I would
gladly forget that you have ever thought such an assurance called for."

He bent down and kissed her fervently; and then making a sign to Helen,
who seemed about to follow him, that she should remain where she was, he
walked out for a couple of hours among the darkest thickets he could
find, with more of melancholy feeling than had ever before rested on his
spirits.




CHAPTER V.

THE ARISTOCRACY OF WREXHILL.


There was no longer any thing to prevent Charles Mowbray's return to
Oxford, and the following day the time of his departure was canvassed,
and at length fixed for the early part of the following week. During the
few days that intervened, Mrs. Mowbray seemed quite to have forgotten
their painful conversation respecting the will; she resumed all her
former confiding tenderness of manner, and told him before they parted,
that henceforward his liberal allowance would be doubled.

The day preceding his departure was Sunday, and for the first time since
their heavy loss the whole family appeared at church. They had all
dreaded the moment of reappearing before the eyes of the little village
world, and of thus giving public notice, as it were, that they no longer
required to be left to mourn in secret: but this painful ceremony came,
and was endured, like those that had preceded it; and poor Helen, as she
laid her head upon her pillow, exclaimed, "What is there that we could
not bear, and live."

The sad parting of the next morning having also passed over them, they
at once, and by necessity, fell into the mode of life which they were
hereafter to pursue. But dreary and heavy was the change that had fallen
on them, and it was long ere the mere act of assembling for their daily
meals ceased to be a source of suffering--for fearful was the blank left
by the absence of the kind, the gentle, the beloved, the venerated
being, whose voice was used to speak a blessing and a welcome over every
repast. But our natures seize with avidity the healing balm which time
and occupation offer: much variety of disposition was, however,
manifested in the manner in which each one of the family sought the
consolation they needed.

Mrs. Mowbray became evidently, though perhaps unconsciously, better both
in health and spirits from the time that her neighbours, according to
their different ranks, resumed their visits of friendship, civility, and
respect. She had testified outwardly, excepting to such an eye as
Rosalind's, more intense suffering than any other member of the family.
Nor was this in the smallest degree the result of affectation: she felt
all, and more than all, that she had ever expressed, and would gladly,
for the sake of her poor children, have concealed a part of it, had the
fibre of her character permitted her doing so. But she was demonstrative
by nature: with great softness and sweetness of temper, was joined that
species of weakness which is often said to be the most attractive
feature in the female character;--a weakness that induced her to seize
gladly and gratefully any hand extended to lead her, and which, while it
made her distrust herself, gave most sovereign sway and masterdom to
any one ready and willing to supply the strength and decision of purpose
which she wanted.

Many female philippics have been penned, I believe, against that manly
passion for superiority which leads our masters to covet in a companion
chosen for life the temper of mind here described; but I am tempted to
think that this longing to possess a being that wants protection, far
from demonstrating a disposition prone to tyranny, shows a nature
disposed to love and to cherish, in a manner perfectly accordant to the
most perfect _beau ideal_ of married life. But, on the other hand, there
may perhaps be more of fondness than judgment in those who make such
mallability of mind their first requisite in a choice so awfully
important.

Mrs. Mowbray, however, had a thousand good qualities to justify the
devoted affection of her husband. Generous, unsuspicious, and confiding,
she was almost as incapable of doubting the goodness of others, as of
deserving such doubts herself. Though heiress to immense property, no
feeling in the slightest degree approaching to pride had even for a
single instant swelled her heart; and though good, beautiful, and
accomplished, her estimate of herself was lower than that formed of her
by any other human being. Her heart was now more than ever opened to
every expression of sympathy and kindness, and she experienced the most
salutary effects from admitting those who uttered such, yet she was
still a mourner in her very heart and soul; and there were moments in
which she felt so bitterly that all her youthful affections were buried,
and every hope of earthly happiness past, that the fair young faces of
the three affectionate girls who were ready to devote themselves to her
seemed too bright and beautiful to be kept within the influence of her
melancholy, and she often sent them from her to their music-room, their
flower-gardens, or the Park, with a sort of feverish anxiety, lest their
youth and health should be sacrificed to their affection for her.

Helen had all the tenderness with none of the weakness of her mother's
character. She soon ceased to speak of her father, except occasionally,
when walking or sitting quite alone with Rosalind, when sheltering
boughs or thickening twilight might conceal the working features of her
face even from her. At such a moment, if some kind caress from her young
companion touched unawares the feelings over which she unceasingly kept
guard, as if they were a secret treasure too precious to be exposed to
vulgar eyes, she would from time to time give way to the sacred pleasure
of discoursing on the character of the father she had lost.

But she had resumed all her former occupations, and added to them the
far from unpleasing task of imparting to Rosalind much that had either
been ill taught or altogether neglected in her early education. This, as
well as their daily-increasing affection for each other, kept them much
together, without any blameable desertion either of Mrs. Mowbray or
Fanny: for the former was really wretched if she thought they confined
themselves too much to her drawing-room and herself; and the latter was
hourly becoming more devoted to solitary study, and to speculations too
poetical and sublime to be shared by any one less romantic and
imaginative than herself.

The neighbourhood was not a large one: Mowbray Park, and the estate
attached to it, stretched itself so far in all directions, that Oakley,
the residence of Sir Gilbert Harrington, the nearest landed proprietor,
was at the distance of more than a mile. The little village of Wrexhill,
however, had one or two pretty houses in it, inhabited by ladies and
gentlemen of moderate but independent fortune, with whom the family at
the Park associated on terms of intimacy.

Among these, the late Vicar and his family had been the decided
favourites of the whole race of Mowbrays,--and most deservedly so; for
the father was a man of piety, learning, and most amiable deportment;
his wife, a being whose temper, to say nothing of sundry other good
qualities, had made her the idol of the whole parish; and his two sons
and two daughters, just such sons and daughters as such parents deserved
to have. But, as Gregory Dobbs, the old parish clerk, observed, after
officiating at the funeral of Mr. Mowbray, "Death seemed to have taken a
spite against the village of Wrexhill, for within one short month he had
mowed down and swept away the two best and _most powerful_ men in the
parish, and 'twas no easy matter to say how long the inhabitants might
be likely to wear mourning."

The dispersion and departure of the good Vicar's family was an
additional misfortune that his parishioners had not looked for. The
living, more valuable for its pleasant house and pretty glebe than for
its revenue, was in the gift of one who through life had been, not in
appearance or profession only, but in most true sincerity, the attached
friend of the late incumbent; and Edward Wallace, his eldest son, was
bred to the church with the express understanding that the next
presentation should be his. With this persuasion, the young man's first
act on the death of his father was to tell his mother and sisters that
they should continue to inhabit the home they had so long loved. But
this arrangement was speedily overthrown; for in reply to the letter
which announced the death of his father to Sir J. C. Blackhouse, the
patron of the living, he received the following answer:

     "My dear Fellow,

     "As the devil would have it, I am now a cabinet minister, and I
     no more dare give the living to your Tory father's son, than I
     dare blow up Westminster Hall, or pull the Lord Chancellor's
     nose in public. I do assure you I am very sorry for this, for I
     believe you are likely to be as good a man as your excellent
     father, who, when he was my tutor, had certainly no notion that
     I should turn out such a first-rate Radical. However, there is
     no resisting destiny; and so here I am, just going to give my
     pretty little living to some Reverend Mr. Somebody that I don't
     care a straw about, because my Lord M---- says, that though a
     bit of a saint, he is a _capital clerical Whig_. I wish,
     Edward, you'd try to forget all the fusty old nonsense about
     Church and State,--upon my life I do. By-gones are by-gones, my
     dear fellow; and if you could get up a clever pamphlet on the
     Tithe Laws, or on the Protestant affinities to the Church of
     Rome, or anything else with a good rich vein of whiggery
     running through it, I really think I might still be able to do
     something for you. Do think of this, and believe me,

     "My dear fellow,

     "Very affectionately,

     "Your friend,

     "J. C. BLACKHOUSE."

This most unlooked-for disappointment of course banished the Wallace
family from Wrexhill; and the regret their departure left was so
general, that it would be hardly saying too much to declare that no
interference of the Whig government, however personal or tyrannical,
ever produced a stronger sensation of disgust in the circle to which its
influence extended than this.

It was greatly owing to the influence of Mr. Mowbray, that Mr.
Cartwright, his son and daughter, were visited by the neighbourhood on
their arrival; but the obvious injustice and impropriety of treating
with indignity and disrespect the clergyman who was placed among them,
solely because they would have preferred one of their own choosing, had
led the benevolent owner of "the great house" to banish the painful
feelings to which this unpopular appointment had given rise, and before
he died, he had the satisfaction of knowing that those who looked up to
him as authority had followed his example, and that the new Vicar had
been called upon by all the visiting families of Wrexhill.

The handsomest house in the village was inhabited by a widow lady still
young enough to be called handsome, and living with sufficient show to
be supposed rich. She played a little, sang a little, sketched a little,
and talked and dressed a great deal. Some people declared that when she
was young, her complexion must have been as beautiful as that of Miss
Fanny Mowbray: but these were only the young farmers, who did not know
rouge when they saw it. This lady, whose name was Simpson, had one
little girl, a pretty little creature of eight years old, who was
sometimes petted and played with till she was completely spoiled, and
sometimes left in the nursery for days together, while her mamma was
absorbed in the perusal of a new novel or the fabrication of a new
dress.

At the next turn of the village street was the entrance to a little
place of much less pretension, but infinitely prettier, and in better
taste: this also was tenanted by a fair widow, who, had she not been
surrounded by three daughters, all taller than herself, might have
passed for being as young and as handsome as Mrs. Simpson. She was,
however, as little like her as possible in every other respect, being
subject to no caprice, remarkably simple in her dress, and her hair and
her cheeks always remaining of the colour that pleased God. This lady
had been early left a widow by the gallant and unfortunate Colonel
Richards, who lost a life in a skirmish with the native troops of India
which might have done honour to his country in a nobler field. What his
young widow endured in returning from a remote part of the country to
Madras, with her three infants and very little means, had doubtless
contributed, with the good gifts born with her, to make her what she
was; for there was a firmness and strength of mind enveloped in her
miniature frame, which seemed as if her brave husband had bequeathed to
her the legacy of his dauntless spirit to sustain her under all the
privations and misery his early death left her to encounter alone.

The character of her three girls will be easily understood hereafter.

Mrs. Richards's cottage was the only residence in Wrexhill except the
Vicar's that did not open upon the village street, so that she had no
immediate neighbour; but close to the corner of the pretty field that
fronted her dwelling and fed her cow, lived a bachelor half-pay officer,
who among many other excellent qualities possessed one which made him
pre-eminently interesting in her eyes:--he had known Colonel Richards
well, and less than half the reverence he felt for his memory has often
sufficed to enrich the church of Rome with a saint. It was not Major
Dalrymple's fault if the widow of his umqwhile commanding officer had
not long ago exchanged her comparative poverty for his very comfortable
independence; and considering that he was five years younger than the
lady, was the presumptive heir to a noble Scotch cousin who was thought
consumptive, played the flute exquisitely, and was moreover a tall and
gentlemanly figure, with no other fault imputed to him than a somewhat
obstinate pertinacity of attachment to herself, many people both in and
out of Wrexhill wondered at her obduracy, especially as she had never
been heard to say, even by her most intimate friends, "that her heart
was buried in the grave of her dear Richards."

The remaining aristocracy of Wrexhill need hardly be enumerated, as they
will not make any very considerable figure in the following pages. But
there was an attorney, an apothecary, and a schoolmaster. The latter,
indeed, was an excellent person, of whom we may hear more in the sequel;
but a _catalogue raisonne_ of names makes but a dull chapter.




CHAPTER VI.

THE PRINCIPAL PERSON IN THE VILLAGE.--THE VICAR'S FAMILY.


Two days after the Mowbray family appeared at church, the village gentry
began to offer their visits of condolence, which, happily however for
the tranquillity of the persons chiefly concerned, were performed in the
improved manner of modern times; that is to say, every allusion to the
recent event being by all but their intimate friends most cautiously
avoided by all parties.

The first person who entered the drawing-room was Mrs. Simpson. On all
occasions, indeed, this lady exerted herself to sustain the position of
"the principal person in the village." She seldom gave an order for "the
fly," which, weak as were its own springs, was, in truth, the
main-spring of all the rural visitings; she seldom ordered this
indispensable commodity without adding to her instructions, "Pray be
punctual, Mr. Sims,--I say this for your sake as well as my own; for if
the principal person in the village is made to wait, you may depend upon
it an opposition will be started immediately, and in that case, you
know, I should be obliged to give it my patronage." In like manner, the
butcher and baker in the village, the ruddy-faced milkman out of it, the
shoemaker, the dressmaker, the carpenter, the glazier, the dealer in
small wares and all wares, were severally and collectively given to
understand that Mrs. Simpson, as the principal person in the village,
had a right to expect the first-fruits of their civility, attention,
industry, and general stock-in-trade.

Her entrance into the presence of Mrs. Mowbray was as pregnant with
sentiment and sympathy as the degree of intimacy to which she was
admitted would permit. The hand-shaking was performed with a little
pressure and a little sigh; every pause in the conversation was made to
speak volumes by the sad tone in which the next sentence was spoken: in
short, if the minds of Mrs. Mowbray, her eldest daughter, and her ward,
who kindly volunteered to sustain this ordeal with her, had not been
fully occupied by the recent event, almost every word, look, and gesture
of the principal person of Wrexhill were calculated to recall it.

Mrs. Simpson was accompanied by her pretty little girl, flowered and
furbelowed into as near a resemblance to a bantam chicken as it was
possible for a pretty little girl to take.

The distance from the village to the Park was almost too great for so
young a child to walk, and the poor little thing looked heated, cross,
and weary; but her mamma declared that a ramble through those delicious
fields was the greatest treat in the world. "I trust in Heaven," she
continued, using her near-sighted eye-glass to look at a drawing which
lay on the table, "that Mimima" (her abbreviation of Jemima) "will have
my taste for sketching--I like to take her out with me, dear pet, she
enjoys it so! but at this lovely season it is the most difficult thing
in the world not to sketch as one goes. Indeed, when the mind is
pre-occupied"--(a sigh)--"every object, however"--(a pause)--"I beg your
pardon, but it is so difficult--"

"Come to me, Jemima," said Helen, holding out her hand, "and let me take
your bonnet off."

The child put up her shoulder, and pressed with distressing closeness
upon the delicate lilac of her mother's new silk dress.

"It is such a shy puss!" said Mrs. Simpson; "I often think what would
become of her"--(a sigh). "I beg your pardon--but sad thoughts will
press--"

"Little girl, do you love eau de Cologne?" said Rosalind, taking a
bottle from the table and holding it towards her.

Either the look, the accent, or the action of Rosalind had attraction
sufficient to draw the child towards her; when she good-humouredly
relieved the glowing cheeks from the stifling encumbrance of a very
close pink bonnet and thick green veil, and then copiously bedewed the
pretty head with the fragrant and refreshing water.

"Do you like it, dear?"

"Yes, very much; do it again! again!" said the child, laughing aloud.

"Mimima!--what did I tell you, dear! Alas!--young heads--I beg your
pardon--" (a sigh). "You are too good!--I fear you will spoil her, Miss
Torrington."

"I am only trying to cool her a little, ma'am; she looks quite in a
fever."

"She has sported along before me like a little fawn! I brought my maid
and the man servant, as I thought they might carry her between them if
she was tired; but she would not hear of it--the step of childhood is so
elastic!--Alas!--I beg your pardon!--"

"Don't you like to ride _a-cushion_, Miss Jemima?" said Rosalind, struck
by the idea of the maid and the man carrying the young lady between
them.

"What is that?" inquired the child.

Rosalind laughed a little, and coloured a little, at being obliged to
explain herself; but making the best of it, she took Mimima's little
hands and interlaced them with her own, after the most approved manner
of preparing to treat somebody with riding _a-cushion_.

No persons resent ridicule so much as those who are perpetually exposing
themselves to it. Mrs. Simpson out-glowed her rouge as she said, "I did
not mean, Miss Torrington, that my servants were to carry the child
together,--I really wonder such a very droll idea.--I beg your
pardon--but at such a time--"

Miss Torrington looked at her for a moment, and then rose and left the
room.

Mrs. Simpson saw that she had offended the heiress, and from that moment
conceived towards her one of those little feminine antipathies, which if
they do not as often lead to daggers and bowls in the higher ranks of
society as to black eyes and broken noses in the lower, are nevertheless
seldom quite innoxious.

The conversation now began to languish, for the principal person in
Wrexhill was decidedly out of humour, and Helen was painfully seeking
for what she was to say next, when the door was thrown open, and Mr. and
Miss Cartwright, and Mr. Jacob Cartwright, were announced.

No sudden and unexpected burst of sunshine ever produced a greater
change in the aspect of a watery landscape, than the entrance of this
party on the countenance of the handsome widow. Had Rosalind been
present, she would have found some amusement, or at least some
occupation, in seeking to discover whether it were the father or son who
possessed this vivifying power. To the pale, hollow-eyed daughter she
would certainly have attributed no such influence. But as we have not
her help to decide the doubt, we must leave the matter to the slower
hand of time.

Mr. Jacob Cartwright was a tall, straight, young man, but as yet a
little inclining to that line of contour, which can only be described by
the expressive word lanky. Neither was his hair handsome, for,
designated as "light" by his particular friends and admirers, it was
called "sandy" by the rest of the world. But the young gentleman had a
finely-formed mouth, with a very beautiful set of teeth, and a large
clear light blue eye, which many persons declared to be beautiful.

This young man was said to resemble greatly the mother he had lost: to
his father he was certainly as unlike as possible. Mr. Cartwright,
though somewhat above the middle height, was shorter than his son, and
his person incomparably better built; his features were very regularly
handsome, and the habitual expression of his countenance gentle and
attractive. His eyes were large, dark, and very beautifully formed, and
his hair and beard as black as those of a Spaniard, save here and there
a silver line which about the temples began to mix itself with the
sable. His mouth and teeth perhaps might have been said to resemble
those of his son, had not the expression been so different. In the son
these constituted merely a well-formed feature; to the father they
seemed to give a power when he spoke that might work wonders either for
good or evil.

Henrietta Cartwright resembled neither of them: of the two, she would
have been said to be most like her father, because her hair and eyes
were dark; but the form of the head and face, and above all, the cynic
expression of the mouth, were in perfect contrast to his. Like her
brother she was extremely thin; but she was not proportionably tall, and
in her this ascetic form seemed rather the result of ill health than of
make. She was moreover deadly pale, and seldom spoke in general society
if she could possibly avoid it.

Mrs. Mowbray received all the party with cordial kindness. In Helen's
manner there was a shade of coldness, especially to the father, whose
offered hand she did not appear to see; but the whole trio shared the
affectionate greetings of Mrs. Simpson.

"How _very_ lucky I am to meet you! Such a dismal long walk, all
alone!--but now we can return together. How are you, my dear Miss
Henrietta? has your headache left you?--No?--Oh, how I grieve to see you
suffer so! I need not inquire for you, Mr. Jacob--what a picture of
youth and activity you are! Mimima, come here. Don't you remember your
friend?--don't you remember Mr. Jacob Cartwright?--Ah! I thought you
could not forget him! You would not be your mother's child, dearest, if
you could ever forget kindness."

In her address to the elder gentleman there seemed to be a little more
caution in the expression of her affectionate feelings; but she looked
at him, and she listened to him, and more than once repeated what he
said, as if to impress the precious words on her memory. In short, from
the moment the Vicar and his family entered the room, it was evident the
ladies of the Park were completely put

    ----"In non cale;"

and this, considering the undeviating respect which through life Mrs.
Simpson had ever paid to wealth and station, was no trifling proof of
the sincerity of that friendship which she professed for her new
friends.

"I hope your youngest daughter is well, and Miss Torrington also?" said
Mr. Cartwright.

"Quite well, thank you. Helen, do you know where your sister is?"

"In the library, I believe, mamma."

"Miss Cartwright, would you not like some refreshment?... Do ring the
bell, Helen. I am sure, Mrs. Simpson, you ought to take some
wine-and-water after your long walk."

It was not difficult to see that this civility was the result of a
strong and painful effort on the part of Mrs. Mowbray, and Helen was
provoked with the whole party for not declining it; but no choice was
left her--the bell was rung, and the tray arrived. One comfort she had,
and that no trifling one: neither herself nor her mother had any further
occasion to seek subjects of conversation; Mrs. Simpson took the whole
of this troublesome business upon herself, and for the period that the
luncheon lasted was so completely engaged in eating and talking, that
she had not time for a single sigh.

The two gentlemen and the little girl were very nearly as busily
employed as herself; but Miss Cartwright sat silently apart, and a
feeling as nearly allied perhaps to curiosity as politeness, induced
Helen to change her place and seat herself near her.

"Will you not take some refreshment, Miss Cartwright?... Let me get you
some grapes."

"I thank you--none."

"Not even a little soda-water and wine? The morning seems unusually
warm."

"Nothing, I thank you."

"Are you a great walker?"

"Yes."

"This is a charming country for it--such a beautiful variety of lanes
and fields."

"I seldom vary my walk."

"Indeed! And what is the favourite spot you have chosen?"

"The ugliest and most gloomy I could find, that I might be sure of never
meeting any one."

Helen was silenced--she had not courage for another word, and in order
to cover her retreat, moved towards the table, and bestowed her
attention on the little girl, who, totally forgotten by her mamma, was
quaffing long draughts of wine from a tumbler which Mr. Jacob had been
preparing for himself, but which he had willingly yielded to her, and
now seemed waiting for the inevitable effect of such excess with a sort
of sly and covert glee that made Helen very angry.

"Your little girl will make herself ill, I am afraid, Mrs. Simpson, by
the quantity of wine she is taking: I am afraid there is no water with
it."

The lady, who was talking very earnestly in an under tone to Mr.
Cartwright, started at this appeal, and with a glance of more anger than
the age of the child could justify, drew her back from the table and
made her stand at some distance from it.

"I really think that it is Mr. Jacob Cartwright who should be punished,"
said Helen: "for he knew a great deal more about the matter than the
little girl herself."

"Oh no!... naughty little thing!"--said the mamma.

"I am very sorry if I have been the occasion of the little girl's doing
what was wrong," said Mr. Jacob slowly and in a very gentle tone. "I did
not think she would have taken so much; and she looked very tired and
warm."

Mrs. Simpson made some civil answer, and turned to renew her
conversation with the Vicar; but he was gone. She positively started,
and looked about her with great interest to discover what had become of
him. The windows of the room opened upon the lawn, and though she had
not seen his exit, she very naturally guessed that it must have been
made in that direction. After rising from the table, and making one or
two unmeaning movements about the room, taking up a book and laying it
down again without looking at its title, examining a vase on the
chimney-piece and a rose on the flower-stand, she gradually drew towards
the open window, and after pausing for half a minute, walked through it
upon the grass.

The little girl trotted after her; Mr. Jacob followed, probably hoping
to see her stagger about a little; and Helen, though sadly vexed at this
new device to prolong the tedious visit, could do no less than walk
after them.

The conservatory, drawing-room, and library, formed this side of the
house, the whole range of windows opening uniformly upon the lawn. As
Helen stepped out, she perceived that the party who had preceded her
were entering by the window of the library, and she quickly followed
them, thinking it probable that Fanny might be startled and vexed at
this unexpected interruption, when, as was very likely, she might be in
the very act of invoking the "sacred nine."

Upon entering the room, however, she found her sister, to her great
surprise, conversing earnestly with Mr. Cartwright, and appearing to be
hardly yet conscious of the presence of the others.

Mrs. Simpson gave a little, almost imperceptible toss of the head, at
discovering how the gentleman was engaged.

"We could not think whither you had vanished, Mr. Cartwright," said she,
in her sweetest voice; "but you really were very lucky to ramble in this
direction. Miss Fanny ought to have her picture taken in this fine room,
with all her books about her."

While she said this, Mr. Cartwright continued in a whisper to finish
what he was addressing to Fanny; and having done so, he turned to the
party which had followed him, saying, "The bright verdure of your
beautiful lawn, Miss Mowbray, tempted me out; but I hope our intrusion
has not disturbed your sister?"

Fanny answered eagerly that she was very glad to see him. At that moment
Helen chanced to turn her eyes towards the window by which they entered;
when she perceived that Miss Cartwright had followed them. She was,
however, more than half concealed by a large orange tree which stood in
a high square box beside the window; but her head was bent forward to
look into the room, and a sneer of such very singular expression rested
on her lip and in her eye as she looked at her father and Fanny, who
were still standing close together, that Helen remained perfectly still,
staring at her. In another moment Miss Cartwright changed the direction
of her eyes, and encountered those of Helen fixed upon her with a look
of unconcealed astonishment; but her own did not sink before them, and
she turned away with a smile quite as strange and unintelligible as the
look she had bestowed on Fanny.

At length this tedious visit was brought to its conclusion; the bonnet
of the tipsy and now very pale little girl was replaced, a number of
civil speeches spoken, and the whole party walked off together across
the lawn to a gate which was to take them by a short cut through the
Park.

"I quite envy Mrs. Simpson her walk home!" said Fanny. "I see she has
taken Mr. Cartwright's arm: I really do think he is the very handsomest
and most agreeable man I ever saw in my life!"




CHAPTER VII.

THE FIRST IMPRESSIONS MADE BY MR. CARTWRIGHT.--LETTER FROM LADY
HARRINGTON.


The three girls rallied round Mrs. Mowbray as soon as the guests had
departed, all kindly anxious to see how she bore this first step back
into a world so wholly changed for her.

She looked pale, and there was an air of languor and weariness about
her: nevertheless, to the great surprise of Helen, she expressed herself
much pleased by the visit:

"Mr. Cartwright," said she, "appears to me to be one of the most amiable
men I ever saw; every tone of his voice speaks kindness, and indeed, if
he did not speak at all, one look of his has more feeling and pity in it
than other people could express by a volume of words."

"Do you really think so, mamma?" said Helen eagerly, but suddenly
stopped herself, aware that in truth she had no grounds whatever for the
strong feeling of dislike towards him of which she was conscious. She
remembered, too, that her father had expressed himself greatly pleased
by the urbanity of his manners, and that the last act of the benign
influence he was wont to exercise on those around him had been to
conquer the prejudice against him, to which the exclusion of the Wallace
family had unjustly given rise. Helen remembered all this in a moment;
the colour mounted to her cheeks, and she was silent.

Rosalind, too, was silent, at least from words; but her eyes could speak
as many volumes at a glance as Mr. Cartwright's, and she fixed them for
an instant on Helen with a look that told her plainly her prejudices
against their new neighbour, however unreasonable, were fully shared by
her.

Meanwhile Fanny had thrown her arms round her mother's neck in a sort of
rapture at hearing her own opinions confirmed by such authority. "Oh,
how true that is, dearest mamma!" she exclaimed; "how exactly I feel the
same when he speaks to me!... Such goodness, such gentleness, so much
superiority, yet so much humility! Poor dear Mr. Wallace was an
excellent good man, certainly, but no more to be compared to Mr.
Cartwright than I to Hercules!"

"How many times have you seen Mr. Cartwright, Fanny?" said Rosalind.

"I have heard him preach three times," she replied, "and they were all
the most beautiful sermons in the world; and I have seen and spoken to
him four times more."

"Poor Mr. Wallace!" said Rosalind. "It was he who christened you, Fanny;
and from that time to the hour of his death, you seldom passed many days
together, I believe, without seeing and receiving affectionate words and
kind looks from him: and yet four times speaking to this gentle
gentleman has driven the memory of the poor old man from your heart!"

"No, it has not, Rosalind," replied Fanny, deeply blushing: "I am sure I
did not say that, did I, mamma?--But my loving and remembering Mr.
Wallace all the days of my life need not make me dislike everybody else,
I suppose?"

"It would be a great misfortune to you if it did, Fanny," said Mrs.
Mowbray. "I am delighted to see, both in you and many others, that the
violent and most unjustifiable prejudice which was conceived against Mr.
Cartwright before he was seen and known, is giving way before his
amiable and excellent qualities: I have no doubt that he will soon be
quite as popular in the parish as Mr. Wallace was."

"And Miss Cartwright, mamma?" said Helen; "do you think we shall love
her as well as we did Emma Wallace?"

"I know nothing whatever of Miss Cartwright as yet, Helen; she appears
very shy, but we must try to give her courage, my dear girls. I hope we
shall be on terms of as great intimacy with our new Clergyman as with
our former one: it was a sort of association that your dear father
particularly approved, and that alone is a sufficient reason for our
wishing to cultivate it."

This allusion was too solemn to admit any light conversation to follow
it. Mrs. Mowbray strolled with Fanny into the conservatory, and Rosalind
persuaded Helen that they should find the shrubberies infinitely cooler
and more agreeable than the house.

But even under the thickest cover that the grounds could offer, Helen
could not be tempted fully to open her heart upon the subject of Mr.
Cartwright, an indulgence which Rosalind certainly expected to obtain
when she proposed the walk; but the name of her father had acted like a
spell on Helen, and all that she could be brought positively to advance
on the subject of the Cartwright family was, that she did not think Miss
Cartwright was shy.

Within the next fortnight nearly every one who claimed a visiting
acquaintance with the Mowbray family, both in the village and the
neighbourhood round it, had called at the Park.

"All the calling is over now," said Helen, "and I am very glad of it."

"Every body has been very kind and attentive," replied her mother, "and
next week we must begin to return their calls. I hope nobody will be
offended, for some of them must be left for many days; the weather is
very hot, and the horses must not be overworked."

"I wonder why that charming little person that I fell in love with--the
widow, I mean, that lives in the Cottage at Wrexhill," said
Rosalind,--"I wonder she has not been to see you! She appeared to like
you all very much."

"I have thought of that two or three times," replied Helen. "I think, if
they had any of them been ill, we should have heard it; and yet
otherwise I cannot account for such inattention."

"It is merely accidental, I am sure," said Mrs. Mowbray. "But there is
one omission, Helen, that cuts me to the heart!" Tears burst from her
eyes as she spoke.

Poor Helen knew not how to answer: she was well aware that the omission
her mother alluded to was that of Sir Gilbert and Lady Harrington; and
she knew too the cause of it. Lady Harrington, who, with one of the best
hearts in the world, was sometimes rather blunt in her manner of showing
it, had sent over a groom with a letter to Helen, her god-daughter and
especial favourite, very fully explaining the cause of their not
calling, but in a manner that could in no degree enable her to remove
her mother's uneasiness respecting it. This letter, which by her
ladyship's especial orders was delivered privately into the hands of
Helen, ran thus:

     "My darling Child!

     "Can't you think what a way I must be in at being prevented
     coming to see you? Sir Gilbert excels himself this time for
     obstinacy and wilfulness. Every breakfast, every dinner, and
     every tea since it happened, William and I do nothing but beg
     and entreat that I may be permitted to go over and see your
     poor mother! Good gracious! as I tell him, it is not her
     fault--though God knows I do think just as much as he does,
     that no man ever did make such a tom-fool of a will as your
     father. Such a man as Charles! as Sir Gilbert says. 'Twas made
     at the full of the moon, my dear, and that's the long and the
     short of it; he was just mad, Helen, and nothing else. But is
     that any reason that your poor dear mother should be neglected
     and forsaken this way! God bless her dear soul! she's more like
     a baby than any thing I ever saw, about money; and as to her
     being an heiress, why I don't believe, upon my honour, that she
     has ever recollected it from the day she married to the time
     that your unlucky, poor dear distracted madman of a father
     threw all her money back at her in this wild way. He had much
     better have pelted her with rotten eggs, Helen! Such a friend
     as Sir Gilbert, so warm-hearted, so steady, and so true, is not
     to be found every day--old tiger as he is. But what on earth am
     I to do about it? I shall certainly go mad too, if I can't get
     at you; and yet, I give you my word, I no more dare order the
     coachman to drive me to Mowbray Park than to the devil. You
     never saw such a tyrannical brute of a husband as Sir Gilbert
     is making himself about it! And poor William, too--he really
     speaks to him as if he were a little beggar-boy in the streets,
     instead of a colonel of dragoons. William said last night
     something very like, 'I shall ride over to Wrexhill to-morrow,
     and perhaps I shall see the family at Mow....' I wish you had
     seen him--I only wish you had seen Sir Gilbert, Helen, for half
     a moment!--you would never have forgotten it, my dear, and it
     might have given you a hint as to choosing a husband. Never
     marry a man with great, wide, open, light-coloured eyes, and
     enormous black eyebrows, for fear he should swallow you alive
     some day before you know where you are. 'See them! 'roared Sir
     Gilbert. 'If you do, by G--d, sir, I'll leave every sou I have
     in the world to some cursed old woman myself; but it shan't be
     to you, madam,' turning short round as if he would bite
     me:--'laugh if you will, but go to Mowbray if you dare!'

     "'But are we never to see any of the family again, sir?' said
     the colonel very meekly. 'I never told you so, Colonel Booby,'
     was the reply. 'You may see that glorious fellow Charles as
     often as you will, and the more you see of him the better; and
     I'll manage if I can, as soon as he has taken this degree that
     his heart's set upon, to get a commission for him in your
     regiment; so you need not palaver about my wanting to part you
     from him. And as for you, my lady, I give you full leave to
     kidnap the poor destitute, penniless girls if you can; but if I
     ever catch you doing any thing that can be construed into
     respect or civility to that sly, artful hussy who cajoled my
     poor friend Mowbray to make that cursed will, may I.... You
     shall see, old lady, what will come of it!'

     "Now what on earth can I do, dear darling? I believe your
     mother's as innocent of cajoling as I am, and that's saying
     something; and as for your being destitute, sweethearts, you'll
     have fifty thousand pounds apiece if you've a farthing. I know
     all about the property, and so does Sir Gilbert too; only the
     old tiger pretends to believe, just to feed his rage, that your
     mother will marry her footman, and bequeath her money to all
     the little footboys and girls that may ensue: for one principal
     cause of his vengeance against your poor mother is, that she is
     still young enough to have children. Was there ever such a
     man!--But here have I, according to custom, scribbled my paper
     as full as it will hold, and yet have got a hundred thousand
     more things to say; but it would all come to this, if I were to
     scrawl over a ream. I am miserable because I can't come to see
     your mother and you, and yet I can't help myself any more than
     if I were shut up in Bridewell: for I never did do any thing
     that my abominable old husband desired me not to do, and I
     don't think I could do it even to please you, my pretty Helen;
     only don't fancy I have forgotten you: but for God's sake don't
     write to me! I am quite sure I should get my ears boxed.

     "Believe me, darling child,

     "Your loving friend and godmother,

     "JANE MATILDA HARRINGTON."

     "P. S. I am quite sure that the colonel would send pretty
     messages if he knew what I was about: but I will not make him a
     party in my sin. I was just going to tell him this morning; but
     my conscience smote me, and I turned very sublimely away,
     muttering, in the words of Macbeth--'Be innocent of this, my
     dearest chuck!'"

This coarse but well-meaning letter gave inexpressible pain to Helen.
She dared not show it to her mother, who, she felt quite sure, would
consider the unjust suspicions of Sir Gilbert as the most cruel insult:
not could she, after Lady Harrington's prohibition, attempt to answer
it, though she greatly wished to do it, in the hope that she might be
able to place her mother's conduct and feelings in a proper light. But
she well knew that, with all her friend's rhodomontade, she was most
devotedly attached to her excellent though hot-headed husband, and that
she could not disoblige her more than by betraying a secret which, under
the present circumstances, would certainly make him very angry.

But the sight of her mother's tears, and her utter inability to say any
thing that might console her very just sorrow, inspired Helen with a
bold device. To Rosalind only had she shown Lady Harrington's letter,
and to Rosalind only did she communicate her project of boldly writing
to the enraged baronet himself.

"Do so, Helen," said Rosalind promptly: "it is the only measure to
pursue--unless indeed you and I were to set off and surprise him by a
visit."

"But my mother?..." replied Helen, evidently struck by the advantages of
this bolder scheme over her own,--"what would my mother say to our
going?"

"If she knew of it, Helen, I suspect it would lose all favour in Sir
Gilbert's eyes, and you would have no chance whatever of softening his
rage towards her. The expedition, if undertaken at all, must be a secret
one. When he learns it is so, I think it will touch his tough heart,
Helen, for he knows, I fancy, that such escapades are not at all in your
line. I only hope that he will not find out that I proposed it, as that
might lessen your merit in his eyes."

"No, no, that would do no harm. My doing it would be quite proof enough
how near this matter is to my heart."

"Well, then, Helen, shall we go?"

"Let me sleep upon it, Rosalind. If we do go, it must, I think, be quite
early in the morning, so as to have no questions asked before we set
out. It is not a long walk. Shall we see if he will give us some
breakfast?"

"A most diplomatic project!" replied Rosalind; "for it will enlist his
hospitality on our side, and ten to one but the rough coating of his
heart will thaw and resolve itself into a dew, as Fanny would say, by
the mere act of administering coffee and hot cakes to us; and then the
field is won."

"I think we will try," said Helen, smiling with a sort of inward
strengthening, from the conviction that such would very probably be the
result.

A few more words settled the exact time and manner of the expedition,
and the friends parted to dress for dinner.




CHAPTER VIII.

MRS. RICHARDS AND HER DAUGHTERS.--THE TEA-PARTY.


On the evening of that day, the three girls for the first time induced
Mrs. Mowbray to go beyond the limits of the flower-garden, and walk
under the avenue of beautiful elms in the Park. The simple and
unostentatious tone of her character had influenced all her habits, and
Mrs. Mowbray was a better and more constant walker than ladies generally
who have two or three carriages ready to attend them. She appeared to
enjoy the exercise from which for several weeks she had been debarred;
and when the end of the avenue was reached, and Fanny almost
mechanically opened the wide gate at the bottom, of it, her mother
passed through it without making any observation, and in truth
forgetting at that moment all that had happened since she had last done
so. The gate opened upon a road, which, according to long-established
custom, they crossed nearly at right angles, and then mounted and
descended half a dozen steps, which conducted them into a wide and
beautiful meadow, now fragrant with the new-made hay that several
waggons were conveying to augment a lofty rick in a distant corner of
it.

It was not till Mrs. Mowbray perceived another party seated round the
base of a haycock which an empty waggon had nearly reached, that she
remembered all the circumstances which made every casual meeting a
matter of importance and agitation to her. The group which seemed a very
merry one, retained their places, till two stout haymakers saucily but
playfully presented their pitch-forks as if to dislodge them. They then
started to their feet to the number of five; and the Park family
recognized Mrs. Richards, her three daughters, and Major Dalrymple.

"I have not seen them yet, Helen!" said Mrs. Mowbray with nervous
trepidation:--"how very wrong I have been to come so far!"

"Why so, my dearest mother?" replied Helen, "I am sure it is less
painful to meet thus, than at those dreadful visits in the
drawing-room."

"But they have not called, Helen ... certainly, we had better go back."

"Dear mamma, it is not possible," said Fanny, stepping forward to meet a
favourite companion in the youngest Miss Richards: "you see Rosalind has
got to them already."

It was indeed too late to retreat; nor did the wish to do so last long.
Mrs. Richards pressed the hand of Rosalind, who had taken hers, but,
throwing it off at the same moment, hastened forward to greet the
widowed friend she had wanted courage to seek. Her colour was
heightened, perhaps, from feeling it possible that the cause of her
absence had been mistaken; but large tears trembled in her dark eyes,
and when she silently took the hand of Mrs. Mowbray and pressed it to
her lips, every doubt upon the subject was removed.

Major Dalrymple and the three girls followed; and the first moment of
meeting over, the two parties seemed mutually and equally pleased to
join. Mrs. Richards was the only person in the neighbourhood to whom
Rosalind, during her six months' residence in it, had at all attached
herself: there was something about her that had fascinated the young
heiress's fancy, and the circumstance of her being the only good second
in a duet to be found within the circle of the Mowbray Park visitings
had completed the charm.

With the two eldest Misses Richards, Helen was on that sort of intimate
footing which a very sweet-tempered, unpretending girl of nineteen, who
knows she is of some consequence from her station, and is terribly
afraid of being supposed to be proud, is sure to be with young ladies of
nearly her own age, blessed with most exuberant animal spirits, and
desirous of making themselves as agreeable to her as possible.

Louisa and Charlotte Richards were fine, tall, showy young women, with
some aspirations after the reputation of talent; but they were neither
of them at all like their mother, who was at least six inches shorter
than either of them, and aspired to nothing in the world but to make
her three children happy.

Little Mary, as her sisters still persisted to call her, approached much
nearer to the stature, person, and character of Mrs. Richards; she was
not quite so _mignonne_ in size, but she

    "Had her features, wore her eye,
    Perhaps some feeling of her heart,"

and was, spite of all the struggles which her mother could make to
prevent it, the darling of her eyes and the hope of her heart. Moreover,
little Mary was, as we have before hinted, the especial friend of Fanny
Mowbray.

The delights of a balmy evening in the flowery month of June--the
superadded delights of a hay-field, and above all, the supreme delight
of unexpectedly meeting a party of friends, were all enthusiastically
descanted upon by the two tall Misses Richards. They had each taken one
of Helen's slight arms, and borne her along over the stubble grass with
a degree of vehemence which hardly left her breath to speak.

"I do not think mamma is going any farther," she continued to utter,
while Miss Louisa stopped to tie a shoe-string.

"Oh, but you must!" screamed Miss Charlotte, attempting to drag her
onward singly.

"Stop, Charlotte!... stop!" cried the eldest sister, snapping off the
shoe-string in her haste--"you shall not carry her away from me. What a
shame! Isn't it a shame, when it is such an age since we met?"

There is nothing against which it is so difficult to rally, as the
exaggerated expression of feelings in which we do not share. The quiet
Helen could not lash herself into answering vehemence of joy, and having
smiled, and smiled till she was weary, she fairly slipped from her
companions, and hastened back with all the speed she could make to the
tranquil party that surrounded her mother.

The lively young ladies galloped after her, declaring all the way that
she was the cruellest creature in the world.

Mrs. Mowbray now said that she hoped they would all accompany her home
to tea;--a proposal that met no dissenting voice; but it was some time
before the whole party could be collected, for Fanny Mowbray and little
Mary were nowhere to be seen. Major Dalrymple, however, who was taller
even than the Misses Richards, by means of standing upon the last left
haycock, at length discovered them sitting lovingly side by side under
the shelter of a huge lime-tree that filled one corner of the field. He
was dismissed to bring them up to the main body, and executed his
commission with great gallantry and good-nature, but not without feeling
that the two very pretty girls he thus led away captive would much
rather have been without him; for as he approached their lair, he
perceived, not only that they were in very earnest conversation, but
that various scraps of written paper lay in the lap of each, which at
his approach were hastily exchanged, and conveyed to reticules, pockets,
or bosoms, beyond the reach of his eye.

They nevertheless smilingly submitted themselves to his guidance, and in
order to prove that he was not very troublesome, Fanny so far returned
to their previous conversation as to say,

"We must ask your judgment, Major Dalrymple, upon a point on which we
were disputing just before you joined us: which do you prefer in the
pulpit--and out of it--Mr. Wallace, or Mr. Cartwright?"

"You were disputing the point, were you?" he replied. "Then I am afraid,
Miss Fanny, I must give it against you; for I believe I know Mary's
opinion already, and I perfectly agree with her."

"Then I shall say to you, as I say to her," replied Fanny, eagerly "that
you are altogether blinded, benighted, deluded, and wrapt up in
prejudice! I have great faith both in her sincerity and yours, major;
and yet I declare to you, that it does seem to me so impossible for any
one to doubt the superiority of Mr. Cartwright in every way, that I can
hardly persuade myself you are in earnest."

"What do you mean by _every way_, Miss Fanny?--you cannot surely believe
him to be a better man than our dear old vicar?" said the major.

"We can none of us, I think, have any right to make comparisons of their
respective goodness--at least not as yet," replied Fanny. "When I said
_every way_, I meant in the church and in society."

"On the latter point I suppose I ought to leave the question to be
decided between you, as in all cases of the kind where gentlemen are to
be tried, ladies alone, I believe, are considered competent to form the
jury;--not that Mary can have much right to pronounce a verdict either,
for I doubt if she has ever been in a room with Mr. Cartwright in her
life."

"Yes, I have," said Mary eagerly, "and he is perfectly delightful!"

"Indeed!--I did not know you had seen him."

"Yes--we met him at Smith's."

"Oh! you saw him in a shop, did you?--and even that was sufficient to
prove him delightful?"

"Quite enough!" replied Mary, colouring a little as she observed Major
Dalrymple smile.

"The more you see of him, the more you will be aware of his excellence,"
said Fanny, coming to the aid of her friend, and with an air of gravity
that was intended to check the levity of the major. "I have seen him
repeatedly at the Park, Major Dalrymple, and under circumstances that
gave sufficient opportunity to show the excellence of his heart, as well
as the charm of his friendly, affectionate, and graceful manner."

"He has certainly been a very handsome man," said the major.

"Has been!" exclaimed both the girls at once.

"He is still very well-looking," added the gentleman.

"Well-looking!" was again indignantly echoed by the ladies.

"You do not think the term strong enough? but when a man gets on the
wrong side of forty it is, I think, as much as he can expect."

"I don't care a farthing what his age maybe," cried Mary; "do you, Miss
Mowbray?... If he were a hundred and forty, with that countenance and
that manner, I should still think him the handsomest and most perfect
person I ever saw."

"Dear Mary!" replied Fanny affectionately, "how exactly we feel alike
about him! I love you dearly for fighting his battles so warmly."

"There is surely no fighting in the case," said Major Dalrymple,
laughing,--"at least not with me. But have a care, young ladies: such
perfect conformity of taste on these subjects does not always, I
believe, tend to the continuance of female friendship. What a sad thing
it would be if those two little hands were some day to set pulling caps
between their respective owners!"

"There is not the least danger of any such dismal catastrophe, I assure
you. Is there Mary?"

"Good heavens, no!" replied little Mary in a voice of great indignation.
"What a hateful idea!"

"One reason why it is so delightful to love and admire Mr. Cartwright,"
rejoined Fanny, "is, that one may do it and talk of it too, without any
danger that _rational people_, Major Dalrymple, should make a jest of
it, and talk the same sort of nonsense that every body is so fond of
doing whenever a lady is heard to express admiration for a gentleman.
But we may surely love and admire the clergyman of the parish; indeed I
think it is a sort of duty for every one to do so."

"I assure you," replied the major, "that I both loved and admired Mr.
Wallace exceedingly, and that I shall gladly pay the same homage to his
successor as soon as I know him to deserve it. But

    "Cautious age and youth....

you know the song, Mary?"

"I know your meaning, Major Dalrymple: you are always boasting of your
age; but I don't know any one but yourself who thinks so very much
of...."

"... My antiquity and my wisdom."

"Just that.... But, good heavens! Fanny Mowbray, who is that to whom
your mother is speaking on the lawn?"

"It is Mr. Cartwright!" cried Fanny with animation; "and now, Major
Dalrymple, you will have an opportunity of judging for yourself."

"I fear not," he replied, taking out his watch; "it is now eight
o'clock, and Mrs. Richards seldom walks much after nine."

The two girls now withdrew their arms, and hastened forward to the group
of which Mr. Cartwright made one. Fanny Mowbray held out her hand to
him, which was taken and held very affectionately for two or three
minutes.

"You have been enjoying this balmy air," said he to her in a voice
sweetly modulated to the hour and the theme. "It is heaven's own breath,
Miss Fanny, and to such a mind as yours must utter accents worthy of the
source from whence it comes."

Fanny's beautiful eyes were fixed upon his face, and almost seemed to
say,

    "When you speak, I'd have you do it ever."

"I do not think he recollects me," whispered Mary Richards in her ear:
"I wish you'd introduce me."

Fanny Mowbray started, but recovering herself, said, "Mr. Cartwright,
give me leave to introduce my friend Miss Mary Richards to you. She is
one of your parishioners, and one that you will find capable of
appreciating the happiness of being so."

Mr. Cartwright extended his pastoral hand to the young lady with a most
gracious smile.

"Bless you both!" said he, joining their hands between both of his. "To
lead you together in the path in which we must all wish to go, would be
a task that might give a foretaste of the heaven we sought!"

He then turned towards Mrs. Mowbray, and with a look and tone which
showed that though he never alluded to her situation, he never forgot
it, he inquired how far she had extended her ramble.

"Much farther than I intended when I set out," replied Mrs. Mowbray.
"But my children, the weather, and the hay, altogether beguiled me to
the bottom of Farmer Bennet's great meadow."

"Quite right, quite right," replied Mr. Cartwright, with something
approaching almost to fervour of approbation: "this species of quiet
courage, of gentle submission, is just what I expected from Mrs.
Mowbray. It is the sweetest incense that you can offer to Heaven; and
Heaven will repay it."

Mrs. Mowbray looked up at his mild countenance, and saw a moisture in
his eye that spoke more tender pity than he would permit his lips to
utter. It touched her to the heart.

Mrs. Richards, who was something of a florist, was examining, with the
assistance of Rosalind, some new geraniums that were placed on circular
stands outside the drawing-room, filling the spaces between the windows.
As this occupation had drawn them from the rest of the party from the
time Mr. Cartwright approached to join it, they had not yet received
that gentleman's salutation, and he now went up to them.

"Miss Torrington looks as if she were discoursing of her kindred. Are
these fair blossoms the children of your especial care?"

"They are the children of the gardener and the greenhouse, I believe,"
she replied carelessly, and stepped on to another stand.

"Mrs. Richards, I believe?" said the graceful vicar, taking off his hat
to her.

"I hope you are well, Mr. Cartwright?" replied the lady, following the
steps of Rosalind.

The two eldest Misses Richards were still assiduously besieging the two
ears of Helen; but as the subjects of which they discoursed did not
always require the same answers, she began to feel considerable fatigue
from the exertion necessary for carrying on this double conversation,
and was therefore not sorry to see Mr. Cartwright approach them, which
must, she thought, produce a diversion in her favour. But she found that
the parties were still personally strangers to each other; for though
his bow was general, his address was only to herself.

"And have you, too, Miss Mowbray, been venturing upon as long a walk as
the rest of the party?"

"We have all walked the same distance, Mr. Cartwright; but I believe we
none of us consider it to be very far. We are all good walkers."

"I rejoice to hear it, for it is the way to become good Christians.
Where or how can we meet and _meetly_ examine the works of the great
Creator so well as on the carpet he has spread, and beneath the azure
canopy which his hands have reared above us?--The Misses Richards, I
believe? May I beg an introduction, Miss Mowbray?"

"Mr. Cartwright, Miss Richards--Miss Charlotte Richards," said Helen,
without adding another word.

"I need hardly ask if you are walkers," said the vicar, as he passed a
smiling and apparently an approving glance over their rather remarkable
length of limb. "Your friends, Miss Mowbray, look like young antelopes
ready to bound over the fair face of Nature; and their eyes look as if
there were intelligence within wherewith to read her aright."

"Mamma is going into tea, I believe," said Helen, moving off.

The whole manner and demeanour of the two Misses Richards had changed
from the moment Mr. Cartwright approached. They became quite silent and
demure; but as they followed Helen, one on each side of him, they
coloured with pleasure as he addressed a gentle word, first to one, then
to the other; and when, after entering the drawing-room, he left them
for the purpose of making his farewell bow, or the semblance of it, to
Mrs. Mowbray, Miss Louisa whispered to Miss Charlotte, "Little Mary is
quite right: he _is_ the most delightful man in the world."

"You are not going to leave us, Mr. Cartwright?" said Mrs. Mowbray
kindly. "We are going to tea this moment."

"You are very obliging; but I had no intention of intruding on you
thus."

"Pray do not call it an intrusion. We shall be always most happy to see
you. I only wish your son and daughter were with us also."

"My daughter, thank you, is a sad invalid; and Jacob generally wanders
farther afield in such weather as this.... Is that gentleman Major
Dalrymple? May I ask you to introduce me?"

"I shall have much pleasure in doing so, I am sure. He is a very amiable
and estimable person."

Mrs. Mowbray crossed the room towards him, followed by the vicar. The
introduction took place, and the two gentlemen conversed together for a
few minutes on the ordinary topics of Russia, the harvest, the
slave-trade, and reform. On every subject, except the harvest, which Mr.
Cartwright despatched by declaring that it would be peculiarly abundant,
the reverend gentleman expressed himself with an unusual flow of words,
in sentences particularly well constructed; yet nevertheless his
opinions seemed enveloped in a mist; and when Mrs. Richards afterwards
asked the major his opinion of the new vicar, he replied that he thought
his manners very gentlemanlike and agreeable, but that he did not
perfectly remember what opinions he had expressed on any subject.

At first the company seemed inclined to disperse themselves in knots
about the room; but by degrees Mr. Cartwright very skilfully contrived,
on one pretence or another, to collect them all round a table that was
covered with the usual incitements to talk, and the conversation became
general. At least Mr. Cartwright was very generally listened to; the
major did not speak at all; and the ladies did little more than agree
with and applaud from time to time the placid, even, dulcet flow of
words which fell like a gentle rivulet from the lips of their new vicar.
This description, indeed, would not apply quite generally to all the
ladies; but the majority in his favour was five to three, and with this
advantage,--that whereas his admirers were loud and eloquent in their
expressions of approval, the minority contented themselves by preserving
silence.




CHAPTER IX.

HELEN AND ROSALIND CALL UPON SIR GILBERT HARRINGTON


Helen Mowbray knew that the choleric friend whose gentler feelings she
wished to propitiate was an early riser himself, and was never better
disposed to be well pleased with others than when they showed themselves
capable of following his example. She was therefore anxious to arrive at
his house in time to have the conversation she sought, yet dreaded,
before nine o'clock, the usual family breakfast-hour; though in the
shooting-season Sir Gilbert generally contrived to coax my lady and her
housekeeper to have hot rolls smoking on the table by eight. But,
luckily for the young ladies' morning repose, it was not
shooting-season; and they calculated that if they started about half
past seven they should have time for their walk, and a reasonably long
conversation afterwards, before the breakfast, to which they looked as
the pacific conclusion of the negotiation, should be ready.

At half past seven, accordingly, the fair friends met at the door of
Rosalind's dressing-room, and set off, fearless, though unattended,
through the shrubberies, the park, the flowery lanes, and finally,
across one or two hay-fields, which separated the two mansions.

Nothing can be better calculated to raise the animal spirits than an
early walk in the gay month of June; and on those not accustomed to the
elasticity, the freshness, the exhilarating clearness of the morning
air, the effect is like enchantment. All the sad thoughts which had of
late so constantly brooded round Helen's heart seemed to withdraw their
painful pressure, and she again felt conscious of the luxury of life,
with youth, health, and innocence, a clear sky, bright verdure, flowery
banks, and shady hedge-rows, to adorn it.

Rosalind, by an irresistible impulse of gaiety, joined her voice to
those of the blackbirds that carolled near her, till she was stopped by
Helen's exclaiming, "Rosalind, I feel courage for anything this
morning!"

"Yes," answered her companion, "let Sir Gilbert appear in any shape but
that of the Vicar of Wrexhill, and I should great him with a degree of
confidence and kindness that I am positive would be irresistible."

They were now within a short distance of the baronet's grounds, and
another step brought their courage to the proof; for on mounting a
stepping-stile which had originally been placed for the especial
accommodation of the Mowbray ladies, they perceived the redoubtable Sir
Gilbert at the distance of fifty paces, in the act of removing an
offending dock-root with his spud.

He raised his eyes, and recognising his young visitors, stepped eagerly
forward to meet them. To Rosalind, however, though usually a great
favourite, he now paid not the slightest attention; but taking Helen in
his arms, kissing her on both cheeks and on the forehead, and then
looking her in the face very much as if he were going to weep over her,
he exclaimed,

"My poor, poor child!... Why did not you bring poor Fanny too?... You
are right to come away, quite right, my dear child: it's dreadful to
live in dependence upon any one's caprice for one's daily bread! Your
home shall be here, Helen, and Fanny's too, as long as you like. Come,
my dear, take my arm: my lady will dance, you may depend upon it, when
she sees you, for we have had dreadful work about keeping her from
Mowbray! I'd just as soon keep a wild cat in order as your godmother,
Helen, when she takes a fancy: but you know, my dear, her going to
Mowbray was a thing not to be thought of, You are a good girl to
come--it shows that you see the matter rightly. I wish Fanny were here
too!"

All this was said with great rapidity, and without pausing for any
answer. Meanwhile he had drawn Helen's arm within his, and was leading
her towards the house.

Rosalind followed them quietly for a few steps; and then, either moved
thereto by the feeling of courage her walk had inspired, or from some
latent consciousness of the baronet's partiality to herself, she boldly
stepped up and took his arm on the other side.

"Bless my soul, Miss Torrington!... by the honour of a knight, I never
saw you; nor do I think I should have seen a regiment of young ladies,
though they had been all as handsome as yourself, if they had happened
to come with my poor dear Helen. It was very good of you to walk over
with her, poor little thing!... Your fortune is quite safe and
independent, my dear, isn't it? Nobody's doing a foolish thing can
involve you in any way, can it?"

"Not unless the foolish thing happened to be done by myself, Sir
Gilbert."

"That's a great blessing, my dear,--a very great blessing!... And you'll
be kind to our two poor girls, won't you, my dear?"

"I have more need that they should be kind to me--and so they are,--and
we are all very kind to one another; and if you will be but very kind
too, and come and see us all as you used to do, we shall be very happy
again in time."

"Stuff and nonsense, child!... You may come here, I tell you, and see me
as much as you like, under my own roof,--because I know who that belongs
to, and all about it; but I promise you that you will never see me going
to houses that don't belong to their right owner,--it would not suit me
in the least--quite out of my way; I should be making some confounded
blunder, and talking to poor Charles about his estate and his
property:--poor fellow! and he not worth sixpence in the world."

During all this time Helen had not spoken a word. They had now nearly
reached the house; and drawing her arm away, she held out her hand to
Sir Gilbert, and said in a very humble and beseeching tone,

"Sir Gilbert!... may I speak to you alone for a few minutes?"

"Speak to me, child?--what about? Is it about a sweet-heart? Is it about
wanting pocket-money, my poor child?--I'm executor to your father's
will, you know, Helen; and if you were starving in a ditch, and Fanny in
another, and poor Charles begging his bread on the high road, I have not
the power of giving either of ye a shilling of his property, though he
has left above fourteen thousand a year!"

Sir Gilbert was now lashing himself into a rage that it was evident
would render the object of Helen's visit abortive if she attempted to
bring it forward now. She exchanged a glance with Rosalind, who shook
her head, and the next moment contrived to whisper in her ear, "Wait
till after breakfast."

Sir Gilbert was now striding up the steps to the hall-door: the two
girls silently followed him, and were probably neither of them sorry to
see Colonel Harrington coming forward to meet them.

This young man had for the two or three last years seen but little of
the Mowbray family, having been abroad during nearly the whole of that
time; but he returned with something very like a tender recollection of
Helen's having been the prettiest little nymph at fifteen that he had
ever beheld, and her appearance at this moment was not calculated to
make him think she had lost her delicate beauty during his absence. Her
slight tall figure was shown to great advantage by her mourning dress;
and the fair and abundant curls that crowded round her face, now a
little flushed by exercise and agitation, made her altogether as pretty
a creature in her peculiar style as a young soldier would wish to look
upon.

The coal-black hair and sparkling dark eyes of Rosalind, her ruby lips
and pearl-like teeth, her exquisite little figure, and the general air
of piquant vivacity which made her perfectly radiant when animated,
rendered her in most eyes the more attractive of the two; but Colonel
Harrington did not think so; and giving her one glance of
curiosity,--for he had never seen her before,--he decided, that neither
she, nor any other woman he had ever beheld, could compare in loveliness
with his former friend and favourite.

His greeting to Helen was just what might be expected from a man who had
known her with great intimacy when she was some half-dozen inches
shorter, and who felt the strongest possible desire to renew the
acquaintance with as little delay as possible.

"Helen Mowbray!" he exclaimed, springing forward and seizing her hand,
"how delighted I am to see you! How is dear little Fanny?--how is
Charles? I trust you have none of you forgotten me?"

Helen blushed deeply at the unexpected ardour of this address from a
very tall, handsome, fashionable-looking personage, whose face she
certainly would not have recognised had she met him accidentally: but a
happy smile accompanied the blush, and he had no reason to regret the
politic freedom of his first salutation, which had thus enabled him to
pass over an infinity of gradations towards the intimacy he coveted, at
one single step placing him at once on the footing of a familiar friend.
It was indeed nearly impossible that Helen could be offended by the
freedom; for not only was it sanctioned by the long-established union of
their two families, but at this moment she could not but be pleased at
finding another dear old friend in the garrison, who would be sure to
add his influence to that of her godmother, that what she so greatly
wished to obtain should not be refused.

Before they reached the breakfast-room, therefore, the most perfect
understanding was established between them. Her friend Miss Torrington
was gaily introduced, for her heart felt gladdened by this important
addition to her supporters in the cause she had undertaken; and she was
disposed to believe that Rosalind's proposal to make this alarming visit
would turn out to have been one of the most fortunate things that ever
happened.

Within the breakfast-room, and approachable by no other access, was a
small room, known throughout the mansion, and indeed throughout the
neighbourhood also, as "My Lady's Closet." This sacred retreat was an
oblong room, about eighteen feet by eight; a large and lofty window
occupied nearly one end of it, across which was placed a deal-dresser or
table of three feet wide, filling the entire space between the walls.
The whole room was lined with shelves and drawers, the former of which
were for the most part sheltered by heavy crimson damask curtains. A few
small tables stood scattered here and there; and the sole accommodation
for sitting consisted of one high stool, such as laundresses use when
ironing.

To the door of this apartment Sir Gilbert approached, and there
reverently stopped; for by the law of the land, even he, though a pretty
extensively privileged personage, was permitted to go no farther, unless
licensed by an especial warrant from its mistress.

"My lady," he said, in the cheerful lusty voice that announces
agreeable tidings,--"My lady, I have brought home company to breakfast."

"Have you, Sir Knight?" replied Lady Harrington, without turning her
head, or otherwise interrupting herself in the performance of some
apparently delicate process upon which she was occupied.

"I'd rather have Mrs. Bluebeard for a wife than such an incurious old
soul as you are!" said the testy baronet.--"And so you have not even the
grace to ask who it is?"

"Why, my dear Sir Tiger, I shall be sure to know within two minutes
after Tomkins gives his passing thump to announce that he is carrying in
the coffee; then why should I disturb this fairest of the Pentandria
class?--my charming high-dried mirabilis?"

"The devil take you, and all your classes, orders, and tribes, to his
own hothouse!--I'll be hanged if I don't lock you into your den while I
breakfast with her;--you shan't see her at all!"

"Mother! mother!" exclaimed the colonel hastily, to anticipate the
execution of the threat--"it is Helen Mowbray!"

"Helen Mowbray!" cried the old lady, thrusting her hot smoothing-iron on
one side, and her blossom blotting-paper on the other, while the
precious mirabilis fell to the ground; "Helen Mowbray!" and pushing
aside the baronet by no very gentle movement of her tall and substantial
person, she rushed forward, and Helen was speedily folded in a very
close embrace.

"There, there, there! don't stifle the girl, old lady!--And supposing
you were to bestow one little monosyllable of civility upon this pretty
creature, Miss Torrington, who stands smiling at us all like an angel,
though every soul amongst us is as rude as a bear to her.--I don't
believe you ever found yourself so entirely neglected before, my dear?"

"I have never witnessed attention more gratifying to me than that which
I have seen displayed this morning," replied Rosalind.

"You are a good girl, a very good girl, my dear, and I shall always love
you for coming over with this poor dear disinherited child."

"Miss Torrington, I am delighted to see you, now and ever, my dear
young lady," said Lady Harrington, who, when she chose it, could be as
dignified, and as courteous too, as any lady in the land.

"You have walked over, I am sure, by the bright freshness of your looks.
Now, then, sit down one on each side of me, that I may be able to see
you without hoisting a _lunette d'approche_ across this prodigious
table."

"And so, because your ladyship is near-sighted," said Sir Gilbert,
"William and I are to sit at this awful distance from these beautiful
damsels? You are a tiresome old soul as ever lived!"

"And that's the reason you appear so profoundly melancholy and miserable
at this moment," said Lady Harrington, looking with no trifling degree
of satisfaction at the radiant good-humour and happiness which the
unexpected arrival of Helen had caused to be visible in the countenance
of her boisterous husband. "Do you find William much altered, Helen?"
she continued. "I wonder if any one has had the grace to present Colonel
Harrington to Miss Torrington?"

"Helen did me that kind office," said the colonel, "and I suppose she
must do the same for me to little Fanny. I long to see if she continues
as surpassingly beautiful as she was when I took my sad, reluctant leave
of Mowbray Park."

Rosalind immediately became answerable for the undiminished beauty of
Fanny, adding to her report on this point a declaration that the whole
family were anxious to renew their acquaintance with him.

This was the nearest approach that any of the party ventured to make
towards the mention of Mowbray Park or its inhabitants. Nevertheless,
the breakfast passed cheerfully, and even without a word from Sir
Gilbert in allusion to the destitute condition of Helen, and her brother
and sister. But when even the baronet had disposed of his last
egg-shell, pushed the ham fairly away from him, and swallowed his last
bowl of tea, the beautiful colour of Helen began gradually to deepen;
she ceased to speak, and hardly seemed to hear what was said to her.

Rosalind took the hint, and with more tact than is usually found in the
possession of seventeen and a half, she said to Lady Harrington,

"If I promise to keep my hands not only from picking and stealing, but
from touching, will your ladyship indulge me with a sight of your press,
and your boxes, and a volume or two of your _hortus siccus_? for I feel
considerable aspirations after the glory of becoming a botanist myself."

"My ladyship will show you something infinitely more to the purpose,
then, if you will come to the hothouse with me," replied Lady
Harrington, rising, and giving an intelligible glance to her son as she
did so, which immediately caused him to rise and follow her. "I cannot
take you where I should be sure to overhear them, my dear," she added in
a whisper as she led Rosalind from the room; "for if my rough diamond
should chance to be too rough with her, I should infallibly burst out
upon them; and yet I know well enough that I should do nothing but
mischief."

Helen was thus left alone with the kind-hearted but pertinacious
baronet. He seemed to have a misgiving of the attack that was about to
be opened upon him; for he made a fidgetty movement in his chair, pushed
it back, and looked so very much inclined to run away, that Helen saw no
time was to be lost, and, in a voice not over-steady, said,

"I want to speak to you, Sir Gilbert, about my dear mamma. I fear from
what you said to Charles, and more still by nobody's coming from Oakley
to see us, that you are angry with her.--If it is about the will, Sir
Gilbert, you do her great injustice: I am very, very sure that she
neither wished for such a will, nor knew any thing about it."

"It is very pretty and dutiful in you, Miss Helen, to say so, and to
think so too if you can. Perhaps I might have done the same at nineteen;
but at sixty-five, child, one begins to know a little better what signs
and tokens mean.--There is no effect without a cause, Miss Helen. The
effect in this affair is already pretty visible to all eyes, and will
speedily become more so, you may depend upon it. The cause may be still
hid from babes and sucklings, but not from an old fellow like me, who
knew your poor father, girl, before you were hatched or thought of,--and
knew him to be both a good and a wise man, who would never have done the
deed he did unless under the influence of one as ever near and ever dear
to him as your mother."

"You have known my mother too, Sir Gilbert, for many, many years:--did
you ever see in her any symptom of the character you now attribute to
her?"

"If I had, Miss Helen, I should not loathe and abominate her hypocrisy
as I now do. I will never see her more--for all our sakes: for if I did,
I know right well that I could not restrain my indignation within
moderate bounds."

"Then certainly it would be better that you should not see her," said
the weeping Helen: "for indeed, sir, I think such unmerited indignation
would almost kill her."

"If you knew any thing about the matter, child, you would be aware that
_merited_ indignation would be more likely to disagree with her.
Unmerited indignation does one no harm in the world, as I can testify
from experience; for my lady is dreadfully indignant, as I dare say you
guess, at my keeping her and William away from Mowbray Park: and it's
ten to one but you will be indignant too, child;--but I can't help it. I
love you all three very much, Helen; but I must do what I think right,
for all that."

"Not indignant, Sir Gilbert;--at least, that would not be the prevailing
feeling with me, though a sense of injustice might make it so with my
poor mother. What I shall feel will be grief--unceasing grief, if the
friend my beloved father most valued and esteemed continues to refuse
his countenance and affection to the bereaved family he has left."

From the time this conversation began, Sir Gilbert had been striding up
and down the room, as it was always his custom to do when he felt
himself in a rage, or was conscious that he was about to be so. He now
stopped opposite Helen; and while something very like tenderness almost
impeded his utterance, he said,

"That's trash--abominable false trash! Miss Helen. After what's passed
to-day, to say nothing of times past, you must know well enough that I'm
not likely to refuse my countenance and affection to your father's
children;--bereaved they are, sure enough! You know as well as I do,
that I love you all three--for your own sakes, girl, as well as for
his;--and your pretending to doubt it, was a hit of trumpery womanhood,
Helen,--so never make use of it again: for you see I understand the
sex,--and that's just the reason why I like my old woman better than any
other _she_ in the wide world;--she never tries any make-believe tricks
upon me."

"Believe me, Sir Gilbert," said Helen, smiling, "I hate tricks as much
as my godmother can: and if it were otherwise, you are the last person I
should try them upon. But how can we think you love us, if you will not
come near Mowbray?"

"You may think it, and know it, very easily, child, by the welcome you
shall always find here. It is very likely that you may not be long
comfortable at home; and before it happens, remember I have told you
that you shall always have a home at Oakley: but it must not be on
condition of bringing your mother with you; for see her I will not,--and
there's an end."

Helen remained silent. She felt painfully convinced that, at least for
the present, she should gain nothing by arguing the cause of her mother
any farther; and after a long pause, during which Sir Gilbert continued
to pace up and down before her, she rose, and sighing deeply, said,

"I believe it is time for us to return.--Good-b'ye, Sir Gilbert."

There was something in the tone of her voice which very nearly overset
all the sturdy resolution of the baronet; but instead of yielding to the
weakness, as he would have called it, like a skilful general he marched
off the field with his colours still flying, and certainly without
giving his adversary any reasonable ground to hope for victory.

"They are all in the hothouse, I believe," said he, walking before Helen
to a door of the hall which opened upon the beautiful gardens. "You have
not seen my lady's heaths for many a day, Helen:--she'll be savage if
you go without taking a look at them."

Helen followed without saying a word in reply, for her heart was full;
and when she joined the trio who had so considerately left her to the
uninterrupted possession of Sir Gilbert's ear, there was no need of any
questioning on their part, or answering on hers, to put them all in full
possession of the result of the tete-a-tete.

It would be difficult to say which of the three looked most vexed:
perhaps Lady Harrington gave the strongest outward demonstrations of
what she felt on the occasion.

She glanced frowningly at Sir Gilbert, who looked as if he intended to
say something amiable, and seizing upon Helen's two hands, kissed them
both, exclaiming, "Dearest and best! what a heart of flint must that
being have who could find the cruel strength to pain thee!"

Colonel Harrington, who, discomposed and disappointed, had thrown
himself on a bench, gave his mother a very grateful look for this; while
Rosalind, after examining her sad countenance for a moment, pressed
closely to her friend and whispered, "Let us go, Helen."

Poor Helen had no inclination to delay her departure; and knowing that
her partial godmother was fully capable of understanding her feelings,
she said, returning her carresses,

"Do not keep me a moment longer, dearest friend, for fear I should weep!
and then I am sure he would call it a trick."

"I will not keep you, Helen," replied Lady Harrington aloud. "You have
come on a mission of love and peace; and if I mistake not that heavy eye
and feverish cheek, you have failed. Poor child! she does not look like
the same creature that she did an hour and a half ago--does she,
William?"

"Adieu, Lady Harrington!" said Helen, the big tears rolling down her
cheeks despite her struggles to prevent them. "Good morning, Colonel
Harrington;--farewell, Sir Gilbert!"

"This is hard, Miss Torrington!" said the baronet, turning from Helen's
offered hand; "this is confounded hard! I'm doing my duty, and acting
according to my conscience as a man of honour, and yet I shall be made
to believe that Nero was a dove, and Bluebeard a babe of grace, compared
to me!"

But Miss Torrington being in no humour to answer him playfully, said
gravely,

"I am very sorry we broke in upon you so unadvisedly, Sir Gilbert. It is
plain our hopes have not been realised."

The young lady bowed silently to the colonel, and taking a short
farewell of Lady Harrington, but one in which mutual kindness was
mutually understood, she took the arm of her discomfited friend, and
they proceeded towards a little gate in the iron fencing which divided
the garden from the paddock in front of the house.

"And you won't shake hands with me, Helen!" said Sir Gilbert, following.

"Do not say so, sir," replied Helen, turning back and holding out her
hand.

"And when shall we see you here again?"

"Whenever you will come and fetch me, Sir Gilbert," she replied,
endeavouring to look cheerful. He took her hand, wrung it, and turned
away without speaking.

"Your interdict, sir," said Colonel Harrington, "does not, I hope,
extend beyond Mowbray Park paling?--I trust I may be permitted to take
care of these young ladies as far as the lodges?"

"If you did not do it, you know very well that I should, you puppy!"
replied his father: and so saying, he turned into a walk which led in a
direction as opposite as possible from that which his ireful lady had
chosen.

Colonel Harrington felt that it required some exertion of his
conversational powers to bring his fair companions back to the tone of
cheerful familiarity which had reigned among them all at the
breakfast-table; but the exertion was made, and so successfully, that
before the walk was ended a feeling of perfect confidence was
established between them. When they were about to part, he said,

"My mother and I shall labour, and cease not, to work our way through
the _ecorce_ to the kernel of my good father's heart; and there we shall
find exactly the material we want, of which to form a reconciliation
between your mother and him.--Farewell, Helen!--farewell, Miss
Torrington! I trust that while the interdict lasts, chance will
sometimes favour our meeting beyond the forbidden precincts."

He stepped forward to open the Park gate for them, shook hands, uttered
another "Farewell!" and departed.




CHAPTER X.

MRS. MOWBRAY CONSULTS MR. CARTWRIGHT UPON THE SUBJECT OF HER LATE
HUSBAND'S WILL.


The first person they encountered on entering the house was Fanny.

"Where _have_ you been!" she exclaimed. "My mother is half frightened to
death. Do go to her this moment, Helen, to set her heart at ease."

"Where is she, Fanny?" inquired Helen, with a sigh, as she remembered
how little the answers she must necessarily give to the questions she
would be sure to ask were likely to produce that effect.

"In her dressing-room, Helen. But where _have_ you been?"

"To Oakley."

"Good gracious, Helen!--and without asking mamma's leave?"

"I did it with a good intention, Fanny. Do you think I was wrong in
endeavouring to restore the intimacy that has been so cruelly
interrupted? Do you think mamma will be very angry? I am sure it was
chiefly for her sake that I went."

"No, I am sure she will not when you tell her that. But come directly: I
do assure you she has been seriously uneasy.--Did you find Sir Gilbert
very savage, Rosalind?"

"_Pas mal_, my dear."

Another moment brought them to Mrs. Mowbray. "Thank Heaven!" was her
first exclamation on seeing them; and the repetition of Fanny's emphatic
"Where _have_ you been?" followed it.

"Dearest mother!" said Helen, fondly embracing her, "do not chide us
very severely, even if we have been wrong; for indeed we meant to be
very, very right; and when we set out the expedition appeared to us
anything but a pleasant one. We have been to Oakley."

"I am too thankful at seeing you returned in safety, my dear girls, to
be very angry at any thing. But do tell me, Helen, what could have
induced you to volunteer a visit to the only people who have been unkind
to us since your poor father's death?"

"In the hope, mamma, of putting an end to an estrangement which I
thought was very painful to you."

"Dearest Helen! it was just like you! And have you succeeded, my love?"

"No, mamma, I have not."

Mrs. Mowbray coloured.

"And pray, Helen, have they explained to you the cause of their
extraordinary and most unfeeling conduct?"

"Do not say _they_, dearest mother! Lady Harrington is greatly
distressed at Sir Gilbert's conduct: so is the colonel, who is just come
home. Whatever fault there may be, it is Sir Gilbert's alone."

"Did he, then, explain himself to you?"

Helen remained silent.

"I must request, Helen," resumed her mother, "that you make no farther
mystery about the Harringtons. I am willing to excuse the strange step
you took this morning; but I shall be seriously displeased if you refuse
to tell me what passed during your visit. Of what is it that Sir Gilbert
accuses me?"

"I pointed out to him, mamma, the injustice of being angry with you
because papa made a will that he did not approve."

"Well, Helen! and what did he say to that?"

"Upon my word, mamma, I could not find a shadow of reason in any thing
he said."

"You evade my questions, Helen. I insist upon knowing what it is that
Sir Gilbert lays to my charge.--Helen!--do you refuse to answer me?"

"Oh no, mamma!--but you cannot think how painful it would be for me to
repeat it!"

"I cannot help it, Helen: you have brought this pain on yourself by your
very unadvised visit of this morning. But since you have gone to the
house of one who has declared himself my enemy, you must let me know
exactly what it is he has chosen to accuse me of; unless you mean that I
should imagine you wish to shield him from my resentment because you
think him right."

"Oh, my mother!" cried Helen; "what a word is that!"

"Well, then, do not trifle with me any longer, but repeat at once all
that you heard him say."

Thus urged, poor Helen stated Sir Gilbert's very unjust suspicions
respecting the influence used to induce Mr. Mowbray to make the will he
had left. It was in vain she endeavoured to modify and soften the
accusation,--the resentment and indignation of Mrs. Mowbray were
unbounded; and Helen had the deep mortification of perceiving that the
only result of her enterprise was to have rendered the breach she so
greatly wished to repair a hundred times wider than before.

"And this man, with these base and vile suspicions, is the person your
father has left as joint executor with me!--What a situation does this
place me in! Did he make any allusion to this, Helen?--did he say any
thing of the necessary business that we have, most unfortunately, to
transact together?"

"No, mamma, he did not."

A long silence followed this question and answer. Mrs. Mowbray appeared
to suffer greatly, and in fact she did so. Nothing could be farther from
the truth than the idea Sir Gilbert Harrington had conceived, and its
injustice revolted and irritated her to a degree that she never before
experienced against any human being. That Helen should have listened to
such an accusation, pained her extremely; and a feeling in some degree
allied to displeasure against her mingled with the disagreeable
meditations in which she was plunged.

"My head aches dreadfully!" she said at last. "Fanny, give me my shawl
and parasol: I will try what a walk in the fresh air will do for me."

"May I go with you, mamma?" said Helen.

"No, my dear; you have had quite walking enough. Fanny has not been out
at all: she may come with me."

These words were both natural and reasonable, but there was something in
them that smote Helen to the heart. She fondly loved her mother, and,
for the first time, she suspected that her heart and feelings were not
understood.

Mrs. Mowbray and Fanny had just walked through the library windows into
the garden, when they perceived Mr. Cartwright approaching the house.
They both uttered an exclamation of pleasure at perceiving him, and
Fanny said eagerly, "He must see us, mamma! Do not let him go all the
way round to the hall-door! May we not walk across and meet him?"

"To be sure. Run forward, Fanny; and when he sees you coming to him, he
will turn this way."

She was not mistaken: Fanny had not made three steps in advance of her
mother, before Mr. Cartwright turned from the road, and passing through
a gate in the invisible fence, joined her in a moment.

"How kind this is of you!" said he as he drew near;--"to appear thus
willing to receive again an intruder, whose quick return must lead you
to suspect that you are in danger of being haunted by him! And so I
think you are, Miss Fanny; and I will be generous enough to tell you at
once, that if you greet me thus kindly, I shall hardly know how to keep
away from Mowbray Park."

"But mamma is so glad to see you," said Fanny, blushing beautifully,
"that I am sure you need not try to keep away!"

Mrs. Mowbray now drew near to answer for herself; which she did very
cordially, assuring him that she considered these friendly and
unceremonious visits as the greatest kindness he could show her.

"It will be long, I think," said she, "before I shall have courage
sufficient to invite any one to this mournful and sadly-altered mansion:
but those whose friendship I really value will, I trust, have the
charity to come to us without waiting for an invitation."

"I wish I could prove to you, my dear madam," replied Mr. Cartwright
with respectful tenderness, "how fervently I desire to serve you: but,
surrounded by old and long-tried friends as you must be, how can a
new-comer and a stranger hope to be useful?"

This was touching a very tender point--and it is just possible that Mr.
Cartwright was aware of it, as he was present at the reading of the
will, and heard Sir Gilbert Harrington's first burst of rage on becoming
acquainted with its contents. But Mrs. Mowbray had either forgotten this
circumstance, or, feeling deeply disturbed at the fresh proof which
Helen had brought her of the falling off of an old friend, was disposed
to revert anew to it, in the hope of moving the compasssion and
propitiating the kindness of a new one.

"Alas! my dear sir," she said feelingly, "even old friends will
sometimes fail us; and then it is that we ought to thank God for such
happy accidents as that which has placed near us one so able and kindly
willing to supply their place as yourself.--Fanny, my love, the business
on which I have to speak is a painful one: go to your sister, dearest,
while I ask our kind friend's advice respecting this unhappy business."

"Good-b'ye then, Mr. Cartwright," said Fanny, holding out her hand to
him.--"But perhaps I shall see you again as you go away, for I shall be
in the garden."

"Bless you, my dear child!" said he fervently, as he led her a few steps
towards the shrubberies; "God bless, and have you in his holy keeping!"

"What an especial blessing have you, my dear friend," he said, returning
to Mrs. Mowbray, "in that charming child!--Watch over her, and guard her
from all evil! for she is one who, if guided in that only path which
leads to good, will be a saving and a precious treasure to all who
belong to her: but if led astray--alas! the guilt that the downfall of
so pure a spirit would entail on those whose duty it is to watch over
her!"

"She is indeed an excellent young creature!" said the proud mother,
whose darling the lovely Fanny had ever been; "but I think she wants
less guiding than any child I ever saw,--and it has always been so. She
learned faster than she could be taught; and her temper is so sweet, and
her heart so affectionate, that I really do not remember that she has
ever deserved a reprimand in her life."

"May the precepts of her admirable mother ever keep her thus!" said Mr.
Cartwright, as they seated themselves in the library, into which they
had entered. "But, oh! my dear lady! know you not that it is just such
sweet and gifted creatures as your Fanny that the Evil One seeks for his
own?--Nay, look not thus terrified, my excellent, my exemplary
friend,--look not thus terrified: if it be thus, as most surely it
is--think you that we are left without help to resist? My dear, my
admirable Mrs. Mowbray! yours is the hand appointed to lead this fair
and attractive being unspotted through the world. If great--awfully
great, as assuredly it is, be the responsibility, great--unspeakably
great, will be the reward. Then tremble not, dear friend! watch and
pray, and this unmeasurable reward shall be yours!"

Mrs. Mowbray, however, did tremble; but her trembling was accompanied by
a sweet and well-pleased consciousness of being considered by the
excellent man beside her as capable of leading this darling child to
eternal happiness and glory. The look, the accent of Mr. Cartwright went
farther than his words to convince her that he believed this power to be
hers, and she gazed at him with something of the reverence and humble
love with which Catholics contemplate the effigies of the saints they
worship.

"But what was the business, the painful business, my poor friend, upon
which you wished to consult me, before that vision of light had drawn
all our attention upon herself? What was it, my dear Mrs. Mowbray, you
wished to say to me?"

"I am hardly justified, I fear, Mr. Cartwright, thus early in our
acquaintance, in taking up your valuable time in listening to my sorrows
and my wrongs; but in truth I have both to bear; and I have at this
moment no friend near me to whom I can apply for advice how to proceed
with business that puzzles almost as much as it distresses me. May I,
then, my dear sir, intrude on your kindness for half an hour, while I
state to you the singular predicament in which I am placed?"

"Were it not, as most assuredly it is--were it not, dearest Mrs.
Mowbray, a true and deep-felt pleasure to me to believe that I might
possibly be useful to you, it would be my especial and bounden duty to
strive to be so. For what are the ministers of the Most High placed
amidst the people? wherefore are their voices raised, so that all should
hear them? Is it not, my friend, because their lives, their souls, their
bodies, are devoted to the service of those committed by Providence to
their care? And, trust me, the minister who would shrink from this is
unworthy--utterly unworthy the post to which he has been called. Speak,
then, dearest Mrs. Mowbray, as to one bound alike by duty and the most
fervent good-will to aid and assist you to the utmost extent of his
power."

The great natural gift of Mr. Cartwright was the power of making his
voice, his eye, and the flexible muscles of his handsome mouth, echo,
and, as it were reverberate and reiterate every word he spoke, giving to
his language a power beyond its own. What he now said was uttered
rapidly, but with an apparent depth and intensity of feeling that
brought tears of mingled gratitude and admiration to the eyes of Mrs.
Mowbray. After a moment given to this not unpleasing emotion, she said,

"It was from you, Mr. Cartwright, if I remember rightly, that I first
heard the enactments of my husband's will. When I give you my word, as I
now most solemnly do, that I had never during his life the slightest
knowledge of what that will was to be, I think you will believe me."

"Believe you!" exclaimed Mr. Cartwright. "Is there on earth a being
sufficiently depraved to doubt an assertion so vouched by you?"

"Oh, Mr. Cartwright! if all men had your generous, and, I will say, just
confidence in me, I should not now be in the position I am! But Sir
Gilbert Harrington, the person most unhappily chosen by Mr. Mowbray as
joint executor with myself, is persuaded that this generous will was
made in my favour solely in consequence of my artful influence over him;
and so deeply does he resent this imputed crime, that instead of
standing forward, as he ought to do, as the protector and agent of his
friend's widow, he loads the memory of that friend with insult, and
oppresses me with scorn and revilings, the more bitter because conveyed
to me by my own child."

Mrs. Mowbray wept.--Mr. Cartwright hid his face with his hands, and for
some moments seemed fearful of betraying all he felt. At length he fixed
his eyes upon her--eyes moistened by a tear, and in a low, deep voice
that seemed to indicate an inward struggle, he uttered, "_Vengeance is
mine, saith the Lord_!"

He closed his eyes, and sat for a moment silent,--then added, "Perhaps
of all the trials to which we are exposed in this world of temptation,
the obeying this mandate is the most difficult! But, like all uttered by
its Divine Author, it is blessed alike by its authority and its use.
Without it!--my friend! without it, would not my hand be grappling the
throat of your malignant enemy?--Without it, should I not even now be
seeking to violate the laws of God and man, to bring the wretch who can
thus stab an angel woman's breast to the dust before her? But, thanks to
the faith that is in me, I _know_ that his suspicious heart and cruel
soul shall meet a vengeance as much greater than any I could inflict, as
the hand that wields it is more powerful than mine! I humbly thank
Heaven for this, and remembering it, turn with chastened spirit from the
forbidden task of punishing him, to the far more Christian one of
offering aid to the gentle being he would crush.--Was it indeed from the
lips of your child, my poor friend, that these base aspersions reached
you?"

"It was indeed, Mr. Cartwright; and it was this which made them cut so
deeply. Poor Helen knew not what she was about when she secretly left
her mother's roof to visit this man, in the hope of restoring the
families to their former habits of intimacy!"

"Did Helen do this?" said Mr. Cartwright, with a sort of shiver.

"Yes, poor thing, she did; and perhaps for her pains may have won
caresses for herself. But, by her own statement--most reluctantly given,
certainly,--she seems to have listened to calumnies against her mother,
which I should have thought no child of mine would have borne to hear;"
and again Mrs. Mowbray shed tears.

"Gracious Heaven!" exclaimed Mr. Cartwright, fervently clasping his
hands, "Dear, tortured Mrs. Mowbray, turn your weeping eyes to Heaven!
those drops shall not fall in vain. It was your child--a child nurtured
in that gentle bosom, who repeated to you this blasphemy? Oh, fie! fie!
fie! But let us not think of this,--at least, not at this trying moment.
Hereafter means must be taken to stay this plague-spot from spreading
over the hearts of all whom nature has given to love and honour you.
Your pretty, gentle Fanny! she at least will not, I think, be led to
listen to any voice that shall speak ill of you:--sweet child! let her
be near your heart, and that will comfort you.--But, alas! my poor
friend, this maternal disappointment, grievous as it is, will not be all
you have to bear from this wretch, whom Heaven, for its good but
inscrutable purposes, permits to persecute you. There must be business,
my dear Mrs. Mowbray, business of great importance that this man must be
immediately called upon to execute with you,--the proving the will, for
instance; he must either do this, or refuse to act."

"Would to Heaven he might refuse!" said Mrs. Mowbray eagerly; "what a
relief would this be to me, Mr. Cartwright! Do you think there would be
any possibility of leading him to it?"

"Of leading him,--certainly not; for it is very clear, from his conduct,
that whatever you appeared to wish, _that_ he would be averse to do.
Your only hope of obtaining what would most assuredly be an especial
blessing for you, his formal renunciation of the executorship, would, I
think, be from writing to him immediately, and imperatively demanding
his joining you forthwith in proving the will. In such a state of mind
as he must be in before he would bear to utter his vile suspicions to
your daughter, I think it very likely he may refuse."

"And what would happen then, Mr. Cartwright?"

"You must place yourself in the hands of a respectable lawyer, totally a
stranger and unconnected with him, and he would put you in a way to
prove it yourself; after which he could give you no further trouble of
any kind: unless, indeed, your misguided children should continue to
frequent his house, and so become the means of wounding your ears and
your heart by repeating his calumnies. But this, I trust, the source of
all wisdom and goodness will give you power to prevent."

"With your help and counsel, Mr. Cartwright, I may yet hope to weather
the storm that seems to have burst upon me; but indeed it could hardly
have burst upon any one less capable of struggling with it! In what
language should I write to this, cruel man, who has so undeservedly
become my enemy?"

"There is no difficulty there, my friend. The shortest and most strictly
ceremonious form must be the best."

Mrs. Mowbray drew towards her materials for writing,--opened the
portfolio, which between its leaves of blotting-paper contained sundry
sheets of wire-wove, black-edged post,--placed one of them before
her,--took a pen and curiously examined its tip--dipped it delicately in
the ink, and finally turned to Mr. Cartwright, saying,

"How very grateful I should be if you would have the great kindness to
write it for me!"

"But the handwriting, my dear lady, must be yours."

"Oh yes! I know. But it would be so much more satisfactory if you would
sketch the form!"

"Then I am sure I will do it most readily." He drew the paper to him and
wrote,

"Mrs. Mowbray presents her compliments to Sir Gilbert Harrington, and
requests to know on what day it will suit him to meet her and her lawyer
in London, for the purpose of proving her late husband's will at
Doctors' Commons. The amount of the real property may be ascertained by
the rent-roll; that of the personal, by means of papers left by the
deceased, and a valuation of the effects made by competent persons. Mrs.
Mowbray begs leave to intimate that she wishes as little delay as
possible to intervene before the completion of this transaction."

Mr. Cartwright turned what he had written towards her, saying, "This is
the sort of letter which I should think it advisable to send."

Mrs. Mowbray drew forth another sheet, and transcribed it so rapidly
that it might be doubted whether she allowed herself time to read it as
she did so.

"And this should be despatched instantly, should it not?" she said,
folding and directing it.

"Indeed, I think so."

"Then will you have the kindness to ring the bell, Mr. Cartwright?"

"Bring me a lighted taper, John," said Mrs. Mowbray to the servant who
entered; "and let Thomas get a horse ready to take this letter
immediately to Oakley."

The taper was brought, the letter sealed and delivered, with
instructions that the bearer was to wait for an answer.

This important business concluded, Mr. Cartwright rose to go, saying,
"You have filled my heart and my head so completely by the communication
of Sir Gilbert Harrington's conduct, that I protest to you I do not at
this moment recollect why it was I troubled you with a visit this
morning. I shall recollect it, I dare say, when I see you no longer; and
if I do, you must let me come back before very long to tell you."

"But whether you recollect it or not," replied Mrs. Mowbray in a
plaintive tone, "I trust you will not let it be long before I see you:
otherwise, Mr. Cartwright, I shall not know how to proceed when I
receive Sir Gilbert's answer."

This appeal was answered by an assurance, uttered in a tone of the most
soothing kindness, that he would never be far from her when she wished
him near; and then, with a pastoral and affectionate pressure of her
hand, he left her.

Fanny kept her word, and was walking up and down about a dozen yards
from that end of the shrubbery which terminated in the road leading to
the house. Mr. Cartwright looked in that direction as he stepped from
the library window, and walking quickly to the spot, conversed with her
for several minutes as she stood leaning over the gate. Fanny smiled,
blushed, and looked delighted: her hand, too, was pressed with
affectionate kindness; and Mr. Cartwright returned to his vicarage and
his early dinner.




CHAPTER XI.

HELEN'S MISERY AT HER MOTHER'S DISPLEASURE.--SIR G. HARRINGTON'S LETTER
ON THE SUBJECT OF THE WILL.


When Miss Torrington and Helen retreated to the dressing-room
appropriated to the former, which was the apartment in which they
generally pursued their morning studies, they sat down disconsolately
enough to review the results of their enterprise.

"Everything is ten times worse than it was before, Helen!" said her
friend; "and it is all my fault!"

"Your fault?--Oh no! But I believe we are both of us too young to
interfere, with any reasonable hope of doing good, between those who in
age and wisdom are so greatly our superiors. Oh, Rosalind! I fear, I
fear that my dearest mother is very angry with me!"

"I cannot believe it, Helen. I hardly know how far a dutiful daughter
may be permitted to act like a rational human being; but to the best of
my knowledge and belief, your conduct has been such as to ensure you the
approbation and gratitude of any mother in the world--at least of any
reasonable mother. You know, Helen, how truly fond I have become of my
sweet-tempered guardianess.--Is there such a word?--I believe not;--of
my guardian, then. During the eight months that I have made one of her
family, I have never yet received a harsh word or unkind look from her,
though I have not the slightest doubt that I have deserved many: but
nevertheless, my own dear Helen, if she should blunder so egregiously as
to be really angry with you for acting with such zealous, tender
affection as you have done this morning merely because that obstinate
old brute Sir Gilbert was not to be brought to reason; if she should
really act thus--which I trust in God she will not--but if she should, I
do verily believe, in all sincerity, that I should hate her."

"No, you would not,--you would not be so unjust, Rosalind. What right
had we to volunteer our silly services? What right had I, in particular,
to fancy that if Sir Gilbert would not listen to the remonstrances of
his excellent and very clever wife, he would listen to mine?--I really
am ashamed of my silly vanity and most gross presumption; and if my
dear, dearest mother will but forgive me this once, as all naughty
children say, I do not believe she will ever have cause to chide me for
meddling again. Oh, Rosalind! if she did but know how I love her, she
could never have looked so coldly on me as she did when she told me I
had had walking enough!"

"I hope you are mistaken; I hope she did not look coldly on you. I hope
she is not angry; for if she be ... I shall go over to the enemy, Helen,
as sure as my name is Rosalind, and you may live to see me patting the
rough hide of that very shaggy British bull-dog, Sir Gilbert, every time
he says something impertinent against your mother."

"There is one thing," said Helen, slightly colouring, "that does in some
little degree reconcile me to the unfortunate visit of this morning--and
that this...."

"The having met Colonel Harrington!" cried Rosalind, interrupting her.
"Is it not so?"

"You are right," replied her friend composedly. "William Harrington,
when he was simply William Harrington, and not a dashing colonel of
dragoons, was kindness itself to me, when I was a puny, fretful girl,
that cried when I ought to have laughed. I cannot forget his
good-natured protecting ways with me, and I should have been truly sorry
if he had left the country again, as I suppose he will soon do, without
my seeing him."

"Truly, I believe you, my dear," replied Rosalind, laughing. "And your
plain William Harrington, too, seemed as willing to renew the
acquaintance as yourself. To tell you the truth, Helen, I thought I saw
symptoms of a mighty pretty little incipient flirtation."

"How can you talk such nonsense, when we have so much to make us sad!
Don't you think I had better go and see if mamma is come in, Rosalind? I
cannot express to you how miserable I shall be as long as I think that
she is angry with me."

At this moment the bell which announced that the luncheon was ready,
sounded, and poor Helen exclaimed, "Oh, I am so sorry! I ought to have
sought her again, before meeting her in this manner. But come! perhaps
her dear face will look smilingly at me again: how I will kiss her if it
does!"

But the warm heart was again chilled to its very core by the look Mrs.
Mowbray wore as the two girls entered the room. Fanny was already seated
next her. This was a place often playfully contested between the
sisters, and Helen thought, as she approached the door, that if she
could get it, and once more feel her mother's hand between her own, she
should be the happiest creature living.

But nothing could be less alike, than what followed her entrance, to the
imaginings which preceded it. Mrs. Mowbray was unusually silent to them
all, but to Helen she addressed not a single word. This was partly owing
to the feeling of displeasure which had recently been so skilfully
fastened in her breast, and partly to the anxiety she felt respecting
the answer of Sir Gilbert to her note.

In the middle of the silent and nearly untasted meal, the poetical Fanny
being in truth the only one who appeared to have much inclination to
eat, a salver was presented to Mrs. Mowbray, from whence, with a
heightened colour and almost trembling hand, she took a note. She
instantly rose from table and left the room. Helen rose too, but not to
follow her: she could no longer restrain her tears, and it was to hide
this from Fanny, and if possible from Rosalind, that she hastened to
leave them both, and shut herself in her own chamber to weep alone.

The present emotion of Helen cannot be understood without referring to
the manner in which she had hitherto lived with her mother, and indeed
to the general habits of the family. Mystery of any kind was unknown
among them; and to those who have observed the effect of this, its
prodigious influence on the general tone of family intercourse must be
well known. To those who have not, it would be nearly impossible to
convey in words an adequate idea of the difference which exists in a
household where the parents make a secret of all things of important
interest, and where they do not. It is not the difference between ease
and restraint, or even that more striking still, between sweet and sour
tempers in the chief or chiefs of the establishment; it is a thousand
times more vital than either. Without this easy, natural spontaneous
confidence, the family union is like a rope of sand, that will fall to
pieces and disappear at the first touch of any thing that can attract
and draw off its loose and unbound particles. But if it be important as
a general family habit, it is ten thousand times more so in the
intercourse between a mother and her daughters. Let no parent believe
that affection can be perfect without it; and let no mother fancy that
the heart of her girl can be open to her if it find not an open heart in
return. Mothers! if you value the precious deposit of your dear girls'
inmost thoughts, peril not the treasure by chilling them with any
mystery of your own! It is not in the nature of things that confidence
should exist on one side only: it must be mutual.

Never was there less of this hateful mildew of mystery than in the
Mowbray family during the life of their father. Whatever were the
questions that arose,--whether they concerned the purchase of an estate,
or the giving or accepting an invitation to dinner,--whether it were a
discussion respecting the character of a neighbour, or the flavour of
the last packet of tea,--they were ever and always canvassed in full
assembly; or if any members were wanting, it was because curiosity,
which lives only by searching for what is hid, lacking its proper
aliment, had perished altogether, and so set the listeners free.

This new-born secrecy in her mother struck therefore like a bolt of ice
into the very heart of the sensitive Helen. "Have I lost her for ever!"
she exclaimed aloud, though in solitude. "Mother! mother!--is it to be
ever thus!--If this be the consequence of my poor father's will, well
might Sir Gilbert deplore it! How happily could I have lived for ever,
dependent on her for my daily bread, so I could have kept her heart for
ever as open as my own!"

At this period, Helen Mowbray had much suffering before her; but she
never perhaps felt a pang more bitter in its newness than that which
accompanied the conviction that her mother had a secret which she meant
not to communicate to her. She felt the fact to be what it really was,
neither more nor less; she felt that it announced the dissolution of
that sweet and perfect harmony which had hitherto existed between them.

The note from Sir Gilbert Harrington was as follows:

     "Sir Gilbert Harrington presents his compliments to Mrs.
     Mowbray, and begs to inform her that he has not the slightest
     intention of ever acting as executor to the very singular and
     mysterious document opened in his presence on the 12th of May
     last past, purporting to be the last will and testament of his
     late friend, Charles Mowbray, Esquire.

     "Oakley, June 59th, 1834."

"The lady had gone to her secret bower" to peruse this scroll; and it
was fortunate perhaps that she did so, for it produced in her a
sensation of anger so much more violent than she was accustomed to feel,
that she would have done herself injustice by betraying it.

Mrs. Mowbray had passed her life in such utter ignorance of every kind
of business, and such blind and helpless dependence, first on her
guardians, and then on her husband, that the idea of acting for herself
was scarcely less terrible than the notion of navigating a seventy-four
would be to ladies in general. Her thoughts now turned towards Mr.
Cartwright, as to a champion equally able and willing to help and defend
her, and she raised her eyes to Heaven with fervent gratitude for the
timely happiness of having met with such a friend.

That friend had pointed out to her the fault committed by Helen in a
manner that made it appear to her almost unpardonable. To have doubted
the correctness of his judgment on this, or any point, would have been
to doubt the stability of that staff which Providence had sent her to
lean upon in this moment of her utmost need. She doubted him not: and
Helen was accordingly thrust out, not without a pang perhaps, from that
warm and sacred station in her mother's heart that it had been the first
happiness of her existence to fill. Poor Helen! matters were going worse
for her--far worse than she imagined, though she was unhappy and out of
spirits. She believed, indeed, that her mother was really angry; but,
terrible as her forebodings were, she dreamed not that she was already
and for ever estranged.

As soon as the first burst of passionate anger had been relieved by a
solitary flood of tears, Mrs. Mowbray called a council with herself as
to whether she should immediately despatch a messenger to request Mr.
Cartwright to call upon her in the evening, or whether she should trust
to the interest he had so warmly expressed, which, if sincere, must
bring him to her, she thought, on the morrow.

After anxiously debiting this point for nearly an hour, and deciding
first on one line of conduct, and then on the other, at least six
different times within that period, she at last determined to await his
coming; and concealing the doubts and fears which worried her by
confining herself to her room under pretence of headach, the three girls
were left to pass the remainder of the day by themselves, when, as may
easily be imagined, the important events of the morning were fully
discussed among them.

Fanny, after the motives of the visit to Oakley had been fully explained
to her, gave it as her opinion that Helen was wrong in going without the
consent of her mother, but that her intention might plead in atonement
for it. But her indignation at hearing of the pertinacious obstinacy of
Sir Gilbert was unbounded.

"Oh! how my poor father was deceived in him!" she exclaimed. "He must
have a truly bad heart to forsake and vilify my mother at the time she
most wants the assistance of a friend. For you know there is business,
Helen, relative to the will, and the property, and all that--Sir Gilbert
understands it all,--hard-hearted wretch! and I doubt not he thinks he
shall crush poor mamma to the dust by thus leaving her, as he believes,
without a friend. But, thank God! he will find he is mistaken."

"What do you mean, Fanny?" said Rosalind sharply.

"I mean, Rosalind, that mamma is _not_ without a friend," replied Fanny
with emphasis. "It has pleased God in his mercy to send her one when she
most needed it."

"I trust that God will restore to her and to us the old, well known, and
trusted friend of my father," said Helen gravely. "On none other can we
rest our hope for counsel and assistance, when needed, so safely."

"Even if you were right, Helen," replied her sister, "there would be
small comfort in your observation. Of what advantage to mamma, or to us,
would the good qualities of Sir Gilbert he, if it be his will, as it
evidently is, to estrange himself from us? What a contrast is the
conduct of Mr. Cartwright to his!"

"Mr. Cartwright!" cried Rosalind, distorting her pretty features into a
grimace that intimated abundant scorn,--"Mr. Cartwright! There is much
consolation, to be sure, in what an acquaintance of yesterday can do or
say, for the loss of such an old friend as Sir Gilbert Harrington!"

"It would be a sad thing for poor mamma if there were not," replied
Fanny. "Of what advantage to her, I ask you, is the long standing of her
acquaintance with Sir Gilbert, if his caprice and injustice are to make
him withdraw himself at such a time as this?--And how unreasonable and
unchristianlike would it be, Rosalind, were she to refuse the friendship
of Mr. Cartwright, because she has not known him as long?"

"The only objection I see to her treating Mr. Cartwright as a
confidential friend is, that she does not know him at all," said
Rosalind.

"Nor ever can, if she treats him as you do, Miss Torrington," answered
Fanny, colouring. "I believe Mr. Edward Wallace was an especial
favourite of yours, my dear; and that perhaps may in some degree account
for your prejudice against our good Mr. Cartwright.--Confess,
Rosalind;--is it not so?"

"He was indeed an especial favourite with me!" replied Rosalind gravely;
"and for the love I bear you all, and more particularly for your sake,
Fanny, and your poor mother's, I would give much--much--much, that he
were in the place which Mr. Cartwright holds."

"But if mamma is in want of a man to transact her business, why does she
not write to Charles and desire him to return?" said Helen. "The taking
his degree a few months later would be of little consequence."

"Charles?" said Fanny with a smile that seemed to mean a great
deal.--"Charles is one of the most amiable beings in the world, but the
most incapable of undertaking the management of business."

"How can you know any thing about it, Fanny?" said Helen, looking at her
with surprise.

"I heard Mr. Cartwright say to mamma, that Charles was quite a boy,
though a very charming one."

Helen looked vexed, and Rosalind fixed her eyes upon Fanny as if wishing
she would say more.

"In short," continued Fanny, "if Sir Gilbert chooses to cut us, I don't
see what mamma _can_ do so proper and so right as to make a friend of
the clergyman of the parish."

Her two companions answered not a word, and the conversation was brought
to a close by Fanny's drawing from her pocket, her bag, and her bosom,
sundry scraps of paper, on which many lines of unequal length were
scrawled; and on these she appeared inclined to her fix whole attention.
This was always considered by Helen and Rosalind as a signal for
departure: for then Fanny was in a poetic mood; a word spoken or a
movement made by those around her produced symptoms of impatience and
suffering which they did not like to witness. Their absence was indeed a
relief: for pretty Fanny, during the few moments of conversation which
she had enjoyed at the gate of the shrubbery in the morning, had
promised Mr. Cartwright to compose a hymn. To perform this promise to
the best of her power was at this moment the first wish of her heart:
for the amiable vicar had already contrived to see some of those
numerous offerings to Apollo with which this fairest and freshest of
Sapphos beguiled her too abundant leisure. He had pronounced her poetic
powers great, and worthy of higher themes than any she had hitherto
chosen: if was most natural, therefore, that she should now tax her
genius to the utmost, to prove that his first judgment had not been too
favourable: so the remainder of that long day passed in melancholy
enough _tete-a-tete_ between Rosalind and Helen, and in finding rhymes
for all the epithets of heaven on the part of Fanny.




CHAPTER XII.

MR. CARTWRIGHT'S LETTER TO HIS COUSIN.--COLONEL HARRINGTON.


The intelligent reader will not be surprised to hear that Mr. Cartwright
did not suffer himself to be long expected in vain on the following
morning. Fanny, however, was already in the garden when he arrived; and
as it so happened that he saw her as she was hovering near the shrubbery
gate, he turned from the carriage-road and approached her.

"How sweetly does youth, when blessed with such a cheek and eye as
yours, Miss Fanny, accord with the fresh morning of such a day as
this!--I feel," he added taking her hand and looking in her blushing
face, "that my soul never offers adoration more worthy of my Maker than
when inspired by intercourse with such a being as you!"

"Oh! Mr. Cartwright!" cried Fanny, avoiding his glance by fixing her
beautiful eyes upon the ground.

"My dearest child! fear not to look at me--fear not to meet the eye of a
friend, who would watch over you, Fanny, as the minister of Heaven
should watch over that which is best and fairest, to make and keep it
holy. Let me have that innocent heart in my keeping, my dearest child,
and all that is idle, light, and vain shall be banished thence, while
heavenward thoughts and holy musings shall take its place. Have you
essayed to hymn the praises of your God, Fanny, since we parted
yesterday?"

This question was accompanied by an encouraging pat upon her glowing
cheek; and Fanny, her heart beating with vanity, shyness, hope, fear,
and sundry other feelings, drew the MS. containing a fairly-written
transcript of her yesterday's labours from her bosom, and placed it in
his hand.

Mr. Cartwright pressed it with a sort of pious fervour to his lips, and
enclosing it for greater security in a letter which he drew from his
pocket, he laid it carefully within his waistcoat, on the left side of
his person, and as near, as possible to that part of it appropriated for
the residence of the heart.

"This must be examined in private, my beloved child," said he solemnly.
"The first attempt to raise such a spirit as yours in holy song has, to
my feelings, something as awful in it as the first glad movement of a
seraph's wing!... Where is your mother, Fanny?"

"She is in the library."

"Alone?"

"Oh yes!--at least I should think so, for I am sure she is expecting
you."

"Farewell, then, my dear young friend!--Pursue your solitary musing
walk; and remember, Fanny, that as by your talents you are marked and
set apart, as it were, from the great mass of human souls, so will you
be looked upon the more fixedly by the searching eye of God. It is from
him you received this talent--keep it sacred to his use, as David did,
and great shall be your reward!--Shall I startle your good mother,
Fanny, if I enter by the library window?"

"Oh no! Mr. Cartwright--I am sure mamma would be quite vexed if you
always went round that long way up to the door, especially in summer you
know, when the windows are always open."

"Once more, farewell, then!"

Fanny's hand was again tenderly pressed, and they parted.

It would be a needless lengthening of my tale, were I to record all that
passed at this and three or four subsequent interviews which took place
between the vicar and Mrs. Mowbray on the subject of proving the will.
Together with the kindest and most soothing demonstrations of rapidly
increasing friendship and esteem, Mr. Cartwright conveyed to her very
sound legal information respecting what it was necessary for her to do.
The only difficulty remaining seemed to arise from Mrs. Mowbray's
dislike to apply to any friend in London, either for their hospitality
or assistance, during the visit it was necessary she should make there
for the completion of the business. This dislike arose from the very
disagreeable difficulties which had been thrown in her way by Sir
Gilbert Harrington's refusing to act. It would have been very painful to
her, as she frankly avowed to her new friend, to announce and explain
this refusal to any one; and it was therefore finally arranged between
them, that he should give her a letter of introduction to a most
excellent and trustworthy friend and relation of his, who was
distinguished, as he assured her, for being the most honourable and
conscientious attorney in London,--and perhaps, as he added with a sigh,
the only one who constantly acted with the fear of the Lord before his
eyes.

Gladly did Mrs. Mowbray accede to this proposal, for in truth it removed
a world of anxiety from her mind; and urged as much by a wish to prove
how very easy it was to be independent of Sir Gilbert, as by the
strenuous advice of Mr. Cartwright to lose no time in bringing the
business to a conclusion, she fixed upon the following week for this
troublesome but necessary expedition.

It may serve to throw a light upon the kind and anxious interest which
the Vicar of Wrexhill took in the affairs of his widowed parishioner, if
a copy of his letter to his cousin and friend Mr. Stephen Corbold be
inserted.

     "TO STEPHEN CORBOLD, ESQ. SOLICITOR, GRAY'S INN, LONDON.

     "My dear and valued Friend and Cousin,

     "It has at length pleased God to enable me to prove to you how
     sincere is the gratitude which I have ever professed for the
     important service your father conferred upon me by the timely
     loan of two hundred pounds, when I was, as I believe you know,
     inconvenienced by a very troublesome claim. It has been a
     constant matter of regret to me that I should never, through
     the many years which have since passed, been able to repay it:
     but, if I mistake not, the service which I am now able to
     render you will eventually prove such as fairly to liquidate
     your claim upon me; and from my knowledge of your pious and
     honourable feelings, I cannot doubt your being willing to
     deliver to me my bond for the same, should your advantages from
     the transaction in hand prove at all commensurate to my
     expectations."

     [Here followed a statement of the widow Mowbray's business in
     London, with the commentary upon the ways and means which she
     possessed to carry that, and all other business in which she
     was concerned, to a satisfactory conclusion, much to the
     contentment of all those fortunate enough to be employed as her
     assistants therein. The reverend gentleman then proceeded
     thus.]

     "Nor is this all I would wish to say to you, cousin Stephen, on
     the subject of the widow Mowbray's affairs, and the advantages
     which may arise to you from the connexion which equally, of
     course, for her advantage as for yours, I am desirous of
     establishing between you.

     "I need not tell _you_, cousin Stephen, who, by the blessing of
     Heaven upon your worthy endeavours, have already been able in a
     little way to see what law is,--I need not, I say, point out to
     you at any great length, how much there must of necessity be to
     do in the management of an estate and of funds which bring in a
     net income somewhat exceeding fourteen thousand pounds per
     annum. Now I learn from my excellent friend Mrs. Mowbray, that
     her late husband transacted the whole of this business himself;
     an example which it is impossible, as I need not remark, for
     his widow and sole legatee to follow. She is quite aware of
     this, and by a merciful dispensation of the Most High, her
     mind appears to be singularly ductile, and liable to receive
     such impressions as a pious and attentive friend would be able
     to enforce on all points. In addition to this great and heavy
     charge, which it has pleased Providence, doubtless for his own
     good purposes, to lay upon her, she has also the entire
     management, as legal and sole guardian of a young Irish
     heiress, of another prodigiously fine property, consisting,
     like her own, partly of money in the English funds, and partly
     in houses and lands in the north part of Ireland. The business
     connected with the Torrington property is therefore at this
     moment, as well as every thing concerning the widow Mowbray's
     affairs, completely without any agent whatever; and I am not
     without hopes, cousin Stephen, that by the blessing of God to
     usward, I may be enabled to obtain the same for you.

     "I know the pious habit of your mind, cousin, and that you,
     like myself, never see any remarkable occurrence without
     clearly tracing therein the immediate finger of Heaven. I
     confess that throughout the whole of this affair;--the sudden
     death of the late owner of this noble fortune; the singular
     will he left, by which it all has become wholly and solely at
     the disposal of his excellent widow; the hasty and not overwise
     determination to renounce the executorship on the part of this
     petulant Sir Gilbert Harrington; the accident or rather series
     of accidents, by which I have become at once and so
     unexpectedly, the chief stay, support, comfort, consolation,
     and adviser of this amiable but very helpless lady;--throughout
     the whole of this, I cannot, I say, but observe the gracious
     Providence of my Master, who

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