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 perfectbeau idéalof 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 andmost powerfulmen 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 acapital 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."
"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 acapital 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 acatalogue raisonnéof names makes but a dull chapter.
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 ridea-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 ridinga-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.
"Howverylucky 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;"
——"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!"
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!'"
"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.
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 somignonnein size, but she