CHAPTER VII.
A day or two after our hero’s visit to Mabel, he received orders to attend the Admiral, who required his presence in the cabin.
Lord Hood was alone, sitting at a table covered with papers, letters, and dispatches. His Lordship looked up, pointed with the pen in his hand to a seat, and then finished the letter he was employed upon when our hero entered. His secretary, the moment before, had left the cabin.
After a few minutes, Lord Hood looked up, and laying down his pen, said—
“Well, Master Thornton, how is your littleprotégée, Miss Arden?”
“Greatly grieved, my Lord; she continues to bewail the disappearance of her mother, and takes her lonely situation much to heart.”
“Yes, poor child!” said the Admiral in a kind, thoughtful tone, “she must feel her orphan state. I am interested in her, for her father did me a great service at one time—as important a service as one man can render another; I would, therefore, befriend his child.”
“Pardon me, my Lord,” timidly observed our hero; “but Master Howard Etherton declares that Mr. Hugh Granby Arden, his uncle, was never married, and died abroad.”
“Then he states that which is not the fact,” returned Lord Hood, sternly; “at least, with respect to his not being married. I was aware he died abroad—he died in France. However, I sent for you to let you know that I have appointed Lieutenant O’Loughlin to take the command of the French eighteen-gun corvette Babet, captured in Toulon. He is to take her to England, and will sail in company with the other captured ships. This is, of course, only a temporary command, and I will also place you in her.”
William Thornton’s cheek flushed with delight, as he started from his seat with surprise.
“The Babet, however,” continued Lord Hood, “has scarcely half her proper number of guns, for she was fitting out when seized; and her complement of men must be small, for we cannot spare more. I have communicated with Admiral Volney’s widow, and she is quite rejoiced to take her passage in the Babet to England; Miss Arden will thus be protected and taken care of, and you will have the satisfaction of personally seeing her restored to her relatives, which I am sure will gratify you exceedingly.”
“Indeed, my Lord,” put in the midshipman with enthusiasm, “you could not confer upon me a greater favour, and I trust I shall be worthy of your Lordship’s generous kindness.”
“You have behaved very well, young man,” said the Admiral, kindly, “and Sir Sidney Smith is highly pleased with your gallantry and coolness in that daring enterprise of his; he offers to take you with him, but I think you will prefer the appointment and trust I now propose to you.”
“For little Mabel Arden’s sake, my Lord, infinitely. Nevertheless, I feel exceedingly grateful to Captain Sir Sidney Smith for his offers of service. He said something to me yesterday of this, and, not knowing your Lordship’s generous intentions, I expressed myself delighted with the promotion he promised me.”
“Well, your absence will only be for the voyage,” said Lord Hood; “you will rejoin this ship by the first vessel coming out, as will also Lieutenant O’Loughlin.”
After a few more observations and directions from the Admiral, William Thornton retired, greatly delighted, and withpermission to proceed to the Robust, to impart the intelligence he had received to Madame Volney and Mabel Arden.
Whilst William Thornton was paying his visit on board the Robust, Master Howard Etherton was extremely busy writing a long letter home to go along with the Admiral’s dispatches to England. As this letter reached England some time before the arrival of Mabel Arden, owing to circumstances that will be hereafter explained, we must request our readers to follow us to the shores of England, in order that we may introduce to their notice the family of Master Howard Etherton, as they will figure in this narrative rather prominently.
Howard Etherton’s father, before he succeeded to the baronetcy and estates of the Ethertons, was a Captain Arden. He was a younger brother, his elder brother dying abroad, it was supposed, without heirs; indeed, it was not generally known that he was ever married. Godfrey Arden, the younger brother, therefore, as next heir, took possession of the estates. Etherton Manor was a very fine mansion, situated in a richly wooded and much-admired part of Hampshire, a few miles from Hurst Castle, and commanding an extensive view not only over the estuary of Southampton water, but also over the narrow sea dividing England from its garden—the Isle of Wight. At this period of our story Sir Godfrey Etherton was in his fiftieth year; he had two sons and seven daughters; his lady was some two or three years his junior. She was the only daughter of a tolerably rich slop-seller in Portsmouth. When Sir Godfrey married her, he was only a poor lieutenant in the navy, who was quite willing to overlook his wife’s want of birth in consideration of five thousand pounds hard cash, which he received with her.
At that time there was a very remote chance indeed of the poor lieutenant succeeding to the Etherton estates.
When Mrs. Arden became Lady Etherton she was exceedingly anxious to forget that her father, at this period gathered to his fathers, was ever called a slop-seller. All mention of her parents and relatives was forbidden. In person she was short and robust; she dressed richly and gaudily, but without the slightest taste, notwithstanding all the efforts of her well-educated but haughty and imperious daughters.
As Captain Arden, of the Dauntless, the Baronet was a morose and exacting commander, a man without one particle of feeling. It is quite sufficient to say he was universally detested by both officers and crew.
After succeeding to the baronetcy and the estates, he retired into private life, into which he carried all his morose and unamiable qualities. Always dissatisfied, he declared everything went wrong with him. His eldest daughter married, for love, a poor subaltern, and was banished the paternal mansion—nogreat punishment. His eldest son remained a gentleman, with nothing to do but to spend in dissipation and excesses of all kinds five times the amount allowed him yearly by his father; the consequences were that he became deeply involved in debt. The youngest son, Howard Etherton, the father’s favourite, was, as our readers know, a midshipman on board the Victory, expecting, through his father’s interest and position, rapid promotion, as soon as his six years’ probation had run out.
Howard Etherton’s disposition and nature were utterly unprincipled; he was also, for one so young, parsimonious to a degree; though handsomely allowed by his father, he hoarded all he possibly could spare to suit his own purposes hereafter. He, as well as the rest of the family, knew that his father came into the estates, from the fact of his elder brother having died without heirs; he also knew that there were rumours of his uncle in his youth having carried off a young lady somewhere in Italy, her parents opposing their union; but as years passed over, and no tidings of him reached his family, till an authentic account of his death became circulated, and afterwards fully proved, the previous account of his marriage was considered a mere rumour; and as neither wife nor child made their appearance, Captain Arden’s claims were undisputed.
When Howard Etherton therefore heard on board the Victory that the Duchesse de Coulancourt was positively, before she married the Duke, the widow of Mr. Granby Arden, and that a son and daughter by her first husband were living, he became, as we have stated, startled and confounded; for if such was positively the case, and could be proved, his father had no longer a just claim to either the baronetcy or the estates. But when he heard that Mabel Arden had declared that her brother was cruelly murdered at Lyons, he felt singularly relieved. Still, the knowledge that Mabel would be entitled to a very handsome fortune out of the estate especially provided by settlements and deeds appertaining to the Etherton estates, rankled in his heart and ill-regulated mind.
It was the intelligence, therefore, that he heard on board the Victory, that he sent in his letter to his father.
He also found vent for his hatred to young Thornton, of whom he spoke in the bitterest terms, imputing to his officiousness the recovery of Mabel Arden.
Sir Godfrey Etherton in his own mind always believed that his brother had eloped with a young lady from some city in Italy, but whether he married her or not he could not discover; neither, strange to say, could he find out the name of the young lady. There was a mystery enveloping the whole transaction that baffled him.
Of all his family, his wife was his only confidant; to her heconfided all his thoughts and conjectures, though she was the very last person, to judge by appearance and manner, that he would seek, though she was his wife, to repose confidence in for she was the very reverse of himself in everything; but the secret was, she was really attached to him, and he to her: at least he liked her as much as his selfish, cold nature would permit him to like anything.
Sir Godfrey was no schemer or plotter; he had nothing of the villain about him; had his brother married and left a child, a boy or a girl, he would have made no attempt to deprive either of their just rights. The morning he received his son’s letter he was sitting at breakfast with his lady and four of their daughters, two of them not out of their teens; the other two were of the respective ages of seventeen and nine. On opening the letter to satisfy Lady Etherton’s eager inquiries concerning her son, Sir Godfrey’s eye caught the name of Arden.
“God bless my soul!” he exclaimed, turning somewhat pale, and, indeed, no little agitated; “how extraordinary!”
“Nothing has occurred to our Henry, I trust?” said Lady Etherton, anxiously. “I always said it was a sad thing to expose our boy with his expectations.”
“His expectations!” repeated Sir Godfrey, sarcastically; and then added, “No, Jane; nothing has happened to him. I will read you his letter presently.”
The daughters, though no doubt as curious as their mother, took the hint, and left the room.
“You look disturbed, Godfrey,” said Lady Etherton. “What can Howard have written to vex you?”
“Well, the intelligence is not perhaps as bad as I thought,” said Sir Godfrey, drawing his breath as if relieved, and laying down the letter, having read it carefully through. “Do you know, Jane, that my suspicions that my brother Granby had married, are turning out correct?”
“Heavens! What do you mean?” exclaimed Lady Etherton, in her turn looking agitated. “Has he left any children?”
“He did leave a boy and a girl.”
“Merciful goodness,” interrupted the Baronet’s wife; “this is dreadful! We shall——”
“Nay,” interrupted Sir Godfrey; “you are frightening yourself without cause. I was startled myself; but the son, it seems, was beheaded.”
“Thank God!—that is—hem—really, Godfrey, you, you startled me—I do not mean to thank God that the unfortunate boy has lost his head, which is very singular; but I mean it would be very terrible for us to lose the title and estate, and with such a family of daughters.”
“Yes; it would be much better that I never had succeeded to it than that alternative; for by continuing in the service I should by this time have been a Rear-Admiral.”
“Thank God it is as it is; but how is it, then, with respect to the daughter; and where is Granby Arden’s wife?”
“I will read you the letter,” said the Baronet, “and then you will know as much as I do;” and he did so.
Lady Etherton listened eagerly. When he had concluded, she said, with some bitterness—
“Who is this youngster, William Thornton, who has made himself so conspicuous, and who, Howard says, is his bitter enemy?”
“Pooh!” returned the Baronet, contemptuously. “Boys’ enmity—a rival midshipman. I kept those troublesome urchins in their proper place when I commanded the Dauntless. But who this William Thornton is, it matters not; he is a midshipman, and, as Howard says, the natural son of one of Lord Hood’s coxwains. I saw his name mentioned in the paper as a very high-spirited boy, and that he was entrusted by Captain Sir Sidney Smith with the command of a little tender on the night they burned the French ships in Toulon—a miserable failure that affair. But with respect to this Mabel Arden, whom we may expect in England shortly, we must afford her our protection. The worst of it is, she is entitled to twenty thousand pounds fortune out of the estates when she becomes of age. Had her brother lived, the blow would have been an awful one, to lose title and estate, and forced to live upon a captain’s half-pay, or go to sea again.”
Lady Etherton looked startled.
“I hope—that is—I wonder if the boy really lost his head. Strange accident, was it not, Godfrey?”
“Accident!” repeated the Baronet, looking at his spouse rather contemptuously. “Why, Jane, what are you thinking of? You forget they are taking heads off in France at this moment for mere amusement; the boy must somehow or other have got mixed up in their bloody orgies, and they guillotined him. His mother, the Duchess of Coulancourt, it seems, fell into the hands of the Revolutionists in Toulon, and may at this moment be no more. There’s a strange mystery about my brother’s marriage, and his widow afterwards marrying a French duke.”
“How old is this little girl you expect to arrive in England?” questioned Lady Etherton.
“Howard says about eleven or twelve; a young delicate thing, not likely to live over the voyage.”
“If she does live,” said Lady Etherton, thoughtfully, “she would make a right good match for Howard, wouldn’t she?”
“You are early in your matrimonial speculations, Jane,” said the Baronet; “but you are not far out, from causes which you know. To have to pay over that twenty thousand pounds, and interest, now, would be inconvenient. The interest due on it, and her long minority, would make her a very eligible match for a younger son.”
“Very, indeed!” said Lady Etherton. “Would it not be as well to withdraw Howard from the navy, and let the young people grow up together?”
“I would not remove him from his profession at this period on any account. Charlotte’s marriage with young Lord Coldburgh will cost me ten thousand pounds; and if I have to pay up this twenty thousand pounds and interest at once to the trustees, if there are any, of Miss Arden, it will make a sum of thirty thousand pounds altogether; this will encumber the property for a time, and five other daughters to be disposed of. I am willing to make this sacrifice for Charlotte, for Lord Coldburgh, as to rank and influence, is a first-rate match.”
“Charlotte is a lucky girl,” said the mother, with a pleased look. Now, whether she herself thought so or not, will appear hereafter.
Having thus given our readers a brief outline of the Etherton family, of which our heroine, Mabel Arden, was expected to become a member on her arrival in England, we will return to our hero on board the Victory, which, still with the British fleet, lay off Toulon.