CHAPTER XXIX.
HOW MARK WYLDER'S DISAPPEARANCE AFFECTED HIS FRIENDS.
Lady Chelford's wrath was now turned anew upon Wylder--and theinconvenience of having no visible object on which to expend it was oncemore painfully felt. Railing at Mark Wylder was, alas! but beating theair. The most crushing invective was--thanks to his adroitmystification--simply a soliloquy. Poor Lady Chelford, who loved to givethe ingenious youngsters of both sexes, when occasion invited, a piece ofher mind, was here--in the case of this vulgar and most provokingdelinquent--absolutely tongue-tied! If it had been possible to tellWylder what she thought of him it would, perhaps, have made her moretolerable than she was for some days after the arrival of that letter, toother members of the family.
The idea of holding Miss Brandon to this engagement, and proroguing hernuptials from day to day, to convenience the bridegroom--absent withoutexplanation--was of course quite untenable. Fortunately, the marriage,considering the antiquity and the territorial position of the twofamilies who were involved, was to have been a very quiet affairindeed--no festivities--no fire-works--nothing of the nature of a countygala--no glare or thunder--no concussion of society--a dignified butsecluded marriage.
This divested the inevitable dissolution of these high relations of agreat deal of its _eclat_ and ridicule.
Of course there was abundance of talk. Scarce a man or woman in the shirebut had a theory or a story--sometimes bearing hard on the lady,sometimes on the gentleman; still it was an abstract breach of promise,and would have much improved by some outward and visible sign ofdisruption and disappointment. Some concrete pageantries to be abolishedand removed; flag-staffs, for instance, and banners, marquees,pyrotechnic machinery, and long tiers of rockets, festoons of evergreens,triumphal arches with appropriate mottoes, to come down and hidethemselves away, would have been pleasant to the many who like a joke,and to the few, let us hope, who love a sneer.
But there were no such fopperies to hurry off the stage disconcerted. Inthe autumnal sun, among the embrowned and thinning foliage of the nobletrees, Brandon Hall looked solemn, sad and magnificent, as usual, with asort of retrospective serenity, buried in old-world glories and sorrows,and heeding little the follies and scandals of the hour.
In the same way Miss Brandon, with Lord and Lady Chelford, was seen nextSunday, serene and unchanged, in the great carved oak Brandon pew, raisedlike a dais two feet at least above the level of mere Christians, whofrequented the family chapel. There, among old Wylder and Brandontombs--some painted stone effigies of the period of Elizabeth and thefirst James, and some much older--stone and marble knights praying ontheir backs with their spurs on, and said to have been removed nearlythree hundred years ago from the Abbey of Naunton Friars, when thatfamous monastery began to lose its roof and turn into a picturesque ruin,and by-gone generations of Wylders and Brandons had offered up theirconspicuous devotions, with--judging from their heathen lives--I fear novery remarkable efficacy.
Here then, next Sunday afternoon, when the good vicar, the Rev. WilliamWylder, at three o'clock, performed his holy office in reading-desk andpulpit, the good folk from Gylingden assembled in force, saw nothingnoticeable in the demeanour or appearance of the great Brandon heiress. Agoddess in her aerial place, haughty, beautiful, unconscious of humangaze, and seen as it were telescopically by mortals from below. No shadowof trouble on that calm marble beauty, no light of joy, but a serenesuperb indifference.
Of course there was some satire in Gylingden; but, in the main, it was aloyal town, and true to its princess. Mr. Wylder's settlements were notsatisfactory, it was presumed, or the young lady could not bring herselfto like him, or however it came to pass, one way or another, that sprigof willow inevitably to be mounted by hero or heroine upon such equivocaloccasions was placed by the honest town by no means in her breast, butaltogether in his button-hole.
Gradually, in a more authentic shape, information traceable to old LadyChelford, through some of the old county families who visited at Brandon,made it known that Mr. Wylder's affairs were not at present by any meansin so settled a state as was supposed; and that a long betrothal notbeing desirable on the whole, Miss Brandon's relatives thought itadvisable that the engagement should terminate, and had so decided, Mr.Wylder having, very properly, placed himself absolutely in their hands.
As for Mark, it was presumed he had gone into voluntary banishment, andwas making the grand tour in the spirit of that lackadaisical gentlemanin the then fashionable song, who says:--
From sport to sport they hurry me, To banish my regret, And if they win a smile from me, They think that I forget.
It was known to be quite final, and as the lady evinced no chagrin andaffected no unusual spirits, but held, swanlike and majestic, the eventenor of her way, there was, on the whole, little doubt anywhere that thegentleman had received his _conge_, and was hiding his mortification andhealing his wounds in Paris or Vienna, or some other suitable retreat.
But though the good folk of Gylingden, in general, cared very little howMark Wylder might have disposed of himself, there was one inhabitant towhom his absence was fraught with very serious anxiety and inconvenience.This was his brother, William, the vicar.
Poor William, sound in morals, free from vice, no dandy, a quiet,bookish, self-denying mortal, was yet, when he took holy orders andquitted his chambers at Cambridge, as much in debt as many a scamp of hiscollege. He had been, perhaps, a little foolish and fanciful in thearticle of books, and had committed a serious indiscretion in the matterof a carved oak bookcase; and, worse still, he had published a slendervolume of poems, and a bulkier tome of essays, scholastic and theologic,both which ventures, notwithstanding their merits, had turned outunhappily; and worse still, he had lent that costly loan, his signmanual, on two or three occasions, to friends in need, and one way oranother found that, on winding up and closing his Cambridge life, hisassets fell short of his liabilities very seriously.
The entire amount it is true was not very great. A pupil or two, and asuccess with his work 'On the Character and Inaccuracies of Eusebius,'would make matters square in a little time. But his advertisements for aresident pupil had not been answered; they had cost him something, and hehad not any more spare bread just then to throw upon the waters. So theadvertisements for the present were suspended; and the publishers,somehow, did not take kindly to Eusebius, who was making the tour of thatfastidious and hard-hearted fraternity.
He had staved off some of his troubles by a little loan from an insurancecompany, but the premium and the instalments were disproportioned to hisrevenue, and indeed very nearly frightful to contemplate. The Cambridgetradesmen were growing minatory; and there was a stern person who held arenewal of one of his old paper subsidies to the necessities of hisscampish friend Clarkson, who was plainly a difficult and awful characterto deal with.
Dreadful as were the tradesmen's peremptory and wrathful letters, thepromptitude and energy of this latter personage were such as to produce asense of immediate danger so acute that the scared vicar opened hisdismal case to his Brother Mark.
Mark, sorely against the grain, and with no good grace, at last consentedto advance L300 in this dread emergency, and the vicar blessed hisbenefactor, and in his closet on his knees, shed tears of thankfulnessover his deliverance, and the sky opened and the flowers locked bright,and life grew pleasant once more.
But the L300 were not yet in his pocket, and Mark had gone away; andalthough of course the loan was sure to come, the delay--any delay in hissituation--was critical and formidable. Here was another would-becorrespondent of Mark's foiled for want of his address. Still he wouldnot believe it possible that he could forget his promise, or shut up hisbowels of mercy, or long delay the remittance which he knew to be sourgently needed.
In the meantime, however, a writ reached the hand of the poor Vicar ofNaunton Friars, who wrote in eager and confused terror to a friend in theMiddle Temple on the dread summons, and learned that he was now 'incourt,' and must 'appear,'
or suffer judgment by default.
The end was that he purchased a respite of three months, by adding thirtypounds to his debt, and so was thankful for another deliverance, and wasconfident of the promised subsidy within a week, or at all events afortnight, or, at worst, three months was a long reprieve--and thesubsidy must arrive before the emergency.
In this there can be no dismay; My ships come home a month before the day.
When the 'service' was over, the neighbourly little congregation, with asprinkling of visitors to Gylingden, for sake of its healing waters,broke up, and loitered in the vicinity of the porch, to remark on thesermon or the weather, and ask one another how they did, and to see theBrandon family enter their carriage and the tall, powdered footman shutthe door upon them, and mount behind, and move off at a brilliant pace,and with a glorious clangour and whirl of dust; and, this incident over,they broke up gradually into little groups, in Sunday guise, and manycolours, some for a ramble on the common, and some to tea, according tothe primitive hours that ruled old Gylingden.
The vicar, and John Hughes, clerk and sexton, were last out; and thereverend gentleman, thin and tall, in white necktie, and black, a littlethreadbare, stood on the steps of the porch, in a sad abstraction. Thered autumnal sun nearing the edge of the distant hills,
Looked through the horizontal misty air Shorn of its beams--
and lighted the thin and gentle features of the vicar with a melancholyradiance. The sound of the oak door closing heavily behind him and JohnHughes, and the key revolving in the lock recalled him, and with a sighand a smile, and a kindly nod to John, he looked up and round on thefamiliar and pretty scenery undecided. It was not quite time to go home;his troubles were heavy upon him, too, just then; they have theirparoxysms like ague; and the quiet of the road, and the sweet air andsunshine, tempted him to walk off the chill and fever of the fit.
As he passed the little cottage where old Widow Maddock lay sick, RachaelLake emerged. He was not glad. He would rather have had his sad walk inhis own shy company. But there she was--he could not pass her by; so hestopped, and lifted his hat, and greeted her; and then they shook hands.She was going his way. He looked wistfully on the little hatch of oldWidow Maddock's cottage; for he felt a pang of reproach at passing herdoor; but there was no comfort then in his thoughts, only a sense of fearand hopeless fatigue.
'How is poor old Mrs. Maddock?' he asked; 'you have been visiting thesick and afflicted, and I was passing by; but, indeed, if I were capableat this moment I should not fail to see her, poor creature.'
There was something apologetic and almost miserable in his look as hesaid this.
'She is not better; but you have been very good to her, and she is verygrateful; and I am glad,' said Rachel, 'that I happened to light on you.'
And she paused. They were by this time walking side by side; and sheglanced at him enquiringly; and he thought that the handsome girl lookedrather thin and pale.
'You once said,' Miss Lake resumed, 'that sooner or later I should betaught the value of religion, and would learn to prize my greatprivileges; and that for some spirits the only approach to the throne ofmercy was through great tribulation. I have often thought since of thosewords, and they have begun, for me, to take the spirit of aprophecy--sometimes that is--but at others they sound differently--like adreadful menace--as if my afflictions were only to bring me to the gateof life to find it shut.'
'Knock, and it shall be opened,' said the vicar; but the comfort wassadly spoken, and he sighed.
'But is not there a time, Mr. Wylder, when He shall have shut to thedoor, and are there not some who, crying to him to open, shall yet remainfor ever in outer darkness?'
'I see, dear Miss Lake, that your mind is at work--it is a goodinfluence--at work upon the great, theme which every mortal spirit oughtto be employed upon.'
'My fears are at work; my mind is altogether dark and turbid; I amsometimes at the brink of despair.'
'Take comfort from those fears. There is hope in that despair;' and helooked at her with great interest in his gentle eyes.
She looked at him, and then away toward the declining sun, and she saiddespairingly--
'I cannot comprehend you.'
'Come!' said he, 'Miss Lake, bethink you; was there not a time--and novery distant one--when futurity caused you no anxiety, and when thesubject which has grown so interesting, was altogether distasteful toyou. The seed of the Word is received at length into good ground; but agrain of wheat will bring forth no fruit unless it die first. The seeddies to outward sense, and despair follows; but the principle of life isworking in it, and it will surely grow, and bring forth fruit--thirty,sixty, an hundredfold--be not dismayed. The body dies, and the Lord oflife compares it to the death of the seed in the earth; and then comesthe palingenesis--the rising in glory. In like manner He compares thereception of the principle of eternal life into the soul to the droppingof a seed into the earth; it follows the general law of mortality. It toodies--such a death as the children of heaven die here--only to germinateafresh with celestial power and beauty.'
Miss Lake's way lay by a footpath across a corner of the park to Redman'sDell. So they crossed the stile, and still conversing, followed thefootpath under the hedgerow of the pretty field, and crossing anotherstile, entered the park.
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