by Ellen Wood
“Well, Lionel, I see no reason why you should not rise to the top,” returned Mrs. Danesbury, as she looked at the merry eyes that glanced at hers over the glass of wine which he was drinking. “You have every advantage: ten times more than most young medical men have. If you will but be steady.”
“Oh, I shall be steady enough,” laughed Lionel.
Later in the evening, it was nearly eleven o’clock in fact, and when they had given up hopes of seeing Robert, they heard an arrival. Mrs. Danesbury’s face lighted up.
“There’s Robert!” she exclaimed. “It is sure to be he.”
Voices were hushed, and eyes turned to the door in expectation.
But no Robert appeared; neither he nor any body else. The hum of talking recommenced, and Mrs. Danesbury had flung herself back in her chair in angry disappointment, when a servant threw wide the door.
“Mr. Robert Danesbury.”
Something exceedingly brilliant loomed in, throwing the room and every body in it into the shade. It was Robert, in full regimentals. He had been attending an official dinner, from which he said he could not get away earlier. The delay in mounting the stairs had been occasioned by his stopping in the hall to take off his sword. He was the least good-looking of the four sons, for he inherited Mrs. Danesbury’s cross look and her cold eyes, but he was nearly as tall as William, and made a fine, upright soldier. Dressed as he was now, people were apt to say, What a handsome man! Mrs. Danesbury’s heart warmed to him, and a glow of pride ran through her veins and greeted the regimentals.
“But, Robert,” she whispered, “what is this that we hear of you? That you are acquiring dreadful habits, and get out of money as if it were dross.”
“Tush, mother! If you believe that, you’ll believe any thing,” returned the lieutenant. “What dreadful habits, pray!”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Mrs. Danesbury. ‘‘But your father worries himself to fiddlestrings over it, and Arthur looks as glum as he can look. You and Lionel are ruining them, they say.”
‘‘Of course they must grumble: such staid old codgers always do. If I do exceed my allowance a little I can’t help it: I must be like my brother officers. And you know they make money wholesale at the Works, so they need not grudge a tithe of it to me.”
“You might be more careful, Robert.” Robert smiled. ‘‘ So my father said to me to-day; made me promise it, in fact; so I suppose I must be. Don’t let them frighten you, mother. I am all right; but gentlemen must live as gentlemen.”
A very self-apparent axiom to the mind of Mrs. Danesbury. She looked at her two sons, at the splendid Robert, the merry-hearted Lionel, till all she possessed of maternal pride glowed within her — and it was no slight share. “I don’t believe half the croaking tales told of them,” she whispered to herself. “They would not look so well, and be so merry, if they were going the wrong way. Folks are envious of them, it’s my belief. It’s true they do get out of money, Robert sadly; but I dare say he can’t help it, and those Works are like a mine of wealth.”
“Isabel, my child,” whispered Mr. Danesbury, as he kissed her, when the evening was over, “I consented, because I think it will be better and happier both for you and Lord Temple. I have done it for the best, and I pray that it may prove so in the end.”
CHAPTER XII.
MRS. DANESBURY. THE WEDDING.
The rich tints of autumn were already tingeing the trees, for October had come in, and the ground trod crisply under Isabel Danesbury’s feet, as she walked briskly along to the house of Mrs. Philip Danesbury, a compact white villa, standing in the midst of an ornamental garden. Isabel found the Miss Hebers out, and her aunt alone.
“I will take off my shawl, aunt,” she said; “I am come to stay the day with you. Things were cross at home.”
“Meaning Mrs. Danesbury, Isabel.”
Isabel nodded. She sent her things away by a servant, and sat down by the fire, which began to look cheerful in the autumn weather. Mrs. Philip Danesbury thought that her face wore a peculiar look of sad care. Her marriage was drawing near, and would be celebrated ere the month was out.
William Danesbury had returned home in the beginning of September for good, and Lionel, who had come down for a few weeks’ holiday, was also at home.
“Has Lord Temple left, Isabel?”
“He left after breakfast this morning. He comes down again for a day or two next week, and then not again until—”
Isabel had answered without looking up, in an abstracted sort of manner, her gaze fixed on the fire. She brought her sentence to an end without concluding it, and then burst into a sudden flood of tears. Mrs. Philip could scarcely speak for concern.
“Child, what is this? Is any thing amiss between you and Lord Temple?”
“No, no, aunt. I believe it is the contrast my own individual happiness presents to other troubles, looming in the distance, that makes me so sad. Aunt, it is about the boys. I fear they are going all wrong: I fear both William and Lionel have taken to drink deeply. They drink a great deal at dinner: papa, you know, takes very little wine; Reginald takes more than papa, but not so much as they do: still it is not what they take at dinner, if it ended there, but afterward they go out, and I am sure they get more.”
Mrs. Philip Danesbury mused. “What a pity that they go out after dinner! Why does not your mamma strive to give them some home attraction?”
“Oh, aunt, there it is! there is where I feel that all is wrong. They may have acquired a habit of taking too much in town, but we ought to try and prevent them doing so, now that they are at home. And, instead of being helped out of their bad ways, they are being driven on in them. They are indeed. Mamma will not make home sociable for them, ask her as we will. They have wished her, three or four times, to have friends in the evening, and she will not.”
“Ah!” groaned Mrs. Philip, “if your own dear, judicious mother had but lived! Young men must have evening society, and young girls too, and there’s no earthly reason why they should not. How goes the old rhyme, Isabel?— ‘All work, and no play, makes Jack a dull boy.’ Keep up your sons too strictly, deny them pleasant evening hours at home, and they will inevitably seek for such elsewhere. Then, in nine cases out of ten, they lose them-selves. Mrs. Danesbury ought to see this.”
“But she can not; will not: she makes home a dull, miserable place. We never hear any thing more cheerful in the house than complaints of her headaches, and orders that we should be still. I do not like to speak against Mrs. Danesbury, aunt, but I can not but see that my brothers are not dealt with as they ought to be.”
“Headaches!” contemptuously returned Mrs. Philip; “for headaches, read a querulous temper, an ill-conditioned frame of mind. That is how it has been with Mrs. Danesbury.”
Isabel need not have apologized for speaking her mind, for certainly Mrs. Danesbury was a most ill-judging woman. A few mornings before this conversation, Lionel had gone to her, and, leaning over her chair in his good-tempered way, said he wanted to ask her a favor.
“Well, what is it?” she returned.
“I want you to have the Boyds and the Ropers this evening.”
“How can you be so unreasonable?” retorted Mrs. Danesbury. “The house is upset with the fuss kept up for Lord Temple, without the trouble of bringing other people into it.”
“It can all go into the same fuss,” jokingly returned Lionel. “But where’s the trouble of having half a dozen folks to tea, and giving them a sandwich after it and a glass of wine? If there is any trouble, band it over to the servants, there are enough of them. Now do, there’s a good mother: we never have a soul here; we might as well be shut up in a monastery. I’ll go and secure them; I want something to do this morning.”
“I tell you, Lionel, I can’t have them, and I won’t be teased,” was the reply of Mrs. Danesbury. “Rubbish about a monastery! The least noise or excitement gives me the headache. I can’t have visitors, and that’s enough.”
Lionel flew into a passion.
Though naturally sweet-tempered, he could be provoked to passion on occasions. He flung a book, which he happened to be holding, on to a side-table, where it upset and broke a beautiful candlestick of Bohemian glass, and swore aloud as he banged the door to after him.
“If a fellow tries to keep on the square, she won’t let him,” muttered be, as he strode across the hall.
Significant words!
Scarcely had Lionel left the room when, strange to say, William entered it, with a somewhat similar petition, though he had known nothing of that just proffered by his brother. His request was, that Mrs. Philip Danesbury and her two nieces might be asked to spend the evening with them.
Mrs. Danesbury felt provoked; she believed that William and Lionel must be in league together, and she gave him a most harsh and unqualified refusal, demanding, with a sneer, if they thought to take Danesbury House by storm. Isabel had been privy to this, and she now related it to Mrs. Philip. “That night,’’ she concluded, sinking her voice, and pressing her handkerchief to her eyes, “that night they came home the — the — worse for what they had taken!”
“Both?” uttered Mrs. Philip Danesbury.
“They did, aunt. We were gone to bed, but it was spoken of in the house the next morning; and last night it was the same again! Lionel also was not himself on Sunday night. Sunday night!”
A pause ensued. Mrs. Philip broke out. “Mrs. Danesbury has much to answer for. Some day I shall be telling her so.”
“Whether mamma was up last night watching for them, I can not tell,” resumed Isabel. “It was past twelve when they came in, and she darted out of the room in her dressing-gown and saw them both. William could not walk straight, and Lionel was worse. He could not get up to bed without assistance. They were both had into mamma’s room this morning before papa left it. I don’t know what transpired. Mamma did not appear at breakfast; she only came down when Lord Temple was leaving. Since then, she has been quarrelling with every one. She quarrelled with papa; she abused William shamefully; she tried to quarrel with me. Altogether, it was so uncomfortable that I came here to you.”
“Mrs. Danesbury is out of her mind,” said Mrs. Philip.
“When she gives way to these fits of temper she is almost like it. This unhappy conduct of the boys — especially of Lionel — augments her irritation and renders it unbearable.”
“Isabel, you may depend upon it that she is blaming herself in her heart of hearts. She was foolishly indulgent to Robert and Lionel, and, when they were grown into young men, supplied them with a ruinous quantity of pocket-money; yet was always thwarting them in trifles, through her own crabbed temper, and making their home miserable. Any thing like self-control or self-reliance she never taught them. I repeat that she will have much to answer for. And where are the boys now?”
“William went off to the Works before mamma’s storm was over; and Lionel departed toward Brookhurst with his gun, and said he should not be home for a day or two.
Of course all this is hard for papa to bear. My heart aches for him. Do you not think him very much altered, aunt?”
“Yes,” shortly replied Mrs. Philip. “But we will go to other topics, my dear, for talking of this unhappiness will not mend it. Is your wedding-day fixed?”
“Yes,” answered Isabel, with a rosy blush. “It is to be very soon indeed.”
“When, my dear?”
“On the eighteenth.”
“Why, that will be in a fortnight?”
“Yes, I said very soon.”
“Not any too soon, Isabel. I hope, my child, yon will enter upon a happier home than you have had with Mrs. Danesbury. The more I see of Lord Temple, the more I like him.”
“Reginald has been, as it were, an isolated man, and has had to look abroad for ties of interest. I do hope the future may be happier for both of us. His mother died when he was at Eton, and no one has supplied her place to him. He says he shall tell me all his wild feats when we are married,” she added, smiling; “and that, when I hear them, I shall wonder he can be as good as he is. Louisa Serle is coming down to the wedding.”
“Indeed! As bride’s-maid, I suppose. Who proposed that?”
“I did. Mamma has been so — so—”
“So very cross-grained altogether, and so indignant that Mary and Anna Heber should be two of your bride’s-maids, that you proposed her niece Louisa as a sop in the pan,’’ interrupted Mrs. Philip. “I understand it all, my dear, just as well as you do. She took a prejudice against Mary and Anna before they ever came near the place, and she retains it. I have never been able to tell why, for more excellently good girls, gentle, loving, and lovely, it would be difficult to find. I conclude she dislikes them, as belonging to me, and I know she has always hated me like poison.”
Isabel laughed. “I do think she is only jealous of you, aunt Philip.”
“Jealous of what? She is more favourably placed than I am. Her house is finer, her income is larger; she has a good husband and children, I have neither. Her position is in all points superior to mine, save that she grants and grumbles away her days, and makes herself and every body about her uncomfortable; and I keep up a cheerful spirit, and try to make folks happy, and myself with them. What has she to be jealous of, Isabel?”
“Perhaps of the cheerful spirit,” answered Isabel. “But — talking of marriage — has it ever struck you, aunt, that Arthur has any particular attachment?”
Mrs. Philip Danesbury looked at her niece; a peculiar look. ‘‘Has it occurred to you to think so, Isabel?”
“Not quite to think so, perhaps, but to doubt whether it is so or not. I allude to Mary Heber.”
“Just so,” said Mrs. Philip. “It has been my opinion, for a long while past, that they are attached to each other; but I am almost sure that Arthur has not spoken to her of it in words. She has liked Arthur from the first moment she ever saw him; admired, respected him; thought him worthy of esteem. It is curious to observe how she unconsciously adopts all Arthur’s ideas and opinions. And I feel equally sure that Arthur likes and admires her beyond any one.”
“Then it is strange he should not speak out,” observed Isabel. “Mary would make him a good wife.”
“She would. Such a wife as your mother made Mr. Danesbury. Save in fortune, she is a fit wife for the first lord in the land. She is worthy of Arthur Danesbury: I can not give her higher praise than that. Arthur is very dear to me; dearer than she is. Many a time have I held him in my arms, and cried over him, wishing he was mine. It was at the time I was hoping for children, and they never came. I think I will tell you a secret, Isabel. Mary has had two very desirable offers of marriage. One was from Thomas Boyd — but of course this is between our-selves. She refused them both; therefore I can not help thinking that her heart must be filled with somebody else, and that somebody Arthur Danesbury.”
“I should like Mary to be Arthur’s wife. Aunt Philip,” resumed Isabel, after a pause, “William promised to spend the evening here: I asked him to come for me. I thought it might he keeping him from other temptations. Here come Mary and Anna: what glowing colours their walk has given them!”
They hastened in when they saw Isabel; lady-like, sweet-looking girls, with well-formed figures and elastic steps.
“I hope you have come to spend the day,” called out Mary, as she took Isabel’s hand.
“The whole day, till nine or ten at night,” said Isabel.
“Oh, that’s delightful!” uttered Anna. “What a talk we can have about the wedding!”
And a “talk” they did have: trust young ladies for that, when a wedding is on foot. Dresses, bonnets, veils, wreaths, gloves, and etiquette; carriages and bouquets; breakfast and ceremony; and Mrs. Philip was as eager as they were.
William Danesbury came in to tea, and they went from talking to mirth. Laughter abounded — that sort of laughter which is contagious, irresistible, though nobody can tell precisely what has caused it. William related to them some ludicrous story, current in the neighbourhood,
and that set them on. Then they had music and singing; and William’s flute, on which he played well, happened to be there. At half past nine, they thought it must be half past eight, so gaily had the time passed. Soon after, Isabel put her things on.
“Now, William, mind your evenings are spent here as often as you like,” said Mrs. Philip. “Isabel will be gone, and Danesbury House may be dull. And bring Lionel with you so long as he is at home.”
“All right, aunt, I’ll come. But I can’t answer for Lionel.”
They said good-night, and walked fast over the road. Isabel’s heart was beating. She wanted to say something, yet did not know how.
“William, I am so sorry that I am going.”
“Sorry? You ought to be glad. Why are you sorry?”
“To leave you. I think I could make — I should try, if I remained — to make things pleasant for you at home.”
“My time will be mostly taken up in the Works, Isabel.”
“I mean your evenings. I wish,” she added, in a lower voice, “I could leave you as securely as I can Arthur.”
“Oh, I shall be all right.”
“Dearest William,” she whispered, “let me say a word of advice. If you were really to take to — to — that dreadful habit, I think I should almost die of grief and shame. I am sure papa would. Will you try and overcome it for my sake?”
He hesitated. He was evidently perturbed. “I was thrown amid random fellows in London, Isabel, fast spirits, every one of them; of course I got led away now and then, but there will not be the inducement to it down here.”
“Then how was it — last night—” she stopped in distress.
“Ah! one can not get out of fast habits and into slow ones all in a minute,” was his reply. “But it shall come.”
Her tears were dropping first. ‘‘Will you make me a promise, William; here, as we stand alone in the still night, with those glowing stars above us — that you will overcome this miserable failing?”