“Do you really think so, Miss Torrington? What do you say, Helen? do you believe this to have been the case?”
“He is very often at the Park,” replied Helen.
“But do you think it possible that Mrs. Mowbray would communicate to him what she would conceal from you?” said Colonel Harrington.
This question was also left unanswered by Helen; but Rosalind again undertook to reply. “You will think me a very interfering person, I am afraid, Colonel Harrington,” said she; “but many feelings keep Helen silent which do not influence me; and, as far as I am capable of judging, it is extremely proper, and perhaps important, that Sir Gilbert should know that this holy vicar never passes a day without finding or making an excuse for calling at the Park. I can hardly tell how it is, but it certainly does happen, that these visits generally take place when we — that is, Helen and I — are not in the house; but ... to confess my sins, and make a clear breast at once, I will tell you what I have never yet told Helen, and that is, that I have ordered my maid to find out, if she can, when Mr. Cartwright comes. He slipped in, however, through the library window twice yesterday, so it is possible that he may sometimes make good an entry without being observed; for it is impossible that my Judy can be always on the watch, though she is so fond of performing her needlework in that pretty trellised summer-house in the Park.”
“What an excellent vidette you would make, Miss Torrington,” said the young man, laughing. “But will you tell me, sincerely, and without any shadow of jesting, why it is that you have been so anxious to watch the movements of this reverend gentleman?”
“If I talk on the subject at all,” she replied, “it will certainly be without any propensity to jesting; for I have seldom felt less inclined to be merry than while watching the increasing influence of Mr. Cartwright over Mrs. Mowbray and Fanny. It was because I remarked that they never mentioned his having called, when I knew he had been there, that I grew anxious to learn, if possible, how constant his visits had become; and the result of my espionage is, that no day passes without a visit.”
“But what makes you speak of this as of an evil, Miss Torrington?”
“That is more than I have promised to tell you,” replied Rosalind; “but, as we have become so very confidential, I have no objection to tell you all — and that, remember, for the especial use of Sir Gilbert, who perhaps, if he knew all that I guess, would not think he was doing right to leave Mrs. Mowbray in such hands.”
“And what then, Miss Torrington, is there, as you guess, against this gentleman?”
Rosalind for an instant looked puzzled; but, by the rapidity with which she proceeded after she began, the difficulty seemed to arise solely from not knowing what to say first. “There is against him,” said she, “the having hurried away from hearing the will read to the presence of Mrs. Mowbray, and not only announcing its contents to her with what might well be called indecent haste, considering that there were others to whom the task more fitly belonged, and who would have performed it too, had they not been thus forestalled; — not only did he do this, but he basely, and, I do believe, most falsely, gave her to understand that her son, the generous, disinterested, warm-hearted Charles Mowbray, had manifested displeasure at it. Further, he has turned the head of poor little Fanny, by begging copies of her verses to send — Heaven knows where; and he moreover has, I am sure, persuaded Mrs. Mowbray to think that my peerless Helen is in fault for something — Heaven knows what. He has likewise, as your account of those secret letters renders certain, dared to step between an affectionate mother and her devoted child, to destroy their dear and close union by hateful and poisonous mystery. He has also fomented the unhappy and most silly schism between your pettish father and my petted guardian; and moreover, with all his far-famed beauty and saint-like benignity of aspect, his soft crafty eyes dare not look me in the face. And twelfthly and lastly, I hate him.”
“After this, Miss Torrington,” said the Colonel, laughing, “no man assuredly could be sufficiently hardy to say a word in his defence; — and, all jesting apart,” he added very seriously, “I do think you have made out a very strong case against him. If my good father sees this growing intimacy between the Vicarage and the Park with the same feelings that you do, I really think it might go farther than any other consideration towards inducing him to rescind his refusal — for he has positively refused to act as executor — and lead him at once and for ever to forget the unreasonable cause of anger he has conceived against your mother, Helen.”
“Then let him know it without an hour’s delay,” said Helen. “Dear Colonel Harrington! why did you let your horse go? Walk you must, but let it be as fast as you can, and let your father understand exactly every thing that Rosalind has told you; for though I should hardly have ventured to say as much myself, I own that I think she is not much mistaken in any of her conclusions.”
“And do you follow her, Helen, up to her twelfthly and lastly? Do you too hate this reverend gentleman?”
Helen sighed. “I hope not, Colonel Harrington,” she replied; “I should be sorry to believe myself capable of hating, but surely I do not love him.”
The young ladies, in their eagerness to set the colonel off on his road to Oakley, were unconsciously, or rather most obliviously, guilty of the indecorum of accompanying him at least half the distance; and at last it was Rosalind, and not the much more shy and timid Helen, who became aware of the singularity of the proceeding.
“And where may we be going, I should like to know?” she said, suddenly stopping short. “Helen! is it the fashion for the Hampshire ladies to escort home the gentlemen they chance to meet in their walks? We never do that in my country.”
Colonel Harrington looked positively angry, and Helen blushed celestial rosy red, but soon recovered herself, and said, with that species of frankness which at once disarms quizzing,
“It is very true, Rosalind; we seem to be doing a very strange thing: but we have had a great deal to say that was really important; yet nothing so much so, as leading Colonel Harrington to his father with as little delay as possible. — But now I think we have said all. Good-b’ye, Colonel Harrington: I need not tell you how grateful we shall all be if you can persuade Sir Gilbert to restore us all to favour.”
“The all is but one, Helen; but the doing so I now feel to be very important. Farewell! Take care of yourselves; for I will not vex you, Helen, by turning back again. Farewell!”
The letter which interrupted the tête-à-tête between Mrs. Mowbray and the vicar was an immediate consequence of this conversation, and was as follows: —
“Madam,
“Upon a maturer consideration of the possible effects to the family of my late friend which my refusal to act as his executor may produce, I am willing, notwithstanding my repugnance to the office, to perform the duties of it, and hereby desire to revoke my late refusal to do so.
(Signed) “Gilbert Harrington.
“Oakley, July 12th, 1833.”
“Thank Heaven,” exclaimed Mrs. Mowbray as soon as she had read the note,— “Thank Heaven that I have no longer any occasion to submit myself to the caprices of any man! — And yet,” she added, putting the paper into Mr. Cartwright’s hands, “I suppose it will be best for me to accept his reluctant and ungracious offer?”
Mr. Cartwright took the paper, and perused it with great attention, and more than once. At length he said,
“I trust I did not understand you. What was it you said, dearest Mrs. Mowbray, respecting this most insulting communication?”
“I hardly know, Mr. Cartwright, what I said,” replied Mrs. Mowbray, colouring. “How can I know what to say to a person who can treat a woman in my painful situation with such cruel caprice, such unfeeling inconsistency?”
“Were I you, my valued friend, I should make the matter very easy, for I should say nothing to him.”
“Nothing? — Do you mean that you would not answer the letter?”
“Certainly: that is what I should recomme
nd as the only mode of noticing it, consistently with the respect you owe yourself.”
“I am sure you are quite right,” replied Mrs. Mowbray, looking relieved from a load of difficulty.
“It certainly does not deserve an answer,” said she, “and I am sure I should not in the least know what to say to him.”
“Then let us treat the scroll as it does deserve to be treated,” said the vicar with a smile. “Let the indignant wind bear it back to the face of the hard-hearted and insulting writer!”
And so saying, he eagerly tore the paper into minute atoms, and appeared about to consign them to the conveyance he mentioned, but suddenly checked himself, and with thoughtful consideration for the gardener added,
“But no! we will not disfigure your beautiful lawn by casting these fragments upon it: I will dispose of them on the other side of the fence.”
CHAPTER XIII.
MRS. MOWBRAY’S DEPARTURE FOR TOWN. — AN EXTEMPORARY PRAYER.
It was about nine o’clock in the evening of this same day, that Mr. Cartwright was seen approaching across the lawn towards the drawing-room windows, — and that not only by Judy, but by the whole family, who were assembled there and preparing to take their tea. His daughter Henrietta was on his arm; yet still she rather followed than walked with him, so evidently did she hang back, while he as evidently endeavoured to quicken his pace and draw her forward.
The eyes of the whole party were attracted to the windows. Mrs. Mowbray and Fanny, approaching different sashes, each stepped out to welcome them; while Miss Torrington and Helen were content to watch the meeting from their places on a sofa.
“Did you ever see a man drive a pig to market, Helen?” said Rosalind. “In my country they do it so much more cleverly! for look you, if that man were half as clever as he thinks himself, he would just go behind the young lady and pull her backwards.”
“I am not quite sure that the scheme would answer in this case,” replied Helen. “Look at the expression of her face, and I think you will perceive that nothing but a very straightforward pull could induce her to approach at all.”
“Perhaps she is disgusted at her odious father’s presumption and forwardness?” cried Rosalind, starting up. “If that be so, I will patronise her. — Poor thing! look at her eyes; I am positive she has been weeping.”
With this impression, Miss Torrington stepped forward, and, as the party entered, greeted the young lady very kindly: though she hardly appeared to perceive that her father entered with her.
She received in return a look which, with all her acuteness, she found it extremely difficult to interpret. There was a strong and obvious expression of surprise in it; and then, in the faint attempt at a smile about the corners of the mouth, — which attempt, however, was finally abortive, — Rosalind fancied that she traced a movement of gratitude, though not of pleasure; but over every feature a settled gloom seemed to hang, like a dark veil, obscuring, though not quite hiding every emotion.
The difficulty of understanding why and wherefore she looked as she did, was quite enough, with such a disposition as Rosalind’s, to make her an object of interest; and therefore, when Mrs. Mowbray made her the speech that she was expressly brought to hear, expressive of hope that she would have the great kindness to console that part of her family who were to remain at home by affording them the pleasure of her company, Rosalind relieved her from the immediate necessity of replying, by saying gaily,
“She will and she must, Mrs. Mowbray, for we will take her prisoner; but I will promise, as far as I am concerned, that her durance shall be as gentle as possible.”
It was now the vicar’s turn to look astonished, which he certainly did in no small degree, and ran some risk of destroying the favourable impression which his daughter’s look of misery had created, by saying, in the sweet tone that Miss Torrington relished so little,
“Henrietta, my love — I trust you will be sensible of, and grateful for, the amiable and condescending kindness of this young lady.”
What the gloomy Henrietta answered, Rosalind did not stay to hear; for by a movement of that impatience with which she always listened to all that Mr. Cartwright spoke, she turned from him and walked out of the window. She only stayed, however, long enough to gather a bunch of geranium blossoms, which she put into the hand of Henrietta as she placed herself beside her on re-entering.
“Are they not superb, Miss Cartwright?”
Miss Cartwright again answered by a look which once more set all Rosalind’s ingenuity at defiance. It now spoke awakened interest, and an almost eager desire to look at and listen to her; but the heavy gloom remained, while her almost total silence gave her an appearance of reserve greatly at variance with the expression which, for a moment at least, she had read in her eyes.
Helen was now, in full assembly, informed for the first time that she was to attend her mother to town. Had this been told her, as every thing was wont to be, in the dear seclusion of her mother’s dressing-room, she would have hailed the news with joy and gratitude, and believed that it predicted a return of all the happiness she had lost: but now the effect was wholly different; and though she mastered herself sufficiently to send back the tears before they reached her eyes, and to declare, in the gentle voice of genuine unaffected obedience, that she should be delighted if she could be useful to her, the manner of the communication sank deeply and painfully into her heart.
An answer having arrived by return of post from Stephen Corbold, Esq., solicitor, stating that commodious apartments were secured in Wimpole-street, and himself ready, body and spirit, to do the lady’s bidding, Mrs. Mowbray fixed on the following day for her journey. Miss Cartwright gave one mutter beyond a tacit consent to remain at the Park during her absence, and the party separated; Fanny however declaring, as she wrapped a shawl of her mother’s about her head, that she must enjoy the delicious moonlight by accompanying the vicar and his daughter as far as the Park gates.
“And return alone, Fanny?” said her mother.
“Why not, dear lady?” replied Mr. Cartwright. “Her eye will not be raised to the lamp of night without her heart’s rising also in a hymn to her Lord and Saviour; and I am willing to believe that her remaining for a few moments beside her pastor and her friend, while under its soft influence, will not be likely to make her thoughts wander in a wrong direction.”
“Oh no, Mr. Cartwright,” replied the mother; “I am sure, if you think it right, she shall go.”
At this moment Miss Torrington was giving a farewell shake of the hand to Henrietta when, instead of receiving from her an answering “Good night!” something very like a groan smote her ear.
“How very strange!” she exclaimed aloud, after a silence that lasted till the vicar, with Fanny leaning on his arm, and his sulky daughter following, had half traversed the lawn towards the gate that opened upon the drive.
“What is strange, Miss Torrington?” said Mrs. Mowbray.
“Almost every thing I see and hear, ma’am,” replied the young lady.
“At what hour are we to set off to-morrow, mamma?” inquired Helen.
“At ten o’clock, my dear. You had better give your orders to Curtis to-night, Helen, as to what she is to put up for you. I hope we shall not be obliged to remain in town above two or three days.”
“If you have any thing to do in your room to-night, Helen, it is time to betake yourself to it,” observed Rosalind; “for,” looking at her watch, “it is very near midnight, though Miss Fanny Mowbray is walking in the Park. — Good night, Mrs. Mowbray.” But Mrs. Mowbray did not appear to hear her.
“Good night, mamma,” said Helen, approaching to kiss her.
She received a very cold salute upon her forehead, and a “Good night, Helen,” in a tone that answered to it.
Rosalind took the arm of her friend within hers as they left the room together, and a silent pressure spoke her sympathy; but neither of them uttered a word that night, either concerning Mr. Cartwright’s increasing influence, or
Mrs. Mowbray’s continued coldness to Helen. They both of them felt more than they wished to speak.
The following morning brought Mr. Cartwright and his daughter again to the Park a few minutes before the post-horses arrived for Mrs. Mowbray’s carriage, and in a few minutes more every thing was ready for the departure of the travellers. Helen gave a farewell embrace to Fanny and Rosalind; while the attentive vicar stepped into the carriage before Mrs. Mowbray entered it, to see that as many windows were up and as many windows down as she wished, and likewise for the purpose of placing a small volume in the side pocket next the place she was to occupy. He then returned to her side, and as he handed her in, whispered, while he pressed her hand,
“Do not fatigue yourself with talking, my dear friend: it is a great while since you have taken a journey even so long as this. In the pocket next you I have placed a little volume that I wish — oh, how ardently! — that you would read with attention. Will you promise me this?”
“I will,” replied Mrs. Mowbray, deeply affected by his earnestness— “God bless you!”
“The Lord watch over you!” responded Mr. Cartwright with a sigh. He then retreated a step, and Helen sprang hastily into the carriage without assistance; the door was closed, and before the equipage reached the lodges Mrs. Mowbray had plunged into a disquisition on regeneration and faith — the glory of the new birth — and the assured damnation of all who cannot, or do not, attain thereto.
Meanwhile the party left under the shade of the portico looked at each other as if to inquire what they were to do next. On all occasions of morning departure there is generally a certain degree of désœuvrement left with those who remain behind. In general, however, this is soon got over, except by a desperate idler or a very mournful residuary guest; but on the present occasion the usual occupations of the parties were put completely out of joint, and Rosalind, at least, was exceedingly well disposed to exclaim —
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 64