Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  “Real? — real that you are beloved by me, Helen?” cried Colonel Harrington, absolutely forgetting that he was not tête-à-tête with his fair mistress.

  “And how is she to answer him, with you and me peering in her face, my lady? Ought we not to be ashamed of ourselves? — Come along this moment.”

  “Very well, — I will go, but only upon one condition, Helen. Remember, William, she is to indulge in no disagreeable reminiscences, and no melancholy anticipations, but look just as beautiful and as happy when I come back, as she does now.”

  This farewell advice was not thrown away; for it assisted Colonel Harrington to baffle, or to banish, all the fears and regrets respecting her mother’s displeasure at her conduct, which came like a cloud across the bright perspective of Helen’s hopes for the future. Her lover showed himself, indeed, sufficiently adroit, both in turning to account all the favourable circumstances attending their sudden engagement, and in using his mother’s authority to prevent her dwelling upon what was unfavourable. “Might not a second home,” he asked, “be of great advantage both to Fanny and Miss Torrington? Might not the connexion tend to keep Mr. Cartwright in order, and prevent his finally injuring Charles? And lastly, did she not think it would give pleasure to that Charles himself?”

  To Lady Harrington Helen had frankly recounted the history of Corbold’s hateful persecution, from its first beginning in London, to the fearful outrage it had led to on that eventful day; but she had begged her to repeat no more of it to Sir Gilbert and the colonel than might be sufficient to render her running away intelligible; and this request having been strictly complied with, for Lady Harrington seemed as unwilling as Helen to trust her men-folk with this history, Colonel Harrington, in conversing with her on all she had felt and suffered since her mother’s marriage, spoke of him only as a presumptuous man who had dared to persevere in addressing her after she had refused him.

  It was, probably, the heightened colour of Helen as she listened to this mention of his name that excited a greater degree of interest and curiosity concerning him than her lover had at first bestowed upon him.

  “Were these hateful addresses repeated by letter or in person, Helen?” said he, fixing his eyes upon her agitated face.

  “In person — in person,” answered Helen, impatiently.

  “Did your mother know, Helen, how greatly these addresses annoyed you?”

  “I have often attempted to tell her; but she has always evaded the subject, telling me strangely enough, and Heaven knows not very correctly, that it was plain I did not know my own mind, or else that I was guilty of affectation.”

  “Your mother, then, Helen, would have approved of this man’s addresses?”

  “I fear so.”

  “It was, then, to avoid her importunity that you left her house to-day?”

  Helen looked uneasy and distressed under this questioning, but answered, “No, Colonel Harrington; not her importunity, but his own.”

  The blood mounted to the young soldier’s face, and an angry glance shot from his eye, as if he suspected something approaching — but at great distance — to the truth.

  “He surely did not dare to be impertinent? Helen, you have not told me all: you came here in a state of dreadful agitation; tell me, I conjure you, all that has happened to you. — You will not, Helen? What am I to think of this? — that you have been insulted in a manner that you will not repeat to your affianced husband? For Heaven’s sake, put an end to this torture; I must know all.”

  “Your mother does know all, Colonel Harrington; make me not repeat the hateful history again.”

  “Will you refer me to my mother? Will you permit me to tell her that you have done so?”

  “Why, Colonel Harrington,” replied Helen, “should you wish to know more than I have told you? But of course I cannot object to your knowing all that has passed between us, — only I think he does not deserve the trouble you take in speaking of him.”

  Much to the surprise of Sir Gilbert and his lady, who were very amiably undergoing a real penance, by absenting themselves from the sight of happiness which touched them so nearly, Colonel Harrington was seen hurrying towards them, where they were beguiling the time as they could, by inhaling the cool breath of evening under the cedar-tree.

  “Take a turn with me, mother, will you?” said he in a voice not quite so gay as they expected to hear from him.

  Lady Harrington immediately rose, and passing her arm under his they walked off together at a rapid pace to a distant walk.

  “Mother!” he said stopping short and looking earnestly in her face, “tell me, I beseech you, every thing that you have learnt from Helen respecting that wretch Corbold. For some reason or other which I cannot understand, she is averse to entering upon the subject with me; but she assures me that you know every thing that has passed, and she has authorized my asking you for the particulars.”

  “Has she, William? Then she is a silly girl for her pains. But it is your fault, I dare say. You have been tormenting her with cross-questions about a vulgar villain that neither of you ought ever again to call to remembrance. Say no more about him or his precious cousin either. Surely we can find more agreeable subjects to talk about than the vicar and his cousin.”

  “Very likely, mother. But I cannot be easy till I know exactly what it was which caused Helen to leave her mother’s house in the manner she did this afternoon. Have I not a right to inquire? — can you blame me for doing so?”

  “No, my dear William, I do not. But heavily shall I blame you if you make an extorted confidence the source of quarrel between an officer of rank in his majesty’s service and a pettifogging methodist attorney of Wrexhill.”

  “Is it possible, mother, that you know me so little as to think there can exist the slightest chance of my doing this? Pray do not keep me in this fever for the sake of protecting me from a duel with Mr. Stephen Corbold.”

  “There you are, hot-head, — your father’s own son beyond all question. Now listen then to this infamous story, and take care that you do not renew a sorrow that is past, by improperly resenting it.”

  After this preface, Lady Harrington ventured to repeat to her son the narrative she had heard from Helen. He listened with very exemplary tranquillity, only occasionally biting his lips, but uttering no single word of any kind till it was concluded. He then said very quietly,— “Let us return to poor Helen, mother. — How admirably has she behaved throughout!”

  Lady Harrington looked up into her son’s face as if to discover whether his calmness were genuine; but his pocket handkerchief at that moment concealed his features, and, as he walked rapidly towards the house, she could only take it for granted that all was right, and follow him.

  Having reached the door of the room where he had left Helen, he opened it, but waited outside till his mother overtook him.

  “Go to her, mother,” said he, “and confess that you have told me every thing. I would rather you did this than me; — tell her too, that she has behaved gloriously, and, when I think you have put her at her ease about me, I will come to you.”

  So saying, he passed on, and entered a small parlour that was called his own at the front of the house.

  Sir Gilbert soon followed his lady, and, without going again over the disagreeable narrative at length, the whole business was made sufficiently intelligible to the baronet to make him extol in high terms the courage and presence of mind of his future daughter. This occupied a quarter of an hour excellently well, but still the colonel came not: and Helen, though with no feeling of alarm, certainly kept her eye upon the door with more steadiness than she was herself aware of. At length, Lady Harrington began to show evident symptoms of that state of mind usually called fidgeting. She rang the bell and asked if the colonel were at home. The servant did not know. Tea was ordered, and when it came the same question was repeated; but the same answer was not given, for the man said that the colonel had been seen to go out about half an hour ago.

  “Who sa
w him go, John?” said her ladyship; “did you?”

  “No, my lady, — it was the colonel’s own groom.”

  “Send him here.”

  The groom came, and was questioned as to how and when he had seen his master go out.

  “I was in the harness-room, my lady, and the colonel came in, and took down, one after another, all the coachman’s whips from the pegs, and at last, my lady, he chose the newest and the stoutest, and carried it away with him: — but he said never a word.”

  “Wheugh!” whistled Sir Gilbert with very considerable continuity of sound. “That will do, Dick — you may go. And so, his colonelship is gone forth with the stoutest and the best horsewhip he could find. Well, upon my word, I do not think he could have done better.”

  “Foolish boy!” exclaimed Lady Harrington. “He will get into some abominable scrape or other!”

  “Yes, my lady; — he will horsewhip the lawyer, you may depend upon it: — and then he will have damages to pay. But, for an only son, William is far from extravagant, and I really don’t feel inclined to begrudge him this little amusement.”

  “Nor I, either, Sir Gilbert, provided he takes care not to get into a downright vulgar brawl.”

  “Come, come, Helen,” said Sir Gilbert, turning towards her, “you must not look pale, my child, for this. You are not afraid that there will be any blunder, are you? and that the attorney will horsewhip the soldier? — No harm will be done, depend upon it, — except to my new horsewhip.”

  CHAPTER XII.

  MR. CORBOLD’S ADVENTURES.

  It was some time before Mr. Stephen Corbold recovered sufficiently from the effects of Helen’s libation to enable him to see where he was, or to perceive that where he was, she was not. The ceremony had, indeed been a painful one; but it at least did him the good service of dispelling the effects of the wine he had taken; and after a few moments more of winking and blinking, and wiping his smarting eyes, he descended the stairs to seek his cousin, a soberer, if not a better man than when he mounted them.

  Every thing was at this time in full activity on the lawn. Above two thousand people were assembled there, all more more than decently clad, and presenting altogether a very striking spectacle. Those who before dinner had been the company were now converted into spectators; many of them accommodated with seats in the shade, from whence they watched the chequered movements of the motley crowd. This cool and quiet position was in every way beneficial to those who had been tempted to heat themselves by drinking somewhat too freely of the vicar’s wine. Among these Mr. Corbold introduced himself: probably, more sober than any of them, — except, perhaps, the vicar himself, — but bearing in his “altered eye,” and general discomfiture of aspect, more visible traces of intemperance than any individual amongst them.

  Mr. Cartwright rose to meet him with sensations of considerable alarm. He fancied, from his appearance, that he was quite intoxicated, and feared the utterance of some folly which might explain the cause of his having absented himself more fully than was at all necessary.

  This idea was by no means lessened when his cousin beckoned him from the party amidst whom he sat, and gravely assured him that Miss Helen had very nearly murdered him.

  “Compose yourself, cousin Stephen — compose yourself. Where have you left her?”

  “Left her? — She left me, I tell you, blind, and almost suffocated. If you don’t wish to have the whole county set gossiping about Mrs. Mowbray’s will — your wife’s will I mean, — you had better let me see that vixen properly punished, cousin. As I live and breathe I will have revenge somehow.”

  “You shall, you shall, Stephen,” answered the vicar, endeavouring to quiet him. “She shall be treated in any way that you like, only don’t make a noise now.”

  “Will you give orders that she shall be confined to her room and kept on bread and water?”

  “To be sure I will, if you desire it. She shall be locked up as soon as the place is cleared: and you shall see it done, Stephen, if you will only step in, and take a nap in my library to recover yourself a little.”

  This proposal was, on the whole, a very tempting one; for Mr. Stephen Corbold’s head ached with considerable violence, not to mention that he had hardly yet recovered his eyesight, and was otherwise very ill at ease. So, without arguing the matter farther, he retreated to the comfortable station recommended to him, and soon fell into a slumber that lasted till the whole business of the day, prayers, blessing, and all, were done and over, and the place as solitary and forsaken as if no Serious Fancy Fair, no Israelitish missionary, and no Fababo had ever been heard of.

  It was then that the Vicar of Wrexhill remembered his cousin Stephen. And it was then that Fanny Mowbray, looking round the room in which the whole family was assembled, said, “Where is Helen?”

  This question, which, as it seemed, no one could answer, and the recollection of his library guest, coming at one and the same moment across him, made Mr. Cartwright start. Poor man! He was most heartily fatigued and worn out by the honours, glories, and hospitalities of the day, and wished for nothing on earth so much as soda-water and a bed-room bougie. But he felt that his labours were not over, though not exactly aware how much remained to be done.

  Having furnished himself with a light, and commanded that Miss Mowbray should be desired to meet him in the library, he repaired immediately to that room, where he found, as he expected, his serious and legal relative as fast asleep in his favourite arm-chair, as he himself wished to be in his bed.

  The ceremony of awaking him was soon performed; and when he once more stood on his feet, and had rubbed his still suffering eyes sufficiently to perceive where he was, the vicar addressed him thus, in the most gentle voice imaginable, hoping to soothe and get rid of him.

  “Well, cousin Stephen, you have had a nice nap; and now you had better go home. It is getting quite late. Good night, Stephen.”

  “What have you done with that murderous vixen, cousin Cartwright? I won’t stir till I know you have locked her up, as you promised to do.”

  “I have ordered her to come here, Stephen, that you may yourself hear what I mean to say to her.”

  “I don’t want to see her, cousin Cartwright,” replied the attorney, in a tone that betokened as much fear as dislike; “I only want to have her punished.”

  “And punished she shall be, depend upon that; but if you really do not wish to see her, cousin Stephen, you had better be off at once, for I expect her here every moment. Come along — I will walk with you myself as far as the lodge.”

  Whatever vengeance he wished executed on Helen, that he had no inclination to be present at it himself, was proved by the alacrity with which the attorney acceded to this proposal.

  “Only let me get my hat, — it’s quite a new hat, — and I’ll come with you this moment, cousin Cartwright.”

  The hat was found, and the two serious gentlemen set off together across the lawn; from that point, to within a few yards of the lodge, the lawyer entertained the minister with such an account of Helen’s attack upon him, as convinced the latter, that it would be quite necessary, in his parental character, to exercise such a degree of authority as might speedily bring the rebellious young lady to reason. It was already as dark as a fine night in July ever is, and the fine large oaks which in many places overhung the road, rendered some spots particularly sombre. At one of these, and just before they arrived at the Park gates, they heard the steps of a man whom they appeared to be overtaking.

  “Who can this loiterer be?” said Mr. Cartwright, “My people had orders to see that the grounds were cleared, and all the gates locked before this time.”

  “We shall be able to see him when we get beyond these trees,” replied Corbold.

  He was quite right: a few steps farther brought them to an open space, and there, as if waiting for them, stood the intruder, as still and silent as if he had been a statue.

  “We are two to one, however,” observed the attorney, “but he is a monstrous t
all fellow.”

  The next breath that issued from the lips of the vicar’s cousin came not in words, but in a most dismal, hideous, and prolonged yell; for the “tall fellow” had seized him by the collar with one hand, while with the other he brandished and applied a huge horsewhip to his shoulders with such energy, activity, and perseverance, that his howling startled the dull ear of night, as well as the frightened organs of his astonished kinsman. Though Mr. Cartwright had not the slightest intention of doing so unclerical a thing as interfering in the fray, he drew a little nearer to it than was quite prudent, from a natural curiosity to know who the bold mortal was who dared thus belabour his cousin.

  The light was quite sufficient to enable him to discern Colonel Harrington in the aggressor; but it should seem that it was not equally effective to the eyes of that gentleman himself, or he would hardly have ventured to permit a few apparently random, but very sharp cuts to visit the reverend shoulders of the owner of the soil on which he stood. This prodigious impiety, however, certainly took place, upon which the vicar, very properly anxious to put the earliest possible stop to such indecent proceedings, ran off as fast as his legs could carry him, and in about half an hour returned again with eight stout servingmen, armed with bludgeons, broom-sticks, and the great kitchen-poker.

  That he had not, in his agitation, forgotten the spot on which he had left his unfortunate cousin, was quickly made manifest to the ears of all who accompanied him; for dismal groans made themselves heard exactly from the place where the operation had been performed, and on examination the bruised body of Mr. Stephen Corbold was found extended on the grass, apparently too stiff and sore to have much power of movement left.

  Even during the hurried interval which Mr. Cartwright spent in his house while waiting for the gathering together of his host, he had found time to inquire of his wife if she had seen Helen, and being told in reply that she was nowhere to be found, the extremely disagreeable truth immediately suggested itself to him. In one short, sharp moment he remembered Colonel Harrington’s suppressed letter, Corbold’s permitted outrage, Helen’s escape, and the degrading lash that had so vigorously saluted his own shoulders.