The Vicar of Wrexhill Part 2

"WILLIAM JACOB CARTWRIGHT.

"Wrexhill Vicarage, May 9th, 1833."

Little calculated as this letter may seem to excite violent emotion, it threw poor Mrs. Mowbray into an agony of renewed grief. The idea of seeing for the first time since her loss a person who, however well-meaning in his wish to visit her, must be cla.s.sed as a stranger, was inexpressibly painful; and, unused to encounter difficulty or inconvenience of any kind, she shrank from receiving Mr. Cartwright with a degree of weakness which made her son, who had seldom left her side, tremble to think how little she was calculated to endure with firmness the desolation that had fallen upon her.

"Oh! no! no! no!" she exclaimed vehemently, "I cannot see him--I can see no one!--keep him from me, Charles,--keep every one from me, if you would not see me sink to the earth before your eyes!"

"My poor mother!..." said Charles, tenderly taking her hand, "do not let me see you tremble thus--you will make me tremble too! and we have need of strength--we have all great need of strength in this time of trial."

"But you will not let this clergyman come to me, Charles!... Oh no! you cannot be so cruel!"

"The very weakness which makes you shrink from this, my dearest mother, is the strongest proof that such a visit should be sought, and not avoided. Where, mother, are we any of us to look for the strength we want, except from Him whose minister now seeks to comfort us?"

"He cannot comfort me!... Can you, can Helen, can my pretty f.a.n.n.y comfort me?... Then how should he?... Charles, Charles, there is no comfort in seeing this strange man; you cannot think there is: then why do you still stand with his note in your hand as if doubtful how you ought to answer it?"

"No, mother, I am not doubtful: my very soul seems to sink within me, when I think that he whose precepts...."

Tears--copious woman-like tears choked the utterance of the athletic youth, who looked as if he could fight and conquer in any strife to which fortune or misfortune could lead him. But the softness that now mastered him came not of weakness, but of strength--strength of every feeling that might do honour to a man. For a few moments he gave way to this burst of pa.s.sionate sorrow, and the mother and son wept together.

"My own dear Charles!" said Mrs. Mowbray, taking his hand and pressing it to her heart, "how could I think for a moment that you would urge me to do what was so very painful!"

"It can hardly be so painful for you to do as for me to urge it, dearest mother; and yet I must do so ... because I think it right. There is no other person in the world, I think, of what rank or station soever, for whose admittance I would plead so earnestly, unless it were one who, like this gentleman, offered to visit you as the minister of G.o.d."

Mrs. Mowbray buried her face in her handkerchief, and turned from him with a movement of impatience. At this moment, Helen, and her constant attendant Rosalind, entered the room. Mr. Cartwright's note was still in Charles's hand, and he gave it to his sister, saying, "Helen, I think my mother ought not to refuse this visit; but she is very averse to it. I would not pain her for the world; but this is not a moment to refuse any one who offers to visit us as the minister of Heaven."

Helen read the note, and her pale cheeks were washed anew with tears as she did so.

"It is meant kindly," she said as she laid it upon the table; "but it is very soon for my poor mother to meet a stranger."

Rosalind's eyes rested on the folded note, and some feeling suggested by the consciousness that she too was almost a stranger brought a flush to her cheek, and led her to step back towards a distant sofa. Whether Charles observed or understood the movement, she knew not; but he followed and placed the letter in her hand.

The words of Helen seemed to comfort her mother, for she again looked up, and addressing Charles, almost reproachfully, said,

"Your sister Helen thinks as I do, Charles: it would almost be an outrage against decency to receive a stranger on such a day as this."

"Had the request to wait upon you come from our late clergyman, mother, would you have refused it?"

"Certainly not: but he was a friend of long standing, not a stranger, Charles."

"But had he not been a clergyman, mother, you would hardly have wished him to choose such a time to make a visit here; and our not having yet become familiar with Mr. Cartwright in the common intercourse of society, seems to me no sufficient reason for refusing to see him in the sacred character in which he has offered to come...."

Some powerful emotion checked his utterance; but in a moment he added,

"I would wish once more to pray beside my father before he goes hence to be no more seen by us on earth."

"Mother!..." cried Helen, dropping on her knees and throwing her arms round her.

The appeal was answered by an embrace in which their tears mingled, and poor Mrs. Mowbray, whose aching heart seemed to dread every new emotion, said, while something like a shudder ran through her frame, "Do with me as you will, my children.... I cannot bear much more.... But perhaps it would be better for me that I should sink to rest beside him!"

"My dearest friend!" exclaimed Rosalind, coming softly towards her and impressing a kiss upon her forehead, "you have not lost all for which you might wish to live."

"Oh, true ... most true!... Where is my poor f.a.n.n.y, Rosalind? You will answer this letter for me, Charles?... I will be ready to see Mr.

Cartwright whenever he chooses to come.... It will be a dreadful trial--but I am willing to endure it."

The young man left the room, and such an answer was returned to the clergyman's note as brought him to the door within an hour after it was despatched.

Rosalind, in obedience to Mrs. Mowbray's hint, had sought f.a.n.n.y in her chamber, where she seemed to find a sad consolation in versifying all the tender recollections of her lost father that her memory could supply; but she instantly obeyed the summons, and when Mr. Cartwright arrived, the whole family were a.s.sembled in the drawing-room to receive him.

The person, voice, and address of this gentleman were singularly well calculated to touch and soothe hearts suffering from affliction; and after the first painful moment in which they raised their eyes to meet those of the first stranger who had been admitted to look upon their sorrow, there was nothing in the interview to justify the terror with which the thought of it had inspired the poor widow.

Either from tact or feeling, Mr. Cartwright seemed to avoid speaking to Mrs. Mowbray, and it was to her son that he addressed such words as the occasion called for. Meanwhile, from time to time his eyes rested with gentle pity on the three beautiful girls, whose tears flowed silently as they listened to him.

But though the manner of Mr. Cartwright was full of the tenderest kindness, it was apparently embarra.s.sed. He evidently feared to touch or to dwell upon the agonising subject which occupied all their thoughts, and it was Charles who had the courage to turn this melancholy meeting to the only purpose for which it could be desirable, by saying--though with a faltering voice,--

"Mr. Cartwright ... may we ask you to pray with us beside the coffin that contains the body of my father?"

The clergyman started, and his countenance expressed a mixture of satisfaction and surprise, his manner instantly became more solemn--more devout, and he replied eagerly, rising from his chair as he spoke, as if willing to hasten to the scene to which he was called,

"Most gladly--most joyfully, my dear sir, will I kneel with you and your amiable family to implore the Divine grace. I did not know.... I had hardly dared to hope.... Indeed I feared from the festivities ... from the style in which...."

"I trust, sir," interrupted young Mowbray almost in a whisper, "that you do not suppose us unused to prayer, because we have rejoiced in the blessings which Heaven has bestowed?"

"I thank my G.o.d that it is not so," replied the clergyman, pressing the young man's hand affectionately; "and I will praise His holy name for every symptom I find that the world, my dear young friend, has not taken too strong a hold upon your heart. May we through His grace walk righteously together in the path in which it hath pleased Him to place us side by side!"

Charles Mowbray's heart was ever open to every expression of kindness; and now, softened by sorrow, and warmed by a feeling of the purest piety, he returned the friendly pressure with interest, and then, taking his poor mother's arm within his own, led the way to the chamber of death.

The mourning family knelt beside the coffin, and listened with suppressed sobs to an extempore prayer, by no means ill suited to the occasion, though it was not, as poor Charles had expected, chosen from among the many solemn and beautiful orisons which the Church has furnished or which the Scriptures might supply for such an hour of need.

But he was not disposed at this moment to cavil at any words calculated to raise his thoughts and those of the beings he most fondly loved to that Power which had hitherto blessed their existence, and from whence alone they could hope for support under the affliction with which He had now visited them. Fervently and earnestly he prayed for them and for himself; and when he rose from his knees and again pressed his suffering mother to his heart, it was with a feeling of renovated hope and confidence in the future protection of Heaven which nothing but prayer uttered with genuine piety can give.

Mr. Cartwright did not take his leave till he had spoken an individual blessing to each of them, which was accompanied by a pressure of the hand that seemed to express more sympathy in what each felt than any words could have done.

Young Mowbray then retired with him to arrange everything respecting the ceremony which was to take place on the morrow. His mother expressed a wish to lie down for an hour; and the three girls, after attending her to her room, carefully shutting out the light in the hope that she might sleep, and each one bidding her do so, with a fond caress, retreated to the dressing-room of Helen, when their conversation naturally turned on Mr. Cartwright.

This gentleman had taken possession of the little living of Wrexhill only one month before the death of his most distinguished paris.h.i.+oner.

During the week which followed his first performance of duty in the church, the family at the Park made a visit at the Vicarage: for though Mr. Cartwright was a widower, he had a daughter nearly twenty years of age, who, as mistress of her father's house, was of course visited by the ladies. When this visit was returned, the Mowbray family were all absent; and during the short interval which followed before the day on which young Mowbray came of age, the preparations for the fete by which this event was to be celebrated had prevented Mr. Cartwright and his family from receiving any other invitation than that which requested their attendance at it. This having been declined, he was as nearly as possible a personal stranger to the whole Mowbray family.

"What exquisite benevolence his countenance expresses!" exclaimed f.a.n.n.y: "I never saw eyes so full of gentleness."

"His eyes are remarkably handsome," replied Rosalind; "but I am not quite sure that I like him."

"The moments we pa.s.sed with him were moments of agony," said Helen: "it would hardly be fair to p.r.o.nounce any judgment upon him from such an interview."

"Perhaps you are right, dear Helen, and I will endeavour to suspend mine," replied Rosalind. "But at least I may venture to remark that he is a very young-looking father for the full-grown son and daughter we have seen."

"I do not think he can be their father," observed f.a.n.n.y. "Perhaps he is only the husband of their mother?... Don't you think that is most likely, Helen?"

"I don't know, dear," answered Helen: "I believe I hardly saw him."

"I really doubt if you did, my poor Helen," said Rosalind; "but if he speak sooth, he could not say the same of us. If the Reverend gentleman be given to sketching of portraits, he might, I think, produce a good likeness of either of us, for, like Hamlet when he looked at Ophelia, 'he fell to such perusal of our faces, as he would draw them'.... I do not think I shall like this Mr. Cartwright.... I do not mean now, Helen; I speak only of what I think I shall do when I know more of him."