The Vicar of Wrexhill Part 43

"She is in bed;--she has been in tears all day; I made her go to bed.

But, oh, Charles! my mother!--she has left the house."

"Gracious Heaven! what do you mean? Did she leave the house in anger?

Did she ask for me?"

"No, Charles: nor for me either!"

"And where on earth is she gone?"

"No one in the house has the remotest idea: it is impossible even to guess. But she has taken f.a.n.n.y and Curtis with her."

"When did she set out?"

"While Rosalind and I were eating our miserable melancholy dinner. Mr.

Cartwright, I find, called after you went, and was shown, as usual, to her dressing-room; but he did not stay, Thomas says, above half an hour, for he both let him in and out. Soon after he went away, f.a.n.n.y was sent for; and she and Curtis remained with her till a few minutes before dinner-time. Curtis then went into the kitchen, it seems, and ordered a tray to be taken for my mother and f.a.n.n.y into the dressing-room, and the only message sent to Rosalind and me was, that mamma was not well, and begged not to be disturbed. Curtis must have seen the coachman and settled every thing with him very secretly; for not one of the servants, except the new stable-boy, knew that the carriage was ordered."

"How are we to interpret this, Helen?--Such a night too!--as dark as pitch. Had I not known the way blindfold, I should never have got home.

I left Sir Gilbert in a rage because I would not sleep there;--but my heart was heavy; I felt restless and anxious at the idea of remaining from you during the night: I think it was a presentiment of this dreadful news.--Oh! what a day has this been to me! So gay, so happy in the morning! so supremely wretched before night!--I can remember nothing that I said which could possibly have driven her to leave her home. What can it mean, Helen?"

"Alas! Charles, I have no power to answer you. If asking questions could avail, might I not ask what I have done? And yet, at the moment of her leaving home for the night, she sent me word that I was _not to disturb her_!"

"The roads too are so bad! Had she lamps, Helen?"

"Oh yes. Some of the maids, while shutting up the rooms upstairs, saw the lights moving very rapidly towards the lodges."

"It is an inexplicable and very painful mystery. But go to bed, my dearest Helen! you look most wretchedly ill and miserable."

"Ill?--No, I am not ill, Charles, but miserable; yes, more miserable than I have ever felt since my poor father's death was first made known to me."

The following morning brought no relief to the anxiety which this strange absence occasioned. Rosalind joined the brother and sister at breakfast, and her jaded looks more than confirmed Helen's report of the preceding night. Charles, however, hardly saw her sufficiently to know how she looked, for he carefully avoided her eyes; but if the gentlest and most soothing tone of voice, and the expression of her almost tender sympathy in the uneasiness he was enduring, could have consoled the young man for all he had suffered and was suffering, he would have been consoled.

The day pa.s.sed heavily; but Helen looked so very ill and so very unhappy, that Charles could not bear to leave her; and though a mutual feeling of embarra.s.sment between himself and Rosalind made his remaining with them a very doubtful advantage, he never quitted them.

But it was quite in vain that he attempted to renew the occupations which had made the last six weeks pa.s.s so delightfully. He began to read; but Helen stopped him before the end of the page, by saying, "I cannot think what is the reason of it, Charles, but I cannot comprehend a single syllable of what you are reading."

Rosalind, blus.h.i.+ng to the ears, and actually trembling from head to foot, invited him to play at chess with her. Without replying a word, he brought the table and set up the men before her; but the result of the game was, that Charles gave Rosalind checkmate, and it was Helen only who discovered it.

At an early hour they separated for the night; for the idea of waiting for Mrs. Mowbray seemed equally painful to them all, and the morrow's sun rose upon them only to bring a repet.i.tion of the sad and restless hours of the day that was past. Truly might they have said they were weary of conjecture; for so completely had they exhausted every supposition to which the imagination of either of the party could reach, without finding one on which common sense would permit them to repose, that, by what seemed common consent, they ceased to hazard a single "may be" more.

They were sitting with their coffee-cups before them, and Rosalind was once more trying to fix the attention of Charles, as well as her own, to the chess-board, when a l.u.s.ty pull at the door-bell produced an alarm which caused all the servants in the house to jump from their seats, and one half of the chessmen to be overturned by the violent start of Rosalind.

A few moments of breathless expectation followed. The house door was opened, and the steps of several persons were heard in the hall, but no voice accompanied them. Helen rose, but trembled so violently, that her brother threw his arms round her and almost carried her to a sofa.

Rosalind stood beside her, looking very nearly as pale as herself; while Charles made three steps forward and one back again, and then stood with his hands clasped and his eyes fixed on the door in a manner which showed that, in spite of his manhood, he was very nearly as much agitated as his companions.

The next sound they heard was the voice of the lady of the mansion, and she spoke loud and clear, as she laid her hand on the lock, and partly opening the door, said addressing the butler, who with half a dozen other servingmen had hurried to answer the bell, "Chivers! order all the servants to meet me in this room immediately; and fail not to come yourself."

Mowbray had again stepped forward upon hearing his mother's voice, but stopped short to listen to her words; and having heard them, he turned back again, and placing himself behind the sofa on which Helen sat, leaned over it to whisper in her ear--"Let me not see you overcome, Helen! and then I shall be able to bear any thing."

As he spoke, the door was thrown widely open, and a lady entered dressed entirely in white and very deeply veiled, followed by f.a.n.n.y Mowbray and Mr. Cartwright.

A heavy sense of faintness seized on the heart of Helen, but she stood up and endeavoured to advance; Rosalind, on the contrary, stepped back and seated herself in the darkest corner of the room; while Charles hastily walked towards the veiled lady, and in a voice thick from emotion, exclaimed, "My mother!"

"Yes, Charles!" she replied; "your mother; but no longer a widowed, desolate mother, shrinking before the unnatural rebuke of her son. I would willingly have acted with greater appearance of deliberation, but your conduct rendered this impossible. Mr. Cartwright! permit me to present you to this hot-headed young man and his sister, as my husband and their father."

This terrible but expected annunciation was received in total silence.

Mowbray seemed to think only of his sister; for without looking towards the person thus solemnly presented to him, he turned to her, and taking her by the arm, said, "Helen!--you had better sit down."

f.a.n.n.y, who had entered the room immediately after her mother, looked pale and frightened; but though she fixed a tearful eye on Helen, she attempted not to approach her.

Mr. Cartwright himself stood beside his bride, or rather a little in advance of her: his tall person drawn up to its greatest height.

Meekness, gentleness, and humility appeared to have his lips in their keeping; but unquenchable triumph was running riot in his eyes, and flashed upon every individual before him with a very unequivocal and somewhat scornful air of authority.

This tableau endured till the door was again thrown open, and one by one the servants entered, forming at last a long line completely across the room. When all were in their marshalled places, which here, as elsewhere, were in as exact conformity to the received order of precedence as if they had been n.o.bles at a coronation, the lady bride again lifted her voice and addressed them thus: "I have called you all together on the present occasion in order to inform you that Mr.

Cartwright is my husband and your master. I hope it is unnecessary for me to say that every thing in the family must henceforward be submitted solely to his pleasure, and that his commands must on all occasions supersede those of every other person. I trust you will all show yourselves sensible of the inestimable blessing I have bestowed upon you in thus giving you a master who can lead you unto everlasting life; and as I have married for the glory of Heaven, so I trust to receive its blessing upon the same, and to see every member of my family advancing daily under the guidance of their earthly master's hand to that state which shall ensure them favour from their heavenly one in the life to come. Amen! Repeat, I beg you--all of you repeat with me Amen!"

Though there were some throats there in which Amen would have stuck, there were enough present besides these to get up a tolerably articulate Amen.

Mr. Cartwright then stepped forward, and laying his hat and gloves on the table, said aloud, "Let us pray!"

The obedient menials knelt before him,--all save one. This bold exception was the housekeeper; a staid and sober person of fifty years of age, who during the dozen years she had presided over the household, had constantly evinced a strict and conscientious adherence to her religious duties, and was, moreover, distinguished for her uniformly respectful, quiet, and un.o.btrusive demeanour. But she now stepped forward from her place at the head of the line, and said in a low voice, but very slowly and distinctly, "I cannot, sir, on this occasion kneel down to pray at your bidding. This is not a holy business at all, Mr.

Cartwright; and if you were to give me for salary the half of what you are about to wring from the orphan children of my late master, (deceased just eight calendar months ago,) I would not take it, sir, to live here and witness what I cannot but look upon as great sin."

The good woman then gave a sad look at Helen and her brother, who were standing together, dropped a respectful curtesy as her eyes rested on them, and then left the room.

"Her sin be on her own head!" said Mr. Cartwright as he himself kneeled down upon a footstool which stood near the table. He drew a cambric handkerchief from his pocket, gave a preparatory "hem," and apparently unconscious that Miss Torrington had darted from the remote corner in which she had been ensconced and followed the housekeeper out of the room, remained for a moment with his eyes fixed on Mowbray and Helen, who remained standing.

"It would be a frightful mockery for us to kneel!" said Charles, drawing his sister back to the sofa she had quitted. "Sit down with me, Helen; and when we are alone we will pray for strength to endure as we ought to do whatever calamity it is Heaven's will to try us with."

The bride was kneeling beside her husband; but she rose up and said, "You are of age, Charles Mowbray, and too stiff-necked and wilful to obey your mother: but you, Helen, I command to kneel."

She then replaced herself with much solemnity; and Helen knelt too, while breathing a silent prayer to be forgiven for what she felt to be profanation.

Charles stood for a moment irresolute, and then said, dropping on his knees beside her, "Heaven will pardon me for your sake, dear Helen,--even for kneeling at a service that my heart disclaims."

Mr. Cartwright hemmed again, and began.

"I thank thee! that by thy especial calling and election I am placed where so many sinful souls are found, who through and by me may be shown the path by which to escape the eternal pains of h.e.l.l. But let thy flames blaze and burn, O Lord! for those who neglect so great salvation!

Pour down upon them visibly thy avenging judgments, and let the earth see it and be afraid. To me, O Lord! grant power, strength, and courage to do the work that is set before me. Let me be a rod and a scourge to the unG.o.dly; and let no sinful weakness on the part of the wife whom thou hast given me come across or overshadow the light received from thee for the leading of the rebellious back unto thy paths. Bless my virtuous wife; teach her to be meekly obedient to my word, and to thine through me; and make her so to value the inestimable mercy of being placed in the guiding hands of thy elected servant, that the miserable earthly dross which she maketh over to me in exchange for the same may seem but as dirt and filthiness in her sight! May such children as are already born unto her be brought to a due sense of thy exceeding mercy in thus putting it into their mother's heart to choose thine elected servant to lead them through the dangerous paths of youth; make them rejoice and be exceeding glad for the same, for so shall it be good in thy sight!"

This terrible thanksgiving, with all its minute rehearsing of people and of things, went on for a considerable time longer; but enough has been given to show the spirit of it. As soon as it was ended, the new master of the mansion rose from his knees, and waiting with an appearance of some little impatience till his audience had all recovered their feet, he turned to his bride with a smile of much complacency, and said, "Mrs. Cartwright, my love, where shall I order Chivers to bring us some refreshments? Probably the dining-room fire is out. Shall we sup here?"

"Wherever you please," answered the lady meekly, and blus.h.i.+ng a little at the sound of her new name p.r.o.nounced for the first time before her children.

This address and the answer to it were too much for Helen to endure with any appearance of composure. She hid her face in her handkerchief as she pa.s.sed her mother, and giving f.a.n.n.y, who was seated near the door, a hasty kiss, left the room, followed by her brother.

Helen ran to the apartment of Rosalind; and Mowbray ran with her, forgetful, as it seemed, of the indecorum of such an unauthorized intrusion at any time, and more forgetful still of the icy barrier which had seemed to exist between him and its fair inhabitant since the first expression of his love and of his hope had been so cruelly chilled by her light answer to it. But in this moment of new misery every thing was forgotten but the common sorrow: they found Rosalind pa.s.sionately sobbing, and Mrs. Williams, the housekeeper, weeping very heartily beside her.

"Oh, my Helen!" exclaimed the young heiress, springing forward to meet her; "Williams says they cannot take my money from me. Will you let us divide my fortune and live together?"