The Vicar of Wrexhill Part 53

"Pray do not speak in riddles," said Henrietta impatiently. "What is it you have got to confess to me? Tell me at once, Miss Torrington."

"You really do not encourage me to be very frank with you, for you seem angry already. But the truth is, Miss Cartwright, that I did most unintentionally overhear your conversation with Mr. Hetherington."

"The whole of it?--Did you hear the whole of it, Rosalind?"

"Not quite. The gentleman appeared to be in the midst of his declaration when my unwilling ears became his confidants."

"And then you listened to the end?"

"I did."

A deathlike silence followed this avowal, which was at last broken by Henrietta, who said in a low whisper, "Then at last you know me!"

"Oh! do not say so;--do not say that the fearful words that I heard were spoken in earnest!--Do not say that;--I cannot bear to hear it!"

"Poor girl!--poor Rosalind!" said Henrietta, in a voice of the deepest melancholy. "I have always wished to spare you this--I have always wished to spare myself the pain of reading abhorrence in the eyes of one that I do believe I could have loved, had not my heart been dead."

"But if you feel thus, Henrietta,--if indeed you know that such words as I heard you utter must raise abhorrence,--it is because that you yourself must hate them. I know you are unhappy--I know that your nature scorns the faults that are but too conspicuous in your father; but is it not beneath a mind of such power as yours to think there is no G.o.d in heaven, because one weak and wicked man has wors.h.i.+pped him amiss?"

"He wors.h.i.+p!--Trust me, Rosalind, had I been the child of a Persian, and seen him, in spirit and in truth, wors.h.i.+pping the broad sun as it looked down from heaven upon earth, making its fragrant dews rise up to him in incense, I should not have been the wretched thing I am,--for I should have wors.h.i.+pped too."

"Henrietta!--If to behold the Maker of the universe, and the Redeemer whom he sent to teach his law--if to see wors.h.i.+p offered to their eternal throne could teach you to wors.h.i.+p too, then look around you.

Look at the poor in heart, the humble, pious Christians who, instead of uttering the horrible doom of eternal d.a.m.nation upon their fellow-men, live and die in the delightful hope that all shall one day meet in the presence of their G.o.d and Father, chastised, purified, and pleading, to his everlasting mercy, with the promised aid of his begotten Son, for pardon and for peace.--Look out for this, Henrietta, and you will find it. Find it, and your heart will be softened, and you will share the healing balm that makes all the sorrow and suffering of this life seem but as the too close fitting of a heavy garment that galls but for an hour!"

"Dear, innocent Rosalind!--How pure and beautiful your face looks in the bright moonlight!--But, alas! I know that very sinful faces may look just as fair. There is no truth to rest on. In the whole wide world, Rosalind, there is not honesty enough whereon to set a foot, that one may look around and believe, at least, that what one sees, one sees. But this is a perfection of holiness--a species of palpable and present divinity, that is only granted to mortals in their multiplication tables.--Twice two are four--I feel sure of it,--but my faith goes no farther."

"I cannot talk to you," cried Rosalind in great agitation; "I am not capable of doing justice to this portentous theme, on which hangs the eternal life of all the men that have been, are, and shall be. It is profane in me to speak of it,--a child--a worm. Father of mercy, forgive me!" she cried suddenly dropping upon her knees.

Henrietta uttered a cry which almost amounted to a shriek. "I had almost listened to you!" she exclaimed,--"I had almost believed that your voice was the voice of truth; but now you put yourself in that hateful posture, and what can I think of you, but that you are all alike--all juggling--all! The best of ye juggle yourselves,--the worst do as we saw Mr. Cartwright do;--on that very spot, Rosalind, beneath the shelter of that very tree, did he not too knuckle down? and for what?--to lure and cajole a free and innocent spirit to be as false and foul as himself!

Yet this is the best trick of which you can bethink you to teach the sceptical Henrietta that there is a G.o.d."

"Truth, Henrietta," said Rosalind, rising up and speaking in a tone that indicated more contempt than anger,--"neither truth nor falsehood can be tested by a posture of the body. It is but a childish cavil. The stupendous question, whether this world and all the wonders it contains be the work of chance, or of unlimited power and goodness, conceiving, arranging, and governing the whole, can hardly depend for its solution upon the angle in which the joints are bent. You have read much, Miss Cartwright,--read one little pa.s.sage more, which I think may have escaped you. Read the short and simple instructions given as to the manner in which prayer should be offered up--read this pa.s.sage of some dozen lines, and I think you will allow that in following these instructions, greatly as they have been misconstrued and abused, there is nothing that can justify the vehement indignation which you express."

Poor Henrietta shrunk more abashed before this simple word of common sense, than she would have done before the revealed word. Rosalind saw this, and pointed out the anomaly to her, simply, but strongly.

"Does it not show a mind diseased?" she continued. "You feel that you were wrong to make an att.i.tude a matter of importance, and you are ashamed of it: but from the question, whether you shall exist in pure and intellectual beat.i.tude through countless ages, or perish to-morrow, you turn with contempt, as too trifling and puerile to merit your attention."

"If I do turn from it, Rosalind,--if I do think the examination of such a question a puerile occupation,--it is in the same spirit that I should decline to share the employment of a child who would set about counting the stars. Such knowledge is too excellent for me; I cannot attain unto it."

"Your ill.u.s.tration would be more correct, Henrietta, were you to say that you shut your eyes and would not see the stars, upon the same principle that you declined inquiring into the future hopes of man. It would be quite as reasonable to refuse to look at the stars because you cannot count them, as to close your eyes upon the book of life because it tells of intellectual power beyond your own.--But this is all contrary to my resolution, Henrietta,--contrary to all my hopes for your future happiness. Do not listen to me; do not hang a chance dearer than life upon the crude reasonings of an untaught woman. Will you read, Henrietta?--if I will find you books and put them in your hands, will you read them, and keep your judgment free and clear from any foregone conclusion that every word that speaks of the existence and providence of G.o.d must be a falsehood? Will you promise me this?"

"Let us go home, Rosalind; my head is giddy and my heart is sick. I had hoped never again to fever my aching brain in attempting to sift the truth from all the lies that may and must surround it. I have made my choice deliberately, Rosalind. I have never seen sin and wickedness flourish any where so rapidly and so vigorously as where it has been decked in the masquerading trappings of religion. I hate sin, Rosalind, and I have thrown aside for ever the hateful garb in which I have been used to see it clothed. If there be a G.o.d, can I stand guilty before his eyes for this?"

"Oh yes! most guilty! If you have found hypocrisy and sin, turn from it with all the loathing that you will; and be very sure, let it wear what mask it will, that religion is not there. Look then elsewhere for it. Be not frightened by a bugbear, a phantom, from seeking what it is so precious to find! Dearest Henrietta! will you not listen to me?--will you not promise for a while to turn your thoughts from every lighter thing, till you are able to form a surer judgment upon this?"

"Dearest?--Do you call me dear, and dearest, Rosalind? Know you that I have lived in almost abject terror lest you should discover the condition of my mind? I thought you would hate and shun me.--Rosalind Torrington! you are a beautiful specimen, and a very rare one. To please you, and to approach you if I could, I would read much, and think and reason more, and try to hope again, as I did once, until I was stretched upon the torturing rack of fear: but there is no time left me!"

"Do not say that, dear friend," said Rosalind, gently drawing Henrietta's cold and trembling arm within her own. "You are still so young, that time is left for harder studies than any I propose to you."

"I am dying, Rosalind. I have told you so before, but you cannot believe me because I move about and send for no doctor--but I am dying."

"And if I could believe it, Henrietta, would not that be the greatest cause of all for this healing study that I want to give you?"

"Perhaps so, Rosalind; but my mind, my intellect, is weak and wayward.

If there be a possibility that I should ever again turn my eyes to seek for light where I have long believed that all was darkness, it must be even when and where my sickly fancy wills.--Here let the subject drop between us. Perhaps, sweet girl! I dread as much the chance of my perverting you, as you can hope to convert me."

Rosalind was uttering a protest against this idle fear, when Henrietta stopped her by again saying, and very earnestly, "Let the subject drop between us; lay the books you speak of in my room, where I can find them, but let us speak no more."

Satisfied, fully satisfied with this permission, Rosalind determined to obey her injunction scrupulously, and silently pressing her arm in testimony of her acquiescence, they returned to the house without uttering another word.

CHAPTER VII.

THE WILL.

It was about this time that Mr. Cartwright, for reasons which will be sufficiently evident in the sequel, set about convincing his wife that there was a very pressing necessity, from motives both temporal and spiritual, that her son Charles should be immediately ordained. There are many ways of convincing a woman and a wife besides beating--and Mr.

Cartwright employed them all by turns, till his lady, like a bit of plastic dough, took exactly the impression he chose to give,--as evanescent too as it was deep, for he could make her act on Monday in direct opposition to the principles he had laid down on Sat.u.r.day, yet leave her persuaded all the while that he was the wisest and best, as well as the most enamoured of men.

But though living with the wife of his bosom in the most delightful harmony, and opening his heart to her with the most engaging frankness on a thousand little trifling concerns that a less tender husband might never have thought it necessary to mention, Mr. Cartwright nevertheless did not deem it expedient to trouble her with the perusal of his letter to Charles on the subject of his immediate ordination.

The especial object of this letter was to obtain a decided refusal to the command it contained, and, like most of the Vicar of Wrexhill's plans, it answered completely. Mowbray's reply contained only these words:

"Sir,

"Though all my hopes for this life have been blighted through your agency, I will not risk my happiness in that which is to come by impiously taking upon me the office of G.o.d's minister, for which I am in no way prepared.

"CHARLES MOWBRAY."

As soon as this letter was received, read, and committed to the flames, Mr. Cartwright repaired to the dressing-room of his lady, where, as usual, he found her reposing on the sofa; a little table beside her loaded with tracts and other fanatical publications, and in her hand a small bit of very delicate embroidery, which was in time to take the form of a baby's cap.

"My sweet love! how have you been since breakfast? Oh! my Clara! how that occupation touches my heart! But take care of your precious health, my angel! My life is now bound up with yours, sweet! ten thousand times more closely than it ever was before: and not mine only,--the life of the dear unborn being so inexpressibly dear to us both. Remember this, my lovely wife!"

"Oh, Cartwright!--your tender affection makes me the happiest of women.

Never, surely, was there a husband who continued so completely a lover!

Were my children but one half as sensible of their happiness in having you for a father as I am in calling you my husband, I should have nothing left to wis.h.!.+"

"Turn not your thoughts that way, my Clara!--it is there that it hath pleased Heaven to visit us with very sore affliction. But our duty is to remember his mercies alway, and so to meet and wrestle with the difficulties which he hath for his own glory permitted the Evil One to scatter in our path, that in the end we may overcome them. Then shall we by the heel crush the head of the serpent, and so shall his mercy upon his chosen servants s.h.i.+ne out and appear with exceeding splendour and with lasting joy!"

"Heaven prosper your endeavours, my dear Cartwright, to bring the same to good effect! How I wish that Helen would make up her mind at once to marry Mr. Corbold! I am sure that, with your remarkably generous feelings, you would not object to giving her immediately a very handsome fortune if she would comply with our wishes in this respect. Mr. Corbold told me yesterday that he had every reason to believe she was pa.s.sionately attached to him, but that her brother had made her promise to refuse. This interference of Charles is really unpardonable! I do not scruple to say, that in my situation it would be infinitely more agreeable to me if Helen were married,--we could give Miss Torrington leave to live with her, dear Cartwright,--and I am quite sure the change would be for the happiness of us all."

"Unquestionably it would, my love;--but this unfortunate boy! Alas, my Clara! I have just received fresh proof of the rebellious spirit that mocks at all authority, and hates the hand that would use it. I have this morning received such a letter from him, in answer to that in which I expressed my wish that he should adopt a profession and prepare to settle himself in life, as wrung my heart. It shall never blast your eyes, my Clara! I watched it consume and burn, and turn to harmless ashes, before I came to cheer and heal my wounded heart by pressing thee to it!"

The action answered to the word,--and it was from the bosom of her fond husband that Mrs. Cartwright murmured her inquiries as to what her unworthy son had now done to pain the best of fathers.

"Not only refused, dearest, to adopt the sacred and saving profession we have chosen for him with the most ribald insolence, but addressed me in words of such bitter scorn, that not for worlds would I have suffered thy dear eyes to rest upon them."