The Vicar of Wrexhill Part 8

"Good heavens, no!" replied little Mary in a voice of great indignation.

"What a hateful idea!"

"One reason why it is so delightful to love and admire Mr. Cartwright,"

rejoined f.a.n.n.y, "is, that one may do it and talk of it too, without any danger that _rational people_, Major Dalrymple, should make a jest of it, and talk the same sort of nonsense that every body is so fond of doing whenever a lady is heard to express admiration for a gentleman.

But we may surely love and admire the clergyman of the parish; indeed I think it is a sort of duty for every one to do so."

"I a.s.sure you," replied the major, "that I both loved and admired Mr.

Wallace exceedingly, and that I shall gladly pay the same homage to his successor as soon as I know him to deserve it. But

"Cautious age and youth....

you know the song, Mary?"

"I know your meaning, Major Dalrymple: you are always boasting of your age; but I don't know any one but yourself who thinks so very much of...."

"... My antiquity and my wisdom."

"Just that.... But, good heavens! f.a.n.n.y Mowbray, who is that to whom your mother is speaking on the lawn?"

"It is Mr. Cartwright!" cried f.a.n.n.y with animation; "and now, Major Dalrymple, you will have an opportunity of judging for yourself."

"I fear not," he replied, taking out his watch; "it is now eight o'clock, and Mrs. Richards seldom walks much after nine."

The two girls now withdrew their arms, and hastened forward to the group of which Mr. Cartwright made one. f.a.n.n.y Mowbray held out her hand to him, which was taken and held very affectionately for two or three minutes.

"You have been enjoying this balmy air," said he to her in a voice sweetly modulated to the hour and the theme. "It is heaven's own breath, Miss f.a.n.n.y, and to such a mind as yours must utter accents worthy of the source from whence it comes."

f.a.n.n.y's beautiful eyes were fixed upon his face, and almost seemed to say,

"When you speak, I'd have you do it ever."

"I do not think he recollects me," whispered Mary Richards in her ear: "I wish you'd introduce me."

f.a.n.n.y Mowbray started, but recovering herself, said, "Mr. Cartwright, give me leave to introduce my friend Miss Mary Richards to you. She is one of your paris.h.i.+oners, and one that you will find capable of appreciating the happiness of being so."

Mr. Cartwright extended his pastoral hand to the young lady with a most gracious smile.

"Bless you both!" said he, joining their hands between both of his. "To lead you together in the path in which we must all wish to go, would be a task that might give a foretaste of the heaven we sought!"

He then turned towards Mrs. Mowbray, and with a look and tone which showed that though he never alluded to her situation, he never forgot it, he inquired how far she had extended her ramble.

"Much farther than I intended when I set out," replied Mrs. Mowbray.

"But my children, the weather, and the hay, altogether beguiled me to the bottom of Farmer Bennet's great meadow."

"Quite right, quite right," replied Mr. Cartwright, with something approaching almost to fervour of approbation: "this species of quiet courage, of gentle submission, is just what I expected from Mrs.

Mowbray. It is the sweetest incense that you can offer to Heaven; and Heaven will repay it."

Mrs. Mowbray looked up at his mild countenance, and saw a moisture in his eye that spoke more tender pity than he would permit his lips to utter. It touched her to the heart.

Mrs. Richards, who was something of a florist, was examining, with the a.s.sistance of Rosalind, some new geraniums that were placed on circular stands outside the drawing-room, filling the s.p.a.ces between the windows.

As this occupation had drawn them from the rest of the party from the time Mr. Cartwright approached to join it, they had not yet received that gentleman's salutation, and he now went up to them.

"Miss Torrington looks as if she were discoursing of her kindred. Are these fair blossoms the children of your especial care?"

"They are the children of the gardener and the greenhouse, I believe,"

she replied carelessly, and stepped on to another stand.

"Mrs. Richards, I believe?" said the graceful vicar, taking off his hat to her.

"I hope you are well, Mr. Cartwright?" replied the lady, following the steps of Rosalind.

The two eldest Misses Richards were still a.s.siduously besieging the two ears of Helen; but as the subjects of which they discoursed did not always require the same answers, she began to feel considerable fatigue from the exertion necessary for carrying on this double conversation, and was therefore not sorry to see Mr. Cartwright approach them, which must, she thought, produce a diversion in her favour. But she found that the parties were still personally strangers to each other; for though his bow was general, his address was only to herself.

"And have you, too, Miss Mowbray, been venturing upon as long a walk as the rest of the party?"

"We have all walked the same distance, Mr. Cartwright; but I believe we none of us consider it to be very far. We are all good walkers."

"I rejoice to hear it, for it is the way to become good Christians.

Where or how can we meet and _meetly_ examine the works of the great Creator so well as on the carpet he has spread, and beneath the azure canopy which his hands have reared above us?--The Misses Richards, I believe? May I beg an introduction, Miss Mowbray?"

"Mr. Cartwright, Miss Richards--Miss Charlotte Richards," said Helen, without adding another word.

"I need hardly ask if you are walkers," said the vicar, as he pa.s.sed a smiling and apparently an approving glance over their rather remarkable length of limb. "Your friends, Miss Mowbray, look like young antelopes ready to bound over the fair face of Nature; and their eyes look as if there were intelligence within wherewith to read her aright."

"Mamma is going into tea, I believe," said Helen, moving off.

The whole manner and demeanour of the two Misses Richards had changed from the moment Mr. Cartwright approached. They became quite silent and demure; but as they followed Helen, one on each side of him, they coloured with pleasure as he addressed a gentle word, first to one, then to the other; and when, after entering the drawing-room, he left them for the purpose of making his farewell bow, or the semblance of it, to Mrs. Mowbray, Miss Louisa whispered to Miss Charlotte, "Little Mary is quite right: he _is_ the most delightful man in the world."

"You are not going to leave us, Mr. Cartwright?" said Mrs. Mowbray kindly. "We are going to tea this moment."

"You are very obliging; but I had no intention of intruding on you thus."

"Pray do not call it an intrusion. We shall be always most happy to see you. I only wish your son and daughter were with us also."

"My daughter, thank you, is a sad invalid; and Jacob generally wanders farther afield in such weather as this.... Is that gentleman Major Dalrymple? May I ask you to introduce me?"

"I shall have much pleasure in doing so, I am sure. He is a very amiable and estimable person."

Mrs. Mowbray crossed the room towards him, followed by the vicar. The introduction took place, and the two gentlemen conversed together for a few minutes on the ordinary topics of Russia, the harvest, the slave-trade, and reform. On every subject, except the harvest, which Mr.

Cartwright despatched by declaring that it would be peculiarly abundant, the reverend gentleman expressed himself with an unusual flow of words, in sentences particularly well constructed; yet nevertheless his opinions seemed enveloped in a mist; and when Mrs. Richards afterwards asked the major his opinion of the new vicar, he replied that he thought his manners very gentlemanlike and agreeable, but that he did not perfectly remember what opinions he had expressed on any subject.

At first the company seemed inclined to disperse themselves in knots about the room; but by degrees Mr. Cartwright very skilfully contrived, on one pretence or another, to collect them all round a table that was covered with the usual incitements to talk, and the conversation became general. At least Mr. Cartwright was very generally listened to; the major did not speak at all; and the ladies did little more than agree with and applaud from time to time the placid, even, dulcet flow of words which fell like a gentle rivulet from the lips of their new vicar.

This description, indeed, would not apply quite generally to all the ladies; but the majority in his favour was five to three, and with this advantage,--that whereas his admirers were loud and eloquent in their expressions of approval, the minority contented themselves by preserving silence.

CHAPTER IX.