The Heir of Redclyffe Part 104

Dr. Henley met him with a shake of the hand, and hearty exclamation:--

'I congratulate you, Sir Philip Morville.'

'No; that is spared me,' was his answer.

'Hem! The baronetcy?'

'Yes,' said Margaret, 'I thought you knew that only goes to the direct heir of old Sir Hugh. But you must drop the "captain" at least. You will sell out at once?'

He patiently endured the conversation on the extent and beauty of Redclyffe, wearing all the time a stern, resolute aspect, that his sister knew to betoken great unhappiness. She earnestly wished to understand him, but at last, seeing how much her conversation increased his headache, she desisted, and left him to all the repose his thoughts could give him. He was very much concerned at the tone of the note from his uncle, as if it was intended to show that all connection with the family was to be broken off. He supposed it had been concerted with some one; with Charles, most likely,--Charles, who had judged him too truly, and with his attachment to Guy, and aversion to himself, was doubtless strengthening his father's displeasure, all the more for this hateful wealth. And Laura? What did she feel?

Monday morning brought another letter. At first, he was struck with the dread of evil tidings of Amabel or her babe, especially when he recognized Charles's straggling handwriting; and, resolved not to be again betrayed, he carried it up to read in his own room before his sister had noticed it. He could hardly resolve to open it, for surely Charles would not write to him without necessity; and what, save sorrow, could cause that necessity? He saw that his wretchedness might be even more complete! At length he read it, and could hardly believe his own eyes as he saw cheering words, in a friendly style of interest and kindliness such as he would never have expected from Charles, more especially now.

'Hollywell, March 6th.

'MY DEAR PHILIP,--I believe my father wrote to you in haste yesterday, but I am sure you will be anxious for further accounts, and when there is good news there is satisfaction in conveying it. I know you will be glad to hear our affairs are very prosperous; and Amy, whom I have just been visiting, is said by the authorities to be going on as well as possible. She begs me to tell you of her welfare, and to a.s.sure you that she is particularly pleased to have a daughter; or, perhaps, it will be more satisfactory to have her own words. "You must tell him how well I am, Charlie, and how very glad. And tell him that he must not vex himself about her being a girl, for that is my great pleasure; and I do believe, the very thing I should have chosen if I had set to work to wish." You know Amy never said a word but in all sincerity, so you must trust her, and I add my testimony that she is in placid spirits, and may well be glad to escape the cares of Redclyffe. My father says he desired Markham to write to you on the business matters. I hope the sea-breezes may do you good. All the party here are well; but I see little of them now, all the interest of the house is upstairs.

--Your affectionate,

'C. M, EDMONSTONE.

P. S. The baby is very small, but so plump and healthy, that no one attempts to be uneasy about her.'

Never did letter come in better time to raise a desponding heart. Of Amabel's forgiveness he was already certain; but that she should have made Charles his friend was a wonder beyond all others. It gave him more hope for the future than he had yet been able to entertain, and showed him that the former note was no studied renunciation of him, but only an ebullition of Mr. Edmonstone's disappointment.

It gave him spirit enough to undertake what he had long been meditating, but without energy to set about it--an expedition to Stylehurst.

Hitherto it had been his first walk on coming to St. Mildred's, but now the distance across the moor was far beyond his powers; and even that length of ride was a great enterprise. It was much further by the carriage road, and his sister never liked going there. He had never failed to visit his old home till last year, and he felt almost glad that he had not carried his thoughts, at that time, to his father's grave. It was strange that, with so many more important burdens on his mind, it had been this apparent trivial omission, this slight to Stylehurst, that, in both his illnesses, had been the most frequently recurring idea that had tormented him in his delirium. So deeply, securely fixed is the love of the home of childhood in men of his mould, in whom it is perhaps the most deeply rooted of all affections.

Without telling his sister his intention, he hired a horse, and pursued the familiar moorland tracks. He pa.s.sed South Moor Farm; it gave him too great a pang to look at it; he rode on across the hills where he used to walk with his sisters, and looked down into narrow valleys where he had often wandered with his fis.h.i.+ng-rod, lost in musings on plans for attaining distinction, and seeing himself the greatest man of his day.

Little had he then guessed the misery which would place him in the way to the coveted elevation, or how he would loathe it when it lay within his grasp.

There were the trees round the vicarage, the church spire, the cottages, whose old rough aspect, he knew so well, the whole scene, once 'redolent of joy and youth:' but how unable to breathe on him a second spring! He put up his horse at the village inn, and went to make his first call on Susan, the old clerk's wife, and one of the persons in all the world who loved him best. He knocked, opened the door, and saw her, startled from her tea-drinking, looking at him as a stranger.

'Bless us! It beant never Master Philip!' she exclaimed, her head shaking very fast, as she recognized his voice. 'Why, sir, what a turn you give me! How bad you be looking, to be sure!'

He sat down and talked with her, with feelings of comfort. Tidings of Sir Guy's death had reached the old woman, and she was much grieved for the nice, cheerful-spoken young gentleman, whom she well remembered; for she, like almost every one who had ever had any intercourse with him, had an impression left of him, as of something winning, engaging, brightening, like a sunbeam. It was a refreshment to meet with one who would lament him for his own sake, and had no congratulations for Philip himself; and the 'Sure, sure, it must have been very bad for you,' with which old Susan heard of the circ.u.mstances, carried more of the comfort of genuine sympathy than all his sister's attempts at condolence.

She told him how often Sir Guy had been at Stylehurst, how he had talked to her about the archdeacon; and especially she remembered his helping her husband one day when he found him tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the ash over the archdeacon's grave. He used to come very often to church there, more in the latter part of his stay; there was one Sunday--it was the one before Michaelmas--he was there all day, walking in the churchyard, and sitting in the porch between services.

'The Sunday before Michaelmas!' thought Philip, the very time when he had been most earnest in driving his uncle to persecute, and delighting himself in having triumphed over Guy at last, and obtained tangible demonstration of his own foresight, and his cousin's vindictive spirit.

What had he been throwing away? Where had, in truth, been the hostile spirit?

He took the key of the church, and walked thither alone, standing for several minutes by the three graves, with a sensation as if his father was demanding of him an account of the boy he had watched, and brought to his ancestral home, and cared for through his orphaned childhood. But for the prayer-book, the pledge that there had been peace at the last, how could he have borne it?

Here was the paved path he had trodden in early childhood, holding his mother's hand, where, at each recurring vacation during his school days, he had walked between his admiring sisters, in the consciousness that he was the pride of his family and of all the parish. Of his family? Did he not remember his return home for the last time before that when he was summoned thither by his father's death? He had come with a whole freight of prizes, and letters full of praises; and as he stood, in expectation of the expression of delighted satisfaction, his father laid his hand on his trophy, the pile of books, saying, gravely,--' All this would I give, Philip, for one evidence of humility of mind.'

It had been his father's one reproof. He had thought it unjust and unreasonable, and turned away impatiently to be caressed and admired by Margaret. His real feelings had been told to her, because she flattered them and shared them, he had been reserved and guarded with the father who would have perceived and repressed that ambition and the self-sufficiency which he himself had never known to exist, nor regarded as aught but sober truth. It had been his bane, that he had been always too sensible to betray outwardly his self-conceit, in any form that could lead to its being noticed.

He opened the church door, closed it behind him, and locked himself in.

He came up to the communion rail, where he had knelt for the first time twelve years ago, confident in himself, and unconscious of the fears with which his father's voice was trembling in the intensity of his prayer for one in whom there was no tangible evil, and whom others thought a pattern of all that could be desired by the fondest hopes.

He knelt down, with bowed head, and hands clasped. a.s.suredly, if his father could have beheld him then, it would have been with rejoicing. He would not have sorrowed that robust frame was wasted, and great strength brought low; that the n.o.ble features were worn, the healthful cheek pale, and the powerful intellect clouded and weakened; he would hardly have mourned for the cruel grief and suffering, such would have been his joy that the humble, penitent, obedient heart had been won at last.

Above all, he would have rejoiced that the words that most soothed that wounded spirit were,--'A broken and contrite heart, O G.o.d, Thou wilt not despise.'

There was solace in that solemn silence; the throbs of head and heart were stilled in the calm around. It was as if the influences of the prayers breathed for him by his father, and the forgiveness and loving spirit there won by Guy, had been waiting for him there till he came to take them up, for thenceforth the bitterest of his despair was over, and he could receive each token of Amabel's forgiveness, not as heaped coals of fire, but as an earnest of forgiveness sealed in heaven.

The worst was over, and though he still had much to suffer, he was becoming open to receive comfort; the blank dark remorse in which he had been living began to lighten, and the tone of his mind to return.

He spoke more cheerfully to Susan when he restored the key; but she had been so shocked at his appearance, that when, the next day, a report reached her that Mr. Philip was now a grand gentleman, and very rich, she answered,--

'Well, if it be so, I am glad of it, but he said never a word of it to me, and it is my belief he would give all the money as ever was coined, to have the poor young gentleman back again. Depend upon it, he hates the very sound of it.'

At the cost of several sheets of paper, Philip at length completed a letter to Mr. Edmonstone, which, when he had sent it, made his suspense more painful.

'St. Mildred's, March 12th.

'MY DEAR MR. Edmonstone,--It is with a full sense of the unfitness of intruding such a subject upon you in the present state of the family, that I again address you on the same topic as that on which I wrote to you from Italy, at the first moment at which I have felt it possible to ask your attention. I was then too ill to be able to express my contrition for all that has pa.s.sed; in fact, I doubt whether it was even then so deep as at present, since every succeeding week has but added to my sense of the impropriety of my conduct, and my earnest desire for pardon. I can hardly venture at such a time to ask anything further, but I must add that my sentiments towards your daughter are unaltered, and can never cease but with my life, and though I know I have rendered myself unworthy of her, and my health, both mental and bodily, is far from being re-established, I cannot help laying my feelings before you, and entreating that you will put an end to the suspense which has endured for so many months, by telling me to hope that I have not for ever forfeited your consent to my attachment. At least, I trust to your kindness for telling me on what terms I am for the present to stand with your family. I am glad to hear such favourable reports of Lady Morville, and with all my heart I thank Charles for his letter.

'Yours ever affectionately, 'P. H. MORVILLE.'

He ardently watched for a reply. He could not endure the idea of receiving it where Margaret's eyes could scan the emotion he could now only conceal by a visible rigidity of demeanour, and he daily went himself to the post-office, but in vain. He received nothing but business letters, and among them one from Markham, with as much defiance and dislike in its style as could be shown, in a perfectly formal, proper letter. Till he had referred to Lady Morville, he would not make any demonstration towards Redclyffe, and evaded all his sister's questions as to what he was doing about it, and when he should take measures for leaving the army, or obtaining a renewal of the baronetcy.

Anxiety made him look daily more wretchedly haggard; the Doctor was at fault, Mrs. Henley looked sagacious, while his manner became so dry and repellent that visitors went away moralizing on the absurdity of "nouveaux riches" taking so much state on them.

He wondered how soon he might venture to write to Amabel, on whom alone he could depend; but he felt it a sort of profanity to disturb her.

He had nearly given up his visits to the post in despair, when one morning he beheld what never failed to bring some soothing influence, namely, the fair pointed characters he had not dared to hope for. He walked quickly into the promenade, sat down, and read:--

'Hollywell, March 22nd.

'MY DEAR PHILIP,--Papa does not answer your letter, because he says speaking is better than writing, and we hope you are well enough to come to us before Sunday week. I hope to take our dear little girl to be christened on that day, and I want you to be so kind as to be her G.o.dfather. I ask it of you, not only in my own name, but in her father's, for I am sure it is what he would choose. Her Aunt Laura and Mary Ross are to be her G.o.dmothers, I hope you will not think me very foolish and fanciful for naming her Mary Verena, in remembrance of our old readings of Sintram. She is a very healthy, quiet creature, and I am getting on very well. I am writing from the dressing-room, and I expect to be down-stairs in a few days. If you do not dislike it very much, could you be so kind as to call upon Miss Wellwood, and pay little Marianne Dixon's quarter for me? It is 1O, and it will save trouble if you would do it; besides that, I should like to hear of her and the little girl. I am sorry to hear you are not better,--perhaps coming here may do you good.--Four o'clock. I have been keeping my letter in hopes of persuading papa to put in a note, but he says he had rather send a message that he is quite ready to forgive and forget, and it will be best to talk it over when you come."

'Your affectionate cousin,

'A. F. MORVILLE.'

It was well he was not under his sister's eye, for he could not read this letter calmly, and he was obliged to take several turns along the walk before he could recover his composure enough to appear in the breakfast-room, where he found his sister alone, dealing her letters into separate packets of important and unimportant.

'Good morning, Philip. Dr. Henley is obliged to go to Bramshaw this morning, and has had an early breakfast. Have you been out?'

'Yes, it is very fine--I mean it will be--the haze is clearing.'