"Yet once more, oh, ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude,
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me--"
MILTON'S _Lycidas_.
I must beg of you to slip over a portion of time, and to suppose about
two years passed over our heads, and we return to Lettice, who has
passed that period at General Melwyn's.
So useful, so cheerful, so thoroughly good, so sincerely pious, so
generously disinterested she was; and the transformation she had
accomplished was astonishing.
And was she as happy herself as she made others? Nobody at the Hazels
thought of exactly asking that question. And yet they might have
reflected a little, and inquired, whether to one, the source of so much
comfort to others, the natural felicity of her age was not denied?
Could a young being like _her_ be _very_ happy, living with two old
people, and without one single companion of her own age? Without
prospect, without interest in that coming life, which the young
imagination paints in such lovely colors?
One may boldly affirm she was _not_ so happy as she deserved to be, and
that it was quite impossible, with a heart formed for every tender
affection as was hers, that she _should_.
She began to be visited by a troublesome guest, which in the days of
hardship she had never known. The very ease which surrounded her, the
exemption from all necessity for laborious industry actually increasing
the evil, gradually seemed to grow upon her. There was a secret distaste
for life--a void in the heart, not filled by natural affections--a
something which asked for tenderer relations, more earnest duties--a
home--a household--a family of her own!
She blamed herself very much when first this little secret feeling of
dissatisfaction and discontent began to steal over her. How could she be
so ungrateful? She had every comfort in the world--more, much more, than
she had any title to expect; infinitely more than many far more
deserving than herself were allowed to enjoy. Why could she not have the
same light contented spirit within her breast, that had carried her
triumphantly through so many hardships, and enlivened so many clouded
days?
Poor Lettice! It was vain to find fault with herself. Life would seem
flat. The mere routine of duties, unsweetened by natural affection,
would weary the spirit at times. There was a sweetness wanting to
existence--and existence, without that invigorating sweetness, is to the
best of us a tedious and an exhausting thing.
So thought Catherine, when, about eighteen months or two years after her
marriage, she came for the first time with Edgar to visit her father
and mother.
The regimental duties of the young officer had carried him to the Ionian
Islands very shortly after his marriage; promotion had brought him home,
and he and his young and happy wife, with a sweet infant of about twelve
months old, hastened down to the Hazels to visit Catherine's parents.
I pass over the joy of the meeting--I pass over the satisfaction felt by
Catherine at the happy revolution which had taken place--at her father's
improved temper, her mother's more tranquil spirits, the absence of
Randall, and the general good behavior which pervaded the household.
She looked upon every member of it with satisfaction except one; and
that was the very one who ought to have been the happiest; for she was
the cause and the origin of all this happiness. But Lettice did not, she
thought, look as she used to do; her eyes had lost something of their
vivacity; and the good heart of Catherine was grieved.
"It pains me so, Edgar--you can not think," she said to her husband, as
she walked, leaning upon his arm, through the pleasant groves and
gardens of the Hazels. "I can scarcely enjoy my own happiness for
thinking of her. Poor, dear, she blames herself so for not being
perfectly happy--as if one could have effects without causes--as if the
life she leads here could make any one perfectly happy. Not one thing to
enjoy--for as to her comfortable room, and the good house, and the
pretty place, and all that sort of thing, a person soon gets used to it,
and it shuts out uneasiness, but it does not bring delight, at least to
a young thing of that age. Child of the house as I was, and early days
as they were with me when you were among us, Edgar--I never knew what
true happiness was till then--that is, I should very soon have felt a
want of some object of interest; though it _was_ my own father and
mother--"
"So I took the liberty to lay before you, my fair haranguer, if you
recollect, when you made so many difficulties about carrying my
knapsack."
"Ah! that was because it seemed so heartless, so cruel, to abandon my
parents just when they wanted me so exceedingly. But what a debt of
gratitude I owe to this dear Lettice for settling all these matters so
admirably for me."
"I am glad you confess to a little of that debt, which I, on my part,
feel to be enormous."
"I heartily wish there were any means of paying it. I wish I could make
Lettice as happy as she has made all of us."
The young officer shook his handsome head.
"Mammas in our rank of life make such a point of endeavoring to settle
their daughters--to start them in households of their own--where, if
they are exposed to many troubles which they escape under their father's
roof, they have many more interests and sources of happiness. But there
is nobody to think of such matters as connegated with this poor
fatherless and motherless girl."
"Mothers, even in your rank, my love, don't always succeed in
accomplishing this momentous object. I don't see what possible chance
there is for one in Lettice's condition--except the grand one, the
effective one--in my opinion almost the only one, namely, the chapter of
accidents."
"Ah! that chapter of accidents! It is a poor dependence."
"Nay, Catherine, that is not said with your usual piety."
"True--I am sorry--and yet, where another's happiness is concerned, one
feels as if it were wrong to trust too much--even to Providence; with
great reverence be it said--I mean, that in no given event can we
exactly tell how much we are expected to use our own exertions, how much
diligence on our part is required of us, in order to produce a happy
result."
"I agree with you quite and entirely; and if there is a thing that
angers me beyond measure, it is to see a pious person fold his
hands--sit down and trust the happiness of another to, as he says,
Providence. If I have any just idea of Providence, an ample retribution
will be in store for these sort of religionists."
"Well, that is just as I feel--but in a sort of confused way. You say
those things so much better than I do, Edgar."
"Do I? Well, that is news to me."
"But to return. Can not we do something for this good creature?"
"I don't exactly see that we can do. Besides, there is your poor mother.
Would you pull down all her little edifice of happiness, by taking
Lettice away from her?"
"That is a terrible consideration; and yet what was true of me is doubly
and trebly true of Lettice. My darling mother would not hear of me
relinquishing my happiness upon her account--and ought Lettice to be
allowed to make such a sacrifice?"
"Well, well, my dear, it is time enough to begin to deprecate such a
sacrifice when the opportunity for it occurs, but I own I see little
hope of a romance for your poor, dear Lettice, seeing that an important
personage in such matters, namely, a hero, seems to me to be utterly out
of the question. There is not a young gentleman within twenty miles, so
far as I can see, that is in the least likely to think of the good
girl."
"Alas, no! that is the worst of it."
But the romance of Lettice's life was nearer than they imagined.
* * * * *
The visit of Catherine at the Hazels cheered up Lettice very much; and
in the delights of a little society with those of her own age, she soon
forgot all her quarrels with herself; and brushed away the cobwebs which
were gathering over her brain. She was enchanted, too, with the baby,
and as she felt that, while Catherine was with her mother, she rather
interfered with, than increased Mrs. Melwyn's enjoyment, she used to
indulge herself with long walks through the beautiful surrounding
country, accompanying the nurse and helping to carry the babe.
She visited several lonely places and remote cottages, where she had
never been before; and began to feel a new interest given to existence
when she was privileged to assist others under the pressure of that want
and misery which she understood but too well. One evening she and the
nurse had strayed in a new direction, and did not exactly know where
they were. Very far from the house she was aware it could not be, by the
time she had been absent, but they had got into one of those deep,
hollow lanes, from which it is impossible to catch a glimpse of the
surrounding country: those lanes so still, and so beautiful, with their
broken sandy banks, covered with tufts of feathering grass, with peeping
primroses and violets, and barren strawberries between; the beech and
ash of the copses casting their slender branches across, and checkering
the way with innumerable broken lights! While, may be, as was here the
case, a long pebbly stream runs sparkling and shining upon one side of
the way, forming ten thousand little pools and waterfalls as it courses
along.
Charmed with the scene, Lettice could not prevail upon herself to turn
back till she had pursued her way a little farther. At last a turn in
the lane brought her to a lowly and lonely cottage, which stood in a
place where the bank had a little receded, and the ground formed a small
grassy semicircle, with the steep banks rising all around it--here stood
the cottage.
It was an ancient, picturesque looking thing, built one knows not when.
I have seen one such near Stony Cross in Hampshire, which the tradition
of the county affirms to be the very identical cottage into which the
dying William Rufus was carried, and I am half inclined to believe it.
Their deep heavy roofs, huge roof-trees, little low walls and small
windows, speak of habits of life very remote from our own--and look to
me as if like a heap of earth--a tumulus--such edifices might stand
unchanged for tens of ages.
The cottage before us was of this description, and had probably been a
woodman's hut when the surrounding country was all one huge forest. The
walls were not more than five feet high, over which hung the deep and
heavy roof, covered with moss, and the thatch was overlaid with a heap
of black mould, which afforded plentiful nourishment to stonecrops, and
various tufts of beautifully feathered grass, which waved in fantastic
plumes over it. The door, the frame of which was all aslant, seemed
almost buried in, and pressed down by this roof, placed in which were
two of those old windows which show that the roof itself formed the
upper chamber of the dwelling. A white rose bush was banded up on one
side of this door; a rosemary tree upon the other; a little border with
marigolds, lemon thyme and such like pot-herbs, ran round the house,
which lay in a tiny plot of ground carefully cultivated as a garden.
Here a very aged man, bent almost double as it would seem with the
weight of years, was very languidly digging or attempting it.
The nurse was tired, so was the babe, so was Lettice. They agreed to ask
the old man's leave to enter the cottage, and sit down a little, before
attempting to return home.
"May we go in, good man, and rest ourselves a little while?" asked
Lettice.
"Anan--"
"Will you give us leave to go in and rest ourselves a little? We are
both tired with carrying the baby."
"I don't know well what it is you're saying. How many miles to
Brainford? Maybe two; but it's a weary while sin' I've been there."
"He can't understand us, nurse, at all. He seems almost stone deaf. Let
us knock at the door, and see who's within, for you look ready to drop;
and I am so excessively tired I can hardly help you. However, give me
your sleeping babe at all events, for you really seem as if you could
stand no longer."
She took the child, which had long been fast asleep, went to the cottage
door, and knocked.
"Come in," said a voice.
Not such a voice as she expected to hear, but a sweet, well-modulated
voice, that of a person of education. A man's voice, however, it was.
She hesitated a little, upon which some one rose and opened the door,
but started back upon seeing a young lady with a child in her arms,
looking excessively tired, and as if she could hold up no longer.
"Pray, come in," he said, observing she hesitated, and, retreating back
a little as he spoke, showed a small bed not far from the fire, standing
in the chimney place, as it is called. In this bed lay a very aged
woman. A large, but very, very ancient Bible lay open upon the bed, and
a chair a little pushed back was standing near it. It would seem that
the young gentleman had risen from the chair where he to all appearance
had been reading the Bible to the bed-ridden old woman. "Pray, come in,
and sit down," he repeated, holding the door to let Lettice enter. "You
look exceedingly tired. The place is very humble but perfectly clean,
and poor old Betty Rigby will be very happy to give you leave to enter."
The young man who spoke was dressed in deep black; but as there was a
crape band round his hat which lay upon the table, it would seem that he
was in mourning, and possibly, therefore, not a clergyman. He was
something above the middle height; but his figure was spoiled by its
extreme thinness, and a stoop in the shoulder which seemed to be the
effect of weakness. His face was very thin, and his cheek perfectly
pale; but his features were beautifully proportioned, and his large gray
eyes beamed with a subdued and melancholy splendor. There was the fire
of fever, and there was that of genius.
The expression of this face was soft and sweet in the extreme, but it
was rendered almost painful by its cast of deep sadness. Lettice looked
at him, and was struck by his appearance in a way she had never in her
life been before. He was, I believe, as much struck with hers. These
unexpected meetings, in totally unexpected places, often produce such
sudden and deep impressions. The happier being was moved and interested
by the delicacy the attenuation, the profound sadness of the beautiful
countenance before her; the other with the bloom of health, the
cheerful, wholesome expression, the character and meaning of the face
presented to him, as the young girl stood there holding the sleeping
infant in her arms. Certainly though not regularly pretty, she was a
very picturesque and pleasing looking object at that moment.
The old woman from her bed added her invitation to that of the young
man.
"Please to walk in, miss. It's a poor place. Please take a chair. Oh, my
poor limbs! I've been bed-ridden these half-score years; but pray, sit
down and rest yourselves, and welcome. Law! but that's a pretty bairn,
ben't it."
Lettice took the offered chair and sat down, still holding the baby; the
nurse occupied the other; the young man continued standing.
"I am afraid we have interrupted you," said Lettice, glancing at the
book.
"Oh, pray don't think of it! I am in no hurry to be gone. My time," with
a suppressed sigh, "is all my own. I will finish my lecture by-and-by."
"Ay, do--do--that's a good gentleman. Do you know, ma'am, he's been the
kindest friend, young as he looks, that ever I or my good man met with.
You see we lie here out of the way like--it's a big monstrous parish
this, and our parson has a world of work to do. So we gets rather
overlooked, though, poor man, I believe, he does what he can. I've lived
here these ten years, crippled and bed-ridden as you see, but I got
along pretty well for some time, for I was a bit of a schollard in my
youth; but last winter my eyes took to being bad, and since then I've
not been able to read a line. All gets dizzy like. And I was very dull
and sore beset that I couldn't even see to read the word of God, and my
poor husband, that's the old man as is delving in the garden there, why
he has hardly any eyes left in his head. Enough just to potter about
like, an' see his way, but he couldn't read a line, and it was never so;
and so that blessed young gentleman--law! where is he? Why, I declare
he's gone!"
The young gentleman had, indeed, quietly glided out of the cottage as
soon as his _eloge_ began.
"That young gentleman--I can say what I like now he is gone--has been
_so_ good to us. Many's the half-crown he's given me, and a warm winter
coat of his own to my poor rheumatized old man. Oh! he's a blessed
one--and then he comes and sits and reads to me of an afternoon for an
hour together, because as how one day he called he found me a-cryin,
for why, I could no longer read the Holy Word--and he says 'Cheer up,
Betty, be of good comfort, I'll read it to you daily'--and when I said
'daily, sir--that'll take up too much of your time, I fear'--he sighed a
little, and said he'd nothing particular to do with his time."
"Who is he? Does he belong to this neighborhood?"
"No, miss, he's only been here maybe a half-year or so. He came down on
a visit to Mr. Hickman the doctor out there, Brainwood way, and
presently he went and lodged at a cottage hard by, to be near Hickman,
who's a great name for such complaints as his'n--A-A--I don't know
what's the name--but he's very bad, they say, and not able to do any
thing in the world. Well, he's the best, kindest, Christian young man,
you ever see or I ever see. The power of good he does among the
poor--poor young fellow--is not to be told or counted--but he's so
melancholy like, and so gentle, and so kind, it makes one a'most cry to
look at him; that's the worst of it."
"He looks like a clergyman; I could fancy he was in holy orders. Do you
know whether he is so or not?"
"Yes, ma'am, I have heard say that he is a parson, but nobody in these
parts has ever seen him in a pulpit; but now it strikes me I've heard
that he was to be curate to Mr. Thomas, of Briarwood parish, but he was
ta'en bad of his chest or his throat, and never able to speak up like,
so it would not do; he can not at present speak in a church, for his
voice sounds so low, so low."
"I wonder we have never met with him, or heard of him before."
"Oh, miss! he's not been in this country very long, and he goes out
nowhere but to visit the poor; and tired and weak as he looks, he seems
never tired of doing good."
"He looks very pale and thin."
"Ay, doesn't he? I'm afraid he's but badly; I've heard some say he was
in a galloping consumption, others a decline; I don't know, but he seems
mighty weak like."
A little more talk went on in the same way, and then Lettice asked the
nurse whether she felt rested, as it was time to be returning home, and,
giving the poor bed-ridden patient a little money, which was received
with abundance of thanks, Lettice left the house.
When she entered the little garden, she saw the young man was not gone;
he was leaning pensively against the gate, watching the swinging
branches of a magnificent ash tree, which grew upon a green plot by the
side of the lane. Beautiful it was as it spread its mighty magnificent
head against the deep blue summer sky, and a soft wind gently whispered
among its forest of leaves.
Lettice could not help, as she observed the countenance of the young
man, who seemed lost in thought, admiring the extraordinary beauty of
its expression. Something of the sublime, something of the angelic,
which we see in a few remarkable countenances, but usually in those
which are spiritualized by mental sufferings, and great physical
delicacy.
He started from his reverie as she and the nurse approached, and lifted
the latchet of the little wicket to lot them pass. And, as he did so,
the large, melancholy eye was lighted up with something of a pleasurable
expression, as he looked at Lettice, and said,
"A beautiful afternoon. May I venture to ask were you intending to visit
that poor bed-ridden creature? I thought by the expression she used that
you were not acquainted with her case, and probably had never been in
the cottage before. Will you excuse me for saying she is in great
necessity?"
"It is the first time I have ever been down this lane, sir, but I assure
you it shall not be the last; I will come and see the poor woman again.
There are few things I pity so much as the being bed-ridden."
She had walked into the lane. He had quitted the garden too, and
continued to walk by her side talking as he went.
"I hope there is not so much suffering in that state as we are apt to
imagine," he said; "at least, I have observed that very poor people are
enabled to bear it with wonderful cheerfulness and patience. I believe,
to those who have lived a life of hard labor, rest has something
acceptable in it, which compensates for many privations--but these old
creatures are also miserably poor. The parish can not allow much, and
they are so anxious not to be forced into the house, that they contrive
to make a very little do. The poor woman has been for years receiving
relief as member of a sick-club; but lately the managers have come to a
resolution, that she has been upon the list for such an unexampled
length of time, that they can not afford to go on with the allowance any
longer."
"How cruel and unjust!"
"Very sad, as it affects her comforts, poor creature, and certainly not
just; yet, as she paid only about three years, and has been receiving an
allowance for fifteen, it would be difficult, I fancy, to make the sort
of people who manage such clubs see it quite in that light. At all
events, we can get her no redress, for she does not belong to this
parish, though her husband does; and the club of which she is a member
is in a place at some distance, of which the living is sequestrated, and
there is no one of authority there to whom we can apply. I only take the
liberty of entering into these details, madam, in order to convince you
that any charity you may extend in this quarter, will be particularly
well applied."
"I shall be very happy, if I can be of any use," said Lettice, "but I am
sorry to say, but little of my time is at my own disposal--it belongs to
another--I can not call it my own--and my purse is not very ample. But I
have more money than time," she added, cheerfully, "at all events. And,
if you will be pleased to point out in what way I can best help this
poor creature, I shall be very much obliged to you, for I am quite
longing for the pleasure of doing a little among the poor. I have been
very poor myself; and, besides, I used to visit them so much in my poor
father's day."
"I have more time than money," he said, with a gentle but very
melancholy smile; "and, therefore, if you will give me leave, I _would_
take the liberty of pointing out to you how you could help this poor
woman. If--if I knew...."
"I live with General and Mrs. Melwyn--I am Mrs. Melwyn's _dame de
compagnie_," said Lettice, with simplicity.
"And I am what ought to be Mr. Thomas's curate," answered he, "but that
I am too inefficient to merit the name. General Melwyn's family never
attends the parish church, I think."
"No; we go to the chapel of ease at Furnival's Green. It is five miles
by the road to the parish church, and that road a very bad one. The
general does not like his carriage to go there.
"So I have understood; and, therefore, Mr. Thomas is nearly a stranger,
and I perfectly one, to the family, though they are Mr. Thomas's
parishioners."
"It seems so strange to me--a clergyman's daughter belonging formerly to
a small parish--that every individual in it should not be known to the
vicar. It ought not to be so, I think."
"I entirely agree with you. But I believe Mr. Thomas and the general
never exactly understood or suited each other."
"I don't know--I never heard."
"I am myself not utterly unknown to every member of the family. I was at
school with the young gentleman who married Miss Melwyn.... Yet why do I
recall it? He has probably forgotten me altogether.... And yet, perhaps,
not altogether. Possibly he might remember James St. Leger;" and he
sighed.
It was a light, suppressed sigh. It seemed to escape him without his
observing it.
Lettice felt unusually interested in this conversation, little as there
may appear in it to interest any one; but there was something in the
look and tone of the young man that exercised a great power over her
imagination. His being of the _cloth_--a clergyman--may account for what
may seem rather strange in her entering into conversation with him. She
had been brought up to feel profound respect for every one in holy
orders; and, moreover, the habits of her life at one time, when she had
sunk to such depths of poverty, had, in a considerable degree, robbed
her of the conventional reserve of general society. She had been so used
at one time to be accosted and to accost without thinking of the
ceremony of an introduction, that she probably forgot the absence of it
in the present case, more than another equally discreet girl might have
done.
The young man, on his part, seemed under the influence of a strange
charm. He continued to walk by her side, but he had ceased to speak. He
seemed lost in thought--melancholy thought. It certainly would seem as
if the allusion to Edgar's home, and his own school life, had roused a
host of painful recollections, in which he was for the time absorbed.
So they followed the windings of the deep hollow lane together.
Necessarily it would seem, for this lane appeared to defy the proverb
and have no turning. But that it had one we know--and to it the little
party came at last. A gate led to some fields belonging to the estate of
the Hazels--Lettice and the nurse prepared to open it and enter.
"Good morning, sir," said Lettice, "this is my way; I will strive to do
something for the poor woman you recommended to me, and I will mention
your recommendation to Mrs. Melwyn."
He started as if suddenly awakened when she spoke; but he only said,
"Will you? It will be right and kind. Thank you, in her name." And, with
a grave, abstracted sort of salute, he left her, and pursued his way.
Catherine was standing rather anxiously upon the hall-steps, looking
round and wondering what had become of her nurse and her baby, when
nurse, baby, and Lettice returned.
"Dear people," she cried, "I _am_ glad you are come back."
She had been, if the truth were told, a good deal fidgeted and
frightened, as young mothers are very apt to be, when the baby does not
come home at the usual hour. She had suffered a good deal of uneasiness,
and felt half inclined to be angry. A great many people with whom I am
acquainted, would have burst out into a somewhat petulant scold, when
the cause for anxiety was at an end, and baby and her party, all safe,
appeared quietly walking up the road as if nothing in the world were
amiss. The very quiet and tranquillity which proved that they were quite
unconscious of having done any thing wrong would have irritated some
people more than all the rest. I thought it was very nice of Catherine
to be good-humored and content as soon as she saw all was safe, after
the irritating anxiety she had just been going through. She, however,
ran eagerly down the steps, and her eyes sparkling with impatience
caught her little one in her arms and kissed it very fast and hard. That
being the only sign of an impatient spirit which she showed, and, except
crying out, "Oh! I am glad to see you safe back, all of you. Do you
know, Lettice, I began to wonder what had become of you?"--not a
syllable approaching to reproof passed her lips.
"Dear Mrs. D'Arcy! Dear Catherine! I am afraid we are late. We went too
far--we partly lost ourselves. We got into a long, but oh! such a lovely
lane--where I never was before, and then, we have had a little wee bit
of an adventure."
"Adventure! Oh goodness! I _am_ glad of that. Adventures are so
excessively rare in this country. I never met with one in my life, but
happening upon Edgar, as the people say, when he was coming from
hunting; and the wind had blown off my hat. A wind that blew somebody
good, that ... dear, beloved, Lettice, I wish to goodness, that I do--an
adventure of the like of that, might have happened to you."
Lettice colored a little.
"Gracious!" cried Catherine, laughing merrily, and peeping at her under
her bonnet--"I declare--you're blushing Lettice. Your adventure is
something akin to my adventure. Have you stumbled upon an unparalleled
youth--by mere accident as I did? and did he--did he pick up your hat?"
"If he had," said Lettice, "I am afraid my face with my hair all blown
about it would not have looked quite so enchanting as yours must have
done. No, I did not lose my bonnet."
"Any thing else? Your heart, perhaps?"
"Dear Catherine! How can you be so silly."
"Oh! it was such a blessed day when I lost mine," said Mrs. D'Arcy,
gayly. "Such a gain of a loss! that I wish just the same misfortune to
befall every one I love--and I love you dearly, Lettice."
"There must be more than one heart lost I fancy, to make adventures turn
out as well as yours did, Catherine."
"Oh! that's a matter of course in such sort of things. There is always
an exchange, where there is love at first sight. But now do tell me,
that's a dear girl, what your adventure was."
"I only saw a clergyman reading to a poor woman--or rather I only saw a
clergyman, a Bible, and a poor woman, and thence concluded that he _had_
been reading to her."
"Oh! you tiresome creature. Poor, dear, old Mr. Hughes, I'll be bound.
Good old fellow--but such a hum-drum. Nay, Lettice, my dear, don't look
shocked and cross. A clergyman may be a very stupid, hum-drum, tiresome
fellow, as well as any other man. Don't pretend to deny that."
"I would as lief not hear them called so--but this was not Mr. Hughes."
"Oh, no! I remember now you were not in his parish. If you went down
Briarwood-lane far enough you would be in Briarwood parish. Mr. Thomas,
perhaps."
"No."
"Mr. Thomas's curate. Oh! of course the curate. Only I don't think Mr.
Thomas keeps one."
"No; I believe not Mr. Thomas's, or any one else's curate; but a
gentleman who says he knew Captain D'Arcy at school."
"Nay, that is too charming. That really is like an adventure."
"Here, Edgar!"
He was crossing the paddock at some little distance.
"Come here for one instant. Do you recollect what I was talking to you
about this very morning? Well, Lettice has met with an adventure, and
has stumbled upon an old acquaintance of yours--reading the Bible to an
old woman--he was at school with you.
"Well, as there were about five hundred people, more or less, who had
that honor--if you mean to know any thing about him, Miss Arnold, you
must go a little more into detail; and, first and foremost, what is the
young gentleman's name?"
"James St. Leger," said Lettice.
A start for answer, and,
"Ha! Indeed! Poor fellow! _he_ turned up again. I little thought our
paths in life would ever cross more. How strange to unearth him in such
a remote corner of the world as Briarwood. Poor fellow! Well, what is he
like? and how does he look?"
"Ill and melancholy," said Lettice. "I should say very ill and very
melancholy--and with reason I believe; for though he is in holy orders,
something is the matter with his throat or his chest; which renders him
useless in the pulpit."
"You don't say so. His chest! I hope not. And yet," continued Edgar, as
if musing aloud, "I know not. He was one when I knew him, Miss Arnold,
so marked out through the vices of others for misery in this world, that
I used to think the sooner he went out of it the better for him."
"Ah!" cried Catherine, "there is an interesting history here. Do tell it
us, Edgar. Of all your charming talks, what I like almost the best are
your reminiscences. He has such a memory, Lettice; and so much
penetration into the characters of persons: and the connection of
things; that nothing is so delightful as when he _will_ tell some old
history of his earlier years. Do, dear Edgar, tell us all about this
charming young curate of Briarwood."
"Flatterer! Coaxing flatterer! Don't believe a word she says, Miss
Arnold. I am as empty-pated a rattle-skull, as ever was turned raw into
one of her Majesty's regiments--and that's saying a good deal, I can
tell you. But this dear creature here loves a bit of romance in her
heart. What's o'clock?"
"Oh!" looking at the tiniest of watches, "a full two hours to dinner;
and such a day too for a story--and just look at that spreading oak with
the bench under it, and the deer lying crouching there so sweetly, and
the wind just lulling the boughs as it were to rest. Here, nurse, bundle
the baby away to her nursery. Now, _do_, there's a darling Edgar."
"Why, my love, you are making awful preparation. It is almost as
terrible as reading a manuscript to begin a relation, all sitting
solemnly upon a bench under a tree together. There is not much to tell,
poor fellow; only I did pity him from my heart of hearts."
Catherine had her way, and they sat down under the green leafy canopy of
this majestic oak; and she put her arm in her husband's, and her hand
into that of Lettice, and thus sitting between them, loving and beloved,
she listened, the happiest, as she was one of the honestest and best,
of heaven's creatures.
"We were both together at a large rough sort of preparatory school,"
began Edgar, "where there might be above a hundred boys or so. They were
mostly, if not entirely, intended for the military profession, and came
from parents of all sorts of positions and degrees, and of all sorts of
principles, characters, and manners. A very omnium gatherum that school
was, and the ways of it were as rough as in any school. I should think,
they could possibly be. I was a tall, healthy rebel, when I was sent
there, as strong as a little Hercules, and excessively proud of my force
and prowess. A bold, daring, cheerful, merry lad, as ever left his
mother's apron-string; very sorry to quit the dotingest of mothers, and
the happiest of homes, and the pleasantest of fathers; but mighty proud
to come out of the _Gynyseum_, and to be a man, as I thought it high
time I should, in cloth trowsers and jacket, instead of a black velvet
coatee. In I plunged, plump head-foremost amid the vortex, and was soon
in a thousand scrapes and quarrels, battling my way with my fists, and
my merry eye; for they used to tell me the merry eye did more for me
even than my impudence in fighting every thing that would condescend to
fight such a youngster. I was soon established, and then I breathed
after my victories, and began to look round.
"So long as I had considered the throng about me but in the light of so
many adversaries to be beaten by main force, and their rude and
insulting ways only as provocatives to the fray, I had cared little for
their manners or their proceedings, their coarseness and vulgarity,
their brutality and their vices. But now, seated in peace upon the
eminence to which I had fought my way, I had time to breathe and to
observe. I can not describe to you how shocked, how sickened, how
disgusted I became. _Par parenthese_, I will say that it has always been
an astonishment to me, how parents so tender as mine could send a frank,
honest-hearted, well-meaning little fellow into such a place. But the
school had a high reputation. I was then a fourth son, and had to make
my way as best I could in the profession chosen for me. So here I came.
I was about ten or eleven years old, I must add, in excuse for my
parents, though I called myself so young, I felt younger, because this
was my first school. To resume. When I had vanquished them, it is not in
words to describe how I despised and detested the majority of my
schoolfellows--for their vulgar pleasures, their offensive habits--their
hard, rough, brutal manners--their vicious principles, and their vile,
blasphemous impiety. I was a warm lover and a still more ardent hater,
and my hatred to most of them exceeded all bounds of reason; but it was
just such as a straightforward, warm-tempered fellow, is certain to
entertain without mitigation in such a case.
"It is a bad element for a boy to be living in. However, I was saved
from becoming an utter young monster, by the presence in the school of
this very boy, James St. Leger.
"In the bustle and hurry of my early wars, I had taken little heed of,
scarcely observed this boy at all. But when the pause came, I noticed
him. I noticed him for many reasons. He was tall for his age, slender,
and of extremely delicate make, but with limbs of a symmetry and beauty
that reminded one of a fine antique statue. His face, too, was extremely
beautiful; and there was something in his large, thoughtful, melancholy
eyes, that it was impossible ever to look upon and to forget.
"I no sooner observed him at all, than my whole boyish soul seemed knit
to him.
"His manner was extremely serious; the expression of his countenance sad
to a degree--deeply, intensely sad, I might say; yet through that deep
sadness there was a tender sweetness which was to me most interesting. I
never shall forget his smile--for laugh he never was heard to do.
"I soon discovered two things, that made me feel more for him than all
the rest. One, that he was an extremely well-informed boy, and had
received a home education of a very superior order; and the other, that
he was most unfortunate, and that his misfortunes had one peculiar
ingredient of bitterness in them, namely, that they were of a nature to
excite the scorn and contempt of the vulgar herd that surrounded him,
rather than to move their rude hearts to sympathy and pity.
"The propensity to good in rough, vulgar, thoughtless human beings, is
very apt to show itself in this way--in a sort of contemptuous disgust
against vice and folly, and an alienation from those connected with it,
however innocent We must accept it, upon reflection, I suppose, as a
rude form of good inclination; but I was too young for reflection--too
young to make allowances, too young to be equitable. Such conduct
appeared to me the most glaring and barbarous injustice, and excited in
me a passion ate indignation.
"Never did I hear St. Leger taunted, as he often was, with the frailties
of his mother or the errors of his father, but my heart was all in a
flame--my fist clinched--my cheek burning. Many a fellow have I laid
prostrate upon the earth with a sudden blow who dared, in my presence,
to chase the color from St. Leger's cheek by alluding to the subject.
There was this remarkable in St. Leger, by the way, that he never
colored when his mother's shame or his father's end was alluded to, but
went deadly pale.
"The history was a melancholy one of human frailty, and is soon told.
His mother had been extremely beautiful, his father the possessor of a
small independent fortune. They had lived happily together many years,
and she had brought him five children; four girls and this boy. I have
heard that the father doted with no common passion--in a _husband_,
Catherine--upon the beautiful creature, who was moreover accomplished
and clever. She seemed devoted to her children, and had given no common
attention to her boy in his early years. Hence his mental
accomplishments. The husband was, I suspect, rather her inferior in
intellect; and scarcely her equal in refinement and manner, but it's no
matter, it would have been probably the same whatever he had been. She
who will run astray under one set of circumstances, would probably have
run astray under any. She was very vain of her beauty and talents, and
had been spoiled by the idolatry and flattery of all who surrounded her.
"I will not pain you by entering into any particulars; in brief, she
disgraced herself, and was ruined.
"The rage, the passionate despair, the blind fury of the injured
husband, it was said, exceeded all bounds. There was of course every
sort of public scandal. Legal proceedings and the necessary
consequences--a divorce. The wretched history did not even end here. She
suffered horribly from shame and despair I have been told, but the shame
and despair, had not the effect it ought to have produced. She fell from
bad to worse, and was utterly lost. The husband did the same. Wild with
the stings of wounded affection, blinded with suffering, he flew for
refuge to any excitement which would for a moment assuage his agonies;
the gaming-table, and excess in drinking, soon finished the dismal
story. He shot himself in a paroxysm of delirium tremens, after having
lost almost every penny he possessed at Faro.
"You tremble Catherine. Your hand in mine is cold. Oh the pernicious
woman! Oh the depths of the misery--if I were indeed to tell you all I
have met with and known--which are entailed upon the race by the vanity,
the folly, and the vice of women. Angels! yes, angels you are. Sweet
Saint--sweet Catherine, and men fall down and worship you--but woe for
them when she they worship, proves a fiend.
"Dear Miss Arnold, you are shedding tears--but you _would_ have this
dismal story. You had better hear no more of it, let me stop now."
"Go on--pray go on, Edgar. Tell us about the poor boy and the girls, you
said there were four of them."
"The boy and his sisters were taken by some relations. It was about a
year after these events that I met him at this school. They had sent him
here, thinking the army the best place for him. To get him shot off,
poor fellow, perhaps, if they could. His four sisters were all then
living, and how tenderly, poor lad, he used to talk to me about them.
How he would grieve over the treatment they were receiving, with the
best intentions he acknowledged, but too hardening and severe he thought
for girls so delicate. They wanted a mother's fostering, a father's
protection, poor things, but he never alluded in the remotest way to
either father or mother. Adam, when he sprung from the earth, was not
more parentless than he seemed to consider himself. But he used to talk
of future for his sisters, and sometimes in his more cheerful moods,
would picture to himself what he would do when he should be a man, and
able to shelter them in a home, however humble, of his own. His whole
soul was wrapped up in these girls."
"Did you ever hear what became of them?"
"Three died of consumption, I have been told, just as they were opening
into the bloom of early womanhood, almost the loveliest creatures that
ever were seen."
"And the fourth."
"She was the most beautiful of all--a fine, high-spirited, dashing
creature. Her brother's secret terror and darling."
"Well!"
"She followed her mother's example, and died miserably at the age of
two-and-twenty."
"What can we do for this man?" cried Catherine, when she had recovered
voice a little. "Edgar, what can we do for this man?"
"Your first question, dear girl--always your first question--what can be
done?" Ever, my love, may you preserve that precious habit. My Catherine
never sits down lamenting, and wringing her hands helplessly about other
people's sorrows. The first thing she asks, is, "what _can be done_."