I choose to comfort myself by considering, that even
while I am lamenting my present uneasiness, it is
passing away.
HORACE WALPOLE.
An event occurred at this time, which considerably altered the plans of
Mr. and Mrs. Villiers. They had been invited to spend some time at
Maristow Castle, and were about to proceed thither with Lord Maristow
and his daughters, when the sudden death of Mr. Saville changed every
thing. He died of a malignant fever, leaving a young widow, and no
child, to inherit his place in society.
Through this unlooked-for event, Horatio became the immediate heir of
his father's title. He stept, from the slighted position of a younger
son into the rank of the eldest; and thus became another being in all
men's eyes--but chiefly in his father's.
Viscount Maristow had deeply regretted his son's foreign marriage, and
argued against his choice of remaining abroad. He was a statesman, and
conceived that Horatio's talents and eloquence would place him high
among the legislators of St. Stephen's. The soundness of his
understanding, and the flowing brilliancy of his language, were pledges
of his success. But Saville was not ambitious. His imagination rose high
above the empty honours of the world--to be useful was a better aim; but
he did not conceive that his was a mind calculated to lead others in its
train: its framework was too delicate, too finely strung, to sound in
accord with the many. He wanted the desire to triumph; and was content
to adore truth in the temple of his own mind, without defacing its
worship by truckling to the many falsehoods and errors which demand
subserviency in the world.
Lord Maristow had hitherto submitted to his disappointment, not without
murmurs, but without making any great effort at victory. He had written
many letters intreating his son to cast off the drowsy Neapolitan
sloth;--he had besought Villiers, previous to his departure the
preceding year, to bring his cousin back with him;--and this was all.
The death of his eldest son quickened him to exertion. He resolved to
trust no longer to written arguments, but to go himself to Italy, and by
force of paternal authority, or persuasions, to induce his son to come
back to his native country, and to fill with honour the post to which
fortune had advanced him. He did not doubt that Horatio would himself
feel the force of his new duties; but it would be clenching his purpose,
and paying an agreeable compliment to Clorinda, to make this journey,
and to bring them back with him when he returned. Whatever Mrs.
Saville's distaste to England might be, it must yield to the necessity
that now drew her thither. Lord Maristow could not imagine any
resistance so violent as to impede his wishes. The projected journey
charmed his daughters, saddened as they were by their recent loss. Lucy
was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing her beloved brother. She felt
sure that Clorinda would be brought to reason and thus, with their
hearts set upon one object, one idea, they bade adieu to Ethel and her
husband, as if their career was to be as sunny and as prosperous as they
doubted not that their own would be.
Lord Maristow alone guessed how things might stand. "Edward, my dear
boy," he said, "give me credit for great anxiety on your account. I wish
this marriage of yours had not taken place, then you might have roughed
it as other young men do, and have been the better for a little tart
experience. I do not like this shuffling on your father's part. I hear
for a certainty that this marriage of his will come to nothing--the
friends of the young lady are against it, and she is very young, and
only an heiress by courtesy--her father can give her as many tens of
thousands as he pleases, but he has sworn not to give her a shilling if
she marries without his consent; and he has forbidden Colonel Villiers
his house. He still continues at Cheltenham, and assures every one that
he is on safe ground; that the girl loves him, and that when once his,
the father must yield. It is too ridiculous to see him playing a
boy-lover's part at his time of life, trying to undermine a daughter's
sense of duty--he, who may soon be a grandfather! The poor little thing,
I am told, is quite fascinated by his dashing manners and station in
society. We shall see how it will end--I fear ill; her father might
pardon a runaway match with a lover of her own age; but he will never
forgive the coldblooded villany, excuse me, of a man of three times her
age; who for gain, and gain only, is seeking to steal her from him. Such
is the sum of what I am told by a friend of mine, just arrived from
Cheltenham. The whole thing is the farce of the day, and the stolen
interviews of the lovers, and the loud, vulgarly-spoken denunciations of
her father, vary the scene from a travestie of Romeo and Juliet to the
comedies of Plautus or Molière. I beg your pardon, Edward, for my
frankness, but I am angry. I have been used as a cat's-paw--I have been
treated unfairly--I was told that the marriage wanted but your
signature--my representations induced you to offer to Miss Fitzhenry,
and now you are a ruined man. I am hampered by my own family, and cannot
come forward to your assistance. My advice is, that you wait a little,
and see what turn matters take; once decided, however they conclude,
strong representations shall be made to your father, and he shall be
forced to render proper assistance; then if politics take a better turn,
I may do something for you--or you can live abroad till better times."
Villiers thanked Lord Maristow for his advice, and made no remarks
either on his details or promises. He saw his own fate stretched
drearily before him; but his pride made him strong to bear without any
outward signs of wincing. He would suffer all, conceal all, and be
pitied by none. The thought of Ethel alone made him weak. Were she
sheltered during the storm which he saw gathering so darkly, he would
have felt satisfied.
What was to be done? To go abroad, was to encounter beggary and famine.
To remain, exposed him to a thousand insults and dangers from which
there was no escape. Such were the whisperings of despair--but brighter
hopes often visited him. All could not be so evil as it seemed. Fortune,
so long his enemy, would yield at last one inch of ground--one inch to
stand upon, where he might wait in patience for better days. Had he
indeed done his utmost to avert the calamities he apprehended? Certainly
not. Thus spoke his sanguine spirit: more could and should be done. His
father might find means, he himself be enabled to arrange with his
lawyer some mode of raising a sum of money which would at least enable
him to go on the continent with his wife. He spent his thoughts in
wishes for the attainment of this desirable conclusion to his adversity,
till the very earnestness of his expectations seemed to promise their
realization. It could not be that the worst would come. Absurd!
Something must happen to assist them. Seeking for this unknown something
which, in spite of all his efforts, would take no visible or tangible
form, he spent weary days and sleepless nights, his brain spinning webs
of thought, not like those of the spider, useful to their weaver--a
tangled skein they were rather, where the clue was inextricably hid. He
did not speak of these things to Ethel, but he grew sad, and she was
anxious to go out of town, to have him all to herself, when she promised
herself to dispel his gloom; and, as she darkly guessed at the source of
his disquietude, by economy and a system of rigid privation, to show him
how willing and able she was to meet the adversity which he so much
dreaded.