Ernest was true to his word--all that spring and summer he worked at
his sermons and his parish, like an ecclesiastical galley-slave, till
the volume was finished, and all the people had become so good, that
if it had not been for christenings, weddings, and funerals, they would
scarcely have required the services of a clergyman at all. Indeed,
carrying out the doctrine of self-denial logically, and to its
fullest extent, we doubt whether a rectory might not be regarded as a
superfluous luxury, a kind of canonical pomp and vanity, and therefore
a stumbling-block to be removed from the spiritual highway of that
super-excellent community.
But writing sermons, and instilling pure and heavenly principles into
the decidedly earthly minds of small shopkeepers and needy agricultural
labourers, albeit a high and sacred calling, considered abstractedly
and as a whole, is yet, taken in detail, a very trying vocation to a man
possessing, in no common degree, a taste for intellectual pursuits, and
a strong appreciation of refined society. Thus it came to pass that one
fine morning (it was the 12th of August) Ernest, having written a report
of a district meeting for the propagation of the Gospel in parts so very
foreign that the propagators themselves would have been puzzled to
find them on the map, leaned back in his chair and wondered how sundry
college friends of his were getting on among the grouse, when a note in
the Rosebud’s handwriting was brought to him. With sparkling eyes and a
slight accession of colour to his pale cheeks, he read as follows:--
“Dear Mr. Carrington,--Mamma is very ill--how ill I do not know--and
fear to learn. Mr. Pillanbill (do you consider him clever?) tells me not
to be alarmed, which frightens me terribly. May I hope you will come
to us--poor mamma is able and anxious to see you, and you will tell me
whether anything else can or ought to be done. Yours sincerely,
“Emily Colville.”
Within ten minutes after the note had reached him Ernest was at the
cottage. Emily received him with a blush and a smile. “How kind and good
of you to come so quickly!” she said. Tears trembled in her eyes. Ernest
had never seen her look so pretty.
“How good of _you_ to send for me!” he replied: “I hope,” he
continued--“I hope it proves that I am forgiven?”
Emily hung her head--“If you please, we will never refer to that again,”
she said, entreatingly; “I was very proud and foolish, and behaved very
ill; but you are wise enough to forgive, and kind enough to forget: is
it not so?”
Ernest took her hand and pressed it warmly, nor was it immediately
withdrawn.
Mrs. Colville was seriously ill; and having sat with her for some time,
the rector obtained her permission to inquire whether Mr. Pillanbill
would object to meet Dr. Twiggit, and learn if they agreed in their view
of the case, just to satisfy Miss Colville’s natural anxiety.
Mr. Pillanbill graciously consented. Dr. Twiggit resided ten miles off,
and had too good a practice near home to make it worth his while to
poach upon his (P.’s) manor for the sake of a single outlying patient
with a limited purse. So Dr. Twiggit was summoned, and came; he was
a little man, with a large hooked nose and an ornithological cast of
countenance, as of a shrewd fowl. Having strutted and clapped his wings,
and, so to speak, crowed over the apothecary and the Rosebud, and looked
as if he would have liked uncommonly to fight Ernest for a handful of
barley, he entered the sick-room, where first, with two little bright
bead-like eyes, he looked clean through poor Mrs. Colville into the
mattress and feather-bed; next, he stretched out a claw to feel her
pulse; then he pecked at her to make her put out her tongue; then he
shook his feathers and crowed over _her_; and then he chased Pillanbill
round and out of the room for the consultation, which ran thus:--
_Twiggit_.--“Clear case!”
_Pillanbill_.--“No mistake.”
_Twiggit_.--“Hepatico-cerebreosistosis, first stage.”
_Pillanbill._--“Quite so.”
_Twiggit_.--“What have you thrown in?”
_Pillanbill_ hands prescription. _Hydrarg_:--mysterious cipher, looking
like a 3 with two heads--_Rhei: pulvo_:--another cipher, worse than the
first, &c., &c.
_Twiggit_ reads--“Hum! yes, ha! good!” (returns prescription), “can’t be
better--ar--I think that is all to-day, ar--needn’t send for me unless
any symptoms of spiflicatio appear, and then it will be too late; keep
the feet warm, head cool, nourishing slops, bland puddings--but you
know--good morning.”
So saying, the talented M.D., who was in himself a modern instance of
the mythical relation existing between Esculapius and the cock, strutted
out to his carriage a richer man by five-guineas than he had been when
he quitted that vehicle.
Mrs. Colville’s was a very severe illness, and at one time her state
was most critical; but, thanks to a patient and resigned spirit, and an
excellent constitution, after three weeks of intense anxiety to those
who watched over her, she began to show symptoms of amendment. From the
day on which Ernest had received the Rosebud’s summons, to the happy
moment when Doctors Twiggit and Pillanbill took their leave, he had
shown the unceasing affection of a son towards Mrs. Colville, and of a
brother towards Emily. Hour after hour had he attended the sick woman’s
bedside, reading to her or conversing with her on those all-important
subjects that, at such seasons, become invested with a deep and solemn
interest which in our happier moments they too often fail to excite in
our weak and fallen natures. And as Emily sat by, and heard the words of
the inspired volume, rendered yet more beautiful and impressive by the
correct taste, true feeling, and rich mellow voice of the reader; or
listened, as, with a wisdom beyond his years--a wisdom not of this
world--Ernest explained away difficulties, and threw the clear light
of a strong and vigorous understanding on the great truths of our Holy
Religion, what wonder if some of the reverence and affection, which
such teaching must excite in every pure and gentle bosom, grew to cling
around the teacher? Or what wonder, either, that when Ernest saw the
scornful, capricious, half-childlike little coquette, whose sparkling
beauty had charmed his fancy, change, the instant sorrow laid its
chastening touch upon her brow, into the thoughtful, tender devoted
woman,--the ministering angel beside the couch of sickness, whose
gentle, never-failing tact and quiet power of steadfast, patient
endurance, man’s stronger, more energetic nature, may envy, but can
never attain to;--what wonder if, where he had before admired, he now
grew to love?
It is a good thing to love! So much mawkish sentimentality and
bombastic nonsense, so many white-muslined tears and boarding-school
sentimentalities, have been heaped around its counterfeit, that healthy
minds not unnaturally scoff at the passion--until they feel it! and thus
has one of the highest emotions of which our nature is capable, been
brought into undeserved disrepute. A deep, true, earnest, unselfish
affection, such as an honest man (“the noblest work of God”) is capable
of feeling for a woman worthy to call it forth, raises, purifies,
and spiritualises his whole being, enlarges his sympathies, and (by
affording a new motive for exertion) stimulates his faculties, and thus
causes him to do the work he may lay his hand to, better than he would
have executed it without such an incentive. The Apostle tells us, “If a
man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar;” and a great
truth is embodied in the text;--a nature capable of forming a deep,
unselfish attachment to one of God’s creatures, raises its possessor in
the scale of creation, and enables him to adore his Maker and love
his fellows with a zealous earnestness and reality, of which a
self-engrossed character is incapable--therefore, as we began by
saying--it is a good thing to love!
As Mrs. Colville’s recovery progressed, it was Ernest Carrington who
drew her about in her garden-chair, and as she grew yet stronger, it was
on his arm she leaned when, with feeble steps, she began once again to
resume her daily walks; and as, with grateful heart, Emily watched the
colour slowly returning to her mother’s pale cheeks, she almost felt as
if it was to Ernest that she owed her beloved parent’s restoration.
One morning, about a month after Mr. Pillanbill had finally taken leave,
and when every vestige of his first syllable had been swallowed, and his
last syllable (which was a very long one) had been paid, Ernest, whilst
waiting until Mrs. Colville was ready for her accustomed walk, had a
letter with a foreign postmark put into his hand. Emily, who watched him
while he read it, saw him start and change colour.
“Is anything the matter?” she inquired, as he refolded the letter.
“Yes--no--that is, I think you cannot any longer be anxious about Mrs.
Colville: her health, thank God, is perfectly restored.
“Oh yes, I trust so,” was the reply, “but why do you ask?’
“Because I must leave you for a time; and if you felt nervous or
uncomfortable about your mother, we could arrange for Percy to return a
week or two before the holidays--what do you say?--he might be a comfort
to you?”
As Ernest spoke, he stooped to pick up the envelope of the letter, and
thus failed to observe that Emily started and turned pale when he said
he must leave her. The letter was from Sir Thomas Crawley’s valet; his
master was very ill--dangerously ill, he was afraid; he had been unwell
for some time, and had gone to Baden for change of air; but instead of
recovering, he had grown worse every day, until finally, after a long
interview with his medical advisers, he desired Hemmings to write to Mr.
Selby and Mr. Carrington, begging them to come out to him without delay,
and bring with them some clever English physician. When Mrs. Colville
appeared and learned this intelligence, she fully agreed with Ernest
that no time should be lost in setting off; and after a few minutes’
conversation on the subject, the rector rose to take his leave, saying
that he should probably start the next morning.
“Mamma has persuaded me to go for an hour or two to the Selbys this
evening; Caroline would take no refusal, and Miss Plainfille is coming
to sit with mamma. Shall I see you there?” asked the Rosebud, quietly.
“Well then, farewell, dear Mrs. Colville,” exclaimed Ernest warmly,
having answered Emily’s question in the affirmative; “I leave you
in very good hands, and expect to find you stronger than ever when I
return.”
The evening at the Selbys was a very pleasant one, both to Emily and
to Ernest, only instead of two hours, it appeared to last about ten
minutes.
“Mr. Carrington, I’m afraid I must be rude enough to ask you to step
into my office and look at the arrangements I have made for our journey
to-morrow,” observed Mr. Selby, late in the evening.
“Certainly, I will follow you in one moment,” was the reply.
There was a small apartment opening out of the drawingroom, fitted up
as a boudoir for the benefit of Caroline Selby. In this snuggery the
two young ladies had been looking over some water-colour sketches, but
Caroline Selby had just been called away, and the Rosebud was left by
herself. At that instant Ernest joined her.
“Emily,” he said, and his voice was low and tremulous--“Emily, I have
come to bid you good-bye.”
“Must you go already?” was the rejoinder.
“Indeed, I fear so,” returned Ernest. There was a pause, and then he
resumed, in a voice which trembled with emotion, “Emily, we have been
very happy of late.”
“Oh, yes!” she murmured, almost unconsciously.
“And you,” he continued--“you have been very kind and gentle. Emily, you
will not forget me--will not grow cold towards me again?”
She made no reply, but her silence was more eloquent than words. At that
moment Mr. Selby’s footstep sounded on the stairs.
“I _must_ go,” Ernest resumed: “Emily, dear Emily! goodbye;--God bless
you!” He took her soft, warm little hand in his own; she allowed him to
retain it unresistingly: he pressed it, and his heart beat quickly when
he felt the pressure faintly but unmistakably returned. With a sudden
impulse he raised the little hand, still imprisoned in his, to his lips,
kissed it, and tore himself away. As he paused to close the door, a
slight sound caught his ear: could it be a sob?
How long it might have been after his departure ere the noise of
approaching voices roused Emily from the mental abstraction into which
she had fallen, that young lady herself never knew--it might have been
one minute, it might have been ten. When she did awake to a sense of
outward things, the following speech from the lips of Mrs. Selby, a
good-natured, vulgar woman, arrested her attention:--
“And so, ma’am, if Sir Thomas Crawley dies, which my husband fears is
only too probable, Mr. Carrington is as likely to be his heir as anybody
I can think of.”
“And then he’ll go and marry that pert stuck-up Emily Colville, I
suppose” (the speaker was Mrs. Pillanbill, who owned three awful
daughters, unattached); “that girl’s played her cards well, and
no mistake. It was easy to see she set her cap at him from the
first--probably calculated on his being Sir Thomas’s heir all along. Oh,
she’s a deep one, trust her!”
And as the speakers passed on, their words became inaudible in the
distance; but Emily had heard too much for her peace of mind. All night
long she lay awake weeping--for she resolved, if Ernest should be Sir
Thomas’s heir, and asked her to become his wife, she must and would
refuse him, if the resolution broke her heart.
Oh, Rosebud! Rosebud! beware of pride--the sin that peopled hell!