Sir Thomas Crawley had sneaked and shuffled through life, and, by doing
so with a degree of talent which if exerted in a righteous cause might
have gained him the love and respect of good men, had obtained the
world’s prizes--rank and riches. But tact and cleverness, rank and
riches, were equally useless to him now, for he had met with an opponent
whom he could neither bribe, nor cheat, nor intimidate, nor cajole. Face
to face with death, all his worldly wisdom failed him. Dying! he could
not believe it--so much yet remained for him to do. If he could but
live for two months longer he should be a baronet--for two years, and he
might have married the proud peer’s daughter, and transmitted the rank
and honours he had won to a long line of descendants. Then, indeed,
then, when he had accomplished his desire, then the idea of death might
not have appeared so monstrous, so impossible. But even then he should
have required a little time to prepare for death. Poor, self-deceived
fool! as if every hour you have lived, every word you have spoken--ay,
and every thought you have thought, were not preparing you for death and
for eternity! It is not what you have achieved that will help you now;
it is what you have been--what you are! The meek and lowly of heart will
compose the aristocracy of Heaven; and the lame, and the halt, and the
blind, who have borne their cross patiently, shall be its mighty ones:
he who best has loved God and his neighbour--he whose life has been one
unconscious preparation for death--he shall reap the reward;--else is
Heaven but a mockery, and death, the “long dark day of nothingness,” the
sceptic’s idea of death, extinction, annihilation, is the only reality.
Sir Thomas Crawley was dying; he knew it before Ernest Carrington
brought the English physician; he knew it when the physician’s eye first
met his own; he knew it when Mr. Selby urged him to sign his will. But
he could not, he would not believe it. He was weak, he said; Germany
did not agree with him; he had worked too hard, and required rest and
society: that was his reason for summoning Mr. Carrington. Had Selby
brought the papers he required?--old Sir Ralph Carrington’s will?--good!
and his own will?--good! Let that be destroyed now, before his
eyes--good!--he should make a fresh one when he reached Ashburn Priory.
But he did not do so, for the very good reason that men in their coffins
cannot make wills, and Sir Thomas reached Ashburn a corpse, and took up
his abode in his family vault, handsomely bound in mahogany and black
velvet, ornamented with a real silver plate, whereupon were engraved a
goodly list of virtues, of which nobody had suspected him when living,
but of which the undertaker always kept a large ready-made supply on
hand, for the benefit of such of his customers as were rich enough
to afford them. Nothing was said about his vices, perhaps because the
silver plate was not half long enough to contain them.
Dear reader, shall you like to have a silver plate? For myself, a little
one of Britannia metal, with “_Peccavi_” engraved upon it, will suit me
well enough; but then I am only a poor author, and if any of my works
should happen to survive me in morocco covers, I shall care little what
sort of boards the hand that traced them lies bound in.
During the time Ernest was in Germany, the Rosebud was decidedly out
of spirits, restless, and anxious; and when the news of Sir Thomas
Crawley’s death arrived, she became so nervous and dejected, that Mrs.
Colville grew quite uneasy about her.
One fine morning Mrs. Selby paid them a visit, evidently full of news.
It soon came out,--she had heard from Mr. Selby; he and Mr. Carrington
would be home the next day; and--would Mrs. Colville believe it?--poor
dear Sir Thomas had died without signing his last will and testament;
so all the property would go, under a former one, to his heir, Mr.
Peter Crawley--a very fine young man, in a large way of business in
Manchester, though of course he’d give up all that sort of thing now.
She, Mrs. Selby, was only sorry on one account, he had never been able
to get it out of Mr. Selby, he was so ridiculously close, but she was
almost certain Sir Thomas had left £20,000 to Mr. Carrington in his
last will, and he would have spent the money so well, it certainly was a
thousand pities; but Mr. Peter Crawley would benefit, and he was such a
very fine young man; a fortunate family the Crawleys were, certainly.
That day at dinner, Mrs. Colville remarked her daughter’s appetite was
returning, and that she began to look like herself again; which she
attributed to a certain quinine mixture wherewith the Rosebud had been
victimised, and which she canonised accordingly.
Ernest and Mr. Selby arrived when due, and the legend of Mr. Peter
Crawley’s heirship remained uncontradicted--nay, was confirmed, by that
very fine young man’s arrival, in high health and spirits, to enact the
part of chief mourner. Ernest was much occupied by parish affairs, and
by the arrangements for the approaching funeral (in regard to which Mr.
Selby appeared resolved to consult him much more than he wished, or Mr.
Peter Crawley seemed to relish); but all his leisure moments he spent at
the cottage, and had no reason to complain of the reception he met with
from either mother or daughter.
And so, in due course of time, the day for the funeral arrived. Now it
is an acknowledged fact that funerals and weddings are the two dullest
and most sombre occasions on which human creatures assemble themselves
together, and are therefore equally insipid to describe; only a funeral
labours under the additional disadvantage, that it is against every rule
of good taste and right feeling to poke fun at it. We feel, therefore,
that we have “our public” with us, when, without entering into detail,
we beg them to consider Sir Thomas Crawley handsomely and appropriately
interred, with the necessary amount of black crape, crocodile tears, and
funereal foppery.
After the ceremony was over, Mr. Selby ate an excellent luncheon at the
expense of the estate, to provide against the possible contingency of
requiring the performance repeated on his own account, after a verdict
of “died of inanition,” and then prepared to read the will--only, after
searching high and low, and in every intermediate altitude, no will was
forthcoming; so the next best thing was to inform a small and select
coterie of ravening wolves, and daughters of the horse-leech, there met
together in bombazine and black sheep’s-clothing (_alias_ broadcloth),
and styling themselves relations of the dear departed (which in more
senses than one, they certainly were), all that he (Selby) knew about
the matter. This was--that since his accession to the Manor of Ashburn,
Sir Thomas Crawley had made two wills:--the first bequeathing the bulk
of the property to Mr. Peter Crawley, he had duly signed, sealed, and
delivered the second he had never completed. That, when Sir Thomas, in
his last illness, summoned Mr. Selby to Baden, he had desired him to
bring with him three documents, viz., old Sir Ralph Carrington’s will,
under which he had originally inherited the property; his own completed
will; and the draught of the more recent one, then incomplete. That Sir
Thomas had carefully-perused every clause of Sir Ralph’s will; then,
begging Mr. Selby to take especial care of it, he desired him to destroy
both the others in his presence; adding that they neither of them
carried out his present intentions, and that, on his return to the
Priory, he should give instructions for a fresh one. That he (Mr.
Selby), declining to destroy the wills without witnesses of his doing
so, by Sir Thomas Crawley’s express desire, the valet and the English
physician were summoned, and in their presence he burned the wills. The
property must, therefore, be disposed of according to the will of the
late Sir Ralph Carrington.
We will save the reader (and ourselves) the trouble of wading through
the mire of that most senseless abuse of the Queen’s-English, and her
subjects’ common sense, yclept “legal phraseology;” which ought to be
rendered illegal without delay; and proceed at once to state that, in
the event of plain Thomas Crawley (not then be-knighted) dying intestate
and without issue, the property was to revert to the eldest son of
Reginald-Carrington, &c. &c., which Reginald, as the reader may probably
conjecture, was the “cut off” son of Sir Hugh, and the father of the
present rector of Ashburn.
Ernest Carrington, therefore, the _ci-devant_ mathematical and classical
master of Dr. Donkiestir’s school at Tickletown, was now lord of the
manor of Ashburn, patron of his own living, and owner of Ashburn Priory,
besides, if he chose to revive the dormant title, a baronet also.
On hearing this announcement, that fine young man, Mr. Peter Crawley,
said a naughty word, and then tried to look as if somebody else had done
it, frowning portentously at the oldest ravening wolf, who, with the
rest of the pack, appeared eager to turn and rend somebody, and were
only restrained from an outbreak of ferocity by the tightness of their
(black) sheep’s clothing; while the Misses Horse-leech, despite their
bombazine and flounces, cast sanguinary glances on Mr. Selby, and would
probably there and then have fixed upon him and exhausted his vital
fluid, albeit his personal appearance was scarcely suggestive of an
agreeable esculent, but for the presence of the bystanders.
The Rosebud heard the news before she slept that night--slept, did
we say?--poor little self-tortured victim to a delusion of the
arch-enemy--if agonised sobs, threatening to part soul and body; if pale
cheeks, throbbing bosom, streaming eyes, and burning brow, be signs
of sleep, then indeed was the expression rightly chosen. Ernest also,
either by some strange vibration of the sympathetic chain which unites
those who truly love--(my dear strong-minded old gentleman, albeit you
are the “father of a family,” and a fair specimen of the ancient Turk
of private life into the bargain, your saying “Pish! folly! German
rubbish!” does not affect me in the slightest degree--probably because
the sympathetic link which so much offends you, does _not_ unite our
spirits, which will, I fear, always more or less effervesce rather than
mingle, by being brought in contact with one another)--Ernest also,
either from some sympathetic influence, or from the natural impetuosity
of his disposition, was so restless and excited that night, that he
determined the next day should decide whether he was to be more happy,
or more miserable, than anybody had ever been before--except, perhaps,
the _few_ other ardent young men who have “lived and loved,” and got
into desperate states of mind about it, since the days when Noah went
a-yachting.
Accordingly, being aware that Mrs. Colville had usually breakfasted in
her own room since her illness, and seldom made her appearance in
the drawing-room till about twelve o’clock, Ernest (as soon as he had
finished his breakfast, and written two or three business letters, which
were fertile in mistakes and erasures, seeing that his hand had written
them while his mind was “far away”) walked down to the cottage, let
himself in, and without announcement made his way into the drawingroom,
as he had often done before, where, opening the door, he found, as he
had fondly hoped to do, the Rosebud “blooming alone;” only that she
was not blooming at all, but looking especially pale and washed out, by
reason of the tempestuous night she had passed. Not but that the storm
of feeling which had swept over her maiden soul, and left its traces
behind, had added a depth and (if we may use the term) pathos to her
beauty, which it wanted previously. She turned, if possible, still more
pale as he entered; then, by a strong exercise of self-control, she
strove, with tolerable success, to receive him in her usual manner.
After a few commonplace inquiries and responses had passed between them,
Emily, by a great effort, felicitated him on his accession of fortune.
He smiled mournfully.
“Do not congratulate me, Emily,” he said: “it is a vast and fearful
responsibility. My career would have been a simpler and happier
one without it; but it is God’s will to call me to a more prominent
position, and I must not shrink from the cares and duties it will impose
upon me.” He paused, then with a forced smile, which most ineffectually
concealed his agitation> continued, “I should make but a poor advocate,
I fear; for here am I setting forth all the evils and difficulties of my
new position, when my object in coming here--an object in the attainment
of which the whole happiness of my existence is centered--is to ask you
to share it.” He then in a few simple, truthful, and therefore eloquent
words, told her of his deep affection for her, and of his earnest desire
to do what mortal might, to guard her from, or to mitigate, all the
sorrows which more or less fall to the lot of each of us, confident
that, in striving to provide for her happiness, he should insure his
own.
Emily heard him to the end without interruption, and, save that she
grew paler, and that her features assumed a more, fixed and immovable
expression, she evinced no sign of being in the slightest degree
affected by his appeal. When he had concluded, she thanked him for the
compliment he had paid her, but informed him that, although she should
always regard him in the light of a dear and valued friend, and hoped
he would, not deprive her of a privilege she so highly appreciated, yet
that she could never become anything more to him than a friend--in fact,
she decidedly and unequivocally refused him.
Ernest was thunderstricken! He was no coxcomb, but neither was he devoid
of penetration; and he knew her so well.--had traced, as he believed,
so clearly the rise and progress of her affection for him--an affection
ripened, and, as it were, sanctified, by their joint attendance
beside her mother’s sick bed--that, although from a slight tendency to
waywardness which he was aware lurked in her disposition, he anticipated
some little difficulty in obtaining her consent to their union, yet the
idea that his offer should be met with a calm and deliberate refusal,
had never occurred to him even as a possibility. After a minute’s pause,
he exclaimed--
“I am grieved,--pained beyond expression!--nay,” he continued, gaining
courtage from the strength of his convictions, “I will even dare to add,
surprised. Emily, I cannot bring myself to believe that my offer has
come upon you unexpectedly; you _must_ have been aware of my affection
for you?” Receiving no answer, he continued in a sterner tone, “I am
then to understand that, perceiving my attachment, without returning it,
you have led me on merely to gratify your heartless vanity, till, in my
weak trustfulness, I have placed it in your power to inflict this blow
upon me--a blow, the effects of which years will fail to counteract. It
is not my pride that is wounded: the little pride I ever possessed has
been pretty well taken out of me by the drudgery of life ere this; but
that such deep, unselfish love, such entire boundless trust, should have
been thus bitterly deceived, thus heartlessly rejected, and by one
who seemed all truth, innocence, and gentleness--Oh! it is unnatural,
incredible’” He sprang from his chair, and began pacing the room with
rapid strides, then continued, “But I will overcome it; it is unworthy
to be thus affected--to feel thus for one capable of such deception. No!
cost me what it may, I will crush----!”
“Gently, my dear sir, gently: you may crush exactly what you please of
your own--your outraged affections, your rejected heart, or that very
nice new hat which you purchased in your way through London--though
that would be the most wantonly extravagant act of the three; but
you mustn’t crush our Rosebud, albeit she is such a heartless little
tigress. Ay I you may well stop and look at her! You ought to be ashamed
of yourself, Mr. Carrington! so you ought! And you a clergyman, too!
“Stop and look at her!” Why, what was there to see in that calm,
expressionless face, that cold stoical exterior?--only that the said
stoicism had turned out a dead failure, broken down with its would-be
professor at the critical moment, and there she was crying her woman’s
tender heart out, through her woman’s beautiful eyes, more like Niobe
than Plato, by long odds.
When Ernest perceived this, he experienced what dear Mrs. -------- would
call, in her very affecting third-volume style, “a tremendous revulsion
of feeling,” under the influence of which he seated himself beside the
weeping Rosebud, and taking her poor, cold, little hand, said--
“Emily, dearest Emily, what is the meaning of all this? Why! you are
making yourself as miserable as you have made me! Come, treat me as a
friend--a brother: confide in me. You must have some reason for what
you are doing. Tell me”--and here, despite his best efforts, his voice
faltered--“tell me--your happiness is ever my first consideration, and,
even though it involve the ruin of my dearest hopes, I will strive to
secure it--do you love another?”
She did not speak; in fact, she could not just at that moment, by reason
of the swollen state of the _globus-hystericus_ interfering with the
action of the _larynx_--to write technically--or because of a choking
sensation in the throat, if any reader prefers the colloquial style;
but she had very expressive eyes, and they said “no” just as plainly, or
rather as prettily, as her lips could have done.
Ernest felt better; if she did not love anybody else, she must in time
love him. Such affection as his must produce a return--he knew, he
felt--but you see the line of argument, dear reader. Well, then, what
was the hitch? Ernest pondered; at last, a bright idea occurred to him.
The change in Emily had taken place since the previous day. Yes, _that_
was it! So he half muttered aloud, half thought to himself, “Some
absurd, romantic, generous scruple about this confounded” (I am afraid
he said confounded) “fortune.” He then continued aloud, rather in
the tone in which he talked to the very little children in the
Sunday-school,--
“Now listen to me, dear Emily. The happiness of my life, and, as I
cannot but hope” (charitable hope!), “of yours also, is at stake. I once
again tell you that I love you, as I have never loved before--as I shall
never love again; that I love you with the one, deep, enduring passion
of my lifetime. And I ask you--I adjure you--for both our sakes, to tell
me, as truly as the fact will appear on that solemn day when the secrets
of all hearts shall be known, do you return my affection?--Emily,
dearest, do you love me?”
Well, of course she could not say “No,” for that would have been false;
she must say something, for, Sunday-school manner and all, Ernest had
become rather awful at last, so there was nothing left for her but
to say “Yes,”---which she did accordingly. That, in fact, settled the
question; for, naturally, Ernest decided if she loved him, she must
and should marry him; and then he elicited from her that it _was_ the
fortune, upon which he observed--
“Very well: that he _had_ hoped and intended to send Percy to college,
and to buy Hugh a commission, and to build a church at Satanville, and
to despatch a bran-new missionary to Sambobamboo, and to erect some
very uncomfortable model cottages for the poor people, and to double Mr.
Slowkopf’s salary; but that if Emily persisted in refusing him because
of-the fortune, he would that very afternoon make it over by a deed of
gift to that fine young man Mr. Peter Crawley, and marry her on the £800
per annum which he received as Rector.”
And so, as it was quite clear that he meant what he said, and was
prepared to act up to it, the poor Rosebud was obliged to give in, and
consent to accept him fortune and all.
Thus the interview ended as happily as it had begun miserably; and if
Ernest didn’t steal a kiss ere he took leave, it must have been
because he was a clergyman, and had the fear of the bishop before his
eyes;--though if the bishop had been a good-natured one, he would have
winked at such an offence--certainly an _arch_-bishop would have done
so!