"I am sorry, aunt, Mr. Denbigh is not rich," said Emily to Mrs. Wilson,
after they had retired in the evening, almost unconscious of what she
uttered. The latter looked at her niece in surprise, at a remark so
abrupt, and one so very different from the ordinary train of Emily's
reflections, as she required an explanation. Emily, slightly coloring at
the channel her thoughts had insensibly strayed into, gave her aunt an
account of their adventure in the course of the morning's drive, and
touched lightly on the difference in the amount of the alms of her
brother and those of Mr. Denbigh.
"The bestowal of money is not always an act of charity," observed Mrs.
Wilson, gravely, and the subject was dropped: though neither ceased to
dwell on it in her thoughts, until sleep closed the eyes of both.
The following day Mrs. Wilson invited Grace and Emily to accompany her
in a walk; the gentlemen having preceded them in pursuit of their
different avocations. Francis had his regular visits of spiritual
consolation; John had gone to the hall for his pointers and fowling-
piece, the season for woodcock having arrived; and Denbigh had proceeded
no one knew whither. On gaining the high-road, Mrs. Wilson desired her
companions to lead the way to the cottage where the family of the
mendicant gardener had been lodged, and thither they soon arrived. On
knocking at the door, they were immediately admitted to an outer room;
in which they found the wife of the laborer who inhabited the building,
engaged in her customary morning employments. They explained the motives
of the visit, and were told that the family they sought were in an
adjoining room, but she rather thought at that moment engaged with a
clergyman who had called a quarter of an hour before. "I expect, my
lady, it's the new rector, who everybody says is so good to the poor and
needy; but I have not found time yet to go to church to hear his
reverence preach, ma'am," courtseying and handing the fresh dusted
chairs to her unexpected visitors. The ladies seated themselves, too
delicate to interrupt Francis in his sacred duties, and were silently
waiting his appearance, when a voice was distinctly heard through the
thin partition, the first note of which undeceived them as to the
character of the gardener's visitor.
"It appears then, Davis, by your own confession," said Denbigh, mildly,
but in a tone of reproof, "that your frequent acts of intemperance have
at least given ground for the steward's procuring your discharge if it
has not justified him in doing that which his duty to your common
employer required."
"It is hard, sir," replied the man sullenly, "to be thrown on the world
with a family like mine, to make way for a younger man with but one
child."
"It may be unfortunate for your wife and children," said Denbigh, "but
just, as respects yourself. I have already convinced you, that my
interference or reproof is not an empty one: carry the letter to the
person to whom it is directed, and I pledge you, you shall have a new
trial; and should you conduct yourself soberly, and with propriety,
continued and ample support; the second letter will gain you children
immediate admission to the school I mentioned; and I now leave you, with
an earnest injunction to remember that habits of intemperance not only
disqualify you to support those who have such great claims on your
protection, but inevitably lead to a loss of those powers which are
necessary to insure your own eternal welfare."
"May Heaven bless your honor," cried the woman, with fervor, and
evidently in tears, "both for what you have said, and what you have
done. Thomas only wants to be taken from temptation, to become a sober
man again--an honest one he has ever been, I am sure."
"I have selected a place for him," replied Denbigh "where there is no
exposure through improper companions, and everything now depends upon
himself, under Providence."
Mrs. Wilson had risen from her chair on the first intimation given by
Denbigh of his intention to go, but had paused at the door to listen to
this last speech; when beckoning her companions, she hastily withdrew,
having first made a small present to the woman of the cottage, and
requested her not to mention their having called.
"What becomes now of the comparative charity of your brother and Mr.
Denbigh, Emily?" asked Mrs. Wilson, as they gained the road on their
return homewards. Emily was not accustomed to hear any act of John
slightly spoken of without at least manifesting some emotion, which
betrayed her sisterly regard; but on the present occasion she chose to
be silent; while Grace, after waiting in expectation that her cousin
would speak, ventured to say timidly--
"I am sure, dear madam, Mr. Moseley was very liberal and the tears were
in his eyes while he gave the money. I was looking directly at them the
whole time."
"John is compassionate by nature," continued Mrs. Wilson with an almost
imperceptible smile. "I have no doubt his sympathies were warmly
enlisted in behalf of this family and possessing much, he gave
liberally. I have no doubt he would have undergone personal privation to
have relieved their distress, and endured both pain and labor, with such
an excitement before him. But what is all that to the charity of Mr.
Denbigh?"
Grace was unused to contend, and, least of all, with Mrs. Wilson; but,
unwilling to abandon John to such censure, with increased animation, she
said--
"If bestowing freely, and feeling for the distress you relieve, be not
commendable, madam, I am sure I am ignorant what is."
"That compassion for the woes of others is beautiful in itself, and the
want of it an invariable evidence of corruption from too much, and an
ill-governed intercourse with the world, I am willing to acknowledge, my
dear Grace," said Mrs. Wilson, kindly; "but the relief of misery, where
the heart has not undergone this hardening ordeal, is only a relief to
our own feelings: this is compassion; but Christian charity is a higher
order of duty: it enters into every sensation of the heart; disposes us
to judge, as well as to act, favorably to our fellow creatures; is
deeply seated in the sense of our own unworthiness; keeps a single eye,
in its dispensations of temporal benefits, to the everlasting happiness
of the objects of its bounty; is consistent, well regulated; in short,"-
-and Mrs. Wilson's pale cheek glowed with an unusual richness of color--
"it is an humble attempt to copy after the heavenly example of our
Redeemer, in sacrificing ourselves to the welfare of others, and does
and must proceed from a love of his person, and an obedience to his
mandates."
"And Mr. Denbigh, aunt," exclaimed Emily, the blood mantling to her
cheeks with a sympathetic glow, while she lost all consideration for
John in the strength of her feelings, "his charity you think to be of
this description?"
"So far, my child, as we can understand motives from the nature of the
conduct, such appears to have been the charity of Mr. Denbigh."
Grace was silenced, if not convinced; and the ladies continued their
walk, lost in their own reflections, until they reached a bend in the
road which hid the cottage from view. Emily involuntarily turned her
head as they arrived at the spot, and saw that Denbigh had approached
within a few paces of them. On joining them, he commenced his
complimentary address in such a way as convinced them the cottager had
been true to the injunction given by Mrs. Wilson. No mention was made of
the gardener, and Denbigh began a lively description of some foreign
scenery, of which their present situation reminded him. The discourse
was maintained with great interest by himself and Mrs. Wilson for the
remainder of their walk.
It was yet early when they reached the parsonage, where they found John,
who had driven to the hall to breakfast, and who, instead of pursuing
his favorite amusement of shooting, laid down his gun as they entered,
observing, "It is rather soon yet for the woodcocks, and I believe I
will listen to your entertaining conversation, ladies, for the remainder
of the morning." He threw himself upon a sofa at no great distance from
Grace, and in such a position as enabled him, without rudeness, to study
the features of her lovely face, while Denbigh read aloud to the ladies
Campbell's beautiful description of wedded love, in Gertrude of Wyoming.
There was a chastened correctness in the ordinary manner of Denbigh
which wore the appearance of the influence of his reason, and a
subjection of the passions, that, if anything, gave him less interest
with Emily than had it been marked by an evidence of stronger feeling.
But on the present occasion, this objection was removed: his reading was
impressive; he dwelt on those passages which most pleased him with a
warmth of eulogium fully equal to her own undisguised sensations. In the
hour occupied in the reading this exquisite little poem, and in
commenting on its merits and sentiments, Denbigh gained more on her
imagination than in all their former intercourse. His ideas were as
pure, as chastened, and almost as vivid as those of the poet; and Emily
listened to his periods with intense attention, as they flowed from him
in language as glowing as his ideas. The poem had been first read to her
by her brother, and she was surprised to discover how she had overlooked
its beauties on that occasion. Even John acknowledged that it certainly
appeared a different thing now from what he had then thought it; but
Emily had taxed his declamatory power in the height of the pheasant
season, and, somehow or other, John now imagined that Gertrude was just
such a delicate, feminine, warm-hearted domestic girl as Grace
Chatterton. As Denbigh closed the book, and entered into a general
conversation with Clara and her sister, John followed Grace to a window,
and speaking in a tone of unusual softness for him, he said--
"Do you know, Miss Chatterton, I have accepted your brother's invitation
to go into Suffolk this summer, and that you are to be plagued with me
and my pointers again?"
"Plagued, Mr. Moseley!" said Grace, in a voice even softer than his own.
"I am sure--I am sure, we none of us think you or your dogs in the least
a plague."
"Ah! Grace," and John was about to become what he had never been before-
-sentimental--- when he saw the carriage of Chatterton, containing the
dowager and Catherine entering the parsonage gates.
Pshaw! thought John, there comes Mother Chatterton "Ah! Grace," said
John, "there are your mother and sister returned already."
"Already!" said the young lady, and, for the first time in her life, she
felt rather unlike a dutiful child. Five minutes could have made no
great difference to her mother, and she would greatly have liked to hear
what John Moseley meant to have said; for the alteration in his manner
convinced her that his first "ah! Grace" was to have been continued in a
somewhat different language from that in which the second "ah! Grace"
was ended.
Young Moseley and her daughter, standing together at the open window,
caught the attention of Lady Chatterton the moment she got a view of the
house, and she entered with a good humor she had not felt since the
disappointment in her late expedition in behalf of Catherine; for the
gentleman she had had in view in this excursion had been taken up by
another rover, acting on her own account, and backed by a little more
wit and a good deal more money than what Kate could be fairly thought to
possess. Nothing further in that quarter offering in the way of her
occupation, she turned her horses' heads towards London, that great
theatre on which there never was a loss for actors. The salutations had
hardly passed before, turning to John, she exclaimed, with what she
intended for a most motherly smile, "What! not shooting this fine day,
Mr. Moseley? I thought you never missed a day in the season."
"It is rather early yet, my lady," said John, coolly, a little alarmed
by the expression of her countenance.
"Oh!" continued the dowager, in the same strain, "I see how it is; the
ladies have too many attractions for so gallant a young man as
yourself." Now, as Grace, her own daughter, was the only lady of the
party who could reasonably be supposed to have much influence over
John's movements--a young gentleman seldom caring as much for his own as
for other people's sisters, this may be fairly set down as a pretty
broad hint of the opinion the dowager entertained of the real state of
things; and John saw it, and Grace saw it. The former coolly replied,
"Why, upon the whole, if you will excuse the neglect, I will try a shot
this fine day." In five minutes, Carlo and Rover were both delighted.
Grace kept her place at the window, from a feeling she could not define,
and of which perhaps she was unconscious, until the gate closed, and the
shrubbery hid the sportsman from her sight, and then she withdrew to her
room to weep.
Had Grace Chatterton been a particle less delicate--less retiring--
blessed with a managing mother, as she was, John Moseley would not have
thought another moment about her. But, on every occasion when the
dowager made any of her open attacks, Grace discovered so much distress,
so much unwillingness to second them, that a suspicion of a confederacy
never entered his brain. It is not to be supposed that Lady Chattelton's
manoeuvres were limited to the direct and palpable schemes we have
mentioned; no--these were the effervescence, the exuberance of her zeal;
but as is generally the case, they sufficiently proved the ground-work
of all her other machinations; none of the little artifices of such as
placing--of leaving alone--of showing similarity of tastes:--of
compliments to the gentlemen, were neglected.--This latter business she
had contrived to get Catherine to take off her hands; but Grace could
never pay a compliment in her life, unless changing of color, trembling,
undulations of the bosom, and such natural movements can be so called;
but she loved dearly to receive them from John Moseley.
"Well, my child," said the mother, as she seated herself by the side of
her daughter, who hastily endeavored to conceal her tears, "when are we
to have another wedding? I trust everything is settled between you and
Mr. Moseley, by this time."
"Mother! Mother!" said Grace, nearly gasping for breath, "Mother, you
will break my heart, indeed you will." She hid her face in the clothes
of the bed by which she sat, and wept with a feeling of despair.
"Tut, my dear," replied the dowager, not noticing her anguish, or
mistaking it for a girlish shame, "you young people are fools in these
matters, but Sir Edward and myself will arrange everything as it should
be."
The daughter now not only looked up, but sprang from her seat, her hands
clasped together, her eyes fixed in horror, her cheek pale as death; but
the mother had retired, and Grace sank back into her chair with a
sensation of disgrace, of despair, which could not have been surpassed,
had she really merited the obloquy and shame which she thought were
about to be heaped upon her.