Mrs. Wilson found time the ensuing day to ascertain before they left the
hall, the truth of the tale related by Mr. Haughton. The deanery had
certainly changed its master, and a new steward had already arrived to
take possession in the name of his lord. What induced Pendennyss to make
this purchase she was at a loss to conceive--most probably some
arrangement between himself and Lord Bolton. But whatever might be his
motive, it in some measure insured his becoming for a season their
neighbor; and Mrs. Wilson felt a degree of pleasure at the circumstance
that she had been a stranger to for a long time--a pleasure which was
greatly heightened as she dwelt on the lovely face of the companion who
occupied the other seat in her travelling chaise.
The road to London led by the gates of the deanery, and near them they
passed a servant in the livery of those they had once seen following the
equipage of the earl. Anxious to know anything which might hasten her
acquaintance with this admired nobleman, Mrs. Wilson stopped her
carriage to inquire.
"Pray, sir, whom do you serve?"
"My Lord Pendennyss, ma'am," replied the man, respectfully taking off
his hat.
"The earl is not here?" asked Mrs. Wilson, with interest.
"Oh, no, madam; I am here in waiting on his steward. My lord is in
Westmoreland, with his grace and Colonel Denbigh, and the ladies."
"Does he remain there long?" continued the anxious widow, desirous of
knowing all she could learn.
"I believe not, madam; most of our people have gone to Annerdale-House,
and my lord is expected in town with the duke and the colonel."
As the servant was an elderly man, and appeared to understand the
movements of his master so well, Mrs. Wilson was put in unusual spirits
by this prospect of a speedy termination to her anxiety to meet
Pendennyss.
"Annerdale-House is the earl's town residence?" quietly inquired Emily.
"Yes; he got the fortune of the last duke of that title, but how I do
not exactly know. I believe, however, through his mother. General Wilson
did not know his family: indeed, Pendennyss bore a second title during
his lifetime; but did you observe how very civil his servant was, as
well as the one John spoke to before,--a sure sign their master is a
gentleman?"
Emily smiled at the strong partialities of her aunt, and replied, "Your
handsome chaise and attendants will draw respect from most men in his
situation, dear aunt, be their masters who they may."
The expected pleasure of meeting the earl was a topic frequently touched
upon between her aunt and Emily during their journey; the former
beginning to entertain hopes she would have laughed at herself for,
could they have been fairly laid before her; and the latter entertaining
a profound respect for his character, but chiefly governed by a wish to
gratify her companion.
The third day they reached the baronet's handsome house in St. James's
Square, and found that the forethought of John had provided everything
in the best and most comfortable manner.
It was the first visit of both Jane and Emily to the metropolis; and
under the protection of their almost equally curious mother, and
escorted by John, they wisely determined to visit the curiosities, while
their leisure yet admitted of the opportunity. For the first two weeks
their time was chiefly employed in the indulgence of this unfashionable
and vulgar propensity, which, if it had no other tendency, served
greatly to draw the thoughts of both the young women from the
recollections of the last few months.
While her sister and nieces were thus employed, Mrs. Wilson, assisted by
Grace, was occupied in getting things in preparation to do credit to the
baronet's hospitality.
The second week after their arrival, Mrs. Moseley was delighted by
seeing advance upon her unexpectedly through the door of the breakfast
parlor, her brother, with his bride leaning on his arm. After the most
sincere greetings and congratulations, Lady Chatterton cried out gaily,
"You see, my dear Lady Moseley, I am determined to banish ceremony
between us, and so, instead of sending you my card, have come myself to
notify you of my arrival. Chatterton would not suffer me even to swallow
my breakfast, he was so impatient to show me off."
"You are placing things exactly on the footing I wish to see ourselves
with all our connexions," replied Lady Moseley, kindly; "but what have
you done with the duke? is he not in your train?"
"Oh! he is gone to Canterbury with George Denbigh, madam," cried the
lady, shaking her head reproachfully though affectionately at Emily;
"his grace dislikes London just now excessively, he says, and the
Colonel being obliged to leave his wife, on regimental business, Derwent
was good enough to keep him company during his exile."
"And Lady Laura, do we see her?" inquired Lady Moseley.
"She came with us. Pendennyss and his sister follow immediately; so, my
dear madam, the dramatis personæ will all be on the stage soon."
Cards and visits now began to accumulate on the Moseleys, and their time
no longer admitted of that unfettered leisure which they had enjoyed at
their entrance on the scene. Mrs. Wilson, for herself and charge,
adopted a rule for the government of her manner of living, which was
consistent with her duties. They mixed in general society sparingly;
and, above all, they rigidly adhered to the obedience to the injunction
which commanded them to keep the Sabbath day holy; a duty of no trifling
difficulty to perform in fashionable society in the city of London, or,
indeed, in any other place, where the influence of fashion has
supplanted the laws of God.
Mrs. Wilson was not a bigot; but she knew and performed her duty
rigidly. It was a pleasure to her to do so. It would have been misery to
do otherwise. In the singleness of heart and deep piety of her niece,
she had a willing pupil to her system of morals, and a rigid follower of
her religious practices. As they both knew that the temptations to go
astray were greater in town than in country, they kept a strict guard
over the tendency to err, and in watchfulness found their greatest
security.
John Moseley, next to his friends, loved his bays: indeed, if the
aggregate of his affections for these and Lady Herriefield had been put
in opposite scales, we strongly suspect the side of the horses would
predominate.
One Sunday, soon after being domesticated, John, who had soberly
attended morning service with the ladies, came into a little room where
the more reflecting part of the family were assembled, in search of his
wife.
Grace, we have before mentioned, had become a real member of that church
in which she had been educated, and had entered, under the direction of
Dr. Ives and Mrs. Wilson, into an observance of its wholesome
ordinances. Grace was certainly piously inclined, if not devout. Her
feelings on the subject of religion had been sensibly awakened during
their voyage to Lisbon; and at the period of which we write, Mrs.
Moseley was as sincerely disposed to perform her duty as her powers
admitted. To the request of her husband, that she would take a seat in
his phaeton while he drove her round the park once or twice, Grace gave
a mild refusal, by saying,
"It is Sunday, my dear Moseley."
"Do you think I don't know that?" cried John, gaily. "There will be
everybody there, and, the better day, the better deed."
Now, Moseley, if he had been asked to apply this speech to the case
before them, would have frankly owned his inability; but his wife did
not make the trial: she was contented with saying, as she laid down her
book to look on a face she so tenderly loved,
"Ah! Moseley, you should set a better example to those below you in
life."
"I wish to set an example," returned her husband, with an affectionate
smile, "to all above as well as below me, in order that they may find
out the path to happiness, by exhibiting to the world a model of a wife,
in yourself, dear Grace."
As this was uttered with a sincerity which distinguished the manner of
Moseley, his wife was more pleased with the compliment than she would
have been willing to make known; and John spoke no more than he thought;
for a desire to show his handsome wife was the ruling passion for a
moment.
The husband was too pressing and the wife too fond not to yield the
point; and Grace took her seat in the carriage with a kind of half-
formed resolution to improve the opportunity by a discourse on serious
subjects--a resolution which terminated as all others do, that postpone
one duty to discharge another of less magnitude; it was forgotten.
Mrs. Wilson had listened with interest to the efforts of John to prevail
on his wife to take the ride, and on her leaving the room to comply she
observed to Emily, with whom she now remained alone--
"Here is a consequence of a difference in religious views between man
and wife, my child: John, in place of supporting Grace in the discharge
of her duties, has been the actual cause of her going astray."
Emily felt the force of her aunt's remark, and saw its justice; yet her
love for the offender induced her to say--
"John will not lead her openly astray for he has a sincere respect for
religion, and this offence is not unpardonable, dear aunt."
"The offence is assuredly not unpardonable," replied Mrs. Wilson, "and
to infinite mercy it is hard to say what is; but it is an offence, and
directly in the face of an express ordinance of the Lord; it is even
throwing off the appearance of keeping the Sabbath day holy, much less
observing the substance of the commandment; and as to John's respect for
holy things in this instance, it was injurious to his wife. Had he been
an open deist she would have shrunk from the act in suspicion of its
sinfulness. Either John must become Christian, or I am afraid Grace will
fall from her undertaking."
Mrs. Wilson shook her head mournfully, while Emily offered up a silent
petition that the first might speedily be the case.
Lady Laura had been early in her visit to the Moseleys; and as Denbigh
had both a town residence and a seat in parliament, it appeared next to
impossible to avoid meeting him or to requite the pressing civilities of
his wife by harsh refusals; that might prove in the end injurious to
themselves by creating a suspicion that resentment at his not choosing a
partner from amongst them, governed the conduct of the Moseleys towards
a man to whom they were under such a heavy obligation.
Had Sir Edward known as much as his sister and daughters he would
probably have discountenanced the acquaintance altogether; but owing to
the ignorance of the rest of her friends of what had passed, Mrs. Wilson
and Emily had not only the assiduities of Lady Laura but the wishes of
their own family to contend with, and consequently she submitted to the
association with a reluctance that was in some measure counteracted by
their regard for Lady Laura, and by compassion for her abused
confidence.
A distant connexion of Lady Moseley's had managed to collect in her
house a few hundred of her nominal friends, and as she had been
particularly attentive in calling in person on her venerable relative,
Mr. Benfield, soon after his arrival in town, out of respect to her
father's cousin, or perhaps mindful of his approaching end, and
remembering there were such things as codicils to wills, the old man,
flattered by her notice, and yet too gallant to reject the favor of a
lady, consented to accompany the remainder of the family on the
occasion.
Most of their acquaintances were there, and Lady Moseley soon found
herself engaged in a party at quadrille, while the young people were
occupied by the usual amusements of their age in such scenes. Emily
alone feeling but little desire to enter into the gaiety of general
conversation with a host of gentlemen who had collected round her aunt
and sisters, offered her arm to Mr. Benfield, on seeing him manifest a
disposition to take a closer view of the company, and walked away with
him.
They wandered from room to room, unconscious of the observation
attracted by the sight of a man in the costume of Mr. Benfield, leaning
on the arm of so young and lovely a woman as his niece; and many an
exclamation of surprise, ridicule, admiration, and wonder had been made,
unnoticed by the pair, until finding the crowd rather inconvenient to
her companion, Emily gently drew him into one of the apartments where
the card-tables, and the general absence of beauty, made room less
difficult to be found.
"Ah! Emmy dear," said the old gentleman, wiping his face, "times are
much changed, I see, since my youth. Then you would see no such throngs
assembled in so small a space; gentlemen shoving ladies, and yes, Emmy,"
continued her uncle in a lower tone, as if afraid of uttering something
dangerous, "the ladies themselves shouldering the men. I remember at a
drum given by Lady Gosford, that although I may, without vanity, say I
was one of the gallantest men in the rooms, I came in contact with but
one of the ladies during the whole evening, with the exception of
handing the Lady Juliana to a chair, and that," said her uncle, stopping
short and lowering his voice to a whisper, "was occasioned by a
mischance in the old duchess in rising from her seat when she had taken
too much strong waters, as she was at times a little troubled with a
pain in the chest."
Emily smiled at the casualty of her grace, and they proceeded slowly
through the table until their passage was stopped by a party at the game
of whist, which, by its incongruous mixture of ages and character,
forcibly drew her attention.
The party was composed of a young man of five or six and twenty, who
threw down his cards in careless indifference, and heedlessly played
with the guineas which were laid on the side of the table as markers, or
the fruits of a former victory: or by stealing hasty and repeated
glances through the vista of the tables into the gayer scenes of the
adjoining rooms, proved he was in duresse, and waited for an opportunity
to make his escape from the tedium of cards and ugliness to the life of
conversation and beauty.
His partner was a woman of doubtful age, and one whose countenance
rather indicated that the uncertainty was likely to continue until the
record of the tomb-stone divulged the so often contested circumstance to
the world. Her eyes also wandered to the gayer scenes, but with an
expression of censoriousness mingled with longings; nor did she neglect
the progress of the game as frequently as her more heedless partner. A
glance thrown on the golden pair which was placed between her and her
neighbor on her right, marked the importance of the corner, and she
shuffled the cards with a nervousness which plainly denoted her
apprehension of the consequences of her partner's abstraction.
Her neighbor on the right was a man of sixty, and his vestments
announced him a servant of the sanctuary. His intentness on the game
proceeded no doubt from his habits of reflection; his smile at success,
quite possibly from charity to his neighbors; his frown in adversity
from displeasure at the triumphs of the wicked, for such in his heart he
had set down Miss Wigram to be; and his unconquerable gravity in the
employment from a profound regard to the dignity of his holy office.
The fourth performer in this trial of memories was an ancient lady,
gaily dressed, and intently eager on the game. Between her and the young
man was a large pile of guineas, which appeared to be her exclusive
property, from which she repeatedly, during the play, tendered one to
his acceptance on the event of a hand or a trick, and to which she
seldom failed from inadvertence to add his mite, contributing to
accumulate the pile.
"Two double and the rub, my dear doctor," exclaimed the senior lady, in
triumph. "Sir William, you owe me ten."
The money was paid as easily as it had been won, and the dowager
proceeded to settle some bets with her female antagonist.
"Two more, I fancy, ma'am," said she, closely scanning the contributions
of the maiden.
"I believe it is right, my lady," was the answer, with a look that said
pretty plainly, that or nothing.
"I beg pardon, my dear, here are but four; and you remember two on the
corner, and four on the points. Doctor, I will trouble you for a couple
of guineas from Miss Wigram's store, I am in haste to get to the
Countess's route."
The doctor was coolly helping himself from the said store, under the
watchful eyes of its owner, and secretly exulting in his own judgment in
requiring the stakes, when the maiden replied in great warmth,
"Your ladyship forgets the two you lost to me at Mrs. Howard's."
"It must be a mistake, my dear, I always pay as I lose," cried the
dowager, with great spirit, stretching over the table and helping
herself to the disputed money.
Mr. Benfield and Emily had stood silent spectators of the whole scene,
the latter in astonishment to meet such manners in such society, and the
former under feelings it would have been difficult to describe; for in
the face of the Dowager which was inflamed partly from passion and more
from high living, he recognised the remains of his Lady Juliana, now the
Dowager Viscountess Haverford.
"Emmy, dear," said the old man, with a heavy-drawn sigh, as if awaking
from a long and troubled dream, "we will go."
The phantom of forty years had vanished before the truth and the fancies
of retirement, simplicity, and a diseased imagination yielded to the
influence of life and common sense.