AUNT CATHARINE'S HOME.
The lady sleeps--O may her sleep,
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This bed being changed for one more holy,
This room for one more melancholy,
Some tomb, that oft hath flung its black
And wing-like panels fluttering back,
Triumphant o'er the fluttering palls
Of her grand family funerals.
E. A. POE.
The summer was nearly over, when, one morning at breakfast, Louis
surprised his father by a sound, half consternation, half amusement,
and handed him a note, containing these words:--
'DEAR F.,--There were three of us last night; there are five this
morning. Isabel and the twins are doing well. Heaven knows what is to
become of us!
'Yours,
J. F.'
'What would you have?' said Lord Ormersfield, calmly. 'The poorer
people are, the more children they have!'
He went on with his own letters, while Louis laughed at the enunciation
of this inverse ratio; and then took up the note again, to wonder at
the tone of anxiety and distress, so unlike James. He went to call on
Lady Conway, and was better satisfied to find that James had written in
a lively strain to her, as if proud of his little daughters, and
resolved not to be pitied. Of this he was in no danger from his
sisters-in-law, who looked upon twin-girls as the only blessing needed
to complete Isabel's felicity, had devised three dozen names for them,
and longed to be invited to Northwold to see them.
Nothing was heard of James for more than a week, and, as London grew
hotter, dustier, and drearier than ever, Fitzjocelyn longed, more than
he thought wholesome to confess, after Ormersfield turf, the deep
ravines, and rushing brooks. The sun shone almost through the blind of
the open window on the large library table, where sat Louis at his own
end, writing to his Inglewood bailiff, and now and then solacing
himself by lifting with the feather of his pen one of the bells of a
delicate lily in a glass before him--a new spectacle on the Earl's
writing-table; and so was a strip of vellum, with illuminations rich
and rare--Louis's indulgence when he felt he had earned an hour's
leisure. There was a ring at the door, a step on the stairs, and
before the father and son stood James, his little black bag in his
hand, like himself, all dust, and his face worn, heated, and tired.
'Then you have not heard from Cheveleigh?' he said, in answer to their
astonished greetings, producing a note, which was eagerly read:--
'Dearest Jem,--My uncle says I may write to you, in case you can leave
Isabel, that he will be glad to see you. I told you that dear
grandmamma had a cold, and so we would not let her come to Isabel; but
I little guessed what was coming. It only seemed a feverish cold, and
Jane and I almost laughed at my uncle for choosing to send for a
doctor. He was not alarmed at first, but yesterday she was inert and
sleepy, and he asked for more advice. Dr. Hastings came to-day, and
oh! Jem, he calls it a breaking up of the constitution, and does not
think she will rally. She knows us, but she is almost always drowsy,
and very hard to rouse. If you can come without hurting Isabel, I know
you will. We want you all the more, because my uncle will not let me
send for Mr. Danvers. Poor Uncle Oliver is dreadfully troubled.
'Your most affectionate CLARA.'
'Transplantation has killed her--I knew it would!' said James, as Louis
stood, with the note in his hand, as if not yet understanding the blow.
'Nay,' said the Earl, 'it is an age at which we could hardly hope she
would long be spared. You could leave Mrs. James Frost with comfort?'
'Yes, Miss Mercy undertakes her--she is doing well--she would not hear
of my staying. I must go on, the train starts at two,' he added,
hastily, looking at the time-piece.
'We will send you,' said Lord Ormersfield. 'Take time to rest. You
look very ill! You should have some luncheon.'
'No, thank you!' said James, at first with the instinct of resistance;
but yielding and confessing, 'Charlotte went into hysterics, and I had
nothing to eat before I came away.'
Louis came forward from the window where he had been standing as in a
dream, he laid his hand on James's shoulder, and said, 'I will go!' His
voice was hardly audible, but, clearing it, and striving to recall his
thoughts, he added, 'Father, I can be spared. The division is not
coming on to-night, or you could get me a pair.'
The Earl looked doubtfully at James.
'Yes, let me go,' said Louis. 'I must see her again. It has been
mother and son between us.' And, hiding his face in his hands, he
hurried out of the room.
'Let him come,' said James. 'If duty and affection claim a right, none
have such as he.'
'I hesitate only as to acting unceremoniously by your uncle.'
'This is no moment for ceremony--no time to deprive her of whatever she
loves best.'
'Be it so, then. His own feelings are his best passport, and well has
she deserved all that he can ever feel! And, James, if she should
express any desire to see me, if I can be of any use in settling
matters, or could promote any better understanding with your uncle, I
am ready at a moment's notice. I would come at once, but that many
might be burdensome to your uncle and sister.'
The two cousins were quickly on their way. James took a second-class
ticket, the first time he had ever done so in travelling with his
cousin. Fitzjocelyn placed himself beside him without remark.
James dozed as well as the narrow seat would permit, and only woke to
chafe at each halt, and Louis mused over the associations of those
scenes, and last year's triumphant return. Had the change of habits
truly hastened the decay of her powers? had her son's toil and success
been merely to bring her home to the grave of her fathers, at the
expense of so many heartburnings, separations, and dissensions? At
least, he trusted that her last hours might be crowned by the
peacemaker's joy, and that she might see strife and bitterness laid
aside between Oliver, and Henry's only surviving son.
Alas! it was not to be. The shutters and blinds were closed, and Clara
met them at the door, her pale face and streaming eyes forestalling the
tidings. The frame, hitherto so vigorous and active, had been spared
long or weary decay; and tranquil torpor had mildly conducted the
happy, gentle spirit to full repose. She had slumbered away without
revival or suffering, as one who did 'rest from her labours,' and her
eyes had been closed on the previous night.
Clara wept as she spoke, but she had been alone with her sorrow long
enough to face it, and endure calmly.
Not so her brother. It was anguish to have come too late, and to have
missed the last word and look; and he strode madly up and down the
room, almost raving at the separation and removal which he declared had
killed her.
'Oh, speak to him, Louis!' cried Clara. 'Oh, what shall I do?'
As she spoke, the door was opened, and Mr. Dynevor came in, with a
grief-stricken look and quieter manner, but his entrance instantly
silenced all James's demonstrations, and changed them into a haughty,
compressed bitterness, as though he actually looked on him in the light
of his grandmother's destroyer.
'Ah! James,' began his uncle, gently, 'I wish you had been here
earlier!'
'I left home by the first train after hearing. I ought to have heard
sooner.'
'I could not suppose you would choose to come here without serious
reason,' said Oliver, with more dignity than usual. 'However, I would
willingly forget, and you will remain here for the present.'
'I must apologize for having thrust myself on you, sir,' said Louis,
'but, indeed, I could not stay away. After what she has been to me,
ever since I can remember her--' and tears cut him short.
'Sir, it does you honour!' returned Oliver. 'She was attached to you.
I hope you will not leave us as yet.'
Louis felt as if he could not leave the house where what was mortal of
his dear old aunt yet remained, and he likewise had a perception that
he might be a support and assistance to Clara in keeping the peace
between her brother and uncle; so he gratefully accepted the invitation.
Mr. Dynevor presently explained that he intended the funeral to take
place at the end of the week.
'I can not be so long from home,' said James, in a quick, low voice.
Clara ran up to her uncle, laid her hand on his arm, and drew him into
a window, whence he presently turned, saying, 'Your sister tells me
that you cannot be so long absent in the present state of your family.
If possible, the day shall be hastened.'
James was obliged to say, 'Thank you!' but any concession seemed to
affect him like an injury.
Grievous work was it to remain at Cheveleigh, under the constant dread
of some unbecoming outbreak between uncle and nephew. Fortunately,
Oliver had too much on his hands to have much time to spend with the
others; but when they were together, there was scarcely a safe subject,
not even the intended names of the twins. James made hasty answer that
they had already received their names, Mercy and Salome. Louis and
Clara both cried out incredulously.
'Yes,' said James. 'We don't like family names.'
'But such as those!'
'I wish nothing better for them than to be such another pair of
faithful sisters. May they only do as well, poor children!'
The end was softer than the beginning, and there was a tight short
sigh, that seemed to burst upward from a whole world of suppressed
anxiety and despondence.
It was not easy to understand him, he would not talk of home, was brief
about his little Catharine; and when Clara said something of Isabel's
writings, formerly his great pride, and feared that she would have no
more time for them, his blunt answer was, 'She ought not.'
These comparatively indifferent topics were the only resource; for he
treated allusions to his grandmother as if they were rending open a
wound, and it was only in his absence that Louis and Clara could hold
the conversations respecting her, which were their chief comfort and
relief. If they were certain that Oliver was busy, and James writing
letters, they would walk up and down the sheltered alley, where Louis
had last year comforted Clara. The green twilight and chequered shade
well accorded with the state of their minds, darkened, indeed, by one
of the severest losses that could ever befall either of them, and yet
it was a sorrow full of thankfulness and blessed hope.
Louis spoke of his regret that scenes of uncongenial gaiety should have
been forced upon her last year.
'I believe it made very little difference to her,' said Clara. 'She
did just what Uncle Oliver wished, but only as she used to play with
us, no more; nay, rather less for her own amusement than as she would
play at battledore, or at thread-paper verses.'
'And she was not teased nor harassed?'
'I think not. She was grieved if I were set against Uncle Oliver's
plans, and really hurt if she could not make him think as she did about
right and wrong, but otherwise she was always bright. She never found
people tiresome; she could find something kind to say to and for the
silliest; and when my uncle's display was most provoking, she would
only laugh at 'poor Oliver's' odd notions of doing her honour. I used
to be quite ashamed of the fuss I would make when I thought a thing
vulgar; when I saw that sort of vanity by the side of her real
indifference, springing from unworldliness.'
'And then her mornings were quiet?'
'More quiet than at home. While we were riding, she used to sit with
her dear old big Bible, and the two or three old books she was so fond
of. You remember her Sutton and her Bishop Home, and often she would
show me some passage that had struck her as prettier than ever, well as
she had always known it. Once she said she was very thankful for the
leisure time, free from household cares, and even from friendly gossip;
for she said first she had been gay, then she had been busy, and had
never had time to meditate quietly.'
'So she made a cloister of this grand house. Ah! I trusted she was
past being hurt by external things. That grand old age was like a pure
glad air where worldly fumes could not mount up. My only fear would
have been this unlucky estrangement making her unhappy.'
'I think I may tell you how she felt it,' said Clara; 'I am trying to
tell James, but I don't know whether I can. She said she had come to
perceive that she had confounded pride with independence. She blamed
herself, so that I could not bear to hear it, for the grand fine things
in her life. She said pride had made her stand alone, and unkindly
spurn much that was kindly meant. I don't mean that she repented of
the actions, but of the motives; she said the glory of being beholden
to no one had run through everything; and had been very hurtful even to
Uncle Oliver. She never let him know all her straits, and was too
proud, she said, to ask, when she was hurt at his not offering help,
and so she made him seem more hard-hearted, and let us become set
against him. She said she had fostered the same temper in poor Jem,
who had it strongly enough by inheritance, and that she had never known
the evil, nor understood it as pride, till she saw the effects.'
'Did they make her unhappy?'
'She cried when she spoke of it, and I have seen her in tears at
church, and found her eyes red when she had been alone, but I don't
think it was a hard, cruel sorrow; I think the sunshine of her nature
managed to beam through it.'
'The sunshine was surely love,' said Louis, 'making the rainbow of hope
on the tears of repentance. Perhaps it is a blessing vouchsafed to the
true of heart to become aware of such a hidden constitutional infirmity
in time to wash it out with blessed tears like those.'
'Hidden,' said Clara, 'yes, indeed it was, even from herself, because
it never showed in manner, like my pride; she was gracious and affable
to all the world. I heard the weeding-women saying, 'she had not one
bit of pride,' and when I told her of it, she shook her head, and
laughed sadly, and said that was the kind of thing which had taken her
in.'
'Common parlance is a deceitful thing,' said Louis, sighing; 'people
can't even be sincere without doing harm! Well, I had looked to see
her made happy by harmony between those two!'
'She gave up the hope of seeing it,' said Clara, 'but she looked to it
all the same. She said meekly one day that it might be her penalty to
see them at variance in her own lifetime, but over her grave perhaps
they would be reconciled, and her prayers be answered. How she did love
Uncle Oliver! Do you know, Louis, what she was to him showed me what
the mother's love must be, which we never missed, because--because we
had her!'
'Don't talk of it, Clara,' said Louis, hastily; 'we cannot dwell on
ourselves, and bear it patiently!'
It was truly the loss of a most tender mother to them both; bringing
for the first time the sense of orphanhood on the girl, left between
the uncongenial though doting uncle, and the irritable though
affectionate brother; and Louis, though his home was not broken up,
suffered scarcely less. His aunt's playful sweetness had peculiarly
accorded with his disposition, and the affection and confidence of his
fond, clinging nature had fastened themselves upon her, all the more in
the absence of his own Mary. Each loss seemed to make the other more
painful. Aunt Kitty's correspondence was another link cut away between
him and Peru, and he had never known such a sense of dreariness in his
whole life. Clara was going patiently and quietly through those trying
days, with womanly considerateness; believing herself supported by her
brother, and being so in fact by the mere sisterly gratification of his
presence, though she was far more really sustained and assisted by
Fitzjocelyn. How much happier was the sorrow of Louis and Clara than
that of James or Oliver! Tempers such as those in which the uncle and
nephew but too closely resembled each other were soured, not softened
by grief, and every arrangement raised discussions which did not tend
to bring them nearer together.
Oliver designed a stately funeral. Nothing was too much for him to
lavish on his mother, and he was profuse in orders for hangings,
velvet, blazonry, mutes, and hired mourners, greedy of offers of the
dreary state of empty carriages, demanding that of Lord Ormersfield,
and wanting James to write to Lady Conway for the same purpose.
Nothing could be more adverse to the feelings of the grandchildren; but
Clara had been schooled into letting her uncle have his way, and knew
that dear granny would have said Oliver might do as he pleased with her
in death as in life, owning the affection so unpleasantly manifested;
James, on the other hand, could see no affection, nothing but
disgusting parade, as abhorrent to his grandmother's taste as to his
own. He thought he had a right to be consulted, for he by no means
believed himself to have abdicated his headship of the family; and he
made his voice heard entirely without effect, except the indignation of
his uncle, and the absence of the Conway carriage; although Lord
Ormersfield wrote that he should bring Sir Walter in his own person,
thus leaving James divided between satisfaction in any real token of
respect to his grandmother, and dislike to gratifying Oliver's
ostentation by the production of his baronet kin.
Sydney Calcott wrote to him in the name of various former scholars of
Mrs. Frost, anxious to do her the last honours by attending the
funeral. Homage to her days of gallant exertion in poverty was most
welcome and touching to the young people; but their uncle, without
taste to understand it, wishing to forget her labours, and fancying
them discreditable to a daughter of the Dynevors, received the proposal
like an indignity; and but for Fitzjocelyn's mediation and
expostulations, it would have been most unsuitably rejected. He was
obliged to take the answer into his own hands, since Oliver insisted
that his mother was to be regarded in no light save that of Mrs.
Dynevor, of Cheveleigh; and James was equally resolved that she should
be only Mrs. Frost, of Dynevor Terrace.
It was heart-sickening to see these bickerings over the grave of one so
loving and so beloved; and very trying to be always on the alert to
obviate the snappings that might at any time become a sharp dissension;
but nothing very distressing actually arose until the last day before
the funeral, when the three cousins were sitting together in the
morning-room; James writing letters.
'I am asking Lady Conway to give you a bed to-morrow night, Clara,' he
said. 'We shall be at home by three o'clock.'
'Oh, Jem!' said Clara, clasping her hands to keep them from trembling;
'I never thought of that.'
'You are not ready! That is unlucky, for I cannot come to fetch you;
but I suppose you can travel down with Jane. Only I should have
thought it easier to do the thing at once.'
'But, Jem! has my uncle said anything? Does he wish me to go?'
James laid down his pen, and stood upright, as if he did not understand
her words.
Clara came up to him, saying, 'I believe I ought to do what he may
wish.'
'I told you,' said James, as if her words were not worth considering,
'that you need only remain here on her account, who no longer needs
you.'
Louis would have left them to themselves, but Clara's glance sued for
his protection, and, as he settled himself in his chair, she spoke with
more decision.--'Dear James, nothing would make me so happy as to go to
dear home; but I do not think grandmamma would like me to leave Uncle
Oliver.'
'Oh, very well,' said James, sitting down to his writing, as if he had
done with her; 'I understand.'
'Dear James! O tell me you are not angry with me! Tell me you think I
am right!' cried Clara, alarmed by his manner.
'Quite right in one point of view,' he said, with acrimony.
'James,' said Louis, very low, but so as to make them both start, 'that
is not the way to treat your sister!'
'We will renew the discussion another time, if you wish it, Clara,'
said James.
'No,' said Clara, 'I wish Louis to be here. He will judge for me,' and
she spoke clearly, her face colouring. 'It was grandmamma's great wish
that I should love my uncle. She used to beg me to be patient with
him, and rejoiced to see us together. She often said he must not be
left with no one to make a home for him, and to go out to Lima again.'
'Did she ever desire you to remain here?'
'No,' said Clara, 'she never did; but I am convinced that if she had
known how soon she was to leave us, she would have done so. I feel as
much bound as if she had. I have heard her call him my charge. And not
only so, but my uncle has never varied in his kindness to me, and when
he worked all his life for grandmamma, and my father, it would be
wicked and cruel in me--if he does care for me--to forsake him, now he
has lost them all, and is growing old.'
'You need not scruple on that score,' said James. 'He has attained his
object, and made the most of it. He is free now, and he will soon find
a Rosita, if his mines are not sufficient for him.'
'James, you should not say wrong things,' said Clara.
'I am not likely to think it wrong, whatever you may. I have no
expectations. Do not rise up in arms against me, Fitzjocelyn, I do not
accuse her. I might have foreseen it. She meant well at first, but
the Terrace cannot bear competition with a place like this. Where two
so-called duties clash, she is at perfect liberty to make her choice.
It would not be easy to come down to what I have to offer. I
understand. The world will call it a wise choice. Say no more, Clara,
I feel no anger.'
She attempted no words; she clasped her hands over her face, and ran
out of the room.
'James,' said Louis, rising, indignation rendering his voice more low
and clearly distinct than ever, 'I little thought to hear you insult
that orphan sister of yours in her grief. No! I shall not defend her,
I shall go to give her what comfort I can. Heaven help her, poor
lonely child!'
He was gone. James paced about in desperation, raving against Louis
for maintaining what he thought Clara's self-deception; and, in the
blindness of anger, imagining that their ultra-generosity would conduct
them to the repair of Ormersfield with the revenues of Cheveleigh; and,
disdainful as he was, it seemed another cruel outrage that his rightful
inheritance should be in the hands of another, and his children
portionless. He was far too wrathful to have any consistency or
discrimination in his anger, and he was cruelly wounded at finding that
his sister deserted him, as he thought, for her uncle's riches, and
that his own closest friend was ready to share the spoil.
In the stillness of the house, the sound of a door had revealed to
Louis where to seek his cousin. It was in the grand saloon, where the
closed shutters availed not to exclude the solid beams of slanting
sunlight falling through the crevices, and glancing on the gilding,
velvet, and blazonry upon the costly coffin, that shut her out from the
dear tender hands and lips that had never failed to caress away her
childish griefs. At first, the strange broad lines of shadowy light in
the gloom were all he could see, but one ray tinged with paly light a
plaited tress, which could only be Clara's flaxen hair.
She had flung herself, crouching in a heap, on the floor, never
stirring, so that he almost feared she had fainted; and, kneeling on
one knee beside her, spoke soothingly: 'My poor little dear Clary, this
is the worst of all, but you know it was not Jem who spoke. It was
only prejudice and temper. He is not himself.'
The dim light seemed to encourage Clara to lift her head to listen to
the kind words. 'Was I so very wrong?' she murmured; 'you know I never
thought of that! Will he forgive me, and let me come home? But, oh,
granny! and what is to become of my uncle?' she ended, with a sound of
misery.
'Not here, not now, Clara--' said Louis; 'She is in perfect peace;
unhurt by our unhappy dissensions; she is with Him who looks at hearts,
who can take away all variance.'
There was a short space of silence, as the two cousins knelt in the
darkened room, in the sunbeams, which seemed as if they could not yet
forsake her who had lived in the light of love.
Presently Louis gave Clara his hand to raise her, and led her into the
adjoining room, also dim, but full of sweet fragrant breezes from the
garden. He seated her on a low couch, and stood by, anxiously watching
her.
'If he had only told me I was wrong!' she sighed.
'He could not tell you so, Clara, for it is not wrong, and he knows it
is not. He will thank you by-and-by for not attending to him, now that
he does not know what he says. He is fairly distracted with this grief
coming upon his home cares.'
'Cares at dear, dear happy home!' cried Clara. 'Never!'
'Ah, Clara! I fear that much comfort went away with dear granny. I
think he is overtasking himself at the school; and three children
within a year may well make a man anxious and oppressed.'
'And I have vexed and disappointed him more!' exclaimed she. 'No
wonder he was angry, and ready to impute anything! But he will believe
me, he will forgive me, he will take me home.'
'It is my belief,' said Fitzjocelyn, in his peculiar way, 'that the
worst injury you could do to James would be to give way to the spirit
that has possessed him.'
'But, Louis,' cried Clara, wildly astonished, 'I must go; I can't have
Jem saying these things of me.'
'His saying them does not make them true.'
'He is my brother. He has the only right to me. If I must choose
between him and my uncle, he must be mine--mine.'
'You have not to choose between him and your uncle. You have to choose
between right and wrong, between his frenzy and his true good.'
'My brother! my brother! I go with my brother!' was still her vehement
cry. Without listening to her cousin's last words, she made a gesture
to put him aside, and rose to hurry to her brother.
But Louis stood before her, and spoke gravely. 'Very well. Yield
yourself to his management. Go back to be another burden upon a
household, poor enough already to sour him with cares. Let him tell
your uncle that both his brother's children loathe the fruit of the
self-sacrifice of a lifetime. Transgress your grandmother's wishes;
condemn that poor man to a desolate, objectless, covetous old age; make
the breach irreconcilable for ever; and will James be the better or the
happier for your allowing his evil temper the full swing?'
Clara wrung her hands. 'My uncle! Yes, what shall I do with my uncle?
If I could only have them both?'
'This way you would have neither. Keep the straight path, and you may
end in having both.'
'Straight--I don't know what straight is! It must be right to cling to
my own brother in his noble poverty. Oh! that he should imagine me
caring for this horrid, horrid state and grandeur!'
Louis recurred to the old argument, that James did not know what he was
saying, and recalled her to the remembrance of what she had felt to be
the right course before James's ebullition. She owned it most
reluctantly; but oh! she said, would James still forgive her, and not
believe such dreadful things, but trust and be patient with her, and
perhaps Uncle Oliver might after all be set on going to Peru, and
beyond remonstrance. Then it would all come right--no, not right, for
granny had dreaded his going. Confused and distressed by the
conflicting claims, Clara was thankful for the present respite given to
her by Louis's promise that his father should sound her uncle as to his
wishes and intentions. Lord Ormersfield's upright, unimpassioned
judgment appeared like a sort of refuge from the conflict of the
various claims, and he was besides in a degree, her guardian, being the
sole executor of the only will which Mrs. Frost had ever made, soon
after the orphans came under her charge, giving the Terrace to James,
and dividing the money in the Funds between the two.
Weeping, but not unhopeful--convinced, though not acknowledging
it--only praying for strength and patience, and hungering for one kind
word from James--Clara quitted that almost brother, in whose counsel he
had constrained her to seek relief, and went to her own chamber, there
to throw herself on the guidance of that Friend, who sticketh closer
than a brother.
The remaining part of the day passed quietly. James did not
consciously make any difference in his manner, meaning to be still
affectionate, though disappointed, and pitying her mistake, both as to
her present happiness and future good.
Lord Ormersfield and Walter arrived in the evening, and James applied
himself to finding occupation for his brother-in-law, whom he kept out
of the way in the garden very satisfactorily. The Earl was so softened
and sorrowful, that Clara hardly knew him. He deeply felt the loss of
the kind, gentle aunt, whose sympathy had been more to him than he had
known at the time; the last remnant of the previous generation, the
last link with his youth, and he was even more grieved for the blank
she left with Louis than for himself. By Louis's desire, he inquired
into Oliver's intentions. 'Must stay here,' was the answer. 'Can't
leave that child alone with the property. I can look to the Equatorial
Company here--must do without me out there. No, no, I can't leave the
girl to her brother; he'd teach her his own nasty, spiteful temper, and
waste the property on all those brats. No, I'm fixed here; I must look
after Henry's child, fine girl, good-tempered girl; takes after Henry,
don't you think so?'
That Clara took after her father in anything but being tall and fair,
would hardly have been granted by any one who knew her better than the
Earl, but he readily allowed it, and Oliver proceeded:--'As long as she
does not marry, here I am; but I trust some one will soon take the care
of her off my hands--man who would look after the property well. She's
a good girl too, and the finest figure in the whole county; lucky him
who gets her. I shall be sorry to part with the child, too, but I
shall be working for her, and there's nothing left that cares a rush
for me now, so I might as well be out of the way of the young things.
I know the old place at Lima, and the place knows me; and what do I
care for this now my mother is gone? If I could only see Clara safe
settled here, then I should care as little what became of me as I
suppose she would.'
The Earl was touched by the dreary, desponding tone of the reply, and
reported it to Louis and Clara with such terms, that Clara's decision
was made at once, namely, that it would be wrong and cruel to cast away
her uncle, and be swayed by James's prejudice; and Lord Ormersfield
told her with grave approval that she was quite right, and that he
hoped that James would recover from his unreasonable folly.
'Make Jem forgive me,' said Clara, faintly, as her announcement of her
purpose, when she finally sought her room, obliged to be thought meanly
of, rather than do ill, denying her fondest affections, cutting herself
off from all she loved, and, with but this consolation, that she was
doing as grandmamma would have bidden her. Oh, how her heart yearned
after home!
On the morrow, Clara sorrowed in her solitary chamber alone with
faithful Jane, who, amid her bursts of tears, felt the one
satisfaction, that her dear mistress had lived to be buried like the
stock she came of, and who counted the carriages and numbered the
scarfs, like so many additional tributes from the affection of her dear
Master Oliver.
Once on that day James was visibly startled from his heavy, stern mood
of compressed, indignant sorrow. It was as he advanced to the entrance
of the vault, and his eye was struck by a new and very handsome tablet
on the wall. It was to the father, mother, and young brother and
sisters, whose graves had been hastily made far away in the time of the
pestilence, the only Dynevors who did not lie in the tombs of their
fathers. For one moment James moved nearer to his uncle. Could he
have spoken then, what might not have followed? but it was impossible,
and the impulse passed away.
But he was kind when he hurried upstairs for a last embrace to Clara.
He still felt fondly, brotherly, and compassionate; and all the more,
because she had proved more weak against temptation than he had
expected. His farewell was, 'Good-bye, my poor Clara, God bless you.'
'Oh, thank you!' cried Clara, from the bottom of her heart. 'You
forgive me, James?'
'I forgive; I am sorry for you, my poor child. Mind, Dynevor Terrace
is still your home, if you do not find the happiness you expect in your
chosen lot.'
'Happiness!' but he had no time to hear. He was gone, while she sobbed
out her message of love for Isabel, and Louis ran up, pale with
repressed suffering, and speaking with difficulty, as he wrung her
hand, and murmured, 'Oh, Clara! may we but abide patiently.'
After his good-bye, he turned back again to say, 'I'm selfish; but let
me put you in mind not to let the Lima correspondence drop.'
'Oh, no, no; you know I won't.'
'Thank you! And let me leave you Mary's keynote of comfort, 'Commit
thy way unto the Lord, and He will bring it to pass.''
'Thank you,' said Clara, in her turn, and she was left alone.