SWEET USES OF ADVERSITY.
One furnace many times the good and bad will hold;
But what consumes the chaff will only cleanse the gold.
R. C. TRENCH.
During the succeeding days, James had little will or power to consider
his affairs; and Isabel, while attending on him, had time to think over
her plans. Happily, they had not a debt. Mrs. Frost had so entirely
impressed her grandson's mind with her own invariable rule of paying
her way, that it had been one of his grounds for pride that he had
never owed anything to any man.
They were thus free to choose their own course, but Lord Ormersfield
urged their remaining at Northwold for the present. He saw Mr.
Calcott, who had been exceedingly concerned at the turn affairs had
taken, and very far from wishing to depose James, though thinking that
he needed an exhortation to take heed to his ways. It had been an
improper reprimand, improperly received; but the Earl and the Squire
agreed that nothing but morbid fancy could conjure up disgrace, such as
need prevent James Frost from remaining in his own house until he could
obtain employment, provided he and his wife had the resolution to
contract their style of living under the eye of their neighbours.
This gave neither of them a moment's uneasiness. It was not the
direction of their pride; and even before James's aching head was
troubled with deliberation, Isabel had discussed her plan with the Miss
Faithfulls. She would imagine herself in a colony, and be troubled
with no more scruples about the conventional tasks of a lady than if
she were in the back-woods.
They would shut up some of the rooms, take one servant of all-work, and
Isabel would be nursery-maid herself. 'We may do quite as well as the
carpenter's wife,' she said; 'she has more children and less income,
and yet always seems to me the richest person whom I know.'
James groaned, and turned his face away. He could not forbid it, for
even Isabel's exertion must be permitted rather than the dishonour of
living beyond their means; and he consoled himself with thinking that
when the deadening inertness of his illness should leave him, he should
see some means of finding employment for himself, which would save her
from toil and exertion, and, in the meantime, with all his keen
self-reproach, it was a blessed thing to have been brought back to his
enthusiastic admiration for her, all discontents and drawbacks utterly
forgotten in her assiduous affection and gallant cheerfulness.
Lord Ormersfield had readily acceded to his son's wish to bring the
party to spend Christmas at Ormersfield, as soon as James could be
moved. During their visit the changes were to be made, and before
setting out Isabel had to speak to the servants. Charlotte's alacrity
and usefulness had made her doubly esteemed during her master's
illness; and when he heard how she was to be disposed of, he seemed
much vexed. He said that she was a legacy from his grandmother, and
too innocent and pretty to be cast about among strange servants in all
the places where the Conways visited; and that he would not have
consented to the transfer, but that, under their present circumstances,
it was impossible to keep her. If any evil came to her, it would be
another miserable effect of his own temper.
Isabel thought he exaggerated the dangers, and she spoke brightly to
Charlotte about fixing the day of her going to Estminster, so as to be
put into the ways of the place before her predecessor departed. The
tears at once came into Charlotte's eyes, and she answered, 'If you
please, ma'am, I should be very sorry to leave, unless I did not give
satisfaction.'
'That is far from being the reason, Charlotte; but we cannot keep so
good a servant--Mr. Frost has given up--'
'I have been put out of the school,' said James, from his sofa, in his
stern sense of truth. 'We must live on as little as possible, and
therefore must part with you, Charlotte, though from no fault of yours.
You must look on us as your friends, and in any difficulty apply to us;
for, as Mrs. Frost says, we look on you as a charge from my
grandmother.'
Charlotte escaped to hide her tears; and when, a few minutes after, the
Ormersfield carriage arrived, and nurses and babies were packed in, and
her master walked feebly and languidly down stairs, and her mistress
turned round to say, kindly, 'You will let me know, Charlotte?' she
just articulated, 'Thank you, ma'am, I will write.'
Mr. Frost's words had not been news to Charlotte. His affairs had been
already pretty well understood and discussed, and the hard, rude,
grasping comments of the vulgar cook--nay, even of the genteel
nurse--had been so many wounds to the little maiden, bred up by Jane in
the simplicity of feudal reverence and affection for all that bore the
name of Frost Dynevor.
Her mistress left to the tender mercies of some servant such as these,
some one who might only care for her own ease and profit, and not once
think of who and what she had been! The little children knocked about
by some careless girl! Never, never! All the doubts and scruples
about putting her own weak head and vain heart in the way of being made
faithless to Tom revived, reinforced by her strong and generous
affection. A romantic purpose suddenly occurred to her, flushing her
cheek and brightening her eye. In that one impulse, scrubbing, washing
dishes, short lilac sleeves were either forgotten, or acquired a
positive glory, and while the cook was issuing her invitations for a
jollification and gossip at the expense of Mr. and Mrs. Frost,
Charlotte sat in her attic, amid Jane's verbenas, which she had
cherished there ever since their expulsion from the kitchen, and wrote
and cried, and left off, to read over, and feel satisfied at, the
felicity of her phrases, and the sentiment of her project.
'Dear and Honoured Madam,--Pardon the liberty I am taking but I am sure
that you and my reverend and redoubted master would not willingly have
inflicted so much pain as yesterday on a poor young female which was
brought up from an orphan child by my dear late lamented mistress and
owes everything to her and would never realize the touching lines of
the sublime poet
Deserted in his utmost need
By those his former bounty fed.
As to higher wages and a situation offering superior advantages such as
might prove attractive to other minds it has none to me. My turn is
for fidelity in obscurity and dear and honoured lady I am a poor
unprotected girl which has read in many volumes of the dangers of going
forth into the snares of a wealthy and powerful family and begs you not
to deprive her of the shelter of the peaceful roof which has been her
haven and has been the seen of the joys and sorrows of her career.
Dear lady pardon the liberty that I have taken but it would brake my
heart to leave you and master and the dear children espeshilly in the
present winter of adversity which I have hands to help in to the best
of my poor abilities. Dear and honoured lady I have often been idle
but I will be so no more I love the dear little ladies with all my
heart and I can cook and act in any capacity and wages is no object I
will not take none nor beer neither--and the parlour tea-leaves will be
sufficient. Dear and honoured master and mistress forgive the liberty
a poor girl has taken and lend a favourable ear to my request for if
you persist in parting with me I know I shall not survive it.
'Your humble and faithful Servant,
'CHARLOTTE ARNOLD.'
Isabel received this letter while she was at breakfast with Lord
Ormersfield and Louis, and it was, of course, impossible to keep it to
herself. 'Talking of no wages!' said the Earl. 'Send her off at once.'
'You will despise me,' said Isabel, with tears in her eyes; 'but there
is something very touching in it, in spite of the affectation. I
believe she really means it.'
'Affectation is only matter of taste,' said Louis. 'Half the
simplicity of our day is only fashion; and Charlotte's letter, with a
few stops, and signed Chloe, would have figured handsomely in Mrs.
Radcliffe's time.'
'It does not depend on me,' said Isabel; 'James could not bear her
going before, and I am sure he will not now.'
'I think he ought not,' said Louis. 'Poor girl! I do believe the
snares of wealthy families and fidelity in obscurity, really mean with
her the pomps and vanities versus duty and affection.'
'I am sure I would not drive her back to them,' said Isabel; 'but I am
only afraid the work will be too much for her strength.'
'The willing heart goes all the way,' said Louis; 'and maybe it will be
more wholesome than London, and sitting up.'
Isabel coloured and sighed; but added, that it would be infinite relief
on the children's account to keep some one so gentle-handed, and so
entirely to be trusted.
James's decision was immediate. He called the letter a farrago, but
his laugh was mixed with tears at the faithful affection it displayed.
'It was mere folly,' he said, 'to think of keeping her without wages;
but, if she would accept such as could be afforded after taking a rough
village girl for her food to do the hard work, the experiment should be
made, in the hope that the present straits would only endure for a
short time.
This little event seemed to have done him much good, and put him more
at peace with the world. He was grateful for Lord Ormersfield's
kindness and forbearance, and the enforced rest from work was
refreshing him; while Isabel had never been so cheerful and lively in
her life as now, when braced manfully for her work, full of energy, and
feeling that she must show herself happy and courageous to support his
depressed spirits. She was making a beginning--she was practising
herself in her nursery duties, and, to her surprise, finding them quite
charming; and little Kitty so delighted with all she did for her, that
all the hitherto unsounded depths of the motherly heart were stirred
up, and she could not think why she had never found out her true
happiness. She looked so bright and so beautiful, that even Lord
Ormersfield remarked it, pitying her for trials which he thought she
little realized; but Louis augured better, believing that it was not
ignorance but resolution which gave animation and brilliancy to her
dark eye and cheerfulness to her smile.
Fitzjocelyn took her to Dynevor Terrace in the afternoon to settle the
matter with Charlotte; and, on the way, he took the opportunity of
telling her that he had been reading Sir Hubert, and admired him very
much, discussing him and Adeline with the same vivid interest as her
own sisters showed in them as persons, not mere personages. Isabel said
they already seemed to her to belong to a world much farther back than
the last fortnight.
'There is some puzzle in the middle,' said Louis. 'I can't make out
the hero whose addresses were so inconvenient to Adeline, and who ran
away from the pirates. He began as a crabbed old troubadour, who made
bad verses; and then he went on as a fantastic young Viscount, skipping
and talking nonsense.'
'Oh!' cried Isabel, much discomposed. 'Did I leave that piece there? I
took it to Estminster by mistake, and they told me of it. I should
have taken it out.'
'That would have been a pity,' said Louis, 'for the Viscount is a much
more living man than the old troubadour. When he had so many plans of
poems for the golden violet that he made none at all, I was quite taken
with him. I began to think I was going to have a lesson.'
Isabel blushed and tried to laugh, but it was so unsuccessful that
Louis exclaimed in high glee--'There! I do believe I was the fantastic
Viscount! Oh! Isabel, it was too bad! I can fairly acquit myself of
skipping ever since I had the honour of your acquaintance.'
'Or of running away from the pirates,' said Isabel. 'No, it was a
great deal too bad, and very wrong indeed. It was when you did not run
away that I was so much ashamed, that I thought I had torn out every
atom. I never told any one--not even Virginia!'
Louis had a very hearty laugh, and, when Isabel gaw him so excessively
amused, she ventured to laugh too at her ancient prejudice, and the
strange chance which had made the fantastic Viscount, Sir Roland's
critic.
'You must restore him,' said Louis, returning to business. 'That old
troubadour is the one inconsistency in the story, evidently not fitting
into the original plot. I shall be delighted to sit for the portrait.'
'I don't think you could now,' said Isabel. 'I think the motley must
have been in the spectacles with which I looked at you.'
'Ah! it is a true poem,' said Louis, 'it must have been a great relief
to your feelings! Shall I give it back to you?
'Oh! I can't touch it now!' cried Isabel. 'You may give it to me, and
if ever I have time to think again of it, I may touch it up, but
certainly not now.'
'And when you do, pray don't omit the Viscount. I can't lose my chance
of going down to posterity.'
He went his way, while Isabel repaired to the Terrace, and found
Charlotte awaiting her answer in much trepidation.
The low wages, instead of none at all, were a great disappointment,
doing away with all the honour and sentiment, and merely degrading her
in the eyes of her companions; but her attachment conquered this
objection, and face to face with her mistress, the affectation
departed, and left remaining such honest and sincere faithfulness and
affection, that Isabel felt as if a valuable and noble-hearted friend
had suddenly been made known to her. It was a silly little fanciful
heart, but it was sound to the core; and when Isabel said, 'There will
be very hard work, Charlotte, but we will try to do our best for Mr.
Frost and the children, and we will help each other,' Charlotte felt as
if no task could be too hard if it were to be met with such a look and
smile.
'Is it settled?' asked Lord Fitzjocelyn, as Charlotte opened the door
for him.
'Oh, yes, thank you, my Lord--'
'But, Charlotte, one thing is decided. Mrs. Frost can afford no more
eau de Cologne. The first hysterics and you go!'
He passed upstairs, and found Isabel beginning to dismantle the
drawing-room--'Which you arranged for us!' she said.
A long, deep sigh was the answer, and Louis mused for some moments ere
he said--'It is hard work to say good-bye to trifles with which
departed happiness seems connected.'
'Oh, no!' cried Isabel, eagerly. 'With such a home, the happiness
cannot be departed.'
'No, not with such a home!' said Louis, with a melancholy smile; 'but I
was selfish enough to be thinking who hung that picture--'
'I don't think you were the selfish person,' said Isabel.
'Patience and work!' said Louis, rousing himself. 'Some sort of good
time _must_ come,'--and he quickly put his hand to assist in putting
the Dresden shepherd and shepherdess into retirement, observing that
they seemed the genii of the place, and he set his mind on their
restoration.
'I do not think,' said Isabel, as she afterwards narrated this scene to
her husband, 'that I ever realized his being so much attached to Mary
Ponsonby; I thought it was a convenient suitable thing in which he
followed his father's wishes, and I imagined he had quite recovered it.'
'He did not look interesting enough? Yes! he was slow in knowing his
own mind; but his heart once given there is no recalling it, whatever
his father may wish.'
'Or my mother,' said Isabel, smiling.
'Ah! I have never asked you what your party say of him in the London
world.'
'They say he quite provokes them by being such a diligent member, and
that people debate as to whether he will distinguish himself. Some say
he does not care enough, and others, that he has too many crotchets.'
'Just so! Public men are not made of that soft, scrupulous stuff,
which only hardens and toughens when principle is clear before him.
Well, as to society--'
'Virginia says he is hardly ever to be had; he is either at the House,
or he has something to do for his father; he slips out of parties, and
they never catch him unless they are in great want of a gentleman to
take them somewhere, and then no one is so useful. Mamma has been
setting innumerable little traps for him, but he marches straight
through them all, and only a little tone of irony betrays that he sees
through them. Every one likes him, and the only complaint is, that he
is so seldom to be seen, keeping almost entirely to his father's set,
always with his father--'
'Ay! I can bear to watch his submission better than formerly. His
attentions are in such perfect good taste that they are quite
beautiful; and his lordship has quite ceased snubbing, and begins to
have a glimmering that when Louis says something never dreamt of in his
philosophy, the defect may be in his understanding, and not in
Fitzjocelyn's.'
'I could excuse him for not always understanding Fitzjocelyn! But
there never were two kinder people in the world; and I could not have
imagined that I should ever like Lord Ormersfield half so much.'
'He is improved. Louis's exclusive devotion has not been lost on him.
Holdsworth has been sitting with me, and talking of the great change in
the parish. He told me that at his first arrival here, seven years
ago, when he was very young, he found himself quite disheartened and
disgusted by the respectability of the place. Every one was cold,
distant, correct, and self-esteeming; so perfectly contented with
themselves and the routine, that he felt all his ardour thrown away,
and it seemed to him that he was pastor to a steam-engine--a mere item
in the proprieties of Ormersfield. He was almost ready to exchange,
out of weariness and impatience, when Fitzjocelyn came home, and awoke
fresh life and interest by his absurdities, his wonderful
philanthropies, and extraordinary schemes. His sympathy and earnestness
were the first refreshment and encouragement; and Holdsworth declares
that no one can guess the benefit that he was to him even when he was
most ridiculous. Since that, he says, the change has been striking,
though so gradual. Louis has all the same freshness and energy, but
without the fluctuation and impetuosity. And his example of humility
and sincerity has worked, not only in reclaiming the wild outlying
people, but even awakening the comfortable dependents from their
self-satisfaction. Even Frampton is far from the impenetrable person
he used to be.'
'And I suppose they have done infinite good to the wild Marksedge
people!'
'Some are better, some are worse. I believe that people always are
worse when they reject good. I am glad to find, too, that the
improvements answer in a pecuniary point of view. His Lordship is
amazed at his son's sagacity, and they have never been so much at ease
in money matters.'
'Indeed! Well, I must own that I have always been struck with the very
small scale on which things are done here. Just the mere margin of
what is required by their station, barely an indulgence!'
'I fancy you must look into subscriptions for Fitzjocelyn's means,'
said James; 'and for the rest, they have no heart for new furniture
till he marries.'
'Well! I wonder if Mary is worth so much heart! It might be the best
thing for him if she would find some worthy merchant. He is very young
still, and looks younger. I should like him to begin the world again.'
'Ha! Isabel, you want to cook up a romance of your own for him.'
James was recovering cheerfulness. He thought he was bracing himself
to bear bravely with an unmerited wrong. The injustice of his sentence
hid from him the degree of justice; and with regard to his own temper,
he knew better what he restrained than what he expressed, and
habitually gave himself credit for what he did not say or do. There was
much that was really good in his present spirit, and it was on the way
to be better; but his was not the character to be materially altered by
the first brunt of a sudden shock. It was a step that he had brought
himself to forgive the trustees. He did not yet see that he had any
need to be forgiven.
At the end of three weeks James and Isabel returned to their home, and
to their new way of life; and Fitzjocelyn had only time to see that
they were beginning their struggle with good courage, before the
meeting of Parliament summoned him to London.
Isabel fully justified Miss Faithfull's prediction. She was too truly
high-minded to think any task beneath her; and with her heart in, not
out of her immediate work, she could not fail to be a happier woman.
Success gave as much pleasure in a household duty as in an
accomplishment--nay, far more when it was a victory over herself, and
an increase to the comfort of her husband. Her strength was much
tried, and the children often fatigued and harassed her; but there was
unspeakable compensation in their fondness and dependence on her, and
even in the actual services themselves. The only wonder began to be
how she could have ever trusted them in any hands but her own. Her
husband's affection and consideration were sources of joy ever renewed;
and though natural irritability and pressing anxieties might now and
then betray him into a hasty word, his penitence so far surpassed the
momentary pain it might have cost her, that she was obliged to do her
utmost to comfort him. She sometimes found herself awkward or
ignorant, and sometimes flagged from over-exertion; yet throughout,
James's approval, and her own sense that she was striving to do her
best, kept her mind at rest. Above all, the secret of her happiness
was, that the shock of adversity had awakened her from her previous
deadness and sluggishness of soul, and made her alive to a feeling of
trust and support, a frame of mind ever repenting, ever striving
onwards. Thus she went bravely through the very class of trials that
she would once have thought merely lowering, inglorious, and devoid of
poetry. What would have been in itself sordid, gained a sweetness from
the light of love and duty, and never in all her dreamy ease had she
been as cheerful and lighthearted as in the midst of hardship and rigid
economy. Her equable temper and calm composure came to her aid; and
where a more nervous and excitable woman would have preyed upon
herself, and sunk under imaginary troubles, she was always ready to
soothe and sustain the anxious and sensitive nature of her husband.
After all, hers was the lightest share of the trial. To her, the call
was to act, and to undergo misfortunes occasioned by no fault of hers;
to him, the call was the one most galling to an active and eager
man--namely, to endure, and worse, to see endured, the penalty of his
own errors. In vain did he seek for employment. A curacy, without a
fair emolument, would have been greater poverty than their present
condition, as long as the house was unlet; and, though he answered
advertisements and made applications, the only eligible situations
failed; and he knew, among so many candidates, the last to be chosen
would be a person of violent temper, unable to bear rebuke.
Disappointment came upon disappointment, and the literary work, with
which, through Louis's exertions, he had been supplied, was not likely
to bring in any speedy return.
All that he could do was to take more than his part in domestic
trifles, such as most men would have scorned, and to relieve his wife
as far as possible of the children, often at the cost of his writing.
He bore the brunt of many a trial of which she was scarcely
aware--slights from the harsh vulgar, and compassion from the kind
vulgar; and the proud self-assertion was gone which had hardened him to
all such stings. To his lot fell the misery of weighing and balancing
what comforts could best be cut off without positive injury to his wife
and little ones. To consider whether an empty house should be repaired
for a doubtful tenant, to make the venture, and have it rejected, was a
severe vexation, when the expense trenched on absolute necessaries, and
hardly less trying was it to be forced to accept the rent of the House
Beautiful, knowing how ill it could be spared; and yet, that without it
he must lapse into the hopeless abyss of debt. Moreover, there was
The terrible heart thrill
To have no power of giving
to some of the poor who had learnt to look to the Terrace in his
grandmother's time, and meals were curtailed, that those in greater
need might not be left quite unaided.
Nor was this the only cause for which James underwent actual stern
privation. The reign of bad cookery was over. Charlotte, if
unmethodical, was delicately neat; and though she kept them waiting for
their dinner, always served it up with the precision of past
prosperity. Cheap cookery and cottage economy were the study, and the
results were pronounced admirable; but the master was the dispenser;
and when a modicum of meat was to make nourishing a mountain of rice,
or an ocean of broth, it would occur to him, as he helped Isabel, that
the piece de resistance would hardly hold out for the kitchen
devourers. He would take the recipe at its word, and dine on the
surrounding structure; and in spite of the cottage economy, he was
nearly as hungry after dinner as before it, and people began to say
that he had never recovered his looks since his illness. These daily
petty acts of self-denial and self-restraint had begun to tame his
spirit and open his eyes in a manner that neither precept nor example
had yet effected.
Charlotte had imbibed to the full the spirit of patient exertion which
pervaded the house. Mrs. Martha had told her she was a foolish girl,
and would be tired of the place in a fortnight; but when she did not
see her tired, she would often rush in after her two mistresses were
shut up for the evening, scold Charlotte for her want of method, and
finish all that was left undone, while Charlotte went up to the nursery
to release her mistress. As to novels and sentiment, they had gone
after Sir Hubert; and though Charlotte was what Martha expressively
called 'fairly run off her feet,' she had never looked better nor
happier. Her mistress treated her like a friend; she doted on the
children, and the cook was out of the kitchen; Delaford was off her
mind, and neither stairs nor even knife-cleaning could hurt her
feelings. To be sure, her subordinate, a raw girl from Marksgedge,
devoured all that was set before her, and what was not eatable, she
broke; but as she had been sent from home with no injunctions but to
'look sharp and get stout,' so she was only fulfilling her vocation,
and on some question of beer, her mother came and raved at Charlotte,
and would have raved at Mrs. Frost, if her dignified presence had not
overawed her. So she only took the girl away in offence, and Charlotte
was much happier with an occasional charwoman to share her labours.
There was much happiness in No. 5, notwithstanding that the spring and
summer of 1851 were very hard times; and perhaps felt the more, because
the sunny presence of Louis Fitzjocelyn did not shine there as usual.
He was detained in London all the Easter recess by his father's
illness. Lord Ormersfield was bound hand and foot by a severe attack
of rheumatism, caught almost immediately after his going to London. It
seemed to have taken a strong hold of his constitution, and lingered on
for weeks, so that he could barely move from his armchair by the fire,
and began to give himself up as henceforth to be a crippled old man--a
view out of which Louis and Sir Miles Oakstead tried by turns to laugh
him; indeed, Sir Miles accused him of wanting to continue his monopoly
of his son--and of that doubly-devoted attention by which Louis
enlivened his convalescence.
Society had very little chance with Fitzjocelyn now, unless he was
fairly hunted out by the Earl, who was always haunted by ungrounded
alarms for his health and spirits, and never allowed him to fail in the
morning rides, which were in fact his great refreshment, as much from
the quiet and the change of scene, as from the mere air and exercise.
'Father,' said he, coming in one day a little after Easter, 'you are a
very wise man!'
'Eh!' said the Earl, looking up in wonder and expectation excited by
this prelude, hoping for the fulfilment of some political prediction.
'He is a wise man,' proceeded Louis, 'who does not put faith in
treasures, especially butlers; also, who does not bring a schoolboy to
London with nothing to do!'
'What now?' said the Earl. 'Is young Conway in a scrape?'
'I am,' said Fitzjocelyn; 'I have made a discovery, and I don't exactly
see what to do with it. You see I have been taking the boy out riding
with me, as the only thing I could well do for him these holidays. You
must know he is very good and patronizing; I believe he thinks he could
put me up to a few things in time. Well, to-day, as we passed a
questionable-looking individual, Walter bowed, as if highly elated by
the honour of his acquaintance, and explained to me that he was the
celebrated--I forget who, but that's owing to my defective education.
The fact is, that this Delaford, to whom my aunt implicitly trusts, has
been introducing this unlucky boy to a practical course of Bell's
Life--things that I went through Eton, and never even heard of.' And
he detailed some of them.
'No more than she might have expected,' said Lord Ormersfield.
'And what is to be done?'
'I should say, never interfere between people and their servants, still
less between them and their sons. You will do no good.'
'I cannot see this go on!' cried Louis. 'The boy told me all, by way
of showing me his superiority. I believe he wants to introduce me to
some of his distinguished friends. They flatter him, and make him a
great man; and as to any scruples about his mother, Delaford has
disposed of her objections as delicate weaknesses. When I began to
look grave, the poor boy set it down to my neglected training, always
spending my holidays in the country, and not knowing what fast men are
up to.'
'And so he goes to destruction--just the sort of boy that does,' said
the Earl, with due acquiescence in the course of the world.
'He need not,' exclaimed Louis. 'He is a nice boy, a very nice boy, if
only he cared for his mother, or knew right from wrong.'
Lord Ormersfield smiled at these slight exceptions.
'He is heartily fond of Isabel,' said Louis. 'If I thought Jem could
do any good, I would send for him; but he has made my aunt so much
afraid of unworldliness just now, that I only wonder she lets Miss King
stay on.'
'You had better leave it alone,' said the Earl, 'unless you can do
anything with the boy. I am glad that I am not his guardian!'
'I wish I was,' sighed Louis.
'I suppose you will grow older some day,' said Lord Ormersfield.
'However, I see you will not be contented without going your own way to
work.'
'When the Earl saw his son the next day, Louis looked radiant at having
taken one step. He had seen his aunt, and she had endured the
revelation with more equanimity than he could have supposed possible.
'It was a house where they took things easily,' as he said; a house
where nothing was more feared than a scene; and Lady Conway had thanked
her nephew greatly for his communication; promised what he did not ask,
that he should not be betrayed to Walter; assured him that the butler
should be dismissed, without giving any reason, before the summer
holidays; and for the few remaining days before Walter returned to
Eton, she thought she might reckon on her dear Fitzjocelyn for keeping
his eye upon him: no doubt all would be right when Delaford was once
gone.
It was the old want of a high standard--the love of ease rather than
the love of right. The Earl laughed at her short-sighted policy, and
resented her saddling Louis with the care of her son; while Louis
philosophized upon good-nature, and its use and abuse.
Whether Mr. Delaford learnt that Sir Walter had betrayed him to Lord
Fitzjocelyn, or whether he took alarm from the young gentleman being
kept under surveillance, he scented danger; and took the initiative, by
announcing to my Lady that he intended to retire from his situation
into private life at the month's end.
Lady Conway rejoiced in being spared the fabrication by which she had
intended to dismiss her paragon without hurting his feelings, thanked
Fitzjocelyn more than ever, and was sure that dear Walter would do very
well.
But no sooner had Delaford departed than a series of discoveries began
to be made. Lady Conway's bills reached back to dates far beyond those
of the cheques which she had put into Delaford's hands to pay them, and
a tissue of peculation began to reveal itself, so alarming and
bewildering to her, that she implored her nephew to investigate it for
her.
Louis, rather against the will of his father, who was jealous of any
additional tasks thrown on him, entered into the matter with the head
of an accountant, and the zeal of a pursuer of justice; and stirred up
a frightful mass of petty and unblushing fraud, long practised as a
mere matter of course upon the mistress, who had set the example of
easy-going, insincere self-seeking. It involved the whole household so
completely, that there was no alternative but a clearance of every
servant, whether innocent or guilty, and a fresh beginning. Indeed, so
great had been the debts which had accumulated, that there was no doubt
that the treacherous butler must have been gambling to a great extent
with his mistress's money; and the loss was so heavy that Lady Conway
found she should be obliged to retrench, 'just when she should have
been so glad to have helped poor dear Isabel!' She must even give up a
season in London, but dear Virginia was far too good and sensible to
repine.
Lord Ormersfield, who had become much interested in the investigation,
and assisted much by his advice, wanted her to go to Thornton Conway;
and Louis urged the step warmly as the best hope for Walter. But she
could not live there, she said, without far too heavy an expenditure;
and she would make visits for the present, and find some cheap place
abroad, where the girls could have masters.
And so her establishment was broken up, and Louis wrote warm
congratulations to James that poor little Charlotte had not been
tempted into the robber's den. Isabel could not help reading the whole
history to Charlotte, who turned white at the notion of such
wickedness, and could hardly utter a word; though afterwards, as she
sat rocking little Mercy to sleep, she bestowed a great deal of good
advice on her, 'never to mind what nobody said to her, above all, when
they talked like a book, for there were a great many snakes and vipers
in the grass, and 'twas best to know good friends when one had them.'
And coupled with her moralizing, there was no small degree of humble
thankfulness for the impulse that had directed her away from the evil.
How could she ever have met Tom again if she had shared in the stigma
on the dishonest household? Simple-hearted loyalty had been a guard
against more perils than she had even imagined!