quick, and that by a hand that she loved. Blinded by her affection, she
regarded Sir Amery with an enthusiastic admiration which could see no
fault, a tender devotion which would have regarded the sacrifice of life
itself but a small one for his sake. Every fibre of her loving heart
seemed to have twined itself round its new idol, and to breathe even a
slighting word of _him_ was to wrench and lacerate those tender
heart-strings. She again buried her face, but this time it was not on
the bosom of her mother.
"Mamma, you know not how wretched you make me with your doubts!"
"My child--my own child--I would give my life's blood to render you
happy!" Mrs. Vernon took the cold hand of Flora, and pressed it
convulsively to her heart. "But I cannot--I dare not--trust you to one
who is not treading the same path towards heaven: I cannot--dare
not--let you break the command which bids our unions be '_only in the
Lord_.'"
"You will refuse your consent?" exclaimed Flora, starting to her feet,
and gazing on her mother with a look of wild dismay.
"Oh, God help me!--God guide me!" murmured the unhappy parent, pressing
her hand tightly over her brow.
"You will refuse your consent?" repeated Flora, more wildly and
passionately than before. "Mother, mother! you know not what you are
doing!--you may break my heart, you may lay me in my grave; but"--her
manner suddenly changed to one of clinging, confiding affection, as she
sank at the feet of her mother, and looked imploringly up into her
face--"but you will not, dear mother, you will not; you will let us be
happy together. When you see him--when you know him--all these terrible
doubts will pass quite away; you will look on him as I look--you will
love him: only wait till he comes--till to-morrow."
"To-morrow! is he coming?" gasped the lady.
"Mother, dearest mother, you are trembling!"
"Oh, this is a very, very bitter cup! God give me strength to drink
it," exclaimed the widow.
"He will bring sunshine with him; he will plead his own cause--"
"Thankful, most deeply, profoundly thankful will I be, Flora, if he can
indeed satisfy my mind that he is a faithful servant of our divine
Master! I can pass over minor differences--the outer garb of
religion--the forms which man hath appointed--we may hold various
opinions here, and yet be one in the Lord. But if I find that my fears
are but too true--that Sir Amery, gifted and noble as he is, has chosen
a path of his own, which is not the narrow one which leadeth alone unto
life; that he rests upon a hope of his own, which is not trust in the
merits of his Saviour; that he has formed a standard of his own, which
is not the standard of the Word of Truth; whatever grief, whatever
anguish it may cost me, my duty is plain before me--I must not resign
the treasure committed by God to my charge to the keeping of one who is
not His disciple."
And so they parted, the mother and the daughter, and many and bitter
were the tears which wet their pillows that night. Mrs. Vernon sought
and found relief in prayer--Flora, in thoughts of him whose idolized
image stood between her and the light of Heaven.
*CHAPTER XII.*
*DECISION.*
Before sunset on the following day, while yet the bright orb darted his
beams, like glittering lances, through openings in the foliage, and the
jasmine blossoms trembled in the breeze and scattered their silver stars
on the ground, an elastic step trod the path which led to the door of
Laurel Bank--a tall graceful form ascended the steps; and the children
in the garden wonderingly gazed from a distance on the lordly stranger
who came, an unwonted visitor, to their home.
How fast throbbed one trembling heart at the sight of that form, the
sound of that footstep! Flora had spent an exciting and agitating day.
She had been for hours alone with her mother, those fatal volumes before
them which they had perused with such different feelings. Flora had
listened, argued, and wept, her judgment half convinced, but her heart
altogether unpersuaded. Sir Amery was still the hero of her fancy, the
idol of her affection. His very imperfections, like broken rocks in wild
scenery, were to her invested with a charm which made the virtues of
others appear tame. If he had errors, she thought, they were the errors
of a noble mind, the wanderings of a glorious river, pursuing its bright
course at its own free pleasure, not confined to one long, dull,
straight line, like a canal made by measure and rule.
"And oh, my mother!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands, "think of the
privilege, the blessing, of helping to draw such a noble spirit nearer
to religion and to God!--of winning him to love what I love--to serve
whom I serve! How can I, weak and helpless as I am, so benefit my
fellow-creatures as by employing such influence as Providence has given
me over the heart of one of the most gifted of men, to lead him to
devote his high powers to the cause of piety and virtue? Does not this
appear to be the special work which God has appointed me to do? is it
not for this that I have been given favour in the eyes of one so far
above me in all things? I have heard Mr. Ward preach upon providential
calls, doors of usefulness opened to God's servants, opportunities
offered which it is sin to neglect: is not a door now opened to me, an
opportunity granted of serving the Lord in a wider sphere than I could
ever hope to occupy here?"
"My child, your feelings and not your judgment now speak. A plain
commandment of the Almighty is before you--'_Be not unequally yoked with
unbelievers._' Do you believe that in breaking the law of your God you
can expect his blessing, that blessing without which it were as
impossible for one being to change the heart of another, as it would be
to bring waters from the stony rock or call up fire from the ocean?"
"But," pleaded Flora through her tears, "did not the apostle write that
'_the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife; for what knowest
thou, O wife! whether thou shalt save thy husband?_' is not such a
blessed hope as this held out to encourage feeble women like me?"
"It was held out to such as were themselves converted after marriage, to
such as had already formed the tie which bound them to unbelievers,
before the grace of God was shed abroad in their own hearts. Can you
mention a single verse in the Bible that encourages us to do evil that
good may come, to break God's law that we may aid others to keep it?"
Flora looked down and sighed heavily.
"Oh, my daughter! while you hopefully regard the effect which your
influence may have upon the man whom you love, you forget the influence
which he will assuredly exercise over yourself. You trust that you will
be the means of drawing him nearer to the Lord--you overlook the danger
that he will draw your own heart away. When we wilfully throw ourselves
into temptation, what assurance can we have that the Almighty will
preserve us from its effects? Who dare say, 'I will stand fast in the
Lord,' when, through our tenderest affections, our closest ties, the
danger presses on our souls?"
Little did Sir Amery dream of the cloud that was rising to darken the
sky which was so bright before him! Little did he dream of the conflict
which awaited him, as with an exulting heart he approached the home of
his beloved! He knew that her heart was his own; and from her family,
judging by his knowledge of the world, he deemed that he could have
nothing to fear. He was conscious of high talent, and of that strange,
undefined power over the feelings and passions of others which is
exercised but by few, and which makes its possessor take a lofty
position in society even when not, as was the case with himself,
entitled to such by birth. Sir Amery knew that he might contract a
brilliant alliance--that, in the object of his choice, rank, wealth, and
beauty, might unite, and that the proudest families in the land would
deem connection with him an honour. He knew all this; and when he who
had been the observed of all observers--admired, envied, courted--he
whose fame had spread into distant lands, whose works were quoted in
foreign tongues--when he turned from the glittering circles of fashion
to choose for his bride a simple maiden, who possessed neither rank nor
riches, he felt that the world might regard his disinterested attachment
as romantic folly. But for the world's opinions on the subject he cared
little; he was almost satiated with its applause, and he was content,
and more than content, to stoop from his pinnacle of fame, to rest on
one gentle, loving heart, that he could make entirely his own, and mould
according to his will.
Had the idea been suggested to Sir Amery that his suit for the hand of
Flora would meet with opposition in her home, he would have smiled at it
as something more improbable than the wildest flights of his fancy; but
the thought that such opposition might be dangerous, nay,
successful--that his hopes might be blighted, his happiness marred, and
that by an instrument so feeble as the conscientious scruples of a
merchant's widow--such thought would have been at once dismissed from
his mind as beyond the bounds of possibility. When, therefore, the
anxious, trembling mother, received him with an emotion of which he at
first misinterpreted the cause--when, by an effort which sent back the
blood to her heart, she told him of her doubts, of her fears, shrinking
from meeting the bright eye which rested so keenly upon her--the first
sentiment awakened in his breast was one of surprise, succeeded by
something akin to indignation. Was he to be called upon to explain his
views, to give an account of his opinions! Were the depths of his mind
to be sounded by the feeble thread of a woman's judgment! What was it
to her what he thought or believed--it was not to be expected that she
should understand _him_! Why was theology dragged in at all, where the
question was between heart and heart! "Such matters might suit," as he
observed, with a sarcastic smile, "the discussion of grave doctors at
convocation, but could scarcely occupy now the attention of him whose
mind was absorbed by but one object--the deep, passionate love which he
bore towards her in whom all his hopes of happiness centred!"
Sir Amery had at first suspected Mrs. Vernon of throwing frivolous
difficulties in the way, in order to enhance the value of the prize
which he sought, and to prevent the baronet from feeling that the
merchant's daughter was too easily won. Flora's silent anguish,
however, and her mother's quiet decision, soon undeceived him on this
point. He saw that the danger was real, the opposition which he
encountered, sincere. He then changed his position altogether; and
dropping the calm, almost sarcastic manner in which he had at first
replied to Mrs. Vernon, he burst into a strain of fervid, glowing
eloquence, pouring forth those impassioned words which excite the
feelings and confound the judgment. He pleaded his own cause as those
only can plead whose more than life is at stake.
To Flora, such words were irresistible. If doubts or scruples had been
raised in her mind, they were swept in a moment away, as the rushing
cataract, dashing from a height, whirls along the autumn leaves that
have dropped on its surface! But as easily could that roaring cataract
break the arch of the rainbow that glistens at its foot, as the torrent
of eloquence to which she listened warp the settled judgment of the
parent. She needed not to be persuaded that Sir Amery loved--she
believed Flora to be worthy of the warmest affection which ever glowed
in the heart of man; but no sentence which he uttered altered her
conviction that he was one who, however gifted with earthly wisdom, was
yet a stranger to the knowledge which alone can make man wise unto
salvation.
Sir Amery read in the expression of her sad eye that, as far as regarded
Mrs. Vernon, all that he had spoken had been uttered in vain.
Repressing the fierce resentment which swelled in his breast, he
addressed himself more exclusively to Flora, whose tears were her only
reply. Mrs. Vernon saw that the love of her only child for one whom,
some few weeks before, she had met as a stranger, was overcoming even
that affection which had grown with her growth and strengthened with her
strength; she felt herself the only barrier between her daughter and a
danger to which Flora was blind, and she dreaded lest that barrier might
be passed. Her nerves overstrained, her feelings wounded, her fears for
the moment overmastering her faith, Mrs. Vernon sank back on her chair,
the paleness of death overspread her face, a feint sigh burst from her
whitening lips!
The sight of her mother in this state roused all that deep affection
which Flora had ever borne towards her parent. In a moment she was at
her side, supporting her drooping head, covering the pallid brow with
her tears.
"Oh, mother, mother!" she sobbed forth, "look not thus. I will do
anything--everything that you will! Leave me, leave me, Sir Amery!" she
continued, in tones of passionate grief; "I never can--I never
will--marry without the consent of my mother!"
"You do not bid me despair?" exclaimed Sir Amery, grasping the
unresisting hand which trembled in his. "Flora, you do not bid me
despair?"
"Go--go. Perhaps a time may come--perhaps--only leave me--for pity's
sake, leave me!"
"You shall be obeyed," replied Sir Amery, pressing her hand fervently to
his lips; "Flora, my heart's life, you shall be obeyed. But
notwithstanding all the obstacles which narrow-minded bigotry would
raise up between us, did all the powers of earth combine to separate
those whose hearts are united, love like mine should trample down those
obstacles, and, in defiance of the opposition of the world, you should
be mine: yes, Flora, idol of my soul! you shall be mine!"
He was gone!--gone with burning words on his lips, passionate, indignant
emotions in his heart: he was gone, and left desolation behind him!
*CHAPTER XIII.*
*THE MOTHER'S TRIAL.*
"Sweet are the uses of adversity," writes the great poet of Nature.
Experience confirms the blessed truth proclaimed by Revelation, that
"they who sow in tears shall reap in joy." The lips that meekly kiss
the rod find that, like Aaron's, it will blossom, and bear the fruits of
peace, and even joy. Sorrow has so often been the step to
sanctification, that we can scarcely wonder that the means have
sometimes been mistaken for the end--that it has been thought that grief
has in itself some purifying power, until much suffering on earth is
almost regarded as a passport to heaven!
And yet how mistaken is this view!--how contrary to the warning in the
Scriptures, that there is a sorrow of the world that worketh death? If
some tears are like the dew that descends on the earth, shedding
fertility and beauty on all sides, others are like the waters of the
Dead Sea, bitter and unblessed: buried joys lie beneath, and a desert
spreads around!
Such were the tears of Flora, on this blighting of her fondest
hopes--this separation from him whom she regarded as the lode-star of
her existence. Earth to her held nothing more to live for. All was a
weary blank like that before the darkened eyes of the blind. She no
longer found pleasure in aught that had pleased her before: her flowers
drooped neglected, her instrument was dumb, her books were unopened, her
pencil untouched. And as with her pleasures, so with her duties--all
were alike disregarded. The poor listened in vain for her well-known
step; her pupils wondered at her absence from the school; Emma openly
complained of unkindness and neglect; while her children were shunned by
Flora, or their presence endured with scarce concealed dislike and
irritation. She noticed not, cared not, for the improvement wrought in
them by Mrs. Vernon's patient care; she only felt that their noisy
merriment jarred on her wounded spirit; she was almost angry to think
that they were happy! Flora was a changed being--changed even to her
mother. The parent's fond glance never met an answering smile; her
tender words received short, sullen answers. Flora saved no pang to the
gentle breast which maternal love gave her such power to wound. Not
that she uttered a murmur--pride would not have suffered that; but there
was reproach in the downcast, tearful eye--reproach in the tone of the
mournful voice, in the languid step, the drooping form. By neglect of
her own health, by sullen yielding to despair, Flora was revenging
herself upon her mother.
And what was the state of her heart towards her heavenly Father? Alas!
could the thoughts and feelings of the unhappy Flora have been written
down, she would have started and trembled to see how near the breathings
of a repining, gloomy spirit approached to blasphemy! She deemed
herself hardly, unmercifully dealt with. She marvelled why she had been
raised for a moment to the very pinnacle of human felicity, to be dashed
down into the deep gulf of despair! Was the Almighty indeed a pitying
Father? Had He led her into the paths of peace? Had He not rather
filled her cup with bitterness, and withered her soul with
disappointment? Nay, was it not religion that lay at the root of all
her misery? Were not the conscientious misgivings of her mother as the
worm that had destroyed the gourd that she delighted in? Had Mrs.
Vernon's views been less strict and puritanical--less _bigoted_, as
Flora called them, in the anguish of her soul--would not her daughter
have been the happiest of women?--would not she herself have been the
proudest of mothers?
Such thoughts were sinful, marked with the deepest stain of ingratitude;
yet Flora indulged in them freely. She almost accused Providence in
secret of having exposed her to trials beyond what she could bear;
unmindful of the fact that she had herself, in impatience of petty
annoyances, chosen the path which, however flowery at first, she had
found to be strewn with sharp thorns. If she was conscious that her
faith was growing weak, and her love towards God becoming cold, she laid
the blame upon the cruel circumstances of the position in which the
Almighty had placed her. She had loved and served the Lord--at least so
she deemed--when she was happy; but when His hand lay so heavy upon her,
she was ready to forget all past mercies, all present blessings, all
bright hopes of a blissful future. With Jonah her spirit exclaimed, "I
do well to be angry:" with Elijah, "It is enough; take away my life!"
Impatient to throw down the burden which her unchastened will refused to
sustain, she longed, almost prayed, for death--little deeming in her
present state how unfit she was to die. The sun of trial was now indeed
glowing with intense and burning heat on the seed which had been sown in
rocky ground; the plant which had shown in the world's eye so fair,
unwatered by grace, having no root in itself, in the time of temptation
withered away.
Deep was the affliction of Mrs. Vernon; darker and darker grew the path
before her. She had stood firm against the sophistry of human wisdom,
the power of human eloquence; she had resisted even Flora's pleading
tears: but to see, week after week, and month after month, her child
wasting to a shadow before her, was a lengthened torture to her loving
heart which wore away the very thread of her life. In vain medical
advice was sought for Flora. There was no physician to "minister to a
mind diseased;" all the skill of man was unavailing where the patient
chose death rather than life. There was an awful possibility before
Mrs. Vernon, too terrible to contemplate, but which recurred to her mind
again and again, as she gazed on the fading form of her child. There
was nothing which appeared to rouse Flora, or to excite in her a
moment's interest, except the letters which she received from Ada, and
which were perused only by herself. Mrs. Vernon never sought to know
their contents; she felt that her daughter's confidence and affection
were now given to another, and that she herself stood in the position of
a tyrant towards one who was far dearer to her than life!
"Have I indeed done what was right? or have I mistaken my
duty--sacrificed to blind prejudice the happiness of my child--destroyed
her health, her peace--ruined her hopes, in my ignorant, misguided
zeal?" Such were the bitter reflections which recurred again and again,
and ever with increasing bitterness, to the mind of the unhappy mother.
In vain her pastor endeavoured to support her with the consolations of
religion--to assure her that she had not only acted faithfully, but
wisely: she could not endure to see the consequences of her own
decision, still less to contemplate what might possibly be its final
result.
Autumn rain was fast descending, streaming from the heavy black clouds,
while ever and anon a wild gust of wind stripped the boughs of their
faded leaves, and scattered them far and wide. Emma tried to beguile
the weary time with a novel, but looked up from it every five minutes
with a languid sigh, to complain of "the horrid weather," and contrast
the English climate with that of her native island. The children were
restless and noisy, impatient of the confinement of the house, till Mrs.
Vernon found employment for them all in looking over the curiosities of
an old cabinet.
Where was Flora? Her mother sought her in the small sitting-room in
which her daughter usually pursued her occupations. Her books, her
piano, her desk, were there. The room was not, however, now occupied;
Flora was in her own apartment. Mrs. Vernon noticed that an album was
laid on the desk, in which Flora usually wrote her poetical effusions;
and the sight of it made the mother hope that at least one favourite
occupation had not been relinquished by her daughter. Often had Mrs.
Vernon copied out verses from that album, and shed tears of pleasure
over them. She opened the book to see if Flora had recently added to
their number. Between the last written pages there were compressed
flowers, their beauty faded, their life gone; yet precious, perhaps, as
relics of the hours when they had bloomed as freshly as the hopes which,
like them, had withered. The last verses in the volume were new to Mrs.
Vernon; they bore the date but of yesterday; and she with anguish
perused them as the transcript of the feelings of a young being whose
life had not yet numbered twenty years.
LINES.
Is it sinful to gaze on the morning sun,
And wish that the gates of the west he had won--
That life's day were over, its labours done?
Is it sinful to mark the first silver hair
'Mid dark tresses touched by the hand of care,
And wish time had shed all his winter there?
Is it sinful in life no joy to take,--
To feel like a captive bound to the stake
By a chain that galls us, and will not break?
Some fear to die: 'tis not so with me;
Rather, O Death, I pine for thee!
I long in the quiet grave to be!
"Oh! this is too much--too much!" exclaimed Mrs. Vernon, wringing her
hands. "I can endure anything myself, but I cannot--oh, I cannot break
the heart of my child!"
She hastened to Flora's apartment with a quick and agitated step. She
unclosed the door--she saw Flora on her knees, her hair dishevelled, her
bosom heaving with sobs, as she pressed again and again convulsively to
her lips a little diamond locket which she held in her hand.
Flora started to her feet at the sound of her mother's entrance: as she
did so a letter fell to the ground. Mrs. Vernon's eye rested upon it
for a moment: the handwriting was not that of Ada.
"Oh! mother--mother--forgive me; it was--from him!"
"He loves you still?"
"More than ever!" exclaimed Flora, bursting into a fresh flood of tears.
"Then let him be happy with you!" cried the mother, folding her child in
her arms, and kissing away her tears, while her own flowed freely and
fast. "I can resist no longer. Oh, God forgive me if I do wrong!
Flora, my own beloved! be united to the husband of your choice; you have
your mother's consent and her blessing!"
On the scenes that followed I will not dwell, but leave them to the
imagination of the reader. On the day when the first snow fell, Flora
was the bride of Sir Amery.
*CHAPTER XIV.*
*THE VISIT.*