True, earnest sorrows; rooted miseries;
.... vexations, ripe and blown,
Sure-footed griefs; solid calamities;
Plain demonstrations, evident and clear,
Touching their proofs e'en from the very bone--
These are the sorrows here.
HERBERT.
More than six and thirty years have passed since Mr. Trevor, the present
proprietor of Montrevor, had taken to himself a wife, young, lovely, of
good family, and endowed with much excellence, both of mind and
disposition.
Miss Mainwaring had consented, in obedience to her parents' wishes, to
bestow her hand upon this rich and handsome suitor, death having
deprived her of the first object of her young affections.
Of a gentle and confiding disposition, she had not doubted but that one
so pleasing and gentlemanly in his manners and demeanour in society, so
assiduous and devoted in his attentions during courtship, would prove an
amiable, affectionate husband; and that in resigning her future destiny
into his hands, she was securing to herself that calm happiness to
which, (the first bright dreams of youth mellowed and subdued), she
alone aspired.
Her trust was deceived--her hopes disappointed; too soon was it revealed
to her sick heart that Henry Trevor, the courteous and agreeable member
of society, was not the same Henry Trevor of domestic life; that Henry
Trevor the lover, was a very different person to Henry Trevor the
husband; that she had been wedded--for her beauty?--no; woman's natural
vanity might have forgiven that:--for her fortune? no; that was
comparatively insignificant to count much, even in the close
calculations of him, into whose well-stored coffers it was carelessly
flung:--for her gentle virtues, her superior qualities of mind?--no,--no
abstract love of these had had their part in her lover's choice; but
because in the submissive spirit--in the mild and gentle character of
her he saw as one
"By suffering made sweet and meek,"
he had thought to find a fitting subject for his purpose and his
will--one easy to be bent, moulded, crushed, if it were necessary, into
the slave and minister of his favourite lust--his ruling passion--his
besetting sin--the grasping, covetous, all-devouring love of money!
Scared and dismayed at the prospect opened, like some dark gulf so
suddenly before her eyes, Mrs. Trevor yielded nevertheless, not without
an effort, to the fate into which she had been betrayed. She had that
within her, a degree of sense and spirit, which moved her in her early
marriage days to use the gentle influence she hoped in some degree to
have obtained over her husband's affections; to effect some change in
the general system of affairs she saw daily growing up around her, as
well as to assert and maintain her own gentle dignity and comparative
independence as a woman and a wife.
Alas! she knew not the nature of the being with whom she had to cope; it
was but as the falcon-hunted dove, fluttering within the fowler's
snare, or beneath the vulture's claw, the cords are but the tighter
drawn--the grasp more crushingly extended, till the victim feeling his
impotence to resist, resigns itself powerless to its fate. Mrs. Trevor
struggled no more. All thought of influence was at an end, except indeed
that which her gentle virtues, her submissive tears, like the droppings
of water upon a stone, might in time be permitted to effect.
Her wounded affections withdrew into the still sanctuary of her own
mind, whilst in patient meekness she performed her duties as a wife.
This was all Mr. Trevor required. He had gained his point; he had bent
her to his will. She superintended and accommodated herself to the close
and grinding economy he exacted in his house. She sacrificed all
extravagant tastes, all expensive inclinations, bestowed charity and
kindness alone from the resources of her own scanty, grudgingly-accorded
allowance. Even in her less responsible requirements she gave him full
satisfaction.
Mrs. Trevor bore to her husband just three sons--healthy,
promising boys--none of those superfluous, money-frittering
excrescences--daughters! These sons all were disposable, convertible to
some aim or end. There was the heir--that necessary machine to keep the
greedily-preserved fortune and property in future train; there was a
second son to secure the good fat family living from escaping into
extraneous hands, and there was yet another to place in the lucrative
and distinguished banking-house, in which Mr. Trevor was a sleeping
partner. Yes, in this she had done well and wisely, and the husband was
in the end content. But in the first instance, even here, he was not
entirely satisfied with his wife's conduct. Nature had rebelled against
the young mother's affording nourishment to her eldest born. Other aid
was required, and this unwarrantable and unnecessary infraction upon the
rules and exactions of maternity, sank the parent considerably in her
lord and master's valuation and esteem. The second time she proved more
successful--oh, how fully successful, if to that success were to be
attributed not only the pure health, the more refined vigour of body
which distinguished the mother's own nursling above his eldest brother,
the suckling of a farmer's burly daughter; but that nobler nature,
those high-toned qualities of mind and disposition, which grew with his
growth and strengthened with his years--and oh, how too successful if
from that mother's breast he imbibed his own sad heritage of suffering
and of wrong!
On the third, and last occasion, which presented itself, the face of
affairs assumed a different aspect. Mr. Trevor, either because he
grudged his wife as would not have been at all inconsistent with his
character, the extreme pleasure she experienced in the former case, and
the excessive fondness with which this child had naturally wound itself
around its nursing mother's heart. Whether from these, or still more
unworthy notices, this time Mr. Trevor, on some capricious arbitrary
plea, objected to his wife indulging in the same natural enjoyment,
himself selecting the individual, who was to supplant her in this
office. The wife of a tenant on his estate, about to emigrate to
Australia, but who preferred remaining behind for some years in service.
Mabel Marryott fulfilled her hired duties well by her patron's infant;
so well, that according to her master's orders, she was afterwards
retained, as general superintendant of the nursery establishment, though
her influence did not long continue limited to that office; and it was
Mabel Marryott, whose daily business it soon became, to attend upon the
little Eugene in his morning visits to his father's study; where
sometimes, for an hour together, upon table or floor, as accorded best
with his age, or fancy, he sat and played the mimic miser, with his
favourite toys--the shining heaps of glittering gold or silver, always
produced on these occasions, to amuse and keep him quiet; whilst in that
distant room above, where we have seen the unconscious Mary spend so
happy an hour, sat the wife and mother, struggling with the inward
anguish of an injured, wounded spirit, or straining the little Eustace
to her heart, calling him, in deep, earnest accents of endearment, her
darling--her own boy--her precious nursling; beseeching him never to
forsake her, to stand by his own mother--to love, and to protect her,
till the boy's dark, fervent eyes, would suffuse with tears, and he
would promise, with the little full and throbbing heart beating against
her breast, always to be "mamma's own boy," and never to leave her even
when he was a man; and the heir--he, in the meantime, had probably made
his escape to the stable-yard, to the grooms and stable-boys, for whose
society he, from his earliest days, shewed much inclination, to the
danger both of his neck and his morals, by the lessons in horse-riding
or loose talking he there received--tastes and propensities with which
his mother found herself powerless to interfere. Mrs. Marryott did not
object. Master Trevor was neither a manageable or engaging child; these
tastes and habits took him off her hands; Mr. Trevor saw only that they
made the boy bold and healthy. They were propensities and amusements
which cost him nothing; so he desired that he might not be pestered any
more by the representations of his anxious mother; she might make one
milksop if she wished, but leave the other alone; Marryott would see he
came to no real harm.
The boy was to go to Eton when he was twelve. He might, his father
continued, be allowed to take his own course till then; and Mrs. Trevor,
though not suffered to interfere in any other department, was expected
to take upon herself the arduous office of instructress to this one, as
well as to her other two boys, who were also to be kept at home till
they had attained the before-mentioned age.
Mr. Trevor had no idea of his wife's talents being put to no better
purpose than the solace and amusement of her own lonely, joyless
existence; and the poor lady was too willing to enter on a task, which
promised a means of drawing her children towards her in closer
intercourse than was otherwise permitted. Such was the cruel jealousy,
which dared to prevent the mother from acquiring too great an influence
and ascendancy over the children's affections.
Long, however, before the time assigned, Mrs. Trevor was forced to
represent to the father her insufficiency and unfitness for the duty
imposed upon her.
The thick-headed, mulish-tempered Henry, his heart and mind ever with
his dogs and horses, very soon began to require some stronger hand and
firmer will than she possessed to force him into any degree of
application; whilst the two other boys, the one high-spirited and
talented in the extreme--the younger taught to look upon his mother in
little better light than that of a slighted and despised
dependant--became even earlier, above or beyond her strength and power
for the work.
But in vain might she remonstrate.
"You are idle, you are idle," was all the answer or relief she obtained.
So she began again, and persevered--much to the wear and tear of body
and nerves. But that was nothing. It was an employment--and should have
been an interest and amusement rather than an hardship.
And so the mother laboured on with all a mother's patience and
long-suffering, bearing rather than contending against the many
difficulties and discouragements which beset the task.
One rich reward was its attendant--the satisfactory fruit which crowned
her efforts, however comparatively weak and inefficient they might be,
as concerned her noble son, Eustace; not but that pain and trouble of a
certain kind were her portion, even here. But it was a pleasureable
pain, how exceeded by the ample recompense it afforded.
What fervent gratitude--what deep, strong affection did every tear she
shed, every sigh she breathed in his cause, fan into life, water into
vigour in that young pupil's breast! How was she adored, revered, upheld
supreme at least in the heart of one being in the world.
Eustace Trevor, as those of generous and superior natures generally are
found to be, was a child of naturally impetuous disposition and
independent spirit. Though full of genius, and promise of bright things
to come, it could not be but that he sometimes grieved his gentle
teacher, and gave her patient spirit pain.
But ah, the contrite grief; the self-indignant sorrow of the child which
ever followed on such occasions; how was he prostrate in body and spirit
before the beloved being, whom he had so offended. How the elder brother
dull, and unrefined in feeling, rather than unamiable at heart, would
stare with stupid amazement at such animated demonstrations in the
penitent; whilst the younger--what a glance of cold surprise from his
dark eye--what a look almost of disdain in his young countenance, as he
sat, and watched, and wondered to see such affection--such zeal
displayed in the cause of one he was used to behold, so scorned, so
slighted so dishonoured, by those who had gained ascendancy over his
young mind.
It was worth while to love his father--to seek to please and propitiate
him--or even Mabel Marryott. But _she_! what could she do? what
influence, did _she_ possess over her children, or any one else either
for good or evil?
Yet the boy Eugene was by no means an unaffectionate or unengaging
child, nor devoid of amiability of character; had it not been for the
early influences which impressed, and moulded his mind and disposition.
His father and Mabel Marryott both loved him in their way; the former
suffering him to win a greater ascendancy over his close shut heart,
than that which any other individual ever attained. Nay, to him he even
relaxed in some degree his strongest, and most guarded point of
impregnability--his purse strings.
When his elder brothers as children, obtained their grudgingly acceded
shillings and sixpences, the more valuable crown piece, or sometimes
half-sovereign was bestowed upon the favoured Eugene--to be triumphantly
produced at the neighbouring town, where he occasionally rode with his
brother Eustace, for the gratification of any taste or appetite, in
which he might choose to indulge; whilst the other expended his scanty
store on some trifling gift he thought might gratify, or please his much
loved mother. Yes, this was the most galling of all poor Mrs. Trevor's
catalogue of grievances--the unjust and cruel partiality exhibited by
her husband in the treatment of these two younger boys; for the eldest,
Henry, though neither favoured or in any way much regarded by his
father, at any rate met with neither injustice or unkindness--inasmuch
as neither his nature or propensities, rendered him worthy or desirous
of any greater degree of privilege or advantage, than he obtained--and
he was sent to Eton at thirteen, when all that was to be done for him
was done, that was necessary and proper. But the second son,
Eustace--whether it was the boy's disposition, so antagonistic in every
respect to his father's; or that it was her own unfortunate attachment
to this child, or that child's love for herself which drew upon his
innocent head this unhappy distinction; whether it was this cruel
jealousy on her husband's part, or the secret influence on the same,
account, of her insidious enemy, Mabel Marryott. However it might be, a
spirit and system, it might almost be termed persecution, was maintained
by the father towards this son from his childhood upwards. He felt
doubtless too the reflection, which the zealous love of the boy for his
mother cast upon his own conduct in that respect. Never did Mr. Trevor
forgive a proof of this spirit, shown forth by the young Eustace in the
instance we are about to record.