"And soothed with idle dreams the frowning fate."--CRABBE.
"Why does not my father come back? what a time he has been away!"
"My dear Philip, business detains him; but he will be here in a few days
--perhaps to-day!"
"I should like him to see how much I am improved."
"Improved in what, Philip?" said the mother, with a smile. "Not Latin,
I am sure; for I have not seen you open a book since you insisted on poor
Todd's dismissal."
"Todd! Oh, he was such a scrub, and spoke through his nose: what could
he know of Latin?"
"More than you ever will, I fear, unless--" and here there was a certain
hesitation in the mother's voice, "unless your father consents to your
going to school."
"Well, I should like to go to Eton! That's the only school for a
gentleman. I've heard my father say so."
"Philip, you are too proud."--"Proud! you often call me proud; but,
then, you kiss me when you do so. Kiss me now, mother."
The lady drew her son to her breast, put aside the clustering hair from
his forehead, and kissed him; but the kiss was sad, and the moment after
she pushed him away gently and muttered, unconscious that she was
overheard:
"If, after all, my devotion to the father should wrong the children!"
The boy started, and a cloud passed over his brow; but he said nothing.
A light step entered the room through the French casements that opened on
the lawn, and the mother turned to her youngest-born, and her eye
brightened.
"Mamma! mamma! here is a letter for you. I snatched it from John: it is
papa's handwriting."
The lady uttered a joyous exclamation, and seized the letter. The
younger child nestled himself on a stool at her feet, looking up while
she read it; the elder stood apart, leaning on his gun, and with
something of thought, even of gloom, upon his countenance.
There was a strong contrast in the two boys. The elder, who was about
fifteen, seemed older than he was, not only from his height, but from the
darkness of his complexion, and a certain proud, nay, imperious,
expression upon features that, without having the soft and fluent graces
of childhood, were yet regular and striking. His dark-green shooting-
dress, with the belt and pouch, the cap, with its gold tassel set upon
his luxuriant curls, which had the purple gloss of the raven's plume,
blended perhaps something prematurely manly in his own tastes, with the
love of the fantastic and the picturesque which bespeaks the presiding
genius of the proud mother. The younger son had scarcely told his ninth
year; and the soft, auburn ringlets, descending half-way down the
shoulders; the rich and delicate bloom that exhibits at once the hardy
health and the gentle fostering; the large deep-blue eyes; the flexile
and almost effeminate contour of the harmonious features; altogether made
such an ideal of childlike beauty as Lawrence had loved to paint or
Chantrey model. And the daintiest cares of a mother, who, as yet, has
her darling all to herself--her toy, her plaything--were visible in the
large falling collar of finest cambric, and the blue velvet dress with
its filigree buttons and embroidered sash.
Both the boys had about them the air of those whom Fate ushers blandly
into life; the air of wealth, and birth, and luxury, spoiled and pampered
as if earth had no thorn for their feet, and heaven not a wind to visit
their young cheeks too roughly. The mother had been extremely handsome;
and though the first bloom of youth was now gone, she had still the
beauty that might captivate new love--an easier task than to retain the
old. Both her sons, though differing from each other, resembled her; she
had the features of the younger; and probably any one who had seen her in
her own earlier youth would have recognized in that child's gay yet
gentle countenance the mirror of the mother when a girl. Now, however,
especially when silent or thoughtful, the expression of her face was
rather that of the elder boy;--the cheek, once so rosy was now pale,
though clear, with something which time had given, of pride and thought,
in the curved lip and the high forehead. One who could have looked on
her in her more lonely hours, might have seen that the pride had known
shame, and the thought was the shadow of the passions of fear and sorrow.
But now as she read those hasty, brief, but well-remembered characters--
read as one whose heart was in her eyes--joy and triumph alone were
visible in that eloquent countenance. Her eyes flashed, her breast
heaved; and at length, clasping the letter to her lips, she kissed it
again and again with passionate transport. Then, as her eyes met the
dark, inquiring, earnest gaze of her eldest born, she flung her arms
round him, and wept vehemently.
"What is the matter, mamma, dear mamma?" said the youngest, pushing
himself between Philip and his mother. "Your father is coming back, this
day--this very hour;--and you--you--child--you, Philip--" Here sobs broke
in upon her words, and left her speechless.
The letter that had produced this effect ran as follows:
TO MRS MORTON, Fernside Cottage.
"DEAREST KATE,--My last letter prepared you for the news I have now to
relate--my poor uncle is no more. Though I had seen little of him,
especially of late years, his death sensibly affected me; but I have at
least the consolation of thinking that there is nothing now to prevent my
doing justice to you. I am the sole heir to his fortune--I have it in my
power, dearest Kate, to offer you a tardy recompense for all you have put
up with for my sake;--a sacred testimony to your long forbearance, your
unreproachful love, your wrongs, and your devotion. Our children, too--
my noble Philip!--kiss them, Kate--kiss them for me a thousand times.
"I write in great haste--the burial is just over, and my letter will only
serve to announce my return. My darling Catherine, I shall be with you
almost as soon as these lines meet your eyes--those clear eyes, that, for
all the tears they have shed for my faults and follies, have never looked
the less kind. Yours, ever as ever,
"PHILIP BEAUFORT.
This letter has told its tale, and little remains to explain. Philip
Beaufort was one of those men of whom there are many in his peculiar
class of society--easy, thoughtless, good-humoured, generous, with
feelings infinitely better than his principles.
Inheriting himself but a moderate fortune, which was three parts in the
hands of the Jews before he was twenty-five, he had the most brilliant
expectations from his uncle; an old bachelor, who, from a courtier, had
turned a misanthrope--cold--shrewd--penetrating--worldly--sarcastic--and
imperious; and from this relation he received, meanwhile, a handsome and,
indeed, munificent allowance. About sixteen years before the date at
which this narrative opens, Philip Beaufort had "run off," as the saying
is, with Catherine Morton, then little more than a child,--a motherless
child--educated at a boarding-school to notions and desires far beyond
her station; for she was the daughter of a provincial tradesman. And
Philip Beaufort, in the prime of life, was possessed of most of the
qualities that dazzle the eyes and many of the arts that betray the
affections. It was suspected by some that they were privately married:
if so, the secret had been closely kept, and baffled all the inquiries of
the stern old uncle. Still there was much, not only in the manner, at
once modest and dignified, but in the character of Catherine, which was
proud and high-spirited, to give colour to the suspicion. Beaufort, a
man naturally careless of forms, paid her a marked and punctilious
respect; and his attachment was evidently one not only of passion, but
of confidence and esteem. Time developed in her mental qualities far
superior to those of Beaufort, and for these she had ample leisure of
cultivation. To the influence derived from her mind and person she added
that of a frank, affectionate, and winning disposition; their children
cemented the bond between them. Mr. Beaufort was passionately attached
to field sports. He lived the greater part of the year with Catherine,
at the beautiful cottage to which he had built hunting stables that were
the admiration of the county; and though the cottage was near London, the
pleasures of the metropolis seldom allured him for more than a few days--
generally but a few hours-at a time; and he--always hurried back with
renewed relish to what he considered his home.
Whatever the connection between Catherine and himself (and of the true
nature of that connection, the Introductory Chapter has made the reader
more enlightened than the world), her influence had, at least, weaned
from all excesses, and many follies, a man who, before he knew her, had
seemed likely, from the extreme joviality and carelessness of his nature,
and a very imperfect education, to contract whatever vices were most in
fashion as preservatives against _ennui_. And if their union had been
openly hallowed by the Church, Philip Beaufort had been universally
esteemed the model of a tender husband and a fond father. Ever, as he
became more and more acquainted with Catherine's natural good qualities,
and more and more attached to his home, had Mr. Beaufort, with the
generosity of true affection, desired to remove from her the pain of an
equivocal condition by a public marriage. But Mr. Beaufort, though
generous, was not free from the worldliness which had met him everywhere,
amidst the society in which his youth had been spent. His uncle, the
head of one of those families which yearly vanish from the commonalty
into the peerage, but which once formed a distinguished peculiarity in
the aristocracy of England--families of ancient birth, immense
possessions, at once noble and untitled--held his estates by no other
tenure than his own caprice. Though he professed to like Philip, yet he
saw but little of him. When the news of the illicit connection his
nephew was reported to have formed reached him, he at first resolved to
break it off; but observing that Philip no longer gambled, nor ran in
debt, and had retired from the turf to the safer and more economical
pastimes of the field, he contented himself with inquiries which
satisfied him that Philip was not married; and perhaps he thought it, on
the whole, more prudent to wink at an error that was not attended by the
bills which had here-to-fore characterised the human infirmities of his
reckless nephew. He took care, however, incidentally, and in reference
to some scandal of the day, to pronounce his opinion, not upon the fault,
but upon the only mode of repairing it.
"If ever," said he, and he looked grimly at Philip while he spoke, "a
gentleman were to disgrace his ancestry by introducing into his family
one whom his own sister could not receive at her house, why, he ought to
sink to her level, and wealth would but make his disgrace the more
notorious. If I had an only son, and that son were booby enough to do
anything so discreditable as to marry beneath him, I would rather have my
footman for my successor. You understand, Phil!"
Philip did understand, and looked round at the noble house and the
stately park, and his generosity was not equal to the trial. Catherine
--so great was her power over him--might, perhaps, have easily triumphed
over his more selfish calculations; but her love was too delicate ever to
breathe, of itself, the hope that lay deepest at her heart. And her
children!--ah! for them she pined, but for them she also hoped. Before
them was a long future, and she had all confidence in Philip. Of late,
there had been considerable doubts how far the elder Beaufort would
realise the expectations in which his nephew had been reared. Philip's
younger brother had been much with the old gentleman, and appeared to be
in high favour: this brother was a man in every respect the opposite to
Philip--sober, supple, decorous, ambitious, with a face of smiles and a
heart of ice.
But the old gentleman was taken dangerously ill, and Philip was summoned
to his bed of death. Robert, the younger brother, was there also, with
his wife (who he had married prudently) and his children (he had two, a
son and a daughter). Not a word did the uncle say as to the disposition
of his property till an hour before he died. And then, turning in his
bed, he looked first at one nephew, then at the other, and faltered out:
"Philip, you are a scapegrace, but a gentleman! Robert, you are a
careful, sober, plausible man; and it is a great pity you were not in
business; you would have made a fortune!--you won't inherit one, though
you think it: I have marked you, sir. Philip, beware of your brother.
Now let me see the parson."
The old man died; the will was read; and Philip succeeded to a rental of
L20,000. a-year; Robert, to a diamond ring, a gold repeater, L5,000. and
a curious collection of bottled snakes.