|WEEKS and months have passed by at Mirk Abbey; the snow has thawed, and
the cold winds of March have done their worst, and the spring is
clothing nature's nakedness with garments of green. Yet all this time,
my Lady, who is so fond of outdoor exercise, even in rough weather, and
such a constant visitor of the poor, has never been seen beyond the Park
gates. To be sure, she has had more to keep her within than usual, for
the captain not only has got his leave prolonged at the beginning of the
year, but came home for three weeks very shortly after, and is at Mirk
again at the present time. Miss Rose Aynton, too, a very nice young
lady, and most attentive to her hostess, seems to have become quite a
resident at the Abbey, for, with the exception of a week's absence in
London, she has remained there since Christmas, her departure having
indeed been vaguely fixed more than once, but only to be as indefinitely
postponed. It is now understood that she will certainly stay over the
festivities attendant upon Sir Richard's coming of age in June. The
baronet himself, who, his detractors say, always prefers the country,
where he is somebody, to town, where baronets are plentiful, has
scarcely been away at all. He writes to inquiring friends in London,
most of whom happen to have marriageable daughters, that he is immersed
in business connected with the estate, and cannot leave Mirk at present.
Mr Rinkel, the agent, however, has seen no cause to relax his ordinary
exertions, in consequence of this new-born application of the young
gentleman to his own affairs; and Walter wickedly asserts that his
brother is in reality occupied with no other business whatever, save
that of keeping the man Derrick from trespassing upon the Abbey lands.
He is very glad, he says, that Richard has at last found an object in
life, and hopes that, like the French sportsman's woodcock, it will last
him for a good long time.
It does not help to heal the breach between the brothers that Walter
and this same man have grown very intimate, a fact which Sir Richard
(assuming to himself a metaphor usually applied only to Providence)
stigmatises as “flying in his face.”--His mother, however, declines
to take this view of it--declines even to express an opinion about it
one way or another, and avoids the subject as much as she can. Even with
the confidential maid, notwithstanding her decision about Mr Derrick's
ineligibility as a suitor, she forbears to reason with respect to this
matter, although it is understood that the forbidden swain is gaining
ground in the affections of Mistress Forest. There is but one person
to whom my Lady has opened her lips concerning the man she dimly saw
by lantern-light on Christmas Eve, and has never seen since. Her
confidant--if one can be called so to whom so little was confided--is Mr
Arthur Haldane, the only son of the doctor, and one who has been a great
favourite with Lady Lisgard from his youth up, not for his own sake
merely, although he is honest and kind, and very winning with those who
look beyond externals (for he is not goodlooking, or, at least, does
not appear so by contrast with her own handsome sons), but for another
reason: my Lady owed him a reparation of love for a wrong that she had
inadvertently done his father.
Dr Haldane and the late Sir Robert had been at school together, and
their boy-friendship had lasted, as it seldom does, through their
university course. Their mutual esteem had not afterwards suffered by
propinquity, when they came to pass their days within a few hundred
yards of one another; and when my Lady married, she found that the
dearest friend her husband had on earth was Dr Haldane. She was not
the woman to come between her husband's friends and himself; and the
doctor (who had had his doubts about the matter before he came to know
her) was wont to declare the Abbey was even more of a second home to
him than it used to he, now that his old friend had placed so charming
a mistress at the head of it. He was always welcome there, and being
himself a widower, was glad to take advantage of Sir Robert's
hospitality whenever he could; a knife and fork were laid for him at
table all the year round; and when he did not appear at the dinner-hour,
either husband or wife was sure to observe: “I am afraid we shall not
see the doctor with us to-day.” It would have seemed as though nothing
short of death could have interrupted such cordiality as this.
But in those days there was such a thing as Politics. The baronet was
a Tory, and his friend a Whig of what was afterwards called “advanced
opinions.” They bickered over their wine three nights out of every
seven, though they never failed to drink each other's healths before
they sought the company of the hostess. These political discussions
(unfortunately, as it turned out) were scrupulously confined to
the diningroom, so that my Lady had no idea of the strength of the
respective prejudices of the combatants, and of the severity of the
trial to which their friendship was so often subjected. Brought up
as she had been among persons in humble life, who were engaged in
bread-winning (a very monopolising occupation), and educated in France,
where the question of English reform was never mooted, she knew little
or nothing of the matters which formed the subjects of dispute, although
they were setting half England together by the ears. It seems strange
to read of now, but the idol which Toryism had set up to worship at that
epoch was a heartless and vulgar fop, whom it sycophantically dubbed the
First Gentleman in Europe; while the Whigs pinned their faith upon the
virtue of his wife, a woman as vulgar as himself, and whom her enemies
endeavoured to shew was almost as vicious. Over this good-for-nothing
pair, Lords, Commons, and People were quarrelling together, like a mob
at a dog-fight, and the public press was solely occupied with hounding
them on. To dip into a newspaper of that date is to make an excursion
to Billingsgate, for both parties, equally unable to whitewash their
candidate, confined themselves to vilifying their opponent.
When the report upon the bill of Pains and Penalties against Queen
Caroline was finally approved by a majority of nine only, and those
nine representing the votes of the ministers themselves, the popular
excitement culminated. The Whigs decreed that there should be
illuminations throughout the kingdom, and (what seems hard) that their
adversaries should express the same satisfaction in a similar manner.
For three consecutive nights, the Londoners made plain the innocence of
their queen, so far as pyrotechnics and oil-lamps could do it; and for
one night, the country was expected to do the like. Vast mobs paraded
the streets of the provincial towns, to see that this was done, and even
made excursions to the country-houses of the Disaffected. Among others,
Mirk Abbey was threatened with a visitation of this sort; and I must
confess that the doctor rather chuckled over the notion, that the
stubborn Sir Robert, who had called his sovereign lady so many
opprobrious epithets, would have to dedicate his candles to her, as
though she were his patron saint. The baronet, on his part, protested
that every window in his house should be broken rather than exhibit
so much as a farthing-dip; but he said nothing to his wife about the
matter, lest it should make her nervous.
They happened to be engaged to pass that November week at a friend's
house in the country, and left home accordingly.
The gentleman with whom they stayed himself suffered some inconvenience
from the rioters on the night in question; and when Sir Robert came
back, he was even less inclined to be a convert to his Whig friend's
opinions than before.
“But you _did_ illuminate,” said the doctor with a chuckle, as they
sat together after dinner, as usual, upon the day of his return.
“I did nothing of the kind, sir,” returned the baronet angrily.
“Well, your servants did it for you, then, and I presume by your
orders. Mr Brougham himself could not have exhibited his patriotism
more significantly. The Abbey was a blaze of light from basement to
garret.”
“That is a lie!” cried Sir Robert, making the glasses jump with the
force with which he brought his fist down upon the table.
“A what?” exclaimed the doctor, rising from the table livid with
rage. “Do you, then, call me a liar?”
“Yes,” thundered the baronet; “like all your radical crew.”
The two men that had so long been nearer and dearer to each other than
brothers never again interchanged one word.
Dr Haldane left the Abbey, solemnly protesting that he would never cross
its threshold again during the lifetime of its owner; and he kept his
determination even in the hour when his old friend lay a-dying.
Now, poor Lady Lisgard was the person to blame for all this. Before Sir
Robert and she had set out on their visit, the housekeeper had told
her that everybody was going to illuminate their houses on the 12th, on
account of what had happened in London with respect to Queen Caroline;
and she was afraid that if some sign of rejoicing was not shewn at the
Abbey, the mob would do some damage. A candle in each of the windows
would save a hundred pounds of mischief belike. “Well, then, put a
candle,” said my Lady, not dreaming that by that simple order she was
wounding her husband in his most vital point, his pride, and making
a sacrifice of principles that he held only second to those of the
Christian Religion. She did not even think it necessary to tell him that
she had left this command behind her; but when she heard him praise the
determination of the friend with whom they stayed, not to submit to
the dictation of the rabble, she had not the heart to tell him of the
mistake she had committed, and which it was by that time too late to
remedy. That mistake, and, still more, her unfortunate reticence, had
caused the quarrel, destined never to be healed, betwixt her husband and
his friend. They both forgave her, but she could not forgive herself. It
seemed to her that she could never do enough to shew how sorry she was
for her grievous fault. We have said how she made up so far as was in
her power, in love and duty to Sir Robert, for the loss of his friend;
but to that friend himself, self-exiled from her roof, and out of the
reach, as it were, of reparation, how was she to atone for the wrong
she had inadvertently done him? When the quarrel first took place, the
doctor's wrath was quite unquenchable; he would listen to nothing
except an apology--a debt which Sir Robert (although he certainly
owed it) most resolutely refused to pay. The doctor, who had hitherto
confined his Whiggism to after-dinner eloquence, and coarse but biting
epigrams, which had earned him the reputation of a philosopher with
those of his own party, thereupon became an active political partisan,
and not only voted at election-time, but canvassed with might and main
against the Lisgard interest; nay, he even composed, as we have ventured
to hint, satirical ballads against the paternal rule of that respectable
family.
But although neither sex nor age was spared in those savage days, not
one word did the vengeful doctor breathe about my Lady; nay, it was
on record that when some too uncompromising apostle of Liberty had
reflected upon her humble extraction in the presence of that friend
estranged, he had risen to his full height of five feet eight, and
levelled the slanderer to the earth. Perhaps my Lady did not esteem him
the less upon that account; but certain it was that the first visit she
paid after Sir Robert's death was to the doctor's house, taking
with her, it was said, from her husband's dying lips, a message of
affectionate reconciliation. The baronet had never brought himself to
alter the words in his will by which he had appointed his tried and
loving friend, Bartholomew Haldane, trustee for his children; and of
course the doctor accepted his trust. He never could be induced to
visit the Abbey, although his oath no longer forbade it; but the Lisgard
children were his constant guests, and his only son, Arthur Haldane, was
as another brother to them, and almost as another son to my Lady. His
nature was grave and serious, like Sir Richard's, but very tender
withal, and she felt that she could confide in him what she could not
have confided to the rigid young baronet, although he was her own flesh
and blood; nevertheless, or perhaps for that very reason, when she took
Arthur's arm that April morning, upon pretence of shewing him
some alterations that were proposed to be made at a place in the
Abbey-grounds called the “Watersmeet,” she thought it necessary to
preface what she was going to say to him with an explanation.
“My dear Arthur,” said she, when they had got out of view of the
house, “you will think it cruel that I have brought you away from the
society of that charming young lady, Miss Aynton, to chat with an old
woman like me, who have boys of my own to take counsel with; but the
fact is, I have inveigled you hither to get an opinion from you which I
could scarcely ask of your learned brother.”
This was conferring a brevet rank upon Sir Richard, who had not yet been
called to the Bar, although he was reading for it; while Arthur had been
in practice for some years.
“My dear Lady Lisgard,” returned the other smiling, “I must, for
my professional credit's sake, enter my protest against what you say
about Miss Aynton, as irrelevant, and travelling out of the record,
but besides that, it is a delusion which I should be sorry to see you
entertain. Miss Aynton is nothing whatever to me; although, indeed, if
she were, I would rather chat with you than with any young lady (save
one) in Christendom.”
The young barrister's tone was so unnecessarily earnest and
impressive, that one so acute as Lady Lisgard could scarcely have failed
to see that he courted inquiry concerning such excess of zeal. She
either saw it not, however, or refused to see it; and he was far too
delicate by nature to press it upon her attention. “And now, _ma
mère_,” continued he, taking her hand in his affectionately, “in
what way can I be of use to you?”
“By your good sense, and by your good feeling, Arthur. I need the
aid of your talents and your virtues, too, dear boy; I want your best
advice, and then your promise that you will never disclose that I have
asked it.”
“You shall have both those, ma mère. As the pashas say to the sultan
when there is nothing to fear: 'I bring you my head;' as for my
heart--that has been devoted to you these many years.”