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[Illustration:
THE SICK-CHAMBER.
Page 131.]
IDOLS IN THE HEART.
A Tale.
by
A. L. O. E.,
Author of “The Giant-Killer,” “Pride and His Prisoners,”
etc. etc.
--------------
“Keep yourselves from idols.” —1 John v. 21.
“Covetousness, which is idolatry.” —Col. iii. 5.
“Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” —Col.
iii. 2.
--------------
London:
T. Nelson and Sons, Paternoster Row.
Edinburgh; and New York.
1883.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contents.
---------------------
I. THE ARRIVAL, 5
II. THE YOUNG BRIDE, 16
III. FIRST STEPS, 24
IV. CONSULTATION, 34
V. THE FIRST SKIRMISH, 43
VI. A DECIDED MOVE, 55
VII. THE DINNER PARTY, 67
VIII. A STORMY MORNING, 82
IX. OPPOSITION SIDE, 97
X. SOCIAL CONVERSE, 104
XI. POLICY AND POLITENESS, 113
XII. A PLUNGE, 120
XIII. THE CHAMBER OF SICKNESS, 130
XIV. THE EFFECT OF A WORD, 139
XV. A RAY OF LIGHT, 147
XVI. QUIET CONVERSE, 155
XVII. GATHERING CLOUDS, 162
XVIII. CALCULATIONS, 172
XIX. SACRIFICE, 182
XX. DECISION, 191
XXI. JEWELS AND THEIR WORTH, 200
XXII. COMING DOWN, 213
XXIII. COTTAGE LIFE, 224
XXIV. DARKNESS AND DANGER, 230
XXV. THE SEARCH, 240
XXVI. A CONTRAST, 251
XXVII. PASSING AWAY, 262
XXVIII. CONCLUSION 267
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IDOLS IN THE HEART.
---------------------
CHAPTER I
THE ARRIVAL.
“My dear girls, I can indeed enter into your feelings,” said Lady Selina
Mountjoy in a tone of sympathy; “it is trying to have to welcome a
stranger to your home, to see her take the place once occupied by your
dear departed mother.”
“It is not so much that,” interrupted Arabella with some abruptness,
“but—”
“I understand—I understand perfectly,” said Lady Selina, with an
expressive movement of the head; “if your dear papa had chosen
differently—some one whom you knew, valued, could confide in—some one,
in short, of your mother’s position in life, to whom you could look up
as to a second parent, it would have been very different; but the orphan
of a country doctor—so young, so inexperienced—to have her placed at the
head of an establishment like this, is—But I ought not to speak thus; of
course your dear papa has chosen very well, very wisely; no doubt Mrs.
Effingham is a very charming creature;” and the lady leaned back on her
cushioned chair, folded her hands, and looked into the fire with an air
of melancholy meditation.
Vincent, the youngest of the party, a boy about eleven years of age, had
been sitting at the table with a book before him, but had never turned
over a leaf, drinking in eagerly every word uttered by his aunt on the
subject of the step-mother whose arrival with her husband was now hourly
expected in Belgrave Square. He was a bright, intelligent boy, in whose
blue eyes every passing emotion was mirrored as in a glass, whether the
feeling were good or evil. The expression of those eyes was neither kind
nor gentle as he said abruptly, “Didn’t you tell us that her grandmother
was a Frenchwoman? I do hate and detest everything French!”
“Her own name—Clemence—is French,” observed Louisa, the younger of the
two girls who sat, with embroidery in their hands, before the fire, with
their feet resting on the bright fender for the sake of warmth, as the
month was November, and the weather cold.
“Yes,” sighed Lady Selina, “it is true. Her grandmother was a French
refugee,—of course a Papist; and, no doubt, her descendant is tinctured
with Romish errors. No fault of hers, poor thing!”
“She’s not a Roman Catholic,” said Vincent quickly. “Don’t you remember
that papa said that she was a great friend of the clergyman at Stoneby,
and helped him in the schools and with the poor? He would not have let a
Papist do that.”
“My dear child,” replied Lady Selina, languidly stirring the fire, “I
never for a moment imagined that your papa would marry one who was
avowedly a Papist; but, depend upon it, there will be a leaning, a
dangerous leaning. We shall require to be on our guard, there is such a
natural tendency in the human heart towards idolatry. As to her having
helped Mr. Gray, that was very natural—very natural indeed. She was glad
to make friends, and the clergyman and his wife were probably her only
neighbours. Besides, in a dull country place there is such a lack of
occupation, that young ladies take to district visiting to save
themselves from dying of ennui.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Louisa, “after such a dismal life, what a change it will
be to her to come to London! How she will delight in all its amusements!
I hope that she’ll be as mad after the opera as I am; and that from
week’s end to week’s end we may never have the penance of an evening at
home, except when we entertain company ourselves! I can forgive anything
in her but being dull, sober, and solemn.”
“Giddy child!” lisped Lady Selina, with uplifted finger and affected
smile, “you sadly need some one to keep you in order—some one to hold
the rein with a firmer hand than your poor indulgent aunt ever has
done.”
“Hold the rein!” repeated Arabella with indignant pride, the blood
mounting to her forehead as she spoke. “I hope that Mrs. Effingham will
make no attempt of that kind with us. There’s but five years’ difference
between her age and mine; and as regards knowledge of the world, I
suppose that the difference lies all the other way. I have no idea of
being governed by an apothecary’s daughter!”
“Nor I!” exclaimed Louisa, shaking her pretty ringlets with a
contemptuous toss of the head.
“Nor I!” echoed Vincent, shutting his book, and joining his sisters by
the fire.
“Little rebels!—fy! fy!” said their aunt, with a smile on her lips that
contradicted her words. Lady Selina saw that she had succeeded in her
aim. She had prejudiced the minds of her sister’s children against the
young bride of their father; she had created a party against Clemence in
the home which she was about to enter as its mistress. Arabella, Louisa,
and their brother, would be on the watch to find out defects in the
character, manners, and education of their step-mother; they would
regard her rather in the light of a usurper, from whom any assertion of
power would be an encroachment on their rights, than as a friend united
to them by a close and tender tie.
It was not, perhaps, surprising that Lady Selina should contemplate with
little satisfaction a marriage which dethroned her from the position in
Mr. Effingham’s house which she had held for seven years. Lady Selina
had enjoyed more of the luxuries of life and the pleasures of society in
the dwelling of her brother-in-law, than her small capital of ten
thousand pounds could have secured for her anywhere else. To Vincent
Effingham it had been a satisfaction to have at the head of his
household a lady of position and intelligence, who would take a general
super-intendence of the education of his three motherless children. How
far Lady Selina was fitted to do justice to the charge, is a different
question. She was one who passed well in the world when viewed only in
its candle-light glare—one to whom had been applied the various epithets
of “a sensible woman,” “an amiable creature,” and “a very desirable
acquaintance.”
Lady Selina had acquired the reputation for _sense_, from those whose
opinions resembled her own, for her tact in steering clear of every
theological difficulty. Her religion, if religion it could be called,
was of the simplest and most easy description. To her the path to heaven
was so wide that its boundaries were scarcely visible. There was, of
course, a decent attendance to forms, for that the laws of society
demanded; nay more, Lady Selina had about half-a-dozen cut and dried
religious phrases, to be brought forward before clergymen and serious
visitors, and put back again immediately upon their departure: these
were, perhaps, satisfactory evidence to herself that her condition, as
regards spiritual things, was one of the most perfect security.
Enthusiasm on any subject regarding a future state appeared to the
“woman of sense” a weak and childish folly. She could understand a
politician’s strong interest in his party, a landlord’s in his estate, a
lady’s in raising her position by a single step in the social circle;
but the longing of an immortal soul for peace, pardon, and purity, was a
matter completely foreign to her experience, and beyond her
comprehension. Lady Selina wore her religion as she did her mantle; it
was becoming, fashionable, and commodious, and it could be laid aside at
a moment’s notice if it occasioned the slightest inconvenience.
And Lady Selina was called “an amiable creature” by such as are easily
won by a polished manner and courteous address. She possessed the art of
being censorious without appearing so. She seldom openly expressed an
unfavourable opinion of any one; but conveyed more sarcastic meaning in
a word of faint praise or disparaging pity, a shake of the head, a
hesitating tone, or a soft, compassionating sigh, than might have been
expressed by severe vituperation. None of her strokes were direct
strokes—she never appeared to take aim; but her balls ever glanced off
at some delicate angle, and effected her object without visible effort
of her own. She had a secret pride in her power of influencing others,
never considering that her ingenuity simply consisted in the art of
gratifying malice at the expense of generosity and candour.
Lady Selina was “a very desirable acquaintance” to those who only knew
her as an acquaintance. Her kindliness was as the blue tint on the
distant mountain, which vanishes as we approach nearer towards the
barren height. Whoever might rest upon her friendship, would lean,
indeed, upon a broken reed. But, in the exchange of ordinary courtesies,
in the art of simulating cordiality and sympathy, Lady Selina was a
perfect adept. Few left her presence without a feeling of
self-satisfaction and gratified vanity, which caused both the visit and
her to whom it had been made to be remembered with pleasure.
The woman of the world’s ideas of education were the reflection and
counterpart of her views on religion. To her, the first object in life
was to shine in the world; and, accordingly, so far as young people were
trained to accomplish this object, so far she deemed their education
complete. Arabella and Louisa were provided with a French governess, and
the first masters in music and drawing; and their aunt, with the air of
one who feels that she has conscientiously performed an arduous duty,
spoke to her acquaintance of her anxious and indefatigable efforts to do
full justice to her motherless charge. It is true, that occasionally a
moral maxim or religious precept dropped from the lips of Lady Selina
for the benefit of her sister’s children; such was the caution against
the heart’s tendency to idolatry uttered in the preceding conversation.
The words had been lightly spoken, and their meaning weighed neither by
speaker nor listeners; but whether they might not with advantage have
been applied to the consciences of all, will be seen in the following
narrative.
The marriage of Mr. Effingham with Clemence Fairburne, a young lady whom
he had met in Cornwall while on a visit to a clerical friend, was to
Lady Selina an unwelcome event. Notwithstanding, however, the complaint
that she rather insinuated than expressed to her numerous acquaintance,
that her wealthy brother-in-law had united himself to one possessing
neither fortune nor high position, it is probable that Lady Selina would
have been far more annoyed had his second wife been equal in rank to his
first. Clemence was young and unacquainted with the world. She would
probably enter into society with the diffidence of one to whom its
usages were not familiar. Lady Selina, like some astute politician of
old, foresaw an extension of her own regency under the minority of the
rightful sovereign. She determined that Clemence should be a mere cipher
in her own house, and follow instead of leading; she should occupy as
low a position as possible in the eyes of those over whom circumstances
had placed her. Artfully and successfully Lady Selina impressed the
family, and even the household, with the idea that Clemence was some
low-born, half-educated girl, whom Mr. Effingham had had the weakness to
marry, because she possessed a few personal attractions! On the few
hints thrown out by Lady Selina others enlarged—they filled up her
lightly sketched outlines. The French governess, Mademoiselle Lafleur,
shrugged her shoulders in the school-room, ventured to breathe the word
_mésalliance_ even in the presence of her pupils, and directed the flow
of her conversation perpetually on the theme of the miseries inflicted
by tyrannical step-mothers. Arabella and Louisa began almost to look
upon themselves in the light of injured parties, because their father,
still in the vigour of life, had sought to add to his domestic
happiness! Their prejudices would have been still more strong and bitter
but for the young wife’s letters, which reached them from time to time,
and which breathed such a kindly spirit, such a desire to know and to
love the children of her dear husband, that even Lady Selina’s
insinuations could scarcely destroy their effect.
And now the day appointed for the first meeting of Clemence with her new
family had arrived; everything in the house was made ready for the
reception of the master and the lady of his choice. There was the bustle
of preparation in the lower regions of the dwelling; the harsh voice of
Mrs. Ventner, the housekeeper, was pitched to a sharper key than usual;
while in the drawing-room a restless sensation of expectation prevailed,
which prevented Lady Selina and her nieces from settling to any of their
usual occupations. The piano had been opened, but its keys were
untouched; the needle pressed the embroidery, but not a single
additional leaf gave sign of progress in the work.
The short November day was darkening into twilight; the yellow lights
round the Square started one by one into view, faintly gleaming through
the cold white haze. A few snow-flakes fell noiselessly upon the
pavement, along which, at long intervals, a foot-passenger hurried,
wrapping his cloak tightly around him to fence out the piercing north
wind. Vincent took his station at the window to give earliest notice of
the arrival, while Lady Selina and his sisters chatted around the
blazing fire.
“Here they are at last!” exclaimed Vincent, as a chariot dashed up to
the door, with dusty imperial and travel-soiled wheels, and horses from
whose heated sides the steam rose into the chill evening air. “Here they
are!” he repeated, and swinging himself down the stairs, he was at the
hall door almost before the powdered footmen who were there in waiting
had had time to open it. The ladies more slowly followed; but curiosity
with Louisa getting the better of dignity, she ran lightly down the long
broad flight of steps, and found Vincent returning the affectionate
embrace of her who longed to find in him indeed a son.
------------------------------------------------------------------------