CONCLUSION
And now, what can we more say? Will not the Hamilton family, and those
intimately connected with them, indeed be deemed complete? It was our
intention to trace in the first part of our tale the cares, the joys,
the sorrows of parental love, during the years of childhood and earliest
youth; in the second, to mark the _effect_ of those cares, when those on
whom they were so lavishly bestowed attained a period of life in which
it depends more upon themselves than on their parents to frame their own
happiness or misery, as far, at least, as we ourselves can do so. It may
please our Almighty Father to darken our earthly course by the trial of
adversity, and yet that peace founded on religion, which it was Mr. and
Mrs. Hamilton's first care to inculcate, may seldom be disturbed. It
may please Him to bless us with prosperity, but from characters such as
Annie Grahame happiness is a perpetual exile, which no prosperity has
power to recall. We have followed Mr. Hamilton's family from childhood,
we have known them from their earliest years, and now that it has become
their parts to feel those same cares and joys, and perform those
precious but solemn duties which we have watched in Mrs. Hamilton, our
task is done; and we must bid farewell to those we have known and loved
so long; those whom we have seen the happy inmates of one home, o'er
whom--
"The same fond mother bent at night,"
who shared the same joys, the same cares, whose deepest affections were
confined to their parents and each other, are now scattered in different
parts of their native land, distinct members of society, each with his
own individual cares and joys, with new and precious ties to divide that
heart whose whole affection had once been centred in one spot and in one
circle; and can we be accused in thus terminating our simple annals of
wandering from the real course of life. Is it not thus with very many
families of England? Are not marriage and death twined hand in hand, to
render that home desolate which once resounded with the laugh of many
gleesome hearts, with the glad tones of youthful revelling and joy?
True, in those halls they often meet again, and the hearts of the
parents are not lone, for the family of each child is a source of
inexpressible interest to them; there is still a link, a precious link
to bind them together, but vain and difficult would be the attempt to
continue the history of a family when thus dispersed. Sweet and
pleasing the task to watch the unfledged nestlings while under a
mother's fostering wing, but when they spread their wings and fly, where
is the eye or pen that can follow them on their eager way?
Once more, but once, we will glance within the halls of Oakwood, and
then will we bid them farewell, for our task will be done, and the last
desires of fancy, we trust, to have appeased.
It was in the September of the year 1830 we closed our narrative. Let us
then, for one moment, imagine the veil of fancy is upraised on the first
day of the year, 1838, and gaze within that self-same room, which twenty
years before we had seen lighted up on a similar occasion, the
anniversary of a new year, bright with youthful beauty, and enlivened by
the silvery laugh of early childhood. But few, very few, were the
strangers that this night mingled with Mr. Hamilton's family. It was
not, as it had been twenty years previous, a children's ball on which we
glance. It was but the happy reunion of every member of that truly happy
family, and the lovely, mirthful children there assembled were, with the
exception of a very few, closely connected one with another by the near
relationship of brothers, sisters, and cousins. In Mr. and Mrs.
Hamilton, Mrs. Greville, Montrose Grahame, Lucy Harcourt, and Mr.
Morton, who were all present, time had comparatively made but little
difference; but it was in those who twenty years before had so well
acted the part of youthful entertainers to their various guests that the
change was striking, yet far, very far from being mournful.
On one side might be seen Percy Hamilton, M.P., in earnest yet
pleasurable conversation with Mr. Grahame. It was generally noticed that
these two gentlemen were always talking politics, discussing, whenever
they met, the affairs of the nation, for no senator was more earnest and
interested in his vocation than Percy Hamilton, but certainly on this
night there was no thoughtful gravity of a senator imprinted on his
brow; he was looking and laughing at the childish efforts of the little
Lord Manvers, eldest child of the Earl of Delmont, then in his seventh
year, to emulate the ease and dignity of his cousins, Lord Lyle and
Herbert and Allan Myrvin, some two or three years older than himself,
who, from being rather more often at Oakwood, considered themselves
quite lords of the soil and masters of the ceremonies, during the
present night at least. The Ladies Mary and Gertrude Lyle, distinguished
by the perfect simplicity of their dress, had each twined an arm in that
of the gentle, retiring Caroline Myrvin, and tried to draw her from her
young mother's side, where, somewhat abashed at the number that night
assembled in her grandfather's hall, she seemed determined to remain,
while a younger sister frolicked about the room, making friends with
all, in such wild exuberance of spirits, that Mrs. Myrvin's gentle voice
was more than once raised in playful reproach to reduce her to order,
while her husband and Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton seemed to take delight in
her movements of elasticity and joy. The Countess St. Eval, as majestic
and fascinating in womanhood as her early youth had promised, one moment
watched with a proud yet softly flashing eye the graceful movements of
her son, and the next, was conversing eagerly and gaily with her brother
Percy and the young Earl of Delmont, who were standing near her; seven
years had wrought but little change in him, whom till now we have only
known by the simple designation of Edward Fortescue. Manhood, in his
prime, had rather increased than lessened the extreme beauty of his face
and form; few gazed on him once but turned to gaze again, and the little
smiling cherub of five years, whose soft, round arms were twined round
Miss Fortescue's neck, the Lady Ellen Fortescue, promised fair to
inherit all her father's beauty and peculiar grace, and endeared her to
her young mother's heart with an increased warmth of love, while the
dark flashing eyes of Lord Manvers and his glossy, flowing, ebon curls
rendered him, Edward declared, the perfect likeness of his mother, and
therefore he was the father's pet. Round Mr. Hamilton were grouped, in
attitudes which an artist might have been glad to catch for natural
grace, about three or four younger grandchildren, the eldest not
exceeding four years, who, too young to join in the dance and sports of
their elder brethren, were listening with eager attention to the
entertaining stories grandpapa was relating, calling forth peals of
laughter from his infant auditors, particularly from the fine
curly-headed boy who was installed on the seat of honour, Mr. Hamilton's
knee, being the only child of Percy and Louisa, and consequently the pet
of all. It was to that group Herbert Myrvin wished to confine the
attention of his merry little sister, who, however, did not choose to be
so governed, and frisked about from one group to another, regardless of
her graver brother's warning glances; one minute seated on Mrs.
Hamilton's knee and nestling her little head on her bosom, the next
pulling her uncle Lord St. Eval's coat, to make him turn round and play
with her, and then running away with a wild and ringing laugh.
"Do not look so anxious, my own Emmeline," Mrs. Hamilton said fondly,
as she met her daughter's glance fixed somewhat anxiously on her little
Minnie, for so she was generally called, to distinguish her from Lady
St. Eval's Mary. "You will have no trouble to check those wild spirits
when there is need to do so; her heart is like your own, and then sweet
is the task of rearing."
With all the grateful fondness of earlier years did Mrs. Myrvin look up
in her mother's face, as she thus spoke, and press her hand in hers.
"Not even yet have you ceased to penetrate my thoughts, my dearest
mother," she replied; "from childhood unto the present hour you have
read my countenance as an open book."
"And have not you, too, learned that lesson, my child? Is it not to you
your gentle, timid Caroline clings most fondly? Is it not to you Herbert
comes with his favourite book, and Allan with his tales of glee?
Minnie's mirth is not complete unless she meets your smile, and even
little Florence looks for some sign of sympathy. You have not found the
task so difficult, that you should wonder I should love it?"
"For those beloved ones, oh, what would I not do?" said Mrs. Myrvin, in
a tone of animated fervour, and turning her glistening eyes on her
mother, she added, "My own mother, marriage may bring with it new tics,
new joys, but, oh, who can say it severs the first bright links of life
between a mother and a child? it is now, only now, I feel how much you
loved me."
"May your children be to you what mine have ever been to me, my
Emmeline; I can wish you no greater blessing," replied Mrs. Hamilton,
in a tone of deep emotion, and twining Emmeline's arm in hers, they
joined Mrs. Greville and Miss Harcourt, who were standing together near
the pianoforte, where Edith Seymour, the latter's younger niece, a
pleasing girl of seventeen, was good-naturedly playing the music of the
various dances which Lord Lyle and Herbert Myrvin were calling in rapid
succession. In another part of the room Alfred Greville and Laura
Seymour were engaged in such earnest conversation, that Lord Delmont
indulged in more than one joke at their expense, of which, however, they
were perfectly unconscious; and this had occurred so often, that many of
Mrs. Greville's friends entertained the hope of seeing the happiness now
so softly and calmly imprinted on her expressive features, very shortly
heightened by the union of her now truly estimable son with an amiable
and accomplished young woman, fitted in all respects to supply the place
of the daughter she had lost.
And what had these seven years done for the Countess of Delmont, who had
completely won the delighted kiss and smiles of Minnie Myrvin, by
joining in all her frolics, and finally accepting Allan's blushing
invitation, and joining the waltz with him, to the admiration of all the
children. The girlish vivacity of Lilla Grahame had not deserted Lady
Dolmont; conjugal and maternal love had indeed softened and subdued a
nature, which in early years had been perhaps too petulant; had
heightened yet chastened sensibility. Never was happiness more visibly
impressed or more keenly felt than by the youthful Countess. Her
husband, in his extreme fondness, had so fostered her at times almost
childish glee, that he might have unfitted her for her duties, had not
the mild counsels, the example of his sister, Miss Fortescue, turned
aside the threatening danger, and to all the fascination of early
childhood Lady Delmont united the more solid and enduring qualities of
pious, well-regulated womanhood.
"I wonder Charles is not jealous," observed Mrs. Percy Hamilton,
playfully, after admiring to Lord Delmont his wife's peculiar grace in
waltzing. "Allan seems to have claimed her attention entirely."
"Charles has something better to do," replied his father, laughing, as
the little Lord Manvers flew by him, with his arm twined round his
cousin Gertrude in the inspiring galop, and seemed to have neither ear
nor eye for any one or anything else. "Caroline, do you permit your
daughter to play the coquette so early?"
"Better at seven than seventeen, Edward, believe me; had she numbered
the latter, I might be rather more uneasy, at present I can admire that
pretty little pair without any such feeling. Gertrude told me to-day,
she did not like to see her cousin Charles so shy, and she should do all
she could to make him as much at home as she and her brother are."
"She has succeeded, then, admirably," replied Edward, laughing, "for the
little rogue has not much shyness in him now. Herbert and Mary have got
that corner all to themselves; I should like to go slily behind them,
and find out what they are talking about."
"Try and remember what you used to talk about to your partners in this
very room, some twenty years back, and perhaps recollection will
satisfy your curiosity," said Lady St. Eval, smiling, but faintly,
however; the names Herbert and Mary had recalled a time when those names
had often been joined before, and the silent prayer arose that their
fates might not resemble those whose names they bore, that they might be
spared a longer time to bless those who loved them.
"Twenty years back, Caroline, what an undertaking. Allan is more like
the madcap I was then, so I can better enter into his feelings of
pleasure. By-the-bye, why are not Mrs. Cameron's family here to-night? I
half expected to meet them here yesterday."
"They spend this season with Sir Walter and Lady Cameron in Scotland,"
replied Lady St. Eval. "Florence declared she would take no excuse; the
Marquis and Marchioness of Malvern, with Emily and Louis, are there
also, and Lady Alford is to join them in a week or two."
"You were there last summer, were you not?"
"We were. They are one of the happiest couples I know, and their estate
is most beautiful. Florence declares that, were Sir Walter Scott still
living, she intended to have made him take her for a heroine, her
husband for a hero, and transport them some centuries back, to figure on
that same romantic estate in some very exciting scenes."
"Had he killed Cameron's first love and rendered him desperate, and made
Florence some consoling spirit, to remove his despair, instead of making
him so unromantically enabled to conquer his passion, because
unreturned. Why I could make as good a story as Sir Walter himself; if
she will reward me liberally, I will set about it."
"It will never do, Lord Delmont, it is much too common-place," said Mrs.
Percy Hamilton, smiling. "It is a very improper question, I allow, but
who was Sir Walter's first love?"
"Do you not know? A certain friend of yours whom I torment, by declaring
she is invulnerable to the little god's arrows," he answered, joyously.
"She may be invulnerable to Cupid, but certainly not to any other kind
of love," remarked Lady St. Eval, as she smilingly pointed out to Mrs.
Percy's notice Miss Fortescue, surrounded by a group of children, and
bearing on her expressive countenance unanswerable evidences of her
interest in the happiness of all around her.
"And is it possible, after loving _her_ he could love another?" she
exclaimed, in unfeigned astonishment.
"Disagreeably unromantic, Louisa, is it not?" said Lord Delmont,
laughing heartily; "but what was the poor man to do? Ellen was
inexorable, and refused to bestow on him anything but her friendship."
"Which he truly values," interrupted Lady St. Eval. "You must allow,
Louisa, he was wise, however free from romance; the character of
Florence, in many points, very much resembles Ellen's. She is one of the
very few whom I do not wonder at his choosing, after what had passed. Do
you know, Edward, Flora Cameron marries in the spring?"
"I heard something about it; tell me who to."
She complied, and Percy and Mr. Grahame joining them, the conversation
extended to more general topics.
"Nay, Allan, dear, do not tease your sister," was Miss Fortesene's
gentle remonstrance, as Allan endeavoured, somewhat roughly, to draw
Minnie from her side, where, however, she clung with a pertinacity no
persuasion or reproach could shake.
"She will hurt Ellen," replied the boy, sturdily, "and she has no right
to take her place by you."
"But she may stand here too, there is room for us both," interrupted the
little Ellen, though she did not offer to give up her place in her
aunt's lap to her cousin.
"Go away, Allan, I choose to stand here, and aunt Ellen says I may," was
Minnie's somewhat impatient rejoinder, as she tried to push her brother
away, though her pretty little features expressed no ill-temper on the
occasion, for she laughed as she spoke.
"Aunt Ellen promised to dance with me," retorted Allan, "and so I will
not go away unless she comes too."
"With me, with me!" exclaimed Lord Manvers, bounding forward to join the
group. "She promised three months ago to dance with me."
"And how often have I not performed that promise, Master Charlie?"
replied Ellen, laughing, "even more often with you than with Allan, so I
must give him the preference first."
Her good-natured smiles, the voice which betrayed such real interest in
all that pleased her little companions, banished every appearance of
discontent. The magic power of affection and sympathy rendered every
little pleader satisfied and pleased; and, after performing her promise
with Allan, she put the final seal to his enjoyment by confiding the
little bashful Ellen to his especial care; a charge, which Myrvin
declared, caused his son to hold himself up two inches higher than he
had done yet.
"Ellen, if you do not make yourself as great and deservedly a favourite
with my children as with your brother's and Emmeline's, I shall never
forgive you," said the Earl St. Eval, who had been watching Miss
Fortescue's cheerful gambols with the children for the last half hour,
in extreme amusement, and now joined her.
"Am I not so already, Eugene?" she said, smiling that peculiar smile of
quiet happiness which was now natural to her countenance. "I should be
sorry if I thought they did not love me equally; for believe me, with
the sole exception of my little namesake and godchild, my nephews and
nieces are all equally dear to me. I have no right to make an exception
even in favour of my little Ellen, but Edward has so often called her
mine, and even Lilla has promised to share her maternal rights with me,
that I really cannot help it. Your children do not see so much of me as
Emmeline's, and that is the reason perhaps they are not quite so free
with me; but believe mo, dear St. Eval, it will not be my fault if they
do not love me."
"I do believe you," replied the Earl, warmly. "I have but one regret,
Ellen, when I see you loving and beloved by so many little creatures."
"And what may that be?"
"That they are not some of them your own, my dear girl. I cannot tell
you how I regret the fact, of which each year the more and more
convinces me, that you are determined ever to remain single. There are
very few in my list of female friends so fitted to adorn the marriage
state, very few who would make a better mother, and I cannot but regret
there are none on whom you seem inclined to bestow those endearing and
invaluable qualities."
"Regret it then no more, my dear St. Eval," replied Ellen, calmly, yet
with feeling. "I thank you for that high opinion which I believe you
entertain of me, too flattering as it may be; but cease to regret that I
have determined to live an old maid's life. To me, believe me, it has no
terrors. To single women the opportunities of doing good, of making
others happy, are more frequent than those granted to mothers and wives;
and while such is the case, is it not our own fault if we are not happy?
I own that the life of solitude which an old maid's includes, may, if
the heart be so inclined, be equally productive of selfishness,
moroseness of temper, and obstinacy in opinion and judgment, but most
fervently I trust such will never be my attributes. It can never be
while my beloved aunt and uncle are spared to me, which I trust they
will be for many, many years longer; and even should they be removed
before I anticipate, I have so many to love me, so many to dearly love,
that I can have no time, no room for selfishness."
"Do not mistake me, Ellen," St. Eval replied, earnestly; "I do not wish
to see you married because I dread your becoming like some single women;
with your principles such can never be. Your society--your influence
over the minds of our children--is far too precious to be lightly wished
removed, as it would be were you to marry. It is for your own sake,
dearest Ellen, I regret it, and for the sake of him you might select,
that you, who are so fitted to enjoy and to fulfil them, can never know
the pleasures attendant on the duties of a happy wife and mother; that
by a husband and child, the dearest ties of earth, you will go down to
the grave unloved."
"You are right, St. Eval, they are the dearest ties on earth; but
pleasures, the pleasures of affection, too, are yet left to us, who may
never know them. Think you not, that to feel it is my place to cheer and
soothe the declining years of those dear and tender guardians of my
infancy must bring with it enjoyment--to see myself welcomed by smiles
of love and words of kindness by all my brothers and sisters--to see
their children flock around me as I enter, each seeking to be the first
to obtain my smile or kiss--to know myself of service to my
fellow-creatures, I mean not in my own rank, but those beneath me--to
feel conscious that in every event of life, particularly in sickness or
in sorrow, if those I so love require my presence, or I feel I may give
them comfort or sympathy, at least I may fly to them, for I shall have
no tie, no dearer or more imperious duty to keep me from them--are not
these considerations enough to render a single life indeed one of
happiness, St. Eval? Even from this calm, unruffled stream of life can I
not gather flowers?"
"You would gather them wherever you were placed, my dear and
noble-minded Ellen," said the Earl, with a warmth that caused her eye to
glisten. "You are right: with a disposition such as yours, I have no
need to regret you have so steadfastly refused every offer of marriage.
My girls shall come to you in that age when they think matrimony is the
only chance of happiness, and you shall teach them felicity dwells not
so much in outward circumstances as in the temper of the mind. Perhaps,
after all, Ellen, you are happier as it is. You might not find such a
husband as I would wish you, and I should be sorry to see your maternal
cares rewarded as were poor Mrs. Greville's."
"I rather think, in the blessedness of the present the past is entirely
forgotten," observed Ellen, thoughtfully. "There are cares and sorrows
attendant on the happiest lot; but if a mother does her duty, in my
opinion she seldom fails to obtain her recompense, however long
deferred."
"You are right, my Ellen," said Mrs. Hamilton, who had been listening to
the conversation some little time unobserved. "There are many sorrows
and many cares inseparable from maternal love, but they are forgotten,
or only remembered to enhance the sweetness of the recompense that ever
follows. Do you not think, to see my children, as I do now around me,
walking in that path which alone can lead to eternal life, and leading
their offspring with them, bringing up so tenderly, so fondly their
children as heirs of immortality, and yet lavishing on me, as on their
father, the love and duty of former years--is not this a precious
recompense for all which for them I may have done or borne? Even as I
watched the departing moments of my Herbert, as I marked the triumphant
and joyful flight of his pure spirit to his heavenly home,--even then
was I not rewarded? I saw the fruit of those lessons I had been
permitted through grace to inculcate; his last breath blessed me, and
was not that enough? Oh, my beloved children, let no difficulties deter
you, no temptation, no selfish suffering prevent your training up the
lovely infants now gambolling around you, in the way that they should
go;--solemn is the charge, awful the responsibility, but sweeter far
than words can give it, the reward which either in life or death will
then be yours."
"Ah, could we perform our parts as you have yours, dearest mother, then
indeed might we hope it," exclaimed the Countess St. Eval and Mrs.
Myrvin at the same moment, as they drew closer to their mother, the eyes
of both glistening with emotion as they spoke.
"And if we do reap the happiness of which you spoke, to whom shall we
owe it, mother?" demanded Percy, feelingly; for he too, attracted by his
mother's emotion, had joined the group. "Whose care, under God's
blessing, has made us as we are, and taught us, not only by precept but
example, how to conduct ourselves and our children? yours and my
father's; and if indeed in after years our children look up to us and
bless us as we do you, oh, my mother, the remembrance of you will mingle
with that blessedness, and render it yet purer."
"Truly have you spoken, my son," said Mr. Hamilton, whose little
companions had about half an hour before been transported to their
nursery. "While sharing with your dear mother the happiness arising from
your conduct, my children, often and often has the remembrance of my
mother entered my heart to chasten and enhance those feelings. Gratitude
to her, reverence of her memory, have mingled with the present joy, and
so will it be with you. Your parents may have descended to the grave
before your children can be to you what you have been to us, but we
shall be remembered. Long, long may you feel as you think on your
mother, my beloved children, and teach your offspring to venerate her
memory, that the path of the just is indeed as a shining light, which
shineth more and more unto the perfect day."
THE END.