At Beechwood Park there was comfort of every kind; but not that perfect
tranquillity which its owner had counted upon, on retiring to this fair
residence to pass the remainder of his days.
With his property all was well. Since his purchase of the estate--like
other lands around--it had nearly doubled in value; and, so far as
fortune was concerned, there was no source of uneasiness. But there was
something else--something dearer to him than his houses and lands.
Anxiety had arisen from the conduct of his sons. Notwithstanding their
apparent cordiality in his presence, on both sides assumed, he had found
reasons for believing there was no fraternal affection, but, instead, a
tacit enmity between them. This was more openly exhibited on the part
of the younger, but it was deep-rooted in the heart of his first-born.
Henry, of a generous, forgiving nature, could at any time during college
days have been induced to forego it, had his brother met him but
half-way in any measure of reconciliation. But this Nigel never desired
to do; and the early estrangement had now deepened into hostility--the
cause, of course, being their rivalry in love.
It was a long time before the General knew of the dangerous cloud that
was looming up on the horizon of his tranquil life. He had taken it for
granted that his sons, like most of the young men so circumstanced,
before thinking of marriage, would want to see something of the world.
It did not occur to him that, in the eyes of an ardent youth, beautiful
Belle Mainwaring was a world in herself, after seeing whom, all earth
besides might present but a dull, prosaic aspect.
It was not this, however, that at first troubled the spirit of the
retired officer, but only the behaviour of his boys. With Nigel's he
was contented enough. Than it, nothing could be more satisfactory,
except in the estrangement towards his brother, and an occasional
exhibition of ill-feeling which the father could not fail to perceive.
It was Henry's conduct that formed the chief source of the General's
anxiety--his extravagant habits, his proneness to dissipation, and once
un apparent disobedience of paternal orders, which, though only in some
trivial affair of expenditure, had been exaggerated by the secret
representations of his elder brother into a matter of momentous
importance. The counsels of the parent, not having been seriously taken
to heart, soon became chidings; and these, in their turn, being alike
unheeded, assumed the form of threats and hints about disinheritance.
Henry, who now deemed himself a man, met such reminders with a spirit of
independence that only irritated his father to a still greater degree.
In this unhappy way were things going on, when the General was made
aware of a matter more affecting the future welfare of his son than all
the dissipations and disobediences of which he had been guilty. It was
his partiality for Miss Mainwaring. Of Nigel's inclining toward the
same quarter, he knew nothing; nor, indeed, did others; though almost
everybody in the neighbourhood had long been aware of her conquest over
Henry.
It was shortly after the incident at the stag-hunt that the General
became apprised of it. That affair had led him to reflect; and,
although proud of the gallantry his son had displayed, the old soldier
saw in it a danger far greater than that of the struggle through which
he had so conspicuously passed.
He was led to make inquiries, which resulted in a discovery giving him
the greatest uneasiness. This arose from the fact, that he knew the
antecedents of Mrs Mainwaring. He had known both her husband and
herself in India; and this knowledge, so far from inspiring him with
respect for the relict of his late brother-officer, had impressed him
with the very opposite opinion. With the character of the daughter, he
was, of course, less acquainted. The latter had grown up during a long
period of separation; but from what he had seen and heard of her, since
his arrival in England, and from what he was every day seeing and
hearing, he had come to the conclusion, that it was a case of "like
mother, like daughter."
And, if so, it would not suit his views, that she should become
daughter-in-law to him.
The thought filled him with serious alarm; and he at once set about
concocting some scheme to counteract the danger. How was he to proceed?
Deny his son the privilege of keeping company with her? Lay an embargo
on his visits to the villa-cottage of the widow, which he now learned
had been of late suspiciously frequent? It was a question whether his
commands would be submitted to, and this thought still further irritated
him.
Over the widow herself he had no authority, in any way. Though her
cottage stood close to his park, it was not his property; her landlord
was a lawyer, of little respect in the neighbourhood; and it would have
served no purpose even could he have, himself, given her notice to quit.
Things had already gone too far for such strategy as that.
As for the damsel herself, she was not going to hide her beautiful face
from the gaze of his son, solely to accommodate him. It might not
appear any more in his own dining, or drawing-room; but there were other
places where it could be seen in all its bewitching beauty--in the
church, or the hunting-field,--in the ball-room, and every day along the
green lanes that encompassed Beechwood Park; there might it be seen,
smiling coquettishly under the rim of a prettily-trimmed hat.
The old soldier was too skilled a tactician to believe, that any benefit
could be obtained from an attack so open to repulses, and these of the
most humiliating character. Some stratagem must be resorted to; and to
the conception of this he determined to devote all the energies of his
nature.
He had already, in his mind, the glimmering of a scheme that promised
success; and this imparted a ray of comfort, that kept him from going
quite out of his senses.