This allusion was too solemn to admit any light conversation to follow it. Mrs. Mowbray strolled with Fanny into the conservatory, and Rosalind persuaded Helen that they should find the shrubberies infinitely cooler and more agreeable than the house.
But even under the thickest cover that the grounds could offer, Helen could not be tempted fully to open her heart upon the subject of Mr. Cartwright, an indulgence which Rosalind certainly expected to obtain when she proposed the walk; but the name of her father had acted like a spell on Helen, and all that she could be brought positively to advance on the subject of the Cartwright family was, that she did not think Miss Cartwright was shy.
Within the next fortnight nearly every one who claimed a visiting acquaintance with the Mowbray family, both in the village and the neighbourhood round it, had called at the Park.
“All the calling is over now,” said Helen, “and I am very glad of it.”
“Every body has been very kind and attentive,” replied her mother, “and next week we must begin to return their calls. I hope nobody will be offended, for some of them must be left for many days; the weather is very hot, and the horses must not be overworked.”
“I wonder why that charming little person that I fell in love with — the widow, I mean, that lives in the Cottage at Wrexhill,” said Rosalind,— “I wonder she has not been to see you! She appeared to like you all very much.”
“I have thought of that two or three times,” replied Helen. “I think, if they had any of them been ill, we should have heard it; and yet otherwise I cannot account for such inattention.”
“It is merely accidental, I am sure,” said Mrs. Mowbray. “But there is one omission, Helen, that cuts me to the heart!” Tears burst from her eyes as she spoke.
Poor Helen knew not how to answer: she was well aware that the omission her mother alluded to was that of Sir Gilbert and Lady Harrington; and she knew too the cause of it. Lady Harrington, who, with one of the best hearts in the world, was sometimes rather blunt in her manner of showing it, had sent over a groom with a letter to Helen, her god-daughter and especial favourite, very fully explaining the cause of their not calling, but in a manner that could in no degree enable her to remove her mother’s uneasiness respecting it. This letter, which by her ladyship’s especial orders was delivered privately into the hands of Helen, ran thus:
“My darling Child!
“Can’t you think what a way I must be in at being prevented coming to see you? Sir Gilbert excels himself this time for obstinacy and wilfulness. Every breakfast, every dinner, and every tea since it happened, William and I do nothing but beg and entreat that I may be permitted to go over and see your poor mother! Good gracious! as I tell him, it is not her fault — though God knows I do think just as much as he does, that no man ever did make such a tom-fool of a will as your father. Such a man as Charles! as Sir Gilbert says. ’Twas made at the full of the moon, my dear, and that’s the long and the short of it; he was just mad, Helen, and nothing else. But is that any reason that your poor dear mother should be neglected and forsaken this way! God bless her dear soul! she’s more like a baby than any thing I ever saw, about money; and as to her being an heiress, why I don’t believe, upon my honour, that she has ever recollected it from the day she married to the time that your unlucky, poor dear distracted madman of a father threw all her money back at her in this wild way. He had much better have pelted her with rotten eggs, Helen! Such a friend as Sir Gilbert, so warm-hearted, so steady, and so true, is not to be found every day — old tiger as he is. But what on earth am I to do about it? I shall certainly go mad too, if I can’t get at you; and yet, I give you my word, I no more dare order the coachman to drive me to Mowbray Park than to the devil. You never saw such a tyrannical brute of a husband as Sir Gilbert is making himself about it! And poor William, too — he really speaks to him as if he were a little beggar-boy in the streets, instead of a colonel of dragoons. William said last night something very like, ‘I shall ride over to Wrexhill to-morrow, and perhaps I shall see the family at Mow....’ I wish you had seen him — I only wish you had seen Sir Gilbert, Helen, for half a moment! — you would never have forgotten it, my dear, and it might have given you a hint as to choosing a husband. Never marry a man with great, wide, open, light-coloured eyes, and enormous black eyebrows, for fear he should swallow you alive some day before you know where you are. ‘See them! ‘roared Sir Gilbert. ‘If you do, by G — d, sir, I’ll leave every sou I have in the world to some cursed old woman myself; but it shan’t be to you, madam,’ turning short round as if he would bite me:— ‘laugh if you will, but go to Mowbray if you dare!’
“‘But are we never to see any of the family again, sir?’ said the colonel very meekly. ‘I never told you so, Colonel Booby,’ was the reply. ‘You may see that glorious fellow Charles as often as you will, and the more you see of him the better; and I’ll manage if I can, as soon as he has taken this degree that his heart’s set upon, to get a commission for him in your regiment; so you need not palaver about my wanting to part you from him. And as for you, my lady, I give you full leave to kidnap the poor destitute, penniless girls if you can; but if I ever catch you doing any thing that can be construed into respect or civility to that sly, artful hussy who cajoled my poor friend Mowbray to make that cursed will, may I.... You shall see, old lady, what will come of it!’
“Now what on earth can I do, dear darling? I believe your mother’s as innocent of cajoling as I am, and that’s saying something; and as for your being destitute, sweethearts, you’ll have fifty thousand pounds apiece if you’ve a farthing. I know all about the property, and so does Sir Gilbert too; only the old tiger pretends to believe, just to feed his rage, that your mother will marry her footman, and bequeath her money to all the little footboys and girls that may ensue: for one principal cause of his vengeance against your poor mother is, that she is still young enough to have children. Was there ever such a man! — But here have I, according to custom, scribbled my paper as full as it will hold, and yet have got a hundred thousand more things to say; but it would all come to this, if I were to scrawl over a ream. I am miserable because I can’t come to see your mother and you, and yet I can’t help myself any more than if I were shut up in Bridewell: for I never did do any thing that my abominable old husband desired me not to do, and I don’t think I could do it even to please you, my pretty Helen; only don’t fancy I have forgotten you: but for God’s sake don’t write to me! I am quite sure I should get my ears boxed.
“Believe me, darling child,
“Your loving friend and godmother,
“Jane Matilda Harrington.”
“P. S. I am quite sure that the colonel would send pretty messages if he knew what I was about: but I will not make him a party in my sin. I was just going to tell him this morning; but my conscience smote me, and I turned very sublimely away, muttering, in the words of Macbeth— ‘Be innocent of this, my dearest chuck!’”
This coarse but well-meaning letter gave inexpressible pain to Helen. She dared not show it to her mother, who, she felt quite sure, would consider the unjust suspicions of Sir Gilbert as the most cruel insult: not could she, after Lady Harrington’s prohibition, attempt to answer it, though she greatly wished to do it, in the hope that she might be able to place her mother’s conduct and feelings in a proper light. But she well knew that, with all her friend’s rhodomontade, she was most devotedly attached to her excellent though hot-headed husband, and that she could not disoblige her more than by betraying a secret which, under the present circumstances, would certainly make him very angry.
But the sight of her mother’s tears, and her utter inability to say any thing that might console her very just sorrow, inspired Helen with a bold device. To Rosalind only had she shown Lady Harrington’s letter, and to Rosalind only did she communicate her project of boldly writing to the enraged baronet himself.
“Do so, Helen,” said Rosalind promptly: “it is the only measure to pursue — unless indeed yo
u and I were to set off and surprise him by a visit.”
“But my mother?...” replied Helen, evidently struck by the advantages of this bolder scheme over her own,— “what would my mother say to our going?”
“If she knew of it, Helen, I suspect it would lose all favour in Sir Gilbert’s eyes, and you would have no chance whatever of softening his rage towards her. The expedition, if undertaken at all, must be a secret one. When he learns it is so, I think it will touch his tough heart, Helen, for he knows, I fancy, that such escapades are not at all in your line. I only hope that he will not find out that I proposed it, as that might lessen your merit in his eyes.”
“No, no, that would do no harm. My doing it would be quite proof enough how near this matter is to my heart.”
“Well, then, Helen, shall we go?”
“Let me sleep upon it, Rosalind. If we do go, it must, I think, be quite early in the morning, so as to have no questions asked before we set out. It is not a long walk. Shall we see if he will give us some breakfast?”
“A most diplomatic project!” replied Rosalind; “for it will enlist his hospitality on our side, and ten to one but the rough coating of his heart will thaw and resolve itself into a dew, as Fanny would say, by the mere act of administering coffee and hot cakes to us; and then the field is won.”
“I think we will try,” said Helen, smiling with a sort of inward strengthening, from the conviction that such would very probably be the result.
A few more words settled the exact time and manner of the expedition, and the friends parted to dress for dinner.
CHAPTER VIII.
MRS. RICHARDS AND HER DAUGHTERS. — THE TEA-PARTY.
On the evening of that day, the three girls for the first time induced Mrs. Mowbray to go beyond the limits of the flower-garden, and walk under the avenue of beautiful elms in the Park. The simple and unostentatious tone of her character had influenced all her habits, and Mrs. Mowbray was a better and more constant walker than ladies generally who have two or three carriages ready to attend them. She appeared to enjoy the exercise from which for several weeks she had been debarred; and when the end of the avenue was reached, and Fanny almost mechanically opened the wide gate at the bottom, of it, her mother passed through it without making any observation, and in truth forgetting at that moment all that had happened since she had last done so. The gate opened upon a road, which, according to long-established custom, they crossed nearly at right angles, and then mounted and descended half a dozen steps, which conducted them into a wide and beautiful meadow, now fragrant with the new-made hay that several waggons were conveying to augment a lofty rick in a distant corner of it.
It was not till Mrs. Mowbray perceived another party seated round the base of a haycock which an empty waggon had nearly reached, that she remembered all the circumstances which made every casual meeting a matter of importance and agitation to her. The group which seemed a very merry one, retained their places, till two stout haymakers saucily but playfully presented their pitch-forks as if to dislodge them. They then started to their feet to the number of five; and the Park family recognized Mrs. Richards, her three daughters, and Major Dalrymple.
“I have not seen them yet, Helen!” said Mrs. Mowbray with nervous trepidation:— “how very wrong I have been to come so far!”
“Why so, my dearest mother?” replied Helen, “I am sure it is less painful to meet thus, than at those dreadful visits in the drawing-room.”
“But they have not called, Helen ... certainly, we had better go back.”
“Dear mamma, it is not possible,” said Fanny, stepping forward to meet a favourite companion in the youngest Miss Richards: “you see Rosalind has got to them already.”
It was indeed too late to retreat; nor did the wish to do so last long. Mrs. Richards pressed the hand of Rosalind, who had taken hers, but, throwing it off at the same moment, hastened forward to greet the widowed friend she had wanted courage to seek. Her colour was heightened, perhaps, from feeling it possible that the cause of her absence had been mistaken; but large tears trembled in her dark eyes, and when she silently took the hand of Mrs. Mowbray and pressed it to her lips, every doubt upon the subject was removed.
Major Dalrymple and the three girls followed; and the first moment of meeting over, the two parties seemed mutually and equally pleased to join. Mrs. Richards was the only person in the neighbourhood to whom Rosalind, during her six months’ residence in it, had at all attached herself: there was something about her that had fascinated the young heiress’s fancy, and the circumstance of her being the only good second in a duet to be found within the circle of the Mowbray Park visitings had completed the charm.
With the two eldest Misses Richards, Helen was on that sort of intimate footing which a very sweet-tempered, unpretending girl of nineteen, who knows she is of some consequence from her station, and is terribly afraid of being supposed to be proud, is sure to be with young ladies of nearly her own age, blessed with most exuberant animal spirits, and desirous of making themselves as agreeable to her as possible.
Louisa and Charlotte Richards were fine, tall, showy young women, with some aspirations after the reputation of talent; but they were neither of them at all like their mother, who was at least six inches shorter than either of them, and aspired to nothing in the world but to make her three children happy.
Little Mary, as her sisters still persisted to call her, approached much nearer to the stature, person, and character of Mrs. Richards; she was not quite so mignonne in size, but she
“Had her features, wore her eye, Perhaps some feeling of her heart,”
and was, spite of all the struggles which her mother could make to prevent it, the darling of her eyes and the hope of her heart. Moreover, little Mary was, as we have before hinted, the especial friend of Fanny Mowbray.
The delights of a balmy evening in the flowery month of June — the superadded delights of a hay-field, and above all, the supreme delight of unexpectedly meeting a party of friends, were all enthusiastically descanted upon by the two tall Misses Richards. They had each taken one of Helen’s slight arms, and borne her along over the stubble grass with a degree of vehemence which hardly left her breath to speak.
“I do not think mamma is going any farther,” she continued to utter, while Miss Louisa stopped to tie a shoe-string.
“Oh, but you must!” screamed Miss Charlotte, attempting to drag her onward singly.
“Stop, Charlotte!... stop!” cried the eldest sister, snapping off the shoe-string in her haste— “you shall not carry her away from me. What a shame! Isn’t it a shame, when it is such an age since we met?”
There is nothing against which it is so difficult to rally, as the exaggerated expression of feelings in which we do not share. The quiet Helen could not lash herself into answering vehemence of joy, and having smiled, and smiled till she was weary, she fairly slipped from her companions, and hastened back with all the speed she could make to the tranquil party that surrounded her mother.
The lively young ladies galloped after her, declaring all the way that she was the cruellest creature in the world.
Mrs. Mowbray now said that she hoped they would all accompany her home to tea; — a proposal that met no dissenting voice; but it was some time before the whole party could be collected, for Fanny Mowbray and little Mary were nowhere to be seen. Major Dalrymple, however, who was taller even than the Misses Richards, by means of standing upon the last left haycock, at length discovered them sitting lovingly side by side under the shelter of a huge lime-tree that filled one corner of the field. He was dismissed to bring them up to the main body, and executed his commission with great gallantry and good-nature, but not without feeling that the two very pretty girls he thus led away captive would much rather have been without him; for as he approached their lair, he perceived, not only that they were in very earnest conversation, but that various scraps of written paper lay in the lap of each, which at his approach were hastily exchanged, and con
veyed to reticules, pockets, or bosoms, beyond the reach of his eye.
They nevertheless smilingly submitted themselves to his guidance, and in order to prove that he was not very troublesome, Fanny so far returned to their previous conversation as to say,
“We must ask your judgment, Major Dalrymple, upon a point on which we were disputing just before you joined us: which do you prefer in the pulpit — and out of it — Mr. Wallace, or Mr. Cartwright?”
“You were disputing the point, were you?” he replied. “Then I am afraid, Miss Fanny, I must give it against you; for I believe I know Mary’s opinion already, and I perfectly agree with her.”
“Then I shall say to you, as I say to her,” replied Fanny, eagerly “that you are altogether blinded, benighted, deluded, and wrapt up in prejudice! I have great faith both in her sincerity and yours, major; and yet I declare to you, that it does seem to me so impossible for any one to doubt the superiority of Mr. Cartwright in every way, that I can hardly persuade myself you are in earnest.”
“What do you mean by every way, Miss Fanny? — you cannot surely believe him to be a better man than our dear old vicar?” said the major.
“We can none of us, I think, have any right to make comparisons of their respective goodness — at least not as yet,” replied Fanny. “When I said every way, I meant in the church and in society.”
“On the latter point I suppose I ought to leave the question to be decided between you, as in all cases of the kind where gentlemen are to be tried, ladies alone, I believe, are considered competent to form the jury; — not that Mary can have much right to pronounce a verdict either, for I doubt if she has ever been in a room with Mr. Cartwright in her life.”
“Yes, I have,” said Mary eagerly, “and he is perfectly delightful!”
“Indeed! — I did not know you had seen him.”
“Yes — we met him at Smith’s.”
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 58
