“Dearest mother!” said Helen, fondly embracing her, “do not chide us very severely, even if we have been wrong; for indeed we meant to be very, very right; and when we set out the expedition appeared to us anything but a pleasant one. We have been to Oakley.”
“I am too thankful at seeing you returned in safety, my dear girls, to be very angry at any thing. But do tell me, Helen, what could have induced you to volunteer a visit to the only people who have been unkind to us since your poor father’s death?”
“In the hope, mamma, of putting an end to an estrangement which I thought was very painful to you.”
“Dearest Helen! it was just like you! And have you succeeded, my love?”
“No, mamma, I have not.”
Mrs. Mowbray coloured.
“And pray, Helen, have they explained to you the cause of their extraordinary and most unfeeling conduct?”
“Do not say they, dearest mother! Lady Harrington is greatly distressed at Sir Gilbert’s conduct: so is the colonel, who is just come home. Whatever fault there may be, it is Sir Gilbert’s alone.”
“Did he, then, explain himself to you?”
Helen remained silent.
“I must request, Helen,” resumed her mother, “that you make no farther mystery about the Harringtons. I am willing to excuse the strange step you took this morning; but I shall be seriously displeased if you refuse to tell me what passed during your visit. Of what is it that Sir Gilbert accuses me?”
“I pointed out to him, mamma, the injustice of being angry with you because papa made a will that he did not approve.”
“Well, Helen! and what did he say to that?”
“Upon my word, mamma, I could not find a shadow of reason in any thing he said.”
“You evade my questions, Helen. I insist upon knowing what it is that Sir Gilbert lays to my charge. — Helen! — do you refuse to answer me?”
“Oh no, mamma! — but you cannot think how painful it would be for me to repeat it!”
“I cannot help it, Helen: you have brought this pain on yourself by your very unadvised visit of this morning. But since you have gone to the house of one who has declared himself my enemy, you must let me know exactly what it is he has chosen to accuse me of; unless you mean that I should imagine you wish to shield him from my resentment because you think him right.”
“Oh, my mother!” cried Helen; “what a word is that!”
“Well, then, do not trifle with me any longer, but repeat at once all that you heard him say.”
Thus urged, poor Helen stated Sir Gilbert’s very unjust suspicions respecting the influence used to induce Mr. Mowbray to make the will he had left. It was in vain she endeavoured to modify and soften the accusation, — the resentment and indignation of Mrs. Mowbray were unbounded; and Helen had the deep mortification of perceiving that the only result of her enterprise was to have rendered the breach she so greatly wished to repair a hundred times wider than before.
“And this man, with these base and vile suspicions, is the person your father has left as joint executor with me! — What a situation does this place me in! Did he make any allusion to this, Helen? — did he say any thing of the necessary business that we have, most unfortunately, to transact together?”
“No, mamma, he did not.”
A long silence followed this question and answer. Mrs. Mowbray appeared to suffer greatly, and in fact she did so. Nothing could be farther from the truth than the idea Sir Gilbert Harrington had conceived, and its injustice revolted and irritated her to a degree that she never before experienced against any human being. That Helen should have listened to such an accusation, pained her extremely; and a feeling in some degree allied to displeasure against her mingled with the disagreeable meditations in which she was plunged.
“My head aches dreadfully!” she said at last. “Fanny, give me my shawl and parasol: I will try what a walk in the fresh air will do for me.”
“May I go with you, mamma?” said Helen.
“No, my dear; you have had quite walking enough. Fanny has not been out at all: she may come with me.”
These words were both natural and reasonable, but there was something in them that smote Helen to the heart. She fondly loved her mother, and, for the first time, she suspected that her heart and feelings were not understood.
Mrs. Mowbray and Fanny had just walked through the library windows into the garden, when they perceived Mr. Cartwright approaching the house. They both uttered an exclamation of pleasure at perceiving him, and Fanny said eagerly, “He must see us, mamma! Do not let him go all the way round to the hall-door! May we not walk across and meet him?”
“To be sure. Run forward, Fanny; and when he sees you coming to him, he will turn this way.”
She was not mistaken: Fanny had not made three steps in advance of her mother, before Mr. Cartwright turned from the road, and passing through a gate in the invisible fence, joined her in a moment.
“How kind this is of you!” said he as he drew near;— “to appear thus willing to receive again an intruder, whose quick return must lead you to suspect that you are in danger of being haunted by him! And so I think you are, Miss Fanny; and I will be generous enough to tell you at once, that if you greet me thus kindly, I shall hardly know how to keep away from Mowbray Park.”
“But mamma is so glad to see you,” said Fanny, blushing beautifully, “that I am sure you need not try to keep away!”
Mrs. Mowbray now drew near to answer for herself; which she did very cordially, assuring him that she considered these friendly and unceremonious visits as the greatest kindness he could show her.
“It will be long, I think,” said she, “before I shall have courage sufficient to invite any one to this mournful and sadly-altered mansion: but those whose friendship I really value will, I trust, have the charity to come to us without waiting for an invitation.”
“I wish I could prove to you, my dear madam,” replied Mr. Cartwright with respectful tenderness, “how fervently I desire to serve you: but, surrounded by old and long-tried friends as you must be, how can a new-comer and a stranger hope to be useful?”
This was touching a very tender point — and it is just possible that Mr. Cartwright was aware of it, as he was present at the reading of the will, and heard Sir Gilbert Harrington’s first burst of rage on becoming acquainted with its contents. But Mrs. Mowbray had either forgotten this circumstance, or, feeling deeply disturbed at the fresh proof which Helen had brought her of the falling off of an old friend, was disposed to revert anew to it, in the hope of moving the compasssion and propitiating the kindness of a new one.
“Alas! my dear sir,” she said feelingly, “even old friends will sometimes fail us; and then it is that we ought to thank God for such happy accidents as that which has placed near us one so able and kindly willing to supply their place as yourself. — Fanny, my love, the business on which I have to speak is a painful one: go to your sister, dearest, while I ask our kind friend’s advice respecting this unhappy business.”
“Good-b’ye then, Mr. Cartwright,” said Fanny, holding out her hand to him.— “But perhaps I shall see you again as you go away, for I shall be in the garden.”
“Bless you, my dear child!” said he fervently, as he led her a few steps towards the shrubberies; “God bless, and have you in his holy keeping!”
“What an especial blessing have you, my dear friend,” he said, returning to Mrs. Mowbray, “in that charming child! — Watch over her, and guard her from all evil! for she is one who, if guided in that only path which leads to good, will be a saving and a precious treasure to all who belong to her: but if led astray — alas! the guilt that the downfall of so pure a spirit would entail on those whose duty it is to watch over her!”
“She is indeed an excellent young creature!” said the proud mother, whose darling the lovely Fanny had ever been; “but I think she wants less guiding than any child I ever saw, — and it has always been so. She learned faster than she could
be taught; and her temper is so sweet, and her heart so affectionate, that I really do not remember that she has ever deserved a reprimand in her life.”
“May the precepts of her admirable mother ever keep her thus!” said Mr. Cartwright, as they seated themselves in the library, into which they had entered. “But, oh! my dear lady! know you not that it is just such sweet and gifted creatures as your Fanny that the Evil One seeks for his own? — Nay, look not thus terrified, my excellent, my exemplary friend, — look not thus terrified: if it be thus, as most surely it is — think you that we are left without help to resist? My dear, my admirable Mrs. Mowbray! yours is the hand appointed to lead this fair and attractive being unspotted through the world. If great — awfully great, as assuredly it is, be the responsibility, great — unspeakably great, will be the reward. Then tremble not, dear friend! watch and pray, and this unmeasurable reward shall be yours!”
Mrs. Mowbray, however, did tremble; but her trembling was accompanied by a sweet and well-pleased consciousness of being considered by the excellent man beside her as capable of leading this darling child to eternal happiness and glory. The look, the accent of Mr. Cartwright went farther than his words to convince her that he believed this power to be hers, and she gazed at him with something of the reverence and humble love with which Catholics contemplate the effigies of the saints they worship.
“But what was the business, the painful business, my poor friend, upon which you wished to consult me, before that vision of light had drawn all our attention upon herself? What was it, my dear Mrs. Mowbray, you wished to say to me?”
“I am hardly justified, I fear, Mr. Cartwright, thus early in our acquaintance, in taking up your valuable time in listening to my sorrows and my wrongs; but in truth I have both to bear; and I have at this moment no friend near me to whom I can apply for advice how to proceed with business that puzzles almost as much as it distresses me. May I, then, my dear sir, intrude on your kindness for half an hour, while I state to you the singular predicament in which I am placed?”
“Were it not, as most assuredly it is — were it not, dearest Mrs. Mowbray, a true and deep-felt pleasure to me to believe that I might possibly be useful to you, it would be my especial and bounden duty to strive to be so. For what are the ministers of the Most High placed amidst the people? wherefore are their voices raised, so that all should hear them? Is it not, my friend, because their lives, their souls, their bodies, are devoted to the service of those committed by Providence to their care? And, trust me, the minister who would shrink from this is unworthy — utterly unworthy the post to which he has been called. Speak, then, dearest Mrs. Mowbray, as to one bound alike by duty and the most fervent good-will to aid and assist you to the utmost extent of his power.”
The great natural gift of Mr. Cartwright was the power of making his voice, his eye, and the flexible muscles of his handsome mouth, echo, and, as it were reverberate and reiterate every word he spoke, giving to his language a power beyond its own. What he now said was uttered rapidly, but with an apparent depth and intensity of feeling that brought tears of mingled gratitude and admiration to the eyes of Mrs. Mowbray. After a moment given to this not unpleasing emotion, she said,
“It was from you, Mr. Cartwright, if I remember rightly, that I first heard the enactments of my husband’s will. When I give you my word, as I now most solemnly do, that I had never during his life the slightest knowledge of what that will was to be, I think you will believe me.”
“Believe you!” exclaimed Mr. Cartwright. “Is there on earth a being sufficiently depraved to doubt an assertion so vouched by you?”
“Oh, Mr. Cartwright! if all men had your generous, and, I will say, just confidence in me, I should not now be in the position I am! But Sir Gilbert Harrington, the person most unhappily chosen by Mr. Mowbray as joint executor with myself, is persuaded that this generous will was made in my favour solely in consequence of my artful influence over him; and so deeply does he resent this imputed crime, that instead of standing forward, as he ought to do, as the protector and agent of his friend’s widow, he loads the memory of that friend with insult, and oppresses me with scorn and revilings, the more bitter because conveyed to me by my own child.”
Mrs. Mowbray wept. — Mr. Cartwright hid his face with his hands, and for some moments seemed fearful of betraying all he felt. At length he fixed his eyes upon her — eyes moistened by a tear, and in a low, deep voice that seemed to indicate an inward struggle, he uttered, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!”
He closed his eyes, and sat for a moment silent, — then added, “Perhaps of all the trials to which we are exposed in this world of temptation, the obeying this mandate is the most difficult! But, like all uttered by its Divine Author, it is blessed alike by its authority and its use. Without it! — my friend! without it, would not my hand be grappling the throat of your malignant enemy? — Without it, should I not even now be seeking to violate the laws of God and man, to bring the wretch who can thus stab an angel woman’s breast to the dust before her? But, thanks to the faith that is in me, I know that his suspicious heart and cruel soul shall meet a vengeance as much greater than any I could inflict, as the hand that wields it is more powerful than mine! I humbly thank Heaven for this, and remembering it, turn with chastened spirit from the forbidden task of punishing him, to the far more Christian one of offering aid to the gentle being he would crush. — Was it indeed from the lips of your child, my poor friend, that these base aspersions reached you?”
“It was indeed, Mr. Cartwright; and it was this which made them cut so deeply. Poor Helen knew not what she was about when she secretly left her mother’s roof to visit this man, in the hope of restoring the families to their former habits of intimacy!”
“Did Helen do this?” said Mr. Cartwright, with a sort of shiver.
“Yes, poor thing, she did; and perhaps for her pains may have won caresses for herself. But, by her own statement — most reluctantly given, certainly, — she seems to have listened to calumnies against her mother, which I should have thought no child of mine would have borne to hear;” and again Mrs. Mowbray shed tears.
“Gracious Heaven!” exclaimed Mr. Cartwright, fervently clasping his hands, “Dear, tortured Mrs. Mowbray, turn your weeping eyes to Heaven! those drops shall not fall in vain. It was your child — a child nurtured in that gentle bosom, who repeated to you this blasphemy? Oh, fie! fie! fie! But let us not think of this, — at least, not at this trying moment. Hereafter means must be taken to stay this plague-spot from spreading over the hearts of all whom nature has given to love and honour you. Your pretty, gentle Fanny! she at least will not, I think, be led to listen to any voice that shall speak ill of you: — sweet child! let her be near your heart, and that will comfort you. — But, alas! my poor friend, this maternal disappointment, grievous as it is, will not be all you have to bear from this wretch, whom Heaven, for its good but inscrutable purposes, permits to persecute you. There must be business, my dear Mrs. Mowbray, business of great importance that this man must be immediately called upon to execute with you, — the proving the will, for instance; he must either do this, or refuse to act.”
“Would to Heaven he might refuse!” said Mrs. Mowbray eagerly; “what a relief would this be to me, Mr. Cartwright! Do you think there would be any possibility of leading him to it?”
“Of leading him, — certainly not; for it is very clear, from his conduct, that whatever you appeared to wish, that he would be averse to do. Your only hope of obtaining what would most assuredly be an especial blessing for you, his formal renunciation of the executorship, would, I think, be from writing to him immediately, and imperatively demanding his joining you forthwith in proving the will. In such a state of mind as he must be in before he would bear to utter his vile suspicions to your daughter, I think it very likely he may refuse.”
“And what would happen then, Mr. Cartwright?”
“You must place yourself in the hands of a respectable lawyer, totally a strang
er and unconnected with him, and he would put you in a way to prove it yourself; after which he could give you no further trouble of any kind: unless, indeed, your misguided children should continue to frequent his house, and so become the means of wounding your ears and your heart by repeating his calumnies. But this, I trust, the source of all wisdom and goodness will give you power to prevent.”
“With your help and counsel, Mr. Cartwright, I may yet hope to weather the storm that seems to have burst upon me; but indeed it could hardly have burst upon any one less capable of struggling with it! In what language should I write to this, cruel man, who has so undeservedly become my enemy?”
“There is no difficulty there, my friend. The shortest and most strictly ceremonious form must be the best.”
Mrs. Mowbray drew towards her materials for writing, — opened the portfolio, which between its leaves of blotting-paper contained sundry sheets of wire-wove, black-edged post, — placed one of them before her, — took a pen and curiously examined its tip — dipped it delicately in the ink, and finally turned to Mr. Cartwright, saying,
“How very grateful I should be if you would have the great kindness to write it for me!”
“But the handwriting, my dear lady, must be yours.”
“Oh yes! I know. But it would be so much more satisfactory if you would sketch the form!”
“Then I am sure I will do it most readily.” He drew the paper to him and wrote,
“Mrs. Mowbray presents her compliments to Sir Gilbert Harrington, and requests to know on what day it will suit him to meet her and her lawyer in London, for the purpose of proving her late husband’s will at Doctors’ Commons. The amount of the real property may be ascertained by the rent-roll; that of the personal, by means of papers left by the deceased, and a valuation of the effects made by competent persons. Mrs. Mowbray begs leave to intimate that she wishes as little delay as possible to intervene before the completion of this transaction.”
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 61
