Home Influence Part 44

"I feel now," he had said, near the conclusion of their interview, "as if nothing could tempt me to err again; but oh, aunt Emmeline, so I thought when I left home before; and its influences all left me as if they had never been. It may be so again and--and--are there not such doomed wretches, making all they love best most miserable?"

"Not, indeed, if they will take their home influences with them, my beloved boy. They deserted you before because, by the insidious sentiments of a most unhappy man, your religion was shaken, and you flung aside with scorn and misbelief the _only safety_ for the young--G.o.d's most Holy Word. The influences of your home are based on that alone, my Edward. They appear perhaps to the casual observer as only love, indulgence, peace, and the joy springing from innocent and happy hearts; but these are mere flowers springing from one immortal root. In G.o.d's Word alone is our safety, there alone our strength and our joy; and that may be yours still, my boy, though far away from us, and in a little world with interests and temptations of its own. Take this little Bible; it has been my constant companion for eighteen years, and to none but to yourself would I part with it. If you fear your better feelings failing, read it, be guided by it, if at first only for the sake of those you love; I do not fear, but that very soon you will do so for its own sake. It bears a name within it which I think will ever keep it sacred in your care, as it has been in mine."

Edward opened it eagerly, "Charles Manvers!" he exclaimed; "My own sailor-uncle, whose memory you have so taught me to love. It is indeed a spell, dear aunt, and you shall never regret a gift so precious. But how came it yours?"

"He came to me just before starting for his last trip, entreating me to exchange Bibles with him, that in our most serious moments we might think of each other. It was such an unusually serious speech for him, that it seemed to thrill me with a vague forboding, which was only too soon realized. I never saw him again; and that little book indeed increased in value."

Her voice faltered, for even yet the memory of her brother was so dear to her that she could never speak of him without emotion. Edward reiterated his eager a.s.surance that it should be equally valuable to him, adding--

"I have often had strange fancies about uncle Charles, aunt, and longed for the command of a ship, to scour the coast of Algiers, and learn something more about the Leander. Somehow or other, I never can believe he was drowned, and yet to think of him as a slave is terrible."

"And not likely, my dear boy; think of the lapse of years. But painful as it is, we must separate, Edward: I must not detain you from rest and sleep any longer. Only give me one promise--if ever you are led into temptation and error again, and it may be--for our strongest resolutions sometimes fail us--write to me without the smallest hesitation, openly, freely; tell me all, and if you need aid, ask it, and I will give it; and, if it be possible, avert your uncle's displeasure. I have no fear that, in telling you this, I am weakening your resolution, but only to prevent one fault becoming many by concealment--from dread of anger, and therein the supposed impossibility of amendment. Remember, my beloved boy, you have a claim on me which no error nor fault can remove; as, under providence, the preserver of my husband, I can _never_ change the anxious love I bear you. You may indeed make me very miserable, but I know you will not: you _will_ let me look on your n.o.ble deed with all the love, the admiration, it deserves. Promise me that, under any difficulty or error, small or great, you will write to me as you would have done to your own beloved mother, and I shall have no fear remaining."

Edward did promise, but his heart was so full he could not restrain himself any longer, and as Mrs. Hamilton folded him to her heart, in a silent but tearful embrace, he wept on her shoulder like a child.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE BIRTHDAY GIFT.

Brightly and placidly, as the course of their own beautiful river, did the days now pa.s.s to the inmates of Oakwood. Letters came from Edward so frequently, so happily, that hope would rest calmly, joyously, even on the thought of him. He never let an opportunity pa.s.s, writing always to Mrs. Hamilton (which he had scarcely ever done before), and inclosing his letters to Ellen open in hers. The tone, the frequency, were so changed from his last, that his family now wondered they had been so blind before in not perceiving that his very seeming liveliness was unnatural and overstrained.

With Ellen, too, Mrs. Hamilton's anxious care was bringing in fair promise of success--the mistaken influences of her childhood, and their increased effect from a morbid imagination, produced from constant suffering, appearing, indeed, about to be wholly eradicated. Anxious to remove all sad a.s.sociations connected with the library, Mrs. Hamilton having determined herself to superintend Ellen's studies, pa.s.sed long mornings in that ancient room with her, so delightfully, that it became a.s.sociated only with the n.o.ble authors whose works, or extracts from whom, she read and reveled in, and which filled her mind with such new thoughts, such expansive ideas, such calming and earnest truths, that she felt becoming to herself a new being. Lively and thoughtless as Emmeline she could not now indeed become--alike as their dispositions naturally were; but she was more quietly, enduringly happy than she had ever remembered her self.

There was only one alloy, one sad thought, that would intrude causing a resolution, which none suspected; for, open as she had become, she could breathe it to none but Ellis, for she alone could a.s.sist her, though it required many persuasions and many a.s.surances, that she never could be quite happy, unless it was accomplished, which could prevail on her to grant it. Ellen knew, felt, more and more each week, that she could not rest till she had labored for and obtained, and returned into her aunt's hands the full sum she had so involuntarily appropriated. The only means she could adopt demanded such a seemingly interminable period of self-denial, patience, and perseverance, that at first as Ellis represented and magnified all connected with it, she felt as if, indeed, she could not nerve herself for the task, much as she desired to perform it; but prayer enabled her to face the idea, till it lost its most painful aspect, and three months after Edward's departure she commenced the undertaking, resolved that neither time nor difficulty should deter her from its accomplishment. What her plan was, and whether it succeeded, we may not here inform our readers. Should we be permitted to resume our History of the Hamilton Family, both will be revealed.

Greatly to Caroline's delight, the following October was fixed for them to leave Oakwood, and, after a pleasant tour, to make the long antic.i.p.ated visit to London. There would then be three or four months'

quiet for her to have the benefit of masters, before she was introduced, and Mrs. Hamilton fondly hoped, that the last year's residence at home, fraught as it had been with so much of domestic trial, and displaying so many hopeful and admirable traits in Caroline's disposition, would have lessened the danger of the ordeal of admiration and gayety which she so dreaded for her child--whether it had or not, a future page will disclose.

To Emmeline this arrangement was a source of extreme regret, individually, in which Ellen now quite sympathized. But Emmeline had never forgotten her mother's gentle hint, that too great indulgence of regret or sorrow becomes selfishness, and she tried very hard to create some antic.i.p.ation of pleasure, even in London. Ellen would not look to pleasure, but merely tried to think about--and so, when called upon, cheerfully to resign that which was now so intensely enjoyable--her studies with her aunt--and so benefit by them as to give Miss Harcourt no trouble when she was again under her care; as she knew she and Emmeline must be, more than they had been yet, when Caroline's introduction, and their residence in London, would take Mr. and Mrs.

Hamilton so much from domestic pursuits and pleasures, and, even when at home, compel them to be so frequently engrossed with a large circle of friends, and all the variety of claims on their attention and time, which a season in London includes.

It was again the 7th of June, and Ellen's birthday. Accustomed from the time she became an inmate of Oakwood to regard the anniversary of her birth in the same serious light as Mrs. Hamilton had taught her cousins--as a day of quiet reflection, as well as of thankfulness and joy, as one that, closing and recommencing another year of their individual lives, taught them that they were becoming more and more responsible beings--it was not much wonder that Ellen, the whole of that day, should seem somewhat less cheerful than usual. She had indeed had many sources of thankfulness and joy during the past year, but a heart and mind like hers could not recall its princ.i.p.al event without a return of sorrow. Mrs. Hamilton would not notice her now unusual sadness until the evening, when perceiving her standing engrossed in thought beside one of the widely-opened windows, near which Caroline was watering some lovely flowers on the terrace, she gently approached her, and, putting her arm round her, said, fondly--

"You have thought quite seriously and quite long enough for to-day, my dear Ellen; I must not have any more such very silent meditations. That there is something to regret in the retrospect of the last year, I acknowledge, but you must not let it poison all the sources of thankfulness which it brings likewise."

"It was not of my past conduct, I was thinking at this moment, aunt Emmeline--it was--"

"What, love? tell me without reserve."

"That I never, never can return in the smallest degree all I owe to you," replied Ellen, with a sudden burst of emotion, most unusual to her controlled and gentle character; "I never can do any thing to evince how gratefully, how intensely I feel all the kindness, the goodness you have shown me from the first moment you took me to your home--an unhappy, neglected, ailing child, and this year more, more than ever. My own poor mother left me in my dangerous illness, and what have you not done to give me back not merely physical, but mental health? Day and night you watched beside me, forgetting all the care, the misery, my conduct had caused you, only thinking, only seeking, to give me back to health and happiness. Oh, aunt Emmeline, your very household can evince grat.i.tude and love, in the performance of their respective duties--I can do nothing, never can. If I only could."

"Do you remember the fable of the lion and the mouse, my dear Ellen, and Miss Edgeworth's still prettier story on the same subject?" replied Mrs.

Hamilton, more affected than she chose to betray, though she drew her niece closer to her, and kissed her fondly. "I hope I shall never be caught in a net, nor exposed to such horrors and danger as poor Madame de Fleury in the French Revolution; but for all that, and unlikely as it seems now, my dear child, you may have many an opportunity to return all that you so gratefully feel you owe me. Do not let any such thought worry you; but believe me, when I a.s.sure you that affection and confidence are the only return I require, united, as they are in you, with such an earnest desire, and such persevering efforts to become all your best friends can wish you."

She was interrupted by the entrance of Emmeline, with a small parcel in her hand.

"Mamma, this has just arrived from Exeter for you; with an apologizing message from Mr. Bennet, saying, it should have been here last night, as he promised, but he could not get the articles from London in time. I am so very curious as to what it possibly can be, that I would bring it to you myself."

"Any other time I would punish your constant curiosity, Emmeline, by refusing to gratify it. I can not do so now, however, for I should punish myself as well. I did want it most particularly this morning; but I am glad it was not delayed till the day was quite over. Your uncle and I did not forget your birthday, my dear Ellen, though it seemed so." And opening the parcel as she spoke, a very pretty jewel-case appeared, containing the watch, cross, and all the other trinkets Ellen had placed in Mrs. Langford's hand, and never had had the courage to inquire for, and the few her aunt had kept for her, but so prettily arranged and beautifully burnished, that she would scarcely have known them again.

"Did you never feel any curiosity as to the fate of your trinkets, my love, that you have never asked about them?"

"I knew they were in better hands than my own," replied Ellen, with a quivering lip. "I felt I had no further right to them, after attempting to part with them."

"I know there are some very painful a.s.sociations connected with these trinkets, my dear Ellen, and, therefore, I would not return them to your own care, till I could add to them a birthday-gift," and, lifting the upper tray, she took out a gold chain, and a pair of bracelets of chaste and beautiful workmanship--"that the sad memories of the one may be forgotten in the pleasant thoughts of the other. I have only one condition to make," she added, in an earnest lower tone, as Ellen tried to speak her thanks, but could only cling to her aunt's neck and weep.

"If ever again you are tempted to dispose of them, dearest, promise me to bring them to me, for my valuation first."

"You shall be put into fetters at once, Ellen," said Emmeline joyously, as her cousin gave the required promise, so eagerly, that it was evident, she felt how much security dwelt in it. "Mamma, make her put them on; I want to see if she looks as interesting as Zen.o.bia did in her golden chains."

"I think you might find a prettier simile, Emmeline," replied Mrs.

Hamilton, smiling, as she granted her request, by throwing the chain round Ellen's neck, and fastening the bracelets on her wrists.

"So I can, and so I will," replied the lively girl, altering, without the smallest hesitation, the lines to suit her fancy--

"For thee, _rash girl_, no suppliant sues; For thee may vengeance claim her dues; Who, nurtured underneath our smile, Repaid our cares with treacherous wile.

Dishonoring thus thy loyal name, Fetters and warders _thou must claim_.

The chain of gold was quick unstrung, Its links on that _fair neck were_ flung; Then gently drew the glittering band, And laid the clasp on Ellen's hand."

THE END