Home Influence Part 8

Herbert closed his book to listen; Emmeline left her nearly-completed map, and joined Percy; Caroline evidently tried to resume serenity, but, too proud to evince it, industriously pursued her work, breaking the thread almost every time that she drew out the needle.

"It is nothing, Percy; how could you disappoint us so?" said Herbert, in a tone of regret.

"My good fellow, you must be deaf--listen! nearer and louder--and, look there, Emmeline, through those trees, don't you see something glimmering? that must be the lamp of the carriage."

"Nonsense, Percy, it is a glowworm."

"A glowworm! why, Em., the thought of seeing mamma has blinded you. What glowworm ever came so steadily forward? No! there is no mistake now.

Hurrah, it is the carriage; here Robert, Morris, Ellis, all of you to the hall! to the hall! The carriage is coming down the avenue." And with noisy impatience, the young gentleman ran into the hall, a.s.sembled all the servants he had named, and others too, all eager to welcome the travelers; flung wide back the ma.s.sive door, and he and Herbert both were on the steps several minutes before the carriage came in sight.

CHAPTER II.

THREE ENGLISH HOMES, AND THEIR INMATES.

If more than the preceding conversation were needed to reveal the confidence and love with which Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton were regarded by their children, the delight, the unrestrained expressions of affection, with which by every one of the young party they were received, would have evinced it still more clearly. Herbert was very speedily on his favorite seat, a low stool at his mother's feet. Emmeline, for that one half hour at least, a.s.sumed her still unresigned privilege, as the youngest and tiniest, to quietly slip in her lap; Percy was talking to his father, making Edward perfectly at home, saying many kind words to Ellen, and caressing his mother, all almost at the same moment. Caroline was close to her father, with her arm round his neck; and Miss Harcourt was kindly disrobing Ellen from her many wraps, and making her lie quietly on a sofa near her aunt; who, even in that moment of delightful reunion with her own, had yet time and thought, by a few judicious words, to remove the undefinable, but painful sensation of loneliness, which was creeping over the poor child as she gazed on her bright, happy-looking cousins; and thought if to her own mother Edward's beauty and happiness had made him so much more beloved than herself, what claim could she have on her aunt? Ellen could not have said that such were the thoughts that filled her eyes with tears, and made her heart so heavy; she only knew that much as she had loved her aunt during the journey, her kiss and kind words at that moment made her love her more than ever.

Never had there been a happier meal at Oakwood than the substantial tea which was speedily ready for the travelers. So much was there to hear and tell: Percy's wild sallies; Caroline's animated replies (she had now quite recovered her temper); Herbert's gentle care of Ellen, by whom he had stationed himself (even giving up to her his usual seat by his mother); Emmeline's half shy, half eager, efforts to talk to her cousins; Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton's earnest interest, all combined, long before the meal was concluded, to make Edward feel perfectly at his ease, and very happy, and greatly to remove Ellen's unacknowledged dread. The time pa.s.sed so quickly, that there was a general start when the prayer bell sounded, though it was nearly two hours after the usual time.

"Are you prepared for to-night, my boy?" Mr. Hamilton asked of Herbert, as they rose to adjourn to the library, where, morning and evening, it had been the custom of the Hamilton family for many generations, to a.s.semble their whole household for family devotion.

"Yes, papa; I was not quite sure whether you would arrive to-night."

"Then I will not resume my office till to-morrow, Herbert, that I may have the gratification of hearing you officiate," replied his father, linking his son's arm in his, and affectionately glancing on the bright blush that rose to the boy's cheek.

There was a peculiar sweetness in Herbert Hamilton's voice, even in speaking; and as he read the service of the lessons for the evening, adding one or two brief explanations when necessary, and more especially when reading, or rather praying, the beautiful pet.i.tions appropriated to family worship, there was an earnest solemnity of tone and manner, presenting a strange contrast, yet beautiful, combining with the boyish form and youthful face, on which the lamp, suspended over the reading-desk shed such a soft and holy light. The occasional prayer which was added to the usual evening service, was always chosen by the reader; and Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton were surprised and affected at the earnestness with which their almost angel boy selected and read over one peculiarly bearing on the events of that evening; the introduction of their orphan relatives, for compa.s.sion and blessing on them, and grace for increased kindness and forbearance in their intercourse with one another--Miss Harcourt, his brother and sisters, knew well to what he alluded, and all but one responded with earnestness and truth. Caroline could not enter into Herbert's feelings even at that moment: it was a great effort to prevent a feeling of irritation, believing that he directly pointed at her, and determining that as neither he nor any one else had any right to interfere with her private thoughts, and that they could do harm to none while confined to her own breast, she resolved not to overcome them, and so could not join with any fervor in the prayer.

To Edward all was strange. While the graces of his body and mind had been most sedulously cultivated, he had never been taught even the public ordinances of religion, much less its inward spirit. His mother had often and often felt a pang of reproach, at thus neglecting that which an inward voice would whisper was most essential; but she was wont to silence the pang by the determined idea, that she was neither worthy nor able to give him such solemn lessons, and that it would come by instinct to him in after years. There was time enough for him to think of such things. He had been now and then to church, but it was a mere form, regarded as a weary duty, from which he escaped whenever he could.

The present scene, then, completely bewildered him. He had always fancied himself superior to any of the boys he had a.s.sociated with; but as he looked at and listened to Herbert, who seemed at most only two years older than himself, he became sensible of a very strange and disagreeable, but a very decided feeling of inferiority: and then, too, it was so incomprehensible the servants all joining them, a cla.s.s of people whom in India he had been taught so to consider his inferiors, that even to speak with them was a species of degradation; and he was destined to be still more surprised, for before they left the library, he heard his aunt and uncle address them all, and say a few kind words, and make inquiries after their families to each.

To Ellen that evening service recalled some of Mr. Myrvin's instructions, and seemed to help her to realize those new thoughts and feelings, which she had learned, for the first time, in Wales. Her father had, indeed, the last year of his life tried to give her some ideas of religion; but having only so very lately begun to think seriously himself, he felt diffident and uncertain of his own powers, and so left an impression more of awe toward the subject than of love, which to a disposition such as Ellen's was unfortunate.

A very short time sufficed for Percy and Emmeline to introduce their cousins to all the delights and mysteries of their dear old home: and Oakwood Hall was really a place for imagination to revel in. It was a large castelated mansion, fraught with both the a.s.sociations of the past, and the comforts of the present. The injuries which the original mansion had received during the civil war of Charles I., had, when the family returned at the Restoration, caused much of the old house to be pulled down, and replaced with larger rooms, and greater conveniences for a modern dwelling-house, retaining, however, quite sufficient of the past to throw interest around it.

The wings were still flanked with turrets, which were Percy's and Emmeline's delight; and the many stair-cases, leading into all sorts of nooks and corners--and the small and most uncomfortable rooms, because some of them happened to be hung with tapestry, and had those small narrow windows sunk in deep recesses--were p.r.o.nounced by both far more enjoyable than the beautiful suite of rooms forming the center of the mansion, and the dwelling of the family. These were only saved from being disagreeably modern--Percy would declare--by their beautiful richly-polished oaken panels, and by the recesses which the large windows still formed, making almost a room by themselves. The hall, too, with its superb sweep of staircase and broad carved oaken bal.u.s.trade, leading to a gallery above, which opened on the several sleeping apartments, and thus permitting the full height of the mansion, from base to roof, to be visible from the hall. Tho doors visible in the gallery opened mostly on dressing-rooms, or private sitting-rooms, which led to the large, airy sleeping-rooms, to which the servants had access by back stair-cases leading from their hall; and so leaving the oaken staircase and gallery entirely to the use of the family, and of many a game of noisy play had that gallery been the scene. There had been a beautiful little chapel adjoining the mansion, but it was mercilessly burned to the ground by the infatuated Puritans, and never restored; the venerable old church of the village henceforth serving the family of the hall.

Situated on the banks of the Dart, whose serpentine windings gave it the appearance of a succession of most lovely lakes, Nature had been so lavish of her beauties in the garden and park, especially in the magnificent growth of the superb oaks, from which the estate took its name, that it was not much wonder Mrs. Hamilton, always an intense lover of nature, should have become so attached to her home, as never to feel the least inclination to leave it. She did not wish her girls to visit London till a few months before Caroline was old enough to be introduced, to give them then finishing masters; and to that time she of course always looked, as demanding from her part of the year to be spent in town. The career of Eleanor, the recollections of the frivolity and error into which her own early youth had been thrown, had given her not only a distaste, but an actual dread of London for her girls, till such principles and a.s.sociations had been instilled which would enable them to pa.s.s through the ordeal of successive seasons without any change of character or feeling. Her sons, since their tenth year, had more than once accompanied their father to the metropolis; but though these visits were always sources of enjoyment, especially to Percy, they never failed to return with unabated affection to their home, and to declare there was no place in England like it.

Mr. Hamilton, though in neither profession nor business, was far from being an idle man. His own estate was sufficiently large, and contained a sufficient number of dependents, for whose mortal and immortal welfare he was responsible, to give him much employment; and in addition to this, the home interests and various aspects of his country were so strongly entwined with his very being--that, though always refusing to enter Parliament, he was the prompter and encourager of many a political movement, having for its object amelioration of the poor, and improvement of the whole social system; closely connected with which, as he was, they gave him neither public fame nor private emolument. He acted in all things from the same single-hearted integrity and high honor which caused him to refuse the t.i.tle proffered to his father. Her husband's connection with many celebrated characters, and her own correspondence, and occasional visits from her friends to Oakwood, prevented Mrs. Hamilton's interest from too complete concentration in her home, as, in her first retirement, many feared. She had, too, some friends near her, whose society gave her both pleasure and interest; and many acquaintances who would have visited more than she felt any inclination for, had she not had the happy power of quietly pursuing her own path, and yet conciliating all.

The Rev. William Howard had accepted Mr. Hamilton's eagerly-proffered invitation to become his rector, and undertake the education of his boys, from very peculiar circ.u.mstances. He had been minister of a favorite church in one of the southern towns, and master of an establishment for youths of high rank, in both which capacities he had given universal satisfaction. The reprehensible conduct of some of his pupils, carried on at first so secretly as to elude his knowledge, at length became so notorious as to demand examination. He had at first refused all credence, but when proved, by the confused replies of all, and half confession of some, he briefly and emphatically laid before them the enormity of their conduct, and declared that, as confidence was entirely broken between them, he would resign the honor of their education, refusing to admit them any longer as members of his establishment. In vain the young men implored him to spare them the disgrace of such an expulsion; he was inexorable.

This conduct, in itself so upright, was painted by the smarting offenders in such colors, that Mr. Howard gradually but surely found his school abandoned, and himself so misrepresented, that a spirit less self-possessed and secure in its own integrity must have sunk beneath it. But he had some true friends, and none more active and earnest than Mr. Hamilton. A very brief residence at Oakwood Rectory removed even the recollection of the injustice he had experienced; and he himself, as pastor and friend, proved a treasure to high and low. Ten other youths, sons of the neighboring gentry, became his pupils, their fathers gladly following in Mr. Hamilton's lead.

About a mile and a half across the park was Moorlands, the residence of Lady Helen Grahame, whose name had been so often mentioned by the young Hamiltons. Her husband Montrose Grahame, had been Arthur Hamilton's earliest friend, at home, at college, and in manhood. Lady Helen the youngest daughter of a marquis, had been intimate with Emmeline and Eleanor Manvers from childhood, and had always admired and wished to resemble the former, but always failed, she believed, from being const.i.tuted so differently; others might have thought from her utter want of energy and mental strength. The marriage at first appeared likely to be a happy one, but it was too soon proved the contrary.

Grahame was a man of strict, perhaps severe principles; his wife, though she never did any thing morally wrong, scarcely knew the meaning of the word. Provoked with himself for his want of discrimination, in imagining Lady Helen so different to the being she really was; more than once discovering she did not speak the exact truth, or act with the steady uprightness he demanded, his manner became almost austere; and, in consequence, becoming more and more afraid of him, Lady Helen sunk lower and lower in his esteem.

Two girls and a boy were the fruits of this union. Lady Helen had made a great many excellent resolutions with regard to their rearing and education, which she eagerly confided to Mrs. Hamilton, but when the time of trial came, weakness and false indulgence so predominated, that Grahame, to counteract these evil influences, adopted a contrary extreme, and, by a system of constant reserve and severity, became an object of as much terror to his children as he was to his wife. But he did not pursue this conduct without pain, and never did he visit Oakwood without bitter regret that his home was not the same.

Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton had often tried to alter the aspect of affairs at Moorlands; the former, by entreating Grahame to be less severe; the latter, by urging Lady Helen to a firmer mode of conduct. But those friendly efforts were as yet entirely useless. Grahame became a member of Parliament, which took his family to London for five or six months in the year--a particularly agreeable change to Lady Helen, who then a.s.sociated with her sisters, whose families were conducted much on the same fashion as her own, but unfortunately only increasing the discomfort of Moorlands when they returned to it. And this was the more to be regretted, from the fact that both Grahame and his wife were full of good intentions, and had the one been more yielding, and the other more firm, there might have been no small share of happiness for both.

But heavy as Lady Helen thought her trial in the want of her husband's confidence and love, and which she had greatly brought upon herself, it was light in comparison with that of Mrs. Greville, another near neighbor and valued friend of Mrs. Hamilton. She had loved and married a man whose winning manners and appearance, and an ever-varying flow of intelligent conversation, had completely concealed, till too late, his real character. Left at a very early age his own master, with a capital estate and large fortune; educated at a very large public school, at which he learned literally nothing but vice, and how effectually to conceal it; courted and flattered wherever he went, he became vain, overbearing, and extravagant; with no pursuit but that of gambling in all its varieties, even hunting and shooting could not be thoroughly enjoyed without some large bets depending on the day's sport: his thoughts from boyhood were so completely centered in self, that he had affection for nothing else. He had indeed fancied he loved Jessie Summers, when he had so successfully wooed her; but the illusion was speedily dispelled, and repeatedly he cursed his folly for plaguing himself with a wife. His first child, too, was a girl and that annoyed him still more; and when, the next year, a boy was granted, he certainly rejoiced, but it was such rejoicing as to fill his wife's heart with an agony of dread; for he swore he would make his boy as jovial a spirit as himself, and that her namby-pamby ideas should have nothing to do with him.

It was indeed a difficult and painful task Mrs. Greville had to perform.

Though her husband would spend weeks and even months at a time away, the impressions she so earnestly and prayerfully sought to instill into her son's heart were, or appeared to be, completely destroyed by her husband's interference the whole time of his sojourn at his home. It was his pleasure to thwart her every plan, laugh at her fine notions, make a mockery of all that was good, and holy, and self denying; and all in the presence of his children; succeeding in making Alfred frequently guilty of disrespect and unkindness, but failing entirely with Mary, who, though of such a fragile frame and gentle spirit that her father's visits almost always caused her a fit of illness, so idolized her suffering but never murmuring mother, that she only redoubled her attention and respect whenever she saw her more tried than usual. This conduct, of course, only made her an object, equally with her mother, of her father's sneers and taunts, but she bore it with the true spirit of a martyr. Suffering was doing for her what Herbert Hamilton was naturally--making her spiritual and thoughtful far beyond her years, and drawing her and Herbert together with such a bond of mutual reverence and sympathy, that to talk to him was her greatest consolation, and to endeavor to lessen her sorrows one of his dearest pleasures.

Alfred was not naturally an evil-disposed boy, and when his father was from home seldom failed either in respect or obedience. Mrs. Greville possessed the rather rare combination of extreme submissiveness with a natural dignity and firmness, which enabled her to retain the reverence and sympathy of her friends and her household, without once stooping to receive their pity. It was generally supposed by those who did not know her personally, that she was one of those too soft and self-denying characters who bring on themselves the evils they deplore; but this in Mrs. Greville's case was a very great mistake. It was impossible to a.s.sociate even casually with her, without feeling intuitively that she suffered deeply, but the emotion such conviction called was respect alone.

As anxious and as earnest a parent as Mrs. Hamilton herself, Mrs.

Greville failed not to inculcate the good in both her children, and still more forcibly, when they became old enough to observe, by example than by precept. But with Alfred there must have been an utter hopelessness as to the fruit of her anxious labors, had she not possessed that clinging, single-hearted trust which taught her that no difficulty should deter from a simple duty, and that nothing was too hard for Him who--if He saw that she shrunk not from the charge and responsibility which, in permitting her to become a mother, he had given, and did all she could to counteract those evil influences, for the removal of which she had no power--would, in His own good time, reward, if not on earth--with Him in Heaven; and so untiringly, as unmurmuringly, she struggled on.

CHAPTER III.

HOME SCENE.--VISITORS.--CHILDISH MEDITATIONS.

The part of the day which to Emmeline Hamilton was the happiest of all, was that in which she and Caroline, and now, of course, Ellen, were with their mother alone. Not that she particularly liked the very quiet employment of plain work, which was then their usual occupation, but that she could talk without the least restraint, either about her lessons, or her pleasures, or her thoughts, and the stories or histories she had been reading, and if she thought wrong no one ever corrected her so delightfully so impressively as "mamma." The mornings, from three to four hours, according as their age and studies required, were always under the control of Miss Harcourt, with such visits from Mrs. Hamilton as gave an increased interest to exertion, and such interruption only as permitted their practice and lessons in music, which three times a week Mrs. Hamilton had as yet herself bestowed. The dressing-bell always rung at half-past three, and dinner was at four, to allow the lads return from Mr. Howard's, whose daily lessons commenced at nine and concluded at three. From half-past one to half-past three, in the very short days, was devoted to recreation, walking, or driving, and in the longer, to Emmeline's favorite time--an hour at work with her mother, and the remainder to the preparation of lessons and exercises for the next day, which in the winter occupied from five to six. From six to seven in the same generally gloomy season they read aloud some entertaining book with their mother and Miss Harcourt, and seven was the delightful hour of a general reunion at tea, and signal for such recreation till nine as they felt inclined for; their brothers having been employed for Mr. Howard part of the time between dinner and tea, with sufficient earnestness to enjoy the rest and recreation afterward, quite as buoyantly and gladly as their sisters; and many a merry dance enlivened their winter evenings.

In the summer, of course, this daily routine was frequently varied by most delightful excursions in the country. Mrs. Hamilton earnestly longing to implant a love of Nature and all its fresh, pure a.s.sociations in the minds of her children while yet young, knowing that once obtained, the pleasures of the world would be far less likely to obtain too powerful dominion. That which the world often terms romance, she felt to be a high, pure sense of poetry in the Universe and in Man, which she was quite as anxious to instill as many mothers to root out.

She did not believe that to cultivate the spiritual needed the banishment of the matter of fact; but she believed, that to infuse the latter with the former would be their best and surest preventive against all that was low and mean; their best help in the realization of a constant unfailing piety. For the same reason she cultivated a taste for the beautiful, not only in her girls, but in her boys--and beauty, not in arts and nature alone, but in character. She did not allude to beauty of merely the high and striking kind, but to the lowly virtues, struggles, faith, and heroism in the poor--their forbearance and kindness to one another--marking something to admire, even in the most rugged and surly, that at first sight would seem so little worthy of notice. It was gradually, and almost unconsciously, to accustom her daughters to such a train of thought and sentiment, that she so particularly laid aside one part of the day to have them with her alone; ostensibly, it was to give part of their day to working for the many poor, to whom gifts of ready-made clothing are sometimes much more valuable than money; but the _education_ of that one hour she knew might, for the right cultivation of the heart, do more than the mere _teaching_ of five or six, and that education, much as she loved and valued Miss Harcourt, she had from the first resolved should come from her alone.

To Emmeline this mode of life was so happy, she could not imagine any thing happier. But Caroline often and often envied her great friend Annie Grahame, and believed that occasional visits to London would make her much happier than remaining all the year round at Oakwood, and only with her own family. She knew the expression of such sentiments would meet no sympathy at home, and certainly not obtain their gratification, so she tried to check them, except when in company with Annie and Lady Helen; but her mother knew them, and, from the discontent and unhappiness they so often engendered in her child, caused her both pain and uneasiness. But she did not waver in her plans, because only in Emmeline they seemed to succeed: nor did she, as perhaps some over-scrupulous mothers would have done, check Caroline's a.s.sociation with Miss Grahame. She knew that those principles must be indeed of little worth, which could only actuate in retirement, and when free from temptation. That to prevent intimacy with all, except with those of whom she exactly approved, would be impossible, if she ever meant her daughters to enter the world; and therefore she endeavored so to obtain their unrestrained confidence and affection, as to be regarded, both now and when they were young women, as their first, best, and truest friend; and that end obtained, intimacies with their young companions, however varied their character, she felt would do no permanent harm.

"Dear, dear mamma!" exclaimed Emmeline, one morning about a week after her parents' return, and dropping her work to speak more eagerly, "you can not think how delightful it does seem to have you at home again; I missed this hour of the day so very much; I did not know how much I loved it when I always had it, but when you were away, every time the hour came I missed you, and longed for you so much that--I am afraid you will think me very silly--I could not help crying."

"Why, how Percy must have laughed at you, Emmy!"

"Indeed, he did not, mamma; I think he felt half inclined to cry too, the first day or two that he came home from Mr. Howard's, and could not rush up into your dressing-room, as he always does. He said it was a very different thing for you to go from home, than for him to go to London, and he did not like it at all; nor Herbert, nor Caroline, neither; though they did not say so much about it."

"I did not miss mamma after the first, quite so much as you did, Emmeline," replied her sister, ingenuously; "because when Lady Helen returned from London, she made me go there so often, and as I know you never refuse me that indulgence, mamma, and Miss Harcourt did not object, I was glad to do so."

"I have only one objection my dear Caroline, and I think you know what that is."

"That whenever I am with Annie I think and wish more about going to London, mamma; I am afraid I do; but indeed I try to think that you must know what is better for me, and try not to be discontented, though sometimes I know I do not succeed," and her eyes filled with tears.

"I am satisfied that you endeavor to trust my experience, my love; I am quite aware of all the difficulties you have to encounter in doing so, and therefore your most trifling conquest of self is a great source of comfort to me. I myself should feel that the pain of increased discontent, and so of course increased difficulty in conquering its constant accompaniment, ill temper, would more than balance the pleasure of Annie's society, and so not indulge in the one so often at the expense of the other; but of that you are yourself the best judge, and you know in such a case I always permit you to be a free agent. But what has become of Mary, Emmeline? I begged Mrs. Greville to let you be as much together as possible during my absence; did not her society afford you some pleasure?"

"Oh, yes, mamma, a great deal; but unfortunately Mr. Greville was at home almost all the time you were away, and poor Mary could not often leave her mother, and I don't feel as if it were quite right for me to go so often there, when he is at home. I am sure Mrs. Greville and Mary must both feel still more uncomfortable when any one is there to see how unkind he is, and hear the cruel things he says. Oh, how I do wish I could make poor Mary more happy!"

"She would tell you that affection is a great comfort to her, Emmy."

"Yours and Herbert's may be, mamma, because you are both so much better and wiser than I am; but I can do so little, so very little."