The Mother's Recompense Volume I Part 9

"If you look around the circle in which I visit intimately, Caroline, you will find that did you act according to your own wishes, you would stand more alone than were you to regard mine. I have done wrong in ever allowing you to be as intimate with Miss Grahame as you are. You looked surprised and angry when I mentioned the change that had taken place in your conduct."

"I had sufficient reason for surprise," replied Caroline, impatiently, "I was not aware that my character was so weak, as to turn and change with every new acquaintance."

"Are you then the same girl you were at Oakwood?" demanded Mrs.

Hamilton, gravely yet sadly.

A sudden pang of conscience smote the heart of the mistaken girl at these words, a sob rose choking in her throat, and she longed to have given vent to the tears which pride, anger, and remorse were summoning, but she would not, and answered according to those evil whisperings, which before she had only indulged in secret.

"If I am changed," she answered pa.s.sionately, "it is because neither you nor papa are the same. At Oakwood I was free, I had full liberty to act, speak, think as I pleased, while here a chain is thrown around my simplest action; my very words are turned into weapons against me; my friendship disapproved of, and in that at least surely I may have liberty to choose for myself."

"You have," replied Mrs. Hamilton mildly. "I complain not, Caroline, of the pain you have inflicted upon me, in so completely withdrawing your confidence and friendship, to bestow them upon a young girl. I control not your affection, but it is my duty, and I will obey it, to warn you when I see your favourite companion likely to lead you wrong. Had your every thought and feeling been open to my inspection as at Oakwood, would you have trifled as you have with the most sacred feelings of a fellow-creature? would you have called forth love by every winning art, by marked preference to reject it, when acknowledged, with scorn, with triumph ill concealed? would you have sported thus with a heart whose affections would do honour to the favoured one on whom they were bestowed? would you have cast aside in this manner all that integrity and honour I hoped and believed were your own? Caroline, you have disappointed and deceived your parents; you have blighted their fondest hopes, and destroyed, sinfully destroyed, the peace of a n.o.ble, virtuous, excellent young man, who loved you with all the deep fervour of an enthusiastic soul. To have beheld him your husband would have fulfilled every wish, every hope entertained by your father and myself.

I would have intrusted your happiness to his care without one doubt arising within me; and you have spurned his offer, rejected him without reason, without regret, without sympathy for his wounded and disappointed feelings, without giving him one hope that in time his affection might be returned. Caroline, why have you thus decidedly rejected him? what is there in the young man you see to bid you tremble for your future happiness?"

Caroline answered not; she had leaned her arms on the cushion of the couch, and buried her face upon them, while her mother spoke, and Mrs.

Hamilton in vain waited for her reply.

"Caroline," she continued, in a tone of such appealing affection, it seemed strange that it touched not the heart of her child, "Caroline, I will not intrude on your confidence, but one question I must ask, and I implore you to answer me truly--do you love another?"

Still Caroline spoke not, moved not. Her mother continued, "If you do, why should you hide it from me, your own mother, Caroline? You believe my conduct changed towards you, but you have condemned me without proof.

You have abandoned my sympathy--shrunk from my love. Try me now, my sweet child; if you love another, confess it, and we will do what we can to make that love happy; if it be returned, why should you conceal it?

and if it be not, Caroline, my child, will you refuse even the poor comfort your mother can bestow?"

She spoke in vain; but could she have read her daughter's heart at that moment, maternal affection might not have been so deeply pained as it was by this strange silence. Regret, deep, though unavailing, had been Caroline's portion, from the moment she had reflected soberly on her rejection of St. Eval. She recalled his every word, his looks of respectful yet ardent admiration, and she wept at that infatuation which had bade her act as she had done; and then his look of controlled contempt stung her to the quick. He meant not, perhaps, that his glance should have so clearly denoted that she had sunk in his estimation, it did not at the moment, but it did when in solitude she recalled it, and she felt that she deserved it. In vain in those moments did she struggle to call up the vision of Lord Alphingham, his words of love, his looks of even more fervid pa.s.sion, his image would not rise to banish that of St. Eval; and if Caroline had not still been blinded by the influence and arguments of Annie, had she given her own good sense one half-hour's uncontrolled dominion, she would have discovered, that if love had secretly and unsuspiciously entered her heart, it was not for Lord Alphingham. Had she really loved him, she could not have resisted the fond appeal of her mother; but to express in words all the confused and indefinable emotions then filling her heart was impossible. She continued for several minutes silent, and Mrs. Hamilton felt too deeply pained and disappointed to speak again. Her daughter had spoken to her that morning as she had seldom done even in her childhood. Then her mother could look forward to years of reason and maturity for the improvement of those errors; now others had arisen, and if her control were once so entirely thrown aside, could she ever regain sufficient influence to lead her right. Seldom had Caroline's conduct given her so much pain as in the disclosures and events of that morning.

"Is it absolutely necessary," Caroline at length said, summoning, as her aunt Eleanor had often done, pride to drown the whisperings of conscience, "that I must love another, because I rejected Lord St. Eval?

In such an important step as marriage, I should imagine my own inclinations were the first to be consulted. It would be strange indeed, if, after all I have heard you say on the evil of forcing young women to marry, that you should compel your own child to accept the first offer she received."

"You do me injustice, Caroline," replied her mother, controlling with an effort natural displeasure; "St. Eval would not accept an unwilling bride, nor after what has pa.s.sed would your father and myself deem you worthy to become his wife."

"Then long may this paragon of excellence remain away," replied Caroline, with indignant haughtiness kindling in every feature. "I have no wish ever to a.s.sociate again with one by whose side I am deemed so unworthy, even by my parents."

"Those who love you best, Caroline, are ever the first to behold and deplore your faults. Have you acted honourably? have you done worthily in exciting love merely to give pain, to amuse and gratify your own love of power?"

"I have done no more than other girls do with impunity, without even notice; and surely that which is so generally practised cannot demand such severe censure as you bestow on it."

"And therefore you would make custom an excuse for sin, Caroline. Would you have spoken thus a few months since? would you have questioned the justice of your mother's sentences? and yet you say you are not changed.

Is it any excuse for a wrong action, because others do it? Had you been differently instructed it might be, but not when from your earliest years I have endeavoured to reason with, and to convince you of the sin of coquetry, to which from a child you have been inclined. You have acted more sinfully than many whose coquetry has been more general. You devoted yourself to one alone, encouraged, flattered, because you saw he was already attracted, instead of adhering to that distant behaviour which would have at once told him you could feel no more for him than as a friend. You would have prevented future suffering, by banishing from the first all secret hopes; but no, you wished to prove you could accomplish more than others, by captivating one so reserved and superior as St. Eval. Do not interrupt me by a denial, Caroline, for you dare not deliberately say such was not your motive. That n.o.ble integrity which I have so long believed your own, you have exiled from your heart. Your entire conduct towards St. Eval has been one continued falsehood, and are you then worthy to be united to one who is truth, honour, n.o.bleness itself? Had you loved another, your rejection of this young man might have been excused, but not your behaviour towards him; for that not one good reason can be brought forward in excuse. I am speaking severely, Caroline, and perhaps my every word may alienate your confidence and affection still farther from me; but my duty shall be done, painful as it may be both to yourself and me. I cannot speak tamely on a subject in which the future character and welfare of my child are concerned. I can no longer trust in your integrity. Spite of your change in manner and in feeling towards me, I still confided in your unsullied honour; that I can no longer do, you have forfeited my confidence, Caroline, and not until I see a total change of conduct can you ever hope to regain it.

That perhaps will not grieve you, as it would once have done; but unless you redeem your character," she continued "the serious displeasure of both your father and myself will be yours, and we shall, in all probability, find some means of withdrawing you from the society which has been so injurious to the purity of your character. Whatever others may do, it is your duty to act according to the principles of your parents, and not to those of others; and therefore, for the future, I desire you will abide by my criterion of right and wrong, and not by the misleading laws of custom. When you have conquered the irritation and anger which my words have occasioned, you may perhaps agree to the justice of what I have said, till then I do not expect it; but whether your reason approves of it or not, I desire your implicit obedience. If you have anything you desire to do, you may leave me, Caroline, I do not wish to detain you any longer."

In silence, too sullen to give any hope of a repentant feeling or judgment, convinced, Caroline had listened to her mother's words. They were indeed unusually severe; but her manner from the beginning of that interview could not have lessened the displeasure which she already felt. We have known Mrs. Hamilton from the commencement of her career, when as a girl not older than Caroline herself, she mingled with the world, and we cannot fail to have perceived her detestation of the fashionable sin of coquetry. The remembrance of Eleanor and all the evils she entailed upon herself by the indulgence of that sinful fault, were still vividly acute, and cost what it might, both to herself and, who was dearer still, her child, she would do her duty, and endeavour to turn her from the evil path. She saw that Caroline was in no mood for gentle words and tenderness to have any effect, and therefore, though at variance as it was to her nature, she spoke with some severity and her usual unwavering decision. She could read no promise of amendment or contrition in those haughty and sullen features, but she urged no more, for it might only exasperate and lead her farther from conviction.

For some few minutes Caroline remained in that same posture. Evil pa.s.sions of varied nature suddenly appeared to gain ascendancy in that innately n.o.ble heart, and prevented all expressions that might have soothed her mother's solicitude. Hastily rising, without a word, she abruptly left the room, and retired to her own, where she gave vent to a brief but pa.s.sionate flood of tears, but they cooled not the fever of her brain; her haughty spirit revolted from her mother's just severity.

"To be scolded, threatened, desired to obey, like a child, an infant; what girl of my age would bear it tamely? Well might Annie say I was a slave, not permitted to act or even think according to my own discretion; well might she say no other mother behaved to her daughters as mine; to be kept in complete thraldom; to be threatened, if I do not behave better, to be removed from the scenes I so much love, buried again at home I suppose; is it a wonder I am changed? Is it strange that I should no longer feel for mamma as formerly? and even Emmeline must condemn me, call me to account for my actions, and my intimacy with Annie is made a subject of reproach; but if I do not see her as often as before, I can write, thank heaven, and at least her sympathy and affection will be mine."

Such was the tenor of her secret thoughts, and she followed them up by writing to her friend a lengthened and heightened description of all that had occurred that morning, dwelling long and indignantly on what she termed the cruel and unjust severity of her mother, and imploring, as such confidential letters generally did, Annie's secrecy and sympathy. The epistle was despatched, and quickly answered, in a style which, as might be imagined, increased all Caroline's feelings of indignation towards her parents, and bade her rely still more confidingly on her false friend, who, she taught herself to believe, was almost the only person who really cared for her best interests.

Days pa.s.sed, but neither Mr. nor Mrs. Hamilton changed in the coldness of their manner towards their child. Perhaps such conduct added fire to the already resentful girl; but surely they might be pardoned for acting as they did. Caroline's irritability increased, and Annie's secret letters were ever at hand to soothe while they excited. She ever endeavoured to turn her friend's attention from what she termed her severe trials to the devotion felt towards her by Lord Alphingham, declaring that each interview confirmed more and more her belief in his pa.s.sionate admiration. The evil influence which Miss Grahame's letters had upon the mind of Caroline in her private hours, was apparent in her manner to Lord Alphingham, when they chanced to meet, but even more guarded than she had hitherto been, did Caroline become in her behaviour towards him when her parents were present. Their conduct had confirmed, to her heated and mistaken fancy, Annie's representation of their unjustifiable severity, and that, indignant at her rejection of St.

Eval, they would unhesitatingly refuse their consent to her acceptance of the Viscount. Caroline thought not to ask herself how then is my intimacy with him to end? She only enjoyed the present as much as she could, while the coldness of her parents, amidst all her pride and boasted stoicism, still tortured her; and to the future Annie as yet completely prevented her looking. Miss Grahame's plans appeared indeed to thrive, and many were the confidential and triumphant conversations she held upon the subject with Miss Malison, who became more and more indignant at Mrs. Hamilton's intrusive conduct in taking so much notice of Lilla, notwithstanding the tales industriously circulated against her. Her own severity and malevolence, however, appeared about to become her foes; for about this time a slight change with regard to the happiness of her injured pupil took place, which threatened to banish her from Mr. Grahame's family.

One morning Mrs. Hamilton, accompanied by Ellen, called on Lady Helen rather earlier than usual, but found their friend not yet visible, an attack of indisposition confining her to her couch later than usual, but Lady Helen sending to entreat her friend not to leave her house without seeing her, Mrs. Hamilton determined on waiting. Annie had gone out with Miss Malison.

"No wonder our poor Lilla proceeds but slowly in her education,"

remarked Mrs. Hamilton, when the footman gave her this information. "If she be so much neglected, her father has no right to expect much progress. I wish from my heart that I could think of some plan that would tend not only to the happiness of this poor girl, but in the end to that of her father also. Were those faults now apparent in her character judiciously removed, I feel confident Mr. Grahame would have more comfort in her than in either of his other children."

"She is always very different when she is with us," observed Ellen. "I can never discover those evil pa.s.sions of which so many accuse her; pa.s.sionate she is, but that might be controlled."

"It never can he while Miss Malison remains with her, for her treatment is such that each year but increases the evil." A sound as of some one sobbing violently in the adjoining room interrupted their conversation.

Fancying it came from the object of their conversation, Mrs. Hamilton opened the folding-doors, and discovered her young friend weeping violently, almost convulsively, on the sofa. Ever alive to sorrow, of whatever nature or at whatever age, Mrs. Hamilton, followed by Ellen, hastened towards her.

"What has happened, Lilla?" she said, soothingly. "What has chanced to call forth this violent grief? tell me, my love. You know you need not hesitate to trust me with your sorrows."

Unused, save from that one dear friend, to hear the voice of sympathy and kindness, Lilla flung her arms pa.s.sionately round her neck, and clung to her for some few minutes till her choking sobs permitted her to speak.

"Aunt Augusta says I am so wicked, so very wicked, that mamma ought not to keep me at home, that I am not at all too old to go to school, and mamma says that I shall go--and--and"--

"But what occasioned your aunt to advise such an alternative?" demanded Mrs. Hamilton, gently.

"Oh, because--because I know I was very wicked, but I could not help it.

Miss Malison had been tormenting me all the morning, and exciting my anger; and then Annie chose to do all she could to call it forth before mamma, and so I just told her what I thought of both her and her amiable confidant. I hate them both," she continued, with a vehemence even the presence of Mrs. Hamilton could not restrain, "and I wish from my heart I could never see them more."

"If you gave vent to such sinful words before your mother," replied Mrs.

Hamilton, gravely, "I do not wonder at your aunt's suggesting what she did. How often have I entreated you to leave the room when your sister commences her unkind endeavours to excite your anger, and thus give your mother a proof of your consideration for her present state of health, and evince to your sister, that if you cannot calmly listen to her words, you can at least avoid them."

"Mamma never takes any notice, however much I may endeavour to please her; if she would only caress me, and praise me sometimes, I know I should be a very different girl. Then I could bear all Annie's cruel words; but I will not, I will never put up with them, and permit either her or Miss Malison to govern me and chain down my spirit, as they try all they can to do. No one can ever know the constant ill-treatment which I receive from both; everything I do, every word I speak, is altered to suit their purpose, and mamma believes all they say. They shall feel my power one day when they least expect it. I will not be made so constantly miserable unrevenged."

"Lilla, dear Lilla," exclaimed Ellen, imploringly, "do not speak thus; you do not know what you say. You would not return evil for evil, and on your sister. Do not, pray do not let your anger, however just, obtain so much dominion."

"Annie never treats me as a sister, and I do not see why I should practise such forbearance towards her; but I will do all I can, indeed I will, if you will persuade papa not to send me from home. Oh, do not look at me so gravely and sadly, dearest, dearest Mrs. Hamilton,"

continued the impetuous and misguided but naturally right feeling child.

"I can bear any one's displeasure but yours; but when you look displeased with me I feel so very, very wretched. I know I deserve to lose all your kindness, for I never follow your advice; I deserve that you should hate me, as every one else does; but you do not know all I have to endure. Oh! do not let me go from home."

"I cannot persuade your father to let you remain at home, my dear girl,"

replied Mrs. Hamilton, drawing her young companion closer to her, and speaking with soothing tenderness, "because I agree with your aunt in thinking it would be really the best thing for you."

"Then I have lost every hope," exclaimed the impatient girl, clasping her hands despairingly. "Papa would never have consented, if you had advised him not, and you, you must think me as wicked as aunt Augusta does;" and the tears she had checked now burst violently forth anew.

"You mistake me, my love, quite mistake me; it is not because I believe you are not fitted to a.s.sociate with your domestic circle. I believe if she were but properly encouraged, my little Lilla would add much to the comfort of both her parents; and I do not at all despair of seeing that the case. But at present I must advise your leaving home for a few years, because I really do think it would add much to your happiness."

"Happiness!" repeated Lilla, in an accent of extreme surprise. "School bring happiness?"

"Are you happy at home, my love? is not your life at present one continued scene of wretchedness? What is it that you so much dislike in the idea of school?"

"The control, the subordination, the irksome formula of lessons, prim governesses, satirical scholars." Neither Mrs. Hamilton nor Ellen could prevent a smile.

"If such things are all you dread, my dear, I have no fear of soon overcoming them," the former said, playfully. "I will do all I can to persuade your father not to send you to a large fashionable seminary, where such things may be the case; but I know a lady who lives at Hampstead, and under whose kind guidance I am sure you will be happy, much more so than you are now. If you would only think calmly on the subject, I am sure you would agree in all I urge."

"But no one treats me as a reasonable person at home. If mamma sends me to school, it will not be for my happiness, but because everybody thinks me so wicked, there is no managing me at home; and then in the holidays I shall hear nothing but the wonderful improvement school discipline has made, it will be no credit to my own efforts, and so there will be no pleasure in making any."