The Vicar of Wrexhill Part 1

The Vicar of Wrexhill.

by Mrs [Frances] Trollope.

CHAPTER I.

THE VILLAGE OF WREXHILL.--THE MOWBRAY FAMILY.--A BIRTHDAY.

The beauties of an English village have been so often dwelt upon, so often described, that I dare not linger long upon the sketch of Wrexhill, which must of necessity precede my introduction of its vicar.

And yet not even England can show many points of greater beauty than this oak-sheltered spot can display. Its peculiar style of scenery, half garden, half forest in aspect, is familiar to all who are acquainted with the New Forest, although it has features entirely its own. One of these is an overshot mill, the sparkling fall of which is accurately and most n.o.bly overarched by a pair of oaks which have long been the glory of the parish. Another is the grey and mellow beauty of its antique church, itself unenc.u.mbered by ivy, while the wall and old stone gateway of the churchyard look like a line and knot of sober green, enclosing it with such a rich and unbroken luxuriance of foliage "never sear," as seems to show that it is held sacred, and that no hand profane ever ventured to rob its venerable ma.s.s of a leaf or a berry. Close beside the church, and elevated by a very gentle ascent, stands the pretty Vicarage, as if placed expressly to keep watch and ward over the safety and repose of its sacred neighbour. The only breach in the ivy-bound fence of the churchyard, is the little wicket gate that opens from the Vicarage garden; but even this is arched over by the same immortal and unfading green,--a fitting emblem of that eternity, the hope of which emanates from the shrine it encircles. At this particular spot, indeed, the growth of the plant is so vigorous, that it is controlled with difficulty, and has not obeyed the hand which led it over the rustic arch without dropping a straggling wreath or two, which if a vicar of the nineteenth century could wear a wig, might leave him in the state coveted for Absalom by his father. The late Vicar of Wrexhill, however,--I speak of him who died a few weeks before my story begins,--would never permit these graceful pendants to be shorn, declaring that the att.i.tude they enforced on entering the churchyard was exactly such as befitted a Christian when pa.s.sing the threshold of the court of G.o.d.

Behind the Vicarage, and stretching down the side of the little hill on which it stood, so as to form a beautiful background to the church, rose a grove of lofty forest-trees, that seemed to belong to its garden, but which in fact was separated from it by the road which led to Mowbray Park, on the outskirts of which n.o.ble domain they were situated. This same road, having pa.s.sed behind the church and Vicarage, led to the village street of Wrexhill, and thence, towards various other parishes, over a common, studded with oaks and holly-bushes, on one side of which, with shelving gra.s.sy banks that gave to the scene the appearance of n.o.ble pleasure-grounds, was a sheet of water large enough to be dignified by the appellation of Wrexhill Lake. Into this, the little stream that turned the mill emptied itself, after meandering very prettily through Mowbray Park, where, by the help of a little artifice, it became wide enough at one spot to deserve a boat and boat-house, and at another to give occasion for the erection of one of the most graceful park-bridges in the county of Hampshire.

On one side of the common stands what might be called an alehouse, did not the exquisite neatness of every feature belonging to the little establishment render this vulgar appellation inappropriate. It was in truth just such a place as a town-worn and fastidious invalid might have fixed his eyes upon and said, "How I should like to lodge in that house for a week or two!" Roses and honeysuckles battled together for s.p.a.ce to display themselves over the porch, and above the windows. The little enclosure on each side the post whence swung the "Mowbray Arms"

presented to the little bay windows of the mansion such a collection of odorous plants, without a single weed to rob them of their strength, that no lady in the land, let her flower-garden be what it may, but would allow that Sally Freeman, the daughter, bar-maid, waiter, gardener at the "Mowbray Arms," understood how to manage common flowers as well as any Scotchman in her own scientific establishment.

Industry, neatness, and their fitting accompaniment and reward, comfort, were legible throughout the small domain. John Freeman brewed his own beer, double and single; Dorothy, his loving wife, baked her own bread, cured her own bacon, churned her own b.u.t.ter, and poached her own eggs, or roasted her own chicken, when they were called for by any wandering lover of woodland scenery who was lucky enough to turn his steps towards Wrexhill. The other labours of the household were performed by Sally, except indeed the watering of horses, and the like, for which services a stout, decent peasant-boy received a shilling a week, and three good meals a day: and happy was the cottager whose son got the appointment, for both in morals and manners the horse-boy at the Mowbray Arms might have set an example to his betters.

There are many other pretty spots and many more good people at Wrexhill; but they must show themselves by degrees, as it is high time the business of my story should begin.

The 2nd of May 1833 was a gay day at Wrexhill, for it was that on which Charles Mowbray came of age, and the fete given on the occasion was intended to include every human being in the parish, besides about a hundred more, neighbours and friends, who came from a greater distance to witness and share in the festivities.

A merrier, or in truth a happier set of human beings, than those a.s.sembled round the breakfast-table at Mowbray Park on the morning of that day, could hardly be found anywhere. This important epoch in the young heir's life had been long antic.i.p.ated with gay impatience, and seemed likely to be enjoyed with a fulness of contentment that should laugh to scorn the croaking prophecy which speaks of hopes fulfilled as of something wherein doubtful good is ever blended with certain disappointment. The Mowbray family had hoped to wake upon a joyous morning, and they did so: no feeling of anxiety, no touch of disease, no shadow of unkindness to any being who shared with them the breath of life, came to blight the light-hearted glee which pervaded the whole circle.

Charles Mowbray senior had hardly pa.s.sed the prime of life, though a const.i.tutional tendency to something like corpulency made him look older than he really was. Throughout his fifty summers he had scarcely known an ailment or a grief, and his spirit was as fresh within him as that of the n.o.ble-looking young man on whom his eyes rested with equal pride and love.

Mrs. Mowbray, just seven years his junior, looked as little scathed by time as himself; her slight and graceful figure indeed gave her almost the appearance of youth; and though her delicate face had lost its bloom, there was enough of beauty left to render her still a very lovely woman.

Charles Mowbray junior, the hero of the day, was, in vulgar but expressive phrase, as fine a young fellow as ever the sun shone upon.

His mind, too, was in excellent accordance with the frame it inhabited,--powerful, elastic, unwearying, and almost majestic in its unbroken vigour and still-increasing power.

"Aux coeurs heureux les vertus sont faciles," says the proverb; and as Charles Mowbray was certainly as happy as it was well possible for a man to be, he must not be overpraised for the fine qualities that warmed his heart and brightened his eye. Nevertheless, it is only justice to declare, that few human beings ever pa.s.sed through twenty-one years of life with less of evil and more of good feeling than Charles Mowbray.

Helen, his eldest sister, was a fair creature of nineteen, whose history had hitherto been, and was probably ever doomed to be, dependant upon her affections. As yet, these had been wholly made up of warm and well-requited attachment to her own family; but few people capable of loving heartily are without the capacity of suffering heartily also, if occasion calls for it, and this strength of feeling rarely leaves its possessor long in the enjoyment of such pure and unmixed felicity as that which shone in Helen's hazel eye as she threw her arms around her brother's neck, and wished him a thousand and a thousand times joy!

f.a.n.n.y Mowbray, the youngest of the family, wanted three months of sixteen. Poets have often likened young creatures of this age to an opening rose-bud, and it was doubtless just such a being as f.a.n.n.y Mowbray that first suggested the simile. Any thing more bright, more delicate, more attractive in present loveliness, or more full of promise for loveliness more perfect still, was never seen.

In addition to this surprising beauty of form and feature, she possessed many of those qualities of mind which are attributed to genius.

Meditative and imaginative in no common degree, with thoughts occasionally both soaring and profound, she pa.s.sed many hours of her existence in a manner but little understood by her family--sometimes devouring with unwearying ardour the miscellaneous contents of the large library, and sometimes indulging in the new delight of pouring forth her own wild, rambling thoughts in prose or rhyme. Unfortunately, the excellent governess who had attended the two girls from the time that Helen attained her eighth year died when f.a.n.n.y was scarcely fourteen; and the attachment of the whole family being manifested by a general declaration that it would be impossible to permit any one to supply her place, the consequence was, that the cadette of the family had a mind less well and steadily regulated than it might have been, had her good governess been spared to her a few years longer.

Though so many persons were expected before night to share the hospitalities of Mowbray Park, that, notwithstanding the ample size of its mansion, both the lady and her housekeeper were obliged to exert considerable skill in arranging their accommodation, there was but one person besides the family present at the happy breakfast-table; and she was not a guest, but an inmate.

Rosalind Torrington was a young Irish girl from the province of Ulster, who had pa.s.sed the first seventeen years of her life in great retirement, in a village not far distant from the coast, with no other society than the immediate neighbourhood afforded. Since that time her destiny had undergone a great change. She was an only child, and lost both father and mother in one of those pestilential fevers which so frequently ravage the populous districts of Ireland. Her father was one of that frightfully-wronged and much-enduring race of Protestant clergy, who, during the last few years, have suffered a degree of oppression and persecution unequalled for its barefaced injustice by any thing that the most atrocious page of history can record.

Her mother, of high English descent, had been banished from all intercourse with her patrician family, because she refused to use her influence with her exemplary husband to induce him to abandon his profitless and often perilous preferment in Ireland, where he felt he had the power as well the will to do good, in order to place himself in dependence upon his wife's brother, a bachelor viscount who had invited the impoverished family to his house, and promised some time or other to do something for him in his profession--if he could. This invitation was politely but most positively refused, and for the last three years no intercourse of any kind had taken place between them. At the end of that time, Mr. Torrington and his exemplary wife, while sedulously administering to the sick souls of their poor parishioners, caught the fever that raged among them, and perished. Mrs. Torrington survived her husband three days; and during that time her thoughts were painfully occupied by the future prospects of her highly-connected but slenderly-portioned girl.

All she could do for her, she did. She wrote to her haughty brother in such a manner as she thought, from her deathbed, must produce some effect: but lest it should not, she addressed another letter to Mrs.

Mowbray, the favourite friend of her youth, entreating her protection for her orphan child.

This letter enclosed a will fully executed, by which she left to her daughter whatever property she might die possessed of, (amounting at the utmost, as she supposed, to about five thousand pounds,) and const.i.tuting Mrs. Mowbray sole guardian of her person and property.

During the interval which had elapsed since Mrs. Torrington's estrangement from her n.o.ble brother, his lordship had contrived to quarrel also with his nephew and heir, and in the height of his resentment against him made a will, leaving the whole of his unentailed property, amounting to above eighty thousand pounds, to his sister. By a singular coincidence, Lord Trenet died two days before Mrs. Torrington; so that her will was made exactly one day after she had unconsciously become the possessor of this n.o.ble fortune. Had this most unexpected event been made known to her, however, it would probably have made no other alteration in her will than the addition of the name of some male friend, who might have taken care of the property during the minority of her child: and even this would only have been done for the purpose of saving her friend trouble; for such was her opinion of Mrs. Mowbray, that no circ.u.mstances attending her daughter's fortune could have induced her to place the precious deposit of her person in other hands.

The poor girl herself, while these momentous events were pa.s.sing, was stationed at the house of an acquaintance at a few miles' distance, whither she had been sent at the first appearance of infection; and thus in the short s.p.a.ce of ten days, from the cherished, happy darling of parents far from rich, she became an heiress and an orphan.

Rosalind Torrington was a warm-hearted, affectionate girl, who had fondly loved her parents, and she mourned for them with all her soul.

But the scene around her was so rapidly and so totally changed, and so much that was delightful mixed with the novelty, that it is not wonderful if at her age her grief wore away, and left her, sooner than she could have believed the change possible, the gay and happy inmate of Mowbray Park.

About four months had elapsed since her arrival, and she was already greatly beloved by the whole family. In age she was about half-way between the two sisters; and as she did not greatly resemble either of them in temper or acquirements, she was at this time equally the friend of both.

In most branches of female erudition Miss Torrington was decidedly inferior to the Miss Mowbrays: but nature had given her a voice and a taste for music which led her to excel in it; and so much spirit and vivacity supplied on other points the want of regular study, that by the help of her very pretty person, her good birth, and her large fortune, n.o.body but Charles Mowbray ever discovered deficiency or inferiority of any kind in Rosalind Torrington: but he had declared vehemently, the moment she arrived, that she was not one quarter so pretty as his sister f.a.n.n.y, nor one thousandth part so angelic in all ways as his sister Helen.

Such was the party who, all smiles and felicitations, first crowded clamorously round the hero of the fete which now occupied the thoughts of all, and then seated themselves at the breakfast-table, more intent upon talking of its coming glories than on doing justice to the good things before them.

"Oh, you lucky twenty-one!" exclaimed Miss Torrington, addressing young Mowbray. "Did any one ever see such sunshine!... And just think what it would have been if all the tents of the people had been drenched with rain! The inward groans for best bonnets would have checked the gratulations in their throats, and we should have had sighs perchance for cheers."

"I do not believe any single soul would have cared for rain, or thought for one moment of the weather, let it have been what it would, Rosalind," observed Helen. "Charles," she continued, "is so adored and doted upon by all the people round, both rich and poor, that I am persuaded, while they were drinking his health, there would not have been a thought bestowed on the weather."

"Oh!... To be sure, dear Helen.... I quite forgot that. Of course, a glance at the Mowbray would be worth all the Mackintosh cloaks in the world, for keeping a dry skin in a storm;--but then, you know, the hero himself might have caught cold when he went out to shine upon them--and the avoiding this is surely a blessing for which we all ought to be thankful: not but what I would have held an umbrella over him with the greatest pleasure, of course ... but, altogether, I think it is quite as well as it is."

"You won't quiz my Helen out of her love for me, Miss Rosalind Torrington," replied Charles, laughing; "so do not hope it."

"Miss Rosalind Torrington!" ... repeated the young lady indignantly.

Then rising and approaching Mrs. Mowbray, she said very solemnly, "Is that my style and t.i.tle, madam? Is there any other Miss Torrington in all the world?... Is there any necessity, because he is one-and-twenty, that he should call me Miss Rosalind?... And is it not your duty, oh! my guardianess! to support me in all my rights and privileges? And won't you please to scold him if he calls me Miss Rosalind again?"

"Beyond all question you are Miss Torrington, my dear," replied Mrs.

Mowbray; "and were not Charles unfortunately of age, and therefore legally beyond all control, I would certainly command him never to say Rosalind again."

"That is not exactly what I said. Most Respected!" replied the young lady. "He may call me Rosalind if he will; but if I am Miss any thing, I am Miss Torrington."

"You certainly are a lucky fellow, Charles," said his Father, "and Rosalind is quite right in praising the sunshine. Helen with her coaxing ways may say what she will, but our fete would have been spoilt without it."

"Indeed I think so, sir.... Pray do not believe me ungrateful. Besides, I like to see everything accord--and your bright beaming faces would have been completely out of keeping with a dark frowning sky."

"Yon are quite right.... But come, make haste with your breakfast ...

let us leave the ladies to give an inquiring glance to the decorations of the ball-room, and let you and I walk down to the walnut-trees, and see how they are getting on with the tents and the tables, and all the rest of it."

"I shall be ready in a minute, sir; but I have been scampering round the whole park already this morning, and I am as hungry as a hound. Give me one more egg, Helen, and then...."

"It is really a comfort to see what a fine appet.i.te he has!--is it not, Helen?" said Rosalind, surrounding his plate with rolls of all sorts and sizes.

"I will call you '_Wild Irish Girl_' in the very midst of the ball this evening if you do not behave better," said young Mowbray.

"And if you do, I will...."

"Come along, Charles," said his father; "her threats may put you out of heart for the whole day."