The Vicar of Wrexhill Part 20

"I rather think that you are addicted to speaking truth--and perhaps you pique yourself upon it," resumed Miss Cartwright. "Will you venture to tell me what you think of the scene you witnessed?"

"You are not the person I should most naturally have selected as the confidant of my opinions respecting Mr. Cartwright," said Rosalind; "but since you put the question plainly I will answer it plainly, and confess that I suspect him not only of wishing to inculcate his own Calvinistic doctrines on the mind of f.a.n.n.y Mowbray, but moreover, notwithstanding his disproportionate age, of gaining her affections."

"Her affections?" repeated Henrietta. "And with what view do you imagine he is endeavouring to gain her affections?"

"Doubtless with a view to making her his wife; though, to be sure, the idea is preposterous."

"Sufficiently. Pray, Miss Torrington, has Miss f.a.n.n.y Mowbray an independent fortune?"

"None whatever. Like the rest of the family, she is become by the death of her father entirely dependent upon Mrs. Mowbray."

"Your fortune is entirely at your own disposal, I believe."

Rosalind looked provoked at the idle turn Miss Cartwright was giving to a conversation which, though she had not led to it, interested her deeply.

"Do not suspect me of impertinence," said Henrietta in a tone more gentle than ordinary. "But such is the case, is it not?"

"Yes, Miss Cartwright," was Rosalind's grave reply.

"Then, do you know that I think it infinitely more probable Mr.

Cartwright may have it in contemplation to make you his wife."

"I beg your pardon, Miss Cartwright," said Rosalind, "but I really thought that you were speaking of your father seriously; and it seems you are disposed to punish me for imagining you would do so, to one so nearly a stranger."

"I never jest on any subject," replied the melancholy-looking girl, knitting her dark brows into a frown of such austerity as almost made Rosalind tremble. "A reasoning being who has nothing to hope among the realities on this side the grave, and hopes nothing on the other, is not very likely to be jocose."

"Good Heavens! Miss Cartwright," exclaimed Rosalind, "what dreadful language is this? Are you determined to prove to me that there may be opinions and doctrines more terrible still than those of your father?"

"I had no meaning of the kind, I a.s.sure you," replied Henrietta, in her usual quiet manner, which always seemed to hover between the bitterness of a sneer, and the quietude or indifference of philosophy. "Pray do not trouble yourself for a moment to think about me or my opinions. You might, perhaps, as you are a bold-spirited, honest-minded girl, do some good if you fully comprehended all that was going on around you; though it is very doubtful, for it is impossible to say to what extent the besotted folly of people may go. But don't you think it might on the whole be quite as probable that Mr. Cartwright may wish to marry the mother as the daughter?"

"Mrs. Mowbray!--Good gracious! no."

"Then we differ. But may I ask you why you think otherwise?"

"One reason is, that Mrs. Mowbray's recent widowhood seems to put such an idea entirely out of the question; and another, that he appears to be positively making love to f.a.n.n.y."

"Oh!--is that all? I do a.s.sure you there is nothing at all particular in that. He would tell you himself, I am sure, if you were to enter upon the subject with him, that it is his duty to influence and lead the hearts of his flock into the way he would have them go, by _every_ means in his power."

"Then you really do not think he has been making love to f.a.n.n.y?"

"I am sure, Miss Torrington," replied Henrietta very gravely, "I did not mean to say so."

"Indeed! indeed! Miss Cartwright," said Rosalind with evident symptoms of impatience, "these riddles vex me cruelly. If your father _does_ make love to this dear fanciful child, he must, I suppose, have some hope that she will marry him?"

"How can I answer you?" exclaimed Henrietta with real feeling. "You cannot be above two or three years younger than I am, yet your purity and innocence make me feel myself a monster."

"For Heaven's sake do not trifle with me!" cried Rosalind, her face and neck dyed with indignant blood; "you surely do not mean that your father is seeking to seduce this unhappy child?"

"Watch Mr. Cartwright a little while, Rosalind Torrington, as I have done for the six last terrible years of my hateful life, and you may obtain perhaps some faint idea of the crooked, complex machinery--the movements and counter-movements, the shiftings and the balancings, by which his zig-zag course is regulated. Human pa.s.sions are in him for ever struggling with, and combating, what may be called, in their strength, _superhuman_ avarice and ambition.

"To touch, to influence, to lead, to rule, to tyrannise over the hearts and souls of all he approaches, is the great object of his life. He would willingly do this in the hearts of men,--but for the most part he has found them tough; and he now, I think, seems to rest all his hopes of fame, wealth, and station on the power he can obtain over women.--I say not," she added after a pause, while a slight blush pa.s.sed over her pallid cheek, "that I believe his senses uninfluenced by beauty;--this is far, hatefully far from being the case with Mr. Cartwright;--but he is careful, most cunningly careful, whatever victims he makes, never to become one in his own person.

"You would find, were you to watch him, that his system, both for pleasure and profit, consists of a certain graduated love-making to every woman within his reach, not too poor, too old, or too ugly. But if any among them fancy that he would sacrifice the thousandth part of a hair's breadth of his worldly hopes for all they could give him in return--they are mistaken."

"The character you paint," said Rosalind, who grew pale as she listened, "is too terrible for me fully to understand, and I would turn my eyes from the portrait, and endeavour to forget that I had ever heard of it, were not those I love endangered by it. Hateful as all this new knowledge is to me, I must still question you further, Miss Cartwright: What do you suppose to be his object in thus working upon the mind of f.a.n.n.y Mowbray?"

"His motives, depend upon it, are manifold. Religion and love, the new birth and intellectual attachment--mystical sympathy of hearts, and the certainty of eternal perdition to all that he does not take under the shadow of his wing;--these are the tools with which he works. He has got his foot--perhaps you may think it a cloven one, but, such as it is, he seems to have got it pretty firmly planted within the paling of Mowbray Park. He made me follow him hither as a volunteer visiter, very much against my inclination; but if by what I have said you may be enabled to defeat any of his various projects among ye,--for he never plots single-handed,--I shall cease to regret that I came."

"My power of doing any good," replied Rosalind, "must, I fear, be altogether destroyed by my ignorance of what Mr. Cartwright's intentions and expectations are. You have hinted various things, but all so vaguely, that I own I do not feel more capable of keeping my friends from any danger which may threaten them, than before this conversation took place."

"I am sorry for it," said Henrietta coldly, "but I have really no information more accurate to give."

"I truly believe that you have meant very kindly," said Rosalind, looking seriously distressed. "Will you go one step farther, and say what you would advise me to do, Miss Cartwright?"

"No, certainly, Miss Torrington, I will not. But I will give you a hint or two what not to do. Do not appear at all better acquainted with me than I show myself disposed to be with you. Do not make the slightest alteration in your manner of receiving Mr. Cartwright; and do not, from any motive whatever, repeat one syllable of this conversation to f.a.n.n.y Mowbray. Should you disobey this last injunction, you will be guilty of very cruel and ungrateful treachery towards me." Having said this, with the appearance of more emotion than she had hitherto manifested, Henrietta rose and left the room.

"At length," thought Rosalind, "she has spoken out; yet what are we likely to be the better for it? It seems that there is a great net thrown over us, of which we shall feel and see the meshes by-and-by, when he who has made prey of us begins to pull the draught to sh.o.r.e; but how to escape from it, the oracle sayeth not!"

On the evening of that day, Mrs. Simpson and the eldest Miss Richards walked over from Wrexhill to pay a visit at the Park. They were not aware of the absence of Mrs. Mowbray, and seemed disposed to shorten their visit on finding she was not at home; but Rosalind, who for the last hour had been sitting on thorns expecting Mr. Cartwright to make his evening call, most cordially and earnestly invited them to stay till after tea, feeling that their presence would greatly relieve the embarra.s.sment which she feared she might betray on again seeing the vicar.

"But it will be so late!" said Miss Richards. "How are we to get home after it is dark? Remember, Mrs. Simpson, there is no moon."

"It is very true," said Mrs. Simpson. "I am afraid, my dear Miss Torrington, that we must deny ourselves the pleasure you offer;--but I am such a nervous creature! It is very seldom that I stir out without ordering a man-servant to follow me; and I regret excessively that I omitted to do so this evening."

"I think," said Rosalind, colouring at her own eagerness, which she was conscious must appear rather new and rather strange to Mrs. Simpson, with whom she had hardly ever exchanged a dozen words before,--"I think Mr. Cartwright will very likely be here this evening, and perhaps he might attend you home. Do you not think, Miss Cartwright," she added, turning to Henrietta, "that it is very likely your father will call this evening?"

"Good gracious!--Miss Cartwright--I beg your pardon, I did not know you.

I hope you heard that I called;--so very happy to cultivate your acquaintance!--Oh dear! I would not miss seeing Mr. Cartwright for the world!--Thank you, my dear Miss Torrington;--thank you, Miss f.a.n.n.y: I will just set my hair to rights a little, if you will give me leave.

Perhaps, Miss f.a.n.n.y, you will permit me to go into your bed-room?" Such was the effect produced by the vicar's name upon the handsome widow.

Miss Richards coloured, smiled, spoke to Henrietta with very respectful politeness, and finally followed her friend Mrs. Simpson out of the room, accompanied by f.a.n.n.y, who willingly undertook to be their gentlewoman usher.

"Mr. Cartwright has already made some impression on these fair ladies, or I am greatly mistaken," said Henrietta. "Did you remark, Miss Torrington, the effect produced by his name?"

"I did," replied Rosalind, "and my reasonings upon it are very consolatory; for if he has already found time and inclination to produce so great effect there, why should we fear that his labours of love here should prove more dangerous in their tendency?"

"Very true. Nor do I see any reason in the world why the Mowbray is in greater peril than the Simpson, or the f.a.n.n.y than the Louisa,--excepting that one widow is about twenty times richer than the other, and the little young lady about five hundred times handsomer than the great one."

At this moment the Mr. Cartwrights, father and son, were seen turning off from the regular approach to the house, towards the little gate that opened from the lawn; a friendly and familiar mode of entrance, which seemed to have become quite habitual to them.

Rosalind, who was the first to perceive them, flew towards the door, saying, "You must excuse me for running away, Miss Cartwright. I invited that furbelow widow to stay on purpose to spare me this almost tete-a-tete meeting. I will seek the ladies and return with them."

"Then so will I too," said Henrietta, hastily following her. "I am by no means disposed to stand the cross-examination which I know will ensue if I remain here alone."

The consequence of this movement was, that the vicar and his son prepared their smiles in vain; for, on entering the drawing-room, sofas and ottomans, footstools, tables, and chairs, alone greeted them.