The Vicar of Wrexhill Part 24

CHAPTER I.

CHARLES MOWBRAY'S ARRIVAL AT THE PARK.

Never had Rosalind Torrington so strongly felt the want of some one to advise her what to do, as the morning after this disagreeable scene. Had she consulted her inclination only, she would have remained in her own apartments till the return of Mrs. Mowbray and Helen. But more than one reason prevented her doing so. In the first place, she was not without hope that her letter would immediately bring young Mowbray home; and it would be equally disagreeable to miss seeing him, by remaining in her dressing-room, or to leave it expressly for the purpose of doing so: and secondly, however far her feelings might be from perfect confidence and esteem towards Miss Cartwright, she felt that she owed her something, and that it would be ungrateful and almost cruel to leave her tete-a-tete with the bewildered f.a.n.n.y, or en tiers with her and the vicar.

She therefore determined to run the risk of encountering Mr. Cartwright as usual, but felt greatly at a loss how to treat him. Their last demele had been too serious to be forgotten by either; and her opinion of him was such, that far from wishing to conciliate him, or in any way to efface the impression of what she had said on leaving him, her inclination and her principles both led her to wish that it should be indelible, and that nothing should ever lessen the distance that was now placed between them. But Rosalind felt all the difficulty of maintaining this tone towards a person not only on terms of intimate friendship with the family, but considered by part of it as a man whose word ought to be law. She began to fear, as she meditated on the position in which she was placed, that Mowbray Park could not long continue to be her home.

The idea of Helen, and what she would feel at losing her, drew tears from her eyes; and then the remembrance of her Irish home, of her lost parents, and the terrible contrast between what she had heard last night, and the lessons and opinions of her dear father, made them flow abundantly.

The day pa.s.sed heavily. Miss Cartwright appeared to think she had done enough, and devoted herself almost wholly to the perusal of a French metaphysical work which she had found in the library, f.a.n.n.y was silent and sad, and seemed carefully to avoid being left for a moment alone with Rosalind. Mr. Cartwright made no visit to the house during the morning: but Judy informed her mistress, when she came to arrange her dress for dinner, that the reverend gentleman had been walking in the shrubberies with Miss f.a.n.n.y; and in the evening he made his entrance, as usual, through the drawing-room window.

It was the result of a strong effort produced by very excellent feeling, that kept Rosalind in the room when she saw him approach; but she had little doubt that if she went, Miss Cartwright would follow her, and she resolved that his pernicious tete-a-tetes with f.a.n.n.y should not be rendered more frequent by any selfishness of hers.

It was evident to her from Mr. Cartwright's manner through the whole evening, that it was his intention to overload her with gentle kindness, in order to set off in strong relief her harsh and persecuting spirit towards him. But not even her wish to defeat this plan could enable her to do more than answer by civil monosyllables when he spoke to her.

Miss Cartwright laid aside her book and resumed her netting as soon as she saw him approach; but as usual, she sat silent and abstracted, and the conversation was wholly carried on by the vicar and his pretty proselyte. No man, perhaps, had a greater facility in making conversation than the Vicar of Wrexhill: his habit of extempore preaching, in which he was thought by many to excel, probably contributed to give him this power. But not only had he an endless flow of words wherewith to clothe whatever thoughts suggested themselves, but moreover a most happy faculty of turning every thing around him to account. Every object, animate or inanimate, furnished him a theme; and let him begin from what point he would, (unless in the presence of n.o.ble or influential personages to whom he believed it would be distasteful,) he never failed to bring the conversation round to the subject of regeneration and grace, the blessed hopes of himself and his sect, and the a.s.sured d.a.m.nation of all the rest of the world.

f.a.n.n.y Mowbray listened to him with an earnestness that amounted to nervous anxiety, lest she should lose a word. His awful dogmas had taken fearful hold of her ardent and ill-regulated imagination; while his bland and affectionate manner, his fine features and graceful person, rendered him altogether an object of the most unbounded admiration and interest to her.

As an additional proof, probably, that he did not shrink from persecution, Mr. Cartwright again opened the piano-forte as soon as the tea equipage was removed, and asked f.a.n.n.y if she would sing with him.

"With you, Mr. Cartwright!" she exclaimed in an accent of glad surprise: "I did not know that you sang. Oh! how I wish that I were a greater proficient, that I might sing with you as I would wish to do!"

"Sing with me, my dear child, with that sweet and pious feeling which I rejoice to see hourly increasing in your heart. Sing thus, my dearest child, and you will need no greater skill than Heaven is sure to give to all who raise their voice to it. This little book, my dear Miss f.a.n.n.y,"

he continued, drawing once more the ma.n.u.script volume from his pocket, "contains much that your pure and innocent heart will approve. Do you know this air?" and he pointed to the notes of "La ci darem' la mano."

"Oh yes!" said f.a.n.n.y; "I know it very well."

"Then play it, my good child. This too we have taken as spoil from the enemy, and instead of profane Italian words, you will here find in your own language thoughts that may be spoken without fear."

f.a.n.n.y instantly complied; and though her power of singing was greatly inferior to that of Rosalind, the performance, aided by the fine ba.s.s voice of Mr. Cartwright, and an accompaniment very correctly played, was very agreeable. f.a.n.n.y herself thought she had never sung so well before, and required only to be told by the vicar what she was to do next, to prolong the performance till considerably past Mr. Cartwright's usual hour of retiring.

About an hour after the singing began, Henrietta approached Miss Torrington, and said in a whisper too low to be heard at the instrument, "My head aches dreadfully. Can you spare me?"

As she had not spoken a single syllable since the trio entered the drawing-room after dinner, Rosalind could not wholly refrain from a smile as she replied "Why, yes; I think I can."

"I am not jesting; I am suffering, Rosalind. You will not leave that girl alone with him?"

"Dear Henrietta!" cried Rosalind, taking her hand with ready sympathy, "I will not, should they sing together till morning. But is there nothing I can do for you--nothing I can give you that may relieve your head?"

"Nothing, nothing! Good night!" and she glided out of the room unseen by f.a.n.n.y and unregarded by her father.

It more than once occurred to Miss Torrington during the two tedious hours that followed her departure, that Mr. Cartwright, who from time to time stole a glance at her, prolonged his canticles for the purpose of making her sit to hear them; a species of penance for her last night's offence by no means ill imagined.

At length, however, he departed; and after exchanging a formal "Good night," the young ladies retired to their separate apartments.

Rosalind rose with a heavy heart the following morning, hardly knowing whether to wish for a letter from Charles Mowbray, which it was just possible the post might bring her, or not. If a letter arrived, there would certainly be no hope of seeing him; but if it did not, she should fancy every sound she heard foretold his approach, and she almost dreaded the having to answer all the questions he would come prepared to ask.

This state of suspense, however, did not last long; for, at least one hour before it was possible that a letter could arrive, Charles Mowbray in a chaise with four foaming post-horses rattled up to the door.

Rosalind descried him from her window before he reached the house; and her first feeling was certainly one of embarra.s.sment, as she remembered that it was her summons which had brought him there. But a moment's reflection not only recalled her motives, but the additional reasons she now had for believing she had acted wisely; so, arming herself with the consciousness of being right, she hastened down stairs to meet him, in preference to receiving a message through a servant, requesting to see her.

She found him, as she expected, in a state of considerable agitation and alarm; and feeling most truly anxious to remove whatever portion of this was unnecessary, she greeted him with the most cheerful aspect she could a.s.sume, saying, "I fear my letter has terrified you, Mr. Mowbray, more than I wished it to do. But be quite sure that now you are here every thing will go on as it ought to do; and of course, when your mother returns, we can neither of us have any farther cause of anxiety about f.a.n.n.y."

"And what is your cause of anxiety about her at present, Miss Torrington? For Heaven's sake explain yourself fully; you know not how I have been tormenting myself by fearing I know not what."

"I am bound to explain myself fully," said Rosalind gravely; "but it is not easy, I a.s.sure you."

"Only tell me at once what it is you fear. Do you imagine Mr. Cartwright hopes to persuade f.a.n.n.y to marry him?"

"I certainly did think so," said Rosalind; "but I believe now that I was mistaken."

"Thank Heaven!" cried the young man fervently. "This is a great relief, Rosalind, I a.s.sure you. I believe now I can pretty well guess what it is you do fear; and though it is provoking enough, it cannot greatly signify. We shall soon cure her of any fit of evangelicalism with which the vicar is likely to infect her."

"Heaven grant it!" exclaimed Rosalind, uttering a fervent e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n in her turn.

"Never doubt it, Miss Torrington. I have heard a great deal about this Cartwright at Oxford. He is a Cambridge man, by the way, and there are lots of men there who think him quite an apostle. But the thing does not take at Oxford, and I a.s.sure you he is famously quizzed. But the best of the joke is, that his son was within an ace of being expelled for performing more outrageous feats in the larking line than any man in the university; and in fact he must have been rusticated, had not his pious father taken him home before the business got wind, _to prepare him privately for his degree_. They say he is the greatest Pickle in Oxford; and that, spite of the new light, his father is such an a.s.s as to believe that all this is ordained only to make his election more glorious."

"For his election, Mr. Mowbray, I certainly do not care much; but for your sister--though I am aware that at her age there may be very reasonable hope that the pernicious opinions she is now imbibing may be hereafter removed, yet I am very strongly persuaded that if you were quite aware of the sort of influence used to convert her to Mr.

Cartwright's Calvinistic tenets, you would not only disapprove it, but use very effectual measures to put her quite out of his way."

"Indeed!--I confess this appears to me very unnecessary. Surely the best mode of working upon so pure a mind as f.a.n.n.y's is to reason with her, and to show her that by listening to those pernicious rhapsodies she is in fact withdrawing herself from the church of her fathers; but I think this may be done without sending her out of Mr. Cartwright's way."

"Well," replied Rosalind very meekly, "now you are here, I am quite sure that you will do every thing that is right and proper. Mrs. Mowbray cannot be much longer absent; and when she returns, you will perhaps have some conversation with her upon the subject."

"Certainly.--And so Sir Gilbert has absolutely refused to act as executor?"

"He has indeed, and spite of the most earnest entreaties from Helen.

Whatever mischief happens, I shall always think he is answerable for it; for his refusal to act threw your mother at once upon seeking counsel from Mr. Cartwright, as to what it was necessary for her to do; and from that hour the house has never been free from him for a single day."

"Provoking obstinacy!" replied Mowbray: "yet after all, Rosalind, the worst mischief, as you call it, that can happen, is our not being on such pleasant terms with them as we used to be. And the colonel is at home too; I must and will see him, let the old man be as cross as he will.--But where is your little saint? you don't keep her locked up, I hope, Rosalind? And where is this Miss of the new birth that you told me of?"

Young Mowbray threw a melancholy glance round the empty room as he spoke, and the kind-hearted Rosalind understood his feelings and truly pitied him. How different was this return home from any other he had ever made!

"The room looks desolate--does it not, Mr. Mowbray?--Even I feel it so.

I will go and let f.a.n.n.y know you are here; but what reason shall I a.s.sign for your return?"

"None at all, Miss Torrington. The whim took me, and I am here. Things are so much better than I expected, that I shall probably be back again in a day or two; but I must contrive to see young Harrington."

Rosalind left the room, heartily glad that f.a.n.n.y's brother was near her, but not without some feeling of mortification at the little importance he appeared to attach to the information she had given him.

A few short weeks before, Rosalind would have entered f.a.n.n.y's room with as much freedom as her own; but the schism which has unhappily entered so many English houses under the semblance of superior piety was rapidly doing its work at Mowbray Park; and the true friend, the familiar companion, the faithful counsellor, stood upon the threshold, and ventured not to enter till she had announced her approach by a knock at the dressing-room door.

"Come in," was uttered in a gentle and almost plaintive voice by f.a.n.n.y.

Miss Torrington entered, and, to her great astonishment, saw Mr.