The Vicar of Wrexhill Part 36

"Works! works!" exclaimed f.a.n.n.y, wringing her hands. "Oh, Charles! how your poor soul clings to the perdition of works!"

"Gracious Heaven!" exclaimed Mowbray with great emotion, "where will all this end? What an existence for Helen, for Rosalind? Is there no cure for this folly,--this madness on one side, and this infernal craft and hypocrisy on the other?"

On hearing these words, f.a.n.n.y uttered a cry which very nearly amounted to a scream, and running off towards the house with the fleetness of a startled fawn, left her brother in a state of irritation and misery such as he had never suffered before.

The idea of seeing Sir Gilbert Harrington immediately had perhaps more comfort and consolation in it than any other which could have suggested itself, and the lanes and the fields which divided Oakley from Mowbray were traversed at a pace that soon brought the agitated young man to the baronet's door.

"Is Sir Gilbert at home, John?" he demanded of an old servant who had known him from childhood; but instead of the widely-opened door, and ready smile which used to greet him, he received a grave and hesitating "I don't know sir," from the changed domestic.

"Is Lady Harrington at home?" said Charles, vexed and colouring.

"It is likely she may be, Mr. Mowbray," said the old man relentingly.

"Will you please to wait one moment, Master Charles? I think my lady can't refuse--"

Charles's heart was full; but he did wait, and John speedily returned, saying almost in a whisper, "Please to walk in, sir; but you must go into my lady's closet,--that's the only safe place, she says."

"Safe?" repeated Charles; but he made no objection to the taking refuge in my lady's closet, and in another moment he found himself not only in the closet, but in the arms of the good old lady.

"Oh!--if Sir Gilbert could see me!" she exclaimed after very heartily hugging the young man. "He's a greater tiger than ever, Charles, and I really don't know which of us would be torn to pieces first;--but only tell me one thing before I abuse him any more:--how long have you been at home?"

"The coach broke down at Newberry," replied Charles, "and I did not get to Mowbray till nine o'clock last night."

"Thank Heaven!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lady Harrington very fervently. "Then there's hope at least for you.--But what on earth can you say to me of my beautiful Helen? Three months, Charles, three whole months since she has been near me--and she knows I dote upon her, and that Sir Gilbert himself, untameable hyena as he is, has always been loving and gentle to her, as far as his nature would permit. Then why has she treated us thus? You can't wonder, can you, that he swears l.u.s.tily every morning that ingrat.i.tude is worse than all the mortal sins put together?"

"I dare not throw the charge back upon you, my dear lady; and yet it is being ungrateful for poor Helen's true affection to believe it possible that she should so long have remained absent from you by her own free will. You know not, dearest Lady Harrington, what my poor Helen has to endure."

"Endure? What do you mean, Charles? Surely there is n.o.body living who dares to be unkind to her? My poor boy,--I am almost ashamed to ask the question, but you will forgive an old friend: is there any truth, Charles, in that abominable report? that horrid report, you know, about your mother?"

"What report, Lady Harrington?" said Mowbray, colouring like scarlet. "I have heard no report, excepting that which is indeed too sure and certain to be called a report;--namely, that she has become a violent Calvinistic Methodist."

"That's bad enough, my dear Charles,--bad enough of all conscience; and yet I have heard of what would be worse still: I have heard, Charles, that she is going to be weak and wicked enough to marry that odious hypocritical Tartuffe, the Vicar of Wrexhill."

Mowbray put his hand before his eyes, as if he had been blasted by lightning, and then replied, as steadily as he could, "I have never heard this, Lady Harrington."

"Then I trust--I trust it is not true, Charles. Helen, surely, and that bright-eyed creature Miss Torrington, who have both, I believe, (for, Heaven help me, I don't know!)--both, I believe, been staying all the time at Mowbray;--and surely--and surely, if this most atrocious deed were contemplated, they must have some knowledge of it."

"And that they certainly have not," returned Charles with recovered courage; "for I sat with them both for two or three hours last night, listening to their miserable account of this man's detestable influence over my mother and f.a.n.n.y; and certainly they would not have concealed from me such a suspicion as this, had any such existed in the breast of either."

"Quite true, my dear boy, and I can hardly tell you how welcome this a.s.surance is to me--not for your mother's sake, Charles; if you cannot bear the truth, you must not come to me,--and on this point the truth is, that I don't care one single straw about your mother. I never shall forgive her for not answering Sir Gilbert's note. I know what the writing it cost him--dear, proud, generous-hearted old fellow! And not to answer it! not to tell her children of it! No, I never shall forgive her, and I should not care the value of a rat's tail if she were to marry every tub preacher throughout England, and all their clerks in succession--that is, not for her own sake. I dare say she'll preach in a tub herself before she has done with it; but for your sakes, my dear souls, I do rejoice that it is not true."

"That would indeed complete our misery; and it is already quite bad enough, I a.s.sure you. The house, Helen says, is a perfect conventicle.

The girls are ordered to sing nothing but psalms and hymns; some of the latter so offensively ludicrous, too, as to be perfectly indecent and profane. A long extempore sermon, or lecture as he calls it, is delivered to the whole family in the great drawing-room every night; missionary boxes are not only hung up beside every door, but actually carried round by the butler whenever any one calls; and a hundred and fifty other absurdities, at which we should laugh were we in a gayer mood: but this farce has produced the saddest tragedy I ever witnessed, in the effect it has had upon our poor f.a.n.n.y. I have had some conversation with her this morning, and I do a.s.sure you that I greatly fear her reason is unsettled, or like to be so."

"Heaven forbid, Charles! Pretty innocent young thing! that would be too horrible to think of."

The old lady's eyes were full of tears, a circ.u.mstance very unusual with her, but the idea suggested struck her to the heart; and she had not yet removed the traces of this most unwonted proof of sensibility, when a heavy thump was heard at the door of the closet.

"Who's there?" said her ladyship in a voice rather raised than lowered by the emotion which dimmed her eyes.

"Let me in, my lady!" responded the voice of Sir Gilbert.

"What do you want, Sir Gilbert? I am busy."

"So I understand, my lady, and I'm come to help you."

"Will you promise, if I let you in, not to hinder me, instead?"

"I'll promise nothing, except to quarrel with you if you do not."

"Was there ever such a tyrant! Come in then; see, hear, and understand."

The door was opened, and Sir Gilbert Harrington and Charles Mowbray stood face to face. Charles smiled, and held out his hand. The baronet knit his brows, but the expression of his mouth told her experienced ladyship plainly enough that he was well enough pleased at the sight of his unexpected guest.

"He only got to Mowbray at nine o'clock last night," said Lady Harrington.

Sir Gilbert held out his hand. "Charles, I am glad to see you," said he.

"Thank Heaven!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the old lady.

"My dear Sir Gilbert," said Charles, "I have learnt your kind and friendly anger at the prolonged absence of my poor sister. The fault is not hers, Sir Gilbert; she has been most strictly forbidden to visit you."

"By her mother?"

"By her mother, Sir Gilbert."

"And pray, Charles, do you think it her duty to obey?"

"I really know not how to answer you. For a girl just nineteen to act in declared defiance of the commands of her mother, and that mother her sole surviving parent, is a line of conduct almost too bold to advise.

And yet, such is the lamentable state of infatuation to which my mother's mind appears to be reduced by the pernicious influence of this Cartwright, that I think it would be more dangerous still to recommend obedience."

"Upon my life I think so," replied Sir Gilbert, in an accent that showed he thought the proposition too self-evident to be discussed. "I have been devilish angry with the girls,--with Helen, I mean,--for I understand that little idiot, f.a.n.n.y, is just as mad as her mother; but that Helen, and that fine girl, Rosalind Torrington, should shut themselves up with an hypocritical fanatic and a canting mad woman, is enough to put any man out of patience."

"The situation has been almost enough to put Helen in her grave; she looks wretchedly; and Miss Torrington is no longer the same creature. It would wring your heart to see these poor girls, Sir Gilbert; and what are they to do?"

"Come to us, Charles. Let them both come here instantly, and remain here till your mother's mad fit is over. If it lasts, I shall advise you to take out a commission of lunacy."

"The madness is not such as a physician would recognise, Sir Gilbert; and yet I give you my honour that, from many things which my sister and Miss Torrington told me last night, I really do think my mother's reason must be in some degree deranged. And for my poor little f.a.n.n.y, six months ago the pride and darling of us all, she is, I am quite persuaded, on the verge of insanity."

"And you mean to leave her in the power of that distracted driveller, her mother, that the work may be finished?"

"What can I do, Sir Gilbert?"

"Remove them all. Take them instantly away from her, I tell you."

The blood rushed painfully to poor Mowbray's face. "You forget, Sir Gilbert," he said, "that I have not the means: you forget my father's will."

"No, sir; I do not forget it. Nor do I forget either that, had I not in a fit of contemptible pa.s.sion refused to act as executor, I might, I think it possible,--I might have plagued her heart out, and so done some good. I shall never forgive myself!"

"But you could have given us no power over the property, Sir Gilbert.