The Vicar of Wrexhill Part 44

"Williams forgets your age, Rosalind," replied Helen: but though there was pain in recalling this disqualifying truth, there was a glance of pleasure too in the look with which Helen thanked her; and Charles, as he gazed on her swollen eyes and working features, felt that, cruel as she had been to him, she must ever be the dearest, as she was the best and the loveliest, being in the world.

And there was a.s.suredly comfort, even at such a moment, in the devoted friendship of Rosalind, and in the respectful but earnest expressions of affection from the good housekeeper; but the future prospects of Charles and his sisters was one upon which it was impossible to look without dismay.

"What ought we to do?" said Helen, appealing as much to her old servant as her young friend. "Can it be our duty to live with this hypocritical and designing wretch, and call him _father_?"

"No!" replied Rosalind vehemently. "To do so would be shame and sin."

"But where can the poor girls take refuge? You forget, Miss Torrington, that they are penniless," said Charles.

"But I am not penniless, sir," replied Rosalind, looking at him with an expression of anger that proceeded wholly from his formal mode of address, but which he interpreted as the result of a manner a.s.sumed to keep him at a distance.

"May I venture to say one word, my dear children, before I take my leave of you?" said Mrs. Williams.

"Oh yes," said Helen, taking her by the hand; "I wish you would give us your advice, Williams: we are too young to decide for ourselves at such a dreadful moment as this."

"And for that very reason, my dear Miss Helen, I would have you wait a little before you decide at all. Master Charles,--I beg his pardon--Mr.

Mowbray,--is altogether a different consideration; and if so be it is any way possible for him, I think he should leave, and wait for the end elsewhere: but for you and poor Miss f.a.n.n.y, my dear young lady, I do think you must learn to bear and forbear till such time as you may leave your misguided mamma, and perhaps accept this n.o.ble young lady's offer, and share her great fortune with her,--for a time I mean, Miss Helen,--for it can't be but my mistress will come to her senses sooner or later, and then she will remember she is a mother; and she will remember too, take my word for it, the n.o.ble-hearted but too confiding gentleman, who was your father."

Tears flowed from every eye, for poor Mowbray was no exception, at this allusion to the beloved father, the gentle master, and the friendly guardian; but this did not prevent the good woman's words from having their full weight,--it rather added to it, for it brought back the vivid remembrance of one in whose temper there was no gall.

"It will be hard to bear, Williams," replied Helen; "but I do indeed believe that you are right, and that, for a time at least, this cruelly changed house must be our home. But do you know that in the midst of all our misery, I have one comfort,--I think poor f.a.n.n.y will be restored to us. Did you see the expression of her lovely face as she looked at us, Charles? Even you did not look more miserable."

"And if that be so, Miss Helen, it may atone for much; for it was a grievous sight to see the poor innocent child taking all Mr.

Cartwright's bra.s.s for gold. If she has got a peep at his cloven foot, I shall leave you almost with a light heart--for I have grieved over her."

"I will take all the comfort I can, Williams, from your words, and will follow your counsel too, upon one condition; and that is, n.o.body must prevent my setting off betimes to-morrow morning, as you and I did, Rosalind, once before, for Oakley. If my dear G.o.dmother advises me as you do, Williams, I will return and quietly put my neck into this hateful yoke, and so remain till Heaven shall see fit to release me."

"Heaven knows, I shall not oppose that plan," said Rosalind eagerly; "for to my judgment, it is the very best you can pursue."

"Indeed I think so," added Charles; "and, dark and dismal as the mornings are, I would advise you, Helen, to set out before the time arrives for either accepting or refusing the general summons to join the family breakfast-table."

"And may I go too?" said Rosalind with a glance half reproachful at Charles for the manner in which he seemed to avoid speaking to her.

"May you, Rosalind?" cried Helen. "For pity's sake, do not fancy it possible that I can do anything without you now: I should feel that you were forsaking me."

"I never forsake any one that I have ever loved," said Rosalind with emotion, "whatever you or any one else may think to the contrary."

"Well, then, we will all three go together. But you little thought, Rosalind, when you first came here, that you would have to trudge through muddy lanes, and under wintry skies for want of a carriage: but on this occasion, at least, we will not ask Mr. Cartwright to permit us the use of one of his."

"Then go to bed, my dear young ladies," said Mrs. Williams, "that you may be early up to-morrow: and let me hear from you, Miss Helen. I shall not go from Wrexhill, at least not till I know a little how you will settle every thing. I will take Mrs. Freeman's pretty little rooms, that you always admire so much, Master Charles; and there I will stay for the present."

"Oh! that beautiful little cottage that they call the Mowbray Arms!"

said Rosalind. "How we shall envy her, Helen!"

The party then separated; for the good housekeeper most strenuously opposed Rosalind's proposition of pa.s.sing the night with her friend.

"You would neither of you sleep a wink, ladies, if you bide together.

And now, though there is more sorrow with you than such young hearts ought to have, yet you will sleep when you have n.o.body to talk to about it; for what makes old folks wake and watch, will often made young folks sleep."

And the good woman's prediction proved true; though the sleep that followed the tremendous blow they had received was too feverish and full of dreams to make the waking feel like that delightful return to new life and new joy which the waking of the young should ever be.

CHAPTER XV.

WALK TO OAKLEY--DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS--THE VILLAGE INN.

Fortunately for their proposed expedition, the morning broke more brightly than a December morning could reasonably be expected to do, and the trio set off on their walk to Oakley almost as soon as it was light.

The expedition, notwithstanding the unhappy cause of it, would have been less silent and less sad, had not Charles thought Rosalind capricious and cruel, and had not Rosalind thought Charles unkind and cold.

Nothing could appear more likely to perpetuate the unfortunate misunderstanding between them than the heavy misfortune that had fallen upon Mowbray. His total dependence, contrasted with Miss Torrington's wealth, was perpetually recurring to him, producing a degree of restraint in his manner that cut Rosalind to the heart, and roused all her womanly pride to prevent the long-combated feeling of attachment to which his present sorrows gave tenfold strength from betraying itself.

The tripping lightly through summer paths, and the picking one's way through wintry lanes, are two very different operations; and notwithstanding their early rising, they found the baronet and his lady already at the breakfast-table.

The astonishment occasioned by their appearance was great, but yet it was a joyous astonishment, and it was some time before Sir Gilbert's noisy welcome subsided sufficiently for her ladyship's more quiet and more anxious inquiries could be either answered or heard.

At length there was something in the tone of Helen's voice, the glance of Rosalind's eye, and the silent pressure of Mowbray's hand, which awakened his attention.

"Why, you have walked over to see us, my dear girls, and it was behaving like a pair of little angels to do so; but you're not one half as well pleased to see me as I am to see you. Come here, Helen; sit down in my own chair here, and get warm, and then the words will thaw and come forth like the notes from the horn of Munchausen's postboy. And your black eyes, Miss Rose, don't look half as saucy as they used do: and as for Charles,--What, on earth, is the matter with ye all?"

Helen burst into tears and buried her face in Lady Harrington's bosom.

"Sir Gilbert," said Mowbray, colouring to the temples, "my mother is married!"

"The devil she is!" thundered the old man, clenching his fists.

"Married, is she?--Jezebel!--May your poor father's ghost haunt her to her dying hour!--Married! To that canting cur the Vicar of Wrexhill? Is it not so?"

"Even so, Sir Gilbert."

"Heaven help you, my poor children!" said Lady Harrington in accents of the deepest sorrow; "this is a grief that it will indeed be hard to bear!"

"And we come to you for counsel how to bear it, my dear lady," said Mowbray, "though little choice is left us. Yet, Helen says, if you tell her that she must submit to call this man her father, it will be easier for her to do it."

"Bless her, darling child!" said the old lady, fondly caressing her; "how shall I ever find the heart to bid her do what it must break her heart to think of?"

"Bid her call that rascal father?" cried Sir Gilbert. "My Lady Harrington must be strangely altered, Mowbray, before she will do that: she is a very rebellious old lady, and a most prodigious shrew; but you do her no justice, Charles, in believing she would utter such atrocious words."

"But what is to become of Helen, my dear Sir Gilbert, if she quarrel with this man?"

"Come to us, to be sure,--what's the man to her? Has your precious mother made any settlement upon you all?"

"I imagine not; indeed I may say that I am sure she has not."

"Am I a prophet, my lady? how did I tell you Mowbray's sentimental will would answer? And has this meek and gentle lady proved herself deserving of all the pretty things I said of her?"

"There is but small comfort in remembering how truly, how very truly, your predictions foretold what has happened, Sir Gilbert: and he has predicted that you must come here, my sweet Helen; let this come true likewise."