The Vicar of Wrexhill Part 56

CHAPTER IX.

THE WILL EXECUTED.

The evening was pretty far advanced when at length the house-door bell was loudly rung; and immediately afterwards Mr. Stephen Corbold entered the drawing-room looking more a.s.sured, and, as Helen thought, more detestable than ever.

Having deliberately sipped his tea, and indulged himself the while in a long steady stare in the face of the unfortunate object of his pa.s.sion, he at length rose, and with an air of much confidential importance, raising himself on his toes, and playing with his watch-chain, approached Mrs. Cartwright, and whispered something in her ear.

"Have the kindness to ring the bell, Mr. Hetherington," said the lady, addressing the curate, who, according to his frequent custom, had taken his tea at the Park, partly for the advantage of receiving the instructions of his princ.i.p.al upon sundry little points of Church and village discipline, and partly for the hope of finding some one among the young ladies less cruel than the inexorable Henrietta, who had never appeared to see him, from the moment they parted in the shrubbery.

"Tell Curtis to carry lights to my dressing-room," said Mrs. Cartwright to the servant who answered the bell.

The vicar's heart gave a bound. One hour more and he should clutch it!

One short hour more and he should at last be master of his own destiny, dependent on no fond woman's whim, trembling before no children's power to change her purpose.

"Once let her sign this will," thought he, "and if I ever leave her long enough unwatched to make another, the fault will be my own, and I will abide the consequence."

With a placid countenance that manifested no emotion of any kind, Mr.

Cartwright amused himself for a few minutes in examining a drawing just finished for the Fancy Fair, by the light of a lamp on the chimney-piece; and as he pa.s.sed behind his cousin to set it down, he condescendingly stopped to show it to him, pointing out its merits with affectionate admiration, for the artist was no other than his accomplished lady.

"Is not the expression of this head beautifully holy, cousin Stephen?

Just look at the eyes.... Chivers the butler, her maid Curtis, and my valet can witness it.... Charming is it not?"

In a short time afterwards Mrs. Cartwright rose; the attentive attorney sprang to the door, opened it, and silently followed her out of the room.

Henrietta's eye followed them, and she sighed heavily. "You do not seem well to-night, Miss Cartwright," said Helen, "and I do not feel gay; what say you to our keeping each other in countenance, and both going to bed though the clock has not yet struck ten?"

"A comfortable, and very wise proposal," replied Henrietta, rising at once. "I am much more inclined to be in bed than up; for I would rather be asleep than awake."

"It is very right for you, Henrietta, who are an invalid, to be indulged in your wish to retire early," said her father. "Good night! I am sorry that the accidental absence of your mother renders it impossible for me to hasten the hour of evening prayer. But you shall have my blessing.

May Heaven watch over your slumbers if you close your eyes in faith! If not, may he visit you in the night season, with such appalling thoughts as may awaken a right spirit within you! But for you, my dear child," he continued, turning to Helen, "I cannot suffer you to leave us so prematurely. We shall have prayers within an hour, and I do not permit any member of my family to absent herself from the performance of this sacred ordinance, without very good and sufficient reason for so doing."

"I conceive that I have very good and sufficient reason for so doing, sir," replied Helen, approaching the door: "I wish you all good night."

"She shall pay for this!" whispered one of the little demons that nestled in the vicar's heart. "Stephen must absolve me of my promise for to-night; but if I do not keep it with him n.o.bly on some future occasion, I will give him leave to tear in fragments the parchment which at this very moment is growing into a rod wherewith to scourge the insolence of this proud vixen."

It was probably not so much the failing to keep his promise with Corbold, which the late hour might readily excuse, as the displaying to his slave and curate that his power was not absolute, which galled him so severely. His wife and cousin, however, soon returned; they both looked placidly contented, as those do look, who, having had important business to transact, have done it well and thoroughly. Soon afterwards the numerous household were summoned to appear, and the labours of the day were closed with prayer, Mr. Hetherington uttering the extempore invocation, and the vicar p.r.o.nouncing the blessing: an arrangement, by the way, approved by the master of Cartwright Park for three especial reasons. First, it gave to his establishment very greatly the effect of having a domestic chaplain at its head.

Secondly, it afforded an opportunity, which the worthy Mr. Hetherington never neglected, of calling down sundry especial blessings on the vicar's own particular head, and, which was perhaps more important still, of p.r.o.nouncing a lofty eulogium on his transcendent virtues.

Thirdly, the having to rise from his knees and p.r.o.nounce the final blessing, never failed to soothe his spirit with a delicious foreboding that he might one day do so likewise in his own cathedral, and from his own proper throne: this being an object of ambition to him as dear, or dearer still, than the possession of the precious will itself.

Rarely indeed did he seat himself in his own soft chair, in his own n.o.ble library, without seeing in his mind's eye a mitre, as distinctly visible as Macbeth's air-drawn dagger was to him; and the hope that this crowning blessing would one day fall upon his favoured head, not only cheered every waking, and often every sleeping hour, but made him so generously come forward upon all occasions when a penniless Whig was to be accommodated with a seat in a Parliament, or any other subscription set on foot to help the radical poor and needy into political power and place, that he was already considered in the high places as one of the most conscientious and right-minded clergymen within the pale of the Established Church, and almost supernaturally gifted (considering he was not a Roman Catholic priest) with the power of judging political characters according to their real value.

As soon as the prayers were ended, the blessing spoken, and the servants dismissed, Mr. Corbold, whose eyes had vainly wandered round the room in search of Helen, approached the vicar, and said in a very firm and intelligible tone, "I wish to speak to you, cousin Cartwright."

"Certainly!" replied his kinsman in a voice of the most cordial friendship. "Come into my library with me, cousin Stephen."

And into the library they went; and almost before the door was shut, Mr.

Corbold exclaimed, "How am I to see Miss Helen, cousin Cartwright, if you have let her take herself off to bed?"

This very pertinent question was, however, only answered by another.

"Have you got the will, cousin Stephen?"

"Yes, I have," answered the attorney with more boldness than he had ever used in speaking to his cousin since he became a great man. "But a bargain's a bargain."

"I know it is, cousin,--and Heaven preserve to me my lawful rights and inheritance, as I faithfully keep to you the word I have given!"

"And how is it to be managed then?... Am I to go to the girl's bed-room?"

"Give me the will, cousin Stephen," said the vicar, holding out his hand to receive it, "and I will satisfy you fully upon this matter."

Mr. Corbold, however, looked extremely rebellious, and no corner of parchment could be descried about any part of his person. "A bargain's a bargain, I tell you, cousin William," he repeated doggedly; "and you may as well remember that a lawyer that is intrusted with the keeping of a will is no way bound to give it up; particularly to the party whom it chiefly concerns."

Mr. Cartwright measured his contumacious relative with his eye, very much as if he intended to floor and rifle him; but wiser thoughts prevailed, and he gently replied, seating himself in his own peculiar chair, and making a sign to his companion that he should place himself opposite: "May He, cousin Stephen, whose professing servants we are, save and deliver us from quarrelling with one another, especially at a blessed moment like this, when every thing seems fitted by his holy providence, so as to ensure us peace and prosperity in this world, and doubtless, everlasting glory in the life to come!"

"All that's very true, cousin Cartwright; and if your cloth and calling set you to speak of heavenly things, especial grace, years ago manifested in me, makes me nothing behind you in the same. But, for all that, I know well enough, that there's many a worldly-minded unprofessing lawyer, who would gain credit and honour both, by taking care to let young Mowbray know what that pious lady his mother has been about, instead of keeping the thing as secret as if it were a forgery of my own; and it is but common justice between man and man, to say nothing of cousins and professing Christians, that conduct so every way convenient and considerate as mine, should not go unrewarded. I have set my heart upon having that girl Helen, and I don't wish for any thing in the end but lawful wedlock, and all that; and the more, because I take it for granted that you don't mean altogether to leave the young woman without fortune;--but she's restive, cousin, and that you know, and we are therefore called upon, as men and Christians, to make use and profit of that wit and strength which it hath pleased Providence in its wisdom to give us over the weaker vessel; and all I ask of you is so to put it within my reach and power to do this, that the righteous ends we have in view may be obtained through the same."

"I have heard you to the end, cousin Stephen, which will, I trust, considering all things, be accepted in token of an humble spirit. What you have said, however, excepting that it was needless, is altogether reasonable, and betokens that wisdom of which the Lord hath seen fit to make you an example upon the earth. But you find that my conscience needed not your reproof. Few hours have pa.s.sed since I gave proof sufficient of the sincerity with which I desire to strengthen the ties between us. By the accident of the post-bag's being brought into my room, I was made aware that it contained a letter addressed to Helen Mowbray, evidently in the handwriting of a man. And what could it be to me, cousin Stephen, whether that unconverted girl got a letter from a man, or went without it? Nothing, positively nothing. But I remembered me of you, cousin, and of the tender affections which you had fixed upon her, and, fearless of consequences, I instantly broke the seal, and found, as I expected, a very worldly-minded proposal of marriage, without the decency of any allusion whatever to my will in the business; and I therefore of course felt it my duty to destroy it both for your sake and that of the Lord, whose blessing the impious young man did not deem it necessary to mention. Nevertheless, the proposal came from one of the first families in the county, and the girl would have been my lady in due course of nature, a thing not altogether without value to her family and father-in-law. But I never hesitated for one moment, and you may see the ashes of Colonel Harrington's love-letter under the grate."

"That was acting like the good and chosen servant, cousin William, that I have long known you to be. But, such being the case, why have you scrupled to let me speak to the young girl this night in private?"

"For the good and sufficient reason, that she chose to go, even though I told her to stay, and, without exposing myself to a very unpleasant scene before my curate and the rest of my people, I could not have detained her. Besides, at the moment of her departure I knew that the will, which you still keep from me, cousin Stephen, was not either signed or executed,--another good and sufficient reason, as I take it, for not choosing to keep the girl back by force. But fear nothing; what I have promised, that I will perform. Give me the will, cousin Stephen, and I will tell you what my scheme is for you."

"Tell me the scheme first, cousin William; that is but square and fair.

We lawyers have got our ceremonies as well as the clergy, and I don't see why they should be broken through."

"I don't very well know what you mean by ceremonies in this case, cousin, and I don't think you take the best way to oblige me; however, I am not going to shrink from my word for that. All I expect, cousin Stephen, is your word pledged to me in return, that, let what will happen, you will bring no scandal or dishonour upon my family, for so doing might be of the greatest injury to my hopes."

"I mean nothing but honour, cousin William," replied Corbold eagerly: "let me have but a fair opportunity given me, and you shall find that, though I use it, I will not abuse it. Tell me, then, what is your scheme?"

"You know that on the 12th of this month a Serious Fancy Fair is to be held in my grounds. Not only will all the rank and fashion of the county a.s.semble on the occasion, but my park-gates will be open likewise to the people. At two o'clock a very splendid collation will be ready in five of my saloons; and it is after the company have risen and left the tables to resort once more to the booths, in order to a.s.sist in the disposal of the remaining articles, that I shall permit every servant in my establishment to leave the mansion, and repair to witness the busy and impressive scene in the booths. It will be a very impressive scene, cousin Stephen, for I shall myself p.r.o.nounce a blessing upon the a.s.sembled crowd. From this I fear, my dear Stephen, that you must on this occasion absent yourself; but be a.s.sured, that as I speak those words of power, I will remember you.

"When you shall see a rush of my hired servants pour forth from my mansion upon my lawns, it is then that I shall counsel you to retire, enter the house by the library windows, and if questioned, say you are sent there on an errand by me. From my library, find your way up the grand staircase to the small apartment which I permit my wife to appropriate as her dressing-room--the same in which you have this night executed, as I trust, her will. There remain, concealed perhaps behind the curtains, till Helen Mowbray enters. I will deposit in that room something valuable and curious for sale, which shall be forgotten till you are safely hidden there, and then I will command my very dear and obedient wife to send Miss Helen to seek for it. Does this plan please you, cousin?"

Before speaking a word, Mr. Corbold drew the will from his long coat pocket, and placed it in the hands of the vicar. This was a species of mute eloquence most perfectly understood by the person to whom it was addressed:

The Vicar of Wrexhill received the parchment with much solemnity in his two hands, and bending his head upon it, exclaimed "May the blessing of the Lord be with me and my heirs for ever!"

It may possibly appear improbable to many persons that such a phrase as this last should recur in ordinary discourse so frequently as I have represented it to do. But to those not belonging to the sect, and therefore not so familiarized with its phraseology as to be unconscious of its peculiarity, and who yet have been thrown by accident within reach of hearing it, I need offer no explanation; for they must know by experience that this, or expressions of equally religious formation and import, are in constant use among them.

Sometimes, especially in the company of the profane, they are uttered _sotto voce_, as if to satisfy the secret conscience. Sometimes, in equally un-elect society, they are p.r.o.nounced aloud and with most distinct emphasis, as if to show that the speaker feared not the ribald laugh of the scorner, and held himself ready to perform this, or any other feat likely to ensure the same petty, but glorious martyrdom, despite any possible quantum of absurdity that may attach thereto.

The two kinsmen being now mutually satisfied with each other's conduct, shook hands and parted; Mr. Corbold ruminating, as he walked slowly back to Wrexhill, on the happy termination to which he was at last likely to bring his. .h.i.therto unpropitious wooing, and Mr. Cartwright gazing with unspeakable delight on the signatures and seals which secured to him, and his heirs for ever, the possession of all the wealth and state in which he now revelled. Having satisfied himself that all was right, he opened a secret drawer in his library table, laid the precious parchment within it, and having turned the lock, actually kissed the key that secured his treasure. He then carefully secured it to his watch-chain, and returned to escort his lady to her chamber.