The Vicar of Wrexhill Part 46

The boy obeyed, saying, as he drew near, "What's your pleasure, sir?"

"Fix your ladder against this post, d'ye hear? and mount--steady, mind,--and take the sign off the hooks. When you have got it loose, you may let it drop. If it breaks, it's no matter,--it is of no farther value."

"Take down master's sign, your honour?" said Jem, opening his mouth and eyes to their greatest dimensions, but not approaching an inch nearer to the sign-post.

"Do you dispute my orders, you little ruffian?" cried the holy vicar, his eyes flas.h.i.+ng, and his cane raised in a very threatening att.i.tude.

"You be the parson of the parish, I know," said the boy, looking steadily in his face; "and they do say you be something else besides, now; but I don't see that's a reason for my lugging master's sign down."

At this moment the feelings of the man overcame those of the saint, and Mr. Cartwright seizing upon the ladder, succeeded in disengaging it from the boy's hands, and himself placing it against the post, had already got one foot upon it, when Mrs. Freeman stepped back, and taking a quiet but firm hold of his arm, said, "It is a trespa.s.s and a damage you are committing, sir, and I warn you to desist; and I wish with all my heart that there was no worser trespa.s.s and damage upon your conscience--or at least that there was still as good time to stop it. But, married or not to the lady, we won't have nothing to do with your arms, Mr. Cartwright, nor your legs, neither, if you please, sir; so don't be after climbing that fas.h.i.+on to disturb our property, for it don't look clerical nohow."

Mr. Cartwright raised his voice much beyond its usual pitch, to answer; and at this moment Sally and the traveller, moved by a very natural feeling of curiosity, joined the group.

"Why, what's the gentleman after?" said the wayfaring man, deliberately taking out a pair of huge near-sighted spectacles to examine into the mystery. "I should take un to be a parson by his cloth; only I never did hear of a reverend climbing a ladder, save and except the famous Dr.

Dodd, as I've read of in the Newgate Calendar."

This harangue, short as it was, saved the Mowbray Arms from farther molestation for the present; for the vicar withdrew his foot. But the glance with which he greeted the speaker was very nearly awful. Dorothy Freeman, however, turned on her heel, nothing heeding it: her guest and daughter followed her into the house; Jem quietly took up his ladder and proceeded on his business; and the Vicar of Wrexhill, with feelings which the hope of future vengeance alone enabled him to endure with decent philosophy, was fain to turn on his heel also and walk off.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

VOLUME THE THIRD.

CHAPTER I.

MR. AND MRS. CARTWRIGHT'S LETTER.

The very elegant cab, with its beautiful horse and accoutrements, led round to the door of the Vicarage as his own--the agreeable vivacity, as he always thought it, of his remarkably clever son--the mult.i.tude of low bows and lower curtsies which greeted him as he drove along--and above all, perhaps, the merry peal from the church tower, which had been ordered by himself to ring him into Mowbray Park, produced altogether so favourable an effect upon the nerves of the vicar, that when he stopped at the portico of his mansion, his spirits and his temper appeared altogether to have recovered the shock they had received at the foot of the sign-post.

The family party which met at dinner consisted of Mr. and Mrs.

Cartwright, Miss Cartwright, Mr. Jacob Cartwright, and poor Charles Mowbray and his sister f.a.n.n.y.

Mowbray thought the genial hour of dinner might probably be the most favourable for mentioning the invitation of Sir Gilbert and Lady Harrington to his sister and Miss Torrington; an idea which probably occurred to him in consequence of the remarkably well pleased and complaisant air visible on his stepfather's countenance as he took his place at the bottom of the table. Poor Charles! he made this observation, and he determined to profit by it; though it was not without a pang that he saw himself thus pushed from the stool that nature and fortune seemed to have a.s.signed to him.

"I am glad," thought he, "that the proud Rosalind, who advised me to lay my fortune at the feet of no one, is not here to witness the moment at which I take my place at my father's board, Lord of my presence and no land beside!"

But his young spirit soon o'er mastered the sensation which seemed threatening to choke him, when Mr. Cartwright said in the most obliging voice in the world, "Charles, let me give you some soup."

This over, he said with the easiest accent he could a.s.sume, and addressing his mother, "I am the bearer, ma'am, of a message from Lady Harrington. She hopes that you will spare her the society of Miss Torrington and Helen for a short time."

Mrs. Cartwright looked at her husband to ascertain his sentiments, before she ventured to have any of her own.

"It is very considerate of the old lady," said the vicar, with a soft smile, of which his daughter only knew the full value. "I dare say she thought we should be a good deal engaged just at first.... Chivers!

don't you see Mr. Jacob Cartwright is waiting for sauce?... I think, my love, we shall make no objection to the arrangement: however, we will talk together on the subject before we decide."

As this amiable speech will not be found to accord exactly with his subsequent conduct, it may be well to remark that the servants were waiting at table, who doubtless would report his answer, and speculate on the temper of it.

The family party seemed expected to sit at table rather longer than usual. The master of the banquet was evidently enjoying himself; and though Charles sickened alike at his dignity and his condescension, and Henrietta looked more pale and f.a.n.n.y more melancholy every moment, still Mr. Jacob appeared in ecstacies; and as Mrs. Cartwright continued to smile upon her handsome husband with every symptom of satisfaction, he continued to perform his new and delightful task at the bottom of the table till long past the usual hour of withdrawing.

At length, however, the watchful bride received the little nod which her husband had that morning informed her must always precede her moving from table. The ladies retired, and Charles followed them as far as the hall, where, impatiently seizing upon his hat, and wrapping himself in his cloak, he set off, despite the heavy darkness of the night, to relieve his heart from the load that oppressed it, by pa.s.sing an hour at Oakley.

Mr. Cartwright and Jacob remained in the dining-room for another very delightful half-hour; and then followed coffee and tea, and f.a.n.n.y's own hymns sung to Irish melodies, and a few conjugal kindnesses exchanged on the sofa; and Henrietta pleaded illness and went to bed; and then another very appropriate extempore prayer was uttered, and the family separated.

"Will you not take a little wine and water, and a biscuit, my dear Mr.

Cartwright?" said his attentive wife. "You always used to do it."

"I had rather the tray were taken to your dressing-room, my love."

There was something so affectionately comfortable in the proposition, that the lady added a tender smile to her nodded a.s.sent, and in a few minutes the newly-married pair found themselves in robes de chambre, luxuriously seated in two soft arm-chairs before a blazing fire, in the very room that a few short weeks before had witnessed the first full disclosure of the vicar's love.

Madeira, sugar, nutmeg, hot water, and dainty biscuits, tempted to negus and to chat; and thus the conversation ran:

"Only second to my service to the Lord, my Clara, is my adoration of you!" began the fond husband; "and in nothing perhaps shall I be more likely to show this, than in the pains I shall almost involuntarily take to guard you from every spiteful and envious observation which our union, sweetest, is likely to excite. It was in this spirit, my beauteous Clara, that I replied in the manner I did to the message from those very infamous people the Harringtons. Had I, my love, at once proclaimed my feelings on the subject, I well knew what the result would be. You would have been abused throughout the country for having married a tyrant, whose first act of power was to vex and thwart your children.

Therefore, when your sweet eyes looked towards mine, for the purpose of consulting me, I at once decided upon the line of conduct most certain of securing you from any invidious remark."

"How very kind! My dearest husband, I must pray for power to prove my grat.i.tude for such kindness as I ought!"

"Sweet love! Together will we pray--together learn how best to prove the virtuous tenderness of our souls! But do not, my Clara, suspect me guilty of the contemptible weakness of really intending that your daughter and your ward should remain inmates in a family that has so cruelly insulted you. Oh! do not believe it! No! I would rather submit to insult myself in the most painful form, than permit you, my best beloved, to encounter it unresisted. You must write, my Clara--you must write a letter to Helen, and send it with the carriage early to-morrow morning to Oakley. It must be such a letter, dearest, as shall bring her home without an hour's delay."

"But, my dearest Mr. Cartwright, Charles is gone there to-night, you may depend upon it, and probably for the express purpose of telling the girls how graciously you received the invitation."

"You think so, my Clara? I own I hoped it was the case. This, you see, is exactly what we could most wish to happen. My answer was spoken precisely in the spirit which I thought could be repeated most favourably for you. Now therefore your a.s.serting a mother's rights and a mother's feelings must do you honour even in the eyes of those you disoblige, and no sort of reflection fall upon the blessed choice which has made me the happiest of men."

"That was so thoughtful of you!" replied Mrs. Cartwright, kissing the hand that clasped hers. "But what shall I say to Helen, dearest?"

"Give me your desk, my Clara, and I will write a line or two, that you shall copy. It must be expressed with strength and firmness, my best love, and it may prevent a repet.i.tion of this very improper request for the future."

The desk was brought; and while Mrs. Cartwright prepared a second gla.s.s of negus for the vicar, who declared that the night was unusually chilly, he composed the following epistle:

"Helen!

"That it should have entered into your heart, into the heart of my own dear child, to wish for permission to become the guest of a family who from the hour of your late father's death has ever treated me with the most cruel and unmerited unkindness, is a mystery that I cannot understand. It was this unkindness which drove me, sooner than I could have wished to do it, to find a friend and adviser in Mr. Cartwright; and my only fear now is, that his indulgent gentleness towards my children may prevent his being so firm a support to me in the guiding them as I may sometimes require. But in the present instance I want no strength beyond my own to declare to you, that I will not permit you to remain an hour longer at Sir Gilbert Harrington's; that I command you instantly to put yourself into the carriage I send for you, and return to Cartwright Park; (for so, of course, will my residence be called for the future;) and moreover, I beg you to inform the unprincipled pair who would seduce you from your mother's roof, that if on the present or any future occasion they should persuade you to commit so great a sin, I shall take legal measures to recover the possession of your person till such time as you shall be of age; when, if unhappily evil counsellors should still have influence over you, I shall give you up to them, to penniless obscurity, to your own heart's remorse, and to that sentence of everlasting condemnation which will in such case infallibly doom you to the region where there is howling and gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth.

"As for my ward Miss Torrington, I must of course take the same summary mode of getting her again under my protection, for such time as I shall continue to be her legal guardian.

"CLARA HELENA FRANCES CARTWRIGHT.

"Cartwright Park, Wednesday."

When this composition was completed, Mr. Cartwright turned the desk to his lady, laid a fair sheet of blank paper before her, put a pen into her hand, drew the wax-lights near her, and then set about sipping the negus she had so kindly prepared for him, without appearing to think it at all necessary to ask her opinion of the doc.u.ment she was about to copy.

Being, however, rather new to the yoke into which it had pleased her to thrust her head, she took the liberty of reading it. A slight augmentation of colour was perceived on her delicate cheek as she proceeded, by the watchful eye of her husband, as he turned it towards her, over the top of the beautifully cut goblet he held in his hand. But he nibbled a biscuit, and said nothing.