The Vicar of Wrexhill Part 47

When the perusal of it was completed, Mrs. Cartwright dipped the pen she still held between her fingers, in the ink; but before she began to use it, she paused, the colour mounted a little higher still, and she ventured to say in the very gentlest accent in the world, "My dear friend,--do you not think this might be a little softened?"

"As how, my sweetest?"

Mrs. Cartwright's eye again ran over it, but she seemed unwilling to speak: at length she said, "If you, dear Cartwright, agree with me about it, you would make the alteration so much better yourself!"

"Perhaps I might, my lovely Clara; but as the fact is that I do not agree with you at all on the subject, I suspect your epistle would be rather the worse than the better for any thing further that I could do to it."

He rose as he spoke, and going behind her, appeared to read the paper over her shoulder, and having satisfied himself with the examination, kissed her fair throat as he bent over it, adding, as he took a light from the table, "I am going to the library to look for a book, my love: write it exactly as you like, and I will seal it for you when I return."

No one who knew Mrs. Cartwright could have the slightest doubt that the letter would be very fairly copied by the time her obliging husband returned: and so it was every word of it excepting the date. She appeared to be in the very act of writing this when he came back, and stopping short as he entered, she said in a voice that certainly faltered a little, "My dear Cartwright,--don't you think it would be better to let those odious Harringtons hear from some other quarter of this change in the name of our place? Not but that I approve it, I a.s.sure you perfectly; but I know Lady Harrington so well! and I can guess so exactly the sort of style in which she will observe upon it!"

"Then, perhaps, dearest," said he, again coming behind her and caressing her neck,--"perhaps you may think it would please her ladys.h.i.+p better if your own name, as you have accepted it from me, were to be suppressed?--Is it so, my fairest?"

"Good Heaven, no!--May I be forgiven for using such an expression, Cartwright! How could you say such cruel words?"

"Nay!--my own Clara!--what could I think of your wis.h.i.+ng that the house we dwell in should retain the name of your former husband? Ah, dearest!

you know not all the jealousy of affection so ardent as mine! What is the importance of the name of the place, Clara, compared to your own?

Are you not mine?" he continued, throwing his arms round her; "and if you are--why should you torture me with the remembrance that another has called you his?--that another's name has been your signature, your date, your history? Oh, Clara! spare me such thoughts as these!--they unman me!"

"My dearest Cartwright!" returned the lady, only disengaging herself from his arms sufficiently to write with firm though hurried characters the name of CARTWRIGHT PARK,--"how deeply you have touched me!"

CHAPTER II.

THE WIDOW SIMPSON'S DISAPPOINTMENT.

This letter was certainly commented upon pretty freely in all its parts by the knight and lady of Oakley; but not the less did it produce the effect intended: for not even could Sir Gilbert, after the first hot fit of rage was over, advise poor Helen to expose herself to be recalled by force. In the case of Miss Torrington, the hated authority of Mr.

Cartwright, though not necessarily so lasting, was for the present equally imperative, and he therefore advised her peaceably to accompany her friend to her unhappy home, and then to set about applying to Chancery in order to emanc.i.p.ate herself from it.

The parting was a very sad one. Poor Helen wept bitterly. She had felt more consolation perhaps than she was aware in having been received with such very _parental_ kindness at Oakley; and her present departure from it was, she thought, exceedingly like being driven, or rather dragged, out of paradise. But there was no help for it. The carriage was waiting at the door, and even the rebellious Sir Gilbert himself said she must go,--not without adding, however, that it should go hard with him if he did not find some means or other, before she were twenty-one, of releasing her from such hateful thraldom.

Helen had given, as she thought, her last kiss to her warm-hearted G.o.dmother, and was in the very act of stepping aside that Miss Torrington might take her place in the carriage, when that young lady blus.h.i.+ng most celestial rosy red, said abruptly, as if prompted thereto by a sudden and desperate effort of courage, "Sir Gilbert Harrington!--may I speak to you for one single minute alone?"

"For a double century, fair Rose, if we can but make the tete-a-tete last so long.--You may give poor G.o.d-mamma another hug, Helen: and don't hurry yourself about it,--Miss Rose and I shall find a great deal to say to each other."

As soon as the old baronet had completed the flourish with which he led her into his library, Miss Torrington turned to him, and with a voice and manner that betrayed great agitation, she said, "I believe, Sir Gilbert, I may change my present guardian, by applying to the Court of Chancery. If I make myself a ward of the court, it will be necessary, I believe, for me to obtain the Lord Chancellor's consent if I should wish to marry before I am of age?"

"Certainly, my dear."

"And what is necessary for the obtaining such consent, Sir Gilbert?"

"That the person who proposes to marry you should be able to offer settlements in proportion to your own fortune."

"And if I should choose a person unable to do so?"

"To guard against such imprudence, Miss Torrington, the Chancellor has the power of preventing such a marriage."

Rosalind's colour came, and went and came again, before she could utter another word; but at length she said, "Have I not the power of choosing another guardian, Sir Gilbert?"

"I believe you have, my dear."

"If I have,--then will you let me choose you?"

These words burst so eagerly from her, and she clasped her hands, and fixed eyes upon him with a look so supplicating, that no man would have found it an easy task to refuse her. Sir Gilbert probably felt little inclination to do so, though he had, in the course of his life, repeatedly refused to take the office now offered him in so singular a manner.

"This request, my dear Miss Rose," said he, smiling, "looks very much as if you thought I should prove such an old fool of a guardian as to let you have your own way in all things. I hardly know whether I ought to thank you for the compliment or not. However, I am very willing to accept the office; for I think, somehow or other, that you will not plague me much.--What is your fortune, my dear?--and is it English or Irish property?"

"Entirely English, Sir Gilbert; and produces, I believe, between three and four thousand a year."

"A very pretty provision, my dear young lady. Would you wish to proceed in this immediately?"

"Immediately,--without a day's delay, if I could help it."

Sir Gilbert patted her cheek, and smiled again with a look of very great contentment and satisfaction. "Very well, my dear--I think you are quite right--quite right to get rid of such a guardian as the Reverend Mistress Cartwright with as little delay as possible. I imagine you would not find it very easy to negotiate the business yourself, and I will therefore recommend my lawyer to you. Shall I put the business into his hands forthwith?"

So bright a flash of pleasure darted from the eyes of Rosalind, as made the old gentleman wink his own--and, in truth, he appeared very nearly as well pleased as herself. "Now then," she said, holding her hand towards him that he might lead her out again, "I will keep Mr.

Cartwright's carriage waiting no longer.--Bless you, Sir Gilbert! Do not talk to any body about this till it is done. Oh! how very kind you are!"

Sir Gilbert gallantly and gaily kissed the tips of her fingers, and led her again into the drawing-room. Helen, who was still weeping, and seemed as much determined to persevere in it as ever Beatrice did, looked with astonishment in the face of her friend, which, though still covered with blushes, was radiant with joy. It was in vain she looked at her, however--it was a mystery she could not solve: so, once more uttering a mournful farewell, Helen gave a last melancholy gaze at her old friends, and followed Rosalind into the carriage.

"May I ask you, Rosalind," she said as soon as it drove off, "what it is that you have been saying to Sir Gilbert, or Sir Gilbert to you, which can have caused you to look so particularly happy at the moment that you are about to take up your residence at Cartwright Park, under the guardians.h.i.+p of its master the Vicar of Wrexhill?"

"I will explain the mystery in a moment, Helen. I have asked Sir Gilbert Harrington to let me name him as my guardian, and he has consented."

"Have you such power?" replied Helen. "Oh, happy, happy Rosalind!"

"Yes, Helen, there may be happiness in that;--but I may find difficulties, perhaps:--and if I do!--"

"I trust you will not.--I trust that ere long you will be able to withdraw yourself from a house so disgraced and afflicted as ours!"

"And leave you behind, Helen? You think that is part of my scheme?"

"How can you help it, Rosalind? You have just read my my mother's letter:--you see the style and tone in which she announces her right over _my person_;--and this from the mother I so doated on! I do a.s.sure you, Rosalind, that I often seem to doubt the reality of the misery that surrounds me, and fancy that I must be dreaming. Throw back your thoughts to the period of your first coming to us, and then say if such a letter as this can really come to me from my mother."

"The letter is a queer letter--a very queer letter indeed. And yet I am under infinite obligations to it: for had she not used that pretty phrase,--'for such time as I shall continue to be her legal guardian,'--it might never have entered my head to inquire for how long a time that must of necessity be."

"I rejoice for you, Rosalind, that the odious necessity of remaining with us is likely to be shortened; and will mix no malice with my envy, even when I see you turn your back for ever upon Cartwright Park."

"There would be little cause to envy me, Helen, should I go without taking you with me."

A tear stood in Rosalind's bright eye as she said this, and Helen felt very heartily ashamed of the petulance with which she had spoken. As a penance for it, she would not utter the sad prognostic that rose to her lips, as to the impossibility that any thing could give her power to bestow the freedom she might herself obtain.

Their return seemed to be unnoticed by every individual of the family except Henrietta. She saw the carriage approach from her own room, and continued to waylay Rosalind as she pa.s.sed to hers.

"I know the sight of me must be hateful to you Miss Torrington," she said, "and I have been looking out for you in order that the shock of first seeing me might be over at once. Poor, pretty Helen Mowbray!--notwithstanding the hardness of heart on which I pique myself, I cannot help feeling for her. How does she bear it, Miss Torrington?"