Chapter 7

Thus, even with such terrible prospects awaiting herself, the good, generous Mary trembled only to contemplate those of her regardless sister; and it was chiefly for the delight of revisiting the spots where they had played together in childhood--the fondly-remembered environs of Stanley Manor--that she persuaded her husband to take up his abode in the deserted mansion at the Park, where, from prudential motives, Mr Sparks had broken up his establishment, and sold off his horses.

Attended by a single servant, in addition to the old porter and his wife who were in charge of the house, Mary trusted that their arrival at Lexley would be unnoticed in the neighbourhood. Confining herself strictly within the boundaries of the Park, which neither her father nor the bride and bridegroom were likely to enter, she conceived that she might enjoy, on her husband's arm, those solitary rambles of which every day circumscribed the extent; without affording reason to the General to suppose, when, discerning every morning from his lofty terraces the mansion of his falling enemy, that, in place of the man he loathed, it contained his discarded child.

The dispirited young woman, on the other hand, delighted in contemplating from the windows of her dressing-room the towers beneath, whose shelter she had abided in such perfect happiness with her doating father and apparently attached sister. They loved her no longer, it is true. Perhaps it was her fault--(she would not allow herself to conceive it could be a fault of _theirs_)--but at all events she loved _them_ dearly as ever; and it was comforting to her poor heart to catch a glimpse of their habitation, and know herself within reach, should sickness or evil betide.

"If I should not survive my approaching time," thought Mary, often surveying for hours, through her tears, the heights of Lexley Hall, and fancying she could discern human figures moving from window to window, or from terrace to terrace; "if I should be fated never to behold this child, already loved--this child which is to be so dear a blessing to us both--in my last hours my father would not surely refuse to give me his blessing; nor would Selina persist in her present cruel alienation. It is, indeed, a comfort to be here."

Her husband thought otherwise. To him nothing was more trying than this compulsory sojourn at Lexley; not that he required other society than that of his engaging and attached wife. At any other moment it would have been delightful to him to enjoy the country pleasures around them, with no officious intrusive world to interpose between their affection. But in his present uncertainty as to his future prospects, to be mocked by this empty show of proprietorship, and have constantly before his eyes the residence of the man who had heaped such contumely on his head, and inflicted such pain on the gentlest and sweetest of human hearts, was a state of moral torment.

In the course of my fishing excursions--(for, thanks to Mr Sparks's neighbourly liberality, I had a card of general access to his parks)--I frequently met the young couple; and having no clue to their secret sentiments, noticed, with deep regret, the sadness of Mary's countenance and sinister looks of her husband. I feared--I greatly feared--that they were not happy together. The General's daughter repined, perhaps, after her former fortunes. The young husband sighed, doubtless, over the liberty he had renounced.

It was spring time, and Lord Robert having satisfied his cravings after the pleasures of London, by occasional bachelor visits on pretence of business, the family were to remain at the Hall till after the Easter holidays, so that Mary had every expectation of the accomplishment of her hopes previous to their departure. Perhaps, in the bottom of her heart, she flattered herself that, on hearing of her safety, her obdurate relations might be moved, by a sudden burst of pity and kindliness, to make overtures of reconciliation--at all events to dispatch words of courteous enquiry; for she was ever dwelling on her good fortune that her father should, on this particular year, have so retarded the usual period of his departure. Yet when the report of these exulting exclamations on her part reached my ear, I was ungenerous enough to attribute them to a very different origin, fancying that the poor submissive creature was thankful for being within reach of protection from conjugal misusage.

Meanwhile, she was so far justified in one portion of her premises, that no tidings of her residence at Lexley Park had as yet reached the ear of her father. The fact was, that not a soul had courage to do so much as mention, in his presence, the name of his once idolized child; and Lord Robert, having been apprized of the circumstance, instantly exacted a promise from his wife, that nothing should induce her to hazard her father's displeasure by communication with her sister, or by acquainting the General of the arrival of the offending pair. The consequence was, that in the dread of encountering her sister, (whom she felt ashamed to meet as the wife of the man they had so often decried together,) Lady Robert rarely quitted the house; and these two sisters, so long the affectionate inmates of the same chamber--the sisters who had wept together over their mother's deathbed--abided within sight of each other's windows, yet estranged as with the estrangement of strangers.

And then, we pretend to talk with horror of the family feuds of southern nations; and, priding ourselves on our calm and passionless nature, feel convinced that all the domestic virtues extant on earth, have taken refuge in the British empire!

Every day, meanwhile, I noticed that the handsome countenance of Everard Sparks grew gloomier and gloomier; and how was I to know that every day he received letters from his father, announcing the unfavourable aspect of their suit; and that (owing, as was supposed, to the suggestions of General Stanley's solicitors) even the conduct of the adverse party was becoming offensive. The elder Sparks wrote like a man overwhelmed with mortification, and stung by a sense of undeserved injury; and his appeals to the sympathy and support of his son, were such as to place the spirited young man in a most painful predicament as regarded the family of his wife.

Unwilling to utter in her presence an injurious word concerning those who, persecute her as they might, were still her nearest and dearest by the indissoluble ties of nature, all he could do, in relief to his overcharged feelings, was to rush forth into the Park, and curse the day that he was born to behold all he loved in the world overwhelmed in one common ruin.

On such occasions, while pretending to fix my attention on my float upon the river, I often watched him from afar, till I was terrified by the frantic vehemence of his gestures. There was almost reason to fancy that the evil influences of the old Hall were extending their power over the valley; and that this distracted young man was falling into the eccentricities of Sir Laurence Altham.

After viewing with anxiety the wild deportment of poor Mary's husband, I happened one day to pass along the lane I have described as skirting the garden of the manor-house, on my way homewards to my farm; and on plunging my eyes, as usual, into the verdant depths of the clipped yew-walks, visible through the iron-palisades, was struck by the contrast afforded to the scene I had just witnessed, not only by its aristocratic tranquillity, but by the grave and subdued deportment of Lady Robert Stanley, who was sauntering in one of the alleys, accompanied by a favourite dog I had often seen following her sister in former days, and looking the very picture of contented egotism.

I almost longed to call aloud to her, and confide all I knew and all that I supposed. But what right had I to create alarms in her sister's behalf? What right had I to incite her to disobedience against the father on whom she and her husband were dependent? Better leave things as they were--the common philosophy of selfish, timid people, afraid of exposing their own heads to a portion of the storm their interference may chance to bring down, while assisting the cause of the weak against the strong.

I used often to go home and think of poor Mary till my heart ached. That young and beautiful creature--that creature till lately so beloved--to be thus cruelly abandoned, thus helpless, thus unhappy! Perhaps not a soul sympathizing with her but myself--an obscure, low-born, uninfluential man, of no more value as a protector than a willow-wand shivered from the Lexley plantations! Not so much as the merest trifle in which I could demonstrate my good-will. I thought and thought it over, and there was nothing I could do--nothing I could offer. When I _did_ hit upon some pretext of kindness, I only did amiss. The fruit season was not begun--nay, the orchards were only in blossom--and times were over for forcing-houses at Lexley Park! Thinking, therefore, that the invalid might be pleased with a basket of Jersey pears, of which a very fine kind grew in my orchard, I ventured to send some to her address. But the very next time I encountered Everard in the village, he cast a look at me as if he would have killed me for my officiousness, or, perhaps, for taking the liberty to suppose that Lexley Park was less luxuriously provisioned than in former years. Nor was it till long afterwards I discovered that my old housekeeper (who had taken upon herself to carry my humble offering to the park) had not only seen the poor young lady, but been foolish enough to talk of Lady Robert in a tone which appears to have exercised a cruel influence over her gentle heart; so that, when her husband returned home from rabbit-shooting, an hour afterwards, he found her recovering from a fainting fit, he visited upon _me_ the folly of my servant; and such was the cause of his angry looks.

A few days afterwards, however, he had far more to reproach his conscience withal than poor Barbara. Having no concealments from his wife, to whom he was in the habit of avowing every emotion of his heart, he was rash enough to mention of having met the travelling carriage of Lord and Lady Robert on the London road. They had quitted the Hall ten days previous to the epoch originally fixed for their departure.

"Gone--exactly gone!--already at two hundred miles' distance from me!" cried poor Mary, nothing doubting that her father had, as usual, accompanied them, and feeling herself now, for the first time, alone in the dreary seclusion to which she had condemned herself, only that she might breathe the same atmosphere with those she loved. "Yet they had certainly decided to remain at the Hall till after Easter! Perhaps they discovered my being here, and the discovery hastened their journey. Unhappy creature that I am, to have become thus hateful to those in whose veins my blood is flowing! Everard, Everard! O, what have I done that God should thus abandon me?"

The soothing and affectionate remonstrances now addressed to her by her husband, had so far a good effect, that they softened her despair to tears. Long and unrestrainedly did she weep upon his shoulder; tried to comfort him by the assurance that _she_ was comforted, or at least that she would endeavour to _seek_ comfort from the protection and goodness whence it had been so often derived.

A few minutes afterwards, having been persuaded by Everard to rest herself on the sofa, to recover the effects of the agitation his indiscreet communication had excited, she suddenly complained of cold, and begged him to close the windows. It was a balmy April day, with a genial sun shining fresh into the room. The air was as the air of midsummer--one of those days on which you almost see the small green leaves of spring bursting from their shelly covering, and the resinous buds of the chestnut-trees expanding into maturity. Poor Everard saw at once that the chilliness of which his wife complained must be the effect of illness. More cautious, however, on this occasion than before, he enquired, as her shivering increased, what preparations she had made for the events which still left her some weeks for execution. "None. His sisters had kindly undertaken to supply her with all she might require; and the services of the nurse accustomed to attend his married sister, were engaged on her behalf. At the end of the month this woman was to arrive at Lexley, bringing with her the wardrobe of the little treasure who was to accord renewed peace and happiness to its mother."

Though careful to conceal his anxiety from his wife, Everard Sparks, disappointed and distressed, quitted the room in haste to send for the medical man who had long been the attendant of his family. But before he arrived, the shivering fit of the poor sufferer had increased to an alarming degree. A calming potion was administered, and orders issued that she was to be kept quiet; but in the consternation created in the little household by the communication Dr R. thought it necessary to make of the possibility of a premature confinement, poor Mrs Sparks's maid, a young inexperienced woman, dispatched a messenger to my house for her old kinswoman, and it was through Barbara I became acquainted with the melancholy incidents I am about to relate.

The sedatives administered failed in their effect. A fatal shock had been already given; and while struggling through that direful night with the increasing pangs that verified the doctor's prognostications, the sympathizing women around the sufferer could scarcely restrain their tears at the courage with which she supported her anguish, rejoicing in it, as it were, in the prospect of embracing her child--when all present were aware that the compensation was about to be denied her, that the child was already dead. Just as the day dawned, her anxious husband was congratulated on her safety, and then the truth could no longer be concealed from Mary. She asked to see her babe. Her husband was employed to persuade her to defer seeing it for an hour or two, "till it was dressed--till she was more composed." But the truth rushed into her mind, and she uttered not another word, in the apprehension of increasing his disappointment and mortification.

So long did her silence continue, that, trusting she had fallen asleep, old Barbara's granddaughter entreated poor Everard to withdraw and leave her to her rest. But the moment he quitted the room, she spoke, spoke resolutely, and in a firmer voice than her previous sufferings had given them reason to suppose possible.

"Now, then, let me see my boy," said she. "I know that he is dead. But do not be afraid of shocking or distressing me. I have courage to look upon the poor little creature for whom I have suffered so much, and who, I trusted, would reward me for all."

The women remonstrated, as it was their duty to remonstrate. But when they saw that opposition on this point only excited her, dreading an accession of fever, they brought the poor babe and laid it on the pillow beside its mother. That first embrace, to which she had looked forward with such intensity of delight, folded to her burning bosom only a clay-cold child!

Even thus it was fair to look on--every promise in its little form, that its beauty would have equalled that of its handsome parents; and Mary, as she pressed her lips to its icy forehead, fancied she could trace on those tiny features a resemblance to its father. Old Barbara, perceiving how bitterly the tears of the sufferer were falling on the cheeks of her lost treasure, now interfered. But the mother had still a last request to make. A few downy curls were perceptible on the temples--in colour and fineness resembling her own. She wished to rescue from the grave this slight remembrance of her poor nameless offspring; and her wish having been complied with, she suffered the babe to be taken from her relaxed and moveless grasp.

"Leave me the hair," said she, in a faint voice. "Thanks--thanks! I am happy now--I will try to sleep--I am happy--happy now!"

She slept--and never woke again. At the close of an hour or two, her anxious husband, finding she had not stirred, gently and silently approached the bedside, and took into his own the fair hand lying on the coverlid, to ascertain whether fever had ensued. _Fever?_ It was already cold with the damps of death!

Imagine, if you can, the agony and self-reproach of that bereaved man! Again and again did he revile himself as her murderer; accusing _himself_--her father--her _sister_--the whole world. At one moment, he fancied that her condition had not been properly treated by her attendants; at another, that the medical man ought not to have left the house. Nay, hours and hours after she was gone for ever--after the undertakers had commenced their hideous preparations--even while she lay stretched before him, white and cold as marble, he persisted that life might be still recalled; and, but for the better discrimination of those around him, would have insisted on attempts at resuscitation, calculated only to disturb, almost sacrilegiously, the sound peace of the dead!

I was one of the first to learn the heart-rending news of this beloved being's untimely end; for my old woman having asked permission to remain with her through the night, (explaining the exigency of the case,) I could not forbear hurrying to the house as soon as it was day, in the hope of hearing she was a happy mother. Somehow or other, I had never contemplated an unfavourable result. The idea of death never presented itself to me in common with any thing so young and fair; and as I walked through the park, and crossed the bridge, with the white cheerful mansion before me, and the morning sun shining full upon its windows, I thought how gladsome it looked, but could not forbear feeling that, even with the prospect of losing it--even with the certainty of beggary, Everard, as a husband and father, was the fellow most to be envied upon earth!

I reached the house, and the old man who answered my ring at the office entrance, was speechless from tears. Though usually hard as iron, he sobbed as if his heart would break. I asked to speak with Barbara--with my housekeeper. He told me I could not--that she was "busy laying out the body." I was answered. That dreadful word told me all--I had no more questions to ask. I cared not _who_ survived, or what became of the survivors. And as I turned sickening away, to bend my steps homewards, I remember wondering how that fair spring morning could shine so bright and auspiciously, when _she_ was gone from us. It seemed to triumph in our loss! Alas! it shone to welcome a new angel to the kingdom of our Father who is in heaven!

Suddenly it struck me, that I, too, had a duty to perform. In that scanty household there was no one to take thought of the common forms of life; so I hastened to the rectory, to suggest to our good pastor a visit of consolation to the house of mourning, and acquaint his sisters with its forlorn condition. Like myself, they began exclaiming, "Alas! alas! It was but the other day that"----reverting to all the acts of charity and girlish graces of that dear departed Mary Stanley, who had been among us as the shadow of a dream.

Before I left the rectory, Dr Whittingham had issued his orders; and lo! as I proceeded homewards, with a heavy step and a heavier heart, the sound of the passing bell from Lexley church pursued me with its measured toll, till I could scarcely refrain from sitting me down by the wayside, and weeping my very soul away.

On reaching the lane I have so often described as skirting the gardens of the old Hall, I noticed, through the palisades, a person, probably one of the gardeners, sauntering along Lady Robert's favourite yew-walk. No! on a nearer approach, I saw, and almost shuddered to see, that it was General Stanley himself (who, I fancied, had accompanied his son-in-law to town) taking an early walk, to enjoy the sweetness of that delicious morning.

As I drew nearer, I averted my head. At that moment I had not courage to look him in the face. I could scarcely suppose him ignorant of what had occurred; and, if aware of the sad event, his obduracy was unmanly to a degree that filled me with disgust. But just as I came opposite the iron gates, he hailed me by name--more familiarly and courteously than he was wont--to ask whether I came from the village, and for _whose_ death they were tolling?

If worlds had depended on my answer, I could not have uttered a word! But I conclude that, catching sight of my troubled face and swollen eyelids, the General supposed I had lost some near and dear friend; for, instead of renewing his question, he merely touched his hat, and passed on, leaving me to proceed in my turn. But the spectacle of my profound affliction probably excited his curiosity; for I found afterwards, that, instead of pursuing his walk, he returned straight to the house, and addressed the enquiry which had so distressed _me_, to others having more courage to reveal the fatal truth. I believe it was the old family butler, who abruptly answered--"For my poor young lady, General--for the sweetest angel that ever trod the earth!"

For my part, I wonder the announcement did not strike him to the earth! But he heard it without apparent emotion; like a man who, having already sustained the worst affliction this world can afford, has no sensibility for further trials. Still the intelligence was not ineffective. Without pausing an instant for reflection, or the indulgence of his feelings, he set forth on foot to Lexley Park. With his hat pulled over his eyes, and a determined air, rather as if about to execute an act of vengeance than offer a tardy tribute of tenderness to his victim, he hurried to the house--commanded the startled old servant to show him the way to _her_ room--entered it--and knelt down beside the bed on which she lay, with her dead infant on her arm, asking her forgiveness, and the forgiveness of God, as humbly as though he were not the General Stanley proverbial for implacability and pride.

Old Barbara, who had not quitted the room, assured me it was a heart-breaking sight to behold that white head bowed down in agony upon the cold feet of his child. For he felt himself unworthy to press her helpless hand to his lips, or remove the cambric from her face, but called, in broken accents, upon the name of Mary! his child! his darling! addressing her rather with the fondling terms bestowed upon girlhood than as a woman--a wife--a mother!

"But a more affecting story still," said the old woman, "was to see that Mr Everard took no more heed of the General's sudden entrance than though it were a thing to be looked for. He seemed neither to hear his exclamations nor perceive his distress." Poor gentleman! His haggard eyes were fixed, his mind bewildered, his hopes blasted for ever, his life a blank. He neither answered when spoken to, nor even spoke, when the good rector, according to his promise, came to announce that he had dispatched the fatal intelligence by express to his family, beseeching his instructions concerning the steps to be taken for the burial of the dead.

But why afflict you and myself by recurring to these melancholy details! Suffice it, that this dreadful blow effected what nothing else on earth could have effected in the mind of General Stanley. Humbled to the dust, even the arrival of the once despised owner of Lexley Park did not drive him from the house. He asked his pity--he asked his pardon. Beside the coffin of his daughter he expressed all the compunction a generous-hearted and broken-hearted man could express; and all he asked in return, was leave to lay her poor head in the grave of her ancestors.