Part 7

Deep was the affliction of Mrs. Vernon; darker and darker grew the path before her. She had stood firm against the sophistry of human wisdom, the power of human eloquence; she had resisted even Flora's pleading tears: but to see, week after week, and month after month, her child wasting to a shadow before her, was a lengthened torture to her loving heart which wore away the very thread of her life. In vain medical advice was sought for Flora. There was no physician to "minister to a mind diseased;" all the skill of man was unavailing where the patient chose death rather than life. There was an awful possibility before Mrs. Vernon, too terrible to contemplate, but which recurred to her mind again and again, as she gazed on the fading form of her child. There was nothing which appeared to rouse Flora, or to excite in her a moment's interest, except the letters which she received from Ada, and which were perused only by herself. Mrs. Vernon never sought to know their contents; she felt that her daughter's confidence and affection were now given to another, and that she herself stood in the position of a tyrant towards one who was far dearer to her than life!

"Have I indeed done what was right? or have I mistaken my duty--sacrificed to blind prejudice the happiness of my child--destroyed her health, her peace--ruined her hopes, in my ignorant, misguided zeal?" Such were the bitter reflections which recurred again and again, and ever with increasing bitterness, to the mind of the unhappy mother. In vain her pastor endeavoured to support her with the consolations of religion--to assure her that she had not only acted faithfully, but wisely: she could not endure to see the consequences of her own decision, still less to contemplate what might possibly be its final result.

Autumn rain was fast descending, streaming from the heavy black clouds, while ever and anon a wild gust of wind stripped the boughs of their faded leaves, and scattered them far and wide. Emma tried to beguile the weary time with a novel, but looked up from it every five minutes with a languid sigh, to complain of "the horrid weather," and contrast the English climate with that of her native island. The children were restless and noisy, impatient of the confinement of the house, till Mrs. Vernon found employment for them all in looking over the curiosities of an old cabinet.

Where was Flora? Her mother sought her in the small sitting-room in which her daughter usually pursued her occupations. Her books, her piano, her desk, were there. The room was not, however, now occupied; Flora was in her own apartment. Mrs. Vernon noticed that an album was laid on the desk, in which Flora usually wrote her poetical effusions; and the sight of it made the mother hope that at least one favourite occupation had not been relinquished by her daughter. Often had Mrs. Vernon copied out verses from that album, and shed tears of pleasure over them. She opened the book to see if Flora had recently added to their number. Between the last written pages there were compressed flowers, their beauty faded, their life gone; yet precious, perhaps, as relics of the hours when they had bloomed as freshly as the hopes which, like them, had withered. The last verses in the volume were new to Mrs. Vernon; they bore the date but of yesterday; and she with anguish perused them as the transcript of the feelings of a young being whose life had not yet numbered twenty years.

LINES.

Is it sinful to gaze on the morning sun, And wish that the gates of the west he had won-- That life's day were over, its labours done?

Is it sinful to mark the first silver hair 'Mid dark tresses touched by the hand of care, And wish time had shed all his winter there?

Is it sinful in life no joy to take,-- To feel like a captive bound to the stake By a chain that galls us, and will not break?

Some fear to die: 'tis not so with me; Rather, O Death, I pine for thee! I long in the quiet grave to be!

"Oh! this is too much--too much!" exclaimed Mrs. Vernon, wringing her hands. "I can endure anything myself, but I cannot--oh, I cannot break the heart of my child!"

She hastened to Flora's apartment with a quick and agitated step. She unclosed the door--she saw Flora on her knees, her hair dishevelled, her bosom heaving with sobs, as she pressed again and again convulsively to her lips a little diamond locket which she held in her hand.

Flora started to her feet at the sound of her mother's entrance: as she did so a letter fell to the ground. Mrs. Vernon's eye rested upon it for a moment: the handwriting was not that of Ada.

"Oh! mother--mother--forgive me; it was--from him!"

"He loves you still?"

"More than ever!" exclaimed Flora, bursting into a fresh flood of tears.

"Then let him be happy with you!" cried the mother, folding her child in her arms, and kissing away her tears, while her own flowed freely and fast. "I can resist no longer. Oh, God forgive me if I do wrong! Flora, my own beloved! be united to the husband of your choice; you have your mother's consent and her blessing!"

On the scenes that followed I will not dwell, but leave them to the imagination of the reader. On the day when the first snow fell, Flora was the bride of Sir Amery.

*CHAPTER XIV.*

*THE VISIT.*

More than two years had now elapsed since the day when, in the little church of Wingsdale, Flora had plighted her troth to him whom she so deeply loved, while many a fervent prayer arose for her happiness from the poor whom she had tended, the young whom she had taught. The interval between her engagement and her marriage had been one of brightness to Flora. A mountain's weight seemed to have been removed from her spirits, and with the elasticity which youth and hope give, they had more than rebounded to their former elevation. Again she had smiles and kind words for all, and she appeared resolved by her winning sweetness of manner to deepen the regrets of the village at losing its "sunshine." Mrs. Vernon had stifled her own misgivings, that she might cast no shadow on the bliss of the young bride; and no one could have told from her outward manner how heavy lay the heart within. Even Emma had shaken off a little of her languor, roused to something like interest by the excitement of a wedding. Her children had brought their little offerings, prepared in mysterious secrecy with the assistance of their grandmother, who was to them teacher, companion, and confidant; and Flora's surprise and thanks on receiving their presents almost realized their juvenile expectations.

More than two years had rolled their course since that exciting, joyous day, when a cab drove up to the door of a large house in Cavendish Square, and a lady stepped out and rang the bell. She was attired in habiliments which once had been handsome, but which had decidedly seen their best days; the rich silk dress had been dyed, the shawl was faded, the sable boa showed tokens of age, and neat fingers had repaired the Lisle lace veil which gave grace to the bonnet of straw. In the staid manner and somewhat care-worn face, where certain lines were traced across the brow which was smooth some two years ago, we mark a change beyond that which time would have made in our old acquaintance Ada.

"Ada! oh, how delighted I am to see you! What an age it is since we met!" cried Flora, as the visitor was ushered into the elegant apartment of Lady Legrange, and the cousins exchanged an affectionate embrace.

Has Flora also been altered by the plain gold ring, which often works wonders as strange as those wrought by an enchanter?

Flora is lovely as ever, her beauty enhanced by a womanly dignity which beseems the baronet's wife. But she too has lost the joyous brightness which rested on her gentle countenance when Ada first visited Wingsdale. An expression of thought, almost of melancholy, is there; and she certainly looked far happier in her gipsy bonnet, seated on the gnarled roots of the old oak, than she does now in her spacious mansion, robed in velvet and surrounded by luxury.

"I could not resist the temptation of coming to see you!" cried Ada, sitting with Flora's hand clasped in her own, and surveying her with a look of affectionate interest.

"I hope that you have brought your twins to London with you?" said Flora.

"Oh, the little cherubs! how I should delight to show them to you! But we left them in Wiltshire; it is a serious matter to travel with two infants not a year old."

"Then I am afraid that your stay in London will be but short," observed Lady Legrange, "with two such powerful magnets drawing you away."

"Only two!" laughed Ada; "you forget my husband's children,--a whole scale of magnets, from five feet five to three feet nothing! I thought that I should never have managed to get away at all! But the Major was obliged to come to town to fit out his middy, and I took such a longing to revisit my old haunts, look at old faces, hear the sounds of carriage wheels, and knocks at the door, and street cries, and hurdy-gurdies again, that, like a dutiful mamma, I must see Jack off myself, and pay a flying visit to dear smoky London."

"I can scarcely fancy you the staid, sober mother of such a large family!" exclaimed Flora.

"Very odd--isn't it? reversing the order of nature; instead of the quiet spinning caterpillar turning into the gay butterfly, the butterfly doffing its silken wings and beginning to crawl through the routine of daily duties, a prisoner to its cabbage-leaf. Only imagine me, Flora, mending stockings, shaping out pinafores, bandaging cut fingers and broken heads, scolding tradespeople, keeping servants in order, paying bills, and dancing babies till my arms ache!"

"I should think the last a very delightful occupation," said Flora, suppressing a sigh.

"None but a mother can tell how delightful," replied Ada; "but I do not take so kindly to all my domestic employments. I never yet took pleasure in solving the problem how far a shilling would go, nor finding out how it is that boys are always wanting new shoes, and how elbows and knees are perpetually running a race as to which should first run through the clothes. I believe that children have found out the secret of perpetual motion, to the great discomfort of those who have to look after little rogues!"

"But children make a house so cheerful," said Flora, abstractedly.

"And now, my dear child--ah! you see that I can't get over my old way of talking to you yet--do give me your last news from Wingsdale. You know that I'm such a shocking correspondent that I know as little of what passes in the world beyond Salisbury Plain as if I were a denizen of the moon."

"Poor old Mrs. Ward, my mother tells me, is now a confirmed invalid, and unable to leave her bed."

"And your sweet mother herself?"

"She never mentions her own health; her letters are full of the children."

"Ah! the whity-brown legion of little horrors, who like a swarm of hornets literally drove you out of Laurel Bank, and compelled you to take refuge in Grosvenor Square! I suppose that they have been undergoing the process of taming, at which my aunt is so famous, and that Johnny now does not scratch out any one's eyes, and that Lyddie may be trusted in a store-room full of treacle and sugar. I should think your mother a first-rate hand at bringing up children, judging from the charming specimen before me!"

Flora neither smiled nor blushed at the flattery now.

"But tell me how they all appeared when you were last at Laurel Bank."

Then, indeed, the colour rose to Flora's pale cheek, and it was with an appearance of some embarrassment that she replied, "I have not been there since you were there, on the day of my marriage."

Ada suppressed the exclamation of astonishment that was upon her tongue, for she saw that its utterance would give pain.

"My dear husband has been so much engaged--of course I could not leave him--it is so difficult sometimes to make arrangements--but I hope soon--" Flora stopped short, for her lips were not accustomed to utter an absolute untruth.

"How your mother must be longing to see you! I should not have thought that she could have lived so long without you!"

"Words cannot express how I long to see her!" exclaimed Flora, with tears in her eyes.

"I think that it might be managed in some way. If you could not visit Wingsdale, she might come to London--"

Flora looked so uneasy at the proposition that Ada changed the conversation in pure good nature, wondering much in her mind what could have occurred to separate a parent so much beloved from so dutiful a daughter.

"I hope that you have not given up your pen, Flora; that you don't think that your talented husband the author does enough in that line for you both?"

"Oh, I write a little sometimes," said Flora, in a tone of indifference.

"I never read anything so pretty as your hymns. Do you know, Flora," Ada added more gravely, "that I have often thought over the verses which you wrote during my first visit to Wingsdale, after we heard that solemn sermon from Mr. Ward on the subject of the sower and his seed!"

"I had almost forgotten them," said Flora.

"And the sermon too?"

"Well--I have heard so many since."

"Ah! that is the thing, you have lived in such an atmosphere of piety."

"Oh, don't speak so!" cried Flora hurriedly.

"It does seem to me," observed Ada, folding her hands, "that it is a great deal more difficult for some people than for others to lead a religious life. Look how differently you were brought up from what I was; is there any wonder that we are so different now? I had been taught to think of nothing but gaiety, and shining in the world, and making a sensation, and all that sort of thing; I lived in a perpetual round of amusements: so pleasure was my danger then, and I fancied that when the time for pleasure was past, my difficulties would vanish, and that I should grow serious as I grew old. Well, I follow your example, and marry, and am taken completely from the world; but I am plunged into a little bustling world of my own, and I have so much to think of, so much to do, that I have really no time for religion. Instead of the pleasures, come the cares of this life."

"Cast your cares upon Him, for He careth for you," faintly murmured Lady Legrange.

"Ah, Flora, you were never like any one else; I always feel better when I am near you." Flora's brow contracted a little, as if she were in pain, and she turned her head away from the speaker.

"I wish that I could always have you beside me," continued Ada; "it would be such a comfort to have your wise, calm advice!"

"It is so much easier to give advice than to take it home to ourselves," said Flora, with something like a sigh.

The ladies then conversed for some time together on topics of general interest. Flora really enjoyed seeing her old companion, and would gladly have invited both Ada and her husband to her house, to remain there during their stay in London; but she did not venture even to ask them to dinner. Sir Amery, she knew, would have had no objection to the society of the lively Ada; but the Major, a simple, blunt man, with more kindness in his heart than polish in his manners, did not suit the refined taste of the baronet, and must "be kept at a proper distance." All that Flora could do was by the cordiality of her own manner to endeavour to smooth away from the mind of her cousin any sense of unkindness, or even of ingratitude, which might arise from no invitation being given; and Ada left the house satisfied that Flora was not changed, though with a rising doubt as to whether she were happy.

*CHAPTER XV.*

*THE WIFE.*

And was Flora happy in her new life? She had much to render her so, according to the opinion of the world. She had made what would be called a brilliant marriage; she was united to one who loved her, and whom she passionately loved; she was surrounded by all that could please the eye or charm the taste; she had leisure for every graceful occupation; she was not weighed down by a multiplicity of home-cares; she had a life of ease, it might be deemed of enjoyment: and yet, with all this, Flora was not happy. The sunshine of her existence seemed to have passed away.

Let us examine more closely into the causes of the melancholy which often rested like a cloud on her soul.

In the first place, Flora was childless; and this, to a loving spirit like hers, was no light trial. She would have given all the grandeur of her home, all the jewels which glittered in her hair, all the beautiful things which met her eye wherever she turned it, to feel little arms clasping her neck, to hear infant lips lisp the sweet name of mother! Flora had never yet, amidst all the outward forms of religion, acquired that which is the very essence of it, submission to the will of the Almighty. Her own will had never been brought into the quiet subjection which is the result of confidence in God's wisdom and love, and which is the source of true peace and joy. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, she "murmured," not with her lips, but in the depths of her heart.

And Flora pined for her mother; she longed again to rest her weary head on a parent's bosom, and to be blessed with a parent's counsels. She could not conceal from herself that her marriage had separated her from the home of her childhood. It was not so much, perhaps, that Sir Amery could never quite forgive Mrs. Vernon's opposition to his marriage, as that he feared her influence over his wife. Flora had, he thought, too many narrow prejudices, acquired in her puritanical home: he had no wish to see them strengthened. He had no wish to have a praying, sermonizing wife who would see sin in what he thought harmless, and who would always be attempting to convert him to her own peculiar views of religion. He had put down, sometimes with a jest, sometimes even with a frown, the few feeble attempts made by Flora soon after their marriage to win him to pay more attention to the outward observances of religion. The Lord did not bless these attempts--they resulted in failure and disappointment; and Flora bitterly recalled her mother's words, that it is as impossible for one human being to change the heart of another, as it would be to bring water from the stony rock, or to call up fire from the ocean.

Flora's deep love for her husband, even though returned, was no source of unmingled happiness. She could not rest in calm confidence upon the hope that all was well with him whom she deemed the most gifted and the most attractive of men. Blinded as she was by her admiring affection, Flora had yet many a secret misgiving and pang, when she heard words pass the lips of her husband which confirmed the opinion of her mother. She was ever struggling to persuade herself that the path which he pursued could not be far wrong; that it was her education which had narrowed her own mind; that he whose intellect soared to such a height must see more clearly and widely than others. But it is difficult to overthrow at once the fabric of opinion which has gradually been forming from infancy; most difficult when that fabric is founded on truth, and has the strong though secret support of conscience!

And there was one source of pain which Flora never owned to others, never even acknowledged to her own heart. She prized the affection of her husband beyond all earthly--alas! above all heavenly things; it was her pride, her delight, her treasure: but how could she trust to links which God had not rivetted? was not her treasure one which might take wings to itself and flee away? Who could insure that the love which beauty had awakened would not be perishable as that beauty? It had not that firmness which arises from steady principle, that element of immortality which religion alone can give. Flora was painfully aware that many, and amongst them members of Sir Amery's own family, had deemed his marriage far below the expectations which such a man might have formed. Was it quite impossible that the same thought might sometimes cross the mind of her husband! There was no sweet babe, no dear pledge of mutual affection, to bind the baronet's heart to the mother of his child.

Flora's strength was not sufficient to enable her to share all the amusements of her husband, nor had she enough of mental vigour to enter into all his pursuits. He shone as a star in many places where his gentle wife was never seen. Many a lonely evening she passed, while at some festive board a brilliant circle was listening delighted to his ever-flowing fountain of wit. Might Sir Amery not sometimes find her society dull, her conversation insipid, after that to which he had been accustomed? would her love suffice to make him happy? could he be contented alone with her? Flora knew that the baronet had not married her "_in the Lord_," that his affection for her was not from the Lord; her whole felicity rested upon an earthly support--it might be shaken--it might bend--it might give way!

Even when accompanying her husband to scenes of festivity, neither his loved presence nor the pleasures around her always chased from the mind of Lady Legrange this phantom of undefined fear. But that which above all things oppressed the young wife with a sorrow for which the world has no remedy, was her consciousness of alienation from her God. What matter how fair be the surrounding landscape, if the heaven above be of dull leaden hue, if the sun be blotted from the sky? As regarded the most important of all subjects, the heart of Flora was cold and hard; and she knew it. No one can for long worship an earthly idol without feeling the withering effect. Sir Amery stood between his wife and her God. Flora was careful as ever to observe the forms of religion, when she could do so without displeasing her husband; her seat was not vacant in the pew, nor her name absent from the charity list: but her piety was like a petrified leaf--it could deceive even her own heart no longer. All that remained of her religion seemed a vague sense of fear, the fear of a slave for an offended master, who has the power, perhaps the will, to chastise. Sometimes Flora doubted whether she had ever been a Christian at all--whether from childhood she had not played a hypocrite's part, and whether she were not playing it still. She no longer thought of heaven as a blissful home, and even when bitterness of soul made her weary of life, she felt a shrinking from the thought of death.

And can we wonder that Flora was not happy--that pleasures failed to amuse her, even conjugal affection to bless? Had she rested with cheerful content, in that state of coldness, alienation, and wandering from God, it had been a sign, indeed, that religion had utterly perished in her soul--that her mother's prayers, and teaching, and example, had all been in vain.

*CHAPTER XVI.*

*RISING CLOUDS.*

"Flora, my love, has anything occurred to distress you?" said the baronet, as he entered the breakfast room one morning in his embroidered dressing-gown and slippers, with the newspaper in his hand.

Flora looked anxious and unhappy, her eye rested upon an open letter which she had received by the early post.

"I have heard from Mr. Ward, dearest," she replied; "he gives me tidings which have made me very uneasy. Scarlet fever, of a malignant kind, has been raging lately in Wingsdale, and I grieve to say that two of my brother's children are ill with it now, and it is feared that the baby is sickening."

The baronet coughed slightly, stirred the fire, and sat down to sip his chocolate.

"My poor mother!" faltered Flora; "Mr. Ward writes that she is far from strong; the nursing will be so heavy upon her."

"Have not the children a mother?" said Sir Amery, abruptly.