Chapter 18

The bills were taken down, the house purified from the auction-mob--every thing changed; a new name occupied the doctor's place in the "Court Guide"--and in three months the family seemed as completely forgotten amongst those of whom they once formed a prominent part, as if they had never existed. When one sphere of life closes against a family, they find room in another. Many kind-hearted persons in Mrs. Adams's first circle would have been rejoiced to be of service to her and hers, but they were exactly the people upon whom she had no claim. Of a high but poor family, her relatives had little power. What family so situated ever had any influence beyond what they absolutely needed for themselves? With an ill grace she at last acceded to the kind offer made by Mr. Charles Adams, and took possession of the cottage he fixed upon, until something could be done for his brother's children. In a fit of proud despair the eldest son enlisted into a regiment of dragoons; the second was fortunate enough to obtain a cadetship through a stranger's interference; and his uncle thought it might be possible to get the youngest forward in his father's profession. The expense of the necessary arrangements was severely felt by the prudent and careful country gentleman. The younger girls were too delicate for even the common occupations of daily life; and Mary, instead of receiving the welcome she had been led to expect from her aunt and cousins, felt that every hour she spent at the Grange was an intrusion.

The sudden death of Dr. Adams had postponed the intended wedding of Charles Adams's eldest daughter; and although her mother agreed that it was their duty to forward the orphan children, she certainly felt, as most affectionate mothers whose hearts are not very much enlarged would feel, that much of their own savings--much of the produce of her husband's hard labour--labour during a series of years when her sister-in-law and her children were enjoying all the luxuries of life--would now be expended for their support; this to an all-sacrificing mother, despite _her sense of the duty of kindness_, was hard to bear. As long as they were not on the spot, she theorised continually, and derived much satisfaction from the sympathising observations of her neighbours, and was proud, _very_ proud, of the praise bestowed upon her husband's benevolence; but when her sister-in-law's expensive habits were in daily array before her (the cottage being close to the Grange,) when she knew, to use her own expression, "that she never put her hand to a single thing;" that she could not live without port wine, when she herself never drank even gooseberry, except on Sundays; never ironed a collar, never dusted the chimney-piece, or ate a shoulder of mutton--roast one day, cold the next, and hashed the third. While each day brought some fresh illustration of her thoughtlessness to the eyes of the wife of the wealthy tiller of the soil, the widow of the physician thought herself in the daily practice of the most rigid self-denial. "I am sure," was her constant observation to her all-patient daughter--"I am sure I never thought it would come to this. I had not an idea of going through so much. I wonder your uncle and his wife can permit me to live in the way I do--they ought to consider how I was brought up." It was in vain Mary represented that they were existing upon charity; that they ought to be most grateful for what they received, coming as it did from those who, in their days of prosperity, professed nothing, while those who professed all things had done nothing. Mary would so reason, and then retire to her own chamber to weep alone over things more hard to bear.

It is painful to observe what bitterness will creep into the heart and manner of really kind girls where a lover is in the case, or even where a common-place dangling sort of flirtation is going forward; this depreciating ill nature, one of the other, is not confined by any means to the fair sex. Young men pick each other to pieces with even more fierceness, but less ingenuity; they deal in a cut-and-hack sort of sarcasm, and do not hesitate to use terms and insinuations of the harshest kind, when a lady is in the case. Mary (to distinguish her from her high-bred cousin, she was generally called Mary Charles) was certainly disappointed when her wedding was postponed in consequence of her uncle's death; but a much more painful feeling followed, when she saw the admiration her lover, Edwin Lechmere, bestowed upon her beautiful cousin. Mary Charles was herself a beauty--fair, open-eyed, warm-hearted--_the_ beauty of Repton; but though feature by feature, inch by inch, she was as handsome as Mary, yet in her cousin was the grace and spirit given only by good society; the manners elevated by a higher mind, and toned down by sorrow; a gentle softness, which a keen observer of human nature told me once no woman ever possessed unless she had deeply loved, and suffered from disappointed affection; in short, she was far more refined, far more fascinating, than her country cousin: besides, she was unfortunate, and that at once gave her a hold upon the sympathies of the young curate: it did no more: but Mary Charles did not understand these nice distinctions, and nothing could exceed the change of manner she evinced when her cousin and her betrothed were together.

Mary thought her cousin rude and petulant; but the true cause of the change never occurred to her. Accustomed to the high-toned courtesy of well-bred men, which is so little practised in the middle class of English society, it never suggested itself, that placing her chair, or opening the door for her to go out, or rising courteously when she came into a room, was more than, as a lady, she had a right to expect; in truth, she did not notice it at all; but she did notice and feel deeply her cousin's alternate coldness and snappishness of manner. "I would not," thought Mary, "have behaved so to her if she had been left desolate; but in a little time, when my mother is more content, I will leave Repton, and become independent by my talents." Never did she think of the power delegated to her by, the Almighty without feeling herself raised--ay, higher than she had ever been in the days of her splendour--in the scale of moral usefulness; as every one must feel whose mind is rightly framed. She had not yet known what it was to have her abilities trampled on or insulted; she had never experienced the bitterness consequent upon having the acquirements--which in the days of her prosperity commanded silence and admiration--sneered at or openly ridiculed.--She had yet to learn that the Solons, the law-givers of English society, lavish their attentions and praise upon those who learn, not upon those who teach.

Mary had not been six months fatherless, when she was astonished, first by a letter, and then by a visit, from her former lover; he came to renew his engagement, and to wed her even then if she would have him; but Mary's high principle was stronger than he imagined. "No," she said, "you are not independent of your father, and whatever I feel, I have no right to draw _you_ down into poverty. You may fancy now that you could bear it; but a time would come--if not to you, to me--when the utter selfishness of such conduct would goad me to a death of early misery." The young man appealed to her uncle, who thought her feelings overstrained, but respected her for it nevertheless; and in the warmth of his admiration, he communicated the circumstance to his wife and daughter.

"Refuse her old lover under present circumstances," repeated her cousin to herself as she left the room; "there must be some other reason than that; she could not be so foolish as to reject such an offer at such a time." Unfortunately, she saw Edwin Lechmere walking by Mary's side, under the shadow of some trees. She watched them until the foliage screened them from her sight, and then she shut herself into her own room, and yielded to a long and violent burst of tears. "It is not enough," she exclaimed, in the bitterness of her feelings, "that the comforts of my parents' declining years should be abridged by the overwhelming burden to their exertions--another family added to their own; it is not enough that an uncomfortable feeling has grown between my father and mother on this account, and that cold looks and sharp words have come where they never came before, but my peace of mind must be destroyed. Gladly would I have taken a smaller portion, if I could have kept the affections which I see but too plainly my cousin has stolen from me. And my thoughtless aunt to say, only yesterday, that 'at all events her husband was no man's enemy but his own.' Has not his want of prudent forethought been the ruin of his own children? and will my parents ever recover the anxiety, the pain, the sacrifices, brought on by one man's culpable neglect? Oh, uncle! if you could look from your grave upon the misery you have caused!"--and then, exhausted by her own emotion, the affectionate but jealous girl began to question herself as to what she should do. After what she considered mature deliberation, she made up her mind to upbraid her cousin with treachery, and she put her design into execution that same evening.

It was no easy matter to oblige her cousin to understand what she meant; but at last the declaration that she had refused her old lover because she had placed her affections upon Edwin Lechmere, whom she was endeavouring to "entrap," was not to be mistaken; and the country girl was altogether unprepared for the burst of indignant feeling, mingled with much bitterness, which repelled the untruth. A strong fit of hysterics, into which Mary Charles worked herself, was terminated by a scene of the most painful kind, her father being upbraided by her mother with "loving other people's children better than his own," while the curate himself knelt by the side of his betrothed, assuring her of his unaltered affection. From such a scene Miss Adams hastened with a throbbing brow and a bursting heart. She had no one to counsel or console her; no one to whom she could apply for aid. For the first time since she had experienced her uncle's tenderness, she felt she had been the means of disturbing his domestic peace; the knowledge of the burden she and hers were considered, weighed her to the earth; and in a paroxysm of anguish she fell on her knees, exclaiming, "Oh, why are the dependent born into the world! Father, father, why did you leave us, whom you so loved, to such a fate!" And then she reproached herself for having uttered a word reflecting on his memory. One of the every-day occurrences of life--so common as to be hardly observed--is to find really kind, good-natured people not "weary of well-doing." "Oh, really I was worn out with so-and-so; they are so decidedly unfortunate that it is impossible to help them," is a general excuse for deserting those whose continuing misfortunes ought to render them greater objects of sympathy.

Mr. Charles Adams was, as has been shown in our little narrative, a kind-hearted man. Estranged as his brother and himself had been for a number of years, he had done much to forward, and still more to protect, his children. At first, this was a pleasure; but somehow his "benevolence," and "kindness," and "generosity," had been so talked about, so eulogised, and he had been so seriously inconvenienced by the waywardness of his nephews, the thoughtless pride of his sister-in-law, the helplessness of his younger nieces, as to feel seriously oppressed by his responsibility. And now the one who had never given him aught but pleasure, seemed, according to his daughter's representations, to be the cause of increased sorrow, the destroyer of his dear child's happiness. What to do he could not tell. His daughter, wrought upon by her own jealousy, had evinced, under its influence, so much temper she had never displayed before, that it seemed more than likely the cherished match would be broken off. His high-minded niece saved him any farther anxiety as far as she was concerned. She sent for and convinced him fully and entirely of her total freedom from the base design imputed to her. "Was it likely," she said, "that I should reject the man I love lest I should drag him into poverty, and plunge at once with one I do not care for into the abyss I dread? This is the common sense view of the case; but there is yet another. Is it to be borne that I would seek to rob _your_ child of her happiness? The supposition is an insult too gross to be endured. I will leave my mother to-morrow. An old school-fellow, older and more fortunate than myself, wished me to educate her little girl. I had one or two strong objections to living in her house; but the desire to be independent and away has overcome them." She then, with many tears, entreated her uncle still to protect her mother; urged how she had been sorely tried; and communicated fears, she had reason to believe were too well founded, that her eldest brother, feeling the reverse more than he could bear, had deserted from his regiment.

Charles Adams was deeply moved by the nobleness of his niece, and reproved his daughter more harshly than he had ever done before, for the feebleness that created so strong and unjust a passion. This had the contrary effect to what he had hoped for: she did not hesitate to say that her cousin had endeavoured to rob her both of the affection of her lover and her father. The injured cousin left Repton bowed beneath an accumulation of troubles, not one of which was of her own creating, not one of which she deserved; and all springing from the unproviding nature of him who, had he been asked the question, would have declared himself ready to sacrifice his own life for the advantage of that daughter, now compelled to work for her own bread. To trace the career of Mary Adams in her new calling, would be to repeat what I have said before. The more refined, the more informed the governess, the more she suffers. Being with one whom she had known in better days, made it even more hard to bend; yet she did her duty, and _that_ is one of the highest privileges a woman can enjoy.