CHAPTER XV.—SETTLES THREE OF THE DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
Sir Thomas Crawley had sneaked and shuffled through life, and, by doing so with a degree of talent which if exerted in a righteous cause might have gained him the love and respect of good men, had obtained the world’s prizes—rank and riches. But tact and cleverness, rank and riches, were equally useless to him now, for he had met with an opponent whom he could neither bribe, nor cheat, nor intimidate, nor cajole. Face to face with death, all his worldly wisdom failed him. Dying! he could not believe it—so much yet remained for him to do. If he could but live for two months longer he should be a baronet—for two years, and he might have married the proud peer’s daughter, and transmitted the rank and honours he had won to a long line of descendants. Then, indeed, then, when he had accomplished his desire, then the idea of death might not have appeared so monstrous, so impossible. But even then he should have required a little time to prepare for death. Poor, self-deceived fool! as if every hour you have lived, every word you have spoken—ay, and every thought you have thought, were not preparing you for death and for eternity! It is not what you have achieved that will help you now; it is what you have been—what you are! The meek and lowly of heart will compose the aristocracy of Heaven; and the lame, and the halt, and the blind, who have borne their cross patiently, shall be its mighty ones: he who best has loved God and his neighbour—he whose life has been one unconscious preparation for death—he shall reap the reward;—else is Heaven but a mockery, and death, the “long dark day of nothingness,” the sceptic’s idea of death, extinction, annihilation, is the only reality.
Sir Thomas Crawley was dying; he knew it before Ernest Carrington brought the English physician; he knew it when the physician’s eye first met his own; he knew it when Mr. Selby urged him to sign his will. But he could not, he would not believe it. He was weak, he said; Germany did not agree with him; he had worked too hard, and required rest and society: that was his reason for summoning Mr. Carrington. Had Selby brought the papers he required?—old Sir Ralph Carrington’s will?—good! and his own will?—good! Let that be destroyed now, before his eyes—good!—he should make a fresh one when he reached Ashburn Priory. But he did not do so, for the very good reason that men in their coffins cannot make wills, and Sir Thomas reached Ashburn a corpse, and took up his abode in his family vault, handsomely bound in mahogany and black velvet, ornamented with a real silver plate, whereupon were engraved a goodly list of virtues, of which nobody had suspected him when living, but of which the undertaker always kept a large ready-made supply on hand, for the benefit of such of his customers as were rich enough to afford them. Nothing was said about his vices, perhaps because the silver plate was not half long enough to contain them.
Dear reader, shall you like to have a silver plate? For myself, a little one of Britannia metal, with “Peccavi” engraved upon it, will suit me well enough; but then I am only a poor author, and if any of my works should happen to survive me in morocco covers, I shall care little what sort of boards the hand that traced them lies bound in.
During the time Ernest was in Germany, the Rosebud was decidedly out of spirits, restless, and anxious; and when the news of Sir Thomas Crawley’s death arrived, she became so nervous and dejected, that Mrs. Colville grew quite uneasy about her.
One fine morning Mrs. Selby paid them a visit, evidently full of news. It soon came out,—she had heard from Mr. Selby; he and Mr. Carrington would be home the next day; and—would Mrs. Colville believe it?—poor dear Sir Thomas had died without signing his last will and testament; so all the property would go, under a former one, to his heir, Mr. Peter Crawley—a very fine young man, in a large way of business in Manchester, though of course he’d give up all that sort of thing now. She, Mrs. Selby, was only sorry on one account, he had never been able to get it out of Mr. Selby, he was so ridiculously close, but she was almost certain Sir Thomas had left £20,000 to Mr. Carrington in his last will, and he would have spent the money so well, it certainly was a thousand pities; but Mr. Peter Crawley would benefit, and he was such a very fine young man; a fortunate family the Crawleys were, certainly.
That day at dinner, Mrs. Colville remarked her daughter’s appetite was returning, and that she began to look like herself again; which she attributed to a certain quinine mixture wherewith the Rosebud had been victimised, and which she canonised accordingly.
Ernest and Mr. Selby arrived when due, and the legend of Mr. Peter Crawley’s heirship remained uncontradicted—nay, was confirmed, by that very fine young man’s arrival, in high health and spirits, to enact the part of chief mourner. Ernest was much occupied by parish affairs, and by the arrangements for the approaching funeral (in regard to which Mr. Selby appeared resolved to consult him much more than he wished, or Mr. Peter Crawley seemed to relish); but all his leisure moments he spent at the cottage, and had no reason to complain of the reception he met with from either mother or daughter.
And so, in due course of time, the day for the funeral arrived. Now it is an acknowledged fact that funerals and weddings are the two dullest and most sombre occasions on which human creatures assemble themselves together, and are therefore equally insipid to describe; only a funeral labours under the additional disadvantage, that it is against every rule of good taste and right feeling to poke fun at it. We feel, therefore, that we have “our public” with us, when, without entering into detail, we beg them to consider Sir Thomas Crawley handsomely and appropriately interred, with the necessary amount of black crape, crocodile tears, and funereal foppery.
After the ceremony was over, Mr. Selby ate an excellent luncheon at the expense of the estate, to provide against the possible contingency of requiring the performance repeated on his own account, after a verdict of “died of inanition,” and then prepared to read the will—only, after searching high and low, and in every intermediate altitude, no will was forthcoming; so the next best thing was to inform a small and select coterie of ravening wolves, and daughters of the horse-leech, there met together in bombazine and black sheep’s-clothing (alias broadcloth), and styling themselves relations of the dear departed (which in more senses than one, they certainly were), all that he (Selby) knew about the matter. This was—that since his accession to the Manor of Ashburn, Sir Thomas Crawley had made two wills:—the first bequeathing the bulk of the property to Mr. Peter Crawley, he had duly signed, sealed, and delivered the second he had never completed. That, when Sir Thomas, in his last illness, summoned Mr. Selby to Baden, he had desired him to bring with him three documents, viz., old Sir Ralph Carrington’s will, under which he had originally inherited the property; his own completed will; and the draught of the more recent one, then incomplete. That Sir Thomas had carefully-perused every clause of Sir Ralph’s will; then, begging Mr. Selby to take especial care of it, he desired him to destroy both the others in his presence; adding that they neither of them carried out his present intentions, and that, on his return to the Priory, he should give instructions for a fresh one. That he (Mr. Selby), declining to destroy the wills without witnesses of his doing so, by Sir Thomas Crawley’s express desire, the valet and the English physician were summoned, and in their presence he burned the wills. The property must, therefore, be disposed of according to the will of the late Sir Ralph Carrington.
We will save the reader (and ourselves) the trouble of wading through the mire of that most senseless abuse of the Queen’s-English, and her subjects’ common sense, yclept “legal phraseology;” which ought to be rendered illegal without delay; and proceed at once to state that, in the event of plain Thomas Crawley (not then be-knighted) dying intestate and without issue, the property was to revert to the eldest son of Reginald-Carrington, &c. &c., which Reginald, as the reader may probably conjecture, was the “cut off” son of Sir Hugh, and the father of the present rector of Ashburn.
Ernest Carrington, therefore, the ci-devant mathematical and classical master of Dr. Donkiestir’s school at Tickletown, was now lord of the manor of Ashburn, patron of his own living, and owner of Ashburn Priory, besides, if he chose to revive the dormant title, a baronet also.
On hearing this announcement, that fine young man, Mr. Peter Crawley, said a naughty word, and then tried to look as if somebody else had done it, frowning portentously at the oldest ravening wolf, who, with the rest of the pack, appeared eager to turn and rend somebody, and were only restrained from an outbreak of ferocity by the tightness of their (black) sheep’s clothing; while the Misses Horse-leech, despite their bombazine and flounces, cast sanguinary glances on Mr. Selby, and would probably there and then have fixed upon him and exhausted his vital fluid, albeit his personal appearance was scarcely suggestive of an agreeable esculent, but for the presence of the bystanders.
The Rosebud heard the news before she slept that night—slept, did we say?—poor little self-tortured victim to a delusion of the arch-enemy—if agonised sobs, threatening to part soul and body; if pale cheeks, throbbing bosom, streaming eyes, and burning brow, be signs of sleep, then indeed was the expression rightly chosen. Ernest also, either by some strange vibration of the sympathetic chain which unites those who truly love—(my dear strong-minded old gentleman, albeit you are the “father of a family,” and a fair specimen of the ancient Turk of private life into the bargain, your saying “Pish! folly! German rubbish!” does not affect me in the slightest degree—probably because the sympathetic link which so much offends you, does not unite our spirits, which will, I fear, always more or less effervesce rather than mingle, by being brought in contact with one another)—Ernest also, either from some sympathetic influence, or from the natural impetuosity of his disposition, was so restless and excited that night, that he determined the next day should decide whether he was to be more happy, or more miserable, than anybody had ever been before—except, perhaps, the few other ardent young men who have “lived and loved,” and got into desperate states of mind about it, since the days when Noah went a-yachting.
Accordingly, being aware that Mrs. Colville had usually breakfasted in her own room since her illness, and seldom made her appearance in the drawing-room till about twelve o’clock, Ernest (as soon as he had finished his breakfast, and written two or three business letters, which were fertile in mistakes and erasures, seeing that his hand had written them while his mind was “far away”) walked down to the cottage, let himself in, and without announcement made his way into the drawingroom, as he had often done before, where, opening the door, he found, as he had fondly hoped to do, the Rosebud “blooming alone;” only that she was not blooming at all, but looking especially pale and washed out, by reason of the tempestuous night she had passed. Not but that the storm of feeling which had swept over her maiden soul, and left its traces behind, had added a depth and (if we may use the term) pathos to her beauty, which it wanted previously. She turned, if possible, still more pale as he entered; then, by a strong exercise of self-control, she strove, with tolerable success, to receive him in her usual manner. After a few commonplace inquiries and responses had passed between them, Emily, by a great effort, felicitated him on his accession of fortune. He smiled mournfully.
“Do not congratulate me, Emily,” he said: “it is a vast and fearful responsibility. My career would have been a simpler and happier one without it; but it is God’s will to call me to a more prominent position, and I must not shrink from the cares and duties it will impose upon me.” He paused, then with a forced smile, which most ineffectually concealed his agitation> continued, “I should make but a poor advocate, I fear; for here am I setting forth all the evils and difficulties of my new position, when my object in coming here—an object in the attainment of which the whole happiness of my existence is centered—is to ask you to share it.” He then in a few simple, truthful, and therefore eloquent words, told her of his deep affection for her, and of his earnest desire to do what mortal might, to guard her from, or to mitigate, all the sorrows which more or less fall to the lot of each of us, confident that, in striving to provide for her happiness, he should insure his own.
Emily heard him to the end without interruption, and, save that she grew paler, and that her features assumed a more, fixed and immovable expression, she evinced no sign of being in the slightest degree affected by his appeal. When he had concluded, she thanked him for the compliment he had paid her, but informed him that, although she should always regard him in the light of a dear and valued friend, and hoped he would, not deprive her of a privilege she so highly appreciated, yet that she could never become anything more to him than a friend—in fact, she decidedly and unequivocally refused him.
Ernest was thunderstricken! He was no coxcomb, but neither was he devoid of penetration; and he knew her so well.—had traced, as he believed, so clearly the rise and progress of her affection for him—an affection ripened, and, as it were, sanctified, by their joint attendance beside her mother’s sick bed—that, although from a slight tendency to waywardness which he was aware lurked in her disposition, he anticipated some little difficulty in obtaining her consent to their union, yet the idea that his offer should be met with a calm and deliberate refusal, had never occurred to him even as a possibility. After a minute’s pause, he exclaimed—
“I am grieved,—pained beyond expression!—nay,” he continued, gaining courtage from the strength of his convictions, “I will even dare to add, surprised. Emily, I cannot bring myself to believe that my offer has come upon you unexpectedly; you must have been aware of my affection for you?” Receiving no answer, he continued in a sterner tone, “I am then to understand that, perceiving my attachment, without returning it, you have led me on merely to gratify your heartless vanity, till, in my weak trustfulness, I have placed it in your power to inflict this blow upon me—a blow, the effects of which years will fail to counteract. It is not my pride that is wounded: the little pride I ever possessed has been pretty well taken out of me by the drudgery of life ere this; but that such deep, unselfish love, such entire boundless trust, should have been thus bitterly deceived, thus heartlessly rejected, and by one who seemed all truth, innocence, and gentleness—Oh! it is unnatural, incredible’” He sprang from his chair, and began pacing the room with rapid strides, then continued, “But I will overcome it; it is unworthy to be thus affected—to feel thus for one capable of such deception. No! cost me what it may, I will crush——!”
“Gently, my dear sir, gently: you may crush exactly what you please of your own—your outraged affections, your rejected heart, or that very nice new hat which you purchased in your way through London—though that would be the most wantonly extravagant act of the three; but you mustn’t crush our Rosebud, albeit she is such a heartless little tigress. Ay I you may well stop and look at her! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Carrington! so you ought! And you a clergyman, too!
“Stop and look at her!” Why, what was there to see in that calm, expressionless face, that cold stoical exterior?—only that the said stoicism had turned out a dead failure, broken down with its would-be professor at the critical moment, and there she was crying her woman’s tender heart out, through her woman’s beautiful eyes, more like Niobe than Plato, by long odds.
When Ernest perceived this, he experienced what dear Mrs. ———— would call, in her very affecting third-volume style, “a tremendous revulsion of feeling,” under the influence of which he seated himself beside the weeping Rosebud, and taking her poor, cold, little hand, said—
“Emily, dearest Emily, what is the meaning of all this? Why! you are making yourself as miserable as you have made me! Come, treat me as a friend—a brother: confide in me. You must have some reason for what you are doing. Tell me”—and here, despite his best efforts, his voice faltered—“tell me—your happiness is ever my first consideration, and, even though it involve the ruin of my dearest hopes, I will strive to secure it—do you love another?”
She did not speak; in fact, she could not just at that moment, by reason of the swollen state of the globus-hystericus interfering with the action of the larynx—to write technically—or because of a choking sensation in the throat, if any reader prefers the colloquial style; but she had very expressive eyes, and they said “no” just as plainly, or rather as prettily, as her lips could have done.
Ernest felt better; if she did not love anybody else, she must in time love him. Such affection as his must produce a return—he knew, he felt—but you see the line of argument, dear reader. Well, then, what was the hitch? Ernest pondered; at last, a bright idea occurred to him. The change in Emily had taken place since the previous day. Yes, that was it! So he half muttered aloud, half thought to himself, “Some absurd, romantic, generous scruple about this confounded” (I am afraid he said confounded) “fortune.” He then continued aloud, rather in the tone in which he talked to the very little children in the Sunday-school,—
“Now listen to me, dear Emily. The happiness of my life, and, as I cannot but hope” (charitable hope!), “of yours also, is at stake. I once again tell you that I love you, as I have never loved before—as I shall never love again; that I love you with the one, deep, enduring passion of my lifetime. And I ask you—I adjure you—for both our sakes, to tell me, as truly as the fact will appear on that solemn day when the secrets of all hearts shall be known, do you return my affection?—Emily, dearest, do you love me?”
Well, of course she could not say “No,” for that would have been false; she must say something, for, Sunday-school manner and all, Ernest had become rather awful at last, so there was nothing left for her but to say “Yes,”—-which she did accordingly. That, in fact, settled the question; for, naturally, Ernest decided if she loved him, she must and should marry him; and then he elicited from her that it was the fortune, upon which he observed—
“Very well: that he had hoped and intended to send Percy to college, and to buy Hugh a commission, and to build a church at Satanville, and to despatch a bran-new missionary to Sambobamboo, and to erect some very uncomfortable model cottages for the poor people, and to double Mr. Slowkopf’s salary; but that if Emily persisted in refusing him because of-the fortune, he would that very afternoon make it over by a deed of gift to that fine young man Mr. Peter Crawley, and marry her on the £800 per annum which he received as Rector.”
And so, as it was quite clear that he meant what he said, and was prepared to act up to it, the poor Rosebud was obliged to give in, and consent to accept him fortune and all.
Thus the interview ended as happily as it had begun miserably; and if Ernest didn’t steal a kiss ere he took leave, it must have been because he was a clergyman, and had the fear of the bishop before his eyes;—though if the bishop had been a good-natured one, he would have winked at such an offence—certainly an arch-bishop would have done so!