CHAPTER II.
Where is the family in which the retrospect of ten years will not present a sad and chilling record--with the open tomb, around whose verge we play, and the yawning gulf of fate, which stands ever ready to swallow up the bright hopes and joys of early life? Maturity and decay shake hands.
In the family of Mr. Scriven many changes had taken place during that space of time: flowers had blossomed and been blighted; expectations had passed away which were once fair; sorrow had shadowed some happy faces; death had not spared them any more than others. But I must trace the history of each, though it shall be very briefly.
The only one of the four children of the merchant who had undergone few vicissitudes, who had known but little change, and that merely progressive, was the son. Mr. Henry Scriven was the same man, ten years older. He laid himself open to few of the attacks of fate; he had neither wife nor children. His fortress was small, and therefore easily defended. He had made money, and therefore he loved it all the better; he had lost money, and therefore he was more careful both in getting and keeping it. The circles round his heart went on concentrating, not expanding, and were well-nigh narrowed to a point.
Even in business this was discovered by those who had to deal with him. People said that the house of "Scriven and Co." was a hard house; but still everyone pronounced Mr. Scriven "a very honourable man," though he did sundry very dirty tricks. But he was known to be a rich man, and his business most extensive. Did you never remark, reader, that a wealthy man or a wealthy firm is always "very honourable," in the world's opinion? I have known a body of rich men do things that would have branded an inferior establishment with everlasting disgrace, or have sent an unfriended and unpursed vagabond across the seas; and yet I have been boldly told, "It is a highly honourable house."
So it was in a degree with Mr. Scriven, but still he was careful of his character. He never did anything very gross--anything that could be detected; and though all admitted that he was very close and somewhat grasping, people found excuses for him. Some thought he would build hospitals. Even his very nearest and his dearest knew him not fully, and did not perceive what were the real bonds which kept his actions in an even and respectable course. It is wonderful how many persons, women and men, are restrained by fear!
Maria Scriven had accompanied, as I have said, her husband, Mr. Marston, to India; and there, as far as worldly matters went, they were very prosperous. Still they had their griefs. Who has not? Their eldest child was a boy, whom they named Charles; and a stronger, finer little fellow never was seen. Her letters were full of him. But the second child was lost when a few months old, and the third did not survive its birth a year. Maria's own health also suffered from the climate, and with much pain it was resolved that she should return to Europe with her boy. Mr. Marston was to rejoin them at the end of three years. But human calculations are vain. When Maria reached England she was carried from the ship to the shore, and thence by slow journeys to London, for she was very ill. She revived a little in her native air; but the improvement was not permanent, and she died about two months after her arrival.
Her husband's great inducement for revisiting the land of his birth was gone; and leaving his son to the care of his brother-in-law, he remained plodding on in India.
Lady Monkton had her share of sorrows, too. Her first three children died in infancy. They were all bright, blooming, beautiful. Health and long life seemed written on their fair faces; but the battle is not to the strong, nor the race to the swift; and one or other of those maladies of childhood which often make a cheerful household desolate, had swept away the whole successively. Isabella, gay, happy, strong-minded as she was, quailed under these repeated blows. She was too firm and sensible to yield entirely; but a shade of sadness came over her once clear brow, and when a fourth child appeared, it was with some awe she watched its infancy. This child was a daughter, more delicate to all appearance than the others; but when illness fell upon her it was comparatively light, and with years health and strength seemed to increase. The fair, fragile form developed itself with a thousand graces; the bloom came upon the cheek, the soft, languid eyes grew bright and gay, and hour by hour hope and confidence returned. There was still a terrible shock in store, however. One day Sir Edward Monkton returned from a ride, very wet, was detained by a person he found waiting for him on business, was seized with shivering during the night, and inflammation of the lungs succeeded. Five days of watching and terror left her a widow, with a heart, the very firmness of which rendered its affections the more enduring. Mr. Scriven's character had not fully displayed itself to the eyes of Sir Edward Monkton. He knew him to be a good man of business, and believed him to be an honourable and upright man. Even Lady Monkton did not know her brother thoroughly; and she was glad to have him joined with herself as the executor of her husband's will and the guardian of her daughter. She soon found cause for some regret that it was so; for his arrangements did not altogether please her; but still there was not much to complain of; and at the end of the ten years which followed her father's death, she was living peacefully at her house in Hertfordshire, about fifteen miles from London, occupied with the education of her daughter Maria, seeing very little society, dwelling calmly, though gravely, upon the past, and looking forward with hope and consolation to the future.
One of the greatest anxieties which Lady Monkton felt at this time--and they were anxieties which amounted to grief--proceeded from the circumstances of her sister Margaret. Sir John Fleetwood had turned out all that Mr. Scriven had anticipated--reckless, extravagant, licentious. His whole thought and occupation seemed to be, how he might soon run through his own property and that part of his wife's fortune over which he had control. He was very successful in his endeavours. What bad associates, male and female, did not contrive to dissipate soon enough, cards, dice, and horses succeeded in losing; and at length he endeavoured to get rid of his wife's settlement. She would willingly have given it up to please him; for though he had been a negligent and offending husband, yet so long as money lasted he had always been gay and good-humoured with her, treating her more as an innocent and unsuspecting child than as a companion. But Mr. Scriven had taken care of his sister's income. It could not be touched even with her own consent. No creditor had power over it; her own receipt was necessary for every penny of the income, and being settled upon her children, though she had none, it was inviolable.
Sir John had not clearly perceived these stringent conditions when he signed the deed; and some sharp discussions took place between him and his brother-in-law. He became gloomy, morose, fretful; and still he would appear at Ascot or at the gambling-table, though he could no longer maintain the appearance which he had once displayed. It was at the former of these places that a dispute took place between himself and another gentleman of the turf. It matters not much to this work which was wrong or which was right, and indeed I do not know. Hard epithets were exchanged, and Sir John employed a horsewhip, not for its most legitimate purpose. Two mornings after he was brought home in a dying state, with a pistol-shot through his lungs, and never uttered a word during the half-hour he continued to exist. It must have been an awful half-hour, for it was clear that his senses and his memory were all still perfect; and what a picture memory must have shown him! Poor Lady Fleetwood was in despair. Her love had never failed, nor even diminished. She had never admitted his faults even to herself; or, at all events, had found excuses for them in her kind and affectionate heart. Now that he was gone she was still less likely to discover them; for bitter sorrow drew a veil between her eyes and all that might have shocked her in the conduct of the dead. It is true, there was one thing could not be concealed from her: that he had wasted every penny of his own property, and of hers, too, as far as it was in his power to do so. But then she fancied that he had been only unfortunate, and doubted not that, had he lived, all would have been set right. Her brother, Mr. Scriven, tried hard in his cold, dry way to open her eyes, but he only wrung her heart without convincing her; and though she both feared and respected him, he could never induce her to admit that her husband had acted ill.
Lady Monkton, with tenderer feelings, never attempted to undeceive her, but brought her at once to Bolton Park, and there tried to soothe and comfort her. Nor was she unsuccessful. Her own calm and quiet demeanour, somewhat touched with grief, but yet not melancholy, the gay and cheerful company of her little girl Maria, and the occasional society of her next neighbours, Lord Mellent and his wife, a somewhat indolent but amiable and lively woman, gradually restored Lady Fleetwood to composure and resignation. Her greatest solace, indeed, was her niece Maria; for, though enthusiastically fond of children, she had had none herself; and now, the gay, happy girl, about ten years old, addressed herself, with more thought and feeling than might have been expected of a child, to amuse her widowed aunt and win her mind from sad thoughts and memories. Maria's young companion, too, Anne Mellent, the daughter of their neighbours, though of a different character from Maria--quick, decided, independent in her ways--was always exceedingly tender and gentle to Lady Fleetwood, and from time to time another was added to their society, whom they all knew and all loved, though he was at this time not above thirteen years of age. But of him and his family I must speak apart, as, although it was intimately connected by circumstances with that of Mr. Scriven, it was not allied to it either by blood or marriage.