CHARLES HERBERT GIVES HIS OPINION.
Mrs. Armstrong had seen very little of her eldest sister for years, nor of Mrs. Herbert since Mary's visit to Park Lane. Sir James Elstone, the old admiral, still resided with his wife in the south of France. He was, as we know from Mrs. Lake's information to Edward Armstrong before his marriage, more than thirty years older than Louisa St. Clair, and was now eighty years of age. Louisa, although she bore the title of Lady Elstone, performed the office of a kind and faithful nurse to her aged husband, who was fast sinking into the grave.
Her sister Helen, Mrs. Herbert, possessed the good health and sunny temper which made her society always welcome at the homes of her two sisters. Maria had a family to care for, and she was naturally a home bird; and besides, she had a sweet companion and comforter in her daughter Mary.
Mrs. Herbert, while her son was away, had no home ties, and the colonel, who had spent more than half his life in India, preferred the beautiful climate of the Mediterranean to the fogs and uncertain weather of England. All these facts were turned into arguments in favour of her request by Lady Elstone when she wrote and asked her sister Helen and the colonel to join them at their château on the shores of the Mediterranean. This invitation arrived soon after Mary's visit to Park Lane, and a year had elapsed since Mrs. Armstrong had seen her sister Helen, who, however, kept up a constant correspondence with Mary.
On the Tuesday morning, at the time when Kate Franklyn placed Monday's Times in the hands of her cousin, Henry Halford, Mary sat reading to her mother a letter of many pages from her favourite aunt. She had already on the previous day read and commented upon the paragraph referred to with earnest sympathy. Not even her mother could guess the longing in her daughter's heart to be able to show that sympathy to the children of the suffering father, and the nieces and nephews of Henry Halford. But another subject occupied her now. Charles Herbert's regiment was on its way to England from Canada, and Mrs. Herbert in her letter stated that they hoped to be in Park Lane to receive their son before the end of July, and that Mrs. Armstrong and her daughter were to expect a very speedy visit to Lime Grove after their arrival.
"We were sorry to leave poor Aunt Louisa just at this time," wrote Mrs. Herbert, "for the old admiral cannot last long. However, your uncle has promised to go to her at a moment's notice, for at her husband's death there will be too much for a woman to manage, especially with lawyers."
All Mary's pity for her aunt Louisa could not serve to control her pleasure at the prospect of seeing her aunt and uncle and cousin Charles.
"O mamma!" she said, as she refolded the crinkly sheets of foreign paper, "is not this delightful news—at least all excepting that about poor Aunt and Uncle Elstone? but Aunt Louisa is a much greater stranger to me than Aunt Helen, she has lived abroad so long with uncle. But I shall count the days till Aunt Helen comes; are you not pleased, mamma?"
"Indeed I am," said Mrs. Armstrong; "but, Mary, if you are invited again to Park Lane, are you prepared to accept the invitation?"
"Not for longer than a day or two, mamma, and I don't think Aunt Helen will ask me; she was too much annoyed about the consequences of my visit last year; you remember what she said about it."
"Yes, Mary; but, my child, you will be one-and-twenty next month; have you made up your mind to remain single all your life?"
"Yes, mamma," said Mary, with a merry laugh; "I mean to be a useful old maid, attending to my dear mother, and that 'blessing to mothers,' a kind maiden aunt to the children of my brothers when they are married——"
"Unless——" said Mrs. Armstrong, with a smile.
"Unless what, mamma? An impossibility?"
"What is impossible, Mary?"
"Why, for papa to change his mind. After he has once made a resolve he adheres to it, even when he has been convinced that he is in error."
"He considers that adherence to his resolve is a manly firmness of purpose," said her mother.
"Well, mamma, this firmness of purpose puzzles me sometimes, for a great writer has said that the man who changes an erroneous opinion after being convinced that it is wrong proves that he is wiser when he changes it than he was when he formed it."
"A little bit of philosophy, Mary," said her mother, smiling; "and so I suppose you consider the unless an impossibility?"
"Indeed I do, mamma, so we will not talk about it;" and rising hastily as if to strengthen her determination, she seated herself at the piano, and commenced practising a somewhat difficult sonato of Beethoven's.
The weeks passed away, and the morning of the 15th of July dawned in summer glory, giving a promise that for once St. Swithin would be propitious. There was a strange sense of happiness in Mary's heart as she entered the dining-room, and looked out upon the distant hills of Highgate and Harrow, which appeared almost transparent beneath the purple haze that rested upon them.
The source of Mary's happiness was a slight one, it is true, but it augured better things, and was therefore tinted with the rainbow hues of hope. She had driven her puny carriage to the station the evening before to meet her father, who, having encountered Mr. Drummond on the platform, invited him to take a seat in the carriage as far as the Limes.
The offer was accepted, and Mr. Drummond, quite unaware that he was touching on dangerous ground, remarked, as soon as the carriage started—
"What a narrow escape from death that young man, Arthur Franklyn, has had! but he is so much better to-day, that they are going to remove him to the Isle of Wight on Tuesday or Wednesday. I am heartily glad of it, for the sake of those poor motherless children."
"Yes, indeed, it would be a great burden and expense to their grandfather to have to provide for four children, which I suppose he can ill afford."
"I don't know that, Armstrong, even if their father was not in a position to make provision for their maintenance. Of course it would add to his expenses, but not beyond his means. What made you think otherwise?"
"Oh!" replied Mr. Armstrong, who already began to regret having offered his friend a lift, "well, schoolmasters are always poor as a rule, and in some cases half-educated; but," he continued hastily, "Dr. Halford is certainly an exception to the latter assumption."
"Schoolmasters in provincial towns and villages are not as a rule men of education; it was especially so when we were boys," said Mr. Drummond, firing a shot at a venture, which made Mr. Armstrong wince; "but my friend Dr. Halford is also an exception to your first assertion. Why, he gave his daughter 1000l. on her wedding-day, and I know it has cost him nearly another thousand to educate his son for the Church."
"Was not that a waste of money, if he intended him to be a schoolmaster as he now is?"
"No, certainly not; with a university education, a man who has been accustomed from his boyhood to teaching and school routine is beyond all others most suitable to conduct a school. And besides," continued Mr. Drummond, "what are the head masters of Eton and Harrow, or Rugby, but schoolmasters and gentlemen? and how often have the masters of these schools been chosen for the office of bishop! and some eventually have attained to the position of Archbishop of Canterbury."
"Well, I confess," said Mr. Armstrong, "I have been too much engrossed in business matters to acquire a knowledge of these particulars, and perhaps I have gained my ideas from my experience in youth, and from the general opinion of business men. The idea that a schoolmaster could give his daughter 1000l. on her wedding-day would have appeared to me years ago an impossibility."
"There are hundreds of educated clever men who are as successful as Dr. Halford," replied Mr. Drummond, "and he only began with a small capital, left him at his father's death, and with the recommendation of the late Lord Rivers, father of his pupil, the present earl. He has good but not exorbitant terms, his boys are all of the better class, the family live in a comfortable but not extravagant style, and I know that the doctor's income, not net of course, has averaged from two to three thousand a year for many years."
They were drawing near Lime Grove as Mr. Drummond spoke, and for a few moments silence ensued, then he remarked suddenly—
"Setting aside the subject of schoolmasters, Armstrong, what do you think of our new curate?"
In spite of the firmness with which Mary had restrained the inclination to glance at her father, who sat by her side during this conversation, she could not resist doing so now.
The movement of the head was, however, unnoticed by her father, who, with all his foolish prejudices and stubborn will, had a keen sense of justice.
His answer came, spontaneous and candid—
"I consider Mr. Henry Halford a clever, intellectual, and gentlemanly young man, and one of the finest preachers and readers I ever heard in my life."
"Well done, Armstrong, that is a testimony worth having, for you are a good judge, and so are the people of Kilburn, for the old church is filling tremendously; and now we are at your house. Thank you very much for this lift on the road."
"Let Mary drive you home, Drummond," said her father as the gentleman alighted, "or Rowland can do so if you like," for Mary's old protector in childish rides is still Mr. Armstrong's groom.
But Mr. Drummond refused. "No, no," he said, "I shall like the walk home, thank you, Miss Armstrong, all the same," for Mary sat still holding the reins, waiting for his decision.
He assisted her to alight as he spoke, and then after a pleasant farewell Mr. Drummond turned towards home, and father and daughter entered the house.
Mary went upstairs to her room to prepare for dinner, with sunshine at her heart. It had been pleasant to hear Mr. Drummond combat her father's opinions with so much energy, but what was that compared to his evidently truthful testimony respecting Henry Halford?
How every word of that praise was echoed in her own heart! more especially because she knew that her father would not have uttered such an opinion in her presence had he not truly felt what he said.
She had described the conversation and its delightful termination to her mother, who smiled, but said nothing either to damp her joy or encourage her hopes.
But the word unless, and the remarks it occasioned, arose from what had passed between Mr. Drummond and her father on the preceding evening.
On the morning of the day on which her uncle, aunt, and Cousin Herbert were expected, we left Mary standing at the window of the dining-room and looking out on the summer landscape, while waiting for the urn to make the tea and prepare breakfast as usual.
During this meal the conversation naturally turned on their expected visitors, who had promised to remain till Monday or Tuesday.
"They called at Dover Street yesterday," said Mr. Armstrong, "to give notice of their arrival, and to tell me not to expect them to-day till about four o'clock. They will drive down in the open carriage, for Helen says she means to explore the country with you, Maria; and the horses can travel farther than Mary's ponies."
"Aunt Helen does not know the capabilities of my ponies," said Mary, laughing, "and three days will not give us time enough to do much. Poor old Boosey, he is quite discarded now; but he does not appear in the least jealous because the other horses work and he is allowed to be idle."
"Very likely not," said Mr. Armstrong, laughing; "but he must expect to work all the harder when the boys come home."
Mr. Armstrong rose at the sound of his horse's feet at the gate. He still at times rode Firefly to town; he could not part with the horse on which he had accompanied his daughter so often in her evening rides, although the railway, when Mary drove him to the station, was a great convenience.
Mary's lively remarks about her ponies had produced a twinge of conscience in her father; her manner reminded him of olden times, before he had crushed her girlish hopes by refusing a young man of whom he knew nothing, and without any inquiries as to his family and position, also while under the influence of prejudices which Mr. Drummond had flung to the winds.
These foolish prejudices had induced Mr. Armstrong to place his two elder boys at a public school, and Freddy with a lady who took little boys under ten. But Mr. Drummond's remarks had proved that there existed private schools, with masters equally clever and gentlemanly. He knew also that the bright looks and cheerful tones of his daughter arose from his clearly expressed opinion of Henry Halford the evening before.
"I am afraid I shall have to give way at last," he said to himself as he rode slowly along the Kilburn Road; "but it will defeat all my schemes for my daughter's future. What a splendid match such a girl as she is might have made but for this unfortunate acquaintance with the son of a schoolmaster! However, the Herberts are coming by-and-by. I must get Helen to talk to Mary. Mrs. Herbert's mother was proud and ambitious enough about her daughters, and had I not had money"—and he paused as a memory arose, and then added, "and the love and gratitude of Maria St. Clair, I should have had but a poor chance."
Such reflections as these always aroused conscience in Mr. Armstrong's heart. He loosened Firefly's bridle, and the spirited though well-trained animal started off at a trot towards town, scattering his rider's painful thoughts with every movement.
But Mr. Armstrong's hopes of gaining allies in his wife's relations were very quickly crushed.
When he returned home he found the colonel and his wife seated in the drawing-room with Mrs. Armstrong, and Mary walking round the garden with her cousin.
"Come and show me the garden, Mary," had been the request of the captain after she had laughingly joked him on his large black whiskers and generally fierce appearance, and she had readily complied with his wish.
"So you are not married yet, Mary," were his first words, as they stood for a moment on the steps leading into the garden to admire the prospect; "why, I heard such accounts from my mother of your conquests and splendid offers, that I almost expected to find my pretty cousin a duchess or at least a countess."
"Oh, don't joke about these things, cousin Charles," she replied, with a flush on her face and a quivering lip, "you cannot think what pain it gave me to refuse these gentlemen who so kindly preferred me to others, but I could not have married any of them."
Charles Herbert observed the flush and the trembling lip, and for a short distance they walked on in silence. "There is something hidden under all this," he said to himself; "my mother wont tell me anything, but I mean to find out."
They continued their walk, now and then pausing to notice the beautiful flowers that bordered their path. Mary, who had quickly recovered herself, soon convinced her cousin that she knew more of botany than he did.
They turned into a pleasant walk bordered with shrubs and overshadowed with trees, and reached the shrubbery.
"Mary," said her cousin suddenly, "tell me the truth; I have a reason for asking; is Henry Halford at the bottom of all this indifference to wealth and position and that sort of thing?"
Mary's eyes filled with tears; the presence of her cousin Charles had recalled to her memory the happy week at Oxford, and the reminiscences thus aroused were more than she could bear unmoved. She turned very pale, but she had no wish to disguise the truth from her cousin, the playmate of her childhood; and she said—
"I will tell you the truth, Charles. Henry Halford wrote to papa, but I never saw the letter. Papa wrote a refusal without asking me, and I knew nothing of these letters till nearly a year afterwards."
"Who told you then?"
"Poor Mrs. Halford. She became paralysed and weak-minded after the death of her daughter, and used to be drawn about in an invalid-chair. One day when I was walking with mamma we met her, and then in some way she slipped it out. It was the very day that Captain Fraser called upon papa and asked him for me."
"And was this the real cause of your refusing Captain Fraser?"
"I could never have married him, Charlie," she said. "You know what he is; nor could I if he had been worth 50,000l. a year instead of twelve; so I should have refused him at all events; but hearing about Henry Halford's letter made me more decided. Oh, Charles, don't remind me of that time; I never saw papa so angry in my life, but I kept firm."
"And this Mr. Halford—do you think he is still attached to you?"
"I don't know; don't ask any more questions, Charlie. I'm sure I've told you quite enough." And Mary spoke with her usual vivacity: she had dried her tears and decked her face with smiles, but her cousin had touched upon too tender a string to be made the subject of cousinly conversation.
The sound of the dinner-bell happened opportunely at this moment, and Charles entered the dining-room with his cousin on his arm, to receive a warm welcome from the uncle who had once saved him from a watery grave.
The conversation at dinner turned upon Mrs. Herbert's recollections of her pleasant stay at Lady Elstone's on the shores of the Mediterranean, but she very quickly gave place to her son. Her recent visit to the Château de Lisle was not her first, but Charlie's description of Canada and its inhabitants had all the freshness of novelty, and was listened to with great interest.
During dessert, however, as they sat trifling with the summer fruit, and enjoying the sweet evening breeze that fluttered the muslin window curtains, Charles made his first plunge.
After what Mary had told him he had braced his nerves to expect an outburst of anger from his irascible uncle, but he knew Mary too well to fear a scene on her part.
"So my friend Henry Halford is ordained, I hear," were the words that covered Mary's face with blushes, and threw a silence on every one present except Mr. Armstrong, who said with a flushed face and a look of contempt—
"Your friend, Charles? Ah, yes, I remember, I have been told you had that honour."
"It has not been a constant or intimate friendship," he replied; "but I was a fellow-pupil with him at Dr. Mason's for two years while he was preparing for the university. I did not at first recognise him when we met at Oxford, but as the intimate associate of Horace Wilton I consider the friendship of such a man as Henry Halford a very high honour."
There was a pause, during which Mrs. Armstrong would have given the signal for leaving the table, but she wished to hear what Charles had to say, and she did not fear an outbreak on the part of her husband in such company.
"I have heard Charles speak of this young man while with Dr. Mason," said the colonel; "he was then a youth of remarkable powers and intellectual tastes; his relations are neighbours of yours, Armstrong?"
"Yes; father and son are schoolmasters," was the curt reply.
Edward Armstrong, finding all his preconceived notions and objections slipping from under his feet, began to feel slightly irritable.
Mrs. Armstrong saw it, and gave the signal, of which her sister and Mary very gladly availed themselves, leaving the three gentlemen alone.
"There is nothing detrimental in a man of education filling the place of a schoolmaster," remarked the colonel, taking up the subject again after the ladies had left; "besides, this young man is now a clergyman, and admissible to the highest circles in the kingdom."
"I've heard all that over and over again lately," replied Mr. Armstrong, quietly; the presence of his daughter had been the chief cause of his rising irritation. It appeared to him as if every one was endeavouring to counteract in her mind the mean opinion which he wished her to form of the man whom she placed in the way of her most brilliant offers.
"The truth is, colonel," he continued, "I cannot deny the talents and other estimable qualities of this young parson; he is good-looking, gentlemanly, and a preacher of remarkable powers, but I cannot forgive him for aspiring to the hand of my daughter, and preventing her from marrying into a position which her talents, her education, and her personal attractions would obtain for her, independently of the 15,000l. or 20,000l. I could give her as a marriage portion."
"Well, if the young people like each other I'm very sorry for them, that's all I can say; however, you know your own affairs best, Armstrong, so we've nothing to object to on the matter."
This acquiescence on the part of the straightforward old soldier did more to shake Mr. Armstrong's stubborn will than a large amount of opposition. The responsibility of securing his daughter's happiness or misery for life rested now on his own shoulders, and he shrunk from its weight; therefore when Charles ventured to say—
"I suppose, uncle, you wont object to my going to church to-morrow to hear my friend preach?"
"Of course not, my boy," was the reply, in a kind tone; "we attend the parish church regularly, where Mr. Halford is curate."
"Not a very wise plan, I should imagine," said the colonel, "to allow a young girl to sit and listen to the eloquence of the man you wish her to despise and forsake, and to know also that crowds of hearers are brought to church to listen with breathless attention to the words of one who, because he is not rich, is to be set aside for those that are, however inferior in intellect or appearance."
"I am inclined to think Mary has got over all her lovesick nonsense about this young man. I'm her father, and she has from a child been accustomed to give up her own wishes to mine; she has done so now, and therefore I have no hesitation in allowing her to attend the church, more especially as I know her religious feelings will enable her to forget the reader and preacher in his subject."
The colonel changed the topic of conversation; these fallacious arguments of the self-willed, prejudiced man irritated him, and after a short time a summons to coffee took them into the drawing-room.
Next day at church, after the morning service, Charles Herbert renewed his friendship with Henry Halford, the colonel and Mrs. Herbert also warmly recalling the pleasant visit at Oxford, and expressing their pleasure at meeting him again.
Mr. Armstrong and Mary drew back after the distant bow which now formed their only recognition of Dr. Halford and his family, but Henry was only too glad to introduce his venerable father and his sister's children to his friend Charles Herbert and his parents.
Mr. Armstrong led his daughter forward till they were joined by the colonel and his wife.
"Charles is walking home with his friend," said Mrs. Herbert; "what a clever young man Mr. Halford is! I observed that he preaches extemporaneously."
"There is no doubt of his cleverness," said Mr. Armstrong; and then they discussed the subject and manner of the discourse, as members of a congregation often do, without thinking of its application to themselves.
Charles Herbert accompanied the family of Dr. Halford to Englefield Grange, and while talking to Henry about old days could not avoid a glance now and then at the tall, handsome, self-possessed girl who walked by her uncle's side.
Henry pressed him to remain to an early dinner, but he excused himself on account of being a visitor at Lime Grove: however, he promised to call the next day, and after a friendly leave-taking turned away with rapid steps to join his relations, whom he overtook at a short distance from the garden entrance.