CHAPTER VII.
About three o' the clock of the day at which we are still pausing, the sky began to show a strong disposition to weep. A heavy shower came on, and if there were a spark left till then unextinguished among the blackened remains of Mrs. Darlington's house, there certainly now came down from above the wherewithal to drown it out effectually. The whole heavens became black and gloomy, and for about an hour there was nothing to be seen but a scanty allowance of prospect, half obscured by the gray drizzle. Shortly after, however, a yellow break made its appearance on the southwestern edge of the horizon, and the rays of a September sun, mingling with the falling shower, poured through the streaks of rain, and seemed to fringe the cloud with an edging of spun glass. Moving slowly onward, the heavy mass of vapors left room for the evening sun to burst forth, and, while the rainbow waved its scarf of joy in the air, the whole world sparkled up, refreshed and brightened by the past rain.
It was just about the same moment that Henry Burrel, rising up from a desk at which he had been writing, closed it, rang the bell, and, giving two letters to his servant for the post, ordered him to bring his hat and stick.
It happened, of course, that at the very same time the whole of the most gossiping heads in Emberton were at the windows of their several dwellings, endeavoring to ascertain if it were going to turn out a fine evening, and, of course, their speculations were soon confined to Burrel, who was seen to walk slowly along the street, to stop for ten minutes at the principal inn, either--as it was conjectured by the spectators--for the purpose of giving some orders, or of inquiring after the health of Mrs. Darlington, and then to proceed leisurely across the bridge, turn the corner of the park, and approach the widow's cottage.
The cottage itself being, as I have before said, two or three hundred yards removed from the town, in the turnings of a narrow road, was out of sight. But there was a house, which stood at the corner of the bridge, on the opposite side to the park, commanding a view of a considerable part of the grounds; and from the windows of the first floor, a female figure having been seen walking quickly down among the trees on the left, while Burrel was pausing at the inn--Miss Mildew, the fair tenant of that story--a lady of about fifty-nine, who had exercised millinery, and had her heart broken several times by the perfidy of man--put on her bonnet, and ran across the street to tell a congenial spirit, from whom she concealed nothing, that Miss Delaware was just going down to give the strange gentleman a meeting at the widow's cottage. Both held up their hands, and sighed mournfully over the depravity of the world, and the sad decline of female modesty in this latter day.
In the mean while Burrel pursued his way, and entering the open door of the cottage, knocked at that of the room in which he had before seen the widow. Another door opposite, however, was immediately opened by widow Harrison, and Burrel, entering the room with that pleasant and unpretending easiness of demeanor which is always received as a kindly compliment by the lower classes, found himself, to his surprise, in the presence of Miss Delaware.
Although her mind was too little acquainted with evil in any shape to lead Blanche Delaware to fancy for a single instant that any one would put a wrong construction on her actions, yet there was something, she knew not well what, in all that had passed between Burrel and herself since their first meeting, that called up into her cheek a slight blush, unconnected with any unpleasant feelings, as soon as she beheld him. Those blushes are great tell-tales, and will often let out the secret of a woman's heart before she herself knows that there is any secret in it; but we shall have more to say of them hereafter.
The blush instantly passed away, however; and, as Burrel advanced to speak to her, it was all gone.
"I am delighted to see you, Miss Delaware," he said; "for I really had hardly time to convince myself this morning that you had neither suffered from cold nor from alarm in all the terrible adventures of last night."
"Not in the least," answered Miss Delaware, "and I have to thank you, Mr. Burrel, for life. For, certainly, had it not been for your prompt and generous assistance, I must have perished by a miserable death. As it was," she added with a smile, which was followed by a blush again, "as it was, your assistance was so prompt, and I was so sound asleep, that I had not time to be frightened till I was safe. However, I must trust the expression of my gratitude to those who are more capable of doing justice to it. My brother, I believe, is now gone to call upon you."
Widow Harrison had stood by, listening respectfully, but there was many a shade of care removed from her face since the morning; and as soon as Miss Delaware had ended, and there was a pause--for Burrel, feeling that he would a thousand times sooner be thanked by her own lips than by those of her brother, halted at this reply--the poor woman joined in to express her gratitude too. A degree of embarrassment, however, as to the manner, made her do it somewhat obliquely, and she exclaimed, addressing Blanche Delaware--"Oh, ma'am this gentleman is good and kind to every one! This is the gentleman I was telling you brought home my poor boy, and sent Dr. Tomkins, and his own servant, too; and has been so kind!"
Blanche Delaware looked up in Burrel's face with one of those sparkling smiles--as brilliant and more precious than a diamond--the beaming approbation of a good heart at the sight of a good action.
Now, the good-natured world may say, if it list, that this chapter is all about blushes and smiles; but let me tell it, that, rightly valued and rightly read, there are not such beautiful or interesting things on the earth. A dimple is fair enough on a fair face, but it means little or nothing; but the smiles and the blushes of a fine and bright mind are lovely in all their shades and expressions: they are the first touching tones of nature in her innocence--the sweet musical language of the heart.
And Blanche Delaware's smile was the sweetest that it is possible to conceive, and none the less so because it beamed upon as fair a countenance as the eye of man ever rested upon. Altogether, it was like the sunshine upon a beautiful country--lovely in itself, and lovely by that over which it played. "I thought it was the same, Margaret," she replied to the widow; "I thought it was the same, because--because--there was no other stranger at the fire--that I heard of, at least."
Burrel might well ask his heart what it was about!--though it was a day too late; for by this time it was determined to have its own way. However, he knew more of the world than Blanche Delaware, and the knowledge of good and evil has always the same effect that it had at man's first fall. "And they knew that they were naked," says the Book of Genesis; and in that simple record, the main motive and hidden cause of all that class of weaknesses and follies is to be found which teach man to conceal his actions, his thoughts, and his feelings--to shrink from public censure, or fear the opinion of the world. The knowledge of the good and evil that is in the world teaches even the noblest mind to know the proneness of all nature to wickedness, and makes it hasten to clothe itself in a seeming not its own. Burrel knew the world and its evil, and felt that, however pleasant it might be to stay where he was, and enjoy the conversation of Blanche Delaware for an hour, for her sake it would be better for him to refrain; and therefore, after visiting the young sailor, who was in bed in the next room, and bidding his mother ask frankly for every thing that was necessary for his comfort or recovery, he took leave of Miss Delaware, telling her that he would bend his steps homeward, in the hope of meeting her brother.
Ere he had crossed the bridge, his hand was clasped in that of Captain Delaware, who was, in fact, infinitely glad of an opportunity of drawing closer the acquaintance which he formed with his stage-coach companion. He thanked him animatedly and warmly for his gallant conduct in saving his sister, and apologized for the fact of his father not calling on him that night, on account of slight indisposition, adding, however, that it was his purpose to do so on the following morning.
To the latter annunciation Burrel merely bowed; but to the first he replied with a smile, that he believed he owed Miss Delaware an apology more than she owed him thanks, for having so impudently walked into her room in the middle of the night; although, he believed, they would have been both burned if he had paused much longer to consider of proprieties or improprieties.
Captain Delaware laughed. "Blanche," said he, "though even I, her brother, can not help owning that she is a very witching little person in her way, when she likes it, has no great desire to pass through such a fiery ordeal as that from which you relieved her; but if you will come with me to widow Harrison's cottage she will thank you herself."
"I have already had the pleasure of seeing her and have been thanked far more than necessary," replied Burrel; "for I certainly did no more than I would have done to serve any lady in similar circumstances; though I can not deny that the merit of the action was greatly decreased by the object of it being Miss Delaware."
Captain Delaware paused for a moment, and then catching his companion's meaning, replied, smiling at his momentary dullness, "Oh, I understand you!--oh, I understand you! but indeed, my dear sir, you must give me notice the next time you intend to leave the complimentary part of your speech implied rather than understood; for, at first, I understood your meaning to be, that you would rather have served any other person than my sister."
"Quite the contrary," replied Burrel. "The pleasure I felt in serving your sister, took away all merit from the act--but compliments at all times are very foolish things, so I will have done with them; and only say most truly, that I was delighted to serve your sister."
"I understand you now," said Captain Delaware; and then added, laughing, "but you are accustomed to fine speeches, and I am not, so forgive my first stupidity. I will take your compliment at its proper value; and will--as the merchants tell us when we put into a strange port--discount it to my sister at the current exchange."
"Do not give her less than the amount;" answered Burrel; and he spoke so seriously, that even Captain Delaware, though he was not very quick-sighted in such matters, thought it better to let the subject drop. However, there was something in Burrel's tone, that for the first time made him think seriously of his sister's situation, and made him feel a pang, which he had never before felt, at the low ebb to which his house's fortunes had been reduced. Had there been in Burrel's conversation one tittle of presumption--had the pride of riches or of station shown itself by a word, by a very tone--pride, irritated by poverty, might have risen up in his bosom, and taught him to hold the stranger at arm's length, even though he had sacrificed what he believed would prove one of the most agreeable acquaintances he had ever made. But, on the contrary, though every thing in Burrel's appearance, manners, and establishment, showed habitual affluence, such a total disregard of the idle world's prosperity in others, evinced itself in his whole conversation--he seemed so thoughtful of wealth of mind and manners, and so disregardful of the poorer wealth, that Captain Delaware, feeling himself by nature, education, and habit, that noble thing--a gentleman--would not have hesitated to have introduced Burrel to a cottage, and said, "This is my home;" convinced that his companion would hardly see what was around him, provided some weak vanity on his own part did not call his attention irresistibly to the painful spectacle of pride endeavoring to hide poverty.
While such conversation had been passing between them, and such thoughts had been busy in Captain Delaware's bosom, Burrel, without any definite purpose, made a wheel upon the bridge; and, in a moment after, they were walking through the town together, toward the lane which led to the widow's cottage. Captain Delaware remained silent, as he continued meditating for two or three minutes, till, remembering that the name of his sister--for whom he had a fund of deep love and respect, which influenced all his actions, even without his knowing it--had been the last upon their lips, and feeling that some inference of deeper moment might be drawn from his silence than he could desire, he changed the subject, abruptly enough, indeed, to make his sudden fit of thoughtfulness more liable to remark than if it had continued twice as long.
"Your servant," he said, "is certainly a descendant, not of Œdipus, but of his friend the Sphinx--which, by the way, our sailors, when we were at Alexandria, used always to call the Minx. I did not think I showed any very impertinent curiosity, but he could neither tell me where you had gone--which way you had turned when you left the door--when you were to be back--or, in short, any other fact concerning your movements this evening: for, feeling deeply indebted to you on poor Blanche's account, I wished to unload my bosom of its thanks."
"Oh, he is a discreet and sober personage. Master Harding," answered Burrel. "One of those men who have a great idea of not committing themselves; and I like him infinitely better than a plausible, fair-spoken knave that I had lately, who would not, or could not, loose my horse's girths, if the groom were out of the way, and who left me because I did not allow my servants Madeira."
"I hope you threw him out of the window?" cried Captain Delaware, giving way to a burst of honest indignation.
"Oh, dear, no!" answered Burrel; "I saw him depart through the usual aperture, with a degree of coolness and fortitude he did not expect; and after trying another, whom I did kick out, I was soon supplied with the present rascal, who is useful, silent, and circumspect. He cheats me in about the same proportion as the others, or rather less; is so far more honest, that he never pretends to honesty; and I have never yet discovered that he lets any other person cheat me besides himself."
"No very high character, either!" answered Captain Delaware.
"I beg your pardon!" cried Burrel. "Sufficient for a prime minister, and more than sufficient for a member of parliament. But here we are at the cottage; I wonder if I dare intrude again upon Miss Delaware's presence?"
Captain Delaware made no difficulty, and a few minutes afterward the whole party were observed--with Blanche hanging upon her brother's arm, and Burrel walking by her side, his handsome head bent down to speak and hear with the more marked attention--walking slowly along the lane under the park wall, till they reached the small door nearest to the mansion. There Burrel raised his hat, and took his leave; and while Miss Delaware and her brother entered the park, he drew up his head, threw wide his shoulders, and, resuming his usual gait, returned to the town.
The person who had observed all this, and who declared positively that she had not walked that way on purpose, reported it all fully to the honest folks of Emberton, who instantly prognosticated a marriage. How desperately they were mistaken, remains to be shown.
Burrel returned to his house, dined without the slightest symptoms of love being discernible in the removed dishes, and ended the day by sleeping as devotedly as if he had been a sworn votary of Somnus, first telling his servant to see that all the fires were put out, as he had not the slightest inclination to be woke from his rest again. A fire on two consecutive nights, however, is not a piece of good fortune that happens to every man; and Burrel, after having slept one-third of the round dial undisturbed, woke the next morning, and sat down to breakfast, asking himself, What was to occur next?
Every man must find that there come moments in the dull lapse of life, when--as we feel that nothing can stand still--we are certain that something must happen, however small and trifling in itself, to change the monotonous course in which things are proceeding, and lead us to a new train of events. Did you ever trace the current of a small stream, reader, from its earliest gush out of the green, swampy turf, or the little rugged bank, to its confluence with some other water! Do!--it is amusing and instructive. At its first burst into existence, you will find it generally rushing on in gay and bounding brightness, fretting at all that opposes its course, and dashing over every obstacle that would retard its progress. Gradually, as one obstruction after another meets and impedes its onward flow, slower and more slow becomes its current, till a mere molehill will divert its course, and send it wandering far in the most opposite direction to that which it originally assumed. But, after all, I am stealing an image; for some poet--I forget who--has said something very like it. Nevertheless, I make no apology for the robbery--the illustration suits my purpose, and I take it. Let every man steal as much as he likes; but put it in inverted commas, and it is all according to act of parliament.
It matters not that the thought be old: the figure is fully as appropriate as if it were new; and any one who has watched the progress of a stream, must have said in his own heart--"This is life!"
Well, Burrel, as he sat down to breakfast, had just come to one of those slow spaces in the current of existence, where he felt that some bank, or stone, or molehill, must turn the stream; and, as I have before said, his first thought was, What was to happen next?
Oh, that curious question, which has puzzled the wisest from the beginning of the world, and will puzzle them still, till the last day solves it forever!--What is to happen next?
It had scarcely passed through Burrel's brain, when the door opened, and Sir Sidney Delaware was announced. He entered the room slowly, as was his custom; but, as he did enter, Burrel at once perceived that a certain air of coldness--which, like the Mithridate of the ancients, defied all analysis, from the multitude of ingredients that composed it--was altogether gone, and in its room there was a frank, bland smile, as he greeted him, which unloaded the baronet's brow of the wrinkles of full ten years.
"I have come to visit you, Mr. Burrel," said Sir Sidney Delaware, "at an unusual hour, solely because I wished to see you; and, if you will give me leave, I will take my coffee with you." Burrel rang the bell, and the necessary additions to his breakfast-table were soon completed, while he expressed politely, but neither coldly nor cordially, his pleasure at the visit of Sir Sidney Delaware.
"My first task, Mr. Burrel," said the baronet, mildly and kindly, "is to express my gratitude for the salvation of my dear child; and allow me to say, that no one who does not love her as I do, can feel what that gratitude is."
When a poor man and a proud man condescends to pour forth his feelings to his equal in mind and station, and his superior in more worldly wealth, it is a compliment which deserves instant return, and Burrel--though he had been unwilling to risk for a moment a fresh advance, to be again repulsed--felt, from the whole tone and manner of his companion, that the barrier was broken down between them. To have held back would have been an insult, and he instantly replied, not in the set form which means no more than a copy-line to a schoolboy, but in those words and accents that conveyed fully to Sir Sidney Delaware, that he had felt a real and personal pleasure in serving his daughter in the manner that he had done. He spoke frankly, though guardedly, of the charms and graces of Miss Delaware's conversation and demeanor--he spoke more boldly and feelingly of the impression that the blending of sailor-like candor with gentlemanly feeling, in Captain Delaware, had produced upon his mind--and although Burrel alluded to these things in the tone of a man of the world, who had found out a treasure in pure nature that he had never before discovered, he did so without the slightest assumption of superiority; and both his words and his manner expressed alone unfeigned pleasure in the acquaintance he had made, and the service he had rendered.
"Enough! enough!" cried Sir Sidney Delaware, interrupting him as he was going on in his encomiums. "I came here to thank you for what you have done for one of my children--not to hear praises of both, that might make my old eyes overflow. But, as you speak of my son, I must not only confess that I owe you thanks, but an apology which I have promised him to make you, for not calling on you before. In that voluminous catalogue of lies, which, like hackney-coaches on a stand, are ready at the beck of every one, I might find a hundred excuses ready-made to my hand, which you would be bound to receive as current; but my principles do not admit of my making use of them, and when I apologize at all, it must be by telling the truth. Unfortunate circumstances, Mr. Burrel," he added, in a grave and somewhat sad tone, "have placed a painful disparity between the fortune and the station of my family. For myself, I do not covet wealth, neither do my children; but we have never sought, or even admitted the society of any one who was likely to differ from us in our estimation of our own situation."
"Although such an apology is far more than I either deserve or could expect," replied Burrel, "yet I own I am glad to find that you did not at all hate me for my own sake. As to my feelings and principles--if, as I hope, this acquaintance stops not here--you will soon find, my dear sir, that I am far too aristocratic in my own nature to dream that wealth can make any addition to rank--far too liberal in my own sentiments to dream that either wealth or rank can make any addition to gentlemanly manners and a gentlemanly mind. Do not mistake me, Sir Sidney Delaware," he added, seeing a slight shade come over the baronet's countenance--"I have every reverence for the institutions of society, and for those grades which society can never be deprived of, without sinking gradually into barbarism of manners, if not barbarism of mind. All I mean to say is, when I pay reverence to rank, it is a tribute I render to society: when I pay reverence to the individual, it is a tribute I offer to virtue, and that tribute will be offered to either, under all circumstances, and at all times; but I have no idea of bowing low to the purse in a man's pocket, or fawning upon the bottle of Lafitte that graces his sideboard."
Sir Sidney Delaware smiled. "I am afraid, then," he replied, "you are unlike the majority of our young men at present. The worst kind of aristocracy--because it must always be too new a garment to sit easily--the aristocracy of wealth, is springing up each day as the idol for worship; and I am afraid every one who may be said to have a golden calf in their house, will find plenty of our Israelites willing to commit idolatry, though to the worship of wealth in others may be applied the memorable words with which Sallust stigmatizes avarice itself, 'Ea quasi veninis malis imbuta, corpus animumque virilem effæminat, semper infinita insatiabilis est; neque copiâ, neque inopiâ minuitur.' My own race have been too little followers of the blind god--I mean Plutus, not Cupid--and the effects you will see, if you do me the favor of dining in my poor house to-morrow."
"If I see yourself and family there, Sir Sidney Delaware, I shall certainly see nothing amiss, and probably nothing else; though," he added, feeling that the subject was one which had better be led into some other, as soon as possible, "though the house appears to be a very perfect and beautiful specimen of the peculiar kind of architecture to which it belongs."
"It is, indeed," replied the baronet, instantly mounting the hobby that Burrel set before him; "it is, indeed, perhaps, the most perfect specimen of the architecture of the early part of Henry VIII. now in existence. It shows the first step from the pure Gothic to the pure Vandal, if I may so call it, which succeeded."
"Without pretending to be a connoisseur," replied Burrel, "I am certainly a great lover of architectural antiquities of all sorts; and I must endeavor to seduce you into pointing out all the peculiar characteristics of the place."
"I shall be delighted!" exclaimed Sir Sidney Delaware, "Let me beg you to come to-morrow early--come to breakfast, and give us your whole day, if you can spare so much of your time, which is doubtless valuable."
"Perfectly worthless," replied Burrel, "So, remember, if you find that I take you at your word, and bestow my whole day of tediousness upon you, it is your own fault; for you have invited me; and I shall look jealously for every yawn."
"No fear, no fear, my dear sir!" said the baronet. "I do not know how, Mr. Burrel, or why, but something in your aspect and manner makes me feel as if you were an old friend."
"May you always feel so," replied Burrel, with a smile of pleasure, which vouched that the words were more than mere form.
"Even your face," continued Sir Sidney, "comes upon me like a dream of the past; and I feel, in speaking with you, as if I had just got my studentship at Christ Church, and were in those bright days again, when the boy, standing on the verge of manhood, grasps at the crown of thorns before him, as if it were a diadem of stars. However, I feel toward you like an old friend, and shall treat you as such, which means--as one of the flippant books of the present day asserts--that I shall give you a very bad dinner."
"Do, do!" cried Burrel, shaking the hand his guest held out to him as he was about to depart--"do, do! and I will find a way to avenge myself without difficulty."
"How do you mean!" demanded the baronet, pausing.
"By coming for another very soon," answered his companion. "So, I dare you to keep your word."
"I certainly shall," rejoined Sir Sidney Delaware, "if such be the penalty; and they parted, with feelings entirely changed on both sides since their meeting at the house of Mr. Tims."