We cannot have here below that perfect unison in all things which will form part of the happiness of heaven; but harmony, peace, concord may exist even between those whose opinions and tastes are dissimilar; and that,” she added, with a cordial smile, “is what I most ardently ‘wish for.’”
“Fire and water can never agree together,” muttered Arabella to herself, in a tone too low to reach the ear of her step-mother, though Clemence saw the expression on the proud girl’s face, which needed no words to convey its meaning. Not choosing to take open notice of the look, Mrs. Effingham turned to another part of the book, in which selections of poetry were written in various hands. One brief piece arrested her eye (it was written in the French language), and an unwonted shade of displeasure passed over her countenance as she read it.
“This is worse than levity,” observed Clemence very gravely; “how could such lines have found entrance into your book?” And turning the leaf, she marked the name “Antoinette Lafleur” at the end of the piece.
“Oh! mademoiselle calls that a jeu d’esprit! She thinks it remarkably clever; but she did not compose it herself,” added Louisa quickly, for she met Clemence’s glance of indignant surprise; “she copied it out of this book; it is a book that she raves about.”
“Have you ever read it?” inquired Mrs. Effingham.
“Just parts of it. Mademoiselle only lent it to us last week; but she says that it is the first book in the language.”
“I have heard of it, though I have never perused it, never seen it before,” said Clemence, retaining the volume in her grasp. She knew it to be the work of a famous infidel writer, who so mingled wit with blasphemy, that the brilliancy of his style, like the phosphorescent light which sometimes gleams from corruption, gave strange attraction to opinions repugnant alike to morality and religion.
Clemence made no further observation to her step-daughters on the subject while she remained in the school-room; but on quitting it she descended at once, with the book in her hand, to Mr. Effingham’s study. “This is no trifling matter,” she thought, “to be lightly passed over and forgotten; this is no little personal concern which I should forbear intruding on the attention of my husband. This unhappy woman may for years have been undermining the principles of his daughters, and I should wrong him were I to withhold from him the knowledge which I have providentially obtained.”
Mr. Effingham had not that morning gone, as was his wont, to his banking-house in the city. Clemence found him in his study, and with a few words to explain where and how she had discovered it, she placed the poisonous work of the infidel author before him.
Mr. Effingham had been a careless, although an affectionate father. With his family, as with his household, he had been content to believe that all was right, if he saw nothing very glaringly wrong. He had been imbued deeply with the idea that making money was the main business of man’s life; and the regulation of his establishment, the education of his children, the training of immortal souls, he had quietly left to others. He was, however, full of reverence for religion; he wished his children to be brought up in the same, though his efforts to secure that end had not gone far beyond the mere wish. He was as much startled at the idea of infidel doctrines being instilled into the unsuspicious minds of his young daughters, as if he had seen a serpent coiling beside the pillow on which they were sleeping. He was more aware of the perilous nature of the book than his wife could be, who had known it only by report. Mr. Effingham’s usually placid nature was roused into stern indignation.