The reader may, perhaps, desire to know whether things were made altogether smooth with the Colonel. On this matter Messrs. Block and Curling, the family lawyers, encountered very much trouble indeed. The Colonel, when application was made to him, was as sweet as honey. He would do anything for the interests of his dearest son. There did not breathe a father on earth who cared less for himself or his own position. But still he must live. He submitted to Messrs. Block and Curling whether it was not necessary that he should live. Messrs. Block and Curling explained to him very clearly that his brother, the baronet, had nothing to do with his living or dying,—and that towards his living he had already robbed his son of a large property. At last, however, he would not make over his life interest in the property, as it would come to him in the event of his brother dying before him, except on payment of an annuity on and from that date of £200 a year. He began by asking £500, and was then told that the Captain would run the chance and would sue his father for the £20,000 in the event of Sir Gregory dying before the Colonel.
Now the narrator will bid adieu to Mary Lowther, to Loring, and to Dunripple. The conduct of his heroine, as depicted in these pages, will, he fears, meet with the disapprobation of many close and good judges of female character. He has endeavoured to describe a young woman, prompted in all her doings by a conscience wide awake, guided by principle, willing, if need be, to sacrifice herself, struggling always to keep herself from doing wrong, but yet causing infinite grief to others, and nearly bringing herself to utter shipwreck, because, for a while, she allowed herself to believe that it would be right for her to marry a man whom she did not love.
CHAPTER LXXII.
AT TURNOVER CASTLE.
Mrs. Fenwick had many quips and quirks with her husband as to those tidings to be made in a pleasant spirit which were expected from Turnover Castle. From the very moment that Lord St. George had given the order,—upon the authority chiefly of the unfortunate Mr. Bolt, who on this occasion found it to be impossible to refuse to give an authority which a lord demanded from him,—the demolition of the building had been commenced. Before the first Sunday came any use of the new chapel for divine service was already impossible. On that day Mr. Puddleham preached a stirring sermon about tabernacles in general. "It did not matter where the people of the Lord met," he said, "so long as they did meet to worship the Lord in a proper spirit of independent resistance to any authority that had not come to them from revelation. Any hedge-side was a sufficient tabernacle for a devout Christian. But—," and then, without naming any name, he described the Church of England as a Upas tree which, by its poison, destroyed those beautiful flowers which strove to spring up amidst the rank grass beneath it and to make the air sweet within its neighbourhood. Something he said, too, of a weak sister tottering to its base, only to be followed in its ruin by the speedy prostration of its elder brother. All this was of course told in detail to the Vicar; but the Vicar refused even to be interested by it. "Of course he did," said the Vicar. "If a man is to preach, what can he preach but his own views?"
The tidings to be made in a pleasant spirit were not long waited for,—or, at any rate, the first instalment of them. On the 2nd of September there arrived a large hamper full of partridges, addressed to Mrs. Fenwick in the Earl's own handwriting. "The very first fruits," said the Vicar, as he went down to inspect the plentiful provision thus made for the vicarage larder. Well;—it was certainly better to have partridges from Turnover than accusations of immorality and infidelity. The Vicar so declared at once, but his wife would not at first agree with him. "I really should have such pleasure in packing them up and sending them back," said she.
"Indeed, you shall do nothing of the kind."
"The idea of a basket of birds to atone for such insults and calumny as that man has heaped on you!"
"The birds will be only a first instalment," said the Vicar,—and then there were more quips and quirks about that. It was presumed by Mr. Fenwick that the second instalment would be the first pheasants shot in October. But the second instalment came before September was over in the shape of the following note:—