The Vicar of Wrexhill

by Frances Milton Trollope

This good work achieved, which was of that species permitted by the peculiar doctrine of his sect, Mr. Cartwright, of Cartwright Park, began to look around him among his neighbours and dependants for opportunities of displaying both his sanctity and his magnificence.

Every thing seemed to prosper with him; and the satisfaction produced by this success was very greatly enhanced by the consciousness that he owed it all, from the humble courtesy of the village maidens up to the crowning glory of his lady's love, and all the wealth it brought, wholly and solely to himself. Ungrateful would he have been for such unnumbered blessings had he neglected to reward that self by every kind observance and by every thoughtful care which his active fancy, his fastidious taste, and his luxurious nature could suggest. But he did it all so "doucely," that no voice was raised to censure the dainty appetite of the high-fed priest; no lip was curled in scorn as every week brought forth some new indulgence, some exquisite refinement of elaborate luxury.

Every thing seemed to prosper with him. The wines he ordered could hardly be accounted dear even at the unheard-of prices he gave for them. The beautiful creature he bought for his own riding, with just action enough to show off his handsome figure, and not sufficient to occasion him the least fatigue, appeared to be so born and bred on purpose for his use, that every eye was fixed in admiration as he paced along, and no tongue wagged to tell that while young Mowbray departed from his father's house with ten pounds in his pocket, his stepfather's ambling hack cost two hundred.

Every thing seemed to prosper with him. Mrs. Simpson, instead of spoiling her fine eyes, and reducing by her secession his fair congregation of elected saints, which he had certainly good reason to fear, listened to his doctrine now with the same yielding obedience that she did before; and so far was the tongue of slander from finding any thing amiss in the frequent pastoral visits he continued to pay her, that her credit, particularly with her tradespeople, stood higher than ever, and her begging-boxes, and her tract-selling, and her albums, flourished quite as well as when she believed that she and they would ere long be translated to the Vicarage.

Of Mrs. Richards's converted daughters, little Mary was the only one who ventured openly to declare that she thought the vicar had behaved extremely ill; that after what she saw pass between him and sister Louisa, it was a sin not to marry her; and that she did not think poor Mrs. Mowbray would ever be happy with a man who was so very much in love with another person.

But it was only little Mary who said all this, and nobody paid much attention to it. The pious Louisa herself declared, indeed, that there never had been any thing but the purest evangelical love between them; and that the kiss about which silly Mary made such a fuss, was nothing in the world but a kiss of holy peace and brotherly love.

The same eloquence which persuaded the young lady so to think, or at any rate, so to say, persuaded her likewise, and her sister Charlotte with her, to persevere in their avocations. They continued to compose tracts, to get them printed and sold when they could, and to read them aloud and give them away in manuscript when they could not. They also continued most perseveringly to expound both tracts and Scriptures for the edification of their very unhappy mother; who having passed the last twenty years of her life in exerting every faculty to render them happy around her, could not now so change her plan as to give them that portion of her house for the display of their inspired eloquence which she herself did not occupy—and thus she passed by far the greater portion of every day in listening to their ceaseless assurances that the pit of hell was yawning to receive her.

Major Dalrymple being present on one occasion when this was going on with peculiar fervour, waited very patiently till there was a pause in the eloquence of Miss Charlotte, who was holding forth, and then said Scotchly and quietly, "Well, well, I see not but it is all very fair between you and your mother, my bonny lasses: she has been always forgetting herself for your sakes, and you are now forgetting yourselves for hers."

It was not very long, however, after the marriage of the vicar, that a welcome and much-needed ray of hope once more gleamed upon her. It rose from the fair forehead of little Mary. From the time of her conversion, all her very pretty curls had been straightened and pushed behind her ears, and the little straw bonnet which covered them was the rival, or rather, the model of Fanny Mowbray's. But by degrees, a few of these curls began to reappear round her face; her sad-coloured ribbons were exchanged for the bright tints that suited so well with her clear brown skin: her laughing eyes began to recover their brightness, and at last she whispered in her mother's ear, "Forgive me, dearest mamma, for all my folly, my presumption. Forgive me, dearest mother; and pray God to forgive me too!"

From that moment Mrs. Richards felt restored to happiness. She had too early learnt that, at the best, life is but like a changeable web of silk, in which the dark tints predominate, to poison the enjoyment which Mary's return to reason brought her, by remembering at any moment when it was possible to forget it, that she had still two daughters who declared their persuasion that they could never meet her in the life to come. She wisely and with true piety turned all her thoughts to Mary, soothed her remorse, and reconciled her to herself. In addition to this great joy, she thought she saw the promise of another, that for years had formed her favourite castle in the air. She thought she saw that Major Dalrymple looked at the recovered Mary with eyes expressive of love as well as of joy; and with this hope before her, and the delightful occupation of watching Mary sometimes blush, and always smile when the major entered, her life once more ceased to be a burden, and Rosalind again found that she sang the very sweetest second in the world.