Many of the country families, partly from curiosity, and partly from respect for the owner of the Park, let him be who he would, paid their visits, and sent their invitations with an appearance of consideration very dear to his heart, particularly when it chanced that this consideration proceeded from persons blessed by bearing a title. As to his domestic circle, it went on rather better than he expected: if not a happy, it was a very quiet one. Helen drooped, it is true, and looked wofully pale; but she seldom complained at all, and if she did, he heard her not. Rosalind was very wretched; but a host of womanly feelings were at work within her to prevent its being guessed by any. Even Helen thought that she had a wondrous portion of philosophy so speedily to forget poor Charles, and so very soon to reconcile herself to the hateful dominion of the usurper who had seized his place. But Helen knew not how she passed the hours when no eye saw and no ear heard her. Neither did Helen know the terrible effort she had made to redeem the folly and the pride shown in her answer to Charles, the first and only time that he had ever ventured to disclose his love. Had Helen known this, and the manner in which this offer of herself had been refused, she would have loved, and not blamed the resolution with which the heart-stricken Rosalind hid her wound from every eye.
Fanny was gloomy, silent, and abstracted; but Mr. Cartwright only thought that the poor girl, having been passionately in love with him, was suffering a few natural pangs while teaching herself to consider him as her father. But all this was so natural, so inevitable indeed, that he permitted it not to trouble him: and, in truth, he was so accustomed in the course of his ministry to win young ladies, and sometimes old ones too, from the ordinary ways of this wicked world, to his own particular path of righteousness, by means of a little propitiatory love-making, that the moans and groans which usually terminated this part of the process towards perfect holiness among the ladies had become to him a matter of great indifference. Notwithstanding his long practice in the study of the female heart, however, he did not quite interpret that of Fanny Mowbray rightly. He knew nothing of the depth and reality of fanatic enthusiasm into which he had plunged her young mind; nor could he guess how that pure, but now fettered spirit, would labour and struggle to reach some vantage-ground of assurance on which to rest itself, and thence offer its unmixed adoration to the throne of grace. He had no idea how constantly Fanny was thinking of heaven, when he was talking of it.
Of Henrietta he never thought much. She had given him some trouble, and he had used somewhat violent measures to bring her into such outward training as might not violently shock his adherents and disciples. But all this was now settled much to his satisfaction. She combed her hair quite straight, never wore pink ribands, and sat in church exactly as many hours as he commanded.
Mr. Jacob was, as usual, his joy and his pride; and nothing he could do or say sufficed to raise a doubt in the mind of his admiring father of his being the most talented young man in Europe. That Jacob was not yet quite a saint, he was ready to allow; but so prodigiously brilliant an intellect could not be expected to fold its wings and settle itself at once in the temperate beatitude of saintship. He would come to it in time. It offered such inestimable advantages both in this world and the next, that Jacob, who had even now no objection to an easy chair, would be sure to discover the advantages of the calling.
The wife of his bosom was really every thing he could wish a wife to be. She seemed to forget that there could be any other use for her ample revenue, than that of ministering to his convenience; and so complete was the devotion with which she seemed to lay herself and all that was hers at his feet, that no shadowy doubts or fears tormented him respecting that now first object of his life, the making her will.
But though thus assured of becoming her heir whenever it should please Heaven to recall her, he took care to omit nothing to render assurance doubly sure. Not a caress, not a look, not a tender word, but had this for its object; and when his "dearest life" repaid him with a smile, and his "loveliest Clara" rewarded him with a kiss, he saw in his mind's eye visions of exquisite engrossings, forming themselves day by day more clearly into—"all my estates, real and personal, to my beloved husband."
Thus, beyond contradiction, every thing seemed to prosper with him; and few perhaps of those who gratified his vanity by becoming his guests, guessed how many aching hearts sat around his daily banquet.