The Vicar of Wrexhill

by Frances Milton Trollope

"And what then, Miss Torrington, is there, as you guess, against this gentleman?"

Rosalind for an instant looked puzzled; but, by the rapidity with which she proceeded after she began, the difficulty seemed to arise solely from not knowing what to say first. "There is against him," said she, "the having hurried away from hearing the will read to the presence of Mrs. Mowbray, and not only announcing its contents to her with what might well be called indecent haste, considering that there were others to whom the task more fitly belonged, and who would have performed it too, had they not been thus forestalled;—not only did he do this, but he basely, and, I do believe, most falsely, gave her to understand that her son, the generous, disinterested, warm-hearted Charles Mowbray, had manifested displeasure at it. Further, he has turned the head of poor little Fanny, by begging copies of her verses to send—Heaven knows where; and he moreover has, I am sure, persuaded Mrs. Mowbray to think that my peerless Helen is in fault for something—Heaven knows what. He has likewise, as your account of those secret letters renders certain, dared to step between an affectionate mother and her devoted child, to destroy their dear and close union by hateful and poisonous mystery. He has also fomented the unhappy and most silly schism between your pettish father and my petted guardian; and moreover, with all his far-famed beauty and saint-like benignity of aspect, his soft crafty eyes dare not look me in the face. And twelfthly and lastly, I hate him."

"After this, Miss Torrington," said the Colonel, laughing, "no man assuredly could be sufficiently hardy to say a word in his defence;—and, all jesting apart," he added very seriously, "I do think you have made out a very strong case against him. If my good father sees this growing intimacy between the Vicarage and the Park with the same feelings that you do, I really think it might go farther than any other consideration towards inducing him to rescind his refusal—for he has positively refused to act as executor—and lead him at once and for ever to forget the unreasonable cause of anger he has conceived against your mother, Helen."

"Then let him know it without an hour's delay," said Helen. "Dear Colonel Harrington! why did you let your horse go? Walk you must, but let it be as fast as you can, and let your father understand exactly every thing that Rosalind has told you; for though I should hardly have ventured to say as much myself, I own that I think she is not much mistaken in any of her conclusions."

"And do you follow her, Helen, up to her twelfthly and lastly? Do you too hate this reverend gentleman?"

Helen sighed. "I hope not, Colonel Harrington," she replied; "I should be sorry to believe myself capable of hating, but surely I do not love him."

The young ladies, in their eagerness to set the colonel off on his road to Oakley, were unconsciously, or rather most obliviously, guilty of the indecorum of accompanying him at least half the distance; and at last it was Rosalind, and not the much more shy and timid Helen, who became aware of the singularity of the proceeding.

"And where may we be going, I should like to know?" she said, suddenly stopping short. "Helen! is it the fashion for the Hampshire ladies to escort home the gentlemen they chance to meet in their walks? We never do that in my country."

Colonel Harrington looked positively angry, and Helen blushed celestial rosy red, but soon recovered herself, and said, with that species of frankness which at once disarms quizzing,

"It is very true, Rosalind; we seem to be doing a very strange thing: but we have had a great deal to say that was really important; yet nothing so much so, as leading Colonel Harrington to his father with as little delay as possible.—But now I think we have said all. Good-b'ye, Colonel Harrington: I need not tell you how grateful we shall all be if you can persuade Sir Gilbert to restore us all to favour."