"Indeed, my dear mother, he could not," replied Charles Tyrrell: "I know him thoroughly, I think, and dislike him not a little; but still I shall keep away from him as far as possible; for he is continually throwing out those sneers at everything that is holy and good; at religion, at virtue, at feeling, which leave unpleasant impressions; stains, in fact, which are difficult to efface."
"Do, do avoid him as much as possible, Charles," replied his mother. "I sincerely believe that the only safeguard against such insidious serpents is that tendency which nature has given us to avoid them from our first abhorrence of their doctrines and feelings: I believe, otherwise, very few would escape them."
"Oh, I do not think that," replied Charles Tyrrell; "I never yet heard of a strong-built house being knocked down by footballs or beaten to pieces by peashooters; but the one and the other may break the windows if they go on too long. At all events, I shall keep out of his way, because I dislike him. But tell me," he added, "what is this he has been speaking of, and which must be true from the changes I observed as I passed? The old manor-house, it seems, is repaired and beautified, and I saw a servant standing at the lodge: what is the meaning of all this?"
A smile, sad and thoughtful, but still a smile, came over Lady Tyrrell's countenance. "It is a plot against you, I fear, my dear Charles," she replied: "but, still, not one that is likely to be very dangerous, unless you yield yourself to it. You have heard," she added, seeing that she had excited her son's surprise, "you have often heard your father speak of Mr. Effingham, who had a beautiful place in Northumberland. It was at that house, then Mr. Effingham's father's, that I first met my husband, and he has two or three times talked of taking you there."
"I forgot all about it," interrupted Charles Tyrrell; "I remember the name of Effingham, and hearing that he was my father's cousin, I think, but nothing more."
"A very distant cousin indeed," replied Lady Tyrrell; "a Scotchman might call it a close connexion; but we, who have no clans, forget such cousinships except when it serves our purposes; but, as I was going to tell you, Mr. Effingham died some months ago, and made your father his executor. You know how fond he is of projects, and no sooner did he find that Mr. Effingham had left a large estate somewhat encumbered, together with a widow and a daughter not yet of age, than he laid out in his own mind a scheme for bringing them to the old manor-house, for saving sufficient from the rents to clear off the encumbrances on the Northumberland estates, and for marrying you, I am sure, to the daughter."
"Indeed!" said Charles. "I rather suppose that he will find himself mistaken in his calculations; for, thank God, the time is gone by when parents had it in their power to marry their sons and daughters to whomsoever they pleased, and took them to the altar as to a cattle fair, to sell them to whom they liked. I hope, my dear mother, you have given no countenance to this scheme?"
"None whatever, Charles," replied his mother, "but quite on the contrary. I was well aware, my dear boy, that the endeavour to force anybody upon you was the readiest way to make you take a dislike to a person whom you might otherwise have chosen for yourself; and, besides, I had various reasons which made me anything but anxious that such a marriage should take place. In the first place, I should much wish you to see a good deal more of the world before you marry at all; nor do I wish you to marry early. It is not, indeed, so much the desire of keeping you altogether to myself, for my own comfort and consolation, as for the sake of your own after happiness and the happiness of the person you may choose. There are some men who certainly should marry young, and who are all the happier in after life for so doing; but such is not the case with your family, Charles. You should all of you plunge into the world; endure even its sorrows and its reverses; taste the uses of adversity; encounter disappointment, care, anxiety, even overthrow and defeat, perhaps, to take off the keen and fiery impetuosity with which you set out in life, and never think of marrying till you can deliberately propose to yourselves to seek in domestic life calmness, peace, tranquillity, and the reciprocation of equal affection, rather than rule, domination, and contention."
Charles Tyrrell was silent for several moments. He felt that what his mother said was true in some degree, and yet there was a good deal in it that mortified him. He loved her too well, however; he appreciated her motives too well; he was of too frank and candid a nature to suffer any mortification he felt to appear harshly.
"My dear mother," he said, in a melancholy tone, "I think, if you knew all that I have felt, you would judge that I have had disappointments and griefs enough in seeing my mother's unhappiness, and living in a house of strife, to trample down, even from my infancy, great part of those strong passions that you fear."