It was well for Herbert his parents were such as could understand and sympathise in these exalted feelings; had harshness, or even neglect, been extended over his childhood and his opening youth, happiness, such as had gilded his life, would never have been his.
As Emmeline had rejoiced, so also might have Herbert, as they neared the gates of his home, had there not been one recollection to dim his happiness. She who had shared in all his pleasures, who had shed a charm over that spot, a charm which he had never felt so keenly as when he looked for it, and found it not; the favourite playfellow of his infancy, the companion of his youth, his plighted bride, she was in far distant lands, and vainly on his first return home did Herbert struggle to remove the weight of loneliness resting on his heart; he never permitted it to be apparent, for to his family he was the same devoted son and affectionate brother he had ever been, but painfully he felt it. Mr. Myrvin and his son were now both inmates of Mr. Hamilton's family. The illegality of the proceedings against the former, in expelling him from his ministry of Llangwillan, had now been clearly proved, for the earnestness of Mr. Hamilton permitted no delay; and tears of pious gratitude chased down the cheeks of the injured man, as he recognised in the person of his benefactor the brother of the suffering woman whom he had sheltered, and whose bed of death he had deprived of its sting. The persuasions of Mr. Hamilton succeeded in conquering his objections to the plan, and he consented to make Oakwood his home for a short time, ere he once more settled in his long-loved rectory.
With Arthur, Ellen speedily resumed her place; the remembrance of that neglected little girl had never left Mr. Myrvin's mind, and when, radiant in animation and returning health and happiness, she hastily, almost impetuously, advanced to meet him, he pressed her to his bosom with the affection of a father; and even as a daughter Ellen devoted herself to him during his residence at Oakwood. He had been the first in England to treat her with kindness; he had soothed her childish sorrow, and cheered her painful duties; he had been the first since her father's death to evince interest for her, and though so many years had passed, that the little girl was fast verging into womanhood, yet such things were not forgotten, and Ellen endeavoured to prove the gratitude which time had not effaced.
Ellen was happy, her health almost entirely restored; but it was scarcely possible for any observant person to live with her for any time, without noticing the expression of pensive melancholy, of subdued spirit, unnatural in one still so very young, that, unless animated by any casual circumstances, ever rested on her features. Mr. Myrvin soon noticed this, and rather wondered such should still be, when surrounded by so much kindness and affection. Her gentleness and controlled temper, her respectful devotion to her aunt and uncle, were such as to awaken his warmest regard, and cause him to regret that shade of remaining sadness so foreign to her age. Traces of emotion were so visible on her cheeks one day, returning from a walk with Mr. Myrvin, that Mrs. Hamilton felt convinced the tale of the past had been told, and fearing her niece had done herself injustice, she scrupled no longer in alluding to it herself. Mr. Myrvin was deeply affected at the tale, and much relieved when the whole was known; for when he had praised her general conduct, and approved of so many feelings and sentiments she had acknowledged, and then tenderly demanded the cause of that depression he sometimes witnessed, Ellen had given vent to a violent burst of emotion, and spoken of a sin, a fearful sin, which long years of probation alone could wash away. Her strong, her terrible temptation, her extreme wretchedness and dreadful sufferings she had not mentioned, and, consequently, when known, an air of even more gentle and more affectionate interest pervaded Mr. Myrvin's manner towards her. Hearing her one day express an ardent desire once more to visit Llangwillan, to see again her mother's grave, he earnestly entreated Mrs. Hamilton's permission for her to visit him for a few weeks: her company would, he said, indeed shed joy over his home, and afford much pleasure to a widowed sister who resided with him. Mrs. Hamilton smilingly consented, and a flush of animated pleasure dyed Ellen's cheeks at the proposal. For about a quarter of an hour she was all delight and animation, when suddenly a thought entered her mind, banishing her unusual mirth, and filling her eyes with tears. Her voice faltered audibly, as she warmly thanked Mr. Myrvin and her aunt for their wish to increase her happiness, but she would rather not leave home that year. The change was so sudden, her manner so contradictory to her words, that Mrs. Hamilton, believing some fanciful reason existed, would have insisted on her compliance, and playfully accused her of unfounded caprice. There was, however, a degree of earnest entreaty in her manner, that Mr. Myrvin would not combat, and he expressed himself contented with her promise for the following year. Mrs. Hamilton was not, however, quite so easily satisfied. Ellen had been latterly so open with her, that anything like concealment in her conduct gave her some little uneasiness; but she could not withstand the imploring look of her niece, as she entreated her not to think her capricious and wilful; she was sure Mrs. Hamilton would approve of her reason, did she confess it.
"I am not quite so sure of that," was her aunt's smiling reply; "but, however, I will trust you, though I do not like mysteries," and the subject was dismissed.
The manners and conversation of Arthur Myrvin were such as to prepossess both Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton very much in his favour, and strengthened the opinion they had already formed concerning him, on the word of their son. The respectful deference with which he ever treated Caroline and Emmeline often caused a laugh at his expense from Percy, but gratified Mrs. Hamilton; Percy declared he stood as much in awe of his sisters as if they were the highest ladies in the land. Arthur bore his raillery with unruffled temper, but he felt the distance that fortune placed between him and those fair girls, and he hoped, by reserve, to lessen the danger that might in their society attack his peace. Emmeline mistook this cautious reserve for coldness and distaste towards women, and, with the arts of a playful child, she frequently endeavoured to draw him from his abstraction, and render him a more agreeable companion.
There was still so very much of the child in Emmeline, though now rapidly approaching her eighteenth birthday, she was still so very young in manners and appearance, that the penetration of Mrs. Hamilton must not be too severely criticised, if it failed in discovering that intimately mingled with this childlike manner—the warm enthusiasm of a kind nature—was a fund of deep reflection, and feelings quite equal to her age. Mrs. Hamilton fancied the realities of life were still to her a dream. Had any one spoken to her of the marriage of Emmeline as soon taking place, she would have started at the idea, as a thing for some years impossible; and that her affections might become engaged—that the childlike, innocent, joyous Emmeline, whose gayest pleasures still consisted in chasing with wild glee the butterflies as they sported on the summer flowers, or tying garlands of the fairest buds to adorn her own or her sister's hair, or plucking the apples from the trees and throwing them to the village children as they sauntered at the orchard gate—whose graver joys consisted in revelling in every poet that her mother permitted her to read, or making her harp resound with wild, sweet melody—whose laugh was still so unchecked and gay—that such a being could think of love, of that fervid and engrossing passion, which can turn the playful girl into a thinking woman, Mrs. Hamilton may be pardoned if she deemed it as yet a thing that could not be; and she, too, smiled at the playful mischief with which Emmeline would sometimes claim the attention of young Myrvin, engage him in conversation, and then, with good-humoured wit and repartee, disagree in all he said, and compel him to defend his opinions with all the eloquence he possessed.
With Ellen, young Myrvin was more at his ease; he recalled the days that were past, and never felt with her the barrier which his sensitive delicacy had placed between himself and her cousins. Arthur was proud, more so than he was aware of himself. He would have considered himself more humbled to love and sue for one raised by fortune or rank above him, than in uniting with one, who in both these essentials was his inferior. He was ambitious, but for honours and station obtained by his own endeavours not conferred by another. From his earliest youth he had grown up with so strong an impression that he was intended for the Church, that he considered it impossible any other profession could suit him better. When he mingled intimately at college with young men of higher rank and higher hopes, he discovered too late that a clergyman's life was not such as to render him most happy; but he could not draw back, he would not so disappoint his father. He felt and knew, to obtain the summit of his desires, to be placed in a public situation, where his ambition would have full scope, required a much larger fortune than his father possessed. He clothed himself in what he believed to be resignation and contentment, but which was in truth a morbid sensitiveness to his lot in life, which he imagined poverty would separate from every other. Association with Herbert Hamilton, to whom in frankness he confided these secret feelings, did much towards removing their bitterness; and the admiration which he felt for Herbert, whose unaffected piety and devotion to the Church he could not fail to appreciate, partially reconciled his ambitious spirit to his station. Yet the exalted ideas of Herbert were not entirely shared by Arthur, whose thoughts were centred in a more stirring field of usefulness than it would in all probability be his to fill. Herbert combated these objections with so much eloquence, he pointed with such ardent zeal to the crown eternal that would be his, when divine love had triumphed over all earthly ambition, and his duties were done for love of Him, who had ordained them, that when the time of his ordination came (which it did very shortly after the commencement of this chapter), he would not have drawn back, even had a more attractive profession been offered for his acceptance. The friendship and countenance of Mr. Hamilton did much to reconcile him to his lot. Mr. Howard's curate died suddenly, at the very time that Mr. Hamilton was writing to the Marquis of Malvern, in Arthur's favour, for a vacant living then at his disposal. Both now were offered to the young man's choice, and Percy, even Mr. Hamilton himself, were somewhat surprised that, without a moment's hesitation, he accepted that under Mr. Howard, in the gift of Mr. Hamilton, inferior as it was in point of worldly prospects to Lord Malvern's. His two parishes were situated about nine or ten miles from Oakwood, and seven or eight from Mr. Howard's rectory, and ere Mr. Myrvin returned to Llangwillan, he had the satisfaction of seeing his son settled comfortably in his curacy, performing his duties to the approval of his rector, and gaining by his manner the affection of his parishioners.
Herbert alone knew to its full extent the conquest his friend had achieved over himself. His inclination led him to ambitious paths, where he might in time obtain the notice of and mingle in the highest ranks; but when the innate nobleness of his mind showed him where his duty lay, when conscience loudly whispered now was the time to redeem the errors of his college life, to prove his reverence for his father, to preserve the kindness of those friends, exalted alike by rank and virtue, with whom he still might mingle, with a strong effort he banished all ambitious wishes, and devoted himself heart and soul to his ministerial duties.
Herbert would speak of his friend at home, of his self-conquering struggles, till all would sympathise in the interest he so warmly displayed, particularly Emmeline, with whom, sportive as she was, Herbert from his childhood had had more thoughts and feelings in common than he ever had with Caroline; and now, whether he spoke of Mary Greville or Arthur Myrvin, in her he ever found a willing and attentive auditor. Whenever he had ridden over to Hawthorndell, which he frequently did, Emmeline would always in their next walk playfully draw from him every particular of the "Lone Hermit," as in true poetic style she termed Arthur. But there was no seriousness in her converse either of or to young Myrvin. There was always mischief lurking in her laughter-loving eye; always some wild joke betrayed in the arch smiles ever lingering round her mouth; but mischief as it was, apparently the mere wantonness of childhood, or very early youth, something in that glance or smile ever bade young Myrvin's heart beat quicker than before, and every pulse throb with what at first he deemed was pain. It was relief to him to seek the quiet, gentle Ellen, and speak to her even as he would to a sister, of all that had occurred to him since last they met, so secure was he of sympathy in his future prospects, his present cares and joys. But still that strange feeling lingered within his bosom in his solitary hours, and he dwelt on it much more than on the gentle accents of that fair girl whom in his boyhood he had termed his wife; and stranger still, if it were pain, that it should urge him on to seek it, that he could not rest till the glance of that eye, the tone of that voice, had once more been seen and heard, till fresh excitement had been given to thoughts and emotions which were unconsciously becoming the mainsprings of his life.