“Ay, for her mother, may be! a kind of mechanical affection!”
“But, ma’am, if you had seen her at the time that her mother was struck with palsy!”
Much to his own surprise, Vivian found himself engaged in a defence, and almost in an eulogium upon Lady Sarah; but the injustice of his mother’s attack, on this point, was, he knew, so great, that he could not join in Lady Mary’s invective.
“Why, my dear Charles!” said she, “do you recollect, on this very road, as we were returning from Glistonbury Castle, this time two years, you called Lady Sarah a petrifaction?”
“Yes, ma’am; because I did not know her then.”
“Well, my dear, I must have time to analyze her more carefully, and I suppose I shall discover, as you have done, that she is not a petrifaction. So, then, Lady Sarah really is to be the woman after all. I am content, but I absolutely cannot pretend to like her—I like the connexion, however; and the rest is your affair.—You haven’t proposed yet?”
“Bless me! no, ma’am! God forbid! How fast your imagination goes, my dear mother!—Is there no difference between saying, that a woman is not a petrifaction, and being in love with her?”
“In love! I never said a word about being in love—I know that’s impossible—I asked only if you had proposed for her?”
“Dear ma’am, no!”
Lady Mary expressed her satisfaction; and, perhaps, the injustice with which she continued, for some days, to asperse Lady Sarah Lidhurst, as being unfeeling, served her more, in Vivian’s opinion, than any other mode in which she could have spoken of her ladyship. Still he felt glad that he had not yet proposed. He had not courage either to recede or advance; circumstances went on, and carried him along with them, without bringing him to any decision. The business of the election proceeded; every day Lord Glistonbury was with him, or he was at Glistonbury Castle; every hour he saw more plainly the expectations that were formed: sometimes he felt that he was inevitably doomed to fulfil these, and at other times he cherished the hope that Lady Julia would soon return home, and that, by some fortunate revolution, she might yet be his. He had not now the advantage of Russell’s firmness to support him in this emergency. Russell’s answer to his letter was so coolly determined, and he so absolutely declined interfering farther in his affairs, that Vivian saw no hopes of regaining his friendship, or of benefiting by his counsels. Thus was Vivian in all the helplessness and all the horrors of indecision, when an event took place, which materially changed the face of affairs in the Glistonbury family. Just at the time when the accounts of his health were the most favourable, and when his friends were deceived by the most sanguine hopes of his recovery, Lord Lidhurst died. His mother was the only person in the family who was prepared for this catastrophe: they dreaded to communicate the intelligence to her, lest it should bring on another attack of her dreadful malady; but to their astonishment, she heard it with calm resignation,—said she had long foreseen this calamity, and that she submitted to the will of Heaven. After pity for the parents who lost this amiable and promising young man, heir to this large fortune and to this splendid title, people began to consider what change would be made in the condition of the rest of the family. The Lady Lidhursts, from being very small fortunes, became heiresses to a large estate. The earldom of Glistonbury was to devolve to a nephew of Lord Glistonbury, in case the Lady Lidhursts should not marry, or should not have heirs male; but, in case they should marry, the title was to go to the first son. All these circumstances were of course soon known and talked of in the neighbourhood; and many congratulated Vivian upon the great accession of fortune, and upon the high expectations of the lady to whom they supposed him engaged.