The villa where we have introduced the reader was that of the late Edward Huntington, a successful English merchant, who had resided many years in India and had realized a fortune, which he had proposed to return to his native land to enjoy with his wife and only child. But death had stepped in to put an abrupt end to his hopes, and to render abortive all his well-arranged plans, some twelve months previous to the period of which we have spoken. Mrs. Huntington, the widow, had remained in Calcutta to settle up her husband's affairs, and this done, she determined to embark at once with her daughter for England, where her relatives, friends and early associations were all located.
Miss Huntington, as the reader may have gathered, was no coquette; her great beauty and real loveliness of character had challenged the admiration of many a rich grandee and many an eminent character among her own countrymen in this distant land. But no one had seemed to mate the least impression upon her heart; the gayest and wittiest found in her one quite their equal; the thoughtful and pathetic were equally at home by her side; but her heart, to them, seemed encased in iron, so cold and immovable it continued to all the assaults that gallantry made against its fastness, and yet no one who knew her really doubted the tenderness of her feelings and the sensibility of her heart.
Her beauty was quite matured—that is she must have numbered at least twenty years; but there was still a girlish loveliness, a childlike parity and sincerity in all she said and did, that showed the real freshness of her heart and innocence of her mind. Far too pure and good and gentle was she for him who had so earnestly sued for her hand, as we have seen. Beneath a gentlemanly exterior, that other, whom we have seen depart from her side under such peculiar circumstances, hid a spirit of petty meanness and violence of temper, a soul that hardly merited the name, and which made him enemies everywhere, friends nowhere.
Robert Bramble—for this was he, the same whom the reader has seen as a boy at home in Bramble Park—had not improved in spirit or manliness by advance in years. The declining pecuniary fortune of his father's house, to which we have before alluded, had led him early to seek employment in the navy, and by dint of influence and attention to his profession, he had gradually risen to the position in which we have found him, as a commander in her majesty's service on the India station. That he loved the widow's daughter was true—that is to say, as sincerely as he was capable of loving any one; but his soul was too selfish to entertain true love for another.
The same spirit that had led him to the petty oppressions and the ceaseless annoyances which he had exercised towards his younger brother in childhood, still actuated him, and there was not a gleam of that chivalric spirit which his profession usually inspires in those who adopt it as a calling, shining within the recesses of his breast. Entirely unlike Miss Huntington in every particular, we have yet seen that he exercised some singular power over her—that is, so far as to really interest her beyond even a degree that she was willing to exhibit before him. What and why this was so must more clearly appear in the course of the story as it progresses.
Mrs. Huntington was a lady of polished manner and cultivated intellect, belonging to what might be termed the old school of English gentlewomen. She had reared her only child with jealous care and assiduous attention, so that her mind had been richly stored in classic lore, and her hands duly instructed in domestic duties. There was no mock-modesty about the mother, she was straightforward and literal in all she said or did; evidently of excellent family, she was sufficiently assured of her position not to be sensitive about its recognition by others, and preferred to instil into her daughter's mind sound wholesome principles to useless and giddy accomplishments. And yet the daughter was accomplished, an excellent musician upon the piano and harp, and a vocalist of rare sweetness and perfection of execution, as well as mistress of other usual studies of her sex.
But the idea we would convey is, that the mother had rather endeavored to fill her child's mind with real information and knowledge, than to teach her that the chief end and aim of life were to learn how to captivate a husband; she preferred to make her daughter a true and noble-hearted woman, possessed of intrinsic excellence, rather than to make her marketable for matrimonial sale; to give her something that would prove to her under any and all circumstances, a reliance viz., sound principles and an excellent education.
"Mother, how long before we shall turn our face towards England?" said the daughter, soon after the scene which we have described of the sailing ship and her commander.
"Within the month I hope, my child. I have already directed the solicitor to close up all his business relative to your father's estate, and the next homeward-bound ship may bear us in it."
"I shall feel sad to leave our peaceful home here, mother, for, save my dear father's death, has been very pleasant, very happy to be here."