Geoffery Arden, the only nephew of the late Sir Alfred, was standing on the grass, with his arms folded, and looking rather askance than directly at the remains of the blasted trees, while his eye-brows were drawn up contemptuously, and a somewhat scornful smile curled his lip, as he marked blind Lewin the Harper, his countenance full of woe, feeling, with visibly trembling hands, each shattered branch of the uprooted oaks, while the large tears were falling from his sightless eyes.
The brothers Willoughby and Alfred, and their three sisters, all seemingly attracted by the same object, issued one by one, from the open glass door of the breakfast room, and gathered round the spot; each looked playfully dismal for a moment, and the next uttered some laughing remark. They were soon joined by their mother; and the group would have formed a striking family picture. Lady Arden was still a very fine woman: from her mild temper the sweetness of her countenance was yet unimpaired, while the expression of maternal tenderness,—and this from the late tenor of her thoughts was unconsciously mingled with something of solicitude,—with which she viewed her children, her sons now especially, and Alfred in particular, her favourite son, gave additional interest to her appearance.
Alfred's sparkling eye and blooming cheek did not, however, seem to justify much anxiety on his account; his brother too, though he had always been more delicate, seemed at present in excellent health and spirits, while the three sisters were young, handsome, and happy looking. Geoffery Arden still stood apart, as though there were but little fellowship of feeling between him and the rest of the group.
He was a lad of eighteen or nineteen before the marriage of his uncle, the late Sir Alfred; and from a child had been in the habit of hearing his father and mother, and such of their particular friends as sought to flatter their secret wishes, speculate on the possibility of his uncle's never marrying, and his being consequently heir to the Arden estates, which were strictly entailed in the male line. Nay, his very nursemaid's usual threat was, that if he cried when his face was being washed, he should never be Sir Geoffery. At school, all the boys at play hours had somehow or other acquired the habit of calling him Sir Geoffery; and at college his companions, particularly those who wished to flatter him into idle extravagance, constantly joked and complimented him about his great expectations. Thus had those expectations, unjustly founded as they were, grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength; till, when his uncle did marry, he could scarcely help thinking himself an injured, robbed, and very ill-treated person. Hope however revived a little, on the first three children chancing to be daughters, and his mother began again to say, he might have the Arden estates yet:—stranger things had happened. "And you might marry one of the girls, you know, Geoffery," she would continue,—"it would be some compensation to poor Sir Alfred for having no son."
"Indeed I should do no such thing," he would reply. "I should just please myself. It's not to oblige me, I suppose, that my uncle has no son."
The birth of the twin brothers, immediately after this, put an end to all further speculations on the subject; except, indeed, that Mrs. Arden could not help observing that, "after all, the lives of two weakly infants, as twins of course must be, with the measles, hooping-cough, and all other infantile diseases before them, were not worth much."
Geoffery became sulky under his disappointment, and said very little; but silently he hated the twins for having been born. Of what use were they, he thought; for what purpose had they been brought into the world, except indeed to ruin his prospects.
Had they never been born, they would not have wanted the property, and he might have enjoyed it. Now he must go and drudge at a profession, the very idea of which, after his imagination had been so long dazzled by false hopes, he absolutely loathed.
He had been educated for the Bar, but had neglected his studies. He had been dissipated without gaiety of heart, and a gambler from avarice. His hopes had made him proud, while his fears had made him gloomy. In short, he had contrived to extract the evil from every thing, while he had avoided all that was good. As to his legal studies, he had never read any portion with interest or attention but the law of male entail.
He was a bachelor, and likely to remain such: for he could not afford to marry, unless he obtained a much larger fortune than he was entitled to expect.