Henry obeyed, but slowly and sulkily; trailing one foot after the other, and determining to have revenge on the cause of his disgrace. He offered no apology, and therefore was not taken into favour again for the evening, though poor Mrs. Montgomery, as she passed to her own apartment, looked into that where he lay, and said, with a sigh, “Good night, and God bless you, child!”
To account, in some degree, for the unprepossessing manners of Master Henry, we shall introduce a few words respecting the young gentleman’s birth, and hitherto unfortunately directed education.
[CHAPTER IV.]
“Lifting at
The thought my timid eyes, I pass them o’er
His brow; and, if I would, I dare not love him:
Yet, dare I never disobey that eye,
Flashing outward fires, while, within its depths,
Where love should dwell, ’tis ever still, and cold,
To look upon.”
St. Aubin, Henry’s father, was a Frenchman, and totally without religion. A flourish of worldly honour, as long as no temptation had arisen, had sustained for him even a showy character. By this, a showy appearance, and showy manners, he had, what is called, gained the affections, that is, he had dazzled the fancy, of Maria, the younger sister of Mrs. Montgomery. Maria was a beautiful girl, and but seventeen. Her sister, who was also her guardian, for she was some years her senior, and their parents were dead, disapproved of the match, but in vain: Maria married St. Aubin, and was miserable! The marriage being a runaway affair, no settlements were entered into, which circumstance St. Aubin imagined would be in his favour; but, when he discovered that the consent of the guardians not having been obtained, gave them the power of withholding Maria’s fortune till she should be of age, and of then settling it on herself and her children, without suffering him to touch one shilling, his brutality was such, that Mrs. St. Aubin, before the birth of her child, for she had but one, was broken-hearted.
She denied herself the consolation she might have found in the sympathy of her sister, for she wished to conceal from her the wretchedness she had brought upon herself, by acting contrary to her advice. She was, however, shortly removed out of the reach of that sister’s penetration.
St. Aubin was deeply in debt when he married, and things had been ever since becoming worse and worse. He had always flattered himself that the guardians would not use the full power of which they spoke, and that by making fair promises he should be able, when once Maria was of age, to get the money, or the greater part of it, into his own hands; he had therefore laboured incessantly to put off the payment of every demand to the day of his wife’s coming of age, and made all his arrangements with reference to that period. At length it arrived. He made application for his wife’s fortune; but Mrs. Montgomery, in reply, reminded him, that her sister having married without her consent, had given her, as sole remaining guardian, a power, which she now saw it was her duty to exert; namely, that of refusing to pay down any part of the money. She should, therefore, she said, secure the whole of it in the hands of trustees, as a future provision for Maria and her child.
With this letter open in his hand, St. Aubin, foaming with rage, entered the room where his wife sat with Henry, then between two and three years old, playing on the ground at her feet, while she was absorbed in melancholy anticipations of the probable result of her husband’s application. St. Aubin flung the letter in her face, swearing, with horrid imprecations, that he would be the death both of her and her brat, and then blow out his own brains. Mrs. St. Aubin remained silent; but the shrieks of the child brought servants. By the time they arrived, however, St. Aubin was striding up and down the room, venting his rage on the open letter, which he kicked before him at each step.