Wenderholme: A Story of Lancashire and Yorkshire

by Philip Gilbert Hamerton

CHAPTER XIX.

THE COLONEL AT STANITHBURN.

The long illness and slow convalescence of Mrs. Stanburne, and the deplorable mental affliction which fell upon Jacob Ogden, and threw a cloud of lasting sadness over the whole Ogden family, produced long delays in the projects of young Jacob and Edith, and were the cause of much indecision on the part of the Colonel and Lady Helena. Mrs. Stanburne returned to Wenderholme Cottage in the earliest days of spring, but the Colonel and his wife had already stayed there for many weeks, being anxious not to abuse the kind hospitality of the vicarage. The vicar's sentiments when they left him were of a mixed kind. He was glad, and he was sorry. In his gladness there was no selfish calculation—the Stanburnes were welcome to every thing he could offer them; but in his warm approval of Lady Helena's conduct towards the Colonel, he had been a little too demonstrative to be quite agreeable to Mrs. Prigley, and therefore Mrs. Prigley had thought it incumbent upon her, as a British matron of unspotted virtue, to make his life as miserable as she could. Mrs. Ogden, too, had inflamed Mrs. Prigley's jealousy in another way by coming and nursing Mrs. Stanburne. What right had one of those "nasty Ogdens" to come and nurse Mrs. Stanburne? Mrs. Prigley looked upon the invalid as exclusively her own property. Edith, being young and insignificant, might sit a little with her grandmother—but Mrs. Ogden!

If Lady Helena had not come just in time to take upon herself a good deal of this now inflamed and awakened jealousy, the consequence would have been that poor Mr. Prigley would have incurred grave suspicions of an amorous intrigue with the old lady of Milend; but as Lady Helena was younger than Mrs. Prigley, and Mrs. Ogden a good deal her senior, the vicaress paid her husband the compliment of believing that he had placed his sinful affections on the more eligible of the two ladies. So soon, therefore, as she had ascertained to her own satisfaction the culpability of the guilty pair (and when the commonest politeness was evidence, proofs were not far to seek), the vicaress treated her ladyship with the haughty coldness which is the proper behavior of a virtuous and injured woman towards her sinful rival, and she treated her husband as his abominable wickedness deserved. In a word, she made life utterly insupportable for Mr. Prigley.

Lady Helena saw the true situation of affairs before the parson did (for he in his masculine simplicity attributed his wife's behavior to any cause but the right one), and she migrated at once to the Cottage with the Colonel. When Mrs. Stanburne was well enough to bear the removal, she was brought back to her old house, and continued steadily to improve. Still her health was far from being strong enough to make the idea of leaving her an admissible one, so the Colonel and Lady Helena remained at Wenderholme a long time. Young Jacob came frequently to see Edith, but the marriage, though now agreed upon by all parties, was indefinitely postponed.

Whilst matters were in this state of suspension, the relation between Mr. Jacob Ogden and his family had to be legally settled. His brother Isaac received the factories and estates, in trust, conjointly with his mother, with the usufruct thereof, £500 a-year being set aside for the patient's maintenance. On account of the urgency of the situation, but much against the grain of his now acquired habits, Mr. Isaac Ogden quitted his solitude at Twistle Farm, and resumed, at Milend, the life of a cotton-manufacturer, in partnership with his son.

Meanwhile Colonel Stanburne's position was, from the financial point of view, any thing but brilliant. He had no income, after paying the allowance to his mother, except a share in the £300 a-year remaining to his wife. He was anxious to return to France and resume the humble profession which he had found for himself there. Lady Helena said that wherever he went she would go too, and nothing but the slowness of Mrs. Stanburne's recovery prevented them from leaving England.

They were in this state—being, as things in life often are, in a sort of temporary but indefinite lull and calm—when an event occurred which produced the most important changes.

Mr. John Stedman being on a visit to his friend at Stanithburn Peel, took one of his customary long walks amongst the wild rocky hills in that neighborhood, and was caught—not for the first time—in a sudden storm of rain. By the time the storm was over he was wet through, but being interested in the search for a plant, went on wandering till rather late in the evening. If he had kept constantly in movement it is probable that no harm would have resulted from this little imprudence, but unfortunately he found the plant he was in search of, and this led him to do a little botanical anatomy with a microscope which he carried in his pocket. Absorbed in this occupation, he sat down on the bare rock, and forgot the minutes as they passed. He spent more than an hour in this way, and rose from his task with a feeling of chill, and a slight shiver, which, however, disappeared when his pedestrian exercise was resumed. On returning to the Peel he thought no more of the matter, and ate a hearty dinner, sitting rather late afterwards with Philip Stanburne, and drinking more than his usual allowance of brandy-and-water. The next day he did not go out, and towards evening complained of a slight pain or embarrassment in the chest. The symptoms gradually became alarming, a doctor was sent for, and Mr. Stedman's illness was discovered to be a congestion of both lungs.