As I passed through the Hall in my way out, the door of the eating-room burst open, and out rushed a couple of overdressed hoydens, with flame-coloured faces and arms, followed by a hopeful youth, all shirt-collar and cravat, booted and spurred, and armed with a dog-whip, which he flourished in playful menace after the fair fugitives, eloquently apostrophising them with—“Hoie! hoie! little dogs!—That’s it, Loa!—Well run, Phil!—Unkennel the old one!” At sight of me the frolicsome trio slunk back somewhat confused, and a shrill female voice called out from the eating-room, in a half-laughing, half-wrathful tone, “Come back, you combustious creturs! Come back, I tell ye, or I’ll tell your Pa when he comes in. Let alone your sisters, do, Watty, dear! or you’ll tear their tails again, as you did yesterday, wi’ them there nasty spurs!” My inclination to laugh was overpowered by sensations of a very different nature as I hurried past the scene of uproarious vulgarity, and I rode away from the old Hall, with a full heart, well-nigh lamenting that the last lineal descendants of the Devereuxs had lived so long as to witness its desecration.
From that day forward.... But I should tell you that my dear wife gave her ready assent to the engagement I had ventured to make for both of us, though she accompanied me next day to the Hall in painful expectation of witnessing the annoyance and distress of our valued friends. But the perfect good-breeding of Mr Devereux and his sister, especially the dignified self-possession of Mrs Eleanor, prevented all outward manifestation of what must have been the inward feeling. We found them assembled in the drawing-room with their uncongenial guests, and two neighbouring gentlemen, old bachelor friends of Mr Devereux, who had dropt in uninvited to dinner. We were previously acquainted with Mr Heneage, but were, of course, introduced to his lady and her daughters, and Walter Heneage Devereux, jun., who bobbed his chin into the depths of his starched cravat in the most approved style of dandy vulgarity—and Mrs and Misses Heneages! Heavens! that such masses of coarseness, finery, and ignorant assumption, should have borne in common with our venerable friends the honoured name of Devereux! It was my office (Mr Devereux having led out my wife) to conduct Mrs Heneage to the dining-room; and had my feelings been less painfully excited, I should have been amused at her evidently first attempt at the assumption of aristocratical ease and urbanity, as, thrusting her huge thick arm through mine up to the elbow, she leant on me with a weight that would have annihilated the fragile frame of our venerable host, and must have left on my arm the impression of the gilt jack-chain she wore by way of bracelet.
Ludicrous as was throughout the day the deportment of these incongruous personages, the remembrance of it is, even now, too painful, as connected with the distress and humiliated feelings of my lamented friends, for me to enter more fully into details that might be amusing enough under other circumstances. Whatever, however, must have been the feelings of our host and hostess, they were never for a moment betrayed into visible annoyance by the species of martyrdom to which they were subjected; and the remarkably dignified, though gentle deportment of Mrs Eleanor in particular, was not without its triumph in obtaining for her a degree of involuntary deference, even from the coarse-minded persons who were incapable of appreciating her real claims. Yet once (I remember it now)—once she was moved to the utterance of a reproof, the severity of which was felt rather than understood by the vulgar mind of Mrs Heneage, who had provoked it by some offensive comment on the portrait of “the old lady there,” as she familiarly designated the late Mrs Devereux. “I am sure, madam, you are not aware,” said the dear Mrs Eleanor, while her sweet voice faltered with emotion, and a faint blush suffused her venerable face,—“I am sure you cannot be aware that the lady represented by that portrait was our dear and venerated mother, to whose lifeless resemblance even, I should hope, no person would knowingly allude disrespectfully, least of all in the presence of her children.” The woman to whom this mild rebuke was addressed, coloured, fidgeted, fanned herself violently, and glancing as if half frightened towards her husband, who frowned tremendously, stammered out something of an apology, which was accepted with a grave and silent inclination of the head, as Mrs Eleanor rose to lead the way into the drawing-room.
The scenes I have sketched so hastily are but samples of a long long series of annoyances and mortifications, to which my dear friends were from thenceforward subjected at frequent intervals, until the close of the clouded evening of their lives; for the air of Devereux Hall was found to be particularly beneficial to the delicate health of Mrs Heneage, and the bloom (as she termed it) of the full-blown peonys, her daughters, besides that Walter Heneage, jun., took especial pleasure in thinning Mr Devereux’s preserves, and insolently trespassing on those of the neighbouring gentlemen, who submitted more patiently to the young Cockney’s inroads than they would have done, but for their regard and respect for their venerable neighbour, whose moral thraldom to his stern repulsive kinsman was now generally known and compassionated, as the fatal cause became gradually, and at last strongly suspected. Some attempts were made by myself and others to invite the confidence of Mr Devereux; but from all allusion to that mysterious influence so visibly exercised over him, he shrank with a morbid sensitiveness which made it impossible to proceed, without seriously offending; and when I last conferred on the subject with Mrs Eleanor, she requested me, with tears, to desist from all farther interposition, “for, alas!” said the dear lady, “all such attempts are, I am convinced, hopeless, and only inflict additional pain on my beloved brother, even exciting in him a degree of irritability, of which his mild spirit was till lately unsusceptible.” My late observations of the change in Mr Devereux’s once equable temper, but too well corroborated the qualified and reluctant hint thus drawn from his devoted sister; and to me it was obvious, likewise, that the mental powers of my venerable friend, always more characterised by kindliness of nature, than by admixture of the “sterner stuff,” which goes to the composition of moral strength, had been for some time yielding to the weight of some intolerable burden, and that as years and infirmities grew upon him, his natural timidity became almost shyness, and so helped to preclude him from the benefit of good offices which many were ready to render him, had the least opening on his part encouraged them to solicit greater confidence.
But the days drew near when our poor friend was to be bereaved of his last earthly comfort—the companionship of this tender sister, who had said truly, “That no evil influence could ever estrange their hearts from each other, however it might have robbed her of her brother’s confidence.” As they had grown up together in love and unity, so was her life devoted to him to the last, and her faithfulness perfected in the manner of her death. For though he never knew it (thank God! that drop of bitterness was spared), her life was sacrificed to her anxiety for his comfort, and her reluctance to cause him a moment’s distress, or even impatience, which it was in her power to avert.
For many years Mrs Eleanor Devereux, as well as her brother, had been subject to periodical fits of gout, their hereditary malady. Mr Devereux’s attacks had always been most obstinate and painful, though never alarming, as affecting only the hands and feet. His sister’s were still slighter, though more frequent, and she even forgot her own pain, or thanked God it was so moderate, causing only a temporary lameness—and leaving her hands free to minister, as only hers could minister, to the comfort of her more suffering brother. As both advanced in age, however, the disease gained ground on both.
Mr Devereux was subjected to long and excruciating torture, and almost helplessness, being entirely confined to his bed and easy-chair; and not being aware—for she never complained—that his sister was often suffering at the same time, though not equally with himself, he not only accepted, as he had been wont to do, that unwearied attention and that tender ministry to which she had so long accustomed him, but unconsciously became more exacting and more difficult to please, as his mind and temper became enfeebled and irritable, from natural causes of decay, and the more fatal inroads of unconfided care. So it was that at seasons of suffering he could scarcely endure her absence for an hour together; and when the cruel malady left him free from pain, but reduced to greater feebleness, as little could he spare her from the side of his garden seat, or study chair, who was the sharer of all his intellectual pleasures, as she was the soother of his bodily anguish.
And when his evil genius was about him in the shape of cousin Heneage, ill could the tender sister brook the thought of leaving him to that hateful companionship, from which he evidently shrank with increasing repugnance, though too frequently compelled, as it seemed, by some secret necessity, to submit to long private conferences with his dark kinsman. From these interviews, I have since heard from Hallings, he always reappeared in a state of pitiable agitation or deep despondence; and more than once on his reaching Mrs Eleanor’s dressing-room, in which, as if in a haven of safety, he was wont to take refuge from the scene of torment, he has fallen into a sort of fit, his forehead breaking out into profuse cold perspiration, and his eyes fixed with perfect unconsciousness on his agonised sister.
It is wonderful that the mental fabric should not have been utterly overthrown by such cruel conflicts; but though weakened in its powers of endurance, and perhaps in its reflective faculties, the common course of nature was reversed with regard to its sensibilities, which became more painfully acute as those powers decayed which should have counterbalanced their morbid ascendancy.