Had Annie been able to make Mr. Godfrey understand how unjustly she was treated, she would have applied for a separation; but Mr. Godfrey would not hear of such a thing. "He was glad, for his part," he said, "that Sir Philip took so sensible a view of Catholic influence. It had raised his son-in-law in his esteem, and if Annie showed any disposition to break through the salutary regulations laid down for her, it would be advisable rather to put her under restraint as a lunatic, than to emancipate her from marital control. Sir Philip had the legal power of locking her up in his own house; and if he did so for such a cause as that, Mr. Godfrey would hold him justified."
Mrs. Godfrey was in dismay. Her health visibly declined. A melancholy seemed to overspread her intellect, and at times to overpower her. All was changed at Estcourt Hall now. The once fond, indulgent husband, seemed to take but little notice of the ailments of his faithful partner. He dreaded her taking part with Eugene and Annie, if the subject were introduced, and he avoided all intimate conversation. Hester was too much wrapt up in her own ideas to watch her mother closely. She saw that the servants attended to her, that there was no fear of her suffering for want of care or nourishment; but unheedful of the power of affection and of sympathy, she gave her little personal attendance. Annie's case she thought a hard one, and once ventured to remonstrate with her father on the subject; but Mr. Godfrey justified his proceedings by painting to her the horrors of popery in glowing colors. He demonstrated to her that all sincere Catholics were fools, the wise ones hypocrites, of whom it might be predicted as it was of the soothsayers by Cicero, that it was a wonder how one priest could look another in the face without laughing together at their success in gulling the public mind. "Now," [{492}] said Mr. Godfrey, "the object of these priests and rulers being to subjugate the human will, and to level the human reason to their standard, in order that themselves may rule supreme, it becomes the duty of every thinking mind to war with the system on principle. You, my dear daughter," continued the fond father, for fond even to doting was Mr. Godfrey of this one child, "you, my dear daughter, would idolize the hero who fought and achieved his country's freedom—external freedom merely; should you not unite with those who would save the world from mental bondage of the most degrading order?"
"Yes, if papistry be really this," said Hester; "but that it is difficult to conceive it to be. But, grant that it is so, Annie does not seem to be in any way implicated in it. She disclaims all connection with it, and certainly she never used to manifest any religious propensities whatever."
"Even so, surely no harm can come of keeping her apart from papists for awhile. If this is all she has to complain of, her grievances are not great."
"I think the real grievance, father, is the shackling her liberty, denying her freedom of intercourse. Trampling on her freedom is no light matter."
"Hester, dear, listen: when two people are yoked together, and their interests differ, one must give way; law and custom say this one must be the wife. Now, if Sir Philip were thought to encourage Catholics, his political interests would suffer; therefore he must not encourage them; but if his wife encourage them, it would appear that the encouragement had his sanction; therefore his wife must not encourage them: and if reasonable means fail in teaching her this lesson, others may be resorted to. A wife is a wife, after all."
"I will never be a wife," said Hester.
"As you please," said her father. "but Annie is one, and must therefore submit. She has the less excuse for resistance, in that she had her own choice. No one was more surprised than myself when Sir Philip applied to me for her hand."
Meantime the cause of all these disagreements was altogether supposititious. Up to that time Annie had no acquaintance with the first principles of religion. Probably but for this annoyance she would ever have remained equally ignorant; but, driven from friendship, shut out from sympathy, her attention was naturally fixed on the subject; she began to meditate on Euphrasie's practices, to put together the ideas she had allowed to escape her. A copy of the Imitation of Christ had accidentally been left behind by Euphrasie; it was found under the pillow on which she had slept. It was a book of mystery to Annie, wonderfully enigmatical; yet this book and the New Testament were her constant companions for months, and she learned to cherish them as friends.