It was Kenneth Goodal who stood smiling before me. The tears sprang to my eyes, but he was too much himself to notice them. He drew my arm in his, and led me to a carriage that was waiting near the door of the church. Within the carriage sat a beautiful lady, whose likeness to Kenneth was too apparent not to recognize her at once as his mother. “I have brought you a treasure,” said Kenneth, addressing her; “this is the very Roger Herbert of whom I have spoken to you so much. Who would have dreamed of catching my heretic at Mass?” We were rolling along through the dull streets by this time, but it was wonderful to think how their dulness had suddenly departed. “Yes, actually at Mass. And I verily believe he blessed himself and said his prayers like a true Christian. And where of all places should they plant you but right in front of me?”
Kenneth’s mother was a sweet lady—just the kind of woman, indeed, I should have expected Kenneth’s mother to be. To great intelligence and that keen power of observation so noticeable in her son were added the charms of a face and person that defied time, while the veil of true Christian womanhood fell over, softened, and chastened all. She was a fervent Catholic, who went about doing good. Kenneth laughingly told me that her conversion had cost him a great deal more trouble and difficulty than his own; but hers once attained, his father’s followed almost as a matter of course. Mrs. Goodal had always been so pure and blameless in her own life that her very excellence constituted a most difficult but intangible barrier to her son’s theological batteries. Even if she became a Catholic, what could she be other than she was? she had asked him once. Of what crimes was she guilty, that she should change her religion at the whim of a youthful enthusiast? Did she not pray to God every day of her life? Did she not give alms, visit the sick, comfort the sorrowful, clothe the naked? What did the Catholic ladies do that she did not? She was not, and did not mean to become, a Sister of Charity, devoting herself absolutely to prayer and good works. Her place was in the world. God had placed her there, and there she would remain, doing her duty to the best of her ability as a Christian wife and mother.
It was certainly a hard case, and she was greatly strengthened in her position by her grand ally, Lady Carpton. Both these excellent women grieved sorely over Kenneth’s defection; for Kenneth was an especial favorite of Lady Carpton’s, and had been smiled upon by her fair daughter, Maud. The two ladies had taken it into their heads that Kenneth and Maud were admirably matched, and their marriage had long ago been fixed upon by the respective mammas, who never kept a secret from each other since they had been bosom friends together at school. The announcement of Kenneth’s joining the Religion of Rags fell like a bombshell into the camp of the allies, scattering confusion and dealing destruction on all sides. Lady Carpton washed her hands of him, and came to the immediate conclusion that “the boy’s mental obliquity was inexplicable. The rash and ridiculous step he had taken was fatal to all his prospects in this life, not to speak of those in the next. He had inexcusably abandoned the social position for which his connections and his rational gifts had eminently fitted him. She had been deceived, fatally deceived, in him. He had destroyed his own future, disgraced his family, and consigned himself henceforward to a life of uselessness and oblivion.”
Lady Carpton, when fairly roused, had an eloquence as well as a temper of her own. Majestically washing her hands of Kenneth, she immediately encouraged the attentions of Lord Cheshunt to her daughter. From jackets upwards Lord Cheshunt had worshipped the very ground upon which Maud trod, as far as it was given to the soul of Lord Cheshunt to worship anything or anybody at all. Maud resembled her mother. Great as her liking—it was never more—for Kenneth had been, her virtuous indignation was greater. With some sighs, doubtless, perhaps with some tears, she renounced for ever Kenneth the renegade, and took in his stead, as a dutiful daughter should do, her share in the lands, appurtenances, rent-roll, and all other belongings of Lord Cheshunt, with his lordship into the bargain. It was on her return from the bridal trip that her mamma, with tears of vexation in her eyes, informed her of the cruel blow that the friend of her girlhood had dealt her—out of small personal spite, she was certain. The friend of her girlhood was Mrs. Goodal, who had actually followed that scapegrace son of hers to Rome—had positively become a Catholic! And as though to confirm the wretched saying that misfortunes never come alone, between them they had dragged into their fatal web that dear, good-natured, unsuspecting Mr. Goodal, just at the moment when he was about to be returned in High Church interest for his native borough of Royston. Thus “the cause” had lost another vote, at a time, too, when “the cause” sadly needed recruiting in the parliamentary ranks. “My dear,” she said impressively to Maud, “you have had a very fortunate escape. Who knows what might have become of you? Lord Cheshunt may not possess that young man’s intellect”—and Maud was already obliged to confess that superabundance of intellect was scarcely Lord Cheshunt’s besetting weakness—“but you see to what mental depravity the fatal gift of intellect may conduct a self-willed young man. Poor dear Lord Byron is just such another instance. Mark my word for it, Kenneth Goodal will become a Jesuit yet!”—a fatality that to Lady Carpton’s imagination presented little short of the satanic.
I spent a very pleasant day and evening with the Goodals—so pleasant that it was not until I found myself saying “good-night” to Kenneth in the street that the occurrences of the last few days flashed upon me. “You will not forget your promise of coming to-morrow,” he said, as he was shaking hands.
“To-morrow! Did I promise to spend to-morrow with you?” I asked.
“So Mrs. Goodal will assure you on your arrival.”
“Good heavens! did I make so foolish a promise? I cannot have thought of what I was saying,” I muttered, half to myself.
“Well, I will call for you in the morning. By the bye, where are you staying?” asked Kenneth.
“No, no. The fact is, I purposed leaving town again immediately. My visit was merely a flying one. You must make my excuses to your mother, Kenneth.”