The harshness, as well as unreasonableness, of this attack, repelled the softer sympathies of Zorilda's heart, which were ever ready at the call of affection; and summoning as much firmness as she could command, she calmly replied,
"Madam, as you had no cause to anticipate this event, you would have been the first to censure Mr. Hartland's indolence, had he neglected the business which engages him this morning; and as to me, I am not aware of disobeying your commands in taking a walk at no great distance from the house. I am ready now, though my hand is not very steady, to write as you shall dictate."
"I shall remember your insolent coldness," said Mrs. Hartland; "write directly to Mr. Humphries, thank him in my name for the zeal which he has shewn in our affairs, desire him to keep a strict eye over the property, and to refuse admittance to all interlopers, and——"
"Oh," interrupted Zorilda, "do not accuse me of that which is foreign from my nature. Can any good or evil happen at Henbury in which I do not share? Are you not my benefactors? But you reject my sympathy with disdain, and then reproach me for the want of it. Let me prove how much I feel upon the present occasion by conjuring you not to commit yourself by writing such a letter as you propose to the steward. If, as I have heard you say, Mr. Hartland is heir to the estates, as well as to the title of Marchdale, you will owe nothing to the officiousness of this Humphries; but should Lord Marchdale have had power over his fortune, and exercised it to your disadvantage, how will this precipitancy advance your claims, or redress the evil? Again, a paralytic stroke is not always fatal. Lord Marchdale may recover, and then you are at the mercy of a sycophant who may turn your impatience to account with his master, and represent you in unfavourable colours, to your future ruin. Let me return your acknowledgments for a letter which you have opened in the absence of Mr. Hartland, and enter no farther into the subject of it."
"You are right, Zoé; I forgive you," answered Mrs. Hartland; "make haste, give a guinea to the messenger, see that he is properly taken care of, and despatch him without delay."
Zorilda executed the task which her own good sense and delicacy had suggested; but who can describe the state of her mind, when, having performed her commission, she had time to reflect on her own situation, rendered doubly precarious and painful, by the increased distance which she perceived the near prospect of rank and fortune would place between her and all she loved?
Mr. Hartland returned, and even his phlegmatic temperament was excited by the news which awaited him. Visions of future greatness now absorbed the attention of him and his wife, though they took various hues, according with the difference of their characters. Mr. Hartland shewed no impatience, but, assuming a sort of sullen pomp, seemed to feel himself already in possession of the distinction which he anticipated; while Mrs. Hartland, in an agony of "hope deferred," endured a perpetual fever of mind from the restlessness and impotent activity of her disposition. Day after day passed without bringing farther tidings, and the final account from Marchdale-court was necessary to allay those apprehensions which embittered her golden dreams.
There is one character still more irritating than that of an ex post facto prophet, and that is a person who, not waiting for events, begins, while they are yet pending, to foresee disastrous issues in the interval between causes and effects, without casting a shadow of blame upon themselves for having acquiesced in that very conduct, on the failure of which their angry sagacity is afterwards employed too late to prevent whatever may be its result. Mrs. Hartland was of this description. The mob principle, that every one must be wrong who does not glide with full sails before the wind, influenced all her decisions of every kind; and though in the present case it was obvious, that while Lord Marchdale lived she could not receive the joyful information of his death, she could not impute the silence of Mr. Humphries to any other source than offence at the frigid style of Zorilda's reply to his letter. "I saw plainly how it would be. I knew that Mr. Humphries would be affronted. We have evidently lost a friend who would have watched over our interests, and all because I was too much agitated to write myself. I should have conciliated this worthy man, and flattered his vanity with assurance of my entire reliance on his zeal and discretion; but people who know nothing of the world will put in a word of advice, and woe to all who give ear to their stupid counsels."
To these, and such like taunts, Zorilda had to listen, whenever her evil genius brought her within hearing of Mrs. Hartland's unceasing complaints; which were now received with less submission by her husband, as he began to feel himself rising in the scale of human dignity, and remembered that it was through him that the expected honours were to come.
"For Heaven's sake," he would sometimes say, "let my relation die in peace, my dear. Would you have Mr. Humphries administer a dose of poison to hasten your victim out of the world, in order to accommodate your ambition?"