University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

Francis, who laboured with the ardour of a
lover, under the influence of newly awakened
stimulus, soon completed the necessary arrangements
and alterations in his new parsonage.
The living was a good one, and as
the rector was enabled to make a very considerable
annual allowance from the private
fortune his wife had brought him, and as Sir
Edward had twenty thousand pounds in the
funds for each of his daughters, her portion of
which was immediately settled on Clara,
the youthful couple had not only a sufficient,
but an abundant provision for their station in
life; and they entered on their matrimonial
duties, with as great a prospect of happiness
as the ills of this world can give to health,
affection, and competency. Their union had
been deferred by Dr. Ives until his son was
established, with a view to keeping him under
his own direction during the critical period
of his first impressions in the priesthood;
and, as no objection now remained, or rather,
the only one he ever felt, was removed by
the proximity of Bolton to his own parish,
he united the lovers at the altar of the village
church, in the presence of his wife and Clara's
immediate relatives. On leaving the church,
Francis handed his bride into his own carriage,
which conveyed them to their new residence,

amidst the good wishes of his parishioners,
and the prayers of their relatives for
their happiness. Dr. and Mrs. Ives retired
to the rectory, to the sober enjoyment of the
felicity of their only child; while the baronet
and his lady felt a gloom, that belied all the
wishes of the latter for the establishment of
their daughters. Jane and Emily had acted
as bridesmaids to their sister, and as both the
former and her mother had insisted there
should be two groomsmen as a counterpoise,
John was empowered with a carte-blanche
to make a provision accordingly; he at first
intimated his intention of calling on Mr.
Benfield in that capacity, but finally settled
down, to the no small mortification of the
before-mentioned ladies, into writing a note
to his kinsman, Lord Chatterton, whose residence
was then in London, and who, in reply,
after expressing his sincere regret that an
accident would prevent his having the pleasure,
stated the intention of his mother and
two sisters to pay them an early visit of congratulation,
as soon as his own health would
allow of his attending them. This answer
arrived only the day preceding that fixed for
the wedding, and at the very moment they
were expecting his lordship in his proper
person.

“There,” cried Jane, in a kind of triumph,
“I told you, you were silly in sending so far
on so sudden an occasion; now, after all,
what is to be done---it will be so awkward

when Clara's friends call to see her—Oh!
John, John, you are a Mar-plot.”

“Jenny, Jenny, you are a make-plot,” said
John, as he coolly took up his hat to leave the
room.

“Which way, my son?” said the baronet,
as he met him on his own entrance.

“To the deanery, sir, to try to get Captain
Jarvis to act as brides-maid—I beg his pardon,
grooms-man, to-morrow—Chatterton has
been thrown from a horse, and can't come.”

“John!”

“Jenny!”

“I am sure,” said Jane, indignation glowing
in her countenance, “that if Captain
Jarvis is to be an attendant, Clara must excuse
my acting. I do not choose to be associated
with Captain Jarvis.”

“John,” said his mother, with dignity,
“your trifling is unseasonable; certainly
Colonel Egerton is a more fitting person on
every account, and I desire, under present
circumstances, you ask the colonel.”

“Your ladyship's wishes are orders to
me,” said John, gayly kissing his hand as he
left the room.

As the colonel was but too happy in having
it in his power to be of service in any manner,
to a gentleman he respected as much as
Mr. Francis Ives, he was the only person
present at the ceremony, who did not stand
within the bonds of consanguinity to either
of the parties—He was invited by the baronet

to dine at the hall, and notwithstanding the
repeated injunctions of Mrs. Jarvis and her
daughters, to return to them immediately
with an account of the dress of the bride, and
other important items of a similar nature,
the colonel accepted the invitation. On
reaching the hall, Emily retired to her own
room, and on her entrance at dinner, the
paleness of her cheeks and redness of her
eyes, afforded sufficient proof, that the translation
of a companion from her own to another
family, was an event, however happy in itself,
not unmingled with grief, to those who were
losers by the change. The day, however,
passed off tolerably well for those who are
expected to be happy, when in their hearts
they are really more disposed to weep than
to laugh. Jane and the colonel had most of
the conversation to themselves during dinner;
even the joyous and thoughtless John, wore
his gayety in a less graceful manner than usual,
and was observed by his aunt, to look with
moistened eyes at the vacant chair a servant
had, from habit, placed where Clara had been
accustomed to sit.

“This beef is not done, Saunders,” said
the baronet to his butler, “or my appetite is
not as good as usual to-day—Colonel Egerton,
will you allow me the pleasure of a glass of
sherry with you?”

The wine was drank, and the beef succeeded
by game; but still Sir Edward could
not eat.

“How glad Clara will be to see us all the
day after to-morrow,” said Mrs. Wilson;
“your new house-keepers delight so in their
first efforts in entertaining their friends.”

Lady Moseley smiled through her tears,
and turning to her husband, said, “we will
go early, my dear, that we may see the improvements
Francis has been making before
we dine;” the baronet nodded assent, but his
heart was too full to speak; and apologising
to the colonel for his absence, on the plea of
some business with his people, left the
room.

The attentions of Colonel Egerton to both
mother and daughter were of the most delicate
kind; he spoke of Clara, as if his situation
as grooms-man to her husband, entitled
him to an interest in her welfare—with John
he was kind and sociable, and even Mrs. Wilson
acknowledged, after he took his leave,
that he possessed a wonderful faculty of
making himself agreeable, and began to
think that, under all circumstances, he might
possibly prove as advantageous a connexion
as Jane could expect to form. Had any one
have proposed him as a husband for Emily,
her affection would have quickened her
judgment to a decision, true to the best, the
only interest of her charge—the rejection
of a man whose principles offered no security
for his conduct.

Soon after the baronet left the room, a
travelling carriage, with suitable attendants,

drove to the door; the sound of the wheels
drew most of the company to a window—
“a baron's coronet,” cried Jane, catching a
glimpse of the ornaments of the harness.

“The Chattertons,” echoed her brother,
as he left the room to meet them—The
mother of Sir Edward was a daughter of this
family, and sister to the grandfather of the
present lord. The connexion had always
been kept up with the show of cordiality between
Sir Edward and his cousin, although
their manner of living and habits in common
were very different. The baron was a
courtier and a place-man; his estates, which
he could not alienate, produced about ten
thousand a year, but the income he could
and did spend; and the high perquisites of
his situation under government, amounting to
as much more, were melted away, year after
year, without making the provision for his
daughters, both his duty, and the observance
of his promise to his wife's father, required
at his hands. He had been dead a couple of
years, and his son found himself saddled with
the support of an unjointured mother and unportioned
sisters. Money was not the idol
worshipped by the young lord, nor even pleasure;
he was affectionate to his surviving parent,
and his first act was to settle during his
own life, two thousand pounds a year upon
her, while he commenced setting aside as
much more for each of his sisters annually;
this abridged him greatly in his own expenditures,

yet as they made but one family, and
the dowager was really a managing woman
in more senses than one, they made a very
tolerable figure. The son was anxious to
follow the example of Sir Edward Moseley,
and give up his town house, for at least a
time, but his mother exclaimed with something
like horror at the proposal.

“Why Chatterton, would you give it up
at the moment it can be of the most use to
us?” and she threw a glance at her daughters,
that would have discovered her policy to
Mrs. Wilson, but was lost on his lordship; he,
poor soul, thinking she meant it as convenient
to support the interest he had been making
for the place held by his father; one of more
emolument than service or even honour. The
contending parties were so equally matched,
that the situation was kept as it were in
abeyance, waiting the arrival of some newcomer
to the strength of one or other of the
claimants—the interest of the peer had began
to lose ground at the period we speak of, and
his careful mother saw new motives for her
activity in providing for her children in the
lottery of life. Mrs. Wilson herself could not
be more vigilant in examining the candidates
for her daughter's favours, than was the dowager
Lady Chatterton—it is true, the task of
the former lady was by far the most arduous,
as it involved a study of character and development
of principle, while that of the latter

would have been finished by the development
of a rent-roll—provided it contained five
figures in the sum total of its amount. Sir
Edward's was known to contain that number,
and two of them were not cyphers. Mr.
Benfield was rich, and John Moseley a very
agreeable young man; weddings are the season
of love, thought the prudent dowager,
and Grace is extremely pretty. Chatterton,
who never refused his mother any thing in his
power to grant, and who was particularly dutiful,
when a visit to Moseley Hall was in the
question, suffered himself to be persuaded his
shoulder was well, and they left town the day
before the wedding, thinking to be in time
for all the gayeties, if not for the ceremony
itself.

There existed but little similarity between
the persons and manners of this young
nobleman and the baronet's heir. The beauty
of Chatterton was almost feminine; his
skin, his colour, his eyes, his teeth, were
such as many a belle had sighed after; and
his manners were bashful and retiring---yet
an intimacy had commenced between the
boys at school, which ripened into a friendship
between the young men at college, and
had been maintained ever since, by a perfect
regard for each others dispositions, and respect
for each others characters. With the
baron, John was more sedate than ordinary
—with John, Chatterton found unusual animation.

But a secret charm, which John
held over the young peer, was his profound
respect and unvarying affection for his
youngest sister Emily; this was common
ground—and no dreams of future happiness,
no visions of dawning wealth, crossed the
imagination of Chatterton, in which Emily
was not the Fairy to give birth to the one,
or the benevolent disponser of the hoards of
the other.

The arrival of this family, was a happy
relief from the oppression which hung on the
spirits of the Moseleys, and their reception,
marked with the mild benevolence which belonged
to the nature of the baronet, and that
empressement of good breeding, which so
eminently distinguished the manners of his
wife.

The honourable Miss Chattertons were
both handsome; but the younger was, if possible,
a softened picture of her brother—there
was the same retiring bashfulness, and the
same sweetness of temper as distinguished
the baron, and Grace was the peculiar favourite
of Emily Moseley—Nothing of the
strained or sentimental nature, which so often
characterise what is called female friendship,
had crept into the communications between
these young women. Emily loved her
sisters too well, to go out of her own family
for a repository of her griefs or a partaker in
her joys; had her life been checquered with

such passions, her own sisters were too near
her own age, to suffer her to think of a confidence,
to which the holy ties of natural affection
did not give a claim to a participation in.
Mrs. Wilson had found it necessary, to give
her charge very differing views on many subjects,
from what Jane and Clara had been suffered
to imbibe of themselves, but in no degree
had she impaired the obligations of filial
piety or family concord. Emily was, if any
thing, more respectful to her parents, more
affectionate to her friends, than any of her
connexions; for in her the warmth of natural
feelings was heightened by an unvarying
sense of duty.

In Grace Chatterton she found, in many
respects, a temper and taste resembling her
own; she therefore loved her better than
others who had equal claims upon her partiality
from ordinary associations, and as
such, she now received her with kindness and
affection.

In Catherine, Jane, who had not felt satisfied
with the ordering of providence for the
disposal of her sympathies, and had felt a
restlessness that prompted her to look abroad
for a confiding spirit to communicate her—
secrets she had none her delicacy would suffer
her to reveal—but to communicate the
crude opinions and reflections of her ill-regulated
mind to. Catherine, however, had
not stood the test of trial. For a short time,

the love of heraldry had kept them together,
but Jane finding her companion's gusto limited
to the charms of the coronet and supporters
chiefly, abandoned the attempt in despair,
and was actually on the look-out for a new
candidate for the vacant station, as Colonel
Egerton came into the neighbourhood—a
really delicate female mind, shrinks from the
exposure of its love to the other sex, and
Jane began to be less uneasy, to form a connexion,
which would either violate the sensibility
of her nature, or lead to treachery to her
friend.

“I regret extremely, my lady,” said the
dowager, as they entered the drawing room,
“the accident which befel Chatterton, should
have kept us until too late for the ceremony;
but we made it a point to hasten with our
congratulations, as soon as Astley Cooper
thought it safe for him to travel.”

“I feel indebted for your ladyship's kindness,”
replied her smiling hostess; “we are
always happy to have our friends around us,
and none more than yourself and family. We
were fortunate, however, in finding a friend
to supply your son's place, that the young
people might go to the altar in a proper manner—Lady
Chatterton, allow me to present
our friend, Colonel Egerton”—and speaking
in a low tone, and with a manner of a little
consequence—“ heir to Sir Edgar.”

The colonel had bowed gracefully, and the
dowager dropped a hasty curtsey at the commencement

of the speech; but a lower bend
followed the closing remark, and a glance of
the eye was thrown in quest of her daughters,
as if insensibly wishing to bring them
to their proper places.