University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.

Mrs. Wilson found time the ensuing day
to ascertain, before they left the hall, the truth
of the tale related by Mr. Haughton. The
deanery had certainly changed its master, and
a new steward had already arrived, to take
possession in the name of his lord. What
could induce Pendennyss to make this purchase,
she was entirely at a loss to conceive;
most probably some arrangement between
himself and Lord Bolton; but whatever might
be his motive, it in some measure insured his
becoming for a season their neighbour; and Mrs.
Wilson felt a degree of pleasure at the circumstance
she had been a stranger to for a long time;
and which was greatly heightened as she dwelt
on the lovely face of her companion, who occupied
the other seat in her travelling chaise.

The road to London led by the gates of
the deanery, and near them they passed a
servant in the livery, she thought, of those
she had once seen following the equipage of
the Earl; anxious to know any thing which
might hasten her acquaintantance with this
so long admired nobleman, Mrs. Wilson stopped
her carriage, as she inquired,

“Pray, sir, whom do you serve?”

“My Lord Pendennyss, ma'am,” replied
the man, respectfully taking off his hat.

“The Earl is not here?” asked Mrs. Wilson
with interest.

“Oh no, madam; I am here in waiting on
his steward. My lord is in Westmoreland,
with his grace and Colonel Denbigh, and the
ladies.”

“Does he remain there long?” continued
the anxious widow, desirous of knowing all
she could learn.

“I believe not, madam; most of our people
have gone to Annerdale-House, and my lord
is expected in town with the Duke and the
Colonel.”

As the servant was an elderly man, and
appeared to understand the movements of his
master so well, Mrs. Wilson was put in unusual
spirits by this prospect, of a speedy termination
to her anxiety, to meet Pendennyss.

“Annerdale-House is the Earl's town residence?”
inquired Emily with a feeling for
her aunt's partiality.

“Yes; he got the fortune of the last Duke
of that title, but how I do not exactly know.
I believe, however, through his mother. General
Wilson did not know his family: indeed, Pendennyss
bore a second title during his lifetime;
but did you observe how very civil his
servant was, and the one John spoke to before,
a sure sign their master is a gentleman.”

Emily smiled as she witnessed the strong
partialities of her aunt in his favour, and replied,

“Your handsome chaise and attendants
will draw respect from most men in his situation,

dear aunt, be their masters as they
may.”

The expected pleasure of meeting the Earl
was a topic frequently touched upon between
her aunt and Emily during their journey.
The former, beginning to entertain hopes,
she would have laughed at herself for, could
they have been fairly laid before her; and the
latter entertaining a profound respect for his
character, but chiefly governed by a wish to
gratify her companion.

The third day they reached the baronet's
handsome house in St. James's square,
and found, that the forethought of John, had
provided every thing for them in the best and
most comfortable manner.

It was the first visit of both Jane and Emily
to the metropolis, and under the protection of
their almost equally curious mother, and escorted
by John, they wisely determined to
visit the curiosities, while their leisure yet admitted
of the opportunity; and for the first
two weeks, their time had been chiefly employed
in the indulgence of this unfashionable
and vulgar propensity; which, if it had no
other tendency, served greatly to draw the
thoughts of both the young women from the
recollection of the few last months.

While her sister and nieces were thus employed
in amusing themselves, Mrs. Wilson, assisted
by Grace, was occupied in getting things in
preparation to do credit to the baronet's hospitality.

The second week after their arrival,

Mrs. Moseley was delighted by seeing advance
upon her unexpectedly through the
door of the breakfast parlour, her brother,
with his bride leaning on his arm. After the
most sincere greetings and congratulations,
Lady Chatterton cried out gayly, “you see,
my dear Lady Moseley, I am determined to
banish ceremony between us, and so instead
of sending you a card, have come myself, to
notify you of my arrival. Chatterton would
not suffer me even to swallow my breakfast,
he was so impatient to show me off.”

“You are placing things exactly on the
footing I wish to see ourselves with all our
connexions,” replied Lady Moseley kindly;
“but what have you done with the Duke, is
he in your train?”

“Oh! he is gone to Canterbury, with
George Denbigh, madam,” cried the lady,
shaking her head reproachfully, though affectionately,
at Emily; “his grace dislikes London
just now excessively he says, and the
Colonel being obliged to leave his wife on regimental
business, Derwent was good enough
to keep him company during his exile.”

“And Lady Laura, do we see her?” inquired
Lady Moseley.

“She came with us—Pendennyss and his
sister follow immediately; so, my dear madam,
the dramatis personæ will soon all be
on the stage.”

“Cards and visits now began to accumulate
on the Moseleys, and their time no longer
admitted of that unfettered disposal of it,

which they had enjoyed at their entrance on
the scene. Mrs. Wilson, for herself and charge,
had adopted a rule for the government of
her manner of living, which was consistent
with her duties and profession. They mixed
in general society sparingly, and with great
moderation; and above all, they rigidly adhered
to their obedience to the injunction,
which commanded them to keep the sabbath
day holy—a duty of no trifling difficulty to
perform in fashionable society in the city of
London, or indeed any other place, where
the influence of fashion has supplanted the
laws of God.

Mrs. Wilson was not a bigot; but she
knew and performed her duty rigidly. It
was a pleasure to her to do so. It would
have been misery to have to do otherwise.
In the singleness of heart, and deep piety of
her niece, she had a willing pupil to her system
of morals, and a rigid follower of her religious
practices. As they both knew the
temptations to go astray were greater in town
than in the country, they kept a strict guard
over their tendency to err, and in watchfulness
found their greatest security.

John Moseley, next to his friends, loved
his bays: indeed, if the aggregate of his affections
for these and Lady Herrifield had
been put in opposite scales, we strongly suspect
the side of the horses would preponderate.

One early Sunday, after being domesticated,
John, who had soberly attended

morning service with the ladies, came into a
little room, where the more reflecting part of
the family were assembled, occupied with
their books, in search of his wife.

Grace, we have before mentioned, had become
a real member of that church in which
she had been educated, and entered, under the
direction of Dr. Ives and Mrs. Wilson, into
an observance of its wholesome ordinances.
Grace was certainly piously inclined, if not
devout—her feelings on the subject of religion,
had been sensibly awakened during
their voyage to Lisbon; and at the period we
write of, Mrs. Moseley was as sincerely disposed
to perform her duty as her powers admitted
of. To the request of her husband,
that she would take a seat in his phaeton,
while he drove her round the park once or
twice, Grace gave a mild refusal by saying
“it is Sunday, my dear Moseley.”

“Do you think I don't know that,” cried
John gayly, “there will be every body there,
and, the better day—the better deed.” Now
Moseley, if he had been asked to apply this
speech to the case before them, would have
frankly owned his inability, but his wife did
not make the trial—she was contented with
saying, as she laid down her book, to look on
a face she so tenderly loved,

“Ah! Moseley, you should set a better
example to those below you in life.”

“I wish to set an example,” returned her
husband with an affectionate smile, “to all

above as well as below me—to find out the
path to happiness, by exhibiting to the world
a model of a wife in yourself, dear Grace.”

As this was uttered with a sincerity which
distinguished the manner of Moseley, his wife
was more pleased with the compliment, than
she would have been willing to have known;
and John spoke no more than he thought, for
a desire to show his handsome wife was a
ruling passion for a moment.

The husband was too pressing, and the
wife too fond, not to yield the point; and
Grace took her seat in the carriage with a
kind of half-formed resolution, to improve the
opportunity, by a discourse on serious subjects—a
resolution which terminated as all
others do, that postpone one duty to discharge
another of less magnitude—it was forgotten.

The experiment of Grace, to leave her
own serious occupations, in hopes by joining
in the gayety of another, to bring him to her
own state of mind, ended in her becoming a
convert to his feelings, in place of his entering
into hers.

Mrs. Wilson had listened with interest to
the efforts of John, to prevail on his wife to
take the ride, and on her leaving the room
to comply she observed to Emily, with whom
she now remained alone:

“Here is a consequence of a difference
in religious views between man and wife, my
child—John, in place of supporting Grace
in the discharge of her duties, has been the
actual cause of her going astray.”

Emily felt the force of her aunt's remark,
and saw its justice—yet her love for the offender,
induced her to say—

“John will not lead her openly astray from
her path—for he has a respect for religion,
and this offence is not unpardonable, dear
aunt.”

“The offence is assuredly not unpardonable,”
replied Mrs. Wilson, “and to infinite
mercy, it is hard to say what is—but it is
an offence—and directly in the face of an express
ordinance of the Lord—it is even
throwing off the appearance of keeping the
Sabbath-day holy—much less observing the
substance of the commandment—and as to
John's respect for holy things—in this instance
it was injurious to his wife—had he been an
open deist, she would have shrunk from the
act in his company, in suspicion of its sinfulness—either
John must become a Christian,
or, I am afraid Grace will fall from her undertaking”---and
Mrs. Wilson shook her
head mournfully, as she concluded, while
Emily offered up a silent petition, the first
might speedily be the case.

Lady Laura had been early in her visit to
the Moseleys; and, as it now appeared Denbigh
had both a town residence, and a seat
in parliament—it appeared next to impossible
to avoid meeting him, or to requite the
pressing civilities of his wife, by harsh refusals,
that might prove in the end injurious
to themselves, by creating a suspicion that

resentment at his not choosing a partner
from amongst them, governed the conduct of
the Moseleys, towards a man, to whom they
were under such a heavy obligation.

Had Sir Edward known as much as his
sister and daughters, he would probably have
discountenanced the acquaintance altogether;
but in the ignorance of the rest of her friends,
Mrs. Wilson and Emily, had not only the
assiduities of Lady Laura, but the wishes of
their own family to contend with, and consequently
submitted to the association, with
a reluctance that was, in some measure,
counteracted by their regard for Lady Laura,
and compassion for her abused confidence.

A distant connexion of Lady Moseley,
had managed to collect in her house, a few
hundred of her nominal friends, and as she
had been particularly attentive in calling in
person on her venerable relative, Mr. Benfield,
soon after his arrival in town, out of
respect to her father's cousin—or, perhaps,
mindful of his approaching end, and remembering
there were such things as codicils to
wills—The old man, flattered by her notice,
and yet too gallant to reject the favour of a
lady—consented to accompany the remainder
of the family, on the occasion.

Most of their acquaintances were there, and
Lady Moseley soon found herself engaged in
a party at quadrille, and the young people
occupied by the usual amusements of their
age, in such scenes—Emily alone, feeling

but little desire to enter into the gayety of
general conversation with a host of gentlemen,
who had collected round her aunt and
sisters—had offered her arm to Mr. Benfield,
on seeing him manifest a disposition to take
a closer view of the company.

They had wandered from room to room,
unconscious of the observation attracted in
such a scene, by the sight of a man in the
costume of Mr. Benfield, leaning on the arm
of so young and lovely a woman as his
niece—and many an exclamation of surprise
—ridicule—admiration and wonder, had been
heard, unnoticed by the pair; until finding
the crowd rather inconvenient to her companion,
Emily gently drew him into one of
the apartments, where the card-tables, and
the general absence of beauty, had made
room less difficult to be found.

“Ah! Emmy, dear,” said the old gentleman,
wiping his face, from the heat of the
rooms, “times are much changed, I see,
since my youth—then you would see no such
throngs assembled in so small a space—Gentlemen
shoving ladies---and yes, Emmy---”
continued her uncle, in a lower tone, as if
afraid of uttering something dangerous to be
heard, “the ladies themselves, shouldering
the men—I remember at a drum given by
Lady Gosford—that, although I may without
vanity, say, I was one of the gallantest
men in the rooms---I came in contact with
but one of the ladies during the whole evening,

excepting handing the Lady Juliana to
a chair once---and that” said her uncle,
stopping short, and lowering his voice to a
whisper, “was occasioned by a mischance
in the old Dutchess in rising from her seat,
where she had taken too much strong waters,
as she was, at times, a little troubled with a
pain in the chest.”

Emily smiled at the casualty of her Grace,
and they proceeded slowly through the
tables, until their passage was stopped by a
party at the game of whist, which by its incongruous
mixture of ages, and character in
the players, forcibly drew her attention.

The party was composed of a young man
of five or six and twenty, who threw down his
cards in careless indifference of the game, and
heedlessly played with the guineas which
were either laid on the side of the table as
markers, or the fruits of a former victory; or by
stealing hasty and repeated glances through
the vista of the tables, into the gayer scenes of
the adjoining rooms—proved he was in duresse,
and waited nothing but opportunity, to
make his escape from the tedium of cards
and ugliness, to the life of conversation and
beauty.

His partner was a woman of doubtful
age, and one whose countenance rather indicated,
that the uncertainty was likely to continue,
until the record of the tomb-stone divulged
the so-often contested circumstance
to the world—her eye also wandered at

times to the gayer scenes, but with an expression
of censoriousness, mingled with her
longings; nor did she neglect the progress
of the game as frequently as her more heedless
partner---a cast of her eye, thrown often
on the golden pair which was placed between
her and her neighbour on her right, marked
the importance of the corner, as the precision
of that neighbour, had regarded as necessary
an exhibition of the prize, as a quickener
of the intellects, or, perhaps, a mean to
remedy the defects of bad memories.

Her neighbour on the right, was a man of
sixty, and his vestments announced him a servant
of the sanctuary---his intentness on the
game, proceeded--from his habits of reflection;
—his smile at success,—from charity to his
neighbours;--his frown in adversity--from displeasure
at the triumphs of the wicked; for
such, in his heart, he had set down Miss
Wigram to be---and his unconquerable gravity
in the employment—from a profound
regard to the dignity of his holy office.

The fourth performer in this trial of memories,
was an ancient lady, gayly dressed,
and intently eager on the game; between her
and the young man was a large pile of guineas,
and which appeared to be her exclusive
property, from which she repeatedly,
during the play, tendered one to his acceptance
on the event of a hand or a trick, and
to which she seldom failed, from the inadvertance

of her antagonist, to add his mite, as
contributing to accumulate the pile.

“Two double and the rub, my dear Doctor,”
exclaimed the senior lady, in triumph
—“Sir William you owe me ten”—the
money was paid as easily as it had been
won, and the Dowager proceeded to settle
some bets with her female antagonist.

“Too more, I fancy, ma'am,” said she,
scanning closely the contributions of the
maiden.

“I believe it is right, my Lady,” was the
answer, with a look, that said pretty plainly,
that or nothing.

“I beg pardon, my dear, here are but four
—and you remember—two on the corner,
and four on the points—Doctor, I will trouble
you for a couple of guineas from Miss
Wigram's store by you—I am in haste to get
to the Countess's route.”

The Doctor was cooly helping himself
from the said store, under the watchful eyes
of its owner, and secretly exulting in his own
judgment in requiring the stakes---as the
maiden replied in great warmth, “your
ladyship forgets the two you lost me at Mrs.
Howard's.”

“It must be a mistake, my dear, I always
pay as I lose,” cried the Dowager, with
great spirit, stretching over the table, and
coolly helping herself to the disputed money.

Mr. Benfield and Emily had stood silent
spectators of the whole scene, the latter

in astonishment to meet such manners, in
such society, and the former under feelings
it would have been difficult to describe, for,
in the face of the Dowager, which was inflamed,
partly from passion, and more from
high-living, he recognised the remains of
his—Lady Juliana—now the Viscountess
Dowager Haverford.

“Emmy, dear,” said the old man, with
a heavy-drawn sigh, as if awaking from a
long and troubled dream, “we will go”---the
phantom of forty years had vanished before
the truth; and the fancies of retirement---
simplicity---and a diseased imagination---
yielded to the influence of life and common
sense.