University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

Praed.

The accomplishment of the first visit by the Blanchards was
only the first step of a regular plan of attack. Each successive
day witnessed successive advances; and the bewildering influence
of poetry, music, and yet sweeter flattery, made rapid inroads
upon Julia's prudence. Still she declined all invitations to visit
at Mr. Blanchard's, knowing how disagreeable such a step would
be to her absent friends; and the young man and his sisters found
they had reached the limit of their power over her, before they
had ventured upon any direct effort to alienate her from her protectors.

Whether they would have relinquished the attempt in despair
we cannot tell, for the depths of malice have never yet been
sounded; but a new and potent auxiliary now appeared, who all
unconsciously favoured their plans by attracting Julia's attention
in a remarkable degree. This was a young clergyman—a nephew
of Mrs. Blanchard's—who had injured his health by study,
and had come to the country to recruit. He was a tall, well-looking
young man, with no very particular attractions, except a pale
face, dark, melancholy eyes, and a manner which betokened very
little interest in anything about him. He spent his time principally
in reading; but he played the flute very well, and was invited
by the young Blanchards to join them in their visits to their
pretty neighbour in the orchard.

This young clergyman, who had seen something of society, was
not unobservant of Julia's beauty and talent; and although he
does not appear to have had the slightest wish to interest her particularly,
the silent flattery of his manner,—preferring her upon
all occasions,—joined with his graceful person and delicate health,
provide more dangerous to Julia than the direct efforts of his
coarser relations. In short, he proved irresistible to Julia's newly
excited imagination, and after that time the Blanchards found victory
easy. Before many days Julia suffered herself to be led a
willing visiter to the forbidden doors, conscious all the while that
this was almost equivalent to a renunciation of her long-tried and
still loved friends.

The main point being thus accomplished, the rest followed as
of course. We are not able to trace step by step the process by
which the Blanchards sought to root out from Julia's heart the
love and reverence with which she regarded Mr. Coddington and
his family; but sadly true it is that they succeeded in convincing
her that far from having been benefited by their care, she had
been secluded from all natural and proper enjoyments, and persuaded
to become a family-drudge, under the specious veil of a
desire for her improvement. A thousand reminiscences were
called up by these designing people in order to find materials for
mischief. Long-forgotten occurrences were cited and explained
in such a way as to make it appear that the Coddingtons had for
their own purposes deprived Julia of the acquaintance and sympathy
of the neighbourhood. The seclusion in which she had
grown up was represented as the fruit of a sordid desire to get as
much household duty out of her as possible, while at the same
time her beauty and talents were prevented from appearing to the
disadvantage of the sickly Martha. These things cunningly insinuated
were like “juice of cursed hebenon” in Julia's ears. In
her days of calm and healthful feeling she would have scorned
such vile constructions; but under such influences as we have
described, and especially wrapt in the bewildering spell of a passion
as violent as it was sudden, she was a transformed creature.
Her virtue would have stood the test if her judgment had remained
clear: but the opium-eater is not more completely the

victim of delusive impressions than such a character as hers when
it is once abandoned to the power of love.

And this love—it carried shame in its very life, for was it not
unsought? Had its object by word or even look evinced a preference
for Julia? Burning blushes would have answered if we
could have asked such questions of Julia herself. Indeed, this
Mr. Milgrove was a young man of reserved and rather self-enclosed
habits, who, feeling himself quite superior to the people
among whom he found it convenient to remain for the time, had
given himself very little concern as to the impression he was
making. Thus was unlimited scope given to Julia's unpractised
imagination. She idolized an idea. If the object who chanced
to stand for an embodiment of her dreams had made love like a
mere mortal, her naturally keen perception of character would
have been awakened, and she would have become aware of a cold
indifference of temperament in Milgrove, with which her own
could never harmonize, and which would consequently have disgusted
her. But such passion as hers does most truly “make the
meat it feeds on,” and in the exercise of this power its growth is
portentous, and all independent of the real value of its material.
It soon filled the heart of the unfortunate girl to the exclusion of
all better sentiments.

Time flew by, until nearly two months had endowed Julia's delirium
with the force of habit. Frequent letters from her absent
friends had brought intervals of self-recollection and self-reproach;
but the intoxication was too delicious; and with a sigh over the
conscious disingenuousness, she wrote again and again without
once mentioning her intimacy with the Blanchards or the presence
of their relative. It is true, she tried to say to herself, that Mrs.
Coddington had no right to control her movements; but hers was
not a heart to satisfy itself with such fallacies. She felt deeply
guilty, and she deliberately endured the dreadful load, for the
sake of the dreams which attended it. Her fear now was the
speedy return of her best friends. That must, as she well knew,
put a stop at once to all intercourse with those malevolent neighbours,
and deprive her of the sight of one to whom she had devoted
her whole soul, unsought and unappreciated.

At length the period arrived when a letter from Mrs. Coddington

announced that the family were about to return, travelling
very slowly on account of Martha's sinking state, now more alarming
than ever before. Julia's emotions on receiving this intelligence
were of the most violent kind. She sat with the letter before
her—her eyes fixed on the account given by the afflicted
mother of the state of her dying child; and as she gazed, her
mind may truly be said to have “suffered the nature of an insurrection.”
All her better self was roused by the thought of Martha's
rapid decay, and a flood of tears attested the reality and the
tenderness of her affection for this excellent friend; yet, on the
other side, the fascinations of the past two months were present in
all their power; and as she reflected that these must now be renounced,
she groaned aloud, and grasped her throbbing temples
with both hands, as if to preserve them during the agony of the
struggle. In this condition she was found by one of the daughters
of Mr. Blanchard, who had, by various arts, succeeded in
gaining her confidence completely.

These young women, who were in every way inferior to Julia,
derived all their interest in her eyes from their connection with
the object of her mad attachment. She saw them as she saw him
—through a medium of utter delusion. The elder, more particularly,
was a designing and malicious girl, who hated Martha Coddington
with a perfect hatred, and who had always assisted in
fomenting the enmity which had arisen between the two families.

Julia's state of mind rendered her incapable of any disguise.
Her passionate worship of the young clergyman had been a thing
only suspected; but she now threw herself upon Sophia Blanchard's
neck, and bewailed herself in the wildest terms, wishing for
death to rid her of her misery, and declaring that she would not
support an existence which had become odious to her. In the
course of these frantic declarations, the whole history of her feelings
came out, and Sophia, far from reasoning with her on the
destructive effects of such self-abandonment, artfully condoled
with her on being obliged to remain with the Coddingtons, and
urged her to break with them at once, and remove with her grandfather
to a home where she would find welcome and happiness.

But courage for this step was more than Julia could assume.
She had suffered herself to receive unfavourable impressions of her

absent protectors, but her habitual reverence for them was such
that she dared not think of braving their ill opinion. And besides,
she well knew that the old man, childish as he was in
many respects, could never be persuaded to the change. So she
shook her head despairingly, and repeated her conviction that
death alone could relieve wretchedness like hers.

Sophia Blanchard, bold and designing as she was, trembled at
these words. She knew Julia well enough to believe that such
feelings, acting upon such a spirit, might not improbably result in
some rash act. Finding Julia resolute in her rejection of the expedient
proposed, she set herself about contriving some other
which should serve the double purpose of securing Julia and annoying
the Coddingtons.

Are there moments when all guardian angels leave us at the
mercy of the evil influences within? If it be so, such times are
surely those when we have wilfully given the rein to passion, and
avowed ourselves its slaves, to the scorn of that better principle
which watches for us as long as we allow its benign sway. “Why
hath Satan entered into thine heart?” Alas! do we not invite
him? Poor Julia! his emissary is even now at thine ear!

Things too wild for fiction must yet find place in a real record
of human actions. The plan which presented itself to the thoughts
of Sophia Blanchard, was probably suggested by the bitter expressions
she had heard under the parental roof; yet it was too
outrageous to have been broached seriously by a person more advanced
in age or better acquainted with the ordinary course of
affairs. To set fire to Mr. Coddington's house after the family
were asleep;—then to give the alarm, and remove the old man
and such articles as could be saved—this was the diabolical advice
which this ill-taught girl gave boldly to the wretched Julia,
carefully keeping out of view the promptings of her own hereditary
spite, and making it appear that the loss would be a matter
of no vital importance to a man of Mr. Coddington's property,
while it would set Julia free to remove at once to Mr. Blanchard's,
where Mr. Milgrove had decided to remain for some
time.