University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
MANŒUVRING—ESTABLISHMENT FORMED—CHANGE
OF CIRCUMSTANCES ALTERS CASES.

It cannot be supposed but that in the length of
time elapsed since Lady Mary Lumley left the protection
of her friends to trust to the honour of a
profligate, many conjectures had been formed concerning
her situation, and the treatment she met
with from her husband. All the family at the Rectory,
were anxious to hear from her, but how to
direct their inquirers they were entirely at a loss.

Mr. Matthews once or twice, called on Mrs. Brenton,
but the old lady could give them no intelligence.
The last letter she received from Theresa, was dated
from Alnwick, and that was above seven months

since; in that she said Sir Stephen and his Lady
talked of making a short trip to the continent, and if
they invited her to accompany them she should
certainly go. The old lady did not express any
uneasiness, concluding they were in France, and as
Theresa never was a very attentive correspondent to
her mother, supposed her time was too much absorbed
in pleasure to think much about her old mother.

Mrs. Cavendish then wrote to some of Lady
Mary's relations on the mother's side, to inquire if
they had heard from her; but they, offended at her
imprudent conduct, and the marriage connection she
had formed, answered, that “They neither knew, nor
wished to know any thing about her.” The uneasiness
of the family was much increased, when a day
or two after Mr. Franklin's departure, a gentleman
lately returned from France, called to deliver letters
to Mr. Matthews, and staying dinner, mentioned
having seen Sir Stephen Haynes in Paris some little
time since.

“Was his lady with him?” asked Mrs. Cavendish.

“There certainly was a lady with him,” replied
the gentleman, “but I did not understand she was
his wife. I saw her several times, but never in his
company. She was a bold looking woman, of exceedingly
free manners, and was said to lead a very gay
life.”

“That was not our poor Mary,” whispered Aura
to Miss Blakeney. Lucy shook her head, and the
subject was dropped.

We left this victim of self will, and ill directed
sensibility at a cottage not many miles distant from

Alnwick castle, under the care of Mr. Craftly; but
so ignorant were both Lady Mary and her friend of
the country in which the cottage was situated, that
they would have been unable to direct a servant, had
any been allowed them, to find a post town or village
by which means to transmit a letter to their friends.
But for weeks after the departure of Sir Stephen,
Lady Mary was in no state to write or hardly to
think, being ill with a slow nervous fever, and at
times delirious. Her highly excited state of feeling,
her keen disappointment, added to a degree of self
accusation which her ingenuous mind could not suppress,
was more than she could support, and she had
nearly sunk under it—perhaps would have done so,
but that Craftly, who though he considered her as
an imprudent young woman, pitied her sufferings
and interested his mother and sister in her behalf.

These truly virtuous, respectable women did not
think that the commission of one fault was sufficient
to banish a human being from society, or excuse in
others the want of humanity or kindness. They
went to the cottage, they hovered over her like
guardian angels, and when in her wanderings she
would call for Lucy, Aura or Mrs. Matthews, they
would one or the other present themselves at her
bedside, soothe her, administer her medicines, talk
of Sir Stephen's return, of her reunion with her
friends, and by degrees brought her back to health
and a comparative degree of comfort.

Miss Brenton, taking her tone from these kind
hearted women, was tender and attentive. Lady
Mary revived, as to external appearance, but her

warm enthusiastic heart had been chilled, the bright
prospects of youth, to her were shrouded, and the
sweet blossoms of hope were crushed forever.

Who and what was Craftly? A man of no mean
capacity, nor bad feelings, who had been brought up
to the profession of the law. He had lost his father
early in life, but that father had secured to his wife
and daughter, who was ten years the senior of her
brother, a decent competency, and a genteel house
in the vicinity of Alnwick. The residue of his
estate and property he left to his son. There was
considerable ready money. Craftly, wished to
taste the pleasures of a London winter; during that
winter, being young and inexperienced, he became
the prey of sharpers and gamesters; and among the
rest became a debtor to Sir Stephen Haynes. His
money was run out, the few and trifling rents he had
to receive had not become due, and the only security
he had to offer was the mortgage of a small cottage
and grounds he held in Northumberland.

When therefore Haynes met Craftly upon his
return from the north with his newly made lovely
bride, it occurred to his unprincipled mind that
he might make him subservient to his views in
getting free from Lady Mary, and enjoying his intended
tour to the continent in company with a dissolute
woman, who had persuaded him, that though
married and the mother of two lovely children, her
invincible attachment to him had induced her to
sacrifice all at the shrine of her illicit love.

This woman Sir Stephen Haynes had set up in
his heart as a paragon of perfection; he did not feel

that it was her blandishments that drew him first
from the paths of rectitude; he did not know that
a profligate unprincipled woman, is the bane of
man's peace, both here and hereafter.

Mary Lumley was agreeable in her person, sportive
in her manners, and easily assailed by flattery.
Her fortune had been represented as more than
treble its value. He sought to obtain that fortune,
but shrunk from proclaiming her as his wife. Possessed
of her little patrimony, his thoughts reverted
to the woman who had enslaved his youthful mind,
and leaving his confiding victim to what chance or
time might produce, he took his adulterous paramour
with him on his journey to France.

Lady Mary, recovered by the care of her unknown
friends, began to think of living, and when she discovered
that she was likely to become a mother,
life itself became more endeared to her. Lady
Mary Lumley, however headstrong in her resolves,
however misled by the spirit of romance, and the
flattery of pretended friends, had naturally a good
heart, and an understanding above mediocrity. The
time she had passed in the family of Mr. Matthews
had been of infinite service to her. The principles
and habits of the individuals who formed that family,
were such as had taught her, that the neglect of duty
in others, was no excuse for the same neglect in
ourselves.

“I am forsaken,” she mentally argued, “deceived,
plundered of fortune and good name, but
if my misconduct is the cause of a human being
coming into the world, a being dependant on me

for every thing, it is my duty to submit to the evils
I have brought upon myself, and be to the little
innocent, father! mother! all. How we are to be
supported, God alone can tell; but my revered
guardian used to tell me, that our Heavenly Father
would maintain the cause of the orphan, and be the
Judge of the widow. Alas! for me, I am more desolate
than a widow; my infant, if it ever sees the
light, unless his father be led to do us justice, more
wretched than an orphan.”

It may be asked why did she not write to those
friends she now knew how to appreciate. She did
write, but Craftly had received orders to forward
no letters whatever; he had therefore requested his
mother and sister, before he agreed to their attending
the sick bed of Lady Mary, to give all letters,
whether written by her or Miss Brenton, to him;
alleging as a reason, that he could conveniently
send them to the post office, without trouble to
them.

It may be remembered that Haynes had represented
Theresa Brenton to Craftly, as an object,
in regard to fortune, worthy of pursuit, and had intimated
to that lady that Craftly was an independent
man. A genteel establishment was the aim of
the lady; a little ready money would be very acceptable
to the gentleman; therefore mutual civilities,
condescension, and uniform politeness, was
scrupulously practised between them. He asserted,
that Sir Stephen Haynes said he was not the husband
of Lady Mary; that she was a thoughtless
romantic girl of fashion, who was so madly in love

with him that she had thrown herself upon his protection,
without waiting for those forms which her
friends would have insisted on, and which, he had
no inclination to submit to.

Theresa knew this in part to be true; but she also
knew that the marriage ceremony had passed at
Gretna Green, and that Mary Lumley was in her
own opinion, though perhaps not in the eye of the
law, the wife of Sir Stephen Haynes. But Lady
Mary was now poor; where was the use of her
(Theresa's) irritating Sir Stephen? it would do her
poor misguided friend no good, and might be of injury
to the plans she had formed for herself. Miss
Brenton then became in externals an entire new
character; she had entirely developed the pure,
unassuming characters of Mrs. Craftly and her
daughter. Brought up in the country, mixing with
but little society, though that little was select; of
plain good understandings, they were urbane in
their manners without being highly polished: and
very pleasant companions without being thought
wits or aiming to appear deeply learned. Of strict
principles both as it regarded religious duty and moral
rectitude; cheerful without levity, and grave without
affected sanctity; their own minds, actuated by
unsuspicious simplicity, thought no evil of others,
until positive facts obliged them to believe it.

With the son and brother, they had ever lived in
harmony; for he was the idol of both, and they
either did not, or could not perceive a fault in him.
He, on his part, had so much regard for their peace,
as to guard against any of his misconduct reaching
them, or giving them any disturbance.

Theresa Brenton then to this family appeared
every thing that was amiable. She was conciliating
to the Craftlys; would talk most sagely upon
economy, domestic concerns, quiet seclusion, love
of mental improvement; and when the gentleman
was present, would descant on the beauties of her
mother's seat near Southampton, without betraying
that it was only a hired place, and that its chief
beauties consisted in the neat snug appearance of a
small house and the garden surrounding it, and a
view of the Bay from the upper windows. Then
she would pathetically lament poor Lady Mary's
misfortune, speak of her as a young woman of impetuous
feelings, which had never been kept under
any restraint, and conclude with a sigh,

“She fully believes herself Sir Stephen's wife,
and it will be as well not to contradict her; in her
present delicate state of health, it might produce
fatal consequences. Though what is to become of
her I cannot think, for by her not hearing from
her friends I fear they have cast her off. I myself
feel uneasy sometimes at not hearing from my
mother, but elderly persons are not very fond of
writing: so I do not think so much of it as I otherwise
should.”

Lady Mary endeavoured to obtain from Craftly
her husband's address, but he always pretended that
he believed him to be so unsettled that a letter would
have but little chance of finding him.

All letters addressed to any member of Mr. Matthews'
family were condemned to the flames, or
thrown by in a drawer amongst waste paper; nor was

he more careful of those written by Theresa to her
mother, though to own the truth she did not trouble
him with many. He well knew that to send intelligence
to Mrs. Brenton was furnishing a direct clue
to the discovery of Lady Mary, and this he had
promised his friend Haynes should not be made in
less than six months after his departure.

“Besides,” thought Craftly, “Theresa might
mention my attentions to her mother, and if I bring
myself to marry the girl I might be plagued from
that quarter about a settlement, and subject myself
to have inquiries made which it may be neither easy
nor convenient to answer.”

“I have been thinking, my dear Theresa,” said
he one evening, as seated in the porch they were
enjoying the full splendor of a harvest moon, “I
have been thinking, and wishing—indeed it is the
wish also of my mother and sister, they think it
would be for the happiness of all concerned, to unite
our hands, as I trust our hearts are already in unison
with each other; and form our establishment before
the winter commences.”

He then proceeded to explain his actual fortune
and his expectations, and made it appear that his annual
income was above five hundred pounds a year,
but in this he included the cottage, &c. without one
word of the mortgage which Sir Stephen Haynes
still held, though he had agreed to give up the interest
which might arise from it for eighteen months
to come, if Craftly would oblige him in the manner
we have already seen he did. Finding the lady
silent, the lover then went on to say,

“You will have no objection, my dear girl, to
making this cottage our residence for the present.
My mother will undoubtedly give us an invitation
to pass part of the winter with her in Alnwick,
which I do assure you is a very lively and genteel
place, affording many rational and pleasant amusements;
the society they mix in, is of the most
respectable class.”

“I can have no objection to pass a few weeks
or months with Mrs. and Miss Craftly,” said Theresa,
interrupting him: “but as to agreeing to make
this Gothic cottage a place of residence, except for
a few months, in the heat of summer, I can never
agree to it. I expect, at least the first winter after
our marriage, that you will permit me to partake in
your society, the pleasures of either York or London.
I should prefer the latter. Indeed it will be almost
impossible to give my little fortune into your hands
without a journey to the metropolis, we can then
also make a visit to my mother, who I am afraid
must begin to think me very negligent.”

“Well!” thought Craftly, “this is moderation
with a vengeance! A winter in London! I
have had enough of winters in London. I must persuade
her out of this notion, or there is an end of
the matter. She cannot be rich enough to justify
such a piece of extravagance.” Putting on therefore
one of his most engaging smiles, he replied,

“But, my dear Theresa, have you duly considered
the expense of a London winter, or even a
winter in York. The whole of my yearly income
would not pay our expenses, living in barely decent

style. And though I do not know the amount of
your fortune, yet I will take upon me to say, that
the greater part of it might be run out in a single
winter in London, without enabling either of us to
be considered somebody. You are certainly too
well versed in economy not to consider it better
to spend only our income in cutting a good figure
in the respectable town of Alnwick for many winters,
than to spend half our fortunes in cutting no
figure at all in the great city of London one winter.
Think better of that project, I entreat you, my
Theresa.”

There was reason in this. Determined however
not to be too easily thwarted, she made some further
attempts to carry her point; but finding the gentleman
growing rather cool and distant, during the
several days that she held out, she prudently yielded,
and the preparations for the marriage were commenced
with great alacrity.