The Vicar of Wrexhill. Frances Milton Trollope
evening if you do not behave better," said young Mowbray.
"And if you do, I will. … "
"Come along, Charles," said his father; "her threats may put you out of heart for the whole day."
"And might not we too take a walk before any of the people arrive?" said Fanny. "I have heard the cuckoo this morning for the first time. He was certainly thanking God for the sunshine; and I really think we ought to go out, and then we shall do so too."
"A most delightful proposal!" cried Rosalind; "and if the birds should happen to introduce a jig movement, we can practise our dancing steps as we go along."
"Wait half an hour for me," said Charles, rising to accompany his father, "and I will join your party. Let us go to the Pebble-Ford, Rosalind; and you shall all three drink my health out of that dear pool beside it, that Ros. … Miss Torrington—admired so much the other day."
"No, no, we can't wait a moment, Char. … Mr. Mowbray—" said Rosalind. "Come, dear girls, let us be gone instantly."
"Not wait for him on his birthday!" cried Helen. "But you are not in earnest, Rosalind?"
"How you do labour and toil to spoil that man, Helen!" said Miss Torrington, raising her hands and eyes as he left the room. "It is a great blessing for him that I have come amongst you! If any thing can save him from utter destruction, it is I shall do it."
Charles however was waited for, and that for at least three times the period he had named; but he came at last, and the walk was taken, and the birds sang, and the brook sparkled, and the health was drunk cordially, even by Rosalind; and the gay party returned in time to see the first carriage approach, bearing guests invited to be present at the tenants' dinner in the Park. Their morning toilet was hastily readjusted, as another and another equipage rolled onwards towards the house; and then the business of the day began. Lords and ladies, knights and squires, yeomen and peasants, were seen riding, driving, running, and walking through the spacious park in all directions. Then followed the rustic fête and the joyous carouse, in which the name of Charles Mowbray made the welkin ring; and then, the company having retreated to the house, came the hurried steps of a dozen lady's-maids hastening to their various scenes of action, and valets converting closets of all sorts and sizes into dressing-rooms for unnumbered gentlemen; and then the banquet, and then the coffee and the short repose—and then the crowded ball.
All this came and went in order, and without the intervention of a single circumstance that might mar the enjoyment of a day long set apart for happiness, and which began and ended more exactly according to the wishes and intentions of those who arranged its festivities than often falls out at galas planned by mortals.
At five o'clock on the following morning the joyous din at length sank into silence, and as many as hospitable ingenuity could find room for lay down at Mowbray Park to enjoy again in dreams the untarnished gaiety of that happy day.
CHAPTER II.
THE MORNING AFTER THE BIRTHDAY.
Even the stable-boys deemed themselves privileged to sleep later than usual on the day after; and the ploughboy, as he went afield, missed the merry smile of the park dairy-maid, who, like her superiors, seemed to think on such an occasion time was made for very vulgar souls indeed, and that none who had joined in so illustrious a gala, could be expected to recover the full possession of their waking senses for some hours after the usual time.
By slow degrees, however, the different members of the establishment began to stretch themselves and give sign of reviving animation. The housemaids yawningly opened the window-shutters; the footmen crept after them to aid in removing from one room at least the traces of the jubilee, which, like the relics of a lamp that has burnt out, showed but the more unsightly from its past splendour; and at length, to a superficial eye, the breakfast-room looked like the breakfast-room of former years; though a more discriminating glance might have detected girandoles where no such things had ever glittered before, card-tables in the place of work-tables, and flowers, still blooming in situations as little usual to them as a bed of strawberries would have been the day before.
But it was long after these hireling efforts of forced labour had prepared the table for the morning meal, that any one of the favoured sleepers destined to partake of it left his or her downy pillow. … In short … it was past mid-day before the family and their guests began to assemble; and even then many stragglers were still waited for before they appeared, and Mrs. Mowbray and Helen began at length to talk of breaking up the long session, and of giving orders to the butler to take care of all those who should come after.
"It is not very surprising that the Davenports, who never ceased dancing till long after the sun came to look at them," said Helen—"it is not all wonderful that they should sleep late, and I believe Mr. Vivian makes it a principle to be the last on all occasions. But I am quite astonished that papa does not appear: was he asleep, mamma, when you came down this morning?"
"No, Helen, not quite asleep, for he spoke to me. But I think he was very sleepy, for I hardly understood what he said; and as he appeared extremely tired when he went to bed, I told Curtis to darken the room again, and leave him quiet."
Another half-hour brought forth the Davenports and Mr. Vivian; but still Mr. Mowbray did not appear, and Helen, though hitherto she had been quite satisfied by her mother's account of his prolonged slumbers, again began to feel uneasy about him.
"Do you not think, mamma," said she, "that I might venture to go up to him?"
"I see not the least objection to it, Helen; especially as we know, that if it were you who happened to wake him out of the soundest sleep he ever enjoyed, the pleasure of seeing you near him would quite atone for it."
"Very well mamma—then I shall certainly let him sleep no longer now;" and, so saying, Helen left the room.
"Is not Helen Mowbray a charming creature!" said a gentleman who was seated next Miss Torrington, and who, being neither young, handsome, rich, nor noble, felt that he could wound no feelings by expressing his admiration of one young lady to another.
"I will tell you what she is," answered Rosalind warmly: "she is just as much better than every body else in the world, as her sister, there, is more beautiful."
"And you are. … " said the middle-aged gentleman, fixing a pair of very intelligent eyes on her face—"you are. … "
But notwithstanding the look of curiosity with which Miss Torrington listened, the speaker suddenly stopped, for a bell was rung with that sort of sudden and continued vehemence which denotes haste and agitation in the hand that gives it movement.
"That is my father's bell!" said Charles in an accent of alarm; and starting up, he was out of the room in an instant.
Mrs. Mowbray immediately followed him, and for several minutes a sort of heavy silence seemed to have fallen on every individual present—not a word being uttered by any one, and the eyes of all fixing themselves on the face of Fanny, who kept her place as if spell-bound, but with a countenance that expressed a feeling approaching to terror.
"This is not to be borne!" exclaimed Rosalind abruptly. "Excuse us for a moment," she added, addressing those who still remained in the breakfast-room.—"Come with me, Fanny, and let us know the worst at once."
The two girls left the room together; and in a very few minutes afterwards a servant entered, the violent agitation of whose manner announced the news he brought before he spoke it.
"My master … my poor master is dead!" were the words he uttered; and their effect upon a party assembled for an occasion of so much festivity, and who had so lately parted with their kind and happy host in perfect health,