Chapter III

Droop not, but nobly struggle still,
For others look to thee;
And they would cease to strive with ill,
If thou shouldst conquer’d be.
GEORGIANA BENNET.

Mrs. De Grey’s life had been a life of trial--trial, not so much startling and outward, as inward and oppressive.

She had married early, and in her marriage all who loved her had supposed her happiness to be insured. The husband of her choice had every advantage of appearance, station, and mental qualification which the most fastidious could desire; and the second home to which her destiny brought her, was sufficiently attractive to win (what is rather hard to be won) that tenderness of interest and regard, the especial property of the home of our childhood alone. But, though all was outwardly smiling, clouds were even in early days hanging over the young wife’s lot. Her husband’s temper was bad--not passionate, not jealous, but bad. He could not bear thwarting; small trials depressed, small vexations soured him. His spirits were restless and uncertain; he needed amusement and excitement, not from weakness or deficiency of mind, but simply to prevent him from brooding over petty contradictions.

Mrs. De Grey’s education had little fitted her for the duties which such a temper required. A sunny-minded active wife might have brought sunshine to her husband’s mind; but she had been a spoiled child, one ever petted, ever considered,--the chosen and constant companion of a twin-brother, whose sweet, cloudless disposition, had been unruffled by a single care. She loved her husband; but the very strength of her love made her sink and tremble beneath his gloom. Saddened by her brother’s loss, her own spirits required cheering. During the early days of courtship they _had_ been cheered by a devoted lover. She was not prepared for the new duties required of her: she failed in performing them. Then trials came. Mr. De Grey wished with more than ordinary anxiety for a son. Three daughters appeared in succession; but almost before their father had banished the frown that greeted their birth, the mother wept over their loss. Two sons followed, welcomed with love from both their parents, received with rejoicing, almost with triumph; and they too pined and died one after the other, and the house remained desolate. The father was embittered by trial, the mother crushed. Over the married life, which had dawned so happily, appeared to be settling a hopeless gloom.

But pure and beautiful natures, although for a time they may abandon themselves to an excess of grief, cannot for ever close their eyes to those duties which are laid alike upon the happy and the afflicted. She awoke at length to the sinfulness and rebelliousness of the despondency to which she had yielded herself; and before the birth of Ernest, her youngest child, flinging off the weight that oppressed her, she set herself seriously to consider the responsibilities of her life. Unhappily, evil is hard to undo: the mind of her husband appeared to be hopelessly embittered. The birth of Ernest, and the interest of his young life, which brought thoughts of gratitude, and peace, and reviving to her, were ineffectual in cheering him. He loved his son, cared for his son, toiled even too much for the future prosperity of his son; but, except at rare intervals, he remained, as by the habit of years he had become, morose, and hard to please. Of late, sadder and darker fears for his peace and welfare had oppressed her. Bitten, in common with many of his countrymen, by the spirit of speculation, he had thrown himself headlong, as was his nature, into the excitement of money-getting; and a short time of restless and excited cheerfulness had been followed by weeks of deeper gloom, and more incurable despondency. Never again, however, after her first awakening, did Mrs. De Grey yield herself to melancholy. The time was past when she could summon elastic gaiety to her aid--mirth and gaiety will not come at our call; but patience, serenity, tranquillity, soft words and loving smiles--these, which are in our power, by slow degrees she had made her own, and these she never failed to give.

A few words describe the trials of years; but deep and ineffaceable are the traces which those years, so easily described, leave as they pass. Though not yet fifty, Mrs. De Grey looked like an old woman. She had been very lovely in her youth: she was beautiful still, but it was the beauty of age. Her cheek was blanched and faded, her hair white as the purest silver, her figure slightly bent, and even in the peace and serenity which her countenance had now attained, you felt that it was the hush and repose which comes after, not before, a storm. There are some beautiful words of Mackenzie’s, which present a perfect picture of the mother of the hero of my tale.

“She kept her sorrows, like the devotions that solaced them, sacred to herself. They threw nothing of gloom over her deportment--a gentle shade only--like the fleckered clouds of summer, that increase, not diminish, the benignity of the season.”

* * * * *

A loud knock or ring is an event which even the most accustomed ears do not hear with indifference. Even if repeated twenty times a day, to some speculation, pleasing or unpleasing, it gives rise; and, coming unexpectedly, it is sufficient to cause an answering vibration in the strongest nerves, and in the most unexcitable heart.

Mr. De Grey had been absent for some days from home, and was expected to be absent for some days longer. This notice, therefore, of an arrival was an unexpected one; and though some people are in the habit of coming and going without exciting much of hope or fear, or any disturbing sensation, _he_ was not one of these. Mrs. De Grey, whose nerves were weak, started and trembled, and her pale cheek became paler. Ernest, little inclined to fear, or to think that there was any cause for fear in this world, was yet swift to read his mother’s anxious countenance. He quickly left the room, and as quickly returned again.

“It’s my father’s carriage,” he said; “but my father is not come yet. Foster says he got out at the top of the hill, and said he would walk home.” After a moment he continued: “Shall I go and meet him? or will you come too, mother? It is such a beautiful evening.”

“Perhaps we had better not,” she said, gently. “He has had some harassing business in London; and you know he likes a quiet walk alone. But you shall go and order some dinner to be ready, and ring the bell for candles. We have been talking so long, that it is quite dark.”

When the candles were brought, and Ernest sate down opposite to his mother, he was struck by the unusual sadness and paleness of her countenance.

“Is anything the matter, mother?” he asked. “You do look so ill. Do you really mean that that stupid bell frightened you?”

She smiled at his inquiries; but the expression of disturbance remained the same, or rather increased, during the long hour that passed before her husband appeared.

He came at length; and then, if there was any secret cause for anxiety, his countenance did not tend to set it at rest. One rapid searching glance his wife directed to him, and withdrew her eyes; but in that glance she fancied that his stern features were sterner, his form more bent, his hair whiter, and his whole appearance more aged, than when she had parted from him a short week before.

He scarcely appeared to notice their presence, returned no answer to their affectionate greeting; but turning gloomily to the empty fireplace, placed himself before it, and, with a muttered complaint, exclaimed against the cold.

“Cold, father!” Ernest exclaimed in astonishment, for the day was intensely hot; “do you really feel cold--shall I light the fire?”

“I usually mean what I say,” he replied sullenly.--“Do light it, Ernest,” said his mother, “and shut the window.”

The fire burnt as fires perversely delight to burn on a hot summer’s day: the wood blazed and crackled, the coals kindled, the room became like a furnace.

“It is hot enough now,” remarked poor Ernest, his cheeks more than rivalling the fire in their brilliant glow.

“Hot! what else should it be with such a fire as this?--there is no bearing the room.” And Mr. De Grey, with an impatient movement, rolled back his chair.

A warning glance, grave and entreating, withheld the answer that was bursting from Ernest’s lips; but though he could restrain himself where he only was concerned, he could not patiently endure the contemptuous remarks and bitter replies with which his mother’s anxious inquiries, and soothing endeavours, were received. Gloom, depression, and peevishness were no unusual symptoms in his father’s temper; but the mood of this night _was_ uncommon;--contemptuous replies to his mother, in his presence at least, were unusual, and he could not bear them. Finding the rising wrath of a hot though sweet temper difficult to subdue, he suddenly left his seat, snatched up a book, and retreated to pass the evening in his own room.

The door had scarcely closed when Mr. De Grey rose, stood before his wife, and the volcano burst forth. Its fire was directed against himself, not against her. The temper which he had inflicted upon her and on his child was but the expression of the despairing misery that filled his heart,--was but the smothered rage which inwardly was lavished on himself. He began to speak, and now with passionate remorse, now with bitter despair, he told her the tale of his utter, hopeless, irretrievable ruin.

As the affairs of this night are important only so far as Ernest is concerned, I will not dwell upon the scene, but shortly state the particulars of the case.

Mr. De Grey had originally engaged in speculation for amusement--to occupy his restless nature--nominally to replace a sum lost by the failure of a banking-house in London. Then the fever of gain--that blinding, maddening fever--had taken possession of him. He went on and on: successfully at first,--then fortune changed, but the fever remained. He lost and won, lost and won, and _lost_. He awoke and found himself a ruined man; and in this ruin not himself alone, but Ernest was involved. From circumstances connected with the property--the estates had not been placed in settlement, and all was lost: Clare Abbey, the possession of his forefathers, and the beloved home of his youth, must be given up into the hands of strangers.

This was the sum and substance of the startling announcement which fell on the ears of the loving wife and doting mother. As my readers will have perceived, she was prepared for some blow: she had seen the gradual growth of the new passion, the “haste to be rich,” in the mind of her husband; and, without pain, she had seen of late that his speculations were failing to answer his sanguine anticipations: she was prepared to hear of a great loss,--of the necessity of a change of life; she had even contemplated the probability of being driven from their home and their country, of living for a time in poverty that Ernest should never suffer; but _his_ share in the trial had never even suggested itself to her imagination, and the announcement came with the startling violence of a thunder clap. It was the uprooting the treasured hopes and dreams of years.

She did not fail however--as what loving wife could fail!--to meet the trial as it should be met. She was not naturally what is called a strong-minded woman; but she had acquired strength in the experience of her life, and this kind of strength, mingling as it does the softness of feeling with the calm of self-control, is of all tempers the one best fitted to deal with misfortune, and to heal the pangs of remorse. Soft words turn away wrath, and many other are the hidden powers and virtues they possess,--disarming misery of its sting, often changing evil into good. From the soft words that night spoken, blessings unhoped for and unexpected came; for through their influence a tie of trust and confidence was cemented between those whom the joys and trials of life had hitherto failed to unite.