Chapter IV

I pray not, dearest, thou mayst be
For ever as I see thee now,
Unruffled as the summer sea
Without a care to cloud thy brow;
I know that thou wert sent to share
Life’s mingled cup of good and ill;
Child of a Holy Father’s care,
Submit thee to His Sovereign will.
SEWELL’S SACRED THOUGHTS.

Ideas on education are so various, that the system pursued by Mrs. De Grey in the education of her child would probably have been liable to objections of opposite kinds. Some, because of the high principles, religious and moral, which she instilled, would have called it strict; but the larger number perhaps in the present day, seeing her attention to his wants and wishes,--her earnest care to encircle his young life with an atmosphere of happiness, would have pronounced it to be over-indulgent.

There is no doubt that, provided the great principles of reverence, obedience, and self-denial are properly instilled, the early years of a child can hardly, for its future good, be too happy;--the strictness that brings discomfort and unhappiness in its train is a false and perilous strictness; nevertheless there might have been some truth in the accusation of over-indulgence. Content with feeding his mind with high and noble thoughts, the mother may have been less careful to bring those thoughts into action. Satisfied with acting steadily for his good in great points, she may in those lesser things which far more than great ones form the character, have been too desirous to gratify his wishes, to guard him from disappointment, to make the earth he trod a flowery way, and the sky above his head a cloudless one. Such at least was the reproach that conscience made when the time drew near to speak,--to speak those words which would blight his sunny, sanguine dreams for ever.

Mrs. De Grey had delayed the disclosure till the last moment: she shrank from it. None knew as she did how great the trial to her son would be; for it was she herself who had twined the thoughts of his home with his very heartstrings. Shrinking, with something perhaps of weakness, from his first wish, so warmly and passionately expressed, she had woven the idea of his home into all the plans for his education,--into all his visions of the future,--she had made it at once the motive for exertion and its reward: Clare Abbey had become--and it was she herself who had made it so--the idol of her son’s heart.

Something to blame, no doubt, there was in this, but it was rather an excess of a right principle than the enforcement of a wrong one. In such strong early local attachments there is so much of good,--such concentrated affections are so powerful as weapons in a future warfare with evil,--that praise and blame might almost equally be distributed;--we might almost say, that even in its excess the failing leans to virtue’s side.

Again the mother and son sat alone, towards the close of an August day. It was three weeks since the evening of the fatal announcement, and those three weeks of glorious summer weather had been passed by Ernest in a state of intense enjoyment. To his numerous active sports and pleasures he had lately added a love of boating; and as day after day he returned from his excursions on the water, with companions gay and eager as himself, his mother had averted her eyes from his sunburnt cheek and dazzling smile, and to the promptings of her inward monitor had still replied, “Not to-day! let me spare him yet; the time will come all too soon.” The time, however, at length had come, and could no more be delayed. Mr. De Grey was gone to London to complete his arrangements for the sale of his property, and before his return the disclosure was to be made.

Ernest had been at home all day; his young companions, the Leslies, younger in years, though not in nature, than himself, had returned to school. Fulfilling, at length, of his own will, an often postponed promise, he had been engaged for many hours of the afternoon in making a catalogue of some curious old prints for his mother, and had devoted himself to his task with unusual quietness and diligence.

“There, mother!” he exclaimed at last, closing a large portfolio which lay before him, laying down his pen, and stretching out his arms, with a slight sigh of weariness--“There, it is done at last! and I hope, for once, you will tell me that I have really been industrious.”

“You really have,” she replied with a smile. After a moment she continued affectionately, but gravely--“I hardly expected you to persevere in such a long and tiresome task, and I have been watching you with pleasure. Patience and industry may be necessary even for you, Ernest.”

“You always speak like that, mother,” he said, colouring slightly, for his conscience took her praise rather in the light of a reproof: “I know you think I care for nothing but my own pleasure, and perhaps you are right. Ever since our conversation the other night I have been thinking of what you said, and trying to find out if it was true; and I am afraid it is true ... rather ... but I don’t mean it to be true. I hate selfishness.” He sat for a moment thoughtful, then laughed as he spoke--“Didn’t some old heathen say something about knowing oneself being a great object? if so, I have made a great attainment these last few weeks. I always used to think I was a hero, something very superior indeed,--made to sacrifice myself, and to delight in it, and now....”--he paused.

“And now ... what?” and his mother watched him with a smile, but an anxious one.

“And now, mother, I am afraid that I should prefer doing what I please to any sacrifice whatever.”

“You do not, I hope, look upon yourself as _incapable_ of a sacrifice?” she asked, with a gravity that made him dwell upon the subject.

“No,” he said, after some consideration; “I don’t think I should mind one great sacrifice,--even if it were a very great one. I think, on the contrary, I should rather like the excitement of it: but what I mean that I have discovered is this,--I never thought before that I was very fond of having my own way, and my own wishes gratified, but after thinking of it, I am afraid I am. I am afraid I never could bear to go through a long course of sacrifices. I am afraid, I think, that always to do what one disliked, as some people do, would be very hard.”

Mrs. De Grey took a book from the table, and opening it, read aloud the following sentence:

“I have no doubt that happiness is to be found rather in renouncing one’s own will, than in gratifying it. Looking back from the eminence of a long life on the valley through which I have passed, I have no hesitation in saying, that those spots which now shine the brightest, are not those which were illuminated by enjoyment; but rather those which were hallowed by sacrifice.”

“Well, mother, I can understand that to a degree,” Ernest said, after listening to her with attention. “I dare say when one looks _back_ one had rather think of what one has given up, than of what one has merely enjoyed; but looking _forward_ is quite another thing. Giving up in _expectation_ one’s hopes and wishes is a melancholy thought; don’t you think so, mother?”

She was bending over her work,--she did not appear to hear him.

“I am afraid, mother,” he said, looking at her with some earnestness, “you expect me to wish to be disappointed. I can’t do that.”

“No, indeed, my dear boy; I have heard some people express a wish for trial, and I have always considered such a wish both unwise and presumptuous; but if trial came, dear Ernest, I hope you would not shrink from it.”

“I hope not,” he said, thoughtfully, struck by something unusual in his mother’s manner; but the cloud of momentary gravity, was not of long duration. A few minutes afterwards he walked towards the window, and leaning out of it, continued playfully, “I think that gentleman, mother, must have been rather melancholy in his mind, for I disagree with him about looking back. _I_ think there is something very bright about a place where one has once been happy--merely simply happy without doing any good to anybody. Now those bushes, mother,” pointing to a large clump of underwood on one side of the lawn, “you will laugh at me, I dare say, but I never go by them without a particular feeling of happiness; and that comes from a remembrance of the house that Harry Leslie and I built there a hundred years ago now; and just in the same way Clare Abbey will always look bright. I fancy that when I am a horridly old man, I shall still feel happy while I can creep about it, and think of all I did in ... my dear mother, in my _happy_ youth,” and he came suddenly towards her and put his arm round her neck.

She rose up hastily from her seat, and gently repulsed his embrace; she could not bear it at that moment.

“Will you walk with me this evening, Ernest?” she asked with a gravity and meaning in her manner which he could not understand.

“Yes, mother; I should like it very much;” but while he spoke he was examining her countenance.

Mrs. De Grey was quickly ready, and they set off together. Her health, though good, was not strong, and Ernest’s arm was the common support of her languid footsteps when she made any unusual exertion. Now, without expressing any definite purpose, she insensibly guided him up the ascent, to the brow of the hill, from whence the finest view of Clare Abbey was to be obtained. In sight of all its beauty she wished him to give it up.

They walked along in silence. There are ways and means independent of any outward sign or expression by which those between whom there is a strong bond of sympathy communicate their impressions to each other. Such a power was used now by Mrs. De Grey. She said no more; her countenance was serious, but no more: all around was calm and quiet, as it was wont to be; and yet Ernest, as they pursued their silent way, plunged in deep though unconscious reflection, felt as if he stood on the brink of some extraordinary event.

They reached the brow of the hill, and there Mrs. De Grey paused and turned to gaze. The sun was setting, and such streams of rose-coloured light were falling from the sky and bathing the woods and waters, that a landscape poor in natural advantages would have been transformed into a fairy land. Its effect on the peculiar and romantic scenery around and about the Abbey, is easier for the fancy to imagine than the pen to picture.

Mrs. De Grey turned, however, from the landscape to gaze on the living beauty of her son’s countenance, glowing and sparkling with admiration and pride.

“You are very fond of Clare Abbey, Ernest?” she said, with a grave inquiring sadness.

“My dear mother, do you doubt it?” he said, reproachfully; “why do you look at me so strangely? You cannot misunderstand me, surely? you cannot suppose that because I said the other day I wished to travel, I care for travelling or anything else in the world compared to being at home, here, at Clare Abbey with you? You must have misunderstood me most strangely!”

“No, I did not doubt it; I know very well what you feel; but in my weakness, Ernest, I postpone the tale of tidings heavy to your ear. I have something to tell you, my dearest boy; you may have discovered that I have spoken much of the necessity of sacrifice; it was to prepare you to make one. I must ask you now, are you capable of a great sacrifice--a sacrifice of that which is very dear to you! can you give up all the hopes and dreams you have pictured for your future life, and not murmur?”

He looked at her in vacant astonishment.

“I am speaking the truth, dear Ernest; you will have indeed much to give up! Your father has lost all--nothing remains for him or for you. This place, Clare Abbey, must be given up into the hands of strangers.”

“But how, mother?” he asked, wonderingly, too much amazed to realize or to feel.

“You shall know all in time, Ernest. There has been error--I do not shrink from telling you so--error on your father’s part, and through error this misfortune comes; but it is not for us, for you or for me to blame: your own heart will tell you that, dear Ernest. I would rather have you feel that though human conduct and human error may be the cause, it is not less the hand of God that sends the trial and asks from you submission.”

He stood by her side in silence, his eyes fixed upon the ground. His thoughts were not of his father’s error, nor his own submission; but flitting before him there came the past joys of his childhood, the present joys of his youth, the pictured joys of his future days, all centered and treasured in that one spot before him; and vaguely fell the words that it must be given up, Ernest was right; he was _not_ a hero.

“Will you not speak, Ernest?” his mother asked, gently; “will you not tell me how you will bear the change?”

He gave a rapid glance around, then said hurriedly, “If you can bear it, mother, surely I can!” But in his heart he felt as if the glory of life was ebbing from the spot where he stood.

She said no more, neither in exhortation nor in sympathy. She saw that even _she_ had scarcely estimated the weight of the blow that had fallen; but there is a time for all things, and it seemed to her then to be a time not to speak, but to keep silence. She left him to his own thoughts.

“Shall we go home, Ernest?” she said at last; “it is getting dark.”

“So it is,” he replied, looking around him,--with a half smile adding, “how changed it is since we came up here.”

They retraced their steps, and walked in silence till they approached the house. As they were entering it Ernest said,

“I will talk to you to-morrow, mother. I am afraid I have disappointed you; you expected me to speak more nobly, more bravely, but I am not quite sure yet what I do feel. It is very easy to speak, but I should be sorry to speak well now, and to fail afterwards. I must think. I can only say, mother, that I hope you will never have reason to be ashamed of me.”

And without saying or waiting to hear more, he left her; appeared at dinner with a smiling countenance, and talked cheerfully on other subjects during the whole evening.