Chapter I

When I look back and in myself behold
The wandering ways that youth could not descry,
And mark the fearful course that youth did hold,
And melt in mind each step youth stray’d awry,
My knees I bow and from my heart I call--
Oh! Lord forget these faults and follies all.
LORD VAUX.

The London season was over, and Mr. Gresham, full of high hopes, began to turn his thoughts towards Underwood. With that self-control and wisdom for which he was so remarkable, he had hitherto restrained his intense desire to be in the neighbourhood of Audley Court. He had argued thus. “Mr. Vavasour was much attached to his father. He may possibly suppose two or three months of seclusion to be a proper compliment to pay to his memory. He will do justice to my motives in withholding myself for a time, and will the more cordially meet my advances, when the season of mourning is at an end.”

So arguing, he remained in London until the end of July; consoling himself for the inevitable delay, not only by his designs for the future, but by his admiration of his present self. The failure of his first plan had for a time humbled him; he had felt certainly humble in being compelled to inform Mrs. Vansittart that a scheme on which he had bestowed much thought had ended in smoke. But from this humiliation he drew many draughts of consolation--the equanimity with which he had borne disappointment, the fertility of imagination which had composed a second plan equal to the first, and finally the moderation he shewed in calmly waiting the now certain fulfilment of his hopes--each and all of these were themes for daily contemplation, admiration, and gratitude.

There was yet another plan which added to the adoration and wonder with which he contemplated his self at this present moment, a plan so formed out of self-conquest, paternal affection, and paternal wisdom, that when he considered it in all its bearings, he could have fallen down and worshipped the originator of the scheme. This plan was announced to Angela a few days before they left London.

“Have you lately visited Miss Price, my love?” he inquired, as she was leaving the breakfast room.

“I saw her last week, Papa. I go to see her as often as I may.”

“I believe, my love, her society gives you some pleasure.”

“The very greatest,” Angela replied with warmth.

“I have been considering, Angela, that there are occasions in the life of young females--occasions to which I need not do more than allude at present,--when a companion of their own sex is desirable; especially when that companion combines with other qualities something of a maternal character. Being at all times anxious, my love, to secure your best welfare, I have determined to send an invitation to Miss Price, requesting the ... the pleasure of her society during the next few weeks or months at Underwood, as the case may be; nay, the invitation is already despatched, and if it will give you satisfaction to enforce it in person, the carriage, my love, is at your disposal.” He drew himself up and sat the model father studying the welfare of his daughter.

Angela’s cheeks were dyed with crimson, and her eyes cast down as he spoke. No length of time, no power of habit, could accustom her to the matter-of-fact way in which he alluded to events, which caused to her so much anxiety and unrest. When she looked up, however, the impassive gaze she met told her how idle were all feelings of sensitiveness in her intercourse with her father, and banishing her shyness, she forced herself to express the delight she really felt in the intelligence he gave.

Some might have wondered at the pleasure felt by Angela in her aunt’s society, but there was no cause for wonder. Though poor in intellect Miss Price was rich in sympathy; though she had nothing to give, she had boundless powers of receiving and cherishing; and in this hard world, the givers of sympathy are not so many, that the very least can be other than an object of importance and affection.

Her delight was so great, that in expressing her gratitude, Angela kissed her father. Such a heartfelt caress was not common for her to give or him to receive; and he would have been either surprised or gratified could the sense of the enormous merit of the act he had performed, have left room for any surprise in the gratitude it excited. He smiled benignly indeed, but it was the smile of conscious, modest merit, not of gratified affection.

Miss Price accepted the invitation with all the humility and thankfulness Mr. Gresham had expected. She was indeed almost overwhelmed by _his_ condescension, and the sense of her inferiority, and but for her affection for Angela, might have declined it through the dread of proving herself unworthy of his favours; but that affection bore her through her many fears, and armed her to meet her brother-in-law with tolerable composure.

He behaved with his usual liberality on this occasion, and desired Angela to spare no expense in making her aunt a fit object for his eyes to rest upon; and although beauty cannot be given to a faded woman of sixty, Angela’s taste and efforts did so far succeed, that after a scrutinizing gaze he pronounced her “passable.” “She can never give importance to us, my love,” he remarked, “but I am happy to see that she is able to receive importance from us. A handsome dress, as I have often observed to you, makes up for most deficiencies in the eyes of the world.”

It was the 1st of August, when Mr. Gresham and suite arrived at Underwood. The evening was lovely, the garden and surrounding country were in all the luxuriance of their summer beauty; and when Miss Price seated in one of the windows of the long drawing-room, inhaling the fresh and scented air, and feasting her eyes on the glowing masses of the flowers, she felt as if she had been caught up into Paradise.

Tears of rapture fell fast from her eyes on her new silk dress, and her handkerchief moved rapidly from the latter to the former, her terror for the destruction of her gown in no degree assisting her in calming the overflowing of her emotions.

“What is the matter, dear Aunt Jane?” Angela said, after watching her for some moments. “Is there anything that makes you unhappy to-night?”

“Not unhappy, my love, but too happy. I never thought to breathe such air, or see such sights again, and I am thankful to you and your dear papa and to God. Kind friends make me weep, my love, but it is with joy not sorrow.”

Angela stood in the window observing her in silence. “Such things never make me thankful,” she said at last. “I have no room to feel them. It is the mind, Aunt Jane, that makes happiness, not outward things.”

“Perhaps love, to you. My mind is not very strong, and things that others call little do give me pleasure. I like to look out on all these flowers, and think how good God is, and how beautiful His new world will be.”

“It would be well then if all our minds were weak,” Angela replied. “I wish I could think such thoughts, but I can’t. I have too much to think of besides.”

Miss Price dried her tears to look up in her niece’s face. Something in the tone of her voice compelled her. “You do not look happy to-night, my love,” she then observed.

Angela pulled another chair into the window and sat down, leaning her head on her hand, as it rested on the window sill. “I don’t know how I look or feel,” she said sadly. “No not happy, certainly.”

“And why, dearest?”

Angela burst into tears.

“My love, my love,” cried her aunt much fluttered, “what is this?”

“I hardly know,” she replied, driving her tears away. “In London one cannot think, but everything here looks so calm and pure ... it makes me feel ... oh! Aunt Jane, that I wish the earth would cover me.”

“That is what your dear mother used to say,” observed Miss Price. “She used to say that in London she thought of earth, but in the country of Heaven.”

“She thought of Heaven everywhere,” Angela said, while softer tears fell down her cheeks, “and what I mean is not like what she felt. I am thinking only of earth now,” and she turned again to the window, gazing out intently on the distant woods.

“In what direction is Audley Court, my love?”

“There,” and Angela pointed with crimson cheeks, in the very direction in which she had been gazing.

“Shall I some day see Mr. Vavasour?” was the next enquiry.

“I cannot tell,” and Angela turned her eyes away, and again leant her head upon her hand.

“I hope I shall, my love, it would be a great pleasure to me.”

No answer.

“I have heard a good deal about Mr. Vavasour lately, love.”

“_You_, Aunt Jane!” Angela, exclaimed, raising her eyes in excited surprise.

“Yes, love, it does seem strange, I know, but I have often observed that one does meet strangely in life. It was singular, love, that you should meet Mr. Vavasour at my house, and it is strange that I should have met a person who knew him.”

“Yes, very,” she replied absently. “But what have you heard?”

“Oh! so much good, my love, it was quite a pleasure to hear.” Angela turned her head away again, and listened in silence. “You know, dearest, we have lately got a new curate at Hampstead. A very pleasing young man, and particularly kind to me. Quite by chance, I found out that he was son to a friend or relation of that kind gentleman you have spoken of sometimes near Audley Court.”

“Mr. Addison?”

“Yes love; and a fortnight ago he went down to ask his advice on some business for his father, and he came back so full of Mr. Vavasour. He could talk of nothing else.”

“Did he see him?” Angela asked without raising her eyes.

“Yes, my love. He saw him riding. Very grave and sad, he said, but handsome. _He_ thought handsome, which I never did. But beauty is a matter of taste, and what we ought not to think of. Well, dearest, and he told me so much good of him. He says from what people say, he seems only to live to do good. That he seems to pass his time in finding out what he can do to help those about him; such a son, such a brother, and such a father to his people; and they say, that young as he is, people seem to depend on him just as they did on his father, and in fact, that he is just like his father, so steady, and so good, only more gentle. And my young friend told me that he had business both nights he was down there, and had some law papers to copy, and sat up late, and there he saw the light in Mr. Vavasour’s room burn so brightly till near two in the morning. In the distance you know, love, and he told Mr.----, (your friend, love) what he had observed--and he said, many people had noticed it; and he supposed he felt he had much to learn to make himself fit for his duties. But, my love, you are shedding tears. Why is this, dearest?”

“At my unworthinesss,” she said sadly, while bitter tears did indeed fall down her cheeks.

“But you may be worthy, my love, may you not? We all may if we please.”

“I suppose we may,” she replied more humbly than was her wont, and without further conference, rising from her seat and mounting on her chair, she sprang out into the garden, with an agility that astonished her aunt beyond measure, and wandered off to recover in solitude her disordered spirits.

Angela was far from feeling the certainty regarding her future prospects which her father felt. There were moments, indeed, when her hopes were strong, that he who had loved her once would love her still; but there were others when hope utterly died away; and there were more when hope and fear tortured her with their alternations.

This night was a desponding night. It was a night on which she felt how unworthy she was of Everard’s recollection, and with equal force that life without him was utterly worthless in her eyes.

During the many months that had elapsed since their last meeting, his image had become somewhat misty and undefined to her eyes. First, through her pique at _his_ conduct; then through the bewildering weakness and misery of her own; lastly, through the change in his circumstances. Unable to realize what he now was, how he thought, looked, and felt, neither did she realize how her heart had cast its all of happiness upon him. She knew that there was something which made her cold as ice to all efforts to win her favour; not only among those she scorned, but in the more varied society on which she had lately entered; but her life passed as an exciting dream, and to herself she was an enigma. Occasionally she saw in her secret imaginations, that could any man behave to her as she had done to Everard, she _never_ would forgive it; and on such occasions the cold chill of hopelessness would follow, lest his thoughts should be like hers. But such reflections came but seldom. She was now “come out,” and the course of dissipation swept her along, and admiration and flattery beguiled, though they could not win her; and the voice of conscience, though not dumb, was faintly heard.

But Underwood brought her a full awakening. Much poetry has been written on summer evenings, but nothing has ever yet expressed, as should and might be expressed, the strange calm charm of the first evening, when London, with its noise and cares and heat has been left behind. It is almost such a change as we may fancy the disembodied spirit feels when it passes out of the world’s pain and misery, and enters on its rest. How poor seem all the vain trifles that have occupied the fancy. How more than vain, how darkened with sin, the thoughts and imaginations of the heart. How the soul aches to reach some vision of real good, to grasp some true thing, to find some stay on which to rest its weariness henceforward and for ever.

So Angela felt as she wandered in the stillness and beauty and purity of that first evening; the soft air fanning her brow; the tranquillity penetrating her heart; the inexpressible loveliness soothing all her senses, and yet quickening her to think.

She became very good as she walked and talked with herself, very penitent, very humble, very desirous to make a step into a better life; and though it was but a mood, and though it was an earthly love only that was beckoning her onward, yet, undoubtedly, even such moods are not valueless; for by whatever name the attraction be called, that must in its degree be good, which has led and is leading the soul to delight itself in good.