Home Influence: A Tale for Mothers and Daughters
"Is it already time to get up?" she said languidly, and only half unclosing her eyes; "I feel as if I had not slept at all. Am I dreaming?" she added, starting up, "or have I slept in one place, and awoke in another? Am I at Oakwood?"
"No, dearest Eleanor; will you not welcome me to Malvern House?"
The voice, the look, seemed to thrill through her; her temples were throbbing, her heart weighed down, as it always was when she first awoke, with an undefinable sense of guilt and pain; she tried to be cold, proud, reserved, but it would not do, and she suddenly flung her arms round her sister's neck, and burst into agonized tears.
It was a most unexpected greeting, and Mrs. Hamilton argued hopefully from it. Alas! the unwonted softening only lasted one brief half hour. She left her at Eleanor's entreaty while dressing, and when she returned, though the reckless girl told her with a half smile that she was ready for her lecture, for she could only have come from Oakwood to give her one; and that however severe her words might be, she could not alter her tone, that must be kind, in spite of herself. Yet Emmeline could not succeed in convincing her how wrongly, how cruelly she had acted. Eleanor would persist that she was not in the least to blame, and that poor Fitzclair's fearful end was only owing to his own violent passions; in fact, that he must have been out of his mind, and that, though it was certainly very dreadful, she had perhaps escaped a very terrible doom; but speak as she might, Emmeline was not deceived as to the agony she was actually enduring. Finding, however, that all her gentle efforts were useless, that even the perusal of Fitzclair's brief lines to her husband – which Eleanor insisted on seeing, and in which he deplored his madness in not having followed his advice, and flown from her presence, and bade him take his forgiveness to her, and say, that the means he had adopted would, he trusted, dissolve their engagement to her satisfaction – had no effect, save in causing her to turn so deadly pale, that her sister was convinced nothing but an almost supernatural effort of pride preserved her from fainting. She desisted; hoping against hope that Eleanor would yet repent and become a different being. She knew harshness would only harden, and so she tried to prevail on her father to treat her as usual, but this Lord Delmont could not do. It is strange how often we find those parents who have been over-indulgent to childhood, unusually harsh to the faults of youth. Weak characters, also, when driven to anger, are always more violent than firmer ones; and, certainly, Eleanor's continued haughtiness and coldness, as if she were the injured one, did not tend to calm him.
And his angry feelings were unfortunately but too soon aggravated by a proposal in form from Captain Fortescue for the hand of Eleanor. Without a moment's delay he dispatched a decided and almost insulting refusal to the young soldier, and then sought his daughter, and vented on her the anger and vexation which overpowered him, upbraiding her not only with the death of Fitzclair, but for having dared so to encourage young Fortescue as to give him courage for his audacious proposal. To his astonishment, he was heard without any attempt at reply; but he would have been startled, could he have seen the pallid cheek, compressed lip, and clenched hand with which, when he had left her, Eleanor muttered —
"Father, if it be sin to leave you, be it on your own head. I would have wedded with your consent, had you permitted it; but now my destiny is fixed. There is no peace in England: at least let me be spared the agony of breaking another loving heart."
Nearly three weeks rolled on, and Eleanor's extraordinary submission, and even in some degree withdrawal from society (for which Mrs. Hamilton's arrival was a good excuse), caused her father's irritation against her almost entirely to subside. That she passed several hours each day apart from her sister, excited no surprise. Emmeline was thankful even for her change of deportment, but nothing confidential ever again passed between them. That reports were floating about, connecting the names of Miss Manvers and the late Lord Fitzclair, seemed little heeded by Eleanor, though they caused natural vexation to her family. About this time an invitation arrived for Eleanor from a lady of rank, slightly known to her father, and living ten miles from Cheltenham in a beautiful villa, at which she expected a select party of fashionables to ruralize for a week or two. There was nothing in the note to excite the dread that weighed on Mrs. Hamilton's spirits, as Eleanor carelessly threw it to her for her perusal, but she would not express it, as Lord Delmont seemed inclined that Eleanor should accept it, knowing that the lady was much too exclusive for Captain Fortescue to join her guests, and believing that Eleanor's apparent indifference to the visit originated from that cause. Telling her he was so gratified by her having devoted so many evenings to her sister, he added, she had his full consent to go if she liked, as he could better spare her than when Emmeline returned to Oakwood. She quietly thanked him, but evinced no particular pleasure.
The day before her intended departure, the sisters were sitting together, and little Percy, who now ran firmly without any falls, was playing about the room. He had already displayed a high spirit and passionate temper, with their general accompaniment, self-will, even in trifles, that Mrs. Hamilton felt would render her task a trying one; but she was as firm as she was gentle, and faced the pain of contradicting her darling bravely: —
"Do not touch that, Percy, love," she said, as her little boy stretched out his hand toward a beautiful but fragile toy, that stood with other nick-nacks on a low table. The child looked laughingly and archly toward her, and withdrew his hand, but did not move from the table.
"Come here, Percy, you have not played with these pretty things for a long time;" and she took from her work-box some gayly colored ivory balls, which had been his favorite playthings, but just at present they had lost their charm, and the young gentleman did not move.
Mrs. Hamilton knelt down by him, and said quietly:
"My Percy will not disobey mamma, will he?"
"Me want that;" he replied, in the pretty coaxing tone of infancy; and he twined his little round arms caressingly round her neck.
Mrs. Hamilton felt very much tempted to indulge him, but she resisted it.
"But that is not a fit plaything for you, love; besides, it is not mine, and we must not touch what is not ours. Come and see if we can not find something just as pretty, that you may have."
And after some minutes' merry play in her lap his mother hoped he had forgotten it; but the little gentleman was not, he thought, to be so governed. The forbidden plaything was quietly grasped, and he seated himself on the ground, in silent but triumphant glee.
Surprised at his sudden silence, Mrs. Hamilton looked toward him. It was his first act of decided disobedience, and she knew she must not waver. Young as he was, he had already learned to know when she was displeased, and when she desired him very gravely to give her the toy, he passionately threw it down, and burst into a violent fit of crying. His nurse took him struggling from the room, and Mrs. Hamilton quietly resumed her work; but there was such an expression of pain in her countenance, that Eleanor exclaimed,
"Emmeline! I have been watching you for the last half hour, and I can not comprehend you. Do explain yourself."
"I will if I can;" and Mrs. Hamilton looked up, and smiled.
"Why would you not let that poor little Percy have that toy?"
"Because it would have been encouraging his touching or taking every thing he sees, whether proper for him or not."
"But he could not understand that."
"Not now, perhaps; but I wish him to know that when I speak, he must obey me. It is, I think, a mistaken doctrine, that we ought to give children a reason for all we desire them to do. Obedience can then never be prompt, as it ought to be. And, in fact, if we wait until they are old enough to understand the reasons for a command, the task will be much more difficult, from the ascendency which willfulness may already have obtained."
"But then why were you so cruel as to send the poor child up-stairs? Was it not enough to take the toy from him?"
"Not quite; for him to remember that he must not touch it again."
"And do you really think he will not?"
"I can only hope so, Eleanor; but I must not be disheartened if he do. He is an infant still, and I can not expect him to learn such a difficult lesson as obedience in one, two, or six lessons."
"And will he love you as much as if you had given it to him?"
"Not at the moment, perhaps, but when he is older he will love me more. And it is that hope which reconciles me to the pain which refusing to indulge him costs me now."
"And voluntarily you will bear the pain which had almost brought tears into the eyes of the severe and stoical Mrs. Hamilton!" exclaimed Eleanor.
"It was a foolish weakness, my dear Eleanor, for which my husband would have chidden me; but there must be pain to a mother if called upon to exert authority, when inclination so strongly points to indulgence."
"Well, if ever I have any thing to do with children, I certainly shall not be half as particular as you are, Emmeline. I really can not imagine what harm gratifying myself and Percy could possibly have done."
"If ever you have children, my dear Eleanor, may you have strength of mind and self-control sufficient to forget self, and refuse the gratification of the present moment for the welfare of future years!"
Mrs. Hamilton spoke impressively, and something, either in her words or tone, caused the blood to rush into Eleanor's cheeks, and she hastily walked to the window; then, as abruptly returning, she kissed her sister, a very rare token of affection, and declaring she was much too good for her to understand, quitted the room.
The following day, dressed for her visit, and only waiting for the carriage, Eleanor, accompanied by Mrs. Hamilton and her little boys, entered the same apartment. Though not in general fond of nursing, Eleanor had taken Herbert in her arms, and was playing with him with unusual fondness; Percy, who had not seen the tempting plaything since his banishment the preceding day, the moment his eye caught it, to the astonishment of Eleanor, ran up to his mother, and lisping, "Me no touch that – Percy good boy now," held up his little face lovingly to hers, and with a very pardonable feeling of delight, Mrs. Hamilton lifted him up and covered him with kisses. The feelings which thrilled through Eleanor at that moment she might indeed have found it difficult to explain, but she was so conscious of a change of countenance as to hide her face on Herbert's head. It might have been obedience and disobedience brought so suddenly and strangely in contrast – and who were the actors? an infant and herself. For a minute she recovered, stricken with sudden and agonized remorse; but it was too late, she had gone too far, and the announcement of the carriage was a relief from that bitter moment of painful indecision. Placing her baby nephew in his nurse's arms, she said, caressingly, "Will not Percy give Lina some of those kisses as well as mamma?" The child threw one little arm round her neck, and the other round that of his mother, and then burst into a merry laugh at thus seeing himself as it were a link between them. Never had it seemed to Eleanor that she had loved and admired her sister as she did at that moment; all the neglect, unkindness, she had shown her, all the sarcasm and satire, of which, either before or behind her, she had so often made her the victim, combined with an intense, but how painfully vain longing to have resembled her in the remotest degree, rather than be the character which had never before appeared so degraded, so hateful – almost overpowered her – a convulsive sob escaped her as she clasped Emmeline in a close embrace, and almost choked her hurried good-by! Lord Delmont and Mr. Hamilton were in the hall, and the former was surprised and delighted at the warmth with which his usually reckless child returned his kiss and farewell; the carriage drove off leaving unusual hope and cheerfulness behind it. Alas! in one short fortnight every rising hope was blighted, Emmeline's momentary dread fulfilled, and Lord Delmont experiencing, in all its agony,
"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is,
To have a thankless child"
CHAPTER V.
A HEART AND HOME IN ENGLAND. – A HEART AND HOME IN INDIA
From the moment Arthur Hamilton returned to Cheltenham with the painful intelligence that he had arrived at Leith only in time to witness the departure of the beautiful vessel which contained Captain Fortescue and the exquisitely lovely bride who had, it seemed, turned the heads of all the usually quiet Scotsmen who had seen her, Lord Delmont gradually sunk. The agony of losing her forever – for so he regarded her departure for, and residence in India for an indeterminate time – conquered every other feeling. Her conduct had caused emotions of anguish far too deep for the relieving sensation of anger. The name of the lady from whose house and by whose connivance she had eloped, he was never heard to breathe; but, if ever casually mentioned before him, every feature would become convulsed, and he would instantly leave the room. Often and often he accused his own harshness as the cause of driving her from him, and then came, with overwhelming bitterness, the thought that if he lately had been harsh, surely the recollection of all the indulgent fondness he had shown demanded some gratitude in return. If she had but written, had but expressed one wish for his continued love, one regret for his present pain! But no letter came, and the contending but all-depressing emotions so completely undermined a constitution never very strong, and already worn by care, that when another and still heavier trial came, he sunk at once beneath it.
Though Eleanor had been his favorite, his feelings of pride and hope had greatly centered in his son, whose career, in five years' active service on board a man-of-war, had been such as to raise him already to a lieutenancy, and excite every gratifying emotion, not only in his immediate family, but in a large circle of admiring friends. Mrs. Hamilton's love for her brother had naturally increased, strong as it always had been, even in childhood – and the visits which Charles had been enabled to make to Oakwood, brief in duration as they were compelled to be, had always been fraught with heartfelt, joyous happiness, not only to herself but to her husband. The pain and anxiety attendant on Eleanor's elopement, and the dread of its effects on Lord Delmont, had for two or three months been the sole subject of thought; but at length, and, like a fearful flash bringing a new sorrow to light, it pressed upon them that it was long after the period that intelligence of Charles ought to have been received. Still hoping against hope, not only the Delmont family, but all who had friends and relatives on board the Leander, imagined that she might have drifted from her course, or been engaged on some secret and distant expedition, but that intelligence concerning her would and must soon come. Alas! after months of agonizing suspense, information was received that several planks and masts, bearing evidence of fire as well as water, and some sea-chests, bearing names, only too soon recognized as those of some of the Leander's crew, had been cast off the coast of Barbary, and there could be no more doubt that death or slavery – that fearful slavery which the bombardment of Algiers had so displayed to European eyes – was the portion of all those beloved ones, for whom so many aching hearts and eyes had watched and wept in vain. It was a trial so terrible that Mrs. Hamilton felt at first as if even submission had departed from her; and she could almost have rebelled in spirit against the inscrutable decree, that had consigned one so free from vice and evil, so full of happiness and worth, to a doom so terrible. Much as she had loved and reverenced her husband before, she seemed never to have felt his worth and tenderness till then. It was his sympathy, his strength, that recalled her to a sense of her duty, and gave her power to endure, by a realization once more of that submissiveness to a Father's will, which had never before failed her. But time, though it softened the first anguish, had no power over the memories of this brother, not even when the increasing cares and joys of maternity so fully engrossed her, that the present and the future of her children appeared to have banished all of her own past.
Lord Delmont did not survive the mournful tidings of the certain wreck of the Leander above two months; but his released spirit did not meet that of his son. Charles was not dead. He toiled as a slave long years in living death, before there was even a partial amelioration of his sufferings. But no tidings of him ever came, a young child of three years old, a distant branch of the Manvers family, became Lord Delmont.
Years rolled on, and Mrs. Hamilton's lot was so full of tranquil happiness, so fraught with the innumerable daily joys of a loving wife and devoted mother, that her prayer was ever rising for guidance, and gratitude, that prosperity might not unfit her for the dark days of trial and adversity, when they should come. That she had cares as well as joys could not be otherwise, when so intensely anxious to bring up her children with more regard to their spiritual and moral welfare, than even the cultivation of their intellect. She was one of those who thought still more of the training of the heart than of the mind, believing that were the first properly awakened, the latter would need little incitement to exertion. Two girls had been the sole addition to her family.
One other wish, and one of many years' standing, Mrs. Hamilton had it in her power to fulfill. From childhood she had been accustomed to think of Lucy Harcourt as one, to whom it might one day be in her power to return the heavy debt of gratitude she owed her mother; she had been accustomed to correspond with her from very early years; Mrs. Harcourt delighting in creating a mutual interest between her pupil and the child from whom circumstances had so sadly separated her. When therefore an event of a very painful nature to Miss Harcourt's individual feelings compelled her – as the only hope of regaining peace, and strengthening her for the arduous duty of instruction, which she knew, as a single woman, was her sole source of independent subsistence – she had no scruple in accepting that friendship which Mrs. Hamilton had so warmly proffered. A very few days of personal intercourse sufficed for mutual conviction, that correspondence had not deceived in the favorable impressions of either. Miss Harcourt found, indeed, the friend her aching spirit needed; and Mrs. Hamilton, long before the months of repose which she had insisted should forestall the commencement of exertion were over, rejoiced in the conviction that the daughter of her beloved and regretted friend was indeed well-fitted for that position in her family – her helper in the moral and intellectual training of her daughters – which her vivid fancy had often pictured as so filled. They were indeed but infants when Miss Harcourt arrived; but Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton found means to overrule the honorable scruples which, on the part of Lucy, seemed at first against their plan, and in her gradually returning health and peace, Mrs. Hamilton not only rejoiced, but felt gratefully thankful that the wish of so many years' standing, and which had seemed so little likely to be fulfilled, was absolutely accomplished, and she could prove how deeply she had loved and mourned her truly maternal friend. It is astonishing how often, if an earnest, heartfelt desire for the gratification of some good feeling or for the performance of some good deed be steadily and unvaryingly held before us, without any regard to its apparent impossibility, its accomplishment is at length obtained. It is supposed to be only done so in books, but this is a mistaken supposition, arising from the simple fact of individuals so often forgetting their own past, and failing steadily to pursue one object, regardless of the lapse of years. If they looked into themselves more often and more carefully, if they sought consistency in desire and pursuit, they would often be startled at their connection, and that it is not so useless to wish and seek, when both are of such a nature as can be based on and strengthened by prayer, as it may seem. Human life presents as many startling connections and contingencies as romance – only, as the actors not the observers of this world's busy scene, we can not trace them as we do in books.
The thought of Eleanor was the only dark shade in Mrs. Hamilton's life. She had written to her often, but communication with India was not then what it is now, and her letters might not have reached their destination; especially as being in active service, Captain Fortescue was himself constantly changing his quarters. Whatever the cause (for Eleanor's letters, Mrs. Hamilton thought, might also have miscarried), she heard nothing of her till the hurried epistle commenced by her sister, and finished by Mr. Myrvin, brought the startling intelligence that she was a widow and dying, unable to reach Oakwood, where she had hoped at least to have sufficient strength to bring her children, and implore for them protection and love and conjuring Mrs. Hamilton to come to her without delay. The letter, imperfectly directed, had been days on its journey, and it was with the most melancholy forebodings Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton had started for Llangwillan.
But though it was not till many years after Edward and Ellen Fortescue became inmates of her family that Mrs. Hamilton became acquainted with all the particulars of their childhood, it is necessary that our readers should be rather more enlightened; otherwise the character of Ellen may be to them as unnatural and as incomprehensible as it was to her aunt.
That Eleanor could realize true happiness in a marriage entered into only because she could not bear the torture of her own thoughts, and her constant dread of the world's contumely, was not likely. At first, indeed, it was a very delightful thing to find herself the object not only of devotion to her husband (whom, could she entirely have forgotten Fitzclair, she might have really loved), but a still more brilliant star in India than she had even been in England. Though Captain Fortescue was often engaged in marches and countermarches, where Eleanor sometimes, though very rarely, accompanied him, still there were intervals of rest for him in the larger cities, where his wife ever shone pre-eminent. For the first three or four years, the pride he felt in seeing her so universally admired, in the greater attention he received for her sake, compensated for, or concealed the qualities, which, as a soldier's wife, he had fondly believed she would possess. But as his health, always delicate, became more and more undermined, and compelled him to relinquish society, at least in a great measure, and to look for the quiet pleasures of domestic life, he found, and bitter was that first awakening, that his wishes, his comfort, were of no importance. She could not resign the pleasures of society – of still being enabled to pursue the dangerous amusement of her girlhood (though so guardedly that not a rumor against her ever found breath), for the dullness of her home. Yet still he loved her; and when Eleanor, with all the fascinating playfulness of her former self, would caress and try to persuade him to go out with her, and not sit moping at home, and that if he would, she would behave just as he liked, and if he did not care to see her surrounded, as she knew she was, by red coats, she would dismiss them all, and devote herself to him – but indeed she could not stay at home – he would feel that it would be cruel indeed to chain such a being to his side, and sometimes make the exertion (for which he was little fitted) to accompany her; at others, with kind words and indulgent love, permit her to follow her own wishes, and remain alone. But little did he think the real reason that Eleanor could not rest in quiet at home. The recollection of Lord Fitzclair was at such times so fearfully vivid, that the very agony she had endured when first told of his fearful end would return in all its intensity; the thought: Had her father really cursed her for her disobedience, and was it that forever hovering round her, preventing any thing like lasting happiness. And yet, by a strange contradiction, while the idea of her father's curse shook her whole frame at times with convulsive sobs, pride, that most fatal ingredient of her character, utterly prevented all attempt on her part to communicate with her relations. She said, as they had made no effort to conciliate, she would not; and yet the longing for Emmeline sometimes became actually painful.