here, it would always have to be tried: if I heard the hounds I don’t know I should keep from riding after them; whereas, now I can’t, for William won’t let me take Deloraine. No, I can’t trust myself to keep such a horse, and not hunt. It will serve me right to see Mr. Brownlow on it, and he will never miss such a chance!’ and the depth of his sigh bore witness to the struggle it cost him.
‘I should not like to use anyone as you use yourself,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone, looking at him with affectionate anxiety, which seemed suddenly to change the current of his thought, for he exclaimed abruptly—‘Mrs. Edmonstone, can you tell me anything about my mother?’
‘I am afraid not,’ said she, kindly; ‘you know we had so little intercourse with your family, that I heard little but the bare facts.’
‘I don’t think,’ said Guy, leaning on the chimneypiece, ‘that I ever thought much about her till I knew you, but lately I have fancied a great deal about what might have been if she had but lived.’
It was not Mrs. Edmonstone’s way to say half what she felt, and she went on—‘Poor thing! I believe she was quite a child.’
‘Only seventeen when she died,’ said Guy.
Mrs. Edmonstone went to a drawer, took out two or three bundles of old letters, and after searching in them by the fire-light, said—‘Ah! here’s a little about her; it is in a letter from my sister-in-law, Philip’s mother, when they were staying at Stylehurst.’
‘Who? My father and mother?’ cried Guy eagerly.
‘Did you not know they had been there three or four days?’
‘No—I know less about them than anybody,’ said he, sadly: but as Mrs. Edmonstone waited, doubtful as to whether she might be about to make disclosures for which he was unprepared, he added, hastily—‘I do know the main facts of the story; I was told them last autumn;’ and an expression denoting the remembrance of great suffering came over his face; then, pausing a moment, he said—‘I knew Archdeacon Morville had been very kind.’
‘He was always interested about your father,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone; ‘and happening to meet him in London some little time after his marriage, he—he was pleased with the manner in which he was behaving then, thought—thought—’ And here, recollecting that she must not speak ill of old Sir Guy, nor palliate his son’s conduct, poor Mrs. Edmonstone got into an inextricable confusion—all the worse because the fierce twisting of a penwiper in Guy’s fingers denoted that he was suffering a great trial of patience. She avoided the difficulty thus: ‘It is hard to speak of such things when there is so much to be regretted on both sides; but the fact was, my brother thought your father was harshly dealt with at that time. Of course he had done very wrong; but he had been so much neglected and left to himself, that it seemed hardly fair to visit his offence on him as severely as if he had had more advantages. So it ended in their coming to spend a day or two at Stylehurst; and this is the letter my sister-in-law wrote at the time:
‘ “Our visitors have just left us, and on the whole I am much better pleased than I expected. The little Mrs. Morville is a very pretty creature, and as engaging as long flaxen curls, apple-blossom complexion, blue eyes, and the sweetest of voices can make her; so full of childish glee and playfulness, that no one would stop to think whether she was lady-like any more than you would with a child. She used to go singing like a bird about the house as soon as the first strangeness wore off, which was after her first game of play with Fanny and Little Philip. She made them very fond of her, as indeed she would make every one who spent a day or two in the same house with her. I could almost defy Sir Guy not to be reconciled after one sight of her sweet sunny face. She is all affection and gentleness, and with tolerable training anything might be made of her; but she is so young in mind and manners, that one cannot even think of blaming her for her elopement, for she had no mother, no education but in music; and her brother seems to have forced it on, thrown her in Mr. Morville’s way, and worked on his excitable temperament, until he hurried them into marriage. Poor little girl, I suppose she little guesses what she has done; but it was very pleasant to see how devotedly attached he seemed to her; and there was something beautiful in the softening of his impetuous tones when he said, ‘Marianne;’ and her pride in him was very pretty, like a child playing at matronly airs.” ’
Guy gave a long, heavy sigh, brushed away a tear, and after a long silence, said, ‘Is that all?’
‘All that I like to read to you. Indeed, there is no more about her; and it would be of no use to read all the reports that were going about.—Ah! here,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone, looking into another letter, ‘she speaks of your father as a very fine young man, with most generous impulses,’—but here again she was obliged to stop, for the next sentence spoke of ‘a noble character ruined by mismanagement.’ ‘She never saw them again,’ continued Mrs. Edmonstone; ‘Mr. Dixon, your mother’s brother, had great influence with your father, and made matters worse—so much worse, that my brother did not feel himself justified in having any more to do with them.’
‘Ah! he went to America,’ said Guy; ‘I don’t know any more about him except that he came to the funeral and stood with his arms folded, not choosing to shake hands with my poor grandfather.’ After another silence he said, ‘Will you read that again?’ and when he had heard it, he sat shading his brow with his hand, as if to bring the fair, girlish picture fully before his mind, while Mrs. Edmonstone sought in vain among her letters for one which did not speak of the fiery passions ignited on either side, in terms too strong to be fit for his ears.
When next he spoke it was to repeat that he had not been informed of the history of his parents till within the last few months. He had, of course, known the manner of their death, but had only lately become aware of the circumstances attending it.
The truth was that Guy had grown up peculiarly shielded from evil, but ignorant of the cause of the almost morbid solicitude with which he was regarded by his grandfather. He was a very happy, joyous boy, leading an active, enterprising life, though so lonely as to occasion greater dreaminess and thoughtfulness than usual at such an early age. He was devotedly attached to his grandfather, looking on him as the first and best of human beings, and silencing the belief that Sir Hugh Morville had entailed a doom of crime and sorrow on the family, by a reference to him, as one who had been always good and prosperous.
When, however, Guy had reached an age at which he must encounter the influences which had proved so baneful to others of his family, his grandfather thought it time to give him the warning of his own history.
The sins, which the repentance of years had made more odious in the eyes of the old man, were narrated; the idleness and insubordination at first, then the reckless pursuit of pleasure, the craving for excitement, the defiance of rule and authority, till folly had become vice, and vice had led to crime.
He had fought no fewer than three duels, and only one had been bloodless. His misery after the first had well-nigh led to a reform; but time had dulled its acuteness—it had been lost in fresh scenes of excitement—and at the next offence rage had swept away such recollections. Indeed, so far had he lost the natural generosity of his character, that his remorse had been comparatively slight for the last, which was the worst of all, since he had forced the quarrel on his victim, Captain Wellwood, whose death had left a wife and children almost destitute. His first awakening to a sense of what his course had been, was when he beheld his only child, in the prime of youth, carried lifeless across his threshold, and attributed his death to his own intemperance and violence. That hour made Sir Guy Morville an old and a broken-hearted man; and he repented as vigorously as he had sinned.
From the moment he dared to hope that his son’s orphan would be spared, he had been devoted to him, but still mournfully,
