Ferdinand Castleton. A novel

Introduction

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Chapter I

It was on a fine morning in the month of April, 184 — , that the crowd of carriages assembled at the vestry door of the church of St. George's, Hanover Square, pro claimed to the public in general, that an aristocratic wedding was taking place with in the time-honoured walls of that ancient edifice. VOL. I. B If those walls could have had, not only ears to hear, but a voice to tell what they had heard, or, more still, an eye to pene trate the depths of the hearts of those who have here assembled on similar occasions, what a marvellous series of histories could they not narrate ! What tales of joy, of sorrow, of pride, of self-sacrifice, of the consummation of earthly happiness, and of the desecration of the heart's holiest affections I now they would speak of the incomparable happiness of those who, after perhaps a long, long period of doubt, grief, or anxiety, were at last reap ing the reward of their faithfulness to each other, and trust in the Divine Providence ! — now, again, they would tell of the awe and dread that must make themselves felt, when, in the presence of God, the affec tions which He has given for most holy purposes are sacrificed on the shrine of Mammon !

They would speak of the heart-sinking felt by the worldly mother, who, till that last moment, had persuaded herself into believing that it was really for her beloved daughter's good that she was sacrificing her to an unworthy husband, merely for his title or wealth ; but who at this dread hour felt that that happiness was being placed in awful jeopardy. They would tell of the bride, who, adorned with the outward garb of innocence and simplicity, feels that she is an acting lie ; that she neither loves nor ho nours him whom she is now vowing to love and to honour for the remainder of her life ; and that the glitter ofthe tinsel, which has hitherto blinded her eyes, is no recompense for the loss of that sterling metal of deep and true affection, which is never destined to be hers. They would tell, too, of the sharp pang, felt even by the seared conscience of him who knows that, while he is solemnly vow ing to protect and love the innocent being whose only hope on earth is in him, he b has really no heart to give, or has already given it to another.

The happiness felt, when thus they stand together before God's altar, by those who truly love, had need be great to counter balance all the conflicting emotions called forth in those who, under the same out ward circumstances, are not so happily situated ! And if these walls, in addition to the view into the hearts of those present, could also penetrate into futurity, and catch a glimpse of the future existence of those who are now within their precincts, what startling contrasts, what wonderful changes would there not be presented to them ? Here the girl, who now pledges her obedience to her husband, and from her heart intends to keep her vow, changed to the neglectful, wilful wife, careless of her husband's happiness, comfort, and well-being. There the bridegroom, who is vowing to love and cherish, changed to the cruel oppressor, the worst of all oppressors, the oppressor of the heart, exulting in his power, and wilfully torturing that heart which would shed its best blood in his service.— Here, too, the bright, happy, joyous spirit of those who, in the audacity of youth, dare to think this world's happiness eternal, and that they are now entering on a scene of joy destined to be unclouded for their whole life-time, changed, it may be in a few years, in a few months, to that deep, heart-rending sorrow of those who grieve for the loss of all that can make this life a scene of aught but misery to them.

That blooming girl may be destined, ere many days, to change her chaplet of orange-blossoms for the cap of the widow ; and for the cup of joy she 'is now raising to her lips, may be con demned to drink the cup of anguish to the very dregs — or, perhaps even worse than this, she may live to see him, whose heart she thinks is bound to her for ever, become alienated from her, at war with her and with his God. She may live to feel that, though now she hopes to be united to him for ever, both in this world and in the next, his fate is eternally dis severed widely from hers. Oh ! the blind ness of mortals, to wish to penetrate into futurity ! How few, how very, very few happy moments would any of us enjoy in this world, could the dread secrets of the future be laid open to our gaze ! But we have stayed too long outside the walls of the church, and must now join the crowd collected in the galleries to criticise the dress and deportment of the bride and bridegroom, and the tout ensemble of the wedding.

It would be more in accordance with the rules of courtesy, if we were to begin with a description of the bride ; but as she is destined to play a far more important part in our tale than her husband, and will therefore require a more detailed notice, we will proceed in the first instance to state, that the bridegroom, Sir William Pleydell, Bart., was a gentleman of about thirty years of age, or perhaps rather more, with pleasing though not very in tellectual features, and an expression of countenance which at once impressed the beholder with a greater idea of good-nature than of talent, while his whole exterior left no doubt of his being as well a gentle man as a man of fashion. He was in fact both. Left an orphan at an early age, and brought up with the knowledge that he had only to wait till he attained the magical age of one-and-twenty to come into the possession of an ample fortune, he had never taken any very great pains to improve the intellects that nature had given him, and which he was not called upon to exercise in order to procure his daily bread — in fact, it was very much to his credit that under his circumstances no one had ever accused him of being vicious.

Idle he was in his youth, and though now he was in Parliament, and in that way found his time more occupied than it had ever been before, he was not a hard-working member, though, between that and the care of his estates in the country, he found what appeared to him overwhelming occupations. In the gay world of London he encountered the Lady Barbara Castleton, whom he first admired, then flirted with, and to whom he finally offered his heart and hand ; the conse quence of the acceptance of which was the occasion of his appearing in church in the character of bridegroom on the morning in question. Of the bride, the Lady Barbara, we must speak at some length. Her father, the Earl of Stapleford, had been from his youth a very keen politician, and, when he married, his young wife soon found that she was not destined to sup plant his beloved politics ; and that in fact he had married her very much for the sake of obtaining an heir to his title and large estates, which would otherwise go to a distant relation.

If that were the case, his wish was soon gratified, for not only did she bring him a son and heir in the first year of her marriage, but, as if to make assurance doubly sure, a second son soon followed on the heels of his brother. The Earl always treated her with great kindness and consideration; and, though at first rather mortified at finding how little hold she really had upon his affections, she was far too sensible to bemoan herself with vain regrets, and sought and found an absorbing interest and occupation in the education of her two sons, whose noble natural dispositions amply repaid the sed ulous care that she lavished upon them ; but still, though she strove to be quite contented, and to think how far more blessed she was than by any merits of hers she could lay claim to be, she could not help occasionally regretting that it had not pleased Providence to grant her the boon of a daughter ; and this regret, which when the boys were mere children was slight and little felt, pressed more and more severely upon her as they grew b up, and in the natural course of events became, and would become, as years went by, more and more separated from her.

She felt that, when once they were gone to school, there was an end of the constant and sweet companionship which a daugh ter might afford her during the many long hours in which Lord Stapleford was en gaged by public business ; she felt that, from the time when they first left the paternal roof, they would never form the same link in the chain of her existence that they had^done before ; from school they would go to college, and as soon as ever Lord Abbotsham was of age, she felt sure that his father would urge him to enter the House of Commons, and busy himself in political life, while Ferdinand was of course destined to work out his own fortune in some way or other — possibly even in diplomacy, though this was a contingency at which the poor mother shuddered, as the idea of the long exile at foreign courts, which that profession would entail upon her favourite son, was too dreadful for her to contemplate with her usual calmness.

Her joy may therefore be imagined, when, no less than twelve years after the birth of her youngest son, she was blessed with a daughter ; on which occasion Lord Stapleford was so far star tled out of his usual indifference as to in sist on its being called Barbara, after its mother. The three years that succeeded were probably the happiest of Lady Stapleford's existence — in the occupation of w-atching the developing of the little Barbara's bud ding beauty, and the dawning of her intel lects, the time flew rapidly by, cheered as it was by the occasional presence at home of her beloved sons, wiio were scarcely less dear to her than her daughter. At the expiration of this period, however, the Lady Barbara had a severe attack of measles, and, though she entirely recovered from it, the disease assailed her mother, whose frame, enfeebled by watching and anxiety, was unable to bear up against the violence of the fever; and thus, at the early age of forty, the good, the virtuous, the exemplary Lady Stapleford was re moved from this world to a better.

The loss to all her family was indeed severe — to Lord Stapleford she had been a most excellent wife, and he felt her loss more deeply than he could perhaps have imagined — her sons, especially Ferdinand, mourned her with all the violent grief of those, who, old enough to appreciate the loss, are not sufficiently advanced in life to have become callous or inured to its misfortunes. It was their first sorrow, and deeply did they feel it. But, if to them the loss was so great, to the little Barbara it was irreparable — they had reached the age when the character is in a great mea sure formed ; the good seed had taken deep root in their hearts, and there was not so much chance of its being choked up with thorns — but in her case the seed was barely sown, and it would, indeed, require a careful husbandman to watch it, so that it might arrive at maturity.

She was too young to feel her misfortune as her bro thers did ; but, for that very reason, her loss was all the greater, though she knew it not. As soon as Lord Stapleford had par tially recovered from the shock occasioned by the death of his wife, his first care was to provide a governess for his daughter. His choice fell upon a Madame Duchesne, who combined the advantages of being a French woman, and a Protestant, with an agreeable address and lady-like manner. Under her tuition, the young lady passed a happy, careless childhood ; Madame Duchesne was far too good-natured to worry her pupil by making her learn more than was absolutely necessary ; and, as her own acquirements were not very solid, she was easily satisfied with the progress made by her pupil, who to an amiable disposition united a considerable facility sor acquiring information ; and, as long as her manners were lady-like, her French accent correct, her dancing lessons properly attended to, and a tolerable pro ficiency attained in music, Madame Du chesne was satisfied.

The Lady Barbara consequently grew up adorned with all the outwrard accomplishments calculated to make her shine in society, and with her naturally sweet temper unembittered by any collisions with that of her governess, which was almost on a par with her owm. But in all the more solid branches of education she was lament ably ignorant, and her religion was but little better than formalism ; Madame Duchesne having few ideas on that subject herself, and having been often embarrassed by her pupil's childish enquiries, discou raged the topic, and to both of them it was little more than a name. When the time arrived for the Lady Barbara to be presented and to " come out," Lord Stapleford was somewhat puzzled in the choice of a chaperone, but at last fixed upon a Mrs. Maxwell, the wife of Lady Stapleford's brother, who, having no daughters of her own, and being very fond of the world, was only too happy to have the young and pretty Lady Barbara confided to her care.

Mrs. Maxwell's whole idea of the object of a young lady's life was, that she should go to as many fashionable balls and parties as possible, and finish by making a good marriage. Under her care, therefore, it was not to be supposed the Lady Barbara would im prove much on the lessons received from her governess. True, she never contracted many of the worst faults which charac terise those who are devoted to the Lon don world ; her good nature revolted from the malicious pleasure taken by some in descanting on the follies and failings of their friends and acquaintances, and her kind-heartedness made her always ready to do anything that could be of service to those who were a step below her in rank, wealth, or beauty ; but, in spite of these redeeming features, she was heart and soul a denizen of the world, and had no object beyond its triumphs and pleasures.

Thus then, pretty, agreeable, with high rank and tolerable fortune, she had at tracted the attention of Sir Wilham Pley dell ; and after being out for six or seven seasons, and having refused various offers, she had finally accepted his, and was now taking upon herself the duties of married life, which she was singularly illcalculated to perform. To the eye, however, all was perfect ; and her appearance gave unmingled satis faction to the body of spectators in the galleries, whose attention, however, though strongly occupied, was speedily diverted from its object by the deep, mellow voice of the clergyman, who now commenced reading that beautiful service, which our Church directs to beusedontheseoccasions. The service is at all times a solemn and peculiarly striking one, but when pronounced by such a voice as Ferdinand Castleton's, who was now reading it, it attracted the attention of the most careless, and made the most thoughtless reflect, for at least a brief space, on the nature of the cere mony now being performed.

They who had been busy with their operaglasses now laid them aside, and seemed to recol lect that they were attending a religious ceremony, and not a theatrical represen tation ; and while, from an instinctive feeling of propriety, they dispensed with the use of those adjuncts, they felt their eyes irresistibly drawn from the blooming bride and her rich attire to the tall com manding figure that stood on the other side of the rails, and from whose lips were flowing the solemn words, in a tone which owed its impressiveness, not merely to his beautifully modulated voice, but to the deep, heartfelt manner in which they were uttered. Deeply did he feel their solem nity ; deeply did he feel the force of the recollections of the past that thronged upon him as he spoke, and deeply did he feel the importance of the moment to the lifelong welfare of his own only sister ; deeply, then, did the force of these mingled feelings make itself felt in his performance of the solemn ceremony ; and many there were who left the church that day with higher and holier ideas of the state of matrimony than had ever before presented themselves to their minds.

To those who studied physiognomy and took pleasure in tracing the w-orkings of the soul through the external veil of its fleshly covering, Ferdinand Castleton was by far the most interesting of the bridal party. He had a tall and commanding figure, with a face in which Christian humility served to soften and subdue the brightness of intellectual power which pervaded it. His head was slightly bald, and the hair receding from his temples gave a still more striking appearance to his lofty and distinguished forehead. His hair, moreover, was slightly tinged with grey, though he had not numbered more than eight-and-thirty summers ; and this circumstance, coupled with the lines that already marked his face, showed that grief and anxiety had done their work upon him, and had produced those effects naturally only due to a much more advanced age.

His eye w-as blue, penetrating, and yet conciliating, piercing, yet soft and gentle as a woman's ; it could sternly rebuke the hardened sinner, and yet softly attract the penitent to confession, and invite him to pursue the path of reformation. His mouth was small and beautifully formed ; but there, too, the occasional quivering of the upper lip told its tale of unsubdued feelings and rebellious sensibility. There seemed, moreover, to be something in the service in which he was engaged that acted with peculiar force upon these feelings, for his voice, at first clear and loud enough to be distinctly heard throughout the church, be came lower and feebler as he proceeded, and at one time threatened to impair the effect of his reading ; but by an apparent effort he recovered himself, and went through, unfalteringly to the end.

His evident emotion, however, produced its effect upon the rest of the party, especially those who were acquainted with its cause ; and, as they re-entered their carriages, there was hardly a dry eye amongst, at any rate, the female portion of the assembly. " I fear it must have been a sore trial to poor Ferdinand's feelings," said Lady Abbotsham to her husband, as soon as she had recovered herself. ' ' Poor fellow ! it was all that he could do to command his voice ; and yet how beautifully he read the service ! It was quite a thing to hear once in one's life, and remember to one's dying hour." " Yes, indeed," replied Lord Abbots ham ; "he read beautifully, and, I fear, must have suffered much in doing so. I was very much opposed to his being asked to perform the ceremony at all ; but Bar bara had so set her heart upon it, and you know Ferdinand never considers his own wishes or feelings when those of others are at all concerned."

" Barbara said that he must be so accustomed to reading the service for his poorer parishioners, that there could be nothing peculiarly painful in his doing so for her ; and there certainly seemed to be some reason in what she said." " Very true ; but then it is a widely different thing performing it for people in whom one feels little or no interest, and for those one loves ; and then that church — it must have recalled most pain fully the occasion of his own marriage, the last time probably that he was pre sent in it on such an occasion. But Fer dinandis so good, so considerate for others ; so self-sacrificing ! I heard him promise, just' before we went to church, that he would go to Cambridge to-morrow to vote at the election. Now I know that, in the first place, he was very anxious to return home as soon as possible, and this journey must delay his return for two or three days ; and then, there are many reasons, as you know, why a visit to Cambridge must recall to him a whole throng of painful recollections.

I did venture to express to him my surprise ; but he said that his friend Smithson was very anxious to get in, and, that it would be so very close a contest, that every vote would be peculiarly valuable ; and that, moreover, he thought the principles of Smithson's opponent so very dangerous, that he con sidered it his duty to offer them every op position in his power, and so he has pro mised to be off to-morrow, and record his vote according to Smithson's wishes." " Well, he is really a noble fellow, and worthy of being your brother," said Lady Abbotsham, fondly. " Nay, say not so," replied Lord Abbot sham gravely ; " he is far, far superior to me. I would that I could lay to my credit one half of the good that he does, or the self-denial that he practises ; but bitter have been his trials in this world, and great, I trust, will be his reward in the future.

Chapter II

In the gardens, or, more properly, pleasure grounds, which form so great an ornament of the University of Cambridge, there is no spot from which the eye takes in a picture, which nature and art have combined to render so pleasingly beautiful, as from the bridge which crosses the river at the back of King's College. In front flows the calm, placid stream, glid ing imperceptibly along under the two beautiful bridges of Clare Hall and Trinity, by which it is successively spanned ; at first bordered by banks of turf, as smooth as velvet, and as green as emerald, and then, as it passes under the first bridge, overshadowed by the trees which form the avenue to Clare Hall, and which, in their turn, are succeeded by the beautiful limes that adorn the walks of Trinity. To the right, the pretty and elegant struc ture of Clare Hall fills up the picture, without forcing itself on the eye, which, still further to the right, takes in the towers and pinnacles of that most magni ficent of edifices, King's College Chapel, the chef-d'œuvre of English ecclesiastical architecture.

It was to this spot that, on the evening following that in which the events took place mentioned in the last chapter, Fer dinand Castleton might have been seen pensively wending his way. When he attained the bridge in question, he leaned his folded arms upon the parapet and gazed upon the scene before him. The sun had long since set ; the last ray of twilight even had disappeared ; there was vol. i. c no moon, but it was one of those lovely cloudless evenings which our capricious climate sometimes affords us, when the stars shine with such a radiance, that the heavens seem imbued with light, and ob jects at some distance are perfectly visible. Much has been said and written, both in prose and poetry, about the moon ; but there is a beauty in a pure unclouded, moonless night, when the stars seem to stand forth in their sparkling beauty from the back ground of blue, so deep as to be well nigh black, that may almost claim a superiority over the most silvery moonlight that ever " slept upon a bank."

At such a time we feel conscious of the immensity of space ; the stars no longer appear like gilt studs in a solid ceiling, but seem almost to be endued with life ; we become conscious of their distance from us and from each other ; and the blue void seems to extend as far beyond them as they from us. As Ferdinand lowered his gaze from the contemplation of this wondrous spectacle, it fell upon the calm bosom of the river, which again reflected in all its beauty the glory of the brilliant firmament above. A gentle breeze murmured among the trees, but did not ruffle the smooth surface of the water; everything else was hushed. The pinnacles of King's Chapel, towering against the sky, were not more still than all nature appeared at that moment. It wTas a time wiien the most careless would be disposed to meditation, when the gayest might be sad.

But Fer dinand was neither careless nor gay ; and, as his eyes drank in the beauty of all around, he felt a deep, deep sadness steal ing over his soul. Suddenly the melo dious chimes of St. Mary's struck the hour of nine, and immediately the solemn tone of the bell tolling the curfew vi brated through the air. As these sounds fell upon his ear, Ferdinand could no longer contain himself; and, for the first time for many a year, his long repressed feelings gained the mastery, and the strong man c wept like a child. What neither his sister's wedding, nor the sight of ancient haunts and long-forgotten faces (albeit these re called many a painful recollection), could effect, the simple sound of that well-re memberedbell, at that solemn hour, brought to pass ; and for many minutes his whole frame shook with his agony.

But, in order to explain why these sights and sounds should have such a powerful effect on Ferdinand Castleton's mind, we must retrace our steps a little, and give the reader a slight sketch of his previous history. We have seen that, at the age of fif teen, he had the misfortune to lose his mother ; and, for the three following years, no event of importance occurred in his existence. At eighteen he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, being extremely anxious to enjoy the advantage of a university education. His father had originally intended to have procured him an appointment as attache, but he yielded to his son's solicitations the more readily, as there was a valuable family living likely to fall vacant, and he was not without hopes that Ferdinand might ultimately quahfy himself to hold it.

To this idea, however, Ferdinand himself gave no encouragement ; he said that, much as he respected the profession of the church and those who belonged to it, it was not one for which he himself felt any inclination. In his severer moods he was disposed to literature, science, and the fine arts ; in his gayer, he was devotedly fond of society ; in which, from his general information and agreeable polished manners, he was eminently calculated to shine. He said, therefore, that he should much prefer being placed in some appoint ment in London, which his father could easily obtain for him ; and that he would rather be a poor man, with liberty to fol low his own inclinations, than a rich one, tied to a profession for which he had no liking. For his ideas of a Christian FEKDINAND CASTLETON. minister's life and duties were so high and holy, that he shrank with horror from the notion of only holding a living as a comfortable sinecure, and passing his time in other and more congenial pursuits, un connected with his profession.

" If I am to be a clergyman," he would say, " I will be one thoroughly ; and I shall count every hour lost that is not de voted to the service of my Master." Lord Stapleford thought his notions rather over-strained and romantic, but he respected his " prejudices," as he regarded them ; and being an indulgent, though somewhat careless, father, he al lowed the young Ferdinand to do as he pleased in the matter, giving him, how ever, clearly to understand that the course of life that he was inclined to follow w-as not the one to make him rich ; and that he could settle but an ordinary younger brother's fortune upon him at his death, though, during his life, he was willing to make him a handsome allowance. Soon after his arrival at the university, Ferdinand made the acquaintance of a Mr. De Vere, the owner of a considerable pro perty in the neighbourhood.

To a man endued with Ferdinand's disposition and love of society — especially ladies' society — this acquaintance was a great acquisition, and formed a most agreeable variety to the somewhat monotonous course of university life. Mr. De Vere was an old friend of his father's, of whose party, also, he was a strong political supporter, and he there fore showed every hospitality in his power to young Castleton, who was not slow to profit by the opportunities thus afforded him. Ferdinand, by his father's liberality, was enabled to keep a horse at college ; Mr De Vere's place was only ten miles off ; so that nothing was more natural than that he should be found constantly cantering in the direction of Vere park. Mr. De Vere's family consisted of his wife and one only daughter. His property was strictly entailed in the male line, and he was extremely desirous that his daughter, by marrying his nephew and heir, should continue in the enjoyment of her father's property.