Good in everything. A tale

Chapter I

In emotion is the life of humanity, and without it we die. This is a first principle of our nature ; and, indeed, of the universe. It is a lesson visible in the morning mist which, like a spring tide of eternity, rushes over the earth to renew the vital principle of its being ; and in the throbs of glory with which the stars of the night wrestle with their own radiance. Our hearts do not sooner cease to live when they cease to VOL. I. B beat, than do our souls cease to live when they cease to thrill with sensations ; and, if the healthy pulse of virtue be wanting, they even yield, for dear life's sake, to the galvanic current of vice. We cannot afford to live dull lives ; and, in fact, we never do. This does not palliate or account for evil, but it takes us one step backward towards its cause.

Perhaps, it is not too much to say, that the growth of any great vice in a man's heart might be traced to the fact of its having been unhappily checked in the exercise of some virtue. Somewhat to this effect were Mr. Mow bray's reflections, as he sat on a little stile which divided the field from the copse, and listened to the idle talk of the reapers, who, at some little distance, were embracing the yellow corn with their stalwart arms, and hugging it into sheaves. He was a man about thirty -five years of age; and, to judge from his appearance, might have passed some fifteen of these years in dissi pation ; but there was still that air of strength and health about him which can only be fully expressed by the old-fashioned word 'hale ;' and a sparkle in the eye, and a firmness in the mouth, told that the man's spirit still considered life at its command, and, having concluded one campaign, in such sort as might be, was pausing for a moment to determine upon the fittest plan for the next.

Marriage is usually the groundwork of a bachelor's reflections under such circum stances; and Mr. Mowbray's deliberations, at the moment to'which we refer, were no ex ception to the rule. Why had he not married ? and, whom should he marry ? were tacit questions, which thronged his brain with fantastic music, and day-dreams of the sweetest woodland wildness. Calling up b2 memories of journeys, in his school days, to distant country houses, homes of faithful friends; with the midnight arrival, and hearty greetings in the old corridors, and the morning awakening to the strange, new life around him ; and the first gaze on the face which was first to dash his rough young heart with love. Calling up reminiscences of those events which occasionally occur in the lives of most men, and which may fairly be called adventures, times of doubt and difficulty, when mind battles with mind, and strangers are hurried into sudden intimacies ; and especially reminding him of one of those occasions, when he had knelt, day after day, by the bedside of a dying friend, or enemy, for he scarcely knew which to call him, and had found manhood's pas sionate love springing up in his heart, from indifferent companionship with his friend's sister ; and again pourtraying, in all its vivid details, that darker romance, of which the heroine had cursed him by the manner of her death, though her dying breath had blessed him.

But smiling away, after a time, the traces of the emotions excited by these reflections, Mr. Mowbray cast his glance upon the prospect before him, in search of fresh subjects for observation ; and, after having noticed, with tasteful satisfaction, the fea thery clump of poplars, which gave eleva tion and grace to the middle distance ; and the cottages strewed under the shadow of the woods, as though they were a species of shell washed up by the billowy ocean of trees ; and the white masses of clouds sur rounding the afternoon's sun, as though they were sponsors attending the baptism of a new-born seraph ; after having bathed his imagination, as it were, in the warm glow of the rich autumn scene, he allowed his eyes to rest upon an object almost immediately before them, and which, to an ordinary observer, would have offered but little interest.

This object was a board erected on a post, and bearing an inscription which inti mated that that capital mansion, Stukeley House, was to be sold, with so many acres of pasture-land ; and that applications, with reference to that notice, were to be made to Mr. Billiter, of Cranborough, the nearest market town. We have just said that this notice would have been an object of but little interest to the ordinary observer, but we feel inclined to retract this observation, when, with Mr. Mowbray, we gaze beyond it upon the mansion to which it refers ; for we per ceive, at once, that he must have been indeed dull of heart, and slow of mind, who could have passed by without experiencing a feeling of regret, that any family should be induced or forced by circumstances to resign so fit a home for domestic happiness.

It was a red brick mansion, and seemed filled with the generous blood of antiquity. It had gables, and mullioned windows, and a turret older than itself, and a porch and terrace not unworthy of notice ; but its chief means of claiming the stranger's sympathy, were the perfect manner with which it har monized with the richly-wooded landscape around it, and the liberal amplitude of its proportions, by which it seemed to invite the presence of human affections. Although he was alone, a slight flush of shame passed over Mr. Mowbray's countenance, as he contemplated Stukeley House in connection with the intimation that it was to be sold. •' I suppose it wouldn't do to buy it," he said to himself, as he descended from his seat on the stile, and crossed the meadow, which was a miracle of fructifica tion, and as full of wondrous filagree work, as though autumn had striven to emulate with her ripe grasses, the wintry marvels of the frosted casement.

Beyond the meadow was a rude little bridge, leading into a narrow lane, so rough with the roots of the elms which stood beside it, that, as it lay stretched out in the sunshine, it resembled a gladiator's arm. The lane led into an old, disused road, skirted on one side by a mas sive brick wall, which had acquired by age a kind of loamy richness ; and by following this road for some ten minutes, Mr. Mow bray arrived at the gates to the avenue which led up to Stukeley House. There is always a pathos about a man, who may be left last and alone of any once popu lous place. He appears to live in an atmo sphere of unfulfilled hopes and regrets ; he is the solitary survivor of a long continued battle ; he knows how the conquerors died, and whither the vanquished have fled. It was impossible to regard without interest the old gardener who replied to the stranger's summons.

He was far advanced in years, but the ruddiness of youth had become en tangled in the deep lines of his countenance, and seemed unable to escape. He was somewhat bent, and there was an air of mingled patience and eagerness in his bearing, which seemed to give intimation of watchfulness for the dawning of the rose, of impatience for the removal of the dead leaf from the path. It was impossible to re gard without interest a man whose whole life had been spent in evolving beauty from a certain spot of ground and who was, ex" pecting every hour to be sent abroad into a world whose ways he had never had need to learn, and whose modes of thought his simple, truthful nature utterly ignored. He was a little rusty on this particular morning, like his gates, and the fact may be accounted for by his just having had an interview with the smart, busy house-agent, Mr. Billiter, who, in his shiny black suit, had passed the morning looking over the property, getting up materials for that poetical effusion which, in case it were not soon disposed of by private contract, he expected to have to recite respecting Stukeley House, with bids for an accom paniment and an auctioneer's hammer for the chorus.

He was an acute man, whether in business or out of it, and could tell the value of an ivy-covered tower or an antique porch to a five-pound note ; he was no despiser of tangled copses and sentimental glades, as business men are sometimes said to be, but regarded them as cheques drawn upon fat citizen purchasers, and certain to be honoured. And it was this very appreciation of the venerable mansion-house which had irritated the old gardener. What right had a whipper-snapper, who passed half his life in a dingy office in a dismal street in a dreary town, and the other half in telling lies to get money out of people's pockets — what right had such a fellow to admire, after five minutes' observation, what he who had spent seventy years upon the premises had learned in seventy years to love. Had Mr. Billiter gone over the place with a careless step and a dull eye, his old companion would have pitied and despised him with much satisfaction, and even great good humour ; but, as it was, he was irritated, very much irritated.

It was Mr. Mowbray's pride that he never put himself into an undignified posi tion ; and he scrupulously refrained, there fore, from replying to the many bitter things uttered by his companion, and which his conscience, without any great stretch of ingenuity, was able to apply to himself. So, persuading himself that he rather enjoyed his feelings of annoyance as fresh ' emotions,' he continued his ramble through the grounds, at every step finding sentiments revivified in his heart which he had believed to be long since utterly dead within him. At length, on the borders of ' The Wilderness,' which, formerly a feature in all gardens, was preserved in the grounds of Stukeley House in pristine regularity, he came to a spot of ground, marked out in a manner which at once showed that it had been possessed by children, as their own private garden-ground.

He paused here, as did the gardener, and seemed to find in the contemplation of the goggle-eyed sunflowers, dissipated-looking marigolds, muddy -tinted wallflowers and sulky-looking pansies, with which the spot abounded, food for pensive and earnest thought. And, but a short time previously, another man, of a very different character Mr. Billiter, had in like manner stood there, also engaged in earnest thought ; the sub ject of his speculations being the question — whether he should allow that small patch of ground to remain in its present state, or have it wholly swallowed up in a common place flower-bed. On the one hand, he had considered that, although it was twelve years since four of the five children, who had owned those five gardens, had been swept off, by fever, at one fell swoop, timid mothers might still tremble at the idea of planting their olive branches in the neighbourhood of so sad a domestic catastrophe.

But then, on the other hand, he reasoned with himself, there was no romantic story connected with the house, old as it was — no delightful suspicion of a ghost — no room built up because it had been the scene of something terrible ; and, really, the sentimental and romantic appearance of the house required some corrobora" tion — some backing up, in fact ; and in default of anything better, the existence of these little gardens would serve the purpose very well ; and having made up his mind on this knotty point, the busy house-agent had whisked himself away, to the intense relief of the old gardener, who had stood by trembling for the existence of what he considered the jewel of the whole place. But Mr. Mowbray standing there, had fallen into a reverie, which had touched his heart, stirring up old memories.

He remembered how, during the first years of his career as a man of pleasure, as it is ironically termed, he had come down, ever and anon, to that quiet country side, and, with mingled satisfaction and remorse, had found himself welcomed by those innocent children, whose near neighbour he was, as though he were even innocent as themselves. He thought of Clara, whose eyes so much resembled broad, blue butterflies, over some sweetness hovering ; and of Rosa, whose funny, sweet little mouth was like a purse, close shut, but brimmed with golden smiles ; and of Bessie, with a forehead so clear and fair, that you would scarcely have been surprised at beholding a bright star dawn in its calm expanse ; and of Jack, the sturdy, the roguish, the merry, whose happy, scarlet, chubby face resembled one of those ingenious paper toys, which can be changed into fifty entirely different shapes in as many consecutive seconds.

He thought of these who were now so long dead, having melted away twelve years ago from before the hot fever breath, and he thought of them with feelings which, perchance some angel might know how to interpret into prayer. But there was a fifth garden, and it had belonged to a child, wist) had survived the terrible stroke which had almost desolated her home, and had lived to be a stately woman. And of Mabel Beresford, with a smile which seemed to be one of surprise, Mr. Mowbray now thought, as he gazed upon the spot where he had so often seen her toil ing, like a thorough little labourer, enjoying perfect freedom from all the conventionali ties of the school-room and the boudoir. Rather brighter, rather handsomer, rather livelier than her sisters and brother, had she then been ; and the change which had been worked in her by the fever, bore no slight resemblance to the death which it had brought to them.

She was still young, still handsome, still energetic ; but the sap of life seemed to have been dried up by the fever ; her gentle spirit seemed to have accompanied those which had fled to Heaven, and left only a galvanic life to animate the frame, which had fearfully struggled with death. Since the death of her brother and sisters, she had seemed to be, not an emblem of innocence and forgiveness, as for merly, but rather of inquisitorial rebuke. She had aged rapidly on her recovery, and had adopted womanly reserve at an age when most girls are. still loth to lose their child hood's freedom, and are wont to make oc casional snatches at it, in frolics which to the admiring eyes ofthe male sex, appear so ex quisitely graceful, and to middle aged spinsters, seem so thoroughly rude and un becoming.

Of Mabel Beresford, then, Mr. Mowbray vol. I. c now thought, and although he had known her for twenty years, his meditations were accompanied by what appeared to be a smile of surprise.

Chapter II

In. love! yes! And why not say in hate also ? Is not hate as strong a passion; as brilliant, as enduring, as full of phases as love? Does it not equally control the soul of a man ; is it not equally a great colouring in the picture of his life? Let us say then, that such a man is in hate, and understand by this term — all the phantasms of spirit, all the glow of heart, all the quick ness of imagination, all the settled strength of purpose, all the yearning and the longing, c2 and the hope, which belong to hate as much as to that twin dominion, love. In the Spanish room, as it was called, a fair and noble chamber in Stukeley House, of which the window recesses were filled with sunlight, and orange trees in bloom, whilst a great wood fire ripened intensely, on the ample hearth, sat old Mr. Beresford, the owner of the mansion ; sat there by the fire-side in an arm-chair, whose quaint magnificence would have appeared barbar ously rich, had it not been toned down by that artist with the true eye for colour, Time.

And as they breathed there softly, but moodily, side by side, there was no slight re semblance between the old age of the fire, and that of the mortal who seemed to cower near it, and cling to it, as though of all the world it were his only friend, and he knew that its death must be simultane ous with his own. They were much alike. The hoary wood-ash shaded the vehement heat which glowed in the one ; the hoary locks softened, but could not hide the fiery passion which lit the eyes and features of the other. Equally silent and motionless, were they now ; equally concentrating the strength of their lives, to their inmost hearts ; but let a rude touch arouse them, and what sparks of passion would they send forth in angry fury, what burning gulfs, what fiery craters, what vehement intensity of fierceness would blaze from their fury ! — But, after all, the vener able air of the fire, and of the mortal who sat beside it, were to a certain extent equally unreal ; for as the fire was in reality but a mere baby furnace of some two or three hours, and had not had time as yet even to dream of a salamander, so the old gentleman was not in reality much more than sixty years of age ; and, consequently, scarcely had a right to his aspect of patriarchal antiquity.

Perhaps he had fallen into this look of withered eld from sickness — perhaps from mere carelessness ; perhaps he had assumed it to hide, by toning down the rest of his life to its level, some moral or physical infirmity. And if this had been his object, nature had ably seconded him ; and he was now in body and feeling as old as he appeared. But a score of years, more or less, matter little ; he can scarcely be older than he now is, whatever the number of years since his birth, for his hopes are gone, and his only hold on life, is the bitter hatred he feels for the man who has robbed him of them, or whom he believes to have done so. He for gets now the despair which had overwhelmed him, when all his children, but one, had been torn away from him at a single clutch, and broods only over the circumstances which have deprived him of the broad acres, which had descended to him from his ancestors, of I the sunny farms which were wide enough to have their own horizon, their own sunrise, and sunset.

Sometimes he would laugh — as old age laughs — and persuade himself for a brief moment that it must be a dream, and that, surely, something so absolutely real, as the Beresford estates, with their purple woods, and wide paths, their sunny vales and ample fields, with the old churches, whose tombs were as title deeds of his family's ancestral fame and their venerable mansions, over whose threshold, through long ages, the wise and beautiful had passed, as over the lips of poets, words of beauty and of wisdom ; — surely, these lands with princely revenues had not dropped from his grasp, as a child's bauble ! But it was even so, and he could only clasp his hands together in passion and grief, till each seemed to have clasped palms with death. Meanwhile, in the deep recess of one of the windows, in the midst of the orange trees and the sunlight, stood Mabel and Frederick Beresford ; not brother and sister, but cousins; Mabel, the daughter of the house, and Frederick, the son of Sir Andrew, Mr. Beresford's elder brother, who resided at Belmore, a fine place some ten miles distant.

There was a difference of about five years in the age of the cousins, Mabel being twenty four, and Frederick nineteen ; but as the latter was very manly-looking for his age, the difference was scarcely apparent. They were lovers. The world in its ex cellent wisdom, generally smiles or sneers at the courtship between a younger man and an older woman; forgetting that the dew is older then the new-risen sun, which woos it to his warm embrace; that the blossom is older than the west wind, which rifles its perfume. The idea is, that the woman, being the elder, will be too bold in her love, and thus at once lose all the charm ofthe bashfulness of yonthful passion. But nothing can be falser. The truth is, that the woman who has gained the love of a man younger than herself, feels, as it were, that she has for a moment eluded Time, and entered a supernatural world, where his laws are not known.

She does not seize her happiness, as something to which she has a right, in the common course of nature, but as a miraculous joy, and a special benediction. But the opinion of the world was of but little account to Mabel and Frederick ; for, in the first place, they were in love, and heeded it not ; and, in the second place, the portion of the world with which they came in contact, was a humble world, which only canvassed the doings of Stukeley House and Belmore Hall, when the inhabitants thereof were out of hearing. So Frederick, unchecked by sneer or remonstrance, loved Mabel, because he was idle, and young, and flattered by a woman's notice ; and Mabel loved her cousin with a deep, burning pas sion, which had begun in a feeling akin to love, but most unlike it. When the fever, to which we have before alluded, swept through Stukeley House, it had smitten it not only with death, but with change — a change so startling and apparent, that common-place people had noticed it; some of them attributing it to the with drawal of four happy children ; and some of them saying, in reply to this supposition, "No ! they didn't quite understand it."

By which enigmatical and inconsequential, if not ungrammatical, rejoinder, they meant to imply that their profound sagacity had dis covered a reason of a very different nature. But however this might be ; it is very certain that after this calamity, Mr. Beresford had begun to lose the noble inheritance, which had descended to him from his mother; and that Mabel had changed from a buoyant girl to something which resembled, one might fancy, the ancient picture of the early womanhood of some female ancestor of her own. The evening was waning — the serving man was bringing more logs for the fire — the sunlight had gone, and the twilight was filling the air with shadows, like the shadows on satin — and the old man still sat brooding over his wrongs by the hearth, and the lovers still sat in the deep bay of the window, lost to all consciousness, save the consciousness of happiness, and the know ledge that the world was very fair and good.

" Well, Mabel ! and how is my little girl, to-night ?" It was Mr. Mowbray who spoke ; having heard from the old gardener that the family had come down to spend a few days at Stukeley House, he had taken advantage of his acknowledged position as ' friend of the family,' to make an unceremonious evening visit. ' Friend of the family !' There have been few families in respect to whom some stranger has not claimed that title ; and few families which have not suffered in some way from this strange piece of relationship. Family affection should be concentratedwithin itself, four square to all the winds of heaven ; taking example by the living rock, which cannot admit even the dew of heaven, with out danger of being rent asunder. Mr. Mowbray took advantage, then, of the position which had fallen to him. rather than been assumed by him, since his earliest manhood, in the family of his neighbour, Mr. Beresford ; and treated Mabel as though she were still the little girl whom he once constantly teazed and petted.

And Mr. Frederick Beresford would, doubtless, have set up the feathers of jealous indignation, and displayed all sorts of contempt for the man who presumed to treat his lady-love with such insolent familiarity, had not his attention been wholly engrossed and ar rested by the aspect of a young girl, who had entered with Mr. Mowbray, displaying all the signs of shy reluctance ; but who now clung to his arm with a species of timid temerity, which, to Mr. Frederick's own surprise, irritated him far more than the rights of old acquaintanceship, assumed by Mr. Mowbray, with respect to Mabel. " Mr. Frederick Beresford — Miss Helen Monmouth," said Mr. Mowbray ; and then, turning away, left the two new acquaint ances to make that voyage of discovery in the world of a new mind — a new soul — which is generally undertaken with so much eagerness, and usually ends in so much dis appointment.

The cunning eye of old age was upon them ; amidst the armies of shadow, which the flaring fire threw battling on the ceiling, the shadow of old Mr. Beresford hovered over the young people, as they stood at the further end of the hall, like a spectral fate. How short-sighted and weak are mortals who despair. Is there a process against you in the courts ? — may not an earthquake, like that of Lisbon, suddenly swallow up law-courts, judge, juries, bailiffs, records, pleas, indictments, and the whole of it? Are you mortally sick? — may not some new preparation of iron — some new application of galvanism — miraculousy res tore you, as thousands of others have been miraculously restored? Have you lost a child?— may you not have another, fairer and more beautiful ? A sudden change came over the old man's whole appearance, as he arose and welcomed his visitor, who had hitherto, taking advan tage of his position as friend of the family, failed to show any consciousness of his presence.

" I hope you are not talking over old times with Mabel,, and teaching her to regret Stukeley House, past consolation !" " To regret a thing, is to have it ever with us," replied Mr. Mowbray ; and, as he uttered the words, a slight movement passed over Mabel's frame, such as might have given a careful observer the idea, that she had restrained herself, by a powerful effort, from throwing up her arms towards heaven in anguish. Leaving the two gentlemen in conversation, she turned slowly away towards the other end of the room, and, seating herself in the arm-chair, which her father had just left, bent over the fire — not crouchingly as he had — but with a gaze and posture which wore an air of eager enquiry. The reflection of the flames, glaring over her countenance, seemed to have converted it into burning marl.

An hour she sat there, struggling against the convictions of her heart, and declaring that there was peace when there was no peace — declaring that the pulse of her life beat full, when she knew, in her inmost consciousness, that her cheek never flushed with joy — her eye never lighted with tender ness ; but as a species of lie, by which she attempted to deceive others, as well as her self, that she was happy. And why was it so, she asked herself; ought not love to be all-sufficient ? — and did she not love Frede rick Beresford with unwavering constancy — with almost desperate passion. An hour the two gentlemen were talking together at the farther end of the room, which were as eager as their pride would allow, and as was consistent with the aged prudence of the one and the cool, clear sightedness of the other.

They were both hard, resolute men, by nature, and these characteristics were usually apparent in all that they said ; but, on this occasion, had any one acquainted with them stood near, he would have been surprised at the mo mentary bursts of tenderness in which each seemed occasionally to indulge, almost in voluntarily. They were speaking of Mabel ; and they spared a few moments from wasted lives to speak of her lovingly and truthfully. They perceived that there was some shadow over her whole being, which ought not to rest upon one so young ; and they were not too selfish to be grieved at this, when they gave themselves time to notice it. Following their own lives, as it were, with the memory VOL. I. D of what she had been in childhood, they found a capacity in themselves for gentle thoughts, of which they scarcely believed themselves capable.

But even their momentary unselfishness was but a more refined species of self seeking ; and they soon included Mabel in their long-accustomed system of regarding every one and everything about them as means to be converted as soon as possible to their own gratification. Her father thought that he loved her ; but, as the idea dawned upon him during this interview, that she might possibly be the means of saving him from that loss of position which for years had been the torture of his existence, he almost ceased to regard her as his daughter, and considered her only as a power which, rightly used, would place him in safety. Nor was Mr. Mowbray more generous. It had occurred to him, now that the dawn of middle age was almost visible, that he would no longer delay to seize that triumph, regarded so highly by dissipated men — the triumph of uniting unsullied virtue and unbroken youth with their own wearied de pravity.