Mammon; or the hardships of an heiress

Chapter I

It was a sultry evening in July ; and the red dining-room at Harrals, into which the setting sun was pouring its full effulgence, glowed like a furnace. Curtains of crimson damask combined with a vivid Turkey carpet, nay, — even the dishes of acrid currants and cherries heaped on the old-fashioned mahogany table, and the crusty port constituting the favourite beverage of the crabbed master of the house, — served to aggravate the heat of a dispute then and there in progress between Sir Harry Woolston and vol. t. B MAMMON ; OR, his son. Legions of flies buzzing in the her metically-closed windows, enlivened by the louder drone of an occasional wasp, afforded a running accompaniment to their angry dialogue. The subject of their quarrel was one of no uncommon occurrence between a rich old father and his son and heir ; — namely, an imprudent marriage contemplated by the latter.

But, as John Woolston had attained the sober age of thirty-one, and was, in other respects, a sedate and well-conditioned man, it may be inferred that the sole thing wanting in the engagement so unacceptable to his father, was the worldly pelf with which the Woolston family were them selves amply provided. The rent-roll of the Harrals estate amounted to eight thousand per annum ; and the poor quiet little Lady Wool ston, who had crept away from the dessert table, on perceiving that a stormy debate was about to set in between her husband and son, sprang from a wealthy Liverpool family, of commercial origin, from whom she derived a considerable fortune. THE HARDSHIFS OF AN HEIRESS. Sir Harry, however, remained as keenly alive to the value of a guinea, as though it were a coin he had rarely the luck to finger.

Having charged his estate, at his marriage, with a sum of five-and-twenty thousand pounds, to be ulti mately divided among his younger children, he made it the business of his life to economise, out of his income, the means of paying off this unwelcome incumbrance ; till, by degrees, pe nurious habits became second nature. And now, though the sum in request had not only been fully completed, but distributed in the form of dowry to his three married daughters, he re mained as careful, or rather as shabby, as if his family and his engagements were still unpro vided for. John Woolston, though an only son, and heir in-tail to so handsome a property, had been educated at Rugby rather than Eton, and at a minor college at Cambridge numbering Wool stons aforegone among its benefactors, solely with a view to tame down his aspirings, and B check his habits of expense.

Sir Harry had even compelled him to study for the bar, on pre tence that the recordership of his county town, or the chairmanship of the quarter sessions, would in a few years await his acceptance. But the real object of the wary old man was to es tablish his son out of harm's way, in quiet chambers in th"e Temple, rather than expose him to the pleasures and perils of a bachelor re sidence in May Fair. The result was, that, instead of becoming Jack Woolston and a spendthrift, he remained plain John, and what his fashionable brother-in-law, Gerard Molyneux, termed a snob. But Sir Harry found no cause to triumph in the results of his policy. For though his son had submitted to his authority so far as to eat his way to the bar, the bar afforded him nothing to eat in return ; and in the event of his ac complishing the match, the announcement of which had so moved the ire of the old baronet, Mr. Woolston possessed nothing towards the maintenance of a family, save the allowance of five hundred per annum, formally assigned to him on leaving college.

This material point was again and again urged upon him by Sir Harry. But John replied, and at first with tolerable composure, " that, having complied through life with the wishes and counsels of his parents, he must on the present occasion be permitted to consult his own inclinations. Since Sir Harry denied him all further pecuniary assistance, he would rely on his professional exertions, and be content." " Ay, — till you come into your estate," inter rhpted Sir Harry. " I know what you mean, sir: — till your father is shuffled under ground, and you are privileged to stand in his shoes ! No doubt these Denny Cross people have taken the exact measure of your rights and titles ; — per haps employed an actuary, to calculate my chances of life !" " You do them great wrong, sir. Mr. Pen nington respects himself, and I trust respects me too much to indulge in any such paltry specula tions," replied young Woolston.

"For three years past, I have been engaged to his daughter ; yet he has never urged my fulfilment of the contract, knowing it to be contrary to your wishes." " Mighty honourable, — mighty magnanimous ! But if so scrupulous, why not forbid you his house? — Why not end the matter at once?" " Because he knows his daughter to be sincerely attached to me; and judges it unne cessary to oppose our mutual happiness, since we are prepared to be poor, and frugal, till you, my dear father, can be brought to contemplate the case in a more reasonable point of view." " Thank you, sir ; thanks, both to you and Mr. Pennington, and the whole legion of his clod-hopping family ! If you are content, John Woolston, so am I. — But of this be sure : — that I am neither to be schooled nor canted out of my opinion.

Wfien you first asked my sanction to your addresses to this precious Maria of yours, — though even then, you had obtained both her's and her father's consent, — I told you plainly that never should such a daughter-in law cross my threshold. No — never, never, never !" "And I answered, that, as the Penningtons were people of the highest respectability in the county, and as the amiable disposition of my intended wife was a sufficient dowry for a man so unambitious as myself, I saw no grounds, sir, for breaking off the connection." " Unambitious !" retorted his father ; " you may truly say unambitious ! To content yourself with the low circle of a petty squire, like Richard Pennington ; little above the condition of a yeo man !" " I beg your pardon, sir. The Penningtons of Denny Cross have held their own in Northamp tonshire quite as long as the Woolstons of Har rals.

Unsecured by an entail, their estates have been morselled out ; while ours remain intact. But this does not intitle us to look down upon MAMMON ; OR, an independent man who has brought up a large family most creditably on a property of fifteen hundred a year ; whose sons are rising in the world ; and whose daughters " What Sir Harry Woolston permitted himself to say of the daughters, it is unnecessary to re peat. Suffice it that his disparagement put the finishing aggravation to the wrath of his son ; who now firmly announced his intention to make the vilified Maria his wife, without further delay. A small legacy lately bequeathed him by one of his mother's relations, would enable him to form an establishment suitable to their moderate pretensions. And again, he steadily repeated that his allowance would suffice their utmost wishes ; and that Roger Farmer, the eminent Queen's counsel, of whom he had been a favourite pupil, had promised to push him forward in his profession.

Sir tlarry, though his face was almost livid from the constraint he was exercising over one of the yvorst of tempers, determined to make a last effort to bring better convictions to the mind of his son. Till now, John Woolston had maintained in his family and neighbourhood the character of " an old head on young shoul ders." His prudence, though dormant, might perhaps still be roused. " To place the whole matter fairly before you, John," said the old man, lowering his voice to an almost confidential tone, " the fact is, that I have much to reproach myself with, concerning the state in which the Harrals property will fall into your hands. For years after my death, it will be impossible for you to reside here ; unless an advantageous marriage should have supplied you, in the interim, with the means of putting the place into condition.

The necessity of pay ing off your sisters' fortunes compelled me to neglect the necessary repairs not only of this house, which is in an all but tumble-down con dition, but of my farms and out-buildings. Four years' income would be absorbed in the outlay indispensable to set all this in order." mammon; or, But the old head was too old for such shallow arguments ; and the shoulders were much too young to resist a shrug of impatience. " Depend upon it, sir," pleaded Mr. Woolston in reply, " that if there were no Denny Cross in the world, and no Maria Pennington, nothing would induce me to marry for mercenary con siderations. As to the terrible prospects you hold out, money for such purposes is easily obtained on mortgage ; and to the consequent curtailment of our income, my wife and I will cheerfully submit."

This intimation, and the word " wife," with which it was accompanied, raised the exas peration of the irate old gentleman to its climax. "Then, by the Lord Almighty," cried he, after swallowing at a gulp the last half of his bumper of fiery port, " I trust the crazy old roof of this mansion will fall in and crush you both, as a judgment on your ingratitude and rebellion. And never do I wish to see your face again." After which explosion of wrath, and a few ex pletives very short of decorous on the part of a county magistrate, he started from his chair, and rang the bell for coffee with a degree of violence that brought the venerable butler hobbling into the room, to add, by his rubicund face, another shade of crimson to its glow. It was no small comfort to the old servant to find Mr. Woolston quietly wiping his mouth with his doiley ere he rose from table, instead of engaged in fisticuffs with the author of his days ; as, from her ladyship's premature retreat, and the loud summons of the bell, he had half expected.

But no sooner had Sir Harry, after ordering coffee in the drawing-room, made as precipitate an exit as his gout would admit, than Mr. Woolston desired that his baggage might be dispatched after him to the neighbouring town of Hurdiston ; whither he was about to proceed on foot. " I have unexpected business in town, Ward law, and must take my chance of a place in the MAMMON ; OR, mail," said he, in answer to the anxiously in quiring looks of the old man. " As the evening is so fine, a walk will be pleasanter than the phaeton." A minute afterwards, he stepped quietly out into the shrubbery, as if for an evening stroll ; and, once released from the irritating atmosphere of the stuffy dining-room, the pleasant summer air soon restored the composure which was his habitual characteristic. And in becoming himself again, John Wool ston was forced to admit that his father's opposition was no stronger than he had anticipated.

In all the relations of life, Sir Harry, an obsti nate old Tory of the most bigoted order, was harsh, clogged, and impracticable: — so long accustomed to have his own way, that he had become as much attached to it as to his shabby old furniture, his dilapidated family mansion, or any other of his belongings. Useless to hope for any change of domestic legislation when he had once laid down the law : and nothing remained for his son and his son's Maria, but to make the best of their overclouded prospects. Under such circumstances, it was no small comfort that the Penningtons were not a touchy generation. Devoid of the over-sensitiveness which selfish people dignify by the name of proper pride, they knew that the heir-apparent of Harrals was intitled, in a worldly point of view, to form a better match than with a daugh ter of Denny Cross ; and if they did not sym pathise with Sir Harry's resentments, wisely forgave them.

But this was the only point on which the discarded son could reflect with comfort, as he sauntered on towards the high road, under the shade of the Portugal laurels. Though no ad monitory chime sounded in his ears from the bells of Hurdiston, he was half inclined to " turn again ;" if not to submit himself to his despotic father, at least to take a kindly leave of his mother, of whom he had always been the MAMMON ; OR, favourite child. Years might elapse before he again visited Harrals. He might, perhaps, never set foot there again, till his father was laid in the grave. His heart grew sore at the thought. Already, he repented his precipita tion. On reaching the shrubbery gate, of which he had a pass-key, he turned to take a last look of the grim old mansion, the home of his childhood. And, ugly and dreary as it looked now that the sun was no longer shining on its dingy brick walls and narrow stone-coped windows, (which much resembled those of a Hammer smith boarding-school that had lost its way in the fields), his affections yearned towards the old place from which his own wilfulness had driven him forth into banishment.

At that moment, under the influence of a thousand tender family associations, the cottage in the environs of London to which he had been looking forward as the Eden of which his dear Maria was to be the Eve, appeared THE HARDSHIFS OF AN HEIRESS. 15 far less of a Paradise than the gloomy barrack which intitled his family to be styled in the county and the records xif the Landed Gentry, as the Wroolstons of Harrals ! MAMMON ; OR,

Chapter II

In the course of the following month, the County Chronicle duly announced to Sir Harry Woolston, that his son had accomplished his act of rebellion. Among the marriages recorded in its pages, appeared, " John Woolston, Esq., to Maria, daughter of Richard Pennington, Esq., of Denny Cross." — No allusion to Harrals, no mention of his own parentage; and this omission, suggested by motives of delicacy, was resented as an insult. In after-years, when the matter came to be discussed in the family circle, John Woolston admitted that he had been wrong, in his whole management of the affair. — Had he dis patched one of his brothers-in-law to negociate with his father a cessation of hostilities, the old man, on finding the marriage inevitable, would probably have made the best of it. But in this, as in all other affairs of life, John Woolston had acted more scrupulously than wisely.

He had persisted in fulfilling his engagements to Maria Pennington, because conscious that he had sought and won her affections. And he forbore to involve the husbands of his sisters in his father's displeasure, because it was clear that something more than the five-and-twenty thou sand pounds already decreed to them, must have been saved out of the eight thousand per annum enjoyed for a period of seven-and-thirty years, by a man who scarcely expended three ; and who grudged the outlay of a few pounds on brick and mortar to keep his roof weather-tight over his head. It was expected, in short, that the more than thrifty baronet would die rich ; and John c VOL. I. Woolston felt that the interests of his sisters, and their families, ought not to be compromised. And thus, a permanent feud was established between the father and son.

Even those who disliked Sir Harry Woolston, and they were already numerous, with ample " power to add to their number," blamed the contumacious John. Filial impiety has few partizans ; and without entering into the cause of the quarrel, the neigh bours who found Harrals becoming more dreary and inhospitable every year, saw strong grounds for deploring the act which bad transferred the matrimonial establishment of its heir-apparent to a weedy villa at Hendon. The young menage, however, spent its cheerful Christmas at Denny Cross, and its first summer at Hastings ; while Harrals proceeded to shut up two sides of its heavy old quadrangle, from which the bricks were gradually disengaging themselves, for want of new pointing ; and lay encumbering the flag-stones beneath, like the unripe fruit under a plum-tree.

The three daughters of Sir Harry W7oolston — one of whom was married to the second son of a nobleman, one, to the curate of the parish, and one to a man, whose means and origin were as equivocal as his manners and exterior were prepossessing — affected to remain neutral in the family quarrel. But all comfort in their visits to Harrals was destroyed ; and Maple Hill, the retreat of the offending couple, was too small to afford them a welcome by way of compensation. The result was complete estrangement. For a time, Woolston and his wife were too happy in each other to look beyond the sweet-briar hedge of their villa. Like bees, they lived in win ter upon the honey hived during their long summer. And when a little hazel-eyed girl was born to them, whom they ventured to name Janetta, after Lady Woolston, the proud barrister counted up his gains at the close of the circuit, and re joiced to find that they formed a tolerably satis factory addition to his narrow income.

For the baronet showed no signs of relenting. c He had perhaps the plea that his son refrained from all demonstration of penitence. Like most inveterate port-bibbers who have passed their allotted three-score years and ten, he was be coming muzzy and morose ; dozing through his evenings, and grumbling through his morn ings ; more especially if anything occurred to disturb the dull routine of his life : — as a stone thrown into a stagnant pond discomposes its scummy surface. Neither of his three sons-in-law would have ventured to provoke one of these angry outbreaks, by mentioning the name of the banished John ; which the constituted authorities of Harrals seemed resolved to dismiss into oblivion. Gerald Molyneux, the husband of Emma, the eldest daughter, was too fine a gentleman to embark in family squabbles.

Harpsden, the curate, who was looking forward to a living at the hands of Sir Harry, when entreated by his gentle Caroline to interfere in her brother's be half, pleaded the interests of their little boy. As to Wroughton and Clara, they were living too gay a life on the continent to trouble their heads about the young couple at Hendon, or the old couple at Harrals. And thus, everything went on ; the mortar dropping from the walls, the tiles from the roof ; and from the hearts of the father and son, every trace of mutual attachment. — An unnatural state of things ;—beginning with a fault, and ending almost in crime. Three years had elapsed since the dispute in the stuffy dining-room, when the little villa at Hendon resounded w-ith the squalls of a second baby. And this time, a son and heir.

Yet, such was the obstinacy which John Woolston inherited, if he inherited nothing else, from the dogged old baronet, that he persisted in avoiding all allusion to his family honours, when inscribing for the " Times," among the births of the day, " the lady of J. Woolston, Esq., of a boy." And lo ! the advent of a child in whose honour an ox, or at all events a sheep or two, would have been roasted whole, had it seen the light, as in heirship MAMMON ; OR, bound, under the canopy of one of the old fashioned state beds of Harrals, was comme morated only by a bottle of Cape wine, and a home-made cake, in the meagre establishment at Maple Hill. For the income of the WToolstons had not increased with their family. The young wife, delicate and indolent, had usually a sister from Denny Cross staying with her, to assist in the nursing and housekeeping; and poor John, a little sick of omnibus transit between Hendon and his chambers, and a little dispirited for want of the club, from which he had made it a point of conscience to withdraw his name and subscription, began to think it might have been wiser if, in the onset, conciliatory measures had re stored him to the comfort and decencies of Harrals.

But, as people usually say on such occasions, " it was too late now." The pettish spirit of independence which had so little availed him, must, for the sake of consistency, be perse vered in. No one was at hand to remonstrate. The Molyneuxes were engrossed by their aristocratic connections and enjoyments ; the Wroughtons were still on the continent ; the Harpsdens ab sorbed in parsonage cares. As to Mrs. Wool ston's humbler family and friends, they were satisfied to have their dear Maria and her children back among them at Denny Cross, to enjoy Christmas cheer, and probably Midsummer recreation, without inquiring too curiously how the interim was passed. Had John Woolston entertained the smallest solicitude concerning the ultimate welfare of his children, he would probably have taken steps for their restoration to the position they had innocently forfeited.

But the little cherub in the cockaded cap had only now to grow and prosper, and ultimately succeed to the honours of a baronetcy, and eight thousand a year ; in the comfortable conviction of which, John Woolston stepped daily into the bus which conveyed him to Temple Bar ; indifferent to the minor miseries MAMMON ; OR, of unvarnished boots and an ill-brushed hat ; and far more deeply interested in in -coming fees, than in the resentments and dilapidations of Harrals.

Chapter III

On the day of little Johnny's christening, however, the discarded son became conscious, almost for the first time, that he was decidedly in the wrong. From the moment of welcoming the little fellow to his modest wicker cradle, he regarded him less as the second child of his happy wed lock, than as the heir-in-tail to the family es tates ; and the sort of consequence he assigned to his infant, seemed to retrace itself through his own veins to those of his father. However lightly he had hitherto affected to hold the he- MAMMON ; OR, reditary rank and fortune of the Woolstons, now that he had subsided into a mere link in the chain that was to unite their name with posterity, he began to exaggerate its importance. This son of his, who squalled so lustily when invested in the christening-robe worked by his Denny Cross aunts, and already worn by his sister on occasion of a similar solemnity, might perhaps live to aggrandise the family heredita ments.

Little Johnny need not marry impru dently. Little Johnny need not extinguish him self on the threshold of life. Nay, he might perhaps live to become a peer of the realm, and increase the Harrals estate by the Walsingham property adjoining ; long coveted by the reigning baronet, who had waited and parleyed for thirty years, in hopes to get it a bargain. Yet, in spite of all these prospective honours, and lacking the ox roasted whole for immediate distribution, and the stout October that ought to have been brewed, with a view to his comino of age, the world in general cared as little for the birth of John WToolston the Second, as for that of the last-born pauper in the parish union. Even the heart of his proud father was darkened on the morning of the christening, by a letter from his coal-merchant, requesting that the amount of his over-due Christmas bill might be settled without further delay.

But it was not alone the peremptory tone of the dealer in Screened Walls-end, or even the careless one in which the baptismal ceremony was gabbled over by an over-tasked curate, that produced his humiliation of spirit. Flis brother-in-law, Harpsden, formerly, when the suitor of Caroline Woolston, so obsequious and affectionate, had evaded, by shuffling excuses, a journey to town to officiate at his nephew's christening ; while Mrs. Molyneux acquainted her brother, in a few reckless lines, that Gerald and herself found it impossible to quit Molyneux Castle before the close of the hunting season, to stand sponsors for the boy. As to Wrough ton and Clara, they had not so much as trou- MAMMON ; OR, bled themselves to answer the letter announcing the birth of an heir to Harrals. . Poor Woolston ceased therefore to wonder, since his own kith and kin stood aloof, that his mere acquaintances were growing cooler and cooler.

Ignorant of the nature of the Harrals entail, people concluded, from appearances, that the offended son was actually disinherited ; and the nods of the great, whom he accidentally encountered, became more and more patronising ; and the coldness of the ungracious, more icy. Already sore from the consciousness of a pinched and needy household, these slights galled him severely. Fie had not greatness of soul to rise superior to such petty annoyances. Few people have, to whom it is impossible to pay their coal-merchant's bill. Nor did he take into account that it was less the poor man who was avoided by his acquaintance, than the care worn. To be seen walking with an individual in a seedy coat, is not half so unsatisfactory to a man of the world, as to waste his time on a companion half-a-year behind the events of the day ; to whom everything, from heavy politics to trifling gossip, must be unfolded and ex plained ; and who, for want of animal spirits, is as flat as a glass of stale soda-water.

For a mere acquaintance, accepted only for purposes of mutual entertainment, has no right to be a bore ; and if a bore, is dealt with accordingly. There were moments, indeed, when Woolston, smarting under neglect and privation, felt in clined to furestal the future affluence awaiting him, by a post-obit levy ; of sufficient amount, to convince the world that eventual prosperity would enable him to repay its courtesies, or return it scorn for scorn. But prudence pre vailed. He had always promised himself to succeed to an estate unencumbered by any act of profligacy or prodigality : and he would not secede from his principle. He would go bearing on. Maria must content herself to turn the old silk gown so long her Sunday best. He was almost proud of his own seedy coat. As to the conl-merchant's bill, it should be paid by instal ments.

Another year, however, found him less hearty, and far less philosophical. Though his income was punctually paid by his father's banker, it was unaccompanied by a word of comment, or overture of kindness ; and Sir Harry, like a staghorned tree, seemed deeper rooted by every additional year. It appeared to invigorate the constitution of the vindictive old man, to know that by the prolongation of his days, he could still punish his son. The grim face of poverty, meanwhile, was acquiring new features at Maple Hill. The little boy proved an ailing child. The air of the weedy villa did not agree with him ; and a suburban apothecary, unable to fortify, per force of pharmacopœia, the little fellow's infirm constitution, suggested sea-bathing as indispensable. Ten weeks at Brighton added something con siderable to the quarter's expenses.

But they also produced something so nearly resembling CF AN HEIRESS. 31 bloom on the pale cheeks of the sickly child, that, early in the following spring, the pre scription was renewed. And as the scanty pro fessional engagements of John WToolston, "pro mising more hereafter," rendered it hazardous for him to absent himself from town, his wife was forced to submit to a temporary separation. It was one of those cold, rainy, backward springs, which suggest a wish that yvinter would retain its own rough name, in order that one might be on one's guard against its harshness. After a few severe colds, produced by trudging homewards in the mud because no place was to be had in the omnibus, poor Woolston, as much out of sorts with the elements as King Lear, placed a placard of " To be Let Furnished" on the top of his garden wall, and a terse advertise ment to the same effect in the " Supplement to the Times :" and proceeded to establish himself in his chambers in the Temple, till the return of his family.

But unluckily, the place proved as little attractive to the public as to its master, and hung heavy on his hands. Nothing seemed to go well with him. Domestic care rendered him listless in his profession. Few people like to entrust their business to a man who seems incapable of ma naging his own. If it be true that " nothing succeeds like success," nothing is so unsuccess ful as mischance. One day, in passing Hoare's banking-house, as he was sauntering along the Strand, he was run against by a spruce, well-dressed man, rushing across the pavement to an equally well-varnished cab ; who, on pausing to apologize, proved to be his brother-in-law, Gerald Molyneux. An affectation of surprise and a few civil in quiries after Mrs. W'oolston and the children, were indispensable ; though the Honourable Gerald had evidently little inclination to be seen talking to a man who owed so little to his tailor •except his bill.