Читать книгу Moderation, A Tale - Барбара Хофланд - Страница 7

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Although Miss Tintagell gave thus generously consent to the marriage of her sister, yet it was five years before she came to visit the Rectory for any length of time, notwithstanding the undiminished attachment she still showed to her sister. During that period she had certainly refused several excellent offers, and her gaiety of dress, the attractions of her person, and the brilliance of her conversation were undiminished. From this period, she attached herself much to the eldest girl, became sponsor to the boy, and took as much interest in the family, as a person could do who dreaded the approach of a rude touch upon an unspotted muslin, and delighted in that "keen encounter of wits," forbidden by nursery details. After some time her visits became much more frequent, and Harriet generally, but not constantly, returned with her to town, where she enjoyed those advantages of education it was not possible to obtain in the country. Here however their excellent father left little to regret on this account. On the marriage of her brother, Miss Carysford removed to a cottage within a little distance, which she fitted up with great taste and comfort, and where she generally had one of her brother's children with her. This child after a time became Emma exclusively, for Harriet was almost stationary in London at that period when she was sufficiently grown to be a companion to Miss Tintagell. Charles was too much engaged with his studies to leave his father, and the younger branches too troublesome for one whose protracted existence was still that of a valetudinarian, willing but unable to endure exertion of any kind.

Perhaps few marriages have been equally happy with that of Mr. Carysford, for all that was excellent in his character at the time when it took place, improved with his more extended duties, and matured by time into the ripeness of solid virtue. "He was indulgent to a fault," Lady Lyster acknowledged; but she maintained also "that he was without a fault," and this all the poor in the district re-echoed, maintaining, "his Worship was all goodness, and Madam very little behind him." His sister alone knew where his failings lay, and where his troubles were felt; for to her both were laid open as they had been from infancy, with all the candour and contrition, with which a heart (so pure and humble a christian heart) laments error or bewails suffering.

No circumstance could have induced Mr. Carysford to live beyond his income, because that he would have deemed a failure of actual integrity; nor could the extraordinary expenses of any year ever induce him to encroach on that sum which, from the day he took possession of the living, he appropriated to charities connected with it—but the continual solicitude he felt to do more, and the incapability of effecting his wishes, frequently harassed his spirits, and deeply affected those of his excellent sister. It was from her conversations, her lessons, and her example, that Emma imbibed all that was most solid and estimable in her character—that she substituted the meekness of religious obedience for the mere external gentleness of manners; tempered the fire of youth and the acuteness of sensibility with sober reflection and calm resolution; subduing a vivid imagination and the generous enthusiasm of a noble spirit, and a refined taste, a devout, pious, and charitable heart, to the dictates of moderation.

When Emma was in her eighteenth year, the long fragile tenement in which that pure soul was enshrined, which even on the couch of sickness and under the pressure of pain had for years been a blessing to many, gave indications of dissolution that could not be mistaken. Mrs. Carysford therefore summoned her eldest daughter home, that she might partake the cares of the family; at the same time placing her third daughter at school from an equally kind motive, that of leaving herself at liberty to attend to the invalid and her husband, and enabling Sophia to pursue the finishing studies necessary for completing her education.

But the last sigh had escaped the patient sufferer before Harriet's return, who therefore, finding herself of no use and little importance, sincerely regretted her recall, though she had too much affection and proper feeling to betray the ennui under which she laboured at the Rectory, in consequence of leaving town in the season of gaiety, and visiting the country in the season of affliction. This affliction was indeed not poignant, a long expected event had occurred, a christian fitted for the change was removed; and selfish sorrow was controlled by the full belief that the evils of life were exchanged "for an exceeding weight of glory," but there was a religious pensiveness, a tender melancholy, an anxiety of affection towards one another in the members of the family, which, whilst it drew the chords which bound them to each other more strongly where it was felt, acted painfully where it was not experienced.

At this time they had a little girl, Alathea, who was younger by seven years than the child who had preceded her, and she was doated upon by the parents with that peculiar fondness generally accorded to the last prattler, the last plaything of a large family, who never fails to combine all that has charmed the mother's eye, and won the father's heart before, with innumerable graces and witcheries of its own. This child, in the course of a month or two after the death of its aunt, was seized with the measles, which left behind a train of disorders that proved fatal the ensuing autumn. On this distressing event taking place, Miss Tintagell flew to console her sister, and with equal surprise and grief perceived that which had alike escaped herself and her family, that the afflicted mother was far gone in decline, probably brought on by her indefatigable attention to the little sufferer.

From the hour that this discovery was made, the heart of the husband seemed rent in twain; he was a man of calm but exalted piety, of firm faith and of unfeigned submission to the God and Father whom he worshipped, not less in word than deed, but his very nature was so much that of domestic love, and his habits so entirely those of connubial friendship, that this third rapidly succeeding trial seemed to ask for more fortitude than he could find. He murmured not, but he bent beneath the stroke, and that manly beauty hitherto so remarkable, and which his active, temperate, and happy life had hitherto preserved, faded as rapidly as that of the beloved countenance which in every languid smile betrayed decay and death.

Thus in fifteen months, three losses were experienced in this lately flourishing family, of the most touching and harrowing description. The loss of her mother occasioned Sophia to be sent for home, and all idea of her return relinquished, as Mr. Carysford naturally desired to see his children around him; and as she was much the most like her mother, (being of an exquisitely fair complexion, with blue eyes and luxuriant flaxen tresses,) it was hoped that she would afford painful yet solacing interest to her widowed father.

Sophia was the only daughter, as we have already seen, who had been sent from home for education, even for a short period—she was in her sixteenth year when she went to school, had somewhat outgrown her strength, and was a girl of such vivid feelings, that her parents rather sent her out of the way of suffering, than considered the circumstance of improvement, her acquirements being already satisfactory. Mr. Carysford had heard the lady at the head of that establishment they thought most convenient for the purpose extolled for her piety, and Mrs. Carysford had assured herself as to the merits of the attendant masters, and with this they unfortunately were satisfied.—The first vacation which brought home this daughter, found them attending the sick bed of Alathea, and too much engaged to remark any thing in Sophia, besides her good looks and her continual conversation on death, from which they concluded that her health might suffer from witnessing the scenes of sickness and sorrow now pressing on the family; and therefore to save her as much as possible, she was not called to share them further.

But it now became evident, that a new, and, in her aunt's opinion an alarming bias had been given to the mind of this young creature during her absence, which was naturally aided by the awful events in her family. Going far beyond the religious precepts inculcated by her father, and acted upon in her family, outstripping every precept divulged by her departed aunt, and treasured in the memory of her deeply reflective sister; Sophia stepped forward as the apostle who should convert her family, reform the neighbourhood, or failing that, become a victim to their cruelty, a proof of their unrighteousness, and a martyr to their persecution.

So naturally does every human being, more especially those of habitually well-directed views, look to God in the hour of affliction, and search for the promises of the gospel, that the words of Sophia, though remarkable, were not considered by her family as arising from any other cause than that which strongly affected their own feelings; and she was the less liable to remark, because Miss Tintagell and Harriet were much together in the dressing-room of the former; Charles was sent to Cambridge; and Emma, as one habituated to the tender offices of a nurse, applied herself to amusing her father: when therefore it was announced to the family by Sir Marmaduke, "that Miss Sophy had been converted or perverted at school, had attached herself to what was termed the 'dissenting interest,' in the village, who had of late brought in some newfangled kind of preaching at the tailor's, and that she was doing her best to raise subscriptions for a chapel, being herself a kind of public prayer and teacher," nothing could exceed the alarm and sorrow, the anger and contempt, expressed by the different branches of the family.

They all knew Sophia was much out of the house, they had witnessed her zealous remonstrances, remarked her charity, which was carried to excess; but a conduct so contrary to all they conceived decorous or dutiful, had not entered their minds. Mr. Carysford gently reasoned with her, but to little purpose; but all that was blameable was soon greatly increased by the unwise conduct of her aunt and her eldest sister, whose violence of invective and scornful treatment, by conveying the idea that they despised religion itself, led her to conclude, "that she must be right, because they were wrong," and she deemed herself a persecuted saint, a glorious martyr. She threw herself and her cause into the arms of the enthusiastic and discontented; and by rousing their passions in her behalf, rendered that a serious schism in the congregation, which had been merely the idle vagary of a few wandering lovers of any change.

Never did minister love his people more entirely than the Rector of Ravenhill, and whilst his general liberality rendered him kind to all parties, and conciliating in all cedeable points, he yet suffered severely from the belief that any for whom he laboured in spirit, and loved in sincerity, would forsake him. He bore the trouble meekly and manfully, but he suffered not the less severely. Emma was his sole support, and in her self-government, young as she was, and acutely as she deplored the circumstance, he found the sympathy he required, and at times, even the counsel, which was always that of dignified endurance of injury from others, and mild expostulation, but not restraint, towards his daughter. Sophia became in the mean time a positive idol with her party, and was exalted in the Meeting in proportion as she was persecuted at home; whilst Emma, without the solace of such pity or admiration, became really a kind of victim to both parties, and received the arrows of each with uncomplaining patience, and even reviving cheerfulness, when she considered herself the shield that received them for her father's safety. He was in all things her paramount object; but she was also tenderly attached to both her sisters, and held her brother as especially dear, as only brothers generally are. As Sophia had no direct friend in the house, Emma constantly apologized for her, in consequence of which, Miss Tintagell maintained, "either, that she must be such a fool as to believe the girl right, or defend her from a spirit of pure contradiction," whilst Sophia and her village friends observed, with not less acrimony, "that, as a person not devoid of religious light, her conduct in not entirely espousing the cause of her heavenly-minded sister, and imitating her conduct, bespoke a base and cowardly spirit, and the epithets of 'worldly minded,' 'self seeking,' &c. were applied to her continually." Even her friends at the Park called Emma a Trimmer; but as the heads of the house differed themselves on the point at issue, they occasionally listened to her reasons for looking fairly on both sides of the question; and, in this reasoning, both were so far interested as never to push the other to extremities, a good effect of no small moment in the present excited state of feeling which had unhappily arisen in this community.

Considering the altered state of his household, Mr. Carysford enjoyed more peace than could have been expected; for he was so entirely beloved, that neither servant nor visitor would mention any occurrence likely to grieve him, and even those of his people who most strenuously insisted on their right to worship God their own way, observed also, that "considering he was a merely moral man, and a church parson, there was not much harm in him," and that now and then "he preached the gospel," but then, "he read his sermon, he read printed prayers, and of course it all sounded as a dead letter."

The "new lights" were after all but a sickly band; and if Sophia, in all the radiance of her youth and beauty, the grace of her refined manners, and the redundancy of language easily attained amongst inferiors, had not strengthened their numbers and confirmed their hopes, the young preachers sent from a distant academy would hardly have condescended to mount the tailor's great chair, and preach in his workroom. The grocer, the exciseman, the shopkeeper, all men qualified to harangue in the churchyard, not only held their usual council there, and obtained their usual auditors; but the farmers, the blacksmith, the retired London tradesman, and the sunday-school teachers, were all warmed with zeal against the encroaches; and solicitous to show his Worship every possible mark of their good will, well aware that the Baronet would wink at a breach of the peace on such an occasion, various plans had been laid for putting the preacher of the day in the stocks, or attempting a gentle ducking to his more open followers: but these malpractices were so well known to be as contrary to the spirit as to the instructions of their pastor, that, for his sake, those they deemed his enemies were suffered to escape, and even to endeavour increasing their numbers and assuming a character of defiance.

The love manifested, whether wisely or zealously, by his people, gave Mr. Carysford the comfort his long harassed spirit required, but it likewise subjected him to feeling too much. In every house, however poor the inhabitants, where he was recognized with affection, and where the memory of her so long and so fondly loved was held in honour, his heart had its resting-place as to its affections, but the acuteness of his feelings forbade repose. In lamenting over his loss, in protesting their love, in railing against all who wished for change, in recalling the days of sorrow and the seasons of want, in which he had soothed their affliction and relieved their necessity, these simple souls necessarily awoke the chords of that sensibility which was already touched too freely, and in the very prime of life, he withered like the sensitive plant beneath the approach of tenderness itself.

It had been constantly the practice of Mr. Carysford to catechise the children of his village, and to this good old custom it might chiefly be attributed that the encroachers upon his pastoral duties had been later in their advances to his parish than those in his neighbourhood, and that when arrived, their success was dubious. The young men and maidens (notwithstanding the love of change is natural to youth) were universally his friends, and from that period when they first deemed him insulted by the actual establishment of preaching during church hours, they were wont respectfully to edge nearer and nearer to him, till they became a kind of bodyguard as he went from his own house to the church. The manner in which the silent sympathy and respect thus evinced, affected their minister, cannot be described, but will be conceived by those who have hearts and imaginations, and are accustomed to combine the purest emotions they originate, with those higher and sweeter sources of feeling, which spring from devotion. Every broad honest face, that looked on him with reverent sympathy, was associated with the remembrance of his own children, their own fathers; his pastoral duties, or his paternal cares. He knew that in days past he had for them "sighed and wept, watched and prayed," and the belief that according to their more bounded perceptions, they now returned his love, delighted, but yet affected him, beyond the power of his enfeebled frame to sustain.

Emma sought to restrain this effect, and by recurring to common subjects, dull common places, or cheering trifles, to wean him from that consolation, which, whilst it sweetened, yet wasted the cup of life. She endeavoured to give him peculiar interest in the progress made by Charles, at college; awaken him to the politics of the day, and more especially its poetry; she sought to engage him in writing for Sophia's benefit, even with little hopes that in her present inflated state of mind, she would condescend to read his documents, and by every means affection could suggest, or vigilance exact, prevented his mind from preying on itself, or yielding up its energies to amiable but useless paroxysms of excited feeling.

This was but a task the more necessary, because Harriet, when not engaged with her aunt in company, found it obligatory in her to devote herself almost exclusively to her comfort in private. Miss Tintagell was a woman of great talents, of noble and generous nature, but of violent passions, and when grief or anger was uppermost, their operation was of so terrible a nature as to be alike injurious to herself, and harassing to those around her. She was offended with Sophia beyond measure, and much hurt with what she considered the mistaken lenity of her father, in reasoning when he should have commanded, and in permitting when she thought he should have denied; yet she could not bring herself to utter one reproach to a being so evidently suffering. Accustomed to shine in every circle where she appeared, if she accepted an invitation, the cares given alike to her person and her manners, rendered her for a few hours the commanding or the fascinating woman of fashion, who could charm the elegant, and astonish the country circle around her; but when the spur of habit and the action of vanity ceased to operate, she would sit down and bewail the loss of her sister as the one jewel that had shone on her path, with all the eloquence of grief, and even the simplicity of childlike fondness.

Some months had passed in this manner, when it was proposed to Miss Tintagell, "that she should join a worthy couple to whom she was much attached in a visit to Paris," to which she consented with an avidity distressing to her eldest niece, who had begun to hope either that they should return to town together, or go to some watering place. The invitation could not be extended to her without an entire derangement in the mode of conveyance; in consequence of which, the elder lady did not choose to see the discontent evinced by the younger, and therefore poor Harriet, with all the disposition in the world to exhibit her fine person in those circles from which she had been taken by distressing events, was condemned to accept the society which Ravenhill and its environs presented; and console herself by becoming the mistress of the Rectory, though she was only partially the directress of its inhabitants.