Читать книгу Self-control: A Novel - Mary Brunton, Mary Brunton - Страница 14

The picture at last was finished, and Laura herself accompanied it to the print-shop. Wilkins immediately delivered to her the price, which, he said, had been for some time in his hands. It now occurred to Laura to ask who had been the purchaser of her work. 'Why, Ma'am,' said Wilkins, 'the gentleman desired me not to mention his name.' 'Indeed!' said Laura surprised. 'These were his orders. Ma'am, but I shouldn't think there could be any great harm in telling it just to you Ma'am.' 'I have no wish to hear it,' said Laura, with a look which compelled the confident to unwilling discretion; and again thanking him for the trouble he had taken, she returned home. The truth was, that De Courcy had foreseen the probability of Laura's question; and averse to be known to her under a character that savoured of patronage and protection, had forbidden the shopkeeper to mention who had purchased the pictures.

Again did Laura, delighted, present to her father the produce of her labours, her warm heart glowing with the joys of usefulness. But not as formerly did he with pleasure receive the gift. With the fretfulness of disease, he refused to share in her satisfaction. Through the gloom of melancholy, every object appeared distorted; and Captain Montreville saw in his daughter's well-earned treasure only the wages of degrading toil. 'It is hard, very hard,' said he with a deep sigh, 'that you, my lovely child, should be dependent on your daily labour for your support.' 'Oh call it not hard, my dear father,' cried Laura. 'Thanks, a thousand thanks to your kind foresight, which, in teaching me this blessed art, secured to me the only real independence, by making me independent of all but my own exertions.' 'Child,' said Montreville, fretfully, 'there is an enthusiasm about you that will draw you into ten thousand errors – you are quite mistaken in fancying yourself independent. Your boasted art depends upon the taste, the very caprice of the public for its reward; and you, of course, upon the very same caprice for your very existence.' 'It is true,' answered Laura mildly, 'that my success depends upon taste, and that the public taste is capricious; but some, I should hope, would never be wanting, who could value and reward the labours of industry – you observe,' added she with a smile, 'that I rest nothing upon genius.' 'Be that as it may,' returned Captain Montreville, with increasing querulousness, 'I cannot endure to see you degraded into an artist, and, therefore, I desire there may be no more of this traffic.'

This was the first time that Montreville had ever resorted to the method well known and approved by those persons of both sexes, who, being more accustomed to the exercise of authority than of argument, choose to wield the weapon in the use of which practice has made them the most expert. Laura looked at him with affectionate concern – 'Alas!' thought she, 'if bodily disease is pitiable, how far more deplorable are its ravages on the mind.' But even if her father had been in perfect health, she would not have chosen the moment of irritation for reply. Deeply mortified at this unexpected prohibition, she yet endeavoured to consider it as only one of the transient caprices of illness, and to find pleasure in the thought, that the hour was come, when De Courcy's daily visit would restore her father to some degree of cheerfulness.

But De Courcy's visit made no one cheerful. He was himself melancholy and absent. He said he had only a few minutes to spare, yet lingered above an hour; often rose to go, yet irresolutely resumed his seat. At last, starting up, he said, 'the longer I remain here, the more unwilling I am to go; and yet I must go, without even knowing when I may return.' 'Are you going to leave us?' said Montreville, in a tone of despondency, 'then we shall be solitary indeed.' 'I fear,' said Laura, looking with kind solicitude in De Courcy's face, 'that something distressing calls you away.' 'Distressing indeed,' said De Courcy. 'My excellent old friend Mr Wentworth has lost his only son, and I must bear the news to the parents.' 'Is there no one but you to do this painful office?' asked Montreville. 'None,' answered De Courcy, 'on whom it could with such propriety fall. Wentworth was one of my earliest friends, he was my father's early friend. I owe him a thousand obligations; and I would fain, if it be possible, soften this heavy blow. Besides,' added he, endeavouring to speak more cheerfully, 'I have a selfish purpose to serve, – I want to see how a Christian bears misfortune.' 'And can you fix no time for your return?' asked the Captain, mournfully. De Courcy shook his head. 'You will not return while your presence is necessary to Mr Wentworth,' said Laura, less anxious to regain De Courcy's society, than that he support the character of benevolence with which her imagination had justly vested him. Grieved by the prospect of losing his companion, fretted by an indefinite idea that he was wrong in his ungracious rejection of his daughter's efforts to serve him, ashamed of his distempered selfishness, yet unable to conquer it, Captain Montreville naturally became more peevish; for the consciousness of having acted wrong, without the resolution to repair the fault, is what no temper can stand. 'Your charity is mighty excursive Laura,' said he. 'If Mr De Courcy delays his return long, I shall probably not live to profit by it.' Laura, whose sweetness no captious expressions could ruffle, would have spoken to turn her father's view to brighter prospects; but the rising sob choked her voice, and courtesying hastily to De Courcy, she left the room. De Courcy now no longer found it difficult to depart. He soon bade the Captain farewell, promising to return as soon as it was possible, though he had no great faith in Montreville's dismal prediction, uttered in the true spirit of hypochondriasis, that he would come but to lay his head in his grave.

As he was descending the stairs, Laura, who never forgot in selfish feeling to provide for the comfort of others, followed him, to beg that when he had leisure, he would write to her father. Laura blushed and hesitated as she made this request, not because she had in making it any selfish motive whatever, but purely because she was unused to ask favours. Flattered by the request, but much more by her confusion, De Courcy glowed with pleasure. 'Certainly I shall write,' said he with great animation, 'if you – I mean if Captain Montreville wish it.' These words, and the tone in which they were uttered, made Laura direct a look of inquiry to the speaker's face, where his thoughts were distinctly legible; and she no sooner read then, than, stately and displeased, she drew back. 'I believe it will give my father pleasure to hear from you, sir,' said she, and coldly turned away. 'Is there no man,' thought she, 'exempt from this despicable vanity – from the insignificant Warren to the respectable De Courcy?' Poor Montague would fain have besought her forgiveness for his presumption in supposing it possible that she could have any pleasure in hearing of him; but the look with which she turned from him, left him no courage to speak to her again, and he mournfully pursued his way to Audley Street.

He was scarcely gone when Warren called, and Laura, very little displeased for his company, took shelter in her own room. Her father, however, suffered no inconvenience from being left alone to the task of entertaining his visitor, for Warren found means to make the conversation sufficiently interesting.

He began by lamenting the Captain's long detention from his home, and condoled with him upon the effects which London air had produced upon his health. He regretted that Mr Williams's absence from town had retarded the final settlement of Montreville's business; informed him that Mr Baynard's executors had appointed an agent to inspect his papers; and finally, surprised him by an unconditional offer to sign a new bond for the annuity. He could not bear, he said, to think of the Captain's being detained in London to the prejudice of his health, especially as it was evident that Miss Montreville's suffered from the same cause. He begged that a regular bond might be drawn up, which he would sign at a moment's notice, and which he would trust to the Captain's honour to destroy, if it should be found that the £1500, mentioned as the price of the annuity, had never been paid.

At this generous proposal, surprise and joy almost deprived Montreville of the power of utterance; gratefully clasping Warren's hand, 'Oh, sir,' he exclaimed, 'you have, I hope, secured an independence for my child. I thank you – with what fervour, you can never know till you are yourself a father.' Seemingly anxious to escape from his thanks, Warren again promised that he would be ready to sign the bond on the following day, or as soon as it was ready for signature. Captain Montreville again began to make acknowledgements, but Warren, who appeared rather distressed than gratified by them, took his leave, and left the Captain to the joyful task of communicating the news to Laura.

She listened with grateful pleasure. 'How much have I been to blame,' said she, 'for allowing myself to believe that a little vanity necessarily excluded every kind and generous feeling. What a pity it is that this man should condescend to such an effeminate attention to trifles!' Lost to the expectation, almost to the desire of seeing Hargrave, she had now no tie to London, but one which was soon to be broken, for Mrs and Miss De Courcy were about to return to Norwood. With almost unmixed satisfaction, therefore, she heard her father declare, that in less than a week he should be on his way to Scotland. With pleasure she looked forward to revisiting her dear Glenalbert, and anticipated the effects of its quiet shades and healthful air upon her father. Already she beheld her home, peaceful and inviting, as when, from the hill that sheltered it, she last looked back upon its simple beauties. She heard the ripple of its waters; she trod the well-known path; met the kind familiar face, and listened to the cordial welcome, with such joy as they feel who return from the land of strangers.

Nor was Montreville less pleased with the prospect of returning to his accustomed comforts and employments – of feeling himself once more among objects which he could call his own. His own! There was magic in the word, that transformed the cottage at Glenalbert into a fairy palace – the garden and the farm into a little world. To leave London interfered indeed with his hopes of De Courcy as a lover for his daughter; but he doubted not that the impression was already made, and that Montague would follow Laura to Scotland.

His mind suddenly relieved from anxiety, his spirits rose, all his constitutional good nature returned, and he caressed his daughter with a fondness that seemed intended to atone for the captious behaviour of the morning. At dinner he called for wine, a luxury in which he rarely indulged, drank to their safe arrival at Glenalbert, and obliged Laura to pledge him to the health of Warren. To witness her father's cheerfulness was a pleasure which Laura had of late tasted so sparingly, that it had the most exhilarating effect upon her spirits; and neither De Courcy nor Hargrave would have been much gratified, could they have seen the gaiety with which she supported the absence of the one, and the neglect of the other.

She was beginning to enjoy one of those cheerful domestic evenings which had always been her delight, when Miss Dawkins came to propose that she should accompany her and her mother on a visit to Mrs Jones. Laura would have excused herself, by saying, that she could not leave her father alone; but the Captain insisted upon her going, and declared that he would himself be of the party. She had therefore no apology, and, deprived of the amusement which she would have preferred, contentedly betook herself to that which was within her reach. She did not sit in silent contemplation of her own superiority, or of the vulgarity of her companions; nor did she introduce topics of conversation calculated to illustrate either; but having observed that even the most ignorant have some subject on which they can talk with ease and pleasure, and even be heard with advantage, she suffered others to lead the discourse, rightly conjecturing that they would guide it to the channel which they judged most favourable to their own powers. She was soon engaged with Mrs Dawkins in a dissertation on various branches of household economy, and to the eternal degradation of her character as a heroine, actually listened with interest to the means of improving the cleanliness, beauty, and comfort of her dwelling.

Mrs Jones was highly flattered by the Captain's visit, and exerted herself to entertain him, her husband being inclined to taciturnity by a reason which Bishop Butler has pronounced to be a good one. Perceiving that Montreville was an Englishman, she concluded that nothing but dire necessity could have exiled him to Scotland. She inquired what town he lived in; and being answered that his residence was many miles distant from any town, she held up her hands in pity and amazement. But when she heard that Montreville had been obliged to learn the language of the Highlands, and that it was Laura's vernacular tongue, she burst into an exclamation of wonder. 'Mercy upon me,' cried she, 'can you make that outlandish spluttering so as them savages can know what you says? Well, if I had been among them a thousand years, I should never have made out a word of their gibberish.'