Patience, Barbara Hofland [readict books TXT] 📗

Such was the state of their correspondence, when, in the long-protracted

spring of 1814, Mrs. Aylmer was seized by a severe illness, which

reduced her to the brink of the grave, and left her so weak, that a

residence for two or three successive winters in the south of France,

was earnestly recommended to her. It was the more easy for her to follow

this advice, in consequence of one of her neighbours, Mr. Sydenham,

having resolved to remove thither with the greatest part of his young

family, being desirous to procure for them the advantages of education,

without infringing on that narrow income which rendered him a resident

in his present cheap retirement. Such a change was contemplated by Dora

and her companions with that delight natural to the young and curious;

for although all were happy where they were, yet they all were at an age

when mere change has a charm to the buoyant spirit, and enquiring mind.

The illness of Mrs. Aylmer had been the first affliction her beloved

charge had known:—it had fallen like a shower on a thirsty land,

giving temporary gloom, and sorrow, to be repaid by fertilizing the

soil, and calling forth flowers and fruit, from the hidden seeds, and

deeply implanted lessons, of early days. Dora rose, in this season of

trial, from a fond, artless, ingenuous child, to a sensible, reflecting,

affectionate young woman; who united to perfect simplicity and

sensibility, the mild fortitude which rendered her love efficient in its

services, and gave to her attentions that value rarely derived from any

quality but experience.

She became, indeed, not less the darling daughter, than the beloved

friend, of her protectress; and when Mrs. Aylmer first ventured to leave

her own house, which was for the purpose of attending the table of our

Lord, thither Dora (for the first time) accompanied her. Every woman of

feeling who has had the happiness of being led to the communion table in

early life, by a tender parent, or guardian, will ever look back upon

that hour as the most awful, yet most endeared to memory, of any in

their existence. They will retrace the humility and sincerity of their

devotions; and the sense of being exalted by this open profession of

their faith, which, by rendering them members of the Church of Christ,

gave them a sense of being ennobled, and purified, yet bound to

obedience and submission, by new duties, and stronger ties:—the sublime

gratitude, the holy rapture, the spiritual aspirations of their souls in

such moments, may be obscured in future life, but never can be

obliterated.

Dora felt the holy emotions incident to this delightful duty, this

blessed privilege, with all that intensity of interest, natural to one

who was more especially called upon for thankfulness; and she was

affected so much as almost to overcome her friend. When these

high-wrought affections subsided, there was still left a peculiar

suavity of manners, a solicitude to do right, an activity in the

exercise of benevolent affections, and an oblivion to petty injuries,

which proved that if the rose was fled, its odour remained; and as the

shining of the patriarch’s face shewed “with whom he had been,” so did

the conduct of Dora, though assuming no peculiarity, shew that she was

adding to all that had appeared amiable in her character, that which was

virtuous, pious, and solid.

She could not, however, fail to feel even more anxiety on the subject of

the expected letter, than she thought right, in consequence of some

hints which had within the last three months dropped from her mother on

the subject of her absence. Often had Dora earnestly desired to visit

her family, (indeed she desired it now;) but the idea of leaving her

friend at a time when she so evidently required her attention, and of

renouncing the pleasures the journey itself promised her, was a double

sacrifice, from which she very naturally shrunk.

This necessary digression brings us again to the expected letter, which,

contrary to all precedent, really arrived on the evening in question,

and put a decisive negative on the requested permission to travel,

softened, in the writer’s opinion, by an assurance that they had

intended to send for Dora for some time; not only that she might form an

acquaintance with her family, by a residence of a year or two, but that

she might be an assistant to her father, seeing she wrote an excellent

hand, and had doubtless been well instructed in the French language by

dear Mrs. Aylmer, whose knowledge of that tongue they well remembered.

She added, that Mr. Hemingford had very indifferent health; having had a

great loss in his partner, Mr. Stancliffe, whose son was abroad, so

that altogether he was at a loss for a clever, dutiful child, and hoped

Dora would make it up to him for some time at least:—perhaps they might

send her abroad by and by;—there was no saying; particular

circumstances had arisen, but could not be explained. Undoubtedly Mr.

Sydenham’s family would supply the loss of Dorothea, for whom she would

send a proper escort as far as Gloucester. She hoped if her dear, dear

friend had it in her power to send over a little Mecklin lace, &c. she

would not forget it, and was with love to the child, &c. &c.

Never could a decision so important be made, according to Mrs. Aylmer’s

conception of it, more ungraciously;—she saw that Mrs. Hemingford rent

asunder the habits and bonds of two people who had grown side by side,

during almost the whole life of one party, with as much ease as if she

had torn a piece of muslin in two; and her heart recoiled from trusting

a daughter who felt only too much with a mother who felt sadly too

little. Yet a second and a third reading convinced her that the mandate

must be submitted to; and Dora, though her heart was too full to permit

her to speak, signified that she believed it to be her duty to comply

with the requisition; and she endeavoured to endure it firmly, and even

cheerfully, lest her sorrow should add to the pain of her friend.

When the parting was really over, it may be supposed each gave herself

up for a time to the intense overwhelming sense of sorrow, such a

separation must inevitably inflict. Mrs. Aylmer trembled for the future

peace of her beloved charge; she revolted at the idea of those

employments her mother seemed to point out for her, and not less at the

new associates with whom she might be called to mix; and she justly

blamed herself for suffering so handsome and attractive a girl as Dora

to depart without adverting to those offers which, in a large town,

might probably soon arise to her.

Dora, on her part, felt wretched at the idea that her beloved friend

should have need of her little services and find them not; but she tried

to cheer herself by the remembrance of Eliza Sydenham’s kindness, and

when the first gust of sorrow was past, endeavoured to subdue all

repugnance, to consider cheerful obedience as the test of her faith, the

just submission to her heavenly Father, exacted by her earthly parents,

towards whom she looked with the more affection the nearer she

approached them.

When at last she reached the place of her birth, these emotions became

almost too much for her, and it is scarcely possible to describe her

jarring sensations, when the first words that broke on her ear, was loud

reproof to the servant who attended her, from a tall, thin, but

gentlemanly looking person, whom she justly concluded to be her father,

and whose pleasure, (if he had any,) in receiving her, was not

sufficient to balance the vexation he experienced in finding she had

been detained an hour beyond the time he had expected her.

Turning from the man, he at length addressed her, with—

“Well, Dolly,—you’re sadly tired, I suppose; come along—your mother

and Catharine are gone to the play, but you shall have some tea

presently.”

As he spoke, he took her by the hand, and kissed her cheek: timid as

Dora was, and struck as she had been by his first address, her heart was

moved; she threw her arm round his neck, and said tenderly, “dear, dear

father.”

Scarcely was she seated, when a shrill voice was heard, saying, “I will

go in, I will see my new sister;” and immediately a pale, but very

pretty boy, in a flannel dressing gown, startled Dora by appearing

before her.

It was very evident, from the gentle manners of the father to this his

darling child, as well as from his own style of behaviour, that this

child was the indulged Idol of the family. He looked earnestly, yet

kindly at Dora, asked her various questions, and at length said with an

air of patronage, very inconsistent with the dependance indicated by his

sickly looks,

“I shall love you, I am sure, very much, for you are not proud like

Catharine, nor cross like Louisa, and not tired of me as Mama is,—have

you brought me any thing?”

“I will give you some pretty books, and some sea-shells, in the morning,

my dear.”

“You are a good sister;—they sha’nt call you Welsh woman, nor Dolly

Downe, nor heiress, that they sha’nt.”

Mr. Hemingford interposed now, to persuade him to go to bed, which was a

little resisted, in the usual style of spoiled children; but when Dora

joined in the intreaty, he complied.

“You had better follow his example, child, for there is no saying when

Mrs. Hemingford will be at home,” said the father, very soon, and Dora

obeyed, for she was exhausted less by the fatigue she had undergone,

than the grief she had suffered; the surprise, and pain, she felt in

finding her mother and sister so engaged, was very great, and she wished

to hide it from her father.

Dora was greeted by Frank’s voice on her awaking:—she jumped out of

bed, aware that she had slept late, and expecting to see her mother

enter every moment; but no such interruption took place: at the door,

the little hand of Frank, (who had been long waiting for her,) eagerly

clasped hers, and a sense of the sweetness of fraternal ties, soothed

and consoled her heart; and she descended with an open countenance and

confiding mind.

Mr. and Mrs. Hemingford, their two daughters, and a visitant, were at

breakfast, seated round a table where Catharine presided; and as all the

ladies were in black, Dora, on casting her eyes round, saw so little

distinction in their appearance, that she could not fix on any one, whom

she thought old enough to be her mother:—the mistake was a happy one;

it procured a kind kiss from the lady in question, but the salutes of

the sisters were alike cold and ceremonious.

Mrs. Hemingford, notwithstanding the births and burials which made up

the history of her life for the last twenty years, (which, together with

increased irritability in her husband’s temper, arising from many

misfortunes and great cause for care and depression, might have

subjected her to anxiety and exertion,) yet preserved her pretty face,

and smart little person, wonderfully unimpaired. She was sufficiently

en bon point to preserve her fair, smooth skin, without a wrinkle; and

possessed, in a singular degree, the voice of early life, and a

propensity to a kind of chuckling laugh, which in her school days had

gained her the bye name of “giggling Kitty.” Her dress was precisely the

same with that of her daughters, and was alike elegant and becoming:—in

fact, to adorn herself, her daughters, and her house, had been