Patience, Barbara Hofland [readict books TXT] 📗

the more struck with the charm of a fine complection,

from being accustomed so long to the yellow hues of the Asiatic. Before

poor Mrs. Hemingford returned home to exhibit his destined bride, he

“was gone whole ages in love” with that daughter whom she had

predetermined should never marry.

 

The consequences may be easily foreseen; new anger at the innocent cause

of this mischief, manifested by every species of unkindness, not only

from the females of the family, but frequently from her father also,

whose wishes were thwarted, and whose schemes were crossed, rendered her

life so wretched, that she was naturally drawn to look with more than

common regard on the only person who approached her with approbation on

his lip, and kindness in his eye: and had Stancliffe been much less

handsome and agreeable than he really was, under such circumstances he

could hardly have failed to make an impression.

 

Dora was too artless to disguise her feelings from people evidently

interested in them, beyond what the state of the case warranted; and as

soon as Mrs. Hemingford perceived that she was, to use her own phrase,

“growing worse every day,” she suddenly proposed sending her immediately

to Mrs. Aylmer, a resolution poor Dora now heard with as much pain, as

she would formerly have hailed it with gratitude and delight.

 

Yet happy, thrice happy, would it have been for her if this

determination could have been acted upon; but most unfortunately, even

whilst they were in consultation on the subject, a letter arrived from

Mrs. Aylmer, saying, that finding hitherto little advantage, she had

been induced to go further south, and was then setting out for Italy,

from whence she would write as soon as she was settled; but intreated

her dear Dora not to distress herself, if her future movements should

prove for some time a bar to their correspondence.

 

The vexation experienced by Mrs. Hemingford on this occasion, overcame

the small portion of prudence she was mistress of; and she lamented the

circumstance so loudly, that it caught the lover’s ears, who was by no

means deficient either in penetration or resolution—dreading some other

scheme, and aware by this time of every thing hoped or feared by the

father, he determined to secure Dora by a speedy marriage; and since her

ardent desire to consult Mrs. Aylmer was now necessarily over-ruled, he

considered that the parents might be easily managed.

 

Whatever the conversation was which now took place between the partners,

two portions of it only transpired; the first, “that their articles of

partnership were to be renewed for seven years;” the second, “that

Dorothy was to be married on the same day when the agreement was

signed;” and the union, of late so abhorred, was now pushed with an

avidity utterly repugnant to the delicacy of Dora, and decidedly

subversive of that long and intimate acquaintance with each other’s

principles, tempers, opinions, and habits, which ought to form the basis

of a connection, in which happiness and misery, time and eternity, are

alike involved.

 

CHAP. IV.

 

Dora spent the first week of her marriage at Buxton, and in its

beautiful vicinity renewed the pleasure she was wont to find in the wild

romantic scenery of Wales. Stancliffe admired it also, but it was rather

with the sympathy of a lover, than from natural taste; and when he

proposed returning to their own house, Dora gladly relinquished her

temporary amusements.

 

The day after their arrival at home, a gentleman of somewhat stately

appearance and precise address, called at the house, and enquired

pointedly for its mistress—on delivering the message, the servant

seemed so impressed with the importance of this person, that he conveyed

his sense of it to the young couple, and they entered the drawing-room

to receive the stranger together.

 

For some moments he fixed on Dora a scrutinizing eye, which by degrees

relaxed in its expression, as he addressed her with the enquiry of—

 

“Pray, young lady, is your name Dorothy Downe Rose Hemingford?”

 

“That was my name, Sir, but I am married now.”

 

“Married—um—married! and without once consulting, or even informing

me.”

 

“You, Sir!” said Dora with surprise.

 

“You, Sir!” exclaimed Stancliffe, fiercely.

 

“Yes, me, Sir;” returned the interrogator, with a look of calm

contempt, which subdued the rising anger of the husband by the

astonishment it produced.—“My name is Blackwell, Sir; I am the sole

trustee of the will of Mrs. Dorothy Downe, and of course a person of

some importance to this lady, Sir; and depend upon it if I find her

settlement is not equal to her expectations, I shall exert the full

power with which that will invests me.”

 

“I am an entire stranger to all you speak of,” replied Stancliffe,

truly, looking at the same time to Dora. “And I am sure I am,” said she.

 

“Then, Sir,” said Mr. Blackwell, “send your carriage for Mr. Hemingford

immediately.”

 

“I can send my servant,” said Stancliffe, significantly.

 

“Hold! perhaps I had better look a little farther into this affair

without him:—may I ask what fortune you received with your wife?”

 

“None—but I may be said to have given one, since I agreed to take her

father into partnership again, and have, in fact, renewed the bond which

existed between us.”

 

“And he made no mention of her property?”

 

“None—he spoke much of her expectations, which I understood as

applying to the lady with whom she has resided, and of which I thought

nothing, because I found she was a good looking widow, travelling on the

Continent, of course very likely to find a husband.”

 

“Um—um—um,” was for some minutes the reply of the stranger; but after

due deliberation, he said, “Then this young lady has no settlement?”

 

“She has not from me, certainly:—but if it should turn out that she has

property—and if the matter could be done—I should not object”—

 

“Sir, she has property,—considerable property, after she arrives at

the age of twenty-five; till which time, both principal and interest

are solely at my disposal. If her brother dies before the age of

twenty-one, she becomes sole inheritrix; if she dies childless before

twenty-five, he is her heir; but in any case, the property she may hold

from Mrs. Downe, is subject exclusively to her own controul; for the old

lady, as a single woman, was a mighty stickler for the rights of the

sex, and determined that no husband should usurp power over her estate;

of course a settlement is little called for, but under particular

circumstances might have been desirable.”

 

“Oh! I want no settlements,” said Dora, eagerly pressing the hand of her

beloved husband, with eyes that told him how she rejoiced in being

enabled to give him a fortune; yet her mind could not forbear to

glance a painfully retrospective view on the conduct of her parents, and

their mysterious silence.

 

“Pray, Sir,” said Stancliffe, “did Mrs. Downe leave her whole property

to Dora and Frank?”

 

“No, Sir, she left many small legacies besides.”

 

“Did she die worth much, Sir?”

 

“That question depends upon what is deemed much; if you mean to ask

how much she died worth, I answer that at the proper time, I must

abide by my accounts—you will of course see the will, and learn that

during the minority of the parties, my power is absolute in every

point.”

 

“Then you allow no income during that time?”

 

“My allowance depends on my pleasure; I have hitherto paid that young

lady three hundred pounds per annum, and did propose increasing it to

five, when she became of age, i. e. twenty-one.”

 

It was now evident to Dora, why she had been sent for to her father’s

house—why, when there, she was shut out of society, and more

especially, why she gave offence in becoming the chosen of her husband;

since it was certain, that if they had been compelled to relinquish

business, whilst they retained Frank and her with them, they would be

enabled to live genteelly; but her heart naturally revolted against the

unkindness, and selfishness, which had actuated their conduct towards

her; and she was especially hurt with the secrecy which had been

observed in an affair of so much importance towards a person so

remarkably open and ingenuous as herself:—this observation was the

only one which escaped her in the way of blame.

 

Mr. Blackwell reprobated this conduct strongly; but he said it was

certain, “that even in her will, Mrs. Dorothy had herself expressed a

desire that the young people should not be acquainted with their affairs

till they had arrived at years of discretion,” which furnished some

excuse for them, although it might truly be said, “that if their

daughter was not discreet enough to know her expectations, she certainly

was very unfit for the awful situation in which she had taken upon

herself duties of the highest responsibility.”

 

Dora heard of this clause with the greatest pleasure, because it formed

an excuse for the conduct of those she yet earnestly desired to love and

honour; but in the eyes of Everton it formed not the shadow of apology;

and long after the stranger had departed, he continued to inveigh

against her parents so bitterly, and point out so many ways in which he

was determined to mortify or injure them, in return for what he with

great justice termed their unwarrantable conduct, that poor Dora

became so alarmed and wretched, that all the value of her new found

wealth vanished from her eyes, and she felt only as if entering on a

scene of anxiety and disquietude for which her spirits were utterly

unprepared and inadequate.

 

CHAP. V.

 

Mr. Blackwell, the trustee of Mrs. Dorothy Downe, was now a country

gentleman, but had formerly been a practitioner of the law in the

metropolis; on which account, added to his well known integrity, his

retired habits, competent fortune, and bachelor state, she had justly

considered him a fit person to execute a delicate and singular trust:

for it was a remarkable fact, that she disliked both the parents of the

children to whom she bequeathed her handsome fortune, and of the

children themselves it might be said, “that she knew nothing of the one,

and it was her firm belief the other would not live.”

 

Her predilection in favour of Dorothy arose partly, perhaps, because she

bore her name; but principally, as she frequently declared, that, being

educated at a distance from her family, there was reason to suppose she

might escape their faults:—she also hoped, that she would either not

marry at all, or unite herself with some country gentleman, and become

the mother of a family who would support the estates she bequeathed, in

a style of independence and respectability suitable to the ancestors

from which they were derived, and far removed from that world of

commerce, whose triumphs she ridiculed, and whose wealth she despised.

 

Mr. Blackwell was her nearest neighbour, and although about ten years

her junior, was so generally of her way of thinking on all worldly

subjects, and so much amused by her caustic observations, that he

entered into all her intentions for the future, and became even

interested in her plans of benefiting persons to whom he was an utter

stranger; and it was in consequence of this interest, that she placed

his power of action as a guardian in a latitude so wide, well knowing

that he was alike from property and principle, beyond temptation, and

that he could, through that means, alone forward her views. Upon her

death, Mr. Hemingford had been summoned by him to attend her funeral,

and had thence conceived that a