Patience, Barbara Hofland [readict books TXT] 📗

talents and her conduct, (aided undoubtedly by her person, manners, and

reputed fortune,) had drawn around them a circle of respectable and

accomplished persons, whose good opinion he was desirous of preserving;

and although his passion for Dora had declined, his esteem for her, and

his desire of holding his place in her affection, rose daily. He was

proud of being appreciated by a person of her discernment, and that

vanity which had formerly led him to seek distinction for his personal

advantages, or those accomplishments which attract the eye, now turned a

little towards more worthy objects; and those faculties with which he

was eminently gifted by nature, were partially applied to objects worthy

of their powers.

Though subject to indolence, and habituated from his cradle to

self-indulgence, yet few men were more capable of either mental or

bodily exertion than Stancliffe; he had the power of being rapid without

confusion, and of comprehending quickly, and yet proceeding

systematically, to any given point. His memory was singularly retentive;

and whatever he had taken the trouble to learn, whether momentous or

trifling, was so fixed in his mind, that he could always bring it into

action. From his father he had acquired the knowledge necessary for

great gains, and bold yet not gambling speculations:—from his mother,

he picked up a habit of petty savings, inconsistent with his situation

in life and his general habits, but which to the short-sighted looked

like prudence. Altogether, there were those ingredients from which a

clever tradesman, an useful member of society, and a very agreeable

companion, might be extracted, could they have been amalgamated with

religious integrity of principle, well regulated sensibility, and

domestic affection.

In the first weeks of his married life, Stancliffe had paid his young

and lovely wife attentions which bespoke the violence of his passion,

since they proved that he really thought more of her than himself:—the

admiration she excited in society, for a time continued to render her an

object of his care, because she was one of his pride, and even at the

time when he had most wounded her feelings by reflections on her

parents, or quarrels with the servants, during the former part of the

day, in the evening he hovered round her with the pride of an admirer,

and the tenderness of a lover—he felt her value as his own property,

and was delighted to display his own advantages in her beauty and

accomplishments.

But as passion for her person declined, and the novelty of exhibiting

her lost its charm, Everton Stancliffe relapsed into his former self, a

character in which Dora had never beheld him, since love had from the

first day of their acquaintance given to him its own ameliorating

traits, and transformed a clever, but conceited and petulant young man,

selfish in his feelings, and obstinate as passionate in his temper, into

a gentle though impatient suitor, who, in subduing one passion for the

gratification of another, obtained the praise of generosity, to which he

had in fact little pretension, since the welfare of her he loved was no

further considered by him, than as conducive to the interest he sought

to obtain in her affections.

Dora of course saw none of these things—she loved, for the first

time, an apparently amiable young man, who had in his person, manners,

and mind, every qualification necessary to excite the regard of an

intelligent and tender heart, thrown upon the mercy of any one for that

kindly intercourse from which it had been cruelly separated. It is,

however, certain, that the trials of her father’s house were of great

use in preparing her mind for those she soon afterwards experienced in

the temper and disposition of her husband; since they enabled her to

perceive that life in general is very different from that she had known

at Crickhowel, and that the religion which she had been taught to

embrace there as the great support of virtue, and the consolation of the

afflicted, must henceforward be rendered an active principle, constant

in its influence. Every lesson she had received from Mrs. Aylmer rose to

her mind, and she endeavoured to benefit from them; but they rarely

applied to any situation in which she found herself placed, save as the

guardian of Frank, for Mrs. Aylmer as a wife had been very differently

placed, nor had her path in the world in any way resembled that which

was chalked out for her beloved prot�g�. Yet her return to England,

her presence, her support, her advice, was soon looked to by Dora as the

greatest of all earthly blessings, for she felt the want of a friend,

sometimes of a protector since the heart on which she sought to lean,

refused or eluded the burthen.

CHAP. VI.

Stancliffe was in the situation of being half persuaded to do right,

from liking the praise which attended it, and also the profit likely to

accrue from it, when letters were received from Mr. Hemingford, which

plainly indicated how valuable his presence had already become, since

they contained important remittances, and guaranteed orders to an amount

which roused the young man into instant activity, by awakening not only

his love for money, but for pre-eminence as a mercantile man.

Dora rejoiced in the change; for although she would have been most

thankful if the even tenor of her way had never been broken in upon by

commercial concerns, and certainly had no love for money beyond its real

uses, yet she justly considered a life of idleness as unworthy a

rational being, and especially disgusting in a young man. She thought,

too, that the sensibilities of the heart were frozen in that state of

apathy produced by indolence, and that love and kindness would return

with those exertions which set the spirits in motion; and although she

was extremely unwell, (and in particular anxiety on Frank’s account,)

she yet paid the utmost attention to all the subjects on which her

husband expatiated, and assumed the utmost interest in all his

movements.

Their letters were succeeded by visitants—the same vessel which brought

these despatches conveyed also a Mr. and Mrs. Masterman, who had been

the intimate friends of Mr. Stancliffe during a considerable part of his

residence abroad. The gentleman had been a well-meaning but somewhat

visionary schemer, who after various plans returned poorer than he set

out in pocket, but according to his own conception, so much richer in

knowledge and experience, as to ensure the making of a rapid fortune in

his own country. He was a plain kind-hearted man, a generous, confiding,

and most affectionate husband, generally too much absorbed in his plans

for the future, to pay further attention to his domestic concerns than

to provide liberally for the many wants of his beautiful and

all-commanding wife.

Mrs. Masterman was that dangerous character in society, a married

coquette, which she assumed under an appearance of prudery, so artfully

managed, as to deceive the most wary; and every man distinguished by her

smiles, gave himself credit for having been the only one who could touch

a heart so guarded. She was married when very young, from a humble

station in life, and being uneducated, unattached, and remaining

childless, had possessed an unhappy leisure which she could only employ

in ornamenting her person, which was very handsome, and in amusing

herself by practising those lures which render beauty most fascinating

to the susceptible and thoughtless. Exercise of power had its usual

effect; she became proud, tyrannical, and frequently malignant, towards

others; and was, in her turn, a slave to passions it was the great and

distressing business of her life to indulge and to conceal. No stage

Abigail in the old comedy could be more a woman of intrigue; but with

ability to which they could form no pretence, no shepherdess in a

pastoral poem preserved a more innocent exterior or greater purity of

deportment.

On her first arrival at Smyrna, Mrs. Masterman had distinguished

Everton Stancliffe; and as circumstances threw them much into society

together, and she was the admired of all eyes, his vanity could not fail

to be gratified by her simplest approbation. He was considerably younger

than her, (although her ceaseless cares prolonged the reign of beauty,)

and his admiration of her person was not that thraldom of the senses,

and bewilderment of the judgment, she had been accustomed to awaken—she

became piqued into a resolution to perfect her conquest, and would

unquestionably have carried her point, but for the sudden removal of her

husband, and the necessity she was under of accompanying him to Aleppo.

On her return, Stancliffe was gone to England, and thither she

determined on following him; and although generally true to the

interests of her husband, if false to him in other respects, (like the

wife of Belisarius,) she did not hesitate to sacrifice them in the

present instance; and by working upon his affections from feigning

indisposition, she prevailed on him to give up his prospects and the

remuneration of past labours, and return suddenly to his native

country.

The voyage restored her health, and reanimated her beauty; and she burst

upon Stancliffe with all the advantages of an adept in the art of

charming, at a time when his wife was inevitably looking ill, and was

languid in her spirits though not dejected, of course unequal to the

amusement of a man whose temper varying perpetually, either required a

companion who could perform for his pleasure the part assigned, or

listen in mute attention to him. He was pleased with the accession of

company, as offering variety, and was doubly pleased to receive it in so

fair a form as that presented by the arrival of Mrs. Masterman.

The gentleness of Dora’s manners, the polished simplicity, and the

genuine warmth of her hospitable reception of the strangers, who brought

with them letters from her mother and sisters, really delighted Mr.

Masterman, and half disarmed his lady of those designs she had conceived

against her domestic happiness; the more especially when she perceived

that her own person and dress were regarded by Stancliffe with the

admiration and homage she intended them to exact. Mild, and insinuating

in her manners, of penetrating mind, and stored with observations which

supplied the place of reading, and were communicated with a vividness of

colouring fresh from the life, her society was delightful to Frank, and

scarcely less so to his sister, who was mortified when she refused to

take up her abode with them altogether, and gladly assisted in seeking

lodgings as near to her own house as possible for her temporary home.

A very few days sufficed to render Dora happy in the belief that she had

now secured the friend she had long desired; but a few more told her

that her husband, not less happy than herself, gave up to the strangers

that time which was now of the last importance, and that the hours spent

with Mr. Masterman in consultations on his affairs, or in shewing the

neighbourhood to his lady, were really too valuable at this particular

time even for friendship to demand. Every day she hoped that a person so

truly friendly as this lady appeared to be, would herself see the

propriety of setting him at liberty, and that as she evidently could say

more to him than any other person, she would give him advice to this

end. Mrs. Masterman did not do this; but when in confidential

conversation, she urged it on her young friend as a positive duty.

“Really, dear Mrs. Stancliffe, you ought to speak to Mr. S.—I know very

well that if the goods are not sent out immediately, your father will be

in the greatest distress, and the prospects of the house are now so

great, that you ought not to