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Vicar of Wrexhill, The

<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> <h3>CHARLES'S AMUSEMENT AT HIS SISTER'S APPEARANCE.—HE DISCUSSES HER CASE WITH ROSALIND.</h3> Rosalind and Fanny entered the drawing-room together; and young Mowbray, at the sound of their approach, sprang forward to meet them; but the moment he threw his eyes on his sister he burst forth into a fit of uncontrollable laughter; and though he kissed her again and again, still, between every embrace, he broke out anew, with every demonstration of vehement mirth. "I am very glad to see you, Charles," said Fanny, with a little sanctified air that certainly was very amusing; "but I should like it better if you did not laugh at me." "But, my dear, dear, dearest child! how can I help it?" replied her brother, again bursting into renewed laughter. "Oh, Fanny, if you could but see yourself just as you look at this moment! Oh! you hideous little quiz! I would not have believed it possible that any plastering or shearing in the world could have made you look so very ugly. Is it not wonderful, Miss Torrington?" "It certainly alters the expression of her countenance in a very remarkable manner," replied Rosalind. "The expression of a countenance may be changed by an alteration from within, as well as from without," said Fanny, taking courage, and not without some little feeling of that complacency which the persuasion of superior sanctity is generally observed to bestow upon its possessors. "Why, you most ugly little beauty!" cried Charles, again giving way to merriment; "you don't mean to tell me that the impayable absurdity of that poor little face is owing to any thing but your having just washed your hair?" "It is owing to conviction, Charles," replied Fanny with great solemnity. "Owing to conviction?—To conviction of what, my poor little girl?" "To conviction that it is right, brother." "Right, child, to make that object of yourself? What in the world can you mean, Fanny?" "I mean, brother, that I have an inward conviction of the sin and folly of dressing our mortal clay to attract the eyes and the admiration of the worldly." "By worldly, do you mean of all the world?" said Rosalind. "No, Miss Torrington. By worldly, I mean those whose thoughts and wishes are fixed on the things of the earth." "And it is the admiration of such only that you wish to avoid?" rejoined Rosalind. "Certainly it is. Spiritual-minded persons see all things in the spirit—do all things in the spirit: of such there is nothing to fear." Young Mowbray meanwhile stood looking at his sister, and listening to her words with the most earnest attention. At length he said, more seriously than he had yet spoken, "To tell you the truth, little puritan, I do not like you at all in your new masquerading suit: though it must be confessed that you play your part well. I don't want to begin lecturing you, Fanny, the moment I come home; but I do hope you will soon get tired of this foolery, and let me see my poor father's daughter look and behave as a Christian young woman ought to do. Rosalind, will you take a walk with me? I want to have a look at my old pony." Miss Torrington nodded her assent, and they both left the room together, leaving Fanny more triumphant than mortified. "He said that my persecutions would begin as soon as my election was made sure! Oh! why is he not here to sustain and comfort me! But I will not fall away in the hour of trial!" The poor girl turned her eyes from the window whence she saw her brother and Rosalind walking gaily and happily, as she thought, in search of the old pony, and hastened to take refuge in her dressing-room, now rendered almost sacred in her eyes by the pastoral visit she had that morning received there. The following hour or two gave Fanny her first taste of martyrdom. She was, or at least had been, devotedly attached to her brother, and the knowing him to be so near, yet so distant from her, was terrible. Yet was she not altogether without consolation. She opened the volume, that volume that he had so lately interpreted to her (fearful profanation!) in such a manner as best to suit his own views, and by means of using the process he had taught her, though unconsciously perhaps, she contrived to find a multitude of texts, all proving that she and the vicar were quite right, and all the countless myriads who thought differently, quite wrong. Then followed a thanksgiving which might have been fairly expressed in such words as "I thank thee, I am not like other men!" and then, as the sweet summer air waved the acacias to and fro before her windows, and her young spirit, panting for lawns and groves, sunshine and shade, suggested the idea of her brother and Rosalind enjoying it all without her, her poetical vein came to her relief, and she sat down to compose a hymn, in which, after rehearsing prettily enough all the delights of summer rambles through verdant fields, for four stanzas, she completed the composition by a fifth, of which "sin," "begin," and "within," formed the rhymes. This having recourse to "song divine" was a happy thought for her, inasmuch as it not only occupied time which must otherwise have hung with overwhelming weight upon her hands, but the employment soon conjured up, as she proceeded, the image of Mr. Cartwright, and the pious smile with which he would receive it from her hands, and the soft approval spoken more by the eyes than the lips, and the holy caress—such, according to his authority, as that with which angel meets angel in the courts of heaven. All this was very pleasant and consoling to her feelings; and when her hymn was finished she determined to go down stairs, in order to sing it to some (hitherto) profane air, which she might select from among the songs of her sinful youth. As she passed the mirror she again glanced at her disfigured little head; but at that moment she was so strong in "conviction," that, far from wishing to accommodate her new birth of coiffure to worldly eyes, she employed a minute or two in sedulously smoothing and controlling her rebellious tresses, and even held her head in stiff equilibrium to prevent their escape from behind her ears. "Good and holy man!" she exclaimed aloud, as she gave a parting glance at the result of all these little pious coquetries. "How well I know what his kind words would be if he could see me now! Such" she added with a gentle sigh, "will I strive to be, though all the world should join together to persecute me for it." While Mr. Cartwright's prettiest convert was thus employed, Miss Torrington and Charles Mowbray, far from being engaged in chasing a pony, or even in looking at the summer luxury of bloom which breathed around them as they pursued their way through the pleasure-grounds, were very gravely discussing the symptoms of her case. "It is a joke, Rosalind, and nothing more," said the young man, drawing her arm within his. "I really can do nothing but laugh at such folly, and I beg and entreat that you will do the same." "Then you think, of course, Mr. Mowbray, that I have been supremely absurd in sending you the summons I did?" "Far, very far otherwise," he replied gravely. "It has shown me a new feature in your character, Miss Torrington, and one which not to admire would be a sin, worse even than poor Mr. Cartwright would consider your wearing these pretty ringlets, Rosalind." "Poor Mr. Cartwright!" repeated Rosalind, drawing away her arm. "How little do we think alike, Mr. Mowbray, concerning that man!" "The chief difference between us on the subject, I suspect arises from your thinking of him a great deal, Rosalind, and my thinking of him very little. I should certainly, if I set about reasoning on the matter, feel considerable contempt for a middle-aged clergyman of the Church of England who manifested his care of the souls committed to his charge by making their little bodies comb their hair straight, for the pleasure of saying that it was done upon conviction. But surely there is more room for mirth than sorrow in this." "Indeed, indeed, you are mistaken!—and that not only as regards the individual interests of your sister Fanny,—though, Heaven knows, I think that no light matter,—but as a subject that must be interesting to every Christian soul that lives. Do not make a jest of what involves by far the most important question that can be brought before poor mortals: it is unworthy of you, Mr. Mowbray." "If you take the subject in its general character," replied Charles, "I am sure we shall not differ. I deplore as sincerely as you can do, Miss Torrington, the grievously schismatic inroad into our national church which these self-chosen apostles have made. But as one objection against them, though perhaps not the heaviest, is the contempt which their absurd puritanical ordinances have often brought upon serious things, I cannot but think that ridicule is a fair weapon to lash them withal." "It may be so," replied Rosalind, "and in truth it is often impossible to avoid using it; but yet it does not follow that the deeds and doctrines of these soi-disant saints give more room for mirth than sorrow." "Well, Rosalind, give me your arm again, and I will speak more seriously. The very preposterous and ludicrous manner which Fanny, or her spiritual adviser, has chosen for showing forth her own particular regeneration, has perhaps led me to treat it more slightly than I should have done had the indications of this temporary perversion of judgment been of a more serious character. That is doubtless one reason for the mirth I have shown. Another is, that I conceive it would be more easy to draw poor little Fanny back again into the bosom of Mother Church by laughing at her, rather than by making her believe herself a martyr." "Your laughter is a species of martyrdom which she will be taught to glory in enduring. But at present I feel sure that all our discussions on this topic must be in vain. I rejoice that you are here, though it is plain that you do not think her situation requires your presence; and I will ask no further submission of your judgment to mine, than requesting that you will not leave Mowbray till your mother returns." "Be assured I will not; and be assured also, that however much it is possible we may differ as to the actual atrocity of this new vicar, or the danger Fanny runs in listening to him, I shall never cease to be grateful, dearest Miss Torrington, for the interest you have shown for her, and indeed for us all." "Acquit me of silly interference," replied Rosalind, colouring, "and I will acquit you of all obligation." "But I don't wish to be acquitted of it," said Charles rather tenderly: "you do not know how much pleasure I have in thinking that you already feel interested about us all!" This was giving exactly the turn to what she had done which poor Rosalind most deprecated. The idea that young Mowbray might imagine she had sent for him from a general feeling of interest for the family, had very nearly prevented her writing at all—and nothing but a sense of duty had conquered the repugnance she felt at doing it. It had not been a little vexing to perceive that he thought lightly of what she considered as so important; and now that in addition to this he appeared to conceive it necessary to return thanks for the interest she had manifested, Rosalind turned away her head, and not without difficulty restrained the tears which were gathering in her eyes from falling. She was not in general slow in finding words to express what she wished to say; but at this moment, though extremely desirous of answering suitably, as she would have herself described the power she wanted, not a syllable would suggest itself which she had courage or inclination to speak: so, hastening her steps towards the house, she murmured, "You are very kind—it is almost time to dress, I believe," and left him. Charles felt that there was something wrong between them, and decided at once very generously that it must be his fault. There is nothing more difficult to trace with a skilful hand than the process by which a young man and maiden often creep into love, without either of them being at all aware at what moment they were first seized with the symptoms. When the parties fall in love, the thing is easy enough to describe: it is a shot, a thunderbolt, a whirlwind, or a storm; nothing can be more broadly evident than their hopes and their ecstasies, their agonies and their fears. But when affection grows unconsciously, and, like a seed of minionette thrown at random, unexpectedly shows itself the sweetest and most valued of the heart's treasures, overpowering by its delicious breath all other fragrance, the case is different. Something very like this creeping process was now going on in the heart of young Mowbray. Rosalind's beauty had appeared to him veiled by a very dark cloud on her first arrival from Ireland: she was weary, heartsick, frightened, and, moreover, dressed in very unbecoming mourning. But as tears gave place to smiles, fears to hopes, and exhausted spirits to light-hearted cheerfulness, he found out that "she was very pretty indeed"—and then, and then, and then, he could not tell how it happened himself, so neither can I; but certain it is, that her letter gave him almost as much pleasure as alarm; and if, after being convinced that there was no danger of Mr. Cartwright's becoming his brother-in-law, he showed a somewhat unbecoming degree of levity in his manner of treating Fanny's case, it must be attributed to the gay happiness he felt at being so unexpectedly called home. As for the heart of Rosalind, if any thing was going on therein at all out of the common way, she certainly was not aware of it. She felt vexed, anxious, out of spirits, as she sought her solitary dressing-room: but it would have been no easy task to persuade her that LOVE had any thing to do with it. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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