something winning, engaging, brightening, like a sunbeam. It was a refreshment to meet with one who would lament him for his own sake, and had no congratulations for Philip himself; and the 'Sure, sure, it must have been very bad for you,' with which old Susan heard of the circumstances, carried more of the comfort of genuine sympathy than all his sister's attempts at condolence.
She told him how often Sir Guy had been at Stylehurst, how he had talked to her about the archdeacon; and especially she remembered his helping her husband one day when he found him trimming the ash over the archdeacon's grave. He used to come very often to church there, more in the latter part of his stay; there was one Sunday--it was the one before Michaelmas--he was there all day, walking in the churchyard, and sitting in the porch between services.
'The Sunday before Michaelmas!' thought Philip, the very time when he had been most earnest in driving his uncle to persecute, and delighting himself in having triumphed over Guy at last, and obtained tangible demonstration of his own foresight, and his cousin's vindictive spirit. What had he been throwing away? Where had, in truth, been the hostile spirit?
He took the key of the church, and walked thither alone, standing for several minutes by the three graves, with a sensation as if his father was demanding of him an account of the boy he had watched, and brought to his ancestral home, and cared for through his orphaned childhood. But for the prayer-book, the pledge that there had been peace at the last, how could he have borne it?
Here was the paved path he had trodden in early childhood, holding his mother's hand, where, at each recurring vacation during his school days, he had walked between his admiring sisters, in the consciousness that he was the pride of his family and of all the parish. Of his family? Did he not remember his return home for the last time before that when he was summoned thither by his father's death? He had come with a whole freight of prizes, and letters full of praises; and as he stood, in expectation of the expression of delighted satisfaction, his father laid his hand on his trophy, the pile of books, saying, gravely,--' All this would I give, Philip, for one evidence of humility of mind.'
It had been his father's one reproof. He had thought it unjust and unreasonable, and turned away impatiently to be caressed and admired by Margaret. His real feelings had been told to her, because she flattered them and shared them, he had been reserved and guarded with the father who would have perceived and repressed that ambition and the self-sufficiency which he himself had never known to exist, nor regarded as aught but sober truth. It had been his bane, that he had been always too sensible to betray outwardly his self-conceit, in any form that could lead to its being noticed.
He opened the church door, closed it behind him, and locked himself in.
He came up to the communion rail, where he had knelt for the first time twelve years ago, confident in himself, and unconscious of the fears with which his father's voice was trembling in the intensity of his prayer for one in whom there was no tangible evil, and whom others thought a pattern of all that could be desired by the fondest hopes.
He knelt down, with bowed head, and hands clasped. Assuredly, if his father could have beheld him then, it would have been with rejoicing. He would not have sorrowed that robust frame was wasted, and great strength brought low; that the noble features were worn, the healthful cheek pale, and the powerful intellect clouded and weakened; he would hardly have mourned for the cruel grief and suffering, such would have been his joy that the humble, penitent, obedient heart had been won at last. Above all, he would have rejoiced that the words that most soothed that wounded spirit were,--'A broken and contrite heart, 0 God, Thou wilt not despise.'
There was solace in that solemn silence; the throbs of head and heart were stilled in the calm around. It was as if the influences of the prayers breathed for him by his father, and the forgiveness and loving spirit there won by Guy, had been waiting for him there till he came to take them up, for thenceforth the bitterest of his despair was over, and he could receive each token of Amabel's forgiveness, not as heaped coals of fire, but as an earnest of forgiveness sealed in heaven.
The worst was over, and though he still had much to suffer, he was becoming open to receive comfort; the blank dark remorse in which he had been living began to lighten, and the tone of his mind to return.
He spoke more cheerfully to Susan when he restored the key; but she had been so shocked at his appearance, that when, the next day, a report reached her that Mr. Philip was now a grand gentleman, and very rich, she answered,--
'Well, if it be so, I am glad of it, but he said never a word of it to me, and it is my belief he would give all the money as ever was coined, to have the poor young gentleman back again. Depend upon it, he hates the very sound of it.'
At the cost of several sheets of paper, Philip at length completed a letter to Mr. Edmonstone, which, when he had sent it, made his suspense more painful.
'St. Mildred's, March 12th.
'MY DEAR MR. Edmonstone,--It is with a full sense of the unfitness of intruding such a subject upon you in the present state of the family, that I again address you on the same topic as that on which I wrote to you from Italy, at the first moment at which I have felt it possible to ask your attention. I was then too ill to be able to express my contrition for all that has passed; in fact, I doubt whether it was even then so deep as at present, since every succeeding week has but added to my sense of the impropriety of my conduct, and my earnest desire for pardon. I can hardly venture at such a time to ask anything further, but I must add that my sentiments towards your daughter are unaltered, and can never cease but with my life, and though I know I have rendered myself unworthy of her, and my health, both mental and bodily, is far from being re-established, I cannot help laying my feelings before you, and entreating that you will put an end to the suspense which has endured for so many months, by telling me to hope that I have not for ever forfeited your consent to my attachment. At least, I trust to your kindness for telling me on what terms I am for the present to stand with your family. I am glad to hear such favourable reports of Lady Morville, and with all my heart I thank Charles for his letter.
'Yours ever affectionately, 'P. H. MORVILLE.'
He ardently watched for a reply. He could not endure the idea of receiving it where Margaret's eyes could scan the emotion he could now only conceal by a visible rigidity of demeanour, and he daily went himself to the post- office, but in vain. He received nothing but business letters, and among them one from Markham, with as much defiance and dislike in its style as could be shown, in a perfectly formal, proper letter. Till he had referred to Lady Morville, he would not make any demonstration towards Redclyffe, and evaded all his sister's questions as to what he was doing about it, and when he should take measures for leaving the army, or obtaining a renewal of the baronetcy.
Anxiety made him look daily more wretchedly haggard; the Doctor was at fault, Mrs. Henley looked sagacious, while his manner became so dry and repellent that visitors went away moralizing on the absurdity of 'nouveaux riches' taking so much state on them.
He wondered how soon he might venture to write to Amabel, on whom alone he could depend; but he felt it a sort of profanity to disturb her.
He had nearly given up his visits to the post in despair, when one morning he beheld what never failed to bring some soothing influence, namely, the fair pointed characters he had not dared to hope for. He walked quickly into the promenade, sat down, and read:--
'Hollywell, March 22nd.
'MY DEAR PHILIP,--Papa does not answer your letter, because he says speaking is better than writing, and we hope you are well enough to come to us before Sunday week. I hope to take our dear little girl to be christened on that day, and I want you to be so kind as to be her godfather. I ask it of you, not only in my own name, but in her father's, for I am sure it is what he would choose. Her Aunt Laura and Mary Ross are to be her godmothers, I hope you will not think me very foolish and fanciful for naming her Mary Verena, in remembrance of our old readings of Sintram. She is a very healthy, quiet creature, and I am getting on very well. I am writing from the dressing-room, and I expect to be down-stairs in a few days. If you do not dislike it very much, could you be so kind as to call upon Miss Wellwood, and pay little Marianne Dixon's quarter for me? It is £10, and it will save trouble if you would do it; besides that, I should like to hear of her and the little girl. I am sorry to hear you are not better,--perhaps coming here may do you good.--Four o'clock. I have been keeping my letter in hopes of persuading papa to put in a note, but he says he had rather send a message that he is quite ready to forgive and forget, and it will be best to talk it over when you come.'
'Your affectionate cousin, 'A. F. MORVILLE.'
