The Duke's Sweetheart: A Romance. Dowling Richard

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      Wyechester is not a place of any importance now, save what it draws from its cathedral and its bishop, and the other great dignitaries around the cathedral. If the city disappeared wholly one night the world of England would hardly miss it, provided the cathedral and church dignitaries were spared. It does not manufacture anything; it has no mines near it. No one ever thought of hunting or shooting in the neighbourhood but those who lived in the neighbourhood. The fishing is poor; and the land, although fairly fertile, is not held in much esteem by farmers. It is a faded, washed-out, old cathedral city, surrounded on all sides by an uninteresting country.

      It had one virtue, which, as it concerned only itself, did not spread its fame-it was pious. It was the most pious city in England. It could not, of course, be said with truth that there was no hypocrisy in it; but, speaking relatively, there was very little, much less than in any other city of its size.

      It was pious, and it was severe. To do any wrong there was much worse than to do the same wrong in any other city or town in England. Going to church twice on Sunday regularly for thirty years entitled one to consideration; going once freed one from adverse comment; going only twice a month was looked on as bad, very bad; but not going at all made middle-class people in Wyechester think that the sooner the offender left the diocese the better.

      Five-and-thirty years before the pole of the omnibus went through the door of the Duke of Shropshire's brougham, five-and-thirty years before Edward Graham decided upon painting that landscape revealed to him under the bridge at Anerly, Mrs. Mansfield, widow of the Rev. James Mansfield, lived in Wyechester. The Rev. James Mansfield died very young. He was, at the time of his death, curate to one of the city churches, and was looked upon as a very exemplary and clever young man, who had a career before him. But his career seemed never to have begun, for he died before he was thirty. He left behind him a widow and daughter and about a hundred and fifty pounds a year, from money in the Funds, willed him by an aunt who had the warmest affection for this nephew.

      On this modest income, and about seventy pounds a year coming in from other sources, the widow managed to live quietly, respectably, and to give her daughter a very good education. Five-and-thirty years before what may be taken as the present time of this story, a thing occurred which horrified all Wyechester and bowed down the head of Mrs. Mansfield for ever.

      At that time Harriet Mansfield was on a visit with some friends in the country. One morning Miss Mansfield left the house of the friends she was staying with and did not return. Neither did she go home. After days of anxiety a letter, in the daughter's handwriting, came from London, in which she simply said she had left her home for good, and that there was no chance whatever of her going back.

      Mrs. Mansfield was then forty-three years of age, but, with the flight of her daughter, her life may be said to have closed, although she was living at the time this story opened, being then seventy-eight years of age. She loved her daughter with all the love she was capable of. But she was a hard, cold, stern nature. To her daughter she never showed her love except in rigours, and insisting on doing her own duty by her child, without any sympathetic conception of what effect doing her own duty would have on a gentle, soft, and confiding nature like her daughter's. The result was that the mother did her duty according to her own lights. She endeavoured to bring up her daughter according to her own rigid code, and she justified herself to herself.

      But the daughter had no Spartan nature. She loved pretty things and soft subjects to wear. She was not allowed to keep pets, or to be too familiar with other children. While in the world, and now and then coming in contact for a brief period with pleasant people and grateful things, she was under a discipline as rigid as a convent without any sustaining code; for she did not believe it necessary to be uncomfortable in order to be good. So when love for the first time approached her, and she was from under the immediate eye of her mother, the oppressive goodness of that cathedral city, and the prospect of love and brightness and sunshine and freedom were all presented to her eyes by a man who owned the gift of erratic eloquence, and who was richer than any other man she had ever met, richer than even the bishop, she did not hesitate long. She fled with him. She knew that running away was wrong, but she under-estimated the risk, or indeed did not think there was any risk at all; for she was as simple as a child, and did willingly all things her lover told her, as all her life she had reluctantly obeyed her mother when uncongenial tasks were imposed.

      In that letter from London, a letter dictated by the companion of her flight, she said nothing about him, nothing about marriage. It was therefore plain to the mother that the daughter was not married. So the mother cast the image of her daughter out of her heart, and shut up her heart against her child for ever. All through her widowhood this girl had been the sole source of her secret love and happiness, as far as worldly things were allowed to count in the love and happiness of one who ruled herself by the rule of duty.

      Now that child had become the only source of secret and open reproach to her. Soon after she got that letter everyone in the city knew all about her misfortune, and the neighbours turned up their eyes and held aloft their hands in virtuous shame. Her daughter had disgraced her home, had disgraced the sacred order to which she might be said to belong, had disgraced the city which had given her birth. Into the mother's heart the image of the daughter should come no more. Across the mother's threshold the foot of the daughter should never pass. It was hard to keep the image out always; but no sooner did it gain an entrance than she cast it forth with bitter reproaches against herself for her sinful weakness in holding commune with the only thing which had ever brought shame to her.

      The mother made no steps to follow the daughter. Several people came and offered help. She wanted no help. Her daughter had taken her fate into her own hands, and there matters should rest. She was inflexible. Nothing could move her in the least way.

      Clergymen who had been friends of her husband called and expostulated, and said that it was wrong and sinful of her not to do something to win back the fugitive. But she would not listen to them with patience. She told them she had done her duty by the girl, and the girl had taken herself off, and she, the mother, could not think of receiving her daughter back. They then told her this was not a Christian spirit, and that she must remember the story of the poor Prodigal. And, upon this, she grew angry with them, for it hurt her beyond endurance to hear her daughter, her only child, referred to in such a way. She told them she knew her duty as a Christian as well as anyone, that they ought to be aware she had been under good guidance, the guidance of her husband, for many years, and that she was much obliged to them, but that her mind was made up beyond the chance of change.

      Time proved she could adhere to her resolve, for she never made the least inquiry. Nor did she ever see her child again.

      Harriet Mansfield had behaved very badly. There could be no excuse for her running away as she did. She was weak by nature, and her weakness betrayed her; but her weakness was no justification. Yet her folly had not betrayed her into such a desperate position as her mother imagined. She had run away, and she had run away with a lover; but there the disgrace ended.

      The people with whom Harriet Mansfield was staying when she eloped were Mr. and Mrs. Gore, old friends of Mrs. Mansfield. They were childless, and lived in good style in a comfortable house close by an excellent trout-stream. Mr. Gore went to his office in town close by every day, and came home to a late dinner. During most of the day Mrs. Gore was engaged about domestic affairs, and could give little attention to her guest. This was the first time Harriet had ever been free. It was lovely weather, and she soon found out a few pleasant walks in the neighbourhood. The place was beautiful compared to the dull monotony of the scenery round Wyechester. Her favourite walk was along the banks of this trout-stream, which wound in and out through delightful shady glens and peaceful meadows.

      One day by chance she met here a fine stalwart gentleman fishing. He was more impetuous than careful, and he managed to fix one of the flies of his casting-line in her dress. The hook had to be extracted СКАЧАТЬ