First Love. Mrs. Loudon

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СКАЧАТЬ down, their long black lashes, sweeping his hollow cheeks, might well inspire the beholder with even a painful degree of compassion; yet when, notwithstanding his timidity, he smiled with gratitude and a sense of present pleasure arising from bodily comfort, Frances, at least, could not help thinking him grown already quite a beauty; and she ran to the dining-room door, and entreated her mamma just to come out for a moment and see what a fine child the poor boy was, now that they had washed and dressed him.

      Lord L., hearing her voice, begged permission to follow, but was refused.

      Frances’ absence had, in the meantime, banished the smiles of Edmund, so that Mrs. Montgomery, on entering the housekeeper’s room, exclaimed, with a laugh, patting her daughter on the cheek, “I cannot say much for his beauty, my dear!—But that is no reason why you should not save the life of the poor child,” she added; and, with the tenderness of one accustomed to a mother’s feelings, she stroked his little head. He smiled again, and she continued, “but he may be pretty when he gets fat.”

      “And shall he stay here to get fat, mamma?” asked Frances eagerly.

      “To be sure, my dear,” replied Mrs. Montgomery, “we will never turn the poor little thing out of doors again, while it wants a shelter.” Frances was delighted; caught up both her mother’s hands and kissed them, and then the forehead of her protegé: nor did she leave him till he dropped asleep in a comfortable bed, with her hand in his to give him confidence.

      Frances at length entered the dining-room, just as the domestic party engaged round the table were dispatching a third or fourth summons for her; the second course having by this time made its appearance. Lord L., who occupied his usual seat beside her chair, began to question her about the adventure of the evening. Compassion made her eloquent on the misery, the cold, the hunger, the wretchedness of poor Edmund; but when she came to his beauty, she faltered and looked at her mother with a beseeching expression.

      Mrs. Montgomery laughed, and replied to the look, “Oh, yes! there was a sweetness when he smiled, that made me begin to think he would be pretty if he were fat; but now, the poor child is all eyes and eyelashes.”

      “Oh, mamma!” said Frances, “he has the most beautiful mouth I ever saw in my life, and such nice teeth!”

      “Has he, my dear?” said Mrs. Montgomery, with provoking indifference: for she happened to be deep in a discussion on the nature of the poor laws, with Mr. Jackson, the clergyman.

      Master Henry, meanwhile, was greedily devouring tart and cream, with his face close to his plate, and his eyes levelled at the dish, in great anxiety to be in time to claim the last portion which now remained on it; but, in his attempt to swallow what was before him, he missed his aim, and was a moment too late, though he thrust out his plate with both hands just as he saw a servant coming round; but the tart was dispatched to Lord L., to whom it had been offered, and who, being too much occupied to refuse it, had bowed. It lay before him a few moments, and went away untouched. Henry, vexed extremely, and desirous of revenge on Frances for the disappointment occasioned him by her lover, said, “If you are talking of the beggar brat, he is the image of a monkey! I was quite afraid he would bite me as I passed him in the hall.”

      “I am sure, Henry,” retorted Frances, “he seemed more afraid of you, than you could be of him: and, by the bye, you need not, I think, have looked so cross at the poor child.”

      “Cross!” repeated Henry, “I did not look cross. What reason do you suppose I had to look cross? I never saw the brat before in my life.”

      Henry’s speech was accompanied by that hateful expression, which the eyes of an ill-disposed child assume, when it knows it is uttering falsehood!

      “Henry!” said Mrs. Montgomery, with some surprise; “you need not look angry, much less guilty. No one can suppose that you know any thing of the poor boy. But leave the room, sir: and remember you don’t sit at table again, till you know better how to conduct yourself.”

      Henry obeyed, but slowly and sulkily; trailing one foot after the other, and determining to have revenge on the cause of his disgrace. He offered no apology, and therefore was not taken into favour again for the evening, though poor Mrs. Montgomery, as she passed to her own apartment, looked into that where he lay, and said, with a sigh, “Good night, and God bless you, child!”

      To account, in some degree, for the unprepossessing manners of Master Henry, we shall introduce a few words respecting the young gentleman’s birth, and hitherto unfortunately directed education.

      CHAPTER IV.

       Table of Contents

      “Lifting at

       The thought my timid eyes, I pass them o’er

       His brow; and, if I would, I dare not love him:

       Yet, dare I never disobey that eye,

       Flashing outward fires, while, within its depths,

       Where love should dwell, ’tis ever still, and cold,

       To look upon.”

      St. Aubin, Henry’s father, was a Frenchman, and totally without religion. A flourish of worldly honour, as long as no temptation had arisen, had sustained for him even a showy character. By this, a showy appearance, and showy manners, he had, what is called, gained the affections, that is, he had dazzled the fancy, of Maria, the younger sister of Mrs. Montgomery. Maria was a beautiful girl, and but seventeen. Her sister, who was also her guardian, for she was some years her senior, and their parents were dead, disapproved of the match, but in vain: Maria married St. Aubin, and was miserable! The marriage being a runaway affair, no settlements were entered into, which circumstance St. Aubin imagined would be in his favour; but, when he discovered that the consent of the guardians not having been obtained, gave them the power of withholding Maria’s fortune till she should be of age, and of then settling it on herself and her children, without suffering him to touch one shilling, his brutality was such, that Mrs. St. Aubin, before the birth of her child, for she had but one, was broken-hearted.

      She denied herself the consolation she might have found in the sympathy of her sister, for she wished to conceal from her the wretchedness she had brought upon herself, by acting contrary to her advice. She was, however, shortly removed out of the reach of that sister’s penetration.

      St. Aubin was deeply in debt when he married, and things had been ever since becoming worse and worse. He had always flattered himself that the guardians would not use the full power of which they spoke, and that by making fair promises he should be able, when once Maria was of age, to get the money, or the greater part of it, into his own hands; he had therefore laboured incessantly to put off the payment of every demand to the day of his wife’s coming of age, and made all his arrangements with reference to that period. At length it arrived. He made application for his wife’s fortune; but Mrs. Montgomery, in reply, reminded him, that her sister having married without her consent, had given her, as sole remaining guardian, a power, which she now saw it was her duty to exert; namely, that of refusing to pay down any part of the money. She should, therefore, she said, secure the whole of it in the hands of trustees, as a future provision for Maria and her child.

      With this letter open in his hand, St. Aubin, foaming with rage, entered the room where his wife sat with Henry, then between two and three years old, playing on the ground at her feet, while she was absorbed in melancholy anticipations of the probable result of her husband’s application. St. Aubin flung the letter СКАЧАТЬ