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In prison he remained for six long weary months, with the consciousness that, amidst the many light companions with whom he had associated, there was not one to whom he could appeal for friendship and assistance in his present situation, and the thoughts of his mother and sister returned with greater force, from the impossibility of learning anything concerning them. The hope of escaping never left him, and, with the assistance of a comrade, he finally effected it on the 27th of July, the confusion of the city aiding him far more effectually than he believed possible. He came down to Rouen in a coal-barge, so completely exhausted, that he declared, had not the thought of England and his mother been uppermost, he would gladly have laid down in the open streets to die. To England he felt impelled, he scarcely knew wherefore, save that he looked to us for the information he so ardently desired. Our family had often been among his waking visions, and this accounts for the agitation I witnessed when I first looked up. He said he felt he knew me, but he strove to move or speak in vain; he could not utter the only question he wished to frame, and was unable to depart without being convinced if I indeed were Percy Hamilton.
"'And now I have seen you, what have I learnt?' he said, as he ceased a tale, more of sorrow than of crime.
"'That your mother lives,' I replied, 'that she has never ceased to pray for and love her son, that you can yet be to her a blessing and support.'
"Should he wish her sent for, I asked, I knew she would not demand a second summons. He would not hear of it.
"'Not while I have life enough to seek her. What, bring her all these miles to me. My mother, my poor forsaken mother. Oh, no, if indeed I may not live, if strength be not granted me to seek her, then, then it will be time enough to think of beseeching her to come to me; but not while a hope of life remains, speak not of it, Percy. Let her know nothing of me, nothing, till I can implore her blessing on my knees.'"
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"I have ceased to argue with him, for he is bent upon it, and perhaps it is better thus. His mind appears much relieved, he has passed a quiet night, and this morning the physician finds a wonderful improvement, wonderful to him perhaps, but not to me."
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Percy's letters containing the above extracts, were productive of much interest to his friends at Oakwood. The details of Cecil's death, alleviated by sympathy, were forwarded to his father and sister. The words that had preceded his death Mr. Hamilton carefully suppressed from his friend, and Mr. Grahame, as if dreading to hear anything that could confirm his son's reckless disposition, asked no particulars. For three months he buried himself in increased seclusion at Llangwillan, refusing all invitations, and denying himself steadfastly to all. At the termination of that period, however, he once more joined his friends, an altered and a happier man. His misanthropy had departed, and often Mr. Hamilton remarked to his wife, that the Grahame of fifty resembled the Grahame of five-and-twenty far more than he had during the intervening years. Lilla and Edward were sources of such deep interest to him, that in their society he seemed to forget the misery occasioned by his other children. The shock of her brother's death was long felt by Lilla; she sorrowed that he was thus suddenly cut off without time for one thought of eternity, one word of penitence, of prayer. The affection of her husband, however, gradually dispelled these melancholy thoughts, and when Lord Delmont paid his promised visit to his nephew, he found no abatement in those light and joyous spirits which had at first attracted him towards Lilla.
Ellen, at her own particular request, had undertaken to prepare Mrs. Greville for the return of her son, and the change that had taken place in him. Each letter from Percy continued his recovery, and here we may notice, though somewhat out of place, as several months elapsed ere he was enabled fully to succeed, that, by the active exertions of himself and of the solicitor his father had originally employed, Dupont was at length brought to justice, his criminal machinations fully exposed to view, and the innocence of Alfred Greville, the son of the deceased, as fully established in the eyes of all men.
Gently and cautiously Ellen performed her office, and vain would be the effort to portray the feelings or the fond and desolate mother, as she anticipated the return of her long-absent, dearly-loved son. Of his own accord he came back to her; he had tried the pleasures of the world, and proved them hollow; he had formed friendships with the young, the gay, the bright, the lovely, and he had found them all wanting in stability and happiness. Amid them all his heart had yearned for home and for domestic love; that mother had not prayed in vain.
Softly and beautifully fell the light of a setting sun around the pretty little cottage, on the banks of the Dart, which was now the residence of Mrs. Greville; the lattice was thrown widely back, and the perfume of unnumbered flowers scented the apartment, which Ellen's hand had loved to decorate, that Mrs. Greville might often, very often forget she was indeed alone. It was the early part of September, and a delicious breeze passed by, bearing health and elasticity upon its wing, and breathing soft melody amid the trees and shrubs. Softly and calmly glided the smooth waters at the base of the garden. The green verandah running round the cottage was filled with beautiful exotics, which Ellen's hand had transported from the conservatory at Oakwood. It was a sweet and soothing sight to see how judiciously, how unassumingly Ellen devoted herself to the desolate mother, without once permitting that work of love to interfere with her still nearer, still dearer ties at home. She knew how Herbert would have loved and devoted himself to the mother of his Mary, and in this, as in all things, she followed in his steps. Untiringly would she listen to and speak on Mrs. Greville's favourite theme, her Mary; and now she sat beside her, enlivening by gentle converse the hours that must intervene ere Alfred came. There was an expression of such calm, such chastened thanksgiving on Mrs. Greville's features, changed as they were by years of sorrow, that none could gaze on her without a kindred feeling stealing over the heart, and in very truth those feelings seemed reflected on the young and lovely countenance beside her. A pensive yet a sweet and pleasing smile rested on Ellen's lips, and her dark eye shone softly bright in the light of sympathy. Beautiful indeed were the orphan's features, but not the dazzling beauty of early youth. If a stranger had gazed on her countenance when in calm repose, he would have thought she had seen sorrow; but when that beaming smile of true benevolence, that eye of intellectual and soul-speaking beauty met his glance, as certain would he have felt that sorrow, whatever it might have been, indeed had lost its sting.
"It was such an evening, such an hour my Mary died," Mrs. Greville said, as she laid her hand in Ellen's. "I thought not then to have reflected on it with feelings such as now fill my heart. Oh, when I look back on past years, and recall the prayers I have uttered in tears for my son, my Alfred, the doubts, the fears that have arisen to check my prayer, I wonder wherefore am I thus blessed."
"Our God is a God of truth, and He promiseth to answer prayer, dearest Mrs. Greville," replied Ellen, earnestly; "and He is a God of love, and will bless those who seek Him and trust in Him as you have done."
"He gave me grace to trust in Him, my child. I trusted, I doubted not He would answer me in another world, but I thought not such blessing was reserved for me in this. A God of love—ay, in my hour of affliction. I have felt Him so. Oh, may the blessings of His loving-kindness shower down upon me, soften yet more my heart to receive His glorious image."
She ceased to speak, but her lips moved still as in inward prayer. Some few minutes elapsed, and suddenly the glowing light of the sun was darkened, as by an intervening shadow. The mother raised her head, and in another instant her son was at her feet.
"Mother, can you forgive, receive me? Bid me not go forth—I cannot, may not leave you."
"Go forth, my son, my son—oh, never, never!" she cried, and clasping him to her bosom, the quick glad tears fell fast upon his brow. She released him to gaze again and again upon his face, and fold him closer to her heart, to read in those sunken features, that faded form, the tale that he had come back to her heart and to her home, never, never more to leave her.
In that one moment years of error were forgotten. The mother only felt she hold her son to her heart, a suffering, yet an altered and a better man; and he, that he knelt once more beside his mother, forgiven and beloved.
CHAPTER XII
CONCLUSION
And now, what can we more say? Will not the Hamilton family, and those intimately connected with them, indeed be deemed complete? It was our intention to trace in the first part of our tale the cares, the joys, the sorrows of parental love, during the years of childhood and earliest youth; in the second, to mark the effect of those cares, when those on whom they were so lavishly bestowed attained a period of life in which it depends more upon themselves than on their parents to frame their own happiness or misery, as far, at least, as we ourselves can do so. It may please our Almighty Father to darken our earthly course by the trial of adversity, and yet that peace founded on religion, which it was Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton's first care to inculcate, may seldom be disturbed. It may please Him to bless us with prosperity, but from characters such as Annie Grahame happiness is a perpetual exile, which no prosperity has power to recall. We have followed Mr. Hamilton's family from childhood, we have known them from their earliest years, and now that it has become their parts to feel those same cares and joys, and perform those precious but solemn duties which we have watched in Mrs. Hamilton, our task is done; and we must bid farewell to those we have known and loved so long; those whom we have seen the happy inmates of one home, o'er whom—
"The same fond mother bent at night,"
who shared the same joys, the same cares, whose deepest affections were confined to their parents and each other, are now scattered in different parts of their native land, distinct members of society, each with his own individual cares and joys, with new and precious ties to divide that heart whose whole affection had once been centred in one spot and in one circle; and can we be accused in thus terminating our simple annals of wandering from the real course of life. Is it not thus with very many families of England? Are not marriage and death twined hand in hand, to render that home desolate which once resounded with the laugh of many gleesome hearts, with the glad tones of youthful revelling and joy? True, in those halls they often meet again, and the hearts of the parents are not lone, for the family of each child is a source of inexpressible interest to them; there is still a link, a precious link to bind them together, but vain and difficult would be the attempt to continue the history of a family when thus dispersed. Sweet and pleasing the task to watch the unfledged nestlings while under a mother's fostering wing, but when they spread their wings and fly, where is the eye or pen that can follow them on their eager way?
Once more, but once, we will glance within the halls of Oakwood, and then will we bid them farewell, for our task will be done, and the last desires of fancy, we trust, to have appeased.
It was in the September of the year 1830 we closed our narrative. Let us then, for one moment, imagine the veil of fancy is upraised on the first day of the year, 1838, and gaze within that self-same room, which twenty years before we had seen lighted up on a similar occasion, the anniversary of a new year, bright with youthful beauty, and enlivened by the silvery laugh of early childhood. But few, very few, were the strangers that this night mingled with Mr. Hamilton's family. It was not, as it had been twenty years previous, a children's ball on which we glance. It was but the happy reunion of every member of that truly happy family, and the lovely, mirthful children there assembled were, with the exception of a very few, closely connected one with another by the near relationship of brothers, sisters, and cousins. In Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton, Mrs. Greville, Montrose Grahame, Lucy Harcourt, and Mr. Morton, who were all present, time had comparatively made but little difference; but it was in those who twenty years before had so well acted the part of youthful entertainers to their various guests that the change was striking, yet far, very far from being mournful.
On one side might be seen Percy Hamilton, M.P., in earnest yet pleasurable conversation with Mr. Grahame. It was generally noticed that these two gentlemen were always talking politics, discussing, whenever they met, the affairs of the nation, for no senator was more earnest and interested in his vocation than Percy Hamilton, but certainly on this night there was no thoughtful gravity of a senator imprinted on his brow; he was looking and laughing at the childish efforts of the little Lord Manvers, eldest child of the Earl of Delmont, then in his seventh year, to emulate the ease and dignity of his cousins, Lord Lyle and Herbert and Allan Myrvin, some two or three years older than himself, who, from being rather more often at Oakwood, considered themselves quite lords of the soil and masters of the ceremonies, during the present night at least. The Ladies Mary and Gertrude Lyle, distinguished by the perfect simplicity of their dress, had each twined an arm in that of the gentle, retiring Caroline Myrvin, and tried to draw her from her young mother's side, where, somewhat abashed at the number that night assembled in her grandfather's hall, she seemed determined to remain, while a younger sister frolicked about the room, making friends with all, in such wild exuberance of spirits, that Mrs. Myrvin's gentle voice was more than once raised in playful reproach to reduce her to order, while her husband and Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton seemed to take delight in her movements of elasticity and joy. The Countess St. Eval, as majestic and fascinating in womanhood as her early youth had promised, one moment watched with a proud yet softly flashing eye the graceful movements of her son, and the next, was conversing eagerly and gaily with her brother Percy and the young Earl of Delmont, who were standing near her; seven years had wrought but little change in him, whom till now we have only known by the simple designation of Edward Fortescue. Manhood, in his prime, had rather increased than lessened the extreme beauty of his face and form; few gazed on him once but turned to gaze again, and the little smiling cherub of five years, whose soft, round arms were twined round Miss Fortescue's neck, the Lady Ellen Fortescue, promised fair to inherit all her father's beauty and peculiar grace, and endeared her to her young mother's heart with an increased warmth of love, while the dark flashing eyes of Lord Manvers and his glossy, flowing, ebon curls rendered him, Edward declared, the perfect likeness of his mother, and therefore he was the father's pet. Round Mr. Hamilton were grouped, in attitudes which an artist might have been glad to catch for natural grace, about three or four younger grandchildren, the eldest not exceeding four years, who, too young to join in the dance and sports of their elder brethren, were listening with eager attention to the entertaining stories grandpapa was relating, calling forth peals of laughter from his infant auditors, particularly from the fine curly-headed boy who was installed on the seat of honour, Mr. Hamilton's knee, being the only child of Percy and Louisa, and consequently the pet of all. It was to that group Herbert Myrvin wished to confine the attention of his merry little sister, who, however, did not choose to be so governed, and frisked about from one group to another, regardless of her graver brother's warning glances; one minute seated on Mrs. Hamilton's knee and nestling her little head on her bosom, the next pulling her uncle Lord St. Eval's coat, to make him turn round and play with her, and then running away with a wild and ringing laugh.
"Do not look so anxious, my own Emmeline," Mrs. Hamilton said fondly, as she met her daughter's glance fixed somewhat anxiously on her little Minnie, for so she was generally called, to distinguish her from Lady St. Eval's Mary. "You will have no trouble to check those wild spirits when there is need to do so; her heart is like your own, and then sweet is the task of rearing."
With all the grateful fondness of earlier years did Mrs. Myrvin look up in her mother's face, as she thus spoke, and press her hand in hers.
"Not even yet have you ceased to penetrate my thoughts, my dearest mother," she replied; "from childhood unto the present hour you have read my countenance as an open book."
"And have not you, too, learned that lesson, my child? Is it not to you your gentle, timid Caroline clings most fondly? Is it not to you Herbert comes with his favourite book, and Allan with his tales of glee? Minnie's mirth is not complete unless she meets your smile, and even little Florence looks for some sign of sympathy. You have not found the task so difficult, that you should wonder I should love it?"
"For those beloved ones, oh, what would I not do?" said Mrs. Myrvin, in a tone of animated fervour, and turning her glistening eyes on her mother, she added, "My own mother, marriage may bring with it new tics, new joys, but, oh, who can say it severs the first bright links of life between a mother and a child? it is now, only now, I feel how much you loved me."
"May your children be to you what mine have ever been to me, my Emmeline; I can wish you no greater blessing," replied Mrs. Hamilton, in a tone of deep emotion, and twining Emmeline's arm in hers, they joined Mrs. Greville and Miss Harcourt, who were standing together near the pianoforte, where Edith Seymour, the latter's younger niece, a pleasing girl of seventeen, was good-naturedly playing the music of the various dances which Lord Lyle and Herbert Myrvin were calling in rapid succession. In another part of the room Alfred Greville and Laura Seymour were engaged in such earnest conversation, that Lord Delmont indulged in more than one joke at their expense, of which, however, they were perfectly unconscious; and this had occurred so often, that many of Mrs. Greville's friends entertained the hope of seeing the happiness now so softly and calmly imprinted on her expressive features, very shortly heightened by the union of her now truly estimable son with an amiable and accomplished young woman, fitted in all respects to supply the place of the daughter she had lost.
And what had these seven years done for the Countess of Delmont, who had completely won the delighted kiss and smiles of Minnie Myrvin, by joining in all her frolics, and finally accepting Allan's blushing invitation, and joining the waltz with him, to the admiration of all the children. The girlish vivacity of Lilla Grahame had not deserted Lady Dolmont; conjugal and maternal love had indeed softened and subdued a nature, which in early years had been perhaps too petulant; had heightened yet chastened sensibility. Never was happiness more visibly impressed or more keenly felt than by the youthful Countess. Her husband, in his extreme fondness, had so fostered her at times almost childish glee, that he might have unfitted her for her duties, had not the mild counsels, the example of his sister, Miss Fortescue, turned aside the threatening danger, and to all the fascination of early childhood Lady Delmont united the more solid and enduring qualities of pious, well-regulated womanhood.
"I wonder Charles is not jealous," observed Mrs. Percy Hamilton, playfully, after admiring to Lord Delmont his wife's peculiar grace in waltzing. "Allan seems to have claimed her attention entirely."
"Charles has something better to do," replied his father, laughing, as the little Lord Manvers flew by him, with his arm twined round his cousin Gertrude in the inspiring galop, and seemed to have neither ear nor eye for any one or anything else. "Caroline, do you permit your daughter to play the coquette so early?"
"Better at seven than seventeen, Edward, believe me; had she numbered the latter, I might be rather more uneasy, at present I can admire that pretty little pair without any such feeling. Gertrude told me to-day, she did not like to see her cousin Charles so shy, and she should do all she could to make him as much at home as she and her brother are."
"She has succeeded, then, admirably," replied Edward, laughing, "for the little rogue has not much shyness in him now. Herbert and Mary have got that corner all to themselves; I should like to go slily behind them, and find out what they are talking about."
"Try and remember what you used to talk about to your partners in this very room, some twenty years back, and perhaps recollection will satisfy your curiosity," said Lady St. Eval, smiling, but faintly, however; the names Herbert and Mary had recalled a time when those names had often been joined before, and the silent prayer arose that their fates might not resemble those whose names they bore, that they might be spared a longer time to bless those who loved them.
"Twenty years back, Caroline, what an undertaking. Allan is more like the madcap I was then, so I can better enter into his feelings of pleasure. By-the-bye, why are not Mrs. Cameron's family here to-night? I half expected to meet them here yesterday."
"They spend this season with Sir Walter and Lady Cameron in Scotland," replied Lady St. Eval. "Florence declared she would take no excuse; the Marquis and Marchioness of Malvern, with Emily and Louis, are there also, and Lady Alford is to join them in a week or two."
"You were there last summer, were you not?"
"We were. They are one of the happiest couples I know, and their estate is most beautiful. Florence declares that, were Sir Walter Scott still living, she intended to have made him take her for a heroine, her husband for a hero, and transport them some centuries back, to figure on that same romantic estate in some very exciting scenes."
"Had he killed Cameron's first love and rendered him desperate, and made Florence some consoling spirit, to remove his despair, instead of making him so unromantically enabled to conquer his passion, because unreturned. Why I could make as good a story as Sir Walter himself; if she will reward me liberally, I will set about it."
"It will never do, Lord Delmont, it is much too common-place," said Mrs. Percy Hamilton, smiling. "It is a very improper question, I allow, but who was Sir Walter's first love?"
"Do you not know? A certain friend of yours whom I torment, by declaring she is invulnerable to the little god's arrows," he answered, joyously.
"She may be invulnerable to Cupid, but certainly not to any other kind of love," remarked Lady St. Eval, as she smilingly pointed out to Mrs. Percy's notice Miss Fortescue, surrounded by a group of children, and bearing on her expressive countenance unanswerable evidences of her interest in the happiness of all around her.
"And is it possible, after loving her he could love another?" she exclaimed, in unfeigned astonishment.
"Disagreeably unromantic, Louisa, is it not?" said Lord Delmont, laughing heartily; "but what was the poor man to do? Ellen was inexorable, and refused to bestow on him anything but her friendship."
"Which he truly values," interrupted Lady St. Eval. "You must allow, Louisa, he was wise, however free from romance; the character of Florence, in many points, very much resembles Ellen's. She is one of the very few whom I do not wonder at his choosing, after what had passed. Do you know, Edward, Flora Cameron marries in the spring?"
"I heard something about it; tell me who to."
She complied, and Percy and Mr. Grahame joining them, the conversation extended to more general topics.
"Nay, Allan, dear, do not tease your sister," was Miss Fortesene's gentle remonstrance, as Allan endeavoured, somewhat roughly, to draw Minnie from her side, where, however, she clung with a pertinacity no persuasion or reproach could shake.
"She will hurt Ellen," replied the boy, sturdily, "and she has no right to take her place by you."
"But she may stand here too, there is room for us both," interrupted the little Ellen, though she did not offer to give up her place in her aunt's lap to her cousin.
"Go away, Allan, I choose to stand here, and aunt Ellen says I may," was Minnie's somewhat impatient rejoinder, as she tried to push her brother away, though her pretty little features expressed no ill-temper on the occasion, for she laughed as she spoke.
"Aunt Ellen promised to dance with me," retorted Allan, "and so I will not go away unless she comes too."
"With me, with me!" exclaimed Lord Manvers, bounding forward to join the group. "She promised three months ago to dance with me."
"And how often have I not performed that promise, Master Charlie?" replied Ellen, laughing, "even more often with you than with Allan, so I must give him the preference first."
Her good-natured smiles, the voice which betrayed such real interest in all that pleased her little companions, banished every appearance of discontent. The magic power of affection and sympathy rendered every little pleader satisfied and pleased; and, after performing her promise with Allan, she put the final seal to his enjoyment by confiding the little bashful Ellen to his especial care; a charge, which Myrvin declared, caused his son to hold himself up two inches higher than he had done yet.
"Ellen, if you do not make yourself as great and deservedly a favourite with my children as with your brother's and Emmeline's, I shall never forgive you," said the Earl St. Eval, who had been watching Miss Fortescue's cheerful gambols with the children for the last half hour, in extreme amusement, and now joined her.
"Am I not so already, Eugene?" she said, smiling that peculiar smile of quiet happiness which was now natural to her countenance. "I should be sorry if I thought they did not love me equally; for believe me, with the sole exception of my little namesake and godchild, my nephews and nieces are all equally dear to me. I have no right to make an exception even in favour of my little Ellen, but Edward has so often called her mine, and even Lilla has promised to share her maternal rights with me, that I really cannot help it. Your children do not see so much of me as Emmeline's, and that is the reason perhaps they are not quite so free with me; but believe mo, dear St. Eval, it will not be my fault if they do not love me."
"I do believe you," replied the Earl, warmly. "I have but one regret, Ellen, when I see you loving and beloved by so many little creatures."
"And what may that be?"
"That they are not some of them your own, my dear girl. I cannot tell you how I regret the fact, of which each year the more and more convinces me, that you are determined ever to remain single. There are very few in my list of female friends so fitted to adorn the marriage state, very few who would make a better mother, and I cannot but regret there are none on whom you seem inclined to bestow those endearing and invaluable qualities."
"Regret it then no more, my dear St. Eval," replied Ellen, calmly, yet with feeling. "I thank you for that high opinion which I believe you entertain of me, too flattering as it may be; but cease to regret that I have determined to live an old maid's life. To me, believe me, it has no terrors. To single women the opportunities of doing good, of making others happy, are more frequent than those granted to mothers and wives; and while such is the case, is it not our own fault if we are not happy? I own that the life of solitude which an old maid's includes, may, if the heart be so inclined, be equally productive of selfishness, moroseness of temper, and obstinacy in opinion and judgment, but most fervently I trust such will never be my attributes. It can never be while my beloved aunt and uncle are spared to me, which I trust they will be for many, many years longer; and even should they be removed before I anticipate, I have so many to love me, so many to dearly love, that I can have no time, no room for selfishness."
"Do not mistake me, Ellen," St. Eval replied, earnestly; "I do not wish to see you married because I dread your becoming like some single women; with your principles such can never be. Your society—your influence over the minds of our children—is far too precious to be lightly wished removed, as it would be were you to marry. It is for your own sake, dearest Ellen, I regret it, and for the sake of him you might select, that you, who are so fitted to enjoy and to fulfil them, can never know the pleasures attendant on the duties of a happy wife and mother; that by a husband and child, the dearest ties of earth, you will go down to the grave unloved."
"You are right, St. Eval, they are the dearest ties on earth; but pleasures, the pleasures of affection, too, are yet left to us, who may never know them. Think you not, that to feel it is my place to cheer and soothe the declining years of those dear and tender guardians of my infancy must bring with it enjoyment—to see myself welcomed by smiles of love and words of kindness by all my brothers and sisters—to see their children flock around me as I enter, each seeking to be the first to obtain my smile or kiss—to know myself of service to my fellow-creatures, I mean not in my own rank, but those beneath me—to feel conscious that in every event of life, particularly in sickness or in sorrow, if those I so love require my presence, or I feel I may give them comfort or sympathy, at least I may fly to them, for I shall have no tie, no dearer or more imperious duty to keep me from them—are not these considerations enough to render a single life indeed one of happiness, St. Eval? Even from this calm, unruffled stream of life can I not gather flowers?"
