Long before the date at which this story commences, Mrs. Narrowsmith had inherited, upon her father's death, the estate in Bermudas which the father of Grace Medlicott had surrendered without opposition. It was worth a thousand pounds a-year, and had been settled upon the miser's daughter. All this was soon known, and (as such matters usually are all over the world) was much talked of in Liverpool circles, suspicious and ill-natured people not being slow to hazard a variety of unfounded observations, reflecting upon the share the Narrowsmiths had in the transactions in question. As to Mrs. Spread, she merely expressed her anxious hope that the rights of Miss Medlicott had not been sacrificed. 66 We must presume the contrary," replied her husband; "at all events there is no ground whatever for imputing any thing improper to her relations; it is no fault of theirs that the colonial lawyers decided in their favor." 66 No; but, my dear, suppose the decision of the colonial lawyers to be wrong?" "How is it to be reversed, you mean-who is there to act for Miss Medlicott?" "I see a difficulty there, I confess; but come, my love, we must not let our feelings transport us too far, and, above all things, we must avoid intermeddling in the affairs of our neighbors." CHAPTER XV. Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Twelfth Night. The Furies of the Real World-Further Acquaintance of the Spreads with Miss Medlicott-The Trials of that Young Lady-Her Conquest of Philip -Mr. Barker returns to Town-How he performed the Duties of a Printer's Devil-How he acted as a Common Carrier-Mrs. Harry Farquhar again-Portrait of that Lady-The Bachelor pays for interfering in the Question of the Spreads' Change of Residence-He gets a smart Scolding, and narrowly escapes something smarter still-Fortune thrusts Honor and Responsibility upon him-Mr. Spread perplexed-Mysterious Disappearance of Grace Medlicott and Philip Spread. MALICE, envy, and uncharitableness, you are the furies of the real world. There needs no Alecto, with her discordant trump, no adder-crowned Megæra, no Tissiphone with scorpion whip, to vex, to poison, and torment us. You, with the aid of the money-fiend, are sufficient for all mischief; and the four of you have now taken possession of the Narrowsmiths, and formed a league against an unprotected girl. Into the gloomy interior of a mansion infested by these evil spirits it is not our pleasure, and fortunately not our business to penetrate. This is a tale of the Bachelor of the Albany, not of Grace Medlicott; and our preference of summer to winter, and of the sunny points of life to its cold hollows, disposes us to keep as much as possible in the company of the Spreads and Smylys, and associate as little as can be helped with the Narrowsmiths and their friends. But a few particulars more of the history of Miss Medlicott it will be proper to relate, before we lose sight of her, as the Spreads themselves soon did, ignorant of her fate, and almost uncertain of her existence. She never sang again in Liverpool, save once or twice at Mrs. Spread's, when there was no company; but it was only once or twice that this occurred; indeed they would have seen very little more of Grace, after the evening of her fatal triumph, had it not been that fortunately Mrs. Narrowsmith and her daughter went for a few weeks to London, on a visit to Lady Wrixon, and then there was both increased facility of access to Rodney-street and less dif ficulty of getting Miss Medlicott to come to Abercromby Square. What strongly excited the attention of Mrs. Spread, in the commencement of her acquaintance with this young person, was her seeming unconsciousness of the iron natures of the people with whom she lived, while no other eye could help perceiving that she was indebted to her sordid relatives for little more liberality and attention then she would have found in a common asylum for female orphans. It takes time to open the pure eyes of generous and unsuspicious youth to the meannesses and inhumanities of the world. Grace had slowly to be convinced that she was irksome to the relations whose duty it was to cherish and protect her. She was a burden in the house of which she was the only embellishment and honor. The narrow economy of the entire establishment blinded her to the fact that, toward her, parsimony was more than parsimonious. She felt herself pinched without knowing who it was that pinched. She was grateful for ill-usage, and returned coldness with warmth. "How few people," she argued, "" were like the Spreads! Discomfort was the custom of the house, and why should she (a dependent though a relation) be more comfortable than the rest of the family; as to the tempers of her aunt and cousin, those were little failings of character upon which she, of all people living, ought not to be severe." But there was no mistaking the real state of the case, when malice and envy came into play. She then ceased to be the object of a contemptuous protection, and was elevated into an object of jealousy and rancor. On the morning of the next day but one that succeeded Mrs. Spread's party, Mr. Narrowsmith, fumbling in his pockets in search of some small piece of money, for some indispensable disbursement, produced the self-same silver fourpenny, the finding of which on the carpet, about a fortnight before, he had piously ascribed to a direct intervention of Providence. He recognized it by a small hole drilled through the center. So did Grace Medlicott; it was hers; the only property she possessed in money when she arrived in Rodney-street: yet she did not, she could not, bring herself to claim it-it went as her anonymous contribution to the weekly expenses of the opulent miser. From that hour her bread was bitter, and would have been so, had it been that of the royal table. From that hour it became a steep 66 and wearisome journey up to her dreary attic; and wearisome it would have been had it been the bower of Rosamond, or the chamber of an Infanta. But she did not reveal the bitterness of her lot to the Spreads, not at least with her lips, or intentionally even by her looks. Those looks, however, told her tale in a language which Mrs. Spread, with her quick-sighted tenderness, understood as well as if it had been written for her reading. Of all the Spreads, Philip was the last to take an interest in Miss Medlicott. She had no pretensions to beauty, and, though shipwrecked in a tempest, she was unacquainted with the theory of storms. The Smylys were both handsomer and wittier; and then he was confessedly in love with Miss Marable, or at all events with Bessie Bomford." But Grace had her advantages, too. Nature did not write the word gentleman more legibly on the brow of Uncle Toby than she had written that of lady on the forehead, indeed in every feature, of Miss Medlicott. She was artless, pure, fresh, and thoroughly unworldly and unselfish; the very incarnation of truth and modesty. In the one accomplishment which she possessed, she was unrivaled; and then she was an orphan, a wanderer, like a casket of pearls without an owner, cast by the waves upon a savage shore. These were powerful attractions; and they did not fail, after some time, to make an impression upon the susceptible mind of Philip, who was musical, romantic, and had all the benevolence of his father in his blood. The impression once made, grew deeper and deeper rapidly; every meeting with Grace strengthened, every song she sang improved it, until at length the feeling extended itself toward that warm region of the mind which borders upon the heart's territory, and Philip was wounded for the first time with the "rich golden shaft." It "killed the flock of all other affections in him;" he flirted with the Smylys no more--thought no more of Miss Marable, or Bessie Bomford. It was a most indiscreet attachment, but it was not the less strong upon that account. "Will Love be controlled by advice? All the members of Philip's family had, by their admiration of Grace, and their enthusiasm about her, unwittingly contributed to a result which they deplored extremely, as soon as their eyes were open to it. The previous character of Philip's love affairs—the impetuosity with which they commenced, and the levity with which they were abandoned-made his friends inattentive to symptoms Then pa which would otherwise have excited their suspicions. rents, in such cases, are commonly as blind as love itself; and they are blindest precisely where they ought to be most quick-sighted, where the attachments formed by their children are most irreconcilable with prudence. The Spreads were far from being worldly people, but they were as far from despising wealth as they were from worshiping it. With all the interest they took in Mr. Narrowsmith's niece, and, notwithstanding the high opinion they entertained both of her heart and her understanding, they considered the young lady a very ineligible match for Philip; and it deeply distressed them to perceive, as at length they did, that it was no longer possible to cultivate her society with a due regard to the welfare of their son. But we return to the Bachelor of the Albany. Fortune had still several tricks to play upon him, though she suffered him to return in peace to his London lodging, with the single exception of influencing Mrs. Martin to make him the bearer of some corrected proofs of her "British Stepmothers." The reader is left to guess whether it was under the control of Fortune or Discretion that Laura Smyly at the same time repressed a strong inclination she had to beg of Mr. Barker to be the carrier of a small parcel, which she was anxious to forward to a friend of hers at Brompton. That Mr. Barker offered to execute, and actually did execute, that commission, surprised nobody that knew him: they put it down to the very perverseness of his humor. But our Diogenes had not been three days in his tub before his temper had to undergo a very rough trial indeed. In crossing the designs of Mrs. Harry Farquhar, by influencing the Spreads to settle at Richmond instead of Norwood, he involved himself in more difficulties than one. Mrs. Harry Farquhar, the pretty little Amazon of Norwood, after storming about the room for several minutes, rung the bell waspishly, and ordered her pony-phaeton. The phaeton was at the door in a quarter of an hour. Mrs. Harry jumped in, whip in hand, and looking as if she was very much inclined to use it on the person of a quiet, respectable gentleman who stood by, doing his best to be civil, as became a dutiful husband, for that was the humble situation he held in his lady's household. She was a pretty, a wickedly-pretty woman, with an insolent eye, and a glowing, passionate complexion. Like Hermia, in the " Mid-. summer Night's Dream," "Though she was but little, she was fierce." |