AT WHARTON.
When Mr Wharton and his daughter reached Wharton Hall there were at any rate no Fletchers there as yet.Emily, as she was driven from the station to the house, had not dared to ask a question or even to prompt her father to do so.He would probably have told her that on such an occasion there was but little chance that she would find any visitors, and none at all that she would find Arthur Fletcher.But she was too confused and too ill at ease to think of the probabilities, and to the last was in trepidation, specially lest she should meet her lover.She found, however, at Wharton Hall none but Whartons, and she found also to her great relief that this change in the heir relieved her of much of the attention which must otherwise have added to her troubles.At the first glance her dress and demeanour struck them so forcibly that they could not avoid showing their feeling.Of course they had expected to see her in black,--had expected to see her in widow's weeds.But, with her, her very face and limbs had so adapted themselves to her crape, that she looked like a monument of bereaved woe.Lady Wharton took the mourner up into her own room, and there made her a little speech.'We have all wept for you,' she said, 'and grieve for you still.But excessive grief is wicked, especially in the young.We will do our best to make you happy, and hope we shall succeed.All this about dear Everett ought to be a comfort to you.' Emily promised that she would do her best, not, however, taking much immediate comfort from the prospects of dear Everett.Lady Wharton certainly had never in her life spoken of dear Everett while the wicked cousin was alive.Then Mary Wharton also made her little speech.'Dear Emily, I will do all that I can.Pray try to believe me.' But Everett was so much the hero of the hour, that there was not much room for general attention to anyone else.
There was very much room for triumph in regard to Everett.It had already been ascertained that the Wharton who was now dead had had a child,--but that the child was a daughter.Oh,--what salvation or destruction there may be to an English gentleman in the sex of an infant! This poor baby was now little better than a beggar brat, unless the relatives who were utterly disregardful of its fate, should choose, in their charity, to make some small allowance for its maintenance.Had it by chance been a boy Everett Wharton would have been nobody; and the child, rescued from the iniquities of his parents, would have been nursed in the best bedroom of Wharton Hall, and cherished with the warmest kisses, and would have been the centre of all the hopes of the Whartons.But the Wharton lawyer by use of reckless telegrams had certified himself that the infant was a girl, and Everett was the hero of the day.He found himself to be possessed of a thousand graces, even in his father's eyesight.It seemed to be taken as a mark of his special good fortune that he had not clung to any business.To have been a banker immersed in the making of money, or even a lawyer attached to his circuit and his court, would have lessened his fitness, or at any rate his readiness, for the duties which he would have to perform.He would never be a very rich man, but he would have command of ready money, and of course he would go into Parliament.
In his new position as,--not quite head of the family, but head expectant,--it seemed to him to be his duty to lecture his sister.It might be well that someone should lecture her with more severity than her father used.Undoubtedly she was succumbing to the wretchedness of her position in a manner that was repugnant to humanity generally.There is not power so useful to a man as that capacity of recovering himself after a fall, which belongs especially to those who possess a healthy mind in a healthy body.It is not rare to see one,--generally a woman,--whom sorrow gradually kills; and there are those among us, who hardly perhaps envy, but certainly admire, a spirit so delicate as to be snuffed out by a woe.But it is the weakness of the heart rather than the strength of the feeling which has in such cases most often produced the destruction.Some endurance of fibre has been wanting, which power of endurance is a noble attribute.Everett Wharton saw something of this, and being, now, the heir apparent of the family, took his sister to task.
'Emily,' he said, 'you make us all unhappy when we look at you.'
'Do I?' she said.'I am sorry for that;--but why should you look at me?'
'Because you are one of us.Of course we cannot shake you off.
We would not if we could.We have all been very unhappy because, --because of what has happened.But don't you think you ought to make some sacrifice to us,--to our father, I mean, and to Sir Alured and Lady Wharton? When you go on weeping, other people have to weep too.I have an idea that people ought to be happy if it be only for the sake of neighbours.'
'What am I to do, Everett?'
'Talk to people a little, and smile sometimes.Move about quicker.Don't look when you come into a room as if you were consecrating it to tears.And, if I may venture to say so, drop something of the heaviness of the mourning.'
'Do you mean that I am a hypocrite?'
'No;--I mean nothing of the kind.You know I don't.But you may exert yourself for the benefit of others without being untrue to your own memories.I am sure you know what I mean.Make a struggle and see if you cannot do something.'
She did make a struggle, and she did do something.No one, not well versed in the mysteries of feminine dress, could say very accurately what it was that she had done; but everyone felt that something of the weight was reduced.At first, as her brother's words came upon her ear, and as she felt the blows which they inflicted on her, she accused him in her heart of cruelty.They were very hard to hear.There was a moment in which she was almost tempted to turn upon him and tell him that he knew nothing of her sorrows.But she restrained herself, and when she was alone she acknowledged to herself that he had spoken the truth.