Grace Aguilar - Home Influence - A Tale for Mothers and Daughters

So torturing were Mrs. Fortescue's feelings when she recalled the last request of her husband, and her cruel and haughty refusal; when that which had seemed so important, a juvenile ball – because not to go would disappoint Edward – became associated with his fearful death, and sunk into worse than nothing – she had parted with him in anger, and it proved forever; – that even as England had become odious to her, twelve years before, so did India now; and she suddenly resolved to quit it, and return to the relatives she had neglected so long, but toward whom she now yearned more than ever. She thought and believed such a complete change would and must bring peace. Alas! what change will remove the torture of remorse?

Though incapable of real love, from her studied heartlessness, it was impossible for her to have lived twelve years with one so indulgent and fond as Colonel Fortescue, without realizing some degree of affection, and his unexpected and awful death roused every previously dormant feeling so powerfully, that she was astonished at herself, and in her misery believed that the feeling had only come, to add to her burden – for what was the use of loving now? and determined to rouse herself, she made every preparation for immediate departure, but she was painfully arrested. The selfish mother had fled from the couch of her suffering child, and now a variation of the same complaint laid her on a bed of pain. It was a desperate struggle between life and death; but she rallied, and insisted on taking her passage for England some weeks before her medical attendant thought it advisable. The constant struggle between the whisperings of good and the dominion of evil, which her whole life had been, had unconsciously undermined a constitution naturally good; and when to this was added a malignant disease, though brief in itself, the seeds of a mortal complaint were planted, which, ere the long voyage was concluded, had obtained fatal and irremediable ascendency, and occasioned those sufferings and death which in our first chapters we described.

To Edward, though the death of his father had caused him much childish grief, still more perhaps from sympathy with the deep suffering of his mother, than a perfect consciousness of his own heavy loss, the manner in which he died was to him a source of actual pride. He had always loved the histories of heroes, military and naval, and gloried in the idea that his father had been one of them, and died as they did, bravely fighting against superior numbers, and in the moment of a glorious victory. He had never seen death, and imagined not all the attendant horrors of such a one; and how that Ellen could never even hear the word without shuddering he could not understand, nor why she should always so painfully shrink from the remotest reference to that night, which was only associated in his mind with emotions of pleasure. In the tedious voyage of nearly six months (for five-and-twenty years ago the voyage from India to England was not what it is now), the character of Edward shone forth in such noble coloring as almost to excuse his mother's idolatry, and win for him the regard of passengers and crew. Captain Cameron had impressed on his mind that he now stood in his father's place to his mother and sister; and as the idea of protecting is always a strong incentive to manliness in a boy, however youthful, Edward well redeemed the charge, so devoting himself not only to his mother, but to Ellen, that her affection for him redoubled, as did her mistaken idea of his vast superiority.

His taste had always pointed to the naval in preference to the military profession, and the voyage confirmed it. Before he had been a month on board he had become practically an expert sailor – had learned all the technical names of the various parts of a ship, and evinced the most eager desire for the acquirement of navigation. Nor did he fail in the true sailor spirit, when, almost within sight of England, a tremendous storm arose, reducing the vessel almost to a wreck, carrying her far from her destined moorings, and compelling her, after ten days' doubt whether or not she would reach land in safety, to anchor in Milford Haven, there to repair her injuries, ere she could be again seaworthy.

The passengers here left her, and Mrs. Fortescue, whose illness the terrors of the storm had most alarmingly increased, was conveyed to Pembroke in an almost exhausted state; but once on land she rallied, resolved on instantly proceeding to Swansea, then cross to Devonshire, and travel direct to Oakwood, where she had no doubt her sister was. But her temper was destined to be tried still more. The servant who had accompanied her from India, an Englishwoman, tired out with the fretful impatience of Mrs. Fortescue during the voyage, and disappointed that she did not at once proceed to London, demanded her instant discharge, as she could not stay any longer from her friends. The visible illness of her mistress might have spared this unfeeling act, but Eleanor had never shown feeling or kindness to her inferiors, and therefore, perhaps, had no right to expect them. Her suppressed anger and annoyance so increased physical suffering, that had it not been for her children she must have sunk at once; but for their sakes she struggled with that deadly exhaustion, and set off the very next morning, without any attendant, for Swansea. They were not above thirty miles from this town when, despite her every effort, Mrs. Fortescue became too ill to proceed. There was no appearance of a town or village, but the owners of a half-way house, pitying the desolate condition of the travelers, directed the postboy to the village of Llangwillan; which, though out of the direct road and four or five miles distant, was yet the nearest place of shelter. And never in her whole life had Mrs. Fortescue experienced such a blessed sensation of physical relief, as when the benevolent exertions of Mr. Myrvin had installed her in widow Morgan's humble dwelling, and by means of soothing medicine and deep repose in some degree relieved the torture of a burning brain and aching frame. Still she hoped to rally, and obtain strength sufficient to proceed; and bitter was the anguish when the hope was compelled to be relinquished. – With all that followed, our readers are already acquainted, and we will, therefore, at once seek the acquaintance of Mrs. Hamilton's own family, whose "Traits of Character" will, we hope, illustrate other and happier home influences than those of indiscreet indulgence and culpable neglect.

The curtains were drawn close, the large lamp was on the table, and a cheerful fire blazing in the grate; for though only September, the room was sufficiently large, and the evenings sufficiently chill, for a fire to add greatly to its aspect of true English comfort. There were many admirable pictures suspended on the walls, and well-filled book-cases, desks, and maps, stands of beautiful flowers, and some ingenious toys, all seeming to proclaim the apartment as the especial possession of the young party who were this evening busily engaged at the large round table which occupied the centre of the room. They were only four in number, but what with a large desk piled with books and some most alarming-sized dictionaries, which occupied the elder of the two lads, the embroidery frame of the elder girl, the dissected map before her sister, and two or three books scattered round the younger boy, the table seemed so well filled that Miss Harcourt had quietly ensconced herself in her own private little corner, sufficiently near to take an interest, and sometimes join in the conversation of her youthful charge; but so apart as to be no restraint upon them, and to enable her to pursue her own occupations of either reading, writing, or working uninterruptedly. Could poor Mrs. Fortescue have glanced on the happy group, she certainly might have told her sister, with some show of justice, that there was such an equal distribution of interesting and animated expression (which is the great beauty of youth), that she could not have known the trial of having such a heavy, dull, unhappy child as Ellen. Mrs. Hamilton, indeed, we rather think, would not have considered such a trial, except as it proved ill-health and physical pain in the little sufferer; and, perhaps her increased care and tenderness (for such with her would have been the consequence of the same cause which had created her sister's neglect) might have removed both the depression of constant but impalpable illness, and the expression of heaviness and gloom. Certain it is, that her own Herbert had, with regard to delicate health, given her more real and constant anxiety than Eleanor had ever allowed herself to experience with Ellen; but there was nothing in the boy's peculiarly interesting countenance to denote the physical suffering he very often endured. Care and love had so surrounded his path with blessings, that he was often heard to declare, that he never even wished to be as strong as his brother, or to share his active pleasures, he had so many others equally delightful. Whether it was his physical temperament, inducing a habitude of reflection and studious thought much beyond his years, or whether the unusually gifted mind worked on the frame, or the one combined to form the other, it would be as impossible to decide with regard to him as with hundreds of others like him; but he certainly seemed, not only to his parents, but to their whole household, and to every one who casually associated with him, to have more in him of heaven than earth; as if indeed he were only lent, not given. And often, and often his mother's heart ached with its very intensity of love, causing the unspoken dread – how might she hope to retain one so faultless, and yet so full of every human sympathy and love! The delicate complexion, beautiful color of his cheeks and lips, and large soft, very dark blue eye, with its long black lash, high, arched brow, shaded by glossy chestnut hair, were all so lit up with the rays of mind, that though his face returned again and again to the fancy of those who had only once beheld it, they could scarcely have recalled a single feature, feeling only the almost angelic expression of the whole.