Unhappily, while the Congleton manufacturer contented himself with angry words, the gentleman of thirty descents betook himself to action. General Stanley swore to be mightily revenged—and he was so.
On the very day following his return to England, before he even visited his desolate country-house, he sent for Lord Robert Stanley, and made him the confidant of his indignation—avowed his former good intentions in his favour—betrayed all Mary's—all Mr Everard Sparks's disparaging opposition; and ended by enquiring whether, since whichever of his daughters became Lady Robert Stanley would become sole heiress to his property, his lordship could make up his mind to accept Selina as a wife? Proud as he was, the General almost condescended to plead the cause of his deformed daughter: enlarging upon her excellences of character, and, still more, upon her aversion to society, which would secure the self-love of her husband against any public remarks on her want of personal attractions.
Alas! all these arguments were thoroughly thrown away. Lord Robert was, as his cousin Mary had truly described him, little better than a boor. But he was also a spendthrift and a libertine; and had Miss Stanley been as deformed in mind as she was in person, he would have joyfully taken to wife the heiress of ten thousand a-year, and two of the finest seats in the county of Chester.
To herself, meanwhile, no hint of these family negotiations was vouchsafed; and Selina Stanley had every reason to suppose—when her cousin became on a sudden an assiduous visitor at the house, and very shortly a declared lover—that their intimacy from childhood had accustomed his eye to her want of personal charms—she had become endeared to him by her mild and submissive temper. So little was she aware of her father's testamentary dispositions in her favour, that the interested nature of Lord Robert's views did not occur to her mind; and, little accustomed to protestations of attachment, Selina's heart was not very difficult to soften towards the only man who had ever pretended to love her, and whose apparent attachment promised some consolation for the loss of her sister's society, as well as the chance of reunion with one whom her father had sworn should never, under any possible circumstances, again cross his threshold.
Six months after General Stanley's pride had been wounded to the quick by the newspaper account of a marriage between his favourite child and "a man of the name of Sparks," balm was poured into the wound by another and more pompous paragraph, announcing the union, by special license, of the Right Hon. Lord Robert Stanley and the eldest daughter and heiress of Lieut.-Gen. Stanley, of Stanley Manor, only son of the late Lord Henry Stanley, followed by the usual list of noble relatives gracing the ceremony with their presence, and a flourishing account of the departure of the happy couple, in a travelling carriage and four, for their seat in Cheshire.
This announcement, by the way, probably served to convey the intelligence to Mr and Mrs Everard Sparks; for the General having carefully intercepted every letter addressed by Mary to her sister, Lady Robert had not the slightest idea in what direction to communicate with one who possessed an undiminished share in her affections.
On General Stanley's arrival in Cheshire, at the close of the honeymoon, the most casual observer might have noticed the alteration which had taken place in his appearance. Instead of the sadness I had expected to find in his countenance after so severe a stroke as the disobedience of his darling girl, I never saw him so exulting. Yet his smiles were not smiles of good-humour. There was bitterness at the bottom of every word he uttered; and a terrible sound of menace rung in his unnatural laughter. Consciousness never seemed a moment absent from his mind, that he had defeated the calculations of the designing family; that he had distanced them; that he was triumphing over them. Alas! none at present entertained the smallest suspicion to what extent!
Preparatory to the settlements made by the General on Lord and Lady Robert Stanley, it had been found necessary to place in the hands of his lordship's solicitors the deeds of the Lexley Hall estate; when, lo! to the consternation of all parties, it appeared that the General's title was an unsound one; that by the general terms of this ancient property, rights of heirship could only be evaded by the payment of a certain fine, after intimation of sale in a certain form to the nearest-of-kin of the heir in possession, which form had been overlooked or wantonly neglected by Sir Laurence Altham!
The discovery was indeed embarrassing. Fortunately, however, the sum of ten thousand pounds only had been paid by the General to satisfy the immediate funds of the unthrifty baronet; the remainder of the purchase-money having been left in the form of mortgage on the property. There was consequently the less difficulty, though considerable expense, in cancelling the existing deeds, going through the necessary forms, and, after paying the forfeiture to the heir, (to whom the very existence of his claims was unknown,) renewing the contract with Sir Laurence; to whom, so considerable a sum being still owing, it was as essential as to General Stanley that the covenant should be completed without delay. But all this occurred at so critical a moment, that the General had ample cause to be thankful for the promptitude with which he decided Selina's marriage; for only four days after the signature of the new deeds, Sir Laurence concluded his ill-spent life—his death being, it was thought, accelerated by the excitement consequent on this strange discovery, and the investigations on the part of the heir to which it was giving rise.
For the clause in the original grant of the Lexley estate (which dated from the Reformation) affected the property purchased by Jonas Sparks as fully as that which had been assigned to the General; and the baronet being now deceased, there was no possibility of co-operation in rectifying the fatal error. It was more than probable, therefore, that Lexley Park, with all its improvements, was now the property of John Julius Altham, Esq.!—the only dilemma still to be decided by the law, being the extent to which, his kinsman having died insolvent and intestate, he was liable to the suit of Jonas Sparks for the return of the purchase money, amounting to L.145,000.
Already the fatal intelligence had been communicated by the attorneys of John Julius Altham to those of the astonished man, who, though still convinced of the goodness of his cause, (which, on the strength of certain various statutes affecting such a case, he was advised to contest to the utmost,) foresaw a long, vexatious, and expensive lawsuit, that would certainly last his life, and prevent the possibility of one moment's enjoyment of the estate, from which he had received the usual notice of ejection. Fortunately for him, the present Mr Altham was not only a gentleman, and disposed to exercise his rights in the most decorous manner; but, of course, unbiassed by the personal prejudices so strongly felt by Sir Laurence, and so unfairly communicated by him to the General. Still, the question was proceeding at the snail's pace rate of Chancery suits at the commencement of the present century, and the unfortunate Congleton manufacturer had every reason to curse the day when he had become enamoured of the grassy glades and rich woodlands of Lexley; seeing that, at the close of an honourable and well-spent life, he was uncertain whether the sons and daughters to whom he had laboured to bequeath a handsome independence, might not be reduced to utter destitution.
Such was the intelligence that saluted the ill-starred Mary and her husband on their return to England! Instead of the brilliant prospects in which she had been nurtured—disinheritance met her on the one side, and ruin on the other!
Her vindictive father had even made it a condition of his bounties to Lord and Lady Robert, that all intercourse should cease between them and their sister; a condition which the former, in revenge for the early slights of his fairer cousin, took care should be punctually obeyed by his wife.
Till the event of the trial, Mr Sparks retained, of course, possession of the Park; but so bitter was the mortification of the family, on discovering in the village precisely the same ungrateful feeling which had so embittered the soul of Sir Laurence, that they preferred remaining in London—where no one has leisure to dwell upon the mischances of his neighbours, and where sympathy is as little expected as conceded. But when Mary arrived—poor Mary! who had now the prospect of becoming a mother—and who, though affectionately beloved by her husband's family, saw they regarded her as the innocent origin of their present reverses—she soon persuaded her husband to accompany her to her old haunts.
"Do not imagine, dearest," said she, "that I have any project of debasing you and myself, by intruding into my father's presence. Had we been still prosperous, Everard, I would have gone to him—knelt to him—prayed to him—wept to him—so earnestly, that his forgiveness could not have been long withheld from the child he loved so dearly. I would have described to him all you are to me—all your indulgences—all your devotion—and you, too, my own husband, would have been forgiven. But as it is, believe me, I have too proud a sense of what is due to ourselves, to combat the unnatural hostility in which my sister and her husband appear to take their share. O Everard! to think of Selina becoming the wife of that coarse and heartless man, of whom, in former times, she thought even more contemptuously than I; and who, with his dissolute habits, can only have made my poor afflicted sister his wife from the most mercenary motives! I dread to think of what may be her fate hereafter, when, having obtained at my father's death all the advantages to which he looks forward, he will show himself in his true colours."
Thus, even with such terrible prospects awaiting herself, the good, generous Mary trembled only to contemplate those of her regardless sister; and it was chiefly for the delight of revisiting the spots where they had played together in childhood—the fondly-remembered environs of Stanley Manor—that she persuaded her husband to take up his abode in the deserted mansion at the Park, where, from prudential motives, Mr Sparks had broken up his establishment, and sold off his horses.
Attended by a single servant, in addition to the old porter and his wife who were in charge of the house, Mary trusted that their arrival at Lexley would be unnoticed in the neighbourhood. Confining herself strictly within the boundaries of the Park, which neither her father nor the bride and bridegroom were likely to enter, she conceived that she might enjoy, on her husband's arm, those solitary rambles of which every day circumscribed the extent; without affording reason to the General to suppose, when, discerning every morning from his lofty terraces the mansion of his falling enemy, that, in place of the man he loathed, it contained his discarded child.
The dispirited young woman, on the other hand, delighted in contemplating from the windows of her dressing-room the towers beneath, whose shelter she had abided in such perfect happiness with her doating father and apparently attached sister. They loved her no longer, it is true. Perhaps it was her fault—(she would not allow herself to conceive it could be a fault of theirs)—but at all events she loved them dearly as ever; and it was comforting to her poor heart to catch a glimpse of their habitation, and know herself within reach, should sickness or evil betide.
"If I should not survive my approaching time," thought Mary, often surveying for hours, through her tears, the heights of Lexley Hall, and fancying she could discern human figures moving from window to window, or from terrace to terrace; "if I should be fated never to behold this child, already loved—this child which is to be so dear a blessing to us both—in my last hours my father would not surely refuse to give me his blessing; nor would Selina persist in her present cruel alienation. It is, indeed, a comfort to be here."
Her husband thought otherwise. To him nothing was more trying than this compulsory sojourn at Lexley; not that he required other society than that of his engaging and attached wife. At any other moment it would have been delightful to him to enjoy the country pleasures around them, with no officious intrusive world to interpose between their affection. But in his present uncertainty as to his future prospects, to be mocked by this empty show of proprietorship, and have constantly before his eyes the residence of the man who had heaped such contumely on his head, and inflicted such pain on the gentlest and sweetest of human hearts, was a state of moral torment.
In the course of my fishing excursions—(for, thanks to Mr Sparks's neighbourly liberality, I had a card of general access to his parks)—I frequently met the young couple; and having no clue to their secret sentiments, noticed, with deep regret, the sadness of Mary's countenance and sinister looks of her husband. I feared—I greatly feared—that they were not happy together. The General's daughter repined, perhaps, after her former fortunes. The young husband sighed, doubtless, over the liberty he had renounced.
It was spring time, and Lord Robert having satisfied his cravings after the pleasures of London, by occasional bachelor visits on pretence of business, the family were to remain at the Hall till after the Easter holidays, so that Mary had every expectation of the accomplishment of her hopes previous to their departure. Perhaps, in the bottom of her heart, she flattered herself that, on hearing of her safety, her obdurate relations might be moved, by a sudden burst of pity and kindliness, to make overtures of reconciliation—at all events to dispatch words of courteous enquiry; for she was ever dwelling on her good fortune that her father should, on this particular year, have so retarded the usual period of his departure. Yet when the report of these exulting exclamations on her part reached my ear, I was ungenerous enough to attribute them to a very different origin, fancying that the poor submissive creature was thankful for being within reach of protection from conjugal misusage.
Meanwhile, she was so far justified in one portion of her premises, that no tidings of her residence at Lexley Park had as yet reached the ear of her father. The fact was, that not a soul had courage to do so much as mention, in his presence, the name of his once idolized child; and Lord Robert, having been apprized of the circumstance, instantly exacted a promise from his wife, that nothing should induce her to hazard her father's displeasure by communication with her sister, or by acquainting the General of the arrival of the offending pair. The consequence was, that in the dread of encountering her sister, (whom she felt ashamed to meet as the wife of the man they had so often decried together,) Lady Robert rarely quitted the house; and these two sisters, so long the affectionate inmates of the same chamber—the sisters who had wept together over their mother's deathbed—abided within sight of each other's windows, yet estranged as with the estrangement of strangers.