the sabbath came, god’s holy day, and the family attended a church which was at some little distance. mr. and mrs. hope and their daughter, the ladies arrayed in all the splendour of fashion, went in state in the carriage, with two footmen in attendance, while the boys preferred walking over the fields with their tutor.
ernest, as he entered the church, drew the eyes of the whole congregation upon himself, which made him more uncomfortable than ever. “am i not to escape even here from vanity fair?” thought he; “cannot even these walls shut out the world!”
straight in front of the seat which he occupied was a marble monument of singular beauty, which naturally attracted his attention. it represented the figure of a very lovely babe, sleeping amongst water-lilies, the attitude and countenance depicting the peaceful slumber of innocence. below was an inscription, which the boy read with strange emotion:—
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in memory of
ernest,
eldest son of the first lord fontonore,
who was accidentally drowned
before he had completed the
first year of his age.
“’tis thus the snow-flake from the skies,
touching the sod, dissolves and dies;
ere mists of earth can its whiteness stain,
raised by the sunbeams to heaven again.
“though parted now on life’s thorny way,
’twere weak, ’twere cruel, to wish his stay;
we must toil on through trials, griefs, alarms—
he was borne to the goal in his saviour’s arms.”
after service was over, clementina took a fancy—for she was always governed by fancies—to walk home with her cousins instead of driving with her parents. she therefore pursued the path across the fields with ernest, whilst charles and his tutor walked a little way behind.
“i was so much diverted at church,” said the young lady, in the flippant manner which she mistook for wit, “i was so much diverted to see you looking so seriously at the inscription upon your own monument. it was so funny, i could hardly help bursting out laughing, only that would have been very improper, you know.”
“the inscription made me feel anything but inclined to laugh,” observed ernest.
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“well, i would give the world,”—had the world belonged to clementina, she would have given it away ten times a-day,—“i would give the world to know what you were thinking when you read those fine verses upon yourself.”
“i was thinking whether it would indeed have been happier for me to have died when i was a little one, before i had known anything of the world and sin.”
“oh, dear me! those are the dreadful, gloomy notions which you get from your horrid, methodistical tutor.”
“clementina, i will not hear him spoken of in that manner,” said ernest, with a decision of tone which the young lady had never heard him make use of before. she was either offended, or thought it pretty to look so, for stopping as they reached a very low stile, she called to charles to help her over it. she wished to vex ernest, and raise a feeling of jealousy toward his brother; but she was successful in neither of her designs, as ernest very contentedly turned back to mr. ewart, and left the fair lady to pursue her walk with the companion whom she had chosen.
“i am so sorry for you, dear charles!” said clementina, in a voice rather more affected than usual; “it is so dreadful to be turned out of your right by a low, vulgar creature like that.”
“but you see i don’t think him either low or vulgar,” replied charles, good humouredly. “he has high
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feelings, and high principles; and as for being vulgar, a boy who thinks so much, and upon such subjects as he does, can never, as mr. ewart said to me once, have a vulgar mind.”
returning from church.
“i find him intolerably dull,” said clementina.
“i am sorry for it,” was her cousin’s dry reply.
clementina was now offended with charles in his turn, and had there been a third party less unmanageable than mr. ewart, she would doubtless have chosen him to accompany her, in the delightful hope of annoying both her cousins. the silly girl was almost unconsciously forming a plan to separate the brothers, and
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make them jealous of each other, by sometimes favouring the elder, sometimes the younger, so as to draw their whole attention towards herself. you may think that it was some unkind and bitter feeling that made her wish thus to destroy their happiness and union, and act the part of a tempter towards her companions; but it was nothing but selfish vanity and folly—so that she was amused, she cared not who suffered; the power to give pain she considered as a triumph—it is reckoned so in vanity fair.
she turned round to see if ernest were watching her movements, but was extremely provoked to find him so deeply engaged in serious conversation with the clergyman, that her presence seemed altogether forgotten. clementina had therefore no resource but to walk on with charles, doing her best to put all the sermon out of his head, by rattling on about her delight at the prospect of soon going to london, her distress at its not being the gay season, her conviction that young ladies ought to come out at fourteen, how she was charmed at the prospect held out of a child’s ball in grosvenor square, but in despair at the dear countess not being in town! such is the conversation of vanity fair.
in the afternoon mrs. hope informed ernest of the intended move, which circumstances had led her to make earlier than she had intended. “i propose remaining in london till after christmas,” she said; “of course you and your brother will accompany us.”
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“and mr. ewart?”
“there is no room in our town house for him,” replied the lady, who, like her husband, had little love for one, the unworldliness of whose character seemed a silent reproach upon her own.
“it would surely be a great pity that i should leave my studies,” said ernest; “pray remember how much time i have lost already.”
“oh, i’ve quite decided on your coming. to acquire a fashionable air, and the good breeding of the haut-ton, is quite as indispensable as any book-learning.”
the truth was that the lady had no idea of losing an opportunity of displaying to her acquaintance her nephew, the young peer.
on the following evening charles came to his brother, who was engaged in the dry study of a latin grammar, to announce to him the arrival of jack and ben, who had just been landed at the gardener’s cottage.
“i must go and see them at once,” said ernest, rising.
“’tis late and cold; i think that you might wait till to-morrow.”
“oh no; they are strangers here, poor boys, they have none but me to bid them welcome.”
“then i’ll go with you to see the meeting,” said charles, taking down his cap from its peg.
there was something of awkwardness, a little mixed
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with fear, in the manner of ben, as the young nobleman kindly held out his hand to him; but jack had lost none of his own reckless, impudent air, and strangely did his voice remind ernest of former days as he called out, as if still in his cottage on the common, “i say, mark, here’s a fine change for you!”
“i don’t believe that the boy knows how to blush,” whispered charles.
“but i hope that you don’t mean to keep us long here,” continued jack, looking round rather contemptuously on the clean little dwelling.
“what do you mean?” replied ernest; “surely you prefer it to the poor-house!”
“why, you don’t think that i’ll stand living in a cottage, while my brother is in a castle! that would be rather a good joke i should say.”
“he’s no brother of yours,” cried charles, angrily.
“i’m as good as he any day,” muttered the boy, glancing at ernest with mingled envy and dislike. the young peer mastered his temper, though it cost him an effort. “i have placed you,” said he, “where one much wiser than either of us thinks that you will be best; i hope that you will be comfortable, and learn your work, and never have real cause to regret coming here.” with these words ernest and charles quitted the cottage, overhearing as they passed out ben’s disappointed exclamation, “i thought he’d have made us gentlefolk too!”
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“how hard it is to do good!” said ernest, with a sigh of mortification, when they had walked a few steps from the place. “i see the wisdom of mr. ewart’s doubts, when he said that he believed that there might be objections to this plan.”
“well, you’ve acted kindly, and you’ll have your reward,” observed charles.
“not in the gratitude of these boys.”
“did you do it to purchase their gratitude?” asked his brother. “mr. ewart says that some do good actions to buy praise, and some to buy gratitude, but both look for an earthly reward, and, therefore, for one which can never be sure. it is the cup of cold water given for the lord’s sake which is remembered and rewarded above.”
“true,” replied ernest, “and if we do good only in order to be loved, the many, many disappointments which we meet with, will soon make us weary in well-doing. that benevolence only will be steady and sure which comes from a wish to please that master in heaven who never can change or forget.”
