Part 20 (1/2)
”I rather think that you are addicted to speaking truth--and perhaps you pique yourself upon it,” resumed Miss Cartwright. ”Will you venture to tell me what you think of the scene you witnessed?”
”You are not the person I should most naturally have selected as the confidant of my opinions respecting Mr. Cartwright,” said Rosalind; ”but since you put the question plainly I will answer it plainly, and confess that I suspect him not only of wis.h.i.+ng to inculcate his own Calvinistic doctrines on the mind of f.a.n.n.y Mowbray, but moreover, notwithstanding his disproportionate age, of gaining her affections.”
”Her affections?” repeated Henrietta. ”And with what view do you imagine he is endeavouring to gain her affections?”
”Doubtless with a view to making her his wife; though, to be sure, the idea is preposterous.”
”Sufficiently. Pray, Miss Torrington, has Miss f.a.n.n.y Mowbray an independent fortune?”
”None whatever. Like the rest of the family, she is become by the death of her father entirely dependent upon Mrs. Mowbray.”
”Your fortune is entirely at your own disposal, I believe.”
Rosalind looked provoked at the idle turn Miss Cartwright was giving to a conversation which, though she had not led to it, interested her deeply.
”Do not suspect me of impertinence,” said Henrietta in a tone more gentle than ordinary. ”But such is the case, is it not?”
”Yes, Miss Cartwright,” was Rosalind's grave reply.
”Then, do you know that I think it infinitely more probable Mr.
Cartwright may have it in contemplation to make you his wife.”
”I beg your pardon, Miss Cartwright,” said Rosalind, ”but I really thought that you were speaking of your father seriously; and it seems you are disposed to punish me for imagining you would do so, to one so nearly a stranger.”
”I never jest on any subject,” replied the melancholy-looking girl, knitting her dark brows into a frown of such austerity as almost made Rosalind tremble. ”A reasoning being who has nothing to hope among the realities on this side the grave, and hopes nothing on the other, is not very likely to be jocose.”
”Good Heavens! Miss Cartwright,” exclaimed Rosalind, ”what dreadful language is this? Are you determined to prove to me that there may be opinions and doctrines more terrible still than those of your father?”
”I had no meaning of the kind, I a.s.sure you,” replied Henrietta, in her usual quiet manner, which always seemed to hover between the bitterness of a sneer, and the quietude or indifference of philosophy. ”Pray do not trouble yourself for a moment to think about me or my opinions. You might, perhaps, as you are a bold-spirited, honest-minded girl, do some good if you fully comprehended all that was going on around you; though it is very doubtful, for it is impossible to say to what extent the besotted folly of people may go. But don't you think it might on the whole be quite as probable that Mr. Cartwright may wish to marry the mother as the daughter?”
”Mrs. Mowbray!--Good gracious! no.”
”Then we differ. But may I ask you why you think otherwise?”
”One reason is, that Mrs. Mowbray's recent widowhood seems to put such an idea entirely out of the question; and another, that he appears to be positively making love to f.a.n.n.y.”
”Oh!--is that all? I do a.s.sure you there is nothing at all particular in that. He would tell you himself, I am sure, if you were to enter upon the subject with him, that it is his duty to influence and lead the hearts of his flock into the way he would have them go, by _every_ means in his power.”
”Then you really do not think he has been making love to f.a.n.n.y?”
”I am sure, Miss Torrington,” replied Henrietta very gravely, ”I did not mean to say so.”
”Indeed! indeed! Miss Cartwright,” said Rosalind with evident symptoms of impatience, ”these riddles vex me cruelly. If your father _does_ make love to this dear fanciful child, he must, I suppose, have some hope that she will marry him?”
”How can I answer you?” exclaimed Henrietta with real feeling. ”You cannot be above two or three years younger than I am, yet your purity and innocence make me feel myself a monster.”
”For Heaven's sake do not trifle with me!” cried Rosalind, her face and neck dyed with indignant blood; ”you surely do not mean that your father is seeking to seduce this unhappy child?”
”Watch Mr. Cartwright a little while, Rosalind Torrington, as I have done for the six last terrible years of my hateful life, and you may obtain perhaps some faint idea of the crooked, complex machinery--the movements and counter-movements, the s.h.i.+ftings and the balancings, by which his zig-zag course is regulated. Human pa.s.sions are in him for ever struggling with, and combating, what may be called, in their strength, _superhuman_ avarice and ambition.