# Lady Anne Granard/Chapter 13

CHAPTER XIII.
"I am too happy!" exclaimed Isabella, as she paced up and down the gravel walk of the inn where they stopped to breakfast on their return to London, having stepped into the garden while waiting for Mr. Glentworth. It was one of those delicious mornings, "when but to breathe is pleasant;" sunshine lay golden on every leaf, and the beds were filled with common flowers, lovelier for their being common—sheltered by a hedge of mingled honeysuckle and wild rose, stood some hives of bees, the sound of whose pliant wings came from the kitchen-garden beyond, now in the first fragrant blossom of the bean. The low, clipped hawthorn hedge shewed, on the other side, a green and winding lane, which divided the fertile meadows, some of which still swept in emerald luxuriance, while others were sweet with the newly-mown grass. A church crowned the hill, whose square tower was clothed with the ivy of a century. Isabella walked on with a keen feeling of enjoyment, and soon began to pick some of the flowers with which the garden was so profusely stocked; it was only within the last few weeks that she had known the pleasure of gathering a nosegay for herself.
​ Mr. Glentworth had not taken his young bride to any of the more noted scenes; those he kept for a time when the imagination might need more stimulus; now he contented himself with a quiet journey through a secluded part, whose beauty consisted only in those green fields and lanes which are peculiar to England. Placed under no necessity to admire, she enjoyed every thing; and she was never weary of the drive or walk through a country, which, accustomed as she was to a dull, dark street, seemed to her "an opening paradise." Mr. Glentworth was delighted with the fresh pure taste, whose enjoyments were so simple and yet so vivid; and when, let her be doing what she would, he was caught sight of at the first glance, and she sprang to meet him, her hands filled with flowers, and her cheek as bright, he could not but admit the felicity of being so beloved. He now made his appearance at the end of the walk; she seemed to know it by intuition, for she turned instantly, and, in another moment, her arm was in his, and they had entered the breakfast-room. If the fields of long rich grass—the hedges where a few late sprays of hawthorn were still in bloom—if these were thoroughly English, so was the little inn parlour, with its white curtains, where the roses looked in at the window. The breakfast table, which, at Isabella's request, had been drawn close to the open casement, seemed the picture of comfort. Most of the articles were home-made; the bread, the yellow butter, as golden as the cups to ​which it has given name; the thickest cream, and a honeycomb redolent of the thyme which even then echoed with the hum of the bees.
"By the bye, Isabella," said Mr. Glentworth, "I cannot longer let you have a secret from me. What did you do with the hundred pounds, whose use and possession were to be such a mystery?" Isabella coloured deeper than the roses at her side, while confessing. "You are a dear, good little girl," said her husband; "I suspected something of the sort. Do you still vote for Charles Penrhyn?"
"I am more anxious than ever," whispered Isabella. "The more happy I am, the more I wish Louisa happy, too."
"Do you see this letter?" said her husband; "it was to meet me here, and I have just fetched it from the post-office. I find that I can now place Mr. Penrhyn in a situation of complete independence, and with excellent prospects. Shall we write to ask him and Louisa to dine with us the day we arrive in town?"
"How kind you are!" exclaimed Isabella; "do tell me what Charles Penrhyn is to be."
"A merchant," replied Mr. Glentworth; "government interest I have none, but my late connection enables me to name him as junior partner in an old established house. He will have a thousand a year to begin with, and with prudence and talent will realize a large fortune."
"How can Louisa, how can I thank you enough?" said Isabella.
​ "My letters received this morning bring me another piece of news with which, I fear, you will not be so well pleased. I must be in Marseilles as soon as possible." Isabella could not but contrast her present feelings on hearing that he was going abroad, to those with which she had once listened to a similar declaration. "I have been thinking," continued he, "that such a journey would do Mary the greatest benefit. Could you persuade her to accompany us? I must be much taken up with business, and you might feel lonely."
"I am sure that Mary will be glad, almost as glad as myself," replied Isabella. Mr. Glentworth had his letters to write before he began the day's journey, and Isabella again loitered a half hour in the garden. What a change had a few weeks made in her prospects, and in those of her family! she was married to a man who anticipated her very wishes. The obstacles to Louisa's attachment were on the point of being removed, and Mary was about to have that change which her physican declared was her only chance of restored health. Again Isabella exclaimed, "I am too happy."
Louisa was to dine with Mrs. Glentworth at their hotel in Albemarle Street; her lover was to come in the evening, as all parties agreed that he ought at once to communicate his altered situation to Lord and Lady Penrhyn. Charles had accepted Mr. Glentworth's offered kindness frankly and gratefully. ​"Our happiness, and my doing credit to your recommendation, will," said he to his new friend, "be your best reward."
He found both sister and brother in high good humour. A Hungarian baron, with an unpronounceable name, had that very morning been so struck with Lady Penrhyn's beauty, that, not knowing she was married, he laid himself, castle, sabre, and fur pelisses at her feet, for immediate acceptance.
She told this as a good story, not considering how much it revealed of the lightness and encouragement which must have marked her conduct, before it could have happened to a married woman, and not aware of what to other tellers constituted the point of the anecdote, that the Hungarian had understood that she was not the wife, but the heiress of Lord Penrhyn. He was equally pleased after his kind; a new and rich vein of lead had been discovered in some mines which he had bought for next to nothing from an old friend who had ruined himself in the speculation. Gratified vanity and interest give their own interest to fish, flesh, and fowl: the cloth removed, and the servants withdrawn, Penrhyn thought that he could not have a better opportunity. A man is always ashamed of confessing that he is about to be married—even to an heiress—but when it comes to an attachment, and to a girl without a shilling, the avowal is very embarrassing indeed. Charles planned ​divers ways of introducing the subject during the three courses, and of course did exactly the reverse of what he intended. Instead of ingeniously bringing the conversation round to the point he wished, he made a desperate rush, and exclaimed abruptly, "Do you know I am going to be married?"
"What heiress have you brought down?" cried his sister.
"You are never going to be such a fool," said Lord Penrhyn.
"I should despise myself," replied Charles, with un petit air de sentiment, "were I capable of marrying for money."
"All for love, and the world well lost," interrupted Lady Penrhyn.
"I certainly," returned her brother, "consider love indispensable in marriage."
"Money is much more so," exclaimed Lord Penrhyn; "you cannot marry on three hundred a year."
"Oh," cried her ladyship, "I see the whole ménage; they will take a first floor over a baker's shop, to save fire, and live upon red herrings during the week, with a mutton chop by way of meat on a Sunday."
"I think," replied Charles, "we might do better than that even on three hundred a year. But I frankly confess, that, with my habits and ideas, though I could put aside luxuries, I could not ​endure to marry without my wife had some prospect of the comfort and refinement of that rank in life to which we have both been accustomed."
"I must tell you," exclaimed Lord Penrhyn, "that you need not look to any thing from me. I would not, if I could, help a young man who thinks of marrying."
"And, pray, who is the young lady?" asked his sister.
"Louisa Granard," replied her brother, who could scarcely have named any one more displeasing.
"That insipid pink and white thing!" cried Lady Penrhyn.
"Why, she has not a guinea, nor an expectation," cried her husband.
"With all sorts of extravagant notions, inherited from her mother," said that mother's particular friend.
"Lady Anne ruined her husband," said Lord Penrhyn.
"Will you have a hackney coach for your travelling carriage?" cried her ladyship.
"Spare your wit, Julia," replied Mr. Penrhyn; "my mind is quite made up. Louisa and myself have been long attached, and, if our home be an humble, I hope, I know that it will be a happy one. I trust in the course of a month to introduce Mrs. Charles Penrhyn."
"Not to me," interrupted his sister. "I will have ​no straw-bonneted, gingham-gowned pattern wives in my acquaintance. I shall make a point of cutting you."
"I am glad that you, my dear Julia," said Lord Penrhyn, "show your usual good sense in not encouraging such folly. Again, I ask, how are you and Miss Louisa Granard to live upon three hundred a year?"
"We do not," returned Charles, "intend to try; it would, indeed, have been folly to marry upon so limited an income, but we have always looked forward to your lordship's interest placing me in a more independent position."
"I can and will do nothing for you," was the short stern answer.
"I do not now ask you," said the other. "Mr. Glentworth's kindness has opened to me other prospects. I shall resign my present situation."
"Very ungrateful of you," interrupted his sister, "after all the interest it required to obtain it."
"I do not think that is much ingratitude," replied he, "in giving it up, when, by so doing, I more than treble my income."
"I did not know that Glentworth had such interest. What place has he procured for you?" asked Lord Penrhyn.
"I am to be the junior partner in the house of Franklin and Osborne, with which he has long been connected," answered Mr. Penrhyn.
​ "A tradesman!" shrieked his sister; "have you no sense of what is due to your family—no pride?"
"Yes," said Charles, "I have the pride of independence."
"I consider myself very ill used," said Lord Penrhyn, "that you who owe me—I may say every thing—have not thought proper to consult me in this business."
"I came here," returned his young relative, "the moment I heard of it. I never supposed you could object to such an opening for my future exertions."
Lord Penrhyn hesitated, while his wife exclaimed, "If you had one atom of the spirit of a gentleman, you would not think of so disgracing your family."
"I really cannot see how I disgrace my family," replied her brother, "by an endeavour at honourable exertion."
"Well," cried she, "I only beg you will not give yourself the trouble of coming here again, and, as for your wife, I can tell you that I will never visit her."
"You have quite cured me," said Lord Penrhyn, now assured that he would have no conjugal opposition to encounter, "of ever doing any thing for a young man again. I give you up; if you like to throw away your own prospects, you may, but, as this will be the last time we shall meet under a roof, which, as your sister truly says, you are about to disgrace, I take the opportunity of saying that I consider your conduct the height of ingratitude."
​ "This is too unreasonable," cried Charles, rising: "where is the disgrace of an intelligent and honourable calling, and where the ingratitude of endeavouring to improve my condition, without trespassing further on your kindness?"
"Good evening, sir," said Lord Penrhyn, who had too much sense not to know that the subject would not bear arguing. Charles's heart swelled within him; he went round, and would have taken his sister's hand to bid her farewell, but she snatched it away, and said, "Remember, I shall never visit your wife." Charles left the house at once indignant and astonished; and yet he had lived long enough in the world to know that nothing is too unreasonable nor too unkind for selfishness, acted upon by vanity; moreover, that we always harden ourselves in the ill doing of which we are secretly ashamed.