Monckton

“ Nevertheless, between you and us, this sleek, rosy personage, archdeacon or rural dean down to the ground was Leonard Monckton, padded to the nine, and tinted as artistically as any canvas in the world.
* * * * *
The first visit Monckton had paid to this neighborhood was to the mine. He knew that was a dangerous visit, so he came at night as a decrepit old man. He very soon saw two things which discouraged farther visits. One was a placard describing his crime in a few words, and also his person and clothes, and offering 500 guineas reward. ”

“ Lord Monckton rose.
"Rotter!" breathed Thomas. He rearranged his papers, crackling them suggestively.
"Picnic this afternoon; going along?" asked Lord Monckton, pausing by the portières.
"Really, I am not a guest here; I am only private secretary to Mrs. Killigrew. If they treat me as a human being it is because they believe that charity should not play in grooves."
"Ah! We are all open to a little charity." ”

“ For this purpose the devoted young man had travelled from Edinburgh to London, and from London to Torquay, back to London again, with Mr. Monckton for his companion, and from London to Paris, still in that gentleman’s companionship. Gilbert Monckton would have thought it a small thing to have given half his fortune in payment of the tidings which the scene-painter carried to him.
He should see his wife again; his bright and beautiful young wife, whom he had so cruelly wronged, and so stupidly misunderstood.
Human nature is made up of contradictions. ”

“ But before Gilbert Monckton left the apartment, he gave the nurse special orders respecting the sick man. She was not to let him leave his rooms upon any pretence whatever; not even if he should appear to become reasonable.
Mr. Monckton went to the Hôtel du Palais with his young wife, and, for the first time since he had been wronged, forgave the frivolous woman who had jilted him. She had been very kind to Eleanor, and he was in a humour to be pleased with any one who had been good to his wife. ”

“ She had been too proud to appeal to her husband; for ever impulsive, for ever inconsiderate, she had not stopped to think that he of all others was the most fitting person to stand by her in this crisis. At first the thought of writing to Gilbert Monckton had indeed flashed across her mind, but in the next moment she had remembered the bitter humiliation of her last failure. ”

“ Monckton would go without a meal, see his wife and family want common necessaries, with plenty of money at his command, and yet solace himself by performances on the organ, which frequently went far into the night, startling the passing stranger by bursts of solemn midnight [Pg 254] melody; for he never played till the faded daylight rendered it impossible for him to work at the various little jobs by which he added to his hoards.
He had two sons: the pretty child we first knew, and an elder one—a slim, delicate youth, who was by nature an artist. ”

“ The wisest and the best are apt to be bound captive by some external charm, which they think must be the outward evidence of an inward grace; and Gilbert Monckton had loved this frivolous, capricious girl as truly as if she had been the noblest and greatest of womankind. ”

“ Mr. Monckton’s cane lay upon a chair by the fire-place, and while speaking he had set down his hat, and taken up the cane; unconsciously, perhaps; but the movement had not escaped the guilty man’s furtive glance. He kept silence; and with his face darkened by a gloomy scowl, still sat biting his nails. The will would be found. The genuine document would be compared with the fabrication he had placed amongst his great-uncle’s papers, and perpetual shame, punishment, and misery would be his lot. ”

“ Miss Monckton, like Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu [q. v.] , deprecated card-playing at private parties. Among her guests when Miss Burney knew her were, besides Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, Sheridan (then only regarded as the beautiful Miss Linley's 'drag of a husband') , Horace Walpole, Mrs. Thrale, and Mrs. Siddons,who was Miss Monckton's intimate friend.
In June 1786 Miss Monckton married Edmund Boyle, seventh earl of Cork and Orrery, who died in 1798. She was his second wife. There were no children of the marriage.
As Lady Cork her passion for entertaining persons of note increased. ”

“ Monckton stood in the window of the waiting-room.
“He must be very fond of his ward,” she thought, “or he could never be so sorry because she has no mother. I thought lawyers were hard, cruel men, who cared for nothing in the world. I always used to fancy my sister Hortensia ought to have been a lawyer.”
By-and-bye, as they drew very near to the station, Mr. Monckton dropped his newspaper with another sigh, and turning to Eleanor, said, in a low, confidential voice:
“I hope you will be very good to Laura Mason, Miss Vincent. Remember that she stands quite alone in the world ”

“ He had no clue by which he could follow those wanderings; no chance word ever fell from his wife’s lips which might serve as the traitor silk that guided ruthless Eleanor to Rosamond’s hiding-place. So thus, before the honeymoon was over, Gilbert Monckton began to be jealous of his bride, thereby fostering for himself a nest of scorpions, or a very quarry of young vultures, which were henceforth to make their meals off his entrails. ”

“ There were moments when the lawyer’s prudence, when the conscientious scruples of an honest man got the better of the husband’s selfish fears; and in those moments Gilbert Monckton doubted whether he was doing his duty towards his ward in suffering her to marry Launcelot Darrell. ”

“ We are poor unprotected women, but I dare say we shall find those who will be able to defend our rights.”
“I don’t think we have any occasion to stop here,” said Mr. Monckton; “are you ready to come home, Eleanor?”
“Quite ready,” his wife answered.
“You have nothing more to say?”
“Nothing.”
“Put on your cloak, then, and come. Goodnight, Miss de Crespigny. Good-night, Miss Lavinia.”
Mr. Lamb, the Windsor solicitor’s clerk, came in while Gilbert Monckton and his wife were leaving the room. He was the same old man whom Richard Thornton had seen at Windsor. ”

“ Yet, willing to shorten a suspence so uneasy to them, she determined to entreat Mr Monckton would endeavour to find him out, and acquaint him with their anxiety.
That gentleman, when she returned to his house, was in a state of mind by no means enviable. Missing her at tea, he had asked Miss Bennet where she was, and hearing she had not left word, he could scarce conceal his chagrin. ”

“ Monckton reluctantly remained at Halifax in 1758, while Lawrence was engaged with General Amherst in capturing Louisbourg. In September Monckton, acting under orders from Amherst, destroyed some French settlements up the St. John's River, and early in 1759 he was summoned to New York to take command in the south in the event of General Forbes's death. Forbes died on 11 March, but Pitt had in the meantime appointed Monckton second in command of the famous expedition under General Wolfe destined for Quebec. ”

“ Monckton like a little dog!” “Mrs. Fellows,” I remarked, “if you want to make a lifelong friend of the old fellow, you will give him some sugary tea at once, for he has walked further and faster than ever in his life before. He is not a bad old chap when you know the way to treat him.” The chief spent the night on board the Siai: I reassured him by permitting about twenty of his people to sleep on board also.
On the following morning I held a session of the district court at the Mission house, and sentenced the six offenders to varying terms of imprisonment. ”

“ Mr. Monckton shrugged his shoulders.
“Who set you up as a judge of how a woman should speak of a man she loves?” he said, sharply. “My wife has too much modesty to advertise her affection for any man. By-the-bye, Miss Mason, would you like to come and live at Tolldale?”
Laura looked at her guardian with unmitigated surprise.
“Come and live at Tolldale!” she said; “I thought you didn’t like me; I thought you despised me because I’m so frivolous and childish.”
“Despise you, Laura,” cried Gilbert Monckton, “not like you! ”

“ Monckton, elevating his straight black eyebrows, “is she so very fascinating, then? I’m sorry for it,” he muttered under his breath as he walked away after shaking hands with the two girls.
They heard the phaeton driving away three minutes afterwards.
Laura Mason shrugged her shoulders with an air of relief.
“I’m glad he’s gone,” she said.
“But you like him very much. He’s very good, isn’t he?”
“Oh, yes, very, very good, and I do like him. But I’m afraid of him, I think, because he’s so good. He always seems to be watching one and finding out one’s faults. ”

“ Shocked and dismayed, she now saw, but saw with horror, the removal of all her doubts, and the explanation of all her difficulties, in the full and irrefragable discovery of the perfidy of her oldest friend and confident.
Miss Bennet herself she regarded in the affair as a mere tool, which, though in effect it did the work, was innocent of its mischief, because powerless but in the hand of its employer.
“That employer,” cried she, “must be Mr Monckton! Mr Monckton whom so long I have known, who so willingly has been my counsellor, so ably my instructor! ”

“ Gilbert Monckton started as violently as if that infantine whisper had been the envenomed hiss of a snake.
“What do you mean, child?” he said, turning sharply upon his ward; “of course Eleanor and I married because we loved each other? Why else should we have married?”
“No, to be sure. Girls marry for money sometimes. I heard Mrs. Darrell say that one of the Penwoods, of Windsor, married a horrid, old, rich city man for the sake of his money. But I don’t think Eleanor would do that sort of thing. Only it seems so funny that she should have been in love with you all the time.” ”

“ Eleanor Monckton was moving towards the door.
In all this time Ellen Darrell had not once spoken. She had stood apart in the recess of the window, a dark and melancholy shadow, mourning over the ruin of her life.
I think that she was scarcely surprised at what had happened. We sometimes know the people we love, and know them to be base; but we go on loving them desperately, nevertheless; and love them best when the world is against them, and they have most need of our love. I speak here of maternal love, which is so sublime an affection as to be next in order to the love of God. ”

“ We visited the spot where Monckton fell; the place of the causeway across the morass (now a small bridge upon the main road) ; and, after taking a general view of the whole ground of conflict, and sketching the picture on page 362, returned to Freehold in time to dine, and take the stage for the station at Jamesburg, on my way home. It had been to me a day of rarest interest and pleasure, notwithstanding the inclement weather; for no battle-field in our country has stronger claims to the reverence of the American heart than that of the plains of Monmouth. ”

“ She had no comprehension of the despair which had filled Gilbert Monckton’s breast as he wrote that farewell letter. She did not know how the strong man had done battle with his suspicions, struggling with every new doubt, and conquering it as it arose, only to be conquered himself at last, by the irresistible force of circumstances, every one of which seemed a new evidence against his wife. Eleanor could not know this. She only knew that her husband had most bitterly wronged her, and she could feel nothing but indignation—yet. ”

“ She went on with the letter:
“From the hour of our return to Tolldale, Eleanor,” wrote Gilbert Monckton, “I knew the truth—the hard and cruel truth—very difficult for a man to believe, when he has built up his life and mapped out a happy future under the influence of a delusion which leaves him desolate when it melts away. I knew the worst. I watched you as a man only watches the woman upon whose truth his every hope depends, and I saw that you still loved Launcelot Darrell. By a hundred evidences, small in themselves, but damning when massed together, you betrayed your secret. ”

“ The music in the ballroom stopped.
"Will you be so good, Miss Killigrew, as to tell me why you Americans call a palace like this—a cottage?" Lord Monckton's voice was pleasing, with only a slight accent.
"I'm sure I do not know. If it were mine, I'd call it a villa."
"Quite properly."
"Do you like Americans?"
"I have no preference for any people. I prefer individuals. I had much rather talk to an enlightened Chinaman than to an unenlightened white man." ”

“ Laura Mason was accustomed to obey her guardian, and Eleanor was very well pleased to pay all possible respect to Gilbert Monckton. She looked up to him as something removed from the common-place sphere in which she felt so fettered and helpless. She fancied sometimes that if she could have told him the story of her father’s death, he might have helped her to find the old man’s destroyer. She had that implicit confidence in his power which a young and inexperienced girl almost always feels for a man of superior intellect who is twenty years her senior. ”

“ It appears probable that, had he fallen upon the British rear, with his fresh troops, at the close of the day, Sir Henry Clinton and his army might have shared the fate of the British at Saratoga.
The hottest of the conflict occurred near the spot where Monckton fell. Very few of the Americans were killed on the west side of the morass, but many were slain in the field with Monckton, and lay among the slaughtered grenadiers of the enemy. The Americans lost, in killed, six officers, and sixty-one non-commissioned officers and privates. ”