Mrs. Hastings

“ In a very gaudily furnished parlor, and in a very gaudy dress, sat a lady of some eight or nine and thirty years of age, with many traces of beauty still to be perceived in a face of no very intellectual expression. Few persons perhaps would have recognized in her the fair and faulty girl whom we have depicted weeping bitterly over the fate of Sir Philip Hastings' elder brother, and over the terrible situation in which he left her. ”

“ After an hour of waiting, one, two, three, coaches rolled past the door, and the lady began to fear she had been forgotten, when the polite agent appeared to notify "Mrs. Hastings" that "the stage was ready." This was Mrs. Alice Hastings, then—wife of Mr. Jack Hastings, of Deep Cañon, Chloride District. The agent thought Mr. Hastings had a very pretty wife, and expressed his opinion in his manner, as men will. ”

“ Hastings. "I don't care much for so many colours myself, perhaps because I always wear black; though I did wear light colours a good deal when I was a girl."
"What else, Mr. St. George?" inquired the prince pleasantly.
"Nothing else," cried Olivia passionately. "I am satisfied. My father is in danger, and I believe that he is in Yaque, for he would never of his own will desert a place of trust. I must go to him. And, Aunt Dora, you and Mr. Frothingham must go with me."
"Oh, Olivia!" wailed Mrs. Hastings, a different key for every syllable, "think—consider! ”

“ Anthony's mother was sitting on a sofa, calm, superior, but triumphant. Her eye travelled slowly over the chattering crowd with an air of august approval. "See what a fuss these people make," she seemed to say, "how they dress up, rejoice, invite their friends, because their girl has succeeded in catching my son! See how they have decked out the fortunate creature herself so that she may seem beautiful and pleasing!" Mrs. Hastings was a tall lady with a dignified nose, and she bent over Mary when she had made room for her on the sofa. "How charming dear Rosemary looks!" ”

“ I have a mind that can share thine objects, I have pride that can exult in thy power, courage to partake thy dangers, and devotion—" she hesitated, with the most charming blush—"but of that, sweet lord, thou shalt judge hereafter! This is my dowry,—it is all!"
"And all I ask or covet," said Hastings. ”

“ Leaping on his palfrey, Hastings rode back to the Tower, dismounted at the gate, passed on to the little postern in the inner court, and paused not till he was in Warner’s room. “How now, friend Adam? Thou art idle.”
“Lord Hastings, I am ill.”
“And thy child not with thee?”
“She is gone to her grace the duchess, to pray her to grant me leave to go home, and waste no more life on making gold.”
“Home! Go hence! We cannot hear it! The duchess must not grant it. I will not suffer the king to lose so learned a philosopher.” ”

“ She had no idea of the duty of cheerfulness, in a wife, and how often it may prove the very blessing that God intended in giving man a helpmate.
Sickness, it is true, had diminished somewhat the light spirits of her youth, but she had assuredly become a creature of repinings--a murmurer by habit--fit to double rather than divide any load of misfortune which fate might cast upon a husband's shoulders.
Lady Hastings strove rather to look sad, Emily Hastings to be gay and cheerful, and both did it perhaps a little too much for the mood and circumstances in which Sir Philip then was. ”

“ At length, however, she raised her voice louder and shriller than before—"May a curse rest upon this hand and upon that head!" she exclaimed; "may the hand work its own evil, and the head its own destruction! May the child of your love poison your peace, and make you a scoff, and a by-word, and a shame! May the wife of your bosom perish by——"
But Sir Philip Hastings withdrew his hand suddenly, and an unwonted flush came upon his cheek. ”

“ Matthewson.
16“Rossie!” he repeated, in his low, purring tone, “Rossie! Who is she? Have you a sister?”
“Oh, no. I told you I was an only child. Rossie is Rosamond Hastings, a little girl whose mother was my mother’s most intimate friend. They were school-girls together, and pledged themselves to stand by each other should either ever come to grief, as Mrs. Hastings did.”
“Married unhappily, perhaps?” the doctor suggested, and Everard replied:
“Yes; married a man much older than herself, who abused her so shamefully that she left him at last, and sought refuge with my mother. ”

“ For many days he had hovered between life and death, while she, his mother, had hung over him with speechless agony, terrible to behold in one so young, so fair as she. He was her all, the only happiness she knew, for poor Lina Hastings was an unloving wife, who never yet had felt a thrill of joy at the sound of her husband’s voice, and when occasionally his broad hand rested fondly upon her flowing curls, while he whispered in her ear how dear she was to him, his words awoke no answering chord of love. ”

“ Emily was as gay as a lark. The light of love and happiness was in her eyes, the hue of health was upon her cheek, and a new spirit of hope and joy seemed to pervade all her fair form. So Sir Philip Hastings found her on the terrace with Marlow when he returned from Hartwell. She was dressed in a riding habit, and one word would have explained all the gaiety of her mood. Lady Hastings, never very consequent in her actions, had wished for some one of those things which ladies wish for, and which ladies only can choose. ”

“ Hastings and Olivia and Antoinette appeared on the threshold of the chamber, followed by Mr. Frothingham. As the prince hastened forward to meet them with sweepings of his gown embroidered by a thousand needles and bent above their hands uttering gracious words, assuredly in all the history of Med and of the Litany the room of the Crucified Sphinx had never presented a more peculiar picture.
Into that tranquil atmosphere, dream-pervaded, Mrs. Medora Hastings swept with all the certainty of an opinion bludgeoning the frail security of a fact. ”

“ It is to be remarked that not one person, with a single exception, to whom the circumstances of Lady Hastings' death were known, even dreamed of suspecting Emily. They all knew her, comprehended her character, loved her, had faith in her, except her own unhappy father. But with him, if the death of his unhappy wife were terrible, his suspicions of his daughter were a thousand fold more so. To his distorted vision a multitude of circumstances brought proof all powerful. "She has tried to destroy her father," he thought, "and she has not scrupled to destroy her mother. ”

“ Hazleton is not well pleased to hear plain truths, nor to bear with patience any sharpness or abruptness of manner. Moreover, my child, I have heard that it was old Sir John Hastings' wish, when we were all young and free, that your father should marry Mrs. Hazleton. But he preferred another, perhaps less worthy of him in every respect."
"Oh, no, no." cried Emily, with eager affection. "More worthy of him a thousand times in all ways. More good--more kind--more beautiful."
"Nay, nay, flatterer," said Lady Hastings, with a smile. "I was well enough to look at once, Emily, and more to his taste. ”

“ Often and ever the words of Hastings, at the house of Lady Longueville, rang in her ear, and thrilled through the solitude of night,—"Whoever is fair and chaste, gentle and loving, is in the eyes of William de Hastings the mate and equal of a king." ”

“ A penniless guardian—a rich ward; as a situation, it is perfect; full of possibilities."
"Take care," says the professor, advancing a step or two.
"Tut! Do you think I can't see through your game?" says Sir Hastings, in his most offensive way, which is nasty indeed. "You hope to keep me unmarried. You tell yourself, I can't live much longer, at the pace I'm going. I know the old jargon—I have it by heart—given a year at the most the title and the heiress will both be yours! I can read you—I—" He breaks off to laugh sardonically, and the cough catching him, shakes him horribly. ”

“ You must leave her free till she has seen more of the world, and her mind is more mature."
"Free till another wins her from me," interrupted Mr. Hastings, somewhat bitterly; and his sister answered, "I am sure that will never be, though were you now to startle her with your love she probably would refuse you."
"Never" he said emphatically; and Mrs. Elliott replied, "I think she would. She respects and admires you, but as you have looked upon her as a child, so in like manner has she regarded you as a father, or, at least the husband of Ella, and such impressions must have time to wear away. ”

“ Hastings' only remaining sister. His mother had died when he was almost an infant, and this "sister Mary" had slipped into her place as mother, teacher—everything, to her little brothers and sisters; never leaving them, till the father having died also, and her young charges being all old enough to settle in life for themselves, she had rewarded the faithful waiting of her old lover, and they had settled down together in a quiet village a few miles from the noisy town where his business lay. ”

“ Stung by the coldness even more than by the disdain of the Lady Bonville, and enraged to find that no taunt of his own, however galling, could ruffle a dignity which was an insult both to memory and to self-love, Hastings had exerted more than usual, both at the banquet and in the revel, those general powers of pleasing, which, even in an age when personal qualifications ranked so high, had yet made him no less renowned for successes in gallantry than the beautiful and youthful king. ”

“ Her Uncle Lawrence Hastings had undertaken to manage the dance and he glided away with her to the strains of the first waltz. Hastings boasted a velvet collar to his dress-coat, and the town had not yet ceased to marvel that fortune had sent to its door a gentleman so exquisite, so finished, so identified with the most fascinating of all the arts. Hastings had for the social affairs of Montgomery a haughty scorn. ”

“ She is to be here, too."
"You ought to meet her in New York—your [58] mother, of course. She is first in your thoughts, I am sure," advised the Stroke, with a perceptible shade of disbelief. "Just let her see that you are sound and lusty, that's what she will care most about. She will be sorry for your sake, not for her own."
Throwing himself across his cot, Hastings looked out of the nearest window, down the river to where the flag above the Harvard Quarters slashed the sky like a ribbon of flame. ”

“ After he had gone, the Stroke looked up from his book for some time, while a tender smile softened his strong mouth. He had found a girl who could understand, and he hoped the same good fortune for his friend.
When the train passed through New Haven, Hastings wore a hang-dog air, fearing recognition. A runaway from New London the day before the race, his college town was the last place on earth in which he wished to be seen. As he neared New York he braced himself for the meeting with his mother, blindly fearing that she would be sorely disappointed in him. ”

“ Believe me, dear mother, that as soon as I am permitted—and a very few hours will set me free—I will fly at once to tell you all, and leave you and my father to decide and act as your own good judgment shall direct."
"You had better tell me first, Emily," replied Lady Hastings; "a woman can always best understand the secrets of a woman's heart. I wish you had not made any promise of secrecy; but as you have, so it must be. Has Marlow had any share in this discovery?" ”

“ Distance lends enchantment, but the frivolous might say that the preliminary farewell is the mint that coins it. And, enchantment being independent of the commonplace, after all, it may have been that certain stars had already begun to sing while St. George sat staring at the little bowing flames of the juniper branches and Olivia was taking her tea. Then in came Mrs. Hastings, a very literal interfering goddess, and her bonnet was frightfully awry so that the parrot upon it looked shockingly coquettish and irreverent and lent to her dignity a flavour of ill-timed waggishness. ”

“ This is my dowry,—it is all!”
“And all I ask or covet,” said Hastings. But his cheek had lost its first passionate glow. Lord of many a broad land and barony, victorious captain in many a foughten field, wise statesman in many a thoughtful stratagem, high in his king’s favour, and linked with a nation’s history,—William de Hastings at that hour was as far below as earth is to heaven the poor maiden whom he already repented to have so honoured, and whose sublime answer woke no echo from his heart. ”

“ Hastings, who is a pleasing, lively, and well-bred woman, with attractive manners and attentions to those she wishes to oblige, should have an indiscretion so peculiarly unsuited to her situation, as to aim always at being the most conspicuous figure wherever she appears. ”

“ The windows of his mother’s room were open, and at the bark of the dogs a girlish face was visible for an instant, then disappeared from view, and Rosamond Hastings came out to meet him, looking very fresh and sweet in her short gingham dress and white apron, with her rippling hair tied with a blue ribbon, and falling down her back.
“Oh, Mr. Everard,” she cried, as she gave him her hand, “I am so glad you have come. Your mother has wanted you so much. She is a little better this morning, and asleep just now; so come in here and rest. You are tired, and worn, and pale. Are you sick?” ”