Chapter XV: Citizens of Vanity Fair

There was another matter that weighed upon the mind of Ernest, and was his first thought when he awoke in the morning. It was the request which he was to make to his uncle concerning bringing Jack and Ben to the castle. Mr. Ewart had declined making the request for him, and in this Ernest thought his tutor for the first time unkind. But Ernest was mistaken, as those usually are who judge others without entering into their feelings or position. The truth was that Mr. Ewart very well knew that no request made by him would be likely to be granted. He was almost disliked by Mr. Hope, whose character presented a remarkable contrast to his own, and who treated his nephews’ tutor with bare civility, though as well born and better educated than himself.

Mr. Hope was what is called a man of the world—one who made business his sole ambition; his worldliness, his pride, were in the sight of the Eternal but—vanity!

Ernest was beginning to more than waver in his wish to have the sons of Lawless living so near him. He felt since his arrival at Fontonore, more than he had ever done before, how disagreeable their presence might be. Had Ernest not been a sincere Christian, he would have tried as much as possible to banish from his mind all recollection of early days of humiliation and suffering, and would have endeavoured to keep far away from himself all that could remind him of his peasant life. But Ernest felt that this would be throwing away the lessons which God had taught him at the cost of so much pain; and that, in failing to bring those whom he had once considered his brothers to a place where they might benefit from the same instructions that had been so much blessed to himself, he might be neglecting the means of bringing them to God.

Ernest therefore resolved to speak to his uncle, much as he disliked doing so; and he found an opportunity the very first morning, as Mr. Hope sat alone in the library engaged in reading the _Times_.

“Did you want a book, Ernest?” said his uncle, as the young nobleman stood hesitating and embarrassed before him. “You’ll have to make up for lost time, I suspect. Let’s see, how old are you now?”

“I was twelve last March,” replied Ernest.

“Ah, I remember—in your thirteenth year; you should have made some progress by that age. I suppose that your studies have been much neglected. May I ask what books you have read?”

“The Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress,” answered the boy.

Mr. Hope turned down the corners of his mouth with a contemptuous expression, little dreaming that all the treasures of learning and wit which the most talented mind ever grasped are useless—worthless, compared with the wisdom to be gathered from one sacred volume.

“A puritanical library, more select than comprehensive,” said the gentleman; “you must apply yourself to something else in future. You have a pretty long course of education before you ere you can be fit for the station which you hold—Latin, Greek, French, German, mathematics, algebra, natural philosophy, and a thousand other things, indispensable for a nobleman—all to be mastered in the next few years.”

Ernest felt himself at the foot of a new mountain of difficulty, with a humiliating sense of ignorance.

“But you wished to say something to me,” resumed Mr. Hope, leaning back in his chair, and laying down the paper with a formidable air of attention.

“Now for it!” thought Ernest, struggling against his shyness and his extreme disinclination to speak to his uncle. “Sir,” said he aloud, “I am very anxious to do something for my bro—— the sons of Lawless, I mean, with whom I passed the days of my childhood.”

“If I might advise, you would never allude to those days.”

Ernest coloured, yet encouraged himself by remembering that there is nothing but guilt which need cause us shame, and that we should blush for no situation in which Heaven has placed us. “I would wish, if you consent, to bring the boys here,” resumed he, “and place them under care of the gardener.”

“An extraordinary wish,” replied Mr. Hope, taking snuff. “Is it possible that this is really your desire?”

“I am most anxious for your leave to do it,” said Ernest.

“Oh, of course, if you have no objection, I can have none; this is your own property, and it is only reasonable that you should have a voice in choosing your dependants. But all that I can say is, that I believe that you’ll repent it, and the young rogues would be better in the poor-house.”

Ernest left his uncle’s presence rather in spirits, from having accomplished his object more easily than he had expected. He cheerfully pursued his studies with Charles, under the tuition of Mr. Ewart; and the consideration which they showed—never laughing at his mistakes, ever ready to help him to understand what was new to him—still further endeared them both to the boy.

After luncheon, feeling a little more at his ease, as Mrs. Hope sat busy at her writing-desk, and her husband was not in the room, Ernest amused himself with his pretty little cousin, Clementina, in looking over a large volume of prints.

“What a pity that she is so affected!” thought he; “she would be so charming if she did not think herself so.”

On a sudden Ernest jumped up with an exclamation of pleasure, as he saw from the window a little open carriage approaching through the park.

“Oh, I’m so glad!—there are good, kind Mr. and Miss Searle; it will be such a pleasure to see them!”

“The old horrors!” exclaimed Clementina, leaning back on her cushions, and lifting her hands in affected alarm.

“The Searles!” cried Mrs. Hope, looking up hastily. “We’re not at home to them. I’m surprised at their coming. People like them never know their proper place. I must request, Ernest,” she continued, seeing him about to leave the room, “that you’ll not bring such company about the castle. When you are of age, of course, you’ll do what you please; but while I and my daughter remain under this roof, I must be careful not to expose her to vulgar society. Mr. Searle’s father kept a shop in Cheapside!”

“Vulgar!” thought Ernest, “some of the excellent of the earth! The Lord’s jewels, at whose feet we may one day be thankful to be found! Is this castle too grand, its inhabitants too good, for those whose home will be heaven, whose companions the angels?”

Mrs. Hope, as the reader may have observed, was a very proud woman, one ready to worship rank, whoever might possess it. She was of rather low origin herself, which was perhaps one reason why she always avowed herself most particular in regard to the company that she kept. No virtue, with her, could weigh against a coronet; she valued her acquaintance—for such characters have few _friends_—according to their position in society. To be a companion of the nobility was her delight; to become one of them was the object of her highest ambition. For this she encouraged her husband’s efforts for advancement, and had been delighted to see him a Member for Parliament. Her own poor relations were, of course, kept at a distance; no one bearing her maiden name of Briggs had ever been known to cross the threshold of Castle Fontonore except her brother, an attorney, who once ventured in, but was never even asked to break bread in the house, and who left his sister’s presence with a clouded brow, and a determination never to trouble her again. The proud worldly woman never reflected that in another state, where the high and the low, the great and the humble, shall meet together, her love of distinction, her pride of display, should appear as lighter than vanity.

What could be expected from the daughter of such a parent? Even a strong mind might have been ruined by the education which she received; and Clementina, who was naturally of but slender intellect, was quite spoiled by the society in which she was brought up. At a fashionable school she had learned a few accomplishments, and a great deal of folly: admiration, amusement, excitement, these were the three things upon which her whole heart was set; all that she lived for was comprised in these three words. The quiet serenity of a soul that rests on one unchanging object, was of course never known to her. The slightest incident was sufficient to raise her spirits to a wild height, or sink them to the point of misery; she was transported at an invitation to a ball, wretched if a dressmaker failed her. She was like a fluttering butterfly, shining in its gay colours, driven about by every breeze on its unsteady, uncertain course. But I wrong the insect in making the comparison. The butterfly fills its allotted place in creation—it does all that its Maker intended it to do; while the frivolous, silly, selfish girl remains a blank, or rather a blot, in God’s world, when she who is called to the work and the destiny of angels makes that of a butterfly her deliberate choice.

It is just possible that some thoughtless girl, whose education and character may resemble Clementina’s, may in some vacant hour of leisure turn over the leaves of my little book. Oh, that I had an angel’s voice, to rouse her to a sense of what she is and what she might be! to make her feel that she is not her own, but _bought with a price_, such a price as the world could not have paid;—that a soul which must exist for ever and ever—that a soul for which a God bled, agonized, and died—is a thing too noble, a thing too precious to be thrown away at Vanity Fair.