CHAPTER XVI.
CONCLUSION.
Shakspeare.
By Oakley’s will, which bore the date of the evening before the duel, and in framing which, he had been engaged when visited by Lord Latimer, his immense property was divided between Helen and Germain. To Miss Mordaunt, was left Rockington Castle, (where his interview with her father had taken place,) and all his other detached property of every description. To Germain he bequeathed, with many kind expressions of regard, the fine estate of Goldsborough Park and its appendages.
After a time, Helen retired to Rockington Castle, where she soon found ample employment of a tranquil nature, best suited to the state of her feelings, in restoring the deserted dwellings, which now disfigured that property, to their former cheerful condition; and it was not long before she felt to a certain degree consoled, in the active exercise of that Christian charity and universal benevolence, which brought with it its own reward, in the striking contrast it furnished to the withering influence of her father’s misanthropy.
Fitzalbert had hurried abroad the very morning of the duel, and returned, after a time, much changed in character and sobered in spirits, by the sad remembrance which, in spite of every effort to suppress it, would rise again every day, almost every hour,—that he had deprived a fellow-creature of life.
Lady Flamborough remarked, even during the very first days when people were still talking of the duel, that, in spite of all his foibles, Germain had always been her favourite. Need it be added, that she had been the first to learn the settlement of the Goldsborough Park estate?
Fortune seemed at this time to favour all her ladyship’s schemes; for Sir Gregory at length made up his mighty mind to propose to Lady Caroline. It need hardly be added that he obtained the lady, though he did not at the same time obtain her fortune of ten thousand pounds, which he was obliged to transfer to his new brother-in-law, Lord Latimer. For though his lordship had been obliged to sell off all his stud, yet, in other hands, the yearling colt, against which Sir Gregory had so rashly not only hazarded an opinion, but betted ten thousand pounds, won the produce stakes in a canter—and this windfall was very welcome to Lord Latimer, who was at the time economising abroad.
Mr. and Lady Jane Germain retired to Goldsborough Park for the honeymoon, and afterwards passed much of their time at that delightful place. If there was any drawback to Germain’s enjoyment of it, it certainly arose from the unfortunate propinquity of Wilcox House. He was but too often in the habit of seeing in the person of the idol of his boyish fancy, the mistress of that mansion, a perpetual memento of the fallibility of human taste. However, he managed so far to outlive his feelings on this subject, as to go very satisfactorily through the duties of neighbourhood; and at the annual dinner there, to which he and Lady Jane were always invited, he regularly availed himself, as a signal for their departure, of the moment when Mrs. Wilcox (no longer able, even in honour of her guests, to resist her daily afternoon doze) was stretched at full length on the identical fauteuil which she had purchased at Lady Latimer’s sale.
The political changes which have lately occurred, have made Lady Boreton acquiesce very readily in Germain’s continuing a member for the county, as there no longer exists any substantial difference between them.
In domestic affairs, if Germain has not yet learned to think for himself, he at least allows Lady Jane the exclusive privilege of thinking for him—a custom in which he is countenanced by many more worthy men than would choose to acknowledge it: and by whatever private arrangement such a happy result is produced, it is undoubtedly to be desired, that those who are to pass their lives together, should somehow concur in the suitable and timely alternate application of those two most important monosyllables—
YES and NO.
FINIS.
LONDON:
IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.