When I was about eighteen years of age,my father,whose health had been gradually declining,died,leaving me in heart wretched and desolate,and,owing to his previous seclusion,with few acquaintances,and almost no friends.
The provisions of his will were curious,and when I had sufficiently come to myself to listen to or comprehend them,surprised me not a little:all his vast property was left to me,and to the heirs of my body,for ever;and,in default of such heirs,it was to go after my death to my uncle,Sir Arthur,without any entail.
At the same time,the will appointed him my guardian,desiring that I might be received within his house,and reside with his family,and under his care,during the term of my minority;and in consideration of the increased expense consequent upon such an arrangement,a handsome annuity was allotted to him during the term of my proposed residence.
The object of this last provision I at once understood:my father desired,by making it the direct,apparent interest of Sir Arthur that I should die without issue,while at the same time he placed me wholly in his power,to prove to the world how great and unshaken was his confidence in his brother's innocence and honour,and also to afford him an opportunity of showing that this mark of confidence was not unworthily bestowed.
It was a strange,perhaps an idle scheme;but as I had been always brought up in the habit of considering my uncle as a deeply-injured man,and had been taught,almost as a part of my religion,to regard him as the very soul of honour,I felt no further uneasiness respecting the arrangement than that likely to result to a timid girl,of secluded habits,from the immediate prospect of taking up her abode for the first time in her life among total strangers.
Previous to leaving my home,which I felt I should do with a heavy heart,I re-ceived a most tender and affectionate letter from my uncle,calculated,if anything could do so,to remove the bitterness of parting from scenes familiar and dear from my earliest childhood,and in some degree to reconcile me to the measure.
It was during a fine autumn that I approached the old domain of Carrickleigh.
I shall not soon forget the impression of sadness and of gloom which all that I saw produced upon my mind;the sunbeams were falling with a rich and melancholy tint upon the fine old trees,which stood in lordly groups,casting their long,sweeping shadows over rock and sward.There was an air of neglect and decay about the spot,which amounted almost to desolation;the symptoms of this increased in number as we approached the building itself,near which the ground had been originally more artificially and carefully cultivated than elsewhere,and whose neglect consequently more immediately and strikingly betrayed itself.
As we proceeded,the road wound near the beds of what had been formally two fish-ponds,which were now nothing more than stagnant swamps,overgrown with rank weeds,and here and there encroached upon by the straggling underwood;the avenue itself was much broken,and in many places the stones were almost concealed by grass and nettles;the loose stone walls which had here and there intersected the broad park were,in many places,broken down,so as no longer to answer their original purpose as fences;piers were now and then to be seen,but the gates were gone;and,to add to the general air of dilapidation,some huge trunks were lying scattered through the venerable old trees,either the work of the winter storms,or perhaps the victims of some extensive but desultory scheme of denudation,which the projector had not capital or perseverance to carry into full effect.
After the carriage had travelled a mile of this avenue,we reached the summit of rather an abrupt eminence,one of the many which added to the picturesqueness,if not to the convenience of this rude passage.From the top of this ridge the grey walls of Carrickleigh were visible,rising at a small distance in front,and darkened by the hoary wood which crowded around them.It was a quadrangular building of considerable extent,and the front which lay towards us,and in which the great entrance was placed,bore unequivocal marks of antiquity;the time-worn,solemn aspect of the old building,the ruinous and deserted appearance of the whole place,and the associations which connected it with a dark page in the history of my family,combined to depress spirits already predisposed for the reception of sombre and dejecting impressions.
When the carriage drew up in the grass-rown court yard before the hall-door,two lazy-looking men,whose appearance well accorded with that of the place which they tenanted,alarmed by the obstreperous barking of a great chained dog,ran out from some half-ruinous out-houses,and took charge of the horses;the hall-door stood open,and I entered a gloomy and imperfectly lighted apartment,and found no one within.However,I had not long to wait in this awkward predicament,for before my luggage had been deposited in the house,indeed,before I had well removed my cloak and other wraps,so as to enable me to look around,a young girl ran lightly into the hall,and kissing me heartily,and somewhat boisterously,exclaimed:
'My dear cousin,my dear Margaret--I am so delighted--so out of breath.We did not expect you till ten o'clock;my father is somewhere about the place,he must be close at hand.James--Corney --run out and tell your master--my brother is seldom at home,at least at any reasonable hour--you must be so tired--so fatigued--let me show you to your room--see that Lady Margaret's luggage is all brought up--you must lie down and rest yourself--Deborah,bring some coffee--up these stairs;we are so delighted to see you--you cannot think how lonely I have been--how steep these stairs are,are not they?I am so glad you are come--Icould hardly bring myself to believe that you were really coming--how good of you,dear Lady Margaret.'