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MAKER
I N N O VAT I O N S
SERIES
Essentials of
Arduino™ Boards
Programming
Step-by-Step Guide to
Master Arduino Boards Hardware
and Software
—
Farzin Asadi
Maker Innovations Series
Jump start your path to discovery with the Apress Maker Innovations
series! From the basics of electricity and components through to the most
advanced options in robotics and Machine Learning, you’ll forge a path to
building ingenious hardware and controlling it with cutting-edge software.
All while gaining new skills and experience with common toolsets you can
take to new projects or even into a whole new career.
The Apress Maker Innovations series offers projects-based learning,
while keeping theory and best processes front and center. So you get
hands-on experience while also learning the terms of the trade and how
entrepreneurs, inventors, and engineers think through creating and
executing hardware projects. You can learn to design circuits, program AI,
create IoT systems for your home or even city, and so much more!
Whether you’re a beginning hobbyist or a seasoned entrepreneur
working out of your basement or garage, you’ll scale up your skillset to
become a hardware design and engineering pro. And often using low-
cost and open-source software such as the Raspberry Pi, Arduino, PIC
microcontroller, and Robot Operating System (ROS). Programmers and
software engineers have great opportunities to learn, too, as many projects
and control environments are based in popular languages and operating
systems, such as Python and Linux.
If you want to build a robot, set up a smart home, tackle assembling a
weather-ready meteorology system, or create a brand-new circuit using
breadboards and circuit design software, this series has all that and more!
Written by creative and seasoned Makers, every book in the series tackles
both tested and leading-edge approaches and technologies for bringing
your visions and projects to life.
Farzin Asadi
Essentials of Arduino™ Boards Programming: Step-by-Step Guide to Master
Arduino Boards Hardware and Software
Farzin Asadi
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Maltepe University,
Istanbul, Türkiye
ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4842-9599-1 ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4842-9600-4
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9600-4
Copyright © 2023 by Farzin Asadi
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or
part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way,
and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software,
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Trademarked names, logos, and images may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark
symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, logo, or image we use the names, logos,
and images only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no
intention of infringement of the trademark.
The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if
they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not
they are subject to proprietary rights.
While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of
publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal
responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty,
express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.
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Paper in this product is recyclable
Dedicated to my lovely brother, Farzad, and my lovely
sisters, Farnaz and Farzaneh.
Table of Contents
About the Author�������������������������������������������������������������������������������xiii
Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xvii
vii
Table of Contents
viii
Table of Contents
ix
Table of Contents
x
Table of Contents
xi
Table of Contents
Index�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������327
xii
About the Author
Farzin Asadi received his BSc in Electronics
Engineering, MSc in Control Engineering, and
PhD in Mechatronics Engineering.
Currently, he is with the Department of
Electrical and Electronics Engineering at
Maltepe University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Dr. Asadi has published more than 40 papers
in ISI/Scopus indexed journals. He has written 25
books. His research interests include switching
converters, control theory, robust control of
power electronics converters, and robotics.
xiii
About the Technical Reviewer
Hai Van Pham received his BSc, MSc, and PhD
in Computer Science.
Currently, he is with the School of
Information and Communication Technology,
Hanoi University of Science and Technology,
Hanoi, Vietnam.
Dr. Pham has published over 100 papers in
ISI/Scopus indexed journals. He is an associate
editor in domestic and international journals
and served as chair and technical committee
member of many national and international
conferences including SOICT 2014, KSE 2015, KSE 2017, KSE 2019, KSE
2021, and KSE 2022.
His research interests include artificial intelligence, knowledge-based
systems, big data, soft computing, rule-based systems, and fuzzy systems.
xv
Introduction
Arduino is an open source hardware and software company, project,
and user community that designs and manufactures single-board
microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices.
Arduino boards use a variety of microcontrollers, and each board is
suitable for a specific application. For instance, Arduino Nano or Pro Mini
is an ideal option if space or weight is important for you. If you search for
a board with many input/output (I/O) pins, then Arduino MEGA is a good
option for you. If you need an Arduino board for a time-critical application
like a robot control, then Arduino DUE is a good choice. Arduino UNO is a
good option for educational purposes. All of the examples in this book are
done with Arduino UNO.
There exist many other development boards in the world, but why are
Arduino boards so famous with millions of users? Here are some of the
basic reasons that make Arduino boards outstanding:
xvii
Introduction
xviii
Introduction
xix
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
to Arduino Boards
1.1 Introduction
Arduino is an open source platform used for building electronics projects.
Arduino consists of both a physical programmable circuit board (often
referred to as a microcontroller) and a piece of software or IDE (Integrated
Development Environment) that runs on your computer, used to write and
upload computer code to the physical board.
The Arduino platform has become quite popular with people just
starting out with electronics, and for good reason. Unlike most previous
programmable circuit boards, the Arduino does not need a separate piece
of hardware (called a programmer) in order to load new code onto the
board; you can simply use a USB cable. Additionally, the Arduino IDE uses
a simplified version of C++, making it easier to learn to program. Finally,
Arduino provides a standard form factor that breaks out the functions of
the microcontroller into a more accessible package.
This chapter is an introduction to microcontrollers and Arduino
boards and makes the foundation for other chapters.
1.2 Microcontrollers
A microcontroller is a compact integrated circuit designed to govern a specific
operation in an embedded system. A typical microcontroller includes a
processor, memory, and input/output (I/O) peripherals on a single chip.
Some of the commonly used microcontrollers are shown in Figures 1-1 to 1-3.
3
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
1.3 Elements of a Microcontroller
The core elements of a microcontroller are
4
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
While the processor, memory, and I/O peripherals are the defining
elements of the microprocessor, there are other elements that are
frequently included. The term I/O peripherals itself simply refers to
supporting components that interface with the memory and processor.
There are many supporting components that can be classified as
peripherals. Having some manifestation of an I/O peripheral is elemental
to a microprocessor, because they are the mechanism through which the
processor is applied.
Other supporting elements of a microcontroller include
5
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
1.5 Arduino Boards
In a nutshell, an Arduino (/ɑːrˈdwiːnoʊ/) is an open hardware development
board that can be used by tinkerers, hobbyists, and makers to design and
build devices that interact with the real world.
The Arduino hardware and software were designed for artists,
designers, hobbyists, hackers, newbies, and anyone interested in creating
interactive objects or environments. Arduino can interact with buttons,
LEDs, motors, speakers, GPS units, cameras, the Internet, and even your
smartphone or your TV! This flexibility combined with the fact that the
Arduino software is free, the hardware boards are pretty cheap, and both
6
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
the software and hardware are easy to learn has led to a large community
of users who have contributed code and released instructions for a huge
variety of Arduino-based projects.
Most Arduino boards use Atmel 8-bit microcontrollers (ATmega8,
ATmega168, ATmega328, ATmega1280, or ATmega2560). Some Arduino
boards use ARM Cortex–based microcontrollers.
Some of the commonly used Arduino boards are shown in
Figures 1-4 to 1-6.
7
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
8
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
All of the experiments of this book are done with the aid of the
Arduino UNO board (Figure 1-4). Arduino UNO uses the ATmega328
microcontroller made by ATMEL. ATmega328 is made in different
packages (Figures 1-7 and 1-8).
9
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
10
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
11
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
Programs written using the Arduino IDE are called sketches. These
sketches are written in the text editor and are saved with the file .ino
extension.
As shown in Figure 1-10, the C code has two default functions: setup
and loop. The code inside the void setup will be executed once, and only
once, at the beginning of the program. Then, the code inside the void loop
will be executed again and again (hence the name “loop”), until you power
off the Arduino board.
12
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
1.8 HEX File
A HEX file is a hexadecimal source file typically used in the programming
of microcontrollers. If you share a .INO file, anyone can edit or see the
main program. But HEX files are much more secure than INO files; no one
can edit them because of the hexadecimal format.
Let’s see how we can see the generated HEX file associated with a C
code. Open the Arduino IDE (Figure 1-12).
13
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
Write the code shown in Figure 1-13. This code turns on the onboard
LED, waits for 1 s, turns off the onboard LED, waits for 1 s, and repeats this
procedure.
14
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
Click File ➤ Save or press Ctrl+S. This opens the Save sketch folder as…
window for you (Figure 1-14). Save the file with the name of blink.
15
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
16
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
17
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
Click the Verify button (Figure 1-17). Wait until “Done compiling”
appears on the screen (Figure 1-18).
18
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
19
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
You can use Notepad++ to open the HEX file (Figure 1-20). As the
name suggests, it contains a collection of HEX numbers.
Now write your code and save it (Figure 1-23). Then click the Upload
button (Figure 1-24) to upload the code into the Arduino board.
22
Chapter 1 Introduction to Arduino Boards
23
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“If it had only been last week,” she said musingly, “when you had that
bad cold upon your chest, it might have been done quite easily.”
“Easily! Of course it could, and so I suppose it can now. Come, let us
have the table cleared. Gad, how dirty the lodging-house drab is before the
small hours come round again! I say, Polly,” to the parlour-maid, who
entered in answer to the summons of the bell, and whom, being rather good-
looking, he took the trouble to lecture—“I say, Polly, what is soap a pound,
and hair-brushes? What do you think you were given such pretty hair for, if
it was never to be oiled? If I were you—”
But here poor patient Bessie interposed, not angrily; she carried her
blind idolatry of her profligate husband to the extent of wishing him to be
pleased—coute qui coute; but the owner of the house, a person of strict
principles, had spoken seriously to her about the Colonel’s free manner with
her maidens, so, to avoid a greater annoyance to her big, spoiled, selfish
tyrant, the self-sacrificing Bessie suggested that Polly had better be allowed
to “take away” in peace. The operation, however, being over, the Colonel
returned to the charge, namely, the letter to his daughter, which he had so
much at heart. As regarded Honor’s probable discomfort in the attic which,
in Stanwick-street, she would be condemned to occupy, he had an argument
all ready for his use. Honor was passionately fond of riding, and, as Arthur
Vavasour had told him, could ride both boldly and gracefully. Now, the
parsimony which was conspicuous in the Tyburnian lodging did not pervade
—and, indeed, might be said to be in some measure the consequence of
extravagance in—other branches of Colonel Norcott’s expenditure. He kept
two horses—screws in reality, though producing a good effect in the eyes of
the uninitiated—on the remnant of poor Bessie’s overrated fortune. On one
of these horses it was his purpose, should he be so fortunate as to obtain Mr.
Beacham’s consent to his wife’s visit, to mount the beautiful girl (for girl in
appearance and manner Honor still was) in the Park, and among the crowds
whom her unprincipled father nothing doubted would do due homage to her
loveliness.
“It is all nonsense about her being uncomfortable,” he said decidedly.
“What does a fine, handsome, healthy girl care about discomfort? Honor
will like to see a little of life: why, she has never—you would hardly
believe in such absurdity—seen a play or an opera in her life! And she is
deuced fond of music, and sings, Vavasour says, like—like anything. So
now sit down, there’s a good soul, and write the letter. You must make me
out devilish seedy, and all that kind of thing. See how well you can do it,
now;” and he patted her broad, bony shoulders with a fascinating semblance
of affection that Bessie, even under still less auspicious circumstances,
would have found it impossible to withstand. She was about, under that
delightful compulsion, to commit a very unworthy act, but “the man
beguiled” her; and Mrs. Frederick Norcott, not for the first time, laid aside
for the Colonel’s sake her lingering scruples, and did as she was bid.
CHAPTER XVI.
Honor’s first thought, as she finished the hasty perusal of this singular
epistle, was one of joy. Joy that at last, and after so long a time of weary
waiting, relations with her own “family” (poor, foolish Honor!) were
renewed; and the hope held out that something might come—something
agreeable to herself—of the dénouement from which she had for a time
hoped so much.
With a deep blush, for she was quite conscious of the necessity that
existed of concealing this unwifely feeling, Honor pushed the letter across
the breakfast-table to her husband.
“From Mrs. Norcott,” she said, doing her best to seem occupied with her
tea-making. “And she says my father is ill. O, John,” she continued, setting
down the teapot, and speaking almost malgré elle, for she had purposed
choosing her opportunity better,—“O, John, mayn’t I go to London? Mrs.
Norcott asks me very kindly, you see, and—”
“Yes, I see,” John said hurriedly; “and you’ll be very glad to say yes;
anything for a change! So like the women!” and he jerked his head
pettishly; a sign of annoyance which Honor had learned to thoroughly
comprehend.
“I shouldn’t ask to go,” she said, “if my father were well;” and as she
spoke the sound of tears was audible in her low voice.
“He never troubled himself much about you as long as he was well,”
growled John. “Some people are ready enough to take anything that’s
offered to them, it seems to me.”
He spoke crossly perhaps, for he felt sore on this especial point. He was
so well convinced that the Colonel did not really feel one particle of
parental love for Honor; while in his own breast, in spite of seeming
harshness and of momentary fits of anger, there was such an inexhaustible
well of undying tenderness, of conjugal and yet purely unselfish devotion.
Can we wonder, therefore, that he was susceptible—jealous even—when it
became in the most remote degree a question between his claims and those
of Honor’s father on her love and duty? Can we wonder that he turned with
instinctive repulsion from the idea of her exchanging, even for a day, the
protection of his roof for that of Colonel Norcott?
Honor remained silent after John’s last remark. Not that she felt in the
slightest degree disposed thereby to abandon the hope which Mrs. Norcott’s
letter had held out. She knew John far too well not to be certain that a very
little coaxing, or even the shedding of a single tear, would be sufficient to
gain for her all that she required. She had only to lay her little hand upon
John’s stout arm, and look pleadingly with her large blue eyes into his good
kindly face, and the all-important matter would be at once satisfactorily
disposed of. But in the mean while, and pending a fitting opportunity for the
use of her secret weapons, she kept silent even from the good words with
which she intended to bring her husband over to her will.
To John Beacham, however, in his present mood of mind, his wife’s
taciturnity was both perplexing and vexatious. Feeling well assured that the
question of the journey to London was not by any means disposed of, he
would have greatly preferred a present settlement of the difficulty, to the
state of suspense which he feared would be, for some hours at least, his
portion; it was therefore rather a relief than otherwise to him when Mrs.
Beacham—who, to do her justice, seldom kept her fingers long out of the
domestic pie—volunteered her opinion on the subject under discussion.
“In course, John, you know your own affairs best,” she said, “and I make
it a rule, and always have done, which those that knows me best can certify
to, not to interfere in other people’s business. But if you’ll excuse me,” and
the old lady smoothed her black-silk apron with an air of dignified humility,
“if you’ll excuse me, I should venture to advise that Mrs. John may be
allowed to go and see her father. I may be right and I may be wrong; but if
he hasn’t his health, poor gentleman, he’s to be pitied; and them that has
should give way a little, and meet him half-way, instead of standing out,
which isn’t, in my opinion—but then I’m an old-fashioned body—
altogether right. He’s Mrs. John’s father, you know, is the Colonel, though it
isn’t often the poor gentleman gets spoken of in this house; and blood’s
thicker than water, and—”
John interrupted this harangue with a gesture of impatience. “There,
there, mother, that’ll do,” he said pettishly; “no need to hammer away so
long on one subject. If the man that’s been a brute to Honor, and to her
mother before her, is to have it all his own way, why let him; and—”
How this worthy man, who with all his warmth and kindliness of heart
had, as we know, a quick temper of his own, might have wound up the
sentence had not his words been arrested by a sudden recollection of the
respect due to his womankind, is best left to the imagination. With such a
disposition and nature as this right-minded man possessed, even the most
trivial of offences—offences, too, of which only his own conscience was
the silent witness—were almost certain to be followed by the desire for
expiation. No sooner, therefore, had the wish that condign punishment
might follow on the Colonel’s misdeeds been suppressed, than he said in a
gentler tone to Honor:
“If you think your father has any claims upon you, my dear, why then
you had better write and say to Mrs. Norcott that she may expect you up in
London. As mother says, sick people have to be given way to. I don’t know
much about bad health myself, thank God; but—No, don’t thank me—settle
it your own way, and if you’re pleased I’m pleased;” and having so said,
John went his way to his daily business on the farm.
Had any friend of stalwart hearty John Beacham’s, who had known the
farmer one short year before, chanced, after that period of absence, to come
suddenly upon him as he took his solitary way across the home-paddock,
that friend could have scarcely failed to notice the change that had taken
place, not only in John’s countenance, but in his walk and manner. The
cares inseparable from married life had fallen, and that with no feather-
weight, upon the man whose step was once so brisk and buoyant, and his
smile, so frank and genial, was the index of a mind at peace with himself
and in good humour with the world. He whistled as he went, not from the
absence of, but from a plethora of anxious thought; for John, though he had
yielded to his wife’s entreaty, and to his mother’s counsels (counsels which
he little suspected were given with the latent object of lessening Honor’s
home influence), in the matter of the proposed journey, was yet very far
from being satisfied with the result of the morning’s deliberation. Strive as
he would—and John was a man who read his Bible, and endeavoured as
much as in him lay to do his duty towards his neighbours—strive as he
would, he had never yet succeeded in feeling, in the most fractional degree,
in charity with Colonel Frederick Norcott. A bad and baneful man he
believed the father of his precious Honor to be; and believing this, John
viewed—with perhaps excusable dread—the prospect of his wife’s
temporary domestication in the Colonel’s family. What but harm, he
thought, could by any possibility come of this companionship with all that
was vile, unprincipled, and false? That Honor could return to him the pure-
minded woman he now knew her to be, John believed to be impossible; and
therefore it was that, whistling as he went, the heart of the man was heavy
within him. He had not proceeded beyond the length of two fields, when he
fell in with one of his most trusted men, employed in carefully leading up
and down a sandy lane one of the most valuable of the thoroughbred sires.
A grand animal he was, large of bone and muscle, and simply perfect in his
magnificent proportions. Over the well-rounded hips, the mottled skin
shone and glistened in the sun’s rays, and there was both love and gratitude
in the animal’s open fearless eye as he rubbed his velvet nose against his
master’s outstretched hand, and neighed his answer to John’s morning
greeting.
Bill Snelling looked on approvingly, and at the conclusion of the
ceremony, after passing his fingers, as is the custom of his kind, over his
mouth, he said respectfully, but in a tone which conveyed a good deal of
latent meaning—“Maybe you’ve seen the morning paper, sir, to-day?
There’s summat they tell me in the Advertiser about Rough Diamond. A
screw loose there, or somethink. There’s never no being up to them fellows;
but it would be d—d bad luck—begging your pardon, sir—so it would, if
anything went wrong with the Derby favourite. If ever I saw a colt likely to
win the stakes, it’s that ere two-year-old, and—”
But we need not follow the irate Bill either in his enthusiastic
encomiums on the favourite, or his unqualified abuse of the rascality
practised by all patrons, whether gentle or simple (?), of the turf. That there
was to be found, however, “one righteous man” in that modern Gomorrah,
none knew better than the sapient Bill. He had not lived, man and boy, for
more than fifteen years in “master’s stables,” without having made the
discovery that the “governor” was one in a thousand. At the Paddocks there
were no tricks practised. Rich horsey youths, blinded by their fondly
fancied equine knowledge, were never within the precincts of John’s well-
ordered establishment beguiled to their undoing. Latent unsoundness was
there never concealed, nor incipient vice guarded as a secret. All was fair
and above-board, as all the world (the knowing ones with a certain alloy of
contempt) were willing to acknowledge, in the breeding-stud of trustworthy
John Beacham. Trustworthy! O, if it be indeed true that justice is so little
tempered with mercy, that for every idle and involuntary thought, as well as
for every evil deed, we are to be held alike accountable; if to covet be as
punishable as to steal; if to look with eyes of convoitise at our neighbour’s
giddy wife is tantamount to the breaking of the seventh commandment; and
if to hate our brother is to be a murderer, why then I greatly fear that erring
John Beacham sinned on that bright April morning one of the sins that are
“to death.” For, when he turned away after his short dialogue with
communicative Bill Snelling, there was an added amount of hatred in his
heart towards the owner of the Derby favourite. Proud as he was of his
“stock,” had any other man than the Colonel been the possessor of Rough
Diamond, he would have rejoiced in his probable success; but, matters
standing as they did, the honest man could almost have found it in his heart
to pray that the Winner of the Great Race that year should be any horse
rather than the one which Arthur Vavasour purchased some ten months
previously of himself, and which that young gentleman soon afterwards,
under peculiar circumstances, and without profit, disposed of to Colonel
Frederick Norcott, formerly of the 26th Dragoons, and now of 14 Stanwick-
street, London.
CHAPTER XVII.
HUMBLE LOVE.
When blustering March was over, and the dead season of the year had been
for rich, as well as poor, got through, the widow of the lamented Cecil
Vavasour commenced—for the first time since his death—making
preparations for a three-months’ sojourn in London, or, as the newspapers
expressed it, “Lady Millicent Vavasour, her family and suite, were about,
during the ensuing season, to occupy the mansion in Bolton-square, to her
ladyship belonging.”
In the course of the six years that Lady Millicent had passed in a
seclusion which she had not attempted to render otherwise than irksome to
her daughters, the above-named mansion had been let—as each revolving
season came round—to the highest bidder. It was not a very dignified
proceeding, and her children (her sons especially) had chafed both inwardly
and outwardly against what they considered their mother’s “dirty economy,”
in thus making money out of the family bricks and mortar. The tide of
public opinion in London, as well as in the country, set strongly against the
wealthy, parsimonious widow, whose accumulated riches benefited so few
of the persons whom common sense, as well as the laws of nature and of
precedent, pointed out as amongst those destined to reap advantage from
the seed scattered by Lady Millicent’s hand; while, as regarded her
ladyship’s sons, it was a melancholy fact, that for lack of a home, humanly
speaking, those young gentlemen had in their nonage gone a good deal, as
the saying is, “to the bad.”
During the two years following on Cecil Vavasour’s death, and while the
achievement commemorative of that melancholy event still hung suspended
between the second-floor front windows of the a “noble town mansion,” it
was only right and proper that in the widow’s house there should be no
“receptions”—no sounds of merriment, no glancings of merry twinkling
feet, within the silent, solid walls of Lady Millicent’s deserted house. But
when the years of mourning were at an end, and the “time for setting on of
meat” had come—there arose by degrees a spirit of discontent against the
widowed millionaire. On account of her children—this was the way that
they, the aggrieved ones, put it—it was wrong, unmotherly on Lady
Millicent’s part to hide the light of her countenance from the world. There
were certain duties incumbent—as nobody would venture to deny—upon
the rich, and the chief and foremost of those duties was the exercise of a
genial hospitality. The good of trade too, both as regarded the expenditure
of Lady Millicent’s family, in London and in the country, was not a matter
to be lightly regarded. The West-end shop-keepers had a right, honest
tradesmen that they were, to expect that a sixth part at least of Lady
Millicent’s income—an income of say 60,000l. per annum—should find its
way to their pockets. To say nothing of example—so spoke the public voice
—why, what a sin and a shame it was for a lady possessed of such countless
thousands, and that didn’t know how either to use or abuse them, to be set
in high places, only to bring disgrace upon her order, and to encourage
others, who might be of similar mind, in the degrading vice of avarice.
There is one reason which, in my humble opinion, is far too seldom
pleaded in excuse for the glaring faults (glaring because of the high places
of the delinquents) of the great and powerful ones of the earth; and that
reason is, that the said great and powerful ones find so few who are willing
to speak to them of their faults, and reason with them on their shortcomings.
If it be hard—and hard we are told it is—for the rich man to enter into the
kingdom of heaven, surely one reason for that difficulty may be found in
the comparative isolation of those who are clothed in purple and fine linen,
and who fare sumptuously every day. The “divinity that doth hedge a king”
is not only not without its thorns, but is very instrumental in shutting
majesty off from the wholesome sympathies of life; and not alone from
sympathy, but from counsel, from reproof, and in some measure from the
inestimable benefits of example. That same “hedge,” too, is a dangerous
deadener of sound. It is seldom that those possessed of rank and riches hear
either the truths or falsehoods that are reported and spread abroad
concerning themselves. As Kate once pertly remarked to her brother
Horace, “Who could venture to lecture Lady Millicent upon her faults?”
Poor little ill-used, thoughtless, quick-witted Kate! there were the makings
of a good and useful woman in her busy brain and ardent temperament; but,
under her mother’s injudicious training the little head became filled with
foolish fancies, the impulses of the warm young heart seemed likely to lead
its owner into something very nearly approaching to scrapes; and, in short,
from the rich raw material of poor Katie’s mind there sprung the plentiful
growth of weeds which half civilisation invariably draws up from the soil.
Entirely absorbed by her own immediate plans—plans which had
occupied her busy mind from the day when the contents of Lord
Gillingham’s will startled her into the consciousness that she must do
something for herself, or a decent and obscure dowagerhood would be her
only portion—absorbed, I repeat, with her own cares, to the extent of
troubling herself but little with the well-being even of her children, Lady
Millicent, till the day when her plans were ripe for commencement, and the
hour had struck when law-proceedings, with the object of setting aside her
father’s will, could be entered upon, had never deemed it incumbent on her
to allow her daughters more than a passing glimpse at London and its
pleasures. For this seeming neglect she had her answer ready, when Lady
Guernsey, or old Sir Richard Pemberton, two of the few amongst her
acquaintances who ever ventured to put in a word for the young people at
the Castle, suggested that a little change was good for everyone, and that
both Rhoda and Kate would be probably advantaged by a moderate amount
of amusement, as well as by better masters than were procurable either at
Leigh or Gawthorpe.
“Young ladies in these days,” Lady Millicent would say, “learn quite
soon enough, without their parents putting themselves out of the way to
teach them the lesson, that the country is a bore, and that without perpetual
excitement life hangs terribly heavy on their hands. For my part—people
may think me selfish if they like, but I honestly confess that the coming out
of my girls is a ceremony which, for their sakes as well as my own, I shall
be glad to put off to the latest possible period.”
“But in the mean time,” said their outspoken champion, “how are you
preparing them, my dear Lady Millicent, for the part they are to play? I am
afraid that poor dear Rhoda—(I may talk without scruple of her, because, as
you know, I admire her so much, and have such a real affection for her)—I
am sadly afraid that Rhoda, with all her beauty, will be what my boys call
nowhere. She has not an idea, poor child, no, not the very slightest, de se
faire valoir. Girls with less than half her good looks would make their way
twice as well from the mere fact that Rhoda is simply good and shy and
unaffected, and knows no more than my toy-terrier does how to make the
most of herself.”
That there was much truth at the bottom of Lady Guernsey’s remarks, no
one knew better than the mother of the gentle girl who, both by nature and
education, was so ill-qualified to fight, through the arduous campaign of a
London season, the fierce battle of life. If Lady Millicent could be said to
feel interest in, and affection for, any human being save herself, that human
being was her unselfish, yielding, and not over-brilliant elder daughter. It
would have been hard indeed for anyone living habitually with Rhoda
Vavasour not to appreciate the gentleness of her disposition, and not to
admire the unassuming rectitude of purpose which was one of her most
striking characteristics; and yet, partly perhaps (at least so said that far-
seeing Horace) because she seemed so good, no one, not even—with the
exception of Lady Millicent—those of her own household, took so kindly to
steady, quiet Rhoda, as they did to giddy-pated Kate—Kate, whom her
brothers pronounced to be unfortunately plain, but who was one of the
“jolliest” girls that you could ever hope to meet with, and who was withal
as wilful, and as little inclined to do right on principle, as the less popular
Rhoda was known to be the reverse.
“I wonder, and I always shall, what has made mamma make up her
mighty mind to spend the season in London,” Kate remarked one morning
early in March to her elder sister, as the two were taking the daily
constitutional, of which they were both in different degrees and fashions
wearied, through the shrubberies of Gillingham; “everyone—Horace among
the number—made so sure that this year would pass like all the rest, and
that we should stick for ever at horrid old Gillingham.”
“Don’t call it horrid, Kate; I am sure that I shall never like any place one
half so well; and when we have to leave it—”
“I for one should be ready to jump out of my very skin for joy,” cried
Kate, dancing forward with a kind of sidelong motion, not remarkable for
gracefulness, but very suggestive of the state of mind to be expected from
this young lady on the occasion of the final bidding adieu to the beautiful
home of her childhood. “To think,” Kate said, sobering down after her
momentary ebullition of feeling, “to think that never—never, I mean, as a
matter of rule—should we be walking here, in this same walk, between
those stupid, odious trees again! O, Rhoda dear, how can you take
everything so quietly? I do believe that if you were to be told that our going
to London was over, and that we were to stay here for the rest of our lives,
you would be quite contented. So long as the school went on, and you could
listen to Mr. Wallingford’s stupid sermons, you would never break your
heart about anything.”
Rhoda made no reply to this thoughtless speech. Constitutionally shy
(the only one of her family who had inherited her father’s life-long
infirmity), this elder daughter of a wealthy house was little given to the
outpouring of her inner feelings. Confidantes she had none, and so entirely
undemonstrative was she of what was passing within her heart, that even
her own sister had never surmised what was the one chief cause of Rhoda
Vavasour’s chronic state of contentment at dull and uneventful Gillingham.
Kate—the restless and the ambitious “Kitty,” whom her brothers plagued
and petted, and who was looked on as a kind of reckless “free lance” by her
unsympathising mamma—had from her earliest girlhood entertained very
exalted ideas of her elder sister’s beauty. There was not a tinge of womanly
jealousy, not a fractional atom of the alloy of envy in Kate Vavasour’s
nature. She knew herself to be almost what the world calls plain; but she
had good eyes, a fine élancé figure, and the something about her which—
who can say why or wherefore?—often attracts more than beauty, be that
beauty ever so exalted and refined. Of that class of female attractiveness
was the το καλον—the delicate charm which one man at least who knew
her discovered in the fair face of Rhoda Vavasour.
George Wallingford, the incumbent of the small and not very
remunerative living of Switcham, was a scholar and a gentleman; a man
possessed of no exalted intellect, no world-known name either for erudition
or for race. Not even amongst the untitled wealthy—the millionocracy of
this busy universe of ours—was the obscure rector of Switcham
acknowledged as a unit, since it was from being one of the hardest of
hardworking curates in the dirtiest and wickedest of manufacturing cities,
that George Wallingford had been translated to what in his eyes was
comparatively heaven—namely, to the spiritual superintendence of an
orderly rural population.
As a matter of course, Lady Millicent “took notice” of the clergyman of
the parish. Three times a year, or thereabouts, Mr. Wallingford was invited
to dine at the Castle, in addition to which act of condescension, the young
rector—whom Lady Millicent pronounced to be “very well behaved,”
“really quite a respectable person”—was graciously permitted to pay his
devoirs from time to time at the great house, on which occasions “milady”
would lay down the law in parish matters after a fashion which—although
he bore the trial with outward patience—could scarcely fail to rouse what
was left in George Wallingford of the old, and unregenerate man, into a
somewhat unholy state of irritation.
The fact that Lady Millicent Vavasour, “civil” though she invariably
was, considered him in the light of an inferior many times removed, was
patent as the light of Gospel truth to the Rector of Switcham. That he did
not love the lady patroness of the living he held the better for the discovery
is simply adducing a proof, if proof were needed, that he was human.
L’amour ne se commande pas, says the proverb; and the best of men—this
excellent clerical gentleman included—can do no more than refrain from
hating the individual who wounds their self-love by treating them with
hauteur and condescension.
As will readily be believed, the female inhabitants of Switcham and its
neighbourhood very soon after Mr. Wallingford’s installation commenced
their sex’s normal practice, namely, that of finding a wife for a bachelor
incumbent. Though the rectory of Switcham was very far removed from
being one of the plums of church patronage, yet there were contingent
advantages attached to it, to say nothing of the living being held, as in the
present instance, by a tolerably good-looking young man a year or two
under thirty, which caused more than one demoiselle à marier to gaze with
eyes of interest on the mild-looking clergyman in his single-breasted
waistcoat and neatly-trimmed whiskers, the while the said damsel pictured
to herself the lonely man eating his solitary steak; or (climax of melancholy
conjuration!) brewing—in the pretty drawing-room of the parsonage—his
bachelor tea!
Some years elapsed (for, as the poet hath it, “hope springs responsive in
the female breast”) before the spinsterhood of Mr. Wallingford’s flock came
to the unpleasing conclusion that the young rector was the rara avis among
birds of his feather, a non-marrying clergyman. Even after the good man’s
heart had spoken, for speak it did, when its owner had been some five years
at Switcham, and when Rhoda Vavasour, emancipated from governess
control, was of an age to be introduced to the guests who, few and far
between, were invited to partake of Lady Millicent’s grudgingly dispensed
hospitality—even, as I was about to say, after George Wallingford’s
seemingly obdurate heart had melted under the influence of Miss
Vavasour’s shy smile and pale delicate prettiness,—the little world in which
he lived knew nothing of his heart’s weakness. As how indeed should it? To
no one—no not even to the friend that had ever stuck closer to him than a
brother, to the school and college fellow whom hitherto he had trusted with
every secret of his life, not even to the congenial spirit dwelling like himself
in a pure bachelor’s body, not to the silent, caustic, woman-despising James
Truscott, fellow of his college, and the most ungainly in appearance of
created men, did George Wallingford confess the wondrous truth that he
was in love with that bright particular star, Miss Rhoda Vavasour.
He might just as well—and it needed no stern Mentor to remind him of
the fact—have set his affections upon an empress. Never even by a glance
(at least not to his own knowledge) had he hinted to the object of his
senseless passion, that with a dreary and a hopeless, and yet with an all-
engrossing love he watched and dreamed of, sighed and prayed for her. It
was intensely foolish and unmanly, the more foolish and unmanly inasmuch
as the great lady of Gillingham never allowed the comparatively lowly born
rector to forget his place. If kindly-natured, charitable George Wallingford
did in his heart believe the well-sounding axiom that “ ’tis only noble to be
good,” the flattering unction was not laid so soothingly to his soul as to
enable him to act, as regarded pretty Rhoda Vavasour, on the cheering
conviction. It may be in the abstract perfectly true that
but judging of things (the only really reliable test) on their marketable
value, we shall, I greatly fear, be obliged to own that, individually
considered, the coronets, and the blue blood have in this wicked world the
best of it.
But carefully under lock and key as the reverend George kept his secret,
there was one who discovered its existence, and who, having so discovered
it, was ever, with true feminine inquisitiveness, peering behind the veil of
the good man’s heart for further and more satisfactory information. Rhoda
Vavasour’s first sensation, when the fact (in some subtle and inexplainable
manner) of Mr. Wallingford’s hopeless passion became apparent to her, was
one of actual fear. In an instant there rose up before her a vision of Lady
Millicent’s stern and astonished face, a face in which none of her children
had ever traced a sign of tenderness, or the faintest line of sympathy or pity.
It was to that very hardness, to the repellant influence felt by timid
shrinking Rhoda whenever her thoughts turned to or her eyes rested on her
mother’s unloving countenance, that might mainly be attributed the
encouragement—for she did in her silent, gentle way encourage the young
clergyman to hope—which Rhoda gave to the Rector of Switcham. But
there was yet another, and perhaps an equally powerful, reason for the
“underhand deceit,” the “grovelling tastes,” as Lady Millicent would have,
and indeed did in later days describe them, that were displayed at that
period of her life by her daughter. Nature had endowed poor Rhoda with a
susceptible heart, and a strong propensity to cling. In default of any other
object on which to fix her affections, and of some more suitable prop round
which to twine, it was only in the common order of things that to the sole
stay within her reach, the tendrils (heartstrings is perhaps the most
appropriate word) of Rhoda’s inner woman should have wound themselves
round the engaging young parson, to whose exhortations, delivered in a
voice singularly pleasing, she meekly listened, and who enjoyed in Lady
Millicent’s pet schoolroom, and sometimes by the bedside of the sick,
golden opportunities of looking, at least, unutterable things. There could
scarcely be a stronger proof of retenue, both on the part of the rector and
that of the young lady, than the actuality that Kate, who was usually so
ready at discovering love-affairs, never once suspected the truth as regarded
her sister. Not even the grand phenomenon, the mighty puzzle of Rhoda’s
contentment at Gillingham, had sufficed to warn the rather precocious
maiden that quiet, pretty Rhoda—Rhoda, who looked, as the old saying
goes, “as if butter would not melt in her mouth”—was in love with, and
meekly ambitious to marry the obscure young man at whom Lady
Millicent, while she deigned to patronise him, decidedly turned up her
aristocratic nose.
The reason for Rhoda’s silence when Kate alluded to the rector—a
silence which, had Miss Kitty been in an investigating mood, that quick-
witted damsel would speedily have speculated on the cause—must be now
fully apparent to the reader. For a moment the shy girl thought and feared
that her secret was discovered, and that, in shrinking mortification, she
would be compelled to endure the wondering, kindly-meant questionings of
her younger sister. The next words, however, spoken by the loquacious
Kitty dissipated her alarm; and feeling intensely grateful for the reprieve,
Rhoda listened with sympathising ears to the chattering girl’s remarks and
surmises.
“I am afraid that what Horace says is right,” continued Kate, “and that it
is this odious law-business which we have heard hinted at so long that takes
mamma to London. One good thing is, that she cannot mean to keep us
quite as much out of fun and amusement as she does here. Haven’t you
noticed how she has gradually been giving up the righteous dodge? For
ages—as we all know—balls were desperately wicked, and operas a
positive abomination. It was only in the country that, according to mamma,
there was any chance of being saved; whereas I heard Horace say only the
other day, that people could inflame themselves quite as much with idols
under green trees as in the excitements of a London season. I heard him say,
too—”
“O Katie,” Rhoda broke out, “don’t, pray don’t, repeat the things—I
mean that kind of thing—that Horace says! I cannot bear the remarks he
makes about mamma; and I think that if you were not to encourage him, he
would leave them off. And besides, I don’t know how it is, but I always feel
guilty when I see mamma after we have been abusing her.”
She spoke very seriously, for little as Lady Millicent had either deserved
the filial love or encouraged the confidence of her children, it nevertheless
jarred against the girl’s sense of what was right and fitting when she heard
the others talk, as they were wont to do, à cœur ouvert, of her mother’s
small hypocrisies and underground plans.
Kate laughed merrily. “We abusing her! I like that! Fancy you saying
what you think about milady! No, no; the time for that isn’t come yet. But
wait till you’re tried, that’s all. It takes longer to provoke you than it does to
irritate either of us. And then, if mamma is fond of anyone in the world, she
is of you; I suppose because you are so very meek, always ready to let her
think she is in the right, let her do what she will. But about this muslin,
Rhoda. Hammond says there certainly is not enough for both; so I suppose,
as it will not do for Miss Vavasour to look skimping before the eyes of
London, you had better take the whole. Ah me!” stretching herself rather
wearily as she stood before the cheval glass, and then letting her arms fall
with a sigh too deep-drawn to have emanated from so young a breast; “ah
me! how I wish I had a mother—a mother, I mean, like Lady Guernsey or
Lady Pemberton, or even—don’t be shocked, you aristocratic thing!—even
like Mrs. Clay. I want a motherly mother—one who would love and pet,
and bore people about me—one that I could tell things to, and that would
listen, and not look as if she thought one a fool. And besides—though that
sounds horrid, I daresay—I should be glad of a mother who would care
whether I looked nice, and who would give you, now that you are ‘coming
out,’ enough of an allowance for you to dress as well as other girls. Sixty
pounds a-year! Why, Lina de Lacy had that when she was fifteen, and
mamma is twice as rich as Lady Guernsey. I wonder how you will manage!
Run in debt, I suppose, like Arthur. Poor Atty! But it will be worse for you
than for him, if you are forced by money difficulties to marry someone that
you don’t love, and—”
“I shall never do that,” Rhoda said, but in a voice so low that Kate could
scarcely catch the words.
“So you think now; but, as I said before, wait till you are tried. And there
is another thing, darling—you will have to marry for my sake. Only think,
Rho dear, how happy we should be together! You with a nice home of your
own, with no one to object to your ordering the carriage when you pleased,
with no cross looks if you were a minute too late for prayers, with—”
Rhoda interrupted her by a laugh. “You might exchange bad for worse,”
she said sapiently. “All husbands are not like Lord Guernsey, and I suspect
that very few homes are so happy as Sophy’s was. I daresay, if we could
look into the insides of many people’s houses, we should see plenty of girls
a good deal more to be pitied than we are. And, Katie dear, whether that be
so or not, one thing is certain, namely, that it is wrong—wicked even, I
think—to be discontented, and to abuse mamma. Whatever she does or
says, we have no right to sit in judgment on, or to find fault with. Don’t be
put out with me for preaching, dear Katie. I know I am not half so clever as
you are; but—”
“But you are fifty times as good!” cried Kate; “and I believe in my heart
that because you are so good and so patient, mamma does love you a little
bit; while as for the rest of us—but what is the use of thinking about it?”—
dashing a tear impetuously from her eyes as she asked herself the painful
question. “Thinking over it won’t give one affection or kindness or
sympathy; so I for one shall try to do without what would—at least so I
fancy—make one contented anywhere and everywhere.”
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