The two beautiful ladies held up their handsThe two beautiful ladies held up their hands and laughed merrily.[page58.
The two beautiful ladies held up their hands and laughed merrily.
[page58.
But while the cynical ones were talking the brutal truth, there were blank looks on the faces of the many admirers of Miss Linley. She had had suitors by the score in Bath, and it was understood that when she sang for the first time at Oxford, she could have married the whole University. A wit with a capacity for mensuration had calculated that the amount of verses written to her upon this occasion would, if bound in volume form, and the volumes placed side by side, be sufficient to cover the quadrangle at Christ Church, and to leave as many over as would conceal the bareness of any lobby at Magdalen.
The consternation among the poets on hearing that Miss Linley had given her word to Mr. Long, was huge; and if all who threatened—through the medium of elegiacs—to fling themselves into some whirling stream (rhyming with their “vanish’d dream”) had carried out this determination, there would not have been enough poets left to carry on the business of Bath.
The young bloods, who had been ready at any moment to throw themselves, or their rivals, at her feet—whichever would please her best—were full of rage at the thought of having been slighted by the lady, and swore fearful oaths, and made strange vows that she should never be united to Mr. Long. The elderly sparks, most of whom had been deterred by certain considerations of rheumatism and stays, and other infirmities, from kneeling to her, now looked very glum. They were full of self-reproach now that they had found how easily she had been won; and some of them were incautious enough to confide their feelings to their friends, and these friends had no hesitation in ridiculing them to other friends;and as the consciousness of a lost opportunity usually makes a man rather touchy, there was a pretty fair share of recrimination in Bath circles during these days, and more than one duel was actually fought between friends of long standing; so that Miss Linley’s triumph was complete.
“What more has the girl to wish for?” cried Mrs. Crewe, when some one had remarked that Elizabeth was looking a trifle unhappy. “She is beautiful, she has the voice of an angel, she is likely to be a rich widow before she is twenty, and she has made the best of friends ready to cut each other’s throats! Pray, what more does she look for that she is still unhappy?”
“Is it not enough to make any young woman sad to think that she must relinquish a score of suitors, and only to obtain one husband in return?” said Mrs. Cholmondeley, who was of the party upon this occasion.
“It does truly seem a ridiculous sacrifice, with very little compensation,” said another lady critic.
“The rejected suitors may find some consolation for their sufferings in the reflection that Miss Linley is said to be looking unhappy,” said Mrs. Crewe.
“What! is’t possible that she looks unhappy, although she is not yet married, but only promised? I, for one, cannot believe it!” cried another of the party.
“There goes a suitor who will need a great deal of consolation,” said Mrs. Thrale, as a small man in military undress walked past the group with a scowl and a swagger. “Lud! Captain Mathews is so fond a lover I doubt if he would feel completely happy even if he had proof that the lady was crying her eyes out!”
“What! is’t possible that the list of suitors included a person so obviously ineligible as that Captain Mathews?” cried Mrs. Cholmondeley.
“My dear, you should know better than to suggestthat the ineligibility of any man is obvious,” said Mrs. Thrale. “Did not we all, up to this morning, regard Mr. Long as the most obviously ineligible of all the lady’s admirers?”
“He is certainly old enough to be her father,” said Mrs. Cholmondeley.
“And a man who is old enough to be a young woman’s father is certainly old enough to be her husband; that is what we should have said, had we made a right use of our experience of life—and love,” said Mrs. Crewe.
“And some of us have had a good deal of both,” remarked Mrs. Thrale, looking vaguely into the distance, lest any one of her hearers might fancy that her comment was meant to be personal, and not general.
But of course there was no lady within hearing who did not accept the compliment as directed against herself. And whatever Mrs. Thrale’s experiences of life and love may have been, she had sufficient knowledge of her own sex to be well aware that no vagueness of generalisation on her part would prevent any one of her friends from feeling assured that the lady had some one in her eye when she spoke. That was why they all smiled consciously, and glanced down with an excellent simulation of artlessness.
Before they had raised their eyes again, the sour-faced officer who had been referred to by Mrs. Thrale as Captain Mathews, had returned from his march across the gardens. He was about to pass the group when he seemed to change his mind. He turned on his heel and swaggered up to them.
“I dare swear, ladies, that you have been, like all the rest of our friends in this place, discussing the latest freak of the beautiful Miss Linley?” he said.
“On the contrary, sir, we have been discussing the engagement of Miss Linley to Mr. Long,” said Mrs. Thrale.
He stared at the lady for some moments. He had not yet mastered Mrs. Thrale’s conversational methods.
“What did I say?” he inquired after a pause. “Did not I suggest that you were discussing her latest freak? Lord! ’tis a fine freak! Her father has urged her to it. I shouldn’t wonder if you have heard that I was depressed by the news! Now, tell the truth, Mrs. Cholmondeley, did not you hear it said that I was in despair?”
“Why, what on earth have you got to say to the matter, Captain Mathews?” cried Mrs. Cholmondeley, with a pretty affectation of amazement. She was a capital actress, though, of course, inferior to her sister, Mrs. Margaret Woffington.
Captain Mathews looked more than a trifle upset by the lady’s suggestion. His laugh was hollow.
“Of course, nothing; ’tis nothing to me—nothing i’ the world, I assure you,” he said. “But you know how malicious are our good friends in Bath; you know how ready they are to attribute an indiscretion to—— Ah, you take me, Mrs. Crewe? You are a woman of the world.”
“Oh, sir, you are a flatterer, I vow,” said Mrs. Crewe. “Ah, yes, Captain Mathews, I am ready to admit that all our friends are malicious, but I give you my word that their malice never went the length of hinting anything so preposterous as that you could have expectations of finding favour in the eyes of Miss Linley.”
“Preposterous? By the Lord, madam, were you a man who made use of such a word—— But of course—— Oh yes, ’twas a preposterous notion; and yet, madam, there are some in this town who do not think the notion of a man of family and property aspiring to the hand of a beggarly music mistress so preposterous.”
Captain Mathews drew himself up, and swung his cane in long sweeps from side to side, assuming a self-satisfiedsmile, as though he had made a crushing reply to the lady’s rather broad satire.
“True, sir,” said Mrs. Crewe; “Mr. Walter Long is a man of family and a man of property; that is possibly why no one has alluded to his engagement with Miss Linley as preposterous.”
“What, madam, do you mean to suggest that that old curmudgeon—— Heavens! the fellow is sixty if he is a day—— But I vow ’tis nothing to me—nothing i’ the world, I swear!” cried Mathews, with an extravagant swagger by which he meant to show his complete indifference.
“Of course ’tis nothing to you, sir,” said Mrs. Cholmondeley. “No one ever fancied that it was anything to you.”
“Seriously now, Mrs. Cholmondeley,” said he, striking another attitude, “can you fancy that I ever thought of that sly patriarch as my rival?”
“Indeed, sir, I could never believe that you would be so ungenerous as to allude to a rival in such terms as you have applied to Mr. Long,” said Mrs. Cholmondeley.
“A rival! my rival? Oh no, no!” he cried. “He is an old fool, but no rival to me.”
“Certainly no rival to you, sir,” said Mrs. Thrale.
“I knew that I could depend on you, Mrs. Thrale,” said Mathews warmly; but noticing how the others in the group were smiling significantly, he began to feel that he had not been quite quick enough in the attention which he had given to the lady’s words. It was being forced upon him that he was not quite certain of shining in conversation with these ladies who had a reputation for brilliancy to maintain.
He burst into a loud laugh, with one hand resting on his hip: his cane was in his other; he was pointing it roguishly at Mrs. Thrale.
The ladies instantly became grave; they could not possibly continue smiling while the man was laughing. But he soon became less exuberant in his forced merriment, and it did not seem at all unnatural for the wrinkles of his laughter to assume the design of a full-bodied scowl. He struck his cane violently upon the ground, saying:
“If any man in Bath dares to say that this fellow Long took her away from me he shall eat his words. And as for Mr. Long himself—well, let him look to himself—let him look to himself. He has not yet married Elizabeth Linley!”
He raised his cane as he spoke and struck it at an imaginary foe.
He did not see how it came that the ladies were in a paroxysm of laughter; but had he been thoughtful enough to glance round, he would have been enlightened on this point, for he would have seen just behind him a small man giving a representation of one who is paralysed by fear, his face haggard, his eyes dilated, and his knees trembling.
“I protest, Mr. Garrick, that you will be the death of us yet,” said Mrs. Crewe, when Mathews had stalked off, and the little man was beginning to breathe again—heavily, and with an occasional sigh of relief, though he still kept his eyes fixed upon the disappearing figure.
Mrs. Cholmondeley fanned him daintily.
“Thank Heaven he is gone, and we are all safe!” gasped the actor.
“Had he turned round for a single moment he would have killed you, Mr. Garrick, and all England would be mourning,” said Mrs. Crewe.
“Why, what is this, madam?” said Garrick. “A moment ago and you were accusing me of being the death of you, and now you go still further, and accuse me of running a chance of being killed myself!”
“Were both catastrophes to occur, they would be no more than a fitting overture to the tragedy on the threshold of which we stand at this moment,” said Mrs. Thrale. “Why, the tragedy of Penelope and her suitors is like to be a trifle compared with that of Elizabeth Linley and her admirers.”
“I feel that slaughter is in the air,” said Garrick. “Has Captain Mathews a mind to be the Ulysses of the tragedy? In that case, I would not have the suitors to be quite despondent. But beyond doubt ’tis becoming a serious matter for Bath, this engagement of the sweetest of our nest of linnets. For Bath, did I say? Nay, I might e’en have said ‘for England,’ for of course you have heard that this is why Tom Sheridan has fled to Ireland?”
“What do you mean, Mr. Garrick—Tom Sheridan? Oh, lud! you cannot mean to suggest that he was among the suitors?” said Mrs. Cholmondeley.
“Why should he not occupy so honourable a position, madam?” said Garrick. “He is, I have good reason to know, some years younger than Mr. Long, and he is full of gratitude to Miss Linley for having made his entertainments a success by singing at them. I ask you, Mrs. Crewe, for I know that you are well acquainted with all these delicate matters—I ask you, can a man show his gratitude to a lady in any more satisfactory way than by begging her to marry him?”
“I should have to refer to my commonplace book to answer that question, sir,” said Mrs. Crewe; “but I can assure you that it has long ago been decided that if a young woman be truly grateful to an elderly man for a past kindness, she will certainly refuse to marry him when he asks her. But you are not serious about Tom Sheridan?”
“Well, I admit that I have not yet been successful in getting any one to accept my theory on this matter,” repliedGarrick. “But I know for sure that Tom Sheridan has gone to Ireland, and why should any man go to Ireland unless he has been refused by a lady in England? If the man have importunate creditors in Ireland, of course my argument is vastly strengthened.”
“H’sh! here comes one of the sons,” said Mrs. Thrale. “’Tis the younger—Dick his name is. I vow that I had an idea that ’twas he who was most favoured by the lovely Miss Linnet.”
“Then take my word for it, madam, ’twas the father who was making love to her,” said Garrick. “Surely, ’tis no more than natural that a right-thinking young woman should show some favour to the son of the man who hopes to marry her! But pray do not cite me as an authority on this point to Dick Sheridan. I own that I have strong hopes that Dick will one day become a great dramatist. Should his father marry Miss Linley, nothing could prevent Dick from becoming a great dramatist.”
“Then let us hope that Miss Linley will marry Mr. Long, and so save Dick Sheridan from the terrible fate that you predict for him, Mr. Garrick,” said Mrs. Thrale.
Before Garrick had thought out a fitting reply to the sprightly little lady, young Mr. Sheridan had sauntered up to the group. He was dressed with extreme care, and his carriage was so graceful—thanks to the early instruction which he had received from Monsieur Angelo, who had taught him to fence, as well as to dance—that he was a most attractive figure. Though his features were not handsome, his face had a winning expression, and he was entirely without self-consciousness. He had his hat in his hand when he approached the ladies, and his salutation of them was easy, but at the same time deferential.
“You have come at the right moment, Mr. Sheridan,” said Mrs. Cholmondeley. “Mr. Garrick has just been saying shocking things about you.”
“I am sorry that I came up, madam,” said Sheridan. “Yes; for by doing so I know that I anticipated an abler defence of myself than I have at my command.”
“Indeed, your reputation was quite safe in our keeping,” said Mrs. Cholmondeley.
“True,” said Garrick: “Mrs. Cholmondeley, Mrs. Crewe, and Mrs. Thrale are well known to constitute a medical board for an hospital for sickly reputations: one is as safe in their keeping as one would be in a ward at St. Thomas’s.”
“What! no safer than that?” cried Dick. “Oh, ladies! Mr. Garrick’s compliments are certainly not overwhelming.”
“Nay, Dick, I exhausted my art in referring to you before you came up; for I said that I had hopes that you would one day become a great dramatist,” said Garrick.
“That was going to the extreme limit of the art of flattery indeed, sir,” said Sheridan. “But one cannot become a great dramatist unless one has the subject for a great drama. Can any one of you ladies supply me with such a subject?”
“Pray try your hardest, Mrs. Crewe, if only to establish my reputation as a prophet,” said Garrick.
“What! are the ladies to take Drury Lane reputations into their hospital?” cried Sheridan.
“Nay, sir, we are not the Board at an hospital for incurables,” said Mrs. Crewe. “But you ask for a subject for a play, do you not?”
“I am ever on that quest, madam.”
“If ’tis the subject for a comedy you seek, all you have to do is to look in the direction of the entrance to the gardens, and you will find it,” said Mrs. Crewe: “a charming and sprightly young woman marrying an elderly gentleman.”
Dick glanced toward the entrance to the gardens. Betsy Linley was walking by the side of Mr. Long.
There was a pause before Dick said: “True, madam,there is a drama in the situation; and the beauty of it is, that it may be treated from the standpoint of tragedy, as well as comedy. Thank you, Mrs. Crewe; I shall e’en haste to write it.”
He turned about and hurried away, with only the most general bow.
“Good lud!” whispered Mrs. Crewe, “the lad is in love with Betsy Linley, after all.”
Having satisfied herself on one point, the astute lady lost no time making an attempt to satisfy herself on another point quite as interesting: being convinced that Dick Sheridan had hurried away because he was in love with Miss Linley, she was anxious to learn if Miss Linley was in love with any one. The fact that Miss Linley was walking by the side of the man whom it was announced she had promised to marry, was not accepted by Mrs. Crewe as any indication of the direction in which she should look for an answer to the question. Nay, so astute an observer of life was this lady, that she made up her mind in an instant not to assume at the outset of her investigation that, because Betsy Linley had promised to marry Mr. Long, she was therefore in love with some one else. She could remember instances of young women being actually devoted to the men whom they had promised to marry. She had an excellent memory.
She turned her eyes upon Betsy coming up the garden walk, but the result of her observation was inconclusive; Mr. Long was at that instant making some remark to the girl, and she had her head slightly bent toward him, while she listened attentively—smilingly. Clearly she had not noticed the abrupt departure of Dick Sheridan. There was nothing in the attentive smile with which she was encouraging the remark of Mr. Long.
“He does not look a day over sixty,” said Mrs. Thrale.
“Nor a day under it,” responded Mrs. Cholmondeley. Garrick was quoting Shakespeare:
“Here comes the lady; O so light a footWill ne’er wear out the everlasting flint!”
And then Mr. Long and Miss Linley reached the group, and Betsy was responding with exquisite blushes to the patronising smiles of the ladies, who greeted her with effusion and Mr. Long with great self-possession.
Mr. Long was, however, the most self-possessed of the group. There was gravity as well as dignity in his acceptance of the congratulations of the party.
“I am the most fortunate of men, indeed,” he said, bowing low, and touching the grass of the border with the sweep of his hat.
“Nay, Mr. Long, do not depreciate your own worth by talking of fortune,” said Mrs. Thrale.
“There is philosophy in your suggestion, madam,” said he. “’Twas feeble of me to make the attempt to fall in with the general tone of the comments of my friends. Still, there is but one Miss Linley in the world.”
“And you are ungenerous enough, sir, to seek to deprive the world of that one,” cried Mrs. Thrale.
She had failed to perceive the tendency of his remark.
“What, Mrs. Thrale! is’t possible that you are weak enough to look for generosity in a lover?” said Garrick. “Good lud, madam! the very soul of true love is the most ungenerous essence on earth.”
“Ah, you see, madam, Mr. Garrick’s love is of the earth earthy; but we were talking of quite another kind of love, were we not?” said Mr. Long readily, but not in a tone of badinage.
“We are very well content to be terrestrial,” said Mrs. Crewe, lifting her chin an inch or so in the air.
“I am more ambitious; that is why I am by the side of Miss Linley,” said Mr. Long.
“Very prettily spoke, sir,” said Garrick. “Miss Linley I have always held to be celestial. Is not that so, Betsy?”
“Indeed, sir, you were good enough to offer me an engagement to sing at Drury Lane,” replied Betsy, with a smile.
Every one laughed, and Garrick gave a wonderful representation of a man who is completely discomfited by an antagonist.
Mr. Long seemed to think that the moment was a favourable one for resuming his stroll with Betsy; he had just taken her hand and was in the act of bowing to the three beautiful ladies who were laughing archly at Garrick, when a loud laugh that had no merriment in it sounded at the further side of a line of shrubs, and Mathews reappeared.
Betsy, with a look of apprehension, started and took a step closer to Mr. Long. Mr. Long’s face beamed with pride at that moment, for the girl’s movement suggested her confidence in his power to protect her. The ladies saw the expression that was on her face, and the glance that he cast upon her, and there was not one of them who did not envy her, although Mr. Long was sixty years old.
“Ha, Miss Linley! are you never to be found except in the company of your grandfather?” cried Mathews, while still a few paces away from the group. Then, pretending to become aware of the identity of Long at the same moment, he roared with laughter.
“I swear to you, madam, I thought that you were in the company of your grandfather,” he cried. “Sure, my error was a natural one! I ask you, Mrs. Thrale, if ’twas not natural that I should take this gentleman for Miss Linley’s grandfather?”
“Mr. Mathews,” said Mrs. Thrale, “I have no opinionon such matters, though I have my own idea of what constitutes a piece of impudence on the part of a man.”
“Ha, Grandfather Long, you hear that?” cried Mathews. “Mrs. Thrale says she knows what impudence is.”
“Then where is the need for you to give her examples of it, sir?” said Long.
“Any fool could see that she had in her eye the case of an old man who makes love to a young woman,” said Mathews brutally.
“Only a fool would take my words in such a sense, Mr. Mathews,” said Mrs. Thrale.
“Nay, good madam, ’twas but my jest,” said Mathews.
“Then let me tell you, sir, ’twas a very sorry jest,” said Mrs. Thrale.
“I say ’twas a jest; at the same time, should any gentleman within earshot feel himself aggrieved by my humour, he will not find Captain Mathews slow to give him any satisfaction he may demand.”
The fellow pursed out his lips, and struck the ground with his cane.
Mr. Long turned his back upon the man and entered smilingly into conversation with Mrs. Cholmondeley. For a moment he was separated from Betsy, and Mathews took advantage of that moment to get beside her.
“You are never going to be fool enough to marry a man old enough to be your grandfather?” said he in a low voice.
She made a movement as if to get beside Mr. Long; but he adroitly prevented her from carrying out her intention.
“You think I am the man to stand tamely by and see you marry him or any one else?” he said, putting his face close to hers, his eyes glaring into her own (he was imitating the attitude and the language of one of the actors whom he had recently seen at the Bristol theatre).
"You think I am the man to stand tamely by..."“You think I am the man to stand tamely by and see you marry him or any one else?”[page72.
“You think I am the man to stand tamely by and see you marry him or any one else?”
[page72.
“Why should you be so chagrined, Captain Mathews?”she said. “There are many girls far more worthy than I am who would feel flattered by your attentions. I am sure you do not wish to persecute me.”
She was, woman-like, hoping by temporising with the man to prevent an open quarrel. He saw that he had succeeded in making her afraid of him.
“I set my heart on you, I set my soul on you, Betsy Linley, and you know that your father and mother favoured me; you, and you only, stood out against me.” He had put his face closer to hers, causing her to shrink back an inch or two. “But you will have me yet—you must—by the Lord, you shall!” he resumed. “I swear to you that I have set my soul upon you. Murder—what is murder to such a man as I have become through you—all through the curse of your beauty! Do you think that I would hold back my knife for the space of a second from the throat of any man who was going to take you away from me? I swear to you that I would kill him—kill him without mercy—and you—you too! My love is of that sort. I would account killing you the next best thing to wedding you. I’ll do either the one or the other—make up your mind to that—make up your mind to that! If you would save yourself—and him—and him, mind you—you will take me; ’tis your only chance.”
She was terrified, for she saw that he had reached that point in the madness of his jealousy which was reached by Othello when he cried:
“Blood, Iago—blood, blood!”
She had seen Garrick in the part, and had been thrilled by his awful delivery of the words. Even now, in spite of her terror, she did not fail to be struck with the marvellous accuracy of Garrick’s art. She was now face to face with the real thing—with the man in the clutch of an overwhelming passion; and yet she was not more terrified thanshe had been when Garrick’s voice had become hoarse while uttering those words of murder that had been put into the mouth of Othello by Shakespeare.
“What is this madness that has come to you?” she cried. “Oh, you must be quite mad! If you cared ever so little for me you would not overwhelm me with terror.”
“I don’t know which would be the sweeter—killing you or wedding you,” he said. He kept his eyes fixed upon hers for some seconds, and then he added in a lower tone that chilled her: “By heavens! I do know now—now!”
She gave a little cry. She had done her best to restrain it, for the dread of a quarrel taking place between the men was upon her, and in an instant Mr. Long had turned to her. Another instant and he had thrust himself between her and Mathews and had taken her hand. He was not looking at her, but straight into the face of Mathews.
“We must not be late, Miss Linley,” he said quietly, “and unless we hasten onward we shall not be in time to meet our friends at Bath-Easton. Stand aside, sir, if you please.”
Mathews instinctively took a couple of steps back, while Long, still holding Betsy’s hand, bent his head before the ladies and young Captain Horneck, of the Guards, who had just appeared by the side of hisfiancée, Lord Albemarle’s daughter.
There was a pause in the conversation passing round that little group—an electric pause, it seemed; every one appeared to be waiting for a thunderbolt to fall, for Mathews had a reputation for being an element of the lurid in the atmosphere of Bath. For a few moments after Long and Betsy had gone, he seemed uncertain what course to adopt; but suddenly he appeared to have light granted to him. He bent his malacca cane until he made both ends meet; then, with an oath, he hurried after Long and Betsy.
He overtook them before they had gone twenty yards, but while he was still some way behind them he called out:
“A word with you, Mr. Long, if you please.”
Mr. Long turned round.
“I wish no words with you, sir,” he said.
“But I wish some with you, sir,” said Mathews, coming up to him, “I wish to give you a word of warning. I wish you to hear me swear that the day you wed Elizabeth Linley shall be your last on earth.”
Long smiled in his face, and then in the terrified face of the girl by his side.
“What a compliment Mr. Mathews pays to you, Miss Linley!” said he. “My last day on earth—true; for thenceforth I shall be in heaven. Thank you, Mr. Mathews.”
“In heaven? No, by the Lord, you will find yourself not in heaven, but——”
“You scoundrel! if you utter one more word I shall hand you over neck and crop to the hangman,” said Long. “You think that your braggadocio airs have weight with me? I have but to raise my finger and the handcuffs are about your wrists. I know more about your past life than you seem to imagine, my good fellow. Now, get out of my way, or I shall subject you to the humiliation of a public caning.”
He grasped his cane firmly, and there was upon his face a look of determination. Mathews took a step or two back. His jaw had fallen, and the ferocity of his expression had become tempered by the terror that appeared in his eyes. Mechanically he bowed, removing his hat while Long and Betsy walked on. Then he stood staring after them, failing to recover himself even though he could scarcely have avoided hearing the laugh that broke from one of the ladies in the group which he had just left. Some minutes had passed before he ceased gnawing the silver top of hiscane and stalked off in a direction opposite to that which Miss Linley and Mr. Long had taken.
“A duel! oh no; there will be no duel,” cried Garrick in reply to a suggestion made by one of his group. “Oh no; I have studied men and their motives to small purpose these thirty years if I could bring myself to believe that Captain Mathews is the man to challenge Mr. Long to a duel in such circumstances.”
“What! Did not you see the way Mr. Long grasped his cane?” cried Mrs. Cholmondeley.
“To be sure I did, my dear lady; that is why I am convinced that there will be no duel,” replied Garrick. “We did not hear what Mr. Long said to the fellow, but we saw how he grasped his cane, and let me assure you, madam, that the language of cane-grasping is a good deal more intelligible than the English of our friend Dr. Johnson.”
“If there be no duel I am sorry for Mr. Long,” said Mrs. Thrale.
Her friends stared at her.
“I should rather be sorry for the elderly gentleman if he had to stand up before a man twenty-five years his junior, with pistol or small sword,” said Mrs. Crewe.
“Ah, my dear, one must take a less superficial view of men and their motives—an excellent phrase, Mr. Garrick—if one desire to arrive at a complete understanding of both,” said Mrs. Thrale. “I am sure that so excellent an observer as Mrs. Crewe will, upon reflection, perceive that the best chance an elderly gentleman has of captivating the heart of a young woman is by fighting for her. Mr. Long is clearly aware of this elementary truth. He is a brave man, and he is ready to risk his life in order that he may have a chance of winning his lady.”
“But he has won her already,” said Mrs. Crewe.
“Nay, she has only promised to marry him,” said Mrs. Thrale, with the smile of the sapient one.
“It will be time enough for him to think of winning her after he has married her,” remarked Mrs. Cholmondeley.
“I would not be so sure of that,” said Mrs. Thrale. “Procrastination in a lover can be carried too far. Is not that your opinion, Mr. Garrick?”
“Madam, I feel like the negro who was choked when endeavouring to swallow a diamond: I am so overwhelmed by the jewels of wisdom which you have flung before me that I am incapable of expressing any opinion,” said Garrick.
“You are far from being complimentary to Mrs. Thrale if you suggest that you have failed to assimilate her precious words, sir,” said Mrs. Cholmondeley.
“Nay, ’twas not the negro and the diamond that was in Mr. Garrick’s mind,” said Mrs. Crewe. “’Twas Macbeth and his ‘Amen.’ We have seen Macbeth’s ‘Amen’ stick in your throat more than once, Mr. Garrick, and I vow that when Mrs. Thrale asked you just now to say the word that would hall-mark her wisdom, as it were, the same expression was on your face.”
“Madam, I would scorn to contradict a lady unless I differed from her,” said Garrick; “but I repeat, there will be no duel.”
“Why, who was talking about duels, sir?” inquired Mrs. Crewe. “Lud! Mr. Garrick, duels was the topic of five minutes ago, and time at Bath is precious.”
“From duels to jewels is not a huge distance,” said Mrs. Cholmondeley, whose pronunciation was not quite free from the Irish brogue which increased the fascination of her sister, Mrs. Woffington.
While the coldly gay circle were endeavouring—as most people do who discuss the problems of life—to display their own cleverness in whirling round the topic of the moment, Mr. Long and Miss Linley were walking on through Sydney Gardens, neither of them so much as glancing behind them to observe what had become of Mathews.
The expression of apprehension which had made Betsy’s face pale with the pink pallor of the blanch rose while Mr. Long was threatening Mathews, had not quite vanished. She seemed to feel that all cause for apprehension had not passed. Remembering the wild, savage way in which he had addressed her—his furious threats and his fierce passion, it seemed to her quite a miracle that he did not fly at Mr. Long’s throat before the latter had completed the sentence that he uttered, while grasping his cane in that expressive way which had so appealed to the imagination of Garrick. She had ever sought to allay by considerate words the anger which Mathews had shown upon several occasions when she had apparently favoured other suitors; her whole aim was to prevent his quarrelling openly with any of her friends, forcing them to fight him; and she had been successful in her aims to quite a remarkable degree. She was thus amazed to find that, when Mr. Long assumed the aggressiveattitude, Mathews, so far from showing any disposition to fly at his throat, became absolutely passive.
It was too much for her to believe all at once, that Mathews had no intention of resenting the threats of Mr. Long; he might, she felt, be too greatly astonished at the adoption of such an attitude by an elderly man to be able to respond in his own way; but he would assuredly recover himself in a few moments, and then....
She glanced behind her and saw that the man was actually hurrying away in the direction of a distant exit from the gardens beyond the maze; and then the expression of terror which had been on her face gave way to one of astonishment. She looked at the man beside her; he was smiling quite benignly. She smiled too at his smiling.
“I cannot understand,” she cried, after giving a sigh of relief—“I cannot understand how you succeeded with him. I felt sure when you had spoken that he would.... Oh, he never spoke to me unless to utter a threat, and yet——”
“And yet he became amenable in a moment to the force of one insignificant threat on my part,” said he, when she made a pause. “Ah, dear child, you have no need to be astonished at so simple a matter. The one argument which the habitual biter appreciates to the full is the bite, therefore one should make one’s teeth meet upon his flesh, and all will be well. There is no need to be surprised at the sudden departure of this fellow; what should cause surprise is his appearance in your society. Pray, how did he ever contrive to gain such a degree of intimacy with you as enabled him to address you as he did?”
“What! is he not an officer and a gentleman of property?” cried Betsy.
“He is both. Was no further passport necessary to obtain his admission to your father’s house?” asked Long.
She shook her head.
“I am afraid that my father has never been very particular in the matter of admitting people to our house,” she replied. “Ah! that is one of the most distressing things about our life—the life of people who are dependent on the good-will of the public for their daily bread: we cannot afford to offend any one.”
“You are thereby deprived of one of the greatest luxuries in life—the pleasure of offending the offensive,” said he, smiling. “But quite apart from being cut off from this enjoyment, I really fail to see how your father’s profession —and yours—gives the right to every adventurer to your society. It is one thing to be debarred the privilege of hurting the feelings of those who should be subjected to such treatment, and quite another to admit to your house every visitor who may come thither with no further credentials than his own impudence.”
“That is what I have always felt,” said she. “I have felt that that is one of the greatest hardships of our life. But all our life is made up of these things from which I shrink. Ah, I told you all this long ago.”
“Yes, I shall not soon forget the hour when you opened your own sweet maiden heart to me,” said he. “I had long been lost in admiration of your beauty and the unspeakable charm of your singing. I fancied more than once, however, that I noticed in your manner a certain shrinking from the favours which the public are ever ready to fling upon their favourites—yes, for a time, until a fresher favourite comes before them. I felt that that expression of timidity was the one thing by which your beauty was capable of being enhanced, but I never doubted for a moment that your shrinking from the gaze of the public was part of your nature.”
“It is indeed an unhappy part of my nature; but I have not been deaf to the cruel comments which some people have made upon me in that respect,” said she, and her facebecame roseate at the recollection of how her timidity had been referred to as affectation.
“I have heard such comments too; they came from women who were overwhelmed by their jealousy of your beauty and your genius.”
“Ah, no, not genius—I have no genius. My brother has genius. I know what it is to have genius. Tom tells me that he is in no way impressed by the presence of thousands listening to his playing on his violin. Mr. Garrick—he, too, has genius, and he has acted for Polly and myself quite as grandly as I have ever seen him act in his own play-house.”
“Your definition of genius is founded on a somewhat arbitrary basis, my dear. Indifference to the public does not invariably indicate genius. I have heard it said by some who know, that David Garrick spends the first ten minutes of his appearance on the stage every night calculating the sum of money there is in the house. That is beside the question. If you are not in the possession of genius, you have at your command a possession even more subtle, more delicate, purer—you have the sweetest soul that ever lived in woman, and every time you sing you communicate some portion of it to your hearers.”
She looked at him with some apprehension in her eyes.
“You promised me that I should never be forced to sing in public again,” she said. “Oh, surely you are not now going to tell me that you take back your promise?”
“Nay, nay, let no such apprehension weigh upon you, dear child,” said he. “Our conversation has drifted far from its starting-place. We were talking about that Mathews, and how easily he obtained admission to your father’s house. I wonder should I be wrong if I were to suggest that he was the suitor who found most favour in the eyes of your father?”
“For a time, only for a time,” she cried quickly, as ifanxious to exculpate her father. “When my father became aware of how distasteful Mr. Mathews was to me, he ceased urging me to accept his proposals. Oh, I can assure you that my father has never been anxious for me to marry any one.”
“I can well believe that,” said Long drily. Only a day had passed since he had been sitting at a desk opposite to Mr. Linley, while the latter explained to him, by the assistance of certain memoranda on a sheet of paper, the exact amount of loss per annum, worked out to shillings and pence, that the withdrawal of Betsy from the concert platform would mean to her father. Mr. Long had been greatly interested in the calculation, for it represented the sum which he had agreed to pay to the devoted father by way of compensation for the loss of his daughter’s services. “And you—you have never been anxious to marry any one?” he added.
There was a little pause before she said:
“I have never been strongly tempted. I have never had a sleepless night thinking what answer I should give to the gentlemen who were good enough to ask me to marry them.”
“I feel flattered, my dear one,” said he.
“Oh no, you have no need to do so,” she cried almost eagerly, and he perceived that she had a conscientious fear of his assuming that she had disregarded many eligible suitors in favour of himself. “Oh no, indeed! I do not believe that there was any offer made to me that caused me a great pang to decline. Of course I was sorry—yes, once or twice, when I really felt that they truly loved me; but—— Oh, why should I have accepted any of them when to do so would only mean adding to my fetters?”
“Ah, why indeed? A husband is sometimes a harder taskmaster than a father. Even with your small experience of life, you must have perceived this. Well, so much for the men who professed to love you; but you must knowthat when we have talked about them we have dealt with one class only; we have not yet touched upon those whom you loved.”
Her face had become roseate, and it wore a troubled expression. He laughed, and she saw that the expression on his face was that of a man who is amused. Her quick ear had told her that there was no note of jealousy in his laugh.
“Pray forgive me, my dear,” he said. “Be assured that I have no intention of extorting any confession from you. Believe me, my child, I am glad of the evidence which you have given me—that sweet confusion—that sweeter blush—of your having the heart of a girl. ’Tis as natural for a girl to love as it is for her to laugh. If you had assured me that you had never loved, I feel that I should not love you as I do at this moment—as I have loved you from the first moment that I looked upon your dear face.”
“Ah, sir, I pray to God that I may one day love you as you should be loved!” she cried, and he saw that tears were in her eyes.
“As I should be loved—I ask nothing more,” he said. “That is what has always been in my mind with regard to you. Have you marvelled that I have not yet asked you to love me? I refrained, because I had told you that my sole hope in regard to yourself was to make you happy; and I knew that I should be making you unhappy if I were to impose upon you the duty of loving me. Such curious creatures we are, that when love exists only as a duty it ceases to be love. I pray to Heaven, Betsy, that you may never come to think that it is your duty to love any one—even a husband.”
“Ah, you are too good to me—too considerate!” she cried. “Every time that you speak to me as you have just spoken, you overwhelm me with remorse.”
“With remorse? Does that mean that you love some one else?”
“It means that I do not love you as I should—as you expect to be loved—as you have a right to expect that I should.”
“Ah, dear girl, how do you know how I expect to be loved?”
“I know well how you should be loved, and I fear that I have deceived you.”
“Nay, I never asked you if you loved me. If I had done so, and you had answered ‘Yes,’ you would have made at least an attempt to deceive me. I do not say, mind you, that I would have been deceived. I have been speaking just now of what is natural in a girl. Do you think that I fancy it is natural in a girl who is not yet twenty to fall in love with a man who is more than thrice her age?”
“Surely ’tis not impossible?”
“Ah, the little note of hope that I detect in your inquiry shows me how conscientious a young woman you are—how determined you are to give me every chance, so to speak. But I do not wish you to think of me in that way. I do not want you to try to love me.”
“Not to try to love you—not to try?”
“Even so; because love to be love must come without your trying to love. Is that too hard a saying for you, Miss Betsy?”
“It is not too hard a saying; what is hard is the matter to which it refers—you would not have me do my best to love you?”
“Even so. Do you believe that you will find it so very hard to refrain from such an attempt?”
“I have promised to marry you.”
“And, believe me, I would not have you keep your promise unless you are sure that you can love me without trying. You must try not to try.”
She gave a laugh, but checked it abruptly before it had run its course. She became graver than ever as she walked along by his side. She was silent, and there was a dimness over her eyes which made their liquid depths seem more profound.
“Pray tell me what there is on your mind, my Betsy,” he said. “Tell me, what is the thought which weighs upon you?”
“Alas!” she cried, “I did not know that you were so good a man.”
“Nor am I,” he said. “Believe me, I am not nearly so good as that; but even if I were, is that any reason why the reflection should weigh you down, or cause your eyes to become tremulous?”
She shook her head, but made no attempt to speak.
He did not urge her to speak. They had reached a green lane just outside the gardens—a graceful acknowledgment of the privileges of Nature on the outskirts of artificiality. There was a warm sigh of wild thyme in the air. A bee hovered drowsily upon the scent. Two yellow butterflies whirled in their dance above a bank of primroses.
He pointed them out to her.
“The butterflies have an aëry dance of their own, and so have the dragon-flies,” he said. “I have watched them by my lake. Did I tell you that there is a tiny lake in my grounds? One can see its gleam from the windows of the house. It is pleasant to stand at the top of the terrace-steps and look across the greensward to the basin of my lake. Very early in the summer morning the deer come to drink there; I have seen the graceful creatures trooping through the dawn, and every now and again a hind would stop for a moment to scratch its neck with a delicate hind-foot, and then bound onward to join its brethren.”
Still she did not speak. The butterflies fluttered past her face, but she did not follow them with her eyes.
“Sweet one, I grow alarmed,” he said; “pray tell me all that is on your mind—in your heart. I think I can promise you that its weight will be lessened when you have told me of it.”
“Alas!” she said, “nothing can lessen my fault—my shame.”
“That is a word which I will not allow any one to speak in connection with you,” he said. “You cannot frighten me, my dear; I have looked into your eyes.”
“I have been guilty—I am ashamed. I gave you my promise, not because I loved you, or because I hoped to love you, but solely because singing in public had become so great a terror to me that I welcomed the earliest chance that came of freeing myself. Let me take back my promise. I am unworthy of so good a man.”
“And that is your whole confession?”
“Ah! is it not enough? I tell you that I gave you my promise only because I was selfish. I was ready to sacrifice you so that I might gain my own ends.”
“Ah, surely that were to pay too heavy a price for your freedom!” said he. “What! you were willing to submit to the rule of an elderly and arbitrary husband so that you might escape from the irksome flatteries of the crowds of discriminating people who have always delighted to do you honour? Do you wonder that I ask you if you do not think that you offered too high a price for what you hoped to gain?”
“Oh, if you could but know what I have felt, what I still feel about this life which I have been forced to lead, you would pity me and perhaps forgive me for the wrong which I offered to you! But no one seems to understand that it is just because I feel singing to be so great a gift, so divine a gift, that I shrink from exercising whatever of that gifthas been given to me by God, only for the amusement of people who are incapable of understanding anything of the beauty—of the real meaning of music. Oh, I tell you, Mr. Long, I have felt, every time I have sung for such people, as if I were guilty of a great profanation of something that is quite holy. Indeed, I tell you the truth, and, knowing it, I think that you will forgive me for promising to marry you in order to escape from a life that had become quite intolerable to me.”
She had put out an appealing hand to him, speaking her last sentence, and he took it in both his own hands, looking tenderly into her face.
“My child,” he said, “your confession reveals nothing to me. Can you fancy for a moment that I have lived in the world for sixty years and yet believe that I could be attractive to a young girl full of a young girl’s dreams of the joy of life, which is the joy of love? Some men of my age undoubtedly are capable of cherishing such an illusion. People refer to them as ‘old fools.’ I think that within the past two days I have noticed on many faces the expression—a mingling of amusement and indignation—worn by the faces of people who have just exclaimed, or who are about to exclaim, ‘Old fool!’ Well, I may be an old fool for trying an experiment which involves the assumption that looking at happiness through another man’s eyes is in itself the truest form of happiness; but however this may be, I was not so senile as to believe that when you honoured me by accepting my offer, you loved me with the natural love of a young girl for a young man. You confided in me upon one occasion when I pressed you to answer some questions which I ventured to put to you, that it was a torture to you to face the public, and that you were awaiting the return of your brother from Italy, in great hope that he would be able to persuade your father to permit your withdrawal from a career which, however brilliant it promised to be, was morethan distasteful to you. I confess to you, my dear, that I thought I saw my chance in this circumstance, and I too awaited the return of your brother with great interest. I knew that I had it in my power to save you from all that you dreaded, and also to save you from all that I dreaded—to save you from becoming the victim of some such unscrupulous fellow as that Mathews. Well, I have great hope that all I thought possible will be accomplished. So far, I can assure you, I am satisfied with the progress of events toward the end which I have always had in view—that end being to make you happy.”
“But I want to make you happy; you are so good—so noble.”
“I know you do, my child, and I have let you into the secret of the only way by which you can make me happy.”
“Oh no, no! you have not said a word about your own happiness—you have talked about nothing but mine.”
“Dear child, in talking about your happiness I have talked about my own. In endeavouring to compass your happiness I have been altogether selfish, for I have been seeking to realise my own. Now, my sweet one, we shall talk no more on this subject. I only ask you to remember that my aim is to see you happy. In what direction you may find that happiness is a question which I dare not try to answer for you; you will have to work out the answer for yourself.”
He stooped over her hand and raised it to her lips. But hers lay limp in his own. She gave him the idea that she did not quite accept this closure of their conversation.
“You have not made me understand all that I think I should know,” she said. “My mind is still vague; you have not even said that you forgive me for deceiving you, for agreeing to marry you when all that I hoped for was, not to make you happy, but to escape from the life which I was forced to lead.”
“I positively refuse to say another word,” he cried.
“But you forgive me—can you?”
“I could forgive you anything, my dear, except your persistency in the belief that you stand in need of my forgiveness. Now we must hasten on to our destination; and if you see any of the modish people nudge each other whispering, ‘Old fool!’ as we pass, you will only smile, knowing as you now do that they are the fools and that I am none.”
She did not move from where she was standing, and a puzzled expression was on her face—an unsatisfied expression—not, however, quite a dissatisfied one. Once or twice her lips parted as if she were about to speak, but some minutes had passed before she found her voice; then she said:
“I do not understand more than one thing, and that is that you are the best and noblest man who lives in the world, and that I shall never deceive you.”
“It is not in your nature to deceive any one,” said he. “Some people—they are, however, few—are so gifted by nature.”
When Richard Sheridan hastily left Sydney Gardens on the appearance of Long with Betsy Linley by his side, causing thereby all the faculties of subtle discrimination and of still more subtle deduction of at least one of the ladies of the fascinating group to be awakened, he sought neither the allurements of the gossip of the Pump Room nor the distractions of the scandal of the Assembly Rooms. He felt a longing for some place where he could hide himself from the eyes of all men—some sanctuary on an island where he might eat his heart out, far from the crowd who take a delight in making a mock of one who sits down to such a banquet.
He had left his father’s house after breakfast, determined that no one whom he might meet should be able to perceive from his demeanour anything of what he felt on the subject of Betsy Linley’s engagement to Mr. Long. He had heard the announcement of this engagement on the previous evening when leaving the Concert Rooms where Betsy had sung and her brother Tom had played, and it had come upon him with the force of a great blow—a blow from which no recovery was possible for him. That was why he had accepted the invitation of one of his friends to supper, with cards to follow. For several months he had resisted steadily the allurements of such forms of entertainment, for then the reward which he held before himself forhis abstinence was the winning of the girl whom he had loved since he and she had been children together. But now that his dream was broken he felt in that cynical mood with which the plunge is congenial. He welcomed the opportunity of plunging. When the waters had closed over his head, they would shut out from his sight the odious vision which had followed his pleasant dreams of past years.
He was the merriest, the wildest, the wittiest of the little party of gay youths that night. His was the most gracefully cynical of the banter which was directed against young Halhed—a youth who had acquired quite a reputation at Oxford as the avowed but hopeless lover of Miss Linley, and who was now rather overdoing the part of the rejected swain, going the length of quoting Horace and Juvenal on the subject of the lightness of woman’s love, and being scarcely able to conceal his gratification at the distinction conferred upon him on being made the subject of the banter of his friends in general and of young Sheridan in particular. Before midnight had come and the first dozen of claret had gone, he was really not quite sure whether it conferred greater distinction on a man to be the accepted or the rejected lover of a young woman about whose beauty and accomplishments every one raved. Therôleof the Victim possessed several heroic elements. He was quite certain, however, that in introducing a mildly melancholy note regarding her heartlessness, he was conferring distinction upon the lady.
But when Dick Sheridan had crept upstairs to his room—somewhat unsteadily—after his bitterly merry night, he found that the bracing effects of the plunge are temporary. He found that though the plunge may alleviate, it is not curative—that the momentary alleviation which it secures has to be paid for.
He lay awake for hours, his remorse for having been soweak as to lapse from the straight path which he had laid out for himself since he became conscious of his love for Betsy Linley, adding to the bitterness of the reflection that he had lost her for ever.
When he awoke after a few hours of intermittent sleep, he had a sense of his disaster; but with it came the resolution that he would let no one suspect how hard hit he was by the announcement of Betsy’s engagement to marry Mr. Long—he would not even let the girl herself suspect it. He would smile and shrug when people referred to the matter in his presence. He would not be such a poor, weak creature as Halhed, who went about bleating his plaint in every stranger’s ear. He would show himself to be more a man of the world than that.
He dressed with scrupulous care—he was not going to affect the loose garters of the woeful lover—and sauntered out, swinging his cane with the ease and nonchalance of the man of fashion; and he flattered himself that the sharp and rapid repartee in which he indulged when he joined the group in the gardens, would be sufficient to convince even Garrick himself that he regarded the engagement of Miss Linley with complete indifference. The moment, however, that the girl appeared with Mr. Long at the entrance, he felt unable to sustain therôleany longer: he felt that he must run away and hide himself in some secret corner where he could see no one and where no one could see him. He had not counted upon facing the girl so soon—he had not counted upon witnessing the chastened pride of her successful lover in the presence of the unsuccessful. He knew that he could not continue acting the part which he had assumed: he knew that he should break down and be shamed for evermore.
He hurried away without once glancing round, and his first impression was that he must weep. He only bore up against this appalling impulse until he reached his home.He entered the house whistling, and shouted out a line or two of a merry song when on the stairs; but before the echo of his voice had died away, he was lying on his bed in tears.
He felt that his part in the world had come to an end—that for him no future but one of misery was possible. The hope which had sustained him in the face of his struggles to make a name for himself had turned to despair. She was not to be his. She was to go to another. She had elected to go to a man who, he believed, with all a true lover’s suspicion of another’s merits, was incapable of appreciating her beauty—her beautiful nature—her lovely soul.
He was overwhelmed by the thought of the bare possibility of a thing so monstrous being sanctioned by Providence. He despaired of the future of a world in which it was possible for so monstrous a thing to occur. It was no world for worthy lovers to live in—so much was perfectly clear to him. He felt himself to be a worthy lover, for had he not resisted temptations innumerable, during the years that he had loved Betsy, only for her sake?
He had felt upon every occasion of resisting a temptation that he was increasing his balance, so to speak, in his banking account with Fate—paying another instalment, as it were, toward acquiring Betsy Linley. He had worked for her as Jacob had worked for Rachel, but Fate had turned out to him as unjust as Laban had been—nay, more unjust, for he had not even a Leah given to him to console him; and, besides, his Rachel was bestowed upon another.
How could he be otherwise than hopeless of a world so ill-governed as to allow of such a gross injustice taking place?
The possible joys of the many temptations which he had resisted appealed to his imagination. So one thinks what one could have done with the sums with which one’s bankerhas absconded; and the result was to increase his bitterness. But perhaps what poor Dick felt most bitterly of all was his inability to sustain the dignifiedrôleof a cynical man of the world with which he had started the day. The reflection that he had completely broken down the moment that the girl appeared even in the distance, and that he had given way to his disappointment just as if he were nothing more than a schoolboy, was a miserable one. He wept at the thought of his own weeping, and beat his pillow wildly in vexation; and an hour had passed before he was able to control himself.
He sprang from the bed with a derisive cry of “What a fool I am!—a worse fool than Halhed! Good heavens! A girl!—she is nothing but a girl; and where’s the girl who is worth such self-abasement? I am a man, and I’ll show myself to be a man, even though she elect to marry every dolt in Bath!”
He felt that if she had appeared in the lobby outside his door at that moment, he would not break down. He would be able to smile upon her as Mr. Walpole was accustomed to smile when saying something very wicked and satirical. He knew that he was quite as witty and a good deal readier than Horace Walpole; but even if he lacked something of the polish which Walpole—sitting up all the night for the purpose—was able to give to a phrase, he believed that he could still say enough to let Betsy Linley learn what sort of a man he was. He would let her see that he was a man of the world looking on with a tolerant, half-amused smile and quite a disinterested manner at such incidents of life as marrying and giving in marriage. Oh, the cynical things that could be said about marriage! Some such things had, of course, already been said by the wits, but they had not nearly exhausted the subject. It would be left for him to show Miss Linley how supremely ridiculous was the notion of two peoplebelieving—or rather pretending to believe—that they could find satisfaction only in each other’s society!
Oh, the notion of marriage was utterly ridiculous! What was it like? Was it not the last refuge of the unimaginative? Or should he suggest that marriage was the pasteboard façade of a palace of fools?
Oh yes, he felt quite equal to the task of saying a number of witty things on the subject of marriage in general; but when he came to think of all that might be said on the subject of a young woman’s agreeing to marry an old man, he felt actually embarrassed by the wealth of cynical phrases which lent themselves to a definition of such an incident.
He kept pacing his room, becoming more cynical every moment, until he had almost recovered his self-respect, and had forgotten that singular lapse of his from the course which he had marked out for himself in the morning—that lapse into the tears of true feeling from his elaborate scheme of simulated indifference—when the dinner-bell sounded.
He cursed the clanging of the thing. He was in no humour for joining the family circle: he knew that his sisters would delight in discussing the topic of the hour, and as for his brother....
Then it occurred to him that, seeing he would have to face his relations some time, he would excite their suspicion less were he to meet them at once. He now believed himself to be quite equal to sustaining therôleof the indifferent man of fashion in the presence of his relations, though he had ignominiously failed to realise his ideal after a certain point earlier in the day.
He dipped his face in a basin of water to remove every trace of his weakness—the poor fellow actually believed that tears were an indication of weakness—and he was surprised to find how easily the marks were obliterated.He was comforted by the reflection that his tears had been very superficial; they were not even skin deep,—so that he had not, after all, been so foolish as he fancied—he had been unjust to himself. He only needed a fresh ruffle to give a finishing touch to his freshness.
He descended to the dining-room lazily, and entered languidly. He found that the other members of the family had not been polite enough to wait for him for the two minutes he had taken to complete his toilet. They were deep in their leg of mutton, and the younger Miss Sheridan was calling for another dish of potatoes. The big wooden bowl which, Irish fashion, lay upon a silver ring, was still steaming, but it was empty.
“Bless my soul!” he exclaimed, entering the room, “I had no notion that I was late. Upon my life, I meant only to have a doze of ten minutes, but I must have slept for half an hour.”
He yawned, and then stood before a mirror for a few moments, twitching his front into shape.
“You came in pretty late last night,” said his elder sister, cutting another wedge from the already gaping wound in the leg of mutton before her.
“Nay, sweet sister, you are wrong,” he said with a laugh. “Nay, ’twas not late last night, but early this morning I returned to my home. Prithee, sister, is’t outside the bounds of possibility for you to provide us with a change of fare now and again? Mutton is doubtless wholesome, and occasionally it is even succulent, but after the fourth day of mutton, the most tolerant palate——”
“Have you heard that Betsy Linley is to marry old Mr. Long?” cried the girl with the air of one making an effective retort.
He was about to indicate to her his complete self-possession by inquiring what bearing Miss Linley and Mr. Long had upon the question of the advisability ofsubstituting veal for mutton now and again, but he was clever enough to perceive that his attitude would become convincing were he to appear less nonchalant; so after only an interval of a few seconds, he dropped his fork, crying: