“What! what do you say? Betsy Linley and Mr. Long? Oh, lud!”
Then he threw himself back in his chair and roared with laughter. He was amazed to find how easily he was able to laugh heartily—nay, how greatly he was eased by his outburst of hearty laughter. He felt that he was playing his part very well, and so indeed he was.
“Oh, lud! Oh, lud!” he managed to ejaculate between his paroxysms of mirth. “Oh, lud! ‘Crabbed age and youth!’ Has not Mr. Linley set the lyric to music? If not, he must lose no time in doing so, and Betsy will sing it at all the concerts. I foresee another triumph for her. He is sixty-five if he is a day—I’ll swear it. But are you sure that there is truth in the rumour? How many names have not been associated with Miss Linley’s during the last two years? Were not people rude enough to mention Mathews’s name with hers six months ago?”
“’Tis more than mere rumour this time,” said his sister. “I wonder that you did not hear all about the matter last night. Every one was talking of it in the Rooms.”
“Ah, you see, I was hurried off to that supper, confound it! and, as you remarked, I did not get up in time for the Pump Room gossip,” said he glibly. “Ah, I should have gone to the Pump Room, if only for the sake of studying the effect of this disastrous news upon the beaux! ’Twill be a blow to some of our friends—to some; but we need not travel beyond the limits of the Sheridan family to become acquainted with the effects of that blow.” He pointed a finger toward his brother Charles, who indeed was looking very glum over his mutton. “Oh, my dear brother, you have my profound sympathy in your affliction.But, prithee, be cheered, my Charles; do not let those doleful dumps get hold of you at this time.
‘Shall I, wasting with despair,Sigh because a woman’s fair?’
Surely not, sir. This is not our way, in these days—these unromantic days.
‘If she be not fair to meWhat care I how fair she be?With a hey, nonny, nonny!’”
“Do not tease him, Dick,” said Alicia. “Poor Charlie!”
“Poor Charlie!” cried Dick. “Nay, I never meant to go so far as to call him ‘Poor Charlie!’ You have a strange notion of what constitutes sympathy, my dear, if you fancy that our brother’s wound is softened by his being called ‘Poor Charlie!’ The cruel shepherdess did not send you any softening message, Strephon?”
“She sent me no message,” said Charles.
“Then she was less unkind than she might have been,” said Dick. “The woman who sends a kind message to the lover whom she has discarded is as cruel as the Red Indian would be were he to scalp his victim and then offer him as a solace a box of Canada Balsam for the healing of the wound. Oh no, dear Charles, Miss Linley is not all unkind.”
“Do you know, Dick, that once or twice I received the impression that ’twas you yourself, and not Charles, that Betsy favoured?” said Elizabeth.
“What! I—I? Oh, my dear, you flatter me at the expense of my elder brother,” laughed Dick. “Moreover, you cast an aspersion on the taste, the discrimination, and the prudence of the young lady. Dear sisters, take the advice of your brother, who knows this world and its weaknesses, and when it comes to your turn to choosehusbands, marry nice elderly gentlemen with large fortunes, as your friend Miss Linley is doing. Marriage should be regarded simply as an unavoidable preliminary to a brilliant widowhood. And let me assure you, Eliza, your widowhood will not be long averted if you provide your husband with mutton as tough as that which you set before your brothers four days out of the seven.”
Dick Sheridan felt it to be a great relief to him to turn a laugh against his brother in regard to the sudden step taken by Miss Linley, which seemed to have disconcerted not only Charles, but half the population of Bath as well. Dick could not bear to be suspected of entertaining hopes on his own account as to Elizabeth Linley; he possessed a certain amount of vanity—the vanity of a young man who is the son of an extremely vain old man, and who, though gifted—or cursed—with a certain wit in conversation, is still rather uncertain about his future. It was this vanity which had caused him to keep as a profound secret his attachment to Betsy: he could not have endured the humiliation of taking a place among the rejected suitors, and he had not so much vanity as made him unable to perceive that there was always a possibility of his loving in vain.
He felt that, as his secret had hitherto escaped suspicion—and he fancied that it had done so—he could best keep it concealed by laughing at the men who, like his friend Halhed and his brother Charles, had worn their heart upon their sleeve. The man who is ready to laugh is not the man who is ready to love, most people think; and, being aware of this, he made himself ready to laugh. Before the evening had come, he had so many opportunities of laughing that he felt sure, if he were to meet Betsy and her elderly lover, he would be able to laugh in their faces.
He could not understand how it was that he had been so overcome in the morning by an emotion which was certainly not one of laughter, when he had seen Betsy in the distance.
It was really extraordinary how many young men showed their desire to confide in him in the course of the afternoon. Some were even anxious to read to him the verses which they had composed in celebration of their rejection by Miss L-nl-y; and this showed him how well he had kept his secret. His brother, who seemed, in spite of Dick’s want of sympathy, to take a very lenient view of Dick’s attitude toward him, was actually the first to approach him after dinner with the story of his sufferings, and with an attempt to enshrine the deepest of them in a pastoral poem which took the form of a dialogue between one Corydon and his friend Damon, on the subject of the ill-treatment of both of them by the shepherdess Phyllis, who, they both frankly admitted, was as charming a vocalist as she was a beautiful nymph, and who dwelt on the banks of a stream, to which all the country were in the habit of flocking on account of its healing properties.
Charles inquired if his brother did not think that the allusions to the vocalism of the young shepherdess and the incident of her living in the neighbourhood of a medicinal spring were rather apt; and Dick, taking the matter very seriously now, had no hesitation in expressing the opinion that no unprejudiced critic could fail to perceive from these data that the poet meant to refer to Miss Linley and to Bath. He was not sure, however, that Miss Linley would, on reading the verses, be stung to the quick. Dick did not think that as a rule young women were deeply affected by classical allusions, however apt they might be. But undoubtedly the verses were well intentioned, and quite equal in merit to many that appeared in theAdvertiser.
Poor Charles was forced to be content with such commendation. To be sure, he took rather a higher view ofthe poem himself, and he said that young Halhed had declared that some of the lines were quite equal to any that Pope had written, and that Mr. Greville had assured him that if he had not known that he, Charles, had composed the poem, he would unhesitatingly have accepted it as the work of Dryden. Still, he was much gratified by Dick’s opinion that it was on an intellectual level with the material which appeared in the Poet’s Corner of theAdvertiser. He rather thought that he would go away for a while to the country. Did not Dick think that the situation of the moment necessitated his retirement from the frivolities of Bath for a month or two?
After due consideration Dick replied that perhaps on the whole a month or two in the country would do his brother some good; though, to be sure, if he were missed from Bath, some people might be found ready to say that he was overcome by the blow of his rejection by Miss Linley. Charles’s eyes gleamed at the prospect of being thus singled out for distinction; and Dick knew why they were gleaming. He knew that his brother would certainly hurry away to the seclusion of the country before it would be too late—before people would cease talking of Miss Linley and the desolation that her cruelty had wrought. He knew that Charles would feel that, if people failed to associate the incident of his withdrawal from Bath with the announcement of the choice of Miss Linley, he might as well remain at his home.
“I shall go, Dick—I feel that I must go,” murmured Charles. “Let people say what they will, I must go. I have no doubt that tongues will wag when it is known that I have gone. I would not make the attempt to conceal the fact that I have gone, and I hope that you will never stoop to pander with the truth in this matter, Richard.”
“If you insist on my telling the truth, of course I shall do so; but I see no reason why I should depart from anordinary and reasonable course of prevarication,” said Dick, with a shrug.
“Not for the world!” cried Charles anxiously. “No, brother; the truth must be told. I lay it upon you to tell the truth.”
“’Twill be a strain at first,” said Dick doubtfully—musingly, as if balancing a point of great nicety in his mind. “Still, one should be ready to make some sacrifice for one’s brother: one should be ready at his bidding to make a departure even from a long-cherished habit. Yes, Charles, I love you so well that I’ll e’en tell the truth at your bidding.”
“God bless you, Dick—God bless you!” said Charles with real tears in his eyes and a tremolo note in his voice as he turned away. He never could understand his brother’s humour.
“Hasten and pack your bag, and get off at once, or people will cease to be suspicious, and disbelieve me when I tell them the true story of your wrongs,” said Dick. “It would be very discouraging to me to find that my deviation into the truth is not credited. You can send your poem to theAdvertiserfrom the country; mind that you append to it the name of your place of concealment.”
Charles lagged. He seemed a little taken aback.
“The verses would lose half their value unless they were dated from some place of concealment,” Dick insisted.
“I perceive now that that is so,” said Charles. “But, unhappily, it did not occur to me when I sent the verses to the editor an hour ago.”
“What! you have sent them already?” cried Dick. “Oh, dear brother, you need no instruction from me as to the acting of therôleof the complete lover. I will see that your grief receives the most respectful attention in your absence. Let that thought make you happy. It will be my study to see that you are referred to in the highestcircles as the unhappy swain. By the way, would you wish it to be understood that you are Damon, or do you prefer to be associated with the sentiments of Corydon?”
“I have not fully considered that question,” said Charles seriously.
“What! Ah, well, perhaps it would be unreasonable to expect you to make up your mind in a hurry. But since both the shepherds express the sentiment of their grief with commendable unanimity, you cannot be prejudiced by being associated with either.”
Charles went away very thoughtfully.
For the remainder of the afternoon Dick found himself advanced to the position of confidant in relation to several other young men, and at least two elderly gentlemen. He was amazed to find how closely the tale poured into his sympathetic ear by every one of the young men resembled that confided to him by his brother. And there was not one of them who had not made some attempt to embody his sentiment in a pastoral poem. All the poems were alike in their artificiality. He felt that he was hearing, not six different poems read once over, but one indifferent poem read six times over.
The elderly discarded swains who confided in him had also endeavoured to express their views of their treatment on paper. One had written a Pindaric ode on the subject, the other, who had a vivid recollection of the earliest essays in theRambler, had written an imaginary epistle in the approved Johnsonian manner, beginning: “Sir, if no spectacle is more pleasing to a person of sensibility than an artless maiden dissembling her love by a blush of innocence, none is more offensive than that of the practised coquette making the attempt to lure into her toils an unsuspecting swain. Among the ancient writers few passages are more memorable than the one in which, in sublimelanguage, Homer describes the effect of the song of the Sirens upon Ulysses. If the right exercise of the gift of song be deserving of approval, assuredly its employment as lure to the adventurous is a fitting subject for reprobation.”
The elderly gentleman, who was endeavouring to show to young Mr. Sheridan how closely Miss Linley resembled one of the Sirens, did not find a sympathetic listener.
“If Ulysses did not want to be made a fool of, why the deuce did he shape his course within earshot of the Sirens?” said Dick. “I don’t suppose that they wanted him particularly, and the Mediterranean was broad enough for him to give them a wide birth.”
“What, sir! Would you presume to teach Homer how to deal with his hero?” cried the interrupted author.
“I don’t care a fig for Homer! You need not have paid your half-guinea, and then you would not have been made a fool of by Miss Linley’s singing,” said Dick.
“She has made no fool of me, sir,” said the other tartly. “She did not presume so far, Mr. Sheridan.”
“I suppose it would have been an act of presumption on her part to try to supplement Nature’s handiwork,” said Dick, with a smile so enigmatical that the gentleman was left wondering if he meant to pay him a compliment or the reverse.
Dick went away wondering also—wondering if he alone loved Betsy Linley in very truth. The artificiality of all the professed lovers was contemptible in his eyes. Was it possible, he asked himself, that not one of these men, young or old, loved her sufficiently to be able to conceal his affection within his own breast? There they were, writing their artificial verses and still more artificial essays—looking about for some one to make a confidant of in respect of the secret that each should have locked up in his own bosom! Truly a paltry set of lovers were these! Rhyme-hunters,phrase-hunters, conceit-hunters, and nothing more. He, and he only, loved Betsy.
Had he carried his secrecy too far in that he had not confided, even in her? he wondered. But had he kept his love a secret from her? Alas! he felt that although he had never told her of his love, she was well aware of its existence.
And yet she had promised to marry Mr. Long.
He began to feel very bitterly about her—about Mr. Long—about womankind and mankind generally. He endeavoured as he entered the Assembly Rooms, to recall some of the bitter things which had occurred to him earlier in the day on the subject of the institution of marriage. He would show people that he could be quite as cynical as any of the Walpole set when it came to a definition of marriage.
But before he had drawn much consolation from such a reflection, he heard behind him the most musical laugh that ever suggested to an imaginative young man a moonlight effect upon a brook that rippled through a glen. It was a laugh that had rippled through England and made all the land joyous—it was the laugh of the beautiful Mrs. Abington: and for a century it has rippled forth from the canvases of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who painted her as Miss Prue and Roxalana.
Dick turned about and faced the charming creature, who, in the midst of a sunlit cloud of iridescent satin brocade, an embroidered mist of lace swirling about the bodice, stood there in the most graceful of attitudes, her head poised like the head of a coquettish bird that turns a single eye upon one, raising her closed fan in her right hand to the dimple on her chin, the first two fingers of her left supporting the other elbow.
“Heavens! what a ravishing picture! Is Mr. Gainsborough in the Rooms?” cried young Mr. Sheridan in an outburst of admiration. He forgot all the bitter things hehad on his mind. He forgot the grudge that he owed to the world: the world that included so joyous a creature as Mrs. Abington could not be in a wholly deplorable condition. This is what Mr. Sheridan thought at that particular moment, and that is what all England thought from time to time, when the same lady exercised her fascination over her audiences through the medium of a character in some new comedy. No heart could be heavy for long when Mrs. Abington was on the stage.
“Ah, sir,” said she, “you are, I perceive, like the rest of your sex: you confound the effect of a new gown with that of an attractive face. You mix up a woman with her dress until you don’t know which is which. Mr. Gainsborough knows the difference. Ask him to paint me. ‘I will hang her brocade on a wig-stand and that will be enough for most critics,’ he will answer. They say that the Duchess of Devonshire has induced him to paint her hat, and to eke out what little space remains on the canvas with her grace’s brocade. Oh, Mr. Gainsborough is the only man who knows the woman from her dress!”
“Madam,” said Dick, who had been whetting his wits all the time she had been speaking, “madam, when I look at Mrs. Abington it is revealed to me that a beautiful woman is a poem; her dress is merely the music to which the poem is set.”
She did not sink in a courtesy at the compliment; most women would have done so, therefore Mrs. Abington refrained. She only gave an extra tilt of an inch or thereabouts to her stately head, and allowed her fan to droop forward until it was pointing with an expression of exquisite roguishness at the young man’s face.
”’Tis a pretty conceit, i’ faith, Dick,” said she, “and its greatest charm lies in its adaptability to so many women. A song! quite true: we have both seen women who were the merest doggerel; and as for the music—oh, lud! Ihave seen women dress so that it would need a whole orchestra to do them justice. For my own part, I aim no higher than the compass of a harpsichord; and I hold that one whose garments suggest a band is unfit for a private room. Music! I have seen women apparelled in a flourish of trumpets, and others diaphanously draped in the thin tones of a flute.”
“’Twas a happy conceit that crossed my mind, since it has opened a vein of such wit,” said Dick. “But pray, my dear madam, tell us how it is that Bath is blest.”
“Bath blest! ’Tis the first I heard of it.”
“Since Mrs. Abington has come hither. How is it possible that you have been able to forsake Mr. Colman and Covent Garden!”
“Mr. Colman is a curmudgeon, and Covent Garden is—not so far removed from Drury Lane.”
“That means that you are not in any of the pieces this week?”
“Nan Cattley has it all her own way just now. All that she needs to make her truly happy and to make Mr. Colman a bankrupt is to get rid of Mrs. Bulkley.”
“All Bath will rise up and thank her, since she has enabled Mrs. Abington to come hither. Bath knows when it is blest.”
“Then Bath is blest indeed—more than all mankind. Was it not Pope who wrote, ‘Man never is but always to be blest’?”
“I do believe that it was Pope who said it. Your voice sets a bald line to music.”
“Lud! Mr. Sheridan, your thoughts are running on music to-day. Why is that, prithee? Is’t possible that since Miss Linley has given up music and has taken to marriage—a state from which music is perpetually absent—you feel that ’tis laid on you as a duty to keep people informed of the fact that there is music still in the world,even though Miss Linley no longer sings? But perhaps you believe exactly the opposite?”
“Just the opposite, madam?”
“Yes. Do you believe that there is no music in the world now that Miss Linley has promised to marry Mr. Long?”
He felt that his time had come; he would show her that he could be as cynical as the best of them—he meant the worst of them, only he did not know it.
“Ah! my dear lady, you and I know well that the young woman who gives up singing in favour of marriage exchanges melody for matrimony.”
“Subtle,” said the lady, with a critical closing of her eyes. “Too subtle for the general ear. ’Tis a kind of claret wit, this of yours; claret is not the beverage of the herd—they prefer rum. Melody on the one side and matrimony on t’other.”
“Madam, I am not talking to the crowd; on the contrary, I am addressing Mrs. Abington,” said young Mr. Sheridan, bowing with the true Angelo air. Mr. Angelo’s pupils were everywhere known by the spirit of their bows.
The beautiful lady did not respond except by a smile; but then most people with ability enough to discriminate would have acknowledged that a smile from Mrs. Abington expressed much more than the lowest courtesy from the next most beautiful woman could ever express; and they would have been right. She smiled gently, looking at him with languorous eyes for a few moments, and then the expression on her face changed somewhat as she said slowly:
“What a pity ’tis that you still love her, Dick!”
The roseate hue that fled over the face of young Mr. Sheridan, when the lady had spoken, was scarcely that which would have tinted the features of the hardened man of the world which he had felt himself to be—for some hours. But all the same, it was vastly becoming to the face at which the lady was looking; and that is just what the lady herself thought. She would have given worlds to have been unworldly enough to be able to blush so innocently as Dick Sheridan. But she knew that the peculiarity of the blush of innocence is its innocence, whereas she was the favourite actress of the day.
She kept her eyes fixed upon him, and that boyish blush remained fixed upon his face. He was not self-possessed enough to look at her; but even if he had been so, he would not have been able to see the jealousy which her smile indifferently concealed.
“I protest, madam,” he began. “I protest that I scarce understand the force of your remark—your suggestion——”
“Ah, my poor Dick, ’tis not alone a lady that doth protest too much,” said the play-actress. “What force do you fancy any protest coming from you would have while the eloquent blood in your cheeks insists on telling the truth? The eloquence of the blush, unlike most forms of eloquence, is always truthful. Come along with me to one of the quiet corners,—I dare swear that you know them all,you young rascal, in spite of that blush of yours; come along, and you shall get me a glass of ice.”
She gave him her hand with a laugh, and he led her to a nook of shrubs and festooned roses at the farther end of the Long Room. The Rooms were beginning to receive the usual fashionable crowd, and the word had gone round that Mrs. Abington was present, so that she tripped along between bowing figures in velvet and lace and three-cocked hats brushing the floor. She saw that her companion was proud of his position by her side, and she knew that he had every reason to be so; she hoped that he would remain proud of her. The man who is proud of being by the side of one woman cannot continue thinking only of the other woman.
And all the time Dick Sheridan was hoping that the people who saw him conducting the beautiful lady to that pleasant place which, like all really pleasant places, held seats only for two, would say that he was a gay young dog, and look on him with envious eyes.
It was, however, of the lady that people talked.
But then, people were always talking of Mrs. Abington—especially the people who never talkedtoher.
She was wise enough to refrain from ignoring the topic which had caused him to blush.
“What a whim to take possession of such a young woman as Miss Linley!” she cried. “Have you tried to account for it, Dick? Of course I was in jest when I suggested that she had smitten you. ’Twas your elder brother who was her victim, was it not?”
He was strong enough, though he himself thought it a sign of weakness, to say at once:
“’Twas Charlie who fancied that he was in love with her; but ’twas I, alas! who loved her.”
Mrs. Abington’s lips parted under the influence of her surprise. She stared at him for some moments, and then she said:
“Dick Sheridan, you are a man; and a few minutes ago I thought that you were only a boy.”
“I have known her since my father brought me from Harrow to Bath,” said he mournfully. “She was only a child; but I know that I loved her then. I have loved her ever since, God help me!”
“My poor Dick! and you told her of your love?”
“Once; we were both children. Then we were separated, and when we met again everything was changed. I think it was her beauty that frightened me.”
“I can believe that. A girl’s beauty brings many men to her feet; but I am sure that those who are worthiest among men are too greatly overcome by it to do more than remain her worshipper from afar. Have you anything more to tell me?”
He shook his head. His eyes were fixed upon the floor.
“Ah, that is your history—a blank, my lord! a blank?” said she in the pathetic tone of Viola. “Ah, Dick, she cannot have guessed your secret, or she would have been content to wait until the time came for you to reveal it to her.”
“Pray do not torture me by suggesting what might have come about!” he cried. “Psha! I have actually come to be one of her commonplace swains—her Damons and her Corydons—at whom I have been laughing all day.”
“Laughing?”
“Well, yes, in a sort of way.”
“Oh, I know that sort of laughter. ’Tis not pleasant to hear.”
“Such a batch of commonplace lovers. They went about in search of a confidant. And I find that I am as commonplace as any of the crew.”
“Nay, friend Dick; ’twas your confidante who went in search of you. I tell you, Dick, that when I heard two days ago that your Elizabeth Linley had made up her mind tomarry Mr. Long, I gave Mr. Colman notice that I would not play during the rest of the week, and I posted down here to do my best to comfort you, my poor boy! Oh, do not stare so at me, Dick! I am as great a fool as any woman can be, and that is saying much; and I would not have confessed this to you if you had not been manly enough to tell me that you love her still. I can only respond to your manliness, Dick, by my womanliness; but I have done it now, and yet you are only bewildered.”
“I am bewildered indeed,” said Dick, and he spoke the truth. “I do not quite understand what—that is, I do not quite understand you.”
“Oh, do you fancy that I expected you to understand me when I do not understand myself?” she cried, opening and closing her fan nervously half a dozen times, and then giving the most scrupulous attention to the design painted on the satin between the ivory ribs. “Ah, what a fool a really wise woman—a woman of worldly wisdom—can be when her turns comes, Dick!” she said, after a rather lengthy pause.
Dick was more bewildered than ever. His knowledge of women was never very profound. He was slightly afraid of this enigma enwrapped—but not too laboriously—in brocade and misty lace.
“I think that you are a very kind woman, Mrs. Abington,” said he at last. “’Twas very kind of you to come here solely because—because—well, solely out of the goodness of your own heart; and if you call this being a fool——”
He was startled by her outburst of laughter—really merry, spontaneous actress’s laughter; it almost amounted to a paroxysm as she lay back on the pretty gilded sofa in the most charming attitude of self-abandonment. Joyous humour danced in her eyes—and tears as well; and once again shehad closed her fan and was pointing it at him quite roguishly. And the tears that had been in her eyes dropped down upon the roseate expanse of her bosom, and two others took the place in her eyes of those that had fallen, and her bosom was tremulous.
He looked at her, and was more bewildered than ever. What did this mingling of laughter and tears and mocking gestures and throbbing pulses mean? Was the woman in earnest? Was the actress acting?
He felt himself as bewildered as he could imagine a man being whose boat is suddenly capsized when sailing in what he fancies to be smooth water, but finds to be a whirlpool.
He somehow had lost confidence in his own power of judgment. He was forced to apply to her for an explanation of her attitude. But before he had opened his lips, that whirlpool of a woman was spinning him round on another course.
“My dear friend Dick,” she said—her voice had acquired something of the uncertainty of her bosom: there was a throb in it—a throb that had something of the quality of a sob,—“oh, my dear Dick, I find that I must be very plain with you, and so I tell you plainly, Dick, that the sole reason I have in coming hither at this time is my regard for your future.”
“For my future? I cannot see——”
“Ah, there are a great many things that you cannot see, Dick—thank God, thank God! Your future, dear sir, is what troubles me. Well, I frankly allow that my own ambition in this life does not extend beyond the play-house. I am an actress, that is my life; I do not want to be accounted anything else by man or woman—only an actress. And I have in my mind something of a comedy which you are to write. Have you not confided to me your hopes of some day writing a comedy—notthat burletta stuff about Jupiter and the rest of them at which you have been working, but a true comedy? Mr. Garrick says he knows you have far more talent than Mr. Cumberland.”
“Mr. Garrick is not extravagant in his eulogy,” said Dick, becoming interested.
“No, he does not go too far. At any rate, I believe in your powers, Dick, if they are but allowed scope, and I have posted hither with the idea I have formed of the comedy which you are to write for me without delay. What say you to the notion of a young woman marrying an old man? Oh, no! you need not start and frown, Dick, for ’tis not your charmer and her elderly choice that I have in my mind, though I allow that ’twas the hearing of them put the thing into my head. No, a young woman, who has lived all her life in the country—she is very pretty (of course I am to play the part); marries an elderly gentleman (Shuter would play the husband), and forthwith launches out into all the extravagances of town life, to the terrible dismay of the old gentleman. ’Twill give you a fine opportunity of laughing at him for an old fool, who finds out that he is married to a young wife, but not sooner than she finds out that she is married to an old husband. Dick, Dick, you don’t laugh. Is it possible that you fail to catch the idea of the comedy?”
“Oh, no! I catch the idea. I wonder what sort of a life they will have? Only Betsy will never want to come to town. All that she seeks is to be left in the solitude of the country.”
“Who was talking of your Betsy?” cried the future Lady Teazle. “And who is there that can say with any measure of certainty what a young woman will be after she has married? Cannot you perceive that this must be the moral of the comedy? The young woman who appearsto her elderly beau to be quite content with the joys of country life, and to entertain no longing for any dissipation more extravagant than a game of Pope Joan with the curate, becomes, when once she has secured her husband, the leader of the wildest set about town, and perhaps eventually allows herself to be led away by a plausible scoundrel——” Dick sprang from his seat with clenched hands, and before a second had elapsed Mrs. Abington was by his side, and her fingers were grasping her fan so tightly that the ivory ribs crackled.
“You cannot get Betsy Linley out of your head, although she is no longer for you,” she said in a low voice. “You are living in a fool’s paradise, and are delighted to live there, although some woman may be at your hand who loves you better than you have ever hoped to be loved by Betsy Linley, and who would repay your love better than your dreams of Betsy Linley ever suggested to you. Take care, sir, that in the story of Miss Linley’s future, the plausible scoundrel does not enter with more disastrous effect that ever I intended him to play in my little comedy! That is my warning to you, friend Dick. And now, tell me who is that pretty fellow that is staring at us yonder? I swear that I have rarely seen a prettier!”
Some moments had passed before Dick Sheridan had recovered himself sufficiently to answer her. He glanced in the direction indicated by her, and saw that Tom Linley was standing a little way off.
“’Tis Tom Linley,” said Dick.
“One of the brothers?”
“The eldest. You have puzzled me, Mrs. Abington. I should like to know just what you meant when——”
“And I should like to know that young gentleman. If you do not beckon him hither and present him to me, I shall apply to Mr. Hale to perform that friendly office for me.”
Dick sprang from his seatDick sprang from his seat with clenched hands.[page116.
Dick sprang from his seat with clenched hands.
[page116.
“I must know what you meant by introducing the idea of a comedy——”
“And I insist on your introducing young Mr. Linley. What, sir! are you fearful lest that pretty youth may become, under my tuition, a fitting subject for another serious comedy? No, no; no further word will you get from me. I have said far too much already. Go home, Dick, and try to recall something of all the nonsense that I talked in your hearing, and if you succeed, believe me, you will know more of woman and a woman’s comedy than you have acquired during all your life.”
“Am I to believe——”
“You are to believe nothing except the sincerity of my desire to see you the foremost dramatic writer of our time. To become a true writer of comedy needs discipline as well as a knowledge of the world, Dick, and discipline is sometimes galling, my friend. But I have hope of you, Dick Sheridan, and that is why I mean to leave you alone just now and seek out that young Mr. Linley, who is, I vow, a vastly pretty fellow and as like his beautiful sister as Apollo was like Psyche.”
She kissed the tips of her closed fan and made a motion as if she were about to hasten to where Tom Linley was still standing; but Dick laid his hand on her arm.
“You have puzzled me thoroughly,” said he. “But you shall have your new toy. He will be discipline enough for you, for Tom has long ago buried his heart in his violin.”
Tom frowned when Dick suggested to him—in a delicate way, so that he should not be frightened—that the beautiful Mrs. Abington was greatly interested in him and had been gracious enough to give Dick permission to present him to her. Tom frowned. It was not that he placed a fictitious value upon himself; it was only that he could not be brought to take an interest in anything outside his art. Talking to a woman, however beautiful she might be, he regarded as a waste of time, unless she talked to him of his art, or, better still, listened to him while he talked of it.
“I came hither only to hear Mr. Bach’s playing on the forte-piano,” he said. “I think he is over sanguine of the effects that new instrument can produce, though I allow that he can do more with it than would be possible with the harpsichord. Its tones are certainly richer.”
“Rich as they are, they are not to be compared to the tones of Mrs. Abington’s voice,” said Dick, taking him by the arm.
“Will she distract me, do you fancy? I do not like women who interfere with my enjoyment of the music,” said the musician. “Most women are a great distraction.”
“So it is rumoured,” said Dick. “But Mrs. Abington—— Oh, you confounded coxcomb! there is not a man in the Rooms who would not feel himself transported to theseventh heaven at the prospect of five minutes’ conversation with this lady. Come along, sir, and do not shame me and your own family by behaving like an insensible bear who will only dance to music.”
Tom suffered himself to be led to the lady.
She had watched with an amused smile the attitude of protest on the part of the good-looking young man. She was greatly amused; but in the course of her life she had had occasion to study the very young man, and she rather fancied that she had acquired some knowledge of him and his ways. He was an interesting study. She had found Dick Sheridan extremely interesting even during the previous half hour—though she had not begun her course of lessons with him. As a matter of fact, he had been in the nursery when she had begun to take her lessons.
She would have been greatly surprised if young Linley had acquiesced with any degree of eagerness in the suggestion made to him by Dick, and she did not feel in the least hurt to notice his frown and his general air of protest. She had once watched from the window of her cottage on the Edgeware Road the breaking-in of a spirited young colt. She had admired his protests; but before the day was done, the horse-breaker had put the bit in his mouth and was trotting him quietly round the field.
She had done something in the way of breaking in colts in her time, and they had all begun by protesting.
“I saw that you were a musician the instant you appeared, Mr. Linley,” she said. “I know that you are devoted to your art. Ah, sir, yours is an art worthy of the devotion of a lifetime. Is there any art besides music, Mr. Linley? I sometimes feel that there is none.”
The large eyes of the young man glowed.
“There is none, madam,” he said definitely.
His air of finality amused her greatly.
“I feel pleased that you agree with me,” she said. “I have no patience with such people as one meets at times—men who are ever ready to decry the art which they themselves practise. I have known painters complain bitterly that Heaven had not made them poets, and I have known poets cry out against the fate that had not created them wits. Here is our friend Mr. Sheridan, who is both a poet and a wit, and yet he is ready to complain that Heaven has not made him a successful lover as well.”
Young Mr. Sheridan cast upon the lady a reproachful glance, and went off with a bow.
Mrs. Abington made room for Tom on her sofa. She sent him an invitation from her eyes. It was a small sofa; but he was entirely free from self-consciousness, and therefore he did not know what it was to be shy. He seated himself by her side. A fold of her brocade flowed over his feet. This did not embarrass him in the least.
He waited for her to talk. It did not occur to him that he should make the attempt to be agreeable to her.
“’Twas a pretty conceit that of Mr. Sheridan’s,” said she musingly. “But I am convinced that ’tis true. He said that you had buried your heart into your violin, Mr. Linley. Yes, I am sure that that is the truth; for were it otherwise how could the people who have heard you play declare, as some have done to me, that when you play ’tis as if you were drawing your bow across your heart-strings?”
“You have heard people say that?” he cried, leaning forward in eagerness; he had allowed the sofa to support his shoulders up to this point. “You have met some who heard me play? But I have only returned from Italy a few days. I have only played once in Bath.”
“You can only be upheld when you play in public by the thought that in every audience there are some persons—fewthough they may be, still they are there—who are capable of appreciating your playing—who are capable of receiving the impressions which you seek to transfer to them.”
He looked at her with wide eyes, surprise, admiration, in his gaze.
“I never begin to play without such a thought,” he cried. “That, as you say, is the thought that upholds me, that uplifts me, that supports me. I had it first from my dear Maestro. He used to urge us daily, ‘Play your best at all times; even though you fancy you are alone in the room, be assured that the true musician can never be alone. Who can tell what an audience the spirit world gives to him? He must remember that his playing is not merely a distraction for the crowd in the concert-room, it is an act of devotion—an act of worship.’ That is what the Maestro said, and every day I recall his words.”
“They are words which no true artist should forget,” said she. “The sentiment which they convey should be the foundation of every art. We cannot all build cathedrals to the glory of God, but it is in the power of every true artist to raise a shrine—perhaps it is only a humble one of lath and plaster, but it is still a sacred place if one puts one’s heart into it. That reflection is a dear consolation to me, Mr. Linley, when I reflect sometimes that I am only an actress.”
The boy was delighted. His face glowed. His heart burned.
“Dear madam,” he cried, “do not depreciate your calling. Why, I have heard even great musicians say that the most one could do in a lifetime was to add a single note to the great symphony which Nature sings in adoration of the Creator.”
“Then I was unduly ambitious when I talked of a shrine,” said she. “And I am, I repeat, only an actress. Such asI can only utter a feeble pipe—the trill of a robin. ’Tis you musicians whose works sound in the ears of all ages. Time calls aloud to time through you, until the world is girt about with a circle of glorious melody, and men live rejoicing within its clasp. Ah, sir, what am I, to talk of shrine-building? What am I in the presence of a great musician? Shrines? Oh, I can only think of Handel as a builder of cathedrals. Every oratorio that he composed seems to me comparable only to a great cathedral—glorious within and without, massive in its structure, and here and there a spire tapering up to the heaven itself, and yet with countless columns made beautiful with the finest carving. Ah, Mr. Linley, if the music ofMessiahwere to be frozen before our eyes, would it not stand before us in the form of St. Paul’s?”
“I am overwhelmed by the grandeur of the thought,” said he; and indeed he spoke the truth. His eyes had grown larger and more lustrous than ever while she had been speaking, and he could scarcely articulate for emotion. So highly strung was his temperament that the force of a striking poetic image affected him as it did few men. He had, as it were, reduced all the possibilities of life to a musical scale, and his thoughts swept over him as a bow sweeps over the strings of an instrument until all are set quivering.
“A cathedral!” he murmured—“a cathedral!”
She could see that those eyes of his were looking at such a fabric as she had suggested. He was gazing in admiration from pillar to dome, and from the dome to the blue heaven above all. She had never before come in contact with so emotional a nature—with so sensitive a soul. She knew that what Dick Sheridan said was true: Tom Linley had hidden his heart in his violin, and every breeze that touched the strings caused his heart to vibrate in unison with the music they made. She had only spoken to him on thesubject of music, and already his face was glowing—his heart was quivering.
Some minutes had gone by before he was able to ask her:
“When did you conceive that wonderful thought—the oratorio—the cathedral? Ah, Handel spent his life building cathedrals!”
“It was when I had heard your sister sing in the greatest of all the master’s works,” she replied. “Could any one hear Miss Linley sing ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth,’ and remain unmoved? Ah, what a gift is hers! I am certain that she is as sensible as you are of the precious heritage that is hers.”
“Alas!” he cried, “she has flung it away from her. She has no thought of her responsibility. Nay, she is ready to sacrifice herself so that she may never be asked to sing again.”
“Is’t possible? Good heavens! you cannot mean that ’tis her intention to sing no more after she is married?”
“That is why she is marrying Mr. Long—to be saved from the necessity of singing in public; those were her words—‘to be saved.’ Just think of it! Oh, she can never have had any true love for music!”
“You think not? But perhaps she has given all her love to Mr. Long.”
“She confessed to me—at least, she as good as confessed to me—that she intended marrying Mr. Long only because he had promised that she should not be asked to sing in public any more.”
“She cannot care for this elderly lover of hers. Has she tried to make you believe that she does?”
“She professes to be grateful to him for releasing her from her bondage: those were her words also—‘released from her bondage.’ She has always thought of her singing in public as a cruel bondage.”
“Heavens! But why—why?”
“I protest I cannot understand her. She is nervous—I think that she must be strangely nervous. She spends all the day in tears when she is to sing in the evening, and she is like to faint when she walks on the platform. And my sister Polly, who shares her room, told me that on returning from singing, Betsy has wept half the night under the influence of the thought that there were some people who remained untouched by her singing.”
“Singular! Good heavens! where would we be if we all had the same share of sensibility? What, does she think that the plaudits of her audiences are not loud enough or long enough?”
“She is utterly indifferent to applause. Indeed, she acknowledged to me that she was better satisfied when she was coldly received than when she succeeded in arousing people to a frenzy of delight, because then ’twas her hope that the managers would not be so anxious to engage her again. Oh, Betsy is my despair.”
“I can quite believe it. But you talked to her—reasoned with her?”
“Oh yes; I tried to make her feel as I do—that nothing in the world is worth a moment’s thought save only music.”
“But even that argument did not prevail with her? Did she not confide in you that she thought something else worth living for? Young girls have their fancies, as you may have heard—oh yes, their fancies and their loves. Has she been so foolish as to give her heart to any one, do you think?”
“She is going to marry Mr. Long.”
“Oh yes, but I was not talking on the subject of marriage; on the contrary, I was speaking on the topic of love. She has had many suitors. Do you fancy that she may love one of them?”
He gave a shrug and smiled.
“She has had no lack of suitors, but I don’t think that she set her heart on marrying any of them.”
“Not even the poorest of them?”
He looked at her enquiringly.
“Do you know anything of her suitors?” he asked. “I have been in Italy for some years, and so came in contact with none of them.”
“You did not put any question to her on the subject on your return?”
Once again he lapsed into the habit of shrugging, which he had acquired abroad.
“My dear madam,” said he, “I was not sufficiently interested in the matter to put any question to her touching so indifferent a topic. But now that I come to think of it, I fancy she did say something to me about love being—being—being something that deserved—— Let me see, was it the word ‘attention’ that she employed? No,consideration; I believe that was the word. Yes, she said that she had considered the question of love.”
“And with what result, sir? I protest that you interest me greatly,” said Mrs. Abington. And indeed she had now become quite interested in this boy with the large eyes so full of varying expression.
“Alas! madam, this is the point at which my treacherous memory fails me,” said he, after a little pause.
“Ah, is not that a pity, seeing that the point was one that promised to be of interest?” said Mrs. Abington.
“I am afraid that I was not interested, madam,” said he. “If she had come to me with the result of her consideration of Mozart’s additional instrumental parts toMessiahI feel sure that I would remember every word; but—— I wonder what view you take of the instrumental parts introduced by Mozart, Mrs. Abington? I should like to have your opinion on this subject.”
“And I should like to have your opinion on the subject of love, Mr. Linley,” said she in a slow voice, and letting her languorous eyes rest for a second or two on his—for a second or two—no longer. She recollected the horse-breaker; he did not force the bit into the mouth of his colt all at once. He allowed the little animal to put his nose down to the steel gradually. He did not frighten him by flashing it in his face.
“I told Betsy what I thought about love,” said he. “I told her that, while I did not assert that the sentiment of love had been brought into existence solely to give a musician an opportunity for illustrating it, still it formed an excellent subject for a musician to illustrate.”
“Indeed, you think well of love, Mr. Linley. Your views interest me amazingly. I should like to hear further of them. Love lends itself readily to the art of the musician? Yes, I should like to have this point further explained to me. I wonder if you chance to have by you any musical pieces by which you could demonstrate your theory.”
“Oh, there is no lack of such works, I assure you.”
“And I take it for granted that the only instrument that adequately interprets them is the violin. The violin is surely the lover’s choice in an orchestra!”
“It is the only instrument that has a soul, madam. Other instruments may have a heart: only the violin has a soul.”
“That is what I have felt—all my life—all my life; but until now my feeling was never put into words. Oh, it would be so good of you if you would play at your next concert some of the music that illustrates your theory. I wish to learn from you—indeed I do.”
“I do not play in public for another week.”
She gave an exclamation of impatience and then one of regret.
“’Tis too tiresome! I shall be back in London within the next day or two, and we may never meet again.”
Her long lashes were resting on her cheeks as she looked down at the tip of one of her dainty shoes. He looked at her, and his artistic appreciation compelled him to acknowledge that he had never before seen such marvellously long lashes.
He followed the direction of her eyes, and his artistic feeling—he had begun to feel—assured him that he had never seen a daintier foot.
“Why should it be impossible for us ever to meet again?” he asked.
“Ah! why—why, indeed?” she cried. “It has just occurred to me that if you had half an hour to spare to-morrow, you might not grudge sharing it with an old woman whose interest you have aroused on a question of art. You shall bring your violin with you and demonstrate to me your theory that love is particularly susceptible of being illustrated through the medium of music. Oh, ’tis wholly a question of art—that is why I am so interested in its solution.”
“Why, madam, nothing could give me greater pleasure!” he cried. “I shall go to you after dinner, and I promise you that I shall convince you.”
“You may have a hard task, sir. I give you warning that on any question of art I am obstinate.”
“Then my victory will be all the greater. Should I bring with me also a sonata illustrating the approach of autumn—’tis by a German composer of some distinction?”
“The approach of autumn?” said she. “Ah, I think we would do well to defer the consideration of the chills as long as possible. We will content ourselves with the approach of love, for the time being.”
“Perhaps you are right,” he said.
“The second house from the street in the Grand Parade is where I am lodging,” said she. “You will not be later than four o’clock, unless you choose to come very much later and share my humble supper?” she added.
But the boy said he thought that it would be wiser for him to go while the daylight lasted.
And perhaps he was right.
It was not within the bounds of possibility that the fascinating Mrs. Abington should remain for the rest of the evening seated by the side of young Mr. Linley in the Assembly Rooms. It was, as a matter of fact, thought very remarkable that she and he were permitted to have so long a conversation without interruption. This circumstance, however, did not prevent the young man’s resenting deeply the intrusion of Mr. Walpole and his friend Gilly Williams upon the artistic and philosophical duologue in which he was taking, as he fancied, the prominent part. (He did not doubt that philosophy as well as art formed the subject of his discourse with the charming lady.)
He thought that he might tire out Mr. Walpole and his friend, who had the bad taste to push themselves forward—they did not even think it necessary to have philosophy and art as their excuse—to the destruction of that seclusion which he had no trouble in perceiving the lady loved dearly. He found, however, that Mr. Walpole and Mr. Williams represented merely a beginning of the obtrusive elements of the mixed society at Bath; for before they had got rid of more than a few brilliant phrases embodying some neatly turned but empty compliments—he was convinced that Mrs. Abington, the actress, was just the sort of woman to detest compliments—quite a number of men, wellknown in the world of art as well as of fashion (to say nothing of philosophy), were bowing before her and delivering themselves of further compliments in the ears of the lady.
There was Mr. George Selwyn, for instance, who had some coffee-house jargon for her; its delivery necessitated his putting his face very close to her ear, and when she heard it, she gave a delightful simulation of a lady who is shocked—Tom actually believed that she was shocked. And then that awkward little Dr. Goldsmith, who, strange to say, was a great friend of Lord Clare and Bishop Percy and Captain Horneck of the Guards, and others of the most fastidious people in England—people who had it in their power to pick and choose their associates—came up with some witticism so delicately tinged with irony that no one laughed for several seconds. Dr. Goldsmith had to tell her that he had received a letter from Mr. Colman in which he had promised to put his new comedy in rehearsal immediately.
“That is good news for you, doctor,” said the actress.
“For me? Nay, madam, ’tis not of myself I am thinking, but of you; for the comedy contains a part—Kate Hardcastle is the name of the heroine—which will make you famous. Oh yes, indeed, ’tis entirely on your account I am gratified.”
“Sir, poor Goldsmith is vainer even than I believed him to be,” Tom Linley heard the foolish little Scotchman, who followed Dr. Johnson about in Bath as well as London, say to the huge man of letters; and Tom thought that he was fully justified in making such a remark. He was, therefore, all the more surprised to hear Johnson say, after giving himself a roll or two:
“Sir, Dr. Goldsmith may at times have been deserving of reproof, not to say reprobation, but it would be impossible for him to go so far as to make your remarkjustifiable. It is not for such as you to say ‘poor Goldsmith!’”
Then quite a number of other notable people sauntered up, so that Mrs. Abington became the centre of the most distinguished group in the Long Room, and Tom, who did not see his way to protect her from these inconsiderate obtruders, felt that he would not be acting properly were he tacitly to countenance their attitude; so with a bow he stalked away. What dull-witted wits were these, who were too dense to perceive that the lady’s most earnest desire was to be permitted to remain unobserved!
He hastened to his home and spent the remainder of the night practising over such musical selections as would tend, he hoped, to dissipate the philosophical doubts which Mrs. Abington appeared to have in regard to the relations existing between music and the sentiment of love.
Dick Sheridan did not leave the Assembly Rooms quite so soon. He had boldly entered the place in order to get over the meeting with Betsy Linley. He had felt sure that she would come to the Rooms this evening; for it appeared to him that Mr. Long was anxious to parade his prize—that was the phrase which was in Dick’s mind—before the eyes of the many suitors whom she had discarded in his favour. Dick felt that he, for one, would not shrink from meeting her in a public place now; it was necessary for him to make up for his shortcoming in the morning.
But while she remained away, he was conscious of the fact that Mrs. Abington had given him something to think about. How was it possible that she knew that he loved Betsy Linley? he wondered; and what did she mean by suggesting that she had come down to Bath to say something that should console him for having lost Betsy? What sudden friendship was this which she professed for him? Why should she have assumed, unasked, the part of his sympathiser? He had been frequently in her companyduring the previous year, both in Bath and London; for she had taken lessons in elocution from his father, and had naturally become intimate with the Sheridan family. Besides, she had more than once helped to drag his father from the brink of bankruptcy in Dublin, and lent the prestige of her presence in some of his seasons at that very fickle city; and for these favours Mr. Sheridan had been truly grateful, and had ordered his family to receive her at all times as their good angel.
Dick remembered how his father had dwelt upon the phrase, “our good angel,” and he was thus led to wonder if it was her anxiety to act consistently with thisrôlethat had caused her to post to Bath without a moment’s delay in order that she might offer him consolation in respect of Betsy.
He began to feel that he had not adequately expressed his gratitude to her for all the trouble which she had taken on his behalf—for the thoughtfulness which she had displayed in regard to him. He felt that she had not been merely acting a part in this matter. Whatever he may have suspected on this point at first, he could not doubt the sincerity of the note that sounded through that confession of hers—she had called it a confession, and she had called herself a fool. He did not know much about women, but he knew that when a woman calls herself a fool in earnest, she is very much in earnest.
But why should she have called herself a fool?
This was the question which had bewildered him before, and when it recurred to him now, it produced the same effect upon him.
The more he tried to recall her words the more satisfied he became that there was a good deal in the attitude of Mrs. Abington that he had not yet mastered.
He turned and looked up the room to where she was sitting. She was not looking in his direction. Her eyeswere fixed upon the face of Tom Linley, and she was listening with the most earnest attention to what Tom was saying. She really seemed to be completely absorbed in Tom.
For a few minutes Dick felt jealous of the other youth. Why should this lovely creature, who confessed that she had come from London solely to say a word of comfort in his (Dick’s) ear, become in a moment so deeply absorbed in Tom Linley, who had no aspiration in the world except to improve himself as a performer on the violin?
In spite of that sudden twinge—it could scarcely be called a pang—of jealousy which he felt while watching Mrs. Abington giving all her attention to Tom Linley, his bewilderment did not disperse. But to do him justice, he had already ceased to think of her as a kind woman, and this was one step—though he did not know it—toward his discovery of the truth.
He did not get a chance to give further consideration to the question of the lady’s motives at that time, for his friend Halhed waylaid him with a lugubrious face and a smile of infinite sickliness.
“You observe, Dick?” he said, nodding significantly.
“I observe much—a good deal more than I can understand,” said Dick. “But what do you observe—that I am observing?”
“What? Oh, you must notice it—everybody must notice it. I dare swear that remarks are being made about it in every part of the Rooms,” said Halhed.
Dick frowned.
“Do you mean Mrs. Abington?” he asked. “Why, man, ’tis only her fancy to give some slight attention to Tom Linley. She is an actress, and she may be about to act the part of a boy. They are all wild to do boys’ parts. My father tells me that it was Mrs. Woffington who set the fashion more than twenty years ago.”
“Mrs. Abington! Who cares the toss of a penny what freaks Mrs. Abington may indulge in?” sneered Mr. Halhed.
“No one, except fifty or sixty thousand playgoers in London,” said Dick. “But pray, what is on your mind, Nat? Who is there present apart from her that calls for observation?”
“You are not so acute as I believed you to be, Dick, or you would know that ’tis not of any one present people are talking. You should have noticed that Miss Linley is absent, and that every one is saying that she is ashamed to face me. She has reason for it, Dick. Do you not allow that she treated me badly? Oh, you must allow so much; she treated me cruelly, for I give you my word, Dick, that I never offended her even by a look. I was not one of those presumptuous fools who made love to her. No word of love did I ever breathe in her hearing. Do you fancy that I am not speaking the truth, sir?”
“I do not doubt it, Nat—indeed I do not doubt it.”
“Give me your hand, Dick; you are my friend. That is why I am perfectly frank with you now, as I have always been. I was ever silent in her presence, and I believed that she respected my silence; she must have known that I was ready to lay my heart at her feet, I was so silent. Ah, she is afraid to face me. She stays away.”
“Nat, my friend, if you ask me for my opinion,” said Dick, “I will tell you without hesitation that if you saw there was great reason to maintain silence in the presence of Miss Linley, the attitude is even more becoming in her absence. Come, sir, be a man. Think that there’s as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. Good heavens, man! am I doomed to listen to the plaint of every foolish swain who believes that he has been aggrieved by Miss Linley? I tell you plainly, Nat, you must find another confidant. What! Have you no self-respect? Do youthink it is to your credit to go about, like a doctor at a funeral, advertising your own failures? Oh, I have no patience with fellows like you who have no backbone. And so good-evening to you, sir.”
He turned about, leaving the young man overwhelmed with amazement, for Dick had always shown himself to be most sympathetic—a man to encourage confidences.
Strolling to another part of the Rooms, he felt himself tapped on the shoulder. Looking round, he saw that he was beside a certain Mr. Bousfield—a young gentleman of property who had been paying great attention to Miss Linley.
“You see, she is not here—she has not the courage to come face to face with me,” said young Mr. Bousfield.
Dick looked at him from head to foot, and then with an exclamation ran for the nearest door, and made his way home without glancing to right or left, lest he should be confronted by some other men seeking to pour their grievances into his ear. He thought that he had exhausted the tale of the rejected lovers, but it seemed that when he had routed the main body, a company of the reserves had come up, and he did not know what strategy they might employ to force themselves upon him. He felt relieved when he found himself safe at home.
But to say the truth, he was greatly disappointed at not meeting Betsy face to face, when he felt sure of himself—when he felt sure that he would be able to offer her his congratulations without faltering. He had prepared himself for that meeting; and now he had begun to lose confidence in his self-possession, having had a proof of his weakness in the presence of Mrs. Abington. It was not satisfactory for him to reflect upon the ease with which that lady had extorted from him his confession that he was miserable because Betsy had promised to marry another man. Although he had begun talking to her in the same spiritthat he had meant to adopt in regard to Betsy, yet she had only to utter a single sentence, suggesting that she knew his secret, and forthwith he had broken down, and, by confiding in her, had put himself on a level with the full band of plaintive suitors who had gone about boring him with the story of their disaster.