'Thoughts of immortal beauty spring to birth,And waft the soul beyond the dreams of earth.'"
'Thoughts of immortal beauty spring to birth,And waft the soul beyond the dreams of earth.'"
'Thoughts of immortal beauty spring to birth,
And waft the soul beyond the dreams of earth.'"
Henry scarcely ventured to tell his own heart how deeply and engrossingly he had become attached to Caroline, while in secret he remembered every word or look which had endeared her to him, with a pleasure and emotion till now unknown, and which could not but be most painful in his solitary hours of reflection, when he considered the uncertain tenure of his own situation in life, and his ignorance respecting that of Miss Smythe, though he felt soothed and comforted by the consciousness, that to her he was evidently not indifferent, and that Sir Arthur either seemed blind to their increasing preference, or pleased to witness it.
Henry had seated himself one morning in a small ante-room, repairing his fishing tackle, and though voices became audible in the drawing-room, in animated conversation, he continued perfectly heedless of what was passing, till at length his own name, spoken in accents always dear to him, irresistibly enchained his attention. Sir Arthur was requesting Caroline to sing one of his favorite melodies, and she gayly resisted his entreaties, saying, in her liveliest accents, "No! no! wait patiently till the evening. That was copied for me by Mr. De Lancey, and I promised he should be present the first time it was performed. I can refuse you nothing, Sir Arthur, so I must seek safety by flight!"
Nodding and smiling, with one of her archest looks, Caroline tripped lightly into the room, where Henry sat, so shaded by the window-curtain, that he was perfectly invisible, when a moment afterwards she was followed by Mrs. Smythe, who said in an excited tone of angry remonstrance,
"Is there no end, Caroline, to this extraordinary intimacy of yours with young De Lancey! It really is becoming absurd! Sir Arthur is very much to blame in giving it any encouragement! A youth without prospects! without so much as a name!"
"With no seat in Parliament! no diplomatic appointment! no family living! no title!" pursued Caroline, laughing. "You know, my dear aunt, I never centered all good in birth and station!"
"Neither did I suppose you would dispense with both!" replied Mrs. Smythe, in a tone of increasing bitterness, and hurrying towards the door, evidently so irritated, that she dared not trust herself to remain. "Rather than have my niece united to a nameless outcast, living upon the bounty of Sir Arthur Dunbar, or of connections who are probably disgraced by his existence, I would prefer seeing you married to the Twopenny Postman, for he at least is independent, and has something."
A glow like fire rushed through Henry's frame at these words, and before Mrs. Smythe had closed the door, the hot blood seemed boiling in his veins with agonized shame and sorrow. Pale and red by turns, he leaned his head on his hands in solitary desolation, and quivered in every nerve with grief and self-reproach. The whole harvest of his happiness seemed blasted at a single breath; his mind was a wild chaos of conflicting emotions; and one only thought rose paramount to all, that he had been held up to ridicule and contempt, perhaps deservedly, in the eyes of that one beloved being, the object of his dearest, first, and only attachment, He wreathed his hands together, and bent his head in a tempest of emotion, while the whole rich treasure of his affections and hopes lay mouldered into rubbish at his feet; for he felt and knew that all Mrs. Smythe had said, was but too painfully true. A dark extinguisher had fallen over every earth-born wish. He felt that it had been unpardonable even to desire that the happiness of another should be linked with his uncertain fate; and he struggled long, though vainly, for composure, while contemplating the destruction of that one hope which had contained the sum of all his earthly wishes.
"I will yet deserve her or die!" thought Henry, overleaping impossibilities, or, with the sanguine feelings of a young and ardent mind, not even seeing them. "My pleasing dream has ended for the present; and how could I ever expect it should be otherwise! but I cannot and will not blot out from the picture of my future life, that form which embellished every hope of my existence! Days and nights of laborious exertion shall be as nothing, if I can but prove myself worthy of Caroline,—if I can but, at the remotest period of time, call her my own. Were it not for such a prospect I should become indifferent even to myself!"
Henry's musings were disturbed by a slight noise near him, and when, with a flashing eye, he started and looked up, the very object of all his thoughts, hopes, and regrets was beside him, and he beheld Caroline, her cheeks suffused with the deepest emotion, and her downcast eyelashes sparkling with tears, while in hurried accents of extreme agitation, she spoke to him almost inaudibly:
"Is it the affairs of the nation you are so deeply meditating on, Mr. De Lancey, or your own affairs?"
"My affairs!" exclaimed Henry, in a tone of deep depression, while his dark lustrous eyes became dim and glassy with emotion. "I have no affairs! a creature of charity,—of the most generous and noble-minded benevolence,—but still a dependent on the bounty of others! In your presence I could forget the mystery and bitterness of my lot,—but I forget it too much! I am not answerable for my feelings, but I am for my actions; and I must leave you for ever! I can never know the rapture of a requited attachment; but why should I not acknowledge the feelings of admiration that must be common to all in your presence. I am a nameless outcast; but pardon my folly and infatuation in having loved you, without a hope of return. My mother perished, as you know, under fearful circumstances; and who can tell whether my father may not have died like a felon! My worst enemy can say, or suspect nothing worse than I sometimes fear; and I deserve all I suffer for having one moment forgotten the dark mystery of my lot."
"You were here, then, Mr. De Lancey, some moments ago," said Caroline, in hurried accents! "You overheard all that my aunt so imprudently said! you! you!—you—what must you think!"
"I dare not trust my lips with the expression of half what I think and feel," replied Henry, in a low, deep, broken voice, and fixing his troubled eye on Caroline. "Let me speak for once to you on that subject which another began! Let me for once relieve my heart, by saying how entirely,—how unchangeably I love you. What bright visions of hope have flitted before my fancy, all blighted now for ever! I know the utter despair that ought to attend my attachment. Love, to others a blessing, must ever be to me a curse; yet I would rather love you without a hope of return, than gain the hearts of a thousand others. I neither ask nor expect encouragement; only believe and pity me! In the long absence which awaits me from home, let me be consoled by thinking, that I am not utterly despised and forgotten,—that when time and distance have separated us, I may still preserve a place in your memory, though not perhaps remembered, as I shall remember you."
Caroline listened with deep delight to this renewed confession of Henry's long-cherished attachment. It seemed as if she could have listened for ever, but was unable to reply during several minutes of agitated silence, till at length, with a strong effort, she said in faltering accents, yet with some of her usual vivacity—
"You said this once before, and I never forgot it. You were very dull not to read my heart long ago. If I felt less I could say more. Be constant for two long years, and we may be happy! I need then consult no one's wishes but my own. Sir Arthur knows all. He has been entrusted with my thoughts from the first moment, when you told me that—that our attachment was reciprocal!"
"Can it be!" exclaimed young De Lancey, in accents of the wildest joy, while, in a transport of emotion, he clasped her hand in his own, and those words were at last spoken between them, which pledged Henry and Caroline to each other for ever. "I am not then doomed to pass through life alone and uncared for. You will accept a heart that never has loved, and never can love another! I am now afraid only of being too happy! The tide of my whole existence is changed! The two years you bid me wait shall not be wasted. For your sake I shall strenuously seek to become the architect of my own fortunes, to throw off the trammels of obscurity, to carve out for myself a name which you shall not be ashamed to hear. The world is before me, where, with buoyant hopes and resolute will, surely I may achieve something, when my ardent aim and eager hope shall be to enjoy honor first, and love hereafter. For years I have not known a moment of solitude, as your image has been my perpetual companion, and now there is no futurity of life to either of us, in which we shall not both be interested, for, believe me, no one on earth was ever loved with greater depth and constancy of attachment than yourself."
The feelings of a lifetime are sometimes concentrated in a single hour, and so it was with Henry and Caroline, who talked of the past and of the future with buoyant hopes and entire affection, but not yet with an entire confidence; for it was evident that Miss Smythe, in speaking of her own connexions and prospects, became agitated and reserved, while she concluded the conversation abruptly, by saying,
"I shall feel proud and happy to think that the motive for all your exertions is derived from a generous and disinterested attachment to myself; and whether success or failure be the consequence, we shall at last share it together, for better or for worse. All real happiness must spring from the heart. I care neither for splendor nor amusement—they are the mere outside crust visible to the vulgar eye; but friendship and—and attachment, founded on religion, these are the jewel in the casket, outweighing all else."
"Without them, none can know the greatest joys or the greatest sorrows of this world," said Henry, with emotion. "For your sake I have now a thousand ambitious desires that never would have occurred to me for myself alone. If there be anything in me deserving your regard, I wish it were ten times redoubled, and that, besides, I had fortune, talents, estates, and friends, beyond the utmost desires of all your connexions."
"Then," replied Caroline, with a penetrating look at Henry, but in a careless, off-hand tone, "if we are to suppose a shower of fairy gifts called down upon us by our own wishes, I shall, perhaps, ask to become, for your sake, very beautiful, very fascinating, and, above all, very rich."
"You have everything already, except the wealth," said Henry, warmly; "and I should abhor an heiress! I would not sacrifice my independence in life to any woman—scarcely even to you! A man's office is to confer, not to receive."
"Men of even very large fortune seem, in these days, to feel otherwise," observed Caroline, smiling. "They have a sort of mercantile idea on the subject of marrying, that it would be very presumptuous in a young lady, without sufficient capital, to expect a partnership in their house."
"I have little, indeed, to offer, and even that little based upon a mysterious uncertainty," replied Henry. "Yet unless I could bestow something besides myself, and something more than I ask in return, I never would marry. It is a mean, degrading position, for any man to be a pensioner on his wife, when even the very gifts which his affection might induce him to give her must be purchased with her own money. No! dearest Caroline, we shall be contented on very little, and we might be miserable on a great deal. Your happiness shall be my first, almost my only consideration. Our affection will be riveted by the sacrifices we daily make for each other, till it becomes woven into our very being; while, come what may, we are above adversity, and equal to prosperity, strong in mutual attachment, and in one common hope for time and for eternity."
"May we live to realize all you say," replied Caroline, with tears starting to her eyes, while a smile was on her cheek. "The picture is drawn by a masterly hand. In this world the sun itself has many dark spots, and I do not expect or hope that we shall be without our share of difficulties and sorrows; but our happiness is rooted in a soil that cannot fail, for we shall advance together, in social and unlimited confidence, through the land of fleeting shadows, to the land of bright and permanent realities, of unimaginable and unceasing enjoyment."
"How different is the happiness of the Christian from that described by the poet," said Henry.
"My hope, that never grew to certainty,—My youth, that perish'd in its vain desire;My fond ambition, crush'd e'er it could beAught save a self-consuming, wasted fire!"
"My hope, that never grew to certainty,—My youth, that perish'd in its vain desire;My fond ambition, crush'd e'er it could beAught save a self-consuming, wasted fire!"
"My hope, that never grew to certainty,—
My youth, that perish'd in its vain desire;
My fond ambition, crush'd e'er it could be
Aught save a self-consuming, wasted fire!"
Captain De Crespigny continued to visit at St. John's Lodge almost daily, having now adopted a quite-at-home style, dropping in at all hours of the morning or evening, partly in the character of a cousin, partly as a convivial friend of Sir Patrick's, and solely, in the estimation of Agnes, as her devoted admirer; but not one of the motives which ostensibly brought him there was the real one. He kept up long, animated, horse-and-dog conversations with Sir Patrick, and love-and-nonsense conversations with Agnes; but his whole thoughts and attention were secretly devoted to Marion, to so engrossing an extent, that he became astonished even at himself. She was always exceedingly busy about something when he called—more frequently out of the room than in it, while he staid, and so constantly sat down to write letters or notes while he talked to Sir Patrick, that one day, in a tone of pique, he said, writing at such a rate, she would soon be several volumes a-head of Sir Walter Scott; but still Marion continued as much pre-occupied in his presence, and as good-humoredly indifferent as before. She treated him, as the friend of Sir Patrick, almost like a brother, and was not in the slightest degree agitated, when he flew, with fascinatingempressement, to light the taper for her, to open the door, or to pay any of the ten thousand little attentions with which he was accustomed to dazzle and delight the hundred and one other young ladies among whom he had hitherto divided himself. It was absolutely insufferable to see her so perfectly self-possessed and conversible, without a thought of being admired, always ready with a reply when he spoke to her, and amused with his jests, but not sufficiently interested by his presence, to attempt being either attractive or repulsive. Seeing him approach the table one day several times while she was writing, Marion said at last,
"Is there anything here I can give you? anything you want?"
"Yes!" said Captain De Crespigny, in a low, agitated voice. "I do want more than I dare ask; more than I shall perhaps ever obtain."
Marion at these words glanced with astonishment towards Agnes, and privately thought her sister's lover must require very great encouragement indeed, if he were not satisfied with all he got; but unwilling to interfere in any differences that might have arisen between them, she calmly resumed her employment, unconscious that the eyes of Captain De Crespigny were fixed upon her with a look of disappointment and pique, because she had not so much as favored him with a conscious blush.
Nothing surprised and amused the young mind of Marion half so much, as the light raillery and gay persiflage, which continually passed between her brother and Captain De Crespigny, whose conversation was enlivened with sallies of good-humored malice against each other, and lively satire, which sometimes approached the verge, and often even passed the verge of civility, while each seemed to have conferred on his friend the royal privilege of saying or doing no wrong, so that the pointed arrows they levelled at each other became feathers before they reached their aim.
"I must give the Abbey people a ball!" exclaimed Sir Patrick one day, after whistling for some time with his back to the fire. "The Children of the Abbey, as we gentlemen in difficulties are called! A dance of ruined people! What a capital hit!"
"Like Holbein's dance of death!" observed Marion. "Our creditors would all come, I suppose, and take out a dividend in cakes and ices! You are, of course, not serious, Patrick!"
"Why not? You are always ready with an opinion, like a lawyer expecting a fee; but remember, Marion, the attorney waits at least till he is asked! I am as serious now as I ever am about anything. Let me make the neighbors and the neighborhood expire with envy and admiration! You know the last kick of a dying horse is always the strongest. Agnes, fetch your visiting book, and we shall get up a splendid impromptu, to be paid for with my surplus income! Ah! here comes De Crespigny, as he always does, at the very moment we were wishing for him."
"Because there is never a moment, I suppose, that you are not wishing for me!" replied he, fixing his expostulating eye on Sir Patrick. "I owe myself to society, and make a duty of paying visits from pure benevolence, because in every house I find people perfectly dying for my arrival. If I had three hands to shake, I would divide them equally amongst you; but I have only one to offer," added Captain De Crespigny, with lively emphasis, as he extended his to Agnes, who stood nearest him.
"You belong, I believe, to the Modest Assurance Company," said she, with a blush and a smile. "But after this little outbreak of vanity, we really do want your advice."
"That is a thing I never either give or take. The word should be drummed out of the English language."
"Then," added Sir Patrick, "pray lend us your opinion."
"No, Dunbar! I lend you nothing! Remember our agreement. Can't afford bad debts! Better give you half-a-crown than lend you a shilling."
"De Crespigny, your wit is as sharp to-day as that American scythe, the shadow of which cut a man's leg off! I owe you one for the last hit!"
"Ten to one you never pay me! I have serious thoughts of taking rooms in the sanctuary myself soon, because it displays beauties and attractions beyond any other part of the world. Positively, I see no place like it, and no people like its inhabitants."
Sir Patrick's hearty laugh rang through the room, while Agnes smiled with conscious triumph; and Marion, who had been for several minutes planning an escape to the Granvilles, thought this a favorable opportunity to steal off unobserved, and had safely reached the door, when Sir Patrick hastily summoned her back.
"Marion! where are you shying off to so hastily? Are you under a vow of solitude? There is no keeping you in the room for a minute now."
"Never mind me!" said Captain De Crespigny, assuming a tone of good-humored conceit, to disguise a great deal of real pique. "I am not so bad as I look."
"No!" replied Agnes, laughing. "That is exactly what the keeper at the Zoological Gardens says of the ourang outang!"
"Don't be put out of countenance by her, De Crespigny! you'll do," said Sir Patrick. "I've seen worse looking people in the world! I knew a gentleman once, much plainer than you are, who got on very well!"
"Sir Patrick Dunbar, for instance, or some other, with no pretensions whatever! Really, old fellow! I am much the best looking of the two, if people would only think so. It is astonishing the sort of men who pass themselves off upon the world for being handsome—quite an imposition."
"Quite!" replied Sir Patrick, and the two gentlemen laughingly glanced at each other. "I am quite obliged to you for that remark; but as I see the watch of your wit is wound up for a reply, pray let it strike."
"No, I am not revengeful! As somebody said to somebody, some day when they were talking about something, I have 'a soul above buttons.' But positively," continued Captain De Crespigny, gazing around, as if he had made a sudden discovery, and letting his eye rest upon Marion, "to do ourselves justice, Dunbar, we in this room are a remarkably good looking party."
"To be sure we are! You never said a truer thing!" replied Sir Patrick. "So obvious, indeed, that it was scarcely worth remarking. I remember the time, De Crespigny, when you used to copy me—to imitate the inimitable; and positively, with such tolerable success, that I very nearly bowed to myself one day for you."
"Well, Patrick!" said Agnes, "I do think you are like nobody else, and like nothing human I ever saw; and yet I have a great turn for finding out resemblances. How very like Wednesdays are to Thursdays!"
"Astonishingly so!" replied Captain De Crespigny, adding, with one of his most indescribable looks, "but I see not the slightest resemblance between your sister and you."
Agnes smiled one of her brightest smiles at what must, she thought, be intended most unquestionably as a compliment; but though the difference appeared obvious enough, the superiority, judging from the direction and the expression of Captain De Crespigny's eyes, was not by any means so decided a point as Agnes seemed willing to believe.
"De Crespigny!" said Sir Patrick, with one of his most satirical looks. "Do you really now, in serious earnest, call yourself dressed? It is very well as a joke; but you are surely not got up in that style for the day? In the name of all that is hideous, who is your tailor, that I may avoid him? Does he call that thing you wear a coat?"
"No!"
"Then, pray, what does he call it?"
"A surtout! and such a one as you never had since you wore a cap and cockade! It is a real original Dodds! I could bet the amount of your bill, whatever that may be, probably with several years' interest—a few hundreds—that you will never be half so well fitted. If you want a coat—a real undeniable, irreproachable coat, fit for a gentleman to be seen in—employ my tailor in St. James' street; he will make a man of you!"
"From a certain cut of tigerism in the collar, I guessed he lived in Cheapside or the Strand! Never employ him again! I would not allow him to dress me if he offered to do it for nothing! Have more regard for yourself, De Crespigny, and never be betrayed into trusting him again. He is totally incapable of his business! You might as well expect a Whig Ministry to form a tolerable Administration. The thing is not upon the cards!"
"Pray, attend now to my cards!" interrupted Agnes. "If you are got upon politics, there will be no slipping in a word edgewise about my ball; and the joy of planning it quite turns my head."
"You turn every other head, so it is but fair that your own should share the same fate!" observed Captain De Crespigny, with a light and careless laugh; but what he said was neither lightly nor carelessly received by Agnes; for the color rushed in vivid brilliancy to her cheek, while she bent her head to conceal a smile of pleasure; yet when Marion looked up suddenly from her drawing, the eyes of Captain De Crespigny were again fixed on herself, as he added, "I wish those I admire the most had a few imperfections to make them human."
"I should not think any one thoroughly liked me who saw them," observed Agnes, in a tone of gratified vanity. "And now for business, Pat! Here is a correct list of our acquaintances!"
"But I want an incorrect one!" replied Sir Patrick, jocularly seizing the catalogue of names. "I hate anything correct! Let me see! Here are some tolerable people enough! This is not a bad world, after all, if one could pick out those who are ornamental, and pass an act of extermination upon all who are objectionable in manner, appearance, circumstances, or disposition. In such a case, it might really become fit for a gentleman to live in!"
Agnes' visiting-book was now carefully revised, while the party seemed to think they had met only to pass sentence on all their acquaintances. No subject appeared so exhaustless as the faults and follies of their particular friends; their poverty, wealth, avarice, or extravagance; while the liveliness of their conversation, instead of emanating, like that of the Granvilles, from the gay fancies and spontaneous sparklings of their own minds, was almost entirely derived from the follies and personal defects of others; and Marion could not but remember with a smile the country clergyman, who said once from the pulpit, that "people should never speak ill of their neighbors,—except among a few friends!"
"Let us invite only the tolerable-looking girls in each family, and no chaperons with turbans and large caps to overshadow the room," said Captain De Crespigny, drawing a broad dash of his pen through the name of Lady Towercliffe. "Her large, featureless face, looks like a wax doll which had been put before the fire till it melted; and she is as dull as a dormouse."
"We did enough for her in going to that heavy turn-out of a ball," added Sir Patrick. "I very nearly 'struck work,' on finding myself expected to dance with one of those plain, elderly daughters. Lady Charlotte is quite alaide ideal."
"I was pressed into the service, too!" continued Captain De Crespigny, in an injured tone, "and did not recover the annoyance till—till my last quadrille!" added he, glancing expressively at Marion. "If one must dance with plain girls at their own parties, I wish they would wear veils."
"Poor Lady Charlotte's figure is a perfect pyramid, narrow at the shoulders, and becoming thicker to the ankles," observed Agnes, laughing. "She got no partner the first half of the night, but being very fond of dancing, she stood near the corner of every dance, and was turned sometimes by mistake!"
"Very good for an impromptu, Agnes! The old girl gets a partner once a-year, I believe," added Sir Patrick. "If people will not be beauties, I can't help it; but I wonder at any one who had such a foot as Lady Charlotte's, would wish to live. It is so enormous that the eye cannot take it in all at once! The gout is nothing in comparison! De Crespigny, if you are ever shipwrecked at sea, you could desire no better boat than one of her shoes, and a paddle!"
"Her hand, too!" exclaimed Captain De Crespigny, shrugging his shoulders, and admiring his nails. "Mine is ashamed to look so insignificant beside it! Positively I awoke one forenoon, after my hand had been stung by a wasp, and seeing something so large, red, and swelled, I never recognized my own, but seized hold of it in the most friendly manner, saying, 'Ah, Lady Charlotte Malcolm!——'"
"I have heard," observed Marion, "that the celebrated Hogarth often lamented how completely his sense of the ridiculous had destroyed his sense of the beautiful; so that even in the face of an angel he could not avoid observing something to caricature; and I think some of us, if we do not take care, will soon be in danger of a similar calamity."
"Well!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, eagerly, "Let me enjoy a jest to-day, even if I were to die for it to-morrow."
"You, gentlemen, are both too bad!" said Agnes, lazily extending her own beautiful foot on a footstool. "Charlotte Malcolm has already a whole tier of double chins; her throat must have once belonged to a flamingo, and her complexion is like the models we see from abroad in terra cotta; but then, to do her justice, she dresses to perfect desperation; and," added Agnes, in her most amiable voice, for she always assumed the affectation of extreme candor in discussing other young ladies, "I am told Charlotte is very good tempered; at least so Lady Towercliffe says."
"And pray, what does that signify to me!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, contemptuously. "If there is nothing better to be said for your friend, then, Agnes, for ever hold your tongue. Amiable qualities are quite at a discount in general society! What does it matter to a man dancing a quadrille with any girl, that she is miraculously amiable, if she be miraculously ugly too! She may be a perfect termagant at home, for anything I care, provided she bring plenty of small talk into the ball-room; and I would not give a single sous to know whether her milliner's bills be paid, provided only she is well dressed. I would not take such a looking girl as Lady Charlotte Malcolm for my fifth wife!"
"You have quite burned her in effigy, now," observed Marion, looking up from her work. "Suppose we start some person, for variety, whom everybody must admire and praise!"
"That should be yourself, then!" said Captain De Crespigny. "Who else could answer the description?"
"I remember visiting at old Vivian's last summer, where the girls were all terrifyingly plain; their faces, like the dairy-maid, and their figures like the churn," said Sir Patrick. "One day I could not resist asking their old governess, in confidence, what could be the reason why the fourth daughter invariably took precedence of all the others, when she whispered in a confidential tone, 'because she once had a proposal.'"
"If young ladies take precedence on such grounds," observed Captain De Crespigny, with a glance towards Agnes and Marion, "I know who ought soon to leave all others behind! My cousins here have the game in their own hands; four by honors and the odd trick."
"Young ladies had much better gain precedence by accepting offers than by refusing them!" said Sir Patrick, whistling himself off to the window. "She's daft to refuse the laird o' Cock-pen!"
"I once saw a man who had been refused!" said Captain De Crespigny. "He should have kicked himself out of the world after such an adventure! From that day to this I have lived in a nervous horror of being rejected! I am the most marrying man in the world, but I never can venture to make an offer. I do wonder how people set about it! The author who published a complete letter-writer, should give us a complete manual of proposals for all occasions! I am so horribly diffident! Even coming into a room you have no idea how much I suffer from shyness!"
"It is astonishing, then, what a good face you manage to put upon it," said Marion, dryly. "I never guessed you were at all shy!"
"No! nor that I am a lover out of place, in want of a situation! Would it be a good plan, Miss Marion Dunbar, to advertise? You, being pen in hand already, shall write the advertisement. Describe me as made of every creature's best! How would it do to make a raffle of me? Twenty thousand tickets at one guinea each. How many will you take?"
"I have no money to waste," replied Marion. "But perhaps some young ladies with more, if they could be quite sure of a blank, might venture on one ticket, out of charity, hearing you are so anxious to go off."
"I do wonder if anybody would take me," continued Captain De Crespigny, in a tone of careless conceit. "I have the greatest mind to try Lady Charlotte Malcolm! Do you think, Miss Dunbar, I might have any chance?"
"Not the slightest!" replied Agnes, laughing. "I could bet my longest ringlet that she would reject you at once. Charlotte complained to me long ago how forward gentlemen are—always proposing, on the slightest encouragement."
"Remarkably true! I am positive that nine out of ten were refused last winter. We are a most unfortunate set of old fellows, Dunbar. Nobody appreciates us. I had made myself a promise to go off this season! positively my last appearance. But," added Captain De Crespigny, dropping his voice into a low tone of apparent feeling, "the more I am desirous to recommend myself, the less I succeed. If it were possible for either of you ladies ever to see me indifferent about pleasing, then you would be astonished at my success. Did Dunbar never mention, that in the company of those I do not care for, I am quite another man?"
"No!" replied Agnes, blushing and smiling. "Patrick is aware that we always judge of people's merits for ourselves."
"What would I not give to hear that verdict pronounced! If you have tried me by a court-martial, you may at least let me know the sentence!"
"It would do you good, De Crespigny, to hear those girls discussing your demerits! Your vanity requires lowering a peg or two!" said Sir Patrick, with a mischievous laugh. "You owe me countless thanks for putting in a word of defence now and then to protect you, for positively they are too bad. On the score of conceit and extravagance, I undertake to be your champion. Such faults are like the spots upon ermine, rather ornamental than otherwise; but if any one says you dress ill, I have not a syllable to say. Let me advise you, as a friend, to discard that tailor. He is atrocious. It would be the utmost stretch of my friendship to be seen with you anywhere to-day, except in some rural parts of the country; so now for our walk."
"Dress as you may, Dunbar, you will never look like me!" replied Captain De Crespigny, as they lounged off together. "It was a problem of Euclid, which we settled at Eton long ago, and may demonstrate now, that A B C can never be equal to D E F. Good morning, ladies!au revoir!we must fly. In your society I resemble the gentleman we used to read of in our school books, whose wings were melted because he ventured too near the sun."
The more Marion saw of Captain De Crespigny, the more astonished she became at the multiplicity of his talents for conversation, and at his universal craving to be admired, while all thepetits soinswhich he lavished on herself, she, as a matter of course, set down to his extraordinary vanity, which could not allow the most insignificant of mortals to escape his fascinations; but to have supposed his attentions to be indications of love, she would have considered as absurd a blunder as to mistake an oyster-shell for an oyster.
Captain De Crespigny sketched caricatures with inimitable humor, sung with taste, and with every appearance of feeling, and his versatility of powers in talking were almost incredible. He discussed science occasionally with any blue-stocking, like a philosopher—looked dismal upon politics with members of Parliament—talked agriculture and fat cattle with country gentlemen—could describe the state of New Zealand, as if he had visited the country, to old ladies, with large families of enterprising sons. He was musical with the musical, sentimental with the sentimental, and apparently at home equally in poetry or metaphysics. With a smile for one, a sigh for another, and a jest for a third, his small-talk for young ladies might be minced into the smallest grains of sense or nonsense; while at the same time he could even get up a very plausible religious conversation, on the most approved model, when in company with any one like Marion, to whom he thought it might render him more acceptable. The true secret of Captain De Crespigny's almost universal popularity, lay in his appearing so flatteringly interested by whatever occupied the attention of others; and whether it were the last snowstorm, or a newly discovered star in the firmament—an old pedigree or a new bonnet, he seemed equally ready to follow the lead of any young lady, being sufficiently delighted in his own private mind, to imagine how every word he said, and every look he looked, would be afterwards treasured and remembered by those whom he had no particular intention of remembering himself.
Marion observed narrowly and anxiously Captain De Crespigny's conduct to Agnes; but even her discernment, quickened by the most affectionate solicitude, could bring her to no conclusive decision respecting his intentions, though she could not but feel sanguine at one time, and justly indignant at another, according as the thermometer of her hopes and fears rose or fell; yet she strongly suspected that Captain De Crespigny was but indulging his own ambition—that he wished to be thought of and talked about—to become devotedly loved—to be necessary to the happiness of another—to constitute that happiness for a short time, and then to destroy it as a useless toy, which had amused him for an hour, and might be broken without remorse. "How different! oh! how very different from Richard Granville!" thought Marion, with a glowing smile. "To him the peace of no living mortal is insignificant; and when loved or trusted, who ever was so considerate, so totally unselfish, so free from vanity and caprice! No Christian can doubt that happiness and principle are one."
The name of any individual more than commonly interesting is apt to occur often in conversation,a proposto everything or nothing; and Captain De Crespigny's penetration very soon discovered, that the Granvilles were never heard of or mentioned by Marion with indifference; therefore being anxious to fathom her secret, and to ascertain the extent of her intimacy with them, he tried the experiment one day, by professing an enthusiastic admiration for the extraordinary eloquence of "Dick Granville!" in whom he appeared suddenly to have discovered a thousand new and unheard-of good qualities, while with humorous pertinacity he defended him from all the satirical cuts with which Sir Patrick tried to lower his importance in the eyes of Marion; but Captain De Crespigny, unconscious of the lead which he was expected to follow, rattled on in his accustomed way,
"Granville always was one whom nothing could spoil! So different from young Meredith, who used one short month since to go about with a quiet country-curate look, but since he has become rather popular in the pulpit, he enters a room with his chin in the air, and all the self-confidence of a great lion. Weak heads are easily intoxicated."
"And people here do all in their power to ruin those they most admire, by very overdone adulation," added Agnes. "It would be a very strong fortress of humility that could withstand all the absurd mobbing which Mr. Granville has to undergo."
"As Lady Towercliffe said to me yesterday, in her usual slip-slop style of talking, 'Mr. Granville is so very eloquent, so benevolent, so learned, so pious, and has such a neat foot!'" continued Captain De Crespigny, laughing. "Really, Dunbar! if you and I quarrel with everybody better than ourselves, we shall find no one left to associate with! I have but one weak side on earth, Miss Marion Dunbar, and it is that of always standing up for the absent."
"They very often require it; and whether in jest or earnest, I am glad you do," replied Marion, finding herself obliged to speak, while her look of agitated consciousness, occasioned a thrill of jealousy in the heart of Captain De Crespigny, which brought a sudden flush into his countenance; but he assumed a careless tone, to conceal his real feelings, and turned to Sir Patrick, saying, "a proposof absence, the Granvilles are never here now! I remember the time when that pretty sister and my cousins were like the three graces, perfectly inseparable!"
At these words, Sir Patrick colored to the very temples; and instantly afterwards becoming pale as marble, he stooped to pat his dog, and then impatiently whistled Dash, along with himself, out of the room first, and finally out of the house; while Marion's eye was turned towards Agnes, with a deep and searching look of enquiry and astonishment.
Nothing had ever surprised and annoyed Captain De Crespigny more than the unadmiring indifference with which, week after week, Marion received his visits. Her easy, good humored courtesy of manner was unpardonable! No peculiar consciousness became visible in her manner, when he addressed her; no accession of sensibility in her voice; no agitation in her smile; no increase of her natural timidity; no desire of captivation, nor the slightest coquetry in displaying her own fascinations.
To be thus treated like a cousin or a brother was mortifying in the extreme, and appeared to him perfectly unaccountable, because he little guessed the contrast which incessantly presented itself to Marion's mind, between the low, every-day tone of his thoughts, on all the essential objects of existence, and the elevated sentiments or generous feelings, to which she had lately become accustomed in the society of Mr. Granville. Captain De Crespigny's conversation always diverted her on account of its eccentricity; but in the selfishness and vanity he inadvertently betrayed, she saw how little he could know the real nature and value of that happiness springing from principle and affection, which alone could satisfy her heart.
Formerly, Captain De Crespigny would have gloried in surmounting difficulties, if he had ever found any difficulties to conquer; and now he was determined not to become discouraged, though he felt, if such a thing could be possible, almost humbled. His eye followed Marion wherever she turned, and he was now for ever by her side, though she evidently made it her continual business to avoid him, as she had latterly become more aware than before of his assiduity.
Fortified by the consciousness of her own secret engagement, and by the knowledge that Agnes had a well-founded belief in his attachment to herself, Marion's countenance, which told every transient emotion of her heart, never betrayed a thought of love; and it seemed to Captain De Crespigny as if her heart must be of granite, so cold and hard beneath a smiling stream. She was long of even suspecting the worst, and would not fully believe when she did, that his volatile fancy had really changed; yet a spell seemed over her, that she could not escape from Captain De Crespigny's society, without giving offence to Sir Patrick and Agnes, who both, for different reasons, insisted on her being present when he called, though, unlike her sister, who would have sacrificed every one to herself, she would have sacrificed herself for every one, and only thought with considerate affection, how she could best spare the feelings of Agnes, and at the same time escape from occasioning any jealousy, the fear of which now haunted her like a perpetual night-mare.
One morning, when Agnes was seated in a state of exceedingly full-blown satisfaction, expecting Captain De Crespigny's usual visit, and considering him as much her own property as either her reticule or her work-box, she observed Marion, who had occupations for every hour of the day, hastily gather up her drawing materials, and glide towards the door, evidently anxious to escape without observation, but in vain.
The barometer of Agnes's countenance had become exceedingly stormy, while watching Marion's progress; and being one who rather enjoyed the excitement of a quarrel than otherwise, she asked Marion in a voice raised an octave higher than usual, which sounded as sharp and cutting as an east wind, where she was about to go, adding, in her most sarcastic tone,
"Pray inform me, Marion, why I am to be left in solitude here, when everybody knows that in a place like this I cannot possibly receive visitors alone. One would suppose that you wished to prevent me from seeing Captain De Crespigny this morning."
"By no means, Agnes. But is there any occasion for me to remain, when Patrick of course accompanies him here as usual?"
"Nonsense, Marion. You know perfectly well that Patrick may or may not be here, for that all depends on whims like your own, and nothing renders it correct to receive gentlemen in the morning, except there being two of us at home. I expected more friendship and consideration from you; but people never will think of any one but themselves!"
"You are like a Hebrew scholar, and always read me backwards, Agnes. I have only to know your wishes in order to comply with them," replied Marion, good-humoredly re-seating herself, and adding, with a beautiful timidity of manner and voice, "I cannot but think that, until you are actually engaged, it would perhaps be better if—if—Captain De Crespigny's attentions were not to—to be at all divided."
"Divided!" exclaimed Agnes, looking perfectly sublime in her anger. "What can you mean?"
"Excuse me, Agnes," replied Marion, trying to steady her voice, and to hide her confusion. "I mean that Captain De Crespigny has the reputation of being a confirmed flirt; that I hope and trust, if it be really for your happiness, he is, as you think, irretrievably attached and engaged to yourself; but if a housemaid enter the room, he cannot resist attempting to look handsome, and to attract her admiration; therefore you cannot but suppose he will endeavor to waste some of his fascinations occasionally upon me, and till he is my brother, I would rather avoid any such absurdity."
"Your meaning is plain enough now, and requires no interpreter!" said Agnes, with an angry toss of her head. "Every one must see and know, that Captain De Crespigny is exclusively and entirely devoted to me."
"That is a point, Agnes, of which no third person can be an adequate judge," replied Marion, evasively; "but I am as anxious to believe it as yourself."
"If you entertain any fear of causing me a disappointment, make your own mind perfectly easy, as mine is. If Captain De Crespigny could hesitate a moment between us, I should scarcely think him worth living for, and still less worth dying for. Be assured I shall never endure a moment's uneasiness on your account. Here he comes, regular as the rising sun, and quite as welcome."
After all the lively badinage of Captain De Crespigny's first reception was over, Marion quietly retreated into the deep embrasure of a window, where her work-table stood, and busied herself with answering some notes, while almost entirely shaded from observation; yet still Captain De Crespigny's eye incessantly wandered to the place where she sat, for there was something unintentionallypiquantein the total indifference with which she thus secluded herself from his attentions and civilities. Observing, at length, that Marion had begun carefully pruning the dead leaves from a bouquet of rather drooping flowers, which seemed still vainly affecting to look fresh and gay, he broke off in the middle of a sentence from Agnes, and clandestinely approaching the table when Marion was looking in another direction, he stole them all away, and substituted one so fresh and fragrant that Marion uttered an exclamation of rapturous admiration. She neither blushed nor looked down, however; but as if it were no more than an every day civility, held it up to Agnes for admiration, and endeavored to attract her towards the table by the perfume of her beautiful flowers.
"Nothing withered or blighted should ever be here," said Captain De Crespigny, in his most sentimental tone. "I should like, in one respect, to resemble flowers, which give nothing but pleasure to all who see them. Are you writing prose, or is this Poet's Corner? If I had the pen of Moore, I could find one subject for my muse more beautiful than any he ever wrote upon, and feelings more deep than he ever expressed! My eyes have ached for the last half hour with trying to see you; and half my eye-strings are cracked with looking from so great a distance."
Marion was now seriously annoyed, and a glow of indignant vexation mantled upon her cheek; but Captain De Crespigny, mistaking her blushes and silence, began to flatter himself that the fortress was not so impregnable as he had feared. A scrap of paper lay on the table, which Marion had carelessly flung aside, after trying a pen, by writing down several times her own Christian name, and Captain De Crespigny having picked it up, laughingly added to it the name of De Crespigny.
"How does this look?" asked he, showing her the signature of "Marion De Crespigny," while a gleam of light shot through his dark eye-lashes. "This is a valuable autograph, which I shall certainly preserve. The signature is not yet a common one, but I hope it may become so, as no other looks half so well to my eye—or to my heart."
"There may be another that I should very much prefer," replied Marion, decidedly, while the bright carnation mounted to her cheek, and she turned her large eyes towards Agnes, who stood at some distance placid and secure, in the certain belief that her own supremacy was established, and that the conversation probably related to herself. "Give me back that paper, Captain De Crespigny, for it contains a mischievous forgery—a name that can never exist upon the earth."
"But it may in fairy-land, and it shall!" replied he, with undaunted pertinacity. "The fates are perpetually weaving people together, and may do something for me! When we are unwillingly separated for a short period, sometime hereafter, I shall every day see this name appended to the most interesting accounts of your garden, your lap-dog, and——"
"And my sister!" added Marion, coldly. "She is always the first object of interest to me. Agnes! do come here and admire the last few stitches I have added to this bible-cover."
"How well it will look at Beaujolie Park!" muttered De Crespigny, almost inaudibly, in that low musical voice which had been irresistible, and with a significance of manner which Marion seemed not to remark. "I hope one day to see it there."
"I intend it as a present to Agnes," replied Marion, dryly.—"That and the prayer-book are both for her dressing-table."
Captain De Crespigny, assuming a look of respectful despondency, examined the volumes during several minutes in silence; but having accidentally opened the service of matrimony, he smilingly pointed it out to Marion, saying, "he hoped this might be considered a good omen," and doubling down the page, he placed the prayer-book opposite to her, saying, "Let me request you will study that till we meet again, as I wish to ask your opinion of it."
Before Marion had time to reply, or to hurry away, as she had been for some time projecting, Agnes advanced with an air of exceedingly forced vivacity, while there was a perceptible flutter of anger in her tone, and Marion felt as much confused as if she had been guilty of a real indiscretion, when she saw that her sister's face had become as white as the wall, her eyes glassy, and her manner unusually excited, though she tried to assume a careless tone, saying:
"What is all the world talking about here? Captain De Crespigny, you must have learned the whole mysteries of worsted work by this time!"
"I was merely showing your sister that most interesting of all compositions, the marriage service," replied Captain De Crespigny, throwing as much meaning into his voice as it could carry, "and mentioning that the fashionable blacksmith for these occasions now is my cousin, the Dean of Chester."
Agnes looked down with an interesting blush, and Marion looked up with a start of astonishment, at the hardened intrepidity of manner in which Captain De Crespigny carried on his double game, adapting his tone equally to suit either or both of his companions; and it was with a sensation of extreme relief that she saw him at last rise to take leave, looking most charmingly distressed; but he had glanced at his watch, "never being able to measure time at St. John's Lodge," and an unlucky engagement obliged him to depart.
"All engagements are unlucky," observed Agnes, impatiently. "I never made one yet, without afterwards finding it a tyrannical restraint."
"There is only one engagement I ever wish to make," replied Captain De Crespigny, in a sentimental voice, but carefully looking at nobody. "I hope soon to make an engagement for life!"
"What is all this!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, entering the room. "Can De Crespigny not be persuaded into remaining with you two or three hours longer, girls?"
"We have not yet tried the experiment," replied Marion, seeing Agnes unwilling to speak. "I intend to be busy this morning reading your favorite character in Shakespeare, Malvolio. He had the very common fault of over-estimating himself."
"To some people that is impracticable!" replied Captain De Crespigny, with a self-satisfied smile. "The world really spoils me for one."
"Perhaps," observed Sir Patrick, "you flatter yourself, and that is the most dangerous of all flattery."
"Not to me! I only wish it were possible for me to think as much of myself as every body else does."
"I hear old Doncaster is likely to make a die of it soon; therefore wait till you are established at Beaujolie Park, and then you shall see how much we all think of you!" replied Sir Patrick, laughing. "I hope you mean to be the most hospitable Marquis in the whole peerage of England?"
"Most undoubtedly! Hospitality is my weakness, if I have any! Dunbar, my very dear friend, I make a point of your coming to dine with me once a-year at Beaujolie Park! I am sorry it will not be in my power to offer you a bed; but the Highflyer passes my door at nine every evening. I wish for a very long visit from you! We are old friends, my good fellow! so I must really stretch a point! I am quite serious! therefore come by the early mail for breakfast, and take the evening one for your departure! I always was, and always shall be the most hospitable man upon earth! Have you half a moment to spare to-morrow? I want you to help me in my bargain for a bay horse with Duncombe of ours. He has the prettiest sister in the world, if that will be any inducement to come. I wish he would throw her into the bargain! Good morning! I could not stay a minute longer to save all your lives!"
"How I do sometimes hate Captain De Crespigny!" exclaimed Agnes, with angry vehemence, after he had made a very conceited exit from her presence, accompanied by Sir Patrick, while she watched him from the window, as he sprang upon his horse, and galloped out of sight. "I know he is perfectly devoted to me! I cannot allow myself to doubt it! My whole happiness in life is cast on that die, and must not be lost! No!" continued she, speaking to Marion in a tone of unwonted perplexity, "it would indeed be a disgraceful triumph, to awaken in my heart affections which, if they must die, I shall die with them. My hopes and feelings appear all frozen into icicles this morning; yet I can scarcely tell why! A sensation of utter discouragement torments me! What is man, and what is woman that trusts him? If all my happiness is now torn up by the roots, I shall never again incur the grief of forming any earthly plan! I shall continue for life a bankrupt in hope and peace! Do not speak to me, Marion! Do not look as if you believed the worst! I will not hear it! I know you wish to say and do all that is kind; but I detest sympathy! I abhor being pitied! and I will not be advised."
Even after she had retired to the gloomy solitude of her lonely room, Agnes buried her face in her hands, as if she would hide herself from the whole world, and struggled to banish thought; yet the suspicion would force itself into her mind, that Captain De Crespigny intended to treat her as she had seen him treat others; and though formerly she had often laughed at the credulity of those girls who believed half the rubbish he talked to them, now she repeated to herself all his professions of admiration, his looks, smiles, innuendoes, implied flattery, and openly expressed interest, till her cheek regained its bloom, her eyes their brightness, and she looked into her mirror with perfectly restored self-complacency, and with renovated confidence in the truth, honor, and sincerity of Captain De Crespigny.
One of the best receipts for happiness in this world is, to make the utmost of small pleasures, and the very least of small vexations, which was the plan on which Marion invariably lived; and it often seemed as if all the duties of affection and friendship were written with a sunbeam on her mind. She now resolved, with characteristic kindness and good sense, that as her presence at St. John's Lodge could do no good to her sister, it should at least do no harm; therefore she determined if possible to obtain leave of absence for a few weeks from home, and to explain in writing to Agnes, her own opinion of Captain De Crespigny's conduct, and the reasons on which it was grounded; being convinced that in all the important affairs of life, perfect frankness between friends is, however painful, an imperative duty, and that no one, on any occasion where he has to act or to feel, should be left in the dark as to his own actual position.
With a somewhat tremulous voice, and heightened color, Marion proceeded next morning into her brother's private sitting-room, where, surrounded by a perfect armory of rifles, double-barrelled guns and pistols, she found him selecting his weapons for a pigeon-match to "come off" that day, between himself and Captain De Crespigny, of whose arrival he was in momentary expectation; and he seemed by no means inclined at first to lend her much of his notice.
"I came to mention, Patrick, that if you have no objection, it is my wish to spend a fortnight now, with uncle Arthur," said Marion. "We have met very seldom of late, and Henry De Lancey is going off soon to join the army. Did you hear that a commission in the same corps as Captain De Crespigny, has been sent to him lately by his unknown friends. The regiment is going soon, I am told, to Canada, but he is to join the depot for some months at Portsmouth."
"Well! but what does all this matter to you! I shall not give my consent if you ask me till midnight!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, peevishly; for he felt by no means disposed that his house should lose the attraction of Marion's resplendent beauty. "If Sir Arthur in his dotage, chooses to make himself ridiculous about this anonymous youth, is that any reason why the whole family should go wild about him? Besides, Marion, you confessed long ago, that Mr. Granville visits at our uncle's; and I am determined that you shall learn to know your own value better than to take him! What has he to offer you but that trumpery little cottage, like a Tunbridge-ware work-box, a kitchen garden stocked with cabbages, or gooseberry bushes, and to live upon brown bread and water. But I begin to suspect, Marion, that you are one of the very few people in this world who like their own way; therefore it is my duty to keep you here out of danger."
"I wish to escape a danger, rather than to encounter one," replied Marion, with an ingenuous blush. "You know, Patrick, that I consider Agnes almost engaged to Captain De Crespigny. It would be a very great disappointment to me, and I think to yourself, if, after all that has passed, he become merely general in his attentions—showing no preference to one of us more than for another. You always wish me to be in the room when he calls,—and—and——"
"Oh! I understand!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, fixing his hawk's eyes on Marion, and trying to conceal a smile beneath a look of stern interrogation. "Agnes is jealous!"
"No! not in the very least! I trust she has no reason—that she never can have any. It seems like vanity in me to mention the subject even to my own brother in confidence, but I will be perfectly honest. You know, Patrick, I saw no society at school. I am not at all aware what is customary; but your friend often says things to me that I am sure he would not like Agnes to hear."
"You are young and green in this old world, Marion, if you fancy that Agnes is ever to catch such a will-o'-the-wisp as De Crespigny.Il s'aime, et n'a point de rival.He plays with hearts as if they were shuttlecocks; and indeed some hearts are little better. It is an absurd affair of vanity on both sides, and the sooner the thing goes off the better. I know you are a perfect coward in giving pain, and that Agnes considers herself sole proprietor of De Crespigny's attentions; but who made her so? That bubble will burst ere long; and if he is inclined to try a little harmless flirtation with you, what occasion is there to go off in a tangent about that, I should like to know! I must insist, Marion, on your doing all that is possible to make this dull, out-of-the-way house of mine, agreeable to my friends, for it is impracticable to exist here without society, which is the best weapon to kill time with. I shall take it as a mark of your sisterly kindness, to receive De Crespigny as all other young ladies receive him everywhere. If he only opened his mouth wide enough, I know at least a dozen girls who would jump down his throat, and 'il faut jouer le jeu, selon les regles de la societe dans laquelle vous etes force de vivre.' My deepest resentment shall rest on either Agnes or you, Marion, if my most intimate companion be banished from our society, either by the one liking him too much, or the other too little."
"But, Patrick! if you think Agnes lays too much stress on Captain De Crespigny's very marked attentions, and lover-like language, why do you not warn her against becoming really attached to him?"
"Pshaw! nonsense! She will come to her senses soon, if she has any senses to come to. Agnes' hopes are all certainties; and she expects by shutting her own eyes, that everybody else shall become blind; but she or any one might see with half an eye, that De Crespigny cares no more for her than the poker does for the tongs. Agnes has been given to expecting impossibilities from childhood, when she used to be angry at her wax doll for not answering her when spoken to. If she did not flatter herself so egregiously, the flattery of De Crespigny would do her no harm. His love affairs flame up and go out again like a lucifer-match box."
"Yet, Patrick," replied Marion, trying to steady her voice, and to look excessively firm, "I must make a point of going for one week to uncle Arthur. If Agnes is to be disappointed, let me not have any part of the blame, either from her, or from myself."
"My good Marion! what trash you talk! It puts my mustachios out of curl to hear you! Agnes is no more engaged to De Crespigny than I am to Mrs. Penfold! There is no necessity on that score for your becoming a porcupine, and setting up your quills at my friend.Il n'a fait, que remplir son role de jeune homme.Agnes thinks every partner at a ball would gladly become a partner for life, and if any one of them were to mention the ring of Saturn, she would consider it a proposal; but her lovers all drop off like nine pins at last. Many a time she has seen the 'decline and fall' of her empire already, and it will be the same thing now in De Crespigny's case. 'Old birds are not caught with chaff.'"
"You mean that the chaff is Captain De Crespigny, of course," replied Marion, with reproachful gravity. "But the subject might have been illustrated with a more graceful allusion to Agnes' lovers."
"As for Agnes' lovers, no one can tell who they are; yet depend upon it, De Crespigny is not in the number. As usual, she is always flirting with the wrong man! Agnes has about as much chance of him as the man in the moon!" continued Sir Patrick, with increasing vehemence. "She might as well attempt to overtake last year! Open the door of your understanding, Marion, and listen to me: De Crespigny will no more propose to her than you will to the Archbishop of Canterbury! Anybody may see he is merely amusing himself!"
"Then he deserves to be hanged!" replied Marion, indignantly. "Surely, Patrick, you should not have allowed this to continue so long, and to go so far, under your own eyes, unless you really believed that Captain De Crespigny was as much attached to Agnes as she is certainly to him."
"Or at least to his future title and estates! My dear friend, one would suppose you had swallowed a whole circulating library this morning! Are you a believer in broken hearts? My good Marion, they were exploded long ago, like ghosts and witchcraft! Nobody now dies of love except on the stage. You do not actually suppose Agnes will expire with the disappointment! She knows better. Why, Marion, you must expect to go through half-a-dozen such affairs before you get safe into the harbor of matrimony."
"I hope not! My heart would not stand quite so much breakage," replied Marion, coloring and laughing, while she added, in a lower tone, "besides which it is already in very safe keeping. I have given it away, you know, Patrick, once for all."
"Pshaw! Marion, none of your sentimental vagaries! Your attachment is, of course, to be achef d'œuvre d'amour; but nothing lasts for ever now. If there were no disappointments in such a love-in-a-cottage affair as yours, what would become of poets and novel readers! Agnes understands the game of life better than you do. In her estimation, it is like a rubber at whist, where hearts are trumps, and the prize a good establishment in common with the first partner who offers. De Crespigny knows all this, and cannot be expected to place any great value on a second-hand heart, much the worse for wear. The intimacy between them has chiefly arisen from our relationship, he being her cousin only once removed."
"I wish he were removed altogether. Captain De Crespigny ought to suffer all the bitterness of disappointment himself, when his insatiable vanity inflicts it so heartlessly on others."
"Suppose you take that method of revenging Agnes," replied Sir Patrick, with a penetrating look. "He is the best catch going, and very civil to you. De Crespigny's attentions are an honor to any one, and would be quite a feather in your cap."
"So he seems to think; but I have no desire for such feathers. I make it a rule," said Marion, archly, "never to refuse any gentleman till he has proposed; but the honor of making him miserable for life never can be mine, though he so well deserves it. I suppose, being a Roman Catholic, he has bought an indulgence for deceit, or I should rather say falsehood."
"What old-fashioned bread-and-butter ideas you have, Marion! Everybody has been ill-used by somebody, and nobody minds it now. Agnes will continue incurably heart-broken, til some new lover pays his devoirs, and then you will understand her better, Marion.On garde long temps son premier amant quand on n'en pas un second."
"I judge of her by myself; and if once so cruelly deceived as she is, Patrick, my heart could never venture on any second attachment—never! Once awakened from such a dream, I neither could nor would attempt to dream it over again. My ideas of mutual attachment are not borrowed from novels or poems, because I never had time to read one at Mrs. Penfold's, but from conceiving what it might be to have a companion for life, from whom no thought should be concealed, and all my happiness derived. Who could ever place such trust in Captain De Crespigny, if he has really, as I may say, swindled Agnes out of her time, thoughts, and affections, without intending amply to repay them with his own? I am rapidly disliking him, Patrick; and the longer we talk, the more anxious I become for your leave to be out of his way entirely. Depend upon it, I shall be excessively rude to your friend the next time we meet. So, pray, let me go to-morrow."
Hearing a slight noise, Marion looked round, and she would have felt it rather a relief at the moment if the floor could have opened under her feet, when, with a gasp of consternation, she beheld Captain De Crespigny standing in an attitude of perplexity and irresolution near the door, evidently, for once in his life, feeling almost awkward, and very nearly abashed, though a moment afterwards he regained his usual matchless intrepidity of countenance and manner; when Sir Patrick advanced, with extended hand, to welcome him, saying,
"Ah! De Crespigny! is that you?"
"The same and no other," replied he, bending his riding-whip till it nearly broke; but assuming an Irish accent to conceal his annoyance. "The top of the morning to you both. How is every inch of you?"
"Very tolerable, indeed! It always does me good to be astonished, and certainly your apparition came rather unexpectedly. It made my mustachios perfectly stand upon end; and Marion will not require a stroke of electricity for some time after this! She seems rapidly petrifying into stone!"
"Miss Marion Dunbar! if my presence be unwelcome, I wish it were possible to dissolve away in the likeness of a sigh!" said he, with a comic smile. "Shall I invite myself to sit down, or will any one else do so?"
"If you are so exceedingly ceremonious, perhaps Marion ought to reach you a chair," replied Sir Patrick, while his face became perfectly crimsoned with trying to suppress a burst of laughter, when he observed the graceful timidity of Marion's manner, contrasted with the easy assurance of Captain De Crespigny's, who looked at her with undisguised admiration. "I had been inwardly betting with myself for the last half hour that you would drop in exactly as you did. Here is an undeniably fine day, so that ends all discussion of the weather, and now for our pigeon-match."
"Any match you please in this house. I have been sitting for the last ten minutes tuning your sister's guitar, and she sent me here for the strings. How much her dog Darling has improved in the tone and expression of his barking."
"Agnes is perfectly dog mad since you gave her that pert ill-tempered little animal. As Lord Byron said, 'nobody need want a friend who can get a dog.' She wears a lock of his hair set in gold—has got a supply of sheets and towels for him, marked with his name—helps him before any of us at dinner—teaches him to bark Toryism—and says dogs have all the good qualities of mankind, with none of the evil. I wish those who preach sermons against cruelty to animals, would also say a little against over-indulging them, especially in the case of lap-dogs."
"It is an amiable weakness," observed Captain De Crespigny, in a tone that sounded very like contempt. "I suppose your sister would scarcely be outdone by Queen Henrietta Maria, who rushed through a shower of bullets to save her favorite lap-dog. I envy the whole canine race. They have, like ourselves, fox-hunting and grouse-shooting for amusement; and moreover, they are such favorites with the ladies! Horses are slaves and drudges from youth to age, bearing a yoke from which nothing can deliver them except death; but dogs generally meet with some return for their attachment, and are always believed to be sincere in what they profess. What do you say, Miss Marion Dunbar? Have I not reason to envy your estimation of Darling?"
Marion colored to the very temples, embarrassed by the consciousness of all that Captain De Crespigny had evidently overheard, and after saying a few inaudible words, she would have hastened out of the room; but on looking round, Sir Patrick, who privately thought that on the present occasion there might be one too many, had strolled off to the drawing-room, and as Captain De Crespigny continued speaking, she could not, without actual rudeness, withdraw. A blush is one of the most beautiful phenomena in nature, and so thought Captain De Crespigny, when he perceived Marion's color flitting like an aurora borealis, while for a moment she remained completely abashed, and then, with a look of apprehensive timidity, re-seated herself.
"Excuse me, Miss Dunbar!" said he, in a tone of unwonted gravity and respect, while his usual self-confident audacity seemed entirely to have forsaken him. "I became inadvertently a listener to-day, when my name was mentioned by you in terms of which I must entreat an explanation. You will think me perhaps rather too much of the free-and-easy school, if I take this liberty; but the value I place upon your good opinion and cousinly regard is such, that I shall neither eat nor sleep till you have enlightened me respecting the offences for which I am to be thus condemned unheard."
"Pray forget all that was said! I am unaccustomed to—to conceal my thoughts!" replied Marion, trying to look particularly firm; but seeing that Captain De Crespigny still waited with an obvious resolution to obtain something more explicit, she felt herself urged on to say what, under ordinary circumstances, she would have sunk into the earth rather than utter; therefore assuming a certain haughty dignity of manner quite unusual with her, she added, "If I did not almost consider you a brother, I should not remain in the room now; but I do most sincerely regret that your name occurred in our conversation at all, and particularly in a way for which I ought to apologise."
"As for my name, Miss Dunbar!" replied Captain De Crespigny, in a rallying tone, "make any use of it you please. Take it yourself, or give it to your dog, and I shall feel honored; but pardon me for being desirous that you, more than any other person in the world, should understand how perfectly unfounded is the idea of my being engaged to—to any lady."
"From all that has passed, Captain De Crespigny, and from what I have myself heard you say, I could scarcely have believed it possible that there could be any mistake," replied Marion, indignantly. "I shall never pardon myself for having betrayed such unfounded expectations; but let it be understood, that I spoke only my own thoughts, in which no other person is implicated."
"And the misapprehension was most natural—perhaps unavoidable, Miss Dunbar, considering how little you are yet accustomed to thepersiflageof every-day society," replied Captain De Crespigny, looking perfectly irresistible. "But allow me the privilege of a cousin, to give you some little knowledge of the world as it is."