"Your whole nature and mine are different, Sir Arthur! A wasp may work his heart out, but he never can make honey," replied the young Baronet, hurriedly. "I have neither wishes, plans, nor hopes for myself! Already I am older in heart than you, and neither know nor care how short a time I have to exist!N'importe!It would not certainly be convenient for me at present to fly off like a kite, with both my sisters at my tail, therefore we are all most grateful for your kind invitation to them, and shall accept the honor you offer with pleasure."
"Be it so then," replied Sir Arthur, in a calm, dignified, but mournful voice. "If my nieces will be content with little, they may be as happy as if we had much. I am most anxious to invent anything which might add to their enjoyment, and Lady Towercliffe tells me, Agnes, that your whole heart is bent on spending a month at Harrowgate! If that would really be any pleasure or advantage to you, tell me so, and I shall endeavor if possible to go there myself, though now, in my old age, very like Punch, who could act only in his own box."
"Oh! not for worlds would we ask you to go, dear uncle," exclaimed Marion, venturing in her eagerness to speak before Agnes, and shocked at the idea of a journey, the fatigue and expense of which she knew the Admiral was so little able to incur. "We shall be more than happy at home! do not think of such a thing!"
"But if I may be permitted to have an opinion, being the person consulted, Marion, let me say that nothing on earth was ever more enchanting than this delicious proposal. You have made me the happiest person alive, Sir Arthur!" exclaimed Agnes, for once condescending to look perfectly pleased. "I must endeavor not to go mad with joy! You are our very best friend! My dear uncle, all I can say is,YOU ARE AGENTLEMAN!"
"Well, Agnes! That being the case," replied Sir Arthur, smiling, "how soon can you be ready to start?"
"To-night!—this minute!—wait till I put on my bonnet!" exclaimed Agnes, in accents of the liveliest glee. "I am quite impatient to set about forgetting Edinburgh!"
"Well done, Lady Towercliffe! Harrowgate was a capital hit!" cried Sir Patrick, laughing satirically. "Before taking a voyage to India, there is no place like it for young ladies! Why, Agnes, it is a perfect emporium ofbeaux! You will live there at the rate of twenty new victims a-day! A down-pour of marriages takes place at the end of every season. Several jewellers have made large fortunes at Harrowgate, merely by providing wedding rings! and a confectioner is kept at each hotel, with nothing else to do but to make marriage cakes! Sir Arthur must take a dozen lessons in match-making, from some of the manœuvring mammas and aunts."
"An unmanœuvring uncle is all we shall require," answered Agnes, looking daggers at Sir Patrick, in all the dignity of having been extremely ill-treated. "In my humble opinion——"
"Humble, Agnes!" interrupted Sir Patrick. "Did I hear aright? Where did you ever learn the meaning of that word?"
"As for manœuvring or match-making, I leave all that sort of thing to such persons as Lady Towercliffe," observed Sir Arthur. "She and other old ladies have such an intense curiosity about weddings, that I do think, even when laid in their graves, they would like to be told who are going to be married. In such affairs I would be out of my element, like a bear in a boat, not knowing how to proceed,—but at my age——"
"Your age, uncle Arthur! You are no age at all," interrupted Agnes, in high good humor. "You are not a day older since we were first acquainted! As Harrowgate is the greatest marriage manufactory in Britain, I should not wonder if you were to pick up a wife there yourself! Indeed, no single man ever escapes, and I shall make it my business to get you off!"
"By all means!" replied the Admiral, entering good-humoredly into the jest. "I have no doubt some young lady will fall desperately and hopelessly in love with me! Are those new spectacles becomingly put on? My eyes are so fine, they must be kept under glass! My hair has had rather too much of the bleaching liquid lately, but do you recommend a wig, Agnes, or the vegetable dye?"
"I would not alter a hair of your head, uncle Arthur," said Marion, smiling. "And I am sure you will have more admirers at Harrowgate than any of us. I should like to know," added she, after the Admiral had departed, "out of the prodigious incomes enjoyed by thousands of persons in Britain, how much is spent during the year in really generous actions,—in actions of such disinterested liberality as our dear kind uncle's, when putting himself to all this expense and inconvenience for our sakes,—for ours, who never can make him the smallest return."
"To say the truth," replied Agnes, laughing, "I merely go to Harrowgate for Sir Arthur's good. It will renew his youth to be forced into balls, beguiled into pic-nics, and enlisted into dinner parties. A diet of ice and lemonade is excellent for old people."
"You are lucky girls!" exclaimed Sir Patrick. "A month at Harrowgate! why! you might be married five times over in that time! It is not the most impossible thing in the world that I may come there myself, to meet De Crespigny! The matrimonial horizon looked rather dark and unpromising in this quarter, Agnes; but your extraordinary merit is quite unknown as yet in the English hemisphere. The world shall see you, and you shall see the world now, under Sir Arthur's auspices. Good worthy old soul! his very walking-stick is respectable!"
"Then I wish you were like it," said Agnes, in her most stinging accent. "Sir Arthur's respectability might be divided among a dozen of people whom I know, and each would get a share larger than he had before."
"You will perfectly canonize him, now that he can be made useful! Agnes! you jumped at Sir Arthur's offer as an ex-minister would jump at a seat in the cabinet! You showered down thanks on the Admiral's devoted head, likebon-bonsat the carnival!"
"No wonder!" said Marion. "Think of dear uncle Arthur leaving his old friends, his old habits, and his old home for us, when he has said and thought so often, that his next journey would be that long and last one, which we must all travel, never to return."
"It is vastly kind, as you say, Marion!" added Agnes, flippantly. "Leaving that old fireside, where he has so long been spinning interminable yarns, spoiling old servants, reading old magazines, dozing over antiquated newspapers, letting himself be cheated by beggars, and getting convivial over very weak negus."
"Agnes, how long is it since you lost your senses!" asked Marion, indignantly. "Nothing short of that could account for your holding up our venerable uncle to ridicule, even with no one to hear you but ourselves, who know his inestimable worth and kindness."
"Well, girls, the best reward you can give him, is to look delightfully with all your might, and to waltz and quadrille yourselves into husbands immediately!" said Sir Patrick, in a tone of lively exultation. "Now, tighten the drums of your ears and listen, for I am about to give you a popular course of lectures on the important subject of match-making. Marion, you are a flower that has bloomed in the shade, and must now be displayed in the sunshine; therefore you ought to know that fortune is like a game at blind man's buff, where the timid and retiring are forgotten, while the bold and forward alone put themselves in the way of receiving her favors. Agnes has frittered away her time only too long already on the mere minnows of society, danglers and detrimentals of the younger species; but I must tell you plainly,——"
"Never tell me anything plainly," interrupted Agnes, laughing. "But you are altogether mistaken, for I have often wished that people would get rid of their younger sons now, as Tom Thumb's father wisely did, losing them in a forest and leaving them to starve."
"Then take my advice, and never dance with any. I warn you against fashionable huzzars, all spurs and gold lace, with more bullion on their jackets than in their purses;attacheswho are not to be attached, ready to fall into flirtations but not into love; Honorable Edwards and Honorable Fredricks, who never are, but always to be rich, investing their whole fortunes in white kid gloves, and offering, perhaps, to share their starvation with you; and," added Sir Patrick, with a glance at Marion, who blushed deeply, but said nothing, "remember, above all, I forbid reverend divines, young or old, especially those who have no living and no prospect of a mitre. You should each knock down a coronet for yourselves, and avoid the most detestable of all poverty,—genteel poverty; at the same time, do not gamble too deeply in life. Ascertain well, 'sur quel pied a danser.' In a sickly season, even a fifth son is not to be despised. Take a smaller certainty rather than a greater possibility, and lose no time, or the bridge may break down before you run across it."
"Your advice to me is perfectly superfluous," replied Agnes, looking very superb, and giving a contemptuous toss of her head. "I detest economy, and abjure all penny weddings, having no genius for turning or dying silk dresses,—putting servants on scanty allowance,—driving about in hackney coaches,—locking up jellies,—counting out eggs,—or measuring small beer! I am sworn at Highgate always to prefer the best partners, and generally have them."
"How would you like," said Marion, "to have been the young lady long ago in London, who could not dance with the King of Prussia, because she was previously engaged to the Emperor of Russia?"
"That would suit me exactly. I should like to carry my head as high as the Pope's tiara. But I have reason, as you know, to expect hereafter one of the proudest coronets in Britain; and shall certainly not remain a day longer than I can help dependent, Patrick, on the most singularly generous, liberal, and considerate of brothers,—with the one only fault of caring for nobody but himself. If I were drowning, you would scarcely stretch out your little finger to save me, in case it might become wet."
"Quite right, Agnes, not to depend on me, or you would have little to depend upon. My pockets are to let unfurnished now! I shall perhaps go to Australia,—or probably measure the depth of the Serpentine some evening; though, in the mean while, I may put up with life a little longer, bad as it is. Now, therefore, Agnes, hear my last advice. You have the world upon a string, and shall see a large assortment of admirers to choose among. When torrents of proposals are pouring in upon you, as they will and must do soon, get safely into the haven of matrimony, or you will be shipwrecked for ever. Accomplished misses are quite a drug in the market now; but you ought to be ashamed, Agnes, of missing that little pigmy peer, Lord Bowater, two years ago, when you had three days the start of every other young lady in making the acquaintance. He treated you shockingly, to fall in love at first sight with that paltry Miss Gordon. As for any other coronet you are ever likely to wear, I know of none that even a telescope could give you the most distant prospect of. Now wait till I am out of the room before you faint!"
"Marion!" said Agnes, yawning outrageously when her brother had departed, and looking unspeakably forlorn, "How often I have laughed ready to die, at the case of other girls, without ever dreaming it could in any degree resemble my own! Every year that worthy, old, respectable Lord Towercliffe, as fond of home as uncle Arthur or any garden snail, suddenly breaks up his comfortable establishment in the country, and comes to town with the declared intention of giving Charlotte and Maria 'proper advantages!' The poor girls, then, see their father obliged to undergo the wretchedness of frequenting a club, to form suitable acquaintances, and suffering hourly martyrdom in being absent from his farm, his stud, his improvements, and all that interests him in life, while our active, energetic friend, Lady Towercliffe, plunged into a wilderness of blond and feathers, rushes eagerly from house to house, followed by her flock of disposable daughters, whom she is perpetually puffing off, like Robins the auctioneer. Then follow dinner parties, given at an expense which the young ladies know to be ruinous, balls, soirees, flirtations, disappointments, and at last the family coach trundling slowly back at a funeral pace to St. Abbsbury, where the lodge-keeper despondingly counts heads as they pass, to see whether their numbers continue still undiminished! It is altogether horrid, and perfectly laughable, too!"
"Not very laughable!" said Marion, coloring; "whether Lord Towercliffe takes the affair good-humoredly or otherwise, it must be most degrading and humiliating for the young ladies. I can fancy nothing more odious!"
"A grand skirmish ending in defeat!" added Agnes, ironically. "I remember formerly, when these Malcolm girls were in their school-room, the chief bugbear hung over them, if they neglected the arts of dress and fascination, was, that they would inevitably die old maids. They were educated for the profession of matrimony, and were each taught to expect a husband of rank and fortune, at the very least, equal to their father's."
"Yes," said Marion, "Lady Towercliffe would consider any one of her very plain daughters as perfectly disgraced, either to marry in a grade the least degree below her own, or not to marry at all, therefore they are allowed no alternative. The position of young ladies during the present time seems far from enviable. In these days of clubs, money-making, and old bachelorism, not a third of those who grow up now will be married at all, and perhaps not a third of those who do marry will be happy! It seems to me strange and unaccountable that parents who have any consideration for the happiness of their daughters, inculcate no ideas into their minds and hearts unconnected with matrimony, and, like Lady Towercliffe, drive them forward to the public view, a mark for censure, gossip, and ridicule, till they find shelter in some other home, where it is five to one that they will be miserable."
"Yes, miserable indeed," added Agnes, indolently, "men are all so selfish. Husbands expect the whole time, thoughts, and affections of their wives in return for the very little they choose to spare from their horses, dogs, and clubs. On these their whole income is to be squandered, while they keep to that favorite rule—'What is yours is mine, and what is mine is my own.' The ladies must be invariably in good humor and lively spirits at home, perfectly well dressed, with a cheerful fireside, and a luxurious table; but, at the same time, we are never to ask for money or to have any bills! our servants are all to be first-rate on the very lowest wages, and our children in the best order without ever being punished or thwarted!—a fairy's wand could not do the half of it."
"I am often amused now," said Marion, "to hear people say of the dullest and most unprepossessing old bachelor in the world, 'I wonder he never takes it into his head to marry!' while they observe, in discussing any girl more beautiful and fascinating than another, 'How very surprising that she has never got married!' when, at the same time, there is not perhaps a single year of her life since she was born that she might not have been established if she chose. I believe that the vulgar consideration of money makes all the difference; for if ladies had the fortunes, instead of gentlemen, they would be quite as uncertain and capricious, off and on, about marrying or not marrying, as—as even Captain De Crespigny!"
"One of the last times he called here," said Agnes, "when lamenting, as he often does, his unmarriageable state of poverty at present, Captain De Crespigny said, in his droll way, that he would some day bring a bill into Parliament, ordaining that every old bachelor who could maintain a wife for himself and will not, shall be obliged to support one for somebody else, who wishes to marry and cannot afford. Now, Marion, let us put all our Harrowgate irons in the fire, and prepare to be admired by all admirers next week at the Granby!"
"You know, Agnes, though I do not tease you or Patrick by often alluding to what you call my sentimental vagaries, that there is only one person in the world by whom I have any ambition to be admired; though our engagement must be postponed, till Richard is in circumstances to marry with prudence. Without reference to that, however, in respect to Harrowgate society, it is said to be more like a low farce than a genteel comedy!"
"A little of both! but we shall be in the best set. I hope Sir Arthur will not be teasing us with any of his world-before-the-flood ideas, about late hours, waltzing, and all the other enormities of fashionable life! It is my duty, really, to give him a few presentable ideas now, for he lived in the dark ages, when old Queen Charlotte used to keep the ladies all so preternaturally precise and decorous. Most of the Admiral's notions he had from his mother, who lived, I believe, with Queen Elizabeth!"
"But Agnes! even the prejudices of our uncle should be attended to. He shows us greater kindness than we ever have known, or can know from any body else, and the whole wealth of his affection is devoted to us."
"Well, then! I wish his love could be turned into money! I often think if our skins were made of gold, that Patrick would flay us alive! Of course I shall not fly in Sir Arthur's face upon every trifle, for we must humor him sometimes! One day, long ago, I took him in delightfully, by saying that if he disapproved of waltzing, I hoped he would not object to a galope! At Harrowgate, the military men will all fortunately be out of uniform, therefore Sir Arthur need never guess who or what they are, as he has a most inconvenient dislike to my being so intimate with the army list, and one really cannot do without a few tame officers running about the drawing-room."
"But, Agnes! as Patrick says, you cannot live upon fried epaulettes, therefore it would look much better not to be surrounded by so great a variety of officers! It scarcely seems respectable to be, as Patrick called you long ago, the member for Barrackshire!"
"Marion! you are most ridiculously circumspect for your years!" replied Agnes, in her most stately tone; "you have certainly commenced life at the wrong end, and will be beginning to grow young, when I am thinking it time to grow old—if I ever do!"
"I wish not to buy experience at so dear a rate as most girls do, but rather to benefit by that of others,—to reach the kernel at once, without having any trouble in breaking the shell!"
"Pshaw, Marion! I would feel myself a fool for a week, had I spoken such nonsense! It gives me the tic douloureux to hear you. Who would think of listening now to every old hack, worn out with the vicissitudes of life, and only fit to make you melancholy before the time! But take your own way," added Agnes, who allowed Marion her own way, as the Vicar of Wakefield's daughters were allowed their pocket-money, which was never to be used. "You go upon the impossible plan of pleasing everybody; but remember the wise old proverb,—'Cover yourself with honey, and the flies will eat you up.'"
When Marion spoke from the heart to her sister, she was accustomed to find herself talking to the winds, therefore she now concluded the conversation with a lively good-humored reply, and sat down to the pianoforte. Her music was as different as her conversation from that of Agnes, who but little appreciated it, and generally left the room, humming a tune as soon as Marion struck her first chord; but, on this occasion, she for once remained stationary.
The style of Agnes' singing was a brilliant bravura, which, in any public performer, might have commanded whirlwinds of applause, but while her clear soprano voice dazzled and astonished by its uncommon brilliancy, Sir Patrick alleged that it cracked every glass in the room, and that her taste had been cultivated till she had literally none of her own,—Bellini's cadences, Rubini's shake, and Anybody's graces, all acquired from every teacher except nature, to whom nothing had been trusted.
The rich full-toned melody of Marion'scontraltovoice, often became instinct with the simple suggestions of her own feeling, while her music had that only one charm which never can be taught,—expression. There was a depth of sensibility in her eye and voice, which riveted the attention and awakened the sympathy of every heart, while it always appeared that, if display had been her object, she could have done much more than she attempted. No bird on a tree ever warbled its wild notes with more perfect simplicity and real delight. The rippling of a brook over its pebbly bed, or the sighing of the breeze amidst the summer foliage, was not more entirely natural, and while Sir Patrick sometimes protested that "every note was a tear," she yet reached even his feelings, so that not a whisper could be heard from him till the last cadence had melted away on his ear. Marion having seldom yet had any audience except her school-companions, remained almost unconscious of her own singular gift; but this day she sang with deep enthusiasm, and the last thrilling tones of her voice had died inaudibly away, when she looked round and saw young Lord Wigton standing near the door beside Agnes, in an attitude of intense and speechless admiration, with all his faculties, if he had any, apparently suspended,—his lips apart,—his eyes beaming with delight,—and his whole expression full of wonder and ecstasy; while Sir Patrick was lounging on a sofa near, exhibiting a smiling, frolicsome expression in his eye, full of fun and mischief.
"This is hardly fair," exclaimed Marion, laughingly starting up with a brilliant blush of astonishment; "you know, Lord Wigton, stealing into a dwelling house is punishable by law."
"Whatever be the penalty, I am sufficiently rewarded," answered he, with a shy diffident look. "My flute will be happy any day to make you an apology."
Those who love music, and those only, can estimate its power over the feelings, and for several minutes afterwards Lord Wigton remained silent, then, suddenly awakening as if from a dream, he uttered some incoherent exclamations of rapture, and in tones of unaffected animation entreated Marion to sing the same air once again; while she, amused and surprised at his extraordinaryempressement, prepared to comply.
"My song is not worth asking for twice, and still less worth refusing, therefore you shall have it in my very best style!" said Marion, playing the prelude, for she had none of that giggling affected shyness assumed by most girls during their first winter. "This note is pitched so high, you should go up stairs to hear it!"
"How strange that one so gay as you, should have a voice of such melting sadness!" exclaimed Lord Wigton. "It awakens fifty thousand thoughts and feelings I never knew before! I shall become an improvisatore, when listening to melody 'so rare and enchanting!'"
"You must have heard it through the key-hole!" said Marion, laughing. "I had no idea that my trash could reach any ears but my own."
"It did more, for it reached my heart! Your voice is the very essence of nightingales. I shall follow you to Harrowgate, for the chance of hearing that air once again."
"Perhaps, then, it has some peculiar interest," said Marion, surprised at the warmth of his enthusiasm. "The chief delight of music certainly is, the associations it brings out, the remembrances of bye-gone hours it recalls, and the million of little phantoms it creates of past or future times."
"Marion! your voice is by no means equal to that song, and your style is very amateur-ish indeed," interrupted Agnes, bitterly. "I do not wish to boast," added she, laughing, to conceal her irritation; "but Grisi never ventured to sing that air after hearing me, and Delvini said his fortune would be made, if he could engage me for his Prima Donna. I only mention this among friends. Keep it secret, for I hate to cause jealousy and mortification! Few people understand music like my old master Delvini, who said that my god-mother must certainly have possessed the wand of a fairy, and gifted me with music."
"Ah! Delvini is the man who plays a whole concerto upon one note of the piano, or something wonderful of that kind," observed Lord Wigton, looking impatiently for Marion to begin. "I hate the helter-skelter school in music! people scampering through their songs with a thousand miraculous flourishes, which set one's teeth on edge."
"Such performers," answered Marion, "give me no more pleasure than to see Van Amburgh thrust his head into the lion's mouth, which is very surprising, and what I could not do myself, but it excites no sympathy, and raises no emotion better than wonder."
"Your voice is like some fairy spirit that would lead me to the world's end," said Lord Wigton, with an air of eager expectation. "And now, Miss Dunbar, I am all ears."
"So I think, and very long ears too," muttered Agnes to herself, angry beyond all bounds at the young Peer's attention to Marion, when hitherto she had been the principal, or rather the only object of interest to him whenever they were in the same room. Agnes, without an assiduous lover, ready to put on her shawl, clasp her bracelets, and carry her boa, was like a ship without a compass, not knowing which way to turn, and though nothing could make up for the want of those graceful flatteries, amusing quarrels, and ambitious hopes, to which she was accustomed with Captain De Crespigny, yet should he disappoint her, Lord Wigton had been recently promoted to the character of apis allerin the list of her admirers, as she was heard to remark, that "it is better to have a donkey that carries you, than a horse that throws you." Though usually the object of her unbounded ridicule, yet the young Peer had recently become of so much importance to her, that it was indeed an unpardonable affront when he spared one moment's attention to Marion, while at the same time she considered his taste on the occasion, quite as questionable as that of the bird which preferred a barley-corn to a diamond.
Next morning, to the increased indignation of Agnes, Lord Wigton's servant left at the door of St. John's Lodge, two splendid bouquets, both equally rare and beautiful; but when they were presented, Agnes looked angrily at Marion's, and plucked her own to pieces, saying, "That absurd little man! it is worth while to hear him talk of being in love, he makes the subject so thoroughly ridiculous! I like all my lovers till I tire of them, and his Lordship's reign was over last Tuesday. He has the stiffness of the poker without its occasional heat, and no more individuality of character than a leaf upon a tree. I wonder where we could have him measured for a cap-and-bells. He has so little vivacity, that he now wears the fool's cap without the bells. He did so weary me! I think Lord Wigton must be the man Rochefoucalt had in his eye when he said that many people would never have known how to fall in love, if they had not first heard it talked about! His sentimental speeches are so thoroughly ridiculous, they often remind me of Liston's meditation in the farce, 'There stands my Mary's cottage! and she must either be in it, or out of it!'"
If happiness will not come of itself, most very sagacious people set forth in search of that enjoyment which none are willing to do without, though many plans are generally tried, before the right one be discovered. Agnes now declared that she was "ridiculously happy," while plunged in a whirl of preparations for Harrowgate, trying on every bonnet at every milliner's, and discussing the tone and coloring of silks or satins, with as much care and science as an amateur in paintings would devote to the study of a Titian or a Vandyke, while her spirits were restored to their highest pitch, by a letter she had accidentally seen from Captain De Crespigny, expressing the greatest delight in the prospect of seeing Sir Patrick and "his charming sister" once more, and mentioning that he was about soon to arrive at the Granby, in attendance on his uncle, who had already preceded him there. Agnes at once restored herself now, to the pleasing certainty of Captain De Crespigny's sincerity, and every ribbon she chose, or every costume she ordered, had an immediate reference to his taste. "La toilette est une belle invention;" but Marion's dress, without causing half the trouble andfracasoccasioned by that of Agnes, seemed invariably to fit better than any other person's, and the colors she wore were always in the most perfect harmony.
Agnes never became wearied of the pleasurable bustle in which she was now engaged, till at length, when the imperial was packed, and the last box with extreme difficulty closed, she declared herself to be quite in love with life, and sprang into Sir Arthur's carriage, radiant in all the joy of a thousand anticipated triumphs. It might have been a study for any artist wishing to sketch a frontispiece for "The Pleasures of Hope," to see Agnes indulging all her own impossible expectations and ineffable wishes; but unlike the Goddess of Hope, she required no anchor whatever to rest on. Her drafts on the bank of futurity were unlimited by a single consideration of reason or probability, and like the Chinese plant that lives without requiring any nourishment from the earth, she existed upon a diet of airy nothings, and in a pleasing delirium of unreal fancies, wherein Captain De Crespigny generally acted the principal part. In the mind of Agnes—or rather in the empty space where a mind is supposed to be—she hung up a splendid picture-gallery, grouped and painted according to her own taste, displaying shadows as vivid as realities; and ignorant apparently that ever "hope told a flattering tale," she seemed scarcely to have a past or present period in her existence, the whole being formed into one bright futurity, glittering with splendid impossibilities.
If those who waste and enervate their intellects by building castles in the air, could be supposed able to create scenes in reality, as easily and rapidly as they do in imagination, it would, perhaps, be the most vivid conception man could form of omnipotent power. Agnes'chateaux en Espagnewere in a most florid style of architecture, but scarcely lasted long enough to become finished edifices, as the phantoms came dashing through her mind in ceaseless variety, all apparently fragments, or slight sketches of future greatness, but without a probable access except the fool's ladder of hope. Her own visions were all, certainly, to be realised, and those of every other person disappointed, for the mortifications of even her intimate friends enhanced the pleasure of anticipated success; and while her plans were like the portraits of Queen Elizabeth, without a single shade, or like temples of spun sugar, all sweetness without solidity, the crowning joy of all was, to be envied, even more than to be admired.
While Agnes thus piled hope upon hope, her wishes were dedicated to very solid possessions. In childhood her world had been a world ofbon bonsand rattles, and now the kaleidoscope of her imagination was filled with an ever-changing galaxy of jewels, titles, equipages, toys, gold, bijouterie, and coronets, among which the Marquisate of Doncaster owed some of its prominence to the distinguished place it claimed in the herald's office. Conscious that she had been born with a peculiar genius for fine ladyism, Agnes considered the world as a large easy chair, wherein she might lounge away life in a perpetual gala, enjoying all the luxuries, and amused with all the trivialities of life. Having an idea that her undoubted birth-right was distinction and happiness, she considered it an undeserved injury to be deprived of a single delight on which her heart was set. Carelessly despising the duties or affections of life, she coveted only its diversions, and her favorite consolation, amidst its actual annoyances, was frequently to
Blow sportive bladders in the beaming sun,And call them worlds.
Blow sportive bladders in the beaming sun,And call them worlds.
Blow sportive bladders in the beaming sun,
And call them worlds.
Sir Arthur had always been one of the few old people who would ever allow himself to be considered well and happy, but he cultivated a placid, cheerful good-humor, which enabled him now to prepare with apparent equanimity for exploring his way through the unknown seas of Harrowgate society, though he entered the carriage to be conveyed there with very little more inward satisfaction than he would have felt on stepping into a cart which was conveying him to Newgate, being fully persuaded that no fish had ever been as much out of water in the world before, as he was about to feel himself.
Impatience only lengthens the hours which it seems desirable to accelerate, and time appeared to have become entirely motionless; while Agnes peevishly thought, during her journey, that the minutes passed like drops of lead, and that every day had some additional hours, till that day of days should at last arrive which was to rise the curtain and display Harrowgate to her view, though she almost ceased to repine at any present inconveniences while bewildered and lost in gay hopes for the future.
Sir Arthur good-humoredly whispered to Marion, as they drove along through Yorkshire, that with such a mute as Agnes beside him, he felt almost afraid of the bow-string, and that she was the meretableauof a travelling companion, who seemed, like Lady Macbeth, to be literally walking and talking in her sleep. While Marion and her uncle beguiled their long journey with agreeable discussions and lively remarks, Agnes, perfectly absent during most of the way, and out of humor during the rest of it, uttered a thousand consequential complaints about the cold, the heat, the sun, the dust, the air, or the closeness, while Sir Arthur smilingly remarked, that Agnes' life seemed to be a sea of troubles, but hope served as a cork jacket to support her through them all.
Like the fairy who turned a gloomy grove into a crystal palace, Agnes had now, in her private mind, metamorphosed the Admiral's old green chariot into a glittering saloon at Harrowgate, filled by a crowd of admirers, each gifted with almost superhuman merit and distinction, who were to fall prostrate at her feet, making proposals which sometimes she gracefully accepted, and sometimes as gracefully declined. Nothing was real around Agnes at present; but as the picture of a friend supplies the want of the original, so the imaginary attentions of Captain De Crespigny and other victims, consoled her for their being absent, and her life became a lively comedy, where the curtain never fell, and she was herself always the principal figure on the stage.
Neither Alnwick Castle nor Harewood House attracted a moment's attention from Agnes, who cared no more for the magnificent landscapes they passed, than did the post-horses that drew the carriage; and when the party stopped at Caterick Bridge to dine, she had just put on the family diamonds of the Duke of Kinross, who waited to conduct her to the altar. It was a favorite speculation with Agnes, that she was to become acquainted in the public room at Harrowgate, with some handsomeincognito, the sort of perfect Adonis whom alone it would be possible to marry; and after dancing, flirting, dining, and supping with him, he was to turn out the Duke of Somebody, who should make her a long-sighed-for declaration of undying attachment, while Barons, Earls, Viscounts, and above all, Captain De Crespigny, should be plunged into the depths of despair by her accepting him.
Agnes' lovers were never estimated according to the qualities of their head or heart, but according to the trivialities of their dress and appearance. Like the Grecian artist, in love with an image of his own forming, the description of her intended lovers, with which she occasionally favored Marion, resembled a lecture on comparative anatomy, so emphatic was she on the necessity of his being neither too tall, nor too short, too dark, nor too fair; while she would evidently have considered a bad temper less objectionable than a bad complexion, and was ready to tolerate a man who was dissipated, rather than one who was awkward.
In the estimation of Agnes, "good society" was composed entirely of lords and ladies, while her fancy very seldom strayed out of the peerage; though she did sometimes take the trouble to fancy herself admired by some distinguished commoner of more than ordinary celebrity, merely for the pleasure of rejecting him, and swelling her right honorable triumph, when she exchanged her wreath of roses for a coronet. Those who had been proverbially inconstant to other ladies, would now become unchangeably devoted to her; and if she heard of any individual more than commonly fatal to the peace of other ladies, her fertile mind suggested scenes of romance and rapture, where the injuries of others would be more than revenged by the distracting suspense in which she meant to hold her intended victim.
While the world thus ran upon castors in the imagination of Agnes, no novel could be nearly so interesting as her own rose-colored dreams, because in none could she be herself the heroine; but when reading the most romantic romances, they served occasionally to suggest new scenes of emotion and pleasure, which could be adapted with variations to her own case, while all she saw in books flitted like a gay phantasmagoria from her mind, except what could be in any way applied to herself. The business of life, in short, was, she thought, to make every man living in love with her, and to get through existence like a party of pleasure, crowding into it the greatest possible variety of amusements, and ending the whole with orange flowers, Brussels lace, wedding-cake, and favors.
None of the sacred duties or home affections ever entered into Agnes' calculations. She lived merely for the triumphs of society; while Marion existed for the happiness of home, seeking only the redeeming points of life, and absorbed in a prevailing desire to deserve and to obtain the attachment of those who were by nature nearest and dearest to herself. As the proverb says, "A long road or a bad inn teach us to know our companions;" but all that a generous person can do for others, and all that a selfish person fancies he could do, Marion did, with unobtrusive attention, for Sir Arthur and Agnes during the journey; while her sister sarcastically remarked, that even if Dash wagged his tail to her, she seemed grateful for his regard.
It was on a pleasant evening towards the end of August, that Sir Arthur's chariot stopped at the Granby Hotel, which looked to the travellers more like an entire street than a single house; and Marion thought that accommodation might be prepared in it for all the invalids in Great Britain. Her ears were instantly deafened by a noisy clamor of bells, while the carriage was surrounded by a cluster of shabby waiters, in second-hand looking clothes, dishevelled hair, soiled cotton stockings, and dusty shoes, who were vociferous in their protestations that the house was already more than full, and that a hundred and fifty guests dined every day at the ordinary. In the mean time, however, they hurriedly dismounted Sir Arthur's baggage from the chariot, and at length ushered him into a sitting room, with a promise of finding sleeping apartments for the whole party, up three pair of stairs, in a lodging across the common, a tall old building spotted over like a plum pudding with windows, where they must be ready to abdicate on a moment's notice, if necessary, the whole house having been bespoke some weeks before, for Miss Howard Smytheson, the heiress, and suite.
No place is so little changed by lapse of time as Harrowgate, during the last two centuries which have elapsed since first its unpalatable waters were tasted. There the same three great hotels flourish supreme, as in the days of Smollet, holding their crowded ordinaries, and distinguished by their former designations, as the House of Lords, the House of Commons, and the House of Drs. There, during three months of every successive year, an equal crowd assembles in search of health for their disordered bodies, and excitement for their stagnant minds, while time and money are frantically squandered, as if both were dealt out in unlimited portions among all who thus emulously seek with wearied eagerness for frivolous amusements, idle flutter, and all those relaxations of an unsatisfied existence, which soon became intolerable to those who can amuse themselves, but necessary to those who cannot.
The very same rooms and furniture, the very same tables, knives, glasses, and spoons, and the same hours of eating and drinking, which were used during the time of old Humphrey Bramble, are still in existence, while every thing remains as much unaltered as the blue firmament above, except the company. Year after year has, at Harrowgate, even more, perhaps, than elsewhere, testified the ceaseless mutability of human affairs, where, amidst light laughter, mirth and music, the young have become married, the old have died, and, as days roll on in that little world of eager excitement, the names of all are soon alike forgotten. At Harrowgate the visitors seem scarcely more permanently interested in each other than in actors on the stage, or in characters represented by a novelist. Any lounger who appears in the public saloons a second year, becomes completely naturalized in the house; after a third season, it is ten to one he may be considered a bore; and during the fourth or fifth, he is completely superannuated. In these gay rooms, how much of human life and feeling have existed! how many of its joys and sorrows been experienced! and how many of its deepest interests have arisen, amidst the gay dance, the ringing laugh, the lively coquetry, the frantic dissipation, and the vows of endless attachment! With many a past generation, the fever of frivolity is over, and the dust of death now shrouds every remembrance in oblivion: but a new race yet successively arises, to exist, like their predecessors, in an atmosphere of music, dancing, flirting, riding, driving, feasting, and gayety,
"Smiling as if earth contain'd no tomb."
"I cannot but think, when arriving at any new place," observed Marion, "what solitary desolation must frequently be experienced by those 'citizens of the world,' who are for ever on the wing, from country to country, throughout the habitable and uninhabitable globe! We who live only for social companionship, would feel perfectly lost in arriving at a perpetual succession of places, where not one human being depends upon us for comfort or enjoyment—where not a single genuine tear would be shed by any living individual, if we dropped down dead at their feet!"
"You are right, Marion," replied Sir Arthur. "Once when taken dangerously ill abroad, I was surrounded by those only to whom my very language was unknown, my features strange, my name unheard of, and my whole feelings indifferent. It was dreary and desolate indeed! A new place may divert us for a time, but we do not live to enjoy mere scenery or mere amusement. To find real happiness we must look within the circle of home feelings, home duties, and home enjoyments."
When the very aristocratic and distinguished-looking Sir Arthur Dunbar first appeared in the public room at the Granby, leading in his two radiantly beautiful nieces, the babbling murmur of conversation became suddenly hushed, while a general whisper of surprise and admiration circulated round the tea-table. Many an eager inquiry was rapidly promulgated who they could possibly be, and from whence they came; while Lord Wigton, to produce some amusement, secretly announced that it was the Duke of Lincolnshire and his two eldest unmarried daughters.
The better half of pleasure was its novelty to Marion, whose half-shy, half-amused looks, as she entered among a score or two of perfect strangers, found a pleasing contrast to the criticising, examining, fastidious air with which Agnes, in the full swell of magnificence, glanced her brilliant, haughty eyes round the tables, and muttered contemptuously to Sir Arthur, that the living furniture in the room seemed little better than a zoological garden—a human menagerie of tigers, bears, and monkeys, varied by a large proportion of red inflamed strawberry-colored faces belonging to the water-drinkers. By no means satisfied with the commencement of her Harrowgate existence, Agnes established on the spot a little whispering gallery of satirical discontent, while she ridiculed to Marion those of the company who were unlucky enough first to attract her notice and her disapprobation.
Though the room appeared abundantly peopled withdramatis personæof many kinds and degrees, yet, instead of seeing, as she had rather too sanguinely anticipated, a society of distinguished-looking personages, as select as if they had been introduced at a drawing-room in St. James' Palace, the saloon was encumbered with groups of people as ridiculous as any that Agnes ever remembered to have seen at a country theatre. Oldbeauxof half a century's duration,—two or three remarkably conceited, overdressed officers in full-fledged mustachios,—crowds of busy, bustling, managing-looking mothers,—four or five over-dressed Irish fortune-hunters,—a knot of agricultural, kill-your-own-mutton country gentlemen,—one or two widows of not very doubtful age, butrougedto excess,—a few Oxonian professors, who were F.R.S. and the whole alphabet besides,—a multitude of whist-playing clergymen, reverened only on their visiting cards, who bore no symptom of their profession except a white neckcloth,—many old people to be made young, and young people to be made younger,—besides nearly an acre of very un-Almacks-like young ladies, showily attired in pink, blue, or yellow, like a bed of tulips, all in very gay spirits, or pretending to be so, who seemed to lead a life of perpetual smiles and good-humor, as if all the troubles of existence were unknown or a mere laughing matter to them.
Sir Arthur was not long in having a delighted recognition with an old, wooden-legged messmate, Captain Ogilvie, who introduced to Marion his "three head of daughters," pretty animated girls; and Agnes hastily seated herself at the tea-table, disappointed beyond measure in the first chapter of her adventures, and half determined already to set about hating the whole party. Though deceived only by her own too vivid anticipations, she felt in some way or other imposed upon, in being unexpectedly introduced to such very third-rate society, and for several minutes she maintained a petulant silence, so very unlike her usual volubility, that she began, before long, to wish for some one with whom to enjoy a laugh at the whole circle of whimsical-looking oddities.
Close beside the seat on which Agnes had accidentally placed herself, she very soon observed an old gentleman considerably past the meridian of life, who nevertheless dressed with very obvious pretensions to youth, wearing a fashionable, well-contrived wig, a perfectly startling set of teeth, and a gouty black velvet shoe. His figure was well built, and he had altogether a look of individual eccentricity peculiar to himself, with an air of supercilious haughtiness, which testified that, like Agnes, he thought himself too good for his company.
"Who can he be?" thought she, finding his eye fixed upon herself with a fastidious look of connoisseurship, such as that with which he might have examined some doubtful copy of a Vandyke or Titian, while an expression of complacent approbation gradually stole into his features. "Probably some eminent artist! He may perhaps ask leave to do my picture for the exhibition!"
Having reached this conclusion, she was almost startled to hear herself addressed by her unknown neighbor, in a consequential, rather patronising voice, and with an air of unembarrassed distinction, while he evidently watched her countenance with the same look of criticism as before, so that she felt certain if there had been a flaw in her teeth, or a single hair disarranged on her head, it could not have escaped his notice. So fastidious a personage seemed almost worth the trouble of pleasing, and Agnes, after replying rather graciously to his first few remarks, became exceedingly surprised to discover that there was a tone of well bred command in his dry, cynical manner, united with the most perfect polish, which both awed and surprised her. His assumption of superiority and importance seemed almost unconscious, but he evidently entertained not the fraction of a doubt that his conversation was a singular honor and an agreeable acquisition to any one on whom he condescended to bestow the slightest attention.
"I have lived here lately at the rate of twenty new acquaintances a day, and am happy this evening in adding another to my usual allowance. One must enter into the humors of a place like Harrowgate, and do at Rome as Rome does," said he, in a somewhat haughty, supercilious tone. "This is the only spot in all the earth where English people attempt the ease and sociability of foreign manners, and we must acknowledge it fits rather awkwardly. Nevertheless, being in my own neighborhood, I make a point every year of lending my countenance for a short time to this house."
Agnes gave an undervaluing glance at her companion, and privately thought his thin, dry countenance, with every vein like whip cord, might well have been dispensed with, but though he appeared to be unpardonably ugly, she prudently sipped her tea in silence, looking somewhat askance at the little consequential gentleman beside her; while he took the opportunity of examining her profile with his keen, observant eye, after which, having apparently satisfied himself that she was worth the honor of being spoken to, he continued, in a hard, croaking voice, like a door grating on its rusty hinges:
"The company here is nearly of the same calibre as you might probably encounter in a Margate hoy, or in a second-class train on the Birmingham railroad."
"Or at Bartholomew fair," added Agnes, determined not to be outdone. "I feel as if we were dining for once at the second table. There should be doorkeepers at Harrowgate to keep out thecanaille! I wonder Captain De Crespigny misinformed my brother so much about the society here; but he would have said anything to make us come."
"No one would ever dream, in his wildest moments, of visiting Harrowgate for society. Mere knife-grinders from Sheffield, and country curates," replied her fastidious companion, in a short, abrupt tone. "Are you acquainted with Louis De Crespigny?"
"Yes; everybody who is anybody knows him, and those who do not often pretend they do," replied Agnes, indignant at the easy, almost contemptuous manner in which her companion named one whom she considered as her own peculiar property. "Not to know him would argue ourselves unknown."
"I certainly am unknown," said her companion, with a strange little conscious laugh, which seemed to Agnes quite unaccountable. "Has De Crespigny so universal an acquaintance? People must be more at a loss for society than I had supposed!"
"You know," replied Agnes, in an unanswerable tone, "he is the future Marquis of Doncaster."
"Is he?" answered the old gentleman, with another short, dry laugh, and a proving shrug of polite non-conviction. "So much the better for him. You are quite sure of that?"
"Perfectly certain! His uncle is a rich old quiz, who never thought anybody good enough to marry till now, when nobody would accept of him. The old peer could not get a girl to marry him now if he sent the bellman round to advertise for one. Captain De Crespigny's succession is as undoubted as anything can be which depends on the life of a whimsical, superannuated uncle, these many years past in the last stage of infirmity. He has the wrinkles ironed out of his face every morning with a smoothing iron, and I am told his very bones rattle whenever he moves!"
"Indeed!" exclaimed the stranger, in a hard, withering tone, and with a cool sneer on his lip. "How very singular!"
"Poor, dear old man! he was handsome once, and never can forget that; but it is a century since he lost any looks he ever had, and I am told he is quite preternaturally old, withered, and whimsical. Quite ingeniously ugly!laid a faire peur!I should be afraid to go near him, in case his ugliness might be reflected upon me; but I hear he fancies himself quite captivating still. Patrick tells me that the old Marquis invested so large a sum of money lately in a new set of teeth, that his nephew is quite uneasy lest he should be robbed and murdered for the gold they are set in. He scratches his wig sometimes to look as if it were his own hair; and he had an ossification of the leg last year, in consequence of a disappointment in love!"
"Very remarkable!"
"Yes!" added Agnes, encouraged by the attention she had evidently excited, and happy to vent all her long accumulated antipathy. "The oldest man who ever lived certainly died at last, but I believe nobody ever before existed so long in this world without doing one atom of good either to himself or others. He keeps a Roman Catholic Abbe to think for him; and once his wig turned grey in a single night with distress of mind when they had a quarrel. The Marquis is so afraid of apoplexy, that when he walks out the Abbe Mordaunt always carries a lancet to bleed him instantly, in case he has a fit."
"How very considerate! You have all this authentic intelligence on the best authority of course?" asked the stranger with a submissive bow. "De Crespigny's entire! I understand the nephew has not inherited his uncle's antipathy to marrying! If this very whimsical old relative could be safely packed into his grave,—let me assure you he is even more whimsical than has been represented, though not quite so infirm,—I suppose Captain De Crespigny would very soon dispose of himself and his coronet."
"Certainly!" replied Agnes, unable to repress a conscious smile and heightened color. "In that case we should all probably see before long a Marchioness of Doncaster!"
"I might not, perhaps, live to be introduced," answered the old gentleman demurely. "And I could lay a bet that, as long as I exist, we shall never have Captain De Crespigny in the peerage. If you happen, however, to know any young lady at all impatient to become Marchioness of Doncaster, let her consult me, and I could, perhaps, suggest a shorter cut to that situation, than by waiting for Louis De Crespigny."
"How!" exclaimed Agnes, with a bewildered look. "Quite impossible!"
"Unless by accepting the present Marquis, who ought, by your description, to go very cheap, old, whimsical, and infirm as he is!" replied the stranger, with a sly smile, and a graceful bow. "The report you have heard of Lord Doncaster is such, that I feel almost tempted to forswear my own name!"
Agnes never in her life approached more nearly to a genuine fainting fit, than on hearing these words, and to have been swallowed up in an earthquake would have been quite a relief. She felt now like Abon Hassan, when he made the vizier bite his finger to ascertain if he were really awake, while, with a look of vacant wonder, she became aware that the middle-aged, nearly good-looking, and very elegant man beside her, was actually the old, worn-out, almost dead, and all but buried uncle, whose demise Captain De Crespigny had led her daily or hourly to expect for the last two years. If his ghost had appeared, she would not have been half so much astonished, while he seemed evidently more amused than he chose to acknowledge, at having created such a sensation, which he was by no means inclined to diminish, while silently admiring the beautiful fluctuations of expression in Agnes' resplendent eyes, fixed on himself with almost incredulous amazement. At length he rose to take leave, with a smiling, supercilious bow, and beckoned in an authoritative manner to a clerical-looking gentleman at some distance, to follow him, who spoke in a voice of almost feminine softness, though Agnes thought the expression of his countenance peculiarly sinister and forbidding.
"That, then, must be the Abbe Mordaunt!" exclaimed Agnes, almost aloud, while she gazed at his stern, sallow countenance, his shaggy eyebrows, low forehead, and artful-looking smile. "He might act the villain in any melo-drama! I would rather not stand between that man and any earthly object he may set his heart on! He is the most Jesuitical-looking Jesuit I ever beheld!"
Though Agnes' first recontre with the Marquis of Doncaster had been so calamitous, and her first prejudice against his shadow, the Abbe, had seemed most inveterate, she yet spent much of her time for the next few days in their society, and was delighted to engross the attention and the evident admiration of the two most distinguished-looking personages at the ordinary, while, without scruple, she flattered the Marquis most flagrantly, by laughing to excess at her own very mistaken ideas of him previous to their meeting, and hinting that this had rendered her subsequent surprise the more agreeable. Lord Doncaster in return amused himself with talking to her in a style suited to the female society in which most of his own time had hitherto been spent, though it should not certainly have suited any young girl educated like Agnes, who stretched her complaisance, however, to the utmost for a nobleman, and the uncle of her intended, Captain De Crespigny.
Marion's refined and delicate feelings shrunk at once from the libertine freedom of look and manner which she could not but observe in the old Marquis' tone to ladies, and though he repeatedly tried to engage her in the flippant and almost dissolute conversation which, in a low lover-like tone, he addressed to her sister, and made an ostentatious display of his admiration for both, Marion, disgusted and shocked at what seemed so utterly unsuitable to his years, gently but decidedly evaded all intercourse, being of opinion that the coquetry which was dishonorable in the nephew, became ridiculous and contemptible in the uncle, therefore she behaved to him with distant politeness, and a degree of gravity by no means natural to her in general. Marion devoted herself almost exclusively to Sir Arthur, leading him about in his walks, and enlivening his conversation with old Captain Ogilvy, while she could not but frequently compare the age and respectability of her venerable uncle, with the almost equal age and very opposite character of the Roman Catholic Marquis, whose thin skeleton figure, hollow ghost-like laugh and old stories, as broad as they were long, formed as unsuitable a contrast to his juvenile dress and manners, as his withered aspect did, to the fresh and fragrant flowers he constantly wore in his button-hole, and of which he lavished a splendid profusion on Agnes.
Marion observed with increasing surprise and regret, that the livelypersiflageof her sister with the Marquis, was varied very frequently by long and apparently grave discussions, with the Abbe Mordaunt, and at the end of a week, she became startled to observe that Agnes wore round her neck a black ribbon, from which hung conspicuously suspended a large gold crucifix of very beautiful workmanship. On many former occasions, Marion had found reason to dread the bitter vengeance of Agnes' tongue, but at no loss to guess the source from whence this unusual ornament had been derived, she inwardly resolved not to let it pass unnoticed, but warmly to remonstrate with her sister on the growing influence of the Abbe, which seemed surprising and unaccountable, while an undefined feeling of alarm respecting the rapidly increasing intimacy of Agnes with Lord Doncaster, caused her to long impatiently for the arrival of Sir Patrick, as she felt unwilling to distress her uncle on the subject of Agnes' extraordinary conduct, trusting that the whole affair was a mere girlish whim—a piece of missyish coquetry to please Lord Doncaster, who in the mean time laughingly boasted that never before had he made a proselyte so young and beautiful.
"Patrick," exclaimed Agnes, hurrying into Sir Arthur's sitting-room the morning after her brother's arrival at the Granby, while a brilliant color lighted up her cheek, and her eyes sparkled with animation, "Lord Wigton is coming in a few minutes to hear me sing that new song of Bellini's, therefore pray tell the waiters we are not at home to any living mortal, and do hold this music till I give a last touch to my ringlets."
Agnes impatiently held out a large roll of paper, but almost screamed with astonishment on looking up, to perceive that she had addressed Captain De Crespigny, evidently that moment arrived from a long journey.
"Good morning, Miss Dunbar. We are well met!" said he, with rather satirical emphasis. "I am in a very cut-throat humor to-day, and shall certainly put an end to little Lord Wigton!"
"You have nearly put an end to me," replied Agnes, unable to steady her voice; "but I am rather glad to see you! Perhaps you may be allowed to remain here, though that tiresome man does so teaze me about singing."
"Wigton told me he was coming to see, or rather to hear Marion!" said Sir Patrick, emerging from a distant window.
"To hear me!" exclaimed Marion, with unfeigned surprise and perplexity, while thunder and lightning both lowered on the forehead of her sister. "That must be a mistake! I heard nothing of any appointment, and have not had a minute's conversation with Lord Wigton since we arrived at Harrowgate. He heard me only once by accident, and probably never will again."
"Unless by design!" whispered Agnes, angrily. "Marion, you have certainly some underhand way of getting on with people, which baffles my comprehension!"
Marion turned away, and silently resumed her place beside Sir Arthur, who had been amusing himself by standing at the window, while she told him what carriages came round to the door, what parties of pleasure were setting out or returning, and what travelling equipages appeared in sight, of which seldom fewer than ten or twelve arrived in a day; and by ascertaining the coat-of-arms or coronets emblazoned on the panels, she sometimes formed a tolerable accurate guess who might probably be their occupants. After talking together with great vivacity for some time, Sir Arthur suddenly felt the arm of Marion on which he was leaning, give an almost convulsive start, while she seemed with difficulty to suppress a half-uttered exclamation of delighted astonishment. She now leaned eagerly out of the window, to examine a travelling chariot which had driven up to the door, from whence a lady, apparently in the utmost extreme of weakness, was carefully supported out by a gentleman, and before another moment could elapse, Marion had rushed down stairs, and was clasped in the arms of Clara Granville.
"Did you get my letter?" exclaimed her friend, in feeble and agitated accents, while, after the first rapturous greetings, they had retired alone into a sitting-room. "No! is that possible? How could the post have been so long delayed? But perhaps it may be as well, for there was grief as much as joy in it."
Marion observed now with alarm, that the appearance of Clara, always interesting, had become almost painfully so. The summer bloom had entirely vanished from her face, and not only had her form shrunk, but there was a deep and settled sadness in the expression of her eye, when she added,
"The doctors have ordered me to go by easy stages abroad, but they recommended me first to try a few weeks here. The sight of you will do me more good than any medicine, and I had little difficulty—very little indeed, Marion—in persuading Richard to take the Granby on our way to the south of France, where we are to go health-hunting and scenery-hunting during the approaching winter; but you must see now, as I do, and as everybody does, except my dear brother himself, that I am hastening fast to that country where the sun always shines, and the flowers never fade."
A start of indescribable emotion now shot through the heart of Marion, for in the pallid, emaciated countenance of Clara, she already read a sentence of death, and she gazed upon her friend with a growing conviction, which filled her heart with anguish, that soon, very soon they must be separated for ever! but Miss Granville, observing her emotion, affectionately added, "Few have more reason to value their lives than myself, Marion, and mine I shall do all in my power to preserve. We ought to be perfectly and cheerfully satisfied with every event as it comes, and while I have such a brother as Richard, my existence is precious to me. I know, however, that at all events another will reward him for his kindness to me, and one whom he values even more than his sister has happily learned to appreciate him as I do! Indeed, how could it be otherwise? My home will soon be an eternal world, and if I might have a choice, the sooner, perhaps, the better. It grieves me to take my brother now from his duties, without a single hope of my own restoration. I know that, for I feel it here! Change of air and scene can do no permanent good, and I wish we had been allowed to remain stationary, as it matters little where I die, compared with the importance to many of where Richard lives."
Marion's voice, the faithful index to her feelings, trembled with emotion when she replied; but a moment afterwards, a smile of pleasure lighted up her dark speaking eyes, when Mr. Granville hastened into the room, with a look of animated happiness on again meeting Marion, and his whole countenance had that look of deep sensibility which becomes externally visible, when the whole mind and heart have been awakened to those affections which end with life, and only then. To cover their confusion, and conceal her own feelings, Clara assumed a tone of unwonted vivacity, saying, with an affectation of extreme gravity, "Allow me to introduce my brother,—Miss Dunbar, Mr. Granville! I can recommend both as desirable acquaintances, and hope you may find each other out by degrees! My duty is done, and now it is your own fault if you are not speedily friends!"
Marion became every day more conscious that no one can appreciate the real joys and the real sorrows of human life but those who live for its friendships and attachments, while she would have thought wealth or rank, without affection, like a body without a soul; but Agnes cared comparatively little by whose means she obtained her title, equipages, and diamonds, provided they were likely to excite envy and admiration. In her estimation, the coarsest materials of happiness were the most to be coveted, and the marriage contract, instead of being anticipated in the light in which it would have appeared to Marion, as giving her the privilege of devoting a life-time to the happiness of the person she loved best on earth, was merely contemplated as entitling her to an expensivetrousseau, a large establishment, and a set of family jewels. In the mind of Agnes, Captain De Crespigny seemed only an appendage to his future rank and future expectations, while she rehearsed over her own coming greatness with exulting anticipations; but Mr. Granville might have lost all that mortal man can lose, even life itself, and still retained the same place as at first in Marion's affection. The depth of her feelings was tempered, however, by the supremacy of yet higher and holier duties and hopes, those of sound and enlightened devotion, in which it was her greatest happiness to think that she had at length secured "a guide, philosopher, and friend."
No man knew the world more thoroughly, or had viewed it on both sides with more careful scrutiny than Captain De Crespigny, who often boasted that he saw the working of people's minds as if their heads were like a glass bee-hive, and yet he was completely perplexed, on arriving at Harrowgate, to account for the extraordinary intimacy which had sprung up so suddenly between the beautiful Agnes and his whimsical old—, but certainly not venerable relative, Lord Doncaster. It seemed to him at first a laughable jest, but before long he became struck by the increased coldness of his uncle's manner, which was, if possible, more cynical and repulsive than ever, since the time when Agnes had inadvertently irritated the vanity of Lord Doncaster by her incautious jests during their first interview.
Curiosity now induced Captain De Crespigny, in some degree, to resume that intimacy with Agnes, which he came intending entirely to discontinue; for he had meant that his attentions should be solely and exclusively devoted to the captivation of her still more fascinating sister, whom he was intent upon adding to the list of his conquests; but Marion continued to receive Captain De Crespigny with careless civility, resolved apparently to forget all that had hitherto been unpleasant or pleasant between them, while every moment she could spare from attending to her uncle was dedicated to the Granvilles. Clara never left her private sitting-room, partly from bodily weakness, but chiefly to avoid meeting Sir Patrick, whom she had not expected to find at Harrowgate,—and his name never passed her lips except once, when in answer to a remark of Marion's, she said, "I shun another meeting with your brother, not from indifference,—very far from that. If I were only more safe from the attachments and delusions of this world, it would be unnecessary to avoid him as I do; but I am consoled for my own sorrows, Marion, by thinking of my brother's happiness, and by believing that you will hereafter value and experience together the affection of reason and principle, with a sufficient tinge of romance to give it some flavor."
"In that case," replied Marion, frankly, while a bright color glowed on her cheek, "I should think myself gifted with the largest share of happiness that the world can offer, and much more than the whole world could bestow, if unaccompanied by the hope of that felicity we are promised beyond it."
"And which I shall share with you at last, though the joy of this world I cannot remain to see and to partake of, with those who have all my affection and all my prayers," replied Clara, solemnly, while her lips trembled with a smile such as floats sometimes on the countenance of a Christian at last, "when all the mortal dies."