Of course, she lived until she died; but where,Or when, I never heard; nor you nor I need care."
Of course, she lived until she died; but where,Or when, I never heard; nor you nor I need care."
Of course, she lived until she died; but where,
Or when, I never heard; nor you nor I need care."
"But I do care," said Sir Arthur, earnestly. "It seems to me, as if there were here some scattered links of the chain by which we might discover Henry's origin. Truth has been too long already at the bottom of a well; but we must invent some diving-bell to bring her up! It would give me satisfaction, whatever his connexions are, to identify them!"
"May he live to wonder at his own good fortune!" said Caroline, gaily. "People must exist twenty years in the world, as I have done, before they can find out what a strange place it is, and what extraordinary changes occur here sometimes."
Pleasure has a time-piece of its own, which certainly does not adhere to the ordinary measure, for hours and minutes most perversely run on, always fastest when it would be most agreeable that their course should be delayed. Marion seemed to awaken from a dream of enjoyment, when Sir Arthur struck his repeater at last, and found he had remained till nearly the hour of luncheon; but, before the party dispersed, they agreed to meet often with closed doors, in the same sociable way; and, exchanging a thousand pleasing plans and anticipations of coming enjoyment together during the following few weeks, they then separated.
High Harrowgate, where the more aristocratic strangers and invalids annually resort, is nearly two miles distant from the mineral well, and from Low Harrowgate, which is infested by the more inveterate class of water drinkers. Placed far from the offensive odour of the medicated spring, on an elevated common, which still remains bare in all the uncultivated barrenness of nature, the broad green expanse is surrounded on every side by a wreath of miscellaneous buildings of every size and shape, cottages, shops, lodgings, houses, villas, and hotels, all marshalled in a row, and, like guests at the ordinary, mingled without order or distinction; while, elevated above all, and conspicuous for its whitewashed front and innumerable windows, stood the extensive building in which Sir Arthur had his sleeping apartments. Its aspect was extremely ancient, with a venerable stone roof peculiar to old times, and testifying to its great antiquity; while the more modern slates, or even thatch, on the surrounding dwellings, indicated a recent construction.
At High Harrowgate, a crowd of large consequential-looking hotels may be observed on every side, all unusually extensive in their accommodation, and apparently of nearly equal calibre; but visitors, after residing there some time, become aware that to those who prescribe gaiety, as well as more salubrious air and water for themselves, there are but three hotels in Harrowgate. Invalids may be ill anywhere, and personages who wish to be exceedingly exclusive retreat into private lodgings; but for anything that can be dignified with the name of society at an ordinary, the Granby, the Crown, and the Dragon, have by mutual agreement, established a singular monopoly, giving balls every alternate night, to which the guests in each house are reciprocally invited; the ladies and gentlemen of the Granby and Crown requesting the honor of being patronized at a ball on the following night; and each hotel provides a carriage for the transportation of its own party, in case any of the distinguished guests should happen by chance not to have brought their private carriages. Meantime, it is rather arbitrarily taken for granted, that there are neither ladies nor gentlemen at Gascognes, Queen's, the White Swan, or the Black; but residents at these houses are allowed to appear on sufferance, though not as invited guests; being merely "winked at."
At a Harrowgate dinner the travellers take precedence more according to the length of their bills than by any other criterion, those who have resided a month in the hotel going before those who have resided only a week, and the visitors of a week being far in advance of all who arrived the day before. A Peer of the realm must sit below his tailor, if he arrived at the house after him, and no dispute about places can arise, as each individual's name is accurately ascertained in the morning, and a plate turned upside down on the table opposite where he is intended to sit, with his name distinctly written in ink on the china. A label is also attached to each bottle of wine, exhibiting, not the name of the wine, but the name of its owner, and half an hour before dinner, all the gossiping world at each inn, may be observed slowly pacing round the table, and carefully reading the name, style, and title of those with whom they are about to dine, illustrating their remarks by exchanging biographical anecdotes and remembrances connected with each successive person, as he comes under discussion. Thus, though many arrive at Harrowgate strangers whose "names were never heard," yet, after passing through the ordeal of this gossiping committee, stories and circumstances are gradually discovered or invented, by which each individual is in some degree identified.
Between High and Low Harrowgate, besides a broad, circuitous high-road, two pleasant rural paths lead through the fields, on which a gaily-dressed crowd may be seen from peep of day in the morning, hurrying along in rapid succession to the well, with looks of anticipated disgust in the prospect of that strange compound of horrors which they are about to swallow, only comparable to the washings of an old gun-barrel. As Sir Arthur remarked, these waters seemed to have been invented for the especial affliction of elderly gentlemen, processions of whom might be observed drinking tuns of water, in order that complexions evidently much the worse of wear might in the process of renovation, be mended, cleaned, dyed, and repaired, till they looked as good as new; and though the Admiral complained that, to his uncomfortable feelings, it always seemed as if he had swallowed the tumbler itself, yet he valiantly persevered in daily drinking bumpers to his own health, saying that what was good for so many others, would be good for his complaint, if he had one, though, except old age and blindness, he was conscious of none.
In consequence of Sir Patrick's bet with Mrs. O'Donoghoe, he was on the alert at an early hour before breakfast the next morning, to ascertain who the incognitos were in the garden room. For nearly an hour he sauntered on the common within sight of the Granby, exchanging gay observations with those who passed, listening with a satirical smile to Lord Wigton, who was practising to desperation some of Rossini's airs at an open window, and watching with astonishment the repulsive stranger of the preceding evening, who, closely buttoned up in a military surtout, with his hat slouched over his face, was rapidly pacing up and down, with ceaseless perseverance, close to the garden room, with his eye fixed upon the windows and doors, making apparently so accurate a survey of those private apartments, that had it been by night instead of by day, he might almost have been arrested on suspicion of intending to attempt a burglarious entrance.
Not a mouse seemed stirring within these rooms, the blinds were all drawn down, and the doors all closed, but still the stranger paced rapidly up and down, casting many impatient, irritable glances upwards on the silent walls, yet keeping himself so concealed that no one, looking suddenly out, could have perceived him lurking there. Sir Patrick now, for the first time, suspected that he did not belong to the party within, and became more and more interested in observing his various eccentric movements, which betrayed a high state of excitement, till at length, finding himself watched, with the quickness of lightning he suddenly vanished round a projecting corner of the building, though a few moments afterwards Sir Patrick perceived that he was concealed in a thicket of trees not far off, where he could still keep his eye fastened on the windows with unswerving steadiness.
Parties, meantime, hurried onwards to Low Harrowgate to do duty at the well, while some of the loungers had already returned, being full charged with their quantum of water, and all very loudly expressing their astonishment that Sir Patrick had not yet set forth to hear the military band, which was reported to be playing "beautifully! enchantingly! or detestably!" according to the humor of those who spoke.
The crowd was on this day so excessive, that the old well had been completely exhausted, and alarming apprehensions were entertained by the invalids, of a scarcity for the later visitors, but still Sir Patrick stirred not! Though not usually endowed with excessive interest in any affairs but his own, the movements of the mysterious stranger, and his look of feverish anxiety, engrossed almost the whole of Sir Patrick's thoughts, though, to avoid any appearance of espionage, he kept up a lively dialogue with Mrs. O'Donoghoe and Captain De Crespigny.
Marion in the mean time had been exceedingly amused by the scene which usually takes place at the well, where every face seemed as if laboring under the nausea of sea-sickness, and she stood for some time with Sir Arthur and Mr. Granville, laughingly studying physiognomy, as parties arrived in rapid succession, threw off a tumbler of smoking horrors, and instantly departed, while a row of shabbily-dressed women, standing behind a stone counter, hurriedly filled the glasses, and handed them over in a long wooden ladle, to the expectant invalids, one by one, who were waiting patiently or impatiently for their turn. Each of the great hotels had an emissary appointed here, whose business it was to attend on their respective guests with the proper allowance of water, and it seemed as if these old women knew by a sort of instinct those who belonged to their own house; but an angry contest having taken place respecting one gentleman, who was obliged to wait with resignation or without it, till the belligerent parties had decided whose privilege it was to kill or cure him, Marion's attention was more peculiarly attracted to the spot, where one of the women who assisted in serving out the general beverage had been hitherto screened from her notice. Her face was excessively muffled up, but in the little that remained visible, traces of beauty still remained, though her features were so attuned to suffering, that Marion with wonder and pity contemplated so pale and ghastly a form. At length a dim idea stole into her mind, that surely she had seen that face before, but while the floating remembrance yet continued to flicker indistinctly through her mind, the wretched-looking woman, with a startled glance, had vanished.
"Patrick!" whispered Marion, turning to take her brother's arm, "do patronize me for one minute! Did you observe that melancholy-looking woman at the well? I never saw so blighted a countenance! What can the sorrows be that stamped such a look of ghastly woe upon these beautiful features?"
Marion looked up for a reply, and started to find that she had inadvertently taken the arm of Captain De Crespigny, whose usual vivacity and presence of mind seemed at this moment to have entirely forsaken him. His eyes were straining after the receding figure of the stranger, with an air of eager astonishment and alarm, while his countenance had become white as death. In a moment, however, he recovered himself, when Marion, with an exclamation of surprise, had drawn away her hand, making a hurried apology for her mistake.
"Did you not recognise her?" asked he, in accents of almost tremulous agitation. "It could be no one else! Surely that must have been—Dixon?"
"It was!" exclaimed Marion, breathlessly. "How has she come here? what can she want? where is Agnes?"
"This must be inquired into!" muttered Captain De Crespigny, almost inaudibly; and then resuming his usual careless vivacity of tone and manner, he entreated Marion to let him benefit by the fortunate resemblance of his dress to Sir Patrick's, and still continue to escort her. "I envy Dunbar for the privilege whenever he enjoys it, for you shun me like a rattle-snake," added he, in his most insinuating tone; "yet I would not for worlds be your brother."
"It is but a troublesome office," replied Marion, looking anxiously round for Sir Arthur, who had walked on a few minutes before, leaning on Mr. Granville, and most impatiently did she long for their return, being always on the alert to shun Captain De Crespigny without appearing to do so. Though, like all other persons, amused and enlivened by his whimsical and diverting style of conversation, which had more even in the manner than in the words, and though with any friend of her brother's it pained her courteous nature to be otherwise than frank and good humored, yet she made a principle of unobtrusively evading his assiduities, not only because his conduct to Agnes had been and still continued unpardonably dishonorable, but she felt indignant to think that he was disposed to beguile his leisure by also captivating and deluding herself. It was obvious that whenever she entered the room, he became silent and embarrassed with every one else, and took the first opportunity of devoting himself exclusively to her. Not giving one shadow of belief to all his professions, when Marion was obliged to listen, she did so with unconcealed indignation on finding the same insinuations of attachment made to herself which had been repeated to her formerly with triumphant credulity by Agnes. Marion thoroughly despised his double dealing and ungenerous trifling, while feeling nothing for him on that score but contempt, she could almost have rejoiced that he wasted his efforts to be irresistible on one who, being so fully aware of his character, could incur no danger from the fascinations which had been fatal to the peace of many. Safe in the consciousness of a hallowed attachment to Mr. Granville, and convinced that Captain De Crespigny was incapable of a single genuine feeling, she could scarcely have considered it necessary even to be repulsive in her manner; but it seemed due to Agnes as much as possible to avoid him, knowing that her sister had not yet been able entirely to divest herself of a lingering belief that the professions which were false to all others were sincere to herself.
For the first time in his whole acquaintance with lady-kind, Captain De Crespigny felt doubtful and diffident of his own fascinations, and for the first time also he felt himself really and undeniably in love, as the transparent single-hearted excellence of Marion's character seemed, when compared with the hackneyed and artificial mind of her sister, and all other girls, like the difference between a pure mountain breeze and a London fog. The attachment he so often affected had now become genuine, and the feelings he formerly invented for amusement, and expressed with the utmost fluency, were now so real, that they could scarcely be spoken at all; for language seemed to fail him when he addressed Marion, and every day, as it increased his attachment, diminished his hope. She had no vulgar love of admiration; and Captain De Crespigny was mortified to perceive, that while the color mounted to her cheek at the slightest evidence of affection from her uncle or brother, all his own hints of a preference, all his fascinating attentions and irresistible speeches, were listened to with the same smiling good humor as if they had been devoted to a third person. Marion always made some ready reply, without asoupconof embarrassment, and seemed to take compliments, reproaches, love, or despair, all as matters of course, which must inevitably be listened to with the same indulgent consideration she would have bestowed on Lord Doncaster's lamentations respecting his last attack of the gout. She did not even pay him the compliment to drop a single stitch in her knitting from agitation or from interest when he spoke to her; but all his words passed away like arrows flitting through the air, which leave not a trace behind.
Captain De Crespigny became, this morning, more than usually assiduous while they stood beside the well, referring to Marion's opinion on every subject, quoting what he remembered her formerly to have said, rejoicing in everything that seemed to give her pleasure, regretting the most trifling annoyance that fell in her way, approving of all her sentiments, and talking in raptures of old Sir Arthur, while eyes, smiles, voice, and manner, all indicated the feelings he wished to convey; but Marion merely congratulated herself, that having seen the cards already, she knew the game he was playing.
"Miss Dunbar!" said Captain De Crespigny, rushing eagerly forward to pick up a flower which the wind had blown out of her bouquet, "may I keep this rose?"
"Certainly! any gentleman may take a flower; but I never give one. There are twenty better in the garden."
"I would give all the twenty for this one. This is more precious than anything except the hand that gives it. Indeed this is the only rose in the world I care for!"
"The white moss-rose is more fragrant, and not so common," answered Marion, indifferently. "That was beautiful an hour since, though rather the worse of wear now."
"I am so unalterable in my preferences, that even though withered and decayed, still it would be precious to me, as connected with recollections which I shall cherish till the world's end, and till the end of time! Flowers speak a language which words cannot express; and even if mine were to fade in an hour, let me enjoy it while I may. This rose does not hoard all its sweetness, as you do!"
"Captain De Crespigny, if your conversation has a fault in the world, it is too plain, matter-of-fact, and unadorned," said Marion, with a careless laugh. "You have wasted a whole summer of lilies and roses upon me during the last five minutes, and I ought to answer you with a perfect conservatory in return; but it sounds dreadfully like the double-distilled essence of the Minerva press. I thought this very flourishing style of compliment had been worn out now, and given over, as old clothes are, to the race of abigails and valets. But here comes my sister; and, to speak in your own fashion, remember 'je ne suis pus la rose, mais j'ai vecu avec elle.'"
To Marion's astonishment, Agnes merely strolled past, with her eyes earnestly fixed upon nothing, and did not interrupt her conversation with Lord Doncaster and the Abbe Mordaunt, by whom she was escorted, except to give a smiling nod to Captain De Crespigny, who seemed exceedingly surprised at her indifferent "how-d'e-do" manner, and excessively piqued at the carelessness she either felt or feigned, saying, in a tone of satirical wonder:
"The Abbe seems to have every probability of gaining a proselyte! He has been very successful among the lower orders lately, though; I believe, my uncle's ale and roast beef ought to receive great part of the credit; but I cannot be sufficiently astonished at our new convert!"
"I must discuss this subject with my sister!" replied Marion, pleased to observe Captain De Crespigny so much interested in Agnes. "It is wrong to have delayed so long asking an explanation; but I could almost more easily die for those I love, than distress them. My uncle would care too much on the subject, and Patrick too little; therefore it must devolve upon me to speak. We are to have a long drive, soon. Let me consider! this is Tuesday—to-morrow will be Wednesday——"
"How clever of you to find that out! You would certainly have discovered the longitude!"
"No doubt of that! I have discovered a great deal in my time; but in the meanwhile I shall talk this over fully with Agnes to-morrow."
"Do not speak of to-morrow, when to-day is the happiest, perhaps, in my life! I wish there were no to-morrows! Such an hour as this appears to me like an aloe, which can blossom only once in my existence."
"You entertain very moderate expectations of life, therefore I think we may confidently rely on your being agreeably surprised by many days as pleasant."
"Then they must be passed in the same society; but Miss Dunbar, it always seems as if you would rather say 'Good bye' to me than 'How d'ye do!' You treat me with the most barbarous injustice! Your heart never teaches you to understand mine! Is it that you hate or despise me? You are so amiable to others, so charming, so everything that I could admire, yet to me your smiles are as cold and chilling as a moon-beam on snow. Be severe, satirical, anything but half absent and altogether indifferent, while you listen to me only with the ear and not at all with the heart. I shall positively be obliged at last to give you up."
"I wish you would! We might be the best of friends as well as cousins, if you would only talk to me in an everyday manner, without rehearsing over those absurd Romeo-and-Juliet speeches."
"Let us, then, be friends now, and more than friends in time to come."
"Never! O never! Patrick has led you to disbelieve my engagement to another; but at all events, Captain De Crespigny, if we lived in separate planets we could not be more entirely divided; and even in jest, I cannot allow any one to talk as you do, though I know it is merely an unconquerable habit you have of saying the same thing to every young lady, indiscriminately."
"What a shocking aspersion! you seem to think me incapable of a single respectable feeling, but believe me, since first we met I have scarcely known whether there be another girl in the world but yourself! Every moment I can be with you adds something to the value of my existence."
"Your civilities are all so complete a burlesque that I need never forget they are in jest!" replied Marion, looking considerably bored, and hurrying onwards, while Captain De Crespigny buried himself in melancholy silence, and assumed a most perfect attitude of graceful despair. Finding the pause rather awkward, she added, in an every day, commonplace tone: "Are you going to hear Grisi to-night? I am told that large sums are given for places on the heads of those who have already secured seats!"
"If I go to Grisi's concert, the temptation is—not to hear him—that you know very well—too well! I have but one object in going anywhere, and that is—to meet you.Esperer aupres de vous vaut mieux que jouir avec tout autre.I must quarrel with that little shake of the head. It is a libel on my sincerity! Miss Dunbar, your face is a perfect printing press, and publishes all you think! I wish you possessed the magic ring which enabled people to know exactly what was thought of them! You are in my debt several months of devoted attachment! Little do you guess how often and how deeply your slightest words are pondered, remembered, repeated, and dwelt upon in my solitary hours, nor how constantly I wish that the man in the moon, who employs his leisure in knitting people together with invisible cords, would, for my especial happiness, give us a few stitches."
"It must be his fault that we have been kept so very long together this morning. Where can my uncle be?" said Marion, impatiently. "You are aware already, Captain De Crespigny, that I must receive all my brother's friends with civility. In that respect his authority shall be obeyed, as it is of no use quarreling with the wind, but if you consider me indifferent, that is what I am and ought to be, therefore think me so always."
"That very indifference is distracting! Let me acknowledge, Miss Dunbar, that I may have deceived others, but you I never even wished to deceive; others I have flattered, but no one can flatter you, because nothing can be said equal to what I think. I wish new words could be invented to express the ardor of my sentiments! When we are together, the present moment is everything! I have neither past nor future, neither hopes nor fears, but what are connected with you," said Captain De Crespigny, with hurried impetuosity, while a rush of mingled feeling swept across his features. "I forget everything else when you are present, and neither know nor care where I go in your absence. I love you as I never loved before and never can again. The world, in short, has only two divisions, in my estimation—where you are, and where you are not. Despise my attachment if you will, but at least believe in it."
"You grieve me to the very heart," said Marion, in a low, tremulous voice, for there was an irresistible air of truth in Captain De Crespigny's manner which startled and shocked her. "I never for a single moment could imagine you serious about anything! Life and even its most sacred affections seem all in your estimation a mere jest, to be thought of and forgotten with a smile. I trust it is so now! I would not for worlds believe you in earnest! You seem really to have parted with your senses!"
"Or rather I found them from the moment I learned to appreciate you! Did you never hear, Miss Dunbar, that in this world two individuals are always created suitable to each other, who must both be miserable unless they become one, and you exactly fill up the beau ideal which has haunted me from the hour I left Eton."
"Why? De Crespigny!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, coming forward, "with that melo-dramatic air, you seem to be rehearsing a last speech and confession."
"Or rather my first speech and confession," replied he, with a conscious laugh. "And Miss Dunbar, I must entreat you not to believe——"
What Captain De Crespigny entreated her not to believe Marion did not wait to hear, as they had at last reached the Granby, and she rushed up to her own room, while he, as much astonished at his reception as a gentleman could well be, strolled slowly away singing to himself with angry asperity,
"If she love me, this believe,I will die ere she shall grieve;If she slight me when I woo,I can scorn and let her go."
"If she love me, this believe,I will die ere she shall grieve;If she slight me when I woo,I can scorn and let her go."
"If she love me, this believe,
I will die ere she shall grieve;
If she slight me when I woo,
I can scorn and let her go."
Marion had frequently sketched in her own mind a faint outline of what she should say to Agnes on the subject of her unaccountable intimacy with Lord Doncaster, who seemed to delight in making a parade of her preference for his society, especially in the presence of his nephew; but when Marion found herself at length alone one day with her sister, she felt her heart sink with apprehension, yet, being resolved to conquer nature, and do her duty, if possible, she approached the table where Agnes was seated. A large, foreign-looking book, with gold clasps, lay conspicuously before her, which Marion discovered at once to be a missal, bound in antique boards of beautifully inlaid wood, with massy gilt ornaments, and illuminated by designs in the style of Albert Durer.
To hide her confusion, and begin the subject with advantage, Marion placed her hand on the shoulder of Agnes for some moments, and leaned forward, examining those splendid paintings, the singular beauty of which she admired, while expressing considerable amazement at the strange, distorted designs on the border, where animals with five heads and their faces all nose, were varied with fish mounted on legs, and birds exhibiting human countenances.
"These eccentric creatures resemble the figures in some horrible dream!" observed Marion; "but they are not a greater distortion from the truth of nature, than the Popish superstitions which they illustrate are from the truth of revelation. Nothing seems left in either, of the perfect symmetry with which all things come from a Divine Creator."
"I am no controversialist," said Agnes, indifferently. "I take matters as I find them."
"That is not the safest of all plans, unless you are very careful from whom your ideas are received. I have heard that there are writers in the Roman Catholic Church, such as Massillon, Pascal, and Fenelon, who were nearly as pure in Christian doctrine as ourselves, resting their hope on no merits except those of our Divine Saviour; but I should think, for instance, that no Protestant could gain anything from associating with such a man as the Abbe Mordaunt, who would disgrace any church. Dear Agnes, allow me for this once the privilege of a sister; not merely to love you with my whole heart, as I always do, but also to prove my affection by saying for your sake what is most painful to me, and may probably be annoying to you. It is with the greatest anxiety and surprise that I have lately been watching you——"
"Watching me!" exclaimed Agnes, starting round with angry asperity, and fixing her flashing eyes on Marion. "What right have you—or what right has any living being to watch me?"
"The right of affection and kindness," replied Marion, with emotion, while a large tear glittered in her deep blue eyes. "We are motherless girls, Agnes, and therefore we owe each other the greater solicitude. There are many eyes upon you, less friendly, I fear, than those of a sister. If others were not placing a sinister construction on all they see, I might not perhaps have ventured to begin the subject; but as it is, I have no choice except to discuss it with either Patrick or yourself. Our kind uncle must not be agitated, on any consideration; otherwise I have sometimes thought of asking him to take us at once away from this place."
"And pray, what has your mean 'watching' of my conduct,—your police investigation, discovered, which might render so desperate a measure necessary?" asked Agnes, with a flickering color in her cheek, and in a bitter tone of suppressed anger. "Wisdom will die with you, Marion! I ought to be duly sensible of my good fortune, in having such a sister! Perhaps you intend obligingly to favor me with a few hints for the regulation of my conduct,—to honor me with a little of that valuable advice which I have not been sufficiently alert in asking."
"Agnes! I know myself to be in a most unsuitable position, when criticising anything in your conduct; but if I had died, and returned from another world with permission to speak, I could not be more entirely free from any personal motive. If I give pain to you, I give greater pain to myself; but every one combines in saying, that this old Roman Catholic peer, and his Abbe, are most profligate men; that they scarcely deserve to be well received by ladies of character; that the very glance of their eye is contamination, and that you alone, of all the ladies in this house, are singled out to be, not distinguished, but insulted by their attentions. Surely, Agnes, it is time for me to speak. Our reputation is all we have on earth—more precious to any woman than the wealth of the world, and more precious, if possible, to us, than to others, because we have no other dependence. Patrick is every day on the brink of ruin, and must leave us before long. Our uncle—but I cannot speak of that—when he is gone, we shall be alone indeed."
"When that day comes, I shall be as sorry as yourself; but there is nothing to fear at present. Captain De Crespigny says, all old uncles or aunts who wish to be lamented by their young nieces, should die in the midst of a gay season, to interrupt the parties and balls; but good, worthy Sir Arthur is more considerate than to incommode any one. When we do lose the Admiral, however, be under no apprehension of my remaining alone! I have made up my great mind upon that subject, and you will see that circumstances do not always continue the same."
"Nor people either, Agnes! I have long feared that you trust too implicitly in the constancy of Captain De Crespigny."
"Trust! Do you suppose that I any longer trust him!" exclaimed Agnes—her color rising, and her large eyes glittering with a strange expression of indignant contempt. "No, Marion! He has been represented to me now, as he is, a heartless, vain, unfeeling coquette. All men are monsters, but he is the worst! I can be revenged, however! Even he, cold and indifferent as he is, shall repent! I shall blight his hopes, as he has blighted mine. I shall cross his views, humble and disappoint him. To inflict on him all that he has so wantonly and cruelly inflicted on me; to destroy his insolent triumph, and bring down the pride of his success, I would—yes, Marion, I would, and I shall sacrifice the happiness of my whole life!"
"Dear Agnes! do not say so! Do not even think so for a moment! What can you mean! Revenge would be a wretched satisfaction, at best! If he has treated you ill——"
"If he has!" interrupted Agnes, with startling vehemence. "Marion! the Abbe thinks he could never have married me, even had he wished it. That Captain De Crespigny became entangled, from the time he was a boy, in one of those horrid Scotch affairs, half a marriage, or a whole one, just as he pleases, and Lord Doncaster told me one day in confidence——"
"In confidence, Agnes! What confidence should ever exist between you and such a man as Lord Doncaster? an oldroue! You ought to despise and avoid him!"
"I am apt to think you are quite mistaken," replied Agnes, with a sudden assumption of haughtiness, while she shot an angry glance at Marion. "The last Lord Doncaster but ten, may have been aroue, or what you please, but I know nothing, and will hear nothing against the present."
"That is the very point on which I must speak!" answered Marion, hurriedly, her features working with agitation, while the blood rushed back to her heart. "In a case like this, where love or marriage are completely out of the question, our friends are all astonished that you, Agnes, who make no secret of liking admiration, should waste so much time in deep conversation with that really disreputable old Peer. Believe me, it gives rise to much animadversion, and even calumny, especially when connected with that new ornament you wear; and I begin seriously to fear you may be persuaded into taking the veil."
"Only a bridal veil," replied Agnes, arranging her ringlets. "I am not quite so mad as you think. I certainly have adopted this badge! At Rome I shall do as Rome does. Now, Marion, as young Rapid says in the comedy, 'I shall take it a personal favor if you will not faint;' but the Romish faith suits me best, and I consider it religion in full dress, instead of religion in deshabille. I admire the almost theatrical magnificence of its ritual; the splendid processions, the consecrated dresses, the superb music, the dazzling lights, the clouds of burning incense, the romantic convents, and the magnificent cathedrals."
Marion looked aghast with consternation and sorrow, while she listened in silence; but at length, in a tone of subdued and mournful indignation, she replied, "Is this, then, possible! that without one serious thought, you would forsake our holy faith, for a mere external mockery of religion! a solemn pantomime? Attracted by rosaries, crucifixes, tinkling bells, and empty symbols, you would forget the lessons of our childhood, the church in which we worshipped with our father, the Bible which he taught us to revere. Surely, Agnes, you will consult a clergyman of our own persuasion, before taking rashly the most important step which a mortal can possibly contemplate,—which our parents would rather you had never been born, than that you took."
"Excuse me, for interrupting your sermon. It is against all rule, but it may save you a great deal of trouble," said Agnes, arranging her rings, and re-tying her bouquet; "my sole intention is to be of a similar religion to the man I marry."
"Doyoustill expect," said Marion, with a look of surprise, "to be Mrs. De Crespigny?"
"Or Marchioness of Doncaster!"
"Yes, in due course of time, when Captain De Crespigny succeeds!"
"He never shall succeed," replied Agnes, setting her teeth, and speaking with stern determination, while her face became rigid as stone. "Captain De Crespigny has deceived me, cheated me of my youth, hopes, and happiness. I have been fooled, trifled with, basely ill-treated. My heart is seared against any real attachment to another; but I shall be amply revenged on him. I shall destroy his happiness, as he has destroyed mine. Without his long-expected wealth and title, he will find that the butterfly is but a grub.—I mean to marry his uncle!——"
A dead silence followed these words. Marion made no exclamation, and did not even look at Agnes, but buried her face in her hands, with a feeling of unutterable shame and consternation. The very idea had never before occurred to her imagination, that her young and blooming sister could contemplate so degrading a sacrifice; but when, at length, she looked up, there was something in the proud, stern expression of that beautiful countenance, which forced upon her the unwelcome and extraordinary conviction that all had been said in earnest.
"Agnes!" cried she, gasping with astonishment; "that dissipated, horrid, dreadful man! Impossible! The miserable wreck of an ill-spent life! A superannuatedroue. Are you in jest? or are you mad?"
"Mad! or at least delirious! Marion, we have lived long together, and yet you do not know me! I am not one to sit tamely down, as you would do, and wash my heart away with tears! My sorrows are not to be closeted in silent desolation, but I must act. If hope and happiness are crushed for ever, he who turned my feelings to stone shall suffer for it! He shall no longer wind me on, and wind me off, according to his own caprice! It is like death itself to love in secret, but worse than death when it is known, and he does know all! He knows, believes, and rejoices to believe, that I have waited, suffered, hoped, and feared for him, and for him only; but I am not one to die of scorned love. Now every spark of my regard for him is crushed out. His vanity shall not have another moment's triumph over me," said Agnes, her eyes becoming frightfully brilliant. "My heart feels as if it were buried in a snow-drift, and nothing warms it but the hope of vengeance."
"Agnes! who in her senses would think of being consigned to misery and contempt both here and hereafter, merely to punish one who ought to be despised! If Captain De Crespigny be vain, foolish, and unprincipled, is that a sufficient reason for you to become degraded, and, I must say, infamous!" said Marion, in a tone of undisguised disgust, though her voice made no more impression than the gentle wave on the hard and unbending cliff. "Such a step as this would separate you for ever from those you have most reason to love."
"I am one of the Positive Club, Marion, who never change their minds about anything! and my resolution is unalterable. ''Tis best repenting in a coach and six.'"
"Think, Agnes, not of the short triumph over Captain De Crespigny, but of the long years that must follow,—of the living death you must endure, linked to vice, decrepitude, and immorality, lowered in your own eyes, and contemptible in those of others."
"Mistaken as usual, Marion! a life of mediocrity would be a life of misery to me, and few people think the worse of any young lady for becoming a Marchioness. Lord Doncaster can give me every thing except happiness, and I must find the best substitute for that in my power. A blight is on my heart! my pride has been mortally wounded; but I cannot undertake a cold, insipid, colorless existence, devoid of motive and of hope. It would be ennui drowned in wretchedness, if I return jilted, mortified, and disappointed, to our uncle's dog-hole of a villa at Portobello?"
A red spot burned on Marion's cheek, and indignant tears, occupying the place of words, glittered on her eye-lashes, while her thoughts reverted to their generous, kind-hearted, and high-spirited uncle, whose affection was so undervalued by Agnes, and whose better feelings were about to be so outraged by the announcement of a preposterous and really disgraceful project.
Agnes now assumed the dignity of a peeress in expectancy, looking cold, resolute, and haughty, till at length Marion, overcome with emotion, threw her arms round the neck of her sister, and burst into tears, saying, in accents of incoherent affection,—
"Agnes,—dear Agnes! take pity upon yourself. Lay open your heart to a kind Providence,—pray for peace, but do not barter yourself for revenge. Do not become utterly lost, as well as unhappy! For my sake, for everybody's sake, let us go home as we came! Life is only precious for the eternal hopes and the domestic affections it bestows. Would you rashly throw away both, bringing on a lifetime of unpitied remorse?"
Marion looked up with anxious solicitude, but scarcely had she ceased to speak before Agnes glided out of the room, leaving behind her the splendid missal adorned with Lord Doncaster's arms in gold upon the white parchment binding. Beside it lay the envelope of a letter, with a marquis' coronet on the seal, and underneath was engraved, to her astonishment, the exact date of Agnes' birthday. Marion started when she saw this absurd piece of gallantry, and covered her face with her hands, as if she never could show it again.
She did not know how hate could burn,In hearts once changed from soft to stern;Nor all the false and fatal zeal,The convert of revenge can feel.
She did not know how hate could burn,In hearts once changed from soft to stern;Nor all the false and fatal zeal,The convert of revenge can feel.
She did not know how hate could burn,
In hearts once changed from soft to stern;
Nor all the false and fatal zeal,
The convert of revenge can feel.
Though the leaders of fashion have decided that it looks greedy and gormandizing to be punctually ready for dinner, yet, at the Granby Hotel, no sooner does the clock strike five than the bell rings, and the instantaneous rush of company which then takes place towards the dining-room can only be compared to a congregation hurrying out of church, or a flock of chickens in a poultry-yard assembling to be fed. Doors fly open,—guests are seen precipitating themselves headlong down stairs,—elderly matrons advance, leaning on their gouty, red-faced husbands,—troops of marriageable daughters follow,—and solitary gentlemen are visible, strolling forward in all the unencumbered independence of having no one to care for but themselves. The noise-meter then rises to a deafening pitch, when, to the din of a hundred tongues, is added the jingling of glasses, plates, knives, and forks, while the long serpent-like procession winds slowly into the room, and gradually subsides into places.
Amidst the moving mass of strangely mingled personages, Captain De Crespigny had offered his arm to Marion, which she did not seem to observe, but led forward Sir Arthur, while all eyes were turned upon Agnes, who walked beside Lord Doncaster, with burning cheeks and downcast eyes, yet affecting to look superbly dignified.
Sir Patrick, in the mean time, always on thequi vivefor variety and adventure, entreated Mrs. O'Donoghoe's permission to sit between her and the young lady under charge, who attracted his especial notice because she so obviously suffered from that apprehension of being conspicuous, common to strangers on their first appearance at a public table, and was dressed with a degree of plainness which amounted almost to eccentricity.
"I lose no time in making new acquaintances here," whispered he aside to Mrs. O'Donoghoe, with a glance at her timid companion, who had become a perfect aurora of blushes as she seated herself at the table. "Our short visits at Harrowgate scarcely leave me five minutes to spare for each new face."
"Then I hope you do most of the conversation yourself, for I suspect the young lady, who was placed under mychaperonageby Mr. Crawford, is not so much accustomed to live upon airy nothings, and to run upimpromptuintimacies as you are."
"The sooner she begins then, the better. I have a thousand things to say to her!"
"Perhaps she may not have time for above five hundred of them. You must talk to her like a dialogue book, supplying both the questions and the answers; for, as far as my experience goes, she seems to be shockingly silent and nervous. Are you generally reckoned amusing?"
"Everybody agrees in considering me so, and many people think me quite the reverse, but I can be either the one or the other, on a moment's notice."
"Indeed! a little of both, and a great deal to spare! I imagine it all depends on which way the wind blows!"
"Exactly! I am sentimental in a westerly breeze,—cutting and sarcastic in an east wind,—noisy and boisterous in a northern blast,—and during 'a southerly wind and a cloudy day,' the genius of nonsense takes possession of me so completely, that I have bestowed on myself the privilege of saying whatever I think."
"How shocking! I do not particularly fancy you in any of these moods!"
"Adagio! do not condemn me yet! choose your own subject, concerts, sermons, pic-nics, dress, Harrowgate water, or the last new novel, nothing comes amiss to me! I mean soon to publish a weekly programme of the five or six subjects to which all conversation at the Granby is usually limited; a complete set of the questions invariably asked by all the visitors every day, with a sketch of the most appropriate answers. For my own part, all my replies are given by rote, and it puts me out entirely, if the inquiry whether I have been at Ripley, comes before the question how I like the waters, or who was the last arrival, which is,a propos, the only subject on which I am not very well informed."
Sir Patrick saying these words, gave a sly glance towards his left hand, where the youngincognitasat, without apparently listening to what passed, and as she seemed at the moment to be looking another way, Mrs. O'Donoghoe archly turned round the label on her bottle of wine, so that the young baronet could read that it bore, according to custom, the name of its proprietor 'Miss Smythe.'
Nothing could be a more complete balk to curiosity than such a name. Sir Patrick had already known seven Mrs. Smythes. His washerwoman was Mrs. Smith,—his sister's governess had been a Miss Smith,—two Captains in his own regiment had gloried in the name of Smyth,—and his old Colonel's widow was Mrs. Smith. There was no individuality in the name, but a whisper had reached him in the morning that a Miss Smith, the authoress of several popular romances, was expected at Harrowgate, and a horrible apprehension crossed his mind that, young as she looked, this might actually be the culprit, his surmises respecting which he could not but whisper to the laughing widow, adding, with a look of comical consternation—
"Only think how my portrait will look in her next book! There is no escape, unless I faint away immediately and am carried out! We must remain together now as long as I stay at Harrowgate, for no change of place is allowed. Even if you and I quarrel, there is no remedy! It is like connubial felicity, we are settled here permanently, for better or for worse."
"It might certainly be worse! I am tolerably resigned to my fate, for I sat till lately among the dullest set of hum-drum bores who ever ate a potato; but you are so clever, I always become clever in your company."
"That is a novelty, I suppose?"
"Why, for that matter, my mind is like a piano-forte, which requires to be skilfully played upon," replied the widow, gayly. "I have often been offered large annuities by people, merely to live in their houses and entertain them, but lately I was in danger of falling into a state of sensible, every-day dullness."
"Impossible!"
"You may doubt it—anybody would—but actually, yesterday, talking to Lord Wigton, I was threatened with a fit of prosing! a thing I never was subject to, and I never heard it had been in our family! Whether do you dislike most, a professed wit, or a professed proser, Sir Patrick?"
"My favorite society is any old lady of seventy, who has met with great misfortunes!"
"Well, I am not much upon that pattern, certainly, but fifty years hence, we might make an appointment, perhaps, to meet here again."
"How many succession of visitors will before then have flourished in this house, and vanished. Even after the interval of one season, a visitor's return is like coming back from the grave. Nothing is remembered of either yourself or your cotemporaries. Guests, waiters, landlords, and even boots, have all disappeared."
"Very affecting, indeed," said Mrs. O'Donoghoe; "but half the dinner has disappeared during that long moral discourse of yours, Sir Patrick. Among the transitory things in this house, pray enumerate, another time, theentre-metsand vegetables."
"Pardon me—these dishes re-appear only too often. I have known some of those pies intimately for several days. In our regiment, we called such revivals 'old clothes,' and it really is too bad treating ninety deserving people so ill."
"I should like to live upon the diet of a chameleon! Eating is a vulgar necessity which the mind despises," observed Mrs. O'Donoghoe, helping herself to apate; "but some of the company here seemne pour la digestion, talking love and sentiment over a haunch of venison. Mr. Crawford tells me that an Indian dinner party lasts twelve hours, and people who sit down as thin as skeletons, rise from table quite corpulent."
"It certainly does require the aid of refined conversation to keep up our self-respect in a scene of such gormandizing. For my own part, I live upon anti-pastry principles, and am also a no-vegetable man; but I wish haunches of venison had never been invented! I made fifteen mortal enemies by the last I carved in this house, because no one thought I had given him the best slice," observed Sir Patrick. "I wish all men like old Doncaster, who eat more good things in a day than they say in a year, would dine alone."
"But I think," said Mr. Crawford, "that the habit of meeting at meals is one of our most excellent social customs! If each individual in a family were merely to snatch a morsel when hungry, there would be no re-union, and often no intimacy among members even of the same household. I like frequently to trace the usefulness of old established customs, which have been sanctioned by successive generations, because the advantages are always so much greater than they at first appear, that it has now become quite a sufficient reason for me to respect any custom, when I find that it is an old one."
"I take the liberty of thinking quite the reverse!" said Sir Patrick. "Change is the very essence of enjoyment! change of habits, change of company, and change of air, are all equally necessary, and I never have a guinea in the world without instantly getting it changed. That custom will make a scarcity of silver at the bank, when I marry the heiress, Miss Howard."
"You!" exclaimed Mr. Crawford, his very wig standing on end with surprise, while the young lady next him colored to the very tip of her fingers.
"I beg your pardon," said Sir Patrick, turning to her with one of his most winning smiles. "I thought you gave symptoms of speaking."
A torrent of blushes being her only reply, he began to doubt whether she had the faculty of speech at all, and having decided at last that the young lady was either a statue or an idiot, he turned to his more accessible neighbor, muttering in an under tone, "Mute as a fish! An exhausted receiver! I never saw such a genius for shyness! Her very cap-strings are blushing! But about Miss Howard, my friend De Crespigny, who was born and educated for the very purpose of marrying his cousin, wishes me to take her off his hands, and if I could have sold myself, which I cannot, she might have done. I am told she is very romantic, so he and I agreed once to get up an amicable duel for her, and after that I was to waylay the mad cousin who persecutes her, and horse-whip him!"
"Nothing like spirited beginning," said Mr. Crawford, in agonies of risibility, while the young lady on Sir Patrick's other side, after an evident struggle, during which the ever-deepening color in her cheek became perfectly scarlet, at length burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, so full of fun and glee, that the young baronet instinctively joined her, though amazed and perplexed beyond measure by the oddity of her manner, and by her unspeakable silence. "Your love," added Mr. Crawford, "is to be more in the heroic than in the pastoral style."
"Never was there a Captain of Huzzars so preternaturally in love at first sight, as I should have been. De Crespigny tells me she is first cousin to Crœsus! has land in every country, gold in every bank, the mines of Golconda for a part of her portion, carries a million of money in each pocket, and changes horses three times in driving across her own estate! I should think myself rich to be five minutes in her company."
"I see you are half in joke, and wholly in earnest," said Mrs. O'Donoghoe. "But some gentlemen certainly do speculate in matrimony, exactly as they would in the public stocks. So my poor husband used to say before he left me so handsomely provided for. As for Miss Howard's hundred lovers, they will have but one idea amongst them—money! money! money!"
"Love for an heiress certainly has the most solid of all foundations. How much better to be married for your fortune than for your dancing or singing—your pedigree or connections! There can be no mistake in pounds, shillings, and pence! De Crespigny tells me she is said to be not only very rich, but very plain, therefore as people generally marry their opposites, we shall suit exactly."
The timid young lady had now fallen into a perfect paroxysm of blushes, and an extraordinary twitching about her mouth betrayed the last extreme of nervousness, though whether her agitation were not of a risible nature, Sir Patrick felt somewhat perplexed to decide, especially as she was seized with a fit of coughing which appeared almost like laughter, while she hastily drank up the water in her finger-glass, threw salt over her pudding, and committed a dozen of absurdities, which caused the young Baronet to ask himself whether she were in possession of her fifty senses. A moment afterwards, Sir Patrick felt his arm convulsively grasped by the young lady, as if for protection, while a half-suppressed scream burst from her lips, and she clung to him with an aspect of breathless terror, her lips parted, her cheeks livid, and her eyes almost startling from her head, as she gazed anxiously after the receding figure of a man who was hastily leaving the room.
Sir Patrick, when thus unexpectedly appealed to, started from his seat to offer assistance, though at a loss how to act, when, seeing Miss Smythe's countenance become of a ghastly paleness, he rapidly poured out a tumbler of water, and held it to her lips, proposing, at the same time, to support her out of the room.
"No, no! I am better here!" replied she, in trembling accents.
"I—I need society! I am so nervous! It must have been some dreadful mistake! Excuse me, I would rather remain!"
Mr. Crawford, in the mean time, had rushed hastily out of the room; and, having now returned, he made a signal, as if desirous to escort her also; but to this implied proposal the young lady only answered by an almost imperceptible shake of the head, while she fixed her eyes on her plate, resolved, apparently, to remain stationary. To the great surprise of Sir Patrick, two tall footmen, in plain livery, now placed themselves behind her chair; and, having afterwards closely followed her when the ladies retired to tea, they were observed lounging about in the lobby during the rest of that evening.
"What could be the meaning of such a scene?" asked Mrs. O'Donoghoe, in an undertone of extreme curiosity. "Can you conceive, Sir Patrick, why the young lady started in that extraordinary way?"
"Yes!" whispered he confidentially. "I can explain, but do not mention this. It was because—she couldn't help it! There is a sublime mystery of some kind at work here! I cannot dive into it! Suppose she were to turn out Miss Howard Smythesonincog.!"
"Oh no! that is impossible! Her aunt was coming with her, who is one of my most intimate friends!"
Never had anybody so many most intimate friends, as Mrs. O'Donoghoe. Every person she met for half-an-hour, had the honor to be so designated, and if a gentleman were distinguished by the appellation, it was generally followed by a very plain insinuation that she had refused him. Of late, however, Mrs. O'Donoghoe had been more cautious in such assertions, having been discredited in one of her many forgeries on the bank of truth, by its being proved, that she boasted of a proposal from Mr. Crawford three weeks after it became known that he was already engaged to his second wife. Such accidents happen, however, in the best-regulated families!
It is absolutely indispensable that every visitor at Harrowgate shall go through a course, not merely of its waters, but of all the castles, ruins, rocks, lakes, gardens, and houses in the neighborhood, and especially that,bon gre, mal gre, he shall spend one entire day in rhapsodizing among the splendid fragments of Fountain Abbey. The leading question asked of every visitor at the Granby, at least nine times a day is, whether he has seen the Abbey, followed by exclamations of dismay and astonishment, if he have not. A shower of inquiries then follows, how soon he intends to go there, after which no one forgets the exact day and hour named, while every good-natured friend fills up occasional gaps in the conversation by hoping he may be favored with a fine morning for his excursion.
No stranger, unmarried and marriageable, at the Granby, has any right or title to the squandering of his own time, as the whole race of chaperons have assumed the privilege of knowing how he spends it, as well as of dictating the various ways in which he should and must dispose of himself; and, accordingly, Sir Patrick and Captain De Crespigny found themselves one day ensnared into asoi-disantparty of pleasure to Studley, from which they had no more chance of escape than a brace of partridges at abattu.
As Madame De Stael remarks, "English weather does better to rail at, than if it were finer; and if Britain had a settled climate and a despotic government, there would be an end of all conversation." After a long succession of good-for-nothing days, during which the rain seemed to pour from a thousand water-spouts, till the world was in a perfect dropsy, and it was feared the sun must have met with an accident, as he seemed unable to appear, he at last, contrary to custom, when a pic-nic is in the case, blazed out with unprecedented splendor, and became quite a spendthrift of his rays. September had evidently borrowed a day from June for the occasion; and yet Sir Patrick, who would much rather have encountered any danger than the smallest discomfort, staid an hour in bed to consider whether there was anything that might happen in the whole course of that day, sufficiently agreeable to reward him for the effort of rising. Except a fox-chase, however, nothing could have done so; and he secretly detested the very thoughts of walking five mortal miles, and spending five mortal hours in "doing the rural" among the dismal cloisters of a roofless ruin, or bush-ranging through damp shrubberies, with a committee of enraptured young ladies.
His fellow-sufferer, Captain De Crespigny, stood yawning and humming a tune beside him, waiting for the carriage, and expressing a hope, that though he had almost fallen out of acquaintance with nature, and wished pic-nics had never been invented, yet perhaps, with the assistance of sandwiches, champagne, chicken pies, porter, music, and young ladies, the expedition might be endurable, when the noise of wheels grinding along the gravel, attracted their attention, and Mr. Crawford's carriage passed on its way to Studley, with the two tall footmen of the evening before, mounted behind. A moment afterwards, Sir Patrick perceived the excited looking stranger, whom he had already remarked, leading his horse out of the stable, with a degree of haste and impatience quite unaccountable, while the animal seemed resolute to postpone the evil hour of being mounted, though his master lashed and swore at him with an extreme of cruel violence, which raised Sir Patrick's utmost indignation. He was rather strangely attired for so sultry a morning, being equipped in a large, rough greatcoat, a thick neckcloth, a riding whip, and a broad brimmed, melo-dramatic looking hat. Having at length mastered his refractory charger, he rode straight up to Sir Patrick, with a contracted brow, saying, in tones of high irritation, while riveting his fierce eyes on the young baronet with an expression that strongly betokened insanity:
"You are disposed to be observant this morning! We shall certainly know each other again! In which direction did Mr. Crawford's carriage drive off?"
"I observe only for my own amusement!" replied Sir Patrick, haughtily turning away, and humming a tune.
"Allow me to remind you that those who whistle before breakfast, may weep before night," said the stranger, with a malignant scowl, drawing back his lips, and breathing through his clenched teeth, as he glanced at Captain De Crespigny, and galloped rapidly away, followed at a more moderate pace by the two gentlemen.
"I am in the humor to knock every body down!" said Sir Patrick; "and there was an admirable opportunity lost! I dislike the looks of that man! He is evidently cracked! Depend upon it, his skull will never ring again! Do you observe, De Crespigny, he has nearly overtaken the carriage, and pulls up now, apparently anxious not to be seen by the servants. In days of yore, we might have been certain he was a highwayman, going to rob that barouche; but such things are done in a pocket-picking, pettifogging way now, without an atom of spirit or adventure. Why, my good friend, what a very particularly brown study you are in! What is the matter?"
"Nothing! nothing! I am solving an enigma! I must get another look of this man! Dunbar, years have passed since that voice rang in my ears, but it must be Ernest Anstruther's! Though shrill from excitement, and every fibre of his body seems dilated with madness, it can be no other, and we must have him seized this day. I actually shivered before the fierce glare of his eye; but let us forget it. I cannot speak upon the subject at present, for it involves all the deepest interests of my life. Now, then, for Fountain Abbey! I feel in the humor that I could strike the air for breathing in my face. It would be dangerous for any body to ask me how I do!"
"I wish all gaunt skeletons of deceased houses were buried out of sight! The very idea of those damp, mouldy walls would give me the rheumatism. Had we not better return?" said Sir Patrick, looking anxiously at his companion.
"No!" replied Captain De Crespigny, who seemed resolute to conquer his agitation, or to conceal it. "I say like Luther, 'if it rained madmen, let us go on!'"
"Then, my good fellow, you deserve to be put in a straight waistcoat yourself!"
"Well, if you will buy and pay for one, I have not the slightest objection to wear it."
"If we could get up a good old-fashioned belief in ghosts, for this occasion, and go to Fountain Abbey some other day by moonlight, there would be some sense in it," persisted Sir Patrick; but seeing that his friend was not to be dissuaded, he changed the subject, adding: "Our existence now is detestably matter-of-fact. I should like to have lived in the days of giants, fairies, witchcraft, and the philosopher's stone!"
"You would have required the last, Dunbar, certainly. For an excursion, commend me to Harwood House. It is like a fashionable residence in Park Lane. Such Brussels carpets, rosewood sofas, and damask curtains, that I felt quite at home; but here we have a bad road; and worse dinner. A refrectory with no refreshments, and a kitchen fire, where a whole herd of oxen might be roasted whole, and not so much as a beefsteak to be had. Visitors may not even take, like the horses, a nose-bag with provisions."
"We might at least air the ruins with a segar. Well, here are the ladies; and now that I have brought you here, and you have brought me, let us make the best of it. We must honor the old Abbey with a glance, though I am sure, before we are done, I shall be walked off my legs."
"I knew a gentleman, once," said Agnes, "who walked till nothing was left of him but his hat."
"It seems as if all the birds and butterflies in Britain had an appointment here to-day," said Marion. "How their twittering and mad spirits enliven me. That thrush is a perfect Orpheus! Few can ever sing like these simple, self-taught musicians."
"Anybody can. Grisi, Pasta, you, or I, could," replied Captain De Crespigny. "It is pleasant, however, to be received with so lively a serenade. These little creatures are happy without being able to say why or wherefore; and how often we ourselves are miserable, though unable to tell the cause, or perhaps, Miss Dunbar, to excite the pity we deserve."
"There is evidently a much greater proportion of happiness than of misery in the animal world, as they do not make unnecessary annoyances for themselves or others," said Marion, wishing to talk on indifferent topics, as she observed her brother watching, to see how she received his friend. "What bird in all the world would you like best to be?"
"A canary, or a piping bullfinch, because you would keep me in a cage, and treat me kindly. I should wish to borrow the language of any living creature that pleases you! I am born to succeed in everything but in gaining your approbation, which I would rather never have been born than live without. I could willingly go step by step round the world, to find out the secret of pleasing you; and I am falling rapidly into a Byron-like, misanthropic melancholy, because of your cruel indifference. How I wish emotions were communicated like electricity, without the slow, vulgar use of language, for I always feel so much more than I can express, especially in your society."
"Why do you not take to writing verses; for you know poets all work themselves up into fictitious emotions, which they pour out upon paper, without troubling any one individual more than another, to believe or disbelieve them. Your poems might be lithographed for private circulation, and one of each sent to Agnes and me, to the five Miss Ogilvies, and to all Lady Towercliffe's daughters. You would require eight eyes, like a spider, to look after so many!"
"But," replied he, in his most sentimental tone, "there is a want of which one might die in the midst of plenty. If all ladies were like you, one might be surrounded by a hundred, and yet die of a broken heart!"
"Any one may break his own heart, if he pleases, but he has no right to break other people's," replied Marion, jestingly; "and there are some who have no more scruple, I am told, in doing so, than in breaking stones on the road."
"Perhaps the hearts are as hard as the stones, if we may take yours as a specimen; but you really are becoming severe! Take care you do not hurt my feelings!"
"Your feelings!" exclaimed Marion, with a gay, half-reproachful laugh, as she caught the eye of Agnes. "I thought you only played upon the feelings of others, because you really had none of your own."
Near the gate leading into the superb grounds of Studley, no less than two-and-thirty carriages were assembled, from the low elderly gig and graceful pony carriage, to the aristocratic barouche and four, not to mention tax-carts, phaetons, curricles, and coronetted chariots, filled with joyous groups and laughing faces. The landscape around seemed as if colored in the rich, deep tints of some ancient painter pre-eminent in his art, so bright, so distinct, and so immoveable in its rare and singular beauty, serene and lovely, like a mind at peace. The pencil of Poussin or of Watteau could scarcely have done justice to such a scene. The air was literally raining sunshine, and a light cloud here and there sailed across the blue sky from the foreground to the distant horizon, while the rich canopy of massy trees over head, tinted with the many-colored hues of autumn, and the carpet of velvet turf beneath, were enlivened by a thousand birds, hopping sportively from bough to bough, like feathered arrows, and by the gay insect world fluttering in rapid career from flower to flower, humming aloud their ceaseless sounds of joyful activity.
Every walk was sprinkled over with gaily-dressed loungers, sunning themselves in the bright atmosphere, and no flower in the field looked more fresh, more natural, or more lovely than Marion, whose beauty had never appeared more attractive than now, amidst all the sumptuous magnificence of nature, which seemed on the present occasion to be adorned in her full dress regalia.
"This is a very tolerable imitation of a fine day!" said Captain De Crespigny, shading his eyes to gaze around, and looking as if the landscape were made on purpose for him. "I see determined admiration in your countenance, Miss Dunbar, but I mean to out-ecstacy you altogether in my expressions of rapture! Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains."
"Charming!" said Marion, absently, and looking round for Sir Arthur. "I am glad you are pleased."
"To be sure! you are pleased, I am pleased, everybody is pleased! This was called a party of pleasure, and nothing could be a party of pleasure to me, unless you were included; but now all the world is here! at least those who are all the world to me, and I expect a day of perfect happiness."
"That is as much certainly as any reasonable person can reckon upon, and I believe it is more likely to be enjoyed in the simple rural pleasures of the country than anywhere! Some persons whom we might almost envy, think it pleasure enough for a whole day to find a tom-tit's nest, containing, for a wonder, five eggs instead of four, or follow the flight of a king-fisher during six whole hours, at full speed, in a morning, to see where he feeds, and can talk for half a day about some new combination of colors in pansy or chrysanthemum."
"And yet they would be reckoned silly and vulgar, to speak half as long about a new combination of color in a ribbon, which is in my estimation quite as interesting! If all those who detest the country, had courage to confess it, as I do, how the shades of rural life would be deserted, and volumes of rural poetry cast into the fire! I am not one to 'hang a thought on ev'ry thorn,' and indeed my thoughts have thorns enough already!"
"There is too much still water at Studley, and the grounds are altogether too artificial for my taste," said Marion. "Those little ponds, like globes for gold-fish, are dull and uninteresting."
"They resemble china bowls, and should be filled with iced punch!" observed Sir Patrick. "Anything so like the basin of the Serpentine reminds me of old women committing suicide! This is not a good sporting country, so crowded with laurels, temples, statues, cascades, and that sort of trash! I wish we had all staid at home, and looked over Turner's views of Studley, for they are beautifully done!"
"Yes!" said Agnes, yawning, "I like the works of art better than nature, pictures, statues, books, or pianofortes; and" added she, with a withering look at Captain De Crespigny, "I like human nature least of all."
"What has set you off Childe-Haroldizing this morning, Agnes?" asked Sir Patrick, with angry surprise. "Strike me poetical, but I like Marion's style of admiring, exclaiming, and wondering the best, for it is not either overdone or underdone!"
"You shall have a most intelligent guide, Sir, immediately," said the superintendent of the lodge, civilly touching his hat to Sir Patrick.
"Let him be deaf and dumb, if you have any compassion for me. It is trouble enough to come here, without listening to an endless rigmarole about ancient abbots, clustered pillars, and stone coffins. The fellow will not abate a single tomb or tree! I could invent a story quite as good as his, and equally true! 'built nobody knows when, and destroyed nobody knows how.'"
"I like to hear all, and believe all," said Marion; "but you remind me, Patrick, of the French lady, who said she wished to be taught everything in two words. Now let us summon up any little poetry that may be lurking in our composition, to admire those noble, pillar-like elms, with branches so thickly clustered that the wind can scarcely elbow its way through the leaves. Those shadows are magnificent, flickering across the road."
"Give me an old post-horse instead of an old tree, and I shall call up much finer associations!" said Sir Patrick. "My sole idea of enjoying the country is connected with hunting, shooting, and fishing; but as to living for ruins, flowers, green trees, fat cows, rocky mountains, and all that sort of trash, excuse me. They do for poets and painters, professionally, to rave about, but I care no more to look at that prodigiously aged tree before me, than at old Lord Doncaster, tottering behind us with Agnes."
"That tree, Sir, is a Spanish chesnut, 112 feet high, and 22 feet in girth," said the guide, in his usual business-like tone. "It has seen a hundred summers."