A HALTING PROPOSAL.
Shallow. Will you upon good dowry, marry her?
Slender. I will do a greater thing than that, upon your request.
Merry Wives of Windsor.
The first thing that Louis did appear to care for was a letter that
arrived about three days previous to their departure, addressed to
'Lord Fitsgosling, Hawmsfield Park, Northwold.' Rather too personal,
as he observed, he must tell his correspondent that it hurt his
feelings. The correspondent was Tom Madison, whose orthography lagged
behind his other attainments, if his account might be trusted of 'they
lectures on Kemistry.' His penmanship was much improved, and he was
prospering, with hopes of promotion and higher wages, when he should
have learnt to keep accounts. He liked Mr. Dobbs and the chaplain, and
wished to know how to send a crown per post to 'old granfer up at
Marksedge; because he is too ignorant to get a border sinned. Please,
my lord, give my duty to him and all enquiring friends, and to Schirlt,
up at the Teras.'
Highly amused, Louis lay on the uppermost step from the library window,
in the cool summer evening, laughing over the letter. 'There, Aunt
Kitty, he said, 'I commit that tender greeting to your charge,' and as
she looked doubtful, 'Yes, do, there's a good aunt and mistress.'
'I am afraid I should not be a good mistress; I ought not to sanction
it.'
'Better sanction it above board than let it go on by stealth,' said
Louis. 'You are her natural protector.'
'So much the more reason against it! I ought to wish her to forget
this poor boy of yours.'
'Ay, and light Hymen's torch with some thriving tallow chandler, who
would marry a domestic slave as a good speculation, without one spark
of the respectful chivalrous love that--'
'Hush! you absurd boy.'
'Well, then, if you won't, I shall go to Jane. The young ladies are
all too cold and too prudent, but Jane has a soft spot in her heart,
and will not think true love is confined within the rank that keeps a
gig. I did think Aunt Kitty had been above vulgar prejudices.'
'Not above being coaxed by you, you gosling, you,' said Aunt Kitty;
'only you must come out of the dew, the sun is quite gone.'
'Presently,' said Louis, as she retreated by the window.
'I would not have been too cold or too prudent!' said Clara.
'I well believe it!'
'You will be one if you are not the other,' said Mary, gathering her
work up, with the dread of one used to tropical dews. 'Are not you
coming in?'
'When I can persuade myself to write a letter of good advice, a thing I
hate.'
'Which,' asked Mary; 'giving or receiving it?'
'Receiving, of course.'--'Giving, of course,' said Clara and Louis at
the same instant.
'Take mine, then,' said Mary, 'and come out of the damp.'
'Mary is so tiresome about these things!' cried Clara, as their cousin
retreated. 'Such fidgetting nonsense.'
'I once argued it with her,' said Louis, without stirring; 'and she had
the right side, that it is often more self-denying to take care of
one's health, than to risk it for mere pleasure or heedlessness.'
'There's no dew!' said Clara; 'and if there was, it would not hurt, and
if it did, I should be too glad to catch a cold, or something to keep
me at home. Oh, if I could only get into a nice precarious state of
health!'
'You would soon wish yourself at school, or anywhere else, so that you
could feel some life in your limbs,' half sighed Louis.
'I've more than enough! Oh! how my feet ache to run! and my throat
feels stifled for want of making a noise, and the hatefulness of always
sitting upright, with my shoulders even! Come, you might pity me a
little this one night, Louis: I know you do, for Jem is always telling
me not to let you set me against it.'
'No, I don't pity you. Pity is next akin to contempt.'
'Nonsense, Louis. Do be in earnest.'
'I have seldom seen the human being whom I could presume to pity:
certainly not you, bravely resisting folly and temptation, and with so
dear and noble a cause for working.'
'You mean, the hope of helping to maintain grandmamma.'
'Which you will never be able to do, unless you pass through this
ordeal, and qualify yourself for skilled labour.'
'I know that,' said Clara; 'but the atmosphere there seems to poison,
and take the vigour out of all they teach. Oh, so different from
granny teaching me my notes, or Jem teaching me French--'
'Growling at you--'
'He never growled half as much as, I deserved. I cared to learn of
him; but I don't care for anything now,--no, not for drawing, which you
taught me! There's no heart in it! The whole purpose is to get
amazing numbers of marks and pass each other. All dates and words, and
gabble gabble!'
'Ay! there's an epitome of the whole world: all ambition, and vanity,
and gabble gabble,' said Louis, sadly. 'And what is a gosling, that he
should complain?'
'You don't mean that in reality. You are always merry.
'Some mirth is because one does not always think, Clara; and when one
does think deeply enough, there is better cheerfulness.'
'Deeply enough,' said Clara. 'Ah! I see. Knowing that the world of
gabble is not what we belong to, only a preparation? Is that it!'
'It is what I meant.'
'Ah I but how to make that knowledge help us.'
'There's the point. Now and then, I think I see; but then I go off on
a wrong tack: I get a silly fit, and a hopeless one, and lose my clue.
And yet, after all, there is a highway; and wayfaring men, though
fools, shall not err therein,' murmured Louis, as he gazed on the first
star of evening.
'Oh! tell me how to see my highway at school!'
'If I only kept my own at home, I might. But you have the
advantage--you have a fixed duty, and you always have kept hold of your
purposes much better than I.'
'My purpose!' said Clara. 'I suppose that is to learn as fast as I
can, that I may get away from that place, and not be a burthen to
granny and Jem. Perhaps Jem will marry and be poor, and then I shall
send his sons to school and college.'
'And pray what are your social duties till that time comes?'
'That's plain enough,' said Clara: 'to keep my tone from being
deteriorated by these girls. Why, Louis, what's that for?' as, with a
bow and air of alarm, he hastily moved aside from her.
'If you are so much afraid of being deteriorated--'
'Nonsense! If you only once saw their trumpery cabals, and vanities,
and mean equivocations, you would understand that the only thing to be
done is to keep clear of them; take the learning I am sent for, but
avoid them!'
'And where is the golden rule all this time?' said Louis, very low.
'But ought not one to keep out of what is wrong?'
'Yes, but not to stand aloof from what is not wrong. Look out, not for
what is inferior to yourself, but what is superior. Ah! you despair;
but, my Giraffe, will you promise me this? Tell me, next Christmas, a
good quality for every bad one you have found in them. You shake your
head. Nay, you must, for the credit of your sex. I never found the
man in whom there was not something to admire, and I had rather not
suppose that women are not better than men. Will you promise?'
'I'll try, but--'
'But, mind, it takes kind offices to bring the blossoms out.
There--that's pretty well, considering our mutual sentiments as to good
advice.'
'Have you been giving me good advice?'
'Not bad, I hope.'
'I thought only people like--like Mary--could give advice.'
'Ah! your blindness about Mary invalidates your opinion of your
schoolfellows. It shows that you do not deserve a good friend.'
'I've got you; I want no other.'
'Quite wrong. Not only is she full of clear, kind, solid sense, like a
pillar to lean on, but she could go into detail with you in your
troubles. You have thrown away a great opportunity, and I am afraid I
helped you. I shall hold you in some esteem when you are--to conclude
sententiously--worthy of her friendship.'
Clara's laugh was loud enough to bring out the Earl, to summon them
authoritatively out of the dew. Louis sat apart, writing his letter;
Clara, now and then, hovering near, curious to hear how he had
corrected Tom's spelling. He had not finished, when the ladies bade
him good-night; and, as he proceeded with it, his father said, 'What is
that engrossing correspondence, Louis?'
'Such a sensible letter, that I am quite ashamed of it,' said Louis.
'I wonder at the time you chose for writing, when you are so soon to
part with our guests.'
'I have no excuse, if you think it uncivil. I never have spirit to set
about anything till the sun is down.'
His father began at once to speak softly: 'No, I intended no blame; I
only cannot but wonder to see you so much engrossed with Clara Dynevor.'
'Poor child! she wants some compensation.'
'I have no doubt of your kind intentions; but it would be safer to
consider what construction may be placed on attentions so exclusive.'
Louis looked up in blank, incredulous amazement, and then almost
laughingly exclaimed, 'Is that what you mean? Why, she is an infant, a
baby--'
'Not in appearance--'
'You don't know her, father,' said Louis. 'I love her with all my
heart, and could not do more. Why, she is, and always has been, my
she-younger-brother!'
'I am aware,' said the Earl, without acknowledging this peculiar
relationship, 'that this may appear very ridiculous, but experience has
shown the need of caution. I should be concerned that your heedless
good-nature should be misconstrued, so as to cause pain and
disappointment to her, or to lead you to neglect one who has every
claim to your esteem and gratitude.'
Louis was bewildered. 'I have been a wretch lately,' he said, 'but I
did not know I had been a bear.'
'I did not mean that you could be deficient in ordinary courtesy; but I
had hoped for more than mere indifferent civility towards one eminently
calculated--' Lord Ormersfield for once failed in his period.
'Are we talking at cross purposes?' exclaimed Fitzjocelyn. 'What have
I been doing, or not doing?'
'If my meaning require explanation, it is needless to attempt any.-- Is
your ankle painful to-night?'
Not a word more, except about his health, could Louis extract, and he
went to his room in extreme perplexity. Again and again did he revolve
those words. Quick as were his perceptions on most points, they were
slow where self-consciousness or personal vanity might have sharpened
them; and it was new light to him that he had come to a time of life
that could attach meaning to his attentions.
Whom had he been neglecting? What had his father been hoping? Who was
eminently calculated, and for what?
It flashed upon him all at once. 'I see! I see!' he cried, and burst
into a laugh.
Then came consternation, or something very like it. He did not want to
feel embarked in manhood. And then his far-away dream of a lady-love
had been so transcendently fair, so unequalled in grace, so perfect in
accomplishments, so enthusiastic in self-devoted charity, all
undefined, floating on his imagination in misty tints of glory! That
all this should be suddenly brought down from cloudland, to sink into
Mary Ponsonby, with the honest face and downright manner for whom
romance and rapture would be positively ridiculous!
Yet the notion would not be at once dismissed. His declaration that he
would do anything to gratify his father had been too sincere for him
lightly to turn from his suggestion, especially at a moment when he was
full of shame at his own folly, and eagerness to retain the ground he
had lost in his father's opinion, and, above all, to make him happy.
His heart thrilled and glowed as he thought of giving his father real
joy, and permanently brightening and enlivening that lonely, solitary
life. Besides, who could so well keep the peace between him and his
father, and save him by hints and by helpfulness from giving annoyance?
He had already learnt to depend on her; she entered into all his
interests, and was a most pleasant companion--so wise and good, that
the most satisfactory days of his life had been passed under her
management, and he had only broken from it to 'play the fool.' He was
sick of his own volatile Quixotism, and could believe it a relief to be
kept in order without trusting to his own judgment. She had every
right to his esteem and affection, and the warm feeling he had for her
could only be strengthened by closer ties. The unworldliness of the
project likewise weighed with him. Had she been a millionaire or a
Duke's daughter, he would not have spent one thought on the matter; but
he was touched by seeing how his father's better feelings had conquered
all desire for fortune or connexion.
And then Mary could always find everything he wanted!
'I will do it!' he determined. 'Never was son more bound to consider
his father. Of course, she will make a much better wife than I
deserve. Most likely, my fancies would never have been fulfilled. She
will save me from my own foolishness. What ought a man to wish for
more than a person sure to make him good? And--well, after all, it
cannot be for a long time. They must write to Lima. Perhaps they will
wait till her father's return, or at least till I have taken my degree.'
This last encouraging reflection always wound up the series that
perpetually recurred throughout that night of broken sleep; and when he
rose in the morning, he felt as if each waking had added a year to his
life, and looked at the glass to see whether he had not grown quite
elderly.
'No, indeed! I am ridiculously youthful, especially since I shaved off
my moustache in my rage at the Yeomanry mania! I must systematically
burn my cheeks, to look anything near her age!' And he laughed at
himself, but ended with a long-drawn sigh.
He was in no state of mind to pause: he was tired of self-debate, and
was in haste to render the step irrevocable, and then fit himself to
it; and he betook himself at once to the study, where he astonished his
father by his commencement, with crimson cheeks--'I wished to speak to
you. Last night I did not catch your meaning at once.'
'We will say no more about it,' was the kind answer. 'If you cannot
turn your thoughts in that direction, there is an end of the matter.'
'I think,' said Louis, 'that I could.'
'My dear boy,' said the Earl, with more eagerness than he could quite
control, 'you must not imagine that I wish to influence your
inclinations unduly; but I must confess that what I have seen for the
last few months, has convinced me that nothing could better secure your
happiness.'
'I believe so,' said Louis, gazing from the window.
'Right,' cried the Earl, with more gladness and warmth than his son had
ever seen in him; 'I am delighted that you appreciate such sterling
excellence! Yes, Louis,' and his voice grew thick, 'there is nothing
else to trust to.'
'I know it,' said Louis. 'She is very good. She made me very happy
when I was ill.'
'You have seen her under the most favourable circumstances. It is the
only sort of acquaintance to be relied on. You have consulted your own
happiness far more than if you had allowed yourself to be attracted by
mere showy gifts.'
'I am sure she will do me a great deal of good,' said Louis, still
keeping his eyes fixed on the evergreens.
'You could have done nothing to give me more pleasure!' said the Earl,
with heartfelt earnestness. 'I know what she is, and what her mother
has been to me. That aunt of hers is a stiff, wrongheaded person, but
she has brought her up well--very well, and her mother has done the
rest. As to her father, that is a disadvantage; but, from what I hear,
he is never likely to come home; and that is not to be weighed against
what she is herself. Poor Mary! how rejoiced she will be, that her
daughter at least should no longer be under that man's power! It is
well you have not been extravagant, like some young men, Louis. If you
had been running into debt, I should not have been able to gratify your
wishes now; but the property is so nearly disencumbered, that you can
perfectly afford to marry her, with the very fair fortune she must
have, unless her father should gamble it away in Peru.'
This was for Lord Ormersfield the incoherency of joy, and Louis was
quite carried along by his delight. The breakfast-bell rang, and the
Earl rising and drawing his son's arm within his own, pressed it,
saying, 'Bless you, Louis!' It was extreme surprise and pleasure to
Fitzjocelyn, and yet the next moment he recollected that he stood
committed.
How silent he was--how unusually gentle and gracious his father to the
whole party! quite affectionate to Mary, and not awful even to Clara.
There was far too much meaning in it, and Louis feared Mrs. Ponsonby
was seeing through all.
'A morning of Greek would be insupportable,' thought he; and yet he
felt as if the fetters of fate were being fast bound around him, when
he heard his father inviting James to ride with him.
He wandered and he watched, he spoke absently to Clara, but felt as if
robbed of a protector, when she was summoned up-stairs to attend to her
packing, and Mary remained alone, writing one of her long letters to
Lima.
'Now or never,' thought he, 'before my courage cools. I never saw my
father in such spirits!'
He sat down on an ottoman opposite to her, and turned over some
newspapers with a restless rustling.
'Can I fetch anything for you?' asked Mary, looking up.
'No, thank you. You are a great deal too good to me, Mary.'
'I am glad,' said Mary, absently, anxious to go on with her letter;
but, looking up again at him--'I am sure you want something.'
'No--nothing--but that you should be still more good to me.'
'What is the matter?' said Mary, suspecting that he was beginning to
repent of his lazy fit, and wanted her to hear his confession.
'I mean, Mary,' said he, rising, and speaking faster, 'if you--if you
would take charge of me altogether. If you would have me, I would do
all I could to make you happy, and it would be such joy to my father,
and--'(rather like an after-thought)'to me.'
Her clear, sensible eyes were raised, and her colour deepened, but the
confusion was on the gentleman's side--she was too much amazed to feel
embarrassment, and there was a pause, till he added, 'I know better
than to think myself worthy of you; but you will take me in hand--and,
indeed, Mary, there is no one whom I like half so well.'
Poor Louis! was this his romantic and poetical wooing!
'Stop, if you please, Louis!' exclaimed Mary. 'This is so very
strange!' And she seemed ready to laugh.
'And--what do you say, Mary?'
'I do not know. I cannot tell what I ought to say,' she returned,
rising. 'Will you let me go to mamma?'
She went; and Louis roamed about restlessly, till, on the stairs, he
encountered Mrs. Frost, who instantly exclaimed, 'Why, my dear, what is
the matter with you?'
'I have been proposing to Mary,' said he, in a very low murmur, his
eyes downcast, but raised the next moment, to see the effect, as if it
had been a piece of mischief.
'Well--proposing what?'
'Myself;' most innocently whispered.
'You!--you!--Mary!--And--' Aunt Catharine was scarcely able to speak,
in the extremity of her astonishment. 'You are not in earnest!'
'She is gone to her mother,' said Louis, hanging over the baluster, so
as to look straight down into the hall; and both were silent, till Mrs.
Frost exclaimed, 'My dear, dear child, it is an excellent choice! You
must be very happy with her!'
'Yes, I found my father was bent on it.'
'That was clear enough,' said his aunt, laughing, but resuming a tone
of some perplexity. 'Yet it takes me by surprise: I had not guessed
that you were so much attracted.'
'I do like her better than any one. No one is so thoroughly good, no
one is likely to make me so good, nor my father so happy.'
There was some misgiving in Mrs. Frost's tone, as she said, 'Dear
Louis, you are acting on the best of motives, but--'
'Don't, pray don't, Aunt Kitty,' cried Louis, rearing himself for an
instant to look her in the face, but again throwing half his body over
the rail, and speaking low. 'I could not meet any one half so good, or
whom I know as well. I look up to her, and--yes--I do love her
heartily--I would not have done it otherwise. I don't care for beauty
and trash, and my father has set his heart on it.'
'Yes, but--' she hesitated. 'My dear, I don't think it safe to marry,
because one's father has set his heart on it.'
'Indeed,' said Louis, straightening himself, 'I do think I am giving
myself the best chance of being made rational and consistent. I never
did so well as when I was under her.'
'N--n--no--but--'
'And think how my father will unbend in a homelike home, where all
should be made up to him,' he continued, deep emotion swelling his
voice.
'My dear boy! And you are sure of your own feeling?'
'Quite sure. Why, I never saw any one,' said he, smiling--'I never
cared for any one half so much, except you, Aunt Kitty, no, I didn't.
Won't that do?'
'I know I should not have liked your grandpapa--your uncle, I mean-to
make such comparisons.'
'Perhaps he had not got an Aunt Kitty,' said Louis.
'No, no! I can't have you so like a novel. No, don't be anxious. It
can't be for ever so long, and, of course, the more I am with her, the
better I must like her. It will be all right.'
'I don't think you know anything about it,' said Mrs. Frost, 'but
there, that's the last I shall say. You'll forgive your old aunt.'
He smiled, and playfully pressed her hand, adding, 'But we don't know
whether she will have me.'
Mary had meantime entered her mother's room, with a look that revealed
the whole to Mrs. Ponsonby, who had already been somewhat startled by
the demeanour of the father and son at breakfast.
'Oh, mamma, what is to be done?'
'What do you wish, my child?' asked her mother, putting her arm round
her waist.
'I don't know yet,' said Mary. 'It is so odd!' And the disposition to
laugh returned for a moment.
'You were not at all prepared.'
'Oh no! He seems so young. And,' she added, blushing, 'I cannot tell,
but I should not have thought his ways were like the kind of thing.'
'Nor I, and the less since Clara has been here.'
'Oh,' said Mary, without a shade on her calm, sincere brow, 'he has
Clara so much with him because he is her only friend.'
The total absence of jealousy convinced Mrs. Ponsonby that the heart
could hardly have been deeply touched, but Mary continued, in a
slightly trembling voice, 'I do not see why he should have done this,
unless--'
'Unless that his father wished it.'
'Oh,' said Mary, somewhat disappointed, 'but how could Lord Ormersfield
possibly--'
'He has an exceeding dread of Louis's making as great a mistake as he
did,' said Mrs. Ponsonby; 'and perhaps he thinks you the best security.'
'And you think Louis only meant to please him?'
'My dear, I am afraid it may be so. Louis is very fond of him, and
easily led by a strong character.'
She pressed her daughter closer, and felt rather than heard a little
sigh; but all that Mary said was, 'Then I had better not think about
it.'
'Nay, my dear, tell me first what you think of his manner.'
'It was strange, and a little debonnaire, I think,' said Mary, smiling,
but tears gathering in her eyes. 'He said I was too good for him. He
said he would make me happy, and that he and his father would be very
happy.' A great tear fell. 'Something about not being worthy.' Mary
shed a few more tears, while her mother silently caressed her; and,
recovering her composure, she firmly said, 'Yes, mamma, I see it is not
the real thing. It will be kinder to him to tell him to put it out of
his head.'
'And you, my dear?'
'Oh, mamma, you know you could not spare me.'
'If this were the real thing, dearest--'
'No,' whispered Mary, 'I could not leave you alone with papa.'
Mrs. Ponsonby went on as if she had not heard: 'As it is, I own I am
relieved that you should not wish to accept him. I cannot be sure it
would be for your happiness.'
'I do not think it would be right,' said Mary, as if that were her
strength.
'He is a dear, noble fellow, and has the highest, purest principles and
feelings. I can't but love him almost as if he were my own child: I
never saw so much sweetness and prettiness about any one, except his
mother; and, oh! how far superior he is to her! But then, he is
boyish, he is weak--I am afraid he is changeable.'
'Not in his affections,' said Mary, reproachfully.
'No, but in purposes. An impulse leads him he does not know where, and
now, I think, he is acting on excellent motives, without knowing what
he is doing. There's no security that he might not meet the person
who--'
'Oh, mamma!'
'He would strive against temptation, but we have no right to expose him
to it. To accept him now, it seems to me, would be taking too much
advantage of his having been left so long to our mercy, and it might
be, that he would become restless and discontented, find out that he
had not chosen for himself--regret--and have his tone of mind lowered--'
'Oh, stop, mamma, I would not let it be, on any account.'
'No, my dear, I could not part with you where we were not sure the
'real thing' was felt for you. If he had been strongly bent on it, he
would have conducted matters differently; but he knows no better.'
'You and I don't part,' said Mary.
Neither spoke till she renewed her first question,
'What is to be done?'
'Shall I go and speak to him, my dear?'
'Perhaps I had better, if you will come with me.'
Then, hesitating--'I will go to my room for a moment, and then I shall
be able to do it more steadily.'
Mrs. Ponsonby's thoughts were anxious during the five minutes of Mary's
absence; but she returned composed, according to her promise, whatever
might be the throbbings beneath. As Mrs. Ponsonby opened the door, she
saw Louis and his aunt together, and was almost amused at their
conscious start, the youthful speed with which the one darted into the
further end of the corridor, and the undignified haste with which the
other hopped down stairs.
By the time they reached the drawing-room, he had recovered himself so
as to come forward in a very suitable, simple manner, and Mary said, at
once, 'Louis, thank you; but we think it would be better not--'
'Not!' exclaimed Fitzjocelyn.
'Not,' repeated Mary; 'I do not think there is that between us which
would make it right.'
'There would be!' cried Louis, gaining ardour by the difficulty, 'if
you would only try. Mrs. Ponsonby, tell her we would make her happy.'
'You would try,' said Mrs. Ponsonby, kindly; 'but I think she is right.
Indeed, Louis, you must forgive me for saying that you are hardly old
enough to make up your mind--'
'Madison is younger,' said Louis, boyishly enough to make her smile,
but earnestly proceeding, 'Won't you try me? Will you not say that if
I can be steady and persevering--'
'No,' said Mrs. Ponsonby; 'it would not be fair towards either of you
to make any conditions.'
'But if without them, I should do better--Mary, will you say nothing?'
'We had better not think of it,' said Mary, her eyes on the ground.
'Why? is it that I am too foolish, too unworthy?'
She made a great effort. 'Not that, Louis. Do not ask any more; it is
better not; you have done as your father wished--now let us be as we
were before.'
'My father will be very much disappointed,' said Louis, with chagrin.
'I will take care of your father,' said Mrs. Ponsonby, and as Mary took
the moment for escaping, she proceeded to say some affectionate words
of her own tender feeling towards Louis; to which he only replied by
saying, sadly, and with some mortification, 'Never mind; I know it is
quite right. I am not worthy of her.'
'That is not the point; but I do not think you understand your own
feelings, or how far you were actuated by the wish to gratify your
father.'
'I assure you,' cried Louis, 'you do not guess how I look up to Mary;
her unfailing kindness, her entering into all my nonsense--her firm,
sound judgment, that would keep me right--and all she did for me when I
was laid up. Oh! why cannot you believe how dear she is to me?'
'_How dear_ is just what I do believe; but still this is not enough.'
'Just what Aunt Kitty says,' said Louis, perplexed, yet amused at his
own perplexity.
'You will know better by-and-by,' she answered, smiling: 'in the
meantime, believe that you are our very dear cousin, as ever.' And she
shook hands with him, detecting in his answering smile a little relief,
although a great deal of disappointment.
Mary had taken refuge in her room, where a great shower of tears would
have their course, though she scolded herself all the time. 'Have done!
have done! It is best as it is. He does not really wish it, and I
could not leave mamma. We will never think of it again, and we will be
as happy as we were before.'
Her mother, meanwhile, was waiting below-stairs, thinking that she
should spare Louis something, by taking the initiative in speaking to
his father; and she was sorry to see the alacrity with which the Earl
came up to her, with a congratulatory 'Well, Mary!' She could hardly
make him comprehend the real state of the case; and then his
resignation was far more trying than that of the party chiefly
concerned. Her praise of Fitzjocelyn had little power to comfort. 'I
see how it is,' he said, calmly: 'do not try to explain it away; I
acquiesce--I have no doubt you acted wisely for your daughter.'
'Nothing would have delighted me more, if he were but a few years
older.'
'You need not tell me the poor boy's failings,' said his father, sadly.
'It is on account of no failing; but would it not be a great mistake to
risk their happiness to fulfil our own scheme?'
'I hoped to secure their happiness.'
'Ay, but is there not something too capricious to find happiness
without its own free will and choice? Did you never hear of the heart?'
'Oh! if she be attached elsewhere'--and he seemed so much relieved,
that Mrs. Ponsonby was sorry to be obliged to contradict him in haste,
and explain that she did not believe Fitzjocelyn's heart to be yet
developed; whereupon he was again greatly vexed. 'So he has offered
himself without attachment. I beg your pardon, Mary; I am sorry your
daughter should have been so treated.'
'Do not misunderstand me. He is strangely youthful and simple, bent on
pleasing you, and fancying his warm, brotherly feeling to be what you
desire.'
'It would be the safest foundation.'
'Yes, if he were ten years older, and had seen the world; but in these
things he is like a child, and it would be dangerous to influence him.
Do not take it to heart; you ought to be contented, for I saw nothing
so plainly as that he loves nobody half so well as you. Only be
patient with him.'
'You are the same Mary as ever,' he said, softened; and she left him,
hoping that she had secured a favourable audience for his son, who soon
appeared at the window, somewhat like a culprit.
'I could not help it!' he said.
'No; but you may set a noble aim before you--you may render yourself
worthy of her esteem and confidence, and in so doing you will fulfil my
fondest hopes.'
'I asked her to try me, but they would make no conditions. I am sorry
this could not be, since you wished it.'
'If you are not sorry on your own account, there are no regrets to be
wasted on mine.'
'Candidly, father,' said Louis, 'much as I like her, I cannot be sorry
to keep my youth and liberty a little longer.'
'Then you should never have entered on the subject at all,' said Lord
Ormersfield, beginning to write a letter; and poor Louis, in his
praiseworthy effort not to be reserved with him, found he had been
confessing that he had not only been again making a fool of himself,
but, what was less frequent and less pardonable, of his father
likewise. He limped out at the window, and was presently found by his
great-aunt, reading what he called a raving novel, to see how he ought
to have done it. She shook her head at him, and told him that he was
not even decently concerned.
'Indeed I am,' he replied. 'I wished my father to have had some peace
of mind about me, and it does not flatter one's vanity.'
Dear, soft-hearted Aunt Kitty, with all her stores of comfort ready
prepared, and unable to forgive, or even credit, the rejection of her
Louis, without a prior attachment, gave a hint that this might be his
consolation. He caught eagerly at the idea. 'I had never once thought
of that! It can't be any Spaniard out in Peru--she has too much sense.
What are you looking so funny about? What! is it nearer home? That's
it, then! Famous! It would be a capital arrangement, if that terrible
old father is conformable. What an escape I have had of him! I am
sure it is a most natural and proper preference--'
'Stop! stop, Louis, you are going too fast. I know nothing. Don't say
a word to Jem, on any account: indeed, you must not. It is all going
on very well now; but the least notion that he was observed, or that it
was his Uncle Oliver's particular wish, and there would be an end of
it.'
She was just wise enough to keep back the wishes of the other vizier,
but she had said enough to set Louis quite at his ease, and put him in
the highest spirits. He seemed to have taken out a new lease of
boyishness, and, though constrained before Mary, laughed, talked, and
played pranks, so as unconsciously to fret his father exceedingly.
Clara's alert wits perceived that so many private interviews had some
signification; and Mrs. Frost found her talking it over with her
brother, and conjecturing so much, that granny thought it best to
supply the key, thinking, perhaps, that a little jealousy would do Jem
no harm. But the effect on him was to produce a fit of hearty
laughter, as he remembered poor Lord Ormersfield's unaccountable
urbanity and suppressed exultation in the morning's ride. 'I honour
the Ponsonbys,' he said, 'for not choosing to second his lordship's
endeavours to tyrannize over that poor fellow, body and soul. Poor
Louis! he is fabulously dutiful.'
But Clara, recovering from her first stupor of wonder, began scolding
him for presuming to laugh at anything so cruel to Louis. It was not
the part of a friend! And with tears of indignation and sympathy
starting from her eyes, she was pathetically certain that, though
granny and Jem were so unfeeling as to laugh, his high spirits were
only assumed to hide his suffering. 'Poor Louis! what had he not said
to her about Mary last night! Now she knew what he meant! And as to
Mary, she was glad she had never liked her, she had no patience with
her: of course, she was far too prosy and stupid to care for anything
like Louis, it was a great escape for him. It would serve her right to
marry a horrid little crooked clerk in her father's office; and poor
dear, dear Louis must get over it, and have the most beautiful wife in
the world. Don't you remember, Jem, the lady with the splendid dark
eyes on the platform at Euston Square, when you so nearly made us miss
the train, with the brow that you said--'
'Hush, Clara, don't talk nonsense.'