TOUCHING A PROPOSAL.
When Captain Lyster rose on the following morning, he had made up his
mind to the commission of a very serious deed. A long course of
reflection as he lay awake in the watches of the night, and the
discovery, real or imaginary, of a further diminution of hair on the
crown of his head, had determined him upon asking Miss Townshend to
become his wife without any further delay. There was something in her
fresh, cheery, pleasant manner that specially appealed to this _blasé_
cynic; she was so unlike the women he had been accustomed to mix with
in society, who were generally weak imitations of Barbara Lexden, or
opinionless misses, who held "yea" and "nay" to be the sole
ingredients necessary in their conversation; in fact, this chattering
girl, who said every thing uppermost in her mind, who had capital
spirits perennially flowing, and who was natural without being either
arrogant or "miss-ish," had completely enslaved him. He might have
pottered on in silent admiration for some time longer, but that he had
been greatly annoyed by Beresford's manner to Miss Townshend on the
preceding evening; there was something in the Commissioner's easy
familiarity, both during dinner and afterwards, which signally raised
Lyster's wrath. He had towards Beresford that singular feeling, that
compound of distrust, detestation, contempt, and fear, which we
experience instinctively for any rival; and his love for this girl was
far too serious a matter to permit any tampering with his plans. A
good fellow, Fred Lyster; a kind-hearted, straightforward, honourable
man, with very little guile; lazy, to a certain extent selfish, and
considerably spoilt; but with an innate sense of right carrying him
through many difficulties, and with a stout heart and a clear brain to
support him under any trials.
He loved this girl, and he wanted to know whether his love was
returned. To get at this information he saw but one way--a proposal. I
have before said that he knew every trick and turn of flirtation; but
this was something of far deeper import than a flirtation; means which
he had previously used to ascertain "how he stood" with the temporary
object of his affections, and which had elicited the satisfactory
glance, hand-pressure, or word, he would have now deemed degrading
both to himself and to her. His regard for her had been growing
throughout the past season, and was rapidly culminating. He had
watched her attentively, and studied all her movements, with a
satisfactory result. He felt that she was a little fast, certainly;
but that fastness he was convinced resulted from the mere overflow of
animal spirits, and not from any desire to please in men's eyes by
affectation of men's ways. That she was an heiress he didn't care one
bit about--he had plenty for both; and if she came to him, any thing
that she had should be settled on herself. But how to ask her? Ah, how
long did that pair of hair-brushes remain suspended over his head,
while he gazed vacantly into the dressing-glass before him as this
question rose in his mind! How often did he fling himself on the
ottoman, nursing his foot and biting his lip in a perplexity of doubt!
He could not go down on his knees, and offer his hand and heart, as
they did on the stage; he could not write to her, either formally or
spasmodically--he had a wholesome horror of committing himself on
paper; he could not arrive at the knowledge he required through any
third person; in fact (here the hair-brushes went to work again),
there was no way but to take advantage of an opportunity, and propose.
He must know his position, too, at once. He could not bear to see that
fellow Beresford hanging about her as he had been the previous night.
He'd do it that very day. His whole frame, which had been pleasantly
cooled by his shower-bath, tingled again at the mere thought; and a
faint empty feeling, something like that which he experienced when
insulted in the Engineers' mess-room at Salem by Poker Cassidy, came
over him. Would he get as well out of this as out of that encounter?
Then he held his own; and Cassidy, neatly drilled by a pistol-bullet
through his ankle, limps with a crutch to this day. But this was a
very different matter.
It was a dull breakfast that morning. Barbara sent down intelligence
of a headache, and remained in her room; Miss Townshend had red rims
to her pretty eyes, had no smile for any one, looked miserable, and
sat silent; her papa had donned his very stiffest check cravat, and
was, if possible, more pompous than usual; Sir Marmaduke had had his
porridge early, had gone out, and not returned; old Miss Lexden always
breakfasted in bed; and Mr. and Mrs. Vincent were utterly upset by a
burnt omelette, about which they conveyed dismay to each other by
eyebrow telegraph across the table. Only Major Stone was himself; and
he bustled about, and made tea, and passed dishes, and joked and
rallied in a way that ought to have been of service, but which
signally failed. When Mr. Beresford entered the room, which was not
until nearly all the others had finished their meal, he seemed for a
few moments staggered by the gravity of the assemblage; but gliding
into a vacant seat by Miss Townshend's side, he soon recovered his
spirits, and commenced a conversation in his accustomed bantering
tone. His neighbour seemed to brighten at once, and responded in her
usual cheery manner, greatly to the disgust of poor Fred Lyster,
sitting opposite, who, over his cold partridge, was still hard at work
on the same problem which had occupied him when over his hair-brushes,
and who knew as little how to attain his end as ever. He was glad when
he heard Beresford say that business would require him to ride into
Brighton before luncheon, and that he must afterwards go round to the
stables and see whether his hack was all right after her journey down.
His joy toned down a little when Miss Townshend asked if said hack had
ever carried a lady, but rose again when Beresford declared that he
should be sorry to see any female friend of his on Gulnare's back.
"It isn't that she's vicious," he explained; "there's not an ounce of
vice in her. But there are so many things she can't bear--dirty
children, and puddles, and stone heaps in the road; and when she sees
any of these she stands bolt upright for two minutes on her hind-legs,
and then starts off with her head between her forelegs, and nearly
pulls your arms out of their sockets."
So Miss Townshend declared with much laughter, and with many
shoulder-shrugs and exclamations of fright, that she could never think
of mounting "any thing so dreadful;" and Lyster, to his immense
delight, saw Beresford leave the room, light a big cigar on the steps,
and clear off in the direction of the stables. Stone had already
departed on his various errands; Mrs. Vincent had fetched a
cookery-book from the library, and with her husband had retired to
study it in the embrasure of the window; and Miss Townshend, left the
last at table, was playing with a fragment of toast. Lyster knew her
habits--knew that she was in the habit of skimming the _Post_ to learn
the whereabouts of her friends; and accordingly retreated quietly to
the library.
Such a pleasant room, this! Not a bit of the wall to be seen for the
dark oak bookshelves, which, crammed with books, extended from floor
to ceiling on every side. A capital collection of books, in sober calf
bindings (Sir Marmaduke once said that brilliant bindings and glazed
book-cases always reminded him of a man with his hair parted down the
middle, and could not understand what Barbara meant by asking hi
Mrs. Nickleby had been a Wentworth): theology, politics, books of
reference, poetry, drama, and history, all regularly ranged and
properly catalogued. Fiction had a very moderate compartment allotted
to it; but the round table in the middle of the room, and the ottoman
at the far end, were liberally strewn with volumes bearing the
omnipresent yellow ticket of Mudie. Immediately in front of the big
bow-window, which was shaded by a sun-blind, and through which you
gazed over a lovely expanse of down, stood a huge writing-table, on
which was an inkstand that might have held half a pint, a large
blotting-pad, an oxydised-silver owl with ruby eyes erect on a
paperweight, and a bundle of quill pens, half split up, and all very
much bitten at the tops; for Sir Marmaduke, who was the principle
occupant of the cane writing-chair, was apt to get very energetic in
his correspondence. Here, too, the old gentleman indulged in the one
literary occupation of his life--certain translations of Horace, which
he altered and polished year after year, intending some time or other
to show them to an old college friend, and then have a gorgeous
edition printed on toned paper for private circulation. Here, in a
huge iron safe, were kept big ledgers, and account-books of rents,
rates, and expenditure on the estates which gave three days' solemn
investigation every quarter to Sir Marmaduke and Major Stone; whereat
there was much head-rubbing, many appealing looks to the ceiling, and
much secret checking of fingers under the table, and reference to a
ready-reckoner on the part of both gentlemen. And here in a secret
draw of the writing-table, lay a little packet, which the old man
would take out occasionally, would open, and sit gazing for half an
hour together at the contents. They were not much,--a faded blue
ribbon, once worn, with a little locket attached to it, round the
throat of his old love at the Bath Assemblies, where he first met her;
a curl of hair, cut from her head after death; and an ivory miniature,
by Stump, of a dark girl, with big brown eyes, and her hair banded
tight to her forehead, and gathered into a large bow at the top of the
head. After an inspection of this drawer the old gentleman would walk
to the looking-glass, and glaring at his own reflection therein, would
shake his head in a very solemn manner; he would be very mild and
quiet, and, as Gumble noticed, would drink an extra bottle of claret
during the evening.
When Lyster entered the room, he was annoyed to see that it was
occupied. Old Mr. Russell, the lawyer, was at the writing-table; and
Mr. Townshend was seated in an easy-chair close by, listening to the
narration of some thick parchment deed which the lawyer was going
through. Their business was apparently at an end, though; for Mr.
Townshend said, "Then it's satisfactory, Mr. Russell?" to which the
old gentleman, with nothing but his finger-tips visible below his
cuffs, replied, "I think we may assume so;" and both gentlemen rose
and left the room. Being in a highly nervous state, Lyster did not
like these proceedings a bit. He wondered what that portentous-looking
parchment was about--whether it had any reference to old Townshend's
testamentary disposition; whether it had any thing to do with Miss
Townshend. He thought he rather hated that old Russell, though he had
not much idea why. His time was coming on now; he wondered how much
longer before Miss Townshend would fetch the _Post_. Here it was, on
the round table, with the other papers. He took one up and looked at
it; but the type all ran together before his eyes, so he laid it down
again, and walked up to the mantelshelf, and glared at the big black
clock in the middle, and pulled the spear through the perforated fist
of the bronze Diana on the top, and pushed it backwards and forwards;
and then walking to the writing-table, lit a Vesta-match and blew it
out. He plunged his hands into his pockets, and looked down at his
boots, apparently intently scrutinising their make, in reality not
seeing them in the least; then he took up a hare's-foot-handled
paper-knife and tapped his teeth with it, threw it down, and commenced
a Polar-bear-like promenade of the room.
The clock ticked solemnly on, and Captain Lyster was still pacing up
and down, when the door opened and Miss Townshend entered. She seemed
surprised to see any one in the room, and declared that she would not
remain a minute, and that she would take the greatest care not to
disturb the Captain, who, she said with a smile, was evidently, from
his perturbed expression, engaged upon the composition of an epic poem
or other intense literary effort. At this remark the Captain grinned
feebly, and besought the young lady not to mind his eccentricities, as
he was full of them, though he was bound to confess he had never been
mad enough to contemplate writing a poem. And then Miss Townshend
smiled again, and seated herself at the round table, and taking up the
_Post_ turned to the "Fashionable intelligence," and was at once
engrossed in the study of who was where, and at what country seats
"select circles" were being "hospitably entertained." Lyster went to
the writing-table, and began ornamenting the blotting pad with many
spirited sketches, wondering all the time whether he should get any
better chance for his contemplated announcement, or whether he should
plunge into it at once. At last he thought he had an opportunity. Miss
Townshend suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, Captain Lyster, here's news for
you! You recollect Mary Considine? Yes, I should think you did. Those
private theatricals at the Fenton's, where you and she--oh, I haven't
forgotten it. Well, there's something about her here; listen: 'We
understand that a matrimonial alliance will shortly take place between
the Honourable Mary Considine, youngest daughter of Lord Torraghmore,
and Major Burt, of the Life Guards.' That's Harry Burt, the
straw-coloured one, isn't it? Poor Captain Lyster! doomed to wear the
willow."
The chance, the chance at last!
"Surely, Miss Townshend," he commenced, "you cannot imagine that I
ever seriously entertained any regard for Miss Considine. A very
pleasant young lady, full of spirits, and highly amusing, but not
possessing the qualities which one would look for in a wife. And
you--can you imagine that in a house where _you_ were--where I was in
the habit of seeing _you_--. Done, by Jove!"
The last sentence, uttered under his breath, was evoked by the opening
of the door, and the entrance of Mr. Townshend, who looked more like
the Ace of Clubs than ever when he saw the couple in apparently close
conversation. He at once approached his daughter, and asked her if she
had "written that letter?" She said, with some tremulousness, "No."
Mr. Townshend then raised his voice, and said he must beg--and with
him "beg" sounded marvellously like "insist"--that she would do it at
once. So the young lady, albeit with tears in her eyes, went dutifully
off to obey her father's behests; the old gentleman sat down to the
_Times_, while Lyster glared at him from behind a book, and wondered
whether one could possibly call a man to account for interrupting
one's conversation with his daughter.