TOM HAS A "TALK" WITH THE ADMIRAL.
"WILL _you_ tell her?" whispered Sedley to Agnes.
"Oh, no. Do _you_," she entreated.
They both looked at Charity, who was preparing the little dog's supper
of bread and milk in a saucer.
"I'll go in and see papa, and you shall speak to her," said Agnes.
Which Tom Sedley did, so much to her amazement that she set the saucer
down on the table beside her, and listened, and conversed for half an
hour; and the poodle's screams, and wild jumping and clawing at her
elbow, at last reminded her that he had been quite forgotten.
So, while its mistress was apologising earnestly to poor Bijou, and
superintending his attentions to the bread and milk, now placed upon
the floor, in came Agnes, and up got Charity, and kissed her with a
frank, beaming smile, and said,--
"I'm _excessively_ glad, Agnes. I was always _so_ fond of Thomas
Sedley; and I _wonder_ we never thought of it before."
They were all holding hands in a ring by this time.
"And what do you think Mr. Etherage will say?" inquired Tom.
"Papa! why of _course_ he will be _delighted_," said Miss Charity. "He
likes you _extremely_."
"But you know, Agnes might do so much better. She's such a treasure,
there's no one that would not be proud of her, and no one could help
falling in love with her, and the Ad---- I mean Mr. Etherage, may
think me so presumptuous; and, you know, he may think me quite too
poor."
"If you mean to say that papa would object to you because you have
only four hundred a year, you think most meanly of him. I know _I_
should not like to be connected with anybody that I thought so meanly
of, because that kind of thing I look upon as really _wicked_; and I
should be sorry to think papa was wicked. I'll go in and tell him all
that has happened this moment."
In an awful suspense, pretty Agnes and Tom Sedley, with her hand in
both his, stood side by side, looking earnestly at the double door
which separated them from this conference.
In a few minutes they heard Vane Etherage's voice raised to a pitch
of testy bluster, and then Miss Charity's rejoinder with shrill
emphasis.
"Oh! gracious goodness! he's very angry. What shall we do?" exclaimed
poor little Agnes, in wild helplessness.
"I _knew_ it--I _knew_ it--I _said_ how it would be--he can't endure
the idea, he thinks it such audacity. I knew he must, and I really
think I shall lose my reason. I could not--I _could_ not live. Oh!
Agnes, I _could_n't if he prevents it."
In came Miss Charity, very red and angry.
"He's just in one of his odd tempers. I don't mind one _word_ he says
to-night. He'll be quite different, you'll _see_, in the morning.
We'll sit up here, and have a good talk about it, till it's time for
you to go; and you'll see I'm quite right. I'm _surprised_," she
continued, with severity, "at his talking as he did to-night. I
consider it quite worldly and _wicked_! But I contented myself with
telling him that he did not think one word of what he said, and that
he _knew_ he didn't, and that he'd tell me so in the morning; and
instead of feeling it, as I thought he would, he said something
intolerably rude."
Old Etherage, about an hour later, when they were all in animated
debate, shuffled to the door, and put in his head, and looked
surprised to see Tom, who looked alarmed to see him. And the old
gentleman bid them all a glowering good night, and shortly afterwards
they heard him wheeled away to his bed-room, and were relieved.
They sat up awfully late, and the old servant, who poked into the room
oftener than he was wanted towards the close of their sitting, looked
wan and bewildered with drowsiness; and at last Charity, struck by the
ghastly resignation of his countenance, glanced at the French clock
over the chimney-piece, and ejaculated--
"Why, merciful goodness! is it possible? A quarter to one! It _can't
possibly be_. Thomas Sedley, _will_ you look at your watch, and tell
us what o'clock it really is?"
His watch corroborated the French clock.
"_If_ papa heard this! I really can't the least _conceive_ how it
happened. I did not think it could have been _eleven_. Well, it is
_undoubtedly_ the _oddest_ thing that _ever_ happened in this house!"
In the morning, between ten and eleven, when Tom Sedley appeared again
at the drawing-room windows, he learned from Charity, in her own
emphatic style of narration, what had since taken place, which was not
a great deal, but still was uncomfortably ambiguous.
She had visited her father at his breakfast in the study, and promptly
introduced the subject of Tom Sedley, and he broke into this line of
observation--
"I'd like to know what the deuce Tom Sedley means by talking of
business to girls. I'd like to know it. I say, if he has anything to
say, why doesn't he _say_ it, that's what _I_ say. Here I _am_. What
has he to _say_. I don't object to hear him, be it sense or be it
nonsense--out with it! That's my maxim; and be it sense or be it
nonsense, I won't have it at second-_hand_. That's _my_ idea."
Acting upon this, Miss Charity insisted that he ought to see Mr.
Etherage; and, with a beating heart, he knocked at the study door, and
asked an audience.
"Come in," exclaimed the resonant voice of the Admiral. And Tom Sedley
obeyed.
The Admiral extended his hand, and greeted Tom kindly, but gravely.
"Fine day, Mr. Sedley; very fine, sir. It's an odd thing, Tom Sedley,
but there's more really fine weather up here, at Hazelden, than
anywhere else in Wales. More sunshine, and a _deal_ less rain. You'd
hardly believe, for you'd fancy on this elevated ground we should
naturally have _more_ rain, but it's _less_, by several inches, than
anywhere else in Wales! And there's next to no damp--the hygrometer
tells _that_. And a curious thing, you'll have a southerly wind up
here when it's blowing from the east on the estuary. You can see it,
by Jove! Now just look out of that window; did you ever see such
sunshine as that? There's a clearness in the air up here--at the
_other_ side, if you go up, you get _mist_--but there's something
about it here that I would not change for any place in the world."
You may be sure Tom did not dispute any of these points.
"By Jove, Tom Sedley, it would be a glorious day for a sail round the
point of Penruthyn. I'd have been down with the tide, sir, this
morning if I had been as I was ten years ago; but a fellow doesn't
like to be lifted into his yacht, and the girls did not care for
sailing; so I sold her. There wasn't such a boat--take her for
everything--in the _world_--_never_!"
"The _Feather_; wasn't she, sir?" said Tom.
"The _Feather_! that she was, sir. A name pretty well known, I venture
to think. Yes, the _Feather_ was her name."
"I _have_, sir; yes, indeed, often heard her spoken of," said Tom, who
had heard one or two of the boatmen of Cardyllian mention her with a
guarded sort of commendation. I never could learn, indeed, that there
was anything very remarkable about the boat; but Tom would just then
have backed any assertion of the honest Admiral's with a loyal
alacrity, bordering, I am afraid, upon unscrupulousness.
"There are the girls going out with their trowels, going to poke among
those flowers; and certainly, I'll do them justice to say, their
garden prospers. I don't see such flowers _any_where; do you?"
"_Nowhere!_" said Tom, with enthusiasm.
"By, there they're at it--grubbing and raking. And, by-the-by, Tom,
what was that? Sit down for a minute."
Tom felt as if he was going to choke, but he sat down.
"What was that--some nonsense Charity was telling me last night?"
Thus invited, poor Sedley, with many hesitations, and wanderings, and
falterings, did get through his romantic story. And Mr. Etherage did
not look pleased by the recital; on the contrary, he carried his head
unusually high, and looked hot and minatory, but he did not explode.
He continued looking on the opposite wall, as he had done as if he
were eyeing a battle there, and he cleared his voice.
"As I understand it, sir, there's not an income to make it at all
prudent. I don't want my girls to marry; I should, in fact, miss them
very much; but if they do, there ought to be a settlement, don't you
see? there should be a settlement, for _I_ can't do so much for them
as people suppose. The property is settled, and the greater part goes
to my grand-nephew after me; and I've invested, as you know, all my
stock and money in the quarry at Llanrwyd; and if she married you, she
should live in London the greater part of the year. And I don't see
how you could get on upon what you both have; I don't, sir. And I must
say, I think you ought to have spoken to me before paying your
addresses, sir. I don't think that's unreasonable; on the contrary, I
think it _reasonable, perfectly_ so, and only right and fair. And I
must go further, sir; I must say this, I don't see, sir, without a
proper competence, what pretensions you had to address my child."
"None, sir; none in the world, Mr. Etherage. I know, sir, I've been
thinking of my presumption ever since. I betrayed myself into it, sir;
it was a kind of surprise. If I had reflected I should have come to
you, sir; but--but you have no idea, sir, how I adore her." Tom's eye
wandered after her through the window, among the flowers. "Or what it
would be to me to--to have to"----
Tom Sedley faltered, and bit his lip, and started up quickly and
looked at an engraving of old Etherage's frigate, which hung on the
study wall.
He looked at it for some time steadfastly. Never was man so affected
by the portrait of a frigate, you would have thought. Vane Etherage
saw him dry his eyes stealthily two or three times, and the old
gentleman coughed a little, and looked out of the window, and would
have got up, if he could, and stood close to it.
"It's a beautiful day, certainly; wind coming round a bit to the
south, though--south by east; that's always a squally wind with us;
and--and--I assure you I like you, Tom; upon my honour I do, Tom
Sedley--better, sir, than any young fellow I know. I think I _do_--I
am _sure_, in fact, I do. But this thing--it wouldn't do--it really
wouldn't; no, Tom Sedley, it wouldn't _do_; if you reflect you'll see
it. But, of course, you may get on in the world. Rome wasn't built in
a day."
"It's very kind of you, sir; but the time's so long, and so many
chances," said Sedley, with a sigh like a sob; "and when I go away,
sir, the sooner I die, the happier for me."
Tom turned again quickly toward the frigate--the _Vulcan_--and old
Etherage looked out of the window once more, and up at the clouds.
"Yes," said the admiral, "it will; we shall have it from south by
east. And, d'ye hear, Tom Sedley? I--I've been thinking there's no
need to make any fuss about this--this thing; just let it be as if you
had never said a word about it, do you mind, and come here just as
usual. Let us put it out of our heads; and if you find matters
improve, and still wish it, there's nothing to prevent your speaking
to me; only Agnes is perfectly free, you understand, and you are not
to make any change in your demeanour--a--or--I mean to be more with my
daughters, or anything _marked_, you understand. People begin to talk
here, you know, in the club-house, on very slight grounds!
and--and--you understand now; and there mustn't be any nonsense; and I
like you, sir--I like you, Thomas Sedley; I do--I do, indeed, sir."
And old Vane Etherage gave him a very friendly shake by the hand, and
Tom thanked him gratefully, and went away reprieved, and took a walk
with the girls, and told them, as they expressed it, _everything_; and
Vane Etherage thought it incumbent on him to soften matters a little
by asking him to dinner; and Tom accepted; and when they broke up
after tea, there was another mistake discovered about the hour, and
Miss Charity most emphatically announced that it was _perfectly
unaccountable_, and must _never_ occur again; and I hope, for the sake
of the venerable man who sat up, resigned and affronted, to secure the
hall-door and put out the lamps after the party had broken up, that
these irregular hours were kept no more at Hazelden.