JILTED!
OR,
MY UNCLE’S SCHEME.
JILTED!
OR,
MY UNCLE’S SCHEME.
A Novel, in Three Vols.
VOL. III.
London:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW, & SEARLE,
CROWN BUILDINGS, FLEET STREET.
1875.
[_All Rights Reserved._]
CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,
CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I. 1
CHAPTER II. 26
CHAPTER III. 48
CHAPTER IV. 80
CHAPTER V. 119
CHAPTER VI. 158
CHAPTER VII. 184
CHAPTER VIII. 207
JILTED!
OR,
MY UNCLE’S SCHEME.
MY UNCLE’S SCHEME.
CHAPTER I.
“What’s the use of snivelling,
And worrying and drivelling?
Sure you might give over now,
And get another lover.”
_A Chorus._
Meanwhile, had I wanted solace, it lay close at hand. Theresa was as
kind to me as she had been, on our first meeting, rude. I rode with
her, sometimes twice a day, and got to like the exercise so well,
that I looked forward to it with pleasure. I don’t say the pleasure
wasn’t immensely increased by my companion. She talked charmingly,
with a mixture of vivacity and good sense that made her conversation
refreshing to listen to. She _was_ well-read, as her father had
affirmed, but displayed her stores with so much tact and modesty,
that I never remember hearing her make a learned allusion of which
the appropriateness to the matter under discussion did not entirely
extinguish every suspicion of pedantry.
It was manifestly her resolution to charm out of my memory the very
false impression of her character she had sought to establish. The
sense that my heart belonged to another made her feel perfectly easy
with me. She would speak her mind on a great variety of subjects;
sentimental arguments were frequent; we could talk of love in an
“aibstract sense” like Sidney Smith’s Scotch young lady; reason on
the emotions, and puzzle each other with metaphysics. We were both
perfectly honest and knew no danger. Moreover we were cousins, and
everybody knows the nature of cousins’ rights.
Now I may as well confess--being of opinion that a man ought always
to seize the earliest opportunity to tell the truth--that, like most
young men of four-and-twenty, I was large-hearted: by which I mean,
there beat in my bosom an organ sufficiently elastic to include
several objects at once. I have pretty well established my claims to
inflammability by my brief reference to Pauline (not to speak of the
others, who are nameless) and by the very headlong way in which I had
fallen in love with Conny. I am well aware that among a certain order
of novelists and novel readers, a hero is thought a very contemptible
poor creature if he does not remain undeviatingly true to his first
love through forty or fifty chapters of close print; although during
his journey through these chapters, he may have to encounter several
fascinating and seductive young persons, who exert all the arts they
have acquired by a long apprenticeship to the science of love-making,
to divert him from the straight path that leads him to the altar,
where, robed in the shining nuptial raiment, stands the Only and the
True.
If this were an idle work of fiction, instead of a solid and
trustworthy narrative of facts, I should, no doubt, pursue the
established system, and save the printers a very great deal of labour
by enabling them to use some of their stereotypes. But I carry my
ink-bottle in my bosom; and into it I dip my pen, whilst memory
hoarsely dictates and judgment scowlingly corrects.
Now, do I represent a species, or am I a unique? When I tell you that
though I remained fondly attached to Conny through a large number of
those days darkened by her barbarous neglect, I could still find a
very great pleasure in riding with Theresa, talking to her, listening
to her singing, and saying pretty things with a tolerably significant
face, will you pronounce me an impossibility, or allow that I acted as
a great number of young men have acted, are acting, and will for ever
act?
Come, drop that stone. You know I’m a species. Every woman knows I am
a species. No need to quote bacchanalian lyrics, to mangle Moore, or
steal from Morris, to prove that a man may be fond of one and flirt
with many. But since the testimonies of the great are always valuable,
hear musical Prior sing:
“So when I am wearied with wandering all day,
To thee, my delight, in the evening I come.
No matter what beauties I saw in my way,
They were but my visits, but thou art my home!”
Theresa gained upon me every day. Fresh characteristics were for ever
cropping up to charm me with new aspects of her nature. She was hearty,
genuine, cheerful; piquant with candour, amusing with originality.
Moreover, I found my admiration of her fine face and figure increase
in proportion as I grew familiar with them. The longer Conny remained
silent the more powerful became my regard for her cousin. I pictured
that fair-haired girl devoted--to Curling; and jealousy stung me, and
turned me to Theresa, and obliged me to think of her.
And how did Theresa treat me? Amiably. Her behaviour admitted no
other construction. But of one thing I was sure; had she suspected
the very doubtful feelings that made my mind wave to and fro like a
Brahmin swinging at a holy festival, she would have chilled me into
a very decorous and distant reserve. Pride she had in abundance. It
peeped out in all directions. But it did not affect her behaviour to
me; simply because she believed me heart and soul devoted to Conny;
and attributed any effervescing manner of mine to the most cousinly
impulses, and the most laudable anxiety to be thought amiable.
I had been now ten days at my uncle’s. He had begged me in his hearty,
hospitable manner to stop the fortnight, and I had consented.
There had been a time during those ten days when I was eager for
nothing but to return to Updown. But Conny’s silence had made me
rebellious. I have indicated some of the thoughts that upset me. Since
she wouldn’t write to me, what right had she to expect me to show any
great desire to see her? I said to myself: “She ought to understand
that I am not to be trifled with. My feelings are not to be trampled
upon. If she really cares about me, my prolonged absence will chafe
her; and an irritant may serve to excite her languid emotion into a
good, sturdy passion. She will conclude that I have found something
_very_ fascinating in Theresa; thus, by reasoning herself into a
jealous mood, she will be taught that she loves; my behaviour shall
attest my sincerity, and the rest shall be lost in the murmurs of the
marriage-service.”
However, I should be untruthful to pretend that my resolution to stop a
fortnight at Thistlewood was entirely owing to my desire to pique Conny.
It was quite impossible for a young man so ardently devoted to the sex
as I was, to be day after day in the company of a young lady with finer
eyes than ever Reynolds painted, and with such a figure as Canova had
worshipped, and not be very sensibly affected. I well remember leaning
over her one day when she was playing the piano, and sighing inaudibly,
“Yes! were Conny to deceive me, here might I find her substitute.”
Did I start on becoming sensible of the escape of so disloyal a
sentiment? Not I. I never started in my life at an idea of my own. Am
I a Radcliffean, an Ainsworthian hero, that I skip in my cloak to an
impulse, and recoil with bloodshot eyes before a fancy?
It was Conny’s fault. Were it the last drop in the well--I mean, were
this my last breath, I should say, “Conny was to blame.”
I loved her as fondly as any man can love whose passion is fed by
the beauty, but not by the promises, of the adored. Is beauty a good
foundation for love? Are the Goodwin Sands a good dry dock for a ship?
Beauty inspires passion, but will it create sincerity? Something more
than that is wanted, I think. No love lasts that is unrequited. No
lamp burns long that isn’t replenished with oil. There are hundreds of
verses among the poets illustrative of this, the best of which I might
easily quote if I knew where to find them. Don’t say this digression
is neither here nor there. It is here and there too. It concerns my
sincerity; it vindicates my loyalty.
Riding with Theresa on a fragrant and glowing summer evening, we
fell to talking about Conny. By this time I had made up my mind to
understand that she didn’t mean to answer my letter, and something
like a sense of resignation was lodged at the centre of my being. All
those tendencies to pull my hair, to neglect my cravat, to write verses
against the whole sex, with citric acid in my ink-bottle, were subdued
or dead. I had, indeed, my sneerful intervals, but Theresa was always
at hand with her beauty for me to forget myself in.
How the subject came about I don’t know, but I remember that Theresa
asked me if Conny had ever answered my letter.
“No,” I answered quickly, clapping my hand, so to speak, over the
nerve-pulp her innocent question had laid bare.
“I suppose she does not think it worth while to write, as she hopes to
meet you shortly.”
“That is no excuse,” I answered sternly. “I wrote to her eight, nine
days ago, and she _ought_ to have answered me.”
Theresa lifted her eyebrows, and thoughtfully patted her horse’s neck.
“_You_ would have answered me,” I said.
“I always answer the letters I receive.”
“If she loved me she would have replied by return of post.”
“Oh, you mustn’t rush to severe conclusions. A word will explain
everything, no doubt.”
“I can imagine no excuse for her silence,” I exclaimed sulkily. “Would
I have treated her so? Had I received a letter from her, she would
have had my answer before the ink upon her pen was dry. I hate to be
neglected. People neglect those they despise. She very well knows how a
letter would have gratified me, and nothing but an abominable theory of
heartlessness,” I cried, “can account for her neglect.”
It was fortunate for my horse that I wore no spurs, or God knows where
I should have driven them to, with the violent plunge I gave with my
legs as I spoke.
“All this is rank heresy,” said Theresa, laughing, “for which, on your
return, you will be judged, sentenced, and executed.”
“It is galling truth,” I answered; “but if she thinks I care, she is
very much mistaken.”
“Then let us suppose she cares.”
“Neither of us cares. She never liked me. It amused her to hear my
nonsense; though, for anything I know, I may barely have saved myself
from being repulsive. A woman detests to be made love to by the man
she dislikes. Why did she encourage me? A look would have kept me off;
a sneer dispersed me. I’m not a burr. I am not one of those adhesive
animals whom no hints, no open-mouthed aversion, can dislodge. I am by
nature so sensitive, that it is now a miracle to me how I contrived to
tell her what feelings I had, before I was sure she was willing to hear
them.”
“You must make allowances,” said Theresa, who seemed greatly amused.
“You confessed that Conny wasn’t in love with you, and you have
therefore no right to expect any favour from her.”
“But you’ll allow that she might have answered my letter.”
Well, she would allow that.
“And you’ll allow that there is nothing more mortifying than to write a
letter and receive no answer.”
Yes; that also could be allowed.
“It is gross rudeness,” I continued, “even in a stranger whose reply
you don’t care twopence about. But in a relation--a cousin--a young
lady--a girl who knows that the writer of the letter she receives with
silent contempt is--is--is----”
Words failed me.
“Conny will explain when you meet.”
“I don’t care whether she does or not,” I exclaimed. “My love has
received a blow--a wound--if it dies the blood is on her head.”
“Nonsense!” cried Theresa. “A lover’s quarrel.”
I felt too indignant to answer. So we jogged on in silence for some
minutes, I as insensible to the abounding beauties of the evening, as
if I had worn green spectacles.
“I wouldn’t feel so vexed,” said I presently, “by her not answering my
letter, if I were sure that I had no rival. But I can’t forget--I never
can forget--that there is one Curling, a frizzy-headed youth, cashier
in my uncle’s bank, who paid her so much attention before I knew her,
that her mamma grew frightened, and forbade him the house.”
“But you knew of this Mr. Curling before you made love to her?”
“Come, come, Theresa, her conduct is inexcusable. Oughtn’t she to have
answered my letter? Answer me that.”
“I have answered you that once. In my opinion, Charlie, if Conny is not
in love with you, she is to be congratulated.”
“Eh! how?” I cried.
“Because I don’t think you are in love with her,” she answered, fixing
her bright eyes on me.
“If I am not, whose fault is it?” I said, blushing.
“There is an old French proverb that says we forgive in proportion as
we love. I don’t find you making enough excuses for Conny to satisfy me
that you love her.”
“Love makes people critical and harsh,” said I, “not lenient. I never
believe what a Frenchman says about love. They know nothing about it in
that country. When I left Updown I was in Conny’s power. She could have
twisted me round her little finger. But she has chosen to ill-use me,
and by heavens----who-o-o!”
The movement of my horse spoilt a rabid peroration.
“I consider Conny treats you exactly as you deserve.”
“What do you mean? do you really think I don’t--I didn’t love her?”
“You admired her, and mistook your feelings. It is fortunate for you
both,” she continued, with great seriousness, “that you left Updown,
as your absence has enabled you to test your own feelings as well as
hers. You would have married her for her face, without asking your
heart if it contained a more permanent emotion than admiration; and it
is quite impossible to imagine how unhappy disappointment would have
rendered you both.”
I laughed outright, so much was I amused by her cool and critical
summary of my feelings. I don’t know whether she saw anything to
disapprove in my merriment, but she remained very grave. There is no
question but that I ought to have been abashed; that I ought to have
cried, either aloud or to myself, “Can it be possible that my cousin
speaks the truth? have I mistaken my sentiments? Has a ten days’
separation from the girl I was prepared to adore, coupled with a little
trifling neglect on her part, taught me a right appreciation of the
emotion I had regarded as the most exalted and undying love?”
But I indulged in no such soliloquy. Looking at Theresa, steadily, I
said, “Do you think me a jilt?”
“No. If I did, I shouldn’t take the trouble to be commonly civil to
you.”
“But you think I have jilted Conny?”
“I have not said so. I don’t believe she is in love with you, and a man
can’t jilt a girl who doesn’t care for him.”
“If I were conceited, I shouldn’t like to hear that.”
“Oh,” she answered, smiling, “this is a very old story. Pictures and
books have been made out of it in abundance. Some silly writers vamp
up a broken heart as a condition of the tale, but never yet was heart
broken by people who didn’t know their own minds.”
She shook her reins, and started her horse into a gallop.
I rode with so much assurance now that I could admire her fine figure
with my faculties entirely unengaged by the cares of the highway.
How well she sat her horse! How gracefully her form responded to the
movement of the animal! She was a finer woman than Conny. There was a
tartness, too, in her speech that made her language relishable, with a
spiciness I could not remember tasting in Conny’s conversation. I was
both piqued and amused by the very cool way in which she had disposed
of these sentiments of mine, of which, after all, she could only
suspect the evanescence.
Only the other day I was thinking I would rather marry Lucifer
than such a shrew, and now nothing hindered me from expressing my
admiration, in terms that would have borrowed a very soft significance
from my heart, but the apprehension of a curt and contemptuous rebuff.
Again and again I will repeat, it was all owing to Conny. She had
me once securely; she might have kept me for ever. Why hadn’t she
answered my letter? One tender sentence would have made me her slave
again. Echo not, Eugenio, the remark of Theresa that I had no right to
expect a favour of any kind from Conny. An answer to my letter I could
claim, not as a favour, but as a right. Two lines would have sufficed
me. Yea, my bare address on an envelope would have told me I was not
forgotten--that my tender breathings were remembered. Didn’t she know
the risk she ran by treating me neglectfully at the time that Theresa
was my companion; at the time that a fine, a handsome, and an amiable
woman was the sole female society I frequented? You starve your dog,
and call him unfaithful, because he takes up his quarters in the house
of a neighbour where he is affectionately caressed and plentifully
fed! What vile logic is here? Treat me well and I’ll love thee. Answer
me my long and amorous letter, and I’ll be true. Hint that thy heart
is not insensible to the pleadings of my passion, and I’ll adore. But
leave me to quit thee, chewing the airiest cud of unsubstantial hope,
suffer me to depart, making no sign, to be absent and illuminate my
desolate fancies with no gleam from thy careless heart--What wonder if
I am found wanting? What marvel if I discover in eyes as splendid as
thine, in hair as abundant though darker, in speech more vivacious,
intelligent and characteristic, in manners as womanly, as gentle, as
dignified, a magic that leads me from thy altar, oh faithless one, on
which no fire burns, to another shrine, whereon it may be my rapture to
kindle an inextinguishable flame?