Meanwhile much of Caroline's excessive reserve, or rather fearfulness of
manner wore off. In her mother's immediate presence indeed she was ever
the same; but if Lady Palliser quitted the room for a moment, or was
occupied conversing with some other visitor, Caroline's countenance
would brighten, and her manner become comparatively easy and happy.
Fully, however, to comprehend our heroine, it will be necessary to cast
a retrospective glance over the manner of her education.
The most painful silence of the heart and all its best affections had
from infancy been habitual to Caroline. She was an only child, and had
no recollection of her father; while her mother's strange, unfeeling
character, had made her from the very first shrink within herself. When
arrived at an age at which young people, not self-opinionated, naturally
wish to ask those older than themselves what they ought to do on various
little occasions, which seem to them important from their novelty, poor
Caroline would sometimes, in what she deemed a case of urgency, make a
great effort and apply to her mother, on which Lady Palliser would treat
her simplicity as the best of good jokes, laugh to excess, then rally
her for blushing, and next perhaps for shedding tears; and, finally,
either leave her question without reply, or give one turning the
subject into absolute ridicule; till at last Caroline learned to feel a
terror surpassing description of having any one thought, feeling, or
opinion even guessed at by her mother. Yet her mother was her only
companion. There was also a strange inconsistency in the character and
conduct of Lady Palliser; for while she never condescended to advise,
she was tyrannical in her commands, exacting implicit, unquestioned,
instantaneous obedience to every whim.
Either there was something in the thorough kindliness of Alfred's
disposition which appeared in his manner, and secretly won the
confidence of our heroine; or fate had ordained that they were to love
each other. Whatever the cause, the consequence was, that Caroline,
after the intimacy we have described had subsisted for some weeks, no
longer felt alone in the world--she was no longer without thoughts that
gave her pleasure; while those thoughts, though for their ostensible
object they had a walk, a song, a book, or a flower, were always
associated with the idea of Alfred--of something that he had said--or
some little kind service he had performed--or, perhaps, some chance
encounter of his eye--or the consciousness of his fixed gaze, felt
without daring to look up, and which, though it had produced strange
confusion of ideas at the time, was remembered with delight. Neither was
she any longer without hope, though but a hope that they might meet on
the walks, or that he might come in about something she had heard her
mother mention to him.
It may be asked why should Caroline not always have had the hopes with
which most young people enter life; merely because the buoyancy of youth
had been pressed down, and the elasticity of its spirits destroyed, by
the unnatural restraint under which every thought and feeling had been
held during the period that her earliest affections had, as is generally
the case, endeavoured to fix themselves on her parent.
As for Alfred, he had misgivings certainly, respecting his being a
younger brother, and his consequent want of fortune. At the same time,
when he felt that he was justified in harbouring the restless,
delightful hope, that he was already not quite indifferent to Caroline,
and that he received such decided encouragement as he did from her
mother, what could he think, but that he was the most fortunate fellow
in existence, and that he had met with the most generous, liberal
minded, delightful people in the whole world!
Sometimes, indeed, he would take a fastidious fit, and murmur a little
in his heart against fate, for compelling him to be the one to receive,
and denying him the pride and pleasure of bestowing; but so absorbing
was his passion for Caroline, that he soon closed his eyes against this
objection, almost as absolutely as he would have done against the
contrary had it existed. He was incapable, in short, at the time, of
weighing any subject deliberately: a look, a smile, or the unbidden
brightening of Caroline's countenance when they met, would have been
sufficient to have upset the firmest resolves, had he even been visited
by a lucid interval in which to have formed them; but on the contrary,
from the first morning he had been so unexpectedly invited home by Lady
Palliser, his head had become giddy with rapture; the pulsations of his
heart had never settled down to their steady original pace, nor had any
one thought or feeling ever once been summoned before the bar of reason.
That it must be a fairy tale--a dream--too much happiness to be true,
would sometimes cross his imagination for a moment, and strike his heart
with a sort of panic; but such thoughts not being agreeable enough to
meet with a welcome within, were therefore quickly dismissed.
Whenever he was neither at Lady Palliser's nor at his old post at the
window, he was wandering in some unfrequented walk, or reclining
listlessly on a remote sofa in a deep reverie, calling to mind looks,
smiles, or half uttered replies, from which, while they said nothing,
every thing might be inferred.
He studied and learned to comprehend as a language hitherto unknown, the
timid, shrinking, as yet undeveloped character of Caroline. To him her
very silence now conveyed more than the eloquence of others; and however
long he watched the downcast lid, if it was raised at last but for a
second, he was amply rewarded.
And when he repaired to Jessamine Bower, to pay his now daily morning
visit, and on entering addressed Lady Palliser first, as he made a point
of doing, he literally trembled with concealed emotion as he noted the
slight tinge, faint as the reflection from a rose leaf, steal over
Caroline's delicate cheek, while she continued to bend over her
employment, whatever it might be, and acting her part unnecessarily
well, endeavoured to betray no consciousness of his presence, till her
attention was absolutely claimed by some such formal address as--
"How is Lady Caroline this morning?" Formal as were the words, the tone
of the voice was sufficient. The faint tinge would increase to a deep
blush, ere the equally formed reply was articulated. On many occasions,
Alfred would continue to converse with Lady Palliser, or perform any of
her frivolous and whimsical commands, and nothing more apparently would
pass between the young people; yet would he, the while, trace in slight
variations of countenance, imperceptible to any other eye, all that
Caroline thought or felt with regard to what was said. Sometimes Lady
Palliser herself would suddenly fling down her netting or knotting, or
whatever nonsense she was about, with an expression of disgust, declare
she was sick of it, and ordering Alfred to look for her pet book of
Italian Trios, and Caroline to put away her drawing and join them, seat
herself at the instrument.
This to Caroline and Alfred was a wonderful improvement of position.
Standing together behind Lady Palliser's chair, their voices united in
the thrilling harmonies of the music, and sometimes in the utterance of
words expressive of thoughts, which else one at least of the voices had
never dared to pronounce. On one of these favourable occasions a
circumstance occurred, trivial in the extreme, yet which forwarded
Alfred's cause amazingly, and indeed conveyed to both a tacit conviction
of each other's attachment.
A hand of each while they sang rested on the back of Lady Palliser's
chair, and after a simultaneous attempt to turn over the leaf of the
music-book, accidentally came in contact as they returned to their
former position. It had been long ere a modest younger brother, like our
poor hero, had found courage to possess himself by any direct means of
the fair, soft, taper fingered, rosy palmed, little hand, of the great
heiress, the beautiful Lady Caroline Montague; but an occasion like this
was not to be resisted: Alfred's trembling fingers closed upon the fond
treasure; while a hasty but faint effort of Caroline's to withdraw it,
was met by a beseeching look that seemed to have the desired effect;
for, though covered with blushes, she did not immediately succeed in
disengaging the hand, while the little scene was at the moment supplied
by the duet with appropriate words.
[Illustration: Langue il mio co-re per te d'a-mo-re.]
Sang Alfred, while Caroline in faltering notes replied
[Illustration: Non so re-sis-te-re.]
When our hero had taken his departure Caroline hastened to her own
apartment. She felt unfit for any society, particularly her mother's.
Her pure unpractised delicacy of mind caused her to look back on the
incident which had just passed as an event of the utmost importance; as,
in short, not only a proposal, but also an acceptance. Nay, had she
wished it, she would no longer have thought herself at liberty to
retract; for she knew that she would not have allowed a man who was
indifferent to her to have retained her hand in his for a single second.
That she had permitted Alfred then to do so, she felt amounted to a
confession of preference! Deep was the blush which accompanied this
thought.
At other times Lady Palliser would be extravagantly late in the morning;
and, if consequently not in the drawing-room when our hero called, she
would send word that Mr. Arden was not to go away till she came down;
and then so whimsical were all her movements, not perhaps make her
appearance for an hour, or possibly two. Those were the occasions on
which Alfred best succeeded in drawing Caroline into easy and familiar
conversation, and thus inducing in her a feeling of confidence towards
himself, which a young creature who had been blessed with any friend in
her own family, would not have thought of mingling with her love for a
lover: but the affection poor Caroline was beginning to feel towards
Alfred was not only her _First Love_, but it was also the first
friendship her heart had ever been encouraged to know. Thus it was, that
to a being hitherto so totally alone in the world, he became in so short
a time every thing. While the idea, however vaguely entertained, of
being at some period of the future of existence protected by his
affection from every harshness--sheltered by his tenderness from every
sorrow, had almost unconsciously became the hope, the home, the resting
place of all her anticipations.