It was night--arrivals had commenced--the lights, the music, the
decorations, the sight and scent of the flowers, all added to the aching
of Caroline's temples and the confusion of her ideas, as she stood in a
sort of waking dream, conscious only of wretchedness, near the door of
the first of the reception rooms, courtesying with a mechanical smile to
each new group that appeared. She would have given the world to have
been any where else, but this was the post her mother had commanded her
to fill.
When the ladies of the Arden party entered, she felt a childish impulse
to fling herself into the bosom of Lady Arden, and drawing all the
daughters round her, entreat them to hide her from her cruel mother.
Alfred next appeared, accompanied by Sir Willoughby and Mr. Geoffery
Arden. The two latter named gentlemen had been expected for some days,
but had arrived only about two hours before.
Alfred presented both, and some unmeaning conversation passed about the
heat of London, how long they had been on the road, &c. Our hero, the
moment he came in, missed the flowers Caroline had promised to wear, and
felt disappointed. If she had forgotten them in the hurry of dressing it
was no very flattering token of her regard. If, on the other hand, Lady
Palliser had noticed and forbid her wearing them, it was a bad symptom
of his ultimate success. He longed for an opportunity of venturing some
playful reproach which might lead to an explanation. When his companions
moved on a step or two he drew very near, and asked in an emphatic
whisper, if the chosen blossoms had faded already. A rush of colour,
which the peculiar fairness of Caroline's complexion already described
made the more remarkable, covered her cheeks in a moment; but she
attempted no reply. After a short and somewhat anxious pause Alfred
asked her to dance; she looked up suddenly but vacantly, as if scarcely
comprehending what he had said, but still spoke not. He was just about
to repeat his words, when Willoughby, who had been conversing with Lady
Palliser, turned round and made the same request. Caroline, glancing
towards her mother, and seeing her eye upon her, started, assented
quickly, took Willoughby's arm, and walked to the quadrille.
Lady Palliser noted the chagrin of our hero with secret triumph, and
suddenly forming one of her usually whimsical and tyrannical resolves,
determined, as an appropriate punishment for the lovers, to marry her
daughter to Sir Willoughby, whose match in town she had heard it
confidently reported was off. Though he was but a baronet, his immense
property made it at least an eligible marriage; and such, little as she
cared about Caroline, she had always considered it a necessary part of
etiquette some time or other to provide.
That Alfred, however, might ascribe Caroline's change to her own
caprice, and be the more mortified, Lady Palliser took his arm, walked
about with him for a considerable time, and treated him with more than
her usual cordiality.
It had the desired effect, it threw him into complete despair; he could
not now even console himself with the thought that Caroline was acting
under the influence of her mother.
When the dancing had ceased, and Caroline was seated with her evidently
delighted partner on a distant sofa, Lady Palliser led our hero up to
her, and said, "Come, Caroline, I have no notion of giving up old
friends for new ones altogether: you must dance one set with poor
Alfred; do see how forlorn he looks."
Caroline was utterly confounded: had her mother forgiven them--was she
going to relent.
Such happy thoughts, however, were soon scattered, for Lady Palliser,
on pretext of arranging a stray ringlet, drawing very near, whispered,
with a menacing frown, "Take care how you behave, and what you say." The
frown and whisper destroying as they did the momentary hope, caused
Caroline, on taking Alfred's arm, to look so much disappointed that it
was impossible not to infer that she would rather have remained on the
sofa. Yet Alfred could not bring himself to believe this! he was
miserable, however, and did not know what to think; while he was so much
occupied forming painful conjectures, that he himself behaved strangely
and coldly.
Caroline thought with intense agony of the task she had to perform in
the morning, while with a feeling allied to terror she stole from time
to time a momentary glance at the features of him she must so soon
mortally offend; to whom she must so soon give apparently just cause to
view her henceforward with hatred and contempt. She even fancied that
his countenance wore already a severity of expression she had never seen
in it before. She bewildered herself too with the thought, that if she
could get an opportunity and venture just to whisper, "Mr. Arden, don't
mind any thing I am obliged to say to you in the morning," it might
prevent his thinking so very very ill of her as he must otherwise do.
This sentence she repeated to herself above an hundred times during the
quadrille, yet whenever she was going to address it to Alfred, and more
than once she moved her lips to begin, she either caught her mother's
eye turned upon her, or she fancied it might be, and dared not look to
see lest it should give her a conscious and guilty appearance; or the
impression that Alfred was already displeased became so strong as to
deprive her of the courage to speak to him; besides all which, her heart
at each abortive attempt she made to articulate, leaped up into her
throat, and by its excessive fluttering quite choked her utterance, till
the convenient moment was gone by. On the music ceasing, Lady Palliser
came up and took her away, as if in great haste to make some
arrangement, yet, in so obliging a manner, and with so many pretty
excuses, that Alfred thought her ladyship at least was unchanged.
And so must Caroline, he told himself again and again; "it can be but
fancy on my part, or rather, all that seems strange and altered in her
manner must proceed from her extreme delicacy, her excessive timidity,
her consciousness that we now perfectly understand each other's thoughts
makes her fearful to meet my eye, at least with others present; makes
her afraid that all the world will know the moment they see us together
what is passing in our hearts. I can well imagine one so gentle, so
young, so fearful, feeling the newness of her situation, almost as
though she were already a bride; having listened but this very morning,
for the first time in her life, I should suppose favourably, to the
accent of a lover."
Alfred had wandered into the conservatory, where, amid the intoxicating
odours of ten thousand exotics--pursuing this train of thought--he
luxuriated for a time in dream-like meditations on the delicacy, the
devotion, the exclusive tenderness, which must necessarily characterise
the attachment of a being so pure, so innocent, so unpractised in the
world's ways as Caroline--his Caroline! Yes, he was now entitled to
combine with her idea this endearing epithet.
He was standing the while with his arms folded and his eyes
unconsciously uplifted to a brilliant lamp, as if lost in contemplation
of its brightness.
A change in the music broke his reverie; when his discerning vision
passing along a vista of orange trees, found its way into the
drawing-room, and fell on a group preparing to waltz. Among these, and
occupying the very spot hallowed to memory by the interview of the
morning, he beheld Caroline standing with the arm of Willoughby round
her slender waist, and her hand resting on his shoulder--a moment after
the couple had launched amid the tide of changing forms; but Alfred's
eye still traced them as they floated round and round the prescribed
circle, till, what with the moving scene, and his own thoughts of agony,
his brain went round also. He had never been able to prevail with
Caroline to waltz, her plea of refusal had always been that she did not
waltz. Was she then changed in every sentiment--in every opinion--in
every feeling! Had she become hardened to the world--lost to personal
delicacy--lost to affection--lost to him! What had she--what had she not
become! and all within a few short hours.