I need quote no more from my diary, as the next few days offered no
incident worthy of recording to break the monotony of our life at
Dangerfield Hall. Drearier than ever it was, and more especially to
me; for I felt that, although undeclared, there was "war to the knife"
between myself, my aunt, and cousin. The latter scarcely spoke to me
at all; and my aunt, whose defeat was rankling bitterly in her heart,
merely took such sullen notice of me as was absolutely necessitated by
the laws of hospitality and the usages of society. Poor Aunt Deborah
required to be kept very quiet and free from all worries and
annoyances. "The more she slept," the doctor said, "the sooner she
would get well enough to move to London for further advice;" so I had
not even her to talk to--there was no hunting--the frost got harder
and harder--that obstinate weather-cock over the stables kept veering
from north to north-east--the grooms went to exercise wrapped up in
greatcoats and shawl handkerchiefs, and stayed out as short a time as
was compatible with the mildest stable discipline; there would be no
change of the moon for a week, and it was obvious that I should have
but little use for Brilliant and White Stockings before our return to
town.
Oh! the hopelessness of a real bitter black frost coming on early in
the season, especially when you are not at your own home and your time
is limited; to get up morning after morning with the faint hope that
the change may have come at last; to see the dry slates and the clear
horizon and the iron-bound earth, and to ascertain in your own proper
person that the water gets colder and colder every day. You puzzle
over the almanac till your eyes ache, and study the thermometer till
you get a crick in your neck. You watch the smoke from every farmhouse
and cottage within your ken, and still, after curling high up into the
pure, rarefied atmosphere, it floats hopelessly away to the southward
and corroborates the odious dog-vane that you fondly imagined might
have got stuck in its northerly direction. You walk out and ask every
labourer you meet whether he "does not think we are going to have a
change?" The man looks up from his work, wonders at your solicitude,
opines "the gentry folk have queer ways," but answers honestly enough,
according to his convictions, in the negative--perhaps giving some
local reasons for his opinion, which, if an old man, he will tell you
he has never known to fail. Lastly, you quarrel with every one of your
non-hunting friends, whose unfeeling observations on "fine seasonable
weather" and "healthy, bracing frosts" you feel to be brutal in the
extreme.
How I hated the frost at Dangerfield! My only chance of meeting with
Frank Lovell was out hunting. I had written him an answer to his note
(I have often heard Aunt Horsingham say that nothing is so inexcusable
as not to answer a letter), and I had no possible means of delivering
it. I could not put it in the bag, for my aunt keeps the key. I did
not like to entrust it to any of the servants, and my own maid is the
last person in whose power I should choose to place myself. I did once
think of asking Cousin John to give it to Frank, and throwing myself
on kind, good John's generosity, and confessing everything to him, and
asking for his advice; but somehow I could not bring myself to it. If
he had been my brother, nothing would have been easier; but John is
only a cousin, and one or two little things of late had made me
suspect that he liked me even better than cousins generally do; so
altogether I thought I would leave it alone--besides, John was going
off to shoot pheasants in Wales. The third morning of the frost he
came down to breakfast in a suit of wondrous apparel that I knew meant
a move in some direction, and I attacked him accordingly.
"Is that killing 'get-up' entirely for our benefit, John?" I asked;
"or are you bound on some expedition that requires more fascinations
than common?"
John coloured--he has taken to blushing lately. "I'm going down to
Wales for a few days' shooting, Kate," was his reply. "I shall come
back again when the frost breaks up if Lady Horsingham will be good
enough to receive me." Aunt Horsingham is always very civil to John,
and so is Cousin Amelia. People generally are to young bachelors. I
wonder why men ever marry; they are so much more in request without
wives and children.
"Always happy to see _you_," said Aunt Horsingham, with an emphasis on
the pronoun. "By-the-way, what is your address in Wales, that I may
forward your letters?"
John looked rather guilty as he handed an envelope to my aunt and
begged her to copy it exactly.
"I can't pronounce the name of my friend Lloyd's place," he said, "but
you'll find it written there in seven consonants and one vowel."
"Lloyd!" said I--"Lloyd! Wasn't there a pretty Miss Lloyd you used to
dance with last season in London? John! John! I've found you out at
last. Now I can account for the splendour of your attire. Now I can
see why you post off to Wales in such a hurry, leaving your horses and
your hunting and your cousin, sir, for the _beaux yeux_ of Miss
Fanny--isn't that her name? Well, John, I give you joy; she is a
pretty girl, even in London, and Aunt Deborah says she's a fortune."
John looked so distressed I didn't like to pursue the subject. I
couldn't think what had come over him--he never spoke another word to
me till he jumped into his dog-cart to be off, and then he only
muttered "Goodbye, Kate" in a hoarse whisper, but he wrung my hand
very hard, and I even thought there were tears in his eyes! He is a
good fellow, John; I was sorry to think I might have said anything to
hurt his feelings.
After he went away it was drearier than ever. What could I do but
think of Frank Lovell, and wonder when I should see him again? Where
could he be? Perhaps at the inn at Muddlebury. I could see the smoke
of the town from the breakfast-room windows, and used to watch it with
a painful interest. Every time a servant came into the room I thought
something impossible was going to happen. If a carriage drove up to
the house--if a horse's tramp was heard in the approach--if the
door-bell rung, I fancied it must be Captain Lovell coming to
call--perhaps to explain everything--possibly to request an interview
with my aunt, such as Squire Haycock had undergone, "but," as I said
to myself with a beating heart, "to have a very different result." If
the dwelling solely on one idea be a species of madness, then was I
undoubtedly mad--nothing was so wild and extravagant as to appear
impossible to my heated fancy. I was always expecting and always
disappointed.
The fourth morning I got a letter from Mrs. Lumley, which did not add
much to my composure or comfort. Why is it ladies have such a knack of
making each other miserable equally by letter as by word of mouth? I
give the epistle of Mrs. Lumley verbatim, omitting only the dashes and
notes of admiration with which it was studded:--
"MY DEAREST DEAR KATE,--Here we are settled at Brighton, much to
the benefit of my poor, dear husband, whom you have never seen, but
who knows you well by name, and have everything, even the weather,
all we can wish. The only drawback to me is the loss of your
charming society and the absence of your dear, merry face.
"I am leading a highly virtuous and praiseworthy life, and have not
done the least bit of mischief since I came here, except making the
Dean's wife jealous, which I can hardly call a crime, as she is a
vulgar little woman with a red nose and a yellow bonnet--the Dean
is a fat, good-natured man, and calls here nearly every day. His
wife abuses me in all societies, and tries to pass me without
speaking. You know how I always return good for evil, so I go up and
shake hands with her, and ask after her dear children, and patronize
her till I make her so angry she don't know which way to look--it's
rather good fun in such a slow place as this. My time is fully
occupied nursing 'my old man,' who was very ill before we came here,
and can only go out in a pony-carriage for an hour or two at a time;
so I have brought the ponies down and drive him myself.
"The only chance the brown mare has of a gallop is in the mornings,
though next week I mean to have a day with the harriers; indeed,
they have appointed them at a good place on purpose for me. I
inspected the regiment of Dragoons quartered here yesterday morning;
they were at exercise on the Downs, and as the Gitana (my brown
mare) always behaves well with troops, which my enemies would affirm
is more than can be said of her mistress, I am able to report upon
their general appearance and efficiency. Such a set of 'gigs,' my
dear, I never saw in my life; large underbred horses, and not a
good-looking man amongst them. The officers are, if possible, more
hideous than the privates; and they never give balls or theatricals
or anything, so we need waste no more words upon them.
"I am improving my mind, though, vastly, picking up shells for my
little cousins, and perfecting my education besides by learning to
swim. I wish you were here--what fun we would have enacting the
part of mermaids! though I fear the cold will now put a stop to my
aquatic exploits. The other morning I swam nearly two hundred yards
on a stretch; and the tide having taken me out of my reckoning, I
brought up, as the sailors say, opposite the gentlemen's
bathing-machines. What could I do? It was as impossible to walk
along the beach as to fight back against the current. Presence of
mind, Kate, is the salient point of the heroic character; the door
of a machine was open, and I popped in. My dear, there were all his
clothes, his hair-brush, his button-hook, his wig, and, would you
believe it? an instrument for curling his whiskers! I put everything
on except the wig, crowned myself with his broad-brimmed white hat,
felt in his pockets, which were full of gold and silver, and, to my
credit be it said, only selected one shilling, with which I paid the
bathing-man, and walked off undiscovered to my own machine. The fat
old she-triton laughed till she cried. I dressed in my proper
costume leisurely enough, and was amused to hear afterwards of the
luckless plight in which a stout gentleman had found himself by the
temporary loss of all his apparel whilst he was disporting in 'the
briny.'
"Other adventures I have had none; and the contrast is, as you may
believe, somewhat striking after the last two or three weeks of the
London season--always, to my mind, the pleasantest part of the
year. I was sorry you left town when you did; we had such a number
of charming little dinners and expeditions in our own set. Dear
Frank Lovell was the life and soul of us all. I never knew him in
such spirits--quite like a boy out of school; and there were few
days that we did not meet either at Greenwich or Richmond, or
Windsor or Vauxhall; and of course wherever _he_ went there was Lady
Scapegrace. I must say that, although nobody can accuse me of being
a prude, the way she goes on with Frank is rather too brazen-faced
even for _her_--taking him everywhere in her carriage, setting him
down at his club after the opera, walking with him in Kensington
Gardens, his cab always at the door, and her ladyship 'not at home'
even to me. To be sure, he is almost as bad, if it is true, as
everybody says it is, that he is to marry Miss Molasses.
"Poor Frank! he must get hold of somebody with money, or he will
soon be in the Bench. He is rather a friend of yours, my dear, so I
ought not to abuse him; but he is _very wild_, and though extremely
agreeable, I am afraid utterly unprincipled. I do not believe,
however, that he cares one snap of the fingers for Lady Scapegrace,
or Miss Molasses either, for the matter of that. I meant to have
written you a long letter; but my stupid servants have let the Dean
in, and I hear his cough at this moment on the stairs--he is sadly
out of wind before he reaches the first landing. I think even my
poor 'old man' would beat him at even weights a hundred yards along
the beach. As I shall not get rid of him under an hour, and the post
will by that time be gone out, I must wish you good-bye.--Ever my
dearest Kate's most affectionate
"M. L."
I threw the letter on the floor, and stamped upon it with my feet. And
was this the end of all? To have brooded and pined, and made myself
miserable and well-nigh broken my heart day by day for a man that was
to prove so utterly unworthy as this! To have been thrown over for a
Lady Scapegrace! or, worse still, to have allowed even to myself that
I cared for one who was ready and willing to be sold to a Miss
Molasses.
"Too degrading!" I thought. "No, I'll never care for him again; the
dream is over. What a fool I've been! And yet--why did he send his
horses down to Muddlebury? Why did he serenade me that night from the
Park? Why is he not now with his dear Lady Scapegrace at Scamperly,
where I see by the _Morning Post_ Sir Guy is 'entertaining a party of
fashionables during the frost'? No! I will not give him up quite yet."
On reading her letter over again, which I did many times during the
day, I found a ray of comfort in my voluble correspondent's own
opinion that Frank did not himself care a pin for either of the
ladies, to both of whom the world gave him so unhesitatingly. Well,
that was something, at any rate. As for his wildness and his debts,
and his recklessness and many escapades, I liked him none the worse
for these--what woman ever did? I thought it all over during the whole
day, and by the time that I opened my window for my usual lookout into
the night before going to bed, I am afraid I felt more inclined than
ever to forgive him all that had gone before, and more determined to
find some means of forwarding him the answer I had written to his
note, and which I had been so many times on the point of burning
during the day.
What a bitter cold night it was!--yet the keen north wind felt
pleasant and refreshing on my fevered forehead. There had been a
sprinkling of snow too since sunset, and the open surface of the Park
was completely whitened over--how cheerless and desolate it looked! I
hadn't the heart to stay very long at the window; it reminded me too
much of the pleasant evenings one short week ago. I felt weary and
desponding, and drowsy with uncertainty and unhappiness, so I was in
the act of shutting down the window, when I saw a dark figure moving
rapidly across the snow in the direction of the house. Not for an
instant did I mistake it for a deer, or a gamekeeper, or a poacher, or
a housebreaker. From the moment I set eyes on it, something told me it
must be Frank Lovell; and though I shrunk back that he might not see
me, I watched him with painful anxiety and a beating heart. He seemed
to know his way quite well. He came straight to the moat, felt his way
cautiously for a step or two, and finding the ice would bear him,
crossed at once, and took up a position under my window, not twenty
feet from where I was standing.
He must have seen my shadow across the candle-light, for he whispered
my name.
"Miss Coventry--Kate! Only one word." What could I do? Poor fellow! he
had walked all that distance in the cold and the snow only for one
word--and this was the man I had been doubting and misjudging all day!
Why, of course, though I know it was very wrong and very improper and
all that, of course I spoke to him, and listened to what he had to
say, and carried on a long conversation, the effect of which was
somewhat ludicrous, in consequence of the distance between the
parties, question and answer requiring to be _shouted_, as it were, in
a whisper. The night too was clouding over, more snow was falling, and
it was getting so dark I could not see Frank, even at the distance of
twelve or fourteen feet, and it could not have been much more between
my bedroom window and the ground.
"Did you get my note?" said he with sundry complimentary expressions.
"Here's the answer," was my practical reply, as I dropped my own
missive into the darkness.
I know he caught it, because--because--_I heard him kiss it_. At that
moment I was aware of a step in the passage, a hand on my door. Down
went my window in a twinkling, out went my candles--the wick of the
second one would keep glimmering like a light far off at sea--and in
came Aunt Horsingham, clad in flannel attire, with a wondrous
head-dress, the like of which I have never beheld before or since,
just as I popped into bed, and buried myself beneath the clothes as if
I had been asleep for hours.
"Where can it be, Kate?" said my aunt. "I have been in every room
along the passage to find out where the light comes from. I saw it
distinctly from my own room, streaming across the moat; there might be
thieves in the house," added my aunt, looking valiant even in flannel,
"or some of the men-servants carousing, but I have been in every room
on the ground floor myself; and then I thought perhaps you might be
sitting up reading."
"Reading, aunt? Oh dear, no! I assure you I wasn't reading," I
answered, every nerve racked with suspense, lest Frank should get
impatient and wonder what had become of me--perhaps throw a snowball
up at the window to attract my attention.
"What o'clock is it?" I added with a feigned yawn. "I think I must
have been asleep for hours."
As if to punish me for this gratuitous perversion of the truth, the
words were hardly out of my mouth when I heard a loud crack on the
ice, and a splash as of the sudden immersion of some daring
adventurer; then all was still--the snow-flakes fell softly against
the window panes. My aunt, shading her candle with her long hand,
talked drowsily on; and finally persisted in my coming to sleep with
her in her own room, as she said I was "the only person in the house
that had the nerves of a hen." I would have given all I was worth in
the world to have one more look out of the open window, though even
then it might be too late. I would willingly have walked barefoot in
the snow all the way to Muddlebury, only to know he was safe back at
the inn. For a moment I thought of confessing everything and alarming
the house, but I had _not_ courage; so I followed my aunt to her room,
and lay awake that livelong night in such a state of agony and
suspense as I hope I may never have to endure again.