Mr father urged me sair,
But my mither didna speak,
Though she looked into my face,
Till my heart was like to break.--Auld Robin Gray.
“It is rather singular,” said Lady Westborough to her daughter as they
sat alone one afternoon in the music-room at Westborough Park,--“it is
rather singular that Lord Ulswater should not have come yet. He said he
should certainly be here before three o’clock.”
“You know, Mamma, that he has some military duties to detain him
at W----,” answered Lady Flora, bending over a drawing in which she
appeared to be earnestly engaged.
“True, my dear, and it was very kind in Lord ---- to quarter the troop
he commands in his native county; and very fortunate that W----, being
his head-quarters, should also be so near us. But I cannot conceive that
any duty can be sufficiently strong to detain him from you,” added
Lady Westborough, who had been accustomed all her life to a devotion
unparalleled in this age. “You seem very indulgent, Flora.”
“Alas! she should rather say very indifferent,” thought Lady Flora: but
she did not give her thought utterance; she only looked up at her mother
for a moment, and smiled faintly.
Whether there was something in that smile or in the pale cheek of her
daughter that touched her we know not, but Lady Westborough was touched:
she threw her arms round Lady Flora’s neck, kissed her fondly, and said,
“You do not seem well to-day, my love, are you?”
“Oh!--very--very well,” answered Lady Flora, returning her mother’s
caress, and hiding her eyes, to which the tears had started.
“My child,” said Lady Westborough, “you know that both myself and your
father are very desirous to see you married to Lord Ulswater,--of high
and ancient birth, of great wealth, young, unexceptionable in person and
character, and warmly attached to you, it would be impossible even for
the sanguine heart of a parent to ask for you a more eligible match. But
if the thought really does make you wretched,--and yet,--how can it?”
“I have consented,” said Flora, gently; “all I ask is, do not speak to
me more of the--the event than you can avoid.”
Lady Westborough pressed her hand, sighed, and replied not.
The door opened, and the marquis, who had within the last year become
a cripple, with the great man’s malady, dire podagra, was wheeled in on
his easy-chair; close behind him followed Lord Ulswater.
“I have brought you,” said the marquis, who piqued himself on a vein of
dry humour,--“I have brought you, young lady, a consolation for my ill
humours. Few gouty old fathers make themselves as welcome as I do; eh,
Ulswater?”
“Dare I apply to myself Lord Westborough’s compliment?” said the young
nobleman, advancing towards Lady Flora; and drawing his seat near her,
he entered into that whispered conversation so significant of courtship.
But there was little in Lady Flora’s manner by which an experienced eye
would have detected the bride elect: no sudden blush, no downcast, yet
sidelong look, no trembling of the hand, no indistinct confusion of
the voice, struggling with unanalyzed emotions. No: all was calm, cold,
listless; her cheek changed not tint nor hue, and her words, clear
and collected, seemed to contradict whatever the low murmurs of
her betrothed might well be supposed to insinuate. But, even in his
behaviour, there was something which, had Lady Westborough been less
contented than she was with the externals and surface of manner, would
have alarmed her for her daughter. A cloud, sullen and gloomy, sat upon
his brow; and his lip alternately quivered with something like scorn,
or was compressed with a kind of stifled passion. Even in the exultation
that sparkled in his eye, when he alluded to their approaching marriage,
there was an expression that almost might have been termed fierce, and
certainly was as little like the true orthodox ardour of “gentle
swain,” as Lady Flora’s sad and half unconscious coldness resembled the
diffident passion of the “blushing maiden.”
“You have considerably passed the time in which we expected you, my
lord,” said Lady Westborough, who, as a beauty herself, was a little
jealous of the deference due to the beauty of her daughter.
“It is true.,” said Lord Ulswater, glancing towards the opposite glass,
and smoothing his right eyebrow with his forefinger, “it is true, but I
could not help it. I had a great deal of business to do with my troop: I
have put them into a new manoeuvre. Do you know, my lord [turning to the
marquis], I think it very likely the soldiers may have some work on the
---- of this month?”
“Where, and wherefore?” asked Lord Westborough, whom a sudden twinge
forced into the laconic.
“At W----. Some idle fellows hold a meeting there on that day; and if I
may judge by bills and advertisements, chalkings on the walls, and, more
than all popular rumour, I have no doubt but what riot and sedition are
intended: the magistrates are terribly frightened. I hope we shall have
some cutting and hewing: I have no patience with the rebellious dogs.”
“For shame! for shame!” cried Lady Westborough, who, though a worldly,
was by no means an unfeeling, woman “the poor people are misguided; they
mean no harm.”
Lord Ulswater smiled scornfully. “I never dispute upon politics, but at
the head of my men,” said he, and turned the conversation.
Shortly afterwards Lady Flora, complaining of indisposition, rose, left
the apartment, and retired to her own room. There she sat motionless
and white as death for more than an hour. A day or two afterwards Miss
Trevanion received the following letter from her:--
Most heartily, most truly do I congratulate you, my dearest Eleanor,
upon your approaching marriage. You may reasonably hope for all that
happiness can afford; and though you do affect (for I do not think
that you feel) a fear lest you should not be able to fix a character,
volatile and light, like your lover’s; yet when I recollect his
warmth of heart and high sense, and your beauty, gentleness, charms of
conversation, and purely disinterested love for one whose great worldly
advantages might so easily bias or adulterate affection, I own that I
have no dread for your future fate, no feeling that can at all darken
the brightness of anticipation. Thank you, dearest, for the delicate
kindness with which you allude to my destiny: me indeed you cannot
congratulate as I can you. But do not grieve for me, my generous
Eleanor: if not happy, I shall, I trust, be at least contented. My poor
father implored me with tears in his eyes; my mother pressed my hand,
but spoke not; and I, whose affections were withered and hopes strewn,
should I not have been hard-hearted indeed if they had not wrung from me
a consent? And oh should I not be utterly lost, if in that consent which
blessed them I did not find something of peace and consolation?
Yes, dearest, in two months, only two months, I shall be Lord Ulswater’s
wife; and when we meet, you shall look narrowly at me, and see if he or
you have any right to complain of me.
Have you seen Mr. Linden lately? Yet do not answer the question: I ought
not to cherish still that fatal clinging interest for one who has so
utterly forgotten me. But I do rejoice in his prosperity; and when I
hear his praises, and watch his career, I feel proud that I should once
have loved him! Oh, how could he be so false, so cruel, in the very
midst of his professions of undying, unswerving faith to me; at the very
moment when I was ill, miserable, wasting my very heart, for anxiety on
his account,--and such a woman too! And had he loved me, even though his
letter was returned, would not his conscience have told him he deserved
it, and would he not have sought me out in person, and endeavoured to
win from my folly his forgiveness? But without attempting to see me, or
speak to me, or soothe a displeasure so natural, to leave the country
in silence, almost in disdain; and when we met again, to greet me with
coldness and hauteur, and never betray, by word, sign, or look, that he
had ever been to me more than the merest stranger! Fool! Fool! that I
am, to waste another thought upon him; but I will not, and ought not to
do so. In two months I shall not even have the privilege of remembrance.
I wish, Eleanor,--for I assure you that I have tried and tried,--that
I could find anything to like and esteem (since love is out of the
question) in this man, who seems so great, and, to me, so unaccountable
a favourite with my parents. His countenance and voice are so harsh
and stern; his manner at once so self-complacent and gloomy; his very
sentiments so narrow, even in their notions of honour; his very courage
so savage, and his pride so constant and offensive,--that I in vain
endeavour to persuade myself of his virtues, and recur, at least, to the
unwearying affection for me which he professes. It is true that he has
been three times refused; that I have told him I cannot love him; that I
have even owned former love to another: he still continues his suit,
and by dint of long hope has at length succeeded. But at times I could
almost think that he married me from very hate, rather than love: there
is such an artificial smoothness in his stern voice, such a latent
meaning in his eye; and when he thinks I have not noticed him, I have,
on suddenly turning towards him, perceived so dark and lowering an
expression upon his countenance that my heart has died within me for
very fear.
Had my mother been the least less kind, my father the least less urgent,
I think, nay, I know, I could not have gained such a victory over myself
as I have done in consenting to the day. But enough of this. I did not
think I should have run on so long and so foolishly; but we, dearest,
have been children and girls and women together: we have loved each
other with such fondness and unreserve that opening my heart to you
seems only another phrase for thinking aloud.
However, in two months I shall have no right even to thoughts; perhaps
I may not even love you: till then, dearest Eleanor, I am, as ever, your
affectionate and faithful friend, F. A.
Had Lord Westborough, indeed, been “less urgent,” or her mother “less
kind,” nothing could ever have wrung from Lady Flora her consent to a
marriage so ungenial and ill-omened.
Thrice had Lord Ulswater (then Lord Borodaile) been refused, before
finally accepted; and those who judge only from the ordinary effects of
pride would be astonished that he should have still persevered. But his
pride was that deep-rooted feeling which, so far from being repelled by
a single blow, fights stubbornly and doggedly onward, till the battle is
over and its object gained. From the moment he had resolved to address
Lady Flora Ardenne he had also resolved to win her. For three years,
despite of a refusal, first gently, then more peremptorily, urged, he
fixed himself in her train. He gave out that he was her affianced. In
all parties, in all places, he forced himself near her, unheeding alike
of her frowns or indifference; and his rank, his hauteur, his fierceness
of mien, and acknowledged courage kept aloof all the less arrogant and
hardy pretenders to Lady Flora’s favour. For this, indeed, she rather
thanked than blamed him; and it was the only thing which in the least
reconciled her modesty to his advances or her pride to his presumption.
He had been prudent as well as bold. The father he had served, and the
mother he had won. Lord Westborough, addicted a little to politics,
a good deal to show, and devotedly to gaming, was often greatly and
seriously embarrassed. Lord Ulswater, even during the life of his father
(who was lavishly generous to him), was provided with the means of
relieving his intended father-in-law’s necessities; and caring little
for money in comparison to a desired object, he was willing enough, we
do not say to bribe, but to influence, Lord Westborough’s consent. These
matters of arrangement were by no means concealed from the marchioness,
who, herself ostentatious and profuse, was in no small degree benefited
by them; and though they did not solely procure, yet they certainly
contributed to conciliate, her favour.
Few people are designedly and systematically wicked: even the worst find
good motives for bad deeds, and are as intent upon discovering glosses
for conduct to deceive themselves as to delude others. What wonder,
then, that poor Lady Westborough, never too rigidly addicted to
self-examination, and viewing all things through a very worldly
medium, saw only, in the alternate art and urgency employed against
her daughter’s real happiness, the various praiseworthy motives of
permanently disentangling Lady Flora from an unworthy attachment, of
procuring for her an establishment proportioned to her rank, and a
husband whose attachment, already shown by such singular perseverance,
was so likely to afford her everything which, in Lady Westborough’s
eyes, constituted felicity?
All our friends, perhaps, desire our happiness; but then it must
invariably be in their own way. What a pity that they do not employ the
same zeal in making us happy in ours!