Upon two several occasions have we committed to Jack Massingbred the
task of conducting this truthful history; for the third time do we now
purpose to make his correspondence the link between the past and what is
to follow. We are not quite sure that the course we thus adopt is free
from its share of inconvenience, but we take it to avoid the evils of
reiteration inseparable from following out the same events from merely
different points of view. There is also another advantage to be gained.
Jack is before our readers; we are not. Jack is an acquaintance; we
cannot aspire to that honor. Jack's opinions, right or wrong as they may
be, are part and parcel of a character already awaiting their verdict.
What he thought and felt, hoped, feared, or wished, are the materials by
which he is to be judged; and so we leave his cause in his own hands.
His letter is addressed to the same correspondent to whom he wrote
before. It is written, too, at different intervals, and in different
moods of mind. Like the letters of many men who practise concealment
with the world at large, it is remarkable for great frankness and
sincerity. He throws away his mask with such evident signs of enjoyment
that we only wonder if he can ever resume it; but crafty men like to
relax into candor, as royalty is said to indulge with pleasure in the
chance moments of pretended equality. It is, at all events, a novel
sensation; and even that much, in this routine life of ours, is
something!
He writes from Spa, and after some replies to matters with which we have
no concern, proceeds thus:--
“Of the Revolution, then, and the Three Glorious Days as they are
called, I can tell you next to nothing, and for this simple reason,
that I was there fighting, shouting, throwing up barricades, singing the
'Marseillaise,' smashing furniture, and shooting my 'Swiss,' like the
rest. As to who beat the troops, forced the Tuileries, and drove Marmont
back, you must consult the newspapers. Personal adventures I could give
you to satiety, hairbreadth 'scapes and acts of heroism by the dozen;
but these narratives are never new, and always tiresome. The serious
reflectiveness sounds like humbug, and, if one treats them lightly,
the flippancy is an offence. Jocular heroism is ever an insult to the
reader.
“You say, '_Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?_' and I
answer, it was all _her_ doing. Yes, Harry, _she_ was there. I was
thinking of nothing less in the world than a great 'blow for freedom,'
as the 'Globe' has it. I had troubled my head wonderfully little about
the whole affair. Any little interest I took was in the notion that if
our 'natural enemies,' the French, were to fall to and kill each other,
there would be so much the fewer left to fight against us; but as to who
was to get the upper hand, or what they were to do when they had it,
I gave myself no imaginable concern. I had a vague, shadowy kind of
impression that the government was a bad one, but I had a much
stronger conviction that the people deserved no better. My leanings--my
instincts, if you prefer it--were with the Crown. The mob and its
sentiments are always repulsive. Popular enthusiasm is a great ocean,
but it is an ocean of dirty water, and you cannot come out clean from
the contact; and so I should have wished well to royalty, but for an
accident,--a mere trifle in its way, but one quite sufficient, even on
historic grounds, to account for a man's change of opinions. The troops
shot my cab-horse, sent a bullet through poor 'Beverley,' and seriously
damaged a new hat which I wore at the time, accompanying these acts with
expressions the reverse of compliment or civility. I was pitched out
into the gutter, and, most appropriately you will say, I got up a
Radical, a Democrat, a Fourierist,--anything, in short, that shouts
'Down with Kings, and up with the Sovereign People!'
“My principles--don't smile at the word--led me into a stupid
altercation with a very pleasant acquaintance, and we parted to meet the
next morning in hostility,--at least, such was our understanding; but by
the time that our difference should have been settled, _I_ was carried
away on a stretcher to the Hôtel Dieu, wounded, and he was flung, a
corpse, into the Seine. I intended to have been a most accurate narrator
of events, journalizing for you, hour by hour, with all the stirring
excitement of the present tense, but I cannot; the crash and the hubbub
are still in my brain, and the infernal chaos of the streets is yet
over me. Not to speak of my wound,--a very ugly sabre-cut in the
neck,--severing I don't know what amount of nerves, arteries, and
such-like 'small deer,' every one of which, however, has its own
peculiar perils in the shape of aneurisms, tetanus, and so forth, in
case I am not a miracle of patience, calmness, and composure.
“The Martins are nursing and comforting and chicken-brothing me to my
heart's content, and La Henderson, herself an invalid, with a terrible
broken arm, comes and reads to me from time to time. What a girl it is!
Wounded in a street encounter, she actually carried Lady Dorothea into
a porte-cochère, and when they had lost their heads in terror, could
neither issue an order to the servants nor know what way to turn, she
took the guidance of the whole party, obtained horses and carriages and
an escort, escaped from Paris, and reached Versailles in the midst of
flying courtiers and dismayed ministers, and actually was the very first
to bring the tidings that the game of monarchy was up,--that the king
had nothing left for it but an inglorious flight. To the Duchesse de
Mire-court she made this communication, which it seems none of the
court-followers had the courage or honesty to do before. The Duchess, in
her terror, actually dragged her into the presence of the king, and made
her repeat what she had said. The scene, as told me, was quite dramatic;
the king took her hand to lead her to a seat, but it was unfortunately
of the wounded arm, and she fainted. The sight of the wounded limb so
affected the nerves of monarchy that he gave immediate orders to depart,
and was off within an hour.
“How they found me out a patient in a ward of the Hôtel Dieu, rescued
and carried me away with them, I have heard full half a dozen times, but
I 'm far from being clear enough to repeat the story; and, indeed, when
I try to recall the period, the only images which rise up before me
are long ranges of white coverlids, pale faces, and groans and cries of
suffering, with the dark curly head of a great master of torture
peeping at me, and whom, I am told, is the Baron Dupuytren,
the Surgeon-in-Chief. After these comes a vision of litters and
_charrettes_,--sore joltings and stoppages to drink water--But I shall
rave if I go on. Better I should tell you of my pleasant little bedroom
here, opening on a small garden, with a tiny fountain trying to sprinkle
the wild myrtle and blush-roses around it, and sportively sending its
little plash over me, as the wind wafts it into my chamber. My luxurious
chair and easy-cushioned sofa, and my table littered with everything,
from flowers to French romances; not to speak of the small rustic seat
beside the window, where she has been sitting the last hour, and has
only quitted to give me time to write this to you. I know it--I see
it--all you can say, all that you are saying at this moment, is fifty
times more forcibly echoing within my own heart, and repeating in fitful
sentences: 'A ruined man--a broken fortune--a mad attachment--a life of
struggle, difficulty, and failure!' But why should it be failure? Such a
girl for a wife ought in itself to be an earnest of success. Are not her
qualities exactly those that do battle with the difficulties of fortune?
Self-denial--ambition--courage--an intense, an intuitive knowledge of
the world--and then, a purpose-like devotion to whatever she undertakes,
that throws an air of heroism over all her actions.
“Birth--blood--family connections--what have they done for me, except it
be to entail upon me the necessity of selecting a career amidst the
two or three that are supposed to suit the well-born? I may be a Life
Guardsman, or an unpaid attaché, but I must not be a physician or a
merchant. Nor is it alone that certain careers are closed against
us, but certain opinions too. I must not think ill of the governing
class,--I must never think well of the governed.
“Well, Harry, the colonies are the remedy for all this. There, at least,
a man can fashion existence as arbitrarily as he can the shape and
size of his house. None shall dictate his etiquette, no more than his
architecture; and I am well weary of the slavery of this old-world life,
with our worship of old notions and old china, both because they are
cracked, damaged, and useless. I 'll marry her. I have made up my mind
on 't. Spare me all your remonstrances, all your mock compassion. Nor
is it like a fellow who has not seen the world in its best gala suit,
affecting to despise rank, splendor, and high station. _I have_ seen
the thing. I have cantered my thoroughbred along Rotten Row, eaten my
truffled dinners in Belgravia, whispered my nonsense over the white
shoulders of the fairest and best-born of England's daughters. I know
to a decimal fraction the value of all these; and, what 's more, I know
what one pays for them,--the miserable vassalage, the poor slavery of
mind, soul, and body they cost!
“It is the terror of exclusion here, the dread of coldness there--the
possibility of offence to 'his Grace' on this side, or misconception by
'her Ladyship' on that--sway and rule a man so that he may neither eat,
drink, nor sleep without a 'Court Guide' in his pocket. I 've done with
it! now and forever,--I tell you frankly,--I return no more to this
bondage.
“I have written a farewell address to my worthy constituents of
Oughterard. I have told them that, 'feeling an instinct of independence
within me, I can no longer remain their representative; that, as a man
of honor, I shrink from the jobbery of the little borough politicians,
and, as a gentleman, I beg to decline their intimacy.' They took me for
want of a better--I leave them for the same reason.
“To my father I have said: 'Let us make a compromise. As your son I
have a claim on the House. Now, what will you give for my share? I 'll
neither importune you for place, nor embarrass you with solicitations
for employment. Help me to stock my knapsack, and I 'll find my road
myself.' _She_ knows nothing of these steps on my part; nor shall she,
till they have become irrevocable. She is too proud ever to consent to
what would cost me thus heavily; but the expense once incurred,--the
outlay made,--she cannot object to what has become the law of my future
life.
“I send off these two documents to-night; this done, I shall write to
her an offer of marriage. What a fever I 'm in! and all because I feel
the necessity of defending myself to _you_,--to you of all men the most
headstrong, reckless, and self-indulgent,--a fellow who never curbed a
caprice nor restrained a passing fancy; and yet you are just the man
to light your cigar, and while you puff away your blue cloud, mutter on
about rashness, folly, insanity, and the rest of it, as if the state of
your bank account should make that wisdom in _you_, which with _me_ is
but mere madness! But I tell you, Harry, it is your very thousands per
annum that preclude you from doing what I can. It is your house in town,
your stud at Tattersall's, your yacht at Cowes, your grouse-lodge in the
Highlands, that tie and fetter you to live like some scores of others,
with whom you have n't one solitary sympathy, save in income! You are
bound up in all the recognizances of your wealth to dine stupidly, sup
languidly, and sink down at last into a marriage of convenience,--to
make a wife of her whom 'her Grace' has chosen for you without a single
speculation in the contract save the thought of the earl you will be
allied to, and the four noble families you 'll have the right to go in
mourning for.
“And what worse than cant it is to talk of what they call an indiscreet
match! What does--what can the world know as to the reasons that impel
you, or me, or anybody else, to form a certain attachment? Are they
acquainted with our secret and most hidden emotions? Do they understand
the project of life we have planned to ourselves? Have they read our
utter weariness and contempt for forms that _they_ venerate, and social
distinctions that _they_ worship? I am aware that in some cases it
requires courage to do this; and in doing it a man virtually throws down
the glove to the whole world, and says, 'This woman's love is to me more
than all of you'--and so say I at this moment. I must cry halt, I see,
Harry. I have set these nerves at work in my wound, and the pain is
agony. Tomorrow--to-night, if I 'm able--I shall continue.
“Midnight.” They have just wished me good-night, after having spent the
evening here reading out the newspapers for me, commenting upon them,
and exerting themselves to amuse me in a hundred good-natured ways. You
would like this same stately old Lady Dorothea. She is really 'Grande
Dame' in every respect,--dress, air, carriage, gesture, even her slow
and measured speech is imposing, and her prejudices, uttered as they are
in such perfect sincerity of heart, have something touching about them,
and her sorrowful pity for the mob sounded more gracefully than Kate's
enthusiastic estimate of their high deservings. It does go terribly
against the grain to fancy an alliance between coarse natures and noble
sentiments, and to believe in the native nobility of those who never
touch soap! I have had a kind of skirmish with La Henderson upon this
theme to-night. She was cross and out of temper, and bore my bantering
badly. The fact is, she is utterly disgusted at the turn things have
taken in France; and not altogether without reason, since, after all
their bluster and bloodshed and barricades, they have gone back to a
monarchy again. They barred out the master to make 'the head usher' top
of the school. Let us see if he won't be as fond of the birch as his
predecessor. Like all mutineers, they found they could n't steer the
ship when they had murdered the captain! How hopeless it makes one of
humanity to see such a spectacle as this, Harry, and how low is one's
estimate of the species after such experience! You meet some half-dozen
semi-bald, spectacled old gentlemen in society, somewhat more reserved
than the rest of the company, fond of talking to each other, and rather
distrustful of strangers; you find them slow conversers at dinner, sorry
whist-players in the drawing-room; you are told, however, that one is a
President of the Council, another the Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
and a third something equally important. You venerate them
accordingly, while you mutter the old Swede's apothegm about the 'small
intelligences' that rule mankind. Wait awhile! There is a row in the
streets: a pickpocket has appealed to the public to rescue him from the
ignoble hands of the police; an escaped felon has fired at the judge who
sentenced him, in the name of Liberty and Fraternity. No matter what
the cause, there _is_ a row. The troops are called out; some
are beaten, some join the insurgents. The government grows
frightened--temporizes--offers terms--and sends for more soldiers.
The people--I never clearly knew what the word meant--the people
make extravagant demands, and will not even give time to have them
granted,--in a word, the whole state is subverted, the king, if there
be one, in flight, the royal family missing, the ministers nowhere! No
great loss you 'll say, if the four or five smooth-faced imbecilities
we have spoken of are not to the fore! But there is your error,
Harry,--your great error. These men, used to conduct and carry on
the government, cannot be replaced. The new capacities do nothing but
blunder, and maybe issue contradictory orders and impede each other's
actions. To improvise a Secretary of State is about as wise a proceeding
as to take at hazard a third-class passenger and set him to guide the
engine of a train. The only difference is that the machinery of state
is ten thousand times more complex than that of a steam-engine, and the
powers for mischief and misfortune in due proportion.
“But why talk of these things? I have had enough and too much of them
already this evening; women, too, are unpleasant disputants in politics.
They attach their faith to persons, not parties. Miss Henderson is,
besides, a little spoiled by the notice of those maxim-mongers who write
leaders in the 'Débats, and articles for the 'Deux Mondes.' They
have, or affect to have, a kind of pitying estimate for our English
constitutional forms, which is rather offensive. At least, she provoked
me, and I am relapsing into bad temper, just by thinking of it.
“You tell me that you once served with Captain Martin, and I see you
understand him; not that it requires much study to do so. You say he was
reckoned a good officer; what a sneer is that on the art military!
“There are, however, many suitable qualities about him, and he certainly
possesses the true and distinctive element of a gentleman,--he knows how
to be idle. Ay, Harry, that is a privilege that your retired banker
or enriched cotton-spinner never attains to. They must be up and
doing,--where there is nothing to do. They carry the spirit of the
counting-house and the loom into society with them, and having found
a pleasure in business, they want to make a business of pleasure. Now,
Martin understands idling to perfection. His tea and toast, his mutton
cutlet, and his mustachios are abundant occupation for him. With
luncheon about two o'clock, he saunters through the stables, sucking a
lighted cigar, filing his nails, and admiring his boots, till it 's time
to ride out. He comes to me about nine of an evening, and we play piquet
till I get sleepy; after which he goes to 'the rooms,' and, I believe,
plays high; at least, I suspect so; for he has, at times, the forced
calm--that semi-jocular resignation--one sees in a heavy loser. He has
been occasionally, too, probing me about Merl,--you remember the fellow
who had the rooms near Knightsbridge,--so that I opine he has been
dabbling in loans. What a sorry spectacle such a creature as this in the
toils of the Israelite, for he is the 'softest of the soft.' I see it
from the effect La Henderson has produced upon him. He is in love with
her,--actually in love. He even wanted to make me his confidant--and I
narrowly escaped the confession--only yesterday evening. Of course, he
has no suspicion of my attachment in the same quarter, so that it would
be downright treachery in me to listen to his avowal. Another feeling,
too, sways me, Harry,--I don't think I could hear a man profess
admiration for the woman that I mean to marry, without the self-same
sense of resentment I should experience were I already her husband. I 'm
certain I 'd shoot him for it.
“La belle Kate and I parted coldly--dryly, I should call it--this
evening. I had fancied she was above coquetry, but she is not. Is
any woman? She certainly gave the Captain what the world would
call encouragement all the night; listened attentively to tiresome
tiger-huntings and stories of the new country; questioned him about his
Mahratta campaigns, and even hinted at how much she would like an Indian
life. Perhaps the torment she was inflicting on Lady Dorothea amused
her; perhaps it was the irritation she witnessed in me gave the zest to
this pastime. It is seldom that she condescends to be either amused or
amusing; and I own it is a part does not suit her. She is a thousand
times more attractive sitting over her embroidery-frame, raising
her head at times to say a few words,--ever apposite and well
chosen,--always simple, too, and to the purpose; or even by a slight
gesture bearing agreement with what is said around her; till, with a
sudden impulse, she pours forth fast, rapidly, and fluently some glowing
sentiment of praise or censure, some glorious eulogy of the good, or
some withering depreciation of the wrong. Then it is that you see
how dark those eyes can be, how deep-toned that voice, and with what
delicacy of expression she can mould and fashion every mood of mind, and
give utterance to sentiments that till then none have ever known how to
embody.
“It is such a descent to her to play coquette! Cleopatra cannot--should
not be an Abigail. I am low and depressed to-night; I scarcely know
why: indeed, I have less reason than usual for heavy-heartedness. These
people are singularly kind and attentive to me, and seem to have totally
forgotten how ungratefully once before I repaid their civilities. What
a stupid mistake do we commit in not separating our public life from our
social one, so as to show that our opinions upon measures of state
are disconnected with all the sentiments we maintain for our private
friendships. I detect a hundred sympathies, inconceivable points of
contact, between these people and myself. We pass hours praising the
same things, and abusing the same people; and how could it possibly
sever our relations that I would endow Maynooth when they would pull it
down, or that I liked forty-shilling freeholders better than ten-pound
householders? You 'll say that a certain earnestness accompanies strong
convictions, and that when a man is deeply impressed with some supposed
truths, he 'll not measure his reprobation of those who assail them.
But a lawyer does all this, and forfeits nothing of the esteem of 'his
learned brother on the opposite side.' Nay, they exchange very-ugly
knocks at times, and inflict very unseemly marks even with the gloves
on; still they go homeward, arm-in-arm, after, and laugh heartily at
both plaintiff and defendant. By Jove! Harry, it may sound ill, but
somehow it seems as though to secure even a moderate share of enjoyment
in this life one must throne Expediency in the seat of Principle. I 'll
add the conclusion to-morrow, and now say good-night.
“Three days have passed over since I wrote the last time to you, and
it would require as many weeks were I to chronicle all that has passed
through my mind in the interval. Events there have been few; but
sensations--emotions, enough for a lifetime. Nor dare I recall them!
Faintly endeavoring to trace a few broken memories, my pains of mind and
body come back again, so that you must bear with me if I be incoherent,
almost unintelligible.
“The day after I wrote to you, I never saw her. My Lady, who came as
usual to visit me in the day, said something about Miss Henderson having
a headache. Unpleasant letters from her family--obliged to give up
the day to answering them; but all so confused and with such evident
constraint as to show me that something disagreeable loomed in view.
“The Captain dropped in about four o'clock, and as the weather was
unfavorable, we sat down to our party of piquet. By a little address,
I continued to lose nearly every game, and so gradually led him into a
conversation while we played; but I soon saw that he only knew something
had occurred 'upstairs,' but knew not what.
“' I suspect, however,' added he, 'it is only the old question as to
Kate's going away.' “'Going away! Going where?' cried I.
“'Home to her father; she is resolutely bent upon it,--has been so ever
since we left Paris. My mother, who evidently--but on what score I know
not--had some serious difference with her, is now most eager to make
concessions, and would stoop to--what for her is no trifle--even
solicitation to induce her to stay, has utterly failed; so, too, has
my father. Persuasion and entreaty not succeeding, I suspect--but it is
only suspicion--that they have had recourse to parental authority,
and asked old Henderson to interfere. At least, a letter has come this
morning from the West of Ireland, for Kate, which I surmise to be in his
hand. She gave it, immediately on reading it, to my mother, and I could
detect in her Ladyship's face, while she perused it, unmistakable
signs of satisfaction. When she handed it back, too, she gave a certain
condescending smile, which, in my mother, implies victory, and seems
to say, “Let us be friends now,--I 'm going to signal--cease firing.”'
“'And Kate, did she make any remark--say anything?' “'Not a syllable.
She folded up the document, carefully and steadily, and placed it in
her work-box, and then resumed her embroidery in silence. I watched her
narrowly, while I affected to read the paper, and saw that she had to
rip out half she had done. After a while my mother said,--“'”You 'll not
answer that letter to-day, probably?”
“'“I mean to do so, my Lady,” said she; “and, with your permission, will
beg you to read my reply.”
“'“Very well,” said my mother, and left the room. I was standing outside
on the balcony at the time, so that Kate believed, after my mother's
departure, she was quite alone. It was then she opened the letter, and
re-read it carefully. I never took my eyes off her; and yet what was
passing in her mind, whether joy, grief, disappointment, or pleasure,
I defy any man to declare; nor when, having laid it down once more, she
took up her work, not a line or a lineament betrayed her. It was plain
enough the letter was no pleasant one, and I expected to have heard her
sigh perhaps, or at least show some sign of depression; but no, she
went on calmly, and at last began to sing, in a low, faint voice, barely
audible where I stood, one of her little barcarole songs she is so fond
of; and if there was no sorrow in her own heart, by Jove! she made mine
throb heavily as I listened! I stood it as long as I was able, and then
coughed to show that I was there, and entered the room. She never lifted
her head, or noticed me, not even when I drew a chair close to her, and
sat down at her side.
“'I suppose, Massingbred,' said he, after a pause, 'you 'll laugh at
me, if I tell you I was in love with the Governess! Well, I should have
laughed too, some six months ago, if any man had prophesied it; but
the way I put the matter to myself is this: If I do succeed to a
good estate, I have a right to indulge my own fancy in a wife; if I
don't,--that is, if I be a ruined man,--where 's the harm in marrying
beneath me?'
“'Quite right, admirably argued,' said I, impatiently; 'go on.'
“'I 'm glad you agree with me,' said he, with the stupid satisfaction of
imbecility. 'I thought I had reduced the question to its very narrowest
bounds.'
“'So you have; go on,' cried I.
“'“Miss Henderson,” said I,--for I determined to show that I was
speaking seriously, and so I did n't call her Kate,-- “Miss Henderson, I
want to speak to you. I have been long seeking this opportunity; and if
you will vouchsafe me a few minutes now, and hear me, on a subject upon
which all my happiness in life depends--”
“'When I got that far, she put her work down on her knee, and stared at
me with those large, full eyes of hers so steadily--ay, so haughtily,
too--that I half wished myself fifty miles away.
“'“Captain Martin,” said she, in a low, distinct voice, “has it ever
occurred to you in life to have, by a mere moment of reflection, a
sudden flash of intelligence, saved yourself from some step, some act,
which, if accomplished, had brought nothing but outrage to your feeling,
and insult to your self-esteem? Let such now rescue you from resuming
this theme.”
“'“But you# don't understand me,” said I. “What I wish to say--” Just at
that instant my father came into the room in search of her, and I made
my escape to hide the confusion that I felt ready to overwhelm me.'
“'And have you not seen her since?'
“'No. Indeed, I think it quite as well, too. She 'll have time to think
over what I said, and see what a deuced good offer it is; for though I
know she was going to make objections about inequality of station and
all that at the time, reflection will bring better thoughts.'
“'And she 'll consent, you think?'
“'I wish I had a bet on it,' said he.
“'So you shall, then,' said I, endeavoring to seem thoroughly at my
ease. 'It's a very unworthy occasion for a wager, Martin; but I'll lay
five hundred to one she refuses you.'
“'Taken, and booked,' cried he, writing it down in his note-book. “I
only regret it is not in thousands.'
“'So it should be, if I could honestly stake what I have n't got.'
“'You are so sanguine of winning? '
“' So certain, you ought to say.'
“' Of course you use no influence against me,--you take no step of any
kind to affect her decision.'
“'Certainly not.'
“'Nor are you--But,' added he, laughing, 'I need n't make that proviso.
I was going to say, you are not to ask her yourself.'
“'I 'll even promise you that, if you like,' said I.
“'Then what can you mean?' said he, with a puzzled look. 'But whatever
it be, I can stand the loss. I 've won very close to double as much from
you this evening.'
“'And as to the disappointment?'
“'Oh, _you_ 'll not mention it, I 'm certain, neither will she, so none
will be the wiser; and, after all, the real bore in all these cases is
the gossip.' And with this consolatory reflection he left me to dress
for dinner. How well bred a fellow seems who has no feeling, but just
tact enough to detect the tone of the world and follow it! That's
Martin's case, and his manners are perfect! After he was gone, I
was miserable for not having quarrelled with him,--said something
outrageous, insolent, and unbearable. That he should have dared to
insult the young girl by such presumption as the offer of _his_ hand
is really too much. What difference of station--wide as the poles
asunder--could compare with their real inequality? The fop, the idler,
the incompetent, to aspire to _her!_ Even his very narrative proclaimed
his mean nature, wandering on, as it did, from a lounge on the balcony
to an offer of marriage!
“Now, to conclude this wearisome story--and I fancy, Harry, that already
you half deem me a fitting rival for the tiresome Captain,--but to
finish, Martin came early into my room, and laying a bank-note for £100
on the bed, merely added, 'You were right; there's your money.' I'd have
given double the sum to hear the details of this affair,--in what terms
the refusal was conveyed,--on what grounds she based it; but he would
not afford me the slightest satisfaction on any of these points. Indeed,
he displayed more vigor of character than I suspected in him, in the way
he arrested my inquiries. He left this for Paris immediately after, so
that the mystery of that interview will doubtless remain impenetrable to
me.
“We are all at sixes and sevens to-day. Old Martin, shocked by some
tidings of Ireland that he chanced upon in the public papers, I believe,
has had a stroke of paralysis, or a seizure resembling that malady.
Lady Dorothea is quite helpless from terror, and but for Kate, the whole
household would be in utter chaos and disorganization; but she goes
about, with her arm in a sling, calm and tranquil, but with the energy
and activity of one who feels that all depends upon her guidance and
direction. The servants obey her with a promptitude that proclaims
instinct; and even the doctor lays aside the mysterious jargon of
his craft, and condescends to talk sense to her. I have not seen her;
passing rumors only reach me in my solitude, and I sit here writing and
brooding alternately.
“P. S. Martin is a little better; no immediate danger to life, but
slight hopes of ultimate recovery. I was wrong as to the cause. It was a
proclamation of outlawry against his son, the Captain, which he read in
the 'Times.' Some implacable creditor or other had pushed his claim so
far, as I believe is easy enough to do nowadays; and poor Martin, who
connected this stigma with all the disgrace that once accompanied such a
sentence, fell senseless to the ground, and was taken up palsied. He is
perfectly collected and even tranquil now, and they wheeled me in to sit
with him for an hour or so. Lady Dorothea behaves admirably; the first
shock overwhelmed her, but that passed off, and she is now all that
could be imagined of tenderness and zeal.
“Kate I saw but for a second. She asked me to write to Captain Martin,
and request him to hasten home. It was no time to trifle with her; so I
simply promised to do so, adding,--“'_You,_ I trust, will not leave this
at such a moment?'
“'Assuredly not,' said she, slightly coloring at what implied my
knowledge of her plans.
“'Then all will go on well in that case,' said I.
“'I never knew that I was reckoned what people call lucky,' said she,
smiling. 'Indeed, most of those with whom I have been associated in life
might say the opposite.' And then, without waiting to hear me, she left
the room.
“My brain is throbbing and my cheeks burning; some feverish access is
upon me. So I send off this ere I grow worse.
“Your faithful friend,
“Jack Massingbred.”