BOTANICAL STUDIES—THE NATURAL SYSTEM PREFERABLE TO THE LINNEAN.
[Illustration: Nicholas Announcing Miss Betty O’Dowds Carriage]
“The carriage is at the door, my lord,” said a servant, entering the
luncheon-room where we were all assembled.
“Now then, Mr. Lorrequer,” said Lord Callonby, “allons, take another
glass of wine, and let us away. I expect you to make a most brilliant
speech, remember!”
His lordship here alluded to our intention of visiting a remote barony,
where a meeting of the freeholders was that day to be held, and at
which I was pledged for a “neat and appropriate” oration in abuse of
the corn laws and the holy alliance.
“I beg pardon, my lord,” said her ladyship in a most languishing tone;
“but Mr. Lorrequer is pre-engaged; he has for the last week been
promising and deterring his visit to the new conservatory with me;
where he is to find out four or five of the Swiss shrubs that Collins
cannot make out—and which I am dying to know all about.”
“Mr. Lorrequer is a false man then,” said Lady Catherine, “for he said
at breakfast, that we should devote this afternoon to the chalk
caves—as the tide will be so far out, we can see them all perfectly.”
“And I,” said Lord Kilkee, “must put in my plea, that the aforesaid Mr.
Lorrequer is booked for a coursing match—‘Mouche versus Jessie.’—Guilty
or not guilty?”
Lady Jane alone of all said not a word.
“Guilty on every count of the indictment,” said I; “I throw myself on
the mercy of the court.”
“Let his sentence then be banishment,” said Lady Catherine with
affected anger, “and let him go with papa.”
“I rather think,” said Lord Kilkee, “the better plan is to let him
visit the conservatory, for I’d wager a fifty he finds it more
difficult to invent botany, than canvass freeholders; eh?”
“I am sure,” said Lady Jane, for the first time breaking silence, “that
mamma is infinitely flattered by the proposal that Mr. Lorrequer’s
company is to be conferred upon her for his sins.”
“I am not to be affronted, nor quizzed out of my chaperon; here, Mr.
Lorrequer,” said Lady Callonby rising, “get Smith’s book there, and let
me have your arm; and now, young ladies, come along, and learn
something, if you can.”
“An admirable proviso,” said Lord Kilkee, laughing; “if his botany be
only as authentic as the autographs he gave Mrs. MacDermot, and all of
which he wrote himself, in my dressing-room, in half an hour. Napoleon
was the only difficult one in the number.”
Most fortunately this unfair disclosure did not reach her ladyship’s
ears, as she was busily engaged putting on her bonnet, and I was yet
unassailed in reputation to her.
“Good bye, then,” said Lord Callonby; “we meet at seven;” and in a few
moments the little party were scattered to their several destinations.
“How very hot you have this place, Collins,” said Lady Callonby as we
entered the conservatory.
“Only seventy-five, my lady, and the Magnolias require heat.”
I here dropped a little behind, as if to examine a plant, and in a
half-whisper said to Lady Jane—
“How came it that you alone, Lady Jane, should forget I had made
another appointment? I thought you wished to make a sketch of
Craigmoran Abbey—did you forget that we were to ride there to-day?”
Before she could reply, Lady Callonby called out—“Oh, here it is, Mr.
Lorrequer. Is this a heath? that is the question.”
Here her ladyship pointed to a little scrubby thing, that looked very
like a birch rod. I proceeded to examine it most minutely, while
Collins waited with all the intense anxiety of a man whose character
depended on the sentence.
“Collins will have it a jungermania,” said she.
“And Collins is right,” said I, not trusting myself with the
pronunciation of the awful word her ladyship uttered.
Collins looked ridiculously happy.
“Now that is so delightful,” said Lady Callonby, as she stopped to look
for another puzzle.
“What a wretch it is,” said Lady Catherine, covering her face with a
handkerchief.
“What a beautiful little flower,” said Lady Jane, lifting up the bell
of a “lobelia splendens.”
“You know, of course,” said I, “what they call that flower in
France—L’amour tendre.”
“Indeed!”
“True, I assure you; may I present you with this sprig of it,” cutting
off a small twig, and presenting it at the same instant unseen by the
others.
She hesitated for an instant, and then extending her fair and taper
hand took it. I dared not look at her as she did so, but a proud
swelling triumph at my heart nearly choked me.
“Now Collins,” said Lady Callonby, “I cannot find the Alpen tree I
brought home from the Grundenwald.”
Collins hurried forward to her ladyship’s side.
Lady Catherine was also called to assist in the search.
I was alone with Lady Jane.
“Now or never,” thought I; I hesitated—I stammered—my voice faltered.
She saw my agitation; she participated in, and increased it. At last I
summoned up courage to touch her hand; she gently withdrew it—but so
gently, it was not a repulse.
“If Lady Jane,” said I at length, “if the devoted—”
“Holloa, there,” said a deep voice without; “is Mr. Lorrequer there?”
It was Lord Kilkee, returned from his coursing match. None but he who
has felt such an interruption, can feel for me. I shame to say that his
brotherhood to her, for whom I would have perilled my life, restrained
me not from something very like a hearty commendation of him to the
powers that burn—
“Down, dogs, there—down,” continued he, and in a moment after entered
the conservatory flushed and heated with the chace.
“Mouche is the winner—two to one—and so, Master Shallow, I owe you a
thousand pounds.”
Would to heaven that I had lost the wager, had it only taken a little
longer to decide it! I of course appeared overjoyed at my dog’s
success, and listened with great pretence of interest to the narrative
of the “run;” the more so, because that though perhaps more my friend
than the older members of the family, Lord Kilkee evidently liked less
than them, my growing intimacy with his sister; and I was anxious to
blind him on the present occasion, when, but for his recent excitement,
very little penetration would have enabled him to detect that something
unusual had taken place.
It was now so nearly dark, that her ladyship’s further search for the
alpine treasure became impossible, and so we turned our steps towards
the garden, where we continued to walk till joined by Lord Callonby.
And now began a most active discussion upon agriculture, rents, tithes,
and toryism, in which the ladies took but little part; and I had the
mortification to perceive that Lady Jane was excessively ‘ennuyée’, and
seized the first opportunity to leave the party and return to the
house; while her sister gave me from time to time certain knowing
glances, as if intimating that my knowledge of farming and political
economy was pretty much on a par with my proficiency in botany.
One has discovered me at least, thought I; but the bell had rung to
dress for dinner, and I hastened to my room to think over future plans,
and once more wonder at the singular position into which fate and the
“rules of the service” had thrown me.