_Prin._ We are wise girls to work our lovers so,
* * * * *
So, portent-like, would I o'ersway his state
That he should be my fool, and I his fate.
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.
"You are not going away on Saturday," said Harriet the next morning to
Margaret, who was sitting with a letter in her hand, "do not think it. I
have made up my mind that you spend Christmas here."
"Rather hard upon Miss Capel," said Mr. Gage, "considering that _you_
will not be here at Christmas."
"Well, I don't know where I am likely to be, if not here," said Harriet;
"I think there is some derangement in that family," she added,
indicating Mr. Gage by a movement of her head:--"He is like the man in
'Nicholas Nickleby,' he insists upon marrying people, and I am his
present object; it will go off, you know. Your turn will come next,
Margaret, my dear."
"You are so provoking, Harriet," said Margaret, trying in vain to look
grave.
"But why should you go back to this Mrs. Fitzpatrick?" said Harriet.
"Because she is so lonely, Harriet. I told you she had lost her
daughter; and I have already been here a long time."
"But supposing we are both foolish enough to keep in the same mind, and
marry on the 18th, I shall want you to be bridesmaid," said Harriet.
"I would, gladly," said Margaret, "but I know Mrs. Fitzpatrick really
wants me; and I decide in her favour, because you are happy and well,
and she is so desolate alone."
"It would give us both so much pleasure if you could stay," said Mr.
Gage lowering his newspaper.
"I wonder who he includes so familiarly with himself," said Harriet, "I
think it must be Thompson; he is very intimate with his groom. Won't you
stay to oblige Thompson?"
Margaret laughing, protested "that she really could not."
Mr. Gage wondered how Harriet could be so ridiculous.
"Thompson and Charlotte are forgiven for the present," said Harriet. "I
wondered what made George so very lenient; it seems that he had it in
view to commit a similar folly, and that reminds me I must learn to
smoke again."
"Oh! do not, Harriet."
"My dear, it is in self-defence; unless, indeed, I break off the match.
He lives in a barrack. I dare say his room is not half the size of my
uncle's kennel: there he sits with all his intimate friends, smoking
till the place is like a lime kiln; if I cannot join them, what is to
become of me? Mr. Gage, have you a cigar about you? I will lose no time
in learning the art again."
Mr. Gage not noticing the last part of the speech, said "he did not
suppose it to be a very likely thing that he should permit his wife to
live in a barrack."
"Ah!" said Harriet shaking her head, "I have a conviction, a
presentiment, that I shall live in the little lime-kiln we were speaking
of. Uncle Singleton always said that would be my fate. And if it was not
for the bracelet-watch which George is having made for me, I assure you
it weighs so heavily on my spirits, that I would never speak to him
again. Just look behind the newspaper, my dear, and see if he is
crying."
Mr. Gage dropped the newspaper, and laughed without restraint, but he
told Harriet that "she had now effectually frightened Miss Capel from
ever coming to see her, when she was settled."
"Oh! I have provided against that;" said Harriet, "I don't know at all
what Mr. Gage's plans are; but for myself, I mean to go to Wardenscourt
early in the summer. Now I must have you solemnly promise, that
directly I summon you, you will instantly join me there. You know Mrs.
Fitzpatrick is connected with Lord Raymond, so that if she is invited, I
suppose she will make no scruple of accepting; then we will really enjoy
ourselves."
"I should like it very much," said Margaret.
"And you promise?"
"Yes, I do, indeed."
Margaret's approaching departure was a source of regret to every one.
Harriet told her that they looked upon her as a kind of hostage for her
own good behaviour, and that she had some ideas of the same kind
herself. She was sure that she should do something outrageous when she
was deprived of Margaret's overlooking eye. That neither she, nor Mr.
Gage had at all made up their minds, and that she knew there would be a
violent quarrel as soon as Margaret was out of the house.
Margaret thought, and said that if Mr. Gage meant to quarrel he would
have begun already, for there was not a single means of aggravation that
Harriet had left untried ever since her engagement with him.
Sometimes she affected to consider the engagement as a delusion of his
own; sometimes she told Margaret that they had agreed to feign it as
long as he stayed at Singleton Manor, in order to amuse him; at other
times, she said, it was all very well while the fancy lasted, but that
George would change his mind in a day or two, and so save her the
trouble of formally breaking it off.
Mr. Gage took refuge in the newspaper from all these attacks, and did
not seem to think it worth while to be ruffled. Mr. Humphries was
constantly at the house during the few last days of Margaret's stay. He
looked very sorrowful, but his attempts to propitiate her were confined
to a variety of strange faces, and gestures, which to say the truth,
she was too much occupied to remark. None regretted her so much as Mrs.
Singleton; she had been so attentive to all her wants, and so skilful in
making the old lady hear, that she felt in losing Margaret that she was
parting with a luxury she could ill afford to do without.
Mason shed some silent tears when she received her orders to pack up.
Whether they were on her own, or her young lady's account, she did not
explain. She did say while she was packing the trinket-box, that a very
general notion had prevailed in the housekeeper's room, that
Ixworth--Mr. Humphries' place of residence--was shortly to have a
mistress; and she believed it was never supposed likely that Miss Conway
would be requested to fill that situation; not, she wished to observe,
that any opinion prevailed derogatory to Miss Conway's charms, as might
be proved by the circumstance that Mr. Gage had made her an offer--a
very difficult and very high gentleman--but she had never heard any
harm of Mr. Humphries, and no one in the whole country, she believed,
could say anything to his disadvantage, which she thought a great thing
in favour of a young gentleman with so many clear thousands a-year. That
Mr. Humphries' gentleman had remarked, the night that they had all made
a party to go to the play at T----, that Mr. Humphries seemed to him to
be rather low; and that the butler, who was considered literary, had
observed, that "the course of true love never did run smooth;" that the
company had not taken the liberty to mention any names, but that she
could not deny that several of the party had looked as if they knew the
cause of Mr. Humphries' lowness, and of the butler's quotation.
Harriet actually cried when it came to taking leave of Margaret, and
between her sobs, affected to be very angry with Mr. Gage that he did
not follow her example.
Mr. Gage made a polite speech, of course, and felt it too, which is not
the case, with all polite speeches.
Margaret renewed her promise of going to Wardenscourt, twice in the
library, and once at the hall door, whither her warm-hearted friend
followed her; and then the carriage started from the door.
"Ah! there is poor Mr. Humphries," said Mason, as they swept out of the
shrubberies.
Margaret looked up, and beheld the gentleman in question, leaning on a
gate with his handkerchief in his hand. There was no time for a bow, so
she passed him without his having the comfort of knowing that she had
seen him.
They arrived late in the evening at Mrs. Fitzpatrick's. The musical dash
of the sea, and the scent of the air, warned Margaret their near
approach to home.
Her friend was delighted to receive her back. She had felt her absence
more than she had cared to acknowledge in her letters, for fear of
interfering with the pleasure of her visit.
Each had much to tell the other, though of a very different kind; and
Margaret had several times to repeat the fact that she came back
single-hearted. So strange did it seem to Mrs. Fitzpatrick, that her
faultless beauty should not have been successfully sought before this.
A slight discrepancy between Mason's and Miss Capel's account made Mrs.
Fitzpatrick rather suspicious, and many weeks elapsed, before she could
give up the idea that a certain Mr. Humphries was likely to make his
appearance at her cottage to conclude the preliminaries already entered
into, of a marriage between himself and her beautiful guest.
Meanwhile, Margaret was busy ordering a handsome, gold Châtelaine, or
Equipage, for Harriet; she drew the pattern, she corresponded almost
daily with the jeweller; she knew no rest until it was finished
according to her wish.
It so happened that Harriet had not seen one of these useful toys. It
arrived the day before her marriage, and she was delighted beyond
measure. In a few days, Margaret received a letter thanking her a
thousand times for her beautiful gift, and saying that she had deferred
writing till she could inform her that she was actually married, a
circumstance of which she had entertained great doubts until she found
herself at the church-door, when she supposed that even Mr. Gage could
not well retract. That she begged Margaret to notice that a blot on the
paper was of his making; that they were going leisurely through Wales,
previous to embarking for Dublin, and that it was with the sincerest
regret that she found herself obliged to sign her letters "Harriet
Gage."