Sir Patrick, like most men who are gifted with more head than heart,
disbelieved in all such generous emotions and exalted affections as he
had not himself experienced. With a lively defiance of received
opinions, his vivacity was unchecked by the fear of giving pain or of
causing offence, being perfectly reckless on that score, provided only
he could enliven the dull routine of ordinary society. Marion's
mingled expression of shyness and animation, her light laughter and
ardent feelings, were refreshing to a mind so hackneyed as his, and
though he often checked her sensitive spirit in its full flow of
affectionate confidence, by a retort courteous, or rather
discourteous, he was nevertheless vain of the admiration she
invariably excited, and read, in the eyes of others, the value he
ought to place on her beauty and talents.
Agnes' whole mind was so frothed over with folly, and encrusted with
selfishness, that unless the wheel of fortune touched upon her
personal comforts, she was as impervious to all external impressions
as a tortoise beneath the shell, and it was a useless waste of
generous sentiments and kind emotions, whenever the heart of Marion
was laid open to her. Agnes, who had long since adopted a company
manner, and even a company voice, persuaded herself that Marion also
had very cleverly "got up" a character on some imaginary model of
excellence, which she acted over to the very life. It seemed to her a
naked certainty that the refinement and delicacy natural to Marion's
mind were in reality artificial; and though the radiance of her
intellect, and the sensibility of her eye, were but in harmony with
her actions, all testifying disinterested self-denial and invariable
affection, still Agnes convinced herself that Marion lived "for
effect."
If Marion ever acted a part at all, it was only in concealing from
those who might have ridiculed her, the unfathomable depth of her
feelings, since she might as well have asked for sympathy from an
ice-berg as from Agnes. Knowing that every evidence of sensibility
would be received with scepticism, she silently and hopefully waited
till some scope might be afforded her for testifying that all which
she might have wished to profess was nothing to what she would do or
suffer for those she loved; and if ever Marion repined at any one
circumstance in her lot, it was, that she might perhaps pass through
life unknown to those she loved the best, because she dared not
express, even by a few insignificant words, that affectionate
attachment to Agnes and Sir Patrick, which she would have thought any
sacrifice a pleasure, to evince in its full and heartfelt measure.
One privilege of friendship Marion enjoyed in unbounded measure with
both her brother and sister. She became the usual depositary of their
many grievances and disappointments. Marion had the art,--or rather
the instinct, for to her all art was unknown,--of listening in
perfection. If Agnes received a dress from her London milliner which
did not fit, or if Sir Patrick did not obtain an invitation to some
jovial party which he had expected to enliven, Marion became of
immediate importance. The annoyance he felt on such occasions could
scarcely be exceeded--the death of his nearest relation, or of all his
relations together, would have been nothing to it; but Marion could
always administer some gentle anodyne to the irritated sufferer, and
displayed a wonderful ingenuity in turning up the best side of
everything, for the advantage and comfort of others. Nothing melted
Marion's heart so entirely as to see Sir Patrick for a moment
depressed, as the very pride and haughtiness of his spirit rendered
it, in her estimation, the more affecting when he seemed at all
subdued, and on the evening of Lady Towercliffe's ball, she could not
but fancy, before he set off with Agnes, that there was a forced
vivacity in his spirits which she had never perceived before, and that
the tone of his voice had a melancholy modulation when he bid her good
night, accompanied by an unusual degree of kindness, always the very
worst indication of Sir Patrick's spirits, the consciousness of which,
and a thousand conjectures respecting its cause and extent, dismissed
her to bed with an anxious mind and a prayer, even more fervent than
usual, for his happiness.
In one house, Marion was understood and loved as she wished to be, and
all her young enthusiasm found its best refuge and welcome in the aged
heart of Sir Arthur, who felt refreshed and cheered by the
companionship of thoughts and feelings as fresh and natural as the
flowers in spring, while they reminded him of the time when his own
had been as buoyant and untrodden, as hopeful and gay, as full of kind
intentions and generous wishes.
The morning after Marion's arrival at St. John's Lodge, she arose by
the peep of the day, intent on surprising her uncle with a visit
during his early breakfast, and gayly anticipating the look of joyful
surprise and perplexity with which she would be welcomed, while she
rehearsed in her own happy mind, how best to increase Sir Arthur's
astonishment. The day was indeed one of matchless beauty, the sunshine
perfectly superb, and all around resplendent with light, gayety, and
happiness, the white clouds skimming along like swans on the blue sky,
the air perfumed with blossoms, every leaf spangled with dew, the
painted butterflies, like winged flowers, hovering over the meadows,
and the country people exhibiting looks full of mirth, hilarity, and
good humor, as they hastened past to their tasks of daily toil,
enjoying those common gifts of a bountiful Providence, the light
breeze, the balmy sunshine, the music of birds, the perfume of
flowers, and the joy of natural, unfevered spirits.
"And now, while bloom and breeze their charms unite,
And all is glowing with a rich delight,
God! who can tread upon the breathing ground,
Nor feel Thee present, where Thy smiles abound?"
The whole air seemed full of incense and poetry when the light-footed
Marion, with a bounding and elastic step, set forth on her solitary
walk towards Portobello, joyous as a bird in spring, pleased with the
whole world, and admiring everything with a lightness of heart that
cast its sunshine on all she saw. Marion delighted in a wild sense of
liberty now, when she contrasted it with her long years of endurance
at Mrs. Penfold's; and equipped in exactly such a pink gingham dress
as Agnes had censured on Clara Granville, with the free air, like
liquid sunshine, playing about her glowing cheek, and her light
ringlets fluttering in the breeze, the excitement of her spirits
became such that she could have run with pleasure across the daisied
meadows, and, "glad as the wild bee on his glossy wing," longed to
reach the craggy heights of Arthur Seat, or to linger beneath the old
thorns already fragrant with blossoms, and steeped in dew.
Marion had picked some flowers as fresh and blooming as herself, while
she hurried through the more inhabited parts of the sanctuary, but
when passing beneath the palace windows, her steps were arrested for a
moment by hearing the sounds of mirth and music. "Can it be!" thought
she, in astonishment, "Lady Towercliffe's ball is yet at its zenith!"
Pitying the dancers much more than she envied them, Marion looked at
the scene of glorious beauty around her, and was hurrying forward,
humming a light barcarolle in concert with the thousand birds in full
chorus on every side, when suddenly a loud shout caused her to start
and turn around. Marion now perceived with astonishment that a window
of Lady Towercliffe's apartment had been hastily opened, and Sir
Patrick stood on the balcony waving his handkerchief impetuously for
her to stop, and a moment afterwards she saw him eagerly running after
her across the fields without his hat.
"Marion! you lucky girl! stop there!" exclaimed he with breathless
animation. "We are all at breakfast, and require one lady more to make
up a last quadrille, so come along; you are my prisoner! What makes
you look so aghast? Who ever heard of a girl not liking her first
ball?"
"Patrick, you are certainly mad!" said Marion, unable to help laughing
at the almost delirious eagerness of his manner. "Pray consider! I am
not in a ball dress! I am not invited! I shall look like a
house-maid!----"
"Nonsense! I wish everybody looked half as well! All these reasons,
and fifty more, go for nothing. I have set my heart upon it, and you
shall not stand in your own light, like the man in the moon. No,
Marion! you are to be published immediately under my auspices. You
have often expressed a willingness to die for me any day, but that is
not necessary just at present. All I ask is that you shall dance for
me! Now, fling that bonnet off, shake your little forest of ringlets,
and come along. You will pass muster very well without Cinderella's
god-mother to make a metamorphosis."
Unable to resist the outburst of her brother's extravagant mirth, yet
shrinking and abashed, almost ready to cry with vexation, Marion was
unwillingly led, or almost dragged by her laughing persecutor into the
drawing-room, where, with a look of _naivete_, and an aspect lovely in
the first blush and freshness of girlhood, she gazed in mute
astonishment and almost with dismay at this her first peep into the
great world of fashion, wishing for her own part that she could have
adopted invisibility, and enjoyed the scene as if she were in a private
box at the theatre, for as yet her feelings were "_trop pres de la
peine pour etre un plaisir_."
A bright sunshine streamed into the room, while the gas lamps still
dimly glared over the breakfast table, at present surrounded by three
or four hot, flushed, dusty-looking young ladies, with exaggerated
colors, soiled dresses, torn gloves, withered bouquets, and
exceedingly disordered ringlets, falling in dishevelled masses over
their naked shoulders. These ladies, assuming forced spirits, and an
appearance of over-done gaiety, kept up a rattling, flippant dialogue
with about twice or three times the number of gentlemen, some in
glittering uniforms, padded and stuffed to the very chin, and others
in plain clothes, but all over-heated, over-excited, and
over-fatigued, while, in spite of parched lips and blood-shot eyes,
they were still endeavoring, with all their might, to be fascinating.
To Marion's unaccustomed eye the whole party seemed like a set of
second rate actors from the theatre, not calculated, by their aspect,
to elicit very rapturous applauses, and she privately wondered they
were not ashamed to look each other in the face when in so ridiculous
a plight. Even Agnes, her own beautiful sister, looked very unlike
Agnes! and she felt astonished to find that it might actually be
possible to spend an hour in her company and not be admiring her, but
in Marion's very private opinion, her appearance was now as if some
sign post painter had done a resemblance of her sister in the very
coarsest coloring, and in the most overdone style of dress and
expression.
Agnes had a great deal to say, and no diffidence to prevent her saying
it all, therefore she was now plunged into the midst of a very
animated dialogue with Captain De Crespigny, talking with a look of
conscious beauty and conscious success, in the only style she could
talk, nonsense, and making a lavish expenditure of smiles, attitudes,
and exclamations, to give herself the appearance of vivacity. Her hair
was in a most disastrous state, and her complexion everything but what
it should be, while her dress had so completely fallen off at the
shoulders, that she might appropriately have sung her favorite air,
"One struggle more and I am free."
The expression of Agnes' countenance became at once perfectly natural,
when she turned round, and for the first time observed, with a start
of genuine astonishment, that Marion was beside her, looking at the
moment like some being of a better world, or like some graceful water
lily rearing its pure and beautiful head above the turbid pool.
Marion glanced at her sister in a state of smiling embarrassment, as
if desirous to claim her protection amidst a scene so new and strange,
and taking possession, with a confiding look, of Agnes' arm, joy
seemed rushing out of her bright animated eyes, and dimpling in her
cheeks, when, under her sister's protection, she gazed around with an
expression of timid amusement and curiosity.
"Marion, what mad freak is this?" exclaimed Agnes, with a hot red
blush of angry surprise; "Patrick, do take her home!"
"Not till she has been my _vis a vis_ in this quadrille, and then we
must all disperse," replied Sir Patrick, with a boyish mischievous
laugh, while noticing a haughty flash pass swiftly over the brow of
Agnes; "I had difficulty enough in getting Marion to come at all, so
she shall not escape me now. De Crespigny, have you engaged a partner?"
"If I had I would have strangled her!" replied Captain De Crespigny,
with an admiring glance at Marion, who stood with her downcast eyes
shaded with their long deep fringes, while an arch young smile played
round her mouth, and dimpled her cheek.
"Will you then take the very great trouble of dancing with Marion?"
"I shall be too happy," replied he, throwing a world of expression
into his fine animated eyes. "I shall do so with all my heart!"
"Marion, your old friend and cousin, Louis De Crespigny. Did you ever
see such an ugly fellow?"
"That is the very thing I pique myself upon! I am like the Skye
terriers, admired chiefly for my surpassing ugliness," said Captain De
Crespigny laughingly, observing the smile and the blush with which
Marion listened. "You think me plain; but I wish you saw my uncle!"
"Wear a mask, De Crespigny, if you ever become as hideous! But in
respect to looks, the most unendurable of all living beings is a
handsome vulgar man, like the description I hear of that creature
Howard, Sir Arthur's pen-and-ink man. I could forgive his vulgarity,
if Marion did not tell me that he presumes to be handsome, which
renders him utterly insufferable! I wish somebody would put him to
death!"
"The fellow has never yet shown himself to me," replied Captain De
Crespigny, carelessly. "Now, Miss Dunbar, allow me the honor of the
next quadrille with you; and if there be a dozen more," added he, with
his most ineffable smile, "so much the better! I consider any other
gentleman who asks you to-night as my personal enemy!"
Marion stole a frightened glance at Agnes, while timidly accepting the
offered arm of Captain De Crespigny; but her sister had turned away
with a look of superb disdain, and was engaged in lively conversation
with Lord Wigton, a tall stripling, who seemed as if he was never to
be done growing, and who copied Captain De Crespigny in everything,
from the pattern of his watch-chain to the choice of his partners.
Agnes felt invariably more astonished at any deficiency of attention,
than at the most devoted assiduity, having accustomed herself to
believe that she was always the first object of interest to every
gentleman in the room, though diffidence or caution might cause them
to exercise their self-denial for a time, by keeping aloof; and it was
with more commiseration for Captain De Crespigny's privation in losing
her, than for her own, that she accepted the school-boy Peer as a
partner, while secretly amused and flattered by the ludicrous
expression of awe and admiration with which he usually offered
himself. Having talked, flirted, and laughed, through one quadrille
and several reels, the clock struck eight. It was an unspeakable
triumph to Lady Towercliffe, that her ball had thus been kept up the
latest of any during the season; and now the whole prepared for
retiring to their fevered pillows.
Captain De Crespigny, after uttering, as usual, in his most
ingratiating manner, a million of absurd nothings, took a sentimental
leave of Marion, saying, with his very best smile, and a sigh
to correspond, "I shall always remember this evening with
pleasure--always! Ten minutes of unmixed happiness are something in
this world to be thankful for. Life has nothing more delightful."
These words were said in his usual gay, off-hand tone, while Captain De
Crespigny felt perfectly charmed to think what an impression they must
be making on the heart of his young and unsophisticated partner. He was
at the same time astonished himself, to find on this occasion how much
more his heart was on his lips than it had ever been before. Marion was
the only girl Captain De Crespigny had yet seen whom he did not feel a
wish to trifle with; for during the last half hour, he had been not
only amused, but deeply interested, by discovering in her conversation
a degree of matured reflection, of _naivete_, humor, and good sense,
accompanied by a brightness of expression in her deeply-speaking eyes,
much in contrast with what he had ever been accustomed to before.
Nothing is so rare in manner as to be perfectly natural, without a
_soupcon_ of affectation; and to this charm was added another, quite
as new and unexpected to Captain De Crespigny, though by no means so
acceptable, as he became not only astonished, but piqued, at the gay,
indifferent carelessness with which Marion heard, as words of course,
not more belonging to her than if they had been addressed to any one
else, his well-turned compliments and insinuated admiration.
Not to be met half-way was new and astonishing to Captain De Crespigny!
It seemed perfectly unaccountable, little as he knew how long his
character for a ruthless flirt had been placarded before the eyes of
Marion, who no more credited the sincerity of his professions now, than
if he had been an actor performing on the stage. She considered that it
was his part for the evening to scatter civilities indiscriminately
around him, while his real feelings were, she believed, privately
consecrated to one, and to one only. Marion's own heart was in armor,
protected by the belief of Captain De Crespigny being her affianced
brother; and therefore she received his _adieux_ with a quiet, demure
look, succeeded by an arch smile, as the idea crossed her mind how
completely she was in the secret of his attachment, and how little he
seemed to guess that she was.
When Captain De Crespigny observed Marion's good-humored, careless
manner in taking leave of him, he began to fancy it just possible she
might still be quite indifferent to his attentions; but he rather
indignantly resolved that this should not continue long. It would be a
distinction, he knew, to follow in the train of a young beauty so
admired as he saw that Marion must be; for a hundred tongues were
already talking around him of her matchless loveliness, while he alone
had yet enjoyed an opportunity of discovering that much as she was to
be admired by those who saw her, she was still more to be loved by
those who knew her; for she seemed to unite in herself all that he had
ever praised in a thousand others before, though he carried no plummet
in his mind fitted to measure the depth of hers. Captain De Crespigny
had been accustomed, hitherto, always to feign more than he felt; but
now, for the first time, he found it necessary to conceal, even from
himself, the extent of his feelings; for it seemed as if the last few
hours had rendered Marion perfectly known, and for ever dear to him.
Slowly strolling homewards, therefore, he gave vent to his thoughts,
by singing, in a voice like moonlight, soft and clear, the words of a
favorite song:--
"And fare thee well, my only love
And fare thee well a while!
And I will come again, my love,
Though it were ten thousand mile."