Captain De Crespigny continued to visit at St. John's Lodge almost
daily, having now adopted a quite-at-home style, dropping in at all
hours of the morning or evening, partly in the character of a cousin,
partly as a convivial friend of Sir Patrick's, and solely, in the
estimation of Agnes, as her devoted admirer; but not one of the
motives which ostensibly brought him there was the real one. He kept
up long, animated, horse-and-dog conversations with Sir Patrick, and
love-and-nonsense conversations with Agnes; but his whole thoughts and
attention were secretly devoted to Marion, to so engrossing an extent,
that he became astonished even at himself. She was always exceedingly
busy about something when he called--more frequently out of the room
than in it, while he staid, and so constantly sat down to write letters
or notes while he talked to Sir Patrick, that one day, in a tone of
pique, he said, writing at such a rate, she would soon be several
volumes a-head of Sir Walter Scott; but still Marion continued as much
pre-occupied in his presence, and as good-humoredly indifferent as
before. She treated him, as the friend of Sir Patrick, almost like a
brother, and was not in the slightest degree agitated, when he flew,
with fascinating _empressement_, to light the taper for her, to open
the door, or to pay any of the ten thousand little attentions with
which he was accustomed to dazzle and delight the hundred and one other
young ladies among whom he had hitherto divided himself. It was
absolutely insufferable to see her so perfectly self-possessed and
conversible, without a thought of being admired, always ready with a
reply when he spoke to her, and amused with his jests, but not
sufficiently interested by his presence, to attempt being either
attractive or repulsive. Seeing him approach the table one day several
times while she was writing, Marion said at last,
"Is there anything here I can give you? anything you want?"
"Yes!" said Captain De Crespigny, in a low, agitated voice. "I do want
more than I dare ask; more than I shall perhaps ever obtain."
Marion at these words glanced with astonishment towards Agnes, and
privately thought her sister's lover must require very great
encouragement indeed, if he were not satisfied with all he got; but
unwilling to interfere in any differences that might have arisen
between them, she calmly resumed her employment, unconscious that the
eyes of Captain De Crespigny were fixed upon her with a look of
disappointment and pique, because she had not so much as favored him
with a conscious blush.
Nothing surprised and amused the young mind of Marion half so much, as
the light raillery and gay persiflage, which continually passed between
her brother and Captain De Crespigny, whose conversation was enlivened
with sallies of good-humored malice against each other, and lively
satire, which sometimes approached the verge, and often even passed the
verge of civility, while each seemed to have conferred on his friend
the royal privilege of saying or doing no wrong, so that the pointed
arrows they levelled at each other became feathers before they reached
their aim.
"I must give the Abbey people a ball!" exclaimed Sir Patrick one day,
after whistling for some time with his back to the fire. "The Children
of the Abbey, as we gentlemen in difficulties are called! A dance of
ruined people! What a capital hit!"
"Like Holbein's dance of death!" observed Marion. "Our creditors would
all come, I suppose, and take out a dividend in cakes and ices! You
are, of course, not serious, Patrick!"
"Why not? You are always ready with an opinion, like a lawyer expecting
a fee; but remember, Marion, the attorney waits at least till he is
asked! I am as serious now as I ever am about anything. Let me make the
neighbors and the neighborhood expire with envy and admiration! You
know the last kick of a dying horse is always the strongest. Agnes,
fetch your visiting book, and we shall get up a splendid impromptu, to
be paid for with my surplus income! Ah! here comes De Crespigny, as he
always does, at the very moment we were wishing for him."
"Because there is never a moment, I suppose, that you are not wishing
for me!" replied he, fixing his expostulating eye on Sir Patrick. "I
owe myself to society, and make a duty of paying visits from pure
benevolence, because in every house I find people perfectly dying for
my arrival. If I had three hands to shake, I would divide them equally
amongst you; but I have only one to offer," added Captain De Crespigny,
with lively emphasis, as he extended his to Agnes, who stood nearest
him.
"You belong, I believe, to the Modest Assurance Company," said she,
with a blush and a smile. "But after this little outbreak of vanity, we
really do want your advice."
"That is a thing I never either give or take. The word should be
drummed out of the English language."
"Then," added Sir Patrick, "pray lend us your opinion."
"No, Dunbar! I lend you nothing! Remember our agreement. Can't afford
bad debts! Better give you half-a-crown than lend you a shilling."
"De Crespigny, your wit is as sharp to-day as that American scythe, the
shadow of which cut a man's leg off! I owe you one for the last hit!"
"Ten to one you never pay me! I have serious thoughts of taking rooms
in the sanctuary myself soon, because it displays beauties and
attractions beyond any other part of the world. Positively, I see no
place like it, and no people like its inhabitants."
Sir Patrick's hearty laugh rang through the room, while Agnes smiled
with conscious triumph; and Marion, who had been for several minutes
planning an escape to the Granvilles, thought this a favorable
opportunity to steal off unobserved, and had safely reached the door,
when Sir Patrick hastily summoned her back.
"Marion! where are you shying off to so hastily? Are you under a vow of
solitude? There is no keeping you in the room for a minute now."
"Never mind me!" said Captain De Crespigny, assuming a tone of
good-humored conceit, to disguise a great deal of real pique. "I am not
so bad as I look."
"No!" replied Agnes, laughing. "That is exactly what the keeper at the
Zoological Gardens says of the ourang outang!"
"Don't be put out of countenance by her, De Crespigny! you'll do," said
Sir Patrick. "I've seen worse looking people in the world! I knew a
gentleman once, much plainer than you are, who got on very well!"
"Sir Patrick Dunbar, for instance, or some other, with no pretensions
whatever! Really, old fellow! I am much the best looking of the two, if
people would only think so. It is astonishing the sort of men who pass
themselves off upon the world for being handsome--quite an imposition."
"Quite!" replied Sir Patrick, and the two gentlemen laughingly glanced
at each other. "I am quite obliged to you for that remark; but as I see
the watch of your wit is wound up for a reply, pray let it strike."
"No, I am not revengeful! As somebody said to somebody, some day when
they were talking about something, I have 'a soul above buttons.' But
positively," continued Captain De Crespigny, gazing around, as if he
had made a sudden discovery, and letting his eye rest upon Marion, "to
do ourselves justice, Dunbar, we in this room are a remarkably good
looking party."
"To be sure we are! You never said a truer thing!" replied Sir Patrick.
"So obvious, indeed, that it was scarcely worth remarking. I remember
the time, De Crespigny, when you used to copy me--to imitate the
inimitable; and positively, with such tolerable success, that I very
nearly bowed to myself one day for you."
"Well, Patrick!" said Agnes, "I do think you are like nobody else, and
like nothing human I ever saw; and yet I have a great turn for finding
out resemblances. How very like Wednesdays are to Thursdays!"
"Astonishingly so!" replied Captain De Crespigny, adding, with one of
his most indescribable looks, "but I see not the slightest resemblance
between your sister and you."
Agnes smiled one of her brightest smiles at what must, she thought, be
intended most unquestionably as a compliment; but though the difference
appeared obvious enough, the superiority, judging from the direction
and the expression of Captain De Crespigny's eyes, was not by any means
so decided a point as Agnes seemed willing to believe.
"De Crespigny!" said Sir Patrick, with one of his most satirical looks.
"Do you really now, in serious earnest, call yourself dressed? It is
very well as a joke; but you are surely not got up in that style for
the day? In the name of all that is hideous, who is your tailor, that I
may avoid him? Does he call that thing you wear a coat?"
"No!"
"Then, pray, what does he call it?"
"A surtout! and such a one as you never had since you wore a cap and
cockade! It is a real original Dodds! I could bet the amount of your
bill, whatever that may be, probably with several years' interest--a
few hundreds--that you will never be half so well fitted. If you want a
coat--a real undeniable, irreproachable coat, fit for a gentleman to be
seen in--employ my tailor in St. James' street; he will make a man of
you!"
"From a certain cut of tigerism in the collar, I guessed he lived in
Cheapside or the Strand! Never employ him again! I would not allow him
to dress me if he offered to do it for nothing! Have more regard for
yourself, De Crespigny, and never be betrayed into trusting him again.
He is totally incapable of his business! You might as well expect a
Whig Ministry to form a tolerable Administration. The thing is not upon
the cards!"
"Pray, attend now to my cards!" interrupted Agnes. "If you are got upon
politics, there will be no slipping in a word edgewise about my ball;
and the joy of planning it quite turns my head."
"You turn every other head, so it is but fair that your own should
share the same fate!" observed Captain De Crespigny, with a light and
careless laugh; but what he said was neither lightly nor carelessly
received by Agnes; for the color rushed in vivid brilliancy to her
cheek, while she bent her head to conceal a smile of pleasure; yet when
Marion looked up suddenly from her drawing, the eyes of Captain De
Crespigny were again fixed on herself, as he added, "I wish those I
admire the most had a few imperfections to make them human."
"I should not think any one thoroughly liked me who saw them," observed
Agnes, in a tone of gratified vanity. "And now for business, Pat! Here
is a correct list of our acquaintances!"
"But I want an incorrect one!" replied Sir Patrick, jocularly seizing
the catalogue of names. "I hate anything correct! Let me see! Here are
some tolerable people enough! This is not a bad world, after all, if
one could pick out those who are ornamental, and pass an act of
extermination upon all who are objectionable in manner, appearance,
circumstances, or disposition. In such a case, it might really become
fit for a gentleman to live in!"
Agnes' visiting-book was now carefully revised, while the party seemed
to think they had met only to pass sentence on all their acquaintances.
No subject appeared so exhaustless as the faults and follies of their
particular friends; their poverty, wealth, avarice, or extravagance;
while the liveliness of their conversation, instead of emanating, like
that of the Granvilles, from the gay fancies and spontaneous sparklings
of their own minds, was almost entirely derived from the follies and
personal defects of others; and Marion could not but remember with a
smile the country clergyman, who said once from the pulpit, that
"people should never speak ill of their neighbors,--except among a few
friends!"
"Let us invite only the tolerable-looking girls in each family, and no
chaperons with turbans and large caps to overshadow the room," said
Captain De Crespigny, drawing a broad dash of his pen through the name
of Lady Towercliffe. "Her large, featureless face, looks like a wax
doll which had been put before the fire till it melted; and she is as
dull as a dormouse."
"We did enough for her in going to that heavy turn-out of a ball,"
added Sir Patrick. "I very nearly 'struck work,' on finding myself
expected to dance with one of those plain, elderly daughters. Lady
Charlotte is quite a _laide ideal_."
"I was pressed into the service, too!" continued Captain De Crespigny,
in an injured tone, "and did not recover the annoyance till--till my
last quadrille!" added he, glancing expressively at Marion. "If one
must dance with plain girls at their own parties, I wish they would
wear veils."
"Poor Lady Charlotte's figure is a perfect pyramid, narrow at the
shoulders, and becoming thicker to the ankles," observed Agnes,
laughing. "She got no partner the first half of the night, but being
very fond of dancing, she stood near the corner of every dance, and was
turned sometimes by mistake!"
"Very good for an impromptu, Agnes! The old girl gets a partner once
a-year, I believe," added Sir Patrick. "If people will not be beauties,
I can't help it; but I wonder at any one who had such a foot as Lady
Charlotte's, would wish to live. It is so enormous that the eye cannot
take it in all at once! The gout is nothing in comparison! De
Crespigny, if you are ever shipwrecked at sea, you could desire no
better boat than one of her shoes, and a paddle!"
"Her hand, too!" exclaimed Captain De Crespigny, shrugging his
shoulders, and admiring his nails. "Mine is ashamed to look so
insignificant beside it! Positively I awoke one forenoon, after my hand
had been stung by a wasp, and seeing something so large, red, and
swelled, I never recognized my own, but seized hold of it in the most
friendly manner, saying, 'Ah, Lady Charlotte Malcolm!----'"
"I have heard," observed Marion, "that the celebrated Hogarth often
lamented how completely his sense of the ridiculous had destroyed his
sense of the beautiful; so that even in the face of an angel he could
not avoid observing something to caricature; and I think some of us, if
we do not take care, will soon be in danger of a similar calamity."
"Well!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, eagerly, "Let me enjoy a jest to-day,
even if I were to die for it to-morrow."
"You, gentlemen, are both too bad!" said Agnes, lazily extending her
own beautiful foot on a footstool. "Charlotte Malcolm has already a
whole tier of double chins; her throat must have once belonged to a
flamingo, and her complexion is like the models we see from abroad in
terra cotta; but then, to do her justice, she dresses to perfect
desperation; and," added Agnes, in her most amiable voice, for she
always assumed the affectation of extreme candor in discussing other
young ladies, "I am told Charlotte is very good tempered; at least so
Lady Towercliffe says."
"And pray, what does that signify to me!" exclaimed Sir Patrick,
contemptuously. "If there is nothing better to be said for your friend,
then, Agnes, for ever hold your tongue. Amiable qualities are quite at
a discount in general society! What does it matter to a man dancing a
quadrille with any girl, that she is miraculously amiable, if she be
miraculously ugly too! She may be a perfect termagant at home, for
anything I care, provided she bring plenty of small talk into the
ball-room; and I would not give a single sous to know whether her
milliner's bills be paid, provided only she is well dressed. I would
not take such a looking girl as Lady Charlotte Malcolm for my fifth
wife!"
"You have quite burned her in effigy, now," observed Marion, looking up
from her work. "Suppose we start some person, for variety, whom
everybody must admire and praise!"
"That should be yourself, then!" said Captain De Crespigny. "Who else
could answer the description?"
"I remember visiting at old Vivian's last summer, where the girls were
all terrifyingly plain; their faces, like the dairy-maid, and their
figures like the churn," said Sir Patrick. "One day I could not resist
asking their old governess, in confidence, what could be the reason why
the fourth daughter invariably took precedence of all the others, when
she whispered in a confidential tone, 'because she once had a
proposal.'"
"If young ladies take precedence on such grounds," observed Captain De
Crespigny, with a glance towards Agnes and Marion, "I know who ought
soon to leave all others behind! My cousins here have the game in their
own hands; four by honors and the odd trick."
"Young ladies had much better gain precedence by accepting offers than
by refusing them!" said Sir Patrick, whistling himself off to the
window. "She's daft to refuse the laird o' Cock-pen!"
"I once saw a man who had been refused!" said Captain De Crespigny. "He
should have kicked himself out of the world after such an adventure!
From that day to this I have lived in a nervous horror of being
rejected! I am the most marrying man in the world, but I never can
venture to make an offer. I do wonder how people set about it! The
author who published a complete letter-writer, should give us a
complete manual of proposals for all occasions! I am so horribly
diffident! Even coming into a room you have no idea how much I suffer
from shyness!"
"It is astonishing, then, what a good face you manage to put upon it,"
said Marion, dryly. "I never guessed you were at all shy!"
"No! nor that I am a lover out of place, in want of a situation! Would
it be a good plan, Miss Marion Dunbar, to advertise? You, being pen in
hand already, shall write the advertisement. Describe me as made of
every creature's best! How would it do to make a raffle of me? Twenty
thousand tickets at one guinea each. How many will you take?"
"I have no money to waste," replied Marion. "But perhaps some young
ladies with more, if they could be quite sure of a blank, might venture
on one ticket, out of charity, hearing you are so anxious to go off."
"I do wonder if anybody would take me," continued Captain De Crespigny,
in a tone of careless conceit. "I have the greatest mind to try Lady
Charlotte Malcolm! Do you think, Miss Dunbar, I might have any chance?"
"Not the slightest!" replied Agnes, laughing. "I could bet my longest
ringlet that she would reject you at once. Charlotte complained to me
long ago how forward gentlemen are--always proposing, on the slightest
encouragement."
"Remarkably true! I am positive that nine out of ten were refused last
winter. We are a most unfortunate set of old fellows, Dunbar. Nobody
appreciates us. I had made myself a promise to go off this season!
positively my last appearance. But," added Captain De Crespigny,
dropping his voice into a low tone of apparent feeling, "the more I am
desirous to recommend myself, the less I succeed. If it were possible
for either of you ladies ever to see me indifferent about pleasing,
then you would be astonished at my success. Did Dunbar never mention,
that in the company of those I do not care for, I am quite another
man?"
"No!" replied Agnes, blushing and smiling. "Patrick is aware that we
always judge of people's merits for ourselves."
"What would I not give to hear that verdict pronounced! If you have
tried me by a court-martial, you may at least let me know the
sentence!"
"It would do you good, De Crespigny, to hear those girls discussing
your demerits! Your vanity requires lowering a peg or two!" said Sir
Patrick, with a mischievous laugh. "You owe me countless thanks for
putting in a word of defence now and then to protect you, for
positively they are too bad. On the score of conceit and extravagance,
I undertake to be your champion. Such faults are like the spots upon
ermine, rather ornamental than otherwise; but if any one says you dress
ill, I have not a syllable to say. Let me advise you, as a friend, to
discard that tailor. He is atrocious. It would be the utmost stretch of
my friendship to be seen with you anywhere to-day, except in some rural
parts of the country; so now for our walk."
"Dress as you may, Dunbar, you will never look like me!" replied
Captain De Crespigny, as they lounged off together. "It was a problem
of Euclid, which we settled at Eton long ago, and may demonstrate now,
that A B C can never be equal to D E F. Good morning, ladies! _au
revoir!_ we must fly. In your society I resemble the gentleman we used
to read of in our school books, whose wings were melted because he
ventured too near the sun."
The more Marion saw of Captain De Crespigny, the more astonished she
became at the multiplicity of his talents for conversation, and at his
universal craving to be admired, while all the _petits soins_ which he
lavished on herself, she, as a matter of course, set down to his
extraordinary vanity, which could not allow the most insignificant of
mortals to escape his fascinations; but to have supposed his attentions
to be indications of love, she would have considered as absurd a
blunder as to mistake an oyster-shell for an oyster.
Captain De Crespigny sketched caricatures with inimitable humor, sung
with taste, and with every appearance of feeling, and his versatility
of powers in talking were almost incredible. He discussed science
occasionally with any blue-stocking, like a philosopher--looked dismal
upon politics with members of Parliament--talked agriculture and fat
cattle with country gentlemen--could describe the state of New Zealand,
as if he had visited the country, to old ladies, with large families of
enterprising sons. He was musical with the musical, sentimental with
the sentimental, and apparently at home equally in poetry or
metaphysics. With a smile for one, a sigh for another, and a jest for a
third, his small-talk for young ladies might be minced into the
smallest grains of sense or nonsense; while at the same time he could
even get up a very plausible religious conversation, on the most
approved model, when in company with any one like Marion, to whom he
thought it might render him more acceptable. The true secret of Captain
De Crespigny's almost universal popularity, lay in his appearing so
flatteringly interested by whatever occupied the attention of others;
and whether it were the last snowstorm, or a newly discovered star in
the firmament--an old pedigree or a new bonnet, he seemed equally ready
to follow the lead of any young lady, being sufficiently delighted in
his own private mind, to imagine how every word he said, and every look
he looked, would be afterwards treasured and remembered by those whom
he had no particular intention of remembering himself.
Marion observed narrowly and anxiously Captain De Crespigny's conduct
to Agnes; but even her discernment, quickened by the most affectionate
solicitude, could bring her to no conclusive decision respecting his
intentions, though she could not but feel sanguine at one time, and
justly indignant at another, according as the thermometer of her hopes
and fears rose or fell; yet she strongly suspected that Captain De
Crespigny was but indulging his own ambition--that he wished to be
thought of and talked about--to become devotedly loved--to be necessary
to the happiness of another--to constitute that happiness for a short
time, and then to destroy it as a useless toy, which had amused him for
an hour, and might be broken without remorse. "How different! oh! how
very different from Richard Granville!" thought Marion, with a glowing
smile. "To him the peace of no living mortal is insignificant; and when
loved or trusted, who ever was so considerate, so totally unselfish, so
free from vanity and caprice! No Christian can doubt that happiness and
principle are one."
The name of any individual more than commonly interesting is apt to
occur often in conversation, _a propos_ to everything or nothing;
and Captain De Crespigny's penetration very soon discovered, that
the Granvilles were never heard of or mentioned by Marion with
indifference; therefore being anxious to fathom her secret, and to
ascertain the extent of her intimacy with them, he tried the experiment
one day, by professing an enthusiastic admiration for the extraordinary
eloquence of "Dick Granville!" in whom he appeared suddenly to have
discovered a thousand new and unheard-of good qualities, while with
humorous pertinacity he defended him from all the satirical cuts with
which Sir Patrick tried to lower his importance in the eyes of Marion;
but Captain De Crespigny, unconscious of the lead which he was expected
to follow, rattled on in his accustomed way,
"Granville always was one whom nothing could spoil! So different from
young Meredith, who used one short month since to go about with a quiet
country-curate look, but since he has become rather popular in the
pulpit, he enters a room with his chin in the air, and all the
self-confidence of a great lion. Weak heads are easily intoxicated."
"And people here do all in their power to ruin those they most admire,
by very overdone adulation," added Agnes. "It would be a very strong
fortress of humility that could withstand all the absurd mobbing which
Mr. Granville has to undergo."
"As Lady Towercliffe said to me yesterday, in her usual slip-slop style
of talking, 'Mr. Granville is so very eloquent, so benevolent, so
learned, so pious, and has such a neat foot!'" continued Captain De
Crespigny, laughing. "Really, Dunbar! if you and I quarrel with
everybody better than ourselves, we shall find no one left to associate
with! I have but one weak side on earth, Miss Marion Dunbar, and it is
that of always standing up for the absent."
"They very often require it; and whether in jest or earnest, I am glad
you do," replied Marion, finding herself obliged to speak, while her
look of agitated consciousness, occasioned a thrill of jealousy in the
heart of Captain De Crespigny, which brought a sudden flush into his
countenance; but he assumed a careless tone, to conceal his real
feelings, and turned to Sir Patrick, saying, "_a propos_ of absence,
the Granvilles are never here now! I remember the time when that pretty
sister and my cousins were like the three graces, perfectly
inseparable!"
At these words, Sir Patrick colored to the very temples; and instantly
afterwards becoming pale as marble, he stooped to pat his dog, and then
impatiently whistled Dash, along with himself, out of the room first,
and finally out of the house; while Marion's eye was turned towards
Agnes, with a deep and searching look of enquiry and astonishment.