When Captain De Crespigny called two days after this at St. John's
Lodge, to take leave before setting out for Yorkshire, he looked so
absent and so agitated, that Agnes became quite elated and flattered by
what she attributed to his unconquerable regret at being obliged to
take so long a leave of herself. She even forgave him for enquiring
almost immediately what had become of Marion, and answered with
careless vivacity, "She is gone to her favorite home at Portobello.
Marion perfectly idolises her uncle. I should require to attend a
series of lectures on naval tactics, and to take a course of nautical
novels for a month, before I could get on with the Admiral as she does!
My sister talks about the battles of Trafalgar and Camperdown, as if
she had fought at them herself, but really somehow or other, I never
can find a word for good, worthy sir Arthur!"
"And yet," observed Sir Patrick, "you never seem very much at a loss
for conversation, Agnes, when I have the pleasure of seeing you! It is
years, countless years, since I have entered his house, or since he has
entered mine; but suppose we go down together some day, and cut out
Marion at once, by doing the agreeable in our very best and most
fascinating style!"
"If my uncle Doncaster were such a man, I should certainly make up to
him greatly!" said Captain De Crespigny, in a tone more than commonly
in earnest. "It would be well worth your while to try."
"Sir Arthur has nothing to leave! you are quite mistaken there!"
replied Agnes, inadvertently. "When we were perfect children, and all
on the very best terms, he used to say that it would be quite enough
for an old sailor like him, if he could bequeath us his watch and
enough to bury him! As Pat says, he might make his will on his
thumb-nail. Oh! rest assured he has nothing to leave!"
"I did not suppose he had," continued Captain De Crespigny, gravely. "A
small income in his liberal hand has done more good than the very
largest in any other person's. It is an odd phenomenon in nature, that
the lightest purse always is the most open to others, while the heavier
a purse grows the more its mouth becomes contracted! A sort of
spasmodic affection, I think!"
"I wonder if it will ever be engraved on people's tomb-stones how much
they die worth?" said Agnes. "That would be all the good many people
can ever get by their wealth, and what they are much more proud of, in
this mercenary world, than of any personal good qualities."
"Young ladies are for ever working me purses, and I have nothing to put
in them!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, throwing his own up in the air, and
catching it again. "Sir Arthur and I are both fighting under the banner
of poverty now; and that one word expresses in a small compass all
earthly annoyance."
"Oh, no! There are many things worse!" exclaimed Agnes magnanimously.
"What a vulgar, low, mercenary idea! so like you, Patrick!"
"Thank you, Agnes! If your good opinion were worth a farthing, I should
grudge to have lost it!"
"But Dunbar! _revenons a nos moutons_," interrupted Captain De
Crespigny, trying to look indifferent. "Surely there is no just cause
or impediment why we may not ride down to Portobello this morning, and
call on good, worthy Sir Arthur together. It is a perfect disgrace to
us both that we never go near his house, much as I always have
respected him, and always shall."
"This is a very sudden fit of cordiality! When did you feel the first
symptoms coming on?" asked Sir Patrick drily, while Agnes began
vehemently winding some skeins of silk. "Let me feel your pulse, De
Crespigny. I am ready to bet your uncle against mine--and the odds are
considerable--that half an hour since, you would no more have thought
of paying a P.P.C. visit to old Sir Arthur, than to Lord Nelson's
monument. My dear fellow, I know you--and you ought to know me better
than to suppose me capable of paying a dull, penitential visit there!"
"Well, be it so! This is no time for me to recommend disinterested
attentions, Dunbar, as I am on wing for Yorkshire, obliged during a
whole long dreary month to play the amiable! Did you ever try that
experiment, Miss Dunbar?"
"Of being amiable? no, never! I am not come to that yet! Whenever
people mention a young lady as being amiable, you may depend upon it
she has nothing better to recommend her. I leave mere hum-drum good
qualities to such people as Clara Granville."
"Omit her in your conversation altogether, Agnes! I told you already,
that she must never be named here," interrupted Sir Patrick, with angry
vehemence. "Why will you continually intrude that family on our
conversation?"
"I do not, Patrick. I beg leave to deny the honorable gentleman's last
assertion! It is three days at least since I have so much as named
Clara Gran----"
Before Agnes could finish her sentence, Sir Patrick, always afraid to
trust his temper when irritated, as he knew the hurricane to be fearful
if allowed to rage, had strode to the door, and burst out of the room,
as if the very house were scarcely large enough to hold him. This
_denouement_ Agnes had confidently anticipated, being perfectly aware
that her brother never withstood a second repetition of Clara's name,
therefore she had artfully tried the experiment of producing an
explosion, which might at any hazard expel him, and secure to herself a
_tete-a-tete_ leave-taking with Captain De Crespigny, from whom she
now confidently anticipated a formal declaration.
When Sir Patrick's angry footsteps died away in the distance, it was
not without some real agitation, therefore, and a great deal more
assumed, that Agnes allowed her long, dark eye-lashes to droop over her
cheek, and called up a rather ostentatious blush, while she sat for
several minutes in silent embarrassment; but though Captain De
Crespigny assumed his most fascinating expression, he seemed resolute
not to begin the dialogue; and while affecting to be considerably
embarrassed himself, an arch smile nevertheless glittered in his eye,
and played about his mouth.
"Is it true," asked Agnes, at length, in a subdued voice, and without
looking up, "that you are actually going for some months to-morrow? I
must tie a knot on my pocket handkerchief, not to forget you during so
long an absence."
"I would much rather tie a knot of a different kind," said Captain De
Crespigny, in his usual rallying tone. "But necessity has no law.
Going, going, gone! Positively the last time! Knocked down to Miss
Dunbar. A great bargain. The best article on hand."
"You are an admirable auctioneer, and shall dispose of me next," said
Agnes, laughingly selecting a rose-bud from her bouquet. "I must give
you something to take away, very beautiful, and which I am sure you
will like."
"That must be yourself, then," replied Captain De Crespigny, looking
most cruelly charming. "I hear the young ladies are all to wear black
crape on their left arm after my exit. I did expect a public dinner
from them, but that is too common-place. My tailor received one lately
on removing from one street to another, and the waiter at Carlisle on
retiring from his profession. I wonder nobody ever voted me a
testimonial. My speech on the occasion would be exquisite."
"Patrick thinks you very much addicted to make speeches," replied
Agnes, with sly emphasis. "I suppose, as you are setting out so
suddenly, that Lord Doncaster is seriously ill now. A number of old
people have died off lately. He must be two hundred at least, for I
have heard of him so long! I remember three years ago hearing that his
memory had failed."
"Not at all--not in the very least. He thinks himself younger and
handsomer every year. He is actually addicted still to flirtation in
all its branches. He told me the last time we parted, that many ladies,
if he chose, would prefer him to me. Perhaps they might. I dare say he
was in the right. We never grow old in our family--never! and we have
all excellent memories," continued Captain De Crespigny, fixing his
dangerous eyes on Agnes. "Mine will be stored with many never-to-be
forgotten recollections of the last few months, 'remembered,' as public
orators say, 'till the latest moment of my existence.' Memory has put
all these scenes in her pocket for me, to be enjoyed hereafter; and how
delightful would a life-time be, made up of such hours as I have spent
in this house! I feel myself striking root in it, like a cutting of
geranium!"
"Indeed!" replied Agnes, smiling most benignly; "geraniums are very
great favorites of mine--very great, indeed--so I wish you were
metamorphosed into one."
"If all the events of life could be modelled on a plan of my own, what
a pleasant little place the world would be!" said Captain De Crespigny,
admiring the polish of his boots. "I might then continue here some time
longer, as a volunteer in the corps of your victims, who are as
numerous now as a disbanded army. Do pray let us call over the
muster-roll of your admirers and count them. I could die in my chair
with curiosity to know how many they are!"
"Not above three or four cases of life and death!" said Agnes,
laughing. "But you jest at scars who never felt a wound."
"I most heartily sympathize with them all," replied Captain De
Crespigny, with an extra-sentimental sigh. "I have gone through every
sorrow of life myself--outraged affections, and all that sort of thing.
You cannot conceive, Miss Dunbar, how like we victims are sometimes to
the frog in the fable, inflated with empty hopes."
"I must shut my eyes to that."
"Your eyes should never be shut. They are much too beautiful! With
respect to your admirers, they might say, like the weather-cock to the
wind, '_Si vous ne changez pas, je suis constante!_' The whole world
has been pulling caps for you all winter, and you pretend to have
limited yourself to three or four victims! Impossible! You are
concealing the half of them! Forgetting Captains A----, B----, C----,
and D----. I have as many young ladies as that dying for me. Now, do
let us run over an authentic list of their names. Show me all your
court-yards at once. I could bet the finest camellia at Loddige's, that
you do not name them all."
"Who shall I say?" exclaimed Agnes, getting up an extempore blush, and
her archest smiles. "I have a most inhospitable memory for bores, and
shall forget two-thirds of them. Captain Digby, slightly wounded;
Colonel Meade, pierced through the heart; Captain O'Brien, slowly
recovering; Mr. Deveril, despaired of; Lord Wigton,----"
"Killed outright!" interrupted Captain De Crespigny. "You mention him
in rather a more relenting tone than the rest, like Bonaparte, when he
wept over one wounded man, alter condemning hundreds to death. But you
are come to a period already. Is there no other worthy of remembrance?"
"Only one, whom I cannot name!" replied Agnes, turning away. "Last, but
not least."
"Ah! some poor fellow with nothing, I suppose--waiting, perhaps, for
the death of a rich relation; but those tiresome old bores always live
for ever, and a day besides. Whoever he is, let me advise you not to
think of him; a man should as soon ask the sun in the hemisphere to
wait for him, as a young lady in the full blaze of her beauty and
attractions. No, no, Miss Dunbar, take my advice. Be like time and
tide. I have a real cousinly interest in your welfare, and should be
delighted, on my return, to find this room fragrant with cake, and
glittering with favors. I shall come down on purpose, if you ask me! I
positively shall!"
If a look could kill, Captain De Crespigny must have withered away
beneath the glance of Agnes' eyes, which streamed with indignant
flashes of anger and surprise; but unconscious, apparently, of being
otherwise than most agreeable, he continued, in his most captivating
manner.
"I must be off now to Macleay's. Half a dozen friends are dying to
obtain a likeness of me, and a deputation of ladies made me promise
lately to sit for them. I wonder what can induce me to take so much
trouble," added he, with a gay, triumphant laugh. "The painter is quite
afraid he shall be robbed and murdered for it."
"Humility is not certainly your cardinal virtue," said Agnes, with a
look of angry scorn, which few could have withstood. "You cultivate an
extensive acquaintance."
"Very! I must really see whether people can be induced to cut me, for
it is exceedingly troublesome. I know sixty-four families with three
young ladies in each. It would puzzle the calculating machine to make
out how many that amounts to. But, meantime, I must unwillingly say the
most hateful of all words--farewell. I have been putting off time here,
expecting Dunbar for the last half hour, though little able to afford
so many minutes. My idiot of a watch must surely be too slow, or your
brother would have been back about the sale of mad Tom. I have twenty
minds to buy him, if Dunbar did not ask so very long a price."
"You are intending, I believe," asked Agnes, "to enter him for the--the
Chiltern Hundreds?"
"Not exactly! but the Doncaster St. Leger. He would be the first horse
in that line, though asses are perfectly accustomed to them. Good
morning! _au revoir!_ I mean to Londonize for a few weeks, then go to
Paris, and afterwards disperse myself over every corner of the
uncivilized globe. Can I do anything for you anywhere? Geneva velvets?
Parisian bonnets? Swiss muslins? I am at your service in every quarter
of the world. May I beg my very best regards to your sister."
So saying, Captain De Crespigny bowed himself out of the room, with
very much the air of a popular actor who expects three rounds of
applause, and Agnes having, with a face as unmoved as if it had been
enamelled, coldly given him her hand, with an ill-supported smile on
her quivering lip, wished him a pleasant journey, and turned almost
haughtily away; a bolt of ice seemed to have fallen upon her heart, and
in that small moment was comprised the agony of ages; but the greatest
wonder in nature is the entire self-command given to many, and
especially to women, by means of which they can hear what involves the
happiness of a life-time, and yet betray no visible emotion.
The strongest feelings on earth never are discovered. Feeble minds can
conceal nothing, but those who have strength of mind to suffer most
deeply, are those who have strength of mind also to hide what they do
endure. On slight occasions, Agnes was a most accomplished fainter; but
now, having stood, with a specious smile on her countenance, till the
door had finally closed, she rushed to the privacy of her own room, and
closed the door, then seating herself, in all the luxury of solitude,
she meditated with silent astonishment on all that had passed.
No coroner's inquest can be summoned on a deceased flirtation, and
whether it die a natural death or a violent one never can be known, as
it may be caused merely by some trifling oversight, perhaps by the
cruel aspersion of an enemy, or simply by whim and caprice, as in this
case seemed the most probable, and to Agnes the most mortifying.
Wounded in all her most sensitive feelings, a crowd of angry and
depressing thoughts crowded into her brain, while she could not but
feel that the arrows which had struck her were most cruelly barbed and
most skilfully aimed. It was harrowing to her vain, proud spirit, to
imagine that Captain De Crespigny could really be indifferent. It
seemed, indeed, almost impossible! Could his carelessness be all
assumed! Had he, indeed, an honorable scruple of engaging her upon the
uncertainty of his uncle's demise. It might be so. Agnes felt that
entire despondency would come soon enough, if come it must; and anxious
to believe in Captain De Crespigny's attachment, she seemed now
resolved to keep up the farce with herself a little longer. She felt
certain that he had cast back a look of regret on leaving the room,
which spoke volumes, and these volumes she filled up according to her
own imagination. The parting had, perhaps, been as painful to Captain
De Crespigny as to herself, but what could he do if Lord Doncaster
always continued to be the "undying one," standing in the way of their
mutual happiness. Agnes now lived over every scene which had passed
between herself and her supposed lover. She could not imagine those
feelings expressed to any other which seemed created by herself alone.
She recapitulated all his civilities to herself, remembered how his
last sigh had been sighed, how his last look had been looked; and,
after a glance at the mirror, which proved as usual an effectual
safety-valve to any feelings of mortification, she became at last
restored to the agreeable conviction, that the most considerate,
self-denying, and constant of lovers was Captain De Crespigny.
"And," exclaimed Agnes, with another triumphant glance at the mirror,
"as he said only yesterday, '_on peut fuir sans oublier_.' Let him
admire any other if he can!"
I'll still believe that story wrong,
Which ought not to be true.