Every man should be considered accountable to Providence, not only for
diffusing as much enjoyment around him as he possibly can, but also for
being as happy himself as is consistent with the many gifts bestowed on
him individually; and it is a duty to look back with self-reproach on
any hour of existence, which, on account of our ill temper or
discontent, has been less enjoyed by ourselves or by another, than it
might have been; yet it is an obvious truth, that all men might be
happier than they are, if mankind would but make the best of life for
themselves and others. Never had this remark appeared so undeniable to
Marion as now, in the case of Agnes, who alienated Sir Patrick more and
more by her peevishness, though the arrows of her satire had more
poison than point in them, and he was always ready enough to enter on a
skirmish in the diamond-cut-diamond style of conversation, while it
often blistered the very heart of their gentle sister, to hear the
bitter taunting remarks and repartees which they levelled at each
other.
One day, Agnes, in a magnificent fit of ill-humor, had seated herself
at that universal refuge for idleness and discontent, an open window,
complaining that the dulness of Edinburgh was quite maddening; while it
became evident that the needle of her temper pointed in the most stormy
direction. It was a favorite doctrine with Agnes, that _ennui_ is
peculiar to intellectual beings, and that those who never suffered from
it were like cows or sheep, scarcely to be considered rational. On the
present occasion, therefore, she was relieving the intolerable tedium
which oppressed her, by delivering her opinion to Sir Patrick, in no
measured terms, on the unutterable cruelty of his leaving her stranded
in Edinburgh, while she understood he was going soon to amuse himself
abroad.
She seemed inflated with ill-humor, like a spider, bursting with its
own poison, and her countenance had assumed not the most amiable
expression in the world, while Sir Patrick snatched up a newspaper,
which he began intently reading upside down. Having successfully and
distinctly proved that she was a martyr to the injuries which "patient
merit of th' unworthy takes," and her brother being apparently on the
point of falling asleep before her face, Agnes suddenly rose from her
seat, with an exclamation of annoyance and astonishment, saying,
"I do believe here is that old formality, Sir Arthur, going to call!
Getting slowly and with difficulty out of a ragged, ruinous-looking
hackney coach, as frail as himself! I had no idea he was become so
aged and infirm! What a bore! I do wish we might enjoy the privilege,
after being grown up, of choosing our own relations. _J'ai pitie de
moi-meme!_"
"What can bring the old fellow here?" exclaimed Sir Patrick, crumpling
up his newspaper, and approaching the window with an angry whistle. "He
looks, in those glittering spectacles, like a post-chaise, with the
lamps lighted. I must be grown quite respectable when the Admiral
honors me with a visit. Has anybody paid my debts?"
"I declare," said Agnes, "Sir Arthur gropes his way along as if he came
from the Blind Asylum, and his dear, puckered old face looks as dry and
cracked as an old picture!"
"Suppose I stay in the room _incog._, to hear all the civil and
agreeable truths our worthy uncle will say of me," said Sir Patrick,
laughingly throwing himself into a large arm-chair, in a distant corner
of the room. "I should certainty realize the old proverb about
listeners hearing no good of themselves. Sir Arthur is so blind he will
never see me, and it is certainly no bad joke for a rainy day."
"I think it would be a very bad joke, indeed, Patrick," said Marion,
coloring. "But I am sure you would not play upon our uncle's
infirmities, and I shall certainly ask you some question the moment he
enters, to betray your ambuscade."
"Marion! for a young lady who professes timidity, you exhibit a
tolerable share of decision!" replied Sir Patrick, looking with
surprise at the glowing countenance of his sister, whose voice quivered
with agitation. "However, since you are determined to make a scene
between Sir Arthur and me, I shall be off, not feeling in the humor for
one of his lectures to-day! He will be a whirlpool of rage at this
raffle I am making of the family plate and pictures. Perhaps he means
to take a ticket! Do not mention, for your lives, girls, that I am in
the next room, unless he be come on a matter of life and death! Exit
Sir Patrick in haste!"
When Sir Arthur entered the room, there was a look of unwonted care in
his fine countenance, and less firmness in his step than usual. He
silently but cordially shook hands with Agnes, while a look of almost
compassionate kindness beamed in his countenance, and Marion, with
girlish delight sparkling in her eyes, and dimpling in her cheeks, led
him to a chair, on which he sat down for some moments without speaking,
apparently fatigued and agitated, while she filled up the pause which
ensued, by taking his hat and stick, placing her arm within his when
she seated herself by his side, and showing a thousand demonstrations
of her heartfelt affection and respect.
"Uncle Arthur!" said Agnes, observing him at length glancing round the
room. "You have never been in this house before?"
"No! nor I never expected to enter it!" replied he, in a tone of
profound sadness. "Never!--urgent duty brings me now! This then is the
family residence to which the Dunbars of Dornington are at last
degraded! Is your brother at home?"
"No!" replied Agnes, with the most perfect intrepidity of countenance.
"You must have met him in the Park."
"I did not perceive him, and it was as well," answered Sir Arthur with
melancholy sternness. "The seldomer we meet the better. It is a
disgrace to be in the room with Sir Patrick."
"Uncle Arthur! you are growing angry and personal," interrupted Marion,
in a beseeching tone, while she shook his hand caressingly in her own.
"That is the harshest thing you ever said of our brother!"
"May he never deserve more, or he shall have it," continued the
Admiral, with angry vehemence, while his neckcloth seemed growing too
tight for him. "Sir Patrick is, without meaning to flatter him, about
the greatest scamp I know. His last step in the regiment was purchased,
I am told, over the head of a young officer from whom he gained the
money at play! but, Marion, my dear girl, I am not come to quarrel with
you, the dearest niece in the world--nor with Agnes, though I could
wish that she came sometimes to see me."
Sir Arthur held out his hand to both his nieces, and added, in a tone
of hurried agitation, "If you had witnessed, Agnes, the many long years
during which your father and I associated together on terms of more
than brotherly confidence, you could not wonder that now, living in an
empty world, the grave of all who started in life beside me, amidst old
remembrances, vanished pleasures, faded health, and lost affections, I
cling to whatever reminds me of him, and that nothing can make me cease
to love you all--all without exception--even that disgraceful scoundrel
your brother. I would close these eyes in death, only once to see him,
the man his father's son should be; but I might live for ever if I wait
till then!"
Marion was grieved and alarmed to perceive her uncle's increasing
agitation, while he hastily turned away to hide it, but the breeze
which had ruffled his mind soon passed away, and though his hand still
shook with emotion, he added in a calmer tone of deep-rooted anxiety,
"I have been told this morning, that Sir Patrick intends to cut his
stick, and take flight immediately to the continent, therefore I am
here to ascertain, my dear girls, what is to become of you?"
"I scarcely know indeed!" replied Marion, in a tone of irresistible
depression. "Patrick seems to have no settled plan. He did talk of
hiring a lodging for us, and engaging some old lady for a chaperon."
"And for such a scheme, my dear Marion, where in all the wide world is
he to get money--or even credit? Not in the name of Sir Patrick
Dunbar!--a name that, in my brother's time, stood proudly forward as a
warrant for everything honorable, soldier-like and generous!--a name,
till now, never sullied by dishonor."
Sir Arthur's voice faltered, a hectic color burned on his cheek, he
remained silent for several minutes, and then continued, after a strong
effort to recover himself,
"It is no matter! Patrick adds a nail to my coffin every day, but I am
the last wreck of an old generation, and have already outstaid the
period intended for man! My head is whitened by the frost of more than
eighty winters--my heart seared with the wear and tear of life--my very
existence a perpetual miracle! It would people a city if all could be
revived whom I have intimately known in those days when the dearest
ties of life were clustered around me, but now I am a scathed and
solitary ruin. How truly has it been said, that the remembrance of
youth is a sigh, yet all has been ordered as it should be, and that
wind is ever the best which will carry us most safely to the end of our
voyage."
Sir Arthur paused with a look of solemn and inexpressible emotion, and
Marion pressed her uncle's hand affectionately, hot tears coursed each
other down her face, and she gazed earnestly at his countenance, while,
looking at her with his usual expression of benignity and kindness, he
continued, "You are the chief, or rather the only objects of my care,
for all my wishes and hopes on my own account might now be contained in
a nut-shell. I am a stranger in this altered world, soon--very soon to
depart. There is one heart in my brother's family, Marion, that feels
as his child ought to feel, and one eye that will be dimmed with sorrow
when I am no more. For your sake, and yours only, need I wish to live!
Well may the young weep for sorrow--they have long to endure it, but
for me, the end of all earthly things is at hand. Many a warning bell
has reached my ear already, and I would wish only to see you launched
under safe protection in the stormy ocean of life. With no guardian but
a brother worse than nobody, and an old, infirm uncle tottering into
the grave, my dear girls, what are you to do?"
Marion glanced at Agnes, who tried to preserve her usual air of
consequential indifference, and pulled her _bouquet_ to pieces, with
an expression of silent and majestic impatience, but she neither looked
up nor answered.
"While I live, you can always confer a pleasure by taking shelter with
me," continued Sir Arthur, in the warmest tone of kindness; "and all
that an old man can do to make you happy shall be done, though that, I
fear, is little or nothing."
Agnes, evidently not much delighted at this unexpected proposal of
being located at what she always called "the Admiral's humdrummery,"
now assumed a pre-engaged look, while practising a particularly
graceful attitude in the opposite mirror, and drawing out her long
glossy ringlets with a cold, artificial smile, she answered, "Thank
you, Sir Arthur! I am sure we are most excessively obliged. Probably
now that Marion is so well disposed of, my brother may take me with him
to Paris!"
"Reckoning without your host, Agnes!" whispered Sir Patrick, entering
with a look of assumed bravado, but of evident embarrassment. "Wishes
cost nothing; but how could such an idea ever enter your ingenious
head? Pray strike a light and look for your senses! Ah! Sir Arthur! A
hundred thousand welcomes. I am happy not to have missed your kind
visit!"
"That would have been a mutual misfortune!" replied the Admiral, drily,
and drawing himself up to his full height, while Sir Patrick bowed and
smiled with an air of sarcastic gratitude. "Certainly, for some years
past I am not owing you many visits."
"Why, no! I hate to see people running themselves into debt; therefore
believing you might find it inconvenient to return my cards, I have not
been very troublesome in the way of calling; but," continued Sir
Patrick, stealing a look of laughing condolence at Agnes, "my sisters
are exceedingly delighted by your very considerate offer of a home
during my absence. The plan will suit admirably! They both want
sea-bathing, and--society, Agnes?"
"In respect to society I can promise nothing. I would raise a regiment
of beaux if possible, but my house is a mere Greenwich Hospital for
years past, visited only by a few veterans as aged and broken as
myself."
"I wish they had all gone down in the Royal George," muttered Agnes,
whose face now looked like a thunder cloud. "A set of resuscitated
mummies, with scarcely a complete set of limbs and features amongst
them. I would rather live in the moon, where there is at least one
entire man to be seen."
"We instituted a club lately," continued Sir Arthur, "in which no
member was eligible who had not been deprived of one limb at least in
the service of his country. With many of my friends all is lost but
honor! That is what a man should die rather than lose! It was long a
hereditary heir-loom in our family, Patrick! entailed upon you, Sir!
handed down untarnished from father to son, generation after
generation! And where is it now? Lost in the kennel, the race-course,
the stable, the gambling house, and every receptacle of infamy and
shame, while I live to see the Dunbars of Dornington utterly ruined,
as well as utterly disgraced!"
"Not as long as you live!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, advancing with sudden
emotion, and grasping his uncle's hand. "Your name, Sir Arthur, will
shed a lustre over our house after mine has been blotted out for ever
from the memory of man!"
"Why should it be so?" asked Sir Arthur, speaking in a tone of deep
vehemence and solemnity, while his noble and serious countenance
assumed an expression of that affection which nothing could extinguish.
"Patrick! it is long lane that has no turning! Be like your father in
mind, as you are in person, and let me leave you my best blessing at
last!"
"Too late! too late!" replied Sir Patrick, walking hurriedly up and
down the room, and then suddenly resuming his usual tone of reckless
gayety. "No! no! as Joseph Surface remarked, 'too good a character is
inconvenient!' You are unadultered gold, Sir Arthur, but I must only
set up for being a genuine Bristol farthing."
"Yet, Patrick! even if honor were like truth, at the bottom of a well,
it is worth diving for; and the best throw on the dice is to throw them
away."
"Your whole nature and mine are different, Sir Arthur! A wasp may work
his heart out, but he never can make honey," replied the young Baronet,
hurriedly. "I have neither wishes, plans, nor hopes for myself! Already
I am older in heart than you, and neither know nor care how short a
time I have to exist! _N'importe!_ It would not certainly be convenient
for me at present to fly off like a kite, with both my sisters at my
tail, therefore we are all most grateful for your kind invitation to
them, and shall accept the honor you offer with pleasure."
"Be it so then," replied Sir Arthur, in a calm, dignified, but mournful
voice. "If my nieces will be content with little, they may be as happy
as if we had much. I am most anxious to invent anything which might add
to their enjoyment, and Lady Towercliffe tells me, Agnes, that your
whole heart is bent on spending a month at Harrowgate! If that would
really be any pleasure or advantage to you, tell me so, and I shall
endeavor if possible to go there myself, though now, in my old age,
very like Punch, who could act only in his own box."
"Oh! not for worlds would we ask you to go, dear uncle," exclaimed
Marion, venturing in her eagerness to speak before Agnes, and shocked
at the idea of a journey, the fatigue and expense of which she knew the
Admiral was so little able to incur. "We shall be more than happy at
home! do not think of such a thing!"
"But if I may be permitted to have an opinion, being the person
consulted, Marion, let me say that nothing on earth was ever more
enchanting than this delicious proposal. You have made me the happiest
person alive, Sir Arthur!" exclaimed Agnes, for once condescending to
look perfectly pleased. "I must endeavor not to go mad with joy! You
are our very best friend! My dear uncle, all I can say is, YOU ARE A
GENTLEMAN!"
"Well, Agnes! That being the case," replied Sir Arthur, smiling, "how
soon can you be ready to start?"
"To-night!--this minute!--wait till I put on my bonnet!" exclaimed
Agnes, in accents of the liveliest glee. "I am quite impatient to set
about forgetting Edinburgh!"
"Well done, Lady Towercliffe! Harrowgate was a capital hit!" cried Sir
Patrick, laughing satirically. "Before taking a voyage to India, there
is no place like it for young ladies! Why, Agnes, it is a perfect
emporium of _beaux_! You will live there at the rate of twenty new
victims a-day! A down-pour of marriages takes place at the end of every
season. Several jewellers have made large fortunes at Harrowgate,
merely by providing wedding rings! and a confectioner is kept at each
hotel, with nothing else to do but to make marriage cakes! Sir Arthur
must take a dozen lessons in match-making, from some of the manoeuvring
mammas and aunts."
"An unmanoeuvring uncle is all we shall require," answered Agnes,
looking daggers at Sir Patrick, in all the dignity of having been
extremely ill-treated. "In my humble opinion----"
"Humble, Agnes!" interrupted Sir Patrick. "Did I hear aright? Where did
you ever learn the meaning of that word?"
"As for manoeuvring or match-making, I leave all that sort of thing
to such persons as Lady Towercliffe," observed Sir Arthur. "She and
other old ladies have such an intense curiosity about weddings, that I
do think, even when laid in their graves, they would like to be told
who are going to be married. In such affairs I would be out of my
element, like a bear in a boat, not knowing how to proceed,--but at my
age----"
"Your age, uncle Arthur! You are no age at all," interrupted Agnes,
in high good humor. "You are not a day older since we were first
acquainted! As Harrowgate is the greatest marriage manufactory in
Britain, I should not wonder if you were to pick up a wife there
yourself! Indeed, no single man ever escapes, and I shall make it my
business to get you off!"
"By all means!" replied the Admiral, entering good-humoredly into the
jest. "I have no doubt some young lady will fall desperately and
hopelessly in love with me! Are those new spectacles becomingly put on?
My eyes are so fine, they must be kept under glass! My hair has had
rather too much of the bleaching liquid lately, but do you recommend a
wig, Agnes, or the vegetable dye?"
"I would not alter a hair of your head, uncle Arthur," said Marion,
smiling. "And I am sure you will have more admirers at Harrowgate than
any of us. I should like to know," added she, after the Admiral had
departed, "out of the prodigious incomes enjoyed by thousands of
persons in Britain, how much is spent during the year in really
generous actions,--in actions of such disinterested liberality as our
dear kind uncle's, when putting himself to all this expense and
inconvenience for our sakes,--for ours, who never can make him the
smallest return."
"To say the truth," replied Agnes, laughing, "I merely go to Harrowgate
for Sir Arthur's good. It will renew his youth to be forced into balls,
beguiled into pic-nics, and enlisted into dinner parties. A diet of ice
and lemonade is excellent for old people."
"You are lucky girls!" exclaimed Sir Patrick. "A month at Harrowgate!
why! you might be married five times over in that time! It is not the
most impossible thing in the world that I may come there myself, to
meet De Crespigny! The matrimonial horizon looked rather dark and
unpromising in this quarter, Agnes; but your extraordinary merit is
quite unknown as yet in the English hemisphere. The world shall see
you, and you shall see the world now, under Sir Arthur's auspices. Good
worthy old soul! his very walking-stick is respectable!"
"Then I wish you were like it," said Agnes, in her most stinging
accent. "Sir Arthur's respectability might be divided among a dozen of
people whom I know, and each would get a share larger than he had
before."
"You will perfectly canonize him, now that he can be made useful!
Agnes! you jumped at Sir Arthur's offer as an ex-minister would jump at
a seat in the cabinet! You showered down thanks on the Admiral's
devoted head, like _bon-bons_ at the carnival!"
"No wonder!" said Marion. "Think of dear uncle Arthur leaving his old
friends, his old habits, and his old home for us, when he has said and
thought so often, that his next journey would be that long and last
one, which we must all travel, never to return."
"It is vastly kind, as you say, Marion!" added Agnes, flippantly.
"Leaving that old fireside, where he has so long been spinning
interminable yarns, spoiling old servants, reading old magazines,
dozing over antiquated newspapers, letting himself be cheated by
beggars, and getting convivial over very weak negus."
"Agnes, how long is it since you lost your senses!" asked Marion,
indignantly. "Nothing short of that could account for your holding up
our venerable uncle to ridicule, even with no one to hear you but
ourselves, who know his inestimable worth and kindness."
"Well, girls, the best reward you can give him, is to look delightfully
with all your might, and to waltz and quadrille yourselves into
husbands immediately!" said Sir Patrick, in a tone of lively
exultation. "Now, tighten the drums of your ears and listen, for I am
about to give you a popular course of lectures on the important subject
of match-making. Marion, you are a flower that has bloomed in the
shade, and must now be displayed in the sunshine; therefore you ought
to know that fortune is like a game at blind man's buff, where the
timid and retiring are forgotten, while the bold and forward alone put
themselves in the way of receiving her favors. Agnes has frittered away
her time only too long already on the mere minnows of society, danglers
and detrimentals of the younger species; but I must tell you
plainly,----"
"Never tell me anything plainly," interrupted Agnes, laughing. "But you
are altogether mistaken, for I have often wished that people would get
rid of their younger sons now, as Tom Thumb's father wisely did, losing
them in a forest and leaving them to starve."
"Then take my advice, and never dance with any. I warn you against
fashionable huzzars, all spurs and gold lace, with more bullion on
their jackets than in their purses; _attaches_ who are not to be
attached, ready to fall into flirtations but not into love; Honorable
Edwards and Honorable Fredricks, who never are, but always to be rich,
investing their whole fortunes in white kid gloves, and offering,
perhaps, to share their starvation with you; and," added Sir Patrick,
with a glance at Marion, who blushed deeply, but said nothing,
"remember, above all, I forbid reverend divines, young or old,
especially those who have no living and no prospect of a mitre. You
should each knock down a coronet for yourselves, and avoid the most
detestable of all poverty,--genteel poverty; at the same time, do not
gamble too deeply in life. Ascertain well, '_sur quel pied a danser_.'
In a sickly season, even a fifth son is not to be despised. Take a
smaller certainty rather than a greater possibility, and lose no time,
or the bridge may break down before you run across it."
"Your advice to me is perfectly superfluous," replied Agnes, looking
very superb, and giving a contemptuous toss of her head. "I detest
economy, and abjure all penny weddings, having no genius for turning or
dying silk dresses,--putting servants on scanty allowance,--driving
about in hackney coaches,--locking up jellies,--counting out eggs,--or
measuring small beer! I am sworn at Highgate always to prefer the best
partners, and generally have them."
"How would you like," said Marion, "to have been the young lady long
ago in London, who could not dance with the King of Prussia, because she
was previously engaged to the Emperor of Russia?"
"That would suit me exactly. I should like to carry my head as high as
the Pope's tiara. But I have reason, as you know, to expect hereafter
one of the proudest coronets in Britain; and shall certainly not remain
a day longer than I can help dependent, Patrick, on the most singularly
generous, liberal, and considerate of brothers,--with the one only
fault of caring for nobody but himself. If I were drowning, you would
scarcely stretch out your little finger to save me, in case it might
become wet."
"Quite right, Agnes, not to depend on me, or you would have little to
depend upon. My pockets are to let unfurnished now! I shall perhaps go
to Australia,--or probably measure the depth of the Serpentine some
evening; though, in the mean while, I may put up with life a little
longer, bad as it is. Now, therefore, Agnes, hear my last advice. You
have the world upon a string, and shall see a large assortment of
admirers to choose among. When torrents of proposals are pouring in
upon you, as they will and must do soon, get safely into the haven of
matrimony, or you will be shipwrecked for ever. Accomplished misses are
quite a drug in the market now; but you ought to be ashamed, Agnes, of
missing that little pigmy peer, Lord Bowater, two years ago, when you
had three days the start of every other young lady in making the
acquaintance. He treated you shockingly, to fall in love at first sight
with that paltry Miss Gordon. As for any other coronet you are ever
likely to wear, I know of none that even a telescope could give you the
most distant prospect of. Now wait till I am out of the room before you
faint!"
"Marion!" said Agnes, yawning outrageously when her brother had
departed, and looking unspeakably forlorn, "How often I have laughed
ready to die, at the case of other girls, without ever dreaming it
could in any degree resemble my own! Every year that worthy, old,
respectable Lord Towercliffe, as fond of home as uncle Arthur or any
garden snail, suddenly breaks up his comfortable establishment in the
country, and comes to town with the declared intention of giving
Charlotte and Maria 'proper advantages!' The poor girls, then, see
their father obliged to undergo the wretchedness of frequenting a club,
to form suitable acquaintances, and suffering hourly martyrdom in being
absent from his farm, his stud, his improvements, and all that
interests him in life, while our active, energetic friend, Lady
Towercliffe, plunged into a wilderness of blond and feathers, rushes
eagerly from house to house, followed by her flock of disposable
daughters, whom she is perpetually puffing off, like Robins the
auctioneer. Then follow dinner parties, given at an expense which the
young ladies know to be ruinous, balls, soirees, flirtations,
disappointments, and at last the family coach trundling slowly back at
a funeral pace to St. Abbsbury, where the lodge-keeper despondingly
counts heads as they pass, to see whether their numbers continue still
undiminished! It is altogether horrid, and perfectly laughable, too!"
"Not very laughable!" said Marion, coloring; "whether Lord Towercliffe
takes the affair good-humoredly or otherwise, it must be most degrading
and humiliating for the young ladies. I can fancy nothing more odious!"
"A grand skirmish ending in defeat!" added Agnes, ironically. "I
remember formerly, when these Malcolm girls were in their school-room,
the chief bugbear hung over them, if they neglected the arts of dress
and fascination, was, that they would inevitably die old maids. They
were educated for the profession of matrimony, and were each taught to
expect a husband of rank and fortune, at the very least, equal to their
father's."
"Yes," said Marion, "Lady Towercliffe would consider any one of her
very plain daughters as perfectly disgraced, either to marry in a grade
the least degree below her own, or not to marry at all, therefore they
are allowed no alternative. The position of young ladies during the
present time seems far from enviable. In these days of clubs,
money-making, and old bachelorism, not a third of those who grow up now
will be married at all, and perhaps not a third of those who do marry
will be happy! It seems to me strange and unaccountable that parents
who have any consideration for the happiness of their daughters,
inculcate no ideas into their minds and hearts unconnected with
matrimony, and, like Lady Towercliffe, drive them forward to the public
view, a mark for censure, gossip, and ridicule, till they find shelter
in some other home, where it is five to one that they will be
miserable."
"Yes, miserable indeed," added Agnes, indolently, "men are all so
selfish. Husbands expect the whole time, thoughts, and affections of
their wives in return for the very little they choose to spare from
their horses, dogs, and clubs. On these their whole income is to be
squandered, while they keep to that favorite rule--'What is yours is
mine, and what is mine is my own.' The ladies must be invariably in
good humor and lively spirits at home, perfectly well dressed, with a
cheerful fireside, and a luxurious table; but, at the same time, we are
never to ask for money or to have any bills! our servants are all to be
first-rate on the very lowest wages, and our children in the best order
without ever being punished or thwarted!--a fairy's wand could not do
the half of it."
"I am often amused now," said Marion, "to hear people say of the
dullest and most unprepossessing old bachelor in the world, 'I wonder
he never takes it into his head to marry!' while they observe, in
discussing any girl more beautiful and fascinating than another, 'How
very surprising that she has never got married!' when, at the same
time, there is not perhaps a single year of her life since she was born
that she might not have been established if she chose. I believe that
the vulgar consideration of money makes all the difference; for if
ladies had the fortunes, instead of gentlemen, they would be quite as
uncertain and capricious, off and on, about marrying or not marrying,
as--as even Captain De Crespigny!"
"One of the last times he called here," said Agnes, "when lamenting, as
he often does, his unmarriageable state of poverty at present, Captain
De Crespigny said, in his droll way, that he would some day bring a
bill into Parliament, ordaining that every old bachelor who could
maintain a wife for himself and will not, shall be obliged to support
one for somebody else, who wishes to marry and cannot afford. Now,
Marion, let us put all our Harrowgate irons in the fire, and prepare to
be admired by all admirers next week at the Granby!"
"You know, Agnes, though I do not tease you or Patrick by often
alluding to what you call my sentimental vagaries, that there is only
one person in the world by whom I have any ambition to be admired;
though our engagement must be postponed, till Richard is in
circumstances to marry with prudence. Without reference to that,
however, in respect to Harrowgate society, it is said to be more like a
low farce than a genteel comedy!"
"A little of both! but we shall be in the best set. I hope Sir Arthur
will not be teasing us with any of his world-before-the-flood ideas,
about late hours, waltzing, and all the other enormities of fashionable
life! It is my duty, really, to give him a few presentable ideas now,
for he lived in the dark ages, when old Queen Charlotte used to keep
the ladies all so preternaturally precise and decorous. Most of the
Admiral's notions he had from his mother, who lived, I believe, with
Queen Elizabeth!"
"But Agnes! even the prejudices of our uncle should be attended to. He
shows us greater kindness than we ever have known, or can know from any
body else, and the whole wealth of his affection is devoted to us."
"Well, then! I wish his love could be turned into money! I often think
if our skins were made of gold, that Patrick would flay us alive! Of
course I shall not fly in Sir Arthur's face upon every trifle, for we
must humor him sometimes! One day, long ago, I took him in
delightfully, by saying that if he disapproved of waltzing, I hoped he
would not object to a galope! At Harrowgate, the military men will all
fortunately be out of uniform, therefore Sir Arthur need never guess
who or what they are, as he has a most inconvenient dislike to my being
so intimate with the army list, and one really cannot do without a few
tame officers running about the drawing-room."
"But, Agnes! as Patrick says, you cannot live upon fried epaulettes,
therefore it would look much better not to be surrounded by so great a
variety of officers! It scarcely seems respectable to be, as Patrick
called you long ago, the member for Barrackshire!"
"Marion! you are most ridiculously circumspect for your years!" replied
Agnes, in her most stately tone; "you have certainly commenced life at
the wrong end, and will be beginning to grow young, when I am thinking
it time to grow old--if I ever do!"
"I wish not to buy experience at so dear a rate as most girls do, but
rather to benefit by that of others,--to reach the kernel at once,
without having any trouble in breaking the shell!"
"Pshaw, Marion! I would feel myself a fool for a week, had I spoken
such nonsense! It gives me the tic douloureux to hear you. Who would
think of listening now to every old hack, worn out with the
vicissitudes of life, and only fit to make you melancholy before the
time! But take your own way," added Agnes, who allowed Marion her own
way, as the Vicar of Wakefield's daughters were allowed their
pocket-money, which was never to be used. "You go upon the impossible
plan of pleasing everybody; but remember the wise old proverb,--'Cover
yourself with honey, and the flies will eat you up.'"
When Marion spoke from the heart to her sister, she was accustomed to
find herself talking to the winds, therefore she now concluded the
conversation with a lively good-humored reply, and sat down to the
pianoforte. Her music was as different as her conversation from that of
Agnes, who but little appreciated it, and generally left the room,
humming a tune as soon as Marion struck her first chord; but, on this
occasion, she for once remained stationary.
The style of Agnes' singing was a brilliant bravura, which, in any
public performer, might have commanded whirlwinds of applause, but
while her clear soprano voice dazzled and astonished by its uncommon
brilliancy, Sir Patrick alleged that it cracked every glass in the
room, and that her taste had been cultivated till she had literally
none of her own,--Bellini's cadences, Rubini's shake, and Anybody's
graces, all acquired from every teacher except nature, to whom nothing
had been trusted.
The rich full-toned melody of Marion's _contralto_ voice, often became
instinct with the simple suggestions of her own feeling, while her
music had that only one charm which never can be taught,--expression.
There was a depth of sensibility in her eye and voice, which riveted
the attention and awakened the sympathy of every heart, while it always
appeared that, if display had been her object, she could have done much
more than she attempted. No bird on a tree ever warbled its wild notes
with more perfect simplicity and real delight. The rippling of a brook
over its pebbly bed, or the sighing of the breeze amidst the summer
foliage, was not more entirely natural, and while Sir Patrick sometimes
protested that "every note was a tear," she yet reached even his
feelings, so that not a whisper could be heard from him till the last
cadence had melted away on his ear. Marion having seldom yet had any
audience except her school-companions, remained almost unconscious of
her own singular gift; but this day she sang with deep enthusiasm, and
the last thrilling tones of her voice had died inaudibly away, when she
looked round and saw young Lord Wigton standing near the door beside
Agnes, in an attitude of intense and speechless admiration, with all
his faculties, if he had any, apparently suspended,--his lips
apart,--his eyes beaming with delight,--and his whole expression full
of wonder and ecstasy; while Sir Patrick was lounging on a sofa near,
exhibiting a smiling, frolicsome expression in his eye, full of fun and
mischief.
"This is hardly fair," exclaimed Marion, laughingly starting up with a
brilliant blush of astonishment; "you know, Lord Wigton, stealing into
a dwelling house is punishable by law."
"Whatever be the penalty, I am sufficiently rewarded," answered he,
with a shy diffident look. "My flute will be happy any day to make you
an apology."
Those who love music, and those only, can estimate its power over the
feelings, and for several minutes afterwards Lord Wigton remained
silent, then, suddenly awakening as if from a dream, he uttered some
incoherent exclamations of rapture, and in tones of unaffected
animation entreated Marion to sing the same air once again; while she,
amused and surprised at his extraordinary _empressement_, prepared to
comply.
"My song is not worth asking for twice, and still less worth refusing,
therefore you shall have it in my very best style!" said Marion,
playing the prelude, for she had none of that giggling affected shyness
assumed by most girls during their first winter. "This note is pitched
so high, you should go up stairs to hear it!"
"How strange that one so gay as you, should have a voice of such
melting sadness!" exclaimed Lord Wigton. "It awakens fifty thousand
thoughts and feelings I never knew before! I shall become an
improvisatore, when listening to melody 'so rare and enchanting!'"
"You must have heard it through the key-hole!" said Marion, laughing.
"I had no idea that my trash could reach any ears but my own."
"It did more, for it reached my heart! Your voice is the very essence
of nightingales. I shall follow you to Harrowgate, for the chance of
hearing that air once again."
"Perhaps, then, it has some peculiar interest," said Marion, surprised
at the warmth of his enthusiasm. "The chief delight of music certainly
is, the associations it brings out, the remembrances of bye-gone hours
it recalls, and the million of little phantoms it creates of past or
future times."
"Marion! your voice is by no means equal to that song, and your style
is very amateur-ish indeed," interrupted Agnes, bitterly. "I do not
wish to boast," added she, laughing, to conceal her irritation; "but
Grisi never ventured to sing that air after hearing me, and Delvini
said his fortune would be made, if he could engage me for his Prima
Donna. I only mention this among friends. Keep it secret, for I hate to
cause jealousy and mortification! Few people understand music like my
old master Delvini, who said that my god-mother must certainly have
possessed the wand of a fairy, and gifted me with music."
"Ah! Delvini is the man who plays a whole concerto upon one note of the
piano, or something wonderful of that kind," observed Lord Wigton,
looking impatiently for Marion to begin. "I hate the helter-skelter
school in music! people scampering through their songs with a thousand
miraculous flourishes, which set one's teeth on edge."
"Such performers," answered Marion, "give me no more pleasure than to
see Van Amburgh thrust his head into the lion's mouth, which is very
surprising, and what I could not do myself, but it excites no sympathy,
and raises no emotion better than wonder."
"Your voice is like some fairy spirit that would lead me to the world's
end," said Lord Wigton, with an air of eager expectation. "And now,
Miss Dunbar, I am all ears."
"So I think, and very long ears too," muttered Agnes to herself, angry
beyond all bounds at the young Peer's attention to Marion, when
hitherto she had been the principal, or rather the only object of
interest to him whenever they were in the same room. Agnes, without an
assiduous lover, ready to put on her shawl, clasp her bracelets, and
carry her boa, was like a ship without a compass, not knowing which way
to turn, and though nothing could make up for the want of those
graceful flatteries, amusing quarrels, and ambitious hopes, to which
she was accustomed with Captain De Crespigny, yet should he disappoint
her, Lord Wigton had been recently promoted to the character of a _pis
aller_ in the list of her admirers, as she was heard to remark, that
"it is better to have a donkey that carries you, than a horse that
throws you." Though usually the object of her unbounded ridicule, yet
the young Peer had recently become of so much importance to her, that
it was indeed an unpardonable affront when he spared one moment's
attention to Marion, while at the same time she considered his taste on
the occasion, quite as questionable as that of the bird which preferred
a barley-corn to a diamond.
Next morning, to the increased indignation of Agnes, Lord Wigton's
servant left at the door of St. John's Lodge, two splendid bouquets,
both equally rare and beautiful; but when they were presented, Agnes
looked angrily at Marion's, and plucked her own to pieces, saying,
"That absurd little man! it is worth while to hear him talk of being in
love, he makes the subject so thoroughly ridiculous! I like all my
lovers till I tire of them, and his Lordship's reign was over last
Tuesday. He has the stiffness of the poker without its occasional heat,
and no more individuality of character than a leaf upon a tree. I
wonder where we could have him measured for a cap-and-bells. He has so
little vivacity, that he now wears the fool's cap without the bells. He
did so weary me! I think Lord Wigton must be the man Rochefoucalt had
in his eye when he said that many people would never have known how to
fall in love, if they had not first heard it talked about! His
sentimental speeches are so thoroughly ridiculous, they often remind me
of Liston's meditation in the farce, 'There stands my Mary's cottage!
and she must either be in it, or out of it!'"