THE SPINET.
In no very pleasant frame of mind did Lord Aspenly retrace his steps
toward the old house. His lordship had, all his life, been firmly
persuaded that the whole female creation had been sighing and pining
for the possession of his heart and equipage. He knew that among those
with whom his chief experience lay, his fortune and his coronet were
considerations not to be resisted; and he as firmly believed, that even
without such recommendations, few women, certainly none of any taste or
discrimination, could be found with hearts so steeled against the
archery of Cupid, as to resist the fascinations of his manner and
conversation, supported and directed, as both were, by the tact and
experience drawn from a practice of more years than his lordship cared
to count, even to himself. He had, however, smiled, danced, and
chatted, in impregnable celibacy, through more than half a century of
gaiety and frivolity--breaking, as he thought, hearts innumerable, and,
at all events, disappointing very many calculations--until, at length,
his lordship had arrived at that precise period of existence at which
old gentlemen, not unfrequently, become all at once romantic,
disinterested, and indiscreet--nobody exactly knows why--unless it be
for variety, or to spite an heir presumptive, or else that, as a
preliminary to second childhood, nature has ordained a second _boyhood_
too. Certain, however, it is, that Lord Aspenly was seized, on a
sudden, with a matrimonial frenzy; and, tired of the hackneyed
schemers, in the centre of whose manoeuvres he had stood and smiled so
long in contemptuous security, he resolved that his choice should
honour some simple, unsophisticated beauty, who had never plotted his
matrimony.
Fired with this benevolent resolution, he almost instantly selected
Mary Ashwoode as the happy companion of his second childhood,
acquainted Sir Richard with his purpose, of course received his consent
and blessing, and forthwith opened his entrenchments with the same
certainty of success with which the great Duke of Marlborough might
have invested a Flanders village. The inexperience of a girl who had
mixed, comparatively, so little in gay society, her consequent openness
to flattery, and susceptibility of being fascinated by the elegance of
his address, and the splendour of his fortune--all these
considerations, accompanied by a clear consciousness of his own
infinite condescension in thinking of her at all, had completely
excluded from all his calculations the very possibility of her doing
anything else than jump into his arms the moment he should open them to
receive her. The result of the interview which had just taken place,
had come upon him with the overwhelming suddenness of a thunderbolt.
Rejected!--Lord Aspenly rejected!--a coronet, and a fortune, and a man
whom all the male world might envy--each and all rejected!--and by
whom?--a chit of a girl, who had no right to look higher than a
half-pay captain with a wooden leg, or a fox-hunting boor, with a few
inaccessible acres of bog and mountain--the daughter of a spendthrift
baronet, who was, as everyone knew, on the high road to ruin. Death and
fury! was it to be endured?
The little lover, absorbed in such tranquilizing reflections, arrived
at the house, and entered the drawing-room. It was not unoccupied;
seated by a spinet, and with a sheet of music-paper in her lap, and a
pencil in her hand, was the fair Emily Copland. As he entered, she
raised her eyes, started a little, became gracefully confused, and
then, with her archest smile, exclaimed,--
"What shall I say, my lord? You have detected me. I have neither
defence nor palliation to offer; you have fairly caught me. Here am I
engaged in perhaps the most presumptuous task that ever silly maiden
undertook--I am wedding your beautiful verses to most unworthy music of
my own. After all, there is nothing like a simple ballad. Such
exquisite lines as these inspire music of themselves. Would that Henry
Purcell had had but a peep at them! To what might they not have
prompted such a genius--to what, indeed?"
So sublime was the flight of fancy suggested by this interrogatory,
that Miss Copland shook her head slowly in poetic rapture, and gazed
fondly for some seconds upon the carpet, apparently unconscious of Lord
Aspenly's presence.
"_She_ is a fine creature," half murmured he, with an emphasis upon the
identity which implied a contrast not very favourable to
Mary--"and--and very pretty--nay, she looks almost beautiful, and
so--so lively--so much vivacity. Never was poor poet so much
flattered," continued his lordship, approaching, as he spoke, and
raising his voice, but not above its most mellifluous pitch; "to have
his verses read by _such_ eyes, to have them chanted by such a
minstrel, were honour too high for the noblest bards of the noblest
days of poetry: for me it is a happiness almost too great; yet, if the
request be not a presumptuous one, may I, in all humility, pray that
you will favour me with the music to which you have coupled my most
undeserving--my most favoured lines?"
The young lady looked modest, glanced coyly at the paper which lay in
her lap, looked modest once more, and then arch again, and at length,
with rather a fluttered air, she threw her hands over the keys of the
instrument, and to a tune, of which we say enough when we state that it
was in no way unworthy of the words, she sang, rather better than young
ladies usually do, the following exquisite stanzas from his lordship's
pen:--
"Tho' Chloe slight me when I woo,
And scorn the love of poor Philander;
The shepherd's heart she scorns is true,
His heart is true, his passion tender.
"But poor Philander sighs in vain,
In vain laments the poor Philander;
Fair Chloe scorns with high disdain,
His love so true and passion tender.
"And here Philander lays him down,
Here will expire the poor Philander;
The victim of fair Chloe's frown,
Of love so true and passion tender.
"Ah, well-a-day! the shepherd's dead;
Ay, dead and gone, the poor Philander;
And Dryads crown with flowers his head,
And Cupid mourns his love so tender."
During this performance, Lord Aspenly, who had now perfectly recovered
his equanimity, marked the time with head and hand, standing the while
beside the fair performer, and every note she sang found its way
through the wide portals of his vanity, directly to his heart.
"Brava! brava! bravissima!" murmured his lordship, from time to time.
"Beautiful, beautiful air--most appropriate--most simple; not a note
that accords not with the word it carries--beautiful, indeed! A
thousand thanks! I have become quite conceited of lines of which
heretofore I was half ashamed. I am quite elated--at once overpowered
by the characteristic vanity of the poet, and more than recompensed by
the reality of his proudest aspiration--that of seeing his verses
appreciated by a heart of sensibility, and of hearing them sung by the
lips of beauty."
"I am but too happy if I am _forgiven_," replied Emily Copland,
slightly laughing, and with a heightened colour, while the momentary
overflow of merriment was followed by a sigh, and her eyes sank
pensively upon the ground.
This little by-play was not lost upon Lord Aspenly.
"Poor little thing," he inwardly remarked, "she is in a very bad
way--desperate--quite desperate. What a devil of a rascal I am to be
sure! Egad! it's almost a pity--she's a decidedly superior person; she
has an elegant turn of mind--refinement--taste--egad! she is a fine
creature--and so simple. She little knows I see it all; perhaps she
hardly knows herself what ails her--poor, poor little thing!"
While these thoughts floated rapidly through his mind, he felt, along
with his spite and anger towards Mary Ashwoode, a feeling of contempt,
almost of disgust, engendered by her audacious non-appreciation of his
merits--an impertinence which appeared the more monstrous by the
contrast of Emily Copland's tenderness. _She_ had made it plain enough,
by all the artless signs which simple maidens know not how to hide,
that his fascinations had done their fatal work upon her heart. He had
seen, this for several days, but not with the overwhelming distinctness
with which he now beheld it.
"Poor, poor little girl!" said his lordship to himself; "I am very,
very sorry, but it cannot be helped; it is no fault of mine. I am
really very, very, confoundedly sorry."
In saying so to himself, however, he told himself a lie; for, instead
of being grieved, he was pleased beyond measure--a fact which he might
have ascertained by a single glance at the reflection of his wreathed
smiles in the ponderous mirror which hung forward from the pier between
the windows, as if staring down in wondering curiosity upon the
progress of the flirtation. Not caring to disturb a train of thought
which his vanity told him were but riveting the subtle chains which
bound another victim to his conquering chariot-wheels, the Earl of
Aspenly turned, with careless ease, to a table, on which lay some
specimens of that worsted tapestry-work, in which the fair maidens of a
century and a half ago were wont to exercise their taste and skill.
"Your work is very, very beautiful," said he, after a considerable
pause, and laying down the canvas, upon whose unfinished worsted task
he had been for some time gazing.
"That is my _cousin's_ work," said Emily, not sorry to turn the
conversation to a subject upon which, for many reasons, she wished to
dwell; "she used to work a great deal with me before she grew
romantic--before she fell in love."
"In love!--with whom?" inquired Lord Aspenly, with remarkable
quickness.
"Don't you know, my lord?" inquired Emily Copland, in simple wonder.
"May be I ought not to have told you--I am sure I ought not. Do not ask
me any more. I am the giddiest girl--the most thoughtless!"
"Nay, nay," said Lord Aspenly, "you need not be afraid to trust _me_--I
never tell tales; and now that I know the fact that she is in love,
there can be no harm in telling me the less important particulars. On
my honour," continued his lordship, with real earnestness, and affected
playfulness--"upon my sacred honour! I shall not breathe one syllable
of it to mortal--I shall be as secret as the tomb. Who is the happy
person in question?"
"Well, my lord, you'll _promise_ not to betray me," replied she. "I
know very well I ought not to have said a word about it; but as I
_have_ made the blunder, I see no harm in telling you all I know; but
you _will_ be secret?"
"On my honour--on my life and soul, I swear!" exclaimed his lordship,
with unaffected eagerness.
"Well, then, the happy man is a Mr. Edmond O'Connor," replied she.
"O'Connor--O'Connor--I never saw nor heard of the man before," rejoined
the earl, reflectively. "Is he wealthy?"
"Oh! no; a mere beggarman," replied Emily, "and a Papist to boot!"
"Ha, ha, ha--he, he, he! a Papist beggar," exclaimed his lordship, with
an hysterical giggle, which was intended for a careless laugh. "Has he
any conversation--any manner--any attraction of _that_ kind?"
"Oh! none in the world!--both ignorant, and I think, vulgar," replied
Emily. "In short, he is very nearly a stupid boor!"
"Excellent! Ha, ha--he, he, he!--ugh! ugh!--very capital--excellent!
excellent!" exclaimed his lordship, although he might have found some
difficulty in explaining in what, precisely the peculiar excellence of
the announcement consisted. "Is he--is he--a--a--_handsome_?"
"Decidedly _not_ what I consider handsome!" replied she; "he is a
large, coarse-looking fellow, with very broad shoulders--very
large--and as they say of oxen, in very great condition--a sort of a
prize man!"
"Ha, ha!--ugh! ugh!--he, he, he, he, he!--ugh, ugh,
ugh!--de--lightful--quite delightful!" exclaimed the earl, in a tone of
intense chagrin, for he was conscious that his own figure was perhaps a
little too scraggy, and his legs a _leetle_ too nearly approaching the
genus spindle, and being so, there was no trait in the female character
which he so inveterately abhorred and despised as their tendency to
prefer those figures which exhibited a due proportion of thew and
muscle. Under a cloud of rappee, his lordship made a desperate attempt
to look perfectly delighted and amused, and effected a retreat to the
window, where he again indulged in a titter of unutterable spite and
vexation.
"And what says Sir Richard to the advances of this very desirable
gentleman?" inquired he, after a little time.
"Sir Richard is, of course, violently against it," replied Emily
Copland.
"So I should have supposed," returned the little nobleman, briskly. And
turning again to the window, he relapsed into silence, looked out
intently for some minutes, took more snuff, and finally, consulting his
watch, with a few words of apology, and a gracious smile and a bow,
quitted the room.