When Coverdale reached his own room, his first act was to lock the
door, his next to fling open the window; he then untied his neck-cloth,
pulled off his coat and boots, and substituting for them a dressing-gown
and slippers, cast a long, lingering glance at his cigar-case. Shaking
his head negatively, he muttered, “I daren’t risk it; old Hazlehurst has
a wonderful nose for tobacco--if it were but as good for partridges and
pheasants he’d make an invaluable retriever!”--he paused, sighed deeply,
partly for want of a cigar--partly because, though he was not at all
aware of it, one of the great realities of life was for the first time
dawning upon him; then drawing a chair to the open window he seated
himself, and gave way to thought.
“I’ve made a pretty mess of it this evening, and no mistake!”--thus
ran his ideas--“gone and offended the governor, and rendered him as
cantankerous as an old rhinoceros, so that the more I want him to do
anything, the less likely he’ll be to do it. Then in my confounded
good-nature, I’ve allowed that ass Knighton to detain me with his stupid
prosing, so that I lost sight of the cotton-spinner, and gave him a
chance of making Alice an offer--a chance of which the old fellow was
inspired with wit enough to avail himself, I’m almost certain. Arthur
will be preciously savage! and enough to make him--the notion of
sacrificing Alice to such an old anatomy as that--a yellow-skinned brute
like a resuscitated mummy, without more than two ideas in his head, and
two such ideas--cash and cotton! he thinks of nothing else, asleep or
awake. I wonder what answer Alice gave him; but there isn’t much doubt
of that, the poor girl daren’t disobey her father--besides, women don’t
refuse £20,000 a-year. Well, I wish old Crane joy of his bargain. She’ll
soon get sick of him, and be miserable of course; then she’ll take to
flirting with every young fellow she meets, to get rid of her _ennui_;
chose out one to establish a platonic friendship with, perhaps!--I’ve
seen all that sort of thing in France and Italy often enough. D’Almayne
very likely, he’s just the sort of puppy to lead a woman on--she
laughs at him now, but it may be different when she’s only old Crane to
contrast him with. By the way, I’ll give Arthur a hint on that score.”
He rose, paced up and down the room several times, then continued--“I
wonder what the deuce is the matter with me! I feel most absurdly and
unpleasantly miserable.” He reseated himself by the window, tossed back
his hair, and sat silently watching the moon, just then emerging from
behind a bank of clouds. It was a time and scene to elevate and refine
man’s nature; and Harry was not insensible to the influence. He thought
of his boyhood, and his mother’s tender love; he recurred to the
moonlight stroll in which he had confided these cherished memories to
Alice, and the warm and ready sympathy with which she listened to the
recital; then minute points in their subsequent intercourse forced
themselves into his recollection--smiles, words, and glances, trifles
in themselves, but when collected, suggestive of a definite idea; and
lastly, her look when she quitted the dining-room that evening flashed
across him, and with a sudden start he pressed his hand to his forehead
as he resumed--“Fool that I am, I see it all now--now when it is too
late I love her, and I might have won her love--it only required to tell
her of my own feelings, to change the affectionate interest she has
conceived for me into a warmer sentiment; and now, perhaps piqued by
my apparent indifference, she has accepted this man, and sealed her own
unhappiness--and mine too, for that matter; but I deserve it! Why did
I let this chance of a bright future escape me! To fancy that the mere
physical excitements of hunting and shooting (pastimes for a thoughtless
boy) could content a being endowed with reason and feeling!--though
really I doubt whether I deserve such a title. I must have been
blind--stultified, not to see all this before!” Burying his face in his
hands, he remained for some time in deep and self-upbraiding thought;
rousing himself at length by an effort, he continued--“well! it’s no
good sitting here tormenting myself all night long--I’ll go to bed
(though, of course, I shall not sleep a wink), and in the morning I’ll
walk over to the station, meet Arthur--tell him how I’ve mismanaged
everything he expected me to do, and find some excuse for leaving this
place to-morrow. I should go mad if I were to stay here longer! Heigho!
I wonder what will become of me--it will be no pleasure to look forward
to the shooting season now! I don’t believe I shall ever care to hit a
bird or mount a horse again. I’ll go to India, and join the army as
a volunteer, or start off to look for the north pole, or something.
I shall hang myself if I stay at home, and do nothing but think about
Alice and that detestable old Crane!” By the time his meditations had
reached this point, Coverdale was unrobed, and, jumping disconsolately
into bed, had not laid his head on his pillow for five minutes ere he
fell sound asleep, and dreamed of a _battue_, in which he tried to shoot
Mr. Crane (who, on that occasion only, appeared ornithologically and
picturesquely attired in the tail and plumage of a cock-pheasant), and
could by no means induce his gun to go off.
The sun shining in through the open window awoke Harry, when he fancied
he might have been asleep about a quarter of an hour; on referring to
his watch, however, he found it was halfpast six, and as the train by
which Arthur Hazlehurst was expected would arrive at twenty minutes past
seven, and it was a good half-hour’s walk to the station, he rose and
began dressing. As his thoughts recurred to the events of the previous
evening, all his cares and anxieties came back upon him with redoubled
force, and he felt more thoroughly out of sorts and unhappy than he ever
remembered to have done since he had come to man’s estate. When the
operation of shaving obliged him to look in the glass, he was surprised,
and if the truth must be told, rather alarmed also, as he caught sight
of the expression of his features. “What a hang-dog, miserable brute
I look like!” he muttered to himself; “it strikes me I drank more wine
than is good for one last night--that comes of old Hazlehurst bringing
out Burgundy after everybody had had enough. The old boy must have been
frightfully screwed himself, or he would never have got so cantankerous
with me about nothing--I hate a man who grows quarrelsome over his
liquor! Heigho! I feel shockingly seedy and down in the mouth, What
the deuce am I to say to Arthur!--how on earth am I to set things right
again with the old man! I wonder whether he will be stupid enough to
expect me to make an apology? I wouldn’t mind doing it to an old codger
like that, but ’pon my word I should not know what to say--I’ve
nothing to apologise about that I can see. I hope Arthur won’t be angry,
or worse still, unhappy about Alice--poor, dear Alice: if she comes down
to breakfast looking miserable, I shall never be able to stand it! I’d
better not look at her at all--that will be the only plan: I’ll be off
before luncheon. When I get home, all by myself, and have nothing to do
but sit and think, I shall have a pleasant life of it! Well, I certainly
_have_ gone and done it this time handsomely--rather!”
Thus fretting and worrying himself he finished dressing, and, making his
way quietly down stairs, effected his exit unobserved. Fancying he was
late he started at a brisk walk, and having crossed the open part of
the park, reached a stile at the entrance of a grass-grown footpath
overshadowed with trees. Before entering this he looked at his watch,
and found that instead of too late he was too early, by nearly half an
hour; accordingly, getting leisurely over the stile, he strolled onward
in the direction of a rustic bench, which he remembered to have seen
some short distance farther up the path, where, if the truth must be
told, he proposed to console himself with a cigar. As he came in sight
of this bench he perceived that it was occupied, and a second glance
was scarcely needed to convince him that the occupant was Alice. For a
moment he was perplexed as to what course to take, whether to join her,
or to retrace his steps, and avoid a meeting which he felt, under the
circumstances, must necessarily be most embarrassing. Perceiving that
the young lady’s head was turned in the opposite direction, and that
she had therefore not yet seen him, he drew back a pace or two, so as
to place the trunk of a towering elm between them. “What shall I do?”
thought Harry; “I have not an idea what to say to her that would be
likely to be of any use; in fact, there’s nothing to be said. She has
accepted old Crane, and now she’s come here to meet Arthur, tell him
what she’s done, say she could not help it, and ask him to forgive her
and make the best of it. I shall be _de trop_ evidently, so the best
thing I can do is to jog back again; and yet--and yet I should like to
walk by her side, and look into her dear blue eyes once more--heigho! I
almost wish my dream would come true, only reversed, and that I were
the pheasant and Crane going to shoot me, though I should not be in much
danger, for the old muff would be safe to miss me. Well, I suppose
I’d better be off--is she there still? yes, but what is she
doing--crying?--why by heaven she’s crying as if her heart would break!
Oh, you know I can’t stand this, so it’s no use thinking any more about
it; speak to her I must and will!” And, suiting the action to the word,
he was about to spring forward and join her, when it occurred to him
that it would only distress and annoy her if he were to obtrude his
presence upon her when, imagining herself alone, she was unrestrainedly
giving way to her grief; so, with that tact springing from innate
delicacy of feeling which prevented Coverdale’s honest, straightforward
character from ever becoming rough or overbearing, he waited till poor
Alice had dried her tears, and with slow, listless footsteps (sadly
different from her usual bounding and elastic gait) resumed her walk in
the direction of the railway-station. As soon as she was fairly started
Harry emerged from his hiding-place, and followed her with vigorous
strides. When he had approached within hearing distance, he endeavoured
by various means, such as stamping with his feet, brushing against
the underwood as he passed, and the like, to render her aware of his
presence, but for some minutes without success. At length, however, a
violent onslaught he made against a blackthorn bush (by which means he
acquired a practical knowledge of the penetrating properties of thorns)
attracted her attention, and with a start sufficiently violent to show
that her nervous system was unusually excited, she turned and beheld
him. Re-assured by finding that the alarming sounds had been caused by
the approach of a friend, rather than by that of a wild beast or an ogre
(plagues so common in the midland counties of “England in ye nineteenth
century,” that of course her imagination had instantly suggested them),
Alice waited till he came up, and received him with her customary
bright smile, although her heightened colour, and an unusual degree of
consciousness in her manner, proved that for some reason the meeting
rather embarrassed her also.
“You walk betimes, Miss Hazlehurst,” began Harry, anxious to break the
ice, but not knowing in the slightest degree how, when it should be
broken, he was going to proceed; “You are really a pattern of early
rising; but I have a notion we are both bound on the same errand,
namely, to meet Arthur--am I wrong?”
“Quite right,” was the reply; “I got up at a wonderfully early hour;
I suppose I was too much excited by such an unaccustomed event as a
dinner-party, to be able to sleep at all soundly.”
“You look fagged and weary even now,” returned Coverdale, regarding her
anxiously, “and you will fatigue yourself still more by walking to the
station and back. Are you prudent to undertake so long an expedition
before breakfast?”
“Oh yes,” was the reply; “it will refresh me and do me good; besides, I
want particularly to see and talk to Arthur.”
“I will accompany you as far as the station, if you will allow me,”
returned Harry, “and, as soon as your brother arrives, leave you to talk
with him in peace; the few words I have to say to him will do equally
well after breakfast.”
Alice signified her consent, and the conversation continued for several
minutes to turn on indifferent subjects, though the burden of sustaining
it fell chiefly upon Alice, Harry’s observations becoming shorter
and less coherent at each reply. At length, however, Alice’s stock of
small-talk failed her, and Harry, in despair, was about to hazard some
such original observation as, that the grass was looking remarkably
green, when his companion suddenly addressed him.
“I am afraid that you will think that I am interfering very
unnecessarily and impertinently, Mr. Coverdale, but I must trust to your
kindness to make allowance for me.”
“She is actually going to confess the cotton-spinner to me, and tell
me I’m in the way, I do believe! Cool hands women are, and no mistake!”
thought Coverdale; he only said, however, “Pray go on.”
“The fact is,” resumed Alice, with a faltering voice, “my brother Tom
informed me (you must not be angry with the poor boy, for he did it out
of regard for you) that you--that is that my father and you differed
about some political question after dinner yesterday, and that my father
was so carried away by the subject as to become injudiciously warm, and,
from Tom’s account, personal, and that his observations annoyed you.
Now, I am so very sorry this should have occurred, for he had formed
such a high opinion of you, and Arthur was so much pleased to see how
well you got on with him--a point on which he appeared particularly
anxious.” (Coverdale bit his lip, and cut off a thistle’s head viciously
with his cane.) “But, if you could be so very good as to overlook
anything my father may have said, it would make me--I mean it would make
Arthur, and--and--all of us so much happier.”
“My dear Miss Hazlehurst,” began Harry, vehemently, “how very kind of
you to trouble yourself about me! I can assure you I am most anxious
to say or do anything to regain Mr. Hazlehurst’s good opinion. I know
I made him rather an impertinent answer; but really I was so unprepared
for such an attack; and then, to make matters worse, that old idiot,
Mr. Crane--that is,” he continued, suddenly recollecting to whom he
was speaking, and turning crimson as he did so, “I beg your pardon
for speaking so disrespectfully of him to _you_; I really forgot--I am
certainly losing my senses!” With a blush as bright, though not quite
so deep coloured as that of Coverdale, Alice, turning away her head,
replied:
“Mr. Crane’s only claim on my respect is, that he is my father’s friend;
if I must own the truth, I do not myself consider him very wise.”
“His _only_ claim did you say!” exclaimed Harry, earnestly. “Oh, Miss
Hazlehurst--Alice--pardon me if I ask you to deal openly with me; am I
indeed wrong in supposing that you are engaged, or about to become so,
to Mr. Crane?”
“Oh yes!” was the hurried reply; “such a fate would render me most
miserable.”
Upon this hint Harry spake; the reality and strength of his feelings
imparted an earnest dignity to his manner, and an unwonted eloquence to
his speech, which would have deeply affected his fair auditor, even had
her own heart not pleaded warmly in his favour. As it was, before they
arrived in sight of the railroad station, Harry had somehow come to the
conclusion, that the communication he should have to make to his friend
Arthur would be very much more satisfactory, though perhaps little less
embarrassing, than the one he had originally designed. It certainly
was a considerable change in the tenour of his report to be forced to
explain, that instead of considering himself the most miserable being
in the world, he felt convinced he was by far the happiest; for that
Alice--resolved not to marry the cotton-spinner--had given her heart,
and promised her hand, to him.
And thus, short, sharp, and decisive, began and ended “Harry Coverdale’s
Courtship:” all the results, good and evil, “that came of it,” may be
learned by any reader sufficiently persevering to peruse that which
remains to be told of this veracious history.