Arrived about midway in the long dark walk, Henry at length paused. What
with agitation and the quickness of his pace, he seemed himself
exhausted, while Louisa, faint with alarm and fatigue, was no longer
able to stand unassisted, much less to walk. There was no seat near, he
was obliged to support her by an arm round her waist. She leaned her
head on his shoulder and sobbed hysterically. His resentment now gave
way to tenderness. Her alarm could only be for his safety--the thought
soothed his chafed spirit--he whispered the fondest expressions of
endearment mingled with incoherent apologies for his violence. He
ascribed all his faults, as he had done on the evening before, to love
and jealousy. When the bare possibility, he said, of loosing her but
crossed his imagination, he was no longer an accountable being--he
should be ranked with the veriest madman in bedlam! She only sighed in
reply, but it was a sigh from which no lover could fail to derive
encouragement, nor did it falsely report what was passing in the bosom
whence it came. The ardour of Henry's manner, assisted by her late fears
for his safety, had driven all prudential considerations from her
thoughts, reduced the vanities of wealth to a mere puppet-show, and for
the moment at least made all the bliss of earth seem concentrated in the
enthusiastic devotion and actual presence of such a lover. Encouraged by
the tremulous tenderness of her sigh, and the gentle quiescence of her
manner, Henry ventured to whisper that his leading her from the
frequented walk was not altogether accidental, but that driven to
distraction by alternate hopes and fears, he had that evening determined
at all hazards to make one desperate effort to secure a happiness that
it was intoxication even to think of, and would be phrensy to lose--that
he had consequently taken the daring step of having a carriage in
waiting, which was now not many yards distant. He then entreated her
with all the eloquence of wildly excited passion, instead of resenting
his audacity to end the cruel doubts which had thus stung him to
madness, and fly with him at once.
"I must not, Henry!" she exclaimed, "indeed I must not--I must not," she
repeated. But in fluttering broken accents of tenderness and joy, so
encouraging, that the arm which was still round her waist, continued the
while with a gentle violence propelling her forward; and so light, so
willing, though tremulous were her steps, that the tiny white sattin
slippers, twinkling like little stars, scarcely touched the earth.
"Oh! Henry, dear Henry, my mother will be so grieved--my brothers will
be so angry! Let us go back--and I will promise you to--to--." But she
faltered.
"Never, Louisa, will I trust you out of my sight again, till by the
sacred name of wife you are mine for ever!"
The passionate tone of voice in which this was uttered sank into
whispers of tenderness. Louisa attempted no reply, but all her remaining
scruples vanished, and recklessness of consequences came over her: the
whole of life seemed comprised in the present moment--the whole world
seemed to contain but herself and her lover. A chariot and four was now
visible outside a gateway which they were approaching. They glided
through the portals, and Louisa suffered Henry to assist her into the
carriage. He sprang in after her--the door was closed--"All right," said
Henry's man, though begging his pardon it was all very wrong, and off
set the horses at their full speed.
It was some weeks before Louisa remembered the gifts of fortune she had
resigned, or Henry thought with painful misgivings of the meditated
abandonment of him and his love, which he had so strongly suspected
before he had been driven to take the violent step we have just
described.
What will Tommy Moor say to this, after having declared that
_sweetbriar_ is the safest fence for the "Garden of Beauty;" nay, that
there is more security in it than in the guardianship of that unamiable
duenna, the "Dragon of Prudery, placed within call."
Now, every one knows that the Cheltenham walks are hedged with
sweetbriar. Perhaps Louisa Arden, not being a daughter of the Emerald
Isle, may account for "that wild sweetbriary fence" which the poet has
pronounced their characteristic barrier, not proving effectual in her
case. But to return to our ball.
"I wonder which room Miss Louisa is in," said Sir James to Lady Arden;
"I have been looking in all the rooms for her, and I can't find her."
"I hope she is not gone into that foolish lit-up walk," replied her
ladyship, looking rather anxiously towards the window. "I am afraid it
will give all the young people cold."
"I never thought of that," said Sir James, bustling off.
"I wonder what is become of Louisa," said Mrs. Dorothea, coming up to
Lady Arden. "Sir James," she added, calling after the retreating
baronet, "do bring Louisa here; I want another couple for this quadrille
in the next room."
"Oh, yes, I'll bring her if I can find her," said the little man, "but I
don't know where she is."
"Where can Louisa be?" said Madeline.
"In the ball-room, I suppose," replied Mr. Cameron. "They were in the
refreshment-room."
"Where can Louisa be?" asked Alfred, who was in the ball-room, "my aunt
is looking for her."
"In the refreshment-room, I suppose," replied the person questioned.
"What can have become of Louisa?" asked Willoughby, looking round the
supper-room. "My aunt wants her."
"Is she not in the ball-room?" said Geoffery.
"No, I have just come from thence."
"Nor in the refreshment-room."
"I have not looked there," and away went Willoughby.
In came poor Sir James, looking very silly.
"She is not there," he said, addressing Geoffery.
"Who?"
"Why, Miss Louisa, she promised to dance the next set with me, and I
can't find her any where."
"But where have you been looking for her, Sir James?" asked Geoffery,
who never missed an opportunity of quizzing the little baronet.
"I looked in all the rooms first, and now I have been to the far end of
the lighted walk, up one side and down the other, and I can't find her
anywhere."
"But did you not try any of the dark walks?"
"I never thought of that, but I don't think she'd go there."
"She must be somewhere, Sir James; you say she is not in any of the
rooms, nor in the lighted walk, therefore, she must be in one of the
dark ones!"
Sir James, looking innocently convinced by the force of this logic,
replied, "Well, I'll go and see," and turned to depart.
"But you can't see in the dark; had you not better take a lantern?"
"I never thought of that," he replied, and making the best of his way
into the hall, he asked every servant and waiter who crossed his path
for a lantern to look for Miss Louisa. They all stared at him in turn,
and seemed more likely to stumble over him in their bustle, than either
to comprehend or grant his request. At length he perceived Sarah in the
back ground, filling her office, as warden of cloaks and boas, and
tossed off for the occasion in a net fly cap, quite on the back of her
head, to display her innumerable curls; and decorated with bows of pink
ribbon full a quarter of a yard long, made stiff with wire in the
inside, to give them an enviable resemblance to horns. By her assistance
he obtained the illuminator used by Mrs. Dorothea when she was returning
home on foot from evening parties; and thus provided, set forth on his
voyage of discovery. He was secretly followed at a certain distance by
Geoffery and a knot of wags, who concealed themselves behind trees and
shrubs, and when Sir James, holding up the light at the entrance to each
dark avenue would cry, "Are you there, Louisa?" they would answer
simultaneously in all directions, and in feigned voices of course, "Yes,
I am here----" till our puzzled little baronet would stand, looking now
before him--now behind him--now on the one side--now on the other,
literally not knowing which way to turn, to the infinite amusement of
his hidden tormentors, to whom he was, with his lantern, a conspicuous
object, whilst they, in their various dark retreats, were invisible to
him.