Lady Palliser was inexorable, and Willoughby's knock being heard, while
our heroine was still at her feet, she commanded her to retire to her
own apartment and remain there till prepared to render implicit
obedience to her commands.
The lover on his entrance was told with the sweetest smiles imaginable,
that Caroline had taken cold the evening before, and was unable to leave
her room. He was, however, encouraged to make known his sentiments and
his wishes to Lady Palliser, who both accepted his proposals on the part
of her daughter, and in the most gracious manner possible pronounced her
own approval of his suit. Then followed the arrangement respecting the
visit to ----shire, and the tour on the continent, &c. mere manoeuvres
of her ladyship's to gain time, in case Caroline should prove
untractable.
All this, it may be remembered, Willoughby mentioned to his brother on
his return from his morning visit already described. His not having seen
Caroline herself, however, he suppressed; he felt he knew not why, an
insuperable objection to mention the circumstance; not that he deduced
from it at the time a doubt of his happiness, of which he felt he
thought perfectly secure. He longed, it is true, for evening, and could
not help thinking that his felicity would be still more complete when
his fate had been pronounced by Caroline's own lips; yet surely the
night before in the veranda she had accepted him quite as explicitly as
young ladies generally do. His disappointment again that evening annoyed
him very much; and during our heroine's protracted illness, the anxiety
it was natural he should feel respecting her state of health, was
mingled at times with gloomy apprehensions, which had yet another and a
more agitating source.
At length he left Cheltenham as we have seen for Montague House. His
last interview with our heroine herself was that already described as
having taken place in the veranda on the night of Lady Arden's ball.
The secret of Caroline having never since been visible, was, that she
still continued to resist Lady Palliser's tyrannical commands, while her
ladyship, astonished at conduct so unparalleled, on the part of her
hitherto submissive child, and unaccustomed to be baffled, was more than
ever determined that she should finally yield.
Accordingly she had put off the lover from day to day with promises and
excuses which yet she scarcely expected him to believe, and with which
in fact she cared very little after all, whether he was or was not
satisfied, being with her usual whimsical inconsistency fully prepared,
whenever he refused to play _blind-man's-bluff_, as she called it, any
longer, to laugh excessively and turn the whole affair into an excellent
jest. In the mean time she derived quite as much gratification from the
amusement of quizzing Willoughby, as from the prospect of tyrannizing
over her daughter.
For it was a part of Lady Palliser's character, which was as absurd as
it was worthless, to think it exceedingly witty to succeed in deceiving
any body, though by the gravest, and therefore of course the dullest lie
imaginable: we mean in the April-fool style, not vulgar business
lying--that would have been out of her line.
On Willoughby's arrival at Montague House, Lady Palliser, though
scarcely able to keep her countenance, attempted to carry on the farce
by saying, that she had removed her daughter in the hope that change of
air might prove beneficial, but that she was still unable to leave her
room. This went on for a day or two, during which her ladyship, more
than ever anxious to carry her point, because now getting tired of the
business, treated the still inflexible Caroline with great harshness.
The third morning, a female servant, who had evidently watched her
opportunity, entered with great caution the breakfast-room where
Willoughby was alone, and handing him a letter vanished again. He read
the epistle, turned deadly pale, gasped for breath, read it again, rose,
paced the apartment, stopped, looked wildly round him, threw open a
window, the room being on the ground floor, and rushed into the lawn. It
is difficult to say what he might have done, or whither directed his
steps, had he not perchance encountered his groom, who had been
exercising his horses and was bringing them home.
With a vague idea that it was necessary to affect perfect composure,
Willoughby waved to the man to stop, and his signal being obeyed, walked
quietly to the side of the led horse, and laying his hand on its neck,
raised a foot as if with the intention of mounting; the absence of the
stirrup however rendering the movement abortive, he stood for a moment
looking confused.
"Shall I saddle him, sir?" enquired the groom.
"Do," replied Willoughby, with the air of one relieved from a great
embarrassment, and walking on as he spoke.
"Where will you please to mount, sir?" asked the servant, following a
step or two, with his hand to his hat.
After a few moments employed in recalling ideas, which had evidently
already gone forth on some far distant execution, Willoughby answered,
"Any where."
John, as the best mode in his judgment, of obeying commands so far from
explicit, returned to the stable, exchanged the body cloths of the
animals for the saddles, and following in the direction he had seen his
master take, soon overtook him, walking slowly on the side of the road,
with his arms folded, and his head uncovered. John had before observed
that Willoughby was without his hat, and had been thoughtful enough to
bring it with him. He now presented it, then held the horse; Willoughby
put on the hat, mounted the animal and rode on, followed by John,
without a word being spoken on either side: nor was it till they had
performed one stage of their journey towards Arden, and were lodged at
an inn, that John ventured so far to obtrude himself upon the evident
abstraction of his master, as to enquire if they were going home. He
received an answer in the affirmative; on which he made bold to ask
further, whether Sir Willoughby had left orders with the other servants
to follow with the carriage, &c. To this enquiry he received a reply,
first in the negative, then in the affirmative, and again finally in the
negative.
On which he begged permission to dispatch a line to the coachman
himself. He stood ten minutes without obtaining any answer, and then
taking silence for consent, proceeded to do as he had suggested.
The exertion of mind necessary to comprehend and reply to John's
queries, or even a part of them, seemed to recall Willoughby to some
recollection of the duties he had himself to perform. He must write to
Lady Palliser--he must account for his abrupt departure. That he might
do so in strict compliance with the request contained in the letter of
this morning, he applied himself to the reperusal of the epistle which
had already caused him so much affliction. It was, as our readers have
probably anticipated, from Caroline. Driven to desperation by her
mother's perseverance in her determination of marrying her to Sir
Willoughby, and terrified by her violence, which at every interview
increased, she was at length compelled to conquer all the timid
reluctance she felt to take what to her seemed the boldest of steps, and
address to Sir Willoughby the letter we have seen him receive in so
frantic a manner.
After a hesitating, and almost unmeaning commencement, consisting of
broken sentences, and awkward apologies, she went on to say: "Yet if I
would avoid calling down upon myself your just resentment, by appearing
in your eyes to be guilty of the most unjustifiable caprice; I must I
fear relate a circumstance which--I have been so unwilling to mention,
that--I have--I know--in consequence--delayed this explanation much too
long. But before your arrival in Cheltenham, before ever our
acquaintance had even commenced, I had promised to--to--accept--the hand
of--of--Mr. Arden, your brother; and though by my mother's positive
command, I was compelled the next day to withdraw that promise, I
cannot--I never can--I am sure too--you will think.--But I know I
express myself very badly--very confusedly, yet I hope you will see--at
least that my being quite--quite unable ever to enter into the
engagements my mother has wished to form for me, does not proceed from
any caprice or change of mind on my part, or any want of gratitude for
the flattering regard with which you have so kindly honoured me.
"What I now entreat of your compassion is, that you who have nothing to
fear from my mother's anger, would generously interpose yourself between
me and a storm, before the very thought of which I tremble till my hand
can scarcely hold the pen with which I attempt to write.
"I know I ought to have made this explanation long since, but a foolish,
a culpable fearfulness, made me ever ready to believe no opportunity a
fitting one. At Lady Arden's ball I did attempt it, but we were
interrupted; so that I only made things much worse. I was so confused
too, I was glad of the respite. I thought I could say what I have now
written, when you should call the next morning;--but on that occasion my
mother interfered, and has never since allowed me to see you."
On finishing Caroline's letter for the second time, Willoughby, in a
sort of desperation, wrote a hurried scrawl to Lady Palliser, towards
whom he felt strong resentment for the deception she had practised. His
epistle was written in strange incoherent language, but its general
purport was that he considered himself trifled with in having been so
long debarred from seeing Lady Caroline Montague; and in consequence,
begged leave to withdraw his addresses finally. Nor was the truth in
this much disguised, for he felt that had he been permitted to see
Caroline from the first he should much sooner have been undeceived.