Part 20 (1/2)

We must return to Newton-Hollows, now mellowing in the last tints of fading autumn, its dahlias already cut off by the morning frosts, its well-kept gravel-walks, despite the gardener and his staff, strewed here and there with the withered leaves of the declining year. A light mist, rising in smoke-wreaths from the sward, antic.i.p.ates the early twilight of the shortening day, and the fire burning brightly in the library is none the less acceptable for its contrast to the gathering shades of out-of-doors, which seem to stalk nearer and nearer to the unshuttered windows.

Blanche has just come in, fresh and blooming, from an errand of mercy amongst the poor in the adjoining village. Her bonnet is even now hanging on her arm, and her long cl.u.s.tering hair is damp and limp with the dews of evening. Is that a tear clinging to her eyelashes? or is it only the moisture of heaven caught as it fell, and prisoned in those silken meshes? Blanche is often in tears now, and loves to be alone. She and Mary ride and walk together as usual, but the unreserved confidence that used to exist between them is gone. It has been dying a natural death ever since the former paid her memorable visit at Frank Hardingstone's hotel; and though it has flickered up again with an expiring flash or two, it is now finally extinct. Our young lady has aged much since her thoughtless days of only last spring. Pique, disappointment, anxiety, and self-communing have been doing their work silently and surely, shading the fair young brow, indeed, but at the same time tempering and mellowing the careless, buoyant heart. Blanche has begun to find that life is not all _couleur de rose_, even for the young, and the lesson has not been without its usual salutary effect. Though no longer the wealthy heiress--and, to do her justice, she seldom dwells upon that as a misfortune--she is beginning to feel that she too has a part to act on the stage of life, or rather that, no longer acting the vain part of every-day frivolity, she has a _reality_ to fulfil. So she is never so happy now as when busying herself about her poor people, her decrepit old women, and her little ragged children, to whom she does acts of una.s.suming kindness, in the performance of which she forgets her own annoyances and heart-burnings, though her woman nature is as yet but half-trained, and she has occasional fits of despondency and bursts of reactionary sorrow, which make her very unhappy for the time. Blanche has had a fresh grievance, too, for the last few days, connected, of all things in the world, with Cousin Charlie's return--that return which was to have been such a jubilee of rejoicing, and which she now almost dreads to look forward to. The girl feels as if she had lost her self-respect, and turn which way she will, the sting ever rankles in her breast, ever reminds her of what she chooses to consider her degradation. The fact is, she has sustained an interview with Uncle Baldwin in the formidable study; and the General, who is not given to beat about the bush when he has an object in view, has developed to her, in as few words as possible, his projects for her future welfare, and proposed to her, point blank, that on her cousin's return from abroad she should marry him forthwith. Blanche, as in nature bound, made sundry hesitating objections, all of which her uncle chose to consider as mere maiden modesty, _de rigueur_ on such an occasion; and as Blanche could not say she _didn't like him_, and as Uncle Baldwin had always been so kind, in fact, a second father to her, and made such a point of it, and it would prevent Charlie going back to those horrid Kaffirs, and was to make them all so happy, and, above all, had been her dearest mother's wish--why, the girl gave in, as girls often do on the most important topic of their lives, paralysed, as it would seem, by the amount of the stake at issue, and yielded a sort of conditional half-promise, which, notwithstanding the bursts of applause that it met with from the General, the instant it pa.s.sed her lips, she would have given worlds to be able to recall. But there was another consideration, buried deep in Blanche's little heart, which, although she would have been very angry to be told so, although she would not allow it even to herself, had far more weight in inducing her to listen favourably to these advances on the part of her unconscious cousin, than all the General's skilful sophistry and affectionate eloquence; and this was a feeling which, as it is the usual accompaniment of love, resembles that epidemic in so far that, where it rages most fiercely, it is invariably most stoutly denied.

Men take it freely enough, and when under its influence commit sundry absurdities, which, if they make ”angels weep,” certainly make their fellow-mortals laugh, and of which they have generally the grace to be heartily ashamed; but with women, as we believe its seeds are never altogether dormant in those gentle beings, so its virulence, when unchecked, pervades their whole system, and one of its commonest and least startling effects is that species of moral suicide which is best described by the vulgar adage of ”cutting off one's nose to spite one's face,” and which produces that most incomprehensible of all vagaries termed ”marrying out of pique.”

Now we need hardly say, that we have written in vain ”for that dull elf who cannot picture to himself” how Blanche Kettering, from her very pinafore days, had been over head and ears in love with Frank Hardingstone: not a very sufficient reason, it may be said, for consenting to marry some one else; but yet a natural consequence of that inverted state of feelings we have described above, which under the name of jealousy is capable of more extravagant feats than this.

And of whom was pretty Blanche jealous? Why, of her own fast friend and dearest a.s.sociate, the peerless Mary Delaval! The more she thought over the characters of the two, so suited to each other in every possible way--which very similarity Blanche was not philosopher enough to perceive was an insuperable obstacle to any tenderer feeling than respect--the more she considered their corresponding strength of mind and hardihood of spirit, their equally high standard of worth and elevation of sentiment--the more she reflected on the opinions she had heard each of them express (the ba.s.s notes of that moral duet had sunk deep into her heart)--the more she thought over that memorable day, when, at a word from Mary, and at a moment's notice, Frank had started for South Africa, without so much as coming to wish her (Blanche) good-bye--the more her heart sank within her as she linked those two commanding figures in the halo of love, blurred even to her mental vision by the tears which filled her eyes as she contemplated the bare idea of such a union. Blanche had long struggled against this feeling; she had hoped against hope, as she firmly believed, rather than give Frank Hardingstone up; but now she would deceive herself no more; he was actually corresponding with Mrs. Delaval, which, to say the least of it, she must confess was very indelicate. This was the second letter Mary had received from him. Why had he written to Mary from the Cape? It was surely very strange; and Mary had never offered to show her either of the letters--of course she would rather die than _ask_ to see them. Poor Blanche! little do you guess the cause of your friend's unusual reserve as regarded these important missives. Mary Delaval, quickened by her own experience of a hopeless love, saw it all--saw that her high-minded, manly correspondent was devoted heart and soul to Blanche; and she pitied him, even as she pitied herself, for a misplaced attachment. But it was not for _her_, of all people, to do aught that might shake Blanche's affection for Cousin Charlie--_she_ could not be so selfish, so traitorous, as to lend her a.s.sistance to anything, however slight, that might in the most remote manner wean Blanche from her cousin, and leave him free. So Mary, treasuring the letter, as containing oft-repeated mention of the beloved name, placed it in her bosom, but did not volunteer to show a single line of it to a living soul. Therefore is Blanche desponding and unhappy; therefore, as gloomy thoughts sweep like shadows across her mind, the tears gather in her eyes, as she leans her head upon the marble chimney-piece, and sorrows all alone in the deepening twilight.

”And this is the day I thought I was to have been so happy,” thinks poor Blanche--”the day I have been looking forward to ever since we heard Charlie was coming home. Ah! I wish I could meet him now as I used to do in the happy days when we knew nothing about marrying and money and family arrangements. And poor Charlie, after all his sufferings!--Uncle Baldwin says it will break his heart if I don't marry him. And dear mamma, if she had lived, she would have been so glad to see it all settled! And so I suppose it _must_ be; and then Mr. Hardingstone will very likely marry _her_, and everybody will be happy and contented but _me_. Ah! well, there must always be some one sacrificed; and I suppose I must be the victim this time; but it _is_ hard to give up all my hope, all my suns.h.i.+ne--to have no future any more. Yes; I hear the autumn wind sighing round the house. I am not yet twenty; and it will be all autumn to me for the rest of my life.

Oh, it _is_ hard--very hard!” and Blanche pressed her brow against the chimney-piece and wept bitterly.

”Blanche, dearest Blanche, what is it?” whispered a gentle voice close beside her, and she felt Mary Delaval's arm pa.s.sed caressingly round her waist. Blanche started up, and checked her tears. She could have borne anything but this. She could not endure to be consoled by her triumphant rival. ”Nothing,” she replied, withdrawing herself almost rudely from the encircling arm--”nothing; I'm only tired and nervous, waiting for these people. I think I'll go and dress, for it's getting late; and--I think--I think I'll go by myself, Mrs. Delaval,” said Blanche; and she hurried away, leaving Mary surprised and hurt at the first unkind words she had ever heard from Blanche's lips. ”Anything but that,” said the girl as she walked up-stairs, swelling with indignation; ”anything but that _she_ should come and _triumph_ over me.” And she banged her door angrily; and Mary, in the drawing-room, heard it, and was grieved.

_Triumph_, indeed!--was that poor pale face one of _triumph_? Were those deep eyes, hollowing day by day; that sad brow, on which care seemed visibly to rest, as a cloud rests upon the hill, and softens even while it darkens--were these the outward signs of satisfied affection and _triumphant_ love? Blanche, Blanche, you think yourself very unhappy; but little do you know the struggle going on in the bosom of that faithful friend with whom you are now so unjustly at variance. Little do you guess that she has torn the one only image, the fulfilment of the ideal of a lifetime, from her heart, and vowed to wors.h.i.+p it no more; and prayed that the very thought which made the suns.h.i.+ne of her existence might pa.s.s away; and all for you. So it is in life: we make a sacrifice which costs us nothing; we give that which perhaps we are all well satisfied to get rid of; and the world says, ”How n.o.ble! how generous! how disinterested!” or we yield up the one dear hope that has cheered us all our journey; we consent to travel the rest of the way in darkness and dreariness and listless despair, and the world thinks us only stupid and disagreeable; those who look below the surface perhaps suggest that we are bilious; and the one for whom we have made all this ruin, for whose well-being and security we are stretched helpless, exhausted, bleeding by the way, thanks us blandly at the most, and takes it much as a matter of course, and pa.s.ses by, very likely, on the other side.

But ”fight who will and die who may,” the outward world goes on much the same notwithstanding. The clock goes round, and dinner-time arrives; and whatever may be the sorrow brooded over and locked up in the inner life, we dress for dinner when the time comes, and look in the gla.s.s and dry our eyes, and have a gla.s.s of sherry after our soup; and the tyrant Custom, and the motley jester Society, bid us sit between them; and this woos from us a vapid smile, and that lays his iron hand upon our brow and dares us to stir; and we are all the better for the hypocrisy and the restraint.

Thus, although the ringing of the door-bell that announced the long-expected arrival of the guests from Africa vibrated through the very hearts of the ladies in their dressing-rooms, even as it vibrated through the ground-floors and offices of Newton-Hollows, we are not to suppose that it crumpled a fold of muslin or moved a single ringlet out of its place with its agitating summons. Below-stairs, indeed, the old butler settled himself hastily into his coat, and rushed to the door with as hearty a welcome for the travellers as if it had been his own house; whilst from a gallery that overlooked the hall divers lighted candles might be seen glancing, and pretty faces looking down from beneath smart caps, all eager to get a glimpse at Cousin Charlie, whose wounds and exploits had made him a second Roland in the estimation of these admiring damsels; while sundry exclamations might have been overheard, as, ”Which is him?” ”That's Master Charles, him in the pea-jacket.” ”Lor', how thin he's growed!” and, ”Well, he's a genteel figure, let alone those 'orrid moustaches,” from the upper housemaid, who was a new acquisition since Charlie's departure, and having once been engaged to a journeyman glazier, thought herself a judge of young men. But the General had rushed from his den in the meantime, half-dressed as he was, and had pulled Charlie into the well-lighted drawing-room, and had shaken Frank Hardingstone a hundred times by the hand, and was never tired of reiterating his welcome, and his delight at seeing them both once more.

”G.o.d bless you, Frank!” exclaimed the General for the twelfth time, as he fidgeted about the room in braces and s.h.i.+rt-sleeves. ”What! you've brought him back safe and well? D----n me, sir (G.o.d forgive me for swearing), I tell you I'll _never_ forget it. Zounds, don't tell me!

Brought him back, sir, like a resurrectionist! I never thought to see this day, sir--I tell ye--Grat.i.tude! how d'ye mean? And you, Charlie, my trump of a boy--thanked in Orders--General Orders, by all the G.o.ds of war! Ah, I hadn't lectured you over the old port for nothing. You took 'em in flank, the rascals. _In flank_, or I'll eat 'em. Don't tell _me_; couldn't be done otherwise. Lads! lads! it's too much: you make me feel like a child again. What?” and the old General's eyes began to overflow with the fulness at his heart; so he relapsed into a state of unusual gruffness, and stirred the fire fiercely to conceal his emotion; and finally hurried them off to dress. ”None of your licentious camp habits here, Charlie. Dine to a minute, you dog! I trust you'll find your room comfortable, Frank, my boy. I saw to the fire myself not half-an-hour ago. What? Ring for what you _want_, and my servants will bring you what they _have_.” So the old gentleman toddled off to finish his own personal adornment, and the guests, with beating hearts, well concealed from each other, proceeded to dispatch theirs as quickly as might be.

If ever there was a banquet that to all appearance should have been one of triumphant hilarity, it was the sumptuous dinner to which our party sat down that day in the bright, warm, cheerful dining-room at Newton-Hollows. Notwithstanding Lady Mount Helicon's sneers, no man understood better than the General that process which is conventionally called ”doing things well.” The servants glided about noiselessly as if shod with velvet--the doors were never left open, still less closed with a bang--no b.u.mps and thumps of tray-corners against projecting wood-work disturbed the conversation, to irritate the host while they alarmed his guests. Nor as the different courses made their appearance, did a gush of cold air accompany them from below-stairs, tainted but not warmed by the odours borne with it from the kitchen. The soup was as hot as the plates, the champagne iced to a turn, even as the haunch was roasted. Gla.s.ses were filled noiselessly by the butler, as a matter of course (by the way, an immense pull for the ladies), and everything was handed to everybody at the instant it was wanted, and this, to our humble ideas, is no mean auxiliary to the general success of an entertainment. The old Roman _bon vivant_ evidently knew a thing or two about dinner-giving (he called them suppers), or he would not have so dilated on the necessity of attention to trifles, _vilibus in scopis_, _in mappis_, etc. The General, too, understood these details thoroughly, and therefore it was disrespectful youth voted _nem. con._ that Newton-Hollows was ”a rare shop at feeding time,” and that ”old Bounce, if he was rather a bore out hunting, was nevertheless the boy to dine with, and no mistake!”

”The boy,” however, on this occasion seemed to have all the hilarity of the meeting to himself. Of the four individuals that const.i.tuted his party, each was acting a part, each had set a guard upon his and her lips, and was originating broken, disjointed sentences, vainly endeavouring to form a matter-of-course unrestrained conversation.

The ladies were even more reserved than the gentlemen. Blanche was thinking how brown and handsome Frank looked after his voyage--so much more manly than her cousin--and wondering why he should say so little to _her_, and yet pay no attention whatever to Mary. That lady again was full of tender alarms and anxieties about Cousin Charlie, his wasted figure, and his frequent cough, and gulping down the tears she could scarcely repress, as she glanced ever and anon at his glittering eye and emaciated face. ”Perhaps,” she thought, ”he will never live after all to be Blanche's husband.” A thrill shot through her at the thought that then he would indeed be all her own: but if this was joy, good faith! it was a joy near akin to tears. As for Frank, he was more in love than ever. Nor indeed is this to be wondered at. If a gentleman having voluntarily surrendered himself to that epidemic, which, like the measles, we must all go through sooner or later, and which, like that indisposition of childhood, is p.r.o.ne to cure itself by its own progress--if a gentleman, then, having undergone a favourable eruption, and, at the very crisis of his disorder, shall voluntarily absent himself from his charmer, to return from a sea-voyage amongst rough companions, and contemplate her for the first time, attired in all the brilliancy of dinner costume, and further embellished by the favourable disposition of light, which sets off such entertainments, and which is generally considered highly conducive to female beauty, he need not be surprised to find that he is less a rational being than ever, or that the disease for which absence is considered so unfailing a cure should come out with redoubled virulence under such an interruption of that salutary course. But Frank, though in love, was also disappointed. His hopes had risen most unreasonably since Charlie's disclosures on the evening preceding their memorable s.h.i.+pwreck. He had indulged in such day-dreams as, for a sensible man--which, to do him justice, he generally was--were the acme of absurdity; and now because Blanche had neither thrown herself into his arms when they met--a feat, indeed, she could hardly have conveniently accomplished, ”dinner” being announced at that interesting moment--nor had spoken to him more than she could possibly help--for which reserve she likewise had excellent reasons, the princ.i.p.al one being that she could by no means trust her voice--our philosophic gentleman was disappointed, forsooth, and consequently hurt, and the least thing sulky. Charlie, again, though more at ease in his mind than the others, was tired and exhausted: he was always tired now towards the evening; and although rejoiced to be once more at home, once more gazing his fill on the only face he had ever much cared to look at--an indulgence that partook, he knew not why, of the nature of a stolen pleasure--yet his satisfaction was of that inward kind which does not betray itself by outward signs of mirth, but which, more particularly in failing health, flows on in a deep silent current, that to the superficial observer has all the appearance of apathy and cold, selfish carelessness.

But the General was in his glory. Fond of eating and drinking himself, his delight was to see his friends eat and drink too; and as he urged on his guests the different good things for both purposes that smoked on the table or sparkled on the sideboard, he monopolised the conversation with the same zest that he demolished a considerable share of the entertainment.

”Charlie, you eat nothing, my boy,” said the General: ”that haunch was roasted a turn too much; let me give you a bit of the grouse. Zounds!

we must fatten you up here--what? commissariat disgraceful at the Cape! 'Gad, sir, we wouldn't stand it in India. I broke three commissaries myself in the Deccan, because there was no soda-water in camp--fact, I pledge you my honour, Mrs. Delaval. I don't believe Charlie's had a morsel to eat since he went into training for the steeple-chase.”

”You wouldn't have said so if you'd seen him getting well at Fort Beaufort,” remarked Frank, rousing himself from his fit of abstraction; ”his voracity was perfectly frightful! I wish you could have seen him, Miss Kettering, in a black skull-cap, as thin as a thread-paper, on crutches, asking every ten minutes what o'clock it was, dreading to die of starvation between two o'clock dinner and five o'clock tea; you never beheld anything so thin and so hungry.”

Blanche laughed her old merry laugh; and Charlie, stealing a look at Mary Delaval, saw her eyes were full of tears. How his heart leapt within him, and how a chill seemed to gather round it the moment after, and curdle his very life-blood, as the possibility flashed across him, that even now it might be _too late_. Too late!--he was but twenty-one, yet something warned him that his was no secure tenure, that there might be truth in the startling suspicion that had of late obtruded itself like a death's head on his moments of enjoyment--that the world might be no world for him when autumn again shed her leaves, and the browning copses and cleared fields brought back the merry field-sports he loved so well. No more football--no more cricket--no more panting excitement and rosy out-of-doors exertion--no more sharp gun-shot ringing through the woodland, nor hound making music in the dale, nor airy steed careering after the pack, fleeting noiselessly o'er the upland. And though these were hard, bitter hard to leave, 'twas harder still to give up the opening dream of ambition, the budding promise of manhood; and harder, harder than all, the first glowing reality of woman's love. It is well to perish with trust unshaken in that glorious myth; to sleep before that too is discovered to be a dream. But Charlie shook off these moments of despondency with the elasticity of his age and character. In that bright, luxurious room, with those friendly faces around him, encircled by beauty, wealth, and refinement, death seemed _impossible_. Have we never felt thus wrapped in security ourselves; and when some ”silver cord has been loosed--some golden bowl broken”

from amongst our own immediate a.s.sociates, have we not felt almost angry at the unmannerly visitor who intrudes thus without knocking, and pauses not to wipe his shoes for Turkey carpet more than sanded floor? ”_Pauperum tabernas regumque turres_,” he has the _entree_ of them all.

The General was a little disappointed with his guests, when, on the retirement of the ladies, a magnum of undeniable claret exhaled its aroma for their immediate benefit, and he found it did not by any means disappear with that military rapidity to which he was accustomed in his younger days. Charlie's cough was a sufficient excuse for his abstemiousness; and Frank Hardingstone, though he could drink a bucketful on occasion, would not open his lips on compulsion; so the General found himself in consequence obliged to grapple with the giant almost single-handed. This, to do him justice, he undertook with considerable _gusto_, and by the time he had got to the bottom of his measure, had arrived at that buoyant state in which gentlemen are more p.r.o.ne to broach such matters of business as they may think it expedient to undertake, than to explain clearly the method by which their desired ends can most readily be attained. Accordingly, when Frank and Charlie rose to join the ladies in the drawing-room, our old soldier called the latter back to the fire-place, and filling himself a large b.u.mper of sherry as an orthodox conclusion to the whole, bid his nephew sit down again for five minutes, and have a little quiet conversation on a subject which should not be too long postponed.

”Just three words, Charlie,” said the General, sipping his sherry; ”won't you have a whitewash, my boy? Three hundred and sixty-five more gla.s.ses in the year, you know. You won't? Well, Charlie, I'm right glad to see you back again. To-morrow I must go over everything with you as regards money matters. Frank has told you all about the will.

What? Zounds! it was very singular--I confess I expected it all along.” The General was one of those truest of prophets whose predictions are reserved until the fulfilment of events. Finding that Charlie took this extraordinary instance of foresight very coolly, he proceeded, as he thought, to beat about the bush in a most skilful manner.

”Well, Charlie, and how d'ye think we're all looking, eh? Wear well and struggle on, don't we? I've taken pretty good care of your cousin for you, my boy, during your absence. How d'ye think she's looking, eh?”

Charlie, who had not thought about it at all, answered, ”Very well.”

And the General filled himself another gla.s.s of sherry and went on--”By Jove, Charlie, I congratulate you on _that_, eh? Shake hands, my lad. Zounds! we'll drink Blanche's health. Now I've put everything _en train_. We can have the lawyers down at a moment's notice.

Blanche's _things_, to be sure, will have to be got; women can't do without such a quant.i.ty of clothes. Why, when Rummagee Bang's widow was burnt--however, that's neither here nor there. Now tell me, Charlie, when do you think it ought to come off?”

”My dear uncle, I can't think what you're talking about,” replied Charlie, trying to look as if he didn't understand; ”I don't see what I've got to do with Blanche's things.”