Part 14 (1/2)
”I certainly should never leave you, sir,” said Myra, ”and I told Nigel so; but that contingency had nothing to do with my decision. I declined his offer, because I have no wish to marry.”
”Women are born to be married,” said Mr. Ferrars.
”And yet I believe most marriages are unhappy,” said Myra.
”Oh! if your objection to marry Nigel arises from an abstract objection to marriage itself,” said Mr. Ferrars, ”it is a subject which we might talk over calmly, and perhaps remove your prejudices.”
”I have no objection against marriage,” rejoined Myra. ”It is likely enough that I may marry some day, and probably make an unhappy marriage; but that is not the question before us. It is whether I should marry Nigel. That cannot be, my dear father, and he knows it. I have a.s.sured him so in a manner which cannot be mistaken.”
”We are a doomed family!” exclaimed the unhappy Mr. Ferrars, clasping his hands.
”So I have long felt,” said Myra. ”I can bear our lot; but I want no strangers to be introduced to share its bitterness, and soothe us with their sympathy.”
”You speak like a girl,” said Mr. Ferrars, ”and a headstrong girl, which you always have been. You know not what you are talking about. It is a matter of life or death. Your decorous marriage would have saved us from absolute ruin.”
”Alone, I can meet absolute ruin,” said Myra. ”I have long contemplated such a contingency, and am prepared for it. My marriage with Nigel could hardly save you, sir, from such a visitation, if it be impending. But I trust in that respect, if in no other, you have used a little of the language of exaggeration. I have never received, and I have never presumed to seek, any knowledge of your affairs; but I have a.s.sumed, that for your life, somehow or other, you would be permitted to exist without disgrace. If I survive you, I have neither care nor fear.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
In the following spring a vexatious incident occurred in Warwick Street.
The highly-considered county member, who was the yearly tenant of Mr.
Rodney's first floor, and had been always a valuable patron, suddenly died. An adjourned debate, a tough beefsteak, a select committee still harder, and an influenza caught at three o'clock in the morning in an imprudent but irresistible walk home with a confidential Lord of the Treasury, had combined very sensibly to affect the income of Mr. Rodney.
At first he was sanguine that such a desirable dwelling would soon find a suitable inhabitant, especially as Mr. Waldershare a.s.sured him that he would mention the matter to all his friends. But time rolled on, and the rooms were still vacant; and the fastidious Rodneys, who at first would only listen to a yearly tenant, began to reduce their expectations.
Matters had arrived at such a pa.s.s in May, that, for the first time in their experience, they actually condescended to hoist an announcement of furnished apartments.
In this state of affairs a cab rattled up to the house one morning, out of which a young gentleman jumped briskly, and, knocking at the door, asked, of the servant who opened it, whether he might see the apartments. He was a young man, apparently not more than one or two and twenty, of a graceful figure, somewhat above the middle height, fair, with a countenance not absolutely regular, but calm and high-bred. His dress was in the best taste, but to a practised eye had something of a foreign cut, and he wore a slight moustache.
”The rooms will suit me,” he said, ”and I have no doubt the price you ask for them is a just one;” and he bowed with high-bred courtesy to Sylvia, who was now in attendance on him, and who stood with her pretty hands in the pretty pockets of her pretty ap.r.o.n.
”I am glad to hear that,” said Sylvia. ”We have never let them before, except to a yearly tenant.”
”And if we suit each other,” said the gentleman, ”I should have no great objection to becoming such.”
”In these matters,” said Sylvia, after a little hesitation, ”we give and receive references. Mr. Rodney is well known in this neighbourhood and in Westminster generally; but I dare say,” she adroitly added, ”he has many acquaintances known to you, sir.”
”Not very likely,” replied the young gentleman; ”for I am a foreigner, and only arrived in England this morning;” though he spoke English without the slightest accent.
Sylvia looked a little perplexed; but he continued: ”It is quite just that you should be a.s.sured to whom you are letting your lodgings. The only reference I can give you is to my banker, but he is almost too great a man for such matters. Perhaps,” he added, pulling out a case from his breast pocket, and taking out of it a note, which he handed to Sylvia, ”this may a.s.sure you that your rent will be paid.”
Sylvia took a rapid glance at the hundred-pound-note, and twisting it into her little pocket with apparent _sangfroid_, though she held it with a tight grasp, murmured that it was quite unnecessary, and then offered to give her new lodger an acknowledgment of it.
”That is really unnecessary,” he replied. ”Your appearance commands from me that entire confidence which on your part you very properly refuse to a stranger and a foreigner like myself.”
”What a charming young man!” thought Sylvia, pressing with emotion her hundred-pound-note.
”Now,” continued the young gentleman, ”I will return to the station to release my servant, who is a prisoner there with my luggage. Be pleased to make him at home. I shall myself not return probably till the evening; and in the meantime,” he added, giving Sylvia his card, ”you will admit anything that arrives here addressed to Colonel Albert.”
The settlement of Colonel Albert in Warwick Street was an event of no slight importance. It superseded for a time all other topics of conversation, and was discussed at length in the evenings, especially with Mr. Vigo. Who was he? And in what service was he colonel? Mr.