Part 7 (2/2)
My cousin's face fell several inches.
”Some mistake, Gertrude,” she exclaimed. ”It's me isn't it, that mamma wants?”
”Her ladys.h.i.+p bid me tell Miss Kate she wished to see her _immediately_,” was my maid's reply; so I tripped downstairs with a beating heart, and crossed the hall just in time to see Squire Hayc.o.c.k riding leisurely away from the house (though it was bitter cold and a hard frost, the first of the season), and looking up at the window, doubtless in hopes of an encouraging wave from the white handkerchief of his _fiancee_ presumptive.
Short as was the interval between my own door and that of the drawing-room I had time to run over in my mind the whole advantages and disadvantages of the flattering proposal which I was now convinced had been made on my behalf. If I became Mrs. Hayc.o.c.k (and I saw clearly that I had not mistaken the Squire's meaning on our return from hunting), I should be at the head of a handsome establishment, should have a good-tempered, easy-going, pleasant husband, who would let me do just what I liked and hunt to my heart's content; should live in the country, and look after the poor, and feed hens and chickens, and sink down comfortably into a contented old age. I need not separate from Aunt Deborah, who would never be able to do without me; and I might, I am sure, turn the Squire with the greatest ease round my little finger. But then there certainly were great objections. I could have got over the colour of his hair, though a red head opposite me every morning would undoubtedly be a trial; but the freckles! No, I do not think I could do my duty as a wife by a man so dreadfully freckled. I'm certain I couldn't love him; and if I didn't love him I oughtn't to marry him, and I thought of the sad, sad tale of Lucy, Lady Horsingham, whose ghost was now in the nightly habit of haunting Dangerfield Hall. The struggles that poor thing must have gone through, the leaden hours of dull, torpid misery, the agonizing moments of acute remorse, the perpetual spirit-wearing conflict between duty and inclination, much to the discomfiture of the former; and the haunting face of Cousin Edward continually rising on that heated imagination, pleading, reproaching, suing till she loved him, if possibly more madly in his absence than when he was by her side. I too was beginning to have a ”Cousin Edward” of my own; Frank Lovell's image was far too often present in my mind. I did not choose to confess to myself how much I liked him; but the more I reflected on Mr. Hayc.o.c.k's proposal the more I felt how impossible it would be never to _think_ of Frank any more.
”No!” I said inwardly, with my hand on the drawing-room door, ”I will _not_ give him up. I have his note even now in my bosom; _he_ cares for _me_, at any rate. I am happier to-day than I have been for months, and I will _not_ go and destroy it all with my own hand.” I opened the door, and found myself in the formidable presence of Aunt Horsingham.
Her ladys.h.i.+p looked colder and more reserved, if possible, than ever.
She motioned me stiffly to take a chair, and plunged at once into the subject in her dry, measured tones.
”Before I congratulate you, Kate,” she began, ”on such an unlooked-for piece of good fortune as has just come to my knowledge, I am bound to confess, much to my astonishment----”
”Thank you, aunt,” I put in; ”that's complimentary, at any rate.”
”I should wish to say a few words,” proceeded my aunt, without heeding the interruption, ”on the duties which will now devolve upon you, and the line of conduct which I should advise you to pursue in your new sphere. These hoydenish manners, these ridiculous expeditions, these scampers all over the country, must be renounced forthwith. Unbecoming as they are in a young unmarried female, a much stricter sense of decorum, a vastly different repose and reserve of manner, are absolutely essential in a wife; and it is as a _wife_, Kate, that I am now addressing you.”
”A wife, aunt!” I exclaimed; ”whose, I should like to know?”
”This is an ill-chosen time for jesting, Kate,” said my aunt with a frown. ”I cannot congratulate you on your good taste in turning so important a subject into ridicule. Mr. Hayc.o.c.k has proposed to you; you have accepted him. Whilst poor Deborah is so ill I am your natural guardian, and he has with great propriety requested my consent; although, in the agitation very natural to a man so circ.u.mstanced,”
added my aunt, smothering a smile, ”it was with some difficulty that I made out exactly what he meant.”
”He _never_ proposed to me; I _never_ accepted him,” I broke in, breathless with agitation. ”I never _will_ be his wife, aunt; you had no right to tell him so. Write to him immediately--send a man off on horseback to overtake him. I'll put my bonnet on this instant, and walk every mile of the way myself. He's a true-hearted gentleman, and I won't have him made a fool of.” I walked up and down the room--I looked Aunt Horsingham full in the face; she was quite cowed by my vehemence. I felt I was mistress now, while the excitement lasted, and she gave in; she even wrote a note to the Squire at my dictation--she dispatched it by a special messenger--she did everything I told her, and never so much as ventured on remonstrance or reproach; but she will never forgive me to her dying hour. There is no victory so complete as that which one obtains over a person who is always accustomed to meet with fear and obedience. Aunt Horsingham rules her household with a rod of iron; n.o.body ever ventures to disagree with her, or so much as to hint an opinion contrary to those which she is known to hold. Such a person is so astonished at resistance as to be incapable of quelling it; the very hardihood of the rebellion ensures its success. When I walked out of the drawing-room to-day I felt that for once I had obtained the victory in a contest with my aunt; that in future I should no longer be the ”wild, troublesome Kate,” the ”black sheep” of the family, the scapegoat on whom were laid the faults and misdemeanours of all, but the master-spirit, the bold, resolute woman, whose value others were able to appreciate, and who was ready and willing to a.s.sert her own independence. In the meantime poor Aunt Deborah had to be informed of what had taken place, and Cousin Amelia to be undeceived in her groundless expectations. That the latter would never forgive me I was well enough acquainted with my own s.e.x to be a.s.sured; but the task required to be done, notwithstanding. Flushed with my triumph, with heightened colour and flas.h.i.+ng eyes, I stalked off towards my chamber and met Cousin John in the hall.
”Good heavens, Kate, what is the matter? What has happened?” exclaimed John in obvious perturbation.
”A piece of news!” was my reply; ”a conquest, John! What do you think?
Mr. Hayc.o.c.k has just been here, and _proposed_ for me!”
He flushed up all over his face and temples, and then turned deadly pale; even his lips were quite white and wide apart. How they quivered as he tried to speak unconcernedly! And after all he got out nothing but, ”Well, Kate?”
”And I have refused him, John,” I said quietly, but in a tone that showed him there was no mistake about it.
”G.o.d bless you, Kate!” was all he replied, and turned away muttering something about ”wet things” and his ”dressing-room;” but he was going to the wrong door, and had to turn back, though he took care not to let me see his face again.
I can't make John out. At dinner he was just as if nothing had happened; but at all events I'm glad I've refused Mr. Hayc.o.c.k; so I shall read Frank's note over once more and then go to bed.
CHAPTER XIV.
I need quote no more from my diary, as the next few days offered no incident worthy of recording to break the monotony of our life at Dangerfield Hall. Drearier than ever it was, and more especially to me; for I felt that, although undeclared, there was ”war to the knife”
between myself, my aunt, and cousin. The latter scarcely spoke to me at all; and my aunt, whose defeat was rankling bitterly in her heart, merely took such sullen notice of me as was absolutely necessitated by the laws of hospitality and the usages of society. Poor Aunt Deborah required to be kept very quiet and free from all worries and annoyances. ”The more she slept,” the doctor said, ”the sooner she would get well enough to move to London for further advice;” so I had not even her to talk to--there was no hunting--the frost got harder and harder--that obstinate weather-c.o.c.k over the stables kept veering from north to north-east--the grooms went to exercise wrapped up in greatcoats and shawl handkerchiefs, and stayed out as short a time as was compatible with the mildest stable discipline; there would be no change of the moon for a week, and it was obvious that I should have but little use for Brilliant and White Stockings before our return to town.
Oh! the hopelessness of a real bitter black frost coming on early in the season, especially when you are not at your own home and your time is limited; to get up morning after morning with the faint hope that the change may have come at last; to see the dry slates and the clear horizon and the iron-bound earth, and to ascertain in your own proper person that the water gets colder and colder every day. You puzzle over the almanac till your eyes ache, and study the thermometer till you get a crick in your neck. You watch the smoke from every farmhouse and cottage within your ken, and still, after curling high up into the pure, rarefied atmosphere, it floats hopelessly away to the southward and corroborates the odious dog-vane that you fondly imagined might have got stuck in its northerly direction. You walk out and ask every labourer you meet whether he ”does not think we are going to have a change?” The man looks up from his work, wonders at your solicitude, opines ”the gentry folk have queer ways,” but answers honestly enough, according to his convictions, in the negative--perhaps giving some local reasons for his opinion, which, if an old man, he will tell you he has never known to fail. Lastly, you quarrel with every one of your non-hunting friends, whose unfeeling observations on ”fine seasonable weather” and ”healthy, bracing frosts” you feel to be brutal in the extreme.
<script>