Part 42 (1/2)

With this opinion likewise in my mind, I had been looking on during Clive's proceedings with Miss Ethel--not, I say, without admiration of the young lady who was leading him such a dance. The waltz over, I congratulated him on his own performance. His Continental practice had greatly improved him. ”And as for your partner, it is delightful to see her,” I went on. ”I always like to be by when Miss Newcome dances. I had sooner see her than anybody since Taglioni. Look at her now, with her neck up, and her little foot out, just as she is preparing to start!

Happy Lord Bustington!”

”You are angry with her because she cut you,” growls Clive. ”You know you said she cut you, or forgot you; and your vanity's wounded, that is why you are so satirical.”

”How can Miss Newcome remember all the men who are presented to her?”

says the other. ”Last year she talked to me because she wanted to know about you. This year she doesn't talk: because I suppose she doesn't want to know about you any more.”

”Hang it. Do--on't, Pen,” cries Clive, as a schoolboy cries out to another not to hit him.

”She does not pretend to observe: and is in full conversation with the amiable Bustington. Delicious interchange of n.o.ble thoughts! But she is observing us talking, and knows that we are talking about her. If ever you marry her, Clive, which is absurd, I shall lose you for a friend.

You will infallibly tell her what I think of her: and she will order you to give me up.” Clive had gone off in a brown study, as his interlocutor continued. ”Yes, she is a flirt. She can't help her nature. She tries to vanquish every one who comes near her. She is a little out of breath from waltzing, and so she pretends to be listening to poor Bustington, who is out of breath too, but puffs out his best in order to make himself agreeable, with what a pretty air she appears to listen! Her eyes actually seem to brighten.”

”What?” says Clive, with a start.

I could not comprehend the meaning of the start: nor did I care much to know: supposing that the young man was waking up from some lover's reverie: and the evening sped away, Clive not quitting the ball until Miss Newcome and the Countess of Kew had departed. No further communication appeared to take place between the cousins that evening. I think it was Captain Crackthorpe who gave the young lady an arm into her carriage; Sir John Fobsby having the happiness to conduct the old Countess, and carrying the pink bag for the shawls, wrappers, etc., on which her ladys.h.i.+p's coronet and initials are emblazoned. Clive may have made a movement as if to step forward, but a single finger from Miss Newcome warned him back.

Clive and his two friends in Lamb Court had made an engagement for the next Sat.u.r.day to dine at Greenwich; but on the morning of that day there came a note from him to say that he thought of going down to see his aunt, Miss Honeyman, and begged to recall his promise to us. Sat.u.r.day is a holiday with gentlemen of our profession. We had invited F. Bayham, Esquire, and promised ourselves a merry evening, and were unwilling to baulk ourselves of the pleasure on account of the absence of our young Roman. So we three went to London Bridge Station at an early hour, proposing to breathe the fresh air of Greenwich Park before dinner. And, at London Bridge, by the most singular coincidence, Lady Kew's carriage drove up to the Brighton entrance, and Miss Ethel and her maid stepped out of the brougham.

When Miss Newcome and her maid entered the Brighton station, did Mr.

Clive, by another singular coincidence, happen also to be there? What more natural and dutiful than that he should go and see his aunt, Miss Honeyman? What more proper than that Miss Ethel should pa.s.s the Sat.u.r.day and Sunday with her sick father; and take a couple of wholesome nights'

rest after those five weary past evenings, for each of which we may reckon a couple of soirees and a ball? And that relations should travel together, the young lady being protected by her femme-de-chambre; that surely, as every one must allow, was perfectly right and proper.

That a biographer should profess to know everything which pa.s.ses, even in a confidential talk in a first-cla.s.s carriage between two lovers, seems perfectly absurd; not that grave historians do not pretend to the same wonderful degree of knowledge--reporting meetings of the most occult of conspirators; private interviews between monarchs and their ministers, even the secret thoughts and motives of those personages, which possibly the persons themselves did not know;--all for which the present writer will pledge his known character for veracity is, that on a certain day certain parties had a conversation, of which the upshot was so-and-so. He guesses, of course, at a great deal of what took place; knowing the characters, and being informed at some time of their meeting. You do not suppose that I bribed the femme-de-chambre, or that those two City gents, who sate in the same carriage with our young friends, and could not hear a word they said, reported their talk to me? If Clive and Ethel had had a coupe to themselves, I would yet boldly tell what took place, but the coupe was taken by other three young City gents who smoked the whole way.

”Well, then,” the bonnet begins close up to the hat, ”tell me, sir, is it true that you were so very much epris of the Miss Freemans at Rome; and that afterwards you were so wonderfully attentive to the third Miss Baliol? Did you draw her portrait? You know you drew her portrait. You painters always pretend to admire girls with auburn hair, because t.i.tian and Raphael painted it. Has the Fornarina red hair? Why, we are at Croydon, I declare!”

”The Fornarina”--the hat replies to the bonnet, ”if that picture at the Borghese Palace be an original, or a likeness of her--is not a handsome woman, with vulgar eyes and mouth, and altogether a most mahogany-coloured person. She is so plain, in fact, I think that very likely it is the real woman; for it is with their own fancies that men fall in love,--or rather every woman is handsome to the lover. You know how old Helen must have been.”

”I don't know any such thing, or anything about her. Who was Helen?”

asks the bonnet; and indeed she did not know.

”It's a long story, and such an old scandal now, that there is no use in repeating it,” says Clive.

”You only talk about Helen because you wish to turn away the conversation from Miss Freeman,” cries the young lady--”from Miss Baliol, I mean.”

”We will talk about whichever you please. Which shall we begin to pull to pieces?” says Clive. You see, to be in this carriage--to be actually with her--to be looking into those wonderful lucid eyes--to see her sweet mouth dimpling, and hear her sweet voice ringing with its delicious laughter--to have that hour and a half his own, in spite of all the world-dragons, grandmothers, convenances, the future--made the young fellow so happy, filled his whole frame and spirit with a delight so keen, that no wonder he was gay, and brisk, and lively.

”And so you knew of my goings-on?” he asked. O me! they were at Reigate by this time; there was Gatton Park flying before them on the wings of the wind.

”I know of a number of things,” says the bonnet, nodding with ambrosial curls.

”And you would not answer the second letter I wrote to you?

”We were in great perplexity. One cannot be always answering young gentlemen's letters. I had considerable doubt about answering a note I got from Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square,” says the lady's chapeau.

”No, Clive, we must not write to one another,” she continued more gravely, ”or only very, very seldom. Nay, my meeting you here to-day is by the merest chance, I am sure; for when I mentioned at Lady Fareham's the other evening that I was going to see papa at Brighton to-day, I never for one moment thought of seeing you in the train. But as you are here, it can't be helped; and I may as well tell you that there are obstacles.”