Part 59 (1/2)
”You look surprised, Lucy. What! do you think this will not be a heartbreaking disappointment to me? If you knew how I have schemed for it--what I have done and endured to bring it about! To quarter the arms of Fontaine and Talboys! I put by the 5,000 pounds directly, and as much more of my own, that you should not go into that n.o.ble family without a proper settlement. It was the dream of my heart; I could have died contented the next hour. More fool I to care for anybody but myself. Your selfish people escape these bitter disappointments. Well, it is a lesson. From this hour I will live for myself and care for n.o.body, for n.o.body cares for me.”
These words, uttered with great agitation, and, I believe, with perfect sincerity, on his own unselfishness and hard fate, were terrible to Lucy. She wreathed her arms suddenly round him.
”Oh, uncle,” she cried, despairingly, ”kill me! send me to Heaven!
send me to my mother, but don't stab me with such bitter words;” and she trembled with an emotion so much more powerful and convulsing than his, in which temper had a large share, that she once more cowed him.
”There! there!” he muttered, ”I don't want to kill you, child, G.o.d knows, or to hurt you in any way.”
Lucy trembled, and tried to smile. The good nature, which was the upper crust of this man's character, got the better of him.
”There! there! don't distress yourself so. I know who I have to thank for all this.”
”She has not the power,” said Lucy, in a faint voice, ”to make me ungrateful to you.”
Mind is more rapid than lightning. At this moment, in the middle of a sentence, it flashed across Lucy that her aunt had convinced her, sore against her will, that there was a strong element of selfishness in Mr. Fountain. ”But it is that he deceives himself,” thought Lucy. ”He would sacrifice my happiness to his hobby, and think he has done it for love of me.” Enlightened by this rapid reflection, she did not say to him as one of his own s.e.x would, ”Look in your own heart, and you will see that all this is not love of me, but of your own schemes.”
Oh, dear, no, that would not have been the woman. She took him round the neck, and, fixing her sapphire eyes lovingly on his, she said, ”It is for love of me you set your heart on this great match? You wish to see me well settled in the world, and, above all, happy?”
”Of course it is. I told you so. What other object can I have?”
”Then, if you saw me wretched, and degraded in my own eyes, your heart would bleed for your poor niece--too late. Well, uncle, I love you, too, and I save you this day from remorse. Oh, think what it must be to hate and despise a man, and link yourself body and soul to that man for life. Oh, think and shudder with me. I have a quick eye. I have seen your lip curl with contempt when that fool has been talking--ah!
you blush. You are too much his superior in everything but fortune not to despise him at heart. See the thing as it is. Speak to me as you would if my mother stood here beside us, uncle, and to speak to me, you must look her in the face. Could you say to me before her, 'I love you; marry a man we both despise!'?”
Mr. Fountain made no answer. He was disconcerted. Nothing is so easy to resist as logic solo. We see it, as a general rule, resisted with great success in public and private every day; but when it comes in good company, a voice of music, an angel face, gentle, persuasive caresses, and imploring eyes, it ceases to revolt the understanding.
And so, caught in his own trap, foiled, baffled, soothed, caressed, all in one breath, Mr. Fountain hung his head, and could not immediately reply.
Lucy followed up her advantage. ”No,” cried she; ”say to me, 'I love you, Lucy; marry n.o.body; stay with your uncle, and find your happiness in contributing to his comfort.'”
”What is the use my saying that, when I have got Mother Bazalgette against me, and her shopkeeper?”
”Never mind, uncle, you say it, and time will show whether your influence is small with me, and my affections small for you”; and she looked in his face with glistening eyes.
”Well, then,” said he, ”I do say it, and I suppose that means I must urge you no more about poor Talboys.”
A shower of kisses descended upon him that moment. Moral: Lose no time in sealing a good bargain.
”Come, now, Lucy, you must do me a favor.”
”Oh, thank you! thank you! what is it?”
”Ah! but it is about Talboys too.”
”Never mind,” faltered Lucy, ”if it is anything short of--” (full stop).
”It is a long way short of that. Look here, Lucy, I must tell you the truth. He intends to ask your hand himself: he confided this to me, but he never authorized me to commit him as I have done, so that this conversation cannot be acted on: it must be a secret between you and me.”
”Oh, dear! and I thought I had got rid of him so nicely.”
”Don't be alarmed,” groaned Fountain; ”such matches as this can always be dropped; the difficulty is to bring them on. All I ask of you, then, is not to make mischief between me and my friend, the proudest man in England. If you don't value his friends.h.i.+p, I do. You must not let him know I have got him insulted by a refusal. For instance, you had better go out sailing with him to-morrow as if nothing had pa.s.sed.