Volume Ii Part 13 (1/2)
Colonel Hubert started.... ”Of course, Frederick, you do not decide upon this without being pretty certain what the answer will be,” was the reply of Colonel Hubert.
”You know the definition Silvius gives of love,” returned Frederick. ”It is to be all made of faith and service ... and so am I for Agnes....
Wherefore, as my service is, and shall be perfect, so also shall be my faith, nor will I ever submit myself to the misery of doubting....
Either she is mine at once, or I fly where I can never see her more.”
After this, Colonel Hubert very naturally preferred looking on from a distance, to making any approach that might disturb the declared purpose of his friend.
”By-standers see most,” ... is an old proverb, and all such speak truly.
Frederick, notwithstanding his ”perfect service,” was not by many a degree so near discovering the true state of Miss Willoughby's feelings as his friend: not, indeed, that Colonel Hubert discovered anything relating to himself, but he saw weariness and distaste in the movement of Agnes's head, and the mournful expression of her face, even before the decisive manoeuvre by which she escaped from him, who was only waiting for an opportunity of confessing himself ”to be all made of adoration, duty, and observance.”
An indescribable sensation of pleasure tingled through the veins of Colonel Hubert as he observed this, but the next moment his heart reproached him with a bitter pang. ”Am I then a traitor to him who has so frankly trusted me?” thought he. ”No, by Heaven!... Poor Frederick!... Angel as she is, he well deserves her, for from the very first he has thought of her, and her only; ... while I ... the study of her aunt's absurdities I deemed the more attractive speculation of the two.... Agnes, you are avenged!”
The good-humoured Frederick, mean time, though foiled in his hope of engrossing her, quickly found consolation in listening to Miss Peters, who confided to him all her doubts and fears respecting the possibility of her friend's finding courage to sing before so large an audience.
”For G.o.d's sake, do not plague her about it,” said he. ”Though, to be sure, such a voice as hers would be enough to embellish any concert in the world.”
”It is only on mamma's account,” replied Mary, ”that I am anxious for it; ... she has been so disappointed about Miss Roberts!... I wish, after Lucy's next duet with James, while Elizabeth is accompanying the violoncello, that you would contrive to get near her, where she is trying to keep out of the way, poor thing!... and tell her that my mother wishes to speak to her.”
Frederick readily undertook the commission, not ill pleased to be thus confirmed in his belief that she had not run away from him, but for some other reason which he had not before understood. Miss Peters was far from imagining what an effectual means she had hit upon for making her friend Agnes take a place among the performers. She had continued to sit during the long duet, triumphing in the clever management that had placed her out of the way of everybody, and perfectly aware ... though she by no means appeared to watch him steadily ... that Colonel Hubert did not feel at all more gay or happy than herself. But, lo! just at the moment indicated by Mary, the smiling, bowing, handsome Frederick Stephenson contrived civilly and silently to make his way between crowded rows of full-dressed ladies to the place where Agnes fancied herself in such perfect security. He delivered his message, but not without endeavouring to make her understand how superlatively happy the commission had made him.
This was too much.... To sit within the same room that held Colonel Hubert, without his taking the slightest notice of her, and that, too, after all the sweet delusive visions of the morning, was quite dreadful enough, without having to find answers for words she did not hear, and dress her face in smiles, when she was so very much disposed to weep. ”I will sing every song they will let me,” thought she. ”Ill or well, it matters not now.... I will bear anything but being talked to!”
Giving the eager messenger nothing but a silent nod in return for all his trouble, Agnes again rose, and made her way to Mrs. Peters.
It chanced that Mary, Lucy, and one or two other ladies were in consultation with her at a part of the room exactly within sight of Mrs.
Barnaby, who, having found her neighbours civilly disposed to answer all her questions, had thus far remained tolerably contented and quiet. But the scene she now witnessed aroused her equally to jealousy and astonishment. Mrs. Peters--who, from the moment she had deposited her on the sofa, had never bestowed a single word upon her, but, on the contrary, kept very carefully out of her way,--had hitherto been supposed by her self-satisfied sister-in-law to be too much occupied in arranging the progress of the musical performance to have any time left to bestow upon her relations; yet now she saw her in the centre of the room, devoting her whole attention to Agnes, evidently presenting her to one or two of the most elegant-looking among her company, and finally taking her by the hand, as if she had been the most important personage present, and leading her with smiles, and an air of the most flattering affection, to the pianoforte.
”Who is that beautiful girl, ma'am?” said one of Mrs. Barnaby's talkative neighbours, thinking, perhaps, that she had a right, in her turn, to question a person who had so freely questioned her.
”What girl, ma'am?” returned Mrs. Barnaby; for use so lessens marvel, that she had become almost unconscious of the uncommon loveliness of her niece; or, at any rate, was too constantly occupied by other concerns to pay much attention to it.
”That young lady in black c.r.a.pe, whom Mrs. Peters has just led to the instrument.... Upon my word, I think she is the most beautiful person I ever saw!”
”Oh!... that's my niece, ma'am; ... and I'm sure I don't know what nonsense my sister Peters has got in her head about her.... I hope she is not going to pretend to play without asking my leave. It is time I should look after her.” And so saying the indignant Mrs. Barnaby arose, determined upon sharing the notice at least, if not the favour, bestowed upon her dependant kinswoman. But she was immediately compelled to reseat herself by the universal ”Hus.h.!.+...” that buzzed around her; for at that moment the superb voice of Agnes burst upon the room, and ”startled the dull ear” of the least attentive listener in it.
The effect was so wholly unlooked-for, and so great, that the demonstration of it might naturally have been expected to overpower so young a performer; Miss Peters, therefore, the moment the song was over, hastened to her friend, expecting to find her agitated, trembling, and in want of an arm to support her; but instead of this she found Agnes perfectly tranquil ... apparently unconscious of having produced any sensation at all in the company at large, and in fact looking, for the first time since she entered the room, happy and at her ease.
The cause of this could only be found where Miss Peters never thought of looking for it,--namely, in the position and countenance of Colonel Hubert. He had not, indeed, yet spoken much to her; but enough, at least, to convince her that he was not more indifferent than in the morning, and, ... in short, enough to raise her from the miserable state of dejection and annoyance which made her fly with such irritated feelings from the attentions of Frederick, to such a state of joyous hopefulness as made her almost giddily unmindful of every human being around her, save one.
Though Agnes had restlessly left the place whence she had first seen Colonel Hubert ensconce himself in a corner, apparently as far from her as possible, she chose another equally convenient for tormenting herself by watching him, and for perceiving also that nothing, save his own will and pleasure, detained him from her. From this, as we have seen, she was again driven by poor Frederick; and forgetting her shyness and all other minor evils in the misery of being talked to when her heart was breaking, she determined upon singing, solely to get out of his way.
Her false courage, however, faded fast as she approached the instrument. She remembered, with a keenness amounting almost to agony, those songs of the morning that she had since been rehearsing in spirit, in the dear belief that they had charmed away his stately reserve for ever; and she was desperately meditating the best mode of making a precipitate retreat, when, on reaching the spot kept sacred to the performers and their music-desks, she perceived Colonel Hubert in the midst of them, who immediately placed himself at her side, (where, according to rule, he had no business to be,) and asked her in a whisper, if she meant to accompany herself.
The revulsion of feeling produced by this most unexpected address was violent indeed. Her whole being seemed changed in a moment. Her heart beat, her eyes sparkled with recovered happiness, and she literally remembered nothing but that she was going to sing to him again. In answer to his question, she said with a smile that made him very nearly as forgetful of all around as herself, ”Do you think I had better do it?... Or shall I ask Elizabeth?”
”No, no; ask no one,” he replied.
”And what shall I sing?” again whispered Agnes.