Volume Iii Part 12 (2/2)

”My dear aunt,” replied Colonel Hubert, hesitating in his speech, as neither of his auditors had ever before heard him hesitate, ”I have much to tell you respecting both Agnes Willoughby ... and myself....”

”Then tell it, in Heaven's name!” said Lady Elizabeth sharply. ”Let it be what it may, I would rather hear it than be kept hanging thus by the ears between the possible and impossible.”

Colonel Hubert moved his chair; and seating himself beside Lady Stephenson, took her hand, as if to shew that she too was to listen to what he was about to say, though it was their aunt to whom he addressed himself. ”From suspense, at least, I can relieve you, Lady Elizabeth, and you too, my dear Emily, who look at me so anxiously without saying a word ... at least I can relieve you from suspense.... I love Miss Willoughby; and I hope, with as little delay as possible, to make her my wife.”

Lady Stephenson pressed his hand, and said nothing; but a deep sigh escaped her. Lady Elizabeth, who was not accustomed to manifest her feelings so gently, rose from her seat on the sofa, and placing herself immediately before him, said, with great vehemence, ”Montague Hubert, son of my dead sister, you are come to years of discretion, and a trifle beyond.... Your magnificent estate of thirteen hundred a year, and ... I beg your pardon ... some odd pounds, s.h.i.+llings, and pence over, is all your own, and you may marry Mrs. Barnaby herself, if you please, and settle it upon her. No one living that I know of has any power to prevent it.... But, sir, if you expect that Lady Elizabeth Norris will ever receive as her niece a girl artful enough to conceal from me and from your sister the fact that she was engaged to you, and that, too, while receiving from both of us the most flattering attention ... nay, such affection as might have opened any heart not made of bra.s.s and steel ... if you expect this, you will find yourself altogether mistaken.”

This harangue, which her ladys.h.i.+p intended to be overpoweringly severe, was, in fact, very nearly the most agreeable one that Colonel Hubert could have listened to, for it touched only on a subject of offence that he was perfectly able to remove. All embarra.s.sment immediately disappeared from his manner; and springing up to place himself between his aunt and the door, to which she was approaching with stately steps, he said, in a voice almost of exultation, ”My dearest aunt!... How like your n.o.ble self it is to have made this objection before every other!...

And this objection, which would indeed have been fatal to every hope of happiness, I can remove by a single word.... Agnes was as ignorant of my love for her as you and Emily could be till last night ... I have loved her ... longer, it may be, than I have known it myself ... perhaps I might date it from the first hour I saw her, but she knew nothing of it.... Last night, for the first time, I confessed to her my love....

And what think you, Lady Elizabeth, was her answer?”

”Nay, Mr. Benedict, I know not.... 'I thank you, sir,' and a low courtesy, I suppose.”

”I was less happy, Lady Elizabeth,” he replied, half smiling; adding a moment after, however, with a countenance from which all trace of gaiety had pa.s.sed away, ”The answer of Miss Willoughby to my offer of marriage was ... Colonel Hubert, I can never be your wife.”

”Indeed!... Then how comes it, Montague, that you still talk of making her so?”

”Because, before I left her, I thought I saw some ground for hope that her refusal was not caused by any personal dislike to me.”

”Really!...” interrupted Lady Elizabeth.

”Nay, my dear aunt!” resumed Hubert, ”you may in your kind and long-enduring partiality fancy this impossible; but, unhappily for my peace at that moment, I remembered that I was more than five-and-thirty, and she not quite eighteen.”

”But she told you I suppose that you were still a very handsome fellow.... Only she had some other objection,--and pray, what was it, sir?”

”She feared the connexion would be displeasing to you and Lady Stephenson.”

”And you a.s.sured her most earnestly, perhaps that she was mistaken?”

”No, Lady Elizabeth, I did not. There are circ.u.mstances in her position that MUST make my marrying her appear objectionable to my family; and though my little independence is, as your ladys.h.i.+p observes, my own, I would not wish to share it with any woman who would be indifferent to their reception of her. All my hope, therefore, rests in the confidence I feel that, when the first unpleasing surprise of this avowal shall have pa.s.sed away, you ... both of you ... for there is no one else whose approbation I should wait for ... you will suffer your hearts and heads to strike a fair and reasonable balance between all that my sweet Agnes has in her favour and all she has against her. Do this, Lady Elizabeth, but do it as kindly as you can.... Emily will help you ... to-morrow morning you shall tell me your decision.... I can resolve on nothing till I hear it.”

Colonel Hubert, as soon as he had said this left the room, nor did they see him again that night.

The morning came, and he met Lady Stephenson at the breakfast table, but Lady Elizabeth did not appear, sending down word, as was not unusual with her, that she should take her chocolate in her own room. Sir Edward was not in the room when he entered, and he seized the opportunity to utter a hasty and abrupt inquiry as to the answer he might expect from herself and their aunt.

”From me, Montague,” she replied, ”you cannot fear to hear anything very harshly disagreeable. In truth, I have been so long accustomed to believe that whatever my brother did, or wished to do, was wisest--best, that it would be very difficult for me to think otherwise now; besides, I cannot deny, though perhaps it hardly ought to be taken into the account, that I too am very much in love with Agnes Willoughby, and that ... though I would give my little finger she had no aunt Barnaby belonging to her ... I never saw any woman in any rank whom I could so cordially love and welcome as a sister.”

In reply to this, Colonel Hubert clasped the lovely speaker to his heart; and before he had released her from his embrace, or repeated his inquiry concerning Lady Elizabeth, Sir Edward Stephenson entered, and the conversation became general.

For many hours of that irksome morning Colonel Hubert was kept in the most tantalizing state of suspense by the prolonged absence of the old lady from the drawing-room. But at length, after Sir Edward and his lady had set off for their second morning ramble without him, he was cheered by the appearance of the ancient maiden, who was his aunt's tirewoman, bringing in her lap-dog, and the velvet cus.h.i.+on that was its appendage; which having placed reverently before the fire, she moved the favourite _fauteuil_ an inch one way, and the little table that ever stood beside it an inch the other, and was retiring, when Colonel Hubert said, ...

”Is my aunt coming immediately, Mitchel?”

”My lady will not be long, Colonel.... But her ladys.h.i.+p is very poorly this morning,” and with a graceful swinging courtesy she withdrew.

The Colonel trembled all over, ”very poorly,” as applied to Lady Elizabeth Norris, having from his earliest recollection always been considered as synonymous to ”very cross.”

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