Volume Iii Part 13 (1/2)
”She will refuse to see her!” thought he, pacing the room in violent agitation.... ”and in that case she will keep her word.... She will never be my wife!”
”Bless me!... How you do shake the room, Colonel Hubert,” said a very crabbed voice behind him, just after he had pa.s.sed the door in his perturbed promenade. ”If you took such a fancy early in the morning, when the house maid might sweep up the dust you had raised, I should not object to it, for it is very like having one's carpet beat;... but just as I am coming to sit down here, it is very disagreeable indeed.”
This grumble lasted just long enough to allow the old lady (who looked as if she had been eating crab apples, and walked as if she had suddenly been seized with the gout in all her joints,) to place herself in her easy chair as she concluded it, during which time the Colonel stood still upon the hearth-rug with his eyes anxiously fixed upon the venerable but very hostile features that were approaching him. A moment's silence followed, during which the old Lady looked up in his face with the most provoking expression imaginable; for cross as it was, there was a glance of playful malice in it that seemed to say,--
”You look as if you were going to cry, Colonel.”
He felt provoked with her, and this gave him courage.--”May I beg of you, Lady Elizabeth, to tell me what I may hope from your kindness on the subject I mentioned to you last night?” said he.
”Pray, sir, do you remember your grandfather?” was her reply.
”The Earl of Archdale?... Yes, madam, perfectly.”
”You do.... Humph!... And your paternal grandfather, with his pedigree from Duke Nigel of Normandy; did you ever hear of him?”
”Yes, Lady Elizabeth,” replied the Colonel in a tone of indifference; ”I have heard of him; but he died, you know, when I was very young.”
There was a minute's silence, which was broken by another question from Lady Elizabeth.
”And pray, sir, will you do me the favour to tell me who was the grandfather of Miss Willoughby?”
”I have little, or indeed no doubt, Lady Elizabeth, that Miss Willoughby is the granddaughter of that Mr. Willoughby, of Greatfield Park, in Warwicks.h.i.+re, who lost the tremendous stake at piquet that you have heard of, and two of whose daughters married the twin sons of Lord Eastcombe.... I think you cannot have forgotten the circ.u.mstances.”
Lady Elizabeth drew herself forward in her chair, and fixing her eyes stedfastly on the face of her nephew, said, in a voice of great severity, ”Do you mean to a.s.sert to me, Colonel Montague Hubert, that Agnes Willoughby is niece to Lady Eastcombe and the Honourable Mrs.
Nivett?”
”I mean to a.s.sert to you, madam, that it is my firm persuasion that such will prove to be the fact. But I have not considered it necessary, Lady Elizabeth Norris, for the son of my father to withhold his affections from the chosen of his heart, till he was a.s.sured he should gain all the honour by the selection which a union with Lady Eastcombe's niece could bestow;... nor should I have mentioned my belief in this connexion, by way of a set-off to the equally near claim of Mrs. Barnaby, had you not questioned me so particularly.”
Had Colonel Hubert studied his answer for a twelvemonth, he could not have composed a more judicious one: there was a spice of hauteur in it by no means uncongenial to the old lady's feelings, and there was, too, enough of defiance to make her take counsel with herself as to whether it would be wise to vex him further. It was, therefore, less with the accent of mockery, and more with that of curiosity, that she recommenced her interrogatory.
”Will you tell me, Montague, from what source you derived this knowledge of Miss Willoughby's family?... Was it from herself?”
”Certainly not. If the facts be as I have stated, and as I hope and believe they will be found, Miss Willoughby will be as much surprised by the discovery as your ladys.h.i.+p.”
”From whom, then, did you hear it?”
”From no one, Lady Elizabeth, as a matter of fact connected with Agnes.
But something, I know not what, introduced the mention of old Willoughby's wild stake at piquet at the club the other day.... The name struck me, and I led old Major Barnes to talk to me of the family. He told me that a younger son, a gay harum-scarum sort of youth, married some girl, when he was in country quarters, whom his family would not receive; that, ruined and broken-hearted by this desertion, he went abroad almost immediately after his marriage, and has never been heard of since.”
”And this is the foundation upon which you build your hope, that Mrs.
Barnaby's niece is also the niece of Lady Eastcombe?... Ingenious certainly, Colonel, as a theory, but somewhat slight as an edifice on which to hang any weighty matter.... Don't you think so?”
”I hang nothing on it, Lady Elizabeth. If I did not feel that Miss Willoughby was calculated to make me happy without this supposed relations.h.i.+p, I certainly should not think her so with it. However, that your ladys.h.i.+p may not fancy my imagination more fertile than it really is, I must add, that when at Clifton, I did hear from the Misses Peters, whom I have before mentioned to you, that the father of Agnes went abroad after his marriage, and moreover that no news of him in any way ever reached his wife's family afterwards.”
Lady Elizabeth for some time made no reply, but seemed to ponder upon this statement very earnestly. At length she said, in a tone from which irony and harshness, levity and severity, were equally banished,--”Montague!... there are some of the feelings which you have just expressed, in which I cannot sympathise; but a very little reflection will teach you that there is no ground of offence to you in this ... for it would be unnatural that I should do so. You tell me that your father's son need not deem the honour of a relations.h.i.+p to Viscountess Eastcombe necessary to his happiness in life. So far I am able to comprehend you, although Lady Eastcombe is an honourable and excellent personage, whose near connexion with a young lady would be no contemptible advantage (at least in my mind) upon her introduction into life. But we will pa.s.s this.... When, however, you proceed to tell me that your choice in marriage could in nowise be affected by the rank and station of those with whom it might bring you in contact, and that, too, when the question is, whether a Mrs. Barnaby, or a Lady Eastcombe, should be in the foreground of the group, you must excuse me if I cannot follow you.”
Nothing is so distressing in an argument as to have a burst of grandiloquent sentiment set aside by a few words of common sense.
Colonel Hubert walked the length of the drawing-room, and back again, before he answered; he felt that, as his aunt put the case, he was as far from _following_ his a.s.sertion by his judgment as herself; but ere his walk was finished, the image of the desolate Agnes, as he had seen her the night before, arose before him, and resumed its unconquerable influence on his heart. He took a hint from her ladys.h.i.+p, threw aside all mixture of heat and anger, and replied.--