Modern Flirtations: A Novel

by Catherine Sinclair

  CHAPTER XII.

  One of the greatest pleasures in life is derived from theunexpectedness of events, without which existence would lose much ofits interest, and finding herself thus emancipated from school,settled at home, and relieved from her worst fears respecting SirPatrick, Marion no sooner escaped from her unexpected glimpse of thejovial party in the dining-room, than, lightly carolling some snatchesof a popular song, she flew up stairs the happiest of the happy, tofind the scene of Agnes' toilette, whom she discovered at last all joyand flutter at the prospect of a ball at Lady Towercliffe's in thepalace.

  The softening effect of happiness on stern and rugged natures has beenoften remarked, but selfishness never slumbers, and the receptionAgnes bestowed on Marion partook more of astonishment than ofpleasure, and was mingled much more with censure than withapprobation. Still, after expressing more wonder than the occasioncalled for, what could possibly have brought her home, and the mostunbounded censure of Mrs. Penfold for her "unjustifiable conduct" insending her, Agnes, having no one better, or rather no one else totalk to, though not violently delighted at the unexpected meeting,gave some fragments of her attention to Marion, whose deep tender eyeswere sparkling with affectionate pleasure on again seeing her sister,while her countenance, from recent agitation, looked like an Aprilface of smiles and tears.

  "What a storm in a tea-cup you have had at Mrs. Penfold's! tiresomeold cat! I am glad it teased her! Dixon! pin that wreath more to theright:--not quite so far! there!--oh! how perfect!" said Agnes, gazingwith exultation at her own extraordinary beauty. "Pat must find outsome other school for you, Marion! It would never do to stay idlinghere! Dixon! never shew me that dress again! Wear it yourself or burnit, but blue always looks vulgar! I have lucky and unlucky gowns! Somein which I meet with all the friends I wish to meet, and dance withall the partners I prefer, but that dress is a happy riddance. Iremember once being obliged, when wearing it, to dance three times andgo to supper with stupid, tiresome Lord Wigton! Dixon! fetch mybouquet! not that withered old thing, but the one Captain De Crespignybrought me to-night. Fetch it from the drawing-room."

  "So that horrid Dixon is still with you!" whispered Marion, as soon asthe abigail's last frill disappeared. "I very seldom dislike anybody,Agnes, but she is very odd. There is a strange gleam about her eyes,which look so sharp and penetrating, they have prongs that pierce whenthey are turned on me."

  "Yes!" said Agnes, laughing, "she does sometimes look through me tillI feel myself nailed to the wall."

  "Moreover, she has such a flattering, fawning, cunning manner, that Iwonder you can tolerate her for an hour," continued Marion. "We knowso little of her, too, that she is like a person fallen from theclouds!"

  "Oh! there you are wrong, for Lady Towercliffe says she is 'a perfecttreasure!' Consider, too, what low terms she accepts, merely from herdesire to serve me! I never saw a creature so preternaturally anxiousto be taken, and now, after two years' practice, she really isexcellent. Do you remember at the time I engaged Dixon, what a perfectromance her history was! Pat did not believe a word of it; but to doher justice, she made it very entertaining. I hope, at least, thegreater part was founded on fact!"

  "Why does she wear widow's weeds,--she did not mention at first havingever been married!"

  "No more she did! how strangely beautiful she looks in them, like theabbess of a convent! Her husband, if ever she had one, which I doubt,is said to have died, abroad, and her only wish is never to seestrangers. Pat insists she has had some _affaire du coeur_, but I tellhim it must positively have been with old Sir Arthur, for she startedso visibly one day long ago, and became redder than red, when I said hewas coming to dinner."

  Seeing Agnes in so unusually gracious and communicative a mood, Marionventured now to inquire into the state of her brother's affairs,saying, she supposed he must inevitably sell his estate, go abroad, orretrench, as the expedient of planting half-pence, to grow intoguineas, had not yet been brought to perfection, even by Sir Patrick,though it had so long been a subject of wonder how he contrived to geton.

  "This has been a horrid business!" exclaimed Agnes peevishly; "as forPat himself, he will do very well! Trust him for taking care of that.He has always money enough and to spare for his own amusement, thoughsometimes he would hardly even pay the postage of a letter to save mylife. Only think of his bringing me here, out of everybody's way,during the most beautiful years of my existence! Our friends willscarcely imagine that I think it worth chair hire to travel from thisburying-place to the inhabited world! What can one do. We shall givesome quadrille parties ourselves, but scarcely a living soul is withinreach except the Towercliffes, and those odious Granvilles!"

  "The Granvilles!" exclaimed Marion, in a blaze of joy andastonishment; "dear Clara! is she here."

  "Yes; but she cuts this house entirely, and we are hardly on speakingterms, therefore let me beg you not to attempt any violent missyish,boarding-school friendships in that quarter. I cannot enter intoparticulars, but rest assured that the less you see of Clara thebetter for me,--and the better, too, for Patrick. Never, for yourlife, mention her name before him."

  "Why?" asked Marion with a look of bewildered disappointment. "Agnes,I cannot give up Clara Granville!"

  "Perhaps, then, she may give you up! She abhors the whole family now!If I must not veto her without rendering a reason, let me tell youthat there is a very awkward pecuniary quarrel between Mr. Granville,Pat, and Mr. De Crespigny. It is merely one of their madcap tricks,but extremely annoying. You have often heard Sir Arthur tell of threeYorkshire baronets, who signed a mutual contract sixty years ago, thatthe first of them who married should forfeit L10,000 to both theothers."

  "Yes; and not one of them ever ventured to dispose of himself at sogreat a sacrifice."

  "Well! some years afterwards, the subject was discussed one day inpublic conclave, at the Harrowgate ordinary, and what should the lateMr. Granville do, in company with Major De Crespigny and our father,but, like a set of madmen, as they must have been at the moment, drewup, for a frolic, precisely such an agreement for themselves, whichthey signed and sealed, making some of the 150 strangers present actas witnesses. The whole affair had been long forgotten, when Mr.Granville married some fright of a girl, all nose and freckles, merelybecause of her being amiable, or some such whim. She lived long enoughto make saints of the whole family, and died after her son anddaughter were only a few years old."

  "Then how is your quarrel with Clara tacked on to this affair, Icannot quite trace the connexion."

  "Why! Pat has been very angry at Mr. Granville lately about someunexplainable affront; so, having accidentally found the old Harrowgatedocument, and being very hard up for money, he and Captain De Crespignyare threatening to levy the fine of L10,000 due to each of them, andpoor Mr. Granville is, as you may suppose, rather indignant, havingbeen all his life stringing halfpence together, to pay off his father'sdebts, though no one could legally oblige him. As Pat says, 'more foolhe!' You know our brother's favorite expression of contempt is, todescribe any one as 'the sort of man who would lock up his money!'"

  "What a shocking affair!" exclaimed Marion, coloring with shame andindignation. "As uncle Arthur says, Patrick would do anything formoney short of a highway robbery! Surely, Agnes, he cannot be inearnest."

  "Pshaw! never mind being amiable now," replied Agnes impatiently; "weneed not act to empty benches! I am already aware that you, Marion,are on the exact pattern of what Mrs. Hannah Moore would bespeak toorder for a sister or daughter; but with all you learn at school, praylearn to keep that goodyism out of sight, for I can fancy nothing moreintolerable than a young lady turned out on the model of those horridsententious books, filled with advice to young ladies. Mrs. Elliswrites to the 'Women of England,' but she luckily leaves the 'Women ofScotland,' to their own devices, without troubling us to beexorbitantly amiable."

  "I shall be in no hurry to see Clara now!" continued Marion,dejectedly. "I suppose Patrick will be cut by all gentlemen for suchunjusti
fiable conduct."

  "Oh dear, no! Nobody is ever cut for anything now as long as he hasmoney! I can scarcely tell the thing upon earth, except cheating atcards, that a man of L10,000 a-year may not do, and yet be as wellreceived as ever,--and ladies ditto! Any woman who can afford a courtplume, and many even who cannot afford, may fit on her ostrichfeathers, and go to court with as proud a step and as lofty acarriage, as either you or I. Your uncle, Sir Arthur, complains thatthere is no such as 'moral indignation' in the world now, and so muchthe better. What good would it do to anybody? If a gentleman once getsinto a fashionable club, he is made for life, and may ever afterwardsdefy the world to look askance at him."

  "Then nobody takes any notice of Patrick's affairs?" asked Mariondoubtfully.

  "No; except uncle Arthur, who makes himself quite absurd about them;refuses to dine here; turns his back on Patrick at the club, in a mostun-uncle-like manner; and performs all sorts of antics to testify hisannoyance; but we are both rather glad he no longer comes prosing tothis house, and that we need never enter his. The Admiral is a fittercompanion for those old pictures round the wall than for us. Do notlook at me with that hair-standing-on end expression! I can't helpwhat Patrick does, and you will soon get accustomed to such things."

  "Oh no, never! I hope never! but Patrick cannot surely push that claimin earnest against the Granvilles. He will refund the money, will henot, Agnes?"

  "Perhaps, when all his other creditors are paid off. Now spare thewhites of your eyes, and do not look at me as if I had five heads, butpray attend to my injunction, and avoid Clara, who is only fit to be asaint in a niche at her brother's chapel. You may know her at anydistance now by her five-year-old dresses and country-cousin bonnets.Richard Granville has taken orders at last, and become a most superbpreacher. In short, the Granvilles are good, worthy, dull, respectablepeople as ever lived, though the very last upon earth that would suitus."

  "Do you mean to be severe, Agnes? I hope you are mistaken!" repliedMarion, humbled and depressed by all she had heard. "I have sometimesfelt, when with Clara, as if goodness were infectious, and never hearof any people better than myself without wishing at least to be in thesame room with them."

  "Take my word for it, Marion, these enormously good, sagacious personsare better to look at than to converse with. They may be admired at adistance, but the greater the distance the better; and pray neverset-up in that line yourself, as nothing is more unpopular. Clarainvited me, when we first arrived here, to one of her tea parties!some horrid Granville-ish affair, I have no doubt! But I knew my ownvalue better than to go. Fancy me, Agnes Dunbar, at a good party!"

  "I hope you might not be so very much out of place, Agnes!" repliedMarion, with an arch and pretty smile. "Whenever I give 'good parties'you shall be the very first person invited!"

  "Then take my apology now,--previously engaged! Indeed, I may perhapsconsider myself an engaged person in every sense, Marion. Captain DeCrespigny has already almost proposed several times, and makes nosecret of his attachment. Oh, never mind Dixon! She knows who sent methis bouquet and all about it. Captain De Crespigny tells me he hasplanted all my favorite flowers at Kilmarnock Abbey, and often sayswhat a resource they will hereafter become to me! Here are all theletters of my name grouped together, Anemone, Geranium, Narcissus,Everlasting, and Sweet William."

  "Very ingenious," observed Marion, smiling.

  "I promised not to mention whose device it was; therefore, Marion, asI am exceedingly particular about keeping my word, if any one guesseswhere I got this, remember to recollect that I did not tell. But,Dixon, what is the meaning of this? the geranium is broken and theseflowers are so withered, they have not surely been in water."

  When Marion looked accidentally at Dixon, she was startled to perceivethat a mortal paleness had overspread her features, which bore astrange bewildered expression, while her hand, in which she held theflowers, trembled visibly, but she said nothing, and Agnes, in thetriumphant gaiety of her spirits, rattled heedlessly on.

  "One of the rooms at Beaujolie Castle, which Captain De Crespignyalready calls 'my _boudoir_,' opens into a conservatory filled withrare exotics, but he says I shall be the brightest flower of the whole,though never born to blush unseen, if he can help it! How very droll heis, paying compliments often that would make one feel beautiful for ayear. He said this morning, when Patrick complained of the room beinghot, that he wished I would fan it with my eyelashes, and asked for oneof them to wear as a feather in his Highland bonnet! Yesterday, when Ishowed Captain De Crespigny this new pearl hoop, he said I spoiled thesymmetry of my hand with rings, as there was not a jewel in the worldfit for me to wear, and only one ring that ought ever to be placedhere! You should have seen his sentimental look on the occasion, whichmight have done for twenty proposals!"

  "One would have been enough," said Marion, smiling.

  "What he said was quite sufficiently explicit, and I only wish hewould appear a little more diffident, as his look was most provokingself-satisfied, when he added, 'how fortunate will be the happy manwho places a ring on that finger!' When speaking of the Admiral, too,he always now calls him 'uncle Arthur!' and yesterday, at takingleave, he said in his half jocular, half serious tone, 'I shall liveupon the Bridge of Sighs till we meet again!'"

  "Then, pray, let him stay here till he is a little less confident,"replied Marion, laughing. "You should teach diffidence in threelessons, Agnes; he has no right to seem sure of success till he hasobtained your consent point blank. You have many admirers to chooseamong."

  "Squadrons of admirers, but not so many lovers as you think, Marion!The race of marrying men is becoming extinct in the world, so I mustnot be severely discouraging to poor diffident Captain De Crespigny,who has been setting his mustachios at me so long. Your notions aboutkeeping people in suspense are quite of the old school, when ladiesused all to be upon stilts, but '_nous avons change tout cela_.'"

  "I am sorry for it. We should all have been born when Sir Arthur was,and I wish everybody were like him."

  "Spectacles, grey hair, and all! Thank you, Marion, but I am notparticular, and feel quite satisfied to be a contemporary of CaptainDe Crespigny. If you could but have heard him this morning when hesang the 'Pirate's Serenade,'" said Agnes, warbling the words toherself,

  "This night, or never, my bride thou shalt be."

  While Agnes continued singing _sotto voce_ for some minutes, her wholeheart and thoughts occupied with agreeable retrospections, the eye ofMarion again accidentally wandered towards Dixon, and she was startledout of a reverie into something almost approaching alarm, by observingher attitude and expression. With features as pale and rigid as thoseof a corpse, she gazed at Agnes, and there was an intensity in her lookperfectly unaccountable, while a dazzling and terrible light glitteredin her eyes. Marion with difficulty suppressed an exclamation ofastonishment, when she perceived the extraordinary change in Dixon'scountenance, but with a private resolution to watch more narrowly thanbefore, what such evident agitation could mean, she determined as yetto make no remark, but allowed Agnes to rattle on undisturbed, whileher own thoughts were filled with perplexity and surprise.

  "Yesterday, Marion, Captain De Crespigny actually made me read overwith him that proposal scene in the new novel, 'Matrimonial Felicity.'I nearly died of confusion when he doubled down the page, saying, hehoped this was not the last time we should study it together. The storyhas but one fault, that the hero makes rather a low marriage, and ofthat Captain De Crespigny expressed an utter abhorrence. I rememberages ago, his making me laugh so excessively with a description of someschool-boy attachment he had in Yorkshire. Such a burlesque upon love!It was exquisite! The silver thimbles and wall-flowers he presented toa fair damsel in prunella shoes, and no gloves, while his _gagesd'amour_ were accompanied with verses borrowed from the Irish Melodies,and passed off as his own. I forgot always to ask what became of thepoor deluded girl at last--probably married before this time to somefat farmer or thriving shopkeeper, but for my own part,
the misery ofan unrequited attachment is what I never can know. Captain De Crespignyreally is the only person one could possibly have fancied."

  A loud and startling crash at this moment interrupted Agnes'delightful reminiscences. Marion instinctively sprang from her seatwith alarm, and looked hastily round, when she perceived that Dixonhad tripped over and thrown down a table covered with china ornaments,on which Miss Dunbar had frequently squandered half her income, evenat times when she could scarcely afford a dress. The etiquette beingnow established that all young ladies, of whatever means, shallcultivate a passion for china and hot-house plants, Agnes had made acollection of second-rate vases and third-rate tea cups, interspersedwith stunted hyacinths and drooping camellias, at so great an expensethat Sir Patrick often recommended her to take a wing of the bazaarand sell off all her trumpery again. The whole assortment now lay infragments on the floor, while Agnes delivered herself up to agonies oflamentation, scolding, and wondering, over the ruin of her hoardedtreasures, while she pointed out with consternation how nearly thetable had fallen with its edge upon her own foot, which might havelamed her for life. The "fall of china" is a proverbial trial oftemper, and that of Agnes did not prove on this occasion invulnerable,while the epithets, "awkward wretch!" and "stupid idiot!" were audiblylavished on the offending abigail.

  Marion appeared exclusively occupied in gathering up the scatteredfragments of china, and arranging them together, but her eye wassecretly observing Dixon, the strange wild expression of whosefeatures filled her with indefinite apprehension. In her countenancethere gleamed, certainly, for an instant, a dark smile of malignantsatisfaction. Marion felt sure that it was so. Could the poorcreature's mind be shipwrecked? Was she insane? Her look had becomefierce and haggard, her forehead of a deadly paleness, and when shecaught the eye of Marion earnestly fixed upon her, she started up,with a frown of angry defiance, and hurried out of the room.

  "This is a most calamitous catastrophe!" exclaimed Agnes,disconsolately. "How could Dixon be so intolerably stupid?"

  "Are you quite certain it proceeded from stupidity? The accident isaltogether very strange," observed Marion, going close up to hersister, and relating all she had observed during that evening in thevery lowest whisper, for Marion felt a nervous consciousness thatDixon was not far off, and might attempt to overhear them. A stealthystep was heard on the stair after she concluded, but Marion,thoroughly engrossed with the subject, reiterated once more herconviction that there had been something more than common in themanner of Dixon, whom she advised Agnes to watch very carefully, ifshe did not part with her soon.

  "You were always prejudiced against Dixon, poor stupid fool that sheis, Marion. I wish I had sent her adrift before she broke all thechina, but it is very unlike you to be so severe! How can you fancythe creature did it on purpose? That is too bad, when you might haveseen how ghastly pale she became!"

  "I did see, Agnes! and that makes me wonder only the more! No one everlooked like that surely, for breaking a few china gewgaws!"

  "Marion! speak respectfully of my treasures! But you are in a mostcensorious mood this evening: very different from common, when you aregenerally a knight-errant in all our conversations, defendingeverybody. But nothing pleases you to-night. My admirer first, then mymaid, my china, and even Patrick, who certainly behaved exceedinglyill to-day, in not asking me to preside at his party. The pretext was,that we had no chaperon, but I had the greatest mind, in a fit ofoffended dignity, to leave his house."

  "Your dignity would have been rather put out of countenance, by havingto borrow my carriage if you did go!" said Sir Patrick, who hadlaughingly entered the room unobserved. "Lady Towercliffe may perhapsreceive you in time for her six o'clock breakfast to-morrow morning,Agnes, but unless you make more haste, the supper and dancing will bequite out of the question. Past twelve o'clock, and a rainy night!"

  Sir Patrick was a good-natured, selfish man, willing that everybodyshould be happy, provided it put him to no personal inconvenience, andwhen Marion took this opportunity to explain the circumstances of hervery unexpected return, he merely bestowed a contemptuous whistle onthe description of Mrs. Penfold's wrath, laughed at Marion's evidentanxiety about his embarrassments, and then desired her to set aboutbeing happy at home the best way she could, as he thought she mightmake the rest of her life a holiday now. "And," added he, in his usualgay rallying tone, "forget for ever all your grievances at Mrs.Penfold's, or rather, Mrs. Tenfold's, on account of the breadth of herperson and the length of her bills!"