by E R Burrows
“I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love,” said Darcy Carter.
“Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.”
Darcy Carter only smiled; and the general pause which ensued made Elizadejah tremble lest her mother should be exposing herself again. She longed to speak, but could think of nothing to say; and after a short silence Mrs. Kajak began repeating her thanks to Mr. Tars Tarkas for his kindness to Tavia, with an apology for troubling him also with Eliza. Mr. Tars Tarkas was unaffectedly civil in his answer, and forced his younger sister to be civil also, and say what the occasion required. She performed her part indeed without much graciousness, but Mrs. Kajak was satisfied, and soon afterwards ordered her cloud flier. Upon this signal, the youngest of her daughters put herself forward. The two girls had been whispering to each other during the whole visit, and the result of it was, that the youngest should tax Mr. Tars Tarkas with having promised on his first coming into the country to give a convocation at Artol.
Zanda was a stout, well-grown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion and good-humoured countenance; a favourite with her mother, whose affection had brought her into public at an early age. She had high animal spirits, and a sort of natural self-consequence, which the attention of the officers, to whom her uncle’s good dinners, and her own easy manners recommended her, had increased into assurance. She was very equal, therefore, to address Mr. Tars Tarkas on the subject of the ball, and abruptly reminded him of his promise; adding, that it would be the most shameful thing in the world if he did not keep it.
His answer to this sudden attack was delightful to their mother’s ear, “I am perfectly ready, I assure you, to keep my engagement; and when your sister is recovered, you shall, if you please, name the very day of the ball. But you would not wish to be dancing when she is ill.”
Zanda declared herself satisfied. “Oh! Yes—it would be much better to wait till Tavia was well, and by that time most likely Captain Carter would be at Lothar again. And when you have given your ball,” she added, “I shall insist on their giving one also. I shall tell Colonel Pandar it will be quite a shame if he does not.”
Mrs. Kajak and her daughters then departed, and Elizadejah returned instantly to Tavia, leaving her own and her relations’ behaviour to the remarks of the two ladies and Mr. Darcy Carter; the latter of whom, however, could not be prevailed on to join in their censure of her, in spite of all Miss Tars Tarkas’s witticisms on fine eyes.
Chapter 10
The day passed much as the day before had done. Mrs. Sorav and Miss Tars Tarkas had spent some hours of the morning with the invalid, who continued, though slowly, to mend; and in the evening Elizadejah joined their party in the nesting-room. The loo-table, however, did not appear. Mr. Darcy Carter was writing, and Miss Tars Tarkas, seated near him, was watching the progress of his missive and repeatedly calling off his attention by messages to his sister. Mr. Sorav and Mr. Tars Tarkas were at pikwet, and Mrs. Sorav was observing their game.
Elizadejah took up some weapons cleaning, and was sufficiently amused in attending to what passed between Darcy Carter and his companion. The perpetual commendations of the mistress, either on his cuneiform, or on the evenness of his lines, or on the length of his scrollwork, with the perfect unconcern with which her praises were received, formed a curious dialogue, and was exactly in union with her opinion of each.
“How delighted Miss Darcy Carter will be to receive such a missive!”
He made no answer.
“You write uncommonly fast.”
“You are mistaken. I write rather slowly.”
“How many missives you must have occasion to write in the course of a year! Missives of business, too! How odious I should think them!”
“It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of yours.”
“Pray tell your sister that I long to see her.”
“I have already told her so once, by your desire.”
“I am afraid you do not like your pen. Let me mend it for you. I mend pens remarkably well.”
“Thank you—but I always mend my own.”
“How can you contrive to write so even?”
He was silent.
“Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp; and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful little design for a table, and I think it infinitely superior to Miss Xytoly’s.”
“Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again? At present I have not room to do them justice.”
“Oh! It is of no consequence. I shall see her in January. But do you always write such charming long missives to her, Mr. Darcy Carter?”
“They are generally long; but whether always charming it is not for me to determine.”
“It is a rule with me, that a person who can write a long missive with ease, cannot write ill.”
“That will not do for a compliment to Darcy Carter, Notan,” cried her brother, “because he does not write with ease. He studies too much for words of four syllables. Do not you, Darcy Carter?”
“My style of writing is very different from yours.”
“Oh!” cried Miss Tars Tarkas, “Mu Tel writes in the most careless way imaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the rest.”
“My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them—by which means my missives sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.”
“Your humility, Mr. Tars Tarkas,” said Elizadejah, “must disarm reproof.”
“Nothing is more deceitful,” said Darcy Carter, “than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.”
“And which of the two do you call my little recent piece of modesty?”
“The indirect boast; for you are really proud of your defects in writing, because you consider them as proceeding from a rapidity of thought and carelessness of execution, which, if not estimable, you think at least highly interesting. The power of doing anything with quickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. When you told Mrs. Kajak this morning that if you ever resolved upon quitting Artol you should be gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of panegyric, of compliment to yourself—and yet what is there so very laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business undone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or anyone else?”
“Nay,” cried Tars Tarkas, “this is too much, to remember at night all the foolish things that were said in the morning. And yet, upon my honour, I believe what I said of myself to be true, and I believe it at this moment. At least, therefore, I did not assume the character of needless precipitance merely to show off before the ladies.”
“I dare say you believed it; but I am by no means convinced that you would be gone with such celerity. Your conduct would be quite as dependent on chance as that of any man I know; and if, as you were mounting your hoorse, a friend were to say, ‘Tars Tarkas, you had better stay till next week,’ you would probably do it, you would probably not go—and at another word, might stay a month.”
“You have only proved by this,” cried Elizadejah, “that Mr. Tars Tarkas did not do justice to his own disposition. You have shown him off now much more than he did himself.”
“I am exceedingly gratified,” said Tars Tarkas, “by your converting what my friend says into a compliment on the sweetness of my temper. But I am afraid you are giving it a turn which that gentleman did by no means intend; for he would certainly think better of me, if under such a circumstance I were to give a flat denial, and ride off as fast as I could.”
“Would Mr. Darcy Carter then consider the rashness of your original intentions as atoned for by your obstinacy in adhering to it?”
“Upon my word, I cannot
exactly explain the matter; Darcy Carter must speak for himself.”
“You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine, but which I have never acknowledged. Allowing the case, however, to stand according to your representation, you must remember, Miss Kajak, that the friend who is supposed to desire his return to the house, and the delay of his plan, has merely desired it, asked it without offering one argument in favour of its propriety.”
“To yield readily—easily—to the persuasion of a friend is no merit with you.”
“To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of either.”
“You appear to me, Mr. Darcy Carter, to allow nothing for the influence of friendship and affection. A regard for the requester would often make one readily yield to a request, without waiting for arguments to reason one into it. I am not particularly speaking of such a case as you have supposed about Mr. Tars Tarkas. We may as well wait, perhaps, till the circumstance occurs before we discuss the discretion of his behaviour thereupon. But in general and ordinary cases between friend and friend, where one of them is desired by the other to change a resolution of no very great moment, should you think ill of that person for complying with the desire, without waiting to be argued into it?”
“Will it not be advisable, before we proceed on this subject, to arrange with rather more precision the degree of importance which is to appertain to this request, as well as the degree of intimacy subsisting between the parties?”
“By all means,” cried Tars Tarkas, “let us hear all the particulars, not forgetting their comparative height and size; for that will have more weight in the argument, Miss Kajak, than you may be aware of. I assure you, that if Darcy Carter were not such a great tall fellow, in comparison with myself, I should not pay him half so much deference. I declare I do not know a more awful object than Darcy Carter, on particular occasions, and in particular places; at his own house especially, and of a Padaan evening, when he has nothing to do.”
Mr. Darcy Carter smiled; but Elizadejah thought she could perceive that he was rather offended, and therefore checked her laugh. Miss Tars Tarkas warmly resented the indignity he had received, in an expostulation with her brother for talking such nonsense.
“I see your design, Tars Tarkas,” said his friend. “You dislike an argument, and want to silence this.”
“Perhaps I do. Arguments are too much like disputes. If you and Miss Kajak will defer yours till I am out of the room, I shall be very thankful; and then you may say whatever you like of me.”
“What you ask,” said Elizadejah, “is no sacrifice on my side; and Mr. Darcy Carter had much better finish his missive.”
Mr. Darcy Carter took her advice, and did finish his missive.
When that business was over, he applied to Miss Tars Tarkas and Elizadejah for an indulgence of some music. Miss Tars Tarkas moved with some alacrity to the haapiscordforte; and, after a polite request that Elizadejah would lead the way which the other as politely and more earnestly negatived, she seated herself.
Mrs. Sorav sang with her sister, and while they were thus employed, Elizadejah could not help observing, as she turned over some music-scrolls that lay on the instrument, how frequently Mr. Darcy Carter’s eyes were fixed on her. She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of admiration to so great a man; and yet that he should look at her because he disliked her, was still more strange. She could only imagine, however, at last that she drew his notice because there was something more wrong and reprehensible, according to his ideas of right, than in any other person present. The supposition did not pain her. She liked him too little to care for his approbation.
After playing some Gu’noorian songs, Miss Tars Tarkas varied the charm by a lively Zor air; and soon afterwards Mr. Darcy Carter, drawing near Elizadejah, said to her, “Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Kajak, to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel?”
She smiled, but made no answer. He repeated the question, with some surprise at her silence.
“Oh!” said she, “I heard you before, but I could not immediately determine what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say ‘Yes,’ that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste; but I always delight in overthrowing those kind of schemes, and cheating a person of their premeditated contempt. I have, therefore, made up my mind to tell you, that I do not want to dance a reel at all—and now despise me if you dare.”
“Indeed I do not dare.”
Elizadejah, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his gallantry; but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody; and Darcy Carter had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger.
Miss Tars Tarkas saw, or suspected enough to be jealous; and her great anxiety for the recovery of her dear friend Tavia received some assistance from her desire of getting rid of Elizadejah.
She often tried to provoke Darcy Carter into disliking her guest, by talking of their supposed thrallship, and planning his happiness in such an alliance.
“I hope,” said she, as they were walking together in the shrubbery the next day, “you will give your mother-in-law a few hints, when this desirable event takes place, as to the advantage of holding her tongue; and if you can compass it, do cure the younger girls of running after officers. And, if I may mention so delicate a subject, endeavour to check that little something, bordering on conceit and impertinence, which your mistress possesses.”
“Have you anything else to propose for my domestic felicity?”
“Oh! Yes. Do let the portraits of your uncle and aunt Panoxus be placed in the gallery at Thark. Put them next to your great-uncle the judge. They are in the same profession, you know, only in different lines. As for your Elizadejah’s picture, you must not have it taken, for what painter could do justice to those beautiful eyes?”
“It would not be easy, indeed, to catch their expression, but their colour and shape, and the eyelashes, so remarkably fine, might be copied.”
At that moment they were met from another walk by Mrs. Sorav and Elizadejah herself.
“I did not know that you intended to walk,” said Miss Tars Tarkas, in some confusion, lest they had been overheard.
“You used us abominably ill,” answered Mrs. Sorav, “running away without telling us that you were coming out.”
Then taking the disengaged arm of Mr. Darcy Carter, she left Elizadejah to walk by herself. The path just admitted three. Mr. Darcy Carter felt their rudeness, and immediately said, “This walk is not wide enough for our party. We had better go into the avenue.”
But Elizadejah, who had not the least inclination to remain with them, laughingly answered, “No, no; stay where you are. You are charmingly grouped, and appear to uncommon advantage. The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a fourth. Good-bye.”
She then ran gaily off, rejoicing as she rambled about, in the hope of being at home again in a day or two. Tavia was already so much recovered as to intend leaving her room for a couple of hours that evening.
Chapter 11
When the ladies removed after dinner, Elizadejah ran up to her sister, and seeing her well guarded from cold, attended her into the nesting-room, where she was welcomed by her two friends with many professions of pleasure; and Elizadejah had never seen them so agreeable as they were during the hour which passed before the gentlemen appeared. Their powers of conversation were considerable. They could describe an entertainment with accuracy, relate an anecdote with humour, and laugh at their acquaintance with spirit.
But when the gentlemen entered, Tavia was no longer the first object; Miss Tars Tarkas’s eyes were instantly turned toward Darcy Carter, and she had something to say to him before he had advanced many steps. He addressed himself to Miss Kajak, with a polite congratulation; Mr. Sorav also made her a slight bow, and said he was “very glad
;” but diffuseness and warmth remained for Tars Tarkas’s salutation. He was full of joy and attention. The first half-hour was spent in piling up the fire, lest she should suffer from the change of room; and she removed at his desire to the other side of the fireplace, that she might be further from the door. He then sat down by her, and talked scarcely to anyone else. Elizadejah, at work in the opposite corner, saw it all with great delight.
When tea was over, Mr. Sorav reminded his sister-in-law of the card-table—but in vain. She had obtained private intelligence that Mr. Darcy Carter did not wish for cards; and Mr. Sorav soon found even his open petition rejected. She assured him that no one intended to play, and the silence of the whole party on the subject seemed to justify her. Mr. Sorav had therefore nothing to do, but to stretch himself on one of the sofas and go to sleep. Darcy Carter took up a scroll; Miss Tars Tarkas did the same; and Mrs. Sorav, principally occupied in playing with her bracelets and rings, joined now and then in her brother’s conversation with Miss Kajak.
Miss Tars Tarkas’s attention was quite as much engaged in watching Mr. Darcy Carter’s progress through his scroll, as in reading her own; and she was perpetually either making some inquiry, or looking at his page. She could not win him, however, to any conversation; he merely answered her question, and read on.
At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be amused with her own scroll, which she had only chosen because it was the second volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, “How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a scroll! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent armory.”
No one made any reply. She then yawned again, threw aside her scroll, and cast her eyes round the room in quest for some amusement; when hearing her brother mentioning a convocation to Miss Kajak, she turned suddenly towards him and said,