But Kitty was for once undaunted by a denial, and gently persevered: “And I have never yet thanked you as I ought, for all the days you have spent reading to me, and talking to me, when I felt so low, and must have been a sad, unsatisfactory sort of object to care for. It was not that I did not feel grateful, but I was so miserable in myself, that I could not seem to keep my mind from dwelling on my own troubles long enough to consider how greatly I must be adding to the ones of those around me.”
This was nonsense; an easier, more appreciative invalid never existed than Kitty; and so Ann earnestly assured her. But Kitty could not be happy until she had asked, and received, “dear Ann’s forgiveness for all her selfishness”; and even this did not completely content her, for when Ann, her emotions rather fluttered by this exchange, would have returned to the destruction of the Giant Maul as a means of providing them some space for recovery, Kitty was so clearly not attending, that she stopped after a few paragraphs, and laid aside the volume, preparing herself to grant any number of unnecessary absolutions.
But Kitty did not even speak for a time, and lay without looking at Ann, to whom it appeared she was breathing with increased distress. Ann did not, at this stage, have much fear of another attack, but she held her own tongue with difficulty, and kept a watchful eye on the bell-rope. She could not help starting when at last Kitty broke the silence, for she did so abruptly, more as if she could no longer refrain from giving voice to her thoughts, than as if she had any real desire to do so, with the consequence that sentences burst forth in some confusion, many of them no more than half-prepared, and sadly out of order.
“Did Stacey show you--” she began. “That is--I thought I heard--but I could have been mistaken--Did you--I wish I--Oh, Ann, I am afraid.” And in truth she looked so frightened that Ann rose and went to her side, urgently requesting the reason for her uneasiness. She returned Ann’s clasp with hands that trembled, but clearly struggled for more composure as she replied, “I think--it is Mr. Lenox. I heard someone at the front door; I am sure I did. He has come--to show her the letter.”
Ann began to share in Kitty’s trepidation, as she asked after the writer and contents of this obviously significant epistle.
“I wrote it,” was the disquieting reply. “I wrote it last night, as I could not sleep, and Stacey delivered it for me this morning. I had thought he might have told you of it, since you were here when he--you are so forbearing, Ann, you never ask questions--but you must have wondered what steps I would take--but I suppose he was in too great of a hurry to be away; I know it must have inconvenienced him dreadfully to come as he did, though he did not say it. There is a draft there, in Mama’s workbasket. I think it is not greatly dissimilar to the final letter. You may read it, if you wish.”
Ann did not await a second invitation. My reader may perhaps imagine the many sensations that fought within her breast as she retrieved a much-folded sheet of paper from under a box of silks, and walked with it over to the window. There, she opened it carefully, took in the first line, politely addressing Mr. Lenox, and with a final glance at Kitty, now lying back again with closed eyes, she read the following words, executed in an erratic hand that showed plainly the writer’s frailty and agitation:
“I did not wish to write this letter, but I find I must. I write concerning my sister Julia. Many gentlemen have claimed to love her, but I have known her nearly seventeen years, and have had a much better opportunity to come to the truest estimation of her worth and dearness, than those who know nothing of her but how well she dances, or how beautiful she looks when she is smiling at them. In the past, many of these gentlemen have caused her grief by declaring that they could only attain felicity in this life, if she made a decision which would almost certainly shipwreck her own. I was often very indignant against them, for requiring of her what she could not give without pain to herself. I was confident that I loved her better than they.
“I have recently been shown that perhaps I do not. I became afraid that I was in danger of losing Julia’s daily company, and by indulging my own feelings, promoted their assault on my health to such an extent, that I may have forced her to choose between her happiness and my own; and being Julia, she could not do otherwise than choose in my favor.
“I cannot tell you that Julia loves you. She has not opened her heart to me, because I did not want to see it. I can only say, that if my indisposition, my behavior, has in any way modified hers toward you, then I beg your forgiveness for it, and hers as well. I have been selfish; I am being selfish still, for I know that I cannot be truly happy, if she is not. More--I know she will not resent the preference--I find I would much rather live the rest of my life without her, beloved as she is, than with a bad conscience, the disappointment of my family, and the disapprobation of my God.
“And so, my patient rescuer, if it is indeed your desire to marry my sister, and to know what is in her heart toward you, I can do you no better office than to recommend that you come to Merrion House and give her this letter, and observe her as she reads it. You will at once be able to tell from her face, whether my wishing you success in your application (and I do, my dearest Julia, with all my heart) brings her delight, or consternation: for she has the truest, most honest face in the world, and her joy shines through in a manner that no one can mistake."
There was no signature on the draft. Ann folded up the letter, and then unfolded it again, scarcely knowing what she did. Her eyes flew to the bed; then to the door, longingly; then back to the bed, to find Kitty’s open, and fixed on her. Seeing Ann’s obvious anxiety to be gone, she actually essayed a wavering sort of smile, and said, “Go, then, Ann--see if he has really come. And--do not forget to return and tell me what you find.”
Never, since her fall, had Ann given so little thought to the descent of a staircase; she could not remember afterward if she walked, ran, or floated: certainly, when she at last stood outside the drawing-room, her heart beat as if she had raced there. She pressed her hand against her chest to calm it, and found she still held the letter; no matter. The door was ajar, but no sound came from within. Had Kitty’s ears--and fears--deceived her, or had Mr. Lenox gone first to see Mr. Parry in the library, or had he come and perhaps already gone? All these thoughts swept through Ann’s head as she reached for the door. She thought she heard her name called, very softly--but was she a well-trained dog, that she should respond to the sound of her name at such a moment as this? Her fingers touched the handle, she pulled it toward her; she advanced her head to peer around the corner--
Two ruthless hands grasped her above the elbows and lifted her away from the door, and as she was borne irresistibly toward the library a censorious voice hissed in her ear: “Miss Northcott! I am inexpressibly horrified! Have you no sense of Decorum? Of Dignity? Or, failing that, have you not the slightest twinge of Sensibility in your button-making soul?”
Ann was undismayed by Clive’s reproofs, and went with her captor with perfect docility, for in that one instant she had seen enough: a gentleman standing (in a cinnamon-colored coat) with his back to the entrance, and Julia, facing him with a letter held forgotten in her hands, her tear-bright eyes raised to his, glowing like an illumination lit to celebrate the coming of peace to the whole earth forever and ever, and no attention to spare if the entire French Army had been peering around the door.
**
Epilogue
When a large gathering of like-minded persons is compelled, by the inclemency of the weather, to huddle within a single dwelling, there are few more congenial ways of spending an evening, than by hearing some work of literature read aloud by one of the party, to the general diversion of all. If it is an excellent work, a well-written work, a profound and edifying work of near genius, this is good; but if it is an inferior work of substantial inaccuracy, this is often, for many in the party, even better.
One cold evening, after the Parrys and their several guests had passed the greater part of two hours in this agreeable pastime, Clive spoke over
the general laughter to announce, that if any person in his family were ever to become famous, so that someone felt obliged to pen their history (it was a biography they were abusing at the time), he should prefer Ann to be the someone to take that task in hand.
“And why is that so?” asked Mr. Whitwood, a genial young man who had come to stay with the Northcotts for a fortnight, and had become a great favorite with the Parrys.
“Oh, because she is so delightfully partisan,” replied Clive. “She would magnify all our good qualities and present us as the most charming, witty, accomplished family that ever ennobled this earth by deigning to tread across it.”
“Surely not! I had taken Miss Northcott for such a sensible young lady.”
“That is but a facade. If you come to know her better you will discover that she is extremely impressionable. Indeed, it is a source of wonderment to me that our parents continue to allow us to associate with her, for despite our many attempts to display before her the more unpleasant aspects of our natures, she persists in attributing to us most improbable quantities of virtue. In the end, it cannot help but have a deleterious effect on our characters. And yet, here she is, established in our drawing-room as if she were a valued friend, instead of a corrosive agent with a demure face.”
“It must be her loyal ways,” said Lady Frances, smiling at Ann.
“Yes,” agreed Mr. Parry. “And Clive has failed to cite other qualities that Ann possesses, which admirably fit her for the role of biographer: one, that she fully atones for her softness in regard to our own faults, by adopting an attitude of ruthless severity toward everyone who would, in her judgment, cause us the least amount of inconvenience or bother; and also, that she is infallibly able to discover that every adverse circumstance that affects us has some origin in herself.”
“You are quite right, sir,” said Clive, smiling with the rest. “I beg Ann’s pardon; I did not do her justice; I had not thought. My word, I begin to see that it is a great pity that, unless Buonaparte does something foolish soon, and Stacey or Uncle Tor manage to distinguish themselves, we are not likely ever to have need of a biographer.”
“There is no difficulty about that,” Ann replied. “I assure you, I am able this minute to find a multitude of things to write about the inhabitants of Merriweather. Indeed, I can imagine no easier and pleasanter occupation than to fill several volumes on such a subject.”
“What, scribble off seven or eight volumes full of extravagant compliments and maiden flutterings, á la Richardson? I beg you will not. Wait at least, if you please, until something of interest occurs within our family, before you seek to immortalize us. I do not ask for a Mr. B., or even a Sir Hargrave--in fact, I positively refuse to countenance such disreputable persons anywhere near my sisters--but I do stipulate some event of at least moderate significance.”
“But we have had one, Clive. Julia has got married.” This, from Kitty, very quietly, from her corner.
But Clive objected to this, on the grounds that matrimony was not noteworthy in itself: it was committed all the time. He pointed out that just as no bookseller rushed to print an account of every robbery that took place, so they ought to practice the same restraint where matrimony was concerned, and not fill all the library shelves with volumes writ by persons of dubious talents, and inhabited by females bearing implausible names and unjust persecutions from their dastardly relations.
Ann commented that he had got somewhat away from the subject at hand, which was, the suggested history of his own sister, who was most certainly not possessed of an implausible name, or even one dastardly relation. “Though some of them,” added she, with a speaking look, “can, on occasion, be quite obnoxious.”
“I do not believe,” replied he, with an air of solemn consideration, “that I have ever read of a heroine flinging herself into the embrace of an ill-intentioned suitor in an effort to escape the witty badinage of a younger brother. It is an ingenious notion; perhaps you should attempt to set it down, before some other precipitate soul does so, and becomes known for the brilliant originality of her ideas.”
“Do not regard him,” said Lady Frances. “I would like very much to have a book written about Julia, especially by our own dear Ann.”
“If I were to undertake such a work, Lady Frances, I know exactly what it should be called: ‘The Marriage of Julia; or, How Ann Meddled.’ Or perhaps, more succinctly, ‘Friendship and Folly.’”
Everyone smiled, and then began laughing as Clive exclaimed, “But I forgot--I worry for nothing! It is impossible that such a tome will ever be launched upon the dark and inky seas that flow from Fleet-Street, for it must inevitably founder upon the shoals of its own analogies; sink under the weight of its own similes; and finally disappear, with a creaking groan, beneath the waves of its own metaphors.”
Lady Frances attempted to utter a rebuke, but she could not stifle her own mirth long enough to do so convincingly. Ann did not mind. She laughed with them, glad to see them so well entertained. But privately she thought, that because it dealt with Parrys, such a narrative must be of interest, even if, when all was said, it did concern nothing more uncommon that the transmutation of a young man and a young woman, into a husband and wife.
But of course, this might simply have been an instance of my partisanship displaying itself, and I must leave it to my readers to determine if I was right.
FINIS
##
Table of Contents
A Word of Explanation
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XL
Chapter XLI
Chapter XLII
Chapter XLIII
Chapter XLIV
Chapter XLV
Chapter XLVI
Chapter XLVII
Chapter XLVIII
Chapter XLIX
Chapter L
Chapter LI
Chapter LII
Chapter LIII
Chapter LIV
Chapter LV
Epilogue
Friendship and Folly: The Merriweather Chronicles Book I Page 37