Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  “An elopement!” cried the terrified Mr. Price, looking as if he saw canons, both military and ecclesiastical, ready to be discharged at his head. “Are you mad, William? Have I not absolutely received notice from both Sir Charles and Mr. Steyton, that my services would be required to perform the holy ceremony of matrimony between their children in my own parish church? Have I dreamed all this, or am I dreaming now, when I fancy that my own son is standing before me proposing an elopement with the bride?”

  “I do not wonder, Sir, that you should think that you are dreaming; I am sure I can hardly help thinking so myself,” replied William, very respectfully — for no children could have been more admirably brought up than those of Mr. Price; “ but still, I give you my word of honour, Sir, that if you will only give me your approbation and assistance, it is I who will be married to the heiress, and not Mr. Herbert Otterborne.”

  “William!” returned his father, solemnly, “I have never known you say what is untrue, nor have I ever known you to disobey me in any way; and I now command you to tell me the real truth, and nothing but the truth. Has Emily Steyton agreed to elope with you?”

  “Yes, Sir, by all I hold sacred, she has agreed to elope with me; and so sure is she that her indulgent father and mother would give her instantly permission to please herself, that her only reason for eloping with me secretly, instead of asking their consent to the marriage, is that she fears it might be the means of getting her father into a quarrel with Sir Charles. For the clear girl assures me, Sir, that it was entirely Sir Charles that made the match on account of her fortune, and she says, clear creature, that it would be very hard for her to be forced to marry a man who she is very sure does not care for her at all, instead of marrying one who loves her as devotedly as I do.”

  “It would, indeed! It would, indeed!” murmured Mr. Price, walking up and down the room with a rapid step, and holding both his hands to his forehead in a state of very evident agitation.

  “I cannot bear, Sir, to cause you all this violent emotion and alarm!” said his son, looking very piteously in his face; “but what can I do? If it were a mere common attachment, I do assure you that I would try to overcome it, rather than agitate you in this dreadful way. But the attachment being so perfectly mutual, and our both of us feeling so extremely certain that we can neither of us ever love anybody else, makes it really quite impossible, my clear father, that we can give it up! Besides, you know, Sir, that the match must be considered a very good one for me, and I was therefore in hopes that you would not oppose it so very much.”

  “Oppose it! Mercy on me, what nonsense you are talking, William!” replied the father. “Who ever thought of opposing it? Do not I know, and would not your poor clear mother know, if she were consulted, that one might as well attempt to stop the sea and keep out the tide, as oppose the attachment of two self-willed young people like you and Miss Steyton? Believe me, William, I know human nature too well to make any such attempt. Alas! I only know too well that I must let things take their course! — And Heaven knows neither Mr. Steyton, nor the Otterbornes either, can ever say that I had anything to do with it! But how do you think Sir Charles will bear it, William?”

  “Upon my word, my clearest father, I can’t tell. But our attachment is too deep-seated and sincere to permit our thinking about other people. About you, however, my dear father, we have thought, and that is the reason that we decided upon an elopement, because that will prove to everybody that you cannot know anything about it.”

  “You are quite right. Say no more about it! I do know nothing about it, and I will know nothing about it; nor your poor clear mother either. I insist upon it that she should know nothing, — nothing whatever on the subject. You are of age, “William, you are of age, and I have no longer any right to interfere. Neither do I interfere, nor will I. Go, go, my dear boy! You have been talking a great deal of wild nonsense, I believe, and I really understand nothing about it — nor will I.”

  All this was said very rapidly, and with a constant and rather vehement action of the rector’s two hands, which action seemed to signify a wish or intention to turn his son out of doors as speedily as possible.

  “I will go, Sir! I will go, Sir!” said the obedient and penitent-looking son. “But, angry as you are with me, you cannot have the heart to turn me from your doors penniless! Give me, as an alms, my dear father, what you may think sufficient to support me for a few days, and when I appear before you again, I trust that your indulgent heart will lead you to forgive all my faults, and that you will receive me with a blessing.”

  There was something approaching a little to playful in the expression of the happy boy’s eye as he said this, but the countenance of his reverend father was very solemnly grave; nevertheless, it was with a hasty and a hurried action that Mr. Price, the elder, drew forth his cheque-book from his desk, and wrote a draft upon his Hertford banker for one hundred pounds. This being the second draft of precisely the same amount drawn in the parish of Weldon within a few hours, almost, of each other, and both with the same object in view, namely, the paying for the post-horses which were to convey the beautiful Emily Steyton to Gretna Green. And to make this remarkable coincidence the more complete, both the happy young gentlemen who received the said drafts had been received themselves as the accepted lover of the heiress, so that they might truly have been said to have started fair. Nevertheless there was one very essential difference between them, namely, that the one was false, and the other true, and if the silly beauty fell to the lot of the true lover and escaped the false loon, as the finale of her chance-medley love affairs, she was as lucky a beauty, and as lucky an heiress, as ever lived.

  CHAPTER XLIV

  SCARCELY did Lady Otterborne find herself alone than she began to blame herself for having promised Mrs. Mathews to delude her son by telling him that she was more ill than she really felt herself to be. Her conscience told her that this was wrong in every way; first, in uttering an untruth to him who, under her own guidance, had been taught to abhor falsehood; and next, in endeavouring to persuade one, who loved her more dearly than any other human being in the world, that she was suffering when she did not suffer.

  But, nevertheless, she was far from either intending or wishing to break her promise to Mrs. Mathews; for not only was it a promise — and for that reason to be held sacred — but it was one which, in her heart, she knew she should keep joyfully; for not all the obvious and manifold advantages which the noble fortune of Miss Steyton would bring, could heal the deep wound which the idea of her son’s being so mated had given to her heart.

  Instead, however, of going to bed and feigning sickness as an excuse for the delay which she had promised to obtain, she sent for Herbert from the library, where, as usual, he had ensconced himself, when the following conversation took place between them.

  “I am afraid, my dear Herbert,” said she, “that I shall startle you by a request which I am going to make — nor is that the worst part of the business, for not only will my request be startling, but it will have the still more disagreeable quality of being mysterious.”

  “Be it what it may, mother,” replied the young man, affectionately, “it is already granted. I do not believe that it is in your power to ask anything which I should refuse.”

  “And for that very reason, my dearest Herbert, I ask it with a feeling of reluctance. But I, too, have given a promise, and I must keep it. I have promised a very valued friend both of yours and mine that I would contrive, by some means or other, to postpone the fulfilment of your engagement to Miss Steyton.”

  Herbert changed colour very perceptibly, a deep flush mounting to his very temples. “And you may not tell me from whence this strange counsel comes?” said he.

  “No, Herbert, I may not,” was Lady Otterborne’s reply; “but you will not think it likely that I should make myself a party to so strange a mystery had I any doubt of the trustworthiness of the individual who enforced it upon me.”

  “True, dearest mother
! true,” he eagerly replied. “This ought, to satisfy me; and it does. And why should I attempt to conceal from you that this breathing time is very welcome to me?” he added— “welcome, in spite of myself, and of some not quite idle fears which press upon me, that the delay you speak of may be inconvenient to my father; for it is in vain to deny, dear mother, that the large fortune will be a great help to the estate.”

  “But you are one of the last of men I know, Herbert, whose choice of a wife would be influenced by such a motive; at least I used to think so,” she added, mournfully.

  Poor Herbert was silent, and looked deeply distressed, for he, too, had his mystery; and though his concealing the pressing claims of his father’s creditors was the result of affection as watchful and tender as that of a mother guarding her child from suffering, he almost felt that such concealment cost more than it was worth.

  The present moment, however, was decidedly not a fitting one to alter his conduct in this respect; and he replied, that probably all human acts and deeds were produced by mixed motives; and she, too, as it seemed, did not wish to enter upon any discussion of the feelings and motives which had influenced his selection of the beautiful and wealthy Emily for a wife; so after the silence of a moment, she returned to the subject of the mysterious delay that had been enforced upon him, and asked him in what way he thought it would be best to obtain it.

  “On that point, mother, there will be no difficulty,” said he; “for though I consider Emily Steyton to be essentially a very innocent girl, she certainly is a great flirt; and let the final issue be what it may, I see no objection whatever to my expressing to her father my doubt whether the partiality with which she honoured me continues. I think I will go abroad for a week or two, my dear mother; and this I have done so frequently that people may fancy, perhaps, that business of some kind or other may render my doing so necessary. If you will lend me the use of your writing-desk for five minutes, I will write my epistle to Mr. Steyton, and show it to you.”

  There was a degree of alacrity, and almost of hilarity, in poor Herbert’s manner as he said this, which showed plainly enough that whatever his mixed motives might be, no very passionate degree of love could make a part of them; but his mother seemed to share his present feelings, let their source be what it might, for it was with a smile that she complied with his request, placing all necessary implements for writing most conveniently within his reach.

  The composition of his epistle did not take him long, for it only contained the following lines:

  “MY DEAR SIR,

  “As nothing would be so painful to me as the idea that your daughter should, from a feeling of honour, consider herself bound by an engagement, which I have had some reason to think she may consider as having been formed too hastily, I think it may be better for us both that she should be allowed a little more time before this engagement is rendered indissoluble. She is very young, and I think, dear Sir, that you must agree with me in thinking that she ought not to be hurried in a matter of such importance. That her decision on this important subject may be perfectly unbiassed, I shall go for a week or two into Belgium, and may, perhaps, revisit some of my favourite spots upon the Rhine. But my mother will always know where a letter will find me; and whenever Miss Steyton wishes to recal me, she cannot doubt that I shall be ready to obey.

  “Believe me, my dear Sir,

  “Very faithfully yours,

  “HERBERT OTTERBORNE.”

  Having read this letter to his mother, and received her sanction for sending it, he held it in his hand for a minute or two, and looked wistfully in her face. He was, in truth, at that moment very strongly tempted to open his whole heart to her, and the name of Janet was on his lips; but he remembered the concluding clause of the letter he held in his hand, and prudently determining to persevere in the reserve he had so rigorously imposed upon himself, he rose and left the room without speaking a word.

  Lady Otterborne felt as much as he did that the time of then being really confidential was not yet come; but she was sadly disappointed, too; for there was sympathy between them, and the name of Janet Anderson was on her lips as well as on his.

  The transmission of Herbert’s letter to the hands of Mr.

  Steyton did not take long, and that consequential gentleman received it himself as he stood on the steps of his portico waiting for his horses to be brought round for his morning ride to Hertford.

  The day for the approaching marriage of his daughter had not yet been definitively fixed, and upon seeing the approach of a servant in the Otterborne livery, he immediately concluded that the message he brought would probably decide that doubtful point. It was, therefore, with considerable eagerness that he broke the seal, well pleased to think that he should know all about it before he went into the town.

  His disappointment, his astonishment, and his rage, as he read Herbert’s epistle, were about equal; and he rushed back into the house, and into the room where he knew he should find his daughter, in a state of very vehement excitement indeed.

  Emily was sitting in a very meditative and lovelike sort of an attitude, with her whole length stretched upon the largest and longest sofa in the room, and her arms thrown over her head, with her interlaced fingers resting on her forehead.

  “Here’s what I get, Miss Emily!” he exclaimed, in a voice that would have frightened her, if she could have been frightened at anything; “here’s what I get when I offer to take up with a ruined baronet, when I know I might have had almost any lord in the land! But it was all for true love forsooth, and I was to consent to everything, because you were so desperately fond of each other. Read that, Miss!”

  Emily lazily stretched out her hand, and took the letter.

  She had been studying the minute before to find out the best way of giving her papa and mamma a hint that she was not quite so much in love with Herbert Otterborne as she had been; for she had a sort of notion that it would be better to give them a slight hint of this, before they should hear that she had eloped with dear good William Price; but she did not exactly know how to set about it.

  But this letter from Herbert was almost like a miracle worked in her favour, and her satisfaction being considerably greater than her discretion, she sprang up the moment she had read it, and throwing her arms round her father’s neck gave him a violent hug.

  Mr. Steyton, who had no doubt in the world that this vehement emotion on the part of his daughter was the result of despair, was on his side in so violent a rage, that he stamped with, his feet on the ground like a madman, repeating the words, “Confound him! confound him! confound him!” with tremendous vehemence.

  Whereupon Emily burst into a shout of laughter, exclaiming, “Who? dear papa, who? Who do you want to be confounded?”

  “My dearest darling! are you delirious?” cried the doting and terrified father. “Don’t laugh in that wild way, my precious child! The villain! The monster!”

  “Who, father? who?” reiterated Emily, who did all she could not to laugh again. “Who are you talking about, papa? Not about that dear good darling, Herbert Otterborne, I hope?”

  “DEAR GOOD DARLING!” ejaculated Mr. Steyton, with a groan. “You have not read his letter then, my poor child? It is all owing to that moonlight walk! Oh Emily! Emily! The whole comity will say you have been refused. You have not read this dreadful letter yet.”

  “Yes, indeed, I have, papa,” she replied; “and I think it is the most dear, darling letter I ever read in my whole life. I can’t tell you how happy it has made me!”

  “Happy!” returned her puzzled father; “why how long ago is it that you told me that it was impossible you could live, if I did not let you marry Herbert Otterborne?”

  “Oh, dear, dear papa! that was such a monstrous time ago, and I was so very young then, that I did not know my own mind! Please to remember that, papa!” she replied.

  “And now, then, I suppose you are going to tell me that you are old enough to have fallen in love with somebody else. But don’
t tell me that it is the audacious puppy that walked off with you by moonlight. Don’t tell me that it is that audacious Cornington!”

  All Emily’s inclination to laugh seemed to leave her in a moment; she first turned pale, and then fiery red.

  “Don’t talk to me of that horrid monster!” she exclaimed. And then, perceiving that her father looked very seriously frightened by her vehemence, she kissed him again, but more gently, and added in her very wisest manner, “Don’t be afraid of my ever falling in love with Mr. Stephen Cornington, papa! If you and I never quarrel till that comes to pass, we shall live and die the same good friends that we are now, dear papa. I know I am but a young girl, and a great fool; but the next time you hear of my falling in love, it won’t be with such a creature as Stephen Cornington. A girl may be a very great fool, indeed, papa, and yet not quite such a great fool as that. Besides, I like old friends better than new ones; now, for instance, papa, I love Louisa Price dearly! I love her as if she was my own sister!”

  “Well, my dear, and a very nice friend she is for you, and as well-behaved a young lady as I know anywhere. So, now, my darling, I must leave you, and take my ride, or else I shall have no appetite for my dinner. And about young Otterborne, it strikes me that he is too modest by half, and that you must answer his letter yourself, and make it as kind as you possibly can, to encourage him.”

  And having said this, the portly gentleman was retiring from the room, apparently in a much more comfortable frame of mind than when he entered it; but Emily stopped him by another hug, and by saying, in the most coaxing accents possible, “No, dear pa, please! Don’t make me write any letters to Herbert Otterborne! I know I am a fool; but, nevertheless, I am wiser than I was, for I was a greater fool still when I told you I was in love with him. I did not mean to tell a lie about it, I am sure. I never do mean to tell lies when I can help it. But it is only lately, papa, that I have found out my mistake. — And I daresay Herbert’s letter means that he has found it out too; and I think he has behaved most beautifully about it.”