CHAPTER XXV.
When Captain De Crespigny called two days after this at St. John'sLodge, to take leave before setting out for Yorkshire, he looked soabsent and so agitated, that Agnes became quite elated and flattered bywhat she attributed to his unconquerable regret at being obliged totake so long a leave of herself. She even forgave him for enquiringalmost immediately what had become of Marion, and answered withcareless vivacity, "She is gone to her favorite home at Portobello.Marion perfectly idolises her uncle. I should require to attend aseries of lectures on naval tactics, and to take a course of nauticalnovels for a month, before I could get on with the Admiral as she does!My sister talks about the battles of Trafalgar and Camperdown, as ifshe had fought at them herself, but really somehow or other, I nevercan find a word for good, worthy sir Arthur!"
"And yet," observed Sir Patrick, "you never seem very much at a lossfor conversation, Agnes, when I have the pleasure of seeing you! It isyears, countless years, since I have entered his house, or since he hasentered mine; but suppose we go down together some day, and cut outMarion at once, by doing the agreeable in our very best and mostfascinating style!"
"If my uncle Doncaster were such a man, I should certainly make up tohim greatly!" said Captain De Crespigny, in a tone more than commonlyin earnest. "It would be well worth your while to try."
"Sir Arthur has nothing to leave! you are quite mistaken there!"replied Agnes, inadvertently. "When we were perfect children, and allon the very best terms, he used to say that it would be quite enoughfor an old sailor like him, if he could bequeath us his watch andenough to bury him! As Pat says, he might make his will on histhumb-nail. Oh! rest assured he has nothing to leave!"
"I did not suppose he had," continued Captain De Crespigny, gravely. "Asmall income in his liberal hand has done more good than the verylargest in any other person's. It is an odd phenomenon in nature, thatthe lightest purse always is the most open to others, while the heaviera purse grows the more its mouth becomes contracted! A sort ofspasmodic affection, I think!"
"I wonder if it will ever be engraved on people's tomb-stones how muchthey die worth?" said Agnes. "That would be all the good many peoplecan ever get by their wealth, and what they are much more proud of, inthis mercenary world, than of any personal good qualities."
"Young ladies are for ever working me purses, and I have nothing to putin them!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, throwing his own up in the air, andcatching it again. "Sir Arthur and I are both fighting under the bannerof poverty now; and that one word expresses in a small compass allearthly annoyance."
"Oh, no! There are many things worse!" exclaimed Agnes magnanimously."What a vulgar, low, mercenary idea! so like you, Patrick!"
"Thank you, Agnes! If your good opinion were worth a farthing, I shouldgrudge to have lost it!"
"But Dunbar! _revenons a nos moutons_," interrupted Captain DeCrespigny, trying to look indifferent. "Surely there is no just causeor impediment why we may not ride down to Portobello this morning, andcall on good, worthy Sir Arthur together. It is a perfect disgrace tous both that we never go near his house, much as I always haverespected him, and always shall."
"This is a very sudden fit of cordiality! When did you feel the firstsymptoms coming on?" asked Sir Patrick drily, while Agnes beganvehemently winding some skeins of silk. "Let me feel your pulse, DeCrespigny. I am ready to bet your uncle against mine--and the odds areconsiderable--that half an hour since, you would no more have thoughtof paying a P.P.C. visit to old Sir Arthur, than to Lord Nelson'smonument. My dear fellow, I know you--and you ought to know me betterthan to suppose me capable of paying a dull, penitential visit there!"
"Well, be it so! This is no time for me to recommend disinterestedattentions, Dunbar, as I am on wing for Yorkshire, obliged during awhole long dreary month to play the amiable! Did you ever try thatexperiment, Miss Dunbar?"
"Of being amiable? no, never! I am not come to that yet! Wheneverpeople mention a young lady as being amiable, you may depend upon itshe has nothing better to recommend her. I leave mere hum-drum goodqualities to such people as Clara Granville."
"Omit her in your conversation altogether, Agnes! I told you already,that she must never be named here," interrupted Sir Patrick, with angryvehemence. "Why will you continually intrude that family on ourconversation?"
"I do not, Patrick. I beg leave to deny the honorable gentleman's lastassertion! It is three days at least since I have so much as namedClara Gran----"
Before Agnes could finish her sentence, Sir Patrick, always afraid totrust his temper when irritated, as he knew the hurricane to be fearfulif allowed to rage, had strode to the door, and burst out of the room,as if the very house were scarcely large enough to hold him. This_denouement_ Agnes had confidently anticipated, being perfectly awarethat her brother never withstood a second repetition of Clara's name,therefore she had artfully tried the experiment of producing anexplosion, which might at any hazard expel him, and secure to herself a_tete-a-tete_ leave-taking with Captain De Crespigny, from whom shenow confidently anticipated a formal declaration.
When Sir Patrick's angry footsteps died away in the distance, it wasnot without some real agitation, therefore, and a great deal moreassumed, that Agnes allowed her long, dark eye-lashes to droop over hercheek, and called up a rather ostentatious blush, while she sat forseveral minutes in silent embarrassment; but though Captain DeCrespigny assumed his most fascinating expression, he seemed resolutenot to begin the dialogue; and while affecting to be considerablyembarrassed himself, an arch smile nevertheless glittered in his eye,and played about his mouth.
"Is it true," asked Agnes, at length, in a subdued voice, and withoutlooking up, "that you are actually going for some months to-morrow? Imust tie a knot on my pocket handkerchief, not to forget you during solong an absence."
"I would much rather tie a knot of a different kind," said Captain DeCrespigny, in his usual rallying tone. "But necessity has no law.Going, going, gone! Positively the last time! Knocked down to MissDunbar. A great bargain. The best article on hand."
"You are an admirable auctioneer, and shall dispose of me next," saidAgnes, laughingly selecting a rose-bud from her bouquet. "I must giveyou something to take away, very beautiful, and which I am sure youwill like."
"That must be yourself, then," replied Captain De Crespigny, lookingmost cruelly charming. "I hear the young ladies are all to wear blackcrape on their left arm after my exit. I did expect a public dinnerfrom them, but that is too common-place. My tailor received one latelyon removing from one street to another, and the waiter at Carlisle onretiring from his profession. I wonder nobody ever voted me atestimonial. My speech on the occasion would be exquisite."
"Patrick thinks you very much addicted to make speeches," repliedAgnes, with sly emphasis. "I suppose, as you are setting out sosuddenly, that Lord Doncaster is seriously ill now. A number of oldpeople have died off lately. He must be two hundred at least, for Ihave heard of him so long! I remember three years ago hearing that hismemory had failed."
"Not at all--not in the very least. He thinks himself younger andhandsomer every year. He is actually addicted still to flirtation inall its branches. He told me the last time we parted, that many ladies,if he chose, would prefer him to me. Perhaps they might. I dare say hewas in the right. We never grow old in our family--never! and we haveall excellent memories," continued Captain De Crespigny, fixing hisdangerous eyes on Agnes. "Mine will be stored with many never-to-beforgotten recollections of the last few months, 'remembered,' as publicorators say, 'till the latest moment of my existence.' Memory has putall these scenes in her pocket for me, to be enjoyed hereafter; and howdelightful would a life-time be, made up of such hours as I have spentin this house! I feel myself striking root in it, like a cutting ofgeranium!"
"Indeed!" replied Agnes, smiling most benignly; "geraniums are verygreat favorites of mine--very great, indeed--so I wish you weremetamorphosed into one."
"If all the events of life could be modelled on a plan of my
own, whata pleasant little place the world would be!" said Captain De Crespigny,admiring the polish of his boots. "I might then continue here some timelonger, as a volunteer in the corps of your victims, who are asnumerous now as a disbanded army. Do pray let us call over themuster-roll of your admirers and count them. I could die in my chairwith curiosity to know how many they are!"
"Not above three or four cases of life and death!" said Agnes,laughing. "But you jest at scars who never felt a wound."
"I most heartily sympathize with them all," replied Captain DeCrespigny, with an extra-sentimental sigh. "I have gone through everysorrow of life myself--outraged affections, and all that sort of thing.You cannot conceive, Miss Dunbar, how like we victims are sometimes tothe frog in the fable, inflated with empty hopes."
"I must shut my eyes to that."
"Your eyes should never be shut. They are much too beautiful! Withrespect to your admirers, they might say, like the weather-cock to thewind, '_Si vous ne changez pas, je suis constante!_' The whole worldhas been pulling caps for you all winter, and you pretend to havelimited yourself to three or four victims! Impossible! You areconcealing the half of them! Forgetting Captains A----, B----, C----,and D----. I have as many young ladies as that dying for me. Now, dolet us run over an authentic list of their names. Show me all yourcourt-yards at once. I could bet the finest camellia at Loddige's, thatyou do not name them all."
"Who shall I say?" exclaimed Agnes, getting up an extempore blush, andher archest smiles. "I have a most inhospitable memory for bores, andshall forget two-thirds of them. Captain Digby, slightly wounded;Colonel Meade, pierced through the heart; Captain O'Brien, slowlyrecovering; Mr. Deveril, despaired of; Lord Wigton,----"
"Killed outright!" interrupted Captain De Crespigny. "You mention himin rather a more relenting tone than the rest, like Bonaparte, when hewept over one wounded man, alter condemning hundreds to death. But youare come to a period already. Is there no other worthy of remembrance?"
"Only one, whom I cannot name!" replied Agnes, turning away. "Last, butnot least."
"Ah! some poor fellow with nothing, I suppose--waiting, perhaps, forthe death of a rich relation; but those tiresome old bores always livefor ever, and a day besides. Whoever he is, let me advise you not tothink of him; a man should as soon ask the sun in the hemisphere towait for him, as a young lady in the full blaze of her beauty andattractions. No, no, Miss Dunbar, take my advice. Be like time andtide. I have a real cousinly interest in your welfare, and should bedelighted, on my return, to find this room fragrant with cake, andglittering with favors. I shall come down on purpose, if you ask me! Ipositively shall!"
If a look could kill, Captain De Crespigny must have withered awaybeneath the glance of Agnes' eyes, which streamed with indignantflashes of anger and surprise; but unconscious, apparently, of beingotherwise than most agreeable, he continued, in his most captivatingmanner.
"I must be off now to Macleay's. Half a dozen friends are dying toobtain a likeness of me, and a deputation of ladies made me promiselately to sit for them. I wonder what can induce me to take so muchtrouble," added he, with a gay, triumphant laugh. "The painter is quiteafraid he shall be robbed and murdered for it."
"Humility is not certainly your cardinal virtue," said Agnes, with alook of angry scorn, which few could have withstood. "You cultivate anextensive acquaintance."
"Very! I must really see whether people can be induced to cut me, forit is exceedingly troublesome. I know sixty-four families with threeyoung ladies in each. It would puzzle the calculating machine to makeout how many that amounts to. But, meantime, I must unwillingly say themost hateful of all words--farewell. I have been putting off time here,expecting Dunbar for the last half hour, though little able to affordso many minutes. My idiot of a watch must surely be too slow, or yourbrother would have been back about the sale of mad Tom. I have twentyminds to buy him, if Dunbar did not ask so very long a price."
"You are intending, I believe," asked Agnes, "to enter him for the--theChiltern Hundreds?"
"Not exactly! but the Doncaster St. Leger. He would be the first horsein that line, though asses are perfectly accustomed to them. Goodmorning! _au revoir!_ I mean to Londonize for a few weeks, then go toParis, and afterwards disperse myself over every corner of theuncivilized globe. Can I do anything for you anywhere? Geneva velvets?Parisian bonnets? Swiss muslins? I am at your service in every quarterof the world. May I beg my very best regards to your sister."
So saying, Captain De Crespigny bowed himself out of the room, withvery much the air of a popular actor who expects three rounds ofapplause, and Agnes having, with a face as unmoved as if it had beenenamelled, coldly given him her hand, with an ill-supported smile onher quivering lip, wished him a pleasant journey, and turned almosthaughtily away; a bolt of ice seemed to have fallen upon her heart, andin that small moment was comprised the agony of ages; but the greatestwonder in nature is the entire self-command given to many, andespecially to women, by means of which they can hear what involves thehappiness of a life-time, and yet betray no visible emotion.
The strongest feelings on earth never are discovered. Feeble minds canconceal nothing, but those who have strength of mind to suffer mostdeeply, are those who have strength of mind also to hide what they doendure. On slight occasions, Agnes was a most accomplished fainter; butnow, having stood, with a specious smile on her countenance, till thedoor had finally closed, she rushed to the privacy of her own room, andclosed the door, then seating herself, in all the luxury of solitude,she meditated with silent astonishment on all that had passed.
No coroner's inquest can be summoned on a deceased flirtation, andwhether it die a natural death or a violent one never can be known, asit may be caused merely by some trifling oversight, perhaps by thecruel aspersion of an enemy, or simply by whim and caprice, as in thiscase seemed the most probable, and to Agnes the most mortifying.Wounded in all her most sensitive feelings, a crowd of angry anddepressing thoughts crowded into her brain, while she could not butfeel that the arrows which had struck her were most cruelly barbed andmost skilfully aimed. It was harrowing to her vain, proud spirit, toimagine that Captain De Crespigny could really be indifferent. Itseemed, indeed, almost impossible! Could his carelessness be allassumed! Had he, indeed, an honorable scruple of engaging her upon theuncertainty of his uncle's demise. It might be so. Agnes felt thatentire despondency would come soon enough, if come it must; and anxiousto believe in Captain De Crespigny's attachment, she seemed nowresolved to keep up the farce with herself a little longer. She feltcertain that he had cast back a look of regret on leaving the room,which spoke volumes, and these volumes she filled up according to herown imagination. The parting had, perhaps, been as painful to CaptainDe Crespigny as to herself, but what could he do if Lord Doncasteralways continued to be the "undying one," standing in the way of theirmutual happiness. Agnes now lived over every scene which had passedbetween herself and her supposed lover. She could not imagine thosefeelings expressed to any other which seemed created by herself alone.She recapitulated all his civilities to herself, remembered how hislast sigh had been sighed, how his last look had been looked; and,after a glance at the mirror, which proved as usual an effectualsafety-valve to any feelings of mortification, she became at lastrestored to the agreeable conviction, that the most considerate,self-denying, and constant of lovers was Captain De Crespigny.
"And," exclaimed Agnes, with another triumphant glance at the mirror,"as he said only yesterday, '_on peut fuir sans oublier_.' Let himadmire any other if he can!"
I'll still believe that story wrong, Which ought not to be true.
Modern Flirtations: A Novel Page 26
