Modern Flirtations: A Novel

by Catherine Sinclair

  CHAPTER XXXVI.

  Though the leaders of fashion have decided that it looks greedy andgormandizing to be punctually ready for dinner, yet, at the GranbyHotel, no sooner does the clock strike five than the bell rings, andthe instantaneous rush of company which then takes place towards thedining-room can only be compared to a congregation hurrying out ofchurch, or a flock of chickens in a poultry-yard assembling to be fed.Doors fly open,--guests are seen precipitating themselves headlong downstairs,--elderly matrons advance, leaning on their gouty, red-facedhusbands,--troops of marriageable daughters follow,--and solitarygentlemen are visible, strolling forward in all the unencumberedindependence of having no one to care for but themselves. Thenoise-meter then rises to a deafening pitch, when, to the din of ahundred tongues, is added the jingling of glasses, plates, knives, andforks, while the long serpent-like procession winds slowly into theroom, and gradually subsides into places.

  Amidst the moving mass of strangely mingled personages, Captain DeCrespigny had offered his arm to Marion, which she did not seem toobserve, but led forward Sir Arthur, while all eyes were turned uponAgnes, who walked beside Lord Doncaster, with burning cheeks anddowncast eyes, yet affecting to look superbly dignified.

  Sir Patrick, in the mean time, always on the _qui vive_ for variety andadventure, entreated Mrs. O'Donoghoe's permission to sit between herand the young lady under charge, who attracted his especial noticebecause she so obviously suffered from that apprehension of beingconspicuous, common to strangers on their first appearance at a publictable, and was dressed with a degree of plainness which amounted almostto eccentricity.

  "I lose no time in making new acquaintances here," whispered he asideto Mrs. O'Donoghoe, with a glance at her timid companion, who hadbecome a perfect aurora of blushes as she seated herself at the table."Our short visits at Harrowgate scarcely leave me five minutes to sparefor each new face."

  "Then I hope you do most of the conversation yourself, for I suspectthe young lady, who was placed under my _chaperonage_ by Mr. Crawford,is not so much accustomed to live upon airy nothings, and to run up_impromptu_ intimacies as you are."

  "The sooner she begins then, the better. I have a thousand things tosay to her!"

  "Perhaps she may not have time for above five hundred of them. You musttalk to her like a dialogue book, supplying both the questions and theanswers; for, as far as my experience goes, she seems to be shockinglysilent and nervous. Are you generally reckoned amusing?"

  "Everybody agrees in considering me so, and many people think me quitethe reverse, but I can be either the one or the other, on a moment'snotice."

  "Indeed! a little of both, and a great deal to spare! I imagine it alldepends on which way the wind blows!"

  "Exactly! I am sentimental in a westerly breeze,--cutting and sarcasticin an east wind,--noisy and boisterous in a northern blast,--and during'a southerly wind and a cloudy day,' the genius of nonsense takespossession of me so completely, that I have bestowed on myself theprivilege of saying whatever I think."

  "How shocking! I do not particularly fancy you in any of these moods!"

  "Adagio! do not condemn me yet! choose your own subject, concerts,sermons, pic-nics, dress, Harrowgate water, or the last new novel,nothing comes amiss to me! I mean soon to publish a weekly programme ofthe five or six subjects to which all conversation at the Granby isusually limited; a complete set of the questions invariably asked byall the visitors every day, with a sketch of the most appropriateanswers. For my own part, all my replies are given by rote, and it putsme out entirely, if the inquiry whether I have been at Ripley, comesbefore the question how I like the waters, or who was the last arrival,which is, _a propos_, the only subject on which I am not very wellinformed."

  Sir Patrick saying these words, gave a sly glance towards his lefthand, where the young _incognita_ sat, without apparently listening towhat passed, and as she seemed at the moment to be looking another way,Mrs. O'Donoghoe archly turned round the label on her bottle of wine, sothat the young baronet could read that it bore, according to custom,the name of its proprietor 'Miss Smythe.'

  Nothing could be a more complete balk to curiosity than such a name.Sir Patrick had already known seven Mrs. Smythes. His washerwoman wasMrs. Smith,--his sister's governess had been a Miss Smith,--twoCaptains in his own regiment had gloried in the name of Smyth,--and hisold Colonel's widow was Mrs. Smith. There was no individuality in thename, but a whisper had reached him in the morning that a Miss Smith,the authoress of several popular romances, was expected at Harrowgate,and a horrible apprehension crossed his mind that, young as she looked,this might actually be the culprit, his surmises respecting which hecould not but whisper to the laughing widow, adding, with a look ofcomical consternation--

  "Only think how my portrait will look in her next book! There is noescape, unless I faint away immediately and am carried out! We mustremain together now as long as I stay at Harrowgate, for no change ofplace is allowed. Even if you and I quarrel, there is no remedy! It islike connubial felicity, we are settled here permanently, for better orfor worse."

  "It might certainly be worse! I am tolerably resigned to my fate, for Isat till lately among the dullest set of hum-drum bores who ever ate apotato; but you are so clever, I always become clever in your company."

  "That is a novelty, I suppose?"

  "Why, for that matter, my mind is like a piano-forte, which requires tobe skilfully played upon," replied the widow, gayly. "I have often beenoffered large annuities by people, merely to live in their houses andentertain them, but lately I was in danger of falling into a state ofsensible, every-day dullness."

  "Impossible!"

  "You may doubt it--anybody would--but actually, yesterday, talking toLord Wigton, I was threatened with a fit of prosing! a thing I neverwas subject to, and I never heard it had been in our family! Whether doyou dislike most, a professed wit, or a professed proser, Sir Patrick?"

  "My favorite society is any old lady of seventy, who has met with greatmisfortunes!"

  "Well, I am not much upon that pattern, certainly, but fifty yearshence, we might make an appointment, perhaps, to meet here again."

  "How many succession of visitors will before then have flourished inthis house, and vanished. Even after the interval of one season, avisitor's return is like coming back from the grave. Nothing isremembered of either yourself or your cotemporaries. Guests, waiters,landlords, and even boots, have all disappeared."

  "Very affecting, indeed," said Mrs. O'Donoghoe; "but half the dinnerhas disappeared during that long moral discourse of yours, Sir Patrick.Among the transitory things in this house, pray enumerate, anothertime, the _entre-mets_ and vegetables."

  "Pardon me--these dishes re-appear only too often. I have known some ofthose pies intimately for several days. In our regiment, we called suchrevivals 'old clothes,' and it really is too bad treating ninetydeserving people so ill."

  "I should like to live upon the diet of a chameleon! Eating is a vulgarnecessity which the mind despises," observed Mrs. O'Donoghoe, helpingherself to a _pate_; "but some of the company here seem _ne pour ladigestion_, talking love and sentiment over a haunch of venison. Mr.Crawford tells me that an Indian dinner party lasts twelve hours, andpeople who sit down as thin as skeletons, rise from table quitecorpulent."

  "It certainly does require the aid of refined conversation to keep upour self-respect in a scene of such gormandizing. For my own part, Ilive upon anti-pastry principles, and am also a no-vegetable man; but Iwish haunches of venison had never been invented! I made fifteen mortalenemies by the last I carved in this house, because no one thought Ihad given him the best slice," observed Sir Patrick. "I wish all menlike old Doncaster, who eat more good things in a day than they say ina year, would dine alone."

  "But I think," said Mr. Crawford, "that the habit of meeting at mealsis one of our most excellent social customs! If each individual in afamily were merely to snatch a morsel when hungry, there would be nore-union, and often no intimacy among membe
rs even of the samehousehold. I like frequently to trace the usefulness of old establishedcustoms, which have been sanctioned by successive generations, becausethe advantages are always so much greater than they at first appear,that it has now become quite a sufficient reason for me to respect anycustom, when I find that it is an old one."

  "I take the liberty of thinking quite the reverse!" said Sir Patrick."Change is the very essence of enjoyment! change of habits, change ofcompany, and change of air, are all equally necessary, and I never havea guinea in the world without instantly getting it changed. That customwill make a scarcity of silver at the bank, when I marry the heiress,Miss Howard."

  "You!" exclaimed Mr. Crawford, his very wig standing on end withsurprise, while the young lady next him colored to the very tip of herfingers.

  "I beg your pardon," said Sir Patrick, turning to her with one of hismost winning smiles. "I thought you gave symptoms of speaking."

  A torrent of blushes being her only reply, he began to doubt whethershe had the faculty of speech at all, and having decided at last thatthe young lady was either a statue or an idiot, he turned to his moreaccessible neighbor, muttering in an under tone, "Mute as a fish! Anexhausted receiver! I never saw such a genius for shyness! Her verycap-strings are blushing! But about Miss Howard, my friend DeCrespigny, who was born and educated for the very purpose of marryinghis cousin, wishes me to take her off his hands, and if I could havesold myself, which I cannot, she might have done. I am told she is veryromantic, so he and I agreed once to get up an amicable duel for her,and after that I was to waylay the mad cousin who persecutes her, andhorse-whip him!"

  "Nothing like spirited beginning," said Mr. Crawford, in agonies ofrisibility, while the young lady on Sir Patrick's other side, after anevident struggle, during which the ever-deepening color in her cheekbecame perfectly scarlet, at length burst into an uncontrollable fit oflaughter, so full of fun and glee, that the young baronet instinctivelyjoined her, though amazed and perplexed beyond measure by the oddity ofher manner, and by her unspeakable silence. "Your love," added Mr.Crawford, "is to be more in the heroic than in the pastoral style."

  "Never was there a Captain of Huzzars so preternaturally in love atfirst sight, as I should have been. De Crespigny tells me she is firstcousin to Croesus! has land in every country, gold in every bank, themines of Golconda for a part of her portion, carries a million of moneyin each pocket, and changes horses three times in driving across herown estate! I should think myself rich to be five minutes in hercompany."

  "I see you are half in joke, and wholly in earnest," said Mrs.O'Donoghoe. "But some gentlemen certainly do speculate in matrimony,exactly as they would in the public stocks. So my poor husband used tosay before he left me so handsomely provided for. As for Miss Howard'shundred lovers, they will have but one idea amongst them--money! money!money!"

  "Love for an heiress certainly has the most solid of all foundations.How much better to be married for your fortune than for your dancing orsinging--your pedigree or connections! There can be no mistake inpounds, shillings, and pence! De Crespigny tells me she is said to benot only very rich, but very plain, therefore as people generally marrytheir opposites, we shall suit exactly."

  The timid young lady had now fallen into a perfect paroxysm of blushes,and an extraordinary twitching about her mouth betrayed the lastextreme of nervousness, though whether her agitation were not of arisible nature, Sir Patrick felt somewhat perplexed to decide,especially as she was seized with a fit of coughing which appearedalmost like laughter, while she hastily drank up the water in herfinger-glass, threw salt over her pudding, and committed a dozen ofabsurdities, which caused the young Baronet to ask himself whether shewere in possession of her fifty senses. A moment afterwards, SirPatrick felt his arm convulsively grasped by the young lady, as if forprotection, while a half-suppressed scream burst from her lips, and sheclung to him with an aspect of breathless terror, her lips parted, hercheeks livid, and her eyes almost startling from her head, as she gazedanxiously after the receding figure of a man who was hastily leavingthe room.

  Sir Patrick, when thus unexpectedly appealed to, started from his seatto offer assistance, though at a loss how to act, when, seeing MissSmythe's countenance become of a ghastly paleness, he rapidly pouredout a tumbler of water, and held it to her lips, proposing, at the sametime, to support her out of the room.

  "No, no! I am better here!" replied she, in trembling accents.

  "I--I need society! I am so nervous! It must have been some dreadfulmistake! Excuse me, I would rather remain!"

  Mr. Crawford, in the mean time, had rushed hastily out of the room;and, having now returned, he made a signal, as if desirous to escorther also; but to this implied proposal the young lady only answered byan almost imperceptible shake of the head, while she fixed her eyes onher plate, resolved, apparently, to remain stationary. To the greatsurprise of Sir Patrick, two tall footmen, in plain livery, now placedthemselves behind her chair; and, having afterwards closely followedher when the ladies retired to tea, they were observed lounging aboutin the lobby during the rest of that evening.

  "What could be the meaning of such a scene?" asked Mrs. O'Donoghoe, inan undertone of extreme curiosity. "Can you conceive, Sir Patrick, whythe young lady started in that extraordinary way?"

  "Yes!" whispered he confidentially. "I can explain, but do not mentionthis. It was because--she couldn't help it! There is a sublime mysteryof some kind at work here! I cannot dive into it! Suppose she were toturn out Miss Howard Smytheson _incog._!"

  "Oh no! that is impossible! Her aunt was coming with her, who is one ofmy most intimate friends!"

  Never had anybody so many most intimate friends, as Mrs. O'Donoghoe.Every person she met for half-an-hour, had the honor to be sodesignated, and if a gentleman were distinguished by the appellation,it was generally followed by a very plain insinuation that she hadrefused him. Of late, however, Mrs. O'Donoghoe had been more cautiousin such assertions, having been discredited in one of her manyforgeries on the bank of truth, by its being proved, that she boastedof a proposal from Mr. Crawford three weeks after it became known thathe was already engaged to his second wife. Such accidents happen,however, in the best-regulated families!