“I will, sir,” said Miss Louisa, gravely, and with evident embarrassment; “but I am sorry to say that I fear it is not so much as you may think necessary. My sister Matilda has got very little fortune, sir.”
A certain relaxation of the muscles about the eyes and mouth of Mr. Foxcroft might have shown a keen observer that the ardour of his feelings was relaxing too; but ere his words could make this manifest, the possibility occurred to him of his deeming a fortune sufficient under his present circumstances, which Miss Perkins might deem inadequate to the expectations of so dashing a personage as himself and he therefore replied, not with a frown, but a smile, as he looked round upon the neat little apartment, “Perhaps, my dear lady, your ideas may be less moderate than mine. Your mode of living at Brighton, and your comfortable home here, prove that you must have each of you a sum of money at your disposal by no means to be considered as contemptible.”
Miss Louisa shook her head. “That notion has deceived other gentlemen before you, Captain Foxcroft,” said she; “but the fact is, that the chief part, by far, of what we live upon belongs to me. I had three thousand pounds left to me by an uncle of my mother’s, a very little time after I was born, and so it went on, you know, growing more and more, till I came to be one-and-twenty; and soon after that our father and mother both died, leaving little or nothing behind them, because he was in an office, and that was what they lived upon. Matilda had all, however, which I am sure was very right and proper; but it did not come to above five hundred pounds altogether, and the interest of that is no very great matter. But my money, which is in the funds, as well as her little fortune, brings me in just two hundred a-year, and with that we contrive to live very comfortably, going to the sea every year, and me doing every thing I can, everywhere, to set off Matilda to advantage.”
While Miss Louisa made this long speech, Mr. Foxcroft sat with his eyes steadily fixed upon her; his countenance during the time undergoing several alterations, of which, however, she was in no degree aware — for the kind-hearted lady greatly disliked the task she was thus obliged to perform — and instead of meeting the lover’s varying eye, she kept her own steadily fixed upon the border of a night-cap that she was hemming with unbroken perseverance.
Just as she finished her oration Mr. Foxcroft rose, and, somewhat to her surprise, placed himself close beside her on the sofa. In fact, he sat very close beside her — for the sofa was a small one, and she had seated herself, as before stated, precisely in the middle of it; so, to make more room, she withdrew herself as far as the dimensions of the seat would permit, expecting, with considerable anxiety, the answer which he had thus approached her to make.
Nor did she wait long for the sound of his voice, though its accents came not, in any way, like what she had either feared, or hoped.
“Oh! do not, admirable Louisa! do not draw yourself away from me, as if you feared that I could do you injury by my too presumptuous approach! Alas! as yet you have no reason to fear me. You know not, as yet, the wild tumult into which you have thrown my soul! Never, no never, did the tongue of woman or of angel recount a story so calculated to pierce to the very centre of a noble heart, and hind it in chains for ever!”
“Sir!” ejaculated the startled Miss Perkins, without, however, having the very slightest conception of what he meant.
“Ay — so it is I shall be treated by you! I already see, and feel it all,” said Mr. Foxcroft, in a voice which seemed to indicate that his heart was nearly broken. “So it is I shall he treated! How can I expect it should be otherwise? How can I expect sympathy in feelings that can never be understood?”
“What DO you mean, sir?” cried Miss Louisa, squeezing herself up in the very furthest corner of the sofa, and looking at him very much, as if she thought he was going mad.
“Mean, Louisa, — what do I mean?” he replied, but in a tone so meek and gentle, as in a great degree to remove the personal terror of murder, ‘ under the influence of temporary excitement,’ which from some recent readings of newspapers had not unnaturally occurred to her. “You ask me what I mean, my too, too charming friend! Alas! I have no words to answer you! For how can I make known — how, by any language used by man, can I hope to explain the vehement revulsion of feeling which has taken place in my very heart of hearts since first I entered this fatal room?”
“Fatal, Mr. Foxcroft? Fatal!” exclaimed poor Miss Louisa, all her fears returning at hearing a word which she understood perfectly, and knew to mean something about death. “Indeed, sir, I must beg that you will not speak to me in such a manner as that. I dare say you don’t mean anything,” she added, from a feeling of compunction, as she marked the exceedingly tame, not to say tender, expression of his eyes, “but I am rather nervous, and you almost frightened me. However, I am quite sure you did not mean anything: so please to go on about Matilda, that I may let her know what you say.”
“Not mean anything! Gracious heaven! what a fate is mine!” exclaimed the gentleman. “Oh Miss Perkins! cease, for pity’s sake, cease to believe that in what I now say to you, I mean nothing. Be patient with me,” he added, gently taking her hand. “Think not that I mean to offend, think not that I mean to frighten you; but, oh! Louisa, there is that within my heart at this moment which must destroy me if I conceal it, and which may cause you to look unkindly on me were it to he revealed. I could not hear this, Louisa!” he continued, speaking rapidly, and as if to prevent her prematurely answering him; “I could not hear it. One frown, one angry look from you, would send me from you a raving maniac, — or stretch me at your feet a corpse!”
“Dear me, Mr. Foxcroft! I am afraid you are a very hasty man, and that isn’t what makes the best husband. But after all, sir, it is for my sister Matilda to decide, and not me. If you’ll be pleased to say at once whether your purpose is to go on with your offer now you have been told all particulars about her fortune, I will let her know it, and then my looks won’t have anything more to do with it.” In truth, the looks of Miss Louisa, as she uttered these words, were by no means so civil and so sweet as he had been used to see them; for she did not like the passionate way in which he talked, and could not help fearing that, determined as Matilda was to be married, it was not unlikely she might live to repent the not remaining single.
But Mr. Foxcroft either did not see, or did not heed her looks; for boldly passing his arm around her waist, he said, “I cannot leave you! I will not be banished thus harshly till at least I have made you know all that is passing in my heart. Let me tell you a story, sweet Louisa! and let me hear your own judgment on the facts I will lay before you. Will you listen to me, my gentle friend? Is this too much to ask?”
Miss Louisa was not used to being hugged, and she did not like it. She conceived it to be exceedingly coarse and ungenteel, even from a brother-in-law; but though very anxious to bring this puzzling interview to an end, she was so terrified at the idea that any rudeness on her part should send off Matilda’s odd-tempered lover in a huff, that she very civilly said, “I will hear any story, Captain Foxcroft, that you will please to tell me; only you ought to recollect that my sister Matilda must be in great suspense all this time, and so I think you ought to make it as short as you can: and besides, sir, I will be much obliged if you will please to take your arm away, because it makes me sit very uncomfortable.”
Mr. Foxcroft withdrew his arm, while with the other he made a flourish in the air that ended by slapping his forehead in a manner which inferred great mental suffering, and then changing his place to a chair, which he drew to a point exactly opposite to the lady, he thus addressed her.
“There was once a man, doubtless with many faults, but formed by nature with a heart the most tender and the most true that ever beat within a human breast. This man was thrown by fate into the society of two lovely, graceful, intellectual women, whose manners, marked by that peculiar tone of delicacy which his soul most loved, had for him a degree of captivation which he found it impossible to resist. He was a military man, and so we
dded to his profession, that he long struggled against every thought of any other marriage, knowing, from having watched the same effect on others, that where the sword is not the only bride, the steel-braced panoply of war, is apt to gall the wearer. However,” continued the gentleman, with a deep sigh, “his fate was busy with him, and all his most steadfast purposes seemed melting into air. Of these two enchanting sisters, there was one — the eldest—” and here another sigh impeded, for a moment, the fluent utterance— “one — the eldest,” he resumed, “who was formed in a mould which was the very model which nature had seemed to stamp on the imagination of this unhappy man as the pattern of all he was born to admire and to love. But he fancied he perceived a coldness towards him in her manner. He was not a presuming man; and this idea chilled all hope within him! He looked — he could have loved — but dared not — and turning for consolation to the softer-seeming younger sister, he met a degree of encouragement which led him to hope that if the ecstatic bliss of possessing her he adored was denied him, he might be soothed and lulled to peace and forgetfulness by one who in some degree resembled her. But woe to him who fancies he can play tricks with the mighty god of love, and juggle with him for felicity! Just at the very hour when the unhappy man had made up his mind to marry the younger sister, such a glorious record of the heavenly-minded virtues and angelic high-mindedness of the elder was disclosed to him, that all his idle efforts not to love her fell, like the withered leaves from the sapless trees of autumn, and left him defenceless to endure the storm of irresistible passion that rushed upon his heart. A few agonising moments of self-examination followed, but when these were over, the manly firmness of his mind returned. He felt that if from a mistaken sense of honour he should persevere, and become the husband of the younger sister, his rebellious heart would cause her misery, as well as his own; whereas if he could succeed in obtaining the elder, their days would flow in an endless circle of unceasing bliss, that might teach the very gods to envy!”
Here the orator paused, and gazed earnestly on the face of the lady he addressed, but not all his acuteness could avail to discover what she thought of him.
“Say, Louisa! speak!” he passionately resumed; “was this man wrong in acknowledging his unconquerable love, ere it was yet too late to save the charming younger sister from the dreadful fate of throwing herself away upon one who could not love her? Say, was he wrong?”
“Upon my word, Mr. Foxcroft, I am no very good judge of such matters, because they are quite out of my way,” replied, Miss Louisa. “But it seems to me, sir, that it was a pity the gentleman did not know his own mind sooner.” —
“And who, think you, was this erring man?” replied Foxcroft; “who think you was the angelic woman who had this power over him? Oh! Louisa!” he added, throwing himself on his knees before her, determined, as it seemed, to stake all on this bold throw, “oh! Louisa! it is yourself! Speak to me, adored Louisa! Tell me my fate in one soul-stirring word — Will you be my wife?”
The lady rose from her seat, and extricating her hands by a sudden jerk from the grasp of her lover, she slipped her thin person round the corner of a table that seemed to fasten her in, and reaching the door, laid her hand upon the lock; but before she opened it, she deliberately turned round, and faced the still prostrate gentleman, saying in a very quiet voice, “No, indeed, sir, I will not.” Then making her exit, she entered the little bedroom behind, and found strength in her very honest indignation to recount to the palpitating Matilda this terrible termination of her love-affair.
In what way Mr. Foxcroft got out of the house was never known; but it is presumed that he opened the front door for himself very quietly, as the maid, when summoned to run out for two pennyworth of hartshorn, deposed that she had neither seen nor heard anything of him.
It is so very easy to guess all that Miss Matilda felt, and most of what she said, on this melancholy occasion, that it is unnecessary to describe it. One observation, however, which she made at the interval of some days after the scene above described, being more peculiarly her own, shall be repeated. Feeling herself totally unable to face her gay and blooming friend in Curzon-street, the willow-wearing Matilda had confined herself entirely to the house for four days, saying little on the subject to her sister, with whom, for some reason or other, she did not appear to be well pleased, and appearing to find more consolation in darning a quantity of old stockings, than in anything else. On the fifth day Patty and her page set off upon a voyage of discovery, and despite the reluctance of the fair sufferer to enter upon the history of her disappointment, her young friend persevered in her affectionate inquiries till she had got at the fact that Mr. Foxcroft feared they should not be able to make up enough between them to live upon comfortably.
Of the transition of his affections to her sister, she said nothing, having extracted from Louisa, who felt a good deal ashamed of the whole affair, a willing promise never to mention it to anybody. Having listened to this valedictory piece of prudence, Patty indulged in some strong language expressive of her indignation of what she called such “dirty false-heartedness,” and declared that she was very sure there never had been such an abominable thing done before, since marriage was invented between Adam and Eve in Paradise. “But,” she added, with much practical good sense, “there is no use in your breaking your heart, you know, because he is a rogue and a villain, and if I was you, Matilda, I’d make love before his very eyes, with the first man that was in the humour for it.”
“And so I would, my dear,” replied Matilda, roused by this agreeable project of revenge into a livelier frame of mind than she had enjoyed since her misfortune; “only it is so monstrous disagreeable to have the same thing happen again and again.”
“I am sure that’s nonsense, Matilda, for it isn’t very likely that such a queer thing should happen twice to the same person. However, to make that safe, I would always take care that everybody should know exactly how much I had got — and then you know there can’t be any mistake. And I’ll tell you what, my dear, ’tis as clear as light that papa means to have lots of men coming of an evening just as he did at Brighton, you know, and we shall have capital fun again, if you’ll only snap your fingers at Foxcroft, as I shall do at Sir Jack, if he does not choose to come round again, nasty, cold-hearted, ungrateful fellow! But you don’t suppose I mean to put my finger in my eye as if there wasn’t another man in the world? Not I, Matilda, take my word for it. But now I must go — for mamma has found out some old lord that she knows, and expects him to call to-day, so she insisted upon it that I should come back to be shown off. Cheer up, my dear, and I’ll find plenty of beaux for you, never fear.”
With this comforting assurance Patty departed, and the two sisters were left alone to meditate upon her words.
“Sweet, kind-hearted creature she is, to be sure!” said Miss Matilda, after a silence of some minutes; “it is quite impossible not to love her! — and I am quite sure she is right too, about me. She is an uncommonly sharp girl, for her age, and catches things quicker than anybody I ever saw. That about letting everybody know, was excessively clever of her. Don’t you think it was, Louisa?”
“Letting everybody know about your only having five hundred pounds, Matilda? Why I am sure if the doing it would prevent any more such horrid adventures, I should think it was the best thing that could be done. Only, my dear, I don’t think it would answer about your getting married, which I am afraid you have still got in your head. Don’t you think, my dear, that perhaps the best thing would be to give it up altogether? I am sure it would save you a deal of trouble and vexation, Matilda.”
Poor Miss Perkins was almost terrified when she perceived, by the heightened complexion of her sister, how very distasteful this proposed improvement of their plans was likely to be.
“I wish, Louisa, that you were not always forgetting the enormous difference in our ages,” she replied, tartly. “It is all very well for you to talk of making up your mind against marriage, but you must please to re
collect that it may not be quite so easy for me. When I find myself noticed like other young women, I should like to know how I am to help thinking about marriage? I am sure it is very shocking, and very wicked, not to be thinking about marriage when people are making downright love to one. What would you have me think about, I wonder?”
“Well, my dear, I dare say you know best,” returned the unresisting Louisa. “And God knows that my first wish is that you should be made happy and contented, if I did but know how to bring it about.”
“You could bring it about, Louisa, easy enough if you really wished it,” replied the younger sister.
“Good gracious! how, Matilda?” returned the elder one. “I am sure I never in my life did anything to stop your getting married, whatever I might think about it in my own heart.”
“I did not say you did,” replied Matilda, in the sharp tone to which her quiet senior was a little too much accustomed. “But there is a great difference, you know, between not stopping a match, and doing something sisterly to help it on.”
“But what can I do, Matilda? Nobody would marry you a bit the more for my telling them to do it.”
“But there is a way, Louisa, that if you would put it in practice, would take me off your hands in no time.”
“Is there? Then I wish you would tell me what it is, my dear. Not that I want to get you off my hands, Matilda; I am sure I love you very dearly indeed, but certainly it would make me a deal happier if I could see you easy in your mind,” said the kind lady with something very like tears in her eyes.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 263
