The Widow Barnaby Volume Ii Part 4

especially as I play tolerably well, and, in fact, never play so high if I can help it...."

"But, Major," said the lady, stopping short in their progress, "I really am afraid that I must decline playing at your table ... the amount of what I could lose might not perhaps be a great object to me, any more than to you ... but it is a matter of principle with me, and when that is the case I never swerve ... so take me back again, will you, to my sister Peters and my party."

This was said with a sort of clinging helplessness, and delicate timidity, that was very touching.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed the Major with great animation, "how very little you know me!... I would take you, charming Mrs. Barnaby, to the world's end, if you would consent to go with me; ... but think not that I would sit down at one table, though I might sweep from it stakes amounting to thousands, when I could play with you for straws at another!"

Remember, reader, that she to whom this was said had been Miss Martha Compton of Silverton but six short years before, and then judge with what feelings she listened to it. They were such, that for a moment no power of speech was left to her ... but she abandoned her purpose of retreat; and when at length they stood before the table at which two sporting-looking gentlemen were waiting to receive them, she gently seated herself, murmuring at the same time in the Major's ear, "Not higher than half-crowns, if you please."

He pressed her hand as he resigned the arm with which she had favoured him, and as he did so replied, "Depend upon me."

Before the arrangements for playing were finally settled, the friendly Major Allen took the two gentlemen a pace or two apart, and communicated in a few words what brought them back to the table, perfectly contented with the half-crown, and gallantly anxious to have the honour of cutting highest, that they might have the happiness of winning the lady as a partner, if they won nothing else.

But this happiness fell to the Major, as well as most others during the three or four rubbers that followed; for he and his fair partner played with great luck, which helped to produce between them that amicable state of spirits which tends to make every word appear a pleasantry, and every look a charm.

In the midst of this very agreeable game, in the course of which both the eyes and the voice of the widow proclaimed how very greatly she enjoyed it, Colonel Hubert wandered into the room, and having given a glance at one or two other tables as he pa.s.sed them, stationed himself on a sofa, from whence he commanded a full view of that at which Mrs.

Barnaby was engaged. His recent examination of her niece gave him a feeling of interest in this aunt, that nearly superseded the amus.e.m.e.nt he might otherwise have derived from her appearance and manner. That both were likely to be affected by the intense interest and pleasure she took in her occupation, as well as in the partner who shared it with her, may be easily conceived, when it is stated that not even the entrance of the magnificent Colonel was perceived by her.

Her vivacity, her _enjouement_, became more striking every moment; her words were full of piquant and agreeable meaning, which her eyes scrupled not to second; while the Major a.s.sumed more and more the air and manner of a man enchanted and enamoured beyond the power of concealment. But it was not the spirit of quizzing that sat upon Colonel Hubert's brow as he contemplated this scene; on the contrary, his fine countenance spoke first disgust, and then a degree of melancholy that might have seemed ill befitting the occasion, and in a few minutes he walked away and re-entered the ball-room.

Whether intentionally or not may be doubted; but he soon again found himself opposite to the place which Agnes occupied in the quadrille, and being there, watched her with a degree of attention that seemed equally made up of curiosity and admiration. "It is strange," thought he, "that the most repulsive and the most attractive women I ever remember to have seen, should be so closely linked together."

In a few minutes the quadrille ended, when Mr. Stephenson, who had danced it with the eldest Miss Peters, said to his friend as he pa.s.sed him, "We are now going to tea, and if you will come with us, I will introduce you."

Colonel Hubert followed almost mechanically, yet not without a feeling somewhat allied to self-reproach at permitting himself to join the party of a Mrs. Barnaby.

This obnoxious individual was, however, nearly or rather wholly forgotten within a very few minutes after the introduction took place.

Mrs. Peters's manners were, as we know, particularly lady-like and pleasing, her daughters all pretty-looking, and one of them, at least, singularly animated and agreeable, her son and the other gentlemen of her party perfectly _comme il faut_, and Agnes ... what was Agnes in the estimation of the fastidious, high-minded, and high-born Colonel Hubert?

He would have been totally unable to answer this question satisfactorily himself, nor would it be just that a precise answer to it should be expected from the historian. This interval of conversation and repose lasted rather longer than usual; for the whole party (each for some reason or other of their own) enjoyed it, or at any rate betrayed no wish to bring it to a conclusion. Had Colonel Hubert, indeed, been told that he enjoyed it, he would strenuously and sincerely have denied the statement. He looked at Agnes with wonder and compa.s.sion strongly blended,--he listened to the gay and artless tone of her conversation with Mary Peters and young Stephenson, without being able to deny that, whether she had fallen from the stars, or been raised and wholly educated by that terrible incarnation of all he most detested, her vulgar aunt, every word she uttered bore the stamp of well-bred a.s.sociation, right feeling, and bright intelligence ... he allowed all this, and he allowed too that never, through all the varieties of his campaigning life, had he seen in any rank, or in any clime, a loveliness so perfect; yet he almost trembled as he watched the pa.s.sionate devotion with which his friend gazed at and listened to her.

Colonel Hubert knew the character of Stephenson well; it was generous, ardent, and affectionate in the highest degree; but pa.s.sionate withal, self-willed, and only amenable to control when it came in the shape of influence exercised by friends.h.i.+p, unmixed with authority of any kind.

He was just three-and-twenty, and had been in possession of a n.o.ble property from the day he attained the age of twenty-one. Singularly free from vice of any kind, his friends, in seeing him take the management of his estates into his own hands, had but one fear for him. It was not racing, gambling, debauchery, or extravagance, they dreaded: had he already pa.s.sed fifty years of sober life exempt from all these, they would scarcely have felt more secure of his being safe from them; but it was in the important affair of marriage that they dreaded his precipitancy. More than once already his distinguished and highly connected family had been terrified by the idea that some irremediable misfortune in this respect was about to fall upon them; and earnestly did they wish that he should speedily form such a connexion as they could approve, and had a right to expect. Unfortunately this wish had been too evident; and the idea of being disposed of in marriage by his brother and sisters had become a bugbear from which the young man shrank with equal indignation and contempt. The marriage of his elder brother with Miss Hubert had naturally led to great intimacy between the families; and of all the acquaintance he had ever made, Colonel Hubert was the one for whom Frederick Stephenson felt the warmest admiration and esteem; and certainly he was more proud of the affectionate partiality that distinguished individual had shewn him than of any other advantage he possessed. Sir Edward Stephenson observed this, and had told his betrothed Emma that he drew the best possible augury from it for his brother's safety. "He is so proud of Montague's friends.h.i.+p,"

said he, "that it must be a most outrageous love-fit which would make him hazard it by forming a connexion unworthy in any way. So jealously does he deprecate the interference of his own family on this subject, that I have long determined never more to let him see how near it is to my heart ... and I will not even mention the subject to your brother, lest, _par impossible_, he might ever discover that I had done so; but I wish you, love, would say a word to him before we leave Clifton.... Tell him that Frederick has still a great propensity to fall in love at first sight, and that we shall all bless him everlastingly, if he will prescribe change of air whenever he may happen to see the fit seize him."

The fair Emma promised and kept her word; and such was the theme on which their discourse turned the night before the wedding, when, Sir Edward being engaged with the lawyer, who had just arrived from London with the settlements, the brother and sister took that stroll upon the pavement of Sion Row, which had first exhibited the stately figure of Colonel Hubert to Mrs. Barnaby's admiration. Little did Agnes think, when her head was made to obtrude itself through the window upon that occasion, that her ears caught some words of a conversation destined to prove so important to her future happiness.

That the "falling in love at first sight" had already taken place, Colonel Hubert could not doubt, as he watched his enthusiastic friend's look and manner, while conversing with Agnes, and gravely and sorrowfully did he ponder on the words of his sister in their last tete-a-tete.

"Save him, dearest Montague, if you can," said she, "from any folly of this sort; for I really think Sir Edward would never be happy again if Frederick formed any disgraceful marriage."

"And a disgraceful marriage it would and must be," thought he; "neither her surpa.s.sing beauty ... nor her modest elegance either, can make it otherwise."

As if sent by fate to confirm him in this conviction, the widow at this moment approached the party, leaning on the arm of the Major. Having finished her fifth rubber, and pocketed her sixteen half-crowns, Major Allen's two friends pleaded an engagement elsewhere, and Mrs. Barnaby accepted his offered escort to the tea-table.

A look of happiness is very becoming to many faces, it will often indeed lend a charm to features that in sorrow can boast of none; but there are others on which this genial and expansive emotion produces a different effect, and Mrs. Barnaby was one of them. Her eyes did not only sparkle, they perfectly glared with triumph and delight. She shook her curls and her feathers with the vivacity of a Bacchante when tossing her cymbals in the air; and her joyous laugh and her conscious whisper, as each in turn attracted attention from all around, were exactly calculated to produce just such an effect as the luckless Agnes would have lived in silence and solitude for ever to avoid witnessing.

The _habile_ Major descried the party the instant he entered the room, and led the lady directly to it. But the table was fully occupied, and for a moment no one stirred but Agnes, who, pale and positively trembling with distress, stood up, though without saying a word.

Mrs. Peters coloured, and for a second looked doubtful what to do; but when she saw Major Allen address himself with the manner of an old acquaintance to Elizabeth, she rose, and slightly saying, "I am sorry you are too late for tea, Mrs. Barnaby," moved off, followed, of course, by her daughters, and the gentlemen attending on them.

"I dare say we shall find a cup that will do ... never mind us....

Agnes, don't you go, but try that pot, will you, at the bottom of the table; this is as dry as hay."

The Major was immediately on the alert, and seizing on the tea-pot seized the hand of Agnes with it. Neck, cheeks, and brow were crimson in an instant; and as she withdrew her hand from his audacious touch, her eye caught that of Colonel Hubert fixed upon her. Shame, vexation, and something almost approaching to terror, brought tears into that beautiful eye, and for a moment the gallant soldier forgot everything in an ardent longing to seize by the collar and fling from the chamber the man who had thus dared to offend her. But Frederick Stephenson, who also saw the action, quitted the side of his partner, contrary to all the laws of etiquette, and quickly placing himself beside Agnes, bestowed such a glance on the Major as immediately turned the attention of that judicious personage to the tea-pot and Mrs. Barnaby.

"You dance with me now, Miss Willoughby," said young Stephenson, which, as he had enjoyed that honour twice before, he had been too discreet to hint at till the arrival of the widow and the Major had rendered her being immediately occupied so particularly desirable. Agnes perfectly understood his motive, and though her cheeks again tingled as she remembered how impossible it was for her to run effectually from the annoyance that so cruelly beset her, she felt touched and grateful for his kindness; and the smile with which she accepted it, would have sufficed to subdue the heart of Frederick had an atom of it been unsubdued before.

CHAPTER III.

MELANCHOLY MEDITATIONS.--AN EVENTFUL WALK.--A PLEASANT BREAKFAST.--A COMFORTABLE CONVERSATION IN A CLOSET.

The slumbers of Agnes that night were not heavy, for she waked while the birds were still singing their morning hymn to the sun, which poured its beams full upon her face through her uncurtained window. She turned restlessly upon her little bed, and tried to sleep again; but it would not do; and as she listened to the twittering without, so strong a desire seized her to leave the narrow boundary of her little closet, and breathe the air of heaven, that after the hesitation and struggle of a few moments she yielded, and noiselessly creeping out of bed, and performing the business of her toilet with the greatest caution, ventured to open the door communicating with her aunt's chamber, when she had the great satisfaction of hearing her snore loud enough to mask any sound she might herself make in pa.s.sing through the room.

In like manner she successfully made her way down stairs and out of the house, and her heart beat with something like pleasure as she felt the sweet morning breeze blow from the downs upon her cheek. She walked towards the beautiful point on which the windmill stands; but, alas! she was no longer happy enough to feel that the landscape it commanded could confer that sort of perfect felicity which she had before thought belonged to it. She sat down again on the same spot where Mary, Lucy, James, and herself had sat before, but with how different a feeling! and yet it wanted one whole day of a week since that time. What new sorrow was it that weighed thus upon her spirits?... The good-humoured liking that her new acquaintance then testified towards her, had since ripened into friends.h.i.+p ... at the ball of the preceding evening she had, in fas.h.i.+onable phrase, met with the most brilliant success ... she had danced every dance, and three of them with the partner that every lady in the room would best have liked to dance with; and yet there was a feeling of depression at her heart greater than she had ever been conscious of before. How was this?... Could Agnes herself tell the cause of it?... Yes, if she had asked herself, she could have answered, and have answered truly, that it was because she now knew that the better, the more estimable, the more amiable the society around her might be, the more earnestly she ought to endeavour to withdraw from it.... This conviction was enough to make her feel sad, and there was no need to seek farther in order to discover other sources of sadness, if any such there were, within her bosom.

And thus she sat, again pulling thyme from the hill-side; but it was no longer so sweet as before, and she threw it from her, like a child who has broken its toy, and just reached the sage conviction that its gaudy colouring was good for nothing. While indulging in this most unsatisfactory fit of musing, the sound of a horse's feet almost close behind startled her; but instead of turning her head to see whom it might be, she started up, and walked onward. The horseman, however, was perhaps more curious than herself, for he immediately rode past her, nor scrupled to turn his head as he did so, to ascertain who the early wanderer might be.

But even before he had done so Agnes knew, by a moment's glance at his figure as he pa.s.sed her, that it was Colonel Hubert.

He checked his horse, and touched his hat, and for half an instant Agnes thought he was going to speak to her: perhaps he thought so too; but if he did, he changed his mind, for looking about in the distance, as if reconnoitring his position, he pressed the sides of his horse and galloped on, a groom presently following.

Agnes breathed more freely. "Thank G.o.d, he did not speak to me!" she exclaimed. "If he had, I should have wanted power to answer him....

Never, no, never can I forget ... were I to see him every day to the end of my life, I should never forget the expression of his face as my aunt Barnaby ... and that dreadful man ... walked up the room towards the tea-table!... no, nor the glance he gave, so full of vexation and regret, when his kind-hearted, sweet-tempered friend, asked me again to dance with him!... Proud, disdainful man! I hope and trust that I never may behold him more!... It is he who first taught me to know and feel how miserable is the future that awaits me!" This soliloquy, partly muttered and partly thought, was here interrupted by her once more hearing the sound of a horse's feet on the turf close behind her.

"He has turned back!" thought she, "though I did not see him pa.s.s me.

Oh! if he speaks to me, how shall I answer him!"

But again the horseman rode past, and another rapid glance showed her that this time it was not Colonel Hubert, nor did she trouble herself to think whom else it might be; and if she had, the labour would have been thrown away, for in this case, as before, the rider looked back, and displayed to her view the features of Major Allen.

He instantly stopped his horse, and jumped to the ground, then skilfully wheeling the animal round, placed himself between it and the terrified Agnes, and began walking beside her.

Her first impulse was to stand still, and ask him wherefore he thus approached her; but when she turned towards him to speak, the expression of his broad, audacious countenance, struck her with dismay, and she suddenly turned round, and walked rapidly and in silence back towards the windmill, and the buildings beyond it.

"Are you afraid of me, my charming young lady?" said the Major with a chuckle, again wheeling his charger so as to place himself beside Agnes.... "No reason, upon my soul.... How is your adorable aunt?...

Tell her I inquired for her, and tell her too, upon the honour of an officer and a gentleman, that I consider her as by far the finest woman I ever saw.... But why do you run on so swiftly, my pretty little fawn?

Your charming aunt will thank me, I am sure, for not letting you put yourself in a fever;" and so saying his huge hand grasped the elbow of Agnes, and he held her forcibly back.

A feeling of terror, greater than the occasion called for perhaps, induced Agnes to utter a cry at again feeling this hateful gripe, which seemed as if by magic to bring her relief, for at the same moment Colonel Hubert was on the other side of her. Agnes looked up in his face with an undisguised expression of delight, and on his offering his arm she took it instantly, but without either of them having uttered a word.

There was something in the arrangement of the trio that Major Allen did not appear to approve, for having taken about three steps in advance, he suddenly stopped, and saying in a sort of bl.u.s.tering mutter, "You will be pleased to give my best compliments to your aunt," he sprung upon his horse so heedlessly as to render it probable both lady and gentleman might get a kick from the animal, and making it bound forward, darted off across the down.

Agnes gently withdrew her arm, and said, but in a voice not over steady, "Indeed, sir, I am very much obliged to you!"

"I am glad to have been near you, Miss Willoughby, when that very insolent person addressed you," said Colonel Hubert, but without making any second offer of his arm. And a moment after he added, "Excuse me for telling you that you are imprudent in walking thus early and alone.