The Kellys and the O'Kellys Part 49

"Thank you, Selina. You're very kind, but I won't mind it to-day."

"How very foolish of you, f.a.n.n.y; you know you want it, and then you'll be annoyed about it. You'd better let me order it with the other things."

"Very well, dear: order it then for me."

"How much will you want? you must send the pattern too, you know."

"Indeed, Selina, I don't care about having it at all; I can do very well without it, so don't mind troubling yourself."

"How very ridiculous, f.a.n.n.y! You know you want black c.r.a.pe--and you must get it from Ellis's." Lady Selina paused for a reply, and then added, in a voice of sorrowful rebuke, "It's to save yourself the trouble of sending Jane for the pattern."

"Well, Selina, perhaps it is. Don't bother me about it now, there's a dear. I'll be more myself by-and-by; but indeed, indeed, I'm neither well nor happy now."

"Not well, f.a.n.n.y! What ails you?"

"Oh, nothing ails me; that is, nothing in the doctor's way. I didn't mean I was ill."

"You said you weren't well; and people usually mean by that, that they are ill."

"But I didn't mean it," said f.a.n.n.y, becoming almost irritated, "I only meant--" and she paused and did not finish her sentence.

Lady Selina wiped her pen, in her scarlet embroidered pen-wiper, closed the lid of her patent inkstand, folded a piece of blotting-paper over the note she was writing, pushed back the ruddy ringlets from her contemplative forehead, gave a slight sigh, and turned herself towards her cousin, with the purpose of commencing a vigorous lecture and cross-examination, by which she hoped to exorcise the spirit of lamentation from f.a.n.n.y's breast, and restore her to a healthful activity in the performance of this world's duties. f.a.n.n.y felt what was coming; she could not fly; so she closed her book and her eyes, and prepared herself for endurance.

"f.a.n.n.y," said Lady Selina, in a voice which was intended to be both severe and sorrowful, "you are giving way to very foolish feelings in a very foolish way; you are preparing great unhappiness for yourself, and allowing your mind to waste itself in uncontrolled sorrow in a manner--in a manner which cannot but be ruinously injurious. My dear f.a.n.n.y, why don't you do something?--why don't you occupy yourself?

You've given up your work; you've given up your music; you've given up everything in the shape of reading; how long, f.a.n.n.y, will you go on in this sad manner?" Lady Selina paused, but, as f.a.n.n.y did not immediately reply, she continued her speech "I've begged you to go on with your reading, because nothing but mental employment will restore your mind to its proper tone. I'm sure I've brought you the second volume of Gibbon twenty times, but I don't believe you've read a chapter this month back. How long will you allow yourself to go on in this sad manner?"

"Not long, Selina. As you say, I'm sad enough."

"But is it becoming in you, f.a.n.n.y, to grieve in this way for a man whom you yourself rejected because he was unworthy of you?"

"Selina, I've told you before that such was not the case. I believe him to be perfectly worthy of me, and of any one much my superior too."

"But you did reject him, f.a.n.n.y: you bade papa tell him to discontinue his visits--didn't you?"

f.a.n.n.y felt that her cousin was taking an unfair advantage in throwing thus in her teeth her own momentary folly in having been partly persuaded, partly piqued, into quarrelling with her lover; and she resented it as such. "If I did," she said, somewhat angrily, "it does not make my grief any lighter, to know that I brought it on myself."

"No, f.a.n.n.y; but it should show you that the loss for which you grieve is past recovery. Sorrow, for which there is no cure, should cease to be grieved for, at any rate openly. If Lord Ballindine were to die you would not allow his death to doom you to perpetual sighs, and perpetual inactivity. No; you'd then know that grief was hopeless, and you'd recover."

"But Lord Ballindine is not dead," said f.a.n.n.y.

"Ah! that's just the point," continued her ladys.h.i.+p; "he should be dead to you; to you he should now be just the same as though he were in his grave. You loved him some time since, and accepted him; but you found your love misplaced,--unreturned, or at any rate coldly returned.

Though you loved him, you pa.s.sed a deliberate judgment on him, and wisely rejected him. Having done so, his name should not be on your lips; his form and figure should be forgotten. No thoughts of him should sully your mind, no love for him should be permitted to rest in your heart; it should be rooted out, whatever the exertion may cost you."

"Selina, I believe you have no heart yourself."

"Perhaps as much as yourself, f.a.n.n.y. I've heard of some people who were said to be all heart; I flatter myself I am not one of them. I trust I have some mind, to regulate my heart; and some conscience, to prevent my sacrificing my duties for the sake of my heart."

"If you knew," said f.a.n.n.y, "the meaning of what love was, you'd know that it cannot be given up in a moment, as you suppose; rooted out, as you choose to call it. But, to tell you the truth, Selina, I don't choose to root it out. I gave my word to Frank not twelve months since, and that with the consent of every one belonging to me. I owned that I loved him, and solemnly a.s.sured him I would always do so. I cannot, and I ought not, and I will not break my word. You would think of nothing but what you call your own dignity; I will not give up my own happiness, and, I firmly believe his, too, for anything so empty."

"Don't be angry with me, f.a.n.n.y," said Lady Selina; "my regard for your dignity arises only from my affection for you. I should be sorry to see you lessen yourself in the eyes of those around you. You must remember that you cannot act as another girl might, whose position was less exalted. Miss O'Joscelyn might cry for her lost lover till she got him back again, or got another; and no one would be the wiser, and she would not be the worse; but you cannot do that. Rank and station are in themselves benefits; but they require more rigid conduct, much more control over the feelings than is necessary in a humbler position. You should always remember, f.a.n.n.y, that much is expected from those to whom much is given."

"And I'm to be miserable all my life because I'm not a parson's daughter, like Miss O'Joscelyn!"

"G.o.d forbid, f.a.n.n.y! If you'd employ your time, engage your mind, and cease to think of Lord Ballindine, you'd soon cease to be miserable.

Yes; though you might never again feel the happiness of loving, you might still be far from miserable."

"But I can't cease to think of him, Selina;--I won't even try."

"Then, f.a.n.n.y, I truly pity you."

"No, Selina; it's I that pity you," said f.a.n.n.y, roused to energy as different thoughts crowded to her mind. "You, who think more of your position as an earl's daughter--an aristocrat, than of your nature as a woman! Thank Heaven, I'm not a queen, to be driven to have other feelings than those of my s.e.x. I do love Lord Ballindine, and if I had the power to cease to do so this moment, I'd sooner drown myself than exercise it."

"Then why were you weak enough to reject him?"

"Because I was a weak, wretched, foolish girl. I said it in a moment of pa.s.sion, and my uncle acted on it at once, without giving me one minute for reflection--without allowing me one short hour to look into my own heart, and find how I was deceiving myself in thinking that I ought to part from him. I told Lord Cashel in the morning that I would give him up; and before I had time to think of what I had said, he had been here, and had been turned out of the house. Oh, Selina! it was very, very cruel in your father to take me at my word so shortly!" And f.a.n.n.y hid her face in her handkerchief, and burst into tears.

"That's unfair, f.a.n.n.y; it couldn't be cruel in him to do for you that which he would have done for his own daughter. He thought, and thinks, that Lord Ballindine would not make you happy."

"Why should he think so?--he'd no business to think so," sobbed f.a.n.n.y through her tears.

"Who could have a business to think for you, if not your guardian?"

"Why didn't he think so then, before he encouraged me to receive him?

It was because Frank wouldn't do just what he was bid; it was because he wouldn't become stiff, and solemn, and grave like--like--" f.a.n.n.y was going to make a comparison that would not have been flattering either to Lady Selina or to her father, but she did not quite forget herself, and stopped short without expressing the likeness. "Had he spoken against him at first, I would have obeyed; but I will not destroy myself now for his prejudices." And f.a.n.n.y buried her face among the pillows of the sofa, and sobbed aloud.

Lady Selina walked over to the sofa, and stood at the head of it bending over her cousin. She wished to say something to soothe and comfort her, but did not know how; there was nothing soothing or comforting in her nature, nothing soft in her voice; her manner was repulsive, and almost unfeeling; and yet she was not unfeeling. She loved f.a.n.n.y as warmly as she was capable of loving; she would have made almost any personal sacrifice to save her cousin from grief; she would, were it possible, have borne her sorrows herself; but she could not unbend; she could not sit down by f.a.n.n.y's side, and, taking her hand, say soft and soothing things; she could not make her grief easier by expressing hope for the future or consolation for the past. She would have felt that she was compromising truth by giving hope, and dignity by uttering consolation for the loss of that which she considered better lost than retained. Lady Selina's only recipe was endurance and occupation. And at any rate, she practised what she preached; she was never idle, and she never complained.

As she saw f.a.n.n.y's grief, and heard her sobs, she at first thought that in mercy she should now give up the subject of the conversation; but then she reflected that such mercy might be the greatest cruelty, and that the truest kindness would be to prove to f.a.n.n.y the hopelessness of her pa.s.sion.

"But, f.a.n.n.y," she said, when the other's tears were a little subsided, "it's no use either saying or thinking impossibilities. What are you to do? You surely will not willingly continue to indulge a hopeless pa.s.sion?"

"Selina, you'll drive me mad, if you go on! Let me have my own way."

"But, f.a.n.n.y, if your own way's a bad way? Surely you won't refuse to listen to reason? You must know that what I say is only from my affection. I want you to look before you; I want you to summon courage to look forward; and then I'm sure your common sense will tell you that Lord Ballindine can never be anything to you."

"Look here, Selina," and f.a.n.n.y rose, and wiped her eyes, and somewhat composed her ruffled hair, which she shook back from her face and forehead, as she endeavoured to repress the palpitation which had followed her tears; "I have looked forward, and I have determined what I mean to do. It was your father who brought me to this, by forcing me into a childish quarrel with the man I love. I have implored him, almost on my knees, to invite Lord Ballindine again to Grey Abbey: he has refused to do so, at any rate for twelve months--"

"And has he consented to ask him at the end of twelve months?" asked Selina, much astonished, and, to tell the truth, considerably shocked at this instance of what she considered her father's weakness.

"He might as well have said twelve years," replied f.a.n.n.y. "How can I, how can any one, suppose that he should remain single for my sake for twelve months, after being repelled without a cause, or without a word of explanation; without even seeing me;--turned out of the house, and insulted in every way? No; whatever he might do, I will not wait twelve months. I'll ask Lord Cashel once again, and then--" f.a.n.n.y paused for a moment, to consider in what words she would finish her declaration.

"Well, f.a.n.n.y," said Selina, waiting with eager expectation for f.a.n.n.y's final declaration; for she expected to hear her say that she would drown herself, or lock herself up for ever, or do something equally absurd.

"Then," continued f.a.n.n.y,--and a deep blush covered her face as she spoke, "I will write to Lord Ballindine, and tell him that I am still his own if he chooses to take me."

"Oh, f.a.n.n.y! do not say such a horrid thing. Write to a man, and beg him to accept you? No, f.a.n.n.y; I know you too well, at any rate, to believe that you'll do that."

"Indeed, indeed, I will."