GIVES SOME ACCOUNT OF COLONEL HUBERT'S RETURN TO CHELTENHAM.
We must now follow Colonel Hubert to Cheltenham, to which place he returned in a state of mind not particularly easy to be described. The barrier he had placed before his heart, the heavy pressure of which he had sometimes felt to be intolerable, was now broken down; and it was a relief to him to remember that Agnes knew of his love. But, excepting this relief, there was little that could be felt as consolatory, and much that was decidedly painful in his state of mind. He knew but too well that not all the partial affection, esteem, and admiration entertained for him by his aunt, would prevent her feeling and expressing the most violent aversion to his marrying the niece of Mrs. Barnaby; he knew, too, what sort of reception the avowal of such an intention was likely to meet from his amiable but proud brother-in-law, and remembered, with feelings not very closely allied to satisfaction, the charge he had commissioned Lady Stephenson to give him, that he should keep watch over his thoughtless younger brother, in order to guard him, if possible, from bringing upon them the greatest misfortune that could befall a family such as theirs—namely, the introducing an inferior connexion into it.... Neither could he forget the influence he had used, in consequence of this injunction, to crush the ardent, generous, uncalculating attachment of his confiding friend Frederick for her whom, in defiance of the wishes of his whole family, he was now fully determined to make his wife. All this gave materials for very painful meditation; and when, in addition to it, he recalled those fearful words of Agnes, "I will never be your wife!" it required all the power of that master passion which had seized upon his heart to keep him steady to his resolution of communicating his wishes and intentions to Lady Elizabeth, and to sustain his hopes of engaging her actively to assist him in obtaining what he felt very sure she would earnestly desire that he should never possess.
With all these heavy thoughts working within him, he entered the drawing-room of his aunt, and rejoiced to find her tête-à-tête with his sister, Sir Edward being absent at a dinner-party of gentlemen. They both welcomed him with eager inquiries concerning their young favourite, the tone of which at once determined him to enter immediately upon the tremendous subject of his hopes and wishes; and the affectionate interest expressed for her, warmed him into a degree of confidence which he was far from feeling when he entered the room.
"Pretty creature!" exclaimed Lady Elizabeth; "and that wretched woman has actually left her alone in London lodgings?... Why did you not make her return with you, Montague?... It was surely no time to stand upon etiquette."
"I dared not even ask it," replied Colonel Hubert, his voice faltering, and his manner such as to make the two ladies exchange a hasty glance with each other.
"You dared not ask Agnes Willoughby, poor little thing, to come down with you to my house, Colonel Hubert?" said the old lady. "You surely forget that you went up to London with an invitation for her in your pocket?"
"My dear aunt," replied Colonel Hubert, hesitating in his speech, as neither of his auditors had ever before heard him hesitate, "I have much to tell you respecting both Agnes Willoughby ... and myself...."
"Then tell it, in Heaven's name!" said Lady Elizabeth sharply. "Let it be what it may, I would rather hear it than be kept hanging thus by the ears between the possible and impossible."
Colonel Hubert moved his chair; and seating himself beside Lady Stephenson, took her hand, as if to shew that she too was to listen to what he was about to say, though it was their aunt to whom he addressed himself. "From suspense, at least, I can relieve you, Lady Elizabeth, and you too, my dear Emily, who look at me so anxiously without saying a word ... at least I can relieve you from suspense.... I love Miss Willoughby; and I hope, with as little delay as possible, to make her my wife."
Lady Stephenson pressed his hand, and said nothing; but a deep sigh escaped her. Lady Elizabeth, who was not accustomed to manifest her feelings so gently, rose from her seat on the sofa, and placing herself immediately before him, said, with great vehemence, "Montague Hubert, son of my dead sister, you are come to years of discretion, and a trifle beyond.... Your magnificent estate of thirteen hundred a year, and ... I beg your pardon ... some odd pounds, shillings, and pence over, is all your own, and you may marry Mrs. Barnaby herself, if you please, and settle it upon her. No one living that I know of has any power to prevent it.... But, sir, if you expect that Lady Elizabeth Norris will ever receive as her niece a girl artful enough to conceal from me and from your sister the fact that she was engaged to you, and that, too, while receiving from both of us the most flattering attention ... nay, such affection as might have opened any heart not made of brass and steel ... if you expect this, you will find yourself altogether mistaken."
This harangue, which her ladyship intended to be overpoweringly severe, was, in fact, very nearly the most agreeable one that Colonel Hubert could have listened to, for it touched only on a subject of offence that he was perfectly able to remove. All embarrassment immediately disappeared from his manner; and springing up to place himself between his aunt and the door, to which she was approaching with stately steps, he said, in a voice almost of exultation, "My dearest aunt!... How like your noble self it is to have made this objection before every other!... And this objection, which would indeed have been fatal to every hope of happiness, I can remove by a single word.... Agnes was as ignorant of my love for her as you and Emily could be till last night ... I have loved her ... longer, it may be, than I have known it myself ... perhaps I might date it from the first hour I saw her, but she knew nothing of it.... Last night, for the first time, I confessed to her my love.... And what think you, Lady Elizabeth, was her answer?"
"Nay, Mr. Benedict, I know not.... 'I thank you, sir,' and a low courtesy, I suppose."
"I was less happy, Lady Elizabeth," he replied, half smiling; adding a moment after, however, with a countenance from which all trace of gaiety had passed away, "The answer of Miss Willoughby to my offer of marriage was ... Colonel Hubert, I can never be your wife."
"Indeed!... Then how comes it, Montague, that you still talk of making her so?"
"Because, before I left her, I thought I saw some ground for hope that her refusal was not caused by any personal dislike to me."
"Really!..." interrupted Lady Elizabeth.
"Nay, my dear aunt!" resumed Hubert, "you may in your kind and long-enduring partiality fancy this impossible; but, unhappily for my peace at that moment, I remembered that I was more than five-and-thirty, and she not quite eighteen."
"But she told you I suppose that you were still a very handsome fellow.... Only she had some other objection,—and pray, what was it, sir?"
"She feared the connexion would be displeasing to you and Lady Stephenson."
"And you assured her most earnestly, perhaps that she was mistaken?"
"No, Lady Elizabeth, I did not. There are circumstances in her position that MUST make my marrying her appear objectionable to my family; and though my little independence is, as your ladyship observes, my own, I would not wish to share it with any woman who would be indifferent to their reception of her. All my hope, therefore, rests in the confidence I feel that, when the first unpleasing surprise of this avowal shall have passed away, you ... both of you ... for there is no one else whose approbation I should wait for ... you will suffer your hearts and heads to strike a fair and reasonable balance between all that my sweet Agnes has in her favour and all she has against her. Do this, Lady Elizabeth, but do it as kindly as you can.... Emily will help you ... to-morrow morning you shall tell me your decision.... I can resolve on nothing till I hear it."
Colonel Hubert, as soon as he had said this left the room, nor did they see him again that night.
The morning came, and he met Lady Stephenson at the breakfast table, but Lady Elizabeth did not appear, sending down word, as was not unusual with her, that she should take her chocolate in her own room. Sir Edward was not in the room when he entered, and he seized the opportunity to utter a hasty and abrupt inquiry as to the answer he might expect from herself and their aunt.
"From me, Montague," she replied, "you cannot fear to hear anything very harshly disagreeable. In truth, I have been so long accustomed to believe that whatever my brother did, or wished to do, was wisest—best, that it would be very difficult for me to think otherwise now; besides, I cannot deny, though perhaps it hardly ought to be taken into the account, that I too am very much in love with Agnes Willoughby, and that ... though I would give my little finger she had no aunt Barnaby belonging to her ... I never saw any woman in any rank whom I could so cordially love and welcome as a sister."
In reply to this, Colonel Hubert clasped the lovely speaker to his heart; and before he had released her from his embrace, or repeated his inquiry concerning Lady Elizabeth, Sir Edward Stephenson entered, and the conversation became general.
For many hours of that irksome morning Colonel Hubert was kept in the most tantalizing state of suspense by the prolonged absence of the old lady from the drawing-room. But at length, after Sir Edward and his lady had set off for their second morning ramble without him, he was cheered by the appearance of the ancient maiden, who was his aunt's tirewoman, bringing in her lap-dog, and the velvet cushion that was its appendage; which having placed reverently before the fire, she moved the favourite fauteuil an inch one way, and the little table that ever stood beside it an inch the other, and was retiring, when Colonel Hubert said, ... "Is my aunt coming immediately, Mitchel?"
"My lady will not be long, Colonel.... But her ladyship is very poorly this morning," and with a graceful swinging courtesy she withdrew.
The Colonel trembled all over, "very poorly," as applied to Lady Elizabeth Norris, having from his earliest recollection always been considered as synonymous to "very cross."
"She will refuse to see her!" thought he, pacing the room in violent agitation.... "and in that case she will keep her word.... She will never be my wife!"
"Bless me!... How you do shake the room, Colonel Hubert," said a very crabbed voice behind him, just after he had passed the door in his perturbed promenade. "If you took such a fancy early in the morning, when the house maid might sweep up the dust you had raised, I should not object to it, for it is very like having one's carpet beat;... but just as I am coming to sit down here, it is very disagreeable indeed."
This grumble lasted just long enough to allow the old lady (who looked as if she had been eating crab apples, and walked as if she had suddenly been seized with the gout in all her joints,) to place herself in her easy chair as she concluded it, during which time the Colonel stood still upon the hearth-rug with his eyes anxiously fixed upon the venerable but very hostile features that were approaching him. A moment's silence followed, during which the old Lady looked up in his face with the most provoking expression imaginable; for cross as it was, there was a glance of playful malice in it that seemed to say,—
"You look as if you were going to cry, Colonel."
He felt provoked with her, and this gave him courage.—"May I beg of you, Lady Elizabeth, to tell me what I may hope from your kindness on the subject I mentioned to you last night?" said he.
"Pray, sir, do you remember your grandfather?" was her reply.
"The Earl of Archdale?... Yes, madam, perfectly."
"You do.... Humph!... And your paternal grandfather, with his pedigree from Duke Nigel of Normandy; did you ever hear of him?"
"Yes, Lady Elizabeth," replied the Colonel in a tone of indifference; "I have heard of him; but he died, you know, when I was very young."
There was a minute's silence, which was broken by another question from Lady Elizabeth.
"And pray, sir, will you do me the favour to tell me who was the grandfather of Miss Willoughby?"
"I have little, or indeed no doubt, Lady Elizabeth, that Miss Willoughby is the granddaughter of that Mr. Willoughby, of Greatfield Park, in Warwickshire, who lost the tremendous stake at piquet that you have heard of, and two of whose daughters married the twin sons of Lord Eastcombe.... I think you cannot have forgotten the circumstances."
Lady Elizabeth drew herself forward in her chair, and fixing her eyes stedfastly on the face of her nephew, said, in a voice of great severity, "Do you mean to assert to me, Colonel Montague Hubert, that Agnes Willoughby is niece to Lady Eastcombe and the Honourable Mrs. Nivett?"
"I mean to assert to you, madam, that it is my firm persuasion that such will prove to be the fact. But I have not considered it necessary, Lady Elizabeth Norris, for the son of my father to withhold his affections from the chosen of his heart, till he was assured he should gain all the honour by the selection which a union with Lady Eastcombe's niece could bestow;... nor should I have mentioned my belief in this connexion, by way of a set-off to the equally near claim of Mrs. Barnaby, had you not questioned me so particularly."
Had Colonel Hubert studied his answer for a twelvemonth, he could not have composed a more judicious one: there was a spice of hauteur in it by no means uncongenial to the old lady's feelings, and there was, too, enough of defiance to make her take counsel with herself as to whether it would be wise to vex him further. It was, therefore, less with the accent of mockery, and more with that of curiosity, that she recommenced her interrogatory.
"Will you tell me, Montague, from what source you derived this knowledge of Miss Willoughby's family?... Was it from herself?"
"Certainly not. If the facts be as I have stated, and as I hope and believe they will be found, Miss Willoughby will be as much surprised by the discovery as your ladyship."
"From whom, then, did you hear it?"
"From no one, Lady Elizabeth, as a matter of fact connected with Agnes. But something, I know not what, introduced the mention of old Willoughby's wild stake at piquet at the club the other day.... The name struck me, and I led old Major Barnes to talk to me of the family. He told me that a younger son, a gay harum-scarum sort of youth, married some girl, when he was in country quarters, whom his family would not receive; that, ruined and broken-hearted by this desertion, he went abroad almost immediately after his marriage, and has never been heard of since."
"And this is the foundation upon which you build your hope, that Mrs. Barnaby's niece is also the niece of Lady Eastcombe?... Ingenious certainly, Colonel, as a theory, but somewhat slight as an edifice on which to hang any weighty matter.... Don't you think so?"
"I hang nothing on it, Lady Elizabeth. If I did not feel that Miss Willoughby was calculated to make me happy without this supposed relationship, I certainly should not think her so with it. However, that your ladyship may not fancy my imagination more fertile than it really is, I must add, that when at Clifton, I did hear from the Misses Peters, whom I have before mentioned to you, that the father of Agnes went abroad after his marriage, and moreover that no news of him in any way ever reached his wife's family afterwards."
Lady Elizabeth for some time made no reply, but seemed to ponder upon this statement very earnestly. At length she said, in a tone from which irony and harshness, levity and severity, were equally banished,—"Montague!... there are some of the feelings which you have just expressed, in which I cannot sympathise; but a very little reflection will teach you that there is no ground of offence to you in this ... for it would be unnatural that I should do so. You tell me that your father's son need not deem the honour of a relationship to Viscountess Eastcombe necessary to his happiness in life. So far I am able to comprehend you, although Lady Eastcombe is an honourable and excellent personage, whose near connexion with a young lady would be no contemptible advantage (at least in my mind) upon her introduction into life. But we will pass this.... When, however, you proceed to tell me that your choice in marriage could in nowise be affected by the rank and station of those with whom it might bring you in contact, and that, too, when the question is, whether a Mrs. Barnaby, or a Lady Eastcombe, should be in the foreground of the group, you must excuse me if I cannot follow you."
Nothing is so distressing in an argument as to have a burst of grandiloquent sentiment set aside by a few words of common sense. Colonel Hubert walked the length of the drawing-room, and back again, before he answered; he felt that, as his aunt put the case, he was as far from following his assertion by his judgment as herself; but ere his walk was finished, the image of the desolate Agnes, as he had seen her the night before, arose before him, and resumed its unconquerable influence on his heart. He took a hint from her ladyship, threw aside all mixture of heat and anger, and replied.—
"Heaven forbid, Lady Elizabeth, that I should attempt to defend any such doctrine:... believe me, it is not mine. But, in one word, I love Miss Willoughby; and if I can arrive at the happiness of believing that I am loved in return, nothing but her own refusal will prevent me from marrying her. This is my statement of facts; I will attempt no other, and throw myself wholly upon your judgment to smooth, or render more rugged, the path which lies before me."
The old lady looked at him and smiled very kindly. "Montague," said she, "resolve my doubts. Is it the mention of your pleasant suspicions respecting Miss Willoughby's paternal ancestry,... or your present unvarnished frankness, that has won upon me?... Upon my honour, I could not answer this question myself;... but certain it is that I do feel more inclined to remember what a very sweet creature Agnes is at this moment, than I ever thought I should again when our conversation began."
Colonel Hubert kneeled down upon her foot-stool, and kissing her hand, said, in a voice that spoke his happiness, "It matters not to me what the cause is, my dearest aunt.... I thank Heaven for the effect!... and now ... do not think that I am taking an unfair advantage of this kindness, if I ask you to remember the position of Miss Willoughby at this moment. With such views for the future as I have explained to you, is it not my duty to remove her from it?"
"What then do you propose to do?" demanded Lady Elizabeth.
"I can do nothing,"... he replied;... "whatever aid or protection can be extended to her, must come from you ... or Lady Stephenson;... and that I should rather it came from you, who have long been to me as a mother, can hardly surprise you. Sir Edward is an excellent young man,... but he has prejudices that I should not like to battle with on this occasion. It is from you, and you only, Lady Elizabeth, that I either hope or wish to find protection for my future wife."
Again Lady Elizabeth pondered. "Did not Agnes tell us," she said at length, "did she not say in her letter to Lady Stephenson, that she had applied to some aged relation in Devonshire, by whom she hoped to be extricated from her present terrible embarrassment?"
"It is very likely," replied Colonel Hubert, "for she spoke to me of such a one, and hoped that Thursday ... that is to-morrow, is it not?... would bring an answer to her application."
"Then, Montague, we must wait to hear what this Thursday brings forth before we interfere to repeat the offer of protection which it is possible she may not want.... And Heaven grant it may be so,... for if she is to be your wife, Colonel Hubert, and it is pretty plain she will be, will it not be better that you should follow her with your addresses to the lowliest roof in Devonshire, than that she should take refuge here, where every gossip's finger will be pointed at her?"
It was impossible to deny the truth of this, and Colonel Hubert cared not to avow that all the favour she had bid him hope for was but conditional, and that till the avowal of his love should be sanctioned by his aunt and sister, he was still to hold himself as a rejected man. He dared not tell her this, lest the feelings he had conquered with so much difficulty should return, upon learning that it was not yet too late to encourage them.
As patiently as he could, therefore, he awaited the expected letter from Agnes, and well was he rewarded for doing so. The letter itself, modest and unboastful as it was, gave a sufficiently improved picture of her condition to remove all present anxiety on her account; and though he certainly had no idea of the transformation she had undergone, from a heart-broken, penniless dependant, into a petted, cherished heiress, he was soothed into the belief that it would now cost his aunt and sister infinitely less pain than he had anticipated, to extend such a degree of favour to his Agnes as might lead her to confirm the hope on which he lived.
But it was not the letter of Agnes that produced the most favourable impression upon Lady Elizabeth; the postscript of Miss Compton was infinitely more powerful in its effect upon her mind. Of Agnes, personally, she never thought without a degree of partial admiration, that nearly approached to affection; and vague as the hope was respecting the family of her father, it clung very pertinaciously to the old lady's memory, while a certain resemblance which she felt sure that she could trace between the nose of Agnes and that of the honourable Miss Nivett, Lord Eastcombe's eldest daughter, was doing wonders in her mind by way of a balance-weight against the rouge and ringlets of Mrs. Barnaby; yet, nevertheless, the notion that not "horrid Mrs. Barnaby" only, but a host of aunts and cousins of the same breed, might come down upon her in the event of this ill-assorted marriage, kept her in a sort of feverish wavering state, something between good and ill humour, that was exceedingly annoying to her nephew.
The keen-sighted old lady at once perceived that the postscript to Agnes's letter was not written by a second Mrs. Barnaby, and from that moment she determined, much more decisively than she chose to express, that she would torment Colonel Hubert with no farther opposition.
After a short consultation between the aunt and niece, that letter was despatched, the receipt of which was mentioned before Miss Compton and Agnes left London for Clifton. Had Colonel Hubert been consulted upon it, he would perhaps have suggested, as an improvement, that the proposed meeting should take place the following week in London; but, on the whole, the composition was too satisfactory for him to venture upon any alteration of it, and again he called patience to his aid, while many miserably long days were wasted by the very slow and deliberate style in which the man and maid servant who managed all Lady Elizabeth's worldly concerns, set about preparing themselves and her for this removal. It was with a degree of pleasure which almost atoned for the vexation of this delay that he learned Sir Edward's good-natured compliance with his beautiful bride's capricious-seeming wish of revisiting Clifton. Colonel Hubert pertinaciously refused to let his gay brother-in-law into his confidence, till the time arrived for presenting him to Miss Willoughby, as to his future wife. Did this reserve arise from some unacknowledged doubt whether Agnes, when the pressure of misfortune was withdrawn, would voluntarily bestow herself on a man of his advanced age? Perhaps so. That Agnes was less than eighteen, and himself more than thirty-five, were facts repeated to himself too often for his tranquillity.