CHAPTER XLVII — A CURE FOR THE HEARTACHE
“One woman's fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am
well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces
be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich
she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous,
or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her;
mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of
good discourse, and an excellent musician.”
—Much Ado About Nothing.
“YES! they were very happy, Fanny and Oaklands, as they revelled in the bright certainty of their mutual love, and entranced by the absorbing contemplation of their new-found happiness, forgot in the sunshine of each other's presence the flight of moments, whilst I, involuntarily contrasting the fair prospect that lay open before them with the dark cloudland of my own gloomy fortunes, had soon traversed in thought the distance to Barstone Priory, and become immersed in fruitless speculations as to what might eventually be the result of Mr. Vernor's sordid and cruel policy. It was now longer than usual since I had heard from Clara; suspense and impatience were rapidly increasing into the most painful anxiety, and I had all but determined, if the next day's post brought no relief, to disobey her injunctions to the contrary, and once again make an attempt to see her. Oh! it is hard to be banished from the presence of those we love—with an ear attuned to the gentle music of some well-remembered voice, to be forced to listen to the cold, unmeaning commonplaces of society—with the heart and mind engrossed by, and centred on, one dear object, to live in a strange, unreal fellowship with those around us, talking, moving, and acting mechanically—feeling, as it were, but the outward form and shadow of one's self, living two distinct and separate existences, present, indeed, in body, but in the only true vitality—the life of the spirit—utterly and completely absent. From reflections such as these, I was aroused by observing the deepening shades of evening, which were fast merging into night; and collecting my ideas, I remembered that there were many things which must be said and done in consequence of the unexpected turn events had taken. No human being is so completely isolated that his actions do not in some degree affect others, and in the present instance this was peculiarly the case. Sir John and my mother must be let into the secret, and poor Lawless must learn the unsuccessful termination of his suit. But now, for the first time, the somewhat equivocal situation in which chance had placed me presented itself to my mind, and I felt a degree of embarrassment, almost amounting to shame, at having to make my appearance, and confess that I had been lying perdu during the whole of the preceding scene. Accident, however, stood my friend.
“I wonder where Frank is all this time!” exclaimed Harry, in reply to a remark of Fanny's referring to the lateness of the hour: “I want to see him, and tell him of my happiness; I made him almost as miserable as myself this morning; he must be at the Hall, I suppose, but I'm sure your servant told me he was at home.”
“She only spoke the truth if she did,” said I, entering the drawing-room as coolly as if nothing unusual had occurred.
Fanny started up with a slight shriek, and then, glancing at me with a countenance in which smiles and tears were strangely commingled, ran out of the room to hide her confusion, while Harry Oaklands—well, I hardly know what Harry did, but I have some vague idea that he hugged me, for I recollect feeling a degree of oppression on my breath, and an unpleasant sensation in my arms, for the next five minutes.
“So you have heard it all, you villain—have you?” he exclaimed, as soon as his first transports had a little subsided. “O Frank! my dear old fellow, I am so happy! But what a blind idiot I have been!”
“All's well that ends well,” replied I, shaking him warmly by the hand; “they say lookers-on see most of the game, but in this case I was as blind as you were; it never for a moment occurred to me that Fanny cared for you otherwise than as a sister. Indeed, I have sometimes been annoyed that she did not, as I considered, properly appreciate you; but I understand it all now, and am only too glad that her pale looks and low spirits can be so satisfactorily accounted for.”
“Frank,” observed Oaklands gravely, “there is only one thing which casts the slightest shade over my happiness; how are we to break this to Lawless? I can afford to pity him now, poor fellow I I know by my own feelings the pang that hearing of a rival's success will cost him.”
“I don't think his feelings are quite as deep and intense as yours, Harry,” replied I, smiling involuntarily at my reminiscences of the morning; “but I am afraid he will be terribly cut up about it; he was most unfortunately sanguine: I suppose I had better break it to him.”
“Yes, and as soon as possible too,” said Oaklands, “for I'm sure my manner will betray my happiness. I am the worst hand in the world at dissimulation. Walk back with me and tell him, and then stay and dine with us.”
“Agreed,” replied I; “only let me say half a dozen words to my mother; “and, rushing upstairs, I dashed into her room, told her the whole matter on the spot, incoherently, and without the slightest preparation, whereby I set her crying violently, to make up for which I kissed her abruptly (getting very wet in so doing), pulled down the bell-rope in obedience to the dictates of a sudden inspiration that she would be the better for a maid-servant, and left her in one of the most fearful states of confusion on record, flurried into a condition of nerves which set camphor-julep completely at defiance, and rendered trust in sal-volatile a very high act of faith indeed.
While Oaklands and I were walking up to the Hall, we overtook Coleman returning from shooting wild-fowl. As we came up with him, Oaklands seized him by the shoulder, exclaiming:—
“Well, Freddy, what sport, eh?”
“My dear Oaklands,” returned he gravely, removing Harry's hand as he spoke, “that is a very bad habit of yours, and one which I advise you to get rid of as soon as possible; nobody who had ever endured one of your friendly gripes could say with truth that you hadn't a vice about you.”
“For which vile pun it would serve you right to repeat the dose,” replied Oaklands, “only that I am not in a vindictive mood at present.”
“Then you must have passed the afternoon in some very mollifying atmosphere,” returned Freddy, “for when I met you three hours ago, you seemed as if you could have cut anybody's throat with the greatest satisfaction.”
The conscious half-cough, half-laugh, with which Oaklands acknowledged this sally, attracted Coleman's attention, and mimicking the sound, he continued, “A—ha—hem! and what may that mean? I say, there's some mystery going on here from which I'm excluded—that's not fair, though, you know. Come, be a little more transparent; give me a peep into the hidden recesses of your magnanimous mind; unclasp the richly bound volume of your secret soul; elevate me to the altitude of the Indian herb, or, in plain slang—Young England's chosen dialect—make me 'up to snuff'.”
“May I enlighten him?” asked I.
“Yes, to be sure,” replied Oaklands; “I'll go on, for I am anxious to speak to my father. Freddy, old boy! shake hands; I'm the happiest fellow in existence!” so saying, he seized and wrung Coleman's hand with a heartiness which elicited sundry grotesque contortions, indicative of agony, from that individual, and, bounding forward, was soon lost to sight in the deepening twilight.
“And so, you see,” continued I, after having imparted to Coleman as much as I considered necessary of the state of affairs, a confidence which he received with mingled exclamations of surprise and delight—“and so, you see, we've not only got to tell Lawless that he is refused, poor fellow I but that Fanny has accepted Oaklands; very awkward, isn't it?”
“It would be with anybody else,” replied Coleman; “but I think there are ways and means of managing the thing which will prevent any very desperate consequences in the present instance; sundry ideas occur to me; would you mind my being in the room when you tell him?”
“As far as I am concerned, I should be only too glad to have you,” returned I, “if you do not think it would annoy him.”
“I'm not afraid of that,” was the rejoinder; “as I wrote the offer for him, it strikes me I'm the very person he ought to select for his confidant.”
“Do you think,” he added, after a moment's thought, “Harry would sell those phaeton horses?”
“That's the line of argument you intend to bring forward by way of consolation, is it? Well, it is not such a bad notion,” replied I; “but don't be too sure of success, 'Equo ne crédite Tueri': I doubt its being in the power of horse-flesh to carry such a weight of disappointment as I fear this news will occasion him.”
“Well, I've other schemes to fall back upon if this should fail,” returned Freddy; “and now let us get on, for the sooner we put him out of his misery the better.”
“Where's the master?” inquired I, encountering Shrimp as we crossed the hall.
“He's upstairs, sir; in his own room, sir; a-going it like bricks, if you please, sir; you can hear him down here, Gents.”
“Stop a minute—listen!” said Coleman; “I can hear him now.”
As he spoke, the sound of some one running quickly in the room overhead was distinctly audible; then came a scuffling noise, and then a heavyish fall.
“What's he doing?” asked Coleman.
“He's a-trainin' of hisself for some match as must be a-coming off, sir; leastways so I take it; he's been a-going on like that for the last hour and a quarter, and wery well he's lasted out, I say; he'll be safe to win, don't you think, Gents?”
“Out of the way, you imp!” exclaimed Coleman, seizing Shrimp by the collar, and swinging him half across the hall, where, cat-like, he fell upon his legs, and walked off, looking deeply insulted.
“I can't make out what he can be doing,” continued Freddy. “Come along!” so saying, he sprang up the staircase, two steps at a time, an example which I hastened to imitate.
“Come in!” cried the voice of Lawless, as Coleman rapped at the door; and anxious to discover the occasion of the sounds which had reached our ears in the hall, we lost no time in obeying the summons. On entering the apartment a somewhat singular spectacle greeted our sight. All the furniture of the room, which was a tolerably large one, was piled on two lines on either side, so as to leave a clear course along the middle; in the centre of the space thus formed were placed two chairs about a yard apart, and across the backs of these was laid the joint of a fishing-rod.
As we entered, Lawless—who was without shoes, coat, or waistcoat—exclaiming, “Wait a minute, I've just done it”—started from one end of the room, and, running up to the chairs in the centre, leaped over the fishing-rod. “Ninety-nine!” he continued; then, proceeding to the other end, he again ran up to and sprang over the barrier, shouting as he did so, in a tone of triumph, “A hundred!” and dragging an easy-chair out of the chaotic heap of furniture, he flung himself into it to all appearance utterly exhausted.
“Why, Lawless, man!” cried Freddy, “what are you doing? Have you taken leave of your senses all of a sudden?”
“Eh! I believe 1 should have, if I had not hit upon that dodge for keeping myself quiet.”
“A somewhat Irish way of keeping quiet,” returned Freddy; “why, the perspiration is pouring down your face—you look regularly used up.”
“Well, I am pretty nearly done brown—rather baked than otherwise,” replied Lawless; “let me tell you, it's no joke to jump five hundred times over a stick three feet high or more.”
“And why, in the name of all that's absurd, have you been doing it then?”
“Eh I why, you see, after I had sent our letter, I got into such a dreadful state of impatience and worry, I didn't know what to do with myself; I could not sit still at any price, and, first of all, I thought I'd have a good gallop, but I declare to you I felt so reckless and desperate, that I fancied I should go and break my neck; well, then it occurred to me to jump over that stick till I had tired myself out—five hundred times have I done it, and a pretty stiff job it was, too. And now, what news have you got for me, Frank?”
“My dear Lawless,” said I, laying my hand on his shoulder, “you must prepare for a disappointment.”
“There, that will do,” interrupted Lawless; “as to preparation, if my last hour's work is not preparation enough for anything, it's a pity. What! she'll have nothing to say to me at any price, eh?”
“Why, you see, we have all been labouring under a delusion,” I began.
“I have, under a most precious one,” continued Lawless—“regularly put my foot in it—made a complete ass of myself—eh! don't you see? Well, I'm not going to break my heart about it after all; it's only a woman, and it's my opinion people set a higher price upon those cattle than they are worth—they are a shying, skittish breed, the best of them.”
“That's the light to take it in,” exclaimed Coleman, coming forward; “if one woman says 'No,' there are a hundred others will say 'Yes'; and, after all, it's an open question whether a man's not better off without 'em.”
“Eh! Freddy boy, our fine letter's been no go—turned out a regular sell, you see, eh?”
“Well, that only proves the young lady's want of taste,” replied Coleman; “but we had not exactly a fair start. You have more to bear about it yet; the article you wished for was gone already—the damsel had not a heart to bestow. Tell him how it was, Frank.”
Thus urged, I gave a hurried outline of the affair as it really stood, dwelling much on the fact that Oaklands and Fanny had become attached in bygone years, long ere she had ever seen Lawless—which I hoped might afford some slight consolation to his wounded self-love. As I concluded, he exclaimed: “So Fanny's going to marry Harry Oak-lands—that's the long and short of it all. Well, I'm uncommonly glad to hear it—almost as glad as if I was going to marry her myself; there is not a better fellow in the world than Harry, though he has not regarded me with the most friendly looks of late. I was beginning not to like it, I can tell you, and meant to ask him why he did it; but I understand it all now. What a bore I must have been to them both! I declare I'm quite sorry; why, I would not have done it for any money, if I'd been up to the move sooner. Oh! I must tell Harry.”
“You certainly are the most good-natured fellow breathing, Lawless,” said I.
“Eh! yes, take me in the right way, I am quiet enough, a child may guide me with a snaffle; but stick a sharp bit in my mouth, and tickle my sides with the rowels, and I rear up before, and lash out behind, so that it would puzzle half the rough-riders in the country to back me. I always mean to go ahead straight enough if I can see my way clearly before me, but it's awkward driving when one gets among women, with their feelings, and sympathies, and all that style of article. I'm not used to it, you see, so no wonder if I run foul of their sensibilites and sentimentalities, and capsize a few of them. I've got pretty well knocked over myself though this time. Misfortunes never come alone too, they say; and I've just had a letter from Leatherley to tell me Spiteful got loose when the groom was leading him out to exercise, and trying to leap a fence staked himself so severely that they were obliged to have him shot. I refused eighty guineas for him from Dunham of the Guards only a month ago; I shall have my new tandem cart home, and no horses to run in it.”
“How well those chestnuts would look tandem!” observed Coleman carelessly; “I wonder whether Harry would sell them?”
“By Jove! I shouldn't like to ask him,” exclaimed Lawless quickly; “it is too much to expect of any man.”
“Oh! as to that,” replied Coleman, “I dare say I could contrive to find it out, without exactly asking him to sell them.”
“My dear fellow, if you would, I should be so much obliged to you,” replied Lawless eagerly; “if I could but get those horses to start the new cart with, I should be as happy as a king—that is,” he continued, checking himself, “I might become so; time, don't you see, resignation, and all that sort of thing—heigh ho!—By the way, how far is it from dinner? for jumping over those confounded chairs has made me uncommonly peckish, I can tell you.”
“He'll do,” said Coleman, as we separated to prepare for dinner.
It was easy to see by Sir John's beaming face, and the hearty squeeze he gave my hand when I entered the drawing-room, that Harry would not have to fear much opposition to his wishes on the part of his father. The dinner passed off pleasantly enough, though even when the meal was concluded, and the servants had left the room, no allusion was made (out of delicacy to Lawless) to the subject which engrossed the thoughts of many of the party. As soon, however, as the wine had gone the round of the table, Lawless exclaimed: “Gentlemen! are you all charged?” and receiving affirmatory looks from the company in general, he continued, “Then I beg to propose a toast, which you must drink as such a toast ought to be drunk, con amore. Gentlemen, I rise to propose the health of the happy couple that is to be.”
“Umph! eh I what?—what are you talking about, sir?—what are you talking about?” inquired Mr. Frampton, hastily setting down his wine untasted, and speaking quickly, and with much excitement.
“Do you see that?” whispered Lawless, nudging me, “he's off on a false scent; he never could bear the idea of my marrying Fanny, he as good as told me so one day; now be quiet, and I'll get a rise out of him.” He then continued, addressing Mr. Frampton: “You're getting a little hard of hearing, I'm afraid, sir; I was proposing the health of a certain happy couple, or rather of two people, who will, I hope, become so, in the common acceptation of the term, before very long”.
“Umph! I heard what you said, sir, plain enough (wish I hadn't), and I suppose I can guess what you mean. I'm a plain-spoken man, sir, and I tell you honestly I don't like the thing, and I don't approve of the thing—I never have, and so once for all—I—umph! I won't drink your toast, sir, that's flat. Umph! umph!”
“Well,” said Lawless, making a sign to Harry not to speak, “you are a privileged person, you know; and if Sir John and my friend Harry here don't object to your refusing the toast, it's not for me to take any notice of it; but I must say, considering the lady is the sister of your especial favourite Frank Fairlegh, and the gentleman one whom you have known from boyhood, I take it as particularly unkind of you, Mr. Frampton, not even to wish them well.”
“Eh! umph! it isn't that, boy—it isn't that,” returned Mr. Frampton, evidently taken aback by this appeal to his kindly feeling. “But, you see,” he added, turning to Sir John, “the thing is foolish altogether, they are not at all suited to each other; and instead of being happy, as they fancy, they'll make each other miserable: the boy's a very good boy in his way, kind-hearted and all that, but truth is truth, and he's no more fit to marry Fanny Fairlegh than I am.”
“Sorry I can't agree with you, Mr. Frampton,” replied Sir John Oaklands, drawing himself up stiffly; “I thank Mr. Lawless most heartily for his toast, and drink it without a moment's hesitation. Here's to the health of the young couple!”
“Well, I see you are all against me,” exclaimed Mr. Frampton, “and I don't like to seem unkind. They say marriages are made in heaven, so I suppose it must be all right. Here's the health of the happy couple, Mr. Lawless and Miss Fairlegh!”
It was now Lawless's turn to look out of countenance, and for a moment he did appear thoroughly disconcerted, more especially as it was next to impossible to repress a smile, and Freddy Coleman grinned outright; quickly recovering himself, however, he resumed, “Laugh away, Freddy, laugh away, it only serves me right for playing such a trick. I've been deceiving you, Mr. Frampton; Miss Fairlegh is indeed going to be married, but she has had the good taste to choose a fitter bridegroom than she would have found in such a harum-scarum fellow as I am. So here's a long life, and a merry one, to Fanny Fairlegh and Harry Oaklands; you won't refuse that toast, I dare say?”
“Umph! Harry Oaklands!” exclaimed Mr. Frampton aghast; “and I've been telling Sir John he wasn't good enough for Frank's sister—just like me, umph!”
“My dear Lawless,” said Harry, taking a seat next the person he addressed, which movement he accomplished during an immense row occasioned by Mr. Frampton, who was grunting forth a mixed monologue of explanations and apologies to Sir John, by whom they were received with such a hearty fit of laughing that the tears ran down his cheeks—“My dear Lawless, the kind and generous way in which you take this matter makes me feel quite ashamed of my behaviour to you lately, but I think, if you knew how miserable I have been, you would forgive me.”
“Forgive you! eh?” returned Lawless; “ay, a precious deal sooner than I can forgive myself for coming here and making you all uncomfortable. Nobody but such a thickheaded ass as I am would have gone on all this time without seeing how the game stood. I hate to spoil sport; if I had had the slightest idea of the truth, I'd have been off out of your way long ago.”
“You are a noble fellow!” exclaimed Harry, “and your friendship is a thing to be proud of. If there is any way in which I can testify my strong sense of gratitude, only name it.”
“I'll tell you,” said Coleman, who had caught the last few words—“I'll tell you what to do to make him all right—sell him your chestnuts.”
“The phaeton horses?” replied Harry. “No, I won't sell them.”
“Ah! I thought he would not,” murmured Lawless, “it was too much to expect of any man.”
“But,” continued Oaklands, “I am sure my father will join me in saying, that if Lawless will do us the favour of accepting them, nothing would give us greater pleasure than to see them in the possession of one who will appreciate their affections as they deserve.”
“Nay, they are your property, Harry,” returned Sir John; “I shall be delighted if your friend will accept them, but the present is all your own.”
“Eh! give 'em me, all free gratis, and for nothing!” exclaimed Lawless, overpowered at the idea of such munificence. “Why, you'll go and ruin yourself—Queen's Bench, whitewash, and all the rest of it! Recollect, you'll have a wife to keep soon, and that isn't done for nothing they tell me—pin-money, ruination-shops, diamonds, kid gloves, and bonnet ribbons—that's the way to circulate the tin; there are some losses that may be gains, eh? When one comes to think of all these things, it strikes me I'm well out of it, eh, Mr. Frampton?—Mind you, I don't think that really,” he added aside to me, “only I want Harry to fancy I don't care two straws about it; he's such a feeling fellow is Harry, lie would not be properly jolly if he thought I took it to heart much.”
“Umph! if those are your ideas about matrimony, sir,” growled Mr. Frampton, “I think you are quite right to leave it alone—puppy-dogs have no business with wives.” “Now don't be grumpy, governor,” returned Lawless, “when you've had your own way about the toast and all. Take another glass of that old port, that's the stuff that makes your hair curl and look so pretty” [Mr. Framp-ton's chevelure was to be likened only to a grey scrubbing-brush], “we'll send for the new dog-cart to-morrow, and you shall be the first man to ride behind the chestnuts.” “Thank ye kindly, I'll take your advice at all events,” replied Mr. Frampton, helping himself to a glass of port; “and as to your offer, why I'll transfer that to him (indicating Coleman), 'funny boy,' as I used to call him, when he was a boy, and he doesn't seem much altered in that particular now. Umph!”
This, as was intended, elicited a repartee from Coleman, and the evening passed away merrily, although I could perceive, in spite of his attempts to seem gay, that poor Lawless felt the destruction of his hopes deeply.
On my return to the cottage, the servant informed me that a man had been there, who wished very particularly to see me; that she had offered to send for me, but that he had professed himself unable to wait.
“What kind of looking person was he?” inquired I. “He was an oldish man, sir; very tall and thin, with grey hair, and he rode a little rough pony.” “Did he leave no note or message?” “He left this note, sir.”
Hastily seizing it, I locked myself into my own room, and tearing open the paper, read as follows:—
“Honoured Sir,—In case I should not see you, has my time will be short, I takes the liburty of writin' a line, and ham 'appy to hinform you, as things seem to me awl a-goin' wrong, leastways I think you'll say so when you 'ears my tail. Muster Richard's been back above a week, and he and the Old Un is up to their same tricks again; but that ain't awl—there's a black-haired pale chap cum with a heye like a nork, as seems to me the baddest of the lot, and that ain't sayin' a little. But there's worse news yet, for I'm afraid we ain't only get to contend hagainst the henemy, but there's a traytur in the camp, and that in a quarter where you cares most. Meet me tomorrow mornin' at the old place at seven o'clock, when you shall 'ear more from, Your umbel servant, to command,
“Peter Barnett, “late Sergeant in the —th Dragoons.”
Reader, do you wish me a good-night?—many thanks for your kindness, but if you have any hope that your wish will be realised, you must be of a very sanguine temperament, or you have never been in love.