CHAPTER XX.
A GLIMPSE OF LOVELY POLLY.
“Now, my dear Polly, I pray you make the very most this evening of your charms. For somebody will be there whom you little think to see.”
Polly and Molly, both on a visit to the Bryces in London, looked up sharply.
“Yes, indeed, and you may guess, but I vow you’ll never guess the truth. Two young maidens to have such good fortune! Had it come to me in my young days, why, I think ’twould have driven me out of my senses with joy. But you may conjecture—you may conjecture, Polly. Who in the world can it be?”
Polly was seated upright on a straight-backed chair, looking as usual exceedingly pretty. Her eyes, softer and more than ever like brown velvet, took a faraway expression, and the delicate tinting of her cheeks grew roseate. She said demurely, after a pause—
“If I might conjecture that which my desires would prompt, ma’am, I would say—Captain Ivor!”
Mrs. Bryce tapped the floor impatiently with her slippered and sandalled foot.
“Pish-pshaw! To be sure, that is proper enough, my dear. But now you may rest satisfied that you have said what propriety demands. And since Captain Ivor is a prisoner in foreign parts, and likely so to remain for many a long year to come, being therefore out of the question, we’ll e’en dismiss the thoughts of him, and I’ll ask Molly whom she would most desire to meet at the dance to-night.”
Molly sat upon a second high-backed chair, busily netting. At sixteen—close upon seventeen, indeed—she was more altered from the child of twelve than her twin-brother in the same lapse of time. She had not grown tall, and she was more rounded than in earlier years. Her black eyes looked less big and less anxious, partly because the face had lost its peakiness. A healthy complexion and an expression of straightforward earnestness served in place of good looks. Molly Baron would never be a “belle,” but she might become a woman to whom men and women alike would turn, with a restful certainty of finding in her what they wanted. Her reply was more prompt than Polly’s had been, and it consisted of one single syllable.
“Roy!”
“But Roy, like Captain Ivor, is a prisoner, child. Like to remain so also. Who next?”
“Jack!” Molly said, with equal rapidity.
“Nay, Jack is nobody. Jack is one of ourselves, and is in and out perpetually. Jack’s a genteel young fellow enough, I make no question, but somewhat better than Jack awaits you this evening. Eh, Polly—what if it be—no other than Captain Peirce?”
“Captain Peirce better than Jack! Nay!” Molly said indignantly.
Polly’s colour went up again, as it was wont to do on slight provocation, delicately and prettily. Polly also tossed her head, and arranged the light scarf, which covered her shoulders.
“Captain Peirce is welcome enough, ma’am,” she made answer carelessly.
“I do not like Captain Peirce,” murmured Molly.
“Nobody desired you to like Captain Peirce, my dear Molly. ’Tis vastly more to the point whether Polly likes him, since of a certainty Captain Peirce’s affections are engaged in a certain direction, which may be named without difficulty. Captain Peirce is a prodigious favourite with everybody, especially, I can assure you, with all the young women of mode. And he has eyes for none of ’em except Polly.”
Polly looked studiously down, offering no remark; and Molly frowned.
“If Captain Peirce were what a man should be, he would never come after Polly as he does, knowing that Polly is engaged to another, and he out of reach!”
“Tut, tut, my dear Molly! Pish! Pshaw! What know you of such matters? A chit of a young female of sixteen! I’m positively ashamed of you! Why, you’re scarce out of the nursery, child. And here’s Polly, the prettiest girl in all London, past twenty-one, and not yet married. No, nor no chance to be married, while old Nap lives; and depend on’t, he’ll not die yet, for many a long year. Is Polly to wait and wait, till her prettiness goes, and she turns into an elderly maiden, whom no man of ton will ever deign to cast eyes upon, while Captain Ivor spends perhaps fifteen or twenty years in France, and forgets his past fancy, and marries some beauteous young Frenchwoman?”
Molly gazed at Polly’s downcast face. “But Polly knows Captain Ivor better!” she suggested.
“Knows Captain Ivor better! And how may that be?” demanded the vivacious lady. “Since Polly has seen him but from time to time, and that at long intervals, and I have been acquainted closely with him since he was left an orphan at the age of seven. Nor have I a word to speak against Captain Denham Ivor, save only that to expect Polly to wait for him twenty years, losing her bloom and growing old, would be altogether unreasonable. And I have said the same before, Molly.” Which certainly she had.
“Polly is still a long way off from growing old,” persisted Molly.
“Well, well, that’s as may be. But you’ve not divined my secret yet,” pursued Mrs. Bryce. “Jack will be at my Lady Hawthorn’s to-night; and ’tis not Jack of whom I speak. Captain Peirce will be there; and ’tis not Captain Peirce. The Admiral will be there; and ’tis not the Admiral. Somebody else also will be there—and ’tis he.”
Mrs. Bryce lifted a book from the table. “Who was it that read last week the ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel,’ and that said she would give half she was possessed of to set eyes on the writer of that most elegant poem?”
“Mr. Walter Scott!” The rapture on Molly’s girlish face fully repaid Mrs. Bryce, who, whatever her faults might have been, did dearly love to give pleasure. Polly too smiled, but more quietly, having her mind greatly preoccupied.
“Mr. Walter Scott is now in London, and will be at Lady Hawthorn’s assemblage. So now, Miss, what say you to my promise of somebody that shall be worth seeing?”
“Really and truly?” questioned Molly, half incredulously. “May we in truth hope to see Mr. Walter Scott himself to-night? That will be worth going for, were there naught else. Think, Polly, Mr. Walter Scott himself, that writ all about William of Deloraine and the ‘Fair Ladye Margaret of Branksome Hall.’”
“You may count yourself a fortunate young woman, Molly,” complacently observed Mrs. Bryce. “At the early age of sixteen, not only to have a personal acquaintance with so distinguished a martial hero as Sir John Moore, but also to have had a sight of Mr. Southey, the author of ‘Thalaba,’ as well as of Mr. Southey’s friend, Mr. William Wordsworth, and now to be brought face to face with Mr. Scott himself—I give you joy of such good fortune.”
“And the last will be the best,” remarked Molly. “For I love the ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel’ infinitely more than I love ‘Thalaba.’ Sure, ma’am, so great a poet as Mr. Scott has never yet been known.”
“If the public voice be true, ’tis even so. Mr. Southey complains sorely of his ill-luck in the poor sale of his poems, and I know not that Mr. Wordsworth has much to boast of. Whereas Mr. Scott’s poems go off by the myriad, and are read of all. I’m informed that Mr. Constable is this year paying him one thousand pounds in advance for a poem not yet completed—a poem about a place that is called ‘Rokeby.’ And ten thousand people are on the look-out for its appearance. But now ’tis full time you began to prepare yourselves; and Polly must look her best this night.”
Polly was in no wise unwilling. It was as natural to her to adorn her dainty self as to a wren to preen and perk. Molly, being no professed beauty, made shorter work of her toilette. Her white muslin gown was of the simplest; and her short black hair was all but hidden under a turban of white silk. But every strand of Polly’s abundant mane needed attention, though crowned with a fantastic hat, which carried lofty white feathers; and her embroidered white gown, made with its waist under the arm-pits, left throat and snowy shoulders bare. The skirt was clinging and scanty; and a large white muff completed her ball-room equipment, except that a light scarf was wound round the said shoulders, and that the dainty feet bore satin slippers.
Polly looked exquisitely pretty. Her skin was like ivory; the blush-rose tinting was just where it ought to have been; and the smile in her velvet eyes was in itself a sunbeam.
She could never enter a crowded room, without becoming at once a centre for all glances. Molly, close behind, was neglected by comparison, and was quite content to have it so. While amused with the scene, she did not expect admiration.
The one thing on which her heart was set was the promised sight of Mr. Walter Scott, the future “Wizard of the North.” His real work in life, the writing of the “Waverley Novels,” had not then been so much as begun; but he was already well known as the very successful author of divers historical ballads, which had taken the fashionable world by storm. When he came from his Scotch home to London, he was fêted and made much of to any extent.
Molly pictured him to herself as a quite ineffable individual, with fathomless dark eyes and flowing locks of ebony, such as should befit an immortal poet. And “immortal” Scott doubtless is, in the literary sense, with still no peer, but hardly as a poet. Popular judgment made a mistake there—not for the first or the last time in its existence.
“Where, where, is he of the radiant brow,
The faulchion glance and the flashing eye,
Whose lofty mien and dazzling air
Bespeaks——” etc.
This is not a quotation; it is merely a specimen of the kind of thing that our great-grandmothers and grandmothers in their early youth admired and doted on. The bump of veneration must have been more highly developed on people’s heads in those days than in these. And how they did admire and did dote, the dear young things! Just as Molly Baron did that evening. She sat upon her quiet seat, neglected, yet perfectly happy at the thought of the glorious poet-form, which her gaze was soon to rest upon. She did not care to talk. She did not wish to dance. She was wrapped in a dream, from which Mrs. Bryce’s decisive finger-tips aroused her.
“Wake up, my dear. Are you asleep, Molly? Here he comes.”
Molly looked rapturously around and about in eager quest. But she saw no wondrous human form to correspond to the image in her mind. A lame man, of good height, rather robust in make, healthy, but scarcely “elegant,” with brown hair, flaxen eyebrows, a long upper lip, and a frank genial expression—no, that was not Molly Baron’s ideal of an immortal poet. His eyes were only light grey in colour, not dark and wild, as a poet’s should have been. Yet the gleams of arch brightness which lighted up his face, as he talked, went a long way towards redeeming it from homeliness.
Then Molly was called up to be presented to the poet; and he said a few kind words to the young girl—she could not afterwards remember what they were. In later years she would be glad to know always that she had seen and spoken with him; but at the moment her mind was full of its sudden disillusionment.
Mr. Walter Scott passed on, surrounded by a host of friends; and Molly retreated again to her seat. Plenty was going on to amuse and interest her. She had danced twice, and now a rather long pause had come, no fresh partners turning up. Molly was of course under Mrs. Bryce’s wing, but that lady had too many irons in the fire to spare much time for the quiet country girl at her side. Molly cared little. She liked to look and listen, indulging in cogitations of her own. Mrs. Bryce’s gay talk was entertaining enough, as the good lady expatiated on this person and that, flirted her fan at one elderly gentleman and captured another, dissected theoretically one lady’s “bewitching gown,” and descanted on the “superb equipage” possessed by another, reverting then to the “London Particular Madeira” which had been served at a recent grand dinner-party, and hoping for some of the same at supper.
Growing surfeited with this, Molly turned her attention elsewhere, and descried Admiral Peirce close at hand, button-holing another gentleman, and holding forth to him in a loud voice on the advantages of London as a place of residence.
“Why, sir,” he was saying, “why, sir, there’s nothing after all like old Thames. Give me the blue ocean and tossing waves. But for a landsman—why, the Thames is as good as he may look to find. And I tell you what, sir, the water of the river Thames is the finest drinking-water in the world! Only has to stand and ferment a little, and then it’ll keep as long as ever you want it.[1] Yes, sir, it will indeed.”
Molly, being sublimely indifferent to the qualities of London drinking-water, which in those days was not considered a question of pressing interest, wandered farther afield. A slight pucker came between her brows, as she made out Polly at a short distance, with Captain Albert Peirce in close attendance. He was bending towards Polly, saying something in a low and confidential voice; and it was impossible from Polly’s look to know whether she were pleased or displeased.
The gay scene around faded from Molly’s vision. She was looking down, thoughtfully, at her own half-furled fan; but she did not see the fan, or the crowds of gay women around in their low dresses and hats or turbans, scarves and muffs and satin shoes. Another scene had risen before her mental eyes. She seemed again to be in a day long gone by; and Roy was giving her a boisterous kiss.
“All right, Molly!” he was calling gaily. “It’s only for two weeks, you know, and then we shall be back again.” And as Roy ran off, in high glee, she had looked up, and had seen Denham Ivor holding Polly’s hands in a firm clasp, while Polly’s sweet face was downward bent and blushing. But it was not Polly who in one moment had left an indelible impression upon Molly’s childish memory. When she thought of that day it was always Ivor’s face—the young Guardsman’s look of silent grave devotion—which unbidden came up.
“How can Mrs. Bryce say such things? He will never, never forget!” murmured Molly, her lips unconsciously moving with the energy of her own thoughts.
“Molly, this is sure scarce a place for audible meditation,” a voice said at her side.
“Jack!”
Molly’s whole face grew bright. Now she had all, or nearly all, that she wanted. She was extremely fond of Jack, and Jack of her. They were exactly like brother and sister, so Molly, not Jack, often stated. He was quite next to Roy in her estimation. Roy held inviolate the first place in his twin-sister’s affections; but Jack came closely after.
“Were you spouting Mr. Scott’s last new poem, Molly?” demanded Jack, as he deposited himself in an empty chair by her side.
“You love to plague me, Jack! Why should I be spouting aught?”
Jack gave her a quizzical look.
“’Tis dull work for a young maiden to be seated here. What may Mrs. Bryce be after, not to find you partners?”
“Jack, be cautious, she is near. See!”—with a motion of her fan. “And I am not dull. I am never dull. I have danced two whole dances, Jack.”
“And three with me to come. You do not forget.”
“Two,” corrected Molly. “And they will be the best of all”—with childish frankness. “But my grandmother desired me to dance no more than two with any one man. And what news of Sir John?” Molly had a quick womanly instinct, which not all women possess, as to what people would like to speak about, and she generally managed to hit the mark, whence her quiet popularity in the little circle of those who knew her well.
“I went to Cobham but a week since, and saw his mother. She fears Sir John is sorely worried by these Sicilian complications. The Queen of Sicily must be a strange personage. She detests the English, and gives all her confidence to Frenchmen—so says Sir John—yet our government fights in defence of the King, her husband, and pays him too a subsidy.”
“And ’tis but a year since Sir John was all on the alert to be sent to India.”
“Ay; so he told me, and his mother speaks of it still. She says that Sir John deems India to be by far the most important colony our nation has ever had. He thought then that he might well be spared for a while from Europe, matters being somewhat at a standstill. Since Trafalgar there can be no further dread of an invasion, and little was doing or is doing on the Continent, to check the Emperor’s advance. For my part, I doubt not that Sir John would prefer above all to be at the head of affairs in India. I have heard him say that that was the greatest and most important command which could fall to a British officer. But Mr. Fox refused to spare him, saying that England could not do without him in Europe.”
Jack had always plenty to say, when once he got upon the subject of his Hero.
(To be continued. )