A Nest of Linnets

by Frank Frankfort Moore

He was the merriest, the wildest, the wittiest of the little party of gay youths that night. His was the most gracefully cynical of the banter which was directed against young Halhed—a youth who had acquired quite a reputation at Oxford as the avowed but hopeless lover of Miss Linley, and who was now rather overdoing the part of the rejected swain, going the length of quoting Horace and Juvenal on the subject of the lightness of woman’s love, and being scarcely able to conceal his gratification at the distinction conferred upon him on being made the subject of the banter of his friends in general and of young Sheridan in particular. Before midnight had come and the first dozen of claret had gone, he was really not quite sure whether it conferred greater distinction on a man to be the accepted or the rejected lover of a young woman about whose beauty and accomplishments every one raved. The rôle of the Victim possessed several heroic elements. He was quite certain, however, that in introducing a mildly melancholy note regarding her heartlessness, he was conferring distinction upon the lady.

But when Dick Sheridan had crept upstairs to his room—somewhat unsteadily—after his bitterly merry night, he found that the bracing effects of the plunge are temporary. He found that though the plunge may alleviate, it is not curative—that the momentary alleviation which it secures has to be paid for.

He lay awake for hours, his remorse for having been so weak as to lapse from the straight path which he had laid out for himself since he became conscious of his love for Betsy Linley, adding to the bitterness of the reflection that he had lost her for ever.

When he awoke after a few hours of intermittent sleep, he had a sense of his disaster; but with it came the resolution that he would let no one suspect how hard hit he was by the announcement of Betsy’s engagement to marry Mr. Long—he would not even let the girl herself suspect it. He would smile and shrug when people referred to the matter in his presence. He would not be such a poor, weak creature as Halhed, who went about bleating his plaint in every stranger’s ear. He would show himself to be more a man of the world than that.

He dressed with scrupulous care—he was not going to affect the loose garters of the woeful lover—and sauntered out, swinging his cane with the ease and nonchalance of the man of fashion; and he flattered himself that the sharp and rapid repartee in which he indulged when he joined the group in the gardens, would be sufficient to convince even Garrick himself that he regarded the engagement of Miss Linley with complete indifference. The moment, however, that the girl appeared with Mr. Long at the entrance, he felt unable to sustain the rôle any longer: he felt that he must run away and hide himself in some secret corner where he could see no one and where no one could see him. He had not counted upon facing the girl so soon—he had not counted upon witnessing the chastened pride of her successful lover in the presence of the unsuccessful. He knew that he could not continue acting the part which he had assumed: he knew that he should break down and be shamed for evermore.

He hurried away without once glancing round, and his first impression was that he must weep. He only bore up against this appalling impulse until he reached his home. He entered the house whistling, and shouted out a line or two of a merry song when on the stairs; but before the echo of his voice had died away, he was lying on his bed in tears.

He felt that his part in the world had come to an end—that for him no future but one of misery was possible. The hope which had sustained him in the face of his struggles to make a name for himself had turned to despair. She was not to be his. She was to go to another. She had elected to go to a man who, he believed, with all a true lover’s suspicion of another’s merits, was incapable of appreciating her beauty—her beautiful nature—her lovely soul.

He was overwhelmed by the thought of the bare possibility of a thing so monstrous being sanctioned by Providence. He despaired of the future of a world in which it was possible for so monstrous a thing to occur. It was no world for worthy lovers to live in—so much was perfectly clear to him. He felt himself to be a worthy lover, for had he not resisted temptations innumerable, during the years that he had loved Betsy, only for her sake?

He had felt upon every occasion of resisting a temptation that he was increasing his balance, so to speak, in his banking account with Fate—paying another instalment, as it were, toward acquiring Betsy Linley. He had worked for her as Jacob had worked for Rachel, but Fate had turned out to him as unjust as Laban had been—nay, more unjust, for he had not even a Leah given to him to console him; and, besides, his Rachel was bestowed upon another.

How could he be otherwise than hopeless of a world so ill-governed as to allow of such a gross injustice taking place?