“Not come, but coming,” said Mrs. Hungerford; “and I am proud that you, my friends, should see what a sensation the first sound of his return makes in his own home. There it is, after all, that you may best judge what a man really is.”
Every thing conspired to give Caroline a favourable idea of Colonel Hungerford. He arrived—and his own appearance and manners, far from contradicting, fully justified all that his friends had said. His appearance was that of a soldier and a gentleman, with a fine person and striking countenance, with the air of command, yet without presumption; not without a consciousness of his own merit, but apparently with only a consciousness sufficient to give value and grace to his deference for others. To those he respected or loved, his manner was particularly engaging; and the appropriate attentions he paid to each of his friends proved that their peculiar tastes, their characteristic merits, and their past kindnesses, were ever full in his remembrance. To his mother his grateful affection, and the tender reverence he showed, were quite touching; and the high opinion he had of her character, and the strong influence she held over his mind, he seemed proud to avow in words and actions. To his sister Mortimer, in a different but not less pleasing manner, his affection appeared in a thousand little instances, which the most polite courtiers, with the most officious desire to please, could not without the happy inspiration of truth have invented. There were innumerable slight strokes in his conversation with his sister which marked the pleasure he felt in the recollection of their early friendship, allusions to trivial passages in the history of their childhood, which none of the important scenes in which he had since been engaged had effaced from his mind; and at other times a playful carelessness, that showed the lightness, the expanding freedom of heart, which can be felt only in the perfect confidence and intimacy of domestic affection. In his manner towards his cousins, the Lady Pembrokes, who, since he had last seen them, had grown up from children into fine young women, there were nice differences; with all the privileged familiarity of relationship he met the sprightly frankness of Lady Mary, and by a degree of delicate tender respect put the retiring sensitive timidity of Lady Elizabeth at ease. None of these shades of manner were lost upon Caroline’s discriminating observation. For some time after his arrival, the whole attention of every individual at Hungerford Castle was occupied by Colonel Hungerford. All were alternately talking of him or listening to him. The eagerness which every body felt to hear from him accounts of public and private affairs, and the multitude and variety of questions by which he was assailed, drew him out continually; so that he talked a great deal, yet evidently more to gratify others than himself. He was always unwilling to engross the conversation, and sometimes anxious to hear from his mother and sister of domestic occurrences; but he postponed his own gratification, and never failed to satisfy general curiosity, even by the repetition of narratives and anecdotes, till he was exhausted. Conscious that he did not wish to make himself the hero of his tale, he threw himself upon the mercy of his friends, or their justice; and without any of the provoking reserve of affected or cowardly humility, he talked naturally of the events in which he had taken a share, and of what concerned himself as well as others. With polite kindness, which gratified them peculiarly, he seemed to take the Percy family, as his mother’s friends, directly upon trust as his own: he spoke before them, freely, of all his confidential opinions of men and things. He did them justice in considering them as safe auditors, and they enjoyed and fully appreciated the value of his various conversation. In his anecdotes of persons, there was always something decidedly characteristic of the individual, or illustrative of some general principle. In his narratives there were strong marks of the Froissart accuracy of detail, which interests by giving the impression of reality, and the proof of having been an eye-witness of the scene; and sometimes, scorning detail, he displayed the power of keeping an infinite number of particulars in subordination, and of seizing those large features which gave a rapid and masterly view of the whole. For his profession he felt that enthusiasm which commands sympathy. Whilst he spoke of the British army, those who heard him seemed to see every thing, as he did, in a military point of view. Yet his love of military glory had not hardened his heart so as to render him insensible of the evils and sufferings which, alas! it necessarily produces. The natural expression of great feeling and humanity burst from him; but he turned hastily and firmly from the contemplation of evils, which he could not prevent, and would not uselessly deplore. In conversing one day privately with Mr. Percy, he showed that bitter and deep philosophic reflections on the horrors and folly of war had passed through his mind, but that he had systematically and resolutely shut them out.
“We are now,” said he, “less likely than ever to see the time when all the princes of Europe will sign the good Abbé de St. Pierre’s project for a perpetual peace; and, in the mean time, while kingdoms can maintain their independence, their existence, only by superiority in war, it is not for the defenders of their country to fix their thoughts upon ‘the price of victory.’”
After explaining the plan of a battle, or the intrigues of a court, Colonel Hungerford would turn with delight to plans of cottages, which his sister Mortimer was drawing for him; and from a map of the seat of war he would go to a map of his own estate, eagerly asking his mother where she would recommend that houses should be built, and consulting her about the characters and merits of those tenants with whom his absence on the continent had prevented him from becoming acquainted. These and a thousand other little traits showed that his military habits had not destroyed his domestic tastes.
Caroline had taken an interest in the military profession ever since her eldest brother had gone into the army. Colonel Hungerford was seven or eight years older than Godfrey Percy, and had a more formed, steady, and exalted character, with more knowledge, and a far more cultivated understanding; but many expressions, and some points of character, were similar. Caroline observed this, and wished and hoped that, when her brother should have had as many opportunities of improvement as Colonel Hungerford’s experience had given him, he might be just such a man. This idea increased the interest she took in observing and listening to Colonel Hungerford. After he had been some time at home, and that every day more and more of his amiable character had been developed, Rosamond said to herself, “This is certainly the man for Caroline, and I suspect she begins to think so. If she does not, I never will forgive her.”
One day, when the sisters were by themselves, Rosamond tried to sound Caroline on this subject. She began, as she thought, at a safe distance from her main object. “How very much esteemed and beloved Colonel Hungerford is in his own family!”
“Very much and very deservedly,” answered Caroline. She spoke without any hesitation or embarrassment.
Rosamond, rather dissatisfied even with the fulness of the assent to her first proposition, added, “And not only by his own family, but by all who know him.”
Caroline was silent.
“It is surprising,” continued Rosamond, “that a man who has led a soldier’s wandering life should have acquired so much literature, such accurate knowledge, and should have retained such simple and domestic tastes.”