Mabel knew that a look, a single word, even an emphasis on an ordinary word are sometimes the evidences of affection. Yet, all that Lucy told her, seemed to fall short, certainly of her ideas of love, formed, as they had been, from her own unhappy history. Yet she hesitated to speak her opinion freely; for, after all, it might be only a very unkind suspicion of one who had not given any very good cause for believing him to be a trifler. He had, besides, been so kind to herself, that she could not help feeling prepossessed in his favor.
Meanwhile, Clair appeared as attentive as ever, but his attentions were never varied by ill humour or depression. Still Lucy rested confident in the power of her own attractions—and, persisting in believing he was only diffident—she became more and more lavish of encouragement, without, however, finding her admirer become either warmer or bolder.
What was to be done? Her letters to Bath had been full of the admiration she had inspired in the young officer, and of expectations that, in a few more posts, she would have to announce his decided proposals. The letters she received in return were full of delighted badinage from her sisters, and good advice from her mother. How then could she bear to return home with the tacit confession that her vanity had deceived her; and thus subject herself to her sisters' cutting jests, and the bitterness of her often disappointed mother. The poor girl had been spoilt by education and companionship, and she was, according to her own idea, forced to play desperately in order to justify what she had written home. She did not stop to consider that all delicacy, modesty, and all that is precious in a woman, would be risked in such a game, when she read such words as these in her mother's letters, "you might well pride yourself," she wrote, "on being the first of my daughters whom I shall have the pleasure of seeing married. Indeed I have always flattered myself, that my Lucy would be the first to secure herself an establishment."
The seeds of vanity, thus sown by a mother's hand, grew quickly in the daughter's heart. To be the first to be married was an idea that filled her with pleasure; she did not stop to analyze, or she might have discovered that the hope of mortifying her sisters by her marriage, was inconsistent with the love she believed she felt for them.
But now, what could she do! how could she bring her backward lover to a proposal! She eagerly seized any opportunity of meeting him, and never neglected pursuing any conversation which seemed likely to lead to love. Still she was as far from her object as ever, and at length she felt the feverish eagerness of a gambler to bring the game to a successful close.
Mabel, who saw she suffered, sincerely, pitied her, though unable to divine her thoughts. Disappointed affection the poor girl might have successfully struggled against; but she could not banish the idea of the sneers and jests, which, in contrast to her present popularity, would meet her at home. Home, which in its sacred circle ought to have afforded a refuge from every evil passion, as from every outward danger. She knew it would not be so, and willingly would she almost have thrown herself at the Captain's feet, and begged him to protect her from it, rather than oblige her to return to such a sanctuary.
Oh, fashionable and speculating mothers, why do you crush in your children some of the sweetest and loveliest of their feelings. Why are you so utterly foolish, as, first to make them unworthy of a husband's trust and confidence, and then wonder that they do not obtain them. A man seeks, in his wife, for a companion to his best feelings, fit your daughters to fill such situations, and, should they then fail to obtain them, they will still hold an honored place in society.
Lucy felt that her success, in a matrimonial point of view, was all that her mother regarded, that she seemed to view her daughters with the eyes of the public, and valued them in proportion to the admiration they excited, and she now strained every nerve to gratify both her and herself.
There was one little plan to which she looked with great interest. Mr. Ware's proposal of their taking tea in Mrs. Lesly's garden, was to be carried into effect. They were all to dine early, and drink tea soon enough to prevent any danger of taking cold, and Mabel was to prepare them tea and fruit in the garden, while Miss Ware would take hers quietly in doors with Mrs. Lesly. Amy talked herself tired with planning it, for a week before, asking Mabel for an exact list of all the fruit she meant to get for their entertainment. Lucy looked forward to it more seriously; she fancied Clair entered so eagerly into the plan that she hoped he had some particular reason for wishing it, more than the mere pleasure of taking tea in the open air. Was it not very likely, that lounging down one of the shady walks which skirted the garden, he might find courage to tell all she so much wished to hear.
The expected evening at length arrived.