“Indeed! I scarcely saw them. I thought they were children. They looked quite childish. I had no idea they had all these perfections, and were such wonders of the world.”
“That's just the way with you women! At home, if me or George praised a woman, Mrs. Esmond, and Mountain, too, would be sure to find fault with her!” cries Harry.
“I am sure I would find fault with no one who is kind to you, Mr. Warrington,” sighed Maria, “though you are not angry with me for envying them because they had to take care of you when you were wounded and ill—whilst I—I had to leave you?”
“You dear good Maria!”
“No, Harry! I am not dear and good. There, sir, you needn't be so pressing in your attentions. Look! There is your black man walking with a score of other wretches in livery. The horrid creatures are going to fuddle at the tea-garden, and get tipsy like their masters. That dreadful Mr. Morris was perfectly tipsy when I came to you, and frightened you so.”
“I had just won great bets from both of them. What shall I buy for you, my dear cousin?” And Harry narrated the triumphs which he had just achieved. He was in high spirits: he laughed, he bragged a little. “For the honour of Virginia I was determined to show them what jumping was,” he said. “With a little practice I think I could leap two foot farther.”
Maria was pleased with the victories of her young champion. “But you must beware about play, child,” she said. “You know it hath been the ruin of our family. My brother Castlewood, Will, our poor father, our aunt, Lady Castlewood herself, they have all been victims to it: as for my Lord March, he is the most dreadful gambler and the most successful of all the nobility.”
“I don't intend to be afraid of him, nor of his friend Mr. Jack Morris neither,” says Harry, again fingering the delightful notes. “What do you play at Aunt Bernstein's? Cribbage, all-fours, brag, whist, commerce, piquet, quadrille? I'm ready at any of 'em. What o'clock is that striking—sure 'tis seven!”
“And you want to begin now,” said the plaintive Maria. “You don't care about walking with your poor cousin. Not long ago you did.”
“Hey! Youth is youth, cousin!” cried Mr. Harry, tossing up his head, “and a young fellow must have his fling!” and he strutted by his partner's side, confident, happy, and eager for pleasure. Not long ago he did like to walk with her. Only yesterday, he liked to be with Theo and Hester, and good Mrs. Lambert; but pleasure, life, gaiety, the desire to shine and to conquer, had also their temptations for the lad, who seized the cup like other lads, and did not care to calculate on the headache in store for the morning. Whilst he and his cousin were talking, the fiddles from the open orchestra on the Parade made a great tuning and squeaking, preparatory to their usual evening concert. Maria knew her aunt was awake again, and that she must go back to her slavery. Harry never asked about that slavery, though he must have known it, had he taken the trouble to think. He never pitied his cousin. He was not thinking about her at all. Yet when his mishap befell him, she had been wounded far more cruelly than he was. He had scarce ever been out of her thoughts, which of course she had had to bury under smiling hypocrisies, as is the way with her sex. I know, my dear Mrs. Grundy, you think she was an old fool? Ah! do you suppose fools' caps do not cover grey hair, as well as jet or auburn? Bear gently with our elderly fredaines, O you Minerva of a woman! Or perhaps you are so good and wise that you don't read novels at all. This I know, that there are late crops of wild oats, as well as early harvests of them; and (from observation of self and neighbour) I have an idea that the avena fatua grows up to the very last days of the year.