Dilemmas of Pride Volume I Part 10

Caroline looked the most innocent astonishment.

"You really do not understand me," proceeded her ladyship, in the same tone of mockery. "Are you then not aware that I have been a witness to the scene which has just pa.s.sed? and have, of course, heard your modest ladyship stating to Mr. Arden how much at a loss you were for some one to love you, forsooth! Barefaced enough, certainly! Upon which the young man could not in common politeness do less than offer his services.

Besides, it was much too good a thing to be rejected; few younger brothers, and therefore beggars, would refuse the hand of an heiress of your rank and fortune. Go! you disgrace to your family and s.e.x; go to your room, and remain there till you have my permission to leave it. As for Mr. Arden, I shall give orders that he is never again admitted beneath this roof. Should you hereafter meet him in society do not dare to recognise him. Go!"

Caroline was moving towards the door, without attempting a reply, well aware that remonstrance or entreaty would be perfectly vain.

"Stay!--I have changed my mind," recommenced her ladyship. "Mr. Arden comes to-morrow, it seems--let him come--I shall not see him. Receive him yourself, reject him yourself, now and for ever! Tell him that on reflection you have repented of your folly; and that the subject must not be even mentioned to me. Let the interview take place in this room--let your rejection be distinct, and let him suppose it comes from yourself. I shall be again in the conservatory--I shall hear and see all that pa.s.ses; and on your peril, by word or look, say more or less than I have commanded."

Caroline flung herself on her knees, and with clasped hands and streaming eyes looked up in her mother's face. "Oh, do not, do not,"

she exclaimed, "ask me to see him, and in all else I will submit!"

Lady Palliser laughed out with malicious irony, saying, "So you offer conditional obedience. Do," she proceeded, frowning fiercely, and extending her clenched hand in the att.i.tude of a fury, "precisely as I have commanded!"

"This evening," continued her ladyship, with affected composure, looking contemptuously down on Caroline, who was sobbing ready to break her heart, "this evening, deport yourself as though nothing had happened: dance as much as usual; and do not dare to have red eyes, or to show the slightest depression of manner. Should Mr. Arden make any allusion to what has occurred this morning, merely tell him to say nothing more on the subject till to-morrow."

Here Lady Palliser quitted the apartment, while Caroline remained on her knees, overwhelmed by utter despair, and shedding, with all the innocent vehemence of childhood, the large pure tears, which like summer showers fall so abundantly from the eyes of the young in their first sorrow.

The alternative of daring to disobey her harsh and heartless mother never once presented itself to her mind as possible.

CHAPTER XIX.

It was night--arrivals had commenced--the lights, the music, the decorations, the sight and scent of the flowers, all added to the aching of Caroline's temples and the confusion of her ideas, as she stood in a sort of waking dream, conscious only of wretchedness, near the door of the first of the reception rooms, courtesying with a mechanical smile to each new group that appeared. She would have given the world to have been any where else, but this was the post her mother had commanded her to fill.

When the ladies of the Arden party entered, she felt a childish impulse to fling herself into the bosom of Lady Arden, and drawing all the daughters round her, entreat them to hide her from her cruel mother.

Alfred next appeared, accompanied by Sir Willoughby and Mr. Geoffery Arden. The two latter named gentlemen had been expected for some days, but had arrived only about two hours before.

Alfred presented both, and some unmeaning conversation pa.s.sed about the heat of London, how long they had been on the road, &c. Our hero, the moment he came in, missed the flowers Caroline had promised to wear, and felt disappointed. If she had forgotten them in the hurry of dressing it was no very flattering token of her regard. If, on the other hand, Lady Palliser had noticed and forbid her wearing them, it was a bad symptom of his ultimate success. He longed for an opportunity of venturing some playful reproach which might lead to an explanation. When his companions moved on a step or two he drew very near, and asked in an emphatic whisper, if the chosen blossoms had faded already. A rush of colour, which the peculiar fairness of Caroline's complexion already described made the more remarkable, covered her cheeks in a moment; but she attempted no reply. After a short and somewhat anxious pause Alfred asked her to dance; she looked up suddenly but vacantly, as if scarcely comprehending what he had said, but still spoke not. He was just about to repeat his words, when Willoughby, who had been conversing with Lady Palliser, turned round and made the same request. Caroline, glancing towards her mother, and seeing her eye upon her, started, a.s.sented quickly, took Willoughby's arm, and walked to the quadrille.

Lady Palliser noted the chagrin of our hero with secret triumph, and suddenly forming one of her usually whimsical and tyrannical resolves, determined, as an appropriate punishment for the lovers, to marry her daughter to Sir Willoughby, whose match in town she had heard it confidently reported was off. Though he was but a baronet, his immense property made it at least an eligible marriage; and such, little as she cared about Caroline, she had always considered it a necessary part of etiquette some time or other to provide.

That Alfred, however, might ascribe Caroline's change to her own caprice, and be the more mortified, Lady Palliser took his arm, walked about with him for a considerable time, and treated him with more than her usual cordiality.

It had the desired effect, it threw him into complete despair; he could not now even console himself with the thought that Caroline was acting under the influence of her mother.

When the dancing had ceased, and Caroline was seated with her evidently delighted partner on a distant sofa, Lady Palliser led our hero up to her, and said, "Come, Caroline, I have no notion of giving up old friends for new ones altogether: you must dance one set with poor Alfred; do see how forlorn he looks."

Caroline was utterly confounded: had her mother forgiven them--was she going to relent.

Such happy thoughts, however, were soon scattered, for Lady Palliser, on pretext of arranging a stray ringlet, drawing very near, whispered, with a menacing frown, "Take care how you behave, and what you say." The frown and whisper destroying as they did the momentary hope, caused Caroline, on taking Alfred's arm, to look so much disappointed that it was impossible not to infer that she would rather have remained on the sofa. Yet Alfred could not bring himself to believe this! he was miserable, however, and did not know what to think; while he was so much occupied forming painful conjectures, that he himself behaved strangely and coldly.

Caroline thought with intense agony of the task she had to perform in the morning, while with a feeling allied to terror she stole from time to time a momentary glance at the features of him she must so soon mortally offend; to whom she must so soon give apparently just cause to view her henceforward with hatred and contempt. She even fancied that his countenance wore already a severity of expression she had never seen in it before. She bewildered herself too with the thought, that if she could get an opportunity and venture just to whisper, "Mr. Arden, don't mind any thing I am obliged to say to you in the morning," it might prevent his thinking so very very ill of her as he must otherwise do.

This sentence she repeated to herself above an hundred times during the quadrille, yet whenever she was going to address it to Alfred, and more than once she moved her lips to begin, she either caught her mother's eye turned upon her, or she fancied it might be, and dared not look to see lest it should give her a conscious and guilty appearance; or the impression that Alfred was already displeased became so strong as to deprive her of the courage to speak to him; besides all which, her heart at each abortive attempt she made to articulate, leaped up into her throat, and by its excessive fluttering quite choked her utterance, till the convenient moment was gone by. On the music ceasing, Lady Palliser came up and took her away, as if in great haste to make some arrangement, yet, in so obliging a manner, and with so many pretty excuses, that Alfred thought her ladyship at least was unchanged.

And so must Caroline, he told himself again and again; "it can be but fancy on my part, or rather, all that seems strange and altered in her manner must proceed from her extreme delicacy, her excessive timidity, her consciousness that we now perfectly understand each other's thoughts makes her fearful to meet my eye, at least with others present; makes her afraid that all the world will know the moment they see us together what is pa.s.sing in our hearts. I can well imagine one so gentle, so young, so fearful, feeling the newness of her situation, almost as though she were already a bride; having listened but this very morning, for the first time in her life, I should suppose favourably, to the accent of a lover."

Alfred had wandered into the conservatory, where, amid the intoxicating odours of ten thousand exotics--pursuing this train of thought--he luxuriated for a time in dream-like meditations on the delicacy, the devotion, the exclusive tenderness, which must necessarily characterise the attachment of a being so pure, so innocent, so unpractised in the world's ways as Caroline--his Caroline! Yes, he was now ent.i.tled to combine with her idea this endearing epithet.

He was standing the while with his arms folded and his eyes unconsciously uplifted to a brilliant lamp, as if lost in contemplation of its brightness.

A change in the music broke his reverie; when his discerning vision pa.s.sing along a vista of orange trees, found its way into the drawing-room, and fell on a group preparing to waltz. Among these, and occupying the very spot hallowed to memory by the interview of the morning, he beheld Caroline standing with the arm of Willoughby round her slender waist, and her hand resting on his shoulder--a moment after the couple had launched amid the tide of changing forms; but Alfred's eye still traced them as they floated round and round the prescribed circle, till, what with the moving scene, and his own thoughts of agony, his brain went round also. He had never been able to prevail with Caroline to waltz, her plea of refusal had always been that she did not waltz. Was she then changed in every sentiment--in every opinion--in every feeling! Had she become hardened to the world--lost to personal delicacy--lost to affection--lost to him! What had she--what had she not become! and all within a few short hours.

CHAPTER XX.

In vain had our heroine, when Sir Willoughby had asked her to waltz, pleaded the same excuse alluded to in our last chapter. Lady Palliser, who was near, and heard Sir Willoughby's request, interfered, and commanded compliance; while poor Caroline, who seems to have been born but to be the victim of her mother's caprices, was led away to join the gay circle, trembling and broken-hearted.

The report that Willoughby's marriage had been broken off was quite true: he had written the account to Alfred a day or two before. The lady had the very day previous to that fixed for the wedding eloped with her former lover; while Sir Willoughby had found himself, his preparations being all made, in rather an absurd situation.

The newspapers, too, had taken unwarrantable liberties with his name, and made some witty comments on the superior personal attractions of his rival.

His vanity it was which had in the first instance been gratified--his vanity now suffered proportionately. And so irritable was his temper and so depressed his spirits, on his arrival in Cheltenham, that Alfred, who had but just returned from his interview with Caroline, felt that it would be mistimed to mention her, or allude at all at present to his own happier prospects. He limited the confidential conversation, therefore, to kind condolence with his brother, being too delicate to remind Willoughby that he might have escaped this mortification had he taken his advice.

Thus was the foundation unintentionally laid of a concealment which finally led to many disastrous consequences.

The moment Willoughby was introduced to Caroline he was captivated by her beauty. After they had danced together, when our heroine was so unexpectedly desired by her mother to dance with Alfred, Geoffery Arden, who may be termed Willoughby's evil genius, took possession of the seat beside him on the sofa, which had been just vacated by Caroline; and well knowing his cousin's weak point, said, "Well, that is one of the most pointed things I ever saw."

"To what do you allude?" asked Willoughby.

"Did you not see how mortified her ladyship looked at having her flirtation with you disturbed."

"Flirtation, indeed!" repeated Willoughby, laughing; "the acquaintance is rather short for that, I should think."

"Nay, we hear of love at first sight; and it was certainly something very like it. You were not many minutes in the room when you asked Lady Caroline to dance; and I don't know whether you noticed it, but a moment or two before Alfred, who has been so long acquainted, had made the same request; the lady pretended not to hear: she heard, however, when you spoke, and consented with marked alacrity."

Willoughby's vanity, which had been so lately wounded, gladly welcomed suggestions so flattering. To woo and win the young, the beautiful, the rich Lady Caroline Montague, might well silence the jeers of those who were disposed to make impertinent comments on his late disappointment.

As for Geoffery Arden's motive for offering the incense of flattery to Willoughby, it was the same which in most cases governs most men--self-interest. It was by the grossest flattery that he had long since made himself necessary to his cousin; and by the same means he still sought to retain an influence over him, which, in a pecuniary point of view, was particularly convenient to himself. On the present occasion also, he had seen with half a glance sufficient to make him suspect, at least, that Lady Caroline Montague was an object of interest to Alfred. If he was right in his conjecture, the circ.u.mstance might afford a favourable opportunity for sowing the seeds of dissension between the brothers, an object of which he never lost sight, well knowing that his own influence and that of Alfred could never go hand in hand--the one being for evil, the other for good.

Added to this, it was always more or less an object with him to throw obstacles in the way of any love affair of either of the brothers; for though he was not so romantic as to expect by such means to succeed in preserving them both old bachelors, should they reach old age--for such a chance could not be very important to him, who was so much their senior--it was just as well to keep the book of fate open as long as possible. There was no use in increasing the chances against himself.

The fewer names, in short, above his own on the list of even improbable advantages the better.

While the cousins continued to occupy their sofa, and observe the dancers, Geoffery was eloquent in the praises of Caroline's beauty; quoting, as he well might, many high authorities for her being the acknowledged belle of the late season in town. He knew that weak men, with all their obstinate devotion to their own opinions, unconsciously see with the eyes, hear with the ears, and even speak in the language of others; and that their love most especially is a mere reflection!

Indeed, to gain an entire ascendency over weak people only requires a little management; but unfortunately it is of that uncandid sort which their best friends are the least likely to adopt.

If you say to an ill-governed child, "My dear, you have eaten enough of that cake, give it me, and take this pretty toy to play with." The child says, "No, I won't; it's not a pretty toy," and eats faster than before.

But lay down the toy carelessly within his sight, and if he has eaten sufficiently, he will drop his cake on the floor, and fly to seize the toy.

Men and women of weak minds are but children of a larger growth.