The Widow Barnaby Volume Iii Part 13

"She will refuse to see her!" thought he, pacing the room in violent agitation.... "and in that case she will keep her word.... She will never be my wife!"

"Bless me!... How you do shake the room, Colonel Hubert," said a very crabbed voice behind him, just after he had pa.s.sed the door in his perturbed promenade. "If you took such a fancy early in the morning, when the house maid might sweep up the dust you had raised, I should not object to it, for it is very like having one's carpet beat;... but just as I am coming to sit down here, it is very disagreeable indeed."

This grumble lasted just long enough to allow the old lady (who looked as if she had been eating crab apples, and walked as if she had suddenly been seized with the gout in all her joints,) to place herself in her easy chair as she concluded it, during which time the Colonel stood still upon the hearth-rug with his eyes anxiously fixed upon the venerable but very hostile features that were approaching him. A moment's silence followed, during which the old Lady looked up in his face with the most provoking expression imaginable; for cross as it was, there was a glance of playful malice in it that seemed to say,--

"You look as if you were going to cry, Colonel."

He felt provoked with her, and this gave him courage.--"May I beg of you, Lady Elizabeth, to tell me what I may hope from your kindness on the subject I mentioned to you last night?" said he.

"Pray, sir, do you remember your grandfather?" was her reply.

"The Earl of Archdale?... Yes, madam, perfectly."

"You do.... Humph!... And your paternal grandfather, with his pedigree from Duke Nigel of Normandy; did you ever hear of him?"

"Yes, Lady Elizabeth," replied the Colonel in a tone of indifference; "I have heard of him; but he died, you know, when I was very young."

There was a minute's silence, which was broken by another question from Lady Elizabeth.

"And pray, sir, will you do me the favour to tell me who was the grandfather of Miss Willoughby?"

"I have little, or indeed no doubt, Lady Elizabeth, that Miss Willoughby is the granddaughter of that Mr. Willoughby, of Greatfield Park, in Warwickshire, who lost the tremendous stake at piquet that you have heard of, and two of whose daughters married the twin sons of Lord Eastcombe.... I think you cannot have forgotten the circ.u.mstances."

Lady Elizabeth drew herself forward in her chair, and fixing her eyes stedfastly on the face of her nephew, said, in a voice of great severity, "Do you mean to a.s.sert to me, Colonel Montague Hubert, that Agnes Willoughby is niece to Lady Eastcombe and the Honourable Mrs.

Nivett?"

"I mean to a.s.sert to you, madam, that it is my firm persuasion that such will prove to be the fact. But I have not considered it necessary, Lady Elizabeth Norris, for the son of my father to withhold his affections from the chosen of his heart, till he was a.s.sured he should gain all the honour by the selection which a union with Lady Eastcombe's niece could bestow;... nor should I have mentioned my belief in this connexion, by way of a set-off to the equally near claim of Mrs. Barnaby, had you not questioned me so particularly."

Had Colonel Hubert studied his answer for a twelvemonth, he could not have composed a more judicious one: there was a spice of hauteur in it by no means uncongenial to the old lady's feelings, and there was, too, enough of defiance to make her take counsel with herself as to whether it would be wise to vex him further. It was, therefore, less with the accent of mockery, and more with that of curiosity, that she recommenced her interrogatory.

"Will you tell me, Montague, from what source you derived this knowledge of Miss Willoughby's family?... Was it from herself?"

"Certainly not. If the facts be as I have stated, and as I hope and believe they will be found, Miss Willoughby will be as much surprised by the discovery as your ladyship."

"From whom, then, did you hear it?"

"From no one, Lady Elizabeth, as a matter of fact connected with Agnes.

But something, I know not what, introduced the mention of old Willoughby's wild stake at piquet at the club the other day.... The name struck me, and I led old Major Barnes to talk to me of the family. He told me that a younger son, a gay harum-scarum sort of youth, married some girl, when he was in country quarters, whom his family would not receive; that, ruined and broken-hearted by this desertion, he went abroad almost immediately after his marriage, and has never been heard of since."

"And this is the foundation upon which you build your hope, that Mrs.

Barnaby's niece is also the niece of Lady Eastcombe?... Ingenious certainly, Colonel, as a theory, but somewhat slight as an edifice on which to hang any weighty matter.... Don't you think so?"

"I hang nothing on it, Lady Elizabeth. If I did not feel that Miss Willoughby was calculated to make me happy without this supposed relationship, I certainly should not think her so with it. However, that your ladyship may not fancy my imagination more fertile than it really is, I must add, that when at Clifton, I did hear from the Misses Peters, whom I have before mentioned to you, that the father of Agnes went abroad after his marriage, and moreover that no news of him in any way ever reached his wife's family afterwards."

Lady Elizabeth for some time made no reply, but seemed to ponder upon this statement very earnestly. At length she said, in a tone from which irony and harshness, levity and severity, were equally banished,--"Montague!... there are some of the feelings which you have just expressed, in which I cannot sympathise; but a very little reflection will teach you that there is no ground of offence to you in this ... for it would be unnatural that I should do so. You tell me that your father's son need not deem the honour of a relationship to Viscountess Eastcombe necessary to his happiness in life. So far I am able to comprehend you, although Lady Eastcombe is an honourable and excellent personage, whose near connexion with a young lady would be no contemptible advantage (at least in my mind) upon her introduction into life. But we will pa.s.s this.... When, however, you proceed to tell me that your choice in marriage could in nowise be affected by the rank and station of those with whom it might bring you in contact, and that, too, when the question is, whether a Mrs. Barnaby, or a Lady Eastcombe, should be in the foreground of the group, you must excuse me if I cannot follow you."

Nothing is so distressing in an argument as to have a burst of grandiloquent sentiment set aside by a few words of common sense.

Colonel Hubert walked the length of the drawing-room, and back again, before he answered; he felt that, as his aunt put the case, he was as far from _following_ his a.s.sertion by his judgment as herself; but ere his walk was finished, the image of the desolate Agnes, as he had seen her the night before, arose before him, and resumed its unconquerable influence on his heart. He took a hint from her ladyship, threw aside all mixture of heat and anger, and replied.--

"Heaven forbid, Lady Elizabeth, that I should attempt to defend any such doctrine:... believe me, it is not mine. BUT, in one word, I love Miss Willoughby; and if I can arrive at the happiness of believing that I am loved in return, nothing but her own refusal will prevent me from marrying her. This is my statement of facts; I will attempt no other, and throw myself wholly upon your judgment to smooth, or render more rugged, the path which lies before me."

The old lady looked at him and smiled very kindly. "Montague," said she, "resolve my doubts. Is it the mention of your pleasant suspicions respecting Miss Willoughby's paternal ancestry,... or your present unvarnished frankness, that has won upon me?... Upon my honour, I could not answer this question myself;... but certain it is that I do feel more inclined to remember what a very sweet creature Agnes is at this moment, than I ever thought I should again when our conversation began."

Colonel Hubert kneeled down upon her foot-stool, and kissing her hand, said, in a voice that spoke his happiness, "It matters not to me what the cause is, my dearest aunt.... I thank Heaven for the effect!... and now ... do not think that I am taking an unfair advantage of this kindness, if I ask you to remember the position of Miss Willoughby at this moment. With such views for the future as I have explained to you, is it not my duty to remove her from it?"

"What then do you propose to do?" demanded Lady Elizabeth.

"_I_ can do nothing,"... he replied;... "whatever aid or protection can be extended to her, must come from you ... or Lady Stephenson;... and that I should rather it came from you, who have long been to me as a mother, can hardly surprise you. Sir Edward is an excellent young man,... but he has prejudices that I should not like to battle with on this occasion. It is from you, and you only, Lady Elizabeth, that I either hope or wish to find protection for my future wife."

Again Lady Elizabeth pondered. "Did not Agnes tell us," she said at length, "did she not say in her letter to Lady Stephenson, that she had applied to some aged relation in Devonshire, by whom she hoped to be extricated from her present terrible embarra.s.sment?"

"It is very likely," replied Colonel Hubert, "for she spoke to me of such a one, and hoped that Thursday ... that is to-morrow, is it not?...

would bring an answer to her application."

"Then, Montague, we must wait to hear what this Thursday brings forth before we interfere to repeat the offer of protection which it is possible she may not want.... And Heaven grant it may be so,... for if she is to be your wife, Colonel Hubert, and it is pretty plain she will be, will it not be better that you should follow her with your addresses to the lowliest roof in Devonshire, than that she should take refuge here, where every gossip's finger will be pointed at her?"

It was impossible to deny the truth of this, and Colonel Hubert cared not to avow that all the favour she had bid him hope for was but conditional, and that till the avowal of his love should be sanctioned by his aunt and sister, he was still to hold himself as a rejected man.

He dared not tell her this, lest the feelings he had conquered with so much difficulty should return, upon learning that it was not yet too late to encourage them.

As patiently as he could, therefore, he awaited the expected letter from Agnes, and well was he rewarded for doing so. The letter itself, modest and unboastful as it was, gave a sufficiently improved picture of her condition to remove all present anxiety on her account; and though he certainly had no idea of the transformation she had undergone, from a heart-broken, penniless dependant, into a petted, cherished heiress, he was soothed into the belief that it would now cost his aunt and sister infinitely less pain than he had antic.i.p.ated, to extend such a degree of favour to his Agnes as might lead her to confirm the hope on which he lived.

But it was not the letter of Agnes that produced the most favourable impression upon Lady Elizabeth; the postscript of Miss Compton was infinitely more powerful in its effect upon her mind. Of Agnes, personally, she never thought without a degree of partial admiration, that nearly approached to affection; and vague as the hope was respecting the family of her father, it clung very pertinaciously to the old lady's memory, while a certain resemblance which she felt sure that she could trace between the nose of Agnes and that of the honourable Miss Nivett, Lord Eastcombe's eldest daughter, was doing wonders in her mind by way of a balance-weight against the rouge and ringlets of Mrs.

Barnaby; yet, nevertheless, the notion that not "horrid Mrs. Barnaby"

only, but a host of aunts and cousins of the same breed, might come down upon her in the event of this ill-a.s.sorted marriage, kept her in a sort of feverish wavering state, something between good and ill humour, that was exceedingly annoying to her nephew.

The keen-sighted old lady at once perceived that the postscript to Agnes's letter was not written by a second Mrs. Barnaby, and from that moment she determined, much more decisively than she chose to express, that she would torment Colonel Hubert with no farther opposition.

After a short consultation between the aunt and niece, that letter was despatched, the receipt of which was mentioned before Miss Compton and Agnes left London for Clifton. Had Colonel Hubert been consulted upon it, he would perhaps have suggested, as an improvement, that the proposed meeting should take place the following week in London; but, on the whole, the composition was too satisfactory for him to venture upon any alteration of it, and again he called patience to his aid, while many miserably long days were wasted by the very slow and deliberate style in which the man and maid servant who managed all Lady Elizabeth's worldly concerns, set about preparing themselves and her for this removal. It was with a degree of pleasure which almost atoned for the vexation of this delay that he learned Sir Edward's good-natured compliance with his beautiful bride's capricious-seeming wish of revisiting Clifton. Colonel Hubert pertinaciously refused to let his gay brother-in-law into his confidence, till the time arrived for presenting him to Miss Willoughby, as to his future wife. Did this reserve arise from some unacknowledged doubt whether Agnes, when the pressure of misfortune was withdrawn, would voluntarily bestow herself on a man of his advanced age? Perhaps so. That Agnes was less than eighteen, and himself more than thirty-five, were facts repeated to himself too often for his tranquillity.

CHAPTER XI.

AGNES APPEARS AT CLIFTON IN A NEW CHARACTER.

At as early an hour, on the morning after her arrival at Clifton, as Agnes could hope to find her friend Mary awake, she set off for Rodney Place. It was a short walk, but a happy one, even though she had yet to learn whether Lady Elizabeth Norris and her party were or were not arrived.

But there was something at the bottom of her heart that made her very tolerably easy ... more so perhaps than she confessed to herself ... on this point. Every day made the mysterious fact of Miss Compton's being a woman of handsome fortune more familiar to her, and every hour made it more clear that she had no other object in life than to make that fortune contribute to the happiness of her niece. It followed, therefore, that, not having altogether forgotten the fact of Colonel Hubert's declaration at a moment when all things, but his own heart, must have pleaded against her, some very comfortable ground for hope to rest upon, was discoverable in the circ.u.mstances of her present position.... "There will be no danger," thought she, "that when he speaks again, my answer should be such as to make him fancy himself too old for me."

The servant at Rodney Place who opened the door to Agnes, was the same who had done her the like service some dozen of times during her last visit at Clifton, but he betrayed no sign of recognition when she presented herself. In fact, the general appearance of Agnes was so greatly changed from what he had been accustomed to see it when she was clothed in the residuum of the Widow Barnaby's weeds, that till she smiled, and spoke her inquiry for Miss Peters, he had no recollection of her.

As soon, however, as he discovered that it was the Miss Willoughby who had left all his ladies crying when she went away, he took care to make her perceive that she was not forgotten by the manner in which he said, "Miss Peters, ma'am, is not come down stairs yet; but she will be very happy to see YOU, ma'am, if you will please to walk up."

As the early visitor was of the same opinion, she scrupled not to find her way to the well-known door, and without even the ceremony of a tap, presented herself to her friend. It is probable that Mary looked more at the face and less at the dress of the visitor than the servant had done, for, uttering a cry of joy, she sprang towards her, and most affectionately folded her in a cordial embrace.

"My sweet Agnes!... This is so like you! At the very instant you entered, I was calculating the probabilities between to-day and to-morrow for your arrival. Ah, little girl!... Did I not tell you to address yourself to Miss Compton, of Compton Basett, long ago? What say you to my wisdom now?"