As the hour of Lucy's departure drew near, Mr. Fountain became anxious to see her betrothed to his friend, for fear of accidents. “You had better propose to her in form, or authorize me to do so, before she goes to that Mrs. Bazalgette.” This time it was Talboys that hung back. He objected that the time was not opportune. “I make no advance,” said he; “on the contrary, I seem of late to have lost ground with your niece.”
“Oh, I've seen the sort of distance she has put on; all superficial, my dear sir. I read it in your favor. I know the sex; they can't elude me. Pique, sir—nothing on earth but female pique. She is bitter against us for shilly-shallying. These girls hate shilly-shally in a man. They are monopolists—severe monopolists; shilly-shally is one of their monopolies. Throw yourself at her feet, and press her with ardor; she will clear up directly.” The proposed attitude did not tempt the stiff Talboys. His pride took the alarm.
“Thank you. It is a position in which I should not care to place myself unless I was quite sure of not being refused. No, I will not risk my proposal while she is under the influence of this Dodd; he is, somehow or other, the cause of her coldness to me.”
“Good heavens! why, she has been hermetically sealed against him ever so long,” cried Fountain, almost angrily.
“I saw his sister come out of your gate only the other day. Sisters are emissaries—dangerous ones, too. Who knows? her very coldness may be vexation that this man is excluded. Perhaps she suspects me as the cause.”
“These are chimeras—wild chimeras. My niece cares nothing for such people as the Dodds.”
“I beg your pardon; these low attachments are the strongest. It is a notorious fact.”
“There is no attachment; there is nothing but civility, and the affability of a well-bred superior to an inferior. Attachment! why, there is not a girl in Europe less capable of marrying beneath her; and she is too cold to flirt—-but with a view to matrimonial position. The worst of it is, that, while you fear an imaginary danger, you are running into a real one. If we are defeated it will not be by Dodd, but by that Mrs. Bazalgette. Why, now I think of it, whence does Lucy's coldness date? From that viper's visit to my house. Rely on it, if we are suffering from any rival influence, it is that woman's. She is a dangerous woman—she is a character I detest—she is a schemer.”
“Am I to understand that Mrs. Bazalgette has views of her own for Miss Fountain?” inquired Talboys, his jealousy half inclined to follow the new lead.
“In all probability.”
“Oh, then it is mere surmise.”
“No, it is not mere surmise; it is the reasonable conjecture of a man who knows her sex, and human nature, and life. Since I have my views, what more likely than that she has hers, if only to spite me? Add to this her strange visit to Font Abbey, and the somber influence she has left behind. And to this woman Lucy is going unprotected by any positive pledge to you. Here is the true cause for anxiety. And if you do not share it with me, it must be that you do not care about our alliance.”
Mr. Talboys was hurt. “Not care for the alliance? It was dear to him—all the dearer for the difficulties. He was attached to Miss Fountain—warmly attached; would do anything for her except run the risk of an affront—a refusal.” Then followed a long discussion, the result of which was that he would not propose in form now, but would give proofs of his attachment such as no lady could mistake; inter alia, he would be sure to spend the last evening with her, and would ride the first stage with her next day, squeeze her hand at parting, and look unutterable. And as for the formal proposal, that was only postponed a week or two. Mr. Fountain was to pay his visit to Mrs. Bazalgette, and secretly prepare Miss Fountain; then Talboys would suddenly pounce—and pop. The grandeur and boldness of this strategy staggered, rather than displeased, Mr. Fountain.
“What! under her own roof?” and he could not help rubbing his hands with glee and spite—“under her own eye, and malgre her personal influence? Why, you are Nap. I.”
“She will be quite out of the way of the Dodds there,” said Talboys, slyly.
The senior groaned. (“'Mule I.' I should have said.”)
And so they cut and dried it all.
The last evening came, and with it, just before dinner, a line by special messenger from Mr. Talboys. “He could not come that evening. His brother had just arrived from India; they had not met for seven years. He could not set him to dine alone.”
After dinner, in the middle of her uncle's nap, in came Lucy, and, unheard-of occurrence—deed of dreadful note—woke him. She was radiant, and held a note from Eve. “Good news, uncle; those good, kind Dodds! they are coming to tea.”
“What?” and he wore a look of consternation. Recollecting, however, that Talboys was not to be there, he was indifferent again. But when he read the note he longed for his self-invited visitors. It ran thus:
“DEAR MISS FOUNTAIN—David has found out the genealogy. He says there is no doubt you came from the Fountains of Melton, and he can prove it. He has proved it to me, and I am none the wiser. So, as David is obliged to go away to-morrow, I think the best way is for me to bring him over with the papers to-night. We will come at eight, unless you have company.”
“He is a worthy young man,” shouted Mr. Fountain. “What o'clock is it?”
“Very nearly eight. Oh, uncle, I am so glad. How pleased you will be!”
The Dodds arrived soon after, and while tea was going on David spread his parchments on the table and submitted his proofs. He had eked out the other evidence by means of a series of leases. The three fields that went with Font Abbey had been let a great many times, and the landlord's name, Fountain in the latter leases, was Fontaine in those of remoter date. David even showed his host the exact date at which the change of orthography took place. “You are a shrewd young gentleman,” cried Mr. Fountain, gleefully.
David then asked him what were the names of his three meadows. The names of them? He didn't know they had any.
“No names? Why, there isn't a field in England that hasn't its own name, sir. I noticed that before I went to sea.” He then told Mr. Fountain the names of his three meadows, and curious names they were. Two of them were a good deal older than William the Conqueror. David wrote them on a slip of paper. He then produced a chart. “What is that, Mr. David?”
“A map of the Melton estate, sir.”
“Why, how on earth did you get that?”
“An old shipmate of mine lives in that quarter—got him to make it for me. Overhaul it, sir; you will find the Melton estate has got all your three names within a furlong of the mansion house.”
“From this you infer—”
“That one of that house came here, and brought the E along with him that has got dropped somehow since, and, being so far from his birthplace, he thought he would have one or two of the old names about him. What will you bet me he hasn't shot more than one brace of partridges on those fields about Melton when he was a boy? So he christened your three fields afresh, and the new names took; likely he made a point of it with the people in the village. For all that, I have found one old fellow who stands out against them to this day. His name is Newel. He will persist in calling the field next to your house Snap Witcheloe. 'That is what my grandfather allus named it,' says he, 'and that is the name it went by afore there was ever a Fountain in this ere parish.' I have looked in the Parish Register, and I see Newel's grandfather was born in 1690. Now, sir, all this is not mathematical proof; but, when you come to add it to your own direct proofs, that carry you within a cable's length of Port Fontaine, it is very convincing; and, not to pay out too much yarn, I'll bet—my head—to a China orange—”
“David, don't be vulgar.”
“Never mind, Mr. Dodd—be yourself.”
“Well, then, to serve Eve out, I'll bet her head (and that is a better one than mine) to a China orange that Fontaine and Fountain are one, and that the first Fontaine came over here from Melton more than one hundred and thirty years ago, and less than one hundred and forty, when Newel's grandfather was a young man.”
“Probatum est,” shouted old Fountain, his eyes sparkling, his voice trembling with emotion. “Miss Fontaine,” said he, turning to Lucy, throwing a sort of pompous respect into his voice and manner, “you shall never marry any man that cannot give you as good a home as Melton, and quarter as good a coat of arms with you as your own, the Founteyns'.” David's heart took a chill as if an ice-arrow had gone through it. “So join me to thank our young friend here.”
Mr. Fountain held out his hand. David gave his mechanically in return, scarcely knowing what he did. “You are a worthy and most intelligent young man, and you have made an old man as happy as a lord,” said the old gentleman, shaking him warmly.
“And there is my hand, too,” said Lucy, putting out hers with a blush, “to show you I bear you no malice for being more unselfish and more sagacious than us all.” Instantly David's cold chill fled unreasonably. His cheeks burned with blushes, his eyes glowed, his heart thumped, and the delicate white, supple, warm, velvet hand that nestled in his shot electric tremors through his whole frame, when glided, with well-bred noiselessness, through the open door, Mr. Talboys, and stood looking yellow at that ardent group, and the massive yet graceful bare arm stretched across the table, and the white hand melting into the brown one.
While he stood staring, David looked up, and caught that strange, that yellow look. Instantly a light broke in on him. “So I should look,” felt David, “if I saw her hand in his.” He held Lucy's hand tight (she was just beginning to withdraw it), and glared from his seat on the newcomer like a lion ready to spring. Eve read and turned pale; she knew what was in the man's blood.
Lucy now quietly withdrew her hand, and turned with smiling composure toward the newcomer, and Mr. Fountain thrust a minor anxiety between the passions of the rivals. He rose hastily, and went to Talboys, and, under cover of a warm welcome, took care to let him know Miss Dodd had been kind enough to invite herself and David. He then explained with uneasy animation what David had done for him.
Talboys received all this with marked coldness; but it gave him time to recover his self-possession. He shook hands with Lucy, all but ignored David and Eve, and quietly assumed the part of principal personage. He then spoke to Lucy in a voice tuned for the occasion, to give the impression that confidential communication was not unusual between him and her. He apologized, scarce above a whisper, for not having come to dinner on her last day.
“But after dinner,” said he, “my brother seemed fatigued. I treacherously recommended bed. You forgive me? The nabob instantly acted on my selfish hint. I mounted my horse, and me voila.” In short, in two minutes he had retaliated tenfold on David. As for Lucy, she was a good deal amused at this sudden public assumption of a tenderness the gentleman had never exhibited in private, but a little mortified at his parade of mysterious familiarity; still, for a certain female reason, she allowed neither to appear, but wore an air of calm cordiality, and gave Talboys his full swing.
David, seated sore against his will at another table, whither Mr. Fountain removed him and parchments on pretense of inspecting the leases, listened with hearing preternaturally keen—listened and writhed.
His back was toward them. At last he heard Talboys propose in murmuring accents to accompany her the first stage of her journey. She did not answer directly, and that second was an age of anguish to poor David.
When she did answer, as if to compensate for her hesitation, she said, with alacrity: “I shall be delighted; it will vary the journey most agreeably; I will ride the pony you were so kind as to give me.”
The letters swam before David's eyes.
Lucy came to the table, and, standing close behind David—so close that he felt her pure cool breath mingle with his hair, said to her uncle: “Mr. Talboys proposes to me to ride the first stage to-morrow; if I do, you must be of the party.”
“Oh, must I? Well, I'll roll after you in my phaeton.”
At this moment Eve could bear no longer the anguish on David's beloved face. It made her hysterical. She could hardly command herself. She rose hastily, and saying, “We must not keep you up the night before a journey,” took leave with David. As he shook hands with Lucy, his imploring eye turned full on hers, and sought to dive into her heart. But that soft sapphire eye was unfathomable. It was like those dark blue southern waters that seem to reveal all, yet hide all, so deep they are, though clear.
Eve. “Thank Heaven, we are safe out of the house.”
David. “I have got a rival.”
Eve. “A pretty rival; she doesn't care a button for him.”
David. “He rides the first stage with her.”
Eve. “Well, what of that?”
David. “I have got a rival.”
David was none of your lie-a-beds. He rose at five in summer, six in winter, and studied hard till breakfast time; after that he was at every fool's service. This morning he did not appear at the breakfast table, and the servant had not seen him about. Eve ran upstairs full of anxiety. He was not in his room. The bed had not been slept in; the impress of his body outside showed, however, that he had flung himself down on it to snatch an uneasy slumber.
Eve sent the girl into the village to see if she could find him or hear tidings of him. The girl ran out without her bonnet, partaking her mistress's anxiety, but did not return for nearly half an hour, that seemed an age to Eve. The girl had lost some time by going to Josh Grace for information. Grace's house stood in an orchard; so he was the unlikeliest man in the village to have seen David. She set against this trivial circumstance the weighty one that he was her sweetheart, and went to him first.
“I hain't a-sin him, Sue; thee hadst better ask at the blacksmith's shop,” said Joshua Grace.
Susan profited by this hint, and learned at the blacksmith's shop that David had gone by up the road about six in the morning, walking very fast. She brought the news to Eve.
“Toward Royston?”
“Yes, miss; but, la! he won't ever think to go all the way to Royston—without his breakfast.”
“That will do, Susan. I think I know what he is gone for.”
On the servant retiring, her assumed firmness left her.
“On the road she is to travel! and his rival with her. What mad act is he going to do? Heaven have mercy on him, and me, and her!”
Eve knew what was in the man's blood. She sat trembling at home till she could bear it no longer. She put on her bonnet, and sallied out on the road to Royston, determined to stop the carriage, profess to have business at Royston, and take a seat beside Mr. Fountain. She felt that the very sight of her might prevent David from committing any great rashness or folly. On reaching the high road, she observed a fresh track of narrow wheels, that her rustic experience told her could only be those of a four-wheeled carriage, and, making inquiries, she found she was too late; carriage and riders had gone on before.
Her heart sank. Too late by a few minutes; but somehow she could not turn back. She walked as fast as she could after the gay cavalcade, a prey to one of those female anxieties we have all laughed at as extravagant, proved unreasonable, and sometimes found prophetic.
Meantime Lucy and Mr. Talboys cantered gayly along; Mr. Fountain rolled after in a phaeton; the traveling carriage came last. Lucy was in spirits; motion enlivens us all, but especially such of us as are women. She had also another cause for cheerfulness, that may perhaps transpire. Her two companions and unconscious dependents were governed by her mood. She made them larks to-day, as she had owls for some weeks past, last night excepted. She would fall back every now and then, and let Uncle Fountain pass her; then come dashing up to him, and either pull up short with a piece of solemn information like an aid-de-camp from headquarters, or pass him shooting a shaft of raillery back into his chariot, whereat he would rise with mock fury and yell a repartee after her. Fountain found himself good company—Talboys himself. It was not the lady; oh dear no! it never is.
At last all seemed so bright, and Mr. Talboys found himself so agreeable, that he suddenly recalled his high resolve not to pop in a county desecrated by Dodds. “I'll risk it now,” said he; and he rode back to Fountain and imparted his intention, and the senior nearly bounded off his seat. He sounded the charge in a stage whisper, because of the coachman, “At her at once!”
“Secret conference? hum!” said Lucy, twisting her pony, and looking slyly back.
Mr. Talboys rejoined her, and, after a while, began in strange, melodious accents, “You will leave a blank—”
“Shall we canter?” said Lucy, gayly, and off went the pony. Talboys followed, and at the next hill resumed the sentimental cadence.
“You will leave a sad blank here, Miss Fountain.”
“No greater than I found,” replied the lady, innocently (?). “Oh, dear!” she cried, with sudden interest, “I am afraid I have dropped my comb.” She felt under her hat. [No, viper, you have not dropped your comb, but you are feeling for a large black pin with a head to it. There, you have found it, and taken it out of your hair, and got it hid in your hand. What is that for?]
“Ten times greater,” moaned the honeyed Talboys; “for then we had not seen you. Ah! my dear Miss Fountain—The devil! wo-ho, Goliah!”
For the pony spilled the treacle. He lashed out both heels with a squeak of amazement within an inch of Mr. Talboys' horse, which instantly began to rear, and plunge, and snort. While Talboys, an excellent horseman, was calming his steed, Lucy was condoling with hers. “Dear little naughty fellow!” said she, patting him [“I did it too hard”].
“As I was saying, the blessing we have never enjoyed we do not miss; but, now that you have shone upon us, what can reconcile us to lose you, unless it be the hope that—Hallo!”
Lucy. “Ah!”
The pony was off with a bound like a buck. She had found out the right depth of pin this time. “Ah! where is my whip? I have dropped it; how careless!” Then they had to ride back for the whip, and by this means joined Mr. Fountain. Lucy rode by his side, and got the carriage between her and her beau. By this plan she not only evaded sentiment, but matured by a series of secret trials her skill with her weapon. Armed with this new science, she issued forth, and, whenever Mr. Talboys left off indifferent remarks and sounded her affections, she probed the pony, and he kicked or bolted as the case might require.
“Confound that pony!” cried Talboys; “he used to be quiet enough.”
“Oh, don't scold him, dear, playful little love. He carries me like a wave.”
At this simple sentence Talboys' dormant jealousy contrived to revive. He turned sulky, and would not waste any more tenderness, and presently they rattled over the stones of Royston. Lucy commended her pony with peculiar earnestness to the ostler. “Pray groom him well, and feed him well, sir; he is a love.” The ostler swore he would not wrong her ladyship's nag for the world.
Lucy then expressed her desire to go forward without delay: “Aunt will expect me.” She took her seat in the carriage, bade a kind farewell to both the gentlemen now that no tender answer was possible, and was whirled away.
Thus the coy virgin eluded the pair.
Now her manner in taking leave of Talboys was so kind, so smiling (in the sweet consciousness of having baffled him), that Fountain felt sure it all had gone smoothly. They were engaged.
“Well?” he cried, with great animation.
“No,” was the despondent reply.
“Refused?” screeched the other; “impossible!”
“No, thank you,” was the haughty reply.
“What then? Did you change your mind? Didn't you propose after all?”
“I couldn't. That d—d pony wouldn't keep still.”
Fountain groaned.
Lucy, left to herself, gave a little sigh of relief. She had been playing a part for the last twenty-four hours. Her cordiality with Mr. Talboys naturally misled Eve and David, and perhaps a male reader or two. Shall I give the clue? It may be useful to you, young gentlemen. Well, then, her sex are compounders. Accustomed from childhood never to have anything entirely their own way, they are content to give and take; and, these terms once accepted, it is a point of honor and tact with them not to let a creature see the irksome part of the bargain is not as delicious as the other. One coat of their own varnish goes over the smooth and the rough, the bitter and the sweet.
Now Lucy, besides being singularly polite and kind, was femme jusqu' au bout des ongles. If her instincts had been reasons, and her vague thoughts could have been represented by anything so definite as words, the result might have appeared thus:
“A few hours, and you can bore me no more, Mr. Talboys. Now what must I do for you in return? Seem not to be bored to-day? Mais c'est la moindre des choses. Seem to be pleased with your society? Why not? it is only for an hour or two, and my seeming to like it will not prolong it. My heart swells with happiness at the thought of escaping from you, good bore; you shall share my happiness, good bore. It is so kind of you not to bore me to all eternity.”
This was why the last night she sat like Patience on an ottoman smiling on Talboys and racking David's heart; and this was why she made the ride so pleasant to those she was at heart glad to leave, till they tried sentiment on, and then she was an eel directly, pony and all.
Lucy (sola). “That is over. Poor Mr. Talboys! Does he fancy he has an attachment? No; I please and I am courted wherever I go, but I have never been loved. If a man loved me I should see it in his face, I should feel it without a word spoken. Once or twice I fancied I saw it in one man's eyes: they seemed like a lion's that turned to a dove's as they looked at me.” Lucy closed her own eyes and recalled her impression: “It must have been fancy. Ought I to wish to inspire such a passion as others have inspired? No, for I could never return it. The very language of passion in romances seems so extravagant to me, yet so beautiful. It is hard I should not be loved, merely because I cannot love. Many such natures have been adored. I could not bear to die and not be loved as deeply as ever woman was loved. I must be loved, adored and worshiped: it would be so sweet—sweet!” She slowly closed her eyes, and the long lovely lashes drooped, and a celestial smile parted her lips as she fell into a vague, delicious reverie. Suddenly the carriage stopped at the foot of a hill. She opened her eyes, and there stood David Dodd at the carriage window.
Lucy put her head out. “Why, it is Mr. Dodd! Oh, Mr. Dodd, is there anything the matter?”
“No.”
“You look so pale.”
“Do I?” and he flushed faintly.
“Which way are you going?”
“I am going home again now,” said David, sorrowfully.
“You came all this way to bid me good-by,” and she arched her eyebrows and laughed—a little uneasily.
“It didn't seem a step. It will seem longer going back.”
“No, no, you shall ride back. My pony is at the White Horse; will you not ride my pony back for me? then I shall know he will be kindly used; a stranger would whip him.”
“I should think my arm would wither if I ill-used him.”
“You are very good. I suppose it is because you are so brave.”
“Me brave? I don't feel so. Am I to tell him to drive on?” and he looked at her with haggard and imploring eyes.
Her eyes fell before his.
“Good-by, then,” said she.
He cried with a choking voice to the postilion, “Go ahead.”
The carriage went on and left him standing in the road, his head upon his breast.
At the steepest part of the hill a trace broke, and the driver drew the carriage across the hill and shouted to David. He came running up, and put a large stone behind each wheel.
Lucy was alarmed. “Mr. Dodd! let me out.”
He handed her out. The postboy was at a nonplus; but David whipped a piece of cord and a knife out of his pocket, and began, with great rapidity and dexterity, to splice the trace.
“Ah! now you are pleased, Mr. Dodd; our misfortune will elicit your skill in emergencies.”
“Oh, no, it isn't that; it is—I never hoped to see you again so soon.”
Lucy colored, and her eyes sought the ground; the splice was soon made.
“There!” said David; “I could have spent an hour over it; but you would have been vexed, and the bitter moment must have come at last.”
“God bless you, Miss Fountain—oh! mayn't I say Miss Lucy to-day?” he cried, imploringly.
“Of course you may,” said Lucy, the tears rising in her eyes at his sad face and beseeching look. “Oh, Mr. Dodd, parting with those we esteem is always sad enough; I got away from the door without crying—for once; don't you make me cry.”
“Make you cry?” cried David, as it he had been suspected of sacrilege; “God forbid!” He muttered in a choking voice, “You give the word of command, for I can't.”
“You can go on,” said her soft, clear voice; but first she gave David her hand with a gentle look—“Good-by.”
But David could not speak to her. He held her hand tight in both his powerful hands. They seemed iron to her—shaking, trembling, grasping iron. The carriage went slowly on, and drew her hand away. She shrank into a corner of the carriage; he frightened her.
He followed the carriage to the brow of the hill, then sat down upon a heap of stones, and looked despairingly after it.
Meantime Lucy put her head in her hands and blushed, though she was all alone. “How dare he forget the distance between us? Poor fellow! have not I at times forgotten it? I am worse than he. I lost my self-possession; I should have checked his folly; he knows nothing of les convenances. He has hurt my hand, he is so rough; I feel his clutch now; there, I thought so, it is all red—poor fellow! Nonsense! he is a sailor; he knows nothing of the world and its customs. Parting with a pleasant acquaintance forever made him a little sad.
“He is all nature; he is like nobody else; he shows every feeling instead of concealing it, that is all. He has gone home, I hope.” She glanced hastily back. He was sitting on the stones, his arms drooping, his head bowed, a picture of despondency. She put her face in her hands again and pondered, blushing higher and higher. Then the pale face that had always been ruddy before, the simple grief and agitation, the manly eye that did not know how to weep, but was so clouded and troubled, and wildly sad; the shaking hands, that had clutched hers like a drowning man's (she felt them still), the quivering features, choked voice, and trembling lip, all these recoiled with double force upon her mind: they touched her far more than sobs and tears would have done, her sex's ready signs of shallow grief.
Two tears stole down her cheeks.
“If he would but go home and forget me!” She glanced hastily back. David was climbing up a tree, active as a cat. “He is like nobody else—he! he! Stay! is that to see the last of me—the very last? Poor soul! Madman, how will this end? What can come of it but misery to him, remorse to me?
“This is love.” She half closed her eyes and smiled, repeating, “This is love.
“Oh how I despise all the others and their feeble flatteries!”
“Heaven forgive me my mad, my wicked wish!
“I am beloved.
“I am adored.
“I am miserable!”
As soon as the carriage was out of sight, David came down and hurried from the place. He found the pony at the inn. The ostler had not even removed his saddle.
“Methought that ostler did protest too much.”
David kissed the saddle and the pommels, and the bridle her hand had held, and led the pony out. After walking a mile or two he mounted the pony, to sit in her seat, not for ease. Walking thirty miles was nothing to this athlete; sticking on and holding on with his chin on his knee was rather fatiguing.
Meantime, Eve walked on till she was four miles from home. No David. She sat down and cried a little space, then on again. She had just reached an angle in the road, when—clatter, clatter—David came cantering around with his knee in his mouth. Eve gave a joyful scream, and up went both her hands with sudden delight. At the double shock to his senses the pony thought his end was come, and perhaps the world's. He shied slap into the hedge and stuck there—alone; for, his rider swaying violently the reverse way, the girths burst, the saddle peeled off the pony's back, and David sat griping the pommel of the saddle in the middle of the road at Eve's feet, looking up in her face with an uneasy grin, while dust rose around him in a little column. Eve screeched, and screeched, and screeched; then fell to, with a face as red as a turkey-cock's, and beat David furiously, and hurt—her little hands.
David laughed. This incident did him good—shook him up a bit. The pony groveled out of the ditch and cantered home, squeaking at intervals and throwing his heels.
David got up, hoisted the side saddle on to his square shoulders, and, keeping it there by holding the girths, walked with Eve toward Font Abbey. She was now a little ashamed of her apprehensions; and, besides, when she leathered David, she was, in her own mind, serving him out for both frights. At all events, she did not scold him, but kindly inquired his adventures, and he told her what he had done and said, and what Miss Fountain had said.
The account disappointed Eve. “All this is just a pack of nothing,” said she. “It is two lovers parting, or it is two common friendly acquaintances; all depends on how it was done, and that you don't tell me.” Then she put several subtle questions as to the looks, and tones and manner of the young lady. David could not answer them. On this she informed him he was a fool.
“So I begin to think,” said he.
“There! be quiet,” said she, “and let me think it over.”
“Ay! ay!” said he.
While he was being quiet and letting her think a carriage came rapidly up behind them, with a horseman riding beside it; and, as the pedestrians drew aside, an ironical voice fell upon them, and the carriage and horseman stopped, and floured, them with dust.
Messrs. Talboys and Fountain took a stroll to look at the new jail that was building in Royston, and, as they returned, Talboys, whose wounded pride had now fermented, told Mr. Fountain plainly that he saw nothing for it but to withdraw his pretensions to Miss Fountain.
“My own feelings are not sufficiently engaged for me to play the up-hill game of overcoming her disinclination.”
“Disinclination? The mere shyness of a modest girl. If she was to be 'won unsought,' she would not be worthy to be Mrs. Talboys.”
“Her worth is indisputable,” said Mr. Talboys, “but that is no reason why I should force upon her my humble claims.”
The moment his friend's pride began to ape humility, Fountain saw the wound it had received was incurable. He sighed and was silent. Opposition would only have set fire to opposition.
They went home together in silence. On the road Talboys caught sight of a tall gentleman carrying a side-saddle, and a little lady walking beside him. He recognized his bete noir with a grim smile. Here at least was one he had defeated and banished from the fair. What on earth was the man doing? Oh, he had been giving his sister a ride on a donkey, and they had met with an accident. Mr. Talboys was in a humor for revenge, so he pulled up, and in a somewhat bantering voice inquired where was the steed.
“Oh, he is in port by now,” said David.
“Do you usually ease the animal of that part of his burden, sir?”
“No,” said David, sullenly.
Eve, who hated Mr. Talboys, and saw through his sneers, bit her lip and colored, but kept silence.
But Mr. Talboys, unwarned by her flashing eye, proceeded with his ironical interrogatory, and then it was that Eve, reflecting that both these gentlemen had done their worst against David, and that henceforth the battlefield could never again be Font Abbey, decided for revenge. She stepped forward like an airy sylph, between David and his persecutor, and said, with a charming smile, “I will explain, sir.”
Mr. Talboys bowed and smiled.
“The reason my brother carries this side-saddle is that it belongs to a charming young lady—you have some little acquaintance with her—Miss Fountain.”
“Miss Fountain!” cried Talboys, in a tone from which all the irony was driven out by Eve's coup.
“She begged David to ride her pony home; she would not trust him to anybody else.”
“Oh!” said Talboys, stupefied.
“Well, sir, owing to—to—an accident, the saddle came off, and the pony ran home; so then David had only her saddle to take care of for her.”
“Why, we escorted Miss Fountain to Royston, and we never saw Mr. Dodd.”
“Ay, but you did not go beyond Royston,” said Eve, with a cunning air.
“Beyond Royston? where? and what was he doing there? Did he go all that way to take her orders about her pony?” said Talboys, bitterly.
“Oh, as to that you must excuse me, sir,” cried Eve, with a scornful laugh; “that is being too inquisitive. Good-morning”; and she carried David off in triumph.
The next moment Mr. Talboys spurred on, followed by the phaeton. Talboys' face was yellow.
“La langue d'une femme est son epee.”
“Sheer off and repair damages, you lubber,” said David, dryly, “and don't come under our guns again, or we shall blow you out of the water. Hum! Eve, wasn't your tongue a little too long for your teeth just now?”
“Not an inch.”
“She might be vexed; it is not for me to boast of her kindness.”
“Temper won't let a body see everything. I'll tell you what I have done, too—I've declared war.”
“Have you? Then run the Jack up to the mizzen-top, and let us fight it out.”
“That is the way to look at it, David. Now don't you speak to me till we get home; let me think.”
At the gate of Font Abbey, they parted, and Eve went home. David came to the stable yard and hailed, “Stable ahoy!” Out ran a little bandy-legged groom. “The craft has gone adrift,” cried David, “but I've got the gear safe. Stow it away”; and as he spoke he chucked the saddle a distance of some six yards on to the bandy-legged groom, who instantly staggered back and sank on a little dunghill, and there sat, saddled, with two eyes like saucers, looking stupefied surprise between the pommels.
“It is you for capsizing in a calm,” remarked David, with some surprise, and went his way.
“Well, Eve, have you thought?”
“Yes, David, I was a little hasty; that puppy would provoke a saint. After all there is no harm done; they can't hurt us much now. It is not here the game will be played out. Now tell me, when does your ship sail?”
“It wants just five weeks to a day.”
“Does she take up her passengers at —— as usual?”
“Yes, Eve, yes.”
“And Mrs. Bazalgette lives within a mile or two of ——. You have a good excuse for accepting her invitation. Stay your last week in her house. There will be no Talboys to come between you. Do all a man can do to win her in that week.”
“I will.”
“And if she says 'No,' be man enough to tear her out of your heart.”
“I can't tear her out of my heart, but I will win her. I must win her. I can't live without her. A month to wait!”
Mr. Talboys. “Well, sir, what do you say now?”
Mr. Fountain (hypocritically). “I say that your sagacity was superior to mine; forgive me if I have brought you into a mortifying collision. To be defeated by a merchant sailor!” He paused to see the effect of his poisoned shaft.
Talboys. “But I am not defeated. I will not be defeated. It is no longer a personal question. For your sake, for her sake, I must save her from a degrading connection. I will accompany you to Mrs. Bazalgette's. When shall we go?”
“Well, not immediately; it would look so odd. The old one would smell a rat directly. Suppose we say in a month's time.”
“Very well; I shall have a clear stage.”
“Yes, and I shall then use all my influence with her. Hitherto I have used none.”
“Thank you. Mr. Dodd cannot penetrate there, I conclude.”
“Of course not.”
“Then she will be Mrs. Talboys.”
“Of course she will.”
Lucy sighed a little over David's ardent, despairing passion, and his pale and drawn face. Her woman's instinct enabled her to comprehend in part a passion she was at this period of her life incapable of feeling, and she pitied him. He was the first of her admirers she had ever pitied. She sighed a little, then fretted a little, then reproached herself vaguely. “I must have been guilty of some imprudence—given some encouragement. Have I failed in womanly reserve, or is it all his fault? He is a sailor. Sailors are like nobody else. He is so simple-minded. He sees, no doubt, that he is my superior in all sterling qualities, and that makes him forget the social distance between him and me. And yet why suspect him of audacity? Poor fellow, he had not the courage to say anything to me, after all. No; he will go to sea, and forget his folly before he comes back.” Then she had a gust of egotism. It was nice to be loved ardently and by a hero, even though that hero was not a gentleman of distinction, scarcely a gentleman at all. The next moment she blushed at her own vanity. Next she was seized with a sense of the great indelicacy and unpardonable impropriety of letting her mind run at all upon a person of the other sex; and shaking her lovely shoulders, as much as to say, “Away idle thoughts,” she nestled and fitted with marvelous suppleness into a corner of the carriage, and sank into a sweet sleep, with a red cheek, two wet eyelashes, and a half-smile of the most heavenly character imaginable. And so she glided along till, at five in the afternoon, the carriage turned in at Mr. Bazalgette's gates. Lucy lifted her eyes, and there was quite a little group standing on the steps to receive her, and waving welcome to the universal pet. There was Mr. Bazalgette, Mrs. Bazalgette, and two servants, and a little in the rear a tall stranger of gentleman-like appearance.
The two ladies embraced one another so rapidly yet so smoothly, and so dovetailed and blended, that they might be said to flow together, and make one in all but color, like the Saone and the Rhone. After half a dozen kisses given and returned with a spirit and rapidity from which, if we male spectators of these ardent encounters were wise, we might slyly learn a lesson, Aunt Bazalgette suddenly darted her mouth at Lucy's ear, and whispered a few words with an animation that struck everybody present. Lucy smiled in reply. After “the meeting of the muslins,” Mr. Bazalgette shook hands warmly, and at last Lucy was introduced to his friend Mr. Hardie, who expressed in courteous terms his hopes that her journey had been a pleasant one.
The animated words Mrs. Bazalgette whispered into Lucy's ear at that moment of burning affection were as follows:
“You have had it washed!”
Lucy (unpacking her things in her bedroom). “Who is Mr. Hardie, dear?”
“What! don't you know? Mr. Hardie is the great banker.”
“Only a banker? I should have taken him for something far more distinguished. His manner is good. There is a suavity without feebleness or smallness.”
Mrs. Bazalgette's eye flashed, but she answered with apparent nonchalance: “I am glad you like him; you will take him off my hands now and then. He must not be neglected; Bazalgette would murder us. Apropos, remind me to ask him to tell you Mr. Hardie's story, and how he comes to be looked up to like a prince in this part of the world, though he is only a banker, with only ten thousand a year.”
“You make me quite curious, aunt. Cannot you tell me?”
“Me? Oh, dear, no! Paper currency, foreign loans, government securities, gold mines, ten per cents, Mr. Peel, and why one breaks and another doesn't! all that is quite beyond me. Bazalgette is your man. I had no idea your mousseline-delame would have washed so well. Why, it looks just out of the shop; it—” Come away, reader, for Heaven's sake!
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