The Widow Barnaby Volume Ii Part 9

"Can you not stand up, aunt?" said Agnes, whose cheeks were crimsoned at the absurdity of the scene. "How will you be able to get home if you cannot stand?"

"G.o.d knows, child!... G.o.d only knows what is yet to become of me.... Oh!

Major, I trust myself wholly to you."

Poor Agnes uttered a sound not much unlike a groan, upon which Stephenson, on whom it fell like a spur, urging him to save her from an exhibition so painfully ridiculous, (for it was quite evident that Mrs.

Barnaby was not really hurt,) proposed that he should escort Miss Willoughby with all possible speed back to Clifton, and dispatch thence a carriage to bring Mrs. Barnaby home.

Major Allen, who desired nothing more ardently than to get rid of him, seconded the proposal vehemently.

"You are quite right, sir; it is the only thing to be done," he said; "and if you will hasten to perform this, I will endeavour so to place Mrs. Barnaby as to prevent her suffering any great inconvenience while waiting till the carriage shall arrive."

"Ought I not to remain with my aunt?" said Agnes to Mr. Stephenson, but in a whisper that was heard only by himself.

"In my opinion, you certainly ought not," he replied in the same tone.

"Believe me," he added, "I have many reasons for saying so."

Nothing but her earnest desire to do that, whatever it might be, which was the least improper, (for that, as she truly felt, was all that was left her,) could have induced Agnes to propose inflicting so terrible a penance on herself; but strangely as she was obliged to choose her counsellor, there was a grave seriousness in his manner which convinced her he had not answered her lightly; and therefore, as her aunt said not a word to detain her, she set off on her return with as much speed as she could use, saying as she departed, "Depend upon it, aunt, there shall be no delay."

Mr. Stephenson again offered her his arm; but she now declined it, and the young man for some time walked silently by her side, wis.h.i.+ng to speak to her, yet honestly doubting his own power of doing so with the composure he desired.

At length, however, the silence became embarra.s.sing, and he broke it by saying, with something of abruptness,--

"Will you forgive me, Miss Willoughby, if I venture to forget for a moment how short a time it is since I have had the happiness of knowing you, ... will you forgive me if I speak to you like a friend?"

"Indeed I will, and be very thankful too," replied Agnes composedly, ...

for his manner had taught her to feel a.s.sured that she had no cause to fear him.

"You are very kind," he resumed, with some little embarra.s.sment; "but I feel that it is taking an almost unwarrantable liberty; and were it not that this walk offers an opportunity which I think I ought not to lose, I might perhaps endeavour to say what I wish to Mrs. Peters.... I allude to Major Allen, Miss Willoughby! I wish you could lead your aunt to understand that he is not a person fit for your society. Though he is probably a stranger here, he is well known elsewhere as a needy gambler, and, in short, a most unprincipled character in every way."

"Good Heaven!" exclaimed Agnes, "what shall I do?"

"Can you not venture to hint this to your aunt?" said he.

"She would probably be very angry," replied Agnes with spontaneous frankness; "but what is worse than that, she would, I know, insist upon my telling her where I heard it."

"Say that you heard it from me, Miss Willoughby," replied the young man.

New as Agnes was to the world and its ways, she felt that there was something very honourable and frank in this proceeding, and it produced so great a degree of confidence in return, that she answered in a tone of the most unembarra.s.sed friendliness.

"Will you give me leave, Mr. Stephenson, to repeat this to Mrs. Peters and Mary?... They will know so much better than I do what use to make of it."

"Indeed I think you are right," he replied eagerly, "and then the anger that you speak of will not fall on you."

"It will not in that case, I think, fall on any one," said Agnes. "My aunt has fortunately a great respect for Mrs. Peters; and if anybody can have influence over her mind, she may."

Can it be wondered at if, after this, the conversation went on improving in its tone of ease and confidence? It had begun, on the side of the young man, with a very sincere resolution not to suffer his admiration for his lovely companion to betray him into a serious attachment to one so unfortunately connected; but, before they reached Sion Row, he had arrived at so perfect a conviction that he could nowhere find so pure-minded and right-thinking a being to share his fortune, and to bless his future life, that he only refrained from telling her so from a genuine feeling of respect, which perhaps the proudest peeress in the land might have failed to inspire.

"No," thought he, "it is not now, while she is compelled by accident to walk beside me, that I will pour out my heart and all its love before her, but the time shall come...."

Agnes, ere they parted again, appealed to him for his opinion whether she _ought_ to go in the carriage sent to meet her aunt.

"No, indeed, I think not," he replied. "Has she no maid, Miss Willoughby, who could go for her?"

"Oh yes!" exclaimed Agnes, greatly relieved; "I can send Jerningham."

"Sweet creature!" whispered the enamoured Frederick to his heart, "what a delicious task to advise, to guide, to cherish such a being as that!"

His respectful bow at parting, the earnest, silent, lingering look he fixed upon her fair face ere he turned from the door that was opened to receive her, might have said much to a heart on the _qui vive_ to meet his, half way; but Agnes did not observe it; she was looking up towards the windmill, and thinking of her early morning walk and its termination.

CHAPTER VI.

THE READER IS LET INTO A SECRET, AND THE YOUNG LADY'S PLOT PROVED TO BE OF NO AVAIL.--A JUDICIOUS MODE OF OBTAINING INFORMATION.--A HAPPY AND VERY WELL-TIMED MEETING.

"Well, Mary!... I suppose you are wis.h.i.+ng yourself joy on the success of your plottings and plannings," said Mrs. Peters to her daughter about ten days after this memorable walk on the Bristol road, for during that interval much had occurred that seemed to promise success to her wishes.

In fact, Frederick Stephenson had quietly become a regular visitor at Rodney Place, and the power of Agnes to accept the constant invitations which brought her there likewise increased in exact proportion to the widow's growing delight in the _tete-a-tete_ visits of the Major. The friendly hint of Mr. Stephenson had produced no effect whatever, excepting indeed that it tended greatly to increase the tone of friendly intercourse between the Peters family and himself. He had released Agnes from the task of mentioning the matter at all, and took an early opportunity of confiding to Mrs. Peters his ideas on the subject. She received the communication with the grat.i.tude it really deserved, but confessed that Mrs. Barnaby was a person so every way disagreeable to her, that the task of attempting to guide her would be extremely repugnant to her feelings.

"But Miss Willoughby!..." said Frederick; "it is for her sake that one would wish to keep this odious woman from exposing herself to ruin and disgrace, if possible."

"And for her sake I will do it," answered Mrs. Peters. "She is as deserving of all care as her aunt is unworthy of it."

This reply convinced Mr. Stephenson that Mrs. Peters was one of the most discerning as well as most amiable women in the world, but no other advantage arose from the praiseworthy determination of the "dear Margaret;" for when that lady said to her gravely, at the very first opportunity she could find,--

"Pray, Mrs. Barnaby, do you know anything of that Major Allen's private character?" The answer she received was,--"Yes, Mrs. Peters, a great deal, ... and more, probably, than any other person whatever at Clifton; ... and I know, too, that there are agents--paid, hired agents--employed in circulating the most atrocious lies against him."

"I am not one of them, I a.s.sure you, madam," said Mrs. Peters, abruptly leaving her seat, and determined never again to recur to the subject; a comfortable resolution, to which she reconciled her conscience by remembering the evident devotion of Mr. Stephenson to Agnes, the symptoms of which were daily becoming less and less equivocal.

It was within a few hours after this short colloquy with the widow, that Mrs. Peters thus addressed her daughter, "Well, Mary!... I suppose you are wis.h.i.+ng yourself joy on the success of your plottings and plannings."

"Why, yes," ... replied Mary; "I think we are getting on pretty well, and unless I greatly mistake, it will be the fault of Agnes, and of no one else, if she suffers much more from being under the protection of our precious aunt Barnaby."

Mrs. Peters and Mary were perfectly right in their premises, but utterly wrong in their conclusion. Mr. Stephenson was indeed pa.s.sionately in love with Agnes, and had already fully made up his mind to propose to her, so soon as their acquaintance had lasted long enough to render such a step decently permissable, which, according to his calculations, would be in about a fortnight after he had first danced with her. In short, he was determined to find a favourable opportunity, on the evening of Mrs.

Peters's promised music party, to declare his pa.s.sion to her; for he had already learned to know that few occasions offer, in the ordinary intercourse of society, more favourable for a _tete-a-tete_ than a crowded concert-room.

Thus far, therefore, the observations and reasonings of Agnes's watchful friends were perfectly correct. But, alas! they saw only the surface of things. There was an under current running the other way of which they never dreamed, and of which, even had it been laid open to their view, they would neither have been able to comprehend or believe the power. As to the heart of Agnes, by some strange fatality they had never taken it into their consideration at all, or at any rate had conceived it so beyond all doubt inclined the way they wished, that no single word or thought amidst all their deliberations was ever bestowed upon it.... But the heart of Agnes was fixedly, devotedly, and for ever given to another.

No wonder, indeed, that such an idea had never suggested itself to her friends, ... for who could that other be?... Could it be James, her first partner, her first walking companion, and very nearly the first young man she had ever spoken to in her life?... a.s.suredly not; for had she been asked, she could not have told whether his eyes were blue or black, hardly whether he were short or tall, and certainly not whether she had seen him twenty times, or only twelve, since their first meeting.

Who, then, could it be? There was but one other person whom the accidents of the last important fortnight had thrown constantly in her way; and Mrs. Peters and Mary would as soon have thought that the young Agnes had conceived a pa.s.sion for the Pope, as for the stately, proud, reserved Colonel Hubert.

Yet "she could an if she would" have told her how far above all other mortals his n.o.ble head rose proudly, ... she could have told that on his lofty brow her soul read volumes, ... she could have told that in the colour of his thoughtful eye, the hue of heaven seemed deepened into black by the rich lash that shaded it.... All this she could have told; and, moreover, could have counted, with most faithful arithmetic, not only how many times she had seen him, but how many times his eyes had turned towards her, how many times he had addressed a word to her, how many smiles had been permitted to cheer her heart, how many frowns had chilled her spirit as they pa.s.sed over his countenance.... Little could any one have guessed all this, but so it was; and Frederick Stephenson, with all his wealth, his comeliness, and kind heart to boot, had no more chance of being accepted as a husband by the poor, dependant Agnes Willoughby than the lowest hind that ploughs the soil by the proudest lady that owns it.

Meanwhile my real heroine, the Widow Barnaby, thought little of Agnes, or any other lady but herself, and less still perhaps of Mr. Stephenson, or any other gentleman but the Major. The affair on the Bristol road, though injurious to her dress, and rather dusty and in some degree disagreeable at the time, had wonderfully forced on the tender intimacy between them. Yet Mrs. Barnaby was not altogether so short-sighted as by-standers might suppose; and though she freely permitted herself the pleasure of being made love to, she determined to be very sure of the Major's rent-roll before she bestowed herself and her fortune upon him; for, notwithstanding her flirting propensities, the tender pa.s.sion had ever been secondary in her heart to a pa.s.sion for wealth and finery; and not the best-behaved and most discreet dowager that ever lived, was more firmly determined to take care of herself, and make a good bargain, "_if ever she married again_," than was our flighty, flirting Widow Barnaby.