The Widow Barnaby Volume Ii Part 16

CHAPTER X.

A DISAGREEABLE BREAKFAST-TABLE.--MR. STEPHENSON GIVES HIS FRIEND COLONEL HUBERT WARNING TO DEPART.--A PROPOSAL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Mrs. Barnaby and Major Allen were not the only persons to whom that twenty-sixth of April proved an eventful day.

Colonel Hubert and his friend Stephenson met as usual at the breakfast-table, and it would be difficult to say which of them was the most pre-occupied, and the most unfit for ordinary conversation.

Stephenson, however, though vexed at not being already the betrothed husband of his lovely Agnes, was full of hopeful antic.i.p.ation, and his unfitness for conversation arose rather from the fulness of his heart, than the depression of his spirits.

Not so Colonel Hubert: it was hardly possible to suffer from a greater feeling of melancholy dissatisfaction with all things than he did on the morning after Mrs. Peters's concert.

That the despised Agnes, the niece of the hateful Mrs. Barnaby, had risen in his estimation to be considered as the best, the first, the loveliest of created beings, was not the worst misfortune that had fallen upon him.

There was, indeed, a degree of perversity in the case that almost justified his thinking himself the most unfortunate of mortals. After having attained the sober age of thirty-seven years, if not untouched, at least uninjured, by all the reiterated volleys which he had stood from Cupid's quiver, it was certainly rather provoking to find himself falling distractedly in love with a little obscure girl, young enough to be his daughter, and perhaps, from the unhappy circ.u.mstance of her dependence upon such a relative as Mrs. Barnaby, the very last person in the world with whom he would have wished to connect himself. This was bad enough; but even this was not all. With the airs of a senior and a Mentor, he had taken upon himself to lecture his friend upon the preposterous absurdity of giving way to such an attachment, thus rendering it almost morally impossible for him under any imaginable circ.u.mstances to ask the love of Agnes, even though something in his inmost heart whispered to him that he should not ask in vain. Nor did the catalogue of his embarra.s.sments end here, for he was placed _vis-a-vis_ to his open-hearted friend, who, he was quite certain, would within five minutes begin again the oft-repeated confidential avowal of his love; accompanied, probably, with renewed a.s.surances of his intentions to make proposals, which Colonel Hubert, from what he had seen last night, fancied himself quite sure would never be accepted.

What a wretched, what a hopeless dilemma was he placed in! Was he to see the man he professed to love expose himself to the misery of offering his hand, in defiance of a thousand obstacles, to a woman who, he felt almost sure, would reject him? Or could he interfere to prevent it, at the very moment that his heart told him nothing but the pretensions of Frederick could prevent his proposing to her himself.

Colonel Hubert sat stirring his coffee in moody silence, and dreading to hear Frederick open his lips; but his worst fears as to what he might utter, were soon realized by Stephenson's exclaiming,--

"Well, Hubert!... it is still to do. I was defeated last night, but it shall not be my fault if I go to rest this, without receiving her promise to become my wife. Her aunt is a horror--a monster--anything, everything you may please to call her; but Agnes is an angel, and Agnes must be mine!"

Colonel Hubert looked more gloomy still; but he continued to stir his coffee, and said nothing.

"How can you treat me thus, Hubert?..." said the young man reproachfully. "There is a proud superiority in this affected silence a thousand times more mortifying than anything you could say. Begin again to revile me as heretofore for my base endurance of a Barnaby ...

describe the vexation of my brother, the indignation of my sisters!...

this would be infinitely more endurable than such contemptuous silence."

"My dear, dear Frederick, I know not what to say," replied the agitated Hubert.... "Had my words the power to make you leave this place within the hour, I would use my last breath to speak them ... for certain am I, Frederick,--I am most surely certain,--that this suit can bring you nothing but misery and disappointment. Let me acknowledge that the young lady herself is worthy of all love, admiration, and reverence; ... I truly think so.... I believe it.... I am sure of it ... but" ... and here Colonel Hubert stopped short, resumed his coffee-cup, and said no more.

"This is intolerable, sir," said the vexed Frederick. "Go on, if you please, say all you have to say, but stop not thus at unshaped insinuations, more injurious, more insulting far, than anything your eloquence could find the power to utter."

"Frederick, you mistake me.... I insinuate nothing.... I believe in my inmost soul that Agnes Willoughby is one of the most faultless beings upon earth.... But this will not prevent your suit to her from being a most unhappy one.... Forget her, Frederick ... travel awhile, my dear friend ... leave her, Stephenson, and your future years will be the happier."

"Colonel Hubert, the difference in our ages is your only excuse for the unnatural counsel you so coldly give. You are no longer a young man, sir.... You no longer are capable of judging for one who is; and I confess to you, that for the present I think our mutual enjoyment would rather be increased than lessened were we to separate. If I remember rightly, you purposed when we came here to stay only till your sister's marriage was over. It is now a fortnight since that event took place, and it is probably solely out of compliment to me that you remain here.

If so, let me release you.... In future times I hope we may meet with pleasanter feelings than any we can share at present; and, besides, my stay here,--which which for aught I know may be prolonged for months,--will, under probable circ.u.mstances, throw me a good deal into intimacy and intercourse with your detested Mrs. Barnaby, wherein I certainly cannot wish or desire that you should follow me; and therefore ... all things considered, you must hold me excused if I say ... that I should hear of your departure from Clifton with pleasure."

Colonel Hubert rose from his seat and walked about the room. He felt that his heart was softer at that moment than befitted the age with which Frederick reproached him. He was desired to absent himself by one for whose warm-hearted young love he had perhaps neglected the soberer friends.h.i.+ps of superior men, and that, too, at a moment when he felt that he more than ever deserved a continuance of that love. Was he not at that instant crus.h.i.+ng with Spartan courage a pa.s.sion within his own breast which he believed ... secretly, silently, unacknowledged even to his own heart, to be returned ... and this terrible sacrifice was made, not because his pride opposed his yielding to it, but because he could not have endured the idea of supplanting Frederick even when it should be acknowledged that no shadow of hope remained for him. And for this it was that he was thus insultingly desired to depart.

Generous Hubert!... A few moments' struggle decided him. He resolved to go, and that immediately. He would not remain to witness the broken spirit of his hot-headed friend after he should have received the refusal which, as he so strongly suspected, awaited him, ... neither would he expose himself to the danger of seeing Agnes afterwards.

Without as yet replying to Frederick, he rang the bell, and desired that post-horses might immediately be ordered for his carriage, and his valet told to prepare his trunks for travelling with as little delay as possible. These directions given, the friends were once more _tete-a-tete_, and then Colonel Hubert ventured to trust his voice, and answer the harsh language he had received.

"Frederick," he said, "you have spoken as you would not have done had you given yourself a little more time for consideration, ... for you have spoken unkindly and unjustly. I would still prevail on you, if I could, to turn away from this lovely girl without committing yourself by making her an offer of marriage. I would strongly advise this--I would strongly advise your remembering, while it is yet time, the pang it may cost you should anything ... in short, believe me, you would suffer less by leaving Clifton immediately with me, than by remaining under circ.u.mstances which I am sure will turn out inimical to your happiness.... Will you be advised, and let us depart together?"

"No, Colonel Hubert, I will not. I have no wish to detain you, ... I have already said this with sufficient frankness; be equally wise on your side, and do not attempt to drag me away in your train."

These were pretty nearly the last words which were exchanged between them; Frederick Stephenson soon left the house to wander about till the hour arrived for making his visit in Rodney Place; and in less than two hours Colonel Hubert was driving rapidly through Bristol on his way to London.

As soon as Mrs. Barnaby and the friendly Mr. Peters were fairly off the premises, and on their road to look after the thief, Mary called a consultation on the miserably jaded looks of poor Agnes; and having her own particular reasons for not choosing that she should look half dead ... inasmuch as she was persuaded the promised visit of Frederick was not intended to be for nothing ... she peremptorily insisted upon her taking sal volatile, bathing her eyes in cold water, and then either lying on the sofa or taking a walk upon the down till luncheon-time, that being the usual hour of Mr. Stephenson's morning visits.

Agnes submitted herself very meekly to all this discipline, save the depositing herself on the sofa, to which she objected vehemently, deciding for the walk on the down as the only thing at all likely to cure her head-ache. It was on their way to this favourite magazine of fresh air that Mr. Stephenson met them. To Agnes the rencontre was an extreme annoyance, for she wanted to be quite quiet, and this was what Frederick Stephenson never permitted her to be. But she could not run away; and so she continued to walk on till, just after pa.s.sing the turnpike, she discovered that Mary and Elizabeth Peters were considerably in their rear. This _tete-a-tete_, however, caused her not the slightest embarra.s.sment; and if she was to be talked to, instead of being permitted to sink into the dark but downy depths of meditation, which was now her greatest indulgence, it mattered very little to her who was the talker. She stopped, however, from politeness to her friends, and a sort of natural instinct of _bienseance_ towards herself, saying, "I was not aware, Mr. Stephenson, that we had been walking so fast; I think we had better turn back to them."

"May I entreat you, Miss Willoughby," said the young man, "to remain a few moments longer alone with me.... It is not that you have walked fast, but your friends have walked slowly, for they, at least, I plainly perceive, have read my secret.... And is it possible that you, Agnes, have not read it also?... Is it possible that you have yet to learn how fervently I love you?"

No young girl hears such an avowal as this for the first time without feeling considerable agitation and embarra.s.sment; but many things contributed to increase these feelings tenfold in the case of Agnes ...

for first, which is rarely the case, the declaration was wholly unexpected; secondly, it was wholly unwelcome; and, thirdly, it inspired a feeling of acute terror lest, flattering and advantageous as she knew such a proposal to be, it might tempt her friends ... or set on her terrible aunt ... to disturb her with solicitations which, by only hearing them, would profane the sentiment to which she had secretly devoted herself for ever.

Greatly, however, as she wished to answer him at once and definitively, she was unable to articulate a single word.

"Will you not speak to me, Agnes?" resumed Frederick, after a painful pause. "Will you not tell me what I may hope in return for the truest affection that ever warmed the heart of man?... Will you not even look at me?"

Agnes now stood still as if to recover breath. She knew that he had a right to expect an answer from her, and she knew that sooner or later she should be compelled to speak it; so, making an effort as great perhaps in its self-command as many that have led a hero to eternal fame, she said, but without raising her eyes from the ground, "Mr.

Stephenson, I am very sorry indeed that you love me, because it is quite, _quite_ impossible I should ever love you in return."

"Good G.o.d! Miss Willoughby, ... is it thus you answer me?... Do you know that the words you utter so lightly, so coldly, must, if persisted in, doom me to a life of misery? Can you hear this, Agnes, and feel no touch of pity?"

"Pray do not talk in that way, Mr. Stephenson!... It gives me so very much pain."

"Then you will unsay those cruel words?... You will tell me that time and faithful, constant love may do something for me.... Oh! tell me it shall be so."

"But I _cannot_ tell you so, Mr. Stephenson," said Agnes with the most earnest emphasis. "It would be most wicked to do so because it would be untrue. You are very young and very gay, Mr. Stephenson; and I cannot think that what I have said can vex you long, particularly if you will believe it at once, and talk no more about it. And now I think that we had better walk back to Mary, if you please."

Having said this she turned about, and began to walk rapidly towards Clifton.

"Can this be possible?..." said the young man, greatly agitated; "so young, and seemingly so gentle, and yet so harsh and so determined. Oh!

Agnes, why did you not let me guess this end to all my hopes before they had grown so strong? You must have seen my love--my adoration.... You must have known that every earthly hope for me depended upon you!"

"No, no, no," cried Agnes, greatly distressed. "I never knew it--I never guessed it.... How should I guess what was so very unlikely?"

"Unlikely!... Are you laughing at me, Agnes?... Unlikely! Ask your friends--ask Miss Peters if she thought it unlikely."

"I do not believe so strange a thought ever entered her head, Mr.

Stephenson; for if it had, I am sure she would have put me on my guard against it."

"On your guard against it, Miss Willoughby! What is there in my situation, fortune, or character, that should render it necessary for your friend to put you on your guard against me?... Surely you use strange language."

"Then do not make me talk any more about it, Mr. Stephenson. It is very likely that I may express myself amiss, for I am so sorry and so vexed that indeed I hardly know what I say; ... but pray forgive me, and do not be unhappy about me any longer."

"Agnes!... you love another!" suddenly exclaimed Frederick, his face becoming crimson.... "There is no other way of accounting for such cold indifference, such hard insensibility."

Agnes coloured as violently in her turn, and bursting into tears, said with great displeasure, "That is what n.o.body in the world has a right to say to me, and I will never, if I can help it, permit you to say it again."

She now increased her speed, and had nearly reached the Misses Peters, notwithstanding all the beautiful summer flowers they had found by the way's side; saying no more in reply, either to the remonstrances or the pa.s.sionate pleadings of Mr. Stephenson, when at length he laid his hand upon her arm, and detained her while he said, "Agnes, if you accept my love, and consent to become my wife, I will release you from the power of your aunt, place you in a splendid home, and surround you with friends as pure-minded and as elegant as yourself. Is this nothing?...

Answer me then one word, and one word only.... Is your refusal of my hand and my affection final?"