“Un gentil-homme merveilleusement sujet à la goutte,
estant pressé par les médecins de laisser de tout l’usage des
viandes salées, avoit accoustumé de respondre plaisamment,
que sur les efforts et tourmens du mal il vouloit
avoir à qui s’en prendre; et que s’escriant et mauldissant
tantôt le cervelat, tantôt le jambon, il s’en sentoit d’sultant
allegé.”—MONTAIGNE.
Isabella returned to her father’s apartment in a frame of mind rather adverse to her performing accurately the tasks of the “best nurse in the world.”
“What the devil ails you, Belle?” exclaimed her father; “you are putting the cushion under the wrong foot!—there—there—that will do—that’s right—now kiss me, Belle, dear. I did not mean to speak cross to you; but your mother has been fidgeting here a little eternity. I wonder what the deuse is the reason she can never make any thing lie easy. She does try her best, poor soul; but she has no faculty—none in the world. What is this good news, Belle, she tells me Jasper has brought?”
“It amounts to nothing, sir.”
“Humph!—I thought as much.” A pause ensued. “Hark!” resumed Mr. Linwood—“is not that Helen Ruthven’s voice on the stairs?—call her in, Belle.” Miss Ruthven entered. “Glad to see you, my dear—like to see living folks alive. Belle is sitting up here like a tomb-stone, neither seeing, 240hearing, nor moving. ‘How am I, child?’—alive, thank God, and better—the enemy has cleared out of the citadel, and is firing away at the outworks—expect to eat a capital dinner to-day—Major St. Clair has sent me a brace of woodcock—a man of taste is Major St. Clair! Woodcock, currant-jelly, and a glass of madeira, will make a Christian of me again. I should be as happy as the king if it were not—heigh ho, poor Herbert! Oh, Jupiter Ammon, what a twinge!—Belle, do loosen that flannel—your mother has drawn it up like a vice—there—there—that will do. Do for conscience’ sake tell me some news, Helen, my dear.”
“I came on purpose, sir, to tell Isabella a famous piece of news; but I met Jasper Meredith—”
“What of that, child?”
“He has told the news, sir, of course.”
“He may have told it to Belle; but I am none the better for it: so pray tell on, my dear.”
“Meredith’s mother has arrived.”
“His mother!” echoed Isabella.
“His mother!” repeated Mr. Linwood, in a voice that drowned hers—“When?—how?—where?”
“Ah,” thought Miss Ruthven, with infinite satisfaction, “they are not in smooth water yet, or this fact would have been announced.”—“The ship,” she replied to Mr. Linwood, “arrived last night, and is at anchor below, waiting for a wind.”
“What ship, child?”
“The Thetis, or Neptune, or Minerva?”
“It can’t be, my child; there is no such ship expected.”
“It may be called by some other name, sir; I never remember ships’ names; but Mrs. Meredith has most certainly arrived, and her niece, Lady Anne Seton, with her.”
“Extraordinary—most extraordinary! Did Jasper ever speak to you of expecting them, Belle?”
241“Never, sir.”
“Do, for Heaven’s sake, Belle, speak more than one word at a time—go on, Helen—what else did you hear?”
Miss Ruthven was nothing loath to speak, and she proceeded:—“I met St. Clair at Mrs. Archer’s. By-the-way, I admire your aunt excessively, Belle.” Miss Helen was a wholesale flatterer, and practised all the accesses to the heart through admiration of one’s favourite friends and relations. “How sweetly she is settled; but I could not but laugh at her scruples about using the Ludlows’ furniture. I told her it was the good and universal rule of the city to make the most of what the rebel runaways had left behind them. You do not assent, Belle. I am sure your father agrees with me—do you not, Mr. Linwood?”
“Mrs. Archer has a way of her own. Go on with your news, my child—was Mrs. Meredith expected?”
“I really do not know, sir; Isabella has the best right to know.”
Isabella blushed painfully. This was the answer Helen Ruthven wished, and she proceeded:—“St. Clair was with Jasper when the news arrived, and he says Meredith appeared delighted; but then St. Clair does not penetrate below the surface, and Meredith is a bit of a diplomatist—don’t you think so, Isabella?”
“It is neither very flattering to Jasper nor to his mother,” replied Isabella, evading Helen Ruthven’s annoying question, “to doubt his joy at the arrival after a ten years’ separation.”
“Perhaps not; but then we must see things as they are—mothers are sometimes inconvenient appendages, and sometimes—troublesome spies. At any rate, I do not believe it is pure maternal love that has brought the lady out. St. Clair says she is not that kind of person; she loves her ease, he says, and loves the world of London, and would not come here without a powerful motive. Your aunt said that the pleasure 242of seeing her son would be motive enough to most mothers; but your aunt is all mother. By-the-way, what a sweet fellow Ned Archer is. I did not see Lizzy—her mother says she is not yet recovered from her fright—she is so nervous—poor thing! I do not wonder.”
“Go on, Helen. What motive did you find out for Madam Meredith?—wise heads yours, to think a woman acts from motive.”
“Ah, sir, but we did find one; a right, rational, and probable one too. Perhaps you do not know that Lady Anne Seton is Mrs. Meredith’s ward, and that she is, moreover, a rich heiress.”
“Well, what of that?”
“Oh, a vast deal ‘of that’—a fortune is a most important item in a young lady’s catalogue of charms; and poor Mrs. Meredith flatters herself she has a son yet to be charmed.”
Miss Ruthven fixed her eyes, that had the quality of piercing, on Isabella; but Isabella’s were riveted to the embroidery on which her hands were employed, and she did not raise them, nor move a muscle of her face.
Mr. Linwood breathed out an expressive “humph,” and asked if fortune was the young lady’s only charm.
“Oh, no! St. Clair gave me a catalogue of them as long as my arm. In the first place, she is just sweet eighteen—very pretty, though a little too much inclined to embonpoint—rather pale, too—very sweet eyes, hazel, soft, and laughing—not a classic nose; but pretty noses are rare—hair of the loveliest brown; but that matters not now, when no one, save Isabella, wears ‘hair of the colour God chooses’—a sweet pretty mouth she has, St. Clair says; and her hands, arms, and feet are such beauties, that she has been asked to sit to a sculptor.”
“The deuse, girls! She’ll cut you all out.”
“She may prove a dangerous rival, Isabella.”
Isabella looked disturbed, and was so; not so much at Miss 243Ruthven’s allusion as at a sudden recollection. Meredith had urged her immediate decision as momentous to them both. “Is he,” thought she, “afraid that his resolution, his affections, are not strong enough to resist a siege from his mother?” Rallying her spirits, she asked “if St. Clair had only furnished a schedule of Lady Anne’s personal charms!”
“Oh, my dear friend, yes. She enters the lists armed cap-à-pie—she has been partly educated in France—dances like a sylph, and speaks French like a Parisian angel.”
“Don’t be gulled by that, girls; if she sputters away in French, it is a pretty sure sign she has nothing worth saying in English.”
“But St. Clair says, Mr. Linwood, that she is agreeable and good-humoured—a sort of person that everybody likes.”
“Then I sha’n’t like her, that’s flat; for I don’t like that kind of fit that fits everybody.”
“But you like her name?—Lady Anne Seton. There is such a charm in a name—a title too—a rose by any other name might be as sweet; but a name with the prefix of ‘lady’ is far more captivating for it, Lady Isabella. There is a coronet in the very sound.
“Do you know St. Clair says, that if Isabella were to appear in England, she might soon write herself lady?” She added, in a whisper, “he says, Belle—don’t be offended—that if an earl, or even a baronet were to address you, it would fix a certain person at once; he has such deference for rank, that if you were merely to have it within your grasp, you would be perfectly irresistible to him.”
“St. Clair talks idly,” replied Isabella, proudly, and the tears, in spite of her efforts to repress them, starting into her eyes; “he knows very little of Jasper Meredith.” Alas! such a suggestion, even from such a source, had power to wound her. “Helen,” she added, “papa is getting tired, and must take his drops, and try for his nap.”
244“Bless me, my dear, forgive me for staying; I always get so interested in your interests. Good morning, dear Mr. Linwood; make haste and get well. Farewell, dear Isabella, I am going to reconnoitre, and will report progress;” and kissing both father and daughter, she departed.
“Helen Ruthven is very fond of you, Belle,” said her father.
Isabella smiled; but it was a bitter smile. She did not care to rectify her father’s opinion; but she thought Helen Ruthven much like a bee, who stings while laden with sweets.
“Very odd, Mrs. Meredith coming out just now,” continued Mr. Linwood; “the ocean covered with rebel privateers—bringing over this girl too—a right woman’s move. Give me my drops, Belle—they will sharpen my appetite—thank you, dear—Pah! what’s this—that devilish rhubarb—you’ve spoiled my dinner, Belle.”
“A thousand pardons, papa—take this water—now rest a little, and then your drops.”
“Never mind, my dear—set down the glass, and come and kneel down by me, Belle. There’s something the matter with you, my child; I am sure of it. You cannot deceive me, Belle—you are as transparent as that glass. Twice since you came from the parlour you have blundered, first with the cushion, and now the drops. It’s an uncommon thing for you, my dear, to look one way and row t’other. Jasper was with you, Belle—has he offered himself?—Don’t hesitate—I am in no condition to be trifled with—has Jasper done it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you accepted or rejected him?”
“Neither.”
“Do you love him, Belle?”
“Dear papa!” said she, springing to her feet, and walking to the extremity of the room; “do not question me any farther.”
245“Come back to me, Belle—kneel down by me again, and listen to me. I can tell you a love-story: yes—little like a lover as I now seem. When I was eight-and-twenty, still in the heyday of life, I loved, with my whole soul, your aunt Archer—don’t flinch, child—listen. She was very young, just from school; twelve years younger than I, eight than your mother; but then she promised all she has since been. She rejected me. In a fit of pique I married your mother—mark the consequences. She has been the poor, subservient, domestic drudge—”
“Oh, papa! pray—”
“I am telling a plain story, Belle, and you must hear it; but never mind what she has been. You can’t dispute that I have been unreasonable, peevish, passionate, and so we have worn away life together; and now, when the curtain is about to fall, I look back on my useless existence—my wasted talents—my lost opportunities, and mourn over it all—in vain!” His voice was choked with emotion.
“Oh, do not say so, sir; you are the dearest, kindest of fathers.”
“To you, Belle; and what thanks to me for that? I have been proud of you—I have loved you—there it is; if I had loved your mother, I should have been the kindest of husbands. Love makes virtue easy. ‘Love,’ the Scripture says, ‘is the fulfilling of the law.’ I say those must be saints who fulfil the law without it. Conscience does not sleep even in such a self-lover as I am; and think you, Belle, I am not often tormented with the thought, that I was created for something better than to make my dinner the chief good of every day—to pamper myself with the bounties of Providence, and fret and fume at every straw in my way? No, my dear child, you never have felt my petty tyranny; but you hold the masterkey to my heart. Poor Herbert! I sacrificed him to a gust of passion. It was I that drove him into the ranks of the rebels.”
“Pray compose yourself, sir; do not say any more.”
246“I must finish what I began upon—I have gone aside from it—Jasper Meredith! Ah, Belle, that name conjures the blood back to your cheeks—Jasper Meredith has fortune which, thanks to this unnatural war, we want enough. He has rank which I honour, and talents which all men honour; but if he has not your whole heart, child, let him and his fortune, rank, and talents, go to the devil.”
“Thanks, dearest father, for your counsel; and trust me, I will be assured of something better and higher than fortune, rank, or talents, before I bind myself in that indissoluble bond.”
“I believe it, Belle; I know it.” Mr. Linwood felt, though he did not perfectly comprehend the emotions that at this moment irradiated Isabella’s beautiful face. “And, my child,” he continued, “ever since you have come to woman’s estate, I have resolved that whoever you loved, let his name, condition, fortune, be what it would, your hand should go with your heart, Belle; and I fear not to stand by my resolve, for I know that your giving your heart means your respect, honour, esteem, and all that one of God’s creatures can feel for another.”
“You are right, sir.”
“I’m sure of it—now kiss me, dear—that’s a seal to the bond. Read to me the last London Gazette—no matter where. I’ll doze away the time till dinner.”