"Deaths and marriages first, of course, child. Then fashion and varieties; take the accidents afterwards, and close with anything remarkable in politics, or any disastrous occurrence in high life."
Polly obeyed to the letter; once only straying into an animated account of a run with the Springfield fox-hounds, where three riders out of a large field came in at the death; when Miss Dinah stopped her abruptly, saying, "I don"t care for the obituary of a fox, young lady. Go on with something else."
"Will you have the recent tragedy at Ring"s End, ma"am?"
"I know it by heart Is there nothing new in the fashions,--how are bonnets worn? What"s the latest sleeve? What"s the color in vogue?"
"A delicate blue, ma"am; a little off the sky, and on the hyacinth."
"Very becoming to fair people," said Miss Dinah, with a shake of her blond ringlets.
""The Prince"s Hussars!" Would you like to hear about _them_, ma"am?"
"By all means."
"It"s a very short paragraph. "The internal troubles of this unhappy regiment would seem to be never ending. We last week informed our readers that a young subaltern of the corps, the son of one of our most distinguished generals, had thrown up his commission and repaired to the Continent, to enable him to demand a personal satisfaction from his commanding officer, and we now learn that the Major in question is precluded from accepting the gage of battle by something stronger than military etiquette.""
"Read it again, child; that vile newspaper slang always puzzles me."
Polly recited the pa.s.sage in a clear and distinct voice.
"What do you understand by it, Polly?"
"I take it to mean nothing, madam. One of those stirring pieces of intelligence which excites curiosity, and are no more expected to be explained than a bad riddle."
"It cannot surely be that he shelters himself under his position towards us? That I conclude is hardly possible!"
Though Miss Barrington said this as a reflection, she addressed herself almost directly to Josephine.
"As far as I am concerned, aunt," answered Josephine, promptly, "the Major may fight the monster of the Drachenfels to-morrow, if he wishes it."
"Oh, here is another mystery apparently on the same subject. "The Lascar, Lal-Adeen, whom our readers will remember as having figured in a police-court a few days back, and was remanded till the condition of his wound--a severe sabre-cut on the scalp--should permit his further examination, and on the same night made his escape from the hospital, has once again, and very unexpectedly, turned up at Boulogne-sur-Mer.
His arrival in this country--some say voluntarily, others under a warrant issued for his apprehension--will probably take place to-day or to-morrow, and, if report speak truly, be followed by some of the most singular confessions which the public has heard for a long time back."
"The Post" contradicts the statement, and declares "no such person has ever been examined before the magistrate, if he even have any existence at all.""
"And what interest has all this for us?" asked Miss Dinah, sharply.
"You do not forget, ma"am, that this is the same man Major Stapylton was said to have wounded; and whose escape scandal hinted he had connived at, and who now "does not exist.""
"I declare Miss Dill, I remember no such thing; but it appears to me that Major Stapylton occupies a very considerable s.p.a.ce in your own thoughts."
"I fancy Polly likes him, aunt," said Josephine, with a slight smile.
"Well, I will own he interests me; there is about him a mysterious something that says, "I have more in my head and on my heart than you think of, and more, perhaps, than you could carry if the burden were yours.""
"A galley-slave might say the same, Miss Dill."
"No doubt of it, ma"am; and if there be men who mix in the great world, and dine at grand houses, with something of the galley-slave on their conscience, they a.s.suredly impress us with an amount of fear that is half a homage. One dreads them as he does a tiger, but the terror is mingled with admiration."
"This is nonsense, young lady, and baneful nonsense, too, begotten of French novels and a sickly sentimentality. I hope Fifine despises it as heartily as I do." The pa.s.sionate wrath which she displayed extended to the materials of her work-basket, and while rolls of worsted were upset here, needles were thrown there; and at last, pushing her embroidery-frame rudely away, she arose and left the room.
"Dearest Polly, how could you be so indiscreet! You know, far better than I do, how little patience she has with a paradox."
"My sweet Fifine," said the other, in a low whisper, "I was dying to get rid of her, and I knew there was only one way of effecting it. You may remark that whenever she gets into a rage, she rushes out into the flower-garden, and walks round and round till she"s ready to drop. There she is already; you may gauge her anger by the number of her revolutions in a minute."
"But why did you wish her away, Polly?"
"I"ll tell you why; that is, there is a charming French word for what I mean, the verb "agacer," all untranslatable as it is. Now there are moments when a person working in the same room--reading, writing, looking out of the window--becomes an insupportable infliction. You reason, and say, "How absurd, how childish, how ungenerous," and so forth. It won"t do; for as you look round he is there still, and by his mere presence keeps up the ferment in your thoughts. You fancy, at last, that he stands between you and your inner self, a witness that won"t let your own conscience whisper to you, and you come in the end to hate him.
Your dear aunt was on the high-road to this goal, when I bethought me of my expedient! And now we are all alone, dearest, make me a confession."
"What is it?"
"You do not like Major Stapylton?"
"No."
"And you do like somebody else?"
"Perhaps," said she, slowly, and dividing the syllables as she spoke them.
"That being the case, and seeing, as you do, that your aunt is entirely of your own mind, at least as to the man you do not care for, why don"t you declare as much frankly to your grandfather, and break off the negotiation at once?"
"Just because that dear old grandpapa asked me not to be precipitate, not to be rash. He did not tell me that I must love Major Stapylton, or must marry him; but he said, "If you only knew, Fifine, what a change in our fortune would come of a change in _your_ feelings; if you could but imagine, child, how the whole journey of life might be rendered easier, all because you took the right-hand road instead of the left; if you could guess these things, and what might follow them--"" She stopped.
"Well, go on."
"No. I have said all that he said; he kissed my cheek as he got thus far, and hurried away from the room."
"And you, like a sweet, obedient child, hastened away to yours; wrote a farewell, a heart-broken farewell, to Fred Conyers; and solemnly swore to your own conscience you "d marry a man you disliked. These are the sort of sacrifices the world has a high admiration for; but do you know, Fifine, the world limps a little in its morality sometimes, and is not one-half the fine creature it thinks itself. For instance, in the midst of all its enthusiasm for you, it has forgotten that in accepting for your husband a man you do not love, you are doing a dishonesty; and that, besides this, you really love another. It is what the French call the aggravating circ.u.mstance."
"I mean to do nothing of the kind!" broke in Fifine, boldly. "Your lecture does not address itself to _me_."
"Do not be angry, Fifine," said the other, calmly.
"It is rather too hard to be rebuked for the faults one might have, but has not committed. It"s like saying how wet you "d have been had you fallen into that pool!"
"Well, it also means, don"t fall into the pool!"
"Do you know, Polly," said Josephine, archly, "I have a sort of suspicion that you don"t dislike this Major yourself! Am I right?"
"I"m not say you were altogether wrong; that is, he interests me, or, rather, he puzzles me, and it piques my ingenuity to read him, just as it would to make out a cipher to which I had only one-half the key."
"Such a feeling as that would never inspire a tender interest, at least, with _me_."
"Nor did I say it was, Fifine. I have read in some book of my father"s how certain physicians inoculated themselves with plague, the better to note the phenomena, and trace the course; and I own I can understand their zeal, and I "d risk something to decipher this man."
"This may be very nice in medicine, Polly, but very bad in morals! At all events, don"t catch the plague for the sake of saving _me?_"