"You look surprised, Lucy. What! do you think this will not be a heartbreaking disappointment to me? If you knew how I have schemed for it--what I have done and endured to bring it about! To quarter the arms of Fontaine and Talboys! I put by the 5,000 pounds directly, and as much more of my own, that you should not go into that n.o.ble family without a proper settlement. It was the dream of my heart; I could have died contented the next hour. More fool I to care for anybody but myself. Your selfish people escape these bitter disappointments. Well, it is a lesson. From this hour I will live for myself and care for n.o.body, for n.o.body cares for me."
These words, uttered with great agitation, and, I believe, with perfect sincerity, on his own unselfishness and hard fate, were terrible to Lucy. She wreathed her arms suddenly round him.
"Oh, uncle," she cried, despairingly, "kill me! send me to Heaven!
send me to my mother, but don"t stab me with such bitter words;" and she trembled with an emotion so much more powerful and convulsing than his, in which temper had a large share, that she once more cowed him.
"There! there!" he muttered, "I don"t want to kill you, child, G.o.d knows, or to hurt you in any way."
Lucy trembled, and tried to smile. The good nature, which was the upper crust of this man"s character, got the better of him.
"There! there! don"t distress yourself so. I know who I have to thank for all this."
"She has not the power," said Lucy, in a faint voice, "to make me ungrateful to you."
Mind is more rapid than lightning. At this moment, in the middle of a sentence, it flashed across Lucy that her aunt had convinced her, sore against her will, that there was a strong element of selfishness in Mr. Fountain. "But it is that he deceives himself," thought Lucy. "He would sacrifice my happiness to his hobby, and think he has done it for love of me." Enlightened by this rapid reflection, she did not say to him as one of his own s.e.x would, "Look in your own heart, and you will see that all this is not love of me, but of your own schemes."
Oh, dear, no, that would not have been the woman. She took him round the neck, and, fixing her sapphire eyes lovingly on his, she said, "It is for love of me you set your heart on this great match? You wish to see me well settled in the world, and, above all, happy?"
"Of course it is. I told you so. What other object can I have?"
"Then, if you saw me wretched, and degraded in my own eyes, your heart would bleed for your poor niece--too late. Well, uncle, I love you, too, and I save you this day from remorse. Oh, think what it must be to hate and despise a man, and link yourself body and soul to that man for life. Oh, think and shudder with me. I have a quick eye. I have seen your lip curl with contempt when that fool has been talking--ah!
you blush. You are too much his superior in everything but fortune not to despise him at heart. See the thing as it is. Speak to me as you would if my mother stood here beside us, uncle, and to speak to me, you must look her in the face. Could you say to me before her, "I love you; marry a man we both despise!"?"
Mr. Fountain made no answer. He was disconcerted. Nothing is so easy to resist as logic solo. We see it, as a general rule, resisted with great success in public and private every day; but when it comes in good company, a voice of music, an angel face, gentle, persuasive caresses, and imploring eyes, it ceases to revolt the understanding.
And so, caught in his own trap, foiled, baffled, soothed, caressed, all in one breath, Mr. Fountain hung his head, and could not immediately reply.
Lucy followed up her advantage. "No," cried she; "say to me, "I love you, Lucy; marry n.o.body; stay with your uncle, and find your happiness in contributing to his comfort.""
"What is the use my saying that, when I have got Mother Bazalgette against me, and her shopkeeper?"
"Never mind, uncle, you say it, and time will show whether your influence is small with me, and my affections small for you"; and she looked in his face with glistening eyes.
"Well, then," said he, "I do say it, and I suppose that means I must urge you no more about poor Talboys."
A shower of kisses descended upon him that moment. Moral: Lose no time in sealing a good bargain.
"Come, now, Lucy, you must do me a favor."
"Oh, thank you! thank you! what is it?"
"Ah! but it is about Talboys too."
"Never mind," faltered Lucy, "if it is anything short of--" (full stop).
"It is a long way short of that. Look here, Lucy, I must tell you the truth. He intends to ask your hand himself: he confided this to me, but he never authorized me to commit him as I have done, so that this conversation cannot be acted on: it must be a secret between you and me."
"Oh, dear! and I thought I had got rid of him so nicely."
"Don"t be alarmed," groaned Fountain; "such matches as this can always be dropped; the difficulty is to bring them on. All I ask of you, then, is not to make mischief between me and my friend, the proudest man in England. If you don"t value his friendship, I do. You must not let him know I have got him insulted by a refusal. For instance, you had better go out sailing with him to-morrow as if nothing had pa.s.sed.
Will your affection for me carry you as far as that?"
The proposal was wormwood to Lucy. So she smiled and said eagerly: "Is that all? Why, I will do it with pleasure, dear. It is not like being in the same boat with him for life, you know. Can you give me nothing more than that to do for you?"
"No; it does not do to test people"s affection too severely. You have shown me that. Go on with your walk, Lucy. I shall go in."
"May I not come with you?"
"No; my head aches with all this; if I don"t mind I shall eat no dinner. Agitation and vexation, don"t agree with me. I have carefully avoided them all my life. I must go in and lie down for an hour"; and he left her rather abruptly.
She looked after him; her subtle eye noticed directly that he walked a little more feebly than usual. She ascribed this to his disappointment, justly perhaps, for at his age the body has less elastic force to resist a mental blow. The sight of him creeping away disappointed, and leaning heavier than usual on his stick, knocked at her cool but affectionate heart. She began to cry bitterly. When he was quite out of sight, she turned and paced the gravel slowly and sadly. It was new to her to refuse her uncle anything, still more strange to have to refuse him a serious wish. She was prepared, thoroughly prepared, for the proposal, but not to find the old man"s heart so deeply set upon it. A wild impulse came over her to call him back and sacrifice herself; but the high spirit and intelligence that lay beneath her tenderness and complaisance stood firm. Yet she felt almost guilty, and very, very unhappy, as we call it at her age. She kept sighing; "Poor uncle!" and paced the gravel very slowly, hanging her sweet head, and crying as she went.
At the end of the walk David Dodd stood suddenly before her. He came flurried on his own account, but stopped thunder-struck at her tears.
"What is the matter, Miss Lucy?"" said he, anxiously.
"Oh, nothing, Mr. Dodd;" and they flowed afresh.
"Can I do anything for you, Miss Lucy?"
"No, Mr. Dodd."
"Won"t you tell me what is the matter? Are you not friends with me to-day?"
"I was put out by a very foolish circ.u.mstance, Mr. Dodd, and it is one with which I shall not trouble you, nor any person of sense. I prefer to retain your sympathy by not revealing the contemptible cause of my babyish--There!" She shook her head proudly, as if tears were to be dispersed like dewdrops. "There!" she repeated; and at this second effort she smiled radiantly.
"It is like the sun coming out after a shower," cried David rapturously.
"That reminds me I must be _going_ in, Mr. Dodd."
"Don"t say that, Miss Lucy. What for?"
"To arrange another shower, one of pearls, on a dress I am to wear to-night."
David sighed. "Ah! Miss Lucy, at sight of me you always make for the hall door."
Lucy colored. "Oh, do I? I really was not aware of that. Then I suppose I am afraid of you. Is that what you would insinuate? ""
"No, Miss Lucy, you are not afraid of me; but I sometimes fear--" and he hesitated.
"It must blow very hard that day," said Lucy, with a world of politeness. Her tongue was too quick for him. He found it so, and announced the fact after his fashion. "I can"t tack fast enough to follow you," said he despondently.
"But you are not required to follow me," replied this amiable eel, with hypocritical benignity; "I am going to my aunt"s room to do what I told you. I leave you in charge of the quarter-deck." So saying, she walked slowly up the steps, and left David standing sorrowfully on the gravel. At the top step Miss Lucy turned and inquired gently when he was to sail. He told her the ship was expected to anchor off the fort to-morrow, but she would not sail till she had got all her pa.s.sengers on board.
"Oh!" said Lucy, with an air of reflection. She then leaned in an easy posture against the wall, and, whether it was that she relented a little, or that, having secured her retreat, she was now indifferent to flight, certain it is that she did after her own fashion what many a daughter of Eve has done before her, and many a d.u.c.h.ess and many a dairymaid will do after La Fountain and I are gone from earth. A minute ago it had been, "She must go directly." The more opposition to her departure, the more inexorable the necessity for her going; opposition withdrawn, and the door open, she stayed no end.
Full twenty minutes did that young lady stand there unsolicited, and chat with David Dodd in the kindest, sweetest, most amicable way imaginable.
She little knew she had an auditor--a female auditor, keen as a lynx.