"It is a pity you don"t marry her, then, if you think so highly of her;"
said Harriet, perversely.
"I did not come here to marry Miss Capel, but to marry you," replied Mr.
Gage, coldly.
The deepest carmine colour flew into Harriet"s face, but she still remained pelting her dog with the little pieces of meat. Mr. Gage stood waiting to hear what she would say.
"Ah! but George, do you mean it?" said Harriet, looking up archly in his face.
"Do I mean it?" asked Mr. Gage; "when I give you the power of rejecting my hand again."
This was so characteristic of the degree of estimation in which Mr. Gage held himself, that Harriet burst into a prolonged peal of laughter.
"Well, then, George," said she, holding out her hand.
"Well, then, Harriet," he replied, clasping it.
"But I tell you what," said Harriet, as she was leaving the room, "you may go and make your own story good to my Uncle Singleton, for if you think I shall take all that trouble, you will find yourself very much mistaken."
The next report current in the house was that Mr. Gage"s horses were not going to Chirke Weston; and the presumption, therefore, was, that their master had determined to prolong his stay at Singleton Manor.
CHAPTER IX.
_Prin._ We are wise girls to work our lovers so,
So, portent-like, would I o"ersway his state That he should be my fool, and I his fate.
LOVE"S LABOUR"S LOST.
"You are not going away on Sat.u.r.day," said Harriet the next morning to Margaret, who was sitting with a letter in her hand, "do not think it. I have made up my mind that you spend Christmas here."
"Rather hard upon Miss Capel," said Mr. Gage, "considering that _you_ will not be here at Christmas."
"Well, I don"t know where I am likely to be, if not here," said Harriet; "I think there is some derangement in that family," she added, indicating Mr. Gage by a movement of her head:--"He is like the man in "Nicholas Nickleby," he insists upon marrying people, and I am his present object; it will go off, you know. Your turn will come next, Margaret, my dear."
"You are so provoking, Harriet," said Margaret, trying in vain to look grave.
"But why should you go back to this Mrs. Fitzpatrick?" said Harriet.
"Because she is so lonely, Harriet. I told you she had lost her daughter; and I have already been here a long time."
"But supposing we are both foolish enough to keep in the same mind, and marry on the 18th, I shall want you to be bridesmaid," said Harriet.
"I would, gladly," said Margaret, "but I know Mrs. Fitzpatrick really wants me; and I decide in her favour, because you are happy and well, and she is so desolate alone."
"It would give us both so much pleasure if you could stay," said Mr.
Gage lowering his newspaper.
"I wonder who he includes so familiarly with himself," said Harriet, "I think it must be Thompson; he is very intimate with his groom. Won"t you stay to oblige Thompson?"
Margaret laughing, protested "that she really could not."
Mr. Gage wondered how Harriet could be so ridiculous.
"Thompson and Charlotte are forgiven for the present," said Harriet. "I wondered what made George so very lenient; it seems that he had it in view to commit a similar folly, and that reminds me I must learn to smoke again."
"Oh! do not, Harriet."
"My dear, it is in self-defence; unless, indeed, I break off the match.
He lives in a barrack. I dare say his room is not half the size of my uncle"s kennel: there he sits with all his intimate friends, smoking till the place is like a lime kiln; if I cannot join them, what is to become of me? Mr. Gage, have you a cigar about you? I will lose no time in learning the art again."
Mr. Gage not noticing the last part of the speech, said "he did not suppose it to be a very likely thing that he should permit his wife to live in a barrack."
"Ah!" said Harriet shaking her head, "I have a conviction, a presentiment, that I shall live in the little lime-kiln we were speaking of. Uncle Singleton always said that would be my fate. And if it was not for the bracelet-watch which George is having made for me, I a.s.sure you it weighs so heavily on my spirits, that I would never speak to him again. Just look behind the newspaper, my dear, and see if he is crying."
Mr. Gage dropped the newspaper, and laughed without restraint, but he told Harriet that "she had now effectually frightened Miss Capel from ever coming to see her, when she was settled."
"Oh! I have provided against that;" said Harriet, "I don"t know at all what Mr. Gage"s plans are; but for myself, I mean to go to Wardenscourt early in the summer. Now I must have you solemnly promise, that directly I summon you, you will instantly join me there. You know Mrs.
Fitzpatrick is connected with Lord Raymond, so that if she is invited, I suppose she will make no scruple of accepting; then we will really enjoy ourselves."
"I should like it very much," said Margaret.
"And you promise?"
"Yes, I do, indeed."
Margaret"s approaching departure was a source of regret to every one.
Harriet told her that they looked upon her as a kind of hostage for her own good behaviour, and that she had some ideas of the same kind herself. She was sure that she should do something outrageous when she was deprived of Margaret"s overlooking eye. That neither she, nor Mr.
Gage had at all made up their minds, and that she knew there would be a violent quarrel as soon as Margaret was out of the house.
Margaret thought, and said that if Mr. Gage meant to quarrel he would have begun already, for there was not a single means of aggravation that Harriet had left untried ever since her engagement with him.
Sometimes she affected to consider the engagement as a delusion of his own; sometimes she told Margaret that they had agreed to feign it as long as he stayed at Singleton Manor, in order to amuse him; at other times, she said, it was all very well while the fancy lasted, but that George would change his mind in a day or two, and so save her the trouble of formally breaking it off.
Mr. Gage took refuge in the newspaper from all these attacks, and did not seem to think it worth while to be ruffled. Mr. Humphries was constantly at the house during the few last days of Margaret"s stay. He looked very sorrowful, but his attempts to propitiate her were confined to a variety of strange faces, and gestures, which to say the truth, she was too much occupied to remark. None regretted her so much as Mrs.
Singleton; she had been so attentive to all her wants, and so skilful in making the old lady hear, that she felt in losing Margaret that she was parting with a luxury she could ill afford to do without.
Mason shed some silent tears when she received her orders to pack up.
Whether they were on her own, or her young lady"s account, she did not explain. She did say while she was packing the trinket-box, that a very general notion had prevailed in the housekeeper"s room, that Ixworth--Mr. Humphries" place of residence--was shortly to have a mistress; and she believed it was never supposed likely that Miss Conway would be requested to fill that situation; not, she wished to observe, that any opinion prevailed derogatory to Miss Conway"s charms, as might be proved by the circ.u.mstance that Mr. Gage had made her an offer--a very difficult and very high gentleman--but she had never heard any harm of Mr. Humphries, and no one in the whole country, she believed, could say anything to his disadvantage, which she thought a great thing in favour of a young gentleman with so many clear thousands a-year. That Mr. Humphries" gentleman had remarked, the night that they had all made a party to go to the play at T----, that Mr. Humphries seemed to him to be rather low; and that the butler, who was considered literary, had observed, that "the course of true love never did run smooth;" that the company had not taken the liberty to mention any names, but that she could not deny that several of the party had looked as if they knew the cause of Mr. Humphries" lowness, and of the butler"s quotation.
Harriet actually cried when it came to taking leave of Margaret, and between her sobs, affected to be very angry with Mr. Gage that he did not follow her example.
Mr. Gage made a polite speech, of course, and felt it too, which is not the case, with all polite speeches.