"All good soldiers have, my lady. And if my position is not, after a considerable term of service, I say if . . ."
"To continue," said Lady Camper: "I never have liked early marriages. I was married in my teens before I knew men. Now I do know them, and now .
The General plunged forward: "The honour you do us now:--a mature experience is worth:--my dear Lady Camper, I have admired you:--and your objection to early marriages cannot apply to . . . indeed, madam, vigour, they say . . . though youth, of course . . . yet young people, as you observe . . . and I have, though perhaps my reputation is against it, I was saying I have a natural timidity with your s.e.x, and I am grey-headed, white-headed, but happily without a single malady."
Lady Camper"s brows showed a trifling bewilderment. "I am speaking of these young people, General Ople."
"I consent to everything beforehand, my dear lady. He should be, I say Mr. Rolles should be provided for."
"So should she, General, so should Elizabeth."
"She shall be, she will, dear madam. What I have, with your permission, if--good heaven! Lady Camper, I scarcely know where I am. She would . .
. . I shall not like to lose her: you would not wish it. In time she will . . . she has every quality of a good wife."
"There, stay there, and be intelligible," said Lady Camper. "She has every quality. Money should be one of them. Has she money?"
"Oh! my lady," the General exclaimed, "we shall not come upon your purse when her time comes."
"Has she ten thousand pounds?"
"Elizabeth? She will have, at her father"s death . . . but as for my income, it is moderate, and only sufficient to maintain a gentlemanly appearance in proper self-respect. I make no show. I say I make no show. A wealthy marriage is the last thing on earth I should have aimed at. I prefer quiet and retirement. Personally, I mean. That is my personal taste. But if the lady . . . . I say if it should happen that the lady . . . . and indeed I am not one to press a suit: but if she who distinguishes and honours me should chance to be wealthy, all I can do is to leave her wealth at her disposal, and that I do: I do that unreservedly. I feel I am very confused, alarmingly confused. Your ladyship merits a superior . . . I trust I have not . . . I am entirely at your ladyship"s mercy."
"Are you prepared, if your daughter is asked in marriage, to settle ten thousand pounds on her, General Ople?"
The General collected himself. In his heart he thoroughly appreciated the moral beauty of Lady Camper"s extreme solicitude on behalf of his daughter"s provision; but he would have desired a postponement of that and other material questions belonging to a distant future until his own fate was decided.
So he said: "Your ladyship"s generosity is very marked. I say it is very marked."
"How, my good General Ople! how is it marked in any degree?" cried Lady Camper. "I am not generous. I don"t pretend to be; and certainly I don"t want the young people to think me so. I want to be just. I have a.s.sumed that you intend to be the same. Then will you do me the favour to reply to me?"
The General smiled winningly and intently, to show her that he prized her, and would not let her escape his eulogies.
"Marked, in this way, dear madam, that you think of my daughter"s future more than I. I say, more than her father himself does. I know I ought to speak more warmly, I feel warmly. I was never an eloquent man, and if you take me as a soldier, I am, as, I have ever been in the service, I was saying I am Wilson Ople, of the grade of General, to be relied on for executing orders; and, madam, you are Lady Camper, and you command me. I cannot be more precise. In fact, it is the feeling of the necessity for keeping close to the business that destroys what I would say. I am in fact lamentably incompetent to conduct my own case."
Lady Camper left her chair.
"Dear me, this is very strange, unless I am singularly in error," she said.
The General now faintly guessed that he might be in error, for his part.
But he had burned his ships, blown up his bridges; retreat could not be thought of.
He stood, his head bent and appealing to her sideface, like one pleadingly in pursuit, and very deferentially, with a courteous vehemence, he entreated first her ladyship"s pardon for his presumption, and then the gift of her ladyship"s hand.
As for his language, it was the tongue of General Ople. But his bearing was fine. If his clipped white silken hair spoke of age, his figure breathed manliness. He was a picture, and she loved pictures.
For his own sake, she begged him to cease. She dreaded to hear of something "gentlemanly."
"This is a new idea to me, my dear General," she said. "You must give me time. People at our age have to think of fitness. Of course, in a sense, we are both free to do as we like. Perhaps I may be of some aid to you. My preference is for absolute independence. And I wished to talk of a different affair. Come to me tomorrow. Do not be hurt if I decide that we had better remain as we are."
The General bowed. His efforts, and the wavering of the fair enemy"s flag, had inspired him with a positive re-awakening of masculine pa.s.sion to gain this fortress. He said well: "I have, then, the happiness, madam, of being allowed to hope until to-morrrow?"
She replied, "I would not deprive you of a moment of happiness. Bring good sense with you when you do come."
The General asked eagerly, "I have your ladyship"s permission to come early?"
"Consult your happiness," she answered; and if to his mind she seemed returning to the state of enigma, it was on the whole deliciously. She restored him his youth. He told Elizabeth that night; he really must begin to think of marrying her to some worthy young fellow. "Though,"
said he, with an air of frank intoxication, "my opinion is, the young ones are not so lively as the old in these days, or I should have been besieged before now."
The exact substance of the interview he forbore to relate to his inquisitive daughter, with a very honourable discretion.
CHAPTER IV
Elizabeth came riding home to breakfast from a gallop round the park, and pa.s.sing Lady Camper"s gates, received the salutation of her parasol.
Lady Camper talked with her through the bars. There was not a sign to tell of a change or twist in her neighbourly affability. She remarked simply enough, that it was her nephew"s habit to take early gallops, and possibly Elizabeth might have seen him, for his quarters were proximate; but she did not demand an answer. She had pa.s.sed a rather restless night, she said. "How is the General?"
"Papa must have slept soundly, for he usually calls to me through his door when he hears I am up," said Elizabeth.
Lady Camper nodded kindly and walked on.
Early in the morning General Ople was ready for battle. His forces were, the antic.i.p.ation of victory, a carefully arranged toilet, and an unaccustomed spirit of enterprise in the realms of speech; for he was no longer in such awe of Lady Camper.
"You have slept well?" she inquired.
"Excellently, my lady:
"Yes, your daughter tells me she heard you, as she went by your door in the morning for a ride to meet my nephew. You are, I shall a.s.sume, prepared for business."
"Elizabeth? . . . to meet . . .?" General Ople"s impression of anything extraneous to his emotion was feeble and pa.s.sed instantly.
"Prepared! Oh, certainly"; and he struck in a compliment on her ladyship"s fresh morning bloom.
"It can hardly be visible," she responded; "I have not painted yet."
"Does your ladyship proceed to your painting in the very early morning?"
"Rouge. I rouge."
"Dear me! I should not have supposed it."
"You have speculated on it very openly, General. I remember your trying to see a freckle through the rouge; but the truth is, I am of a supernatural paleness if I do not rouge, so I do. You understand, therefore, I have a false complexion. Now to business."
"If your ladyship insists on calling it business. I have little to offer--myself !"
"You have a gentlemanly residence."