He loved this girl, and he wanted to know whether his love was returned. To get at this information he saw but one way--a proposal. I have before said that he knew every trick and turn of flirtation; but this was something of far deeper import than a flirtation; means which he had previously used to ascertain "how he stood" with the temporary object of his affections, and which had elicited the satisfactory glance, hand-pressure, or word, he would have now deemed degrading both to himself and to her. His regard for her had been growing throughout the past season, and was rapidly culminating. He had watched her attentively, and studied all her movements, with a satisfactory result. He felt that she was a little fast, certainly; but that fastness he was convinced resulted from the mere overflow of animal spirits, and not from any desire to please in men's eyes by affectation of men's ways. That she was an heiress he didn't care one bit about--he had plenty for both; and if she came to him, any thing that she had should be settled on herself. But how to ask her? Ah, how long did that pair of hair-brushes remain suspended over his head, while he gazed vacantly into the dressing-glass before him as this question rose in his mind! How often did he fling himself on the ottoman, nursing his foot and biting his lip in a perplexity of doubt! He could not go down on his knees, and offer his hand and heart, as they did on the stage; he could not write to her, either formally or spasmodically--he had a wholesome horror of committing himself on paper; he could not arrive at the knowledge he required through any third person; in fact (here the hair-brushes went to work again), there was no way but to take advantage of an opportunity, and propose. He must know his position, too, at once. He could not bear to see that fellow Beresford hanging about her as he had been the previous night. He'd do it that very day. His whole frame, which had been pleasantly cooled by his shower-bath, tingled again at the mere thought; and a faint empty feeling, something like that which he experienced when insulted in the Engineers' mess-room at Salem by Poker Cassidy, came over him. Would he get as well out of this as out of that encounter? Then he held his own; and Cassidy, neatly drilled by a pistol-bullet through his ankle, limps with a crutch to this day. But this was a very different matter.
It was a dull breakfast that morning. Barbara sent down intelligence of a headache, and remained in her room; Miss Townshend had red rims to her pretty eyes, had no smile for any one, looked miserable, and sat silent; her papa had donned his very stiffest check cravat, and was, if possible, more pompous than usual; Sir Marmaduke had had his porridge early, had gone out, and not returned; old Miss Lexden always breakfasted in bed; and Mr. and Mrs. Vincent were utterly upset by a burnt omelette, about which they conveyed dismay to each other by eyebrow telegraph across the table. Only Major Stone was himself; and he bustled about, and made tea, and passed dishes, and joked and rallied in a way that ought to have been of service, but which signally failed. When Mr. Beresford entered the room, which was not until nearly all the others had finished their meal, he seemed for a few moments staggered by the gravity of the assemblage; but gliding into a vacant seat by Miss Townshend's side, he soon recovered his spirits, and commenced a conversation in his accustomed bantering tone. His neighbour seemed to brighten at once, and responded in her usual cheery manner, greatly to the disgust of poor Fred Lyster, sitting opposite, who, over his cold partridge, was still hard at work on the same problem which had occupied him when over his hair-brushes, and who knew as little how to attain his end as ever. He was glad when he heard Beresford say that business would require him to ride into Brighton before luncheon, and that he must afterwards go round to the stables and see whether his hack was all right after her journey down. His joy toned down a little when Miss Townshend asked if said hack had ever carried a lady, but rose again when Beresford declared that he should be sorry to see any female friend of his on Gulnare's back.
"It isn't that she's vicious," he explained; "there's not an ounce of vice in her. But there are so many things she can't bear--dirty children, and puddles, and stone heaps in the road; and when she sees any of these she stands bolt upright for two minutes on her hind-legs, and then starts off with her head between her forelegs, and nearly pulls your arms out of their sockets."
So Miss Townshend declared with much laughter, and with many shoulder-shrugs and exclamations of fright, that she could never think of mounting "any thing so dreadful;" and Lyster, to his immense delight, saw Beresford leave the room, light a big cigar on the steps, and clear off in the direction of the stables. Stone had already departed on his various errands; Mrs. Vincent had fetched a cookery-book from the library, and with her husband had retired to study it in the embrasure of the window; and Miss Townshend, left the last at table, was playing with a fragment of toast. Lyster knew her habits--knew that she was in the habit of skimming the Post to learn the whereabouts of her friends; and accordingly retreated quietly to the library.
Such a pleasant room, this! Not a bit of the wall to be seen for the dark oak bookshelves, which, crammed with books, extended from floor to ceiling on every side. A capital collection of books, in sober calf bindings (Sir Marmaduke once said that brilliant bindings and glazed book-cases always reminded him of a man with his hair parted down the middle, and could not understand what Barbara meant by asking hi Mrs. Nickleby had been a Wentworth): theology, politics, books of reference, poetry, drama, and history, all regularly ranged and properly catalogued. Fiction had a very moderate compartment allotted to it; but the round table in the middle of the room, and the ottoman at the far end, were liberally strewn with volumes bearing the omnipresent yellow ticket of Mudie. Immediately in front of the big bow-window, which was shaded by a sun-blind, and through which you gazed over a lovely expanse of down, stood a huge writing-table, on which was an inkstand that might have held half a pint, a large blotting-pad, an oxydised-silver owl with ruby eyes erect on a paperweight, and a bundle of quill pens, half split up, and all very much bitten at the tops; for Sir Marmaduke, who was the principle occupant of the cane writing-chair, was apt to get very energetic in his correspondence. Here, too, the old gentleman indulged in the one literary occupation of his life--certain translations of Horace, which he altered and polished year after year, intending some time or other to show them to an old college friend, and then have a gorgeous edition printed on toned paper for private circulation. Here, in a huge iron safe, were kept big ledgers, and account-books of rents, rates, and expenditure on the estates which gave three days' solemn investigation every quarter to Sir Marmaduke and Major Stone; whereat there was much head-rubbing, many appealing looks to the ceiling, and much secret checking of fingers under the table, and reference to a ready-reckoner on the part of both gentlemen. And here in a secret draw of the writing-table, lay a little packet, which the old man would take out occasionally, would open, and sit gazing for half an hour together at the contents. They were not much,--a faded blue ribbon, once worn, with a little locket attached to it, round the throat of his old love at the Bath Assemblies, where he first met her; a curl of hair, cut from her head after death; and an ivory miniature, by Stump, of a dark girl, with big brown eyes, and her hair banded tight to her forehead, and gathered into a large bow at the top of the head. After an inspection of this drawer the old gentleman would walk to the looking-glass, and glaring at his own reflection therein, would shake his head in a very solemn manner; he would be very mild and quiet, and, as Gumble noticed, would drink an extra bottle of claret during the evening.
When Lyster entered the room, he was annoyed to see that it was occupied. Old Mr. Russell, the lawyer, was at the writing-table; and Mr. Townshend was seated in an easy-chair close by, listening to the narration of some thick parchment deed which the lawyer was going through. Their business was apparently at an end, though; for Mr. Townshend said, "Then it's satisfactory, Mr. Russell?" to which the old gentleman, with nothing but his finger-tips visible below his cuffs, replied, "I think we may assume so;" and both gentlemen rose and left the room. Being in a highly nervous state, Lyster did not like these proceedings a bit. He wondered what that portentous-looking parchment was about--whether it had any reference to old Townshend's testamentary disposition; whether it had any thing to do with Miss Townshend. He thought he rather hated that old Russell, though he had not much idea why. His time was coming on now; he wondered how much longer before Miss Townshend would fetch the Post. Here it was, on the round table, with the other papers. He took one up and looked at it; but the type all ran together before his eyes, so he laid it down again, and walked up to the mantelshelf, and glared at the big black clock in the middle, and pulled the spear through the perforated fist of the bronze Diana on the top, and pushed it backwards and forwards; and then walking to the writing-table, lit a Vesta-match and blew it out. He plunged his hands into his pockets, and looked down at his boots, apparently intently scrutinising their make, in reality not seeing them in the least; then he took up a hare's-foot-handled paper-knife and tapped his teeth with it, threw it down, and commenced a Polar-bear-like promenade of the room.
The clock ticked solemnly on, and Captain Lyster was still pacing up and down, when the door opened and Miss Townshend entered. She seemed surprised to see any one in the room, and declared that she would not remain a minute, and that she would take the greatest care not to disturb the Captain, who, she said with a smile, was evidently, from his perturbed expression, engaged upon the composition of an epic poem or other intense literary effort. At this remark the Captain grinned feebly, and besought the young lady not to mind his eccentricities, as he was full of them, though he was bound to confess he had never been mad enough to contemplate writing a poem. And then Miss Townshend smiled again, and seated herself at the round table, and taking up the Post turned to the "Fashionable intelligence," and was at once engrossed in the study of who was where, and at what country seats "select circles" were being "hospitably entertained." Lyster went to the writing-table, and began ornamenting the blotting pad with many spirited sketches, wondering all the time whether he should get any better chance for his contemplated announcement, or whether he should plunge into it at once. At last he thought he had an opportunity. Miss Townshend suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, Captain Lyster, here's news for you! You recollect Mary Considine? Yes, I should think you did. Those private theatricals at the Fenton's, where you and she--oh, I haven't forgotten it. Well, there's something about her here; listen: 'We understand that a matrimonial alliance will shortly take place between the Honourable Mary Considine, youngest daughter of Lord Torraghmore, and Major Burt, of the Life Guards.' That's Harry Burt, the straw-coloured one, isn't it? Poor Captain Lyster! doomed to wear the willow."
The chance, the chance at last!
"Surely, Miss Townshend," he commenced, "you cannot imagine that I ever seriously entertained any regard for Miss Considine. A very pleasant young lady, full of spirits, and highly amusing, but not possessing the qualities which one would look for in a wife. And you--can you imagine that in a house where you were--where I was in the habit of seeing you--. Done, by Jove!"
The last sentence, uttered under his breath, was evoked by the opening of the door, and the entrance of Mr. Townshend, who looked more like the Ace of Clubs than ever when he saw the couple in apparently close conversation. He at once approached his daughter, and asked her if she had "written that letter?" She said, with some tremulousness, "No." Mr. Townshend then raised his voice, and said he must beg--and with him "beg" sounded marvellously like "insist"--that she would do it at once. So the young lady, albeit with tears in her eyes, went dutifully off to obey her father's behests; the old gentleman sat down to the Times, while Lyster glared at him from behind a book, and wondered whether one could possibly call a man to account for interrupting one's conversation with his daughter.