Marriage (Ferrier)/Chapter XX

"It seems it is as proper to our age   To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions,    As it is common for the younger sort    To lack discretion."

Hamlet. LORD LINDORE and Colonel Lennox has been boyish acquaintances, and a sort of superficial, intimacy was soon established between them, which served as the ostensible cause of his frequent visits at Beech Park. But to Mary, who was more alive to the difference of their characters and sentiments than any other member of the family, this appeared very improbable, and she could not help suspecting that love for the sister, rather than friendship for the brother, was the real motive by which he was actuated. In half jesting manner she mentioned her suspicions to Lady Emily, who treated the idea with her usual ridicule.

"I really could not have supposed you so extremely missy-ish, Mary," said she, "as to imagine that because two people like each other's society, and talk and laugh together a little more than usual, that the must needs be in love! I believe Charles Lennox loves me much the same as he did eleven years ago, when I was a little wretch that used to pull his hair and spoil his watch. And as for me, you know that I consider myself quite as an old woman&mdash;at least as a married one; and he is perfectly au fait to my engagement with Edward. I have even shown him his picture and some of his letters."

Mary looked incredulous.

"You may think as you please, but I tell you it is so. In my situation I should scorn to have Colonel Lennox, or anybody else, in love with me. As to his liking to talk to me, pray who else can he talk to? Adelaide would sometimes condescend indeed; but he won't be condescended to, that's clear, not even by a Duchess. With what mock humility he meets her airs! how I adore him for it! Then you are such a pillar of ice!&mdash;so shy and unsociable when he is present!&mdash;and, by-the-bye, if I did not despise recrimination as the pis aller of all conscious Misses, I would say you are much more the object of his attention, at least, than I am. Several times I have caught him looking very earnestly at you, when, by the laws of good breeding, his eyes ought to have been fixed exclusively upon me; and&mdash;"

"Pshaw!" interrupted Mary, colouring, "that is mere absence&mdash;nothing to the purpose&mdash;or perhaps," forcing a smile, "he may be trying to love me!"

Mary thought of her poor old friend, as she said this, with bitterness of heart. It was long since she had seen her; and when she had last inquired for her, her son had said he did not think her well, with a look Mary could not misunderstand. She had heard him make an appointment with Lord Lindore for the following day, and she took the opportunity of his certain absence to visit his mother. Mrs. Lennox, indeed, looked ill, and seemed more than usually depressed. She welcomed Mary with her usual tenderness, but even her presence seemed to fail of inspiring her with gladness.

Mary found she was totally unsuspicious of the cause of her estrangement, and imputed it to a very different one.

"You have been a great stranger, my dear!" said she, as she affectionately embraced her; "but at such a time I could not expect you to think of me."

"Indeed," answered Mary, equally unconscious of her meaning, "I have thought much and often, very often, upon you, and wished I could have come to you; but&mdash;-" she stopped, for she could not tell the truth, and would not utter a falsehood.

"I understand it all," said Mrs. Lennox, with a sigh. "Well&mdash;well&mdash;God's will be done!" Then trying to be more cheerful, "Had you come little sooner, you would have met Charles. He is just gone out with Lord Lindore. He was unwilling to leave me, as he always is, and when he does, I believe it is as much to please me as himself. Ah! Mary, I once hoped that I might have lived to see you the happy wife of the best of sons. I may speak out now, since that is all over. God has willed otherwise, an may you be rewarded in the choice you have made!"

Mary was struck with consternation to find that her supposed engagement with Mr. Downe Wright had spread even to Rose Hall; and in the greatest confusion she attempted to deny it. But after the acknowledgment she had just heard, she acquitted herself awkwardly; for she felt as if an open explanation would only serve to revive hopes that never could be realised, and subject Colonel Lennox and herself to future perplexities. Nothing but the whole truth would have sufficed to undeceive Mrs. Lennox, for she had had the intelligence of Mary's engagement from Mrs. Downe Wright herself, who, for better security of what she already considered her son's property, had taken care to spread the report of his being the accepted lover before she left the country. Mary felt all the unpleasantness of her situation. Although detesting deceit and artifice of every kind, her confused and stammering denials seemed rather to corroborate the fact; but she felt that she could not declare her resolution of never bestowing her hand upon Mr. Downe Wright without seeming at the same time to court the addresss of Colonel Lennox. Then how painful&mdash;how unjust to herself, as well as cruel to him, to have it for an instant believed that she was the betrothed of one whose wife she was resolved she never would be!

In short, poor Mary's mind was a complete chaos; and for the first time in her life she found it impossible to determine which was the right course for her to pursue. Even in the midst of her distress, however, she could not help smiling at the naïvete of the good old lady's remarks.

"He is a handsome young man, I hear," said she, still in allusion to Mr. Downe Wright: "has a fine fortune, and an easy temper. All these things help people's happiness, though they cannot make it; and his choice of you, my dear Mary, shows that he has some sense."

"What a eulogium!" said Mary, laughing and blushing. "Were he really to me what you suppose, I must be highly flattered; but I must again assure you it is not using Mr. Downe Wright well to talk of him as anything to me. My mother, indeed&mdash;".

"Ah! Mary, my dear, let me advise you to beware of being led, even by a mother, in such a matter as this. God forbid that I should ever recommend disobedience towards a parent's will; but I fear you have yielded too much to yours. I said, indeed, when I heard it, that I feared undue influence had been used; for that I could not think William Downe Wright would ever have been the choice of your heart. Surely parents have much to answer for who mislead their children in such an awful step as marriage!"

This was the severest censure Mary had ever heard drop from Mrs. Lennox's lips; and she could not but marvel at the self-delusion that led her thus to condemn in another the very error she had committed herself, but under such different circumstances that she would not easily have admitted it to be the same. She sought for the happiness of her son, while Lady Juliana, she was convinced, wished only her own aggrandisement.

"Yes, indeed," said Mary, in answer to her friend's observation, "parents ought, if possible, to avoid even forming wishes for their children. Hearts are wayward things, even the best of them." Then more seriously she added, "And, dear Mrs. Lennox, do not either blame my mother nor pity me; for be assured, with my heart only will I give my hand; or rather, I should say, with my hand only will I give my heart: And now good-bye," cried she, starting up and hurrying away, as she heard Colonel Lennox's voice in the hall.

She met him on the stair, and would have passed on with a slight remark, but he turned with her, and finding she had dismissed the carriage, intending to walk home, he requested permission to attend her. Mary declined; but snatching up his hat, and whistling his dogs, he set out with her in spite of her remonstrances to the contrary.

"If you persist in refusing my attendance," said he, "you will inflict an incurable wound upon my vanity. I shall suspect you are ashamed of being seen in such company. To be sure, myself, with my shabby jacket and my spattered dogs, do form rather a ruffian-like escort; and I should not have dared to have offered my services to a fine lady; but you are not a fine lady, I know;" and he gently drew her arm within his as they began to ascend a hill.

This was the first time Mary had found herself alone with Colonel Lennox since that fatal day which seemed to have divided them for ever. At first she felt uneasy and embarrassed, but there was so much good sense and good feeling in the tone of his conversation&mdash;it was so far removed either from pedantry or frivolity, that all disagreeable ideas soon gave way to the pleasure she had in conversing with one whose turn of mind seemed so similar to her own; and it was not till she had parted from him at the gate of Beech Park she had time to wonder how she could possibly have walked two miles tete-à-tete with a man whom she had heard solicited to love her!

From that day Colonel Lennox's visits insensibly increased in length and number; but Lady Emily seemed to appropriate them entirely to herself; and certainly all the flow of his conversation, the brilliancy of his wit, were directed to her; but Mary could not but be conscious that his looks were much oftener riveted on herself, and if his attentions were not such as to attract general observation, they were such as she could not fail of perceiving and being unconsciously gratified by.

"How I admire Charles Lennox's manner to you, Mary," said her cousin, "after the awkward dilemma you were both in. It was no easy matter to know how to proceed; a vulgar-minded man would either have oppressed you with his attentions, or insulted you by his neglect, while he steers so gracefully free from either extreme; and I observe you are the only woman upon whom he designs to bestow les petits soins. How I despise a man who is ever on the watch to pick up every silly Miss's fan or glove that she thinks it pretty to drop! No&mdash;the woman he loves, whether his mother or his wife, will always be distinguished by him, were she amongst queens and empresses, not by his silly vanity or vulgar fondness, but by his marked and gentlemanlike attentions towards her. In short, the best thing you can do is to make up your quarrel with him&mdash;take him for all in all&mdash;you won't meet with such another&mdash; certainly not amongst your Highland lairds, by all that I can learn; and, by-the-bye, I do suspect he is now, as you say, trying to love you; and let him&mdash;you will be very well repaid if he succeeds."

Mary's heart swelled at the thoughts of submitting to such an indignity, especially as she was beginning to feel conscious that Colonel Lennox was not quite the object of indifference to her that he ought to be; but her cousin's remarks only served to render her more distant and reserved to him than ever.