“Didn’t like it, because I gave Hugh a set-down,” said Dolphinton, with satisfaction. “Silly fellow! Shouldn’t have come here.”
Since his lordship showed every sign of settling down to make a night of it, Freddy, who wished for further guidance from his betrothed, was obliged to exert all his powers of persuasion to induce him to go to bed. But no sooner had he accomplished his design than Miss Fishguard came into the Saloon, agog with sentiment, curiosity, and a determination to chaperon her charge.
Miss Fishguard’s method of entering any room in which she had reason to believe that a tête-a-tête was taking place, was first to peep round the door with an arch smile, saying: “Do I intrude?” and then, without awaiting an answer, to trip across the floor on tiptoe, as though she feared to disturb a sick person. The habit arose partly from timidity, and partly from a resolve never to presume upon her position; and it never failed to irritate her employers. However, as Kitty was well aware, from Miss Fishguard’s fund of reminiscence, of the slights and snubs which were a governess’s portion, she creditably hid her annoyance, summoned up a welcoming smile, and announced her engagement.
Since the news had spread rapidly through the household that the Honourable Freddy had arrived at a dissipated hour of the night, demanding Miss Charing, and that Miss had risen from her bed, dressed herself, and gone down to the Saloon immediately, the announcement was not quite unexpected. Miss Fishguard, however, greeted it with upfhing hands, and ecstatic exclamations. Mr. Standen’s tardy arrival and successful suit seemed to her so romantic that, inspiration failing, she was obliged to quote the words of one of her favourite poets. Twittering with excitement, as she dropped a curtsy to Freddy, she uttered: “Oh, Mr. Frederick! It reminds one so! ‘He staid not for brake, and he stopp’d not for stone, He swam the Eske river where ford there was none!’”
“Eh?” said Freddy, startled.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Frederick, surely you remember? ‘For a laggard in love and a dastard in war, Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar!’”
“Was he, though?” said Freddy, faint but pursuing.
Miss Charing, more familiar with the poem than her betrothed, was just about to enquire, in a practical frame of mind, whether her preceptress had the Reverend Hugh Rattray in mind, or Lord Dolphinton, when Miss Fishguard, in a gush of sensibility, said: “‘Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide!’”
Mr. Standen, receiving only a blank look in answer to the anguished glance of enquiry he cast at Miss Charing, said politely: “Just so, ma’am!”
“Oh!” cried Miss Fishguard, clasping her hands over her emaciated bosom, and blushing with emotion, “I declare, it is the same, only in real life! Only think, Mr. Frederick!— ‘One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, When they reached the hall-door, and the charger was near; So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, So light to the saddle before her he sprung!’ And then, you know, he rode off with the fair Ellen, and ‘The lost bride of Netherby ne’er did they see! So daring in love, and so dauntless in war. Have ye e’er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?’”
“Sounds to me like a dashed loose-screw,” said Freddy disapprovingly.
Miss Fishguard looked rather daunted; Kitty interpolated in soothing accents: “It comes in Marmion, Freddy!” and Mr. Standen said, relieved: “Oh, Marmion!” rather spoiling his effect by adding a moment later: “Who was he?”
“My dearest Kitty, permit one who has ever had your welfare at heart to wish you happy!” said Miss Fishguard, fondly embracing her pupil. She was obliged to search in the reticule which dangled from her wrist for her handkerchief, for a gush of sensibility brought the tears to her eyes. Wiping them, and dabbing at the tip of her thin nose, she added in thickened accents: “I do not scruple now to disclose to you the anxiety which has troubled my bosom since I first learned of your honoured guardian’s intentions! Delicacy forbade me to unclose my lips, but one question could not but obtrude upon my brain. In the words of that poet whom we both revere, my love, I have trembled before the thought: ‘What shall be the maiden’s fate? Who shall be the maiden’s mate?’ If I express myself with unbecoming warmth, in telling you how thankful I am to learn that your choice has fallen upon dear Mr. Frederick—‘Steady of heart, and stout of hand,’ I am persuaded!—rather than upon another, I must not be understood to mean the least derogation of one whose Calling, indeed, must be thought to place him far above my criticism! Mr. Frederick, most ardently do I felicitate you! You have offered for the hand of one reared ‘in still retreats, and flowery solitudes,’ and never, I dare to assert, will you have cause to regret your choice! You will live to echo the words of the poet: ‘Domestic happiness, thou only bliss—!’ Dear Kitty, I am quite overcome!”
Miss Charing patted her shoulder, in a sustaining manner. “Yes, yes, dear Fish! But pray dry your tears! There is not the least occasion for you to weep, I do assure you!”
Miss Fishguard, having mopped her withered cheeks, given a final sniff into the handkerchief, recovered sufficiently to bestow a watery smile and a fervent handclasp upon her young charge, and to utter: “‘The tear that is wiped with a little address, May be followed perhaps by a smile!’”
At this point, Mr. Standen, who had been listening in growing dismay to the conversational style affected by his affianced’s preceptress, excused himself. It was not his custom to seek his couch at such an early hour of the evening, but he had rapidly arrived at the conclusion that any further colloquy with Miss Charing was likely to be punctuated by quotations from a class of persons known to him as Writing Coves, and he decided that bed before eleven o’clock was a preferable fate. He kissed Kitty’s hand, and then, impelled by the expectant look in Miss Fishguard’s eye, her cheek. Miss Charing received this embrace with equanimity, merely seizing the opportunity afforded to whisper: “After breakfast! On no account go to Uncle Matthew before we have consulted together!”
There might have been those who doubted Mr. Standen’s ability to shake the world, but none could have been found with the hardihood to declare that he lacked social address. His bow indicated to Kitty that he had perfectly understood her, to Miss Fishguard the depth of his reverence. A second bow, directed to this lady, was so nicely graded as to draw from her, as soon as he had left the Saloon, an encomium upon his gentlemanly deportment. “Such courtesy, my love!” she sighed. “Such exquisite regard for the feelings of one who, perhaps believing herself ‘not scorned in heaven,’ is ‘little noticed here!’”
Miss Charing agreed to this; and, observing that the fire was burning low, announced her intention of seeking her own couch. Miss Fishguard accompanied her upstairs to her bedchamber, so obviously determined to talk the whole matter over that Kitty thoughtfully reminded her to provide herself with a shawl, Mr. Penicuik’s parsimony leading him to view with violent disapprobation the lighting of fires in any other bedchamber than his own. Accordingly, Miss Fishguard first sought her own apartment; while Kitty, encountering the arctic temperature of her chamber, made haste to shed her raiment and tumble into the old-fashioned four-poster bed. This had just been warmed for her by a maid bearing a large warming-pan when Miss Fishguard rejoined her, now swathed in a large shawl of nondescript colour and rather tufty appearance. She was in time to see Kitty get between sheets, her nightgown untied, and her cap in her hand, and clucked a faint protest. Kitty, fitting the cap over her head, and tieing its strings under her chin, paid no heed; and, indeed, the remonstrance lacked conviction. She pulled the quilt round her shoulders, and said, sitting up against her banked pillows: “Do you think you should stay, Fish? I am sure you will be perished with the cold! If ever I should be mistress of a house of my own, I shall have huge fires burning in every room!”