"There will not be a word against her, you understand. You know my dislike of tattle and gossip. However, let it fall on me; my shoulders are broad. I have done my utmost to persuade her, and there seems a likelihood of her consenting. She tells me her wish is to please me, and this will please me."
"Certainly. Who's the gentleman?"
"My best friend, I tell you. I could hardly have proposed another. Allow this business to go on smoothly just now." There was an uproar within the colonel to blind his wits, and Willoughby looked so friendly that it was possible to suppose the man of projects had mentioned his best friend to Miss Middleton.
And who was the best friend?
Not having accused himself of treachery, the quick-eyed colonel was duped.
"Have you his name handy, Willoughby?"
"That would be unfair to him at present, Horace — ask yourself — and to her. Things are in a ticklish posture at present. Don't be hasty."
"Certainly. I don't ask. Initials'll do."
"You have a remarkable aptitude for guessing, Horace, and this case offers you no tough problem — if ever you acknowledged toughness. I have a regard for her and for him — for both pretty equally; you know I have, and I should be thoroughly thankful to bring the matter about."
"Lordly!" said De Craye.
"I don't see it. I call it sensible."
"Oh, undoubtedly. The style, I mean. Tolerably antique?"
"Novel, I should say, and not the worse for that. We want plain practical dealings between men and women. Usually we go the wrong way to work. And I loathe sentimental rubbish."
De Craye hummed an air. "But the lady?" said he.
"I told you, there seems a likelihood of her consenting."
Willoughby's fish gave a perceptible little leap now that he had been taught to exercise his aptitude for guessing.
"Without any of the customary preliminaries on the side of the gentleman?" he said.
"We must put him through his paces, friend Horace. He's a notorious blunderer with women; hasn't a word for them, never marked a conquest."
De Craye crested his plumes under the agreeable banter. He presented a face humourously sceptical.
"The lady is positively not indisposed to give the poor fellow a hearing?"
"I have cause to think she is not," said Willoughby, glad of acting the indifference to her which could talk of her inclinations.
"Cause?"
"Good cause."
"Bless us!"
"As good as one can have with a woman."
"Ah?"
"I assure you."
"Ah! Does it seem like her, though?"
"Well, she wouldn't engage herself to accept him."
"Well, that seems more like her."
"But she said she could engage to marry no one else."
The colonel sprang up, crying: "Clara Middleton said it?" He curbed himself "That's a bit of wonderful compliancy."
"She wishes to please me. We separate on those terms. And I wish her happiness. I've developed a heart lately and taken to think of others."
"Nothing better. You appear to make cock sure of the other party — our friend?"
"You know him too well, Horace, to doubt his readiness."
"Do you, Willoughby?"
"She has money and good looks. Yes, I can say I do."
"It wouldn't be much of a man who'd want hard pulling to that lighted altar!"
"And if he requires persuasion, you and I, Horace, might bring him to his senses."
"Kicking, 't would be!"
"I like to see everybody happy about me," said Willoughby, naming the hour as time to dress for dinner.
The sentiment he had delivered was De Craye's excuse for grasping his hand and complimenting him; but the colonel betrayed himself by doing it with an extreme fervour almost tremulous.
"When shall we hear more?" he said.
"Oh, probably to-morrow," said Willoughby. "Don't be in such a hurry."
"I'm an infant asleep!" the colonel replied, departing.
He resembled one, to Willoughby's mind: or a traitor drugged.
"There is a fellow I thought had some brains!"
Who are not fools to beset spinning if we choose to whip them with their vanity! it is the consolation of the great to watch them spin. But the pleasure is loftier, and may comfort our unmerited misfortune for a while, in making a false friend drunk.
Willoughby, among his many preoccupations, had the satisfaction of seeing the effect of drunkenness on Horace De Craye when the latter was in Clara's presence. He could have laughed. Cut in keen epigram were the marginal notes added by him to that chapter of The Book which treats of friends and a woman; and had he not been profoundly preoccupied, troubled by recent intelligence communicated by the ladies, his aunts, he would have played the two together for the royal amusement afforded him by his friend Horace.
Chapter XLVIII
The Lovers
The hour was close upon eleven at night. Lætitia sat in the room adjoining her father's bedchamber. Her elbow was on the table beside her chair, and two fingers pressed her temples. The state between thinking and feeling, when both are molten and flow by us, is one of our natures coming after thought has quieted the fiery nerves, and can do no more. She seemed to be meditating. She was conscious only of a struggle past.
She answered a tap at the door, and raised her eyes on Clara. Clara stepped softly. "Mr. Dale is asleep?"
"I hope so."
"Ah! dear friend."
Lætitia let her hand be pressed.
"Have you had a pleasant evening?"
"Mr. Whitford and papa have gone to the library."
"Colonel De Craye has been singing?"
"Yes — with a voice! I thought of you upstairs, but could not ask him to sing piano."
"He is probably exhilarated."
"One would suppose it: he sang well."
"You are not aware of any reason?"
"It cannot concern me."
Clara was in rosy colour, but could meet a steady gaze.
"And Crossjay has gone to bed?"
"Long since. He was at dessert. He would not touch anything."
"He is a strange boy."
"Not very strange, Lætitia."
"He did not come to me to wish me good-night."
"That is not strange."
"It is his habit at the cottage and here; and he professes to like me."
"Oh, he does. I may have wakened his enthusiasm, but you he loves."
"Why do you say it is not strange, Clara?"
"He fears you a little."
"And why should Crossjay fear me?"
"Dear, I will tell you. Last night — You will forgive him, for it was by accident: his own bed-room door was locked and he ran down to the drawing-room and curled himself up on the ottoman, and fell asleep, under that padded silken coverlet of the ladies — boots and all, I am afraid!"
Lætitia profited by this absurd allusion, thanking Clara in her heart for the refuge.
"He should have taken off his boots," she said.
"He slept there, and woke up. Dear, he meant no harm. Next day he repeated what he had heard. You will blame him. He meant well in his poor boy's head. And now it is over the county. Ah! do not frown."
"That explains Lady Busshe!" exclaimed Lætitia.
"Dear, dear friend," said Clara. "Why — I presume on your tenderness for me; but let me: to-morrow I go — why will you reject your happiness? Those kind good ladies are deeply troubled. They say your resolution is inflexible; you resist their entreaties and your father's. Can it be that you have any doubt of the strength of this attachment? I have none. I have never had a doubt that it was the strongest of his feelings. If before I go I could see you… both happy, I should be relieved, I should rejoice."
Lætitia said, quietly: "Do you remember a walk we had one day together to the cottage?"
Clara put up her hands with the motion of intending to stop her ears.
"Before I go!" said she. "If I might know this was to be, which all desire, before I leave, I should not feel as I do now. I long to see you happy… him, yes, him too. Is it like asking you to pay my debt? Then, please! But, no; I am not more than partly selfish on this occasion. He has won my gratitude. He can be really generous."