 | CHAPTER VIII. A volume from the life of Herbert Barclay |  |
8. CHAPTER VIII.
Herbert and Alfred went to Miss Walsall's
together.
“Ha! Mr. Grey, this is an unlooked for
pleasure,” cried Dr. Walsall, as they entered.
“We owe you our thanks for it, Mr. Barclay,”
said his daughter, as she received them
with graceful ease and a smile directed to
Alfred, which made his salutation warmer
than he had prepared it.
If the service which Alfred wished to do
his friend, for whom his heart was overflowing
with sympathy, was to have been rendered
through personal interview with Miss Walsall,
Herbert could not have had a weaker
ally. Alfred was powerless before a fascinating
woman. To the influence which a
woman exercises over a man he was peculiarly
wielded by beauty, all that was most impressible
in his nature was acted on, and prudence
and discernment were made captive. He
was aware of his weakness in this point, and
would often try to strengthen himself against
it when out of the company of women, by
boldly satirising the sex; but this spirit always
deserted him in their presence. The
cruel disappointment he had himself suffered
from one, left no bitterness in his heart,
though he said that it had; and whatever suspicion
he may have endeavored to infuse into
Herbert, and however earnestly he may have
warned him against female art, the only feelings
in his own mind at this moment towards
the sex, were affection and admiration. He
forgot the unfavorable impression he had
taken up respecting Miss Walsall. Not so,
however, with his feelings towards Langley,
whose treachery he thought was evident
from Herbert's account of their intimacy.
His own opinion of his character gave strength
Mrs. Vernon. Alfred went up to them, and
in bowing to Langley fixed on him one of
those full, searching looks, which a mean
mind never can meet steadily. Langley
cowered before it, and soon moved to another
part of the room.
“What is there between you and Mr.
Langley, Alfred?” said Mrs. Vernon, when
Langley had turned away.
“Nothing: I hav'nt seen him for some time,
and wished to admire his beautiful face. But
he is as bashful as a girl,—he hung his head.
He blushed too,—he can blush,—though the
blood seems puzzled when it gets to his skin,
what color to put on. See him now talking
to Miss Walsall: he never lets a chance of
profit escape, and has quickly availed himself
of the glow on his cheek to appear ardent to
his mistress, adorning the lover with the
blush of the scoundrel.”
“What is the matter, Alfred?”
“Is not Langley a lover of Miss Walsall?”
“Is he? why I was just now asking him
about the report that your friend Herbert is.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said, he did'nt believe it.”
They were interrupted by the approach of
Mr. Penniman.
“I am glad to see you turn out, Grey,” said
he to Alfred. “This is your doing, my charming
Mrs. Vernon—you are always doing some
good. Where's you husband? He stays away,
I suppose, to have the pleasure of hearing
from a hundred people to-morrow, how beautiful
you look this evening. Your young
friend Barclay gets on famously, Grey—over
head and ears in love already they say. Fine
girl, Mary Walsall—very good manners too,
considering: a winter in Paris would make a
charming woman of her. Delightful party
this—select. Difficult to have a select party
here. Oh! there's that prattling Mrs. Smith
just come in—I must go in and speak to her.”
“Puppy!” exclaimed Alfred after he had
gone.
In the mean time, Herbert was trying to
be “agreeable.” He was generally pleasing
in company. A natural flow of spirits overcame
a more than usual degree of timidity,
and gave a play to his fine talents. But now
the sources of all excitement were absorbed
by one spring which boiled within him; and
not having learnt to talk as a business, he
was obliged soon to turn away from the
group he had joined on entering the room.
He approached Miss Walsall, to whom
Langley was talking with the same kind of
animation which he assumed to address a
jury—heightened by his conviction of the
importance and doubtfulness of the cause he
was pleading. The spirit that had spoken
forth so eloquently from Herbert in the
morning, was fled: what had then inspired
him, oppressed him now: the bright flame,—
the first outburst of passion,—had subsided,
and his now undazzled eyes began to see the
shadows which the light within him cast.
Reflection, had brought suspicion, jealousy,
young hostess can expand the duties of hospitality
so as to cover a great extent of encouragement,—though
not without effect, had
not the power to excite him to a renewal of
the conversational rivalry he had so unconsciously
engaged in a few hours before. He
shrank, too, from a public competition of the
kind: he was withheld by intuitive delicacy
from making such a display of his feelings.
So that, after a few common-place observations,
much to the disappointment of Miss
Walsall, and triumph of Langley, he passed
on, and took a seat by Mrs. Vernon. Langley
had come with the determination to make
his public debut as a lover of Miss Walsall.
He was, accordingly, constant and pointed in
his attentions to her. Nor did he neglect to
pay court to her father, artfully mingling
with flattery, insinuations and representations
of his own importance, so as to leave the
Doctor as strongly impressed with his merit,
as he was satisfied with himself.
“I have never seen Miss Walsall look so
well. Is'nt she beautiful?” said Mrs. Vernon
to Mr. Seldon.
“Why—yes,” answered Mr. Seldon hesitatingly.
“But I admire Miss Astly more.”
“You don't think her beautiful?”
“No: not beautiful,” said Mr. Seldon.—
“But better than beautiful. She looks as if
she knew who her great grand-father was.”
“Ha! ha! I'm sure I dont know who mine
was,” said Mrs. Vernon.
“I know who all your great grand-fathers
were,” said Mr. Seldon. “I like a blooded
lady—”
“Mrs. Smith has sent me, Mr. Seldon, to
request that you will come to her in the
other room,” said Mr. Penniman, coming up
and interrupting him. “She says, she has a
question of importance to ask you.”
“A question of importance?” repeated Mr.
Seldon.
“No doubt, a genealogical one, Seldon,”
said Alfred to him as he walked away with
Alfred, when they were out of hearing.
“To be obliged to obey the summons of a
baker's daughter delivered by a tanner's son
at a select soirée! No wonder he is pale and
thin. His fine blood retreats from the surface
to avoid contact with such thick humored
plebeians. Well, he is very absurd; but
he is not disgusting like Penniman. Any
thing is more bearable than the self-complacence
of a money-bloated upstart,—a would-be
exclusive. An aristocrat like Seldon, is a
mistaken man here; but the other is contemptible,—contemptible
from the impotence of
his vulgar ambition. I believe I'll take pity
on Seldon, and go and share with him the
stripes of Mrs. Smith's tongue.”
Dr. Walsall and his daughter acquitted
themselves with the ease of frequent practice.
When the Doctor gave a dinner or a party,
he thought he was performing a high duty.
Such entertainments he looked upon as constituent
parts of elevated social existence;
members of society, he felt bound to repeat
them often. No doer of charity, after a
day of benevolent exertion, retired to rest
with a more self-approving conscience, than
did the Doctor after a ball at his house. He
felt as if he had done that which it had been
appointed him to do. He certainly did it
well. He was a man of a fine presence, well
built, and always well dressed, with manners
formal but courteous, in which professional
dignity combined with, and in a measure
qualified, a natural tendency to pompousness.
His fondness for hearing his own voice he
could indulge on an occasion like this, innocently,
the numerousness of the company
who shared his attention as host, averting
from each individual a burdensome proportion
of it.
“I've just been giving your daughter some
good advice, Doctor,” said Mr. Penniman to
him, “which I know will have your sanction.”
“What is that?” asked the Doctor.
“To continue to be an ornament to these
handsome rooms, for at least a half a dozen
years yet.”
“Sanction such advice,—that I will most
cheerfully,” answered the Doctor.
“So uncivilized are we in America,” continued
Mr. Penniman, “that the only chance
a fine woman has of enjoying herself, or doing
her duty by society, is to keep single for
a short time after she is out of her teens.—
Marriage is here the Styx of fashionable life.
Just as a beautiful girl is beginning to shed
her full radiance upon the world, she is
snatched off by some youngster,—who probably
is'nt worth a copper,—and you never see
her again, and forget her existence, until you
are reminded of it by meeting her fine eyes
staring at you from the head of a dirty-faced
imp in the street.”
“What you say, is in a degree true,” replied
the Doctor. “But a good deal may be
said in explanation and vindication of our
there are exceptions—”
“Yes,” interrupted Mr. Penniman, “and
yonder is one of them. See there, the lovely
Mrs. Vernon left alone—isolated—absolutely
isolated. Where else could that happen?
Excuse me Doctor but I must go and
join her.”
Notwithstanding the doubts and fears which
Herbert had brought with him, after the conversations
with his aunt, with Alfred and Mr.
Barclay, and finally with Alfred alone, he
passed a happy evening. So fluctuating are
the feelings of a lover. Despondence was
not of his age or his nature. Jealousy could
keep no hold in his bosom. He soon forgot
to think of the future—to think at all. He
gave himself up to the delicious enjoyment of
the feeling whose birth was a re-creation of
his being. He yielded to its power as unresistingly
as the young forest bends to the
breeze that visits it with purity and strength.
He gave no utterance to his feelings. His
ordinary civility—not more frequently addressed
to her by him than by the most unmoved
of her guests. She was before him, not as
she was before others, but as the embodiment
of his love-illumined fancy. She seemed an
emanation from himself,—an Eve taken
from his side. Her voice was the sweet
echo to his inaudible communings. Her form
floated before him as though it had grown
out of a rich dream. So vividly and fixedly
was her image impressed upon his mind, that
it became part of it; and when he went
away, it continued as distinctly present to
him as it had been in the rooms he had left.
| CHAPTER VIII. A volume from the life of Herbert Barclay | |