University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
A RENCONTRE—A BALL—LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT.

It was on one of those mornings when the visitants
of Brighton sally forth to ransack libraries, torment
shopkeepers, and lounge upon the Stiene, when Edward
Ainslie taking Lucy under one arm and Lady
Mary under the other, having taken a walk upon the
downs, strolled into one of the public Libraries,
where raffles, scandal and flirtation were going forward
amongst an heterogeneous crowd, assembled
there.

At the upper end of the room sat an elderly gentleman
in a military undress, apparently in very ill
health; beside him stood an elegant fashionable
woman, evidently past the meridian of life, but still
bearing on her conntenance traces of beauty and
strong intellectual endowments. Ainslie and his
party had been conducted by the master of the shop
to seats near these persons.

“I wonder where Mr. Franklin is?” said Lady
Mary, as she seated herself, “he has neglected us
all last evening and this morning, and I shall scold
him well when I see him again.”

“I have no doubt,” said Lucy, “but Mr. Franklin
can give a very good account.”

“Heavens!” exclaimed the lady who stood by
the military invalid. “What is the matter, my dear?
Oh! pray make way, let him have air, he is very
weak.”

Lucy looked round, the veteran had sunk upon the
shoulder of his wife, pale and almost lifeless. Having
some eau de Luce in her hand which she had
just before purchased, Lucy stepped forward and
presented it to the languid sufferer. The volatile
revived him, he opened his eyes, and gazing wildly
on Lucy, pushed her hand away exclaiming,

“Take her away, this vision haunts me forever,
sleeping or waking, it is still before me.”

At that moment Lieutenant Franklin broke through
the crowd, that filled the room, and giving Ainslie
and the ladies a slight bow of recognition, helped the
poor invalid to rise, and assisted by the lady, led him
to a carriage which waited at the door of the shop,
the footman helped him in, and Franklin handing in
the lady sprang in after them, and it drove off.

“Who is he?” “What is the matter?” was the
general inquiry. Ainslie's party merely heard that
it was a brave veteran, who had served many years
abroad, and received a wound, from the effects of
which he still continued to suffer, and that he sometimes
laboured under slight fits of insanity. Lucy's

eyes filled. She thought of old Serjeant Blandford.
“But what is his disabled limb,” said she mentally,
“compared to the sufferings of this brave officer?
Blandford has but a poor cottage and the pay of an
invalid, 'tis true, but he is cheerful and even happy.
This poor gentleman appears to be surrounded with
affluence, but is yet miserable.”

Ainslie sighed as he led them from the library,
but made no remark. While Lady Mary said,

“Dear! what a pity that a man who has so beautiful
an equipage, should be so sick and unhappy.
Only think how elegant his liveries were, and how
richly the arms were emblazoned on the pannels of
the carriage.” Lady Mary had become skilful in
the language of heraldry, under the tuition of her
mother, who doated on rank, pedigree, &c. and
could have held forth for hours on the crests, supporters,
mottoes, and heraldic bearings of most of
the noble families in England.

“Who was that young lady who offered your
father the eau de Luce, and to whom you bowed
this morning, Jack,” asked the mother of Franklin,
as he sat tete a tete with her after a melancholy
dinner on the evening of the day in which the events
just related took place.

“A Miss Blakeney, a very amiable girl under
the protection of the Rev. Mr. Matthews, who with
his wife, and her sister, the Honourable Mrs. Cavendish,
and two young ladies to whom he is guardian,
are passing a few weeks in Brighton. They are a
charming family. I wish my father's health would
permit my bringing you acquainted with them.”

“It is impossible,” said his mother, sighing, “for
besides that the health of your dear father is in a
very precarious state, I fear that he has something
heavy at his heart; he is much altered, Jack, within
the last few months; his rest is disturbed, and indeed
it is only by powerful opiates that he obtains
any, and by them alone the smallest exhiliration of
spirits.”

“His wound is no doubt very painful, my dear
madam,” replied the son, “but we will hope that
change of scene, and strict attention to the advice of
the medical gentlemen who attend him, will in time
restore him.”

At that moment the Colonel's bell summoned his
servant, and the mother of Franklin flew to the
apartment of her husband, to strive to alleviate his
sufferings by her tenderness and cheer him by her
conversation.

“Where was I, Julia,” said the Colonel, “when
that faintness seized me?”

“At the Library near the Stiene, my dear. Do
you not recollect the interesting girl who presented
her smelling bottle?”

The Colonel put his hand to his head, spoke a few
words in an under voice, and leaning back on a sofa
on which he was seated, closed his eyes, and his
wife continuing silent he dropped into a perturbed
slumber.

“We will return to London,” said he on awaking;
“we will set off to-morrow, and then make
an excursion to Margate and Ramsgate; from thence
to Bellevue, where we will finish the summer.”

“Why not go to your sister's for a few weeks?
she will be much disappointed if we do not make
her a visit this season.”

“What, to Hampshire? no! no! I cannot go to
Hampshire.”

The next morning, Mr. Franklin having breakfasted
with and taken leave of his parents, they set off
from Brighton, where they had been but three days,
in the vain hope that another place would contribute
to restore the health and spirits of the Colonel.

As the delicacy of every member of Mr. Matthew's
family forbade the smallest recurrence to the
rencontre in the library with the invalid officer
who, they had learnt, was the father of Lieutenant
Franklin, when two days after he mentioned the
departure of his parents from Brighton, no remark
was made, but the kind wish offered that his health
might soon be restored.

The officers upon duty at Brighton having received
many civilities from numerous families of
distinction, temporary residents there, determined,
as it drew near the close of the season, to give a
splendid ball. Mr. Matthews' family were among
the invited guests. Lady Mary was wild with delight,
even Lucy felt somewhat exhilirated at the
idea of a ball where all the splendor and fashion of
the place would assemble, and where it was expected
some personages of exalted rank would make their
appearance.

Aura Melville was the most stoical of the trio,
though it must be confessed her heart did palpitate
a little quicker than usual, when Edward Ainslie

requested to be her partner the two first dances.—
Perhaps those quickened pulsations will in some
measure account for the perfect indifference with
which she had listened to all her admirers.

Balls in anticipation, and indeed in reality are
very pleasant to those engaged in them, but most
insufferably dull in detail. It will therefore be sufficient
to say that our three orphans enjoyed themselves
extremely well.

The attentions of Franklin to Lucy were very
pointed. So much so, that Mr. Matthews was resolved
should they continue, and the Lieutenant
follow them into Hampshire, to call upon him for
an explanation of his intentions, and candidly state
to him Miss Blakeney's real situation; in order
that should an union take place, such settlements
might be made as should secure to her independence
for life, whatever events might hereafter happen.

The morning after the ball Lady Mary held forth
for a full hour upon the splendid appearance, gallant
manners, and evident admiration of a young baronet,
who had danced, flirted, and flattered, till he had
stirred up a strange commotion in her little vain
heart. Lucy heard her and smiled. Aura smiled
too, but it was with a look of arch meaning, while
she replied to the often repeated question of,

“Do you not own he is very handsome?”

“Why, yes, as far as tolerable features, good eyes
and teeth, with more than tolerable dress goes, I
think he is passable; but my dear Lady Mary, he
has no noble blood in his veins: his Grandfather
was only Lord Mayor of London, and you know

you told me your mother would not rest in her
grave if you matched with aught below nobility.
Now, Sir Stephen Haynes's father and his father
before him, were only stationers and booksellers—
and who knows, my pretty Mary—Lady Mary, I
beg your pardon—who knows but this very Sir
Stephen Haynes, may on the female side be a collateral
descendant of the renowned Whittington,
who made such a fortunate voyage to St. Helena
with his cat.”

“How do you know it was to St. Helena, Aura?”
said Mr. Matthews looking up, for he had been
reading in the parlour where the young folks were
talking over the events of the preceding evening.

“Oh! I only surmised, sir, because I read in
some geographical work that the island of St. Helena
was infested with rats, so that the inhabitants could
neither raise or preserve grain of any kind upon it,
in which case, a cat must have been a very valuable
animal.”

Lady Mary would have left the parlour in a pet,
but that she hoped the Baronet would call in the
course of the morning. He did so, and exercised
the art of flattery so successfully, that Mary Lumley
totally forgot the expressions of her dying mother,
about her degrading herself by a plebeian marriage,
and began to think she could be well content to be
Lady Mary Haynes, though her husband was not
a sprig of nobility.

Mr. Matthews had the interest and happiness of
each of the orphans under his guardianship much

at heart. He thought that Mary Lumley had many
good natural qualities; he saw that they had been
injured by the injudicious conduct of her mother;
he had endeavoured to rectify some of her romantic
notions and in some measure he had succeeded, but
he knew enough of human nature, to be quite aware
that when love and romance unite in the mind of a
volatile young woman, there is scarcely a possibility
of restraining her from taking her own way. Yet
he felt it his duty to inquire into the circumstances
of the Baronet.

In three months Lady Mary would be her own
mistress, and though her fortune was but trifling,
yet settled on herself it might secure to her those
comforts and conveniencies of life to which she had
ever been accustomed. He found upon inquiry,
that Sir Stephen Haynes, though the only son of a
wealthy city knight, had pretty well dissipated his
patrimony, and of the many thousand pounds and
hundred acres he had inherited from his father, all
that remained was Walstead Hall, a handsome seat
in Wiltshire, with gardens, pinery, and farms for
pasturage and tillage annexed, but which was deeply
mortgaged; so that his whole income at that period
would not amount to seven hundred pounds a year.

“Mary Lumley has good sense,” said he to himself,
“I will speak to her upon this momentous
subject. For what will her seven thousand pounds
do? It will not clear him of incumbrances, and
when it is gone, what is she to do? Mary,” said
he, addressing her one morning when she was alone

with him in the breakfast parlour, “does this young
man, who is such a favourite with you, aspire to
your hand?”

“He loves me, sir,” replied she, “he has a
noble estate in Wiltshire, is the only son of a good
family, and is willing to make any honourable
arrangements previous to our union.”

“You have then agreed to accept him?”

Lady Mary looked foolish. “I—I—have not refused
him, sir.”

“Well Mary, allow me to tell you that he is a
bankrupt in both fortune and character. He has lost
large sums at the gaming table, has associated with
abandoned women, and unprincipled men. Can you
hope for happiness in an union with such a person?”

“He may, and I have no doubt will reform, sir.”

“May is barely possible, will hardly probable.
Men who in early life have associated with profligate
women, form their opinion of the sex in general,
from that early knowledge. They will not believe
any woman capable of resisting temptation, or practising
self denial on principle, because they have
found dissolute wives, and easy conquests in young
women who are void of religion and virtue. Such
men, Mary, may from passion, or from interest,
protest that they love you:—But, the passion gratified,
the interested motives either complied with or
disappointed ('tis of no consequence which) the
stimulus loses its force, and the ardent lover sinks
into the domestic tyrant, or the unfeeling savage.”

“I cannot think, sir,” said Lady Mary, “that
Sir Stephen will degenerate into either.”

“I would hope, Mary Lumley,” he replied,
“that you will not take a step of such consequence
to your future peace as a matrimonial union, without
exercising, not only your own understanding, but
consulting me, the guardian under whom you were
placed, and whose knowledge of the world will
enable him to direct you to avoid those rocks and
quicksands on which the voyagers of youth and
inexperience are liable to be wrecked. I am very
earnest in this cause, I know the delicacy with
which you have been brought up, I am well acacquainted
with the dangerous, I had almost said
weak sensibility to which you too frequently yield.
It is my duty as your guardian, to take care that
a proper settlement be made before you are married.”

“I shall not marry directly, sir,” said she, “and
I believe in a short period the law will consider me
of an age to dispose of my own person, and take care
of my own interest.”

“That is very true,” said Mr. Matthews, with a
sigh, “but let me conjure you, Lady Mary, not to
be precipitate. Consult your friends. Be advised
by those who love you. Ill could you support the
deprivations a dissipated, heartless husband may
bring upon you: dreadful would be the pangs that
would agonize your heart, when that husband should
treat with contempt and coldness, the woman he
now pretends to idolize.”

“I cannot believe either possible, sir.”

“May you never find the suggestions realized,
my poor child. I will however see Sir Stephen,
and speak to him,” continued Mr. Matthews.

“I must beg you will not,” said the young lady
petulantly, “Sir Stephen's views must be disinterested.
What is my paltry fortune to his estates
and possessions? he says he does not want a shilling
with me.”

“Then, Mary, let him prove the truth of his
assertion by settling the whole of your fortune on
yourself.”

“What, sir, when his mind is so liberal, shall I
prove myself a narrow minded selfish wretch, who
has no confidence in the man she is about to make
her husband? No, sir, when I make him master of
my person, I shall also give him possession of my
property, and I trust he is of too generous a disposition
ever to abuse my confidence.” Lady Mary
left the room almost in tears, and Mr. Matthews in
order to compose his temper, which had been somewhat
irritated by this unpleasant discussion, walked
towards the Stiene.

“What is the matter, Lady Mary,” said Miss
Blakeney, as she encountered her young associate
on the stairs.

“Oh nothing very particular; only my guardian
has been lecturing me about Haynes: as if a young
woman nearly twenty-one was not competent to
conduct herself and judge of her own actions.”

“Why, as to that,” replied Lucy, smiling, as
they entered the drawing room together, “some
women are not adequate to the task at forty: but
jesting aside, I sincerely hope you will not take
any decided step in this business contrary to the
advice of Mr. Matthews. You have scarcely known

Sir Stephen Haynes a fortnight, and are almost a
stranger to his temper, habits and principles.”

“You are nearly as much a stranger to Lieutenant
Franklin, and yet I do not think that you would
refuse him if he offered himself.”

“You are mistaken, Lady Mary, I have no idea
of romantic attachments, and laugh when I hear of
love at first sight. I should never accept of any
man without the approbation of Mr. Matthews and
my guardian, Sir Robert Ainslie; and I must have
taken leave of my senses, before I should enter into
engagements with a young man not quite twenty,
for I understand Mr. Franklin is nearly a year
younger than myself.”

Here the conversation was interrupted by the
entrance of the elder ladies and Aura Melville;
pleasurable engagements occupied the remainder of
the day, and no incident of consequence took place
while they continued at Brighton.

About the middle of September, they returned to
their delightful residence near Southampton, and for
two months, Ainslie, Haynes, and Franklin, appeared
not in the family circle. The first attended his
father to London; the second was on the turf, dashing
away upon the credit of intending soon to marry
Lady Mary Lumley, whom he represented as a rich
heiress; and the third confined to Brighton by his
remaining term of duty.