University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.
A visit and its consequences.

When Lucia came home, she found Highfield
had been obliged to lie down; and learned from Mr.
Lee, that the doctor was under great apprehension
that he had received some serious injury internally,
from the violence of his exertions or the kicks of
the horse, in the adventure of the ride.

“I am sorry to hear it,” said our heroine, and
her heart echoed the sentiment.

The old gentleman was of that order of human
beings whom sorrow always makes angry and fretful,
instead of gentle and submissive. He had a
most confirmed and obstinate impatience of grief.
He was angry with Highfield for being sick; he
was angry with the doctor for not having foreseen
he would be sick; and he was enraged with Mr.
Fairweather, first because he made light of the matter,
and then, to please his friend, hinted about a
rapid decline. Now, he could not scold Highfield
for being sick; nor the doctor, for he was absent;
nor Mr. Fairweather, because he was not present:
so he set to work, and scolded Lucia. Nine times
out of ten we are not angry at the thing we pretend

to be; we attack the substance under covert of the
shadow.

“Oh yes!” said he in reply to Lucia's gentle yet
sincere expression of sorrow, “Oh yes! you are
very sorry, I dare say. You take him into a cold
northeast wind; you drag him about to milliners'
shops, from one end of the town to the other; and
then you are very sorry he is sick, when you yourself
have made him so.”

“Dear father, how cross you are to day! I am
sure I did not take him out. I wanted him to stay
at home; but he said he was perfectly well, and
would go with me. I am sure I couldn't help his
going.”

“Not help his going!”

“No, sir; how could I?”

“Why you might have knocked the puppy down.”

Lucia made it a point never to laugh at her father;
but it must be owned he sometimes put her to hard
trials.

“If my father had taught me to box, instead of
play the piano, I might have made the attempt,”
said she, smiling.

“Very well, very well; you have made him sick,
now try if you can't cure him. Go and make him
some barley-broth.”

“I? why, my dear father, I don't know how to
make barley-broth.”

“Well then, go and make him some caudle.”

Lucia had never heard of caudle, except in association
with certain matters, and blushed like a rose.

“But I don't know how to make caudle, any
more than barley-broth.”

“Ay, yes; women know nothing worth knowing,
now-a-days. They can dance, and play the harp,
and criticise books, and talk about what they don't
understand; but if you want them to do a little
thing for the comfort of a man's life, or the assuaging
of his pains, oh! then it is, my dear sir, I don't know
how to do it. I wish I had sent you to a pastry
cook's, instead of a boarding school. I dare say, if
it was Mr. Goshawk, you could talk him well
directly. Go in then and talk to your cousin a
little.”

“My dear sir, you know”—and she stopped
short, in a flutter.

“What, you wont go and see the youth who is
lying perhaps on his death-bed, of wounds received
in your service?”

“The customs of society, sir,”—

“Ah! the customs of society—there is another
wooden god to bow down to! You can twine
your arms in a waltz with some bewhiskered foreign
puppy; you can go to a masquerade, or mix in
midnight revels, with a thousand promiscuous
sweepings of the universe, and yet—oh, the customs
of the world! they make it a crime to visit the sick
in their melancholy chambers, and pronounce it

ungenteel to know how to administer relief to their
sufferings!”

“Dear father, I would do any thing for the relief
of my cousin; but”—

“Oh, ay—any thing. You can't do what the
customs of society permit, and you wont do what
they do not sanction. And yet it is but the other
day you made such a fine speech: `If he is sad, I
will play him merry tunes; I will sympathize in his
sorrows, and rejoice in his happiness; I will nurse
him when he is sick; and if, as you once threatened,
you should turn him out of doors, I will certainly
let him in again.”' And the old gentleman caricatured
her tone and manner most unmercifully.
“You know every thing but what you ought to
know,” said he, reproachingly.

“There is at least one thing I do know,” replied
the daughter; “that it is my duty to obey the wishes
of my father, when no positive duty forbids it. I
will go with you, sir.” And together they went
into the sick man's room.

My friend, Mr. Lee—for there once lived such
a man, and he was my friend—my friend, Mr. Lee,
knew no more how to manage a love affair than his
daughter did of the manufacturing of caudle. Had
the romance of Highfield and Lucia been in the
best possible progress, he would have gone nigh to
throw it back a hundred years. The old gentleman
had yet to learn, that to make a woman do a thing
against her will, is like shoving a boat against a

strong current; she will move a foot or two slowly
while the impulse lasts, and come back like a racehorse,
a hundred yards beyond the starting pole.
And yet he ought to have known it; for his wife had
verified its truth often enough to impress it on his
memory.

Lucia entered the chamber of the invalid, somewhat
against her will, and consequently but little disposed
to sympathize with him. Indeed she felt extremely
awkward; and this was another reason why
she was not in the best possible humour. Not that
she wanted a proper feeling of the benefit conferred
by her cousin, but the truth is, the indiscreet disclosure
the old gentleman had made of his intentions,
caused her to shrink from an act, which might be
considered as amounting to a sanction of his wishes
on her part. Add to this, I believe if the truth
were known, she felt some little apprehension that
Mr. Goshawk might not approve of the procedure.

The conduct of Highfield contributed to render
her still more ungracious. He was no knight errant,
yet the sight of our heroine on this occasion
threw him into something of a paroxysm, not unworthy
of Amadis de Gaul. He ascribed the visit
in the first place to her own free will, and augured
the most favourable results, from the sympathy which
a sight of his weakness, would create. He was
wrong in both cases; for in love matters the imagination
is every thing; and seeing is not believing.
But his great error was in discovering so much gratitude

for the visit, that Lucia became alarmed at her
own condescension, and determined to retrieve her
error by behaving as ungraciously as her conscience
would permit. In pursuance of this truly womanly
resolution, she conducted herself with a most admirable
indifference, inasmuch that the good gentleman
her father, who had hardly patience to wait the
boiling of an egg, became exceedingly restive. He
gave his daughter divers significant looks; favoured
her with abundance of frowns; and held up his finger
from time to time so emphatically, that Highfield
soon comprehended the whole affair. He perceived
that Lucia had come unwillingly, and from that moment
felt nothing but mortification at her having
come at all. The whole affair ended in making Lucia
dissatisfied with herself; Highfield worse than
before; and Mr. Lightfoot Lee most intolerably
angry. So much for obliging a young lady to do
what she has no inclination for. Our heroine, having
paid a short visit, retired, leaving the uncle and
nephew together.

The old gentleman sat with his nether lip petulantly
protruded over the upper one; his eyebrows
raised, and his forehead wrinkled. The young man
reclining on his bed supported by pillows.

“My dear uncle,” said he, “why did you bring
my cousin here against her will?”

“'Sblood sir,” cried the other in a fury—“I suppose
you mean to cut my throat for trying to do you
a favour.”

“I am sensible of your kindness, but, my dear sir,
you don't go the right way to work to serve me.”

“O no, not I truly; I am an old blockhead; I am
always in the wrong; I do nothing but mischief,
and merit nothing but reproaches and ingratitude!”

“Ah! sir, if you only knew my heart!”

“Plague on your heart, I don't believe you have
any, with your infernal coolness and patience.
When I fell in love, I mounted my horse, rode one
night forty miles to visit your aunt; came to an understanding
the very first visit; and went home irrevocably
engaged. I hate suspense; I always did
hate it and always shall. But you, sir—damme, you
sir! you and Lucia will make a hard frost between
you. She is all affectation, and you all patience. A
patient lover—pooh!”

“But, my dear sir, why don't you let matters take
their course, as you promised?”

“O certainly, sir, certainly—wait patiently, until
I see my daughter run away with Mr. Fitzgiles Goshawk,
because he has such a flow of words, and uses
such beautiful language; or 'till I die of old age,
and Lucia becomes a pedantic old maid. I dare
say if I only have patience and live till I am fourscore
and upwards, I may have the particular satisfaction
of seeing either the world or your love affair
come to an end.”

“But my dear uncle—”

“Yes, yes—I am an old blockhead, that's certain.
'Tis true I was educated at the university; I travelled

over half Europe; I have been a justice of the
peace; a common councilman; secretary to a literary
society; judge of a race-course; and chairman
of a committee in congress. I am not quite threescore,
to be sure; but I have had some little experience;
know a B from a bull's foot, and a hawk
from a handsaw. But I am an old blockhead for all
that, and must go to school to a conceited graduate
from a country college, and a sage young lady just
from the boarding school; yes, yes, yes—” and the
good gentleman walked about the room with his
head down and hands behind him.

“Oh, sir, I entreat you to spare me.”

“I wonder,” continued Mr. Lee communing with
himself, “I wonder how people managed to live sixty
years ago. No steamboats, nor spinning jennies,
nor railroads, nor canals, nor anthracite coal, nor
houses of refuge, nor societies for making the world
perfect in every thing, nor silver forks, nor self-sharpening
pencils, nor metallic corn cutters, nor
japan blacking, nor gros de Naples, nor gros des
Indes, nor Cotepaly, nor any of the indispensable
requisites to a comfortable existence. What a set of
miserable sinners they must have been! I don't wonder
for my part that children govern their parents;
the young the old; seeing the world is so much
wiser, better and happier than it was sixty years
ago.” Thus the good gentleman ran on, as was his
custom, until he finally lost sight of his subject and
cooled in the pursuit.

“Well my dear uncle, if you wont listen to me—”

“But I will listen, who told you sir I would'nt
listen—I suppose you want me to do nothing else—
hey!”

“I wanted to tell you, sir, that I see plainly, myself
and my concerns are destined to give you great
and I fear unavailing trouble, and have come to a
resolution—”

“Well, sir, and what is it?”

“I intend as soon as I am well enough, to leave
you, my dear uncle.”

“Well, sir—”

“I have been too long a dependent on your kindness,
and I cannot but perceive my remaining here
will be a source of contention between you and my
cousin. I fear I shall never be able to touch her
heart, and without the free, uninfluenced gift of her
affections, I would not receive her as my wife,
were she descended from heaven and with an angel's
dower.”

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Lee, in breathless impatience
and anger.

“I have little more to say, uncle. When I am
well enough, I will endeavour to do justice to my
feelings of gratitude for all that I owe you.”

“And so—and so, sir, you mean to leave me, now
that you have got out of the egg-shell, and can walk
alone. If you do, by all that is sacred, I'll disinherit
you.”

“I have no claim to your inheritance, sir. I would

consent to share it with my cousin, did her heart go
with your bounty; but I will starve sooner than rob
her of a shilling.”

“Will nothing move you to stay with me till I am
dead?” said Mr. Lee, overpowered by his feelings.

“One thing, and one only, sir—I will remain with
you and be to you as a son, if you will promise on
your honour, that my cousin shall neither be worried
or urged, or entreated in any way against her inclinations;
and that I myself may be left to the direction
of my own sense of honour and propriety in this
business. To make my cousin uneasy, is not the
way to win her heart, and even if it were, it is not
the mode to which I would descend.”

“Well then I do promise—I pledge my word,
that you shall do as you please in this affair, and
that Lucia shall have her own way in every thing but
in marrying that puppy sentimental, master Fitzgiles
Goshawk.”

“And I pledge myself, that living or dying, so far
as my actions are concerned, you shall never have
reason to repent your kindness to me.”

Here the conversation ended. Mr. Lee retired,
and Highfield stretched himself on his bed, overcome
with a weakness, and perplexity of heart.