Read Ebook: Jilted! Or My Uncle's Scheme Volume 3 by Russell William Clark

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Ebook has 587 lines and 32002 words, and 12 pages

"I consider Conny treats you exactly as you deserve."

"What do you mean? do you really think I don't--I didn't love her?"

"You admired her, and mistook your feelings. It is fortunate for you both," she continued, with great seriousness, "that you left Updown, as your absence has enabled you to test your own feelings as well as hers. You would have married her for her face, without asking your heart if it contained a more permanent emotion than admiration; and it is quite impossible to imagine how unhappy disappointment would have rendered you both."

I laughed outright, so much was I amused by her cool and critical summary of my feelings. I don't know whether she saw anything to disapprove in my merriment, but she remained very grave. There is no question but that I ought to have been abashed; that I ought to have cried, either aloud or to myself, "Can it be possible that my cousin speaks the truth? have I mistaken my sentiments? Has a ten days' separation from the girl I was prepared to adore, coupled with a little trifling neglect on her part, taught me a right appreciation of the emotion I had regarded as the most exalted and undying love?"

But I indulged in no such soliloquy. Looking at Theresa, steadily, I said, "Do you think me a jilt?"

"No. If I did, I shouldn't take the trouble to be commonly civil to you."

"But you think I have jilted Conny?"

"I have not said so. I don't believe she is in love with you, and a man can't jilt a girl who doesn't care for him."

"If I were conceited, I shouldn't like to hear that."

"Oh," she answered, smiling, "this is a very old story. Pictures and books have been made out of it in abundance. Some silly writers vamp up a broken heart as a condition of the tale, but never yet was heart broken by people who didn't know their own minds."

She shook her reins, and started her horse into a gallop.

I rode with so much assurance now that I could admire her fine figure with my faculties entirely unengaged by the cares of the highway. How well she sat her horse! How gracefully her form responded to the movement of the animal! She was a finer woman than Conny. There was a tartness, too, in her speech that made her language relishable, with a spiciness I could not remember tasting in Conny's conversation. I was both piqued and amused by the very cool way in which she had disposed of these sentiments of mine, of which, after all, she could only suspect the evanescence.

Only the other day I was thinking I would rather marry Lucifer than such a shrew, and now nothing hindered me from expressing my admiration, in terms that would have borrowed a very soft significance from my heart, but the apprehension of a curt and contemptuous rebuff.

Again and again I will repeat, it was all owing to Conny. She had me once securely; she might have kept me for ever. Why hadn't she answered my letter? One tender sentence would have made me her slave again. Echo not, Eugenio, the remark of Theresa that I had no right to expect a favour of any kind from Conny. An answer to my letter I could claim, not as a favour, but as a right. Two lines would have sufficed me. Yea, my bare address on an envelope would have told me I was not forgotten--that my tender breathings were remembered. Didn't she know the risk she ran by treating me neglectfully at the time that Theresa was my companion; at the time that a fine, a handsome, and an amiable woman was the sole female society I frequented? You starve your dog, and call him unfaithful, because he takes up his quarters in the house of a neighbour where he is affectionately caressed and plentifully fed! What vile logic is here? Treat me well and I'll love thee. Answer me my long and amorous letter, and I'll be true. Hint that thy heart is not insensible to the pleadings of my passion, and I'll adore. But leave me to quit thee, chewing the airiest cud of unsubstantial hope, suffer me to depart, making no sign, to be absent and illuminate my desolate fancies with no gleam from thy careless heart--What wonder if I am found wanting? What marvel if I discover in eyes as splendid as thine, in hair as abundant though darker, in speech more vivacious, intelligent and characteristic, in manners as womanly, as gentle, as dignified, a magic that leads me from thy altar, oh faithless one, on which no fire burns, to another shrine, whereon it may be my rapture to kindle an inextinguishable flame?

I thought none the worse of him for holding aloof from his daughter's and my business.

When the day at last came on which I believed it necessary to return to Updown, he was heartily grieved to part with me. We had been much together, and I knew he would miss me. He had always found me a good listener, ready to laugh loudly at his stories, whether I had heard them before or not. I invariably, moreover, exhibited a great interest in his books, of which he was even prouder than he was of his recollections of the great men of his young days. There was certainly no one in the neighbourhood who could take my place after I was gone.

Theresa was also very sorry to part with me; but there was nothing in her behaviour to cause me to imagine I had produced the least sentimental impression. As I stood talking to her in the hall, while the carriage was preparing to drive me to the station, I said:

"If I write to you, Theresa, will you answer my letter?"

"Certainly I will," she answered. "I hope you will write. I shall be very glad to hear from you."

"I have passed a most delightful time," said I, looking into her expressive eyes.

"I am glad to hear you say so. Before you leave me, you must let me know that I am thoroughly forgiven for the outrageous reception I gave you."

"Do you think it possible I could bear resentment against you? You must forgive me for ever having given you the trouble to assume so disagreeable a part." I added a little bashfully: "it would have been better for my peace of mind, perhaps, had you persisted in being disagreeable."

The faintest flush came into her cheeks, and she immediately said:

"Write to me when Conny has forgiven you for the wrong construction you have put upon her silence."

"I won't promise that," I replied, quite appreciating the little rebuff that was implied in her remark. "She may make up her mind not to forgive me, and I should be sorry to depend upon her caprice in order to write to you."

At this moment the carriage drove up, and I had no opportunity for saying more; which was perhaps fortunate, as I might have committed myself.

"Mind you come and see us again soon," my uncle said to me as we rattled towards the station. "We shall remain here for the next two months; after that we may, perhaps, go to Scotland for a short time. Come to us, if only for a night. You may depend upon a hearty welcome."

It was four o'clock when I arrived at Updown. How was it that, on alighting on the platform, my heart didn't throb wildly at the prospect of seeing Conny? How was it that, instead of my heart throbbing wildly, I found myself thinking, with a positive feeling of regret, of the girl I had left behind me? Had anybody asked me which I would rather do: go to Grove End or return to Thistlewood, how would I have answered?

For six revolving moons, Sempronius dallied and adored: Clorinda was his goddess, and a hundred poems distributed among the magazines may, by the diligent explorer, be found to survive his error. But even whilst the seventh moon was a mere line in the heavens--as delicate a curve, my dear, as your eyebrow--Sempronius the base met Sacharissa the sweet. Hey, presto, pass! cried the Magician we all know. Sempronius' heart sped with miraculous speed from the white bosom of Clorinda to the whiter bosom of Sacharissa. There it still is--there it will probably remain. Sempronius the base is engaged to Sacharissa, and Clorinda sailed for India last week along with her husband, Major O'Ulysses. No hearts were broken, no tears were shed--no eyes became bloodshot--no hair was torn out by the roots; the fact being, that heaven in its mercy hath qualified humanity with a marvellous power of forgetting its mistakes, and of accommodating itself to the first new condition events impose.

I walked to my lodgings and there found a long letter from my father. It was all about my uncle's scheme, Tom had written a full account of his fine idea for making my fortune, and on receipt of it, down had sat my father, to urge me, as I respected myself, to fall in with Tom's views, marry Theresa, and become a partner in two senses.

A fortnight before I should have glowered over the parental scribble with bilious eyes; I could now read it with complacency and appreciate the philosophy that illuminated the illegible, but very aristocratic scrawl. There was no Longueville news in the letter. It was all about my marriage with Theresa.

"My horror of the sea," said my father in a postscript, "is as great as ever it was, and not even Tom's hospitable entreaties could induce me to set foot on the steamboat. But you may depend upon my being present at your marriage with Theresa; for so great is my anxiety to see you in a secure and affluent position, that I would brave the fiercest gale rather than miss the marriage ceremony."

Having read this letter, and had a short chat with my landlady, I pulled out my watch, and saw that I should have time to walk to Grove End before they began dinner. I had not written to tell them of my return; but I assumed that they would expect me, as in my letter to Conny I had told her, that on no account could I endure to be away longer than a fortnight from Updown.

The bank was closed as I passed it; but as it was market-day, I had no doubt Mr. Curling was still hard at work within. I was very meditative as I walked. What would Conny answer, I wondered, when I asked her why she had not replied to my letter? She would be pert, of course. That would make me bitter. I should talk with a bold face of Theresa's beauty, of Theresa's talents, of Theresa's figure; if she was the least bit in love with me, I would render her violently jealous. I would humble her with comparisons. I would let her know there were other charming women in the world besides her, that I had a catholic taste, and could admire brown hair and tall figures as well as yellow locks and blue eyes. What! was my heart to be trampled upon? No, by heavens! if she loved me, let her tell me so; if she didn't, let her marry Curling, and suffer me to seek, unmolested, some bosom on which to repose my well-shaped head and aching brows.

I reached the house and knocked at the door. My heart thumped an echo to the summons. I nodded to the servant, and strode in as a man might into his own house. I hung my hat on a peg, and turning round to enter the drawing-room, faced my uncle.

"Good gracious!" I exclaimed, taking his hand and staring at his melancholy, haggard face, "what is the matter? what has happened?"

"Come in," he answered, and drawing me into the room, closed the door. My aunt, who stood near the window, ran up to me.

"Oh, Charlie!" she cried, "what do you think has happened? Conny has left us! she has run away with Mr. Curling! Think of her deserting us in our old age! the cruel, undutiful, ungrateful child!"

"What!" I gasped, staring at my uncle, and scarce crediting my own ears. "Conny gone!"

"Sit down," he answered. "Don't cry, my dear," to his wife, "it unmans me. This is a dreadful blow, but it has happened to many besides ourselves, and we must be resigned to the common lot. Yes," he exclaimed, addressing me, his lips twitching with emotion as he spoke, "our child has left us. She went out last night under pretence of spending the evening with the Maddison girls. James walked with her as far as the town, and Conny then told him he could return home. At half-past ten we sent the phaeton for her, and James came galloping back to say that the Maddisons had not seen anything of her that evening."

"Instantly," interrupted my aunt sobbing wildly, "I feared the worst."

"I seized my hat," continued my uncle, "jumped into the phaeton, and drove to the Maddisons, who assured me that my daughter had not been to their house. I then drove to Mr. Curling's lodgings, acting upon a suggestion my wife had made before I started, and learned that the young man had gone out two hours and a half before, carrying a bag with him. Hearing this, I went to the railway station, and there learnt that Mr. Curling and my child had started for London by the train that left at twenty minutes to eight. My intention, then, was to send a telegram to the London terminus, desiring that my daughter should be detained on her arrival; but, I was told that by that time the train had reached London. Nothing remained but for me to return home and break the news to my wife."

I was too astounded to speak.

"Oh, Charlie," cried my aunt, clasping her hands, "I so wanted you! You would have followed her and brought her back! but oh! it is too late now--she is ruined--degraded! she has shamed our name for ever! To think that the baby I have nursed, that I have loved and watched over with pride and hope from the hour of her birth, should abandon her poor father and me in our old age! Oh, shame, shame! My poor Thomas--my poor husband! it is too much for us--too much for us to bear!"

"Nay, nay, have patience--have faith," answered her husband, seizing her hand and caressing her. "Mr. Curling has acted wildly, but he is an honourable man. They both knew we should never consent to their marriage, and they have done as thousands have done before them--defied father and mother, and eloped. To-morrow we shall get a letter, telling us they are married, and begging our forgiveness."

"Of course they have run away to get married," I gasped.

"But oh! what a man to marry! Oh, what a man to have for a son-in-law!" raved my aunt. "I felt--I knew all along that Conny was in love with him, and so I wanted her to marry you. I was certain that she would never be safe from that wicked wretch until she was married. All along I was certain of that."

"We never went to bed all last night," groaned my uncle.

"Oh, Thomas, Thomas!" cried my aunt. "Why did you discourage my efforts to marry her to Charlie? Why did you tell him you could never sanction his marriage with her? Didn't I assure you, night after night, that there was no other way of saving her from that wretch! My child, my child! where is she now? Will she ever come back to me?"

"She will, believe me, she will," I said. "She will tell you that she never could have been happy without Curling, and nothing you could have said or done would have prevented this thing from happening sooner or later."

"Oh, don't think of me--I am nowhere in this grief. What can I do to serve you? Give me some commission."

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