If any one had been looking at the face of Arabella Wilmot at this particular juncture, and if the party so looking had chanced to be learned in reading the various emotions of the heart from the expression of the features, they might have chanced upon some curious revelations. It was only one glance that Arabella gave to the Colonel, but that was sufficient. A word slightly spoken, and in due season, may say more than a volume of preaching; and so one transient glance, fleeting as a sun-beam in an English April, may, with most eloquent meaning, preach a sermon that would puzzle many a divine. But we have become so familiar with the reader, and put ourselves upon such a cordial shake-hands sort of feeling, in particular with you, Miss, who are now reading this passage, that we will whisper a secret in your ear, and the more readily, too, as to whisper we must come particularly close to that soft downy cheek, and almost be able to look askance into those eyes in which the light of Heaven seems dancing,--Arabella Wilmot is in love!
Yes, Arabella Wilmot is in love with Colonel Jeffery; and small blame to her, as they say in Ireland, for is he not a gentleman in the true acceptation of the term? Not a manufactured gentleman, but one of nature's gentlemen.
You will have promised, my dear what's-your-name, that Arabella, to herself even, has hardly confessed her feelings; but still they are creeping upon her most insidiously as such feelings somehow or other will and do creep.
To be sure, if any one were to stop her in the street or any where else to say, "Arabella, you are in love with Colonel Jeffery," she would say--"No, no, no!" many times over.
But yet it is true.
"You read it in her glistening eyes,
And thus alone should love be read:
She says it in her gentle sighs,
And thus alone should love be said."
After this, who will be hardy enough, my dear, to dispute the fact with you and I?
And now we will watch her, ay, that we will, and see how she will behave herself under such trying circumstances.
Colonel Jeffery advanced, and as in duty and gallantry called upon, he, after slightly bowing to the gentlemen, spoke to Arabella.
"This is an unexpected pleasure, Miss Wilmot," he said. "I hope I see you well. Here is a seat close at hand. May I have the pleasure of conducting you to it?"
"Johanna is--is--is--" stammered Arabella.
"Well, I hope," interposed the colonel.
"Oh, no--no--that is, yes."
The colonel looked puzzled. He was not a conjurer, and so might look puzzled, if he looked like any ordinary man, who hears any one say no, and yes in the same breath, without any injury to his reputation.
"Mr. Ben," said Sir Richard Blunt, "I have something for your private ear, if you will just step on with me."
"My private ear?" said Ben with a confused look, as if he would have liked to add, "which is that?"
"Yes. This way if you please."
Ben walked on with the magistrate, and Colonel Jeffery was alone with Arabella Wilmot. Yes, alone with the one person who insensibly had crept into her affections. Alas! Is the pure love of that young creature scattered to the winds? Is she one of those who drag about them in this world the heavy chain of unrequited affection? We shall see. Arabella had permitted the colonel to hand her to one of the garden-seats near at hand. How could she prevent him? If he had chosen instead to hand her into the river it would have been just the same, and she would have gone. He led her by that wreath of flowers which in old Arcadia was first linked by Cupid, and which, in all time since, has wound itself around the hearts of all the boy-god's victims.
"Miss Wilmot," said the colonel, and now his voice faltered a little, "I have much wished to see you."
"Very fine, indeed," said Arabella. "You said something about the weather, did you not?"
"Not exactly," he said; "I had much wished to see you."
"Me?"
"Yes, and to begin at the beginning, you know I--I--loved Johanna Oakley. Yes, I loved her."
"Yes--yes."
"I loved her for her beauty, and for the gentle and the chivalrous devotion of her character, you understand. I loved her for the very tears she shed for another, and for the very constancy with which she clung to the memory of his affection for her. I saw in her such child-like purity of mind, such generosity of disposition, such enchanting humanity of soul, that I could not but love her."
"Yes, yes," gasped Arabella. "Yes."
"Will you pardon me for saying all this to you?"
"Oh yes. Go on--go on, unless you have said all?"
"I have not."
"Then, then you have only to add that you love her still?"
"Yes, but--"
Arabella's heart beat painfully.
"Ah," she said, "has true love any reservations? You love her, and yet you have something else to say."
"I have. I love her still. But it is not as I loved her. She has convinced me of her constancy to her first affection, that--that--"
"Yes, yes."
"That being so convinced, I now love her, but with that love a brother might feel for a dear sister, and I almost think it was a kind of preparation to try to awaken in the smouldering fires of her lost love a new passion. She has made me feel that the love of woman once truly awakened is an undying passion and can know no change--no extinction."
"True. Oh, how true!"
"I have learnt from her that when once the heart of a young and gentle girl--one in whom there are no evil passions, no world-wise failings nor earthly varieties--is touched by the holy flame of affection, it may consume her being, but it never can be extinguished."
Arabella burst into tears.
"Love," added the colonel, "may be trodden down, but like truth it can never be trodden out!"
"Never! never!" sobbed Arabella. "Let me go now! Oh, sir, let me go home now?"
"One moment!"
She trembled, but she sat still.
"Only a moment, Arabella, while I tell you that man's love is different from this. That man can reason upon his affections, and that when the first beauty and excellence upon which he may cast his eyes is denied to his arms, he can look for equal beauty--equal excellence--equal charms of mind and person in another, and--"
Arabella tried to go, but somehow she felt spell-bound and could not rise from that garden seat.
"And," added the colonel, "with as pure a passion, man can make an idol of her who can be his, as he approached her who could not.--Miss Wilmot, I love you!"
"Oh, no, no--Johanna."
"I do not shrink from the pronunciation of that name; I have said that I loved Johanna. If she had been fancy-free and would have looked upon me with eyes of favour, I would have made her my wife; but such was not to be, and for the same qualities that I loved her I love you. I am afraid I have not explained my feelings well."
"Oh, yes. That is, I don't know."
"And now, Miss Wilmot, will you allow me to hope that what I have said to you may not be all in vain? That--"
"No, no."
"No?"
"Allow me to go, now. My mind is too full of the fate of Johanna even to permit me to reject in the language taught--"
"Reject?"
"Yes," she said, "reject. I wish you all the happiness this world can afford to you, Colonel Jeffery."
"Then you will be mine?"
"No, no, no. Farewell."
She rose, and this time the colonel did not attempt to detain her. He stepped back a pace or two, and bowed, and then rose and walked a pace or two away. Then she turned, and holding out her hand, she cried--
"We may--may be friends."
The colonel took the little hand in silence, but the expression of his face was one of deep chagrin.
"Good-bye," said Arabella.
How courageous she had become all of a sudden, as it were.
"And is this all?" said Jeffery.
"Yes, all. When I see Johanna I will remember you to her."
The colonel bowed again, as he replied--
"I shall be much beholden to you, Miss Wilmot, for that kindness."
"And--and I hope you will find--find--that is, meet with some one, who--who don't chance to know that your love is a kind of second-hand--that is, I don't mean that, but a--a--Yes, that is all."
Arabella was saying too much. The colonel replied gently--
"I am truly obliged for the highly explanatory speech just uttered by Arabella Wilmot, whom I have the honour to wish a very good-day."
Arabella trembled.
"No, no. Not thus, Colonel Jeffery. We are friends, indeed."
"Remarkable good acquaintances," said the colonel, as he walked away towards Sir Richard Blunt and Ben. Arabella walked hastily on, having but one idea at the moment, and that was to leave the garden, but she could not find the gate, and Ben ran after her as well as he could, calling--
"Miss A. W.--Miss A. W., where are you a-going? Don't you go yet. I'll take care of you and see you all right, you know, or perhaps you'd like to take a wherry here at the Temple stairs, and go to the Tower, and see the animals fed?"
"Yes, no--that is, anything," replied Arabella. "I will go home now, I am so very--very wretched!"
"What, wretched? Here, Colonel thingumy, she says she--"
"If you dare!" said Arabella, as she placed her hand upon the arm of Ben. "If you dare!"
"Lor!" said Ben, as he looked down from his altitude upon the frail and beautiful young creature. "Lor! easy does it!"
The voice of Ben, however, had brought both the colonel and Sir Richard Blunt to the spot. During that brief time that had elapsed since the colonel had last spoken to Arabella, Sir Richard had told him of the perilous position of Johanna, and the look of anxiety upon his face was most marked. Arabella heard him say--
"Make use of me in any way you please, Sir Richard. Regard my safety or even my life as nothing compared to her preservation."
Arabella knew what he meant.
"Ben," she said, "will you come with me, and see me a part of my way home?"
"Yes, my dear, to be sure. Then you won't come and see the criturs fed to-day, I supposes?"
"No, no."
"Very well. Easy does it. Come along, my dear--come along. Lord love you! I'll take care of you. I should only like to see anybody look at you while you are with me, my duck. Bless your little bits of twinkling eyes!"
"Thank you--thank you."
"Lor! it's enough to make a fellow go mad in love, to see such criturs as you, my dear; but whenever I thinks of such things, I says to myself--'I'll just pop in and see Mother Oakley,' and that soon puts it all out of my head, I can tell you."
"Indeed?"
"Yes. You should go in at feeding time some day, and see her a-coming it strong with fried ingins."
"Very like--very like. But come on, my dear--come on. Easy does it! Always remember that whenever you gets into any fix. Easy does it!"
Did Arabella think the colonel would run after her and say something? Yes she did; but he came not. Did she think he would be loath to part with her upon such terms as they had seemed to part? Yes, yes. Surely he could not let her go without some kinder, softer, word that he had last spoken to her? But he did. He only watched her with his eyes; and when Sir Richard Blunt, who, it would appear, knew something of the colonel's feelings, said to him--
"All right, I suppose, Colonel Jeffery?"
He only shook his head.
"What, anything amiss?"
"She has rejected me!"
"Oh, is that all?"
"All? And enough too."
"Phoo! She was sure to do that. Don't you know the old adage, that--
"Woman's nay still stands for nought."
"Why, man, No comes as naturally to the tip of a young girl's tongue when she means Yes, as Don't when she expects to be kissed. I tell you, she loves you. She adores the very ground you walk on."
"And yet she taunted me with my passion for Johanna, and called me a second-hand lover."
"Did she, though? Ha! ha! ha! ha! Upon my life that was good--was it not?"
