Frank Fairlegh

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"I shall not disturb you, Lawless," said I, taking down a book. "I am
only going to read law for an hour or two."

"Eh! disturb me?" was the reply; "I'm uncommon glad to be disturbed, I
can tell you, for hang me if I can make head or tail of it! Here have I
been for the last three hours trying to write an offer to your sister,
and actually have not contrived to make a fair start of it yet. I wish
you would lend me a hand, there's a good fellow--I know you are up to
all the right dodges--just give one a sort of notion, eh? don't you
see?"

"What! write an offer to my own sister? Well, of all the quaint ideas I
ever heard, that's the oddest--really you must excuse me."

~~361~~ "Very odd, is it?" inquired Coleman, opening the door in time to
overhear the last sentence. "Pray let me hear about it, then, for I like
to know of odd things particularly; but, perhaps, I'm intruding?"

"Eh? no; come along here, Coleman," cried Lawless, "you are just the
very boy I want--I am going to be married--that is, I want to be, don't
you see, if she'll have me, but there's the rub; Frank Fairlegh is all
right, and the old lady says she's agreeable, so everything depends on
the young woman herself--if she will but say 'Yes,' we shall go ahead in
style; but, unfortunately before she is likely to say anything one way
or the other, you understand, I've got to pop the question, as they call
it. Now, I've about as much notion of making an offer as a cow has of
dancing a hornpipe--so I want you to help us a bit--eh?"

"Certainly," replied Freddy courteously; "I shall be only too happy, and
as delays are dangerous I had perhaps better be off at once--where is
the young lady?"

"Eh! hold hard there! don't go quite so fast, young man," exclaimed
Lawless aghast; "if you bolt away at that pace you'll never see the end
of the run; why, you don't suppose I want you to go and talk to her--pop
the question viva voce, do you? You'll be advising me to be married
by deputy, I suppose, next. No, no, I'm going to do the trick by
letter--something like a Valentine, only rather more so, eh? but I can't
exactly manage to write it properly. If it was but a warranty for a
horse, now, I'd knock it off in no time, but this is a sort of thing,
you see, I'm not used to; one doesn't get married as easily as one
sells a horse, nor as often, eh? and it's rather a nervous piece of
business--a good deal depends upon the letter."

"You've been trying your hand at it already, I see," observed Coleman,
seating himself at the table; "pretty consumption of paper! I wonder
what my governor would say to me if I were to set about drawing a deed
in this style; why, the stationer's bill would run away with all the
profits."

"Never mind the profits, you avaricious Jew," replied Lawless. "Yes,
I've been trying effects, as the painters call it--putting down two
or three beginnings to find out which looked the most like the time of
day--you understand?"

"Two or three?" repeated Coleman, "six or seven rather, _voyons_. 'Mr.
Lawless presents his affections to Miss Fairlegh, and requests the
hon....' Not a bad ~362~~ idea, an offer in the third person--the only
case in which a third person would not be _de trop_ in such an affair."

"Eh! yes, I did the respectful when I first started, you know, but I
soon dropped that sort of thing when I got warm; you'll see, I stepped
out no end afterwards."

"'Honoured Miss,'" continued Coleman, reading, "'My sentiments, that is,
your perfections, your splendid action, your high breeding, and the many
slap-up points that may be discerned in you by any man that has an eye
for a horse...'"

"Ah! that was where I spoiled it," sighed Lawless.

"Here's a very pretty one," resumed Freddy. "'Adorable and adored Miss
Fanny Fairlegh, seeing you as I do with the eyes' (Why she would not
think you saw her with your nose, would she?)' of fond affection,
probably would induce me to overlook any unsoundness or disposition to
vice...'"

"That one did not turn out civilly, you see," said Lawless, "or else it
wasn't such a bad beginning."

"Here's a better," rejoined Coleman. "'Exquisitely beautiful
Fanny, fairest of that lovely sex, which to distinguish it from us
rough-and-ready fox-hunters, who, when once we get our heads at any of
the fences of life, go at it, never mind how stiff it may be (matrimony
has always appeared to me one of the stiffest), and generally contrive
to find ourselves on the other side, with our hind legs well under
us;--a sex, I say, which to distinguish it from our own, is called
the fair sex, a stock of which I never used to think any great things,
reckoning them only fit to canter round the parks with, until I saw you
brought out, when I at once perceived that your condition--that is, my
feelings--were so inexpressible that...!'" "Ah!" interposed Lawless,
"that's where I got bogged, sank in over the fetlocks, and had to give
it up as a bad job."

"In fact your feelings became too many for you," returned Coleman; "but
what have we here?--verses, by all that's glorious!"

"No, no! I'm not going to let you read them," exclaimed Lawless,
attempting to wrest the paper out of his hand.

"Be quiet, Lawless," rejoined Coleman, holding him off, "sit down
directly, sir, or I won't write a word for you: I _must see_ what all
your ideas are in order to get some notion of what you want to say;
besides, I've no doubt they'll be very original."

~363~~

I

"'Sweet Fanny, there are moments
When the heart is not one's own,
When we fain would clip its wild wing's tip,
But we find the bird has flown.

II

"'Dear Fanny, there are moments
When a loss may be a gain,
And sorrow, joy--for the heart's a toy,
And loving's such sweet pain.

III

"'Yes, Fanny, there are moments
When a smile is worth a throne,
When a frown can prove the flower of love,
Must fade, and die alone.'

--"Why, you never wrote those, Lawless?"

"Didn't I?" returned Lawless, "but I know I did, though--copied them out
of an old book I found up there, and wrote some more to 'em, because I
thought there wasn't enough for the money, besides putting in Fanny's
name instead of--what, do you think?--Phillis!--there's a name for you;
the fellow must have been a fool. Why, I would not give a dog such an
ill name for fear somebody should hang him; but go on."

"Ah, now we come to the original matter," returned Coleman, "and very
original it seems."

IV

"'Dear Fanny, there are moments
When love gets you in a fix,
Takes the bit in his jaws, and, without any pause,
Bolts away with you like bricks.

V

"'Yes, Fanny, there are moments
When affection knows no bounds,
When I'd rather be talking with you out a-walking,
Than rattling after the hounds.

VI

"'Dear Fanny, there are moments
When one feels that one's inspired, And... and...'

--"It does not seem to have been one of those moments with you just
then," continued Freddy, "for the poem comes to an abrupt and untimely
conclusion, unless three ~364~~ blots, and something that looks like a
horse's head, may be a hieroglyphic mode of recording your inspirations,
which I'm not learned enough to decipher."

"Eh! no; I broke down there," replied Lawless; "the muse deserted me,
and went off in a canter for--where was it those young women used to
hang out?--the '_Gradus ad_' place, you know?"

"The tuneful Nine, whom you barbarously designate young women," returned
Coleman, "are popularly supposed to have resided on Mount Parnassus,
which acclivity I have always imagined of a triangular or sugar-loaf
form, with Apollo seated on the apex or extreme point, his attention
divided between preserving his equilibrium and keeping up his playing,
which latter necessity he provided for by executing difficult passages
on a golden (or, more probably, silver-gilt) lyre."

"Eh! nonsense," rejoined Lawless; "now, do be serious for five minutes,
and go ahead with this letter, there's a good fellow; for, 'pon my word,
I'm in a wretched state of mind--I am indeed. It's a fact, I'm nearly
half a stone lighter than I was when I came here; I know I am, for there
was an old fellow weighing a defunct pig down at the farm yesterday, and
I made him let me get into the scales when he took piggy out. I tell you
what, if I'm not married soon I shall make a job for the sexton;
such incessant wear and tear of the sensibilities is enough to kill a
prize-fighter in full-training, let alone a man that has been leading
such a molly-coddle life as I have of late, lounging about drawing-rooms
like a lapdog."

"Well, then, let us begin at once," said Freddy, seizing a pen; "now,
what am I to say?"

"Eh! why, you don't expect me to know, do you?" exclaimed Lawless
aghast; "I might just as well write it myself as have to tell you; no,
no, you must help me, or else I'd better give the whole thing up at
once."

"I'll help you, man, never fear," rejoined Freddy, "but you must give
me something to work upon; why, it's all plain sailing enough; begin by
describing your feelings."

"Feelings, eh?" said Lawless, rubbing his ear violently, as if to arouse
his dormant faculties, "that's easier said than done. Well, here goes
for a start: 'My dear Miss Fairlegh'".

"'My dear Miss Fairlegh,'" repeated Coleman, writing rapidly, "yes."

"Have you written that?" continued Lawless; "ar--let me think--'I
have felt for some time past very ~365~~ peculiar sensations, and have
become, in many respects, quite an altered man'." "'Altered man,'"
murmured Freddy, still writing. "'I have given up hunting,'" resumed
Lawless, "'which no longer possesses any interest in my eyes, though
I think you'd have said, if you had been with us the last time we were
out, that you never saw a prettier run in your life; the meet was at
Chorley Bottom, and we got away in less than ten minutes after the
hounds had been in cover, with as plucky a fox as ever puzzled a
pack--'"

"Hold hard there!" interrupted Coleman, "I can't put all that in; nobody
ever wrote an account of a fox-hunt in a love-letter--no, 'You've given
up hunting, which no longer possesses any interest in your eyes'; now go
on."

"My eyes," repeated Lawless reflectively; "yes: 'I am become indifferent
to everything; I take no pleasure in the new dog-cart, King in Long Acre
is building for me, with cane sides, the wheels larger, and the seat, if
possible, still higher than the last, and which, if I am not very much
out in my reckoning, will follow so light--'"

"I can't write all that trash about a dog-cart," interrupted Freddy
crossly; "that's worse than the fox-hunting; stick to your feelings,
man, can't you?"

"Ah! you little know the effect such feelings produce," sighed Lawless.

"That's the style," resumed Coleman with delight; "that will come in
beautifully--'such feelings produce'; now, go on."

"'At night my slumbers are rendered distracting by visions of
you--as--as----'"

"'The bride of another,'" suggested Coleman.

"Exactly," resumed Lawless; "or, 'sleep refusing to visit my----'"

"'Aching eye-balls,'" put in Freddy. "'I lie tossing restlessly from
side to side, as if bitten by----'"

"'The gnawing tooth of Remorse;' that will do famously," added his
scribe; "now tell her that she is the cause of it."

"'All these unpleasantnesses are owing to you,'" began Lawless.

"Oh! that won't do," said Coleman; "no--'These tender griefs' (that's
the term, I think) 'are some of the effects, goods and chattels'--psha!
I was thinking of drawing a will--'the effects produced upon me by----'"

~366~~ "'The wonderful way in which you stuck to your saddle when the
mare bolted with you,'" rejoined Lawless enthusiastically; "what, won't
that do either?"

"No, be quiet, I've got it all beautifully now, if you don't interrupt
me: 'Your many perfections of mind and person--perfections which have
led me to centre my ideas of happiness solely in the fond hope of one
day calling you my own'."

"That's very pretty indeed," said Lawless; "go on."

"'Should I be fortunate enough,'" continued Coleman '"to succeed in
winning your affection, it will be the study of my future life to
prevent your every wish--'"

"Eh! what do you mean? not let her have her own way? Oh! that will never
pay; why, the little I know of women, I'm sure that, if you want to come
over them, you must flatter 'em up with the idea that you mean to give
'em their heads on all occasions--let 'em do just what they like. Tell
a woman she should not go up the chimney, it's my belief you'd see her
nose peep out of the top before ten minutes were over. Oh! that'll never
do!"

"Nonsense," interrupted Freddy; "'prevent' means to forestall in that
sense; however, I'll put it 'forestall,' if you like it better."

"I think it will be safest," replied Lawless, shaking his head solemnly.

"'In everything your will shall be law,'" continued Coleman, writing.

"Oh! I say, that's coming it rather strong, though," interposed Lawless,
"query about that?"

"All right," rejoined Coleman, "it's always customary to say so in these
cases, but it means nothing; as to the real question of mastery, that
is a matter to be decided post-nuptially; you'll be enlightened on the
subject before long in a series of midnight discourses, commonly known
under the title of curtain-lectures."

"Pleasant, eh?" returned Lawless; "well, I bet two to one on the grey
mare, for I never could stand being preached to, and shall consent to
anything for the sake of a quiet life--so move on."

"'If this offer of my heart and hand should be favourably received
by the loveliest of her sex,'" continued Coleman, "'a line, a word, a
smile, a----'"

"'Wink,'" suggested Lawless.

"'Will be sufficient to acquaint me with my happiness.'"

"Tell-her to look sharp about sending an answer," exclaimed Lawless; "if
she keeps me waiting long after ~367~~ that letter's sent, I shall go
off pop, like a bottle of ginger-beer; I know I shall--string won't hold
me, or wire either."

"'When once this letter is despatched, I shall enjoy no respite from the
tortures of suspense till the answer arrives, which shall exalt to the
highest pinnacle of happiness, or plunge into the lowest abysses of
despair, one who lives but in the sunshine of your smile, and who now,
with the liveliest affection, tempered by the most profound respect,
ventures to sign himself, Your devotedly attached--'"

"'And love-lorn,'" interposed Lawless in a sharp, quick tone.

"Love-lorn!" repeated Coleman, looking up with an air of surprise;
"sentimental and ridiculous in the extreme! I shall not write any such
thing."

"I believe, Mr. Coleman, that letter is intended to express my feelings,
and not yours?" questioned Lawless in a tone of stern investigation.

"Yes, of course it is," began Coleman.

"Then write as I desire, sir," continued Lawless authoritatively; "I
ought to know my own feelings best, I imagine; I feel love-lorn, and
'love-lorn' it shall be."

"Oh! certainly," replied Coleman, slightly offended, "anything you
please, 'Your devotedly attached and lovelorn admirer'; here, sign it
yourself, 'George Lawless'."

"Bravo!" said Lawless, relapsing into his accustomed good humour
the moment the knotty point of the insertion of "love-lorn" had been
carried; "if that isn't first-rate, I'm a Dutchman; why, Freddy, boy,
where did you learn it? how does it all come into your head?"

"Native talent," replied Coleman, "combined with a strong and lively
appreciation of the sublime and beautiful, chiefly derived from my
maternal grandmother, whose name was Burke."

"That wasn't the Burke who wrote a book about it, was it?" asked
Lawless.

"Ah! no, not exactly," replied Coleman; "she would have been, I believe,
had she been a man."

"Very likely," returned Lawless, whose attention was absorbed in
folding, sealing and directing the important letter, "Miss Fairlegh".
"Now, if she does but regard my suit favourably."

"You'll be suited with a wife," punned Coleman.

"But suppose she should say 'No,'" continued Lawless, musing.

"Why, then, you'll be non-suited, that's all," returned the incorrigible
Freddy; and making a face at me, which (as I was to all appearance
immersed fathoms deep in ~368~~ Blackstone) he thought I should not
observe, he sauntered out of the room, humming the following scrap of
some elegant ditty, with which he had become acquainted:--

"'If ever I marry a wife,
I'll marry a publican's daughter,
I 'll sit all day long in the bar,
And drink nothing but brandy-and-water'".

Lawless having completed his arrangements to his satisfaction, hastened
to follow Coleman's example, nodding to me as he left the room, and
adding, "Good-bye, Fairlegh; read away, old boy, and when I see you
again, I hope I shall have some good news for you".

Good news for me! The news that my sister would be pledged to spend her
life as the companion, or, more properly speaking, the plaything, of a
man who had so little delicacy of mind, so little self-respect, as to
have allowed his feelings (for that he was attached to Fanny, as far as
he was capable of forming a real attachment, I could not for a moment
doubt) to be laid bare to form a subject for Freddy Coleman to sharpen
his wit upon; and to reflect that I had in any way assisted in bringing
this result about, had thrown thorn constantly together--oh! as I
thought upon it, the inconceivable folly of which I had been guilty
nearly maddened me. Somehow, I had never until this moment actually
realised the idea of my sister's marrying him; even that night, when
I had spoken to my mother on the subject, my motive had been more to
prevent her from lecturing and worrying Fanny than anything else. But
the real cause of my indifference was, that during the whole progress of
the affair my thoughts and feelings had been so completely engrossed
by, and centred in, my own position in regard to Clara Saville, that
although present in body, my mind was in great measure absent. I had
never given my attention to it; but had gone on in a dreamy kind of way,
letting affairs take their own course, and saying and doing whatever
appeared most consonant to the wishes of other people at the moment,
until the discovery of Oaklands' unhappy attachment had fully aroused
me, when, as it appeared, too late to remedy the misery which my
carelessness and inattention had in a great measure contributed to bring
about.

The only hope which now remained (and when I remembered the evident
pleasure she took in his society, it appeared a very forlorn one) was
that Fanny might, of her own accord, refuse Lawless. ~369~~ By this time
the precious document produced by the joint exertions of Lawless and
Coleman must have reached its destination; and it was with an anxiety
little inferior to that of the principals themselves that I looked
forward to the result, and awaited with impatience the verdict which was
to decide whether joy should brighten, or sorrow shade, the future years
of Harry Oaklands.

CHAPTER XLVI -- TEARS AND SMILES

"Our doubts are traitors;
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt."
--_Measure for Measure_.

"'Well, every one can master grief but he that has it.'
'Yet say I he's in love.'
'The greatest note of it is his melancholy.'
'Nay, but I know who loves him.'"
--_Much Ado About Nothing_.

"Joy, gentle friends! joy, and fresh days of love,
Accompany your hearts."
--_Midsummer Night's Dream_.

READING law did not get on very well that day. De Lolme on the
Constitution might have been a medical treatise, for aught I knew to the
contrary; Blackstone a work on geology. After a prolonged struggle to
compel my attention, from which I did not desist until I became suddenly
aware that, for the last half-hour, I had been holding one of the
above-named ornaments to the profession the wrong way upwards, I
relinquished the matter as hopeless, and, pulling my hat over my
brows, sallied forth, and turned my moody steps in the direction of the
cottage. Feeling unwilling in my then humour to encounter any of its
inmates, I walked round to the back of the house, and throwing open the
window of a small room, which was dignified by the name of the study,
and dedicated to my sole use and behoof, I leaped in, and closing
the sash, flung myself into an easy-chair, where, again involuntarily
resuming the same train of thought, I gave myself up a prey to
unavailing regrets. On my way I had encountered Freddy Coleman going
to shoot wild-fowl, and he had accosted me with the following agreeable
remark: "Why, Frank, old boy, you look as black as a crow at a funeral;
I can't think what ails you all to-day. I met Harry Oaklands just now,
seeming as much down ~370~~ in the mouth as if the bank had failed; so I
told him your sister was going to marry Lawless, just to cheer him up a
bit, and show him the world was all alive and merry, when off he marched
without saying a word, looking more grumpy than ever."

"Why did you tell him what was not true?" was my reply.

"Oh! for fun; besides, you know, it _may_ be true, for anything we can
tell," was the unsatisfactory rejoinder.

In order the better to enable the reader to understand what is to
follow, I must make him acquainted with the exact _locale_ of the den
or study to which I have just introduced him. Let him imagine, then, a
small but very pretty little drawing-room, opening into a conservatory
of such minute dimensions, that it was, in point of fact, little more
than a closet with glazed sides and a skylight; this, again, opened
into the study, from which it was divided by a green baize curtain;
consequently, it was very possible for any one to overhear in one room
all that passed in the other, or even to hold a conversation with
a person in the opposite apartment. Seeing, however, was out of the
question, as the end of a high stand of flowers intervened--purposely so
placed, to enable me to lie perdu in the event of any visitors calling
to whom I might be unwilling to reveal myself. On the present occasion,
the possibility of any one in the drawing-room seeing me was wholly
precluded, by reason of the curtain already mentioned being partially
drawn.

I had not remained long in thought when my reverie was disturbed by some
one entering the outer room and closing the door. The peculiar rustle of
a lady's dress informed me that the intruder was of the gentler sex;
and the sound of the footstep, so light as to be scarcely audible, could
proceed from no other inmate of the cottage but Fanny.

Even with the best intentions, one always feels a degree of shame in
playing the eaves-dropper; a natural sense of honour seems to forbid us,
unnoticed ourselves, to remark the actions of others; yet so anxious
was I, if possible, to gain some clue to the state of my sister's
affections, that I could not resist the temptation of slightly changing
my position, so that, concealed by a fold of the curtain, and peeping
between two of the tallest camellias, I could command a view of the
drawing-room. My ears had not deceived me; on the sofa, up to which
she had drawn a small writing-table, was seated Fanny; her elbow was
supported by the table before her, and her head rested ~371~~ on one of
her little white hands, which was hidden amid the luxuriant tresses of
her sunny hair. Her countenance, which was paler than usual, bore traces
of tears. After remaining in this attitude for a few moments, motionless
as a statue, she raised her head, and throwing back her curls from her
face, opened the writing-case and wrote a hurried note; but her powers
of composition appearing to fail her before she reached the conclusion,
she paused, and, with a deep sigh, drew from a fold in her dress a
letter, which I instantly recognised as the remarkable document produced
by the joint talents of Lawless and Coleman. As she perused this
original manuscript, a smile, called forth by the singular nature of its
contents, played for an instant over her expressive features, but was
instantly succeeded by an expression of annoyance and regret.

At this moment a man's footstep sounded in the passage, and Fanny had
scarcely time to conceal her letter ere the door was thrown open, and
Harry Oaklands entered.

The change of light was so great on first coming into the room out of
the open air, that, not until the servant had withdrawn, after saying,
"You will find Mr. Fairlegh in the study, sir," was Harry able to
perceive that, excepting himself, Fanny was the sole occupant of the
apartment.

"I hope I am not disturbing you," he began, after an awkward pause,
during which his cheek had flushed, and then again grown pale as marble.
"The servant told me I should find Frank here alone, and that you and
Mrs. Fairlegh were out walking."