How it had been wagging the Countesss straining eyes under closed eyelids were eloquent of.
Too late, I fear me, to wait upon Lord Livelyston to-night? she suggested.
To-night? The Hon. Melville gazed blank astonishment at the notion. Oh! certainly, too late tonight. A-hum! I think, madam, you had better not be in too great a hurry to see him. Repose a little. Recover your fatigue.
Oh! exclaimed the Countess, with a beam of utter confidence in him, I shall be too happy to place myself in your handsbelieve me.
This was scarcely more to the taste of the diplomatist. He put up his mouth, and said, blandly:
I fearyou know, madam, I must warn you beforehandI, personally, am but an insignificant unit over here, you know; I, personally, cant guarantee much assistance to younot positive. What I can doof course, very happy! And he fell to again upon the beef.
Not so very insignificant! said the Countess, smiling, as at a softly radiant conception of him.
Have to bob and bow like the rest of them over here, he added, proof against the flattery.
But that you will not forsake Silva, I am convinced, said the Countess; and, paying little heed to his brief Oh! what I can do, continued: For over here, in England, we are almost friendless. My relationssuch as are left of themare not in high place. She turned to Mrs. Melville, and renewed the confession with a proud humility. Truly, I have not a distant cousin in the Cabinet!
Mrs. Melville met her sad smile, and returned it, as one who understood its entire import.
My brother-in-law-my sister, I think, you knowmarried aa brewer! He is rich; but, well! such was her taste! My brother-in-law is indeed in Parliament, and he
Very little use, seeing he votes with the opposite party, the diplomatist interrupted her.
Ah! but he will not, said the Countess, serenely. I can trust with confidence that, if it is for Silvas interest, he will assuredly so dispose of his influence as to suit the desiderations of his family, and not in any way oppose his opinions to the powers that would willingly stoop to serve us!
It was impossible for the Hon. Melville to withhold a slight grimace at his beef, when he heard this extremely alienized idea of the nature of a member of the Parliament of Great Britain. He allowed her to enjoy her delusion, as she pursued:
No. So much we could offer in repayment. It is little! But this, in verity, is a case. Silvas wrongs have only to be known in England, and I am most assured that the English people will not permit it. In the days of his prosperity, Silva was a friend to England, and England should notshould notforget it now. Had we money! But of that arm our enemies have deprived us: and, I fear, without it we cannot hope to have the justice of our cause pleaded in the English papers. Mr. Redner, you know, the correspondent in Lisbon, is a sworn foe to Silva. And why but because I would not procure him an invitation to Court! The man was so horridly vulgar; his gloves were never clean; I had to hold a bouquet to my nose when I talked to him. That, you say, was my fault! Truly so. But what woman can be civil to a low-bred, pretentious, offensive man?
Mrs. Melville, again appealed to, smiled perfect sympathy, and said, to account for his character:
Yes. He is the son of a small shopkeeper of some kind, in Southampton, I hear.
A very good fellow in his way, said her husband.
Oh! I cant bear that class of people, Rose exclaimed. I always keep out of their way. You can always tell them.
The Countess smiled considerate approbation of her exclusiveness and discernment. So sweet a smile!
You were on deck early, my dear? she asked Evan, rather abruptly.
Master Alec answered for him: Yes, he was, and so was Rose. They made an appointment, just as they used to do under the oranges.
Children! the Countess smiled to Mrs. Melville.
They always whisper when Im by, Alec appended.
Children! the Countesss sweetened visage entreated Mrs. Melville to re-echo; but that lady thought it best for the moment to direct Rose to look to her packing, now that she had done breakfast.
And I will take a walk with my brother on deck, said the Countess. Silva is too harassed for converse.
The parties were thus divided. The silent Count was left to meditate on his wrongs in the saloon; and the diplomatist, alone with his lady, thought fit to say to her, shortly: Perhaps it would be as well to draw away from these people a little. We ve done as much as we could for them, in bringing them over here. They may be trying to compromise us. That womans absurd. She s ashamed of the brewer, and yet she wants to sell himor wants us to buy him. Ha! I think she wants us to send a couple of frigates, and threaten bombardment of the capital, if they dont take her husband back, and receive him with honours.
Perhaps it would be as well, said Mrs. Melville. Roses invitation to him goes for nothing.
Rose? inviting the Count? down to Hampshire? The diplomatists brows were lifted.
No, I mean the other, said the diplomatists wife.
Oh! the young fellow! very good young fellow. Gentlemanly. No harm in him.
Perhaps not, said the diplomatists wife.
You dont suppose he expects us to keep him on, or provide for him over hereeh?
The diplomatists wife informed him that such was not her thought, that he did not understand, and that it did not matter; and as soon as the Hon. Melville saw that she was brooding something essentially feminine, and which had no relationship to the great game of public life, curiosity was extinguished in him.
On deck the Countess paced with Evan, and was for a time pleasantly diverted by the admiration she could, without looking, perceive that her sorrow-subdued graces had aroused in the breast of a susceptible naval lieutenant. At last she spoke:
My dear! remember this. Your last word to Mr. Jocelyn will be: I will do myself the honour to call upon my benefactor early. To Rose you will say: Be assured, Miss Jocelyn Miss Jocelyn I shall not fail in hastening to pay my respects to your family in Hampshire. You will remember to do it, in the exact form I speak it.
Evan laughed: What! call him benefactor to his face? I couldnt do it.
Ah! my child!
Besides, he isnt a benefactor at all. His private secretary died, and I stepped in to fill the post, because nobody else was handy.
And tell me of her who pushed you forward, Evan?
My dear sister, Im sure Im not ungrateful.
No; but headstrong: opinionated. Now these people will endeavourOh! I have seen it in a thousand little thingsthey wish to shake us off. Now, if you will but do as I indicate! Put your faith in an older head, Evan. It is your only chance of society in England. For your brother-in-lawI ask you, what sort of people will you meet at the Cogglesbys? Now and then a nobleman, very much out of his element. In short, you have fed upon a diet which will make you to distinguish, and painfully to know the difference! Indeed! Yes, you are looking about for Rose. It depends upon your behaviour now, whether you are to see her at all in England. Do you forget? You wished once to inform her of your origin. Think of her words at the breakfast this morning!
The Countess imagined she had produced an impression. Evan said: Yes, and I should have liked to have told her this morning that Im myself nothing more than the son of a
Stop! cried his sister, glancing about in horror. The admiring lieutenant met her eye. Blandishingly she smiled on him: Most beautiful weather for a welcome to dear England? and passed with majesty.
Boy! she resumed, are you mad?
I hate being such a hypocrite, madam.
Then you do not love her, Evan?
This may have been dubious logic, but it resulted from a clear sequence of ideas in the ladys head. Evan did not contest it.
And assuredly you will lose her, Evan. Think of my troubles! I have to intrigue for Silva; I look to your future; I smile, Oh heaven! how do I not smile when things are spoken that pierce my heart! This morning at the breakfast!
Evan took her hand, and patted it.
What is your pity? she sighed.
If it had not been for you, my dear sister, I should never have held my tongue.
You are not a Harrington! You are a Dawley! she exclaimed, indignantly.
Evan received the accusation of possessing more of his mothers spirit than his fathers in silence.
You would not have held your tongue, she said, with fervid severity: and you would have betrayed yourself! and you would have said you were that! and you in that costume! Why, goodness gracious! could you bear to appear so ridiculous?
The poor young man involuntarily surveyed his person. The pains of an impostor seized him. The deplorable image of the Don making confession became present to his mind. It was a clever stroke of this female intriguer. She saw him redden grievously, and blink his eyes; and not wishing to probe him so that he would feel intolerable disgust at his imprisonment in the Don, she continued:
But you have the sense to see your duties, Evan. You have an excellent sense, in the main. No one would dreamto see you. You did not, I must say, you did not make enough of your gallantry. A Portuguese who had saved a mans life, Evan, would he have been so boorish? You behaved as if it was a matter of course that you should go overboard after anybody, in your clothes, on a dark night. So, then, the Jocelyns took it. I barely heard one compliment to you. And Rosewhat an effect it should have had on her! But, owing to your manner, I do believe the girl thinks it nothing but your ordinary business to go overboard after anybody, in your clothes, on a dark night. Pon my honour, I believe she expects to see you always dripping! The Countess uttered a burst of hysterical humour. So you miss your credit. That inebriated sailor should really have been gold to you. Be not so young and thoughtless.
The Countess then proceeded to tell him how foolishly he had let slip his great opportunity. A Portuguese would have fixed the young lady long before. By tender moonlight, in captivating language, beneath the umbrageous orange-groves, a Portuguese would have accurately calculated the effect of the perfume of the blossom on her sensitive nostrils, and know the exact moment when to kneel, and declare his passion sonorously.
Yes, said Evan, one of them did. She told me.
She told you? And youwhat did you do?
Laughed at him with her, to be sure.
Laughed at him! She told you, and you helped her to laugh at love! Have you no perceptions? Why did she tell you?
Because she thought him such a fool, I suppose.
You never will know a woman, said the Countess, with contempt.
Much of his worldly sister at a time was more than Evan could bear. Accustomed to the symptoms of restiveness, she finished her discourse, enjoyed a quiet parade up and down under the gaze of the lieutenant, and could find leisure to note whether she at all struck the inferior seamen, even while her mind was absorbed by the multiform troubles and anxieties for which she took such innocent indemnification.
The appearance of the Hon. Melville Jocelyn on deck, and without his wife, recalled her to business. It is a peculiarity of female diplomatists that they fear none save their own sex. Men they regard as their natural prey: in women they see rival hunters using their own weapons. The Countess smiled a slowly-kindling smile up to him, set her brother adrift, and delicately linked herself to Evans benefactor.
I have been thinking, she said, knowing your kind and most considerate attentions, that we may compromise you in England.
He at once assured her he hoped not, he thought not at all.
The idea is due to my brother, she went on; for Iwomen know so little!and most guiltlessly should we have done so. My brother perhaps does not think of us foremost; but his argument I can distinguish. I can see, that were you openly to plead Silvas cause, you might bring yourself into odium, Mr. Jocelyn; and heaven knows I would not that! May I then ask, that in England we may be simply upon the same footing of private friendship?
The diplomatist looked into her uplifted visage, that had all the sugary sparkles of a crystallized preserved fruit of the Portugal clime, and observed, confidentially, that, with every willingness in the world to serve her, he did think it would possibly be better, for a time, to be upon that footing, apart from political considerations.
I was very sure my brother would apprehend your views, said the Countess. He, poor boy! his career is closed. He must sink into a different sphere. He will greatly miss the intercourse with you and your sweet family.
Further relieved, the diplomatist delivered a high opinion of the young gentleman, his abilities, and his conduct, and trusted he should see him frequently.
By an apparent sacrifice, the lady thus obtained what she wanted.
Near the hour speculated on by the diplomatist, the papers came on board, and he, unaware how he had been manoeuvred for lack of a wife at his elbow, was quickly engaged in appeasing the great British hunger for news; second only to that for beef, it seems, and equally acceptable salted when it cannot be had fresh.
Leaving the devotee of statecraft with his legs crossed, and his face wearing the cognizant air of one whose head is above the waters of events, to enjoy the mighty meal of fresh and salted at discretion, the Countess dived below.
Meantime the Jocasta, as smoothly as before she was ignorant of how the world wagged, slipped up the river with the tide; and the sun hung red behind the forest of masts, burnishing a broad length of the serpentine haven of the nations of the earth. A young Englishman returning home can hardly look on this scene without some pride of kinship. Evan stood at the fore part of the vessel. Rose, in quiet English attire, had escaped from her aunt to join him, singing in his ears, to spur his senses: Isnt it beautiful? Isnt it beautiful? Dear old England!
What do you find so beautiful? he asked.
Oh, you dull fellow! Why the ships, and the houses, and the smoke, to be sure.
The ships? Why, I thought you despised trade, mademoiselle?
And so I do. That is, not trade, but tradesmen. Of course, I mean shopkeepers.
Its they who send the ships to and fro, and make the picture that pleases you, nevertheless.
Do they? said she, indifferently, and then with a sort of fervour, Why do you always grow so cold to me whenever we get on this subject?
I cold? Evan responded. The incessant fears of his diplomatic sister had succeeded in making him painfully jealous of this subject. He turned it off. Why, our feelings are just the same. Do you know what I was thinking when you came up? I was thinking that I hoped I might never disgrace the name of an Englishman.
Now, thats noble! cried the girl. And Im sure you never will. Of an English gentleman, Evan. I like that better.