The bright eyes of Emily Moseley unconsciously wandered round the
brilliant assemblage at Mr. Haughton's, as she took her seat, in search of
her partner. The rooms were filled with scarlet coats, and belles from the
little town of F----; and if the company were not the most select
imaginable, it was disposed to enjoy the passing moment cheerfully and in
lightness of heart. Ere, however, she could make out to scan the
countenances of the men, young Jarvis, decked in the full robes of his
dignity, as captain in the ----th foot, approached and solicited the honor
of her hand. The colonel had already secured her sister, and it was by the
instigation of his friend, Jarvis had been thus early in his application.
Emily thanked him, and pleaded her engagement. The mortified youth, who
had thought dancing with the ladies a favor conferred on them, from the
anxiety his sister always manifested to get partners, stood for a few
moments in sullen silence; and then, as if to be revenged on the sex, he
determined not to dance the whole evening. Accordingly, he withdrew to a
room appropriated to the gentlemen, where he found a few of the military
beaux, keeping alive the stimulus they had brought with them from the
mess-table.
Clara had prudently decided to comport herself as became a clergyman's
wife, and she declined dancing altogether. Catherine Chatterton was
entitled to open the ball, as superior in years and rank to any who were
disposed to enjoy the amusement. The dowager, who in her heart loved to
show her airs upon such occasions, had chosen to be later than the rest
of the family; and Lucy had to entreat her father to have patience more
than once during the interregnum in their sports created by Lady
Chatterton's fashion. This lady at length appeared, attended by her son,
and followed by her daughters, ornamented in all the taste of the reigning
fashions Doctor Ives and his wife, who came late from choice, soon
appeared, accompanied by their guest, and the dancing commenced, Denbigh
had thrown aside his black for the evening, and as he approached to claim
her promised hand, Emily thought him, if not as handsome, much more
interesting than Colonel Egerton, who just then passed them while leading
her sister to the set. Emily danced beautifully, but perfectly like a
lady, as did Jane; but Denbigh, although graceful in his movements and in
time, knew but little of the art; and but for the assistance of his
partner, he would have more than once gone wrong in the figure. He very
gravely asked her opinion of his performance as he handed her to a chair,
and she laughingly told him his movements were but a better sort of march.
He was about to reply, when Jarvis approached. By the aid of a pint of
wine and his own reflections, the youth wrought himself into something of
a passion, especially as he saw Denbigh enter, after Emily had declined
dancing with himself. There was a gentleman in the corps who unfortunately
was addicted to the bottle, and he had fastened on Jarvis as a man at
leisure to keep him company. Wine openeth the heart, and the captain
having taken a peep at the dancers, and seen the disposition of affairs,
returned to his bottle companion, bursting with the indignity offered to
his person. He dropped a hint, and a question or two brought the whole
grievance forth.
There is a certain set of men in every service who imbibe extravagant
notions that are revolting to humanity, and which too often prove to be
fatal in their results. Their morals are never correct, and the little
they have set loosely about them. In their own cases, their appeals to
arms are not always so prompt; but in that of their friends, their
perceptions of honor are intuitively keen, and their inflexibility in
preserving it from reproach unbending; and such is the weakness of
mankind, their "tenderness on points where the nicer feelings of a soldier
are involved, that these machines of custom, these thermometers graduated
to the scale of false honor, usurp the place of reason and benevolence,
and become too often the arbiters of life and death to a whole corps.
Such, then, was the confidant to whom Jarvis communicated the cause of his
disgust, and the consequences may easily be imagined. As he passed Emily
and Denbigh, he threw a look of fierceness at the latter, which he meant
as an indication of his hostile intentions. It was lost on his rival, who
at that moment was filled with passions of a very different kind from
those which Captain Jarvis thought agitated his own bosom; for had his new
friend let him alone, the captain would have gone quietly home and gone to
sleep.
"Have you ever fought?" said Captain Digby coolly to his companion, as
they seated themselves in his father's parlor, whither they had retired to
make their arrangements for the following morning.
"Yes," said Jarvis, with a stupid look, "I fought once with Tom Halliday
at school."
"At school! My dear friend, you commenced young indeed," said Digby,
helping himself to another glass. "And how did it end?"
"Oh! Tom got the better, and so I cried enough," said Jarvis, surlily.
"Enough! I hope you did not flinch," eyeing him keenly "Where were you
hit?"
"He hit me all over."
"All over! The d---l! Did you use small shot? How did you fight?"
"With fists," said Jarvis, yawning.
His companion, seeing how matters were, rang for his servant to put him to
bed, remaining himself an hour longer to finish the bottle.
Soon after Jarvis had given Denbigh the look big with his intended
vengeance, Colonel Egerton approached Emily, asking permission to present
Sir Herbert Nicholson, the lieutenant-colonel of the regiment, and a
gentleman who was ambitious of the honor of her acquaintance; a particular
friend of his own. Emily gracefully bowed her assent. Soon after, turning
her eyes on Denbigh, who had been speaking to her at the moment, she saw
him looking intently on the two soldiers, who were making their way
through the crowd to the place where she sat. He stammered, said something
she could not understand, and precipitately withdrew; and although both
she and her aunt sought his figure in the gay throng that flitted around
them, he was seen no more that evening.
"Are you acquainted with Mr. Denbigh?" said Emily to her partner, after
looking in vain to find his person in the crowd.
"Denbigh! Denbigh! I have known one or two of that name" replied the
gentleman. "In the army there are several."
"Yes," said Emily, musing, "he is in the army;" and looking up, she saw
her companion reading her countenance with an expression that brought the
color to her cheeks with a glow that was painful. Sir Herbert smiled, and
observed that the room was warm. Emily acquiesced in the remark, for the
first time in her life conscious of a feeling she was ashamed to have
scrutinized, and glad of any excuse to hide her confusion.
"Grace Chatterton is really beautiful to-night," whispered John Moseley
to his sister Clara. "I have a mind to ask her to dance."
"Do, John." replied his sister, looking with pleasure on her beautiful
cousin, who, observing the movements of John as he drew near where she
sat, moved her face on each side rapidly, in search of some one who was
apparently not to be found. Her breathing became sensibly quicker, and
John was on the point of speaking to her as the dowager stepped in between
them. There is nothing so flattering to the vanity of a man as the
discovery of emotions in a young woman excited by himself, and which the
party evidently wishes to conceal; there is nothing so touching, so sure
to captivate; or, if it seem to be affected, so sure to disgust.
"Now, Mr. Moseley," cried the mother, "you shall not ask Grace to dance!
She can refuse you nothing, and she has been up the last two figures."
"Your wishes are irresistible, Lady Chatterton," said John, coolly turning
on his heel. On gaining the other side of the room, he turned to
reconnoitre the scene. The dowager was fanning herself as violently as if
_she_ had been up the last two figures instead of her daughter, while
Grace sat with her eyes fastened on the floor, paler than usual. "Grace,"
thought the young man, "would be very handsome--very sweet--very--very
everything that is agreeable, if--if it were not for Mother Chatterton."
He then led out one of the prettiest girls in the room.
Col. Egerton was peculiarly fitted to shine in a ball room. He danced
gracefully and with spirit; was perfectly at home with all the usages of
the best society, and was never neglectful of any of those little
courtesies which have their charm for the moment; and Jane Moseley, who
saw all those she loved around her, apparently as happy as herself, found
in her judgment or the convictions of her principles, no counterpoise
against the weight of such attractions, all centred as it were in one
effort to please herself. His flattery was deep for it was respectful--his
tastes were her tastes--his opinions her opinions. On the formation of
their acquaintance they differed on some trifling point of poetical
criticism, and for near a month the colonel had maintained his opinion
with a show of firmness; but opportunities not wanting for the discussion,
he had felt constrained to yield to her better judgment, her purer taste.
The conquest of Colonel Egerton was complete, and Jane who saw in his
attentions the submission of a devoted heart, began to look forward to the
moment with trembling that was to remove the thin barrier that existed
between the adulation of the eyes and the most delicate assiduity to
please, and the open confidence of declared love. Jane Moseley had a heart
to love, and to love strongly; her danger existed in her imagination: it
was brilliant, unchastened by her judgment, we had almost said unfettered
by her principles. Principles such as are found in every-day maxims and
rules of conduct sufficient to restrain her within the bounds of perfect
decorum she was furnished with in abundance; but to that principle which
was to teach her submission in opposition to her wishes, to that principle
that could alone afford her security against the treachery of her own
passions, she was an utter stranger.
The family of Sir Edward were, among the first to retire, and as the
Chattertons had their own carriage, Mrs. Wilson and her charge returned
alone in the coach of the former. Emily, who had been rather out of
spirits the latter-part of the evening, broke the silence by suddenly
observing,
"Colonel Egerton is, or soon will be, a perfect hero!"
Her aunt somewhat surprised, both with the abruptness and with the
strength of the remark, inquired her meaning.
"Oh, Jane will make him one, whether or not."
This was spoken with an air of vexation which she was unused to, and Mrs.
Wilson gravely corrected her for speaking in a disrespectful manner of her
sister, one whom neither her years nor-situation entitled her in any
measure to advise or control. There was an impropriety in judging so near
and dear a relation harshly, even in thought. Emily pressed the hand of
her aunt and tremulously acknowledged her error; but she added, that she
felt a momentary irritation at the idea of a man of Colonel Egerton's
character gaining the command over feelings such as her sister possessed.
Mrs. Wilson kissed the cheek of her niece, while she inwardly acknowledged
the probable truth of the very remark she had thought it her duty to
censure. That the imagination of Jane would supply her lover with those
qualities she most honored herself, she believed was taken as a matter of
course; and that when the veil she had helped to throw before her own eyes
was removed, she would cease to respect, and of course cease to love him,
when too late to remedy the evil, she greatly feared. But in the
approaching fate of Jane she saw new cause to call forth her own activity.
Emily Moseley had just completed her eighteenth year, and was gifted by
nature with a vivacity and ardency of feeling that gave a heightened zest
to the enjoyments of that happy age. She was artless but intelligent;
cheerful, with a deep conviction of the necessity of piety; and uniform in
her practice of all the important duties. The unwearied exertions of her
aunt, aided by her own quickness of perception, had made her familiar with
the attainments suitable to her sex and years. For music she had no taste,
and the time which would have been thrown away in endeavoring to cultivate
a talent she did not possess, was dedicated under the discreet guidance of
her aunt, to works which had a tendency both to qualify her for the
duties of this life, and fit her for that which comes hereafter. It might
be said Emily Moseley had never read a book that contained a sentiment or
inculcated an opinion improper for her sex or dangerous to her morals; and
it was not difficult for those who knew the fact, to fancy they could
perceive the consequences in her guileless countenance and innocent
deportment. Her looks--her actions--her thoughts, wore as much of nature
as the discipline of her well-regulated mind and softened manners could
admit. In person she was of the middle size, exquisitely formed, graceful
and elastic in her step, without, however, the least departure from her
natural movements; her eye was a dark blue, with an expression of joy and
intelligence; at times it seemed all soul, and again all heart; her color
was rather high, but it varied with every emotion of her bosom; her
feelings were strong, ardent, and devoted to those she loved. Her
preceptress had never found it necessary to repeat an admonition of any
kind, since her arrival at years to discriminate between the right and the
wrong.
"I wish," said Doctor Ives to his wife, the evening his son had asked
their permission to address Clara, "Francis had chosen my little Emily."
"Clara is a good girl," replied his wife; "she is so mild, so
affectionate, that I doubt not she will make him happy--Frank might have
done worse at the Hall."
"For himself he has done well, I hope," said the father, "a young woman of
Clara's heart may make any man happy but a union with purity, sense,
principles, like those of Emily would be more--it would be blissful."
Mrs. Ives smiled at her husband's animation. "You remind me more of the
romantic youth I once knew than of the grave divine. There is but one man
I know that I could wish to give Emily to; it is Lumley. If Lumley sees
her, he will woo her; and if he wooes, he will win her."
"And Lumley I believe to be worthy of her," cried the rector, now taking
up a candle to retire for the night.