บทที่ บทที่ 54 · “TO ONE THING CONSTANT NEVER”

. “TO ONE THING CONSTANT NEVER”

“I am the very child of caprice,” said Waverley to himself, as he

bolted the door of his apartment and paced it with hasty steps. “What

is it to me that Fergus Mac-Ivor should wish to marry Rose Bradwardine?

I love her not; I might have been loved by her perhaps; but rejected

her simple, natural, and affecting attachment, instead of cherishing it

into tenderness, and dedicated myself to one who will never love mortal

man, unless old Warwick, the King-maker, should arise from the dead.

The Baron too—I would not have cared about his estate, and so the name

would have been no stumbling-block. The devil might have taken the

barren moors and drawn off the royal _caligæ_ for anything I would have

minded. But, framed as she is for domestic affection and tenderness,

for giving and receiving all those kind and quiet attentions which

sweeten life to those who pass it together, she is sought by Fergus

Mac-Ivor. He will not use her ill, to be sure; of that he is incapable.

But he will neglect her after the first month; he will be too intent on

subduing some rival chieftain or circumventing some favourite at court,

on gaining some heathy hill and lake or adding to his bands some new

troop of caterans, to inquire what she does, or how she amuses herself.

And then will canker sorrow eat her bud,

And chase the native beauty from her cheek;

And she will look as hollow as a ghost,

And dim and meagre as an ague fit,

And so she’ll die.

And such a catastrophe of the most gentle creature on earth might have

been prevented if Mr. Edward Waverley had had his eyes! Upon my word, I

cannot understand how I thought Flora so much, that is, so very much,

handsomer than Rose. She is taller indeed, and her manner more formed;

but many people think Miss Bradwardine’s more natural; and she is

certainly much younger. I should think Flora is two years older than I

am. I will look at them particularly this evening.”

And with this resolution Waverley went to drink tea (as the fashion was

Sixty Years Since) at the house of a lady of quality attached to the

cause of the Chevalier, where he found, as he expected, both the

ladies. All rose as he entered, but Flora immediately resumed her place

and the conversation in which she was engaged. Rose, on the contrary,

almost imperceptibly made a little way in the crowded circle for his

advancing the corner of a chair. “Her manner, upon the whole, is most

engaging,” said Waverley to himself.

A dispute occurred whether the Gaelic or Italian language was most

liquid, and best adapted for poetry; the opinion for the Gaelic, which

probably might not have found supporters elsewhere, was here fiercely

defended by seven Highland ladies, who talked at the top of their

lungs, and screamed the company deaf with examples of Celtic

_euphonia_. Flora, observing the Lowland ladies sneer at the

comparison, produced some reasons to show that it was not altogether so

absurd; but Rose, when asked for her opinion, gave it with animation in

praise of Italian, which she had studied with Waverley’s assistance.

“She has a more correct ear than Flora, though a less accomplished

musician,” said Waverley to himself. “I suppose Miss Mac-Ivor will next

compare Mac-Murrough nan Fonn to Ariosto!”

Lastly, it so befell that the company differed whether Fergus should be

asked to perform on the flute, at which he was an adept, or Waverley

invited to read a play of Shakspeare; and the lady of the house

good-humouredly undertook to collect the votes of the company for

poetry or music, under the condition that the gentleman whose talents

were not laid under contribution that evening should contribute them to

enliven the next. It chanced that Rose had the casting vote. Now Flora,

who seemed to impose it as a rule upon herself never to countenance any

proposal which might seem to encourage Waverley, had voted for music,

providing the Baron would take his violin to accompany Fergus. “I wish

you joy of your taste, Miss Mac-Ivor,” thought Edward, as they sought

for his book. “I thought it better when we were at Glennaquoich; but

certainly the Baron is no great performer, and Shakspeare is worth

listening to.”

“Romeo and Juliet” was selected, and Edward read with taste, feeling,

and spirit several scenes from that play. All the company applauded

with their hands, and many with their tears. Flora, to whom the drama

was well known, was among the former; Rose, to whom it was altogether

new, belonged to the latter class of admirers. “She has more feeling

too,” said Waverley, internally.

The conversation turning upon the incidents of the play and upon the

characters, Fergus declared that the only one worth naming, as a man of

fashion and spirit, was Mercutio. “I could not,” he said, “quite follow

all his old-fashioned wit, but he must have been a very pretty fellow,

according to the ideas of his time.”

“And it was a shame,” said Ensign Maccombich, who usually followed his

Colonel everywhere, “for that Tibbert, or Taggart, or whatever was his

name, to stick him under the other gentleman’s arm while he was redding

the fray.”

The ladies, of course, declared loudly in favour of Romeo, but this

opinion did not go undisputed. The mistress of the house and several

other ladies severely reprobated the levity with which the hero

transfers his affections from Rosalind to Juliet. Flora remained silent

until her opinion was repeatedly requested, and then answered, she

thought the circumstance objected to not only reconcilable to nature,

but such as in the highest degree evinced the art of the poet. “Romeo

is described,” said she, “as a young man peculiarly susceptible of the

softer passions; his love is at first fixed upon a woman who could

afford it no return; this he repeatedly tells you,—

From love’s weak, childish bow she lives unharmed,

and again—

She hath forsworn to love.

Now, as it was impossible that Romeo’s love, supposing him a reasonable

being, could continue to subsist without hope, the poet has, with great

art, seized the moment when he was reduced actually to despair to throw

in his way an object more accomplished than her by whom he had been

rejected, and who is disposed to repay his attachment. I can scarce

conceive a situation more calculated to enhance the ardour of Romeo’s

affection for Juliet than his being at once raised by her from the

state of drooping melancholy in which he appears first upon the scene

to the ecstatic state in which he exclaims—

Come what sorrow can,

It cannot countervail the exchange of joy

That one short moment gives me in her sight.”

“Good now, Miss Mac-Ivor,” said a young lady of quality, “do you mean

to cheat us out of our prerogative? will you persuade us love cannot

subsist without hope, or that the lover must become fickle if the lady

is cruel? O fie! I did not expect such an unsentimental conclusion.”

“A lover, my dear Lady Betty,” said Flora, “may, I conceive, persevere

in his suit under very discouraging circumstances. Affection can (now

and then) withstand very severe storms of rigour, but not a long polar

frost of downright indifference. Don’t, even with _your_ attractions,

try the experiment upon any lover whose faith you value. Love will

subsist on wonderfully little hope, but not altogether without it.”

“It will be just like Duncan Mac-Girdie’s mare,” said Evan, “if your

ladyships please, he wanted to use her by degrees to live without meat,

and just as he had put her on a straw a day the poor thing died!”

Evan’s illustration set the company a-laughing, and the discourse took

a different turn. Shortly afterwards the party broke up, and Edward

returned home, musing on what Flora had said. “I will love my Rosalind

no more,” said he; “she has given me a broad enough hint for that; and

I will speak to her brother and resign my suit. But for a Juliet—would

it be handsome to interfere with Fergus’s pretensions?—though it is

impossible they can ever succeed; and should they miscarry, what then?

Why then _alors comme alors_.” And with this resolution of being guided

by circumstances did our hero commit himself to repose.