第 五十二 章 · INTRIGUES OF SOCIETY AND LOVE

. INTRIGUES OF SOCIETY AND LOVE

Colonel Talbot became more kindly in his demeanour towards Waverley

after the confidence he had reposed in him, and, as they were

necessarily much together, the character of the Colonel rose in

Waverley’s estimation. There seemed at first something harsh in his

strong expressions of dislike and censure, although no one was in the

general case more open to conviction. The habit of authority had also

given his manners some peremptory hardness, notwithstanding the polish

which they had received from his intimate acquaintance with the higher

circles. As a specimen of the military character, he differed from all

whom Waverley had as yet seen. The soldiership of the Baron of

Bradwardine was marked by pedantry; that of Major Melville by a sort of

martinet attention to the minutiæ and technicalities of discipline,

rather suitable to one who was to manœuvre a battalion than to him who

was to command an army; the military spirit of Fergus was so much

warped and blended with his plans and political views, that it was less

that of a soldier than of a petty sovereign. But Colonel Talbot was in

every point the English soldier. His whole soul was devoted to the

service of his king and country, without feeling any pride in knowing

the theory of his art with the Baron, or its practical minutiæ with

the Major, or in applying his science to his own particular plans of

ambition, like the Chieftain of Glennaquoich. Added to this, he was a

man of extended knowledge and cultivated taste, although strongly

tinged, as we have already observed, with those prejudices which are

peculiarly English.

The character of Colonel Talbot dawned upon Edward by degrees; for the

delay of the Highlanders in the fruitless siege of Edinburgh Castle

occupied several weeks, during which Waverley had little to do

excepting to seek such amusement as society afforded. He would

willingly have persuaded his new friend to become acquainted with some

of his former intimates. But the Colonel, after one or two visits,

shook his head, and declined farther experiment. Indeed he went

farther, and characterised the Baron as the most intolerable formal

pedant he had ever had the misfortune to meet with, and the Chief of

Glennaquoich as a Frenchified Scotchman, possessing all the cunning and

plausibility of the nation where he was educated, with the proud,

vindictive, and turbulent humour of that of his birth. “If the devil,”

he said, “had sought out an agent expressly for the purpose of

embroiling this miserable country, I do not think he could find a

better than such a fellow as this, whose temper seems equally active,

supple, and mischievous, and who is followed, and implicitly obeyed, by

a gang of such cut-throats as those whom you are pleased to admire so

much.”

The ladies of the party did not escape his censure. He allowed that

Flora Mac-Ivor was a fine woman, and Rose Bradwardine a pretty girl.

But he alleged that the former destroyed the effect of her beauty by an

affectation of the grand airs which she had probably seen practised in

the mock court of St. Germains. As for Rose Bradwardine, he said it was

impossible for any mortal to admire such a little uninformed thing,

whose small portion of education was as ill adapted to her sex or youth

as if she had appeared with one of her father’s old campaign-coats upon

her person for her sole garment. Now much of this was mere spleen and

prejudice in the excellent Colonel, with whom the white cockade on the

breast, the white rose in the hair, and the Mac at the beginning of a

name would have made a devil out of an angel; and indeed he himself

jocularly allowed that he could not have endured Venus herself if she

had been announced in a drawing-room by the name of Miss Mac-Jupiter.

Waverley, it may easily be believed, looked upon these young ladies

with very different eyes. During the period of the siege he paid them

almost daily visits, although he observed with regret that his suit

made as little progress in the affections of the former as the arms of

the Chevalier in subduing the fortress. She maintained with rigour the

rule she had laid down of treating him with indifference, without

either affecting to avoid him or to shun intercourse with him. Every

word, every look, was strictly regulated to accord with her system, and

neither the dejection of Waverley nor the anger which Fergus scarcely

suppressed could extend Flora’s attention to Edward beyond that which

the most ordinary politeness demanded. On the other hand, Rose

Bradwardine gradually rose in Waverley’s opinion. He had several

opportunities of remarking that, as her extreme timidity wore off, her

manners assumed a higher character; that the agitating circumstances of

the stormy time seemed to call forth a certain dignity of feeling and

expression which he had not formerly observed; and that she omitted no

opportunity within her reach to extend her knowledge and refine her

taste.

Flora Mac-Ivor called Rose her pupil, and was attentive to assist her

in her studies, and to fashion both her taste and understanding. It

might have been remarked by a very close observer that in the presence

of Waverley she was much more desirous to exhibit her friend’s

excellences than her own. But I must request of the reader to suppose

that this kind and disinterested purpose was concealed by the most

cautious delicacy, studiously shunning the most distant approach to

affectation. So that it was as unlike the usual exhibition of one

pretty woman affecting to _proner_ another as the friendship of David

and Jonathan might be to the intimacy of two Bond Street loungers. The

fact is that, though the effect was felt, the cause could hardly be

observed. Each of the ladies, like two excellent actresses, were

perfect in their parts, and performed them to the delight of the

audience; and such being the case, it was almost impossible to discover

that the elder constantly ceded to her friend that which was most

suitable to her talents.

But to Waverley, Rose Bradwardine possessed an attraction which few men

can resist, from the marked interest which she took in everything that

affected him. She was too young and too inexperienced to estimate the

full force of the constant attention which she paid to him. Her father

was too abstractedly immersed in learned and military discussions to

observe her partiality, and Flora Mac-Ivor did not alarm her by

remonstrance, because she saw in this line of conduct the most probable

chance of her friend securing at length a return of affection.

The truth is, that in her first conversation after their meeting Rose

had discovered the state of her mind to that acute and intelligent

friend, although she was not herself aware of it. From that time Flora

was not only determined upon the final rejection of Waverley’s

addresses, but became anxious that they should, if possible, be

transferred to her friend. Nor was she less interested in this plan,

though her brother had from time to time talked, as between jest and

earnest, of paying his suit to Miss Bradwardine. She knew that Fergus

had the true continental latitude of opinion respecting the institution

of marriage, and would not have given his hand to an angel unless for

the purpose of strengthening his alliances and increasing his influence

and wealth. The Baron’s whim of transferring his estate to the distant

heir-male, instead of his own daughter, was therefore likely to be an

insurmountable obstacle to his entertaining any serious thoughts of

Rose Bradwardine. Indeed, Fergus’s brain was a perpetual workshop of

scheme and intrigue, of every possible kind and description; while,

like many a mechanic of more ingenuity than steadiness, he would often

unexpectedly, and without any apparent motive, abandon one plan and go

earnestly to work upon another, which was either fresh from the forge

of his imagination or had at some former period been flung aside half

finished. It was therefore often difficult to guess what line of

conduct he might finally adopt upon any given occasion.

Although Flora was sincerely attached to her brother, whose high

energies might indeed have commanded her admiration even without the

ties which bound them together, she was by no means blind to his

faults, which she considered as dangerous to the hopes of any woman who

should found her ideas of a happy marriage in the peaceful enjoyment of

domestic society and the exchange of mutual and engrossing affection.

The real disposition of Waverley, on the other hand, notwithstanding

his dreams of tented fields and military honour, seemed exclusively

domestic. He asked and received no share in the busy scenes which were

constantly going on around him, and was rather annoyed than interested

by the discussion of contending claims, rights, and interests which

often passed in his presence. All this pointed him out as the person

formed to make happy a spirit like that of Rose, which corresponded

with his own.

She remarked this point in Waverley’s character one day while she sat

with Miss Bradwardine. “His genius and elegant taste,” answered Rose,

“cannot be interested in such trifling discussions. What is it to him,

for example, whether the Chief of the Macindallaghers, who has brought

out only fifty men, should be a colonel or a captain? and how could Mr.

Waverley be supposed to interest himself in the violent altercation

between your brother and young Corrinaschian whether the post of honour

is due to the eldest cadet of a clan or the youngest?”

“My dear Rose, if he were the hero you suppose him he would interest

himself in these matters, not indeed as important in themselves, but

for the purpose of mediating between the ardent spirits who actually do

make them the subject of discord. You saw when Corrinaschian raised his

voice in great passion, and laid his hand upon his sword, Waverley

lifted his head as if he had just awaked from a dream, and asked with

great composure what the matter was.”

“Well, and did not the laughter they fell into at his absence of mind

serve better to break off the dispute than anything he could have said

to them?”

“True, my dear,” answered Flora; “but not quite so creditably for

Waverley as if he had brought them to their senses by force of reason.”

“Would you have him peacemaker general between all the gunpowder

Highlanders in the army? I beg your pardon, Flora, your brother, you

know, is out of the question; he has more sense than half of them. But

can you think the fierce, hot, furious spirits of whose brawls we see

much and hear more, and who terrify me out of my life every day in the

world, are at all to be compared to Waverley?”

“I do not compare him with those uneducated men, my dear Rose. I only

lament that, with his talents and genius, he does not assume that place

in society for which they eminently fit him, and that he does not lend

their full impulse to the noble cause in which he has enlisted. Are

there not Lochiel, and P—, and M—, and G—, all men of the highest

education as well as the first talents,—why will he not stoop like them

to be alive and useful? I often believe his zeal is frozen by that

proud cold-blooded Englishman whom he now lives with so much.”

“Colonel Talbot? He is a very disagreeable person, to be sure. He looks

as if he thought no Scottish woman worth the trouble of handing her a

cup of tea. But Waverley is so gentle, so well informed—”

“Yes,” said Flora, smiling, “he can admire the moon and quote a stanza

from Tasso.”

“Besides, you know how he fought,” added Miss Bradwardine.

“For mere fighting,” answered Flora, “I believe all men (that is, who

deserve the name) are pretty much alike; there is generally more

courage required to run away. They have besides, when confronted with

each other, a certain instinct for strife, as we see in other male

animals, such as dogs, bulls, and so forth. But high and perilous

enterprise is not Waverley’s forte. He would never have been his

celebrated ancestor Sir Nigel, but only Sir Nigel’s eulogist and poet.

I will tell you where he will be at home, my dear, and in his place—in

the quiet circle of domestic happiness, lettered indolence, and elegant

enjoyments of Waverley-Honour. And he will refit the old library in the

most exquisite Gothic taste, and garnish its shelves with the rarest

and most valuable volumes; and he will draw plans and landscapes, and

write verses, and rear temples, and dig grottoes; and he will stand in

a clear summer night in the colonnade before the hall, and gaze on the

deer as they stray in the moonlight, or lie shadowed by the boughs of

the huge old fantastic oaks; and he will repeat verses to his beautiful

wife, who will hang upon his arm;—and he will be a happy man.”

And she will be a happy woman, thought poor Rose. But she only sighed

and dropped the conversation.