Mrs. Beaumont's quick exit was at this moment necessary to conceal her dismay. Instead of going to Amelia, she hurried to her own room, locked the door, and sat down to compose her feelings and to collect her thoughts; but scarcely had she been two minutes in her apartment, when a messenger came to summon her to the festive scene in the park. The tenants and villagers were all at dinner, and Mr. Beaumont sent to let her know that they were waiting to drink her health. She was obliged to go, and to appear all radiant with pleasure. The contrast between their honest mirth and her secret sufferings was great. She escaped as soon as she could from their _senseless_ joy, and again shut herself up in her own room.

This sudden and totally unexpected resolution of Mr. Palmer's so astonished her, that she could scarcely believe she had heard or understood his words rightly. Artful persons may, perhaps, calculate with expertness and accuracy what will, in any given case, be the determinations of the selfish and the interested; but they are liable to frequent mistakes in judging of the open-hearted and the generous: there is no sympathy to guide them, and all their habits tend to mislead them in forming opinions of the direct and sincere. It had never entered into Mrs. Beaumont's imagination that Mr. Palmer would, notwithstanding his belief that he hazarded his life by so doing, defer a whole year returning to Jamaica, merely to secure the happiness of her son and daughter. She plainly saw that he now suspected her dislike to the Walsinghams, and her aversion to the double union with that family: she saw that the slightest circ.u.mstance in her conduct, which confirmed his suspicions, would not only utterly ruin her in his opinion, but might induce him to alter that part of his will which left her sole possessor of his fortune during her life. Bad as her affairs were at this moment, she knew that they might still be worse. She recollected the letter of _perfect approbation_ which Sir John Hunter had in his power. She foresaw that he would produce this letter on the first rumour of her favouring another lover for Amelia. She had just declared to Mr. Palmer, that she never seriously thought of Sir John Hunter for her daughter; and, should this letter be brought to light, she must be irremediably convicted of the basest duplicity, and there would be no escape from the shame of falsehood, or rather the disgrace of detection. In this grand difficulty, Mrs. Beaumont was too good a politician to waste time upon any inferior considerations. Instead of allowing herself leisure to reflect that all her present difficulties arose from her habits of insincerity, she, with the true spirit of intrigue, attributed her disappointments to some deficiency of artifice. "Oh!" said she to herself, "why did I _write?_ I should only have _spoken_ to Sir John.

How could I be so imprudent as to _commit_ myself by writing? But what can be done to repair this error?"

One web destroyed, she, with indefatigable subtlety, began to weave another. With that prompt.i.tude of invention which practice alone can give, she devised a scheme, by which she hoped not only to prevent Sir John Hunter from producing the written proof of her duplicity, but by which she could also secure the reversionary t.i.tle, and the great Wigram estate. The nature of the scheme shall be unfolded in the next chapter; and it will doubtless procure for Mrs. Beaumont, from all proper judges, a just tribute of admiration. They will allow our heroine to be possessed not only of that address, which is the peculiar glory of female politicians, but also of that masculine quality, which the greatest, wisest, of mankind has p.r.o.nounced to be the first, second, and third requisite for business--"Boldness--boldness--boldness."

CHAPTER XIII.

"The creature's at her dirty work again."--POPE.

Amongst the infinite petty points of cunning of which that great practical philosopher Bacon has in vain essayed to make out a list, he notes that, "Because it worketh better when any thing seemeth to be gotten from you by question than if you offer it of yourself: you may lay a bait for a question, by showing another visage and countenance than you are wont, to the end to give occasion to the party to ask what the matter is of the change."

"What is the matter, my dearest Mrs. Beaumont? I never saw you look so sad before in all my life," said Miss Hunter, meeting Mrs. Beaumont, who had walked out into the park on purpose to be so met, and in hopes of having the melancholy of her countenance thus observed. It was the more striking, and the more unseasonable, from its contrast with the gay scene in the park. The sound of music was heard, and the dancing had begun, and all was rural festivity: "What is the matter, my dearest Mrs.

Beaumont?" repeated Miss Hunter; "at such a time as this to see you look so melancholy!"

"Ah! my love! such a sad change in affairs! But," whispered Mrs.

Beaumont, "I cannot explain myself before your companion."

Mr. Lightbody was walking with Miss Hunter: but he was so complaisant, that he was easily despatched on some convenient errand; and then Mrs.

Beaumont, with all her wonted delicacy of circ.u.mlocution, began to communicate her distress to her young friend.

"You know, my beloved Albina," said she, "it has been my most ardent wish that your brother should be connected with my family by the nearest and dearest ties."

"Yes; that is, married to Amelia," said Miss Hunter. "And has any thing happened to prevent it?"

"Oh, my dear! it is all over! It cannot be--must not be thought of--must not be spoken of any more; Mr. Palmer has been outrageous about it. Such a scene as I have had! and all to no purpose. Amelia has won him over to her party. Only conceive what I felt--she declared, beyond redemption, her preference of Captain Walsingham."

"Before the captain proposed for her! How odd! dear! Suppose he should never propose for her, what a way she will be in after affronting my brother and all! And only think! she gives up the t.i.tle, and the great Wigram estate, and every thing. Why, my brother says, uncle Wigram can't live three months; and Lord Puckeridge's t.i.tle, too, will come to my brother, you know; and Amelia might have been Lady Puckeridge. Only think! did you ever know any thing so foolish?"

"Never!" said Mrs. Beaumont; "but you know, my dear, so few girls have the sense you show in taking advice: they all will judge for themselves.

But I'm most hurt by Amelia's want of grat.i.tude and delicacy towards _me_," continued Mrs. Beaumont; "only conceive the difficulty and distress in which she has left me about your poor brother. Such a shock as the disappointment will be to him! And he may--though Heaven knows how little I deserve it--he may suspect--for men, when they are vexed and angry, will, you know, suspect even their best friends; he might, I say, suspect me of not being warm in his cause."

"Dear, no! I have always told him how kind you were, and how much you wished the thing; and of all people in the world he can't blame you, dearest Mrs. Beaumont."

At this instant Mrs. Beaumont saw a glimpse of somebody in a bye-path of the shrubbery near them. "Hush! Take care! Who is that lurking there?

Some listener! Who can it be?"

Miss Hunter applied her gla.s.s to her eye, but could not make out who it was.

"It is Lightbody, I declare," said Mrs. Beaumont. "Softly,--let us not pretend to see him, and watch what he will do. It is of the greatest consequence to me to know whether he is a listener or not; so much as he is about the house."

An irresistible fit of giggling, which seized Miss Hunter at the odd way in which Lightbody walked, prevented Mrs. Beaumont's trial of his curiosity. At the noise which the young lady made, Mr. Lightbody turned his head, and immediately advancing, with his accustomed mixture of effrontery and servility, said, that "he had executed Mrs. Beaumont's commands, and that he had returned in hopes of getting a moment to say a word to her when she was at leisure, about something he had just learned from Mr. Palmer's man Crichton, which it was of consequence she should know without delay."

"Oh, thank you, you best of creatures; but I know all that already."

"You know that Mr. Palmer does not go to-morrow?"

"Yes; and am so rejoiced at it! Do, my dear Lightbody, go to Amelia and my son from me, and tell them that charming news. And after that, pray have the compa.s.sion to inquire if the post is not come in yet, and run over the papers, to see if you can find any thing about Walsingham's prize."

Mr. Lightbody obeyed, but not with his usual alacrity. Mrs. Beaumont mused for a moment, and then said, "I do believe he was listening. What could he be doing there?"

"Doing!--Oh, nothing," said Miss Hunter: "he's never doing any thing, you know; and as to listening, he was so far off he could not hear a word we said: besides, he is such a simple creature, and loves you so!"

"I don't know," said Mrs. Beaumont; "he either did not play me fair, or else he did a job I employed him in this morning so awkwardly, that I never wish to employ him again. He is but a _low_ kind of person, after all; I'll get rid of him: that sort of people always grow tiresome and troublesome after a time, and one must shake them off. But I have not leisure to think of him now--Well, my dear, to go on with what I was saying to you."

Mrs. Beaumont went on talking of her friendship for Sir John Hunter, and of the difficulty of appeasing him; but observing that Miss Hunter listened only with forced attention, she paused to consider what this could mean. Habitually suspicious, like all insincere people, Mrs.

Beaumont now began to imagine that there was some plot carrying on against her by Sir John Hunter and Lightbody, and that Miss Hunter was made use of against her. Having a most contemptible opinion of her Albina's understanding, and knowing that her young friend had too little capacity to be able to deceive her, or to invent a plausible excuse impromptu, Mrs. Beaumont turned quick, and exclaimed, "My dear, what could Lightbody be saying to you when I came up?--for I remember he stopped short, and you both looked so guilty."

"Guilty! did I?--Did he?--Dearest Mrs. Beaumont, don't look at me so with your piercing eyes!--Oh! I vow and protest I can't tell you; I won't tell you."

The young lady t.i.ttered, and twisted herself into various affected att.i.tudes; then kissing Mrs. Beaumont, and then turning her back with childish playfulness, she cried, "No, I won't tell you; never, never, never!"

"Come, come, my dear, don't trifle; I have really business to do, and am in a hurry."

"Well, don't look at me--never look at me again--promise me that, and I'll tell you. Poor Lightbody--Oh, you're looking at me!--Poor Lightbody was talking to me of _somebody_, and he laid me a wager--but I can't tell you that--Ah, don't be angry with me, and I will tell, if you'll turn your head quite away!--that I should be married to _somebody_ before the end of this year. Oh, now, don't look at me, dearest, dearest Mrs. Beaumont."

"You dear little simpleton, and was that all?" said Mrs. Beaumont, vexed to have wasted her time upon such folly: "come, be serious now, my dear; if you knew the anxiety I am in at this moment--" But wisely judging that it would be in vain to hope for any portion of the love-sick damsel's attention, until she had confirmed her hopes of being married to _somebody_ before the end of the year, Mrs. Beaumont scrupled not to throw out a.s.surances, in which she had herself no further faith.

After what she had heard from her son this morning, she must have been convinced that there was no chance of marrying him to Miss Hunter; she knew indeed positively, that he would soon declare his real attachment, but she could, she thought, during the interval retain her power over Miss Hunter, and secure her services, by concealing the truth.

"Before I say one word more of my own affairs, let me, my dearest child, a.s.sure you, that in the midst of all these disappointments and mortifications about Amelia, I am supported by the hope--by something more than the hope--that I shall see the daughter of my heart happily settled soon: Lightbody does not want penetration, I see. But I am not at liberty to say more. So now, my dear, help me with all your cleverness to consider what I shall do in the difficulties I am in at this moment. Your brother has a letter of mine, approving, and so forth, his addresses to my daughter; now, if he, in the first rashness of his anger, should produce this to Palmer, I'm undone--or to my son, worse and worse! there would be a duel between them infallibly, for Beaumont is so warm on any point of honour--Oh, I dread to think of it, my dear!"

"So do I, I'm sure; but, Lord, I'm the worst person to think in a hurry--But can't you write a letter? for you always know what to say so well--And after all, do you know, I don't think he'll be half so angry or _so disappointed_ as you fancy, for I never thought he was so much in love with Amelia."

"Indeed!"

"I know, if it was not a secret, I could tell you--"

"What? No secrets between us, my darling child."

"Then I can tell you, that just before he proposed for Amelia, he was consulting with me about proposing for Mrs. Dutton."

"Mrs. Dutton, the widow! Mrs. Dutton! How you astonish me!" said Mrs.

Beaumont (though she knew this before). "Why she is older than I am."

"Older! yes, a great deal; but then you know my brother is no chicken himself."

"To be sure, compared with you, my dear, he is not young. There's a prodigious difference between you."

"Above twenty years; _for,_ you know, he's by another marriage."

"True; but I can't believe he proposed for Mrs. Dutton."

"Not actually proposed, because I would not let him; for I should have hated to have had such an unfashionable-looking woman for my sister-in-law. I never could have borne to go into public with her, you know: so I plagued my brother out of it; and luckily he found out that her jointure is not half so great as it was said to be."

"I could have told him that. Mrs. Dutton's jointure is nothing nearly so large as mine was, even before the addition to it which my son so handsomely, and indeed unexpectedly, made to it this morning. And did I tell you, my dear? Mr. Palmer, this day, has been so kind as to leave me all his immense fortune for my own life. But don't mention it, lest it should get round, and make ill-will: the Walsinghams know nothing of it.