Roland Cashel, Volume II (of II)

“And how am I to behave, mamma,” said Olivia, with more courage than before, “if I am neither to refuse nor accept Sir Harvey’s proposals?”

“Did you never flirt, Livy dearest? Doesn’t every partner with whom you dance twice of the same evening make advances that are neither repelled nor received? The silliest boarding-school miss that ever blushed before her Italian teacher knows how to treat such difficulties, if they deserve the name. But we are delaying too long. Mamma! to your post, while I, in the library, establish a strict blockade over papa.”

With these words Miss Kennyfeck waved her hand affectedly in adieu, and led her mother from the room; while Olivia, after a second’s pause, arose and arrayed more smoothly the silky tresses of her hair before the glass.

We have once already, in this veracious narrative, been ungallant enough to peep at this young lady, and coolly watch her strategy before the enemy. We will not repeat the offence, nor linger to mark how, as she walked the room, she stopped from time to time before the mirror to gaze on charms which expectancy had already heightened; in fact, we will quit the chamber with Mrs. Kennyfeck and her elder daughter, and as the choice is permitted which to follow, we select the latter.

“Here ‘s Miss Kennyfeck, by Jove!” cried Jennings, as she crossed the hall. “We have all been dying to see you; pray come here and give us your counsel.” And he led her into a small drawing-room, where, around a table covered with prints and colored drawings of costume, a considerable number of the guests were assembled.

“For mercy’s sake, nothing out of the Waverley novels!” said the blond lady. “I am wearied of seeing the Jewess Rebecca wherever I go.”

“Well, I’ll be Diana Vernon, I know that,” said Miss Meek; “you may all choose how you please.”

“But you can’t be, my love, if we have the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’” said Mrs. White.

“Why can’t I, if Charley takes Osbaldiston?” said she.

“Because they are not characters of the piece.”

“Nobody cares for character in a masquerade!” said Linton.

“Or if they have any, they put a mask over it,” said Lady Janet

“I vote that we are all Tyrolese peasanths,” lisped the fat and dumpy Mrs. Malone. “It’s a most picthuresque costhume.”

“What will you be, Sir Andrew?” cried another, as the old general passed the door in a dog-trot, with Flint behind him.

“By me saul! I thenk I’ll be the Wanderin’ Jew!” cried he, wiping the perspiration off his forehead.

“You hear that, Lady Janet?” said Linton, roguishly. “Sir Andrew intends to live forever.”

“So that I don’t, sir, I can’t complain,” said she, with a tartness quite electric.

“I incline to leave the choice of each free,” said Miss Kennyfeck, as she tossed over the drawings. “When you select a story, there are always a certain number of characters nobody likes to take.”

“I’ll be Henri Quatre,” said an infantry captain. “I wish you ‘d be Gabrielle, Miss Kennyfeck?”

“Thanks; but I ‘ve a fancy for that Cephalonian costume.”

“Egad! you can always pick up a ‘Greek’ or two, here, to keep you company,” said a hussar; but no one joined his laugh.

“I’ll be Don Belianis!” said a tall, melancholy subaltern.

“What were you at Bellingden’s last year, Fillymore?”

“I went as ‘Chiffney;’ but they turned me out. The whole was mediaeval, and they said I was all wrong.”

“Try that turban, my dear Miss Kennyfeck,” said Mrs. White, who, suspecting the young lady wore false ringlets, made a vigorous effort to expose the cheat.

“By Jove! how becoming!” exclaimed Jennings. “Now, put on the mantle, – not over the right shoulder, but so, – crossed a little.”

“You ought to have this scarf round your neck,” said another; “blue and gold have such an excellent effect.”

“I vote for your wearing that,” said the hussar, quite smitten with her beauty. “What do they call the dress?”

“Costume of Leopoldine of Eschingen, who defended the ‘Irongate’ against the Turks, in 1662.”

“Where was that?” asked one.

“In somebody’s avenue, I suppose,” lisped out the tall sub.

“No, no; it ‘s on some river or other. There’s a cataract they call the Irongate, – I forget where.”

“The Lethe, perhaps,” said Miss Kennyfeck, slyly.

“Is not that a pace! by Jove! Cashel ‘s in a hurry. This way,” said Jennings; and they all rushed to the window in time to see Roland flit past at a full gallop.

Miss Kennyfeck did not wait for more; but, throwing off the turban and mantle, hastened out to catch her father, who, at the same instant, was issuing from the library..

“Now, pa,” said she, slipping her arm within his, “how is it to be? Pray, now, don’t affect the mysterious, but say at once, – has he proposed?”

“Who? has who proposed?”

“Mr. Cashel, of course. How could I mean any other?”

“For you, my dear?” said he, for once venturing upon a bit of raillery.

“Pshaw, pa; for Olivia!”

“Nothing of the kind, my dear. Such a subject has never been alluded to between us.”

“Poor thing! she has been badly treated, then, that’s all! It would, however, have saved us all a world of misconception if you had only said so at first; you must own that.”

“But you forget, Miss Kennyfeck, that I never supposed you entertained this impression. Mr. Cashel’s conversation with me related exclusively to the affairs of his property.”

“Poor Livy!” said Miss Kennyfeck, letting go his arm and ascending the stairs. As Miss Kennyfeck drew near the door of the drawing room, she began to sing sufficiently loud to be heard by those within, and thus, judiciously heralding her approach, she opened the door and entered. Sir Harvey had been standing beside the chimney-piece with Olivia, but turned hastily round, his countenance exhibiting that state of mingled doubt, fear, and satisfaction, which vouched for the cleverness of the young lady’s tactics. Nothing, in truth, could have been more adroit than her management; performing a feat which among naval men is known as “backing and filling,” she succeeded in manoeuvring for nigh an hour, without ever advancing or retiring. We should be unwilling to deny our reader the value of a lesson, did we not feel how the fairer portion of our audience would weary over a recital, in every detail of which they could instruct our ignorance.

The late Lord Londonderry was famed for being able to occupy “the house” for any given time without ever communicating a fact, raising a question, solving a difficulty, or, what is harder than all, committing himself. But how humbly does this dexterity appear beside the young-lady-like tact that, opposed by all the importunity of a lover, can play the game in such wise that after fifty-odd minutes the “pieces” should stand upon the board precisely as they did at the beginning!

“How do you do, Sir Harvey? Why are you not on that committee of costume in the little drawing-room where the great question at issue is between the time of the crusades and the swell mob?”

“I have been far more agreeably occupied, in a manner that my feelings” – here Olivia looked disappointed, – “my heart, I mean,” said he – and the young lady looked dignified – “my feelings and my heart, too,” resumed be, horribly puzzled which tack to sail upon, “assure me must nearly concern my future happiness.”

“How pleasant!” said Cary, laughingly, as if she accepted the speech as some high-flown compliment; “you are so fortunate to know what to do on a dreary wet day like this.”

Olivia, whose eyes were bent upon her sister, changed color more than once. “The signal was flying,” “Stop firing,” just at the moment when the enemy had all but “struck;” in less figurative phrase, Miss Kennyfeck’s throat was encircled by the scarf which she had forgotten to lay aside on leaving the drawing-room.

The object was too remarkable to escape notice, and Olivia’s face grew scarlet as she thought of her triumph.