Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer — Complete by Walter Scott (good books to read in english .TXT) 📗

powers of tuition. But she had grown up under his eye, and had been gradually emancipated from his government by increase in years and knowledge, and a latent sense of his own inferior tact in manners, whereas his first ideas went to take up Harry pretty nearly where he had left him. From the same feelings of reviving authority he indulged himself in what was to him a profusion of language; and as people seldom speak more than usual without exposing themselves, he gave those whom he addressed plainly to understand that, while he deferred implicitly to the opinions and commands, if they chose to impose them, of almost every one whom he met with, it was under an internal conviction that in the article of eru-di-ti-on, as he usually pronounced the word, he was infinitely superior to them all put together. At present, however, this intimation fell upon heedless ears, for the brother and sister were too deeply engaged in asking and receiving intelligence concerning their former fortunes to attend much to the worthy Dominie. When Colonel Mannering left Bertram he went to Julia’s dressing-room and dismissed her attendant. ‘My dear sir,’ she said as he entered, ‘you have forgot our vigils last night, and have hardly allowed me time to comb my hair, although you must be sensible how it stood on end at the various wonders which took place.’

‘It is with the inside of your head that I have some business at present, Julia; I will return the outside to the care of your Mrs. Mincing in a few minutes.’

‘Lord, papa,’ replied Miss Mannering, ‘think how entangled all my ideas are, and you to propose to comb them out in a few minutes! If Mincing were to do so in her department she would tear half the hair out of my head.’

‘Well then, tell me,’ said the Colonel, ‘where the entanglement lies, which I will try to extricate with due gentleness?’

‘O, everywhere,’ said the young lady; ‘the whole is a wild dream.’

‘Well then, I will try to unriddle it.’ He gave a brief sketch of the fate and prospects of Bertram, to which Julia listened with an interest which she in vain endeavoured to disguise. ‘Well,’ concluded her father, ‘are your ideas on the subject more luminous?’

‘More confused than ever, my dear sir,’ said Julia. ‘Here is this young man come from India, after he had been supposed dead, like Aboulfouaris the great voyager to his sister Canzade and his provident brother Hour. I am wrong in the story, I believe--Canzade was his wife; but Lucy may represent the one and the Dominie the other. And then this lively crack-brained Scotch lawyer appears like a pantomime at the end of a tragedy. And then how delightful it will be if Lucy gets back her fortune.’

‘Now I think,’ said the Colonel, ‘that the most mysterious part of the business is, that Miss Julia Mannering, who must have known her father’s anxiety about the fate of this young man Brown, or Bertram, as we must now call him, should have met him when Hazlewood’s accident took place, and never once mentioned to her father a word of the matter, but suffered the search to proceed against this young gentleman as a suspicious character and assassin.’

Julia, much of whose courage had been hastily assumed to meet the interview with her father, was now unable to rally herself; she hung down her head in silence, after in vain attempting to utter a denial that she recollected Brown when she met him.

‘No answer! Well, Julia,’ continued her father, gravely but kindly, ‘allow me to ask you, Is this the only time you have seen Brown since his return from India? Still no answer. I must then naturally suppose that it is not the first time. Still no reply. Julia Mannering, will you have the kindness to answer me? Was it this young man who came under your window and conversed with you during your residence at Mervyn Hall? Julia, I command--I entreat you to be candid.’

Miss Mannering raised her head. ‘I have been, sir--I believe I am still--very foolish; and it is perhaps more hard upon me that I must meet this gentleman, who has been, though not the cause entirely, yet the accomplice, of my folly, in your presence.’ Here she made a full stop.

‘I am to understand, then,’ said Mannering, ‘that this was the author of the serenade at Mervyn Hall?’

There was something in this allusive change of epithet that gave Julia a little more courage. ‘He was indeed, sir; and if I am very wrong, as I have often thought, I have some apology.’

‘And what is that?’ answered the Colonel, speaking quick, and with something of harshness.

‘I will not venture to name it, sir; but (she opened a small cabinet, and put some letters into his hands) I will give you these, that you may see how this intimacy began, and by whom it was encouraged.’

Mannering took the packet to the window--his pride forbade a more distant retreat. He glanced at some passages of the letters with an unsteady eye and an agitated mind; his stoicism, however, came in time to his aid--that philosophy which, rooted in pride, yet frequently bears the fruits of virtue. He returned towards his daughter with as firm an air as his feelings permitted him to assume.

‘There is great apology for you, Julia, as far as I can judge from a glance at these letters; you have obeyed at least one parent. Let us adopt a Scotch proverb the Dominie quoted the other day--“Let bygones be bygones, and fair play for the future.” I will never upbraid you with your past want of confidence; do you judge of my future intentions by my actions, of which hitherto you have surely had no reason to complain. Keep these letters; they were never intended for my eye, and I would not willingly read more of them than I have done, at your desire and for your exculpation. And now, are we friends? Or rather, do you understand me?’

‘O, my dear, generous father,’ said Julia, throwing herself into his arms, ‘why have I ever for an instant misunderstood you?’

‘No more of that, Julia,’ said the Colonel; ‘we have both been to blame. He that is too proud to vindicate the affection and confidence which he conceives should be given without solicitation, must meet much, and perhaps deserved, disappointment. It is enough that one dearest and most regretted member of my family has gone to the grave without knowing me; let me not lose the confidence of a child who ought to love me if she really loves herself.’

‘O, no danger, no fear!’ answered Julia; ‘let me but have your approbation and my own, and there is no rule you can prescribe so severe that I will not follow.’

‘Well, my love,’ kissing her forehead, ‘I trust we shall not call upon you for anything too heroic. With respect to this young gentleman’s addresses, I expect in the first place that all clandestine correspondence, which no young woman can entertain for a moment without lessening herself in her own eyes and in those of her lover--I request, I say, that clandestine correspondence of every kind may be given up, and that you will refer Mr. Bertram to me for the reason. You will naturally wish to know what is to be the issue of such a reference. In the first place, I desire to observe this young gentleman’s character more closely than circumstances, and perhaps my own prejudices, have permitted formerly. I should also be glad to see his birth established. Not that