CHAPTER LII
INTRIGUES OF SOCIETY AND LOVE
Colonel Talbot became more kindly in his demeanour towards Waverleyafter the confidence he had reposed in him, and, as they werenecessarily much together, the character of the Colonel rose inWaverley's estimation. There seemed at first something harsh in hisstrong expressions of dislike and censure, although no one was in thegeneral case more open to conviction. The habit of authority had alsogiven his manners some peremptory hardness, notwithstanding the polishwhich they had received from his intimate acquaintance with the highercircles. As a specimen of the military character, he differed from allwhom Waverley had as yet seen. The soldiership of the Baron ofBradwardine was marked by pedantry; that of Major Melville by a sort ofmartinet attention to the minutiae and technicalities of discipline,rather suitable to one who was to manoeuvre a battalion than to him whowas to command an army; the military spirit of Fergus was so muchwarped and blended with his plans and political views, that it was lessthat of a soldier than of a petty sovereign. But Colonel Talbot was inevery point the English soldier. His whole soul was devoted to theservice of his king and country, without feeling any pride in knowingthe theory of his art with the Baron, or its practical minutiae withthe Major, or in applying his science to his own particular plans ofambition, like the Chieftain of Glennaquoich. Added to this, he was aman of extended knowledge and cultivated taste, although stronglytinged, as we have already observed, with those prejudices which arepeculiarly English.
The character of Colonel Talbot dawned upon Edward by degrees; for thedelay of the Highlanders in the fruitless siege of Edinburgh Castleoccupied several weeks, during which Waverley had little to doexcepting to seek such amusement as society afforded. He wouldwillingly have persuaded his new friend to become acquainted with someof his former intimates. But the Colonel, after one or two visits,shook his head, and declined farther experiment. Indeed he wentfarther, and characterised the Baron as the most intolerable formalpedant he had ever had the misfortune to meet with, and the Chief ofGlennaquoich as a Frenchified Scotchman, possessing all the cunning andplausibility 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 ofembroiling this miserable country, I do not think he could find abetter than such a fellow as this, whose temper seems equally active,supple, and mischievous, and who is followed, and implicitly obeyed, bya gang of such cut-throats as those whom you are pleased to admire somuch.'
The ladies of the party did not escape his censure. He allowed thatFlora 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 anaffectation of the grand airs which she had probably seen practised inthe mock court of St. Germains. As for Rose Bradwardine, he said it wasimpossible for any mortal to admire such a little uninformed thing,whose small portion of education was as ill adapted to her sex or youthas if she had appeared with one of her father's old campaign-coats uponher person for her sole garment. Now much of this was mere spleen andprejudice in the excellent Colonel, with whom the white cockade on thebreast, the white rose in the hair, and the Mac at the beginning of aname would have made a devil out of an angel; and indeed he himselfjocularly allowed that he could not have endured Venus herself if shehad been announced in a drawing-room by the name of Miss Mac-Jupiter.
Waverley, it may easily be believed, looked upon these young ladieswith very different eyes. During the period of the siege he paid themalmost daily visits, although he observed with regret that his suitmade as little progress in the affections of the former as the arms ofthe Chevalier in subduing the fortress. She maintained with rigour therule she had laid down of treating him with indifference, withouteither affecting to avoid him or to shun intercourse with him. Everyword, every look, was strictly regulated to accord with her system, andneither the dejection of Waverley nor the anger which Fergus scarcelysuppressed could extend Flora's attention to Edward beyond that whichthe most ordinary politeness demanded. On the other hand, RoseBradwardine gradually rose in Waverley's opinion. He had severalopportunities of remarking that, as her extreme timidity wore off, hermanners assumed a higher character; that the agitating circumstances ofthe stormy time seemed to call forth a certain dignity of feeling andexpression which he had not formerly observed; and that she omitted noopportunity within her reach to extend her knowledge and refine hertaste.
Flora Mac-Ivor called Rose her pupil, and was attentive to assist herin her studies, and to fashion both her taste and understanding. Itmight have been remarked by a very close observer that in the presenceof Waverley she was much more desirous to exhibit her friend'sexcellences than her own. But I must request of the reader to supposethat this kind and disinterested purpose was concealed by the mostcautious delicacy, studiously shunning the most distant approach toaffectation. So that it was as unlike the usual exhibition of onepretty woman affecting to proner another as the friendship of David andJonathan might be to the intimacy of two Bond Street loungers. The factis that, though the effect was felt, the cause could hardly beobserved. Each of the ladies, like two excellent actresses, wereperfect in their parts, and performed them to the delight of theaudience; and such being the case, it was almost impossible to discoverthat the elder constantly ceded to her friend that which was mostsuitable to her talents.
But to Waverley Rose Bradwardine possessed an attraction which few mencan resist, from the marked interest which she took in everything thataffected him. She was too young and too inexperienced to estimate thefull force of the constant attention which she paid to him. Her fatherwas too abstractedly immersed in learned and military discussions toobserve her partiality, and Flora Mac-Ivor did not alarm her byremonstrance, because she saw in this line of conduct the most probablechance of her friend securing at length a return of affection.
The truth is, that in her first conversation after their meeting Rosehad discovered the state of her mind to that acute and intelligentfriend, although she was not herself aware of it. From that time Florawas not only determined upon the final rejection of Waverley'saddresses, but became anxious that they should, if possible, betransferred to her friend. Nor was she less interested in this plan,though her brother had from time to time talked, as between jest andearnest, of paying his suit to Miss Bradwardine. She knew that Fergushad the true continental latitude of opinion respecting the institutionof marriage, and would not have given his hand to an angel unless forthe purpose of strengthening his alliances and increasing his influenceand wealth. The Baron's whim of transferring his estate to the distantheir-male, instead of his own daughter, was therefore likely to be aninsurmountable obstacle to his entertaining any serious thoughts ofRose Bradwardine. Indeed, Fergus's brain was a perpetual workshop ofscheme and intrigue, of every possible kind and description; while,like many a mechanic of more ingenuity than steadiness, he would oftenunexpectedly, and without any apparent motive, abandon one plan and goearnestly to work upon another, which was either fresh from the forgeof his imagination or had at some former period been flung aside halffinished. It was therefore often difficult to guess what line ofconduct he might finally adopt upon any given occasion.
Although Flora was sincerely attached to her brother, whose highenergies might indeed have commanded her admiration even without theties which bound them together, she was by no means blind to hisfaults, which she considered as dangerous to the hopes of any woman whoshould found her ideas of a happy marriage in the peaceful enjoyment ofdomestic society and the exchange of mutual and engrossing affection.The real disposition of Waverley, on the other hand, notwithstandinghis dreams of tented fields and military honour, seemed exclusivelydomestic. He asked and received no share in the busy scenes which wereconstantly going on around him, and was rather annoyed than interestedby the discussion of contending claims, rights, and interests whichoften passed in his presence. All this pointed him out as the personformed to make happy a spirit like th
at of Rose, which correspondedwith his own.
She remarked this point in Waverley's character one day while she satwith 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 broughtout only fifty men, should be a colonel or a captain? and how could Mr.Waverley be supposed to interest himself in the violent altercationbetween your brother and young Corrinaschian whether the post of honouris due to the eldest cadet of a clan or the youngest?'
'My dear Rose, if he were the hero you suppose him he would interesthimself in these matters, not indeed as important in themselves, butfor the purpose of mediating between the ardent spirits who actually domake them the subject of discord. You saw when Corrinaschian raised hisvoice in great passion, and laid his hand upon his sword, Waverleylifted his head as if he had just awaked from a dream, and asked withgreat composure what the matter was.'
'Well, and did not the laughter they fell into at his absence of mindserve better to break off the dispute than anything he could have saidto them?'
'True, my dear,' answered Flora; 'but not quite so creditably forWaverley as if he had brought them to their senses by force of reason.'
'Would you have him peacemaker general between all the gunpowderHighlanders in the army? I beg your pardon, Flora, your brother, youknow, is out of the question; he has more sense than half of them. Butcan you think the fierce, hot, furious spirits of whose brawls we seemuch and hear more, and who terrify me out of my life every day in theworld, are at all to be compared to Waverley?'
'I do not compare him with those uneducated men, my dear Rose. I onlylament that, with his talents and genius, he does not assume that placein society for which they eminently fit him, and that he does not lendtheir full impulse to the noble cause in which he has enlisted. Arethere not Lochiel, and P--, and M--, and G--, all men of the highesteducation as well as the first talents,--why will he not stoop likethem to be alive and useful? I often believe his zeal is frozen by thatproud cold-blooded Englishman whom he now lives with so much.'
'Colonel Talbot? he is a very disagreeable person, to be sure. He looksas if he thought no Scottish woman worth the trouble of handing her acup of tea. But Waverley is so gentle, so well informed--'
'Yes,' said Flora, smiling, 'he can admire the moon and quote a stanzafrom Tasso.'
'Besides, you know how he fought,' added Miss Bradwardine.
'For mere fighting,' answered Flora,' I believe all men (that is, whodeserve the name) are pretty much alike; there is generally morecourage required to run away. They have besides, when confronted witheach other, a certain instinct for strife, as we see in other maleanimals, such as dogs, bulls, and so forth. But high and perilousenterprise is not Waverley's forte. He would never have been hiscelebrated 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--inthe quiet circle of domestic happiness, lettered indolence, and elegantenjoyments of Waverley-Honour. And he will refit the old library in themost exquisite Gothic taste, and garnish its shelves with the rarestand most valuable volumes; and he will draw plans and landscapes, andwrite verses, and rear temples, and dig grottoes; and he will stand ina clear summer night in the colonnade before the hall, and gaze on thedeer as they stray in the moonlight, or lie shadowed by the boughs ofthe huge old fantastic oaks; and he will repeat verses to his beautifulwife, 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 sighedand dropped the conversation.