Chapter VII: A Proposal

It was the noon of the following day when Major Desmond ordered his mail phaeton, and drove to the mansion of the Collingwoods to avail himself of the 'permission' granted to him so fully by Sir Carnaby on the evening before.

The hour was somewhat early for a usual call; but as an _ami de la maison_, and considering the errand on which he was come, Desmond thought he might venture to take the liberty, and he felt a kind of pleasure in the belief that he would surprise his intended, for he came with the full resolution of sacrificing himself at last, and making a proposal to Clare, and feeling apparently as cool in the matter as if he were going to buy a horse at Tattersall's.

Miss Collingwood was at home and disengaged; Miss Violet and Mrs. Beverley were out driving; so all seemed to favour the object he had in view, and he was ushered into the drawing-room. His name was announced; but Clare, who was seated at a writing-table, with a somewhat abstracted air, did not hear it, as she was intently perusing a tiny note she had just written. She seemed agitated, too, for her eyes bore unmistakable traces of tears.

Agitation was so unusual with her, and indeed with anyone Desmond met in society, that he paused with some surprise, standing irresolutely near her, hat in hand; and as he watched the contour of her head with a gleam of sunshine in her braided hair, the curve of her shoulders, the pure beauty of her profile, the grace of the tender white neck encircled by its frill of tulle, and the quick movement of the lovely little hand, as she rapidly closed and addressed the note, he thought what a creditable-looking wife she would be to show the world--aye, even the world of London.

There seemed something of a sad expression on her usually serene face; but he knew not then that her heart was beating with a new joy--yea, that 'it throbbed like a bird's heart when it is wild with the first breath of spring.'

Suddenly his figure caught her eye.

'Major Desmond, pray pardon me; I did not hear you announced.'

'I fear, Miss Collingwood'--he could not at that moment trust himself to say 'Clare'--'that I intrude upon your privacy,' and the nearest approach to anger and surprise that the usually imperturbable and impassive Desmond could permit himself to manifest appeared in his face when he saw her, with a rapidity, and even with something of alarm, which she could not or cared not to conceal, thrust the recently addressed envelope into the Marguerite pouch--the same in which Trevor Chute had seen her place a note from Desmond on the coaching day; but that referred only to a bet of gloves and the coming Derby.

All this seemed terribly unwonted, and the deduction instantly drawn by the tall guardsman was that a note thus concealed was not intended for one of her own sex.

'You do not intrude,' said Clare, timidly, yet composedly. 'I am, as you see, quite alone--my sisters have gone to the Park.'

Desmond was too well bred to make any direct allusion either to Clare's emotion or the matter of the note, to which that emotion gave an importance it otherwise could not merit; but he was nevertheless anxious for some light on the episode.

'You dined with papa yesterday?' said Clare, after a pause.

'I had to deny myself that pleasure, being otherwise engaged; but he had an old _friend_ with him,' replied Desmond, tugging his moustache as he accentuated the word; 'and I have come here with his express permission,' he added; but instead of seating himself, he drew very near, and bent over her, with tenderness in his tone and manner.

'Express permission?' repeated Clare, lifting her clear, bright eyes composedly to his.

'Yes--to take you out for a ride; we may join Sir Carnaby and my sister, who----'

He paused, for this was _not_ what he came to say; but he felt an awkwardness in the situation, and the perfect coolness or apparent unconsciousness of Clare put him out, all the more so that now a smile stole over her face.

Vanity and admiration of her beauty had made him dangle so much about Clare, that he felt the time was come when 'something must be done.'

He had come to do that 'something'--to propose, in short; and now, with all his _insouciance_, he had a doubt that, if it did not give him pain, certainly piqued his pride; and he actually hoped that visitors might interrupt the _tête-à-tête_.

But he hoped in vain; the hour was too early for callers.

Clare's smile brightened; but there was an undeniable curl on her lovely lip.

He had just enough of lazy tenderness in his manner, with something in his tone and eye which seemed to indicate what he had in view, and yet seemed unmistakably to say: 'I can't act the lover, so why the deuce do I come here to talk nonsense?'

'My mail phaeton is at the door; shall I send for my horse and ring for yours?' he asked.

'Excuse me--I have a headache this morning.'

'So sorry; but, perhaps, you may be better amused at home.'

'How, Major?' asked Clare.

'With books, music, or--or correspondence.'

At the last word she _did_ colour, he saw, a very little.

'Ladies have a thousand ways of passing time that men don't possess,' he added, lapsing into his habitual bearing, which in his style of man some one describes as 'gentle and resigned weariness.'

It actually seemed too much trouble to make love when the matter became serious.

There was a pause, after which, for a change of subject, Clare asked about the horse he was to run in the Derby.

'Oh! Crusader is in capital form,' said he with animation, as this was a subject to be approached with ease. 'Though neither a large nor a powerful horse, he is "blood" all over, and there is no better animal in the stud book!'

'I know that he stands high in the betting.'

'How?'

'From the racing column in the _Times_.'

'Ah, you take an interest in my horse, then!'

'Of course,' replied Clare, smiling, thinking of her bets in gloves; 'a very deep interest.'

Encouraged by this trivial remark, he thought to himself, 'Hang it--here goes!' and while there occurred vaguely to his lazy mind recollections of all he had read of proposals, and seen of them on the stage, he took her hand in his, and said abruptly:

'Miss Collingwood--Clare--dearest Clare--will you be my wife? Will you marry me--love me--and all that, don't you know?'

Clare withdrew her hand, and slightly elevated her proud eyebrows, which were dark and straight rather than arched, while something of a dangerous and then of a droll sparkle came into her dreamy and beautiful eyes, for neither the tone nor the mode of the proposal proved pleasing to her, in her then mood of mind especially.

'Excuse me, Major Desmond,' said she, scarcely knowing how to frame her reply, 'you have done me an honour, which--which I must, however, decline.'

'Just now, perhaps; but--but in time, dearest Clare?'

'Your sister may call me that; but to you I am Miss Collingwood.'

'Shall I ever get beyond that?' he urged, in a soft tone.

'I do not know,' murmured Clare, doubtfully; for she knew what her father wished and expected of her; 'but as yet let us be friends as we have been, and not talk of marriage, I implore you.'

'Deuced odd!' thought the Major, who, perhaps, felt relieved in his mind.

Clare knew well the calm, half-passionless, and _insouciant_ world of the Major and his 'set,' her own 'set' too; she was not surprised; she had ere now expected some such declaration or proposal as this from Desmond; but certainly, with all his inanity, and perhaps stupidity, she expected it to be made in other terms, and with more ardour and earnestness; and at the moment he spoke her memory flashed back to the same moonlight night of which Trevor Chute had thought and remembered so vividly when he parted from her father but a few hours before.

While Desmond was considering what to say next, it chanced that Clare drew her handkerchief from the Marguerite pouch, and with it the note, which fell at the feet of her visitor. Ere she was aware, he had picked it up, and saw that it was addressed to _Trevor Chute_.

With a greater sense of irritation, pique, and even jealousy than he thought himself capable of feeling--certainly than ever he felt before--he presented it to her, saying blandly:

'You have dropped a note, Miss Collingwood--addressed to some one at the "Rag," I think.'

'Oh, thanks,' she replied in a voice with the slightest tinge of alarm and annoyance.

'Have you many correspondents there?' he ventured to ask, with the slightest approach to a sneer, as he placed his glass in his eye.

'Only one,' replied Clare, now thoroughly irritated. 'Captain Chute--Trevor Chute--perhaps you have heard of him.'

'Yes; does Sir Carnaby know of this correspondence?'

'No,' she replied, a little defiantly.

The Major began to feel himself, as he would have phrased it, 'nowhere,' and to wish that he had _not_ called that morning. There ensued a break in the conversation which was embarrassing to both, till Clare, who was the first to recover her equanimity, said with a smile, as she deemed some explanation due, if not to him, at least to herself:

'It is to Trevor--to Captain Chute--concerning poor Ida--not on any affair of mine, be assured; but,' she added, colouring a little, 'you will not mention this circumstance to--to papa?'

'You have my word, Miss Collingwood; and now good-morning.'

He left her with coldness of manner, but only a little; for whatever he thought, he deemed it bad style to discover the least emotion. But he felt that even in a small way, in virtue of his promised secrecy, he and Clare had a secret understanding. Why had she been so afraid that he should know of her correspondence with this fellow Chute, who he understood had been a discarded admirer of hers in her first season; and why keep her father in ignorance of it, when Chute was the old man's guest but yesterday?

It was, he thought, altogether one of those things 'no fellow can understand,' and drove off in his mail phaeton to visit Crusader in his loose box.

Clare remained full of thought after he had gone, and the note had been despatched to Trevor Chute; she felt none of the excitement a proposal might cause in another. She was, in fact, more annoyed than fluttered or flattered by it. Yet Clare felt a need for loving some one and being beloved in turn. It is a necessity in every female, perhaps every true human heart.

Clare had certainly many admirers, but she was always disposed to criticise them, and the woman who criticises a man rarely ends by loving him; so since that old time, to which we have already referred, she had gone through the world of gaiety heart-free; and though mingling much in society, she had somehow made a little world of her own--a species of independent existence, and even preferred the retirement of their country home, with a few pleasant visitors, of course, and weaving out schemes of benevolence to the tenantry, to the whirl of life in London, with its balls, drums, crushes, and at-homes, attending sometimes three in the same evening, as it was called, though the early morning was glittering on the silver harness as the carriage drove her home.

Though the proposal of Desmond had excited not the least emotion in the heart of Clare Collingwood, it caused some unpleasant and unwelcome thoughts to arise, and at such a time as this more than ever did she miss her mother, whose affection and counsel were never wanting. She had a dread of her father, and of his cold and cutting, yet withal courtly, way of addressing her, when in any way, however lightly, she displeased him, and now she feared intuitively that she would do so, or had done so, in a serious manner.

She knew how much he was under the influence of the Desmonds, and felt assured that something unpleasant would come out of that morning's episode; and apart from having such a husband as the Major, even with his great wealth and prospective title, too, Clare felt that she could not tolerate the close relationship of his sister, a _passé_ belle, horsey in nature and style, who had been engaged in intrigues and flirtations that were unnumbered, and more than once had made a narrow escape from being a source of downright scandal, for the Honourable Evelyn Desmond was fast--undeniably very fast indeed for an unmarried lady, and the queen of a fast set, too--yet it never reached the ears of Clare, though the rumour went current that she had dined at Richmond and elsewhere with Sir Carnaby Collingwood and some of the fastest men in the Brigade, and without any other chaperon than her brother. But then the baronet was more than old enough to be her father, with whom a late conversation now recurred to Clare's memory. While talking of Desmond, she had remarked:

'I am surprised, papa, that, with all her opportunities, his sister does not get married.'

'Why?' he asked, curtly.

'She has now been out for seven or eight seasons--even more, I think--and is getting quite _passé_!

'Yet she is much admired; besides, Clare, it is not her place to make proposals.'

'Of course not.'

'Nor is it every proposal she would accept, any more than yourself,' said the baronet, with a loftiness of manner.

'She seems to dazzle without touching men's hearts.'

'Indeed!'

'Papa, how sententious you have become! But really I don't think Evelyn will ever be married at all.'

'Time will show, Clare--time will show,' chuckled Sir Carnaby, showing all his brilliantly white Parisian teeth.

'It will not be her fault if she is _not_, papa,' said Violet, who had a special dislike to the lady in question. 'I wonder how long she has studied the language of the flowers in the conservatory with old Colonel Rakes' son?'

'Why?'

'And never got _him_ to propose, I mean, papa. Her eyes are handsome, yet they smiled exclusively, for the time, on young Rakes.'

'Violet!'

'One good flirtation, she told me, always led to another.'

'Surely that is not _her_ style,' said Sir Carnaby, with some asperity; 'and I have to request, Miss Violet, that you will not speak in this rough manner of any lady in the position of Miss Desmond.'

This and many similar conversations of the kind now recurred to Clare, and led her to dread her father's questions, and perhaps his lectures, on the subject, and she began to feel sadness and doubt.

From these thoughts she was roused by the entrance of a servant, who said:

'Miss Collingwood, a jeweller's man is here with the jewels from Bond Street for your inspection.'

'_The_ jewels! what jewels? I ordered none,' said Clare.

'He 'ave Sir Carnaby's card, miss,' replied the man, pulling his long whiskers, in imitation of Desmond and others.

The man entered with a mincing step, and bowed very low, announcing the name of the firm he represented, and unlocking a handsome walnut and brass-bound box, took out the morocco cases, and unclasping them, displayed, to the surprise of Clare, three magnificent suites of diamond ornaments, all set in gold and blue enamel, reposing on the whitest of velvet. In each suite were a tiara, pendant ear-rings, and a necklace, each and all worth several thousand pounds.

'Oh, such lovely jewels!' exclaimed Violet, who came in at the moment, and with a burst of girlish delight; 'these diamonds are fit for a prince or a maharajah! Clare! Clare! are they meant for you?'

'They are submitted for inspection and choice.'

'What can this mean? There is some mistake,' replied Clare, colouring with extreme annoyance. If they came by her father's order, they came as a bribe; if from Desmond, they could not be left for a moment! 'Did Sir Carnaby give his address?' she asked.

'No, miss; he simply ordered the three sets to be sent on approval, and I brought them here. This is Sir Carnaby's card.'

'They are all too large--much too large for me,' said Clare, hastily. 'Take them away, please, and I shall ask Sir Carnaby about them when he returns.'

The man bowed, returned the jewels to their cases, and was ushered out.

'Oh, papa, how kind of you!' exclaimed Violet, apostrophizing the absent. 'Are you sure, Clare, that these three lovely suites were not for us?'

'I am sure of--nothing, Violet: I don't know what to think,' replied Clare, wearily, and with an unmistakable air of annoyance. 'The Collingwood jewels are enough for us all, Violet.'