The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray (top books to read txt) 📕

“A dance, and given for us!” cries Theo. “Oh, Harry, how delightful! I wish we could begin this very minute!”

“Why, for a savage Virginian, I declare, Harry Warrington, thou art the most civilised young man possible!” says the Colonel. “My dear, shall we dance a minuet together?”

“We have done such a thing before, Martin Lambert!” says the soldier's fond wife. Her husband hums a minuet tune; whips a plate from the tea-table, and makes a preparatory bow and flourish with it as if it were a hat, whilst madam performs her best curtsey.

Only Hetty, of the party, persists in looking glum and displeased. “Why, child, have you not a word of thanks to throw to Mr. Warrington?” asks Theo of her sister.

“I never did care for dancing much,” says Hetty. “What is the use of standing up opposite a stupid man, and dancing down a room with him?”

“Merci du compliment!” says Mr. Warrington.

“I don't say that you are stupid—that is—that is, I—I only meant country dances,” says Hetty, biting her lips, as she caught her sister's eye. She remembered she had said Harry was stupid, and Theo's droll humorous glance was her only reminder.

But with this Miss Hetty chose to be as angry as if it had been quite a cruel rebuke. “I hate dancing—there—I own it,” she says, with a toss of her head.

“Nay, you used to like it well enough, child!!” interposes her mother.

“That was when she was a child: don't you see she is grown up to be an old woman?” remarks Hetty's father. “Or perhaps Miss Hester has got the gout?”

“Fiddle!” says Hester, snappishly, drubbing with her little feet.

“What's a dance without a fiddle?” says imperturbed papa.

Darkness has come over Harry Warrington's face. “I come to try my best, and give them pleasure and a dance,” he thinks, “and the little thing tells me she hates dancing. We don't practise kindness, or acknowledge hospitality so in our country. No—nor speak to our parents so, neither.” I am afraid, in this particular usages have changed in the United States during the last hundred years, and that the young folks there are considerably Hettified.

Not content with this, Miss Hester must proceed to make such fun of all the company at the Wells, and especially of Harry's own immediate pursuits and companions, that the honest lad was still further pained at her behaviour; and, when he saw Mrs. Lambert alone, asked how or in what he had again offended, that Hester was so angry with him? The kind matron felt more than ever well disposed towards the boy, after her daughter's conduct to him. She would have liked to tell the secret which Hester hid so fiercely. Theo, too, remonstrated with her sister in private; but Hester would not listen to the subject, and was as angry in her bedroom, when the girls were alone, as she had been in the parlour before her mother's company. “Suppose he hates me?” says she. “I expect he will. I hate myself, I do, and scorn myself for being such an idiot. How ought he to do otherwise than hate me? Didn't I abuse him, call him goose, all sorts of names? And know he is not clever all the time. I know I have better wits than he has. It is only because he is tall, and has blue eyes, and a pretty nose that I like him. What an absurd fool a girl must be to like a man merely because he has a blue nose and hooked eyes! So I am a fool, and I won't have you say a word to the contrary, Theo!”

Now Theo thought that her little sister, far from being a fool, was a wonder of wonders, and that if any girl was worthy of any prince in Christendom, Hetty was that spinster. “You are silly sometimes, Hetty,” says Theo, “that is when you speak unkindly to people who mean you well, as you did to Mr. Warrington at tea to-night. When he proposed to us his party at the Assembly Rooms, and nothing could be more gallant of him, why did you say you didn't care for music, or dancing, or tea? You know you love them all!”

“I said it merely to vex myself, Theo, and annoy myself, and whip myself, as I deserve, child. And, besides, how can you expect such an idiot as I am to say anything but idiotic things? Do you know, it quite pleased me to see him angry. I thought, ah! now I have hurt his feelings! Now he will say, Hetty Lambert is an odious little set-up, sour-tempered vixen. And that will teach him, and you, and mamma, and papa, at any rate, that I am not going to set my cap at Mr. Harry. No; our papa is ten times as good as he is. I will stay by our papa, and if he asked me to go to Virginia with him to-morrow, I wouldn't, Theo. My sister is worth all the Virginians that ever were made since the world began.”

And here, I suppose, follow osculations between the sisters, and mother's knock comes to the door, who has overheard their talk through the wainscot, and calls out, “Children, 'tis time to go to sleep.” Theo's eyes close speedily, and she is at rest; but ob, poor little Hetty! Think of the hours tolling one after another, and the child's eyes wide open, as she lies tossing and wakeful with the anguish of the new wound!

“It is a judgment upon me,” she says, “for having thought and spoke scornfully of him. Only, why should there be a judgment upon me? I was only in fun. I knew I liked him very much all the time: but I thought Theo liked him too, and I would give up anything for my darling Theo. If she had, no tortures should ever have drawn a word from me—I would have got a rope-ladder to help her to run away with Harry, that I would, or fetched the clergyman to marry them. And then I would have retired alone, and alone, and alone, and taken care of papa and mamma, and of the poor in the village, and have read sermons, though I hate 'em, and would have died without telling a word—not a word—and I shall die soon, I know I shall.” But when the dawn rises, the little maid is asleep, nestling by her sister, the stain of a tear or two upon her flushed downy cheek.

Most of us play with edged tools at some period of our lives, and cut ourselves accordingly. At first the cut hurts and stings, and down drops the knife, and we cry out like wounded little babies as we are. Some very very few and unlucky folks at the game cut their heads sheer off, or stab themselves mortally, and perish outright, and there is an end of them. But,—heaven help us!—many people have fingered those ardentes sagittas which Love sharpens on his whetstone, and are stabbed, scarred, pricked, perforated, tattooed all over with the wounds, who recovered, and live to be quite lively. Wir auch have tasted das irdische Glueck; we also have gelebt and—und so weiter. Warble your death-song, sweet Thekla! Perish off the face of the earth, poor pulmonary victim, if so minded! Had you survived to a later period of life, my dear, you would have thought of a sentimental disappointment without any reference to the undertaker. Let us trust there is no present need of a sexton for Miss Hetty. But meanwhile, the very instant she wakes, there, tearing at her little heart, will that Care be, which has given her a few hours' respite, melted, no doubt, by her youth and her tears.