Ponsonby

“ Miss Ponsonby’s face rivalled the afterglow into which the gorgeous spectacle before them was beginning to melt like metals fused in a crucible; but, after an instant, she lifted her eyes and gazed with a remarkable intensity at Judge Barton. If her self-consciousness had originated in a prescience of his astonishment, it was not more painful than his own chagrin at having betrayed himself. He had certainly not expected her to marry Martin Collingwood. ”

“ There were moments, perhaps, when Major Ponsonby, who was not altogether inexperienced in the great world, might sigh, that one so eminently qualified as his daughter to shine even amid its splendour, should be destined to a career so obscure as that which necessarily attended the daughter of a Consul in a distant country. It sometimes cost the father’s heart a pang that his fair and fragrant flower should blush unseen, and waste its perfume even in their lovely wilderness ”

“ Ponsonby was getting really annoyed when a stifled exclamation escaped Troar, and, screwing down the sextant with an air of finality, he dived below.
Mr. Ponsonby waited with commendable patience an hour, two hours, before his partner again appeared in the hatchway.
"We're all wrong," he jerked out. "I've got our latitude, and we're wrong."
"That so?" said Mr. Ponsonby, with the air of one humouring a child.
"Yes. We can't have drifted as far as we thought. She must have reached a bit while we were hove to. We're a hundred miles or less south of Lord Howe Island." ”

“ Miss Ponsonby has a fine countenance, but pale and melancholy. One seems to have been born in this solitude, so perfectly is she at her ease in it; for her easy carriage shews that she has not retained the slightest recollection of the world and its vain pleasures. ”

“ The little attention she could spare from the conjurations of her wretched fancy, Christobelle gave to the gay and kind-hearted Ponsonby.
[102]
CHAPTER XXV.
"Miss Wetheral," said Captain Ponsonby, "when I quitted Clanmoray, six years ago, I never dreamed of a fair neighbour at Fairlee."
"Six years ago I was nursing a doll, Captain Ponsonby."
"Even so. You tease your dolls in youth, and tease our hearts in age. Like a falling star, you have shot from your sphere, upon the banks of this lake, and where shall you make your rest?" ”

“ THE BISHOP’S APRON I
THE world takes people very willingly at the estimate in which they hold themselves. With a fashionable bias for expression in a foreign tongue it calls modesty mauvaise honte; and the impudent are thought merely to have a proper opinion of their merit. But Ponsonby was really an imposing personage. His movements were measured and noiseless; and he wore the sombre garb of a gentleman’s butler with impressive dignity. He was a large man, flabby and corpulent, with a loose, smooth skin. ”

“ Ponsonby had recalled his wife on his appointment at Lima, Mary had been left in England for education, under the charge of his sister in London. Miss Ponsonby was good and kind, but of narrow views, thinking all titled people fashionable, and all fashionable people reprobate, jealous of her sister-in-law's love for her own family, and, though unable to believe her brother blameless, holding it as an axiom that married people could not fall out without faults on both sides, and charging a large share of their unhappiness on the house of Fitzjocelyn. ”

“ A little while, and the two men stood naked and shivering with cold in the snug saloon of the Minx.
"Rub down and get into something, or you'll die," asserted Mr. Ponsonby, and, knowing this to be nothing less than the truth, Troar obeyed. Meanwhile, and still in a state of Nature save for his trousers, Mr. Ponsonby proceeded to get under way. He had driven cars, he informed the universe, and if he couldn't extract an answer from the junk that constituted the average marine motor-engine, he would want to know why. ”

“ And she drained the last drop in the tumbler, and stuck the burning weed between her teeth, with a coarse masquerade of masculinity. Ponsonby heaved a sigh of relief.
“Now, my girl, come along—time’s up!” He started for the door.
The Pantheress got up, and leaned against the mantelshelf, smoking. She intimated that she had changed her mind—and would remain. Ponsonby lost his temper, and threatened ejection by main force.
“Put me out? You daren’t!” rejoined the Pantheress. She added some adjectives reflecting upon Ponsonby and the honor of his family—but with those we have nothing to do. ”

“ Charlotte Ponsonby continued to lean against the window in an abstraction which registered impressions very much as a flagellant’s ecstasy may note the pathway of his torment. The consciousness of her own perturbation made it exceedingly difficult to turn around. ”

“ The futility of further argument silenced Troar. With the tiller under his arm, and Mr. Ponsonby sleeping audibly in the saloon, he wondered what it was best to do. He felt little resentment at his partner's disbelief. It was to be expected. The aggravation of the situation lay in the fact that if the present course were held, they would miss the nearest land by a comfortable margin, and raise no more for at least five hundred miles, which meant they would never raise it. Yet how was it possible to convince Mr. Ponsonby of that? As well argue with an elephant. ”

“ Not so Lord Farnborough. He rose proudly from the humble position he had assumed, and retired to the group detached from his party. Captain Ponsonby continued his remarks, while a satisfied smile played on his lips.
"Altogether, love deforms and beautifies; it makes the humble and silent man talkative; and it causes the violent man to throw off the mask which veils his fiery spirit. The less we know of the subtle deity, the happier we are in freedom of heart and spirit; but once receive him to your bosom, and adieu for ever to the calm pleasures of life." ”

“ Ponsonby dared not entertain any such ardent wishes. Life had not afforded her so much joy that she should deem it the greatest good, and all that she had heard gave her the impression that Louis was too soft and gentle for the world's hard encounter,—most pure and innocent, sincere and loving at present, but rather with the qualities of childhood than of manhood, with little strength or perseverance, so that the very dread of taint or wear made it almost a relief to think of his freshness and sweetness being secured for ever. ”

“ My life has taken its colour from your character. Now, listen to me, dearest Miss Ponsonby, and be not alarmed. I love you!’
Her arm trembled in his.
‘Yes, I love you; and, believe me, I use that word with no common feeling. It describes the entire devotion of my existence to your life; and my complete sympathy with every attribute of your nature. Calm as may be my speech, I love you with a burning heart.’
She bowed her head, and covered her face with her right hand.
‘Most beauteous lady,’ continued Mr. Ferrers, ‘pardon me if I agitate you; for my respect is equal to my love. ”

“ Miss Ponsonby’s impassive reserve with men was so wholly a confession, and, at the same time, so proud a disclaimer of the usual meek attitude of unpopular women, that it not only irritated the man who could analyze her, but it provoked his curiosity and led him into attempt after attempt to sting her into speech and unconscious revelations. And whenever he did so and retired, foiled, with the consciousness of having given an unmanly stab to weakness, his man’s desire to think well of himself made him put the blame upon her. ”

“ You appear to have made no impression upon young Ponsonby, after all your walks and sails upon the water."
"Young Ponsonby, mamma!"
"Some people never care to understand what they do not wish to know," replied her mother. "In the precincts of Lochleven your want of power to please may pass unobserved, but I should have been pointed at in England, as a mother hopeless of her daughter's establishment."
"But young Ponsonby never walks and sails with me, mamma. I am only accompanied by Janet."
"I am perfectly aware that Janet is your only companion," replied her mother, drily. ”

“ CHAPTER VI. The Famous Lord Bohun
He has gone; Mr. Ferrers has departed. What an event! What a marvellous event! A revolution has occurred in the life of Henrietta Ponsonby: she was no longer her own mistress; she was no longer her father’s child. She belonged to another; and that other a stranger, an unknown, and departed being! How strange! And yet how sweet! This beautiful young lady passed her days in pondering over her singular position. In vain she attempted to struggle with her destiny. In vain she depicted to herself the error, perhaps the madness, of her conduct. ”

“ The old gentleman had a den off the hall where he always sat in the evening and smoked fiercely, after having locked all the doors to keep the servants in. He was a delightful sort of person, that old Mr. Ponsonby.
Jerry poked her head as far as she could out of the window. "Miss Ponsonby, you are going to the dance," she said in a cautious undertone, "so don't cry any more or your eyes will be dreadfully red."
"It is impossible," said Miss Ponsonby resignedly.
"Nothing is impossible when I make up my mind," said Jerry firmly. ”

“ Ponsonby declared herself so much invigorated by Ormersfield air, that she would go to see her old friend the gardener. Mary hurried to fetch her bonnet, and returned while a panegyric was going on upon her abilities as maid-of-all-work, in her mother's difficulties with male housemaids—black and brown—and washerwomen who rode on horseback in white satin shoes. She looked as if it were hardly natural that any one but herself should support her mother, when Mrs. Frost tenderly drew Mrs. Ponsonby's arm into her own ”

“ I see your fears, and, while they operate to my advantage, I hope they will continue. How delightful it is to be the object of a woman's tender care! every thing is so kindly and silently done."
"I do not like Lord Farnborough's looks, Captain Ponsonby."
"Nor I, at all. I am very much alarmed, and I beg you will keep near me." Christobelle laughed.
"What are you laughing at?"
Lady Wetheral approached, leaning on the arm of his Grace; and Lord Farnborough also came up. Captain Ponsonby affected to tremble, and assured Christobelle, if she quitted his protection, he should be a lifeless corpse. ”

“ Charlotte Ponsonby is really a magnificent creature—from a woman’s standpoint, that is. But the outcome of the affair is just what might have been expected. Somehow they have mortally wounded her, and to protect herself [78] from them and their curiosity she has built a wall between herself and the whole world. I tried to cross it, and was most delicately and effectively rebuffed. She is the most solitary girl I have ever known, and yet she is not morbid. She moves among us in the most self-possessed, unasking spirit that was ever held by a girl of twenty-two. ”

“ Down. William Ponsonby, second earl of Bessborough [q. v.] , was his elder brother. His great-grandfather, Sir John Ponsonby, of Hale in Cumberland, born in 1608, commanded a troop of horse in the service of the Commonwealth, and had two grants of land assigned him in Ireland under the acts of settlement. He represented co. Kilkenny in parliament in 1661, and, dying in 1678, was succeeded by his son William [see under Ponsonby, Henry] .
Ponsonby entered parliament in 1739 as member for the borough of Newtown, co. Down, vacated by the elevation of Robert Jocelyn, first viscount Jocelyn [q. v.] ”

“ What man in love for the first time would give up after one refusal, if his love was worth the name? Ponsonby was not one of the faint-hearted tribe. He combined real modesty as to his own worth and pretensions with unbounded faith in the power of his love and its ultimate success. The infallibility of hope and perseverance was an essential part of his lover’s creed. He did not apply the tenet with any special sense of its fitness to Franceline in particular. ”

“ Christobelle asked, as she returned the pressure of Spottiswoode's hand. "What will be her fate in her attachment?"
"Miss Ponsonby has sown her seed among thorns," he replied, with feeling, "and her heart must wrestle with its feelings, unless she becomes his wife. Lord Farnborough may turn to Miss Ponsonby, since you have rejected him, and she [197] may become the envied Lady Farnborough; but she will only sink into a neglected wife. He cannot make a woman happy." ”

“ Miss Ponsonby didn't say anything for a few moments. When she spoke some strange and curious note had come into her voice, as if a chord, long unswept and silent, had been suddenly thrilled by a passing hand.
"Did I understand you to say that Geraldine was—entertaining Stephen Shaw?"
"Yes. He's home from the west and he's delightful," I replied. "All the Glenboro girls are quite crazy over him. Jerry and I are as bad as the rest. He isn't at all young but he's very fascinating."
"Stephen Shaw!" repeated Miss Ponsonby faintly. "So Stephen Shaw is home again!" ”

“ My friend, Simeon Ponsonby, is lost in the wilderness of Patagonia, and I am organizing a party to search for him. I shall have to resign my work at Harmouth, but I feel responsible for poor Ponsonby’s fate; I sent him on the expedition.”
“Ah! did you?” she said, laughing wickedly. “Poor Uriah has been disposed of, and now the lady sends you to look for his bones. Don’t look too hard, Stevie, you might find he wasn’t lost, after all!”
“Stop!” cried French, springing to his feet. “How dare you make a jest of other people’s misfortunes? ”