“And wheels were rolling, and lights were passing,And cheeks, that should have been on soft pillowsLying, were reflected in deep mirrors;Where locks were braiding, and gems arranging,And plumes were waving, for the coming day.”
“And wheels were rolling, and lights were passing,And cheeks, that should have been on soft pillowsLying, were reflected in deep mirrors;Where locks were braiding, and gems arranging,And plumes were waving, for the coming day.”
“And wheels were rolling, and lights were passing,And cheeks, that should have been on soft pillowsLying, were reflected in deep mirrors;Where locks were braiding, and gems arranging,And plumes were waving, for the coming day.”
“And wheels were rolling, and lights were passing,
And cheeks, that should have been on soft pillows
Lying, were reflected in deep mirrors;
Where locks were braiding, and gems arranging,
And plumes were waving, for the coming day.”
Bythe time the sisters had completed the task of adorning, the whole house was one blaze of light and decoration.
They walked through the yet vacant apartments, almost lost in the universal brightness. They were soon joined by Lord L. On arrivals commencing, he gave to each an arm,and stood with them near the entrance of the first of the suit of rooms destined for the reception of company.
Crowds poured in. Lord L. felt not a little of the most amiable, and most pardonable species of pride, as each fresh party that approached evinced, either by words or expression of countenance, as the degrees of intimacy permitted, their extravagant admiration of his daughters.
The thunder of knocks, peal on peal, still echoed and re-echoed. Julia and Frances were more accustomed to that which reverberated from Skiddaw to the Screes: for though they had, as we have seen, entered some very gay circles in the country, they had not experienced any thing on this great scale before: besides, they were conscious, that they were now the especial objects ofnotice; and at each loud sound, they shrunk closer to their father. He felt the involuntary movement; and, in a whisper, warned them not to be foolish.
Meanwhile, the first and second reception rooms had filled to overflowing; and many of the company were finding their own way into other of the apartments. A number of people had already, for coolness, entered the ball-room; and thither we shall, for the present, accompany them.
After walking up and down for a time, some began to express impatience for the commencement of dancing; and others, to conjecture with whom Lady Julia L. would open the ball. This led to observations upon, praises by some, and criticism by others, of their youthful hostesses; for who, that is worthy of praise, can escape criticism? so true is it, that a youngwoman cannot, with perfect impunity, be remarkable even for her merits. No one could deny that they were beautiful; a motion to that effect was therefore carried, by a clamorous and unanimous vote, on the part of the gentlemen. A crowd pressing towards the dancing room, caused all eyes to turn in the direction whence it approached.
“Who is that leading Lady Julia L. towards the head of the room?” exclaimed one voice. “Who is Lady Julia L. going to dance with?” cried another. “Who is that Lady Julia L. is leaning on?” said a third. “Who is it? Who is it? Who is he? Who is he?” was repeated by many. “He is very handsome!” said the ladies. “Do you know him?” inquired the gentlemen. These questions were telegraphed from the outskirts of the standing group into the centre of themoving crowd, and the answer, by numerous voices, telegraphed back: “Lord Fitz-Ullin!” “Lord Fitz-Ullin!” “Lord Fitz-Ullin!”
“Did not the papers say that Fitz-Ullin had shot himself?” inquired a gentleman.
“Yes, but it was contradicted again,” observed his neighbour.
“They say it was his friend, the Captain Montgomery, one hears so much of, who shot himself,” observed a third.
“For love, was it not?” asked a young lady.
“Oh yes, of course,” drawled out her destined partner, dropping a sleepy glance out of the corner of his eye, without turning his head; for he was an exquisite; “You ladies are the cause of every mischief, you know. You drive us poor men to distraction, and then blame us for the rash actionswhich your own charms have caused us to commit.”
“It was not the lady’s fault!” said his partner; “she could not marry them both, you know.”
“And so she made the best division she could, you think, in accepting the one as a lover, and the other as a husband?” retorted the gentleman.
“Nonsense!” said the young lady: “but as the papers said that Captain Montgomery was the favoured lover, why should he shoot himself?”
“Cannot say, really. The quadrilles are forming; we had better take our place.”
“Lady Julia L. is vastly lovely! Is she not?” he proceeded, after they had secured their ground. The lady was wondering how Captain Montgomery, or any body else, could have beenpreferred to Lord Fitz-Ullin, he was so handsome; and only answered, “Yes, very pretty indeed: and what a beautiful dress she has on!”
Several sets of quadrilles were now arranged, and were on the point of commencing.
“What a very handsome young man Lord Fitz-Ullin is!” said another young lady, to an ugly, stiff, old partner; who had once, of course, been young, and, by accident, the fashion; but who, by thinking himself a prize too long, had lost both those advantages.
“Possibly,” he replied; “but I was looking at the lady. Lady Julia L. is really almost beautiful enough to tempt a man to sacrifice his liberty!”
“Can that be Lord Fitz-Ullin?” said Lady D. to a certain gay Colonel, who, emergingfrom the part of the crowd which had lately entered the room, approached her ladyship.
The Colonel was, or thought himself, handsome; and we hope, for his own sake, he was not mistaken; as, excepting his personal attractions, he had nothing but his half-pay; not even professional prospects, having taken the difference from whole to half-pay for the discharge of debts. His aspirations were now, therefore, limited to that last resource of the desperate—matrimony! Lady D. was a showy, rich, and not very old widow; a dasher, and a professed admirer of handsome men: on which last trait in her ladyship’s character the Colonel founded very brilliant hopes.
“I have seen Lord Ormond in his father’s life-time,” pursued Lady D.; “but I had no recollection of his being half so handsome! Is that really Lord Fitz-Ullin?”
“If your ladyship means the gentleman who is standing at the head of the first quadrille with Lady Julia L.,” replied the Colonel, “he is, undoubtedly, Lord Fitz-Ullin.”
“He is a thousand times handsomer,” said the lady, looking again, “a thousand times handsomer than I thought Lord Ormond at the time, though now I do remember thinking him a pleasing looking young man. What a difference three or four years have made (it was six or seven, but the lady did not choose to say so); he has now so much more character of countenance, and so fine a figure!”
The Colonel, not a little mortified, answered, “The fellow looks as if he were going to be hanged! and that, with such an angel for a partner, is quite unpardonable.”
“As the lady’s whole attention seems occupiedby the chalking of the floor,” said Lady D., “it is no wonder she cannot animate her partner.”
“If I am any judge of physiognomy,” said the Colonel, “his Lordship’s want of animation does not proceed from want of admiration: and, as to the lady, if she does not look up and smile, she looks down and blushes; and that is quite as encouraging, you know.”
“She is certainly too demurely-looking,” persisted Lady D.
“Her adorer probably prefers,” argued the Colonel, assuming what he intended for a very graceful attitude, “possessing this monopoly of his fair enslaver’s attention, to the danger of her Ladyship’s admiring other Adonises, as might possibly be the case, were she to dispense her glances more freely.”
“Oh,” replied Lady D., with quickness,“in the case of the partner of Lord Fitz-Ullin, there can be no danger of that!”
The Colonel fell back, bit his lip, and said to a gentleman near him, in a loud and conceited tone, drawing up his eyebrows, and looking down at his own legs, “Lady D. thinks, that where Lord Fitz-Ullin appears, no one else has a chance of being looked at!—eh?”
“It is fortunate,” replied the gentleman addressed, who was also an acquaintance of her Ladyship’s, “that all ladies are not of Lady D.’s opinion. In a late very public affair his Lordship was, ’tis said, successfully rivalled by a Captain Montgomery, with whose name the papers have resounded for some time.”
“By the bye,” asked Lady D., “was it not said that Captain Montgomery, or Lord Fitz-Ullin, or somebody, had shot themselves, or something?”
A gentleman, on whose breast appeared the stars and garters of renown, now coming up, said dryly (for he too seemed of Lady D.’s coterie), “Your Ladyship is speaking of Captain Montgomery? His wounds, you perceive, have not been mortal.”
The lady looked her want of comprehension.
“Why,” continued the man of stars, “he is now standing at the head of the first quadrille with Lady Julia L. Don’t look for a moment, or they will see that we are speaking of them.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” interrupted the Colonel, “that is Lord Fitz-Ullin!—if you mean the gentleman who is dancing with Lady Julia L.”
“Are you personally acquainted with Lord Fitz-Ullin?” asked the Admiral, for such was the rank of the starred speaker.
“No, sir, but I saw him enter the room, and heard him announced as Lord Fitz-Ullin.”
“Then, sir, give me leave to say, that Captain Montgomery served with me when he was a lieutenant; and to repeat that he now stands at the head of the room with Lady Julia L.”
“The gentleman at the head of the room, dancing with Lady Julia L.,” said a consequential looking elderly man in black, pressing forward through the crowd, and nodding to Lady D., “is Lord Fitz-Ullin”——
“Sir?” said the Admiral, with a look of defiance.
“Yes, sir,” said the gentleman in black, smiling in the angry face of his opponent; “I had this very day the honour of dining with his Lordship at his own house, in company with the Dowager Lady Fitz-Ullin, LadyOswald, an aunt of his Lordship, and the very beautiful young lady, whose affair has, unfortunately, been of late the subject of so much discussion.”
“Where you may have dined, sir, or with whom, are not points for me to dispute; but,” persisted our naval hero, “the gentleman dancing with Lady Julia L. is Captain Montgomery!”
“Is Lord Fitz-Ullin,” repeated the man in black: “Pray, sir, give me leave, sir, and”——
“I will give no man leave, sir, to contradict me! I have distinctly asserted that I am personally acquainted with Captain Montgomery; and that the gentleman dancing with Lady Julia L. is Captain Montgomery: whoever asserts that he is not Captain Montgomery, gives me the lie!”
“My good friend! my good friend! why so fierce?” exclaimed a new addition to the circle, offering his hand to the Admiral as he came up.
Lady D. explained the cause of dispute; and the Admiral’s friend, laughing heartily, said, “Five minutes since, I saw Lord L. present the young man now dancing with Lady Julia L. to both his daughters, as Lord Fitz-Ullin.”
“Spirit of Fingall!’Tis Fingall himself.”
“Spirit of Fingall!’Tis Fingall himself.”
“Spirit of Fingall!’Tis Fingall himself.”
“Spirit of Fingall!
’Tis Fingall himself.”
Ifour readers are desirous to know how this personage, respecting whose identity there seem to exist so many contradictory opinions, obtained entrance to this gay circle, and the envied hand of Lady Julia L.; nay, how it was that so many people actually believed him to be Lord Fitz-Ullin; we must lead them back, about half an hour, to when, andwhere, we left the sisters with Lord L., near the door of the first reception-room.
Mammas told Lord L. that he ought to have allowed their girls a chance, before he thus cruelly merged all that had been bright in the hemisphere of fashion in the dazzling lustre of stars so pre-eminent. The young ladies themselves thought, that had they had as beautiful dresses on, they should have looked just as well. The downright old gentlemen congratulated his Lordship, with sincere cordiality, on the charms of his daughters. Those who still had twinkling eyes, and merry souls, wished themselves twenty years younger, and envied the present generation. The middle-aged dandies addressed well-turned compliments to the ladies themselves; and the coxcomical young ones endeavouredto look quite irresistible, as they made their bows in silence.
At length, “Lord Fitz-Ullin!—Lord Fitz-Ullin!” was thundered in the hall, echoed, from servant to servant, on each landing of the stairs, and finally repeated at the door of the reception room. The reports of his Lordship’s intended marriage broken off at the altar, and of his having shot himself for love, were fresh in the minds of all; so that the idea of beholding him, appeared to create a pretty general sensation; and, at the sound of his announcement, every head turned round. Yet, when he did actually enter, Julia was not even aware of the circumstance. She had looked towards the door, her heart trembling with the expectation of seeing Edmund enter with him. And she had seen Edmund enter; but with whom she had been too much agitated to notice. Theappearance of our hero had shocked her. It was that of one who had received a stunning blow! All expression of feature was deadened,—all animation of air and carriage gone! He advanced with eyes scarcely raised. If Julia’s ideas had been thrown into a state of confusion on his first entrance, what was her astonishment, when her father, presenting our hero, said, “Julia, my dear, this is Lord Fitz-Ullin! Lord Fitz-Ullin, Lady Julia L., Lady Frances L.”
It was now Lord L.’s turn to be surprised. He saw both his daughters extend a hand at the same moment, while the gentleman he was in the act of presenting, took a hand of each, and, though with a pale and quivering lip, pronounced the names, Julia, Frances, divested of title.
All this had occupied but a second or two,during which Lord L. had exclaimed, “My introduction has been superfluous here, I perceive!”
“Why, papa,” cried Frances, “this is Edmund!”
Julia attempted to speak, but failed. Lord L. looked his amazement, which was too great for utterance.
“It is very true, my Lord,” said our hero, raising his eyes, and making a wretched attempt to smile; “I am both Montgomery and Fitz-Ullin! and, in that double character,” he added, in a tone of more feeling, “owe a double debt of gratitude and affection to Lord L., and to—to all his family,” he attempted to say, but voice failed him. Here, notwithstanding Lord L.’s aversion to a scene, something very like one, unavoidably took place; at the commencement of which, however, hisLordship had the presence of mind, to hurry the party, for a few moments, just within the doorway of a small refreshment room, which stood invitingly open at but the distance of a pace or two, and which was as yet unoccupied. Here Edmund hastily gave recitals, of some very unexpected discoveries, which the supposed Lord Fitz-Ullin’s intended marriage had brought to light, and which had proved our hero to be the only legitimate son and rightful heir of the deceased Earl. The noble conduct of the individual who was the sole sufferer, had, he explained, placed him at once in quiet possession of all his rights. In answer to Lord L.’s surprise that a clearer statement of facts had not appeared in the papers, he mentioned, that the editors had been silenced, for the present, from delicacy to the feelings of some of the parties. He seemed shockedwhen Frances assured him, that his letter to her grandmamma, had been completely a riddle.
He thought, he said, that it had explained all that the papers had left unexplained. But, he confessed that he had had much to agitate and confuse his mind just at the time; and that he did not, therefore, know exactly what he had written; his object, however, in writing, he said, had been to mark the respect due to his revered benefactress, by giving her the earliest intimation of the wonderful change in his circumstances.
Edmund confessed that he would have turned back, and postponed this agitating interview till the next day, had he not got out of the carriage and ascended the stairs in total abstraction of mind, and literally without once looking about him till he had entered the first reception room, when it was too late to retreat.Explanations ended, Lord L., as the party returned to the company, said, with assumed carelessness:—
“It is full time, I should think, for the dancing to commence. You had better take Julia out,” he added, lowering his voice, and addressing our hero, “you know how to prevail in that quarter, I dare say!”
Edmund, (whom we must in future call Fitz-Ullin,) instead of colouring became paler than before, and, without speaking, offered his arm to Julia. She took it with a sensation of panic. The strangeness of his present manner, agreed but too well with that letter, but for which, and this manner, how happy had the wonderful discoveries of this evening made her. How happy, even for dear Edmund’s sake, had it been possible not to mingle self with the thought.
As she took his offered arm, she was certain she felt him shudder; but as her own trembled at the time, she afterwards thought she might have been mistaken.
They walked up the room in silence. Confused, and pained, Julia found that she could not congratulate her companion on his good fortune with the cordial frankness which had else been natural, nor ask half the obvious questions, respecting circumstances so hastily explained, and which had brought about, thus suddenly, a state of things, that altogether appeared to her bewildered apprehension, more like a dream, than a reality. Oh how delightedly would she have dwelt, she thought, a short time since on such a subject, so full of wonder, and, which ought to be, so full of joy.
But something extraordinary, something more than sorrow in the manner of this incomprehensiblebeing, whom she must now too, call by the new, and not yet endeared name of Fitz-Ullin, seemed to have raised up an insuperable barrier between them. Even the expression of his countenance, (though still she beheld the features of Edmund) was, in all that regarded mind, or indicated feeling, utterly changed.
His presence inspired her with an almost superstitious awe! He was so like, and yet so unlike himself, that she traced the resemblance, with feelings not far removed from those with which the identity of a visitant from the grave might be recognised. And strange it is, that such identity should appal, while it portrays what, in life, would have claimed our fondest embrace.
He was indeed evidently miserable; and that idea, awakened every habitual feeling of tendernessin Julia’s breast. The thought of, why he was thus unhappy, came next in the train of reflections, and, as it presented itself in the unwelcome form of his love for another, she unconsciously suffered a sigh to be audible.
Fitz-Ullin looked suddenly round; her eyes were bent downwards; and now, for the first time since he entered the room, he permitted his to dwell, for a few seconds, on that perfect loveliness which he had never contemplated, even in imagination, without a bewildering sense of delight, which rendered the lapse of time imperceptible. Julia felt his silent gaze, though she saw it not, and a thrill of pleasure accompanied the consciousness; for which weakness, however, she instantly condemned herself.
Thus occupied, our hero and heroine, arrivedat the head of the dancing room, forgetful of all present, while the eyes, if not of all, of many, were, as we have seen, fixed on them. But where is that radiant joy; where that sunshine of the heart brightening every feature, which might naturally be expected, at this moment, to appear on the countenance of the once humble Edmund, feeling himself, as he must now do, in every circumstance the equal of that Julia, whom he had so long thought it presumption, nay even ingratitude to love; yet loved to an excess so uncontroulable, that no power was left of concealing his passion, and to fly its object, had become his only resource.
When last he had been her partner in a scene like the present, could some prophetic voice have said, “Within a few short months shall Edmund, whose only home is the deep, havewide domains and large possessions, inherited from his forefathers: Edmund, whose very name is but a borrowed right, have titles and dignities, descending through lines of honoured ancestry, and centring in him: Edmund, who knows not at what unlettered grave to mourn a father’s loss, be found the son of him whose memory has been embalmed by a nation’s tears!”
With what feelings had he hailed the wondrous prophecy! Yet, at this moment, was all the fairy-tale vision realized, and Edmund, notwithstanding, entered the mazes of the joyous dance, looking and moving like one, bewildered by the excess of mental suffering.
The laws of the figure constantly severed the hand of his partner from his, and as constantly required him to retake it; but, what with anticipating this part of the ceremony at one time, and delaying it at another, he was more than once guilty of actually deranging the order of the quadrille.
… “Remorse return’d,Torn of its inward workings she shriek’d aloud.”
… “Remorse return’d,Torn of its inward workings she shriek’d aloud.”
… “Remorse return’d,Torn of its inward workings she shriek’d aloud.”
… “Remorse return’d,
Torn of its inward workings she shriek’d aloud.”
MeanwhileLady D.’s party, whom we left in high contest as to the identity of Lady Julia L.’s partner, seem to have settled that point in an amicable manner, and to be now busily occupied, listening to an oration from the old gentleman in black.
It is evident that he has been entertaining his audience with some of the particulars of our hero’s adventures when a child.
From the account which this seemingly well-informed speaker proceeds to give, it would appear that the information contained in the ill-spelt, undated letter of Edmund’s nurse,was, as far as it was intelligible, true: so much so, indeed, that we recommend a second perusal of the precious document to all who may have forgotten any part of its contents.
Fitz-Ullin was, it seems, the title of the great family alluded to anonymously by the nurse. Edmund had, as the letter stated, been stolen when an infant in arms off the lawn by a strolling beggar, at a time when the family were from home. His nurse had substituted her own child, at first, to avoid blame. Afterwards, she had grown too fond of seeing her son bringing up to be a young lord, to seize, or inform against, the bold vagrant when she discovered her, as mentioned in the letter, carrying the stolen child about.
The smiling boy, described in the letter as flinging his cake out of the carriage window to poor Edmund, when on crutches, and apparently with but one leg, he begged beforeit, was no other than our hero’s after friend, Ormond, now proved to be the nurse’s child. And the lady, who had sat with the smiling boy on her knee, thinking him her own son, and looked out, with but a passing feeling of compassion on the one little bare foot of the mendicant child, half sunk in the wet mud of the street, its little shoulders almost forced out of their sockets by its crutches, and its poor little features wearing the wan expression of premature misery, was no other than that mendicant child’s own mother, the first Lady Fitz-Ullin. This was some years after he had been stolen. Soon after this it was that poor little Edmund had been carried over to Cumberland by the said vagrant, in company with a ship-load of reapers. After the harvest he had been led about at Keswick Regatta, to excite the compassion of the company; and after the Regatta, abandoned, as we have described, by his then supposedmother, the beggar woman; who, when caught in the fact of stealing linen from a hedge, was obliged to have recourse to hasty flight.
The narrator next proceeded to recount, what we already know, the particulars of how poor Edmund, on the evening of the day he had been thus abandoned, and nearly perishing with cold and hunger, was found on the borders of the lake, by Mrs. Montgomery’s daughter, Lady L.; brought home by her; and, ever since, cherished and protected by the whole family.
“And was the gentleman who is now dancing with Lady Julia L.,” inquired a young lady, “that poor little boy that was begging under the carriage window; and who is now Lord Fitz-Ullin? How curious!”
“Precisely so, madam,” replied our sable orator.
When it was mentioned that the presentLord Fitz-Ullin, during all the years from childhood upwards, had, as Edmund Montgomery, been the constant, intimate companion of Lord L.’s daughters, the Colonel, addressing Lady D. aside, laid claim to some discernment.
“Well, I declare,” continued the young lady, “if I were Lord Fitz-Ullin, I should be always quite afraid I might turn out to be somebody else, some other time.”
“The proofs of his Lordship’s identity, madam,” said the important man in black, “had been carefully preserved by wretches, who hoped to have made a market of the secret; and who indeed would, as it has lately appeared, have done so, had it not been for the upright and honourable feelings of the poor young man himself.”
“But, sir,” enquired Lady D., “does Lord Fitz-Ullin intend to marry the lady, who figured in the papers lately as the cause of all the fracas?”
“Certainly not, madam!” replied the proud explainer of mysteries, who now saw himself surrounded by a numerous audience. “In the first place, madam, you must recollect, that it was not Lord Fitz-Ullin, but the unfortunate young man who was then supposed to be Lord Fitz-Ullin, who was about to marry the young lady. And in the second place, madam, the young lady is a sort of half sister of his Lordship’s.”
“Sister!” exclaimed Lady D., “surely the late Lord Fitz-Ullin left no daughter by either marriage.”
“I do not mean to say,” continued the speaker, “that the young lady, or young woman, is daughter to either of the Ladies Fitz-Ullin; she is, notwithstanding, daughter to the late Lord Fitz-Ullin, and twin sister to the unhappy young man who, for so many years, was called Lord Ormond; and who, for the last few months, has borne the titleof Fitz-Ullin; and who is now simply Mr., or rather Captain Ormond; and that only by courtesy: such children having in law, I believe, no right to any name but their mother’s.”
“A terrible thing for him, poor young man!” said Lady D. “He can never bear to meet any of his former acquaintance.”
“The present Lord Fitz-Ullin, however,” continued our enlightened informer, “has behaved towards him with the noblest liberality, as well as towards Miss Ormond, as the sister is now called.”
“And pray, Doctor ⸺, what had she been called? There was no name mentioned in the papers, I think.”
“O’Neil, the name of her mother’s husband, who was the land steward.”
“And pray who was her mother?”
“The woman was the present Lord Fitz-Ullin’s nurse, madam: and one of her apologiesfor having substituted her own child in place of the rightful heir, when the Lady’s child (as she still calls his present Lordship) had been stolen from her was, that her own boy was a son of Lord Fitz-Ullin.”
“And what led to the discovery of all this just now? and can you tell, as you seem so well-informed, what all that was which appeared in the papers about a rivalship, and a marriage broken off at the altar, and a shooting-match, &c.”
“I can, madam:” and here the gentleman in black bowed, smiled, and took a pinch of snuff. “Indeed, I may say,” he added, while closing his box, “that I am (being a friend of the family) in some measure authorized to correct misapprehensions on this subject. We have, I believe, succeeded at last in silencing the papers; that is, since the first day or two; as soon, in fact, as Lord Fitz-Ullin had leisure to attend to any thing. It was his wish todo so, from delicacy to the feelings of Captain Ormond.” For the same reasons, as well as for many others, we suspect that his Lordship would have also gladly silenced the present speaker, had that been equally possible; for, if we are not much mistaken, he is far exceeding his commission for the correction of misapprehensions.
This self-elected friend of the family is, however, very good authority; being no other than the physician who had been, and still was, in attendance on Ormond. He is one of His Majesty’s physicians, and a man of so much eminence, notwithstanding his communicative propensities, that he is in the best society.
“In the first place, madam,” continued the Doctor, in answer to Lady D.’s list of questions, “though there certainly was a marriage broken off at the altar, there was no rivalship whatever, nor the slightest foundation for sucha rumour. The catastrophe, indeed, was much hastened, and almost all the wild reports which have gone abroad, produced by Captain Ormond’s unfortunate passion for the young lady who afterwards proved to be his sister; and with whom he had at first become acquainted during her residence at some finishing boarding-school. So violent, indeed, was the attachment which subsisted between these young persons; strengthened, as it was, by long indulgence; for they had been secretly engaged for years, it seems; that nothing could prevent the marriage, but confession on the part of the mother. This she delayed till the last moment; in fact, till her son and daughter stood together at the altar! Then it was that rushing past them with screams like those of a maniac, and with such velocity that indeed, though every one looked round to discover whence the sounds came, (for I happened to be present, madam,) no onesaw her till she stood beside the officiating clergyman; when, laying one hand on his lips and spreading the other over his open book, after remaining speechless from want of breath for a few moments, during which the wonder of the beholders was very great, she shrieked aloud, in accents that rang through the whole church, that they were brother and sister! nay, that they were twins! that she herself was their mother; their wretched, sinful mother; and that the late Lord Fitz-Ullin was their father.
“The poor young man was so much affected by the scene which followed; the frantic appearance of the old woman who called herself his mother; the fainting away of the interesting, and certainly very beautiful young creature, whose hand he still held, and whom he scarcely knew whether to call sister or bride; the great change in his own circumstances too, and the sudden revulsion of hisfeelings; that, in short, he went home, (or rather to the house which he had so long thought his home,) and shot himself!—that is, attempted to do so; indeed, did wound himself: it was his friend, the rightful and present Lord Fitz-Ullin, who was fortunate enough to prevent his completing his terrible purpose.”
Various expressions of pity and horror were here uttered by the listeners. “Indeed, the young man,” continued the speaker, “deserves well of the Earl, for his conduct on the occasion was truly noble.”
“On entering his hall, on his return from church, he was beset by the wretches, in whose hands were every proof by which his present Lordship could substantiate his claims. These they offered, for a certain sum, so effectually to suppress, that notwithstanding the wild declaration of the woman in church, the rightful Earl should never be able legally to dispossess him, either of title or property. Hehowever, spurned all such offers with the utmost indignation; and would not suffer the persons to leave his presence, till he had sent for his Lordship—I mean his present Lordship—then commonly called Captain Montgomery, and laid all the facts before him. After which it was, that the poor young man retired to his sleeping apartment, and made that rash attempt upon his own life, which I before mentioned. I had always attended the late Earl, whose friendship I had the honour of possessing. I was therefore sent for by Lady Fitz-Ullin immediately, and have, of course, visited the house, either in my medical or friendly capacity, every day since; and I have the satisfaction to say, that I can now pronounce Captain Ormond out of danger.
“I never heard any thing so shocking!” said the Admiral, in a tone of much feeling, for since the first ebullition of his wrath on being contradicted, he had become an interested listener;“that poor young man, brought up to fortune, rank, title, every thing, now thrown on the world, without a home, or even a name!”
“When I last saw him,” said Lady D., “it was at his father’s table. A mild looking young man with a sweet smile. I remember he sat opposite to me, talking to a daughter of the Duke of B. I said, you know,” she added turning to the Colonel, “that this man’s countenance was not quite what I thought I could recollect of Lord Ormond.”
“The young man has been a most unhappy, and, it would appear innocent victim of the moral turpitude of others;” observed a gentleman who had not before spoken, and whose black silk apron proclaimed him a dignitary of the church. “The story affords a striking, practical revelation of the will of Him, who has ordained that misery shall be the fruit of vice;” he added, addressing a younger person on whose arm he leaned.
The general move occasioned by the breaking up of the now concluded set of quadrilles, dispersed our listening party, and sent them to seek various amusements in other parts of the gay assembly.
Immediately after Julia had gone into the dancing-room with Edmund, a handsome lively young man, not much above the middle size, but remarkably well made, came up to Lord L., with whom he appeared well acquainted. He particularly requested an introduction to Frances, which Lord L., without absolute reluctance, granted; for young Beaumont, though but second son to Lord Beaumont, might be classed among those whom Lord L. considered as proper young men, being grandson to the Duke of ⸺, and inheriting a large property in right of his mother, Lady Charlotte ⸺, his Grace’s only child. On being introduced, Beaumont requested the honour of Lady Frances L.’s hand in due form, and led her towards the quadrilles.
Whenever he addressed her, and that in consequence she raised her eyes to his face, she thought she must have seen him before, but could not remember where. A vague suspicion, however, sometimes crossed her mind; yet, if that were the case, the dress was now so different. Beaumont’s manners were very animated; and he was so assiduous to please, that Frances’s natural gaiety of heart, soon appeared with as little restraint, as if they had been long acquainted.
“This is not the first effort I have made to have the honour of being presented to Lady Frances L.,” said Mr. Beaumont, at last, with a rather conscious smile, and a little hesitation; “but I was not quite so fortunate in my former essay.”
“I thought I had seen you before!” said Frances. “Then you are the gentleman that played the flute on the Lake, and that had the two beautiful dogs, and that——”
Frances stopped short, for there was something in the sort of pleasure that Beaumont’s countenance expressed, which betrayed that he considered the accuracy of her memory as a compliment to himself. He immediately perceived that he had committed an error, which nothing but the greatest humility could rectify. With downcast eyes, therefore, he said, “he must esteem himself fortunate in possessing even dogs, worthy of being remembered by Lady Frances L.”
Frances was very near being taken in to believe that she had been guilty of a want of politeness, in having made leading personages of the dogs. She was just about to attempt some qualifying sentence, when, looking up for the purpose, she perceived, that notwithstanding the downcast eye, and assumed gravity of tone, the gratified smile was again stealing over the lips of Beaumont. She checked herself immediately, and determined never to have a good memory again.
“This excessive reserve,” (thought Beaumont, who had perceived both the first movement, and the change of plan,) “is not a bad symptom.”
“Now, I have,” he said, looking up again, and throwing as much gentleness, persuasion, and humility, into his countenance as possible, “on some occasions, at least, the most unfashionable of memories.” He then commenced a full and accurate account of every time he had but passed the Lodore house party, whether riding, driving, walking, or boating; whereabouts Frances had sat in the boat, what sort of dress she had worn, &c. At length, by his animated descriptions, he so far succeeded in throwing her off her guard, that he sometimes obtained, by a look or a smile, an inadvertent acknowledgment that he was right. Slight as was this encouragement, Beaumont already fixed his hopes upon it, so prone are young men, (even the best of them,) to egregious vanity.His spirits rose, and gave to his manners an additional vivacity, which seemed to Frances quite fascinating. She almost felt sorry when the set was drawing to a conclusion, notwithstanding her impatience to talk to Edmund about all that had happened, and express her own wonder and delight, at things turning out just as grandmamma and Mr. Jackson always said they would.
The quadrille ended, she requested Beaumont to lead her towards Julia and Fitz-Ullin. This proved no very easy task, and when at length she did catch a glimpse, at a distance, of the doleful countenance of his newly elevated Lordship, she could not help saying to herself, “Well, certainly, sentimental people are, after all, sometimes, very tiresome!” The qualifying expression, sometimes, was put in after the sentence was commenced, a feeling of affection for the so long, so dear Edmund, having arisen and reproached her, for her first movement ofdistaste at the sight of a melancholy object, just at a time, when she was so much inclined to be pleased. Her agreeable flirtation with her new acquaintance, however, was not destined to come to so hasty a conclusion, for the attempt to join Julia and her partner utterly failed.
“This is too much for human sufferance,Despair, rapidly, to an early tombIs carrying thy youth!”
“This is too much for human sufferance,Despair, rapidly, to an early tombIs carrying thy youth!”
“This is too much for human sufferance,Despair, rapidly, to an early tombIs carrying thy youth!”
“This is too much for human sufferance,
Despair, rapidly, to an early tomb
Is carrying thy youth!”
Meanwhile, our heroine and Fitz-Ullin, accompanied many others into a refreshment room, where they lingered a little, after the rest of the couples returned to the ball room.
The delay had been more on the part of Julia than of her companion; for there was an extraordinary formality and coldness about his manner, he appeared, as it were, to wait her commands. His eyes were cast down, he was silent; not even a catch of the breath was audible, though more than once a movement of the chest might have indicated, to a close observer, that a rising sighhad been suppressed. “How unlike what Edmund used to be!” thought Julia. He had told her, in answer to some one of the obvious questions she had attempted during the dancing, that one of his names was still Edmund.
“A strange time this he has chosen,” she thought, “to become cold and unfriendly to his oldest friends.” Yet she tried to congratulate him on the unexpected change in his fortunes, with much of real kindness, and an effort, at least, at playfulness of manner; for, thought Julia, “I must not pretend to understand this absurd grief about Lady Susan.”
“It is a species of mockery, Julia,” he said, “to congratulate me on advantages which, however ardently desired at one period, can now but aggravate the bitterness of disappointment.”
“Oh, Edmund,” said Julia, thrown off her guard by his look and voice of wretchedness, “why will you be miserable? Did not thereal regard and friendship of all your early friends, long, long suffice for your happiness, and why will you suffer the disappointment of one, now you see, you—must see—never—well founded hope, to render valueless every real good.” But suddenly recollecting that her kindness was no longer generosity to the poor friendless Edmund, she checked herself, coloured, and became silent. Fitz-Ullin seemed to struggle for some time for composure, or for voice to reply.
“That one hope, Julia,” he at length articulated with peculiar bitterness of tone, “however ill founded you assure me it has ever been——”
“I assure you!” exclaimed Julia, with some surprise.
“That one hope,” he continued, speaking with effort, and from his visibly increasing agitation, without noticing the interruption, “that one hope, was all that gave life value in my eyes.”
“Indeed!” said Julia, assuming in her turn an air of coldness; and, for her, almost disdain.
“Friendship,” he proceeded, “all I have ever loved, all I have ever known, all I have ever been, are too intimately associated with that one hope, to be remembered without agony, when separated from it: all must be resigned together! Would to heaven!” he added, with energy, “I could first replace him, whom, most unwillingly, I have destined to become a wanderer from his long-accustomed home, and deprived of a rank, without which, he loathes existence, and which is valueless to me! But, poor fellow, he would not retain, for one hour, what he called my rights. Of his rash attempt at suicide, you are aware.” Julia bowed her assent. “The shocking occurrence,” he went on, “took place, as you also know, just as I was on the point of setting out for Lodore——.” That,thought Julia, I did not know before; but she felt not very well able to interrupt him; nor did she deem the circumstance of any importance.
“After which,” continued Fitz-Ullin, “the imperious necessity of soothing and guarding my unfortunate friend, lest he should repeat the attempt on his life, obliged me to have recourse to writing. You know the rest, Julia.” His look and manner here, expressed something of wildness, although, in the arrangement of his words, there was a forced composure.
“I only know,” she replied, with difficulty suppressing her tears, “that that letter made me——,” she was going to have said, very miserable; but she changed her intention, and said, “gave me great uneasiness.”
“I am sorry I should have caused you pain” he replied coldly, “but I felt that such an explanation was due. And now, let me say, farewell for ever! Without this interview,when thousand of miles apart—perhaps—I should have—I should not have.”
Here he broke off abruptly, and seemed to struggle with an emotion, difficult to be suppressed. Of his last speech, Julia had heard, or at least had comprehended, but the words, “Farewell for ever!” “I go,” he recommenced, with a voice so hoarse from emotion, that it literally could not have been recognized for his; “I go to-morrow to Lodore, to take a long farewell of my dearest, most honoured friend, your revered grandmother: after that, to sea; to end, I hope, my miserable career, by dying honourably in the service of my country.”
Ere he concluded, Julia, whose power of acting composure was totally gone, had covered her eyes with both her hands, and hid her face on the arm of the little sofa on which she was seated; for every thing had begun to swim before her sight, and she dreaded exposing her feelings, by, perhaps, fainting.A sense of coldness passed over her cheeks, and there was a rushing sound in her ears, and a confusion in her ideas, which lasted for some time, and made her uncertain, when she did begin to revive, how long she had remained in that painful state. Yet she had, she found, preserved her sitting posture. She was even beginning to congratulate herself upon this circumstance, when she felt an arm which had hitherto, she now found, been the means of supporting her, somewhat hastily withdrawn. Nearly at the same moment, she heard an approaching step, and a moment after, one of her hands was taken, but not with Edmund’s usual gentleness, and pressed to the lips of one, who now assumed a kneeling posture, and drew her other hand from before her eyes. She looked round, and to her inexpressible surprise and horror, beheld Henry at her feet, while the figure of our hero was hastily passing out of the door-way.
When Julia believed it was Edmund, who, with a manner at which her feelings revolted she knew not why, had kissed her hand, she fancied she was shocked at his want of delicacy; but the bitterness of her disappointment, when she saw it was Henry, who had done so, showed how easily Edmund would have been forgiven.
Fitz-Ullin did not appear again during the remainder of the evening. Julia’s indignation against Henry, aroused her more effectually, than, perhaps, any thing else could have done. He answered her warmly-expressed displeasure, by assuring her, with a diabolical laugh, that she should not have to complain of his tenderness much longer.
A second set of quadrilles having by this time concluded, the refreshment-room was again crowded, and Lady Julia L. shortly led back to the dance, attended by a host of distinguished admirers.