The bishop was particularly playful on the morrow at breakfast. Though his face beamed with Christian kindness, there was a twinkle in his eye which seemed not entirely superior to mundane self-complacency, even to a sense of earthly merriment. His seraphic raillery elicited sympathetic applause from the ladies, especially from the daughters of the house of Brentham, who laughed occasionally, even before his angelic jokes were well launched. His lambent flashes sometimes even played over the cardinal, whose cerulean armor, nevertheless, remained always unscathed. Monsignore Chidioch, however, who would once unnecessarily rush to the aid of his chief, was tumbled over by the bishop with relentless gayety, to the infinite delight of Lady Corisande, who only wished it had been that dreadful Monsignore Catesby. But, though less demonstrative, apparently not the least devout, of his lordship’s votaries, were the Lady Flora and the Lady Grizell. These young gentlewomen, though apparently gifted with appetites becoming their ample, but far from graceless, forms, contrived to satisfy all the wants of nature without taking their charmed vision for a moment off the prelate, or losing a word which escaped his consecrated lips. Sometimes even they ventured to smile, and then they looked at their father and sighed. It was evident, notwithstanding their appetites and their splendid complexions, which would have become the Aurora of Guido, that these young ladies had some secret sorrow which required a confidante. Their visit to Muriel Towers was their introduction to society, for the eldest had only just attained sweet seventeen. Young ladies under these circumstances always fall in love, but with their own sex. Lady Flora and Lady Grizell both fell in love with Lady Corisande, and before the morning had passed away she had become their friend and counsellor, and the object of their devoted adoration. It seems that their secret sorrow had its origin in that mysterious religious sentiment which agitates or affects every class and condition of man, and which creates or destroys states, though philosophers are daily assuring us “that there is nothing in it.” The daughters of the Earl of Culloden could not stand any longer the Free Kirk, of which their austere parent was a fiery votary. It seems that they had been secretly converted to the Episcopal Church of Scotland by a governess, who pretended to be a daughter of the Covenant, but who was really a niece of the primus, and, as Lord Culloden accurately observed, when he ignominiously dismissed her, “a Jesuit in disguise.” From that moment there had been no peace in his house. His handsome and gigantic daughters, who had hitherto been all meekness, and who had obeyed him as they would a tyrant father of the feudal ages, were resolute, and would not compromise their souls. They humbly expressed their desire to enter a convent, or to become at least sisters of mercy. Lord Culloden raged and raved, and delivered himself of cynical taunts, but to no purpose. The principle that forms Free Kirks is a strong principle, and takes many forms, which the social Polyphemes, who have only one eye, cannot perceive. In his desperate confusion, he thought that change of scene might be a diversion when things were at the worst, and this was the reason that he had, contrary to his original intention, accepted the invitation of his ward.
Lady Corisande was exactly the guide the girls required. They sat on each side of her, each holding her hand, which they frequently pressed to their lips. As her form was slight, though of perfect grace and symmetry, the contrast between herself and her worshippers was rather startling; but her noble brow, full of thought and purpose, the firmness of her chiselled lip, and the rich fire of her glance vindicated her post as the leading spirit.
They breakfasted in a room which opened on a gallery, and at the other end of the gallery was an apartment similar to the breakfast-room, which was the male morning-room, and where the world could find the newspapers, or join in half an hour’s talk over the intended arrangements of the day. When the breakfast-party broke up, the bishop approached Lothair, and looked at him earnestly.
“I am at your lordship’s service,” said Lothair, and they quitted the breakfast-room together. Half-way down the gallery they met Monsignore Catesby, who had in his hand a number, just arrived, of a newspaper which was esteemed an Ultramontane organ. He bowed as he passed them, with an air of some exultation, and the bishop and himself exchanged significant smiles, which, however, meant different things. Quitting the gallery, Lothair led the way to his private apartments; and, opening the door, ushered in the bishop.
Now, what was contained in the Ultramontane organ which apparently occasioned so much satisfaction to Monsignore Catesby? A deftly drawn-up announcement of some important arrangements which had been deeply planned. The announcement would be repeated In all the daily papers, which were hourly expected. The world was informed that his eminence, Cardinal Grandison, now on a visit at Muriel Towers to his ward, Lothair, would celebrate high mass on the ensuing Sunday in the city which was the episcopal capital of the bishop’s see, and afterward preach on the present state of the Church of Christ. As the bishop must be absent from his cathedral that day, and had promised to preach in the chapel at Muriel, there was something dexterous in thus turning his lordship’s flank, and desolating his diocese when he was not present to guard it from the fiery dragon. It was also remarked that there would be an unusual gathering of the Catholic aristocracy for the occasion. The rate of lodgings in the city had risen in consequence. At the end of the paragraph it was distinctly contradicted that Lothair had entered the Catholic Church. Such a statement was declared to be “premature,” as his guardian, the cardinal, would never sanction his taking such a step until he was the master of his own actions; the general impression left by the whole paragraph being, that the world was not to be astonished if the first stop of Lothair, on accomplishing his majority, was to pursue the very course which was now daintily described as premature.
At luncheon the whole party were again assembled. The newspapers had arrived in the interval, and had been digested. Every one was aware of the popish plot, as Hugo Bohun called it. The bishop, however, looked serene, and, if not as elate as in the morning, calm and content. He sat by the duchess, and spoke to her in a low voice, and with seriousness. The monsignore watched every expression.
When the duchess rose, the bishop accompanied her into the recess of a window, and she said: “You may depend upon me; I cannot answer for the duke. It is not the early rising; he always rises early in the country, but he likes to read his letters before he dresses, and that sort of thing. I think you had better speak to Lady Corisande yourself.”
What had taken place at the interview of the bishop with Lothair, and what had elicited from the duchess an assurance that the prelate might depend upon her, generally transpired, in consequence of some confidential communications, in the course of the afternoon. It appeared that the right reverend lord had impressed, and successfully, on Lothair, the paramount duty of commencing the day of his majority by assisting in an early celebration of the most sacred rite of the Church. This, in the estimation of the bishop, though he had not directly alluded to the subject in the interview, but had urged the act on higher grounds, would be a triumphant answer to the insidious and calumnious paragraphs which had circulated during the last six months, and an authentic testimony that Lothair was not going to quit the Church of his fathers.
This announcement, however, produced consternation in the opposite camp. It seemed to more than neutralize the anticipated effect of the programme, and the deftly-conceived paragraph. Monsignore Catesby went about whispering that he feared Lothair was going to overdo it; and considering what he had to go through on Monday, if it were only for considerations of health, an early celebration was inexpedient. He tried the duchess—about whom he was beginning to hover a good deal—as he fancied she was of an impressible disposition, and gave some promise of results; but here the ground had been too forcibly preoccupied: then he flew to Lady St. Aldegonde, but he had the mortification of learning, from her lips, that she herself contemplated being a communicant at the same time. Lady Corisande had been before him. All the energies of that young lady were put forth in order that Lothair should be countenanced on this solemn occasion. She conveyed to the bishop before dinner the results of her exertions.
“You may count on Alberta St. Aldegonde and Victoria Montairy, and, I think, Lord Montairy also, if she presses him, which she has promised to do. Bertram must kneel by his friend at such a time. I think Lord Carisbrooke may: Duke of Brecon, I can say nothing about at present.”
“Lord St. Aldegonde?” said the bishop.
Lady Corisande shook her head.
There had been a conclave in the bishop’s room before dinner, in which the interview of the morning was discussed.
“It was successful; scarcely satisfactory,” said the bishop. “He is a very clever fellow, and knows a great deal. They have got hold of him, and he has all the arguments at his fingers’ ends. When I came to the point, he began to demur; I saw what was passing through his mind, and I said at once: ‘Your views are high: so are mine: so are those of the Church. It is a sacrifice, undoubtedly, in a certain sense. No sound theologian would maintain the simplicity of the elements; but that does not involve the coarse interpretation of the dark ages.’”
“Good, good,” said the archdeacon; “and what is it your lordship did not exactly like?”
“He fenced too much; and he said more than once, and in a manner I did not like, that, whatever were his views as to the Church, he thought he could on the whole conscientiously partake of this rite as administered by the Church of England.”
“Every thing depends on this celebration,” said the chaplain; “after that his doubts and difficulties will dispel.”
“We must do our best that he is well supported,” said the archdeacon.
“No fear of that,” said the bishop. “I have spoken to some of our friends. We may depend on the duchess and her daughters—all admirable women; and they will do what they can with others. It will be a busy day, but I have expressed my hope that the heads of the household may be able to attend. But the county notables arrive to-day, and I shall make it a point with them, especially the lord-lieutenant.”
“It should be known,” said the chaplain. “I will send a memorandum to the Guardian.”
“And John Bull,” said the bishop.
The lord-lieutenant and Lady Agramont, and their daughter, Lady Ida Alice, arrived to-day; and the high-sheriff, a manufacturer, a great liberal who delighted in peers, but whose otherwise perfect felicity to-day was a little marred and lessened by the haunting and restless fear that Lothair was not duly aware that he took precedence of the lord-lieutenant. Then there were Sir Hamlet Clotworthy, the master of the hounds, and a capital man of business; and the Honorable Lady Clotworthy, a haughty dame who ruled her circle with tremendous airs and graces, but who was a little subdued in the empyrean of Muriel Towers. The other county member, Mr. Ardenne, was a refined gentleman, and loved the arts. He had an ancient pedigree, and knew everybody else’s, which was not always pleasant. What he most prided himself on was being the hereditary owner of a real deer-park, the only one, he asserted, in the county. Other persons had parks which had deer in them, but that was quite a different thing. His wife was a pretty woman, and the inspiring genius of archeological societies, who loved their annual luncheon in her Tudor Halls, and illustrated by their researches the deeds and dwellings of her husband’s ancient race.
The clergy of the various parishes on the estate all dined at the Towers to-day, in order to pay their respects to their bishop. “Lothair’s oecumenical council,” said Hugo Bohun, as he entered the crowded room, and looked around him with an air of not ungraceful impertinence. Among the clergy was Mr. Smylie, the brother of Apollonia.
A few years ago, Mr. Putney Giles had not unreasonably availed himself of the position which he so usefully and so honorably filled, to recommend this gentleman to the guardians of Lothair to fill a vacant benefice. The Reverend Dionysius Smylie had distinguished himself at Trinity College, Dublin, and had gained a Hebrew scholarship there; after that he had written a work on the Revelations, which clearly settled the long-controverted point whether Rome in the great apocalypse was signified by Babylon. The bishop shrugged his shoulders when he received Mr. Smylie’s papers, the examining chaplain sighed, and the archdeacon groaned. But man is proverbially short-sighted. The doctrine of evolution affords no instances so striking as those of sacerdotal development. Placed under the favoring conditions of clime and soil, the real character of the Reverend Dionysius Smylie gradually, but powerfully, developed itself. Where he now ministered, he was attended by acolytes, and incensed by thurifers. The shoulders of a fellow countryman were alone equal to the burden of the enormous cross which preceded him; while his ecclesiastical wardrobe furnished him with many colored garments, suited to every season of the year, and every festival of the Church.
At first there was indignation, and rumors or prophecies that we should soon have another case of perversion, and that Mr. Smylie was going over to Rome; but these superficial commentators misapprehended the vigorous vanity of the man. “Rome may come to me,” said Mr. Smylie, “and it is perhaps the best thing it could do. This is the real Church without Romish error.”
The bishop and his reverend stuff, who were at first so much annoyed at the preferment of Mr. Smylie, had now, with respect to him, only one duty, and that was to restrain his exuberant priestliness; but they fulfilled that duty in a kindly and charitable spirit; and, when the Reverend Dionysius Smylie was appointed chaplain to Lothair, the bishop did not shrug his shoulders, the chaplain did not sigh, nor the archdeacon groan.
The party was so considerable to-day that they dined in the great hall. When it was announced to Lothair that his lordship’s dinner was served, and he offered his arm to his destined companion, he looked around, and, then in an audible voice, and with a stateliness becoming such an incident, called upon the high-sheriff to lead the duchess to the table. Although that eminent personage had been thinking of nothing else for days, and during the last half-hour had felt as a man feels, and can only feel, who knows that some public function is momentarily about to fall to his perilous discharge, he was taken quite aback, changed color, and lost his head. But the band of Lothair, who were waiting at the door of the apartment to precede the procession to the hall, striking up at this moment “The Roast Beef of Old England,” reanimated his heart; and, following Lothair, and preceding all the other guests down the gallery, and through many chambers, he experienced the proudest moment of a life of struggle, ingenuity, vicissitude, and success.
Under all this flowing festivity there was already a current of struggle and party passion. Serious thoughts and some anxiety occupied the minds of several of the guests, amid the variety of proffered dishes and sparkling wines, and the subdued strains of delicate music. This disquietude did not touch Lothair. He was happy to find himself in his ancestral hall, surrounded by many whom he respected, and by some whom he loved. He was an excellent host, which no one can be who does not combine a good heart with high breeding.
Theodora was rather far from him, but he could catch her grave, sweet countenance at an angle of the table, as she bowed her head to Mr. Ardenne, the county member, who was evidently initiating her in all the mysteries of deer-parks. The cardinal sat near him, winning over, though without apparent effort, the somewhat prejudiced Lady Agramont. His eminence could converse with more facility than others, for he dined off biscuits and drank only water.
Lord Culloden had taken out Lady St. Jerome, who expended on him all the resources of her impassioned tittle-tattle, extracting only grim smiles; and Lady Corisande had fallen to the happy lot of the Duke of Brecon; according to the fine perception of Clare Arundel—and women are very quick in these discoveries—the winning horse. St. Aldegonde had managed to tumble in between Lady Flora and Lady Grizell, and seemed immensely amused.
The duke inquired of Lothair how many he could dine in his hall.
“We must dine more than two hundred on Monday,” he replied.
“And now, I should think, we have only a third of that number,” said his grace. “It will be a tight fit.”
“Mr. Putney Giles has had a drawing made, and every seat apportioned. We shall just do it.”
“I fear you will have too busy a day on Monday,” said the cardinal, who had caught up the conversation.
“Well, you know, sir, I do not sit up smoking with Lord St. Aldegonde.”
After dinner, Lady Corisande seated herself by Mrs. Campian. “You must have thought me very rude,” she said, “to have left you so suddenly at tea, when the bishop looked into the room; but he wanted me on a matter of the greatest importance. I must, therefore, ask your pardon. You naturally would not feel on this matter as we all do, or most of us do,” she added with some hesitation; “being—pardon me—a foreigner, and the question involving national as well as religious feelings;” and then, somewhat hurriedly, but with emotion, she detailed to Theodora all that had occurred respecting the early celebration on Monday, and the opposition it was receiving from the cardinal and his friends. It was a relief to Lady Corisande thus to express all her feelings on a subject on which she had been brooding the whole day.
“You mistake,” said Theodora, quietly, when Lady Corisande had finished. “I am much interested in what you tell me. I should deplore our friend falling under the influence of the Romish priesthood.”
“And yet there is danger of it,” said Lady Corisande, “more than danger,” she added in a low but earnest voice. “You do not know what a conspiracy is going on, and has been going on for months, to effect this end. I tremble.”
“That is the last thing I ever do,” said Theodora, with a faint, sweet smile. “I hope, but I never tremble.”
“You have seen the announcement in the newspapers to-day!” said Lady Corisande.
“I think, if they were certain of their prey, they would be more reserved,” said Theodora.
“There is something in that,” said Lady Corisande, musingly. “You know not what a relief it is to me to speak to you on this matter. Mamma agrees with me, and so do my sisters; but still they may agree with me because they are my mamma and my sisters; but I look upon our nobility joining the Church of Rome as the greatest calamity that has ever happened to England. Irrespective of all religious considerations, on which I will not presume to touch, it is an abnegation of patriotism; and in this age, when all things are questioned, a love of our country seems to me the one sentiment to cling to.”
“I know no higher sentiment,” said Theodora in a low voice, and yet which sounded like the breathing of some divine shrine, and her Athenian eye met the fiery glance of Lady Corisande with an expression of noble sympathy.
“I am so glad that I spoke to you on this matter,” said Lady Corisande, “for there is something in you which encourages me. As you say, if they were certain, they would be silent; and yet, from what I hear, their hopes are high. You know,” she added in a whisper, “that he has absolutely engaged to raise a popish cathedral. My brother, Bertram, has seen the model in his rooms.”
“I have known models that were never realized,” said Theodora.
“Ah! you are hopeful; you said you were hopeful. It is a beautiful disposition. It is not mine,” she added, with a sigh.
“It should be,” said Theodora; “you were not born to sigh. Sighs should be for those who have no country, like myself; not for the daughters of England—the beautiful daughters of proud England.”
“But you have your husband’s country, and that is proud and great.”
“I have only one country, and it is not my husband’s; and I have only one thought, and it is to set it free.”
“It is a noble one,” said Lady Corisande, “as I am sure are all your thoughts. There are the gentlemen; I am sorry they have come. There,” she added, as Monsignore Catesby entered the room, “there is his evil genius.”
“But you have baffled him,” said Theodora.
“Ah,” said Lady Corisande, with a long-drawn sigh. “Their manoeuvres never cease. However, I think Monday must be safe. Would you come?” she said, with a serious, searching glance, and in a kind of coaxing murmur.
“I should be an intruder, my dear lady,” said Theodora, declining the suggestion; “but, so far as hoping that our friend will never join the Church of Rome, you will have ever my ardent wishes.”
Theodora might have added her belief, for Lothair had never concealed from her a single thought or act of his life in this respect. She knew all and had weighed every thing, and flattered herself that their frequent and unreserved conversations had not confirmed his belief in the infallibility of the Church of Rome, and perhaps of some other things.
It had been settled that there should be dancing this evening—all the young ladies had wished it. Lothair danced with Lady Flora Falkirk, and her sister, Lady Grizell, was in the same quadrille. They moved about like young giraffes in an African forest, but looked bright and happy. Lothair liked his cousins; their inexperience and innocence, and the simplicity with which they exhibited and expressed their feelings, had in them something bewitching. Then the rough remembrance of his old life at Falkirk and its contrast with the present scene had in it something stimulating. They were his juniors by several years, but they were always gentle and kind to him; and sometimes it seemed he was the only person whom they, too, had found kind and gentle. He called his cousin, too, by her Christian name, and he was amused, standing by this beautiful giantess, and calling her Flora. There were other amusing circumstances in the quadrille; not the least, Lord St. Aldegonde dancing with Mrs. Campian. The wonder of Lady St. Aldegonde was only equalled by her delight.
The lord-lieutenant was standing by the duke, in a comer of the saloon, observing, not with dissatisfaction, his daughter, Lady Ida Alice, dancing with Lothair.
“Do you know this is the first time I ever had the honor of meeting a cardinal?” he said.
“And we never expected that it would happen to either of us in this country when we were at Christchurch together,” replied the duke.
“Well, I hope every thing is for the best,” said Lord Agramont. “We are to have all these gentlemen in our good city of Grandchester, to-morrow.”
“So I understand.”
“You read that paragraph in the newspapers? Do you think there is any thing in it?”
“About our friend? It would be a great misfortune.”
“The bishop says there is nothing in it,” said the lord-lieutenant.
“Well, he ought to know. I understand he has had some serious conversation recently with our friend?”
“Yes; he has spoken to me about it. Are you going to attend the early celebration tomorrow? It is not much to my taste; a little new-fangled, I think; but I shall go, as they say it will do good.”
“I am glad of that; it is well that he should be impressed at this moment with the importance and opinion of his county.”
“Do you know I never saw him before?” said the lord-lieutenant. “He is winning.”
“I know no youth,” said the duke, “I would not except my own son, and Bertram has never given me an uneasy moment, of whom I have a better opinion, both as to heart and head. I should deeply deplore his being smashed by a Jesuit.”
The dancing had ceased for a moment; there was a stir; Lord Carisbrooke was enlarging, with unusual animation, to an interested group, about a new dance at Paris—the new dance. Could they not have it here? Unfortunately, he did not know its name, and could not describe its figure; but it was something new; quite new; they got it at Paris. Princess Metternich dances it. He danced it with her, and she taught it him; only he never could explain any thing, and indeed never did exactly make it out. “But you danced it with a shawl, and then two ladies hold the shawl, and the cavaliers pass under it. In fact, it is the only thing; it is the new dance at Paris.”
What a pity that any thing so delightful should be so indefinite and perplexing, and indeed impossible, which rendered it still more desirable! If Lord Carisbrooke only could have remembered its name, or a single step in its figure—it was so tantalizing!
“Do not you think so?” said Hugo Bohun to Mrs. Campian, who was sitting apart, listening to Lord St. Aldegonde’s account of his travels in the United States, which he was very sorry he ever quitted. And then they inquired to what Mr. Bohun referred, and then he told them all that had been said.
“I know what he means,” said Mrs. Campian. “It is not a French dance; it is a Moorish dance.”
“That woman knows everything, Hugo,” said Lord St. Aldegonde in a solemn whisper. And then he called to his wife. “Bertha, Mrs. Campian will tell you all about this dance that Carisbrooke is making such a mull of. Now, look here, Bertha; you must get the Campians to come to us as soon as possible. They are going to Scotland from this place, and there is no reason, if you manage it well, why they should not come on to us at once. Now, exert yourself.”
“I will do all I can, Granville.”
“It is not French, it is Moorish; it is called the Tangerine,” said Theodora to her surrounding votaries. “You begin with a circle.”
“But how are we to dance without the music?” said Lady Montairy.
“Ah! I wish I had known this,” said Theodora, “before dinner, and I think I could have dotted down something that would have helped us. But let me see,” and she went up to the eminent professor, with whom she was well acquainted, and said, “Signor Ricci, it begins so,” and she hummed divinely a fantastic air, which, after a few moments’ musing, he reproduced; “and then it goes off into what they call in Spain a saraband. Is there a shawl in the room?”
“My mother has always a shawl in reserve,” said Bertram, “particularly when she pays visits to houses where there are galleries;” and he brought back a mantle of Cashmere.
“Now, Signor Ricci,” said Mrs. Campian, and she again hummed an air, and moved forward at the same time with brilliant grace, waving at the end the shawl.
The expression of her countenance, looking round to Signor Ricci, as she was moving on to see whether he had caught her idea, fascinated Lothair.
“It is exactly what I told you,” said Lord Carisbrooke, “and, I can assure you, it is the only dance now. I am very glad I remembered it.”
“I see it all,” said Signor Ricci, as Theodora rapidly detailed to him the rest of the figure. “And at any rate it will be the Tangerine with variations.”
“Let me have the honor of being your partner in this great enterprise,” said Lothair; “you are the inspiration of Muriel.”
“Oh! I am very glad I can do any thing, however slight, to please you and your friends. I like them all; but particularly Lady Corisande.”
A new dance in a country-house is a festival of frolic grace. The incomplete knowledge, and the imperfect execution, are themselves causes of merry excitement, in their contrast with the unimpassioned routine and almost unconscious practice of traditionary performances. And gay and frequent were the bursts of laughter from the bright and airy band who were proud to be the scholars of Theodora. The least successful among them was perhaps Lord Carisbrooke.
“Princess Metternich must have taught you wrong, Carisbrooke,” said Hugo Bohun.
They ended with a waltz, Lothair dancing with Miss Arundel. She accepted his offer to take some tea on its conclusion. While they were standing at the table, a little withdrawn from the others, and he holding a sugar-basin, she said in a low voice, looking on her cup and not at him, “the cardinal is vexed about the early celebration; he says it should have been at midnight.”
“I am sorry he is vexed,” said Lothair.
“He was going to speak to you himself,” continued Miss Arundel; “but he felt a delicacy about it. He had thought that your common feelings respecting the Church might have induced you if not to consult, at least to converse, with him on the subject; I mean as your guardian.”
“It might have been perhaps as well,” said Lothair; “but I also feel a delicacy on these matters.”
“There ought to be none on such matters,” continued Miss Arundel, “when every thing is at stake.”
“I do not see that I could have taken any other course than I have done,” said.Lothair. “It can hardly be wrong. The bishop’s church views are sound.”
“Sound!” said Miss Arundel; “moonshine instead of sunshine.”
“Moonshine would rather suit a midnight than a morning celebration,” said Lothair; “would it not?”
“A fair repartee, but we are dealing with a question that cannot be settled by jests. See,” she said with great seriousness, putting down her cup and taking again his offered arm, “you think you are only complying with a form befitting your position and the occasion. You deceive yourself. You are hampering your future freedom by this step, and they know it. That is why it was planned. It was not necessary; nothing can be necessary so pregnant with evil. You might have made, you might yet make, a thousand excuses. It is a rite which hardly suits the levity of the hour, even with their feelings; but, with your view of its real character, it is sacrilege. What is occurring tonight might furnish you with scruples?” And she looked up in his face.
“I think you take an exaggerated view of what I contemplate,” said Lothair. “Even with your convictions, it may be an imperfect rite; but it never can be an injurious one.”
“There can be no compromise on such matters,” said Miss Arundel. “The Church knows nothing of imperfect rites. They are all perfect, because they are all divine; any deviation from them is heresy, and fatal. My convictions on this subject are your convictions; act up to them.”
“I am sure, if thinking of these matters would guide a man right—” said Lothair, with a sigh, and he stopped.
“Human thought will never guide you; and very justly, when you have for a guide Divine truth. You are now your own master; go at once to its fountain-head; go to Rome, and then all your perplexities will vanish, and forever.”
“I do not see much prospect of my going to Rome,” said Lothair, “at least at present.”
“Well,” said Miss Arundel, “in a few weeks I hope to be there; and if so, I hope never to quit it.”
“Do not say that; the future is always unknown.”
“Not yours,” said Miss Arundel. “Whatever you think, you will go to Rome. Mark my words. I summon you to meet me at Rome.”
There can be little doubt, generally speaking, that it is more satisfactory to pass Sunday in the country than in town. There is something in the essential stillness of country-life, which blends harmoniously with the ordinance of the most divine of our divine laws. It is pleasant, too, when the congregation breaks up, to greet one’s neighbors; to say kind words to kind faces; to hear some rural news profitable to learn, which sometimes enables you to do some good, and sometimes prevents others from doing some harm. A quiet, domestic walk, too, in the afternoon, has its pleasures; and so numerous and so various are the sources of interest in the country, that, though it be Sunday, there is no reason why your walk should not have an object.
But Sunday in the country, with your house full of visitors, is too often an exception to this general truth. It is a trial. Your guests cannot always be at church, and, if they could, would not like it. There is nothing to interest or amuse them; no sport; no castles or factories to visit; no adventurous expeditions; no gay music in the morn, and no light dance in the evening. There is always danger of the day becoming a course of heavy meals and stupid walks, for the external scene and all teeming circumstances, natural and human, though full of concern to you, are to your visitors an insipid blank.
How did Sunday go off at Muriel Towers?
In the first place, there was a special train, which, at an early hour, took the cardinal and his suite and the St. Jerome family to Grandchester, where they were awaited with profound expectation. But the Anglican portion of the guests were not without their share of ecclesiastical and spiritual excitement, for the bishop was to preach this day in the chapel of the Towers, a fine and capacious sanctuary of florid Gothic, and his lordship was a sacerdotal orator of repute.
It had been announced that the breakfast-hour was to be somewhat earlier. The ladies in general were punctual, and seemed conscious of some great event impending. The Ladies Flora and Grizell entered with, each in her hand, a prayer-book of purple velvet, adorned with a decided cross, the gift of the primus. Lord Culloden, at the request of Lady Corisande, had consented to their hearing the bishop, which he would not do himself. He passed his morning in finally examining the guardians’ accounts, the investigation of which he conducted and concluded, during the rest of the day, with Mr. Putney Giles. Mrs. Campian did not leave her room. Lord St. Aldegonde came down late, and looked about him with an uneasy, ill-humored air.
Whether it were the absence of Theodora, or some other cause, he was brusk, ungracious, scowling, and silent, only nodding to the bishop, who benignly saluted him, refusing every dish that was offered; then getting up, and helping himself at the side-table, making a great noise with the carving instruments, and flouncing down his plate when he resumed his seat. Nor was his costume correct. All the other gentlemen, though their usual morning-dresses were sufficiently fantastic—trunk-hose of every form, stockings bright as paroquets, wondrous shirts, and velvet-coats of every tint—habited themselves to-day, both as regards form and color, in a style indicative of the subdued gravity of their feelings. Lord St. Aldegonde had on his shooting-jacket of brown velvet and a pink-shirt and no cravat, and his rich brown locks, always, to a certain degree, neglected, were peculiarly dishevelled.
Hugo Bohun, who was not afraid of him, and was a high-churchman, being, in religion, and in all other matters, always on the side of the duchesses, said: “Well, St. Aldegonde, are you going to chapel in that dress?” But St. Aldegonde would not answer; he gave a snort, and glanced at Hugo, with the eye of a gladiator.
The meal was over. The bishop was standing near the mantel-piece talking to the ladies, who were clustered round him; the archdeacon and the chaplain and some other clergy a little in the background; Lord St. Aldegonde, who, whether there were a fire or not, always stood with his back to the fireplace with his hands in his pockets, moved discourteously among them, assumed his usual position, and listened, as it were, grimly, for a few moments to their talk; then he suddenly exclaimed in a loud voice, and with the groan of a rebellious Titan, “How I hate Sunday!”
“Granville!” exclaimed Lady St. Aldegonde, turning pale. There was a general shudder.
“I mean in a country-house,” said Lord St. Aldegonde. “Of course, I mean in a country-house. I do not dislike it when alone, and I do not dislike it in London. But Sunday in a country-house is infernal.”
“I think it is now time for us to go,” said the bishop, walking away with dignified reserve, and they all dispersed.
The service was choral and intoned; for, although the Rev. Dionysius Smylie had not yet had time or opportunity, as was his intention, to form and train a choir from the household of the Towers, he had secured from his neighboring parish and other sources external and effective aid in that respect. The parts of the service were skillfully distributed, and rarely were a greater number of priests enlisted in a more imposing manner. A good organ was well played; the singing, as usual, a little too noisy; there was an anthem and an introit—but no incense, which was forbidden by the bishop; and, though there were candles on the altar, they were not permitted to be lighted.
The sermon was most successful; the ladies returned with elate and animated faces, quite enthusiastic and almost forgetting in their satisfaction the terrible outrage of Lord St. Aldegonde. He himself had by this time repented of what he had done, and recovered his temper, and greeted his wife with a voice and look which indicated to her practised senses the favorable change.
“Bertha,” he said, “you know I did not mean any thing personal to the bishop in what I said. I do not like bishops; I think there is no use in them; but I have no objection to him personally; I think him an agreeable man; not at all a bore. Just put it right, Bertha. But I tell you what, Bertha, I cannot go to church here. Lord Culloden does not go, and he is a very religious man. He is the man I most agree with on these matters. I am a free-church man, and there is on end of it. I cannot go this afternoon. I do not approve of the whole thing. It is altogether against my conscience. What I mean to do, if I can manage it, is to take a real long walk with the Campians.”
Mrs. Campian appeared at luncheon. The bishop was attentive to her; even cordial. He was resolved she should not feel he was annoyed by her not having been a member of his congregation in the morning. Lady Corisande too had said to him: “I wish so much you would talk to Mrs. Campian; she is a sweet, noble creature, and so clever! I feel that she might be brought to view things in the right light.”
“I never know,” said the bishop, “how to deal with these American ladies. I never can make out what they believe, or what they disbelieve. It is a sort of confusion between Mrs. Beecher Stowe and the Fifth Avenue congregation and—Barnum,” he added with a twinkling eye.
The second service was late; the dean preached. The lateness of the hour permitted the lord-lieutenant and those guests who had arrived only the previous day to look over the castle, or ramble about the gardens. St. Aldegonde succeeded in his scheme of a real long walk with the Campians, which Lothair, bound to listen to the head of his college, was not permitted to share.
In the evening Signor Mardoni, who had arrived, and Madame Isola Bella, favored them with what they called sacred music; principally prayers from operas and a grand Stabat Mater.
Lord Culloden invited Lothair into a farther saloon, where they might speak without disturbing the performers or the audience.
“I’ll just take advantage, my dear boy,” said Lord Culloden, in a tone of unusual tenderness, and of Doric accent, “of the absence of these gentlemen to have a little quiet conversation with you. Though I have not seen so much of you of late as in old days, I take a great interest in you, no doubt of that, and I was very pleased to see how good-natured you were to the girls. You have romped with them when they were little ones. Now, in a few hours, you will be master of a great inheritance, and I hope it will profit ye. I have been over the accounts with Mr. Giles, and I was pleased to hear that you had made yourself properly acquainted with them in detail. Never you sign any paper without reading it first, and knowing well what it means. You will have to sign a release to us if you be satisfied, and that you may easily be. My poor brother-in-law left you as large an income as may be found on this side Trent, but I will be bound he would stare if he saw the total of the whole of your rent-roll, Lothair. Your affairs have been well administered, though I say it who ought not. But it is not my management only, or principally, that has done it. It is the progress of the country, and you owe the country a good deal, and you should never forget you are born to be a protector of its liberties, civil and religious. And if the country sticks to free trade, and would enlarge its currency, and be firm to the Protestant faith, it will, under Divine Providence, continue to progress.
“And here, my boy, I’ll just say a word, in no disagreeable manner, about your religious principles. There are a great many stories about, and perhaps they are not true, and I am sure I hope they are not. If popery were only just the sign of the cross, and music, and censer-pots, though I think them all superstitious, I’d be free to leave them alone if they would leave me. But popery is a much deeper thing than that, Lothair, and our fathers found it out. They could not stand it, and we should be a craven crew to stand it now. A man should be master in his own house. You will be taking a wife, some day; at least it is to be hoped so; and how will you like one of these monsignores to be walking into her bedroom, eh; and talking to her alone when he pleases, and where he pleases; and when you want to consult your wife, which a wise man should often do, to find there is another mind between hers and yours? There’s my girls, they are just two young geese, and they have a hankering after popery, having had a Jesuit in the house. I do not know what has become of the women. They are for going into a convent, and they are quite right in that, for if they be papists they will not find a husband easily in Scotland, I ween.
“And as for you, my boy, they will be telling you that it is only just this and just that, and there’s no great difference, and what not; but I tell you that, if once you embrace the scarlet lady, you are a tainted corpse. You’ll not be able to order your dinner without a priest, and they will ride your best horses without saying with your leave or by your leave.”
The concert in time ceased; there was a stir in the room; the Rev. Dionysius Smylie moved about mysteriously, and ultimately seemed to make an obeisance before the bishop. It was time for prayers.
“Shall you go?” said Lord St. Aldegonde to Mrs. Campian, by whom he was sitting.
“I like to pray alone,” she answered.
“As for that,” said Aldegonde, “I am not clear we ought to pray at all, either in public or private. It seems very arrogant in us to dictate to an all-wise Creator what we desire.”
“I believe in the efficacy of prayer,” said Theodora.
“And I believe in you,” said St. Aldegonde, after a momentary pause.