The Wizard of Fortune
TANCRED entered Sequin Court; a chariot with a foreign coronet was at the foot of the great steps which he ascended. He was received by a fat hall porter, who would not have disgraced his father’s establishment, and who, rising with lazy insolence from his hooded chair, when he observed that Tancred did not advance, asked the new comer what he wanted. ‘I want Monsieur de Sidonia.’ ‘Can’t see him now; he is engaged.’ ‘I have a note for him.’
‘Very well, give it me; it will be sent in. You can sit here.’ And the porter opened the door of a waiting-room, which Tancred declined to enter. ‘I will wait here, thank you,’ said Tancred, and he looked round at the old oak hall, on the walls of which were hung several portraits, and from which ascended one of those noble staircases never found in a modern London mansion. At the end of the hall, on a slab of porphyry, was a marble bust, with this inscription on it, ‘Fundator.’ It was the first Sidonia, by Chantrey.
‘I will wait here, thank you,’ said Tancred, looking round; and then, with some hesitation, he added, ‘I have an appointment here at two o’clock.’
As he spoke, that hour sounded from the belfry of an old city church that was at hand, and then was taken up by the chimes of a large German clock in the hall.
‘It may be,’ said the porter, ‘but I can’t disturb master now; the Spanish ambassador is with him, and others are waiting. When he is gone, a clerk will take in your letter with some others that are here.’
At this moment, and while Tancred remained in the hall, various persons entered, and, without noticing the porter, pursued their way across the apartment.
‘And where are those persons going?’ inquired Tancred.
The porter looked at the enquirer with a blended gaze of curiosity and contempt, and then negligently answered him without looking in Tancred’s face, and while he was brushing up the hearth, ‘Some are going to the counting-house, and some are going to the Bank, I should think.’
‘I wonder if our hall porter is such an infernal bully as Monsieur de Sidonia’s!’ thought Tancred.
There was a stir. ‘The ambassador is coming out,’ said the hall porter; ‘you must not stand in the way.’
The well-trained ear of this guardian of the gate was conversant with every combination of sound which the apartments of Sequin Court could produce. Close as the doors might be shut, you could not rise from your chair without his being aware of it; and in the present instance he was correct. A door at the end of the hall opened, and the Spanish minister came forth.
‘Stand aside,’ said the hall porter to Tancred; and, summoning the servants without, he ushered his excellency with some reverence to his carriage.
‘Now your letter will go in with the others,’ he said to Tancred, whom for a few moments he left alone, and then returned, taking no notice of our young friend, but, depositing his bulky form in his hooded chair, he resumed the city article of theTimes.
The letter ran thus:
‘Dear Sidonia: This will be given you by my cousin Montacute, of whom I spoke to you yesterday. He wants to go to Jerusalem, which very much perplexes his family, for he is an only child. I don’t suppose the danger is what they imagine. But still there is nothing like experience, and there is no one who knows so much of these things as yourself. I have promised his father and mother, very innocent people, whom of all my relatives, I most affect, to do what I can for him. If, therefore, you can aid Montacute, you will really serve me. He seems to have character, though I can’t well make him out. I fear I indulged in the hock yesterday, for I feel a twinge. Yours faithfully,
‘ESKDALE.
‘Wednesday morning.’
The hall clock had commenced the quarter chimes, when a young man, fair and intelligent, and wearing spectacles, came into the hall, and, opening the door of the waiting-room, looked as if he expected to find some one there; then, turning to the porter, he said, ‘Where is Lord Montacute?’
The porter rose from his hooded chair, and put down the newspaper, but Tancred had advanced when he heard his name, and bowed, and followed the young man in spectacles, who invited Tancred to accompany him.
Tancred was ushered into a spacious and rather long apartment, panelled with old oak up to the white coved ceiling, which was richly ornamented. Four windows looked upon the fountain and the plane tree. A portrait by Lawrence, evidently of the same individual who had furnished the model to Chantrey, was over the high, old-fashioned, but very handsome marble mantel-piece. A Turkey carpet, curtains of crimson damask, some large tables covered with papers, several easy chairs, against the walls some iron cabinets, these were the furniture of the room, at one corner of which was a glass door, which led to a vista of apartments fitted up as counting-houses, filled with clerks, and which, if expedient, might be covered by a baize screen, which was now unclosed.
A gentleman writing at a table rose as he came in, and extending his hand said, as he pointed to a seat, ‘I am afraid I have made you come out at an unusual hour.’
The young man in spectacles in the meanwhile retired; Tancred had bowed and murmured his compliments: and his host, drawing his chair a little from the table, continued: ‘Lord Eskdale tells me that you have some thoughts of going to Jerusalem.’
‘I have for some time had that intention.’
‘It is a pity that you did not set out earlier in the year, and then you might have been there during the Easter pilgrimage. It is a fine sight.’
‘It is a pity,’ said Tancred; ‘but to reach Jerusalem is with me an object of so much moment, that I shall be content to find myself there at any time, and under any circumstances.’
‘It is no longer difficult to reach Jerusalem; the real difficulty is the one experienced by the crusaders, to know what to do when you have arrived there.’
‘It is the land of inspiration,’ said Tancred, slightly blushing; ‘and when I am there, I would humbly pray that my course may be indicated to me.’
‘And you think that no prayers, however humble, would obtain for you that indication before your departure?’
‘This is not the land of inspiration,’ replied Tancred, timidly.
‘But you have your Church,’ said Sidonia.
‘Which I hold of divine institution, and which should be under the immediate influence of the Holy Spirit,’ said Tancred, dropping his eyes, and colouring still more as he found himself already trespassing on that delicate province of theology which always fascinated him, but which it had been intimated to him by Lord Eskdale that he should avoid.
‘Is it wanting to you, then, in this conjuncture?’ inquired his companion.
‘I find its opinions conflicting, its decrees contradictory, its conduct inconsistent,’ replied Tancred. ‘I have conferred with one who is esteemed its most eminent prelate, and I have left him with a conviction of what I had for some time suspected, that inspiration is not only a divine but a local quality.’
‘You and I have some reason to believe so,’ said Sidonia. ‘I believe that God spoke to Moses on Mount Horeb, and you believe that he was crucified, in the person of Jesus, on Mount Calvary. Both were, at least carnally, children of Israel: they spoke Hebrew to the Hebrews. The prophets were only Hebrews; the apostles were only Hebrews. The churches of Asia, which have vanished, were founded by a native Hebrew; and the church of Rome, which says it shall last for ever, and which converted this island to the faith of Moses and of Christ, vanquishing the Druids, Jupiter Olympius, and Woden, who had successively invaded it, was also founded by a native Hebrew. Therefore, I say, your suspicion or your conviction is, at least, not a fantastic one.’
Tancred listened to Sidonia as he spoke with great interest, and with an earnest and now quite unembarrassed manner. The height of the argument had immediately surmounted all his social reserve. His intelligence responded to the great theme that had so long occupied his musing hours; and the unexpected character of a conversation which, as he had supposed, would have mainly treated of letters of credit, the more excited him.
‘Then,’ said Tancred, with animation, ‘seeing how things are, that I am born in an age and in a country divided between infidelity on one side and an anarchy of creeds on the other; with none competent to guide me, yet feeling that I must believe, for I hold that duty cannot exist without faith; is it so wild as some would think it, I would say is it unreasonable, that I should wish to do that which, six centuries ago, was done by my ancestor whose name I bear, and that I should cross the seas, and——?’ He hesitated.
‘And visit the Holy Sepulchre,’ said Sidonia.
‘And visit the Holy Sepulchre,’ said Tancred, solemnly; ‘for that, I confess, is my sovereign thought.’
‘Well, the crusades were of vast advantage to Europe,’ said Sidonia, ‘and renovated the spiritual hold which Asia has always had upon the North. It seems to wane at present, but it is only the decrease that precedes the new development.’
‘It must be so,’ said Tancred; ‘for who can believe that a country once sanctified by the Divine Presence can ever be as other lands? Some celestial quality, distinguishing it from all other climes, must for ever linger about it. I would ask those mountains, that were reached by angels, why they no longer receive heavenly visitants. I would appeal to that Comforter promised to man, on the sacred spot on which the assurance of solace was made. I require a Comforter. I have appealed to the holy influence in vain in England. It has not visited me; I know none here on whom it has descended. I am induced, therefore, to believe that it is part of the divine scheme that its influence should be local; that it should be approached with reverence, not thoughtlessly and hurriedly, but with such difficulties and such an interval of time as a pilgrimage to a spot sanctified can alone secure.’
Sidonia listened to Tancred with deep attention. Lord Montacute was seated opposite the windows, so that there was a full light upon the play of the countenance, the expression of which Sidonia watched, while his keen and far-reaching vision traced at the same time the formation and development of the head of his visitor. He recognised in this youth not a vain and vague visionary, but a being in whom the faculties of reason and imagination were both of the highest class, and both equally developed. He observed that he was of a nature passionately affectionate, and that he was of a singular audacity. He perceived that though, at this moment, Tancred was as ignorant of the world as a young monk, he possessed all the latent qualities which in future would qualify him to control society. When Tancred had finished speaking, there was a pause of a few seconds, during which Sidonia seemed lost in thought; then, looking up, he said, ‘It appears to me, Lord Montacute, that what you want is to penetrate the great Asian mystery.’
‘You have touched my inmost thought,’ said Tancred, eagerly.
At this moment there entered the room, from the glass door, the same young man who had ushered Tancred into the apartment. He brought a letter to Sidonia. Lord Montacute felt confused; his shyness returned to him; he deplored the unfortunate interruption, but he felt he was in the way. He rose, and began to say good-morning, when Sidonia, without taking his eyes off the letter, saw him, and waving his hand, stopped him, saying, ‘I settled with Lord Eskdale that you were not to go away if anything occurred which required my momentary attention. So pray sit down, unless you have engagements.’ And Tancred again seated himself.
‘Write,’ continued Sidonia to the clerk, ‘that my letters are twelve hours later than the despatches, and that the City continued quite tranquil. Let the extract from the Berlin letter be left at the same time at the Treasury. The last bulletin?’
‘Consols drooping at half-past two; all the foreign funds lower; shares very active.’
They were once more alone. ‘When do you propose going?’ ‘I hope in a week.’ ‘Alone?’
‘I fear I shall have many attendants.’ ‘That is a pity. Well, when you arrive at Jerusalem, you will naturally go to the convent of Terra Santa. You will make there the acquaintance of the Spanish prior, Alonzo Lara. He calls me cousin; he is a Nuevo of the fourteenth century. Very orthodox; but the love of the old land and the old language have come out in him, as they will, though his blood is no longer clear, but has been modified by many Gothic intermarriages, which was never our case. We are pure Sephardim. Lara thoroughly comprehends Palestine and all that pertains to it. He has been there a quarter of a century, and might have been Archbishop of Seville. You see, he is master of the old as well as the new learning; this is very important; they often explain each other. Your bishops here know nothing about these things. How can they? A few centuries back they were tattooed savages. This is the advantage which Rome has over you, and which you never can understand. That Church was founded by a Hebrew, and the magnetic influence lingers. But you will go to the fountain head. Theology requires an apprenticeship of some thousand years at least; to say nothing of clime and race. You cannot get on with theology as you do with chemistry and mechanics. Trust me, there is something deeper in it. I shall give you a note to Lara; cultivate him, he is the man you want. You will want others; they will come; but Lara has the first key.’
‘I am sorry to trouble you about such things,’ said Tancred, in a hesitating voice, ‘but perhaps I may not have the great pleasure to see you again, and Lord Eskdale said that I was to speak to you about some letters of credit.’
‘Oh! we shall meet before you go. But what you say reminds me of something. As for money, there is only one banker in Syria; he is everywhere, at Aleppo, Damascus, Beiroot, Jerusalem. It is Besso. Before the expulsion of the Egyptians, he really ruled Syria, but he is still powerful, though they have endeavoured to crush him at Constantinople. I applied to Metternich about him, and, besides that, he is mine.
I shall give you a letter to him, but not merely for your money affairs. I wish you to know him. He lives in splendour at Damascus, moderately at Jerusalem, where there is little to do, but which he loves as a residence, being a Hebrew. I wish you to know him. You will, I am sure, agree with me, that he is, without exception, the most splendid specimen of the animal man you ever became acquainted with. His name is Adam, and verily he looks as if he were in the garden of Eden before the fall. But his soul is as grand and as fine as his body. You will lean upon this man as you would on a faithful charger. His divan is charming; you will always find there the most intelligent people. You must learn to smoke. There is nothing that Besso cannot do; make him do everything you want; have no scruples; he will be gratified. Besides, he is one of those who kiss my signet. These two letters will open Syria to you, and any other land, if you care to proceed. Give yourself no trouble about any other preparations.’
‘And how am I to thank you?’ said Tancred, rising; ‘and how am I to express to you all my gratitude?’
‘What are you going to do with yourself to-morrow?’ said Sidonia. ‘I never go anywhere; but I have a few friends who are so kind as to come sometimes to me. There are two or three persons dining with me to-morrow, whom you might like to meet. Will you do so?’
‘I shall be most proud and pleased.’
‘That’s well. It is not here; it is in Carlton Gardens; at sunset.’ And Sidonia continued the letter which he was writing when Tancred entered.
An Interesting Rencontre
WHEN Tancred returned home, musing, from a visit to Sidonia, he found the following note:
‘Lady Bertie and Bellair returns Lord Montacute his carriage with a thousand compliments and thanks. She fears she greatly incommoded Lord Montacute, but begs to assure him how very sensible she is of his considerate courtesy.
‘Upper Brook Street, Wednesday.’
The handwriting was of that form of scripture which attracts; refined yet energetic; full of character. Tancred recognised the titles of Bertie and Bellair as those of two not inconsiderable earldoms, now centred in the same individual. Lady Bertie and Bellair was herself a lady of the high nobility; a daughter of the present Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine; the son of that duke who was the father-in-law of Lord de Mowbray, and whom Lady Firebrace, the present Lady Bardolf, and Tadpole, had dexterously converted to conservatism by persuading him that he was to be Sir Robert’s Irish viceroy. Lady Bertie and Bellair, therefore, was first-cousin to Lady Joan Mountchesney, and her sister, who is still Lady Maud Fitz-Warene. Tancred was surprised that he never recollected to have met before one so distinguished and so beautiful. His conversation with Sidonia, however, had driven the little adventure of the morning from his memory, and now that it was thus recalled to him, he did not dwell upon it. His being was absorbed in his paramount purpose. The sympathy of Sidonia, so complete, and as instructive as it was animating, was a sustaining power which we often need when we are meditating great deeds. How often, when all seems dark, and hopeless, and spiritless, and tame, when slight obstacles figure in the cloudy landscape as Alps, and the rushing cataracts of our invention have subsided into drizzle, a single phrase of a great man instantaneously flings sunshine on the intellectual landscape, and the habitual features of power and beauty, over which we have so long mused in secret confidence and love, resume all their energy and lustre.
The haunting thought that occasionally, notwithstanding his strong will, would perplex the soul and agitate the heart of Tancred; the haunting thought that, all this time, he was perhaps the dupe of boyish fantasies, was laid to-day. Sometimes he had felt, Why does no one sympathise with my views; why, though they treat them with conventional respect, is it clear that all I have addressed hold them to be absurd? My parents are pious and instructed; they are predisposed to view everything I say, or do, or think, with an even excessive favour. They think me moonstruck. Lord Eskdale is a perfect man of the world; proverbially shrewd, and celebrated for his judgment; he looks upon me as a raw boy, and believes that, if my father had kept me at Eton and sent me to Paris, I should by this time have exhausted my crudities. The bishop is what the world calls a great scholar; he is a statesman who, aloof from faction, ought to be accustomed to take just and comprehensive views; and a priest who ought to be under the immediate influence of the Holy Spirit. He says I am a visionary. All this might well be disheartening; but now comes one whom no circumstances impel to judge my project with indulgence; who would, at the first glance, appear to have many prejudices arrayed against it, who knows more of the world than Lord Eskdale, and who appears to me to be more learned than the whole bench of bishops, and he welcomes my ideas, approves my conclusions, sympathises with my suggestions; develops, illustrates, enforces them; plainly intimates that I am only on the threshold of initiation, and would aid me to advance to the innermost mysteries.
There was this night a great ball at Lady Bardolfs, in Belgrave Square. One should generally mention localities, because very often they indicate character. Lady Bardolf lived next door to Mrs. Guy Flouncey. Both had risen in the world, though it requires some esoteric knowledge to recognise the patrician par-venue; and both had finally settled themselves down in the only quarter which Lady Bardolf thought worthy of her new coronet, and Mrs. Guy Flouncey of her new visiting list.
Lady Bardolf had given up the old family mansion of the Firebraces in Hanover Square, at the same time that she had resigned their old title. Politics being dead, in consequence of the majority of 1841, who, after a little kicking for the million, satisfactorily assured the minister that there was no vice in them.
Lady Bardolf had chalked out a new career, and one of a still more eminent and exciting character than her previous pursuit. Lady Bardolf was one of those ladies—there are several—who entertain the curious idea that they need only to be known in certain high quarters to be immediately selected as the principal objects of court favour. Lady Bardolf was always putting herself in the way of it; she never lost an opportunity; she never missed a drawing-room, contrived to be at all the court balls, plotted to be invited to a costume fête, and expended the tactics of a campaign to get asked to some grand château honoured by august presence. Still Her Majesty had not yet sent for Lady Bardolf. She was still very good friends with Lord Masque, for he had social influence, and could assist her; but as for poor Tadpole, she had sadly neglected him, his sphere being merely political, and that being no longer interesting. The honest gentleman still occasionally buzzed about her, slavering portentous stories about malcontent country gentlemen, mumbling Maynooth, and shaking his head at Young England. Tadpole was wont to say in confidence, that for his part he wished Sir Robert had left alone religion and commerce, and confined himself to finance, which was his forte as long as he had a majority to carry the projects which he found in the pigeon-holes of the Treasury, and which are always at the service of every minister.
Well, it was at Lady Bardolfs ball, close upon midnight, that Tancred, who had not long entered, and had not very far advanced in the crowded saloons, turning his head, recognised his heroine of the morning, his still more recent correspondent, Lady Bertie and Bellair. She was speaking to Lord Valentine. It was impossible to mistake her; rapid as had been his former observation of her face, it was too remarkable to be forgotten, though the captivating details were only the result of his present more advantageous inspection. A small head and large dark eyes, dark as her rich hair which was quite unadorned, a pale but delicate complexion, small pearly teeth, were charms that crowned a figure rather too much above the middle height, yet undulating and not without grace. Her countenance was calm without being grave; she smiled with her eyes.
She was for a moment alone; she looked round, and recognised Tancred; she bowed to him with a beaming glance. Instantly he was at her side.
‘Our second meeting to-day,’ she said, in a low, sweet voice.
‘How came it that we never met before?’ he replied.
‘I have just returned from Paris; the first time I have been out; and, had it not been for you,’ she added, ‘I should not have been here to-night. I think they would have put me in prison.’
‘Lady Bardolf ought to be very much obliged to me, and so ought the world.’
‘I am,’ said Lady Bertie and Bellair.
‘That is worth everything else,’ said Tancred.
‘What a pretty carriage you have! I do not think I shall ever get into mine again. I am almost glad they have destroyed my chariot. I am sure I shall never be able to drive in anything else now except a brougham.’
‘Why did you not keep mine?’
‘You are magnificent; too gorgeous and oriental for these cold climes. You shower your presents as if you were in the East, which Lord Valentine tells me you are about to visit. When do you leave us?’
‘I think of going immediately.’
‘Indeed!’ said Lady Bertie and Bellair, and her countenance changed. There was a pause, and then she continued playfully, yet as it were half in sadness, ‘I almost wish you had not come to my rescue this morning.’
‘And why?’ ‘Because I do not like to make agreeable acquaintances only to lose them.’
‘I think that I am most to be pitied,’ said Tancred.
‘You are wearied of the world very soon. Before you can know us, you leave us.’
‘I am not wearied of the world, for indeed, as you say, I know nothing of it. I am here by accident, as you were in the stoppage to-day. It will disperse, and then I shall get on.’
‘Lord Valentine tells me that you are going to realise my dream of dreams, that you are going to Jerusalem.’
‘Ah!’ said Tancred, kindling, ‘you too have felt that want?’
‘But I never can pardon myself for not having satisfied it,’ said Lady Bertie and Bellair in a mournful tone, and looking in his face with her beautiful dark eyes. ‘It is the mistake of my life, and now can never be remedied. But I have no energy. I ought, as a girl, when they opposed my purpose, to have taken up my palmer’s staff, and never have rested content till I had gathered my shell on the strand of Joppa.’
‘It is the right feeling’ said Tancred. ‘I am persuaded we ought all to go.’
‘But we remain here,’ said the lady, in a tone of suppressed and elegant anguish; ‘here, where we all complain of our hopeless lives; with not a thought beyond the passing hour, yet all bewailing its wearisome and insipid moments.’
‘Our lot is cast in a material age,’ said Tancred.
‘The spiritual can alone satisfy me,’ said Lady Bertie and Bellair.
‘Because you have a soul,’ continued Tancred, with animation, ‘still of a celestial hue. They are rare in the nineteenth century. Nobody now thinks about heaven. They never dream of angels. All their existence is concentrated in steamboats and railways.’
‘You are right,’ said the lady, earnestly; ‘and you fly from it.’
‘I go for other purposes; I would say even higher ones,’ said Tancred.
‘I can understand you; your feelings are my own. Jerusalem has been the dream of my life. I have always been endeavouring to reach it, but somehow or other I never got further than Paris.’
‘And yet it is very easy now to get to Jerusalem,’ said Tancred; ‘the great difficulty, as a very remarkable man said to me this morning, is to know what to do when you are there.’
‘Who said that to you?’ inquired Lady Bertie and Bellair, bending her head.
‘It was the person I was going to call upon when I met you; Monsieur de Sidonia.’
‘Monsieur de Sidonia!’ said the lady, with animation. ‘Ah! you know him?’
‘Not as much as I could wish. I saw him to-day for the first time. My cousin, Lord Eskdale, gave me a letter of introduction to him, for his advice and assistance about my journey. Sidonia has been a great traveller.’
‘There is no person I wish to know so much as M. de Sidonia,’ said Lady Bertie and Bellair. ‘He is a great friend of Lord Eskdale, I think? I must get Lord Eskdale,’ she added, musingly, ‘to give me a little dinner, and ask M. de Sidonia to meet me.’
‘He never goes anywhere; at least I have heard so,’ said Tancred.
‘He once used to do, and to give us great fêtes. I remember hearing of them before I was out. We must make him resume them. He is immensely rich.’
‘I dare say he may be,’ said Tancred. ‘I wonder how a man with his intellect and ideas can think of the accumulation of wealth.’
‘’Tis his destiny,’ said Lady Bertie and Bellair. ‘He can no more disembarrass himself of his hereditary millions than a dynasty of the cares of empire. I wonder if he will get the Great Northern. They talked of nothing else at Paris.’
‘Of what?’ said Tancred.
‘Oh! let us talk of Jerusalem!’ said Lady Bertie and Bellair. ‘Ah, here is Augustus! Let me make you and my husband acquainted.’
Tancred almost expected to see the moustached companion of the morning, but it was not so. Lord Bertie and Bellair was a tall, thin, distinguished, withered-looking young man, who thanked Tancred for his courtesy of the morning with a sort of gracious negligence, and, after some easy talk, asked Tancred to dine with them on the morrow. He was engaged, but he promised to call on Lady Bertie and Bellair immediately, and see some drawings of the Holy Land.
Lord Henry Sympathises
PASSING through a marble antechamber, Tancred was ushered into an apartment half saloon and half-library; the choicely-bound volumes, which were not too numerous, were ranged on shelves inlaid in the walls, so that they ornamented, without diminishing, the apartment. These walls were painted in encaustic, corresponding with the coved ceiling, which was richly adorned in the same fashion. A curtain of violet velvet, covering if necessary the large window, which looked upon a balcony full of flowers, and the umbrageous Park; an Axminster carpet, manufactured to harmonise both in colour and design with the rest of the chamber; a profusion of luxurious seats; a large table of ivory marquetry, bearing a carved silver bell which once belonged to a pope; a Naiad, whose golden urn served as an inkstand; some daggers that acted as paper cutters, and some French books just arrived; a group of beautiful vases recently released from an Egyptian tomb and ranged on a tripod of malachite: the portrait of a statesman, and the bust of an emperor, and a sparkling fire, were all circumstances which made the room both interesting and comfortable in which Sidonia welcomed Tancred and introduced him to a guest who had preceded him, Lord Henry Sydney.
It was a name that touched Tancred, as it has all the youth of England, significant of a career that would rescue public life from that strange union of lax principles and contracted sympathies which now form the special and degrading features of British politics. It was borne by one whose boyhood we have painted amid the fields and schools of Eton, and the springtime of whose earliest youth we traced by the sedgy waters of the Cam. We left him on the threshold of public life; and, in four years, Lord Henry had created that reputation which now made him a source of hope and solace to millions of his countrymen. But they were four years of labour which outweighed the usual exertions of public men in double that space. His regular attendance in the House of Commons alone had given him as much Parliamentary experience as fell to the lot of many of those who had been first returned in 1837, and had been, therefore, twice as long in the House. He was not only a vigilant member of public and private committees, but had succeeded in appointing and conducting several on topics which he esteemed of high importance. Add to this, that he took an habitual part in debate, and was a frequent and effective public writer; and we are furnished with an additional testimony, if that indeed were wanting, that there is no incentive to exertion like the passion for a noble renown. Nor should it be forgotten, that, in all he accomplished, he had but one final purpose, and that the highest. The debate, the committee, the article in the Journal or the Review, the public meeting, the private research, these were all means to advance that which he had proposed as the object of his public life, namely, to elevate the condition of the people.
Although there was no public man whose powers had more rapidly ripened, still it was interesting to observe that their maturity had been faithful to the healthy sympathies of his earlier years. The boy, whom we have traced intent upon the revival of the pastimes of the people, had expanded into the statesman, who, in a profound and comprehensive investigation of the elements of public wealth, had shown that a jaded population is not a source of national prosperity. What had been a picturesque emotion had now become a statistical argument. The material system that proposes the supply of constant toil to a people as the perfection of polity, had received a staggering blow from the exertions of a young patrician, who announced his belief that labour had its rights as well as its duties. What was excellent about Lord Henry was, that he was not a mere philanthropist, satisfied to rouse public attention to a great social evil, or instantly to suggest for it some crude remedy.
A scholar and a man of the world, learned in history and not inexperienced in human nature, he was sensible that we must look to the constituent principles of society for the causes and the cures of great national disorders. He therefore went deeply into the question, nor shrank from investigating how far those disorders were produced by the operation or the desuetude of ancient institutions, and how far it might be necessary to call new influences into political existence for their remedy. Richly informed, still studious, fond of labour and indefatigable, of a gentle disposition though of an ardent mind, calm yet energetic, very open to conviction, but possessing an inflexibility amounting even to obstinacy when his course was once taken, a ready and improving speaker, an apt and attractive writer, affable and sincere, and with the undesigning faculty of making friends, Lord Henry seemed to possess all the qualities of a popular leader, if we add to them the golden ones: high lineage, an engaging appearance, youth, and a temperament in which the reason had not been developed to the prejudice of the heart.
‘And when do you start for the Holy Land?’ said Lord Henry to Tancred, in a tone and with a countenance which proved his sympathy.
‘I have clutched my staff, but the caravan lingers.’
‘I envy you!’
‘Why do you not go?’
Lord Henry slightly shrugged his shoulders, and said, ‘It is too late. I have begun my work and I cannot leave it.’
‘If a Parliamentary career could save this country,’ said Tancred, ‘I am sure you would be a public benefactor. I have observed what you and Mr. Con-ingsby and some of your friends have done and said, with great interest. But Parliament seems to me to be the very place which a man of action should avoid. A Parliamentary career, that old superstition of the eighteenth century, was important when there were no other sources of power and fame. An aristocracy at the head of a people whom they had plundered of their means of education, required some cultivated tribunal whose sympathy might stimulate their intelligence and satisfy their vanity. Parliament was never so great as when they debated with closed doors. The public opinion, of which they never dreamed, has superseded the rhetorical club of our great-grandfathers. They know this well enough, and try to maintain their unnecessary position by affecting the character of men of business, but amateur men of business are very costly conveniences. In this age it is not Parliament that does the real work. It does not govern Ireland, for example. If the manufacturers want to change a tariff, they form a commercial league, and they effect their purpose. It is the same with the abolition of slavery, and all our great revolutions. Parliament has become as really insignificant as for two centuries it has kept the monarch. O’Connell has taken a good share of its power; Cobden has taken another; and I am inclined to believe,’ said Tancred, ‘though I care little about it, that, if our order had any spirit or prescience, they would put themselves at the head of the people, and take the rest.’
‘Coningsby dines here to-day,’ said Sidonia, who, unobserved, had watched Tancred as he spoke, with a searching glance.
‘Notwithstanding what you say,’ said Lord Henry, smiling, ‘I wish I could induce you to remain and help us. You would be a great ally.’
‘I go to a land,’ said Tancred, ‘that has never been blessed by that fatal drollery called a representative government, though Omniscience once deigned to trace out the polity which should rule it.’
At this moment the servant announced Lord and Lady Marney.
Political sympathy had created a close intimacy between Lord Marney and Coningsby. They were necessary to each other. They were both men entirely devoted to public affairs, and sitting in different Houses, both young, and both masters of fortunes of the first class, they were indicated as individuals who hereafter might take a lead, and, far from clashing, would co-operate with each other. Through Coningsby the Marneys had become acquainted with Sidonia, who liked them both, particularly Sybil. Although received by society with open arms, especially by the high nobility, who affected to look upon Sybil quite as one of themselves, Lady Marney, notwithstanding the homage that everywhere awaited her, had already shown a disposition to retire as much as possible within the precinct of a chosen circle.
This was her second season, and Sybil ventured to think that she had made, in the general gaieties of her first, a sufficient oblation to the genius of fashion, and the immediate requirements of her social position. Her life was faithful to its first impulse. Devoted to the improvement of the condition of the people, she was the moving spring of the charitable development of this great city. Her house, without any pedantic effort, had become the focus of a refined society, who, though obliged to show themselves for the moment in the great carnival, wear their masks, blow their trumpets, and pelt the multitude with sugarplums, were glad to find a place where they could at all times divest themselves of their mummery, and return to their accustomed garb of propriety and good taste.
Sybil, too, felt alone in the world. Without a relation, without an acquaintance of early and other days, she clung to her husband with a devotion which was peculiar as well as profound. Egremont was to her more than a husband and a lover; he was her only friend; it seemed to Sybil that he could be her only friend. The disposition of Lord Marney was not opposed to the habits of his wife. Men, when they are married, often shrink from the glare and bustle of those social multitudes which are entered by bachelors with the excitement of knights-errant in a fairy wilderness, because they are supposed to be rife with adventures, and, perhaps, fruitful of a heroine. The adventure sometimes turns out to be a catastrophe, and the heroine a copy instead of an original; but let that pass.
Lord Marney liked to be surrounded by those who sympathised with his pursuit; and his pursuit was politics, and politics on a great scale. The commonplace career of official distinction was at his command. A great peer, with abilities and ambition, a good speaker, supposed to be a Conservative, he might soon have found his way into the cabinet, and, like the rest, have assisted in registering the decrees of one too powerful individual. But Lord Marney had been taught to think at a period of life when he little dreamed of the responsibility which fortune had in store for him.
The change in his position had not altered the conclusions at which he had previously arrived. He held that the state of England, notwithstanding the superficies of a material prosperity, was one of impending doom, unless it were timely arrested by those who were in high places. A man of fine mind rather than of brilliant talents, Lord Marney found, in the more vivid and impassioned intelligence of Coningsby, the directing sympathy which he required. Tadpole looked upon his lordship as little short of insane. ‘Do you see that man?’ he would say as Lord Marney rode by. ‘He might be Privy Seal, and he throws it all away for the nonsense of Young England!’
Mrs. Coningsby entered the room almost on the footsteps of the Marneys.
‘I am in despair about Harry,’ she said, as she gave a finger to Sidonia, ‘but he told me not to wait for him later than eight. I suppose he is kept at the House. Do you know anything of him, Lord Henry?’
‘You may make yourself quite easy about him,’ said Lord Henry. ‘He promised Vavasour to support a motion which he has to-day, and perhaps speak on it. I ought to be there too, but Charles Buller told me there would certainly be no division and so I ventured to pair off with him.’
‘He will come with Vavasour,’ said Sidonia, ‘who makes up our party. They will be here before we have seated ourselves.’
The gentlemen had exchanged the usual inquiry, whether there was anything new to-day, without waiting for the answer. Sidonia introduced Tancred and Lord Marney.
‘And what have you been doing to-day?’ said Edith to Sybil, by whose side she had seated herself. ‘Lady Bardolf did nothing last night but gronder me, because you never go to her parties. In vain I said that you looked upon her as the most odious of her sex, and her balls the pest of society. She was not in the least satisfied. And how is Gerard?’
‘Why, we really have been very uneasy about him,’ said Lady Marney, ‘but the last bulletin,’ she added, with a smile, ‘announces a tooth.’
‘Next year you must give him a pony, and let him ride with my Harry; I mean my little Harry, Harry of Monmouth I call him; he is so like a portrait Mr. Coningsby has of his grandfather, the same debauched look.’
‘Your dinner is served, sir!’
Sidonia offered his hand to Lady Marney; Edith was attended by Tancred. A door at the end of the room opened into a marble corridor, which led to the dining-room, decorated in the same style as the library. It was a suite of apartments which Sidonia used for an intimate circle like the present.