Carabas House is in Beaumanoir-square, as most people know. Long before the smart stuccoed residences--with their plate-glass windows, their conservatoried balconies, their roomy porticoes--sprung up, like Aladdin's palaces, at the command of the great wizard-builder, Compo, who so recently died a baronet and a millionaire; when the ground on which Beaumanoir-square now stands was a dreary swamp, across which our great-grandmothers, in fear of their lives, were carried to Ranelagh, Carabas House stood, a big, rambling, red-bricked mansion, surrounded on all sides by a high wall, and looking something between a workhouse, a lunatic asylum, and a gaol. To the Marquis of Carabas of those days it mattered little what was the aspect of his ancestral home, as he, from the time of his succession, had resolutely declined to see it, or any other part of the domain whence his title and estates were derived, preferring to spend his life on the Continent of Europe, in the society of agreeable men and women, and in the acquisition of a splendid collection of pictures, statues, and otherobjets d'art, which at his lordship's lamented demise were sold in Paris at a world-famous sale extending over many days, the pecuniary result of which was hailed with the greatest satisfaction by his lordship's heir. For Mr. Purrington, his lordship's cousin, who succeeded to the title and estates, wanted money very badly indeed, he had been speculating for a very long time on the chances of his succession, and he had to pay very dearly for these speculations. He had contested his county in the Tory interest four separate times, at a cost known only to himself, his wife, and his head-agent. He had married the daughter of an Irish peer; a lovely woman full of talent, affectionate, loyal, energetic, and thoroughly understanding her position as--a county member's wife, but with a number of impecunious relations, all of whom looked for assistance to the heir to an English marquisate. He was a crack shot, and always paired about the 25th of July for the remainder of the session, having, according to his own account, the great luck of having one of the best Scotch moors "lent to him" for three weeks from the 12th. He was a capital judge of a horse, a keen rider to hounds, and the invariable occupant of a little box near Egerton Lodge, with a stud sufficient to see him "out" four days a week; but this, as he pathetically put it, was his "only expense." In the season, Lady Fanny had her Wednesday-evening receptions, when a perpetual stream of fashionables, political people, and the usual ruck of young men who are met everywhere, would filter from ten till one through her little drawing-rooms in Clarges-street; and her Saturday dinners of eight, which were very good and very enjoyable, and where pleasant people in various social circles met together without the dread of seeing their names announced in the fashionable journals. But all these things cost a great deal of money; and when Mr. Purrington became the Marquis of Carabas, he was very nearly at the end of his tether.
The marquisate of Carabas, however, was by no means an empty title, a grand position lacking means to support its proper state, than which it is impossible to fancy anything more painful. During the late lord's lifetime the revenue had very far exceeded the expenditure, and the Parisian sale had left a very large balance at Coutts's; so that the new people entered upon their estate with great comfort, and were enabled to carry out their peculiarly extensive views of life without embarrassing themselves in the slightest degree. It was shortly after their accession that the big brick screen-wall was replaced by a light and elegant bronze railing; that the rambling red-bricked mansion was transformed into a modern stone house; that the Marchioness of Carabas took her position as a leader ofton, and in Carabas House, so long black and desolate and abandoned, chimneys smoked, and lights blazed, and music resounded, and the best people in London found themselves gathered together three times a week.
The best people? The very best.
It was the fashion in certain circles to talk of "the mixture" which you met at Carabas House; and the young Duchess of Taffington (whose father was old Bloomer the banker of Lombard-street, and whose grandfather was old Bloöm the money-lender and diamond-merchant of Amsterdam) and old Lady Clanronald, with whom her husband, then the Hon. Ulick Strabane, fell in love, from seeing her looking over the blind in her father's (the apothecary's) window in Drogheda,--both these great ladies shrugged their very different pairs of shoulders whenever the Marchioness's receptions were alluded to before them; but neither of these leaders of fashion could deny that princes of the blood, royal dukes, stars and garters, ambassadors, belles of the season, Foreign-Office clerks, and all the great creatures of the day, were blocked together, week after week, on the staircase at Carabas House; or that the Marchioness herself tookpasand precedence, according to her rank, and was one of the most distinguished and most highly-thought-of guests wherever she chose to go.
"That's so!" as Jack Hawkes, of the F.O., would remark to his familiars; "neither the Duchess nor old Clanronald can get over that, and that's what makes them so wild; and as to the mixture they talk about, that's lions. She's in great form, don't you know, Lady Carabas is, and quite fit, but her weakness is lions; and I'm bound to say that you meet some people at Carabas House who are quite out of the hunt. If any fellow get's talked about, no matter what he is--writing fellow, painting fellow, fiddling fellow--I'll lay odds you'll find him there. There's what's his name--Burkinyoung: man who made a stir last year with his poems; they had him down there, sir, at their place on the river--Weir Lodge---and he used to sit on the lawn under the trees with Lady Carabas pouring eau-de-cologne on his head, and some of her lot--Maude Allingham, and Agnes Creswell, and that lot, don't you know--fanning him and keeping the flies off while he composed; no one was allowed to come near, for fear of disturbing him. Give you my honour, heard it first-hand from Chinny Middleton of the Blues, who pulled up from Windsor in his canoe, and was going to land, as usual, and got warned off, by George, as though he'd got the plague on board!"
There was a good deal of truth in Mr. Hawkes's remarks, Lady Carabas being Mrs. Leo Hunter on a very superior scale. Her passion was that everyone distinguished not merely in her own rank in life but in every other should be seen in her rooms; and from her position and by her fascinating manner she generally managed to attain her object. The pilot of the state ship, at a period when opposition winds were howling loud and the political horizon was black with threatened storm, would find time to pass a few minutes at one of Lady Carabas's receptions, however haggard his looks, however burning his brain. The right honourable gentleman the leader of the Opposition, who for the last month had been gathering himself together for a tiger-like spring on the state pilot, might have been seen, on the night before he made his grand onslaught, jammed into a corner of the staircase at Carabas House, looking like the Sphinx in evening dress, and pleasantly bantering Mr. Mulvaney, the celebrated "special correspondent" of theStatesman. Anyone talked of in any way; thebellesof the season; pretty women, presentable of course, but quite out of the Carabas set; dawning lights in politics, no matter of what party; artists, young and old--of everyone whom you saw at Carabas House you would learn that they had done something special; indeed, Jack Hawkes, an invaluablecicerone, could talk for two hours on a grand night, and not get through his list-- "Who are all these strange people that one sees nowhere else? Well, everybody's somebody, and it's difficult to know where to begin. Let's see. That short, stout, common-looking man is Vireduc, the great engineer and contractor--builds bridges, railroads, and those kind of things, don't you know--horrible fellow, who's always telling you he came to London with eightpence in his pocket, and rose from nothing, as though one couldn't see that. Woman sitting this side the ottoman is Mrs. Goodchild; writes novels--pretty good, they say. I don't read; I haven't any time. Her husband's somewhere about; but he's nobody--only asked because of his wife. The little man talking to her is Bistry the surgeon--have your leg off before you can say 'knife;' and the brown-faced man, who looks so bored, is Sir Alan Tulwar, Indian-army man, made K.C.B. for something he did out there--Punjaub, don't you know? The little man with the big head is Polaski the flute-player; and the fat man with the red face is Ethelred Jinks, the Queen's Counsel. That pretty little fair girl is Miss Wren, who shot the burglar down in Hampshire three years ago; and the little boy in black, as you call him, is Jules Brissot, the Red Republican, who was blown off a barricade on the 4th of December, and settled down here as a--what do you call it--tutor."
This will suffice as a specimen of Mr. Hawkes's conversation, which, on such occasions, had the singular merit of having a substratum of truth.
But though lions of all kinds were to be found roaring during the season at Carabas House, none were so welcome as the musical lions, both native and foreign. In her younger days, Lady Carabas had had a pretty little voice herself, and even in Clarges-street she had always managed to secure some of the best professional talent at a very much less expense than any of her friends; and when once Lord Carabas had succeeded, "musical mossoo," as Jack Hawkes was accustomed to call all foreigners who played or sung professionally, had his headquarters in Beaumanoir-square. Heinrich Katzenjammer, who, being a native of Emmerich on the Lower Rhine, thought proper to advertise in the English newspapers in the French language, had not been "de retour" many hours before his limp glazed card was on the hall-table at Carabas House. Baton, thechef d'orchestre, would as soon have thought of being absent from his conductor's stool on a Saturday night as from Lady Carabas's luncheon-table on a Sunday afternoon. There the most promising pupils of the Academy of Music made theirdébutsin cantatas or operettas, written by distinguished amateurs, and thereby considered themselves entitled ever after to describe themselves as "of the nobility's concerts;" and there, on festival nights, could you check off the principal singers and players whom London delighted to honour, with the amateurs, thedilettanti, and thecognoscenti, who always follow in their wake.
It was a soft bright night in early summer, and Beaumanoir-square was filled with flashing lamps and whirling carriages, and stamping horses, and excited drivers, and roaring linkmen. It was a grand night at Carabas House, and all London was expected there. The police had enough to do to make the vehicles keep in line; and when some of the royal carriages familiarly used the royal privilege and dashed through here and cut in there, the confusion increased a thousandfold; and it was with the greatest difficulty that the crowd surging round the door were thrust back right and left to allow the visitors to enter, or were prevented from casting themselves under the wheels of the carriages as they drew up, with the recklessness of Juggernaut victims. Halfway down the line was a perfectly appointed brougham, in which sat Miles Challoner and the friend with whom he was staying. Lord Sandilands was in every respect a remarkable-looking man; tall and upright, with a polished bald head slightly fringed with snow-white soft hair; thin clean-cut features; gray eyes, from which most of the fire had faded; and small carefully-trimmed gray whiskers. His appearance and manners were those of a past age; now in his evening dress he wore a high stiff white-muslin cravat, an elaborately got-up cambric shirt-frill, a blue coat with brass buttons, white waistcoat, black trousers fitting tightly round the ankles, silk stockings and shoes. His voice was particularly soft and clear, as, replying to some remark of his companion, he said: "No, indeed; I think both you and I are perfectly right; you in consenting to come, I in having persuaded you; besides, I should have scarcely dared to present myself to Lady Carabas without you. Her ladyship's dictum is that you require rousing, and to-night is to be the first experiment in rousing you."
"Her ladyship is very kind to interest herself in me," said Miles. "I have no claim upon her thoughts."
"My dear fellow," said Lord Sandilands, "you will very soon see that Lady Carabas interests herself about everybody and everything. That is hermétier. She will talk to the Bishop of Boscastle about the Additional Curates' Fund, and to Sir Charles Chifney about his chance for the Leger. She knows what price Scumble got for his Academy picture; and can tell you the plot of Spofforth's five-act play, which is as yet unwritten. She could tell you what the Duke of Brentford said to Tom Forbes, who arrived late on escort-duty at the last Drawing-room--she couldn't quote the Duke's exact words, which were full-flavoured; and could give you the heads of the charge which Judge Minos will deliver on the great libel case; and with all that she dresses as well as Lady Capisbury herself, and bears the whole weight of that household on her own shoulders. There's no estate in Britain better managed than Carabas, and her ladyship is her own agent, steward, bailiff,--everything."
"She must be a wonderful woman."
"Wonderful! there's nothing like her! Lord Carabas thinks of nothing but shooting and fishing. Her eldest son, the Earl of Booterstown, is a religious monomaniac; and her youngest, Lord Grey de Malkin, is one of your political new lights, lecturing at mechanics' institutes, and making speeches to working-men. You know the kind of fellow. Now, here we are!--Tell Fisher to wait, James,"--to the footman,--"we sha'n't stay very long."
The hall was filled with people, all of whom the old gentleman seemed to know, and greeted with somewhat stately courtesy. "A regular Carabas crush," whispered he to Miles, as they commenced the ascent of the staircase. "Everybody here! The Lord Chancellor next to you, and the Bishop of Boscastle coming down the stairs. He has evidently dined here, sweet old thing; and is going away before the worldly music begins.--How do you do, my lord? I trust Mrs. Shum is well--Deuced fine woman, by the way, is Mrs. Shum, my dear Miles.--Ha, Ellenbogen! you in London, and I've not seen you? Only arrived last night, eh? Come to me to-morrow, eh?Au revoir!--That is the famous German violinist; nothing like his touch in the world--so crisp, so perfectly sympathetic. There's Lady Carabas at her post, of course. Brave woman, breasting this surging ocean of visitors. Gad, how glad she must be when it's all over!"
Following his friend's glance, Miles looked up and saw Lady Carabas stationed at the head of the staircase. A tall handsome woman of fifty, with all the look and bearing of agrande dame, a little softened by the frank geniality of her manner. She received Miles Challoner, on his presentation to her, with something more than mere graciousness--with cordiality; then, turning to Lord Sandilands, said, "She's here."
"Is she, indeed?" said the old gentleman with equal earnestness.
"Yes, and in excellent spirits: I have not the least doubt of her success."
"That is delightful;" and they passed on. When they had gone a few steps, Miles asked his friend who was the lady of whom he and Lady Carabas were speaking.
"My dear fellow," said Lord Sandilands with a little chuckle, "I haven't the remotest notion. Dear Lady Carabas is always giving one half-confidences about people she's interested in, and 'pon my life I'm too old to open my heart indiscriminately, and make myself partaker of the joys and sorrows of half the world. So, as she's a dear good creature, and I would not offend her for the world, I nod my head, and grin, and pretend I know all about it; and I find that answers very well."
Miles laughed at the old gentleman's evident satisfaction, and they entered the rooms. A large movable platform, so slightly raised as to give the performers sufficient altitude above the spectators without disconcerting them by any pretensions to a stage, occupied one end of the spacious apartment, a recent erection built specially for concert-giving purposes, and with all the latest acoustic improvements. Opposite the platform, bristling with seats for the instrumentalists, stood the conductor's desk. To the right of this were a few benches for the most distinguished guests, and behind it were the seats for the general company. All the seats were unoccupied at present, and the company were grouped together about the room, chatting freely. It was early in the season at present; and that frightful lack of conversation which necessarily falls on people who have naturally very little to say, and who, having seen each other every night for three months, have exhausted that little, had not as yet made itself felt. Miles Challoner, as he looked round on the beautiful women so exquisitely dressed, the brightly-lighted room, the inexpressible air of luxury and elegance which pervaded the entire scene, as he thought that for the future he might, if he so chose, have similar pleasant resorts at his command, felt the oppressive thoughts, the dull, dead level of world-weariness and vapidity, gradually slipping from him. His eyes brightened, he looked round him eagerly, and his whole demeanour was so fresh and spirited and youthful as to seriously annoy severalblaséyoung men of two or three-and-twenty, who had long since used up all signs of youth, and who inquired of each other who was the rustic, gushing person that old Sandilands had brought with him.
Lord Sandilands had himself noticed the change in his friend's manner, and was about to rally him on it, when the musicians came trooping into the room and took their places. Sir Purcell Arne, the well-known amateur composer, who was to conduct, rapped the desk in front of him; the foreign professionals who had settled themselves modestly in the back rows, uttered profound sounds of "Hsh--sh!" and the company generally seated themselves. Lord Sandilands and Miles were proceeding with the rest, when the former saw himself beckoned by Lady Carabas to the place of distinction by her side, and he took his young friend with him.
The ouverture ought to have been very well played, for it was very much applauded at its conclusion, though, as Jack Hawkes remarked to the young lady sitting next to him, that might possibly have been because they were so glad it was over. It is certain that during the performance several of the more excitable foreigners ground their teeth, and covered their ears with their hands, while at its close Sir Purcell Arne addressed two recreant members of the orchestra--the second cornet and the first clarinet, being respectively a young gentleman in the Coldstreams, and an old gentleman in the India Office--in terms of the strongest opprobrium. Sir Purcell's good-temper was restored after his son, a favourite pupil of Ellenbogen's, had played a solo on the violin; and during the applause consequent thereon, he crossed over to Lady Carabas's seat, and whispered, "She's quite ready; shall I bring her in?" Lady Carabas, too much excited to speak, gave him an affirmative nod; and the enthusiasm had scarcely subsided, to be renewed with tenfold force as Sir Purcell returned leading by the hand a young lady, whom, with one of his best bows, he left facing the audience while he went back to his conductor's desk.
The young lady stood perfectly unmoved by the storm of applause which hailed her arrival, the only sign of emotion which she betrayed being a slight contraction of her thin decisive lips; and this was only momentary. She was a decidedly pretty girl, Miles thought; with rich brown eyes, and well-formed features, and slight though rounded figure. In her dark chestnut hair, which was banded close round her head, and gathered into a large knot behind, she wore one white rose, and another in the front of her plain white-silk dress. Other ornament had she none, save a gold locket with a horseshoe in turquoises on her neck, and a bracelet, a band of plain gold, on one arm. Who was this handsome and distinguished-looking girl who was received with so muchempressement?Miles Challoner took up a perfumed programme that lay beside him, and read her name--Miss Grace Lambert.
Miss Grace Lambert! Who was she? The programme, of course, told nothing but her name, and when Miles Challoner turned to his companion for the purpose of inquiring further, he saw that his brows were knit, and his lips tightly clenched. Miles looked at Lord Sandilands in surprise, but forbore to question him. It was evident that the people in his immediate vicinity were equally unable to assuage his curiosity, as they were all talking and chattering together, and throwing glances towards the occupant of the platform, who stood totally unmoved. Then Sir Purcell Arne, looking round with a half-anxious, half-triumphant air, gave the customary three taps on his desk, and with a wave of his baton led the orchestra into the prelude. It was a simple English air--very simple--with a patheticrefrain, and out from the harmoniousensembleof the musicians came a soft sweet bird-like voice, beginning mellowly and low, then rising into a clear pure treble, a volume of lark-like utterance, a continuous ripple of sound, such as is seldom heard in human voice. Few notes had been uttered before their effect became visible on the whole assemblage--amongst the foreigners first; on the back benches, where were gathered the hirsute professionals honoured with theentréeto Lady Carabas' concerts, there was an immediate movement, a simultaneous pricking of ears and elevation of eyebrows, culminating into a general impossible-to-be-suppressed "A--h!" of intense delight. Then the enthusiasm spread. Impressible young girls with thenil-admiraribreeding scarcely yet habitual to them, looked timidly towards their chaperones, as though pleading, "For Heaven's sake, let us for one moment be natural, and give vent to the delight with which this girl has inspired us." Said chaperones, with some faint reminiscence of nature unbusked and unsteeled by conventionality, sought relief in faintly tapping their kidded palms with their fans. Old boys, dragged away from after-dinner maps, or cosy house-dinners at the clubs, to do family duty, and expecting nothing but driest musical classicalities, expressed their gratitude in strident "bravas." Even the gilded youth of the period, surprised out of its usual inanity into a feeble semblance of life and earnestness, condescended to express its opinion of the singer, that she was not "half bad, don't you know?" And its component members inquired of each other, "who the devil is she?" On Lady Carabas' handsome face the hard-set look of anxiety had softened into the blandest smile of triumph; old Sir Purcell Arne's blond moustache bristled with delight; and at the conclusion of the ballad, when the singer, rising to the occasion, had sent a flood of melody surging through the room, now dying away in softest trills and most harmonious cadences, the enthusiasm could no longer be restrained, and amidst sonorous applause breaking forth from every side, the amateur instrumentalists leading the van, and Lady Carabas herself, regardless of appearances or of the value of three-buttoned gloves, clapping her hands with the ardour of the most zealous member of a professionalclaque,--Miss Grace Lambert, perfectly composed, and with the slightest bow in recognition of her triumph, laid her fingers daintily on Sir Purcell Arne's tremblingly-proffered arm, and disappeared from public view. Ten minutes' interval now, much needed. Impossible, after such a display, to keep the coterie quiet, and it breaks up at once into twenty little knots, all with the same refrain of praise, differently expressed: "Das ist aber'was Schönes!" "Tiens, tiens, Jules! v'là donc un rossignol charmant!" "That's what I call good singing, for an Englishwoman, that is, Veluti!Capisco, signor!" "Tell you what it is, old fella; since poor Bosio, you know, never heard anything like that, don't you know?" "It's A1, don't you know?" Frank testimonies these, from the male sex; chiming in with "Dearest Lady Carabas, O, how I congratulate you! Where did you find such a treasure? Charmin', quite charmin'; so ladylike, and all that kind of thing. Quite a nice-looking person, too!" from the female portion of the audience.
She had vanished, and Miles Challoner remained mute and dazed. Of beauty he had always had a keen appreciation--that is, beauty as he understood it--showing itself in tolerable regularity of feature, in grace and aristocratictournure. Red-and-white women, were they duchesses or dairymaids--and it must be owned that when Nature alone is depended upon they are generally the latter--found no favour in Miles's eyes. He used to say he liked a "bred"-looking woman; and here was one who, so far as appearance went, might have been a Plantagenet. And her voice--good Heavens!--was there ever heard anything so completely enthralling! The blood yet danced in his veins with the delight excited when that low tremulous utterance, gradually rising into trills of lark-like melody, first stole upon his ear. No wonder that all in the room were talking loudly in her praise. All? No. Rapt in his own delight, Miles had forgotten to speak to Lord Sandilands, to whom he partly owed the pleasure he had just experienced, and he turned to repair his neglect.
Lord Sandilands was sitting "quiet as a stone." He had recovered his gloves, and his long shapely white hands were tightly clasped together on his knee. Despite the tight clasp, the hands twitched nervously, and on the old man's well-cut features Miles noticed a worn pinched look, such as he had never before observed. Lord Sandilands' eyes, too, were downcast, and he did not raise them even when Miles addressed him.
"Was there ever anything so charming as that young lady?"
"She has a very sweet voice."
"Sweet! it is perfectly entrancing! I had no idea such sounds could be produced by human throat; and then her appearance so thoroughly ladylike, and such an exquisite profile! Why, even you, who go in so strictly for the classical, must have been satisfied with the profile!"
"I scarcely observed her."
"Scarcely observed her! Why, my dear old friend, that is very unlike your usual habit when a pretty woman is in question, unless, indeed, you were so enthralled by her voice that you cared for nothing else."
"Ye-es; that was it, I suppose--I--"
The conversation was interrupted by the return of the other guests, who, summoned by Sir Purcell Arne's preliminary taps, came back to their seats to hear the rest of the concert. All rustle and talk and chatter still. "Never was anything like it. I'm sure I can't tell where you pick up these wonderful people, dear Lady Carabas. And what comes next, dear Lady Carabas? O, now we're to have Mr. Wisk's operetta--for the first time; never was played anywhere before. You know Ferdinand Wisk? clever creature! there he is, comin' to conduct it himself. Sh-h!"
That clever creature, Mr. Ferdinand Wisk, who was supposed to be a scion of the aristocracy, but whose real mission in life seemed to be to devote himself to the affairs, public and private, of every member of the musical world, English or foreign, advanced rapidly through the room, and took the baton which Sir Purcell handed to him amidst general applause. Mr. Wisk's operetta needs but little mention here; it was bright and sparkling, and would have been more original if the overture had not been cribbed from Auber, and the concerted pieces from Offenbach; but as it was, it did remarkably well, affording opportunities for two young ladies and two young gentlemen to sing very much out of tune; for the funny man of the company to convulse the audience with his drolleries; and for the audience generally to repay themselves for their silence during Miss Grace Lambert's ballad, by chatting without stint. Perhaps the only two persons in the room who did not avail themselves of this opportunity were Lord Sandilands and Miles Challoner. The former, having glanced at the programme, and noticed that Miss Lambert's name did not appear again therein, made a half-muttered apology to Lady Carabas about the "heat," and left the room very shortly after the commencement of Mr. Wisk's performance; while the latter could not shake off the spell which held him, and which, during all the comic gentleman's funniments and all the others' bad singing, gave but Grace Lambert's voice to his ears, her face and figure to his eyes.
To supper now, foreigners first,--making great running and leaving everyone else far behind; leaping on to edibles and dashing at potables with such vigour as to cause one to think they had not dined, as indeed many of them had not. And now, more congratulation amongst visitors, more "Did you evers?" a perfect whirlwind of "Don't you knows?" and "only to think of dear Lady Carabas being so fortunate, and such a wonderful acquisition even toherset!" Ferdinand Wisk, a little depressed at being thrown into the background by the superior attractions of Miss Lambert; and the funny man of the company feeling himself not sufficiently appreciated, and thirsting for Miss Lambert's blood--both, however, consoled by old Piccolo, the fashionable music-master, who is popularly supposed to have been allied with Auber and Offenbach in writing Mr. Wisk's operetta, and who tells them that Miss Lambert's triumph is a meresuccès d'estime, and that she will "go out like that--pouf!" Piccolo snapping his fingers and blowing out an imaginary candle in explanation. Foreigners having been fed, and a proper quantity of champagne and seltzer-water having been duly drunk, it enters into the minds of some of the younger guests that dancing would be a pleasant pastime for the remainder of the night, such exercise being sometimes permitted at the concerts, when Lady Carabas is in specially good temper, which is the case to-night apparently, for servants are instructed to clear the concert-room, a band is improvised, and the floor is soon covered with whirling couples.
On these dancers Miles Challoner stood gazing with an abstracted air. At the conclusion of the concert he had moved with the rest, and on passing Lady Carabas had addressed to her a few words of compliment on the success of her evening; words which, although Miles did not remark it, were pleasantly received, for though Lady Carabas had come to that time of life when she was called an "old thing" by very young ladies, the epithet having "dear" or "horrid," according to the speaker's tastes, attached to it, she still delighted in the admiration of men if they were clever or handsome, and purred under their praises with ineffable satisfaction. Whether Miles Challoner was clever, Lady Carabas had yet to learn; but she knew that he was undeniably handsome, and that he was a credit to her evening. Many other people in the rooms had thought so too; and though strange faces were more frequently seen at Carabas House than in any other frequented by the same set, Miles's tall figure and frank face had excited a certain amount of languid curiosity, and the "new importation," as he was called by people who had been twice to the house, made a very favourable first impression.
He was not the least conscious of it, though, nor, had he been, would he have particularly cared. When Lord Sandilands' brougham drew up under the portico of Carabas House, when Miles, after climbing up the staircase,--a unit in the throng of pretty women and distinguished men,-was presented to Lady Carabas, the young man felt that he was entering on a new and entrancing sphere of life, in which he was henceforth to move; and his thoughts, in the little time he allowed himself for thinking, were of a roseate hue. He had sufficient money to live easily with those people amongst whom Lord Sandilands' introduction would give him position, and place him at his ease. Emerging from the dull country-squire life to which he at first had imagined himself relegated, he should now mix on excellent footing with that society which he had always thought of with envy, but never thoroughly comprehended. In a word, when Sir Purcell Arne left the room for the purpose of fetching the new singer, there was not in England, perhaps, at that moment, a more thoroughly happy young man than Miles Challoner. But ever since Grace Lambert's voice had fallen on his ear, he had been a different man. As he listened to her, as he gazed upon her handsome face and elegant figure, he sat enthralled, spell-bound by her charm. And when she had gone, her voice remained ringing in his ears, her face and figure remained before his eyes, while a total change--to him entirely unaccountable--had come over his thoughts. What had sent his mind wandering back to the early days of his childhood? What had suddenly brought to his recollection his brother Geoffrey as he last saw him, a bright, bold, daring boy, persistent in carrying through whatever might be uppermost in his mind, and undeterred by fear of his tutor, or even of his stern father? He had just decided with delight upon the course of life which he would pursue in future; but now he wondered whether he had decided rightly, Ought he not, in his position as head of the Challoner family, to live down at the old place, as all his forefathers, save his uncle Howard, who was universally hated, had done? Was it not his bounden duty to be there, ready, when called upon, to give advice and assistance to his tenantry and poorer neighbours? And that thought of Geoffrey! Ought he not, even in spite of all his father had said, to have taken some steps to trace his brother's career from the time of his leaving home, at all events to endeavour to ascertain the reason of the fatal sentence of banishment which had been pronounced against him? Ought he not--and then he found himself wondering what connection Miss Grace Lambert's voice and face had with these thoughts, and then he roused himself from the reverie into which he had fallen, and things material took their proper shapes and forms to his eyes: he returned from the dim past to the bright present--from the play-room at Rowley Court to the ball-room of Carabas House.
It was getting rather late now for the outer world and common people in general, but not for Carabas House, where the meaning of the word was unknown. The great hall-porter in his younger and slimmer days must have served his apprenticeship as boots at a railway hotel, the only position in which he could have acquired his faculty of sleeplessness. Men constantly spent what they were pleased to call the early part of the evening at Carabas House, went on to other balls which they "saw out," and returned, certain to find "someone left." The latest lounger at Pratt's, the most devoted attendant at the Raleigh, knew that during the season he should always be able to get his glass of sherry and seltzer in Beaumanoir-square, no matter what time of night it might be. The linkman, whose light had long since paled its ineffectual fire and gone out, seldom left before the milkman arrived, and the pair interchanged confidence about the house and its owners, as is the custom of such people.
The dancing was not quite so animated as when Miles had last looked at it. Careful men who called themselves seven-and-twenty, and who were really five-and-thirty, mindful of all the outing they had before them during the season, had gone home to bed. Those who remained were very young men, and very determined girls, whose wearingchaperonessat blinking round the room, or solaced themselves with stabbing each other, and tearing to pieces the reputation of their common friends, on the landing. But Lady Carabas was not with these; she was standing at the far end of the room, surrounded by half-a-dozen men, with whom she was holding an animated conversation. One of them, to whom she appeared to pay particular attention, had his back turned to Miles, but seemed to be young and of a slight wiry figure. Miles noticed this man specially, partly from the evident enjoyment which Lady Carabas took in his conversation, and partly from a peculiarity in his appearance, so far as it could be gathered from a back-view, in the horsey cut of his clothes, and the slang attitude, rounded shoulders, and hands plunged deep into his trousers-pockets, in which he stood conversing with his hostess. Miles had not noticed this gentleman before, and was wondering who he was, when a valsing couple, looking tired and out of breath, stopped immediately in front of him.
"That was a grand spin," said the gentleman; "the room's splendid just now. Got rid of all those awful people who can't dance a bit, don't you know? and do nothing but get in your way. You're in great feather to-night, Miss Grenville."
"Thanks very much," said the young lady, "a compliment from you is quite the most charming thing possible; perhaps because it's so rare, Mr. Ashleigh."
"'Gad, I don't know!" replied the gentleman, who was two-and-twenty years of age, and who might have been two-and-sixty for calm self-possession andsavoir faire, "I'm rather a good hand at saying nice things, I think."
"When you don't mean them, perhaps?"
"No, no. Now you're down upon me too sharp, Miss Grenville; 'pon my word you are; and I can never say anything, nice or not nice, at this time of night. Let's finish thevalse."
"I'm afraid I must not stay any longer, Mr. Ashleigh! Really, it's quite too cruel to poor mamma; and we've two dances to-morrow night that we must go to. Besides, Lady Carabas is dying to get rid of us."
"Don't look as if she was, does she, Miss Grenville? Laughing away; look at her. Wonderful woman, Lady Carabas!"
"Who is the gentleman she is talking to?" "That? O, that's a man that's everywhere about."
"I'm as wise as I was before. What is his name? where does he come from?"
"His name! 'pon my word, Miss Grenville, I forget. I'll go and ask him, if you like. Ah, I know he's a great friend of Ticehurst's. You know Ticehurst?"
"I have met Lord Ticehurst."
"Met him! O ah, yes; always know what ladies mean when they say they've 'met' anybody; mean they hate 'em. Well, if you don't like Ticehurst, I don't think you'd like that man; they're very much alike, specially Pompey, don't you know? Bad egg, and that kind of thing."
"You are enigmatic, but sufficiently expressive, Mr. Ashleigh. I think I comprehend you, at least. But if he is that kind of person, why is he admitted here?"
"Dear Miss Grenville, it's exactly because he is that kind of person that they're glad to see him here. He's somebody in his line, don't you know; though it's a bad line. His name, which I forget, is always mentioned inBelland the sporting-papers, and that kind of thing; and he's a--what do you call it--notoriety on the turf. By Jove! Coote is just going to make those fellows leave off. Do let's finish thevalse."
The couple whirled away to the last bars of the music; and Miles, who had perforce overheard this conversation, glanced across the room at the subject of it, who was still standing with his face averted, talking to Lady Carabas. "A pleasant man that, if all my dancing friend said of him is true," said Miles to himself. "I wonder what Lord Sandilands would think of him? Pshaw! he'd take it like a man of the world; and--eh? there is the old gentleman, making his way over here; where can he have been all the evening?"
Whatever doubts Miles Challoner may have felt as to the line of conduct which Lord Sandilands would adopt towards the gentleman on whom Miles had bestowed so much observation, they were destined to be speedily set at rest. As Lord Sandilands passed the group at the other end of the room, Lady Carabas beckoned to him; and by the way in which he and the unknown bowed to each other, Miles easily divined that the ceremony of introduction had taken place. With a half-smile at the incongruity just perpetrated, Miles was making his way across the room, when a servant came up to him and said: "I beg your pardon, sir, are you Mr. Lloyd?" Miles had scarcely time to reply in the negative, when the groom of the chambers, a very solemn-looking personage, who was passing at the moment, and who heard the inquiry, said, "That is Mr. Lloyd talking to her ladyship, James. What is wanted?"
"Only Lord Ticehurst, sir, told me to tell Mr. Lloyd he couldn't wait any longer;" and the man proceeded on his mission. Meanwhile Lady Carabas' quick eye had spied Miles approaching, and she advanced to meet him. "Mr. Challoner," said she, with a gracious smile, "I'm afraid you've had a horribly dull evening; been dreadfully bored, and all that kind of thing. O, don't deny it; I'm sure of it. But the fact is I thought Lord Sandilands would tell you who people were, and introduce you, and all that; and now I find he has been poked away in the library all night, looking at some horrid old political caricatures. Ridiculous of him, I tell him, to strain his eyes over such nonsense. He looks quite pale and worn. You must come and help me to scold him. By the way, I must introduce you to a very charming friend of mine, who fortunately is still here.--Mr. Lloyd," touching him--with her fan, "let me introduce Mr. Challoner."
The young man addressed wheeled round when he felt the touch on his arm, and before the last words were uttered he confronted Miles Challoner as Lady Carabas pronounced the name; and at that instant the light died out of his small and sunken blue eyes, his cheeks became colourless, and his thin lips closed tightly under his long fair moustache. Simultaneously a bright scarlet flush overspread Miles Challoner's face. Both then bowed slightly, but neither spoke; and immediately afterwards Miles turned sharply on his heel, and wishing Lady Carabas a formal "good-night," hurried from the room.
"My dear boy," said Lord Sandilands--they were in the brougham going home--"you must pardon my saying that your treatment of Mr.--Mr. Lloyd wasbrusqueto a degree. Supposing him even to be a highly objectionable person, the fact that you were introduced to him by Lady Carabas should have assured him a--well, a more gracious reception, to say the least of it. You--why, what the deuce is the matter, Miles? you're dead-white, and your hand shakes?"
"Nothing, dear old friend. I shall be all right again directly. That man--was I rude to him? I scarcely knew what I said or did. That man is one whom it was my father's most urgent wish I should never meet or know."
Had Lord Sandilands been less preoccupied by certain thoughts, and less disturbed by certain associations and recollections, suddenly aroused by the incidents which had just taken place, and of a painful and distracting kind, he would have been more strongly moved by Miles Challoner's abrupt and extraordinary communication. But the old nobleman's mood just then was a strange one; and the scene which had passed before his eyes, the words which his young friend had spoken, affected him but slightly and vaguely. There had been some unpleasantness for Miles in the meeting with that clever-looking fellow, Lloyd; and he was sorry for it. That was all. Old Mark has desired Miles to avoid this man, had he? The Squire had been very odd latterly, and had taken strong dislikes, and entertained strong prejudices all his life, but especially since that bad business about his son; and in the midst of his personal preoccupation and abstraction, Lord Sandilands had time for a shudder at the thought of his old friend's great grief, and a sort of pang of thankfulness that it had come to an end, even though a life he valued dearly was finished with it. But his mind was full of his own concerns, and before he had reached the seclusion of his own particular sanctum--a small room within the library--he had almost forgotten the occurrence.
Lord Sandilands sighed heavily as he sat down in a deep leather chair by the window, which opened into a small verandah, with trellised walls well clothed with creeping plants, and tiled with cool quaint-patterned porcelain. A light iron staircase led thence to the garden, which, though unavoidably towny, was cool, pretty, and well-cared for. The summer air passed lightly over the flowers, and carried their fresh morning breath to the old man. But he did not meet its perfume gladly; it had no soothing, no refreshing influence for him. He moved uneasily, as though some painful association had come to him with the scented breeze; then rose impatiently, and shut the window down, and paced the room from end to end. "A wonderful likeness," he muttered; "quite too close for accident. There is more expression, more power in the face, but just the same beauty. Yes, it must be so; but why have I not been told?"--He stopped before a table, and tapped it with his fingers. "And yet, why should I have been told? I made the conditions, I defined the rules myself; and why should I wonder that they have not been broken? What beauty and what talent! Who would have thought it of poor Gerty's child!--for her child and mine, Grace Lambert is, I am certain. What a strange sudden shock it was to me! I wonder if anyone perceived it--thought I was ill, perhaps. The room was hot and overcrowded, as usual; and Lady Carabas cackled more unbearably than ever; still, I hope I did not make a fool of myself; I hope I did not look upset."
Thus, Lord Saudi lands, true to the ruling principles of his order and his age, was disturbed in the midst of greater and deeper disturbance, and even diverted from his thoughts of it, by the dread so touchingly proper to every British mind, that he had been betrayed into emotion, into any departure from the unruffled and impassive calm which British society demands.
At this stage of his soliloquy Lord Sandilands looked at himself in the chimney-glass, passed his aristocratically slender fingers through his aristocratically fine silver hair, and assured himself that his outward man had not suffered from the internal perturbation and surprise which he had experienced. This critical examination concluded, he resumed his walk and his soliloquy, which we need not follow in form. Its matter was as follows:
In Grace Lambert, Lord Sandilands had recognised so strong a likeness to the mother of the little girl whom he had placed under Mrs. Bloxam's care, and towards whom he had never displayed any fatherly affection beyond that implied by the punctual and uninterrupted discharge of the pecuniary obligations which he had contracted towards that lady, that he entertained no doubt whatever of her identity with Gertrude Keith. This discovery had agitated him less by reason of any present significance which it possessed--the girl was clever, and had achieved in his presence a success of a kind which was undeniably desirable in such a position as hers--than because it had touched long-silent chords, and touched them to utterances full of pain for the old man, who had been so thoroughly of the world, and whom the world had, on the whole, treated remarkably well. But Lord Sandilands was growing old, and was naturally beginning to yield just a little to the inevitable feeling, of being rather tired of it all, which comes with age, to the best-treated among the sons of men, and had come perceptibly to him, since Mark Challoner's death had done away with the last of the old landmarks. Things might have been so different; he had often thought so, and then put the thought from him hurriedly and resolutely. He thought so to-day, and he could not put the thought from him; it would not go; but, as he paced the room, it grew stronger and stronger and came closer and closer to him, and at last looked him sternly and threateningly in the face, demanding harbour and reply; and Lord Sandilands gave it both--no more expelling it, but taking counsel with himself, and repeating to himself an old story of the past, which, with a different ending, might have set all his present in another key;--which story was not very different from many that have--been told, and not difficult to tell.
Lord Sandilands had not succeeded early in life to his old title and respectable but not magnificent estates. The Honourable John Borlase was much more clever, agreeable, and fascinating than rich, when, having left the University of Oxford after a very creditable career, he began to lead the kind of life which is ordinarily led by young men who have only to wait for fortune and title, and who possess sufficient means to fill up the interval comfortably, and sufficient intellect to occupy it with tolerable rationality. The dilettanteism which was one of Lord Sandilands' characteristics developed itself later in life; while he was a young man, his tastes were more active, and he had devoted himself to sporting and travel. In the pursuit of the first he had made Mark Challoner's acquaintance; and thecamaraderieof the hunting-field had strengthened into a strong and congenial tie of friendship, which had been broken only by the Squire's death. In the pursuit of the second, John Borlase had encountered many adventures, and made more than one acquaintance destined to influence his future, either sensibly or insensibly; and among the many was one with whom we have to do, for a brief interval of retrospection.
John Borlase did not affect "Bohemianism" (the phrase had not then been invented, but the thing existed); but he liked character, and he liked Art,--liked it better than he understood it, selected the society of those who knew more about it than he did; and though he by no means restricted himself to the society of artists, he certainly frequented them more than any other class. It was at Berlin that he fell in with Etienne Gautier, an eccentric and very clever Frenchman, exiled by the cruelty of fortune from his native paradise, Paris, and employed by the French Government in some mysterious commission connected with the Galleries of Painting and Sculpture at Berlin,--a city which he never ceased to depreciate, but where he nevertheless appeared to enjoy himself thoroughly. Etienne Gautier was a dark, active, restless man; vivacious of speech; highly informed on all matters appertaining to Art; a liberal in politics and religion--of a degree of liberalism very unusual at that period, though it would not be regarded as particularly "advanced" at present; an oddity in his manners; evidently in poor circumstances, which he treated with that perfect absence of disguise and affectation which is so difficult for English people to comprehend, so impossible for them to imitate; and devotedly, though injudiciously, attached to his beautiful daughter, Gertrude. The girl's mother, an Englishwoman, had died at her birth, and her father had brought her up after a completely unconventional fashion, and one which would have horrified his own countrymen in particular. She was allowed as much freedom as "bird on branch," and her education was of the most desultory description. Gertrude Gautier was very handsome, very wilful, and totally destitute of knowledge of the world. She was her father's companion in all places and at all times; and when the Hon. John Borlase made Etienne Gautier's acquaintance and took to frequenting his society, he found that it included that of one of the handsomest, cleverest, and most spirited girls he had ever met. John Borlase was not quite a free man when he first saw Gertrude Gautier. Had her position in life been such as to render his marrying her a wise and suitable proceeding, he could not have offered to do so with honour, though the engagement, if so it could be called, which bound him to the Lady Lucy Beecher, was of a cool and vague description, and much more the doing of their respective families than their own. But he had carried the not unpleasant obligation cheerfully for a year or more; and it was only when he fully and freely acknowledged to himself that he had fallen in love with Gertrude Gautier, and felt a delightful though embarrassing consciousness that she had fallen in love with him, that he grumbled at his engagement, and persuaded himself that but for its existence he would certainly have married Gertrude, and boldly set the opinions and wishes of his family at defiance. It was a pleasing delusion: there never existed a man less likely to have done anything of the kind than John Borlase; but he cherished the belief, which nothing in his former life tended to justify. He was a proud man in a totally unaffected way; and only his fancy--not for a moment his real practical self--regarded the possibility of the elevation into a future British peeress of a girl whose father was a painter, of the Bohemian order, and in whose maternal ancestry the most noteworthy "illustration" was a wholesale grocer. As for Gertrude, she loved him, and that was enough for her. The untaught, undisciplined, passionate girl thought of nothing beyond; and her father, who was as blind as fathers usually are to the fact that his daughter was longer a child, but with all the charm and beauty of womanhood had entered upon all its danger gave the matter no consideration whatever. This state of things lasted for several months, and then came a crisis. Etienne Gautier fell from a height, in one of the Berlin galleries, and died of the injuries he had received, after recovering consciousness for just sufficient time to commend his daughter to the care and kindness of John Borlase.
"Send her to Leamington," said the dying man; "her mother's uncle lives there. She knows his name."
There is little need to pursue the story of Gertrude Gautier further. She never went to Leamington; she never saw the prosperous grocer, her mother's uncle. The story is not a new one, but at least it ended better than many a one like it has ended. Gertrude was happy; she had no scruples; she knew no better. She had no friends to forfeit; she had no position to lose. Her lover was true to her, and all the more devoted that he had many stings of conscience of which she had no suspicion, in which she never shared. He brought her to England, and the girl was happy in her pretty suburban house, with her birds, her flowers, and his society. But a time came in which John Borlase had the chance of testing his own sincerity; and he applied the test, and recognised its failure. When the institution of the suburban house was a year old, and when he had frequently congratulated himself upon the successful secrecy which had been maintained, John Borlase found a letter to his address awaiting him at his father's town-house. The letter was from Lady Lucy Beecher, and it contained the intelligence of her marriage. "I knew you did not care for me," said the fair and frank writer, "in any sense which would give us a chance of being happy together; but I did not make a fuss about the family arrangement before it became necessary to do so. That necessity arose when I found myself deliberately preferring another man to you. I do so prefer Hugh Wybrant, and I have married him. My people are very angry, of course--perhaps yours will be so also; but you will not care much about that; and I am sure you will heartily thank me for what I have done. We shall always be good friends, I hope; and if we had married, we could never have been more, and might easily--indeed should very certainly, I am convinced--have been less." John Borlase was much relieved by the intelligence contained in this characteristic letter. Lady Lucy had troubled his mind, had been a difficulty to him. Under the circumstances he would not have married, he would not have done so doubly dishonourable an action; but he was very glad the ostensible breach was of her making and not his. He derived a pleasant self-congratulatory conviction that he was rather a lucky fellow from this fortunate occurrence; and he answered Lady Lucy's flippant letter by one which was full of kindliness and good-humour, and accompanied by a set of Neapolitan coral.
Then came the question which would make itself heard. Should he marry Gertrude? He could do so without risk of her antecedents being discovered; the only odium he would have to bear would be that of her foreign birth and insignificant, indefinite origin. The girl's own feelings, strange to say, counted but little with John Borlase, in the discussion he held with himself, and which need not be pursued further. If he had decided in her favour, he felt that a first and important preliminary would be that he should explain to her the degradation of her present position, and the immense advantages to her of the compensation which he should offer her by marrying her. Their life would be changed, of course; and what had such a change to give him? He reasoned entirely as a man of the world; and the upshot of his deliberations was that he did not marry Gertrude Gautier. It made no difference to her; she did not know that the subject had ever occupied him; she had never heard Lady Lucy's name. Her calm, happy, guilty love-dream went on for a little longer, and then it ended. The doom of her mother was on Gertrude; and John Borlase came home one day, as Etienne Gautier had come home, to find a dead woman and a helpless infant where he had left youth and health and beauty in the morning. The blow fell heavily upon John Borlase, and remorse as well as sorrow was for a long time busy at his heart. During this period he was extremely restless, and the world was quite concerned and edified to see how much he had taken Lady Lucy's defection to heart. Who would have thought a man could possess so much feeling? And then, the generosity with which he acted, the pains he had taken to show how completely he wassans rancune; how could Lady Lucy have done such a thing! But everybody flocked to see Lady Lucy, for all that; and as for Captain Wybrant, never was there anyone so charming. John Borlase did not hear all the talk, or if he did, he did not heed it. He was not a sentimental man, and he was sufficiently unscrupulous; but Gertrude's death was more than a racking grief and loss to him. Alongside of her shrouded figure he saw her father's; and now, too late, he was haunted by the unfulfilled trust bequeathed him by the dead. Deceiving himself again, he tried to persuade himself that only the suddenness of Gertrude's death had prevented his marrying her; he tried to throw the blame, which he could not ignore, on circumstances. At first he succeeded, to a certain extent, in this--succeeded sufficiently to deaden the acuteness--of the pain he could not escape from. Then, after a time, he knew better; he no longer indulged in self-deception; he acknowledged that the wrong was irreparable, and the self-reproach life-long; and he bowed to the stern truth. John Borlase was never afterwards talked of as a marrying man; and Lady Lucy Wybrant, whose sources of social success were numerous and various, enjoyed that one in addition, that the inexorable celibacy of Lord Sandilands was ascribed to his chivalrous fidelity to her. She knew that this was a fiction, as well as he knew it; but as it was a gleam of additional glorification for her, and such a supposition saved him a great deal of trouble, and preserved him from match-making mammas, each acquiesced in the view which society chose to adopt, with most amiable affability. Captain Wybrant laughed at the theory of Sandilands' celibacy, as he laughed at most other theories; and said (and believed) that if a man must be fool enough to wear the willow for any woman, his Lucy was the best worth wearing it for, of all the women in the world. And though the whole thing was a myth, Lord Sandilands never cordially liked jolly Hugh Wybrant--perhaps no man ever yet did cordially like the individual in whose favour he has been jilted, though he may not have cared a straw for the fickle fair one, but have honestly regarded her inconstancy as a delightful circumstance, demanding ardent gratitude.
For several years after Gertrude Gautier's death, the Hon. John Borlase indulged in frequent and extensive foreign travel; and during this period the infant girl who had inherited her beauty, apparently without her delicacy of constitution, was well cared for. The child's father cared little for her, beyond scrupulously providing for her physical welfare. She was an embodied reproach to him, though he never said so to himself, but persuaded himself his indifference to the little girl whom he saw but rarely and at long intervals, arose from his not naturally caring about children. When she was eight years old, and the memory of her mother had almost died out, though the indelible effect of the sad and guilty episode in his life with which she was connected remained impressed upon him, Lord Sandilands placed the little girl under Mrs. Bloxam's care, with the conditions already stated and the results already partially developed. He had provided ample funds to meet the exigencies of her education; he had made due arrangements for their safe and punctual transmission to Mrs. Bloxam; he had but vague notions concerning the requirements and the risks of girlhood: his dominant idea was, that in a respectable boarding-school the girl must be safe; he did not want to see her; she must not know him as her father; and he had no fancy for playing any part, undertaking any personation,--in short, having any trouble unrepresented by money,--about her. John Borlase had been unscrupulous, and a trifle hard in his nature; and despite the conflict in his breast which had ensued on Gertrude Gautier's death, and which for all his impassive bearing had been fierce and long, Lord Sandilands was not much more scrupulous, and was decidedly harder. If the girl married, or if she died, he should be made acquainted with the circumstance; and as a matter of fact--fact, not sentiment, being the real consideration in this matter--either was all he need know. As time went on, this frame of mind about his unknown daughter became habitual to Lord Sandilands; and of late he had never remembered Gertrude's existence, except when an entry in his accounts, under a certain appointed formula, recalled the fact to his mind.
These were the circumstances on which Lord Sandilands mused, as he paced his room in the early morning, after he had seen Grace Lambert at Lady Carabas' concert. The girl's face had risen up before him like a ghost,--not only her mother's, but that of his own youth; and in the proud, assured, but not bold glance of her splendid brown eyes a story which had no successor in the old man's lonely life was written. This beautiful, gifted girl was his daughter. She might have been the pride of his life, the darling, the ornament of his home, the light of his declining years, the inheritor of his fortune, if-if he had done right instead of wrong, if he had repaired the injury he had done to her, whose grave lay henceforth and for ever between him and the possibility of reparation.
"How very handsome she is!" he thought; "and how fine and highly cultivated her voice! If I had known she possessed such a talent as that!" And then he thought how that talent might have been displayed in society, in which the possessor might have mixed on equal terms. A long train of images and fancies, of vain and bitter regrets, came up with the strong impression of the girl's grace, beauty, and gifts. Of her identity there could be no doubt. As Gertrude Gautier had looked out from the garden-gate, where she had bidden him the fond and smiling farewell destined to be their last, so this girl, as beautiful as his lost Gertrude, and with something of grandeur in her look, which Gertrude had not, and which was the grace added by genius, had looked that night, as she calmly, smilingly, received the applause of her audience. As he recalled that look, and dwelt on it in his memory with the full assurance that his conviction was correct, an idea struck him. He was a known connoisseur in music, a known patron of musical art; everyone who was anyone in the musical world sought an introduction to Lord Sandilands. In the case of Miss Grace Lambert, his generally extended patronage had been especially requested by Lady Carabas for herprotégée. Here was a fair and legitimate expedient within his reach for securing access to Miss Lambert, without the slightest risk of awakening suspicion, either in her mind or in that of sharp-sighted observers, that he was actuated by any particular motive in this instance. He must see her, he must know her! How bitterly he lamented now, and condemned himself for the indifference which had kept him for so many years contented that his child should be a stranger to him! How ready he was, now that he saw her beautiful and gifted, to accord credence and attention to the voice of nature, in which he had never before believed, and which under other circumstances would have found him just as deaf as usual! Then he resolved that he would write to Mrs. Bloxam, and prepare her for a long-deferred visit to her charge, stipulating in his letter that Gertrude should know nothing of the intended visit, and that Mrs. Bloxam should receive him alone. "She shall tell me my child's history," he said; "at least it has been a bright and happy story hitherto." And Lord Sandilands sighed, and his face looked old and worn, as he arranged his note-paper, and dipped his pen in the ink, and then hesitated and pondered long before he commenced his letter to Mrs. Bloxam.
The letter consisted of but a few lines, and Lord Sandilands put it in another cover, addressed to Mr. Plowden, his solicitor, and the medium of his payments to Mrs. Bloxam. It was not until he had retired to rest, after sunrise, and had been for some time vainly trying to sleep, that his thoughts reverted to Miles Challoner and the incident which had taken place just before they parted.
Miles Challoner, also wakeful, was thinking of it too, and debating with himself whether he should mention the matter again to Lord Sandilands. He shrank from reviving a subject so full of pain. The man whom he had met evidently had an object in concealing his identity, or he would not have been so reticent by a first impulse. They were not likely to meet again. So Miles Challoner took a resolution to keep his own counsel; and acted upon it.