I.Childe Dacre stands in his father’s hall,While all the rest are dancing;Childe Dacre gazes on the wall,While brightest eyes are glancing.Then prythee tell me, gentles gay!What makes our Childe so dull to-day?
Each verse was repeated.
In the background they danced a cotillon.
In the front, the Duke of St. James, as Childe Dacre, leant against the wall, with arms folded and eyes fixed; in short, in an attitude which commanded great applause.
II.I cannot tell, unless it be,While all the rest are dancing,The Lady Alice, on the sea,With brightest eyes is glancing,Or muses on the twilight hourWill bring Childe Dacre to her bower.
Mrs. Dallington Vere advances as the Lady Alice. Her walk is abrupt, her look anxious and distracted; she seems to be listening for some signal. She falls into a musing attitude, motionless and graceful as a statue. Clara Howard alike marvels at her genius and her courage.
III.Childe Dacre hears the curfew chime,While all the rest are dancing;Unless I find a fitting rhyme,Oh! here ends my romancing!But see! her lover’s at her feet!Oh! words of joy! oh! meeting sweet!
The Duke advances, chivalric passion in his every gesture. The Lady Alice rushes to his arms with that look of trembling transport which tells the tale of stolen love. They fall into a group which would have made the fortune of an Annual.
IV.Then let us hope, when next I sing,And all the rest are dancing,Our Childe a gentle bride may bring,All other joys enhancing.Then we will bless the twilight hourThat call’d him to a lady’s bower.
The Duke led Mrs. Dallington to the dancers with courtly grace. There was great applause, but the spirit of fun and one-and-twenty inspired him, and he led off a gallop. In fact, it was an elegant romp. The two Baronets started from their slumbers, and Lord Mildmay called for Mademoiselle Dacre. The call was echoed. Miss Dacre yielded to the public voice, and acted to the life the gratified and condescending air of a first-rate performer. Lord Mildmay called for Madame Dallington. Miss Dacre led on her companion as Sontag would Malibran. There was no wreath at hand, but the Duke of St. James robbed his coat of its rose, and offered it on his knee to Mademoiselle, who presented it with Parisian feeling to her rival. The scene was as superb as anything at theAcadémie.
An Impromptu Excursion
‘WE CERTAINLY must have a masque,’ said the young Duke, as he threw himself into his chair, satisfied with his performance.
‘You must open Hauteville with one,’ said Mrs. Dallington.
‘A capital idea; but we will practise at Dacre first.’
‘When is Hauteville to be finished?’ asked Mrs. Dallington. ‘I shall really complain if we are to be kept out of it much longer. I believe I am the only person in the Riding who has not been there.’
‘I have been there,’ said the Duke, ‘and am afraid I must go again; for Sir Carte has just come down for a few days, and I promised to meet him. It is a sad bore. I wish it were finished.’
‘Take me with you,’ said Mrs. Dallington; ‘take us all, and let us make a party.’
‘An admirable idea,’ exclaimed the young Duke, with a brightening countenance. ‘What admirable ideas you have, Mrs. Dallington! This is, indeed, turning business into pleasure! What says our hostess?’
‘I will join you.’
‘To-morrow, then?’ said the Duke.
‘To-morrow! You are rapid!’
‘Never postpone, never prepare: that is your own rule. To-morrow, to-morrow, all must go.’
‘Papa, will you go to-morrow to Hauteville?’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes,’ said Miss Dacre: ‘we never postpone; we never prepare.’
‘But do not you think a day, at least, had better intervene?’ urged Mr. Dacre; ‘we shall be unexpected.’
‘I vote for to-morrow,’ said the Duke.
‘To-morrow!’ was the universal exclamation. Tomorrow was carried.
‘I will write to Blanche at once,’ said the Duke.
Mrs. Dallington Vere ran for the writing materials, and his Grace indicted the following pithy note:—
‘Half-past Ten, Castle Dacre.
‘Dear Sir Carte,
‘Our party here intend to honour Hauteville with a visit to-morrow, and anticipate the pleasure of viewing the improvements, with yourself for their cicerone. Let Rawdon know immediately of this. They tell me here that the sun rises about six. As we shall not be with you till noon, I have no doubt your united energies will be able to make all requisite preparations. We may be thirty or forty. Believe me, dear Sir Carte,
‘Your faithful servant,
‘St. James.
‘Carlstein bears this, which you will receive in an hour. Let me have a line by return.’
The Charms of Hauteville
IT WAS a morning all dew and sunshine, soft yet bright, just fit for a hawking party, for dames of high degree, feathered cavaliers, ambling palfreys, and tinkling bells. Our friends rose early, and assembled punctually. All went, and all went on horseback; but they sent before some carriages for the return, in case the ladies should be wearied with excessive pleasure. The cavalcade, for it was no less, broke into parties which were often out of sight of each other. The Duke and Lord St. Jerome, Clara Howard and Charles Faulcon, Miss Dacre and Mrs. Dallington, formed one, and, as they flattered themselves, not the least brilliant. They were all in high spirits, and his Grace lectured on riding-habits with erudite enthusiasm.
Their road lay through a country wild and woody, where crag and copse beautifully intermixed with patches of rich cultivation. Halfway, they passed Rosemount, a fanciful pavilion where the Dukes of St. James sometimes sought that elegant simplicity which was not afforded by all the various charms of their magnificent Hauteville. At length they arrived at the park-gate of the castle, which might itself have passed for a tolerable mansion. It was ancient and embattled, flanked by a couple of sturdy towers, and gave a noble promise of the baronial pile which it announced. The park was a petty principality; and its apparently illimitable extent, its rich variety of surface, its ancient woods and numerous deer, attracted the attention and the admiration even of those who had been born in such magical enclosures.
Away they cantered over the turf, each moment with their blood more sparkling. A turn in the road, and Hauteville, with its donjon keep and lordly flag, and many-windowed line of long perspective, its towers, and turrets, and terraces, bathed with the soft autumnal sun, met their glad sight.
‘Your Majesty is welcome to my poor castle!’ said the young Duke, bowing with head uncovered to Miss Dacre.
‘Nay, we are at the best but captive princesses about to be immured in that fearful keep; and this is the way you mock us!’
‘I am content that you shall be my prisoner.’
‘A struggle for freedom!’ said Miss Dacre, looking back to Mrs. Dallington, and she galloped towards the castle.
Lord Mildmay and Lady St. Jerome cantered up, and the rest soon assembled. Sir Carte came forward, all smiles, with a clerk of the works bearing a portfolio of plans. A crowd of servants, for the Duke maintained an establishment at Hauteville, advanced, and the fair equestrians were dismounted. They shook their habits and their curls, vowed that riding was your only exercise, and that dust in the earthly economy was a blunder. And then they entered the castle.
Room after room, gallery after gallery; you know the rest. Shall we describe the silk hangings and the reverend tapestry, the agate tables and the tall screens, the china and the armour, the state beds and the curious cabinets, and the family pictures mixed up so quaintly with Italian and Flemish art? But we pass from meek Madonnas and seraphic saints, from gleaming Claudes and Guidos soft as Eve, from Rubens’s satyrs and Albano’s boys, and even from those gay and natural medleys, paintings that cheer the heart, where fruit and flower, with their brilliant bloom, call to a feast the butterfly and bee; we pass from these to square-headed ancestors by Holbein, all black velvet and gold chains; cavaliers, by Vandyke, all lace and spurs, with pointed beards, that did more execution even than their pointed swords; patriots and generals, by Kneller, in Blenheim wigs and Steen-kirk cravats, all robes and armour; scarlet judges that supported ship-money, and purple bishops, who had not been sent to the Tower. Here was a wit who had sipped his coffee at Button’s, and there some mad Alcibiades duke who had exhausted life ere he had finished youth, and yet might be consoled for all his flashing follies could he witness the bright eyes that lingered on his countenance, while they glanced over all the patriotism and all the piety, all the illustrious courage and all the historic craft, which, when living, it was daily told him that he had shamed. Ye dames with dewy eyes that Lely drew! have we forgotten you? No! by that sleepy loveliness that reminds us that night belongs to beauty, ye were made for memory! And oh! our grandmothers, that we now look upon as girls, breathing in Reynolds’s playful canvas, let us also pay our homage to your grace!
The chapel, where you might trace art from the richly Gothic tomb, designed by some neighbouring abbot, to the last effort of Flaxman; the riding-house, where, brightly framed, looked down upon you with a courtly smile the first and gartered duke, who had been Master of the Horse, were alike visited, and alike admired. They mounted the summit of the round tower, and looked around upon the broad county, which they were proud to call their own. Amid innumerable seats, where blazed the hearths of the best blood of England, they recognised, with delight, the dome of Dacre and the woods of Dallington. They walked along a terrace not unworthy of the promenade of a court; they visited the flower gardens, where the peculiar style of every nation was in turn imitated; they loitered in the vast conservatories, which were themselves a palace; they wandered in the wilderness, where the invention of consummate art presented them with the ideal of nature. In this poetic solitude, where all was green, and still, and sweet, or where the only sound was falling water or fluttering birds, the young Duke recurred to the feelings which, during the last momentous week, had so mastered his nature, and he longed to wind his arm round the beautiful being without whom this enchanting domain was a dreary waste.
They assembled in a green retreat, where the energetic Sir Carte had erected a marquée, and where a collation greeted the eyes of those who were well prepared for it. Rawdon had also done his duty, and the guests, who were aware of the sudden manner in which the whole affair had arisen, wondered at the magic which had produced a result worthy of a week’s preparation. But it is a great thing to be a young Duke. The pasties, and the venison, and the game, the pines, and the peaches, and the grapes, the cakes, and the confectionery, and the ices, which proved that the still-room at Hauteville was not an empty name, were all most popular. But the wines, they were marvellous! And as the finest cellars in the country had been ransacked for excellence and variety, it is not wonderful that their produce obtained a panegyric. There was hock of a century old, which made all stare, though we, for our part, cannot see, or rather taste, the beauty of this antiquity. Wine, like woman, in our opinion, should not be too old, so we raise our altar to the infant Bacchus; but this is not the creed of the million, nor was it the persuasion of Sir Chetwode Chetwode or of Sir Tichborne Tichborne, good judges both. The Johannisberger quite converted them. They no longer disliked the young Duke. They thought him a fool, to be sure, but at the same time a good-natured one. In the meantime, all were interested, and Carlstein with his key bugle, from out a neighbouring brake, afforded the only luxury that was wanting.
It is six o’clock, carriages are ordered, and horses are harnessed. Back, back to Dacre! But not at the lively rate at which they had left that lordly hall this morning. They are all alike inclined to move slowly; they are silent, yet serene and satisfied; they ponder upon the reminiscences of a delightful morning, and also of a delightful meal. Perhaps they are a little weary; perhaps they wish to gaze upon the sunset.
It is eight o’clock, and they enter the park gates. Dinner is universally voted a bore, even by the Baronets. Coffee covers the retreat of many a wearied bird to her evening bower. The rest lounge on a couch or sofa, or chew the cud of memory on an ottoman. It was a day of pleasure which had been pleasant. That was certain: but that was past. Who is to be Duchess of St. James? Answer this. May Dacre, or Bertha Vere, or Clara Howard? Lady St. Jerome, is it to be a daughter of thy house? Lady Faulconcourt, art thou to be hailed as the unrivalled mother?’ Tis mystery all, as must always be the future of this world. We muse, we plan, we hope, but naught is certain but that which is naught; for, a question answered, a doubt satisfied, an end attained; what are they but fit companions for clothes out of fashion, cracked china, and broken fans?
Our hero was neither wearied nor sleepy, for his mind was too full of exciting fancies to think of the interests of his body. As all were withdrawing, he threw his cloak about him and walked on the terrace. It was a night soft as the rhyme that sighs from Rogers’ shell, and brilliant as a phrase just turned by Moore. The thousand stars smiled from their blue pavilions, and the moon shed the mild light that makes a lover muse. Fragrance came in airy waves from trees rich with the golden orange, and from out the woods there ever and anon arose a sound, deep and yet hushed, and mystical, and soft. It could not be the wind!
His heart was full, his hopes were sweet, his fate pledged on a die. And in this shrine, where all was like his love, immaculate and beautiful, he vowed a faith which had not been returned. Such is the madness of love! Such is the magic of beauty!
Music rose upon the air. Some huntsmen were practising their horns. The triumphant strain elevated his high hopes, the tender tone accorded with his emotions. He paced up and down the terrace in excited reverie, fed by the music. In imagination she was with him: she spoke, she smiled, she loved. He gazed upon her beaming countenance: his soul thrilled with tones which, only she could utter. He pressed her to his throbbing and tumultuous breast!
The music stopped. He fell from his seventh heaven. He felt all the exhaustion of his prolonged reverie. All was flat, dull, unpromising. The moon seemed dim, the stars were surely fading, the perfume of the trees was faint, the wind of the woods was a howling demon. Exhausted, dispirited, ay! almost desperate, with a darkened soul and staggering pace, he regained his chamber.
Pride Has a Fall
THERE is nothing more strange, but nothing more certain, than the different influence which the seasons of night and day exercise upon the moods of our minds. Him whom the moon sends to bed with a head full of misty meaning the sun-will summon in the morning with a brain clear and lucid as his beam. Twilight makes us pensive; Aurora is the goddess of activity. Despair curses at midnight; Hope blesses at noon.
And the bright beams of Phoebus—why should this good old name be forgotten?—called up our Duke rather later than a monk at matins, in a less sublime disposition than that in which he had paced among the orange-trees of Dacre. His passion remained, but his poetry was gone. He was all confidence, and gaiety, and love, and panted for the moment when he could place his mother’s coronet on the only head that was worthy to share the proud fortunes of the house of Hauteville.
‘Luigi, I will rise. What is going on to-day?’ ‘The gentlemen are all out, your Grace.’
‘And the ladies?’
‘Are going to the Archery Ground, your Grace.’
‘Ah! she will be there, Luigi?’
‘Yes, your Grace.’
‘My robe, Luigi.’
‘Yes, your Grace.’
‘I forgot what I was going to say. Luigi!’
‘Yes, your Grace.’
‘Luigi, Luigi, Luigi,’ hummed the Duke, perfectly unconscious, and beating time with his brush. His valet stared, but more when his lord, with eyes fixed on the ground, fell into a soliloquy, not a word of which, most provokingly, was audible, except to my reader.
‘How beautiful she looked yesterday upon the keep when she tried to find Dacre! I never saw such eyes in my life! I must speak to Lawrence immediately. I think I must have her face painted in four positions, like that picture of Lady Alice Gordon by Sir Joshua. Her full face is sublime; and yet there is a piquancy in the profile, which I am not sure—and yet again, when her countenance is a little bent towards you, and her neck gently turned, I think that is, after all—but then when her eyes meet yours, full! oh! yes! yes! yes! That first look at Doncaster! It is impressed upon my brain like self-consciousness. I never can forget it. But then her smile! When she sang on Tuesday night! By Heavens!’ he exclaimed aloud, ‘life with such a creature is immortality!’
About one o’clock the Duke descended into empty chambers. Not a soul was to be seen. The birds had flown. He determined to go to the Archery Ground. He opened the door of the music-room.
He found Miss Dacre alone at a table, writing. She looked up, and his heart yielded as her eye met his.
‘You do not join the nymphs?’ asked the Duke.
‘I have lent my bow,’ she said, ‘to an able substitute.’
She resumed her task, which he perceived was copying music. He advanced, he seated himself at the table, and began playing with a pen. He gazed upon her, his soul thrilled with unwonted sensations, his frame shook with emotions which, for a moment, deprived him even of speech. At length he spoke in a low and tremulous tone:—
‘I fear I am disturbing you, Miss Dacre?’
‘By no means,’ she said, with a courteous air; and then, remembering she was a hostess, ‘Is there anything that you require?’
‘Much; more than I can hope. O Miss Dacre! suffer me to tell you how much I admire, how much I love you!’
She started, she stared at him with distended eyes, and her small mouth was open like a ring.
‘My Lord!’
‘Yes!’ he continued in a rapid and impassioned tone. ‘I at length find an opportunity of giving way to feelings which it has been long difficult for me to control. O beautiful being! tell me, tell me that I am blessed!’
‘My Lord! I—I am most honoured; pardon me if I say, most surprised.’
‘Yes! from the first moment that your ineffable loveliness rose on my vision my mind has fed upon your image. Our acquaintance has only realised, of your character, all that my imagination had preconceived, Such unrivalled beauty, such unspeakable grace, could only have been the companions of that exquisite taste and that charming delicacy which, even to witness, has added great felicity to my existence. Oh! tell me—tell me that they shall be for me something better than a transient spectacle. Condescend to share the fortune and the fate of one who only esteems his lot in life because it enables him to offer you a station not utterly unworthy of your transcendent excellence!’
‘I have permitted your Grace to proceed too far. For your—for my own sake, I should sooner have interfered, but, in truth, I was so astounded at your unexpected address that I have but just succeeded in recalling my scattered senses. Let me again express to you my acknowledgments for an honour which I feel is great; but permit me to regret that for your offer of your hand and fortune these acknowledgments are all I can return.’
‘Miss Dacre! am I then to wake to the misery of being rejected?’
‘A little week ago, Duke of St. James, we were strangers. It would be hard if it were in the power of either of us now to deliver the other to misery.’
‘You are offended, then, at the presumption which, on so slight an acquaintance, has aspired to your hand. It is indeed a high possession. I thought only of you, not of myself. Your perfections require no time for recognition. Perhaps my imperfections require time for indulgence. Let me then hope!’
‘You have misconceived my meaning, and I regret that a foolish phrase should occasion you the trouble of fresh solicitude, and me the pain of renewed refusal. In a word, it is not in my power to accept your hand.’
He rose from the table, and stifled the groan which struggled in his throat. He paced up and down the room with an agitated step and a convulsed brow, which marked the contest of his passions. But he was not desperate. His heart was full of high resolves and mighty meanings, indefinite but great, He felt like some conqueror, who, marking the battle going against him, proud in his infinite resources and invincible power, cannot credit the madness of a defeat. And the lady, she leant her head upon her delicate arm, and screened her countenance from his scrutiny.
He advanced.
‘Miss Dacre! pardon this prolonged intrusion; forgive this renewed discourse. But let me only hope that a more favoured rival is the cause of my despair, and I will thank you——’
‘My Lord Duke,’ she said, looking up with a faint blush, but with a flashing eye, and in an audible and even energetic tone, ‘the question you ask is neither fair nor manly; but, as you choose to press me, I will say that it requires no recollection of a third person to make me decline the honour which you intended me.’
‘Miss Dacre! you speak in anger, almost in bitterness. Believe me,’ he added, rather with an air of pique, ‘had I imagined from your conduct towards me that I was an object of dislike, I would have spared you this inconvenience and myself this humiliation.’
‘At Castle Dacre, my conduct to all its inmates is the same. The Duke of St. James, indeed, hath both hereditary and personal claims to be considered here as something better than a mere inmate; but your Grace has elected to dissolve all connection with our house, and I am not desirous of assisting you in again forming any.’
‘Harsh words, Miss Dacre!’
‘Harsher truth, my Lord Duke,’ said Miss Dacre, rising from her seat, and twisting a pen with agitated energy. ‘You have prolonged this interview, not I. Let it end, for I am not skilful in veiling my mind; and I should regret, here at least, to express what I have hitherto succeeded in concealing.’
‘It cannot end thus,’ said his Grace: ‘let me, at any rate, know the worst. You have, if not too much kindness, at least too much candour, to part sol’ ‘I am at a loss to understand,’ said Miss Dacre, ‘what other object our conversation can have for your Grace than to ascertain my feelings, which I have already declared more than once, upon a point which you have already more than once urged. If I have not been sufficiently explicit or sufficiently clear, let me tell you, sir, that nothing but the request of a parent whom I adore would have induced me even to speak to the person who had dared to treat him with contempt.’ ‘Miss Dacre!’
‘You are moved, or you affect to be moved. ‘Tis well: if a word from a stranger can thus affect you, you may be better able to comprehend the feelings of that person whose affections you have so long outraged; your equal in blood, Duke of St. James, your superior in all other respects.’
‘Beautiful being!’ said his Grace, advancing, falling on his knee, and seizing her hand. ‘Pardon, pardon, pardon! Like your admirable sire, forgive; cast into oblivion all remembrance of my fatal youth. Is not your anger, is not this moment, a bitter, an utter expiation for all my folly, all my thoughtless, all my inexperienced folly; for it was no worse? On my knees, and in the face of Heaven, let me pray you to be mine. I have staked my happiness upon this venture. In your power is my fate. On you it depends whether I shall discharge my duty to society, to the country to which I owe so much, or whether I shall move in it without an aim, an object, or a hope. Think, think only of the sympathy of our dispositions; the similarity of our tastes. Think, think only of the felicity that might be ours. Think of the universal good we might achieve! Is there anything that human reason could require that we could not command? any object which human mind could imagine that we could not obtain? And, as for myself, I swear that I will be the creature of your will. Nay, nay! oaths are mockery, vows are idle! Is it possible to share existence with you, beloved girl! without watching for your every wish, without—’
‘My Lord Duke, this must end. You do not recommend yourself to me by this rhapsody. What do you know of me, that you should feel all this? I may be different from what you expected; that is all. Another week, and another woman may command a similar effusion. I do not believe you to be insincere. There would be more hope for you if you were. You act from impulse, and not from principle. This is your best excuse for your conduct to my father. It is one that I accept, but which will certainly ever prevent me from becoming your wife. Farewell!’ ‘Nay, nay! let us not part in enmity!’ ‘Enmity and friendship are strong words; words that are much abused. There is another, which must describe our feelings towards the majority of mankind, and mine towards you. Substitute for enmity indifference.’
She quitted the room: he remained there for some minutes, leaning on the mantelpiece, and then rushed into the park. He hurried for some distance with the rapid and uncertain step which betokens a tumultuous and disordered mind. At length he found himself among the ruins of Dacre Abbey. The silence and solemnity of the scene made him conscious, by the contrast, of his own agitated existence; the desolation of the beautiful ruin accorded with his own crushed and beautiful hopes. He sat himself at the feet of the clustered columns, and, covering his face with his hands, he wept.
They were the first tears that he had shed since childhood, and they were agony. Men weep but once, but then their tears are blood. We think almost their hearts must crack a little, so heartless are they ever after. Enough of this.
It is bitter to leave our fathers hearth for the first time; bitter is the eve of our return, when a thousand fears rise in our haunted souls. Bitter are hope deferred, and self-reproach, and power unrecognised. Bitter is poverty; bitterer still is debt. It is bitter to be neglected; it is more bitter to be misunderstood. It is bitter to lose an only child. It is bitter to look upon the land which once was ours. Bitter is a sister’s woe, a brother’s scrape; bitter a mother’s tear, and bitterer still a father’s curse. Bitter are a briefless bag, a curate’s bread, a diploma that brings no fee. Bitter is half-pay!
It is bitter to muse on vanished youth; it is bitter to lose an election or a suit. Bitter are rage suppressed, vengeance unwreaked, and prize-money kept back. Bitter are a failing crop, a glutted market, and a shattering spec. Bitter are rents in arrear and tithes in kind. Bitter are salaries reduced and perquisites destroyed. Bitter is a tax, particularly if misapplied; a rate, particularly if embezzled. Bitter is a trade too full, and bitterer still a trade that has worn out. Bitter is a bore!
It is bitter to lose one’s hair or teeth. It is bitter to find our annual charge exceed our income. It is bitter to hear of others’ fame when we are boys. It is bitter to resign the seals we fain would keep. It is bitter to hear the winds blow when we have ships at sea, or friends. Bitter are a broken friendship and a dying love. Bitter a woman scorned, a man betrayed!
Bitter is the secret woe which none can share. Bitter are a brutal husband and a faithless wife, a silly daughter and a sulky son. Bitter are a losing card, a losing horse. Bitter the public hiss, the private sneer. Bitter are old age without respect, manhood without wealth, youth without fame. Bitter is the east wind’s blast; bitter a stepdame’s kiss. It is bitter to mark the woe which we cannot relieve. It is bitter to die in a foreign land.
But bitterer far than this, than these, than all, is waking from our first delusion! For then we first feel the nothingness of self; that hell of sanguine spirits. All is dreary, blank, and cold. The sun of hope sets without a ray, and the dim night of dark despair shadows only phantoms. The spirits that guard round us in our pride have gone. Fancy, weeping, flies. Imagination droops her glittering pinions and sinks into the earth. Courage has no heart, and love seems a traitor. A busy demon whispers in our ear that all is vain and worthless, and we among the vainest of a worthless crew!
And so our young friend here now depreciated as much as he had before exaggerated his powers. There seemed not on the earth’s face a more forlorn, a more feeble, a less estimable wretch than himself, but just now a hero. O! what a fool, what a miserable, contemptible fool was he! With what a light tongue and lighter heart had he spoken of this woman who despised, who spurned him! His face blushed, ay! burnt, at the remembrance of his reveries and his fond monologues! the very recollection made him shudder with disgust. He looked up to see if any demon were jeering him among the ruins.
His heart was so crushed that hope could not find even one desolate chamber to smile in. His courage was so cowed that, far from indulging in the distant romance to which, under these circumstances, we sometimes fly, he only wondered at the absolute insanity which, for a moment, had permitted him to aspire to her possession. ‘Sympathy of dispositions! Similarity of tastes, forsooth! Why, we are different existences! Nature could never have made us for the same world or with the same clay! O consummate being! why, why did we meet? Why, why are my eyes at length unsealed? Why, why do I at length feel conscious of my utter worthlessness? O God! I am miserable!’ He arose and hastened to the house. He gave orders to Luigi and his people to follow him to Rosemount with all practicable speed, and having left a note for his host with the usual excuse, he mounted his horse, and in half an hour’s time, with a countenance like a stormy sea, was galloping through the park gates of Dacre.
‘If She Be Not Fair For Me.‘
THE day after the arrival of the Duke of St. James at Cleve Park, his host, Sir Lucius Grafton, received the following note from Mrs. Dallington Vere:
‘Castle Dacre,———-, 182—.
‘My dear Baronet,
‘Your pigeon has flown, otherwise I should have tied this under his wing, for I take it for granted he is trained too dexterously to alight anywhere but at Cleve.
‘I confess that in this affair your penetration has exceeded mine. I hope throughout it will serve you as well. I kept my promise, and arrived here only a few hours after him. The prejudice which I had long observed in the little Dacre against your protégé was too marked to render any interference on my part at once necessary, nor did I anticipate even beginning to give her good advice for a month to come. Heaven knows what a month of his conduct might have done! A month achieves such wonders! And, to do him justice, he was most agreeable; but our young gentleman grew impetuous, and so the day before yesterday he vanished, and in the most extraordinary manner! Sudden departure, unexpected business, letter and servants both left behind; Monsieur grave, and a little astonished; and the demoiselle thoughtful at the least, but not curious. Very suspicious this last circumstance! A flash crossed my mind, but I could gain nothing, even with my most dexterous wiles, from the little Dacre, who is a most unmanageable heroine. However, with the good assistance of a person who in a French tragedy would figure as my confidante, and who is the sister of your Lachen, something was learnt from Monsieur le valet, to say nothing of the page. All agree; a countenance pale as death, orders given in a low voice of suppressed passion and sundry oaths. I hear he sulked the night at Rosemount.
‘Now, my good Lucy, listen to me. Lose no time about the great object. If possible, let this autumn be distinguished. You have an idea that our friend is a very manageable sort of personage; in phrase less courteous, is sufficiently weak for all reasonable purposes. I am not quite so clear about this. He is at present very young, and his character is not formed; but there is a something about him which makes me half fear that, if you permit his knowledge of life to increase too much, you may quite fear having neglected my admonitions. At present his passions are high. Use his blood while it is hot, and remember that if you count on his rashness you may, as nearly in the present instance, yourself rue it. In a word, despatch. The deed that is done, you know—
‘My kindest remembrances to dear Lady Afy, and tell her how much I regret I cannot avail myself of her most friendly invitation. Considering, as I know, she hates me, I really do feel flattered.
‘You cannot conceive what Vandals I am at present among! Nothing but my sincere regard for you, my much-valued friend, would induce me to stay here a moment. I have received from the countenance of the Dacres all the benefit which a marked connection with so respectable and so moral a family confers, and I am tired to death. But it is a well-devised plan to have a reserve in the battles of society. You understand me; and I am led to believe that it has had the best effect, and silenced even the loudest. “Confound their politics!” as dear little Squib says, from whom I had the other day the funniest letter, which I have half a mind to send you, only you figure in it so much!
‘Burlington is at Brighton, and all my friends, except yourself. I have a few barbarians to receive at Dallington, and then I shall be off there. Join us as quickly as you can. Do you know, I think that it would be an excellentlocalefor thescena. We might drive them over to Dieppe: only do not put off your visit too long, or else there will be no steamers.
‘The Duke of Shropshire has had a fit, but rallied. He vows he was only picking up a letter, or tying his shoestring, or something of that kind; but Ruthven says he dined offboudins à la Sefton, and that, after a certain age, you know—
‘Lord Darrell is with Annesley and Co. I understand, most friendly towards me, which is pleasant; and Charles, who is my firm ally, takes care to confirm the kind feeling. I am glad about this.
‘Felix Crawlegh, or Crawley, as some say, has had an affair with Tommy Seymour, at Grant’s. Felix was grand about porter, or something, which he never drank, and all that. Tommy, Who knew nothing about the brewing father, asked him, very innocently, why malt liquors had so degenerated. Conceive the agony, particularly as Lady Selina is said to have no violent aversion to quartering her arms with a mash-tub, argent.
‘The Macaronis are most hospitable this year; and the Marquess says that the only reason that they kept in before was because he was determined to see whether economy was practicable. He finds it is not; so now expense is no object.
‘Augustus Henley is about to become a senator! What do you think of this? He says he has tried everything for an honest livelihood, and even once began a novel, but could not get on; which, Squib says, is odd, because there is a receipt going about for that operation which saves all trouble:
‘“Take a pair of pistols and a pack of cards, a cookery-book and a set of new quadrilles; mix them up with half an intrigue and a whole marriage, and divide them into three equal portions.” Now, as Augustus has both fought and gamed, dined and danced, I suppose it was the morality which posed him, or perhaps the marriage.
‘They say there is something about Lady Flutter, but, I should think, all talk. Most probably a report set about by her Ladyship. Lord Flame has been blackballed, that is certain. But there is no more news, except that the Wiltshires are going to the Continent: we know why; and that the Spankers are making more dash than ever: God knows how! Adieu!
‘B. D. V.’
The letter ended; all things end at last. A she-correspondent for our money; provided always that she does notcross.
Our Duke—in spite of his disgrace, he still is ours, and yours too, I hope, gentlest reader—our Duke found himself at Cleve Park again, in a different circle from the one to which he had been chiefly accustomed. The sporting world received him with open arms. With some of these worthies, as owner of Sanspareil, he had become slightly acquainted. But what is half a morning at Tattersall’s, or half a week at Doncaster, compared with a meeting at Newmarket? There your congenial spirits congregate. Freemasons every man of them! No uninitiated wretch there dares to disturb, with his profane presence, the hallowed mysteries. There the race is not a peg to hang a few days of dissipation on, but a sacred ceremony, to the celebration of which all men and all circumstances tend and bend. No balls, no concerts, no public breakfasts, no bands from Litolf, no singers from Welsh, no pineapples from Gunter, are there called for by thoughtless thousands, who have met, not from any affection for the turfs delights or their neighbour’s cash, but to sport their splendid liveries and to disport their showy selves.
The house was full of men, whose talk was full of bets. The women were not as bad, but they were not plentiful. Some lords and signors were there without their dames. Lord Bloomerly, for instance, alone, or rather with his eldest son, Lord Bloom, just of age, and already a knowing hand. His father introduced him to all his friends with that smiling air of self-content which men assume when they introduce a youth who may show the world what they were at his years; so the Earl presented the young Viscount as a lover presents his miniature to his mistress. Lady Afy shone in unapproached perfection. A dull Marchioness, agaucheViscountess, and some other dames, who did not look like the chorus of this Diana, acted as capital foils, and permitted her to meet her cavalier under what are called the most favourable auspices.
They dined, and discussed the agricultural interest in all its exhausted ramifications. Wheat was sold over again, even at a higher price; poachers were recalled to life, or from beyond seas, to be re-killed or re-transported. The poor-laws were a very rich topic, and the poor lands a very ruinous one. But all this was merely the light conversation, just to vary, in an agreeable mode, which all could understand, the regular material of discourse, and that was of stakes and stallions, pedigrees and plates.
Our party rose early, for their pleasure was their business. Here were no lounging dandies and no exclusive belles, who kept their bowers until hunger, which also drives down wolves from the Pyrenees, brought them from their mystical chambers to luncheon and to life. In short, an air of interest, a serious and a thoughtful look, pervaded every countenance. Fashion was kicked to the devil, and they were all too much in earnest to have any time for affectation. Breakfast was over, and it was a regular meal at which all attended, and they hurried to the course. It seems, when the party arrive, that they are the only spectators. A party or two come on to keep them company. A club discharges a crowd of gentlemen, a stable a crowd of grooms. At length a sprinkling of human beings is collected, but all is wondrous still and wondrous cold. The only thing that gives sign of life is Lord Breedall’s movable stand; and the only intimation that fire is still an element is the sailing breath of a stray cigar.
‘This, then, is Newmarket!’ exclaimed the young Duke. ‘If it required five-and-twenty thousand pounds to make Doncaster amusing, a plum, at least, will go in rendering Newmarket endurable.’
But the young Duke was wrong. There was a fine race, and the connoisseurs got enthusiastic. Sir Lucius Grafton was the winner. The Duke sympathised with his friend’s success.
He began galloping about the course, and his blood warmed. He paid a visit to Sanspareil. He heard his steed was still a favourite for a coming race. He backed his steed, and Sanspareil won. He began to find Newmarket not so disagreeable. In a word, our friend was in an entirely new scene, which was exactly the thing he required. He was interested, and forgot, or rather forcibly expelled from his mind, his late overwhelming adventure. He grew popular with the set. His courteous manners, his affable address, his gay humour, and the facility with which he adopted their tone and temper, joined with his rank and wealth, subdued the most rugged and the coldest hearts. Even the jockeys were civil to him, and welcomed him with a sweet smile and gracious nod, instead of the sour grin and malicious wink with which those characters generally greet a stranger; those mysterious characters who, in their influence over their superiors, and their total want of sympathy with their species, are our only match for the oriental eunuch.
He grew, we say, popular with the set. They were glad to see among them a young nobleman of spirit. He became a member of the Jockey Club, and talked of taking a place in the neighbourhood. All recommended the step, and assured him of their readiness to dine with him as often as he pleased. He was a universal favourite; and even Chuck Farthing, the gentleman jockey, with a cock-eye and a knowing shake of his head, squeaked out, in a sporting treble, one of his monstrous fudges about the Prince in days of yore, and swore that, like his Royal Highness, the young Duke made the Market all alive.
The heart of our hero was never insensible to flattery. He could not refrain from comparing his present with his recent situation. The constant consideration of all around him, the affectionate cordiality of Sir Lucius, and the unobtrusive devotion of Lady Afy, melted his soul. These agreeable circumstances graciously whispered to him each hour that he could scarcely be the desolate and despicable personage which lately, in a moment of madness, he had fancied himself. He began to indulge the satisfactory idea, that a certain person, however unparalleled in form and mind, had perhaps acted with a little precipitation. Then his eyes met those of Lady Aphrodite; and, full of these feelings, he exchanged a look which reminded him of their first meeting; though now, mellowed by gratitude, and regard, and esteem, it was perhaps even more delightful. He was loved, and he was loved by an exquisite being, who was the object of universal admiration. What could he desire more? Nothing but the wilfulness of youth could have induced him for a moment to contemplate breaking chains which had only been formed to secure his felicity. He determined to bid farewell for ever to the impetuosity of youth. He had not been three days under the roof of Cleve before he felt that his happiness depended upon its fairest inmate. You see, then, that absence is not always fatal to love!