CHAPTER XI.
There was an old white-haired man of distinguished mien standing by the Duke of Norfolk, and the latter said, with a good-humored smile, "You requested me, my lord, to take care of his fortunes. Now I have introduced him, this night, to the most beautiful, the most wealthy, and the most romantic young lady in the room, who knew something of his family, and seemed exceedingly interested in his fate. To make the matter more complete, I have sent them to take a walk together through the wilderness and by the bank of the river. Now, I look upon it as a hundred chances to one that they come back desperately in love with each other; for, as the dramatist has it, they have 'changed eyes' already. The lady has no one to control her, and, if I judge her rightly, she will some day or another bestow hand and fortune upon some poor gentleman of no rank, just to show the world how completely she despises the gifts the gods have given her."
"I am delighted, my lord duke," answered the other, "and trust with all my heart your anticipations may be fulfilled. Pray what is the lady's name?"
"Hortensia, Baroness Danvers," replied the duke. "She was once a great friend of poor Henrietta Wentworth, though somewhat more strict in her notions of propriety. I remember her weeping bitterly when told that Lady Wentworth had followed Monmouth. Before that, she would not believe any of the tales that were current. She is a good girl, but a fanciful little enthusiast."
There were only two other persons, besides Lord Woodhall, near enough to the Duke of Norfolk to hear his words. One was a very beautiful girl, who turned red and white alternately as the duke spoke, and the other was a young gentleman of no prepossessing mien, though the features of his face were generally good. He had a haggard and suspicious expression of countenance; and while the duke was concluding what he had to say of Lady Danvers, the young man addressed his fair companion, using a good number of the ribald expletives of the day, not very suitable to the ears of a lady.
"Demme, Margaret," he said, "that would never suit your brother, to have Master Ralph carry off the rich baroness. Gads zounds! I saw Henry fluttering round her in London like a blue and pink pigeon, and, depend upon it, he'll suffer no rivalry from a fellow like Ralph. He'll pink the book-worm in a minute, if there is any of that nonsense."
Margaret turned away with a look of disgust, but with a very pale cheek; and her father presented her to the duke, who received her with a graceful mingling of gallantry and respect. Lord Woodhall then introduced his kinsman, "Mr. Robert Woodhall, son of the late Lord Coldenham;" adding, with a well-satisfied look, "you see, my noble friend, that I have taken the liberty, in making this little detour on my road to London, to cast a number of my relations on your hospitality. My son Henry I think you have seen to-night."
"When monarchs make progresses," replied the duke, with a smile, "they must always be attended by their suite. Your son I saw half an hour ago; and if our friend Ralph would but return with his fair lady, we would have a family dance in the ball-room. Let me offer you my arm, Mistress Margaret; I think all the guests have arrived by this time."
When they reached the ball-room, they found Margaret's brother already engaged in the dance; and the duke and his party paused for some five or ten minutes, gazing upon the scene, while different groups of guests came forward, said a few words, and passed on. Margaret's eyes, however, were but little on the gay sight before her, and very frequently turned to the door by which they had entered with an anxious and eager glance. Ralph did not appear, however, and at length her cousin asked her to join in the dance with him. She could not refuse; and, taking their places, they were proceeding with one of the courtly dances of that day, Margaret with a pale cheek and inattentive mind, and Robert Woodhall with no great grace, but with some agility and skill, when two persons entered the room by the door exactly opposite to the dancers; and Lady Danvers, in all the splendor of her beauty, leaning listlessly on the arm of Ralph Woodhall, was before the eyes of Margaret.
At the same moment, Ralph saw her dancing with Robert Woodhall, and in spite of all he could do to command himself, his cheek grew fiery red. Margaret was fatigued with her long journey. She had been greatly agitated by the words which she had overheard from the lips of the Duke of Norfolk. She was one of those very few persons who undervalue themselves, and when she saw the resplendent beauty of Hortensia Danvers, arrayed and decorated by all that dress could do to heighten its effect, a chilly feeling of all the perils to which her love and happiness were to be exposed took possession of her. Her head became giddy; the objects swam before her eyes; her heart refused to beat and she sank fainting on the floor. The music was instantly stopped; a little crowd gathered round; and Ralph, letting Lady Danvers's arm drop from his own, sprang forward to render assistance. In so doing he came in contact with Robert Woodhall, who turned sharply upon him, exclaiming, "Demme, stand back, sir! You are impertinent! Who asked you to meddle?"
Ralph made no reply whatever, but took him by the collar with one hand, and forcibly drew him back into the center of the room. Then taking his place, he bent anxiously over Margaret, by whom her brother Henry was already standing.
The Duke of Norfolk had observed the whole scene, and had advanced toward the group gathered round Margaret, without, however, mingling with it. His voice was now heard exclaiming, "Carry the young lady out to her own room. She is only fainting with the heat, and will soon be better."
"Help me to carry her, Ralph," said Henry Woodhall, applying himself at once to the companion of his youth rather than to his cousin Robert.
They raised her in their arms and bore her out, Lord Woodhall following, and saying to those around, "She has only fainted--she has only fainted. The girl is not subject to such freaks; but that room was very hot. Pray do not follow--none of you--none of you. We shall bring her to herself very soon." Henry and Ralph carried their fair burden into an ante-room at some distance from the reception rooms, while an attendant ran away to call her own woman to her assistance, and as soon as they had placed her in a chair, Lord Woodhall said, "Now leave us, boys--leave us. I will soon bring her to herself. It is not the first time I have seen a woman faint in my life."
Henry obeyed his father's directions at once, but Ralph lingered for a moment, saying to the old nobleman, "Can I not render any assistance, my lord?"
"Only if you can contrive to unlace this stomacher, my dear boy," replied Lord Woodhall, who had been fumbling at the various lacings which went to complicate a lady's dress in those days, but apparently without much success "Margaret would not mind, I am sure. You have been always like a brother to her."
Ralph hastened to obey, and with hands which trembled with many emotions, and associations, dear but agitating, soon unfastened Margaret's dress and gave her fair bosom freer play. As he did so, the beautiful girl opened her eyes for a moment, fixing them with a look of thoughtful anxiety upon his face, and raised her hand faintly so that it lay upon his. Then, however, came the maid; and as he was once more desired by the old lord to leave himself and his daughter alone, the young man obeyed--reluctantly, it must be owned, and not without more than one glance turned back to her he was leaving. She was pale and insensible still, having fallen back into a fainting fit again almost as soon as she had opened her eyes; but the momentary look she had given him was not to be forgotten, and it was with regret that he quitted the room.
Instead of returning to the state apartments at once, the young gentleman wandered up and down the corridor for some minutes; but at length Lord Woodhall came forth with the welcome intelligence that Margaret had fully recovered; and with him Ralph returned to the ball-room.
In the mean time he had formed the subject of conversation in two of the different groups which that room contained. In one part Robert Woodhall was speaking eagerly with one or two gentlemen who surrounded him, saying, "He insulted me, sir--he insulted me; and he shall make me an apology, or I will know the reason why." The words were overheard by the Duke of Norfolk, who had just returned from bidding his guests go on with their dancing, assuring them that the little confusion which had occurred, had only been occasioned by a lady fainting from the heat, and ordering more windows to be opened to admit the fresh air. He immediately turned somewhat sharply toward Robert Woodhall, saying, "I beg your pardon, young gentleman, he did not insult you. You insulted him. He shall make you no apology, if he would remain my friend. Whether he will be content without an apology from you, must rest with himself. I shall not interfere."
At the other side of the room conversation of a different character was going on between the son of Lord Woodhall and the fair Lady Danvers. She had remained, after Ralph left her, on the same spot, watching, if the truth must be told, his proceedings with some interest, and suspecting, though not convinced of the truth. Henry Woodhall was an old acquaintance, but in her eyes nothing more; and when he approached her, as soon as he re-entered the ball-room, she inquired, "How is your sister?"
It was hypocrisy, I must needs admit; for had the question which first sprang to her lips been uttered, it would have been, "Where is your cousin?"
"Oh, she is getting better," replied Henry Woodhall, lightly; "ladies will faint, you know, most beautiful."
"Why, your cousin Ralph seems to take a deeper interest in the matter than you do," replied the lady, not seeking to make any mischief, but moved by a curiosity which perhaps had its source in some deeper motive still.
"Oh, they have been all their childhood together," replied Henry Woodhall; "Ralph is as much her brother, in all our eyes, as I am."
"I almost fancied it was something more than brotherly love," said Hortensia, in a low voice.
"Pooh! nothing of the kind," replied Henry Woodhall, in his gay, light tone. "Margaret is to be married to my cousin Robert, by the act in that case made and provided for
"'Uniting lands and money
In the holy estate of matrimony.'"
"But now tell me, beautiful lady," he continued, "will you dance with me?"
"Poor girl!" said Lady Danvers, with a sigh, not heeding his request at all.
"Why do you say poor girl?" asked Henry Woodhall.
"Because she ought to be a poor girl to marry your cousin Robert," replied Lady Danvers, bluntly, "and because she will be a poor girl if she does marry him."
"Marry him she will, assuredly," replied Henry. "These things always come to pass when the old people arrange them; and they do very well after all. You would be obliged to marry me, if your great-great-grandfather had arranged it with my great-great-grandmother."
"That I would not," replied Lady Danvers, "if all our ancestors had arranged it from Adam downward."
"Well, never mind that," replied Henry, laughing; "nobody asks you. The question at present is, Will you dance with me?"
"Then the answer is, No, I will not," replied Lady Danvers; "I shall not dance to-night."
"Then I shall look for some one else," answered Henry; and, turning gayly away, he left her.
Lady Danvers remained for a moment or two musing in the same place. She asked herself, Was there any love between Ralph and Margaret? The heightened color in his cheek when first his eyes fell on his fair cousin, she had not remarked, but she had seen the eager gaze which Margaret fixed first upon him and then upon herself, and the impetuous haste with which he had flown to her aid when she fainted. She argued, however, thus: "Perhaps the sight of a relation so kind and so noble in his feelings, at the moment when she was dancing with a man whom she could not love, forced upon her by her relations, may have moved feelings deep enough to overpower her. Perhaps Ralph's eagerness might be all very natural and right; nay, it was natural and right, in one brought up with the poor girl in fraternal affection such as Henry Woodhall had described. Perhaps--" But there was no end of perhapses. Lady Danvers was willing to believe that there was no love between the two, and did believe it; and yet she asked herself, when her musing came to an end, "What matters it to me whether there be love or not?"
Had she been seeing sights and dreaming dreams? It might be so; and certain it is, that among the sweetest of all those dreams which flit deceptive before man's eyes, from the cradle to the grave, are those which are so faint and intangible that we are not ourselves conscious of their passing till they have passed.
However that may be, and whatever silent streams of that peculiar current of the mind which runs between thought and feeling--partaking, like the mingled waters of the Rhine and Maine, of the distinct coloring of each--had been flowing through her brain, certain it is that she hung about in the ball-room, now in one place, now in another, avoiding all long conversation with any one till Ralph made his appearance again, and that soon after they were talking together as before. Her first questions were for Margaret; but Ralph had by this time recovered full command over himself, and knew how dangerous it might be for all his hopes to suffer the feelings of his heart to appear. He replied, therefore, in as cool a tone of indifference as he could assume, and exerted himself during the rest of the evening to appear at ease and unconcerned.
Margaret did not reappear. Robert Woodhall also quitted the ball-room, and was seen in it no more; but Henry continued dancing and talking, and more than once mingled gayly and good-humoredly in conversation with his cousin Ralph and the young baroness, seeming just as well pleased with the intimacy which had so suddenly sprung up between them as if he had taken part in introducing them to each other.
Lord Woodhall was well pleased also. He was not a man of very quick perceptions--no great schemer or arranger of plans; and, although he would have been very willing to see his son marry any woman on earth with the fortune of Lady Danvers, it had never struck him that the alliance was worth seeking for any member of his family till the notion was propounded to him, already arranged, by the Duke of Norfolk. Neither did he feel any inclination to meddle with it after finding it thus settled to his hand. All he thought was, that Ralph was a very lucky fellow in having such an opportunity afforded him.
Such were the feelings of several personages on the scene when supper was announced, and the guests sat down to one of the most splendid entertainments of the period. I need not pause to give any account of the supper, nor to tell how the guests were served on massive plate of silver gilt, nor how they drank out of goblets of pure gold. Is it not written in the book of chronicles of the house of Howard? and do we not know that even the pokers, the tongs, the shovels, and the fenders of the palace of Norwich were of solid silver?
Before the evening meal was completely ended, however, a servant bent over Henry Woodhall's chair and whispered something in his ear. That young gentleman remained at table for a few minutes longer, but as soon as he could find a good opportunity, he slipped away from the table and did not return.
Not long after, the duke and his friends rose from supper, and dancing recommenced, going on till night had far waned. In common courtesy, Ralph asked his fair companion of the evening to tread a measure with him, and her answer was very different from that which she had given to Henry Woodhall.
"I would with pleasure," she replied, "for I am fond of dancing; but I have refused several to-night, and among the rest your cousin Henry."
"Oh, Henry would not mind," replied Ralph; "he is hot in temper, but kind and good-humored; I will take the responsibility upon myself."
"No," replied Lady Danvers, "I said distinctly that I should not dance this evening, and therefore I will not. See what it is," she continued, in a gayer tone, "to neglect opportunity. If you had asked me while we were walking together in the wilderness, I would have danced with you at once, and then might have refused all other comers at my own will and pleasure; but now that I have declared my intention not to dance at all, I must not offend some very worthy people by dancing with any one."
"Well, if you do not dance, will you walk?" asked Ralph; "the air upon the terrace will be sweet and cool. There are many people walking there also."
"Be it so," replied Lady Danvers, with a smile; "the fresh air will do me good, for my head feels hot, and my brain somewhat giddy with the multitude of people crammed into the same room. There is nothing so strange as what people call pleasure; all who are here are seeking it in things where it does not dwell--nay, more, are trying to extract it from materials distasteful to most of them. What care they for dancing? What care they for the crowded ball-room? What care they for all the labor and trouble of dressing themselves forth for this grand occasion? It is always something else they are seeking than that which they pretend to be enjoying. Strange alchemy of the human mind, which changes lead into gold, and from things that are fatiguing, hurtful, or annoying, produces what is called pleasure, if not happiness. One dances to show a fine form or graceful teaching, not for any enjoyment of the dance. Another comes here to display a gown finer than her neighbor's; a third--who would rather have been in bed--to say that she was at the great ball, or perhaps," she added, laughing, "to prevent others from saying that she was not. I am beginning to think that every thing is hypocrisy in this world, Mr. Woodhall; is it not so?"
"God forbid!" replied Ralph; and quietly led her on to the terrace, where they wandered about for a few minutes. They soon, however, found their way down to the banks of the Wansum again, and walked musingly along, gazing upon the lights reflected in the water. Sometimes they talked together, sometimes they mused; but Lady Danvers leaned all the time upon his arm; and certainly, to the eyes of those who passed them, they seemed more like a pair of lovers happy in each other's affection than two persons who had met that night for the first time. At length the sounds of departure warned them to return; and as they parted, Hortensia said, "We shall meet again to-morrow."