CHAPTER I.
THE CLOSING SCENE AT RESTORMEL.
On the evening previous to Lord Albert's departure, while Mr. Foley and Lady Hamlet Vernon were intently engaged in playing at chess, Lord Albert announced to Lady Ellersby his intention of leaving Restormel, and paid her the usual compliment of thanks for the honour she had done him in inviting him there.
"You have lost your queen," cried Mr. Foley, addressing Lady Hamlet Vernon, "now in two moves I will give you checkmate, lady fair. But see—what is the matter?—she is ill—she faints—lend assistance for heaven's sake!" Lord Albert flew towards the spot, and caught Lady Hamlet as she was falling to the ground. The usual remedies were applied; and when sufficiently recovered, the sufferer was carried to her room, apparently still unable to speak.
"I hate all scene-makers," said Lady Boileau; "if there is a thing I cannot bear, it is the getting up of a sentimental catastrophe.—Don't you, Mr. Leslie Winyard?—Don't you think it is the acmé of bad taste?"
"Oh! most undoubtedly; nothing argues a decided roturièrism more than allowing your feelings, if real, to get the better of you in public; and if feigned, nothing is so easily seen through as counterfeiting them, therefore, either way, it is at best a mistake."
"One don't look well when one faints—that is to say, really faints," observed Lady Ellersby; "it is surely best to avoid doing so."
"One may always command one's-self," observed Lady Baskerville.
"Oh!" said Lady Tilney, who now and then really thought and felt right, "it is very easy to distinguish between a feint and a faint; and I believe every body would ridicule the first, and nobody would like to do the latter; because, as Lady Ellersby observes, no real fainting, or crying, or any of the convulsions produced by the feelings, are the least graceful, except in the beau ideal of a Magdalen, or on a painter's easel; and secondly, because nothing is less likely to produce interest than these kind of physical causes; for, as some great author says, 'all physical sufferings are soon forgotten even by the sufferer, when they are past, and by our friends certainly never remembered beyond their immediate duration, if so long;' consequently I believe Lady Hamlet Vernon did faint tout bonnement: she had probably une indigestion; poor Lady!—but she will soon be well again."
"Spoken like an orator," said Mr. Spencer Newcombe; "and not only an orator, but a philosopher."
"Par drivers moyens on arrive à pareille fin," said the Comtesse Leinsengen; "and providing one does what one wants to do, that is all that sinifies. One person faints, another talks, another dresses, another writes, all in order to get what they wish. On the success depends the wisdom of the measure."
"Agreed," cried Mr. Spencer Newcombe, "and conceived like a diplomate du premier grade," he whispered to Lady Baskerville; then aloud, "if Tonnerre had been here he would have said—"
"I will bet you ten to one," cried Mr. Leslie Winyard, "that Lord Albert D'Esterre does not leave Restormel to-morrow."
"Done," said Mr. Spencer Newcombe.—
"Done," said Lord Baskerville; "ten to one he does; for I never knew a more obstinate fellow in my life; one who prizes himself more on decision of character—and when he says he will do a thing he will do it, however little he may like the thing when done."
"I don't think he will go," said Lady Ellersby, gently.
"Why not?" asked Lady Tilney.
"Lady Hamlet Vernon will not let him."
"C'est tout simple," rejoined Comtesse Leinsengen, with a shrug of her shoulders.
"It appears to me," said Lady Baskerville, "that if he does go he will not be very much missed. I never knew so dull a member of society; he never speaks but to lay down the law, or to inculcate some moral truth: now really when one has done with the nursery, that is rather too bad."
"Providing she don't drive away George Foley," said Lady Boileau, "she may reap the fruits of her fainting here."
"Mr. Foley," replied Lady Baskerville to her dear friend, "is the man in the world who will do whatever suits him best; and I particularly admire his manner and his ways: they are all perfectly in good taste; and I have already promised him that he shall be my cavaliere servente for the season."
"Promised!—well, dear Lady Baskerville, I thought you were too prudent to make such promises. What will Lord Baskerville say?" lowering her tone to a whisper.
Lady Baskerville, speaking aloud—"Oh, dear! la! I should never have thought of asking him what he likes upon such an occasion;—we live too well together to trouble each other with our little arrangements.—Is it not true, Lord Baskerville? do we not do exactly as we choose?"
"I hope your Ladyship does," he replied, in all the airs of his exclusive character; "I should conceive myself vastly unhappy if you did not?" Lady Baskerville looked significantly at her dear friend Lady Boileau; who knew, as well as herself, that this ultra-liberalism of her Lord in regard to the conduct of wives, whatever it might be in respect to husbands, was entirely assumed on Lord Baskerville's part.
While this conversation passed in the drawing-room, Lord Albert and Mr. Foley were discoursing in their apartment above-stairs. They had each expressed great interest about Lady Hamlet Vernon's indisposition; and after waiting some time to hear accounts of her from her female attendants, they fell into other conversation of various kinds, during which Lord Albert D'Esterre found himself unfeignedly amused and interested with the talents, taste, and refinement of Mr. Foley; and the more so, as he spoke much of Dunmelraise and its inhabitants, and was lavish in his praise of Lady Adeline.
"There is only one point," he said, "which however is hardly worth mentioning, for of course it only arises out of the seclusion and the monotony of her present existence; but certainly Lady Adeline, pour trancher le mot, is a little methodistical—the sooner you go and put that matter to rights the better." Lord Albert's manner of receiving the latter part of this information, proved to Mr. Foley that he had mistaken the character of the person he addressed, and he added,
"But indeed Lady Adeline Seymour is so perfect, that it matters very little what she does—every thing she does must be right."—The conversation then took another turn, and they parted.
Lord Albert D'Esterre was not what might be called a jealous man; but no man, no human being can be without the possibility of feeling jealousy—neither was he naturally suspicious, but nothing is more apt to generate a suspicion of the fidelity of another's conduct, than the consciousness of any breach in the integrity of our own. He pressed his hand to his heart—he sat down—rose up—paced his chamber, and still repeated to himself the praises which Mr. Foley had uttered of his Adeline. "My Adeline," he said, and then again stopped; "but is she mine? do I deserve she should still be mine, when I have so neglected her? no!"—His servant came into the room with a note, the well known shape and colour of which he could not mistake. It was placed in his hand—he opened it carelessly and was about to cast it away, when the name of Adeline caught his eye; then he hastily read the following words.
"It is not for myself I mourn—it is not the threatened loss of your society, however much I value it, which has occasioned my being so overpowered—it is the knowledge of a secret which pertains to another, and in which your fate is involved, that has quite mastered me—this much I must tell you. I must see you before you go, I must prepare you for your meeting with Lady Adeline Seymour." Twenty times he read over this note. "What can it mean? can its meaning be that Adeline loves Mr. Foley, at least that he thinks so? and I, what have I been doing? into what a sea of troubles have I plunged for the enjoyment of the society of a person that in fact affords me none—for the empty speculation of recalling the chaotic mind of one (comparatively a stranger to me) to a sense of reason and religion, fool that I was for the attempt." Then, after a considerable pause, and after deep reflection, he burst forth:
"Prepare me for a meeting with Adeline!" as his eye caught again the last line of the note. "Prepare me for a meeting with Adeline—I cannot bear the phrase; but I must know what she means—I must drag this secret from her:"—and he rang the bell violently!—"I shall not want my horses till one o'clock instead of seven to-morrow morning."
The night Lord Albert passed was one of feverish anxiety. He sent to inquire for Lady Hamlet Vernon at an early hour the next day; and hearing she was much recovered, he besought her to grant the interview she had done him the favour to offer as soon as she possibly could. She replied, that in that house it would be reckoned a breach of all decorum, if she received him at any undue hour; but that as soon as the earliest part of the company breakfasted, which was about one o'clock, she would be sure, notwithstanding her indisposition, to be in the breakfast-room at that time; when she would avail herself of some opportunity to give him the information which had come to her knowledge. This short delay seemed an age to him. Every one knows, when suspense agitates the mind, what a total anarchy ensues, and the hours which intervened before meeting Lady Hamlet Vernon seemed to Lord Albert interminable. When they did meet, the intervening moments ere an opportunity occurred of Lord Albert's drawing her aside, appeared in their turn so many more ages of suffering.
At last the company rose from the breakfast table, and as Lady Hamlet took Lord Albert's arm, and walked out on the terrace under the window, she said, "This is kind of you to have listened to my request:" and then as they walked from the house, proceeded in a graver tone to add, "I am aware, dear Lord Albert, that my note of last night must have surprised you, and that the subject connected with it, on which I am about to touch, is one of the utmost delicacy, and one which upon the very verge of the attempt I shrink from; but you have evinced so much real interest in the state of my wayward mind, and have said so much to me with a view, I am certain, of placing my happiness on a more secure and steady foundation than I had ever any chance of before, that I should be ungrateful in the extreme, if a corresponding wish for your comfort in life did not in turn actuate me. I cannot be ignorant of the engagement between yourself and Lady Adeline Seymour, the fulfilment of which will not, I presume, be long delayed; unless, indeed—"
Here Lady Hamlet Vernon's voice faltered, and for a moment she paused; but, as if making an effort to subdue her emotion, she added in a lower and firmer tone, and with an expression of something like intreaty in her countenance as she looked up at Lord Albert, "Unless I, dear Lord Albert, shall prove the happy instrument of saving you from too precipitate a step in this matter. May I continue to speak to you thus unreservedly?" Lord Albert made no answer, but bowed his head in token of assent, while he walked by her side like one lost in a perturbed dream. She continued,
"I wished, before you went, for this opportunity, because I was aware that it was the only one left in which what I am about to impart would ever be of use; for, lovely as Lady Adeline is, possessed of charms of person which would indeed draw any heart towards her, of the warmest and most enthusiastic disposition, deeply enamoured of you as well as sacredly alive to her engagement to you (and I know her, from a source which cannot mislead me, in person, in mind, in heart, and in determination, to be all that I describe to you)—how could even your judgment, Lord Albert, which is stronger than many of twice your years, but yield to such united influence, and be tempted to decide at the moment on making so much perfection irrevocably your own. But with all these transcendant charms of person and of character, Lady Adeline, I am grieved to say, and know, has been unhappily betrayed into views of life and of the world, which must unfit her to be the partner of any one who does not think in accordance with her on these subjects. From what cause or under what influence the peculiar turn of mind she has taken has arisen, I know not, but (and again I must repeat, that I know the too-sure truth of all I say) it has been gradually and fearfully on the increase, and is now become a fixed principle with her.
"She loves you, as I have said, and she looks upon the coming union with you as the fulfilment of a sacred engagement, and a duty she has to perform; but with this she views the rank you hold in society, and in which she will be associated, only imposing on herself obligations of a higher and severer order, and calling for a stricter conduct and a greater self-denial on her part. She condemns what she calls the dissipations and wicked employment of time, in the world of fashion; she holds dress, beyond the plainest attire, to be a misapplication of the gifts of fortune; she laments over the worldly career of any one whom she hears talked of with applause, or whose talents raise them to distinction in the public eye: she has even, I understand, wholly abandoned her music and her drawing, as too alluring and dangerous an occupation, wasting the time which ought to be devoted to serious reading, and an acquirement of that spirit which has already cast such a gloom over her existence. The only active employment in which she indulges herself beyond her books, is in making clothes for and visiting the poor in her mother's domain. In short, she is what the world calls a methodist, a saint; I know not exactly what these words mean, but I know they are terms applied by people of sense to an ultraism in religious matters."
Lord Albert shuddered, and a sigh was the only interruption he gave, as Lady Hamlet proceeded.
"Conceive yourself, my dear Lord Albert, united to a person of this character, however amiable in herself, with your talents, with your views, which are" (and she looked at him steadily as she spoke) "tinctured with ambition. With your temper and your tastes for the elegancies of life, how would you brook a wife who was praying and singing psalms all day long? who would consider all your actions, when not in accordance with her own, as so many positive sins, and whose moments, such at least as were spared from the offices of her enthusiasm, would be passed in the cottages of your tenants, and in making baby-linen for every expected increase in their families.
"Now let me beseech you, and believe me to speak from the most disinterested feelings, that when you meet Lady Adeline, you will not betray yourself into a too hasty arrangement for your union. See her—see her, by all means. Judge for yourself; use your own eyes, hear with your own ears, and be the arbiter of your own cause, but do nothing rashly. Time is necessary for all decisions in momentous questions; and what can be more momentous, and in what is there more at stake, than in an union for life? Can too much deliberation be given to the subject? Alas! I know, from my own fatal experience, what misery must ensue where no tastes, no principles, no objects exist in common between those united. I owe to this cause a great portion of my present unhappiness; for the misery I endured, and the constant efforts I made to bear up against the tenfold wretchedness of my marriage with Lord Hamlet Vernon, impaired my intellectual powers, and prevented my turning the energies of my mind to any useful or profitable purpose. Hence I have become what I am, dependant on the resources of the hour, to enable me to pass through life with any thing like composure."
Lord Albert had listened with feelings which it would be impossible to describe to all that had fallen from Lady Hamlet Vernon; and in the emotion, which her communication and her entreaties produced, he could find no words for utterance, no answer to her appeals. He was like one dumb, and deprived of sense; and he stood for some moments rooted to the spot when the voice of his counsellor had ceased.
"See her! yes, I will see my Adeline," he at length said in a deep agonized tone, as if communing with himself. "Yes, I will see her."
"Lord Albert, I entreat you, I implore you," cried Lady Hamlet Vernon, with an emotion that made her words quiver on her lips, "I beseech you forgive me, if"—the window of the library was at this moment thrown hastily up; and Lord Albert D'Esterre heard his name called by Lord Ellersby, who held in his hand a letter.
"D'Esterre," said he, "here are your letters." Lord Albert hastened forward mechanically to receive them, and one he gazed upon more intently than the rest, as he looked them over—it was from Adeline.
Who is there who has not recognised, even in its peculiar folding, the letter of a beloved object? and whose heart has not throbbed with delight ere even the seal were broken? Such was the emotion of Lord Albert, awoke up from the paralyzing influence of Lady Hamlet Vernon's communication to new life by the letter he now pressed to his bosom; and regardless of what had passed, he hastened to his room, and read as follows:—
"Dearest:—My mother has been gradually growing worse and worse these two months, and I have persuaded her to go to town for a consultation of her physicians.
"It is so long since I have heard from you, Albert, it is painful for me to write, scarcely knowing how far you may be interested in what I have to communicate—but I try to still my uneasiness—let me but see you, dear Albert, all will be forgotten, all will be forgiven; for I am your own true and affectionate
"Adeline."
"P.S. You will find us at Mamma's house in town."
A letter like this, breathing such trust and love, and so replete with genuine expression of delight in the prospect of meeting him, was indeed sufficient to make Lord Albert forget at once the poisonous theme which his ears rather than his reason had imbibed in his interview with Lady Hamlet. Impelled more by the eager anxiety of affection to behold the object of his late disquietude, than to see her for the purpose of convincing himself of her errors, he leapt with alacrity into his carriage, and drove towards London, without casting a thought on those he left behind.
The mortification which Lady Hamlet Vernon felt was severe, in proportion as from its nature it admitted of no sympathy. She was, of course, ignorant of the cause of Lord Albert's destination being so suddenly changed from Wales to London; but in the blindness of her increasing passion, she resolved in the first moment of her despair to follow him thither. A cooler judgment, however, made her recollect that if she lost Lord Albert she had other friends to retain, a position in the gay world to lose, and that, at all events, it was not by pursuing him at that moment that any thing was to be gained; she therefore determined on remaining some days at Restormel, and making herself as agreeable as possible to the party that continued there. To one of Lady Hamlet Vernon's disposition this was no easy task. Violent and impetuous as she was by nature, left as she had been without any control, it was a very Herculean work to hide all the warring passions of jealousy and disappointed love beneath the semblance of a cool indifference—a disengaged mind.
"What have you done with Lord Albert?" was Lady Baskerville's first question to her after the morning's salutation; "I hear he departed in violent haste at an undue hour this morning. He looks of such an imperturbable gravity, one does not understand his ever being brought to do any thing out of measure or rule."
"I done with Lord Albert? my dear Lady Baskerville, you confer too much honour upon me to suppose that I have any influence with him. I did not even know that he was gone; but if you are very much interested in his departure, perhaps Lord Ellersby can tell us something about it."
She thought by this means to discover the cause of his sudden disappearance, and gratify her inquiries as being the curiosity of another.—"Lord Ellersby," she said, "Lady Baskerville is desirous to learn what wonderful event can have called Lord Albert away from us so very suddenly."
"I do not know," said Lord Ellersby, "unless he is going to be prime minister; don't you think, Winyard, he has the dignity of office on his brows already?"
"In his own opinion, I make no doubt, he stands a fair chance for the highest situations; but we have quite exploded all that sort of fudge now-a-days, and I think, unless we were to have a bare-bone parliament, and a cabinet of puritans, his very consequential lordship has not much prospect of success in that line."
"No," said Lady Tenderden, taking up a newspaper, "I think this paragraph in the Morning Post will rather explain the secret of Lord Albert's going away:—
"'We understand Lady Dunmelraise, with her beautiful daughter Lady Adeline Seymour, is shortly expected in town, and are sorry to add that Lady Dunmelraise's ill health has hitherto caused her absence from the gay circles of fashion.'—This is put in by herself, or some of her friends, you may depend upon it."
"Dear," said Lady Baskerville, "those vulgar newspapers are always filled with trash of that sort; nobody attends to such nonsense. I dare say this Lady Adeline is some awkward raw girl, enough to make one shiver to think of; however, she may do very well as a wife for Lord Albert, and he may be gone to meet her."
"Oh, I do assure you," cried Lady Tilney, "that the public papers are the vehicles of a great deal of good or evil; and that not only political discussion, but the discussion also of the affairs of individuals, is constantly promoted by the freedom of the press."
"For my part," said Lady Baskerville, "I think it is quite abominable that those vulgar editors of newspapers should be allowed to comment upon what we do."
"Not at all, my dear Lady Baskerville; allow me to assure you that we are much more known—much more distinguished—much more répandus by being all named occasionally, never mind how or in what manner, in the public papers. Besides, on the freedom of the press hangs all the law and the prophets; and if some few suffer by it occasionally, the multitude are gainers; and I can never repine at the glorious spirit of public liberty which the papers and the press maintain. Don't you agree with me, Lord Ellersby?"
"I like it all very well when it does not interfere with me," he replied, yawning; "but I think it is very disagreeable when these vulgar fellows, the news-writers, say some impertinent thing, for which I cannot give them a rap over the knuckles."
"La, what does it signify," rejoined Lady Ellersby; "nobody thinks of any thing above a very few days, and except some dear friend or other, no person of good breeding mentions the subject to one, if it be disagreeable, so that I cannot really say it disturbs my tranquillity for a moment, let them say what they will. As to this puff about Lady Adeline Seymour, I agree with Lady Baskerville, there are always a set of would-be fashionables, who pay for the putting in of such paragraphs about themselves, et l'on sait parfaitement à quoi s'en tenir respecting them."
"Nevertheless," rejoined Mr. Foley, who had just laid down his book, "I do assure you that, puff or no puff, Lady Adeline Seymour will astonish you all, for she is a very extraordinary person."
"Then I am sure I shall not be able to suffer her," said Lady Baskerville.
"Je déteste les phénomènes," said Comtesse Leinsengen.
"Mr. Foley seems to be paid too," rejoined Lady Tenderden, laughing, "for making the young lady notorious; and we shall see him with a placard stuck on his shoulders, setting forth the beauties and perfections of the wonderful young lady."
"These miracles," cried Comtesse Leinsengen, "are only fit to be shewn for half-a-crown a piece; if you interest yourself very much in her benefit, remember, I promise to take tickets."
Mr. Foley smiled as, he replied: "I shall leave it to time to prove to every one of you how very much you are mistaken."
"By all that is romantic," cried Mr. Winyard, "Foley is caught at last; he is positively going to become a lackadaisical swain, and write sonnets to his mistress's eyebrows."
"Perhaps even so. It is amusing to take up a new character now and then; it is like changing the air, and is equally beneficial to the health, moral and physical. Nothing so fatiguing as being always the same, both for the sake of one's-self, as well as of our associates—don't you think so, Mr. Winyard?"
"I have always shewn that I did so think. Few persons have acted up to their principles in this respect more conscientiously than myself." Mr. Foley did not press this matter further; he knew when to retire from the field, and always cautiously avoided a defeat. This conversation was at once a key to Lady Hamlet Vernon, and much as it pleased her to have discovered the truth, she resolved to carry on the deception; but Lady Hamlet Vernon felt that her total silence might be construed into an interest which, however real, she by no means wished should appear to exist in its true colours, and therefore she forced herself into saying, with apparent indifference, "I understand Lord Albert D'Esterre's marriage is shortly to take place; and whatever people may do after marriage, they must be a little attentive beforehand; so I doubt not that the arrival of Lady Dunmelraise in town is really the cause which has deprived us of his society; and you know I am one of those who hazard a favourable opinion of Lord Albert, notwithstanding Lady Baskerville's dissentient voice."
This speech she conceived to be one of unprejudiced tone and feeling that would lull all suspicion to rest, had any existed, as to the nature of her real sentiments; and it at least prevented the expression of that ridicule, which would otherwise have been her portion. In this society there was a general system of deceiving on the one hand, and detecting on the other, which constituted its chief entertainment and business; and in the present instance it formed, as usual, one of the main springs of the interest that filled up the remaining hours spent by the party at Restormel.