Fallen Fortunes

by Evelyn Everett-Green

Lady Romaine had forgotten her anger and jealousy against her daughter in her pride and delight at the honour bestowed upon them. It had pleased her to speak slightingly of the Queen and her Court at such times as she had been uncertain of the nature of her own reception there; but now she could not boast sufficiently of the condescension and kindness of the Queen, of her intimacy with the Duchess, and of the favour in which her son-in-law-elect was held by royalty and by all the Court. The matron had even found it well to throw aside some of those frivolities and follies that hitherto had been jealously retained, as giving her favour in the eyes of the young bloods of fashion, with whom she had been wont to amuse herself. Her ready observation told her that she was derided for these by graver persons, and that at the Court they would hinder rather than help her advance to favour. With quick adaptability, she had sought to model herself upon the graver ladies surrounding the Queen, and even to emulate the Duchess of Marlborough in her stately dignity of demeanour. If she had not succeeded in this, she had at least gained much that had hitherto been lacking, and her husband and daughter rejoiced heartily in the change. If some of her admirers forsook her, she found their place taken by men of far greater standing, who regarded Lord Romaine as a man likely to be useful to his party, and paid a certain polished court to his handsome wife. The lady began to talk politics now, to discuss the Act of Union, the Occasional Conformity Bill, and other topics of the day, with an air of interest and knowledge; and being gifted with considerable quickness and powers of assimilation and reproduction, she was soon able to hold her own, and pass for a woman of acuteness and observation.

She had found her daughter of great use to her at the first, for Geraldine was remarkably well educated, and had a very clear notion of the state of parties and the history of public movements. All her stores of information were at her mother's disposal, and so a new link had been formed between them during the months of the girl's betrothal, and instead of the mother's looking forward with delight to being rid of the incubus of a grown-up daughter, she was disposed to be pathetic over the separation and her own personal loss.

Now this was a very happy change for Geraldine, for the lack of a mother's love had been very keenly felt by her. Her face, as she stood at the altar, plighting her troth to the man she loved, was full of a wonderful happiness and joy—a different face from the grave and almost wistful one of the past; different, and yet with an enhanced beauty which riveted the eyes of all beholders, and caused the Queen to wipe her eyes with her lace kerchief as she gazed, whisper softly in the ear of one of her ladies,—

"Ah me! it is good to be young and beloved! Heaven send she may never know aught to dim that joy and that love!"

Sir Grey's happiness and joy was no whit less than that of his bride, and was written almost as clear upon his face. Bride and bridegroom were both clad in white, as became the season and the ceremony; and the young man's gleaming whiteness was well set off by the gorgeous colours of Lord Sandford's attire, as he stood beside him as his supporter and "best man." This he did by his own request, and with the ready consent of the Queen. She had been told enough of Lord Sandford to be interested in that rather remarkable personage. She had given him audience more than once, and had intrusted him earlier in the year with a special embassy to the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, which he had so ably carried out that it was whispered he was likely to obtain more such secret service errands. It was the sort of work for which he was eminently fitted, and the responsibility had sobered him and kept in check all disposition on his part to break out into any of the wild excesses with which he had been wont to amuse himself in order to while away the time. He was now setting to work to get his affairs into order. Having failed to win the fortune of the heiress, he had to turn his mind to other methods. He had sold his horses for large sums to the gilded dandies who fluttered about him, and with some heavy winnings at the card-tables he paid off a number of his debts, and began to feel like a free man. The sale of his property at St. Albans, which he no longer wanted, enabled him to pay off a mortgage upon his ancestral acres; and with a little care and moderate luck in gaming (for Lord Sandford was not possessed of the scruples which had harassed Grey, and which were far in advance of his day), he hoped soon to retrieve the position of a man of wealth and position, which he had been inclined to fling away for the pleasures of a careless and vicious age.

His friendship with Grey Dumaresq, strangely begun, and strangely broken, was now cemented afresh, and seemed likely to last and to increase. It was by his own wish that he stood beside him on his marriage day. He had so schooled himself that he could do this without pain, and he would have grudged the place to any other, claiming his own right as being Grey's oldest available friend.

And now the brief ceremony was ended. Sir Grey and his bride came down from the steps of the altar to receive the felicitations and gratulations of their friends. The Queen kissed the bride upon her brow, wished her happiness, and presented her with a beautiful clasp of diamonds and pearls, which she took from the laces about her throat, and bade the young wife wear for her sake. Then when the royal lady had taken her departure, and the little procession had left the chapel, other friends and well-wishers crowded round, prophesying happiness and all other good things to the youthful pair. They streamed out—a rainbow-tinted bevy—into the courtyard, where coaches waited to convey them to the wedding feast at Lord Romaine's house; and this they found laid out in al fresco fashion beneath the trees of the beautiful old garden, which had been Geraldine's place of refuge for so long, and to which she would be half sorry now to bid farewell.

"Do you remember, sweetheart," whispered Grey in her ear, as they stood together and a little apart at the conclusion of the banquet—"do you remember that summer morning a year ago when I did hear you singing, and could not keep away?"

"Remember! Do I ever forget it as I stand here looking at the shining river? Ah dear my lord, methinks it was upon that day that my heart first did leave mine own keeping, albeit it was long ere I knew it!"

"Could we but have seen how it would be a year hence with us, how little would the clouds and darkness which followed have disturbed and troubled our peace!"