There were members of Parliament—of both houses, holy ministers of the church, high legal functionaries. In fact, Learmont, from the mere rumour of his enormous wealth—a rumour which he had himself originated, and to which he lent countenance by his great expenses, found no difficulty in filling his saloons with all that were considered illustrious or great in the metropolis.
Learmont was not a man to allow anything to be wanting at such an entertainment as that he was now giving. He possessed education, talent, and taste, although all were perverted by the utter absence of all moral feeling in his mind.
The most delightful music, breathing low dulcet sounds, mingled sweetly and harmoniously, with the hum of conversation among his courtly guests. The saloons rivalled the mid-day splendour of a summer’s day, by the colour and profusion of the lights, which lent a charm to everything within their glittering influence.
There were beaufets loaded with costly luxuries, to which the guests helped themselves at discretion; and all this, heightened as it was by brilliant costumes, civil and military, created a scene of magnificence that astonished and delighted every one there to witness it.
The guests would congregate together in small knots,—those who knew each other, to wonder at the glory and enchantment around them, and many were the whispered surmises as to how the owner of such riches had spent his early life, when now he manifested so prodigal a spirit, and showed such rare taste and royal magnificence in his mode of life.
Some of the more superstitious would have it that he was an alchemist, and had discovered the transmutation of metals, by which he could turn lead and copper to gold. Others looked upon it with the jaundiced eye of party politics upon the scene, and whispered to a friend that the lord of so much wealth must be a spy in the service of the dethroned family, whose rights, real or fancied, were not at that period, set at rest in this realm.
It was strange that but one of all the guests of Learmont suggested a probably and creditable mode of accounting for his great wealth, and sudden freak of spending it; that was that he had lived many years in melancholy seclusion, making mercantile ventures secretly with his large revenues, which proving successful, had placed some enormous sum at his disposal, the possession of which had dazzled his brain, and induced him to fly from the pecuniary economy to that of profuse and lavish expenditure.
This supposition was, however, far too commonplace and reasonable to find many supporters, and the majority decidedly inclined to the more marvellous opinion.
Learmont himself, attired in a handsome dress, which set off his tall figure to the best advantage, seemed upon this occasion to have cast off his habitual gloom and asperity of manner. He mingled freely with his guests, jesting with one, discussing some knotty political point with another in forcible and lofty language, cautiously complimenting a third, and in fact, winning from all those golden opinions which ever wait upon a known cold, proud, and haughty man, when he chooses to unbend himself, and make an effort to become agreeable.
By degrees, however, he confined almost all his attention to a few well-known political characters who were at the fête, and who were the agents of ministers in the barter of a baronetcy for a certain sum of money invested in parliamentary seats with Learmont. This baronetcy to procure which Learmont had lent all his abilities of intrigue, he fairly considered as the first grand step up the ladder of ambition; for even supposing the remote probability of his legitimate claim to the Learmont estates to be disputed successfully, he would still have higher dignities of his own acquisition to fall back upon.