XVII
COMPANY
There is both amusement and interest in the record of the year 1839, during which all pretence at a separate establishment was cast aside, and the D’Orsay-Blessington alliance was publicly acknowledged by the gentleman taking up his residence in the lady’s house.
D’Orsay went down this year to Bradenham, on a visit to the Disraelis.
It is not uninteresting to know that Bradenham and Hurstley in Endymion are one and the same place, and thus described:—
“At the foot of the Berkshire downs, and itself on a gentle elevation, there is an old hall with gable ends and lattice windows, standing in grounds which once were stately, and where there are yet glade-like terraces of yew-trees, which give an air of dignity to a neglected scene. In the front of the hall huge gates of iron, highly wrought, and bearing an ancient date as well as the shield of a noble house, opened on a village green, round which were clustered the cottages of the parish, with only one exception, and that was the vicarage house, a modern building, not without taste, and surrounded by a small but brilliant garden. The church was contiguous to the hall, and had been raised by the lord on a portion of his domain. Behind the hall and its enclosure the country was common land but picturesque. It had once been a beech forest, and though the timber had been greatly cleared, the green land was occasionally dotted, sometimes with groups and sometimes with single trees, while the juniper which here abounded, and rose to a great height, gave a rich wildness to the scene, and sustained its forest character.” It is easy to fit the author of the Curiosities of Literature into this framework, but in this old-world hall two such gorgeous butterflies as D’Orsay and the writer of Vivian Grey seem rather astray. It would be almost as startling to find a dog-rose climbing up a lamp-post in Pall Mall, or honeysuckle adorning the front of the Thatched House.
Disraeli writes to Lady Blessington:—
“We send you back our dearest D’Orsay, with some of the booty of yesterday’s sport as our homage to you. His visit has been very short, but very charming, and everybody here loves him as much as you and I do. I hope that I shall soon see you, and see you well; and in the meantime, I am, as I shall ever be, your affectionate—”
Concerning an earlier occasion, Disraeli writes from Bradenham on 5th August 1834, to Lady Blessington:—
“I suppose it is vain to hope to see my dear D’Orsay here; I wish indeed he would come. Here is a wish by no means contemptible. He can bring his horses if he likes, but I can mount him. Adieu, dear Lady Blessington, some day I will try to write you a more amusing letter; at present I am in truth ill and sad.”
