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ENDYMION
by
BENJAMIN DISRAELI
EARL OF BEACONSFIELD, K.G.
First Published 1880
CHAPTER I
It was a rich, warm night, at the beginning of August, when a
gentleman enveloped in a cloak, for he was in evening dress, emerged
from a club-house at the top of St. James' Street, and descended that
celebrated eminence. He had not proceeded more than half way down the
street when, encountering a friend, he stopped with some abruptness.
"I have been looking for you everywhere," he said.
"What is it?"
"We can hardly talk about it here."
"Shall we go to White's?"
"I have just left it, and, between ourselves, I would rather we should
be more alone. 'Tis as warm as noon. Let us cross the street and get
into St. James' Place. That is always my idea of solitude."
So they crossed the street, and, at the corner of St. James' Place,
met several gentlemen who had just come out of Brookes' Club-house.
These saluted the companions as they passed, and said, "Capital
account from Chiswick--Lord Howard says the chief will be in Downing
Street on Monday."
"It is of Chiswick that I am going to speak to you," said the
gentleman in the cloak, putting his arm in that of his companion as
they walked on. "What I am about to tell you is known only to three
persons, and is the most sacred of secrets. Nothing but our friendship
could authorise me to impart it to you."
"I hope it is something to your advantage," said his companion.
"Nothing of that sort; it is of yourself that I am thinking. Since our
political estrangement, I have never had a contented moment. From
Christ Church, until that unhappy paralytic stroke, which broke up a
government that had lasted fifteen years, and might have continued
fifteen more, we seemed always to have been working together. That we
should again unite is my dearest wish. A crisis is at hand. I want you
to use it to your advantage. Know then, that what they were just
saying about Chiswick is moonshine. His case is hopeless, and it has
been communicated to the King."
"Hopeless!"
"Rely upon it; it came direct from the Cottage to my friend."
"I thought he had a mission?" said his companion, with emotion; "and
men with missions do not disappear till they have fulfilled them."
"But why did you think so? How often have I asked you for your grounds
for such a conviction! There are none. The man of the age is clearly
the Duke, the saviour of Europe, in the perfection of manhood, and
with an iron constitution."
"The salvation of Europe is the affair of a past generation," said his
companion. "We want something else now. The salvation of England
should be the subject rather of our present thoughts."
"England! why when were things more sound? Except the split among our
own men, which will be now cured, there is not a cause of
disquietude."
"I have much," said his friend.
"You never used to have any, Sidney. What extraordinary revelations
can have been made to you during three months of office under a semi-
Whig Ministry?"
"Your taunt is fair, though it pains me. And I confess to you that
when I resolved to follow Canning and join his new allies, I had many
a twinge. I was bred in the Tory camp; the Tories put me in Parliament
and gave me office; I lived with them and liked them; we dined and
voted together, and together pasquinaded our opponents. And yet, after
Castlereagh's death, to whom like yourself I was much attached, I had
great misgivings as to the position of our party, and the future of
the country. I tried to drive them from my mind, and at last took
refuge in Canning, who seemed just the man appointed for an age of
transition."
"But a transition to what?"
"Well, his foreign policy was Liberal."
"The same as the Duke's; the same as poor dear Castlereagh's. Nothing
more unjust than the affected belief that there was any difference
between them--a ruse of the Whigs to foster discord in our ranks. And
as for domestic affairs, no one is stouter against Parliamentary
Reform, while he is for the Church and no surrender, though he may
make a harmless speech now and then, as many of us do, in favour of
the Catholic claims."
"Well, we will not now pursue this old controversy, my dear Ferrars,
particularly if it be true, as you say, that Mr. Canning now lies upon
his deathbed."
"If! I tell you at this very moment it may be all over."
"I am shaken to my very centre."
"It is doubtless a great blow to you," rejoined Mr. Ferrars, "and I
wish to alleviate it. That is why I was looking for you. The King
will, of course, send for the Duke, but I can tell you there will be a
disposition to draw back our friends that left us, at least the
younger ones of promise. If you are awake, there is no reason why you
should not retain your office."
"I am not so sure the King will send for the Duke."
"It is certain."
"Well," said his companion musingly, "it may be fancy, but I cannot
resist the feeling that this country, and the world generally, are on
the eve of a great change--and I do not think the Duke is the man for
the epoch."
"I see no reason why there should be any great change; certainly not
in this country," said Mr. Ferrars. "Here we have changed everything
that was required. Peel has settled the criminal law, and Huskisson
the currency, and though I am prepared myself still further to reduce
the duties on foreign imports, no one can deny that on this subject
the Government is in advance of public opinion."
"The whole affair rests on too contracted a basis," said his
companion. "We are habituated to its exclusiveness, and, no doubt,
custom in England is a power; but let some event suddenly occur which
makes a nation feel or think, and the whole thing might vanish like a
dream."
"What can happen? Such affairs as the Luddites do not occur twice in a
century, and as for Spafields riots, they are impossible now with
Peel's new police. The country is employed and prosperous, and were it
not so, the landed interest would always keep things straight."
"It is powerful, and has been powerful for a long time; but there are
other interests besides the landed interest now."
"Well, there is the colonial interest, and the shipping interest,"
said Mr. Ferrars, "and both of them thoroughly with us."
"I was not thinking of them," said his companion. "It is the increase
of population, and of a population not employed in the cultivation of
the soil, and all the consequences of such circumstances that were
passing over my mind."
"Don't you be too doctrinaire, my dear Sidney; you and I are practical
men. We must deal with the existing, the urgent; and there is nothing
more pressing at this moment than the formation of a new government.
What I want is to see you as a member of it."
"Ah!" said his companion with a sigh, "do you really think it so near
as that?"
"Why, what have we been talking of all this time, my dear Sidney?
Clear your head of all doubt, and, if possible, of all regrets; we
must deal with the facts, and we must deal with them to-morrow."
"I still think he had a mission," said Sidney with a sigh, "if it were
only to bring hope to a people."
"Well, I do not see he could have done anything more," said Mr.
Ferrars, "nor do I believe his government would have lasted during the
session. However, I must now say good-night, for I must look in at the
Square. Think well of what I have said, and let me hear from you as
soon as you can."
CHAPTER II
Zenobia was the queen of London, of fashion, and of the Tory party.
When she was not holding high festivals, or attending them, she was
always at home to her intimates, and as she deigned but rarely to
honour the assemblies of others with her presence, she was generally
at her evening post to receive the initiated. To be her invited guest
under such circumstances proved at once that you had entered the
highest circle of the social Paradise.
Zenobia was leaning back on a brilliant sofa, supported by many
cushions, and a great personage, grey-headed and blue-ribboned, who
was permitted to share the honours of the high place, was hanging on
her animated and inspiring accents. An ambassador, in an armed chair
which he had placed somewhat before her, while he listened with
apparent devotion to the oracle, now and then interposed a remark,
polished and occasionally cynical. More remote, some dames of high
degree were surrounded by a chosen band of rank and fashion and
celebrity; and now and then was heard a silver laugh, and now and then
was breathed a gentle sigh. Servants glided about the suite of summer
chambers, occasionally with sherbets and ices, and sometimes a lady
entered and saluted Zenobia, and then retreated to the general group,
and sometimes a gentleman entered, and pressed the hand of Zenobia to
his lips, and then vanished into air.
"What I want you to see," said Zenobia, "is that reaction is the law
of life, and that we are on the eve of a great reaction. Since Lord
Castlereagh's death we have had five years of revolution--nothing but
change, and every change has been disastrous. Abroad we are in league
with all the conspirators of the Continent, and if there were a
general war we should not have an ally; at home our trade, I am told,
is quite ruined, and we are deluged with foreign articles; while,
thanks to Mr. Huskisson, the country banks, which enabled Mr. Pitt to
carry on the war and saved England, are all broken. There was one
thing, of which I thought we should always be proud, and that was our
laws and their administration; but now our most sacred enactments are
questioned, and people are told to call out for the reform of our
courts of judicature, which used to be the glory of the land. This
cannot last. I see, indeed, many signs of national disgust; people
would have borne a great deal from poor Lord Liverpool--for they knew
he was a good man, though I always thought a weak one; but when it was
found that his boasted Liberalism only meant letting the Whigs into
office--who, if they had always been in office, would have made us the
slaves of Bonaparte--their eyes were opened. Depend upon it, the
reaction has commenced."
"We shall have some trouble with France," said the ambassador, "unless
there is a change here."
"The Church is weary of the present men," said the great personage.
"No one really knows what they are after."
"And how can the country be governed without the Church?" exclaimed
Zenobia. "If the country once thinks the Church is in danger, the
affair will soon be finished. The King ought to be told what is going
on."
"Nothing is going on," said the ambassador; "but everybody is afraid
of something."
"The King's friends should impress upon him never to lose sight of the
landed interest," said the great personage.
"How can any government go on without the support of the Church and
the land?" exclaimed Zenobia. "It is quite unnatural."
"That is the mystery," remarked the ambassador. "Here is a government,
supported by none of the influences hitherto deemed indispensable, and
yet it exists."
"The newspapers support it," said the great personage, "and the
Dissenters, who are trying to bring themselves into notice, and who
are said to have some influence in the northern counties, and the
Whigs, who are in a hole, are willing to seize the hand of the
ministry to help them out of it; and then there is always a number of
people who will support any government--and so the thing works."
"They have got a new name for this hybrid sentiment," said the
ambassador. "They call it public opinion."
"How very absurd!" said Zenobia; "a mere nickname. As if there could
be any opinion but that of the Sovereign and the two Houses of
Parliament."
"They are trying to introduce here the continental Liberalism," said
the great personage. "Now we know what Liberalism means on the
continent. It means the abolition of property and religion. Those
ideas would not suit this country; and I often puzzle myself to
foresee how they will attempt to apply Liberal opinions here."
"I shall always think," said Zenobia, "that Lord Liverpool went much
too far, though I never said so in his time; for I always uphold my
friends."
"Well, we shall see what Canning will do about the Test and
Corporation Acts," said the great personage. "I understand they mean
to push him."
"By the by, how is he really?" said the ambassador. "What are the
accounts this afternoon?"
"Here is a gentleman who will tell us," said Zenobia, as Mr. Ferrars
entered and saluted her.
"And what is your news from Chiswick?" she inquired.
"They say at Brookes', that he will be at Downing Street on Monday."
"I doubt it," said Zenobia, but with an expression of disappointment.
Zenobia invited Mr. Ferrars to join her immediate circle. The great
personage and the ambassador were confidentially affable to one whom
Zenobia so distinguished. Their conversation was in hushed tones, as
become the initiated. Even Zenobia seemed subdued, and listened; and
to listen, among her many talents, was perhaps her rarest. Mr. Ferrars
was one of her favourites, and Zenobia liked young men who she thought
would become Ministers of State.
An Hungarian Princess who had quitted the opera early that she might
look in at Zenobia's was now announced. The arrival of this great lady
made a stir. Zenobia embraced her, and the great personage with
affectionate homage yielded to her instantly the place of honour, and
then soon retreated to the laughing voices in the distance that had
already more than once attracted and charmed his ear.
"Mind; I see you to-morrow," said Zenobia to Mr. Ferrars as he also
withdrew. "I shall have something to tell you."
CHAPTER III
The father of Mr. Ferrars had the reputation of being the son of a
once somewhat celebrated statesman, but the only patrimony he
inherited from his presumed parent was a clerkship in the Treasury,
where he found himself drudging at an early age. Nature had endowed
him with considerable abilities, and peculiarly adapted to the scene
of their display. It was difficult to decide which was most
remarkable, his shrewdness or his capacity of labour. His quickness of
perception and mastery of details made him in a few years an authority
in the office, and a Secretary of the Treasury, who was quite ignorant
of details, but who was a good judge of human character, had the sense
to appoint Ferrars his private secretary. This happy preferment in
time opened the whole official world to one not only singularly
qualified for that kind of life, but who possessed the peculiar gifts
that were then commencing to be much in demand in those circles. We
were then entering that era of commercial and financial reform which
had been, if not absolutely occasioned, certainly precipitated, by the
revolt of our colonies. Knowledge of finance and acquaintance with
tariffs were then rare gifts, and before five years of his private
secretaryship had expired, Ferrars was mentioned to Mr. Pitt as the
man at the Treasury who could do something that the great minister
required. This decided his lot. Mr. Pitt found in Ferrars the
instrument he wanted, and appreciating all his qualities placed him in
a position which afforded them full play. The minister returned
Ferrars to Parliament, for the Treasury then had boroughs of its own,
and the new member was preferred to an important and laborious post.
So long as Pitt and Grenville were in the ascendant, Mr. Ferrars
toiled and flourished. He was exactly the man they liked; unwearied,
vigilant, clear and cold; with a dash of natural sarcasm developed by
a sharp and varied experience. He disappeared from the active world in
the latter years of the Liverpool reign, when a newer generation and
more bustling ideas successfully asserted their claims; but he retired
with the solace of a sinecure, a pension, and a privy-councillorship.
The Cabinet he had never entered, nor dared to hope to enter. It was
the privilege of an inner circle even in our then contracted public
life. It was the dream of Ferrars to revenge in this respect his fate
in the person of his son, and only child. He was resolved that his
offspring should enjoy all those advantages of education and breeding
and society of which he himself had been deprived. For him was to be
reserved a full initiation in those costly ceremonies which, under the
names of Eton and Christ Church, in his time fascinated and dazzled
mankind. His son, William Pitt Ferrars, realised even more than his
father's hopes. Extremely good-looking, he was gifted with a precocity
of talent. He was the marvel of Eton and the hope of Oxford. As a boy,
his Latin verses threw enraptured tutors into paroxysms of praise,
while debating societies hailed with acclamation clearly another
heaven-born minister. He went up to Oxford about the time that the
examinations were reformed and rendered really efficient. This only
increased his renown, for the name of Ferrars figured among the
earliest double-firsts. Those were days when a crack university
reputation often opened the doors of the House of Commons to a young
aspirant; at least, after a season. But Ferrars had not to wait. His
father, who watched his career with the passionate interest with which
a Newmarket man watches the development of some gifted yearling, took
care that all the odds should be in his favour in the race of life. An
old colleague of the elder Mr. Ferrars, a worthy peer with many
boroughs, placed a seat at the disposal of the youthful hero, the
moment he was prepared to accept it, and he might be said to have left
the University only to enter the House of Commons.
There, if his career had not yet realised the dreams of his youthful
admirers, it had at least been one of progress and unbroken
prosperity. His first speech was successful, though florid, but it was
on foreign affairs, which permit rhetoric, and in those days demanded
at least one Virgilian quotation. In this latter branch of oratorical
adornment Ferrars was never deficient. No young man of that time, and
scarcely any old one, ventured to address Mr. Speaker without being
equipped with a Latin passage. Ferrars, in this respect, was triply
armed. Indeed, when he entered public life, full of hope and promise,
though disciplined to a certain extent by his mathematical training,
he had read very little more than some Latin writers, some Greek
plays, and some treatises of Aristotle. These with a due course of
Bampton Lectures and some dipping into the "Quarterly Review," then in
its prime, qualified a man in those days, not only for being a member
of Parliament, but becoming a candidate for the responsibility of
statesmanship. Ferrars made his way; for two years he was occasionally
asked by the minister to speak, and then Lord Castlereagh, who liked
young men, made him a Lord of the Treasury. He was Under-Secretary of
State, and "very rising," when the death of Lord Liverpool brought
about the severance of the Tory party, and Mr. Ferrars, mainly under
the advice of zealots, resigned his office when Mr. Canning was
appointed Minister, and cast in his lot with the great destiny of the
Duke of Wellington.
The elder Ferrars had the reputation of being wealthy. It was supposed
that he had enjoyed opportunities of making money, and had availed
himself of them, but this was not true. Though a cynic, and with
little respect for his fellow-creatures, Ferrars had a pride in
official purity, and when the Government was charged with venality and
corruption, he would observe, with a dry chuckle, that he had seen a
great deal of life, and that for his part he would not much trust any
man out of Downing Street. He had been unable to resist the temptation
of connecting his life with that of an individual of birth and rank;
and in a weak moment, perhaps his only one, he had given his son a
stepmother in a still good-looking and very expensive Viscountess-
Dowager.
Mr. Ferrars was anxious that his son should make a great alliance, but
he was so distracted between prudential considerations and his desire
that in the veins of his grand-children there should flow blood of
undoubted nobility, that he could never bring to his purpose that
clear and concentrated will which was one of the causes of his success
in life; and, in the midst of his perplexities, his son unexpectedly
settled the question himself. Though naturally cold and calculating,
William Ferrars, like most of us, had a vein of romance in his being,
and it asserted itself. There was a Miss Carey, who suddenly became
the beauty of the season. She was an orphan, and reputed to be no
inconsiderable heiress, and was introduced to the world by an aunt who
was a duchess, and who meant that her niece should be the same.
Everybody talked about them, and they went everywhere--among other
places to the House of Commons, where Miss Carey, spying the senators
from the old ventilator in the ceiling of St. Stephen's Chapel,
dropped in her excitement her opera-glass, which fell at the feet of
Mr. Under-Secretary Ferrars. He hastened to restore it to its
beautiful owner, whom he found accompanied by several of his friends,
and he was not only thanked, but invited to remain with them; and the
next day he called, and he called very often afterwards, and many
other things happened, and at the end of July the beauty of the season
was married not to a Duke, but to a rising man, who Zenobia, who at
first disapproved of the match--for Zenobia never liked her male
friends to marry--was sure would one day be Prime Minister of England.
Mrs. Ferrars was of the same opinion as Zenobia, for she was
ambitious, and the dream was captivating. And Mrs. Ferrars soon gained
Zenobia's good graces, for she had many charms, and, though haughty to
the multitude, was a first-rate flatterer. Zenobia liked flattery, and
always said she did. Mr. Under-Secretary Ferrars took a mansion in
Hill Street, and furnished it with befitting splendour. His dinners
were celebrated, and Mrs. Ferrars gave suppers after the opera. The
equipages of Mrs. Ferrars were distinguished, and they had a large
retinue of servants. They had only two children, and they were twins,
a brother and a sister, who were brought up like the children of
princes. Partly for them, and partly because a minister should have a
Tusculum, the Ferrars soon engaged a magnificent villa at Wimbledon,
which had the advantage of admirable stables, convenient, as Mrs.
Ferrars was fond of horses, and liked the children too, with their
fancy ponies, to be early accustomed to riding. All this occasioned
expenditure, but old Mr. Ferrars made his son a liberal allowance, and
young Mrs. Ferrars was an heiress, or the world thought so, which is
nearly the same, and then, too, young Mr. Ferrars was a rising man, in
office, and who would always be in office for the rest of his life; at
least, Zenobia said so, because he was on the right side and the Whigs
were nowhere, and never would be anywhere, which was quite right, as
they had wished to make us the slaves of Bonaparte.
When the King, after much hesitation, send for Mr. Canning, on the
resignation of Lord Liverpool, the Zenobian theory seemed a little at
fault, and William Ferrars absolutely out of office had more than one
misgiving; but after some months of doubt and anxiety, it seemed after
all the great lady was right. The unexpected disappearance of Mr.
Canning from the scene, followed by the transient and embarrassed
phantom of Lord Goderich, seemed to indicate an inexorable destiny
that England should be ruled by the most eminent men of the age, and
the most illustrious of her citizens. William Ferrars, under the
inspiration of Zenobia, had thrown in his fortunes with the Duke, and
after nine months of disquietude found his due reward. In the January
that succeeded the August conversation in St. James' Street with
Sidney Wilton, William Ferrars was sworn of the Privy Council, and
held high office, on the verge of the Cabinet.
Mr. Ferrars had a dinner party in Hill Street on the day he had
returned from Windsor with the seals of his new office. The
catastrophe of the Goderich Cabinet, almost on the eve of the meeting
of Parliament, had been so sudden, that, not anticipating such a state
of affairs, Ferrars, among his other guests, had invited Sidney
Wilton. He was rather regretting this when, as his carriage stopped at
his own door, he observed that very gentleman on his threshold.
Wilton greeted him warmly, and congratulated him on his promotion. "I
do so at once," he added, "because I shall not have the opportunity
this evening. I was calling here in the hope of seeing Mrs. Ferrars,
and asking her to excuse me from being your guest to-day."
"Well, it is rather awkward," said Ferrars, "but I could have no idea
of this when you were so kind as to say you would come."
"Oh, nothing of that sort," said Sidney. "I am out and you are in, and
I hope you may be in for a long, long time. I dare say it may be so,
and the Duke is the man of the age, as you always said he was. I hope
your being in office is not to deprive me of your pleasant dinners; it
would be too bad to lose my place both at Whitehall and in Hill
Street."
"I trust that will never happen, my dear fellow; but to-day I thought
it might be embarrassing."
"Not at all; I could endure without wincing even the triumphant
glances of Zenobia. The fact is, I have some business of the most
pressing nature which has suddenly arisen, and which demands my
immediate attention."
Ferrars expressed his regret, though in fact he was greatly relieved,
and they parted.
Zenobia did dine with the William Ferrars to-day, and her handsome
husband came with her, a knight of the garter, and just appointed to a
high office in the household by the new government. Even the
excitement of the hour did not disturb his indigenous repose. It was a
dignified serenity, quite natural, and quite compatible with easy and
even cordial manners, and an address always considerate even when not
sympathetic. He was not a loud or a long talker, but his terse remarks
were full of taste and a just appreciation of things. If they were
sometimes trenchant, the blade was of fine temper. Old Mr. Ferrars was
there and the Viscountess Edgware. His hair had become quite silvered,
and his cheek rosy as a December apple. His hazel eyes twinkled with
satisfaction as he remembered the family had now produced two privy
councillors. Lord Pomeroy was there, the great lord who had returned
William Ferrars to Parliament, a little man, quite, shy, rather
insignificant in appearance, but who observed everybody and
everything; a conscientious man, who was always doing good, in silence
and secrecy, and denounced as a boroughmonger, had never sold a seat
in his life, and was always looking out for able men of character to
introduce them to public affairs. It was not a formal party, but had
grown up in great degree out of the circumstances of the moment. There
were more men than women, and all men in office or devoted supporters
of the new ministry.
Mrs. Ferrars, without being a regular beauty, had a voluptuous face
and form. Her complexion was brilliant, with large and long-lashed
eyes of blue. Her mouth was certainly too large, but the pouting
richness of her lips and the splendour of her teeth baffled criticism.
She was a woman who was always gorgeously or fantastically attired.
"I never can understand," would sometimes observe Zenobia's husband to
his brilliant spouse, "how affairs are carried on in this world. Now
we have, my dear, fifty thousand per annum; and I do not see how
Ferrars can have much more than five; and yet he lives much as we do,
perhaps better. I know Gibson showed me a horse last week that I very
much wanted, but I would not give him two hundred guineas for it. I
called there to-day to look after it again, for it would have suited
me exactly, but I was told I was too late, and it was sold to Mrs.
Ferrars."
"My dear, you know I do not understand money matters," Zenobia said in
reply. "I never could; but you should remember that old Ferrars must
be very rich, and that William Ferrars is the most rising man of the
day, and is sure to be in the Cabinet before he is forty."
Everybody had an appetite for dinner to-day, and the dinner was worthy
of the appetites. Zenobia's husband declared to himself that he never
dined so well, though he gave his /chef/ 500 pounds a year, and old
Lord Pomeroy, who had not yet admitted French wines to his own table,
seemed quite abashed with the number of his wine-glasses and their
various colours, and, as he tasted one succulent dish after another,
felt a proud satisfaction in having introduced to public life so
distinguished a man as William Ferrars.
With the dessert, not without some ceremony, were introduced the two
most remarkable guests of the entertainment, and these were the twins;
children of singular beauty, and dressed, if possible, more fancifully
and brilliantly than their mamma. They resembled each other, and had
the same brilliant complexion, rich chestnut hair, delicately arched
brows, and dark blue eyes. Though only eight years of age, a most
unchildlike self-possession distinguished them. The expression of
their countenances was haughty, disdainful, and supercilious. Their
beautiful features seemed quite unimpassioned, and they moved as if
they expected everything to yield to them. The girl, whose long
ringlets were braided with pearls, was ushered to a seat next to her
father, and, like her brother, who was placed by Mrs. Ferrars, was
soon engaged in negligently tasting delicacies, while she seemed
apparently unconscious of any one being present, except when she
replied to those who addressed her with a stare and a haughty
monosyllable. The boy, in a black velvet jacket with large Spanish
buttons of silver filagree, a shirt of lace, and a waistcoat of white
satin, replied with reserve, but some condescension, to the good-
natured but half-humorous inquiries of the husband of Zenobia.
"And when do you go to school?" asked his lordship in a kind voice and
with a laughing eye.
"I shall go to Eton in two years," replied the child without the
slightest emotion, and not withdrawing his attention from the grapes
he was tasting, or even looking at his inquirer, "and then I shall go
to Christ Church, and then I shall go into Parliament."
"Myra," said an intimate of the family, a handsome private secretary
of Mr. Ferrars, to the daughter of the house, as he supplied her plate
with some choicest delicacies, "I hope you have not forgotten your
engagement to me which you made at Wimbledon two years ago?"
"What engagement?" she haughtily inquired.
"To marry me."
"I should not think of marrying any one who was not in the House of
Lords," she replied, and she shot at him a glance of contempt.
The ladies rose. As they were ascending the stairs, one of them said
to Mrs. Ferrars, "Your son's name is very pretty, but it is very
uncommon, is it not?"
"'Tis a family name. The first Carey who bore it was a courtier of
Charles the First, and we have never since been without it. William
wanted our boy to be christened Pomeroy but I was always resolved, if
I ever had a son, that he should be named ENDYMION."
CHAPTER IV
About the time that the ladies rose from the dinner-table in Hill
Street, Mr. Sidney Wilton entered the hall of the Clarendon Hotel, and
murmured an inquiry of the porter. Whereupon a bell was rung, and soon
a foreign servant appeared, and bowing, invited Mr. Wilton to ascend
the staircase and follow him. Mr. Wilton was ushered through an ante-
chamber into a room of some importance, lofty and decorated, and
obviously adapted for distinguished guests. On a principal table a
desk was open and many papers strewn about. Apparently some person had
only recently been writing there. There were in the room several
musical instruments; the piano was open, there was a harp and a
guitar. The room was rather dimly lighted, but cheerful from the
steady blaze of the fire, before which Mr. Wilton stood, not long
alone, for an opposite door opened, and a lady advanced leading with
her left hand a youth of interesting mien, and about twelve years of
age. The lady was fair and singularly thin. It seemed that her
delicate hand must really be transparent. Her cheek was sunk, but the
expression of her large brown eyes was inexpressibly pleasing. She
wore her own hair, once the most celebrated in Europe, and still
uncovered. Though the prodigal richness of the tresses had
disappeared, the arrangement was still striking from its grace. That
rare quality pervaded the being of this lady, and it was impossible
not to be struck with her carriage as she advanced to greet her guest;
free from all affectation and yet full of movement and gestures, which
might have been the study of painters.
"Ah!" she exclaimed as she gave him her hand, which he pressed to his
lips, "you are ever faithful."
Seating themselves, she continued, "You have not seen my boy since he
sate upon your knee. Florestan, salute Mr. Wilton, your mother's most
cherished friend."
"This is a sudden arrival," said Mr. Wilton.
"Well, they would not let us rest," said the lady. "Our only refuge
was Switzerland, but I cannot breathe among the mountains, and so,
after a while, we stole to an obscure corner of the south, and for a
time we were tranquil. But soon the old story: representations,
remonstrances, warnings, and threats, appeals to Vienna, and lectures
from Prince Metternich, not the less impressive because they were
courteous, and even gallant."
"And had nothing occurred to give a colour to such complaints? Or was
it sheer persecution?"
"Well, you know," replied the lady, "we wished to remain quiet and
obscure; but where the lad is, they will find him out. It often
astonishes me. I believe if we were in the centre of a forest in some
Indian isle, with no companions but monkeys and elephants, a secret
agent would appear--some devoted victim of our family, prepared to
restore our fortunes and renovate his own. I speak the truth to you
always. I have never countenanced these people; I have never
encouraged them; but it is impossible rudely to reject the sympathy of
those who, after all, are your fellow-sufferers, and some of who have
given proof of even disinterested devotion. For my own part, I have
never faltered in my faith, that Florestan would some day sit on the
throne of his father, dark as appears to be our life; but I have never
much believed that the great result could be occasioned or
precipitated by intrigues, but rather by events more powerful than
man, and led on by that fatality in which his father believed."
"And now you think of remaining here?" said Mr. Wilton.
"No," said the lady, "that I cannot do. I love everything in this
country except its climate and, perhaps, its hotels. I think of trying
the south of Spain, and fancy, if quite alone, I might vegetate there
unnoticed. I cannot bring myself altogether to quit Europe. I am, my
dear Sidney, intensely European. But Spain is not exactly the country
I should fix upon to form kings and statesmen. And this is the point
on which I wish to consult you. I want Florestan to receive an English
education, and I want you to put me in the way of accomplishing this.
It might be convenient, under such circumstances, that he should not
obtrude his birth--perhaps, that it should be concealed. He has many
honourable names besides the one which indicates the state to which he
was born. But, on all these points, we want your advice." And she
seemed to appeal to her son, who bowed his head with a slight smile,
but did not speak.
Mr. Wilton expressed his deep interest in her wishes, and promised to
consider how they might best be accomplished, and then the
conversation took a more general tone.
"This change of government in your country," said the lady, "so
unexpected, so utterly unforeseen, disturbs me; in fact, it decided my
hesitating movements. I cannot but believe that the accession of the
Duke of Wellington to power must be bad, at least, for us. It is
essentially reactionary. They are triumphing at Vienna."
"Have they cause?" said Mr. Wilton. "I am an impartial witness, for I
have no post in the new administration; but the leading colleagues of
Mr. Canning form part of it, and the conduct of foreign affairs
remains in the same hands."
"That is consoling," said the lady. "I wonder if Lord Dudley would see
me. Perhaps not. Ministers do not love pretenders. I knew him when I
was not a pretender," added the lady, with the sweetest of smiles,
"and thought him agreeable. He was witty. Ah! Sidney, those were happy
days. I look back to the past with regret, but without remorse. One
might have done more good, but one did some;" and she sighed.
"You seemed to me," said Sidney with emotion, "to diffuse benefit and
blessings among all around you."
"And I read," said the lady, a little indignant, "in some memoirs the
other day, that our court was a corrupt and dissolute court. It was a
court of pleasure, if you like; but of pleasure that animated and
refined, and put the world in good humour, which, after all, is good
government. The most corrupt and dissolute courts on the continent of
Europe that I have known," said the lady, "have been outwardly the
dullest and most decorous."
"My memory of those days," said Mr. Wilton, "is of ceaseless grace and
inexhaustible charm."
"Well," said the lady, "if I sinned I have at least suffered. And I
hope they were only sins of omission. I wanted to see everybody happy,
and tried to make them so. But let us talk no more of ourselves. The
unfortunate are always egotistical. Tell me something of Mr. Wilton;
and, above all, tell me why you are not in the new government."
"I have not been invited," said Mr. Wilton. "There are more claimants
than can be satisfied, and my claims are not very strong. It is
scarcely a disappointment to me. I shall continue in public life; but,
so far as political responsibility is concerned, I would rather wait.
I have some fancies on that head, but I will not trouble you with
them. My time, therefore, is at my command; and so," he added
smilingly, "I can attend to the education of Prince Florestan."
"Do you hear that, Florestan?" said the lady to her son; "I told you
we had a friend. Thank Mr. Wilton."
And the young Prince bowed as before, but with a more serious
expression. He, however, said nothing.
"I see you have not forgotten your most delightful pursuit," said Mr.
Wilton, and he looked towards the musical instruments.
"No," said the lady; "throned or discrowned, music has ever been the
charm or consolation of my life."
"Pleasure should follow business," said Mr. Wilton, "and we have
transacted ours. Would it be too bold if I asked again to hear those
tones which have so often enchanted me?"
"My voice has not fallen off," said the lady, "for you know it was
never first-rate. But they were kind enough to say it had some
expression, probably because I generally sang my own words to my own
music. I will sing you my farewell to Florestan," she added gaily, and
took up her guitar, and then in tones of melancholy sweetness,
breaking at last into a gushing burst of long-controlled affection,
she expressed the agony and devotion of a mother's heart. Mr. Wilton
was a little agitated; her son left the room. The mother turned round
with a smiling face, and said, "The darling cannot bear to hear it,
but I sing it on purpose, to prepare him for the inevitable."
"He is soft-hearted," said Mr. Wilton.
"He is the most affectionate of beings," replied the mother.
"Affectionate and mysterious. I can say no more. I ought to tell you
his character. I cannot. You may say he may have none. I do not know.
He has abilities, for he acquires knowledge with facility, and knows a
great deal for a boy. But he never gives an opinion. He is silent and
solitary. Poor darling! he has rarely had companions, and that may be
the cause. He seems to me always to be thinking."
"Well, a public school will rouse him from his reveries," said Mr.
Wilton.
"As he is away at this moment, I will say that which I should not care
to say before his face," said the lady. "You are about to do me a
great service, not the first; and before I leave this, we may--we must
--meet again more than once, but there is no time like the present.
The separation between Florestan and myself may be final. It is sad to
think of such things, but they must be thought of, for they are
probable. I still look in a mirror, Sidney; I am not so frightened by
what has occurred since we first met, to be afraid of that--but I
never deceive myself. I do not know what may be the magical effect of
the raisins of Malaga, but if it saves my life the grape cure will
indeed achieve a miracle. Do not look gloomy. Those who have known
real grief seldom seem sad. I have been struggling with sorrow for ten
years, but I have got through it with music and singing, and my boy.
See now--he will be a source of expense, and it will not do for you to
be looking to a woman for supplies. Women are generous, but not
precise in money matters. I have some excuse, for the world has
treated me not very well. I never got my pension regularly; now I
never get it at all. So much for the treaties, but everybody laughs at
them. Here is the fortune of Florestan, and I wish it all to be spent
on his education," and she took a case from her bosom. "They are not
the crown jewels, though. The memoirs I was reading the other day say
I ran away with them. That is false, like most things said of me. But
these are gems of Golconda, which I wish you to realise and expend for
his service. They were the gift of love, and they were worn in love."
"It is unnecessary," said Mr. Wilton, deprecating the offer by his
attitude.
"Hush!" said the lady. "I am still a sovereign to you, and I must be
obeyed."
Mr. Wilton took the case of jewels, pressed it to his lips, and then
placed it in the breast pocket of his coat. He was about to retire,
when the lady added, "I must give you this copy of my song."
"And you will write my name on it?"
"Certainly," replied the lady, as she went to the table and wrote,
"For Mr. Sidney Wilton, from AGRIPPINA."
CHAPTER V
In the meantime, power and prosperity clustered round the roof and
family of Ferrars. He himself was in the prime of manhood, with an
exalted position in the world of politics, and with a prospect of the
highest. The Government of which he was a member was not only deemed
strong, but eternal. The favour of the Court and the confidence of the
country were alike lavished upon it. The government of the Duke could
only be measured by his life, and his influence was irresistible. It
was a dictatorship of patriotism. The country, long accustomed to a
strong and undisturbed administration, and frightened by the changes
and catastrophes which had followed the retirement of Lord Liverpool,
took refuge in the powerful will and splendid reputation of a real
hero.
Mrs. Ferrars was as ambitious of social distinction as her husband was
of political power. She was a woman of taste, but of luxurious taste.
She had a passion for splendour, which, though ever regulated by a
fine perception of the fitness of things, was still costly. Though her
mien was in general haughty, she flattered Zenobia, and consummately.
Zenobia, who liked handsome people, even handsome women, and persons
who were dressed beautifully, was quite won by Mrs. Ferrars, against
whom at first she was inclined to be a little prejudiced. There was an
entire alliance between them, and though Mrs. Ferrars greatly
influenced and almost ruled Zenobia, the wife of the minister was
careful always to acknowledge the Queen of Fashion as her suzerain.
The great world then, compared with the huge society of the present
period, was limited in its proportions, and composed of elements more
refined though far less various. It consisted mainly of the great
landed aristocracy, who had quite absorbed the nabobs of India, and
had nearly appropriated the huge West Indian fortunes. Occasionally,
an eminent banker or merchant invested a large portion of his
accumulations in land, and in the purchase of parliamentary influence,
and was in time duly admitted into the sanctuary. But those vast and
successful invasions of society by new classes which have since
occurred, though impending, had not yet commenced. The manufacturers,
the railway kings, the colossal contractors, the discoverers of
nuggets, had not yet found their place in society and the senate.
There were then, perhaps, more great houses open than at the present
day, but there were very few little ones. The necessity of providing
regular occasions for the assembling of the miscellaneous world of
fashion led to the institution of Almack's, which died out in the
advent of the new system of society, and in the fierce competition of
its inexhaustible private entertainments.
The season then was brilliant and sustained, but it was not flurried.
People did not go to various parties on the same night. They remained
where they were assembled, and, not being in a hurry, were more
agreeable than they are at the present day. Conversation was more
cultivated; manners, though unconstrained, were more stately; and the
world, being limited, knew itself much better. On the other hand, the
sympathies of society were more contracted than they are at present.
The pressure of population had not opened the heart of man. The world
attended to its poor in its country parishes, and subscribed and
danced for the Spitalfields weavers when their normal distress had
overflowed, but their knowledge of the people did not exceed these
bounds, and the people knew very little more about themselves. They
were only half born.
The darkest hour precedes the dawn, and a period of unusual stillness
often, perhaps usually, heralds the social convulsion. At this moment
the general tranquillity and even content were remarkable. In politics
the Whigs were quite prepared to extend to the Duke the same
provisional confidence that had been accepted by Mr. Caning, and
conciliation began to be an accepted phrase, which meant in practice
some share on their part of the good things of the State. The country
itself required nothing. There was a general impression, indeed, that
they had been advancing at a rather rapid rate, and that it was as
well that the reins should be entrusted to a wary driver. Zenobia, who
represented society, was enraptured that the career of revolution had
been stayed. She still mourned over the concession of the Manchester
and Liverpool Railway in a moment of Liberal infatuation, but
flattered herself that any extension of the railway system might
certainly be arrested, and on this head the majority of society,
perhaps even of the country, was certainly on her side.
"I have some good news for you," said one of her young favourites as
he attended her reception. "We have prevented this morning the
lighting of Grosvenor Square by gas by a large majority."
"I felt confident that disgrace would never occur," said Zenobia,
triumphant. "And by a large majority! I wonder how Lord Pomeroy
voted."
"Against us."
"How can one save this country?" exclaimed Zenobia. "I believe now the
story that he has ordered Lady Pomeroy not to go to the Drawing Room
in a sedan chair."
One bright May morning in the spring that followed the formation of
the government that was to last for ever, Mrs. Ferrars received the
world at a fanciful entertainment in the beautiful grounds of her
Wimbledon villa. The day was genial, the scene was flushed with roses
and pink thorns, and brilliant groups, amid bursts of music, clustered
and sauntered on the green turf of bowery lawns. Mrs. Ferrars, on a
rustic throne, with the wondrous twins in still more wonderful attire,
distributed alternate observations of sympathetic gaiety to a Russian
Grand Duke and to the serene heir of a German principality. And yet
there was really an expression on her countenance of restlessness, not
to say anxiety, which ill accorded with the dulcet tones and the
wreathed smiles which charmed her august companions. Zenobia, the
great Zenobia, had not arrived, and the hours were advancing. The
Grand Duke played with the beautiful and haughty infants, and the
German Prince inquired of Endymion whether he were destined to be one
of His Majesty's guards; but still Zenobia did not come, and Mrs.
Ferrars could scarcely conceal her vexation. But there was no real
occasion for it. For even at this moment, with avant-courier and
outriders and badged postillions on her four horses of race, the
lodge-gates were opening for the great lady, who herself appeared in
the distance; and Mrs. Ferrars, accompanied by her distinguished
guests, immediately rose and advanced to receive the Queen of Fashion.
No one appreciated a royal presence more highly than Zenobia. It was
her habit to impress upon her noble fellows of both sexes that there
were relations of intimacy between herself and the royal houses of
Europe, which were not shared by her class. She liked to play the part
of a social mediator between the aristocracy and royal houses. A
German Serenity was her delight, but a Russian Grand Duke was her
embodiment of power and pomp, and sound principles in their most
authentic and orthodox form. And yet though she addressed their
highnesses with her usual courtly vivacity, and poured forth inquiries
which seemed to indicate the most familiar acquaintance with the
latest incidents from Schonbrunn or the Rhine, though she embraced her
hostess, and even kissed the children, the practised eye of Mrs.
Ferrars, whose life was a study of Zenobia, detected that her late
appearance had been occasioned by an important cause, and, what was
more, that Zenobia was anxious to communicate it to her. With feminine
tact Mrs. Ferrars moved on with her guests until the occasion offered
when she could present some great ladies to the princes; and then
dismissing the children on appropriate missions, she was not surprised
when Zenobia immediately exclaimed: "Thank heaven, we are at last
alone! You must have been surprised I was so late. Well, guess what
has happened?" and then as Mrs. Ferrars shook her head, she continued:
"They are all four out!"
"All four!"
"Yes; Lord Dudley, Lord Palmerston, and Charles Grant follow
Huskisson. I do not believe the first ever meant to go, but the Duke
would not listen to his hypocritical explanations, and the rest have
followed. I am surprised about Lord Dudley, as I know he loved his
office."
"I am alarmed," said Mrs. Ferrars.
"Not the slightest cause for fear," exclaimed the intrepid Zenobia.
"It must have happened sooner or later. I am delighted at it. We shall
now have a cabinet of our own. They never would have rested till they
had brought in some Whigs, and the country hates the Whigs. No wonder,
when we remember that if they had had their way we should have been
wearing sabots at this time, with a French prefect probably in Holland
House."
"And whom will they put in the cabinet?" inquired Mrs. Ferrars.
"Our good friends, I hope," said Zenobia, with an inspiring smile;
"but I have heard nothing about that yet. I am a little sorry about
Lord Dudley, as I think they have drawn him into their mesh; but as
for the other three, especially Huskisson and Lord Palmerston, I can
tell you the Duke has never had a quiet moment since they joined him.
We shall now begin to reign. The only mistake was ever to have
admitted them. I think now we have got rid of Liberalism for ever."
CHAPTER VI
Mr. Ferrars did not become a cabinet minister, but this was a vexation
rather than a disappointment, and transient. The unexpected vacancies
were filled by unexpected personages. So great a change in the frame
of the ministry, without any promotion for himself, was on the first
impression not agreeable, but reflection and the sanguine wisdom of
Zenobia soon convinced him that all was for the best, that the thought
of such rapid preferment was unreasonable, and that time and the due
season must inevitably bring all that he could desire, especially as
any term to the duration of the ministry was not now to be foreseen:
scarcely indeed possible. In short, it was shown to him that the Tory
party, renovated and restored, had entered upon a new lease of
authority, which would stamp its character on the remainder of the
nineteenth century, as Mr. Pitt and his school had marked its earlier
and memorable years.
And yet this very reconstruction of the government necessarily led to
an incident which, in its consequences, changed the whole character of
English politics, and commenced a series of revolutions which has not
yet closed.
One of the new ministers who had been preferred to a place which Mr.
Ferrars might have filled was an Irish gentleman, and a member for one
of the most considerable counties in his country. He was a good
speaker, and the government was deficient in debating power in the
House of Commons; he was popular and influential.
The return of a cabinet minister by a large constituency was more
appreciated in the days of close boroughs than at present. There was a
rumour that the new minister was to be opposed, but Zenobia laughed
the rumour to scorn. As she irresistibly remarked at one of her
evening gatherings, "Every landowner in the county is in his favour;
therefore it is impossible." The statistics of Zenobia were quite
correct, yet the result was different from what she anticipated. An
Irish lawyer, a professional agitator, himself a Roman Catholic and
therefore ineligible, announced himself as a candidate in opposition
to the new minister, and on the day of election, thirty thousand
peasants, setting at defiance all the landowners of the county,
returned O'Connell at the head of the poll, and placed among not the
least memorable of historical events--the Clare election.
This event did not, however, occur until the end of the year 1828, for
the state of the law then prevented the writ from being moved until
that time, and during the whole of that year the Ferrars family had
pursued a course of unflagging display. Courage, expenditure, and tact
combined, had realised almost the height of that social ambition to
which Mrs. Ferrars soared. Even in the limited and exclusive circle
which then prevailed, she began to be counted among the great dames.
As for the twins, they seemed quite worthy of their beautiful and
luxurious mother. Proud, wilful, and selfish, they had one redeeming
quality, an intense affection for each other. The sister seemed to
have the commanding spirit, for Endymion was calm, but if he were
ruled by his sister, she was ever willing to be his slave, and to
sacrifice every consideration to his caprice and his convenience.
The year 1829 was eventful, but to Ferrars more agitating than
anxious. When it was first known that the head of the cabinet, whose
colleague had been defeated at Clare, was himself about to propose the
emancipation of the Roman Catholics, there was a thrill throughout the
country; but after a time the success of the operation was not
doubted, and was anticipated as a fresh proof of the irresistible
fortunes of the heroic statesman. There was some popular discontent in
the country at the proposal, but it was mainly organised and
stimulated by the Dissenters, and that section of Churchmen who most
resembled them. The High Church party, the descendants of the old
connection which had rallied round Sacheverell, had subsided into
formalism, and shrank from any very active co-operation with their
evangelical brethren.
The English Church had no competent leaders among the clergy. The
spirit that has animated and disturbed our latter times seemed quite
dead, and no one anticipated its resurrection. The bishops had been
selected from college dons, men profoundly ignorant of the condition
and the wants of the country. To have edited a Greek play with second-
rate success, or to have been the tutor of some considerable
patrician, was the qualification then deemed desirable and sufficient
for an office, which at this day is at least reserved for eloquence
and energy. The social influence of the episcopal bench was nothing. A
prelate was rarely seen in the saloons of Zenobia. It is since the
depths of religious thought have been probed, and the influence of
woman in the spread and sustenance of religious feeling has again been
recognised, that fascinating and fashionable prelates have become
favoured guests in the refined saloons of the mighty, and, while
apparently indulging in the vanities of the hour, have re-established
the influence which in old days guided a Matilda or the mother of
Constantine.
The end of the year 1829, however, brought a private event of moment
to the Ferrars family. The elder Mr. Ferrars died. The world observed
at the time how deeply affected his son was at this event. The
relations between father and son had always been commendable, but the
world was hardly prepared for Mr. Ferrars, junior, being so entirely
overwhelmed. It would seem that nothing but the duties of public life
could have restored him to his friends, and even these duties he
relinquished for an unusual time. The world was curious to know the
amount of his inheritance, but the proof of the will was unusually
delayed, and public events soon occurred which alike consigned the
will and the will-maker to oblivion.
CHAPTER VII
The Duke of Wellington applied himself to the treatment of the
critical circumstances of 1830 with that blended patience and
quickness of perception to which he owed the success of so many
campaigns. Quite conscious of the difficulties he had to encounter, he
was nevertheless full of confidence in his ability to control them. It
is probable that the paramount desire of the Duke in his effort to
confirm his power was to rally and restore the ranks of the Tory
party, disturbed rather than broken up by the passing of the Relief
Bill. During the very heat of the struggle it was significantly
observed that the head of the powerful family of Lowther, in the House
of Commons, was never asked to resign his office, although he himself
and his following voted invariably against the Government measure. The
order the day was the utmost courtesy to the rebels, who were treated,
as some alleged, with more consideration than the compliant. At the
same time the desire of the Whigs to connect, perhaps even to merge
themselves with the ministerial ranks, was not neglected. A Whig had
been appointed to succeed the eccentric and too uncompromising
Wetherell in the office of attorney-general, other posts had been
placed at their disposal, and one even, an old companion in arms of
the Duke, had entered the cabinet. The confidence in the Duke's star
was not diminished, and under ordinary circumstances this balanced
strategy would probably have been successful. But it was destined to
cope with great and unexpected events.
The first was the unexpected demise of the crown. The death of King
George the Fourth at the end of the month of June, according to the
then existing constitution, necessitated a dissolution of parliament,
and so deprived the minister of that invaluable quality of time,
necessary to soften and win back his estranged friends. Nevertheless,
it is not improbable, that the Duke might still have succeeded, had it
not been for the occurrence of the French insurrection of 1830, in the
very heat of the preparations for the general election in England. The
Whigs who found the Duke going to the country without that
reconstruction of his ministry on which they had counted, saw their
opportunity and seized it. The triumphant riots of Paris were
dignified into "the three glorious days," and the three glorious days
were universally recognised as the triumph of civil and religious
liberty. The names of Polignac and Wellington were adroitly connected
together, and the phrase Parliamentary Reform began to circulate.
It was Zenobia's last reception for the season; on the morrow she was
about to depart for her county, and canvass for her candidates. She
was still undaunted, and never more inspiring. The excitement of the
times was reflected in her manner. She addressed her arriving guests
as they made their obeisance to her, asked for news and imparted it
before she could be answered, declared that nothing had been more
critical since '93, that there was only one man who was able to deal
with the situation, and thanked Heaven that he was not only in
England, but in her drawing-room.
Ferrars, who had been dining with his patron, Lord Pomeroy, and had
the satisfaction of feeling, that at any rate his return to the new
parliament was certain, while helping himself to coffee could not
refrain from saying in a low tone to a gentleman who was performing
the same office, "Our Whig friends seem in high spirits, baron."
The gentleman thus addressed was Baron Sergius, a man of middle age.
His countenance was singularly intelligent, tempered with an
expression mild and winning. He had attended the Congress of Vienna to
represent a fallen party, a difficult and ungracious task, but he had
shown such high qualities in the fulfilment of his painful duties--so
much knowledge, so much self-control, and so much wise and unaffected
conciliation--that he had won universal respect, and especially with
the English plenipotentiaries, so that when he visited England, which
he did frequently, the houses of both parties were open to him, and he
was as intimate with the Whigs as he was with the great Duke, by whom
he was highly esteemed.
"As we have got our coffee, let us sit down," said the baron, and they
withdrew to a settee against the wall.
"You know I am a Liberal, and have always been a Liberal," said the
baron; "I know the value of civil and religious liberty, for I was
born in a country where we had neither, and where we have since
enjoyed either very fitfully. Nothing can be much drearier than the
present lot of my country, and it is probable that these doings at
Paris may help my friends a little, and they may again hold up their
heads for a time; but I have seen too much, and am too old, to indulge
in dreams. You are a young man and will live to see what I can only
predict. The world is thinking of something else than civil and
religious liberty. Those are phrases of the eighteenth century. The
men who have won these 'three glorious days' at Paris, want neither
civilisation nor religion. They will not be content till they have
destroyed both. It is possible that they may be parried for a time;
that the adroit wisdom of the house of Orleans, guided by Talleyrand,
may give this movement the resemblance, and even the character, of a
middle-class revolution. It is no such thing; the barricades were not
erected by the middle class. I know these people; it is a fraternity,
not a nation. Europe is honeycombed with their secret societies. They
are spread all over Spain. Italy is entirely mined. I know more of the
southern than the northern nations; but I have been assured by one who
should know that the brotherhood are organised throughout Germany and
even in Russia. I have spoken to the Duke about these things. He is
not indifferent, or altogether incredulous, but he is so essentially
practical that he can only deal with what he sees. I have spoken to
the Whig leaders. They tell me that there is only one specific, and
that a complete one--constitutional government; that with
representative institutions, secret societies cannot co-exist. I may
be wrong, but it seems to me that with these secret societies
representative institutions rather will disappear."
CHAPTER VIII
What unexpectedly took place in the southern part of England, and
especially in the maritime counties, during the autumn of 1830, seemed
rather to confirm the intimations of Baron Sergius. The people in the
rural districts had become disaffected. Their discontent was generally
attributed to the abuses of the Poor Law, and to the lowness of their
wages. But the abuses of the Poor Law, though intolerable, were
generally in favour of the labourer, and though wages in some parts
were unquestionably low, it was observed that the tumultuous
assemblies, ending frequently in riot, were held in districts where
this cause did not prevail. The most fearful feature of the
approaching anarchy was the frequent acts of incendiaries. The blazing
homesteads baffled the feeble police and the helpless magistrates; and
the government had reason to believe that foreign agents were actively
promoting these mysterious crimes.
Amid partial discontent and general dejection came the crash of the
Wellington ministry, and it required all the inspiration of Zenobia to
sustain William Ferrars under the trial. But she was undaunted and
sanguine as a morning in spring. Nothing could persuade her that the
Whigs could ever form a government, and she was quite sure that the
clerks in the public offices alone could turn them out. When the Whig
government was formed, and its terrible programme announced, she
laughed it to scorn, and derided with inexhaustible merriment the idea
of the House of Commons passing a Reform Bill. She held a great
assembly the night that General Gascoyne defeated the first measure,
and passed an evening of ecstasy in giving and receiving
congratulations. The morrow brought a graver brow, but still an
indomitable spirit, and through all these tempestuous times Zenobia
never quailed, though mobs burnt the castles of dukes and the palaces
of bishops.
Serious as was the state of affairs to William Ferrars, his condition
was not so desperate as that of some of his friends. His seat at least
was safe in the new parliament that was to pass a Reform Bill. As for
the Tories generally, they were swept off the board. Scarcely a
constituency, in which was a popular element, was faithful to them.
The counties in those days were the great expounders of popular
principles, and whenever England was excited, which was rare, she
spoke through her freeholders. In this instance almost every Tory
knight of the shire lost his seat except Lord Chandos, the member for
Buckinghamshire, who owed his success entirely to his personal
popularity. "Never mind," said Zenobia, "what does it signify? The
Lords will throw it out."
And bravely and unceasingly she worked for this end. To assist this
purpose it was necessary that a lengthened and powerful resistance to
the measure should be made in the Commons; that the public mind should
be impressed with its dangerous principles, and its promoters
cheapened by the exposure of their corrupt arrangements and their
inaccurate details. It must be confessed that these objects were
resolutely kept in view, and that the Tory opposition evinced energy
and abilities not unworthy of a great parliamentary occasion. Ferrars
particularly distinguished himself. He rose immensely in the
estimation of the House, and soon the public began to talk of him. His
statistics about the condemned boroughs were astounding and
unanswerable: he was the only man who seemed to know anything of the
elements of the new ones. He was as eloquent too as exact,--sometimes
as fervent as Burke, and always as accurate as Cocker.
"I never thought it was in William Ferrars," said a member, musingly,
to a companion as they walked home one night; "I always thought him a
good man of business, and all that sort of thing--but, somehow or
other, I did not think this was in him."
"Well, he has a good deal at stake, and that brings it out of a
fellow," said his friend.
It was, however, pouring water upon sand. Any substantial resistance
to the measure was from the first out of the question. Lord Chandos
accomplished the only important feat, and that was the enfranchisement
of the farmers. This perpetual struggle, however, occasioned a vast
deal of excitement, and the actors in it often indulged in the wild
credulity of impossible expectations. The saloon of Zenobia was ever
thronged, and she was never more confident than when the bill passed
the Commons. She knew that the King would never give his assent to the
bill. His Majesty had had quite enough of going down in hackney
coaches to carry revolutions. After all, he was the son of good King
George, and the court would save the country, as it had often done
before. "But it will not come to that," she added. "The Lords will do
their duty."
"But Lord Waverley tells me," said Ferrars, "that there are forty of
them who were against the bill last year who will vote for the second
reading."
"Never mind Lord Waverley and such addlebrains," said Zenobia, with a
smile of triumphant mystery. "So long as we have the court, the Duke,
and Lord Lyndhurst on our side, we can afford to laugh at such
conceited poltroons. His mother was my dearest friend, and I know he
used to have fits. Look bright," she continued; "things never were
better. Before a week has passed these people will be nowhere."
"But how it is possible?"
"Trust me."
"I always do--and yet"----
"You never were nearer being a cabinet minister," she said, with a
radiant glance.
And Zenobia was right. Though the government, with the aid of the
waverers, carried the second reading of the bill, a week afterwards,
on May 7, Lord Lyndhurst rallied the waverers again to his standard and
carried his famous resolution, that the enfranchising clauses should
precede the disenfranchisement in the great measure. Lord Grey and his
colleagues resigned, and the King sent for Lord Lyndhurst. The bold
chief baron advised His Majesty to consult the Duke of Wellington, and
was himself the bearer of the King's message to Apsley House. The Duke
found the King "in great distress," and he therefore did not hesitate
in promising to endeavour to form a ministry.
"Who was right?" said Zenobia to Mr. Ferrars. "He is so busy he could
not write to you, but he told me to tell you to call at Apsley House
at twelve to-morrow. You will be in the cabinet."
"I have got it at last!" said Ferrars to himself. "It is worth living
for and at any peril. All the cares of life sink into insignificance
under such circumstances. The difficulties are great, but their very
greatness will furnish the means of their solution. The Crown cannot
be dragged in the mud, and the Duke was born for conquest."
A day passed, and another day, and Ferrars was not again summoned. The
affair seemed to hang fire. Zenobia was still brave, but Ferrars, who
knew her thoroughly, could detect her lurking anxiety. Then she told
him in confidence that Sir Robert made difficulties, "but there is
nothing in it," she added. "The Duke has provided for everything, and
he means Sir Robert to be Premier. He could not refuse that; it would
be almost an act of treason." Two days after she sent for Mr. Ferrars,
early in the morning, and received him in her boudoir. Her countenance
was excited, but serious. "Don't be alarmed," she said; "nothing will
prevent a government being formed, but Sir Robert has thrown us over;
I never had confidence in him. It is most provoking, as Mr. Baring had
joined us, and it was such a good name for the City. But the failure
of one man is the opportunity of another. We want a leader in the
House of Commons. He must be a man who can speak; of experience, who
knows the House, its forms, and all that. There is only one man
indicated. You cannot doubt about him. I told you honours would be
tumbling on your head. You are the man; you are to have one of the
highest offices in the cabinet, and lead the House of Commons."
"Peel declines," said Ferrars, speaking slowly and shaking his head.
"That is very serious."
"For himself," said Zenobia, "not for you. It makes your fortune."
"The difficulties seem too great to contend with."
"What difficulties are there? You have got the court, and you have got
the House of Lords. Mr. Pitt was not nearly so well off, for he had
never been in office, and had at the same time to fight Lord North and
that wicked Mr. Fox, the orator of the day, while you have only got
Lord Althorp, who can't order his own dinner."
"I am in amazement," said Ferrars, and he seemed plunged in thought.
"But you do not hesitate?"
"No," he said, looking up dreamily, for he had been lost in
abstraction; and speaking in a measured and hollow voice, "I do not
hesitate." Then resuming a brisk tone he said, "This is not an age for
hesitation; if asked, I will do the deed."
At this moment there was a tap at the door, and the groom of the
chambers brought in a note for Mr. Ferrars, which had been forwarded
from his own residence, and which requested his presence at Apsley
House. Having read it, he gave it to Zenobia, who exclaimed with
delight, "Do not lose a moment. I am so glad to have got rid of Sir
Robert with his doubts and his difficulties. We want new blood."
That was a wonderful walk for William Ferrars, from St. James' Square
to Apsley House. As he moved along, he was testing his courage and
capacity for the sharp trials that awaited him. He felt himself not
unequal to conjectures in which he had never previously indulged even
in imagination. His had been an ambitious, rather than a soaring
spirit. He had never contemplated the possession of power except under
the aegis of some commanding chief. Now it was for him to control
senates and guide councils. He screwed himself up to the sticking-
point. Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.
The great man was alone,--calm, easy, and courteous. He had sent for
Mr. Ferrars, because having had one interview with him, in which his
co-operation had been requested in the conduct of affairs, the Duke
thought it was due to him to give him the earliest intimation of the
change of circumstances. The vote of the house of Commons on the
motion of Lord Ebrington had placed an insurmountable barrier to the
formation of a government, and his Grace had accordingly relinquished
the commission with which he had been entrusted by the King.
CHAPTER IX
Availing himself of his latch-key, Ferrars re-entered his home
unnoticed. He went at once to his library, and locked the door of the
apartment. There sitting before his desk, he buried his face in his
hands and remained in that posture for a considerable time.
They were tumultuous and awful thoughts that passed over his brain.
The dreams of a life were dissipated, and he had to encounter the
stern reality of his position--and that was Ruin. He was without hope
and without resource. His debts were vast; his patrimony was a fable;
and the mysterious inheritance of his wife had been tampered with. The
elder Ferrars had left an insolvent estate; he had supported his son
liberally, but latterly from his son's own resources. The father had
made himself the principal trustee of the son's marriage settlement.
His colleague, a relative of the heiress, had died, and care was taken
that no one should be substituted in his stead. All this had been
discovered by Ferrars on his father's death, but ambition, and the
excitement of a life of blended elation and peril, had sustained him
under the concussion. One by one every chance had vanished: first his
private means and then his public prospects; he had lost office, and
now he was about to lose parliament. His whole position, so long, and
carefully, and skilfully built up, seemed to dissolve and dissipate
into insignificant fragments. And now he had to break the situation to
his wife. She was to become the unprepared partner of the secret which
had gnawed at his heart for years, during which to her his mien had
often been smiling and always serene. Mrs. Ferrars was at home, and
alone, in her luxurious boudoir, and he went to her at once. After
years of dissimulation, now that all was over, Ferrars could not bear
the suspense of four-and-twenty hours.
It was difficult to bring her into a mood of mind capable of
comprehending a tithe of of what she had to learn; and yet the darkest
part of the tale she was never to know. Mrs. Ferrars, though
singularly intuitive, shrank from controversy, and settled everything
by contradiction and assertion. She maintained for a long time that
what her husband communicated to her could not be; that it was absurd
and even impossible. After a while, she talked of selling her diamonds
and reducing her equipage, sacrificing which she assumed would put
everything right. And when she found her husband still grave and still
intimating that the sacrifices must be beyond all this, and that they
must prepare for the life and habits of another social sphere, she
became violent, and wept and declared her wrongs; that she had been
deceived and outraged and infamously treated.
Remembering how long and with what apparent serenity in her presence
he had endured his secret woes, and how one of the principal objects
of his life had ever been to guard her even from a shade of
solicitude, even the restrained Ferrars was affected; his countenance
changed and his eyes became suffused. When she observed this, she
suddenly threw her arms round his neck and with many embraces, amid
sighs and tears, exclaimed, "O William! if we love each other, what
does anything signify?"
And what could anything signify under such circumstances and on such
conditions? As Ferrars pressed his beautiful wife to his heart, he
remembered only his early love, which seemed entirely to revive.
Unconsciously to himself, too, he was greatly relieved by this burst
of tenderness on her part, for the prospect of this interview had been
most distressful to him. "My darling," he said, "ours is not a case of
common imprudence or misfortune. We are the victims of a revolution,
and we must bear our lot as becomes us under such circumstances.
Individual misfortunes are merged in the greater catastrophe of the
country."
"That is the true view," said his wife; "and, after all, the poor King
of France is much worse off than we are. However, I cannot now buy the
Duchesse of Sevres' lace, which I had promised her to do. It is rather
awkward. However, the best way always is to speak the truth. I must
tell the duchess I am powerless, and that we are the victims of a
revolution, like herself."
Then they began to talk quite cosily together over their prospects, he
sitting on the sofa by her side and holding her hand. Mrs. Ferrars
would not hear of retiring to the continent. "No," she said, with all
her sanguine vein returning, "you always used to say I brought you
luck, and I will bring you luck yet. There must be a reaction. The
wheel will turn and bring round our friends again. Do not let us then
be out of the way. Your claims are immense. They must do something for
you. They ought to give you India, and if we only set our mind upon
it, we shall get it. Depend upon it, things are not so bad as they
seem. What appear to be calamities are often the sources of fortune. I
would much sooner that you should be Governor-General than a cabinet
minister. That odious House of Commons is very wearisome. I am not
sure any constitution can bear it very long. I am not sure whether I
would not prefer being Governor-General of India even to being Prime-
Minister."
CHAPTER X
In consequence of the registration under the Reform Act it was not
possible for parliament to be dissolved, and an appeal made to the new
constituency, until the end of the year. This was advantageous to Mr.
Ferrars, and afforded him six months of personal security to arrange
his affairs. Both husband and wife were proud, and were anxious to
quit the world with dignity. All were so busy about themselves at that
period, and the vicissitudes of life between continental revolutions
and English reform so various and extensive, that it was not difficult
to avoid the scrutiny of society. Mrs. Ferrars broke to Zenobia that,
as her husband was no longer to be in parliament, they had resolved to
retire for some time to a country life, though, as Mr. Ferrars had at
length succeeded in impressing on his wife that their future income
was to be counted by hundreds, rather than thousands, it was difficult
for her to realise a rural establishment that should combine dignity
and economy. Without, however, absolutely alleging the cause, she
contrived to baffle the various propositions of this kind which the
energetic Zenobia made to her, and while she listened with apparent
interest to accounts of deer parks, and extensive shooting, and
delightful neighbourhoods, would just exclaim, "Charming! but rather
more, I fancy, than we require, for we mean to be very quiet till my
girl is presented."
That young lady was now thirteen, and though her parents were careful
to say nothing in her presence which would materially reveal their
real situation, for which they intended very gradually to prepare her,
the scrutinising powers with which nature had prodigally invested
their daughter were not easily baffled. She asked no questions, but
nothing seemed to escape the penetrative glance of that large dark
blue eye, calm amid all the mystery, and tolerating rather than
sharing the frequent embrace of her parents. After a while her brother
came home from Eton, to which he was never to return. A few days
before this event she became unusually restless, and even agitated.
When he arrived, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Ferrars was at home. He knocked
gaily at the door, a schoolboy's knock, and was hardly in the hall
when his name was called, and he caught the face of his sister,
leaning over the balustrade of the landing-place. He ran upstairs with
wondrous speed, and was in an instant locked in her arms. She kissed
him and kissed him again, and when he tried to speak, she stopped his
mouth with kisses. And then she said, "Something has happened. What it
is I cannot make out, but we are to have no more ponies."
CHAPTER XI
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 still 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.
Hurstley had for many years been deserted by the family to which it
belonged. Indeed, it was rather difficult to say to whom it did
belong. A dreary fate had awaited an ancient, and, in its time, even
not immemorable home. It had fallen into chancery, and for the last
half-century had either been uninhabited or let to strangers. Mr.
Ferrars' lawyer was in the chancery suit, and knew all about it. The
difficulty of finding a tenant for such a place, never easy, was
increased by its remoteness from any railway communication, which was
now beginning to figure as an important element in such arrangements.
The Master in Chancery would be satisfied with a nominal rent,
provided only he could obtain a family of consideration to hold under
him. Mr. Ferrars was persuaded to go down alone to reconnoitre the
place. It pleased him. It was aristocratic, yet singularly
inexpensive. The house contained an immense hall, which reached the
roof, and which would have become a baronial mansion, and a vast
staircase in keeping; but the living rooms were moderate, even small,
in dimensions, and not numerous. The land he was expected to take
consisted only of a few meadows, which he could let if necessary, and
a single labourer could manage the garden.
Mrs. Ferrars was so delighted with the description of the galleried
hall, that she resolved on their taking Hurstley without even her
previously visiting it. The only things she cared for in the country
were a hall and a pony-chair.
All the carriages were sold, and all the servants discharged. Two or
three maid-servants and a man who must be found in the country, who
could attend them at table, and valet alike his master and the pony,
was the establishment which was to succeed the crowd of retainers who
had so long lounged away their lives in the saloons of Hill Street,
and the groves and gardens of Wimbledon.
Mr. and Mrs. Ferrars and their daughter travelled down to Hurstley in
a post-chaise; Endymion, with the servants, was sent by the stage-
coach, which accomplished the journey of sixty miles in ten hours.
Myra said little during the journey, but an expression of ineffable
contempt and disgust seemed permanent on her countenance. Sometimes
she shrugged her shoulders, sometimes she raised her eyebrows, and
sometimes she turned up her nose. And then she gave a sigh; but it was
a sigh not of sorrow, but of impatience. Her parents lavished
attentions on her which she accepted without recognition, only
occasionally observing that she wished she had gone with Endymion.
It was dusk when they arrived at Hurstley, and the melancholy hour did
not tend to raise their spirits. However, the gardener's wife had lit
a good fire of beechwood in the drawing-room, and threw as they
entered a pannier of cones upon the logs, which crackled and
cheerfully blazed away. Even Myra seemed interested by the novelty of
the wood fire and the iron dogs. She remained by their side, looking
abstractedly on the expiring logs, while her parents wandered about
the house and examined or prepared the requisite arrangements. While
they were yet absent, there was some noise and a considerable bustle
in the hall. Endymion and his retinue had arrived. Then Myra
immediately roused herself, and listened like a startled deer. But the
moment she caught his voice, an expression of rapture suffused her
countenance. It beamed with vivacity and delight. She rushed away,
pushed through the servants and the luggage, embraced him and said,
"We will go over the house and see our rooms together."
Wandering without a guide and making many mistakes, fortunately they
soon met their parents. Mrs. Ferrars good-naturedly recommenced her
labours of inspection, and explained all her plans. There was a very
pretty room for Endymion, and to-morrow it was to be very comfortable.
He was quite pleased. Then they were shown Myra's room, but she said
nothing, standing by with a sweet scoff, as it were, lingering on her
lips, while her mother disserted on all the excellences of the
chamber. Then they were summoned to tea. The gardener's wife was quite
a leading spirit, and had prepared everything; the curtains were
drawn, and the room lighted; an urn hissed; there were piles of bread
and butter and a pyramid of buttered toast. It was wonderful what an
air of comfort had been conjured up in this dreary mansion, and it was
impossible for the travellers, however wearied or chagrined, to be
insensible to the convenience and cheerfulness of all around them.
When the meal was over, the children sate together in whispering
tattle. Mrs. Ferrars had left the room to see if all was ready for
their hour of retirement, and Mr. Ferrars was walking up and down the
room, absorbed in thought.
"What do you think of it all, Endymion?" whispered Myra to her twin.
"I rather like it," he said.
She looked at him with a glance of blended love and mockery, and then
she said in his ear, "I feel as if we had fallen from some star."
CHAPTER XII
The morrow brought a bright autumnal morn, and every one woke, if not
happy, interested. There was much to see and much to do. The dew was
so heavy that the children were not allowed to quit the broad gravel
walk that bounded one side of the old house, but they caught enticing
vistas of the gleamy glades, and the abounding light and shade
softened and adorned everything. Every sight and sound too was novel,
and from the rabbit that started out of the grove, stared at them and
then disappeared, to the jays chattering in the more distant woods,
all was wonderment at least for a week. They saw squirrels for the
first time, and for the first time beheld a hedgehog. Their parents
were busy in the house; Mr. Ferrars unpacking and settling his books,
and his wife arranging some few articles of ornamental furniture that
had been saved from the London wreck, and rendering their usual room
of residence as refined as was in her power. It is astonishing how
much effect a woman of taste can produce with a pretty chair or two
full of fancy and colour, a table clothed with a few books, some
family miniatures, a workbag of rich material, and some toys that we
never desert. "I have not much to work with," said Mrs. Ferrars, with
a sigh, "but I think the colouring is pretty."
On the second day after their arrival, the rector and his wife made
them a visit. Mr. Penruddock was a naturalist, and had written the
history of his parish. He had escaped being an Oxford don by being
preferred early to this college living, but he had married the
daughter of a don, who appreciated the grand manners of their new
acquaintances, and who, when she had overcome their first rather awe-
inspiring impression, became communicative and amused them much with
her details respecting the little world in which they were now to
live. She could not conceal her wonderment at the beauty of the twins,
though they were no longer habited in those dresses which had once
astonished even Mayfair.
Part of the scheme of the new life was the education of the children
by their parents. Mr. Ferrars had been a distinguished scholar, and
was still a good one. He was patient and methodical, and deeply
interested in his contemplated task. So far as disposition was
concerned the pupil was not disappointing. Endymion was of an
affectionate disposition and inclined to treat his father with
deference. He was gentle and docile; but he did not acquire knowledge
with facility, and was remarkably deficient in that previous
information on which his father counted. The other pupil was of a
different temperament. She learned with a glance, and remembered with
extraordinary tenacity everything she had acquired. But she was
neither tender nor deferential, and to induce her to study you could
not depend on the affections, but only on her intelligence. So she was
often fitful, capricious, or provoking, and her mother, who, though
accomplished and eager, had neither the method nor the self-restraint
of Mr. Ferrars, was often annoyed and irritable. Then there were
scenes, or rather ebullitions on one side, for Myra was always unmoved
and enraging from her total want of sensibility. Sometimes it became
necessary to appeal to Mr. Ferrars, and her manner to her father,
though devoid of feeling, was at least not contemptuous. Nevertheless,
on the whole the scheme, as time went on, promised to be not
unsuccessful. Endymion, though not rapidly, advanced surely, and made
some amends for the years that had been wasted in fashionable private
schools and the then frivolity of Eton. Myra, who, notwithstanding her
early days of indulgence, had enjoyed the advantage of admirable
governesses, was well grounded in more than one modern language, and
she soon mastered them. And in due time, though much after the period
on which we are now touching, she announced her desire to become
acquainted with German, in those days a much rarer acquirement than at
present. Her mother could not help her in this respect, and that was
perhaps an additional reason for the study of this tongue, for Myra
was impatient of tuition, and not unjustly full of self-confidence.
She took also the keenest interest in the progress of her brother,
made herself acquainted with all his lessons, and sometimes helped him
in their achievement.
Though they had absolutely no acquaintance of any kind except the
rector and his family, life was not dull. Mr. Ferrars was always
employed, for besides the education of his children, he had
systematically resumed a habit in which he had before occasionally
indulged, and that was political composition. He had in his lofty days
been the author of more than one essay, in the most celebrated
political publication of the Tories, which had commanded attention and
obtained celebrity. Many a public man of high rank and reputation, and
even more than one Prime Minister, had contributed in their time to
its famous pages, but never without being paid. It was the organic law
of this publication, that gratuitous contributions should never be
admitted. And in this principle there was as much wisdom as pride.
Celebrated statesmen would point with complacency to the snuff-box or
the picture which had been purchased by their literary labour, and
there was more than one bracelet on the arm of Mrs. Ferrars, and more
than one genet in her stable, which had been the reward of a profound
or a slashing article by William.
What had been the occasional diversion of political life was now to be
the source of regular income. Though living in profound solitude,
Ferrars had a vast sum of political experience to draw upon, and
though his training and general intelligence were in reality too
exclusive and academical for the stirring age which had now opened,
and on which he had unhappily fallen, they nevertheless suited the
audience to which they were particularly addressed. His Corinthian
style, in which the Maenad of Mr. Burke was habited in the last mode
of Almack's, his sarcasms against the illiterate and his invectives
against the low, his descriptions of the country life of the
aristocracy contrasted with the horrors of the guillotine, his
Horatian allusions and his Virgilian passages, combined to produce a
whole which equally fascinated and alarmed his readers.
These contributions occasioned some communications with the editor or
publisher of the Review, which were not without interest. Parcels came
down by the coach, enclosing not merely proof sheets, but frequently
new books--the pamphlet of the hour before it was published, or a
volume of discoveries in unknown lands. It was a link to the world
they had quitted without any painful associations. Otherwise their
communications with the outside world were slight and rare. It is
difficult for us, who live in an age of railroads, telegraphs, penny
posts and penny newspapers, to realise how uneventful, how limited in
thought and feeling, as well as in incident, was the life of an
English family of retired habits and limited means, only forty years
ago. The whole world seemed to be morally, as well as materially,
"adscripti glebae."
Mr. and Mrs. Ferrars did not wish to move, but had they so wished, it
would have been under any circumstances for them a laborious and
costly affair. The only newspaper they saw was the "Evening Mail,"
which arrived three times a week, and was the "Times" newspaper with
all its contents except its advertisements. As the "Times" newspaper
had the credit of mainly contributing to the passing of Lord Grey's
Reform Bill, and was then whispered to enjoy the incredible sale of
twelve thousand copies daily, Mr. Ferrars assumed that in its columns
he would trace the most authentic intimations of coming events. The
cost of postage was then so heavy, that domestic correspondence was
necessarily very restricted. But this vexatious limitation hardly
applied to the Ferrars. They had never paid postage. They were born
and had always lived in the franking world, and although Mr. Ferrars
had now himself lost the privilege, both official and parliamentary,
still all their correspondents were frankers, and they addressed their
replies without compunction to those who were free. Nevertheless, it
was astonishing how little in their new life they cared to avail
themselves of this correspondence. At first Zenobia wrote every week,
almost every day, to Mrs. Ferrars, but after a time Mrs. Ferrars,
though at first pleased by the attention, felt its recognition a
burthen. Then Zenobia, who at length, for the first time in her life,
had taken a gloomy view of affairs, relapsed into a long silence, and
in fact had nearly forgotten the Ferrars, for as she herself used to
say, "How can one recollect people whom one never meets?"
In the meantime, for we have been a little anticipating in our last
remarks, the family at Hurstley were much pleased with the country
they now inhabited. They made excursions of discovery into the
interior of their world, Mrs. Ferrars and Myra in the pony-chair, her
husband and Endymion walking by their side, and Endymion sometimes
taking his sister's seat against his wish, but in deference to her
irresistible will. Even Myra could hardly be insensible to the sylvan
wildness of the old chase, and the romantic villages in the wooded
clefts of the downs. As for Endymion he was delighted, and it seemed
to him, perhaps he unconsciously felt it, that this larger and more
frequent experience of nature was a compensation for much which they
had lost.
After a time, when they had become a little acquainted with simple
neighbourhood, and the first impression of wildness and novelty had
worn out, the twins were permitted to walk together alone, though
within certain limits. The village and its vicinity was quite free,
but they were not permitted to enter the woods, and not to wander on
the chase out of sight of the mansion. These walks alone with Endymion
were the greatest pleasure of his sister. She delighted to make him
tell her of his life at Eton, and if she ever sighed it was when she
lamented that his residence there had been so short. Then they found
an inexhaustible fund of interest and sympathy in the past. They
wondered if they ever should have ponies again. "I think not," said
Myra, "and yet how merry to scamper together over this chase!"
"But they would not let us go," said Endymion, "without a groom."
"A groom!" exclaimed Myra, with an elfish laugh; "I believe, if the
truth were really known, we ought to be making our own beds and
washing our own dinner plates."
"And are you sorry, Myra, for all that has happened?" asked Endymion.
"I hardly know what has happened. They keep it very close. But I am
too astonished to be sorry. Besides, what is the use of whimpering?"
"I cried very much one day," said Endymion.
"Ah, you are soft, dear darling. I never cried in my life, except once
with rage."
At Christmas a new character appeared on the stage, the rector's son,
Nigel. He had completed a year with a private tutor, and was on the
eve of commencing his first term at Oxford, being eighteen, nearly
five years older than the twins. He was tall, with a countenance of
remarkable intelligence and power, though still softened by the
innocence and bloom of boyhood. He was destined to be a clergyman. The
twins were often thrown into his society, for though too old to be
their mere companion, his presence was an excuse for Mrs. Penruddock
more frequently joining them in their strolls, and under her auspices
their wanderings had no limit, except the shortness of the days; but
they found some compensation for this in their frequent visits to the
rectory, which was a cheerful and agreeable home, full of stuffed
birds, and dried plants, and marvellous fishes, and other innocent
trophies and triumphs over nature.
CHAPTER XIII
The tenant of the Manor Farm was a good specimen of his class; a
thorough Saxon, ruddy and bright visaged, with an athletic though
rather bulky frame, hardened by exposure to the seasons and constant
exercise. Although he was the tenant of several hundred acres, he had
an eye to the main chance in little things, which is a characteristic
of farmers, but he was good-natured and obliging, and while he foraged
their pony, furnished their woodyard with logs and faggots, and
supplied them from his dairy, he gratuitously performed for the family
at the hall many other offices which tended to their comfort and
convenience, but which cost him nothing.
Mr. Ferrars liked to have a chat every now and then with Farmer
Thornberry, who had a shrewd and idiomatic style of expressing his
limited, but in its way complete, experience of men and things, which
was amusing and interesting to a man of the world whose knowledge of
rural life was mainly derived from grand shooting parties at great
houses.
The pride and torment of Farmer Thornberry's life was his only child,
Job.
"I gave him the best of educations," said the farmer; "he had a much
better chance than I had myself, for I do not pretend to be a scholar,
and never was; and yet I cannot make head or tail of him. I wish you
would speak to him some day, sir. He goes against the land, and yet we
have been on it for three generations, and have nothing to complain
of; and he is a good farmer, too, is Job, none better; a little too
fond of experimenting, but then he is young. But I am very much afraid
he will leave me. I think it is this new thing the big-wigs have set
up in London that has put him wrong, for he is always reading their
papers."
"And what is that?" said Mr. Ferrars.
"Well, they call themselves the Society for the Diffusion of
Knowledge, and Lord Brougham is at the head of it."
"Ah! he is a dangerous man," said Mr. Ferrars.
"Do you know, I think he is," said Farmer Thornberry, very seriously,
"and by this token, he says a knowledge of chemistry is necessary for
the cultivation of the soil."
"Brougham is a man who would say anything," said Mr. Ferrars, "and of
one thing you may be quite certain, that there is no subject which
Lord Brougham knows thoroughly. I have proved that, and if you ever
have time some winter evening to read something on the matter, I will
lend you a number of the 'Quarterly Review,' which might interest
you."
"I wish you would lend it to Job," said the farmer.
Mr. Ferrars found Job not quite so manageable in controversy as his
father. His views were peculiar, and his conclusions certain. He had
more than a smattering too of political economy, a kind of knowledge
which Mr. Ferrars viewed with suspicion; for though he had himself
been looked upon as enlightened in this respect in the last years of
Lord Liverpool, when Lord Wallace and Mr. Huskisson were astonishing
the world, he had relapsed, after the schism of the Tory party, into
orthodoxy, and was satisfied that the tenets of the economists were
mere theories, or could only be reduced into practice by revolution.
"But it is a pleasant life, that of a farmer," said Mr. Ferrars to
Job.
"Yes, but life should be something more than pleasant," said Job, who
always looked discontented; "an ox in a pasture has a pleasant life."
"Well, and why should it not be a profitable one, too?" said Mr.
Ferrars.
"I do not see my way to that," said Job moodily; "there is not much to
be got out of the land at any time, and still less on the terms we
hold it."
"But you are not high-rented!"
"Oh, rent is nothing, if everything else were right, but nothing is
right," said Job. "In the first place, a farmer is the only trader who
has no security for his capital."
"Ah! you want a lease?"
"I should be very sorry to have a lease like any that I have seen,"
replied Job. "We had one once in our family, and we keep it as a
curiosity. It is ten skins long, and more tyrannical nonsense was
never engrossed by man."
"But your family, I believe, has been on this estate for generations
now," said Ferrars, "and they have done well."
"They have done about as well as their stock. They have existed," said
Job; "nothing more."
"Your father always gives me quite the idea of a prosperous man," said
Mr. Ferrars.
"Whether he be or not I am sure I cannot say," said Job; "for as
neither he nor any of his predecessors ever kept any accounts, it is
rather difficult to ascertain their exact condition. So long as he has
money enough in his pocket to pay his labourers and buy a little
stock, my father, like every British farmer, is content. The fact is,
he is a serf as much as his men, and until we get rid of feudalism he
will remain so."
"These are strong opinions," said Mr. Ferrars, drawing himself up and
looking a little cold.
"Yes, but they will make their way," said Job. "So far as I myself am
concerned, I do not much care what happens to the land, for I do not
mean to remain on it; but I care for the country. For the sake of the
country I should like to see the whole thing upset."
"What thing?" asked Mr. Ferrars.
"Feudalism," said Job. "I should like to see this estate managed on
the same principles as they do their great establishments in the north
of England. Instead of feudalism, I would substitute the commercial
principle. I would have long leases without covenants; no useless
timber, and no game."
"Why, you would destroy the country," said Mr. Ferrars.
"We owe everything to the large towns," said Job.
"The people in the large towns are miserable," said Mr. Ferrars.
"They cannot be more miserable than the people in the country," said
Job.
"Their wretchedness is notorious," said Mr. Ferrars. "Look at their
riots."
"Well, we had Swing in the country only two or three years ago."
Mr. Ferrars looked sad. The reminiscence was too near and too fatal.
After a pause he said with an air of decision, and as if imparting a
state secret, "If it were not for the agricultural districts, the
King's army could not be recruited."
"Well, that would not break my heart," said Job.
"Why, my good fellow, you are a Radical!"
"They may call me what they like," said Job; "but it will not alter
matters. However, I am going among the Radicals soon, and then I shall
know what they are."
"And can you leave your truly respectable parent?" said Mr. Ferrars
rather solemnly, for he remembered his promise to Farmer Thornberry to
speak seriously to his son.
"Oh! my respectable parent will do very well without me, sir. Only let
him be able to drive into Bamford on market day, and get two or three
linendrapers to take their hats off to him, and he will be happy
enough, and always ready to die for our glorious Constitution."
CHAPTER XIV
Eighteen hundred and thirty-two, the darkest and most distressing year
in the life of Mr. Ferrars, closed in comparative calm and apparent
content. He was himself greatly altered, both in manner and
appearance. He was kind and gentle, but he was silent and rarely
smiled. His hair was grizzled, and he began to stoop. But he was
always employed, and was interested in his labours.
His sanguine wife bore up against their misfortunes with far more
animation. She was at first amused with her new life, and when she was
accustomed to it, she found a never-failing resource in her conviction
of a coming reaction. Mrs. Ferrars possessed most feminine qualities,
and many of them in excess. She could not reason, but her intuition
was remarkable. She was of opinion that "these people never could go
on," and that they must necessarily be succeeded by William and his
friends. In vain her husband, when she pressed her views and
convictions on him, would shake his head over the unprecedented
majority of the government, and sigh while he acknowledged that the
Tories absolutely did not now command one fifth of the House of
Commons; his shakes and sighs were equally disregarded by her, and she
persisted in her dreams of riding upon elephants.
After all Mrs. Ferrars was right. There is nothing more remarkable in
political history than the sudden break-up of the Whig party after
their successful revolution of 1832. It is one of the most striking
instances on record of all the elements of political power being
useless without a commanding individual will. During the second year
of their exile in the Berkshire hills, affairs looked so black that it
seemed no change could occur except further and more calamitous
revolution. Zenobia went to Vienna that she might breathe the
atmosphere of law and order, and hinted to Mrs. Ferrars that probably
she should never return--at least not until Parliament met, when she
trusted the House of Lords, if they were not abolished in the
interval, would save the country. And yet at the commencement of the
following year an old colleague of Mr. Ferrars apprised him, in the
darkest and deepest confidence, that "there was a screw loose," and he
must "look out for squalls."
In the meantime Mr. Ferrars increased and established his claims on
his party, if they ever did rally, by his masterly articles in their
great Review, which circumstances favoured and which kept up that
increasing feeling of terror and despair which then was deemed
necessary for the advancement of Conservative opinions.
At home a year or more had elapsed without change. The occasional
appearance of Nigel Penruddock was the only event. It was to all a
pleasing, and to some of the family a deeply interesting one. Nigel,
though a student and devoted to the holy profession for which he was
destined, was also a sportsman. His Christianity was muscular, and
Endymion, to whom he had taken a fancy, became the companion of his
pastimes. All the shooting of the estate was at Nigel's command, but
as there were no keepers, it was of course very rough work. Still it
was a novel and animating life for Endymion; and though the sport was
slight, the pursuit was keen. Then Nigel was a great fisherman, and
here their efforts had a surer return, for they dwelt in a land of
trout streams, and in their vicinity was a not inconsiderable river.
It was an adventure of delight to pursue some of these streams to
their source, throwing, as they rambled on, the fly in the rippling
waters. Myra, too, took some pleasure in these fishing expeditions,
carrying their luncheon and a German book in her wallet, and sitting
quietly on the bank for hours, when they had fixed upon some favoured
pool for a prolonged campaign.
Every time that Nigel returned home, a difference, and a striking
difference, was observed in him. His person, of course, became more
manly, his manner more assured, his dress more modish. It was
impossible to deny that he was extremely good-looking, interesting in
his discourse, and distinguished in his appearance. Endymion idolised
him. Nigel was his model. He imitated his manner, caught the tone of
his voice, and began to give opinions on subjects, sacred and profane.
After a hard morning's march, one day, as they were lolling on the
turf amid the old beeches and the juniper, Nigel said--
"What does Mr. Ferrars mean you to be, Endymion?"
"I do not know," said Endymion, looking perplexed.
"But I suppose you are to be something?"
"Yes; I suppose I must be something; because papa has lost his
fortune."
"And what would you like to be?"
"I never thought about it," said Endymion.
"In my opinion there is only one thing for a man to be in this age,"
said Nigel peremptorily; "he should go into the Church."
"The Church!" said Endymion.
"There will soon be nothing else left," said Nigel. "The Church must
last for ever. It is built upon a rock. It was founded by God; all
other governments have been founded by men. When they are destroyed,
and the process of destruction seems rapid, there will be nothing left
to govern mankind except the Church."
"Indeed!" said Endymion; "papa is very much in favour of the Church,
and, I know, is writing something about it."
"Yes, but Mr. Ferrars is an Erastian," said Nigel; "you need not tell
him I said so, but he is one. He wants the Church to be the servant of
the State, and all that sort of thing, but that will not do any
longer. This destruction of the Irish bishoprics has brought affairs
to a crisis. No human power has the right to destroy a bishopric. It
is a divinely-ordained office, and when a diocese is once established,
it is eternal."
"I see," said Endymion, much interested.
"I wish," continued Nigel, "you were two or three years older, and Mr.
Ferrars could send you to Oxford. That is the place to understand
these things, and they will soon be the only things to understand. The
rector knows nothing about them. My father is thoroughly high and dry,
and has not the slightest idea of Church principles."
"Indeed!" said Endymion.
"It is quite a new set even at Oxford," continued Nigel; "but their
principles are as old as the Apostles, and come down from them,
straight."
"That is a long time ago," said Endymion.
"I have a great fancy," continued Nigel, without apparently attending
to him, "to give you a thorough Church education. It would be the
making of you. You would then have a purpose in life, and never be in
doubt or perplexity on any subject. We ought to move heaven and earth
to induce Mr. Ferrars to send you to Oxford."
"I will speak to Myra about it," said Endymion.
"I said something of this to your sister the other day," said Nigel,
"but I fear she is terribly Erastian. However, I will give you
something to read. It is not very long, but you can read it at your
leisure, and then we will talk over it afterwards, and perhaps I may
give you something else."
Endymion did not fail to give a report of this conversation and
similar ones to his sister, for he was in the habit of telling her
everything. She listened with attention, but not with interest, to his
story. Her expression was kind, but hardly serious. Her wondrous eyes
gave him a glance of blended mockery and affection. "Dear darling,"
she said, "if you are to be a clergyman, I should like you to be a
cardinal."
CHAPTER XV
The dark deep hints that had reached Mr. Ferrars at the beginning of
1834 were the harbingers of startling events. In the spring it began
to be rumoured among the initiated, that the mighty Reform Cabinet
with its colossal majority, and its testimonial goblets of gold,
raised by the penny subscriptions of the grateful people, was in
convulsions, and before the month of July had elapsed Lord Grey had
resigned, under circumstances which exhibited the entire
demoralisation of his party. Except Zenobia, every one was of the
opinion that the King acted wisely in entrusting the reconstruction of
the Whig ministry to his late Secretary of State, Lord Melbourne.
Nevertheless, it could no longer be concealed, nay, it was invariably
admitted, that the political situation had been largely and most
unexpectedly changed, and that there was a prospect, dim, perhaps, yet
not undefinable, of the conduct of public affairs again falling to the
alternate management of two rival constitutional parties.
Zenobia was so full of hope, and almost of triumph, that she induced
her lord in the autumn to assemble their political friends at one of
his great seats, and Mr. and Mrs. Ferrars were urgently invited to
join the party. But, after some hesitation, they declined this
proposal. Had Mr. Ferrars been as sanguine as his wife, he would
perhaps have overcome his strong disinclination to re-enter the world,
but though no longer despairing of a Tory revival, he was of opinion
that a considerable period, even several years, must elapse before its
occurrence. Strange to say, he found no difficulty in following his
own humour through any contrary disposition on the part of Mrs.
Ferrars. With all her ambition and passionate love of society, she was
unwilling to return to that stage, where she once had blazed, in a
subdued and almost subordinate position. In fact, it was an affair of
the wardrobe. The queen of costumes, whose fanciful and gorgeous
attire even Zenobia was wont to praise, could not endure a
reappearance in old dresses. "I do not so much care about my jewels,
William," she said to her husband, "but one must have new dresses."
It was a still mild day in November, a month which in the country, and
especially on the light soils, has many charms, and the whole Ferrars
family were returning home after an afternoon ramble on the chase. The
leaf had changed but had not fallen, and the vast spiral masses of the
dark green juniper effectively contrasted with the rich brown foliage
of the beech, varied occasionally by the scarlet leaves of the wild
cherry tree, that always mingles with these woods. Around the house
were some lime trees of large size, and at this period of the year
their foliage, still perfect, was literally quite golden. They seemed
like trees in some fairy tale of imprisoned princesses or wandering
cavaliers, and such they would remain, until the fatal night that
brings the first frost.
"There is a parcel from London," said the servant to Mr. Ferrars, as
they entered the house. "It is on your desk."
A parcel from London was one of the great events of their life. What
could it be? Perhaps some proofs, probably some books. Mr. Ferrars
entered his room alone. It was a very small brown paper parcel,
evidently not books. He opened it hastily, and disencumbered its
contents of several coverings. The contents took the form of a letter
--a single letter.
The handwriting was recognised, and he read the letter with an
agitated countenance, and then he opened the door of his room, and
called loudly for his wife, who was by his side in a few moments.
"A letter, my love, from Barron," he cried. "The King has dismissed
Lord Melbourne and sent for the Duke of Wellington, who has accepted
the conduct of affairs."
"You must go to town directly," said his wife. "He offered you the
Cabinet in 1832. No person has such a strong claim on him as you
have."
"It does not appear that he is exactly prime minister," said Mr.
Ferrars, looking again at the letter. "They have sent for Peel, who is
at Rome, but the Duke is to conduct the government till he arrives."
"You must go to town immediately," repeated Mrs. Ferrars. "There is
not a moment to be lost. Send down to the Horse Shoe and secure an
inside place in the Salisbury coach. It reaches this place at nine
to-morrow morning. I will have everything ready. You must take a
portmanteau and a carpet-bag. I wonder if you could get a bedroom at
the Rodneys'. It would be so nice to be among old friends; they must
feel for you. And then it will be near the Carlton, which is a great
thing. I wonder how he will form his cabinet. What a pity he is not
here!"
"It is a wonderful event, but the difficulties must be immense,"
observed Ferrars.
"Oh! you always see difficulties. I see none. The King is with us, the
country is disgusted. It is what I always said would be; the reaction
is complete."
"Well, we had better now go and tell the children," said Ferrars. "I
leave you all here for the first time," and he seemed to sigh.
"Well, I hope we shall soon join you," said Mrs. Ferrars. "It is the
very best time for hiring a house. What I have set my heart upon is
the Green Park. It will be near your office and not too near. I am
sure I could not live again in a street."
The children were informed that public events of importance had
occurred, that the King had changed his ministry, and that papa must
go up to town immediately and see the Duke of Wellington. The eyes of
Mrs. Ferrars danced with excitement as she communicated to them all
this intelligence, and much more, with a volubility in which of late
years she had rarely indulged. Mr. Ferrars looked grave and said
little. Then he patted Endymion on the head, and kissed Myra, who
returned his embrace with a warmth unusual with her.
The whole household soon became in a state of bustle with the
preparations for the early departure of Mr. Ferrars. It seemed
difficult to comprehend how filling a portmanteau and a carpet-bag
could induce such excited and continuous exertions. But then there was
so much to remember, and then there was always something forgotten.
Mrs. Ferrars was in her bedroom surrounded by all her maids; Mr.
Ferrars was in his study looking out some papers which it was
necessary to take with him. The children were alone.
"I wonder if we shall be restored to our greatness," said Myra to
Endymion.
"Well, I shall be sorry to leave the old place; I have been happy
here."
"I have not," said Myra; "and I do not think I could have borne this
life had it not been for you."
"It will be a wonderful change," said Endymion.
"If it comes; I fear papa is not daring enough. However, if we get out
of this hole, it will be something."
Tea-time brought them all together again, but when the meal was over,
none of the usual occupations of the evening were pursued; no work, no
books, no reading aloud. Mr. Ferrars was to get up very early, and
that was a reason for all retiring soon. And yet neither the husband
nor the wife really cared to sleep. Mrs. Ferrars sate by the fire in
his dressing-room, speculating on all possible combinations, and
infusing into him all her suggestions and all her schemes. She was
still prudent, and still would have preferred a great government--
India if possible; but had made up her mind that he must accept the
cabinet. Considering what had occurred in 1832, she thought he was
bound in honour to do so. Her husband listened rather than conversed,
and seemed lost in thought. At last he rose, and, embracing her with
much affection, said, "You forget I am to rise with the lark. I shall
write to you every day. Best and dearest of women, you have always
been right, and all my good fortune has come from you."
CHAPTER XVI
It was a very tedious journey, and it took the whole day to accomplish
a distance which a rapid express train now can achieve in an hour. The
coach carried six inside passengers, and they had to dine on the road.
All the passengers were strangers to Mr. Ferrars, and he was by them
unknown; one of them purchased, though with difficulty, a second
edition of the "Times" as they approached London, and favoured his
fellow-travellers with the news of the change of ministry. There was
much excitement, and the purchaser of the paper gave it as his
opinion, "that it was an intrigue of the Court and the Tories, and
would never do." Another modestly intimated that he thought there was
a decided reaction. A third announced that England would never submit
to be governed by O'Connell.
As the gloom of evening descended, Mr. Ferrars felt depressed. Though
his life at Hurstley had been pensive and melancholy, he felt now the
charm and the want of that sweet domestic distraction which had often
prevented his mind from over-brooding, and had softened life by
sympathy in little things. Nor was it without emotion that he found
himself again in London, that proud city where once he had himself
been so proud. The streets were lighted, and seemed swarming with an
infinite population, and the coach finally stopped at a great inn in
the Strand, where Mr. Ferrars thought it prudent to secure
accommodation for the night. It was too late to look after the
Rodneys, but in deference to the strict injunction of Mrs. Ferrars, he
paid them a visit next morning on his way to his political chief.
In the days of the great modistes, when an English lady might
absolutely be dressed in London, the most celebrated mantua-maker in
that city was Madame Euphrosyne. She was as fascinating as she was
fashionable. She was so graceful, her manners were so pretty, so
natural, and so insinuating! She took so lively an interest in her
clients--her very heart was in their good looks. She was a great
favourite of Mrs. Ferrars, and that lady of Madame Euphrosyne. She
assured Mrs. Ferrars that she was prouder of dressing Mrs. Ferrars
than all the other fine ladies in London together, and Mrs. Ferrars
believed her. Unfortunately, while in the way of making a large
fortune, Madame Euphrosyne, who was romantic, fell in love with, and
married, a very handsome and worthless husband, whose good looks had
obtained for him a position in the company of Drury Lane Theatre, then
a place of refined resort, which his abilities did not justify. After
pillaging and plundering his wife for many years, he finally involved
her in such engagements, that she had to take refuge in the Bankruptcy
Court. Her business was ruined, and her spirit was broken, and she
died shortly after of adversity and chagrin. Her daughter Sylvia was
then eighteen, and had inherited with the grace of her mother the
beauty of her less reputable parent. Her figure was slight and
undulating, and she was always exquisitely dressed. A brilliant
complexion set off to advantage her delicate features, which, though
serene, were not devoid of a certain expression of archness. Her white
hands were delicate, her light eyes inclined to merriment, and her
nose quite a gem, though a little turned up.
After their ruin, her profligate father told her that her face was her
fortune, and that she must provide for herself, in which she would
find no difficulty. But Sylvia, though she had never enjoyed the
advantage of any training, moral or religious, had no bad impulses
even if she had no good ones, was of a rather cold character, and
extremely prudent. She recoiled from the life of riot, and disorder,
and irregularity, in which she had unwittingly passed her days, and
which had terminated so tragically, and she resolved to make an effort
to secure for herself a different career. She had heard that Mrs.
Ferrars was in want of an attendant, and she determined to apply for
the post. As one of the chief customers of her mother, Sylvia had been
in the frequent habit of waiting on that lady, with whom she had
become a favourite. She was so pretty, and the only person who could
fit Mrs. Ferrars. Her appeal, therefore, was not in vain; it was more
than successful. Mrs. Ferrars was attracted by Sylvia. Mrs. Ferrars
was magnificent, generous, and she liked to be a patroness and
surrounded by favourites. She determined that Sylvia should not sink
into a menial position; she adopted her as a humble friend, and one
who every day became more regarded by her. Sylvia arranged her
invitations to her receptions, a task which required finish and
precision; sometimes wrote her notes. She spoke and wrote French too,
and that was useful, was a musician, and had a pretty voice. Above
all, she was a first-rate counsellor in costume; and so, looking also
after Mrs. Ferrars' dogs and birds, she became almost one of the
family; dined with them often when they were alone, and was frequently
Mrs. Ferrars' companion in her carriage.
Sylvia, though not by nature impulsive, really adored her patroness.
She governed her manners and she modelled her dress on that great
original, and, next to Mrs. Ferrars, Sylvia in time became nearly the
finest lady in London. There was, indeed, much in Mrs. Ferrars to
captivate a person like Sylvia. Mrs. Ferrars was beautiful,
fashionable, gorgeous, wonderfully expensive, and, where her taste was
pleased, profusely generous. Her winning manner was not less
irresistible because it was sometimes uncertain, and she had the art
of being intimate without being familiar.
When the crash came, Sylvia was really broken-hearted, or believed she
was, and implored that she might attend the deposed sovereigns into
exile; but that was impossible, however anxious they might be as to
the future of their favourite. Her destiny was sooner decided than
they could have anticipated. There was a member of the household, or
rather family, in Hill Street, who bore almost the same relation to
Mr. Ferrars as Sylvia to his wife. This was Mr. Rodney, a remarkably
good-looking person, by nature really a little resembling his
principal, and completing the resemblance by consummate art. The
courtiers of Alexander of Macedonia could not study their chief with
more devotion, or more sedulously imitate his mien and carriage, than
did Mr. Rodney that distinguished individual of whom he was the humble
friend, and who he was convinced was destined to be Prime Minister of
England. Mr. Rodney was the son of the office-keeper of old Mr.
Ferrars, and it was the ambition of the father that his son, for whom
he had secured a sound education, should become a member of the civil
service. It had become an apothegm in the Ferrars family that
something must be done for Rodney, and whenever the apparent occasion
failed, which was not unfrequent, old Mr. Ferrars used always to add,
"Never mind; so long as I live, Rodney shall never want a home." The
object of all this kindness, however, was little distressed by their
failures in his preferment. He had implicit faith in the career of his
friend and master, and looked forward to the time when it might not be
impossible that he himself might find a haven in a commissionership.
Recently Mr. Ferrars had been able to confer on him a small post with
duties not too engrossing, and which did not prevent his regular
presence in Hill Street, where he made himself generally useful.
If there were anything confidential to be accomplished in their
domestic life, everything might be trusted to his discretion and
entire devotion. He supervised the establishment without injudiciously
interfering with the house-steward, copied secret papers for Mr.
Ferrars, and when that gentleman was out of office acted as his
private secretary. Mr. Rodney was the most official person in the
ministerial circle. He considered human nature only with reference to
office. No one was so intimately acquainted with all the details of
the lesser patronage as himself, and his hours of study were passed in
the pages of the "Peerage" and in penetrating the mysteries of the
"Royal Calendar."
The events of 1832, therefore, to this gentleman were scarcely a less
severe blow than to the Ferrars family itself. Indeed, like his chief,
he looked upon himself as the victim of a revolution. Mr. Rodney had
always been an admirer of Sylvia, but no more. He had accompanied her
to the theatre, and had attended her to the park, but this was quite
understood on both sides only to be gallantry; both, perhaps, in their
prosperity, with respect to the serious step of life, had indulged in
higher dreams. But the sympathy of sorrow is stronger than the
sympathy of prosperity. In the darkness of their lives, each required
comfort: he murmured some accents of tender solace, and Sylvia agreed
to become Mrs. Rodney.
When they considered their position, the prospect was not free from
anxiety. To marry and then separate is, where there is affection,
trying. His income would secure them little more than a roof, but how
to live under that roof was a mystery. For her to become a governess,
and for him to become a secretary, and to meet only on an occasional
Sunday, was a sorry lot. And yet both possessed accomplishments or
acquirements which ought in some degree to be productive. Rodney had a
friend, and he determined to consult him.
That friend was no common person; he was Mr. Vigo, by birth a
Yorkshireman, and gifted with all the attributes, physical and
intellectual, of that celebrated race. At present he was the most
fashionable tailor in London, and one whom many persons consulted.
Besides being consummate in his art, Mr. Vigo had the reputation of
being a man of singularly good judgment. He was one who obtained
influence over all with whom he came in contact, and as his business
placed him in contact with various classes, but especially with the
class socially most distinguished, his influence was great. The golden
youth who repaired to his counters came there not merely to obtain
raiment of the best material and the most perfect cut, but to see and
talk with Mr. Vigo, and to ask his opinion on various points. There
was a spacious room where, if they liked, they might smoke a cigar,
and "Vigo's cigars" were something which no one could rival. If they
liked to take a glass of hock with their tobacco, there was a bottle
ready from the cellars of Johannisberg. Mr. Vigo's stable was almost
as famous as its master; he drove the finest horses in London, and
rode the best hunters in the Vale of Aylesbury. With all this, his
manners were exactly what they should be. He was neither pretentious
nor servile, but simple, and with becoming respect for others and for
himself. He never took a liberty with any one, and such treatment, as
is generally the case, was reciprocal.
Mr. Vigo was much attached to Mr. Rodney, and was proud of his
intimate acquaintance with him. He wanted a friend not of his own
order, for that would not increase or improve his ideas, but one
conversant with the habits and feelings of a superior class, and yet
he did not want a fine gentleman for an intimate, who would have been
either an insolent patron or a designing parasite. Rodney had
relations with the aristocracy, with the political world, and could
feel the pulse of public life. His appearance was engaging, his
manners gentle if not gentlemanlike, and he had a temper never
disturbed. This is a quality highly appreciated by men of energy and
fire, who may happen not to have a complete self-control.
When Rodney detailed to his friend the catastrophe that had occurred
and all its sad consequences, Mr. Vigo heard him in silence,
occasionally nodding his head in sympathy or approbation, or
scrutinising a statement with his keen hazel eye. When his visitor had
finished, he said--
"When there has been a crash, there is nothing like a change of scene.
I propose that you and Mrs. Rodney should come and stay with me a week
at my house at Barnes, and there a good many things may occur to us."
And so, towards the end of the week, when the Rodneys had exhausted
their whole programme of projects, against every one of which there
seemed some invincible objection, their host said, "You know I rather
speculate in houses. I bought one last year in Warwick Street. It is a
large roomy house in a quiet situation, though in a bustling quarter,
just where members of parliament would like to lodge. I have put it in
thorough repair. What I propose is that you should live there, let the
first and second floors--they are equally good--and live on the ground
floor yourselves, which is amply convenient. We will not talk about
rent till the year is over and we see how it answers. The house is
unfurnished, but that is nothing. I will introduce you to a friend of
mine who will furnish it for you solidly and handsomely, you paying a
percentage on the amount expended. He will want a guarantee, but of
course I will be that. It is an experiment, but try it. Try it for a
year; at any rate you will be a householder, and you will have the
opportunity of thinking of something else."
Hitherto the Rodneys had been successful in their enterprise, and the
soundness of Mr. Vigo's advice had been proved. Their house was full,
and of the best tenants. Their first floor was taken by a
distinguished M.P., a county member of repute whom Mr. Rodney had
known before the "revolution," and who was so pleased with his
quarters, and the comfort and refinement of all about him, that to
ensure their constant enjoyment he became a yearly tenant. Their
second floor, which was nearly as good as their first, was inhabited
by a young gentleman of fashion, who took them originally only by the
week, and who was always going to give them up, but never did. The
weekly lodger went to Paris, and he went to German baths, and he went
to country houses, and he was frequently a long time away, but he
never gave up his lodgings. When therefore Mr. Ferrars called in
Warwick Street, the truth is the house was full and there was no
vacant room for him. But this the Rodneys would not admit. Though they
were worldly people, and it seemed impossible that anything more could
be gained from the ruined house of Hurstley, they had, like many other
people, a superstition, and their superstition was an adoration of the
family of Ferrars. The sight of their former master, who, had it not
been for the revolution, might have been Prime Minister of England,
and the recollection of their former mistress and all her splendour,
and all the rich dresses which she used to give so profusely to her
dependent, quite overwhelmed them. Without consultation this
sympathising couple leapt to the same conclusion. They assured Mr.
Ferrars they could accommodate him, and that he should find everything
prepared for him when he called again, and they resigned to him,
without acknowledging it, their own commodious and well-furnished
chamber, which Mrs. Rodney prepared for him with the utmost
solicitude, arranging his writing-table and materials as he used to
have them in Hill Street, and showing by a variety of modes she
remembered all his ways.
CHAPTER XVII
After securing his room in Warwick Street, Mr. Ferrars called on his
political chiefs. Though engrossed with affairs, the moment his card
was exhibited he was seen, cordially welcomed, and addressed in
confidence. Not only were his claims acknowledged without being
preferred, but an evidently earnest hope was expressed that they might
be fully satisfied. No one had suffered more for the party and no one
had worked harder or more effectively for it. But at present nothing
could be done and nothing more could be said. All depended on Peel.
Until he arrived nothing could be arranged. Their duties were limited
to provisionally administering the affairs of the country until his
appearance.
It was many days, even weeks, before that event could happen. The
messenger would travel to Rome night and day, but it was calculated
that nearly three weeks must elapse before his return. Mr. Ferrars
then went to the Carlton Club, which he had assisted in forming three
or four years before, and had established in a house of modern
dimensions in Charles Street, St. James. It was called then the
Charles Street gang, and none but the thoroughgoing cared to belong to
it. Now he found it flourishing in a magnificent mansion on Carlton
Terrace, while in very sight of its windows, on a plot of ground in
Pall Mall, a palace was rising to receive it. It counted already
fifteen hundred members, who had been selected by an omniscient and
scrutinising committee, solely with reference to their local
influence throughout the country, and the books were overflowing with
impatient candidates of rank, and wealth, and power.
Three years ago Ferrars had been one of the leading spirits of this
great confederacy, and now he entered the superb chamber, and it
seemed to him that he did not recognise a human being. Yet it was full
to overflowing, and excitement and anxiety and bustle were impressed
on every countenance. If he had heard some of the whispers and
remarks, as he entered and moved about, his self-complacency would
scarcely have been gratified.
"Who is that?" inquired a young M.P. of a brother senator not much
more experienced.
"Have not the remotest idea; never saw him before. Barron is speaking
to him; he will tell us. I say, Barron, who is your friend?"
"That is Ferrars!"
"Ferrars! who is he?"
"One of our best men. If all our fellows had fought like him against
the Reform Bill, that infernal measure would never have been carried."
"Oh! ah! I remember something now," said the young M.P., "but anything
that happened before the election of '32 I look upon as an old
almanack."
However, notwithstanding the first and painful impression of strangers
and strangeness, when a little time had elapsed Ferrars found many
friends, and among the most distinguished present. Nothing could be
more hearty than their greeting, and he had not been in the room half
an hour before he had accepted an invitation to dine that very day
with Lord Pomeroy.
It was a large and rather miscellaneous party, but all of the right
kidney. Some men who had been cabinet ministers, and some who expected
to be; several occupiers in old days of the secondary offices; both
the whips, one noisy and the other mysterious; several lawyers of
repute who must be brought into parliament, and some young men who had
distinguished themselves in the reformed house and whom Ferrars had
never seen before. "It is like old days," said the husband of Zenobia
to Ferrars, who sate next to him; "I hope it will float, but we shall
know nothing till Peel comes."
"He will have difficulty with his cabinet so far as the House of
Commons is concerned," said an old privy councillor "They must have
seats, and his choice is very limited."
"He will dissolve," said the husband of Zenobia. "He must."
"Wheugh!" said the privy councillor, and he shrugged his shoulders.
"The old story will not do," said the husband of Zenobia. "We must
have new blood. Peel must reconstruct on a broad basis."
"Well, they say there is no lack of converts," said the old privy
councillor.
All this, and much more that he heard, made Ferrars ponder, and
anxiously. No cabinet without parliament. It was but reasonable. A
dissolution was therefore in his interest. And yet, what a prospect! A
considerable expenditure, and yet with a considerable expenditure a
doubtful result. Then reconstruction on a broad basis--what did that
mean? Neither more nor less than rival candidates for office. There
was no lack of converts. He dare say not. A great deal had developed
since his exile at Hurstley--things which are not learned by
newspapers, or even private correspondence. He spoke to Barron after
dinner. He had reason to believe Barron was his friend. Barron could
give no opinion about dissolution; all depended on Peel. But they were
acting, and had been acting for some time, as if dissolution were on
the cards. Ferrars had better call upon him to-morrow, and go over the
list, and see what would be done for him. He had every claim.
The man with every claim called on Barron on the morrow, and saw his
secret list, and listened to all his secret prospects and secret
plans. There was more than one manufacturing town where there was an
opening; decided reaction, and a genuine Conservative feeling. Barron
had no doubt that, although a man might not get in the first time he
stood, he would ultimately. Ultimately was not a word which suited Mr.
Ferrars. There were several old boroughs where the freemen still
outnumbered the ten-pounders, and where the prospects were more
encouraging; but the expense was equal to the goodness of the chance,
and although Ferrars had every claim, and would no doubt be assisted,
still one could not shut one's eyes to the fact that the personal
expenditure must be considerable. The agricultural boroughs must be
fought, at least this time, by local men. Something might be done with
an Irish borough; expense, comparatively speaking inconsiderable, but
the politics deeply Orange.
Gloom settled on the countenance of this spoiled child of politics,
who had always sate for a close borough, and who recoiled from a
contest like a woman, when he pictured to himself the struggle and
exertion and personal suffering he would have to encounter and endure,
and then with no certainty of success. The trained statesman, who had
anticipated the mass of his party on Catholic emancipation, to become
an Orange candidate! It was worse than making speeches to ten-pounders
and canvassing freemen!
"I knew things were difficult," said Ferrars; "but I was in hopes that
there were yet some seats that we might command."
"No doubt there are," said Mr. Barron; "but they are few, and they are
occupied--at least at present. But, after all, a thousand things may
turn up, and you may consider nothing definitely arranged until Sir
Robert arrives. The great thing is to be on the spot."
Ferrars wrote to his wife daily, and kept her minutely acquainted with
the course of affairs. She agreed with Barron that the great thing was
to be on the spot. She felt sure that something would turn up. She was
convinced that Sir Robert would send for him, offer him the cabinet,
and at the same time provide him with a seat. Her own inclination was
still in favour of a great colonial or foreign appointment. She still
hankered after India; but if the cabinet were offered, as was certain,
she did not consider that William, as a man of honour, could refuse to
accept the trust and share the peril.
So Ferrars remained in London under the roof of the Rodneys. The
feverish days passed in the excitement of political life in all its
manifold forms, grave council and light gossip, dinners with only one
subject of conversation, and that never palling, and at last, even
evenings spent again under the roof of Zenobia, who, the instant her
winter apartments were ready to receive the world, had hurried up to
London and raised her standard in St. James' Square. "It was like old
days," as her husband had said to Ferrars when they met after a long
separation.
Was it like old days? he thought to himself when he was alone. Old
days, when the present had no care, and the future was all hope; when
he was proud, and justly proud, of the public position he had
achieved, and of all the splendid and felicitous circumstances of life
that had clustered round him. He thought of those away, and with whom
during the last three years he had so continuously and intimately
lived. And his hired home that once had been associated only in his
mind with exile, imprisonment, misfortune, almost disgrace, became
hallowed by affection, and in the agony of the suspense which now
involved him, and to encounter which he began to think his diminished
nerve unequal, he would have bargained for the rest of his life to
pass undisturbed in that sweet solitude, in the delights of study and
the tranquillity of domestic love.
A little not unamiable weakness this, but it passed off in the morning
like a dream, when Mr. Ferrars heard that Sir Robert had arrived.
CHAPTER XVIII
It was a dark December night when Mr. Ferrars returned to Hurstley.
His wife, accompanied by the gardener with a lantern, met him on the
green. She embraced him, and whispered, "Is it very bad, love? I fear
you have softened it to me?"
"By no means bad, and I told you the truth: not all, for had I, my
letter would have been too late. He said nothing about the cabinet,
but offered me a high post in his government, provided I could secure
my seat. That was impossible. During the month I was in town I had
realised that. I thought it best, therefore, at once to try the other
tack, and nothing could be more satisfactory."
"Did you say anything about India?" she said in a very low voice.
"I did not. He is an honourable man, but he is cold, and my manner is
not distinguished for /abandon/. I thought it best to speak generally,
and leave it to him. He acknowledged my claim, and my fitness for such
posts, and said if his government lasted it would gratify him to meet
my wishes. Barron says the government will last. They will have a
majority, and if Stanley and Graham had joined them, they would have
had not an inconsiderable one. But in that case I should probably not
have had the cabinet, if indeed he meant to offer it to me now."
"Of course he did," said his wife. "Who has such claims as you have?
Well, now we must hope and watch. Look cheerful to the children, for
they have been very anxious."
With this hint the meeting was not unhappy, and the evening passed
with amusement and interest. Endymion embraced his father with warmth,
and Myra kissed him on both cheeks. Mr. Ferrars had a great deal of
gossip which interested his wife, and to a certain degree his
children. The latter of course remembered Zenobia, and her sayings and
doings were always amusing. There were anecdotes, too, of illustrious
persons which always interest, especially when in the personal
experience of those with whom we are intimately connected. What the
Duke, or Sir Robert, or Lord Lyndhurst said to papa seemed doubly
wiser or brighter than if it had been said to a third person. Their
relations with the world of power, and fashion, and fame, seemed not
to be extinct, at least reviving from their torpid condition. Mr.
Ferrars had also brought a German book for Myra; and "as for you,
Endymion," he said, "I have been much more successful for you than for
your father, though I hope I shall not have myself in the long run to
complain. Our friends are faithful to us, and I have got you put down
on the private list for a clerkship both in the Foreign Office and the
Treasury. They are the two best things, and you will have one of the
first vacancies that will occur in either department. I know your
mother wishes you to be in the Foreign Office. Let it be so if it
come. I confess, myself, remembering your grandfather's career, I have
always a weakness for the Treasury, but so long as I see you well
planted in Whitehall, I shall be content. Let me see, you will be
sixteen in March. I could have wished you to wait another year, but we
must be ready when the opening occurs."
The general election in 1834-5, though it restored the balance of
parties, did not secure to Sir Robert Peel a majority, and the anxiety
of the family at Hurstley was proportionate to the occasion. Barron
was always sanguine, but the vote on the Speakership could not but
alarm them. Barron said it did not signify, and that Sir Robert had
resolved to go on and had confidence in his measures. His measures
were excellent, and Sir Robert never displayed more resource, more
energy, and more skill, than he did in the spring of 1835. But
knowledge of human nature was not Sir Robert Peel's strong point, and
it argued some deficiency in that respect, to suppose that the fitness
of his measures could disarm a vindictive opposition. On the contrary,
they rather whetted their desire of revenge, and they were doubly loth
that he should increase his reputation by availing himself of an
opportunity which they deemed the Tory party had unfairly acquired.
After the vote on the Speakership, Mr. Ferrars was offered a second-
class West Indian government. His wife would not listen to it. If it
were Jamaica, the offer might be considered, though it could scarcely
be accepted without great sacrifice. The children, for instance, must
be left at home. Strange to say, Mr. Ferrars was not disinclined to
accept the inferior post. Endymion he looked upon as virtually
provided for, and Myra, he thought, might accompany them; if only for
a year. But he ultimately yielded, though not without a struggle, to
the strong feeling of his wife.
"I do not see why I also should not be left behind," said Myra to her
brother in one of their confidential walks. "I should like to live in
London in lodgings with you."
The approaching appointment of her brother filled her from the first
with the greatest interest. She was always talking of it when they
were alone--fancying his future life, and planning how it might be
happier and more easy. "My only joy in life is seeing you," she
sometimes said, "and yet this separation does not make me unhappy. It
seems a chance from heaven for you. I pray every night it may be the
Foreign Office."
The ministry were still sanguine as to their prospects in the month of
March, and they deemed that public opinion was rallying round Sir
Robert. Perhaps Lord John Russell, who was the leader of the
opposition, felt this, in some degree, himself, and he determined to
bring affairs to a crisis by notice of a motion respecting the
appropriation of the revenues of the Irish Church. Then Barron wrote
to Mr. Ferrars that affairs did not look so well, and advised him to
come up to town, and take anything that offered. "It is something," he
remarked, "to have something to give up. We shall not, I suppose,
always be out of office, and they get preferred more easily whose
promotion contributes to patronage, even while they claim its
exercise."
The ministry were in a minority on the Irish Church on April 2, the
day on which Mr. Ferrars arrived in town. They did not resign, but the
attack was to be repeated in another form on the 6th. During the
terrible interval Mr. Ferrars made distracted visits to Downing
Street, saw secretaries of state, who sympathised with him not
withstanding their own chagrin, and was closeted daily and hourly with
under-secretaries, parliamentary and permanent, who really alike
wished to serve him. But there was nothing to be had. He was almost
meditating taking Sierra Leone, or the Gold Coast, when the
resignation of Sir Robert Peel was announced. At the last moment,
there being, of course, no vacancy in the Foreign Office, or the
Treasury, he obtained from Barron an appointment for Endymion, and so,
after having left Hurstley five months before to become Governor-
General of India, this man, "who had claims," returned to his
mortified home with a clerkship for his son in a second-rate
government office.
CHAPTER XIX
Disappointment and distress, it might be said despair, seemed fast
settling again over the devoted roof of Hurstley, after a three years'
truce of tranquillity. Even the crushing termination of her worldly
hopes was forgotten for the moment by Mrs. Ferrars in her anguish at
the prospect of separation from Endymion. Such a catastrophe she had
never for a moment contemplated. True it was she had been delighted
with the scheme of his entering the Foreign Office, but that was on
the assumption that she was to enter office herself, and that,
whatever might be the scene of the daily labours of her darling child,
her roof should be his home, and her indulgent care always at his
command. But that she was absolutely to part with Endymion, and that,
at his tender age, he was to be launched alone into the wide world,
was an idea that she could not entertain, or even comprehend. Who was
to clothe him, and feed him, and tend him, and save him from being run
over, and guide and guard him in all the difficulties and dangers of
this mundane existence? It was madness, it was impossible. But Mr.
Ferrars, though gentle, was firm. No doubt it was to be wished that
the event could have been postponed for a year; but its occurrence,
unless all prospect of establishment in life were surrendered, was
inevitable, and a slight delay would hardly render the conditions
under which it happened less trying. Though Endymion was only sixteen,
he was tall and manly beyond his age, and during the latter years of
his life, his naturally sweet temper and genial disposition had been
schooled in self-discipline and self-sacrifice. He was not to be
wholly left to strangers; Mr. Ferrars had spoken to Rodney about
receiving him, at least for the present, and steps would be taken that
those who presided over his office would be influenced in his favour.
The appointment was certainly not equal to what had been originally
anticipated; but still the department, though not distinguished, was
highly respectable, and there was no reason on earth, if the
opportunity offered, that Endymion should not be removed from his
present post to one in the higher departments of the state. But if
this opening were rejected, what was to be the future of their son?
They could not afford to send him to the University, nor did Mr.
Ferrars wish him to take refuge in the bosom of the Church. As for the
army, they had now no interest to acquire commissions, and if they
could succeed so far, they could not make him an allowance, which
would permit him to maintain himself as became his rank. The civil
service remained, in which his grandfather had been eminent, and in
which his own parent, at any rate, though the victim of a revolution,
had not disgraced himself. It seemed, under the circumstances, the
natural avenue for their child. At least, he thought it ought to be
tried. He wished nothing to be settled without the full concurrence of
Endymion himself. The matter should be put fairly and clearly before
him, "and for this purpose," concluded Mr. Ferrars, "I have just sent
for him to my room;" and he retired.
The interview between the father and the son was long. When Endymion
left the room his countenance was pale, but its expression was firm
and determined. He went forth into the garden, and there he saw Myra.
"How long you have been!" she said; "I have been watching for you.
What is settled?"
He took her arm, and in silence led her away into one of the glades
Then he said: "I have settled to go, and I am resolved, so long as I
live, that I will never cost dear papa another shilling. Things here
are very bad, quite as bad as you have sometimes fancied. But do not
say anything to poor mamma about them."
Mr. Ferrars resolved that Endymion should go to London immediately,
and the preparations for his departure were urgent. Myra did
everything. If she had been the head of a family she could not have
been more thoughtful or apparently more experienced. If she had a
doubt, she stepped over to Mrs. Penruddock and consulted her. As for
Mrs. Ferrars, she had become very unwell, and unable to attend to
anything. Her occasional interference, fitful and feverish, and
without adequate regard to circumstances, only embarrassed them. But,
generally speaking, she kept to her own room, and was always weeping.
The last day came. No one pretended not to be serious and grave. Mrs.
Ferrars did not appear, but saw Endymion alone. She did not speak, but
locked him in her arms for many minutes, and then kissed him on the
forehead, and, by a gentle motion, intimating that he should retire,
she fell back on her sofa with closed eyes. He was alone for a short
time with his father after dinner. Mr. Ferrars said to him: "I have
treated you in this matter as a man, and I have entire confidence in
you. Your business in life is to build up again a family which was
once honoured."
Myra was still copying inventories when he returned to the drawing-
room. "These are for myself," she said, "so I shall always know what
you ought to have. Though you go so early, I shall make your breakfast
to-morrow," and, leaning back on the sofa, she took his hand. "Things
are dark, and I fancy they will be darker; but brightness will come,
somehow or other, to you, darling, for you are born for brightness.
You will find friends in life, and they will be women."
It was nearly three years since Endymion had travelled down to
Hurstley by the same coach that was now carrying him to London. Though
apparently so uneventful, the period had not been unimportant in the
formation, doubtless yet partial, of his character. And all its
influences had been beneficial to him. The crust of pride and
selfishness with which large prosperity and illimitable indulgence had
encased a kind, and far from presumptuous, disposition had been
removed; the domestic sentiments in their sweetness and purity had
been developed; he had acquired some skills in scholarship and no
inconsiderable fund of sound information; and the routine of religious
thought had been superseded in his instance by an amount of knowledge
and feeling on matters theological, unusual at his time of life.
Though apparently not gifted with any dangerous vivacity, or fatal
facility of acquisition, his mind seemed clear and painstaking, and
distinguished by common sense. He was brave and accurate.
Mr. Rodney was in waiting for him at the inn. He seemed a most
distinguished gentleman. A hackney coach carried them to Warwick
Street, where he was welcomed by Mrs. Rodney, who was exquisitely
dressed. There was also her sister, a girl not older than Endymion,
the very image of Mrs. Rodney, except that she was a brunette--a
brilliant brunette. This sister bore the romantic name of Imogene, for
which she was indebted to her father performing the part of the
husband of the heroine in Maturin's tragedy of the "Castle of St.
Aldobrand," and which, under the inspiration of Kean, had set the town
in a blaze about the time of her birth. Tea was awaiting him, and
there was a mixture in their several manners of not ungraceful
hospitality and the remembrance of past dependence, which was genuine
and not uninteresting, though Endymion was yet too inexperienced to
observe all this.
Mrs. Rodney talked very much of Endymion's mother; her wondrous
beauty, her more wondrous dresses; the splendour of her fetes and
equipages. As she dilated on the past, she seemed to share its lustre
and its triumphs. "The first of the land were always in attendance on
her," and for Mrs. Rodney's part, she never saw a real horsewoman
since her dear lady. Her sister did not speak, but listened with rapt
attention to the gorgeous details, occasionally stealing a glance at
Endymion--a glance of deep interest, of admiration mingled as it were
both with reverence and pity.
Mr. Rodney took up the conversation if his wife paused. He spoke of
all the leading statesmen who had been the habitual companions of Mr.
Ferrars, and threw out several anecdotes respecting them from personal
experience. "I knew them all," continued Mr. Rodney, "I might say
intimately;" and then he told his great anecdote, how he had been so
fortunate as perhaps even to save the Duke's life during the Reform
Bill riots. "His Grace has never forgotten it, and only the day before
yesterday I met him in St. James' Street walking with Mr. Arbuthnot,
and he touched his hat to me."
All this gossip and good nature, and the kind and lively scene, saved
Endymion from the inevitable pang, or at least greatly softened it,
which accompanies our first separation from home. In due season, Mrs.
Rodney observed that she doubted not Mr. Endymion, for so they ever
called him, must be wearied with his journey, and would like to retire
to his room; and her husband, immediately lighting a candle, prepared
to introduce their new lodger to his quarters.
It was a tall house, which had recently been renovated, with a story
added to it, and on this story was Endymion's chamber; not absolutely
a garret, but a modern substitute for that sort of apartment. "It is
rather high," said Mr. Rodney, half apologising for the ascent, "but
Mr. Ferrars himself chose the room. We took the liberty of lighting a
fire to-night."
And the cheerful blaze was welcome. It lit up a room clean and not
uncomfortable. Feminine solicitude had fashioned a toilette-table for
him, and there was a bunch of geraniums in a blue vase on its
sparkling dimity garniture. "I suppose you have in your bag all that
you want at present?" said Mr. Rodney. "To-morrow we will unpack your
trunks and arrange your things in their drawers; and after breakfast,
if you please, I will show you your way to Somerset House."
Somerset House! thought Endymion, as he stood before the fire alone.
Is it so near as that? To-morrow, and I am to be at Somerset House!
And then he thought of what they were doing at Hurstley--of that
terrible parting with his mother, which made him choke--and of his
father's last words. And then he thought of Myra, and the tears stole
down his cheek. And then he knelt down by his bedside and prayed.
CHAPTER XX
Mr. Rodney would have accompanied Endymion to Somerset House under any
circumstances, but it so happened that he had reasons of his own for a
visit to that celebrated building. He had occasion to see a gentleman
who was stationed there. "Not," as he added to Endymion, "that I know
many here, but at the Treasury and in Downing Street I have several
acquaintances."
They separated at the door in the great quadrangle which led to the
department to which Endymion was attached, and he contrived in due
time to deliver to a messenger a letter addressed to his future chief.
He was kept some time in a gloomy and almost unfurnished waiting-room,
and his thoughts in a desponding mood were gathering round the dear
ones who were distant, when he was summoned, and, following the
messenger down a passage, was ushered into a lively apartment on which
the sun was shining, and which, with its well-lined book-shelves, and
tables covered with papers, and bright noisy clock, and general air of
habitation and business, contrasted favourably with the room he had
just quitted. A good-natured-looking man held out his hand and
welcomed him cordially, and said at once, "I served, Mr. Ferrars,
under your grandfather at the Treasury, and I am glad to see you
here." Then he spoke of the duties which Endymion would have at
present to discharge. His labours at first would be somewhat
mechanical; they would require only correctness and diligence; but the
office was a large one, and promotion not only sure, but sometimes
rapid, and as he was so young, he might with attention count on
attaining, while yet in the prime of life, a future of very
responsible duties and of no inconsiderable emolument. And while he
was speaking he rang the bell and commanded the attendance of a clerk,
under whose care Endymion was specially placed. This was a young man
of pleasant address, who invited Endymion with kindness to accompany
him, and leading him through several chambers, some capacious, and all
full of clerks seated on high stools and writing at desks, finally
ushered him into a smaller chamber where there were not above six or
eight at work, and where there was a vacant seat. "This is your
place," he said, "and now I will introduce you to your future
comrades. This is Mr. Jawett, the greatest Radical of the age, and
who, when he is President of the Republic, will, I hope, do a job for
his friends here. This is Mr. St. Barbe, who, when the public taste
has improved, will be the most popular author of the day. In the
meantime he will give you a copy of his novel, which has not sold as
it ought to have done, and in which we say he has quizzed all his
friends. This is Mr. Seymour Hicks, who, as you must perceive, is a
man of fashion." And so he went on, with what was evidently accustomed
raillery. All laughed, and all said something courteous to Endymion,
and then after a few minutes they resumed their tasks, Endymion's work
being to copy long lists of figures, and routine documents of public
accounts.
In the meantime, Mr. St. Barbe was busy in drawing up a public
document of a different but important character, and which was
conceived something in this fashion:--
"We, the undersigned, highly approving of the personal appearance and
manners of our new colleague, are unanimously of opinion that he
should be invited to join our symposium to-day at the immortal Joe's."
This was quietly passed round and signed by all present, and then
given to Mr. Trenchard, who, all unconsciously to the copying
Endymion, wrote upon it, like a minister of state, "Approved," with
his initial.
Joe's, more technically known as "The Blue Posts," was a celebrated
chop-house in Naseby Street, a large, low-ceilinged, wainscoted room,
with the floor strewn with sawdust, and a hissing kitchen in the
centre, and fitted up with what were called boxes, these being of
various sizes, and suitable to the number of the guests requiring
them. About this time the fashionable coffee-houses, George's and the
Piazza, and even the coffee-rooms of Stevens' or Long's, had begun to
feel the injurious competition of the new clubs that of late years had
been established; but these, after all, were limited, and,
comparatively speaking, exclusive societies. Their influence had not
touched the chop-houses, and it required another quarter of a century
before their cheerful and hospitable roofs and the old taverns of
London, so full, it ever seemed, of merriment and wisdom, yielded to
the gradually increasing but irresistible influence of those
innumerable associations, which, under classic names, or affecting to
be the junior branches of celebrated confederacies, have since secured
to the million, at cost price, all the delicacies of the season, and
substituted for the zealous energy of immortal JOES the inexorable but
frigid discipline of managing committees.
"You are our guest to-day," said Mr. Trenchard to Endymion. "Do not be
embarrassed. It is a custom with us, but not a ruinous one. We dine
off the joint, but the meat is first-rate, and you may have as much as
you like, and our tipple is half-and-half. Perhaps you do not know it.
Let me drink to your health."
They ate most heartily; but when their well-earned meal was
despatched, their conversation, assisted by a moderate portion of some
celebrated toddy, became animated, various, and interesting. Endymion
was highly amused; but being a stranger, and the youngest present, his
silence was not unbecoming, and his manner indicated that it was not
occasioned by want of sympathy. The talk was very political. They were
all what are called Liberals, having all of them received their
appointments since the catastrophe of 1830; but the shades in the
colour of their opinions were various and strong. Jawett was
uncompromising; ruthlessly logical, his principles being clear, he was
for what he called "carrying them out" to their just conclusions.
Trenchard, on the contrary, thought everything ought to be a
compromise, and that a public man ceased to be practical the moment he
was logical. St. Barbe believed that literature and the arts, and
intellect generally, had as little to hope for from one party as from
the other; while Seymour Hicks was of opinion that the Tories never
would rally, owing to their deficiency in social influences. Seymour
Hicks sometimes got an invitation to a ministerial soiree.
The vote of the House of Commons in favour of an appropriation of the
surplus revenues of the Irish Church to the purposes of secular
education--a vote which had just changed the government and expelled
the Tories--was much discussed. Jawett denounced it as a miserable
subterfuge, but with a mildness of manner and a mincing expression,
which amusingly contrasted with the violence of his principles and the
strength of his language.
"The whole of the revenues of the Protestant Church should be at once
appropriated to secular education, or to some other purpose of general
utility," he said. "And it must come to this."
Trenchard thought the ministry had gone as far in this matter as they
well could, and Seymour Hicks remarked that any government which
systematically attacked the Church would have "society" against it.
Endymion, who felt very nervous, but who on Church questions had
strong convictions, ventured to ask why the Church should be deprived
of its property.
"In the case of Ireland," replied Jawett, quite in a tone of
conciliatory condescension, "because it does not fulfil the purpose
for which it was endowed. It has got the property of the nation, and
it is not the Church of the people. But I go further than that. I
would disendow every Church. They are not productive institutions.
There is no reason why they should exist. There is no use in them."
"No use in the Church!" said Endymion, reddening; but Mr. Trenchard,
who had tact, here interfered, and said, "I told you our friend Jawett
is a great Radical; but he is in a minority among us on these matters.
Everybody, however, says what he likes at Joe's."
Then they talked of theatres, and critically discussed the articles in
the daily papers and the last new book, and there was much discussion
respecting a contemplated subscription boat; but still, in general, it
was remarkable how they relapsed into their favourite subject--
speculation upon men in office, both permanent and parliamentary, upon
their characters and capacity, their habits and tempers. One was a
good administrator, another did nothing; one had no detail, another
too much; one was a screw, another a spendthrift; this man could make
a set speech, but could not reply; his rival, capital at a reply but
clumsy in a formal oration.
At this time London was a very dull city, instead of being, as it is
now, a very amusing one. Probably there never was a city in the world,
with so vast a population, which was so melancholy. The aristocracy
probably have always found amusements adapted to the manners of the
time and the age in which they lived. The middle classes, half a
century ago, had little distraction from their monotonous toil and
melancholy anxieties, except, perhaps, what they found in religious
and philanthropic societies. Their general life must have been very
dull. Some traditionary merriment always lingered among the working
classes of England. Both in town and country they had always their
games and fairs and junketing parties, which have developed into
excursion trains and colossal pic-nics. But of all classes of the
community, in the days of our fathers, there was none so unfortunate
in respect of public amusements as the bachelors about town. There
were, one might almost say, only two theatres, and they so huge, that
it was difficult to see or hear in either. Their monopolies, no longer
redeemed by the stately genius of the Kembles, the pathos of Miss
O'Neill, or the fiery passion of Kean, were already menaced, and were
soon about to fall; but the crowd of diminutive but sparkling
substitutes, which have since taken their place, had not yet appeared,
and half-price at Drury Lane or Covent Garden was a dreary distraction
after a morning of desk work. There were no Alhambras then, and no
Cremornes, no palaces of crystal in terraced gardens, no casinos, no
music-halls, no aquaria, no promenade concerts. Evans' existed, but
not in the fulness of its modern development; and the most popular
place of resort was the barbarous conviviality of the Cider Cellar.
Mr. Trenchard had paid the bill, collected his quotas and rewarded the
waiter, and then, as they all rose, said to Endymion, "We are going to
the Divan. Do you smoke?"
Endymion shook his head; but Trenchard added, "Well, you will some
day; but you had better come with us. You need not smoke; you can
order a cup of coffee, and then you may read all the newspapers and
magazines. It is a nice lounge."
So, emerging from Naseby Street into the Strand, they soon entered a
tobacconist's shop, and passing through it were admitted into a
capacious saloon, well lit and fitted up with low, broad sofas, fixed
against the walls, and on which were seated, or reclining, many
persons, chiefly smoking cigars, but some few practising with the
hookah and other oriental modes. In the centre of the room was a table
covered with newspapers and publications of that class. The companions
from Joe's became separated after their entrance, and St. Barbe,
addressing Endymion, said, "I am not inclined to smoke to-day. We will
order some coffee, and you will find some amusement in this;" and he
placed in his hands a number of "SCARAMOUCH."
"I hope you will like your new life," said St. Barbe, throwing down a
review on the Divan, and leaning back sipping his coffee. "One thing
may be said in favour of it: you will work with a body of as true-
hearted comrades as ever existed. They are always ready to assist one.
Thorough good-natured fellows, that I will say for them. I suppose it
is adversity," he continued, "that develops the kindly qualities of
our nature. I believe the sense of common degradation has a tendency
to make the degraded amiable--at least among themselves. I am told it
is found so in the plantations in slave-gangs."
"But I hope we are not a slave-gang," said Endymion.
"It is horrible to think of gentlemen, and men of education, and
perhaps first-rate talents--who knows?--reduced to our straits," said
St. Barbe. "I do not follow Jawett in all his views, for I hate
political economy, and never could understand it; and he gives it you
pure and simple, eh? eh?--but, I say, it is something awful to think
of the incomes that some men are making, who could no more write an
article in 'SCARAMOUCH' than fly."
"But our incomes may improve," said Endymion. "I was told to-day that
promotion was even rapid in our office."
"Our incomes may improve when we are bent and grey," said St. Barbe,
"and we may even retire on a pension about as good as a nobleman
leaves to his valet. Oh, it is a horrid world! Your father is a privy
councillor, is not he?"
"Yes, and so was my grandfather, but I do not think I shall ever be
one."
"It is a great thing to have a father a privy councillor," said St.
Barbe, with a glance of envy. "If I were the son of a privy
councillor, those demons, Shuffle and Screw, would give me 500 pounds
for my novel, which now they put in their beastly magazine and print
in small type, and do not pay me so much as a powdered flunkey has in
St. James' Square. I agree with Jawett: the whole thing is rotten."
"Mr. Jawett seems to have very strange opinions," said Endymion. "I
did not like to hear what he said at dinner about the Church, but Mr.
Trenchard turned the conversation, and I thought it best to let it
pass."
"Trenchard is a sensible man, and a good fellow," said St. Barbe; "you
like him?"
"I find him kind."
"Do you know," said St. Barbe, in a whisper, and with a distressed and
almost vindictive expression of countenance, "that man may come any
day into four thousand a year. There is only one life between him and
the present owner. I believe it is a good life," he added, in a more
cheerful voice, "but still it might happen. Is it not horrible? Four
thousand a year! Trenchard with four thousand a year, and we receiving
little more than the pay of a butler!"
"Well, I wish, for his sake, he might have it," said Endymion, "though
I might lose a kind friend."
"Look at Seymour Hicks," said St. Barbe; "he has smoked his cigar, and
he is going. He never remains. He is going to a party, I'll be found.
That fellow gets about in a most extraordinary manner. Is it not
disgusting? I doubt whether he is asked much to dinner though, or I
think we should have heard of it. Nevertheless, Trenchard said the
other day that Hicks had dined with Lord Cinque-Ports. I can hardly
believe it; it would be too disgusting. No lord ever asked me to
dinner. But the aristocracy of this country are doomed!"
"Mr. Hicks," said Endymion, "probably lays himself out for society."
"I suppose you will," said St. Barbe, with a scrutinising air. "I
should if I were the son of a privy councillor. Hicks is nothing; his
father kept a stable-yard and his mother was an actress. We have had
several dignitaries of the Church in my family and one admiral. And
yet Hicks dines with Lord Cinque-Ports! It is positively revolting!
But the things he does to get asked!--sings, rants, conjures,
ventriloquises, mimics, stands on his head. His great performance is a
parliamentary debate. We will make him do it for you. And yet with all
this a dull dog--a very dull dog, sir. He wrote for 'Scaramouch' some
little time, but they can stand it no more. Between you and me, he has
had notice to quit. That I know; and he will probably get the letter
when he goes home from his party to-night. So much for success in
society! I shall now say good-night to you."
CHAPTER XXI
It was only ten o'clock when Endymion returned to Warwick Street, and
for the first time in his life used a pass-key, with which Mr. Rodney
had furnished him in the morning, and re-entered his new home. He
thought he had used it very quietly, and was lighting his candle and
about to steal up to his lofty heights, when from the door of the
parlour, which opened into the passage, emerged Miss Imogene, who took
the candlestick from his hand and insisted on waiting upon him.
"I thought I heard something," she said; "you must let me light you
up, for you can hardly yet know your way. I must see too if all is
right; you may want something."
So she tripped up lightly before him, showing, doubtless without
premeditation, as well-turned an ankle and as pretty a foot as could
fall to a damsel's fortunate lot. "My sister and Mr. Rodney have gone
to the play," she said, "but they left strict instructions with me to
see that you were comfortable, and that you wanted for nothing that we
could supply."
"You are too kind," said Endymion, as she lighted the candles on his
dressing-table, "and, to tell you the truth, these are luxuries I am
not accustomed to, and to which I am not entitled."
"And yet," she said, with a glance of blended admiration and pity,
"they tell me time was when gold was not good enough for you, and I do
not think it could be."
"Such kindness as this," said Endymion, "is more precious than gold."
"I hope you will find your things well arranged. All your clothes are
in these two drawers; the coats in the bottom one, and your linen in
those above. You will not perhaps be able to find your pocket-
handkerchiefs at first. They are in this sachet; my sister made it
herself. Mr. Rodney says you are to be called at eight o'clock and
breakfast at nine. I think everything is right. Good-night, Mr.
Endymion."
The Rodney household was rather a strange one. The first two floors,
as we have mentioned, were let, and at expensive rates, for the
apartments were capacious and capitally furnished, and the situation,
if not distinguished, was extremely convenient--quiet from not being a
thoroughfare, and in the heart of civilisation. They only kept a
couple of servants, but their principal lodgers had their personal
attendants. And yet after sunset the sisters appeared and presided at
their tea-table, always exquisitely dressed; seldom alone, for Mr.
Rodney had many friends, and lived in a capacious apartment, rather
finely furnished, with a round table covered with gaudy print-books, a
mantelpiece crowded with vases of mock Dresden, and a cottage piano,
on which Imogene could accompany her more than pleasing voice.
Somehow or other, the process is difficult to trace, Endymion not
unfrequently found himself at Mrs. Rodney's tea-table. On the first
occasion or so, he felt himself a little shy and embarrassed, but it
soon became natural to him, and he would often escape from the
symposia at Joe's, and, instead of the Divan, find in Warwick Street a
more congenial scene. There were generally some young men there, who
seemed delighted with the ladies, listened with enthusiasm to
Imogene's singing, and were allowed to smoke. They were evidently
gentlemen, and indeed Mr. Rodney casually mentioned to Endymion that
one of the most frequent guests might some day even be a peer of the
realm. Sometimes there was a rubber of whist, and, if wanted, Mrs.
Rodney took a hand in it; Endymion sitting apart and conversing with
her sister, who amused him by her lively observations, indicating even
flashes of culture; but always addressed him without the slightest
pretence and with the utmost naturalness. This was not the case with
Mr. Rodney; pretence with him was ingrained, and he was at first
somewhat embarrassed by the presence of Endymion, as he could hardly
maintain before his late patron's son his favourite character of the
aristocratic victim of revolution. And yet this drawback was more than
counterbalanced by the gratification of his vanity in finding a
Ferrars his habitual guest. Such a luxury seemed a dangerous
indulgence, but he could not resist it, and the moth was always flying
round the candle. There was no danger, however, and that Mr. Rodney
soon found out. Endymion was born with tact, and it came to him as
much from goodness of heart as fineness of taste. Mr. Rodney,
therefore, soon resumed his anecdotes of great men and his personal
experience of their sayings, manners, and customs, with which he was
in the habit of enlivening or ornamenting the whist table;
occasionally introducing Endymion to the notice of the table by
mentioning in a low tone, "That is Mr. Ferrars, in a certain sense
under my care; his father is a privy councillor, and had it not been
for the revolution--for I maintain, and always will, the Reform Bill
was neither more nor less than a revolution--would probably have been
Prime Minister. He was my earliest and my best friend."
When there were cards, there was always a little supper: a lobster and
a roasted potato and that sort of easy thing, and curious drinks,
which the sisters mixed and made, and which no one else, at least all
said so, could mix and make. On fitting occasions a bottle of
champagne appeared, and then the person for whom the wine was produced
was sure with wonderment to say, "Where did you get this champagne,
Rodney? Could you get me some?" Mr. Rodney shook his head and scarcely
gave a hope, but subsequently, when the praise in consequence had
continued and increased, would observe, "Do you really want some? I
cannot promise, but I will try. Of course they will ask a high
figure."
"Anything they like, my dear Rodney."
And in about a week's time the gentleman was so fortunate as to get
his champagne.
There was one subject in which Mr. Rodney appeared to be particularly
interested, and that was racing. The turf at that time had not
developed into that vast institution of national demoralisation which
it now exhibits. That disastrous character may be mainly attributed to
the determination of our legislators to put down gaming-houses, which,
practically speaking, substituted for the pernicious folly of a
comparatively limited class the ruinous madness of the community.
There were many influences by which in the highest classes persons
might be discouraged or deterred from play under a roof; and in the
great majority of cases such a habit was difficult, not to say
impossible, to indulge. But in shutting up gaming-houses, we brought
the gaming-table into the street, and its practices became the pursuit
of those who would otherwise have never witnessed or even thought of
them. No doubt Crockford's had its tragedies, but all its disasters
and calamities together would hardly equal a lustre of the ruthless
havoc which has ensued from its suppression.
Nevertheless, in 1835 men made books, and Mr. Rodney was not inexpert
in a composition which requires no ordinary qualities of character and
intelligence; method, judgment, self-restraint, not too much
imagination, perception of character, and powers of calculation. All
these qualities were now in active demand and exercise; for the Derby
was at hand, and the Rodney family, deeply interested in the result,
were to attend the celebrated festival.
One of the young gentlemen, who sometimes smoked a cigar and sometimes
tasted a lobster in their parlour, and who seemed alike and equally
devoted to Mrs. Rodney and her sister, insisted upon taking them to
Epsom in his drag, and they themselves were to select the party to
accompany them. That was not difficult, for they were naturally all
friends of their munificent host with one exception. Imogene
stipulated that Endymion should be asked, and Mr. Rodney supported the
suggestion. "He is the son of the privy councillor the Right Hon.
William Pitt Ferrars, my earliest and my best friend, and in a certain
sense is under my care."
The drive to the Derby was not then shorn of its humours and glories.
It was the Carnival of England, with equipages as numerous and
various, and with banter not less quick and witty. It was a bright day
--a day, no doubt, of wild hopes and terrible fears, but yet, on the
whole, of joy and exultation. And no one was happier and prouder than
pretty Mrs. Rodney, exquisitely dressed and sitting on the box of a
patrician drag, beside its noble owner. On the seat behind them was
Imogene, with Endymion on one side, and on the other the individual
"who might one day be a peer." Mr. Rodney and some others, including
Mr. Vigo, faced a couple of grooms, who sat with folded arms and
unmoved countenances, fastidiously stolid amid all the fun, and grave
even when they opened the champagne.
The right horse won. Mr. Rodney and his friends pocketed a good stake,
and they demolished their luncheon of luxuries with frantic gaiety.
"It is almost as happy as our little suppers in Warwick Street,"
whispered their noble driver to his companion.
"Oh! much more than anything you can find there," simpered Mrs.
Rodney.
"I declare to you, some of the happiest hours of my life have been
passed in Warwick Street," gravely murmured her friend.
"I wish I could believe that," said Mrs. Rodney.
As for Endymion, he enjoyed himself amazingly. The whole scene was new
to him--he had never been at a race before, and this was the most
famous of races. He did not know he had betted, but he found he too
had won a little money, Mr. Rodney having put him on something, though
what that meant he had not the remotest idea. Imogene, however,
assured him it was all right--Mr. Rodney constantly put her on
something. He enjoyed the luncheon too; the cold chicken, and the
French pies, the wondrous salads, and the iced champagne. It seemed
that Imogene was always taking care that his plate or his glass should
be filled. Everything was delightful, and his noble host, who, always
courteous, had hitherto been reserved, called him "Ferrars."
What with the fineness of the weather, the inspirations of the excited
and countless multitude, the divine stimulus of the luncheon, the
kindness of his charming companions, and the general feeling of
enjoyment and success that seemed to pervade his being, Endymion felt
as he were almost acting a distinguished part in some grand triumph of
antiquity, as returning home, the four splendid dark chestnuts swept
along, two of their gay company playing bugles, and the grooms sitting
with folded arms of haughty indifference.
Just at this moment his eye fell upon an omnibus full, inside and out,
of clerks in his office. There was a momentary stoppage, and while he
returned the salute of several of them, his quick eye could not avoid
recognising the slightly surprised glance of Trenchard, the curious
amazement of Seymour Hicks, and the indignant astonishment of St.
Barbe.
"Our friend Ferrars seems in tiptop company," said Trenchard.
"That may have been a countess on the box," said Seymour Hicks, "for I
observed an earl's coronet on the drag. I cannot make out who it is."
"There is no more advantage in going with four horses than with two,"
said St. Barbe; "indeed, I believe you go slower. It is mere pride;
puffed-up vanity. I should like to send those two grooms with their
folded arms to the galleys--I hate those fellows. For my part, I never
was behind four horses except in a stage-coach. No peer of the realm
ever took me on his drag. However, a day of reckoning will come; the
people won't stand this much longer."
Jawett was not there, for he disapproved of races.
CHAPTER XXII
Endymion had to encounter a rather sharp volley when he went to the
office next morning. After some general remarks as to the
distinguished party which he had accompanied to the races, Seymour
Hicks could not resist inquiring, though with some circumlocution,
whether the lady was a countess. The lady was not a countess. Who was
the lady? The lady was Mrs. Rodney. Who was Mrs. Rodney? She was the
wife of Mr. Rodney, who accompanied her. Was Mr. Rodney a relation of
Lord Rodney? Endymion believed he was not a relation of Lord Rodney.
Who was Mr. Rodney then?
"Mr. Rodney is an old friend of my father."
This natural solution of doubts and difficulties arrested all further
inquiry. Generally speaking, the position of Endymion in his new life
was satisfactory. He was regular and assiduous in his attendance at
office, was popular with his comrades, and was cherished by his chief,
who had even invited him to dinner. His duties were certainly at
present mechanical, but they were associated with an interesting
profession; and humble as was his lot, he began to feel the pride of
public life. He continued to be a regular guest at Joe's, and was
careful not to seem to avoid the society of his fellow-clerks in the
evenings, for he had an instinctive feeling that it was as well they
should not become acquainted with his circle in Warwick Street. And
yet to him the attractions of that circle became daily more difficult
to resist. And often when he was enduring the purgatory of the Divan,
listening to the snarls of St. Barbe over the shameful prosperity of
everybody in this world except the snarler, or perhaps went half-price
to the pit of Drury Lane with the critical Trenchard, he was, in
truth, restless and absent, and his mind was in another place,
indulging in visions which he did not care to analyse, but which were
very agreeable.
One evening, shortly after the expedition to Epsom, while the rest
were playing a rubber, Imogene said to him, "I wish you to be friends
with Mr. Vigo; I think he might be of use to you."
Mr. Vigo was playing whist at this moment; his partner was Sylvia, and
they were playing against Mr. Rodney and Waldershare.
Waldershare was a tenant of the second floor. He was the young
gentleman "who might some day be a peer." He was a young man of about
three or four and twenty years; fair, with short curly brown hair and
blue eyes; not exactly handsome, but with a countenance full of
expression, and the index of quick emotions, whether of joy or of
anger. Waldershare was the only child of a younger son of a patrician
house, and had inherited from his father a moderate but easy fortune.
He had been the earliest lodger of the Rodneys, and, taking advantage
of the Tory reaction, had just been returned to the House of Commons.
What he would do there was a subject of interesting speculation to his
numerous friends, and it may be said admirers. Waldershare was one of
those vivid and brilliant organisations which exercise a peculiarly
attractive influence on youth. He had been the hero of the debating
club at Cambridge, and many believed in consequence that he must
become prime minister. He was witty and fanciful, and, though
capricious and bad-tempered, could flatter and caress. At Cambridge he
had introduced the new Oxford heresy, of which Nigel Penruddock was a
votary. Waldershare prayed and fasted, and swore by Laud and
Strafford. He took, however, a more eminent degree at Paris than at
his original Alma Mater, and becoming passionately addicted to French
literature, his views respecting both Church and State became modified
--at least in private. His entrance into English society had been
highly successful, and as he had a due share of vanity, and was by no
means free from worldliness, he had enjoyed and pursued his triumphs.
But his versatile nature, which required not only constant, but novel
excitement, became palled, even with the society of duchesses. There
was a monotony in the splendour of aristocratic life which wearied
him, and for some time he had persuaded himself that the only people
who understood the secret of existence were the family under whose
roof he lodged.
Waldershare was profligate, but sentimental; unprincipled, but
romantic; the child of whim, and the slave of an imagination so
freakish and deceptive, that it was always impossible to foretell his
course. He was alike capable of sacrificing all his feelings to
worldly considerations or of forfeiting the world for a visionary
caprice. At present his favourite scheme, and one to which he seemed
really attached, was to educate Imogene. Under his tuition he had
persuaded himself that she would turn out what he styled "a great
woman." An age of vast change, according to Waldershare, was impending
over us. There was no male career in which one could confide. Most men
of mark would probably be victims, but "a great woman" must always
make her way. Whatever the circumstances, she would adapt herself to
them; if necessary, would mould and fashion them. His dream was that
Imogene should go forth and conquer the world, and that in the sunset
of life he should find a refuge in some corner of her palace.
Imogene was only a child when Waldershare first became a lodger. She
used to bring his breakfast to his drawing-room and arrange his table.
He encountered her one day, and he requested her to remain, and always
preside over his meal. He fell in love with her name, and wrote her a
series of sonnets, idealising her past, panegyrising her present, and
prophetic of her future life. Imogene, who was neither shy nor
obtrusive, was calm amid all his vagaries, humoured his fancies, even
when she did not understand them, and read his verses as she would a
foreign language which she was determined to master.
Her culture, according to Waldershare, was to be carried on chiefly by
conversations. She was not to read, or at least not to read much,
until her taste was formed and she had acquired the due share of
previous knowledge necessary to profitable study. As Waldershare was
eloquent, brilliant, and witty, Imogene listened to him with wondering
interest and amusement, even when she found some difficulty in
following him; but her apprehension was so quick and her tact so fine,
that her progress, though she was almost unconscious of it, was
remarkable. Sometimes in the evening, while the others were smoking
together or playing whist, Waldershare and Imogene, sitting apart,
were engaged in apparently the most interesting converse. It was
impossible not to observe the animation and earnestness of
Waldershare, and the great attention with which his companion
responded to his representations. Yet all this time he was only giving
her a lecture on Madame de Sevigne.
Waldershare used to take Imogene to the National Gallery and Hampton
Court, and other delightful scenes of popular education, but of late
Mrs. Rodney had informed her sister that she was no longer young
enough to permit these expeditions. Imogene accepted the announcement
without a murmur, but it occasioned Waldershare several sonnets of
heartrending remonstrance. Imogene continued, however, to make his
breakfast, and kept his Parliamentary papers in order, which he never
could manage, but the mysteries of which Imogene mastered with
feminine quickness and precision. Whenever Waldershare was away he
always maintained a constant correspondence with Imogene. In this he
communicated everything to her without the slightest reserve;
describing everything he saw, almost everything he heard, pages
teeming with anecdotes of a world of which she could know nothing--the
secrets of courts and coteries, memoirs of princes and ministers, of
dandies and dames of fashion. "If anything happens to me," Waldershare
would say to Imogene, "this correspondence may be worth thousands to
you, and when it is published it will connect your name with mine, and
assist my grand idea of your becoming 'a great woman.'"
"But I do not know Mr. Vigo," whispered Endymion to Imogene.
"But you have met him here, and you went together to Epsom. It is
enough. He is going to ask you to dine with him on Saturday. We shall
be there, and Mr. Waldershare is going. He has a beautiful place, and
it will be very pleasant." And exactly as Imogene had anticipated, Mr.
Vigo, in the course of the evening, did ask Endymion to do him the
honour of being his guest.
The villa of Mr. Vigo was on the banks of the Thames, and had once
belonged to a noble customer. The Palladian mansion contained a suite
of chambers of majestic dimensions--lofty ceilings, rich cornices, and
vast windows of plate glass; the gardens were rich with the products
of conservatories which Mr. Vigo had raised with every modern
improvement, and a group of stately cedars supported the dignity of
the scene and gave to it a name. Beyond, a winding walk encircled a
large field which Mr. Vigo called the park, and which sparkled with
gold and silver pheasants, and the keeper lived in a newly-raised
habitation at the extreme end, which took the form of a Swiss cottage.
The Rodney family, accompanied by Mr. Waldershare and Endymion, went
to the Cedars by water. It was a delightful afternoon of June, the
river warm and still, and the soft, fitful western breeze occasionally
rich with the perfume of the gardens of Putney and Chiswick.
Waldershare talked the whole way. It was a rhapsody of fancy, fun,
knowledge, anecdote, brilliant badinage--even passionate seriousness.
Sometimes he recited poetry, and his voice was musical; and, then,
when he had attuned his companions to a sentimental pitch, he would
break into mockery, and touch with delicate satire every mood of human
feeling. Endymion listened to him in silence and admiration. He had
never heard Waldershare talk before, and he had never heard anybody
like him. All this time, what was now, and ever, remarkable in
Waldershare were his manners. They were finished, even to courtliness.
Affable and winning, he was never familiar. He always addressed Sylvia
as if she were one of those duchesses round whom he used to linger. He
would bow deferentially to her remarks, and elicit from some of her
casual observations an acute or graceful meaning, of which she herself
was by no means conscious. The bow of Waldershare was a study. Its
grace and ceremony must have been organic; for there was no
traditionary type in existence from which he could have derived or
inherited it. He certainly addressed Imogene and spoke to her by her
Christian name; but this was partly because he was in love with the
name, and partly because he would persist in still treating her as a
child. But his manner to her always was that of tender respect. She
was almost as silent as Endymion during their voyage, but not less
attentive to her friend. Mr. Rodney was generally silent, and never
opened his mouth on this occasion except in answer to an inquiry from
his wife as to whom a villa might belong, and it seemed always that he
knew every villa, and every one to whom they belonged.
The sisters were in demi-toilette, which seemed artless, though in
fact it was profoundly devised. Sylvia was the only person who really
understood the meaning of "simplex munditiis," and this was one of the
secrets of her success. There were some ladies, on the lawn of the
Cedars when they arrived, not exactly of their school, and who were
finely and fully dressed. Mrs. Gamme was the wife of a sporting
attorney of Mr. Vigo, and who also, having a villa at hand, was looked
upon as a country neighbour. Mrs. Gamme was universally recognised to
be a fine woman, and she dressed up to her reputation. She was a
famous whist-player at high points, and dealt the cards with hands
covered with diamond rings. Another country neighbour was the chief
partner in the celebrated firm of Hooghley, Dacca, and Co., dealers in
Indian and other shawls. Mr. Hooghley had married a celebrated
actress, and was proud and a little jealous of his wife. Mrs. Hooghley
had always an opportunity at the Cedars of meeting some friends in her
former profession, for Mr. Vigo liked to be surrounded by genius and
art. "I must have talent," he would exclaim, as he looked round at the
amusing and motley multitude assembled at his splendid entertainments.
And to-day upon his lawn might be observed the first tenor of the
opera and a prima-donna who had just arrived, several celebrated
members of the English stage of both sexes, artists of great
reputation, whose principal works already adorned the well-selected
walls of the Cedars, a danseuse or two of celebrity, some literary
men, as Mr. Vigo styled them, who were chiefly brethren of the
political press, and more than one member of either House of
Parliament.
Just as the party were preparing to leave the lawn and enter the
dining-room arrived, breathless and glowing, the young earl who had
driven the Rodneys to the Derby.
"A shaver, my dear Vigo! Only returned to town this afternoon, and
found your invitation. How fortunate!" And then he looked around, and
recognising Mrs. Rodney, was immediately at her side. "I must have the
honour of taking you into dinner. I got your note, but only by this
morning's post."
The dinner was a banquet,--a choice bouquet before every guest, turtle
and venison and piles of whitebait, and pine-apples of prodigious
size, and bunches of grapes that had gained prizes. The champagne
seemed to flow in fountains, and was only interrupted that the guests
might quaff Burgundy or taste Tokay. But what was more delightful than
all was the enjoyment of all present, and especially of their host.
That is a rare sight. Banquets are not rare, nor choice guests, nor
gracious hosts; but when do we ever see a person enjoy anything? But
these gay children of art and whim, and successful labour and happy
speculation, some of them very rich and some of them without a sou,
seemed only to think of the festive hour and all its joys. Neither
wealth nor poverty brought them cares. Every face sparkled, every word
seemed witty, and every sound seemed sweet. A band played upon the
lawn during the dinner, and were succeeded, when the dessert
commenced, by strange choruses from singers of some foreign land, who
for the first time aired their picturesque costumes on the banks of
the Thames.
When the ladies had withdrawn to the saloon, the first comic singer of
the age excelled himself; and when they rejoined their fair friends,
the primo-tenore and the prima-donna gave them a grand scene,
succeeded by the English performers in a favourite scene from a famous
farce. Then Mrs. Gamme had an opportunity of dealing with her diamond
rings, and the rest danced--a waltz of whirling grace, or merry
cotillon of jocund bouquets.
"Well, Clarence," said Waldershare to the young earl, as they stood
for a moment apart, "was I right?"
"By Jove! yes. It is the only life. You were quite right. We should
indeed be fools to sacrifice ourselves to the conventional."
The Rodney party returned home in the drag of the last speaker. They
were the last to retire, as Mr. Vigo wished for one cigar with his
noble friend. As he bade farewell, and cordially, to Endymion, he
said, "Call on me to-morrow morning in Burlington Street in your way
to your office. Do not mind the hour. I am an early bird."
CHAPTER XXIII
"It is no favour," said Mr. Vigo; "it is not even an act of
friendliness; it is a freak, and it is my freak; the favour, if there
be one, is conferred by you."
"But I really do not know what to say," said Endymion, hesitating and
confused.
"I am not a classical scholar," said Mr. Vigo, "but there are two
things which I think I understand--men and horses. I like to back them
both when I think they ought to win."
"But I am scarcely a man," said Endymion, rather piteously, "and I
sometimes think I shall never win anything."
"That is my affair," replied Mr. Vigo; "you are a yearling, and I have
formed my judgment as to your capacity. What I wish to do in your case
is what I have done in others, and some memorable ones. Dress does not
make a man, but it often makes a successful one. The most precious
stone, you know, must be cut and polished. I shall enter your name in
my books for an unlimited credit, and no account to be settled till
you are a privy councillor. I do not limit the credit, because you are
a man of sense and a gentleman, and will not abuse it. But be quite as
careful not to stint yourself as not to be needlessly extravagant. In
the first instance, you would be interfering with my experiment, and
that would not be fair."
This conversation took place in Mr. Vigo's counting-house the morning
after the entertainment at his villa. Endymion called upon Mr. Vigo in
his way to his office, as he had been requested to do, and Mr. Vigo
had expressed his wishes and intentions with regard to Endymion, as
intimated in the preceding remarks.
"I have known many an heiress lost by her suitor being ill-dressed,"
said Mr. Vigo. "You must dress according to your age, your pursuits,
your object in life; you must dress too, in some cases, according to
your set. In youth a little fancy is rather expected, but if political
life be your object, it should be avoided, at least after one-and-
twenty. I am dressing two brothers now, men of considerable position;
one is a mere man of pleasure, the other will probably be a minister
of state. They are as like as two peas, but were I to dress the dandy
and the minister the same, it would be bad taste--it would be
ridiculous. No man gives me the trouble which Lord Eglantine does; he
has not made up his mind whether he will be a great poet or prime
minister. 'You must choose, my lord,' I tell him. 'I cannot send you
out looking like Lord Byron if you mean to be a Canning or a Pitt.' I
have dressed a great many of our statesmen and orators, and I always
dressed them according to their style and the nature of their duties.
What all men should avoid is the 'shabby genteel.' No man ever gets
over it. I will save you from that. You had better be in rags."
CHAPTER XXIV
When the twins had separated, they had resolved on a system of
communication which had been, at least on the part of Myra,
scrupulously maintained. They were to interchange letters every week,
and each letter was to assume, if possible, the shape of a journal, so
that when they again met no portion of the interval should be a blank
in their past lives. There were few incidents in the existence of
Myra; a book, a walk, a visit to the rectory, were among the chief.
The occupations of their father were unchanged, and his health seemed
sustained, but that of her mother was not satisfactory. Mrs. Ferrars
had never rallied since the last discomfiture of her political hopes,
and had never resumed her previous tenour of life. She was secluded,
her spirits uncertain, moods of depression succeeded by fits of
unaccountable excitement, and, on the whole, Myra feared a general and
chronic disturbance of her nervous system. His sister prepared
Endymion for encountering a great change in their parent when he
returned home. Myra, however, never expatiated on the affairs of
Hurstley. Her annals in this respect were somewhat dry. She fulfilled
her promise of recording them, but no more. Her pen was fuller and
more eloquent in her comments on the life of her brother, and of the
new characters with whom he had become acquainted. She delighted to
hear about Mr. Jawett, and especially about Mr. St. Barbe, and was
much pleased that he had been to the Derby, though she did not exactly
collect who were his companions. Did he go with that kind Mr.
Trenchant? It would seem that Endymion's account of the Rodney family
had been limited to vague though earnest acknowledgments of their
great civility and attention, which added much to the comfort of his
life. Impelled by some of these grateful though general remarks, Mrs.
Ferrars, in a paroxysm of stately gratitude, had sent a missive to
Sylvia, such as a sovereign might address to a deserving subject, at
the same time acknowledging and commending her duteous services. Such
was the old domestic superstition of the Rodneys, that, with all their
worldliness, they treasured this effusion as if it had really emanated
from the centre of power and courtly favour.
Myra, in her anticipation of speedily meeting her brother, was doomed
to disappointment. She had counted on Endymion obtaining some holidays
in the usual recess, but in consequence of having so recently joined
the office, Endymion was retained for summer and autumnal work, and
not until Christmas was there any prospect of his returning home.
The interval between midsummer and that period, though not devoid of
seasons of monotony and loneliness, passed in a way not altogether
unprofitable to Endymion. Waldershare, who had begun to notice him,
seemed to become interested in his career. Waldershare knew all about
his historic ancestor, Endymion Carey. The bubbling imagination of
Waldershare clustered with a sort of wild fascination round a living
link with the age of the cavaliers. He had some Stuart blood in his
veins, and his ancestors had fallen at Edgehill and Marston Moor.
Waldershare, whose fancies alternated between Stafford and St. Just,
Archbishop Laud and the Goddess of Reason, reverted for the moment to
his visions on the banks of the Cam, and the brilliant rhapsodies of
his boyhood. His converse with Nigel Penruddock had prepared Endymion
in some degree for these mysteries, and perhaps it was because
Waldershare found that Endymion was by no means ill-informed on these
matters, and therefore there was less opportunity of dazzling and
moulding him, which was a passion with Waldershare, that he soon
quitted the Great Rebellion for pastures new, and impressed upon his
pupil that all that had occurred before the French Revolution was
ancient history. The French Revolution had introduced the cosmopolitan
principle into human affairs instead of the national, and no public
man could succeed who did not comprehend and acknowledge that truth.
Waldershare lent Endymion books, and book with which otherwise he
would not have become acquainted. Unconsciously to himself, the talk
of Waldershare, teeming with knowledge, and fancy, and playfulness,
and airy sarcasm of life, taught him something of the art of
conversation--to be prompt without being stubborn, to refute without
argument, and to clothe grave matters in a motley garb.
But in August Waldershare disappeared, and at the beginning of
September, even the Rodneys had gone to Margate. St. Barbe was the
only clerk left in Endymion's room. They dined together almost every
day, and went on the top of an omnibus to many a suburban paradise. "I
tell you what," said St. Barbe, as they were watching one day together
the humours of the world in the crowded tea-garden and bustling
bowling-green of Canonbury Tavern; "a fellow might get a good chapter
out of this scene. I could do it, but I will not. What is the use of
lavishing one's brains on an ungrateful world? Why, if that fellow
Gushy were to write a description of this place, which he would do
like a penny-a-liner drunk with ginger beer, every countess in Mayfair
would be reading him, not knowing, the idiot, whether she ought to
smile or shed tears, and sending him cards with 'at home' upon them as
large as life. Oh! it is disgusting! absolutely disgusting. It is a
nefarious world, sir. You will find it out some day. I am as much
robbed by that fellow Gushy as men are on the highway. He is
appropriating my income, and the income of thousands of honest
fellows. And then he pretends he is writing for the people! The
people! What does he know about the people? Annals of the New Cut and
Saffron Hill. He thinks he will frighten some lord, who will ask him
to dinner. And that he calls Progress. I hardly know which is the
worst class in this country--the aristocracy, the middle class, or
what they call the people. I hate them all."
About the fall of the leaf the offices were all filled again, and
among the rest Trenchard returned. "His brother has been ill," said
St. Barbe. "They say that Trenchard is very fond of him. Fond of a
brother who keeps him out of four thousand pounds per annum! What will
man not say? And yet I could not go and congratulate Trenchard on his
brother's death. It would be 'bad taste.' Trenchard would perhaps
never speak to me again, though he had been lying awake all night
chuckling over the event. And Gushy takes an amiable view of this
world of hypocrisy and plunder. And that is why Gushy is so popular!"
There was one incident at the beginning of November, which eventually
exercised no mean influence on the life of Endymion. Trenchard offered
one evening to introduce him as a guest to a celebrated debating
society, of which Trenchard was a distinguished member. This society
had grown out of the Union at Cambridge, and was originally intended
to have been a metropolitan branch of that famous association. But in
process of time it was found that such a constitution was too limited
to ensure those numbers and that variety of mind desirable in such an
institution. It was therefore opened to the whole world duly
qualified. The predominant element, however, for a long time consisted
of Cambridge men.
This society used to meet in a large room, fitted up as much like the
House of Commons as possible, and which was in Freemason's Tavern, in
Great Queen Street. Some hundred and fifty members were present when
Endymion paid his first visit there, and the scene to Endymion was
novel and deeply interesting. Though only a guest, he was permitted to
sit in the body of the chamber, by the side of Trenchard, who kindly
gave him some information, as the proceedings advanced, as to the
principal personages who took part in them,
The question to-night was, whether the decapitation of Charles the
First were a justifiable act, and the debate was opened in the
affirmative by a young man with a singularly sunny face and a voice of
music. His statement was clear and calm. Though nothing could be more
uncompromising than his opinions, it seemed that nothing could be
fairer than his facts.
"That is Hortensius," said Trenchard; "he will be called this term.
They say he did nothing at the university, and is too idle to do
anything at the bar; but I think highly of him. You should hear him in
reply."
The opening speech was seconded by a very young man, in a most
artificial style, remarkable for its superfluity of intended sarcasm,
which was delivered in a highly elaborate tone, so that the speaker
seemed severe without being keen.
"'Tis the new Cambridge style," whispered Trenchard, "but it will not
go down here."
The question having been launched, Spruce arose, a very neat speaker;
a little too mechanical, but plausible. Endymion was astonished at the
dexterous turns in his own favour which he gave to many of the
statements of Hortensius, and how he mangled and massacred the
seconder, who had made a mistake in a date.
"He is the Tory leader," said Trenchard. "There are not twenty Tories
in our Union, but we always listen to him. He is sharp, Jawett will
answer him."
And, accordingly, that great man rose. Jawett, in dulcet tones of
philanthropy, intimated that he was not opposed to the decapitation of
kings; on the contrary, if there were no other way of getting rid of
them, he would have recourse to such a method. But he did not think
the case before them was justifiable.
"Always crotchety," whispered Trenchard.
Jawett thought the whole conception of the opening speech erroneous.
It proceeded on the assumption that the execution of Charles was the
act of the people; on the contrary, it was an intrigue of Cromwell,
who was the only person who profited by it.
Cromwell was vindicated and panegyrised in a flaming speech by
Montreal, who took this opportunity of denouncing alike kings and
bishops, Church and State, with powerful invective, terminating his
address by the expression of an earnest hope that he might be spared
to witness the inevitable Commonwealth of England.
"He only lost his election for Rattleton by ten votes," said
Trenchard. "We call him the Lord Protector, and his friends here think
he will be so."
The debate was concluded, after another hour, by Hortensius, and
Endymion was struck by the contrast between his first and second
manner. Safe from reply, and reckless in his security, it is not easy
to describe the audacity of his retorts, or the tumult of his
eloquence. Rapid, sarcastic, humorous, picturesque, impassioned, he
seemed to carry everything before him, and to resemble his former self
in nothing but the music of his voice, which lent melody to scorn, and
sometimes reached the depth of pathos.
Endymion walked home with Mr. Trenchard, and in a musing mood. "I
should not care how lazy I was," said Endymion, "if I could speak like
Hortensius."
CHAPTER XXV
The snow was falling about the time when the Swindon coach, in which
Endymion was a passenger, was expected at Hurstley, and the snow had
been falling all day. Nothing had been more dreary than the outward
world, or less entitled to the merry epithet which is the privilege of
the season. The gardener had been despatched to the village inn, where
the coach stopped, with a lantern and cloaks and umbrellas. Within the
house the huge blocks of smouldering beech sent forth a hospitable
heat, and, whenever there was a sound, Myra threw cones on the
inflamed mass, that Endymion might be welcomed with a blaze. Mrs.
Ferrars, who had appeared to-day, though late, and had been very
nervous and excited, broke down half an hour before her son could
arrive, and, murmuring that she would reappear, had retired. Her
husband was apparently reading, but his eye wandered and his mind was
absent from the volume.
The dogs barked, Mr. Ferrars threw down his book, Myra forgot her
cones; the door burst open, and she was in her brother's arms.
"And where is mamma?" said Endymion, after he had greeted his father.
"She will be here directly," said Mr. Ferrars. "You are late, and the
suspense of your arrival a little agitated her."
Three quarters of a year had elapsed since the twins had parted, and
they were at that period of life when such an interval often produces
no slight changes in personal appearance. Endymion, always tall for
his years, had considerably grown; his air, and manner, and dress were
distinguished. But three quarters of a year had produced a still
greater effect upon his sister. He had left her a beautiful girl: her
beauty was not less striking, but it was now the beauty of a woman.
Her mien was radiant but commanding, and her brow, always remarkable,
was singularly impressive.
They stood in animated converse before the fire, Endymion between his
father and his sister and retaining of each a hand, when Mr. Ferrars
nodded to Myra and said, "I think now;" and Myra, not reluctantly, but
not with happy eagerness, left the room.
"She is gone for your poor mother," said Mr. Ferrars; "we are uneasy
about her, my dear boy."
Myra was some time away, and when she returned, she was alone. "She
says she must see him first in her room," said Myra, in a low voice,
to her father; "but that will never do; you or I must go with him."
"You had better go," said Mr. Ferrars.
She took her brother's hand and led him away. "I go with you, to
prevent dreadful scenes," said his sister on the staircase. "Try to
behave just as in old times, and as if you saw no change."
Myra went into the chamber first, to give to her mother, if possible,
the keynote of the interview, and of which she had already furnished
the prelude. "We are all so happy to see Endymion again, dear mamma.
Papa is quite gay."
And then when Endymion, answering his sister's beckon, entered, Mrs.
Ferrars rushed forward with a sort of laugh, and cried out, "Oh! I am
so happy to see you again, my child. I feel quite gay."
He embraced her, but he could not believe it was his mother. A visage
at once haggard and bloated had supplanted that soft and rich
countenance which had captivated so many. A robe concealed her
attenuated frame; but the lustrous eyes were bleared and bloodshot,
and the accents of the voice, which used to be at once melodious and a
little drawling, hoarse, harsh, and hurried.
She never stopped talking; but it was all in one key, and that the
prescribed one--her happiness at his arrival, the universal gaiety it
had produced, and the merry Christmas they were to keep. After a time
she began to recur to the past, and to sigh; but instantly Myra
interfered with "You know, mamma, you are to dine downstairs to-day,
and you will hardly have time to dress;" and she motioned to Endymion
to retire.
Mrs. Ferrars kept the dinner waiting a long time, and, when she
entered the room, it was evident that she was painfully excited. She
had a cap on, and had used some rouge.
"Endymion must take me in to dinner," she hurriedly exclaimed as she
entered, and then grasped her son's arm.
It seemed a happy and even a merry dinner, and yet there was something
about it forced and constrained. Mrs. Ferrars talked a great deal, and
Endymion told them a great many anecdotes of those men and things
which most interested them, and Myra seemed to be absorbed in his
remarks and narratives, and his mother would drink his health more
than once, when suddenly she went into hysterics, and all was anarchy.
Mr. Ferrars looked distressed and infinitely sad; and Myra, putting
her arm round her mother, and whispering words of calm or comfort,
managed to lead her out of the room, and neither of them returned.
"Poor creature!" said Mr. Ferrars, with a sigh. "Seeing you has been
too much for her."
The next morning Endymion and his sister paid a visit to the rectory,
and there they met Nigel, who was passing his Christmas at home. This
was a happy meeting. The rector had written an essay on squirrels, and
showed them a glass containing that sportive little animal in all its
frolic forms. Farmer Thornberry had ordered a path to be cleared on
the green from the hall to the rectory; and "that is all," said Mrs.
Penruddock, "we have to walk upon, except the high road. The snow has
drifted to such a degree that it is impossible to get to the Chase. I
went out the day before yesterday with Carlo as a guide. When I did
not clearly make out my way, I sent him forward, and sometimes I could
only see his black head emerging from the snow. So I had to retreat."
Mrs. Ferrars did not appear this day. Endymion visited her in her
room. He found her flighty and incoherent. She seemed to think that he
had returned permanently to Hurstley, and said she never had any good
opinion of the scheme of his leaving them. If it had been the Foreign
Office, as was promised, and his father had been in the Cabinet, which
was his right, it might have been all very well. But, if he were to
leave home, he ought to have gone into the Guards, and it was not too
late. And then they might live in a small house in town, and look
after him. There were small houses in Wilton Crescent, which would do
very well. Besides, she herself wanted change of air. Hurstley did not
agree with her. She had no appetite. She never was well except in
London, or Wimbledon. She wished that, as Endymion was here, he would
speak to his father on the subject. She saw no reason why they should
not live at their place at Wimbledon as well as here. It was not so
large a house, and, therefore, would not be so expensive.
Endymion's holiday was only to last a week, and Myra seemed jealous of
his sparing any portion of it to Nigel; yet the rector's son was
sedulous in his endeavours to enjoy the society of his former
companion. There seemed some reason for his calling at the hall every
day. Mr. Ferrars broke through his habits, and invited Nigel to dine
with them; and after dinner, saying that he would visit Mrs. Ferrars,
who was unwell, left them alone. It was the only time they had yet
been alone. Endymion found that there was no change in the feelings
and views of Nigel respecting Church matters, except that his
sentiments and opinions were more assured, and, if possible, more
advanced. He would not tolerate any reference to the state of the
nation; it was the state of the Church which engrossed his being. No
government was endurable that was not divine. The Church was divine,
and on that he took his stand.
Nigel was to take his degree next term, and orders as soon as
possible. He looked forward with confidence, after doubtless a period
of disturbance, confusion, probably violence, and even anarchy, to the
establishment of an ecclesiastical polity that would be catholic
throughout the realm. Endymion just intimated the very contrary
opinions that Jawett held upon these matters, and mentioned, though
not as an adherent, some of the cosmopolitan sentiments of
Waldershare.
"The Church is cosmopolitan," said Nigel; "the only practicable means
by which you can attain to identity of motive and action."
Then they rejoined Myra, but Nigel soon returned to the absorbing
theme. His powers had much developed since he and Endymion used to
wander together over Hurstley Chase. He had great eloquence, his views
were startling and commanding, and his expressions forcible and
picturesque. All was heightened, too, by his striking personal
appearance and the beauty of his voice. He seemed something between a
young prophet and an inquisitor; a remarkable blending of enthusiasm
and self-control.
A person more experienced in human nature than Endymion might have
observed, that all this time, while Nigel was to all appearance
chiefly addressing himself to Endymion, he was, in fact, endeavouring
to impress his sister. Endymion knew, from the correspondence of Myra,
that Nigel had been, especially in the summer, much at Hurstley; and
when he was alone with his sister, he could not help remarking, "Nigel
is as strong as ever in his views."
"Yes," she replied; "he is very clever and very good-looking. It is a
pity he is going into the Church. I do not like clergymen."
On the third day of the visit, Mrs. Ferrars was announced to be
unwell, and in the evening very unwell; and Mr. Ferrars sent to the
nearest medical man, and he was distant, to attend her. The medical
man did not arrive until past midnight, and, after visiting his
patient, looked grave. She had fever, but of what character it was
difficult to decide. The medical man had brought some remedies with
him, and he stayed the night at the hall. It was a night of anxiety
and alarm, and the household did not retire until nearly the break of
dawn.
The next day it seemed that the whole of the Penruddock family were in
the house. Mrs. Penruddock insisted on nursing Mrs. Ferrars, and her
husband looked as if he thought he might be wanted. It was
unreasonable that Nigel should be left alone. His presence, always
pleasing, was a relief to an anxious family, and who were beginning to
get alarmed. The fever did not subside. On the contrary, it increased,
and there were other dangerous symptoms. There was a physician of fame
at Oxford, whom Nigel wished they would call in. Matters were too
pressing to wait for the posts, and too complicated to trust to an
ordinary messenger. Nigel, who was always well mounted, was in his
saddle in an instant. He seemed to be all resource, consolation, and
energy: "If I am fortunate, he will be here in four hours; at all
events, I will not return alone."
Four terrible hours were these: Mr. Ferrars, restless and sad, and
listening with a vacant air or an absent look to the kind and
unceasing talk of the rector; Myra, silent in her mother's chamber;
and Endymion, wandering about alone with his eyes full of tears. This
was the Merrie Christmas he had talked of, and this his long-looked-
for holiday. He could think of nothing but his mother's kindness; and
the days gone by, when she was so bright and happy, came back to him
with painful vividness. It seemed to him that he belonged to a doomed
and unhappy family. Youth and its unconscious mood had hitherto driven
this thought from his mind; but it occurred to him now, and would not
be driven away.
Nigel was fortunate. Before sunset he returned to Hurstley in a
postchaise with the Oxford physician, whom he had furnished with an
able and accurate diagnosis of the case. All that art could devise,
and all that devotion could suggest, were lavished on the sufferer,
but in vain; and four days afterwards, the last day of Endymion's
long-awaited holiday, Mr. Ferrars closed for ever the eyes of that
brilliant being, who, with some weaknesses, but many noble qualities,
had shared with no unequal spirit the splendour and the adversity of
his existence.
CHAPTER XXVI
Nigel took a high degree and obtained first-class honours. He was
ordained by the bishop of the diocese as soon after as possible. His
companions, who looked up to him with every expectation of his
eminence and influence, were disappointed, however, in the course of
life on which he decided. It was different from that which he had led
them to suppose it would be. They had counted on his becoming a
resident light of the University, filling its highest offices, and
ultimately reaching the loftiest stations in the Church. Instead of
that he announced that he had resolved to become a curate to his
father, and that he was about to bury himself in the solitude of
Hurstley.
It was in the early summer following the death of Mrs. Ferrars that he
settled there. He was frequently at the hall, and became intimate with
Mr. Ferrars. Notwithstanding the difference of age, there was between
them a sympathy of knowledge and thought. In spite of his decided
mind, Nigel listened to Mr. Ferrars with deference, soliciting his
judgment, and hanging, as it were, on his accents of wise experience
and refined taste. So Nigel became a favourite with Mr. Ferrars; for
there are few things more flattering than the graceful submission of
an accomplished intellect, and, when accompanied by youth, the spell
is sometimes fascinating.
The death of his wife seemed to have been a great blow to Mr. Ferrars.
The expression of his careworn, yet still handsome, countenance
became, if possible, more saddened. It was with difficulty that his
daughter could induce him to take exercise, and he had lost altogether
that seeming interest in their outer world which once at least he
affected to feel. Myra, though ever content to be alone, had given up
herself much to her father since his great sorrow; but she felt that
her efforts to distract him from his broodings were not eminently
successful, and she hailed with a feeling of relief the establishment
of Nigel in the parish, and the consequent intimacy that arose between
him and her father.
Nigel and Myra were necessarily under these circumstances thrown much
together. As time advanced he passed his evenings generally at the
hall, for he was a proficient in the only game which interested Mr.
Ferrars, and that was chess. Reading and writing all day, Mr. Ferrars
required some remission of attention, and his relaxation was chess.
Before the games, and between the games, and during delightful tea-
time, and for the happy quarter of an hour which ensued when the chief
employment of the evening ceased, Nigel appealed much to Myra, and
endeavoured to draw out her mind and feelings. He lent her books, and
books that favoured, indirectly at least, his own peculiar views--
volumes of divine poesy that had none of the twang of psalmody, tales
of tender and sometimes wild and brilliant fancy, but ever full of
symbolic truth.
Chess-playing requires complete abstraction, and Nigel, though he was
a double first, occasionally lost a game from a lapse in that
condensed attention that secures triumph. The fact is, he was too
frequently thinking of something else besides the moves on the board,
and his ear was engaged while his eye wandered, if Myra chanced to
rise from her seat or make the slightest observation.
The woods were beginning to assume the first fair livery of autumn,
when it is beautiful without decay. The lime and the larch had not yet
dropped a golden leaf, and the burnished beeches flamed in the sun.
Every now and then an occasional oak or elm rose, still as full of
deep green foliage as if it were midsummer; while the dark verdure of
the pines sprang up with effective contrast amid the gleaming and
resplendent chestnuts.
There was a glade at Hurstley, bounded on each side with masses of
yew, their dark green forms now studded with crimson berries. Myra was
walking one morning in this glade when she met Nigel, who was on one
of his daily pilgrimages, and he turned round and walked by her side.
"I am sure I cannot give you news of your brother," he said, "but I
have had a letter this morning from Endymion. He seems to take great
interest in his debating club."
"I am so glad he has become a member of it," said Myra. "That kind Mr.
Trenchard, whom I shall never see to thank him for all his goodness to
Endymion, proposed him. It occupies his evenings twice a week, and
then it gives him subjects to think of and read up in the interval."
"Yes; it is a good thing," said Nigel moodily; "and if he is destined
for public life, which perhaps he may be, no contemptible discipline."
"Dear boy!" said Myra, with a sigh. "I do not see what public life he
is destined to, except slaving at a desk. But sometimes one has
dreams."
"Yes; we all have dreams," said Nigel, with an air of abstraction.
"It is impossible to resist the fascination of a fine autumnal morn,"
said Myra; "but give me the long days of summer and its rich leafy
joys. I like to wander about, and dine at nine o'clock."
"Delightful, doubtless, with a sympathising companion."
"Endymion was such a charming companion," said Myra.
"But he has left us," said Nigel; "and you are alone."
"I am alone," said Myra; "but I am used to solitude, and I can think
of him."
"Would I were Endymion," said Nigel, "to be thought of by you!"
Myra looked at him with something of a stare; but he continued--
"All seasons would be to me fascination, were I only by your side.
Yes; I can no longer repress the irresistible confusion of my love. I
am here, and I am here only, because I love you. I quitted Oxford and
all its pride that I might have the occasional delight of being your
companion. I was not presumptuous in my thoughts, and believed that
would content me; but I can no longer resist the consummate spell, and
I offer you my heart and my life."
"I am amazed; I am a little overwhelmed," said Myra. "Pardon me, dear
Mr. Penruddock--dear Nigel--you speak of things of which I have not
thought."
"Think of them! I implore you to think of them, and now!"
"We are a fallen family," said Myra, "perhaps a doomed one. We are not
people to connect yourself with. You have witnessed some of our
sorrows, and soothed them. I shall be ever grateful to you for the
past. But I sometimes feel our cup is not yet full, and I have long
resolved to bear my cross alone. But, irrespective of all other
considerations, I can never leave my father."
"I have spoken to your father," said Nigel, "and he approved my suit."
"While my father lives I shall not quit him," said Myra; "but, let me
not mislead you, I do not live for my father--I live for another."
"For another?" inquired Nigel, with anxiety.
"For one you know. My life is devoted to Endymion. There is a mystic
bond between us, originating, perhaps, in the circumstance of our
birth; for we are twins. I never mean to embarrass him with a sister's
love, and perhaps hereafter may see less of him even than I see now;
but I shall be in the world, whatever be my lot, high or low--the
active, stirring world--working for him, thinking only of him. Yes;
moulding events and circumstances in his favour;" and she spoke with
fiery animation. "I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the
conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish
it, and that nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence
for its fulfilment."
CHAPTER XXVII
Endymion had returned to his labours, after the death of his mother,
much dispirited. Though young and hopeful, his tender heart could not
be insensible to the tragic end. There is anguish in the recollection
that we have not adequately appreciated the affection of those whom we
have loved and lost. It tortured him to feel that he had often
accepted with carelessness or indifference the homage of a heart that
had been to him ever faithful in its multiplied devotion. Then, though
he was not of a melancholy and brooding nature, in this moment of
bereavement he could not drive from his mind the consciousness that
there had long been hanging over his home a dark lot, as it were, of
progressive adversity. His family seemed always sinking, and he felt
conscious how the sanguine spirit of his mother had sustained them in
their trials. His father had already made him the depositary of his
hopeless cares; and if anything happened to that father, old and worn
out before his time, what would become of Myra?
Nigel, who in their great calamity seemed to have thought of
everything, and to have done everything, had written to the chief of
his office, and also to Mr. Trenchard, explaining the cause of the
absence of Endymion from his duties. There were no explanations,
therefore, necessary when he reappeared; no complaints, but only
sympathy and general kindness. In Warwick Street there was unaffected
sorrow; Sylvia wept and went into the prettiest mourning for her
patroness, and Mr. Rodney wore a crape on his hat. "I never saw her,"
said Imogene, "but I am told she was heavenly."
Waldershare was very kind to Endymion, and used to take him to the
House of Commons on interesting evenings, and, if he succeeded in
getting Endymion a place under the gallery, would come and talk to him
in the course of the night, and sometimes introduce him to the
mysteries of Bellamy's, where Endymion had the satisfaction of
partaking of a steak in the presence of statesmen and senators.
"You are in the precincts of public life," said Waldershare; "and if
you ever enter it, which I think you will," he would add thoughtfully,
"it will be interesting for you to remember that you have seen these
characters, many of whom will then have passed away. Like the shades
of a magic lantern," he added, with something between a sigh and a
smile. "One of my constituents send me a homily this morning, the
burthen of which was, I never thought of death. The idiot! I never
think of anything else. It is my weakness. One should never think of
death. One should think of life. That is real piety."
This spring and summer were passed tranquilly by Endymion, but not
unprofitably. He never went to any place of public amusement, and,
cherishing his sorrow, declined those slight openings to social life
which occasionally offered themselves even to him; but he attended his
debating club with regularity, and, though silent, studied every
subject which was brought before it. It interested him to compare
their sayings and doings with those of the House of Commons, and he
found advantage in the critical comparison. Though not in what is
styled society, his mind did not rust from the want of intelligent
companions. The clear perception, accurate knowledge, and unerring
judgment of Trenchard, the fantastic cynicism of St. Barbe, and all
the stores of the exuberant and imaginative Waldershare, were brought
to bear on a young and plastic intelligence, gifted with a quick
though not a too profound sensibility which soon ripened into tact,
and which, after due discrimination, was tenacious of beneficial
impressions.
In the autumn, Endymion returned home for a long visit and a happy
one. He found Nigel settled at Hurstley, and almost domesticated at
the hall; his father more cheerful than his sister's earlier letters
had led him to suppose; and she herself so delighted by the constant
companionship of her brother that she seemed to have resumed all her
original pride of life.
Nearly two years' acquaintance, however limited, with the world, had
already exercised a ripening influence over Endymion. Nigel soon
perceived this, though, with a native tact which circumstances had
developed, Endymion avoided obtruding his new conclusions upon his
former instructor. But that deep and eager spirit, unwilling ever to
let a votary escape, and absorbed intellectually by one vast idea,
would not be baffled. Nigel had not renounced the early view of
Endymion taking orders, and spoke of his London life as an incident
which, with his youth, he might in time only look upon as an episode
in his existence.
"I trust I shall ever be a devoted son of the Church," said Endymion;
"but I confess I feel no predisposition to take orders, even if I had
the opportunity, which probably I never shall have. If I were to
choose my career it would be public life. I am on the last step of the
ladder, and I do not suppose that I can ever be anything but a drudge.
But even that would interest me. It brings one in contact with those
who are playing the great game. One at least fancies one comprehends
something of the government of mankind. Mr. Waldershare takes me often
to the House of Commons, and I must say, I am passionately fond of
it."
After Endymion's return to London that scene occurred between Nigel
and Myra, in the glade at Hurstley, which we have noticed in the
preceding chapter. In the evening of that day Nigel did not pay his
accustomed visit to the hall, and the father and the daughter were
alone. Then it was, notwithstanding evident agitation, and even with
some degree of solemnity, that Mr. Ferrars broke to his daughter that
there was a subject on which he wished seriously to confer with her.
"Is it about Nigel?" she inquired with calmness.
"It is about Nigel."
"I have seen him, and he has spoken to me."
"And what have you replied?"
"What I fear will not be satisfactory to you, sir, but what is
irrevocable."
"Your union would give me life and hope," said Mr. Ferrars; and then,
as she remained silent, he continued after a pause: "For its happiness
there seems every security. He is of good family, and with adequate
means, and, I firmly believe, no inconsiderable future. His abilities
are already recognised; his disposition is noble. As for his personal
qualities, you are a better judge than I am; but, for my part, I never
saw a countenance that more became the beauty and nobility of his
character."
"I think him very good-looking," said Myra, "and there is no doubt he
is clever, and he has shown himself, on more than one occasion,
amiable."
"Then what more can you require?" said Mr. Ferrars.
"I require nothing; I do not wish to marry."
"But, my daughter, my dearest daughter," said Mr. Ferrars, "bear with
the anxiety of a parent who is at least devoted to you. Our separation
would be my last and severest sorrow, and I have had many; but there
is no necessity to consider that case, for Nigel is content, is more
than content, to live as your husband under this roof."
"So he told me."
"And that removed one objection that you might naturally feel?"
"I certainly should never leave you, sir," said Myra, "and I told
Nigel so; but that contingency had nothing to do with my decision. I
declined his offer, because I have no wish to marry."
"Women are born to be married," said Mr. Ferrars.
"And yet I believe most marriages are unhappy," said Myra.
"Oh! if your objection to marry Nigel arises from an abstract
objection to marriage itself," said Mr. Ferrars, "it is a subject
which we might talk over calmly, and perhaps remove your prejudices."
"I have no objection against marriage," rejoined Myra. "It is likely
enough that I may marry some day, and probably make an unhappy
marriage; but that is not the question before us. It is whether I
should marry Nigel. That cannot be, my dear father, and he knows it. I
have assured him so in a manner which cannot be mistaken."
"We are a doomed family!" exclaimed the unhappy Mr. Ferrars, clasping
his hands.
"So I have long felt," said Myra. "I can bear our lot; but I want no
strangers to be introduced to share its bitterness, and soothe us with
their sympathy."
"You speak like a girl," said Mr. Ferrars, "and a headstrong girl,
which you always have been. You know not what you are talking about.
It is a matter of life or death. Your decorous marriage would have
saved us from absolute ruin."
"Alone, I can meet absolute ruin," said Myra. "I have long
contemplated such a contingency, and am prepared for it. My marriage
with Nigel could hardly save you, sir, from such a visitation, if it
be impending. But I trust in that respect, if in no other, you have
used a little of the language of exaggeration. I have never received,
and I have never presumed to seek, any knowledge of your affairs; but
I have assumed, that for your life, somehow or other, you would be
permitted to exist without disgrace. If I survive you, I have neither
care nor fear."
CHAPTER XXVIII
In the following spring a vexatious incident occurred in Warwick
Street. The highly-considered county member, who was the yearly tenant
of Mr. Rodney's first floor, and had been always a valuable patron,
suddenly died. An adjourned debate, a tough beefsteak, a select
committee still harder, and an influenza caught at three o'clock in
the morning in an imprudent but irresistible walk home with a
confidential Lord of the Treasury, had combined very sensibly to
affect the income of Mr. Rodney. At first he was sanguine that such a
desirable dwelling would soon find a suitable inhabitant, especially
as Mr. Waldershare assured him that he would mention the matter to all
his friends. But time rolled on, and the rooms were still vacant; and
the fastidious Rodneys, who at first would only listen to a yearly
tenant, began to reduce their expectations. Matters had arrived at
such a pass in May, that, for the first time in their experience, they
actually condescended to hoist an announcement of furnished
apartments.
In this state of affairs a cab rattled up to the house one morning,
out of which a young gentleman jumped briskly, and, knocking at the
door, asked, of the servant who opened it, whether he might see the
apartments. He was a young man, apparently not more than one or two
and twenty, of a graceful figure, somewhat above the middle height,
fair, with a countenance not absolutely regular, but calm and high-
bred. His dress was in the best taste, but to a practised eye had
something of a foreign cut, and he wore a slight moustache.
"The rooms will suit me," he said, "and I have no doubt the price you
ask for them is a just one;" and he bowed with high-bred courtesy to
Sylvia, who was now in attendance on him, and who stood with her
pretty hands in the pretty pockets of her pretty apron.
"I am glad to hear that," said Sylvia. "We have never let them before,
except to a yearly tenant."
"And if we suit each other," said the gentleman, "I should have no
great objection to becoming such."
"In these matters," said Sylvia, after a little hesitation, "we give
and receive references. Mr. Rodney is well known in this neighbourhood
and in Westminster generally; but I dare say," she adroitly added, "he
has many acquaintances known to you, sir."
"Not very likely," replied the young gentleman; "for I am a foreigner,
and only arrived in England this morning;" though he spoke English
without the slightest accent.
Sylvia looked a little perplexed; but he continued: "It is quite just
that you should be assured to whom you are letting your lodgings. The
only reference I can give you is to my banker, but he is almost too
great a man for such matters. Perhaps," he added, pulling out a case
from his breast pocket, and taking out of it a note, which he handed
to Sylvia, "this may assure you that your rent will be paid."
Sylvia took a rapid glance at the hundred-pound-note, and twisting it
into her little pocket with apparent /sangfroid/, though she held it
with a tight grasp, murmured that it was quite unnecessary, and then
offered to give her new lodger an acknowledgment of it.
"That is really unnecessary," he replied. "Your appearance commands
from me that entire confidence which on your part you very properly
refuse to a stranger and a foreigner like myself."
"What a charming young man!" thought Sylvia, pressing with emotion her
hundred-pound-note.
"Now," continued the young gentleman, "I will return to the station to
release my servant, who is a prisoner there with my luggage. Be
pleased to make him at home. I shall myself not return probably till
the evening; and in the meantime," he added, giving Sylvia his card,
"you will admit anything that arrives here addressed to Colonel
Albert."
The settlement of Colonel Albert in Warwick Street was an event of no
slight importance. It superseded for a time all other topics of
conversation, and was discussed at length in the evenings, especially
with Mr. Vigo. Who was he? And in what service was he colonel? Mr.
Rodney, like a man of the world, assumed that all necessary
information would in time be obtained from the colonel's servant; but
even men of the world sometimes miscalculate. The servant, who was a
Belgian, had only been engaged by the colonel at Brussels a few days
before his departure for England, and absolutely knew nothing of his
master, except that he was a gentleman with plenty of money and
sufficient luggage. Sylvia, who was the only person who had seen the
colonel, was strongly in his favour. Mr. Rodney looked doubtful, and
avoided any definite opinion until he had had the advantage of an
interview with his new lodger. But this was not easy to obtain.
Colonel Albert had no wish to see the master of the house, and, if he
ever had that desire, his servant would accordingly communicate it in
the proper quarter. At present he was satisfied with all the
arrangements, and wished neither to make nor to receive remarks. The
habits of the new lodger were somewhat of a recluse. He was generally
engaged in his rooms the whole day, and seldom left them till the
evening, and nobody, as yet, had called upon him. Under these
circumstances, Imogene was instructed to open the matter to Mr.
Waldershare when she presided over his breakfast-table; and that
gentleman said he would make inquiries about the colonel at the
Travellers' Club, where Waldershare passed a great deal of his time.
"If he be anybody," said Mr. Waldershare, "he is sure in time to be
known there, for he will be introduced as a visitor." At present,
however, it turned out that the "Travellers'" knew nothing of Colonel
Albert; and time went on, and Colonel Albert was not introduced as a
visitor there.
After a little while there was a change in the habits of the colonel.
One morning, about noon, a groom, extremely well appointed, and having
under his charge a couple of steeds of breed and beauty, called at
Warwick Street, and the colonel rode out, and was long absent, and
after that, every day, and generally at the same hour, mounted his
horse. Mr. Rodney was never wearied of catching a glimpse of his
distinguished lodger over the blinds of the ground-floor room, and of
admiring the colonel's commanding presence in his saddle,
distinguished as his seat was alike by its grace and vigour.
In the course of a little time, another incident connected with the
colonel occurred which attracted notice and excited interest. Towards
the evening a brougham, marked, but quietly, with a foreign coronet,
stopped frequently at Mr. Rodney's house, and a visitor to the colonel
appeared in the form of a middle-aged gentleman who never gave his
name, and evaded, it seemed with practised dexterity, every effort,
however adroit, to obtain it. The valet was tried on this head also,
and replied with simplicity that he did not know the gentleman's name,
but he was always called the Baron.
In the middle of June a packet arrived one day by the coach, from the
rector of Hurstley, addressed to Endymion, announcing his father's
dangerous illness, and requesting him instantly to repair home. Myra
was too much occupied to write even a line.
CHAPTER XXIX
It was strange that Myra did not write, were it only a line. It was so
unlike her. How often this occurred to Endymion during his wearisome
and anxious travel! When the coach reached Hurstley, he found Mr.
Penruddock waiting for him. Before he could inquire after his father,
that gentleman said, "Myra is at the rectory; you are to come on
there."
"And my father?"----
"Matters are critical," said Mr. Penruddock, as it were avoiding a
direct answer, and hastening his pace.
It was literally not a five minutes' walk from the village inn to the
rectory, and they walked in silence. The rector took Endymion at once
into his study; for we can hardly call it a library, though some
shelves of books were there, and many stuffed birds.
The rector closed the door with care, and looked distressed; and,
beckoning to Endymion to be seated, he said, while still standing and
half turning away his head, "My dear boy, prepare yourself for the
worst."
"Ah! he is gone then! my dear, dear father!" and Endymion burst into
passionate tears, and leant on the table, his face hid in his hands.
The rector walked up and down the room with an agitated countenance.
He could not deny, it would seem, the inference of Endymion; and yet
he did not proffer those consolations which might be urged, and which
it became one in his capacity peculiarly to urge.
"I must see Myra," said Endymion eagerly, looking up with a wild air
and streaming eyes.
"Not yet," said the rector; "she is much disturbed. Your poor father
is no more; it is too true; but," and here the rector hesitated, "he
did not die happily."
"What do you mean?" said Endymion.
"Your poor father had much to try him," said the rector. "His life,
since he was amongst us here, was a life, for him, of adversity--
perhaps of great adversity--yet he bore up against it with a Christian
spirit; he never repined. There was much that was noble and exalted in
his character. But he never overcame the loss of your dear mother. He
was never himself afterwards. He was not always master of himself. I
could bear witness to that," said the rector, talking, as it were, to
himself. "Yes; I could conscientiously give evidence to that
effect"----
"What effect?" asked Endymion, with a painful scrutiny.
"I could show," said the rector, speaking slowly, and in a low voice,
"and others could show, that he was not master of himself when he
committed the rash act."
"O Mr. Penruddock!" exclaimed Endymion, starting from his chair, and
seizing the rector by the arm. "What is all this?"
"That a great sorrow has come upon you, and your sister, and all of
us," said Mr. Penruddock; "and you, and she, and all of us must bow
before the Divine will in trembling, though in hope. Your father's
death was not natural."
Such was the end of William Pitt Ferrars, on whom nature, opportunity,
and culture appeared to have showered every advantage. His abilities
were considerable, his ambition greater. Though intensely worldly, he
was not devoid of affections. He found refuge in suicide, as many do,
from want of imagination. The present was too hard for him, and his
future was only a chaotic nebula.
Endymion did not see his sister that evening. She was not made aware
of his arrival, and was alone with Mrs. Penruddock, who never left her
night or day. The rector took charge of her brother, and had a sofa-
bed made for him in the kind man's room. He was never to be alone.
Never the whole night did Endymion close his eyes; and he was almost
as much agitated about the impending interview with Myra, as about the
dark event of terror that had been disclosed to him.
Yet that dreaded interview must take place; and, about noon, the
rector told him that Myra was in the drawing-room alone, and would
receive him. He tottered as he crossed the hall; grief and physical
exhaustion had unmanned him; his eyes were streaming with tears; he
paused for a moment with his hand upon the door; he dreaded the
anguish of her countenance.
She advanced and embraced him with tenderness; her face was grave, and
not a tear even glistened.
"I have been living in a tragedy for years," said Myra, in a low,
hollow voice; "and the catastrophe has now arrived."
"Oh, my dear father!" exclaimed Endymion; and he burst into a renewed
paroxysm of grief.
"Yes; he was dear to us, and we were dear to him," said Myra; "but the
curtain has fallen. We have to exert ourselves. Energy and self-
control were never more necessary to two human beings than to us. Here
are his keys; his papers must be examined by no one but ourselves.
There is a terrible ceremony taking place, or impending. When it is
all over, we must visit the hall at least once more."
The whole neighbourhood was full of sorrow for the event, and of
sympathy for those bereft. It was universally agreed that Mr. Ferrars
had never recovered the death of his wife; had never been the same man
after it; had become distrait, absent, wandering in his mind, and the
victim of an invincible melancholy. Several instances were given of
his inability to manage his affairs. The jury, with Farmer Thornberry
for foreman, hesitated not in giving a becoming verdict. In those days
information travelled slowly. There were no railroads then, and no
telegraphs, and not many clubs. A week elapsed before the sad
occurrence was chronicled in a provincial paper, and another week
before the report was reproduced in London, and then in an obscure
corner of the journal, and in small print. Everything gets about at
last, and the world began to stare and talk; but it passed unnoticed
to the sufferers, except by a letter from Zenobia, received at
Hurstley after Myra had departed from her kind friends. Zenobia was
shocked, nay, overwhelmed, by what she had heard; wanted to know if
she could be of use; offered to do anything; begged Myra to come and
stay with her in St. James' Square; and assured her that, if that were
not convenient, when her mourning was over Zenobia would present her
at court, just the same as if she were her own daughter.
When the fatal keys were used, and the papers of Mr. Ferrars examined,
it turned out worse than even Myra, in her darkest prescience, had
anticipated. Her father had died absolutely penniless. As executor of
his father, the funds settled on his wife had remained under his sole
control, and they had entirely disappeared. There was a letter
addressed to Myra on this subject. She read it with a pale face, said
nothing, and without showing it to Endymion, destroyed it. There was
to be an immediate sale of their effects at the hall. It was
calculated that the expenses of the funeral and all the country bills
might be defrayed by its proceeds.
"And there will be enough left for me," said Myra. "I only want ten
pounds; for I have ascertained that there is no part of England where
ten pounds will not take me."
Endymion sighed and nearly wept when she said these things. "No," he
would add; "we must never part."
"That would ensure our common ruin," said Myra. "No; I will never
embarrass you with a sister. You can only just subsist; for you could
not well live in a garret, except at the Rodneys'. I see my way," said
Myra; "I have long meditated over this--I can draw, I can sing, I can
speak many tongues: I ought to be able to get food and clothing; I may
get something more. And I shall always be content; for I shall always
be thinking of you. However humble even my lot, if my will is
concentrated on one purpose, it must ultimately effect it. That is my
creed," she said, "and I hold it fervently. I will stay with these
dear people for a little while. They are not exactly the family on
which I ought to trespass. But never mind. You will be a great man
some day, Endymion, and you will remember the good Penruddocks."
CHAPTER XXX
One of the most remarkable families that have ever flourished in
England were the NEUCHATELS. Their founder was a Swiss, who had
established a banking house of high repute in England in the latter
part of the eighteenth century, and, irrespective of a powerful
domestic connection, had in time pretty well engrossed the largest and
best portion of foreign banking business. When the great French
Revolution occurred, all the emigrants deposited their jewels and
their treasure with the Neuchatels. As the disturbance spread, their
example was followed by the alarmed proprietors and capitalists of the
rest of Europe; and, independently of their own considerable means,
the Neuchatels thus had the command for a quarter of a century, more
or less, of adventitious millions. They were scrupulous and faithful
stewards, but they were doubtless repaid for their vigilance, their
anxiety, and often their risk, by the opportunities which these rare
resources permitted them to enjoy. One of the Neuchatels was a
favourite of Mr. Pitt, and assisted the great statesman in his vast
financial arrangements. This Neuchatel was a man of large capacity,
and thoroughly understood his period. The minister wished to introduce
him to public life, would have opened Parliament to him, and no doubt
have showered upon him honours and titles. But Neuchatel declined
these overtures. He was one of those strong minds who will concentrate
their energies on one object; without personal vanity, but with a
deep-seated pride in the future. He was always preparing for his
posterity. Governed by this passion, although he himself would have
been content to live for ever in Bishopsgate Street, where he was
born, he had become possessed of a vast principality, and which,
strange to say, with every advantage of splendour and natural beauty,
was not an hour's drive from Whitechapel.
HAINAULT HOUSE had been raised by a British peer in the days when
nobles were fond of building Palladian palaces. It was a chief work of
Sir William Chambers, and in its style, its beauty, and almost in its
dimensions, was a rival of Stowe or Wanstead. It stood in a deer park,
and was surrounded by a royal forest. The family that had raised it
wore out in the earlier part of this century. It was supposed that the
place must be destroyed and dismantled. It was too vast for a citizen,
and the locality was no longer sufficiently refined for a conscript
father. In this dilemma, Neuchatel stepped in and purchased the whole
affair--palace, and park, and deer, and pictures, and halls, and
galleries of statue and bust, and furniture, and even wines, and all
the farms that remained, and all the seigneurial rights in the royal
forest. But he never lived there. Though he spared nothing in the
maintenance and the improvement of the domain, except on a Sunday he
never visited it, and was never known to sleep under its roof. "It
will be ready for those who come after me," he would remark, with a
modest smile.
Those who came after him were two sons, between whom his millions were
divided; and Adrian, the eldest, in addition to his share, was made
the lord of Hainault. Adrian had inherited something more, and
something more precious, than his father's treasure--a not inferior
capacity, united, in his case, with much culture, and with a worldly
ambition to which his father was a stranger. So long as that father
lived, Adrian had been extremely circumspect. He seemed only devoted
to business, and to model his conduct on that of his eminent sire.
That father who had recognised with pride and satisfaction his
capacity, and who was without jealousy, had initiated his son during
his lifetime in all the secrets of his wondrous craft, and had
entrusted him with a leading part in their affairs. Adrian had waited
in Downing Street on Lord Liverpool, as his father years before had
waited on Mr. Pitt.
The elder Neuchatel departed this life a little before the second
French Revolution of 1830, which had been so fatal to Mr. Ferrars.
Adrian, who had never committed himself in politics, further than
sitting a short time for a reputed Tory borough, for which he paid a
rent of a thousand a year to the proprietor, but who was known to have
been nurtured in the school of Pitt and Wellington, astonished the
world by voting for Lord Grey's Reform Bill, and announcing himself as
a Liberal. This was a large fish for the new Liberal Treasury to
capture; their triumph was great, and they determined to show that
they appreciated the power and the influence of their new ally. At the
dissolution of 1831, Adrian Neuchatel was a candidate for a popular
constituency, and was elected at the head of the poll. His brother,
Melchior, was also returned, and a nephew. The Liberals were alarmed
by a subscription of fabulous dimensions said to have been collected
by the Tories to influence the General Election; and the undoubted
contribution of a noble duke was particularly mentioned, which alone
appalled the heart of Brooks'. The matter was put before Neuchatel, as
he entered the club, to which he had been recently elected with
acclamation. "So you are a little frightened," he said, with a
peculiarly witching smile which he had, half mockery and half good
nature; as much as to say, "I will do what you wish, but I see through
you and everybody else." "So you are a little frightened. Well; we
City men must see what we can do against the dukes. You may put me
down for double his amount."
Adrian purchased a very fine mansion in Portland Place, and took up
his residence formally at Hainault. He delighted in the place, and to
dwell there in a manner becoming the scene had always been one of his
dreams. Now he lived there with unbounded expenditure. He was
passionately fond of horses, and even in his father's lifetime had run
some at Newmarket in another name. The stables at Hainault had been
modelled on those at Chantilly, and were almost as splendid a pile as
the mansion itself. They were soon full, and of first-rate animals in
their different ways. With his choice teams Adrian could reach
Bishopsgate from Hainault, particularly if there were no stoppages in
Whitechapel, in much under an hour.
If he had fifty persons in his stables, there were certainly as many
in his park and gardens. These latter were most elaborate. It seemed
there was nothing that Hainault could not produce: all the fruits and
flowers of the tropics. The conservatories and forcing-houses looked,
in the distance, like a city of glass. But, after all, the portion of
this immense establishment which was most renowned, and perhaps, on
the whole, best appreciated, was the establishment of the kitchen. The
chef was the greatest celebrity of Europe; and he had no limit to his
staff, which he had selected with the utmost scrutiny, maintained with
becoming spirit, and winnowed with unceasing vigilance. Every day at
Hainault was a banquet. What delighted Adrian was to bring down
without notice a troop of friends, conscious they would be received as
well as if there had been a preparation of weeks. Sometimes it was a
body from the Stock Exchange, sometimes a host from the House of
Commons, sometimes a board of directors with whom he had been
transacting business in the morning. It delighted Adrian to see them
quaffing his burgundy, and stuffing down his truffles, and his choice
pies from Strasbourg, and all the delicate dishes which many of them
looked at with wonder, and tasted with timidity. And then he would,
with his particular smile, say to a brother bank director, whose mouth
was full, and who could only answer him with his eyes, "Business gives
one an appetite; eh, Mr. Trodgits?"
Sunday was always a great day at Hainault. The Royal and the Stock
Exchanges were both of them always fully represented; and then they
often had an opportunity, which they highly appreciated, of seeing and
conferring with some public characters, M.P.'s of note or promise, and
occasionally a secretary of the Treasury, or a privy councillor.
"Turtle makes all men equal," Adrian would observe. "Our friend
Trodgits seemed a little embarrassed at first, when I introduced him
to the Right Honourable; but when they sate next each other at dinner,
they soon got on very well."
On Sunday the guests walked about and amused themselves. No one was
allowed to ride or drive; Mrs. Neuchatel did not like riding and
driving on Sundays. "I see no harm in it," said Adrian, "but I like
women to have their way about religion. And you may go to the stables
and see the horses, and that might take up the morning. And then there
are the houses; they will amuse you. For my part, I am for a stroll in
the forest;" and then he would lead his companions, after a delightful
ramble, to some spot of agrestic charm, and, looking at it with
delight, would say, "Pretty, is it not? But then they say this place
is not fashionable. It will do, I think, for us City men."
Adrian had married, when very young, a lady selected by his father.
The selection seemed a good one. She was the daughter of a most
eminent banker, and had herself, though that was of slight importance,
a large portion. She was a woman of abilities, highly cultivated.
Nothing had ever been spared that she should possess every possible
accomplishment, and acquire every information and grace that it was
desirable to attain. She was a linguist, a fine musician, no mean
artist; and she threw out, if she willed it, the treasures of her
well-stored and not unimaginative mind with ease and sometimes
eloquence. Her person, without being absolutely beautiful, was
interesting. There was even a degree of fascination in her brown
velvet eyes. And yet Mrs. Neuchatel was not a contented spirit; and
though she appreciated the great qualities of her husband, and viewed
him even with reverence as well as affection, she scarcely contributed
to his happiness as much as became her. And for this reason. Whether
it were the result of physical organisation, or whether it were the
satiety which was the consequence of having been born, and bred, and
lived for ever, in a society of which wealth was the prime object of
existence, and practically the test of excellence, Mrs. Neuchatel had
imbibed not merely a contempt for money, but absolutely a hatred of
it. The prosperity of her house depressed her. The stables with their
fifty grooms, and the grounds with their fifty gardeners, and the
daily visit of the head cook to pass the bill of fare, were incidents
and circumstances that made her melancholy. She looked upon the Stock
Exchange coming down to dinner as she would on an invasion of the
Visigoths, and endured the stiff observations or the cumbrous
liveliness of the merchants and bank directors with gloomy grace.
Something less material might be anticipated from the members of
Parliament. But whether they thought it would please the genius of the
place, or whether Adrian selected his friends from those who
sympathised with his pursuits, the members of Parliament seemed
wonderfully to accord with the general tone of the conversation, or
varied it only by indulging in technical talk of their own. Sometimes
she would make a desperate effort to change the elements of their
society; something in this way: "I see M. Arago and M. Mignet have
arrived here, Adrian. Do not you think we ought to invite them here?
And then you might ask Mr. Macaulay to meet them. You said you wished
to ask Mr. Macaulay."
In one respect the alliance between Adrian and his wife was not an
unfortunate one. A woman, and a woman of abilities, fastidious, and
inclined to be querulous, might safely be counted on as, in general,
ensuring for both parties in their union an unsatisfactory and unhappy
life. But Adrian, though kind, generous, and indulgent, was so
absorbed by his own great affairs, was a man at the same time of so
serene a temper and so supreme a will, that the over-refined fantasies
of his wife produced not the slightest effect on the course of his
life. Adrian Neuchatel was what very few people are--master in his own
house. With a rich varnish of graciousness and favour, he never
swerved from his purpose; and, though willing to effect all things by
smiles and sweet temper, he had none of that morbid sensibility which
allows some men to fret over a phrase, to be tortured by a sigh, or to
be subdued by a tear.
There had been born of this marriage only one child, the greatest
heiress in England. She had been christened after her father, ADRIANA.
She was now about seventeen; and, had she not been endowed with the
finest disposition and the sweetest temper in the world, she must have
been spoiled, for both her parents idolised her. To see her every day
was for Adrian a reward for all his labours, and in the midst of his
greatest affairs he would always snatch a moment to think how he could
contribute to her pleasure or her happiness. All that was rare and
delightful and beautiful in the world was at her command. There was no
limit to the gratification of her wishes. But, alas! this favoured
maiden wished for nothing. Her books interested her, and a beautiful
nature; but she liked to be alone, or with her mother. She was
impressed with the horrible and humiliating conviction, that she was
courted and admired only for her wealth.
"What my daughter requires," said Adrian, as he mused over these
domestic contrarieties, "is a companion of her own age. Her mother is
the very worst constant companion she could have. She requires
somebody with charm, and yet of a commanding mind; with youthful
sympathy, and yet influencing her in the right way. It must be a
person of birth and breeding and complete self-respect. I do not want
to have any parasites in my house, or affected fine ladies. That would
do no good. What I do want is a thing very difficult to procure. And
yet they say everything is to be obtained. At least, I have always
thought so, and found it so. I have the greatest opinion of an
advertisement in the 'Times.' I got some of my best clerks by
advertisements in the 'Times.' If I had consulted friends, there would
have been no end of jobbing for such patronage. One could not trust,
in such matters, one's own brother. I will draw up an advertisement
and insert it in the 'Times,' and have the references to my counting-
house. I will think over the wording as I drive to town." This was the
wording:--
ADVERTISEMENT
A Banker and his Wife require a Companion for their only child, a
young lady whose accomplishments and acquirements are already
considerable. The friend that they would wish for her must be of
about the same age as herself, and in every other respect their
lots will be the same. The person thus desired will be received
and treated as a daughter of the house, will be allowed her own
suite of apartments, her own servants and equipage. She must be a
person of birth, breeding, and entire self-respect; with a mind
and experience capable of directing conduct, and with manners
which will engage sympathy.--Apply to H. H., 45 Bishopsgate Street
Within.
This advertisement met the eye of Myra at Hurstley Rectory about a
month after her father's death, and she resolved to answer it. Her
reply pleased Mr. Neuchatel. He selected it out of hundreds, and
placed himself in communication with Mr. Penruddock. The result was,
that Miss Ferrars was to pay a visit to the Neuchatels; and if, on
experience, they liked each other, the engagement was to take place.
In the meantime the good rector of Hurstley arrived on the previous
evening with his precious charge at Hainault House; and was rewarded
for his kind exertions, not only by the prospect of assisting Myra,
but by some present experience of a splendid and unusual scene.
CHAPTER XXXI
"What do you think of her, mamma?" said Adriana, with glistening eyes,
as she ran into Mrs. Neuchatel's dressing-room for a moment before
dinner.
"I think her manners are perfect," replied Mrs. Neuchatel; "and as
there can be no doubt, after all we have heard, of her principles, I
think we are most fortunate. But what do you think of her, Adriana?
For, after all, that is the main question."
"I think she is divine," said Adriana; "but I fear she has no heart."
"And why? Surely it is early to decide on such a matter as that!"
"When I took her to her room," said Adriana, "I suppose I was nervous;
but I burst into tears, and threw my arms round her neck and embraced
her, but she did not respond. She touched my forehead with her lips,
and withdrew from my embrace."
"She wished, perhaps, to teach you to control your emotions," said
Mrs. Neuchatel. "You have known her only an hour, and you could not
have done more to your own mother."
It had been arranged that there should be no visitors to-day; only a
nephew and a foreign consul-general, just to break the formality of
the meeting. Mr. Neuchatel placed Myra next to himself at the round
table, and treated her with marked consideration--cordial but
courteous, and easy, with a certain degree of deference. His wife, who
piqued herself on her perception of character, threw her brown velvet
eyes on her neighbour, Mr. Penruddock, and cross-examined him in
mystical whispers. She soon recognised his love of nature; and this
allowed her to dissert on the subject, at once sublime and
inexhaustible, with copiousness worthy of the theme. When she found he
was an entomologist, and that it was not so much mountains as insects
which interested him, she shifted her ground, but treated it with
equal felicity. Strange, but nature is never so powerful as in insect
life. The white ant can destroy fleets and cities, and the locusts
erase a province. And then, how beneficent they are! Man would find it
difficult to rival their exploits: the bee, that gives us honey; the
worm, that gives us silk; the cochineal, that supplies our
manufactures with their most brilliant dye.
Mr. Penruddock did not seem to know much about manufactures, but
always recommended his cottagers to keep bees.
"The lime-tree abounds in our village, and there is nothing the bees
love more than its blossoms."
This direct reference to his village led Mrs. Neuchatel to an inquiry
as to the state of the poor about Hurstley, and she made the inquiry
in a tone of commiseration.
"Oh! we do pretty well," said Mr. Penruddock.
"But how can a family live on ten or twelve shillings a week?"
murmured Mrs. Neuchatel.
"There it is," said Mr. Penruddock. "A family has more than that. With
a family the income proportionately increases."
Mrs. Neuchatel sighed. "I must say," she said, "I cannot help feeling
there is something wrong in our present arrangements. When I sit down
to dinner every day, with all these dishes, and remember that there
are millions who never taste meat, I cannot resist the conviction that
it would be better if there were some equal division, and all should
have, if not much, at least something."
"Nonsense, Emily!" said Mr. Neuchatel, who had an organ like Fine-ear,
and could catch, when necessary, his wife's most mystical revelations.
"My wife, Mr. Penruddock, is a regular Communist. I hope you are not,"
he added, with a smile, turning to Myra.
"I think life would be very insipid," replied Myra, "if all our lots
were the same."
When the ladies withdrew, Adriana and Myra walked out together hand-
in-hand. Mr. Neuchatel rose and sate next to Mr. Penruddock, and began
to talk politics. His reverend guest could not conceal his alarm about
the position of the Church and spoke of Lord John Russell's
appropriation clause with well-bred horror.
"Well, I do not think there is much to be afraid of," said Mr.
Neuchatel. "This is a liberal age, and you cannot go against it. The
people must be educated, and where are the funds to come from? We must
all do something, and the Church must contribute its share. You know I
am a Liberal, but I am not for any rash courses. I am not at all sorry
that Sir Robert Peel gained so much at the last general election. I
like parties to be balanced. I am quite content with affairs. My
friends, the Liberals, are in office, and, being there, they can do
very little. That is the state of things, is it not, Melchior?" he
added, with a smile to his nephew, who was an M.P. "A balanced state
of parties, and the house of Neuchatel with three votes--that will do.
We poor City men get a little attention paid to us now, but before the
dissolution three votes went for nothing. Now, shall we go and ask my
daughter to give us a song?"
Mrs. Neuchatel accompanied her daughter on the piano, and after a time
not merely on the instrument. The organ of both was fine and richly
cultivated. It was choice chamber music. Mr. Neuchatel seated himself
by Myra. His tone was more than kind, and his manner gentle. "It is a
little awkward the first day," he said, "among strangers, but that
will wear off. You must bring your mind to feel that this is your
home, and we shall all of us do everything in our power to convince
you of it. Mr. Penruddock mentioned to me your wish, under present
circumstances, to enter as little as possible into society, and this
is a very social house. Your feeling is natural, and you will be in
this matter entirely your own mistress. We shall always be glad to see
you, but if you are not present we shall know and respect the cause.
For my own part, I am one of those who would rather cherish affection
than indulge grief, but every one must follow their mood. I hear you
have a brother, to whom you are much attached; a twin, too, and they
tell me strongly resembling you. He is in a public office, I believe?
Now, understand this; your brother can come here whenever he likes,
without any further invitation. Ask him whenever you please. We shall
always be glad to see him. No sort of notice is necessary. This is not
a very small house, and we can always manage to find a bed and a
cutlet for a friend."
CHAPTER XXXII
Nothing could be more successful than the connection formed between
the Neuchatel family and Myra Ferrars. Both parties to the compact
were alike satisfied. Myra had "got out of that hole" which she always
hated; and though the new life she had entered was not exactly the one
she had mused over, and which was founded on the tradition of her
early experience, it was a life of energy and excitement, of splendour
and power, with a total absence of petty vexations and miseries,
affording neither time nor cause for the wearing chagrin of a
monotonous and mediocre existence. But the crowning joy of her
emancipation was the prospect it offered of frequent enjoyment of the
society of her brother.
With regard to the Neuchatels, they found in Myra everything they
could desire. Mrs. Neuchatel was delighted with a companion who was
not the daughter of a banker, and whose schooled intellect not only
comprehended all her doctrines, however abstruse or fanciful, but who
did not hesitate, if necessary, to controvert or even confute them. As
for Adriana, she literally idolised a friend whose proud spirit and
clear intelligence were calculated to exercise a strong but salutary
influence over her timid and sensitive nature. As for the great banker
himself, who really had that faculty of reading character which his
wife flattered herself she possessed, he had made up his mind about
Myra from the first, both from her correspondence and her
conversation. "She has more common sense than any woman I ever knew,
and more," he would add, "than most men. If she were not so handsome,
people would find it out; but they cannot understand that so beautiful
a woman can have a headpiece, that, I really believe, could manage the
affairs in Bishopsgate Street."
In the meantime life at Hainault resumed its usual course; streams of
guests, of all parties, colours, and classes, and even nations.
Sometimes Mr. Neuchatel would say, "I really must have a quiet day
that Miss Ferrars may dine with us, and she shall ask her brother. How
glad I shall be when she goes into half-mourning! I scarcely catch a
glimpse of her." And all this time his wife and daughter did nothing
but quote her, which was still more irritating, for, as he would say,
half-grumbling and half-smiling, "If it had not been for me she would
not have been here."
At first Adriana would not dine at table without Myra, and insisted on
sharing her imprisonment. "It does not look like a cell," said Myra,
surveying, not without complacency, her beautiful little chamber,
beautifully lit, with its silken hangings and carved ceiling and
bright with books and pictures; "besides, there is no reason why you
should be a prisoner. You have not lost a father, and I hope never
will."
"Amen!" said Adriana; "that would indeed be the unhappiest day of my
life."
"You cannot be in society too much in the latter part of the day,"
said Myra. "The mornings should be sacred to ourselves, but for the
rest of the hours people are to see and to be seen, and," she added,
"to like and be liked."
Adriana shook her head; "I do not wish any one to like me but you."
"I am sure I shall always like you, and love you," said Myra, "but I
am equally sure that a great many other people will do the same."
"It will not be myself that they like or love," said Adriana with a
sigh.
"Now, spare me that vein, dear Adriana; you know I do not like it. It
is not agreeable, and I do not think it is true. I believe that women
are loved much more for themselves than is supposed. Besides, a woman
should be content if she is loved; that is the point; and she is not
to inquire how far the accidents of life have contributed to the
result. Why should you not be loved for yourself? You have an
interesting appearance. I think you very pretty. You have choice
accomplishments and agreeable conversation and the sweetest temper in
the world. You want a little self-conceit, my dear. If I were you and
admired, I should never think of my fortune."
"If you were the greatest heiress in the world, Myra, and were
married, nobody would suppose for a moment that it was for your
fortune."
"Go down to dinner and smile upon everybody, and tell me about your
conquests to-morrow. And say to your dear papa, that as he is so kind
as to wish to see me, I will join them after dinner."
And so, for the first two months, she occasionally appeared in the
evening, especially when there was no formal party. Endymion came and
visited her every Sunday, but he was also a social recluse, and though
he had been presented to Mrs. Neuchatel and her daughter, and been
most cordially received by them, it was some considerable time before
he made the acquaintance of the great banker.
About September Myra may be said to have formally joined the circle at
Hainault. Three months had elapsed since the terrible event, and she
felt, irrespective of other considerations, her position hardly
justified her, notwithstanding all the indulgent kindness of the
family, in continuing a course of life which she was conscious to them
was sometimes an inconvenience and always a disappointment. It was
impossible to deny that she was interested and amused by the world
which she now witnessed--so energetic, so restless, so various; so
full of urgent and pressing life; never thinking of the past and quite
heedless of the future, but worshipping an almighty present that
sometimes seemed to roll on like the car of Juggernaut. She was much
diverted by the gentlemen of the Stock Exchange, so acute, so
audacious, and differing so much from the merchants in the style even
of their dress, and in the ease, perhaps the too great facility, of
their bearing. They called each other by their Christian names, and
there were allusions to practical jokes which intimated a life
something between a public school and a garrison. On more solemn days
there were diplomatists and men in political office; sometimes great
musical artists, and occasionally a French actor. But the dinners were
always the same; dishes worthy of the great days of the Bourbons, and
wines of rarity and price, which could not ruin Neuchatel, for in many
instances the vineyards belonged to himself.
One morning at breakfast, when he rarely encountered them, but it was
a holiday in the City, Mr. Neuchatel said, "There are a few gentlemen
coming to dine here to-day whom you know, with one exception. He is a
young man, a very nice young fellow. I have seen a good deal of him of
late on business in the City, and have taken a fancy to him. He is a
foreigner, but he was partly educated in this country and speaks
English as well as any of us."
"Then I suppose he is not a Frenchman," said Mrs. Neuchatel, "for they
never speak English."
"I shall not say what he is. You must all find out; I dare say Miss
Ferrars will discover him; but, remember, you must all of you pay him
great attention, for he is not a common person, I can assure you."
"You are mysterious, Adrian," said his wife, "and quite pique our
curiosity."
"Well, I wish somebody would pique mine," said the banker. "These
holidays in the City are terrible things. I think I will go after
breakfast and look at the new house, and I dare say Miss Ferrars will
be kind enough to be my companion."
Several of the visitors, fortunately for the banker whose time hung
rather heavily on his hands, arrived an hour or so before dinner, that
they might air themselves in the famous gardens and see some of the
new plants. But the guest whom he most wished to greet, and whom the
ladies were most curious to welcome, did not arrive. They had all
entered the house and the critical moment was at hand, when, just as
dinner was about to be announced, the servants ushered in a young man
of distinguished appearance, and the banker exclaimed, "You have
arrived just in time to take Mrs. Neuchatel in to dinner," and he
presented to her--COLONEL ALBERT.
CHAPTER XXXIII
The ladies were much interested by Colonel Albert. Mrs. Neuchatel
exercised on him all the unrivalled arts by which she so unmistakably
discovered character. She threw on him her brown velvet eyes with a
subdued yet piercing beam, which would penetrate his most secret and
even undeveloped intelligence. She asked questions in a hushed
mystical voice, and as the colonel was rather silent and somewhat
short in his replies, though ever expressed in a voice of sensibility
and with refined deference of manner, Mrs. Neuchatel opened her own
peculiar views on a variety of subjects of august interest, such as
education, high art, the influence of women in society, the formation
of character, and the distribution of wealth, on all of which this
highly gifted lady was always in the habit of informing her audience,
by way of accompaniment, that she was conscious that the views she
entertained were peculiar. The views of Mrs. Neuchatel were peculiar,
and therefore not always, or even easily, comprehended. That indeed
she felt was rather her fate in life, but a superior intelligence like
hers has a degree of sublimated self-respect which defies destiny.
When she was alone with the ladies, the bulletin of Mrs. Neuchatel was
not so copious as had been expected. She announced that Colonel Albert
was sentimental, and she suspected a poet. But for the rest she had
discovered nothing, not even his nationality. She had tried him both
in French and German, but he persisted in talking English, although he
spoke of himself as a foreigner. After dinner he conversed chiefly
with the men, particularly with the Governor of the Bank, who seemed
to interest him much, and a director of one of the dock companies, who
offered to show him over their establishment, an offer which Colonel
Albert eagerly accepted. Then, as if he remembered that homage was due
at such a moment to the fairer sex, he went and seated himself by
Adriana, and was playful and agreeable, though when she was cross-
examined afterwards by her friends as to the character of his
conversation, she really could not recall anything particular except
that he was fond of horses, and said that he should like very much to
take a ride with her. Just before he took his departure, Colonel
Albert addressed Myra, and in a rather strange manner. He said, "I
have been puzzling myself all dinner, but I cannot help feeling that
we have met before."
Myra shook her head and said, "I think that is impossible."
"Well," said the colonel with a look a little perplexed and not
altogether satisfied, "I suppose then it was a dream. May dreams so
delightful," and he bowed, "never be wanting!"
"So you think he is a poet, Emily," said Mr. Neuchatel when they had
all gone. "We have got a good many of his papers in Bishopsgate
Street, but I have not met with any verses in them yet."
The visit of Colonel Albert was soon repeated, and he became a rather
frequent guest at Hainault. It was evident that he was a favourite
with Mr. Neuchatel. "He knows very few people," he would say, "and I
wish him to make some friends. Poor young fellow: he has had rather a
hard life of it, and seen some service for such a youth. He is a
perfect gentleman, and if he be a poet, Emily, that is all in your
way. You like literary people, and are always begging that I should
ask them. Well, next Saturday you will have a sort of a lion--one of
the principal writers in 'Scaramouch.' He is going to Paris as the
foreign correspondent of the 'Chuck-Farthing,' with a thousand a year,
and one of my friends in the Stock Exchange, who is his great ally,
asked me to give him some letters. So he came to Bishopsgate Street--
they all come to Bishopsgate Street--and I asked him to dine here on
Saturday. By the by, Miss Ferrars, ask your brother to come on the
same day and stay with us till Monday. I will take him up to town with
me quite in time for his office."
This was the first time that Endymion had remained at Hainault. He
looked forward to the visit with anticipation of great pleasure.
Hainault, and all the people there, and everything about it, delighted
him, and most of all the happiness of his sister and the
consideration, and generosity, and delicate affection with which she
was treated. One morning, to his astonishment, Myra had insisted upon
his accepting from her no inconsiderable sum of money. "It is no part
of my salary," she said, when he talked of her necessities. "Mr.
Neuchatel said he gave it to me for outfit and to buy gloves. But
being in mourning I want to buy nothing, and you, dear darling, must
have many wants. Besides, Mrs. Neuchatel has made me so many presents
that I really do not think that I shall ever want to buy anything
again."
It was rather a grand party at Hainault, such as Endymion had little
experience of. There was a cabinet minister and his wife, not only an
ambassador, but an ambassadress who had been asked to meet them, a
nephew Neuchatel, the M.P. with a pretty young wife, and several
apparently single gentlemen of note and position. Endymion was nervous
when he entered, and more so because Myra was not in the room. But his
trepidation was absorbed in his amazement when in the distance he
observed St. Barbe, with a very stiff white cravat, and his hair
brushed into unnatural order, and his whole demeanour forming a
singular contrast to the rollicking cynicisms of Joe's and the office.
Mr. Neuchatel presented St. Barbe to the lady of the mansion. "Here is
one of our greatest wits," said the banker, "and he is going to Paris,
which is the capital of wits." The critical moment prevented prolonged
conversation, but the lady of the mansion did contrive to convey to
St. Barbe her admiring familiarity with some of his effusions, and
threw out a phrase which proved how finely she could distinguish
between wit and humour.
Endymion at dinner sate between two M.P.'s, whom his experience at the
House of Commons allowed him to recognise. As he was a young man whom
neither of them knew, neither of them addressed him, but with delicate
breeding carried on an active conversation across him, as if in fact
he were not present. As Endymion had very little vanity, this did not
at all annoy him. On the contrary, he was amused, for they spoke of
matters with which he was not unacquainted, though he looked as if he
knew or heard nothing. Their conversation was what is called "shop:"
all about the House and office; criticisms on speakers, speculations
as to preferment, what Government would do about this, and how well
Government got out of that.
Endymion was amused by seeing Myra, who was remote from him, sitting
by St. Barbe, who, warmed by the banquet, was evidently holding forth
without the slightest conception that his neighbour whom he addressed
had long become familiar with his characteristics.
After dinner St. Barbe pounced upon Endymion. "Only think of our
meeting here!" he said. "I wonder why they asked you. You are not
going to Paris, and you are not a wit. What a family this is!" he
said; "I had no idea of wealth before! Did you observe the silver
plate? I could not hold mine with one hand, it was so heavy. I do not
suppose there are such plates in the world. It gives one an idea of
the galleons and Anson's plunder. But they deserve their wealth," he
added, "nobody grudges it to them. I declare when I was eating that
truffle, I felt a glow about my heart that, if it were not
indigestion, I think must have been gratitude; though that is an
article I had not believed in. He is a wonderful man, that Neuchatel.
If I had only known him a year ago! I would have dedicated my novel to
him. He is a sort of man who would have given you a cheque
immediately. He would not have read it, to be sure, but what of that?
If you had dedicated it to a lord, the most he would have done would
have been to ask you to dinner, and then perhaps cut up your work in
one of the Quality reviews, and taken money for doing it out of our
pockets! Oh! it's too horrid! There are some topsawyers here to-day,
Ferrars! It would make Seymour Hicks' mouth water to be here. We
should have had it in the papers, and he would have left us out of the
list, and called us, etc. Now I dare say that ambassador has been
blundering all his life, and yet there is something in that star and
ribbon; I do not know you feel, but I could almost go down on my knees
to him. And there is a cabinet minister; well, we know what he is; I
have been squibbing him for these two years, and now that I meet him I
feel like a snob. Oh! there is an immense deal of superstition left in
the world. I am glad they are going to the ladies. I am to be honoured
by some conversation with the mistress of the house. She seems a
first-rate woman, familiar with the glorious pages of a certain
classic work, and my humble effusions. She praised one she thought I
wrote, but between ourselves it was written by that fellow Seymour
Hicks, who imitates me; but I would not put her right, as dinner might
have been announced every moment. But she is a great woman, sir,--
wonderful eyes! They are all great women here. I sat next to one of
the daughters, or daughters-in-law, or nieces, I suppose. By Jove! it
was tierce and quart. If you had been there, you would have been run
through in a moment. I had to show my art. Now they are rising. I
should not be surprised if Mr. Neuchatel were to present me to some of
the grandees. I believe them to be all impostors, but still it is
pleasant to talk to a man with a star.
"'Ye stars, which are the poetry of heaven,'
"Byron wrote; a silly line; he should have written,
"'Ye stars, which are the poetry of dress.'"
CHAPTER XXXIV
St. Barbe was not disappointed in his hopes. It was an evening of
glorious success for him. He had even the honour of sitting for a time
by the side of Mrs. Neuchatel, and being full of good claret, he, as
he phrased it, showed his paces; that is to say, delivered himself of
some sarcastic paradoxes duly blended with fulsome flattery. Later in
the evening, he contrived to be presented both to the ambassador and
the cabinet minister, and treated them as if they were demigods;
listened to them as if with an admiration which he vainly endeavoured
to repress; never spoke except to enforce and illustrate the views
which they had condescended to intimate; successfully conveyed to his
excellency that he was conversing with an enthusiast for his exalted
profession; and to the minister that he had met an ardent sympathiser
with his noble career. The ambassador was not dissatisfied with the
impression he had made on one of the foreign correspondents of the
"Chuck-Farthing," and the minister flattered himself that both the
literary and the graphic representations of himself in "Scaramouch"
might possibly for the future be mitigated.
"I have done business to-night," said St. Barbe to Endymion, towards
the close of the evening. "You did not know I had left the old shop? I
kept it close. I could stand it no longer. One has energies, sir,
though not recognised--at least not recognised much," he added
thoughtfully. "But who knows what may happen? The age of mediocrity is
not eternal. You see this thing offered, and I saw an opening. It has
come already. You saw the big-wigs all talking to me? I shall go to
Paris now with some /eclat/. I shall invent a new profession; the
literary diplomatist. The bore is, I know nothing about foreign
politics. My line has been the other way. Never mind; I will read the
'Debats' and the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' and make out something.
Foreign affairs are all the future, and my views may be as right as
anybody else's; probably more correct, not so conventional. What a
fool I was, Ferrars! I was asked to remain here to-night and refused!
The truth is, I could not stand those powdered gentlemen, and I should
have been under their care. They seem so haughty and supercilious. And
yet I was wrong. I spoke to one of them very rudely just now, when he
was handing coffee, to show I was not afraid, and he answered me like
a seraph. I felt remorse."
"Well, I have made the acquaintance of Mr. St. Barbe," said Myra to
Endymion. "Strange as he is, he seemed quite familiar to me, and he
was so full of himself that he never found me out. I hope some day to
know Mr. Trenchard and Mr. Waldershare. Those I look upon as your
chief friends."
On the following afternoon, Adriana, Myra, and Endymion took a long
walk together in the forest. The green glades in the autumnal woods
were inviting, and sometimes they stood before the vast form of some
doddered oak. The air was fresh and the sun was bright. Adriana was
always gay and happy in the company of her adored Myra, and her
happiness and her gaiety were not diminished by the presence of Myra's
brother. So it was a lively and pleasant walk.
At the end of a long glade they observed a horseman followed by a
groom approaching them. Endymion was some little way behind, gathering
wild flowers for Adriana. Cantering along, the cavalier soon reached
them, and then he suddenly pulled up his horse. It was Colonel Albert.
"You are walking, ladies? Permit me to join you," and he was by their
side. "I delight in forests and in green alleys," said Colonel Albert.
"Two wandering nymphs make the scene perfect."
"We are not alone," said Adriana, "but our guardian is picking some
wild flowers for us, which we fancied. I think it is time to return.
You are going to Hainault, I believe, Colonel Albert, so we can all
walk home together."
So they turned, and Endymion with his graceful offering in a moment
met them. Full of his successful quest, he offered with eager triumph
the flowers to Adriana, without casting a glance at her new companion.
"Beautiful!" exclaimed Adriana, and she stopped to admire and arrange
them. "See, dear Myra, is not this lovely? How superior to anything in
our glass-houses!"
Myra took the flower and examined it. Colonel Albert, who was silent,
was watching all this time Endymion with intentness, who now looked up
and encountered the gaze of the new comer. Their eyes met, their
countenances were agitated, they seemed perplexed, and then it seemed
that at the same time both extended their hands.
"It is a long time since we met," said Colonel Albert, and he retained
the hand of Endymion with affection. But Endymion, who was apparently
much moved, said nothing, or rather only murmured an echo to the
remarks of his new friend. And then they all walked on, but Myra fell
a little back and made a signal to Endymion to join her.
"You never told me, darling, that you knew Colonel Albert."
"Colonel Albert!" said Endymion, looking amazed, and then he added,
"Who is Colonel Albert?"
"That gentleman before us," said Myra.
"That is the Count of Otranto, whose fag I was at Eton."
"The Count of Otranto!"
CHAPTER XXXV
Colonel Albert from this day became an object of increased and deeper
interest to Myra. His appearance and manners had always been
attractive, and the mystery connected with him was not calculated to
diminish curiosity in his conduct or fate. But when she discovered
that he was the unseen hero of her childhood, the being who had been
kind to her Endymion in what she had ever considered the severest
trial of her brother's life, had been his protector from those who
would have oppressed him, and had cherished him in the desolate hour
of his delicate and tender boyhood, her heart was disturbed. How often
had they talked together of the Count of Otranto, and how often had
they wondered who he was! His memory had been a delightful mystery to
them in their Berkshire solitude, and Myra recalled with a secret
smile the numberless and ingenious inquiries by which she had
endeavoured to elicit from her brother some clue as to his friend, or
to discover some detail which might guide her to a conclusion.
Endymion had known nothing, and was clear always that the Count of
Otranto must have been, and was, an English boy. And now the Count of
Otranto called himself Colonel Albert, and though he persisted in
speaking English, had admitted to Mrs. Neuchatel that he was a
foreigner.
Who was he? She resolved, when she had an opportunity, to speak to the
great banker on the subject.
"Do you know, Mr. Neuchatel," she said, "that Endymion, my brother,
was at school with Colonel Albert?"
"Ah, ah!" said Mr. Neuchatel.
"But when he was at school he had another name," said Myra.
"Oh, oh!" said Mr. Neuchatel.
"He was then called the Count of Otranto."
"That is a very pretty name," said Mr. Neuchatel.
"But why did he change it?" asked Myra.
"The great world often change their names," said Mr. Neuchatel. "It is
only poor City men like myself who are always called Mr., and bear the
same name as their fathers."
"But when a person is called a count when he is a boy, he is seldom
called only a colonel when he is a man," said Myra. "There is a great
mystery in all this."
"I should not be surprised," said Mr. Neuchatel, "if he were to change
his name again before this time year."
"Why?" asked Myra.
"Well, when I have read all his papers in Bishopsgate Street, perhaps
I shall be able to tell you," said Mr. Neuchatel, and Myra felt that
she could pursue the theme no further.
She expected that Endymion would in time be able to obtain this
information, but it was not so. In their first private conversation
after their meeting in the forest, Endymion had informed Colonel
Albert that, though they had met now for the first time since his
return, they had been for some time lodgers in London under the same
roof. Colonel Albert smiled when Endymion told him this; then falling
into thought, he said; "I hope we may often meet, but for the moment
it may be as well that the past should be known only to ourselves. I
wish my life for the present to be as private as I can arrange it.
There is no reason why we should not be sometimes together--that is,
when you have leisure. I had the pleasure of making your acquaintance
at my banker's."
Parliament had been dissolved through the demise of the crown in the
summer of this year (1837), and London society had been prematurely
broken up. Waldershare had left town early in July to secure his
election, in which he was successful, with no intention of settling
again in his old haunts till the meeting of the new House of Commons,
which was to be in November. The Rodneys were away at some Kentish
watering-place during August and September, exhibiting to an admiring
world their exquisitely made dresses, and enjoying themselves
amazingly at balls and assemblies at the public rooms. The resources
of private society also were not closed to them. Mr. and Mrs. Gamme
were also there and gave immense dinners, and the airy Mrs. Hooghley,
who laughed a little at the Gammes' substantial gatherings and herself
improvised charming pic-nics. So there was really little embarrassment
in the social relations between Colonel Albert and Endymion. They
resolved themselves chiefly into arranging joint expeditions to
Hainault. Endymion had a perpetual invitation there, and it seemed
that the transactions between Mr. Neuchatel and the colonel required
much conference, for the banker always expected him, although it was
well known that they met not unfrequently in Bishopsgate Street in the
course of the week. Colonel Albert and Endymion always stayed at
Hainault from Saturday till Monday. It delighted the colonel to mount
Endymion on one of his choice steeds, and his former fag enjoyed all
this amazingly.
Colonel Albert became domiciled at Hainault. The rooms which were
occupied by him when there were always reserved for him. He had a
general invitation, and might leave his luggage and books and papers
behind him. It was evident that the family pleased him. Between Mr.
Neuchatel and himself there were obviously affairs of great interest;
but it was equally clear that he liked the female members of the
family--all of them; and all liked him. And yet it cannot be said that
he was entertaining, but there are some silent people who are more
interesting than the best talkers. And when he did speak he always
said the right thing. His manners were tender and gentle; he had an
unobtrusive sympathy with all they said or did, except, indeed, and
that was not rarely, when he was lost in profound abstraction.
"I delight in your friend the colonel, Adrian," said Mrs. Neuchatel,
"but I must say he is very absent."
"He has a good deal to think about," said Mr. Neuchatel.
"I wonder what it can be," thought Myra.
"He has a claim to a great estate," said Mr. Neuchatel, "and he has to
think of the best mode of establishing it; and he has been deprived of
great honours, and he believes unjustly, and he wishes to regain
them."
"No wonder, then, he is absent," said Mrs. Neuchatel. "If he only knew
what a burthen great wealth is, I am sure he would not wish to possess
it, and as for honours I never could make out why having a title or a
ribbon could make any difference in a human being."
"Nonsense, my dear Emily," said Mr. Neuchatel. "Great wealth is a
blessing to a man who knows what to do with it, and as for honours,
they are inestimable to the honourable."
"Well, I ardently hope Colonel Albert may succeed," said Myra,
"because he was so kind to my brother at Eton. He must have a good
heart."
"They say he is the most unscrupulous of living men," said Mr.
Neuchatel, with his peculiar smile.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Mrs. Neuchatel.
"How terrible!" said Adriana. "It cannot be true."
"Perhaps he is the most determined," said Myra. "Moral courage is the
rarest of qualities, and often maligned."
"Well, he has got a champion," said Mr. Neuchatel.
"I ardently wish him success," said Myra, "in all his undertakings. I
only wish I knew what they were."
"Has not he told your brother, Miss Ferrars?" asked Mr. Neuchatel,
with laughing eyes.
"He never speaks of himself to Endymion," said Myra.
"He speaks a good deal of himself to me," said Mr. Neuchatel; "and he
is going to bring a friend here to-morrow who knows more about his
affairs even than I do. So you will have a very good opportunity, Miss
Ferrars, of making yourself acquainted with them, particularly if you
sit next to him at dinner, and are very winning."
The friend of Colonel Albert was Baron Sergius, the baron who used to
visit him in London at twilight in a dark brougham. Mrs. Neuchatel was
greatly taken by his appearance, by the calmness of his mien, his
unstudied politeness, and his measured voice. He conversed with her
entirely at dinner on German philosophy, of which he seemed a complete
master, explained to her the different schools, and probably the
successful ones, and imparted to her that precise knowledge which she
required on the subject, and which she had otherwise been unable to
obtain. It seemed, too, that he personally knew all the famous
professors, and he intimated their doctrines not only with profound
criticism, but described their persons and habits with vividness and
picturesque power, never, however, all this time, by any chance
raising his voice, the tones of which were ever distinct and a little
precise.
"Is this the first visit of your friend to this country?" asked Myra
of Colonel Albert.
"Oh no; he has been here often--and everywhere," added Colonel Albert.
"Everywhere! he must be a most interesting companion then."
"I find him so: I never knew any one whom I thought equal to him. But
perhaps I am not an impartial judge, for I have known him so long and
so intimately. In fact, I had never been out of his sight till I was
brought over to this country to be placed at Eton. He is the
counsellor of our family, and we all of us have ever agreed that if
his advice had been always followed we should never have had a
calamity."
"Indeed, a gifted person! Is he a soldier?"
"No; Baron Sergius has not followed the profession of arms."
"He looks a diplomatist."
"Well, he is now nothing but my friend," said the colonel. "He might
have been anything, but he is a peculiarly domestic character, and is
devoted to private life."
"You are fortunate in such a friend."
"Well, I am glad to be fortunate in something," said Colonel Albert.
"And are you not fortunate in everything?"
"I have not that reputation; but I shall be more than fortunate if I
have your kind wishes."
"Those you have," said Myra, rather eagerly. "My brother taught me,
even as a child, to wish nothing but good for you. I wish I knew only
what I was to wish for."
"Wish that my plans may succeed," said Colonel Albert, looking round
to her with interest.
"I will more than wish," said Myra; "I will believe that they will
succeed, because I think you have resolved to succeed."
"I shall tell Endymion when I see him," said Colonel Albert, "that his
sister is the only person who has read my character."
CHAPTER XXXVI
Colonel Albert and Baron Sergius drove up in their landau from
Hainault while Endymion was at the door in Warwick Street, returning
home. The colonel saluted him cordially, and said, "The baron is going
to take a cup of coffee with me; join us." So they went upstairs.
There was a packet on the table, which seemed to catch the colonel's
eye immediately, and he at once opened it with eagerness. It contained
many foreign newspapers. Without waiting for the servant who was about
to bring candles, the colonel lighted a taper on the table with a
lucifer, and then withdrew into the adjoining chamber, opening,
however, with folding doors to the principal and spacious apartment.
"A foreign newspaper always interests our friend," said the baron,
taking his coffee.
"Well, it must always be interesting to have news from home, I
suppose," said Endymion.
"Home!" said the baron. "News is always interesting, whether it come
from home or not."
"To public men," said Endymion.
"To all men if they be wise," said the baron; "as a general rule, the
most successful man in life is the man who has the best information."
"But what a rare thing is success in life!" said Endymion. "I often
wonder whether I shall ever be able to step out of the crowd."
"You may have success in life without stepping out of the crowd," said
the baron.
"A sort of success," said Endymion; "I know what you mean. But what I
mean is real success in life. I mean, I should like to be a public
man."
"Why?" asked the baron.
"Well, I should like to have power," said Endymion, blushing.
"The most powerful men are not public men," said the baron. "A public
man is responsible, and a responsible man is a slave. It is private
life that governs the world. You will find this out some day. The
world talks much of powerful sovereigns and great ministers; and if
being talked about made one powerful, they would be irresistible. But
the fact is, the more you are talked about the less powerful you are."
"But surely King Luitbrand is a powerful monarch; they say he is the
wisest of men. And the Emperor Harold, who has succeeded in
everything. And as for ministers, who is a great man if it be not
Prince Wenceslaus?"
"King Luitbrand is governed by his doctor, who is capable of governing
Europe, but has no ambition that way; the Emperor Harold is directed
by his mistress, who is a woman of a certain age with a vast sagacity,
but who also believes in sorcery; and as for Prince Wenceslaus, he is
inspired by an individual as obscure as ourselves, and who, for aught
I know, may be, at this moment, like ourselves, drinking a cup of
coffee in a hired lodging."
"What you say about public life amazes me," said Endymion musingly.
"Think over it," said the baron. "As an Englishman, you will have
difficulty in avoiding public life. But at any rate do not at present
be discontented that you are unknown. It is the first condition of
real power. When you have succeeded in life according to your views,
and I am inclined to believe you will so succeed, you will, some day,
sigh for real power, and denounce the time when you became a public
man, and belonged to any one but yourself. But our friend calls me. He
has found something startling. I will venture to say, if there be
anything in it, it has been brought about by some individual of whom
you never heard."
CHAPTER XXXVII
With the assembling of parliament in November recommenced the sittings
of the Union Society, of which Endymion had for some time been a
member, and of whose meetings he was a constant and critical, though
silent, attendant. There was a debate one night on the government of
dependencies, which, although all reference to existing political
circumstances was rigidly prohibited, no doubt had its origin in the
critical state of one of our most important colonies, then much
embarrassing the metropolis. The subject was one which Endymion had
considered, and on which he had arrived at certain conclusions. The
meeting was fully attended, and the debate had been conducted with a
gravity becoming the theme. Endymion was sitting on a back bench, and
with no companion near him with whom he was acquainted, when he rose
and solicited the attention of the president. Another and a well-known
speaker had also risen, and been called, but there was a cry of "new
member," a courteous cry, borrowed from the House of Commons, and
Endymion for the first time heard his own voice in public. He has
since admitted, though he has been through many trying scenes, that it
was the most nervous moment of his life. "After Calais," as a wise wit
said, "nothing surprises;" and the first time a man speaks in public,
even if only at a debating society, is also the unequalled incident in
its way. The indulgence of the audience supported him while the mist
cleared from his vision, and his palpitating heart subsided into
comparative tranquillity. After a few pardonable incoherencies, he was
launched into his subject, and spoke with the thoughtful fluency which
knowledge alone can sustain. For knowledge is the foundation of
eloquence.
"What a good-looking young fellow!" whispered Mr. Bertie Tremaine to
his brother Mr. Tremaine Bertie. The Bertie Tremaines were the two
greatest swells of the Union, and had a party of their own. "And he
speaks well."
"Who is he?" inquired Mr. Tremaine Bertie of their other neighbour.
"He is a clerk in the Treasury, I believe, or something of that sort,"
was the reply.
"I never saw such a good-looking young fellow," said Mr. Bertie
Tremaine. "He is worth getting hold of. I shall ask to be introduced
to him when we break up."
Accordingly, Mr. Bertie Tremaine, who was always playing at politics,
and who, being two-and-twenty, was discontented he was not Chancellor
of the Exchequer like Mr. Pitt, whispered to a gentleman who sate
behind him, and was, in short, the whip of his section, and signified,
as a minister of state would, that an introduction to Mr. Ferrars
should be arranged.
So when the meeting broke up, of which Mr. Ferrars' maiden speech was
quite the event, and while he was contemplating, not without some fair
self-complacency, walking home with Trenchard, Endymion found himself
encompassed by a group of bowing forms and smiling countenances, and,
almost before he was aware of it, had made the acquaintance of the
great Mr. Bertie Tremaine, and received not only the congratulations
of that gentleman, but an invitation to dine with him on the morrow;
"quite /sans facon/."
Mr. Bertie Tremaine, who had early succeeded to the family estate,
lived in Grosvenor Street, and in becoming style. His house was
furnished with luxury and some taste. The host received his guests in
a library, well stored with political history and political science,
and adorned with the busts of celebrated statesmen and of profound
political sages. Bentham was the philosopher then affected by young
gentleman of ambition, and who wished to have credit for profundity
and hard heads. Mr. Bertie Tremaine had been the proprietor of a close
borough, which for several generations had returned his family to
parliament, the faithful supporters of Pitt, and Perceval, and
Liverpool, and he had contemplated following the same line, though
with larger and higher objects than his ancestors. Being a man of
considerable and versatile ability, and of ample fortune, with the
hereditary opportunity which he possessed, he had a right to aspire,
and, as his vanity more than equalled his talents, his estimate of his
own career was not mean. Unfortunately, before he left Harrow, he was
deprived of his borough, and this catastrophe eventually occasioned a
considerable change in the views and conduct of Mr. Bertie Tremaine.
In the confusion of parties and political thought which followed the
Reform Act of Lord Grey, an attempt to govern the country by the
assertion of abstract principles, and which it was now beginning to be
the fashion to call Liberalism, seemed the only opening to public
life; and Mr. Bertie Tremaine, who piqued himself on recognising the
spirit of the age, adopted Liberal opinions with that youthful fervour
which is sometimes called enthusiasm, but which is a heat of
imagination subsequently discovered to be inconsistent with the
experience of actual life. At Cambridge Mr. Bertie Tremaine was at
first the solitary pupil of Bentham, whose principles he was prepared
to carry to their extreme consequences, but being a man of energy and
in possession of a good estate, he soon found followers, for the
sympathies of youth are quick, and, even with an original bias, it is
essentially mimetic. When Mr. Bertie Tremaine left the university he
found in the miscellaneous elements of the London Union many of his
former companions of school and college, and from them, and the new
world to which he was introduced, it delighted him to form parties and
construct imaginary cabinets. His brother Augustus, who was his junior
only by a year, and was destined to be a diplomatist, was an efficient
assistant in these enterprises, and was one of the guests who greeted
Endymion when he arrived next day in Grosvenor Street according to his
engagement. The other three were Hortensius, the whip of the party,
and Mr. Trenchard.
The dinner was refined, for Mr. Bertie Tremaine combined the Sybarite
with the Utilitarian sage, and it secretly delighted him to astonish
or embarrass an austere brother republican by the splendour of his
family plate or the polished appointments of his household. To-day the
individual to be influenced was Endymion, and the host, acting up to
his ideal of a first minister, addressed questions to his companions
on the subjects which were peculiarly their own, and, after eliciting
their remarks, continued to complete the treatment of the theme with
adequate ability, though in a manner authoritative, and, as Endymion
thought, a little pompous. What amused him most in this assemblage of
youth was their earnest affectation of public life. The freedom of
their comments on others was only equalled by their confidence in
themselves. Endymion, who only spoke when he was appealed to, had
casually remarked in answer to one of the observations which his host
with elaborate politeness occasionally addressed to him, that he
thought it was unpatriotic to take a certain course. Mr. Bertie
Tremaine immediately drew up, and said, with a deep smile, "that he
comprehended philanthropy, but patriotism he confessed he did not
understand;" and thereupon delivered himself of an address on the
subject which might have been made in the Union, and which
communicated to the astonished Endymion that patriotism was a false
idea, and entirely repugnant to the principles of the new philosophy.
As all present were more or less impregnated with these tenets, there
was no controversy on the matter. Endymion remained discreetly silent,
and Augustus--Mr. Bertie Tremaine's brother--who sate next to him, and
whose manners were as sympathising as his brother's were autocratic,
whispered in a wheedling tone that it was quite true, and that the
idea of patriotism was entirely relinquished except by a few old-
fashioned folks who clung to superstitious phrases. Hortensius, who
seemed to be the only one of the company who presumed to meet Mr.
Bertie Tremaine in conversation on equal terms, and who had already
astonished Endymion by what that inexperienced youth deemed the
extreme laxity of his views, both social and political, evinced, more
than once, a disposition to deviate into the lighter topics of
feminine character, and even the fortunes of the hazard-table; but the
host looked severe, and was evidently resolved that the conversation
to-day should resemble the expression of his countenance. After dinner
they returned to the library, and most of them smoked, but Mr. Bertie
Tremaine, inviting Endymion to seat himself by his side on a sofa at
the farther end of the room, observed, "I suppose you are looking to
parliament?"
"Well, I do not know," said the somewhat startled Endymion; "I have
not thought much about it, and I have not yet reached a parliamentary
age."
"A man cannot enter parliament too soon," said Mr. Bertie Tremaine; "I
hope to enter this session. There will be a certain vacancy on a
petition, and I have arranged to have the seat."
"Indeed!" said Endymion. "My father was in parliament, and so was my
grandfather, but I confess I do not very well see my way there."
"You must connect yourself with a party," said Mr. Bertie Tremaine,
"and you will soon enter; and being young, you should connect yourself
with the party of the future. The country is wearied with the present
men, who have no philosophical foundation, and are therefore
perpetually puzzled and inconsistent, and the country will not stand
the old men, as it is resolved against retrogression. The party of the
future and of the speedy future has its headquarters under this roof,
and I should like to see you belong to it."
"You are too kind," murmured Endymion.
"Yes, I see in you the qualities adapted to public life, and which may
be turned to great account. I must get you into parliament as soon as
you are eligible," continued Mr. Bertie Tremaine in a musing tone.
"This death of the King was very inopportune. If he had reigned a
couple of years more, I saw my way to half a dozen seats, and I could
have arranged with Lord Durham."
"That was unfortunate," said Endymion.
"What do you think of Hortensius?" inquired Mr. Bertie Tremaine.
"I think him the most brilliant speaker I know," said Endymion. "I
never met him in private society before; he talks well."
"He wants conduct," said Mr. Bertie Tremaine. "He ought to be my Lord
Chancellor, but there is a tone of levity about him which is
unfortunate. Men destined to the highest places should beware of
badinage."
"I believe it is a dangerous weapon."
"All lawyers are loose in their youth, but an insular country subject
to fogs, and with a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen. I
attribute a great deal of the nonsense called Conservative Reaction to
Peel's solemnity. The proper minister for England at this moment would
be Pitt. Extreme youth gives hope to a country; coupled with
ceremonious manners, hope soon assumes the form of confidence."
"Ah!" murmured Endymion.
"I had half a mind to ask Jawett to dinner to-day. His powers are
unquestionable, but he is not a practical man. For instance, I think
myself our colonial empire is a mistake, and that we should
disembarrass ourselves of its burthen as rapidly as is consistent with
the dignity of the nation; but were Jawett in the House of Commons
to-morrow, nothing would satisfy him but a resolution for the total
and immediate abolition of the empire, with a preamble denouncing the
folly of our fathers in creating it. Jawett never spares any one's
self-love."
"I know him very well," said Endymion; "he is in my office. He is very
uncompromising."
"Yes," said Mr. Bertie Tremaine musingly; "if I had to form a
government, I could hardly offer him the cabinet." Then speaking more
rapidly, he added, "The man you should attach yourself to is my
brother Augustus--Mr. Tremaine Bertie. There is no man who understands
foreign politics like Augustus, and he is a thorough man of the
world."
CHAPTER XXXVIII
When parliament reassembled in February, the Neuchatels quitted
Hainault for their London residence in Portland Place. Mrs. Neuchatel
was sadly troubled at leaving her country home, which, notwithstanding
its distressing splendour, had still some forms of compensatory
innocence in its flowers and sylvan glades. Adriana sighed when she
called to mind the manifold and mortifying snares and pitfalls that
awaited her, and had even framed a highly practical and sensible
scheme which would permit her parents to settle in town and allow Myra
and herself to remain permanently in the country; but Myra brushed
away the project like a fly, and Adriana yielding, embraced her with
tearful eyes.
The Neuchatel mansion in Portland Place was one of the noblest in that
comely quarter of the town, and replete with every charm and
convenience that wealth and taste could provide. Myra, who, like her
brother, had a tenacious memory, was interested in recalling as fully
and as accurately as possible her previous experience of London life.
She was then indeed only a child, but a child who was often admitted
to brilliant circles, and had enjoyed opportunities of social
observation which the very youthful seldom possess. Her retrospection
was not as profitable as she could have desired, and she was
astonished, after a severe analysis of the past, to find how entirely
at that early age she appeared to have been engrossed with herself and
with Endymion. Hill Street and Wimbledon, and all their various life,
figured as shadowy scenes; she could realise nothing very definite for
her present guidance; the past seemed a phantom of fine dresses, and
bright equipages, and endless indulgence. All that had happened after
their fall was distinct and full of meaning. It would seem that
adversity had taught Myra to feel and think.
Forty years ago the great financiers had not that commanding, not to
say predominant, position in society which they possess at present,
but the Neuchatels were an exception to this general condition. They
were a family which not only had the art of accumulating wealth, but
of expending it with taste and generosity--an extremely rare
combination. Their great riches, their political influence, their high
integrity and their social accomplishments, combined to render their
house not only splendid, but interesting and agreeable, and gave them
a great hold upon the world. At first the fine ladies of their
political party called on them as a homage of condescending gratitude
for the public support which the Neuchatel family gave to their sons
and husbands, but they soon discovered that this amiable descent from
their Olympian heights on their part did not amount exactly to the
sacrifice or service which they had contemplated. They found their
host as refined as themselves, and much more magnificent, and in a
very short time it was not merely the wives of ambassadors and
ministers of state that were found at the garden fetes of Hainault, or
the balls, and banquets, and concerts of Portland Place, but the
fitful and capricious realm of fashion surrendered like a fair country
conquered as it were by surprise. To visit the Neuchatels became the
mode; all solicited to be their guests, and some solicited in vain.
Although it was only February, the world began to move, and some of
the ministers' wives, who were socially strong enough to venture on
such a step, received their friends. Mr. Neuchatel particularly liked
this form of society. "I cannot manage balls," he used to say, "but I
like a ministerial reception. There is some chance of sensible
conversation and doing a little business. I like talking with
ambassadors after dinner. Besides, in this country you meet the
leaders of the opposition, because, as they are not invited by the
minister, but by his wife, anybody can come without committing
himself."
Myra, faithful to her original resolution, not to enter society while
she was in mourning, declined all the solicitudes of her friends to
accompany them to these assemblies. Mrs. Neuchatel always wished Myra
should be her substitute, and it was only at Myra's instance that
Adriana accompanied her parents. In the meantime, Myra saw much of
Endymion. He was always a welcome guest by the family, and could call
upon his sister at all the odds and ends of time that were at his
command, and chat with her at pleasant ease in her pretty room.
Sometimes they walked out together, and sometimes they went together
to see some exhibition that everybody went to see. Adriana became
almost as intimate with Endymion as his sister, and altogether the
Neuchatel family became by degrees to him as a kind of home. Talking
with Endymion, Myra heard a good deal of Colonel Albert, for he was
her brother's hero--but she rarely saw that gentleman. She was aware
from her brother, and from some occasional words of Mr. Neuchatel,
that the great banker still saw Colonel Albert and not unfrequently,
but the change of residence from Hainault to London made a difference
in their mode of communication. Business was transacted in Bishopsgate
Street, and no longer combined with a pleasant ride to an Essex
forest. More than once Colonel Albert had dined in Portland Place, but
at irregular and miscellaneous parties. Myra observed that he was
never asked to meet the grand personages who attended the celebrated
banquets of Mr. Neuchatel. And why not? His manners were
distinguished, but his whole bearing that of one accustomed to
consideration. The irrepressible curiosity of woman impelled her once
to feel her way on the subject with Mr. Neuchatel, but with the utmost
dexterity and delicacy.
"No," said Mr. Neuchatel with a laughing eye, and who saw through
everybody's purpose, though his own manner was one of simplicity
amounting almost to innocence, "I did not say Colonel Albert was going
to dine here on Wednesday; I have asked him to dine here on Sunday. On
Wednesday I am going to have the premier and some of his colleagues. I
must insist upon Miss Ferrars dining at table. You will meet Lord
Roehampton; all the ladies admire him and he admires all the ladies.
It will not do to ask Colonel Albert to meet such a party, though
perhaps," added Mr. Neuchatel with a merry smile, "some day they may
be asked to meet Colonel Albert. Who knows, Miss Ferrars? The wheel of
Fortune turns round very strangely."
"And who then is Colonel Albert?" asked Myra with decision.
"Colonel Albert is Colonel Albert, and nobody else, so far as I know,"
replied Mr. Neuchatel; "he has brought a letter of credit on my house
in that name, and I am happy to honour his drafts to the amount in
question, and as he is a foreigner, I think it is but kind and
courteous occasionally to ask him to dinner."
Miss Ferrars did not pursue the inquiry, for she was sufficiently
acquainted with Mr. Neuchatel to feel that he did not intend to
gratify her curiosity.
The banquet of the Neuchatels to the premier, and some of the
principal ambassadors and their wives, and to those of the premier's
colleagues who were fashionable enough to be asked, and to some of the
dukes and duchesses and other ethereal beings who supported the
ministry, was the first event of the season. The table blazed with
rare flowers and rarer porcelain and precious candelabra of sculptured
beauty glittering with light; the gold plate was less remarkable than
the delicate ware that had been alike moulded and adorned for a Du
Barri or a Marie Antoinette, and which now found a permanent and
peaceful home in the proverbial land of purity and order; and amid the
stars and ribbons, not the least remarkable feature of the whole was
Mr. Neuchatel himself, seated at the centre of his table, alike free
from ostentation or over-deference, talking to the great ladies on
each side of him, as if he had nothing to do in life but whisper in
gentle ears, and partaking of his own dainties as if he were eating
bread and cheese at a country inn.
Perhaps Mrs. Neuchatel might have afforded a companion picture. Partly
in deference to their host, and partly because this evening the first
dance of the season was to be given, the great ladies in general wore
their diamonds, and Myra was amused as she watched their dazzling
tiaras and flashing rivieres, while not a single ornament adorned the
graceful presence of their hostess, who was more content to be
brilliant only by her conversation. As Mr. Neuchatel had only a few
days before presented his wife with another diamond necklace, he might
be excused were he slightly annoyed. Nothing of the sort; he only
shrugged his shoulders, and said to his nephew, "Your aunt must feel
that I give her diamonds from love and not from vanity, as she never
lets me have the pleasure of seeing them." The sole ornament of
Adriana was an orchid, which had arrived that morning from Hainault,
and she had presented its fellow to Myra.
There was one lady who much attracted the attention of Myra,
interested in all she observed. This lady was evidently a person of
importance, for she sate between an ambassador and a knight of the
garter, and they vied in homage to her. They watched her every word,
and seemed delighted with all she said. Without being strictly
beautiful, there was an expression of sweet animation in her
physiognomy which was highly attractive: her eye was full of summer
lightning, and there was an arch dimple in her smile, which seemed to
irradiate her whole countenance. She was quite a young woman, hardly
older than Myra. What most distinguished her was the harmony of her
whole person; her graceful figure, her fair and finely moulded
shoulders, her pretty teeth, and her small extremities, seemed to
blend with and become the soft vivacity of her winning glance.
"Lady Montfort looks well to-night," said the neighbour of Myra.
"And is that Lady Montfort? Do you know, I never saw her before."
"Yes; that is the famous Berengaria, the Queen of Society, and the
genius of Whiggism."
In the evening, a great lady, who was held to have the finest voice in
society, favoured them with a splendid specimen of her commanding
skill, and then Adriana was induced to gratify her friends with a
song, "only one song," and that only on condition that Myra should
accompany her. Miss Neuchatel had a sweet and tender voice, and it had
been finely cultivated; she would have been more than charming if she
had only taken interest in anything she herself did, or believed for a
moment that she could interest others. When she ceased, a gentleman
approached the instrument and addressed her in terms of sympathy and
deferential praise. Myra recognised the knight of the garter who had
sat next to Lady Montfort. He was somewhat advanced in middle life,
tall and of a stately presence, with a voice more musical even than
the tones which had recently enchanted every one. His countenance was
impressive, a truly Olympian brow, but the lower part of the face
indicated not feebleness, but flexibility, and his mouth was somewhat
sensuous. His manner was at once winning; natural, and singularly
unaffected, and seemed to sympathise entirely with those whom he
addressed.
"But I have never been at Hainault," said the gentleman, continuing a
conversation, "and therefore could not hear the nightingales. I am
content you have brought one of them to town."
"Nightingales disappear in June," said Miss Ferrars; "so our season
will be short."
"And where do they travel to?" asked the gentleman.
"Ah! that is a mystery," said Myra. "You must ask Miss Neuchatel."
"But she will not tell me," said the gentleman, for in truth Miss
Neuchatel, though he had frequently addressed her, had scarcely opened
her lips.
"Tell your secret, Adriana," said Miss Ferrars, trying to force her to
converse.
"Adriana!" said the gentleman. "What a beautiful name! You look with
that flower, Miss Neuchatel, like a bride of Venice."
"Nay," said Myra; "the bride of Venice was a stormy ocean."
"And have you a Venetian name?" asked the gentleman.
There was a pause, and then Miss Neuchatel, with an effort, murmured,
"She has a very pretty name. Her name is Myra."
"She seems to deserve it," said the gentleman.
"So you like my daughter's singing," said Mr. Neuchatel, coming up to
them. "She does not much like singing in public, but she is a very
good girl, and always gives me a song when I come home from business."
"Fortunate man!" said the gentleman. "I wish somebody would sing to me
when I come home from business."
"You should marry, my lord," said Mr. Neuchatel, "and get your wife to
sing to you. Is it not so, Miss Ferrars? By the by, I ought to
introduce you to--Lord Roehampton."
CHAPTER XXXIX
The Earl of Roehampton was the strongest member of the government,
except, of course, the premier himself. He was the man from whose
combined force and flexibility of character the country had confidence
that in all their councils there would be no lack of courage, yet
tempered with adroit discretion. Lord Roehampton, though an
Englishman, was an Irish peer, and was resolved to remain so, for he
fully appreciated the position, which united social distinction with
the power of a seat in the House of Commons. He was a very ambitious,
and, as it was thought, worldly man, deemed even by many to be
unscrupulous, and yet he was romantic. A great favourite in society,
and especially with the softer sex, somewhat late in life, he had
married suddenly a beautiful woman, who was without fortune, and not a
member of the enchanted circle in which he flourished. The union had
been successful, for Lord Roehampton was gifted with a sweet temper,
and, though people said he had no heart, with a winning tenderness of
disposition, or at least of manner, which at the same time charmed and
soothed. He had been a widower for two years, and the world was of
opinion that he ought to marry again, and form this time a becoming
alliance. In addition to his many recommendations he had now the
inestimable reputation, which no one had ever contemplated for him, of
having been a good husband.
Berengaria, Countess of Montfort, was a great friend of Lord
Roehampton. She was accustomed to describe herself as "the last of his
conquests," and though Lord Roehampton read characters and purposes
with a glance, and was too sagacious to be deceived by any one, even
by himself, his gratified taste, for he scarcely had vanity, cherished
the bright illusion of which he was conscious, and he responded to
Lady Montfort half sportively, half seriously, with an air of
flattered devotion. Lord Roehampton had inherited an ample estate, and
he had generally been in office; for he served his apprenticeship
under Perceval and Liverpool, and changed his party just in time to
become a member of the Cabinet of 1831. Yet with all these advantages,
whether it were the habit of his life, which was ever profuse, or that
neglect of his private interests which almost inevitably accompanies
the absorbing duties of public life, his affairs were always somewhat
confused, and Lady Montfort, who wished to place him on a pinnacle,
had resolved that he should marry an heiress. After long observation
and careful inquiry and prolonged reflection, the lady she had fixed
upon was Miss Neuchatel; and she it was who had made Lord Roehampton
cross the room and address Adriana after her song.
"He is not young," reasoned Lady Montfort to herself, "but his mind
and manner are young, and that is everything. I am sure I meet youth
every day who, compared with Lord Roehampton, could have no chance
with my sex--men who can neither feel, nor think, nor converse. And
then he is famous, and powerful, and fashionable, and knows how to
talk to women. And this must all tell with a banker's daughter, dying,
of course, to be a /grande dame/. It will do. He may not be young, but
he is irresistible. And the father will like it, for he told me in
confidence, at dinner, that he wished Lord Roehampton to be prime
minister; and with this alliance he will be."
The plot being devised by a fertile brain never wanting in expedients,
its development was skilfully managed, and its accomplishment
anticipated with confidence. It was remarkable with what dexterity the
Neuchatel family and Lord Roehampton were brought together.
Berengaria's lord and master was in the country, which he said he
would not quit; but this did not prevent her giving delightful little
dinners and holding select assemblies on nights when there was no
dreadful House of Commons, and Lord Roehampton could be present. On
most occasions, and especially on these latter ones, Lady Montfort
could not endure existence without her dear Adriana. Mr. Neuchatel,
who was a little in the plot, who at least smiled when Berengaria
alluded to her enterprise, was not wanting in his contributions to its
success. He hardly ever gave one of his famous banquets to which Lord
Roehampton was not invited, and, strange to say, Lord Roehampton, who
had the reputation of being somewhat difficult on this head, always
accepted the invitations. The crowning social incident, however, was
when Lord Roehampton opened his own house for the first time since his
widowhood, and received the Neuchatels at a banquet not inferior to
their own. This was a great triumph for Lady Montfort, who thought the
end was at hand.
"Life is short," she said to Lord Roehampton that evening. "Why not
settle it to-night?"
"Well," said Lord Roehampton, "you know I never like anything
precipitate. Besides, why should the citadel surrender when I have
hardly entered on my first parallel?"
"Ah! those are old-fashioned tactics," said Lady Montfort.
"Well, I suppose I am an old-fashioned man."
"Be serious, now. I want it settled before Easter. I must go down to
my lord then, and even before; and I should like to see this settled
before we separate."
"Why does not Montfort come up to town?" said Lord Roehampton. "He is
wanted."
"Well," said Lady Montfort, with half a sigh, "it is no use talking
about it. He will not come. Our society bores him, and he must be
amused. I write to him every day, and sometimes twice a day, and pass
my life in collecting things to interest him. I would never leave him
for a moment, only I know then that he would get wearied of me; and he
thinks now--at least, he once said so--that he has never had a dull
moment in my company."
"How can he find amusement in the country?" said Lord Roehampton.
"There is no sport now, and a man cannot always be reading French
novels."
"Well, I send amusing people down to him," said Berengaria. "It is
difficult to arrange, for he does not like toadies, which is so
unreasonable, for I know many toadies who are very pleasant. Treeby is
with him now, and that is excellent, for Treeby contradicts him, and
is scientific as well as fashionable, and gives him the last news of
the Sun as well as of White's. I want to get this great African
traveller to go down to him; but one can hardly send a perfect
stranger as a guest. I wanted Treeby to take him, but Treeby refused--
men are so selfish. Treeby could have left him there, and the
traveller might have remained a week, told all he had seen, and as
much more as he liked. My lord cannot stand Treeby more than two days,
and Treeby cannot stand my lord for a longer period, and that is why
they are such friends."
"A sound basis of agreement," said Lord Roehampton. "I believe absence
is often a great element of charm."
"But, /a nos moutons/," resumed Lady Montfort. "You see now why I am
so anxious for a conclusion of our affair. I think it is ripe?"
"Why do you?" said Lord Roehampton.
"Well, she must be very much in love with you."
"Has she told you so?"
"No; but she looks in love."
"She has never told me so," said Lord Roehampton.
"Have you told her?"
"Well, I have not," said her companion. "I like the family--all of
them. I like Neuchatel particularly. I like his house and style of
living. You always meet nice people there, and bear the last thing
that has been said or done all over the world. It is a house where you
are sure not to be dull."
"You have described a perfect home," said Lady Montfort, "and it
awaits you."
"Well, I do not know," said Lord Roehampton. "Perhaps I am fastidious,
perhaps I am content; to be noticed sometimes by a Lady Montfort
should, I think, satisfy any man."
"Well, that is gallant, but it is not business, my dear lord. You can
count on my devotion even when you are married; but I want to see you
on a pinnacle, so that if anything happens there shall be no question
who is to be the first man in this country."
CHAPTER XL
The meeting of parliament caused also the return of Waldershare to
England, and brought life and enjoyment to our friends in Warwick
Street. Waldershare had not taken his seat in the autumn session.
After the general election, he had gone abroad with Lord Beaumaris,
the young nobleman who had taken them to the Derby, and they had seen
and done many strange things. During all their peregrinations,
however, Waldershare maintained a constant correspondence with
Imogene, occasionally sending her a choice volume, which she was not
only to read, but to prove her perusal of it by forwarding to him a
criticism of its contents.
Endymion was too much pleased to meet Waldershare again, and told him
of the kind of intimacy he had formed with Colonel Albert and all
about the baron. Waldershare was much interested in these details, and
it was arranged that an opportunity should be taken to make the
colonel and Waldershare acquainted.
This, however, was not an easy result to bring about, for Waldershare
insisted on its not occurring formally, and as the colonel maintained
the utmost reserve with the household, and Endymion had no room of
reception, weeks passed over without Waldershare knowing more of
Colonel Albert personally than sometimes occasionally seeing him mount
his horse.
In the meantime life in Warwick Street, so far as the Rodney family
were concerned, appeared to have re-assumed its pleasant, and what
perhaps we are authorised in styling its normal condition. They went
to the play two or three times a week, and there Waldershare or Lord
Beaumaris, frequently both, always joined them; and then they came
home to supper, and then they smoked; and sometimes there was a little
singing, and sometimes a little whist. Occasionally there was only
conversation, that is to say, Waldershare held forth, dilating on some
wondrous theme, full of historical anecdote, and dazzling paradox, and
happy phrase. All listened with interest, even those who did not
understand him. Much of his talk was addressed really to Beaumaris,
whose mind he was forming, as well as that of Imogene. Beaumaris was
an hereditary Whig, but had not personally committed himself, and the
ambition of Waldershare was to transform him not only into a Tory, but
one of the old rock, a real Jacobite. "Is not the Tory party,"
Waldershare would exclaim, "a succession of heroic spirits, 'beautiful
and swift,' ever in the van, and foremost of their age?--Hobbes and
Bolingbroke, Hume and Adam Smith, Wyndham and Cobham, Pitt and
Grenville, Canning and Huskisson?--Are not the principles of Toryism
those popular rights which men like Shippen and Hynde Cotton flung in
the face of an alien monarch and his mushroom aristocracy?--Place
bills, triennial bills, opposition to standing armies, to peerage
bills?--Are not the traditions of the Tory party the noblest pedigree
in the world? Are not its illustrations that glorious martyrology,
that opens with the name of Falkland and closes with the name of
Canning?"
"I believe it is all true," whispered Lord Beaumaris to Sylvia, who
had really never heard of any of these gentlemen before, but looked
most sweet and sympathetic.
"He is a wonderful man--Mr. Waldershare," said Mr. Vigo to Rodney,
"but I fear not practical."
One day, not very long after his return from his travels, Waldershare
went to breakfast with his uncle, Mr. Sidney Wilton, now a cabinet
minister, still unmarried, and living in Grosvenor Square.
Notwithstanding the difference of their politics, an affectionate
intimacy subsisted between them; indeed Waldershare was a favourite of
his uncle, who enjoyed the freshness of his mind, and quite
appreciated his brilliancy of thought and speech, his quaint reading
and effervescent imagination.
"And so you think we are in for life, George," said Mr. Wilson, taking
a piece of toast. "I do not."
"Well, I go upon this," said Waldershare. "It is quite clear that Peel
has nothing to offer the country, and the country will not rally round
a negation. When he failed in '34 they said there had not been
sufficient time for the reaction to work. Well, now, since then, it
has had nearly three years, during which you fellows have done
everything to outrage every prejudice of the constituency, and yet
they have given you a majority."
"Yes, that is all very well," replied Mr. Wilton, "but we are the
Liberal shop, and we have no Liberal goods on hand; we are the party
of movement, and must perforce stand still. The fact is, all the great
questions are settled. No one will burn his fingers with the Irish
Church again, in this generation certainly not, probably in no other;
you could not get ten men together in any part of the country to
consider the corn laws; I must confess I regret it. I still retain my
opinion that a moderate fixed duty would be a wise arrangement, but I
quite despair in my time of any such advance of opinion; as for the
ballot, it is hardly tolerated in debating societies. The present
government, my dear George, will expire from inanition. I always told
the cabinet they were going on too fast. They should have kept back
municipal reform. It would have carried us on for five years. It was
our only /piece de resistance/."
"I look upon the House of Commons as a mere vestry," said Waldershare.
"I believe it to be completely used up. Reform has dished it. There
are no men, and naturally, because the constituencies elect
themselves, and the constituencies are the most mediocre of the
nation. The House of Commons now is like a spendthrift living on his
capital. The business is done and the speeches are made by men formed
in the old school. The influence of the House of Commons is mainly
kept up by old social traditions. I believe if the eldest sons of
peers now members would all accept the Chiltern hundreds, and the
House thus cease to be fashionable, before a year was past, it would
be as odious and as contemptible as the Rump Parliament."
"Well, you are now the eldest son of a peer," said Sidney Wilton,
smiling. "Why do you not set an example, instead of spending your
father's substance and your own in fighting a corrupt borough?"
"I am /vox clamantis/," said Waldershare. "I do not despair of its
being done. But what I want is some big guns to do it. Let the eldest
son of a Tory duke and the eldest son of a Whig duke do the same thing
on the same day, and give the reason why. If Saxmundham, for example,
and Harlaxton would do it, the game would be up."
"On the contrary," said Mr. Wilton, "Saxmundham, I can tell you, will
be the new cabinet minister."
"Degenerate land!" exclaimed Waldershare. "Ah! in the eighteenth
century there was always a cause to sustain the political genius of
the country,--the cause of the rightful dynasty."
"Well, thank God, we have got rid of all those troubles," said Mr.
Wilton.
"Rid of them! I do not know that. I saw a great deal of the Duke of
Modena this year, and tried as well as I could to open his mind to the
situation."
"You traitor!" exclaimed Mr. Wilton. "If I were Secretary of State, I
would order the butler to arrest you immediately, and send you to the
Tower in a hack cab; but as I am only a President of a Board and your
uncle, you will escape."
"Well, I should think all sensible men," said Waldershare, "of all
parties will agree, that before we try a republic, it would be better
to give a chance to the rightful heir."
"Well, I am not a republican," said Mr. Wilton, "and I think Queen
Victoria, particularly if she make a wise and happy marriage, need not
much fear the Duke of Modena."
"He is our sovereign lord, all the same," said Waldershare. "I wish he
were more aware of it himself. Instead of looking to a restoration to
his throne, I found him always harping on the fear of French invasion.
I could not make him understand that France was his natural ally, and
that without her help, Charlie was not likely to have his own again."
"Well, as you admire pretenders, George, I wish you were in my shoes
this morning, for I have got one of the most disagreeable interviews
on hand which ever fell to my lot."
"How so, my dear uncle?" said Waldershare, in a tone of sympathy, for
he saw that the countenance of Mr. Wilton was disturbed.
"My unhappy ward," said Mr. Wilton; "you know, of course, something
about him."
"Well, I was at school and college," said Waldershare, "when it all
happened. But I have just heard that you had relations with him."
"The most intimate; and there is the bitterness. There existed between
his mother Queen Agrippina and myself ties of entire friendship. In
her last years and in her greatest adversity she appealed to me to be
the guardian of her son. He inherited all her beauty and apparently
all her sweetness of disposition. I took the greatest pains with him.
He was at Eton, and did well there. He was very popular; I never was
so deceived in a boy in my life. I though him the most docile of human
beings, and that I had gained over him an entire influence. I am sure
it would have been exercised for his benefit. In short, I may say it
now, I looked upon him as a son, and he certainly would have been my
heir; and yet all this time, from his seventeenth year, he was
immersed in political intrigue, and carrying on plots against the
sovereign of his country, even under my own roof."
"How very interesting!" said Waldershare.
"It may be interesting to you; I know what it cost me. The greatest
anxiety and sorrow, and even nearly compromised my honour. Had I not a
large-hearted chief and a true man of the world to deal with, I must
have retired from the government."
"How could he manage it?" said Waldershare.
"You have no conception of the devices and resources of the secret
societies of Europe," said Mr. Wilton. "His drawing-master, his
fencing-master, his dancing-master, all his professors of languages,
who delighted me by their testimony to his accomplishments and their
praises of his quickness and assiduity, were active confederates in
bringing about events which might have occasioned an European war. He
left me avowedly to pay a visit in the country, and I even received
letters from him with the postmark of the neighbouring town; letters
all prepared beforehand. My first authentic information as to his
movements was to learn, that he had headed an invading force, landed
on the shores which he claimed as his own, was defeated and a
prisoner."
"I remember it," said Waldershare. "I had just then gone up to St.
John's, and I remember reading it with the greatest excitement."
"All this was bad enough," said Mr. Wilton, "but this is not my
sorrow. I saved him from death, or at least a dreadful imprisonment.
He was permitted to sail to America on his parole that he would never
return to Europe, and I was required, and on his solemn appeal I
consented, to give my personal engagement that the compact should be
sacred. Before two years had elapsed, supported all this time, too, by
my bounty, there was an attempt, almost successful, to assassinate the
king, and my ward was discovered and seized in the capital. This time
he was immured, and for life, in the strongest fortress of the
country; but secret societies laugh at governments, and though he
endured a considerable imprisonment, the world has recently been
astounded by hearing that he had escaped. Yes; he is in London and has
been here, though in studied obscurity, for some little time. He has
never appealed to me until within these few days, and now only on the
ground that there are some family affairs which cannot be arranged
without my approval. I had great doubts whether I should receive him.
I feel I ought not to have done so. But I hesitated, and I know not
what may be the truth about women, but of this I am quite sure, the
man who hesitates is lost."
"How I should like to present at the interview, my dear uncle!" said
Waldershare.
"And I should not be sorry to have a witness," said Mr. Wilton, "but
it is impossible. I am ashamed to say how unhinged I feel; no person,
and no memories, ought to exercise such an influence over one. To tell
you the truth, I encouraged your pleasant gossip at breakfast by way
of distraction at this moment, and now"----
At this moment, the groom of the chambers entered and announced "His
royal highness, Prince Florestan."
Mr. Wilton, who was too agitated to speak, waved his hand to
Waldershare to retire, and his nephew vanished. As Waldershare was
descending the staircase, he drew back on a landing-place to permit
the prince to advance undisturbed. The prince apparently did not
observe him, but when Waldershare caught the countenance of the
visitor, he started.
CHAPTER XLI
"I know, sir, you are prejudiced against me," said Prince Florestan,
bowing before Mr. Wilton with a sort of haughty humility, "and
therefore I the more appreciate your condescension in receiving me."
"I have no wish to refer to the past," said Mr. Wilton somewhat
sternly. "You mentioned in your letter that my co-operation was
necessary with reference to your private affairs, of which I once was
a trustee, and under those circumstances I felt it my duty to accede
to your request. I wish our communication to be limited to that
business."
"It shall be so strictly," said the prince; "you may remember, sir,
that at the unhappy period when we were deprived of our throne, the
name of Queen Agrippina was inscribed on the great book of the state
for a considerable sum, for which the credit of the state was pledged
to her. It was strictly her private property, and had mainly accrued
through the sale of the estates of her ancestors. This sum was
confiscated, and several other amounts, which belonged to members of
our house and to our friends. It was an act of pure rapine, so gross,
that as time revolved, and the sense of justice gradually returned to
the hearts of men, restitution was made in every instance except my
own, though I have reason to believe that individual claim was the
strongest. My bankers, the house of Neuchatel, who have much
interested themselves in this matter, and have considerable influence
with the government that succeeded us, have brought things to this
pass, that we have reason to believe our claim would be conceded, if
some of the foreign governments, and especially the government of this
country, would signify that the settlement would not be disagreeable
to them." And the prince ceased, and raising his eyes, which were
downcast as he spoke, looked Mr. Wilton straight in the face.
"Before such a proposal could even be considered by Her Majesty's
Government," said Mr. Wilton with a reddening cheek, "the intimation
must be made to them by authority. If the minister of your country has
such an intimation to make to ours, he should address himself to the
proper quarter, to Lord Roehampton."
"I understand," said Prince Florestan; "but governments, like
individuals, sometimes shrink from formality. The government of my
country will act on the intimation, but they do not care to make it an
affair of despatches."
"There is only one way of transacting business," said Mr. Wilton
frigidly, and as if, so far as he was concerned, the interview was
ended.
"I have been advised on high authority," said Prince Florestan,
speaking very slowly, "that if any member of the present cabinet will
mention in conversation to the representative of my country here, that
the act of justice would not be disagreeable to the British
Government, the affair is finished."
"I doubt whether any one of my colleagues would be prepared to
undertake a personal interference of that kind with a foreign
government," said Mr. Wilton stiffly. "For my own part, I have had
quite enough of such interpositions never to venture on them again."
"The expression of feeling desired would involve no sort of
engagement," said the imperturbable prince.
"That depends on the conscience of the individual who interferes. No
man of honour would be justified in so interposing if he believed he
was thus furnishing arms against the very government of which he
solicited the favour."
"But why should he believe this?" asked the prince with great
calmness.
"I think upon reflection," said Mr. Wilton, taking up at the same time
an opened letter which was before him, as if he wished to resume the
private business on which he had been previously engaged, "that your
royal highness might find very adequate reasons for the belief."
"I would put this before you with great deference, sir," said the
prince. "Take my own case; is it not more likely that I should lead
that life of refined retirement, which I really desire, were I in
possession of the means to maintain such a position with becoming
dignity, than if I were distressed, and harassed, and disgusted, every
day, with sights and incidents which alike outrage my taste and self-
respect? It is not prosperity, according to common belief, that makes
conspirators."
"You /were/ in a position, and a refined position," rejoined Mr.
Wilton sharply; "you had means adequate to all that a gentleman could
desire, and might have been a person of great consideration, and you
wantonly destroyed all this."
"It might be remembered that I was young."
"Yes, you were young, very young, and your folly was condoned. You
might have begun life again, for to the world at least you were a man
of honour. You had not deceived the world, whatever you might have
done to others."
"If I presume to make another remark," said the prince calmly, but
pale, "it is only, believe me, sir, from the profound respect I feel
for you. Do not misunderstand these feelings, sir. They are not
unbecoming the past. Now that my mother has departed, there is no one
to whom I am attached except yourself. I have no feeling whatever
towards any other human being. All my thought and all my sentiment are
engrossed by my country. But pardon me, dear sir, for so let me call
you, if I venture to say that, in your decision on my conduct, you
have never taken into consideration the position which I inherited."
"I do not follow you, sir."
"You never will remember that I am the child of destiny," said Prince
Florestan. "That destiny will again place me on the throne of my
fathers. That is as certain as I am now speaking to you. But destiny
for its fulfilment ordains action. Its decrees are inexorable, but
they are obscure, and the being whose career it directs is as a man
travelling in a dark night; he reaches his goal even without the aid
of stars or moon."
"I really do not understand what destiny means," said Mr. Wilton. "I
understand what conduct means, and I recognise that it should be
regulated by truth and honour. I think a man had better have nothing
to do with destiny, particularly if it is to make him forfeit his
parole."
"Ah! sir, I well know that on that head you entertain a great
prejudice in my respect. Believe me it is not just. Even lawyers
acknowledge that a contract which is impossible cannot be violated. My
return from America was inevitable. The aspirations of a great people
and of many communities required my presence in Europe. My return was
the natural development of the inevitable principle of historical
necessity."
"Well, that principle is not recognised by Her Majesty's Ministers,"
said Mr. Wilton, and both himself and the prince seemed to rise at the
same time.
"I thank you, sir, for this interview," said his royal highness. "You
will not help me, but what I require will happen by some other means.
It is necessary, and therefore it will occur."
The prince remounted his horse, and rode off quickly till he reached
the Strand, where obstacles to rapid progress commenced, and though
impatient, it was some time before he reached Bishopsgate Street. He
entered the spacious courtyard of a noble mansion, and, giving his
horse to the groom, inquired for Mr. Neuchatel, to whom he was at once
ushered,--seated in a fine apartment at a table covered with many
papers.
"Well, my prince," said Mr. Neuchatel with a smiling eye, "what brings
such a great man into the City to-day? Have you seen your great
friend?" And then Prince Florestan gave Mr. Neuchatel a succinct but
sufficient summary of his recent interview.
"Ah!" said Mr. Neuchatel, "so it is, so it is; I dare say if you were
received at St. James', Mr. Sidney Wilton would not be so very
particular; but we must take things as we find them. If our fine
friends will not help us, you must try us poor business men in the
City. We can manage things here sometimes which puzzle them at the
West End. I saw you were disturbed when you came in. Put on a good
countenance. Nobody should ever look anxious except those who have no
anxiety. I dare say you would like to know how your account is. I will
send for it. It is not so bad as you think. I put a thousand pounds to
it in the hope that your fine friend would help us, but I shall not
take it off again. My Louis is going to-night to Paris, and he shall
call upon the ministers and see what can be done. In the meantime,
good appetite, sir. I am going to luncheon, and there is a place for
you. And I will show you my Gainsborough that I have just bought, from
a family for whom it was painted. The face is divine, very like our
Miss Ferrars. I am going to send the picture down to Hainault. I won't
tell you what I gave for it, because perhaps you would tell my wife
and she would be very angry. She would want the money for an infant
school. But I think she has schools enough. Now to lunch."
On the afternoon of this day there was a half-holiday at the office,
and Endymion had engaged to accompany Waldershare on some expedition.
They had been talking together in his room where Waldershare was
finishing his careless toilette, which however was never finished, and
they had just opened the house door and were sallying forth when
Colonel Albert rode up. He gave a kind nod to Endymion, but did not
speak, and the companions went on. "By the by, Ferrars," said
Waldershare, pressing his arm and bubbling with excitement, "I have
found out who your colonel is. It is a wondrous tale, and I will tell
it all to you as we go on."
CHAPTER XLII
Endymion had now passed three years of his life in London, and
considering the hard circumstances under which he had commenced this
career, he might on the whole look back to those years without
dissatisfaction. Three years ago he was poor and friendless, utterly
ignorant of the world, and with nothing to guide him but his own good
sense. His slender salary had not yet been increased, but with the
generosity and aid of his sister and the liberality of Mr. Vigo, he
was easy in his circumstances. Through the Rodneys, he had become
acquainted with a certain sort of miscellaneous life, a knowledge of
which is highly valuable to a youth, but which is seldom attained
without risk. Endymion, on the contrary, was always guarded from
danger. Through his most unexpected connection with the Neuchatel
family, he had seen something of life in circles of refinement and
high consideration, and had even caught glimpses of that great world
of which he read so much and heard people talk more, the world of the
Lord Roehamptons and the Lady Montforts, and all those dazzling people
whose sayings and doings form the taste, and supply the conversation,
and leaven the existence of admiring or wondering millions.
None of these incidents, however, had induced any change in the scheme
of his existence. Endymion was still content with his cleanly and airy
garret; still dined at Joe's; was still sedulous at his office, and
always popular with his fellow clerks. Seymour Hicks, indeed, who
studied the "Morning Post" with intentness, had discovered the name of
Endymion in the elaborate lists of attendants on Mrs. Neuchatel's
receptions, and had duly notified the important event to his
colleagues; but Endymion was not severely bantered on the occasion,
for, since the withdrawal of St. Barbe from the bureau, the stock of
envy at Somerset House was sensibly diminished.
His lodging at the Rodneys', however, had brought Endymion something
more valuable than an innocuous familiarity with their various and
suggestive life. In the friendship of Waldershare he found a rich
compensation for being withdrawn from his school and deprived of his
university. The care of his father had made Endymion a good classical
scholar, and he had realised a degree of culture which it delighted
the brilliant and eccentric Waldershare to enrich and to complete.
Waldershare guided his opinions, and directed his studies, and formed
his taste. Alone at night in his garret, there was no solitude, for he
had always some book or some periodical, English or foreign, with
which Waldershare had supplied him, and which he assured Endymion it
was absolutely necessary that he should read and master.
Nor was his acquaintance with Baron Sergius less valuable, or less
fruitful of results. He too became interested in Endymion, and poured
forth to him, apparently without reserve, all the treasures of his
vast experience of men and things, especially with reference to the
conduct of external affairs. He initiated him in the cardinal
principles of the policies of different nations; he revealed to him
the real character of the chief actors in the scene. "The first
requisite," Baron Sergius would say, "in the successful conduct of
public affairs is a personal acquaintance with the statesmen engaged.
It is possible that events may not depend now, so much as they did a
century ago, on individual feeling, but, even if prompted by general
principles, their application and management are always coloured by
the idiosyncrasy of the chief actors. The great advantage which your
Lord Roehampton, for example, has over all his colleagues in /la haute
politique/, is that he was one of your plenipotentiaries at the
Congress of Vienna. There he learned to gauge the men who govern the
world. Do you think a man like that, called upon to deal with a
Metternich or a Pozzo, has no advantage over an individual who never
leaves his chair in Downing Street except to kill grouse? Pah!
Metternich and Pozzo know very well that Lord Roehampton knows them,
and they set about affairs with him in a totally different spirit from
that with which they circumvent some statesman who has issued from the
barricades of Paris."
Nor must it be forgotten that his debating society and the
acquaintance which he had formed there, were highly beneficial to
Endymion. Under the roof of Mr. Bertie Tremaine he enjoyed the
opportunity of forming an acquaintance with a large body of young men
of breeding, of high education, and full of ambition, that was a
substitute for the society, becoming his youth and station, which he
had lost by not going to the university.
With all these individuals, and with all their circles, Endymion was a
favourite. No doubt his good looks, his mien--which was both cheerful
and pensive--his graceful and quiet manners, all told in his favour,
and gave him a good start, but further acquaintance always sustained
the first impression. He was intelligent and well-informed, without
any alarming originality, or too positive convictions. He listened not
only with patience but with interest to all, and ever avoided
controversy. Here are some of the elements of a man's popularity.
What was his intellectual reach, and what his real character, it was
difficult at this time to decide. He was still very young, only on the
verge of his twentieth year; and his character had no doubt been
influenced, it might be suppressed, by the crushing misfortunes of his
family. The influence of his sister was supreme over him. She had
never reconciled herself to their fall. She had existed only on the
solitary idea of regaining their position, and she had never omitted
an occasion to impress upon him that he had a great mission, and that,
aided by her devotion, he would fulfil it. What his own conviction on
this subject was may be obscure. Perhaps he was organically of that
cheerful and easy nature, which is content to enjoy the present, and
not brood over the past. The future may throw light upon all these
points; at present it may be admitted that the three years of
seemingly bitter and mortifying adversity have not been altogether
wanting in beneficial elements in the formation of his character and
the fashioning of his future life.
CHAPTER XLIII
Lady Montfort heard with great satisfaction from Mr. Neuchatel that
Lord Roehampton was going to pay a visit to Hainault at Easter, and
that he had asked himself. She playfully congratulated Mrs. Neuchatel
on the subject, and spoke as if the affair was almost concluded. That
lady, however, received the intimation with a serious, not to say
distressed countenance. She said that she should be grieved to lose
Adriana under any circumstances; but if her marriage in time was a
necessity, she trusted she might be united to some one who would not
object to becoming a permanent inmate of their house. What she herself
desired for her daughter was a union with some clergyman, and if
possible, the rector of their own parish. But it was too charming a
dream to realise. The rectory at Hainault was almost in the Park, and
was the prettiest house in the world, with the most lovely garden. She
herself much preferred it to the great mansion--and so on.
Lady Montfort stared at her with impatient astonishment, and then
said, "Your daughter, Mrs. Neuchatel, ought to make an alliance which
would place her at the head of society."
"What a fearful destiny," said Mrs. Neuchatel, "for any one, but
overwhelming for one who must feel the whole time that she occupies a
position not acquired by her personal qualities!"
"Adriana is pretty," said Lady Montfort. "I think her more than
pretty; she is highly accomplished and in every way pleasing. What can
you mean, then, my dear madam, by supposing she would occupy a
position not acquired by her personal qualities?"
Mrs. Neuchatel sighed and shook her head, and then said, "We need not
have any controversy on this subject. I have no reason to believe
there is any foundation for my fears. We all like and admire Lord
Roehampton. It is impossible not to admire and like him. So great a
man, and yet so gentle and so kind, so unaffected--I would say, so
unsophisticated; but he has never given the slightest intimation,
either to me or her father, that he seriously admired Adriana, and I
am sure if he had said anything to her she would have told us."
"He is always here," said Lady Montfort, "and he is a man who used to
go nowhere except for form. Besides, I know that he admires her, that
he is in love with her, and I have not a doubt that he has invited
himself to Hainault in order to declare his feelings to her."
"How very dreadful!" exclaimed Mrs. Neuchatel. "What are we to do?"
"To do!" said Lady Montfort; "why, sympathise with his happiness, and
complete it. You will have a son-in-law of whom you may well be proud,
and Adriana a husband who, thoroughly knowing the world, and women,
and himself, will be devoted to her; will be a guide and friend, a
guide that will never lecture, and a friend who will always charm, for
there is no companion in the world like him, and I think I ought to
know," added Lady Montfort, "for I always tell him that I was the last
of his conquests, and I shall ever be grateful to him for his having
spared to me so much of his society."
"Adriana on this matter will decide for herself," said Mrs. Neuchatel,
in a serious tone, and with a certain degree of dignity. "Neither Mr.
Neuchatel, nor myself, have ever attempted to control her feelings in
this respect."
"Well, I am now about to see Adriana," said Lady Montfort; "I know she
is at home. If I had not been obliged to go to Princedown, I would
have asked you to let me pass Easter at Hainault myself."
On this very afternoon, when Myra, who had been walking in Regent's
Park with her brother, returned home, she found Adriana agitated, and
really in tears.
"What is all this, dearest?" inquired her friend.
"I am too unhappy," sobbed Adriana, and then she told Myra that she
had had a visit from Lady Montfort, and all that had occurred in it.
Lady Montfort had absolutely congratulated her on her approaching
alliance with Lord Roehampton, and when she altogether disclaimed it,
and expressed her complete astonishment at the supposition, Lady
Montfort had told her she was not justified in giving Lord Roehampton
so much encouragement and trifling with a man of his high character
and position.
"Fancy my giving encouragement to Lord Roehampton!" exclaimed Adriana,
and she threw her arms round the neck of the friend who was to console
her.
"I agree with Lady Montfort," said Myra, releasing herself with
gentleness from her distressed friend. "It may have been unconsciously
on your part, but I think you have encouraged Lord Roehampton. He is
constantly conversing with you, and he is always here, where he never
was before, and, as Lady Montfort says, why should he have asked
himself to pass the Easter at Hainault if it were not for your
society?"
"He invited himself to Hainault, because he is so fond of papa," said
Adriana.
"So much the better, if he is to be your husband. That will be an
additional element of domestic happiness."
"O Myra! that you should say such things!" exclaimed Adriana.
"What things?"
"That I should marry Lord Roehampton."
"I never said anything of the kind. Whom you should marry is a
question you must decide for yourself. All that I said was, that if
you marry Lord Roehampton, it is fortunate he is so much liked by Mr.
Neuchatel."
"I shall not marry Lord Roehampton," said Adriana with some
determination, "and if he has condescended to think of marrying me,"
she continued, "as Lady Montfort says, I think his motives are so
obvious that if I felt for him any preference it would be immediately
extinguished."
"Ah! now you are going to ride your hobby, my dear Adriana. On that
subject we never can agree; were I an heiress, I should have as little
objection to be married for my fortune as my face. Husbands, as I have
heard, do not care for the latter too long. Have more confidence in
yourself, Adriana. If Lord Roehampton wishes to marry you, it is that
he is pleased with you personally, that he appreciates your
intelligence, your culture, your accomplishments, your sweet
disposition, and your gentle nature. If in addition to these gifts you
have wealth, and even great wealth, Lord Roehampton will not despise
it, will not--for I wish to put it frankly--be uninfluenced by the
circumstances, for Lord Roehampton is a wise man; but he would not
marry you if he did not believe that you would make for him a
delightful companion in life, that you would adorn his circle and
illustrate his name."
"Ah! I see you are all in the plot against me," said Adriana. "I have
no friend."
"My dear Adriana, I think you are unreasonable; I could say even
unkind."
"Oh! pardon me, dear Myra," said Adriana, "but I really am so very
unhappy."
"About what? You are your own mistress in this matter. If you do not
like to marry Lord Roehampton, nobody will attempt to control you.
What does it signify what Lady Montfort says? or anybody else, except
your own parents, who desire nothing but your happiness? I should
never have mentioned Lord Roehampton to you had you not introduced the
subject yourself. And all that I meant to say was, what I repeat, that
your creed that no one can wish to marry you except for your wealth is
a morbid conviction, and must lead to unhappiness; that I do not
believe that Lord Roehampton is influenced in his overture, if he make
one, by any unworthy motive, and that any woman whose heart is
disengaged should not lightly repudiate such an advance from such a
man, by which, at all events, she should feel honoured."
"But my heart is engaged," said Adriana in an almost solemn tone.
"Oh! that is quite a different thing!" said Myra, turning pale.
"Yes!" said Adriana; "I am devoted to one whose name I cannot now
mention, perhaps will never mention, but I am devoted to him. Yes!"
she added with fire, "I am not altogether so weak a thing as the Lady
Montforts and some other persons seem to think me--I can feel and
decide for myself, and it shall never be said of me that I purchased
love."
CHAPTER XLIV
There was to be no great party at Hainault; Lord Roehampton
particularly wished that there should be no fine folks asked, and
especially no ambassadors. All that he wanted was to enjoy the fresh
air, and to ramble in the forest, of which he had heard so much, with
the young ladies.
"And, by the by, Miss Ferrars," said Mr. Neuchatel, "we must let what
we were talking about the other day drop. Adriana has been with me
quite excited about something Lady Montfort said to her. I soothed her
and assured her she should do exactly as she liked, and that neither I
nor her mother had any other wishes on such a subject than her own.
The fact is, I answered Lady Montfort originally only half in earnest.
If the thing might have happened, I should have been content--but it
really never rested on my mind, because such matters must always
originate with my daughter. Unless they come from her, with me they
are mere fancies. But now I want you to help me in another matter, if
not more grave, more businesslike. My lord must be amused, although it
is a family party. He likes his rubber; that we can manage. But there
must be two or three persons that he is not accustomed to meet, and
yet who will interest him. Now, do you know, Miss Ferrars, whom I
think of asking?"
"Not I, my dear sir."
"What do you think of the colonel?" said Mr. Neuchatel, looking in her
face with a rather laughing eye.
"Well, he is very agreeable," said Myra, "and many would think
interesting, and if Lord Roehampton does not know him, I think he
would do very well."
"Well, but Lord Roehampton knows all about him," said Mr. Neuchatel.
"Well, that is an advantage," said Myra.
"I do not know," said Mr. Neuchatel. "Life is a very curious thing,
eh, Miss Ferrars? One cannot ask one person to meet another even in
one's own home, without going through a sum of moral arithmetic."
"Is it so?" said Myra.
"Well, Miss Ferrars," said Mr. Neuchatel, "I want your advice and I
want your aid; but then it is a long story, at which I am rather a bad
hand," and Mr. Neuchatel hesitated. "You know," he said, suddenly
resuming, "you once asked me who Colonel Albert was."
"But I do not ask you now," said Myra, "because I know."
"Hah, hah!" exclaimed Mr. Neuchatel, much surprised.
"And what you want to know is," continued Myra, "whether Lord
Roehampton would have any objection to meet Prince Florestan?"
"That is something; but that is comparatively easy. I think I can
manage that. But when they meet--that is the point. But, in the first
place, I should like very much to know how you became acquainted with
the secret."
"In a very natural way; my brother was my information," she replied.
"Ah! now you see," continued Mr. Neuchatel, with a serious air, "a
word from Lord Roehampton in the proper quarter might be of vast
importance to the prince. He has a large inheritance, and he has been
kept out of it unjustly. Our house has done what we could for him, for
his mother, Queen Agrippina, was very kind to my father, and the house
of Neuchatel never forgets its friends. But we want something else, we
want the British Government to intimate that they will not disapprove
of the restitution of the private fortune of the prince. I have felt
my way with the premier; he is not favourable; he is prejudiced
against the prince; and so is the cabinet generally; and yet all
difficulties would vanish at a word from Lord Roehampton."
"Well, this is a good opportunity for you to speak to him," said Myra.
"Hem!" said Mr. Neuchatel, "I am not so sure about that. I like Lord
Roehampton, and, between ourselves, I wish he were first minister. He
understands the Continent, and would keep things quiet. But, do you
know, Miss Ferrars, with all his playful, good-tempered manner, as if
he could not say a cross word or do an unkind act, he is a very severe
man in business. Speak to him on business, and he is completely
changed. His brows knit, he penetrates you with the terrible scrutiny
of that deep-set eye; he is more than stately, he is austere. I have
been up to him with deputations--the Governor of the Bank, and all the
first men in the City, half of them M.P.s, and they trembled before
him like aspens. No, it will not do for me to speak to him, it will
spoil his visit. I think the way will be this; if he has no objection
to meet the prince, we must watch whether the prince makes a
favourable impression on him, and if that is the case, and Lord
Roehampton likes him, what we must do next is this--/you/ must speak
to Lord Roehampton."
"I!"
"Yes, Miss Ferrars, you. Lord Roehampton likes ladies. He is never
austere to them, even if he refuses their requests, and sometimes he
grants them. I thought first of Mrs. Neuchatel speaking to him, but my
wife will never interfere in anything in which money is concerned;
then I thought Adriana might express a hope when they were walking in
the garden, but now that is all over; and so you alone remain. I have
great confidence in you," added Mr. Neuchatel, "I think you would do
it very well. Besides, my lord rather likes you, for I have observed
him often go and sit by you at parties, at our house."
"Yes, he is very high-bred in that," said Myra, gravely and rather
sadly; "and the fact of my being a dependent, I have no doubt,
influences him."
"We are all dependents in this house," said Mr. Neuchatel with his
sweetest smile; "and I depend upon Miss Ferrars."
Affairs on the whole went on in a promising manner. The weather was
delightful, and Lord Roehampton came down to Hainault just in time for
dinner, the day after their arrival, and in the highest spirits. He
seemed to be enjoying a real holiday; body and mind were in a like
state of expansion; he was enchanted with the domain; he was delighted
with the mansion, everything pleased and gratified him, and he pleased
and gratified everybody. The party consisted only of themselves,
except one of the nephews, with whom indeed Lord Roehampton was
already acquainted; a lively youth, a little on the turf, not too
much, and this suited Lord Roehampton, who was a statesman of the old
aristocratic school, still bred horses, and sometimes ran one, and in
the midst of an European crisis could spare an hour to Newmarket.
Perhaps it was his only affectation.
Mrs. Neuchatel, by whom he was seated, had the happy gift of
conversation; but the party was of that delightful dimension, that it
permitted talk to be general. Myra sate next to Lord Roehampton, and
he often addressed her. He was the soul of the feast, and yet it is
difficult to describe his conversation; it was a medley of graceful
whim, interspersed now and then with a very short anecdote of a very
famous person, or some deeply interesting reminiscence of some
critical event. Every now and then he appealed to Adriana, who sate
opposite to him in the round table, and she trusted that her
irrepressible smiles would not be interpreted into undue
encouragement.
Lord Roehampton had no objection to meet Prince Florestan, provided
there were no other strangers, and the incognito was observed. He
rather welcomed the proposal, observing he liked to know public men
personally; so, you can judge of their calibre, which you never can do
from books and newspapers, or the oral reports of their creatures or
their enemies. And so on the next day Colonel Albert was expected.
Lord Roehampton did not appear till luncheon; he had received so many
boxes from Downing Street which required his attention. "Business will
follow one," he said; "yesterday I thought I had baffled it. I do not
like what I shall do without my secretaries. I think I shall get you
young ladies to assist me."
"You cannot have better secretaries," said Mr. Neuchatel; "Miss
Ferrars often helps me."
Then what was to be done after luncheon? Would he ride, or would he
drive? And where should they drive and ride to? But Lord Roehampton
did not much care to drive, and was tired of riding. He would rather
walk and ramble about Hainault. He wanted to see the place, and the
forest and the fern, and perhaps hear one of those nightingales that
they had talked of in Portland Place. But Mrs. Neuchatel did not care
to walk, and Mr. Neuchatel, though it was a holiday in the City, had a
great many letters to write, and so somehow or other it ended in Lord
Roehampton and the two young ladies walking out together, and
remaining so long and so late, that Mrs. Neuchatel absolutely
contemplated postponing the dinner hour.
"We shall just be in time, dear Mrs. Neuchatel," said Myra; "Lord
Roehampton has gone up to his rooms. We have heard a nightingale, and
Lord Roehampton insisted upon our sitting on the trunk of a tree till
it ceased--and it never ceased."
Colonel Albert, who had arrived, was presented to Lord Roehampton
before dinner. Lord Roehampton received him with stately courtesy. As
Myra watched, not without interest, the proceeding, she could scarcely
believe, as she marked the lofty grace and somewhat haughty mien of
Lord Roehampton, that it could be the same being of frolic and fancy,
and even tender sentiment, with whom she had been passing the
preceding hours.
Colonel Albert sate next to Myra at dinner, and Lord Roehampton
between Mrs. Neuchatel and her daughter. His manner was different
to-day, not less pleased and pleasing, but certainly more restrained.
He encouraged Mrs. Neuchatel to occupy the chief part in conversation,
and whispered to Adriana, who became somewhat uneasy; but the whispers
mainly consisted of his delight in their morning adventures. When he
remarked that it was one of the most agreeable days of his life, she
became a little alarmed. Then he addressed Colonel Albert across the
table, and said that he had heard from Mr. Neuchatel that the colonel
had been in America, and asked some questions about public men, which
brought him out. Colonel Albert answered with gentleness and modesty,
never at any length, but in language which indicated, on all the
matters referred to, thought and discrimination."
"I suppose their society is like the best society in Manchester?" said
Lord Roehampton.
"It varies in different cities," said Colonel Albert. "In some there
is considerable culture, and then refinement of life always follows."
"Yes, but whatever they may be, they will always be colonial. What is
colonial necessarily lacks originality. A country that borrows its
language, its laws, and its religion, cannot have its inventive powers
much developed. They got civilised very soon, but their civilisation
was second-hand."
"Perhaps their inventive powers may develop themselves in other ways,"
said the prince. "A nation has a fixed quantity of invention, and it
will make itself felt."
"At present," said Lord Roehampton, "the Americans, I think, employ
their invention in imaginary boundary lines. They are giving us plenty
of trouble now about Maine."
After dinner they had some music; Lord Roehampton would not play
whist. He insisted on comparing the voices of his companions with that
of the nightingales of the morning. He talked a great deal to Adriana,
and Colonel Albert, in the course of the evening much to Myra, and
about her brother. Lord Roehampton more than once had wished to tell
her, as he had already told Miss Neuchatel, how delightful had been
their morning; but on every occasion he had found her engaged with the
colonel.
"I rather like your prince," he had observed to Mr. Neuchatel, as they
came from the dining-room. "He never speaks without thinking; very
reserved, I apprehend. They say, an inveterate conspirator."
"He has had enough of that," said Mr. Neuchatel. "I believe he wants
to be quiet."
"That class of man is never quiet," said Lord Roehampton.
"But what can he do?" said Mr. Neuchatel.
"What can he not do? Half Europe is in a state of chronic conspiracy."
"You must keep us right, my dear lord. So long as you are in Downing
Street I shall sleep at nights."
"Miss Ferrars," said Lord Roehampton abruptly to Mr. Neuchatel, "must
have been the daughter of William Ferrars, one of my great friends in
old days. I never knew it till to-day, and she did not tell me, but it
flashed across me from something she said."
"Yes, she is his daughter, and is in mourning for him at this moment.
She has had sorrows," said Mr. Neuchatel. "I hope they have ceased. It
was one of the happiest days of my life when she entered this family."
"Ah!" said Lord Roehampton.
The next day, after they had examined the famous stud and stables,
there was a riding party, and in the evening Colonel Albert offered to
perform some American conjuring tricks, of which he had been speaking
in the course of the day. This was a most wonderful performance, and
surprised and highly amused everybody. Colonel Albert was the last
person who they expected would achieve such marvels; he was so quiet,
not to say grave. They could hardly credit that he was the same person
as he poured floods of flowers over Myra from her own borrowed pocket-
handkerchief, and without the slightest effort or embarrassment,
robbed Lord Roehampton of his watch, and deposited it in Adriana's
bosom. It was evident that he was a complete master of slight-of-hand.
"Characteristic!" murmured Lord Roehampton to himself.
It was the day after this, that Myra being in the music room and
alone, Lord Roehampton opened the door, looked in, and then said,
"Where is Miss Neuchatel?"
"I think she is on the terrace."
"Let us try to find her, and have one of our pleasant strolls. I sadly
want one, for I have been working very hard all this morning, and half
the night."
"I will be with you, Lord Roehampton, in a moment."
"Do not let us have anybody else," he said, as she left the room.
They were soon on the terrace, but Adriana was not there.
"We must find her," said Lord Roehampton; "you know her haunts. Ah!
what a delight it is to be in this air and this scene after those
dreadful boxes! I wish they would turn us out. I think they must
soon."
"Now for the first time," said Myra, "Lord Roehampton is not sincere."
"Then you think me always sincere?" he replied.
"I have no reason to think you otherwise."
"That is very true," said Lord Roehampton, "truer perhaps than you
imagine." Then rather abruptly he said, "You know Colonel Albert very
well?"
"Pretty well. I have seen him here frequently, and he is also a friend
of my brother."
"Ah! a friend of your brother." Then, after a slight pause, he said,
"He is an interesting man."
"I think so," said Myra. "You know all about him, of course."
"Very good-looking."
"Well, he looks unhappy, I think, and worn."
"One is never worn when one is young," said Lord Roehampton.
"He must have great anxieties and great sorrows," said Myra. "I cannot
imagine a position more unfortunate than that of an exiled prince."
"I can," said Lord Roehampton. "To have the feelings of youth and the
frame of age."
Myra was silent, one might say dumbfounded. She had just screwed
herself up to the task which Mr. Neuchatel had imposed on her, and was
about to appeal to the good offices of Lord Roehampton in favour of
the prince, when he had indulged in a remark which was not only
somewhat strange, but from the manner in which it was introduced
hardly harmonised with her purpose.
"Yes, I would give up everything," said Lord Roehampton. "I would even
be an exile to be young; to hear that Miss Ferrars deems me
interesting and good-looking, though worn."
"What is going to happen?" thought Myra. "Will the earth open to
receive me?"
"You are silent," said Lord Roehampton. "You will not speak, you will
not sigh, you will not give a glance of consolation or even pity. But
I have spoken too much not to say more. Beautiful, fascinating being,
let me at least tell you of my love."
Myra could not speak, but put her left hand to her face. Gently taking
her other hand, Lord Roehampton pressed it to his lips. "From the
first moment I met you, my heart was yours. It was love at first
sight; indeed I believe in no other. I was amused with the projects of
my friend, and I availed myself of them, but not unfairly. No one can
accuse me of trifling with the affections of your sweet companion, and
I must do her the justice to say that she did everything to convince
me that she shrank from my attentions. But her society was an excuse
to enjoy yours. I was an habitual visitor in town that I might cherish
my love, and, dare I say it, I came down here to declare it. Do not
despise it, dearest of women; it is not worthy of you, but it is not
altogether undeserving. It is, as you kindly believed it,--it is
sincere!"
CHAPTER XLV
On the following day, Mr. Neuchatel had good-naturedly invited
Endymion down to Hainault, and when he arrived there, a servant
informed him that Miss Ferrars wished to see him in her room.
It was a long interview and an agitated one, and when she had told her
tale, and her brother had embraced her, she sat for a time in silence,
holding his hand, and intimating, that, for a while, she wished that
neither of them should speak. Suddenly, she resumed, and said, "Now
you know all, dear darling; it is so sudden, and so strange, that you
must be almost as much astounded as gratified. What I have sighed for,
and prayed for--what, in moments of inspiration, I have sometimes
foreseen--has happened. Our degradation is over. I seem to breathe for
the first time for many years. I see a career, ay, and a great one;
and what is far more important, I see a career for you."
"At this moment, dear Myra, think only of yourself."
"You are myself," she replied, rather quickly, "never more so than at
this moment;" and then she said in a tone more subdued, and even
tender, "Lord Roehampton has every quality and every accident of life
that I delight in; he has intellect, eloquence, courage, great station
and power; and, what I ought perhaps more to consider, though I do
not, a sweet disposition and a tender heart. There is every reason why
we should be happy--yes, very happy. I am sure I shall sympathise with
him; perhaps, I may aid him; at least, he thinks so. He is the noblest
of men. The world will talk of the disparity of our years; but Lord
Roehampton says that he is really the younger of the two, and I think
he is right. My pride, my intense pride, never permitted to me any
levity of heart."
"And when is it to happen?" inquired Endymion.
"Not immediately. I could not marry till a year had elapsed after our
great sorrow; and it is more agreeable, even to him, that our union
should be delayed till the session is over. He wants to leave England;
go abroad; have a real holiday. He has always had a dream of
travelling in Spain; well, we are to realise the dream. If we could
get off at the end of July, we might go to Paris, and then to Madrid,
and travel in Andalusia in the autumn, and then catch the packet at
Gibraltar, and get home just in time for the November cabinets."
"Dear Myra! how wonderful it all seems!" involuntarily exclaimed
Endymion.
"Yes, but more wonderful things will happen. We have now got a lever
to move the world. Understand, my dear Endymion, that nothing is to be
announced at present. It will be known only to this family, and the
Penruddocks. I am bound to tell them, even immediately; they are
friends that never can be forgotten. I have always kept up my
correspondence with Mrs. Penruddock. Besides, I shall tell her in
confidence, and she is perfectly to be depended on. I am going to ask
my lord to let Mr. Penruddock marry us."
"Oh! that will be capital," said Endymion.
"There is another person, by the by, who must know it, at least my
lord says so," said Myra, "and that is Lady Montfort; you have heard
of that lady and her plans. Well, she must be told--at least, sooner
or later. She will be annoyed, and she will hate me. I cannot help it;
every one is hated by somebody."
During the three months that had to elapse before the happy day,
several incidents occurred that ought to be noted. In the first place,
Lady Montfort, though disappointed and very much astonished, bore the
communication from Lord Roehampton more kindly than he had
anticipated. Lord Roehampton made it by letter, and his letters to
women were more happy even than his despatches to ministers, and they
were unrivalled. He put the matter in the most skilful form. Myra had
been born in a social position not inferior to his own, and was the
daughter of one of his earliest political friends. He did not dilate
too much on her charms and captivating qualities, but sufficiently for
the dignity of her who was to become his wife. And then he confessed
to Lady Montfort how completely his heart and happiness were set on
Lady Roehampton being welcomed becomingly by his friends; he was well
aware, that in these matters things did not always proceed as one
could wish, but this was the moment, and this the occasion, to test a
friend, and he believed he had the dearest, the most faithful, the
most fascinating, and the most powerful in Lady Montfort.
"Well, we must put the best face upon it," exclaimed that lady; "he
was always romantic. But, as he says, or thinks, what is the use of
friends if they do not help you in a scrape?"
So Lady Montfort made the acquaintance of Myra, and welcomed her new
acquaintance cordially. She was too fine a judge of beauty and
deportment not to appreciate them, even when a little prejudice lurked
behind. She was amused also, and a little gratified, by being in the
secret; presented Myra with a rare jewel, and declared that she should
attend the wedding; though when the day arrived, she was at
Princedown, and could not, unfortunately, leave her lord.
About the end of June, a rather remarkable paragraph appeared in the
journal of society:
"We understand that His Royal Highness Prince Florestan, who has been
for some little time in this country, has taken the mansion in Carlton
Gardens, recently occupied by the Marquis of Katterfelto. The mansion
is undergoing very considerable repairs, but it is calculated that it
will be completed in time for the reception of His Royal Highness by
the end of the autumn; His Royal Highness has taken the extensive
moors of Dinniewhiskie for the coming season."
In the earlier part of July, the approaching alliance of the Earl of
Roehampton with Miss Ferrars, the only daughter of the late Right
Honourable William Pitt Ferrars, of Hurstley Hall, in the county of
Berks, was announced, and great was the sensation, and innumerable the
presents instantly ordered.
But on no one did the announcement produce a greater effect than on
Zenobia; that the daughter of her dearest friend should make so
interesting and so distinguished an alliance was naturally most
gratifying to her. She wrote to Myra a most impassioned letter, as if
they had only separated yesterday, and a still longer and more fervent
one to Lord Roehampton; Zenobia and he had been close friends in other
days, till he wickedly changed his politics, and was always in office
and Zenobia always out. This was never to be forgiven. But the bright
lady forgot all this now, and sent to Myra the most wondrous bracelet
of precious stones, in which the word "Souvenir" was represented in
brilliants, rubies, and emeralds.
"For my part," said Myra to Endymion, "my most difficult task are the
bridesmaids. I am to have so many, and know so few. I feel like a
recruiting sergeant. I began to Adriana, but my lord helps me very
much out of his family, and says, when we have had a few family
dinners, all will be right."
Endymion did not receive the banter he expected at the office. The
event was too great for a jest. Seymour Hicks, with a serious
countenance, said Ferrars might get anywhere now,--all the ministerial
receptions of course. Jawett said there would be no ministerial
receptions soon; they were degrading functions. Clear-headed Trenchard
congratulated him quietly, and said, "I do not think you will stay
much longer among us, but we shall always remember you with interest."
At last the great day arrived, and at St. George's, Hanover Square,
the Right Honourable the Earl of Roehampton, K.G., was united to Miss
Ferrars. Mr. Penruddock joined their hands. His son Nigel had been
invited to assist him, but did not appear, though Myra had written to
him. The great world assembled in force, and Endymion observed Mr. and
Mrs. Rodney and Imogene in the body of the church. After the ceremony
there was an entertainment in Portland Place, and the world ate
ortolans and examined the presents. These were remarkable for number
and splendour. Myra could not conceal her astonishment at possessing
so many friends; but it was the fashion for all Lord Roehampton's
acquaintance to make him offerings, and to solicit his permission to
present gifts to his bride. Mr. Neuchatel placed on her brow a diamond
tiara, and Mrs. Neuchatel encircled her neck with one of her diamond
necklaces. "I should like to give the other one to Adriana," she
observed, "but Adriana says that nothing will ever induce her to wear
jewels." Prince Florestan presented Lady Roehampton with a vase which
had belonged to his mother, and which had been painted by Boucher for
Marie Antoinette. It was matchless, and almost unique.
Not long after this, Lord Beaumaris, with many servants and many guns,
took Waldershare and Endymion down with him to Scotland.
CHAPTER XLVI
The end of the season is a pang to society. More hopes have been
baffled than realised. There is something melancholy in the last ball,
though the music ever seems louder, and the lights more glaring than
usual. Or it may be, the last entertainment is that hecatomb they call
a wedding breakfast, which celebrates the triumph of a rival. That is
pleasant. Society, to do it justice, struggles hard to revive in other
scenes the excitement that has expired. It sails to Cowes, it scuds to
bubbling waters in the pine forests of the continent, it stalks even
into Scotland; but it is difficult to restore the romance that has
been rudely disturbed, and to gather again together the threads of the
intrigue that have been lost in the wild flight of society from that
metropolis, which is now described as "a perfect desert"--that is to
say, a park or so, two or three squares, and a dozen streets where
society lives; where it dines, and dances, and blackballs, and bets,
and spouts.
But to the world in general, the mighty million, to the professional
classes, to all men of business whatever, the end of the season is the
beginning of carnival. It is the fulfilment of the dream over which
they have been brooding for ten months, which has sustained them in
toil, lightened anxiety, and softened even loss. It is air, it is
health, it is movement, it is liberty, it is nature--earth, sea, lake,
moor, forest, mountain, and river. From the heights of the Engadine to
Margate Pier, there is equal rapture, for there is an equal cessation
of routine.
Few enjoy a holiday more than a young clerk in a public office, who
has been bred in a gentle home, and enjoyed in his boyhood all the
pastimes of gentlemen. Now he is ever toiling, with an uncertain
prospect of annual relaxation, and living hardly. Once on a time, at
the paternal hall, he could shoot, or fish, or ride, every day of his
life, as a matter of course; and now, what would he not give for a
good day's sport? Such thoughts had frequently crossed the mind of
Endymion when drudging in London during the autumn, and when all his
few acquaintances were away. It was, therefore, with no ordinary zest
that he looked forward to the unexpected enjoyment of an unstinted
share of some of the best shooting in the United Kingdom. And the
relaxation and the pastime came just at the right moment, when the
reaction, from all the excitement attendant on the marvellous change
in his sister's position, would have made him, deprived of her
consoling society, doubly sensible of his isolated position.
It so happened that the moors of Lord Beaumaris were contiguous to the
celebrated shootings of Dinniewhiskie, which were rented by Prince
Florestan, and the opportunity now offered which Waldershare desired
of making the acquaintance of the prince in an easy manner. Endymion
managed this cleverly. Waldershare took a great fancy to the prince.
He sympathised with him, and imparted to Endymion his belief that they
could not do a better thing than devote their energies to a
restoration of his rights. Lord Beaumaris, who hated foreigners, but
who was always influenced by Waldershare, also liked the prince, and
was glad to be reminded by his mentor that Florestan was half an
Englishman, not to say a whole one, for he was an Eton boy. What was
equally influential with Lord Beaumaris was, that the prince was a
fine shot, and indeed a consummate sportsman, and had in his manners
that calm which is rather unusual with foreigners, and which is always
pleasing to an English aristocrat. So in time they became intimate,
sported much together, and visited each other at their respective
quarters. The prince was never alone. What the county paper described
as distinguished foreigners were perpetually paying him visits, long
or short, and it did not generally appear that these visits were
influenced by a love of sport. One individual, who arrived shortly
after the prince, remained, and, as was soon known, was to remain
permanently. This was a young gentleman, short and swarthy, with
flashing eyes and a black moustache, known by the name of the Duke of
St. Angelo, but who was really only a cadet of that illustrious house.
The Duke of St. Angelo took the management of the household of the
prince--was evidently the controller; servants trembled at his nod,
and he rode any horse he liked; he invited guests, and arranged the
etiquette of the interior. He said one day very coolly to Waldershare:
"I observe that Lord Beaumaris and his friends never rise when the
prince moves."
"Why should we?"
"His rank is recognised and guaranteed by the Treaty of Vienna," said
the Duke of St. Angelo, with an arrogant air.
"His princely rank," replied Waldershare, "but not his royalty."
"That is a mere refinement," said the duke contemptuously.
"On the contrary, a clear distinction, and specifically made in the
treaty. I do not think the prince himself would desire such a
ceremony, and let me recommend you, duke," added Waldershare, "not to
go out of your way to insist on these points. They will not increase
the prince's popularity."
"The time will come, and before long, when the Treaty of Vienna, with
its clear distinctions, will be at the bottom of the Red Sea," said
the Duke of St. Angelo, "and then no one will sit when His Majesty
rises."
"Amen!" said Waldershare. "All diplomacy since the Treaty of Utrecht
seems to me to be fiddle-faddle, and the country rewarded the great
man who made that treaty by an attainder."
Endymion returned to town towards the end of September, Waldershare
went to Paris, and Lord Beaumaris and the prince, who had become
intimate, repaired together to Conington, the seat of Lord Beaumaris,
to kill pheasants. Even the Rodneys, who had gone to the Rhine this
year, had not returned. Endymion had only the society of his fellow
clerks. He liked Trenchard, who was acute, full of official
information, and of gentle breeding. Still it must be confessed that
Endymion felt the change in his society. Seymour Hicks was hardly a
fit successor to Waldershare, and Jawett's rabid abstractions on
government were certainly not so interesting as /la haute politique/
of the Duke of St. Angelo. Were it not for the letters which he
constantly received from his sister, he would have felt a little
despondent. As it was, he renewed his studies in his pleasant garret,
trained himself in French and German, and got up several questions for
the Union.
The month seemed very long, but it was not unprofitably spent. The
Rodneys were still absent. They had not returned as they had intended
direct to England, but had gone to Paris to meet Mr. Waldershare.
At the end of October there was a semi-official paragraph announcing
the approaching meeting of the Cabinet, and the movements of its
members. Some were in the north, and some were in the south; some were
killing the last grouse, and some, placed in green ridings, were
blazing in battues. But all were to be at their post in ten days, and
there was a special notification that intelligence had been received
of the arrival of Lord and Lady Roehampton at Gibraltar.
CHAPTER XLVII
Lady Roehampton, in her stately mansion in St. James' Square, found
life very different from what she had experienced in her Andalusian
dream. For three months she had been the constant companion of one of
the most fascinating of men, whose only object had been to charm and
delight her. And in this he had entirely succeeded. From the moment
they arrived in London, however, they seemed to be separated, and
although when they met, there was ever a sweet smile and a kind and
playful word for her, his brow, if not oppressed with care, was always
weighty with thought. Lord Roehampton was little at his office; he
worked in a spacious chamber on the ground floor of his private
residence, and which was called the Library, though its literature
consisted only of Hansard, volumes of state papers, shelves of
treatises, and interminable folios of parliamentary reports. He had
not been at home a week before the floor of the apartment was
literally covered with red boxes, all containing documents requiring
attention, and which messengers were perpetually bringing or carrying
away. Then there were long meetings of the Cabinet almost daily, and
daily visits from ambassadors and foreign ministers, which prevented
the transaction of the current business, and rendered it necessary
that Lord Roehampton should sit up late in his cabinet, and work
sometimes nearly till the hours of dawn. There had been of course too
some arrears of business, for secretaries of state cannot indulge with
impunity in Andalusian dreams, but Lord Roehampton was well served.
His under-secretaries of state were capable and experienced men, and
their chief had not been altogether idle in his wanderings. He had
visited Paris, and the capital of France in those days was the capital
of diplomacy. The visit of Lord Roehampton had settled some questions
which might have lingered for years, and had given him that
opportunity of personal survey which to a statesman is invaluable.
Although it was not the season, the great desert had, comparatively
speaking, again become peopled. There were many persons in town, and
they all called immediately on Lady Roehampton. The ministerial
families and the diplomatic corps alone form a circle, but there is
also a certain number of charming people who love London in November,
and lead there a wondrous pleasant life of real amusement, until their
feudal traditions and their domestic duties summon them back to their
Christmas homes.
Lord and Lady Roehampton gave constant dinners, and after they had
tried two or three, he expressed his wish to his wife that she should
hold a small reception after these dinners. He was a man of great
tact, and he wished to launch his wife quietly and safely on the
social ocean. "There is nothing like practising before Christmas, my
love," he would say; "you will get your hand in, and be able to hold
regular receptions in the spring." And he was quite right. The dinners
became the mode, and the assemblies were eagerly appreciated. The
Secretary of the Treasury whispered to an Under-Secretary of State,--
"This marriage was a /coup/. We have got another house."
Myra had been a little anxious about the relations between Lord
Roehampton and her brother. She felt, with a woman's instinct, that
her husband might not be overpleased by her devotion to Endymion, and
she could not resist the conviction that the disparity of age which is
easily forgotten in a wife, and especially in a wife who adores you,
assumes a different, and somewhat distasteful character, when a great
statesman is obliged to recognise it in the shape of a boyish brother-
in-law. But all went right, for the sweetness of Lord Roehampton's
temper was inexhaustible. Endymion had paid several visits to St.
James' square before Myra could seize the opportunity, for which she
was ever watching, to make her husband and her brother acquainted.
"And so you are one of us," said Lord Roehampton, with his sweetest
smile and in his most musical tone, "and in office. We must try to
give you a lift." And then he asked Endymion who was his chief, and
how he liked him, and then he said, "A good deal depends on a man's
chief. I was under your grandfather when I first entered parliament,
and I never knew a pleasanter man to do business with. He never made
difficulties; he always encouraged one. A younker likes that."
Lady Roehampton was desirous of paying some attention to all those who
had been kind to her brother; particularly Mr. Waldershare and Lord
Beaumaris--and she wished to invite them to her house. "I am sure
Waldershare would like to come," said Endymion, "but Lord Beaumaris, I
know, never goes anywhere, and I have myself heard him say he never
would."
"Yes, my lord was telling me Lord Beaumaris was quite /farouche/, and
it is feared that we may lose him. That would be sad," said Myra, "for
he is powerful."
"I should like very much if you could give me a card for Mr.
Trenchard," said Endymion; "he is not in society, but he is quite a
gentleman."
"You shall have it, my dear. I have always liked Mr. Trenchard, and I
dare say, some day or other, he may be of use to you."
The Neuchatels were not in town, but Myra saw them frequently, and Mr.
Neuchatel often dined in St. James' Square--but the ladies always
declined every invitation of the kind. They came up from Hainault to
see Myra, but looked as if nothing but their great affection would
prompt such a sacrifice, and seemed always pining for Arcadia.
Endymion, however, not unfrequently continued his Sunday visits to
Hainault, to which Mr. Neuchatel had given him a general welcome. This
young gentleman, indeed, soon experienced a considerable change in his
social position. Invitations flocked to him, and often from persons
whom he did not know, and who did not even know him. He went by the
name of Lady Roehampton's brother, and that was a sufficient passport.
"We are trying to get up a carpet dance to-night," said Belinda to a
fair friend. "What men are in town?"
"Well, there is Mr. Waldershare, who has just left me."
"I have asked him.
"Then there is Lord Willesden and Henry Grantley--I know they are
passing through town--and there is the new man, Lady Roehampton's
brother."
"I will send to Lord Willesden and Henry Grantley immediately, and
perhaps you will send a card, which I will write here, for me to the
new man."
And in this way Mr. Ferrars soon found that he was what is called
"everywhere."
One of the most interesting acquaintances that Lady Roehampton made
was a colleague of her husband, and that was Mr. Sidney Wilton, once
the intimate friend of her father. He had known herself and her
brother when they were children, indeed from the cradle. Mr. Sidney
Wilton was in the perfection of middle life, and looked young for his
years. He was tall and pensive, and naturally sentimental, though a
long political career, for he had entered the House of Commons for the
family borough the instant he was of age, had brought to this
susceptibility a salutary hardness. Although somewhat alienated from
the friend of his youth by the course of affairs, for Mr. Sidney
Wilton had followed Lord Roehampton, while Mr. Ferrars had adhered to
the Duke of Wellington, he had not neglected Ferrars in his fall, but
his offers of assistance, frankly and generously made, had been coldly
though courteously rejected, and no encouragement had been given to
the maintenance of their once intimate acquaintance.
Mr. Sidney Wilton was much struck by the appearance of Lady
Roehampton. He tried to compare the fulfilment of her promise with the
beautiful and haughty child whom he used to wonder her parents so
extravagantly spoiled. Her stature was above the average height of
women and finely developed and proportioned. But it was in the
countenance--in the pellucid and commanding brow, the deep splendour
of her dark blue eyes softened by long lashes, her short upper lip,
and the rich profusion of her dark chestnut hair--that his roused
memory recalled the past; and he fell into a mood of agitated
contemplation.
The opportunities which he enjoyed of cultivating her society were
numerous, and Mr. Wilton missed none. He was frequently her guest, and
being himself the master of a splendid establishment, he could offer
her a hospitality which every one appreciated. Lord Roehampton was
peculiarly his political chief, and they had always been socially
intimate. As the trusted colleague of her husband--as one who had
known her in her childhood, and as himself a man singularly qualified,
by his agreeable conversation and tender and deferential manner, to
make his way with women--Mr. Sidney Wilton had no great difficulty,
particularly in that happy demi-season which precedes Christmas, in
establishing relations of confidence and intimacy with Lady
Roehampton.
The cabinets were over: the government had decided on their measures,
and put them in a state of preparation, and they were about to
disperse for a month. The seat of Lord Roehampton was in the extreme
north of England, and a visit to it was inconvenient at this moment,
and especially at this season. The department of Lord Roehampton was
very active at this time, and he was unwilling that the first
impression by his wife of her future home should be experienced at a
season little favourable to the charms of a northern seat. Mr. Sidney
Wilton was the proprietor of the most beautiful and the most
celebrated villa in England; only twenty miles from town, seated on a
wooded crest of the swan-crowned Thames, with gardens of delight, and
woods full of pheasants, and a terrace that would have become a court,
glancing over a wide expanse of bower and glade, studded with bright
halls and delicate steeples, and the smoke of rural homes.
It was arranged that Lord and Lady Roehampton should pass their
Christmas at Gaydene with Mr. Sidney Wilton, stay as long as they
liked, go where they chose, but make it their headquarters. It was a
most successful visit; for a great deal of business was done, as well
as pleasure enjoyed. The ambassadors, who were always a little uneasy
at Christmas when everybody is away, and themselves without country
homes, were all invited down for that week. Lord Roehampton used to
give them audiences after the shooting parties. He thought it was a
specific against their being too long. He used to say, "The first
dinner-bell often brings things to a point." After Christmas there was
an ever-varying stream of company, chiefly official and parliamentary.
The banquet and the battue did not always settle the business, the
clause, or the schedule, which the guests often came down to Gaydene
ostensibly to accomplish, but they sent men back to town with
increased energy and good humour, and kept the party in heart. Towards
the end of the month the premier came down, and for him the Blue
Ribbon Covert had been reserved, though he really cared little for
sport. It was an eighteenth century tradition that knights of the
garter only had been permitted to shoot this choice preserve, but Mr.
Sidney Wilton, in this advanced age, did not of course revive such an
ultra-exclusive practice, and he was particular in arranging the party
to include Mr. Jorrocks. This was a Radical member to whom
considerable office had been given at the reconstruction of 1835, when
it was necessary that the Whigs should conciliate the Mountain. He was
a pretentious, underbred, half-educated man, fluent with all the
commonplaces of middle-class ambition, which are humorously called
democratic opinions, but at heart a sycophant of the aristocracy. He
represented, however, a large and important constituency, and his
promotion was at first looked upon as a masterpiece of management. The
Mountain, who knew Jorrocks by heart, and felt that they had in their
ranks men in every sense his superior, and that he could be no
representative of their intelligence and opinions, and so by degrees
prepare for their gradual admission to the sacred land, at first
sulked over the promotion of their late companion, and only did not
publicly deride it from the feeling that by so doing they might be
playing the game of the ministry. At the time of which we are writing,
having become extremely discontented and wishing to annoy the
government, they even affected dissatisfaction at the subordinate
position which Jorrocks occupied in the administration, and it was
generally said--had become indeed the slang of the party--that the
test of the sincerity of the ministry to Liberal principles was to put
Jorrocks in the cabinet. The countenance of the premier when this
choice programme was first communicated to him was what might have
been expected had he learnt of the sudden descent upon this isle of an
invading force, and the Secretary of the Treasury whispered in
confidence to one or two leaders of the Mountain, "that if they did
not take care they would upset the government."
"That is exactly what we want to do," was the reply.
So it will be seen that the position of the ministry, previous to the
meeting of parliament in 1839, was somewhat critical. In the meantime,
its various members, who knew their man, lavished every practicable
social attention on Jorrocks. The dinners they gave him were doubled;
they got their women to call on his women; and Sidney Wilton, a member
of an illustrious garter family, capped the climax by appointing him
one of the party to shoot the Blue Ribbon Covert.
Mr. Wilton had invited Endymion to Gaydene, and, as his stay there
could only be brief, had even invited him to repeat the visit. He was,
indeed, unaffectedly kind to one whom he remembered so young, and was
evidently pleased with him.
One evening, a day or two before the break-up of the party, while some
charming Misses Playfellow, with an impudent brother, who all lived in
the neighbourhood, were acting charades, Mr. Wilton said to Lady
Roehampton, by whose side he was sitting in the circle--
"I have had a very busy morning about my office. There is to be a
complete revolution in it. The whole system is to be reconstructed;
half the present people are to be pensioned off, and new blood is to
be introduced. It struck me that this might be an opening for your
brother. He is in the public service--that is something; and as there
are to be so many new men, there will be no jealousy as to his
promotion. If you will speak to him about it, and he likes it, I will
appoint him one of the new clerks; and then, if he also likes it, he
shall be my private secretary. That will give him position, and be no
mean addition to his income, you know, if we last--but that depends, I
suppose, on Mr. Jorrocks."
Lady Roehampton communicated all this to her brother on her return to
London. "It is exactly what I wished," she said. "I wanted you to be
private secretary to a cabinet minister, and if I were to choose any
one, except, of course, my lord, it would be Mr. Wilton. He is a
perfect gentleman, and was dear papa's friend. I understand you will
have three hundred a year to begin with, and the same amount as his
secretary. You ought to be able to live with ease and propriety on six
hundred a year--and this reminds me of what I have been thinking of
before we went to Gaydene. I think now you ought to have a more
becoming residence. The Rodneys are good people, I do not doubt, and I
dare say we shall have an opportunity of proving our sense of their
services; but they are not exactly the people that I care for you to
live with, and, at any rate, you cannot reside any longer in a garret.
I have taken some chambers in the Albany, therefore, for you, and they
shall be my contribution to your housekeeping. They are not badly
furnished, but they belonged to an old general officer, and are not
very new-fashioned; but we will go together and see them to-morrow,
and I dare say I shall soon be able to make them /comme il faut/."
CHAPTER XLVIII
This considerable rise in the life of Endymion, after the first
excitement occasioned by its announcement to him had somewhat
subsided, was not contemplated by him with unmixed feelings of
satisfaction. It seemed to terminate many relations of life, the value
of which he had always appreciated, but which now, with their
impending conclusion, he felt, and felt keenly, had absolutely
contributed to his happiness. There was no great pang in quitting his
fellow-clerks, except Trenchard, whom he greatly esteemed. But poor
little Warwick Street had been to him a real home, if unvarying
kindness, and sedulous attention, and the affection of the eyes and
heart, as well as of the mouth, can make a hearth. He hoped he might
preserve the friendship of Waldershare, which their joint intimacy
with the prince would favour; but still he could hardly flatter
himself that the delightful familiarity of their past lives could
subsist. Endymion sighed, and then he sighed again. He felt sad.
Because he was leaving the humble harbour of refuge, the entrance to
which, even in the darkest hour of his fallen fortunes, was thought
somewhat of an indignity, and was about to assume a position which
would not have altogether misbecome the earliest expectations of his
life? That seems unreasonable; but mankind, fortunately, are not
always governed by reason, but by sentiment, and often by very tender
sentiment.
When Endymion, sitting in his little room, analysed his feelings, he
came to the conclusion that his sadness was occasioned by his having
to part from Imogene. It often requires an event in life, and an
unexpected one, to make us clearly aware of the existence of feelings
which have long influenced us. Never having been in a position in
which the possibility of uniting his fate to another could cross his
mind for a moment, he had been content with the good fortune which
permitted a large portion of his life to be passed in the society of a
woman who, unconsciously both to him and to herself, had fascinated
him. The graceful child who, four or five years ago, had first lit him
to his garret, without losing any of her rare and simple
ingenuousness, had developed into a beautiful and accomplished woman.
There was a strong resemblance between Imogene and her sister, but
Imogene was a brunette. Her countenance indicated far more intellect
and character than that of Sylvia. Her brow was delicately pencilled
and finely arched, and her large dark eyes gleamed with a softness and
sweetness of expression, which were irresistibly attractive, and
seemed to indicate sympathy with everything that was good and
beautiful. Her features were not so regular as her sister's; but when
she smiled, her face was captivating.
Endymion had often listened, half with fondness and half with
scepticism, to Waldershare dilating, according to his wont, on the
high character and qualities of Imogene, whom he persisted in
believing he was preparing for a great career. "How it will come about
I cannot say," he would remark; "but it will come. If my legitimate
sovereign were on the throne, and I in the possession of my estates,
which were graciously presented by the usurper to the sausage-makers,
or some other choice middle-class corporation, I would marry her
myself. But that is impossible. That would only be asking her to share
my ruin. I want her to live in palaces, and perhaps, in my decline of
life, make me her librarian, like Casanova. I should be content to
dine in her hall every day beneath the salt, and see her enter with
her state, amid the flourish of trumpets." And now, strange to say,
Endymion was speculating on the fate of Imogene, and, as he thought,
in a more practical spirit. Six hundred a year, he thought, was not a
very large income; but it was an income, and one which a year ago he
never contemplated possessing until getting grey in the public
service. Why not realise perfect happiness at once? He could conceive
no bliss greater than living with Imogene in one of those little
villas, even if semi-detached, which now are numbered by tens of
thousands, and which were then beginning to shoot out their suburban
antennae in every direction of our huge metropolis. He saw her in his
mind's eye in a garden of perpetual sunshine, breathing of mignonette
and bright with roses, and waiting for him as he came down from town
and his daily labours, in the cheap and convenient omnibus. What a
delightful companion to welcome him! How much to tell her, and how
much to listen to! And then their evenings with a delicious book or
some delightful music! What holidays, too, of romantic adventure! The
vine-clad Rhine, perhaps Switzerland; at any rate, the quaint old
cities of Flanders, and the winding valley of the Meuse. They could
live extremely well on six hundred a year, yes, with all the real
refinements of existence. And all their genuine happiness was to be
sacrificed for utterly fantastic and imaginary gratifications, which,
if analysed, would be found only to be efforts to amuse and astonish
others.
It did not yet occur to Endymion that his garden could not always be
sunshiny; that cares crop up in villas, even semi-detached, as well as
joys; that he would have children, and perhaps too many; that they
would be sick, and that doctors' bills would soon put a stop to
romantic excursions; that his wife would become exhausted with nursing
and clothing and teaching them; that she herself would become an
invalid, and moped to death; that his resources would every day bear a
less proportion to his expenditure; and that wanting money, he would
return too often from town a harassed husband to a jaded wife!
Mr. Rodney and Sylvia were at Conington on a visit to Lord Beaumaris,
hunting. It was astonishing how Sylvia had ridden to the hounds,
mounted on the choicest steeds, and in a scarlet habit which had been
presented to her by Mr. Vigo. She had created quite an enthusiasm in
the field, and Lord Beaumaris was proud of his guests. When Endymion
parted with his sister at the Albany, where they had been examining
his rooms, he had repaired to Warwick Street, with some expectation
that the Rodneys would have returned from Conington, and he intended
to break to his host the impending change in his life. The Rodneys,
however, had not arrived, and so he ascended to his room, where he had
been employed in arranging his books and papers, and indulging in the
reverie which we have indicated. When he came downstairs, wishing to
inquire about the probable arrival of his landlord, Endymion knocked
at the door of the parlour where they used to assemble, and on
entering, found Imogene writing.
"How do you do, Mr. Ferrars?" she said, rising. "I am writing to
Sylvia. They are not returning as soon as they intended, and I am to
go down to Conington by an early train to-morrow."
"I want to see Mr. Rodney," said Endymion moodily.
"Can I write anything to him, or tell him anything?" said Imogene.
"No," continued Endymion in a melancholy tone. "I can tell you what I
wanted to say. But you must be occupied now, going away, and
unexpectedly, to-morrow. It seems to me that every one is going away."
"Well, we have lost the prince, certainly," said Imogene, "and I doubt
whether his rooms will be ever let again."
"Indeed!" said Endymion.
"Well, I only know what Mr. Waldershare tells me. He says that Mr.
Rodney and Mr. Vigo have made a great speculation, and gained a great
deal of money; but Mr. Rodney never speaks to me of such matters, nor
indeed does Sylvia. I am myself very sorry that the prince has gone,
for he interested me much."
"Well, I should think Mr. Rodney would not be very sorry to get rid of
me then," said Endymion.
"O Mr. Ferrars! why should you say or think such things! I am sure
that my brother and sister, and indeed every one in this house, always
consider your comfort and welfare before any other object."
"Yes," said Endymion, "you have all been most kind to me, and that
makes me more wretched at the prospect of leaving you."
"But there is no prospect of that?"
"A certainty, Imogene; there is going to be a change in my life," and
then he told her all.
"Well," said Imogene, "it would be selfish not to be happy at what I
hear; but though I hope I am happy, I need not be joyful. I never used
to be nervous, but I am afraid I am getting so. All these great
changes rather shake me. This adventure of the prince--as Mr.
Waldershare says, it is history. Then Miss Myra's great marriage, and
your promotion--although they are exactly what we used to dream about,
and wished a fairy would accomplish, and somehow felt that, somehow or
other, they must happen--yet now they have occurred, one is almost as
astounded as delighted. We certainly have been very happy in Warwick
Street, at least I have been, all living as it were together. But
where shall we be this time next year? All scattered, and perhaps not
even the Rodneys under this roof. I know not how it is, but I dread
leaving the roof where one has been happy."
"Oh! you know you must leave it one day or other, Imogene. You are
sure to marry; that you cannot avoid."
"Well, I am not by any means sure about that," said Imogene. "Mr.
Waldershare, in educating me, as he says, as a princess, has made me
really neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, nor even that coarser but
popular delicacy never forgotten. I could not unite my life with a
being who was not refined in mind and in manners, and the men of my
class in life, who are the only o |
